Читать книгу: «The Quest: A Romance», страница 19

CHAPTER XXVI
"I WON'T GO!"

Ste. Marie came under the wall breathless and shaking. What he had seen there from a distance was no longer visible, but he pressed in close among the lilac shrubs and called out in an unsteady voice. He said —

"Who is there? Who is it?" And after a moment he called again.

A hand appeared at the top of the high wall. The drooping screen of foliage was thrust aside, and he saw Richard Hartley's face looking down. Ste. Marie held himself by the strong stems of the lilacs, for once more his knees had weakened under him.

"There's no one in sight," Hartley said. "I can see for a long way. No one can see us or hear us." And he said: "I got your letter this morning – an hour ago. When shall we come to get you out – you and the boy? To-night?"

"To-night at two!" said Ste. Marie. He spoke in a loud whisper. "I'm to talk with Arthur here in a few minutes. We must be quick. He may come at any time. I shall try to persuade him to go home willingly, but if he refuses we must take him by force. Bring a couple of good men with you to-night and see that they're armed. Come in a motor and leave it just outside the wall by that small door that you passed. Have you any money in your pockets? I may want to bribe the gardener."

Hartley searched in his pockets, and while he did so the man beneath asked —

"Is old David Stewart alive?"

"Just about!" Hartley said. "He's very low and he suffers a great deal, but he's quite conscious all the time. If we can fetch the boy to him it may give him a turn for the better. Where is Captain Stewart? I had spies on his trail for some time but he has disappeared within the past three or four days. Once I followed him in his motor out past here, but I lost him beyond Clamart."

"He's here, I think," said Ste. Marie. "I saw him a few days ago."

The man on the wall had found two notes of a hundred francs each, and he dropped them down to Ste. Marie's hands. Also he gave him a small revolver which he had in his pocket, one of the little automatic weapons such as Olga Nilssen had brought to the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré. Afterwards he glanced up and said —

"Two people are coming out of the house, I shall have to go. At two to-night, then! – and at this spot. We shall be in time." He drew back out of sight, and the other man heard the cedar-tree shake slightly as he went down to the ground. Then Ste. Marie turned and walked quickly back to the place where Mlle. O'Hara had left him. His heart was leaping with joy and exultation, for now at last he thought that the end was in sight – the end he had so long laboured and hoped for. He knew that his face must be flushed and his eyes bright, and he made a strong effort to crush down these tokens of his triumph – to make his bearing seem natural and easy. He might have spared himself the pains.

Young Arthur Benham and Coira O'Hara came together down under the trees from the house. They walked swiftly, and the boy was a step in advance, his face white with excitement and anger. He began to speak while he was still some distance away. He cried out in his strident young voice —

"What the devil is all this silly nonsense about old Charlie and lies and misunderstandings and – and all that guff?" he demanded. "What the devil is it? D'you think I'm a fool? D'you think I'm a kid? Well, I'm not!" He came close to Ste. Marie, staring at him with an angry scowl, but the scowl twitched and wavered, and his hands shook a little beside him, and his breath came irregularly. He was frightened.

"There is no nonsense," said Ste. Marie. "There is no nonsense in all this whole sorry business. But there has been a great deal of misunderstanding and a great many lies and not a little cruelty. It's time you knew the truth at last." He turned his eyes to where Coira O'Hara stood near-by.

"How much have you told him?" he asked. And the girl said —

"I told him everything, or almost. But I had to say it very quickly and – he wouldn't believe me. I think you'd best tell him again."

The boy gave a short contemptuous laugh.

"Well, I don't want to hear it," said he. He was looking towards the girl. He said —

"This fellow may be able to hypnotize you, all right, but not Willie. Little Willie's wise to guys like him." And swinging about to Ste. Marie, he cried —

"Forget it! Forget it! I don't want to listen to your little song to-day. Ah, you make me sick! You'd try to make me turn on old Charlie, would you? Why, old Charlie's the only real friend I've got in the world. Old Charlie has always stood up for me against the whole bunch of them. Forget it, George! I'm wise to your graft."

