"Are you, John?"
"H"m. I look up, and see you in front of me and think h.e.l.l - this woman again."
"What else?"
"Want to know? It bores me terribly never thinking of anything but you, day and night . . ."
And that was how John Stevens told Jennifer Coombe he loved her, in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-six.
Throughout the year Philip Coombe was planning to exclude Jennifer and the Coombes from inheriting his wealth.
In spite of his age and his dawning insanity, his brain was still astute enough to reckon the state of his present financial affairs, and whilst his niece followed her lover on the hills above Plyn, the uncle examined papers, files, and doc.u.ments, checked figures and compared accounts.
Although Jennifer had barely lived eighteen months under his roof, she had compelled him to part with at least a quarter of his private income, on voluntary donations and subscriptions.
"The Carne Infirmary is badly in need of funds, Uncle Philip," she would say. "I met the hon treasurer yesterday, and I said I was certain you would be only too pleased to help them out of the present difficulty."
"The Carne Infirmary?" he would ask guardedly. "I did not know there was such a place. The treasurer was possibly exaggerating. I should think no more about it."
"The appeal was quite genuine," she answered. "If you care to write out a cheque I will see that it is posted tonight."
He would hesitate a moment, tortured by the thought of that money slipping through his fingers, gone from his power for ever, and then glancing at her face he would see the shadows watching him over her shoulder, the pale motionless shadows waiting until she should turn away and leave him to their hands.
"Certainly - yes - I will sign the cheque this evening."
A quarter of his private income was gone in this way, frittered, wasted. Somehow she must be defeated. He knew now that his end was near and that there was no time to be lost. By November his plans were complete. Once more Plyn saw the bent, well-known figure, wrapped in his black coat and m.u.f.fler, walk slowly through the street to the office on the quay.
Every day for a week Philip Coombe sat in his private room at the office, and not even his head clerk knew what he was about.
Even when a man named Austin, a stranger to Plyn, arrived by appointment and stayed with the head of Hogg and Williams for half a day, it caused no comment, Mr Coombe giving his employees to understand that the stranger was a shipowner.
In reality, he was a wealthy ship-broker from Liverpool, with whom Philip Coombe had long been in correspondence, and the reason for his five-hour interview was to discuss the final figure of the sum which would terminate the existence of Hogg and Williams, and see the birth of the firm James Austin, Ltd.
Philip Coombe stipulated the amount, and he won, as he had always won, and seizing the pen he signed the agreement making over the firm he had owned for over forty years to the stranger from Liverpool.The contract was secret, and would be held so for the s.p.a.ce of a month, after which official declaration would be made.
There now remained his private investments and his separate banking account, his bonds and securities, which must be with-held from the possible enjoyment of his next-of-kin. To sell whatever stock he possessed and to withdraw his securities from the bank was a matter of comparative simplicity. Before three weeks Philip Coombe had the entire remainder of his fortune, in bonds, shares, and actual Bank of England notes, in his own possession under his personal supervision in the house in Marine Terrace.
To see, before his own eyes, the written testimony of his wealth, to touch with his own hands the very presence of his power brought Philip Coombe to the highest summit of exultation, and he stood in his room of memories, a weird triumphant figure, gazing upon the doc.u.ments and paper at his feet, laughing softly to himself, clasping and unclasping his small and wrinkled hands. Death would come to him, but these things should perish with him. He would pa.s.s away, unloved and unremembered, but his treasures would pa.s.s also, never to fall into the hands of others, never to gladden the hearts of the people he despised.
For a moment he had forgotten the warning shadows, but as the light faded from the room and the shades of evening crept across the floor he was aware of voices murmuring from the doorway, their stealthy footsteps in the pa.s.sage outside. He strained his ears to catch the echo of their sighs.
"You cannot escape us," they whispered, "we are waiting for you. Nothing can keep you from us, there will be no hiding-place for you, no rest, no peace."
Philip shrunk against the walls of his room, he put his hands over his ears that he might not hear their voices, louder now and pressing, a riot and confusion of tongues. They were close to him now, they hovered above him with outstretched hands. He seized his stick and beat against the air, and it seemed to him that they twisted and writhed with the pain he caused them, filling the room with lamentation.
Then he laughed aloud and trembled for joy, and into his mind came his last supreme decision.
The moon rose over the harbour, streaking the water with a path of silver. The lights of Plyn danced and twinkled in the darkness. The chimes rang out the hour from Lanoc Church.
