VII
The effect of that upon Dunbar was fantastic. The young man jumped from his chair crying:
"You're going back?"
"Yes."
"To the house?"
"Why, yes!"
"And to-night!"
He stared down at him as though he could not believe the evidence of his ears nor of his eyes nor of anything that was his. Then he finished his whisky with a desperate gulp.
"But what's pushing you into this anyway?" he cried at last. "You don't look like the kind of man—— And yet there you were on the hill this afternoon, and then at the hotel and overhearing what Hesther said, and then dining with the man and his asking you—— He did ask you, didn't he?"
"Of course he asked me," Harkness answered. "You don't suppose I'd have gone if he didn't."
"No, I don't suppose you would," agreed Dunbar. "I bet he offered to show you his jewels and his pictures, his collections."
"Yes," said Harkness, "he did."
"Well, that's just a miracle of good luck for me, that's all. You can help me to-night, help me marvellously. But I don't like to ask you. Things might turn out all wrong and then we'd all be in for a bad time and that wouldn't be fair to you." He paused, thinking, then he went on. "I'll tell you what I'll do. You saw that girl to-night and talked to her, didn't you?"
Harkness nodded his head.
"You saw that she was a damned fine girl?"
Harkness nodded again.
"Worth doing a lot for. Well, I'll put the whole story to you—let you have it all. We've got nearly three-quarters of an hour. I can tell you most of it in that time, and then you can make up your mind. If, when I've told you everything, you decide to have nothing whatever to do with it, that's all right. There's no obligation on you at all, of course. But if you did help me, being in the house at that very time, it would make the whole difference. My God, yes!" he ended with a sigh of eagerness, staring at Harkness.
Harkness sat there, thinking only of the girl. His own personal history, the town, the dance, Crispin and his son, all these things had faded away from his mind; he saw only her—as she had been when turning her head for a moment she had spoken to him with such marvellous self-control.
He loved her just as she stood there granting him permission to help her. His own prayer was that it might not be long before he was allowed to help her again. He was recalled to the immediate moment by Dunbar's voice:
"You'll forgive me if I go back to the beginning of things—it's the only way really to explain. Have you ever heard of Polchester, a town in Glebeshire, north of this? There's a rather famous cathedral there."
"Yes," said Harkness, "I thought I might go there from here."
"Well," Dunbar went on, "out of Polchester about ten miles there's a village—Milton Haxt. I was born there and so was Hesther. Her name was Hesther Tobin, and she was the only daughter of the doctor of the place—she had two brothers younger than herself. We've known one another all our lives."
"Wait a moment," Harkness interrupted; "are you and she the same age?"
"No. I'm thirty, she's only twenty."
"You look younger than that, or you did this afternoon, I'm not so sure now." Indeed the boy seemed to have acquired some new weight and responsibility as he sat there.
"No," he went on. "When I said that we'd known one another always I mean that she's always known about me. I used to take her on my knee and toss her up and down. That was where all the trouble began. If she hadn't been always used to me and fancied that I was years older than she—a kind of grandfather—she'd have married me."
"Married you!" Harkness brought out.
"Yes. I can't remember a time when I wasn't in love with her. I always was, and she never was with me. She liked me—she likes me now—but she's always been so used to the idea of me. I've always been David Dunbar—and that's all. A friend who was always there but nothing more. There was just a moment when I was missing for six months in the middle of the war, I think she really cared then—but soon they heard that I was safe in Germany and it was all as it had been before."
"Were her father and mother living?" Harkness asked.
"Her father. Her mother died when her youngest brother was born, when she was only six years old. The mother's death upset the father, and he took to drink. He'd always been inclined that way I expect. He was too brilliant a doctor to have landed in that small village without there being some reason. Well, after Mrs. Tobin's death there was simply one trouble after another. Tobin's patients deserted him. The big house on the hill had to be sold and they moved into a small one in the village. He had been a big, jolly, laughing, generous man before, now he was always quarrelling with everybody, insulting the few patients left to him, and so on. Hesther was wonderful. How she kept the house together all those years nobody knew. There was very little she didn't know about life by the time she was ten years old—ordinary life, I mean, not this damned Crispin monstrosity. She always had the pluck and the courage of the devil, and you can fancy what I felt just now when you told me about her asking young Crispin to let her off. That swine!"
