The Shadow of the East Part 6

"I propose to settle down--at any rate for a time, at the Towers," he replied. "I intend to interest myself in the estates. Peter insists that I am wanted, and though that is nonsense and he is infinitely more necessary than I am, still I am willing to make the trial. I owe him more than I can even repay--we all do--and if my presence is really any help to him--he's welcome to it. I shall be about as much real use as the fifth wheel of a coach--a d.a.m.ned rotten wheel at that," he added bitterly. And for some minutes he seemed to forget that there was more to say, staring silently into the fire and from time to time putting together the blazing logs with his foot.

Miss Craven was possessed of the unfeminine attribute of holding her tongue and reserving her comments. She refrained from comment now, rocking gently backward and forward on her heels--a habit a.s.sociated with mental concentration.

"I shall take the child to the Towers," he continued at length, "and there I shall want your help, Aunt Caro." He paused stammering awkwardly--"It's an infernal impertinence asking you to--to--"

"To turn nursemaid at my time of life," she interrupted. "It is certainly a career I never antic.i.p.ated. And, candidly, I have doubts about its success," she laughed and shrugged, with a comical grimace.

Then she patted his arm affectionately--"You had much better take Peter's advice and marry a nice girl who would mother the child and give her some brothers and sisters to play with."

He stiffened perceptibly.

"I shall never marry," he said shortly. Her eyebrows rose the fraction of an inch but she bit back the answer that rose to her lips.

"Never--is a long day," she said lightly. "The Cravens are an old family, Barry. One has one's obligations."

He did not reply and she changed the conversation hastily. She had a horror of forcing a confidence.

"Remains--Mary," she said, with the air of proposing a final expedient.

Craven's tense face relaxed.

"Mary had also occurred to me," he admitted with an eagerness that was almost pathetic.

Miss Craven grunted and clutched at her hair.

"Mary!" she repeated with a chuckle, "Mary, who has gone through life with Wesley's sermons under her arm--and a child out of a Paris convent!

There are certainly elements of humour in the idea. But I must have some details. Who was this Locke person?"

When Craven had told her all he knew she stood quite still for a long while, rolling a cigarette tube between her firm hands.

"Dissolute English father--and Spanish mother of doubtful morals. My poor Barry, your hands will be full."

"Our hands," he corrected.

"Our hands! Good heavens, the bare idea terrifies me!" She shrugged tragically and was dumb until Mary came to announce lunch.

Across the table she studied her nephew with an attention that she was careful to conceal. She was used to his frequent coming and going.

Since the death of his mother he had travelled continually and she was accustomed to his appearing more or less unexpectedly, at longer or shorter intervals. They had always been great friends, and it was to her house in London that he invariably went first on returning to England--sure of his welcome, sure of himself, gay, easy-going and debonair. She was deeply attached to him. But, with something akin to terror, she had watched the likeness to the older Barry Craven growing from year to year, fearful lest the moral downfall of the father might repeat itself in the son. The temptation to speak frankly, to warn, had been great. Natural dislike of interference, and a promise given reluctantly to her dying sister-in-law, had kept her silent. She had loved the tall beautiful woman who had been her brother's wife and a promise made to her was sacred--though she had often doubted the wisdom of a silence that might prove an incalculable danger. She respected the fine loyalty that demanded such a promise, but her own views were more comprehensive. She was strong enough to hold opinions that were contrary to accepted traditions. She admitted a loyalty due to the dead, she was also acutely conscious of a loyalty due to the living. A few minutes before when Miss Craven had, somewhat shamefacedly, owned to a love of the family to which they belonged she had but faintly expressed her pa.s.sionate attachment thereto. Pride of race was hers to an unusual degree. All that was best and n.o.blest she craved for the clan. And Barry was the last of the Cravens. Her brother had failed her and dragged her high ideals in the dust. Her courage had restored them to endeavour a second time. If Barry failed her too! Hitherto her fears had had no definite basis. There had been no real ground for anxiety, only a developing similarity of characteristics that was vaguely disquieting.

But now, as she looked at him, she realised that the man from whom she had parted nearly two years before was not the man who now faced her across the table. Something had happened--something that had changed him utterly. This man was older by far more than the actual two years. This was a man whom she hardly recognised; hard, stern, with a curiously bitter ring at times in his voice, and the shadow of a tragedy lying in the dark grey eyes that had changed so incredibly for lack of their habitual ready smile. There were lines about his mouth and a glint of grey in his hair that she was quick to observe. Whatever had happened--he had suffered. That was written plainly on his face. And unless he chose to speak she was powerless to help him. She refused to intrude, unbidden, into another's private concerns. That he was an adored nephew, that the intimacy between them was great made no difference, the restriction remained the same. But she was woman enough to be fiercely jealous for him. She resented the change she saw--it was not the change she had desired but something far beyond her understanding that left her with the feeling that she was confronting a total stranger. But she was careful to hide her scrutiny, and though her mind speculated widely she continued to chatter, supplementing the home news her scanty letters had afforded and retailing art gossip of the moment. One question only she allowed herself. There had come a silence.