"Jenny, sweet, don"t go back tonight, come home with me."
"But John, darling, don"t be absurd, why should I suddenly, for no reason."
"Because I want you to so terribly, because something tells me that if you don"t you"ll be taken away from me, and we shall lose each other for ever."
She put her arms about him, and laid her cheek against his face.
"You know there"s nothing can take me from you, John, why do you ramble round with your silly little fears, looking for a danger that can"t exist?"
"Oh! I admit it, I"m a fool tonight, dithering, hopeless, anything you like, but come with me, Jenny, just this once."
"No, John."
"Darling, this isn"t any beastly selfishness on my part, I"m not trying to put over a brilliant attempt at seduction - if you want to be by yourself you can have my room and I"ll lock myself up in the lavatory, but every instinct I possess tells me to keep you beside me tonight, to be near you - in case anything should happen."
"John, if I came to you there would be no locked doors - you"d find yourself shut up with a very immodest and abandoned woman - but it isn"t that, it"s giving way to a foolish fixed idea you have in your mind for which there can be no earthly reason."
"Jenny - I"ve told you about my d.a.m.ned premonitions, haven"t I? I"ve told you that when I sense danger it"s infallible - I"m always right. Sweet, there"s danger for you tonight, danger in that gloomy blasted house, danger with that loathsome uncle of yours . . ."
"You"re crazy, John. Uncle Philip is a weak, doddering old man, he hasn"t the strength to harm a fly, he always goes to bed by half past nine. What could he possibly do to me?"
"I don"t know - I don"t care - Jenny, my Jenny, come home with me tonight. I want to hold you so you can"t get away, I want to tell you everything I"ve ever dreamt about you, so much, so much . . ."
"John, don"t make me weak and helpless. I won"t give way to your creepy, haunting fears."
"Jenny - let me love you."
"No, John."
"Come back, Jennifer, don"t go - Jennifer - Jennifer."
She ran away up the steps of the house, laughing over her shoulder. "Go home and be good. I"ll see you tomorrow." Then she slammed the door and was gone.
When Jennifer was inside the house, with the door between her and John, she closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall, her nails digging into the palms of her hands.
She had refused to go back with him when she wanted to more than anything in the world. Just for the sake of a senseless flickering spirit of independence, a cold sprite within her mind who laughed at love and denied emotion, who saw ridicule in all things, and who suggested surrender as weakness and loss of freedom. Knowing it to be false yet she had persisted in listening to this cold voice, and now she was all alone, and John half-way home in all probability. Sighing and yawning she dragged herself upstairs, seeing by the clock in the hall it was already half past ten.
She undressed slowly, sitting on the edge of her bed, and gazing in front of her. John would be prowling about the yard now, seeing that all was quiet for the night, he would light his last pipe before climbing to his funny rooms over the office. Jennifer pulled on her pyjamas savagely and turned into bed, her face buried in the pillow.
She must have slept some five hours when she awoke to a blinding flash of light in her eyes. She sat up, dazed and stupid, and saw her uncle standing beside the bed with a flash-light in his hands. He was fully dressed, and when she was about to exclaim he put his fingers over his lips, and glanced half fearfully towards the door.
"Hush," he whispered, "we must not make a sound or they will hear us. Be quick, put on your dressing-gown and follow me."
What did he mean? Were there burglars in the house? Jennifer fumbled for her dressing-gown and her slippers.
"Are they downstairs?" she asked. "Is it impossible to get to the telephone? Perhaps if we make a noise it will scare them."
He shook his head and laid his hand on her arm. "Come with me."
He led the way into the front room, and to her surprise she saw that the lights were switched on and a large fire was burning in the grate. On the table there was much litter of papers and official doc.u.ments, and what seemed to her to be pile after pile of bank-notes.
"Whatever have you been doing with all these, Uncle Philip? Surely - why, I don"t believe you"ve been to bed at all. What"s the matter? Are there no burglars, then? I don"t understand."
"Don"t be alarmed, Jennifer," he answered. "I am going to explain everything to you. Will you please sit down?" She did so, gazing up at him in astonishment, while he stood with his back to the fire rubbing his hands together.
"You see those papers scattered on the table?"
"Yes, of course. What about them?"