He paused for a moment, then went on hurriedly:
"But we haven't much time. I must buck ahead. I was quite an ordinary sort of fellow, of course, but there was nothing I wouldn't do for her if I got a chance. I helped her sometimes, but not so much as I'd have liked. She was always terribly proud. All the things that happened at home made her hold up her head in a kind of defiance.
"The odd thing was that she loved her father, and the worse he got the more she loved him. But she loved her young brothers still more. She was mother, sister, nurse, everything to them, and would be still if she'd been let alone. They were nice little chaps too, only a lot younger, of course—one three years, one six. One's in the Navy—very decent fellow—and if he'd been home he'd never have allowed any of this to happen.
"Well, the war came when she was quite a kid. I was away most of that time. Then in 1918 my father died and left me a bit of property there in Milton. I came home and asked her to marry me. She thought I was pitying her, and anyway she didn't love me. And I hadn't enough of this world's goods to make the old man keen about me.
"Then this devil came along." Dunbar stopped for a moment. They both listened. There was not a sound in the whole house.
"What brought him to a village like yours?" asked Harkness, lowering his voice. "I shouldn't have thought that a man like that——"
"No, you wouldn't," said Dunbar. "But that's one of his passions apparently, suddenly landing on some small village where there's a big house and bossing every one around him. . . . I shall never forget the day I first saw him. It was just about a year ago.
"I had heard that some foreigner had taken Haxt, that was the big house in Milton that the Dombeys, the owners, were too poor to keep up. Soon all the village was talking. Furniture arrived, then lots of servants, Japs and all sorts. Then one evening going up the hill I saw him leaning over one of the Haxt gates looking into the road.
"It was a lovely July evening and he was without a hat. You've spoken of his hair. I tell you that evening it was just flaming in the sun. It looked for a moment like some strange sort of red flower growing on the top of the gate. He stopped me as I was passing and asked me for a match."
"That's what he asked me for," murmured Harkness.
"Yes, his opening gambits are all the same. He offered me a cigarette and I took one. We talked for a little. I didn't like him at first, of course, with his hair, white face, painted lips, but—did you notice what a beautiful voice he has?"
"I should think I did," said Harkness.
"And then he can make himself perfectly charming. The beginning of your acquaintance with him is exactly like your introduction to the villain of any melodrama—painted face, charming voice, cosmopolitan, delightful information. The change comes afterwards. But I must hurry on, I'll never be done. I'm as bad as Conrad's Marlowe. Have another whisky, won't you?"
"No, thanks," said Harkness.
"Well, it wasn't long before he was the talk of the whole place. At first every one liked him. Odd though he looked you can just fancy how a man with his wealth and knowledge of the world would fascinate a country-side if he chose to make himself agreeable, and he did choose. He gave parties, he went round to people's houses, sent his motors to give old ladies a ride, allowed people to pick flowers in his garden, adored showing people his collections. I happened to be in Milton during the rest of that year looking after my little property, and he seemed to take to me. I was up at Haxt a good deal.
"Looking back now I can see that I never really liked him. I was aware of my caution and laughed at myself for it. I liked pretty things, you know, and I loved his jade and emeralds, and still more his prints. And he knew so much and was never tired of telling me and never seemed to laugh at one's ignorance.
"He was, as I have said, all the talk that summer. It was 'Mr. Crispin' this and 'Mr. Crispin' that—Mr. Crispin everything. The men didn't take to him much, but of course they wouldn't! They had always thought me a bit queer because I liked reading and played the piano. The first thing that people didn't like about him was his son. That beauty arrived at Haxt somewhere in September, and everybody hated him. I ask you, could you help it? And he was the exact opposite of his father. He didn't try to make himself agreeable to anybody—simply went about scowling and frowning. But it wasn't that people disliked—it was his relation to his father. He was absolutely in his father's power—that is the only way to put it—and there was something despicable, something almost obscene, you know, almost as though he were hypnotized, the way he obeyed him, listened to his voice, slaved away for him."