She broke it abruptly, leaning forward in her chair, watching him keen-eyed.

"Have you been ill--out there?"--her hand fluttered vaguely in an easterly direction. Craven looked up in surprise.

"No," he said shortly, "I never am ill."

Miss Craven's nod as she rose from the table might have been taken for a.s.sent. It was in reality satisfaction at her own perspicacity. She had not supposed for one moment that he had been ill but in no other way could she express what she wanted to know. It was in itself an innocuous and natural remark, but the sudden gloom that fell on him warned her that her ingenuity was, perhaps, not so great as she imagined.

"Triple idiot!" she reflected wrathfully, as she poured out coffee, "you had better have held your tongue," and she set herself to charm away the shadow from his face and dispel any suspicion he might have formed of her desire to probe into his affairs. She had an uncommon personality and could talk cleverly and well when she chose. And today she did choose, exerting all her wit to combat the taciturn fit that emphasized so forcibly the change in him. But though he listened with apparent attention his mind was very obviously elsewhere, and he sat staring into the fire, mechanically flicking ash from his cigarette. Conversation languished and at length Miss Craven gave it up, with a wry face, and sat also silent, drumming with her fingers on the arm of the chair. Her thoughts, in quest of his, wandered far away until the sudden ringing of the telephone beside her made her jump violently.

She answered the call, then handed the receiver to Craven.

"Your heathen," she remarked dryly.

Though the least insular of women she had never grown accustomed to the j.a.panese valet. He turned from the telephone with a look of mingled embarra.s.sment and relief.

"I sent a message to the convent this morning. Yos.h.i.+o has just given me the answer. The Mother Superior will see me this afternoon." He endeavoured to make his voice indifferent, pulling down his waistcoat and picking a minute thread from off his coat sleeve. Miss Craven's mouth twitched at the evident signs of nervousness while she glanced at him narrowly. Prompt action in the matter of an uncongenial duty had not hitherto been a conspicuous trait in his character.

"You are certainly not letting the gra.s.s grow under your feet."

He jerked his head impatiently.

"Waiting will not make the job more pleasant," he shrugged. "I will see the child at once and arrange for her removal as soon as possible."

Miss Craven eyed him from head to foot with a grim smile that changed to a whole-hearted laugh of amus.e.m.e.nt.

"It's a pity you have so much money, Barry, you would make your fortune as a model. You are too criminally good looking to go fluttering into convents."

A ghost of the old smile flickered in his eyes.

"Come and chaperon me, Aunt Caro."

She shook her head laughingly.

"Thank you--no. There are limits. I draw the line at convents. Go and get it over, and if the child is presentable you can bring her back to tea. I gather that Mary is antic.i.p.ating a complete failure on our part to sustain the situation and is prepared to deputise. She has already ransacked _Au Paradis Des Enfants_ for suitable bribes wherewith to beguile her infantile affection. I understand that there was a lively scene over the purchase of a doll, the cost of which--clad only in its birthday dress--was reported to me as 'a fair affront.' Even after all these years Mary jibs at Continental prices. It is her way of keeping up the prestige of the British Empire, bless her. An overcharge, in her opinion, is a deliberate twist of the lion's tail."

In the taxi he looked through the correspondence he had received that morning for the lawyer's letter that would establish his claim to John Locke's child. Then he leaned back and lit a cigarette. He had an absurd feeling of nervousness and cursed Locke a dozen times before he reached the convent. He was embarra.s.sed with the awkward situation in which he found himself--just how awkward he seemed only now fully to appreciate.

The more he thought of it, the less he liked it. The coming interview with the Mother Superior was not the least of his troubles. The promise of the morning had not been maintained, overhead the sky was leaden, and a high wind drove rain in sharp splashes against the gla.s.s of the cab.