Ste. Marie frowned, for his temper was never of the most patient, and the youth's sneering tone annoyed him. Truth to tell the tone was about all he understood, for the strange words were incomprehensible.

"Look here, Benham!" he said sharply. "You and I have never met, I believe, but we have a good many friends in common, and I think we know something about each other. Have you ever heard anything about me which would give you the right to suspect me of any dishonesty of any sort? Have you?"

"Oh, slush!" said the boy. "Anybody 'll be dishonest if it's worth his while."

"That happens to be untrue," Ste. Marie remarked, "and as you grow older you will know it. Leaving my honesty out of the question if you like, I have the honour to tell you that I am, perhaps not quite formally, engaged to your sister, and it is on her account, for her sake, that I am here. You will hardly presume, I take it, to question your sister's motive in wanting you to return home? Incidentally your grandfather is so overcome by grief over your absence that he is expected to die at any time.

"Come!" said he, "I have said enough to convince you that you must listen to me. Believe what you please, but listen to me for five minutes! After that I have small doubt of what you will do."

The boy looked nervously from Ste. Marie to Mlle. O'Hara, and back again. He thrust his unsteady hands into his pockets, but withdrew them after a moment and clasped them together behind him.

"I tell you!" he burst out at last – "I tell you it's no good, your trying to knock old Charlie to me. I won't stand for it. Old Charlie's my best friend, and I'd believe him before I'd believe anybody in the world. You've got a knife out for old Charlie, that's what's the matter with you."

"And your sister?" suggested Ste. Marie. "Your mother? You'd hardly know your mother if you could see her to-day. It has pretty nearly killed her."

"Ah, they're all – they're all against me!" the lad cried. "They've always stood together against me. Helen too!"

"You wouldn't think they were against you if you could just see them once, now," said Ste. Marie. And Arthur Benham gave a sort of shamefaced sob, saying —

"Ah, cut it out! Cut it out!

"Go on then and talk, if you want to," he said. "I don't care. I don't have to listen. Talk, if you're pining for it." And Ste. Marie, as briefly as he could, told him the truth of the whole affair from the beginning, as he had told it to Coira O'Hara. Only, he laid special stress upon Charles Stewart's present expectations from the new will; and he assured the boy that no document his grandfather might have asked him to sign could have given away his rights in his father's fortune since he was a minor, and had no legal right to sign away anything at all even if he wished to.

"If you will look back as calmly and carefully as you can," he said, "you will find that you didn't begin to suspect your grandfather of anything wrong until you had talked with Captain Stewart. It was your uncle's explanation of the thing that made you do that. Well, remember what he had at stake – I suppose it is a matter of several millions of francs. And he needs them. His affairs are in a bad way."

He told also about the pretended search which Captain Stewart had so long maintained, and of how he had tried to mislead the other searchers whose motives were honest.

"It has been a gigantic gamble, my friend," he said at the last. "A gigantic and desperate gamble to get the money that should be yours. You can end it by the mere trouble of climbing over that wall yonder, and taking the Clamart tram back to Paris. As easily as that you can end it – and, if I am not mistaken, you can at the same time save an old man's life – prolong it at the very least." He took a step forwards.

"I beg you to go!" he said very earnestly. "You know the whole truth now. You must see what danger you have been and are in. You must know that I am telling you the truth. I beg you to go back to Paris."

And from where she stood, a little aside, Coira O'Hara said —

"I beg you too, Arthur. Go back to them!"

The boy dropped down upon a tree stump which was near, and covered his face with his hands. The two who watched him could see that he was trembling violently. Over him their eyes met and they questioned each other with a mute and anxious gravity —

"What will he do?" For everything was in Arthur Benham's weak hands now.

For a little time, which seemed hours to all who were there, the lad sat still hiding his face, but suddenly he sprang to his feet and once more stood staring into Ste. Marie's quiet eyes.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" he cried, and his voice ran up high and shrill, and wavered and broke. "How do I know that? You'd tell just as smooth a story if – if you were lying – if you'd been sent here to get me back to – to what old Charlie said they wanted me for."