"I noticed something of that myself this evening," said Harkness.
"You couldn't help it if you saw them together. Somehow the son turning up beside the father made the father look queer—as though the son showed him up. People round Milton are not very perceptive, you know, but they soon smelt a rat, several rats in fact. For one thing the people in the village didn't like the Jap servants, then one or two maids that Crispin had hired abruptly left. They wouldn't say anything except that they didn't like the place, that old Crispin walked in his sleep or something of the kind.
"It was just about this time, early in October or so, that Crispin became friendly with the Tobins. Young Crispin had a cold or something and Tobin came up and doctored him. Crispin gave him the best liquor he'd ever had in his life so he came again and then again. That was the beginning of my dislike of Crispin. It seemed to me rotten of him, when Tobin was already going as fast downhill as he could, to give him an extra push. And Crispin liked doing that. One could see it at a glance. I hated him from the moment when I caught him watching with amused smiles Tobin fuddled in his chair. You can imagine that Tobin's drunkenness, having cared for Hesther as I had for so long, was a matter of some importance for me. I had tried to pull him up, without any sort of success, of course, and it simply maddened me to see what Crispin was doing. So I lost my temper and spoke out. I told him what I thought of him. He listened to me very quietly, then he suddenly threw his head up at me like a snake hissing. He said a lot of things. That was the first time I heard all his nonsensical stuff about sensations. We haven't time now, and anyway it wasn't very new—the philosophy that as this was our only existence we had better make the most of it, that we had been given our senses to use, not to stifle, and the rest of it. Omar put it better than Crispin.
"He had also a lot of talk about Power, that if he liked he could have any one in his power, and so could I if I liked. You had only to know other people's weaknesses enough. And more than that. Some stuff about its being good for people to suffer. That the thing that made life interesting and worth while was its intensity, and that life was never so intense as when we were suffering. That, after all, God liked us to suffer. Why shouldn't we be gods? We might be if we only had courage enough.
"It was then, that morning, that it first entered my head that there was something wrong with him—something wrong with his brain. It had never occurred to me during all those months because he had always been so logical, but now—he seemed to step across the little bridge that separates the sane from the insane. You know how small that bridge is?" Harkness nodded his head.
"Then all in a moment he took my arm and twisted it. I can't give you any sort of idea how queer and nasty that was. As he did it he peered into my face as though he didn't want to miss the slightest shadow of an expression. Then—I don't know if you noticed when he shook hands with you—his fingers haven't any bones in them, and yet they are beastly powerful. He ought to be soft all over and he isn't. He twisted my arm once and smiled. It was all I could do to keep from knocking him down. But I broke away, told him to go to hell and left the house. From that moment I hated him.
"It was directly after this that I noticed for the first time that he had his eye on Hesther, and he had his eye upon her exactly because she hated him and wouldn't go near him if she could possibly help it. I must stop for a moment and tell you something about her. You've seen her, but you cannot have any kind of idea how wonderful she really is.
"She has the most honourable loyal character you've ever seen in woman. And she's never been in love—she doesn't know what love is. Those are the two most important things about her. That doesn't mean that she's ignorant of life. There's nothing mean or sordid or disgusting that hasn't come into her experience through her beauty of a father, but she's stood up to it all—until this, this Crispin marriage. The first thing in her life she's funked.
"She's been saved all along by her devotion to one thing, her family—her father and two brothers. She must have given her father up pretty completely by now, seeing that it was hopeless; but her small brothers—why, they are the key to the whole thing! If it weren't for them she wouldn't be where she is to-night, and, as I have said, if the elder one had known anything about it he wouldn't have allowed it, but he's away on a foreign station and Bobby's too young to understand.