The pavements were running with water and the leafless trees in the avenues swayed and creaked dismally. The appearance of the streets was chill and depressing. Craven s.h.i.+vered. He thought of the warmth and suns.h.i.+ne that he had left in j.a.pan. The dreariness of the present outlook contrasted sufficiently with the gay smiling landscape, the riotous wealth of colour, and the scent-laden air of the land of his recollections. A feeling almost of nostalgia came to him. But with the thought came also a vision--a little still body lying on silken cus.h.i.+ons; a small pale face with fast shut eyes, the long lashes a dusky fringe against the ice-cold cheek. The vision was terribly distinct, horribly real--not a recollection only, as on the morning that he had found her dead--and he waited, with the sweat pouring down his face, for the closed eyes to open and reveal the agony he had read in them that night, when he had torn her clinging hands away and left her. The faint aroma of the perfume she had used was in his nostrils, choking him. The slender limbs seemed to pulsate into life, the little b.r.e.a.s.t.s to stir perceptibly, the parted lips to tremble. He could not define the actual moment of the change but, as he bent forward, with hands close gripped, all at once he found himself looking straight into the tortured grey eyes--for a second only. Then the vision faded, and he was leaning back in the cab wiping the moisture from his forehead. G.o.d, would it never leave him! It haunted him. In the big bungalow on the Bluff; rising from the sea as he leaned on the steamer rail; during the long nights on the s.h.i.+p as he lay sleepless in the narrow bra.s.s cot; last night in the crowded railway carriage--then it had been so vivid that he had held his breath and glanced around stealthily with hunted eyes at his fellow pa.s.sengers looking for the horrified faces that would tell him that they also saw what he could see. He never knew how long it lasted, minutes or seconds, holding him rigid until it pa.s.sed to leave him bathed in perspiration. Environment seemed to make no difference. It came as readily in a crowd as when he was alone. He lived in perpetual dread of betraying his obsession. Once only it had happened--in the bungalow, the night before he left j.a.pan, and his involuntary cry had brought the watchful valet. And as he crossed the room Craven had distinctly seen him pa.s.s through the little rec.u.mbent figure and, with blazing eyes, had dragged him roughly to one side, pointing and muttering incoherently.

And Yos.h.i.+o had seemed to understand. Sceptical as he was about the supernatural, at first Craven's doubt had been rudely shaken; but with the steadying of his nerves had come the conviction that the vision was inward, though at the moment so real that often his confidence momentarily wavered, as last night in the train. It came with no kind of regularity, no warning that might prepare him. And recurrence brought no mitigation, no familiarising that could temper the acute horror it inspired. To what pitch of actuality might it attain? To what lengths might it drive him? He dragged his thoughts up sharply. To dwell on it was fatal, that way lay insanity. He set his teeth and forced himself to think of other things. There was ample material. There was primarily the salvage of a wasted life. During the last few weeks he had been forced to a self-examination that had been drastically thorough. The verdict had been an adverse one. Personal criticism, once aroused, went far. The purposeless life that he had led seemed now an insult to his manhood. It had been in his power to do so much--he had actually done disastrously little. He had loafed through life without a thought beyond the pa.s.sing interest of the moment. And even in the greater interests of his life, travel and big game, he had failed to exert himself beyond a mediocre level. He had travelled far and shot a rare beast or two, but so had many another--and with greater difficulties to contend with than he who had never wrestled with the disadvantages of inferior equipment and inadequate attendance. Muscularly and const.i.tutionally stronger than the average, physically he could have done anything. And he had done nothing--nothing that others had not done as well or even better. It was sufficiently humiliating. And the outcome of his reflections had been a keen desire for work, hard absorbing work, with the hope that bodily fatigue might in some measure afford mental alleviation. It did not even need finding. With a certain shame he admitted the fact. It had waited for him any time these last ten years in his own home. The responsibility of great possessions was his. And he had s.h.i.+rked. He had evaded the duty he owed to a trust he had inherited. It was a new view of his position that recent thought had awakened. It was still not too late. He would go back like the prodigal--not to eat the fatted calf, but to sit at the feet of Peters and learn from him the secret of successful estate management.

For thirty years Peter Peters had ruled the Craven properties, and they were all his life. For the last ten years he had never ceased urging his employer to a.s.sume the reins of government himself. His entreaties, protestations and threats of resignation had been unheeded. Craven felt sure that he would never relinquish his post, he had grown into the soil and was as firmly fixed as the Towers itself. He was an inst.i.tution in the county, a personality on the bench. He ruled his own domains with a kindly but absolute autocracy which succeeded perfectly on the Craven estates and was the envy of other agents, who had not his ability to do likewise. Well born, original and fearless he was popular in castle and in cottage, and his advice was respected by all. He neither sought nor abused a confidence, and in consequence was the depository of most of the secrets of the countryside. To his sympathetic ears came both grave offences and minor indiscretions, as to a kindly safety-valve who advised and helped--and was subsequently silent. His exoneration was considered final. "I confessed to Peter" became a recognised formula, inst.i.tuted by a giddy young Marchioness at the north end of the county, whose cousin he was. And there, invariably, the matter ended. And for Craven it was the one bright spot in the darkness before him. Life was going to be h.e.l.l--but there would always be Peter.