"You have only to go back to them and make sure," said Ste. Marie. "They can't harm you or take anything from you. If they persuaded you to sign anything – which they will not do – it would be valueless to them because you're a minor. You know that as well as I do. Go and make sure!

"Or wait! wait!" He gave a little sharp laugh of excitement.

"Is Captain Stewart in the house?" he demanded. "Call him out here! That's better still! Bring your uncle here to face me without telling him what it's for, without giving him time to make up a story! Then we shall see. Send for him!"

"He's not here," said the boy. "He went away an hour ago. I don't know whether he'll be back to-night or not." Young Arthur stared at the elder man, breathing hard.

"Good God!" he said in a whisper, "if – old Charlie is rotten, who in this world isn't? I – don't know what to believe." Abruptly he turned with a sort of snarl upon Coira O'Hara.

"Have you been in this game too?" he cried out. "I suppose you and your precious father and old Charlie cooked it up together! What? You've been having a fine low-comedy time laughing yourselves to death at me, haven't you! O Lord, what a gang!"

Ste. Marie caught the boy by the shoulder and spun him round.

"That will do!" he said sternly. "You have been a fool; don't make it worse by being a coward and a cad. Mlle. O'Hara knew no more of the truth than you knew. Your uncle lied to you all." But the girl came and touched his arm. She said —

"Don't be hard with him! He is bewildered and nervous, and he doesn't know what he is saying. Think how sudden it has been for him. Don't be hard with him, M. Ste. Marie."

Ste. Marie dropped his hand, and the lad backed a few steps away. His face was crimson. After a moment he said —

"I'm sorry, Coira. I didn't mean that. I didn't mean it. I beg your pardon. I'm about half dippy, I guess. I – don't know what to believe or what to think or what to do." He remained staring at her a little while in silence, and presently his eyes sharpened. He cried out —

"If I should go back there (mind you, I say, 'if'!) d'you know what they'd do? Well, I'll tell you. They'd begin to talk at me one at a time. They'd get me in a corner and cry over me and say I was young and didn't know my mind, and that I owed them something for all that's happened, and not to bring their grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. And the long and short of it would be that they'd make me give you up." He wheeled upon Ste. Marie.

"That's what they'd do!" he said, and his voice began to rise again shrilly. "They're three to one, and they know they can talk me into anything. You know it too." He shook his head.

"I won't go back!" he cried wildly. "That's what will happen if I do. I don't want granddad's money. He can give it to old Charlie or to a gendarme if he wants to. I'm going to have enough of my own. I won't go back, and that's all there is of it. You may be telling the truth or you may not, but I won't go."

Ste. Marie started to speak, but the girl checked him. She moved closer to where Arthur Benham stood, and she said —

"If your love for me, Arthur, is worth having, it is worth fighting for. If it is so weak that your family can persuade you out of it, then – I don't want it at all, for it would never last. Arthur, you must go back to them. I want you to go."

"I won't!" the boy cried. "I won't go. I tell you they could talk me out of anything. You don't know 'em. I do. I can't stand against them. I won't go, and that settles it. Besides, I'm not so sure that this fellow's telling the truth. I've known old Charlie a lot longer than I have him."

Coira O'Hara turned a despairing face over her shoulder towards Ste. Marie.

"Leave me alone with him!" she begged. "Perhaps I can win him over. Leave us alone for a little while!" Ste. Marie hesitated, and in the end went away and left the two together. He went farther down the park to the rond point and crossed it to the familiar stone bench at the west side. He sat down there to wait. He was anxious and alarmed over this new obstacle, for he had the wit to see that it was a very important one. It was quite conceivable that the boy, but half convinced, half yielding before, would balk altogether when he realised, as evidently he did realise, what returning home might mean to him – the loss of the girl he hoped to marry.