"There"s money there, Jennifer, stacks of it, bundles of it. All my money, shares, bonds, securities - crisp Bank of England notes. It belongs to me, do you understand, to me and to no one else."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"That is the question I was waiting for.You want to know who will inherit all this, you want to know who will have the right to spend it when I die. See, your fingers are itching to stretch towards that table - I know you - I know you. You think all that is going to be yours, eh? Don"t you, don"t you? But you"re wrong, see, you won"t touch a penny of it, not a farthing." He trembled with excitement and pointed his finger at her.
"You"ve been considering yourself an heiress all these months, haven"t you? No use in denial, I"ve seen you, I"ve watched you. But you were mistaken, hopelessly, miserably mistaken. Look at me - I say - look at me."
He laughed, high pitched and shrill, he leaned towards the table and seized some of the papers, tearing them across, fluttering them before her eyes. "There - there - there goes your precious inheritance."
Jennifer made no answer. She knew now that her uncle was mad, she knew now that she must move warily, carefully, lest he should do himself and her some irreparable harm.
"Uncle Philip," she said softly. "Supposing we talk all this over in the morning. You"re tired now, come along to bed."
He turned his narrow eyes upon her and smiled slowly. "No. I understand you too well. You think I am an old man to be fooled by you. I know you. As soon as my back is turned you creep down here and steal what doesn"t belong to you. No, I have been too clever for you. Much too clever!" He made his way across the room and opened the door. Jennifer was aware of a queer, pungent smell that came from the pa.s.sage, a smell of burning. She rose to her feet instantly, and crossed to the door.
"What is it, what have you done?"
The air was thick with smoke, it travelled up to her from the staircase, and from the hall below. She saw the glint of flames as they caught at the woodwork of the staircase, and licked the strips of paper from the walls.
At once she remembered the two servants sleeping in their rooms at the top of the house. Then her uncle pushed her back into the study, locking the door.
"No - you must not go," he cried, "you must come with me. I will not be alone, or they will break through to me and strangle me. We must keep them out, help me to keep them out, Jennifer."
He seized the tongs and tore a flaming log from the fire. He set alight the curtains, the carpets, the papers on the table, while she watched him, grown stiff with horror, unable to cry out. The flames made their way from the curtains to the wall-papers, burning fiercely now and bright, destroying all that stood in their way.
Philip s.n.a.t.c.hed the books from the shelves, he hurled them one by one into the centre of the room. The air was thick with smoke, the black s.m.u.ts danced before Jennifer"s eyes, she watched the fire spread across the room, licking the ceiling, while moving amidst it was the figure of her uncle, laughing, sobbing, his hair singed, his hands outstretched flinging the books and the papers about him in confusion, feeding the hungry leaping flames.
Jennifer flung herself against the door, which resisted all her efforts, shouting at the pitch of her lungs.Then the smoke entered her throat, she sank to her knees, coughing, choking, the tears running down her cheeks. She groped about on the floor for the key of the door which her uncle had thrown aside, and at length she found it, and fitted it to the lock. But when she opened the door it was to be driven back by the swirling, driving smoke from the pa.s.sage outside, and the heat of the burning staircase.
She heard something crash in the room behind her, a tall cabinet leaned from the wall, splintered and charred, and fell into the waiting flames.
"Uncle Philip!" she cried. "Uncle Philip, come away, come away!"
He heard her voice, and stumbled towards her, swaying, suffocated.
"Get back, Joseph, get back from me, I say." He brandished a chair above his head, he flung it towards her, knocking her sideways, bleeding and stunned into the pa.s.sage outside. She stumbled to her feet and fought her way to the staircase leading to the rooms above. She heard a scream of terror, and looking back for the last time she could see through the open door of the study the bent figure of her Uncle Philip, his clothes alight, his hands outstretched, running round and round in circles, with the flames at his feet . . .
She clung to the banisters, sick and giddy, dragging herself away from the fire below, knowing dimly that there was no escape, no means of safety. Part of the landing beneath her crashed, and she saw the floor sink into itself and crumble away.
There were no walls left to the study now; it had vanished, gaping, blackened, and charred - and her uncle was gone.
A cloud seemed to come upon Jennifer, seizing her throat, blinding her eyes, and she was falling, falling, part of the roaring flames and the crumbling stones.
When John heard the door of the house slam, and knew that her good night was final, he turned away and walked down the terrace, impatient with Jennifer, angry that she had not listened to his words.