At the Convent gates the taxi skidded badly at the suddenly applied brakes, and then backed jerkily into position. Craven felt an overwhelming inclination to take to his heels. The portress who admitted him had evidently received orders, for she silently conducted him to a waiting room and left him alone. It was spa.r.s.ely furnished but had on the walls some fine old rosewood panelling. The narrow heavily leaded windows overlooked a paved quadrangle, glistening with moisture. For a few moments the rain had ceased but drops still pattered sharply on to the flagstones from the branches of two large chestnut trees. The outlook was melancholy and he turned from the window, s.h.i.+vering. But the chill austere room was hardly more inspiring. The atmosphere was strange to him. It was a world apart from anything that had ever touched him. He marvelled suddenly at the countless lives living out their allotted span in the confined area of these and similar walls. Surely all could not submit willingly to such a crus.h.i.+ng captivity? Some must agonize and spend their strength unavailingly, like birds beating their wings against the bars of a cage for freedom. To the man who had roamed through all the continents of the world this forced inactivity seemed appalling--stultifying. The hampering of personal freedom, the forcing of independent minds into one narrow prescribed channel that admitted of no individual expansion, the waste of material and the fettering of intellects, that were heaven-sent gifts to be put out to usury and not shrouded away in a napkin, revolted him. The conventual system was to him a survival of medievalism, a relic of the dark ages; the last refuge of the s.h.i.+rkers of the world. The communities themselves, if he had thought of them at all, had been regarded as a whole. He had never troubled to consider them as composed of single individuals. Today he thought of them as separate human beings and his intolerance increased.

An indefinite distaste never seriously considered seemed, during the few moments in the bare waiting room, to have grown suddenly into active dislike. He was wholly out of sympathy with his surroundings, impatient of the necessity that brought him into contact with what he would have chosen to avoid. He looked about with eyes grown hard and contemptuous.

The very building seemed to be the embodiment of retrogression and blind superst.i.tion. He was filled with antagonism. His face was grim and his figure drawn up stiffly to its full height when the door opened to admit the Mother Superior. For a moment she hesitated, a faint look of surprise coming into her face. And no antagonism, however intolerant, could have braved her gentle dignity. "It is--_Monsieur_ Craven?" she asked, a perceptible interrogation in her soft voice.

She took the letters he gave her and read them carefully--pausing once or twice as if searching for the correct translation of a word--then handed them back to him in silence. She looked at him again, frankly, with no attempt to disguise her scrutiny, and the perplexity in her eyes grew greater. One small white hand slid to the crucifix hanging on her breast, as if seeking aid from the familiar symbol, and Craven saw that her fingers were trembling. A faint flush rose in her face.

"_Monsieur_ is perhaps married, or--happily--he has a mother?" she asked at last, and the flush deepened as she looked up at the big man standing before her. She made a little gesture of embarra.s.sment but her eyes did not waver. They would not, he thought with sudden intuition. For he realised that it was one of his own order who confronted him. It was not what he had antic.i.p.ated. The Mother Superior's low voice continuing in gentle explanation broke into his thoughts.

"_Monsieur_ will forgive that I catechise him thus but I had expected one--much older." Her distress was obvious. And Craven divined that as a prospective guardian he fell short of expectation. And yet, his lack of years was apparently to her the only drawback. His lack of years--Good G.o.d, and he felt so old! His youth was a disadvantage that counted for nothing in the present instance. If she could know the truth, if the anxious gaze that was fixed so intently on him could look into his heart with understanding, he knew that she would shrink from him as from a vile contamination.

He conceived the horror dawning in her eyes, the loathing in her att.i.tude, and seemed to hear her pa.s.sionate protest against his claim to the child who had been sheltered in the safety of the community that he had despised. The safety of the community--that had not before occurred to him. For the first time he considered it a refuge to those who there sought sanctuary and who were safeguarded from such as--he. He winced, but did not spare himself. The sin had been only his. The child who had died for love of him had been as innocent of sin as the birds who loved and mated among the pine trees in her Garden of Enchantment. She had had no will but his. Arrogantly he had taken her and she had submitted--was he not her lord? Before his shadow fell across her path no blameless soul within these old convent walls had been more pure and stainless than the soul of O Hara San. It was the sins of such as he that drove women to this shelter that offered refuge and consolation, to escape from such as he they voluntarily immured themselves; surrendering the purpose of their being, seeking in bodily denial the salvation of their souls.

The room had grown very dark. A sudden glare of light made Craven realise that a question asked was still unanswered. He had not, in his abstraction, been aware of any movement. Now he saw the Mother Superior walking leisurely back from the electric switch by the door, and guessed from her placid face that the interval had been momentary and had pa.s.sed unnoticed. Some answer was required now. He pulled himself together.

"I am not married," his voice was strained, "and I have no mother. But my aunt--Miss Craven--the sculptor--" he paused enquiringly and she smiled rea.s.surance.

"Miss Craven's beautiful work is known to me," she said with ready tact that put him more at ease.

"My aunt has, most kindly, promised to--to co-operate," he finished lamely.