Ste. Marie was sufficiently wise in worldly matters to know that the boy's fear was not unfounded. He could imagine the family in the Rue de l'Université taking exactly the view young Arthur said they would take towards an alliance with the daughter of a notorious Irish adventurer. Ste. Marie's cheeks burned hotly with anger when the words said themselves in his brain, but he knew that there could be no doubt of the Benhams' and even of old David Stewart's view of the affair. They would oppose the marriage with all their strength.

He tried to imagine what weight such considerations would have with him if it were he who was to marry Coira O'Hara, and he laughed aloud with scorn of them and with great pride in her. But the lad yonder was very young (too young: his family would be right to that extent). Would he be able to stand against them?

Ste. Marie shook his head with a sigh and gave over unprofitable wonderings, for he was still within the walls of La Lierre, and so was Arthur Benham. And the walls were high and strong. He fell to thinking of the attempt at rescue which was to be made that night, and he began to form plans and think of necessary preparations. To be sure Coira might persuade the boy to escape during the day, and then the night attack would be unnecessary; but in case of her failure it must be prepared for. He rose to his feet and began to walk back and forth under the rows of chestnut trees, where the earth was firm and black and mossy and there was no growth of shrubbery. He thought of that hasty interview with Richard Hartley and he laughed a little. It had been rather like an exchange of telegrams – reduced to the bare bones of necessary question and answer. There had been no time for conversation.

His eyes caught a far-off glimpse of woman's garments, and he saw that Coira O'Hara and Arthur Benham were walking towards the house. So he went a little way after them and waited at a point where he could see any one returning. He had not long to wait, for it seemed that the girl went only as far as the door with her fiancé and then turned back.

Ste. Marie met her with raised eyebrows, and she shook her head.

"I don't know," said she. "He is very stubborn. He is frightened and bewildered. As he said, a while ago, he doesn't know what to think or what to believe. You mustn't blame him. Remember how he trusted his uncle! He's going to think it over, and I shall see him again this afternoon. Perhaps when he has had time to reflect – I don't know. I truly don't know."

"He won't go to your father and make a scene?" said Ste. Marie, and the girl shook her head.

"I made him promise not to."

"Oh, Bayard," she cried – and in his abstraction he did not notice the name she gave him – "I am afraid, myself! I am horribly afraid about my father."

"I am sure he did not know," said the man. "Stewart lied to him." But Coira O'Hara shook her head, saying —

"I didn't mean that. I'm afraid of what will happen when he finds out how he has been – how we have been played upon, tricked, deceived – what a light we have been placed in. You don't know, you can't even imagine, how he has set his heart on – what he wished to occur. I am afraid he will do something terrible when he knows. I am afraid he will kill Captain Stewart."

"Which," observed Ste. Marie, "would be an excellent solution of the problem. But, of course, we mustn't let it happen. What can be done?"

"We mustn't let him know the truth," said the girl, "until Arthur is gone, and until Captain Stewart is gone too. He is terrible when he's angry. We must keep the truth from him until he can do no harm. It will be bad enough even then, for I think it will break his heart."

Ste. Marie remembered that there was something she did not know, and he told her about his interview with Richard Hartley, and about their arrangement for the rescue – if it should be necessary – on that very night.

She nodded her head over it, but for a long time after he had finished she did not speak. Then she said —

"I am glad, I suppose. Yes, since it has to be done I suppose I am glad that it is to come at once." She looked up at Ste. Marie with shadowy inscrutable eyes.

"And so, monsieur," said she, "it is at an end – all this." She made a little gesture which seemed to sweep the park and gardens.

"So we go out of each other's lives as abruptly as we entered them. Well – " She had continued to look at him, but she saw the man's face turn white, and she saw something come into his eyes which was like intolerable pain. Then she looked away.

Ste. Marie said her name twice, under his breath, in a sort of soundless cry, but he said no more, and after a moment she went on —

"Even so, I am glad that at last we know each other – for what we are… I should have been sorry to go on thinking you … what I thought before… And I could not have borne it, I'm afraid, to have you think … what you thought of me … when I came to know… I'm glad we understand at last."