"She was always very independent in the village, keeping to herself. Not being rude to people, you understand, but making no real friends. She simply lived for those two boys, and she had to work so hard that she had no time for friends. She knew that I loved her—I had told her often enough. She saw more of me than of any one else, and she would allow me to do things for her sometimes, but even with me she kept her independence. To-night is the very first time in both our lives that she has begged me to do anything!"
He stopped for a moment. "By God!" he cried, "if I can't help her to-night I'll finish myself; there'll be nothing left in life for me!"
"We will help her," Harkness said. "Both of us. But go on. Time's advancing. I mustn't miss my appointment."
"No, by Jove, you mustn't," said Dunbar. "Everything hangs on that. Well, to get on. It didn't take me very long to see what Crispin was doing to her father, and one day she went up to see him alone and begged him to be merciful. She says that he was charming to her and that she hated him worse than ever.
"He promised her that he would stop her father's drinking, and, of course, he didn't keep his promise, but made Tobin drink more than ever.
"It was round about Christmas that these things happened, and just about this time all sorts of stories began to circulate about him. He suddenly left, came over to Treliss, and took the White Tower where you're going to-night. After he had gone the stories grew in volume—the most ridiculous things you ever heard, about his catching rabbits and skinning them alive and holding witches' Sabbaths with his Japs—every kind of fantastic thing. And all the women who had gone to see his pretty things and raved about him when he first came said they didn't know how they 'ever could have seen anything in him,' and that he deserved imprisonment and worse.
"It was now that I discovered that Hesther was desperately worried. I had known her all my life and had never seen her worried like this before. She lost her colour, was always thinking about other things when one spoke to her, and, several times, had been crying when I came upon her. Naturally I couldn't stand this, and I bullied her until I got the truth out of her. And what do you think that was? Why, of all the horrible things, that the younger Crispin had asked her to marry him, and that all the time her blackguard of a father was pressing her to do it.
"You can imagine what I felt like when I heard this! I cursed and swore and blasphemed and still couldn't believe that she was in any way taking it seriously until, when I pressed her, I found that she was!
"She was always as obstinate as sin, had her own way of looking at things, made up her own mind and stuck to it. She didn't hate the son as she hated the father, although she disliked the little she'd seen of him well enough; but, remember, she knew very little about marriage. All her thoughts were on those two boys, her brothers.
"I found out that old Crispin had offered Tobin any amount of money if he'd give his daughter up, and that Tobin had put this to Hesther, telling her that he was desperately in debt, that he'd be put in prison if the money didn't turn up from somewhere, and, above all, that the boys would be ruined if she didn't agree, that he'd have to take the younger boy away from school and so on.
"I did everything I could. I went and saw Tobin and told him what I thought of him, and he was drunk as usual and we had a scuffle, in the course of which I unfortunately tumbled him over. Hesther came in and saw him on the floor, turned on me, and then said she'd marry young Crispin.
"I begged, I implored her. I said that if she would marry me I'd give her everything that I had in the world, that we'd manage so that Bobby shouldn't have to be taken away from school and the rest of it. Then Father Tobin got up from the floor and asked me with a sneer how much I'd got, and I tried to bluster it out, but of course they both of them knew that I hadn't got very much.
"Anyway Hesther was angry with me—ashamed, I think, that I'd seen her father in such a state, and her pride hurt that I should know how badly they were placed. She accepted young Crispin by the next mail. If the Crispins had actually been there in the flesh I don't think she would have done it, but some weeks' absence had softened her horror of them, and she could only think how wonderful it was going to be to do all the marvellous things for the boys that she was planning.
"I'm sure that when young Crispin did turn up with his long body and cadaverous face she repented and was frightened, but her pride wouldn't let her then back out of it.
"I had one last talk with her before her marriage. I begged her to forgive me for anything that I had done that might seem casual or insulting, that she must put me out of her mind altogether, but just consider in a general way whether this wasn't a horrible thing that she was doing, marrying a man that she didn't love, taking on a father-in-law whom she hated.
"She was very sweet to me, sweeter than she had ever been before. She just shook her head and let me kiss her. And I knew that this was a final good-bye."