He felt restless and unhappy, he knew that if he went to his rooms now sleep would not come to him. When he arrived at the yard he wandered towards the slipway, and after gazing at the still harbour water and the clear starlit sky above, he cast off the painter of his dinghy, and jumping into the boat he seized the paddles and began to pull away rapidly up harbour. He had no difficulty with the tide, for it was just about slack water, and the little boat shot away into mid-stream under his powerful stroke.
John hoped that with this exercising of his body something of the fear and care in his mind would pa.s.s from him, leaving him in the end both weary and untroubled. He tried to persuade himself that this feeling that held sway over him was nothing but the physical want of Jennifer, that his efforts to make her return with him were due to that alone, and to none other. His suffering now was the result of frustration.
He argued thus, knowing there was much truth in his self-accusation, but knowing also, in the depths of his reason, that he had another and more powerful motive. There was fear within him for her safety. Some danger threatened her, of which he had no knowledge, some horror was preparing to tear apart their happiness, bearing her away to the lost and lonely places. His hidden powers of foresight had risen swiftly, silently, against his will they had taken firm hold upon him, and now he was a prey to fear, with no means of protecting she who belonged to him, and who had laughed aside his strange warnings.
Unconsciously John was pulling towards Polmear Creek; the dark form of the wrecked schooner cast her shadow on the water. He made fast the painter, and climbed aboard. He went below to the black cabin and sat on the bench against the table, his head in his hands. Here he had seen Jennifer for the first time, here she had turned her first startled gaze upon him, her dark head thrown back, angry at his intrusion, the tears upon her cheeks. Here they had read her father"s letters, their shoulders touching, her hair brushing his cheek.
He remembered, with a strange thrill of pleasure and pain, that here he had also kissed her for the first time, she standing upon the companionway - between the cabin and the deck above, looking over her shoulder at him standing below, and he, blinded by something he did not understand, had caught her in his arms and carried her to the cabin, and there they had clung to one another, bewildered and lost, while he had whispered against her mouth. "Oh! Jenny - Jenny."
Afterwards they had sat upon the bench, looking at each other with new eyes, Jennifer wondering and silent, and he, triumphant, miserable, unable to keep his hands and his lips away from her. Later, when they were accustomed to one another, they had laughed at those early moments of feverish confusion, and they had agreed that they must be the first pair of lovers to make the cabin of a ship their trysting-place.
John rested his face upon his hands, and the thoughts jumbled in his brain, and here he slept awhile, awaking some few hours later, cold and ill, knowing he must be gone.
Once more he climbed down into his waiting boat, and as he gazed at the white figurehead above him, it seemed to him that she whispered a message with her lips, that she counselled him go quickly if he would save Jennifer, for the danger was come upon her and she had need of him.
He turned his eyes upon the town of Plyn, shrouded in the quiet of the night, and when his gaze travelled in the direction of the terraces he knew.
For there, out of the darkness, leapt the vivid streak of a flame.
When John reached the house he had to fight his way through the crowd of people, shouting and crying in the road outside.
The engine, small and inadequate, was of little use against the terrific force of this fire, and though the men worked furiously, tirelessly, playing their hoses upon the burning buildings, the sheet of water hissing into the air, beating against the walls, it seemed they could not quench those fierce and hungry flames that turned and twisted into the sky.
John laid his hands upon one of the firemen, shouting in his ear above the roar and crackle of the flames, "Are they safe? The people of the house - are they safe?"
The man shook his head, his eyes scared, his face ashen. He pointed to the escape, placed against one of the higher windows.
"There"s two women brought down, the servants of the place, but the walls are falling - the other floors must be rotted through by now - look there - Mr Stevens - look there!"
A cry rose from the ma.s.s of people a.s.sembled in the terrace, and one of the firemen lifted his hand and shouted: "Keep back there - keep back, I say!"
Part of the front facing of the house collapsed, crumbling in a molten ma.s.s of smouldering bricks and charred burning wood. The men began to drag the escape away from the doomed building.
"No, no!" shouted John. "There are living people inside, I tell you. You must get to them - you must, you must."
Once more the escape was flung against the high windows. "Come back, Mr Stevens," yelled someone, "come back, there can"t be no one there alive - it"s too late - the flames have got them."
Deaf to their cries and warnings John climbed up the escape to the rooms of the burning house. He flung himself inside one of the windows, and a cloud of smoke swept upon him, filling his lungs, dazing his brain.
"Jennifer . . ." he cried. "Jennifer . . . Jennifer!"
He felt his way forward, until he stumbled against a rotting, crumbling staircase, where the angry flames leapt at him from the pa.s.sage beneath.