Ste. Marie tried to speak, but no words would come to him. He was like a man defeated and crushed, not one on the highroad to victory. But it may have been that the look of him was more eloquent than anything he could have said. And it may have been that the girl saw and understood.

So the two remained there for a little while longer in silence, but at last Coira O'Hara said —

"I must go back to the house now. There is nothing more to be done, I suppose – nothing left now but to wait for night to come. I shall see Arthur this afternoon and make one last appeal to him. If that fails you must carry him off. Do you know where he sleeps? It is the room corresponding to yours on the other side of the house – just across that wide landing at the top of the stairs. I will manage that the front door below shall be left unlocked. The rest you and your friends must do. If I can make any impression upon Arthur, I'll slip a note under your door this afternoon or this evening. Perhaps even if he decides to go it would be best for him to wait until night and go with the rest of you. In any case I'll let you know."

She spoke rapidly, as if she were in great haste to be gone, and with averted eyes. And at the end she turned away without any word of farewell, but Ste. Marie started after her. He cried —

"Coira! Coira!" And, when she stopped, he said —

"Coira, I can't let you go like this! Are we to – simply to go our different ways, like this, as if we'd never met at all?"

"What else?" said the girl. And there was no answer to that. Their separate ways were determined for them – marked plain to see.

"But afterwards!" he cried. "Afterwards – after we have got the boy back to his home! What then?"

"Perhaps," she said, "he will return to me." She spoke without any show of feeling. "Perhaps he will return. If not – well, I don't know. I expect my father and I will just go on as we've always gone. We're used to it, you know."

After that she nodded to him and once more turned away. Her face may have been a very little pale, but, as before, it betrayed no feeling of any sort. So she went up under the trees to the house, and Ste. Marie watched her with strained and burning eyes.

When, half an hour later, he followed, he came unexpectedly upon the old Michel, who had entered the park through the little wooden door in the wall, and was on his way round to the kitchen with sundry parcels of supplies. He spoke a civil "bon jour, monsieur," and Ste. Marie stopped him. They were out of sight from the windows. Ste. Marie withdrew from his pocket one of the hundred-franc notes, and the single bead-like eye of the ancient gnome fixed upon it and seemed to shiver with a fascinated delight.

"A hundred francs!" said Ste. Marie unnecessarily, and the old man licked his withered lips. The tempter said —

"My good Michel, would you care to receive this trifling sum? a hundred francs?"

The gnome made a choked croaking sound in his throat. "It is yours," said Ste. Marie, "for a small service – for doing nothing at all." The bead-like eye rose to his and sharpened intelligently.

"I desire only," said he, "that you should sleep well to-night, very well – without waking."

"Monsieur," said the old man, "I do not sleep at all. I watch. I watch monsieur's windows. Monsieur O'ara watches until midnight, and I watch from then until day."

"Oh, I know that," said the other. "I've seen you more than once in the moonlight, but to-night, mon vieux, slumber will overcome you. Exhaustion will have its way and you will sleep. You will sleep like the dead."

"I dare not!" cried the gardener. "Monsieur, I dare not! The old one would kill me. You do not know him. He would cut me into pieces and burn the pieces. Monsieur, it is impossible."

Ste. Marie withdrew the other hundred franc note and held the two together in his hand. Once more the gnome made his strange croaking sound, and the withered face twisted with anguish.

"Monsieur! monsieur!" he groaned.

"I have an idea," said the tempter. "A little earth rubbed upon one side of the head – perhaps a trifling scratch to show a few drops of blood. You have been assaulted, beaten down despite a heroic resistance and left for dead. An hour afterwards you stagger into the house a frightful object. Hein?"

The withered face of the old man expanded slowly into a senile grin.

"Monsieur," said he with admiration in his tone, "it is magnificent. It shall be done. I sleep like the good dead – under the trees, not too near the lilacs, eh? Bien, monsieur, it is done!" Into his trembling claw he took the notes, he made an odd bow, and shambled away about his business. Ste. Marie laughed and went on into the house.

He counted and there were fourteen hours to wait. Fourteen hours, and at the end of them – what? His blood began to warm to the night's work.