Ensign Knightley and Other Stories Part 19

"I ran off on my errand, and, coming back a little later with a bottle of cordial waters, found Mr. Lovyes still standing in the moonlight.

He seemed not to have moved a finger. I gave him the bottle, with a message that any who were rescued should be carried to Merchant's Point forthwith, and that he himself should go down there in the morning.

"'Who taught you Latin?' he asked suddenly.

"'Mrs. Lovyes taught me the rudiments,' I began; and with that he led me on to talk of her, but with some cunning. For now he would divert me to another topic and again bring me back to her, so that it all seemed the vagrancies of a boy's inconsequent chatter.

"Mrs. Lovyes, who was remotely akin to the Lord Proprietor, had come to Tresco three years before, immediately after her marriage, and, it was understood, at her husband's wish. I talked of her readily, for, apart from what I owed to her bounty, she was a woman most sure to engage the affections of any boy. For one thing she was past her youth, being thirty years of age, tall, with eyes of the kindliest grey, and she bore herself in everything with a tender toleration, like a woman that has suffered much.

"Of the other topics of this conversation there was one which later I had good reason to remember. We had caught a shark twelve feet long at the Poul that day, and the shark fairly divided my thoughts with Mrs.

Lovyes.

"'You bleed a fish first into the sea,' I explained. 'Then you bait with a chad's head, and let your line down a couple of fathoms. You can see your bait quite clearly, and you wait.'

"'No doubt,' said Robert; 'you wait.'

"'In a while,' said I, 'a dim lilac shadow floats through the clear water, and after a little you catch a glimpse of a forked tail and waving fins and an evil devil's head. The fish smells at the bait and sinks again to a lilac shadow--perhaps out of sight; and again it rises. The shadow becomes a fish, the fish goes circling round your boat, and it may be a long while before he turns on his back and rushes at the bait.'

"'And as like as not, he carries the bait and line away."

"'That depends upon how quick you are with the gaff,' said I.' Here comes my father.'

"My father returned empty-handed. Not one of the crew had been saved.

"'You asked my name,' said Robert Lovyes, turning to my mother. 'It is Crudge--Jarvis Crudge.' With that he went to his bed, but all night long I heard him pacing his room.

"The next morning he complained of his long immersion in the sea, and certainly when he told his story to Mr. and Mrs. Lovyes as they sat over their breakfast in the parlour at Merchant's Point, he spoke with such huskiness as I never heard the like of. Mr. Lovyes took little heed to us, but went on eating his breakfast with only a sour comment here and there. I noticed, however, that Mrs. Lovyes, who sat over against us, bent her head forward and once or twice shook it as though she would unseat some ridiculous conviction. And after the story was told, she sat with no word of kindness for Mr. Crudge, and, what was yet more unlike her, no word of pity for the sailors who were lost.

Then she rose and stood, steadying herself with the tips of her fingers upon the table. Finally she came swiftly across the room and peered into Mr. Crudge's face.

"'If you need help,' she said, 'I will gladly furnish it. No doubt you will be anxious to go from Tresco at the earliest. No doubt, no doubt you will,' she repeated anxiously.

"'Madame,' he said, 'I need no help, being by G.o.d's leave a man'--and he laid some stress upon the 'man,' but not boastfully--rather as though all _women_ did, or might need help, by the mere circ.u.mstance of their s.e.x--'and as for going hence, why yesterday I was bound for Africa. I sailed unexpectedly into a fog off Scilly. I was wrecked in a calm sea on the Golden Ball--I was thrown up on Tresco--no one on that s.h.i.+p escaped but myself. No sooner was I safe than the fog lifted---'

"'You will stay?' Mrs. Lovyes interrupted. 'No?'

"'Yes,' said he, 'Jarvis Grudge will stay.'

"And she turned thoughtfully away. But I caught a glimpse of her face as we went out, and it wore the saddest smile a man could see.

"Mr. Grudge and I walked for a while in silence.

"'And what sort of a name has Mr. John Lovyes in these parts?' he asked.

"'An honest sort,' said I emphatically--'the name of a man who loves his wife.'

"'Or her money,' he sneered. 'Bah! a surly ill-conditioned dog, I'll warrant, the curmudgeon!"

"'You are marvellously recovered of your cold,' said I.

"He stopped, and looked across the Sound. Then he said in a soft, musing voice: 'I once knew just such another clever boy. He was so clever that men beat him with sticks and put on great sea-boots to kick him with, so that he lived a miserable life, and was subsequently hanged in great agony at Tyburn.'

"Mr. Grudge, as he styled himself, stayed with us for a week, during which time he sailed much with me about these islands; and I made a discovery. Though he knew these islands so well, he had never visited them before, and his knowledge was all hearsay. I did not mention my discovery to him, lest I should meet with another rebuff. But I was none the less sure of its truth, for he mistook Hanjague for Nornor, and Priglis Bay for Beady Pool, and made a number of suchlike mistakes. After a week he hired the cottage in which he now lives, bought his boat, leased from the steward the patch of ground in Dolphin Town, and set about building his house. He undertook the work, I am sure, for pure employment and distraction. He picked up the granite stones, fitted them together, panelled them, made the floors from the deck of a brigantine which came ash.o.r.e on Annet, pegged down the thatch roof--in a word, he built the house from first to last with his own hands and he took fifteen months over the business, during which time he did not exchange a single word with Mrs. Lovyes, nor anything more than a short 'Good-day' with Mr. John. He worked, however, with no great regularity. For while now he laboured in a feverish haste, now he would sit a whole day idle on the headlands; or, again, he would of a sudden throw down his tools as though the work overtaxed him, and, leaping into his boat, set all sail and run with the wind. All that night you might see him sailing in the moonlight, and he would come home in the flush of the dawn.

"After he had built the house, he furnished it, crossing for that purpose backwards and forwards between Tresco and St. Mary's. I remember that one day he brought back with him a large chest, and I offered to lend him a hand in carrying it. But he hoisted it on his back and took it no farther than the cottage in which he lived, where it remained locked with a padlock.

"Towards Christmas-time, then, the house was ready, but to our surprise he did not move into it. He seemed, indeed, of a sudden, to have lost all liking for it, and whether it was that he had no longer any work upon his hands, he took to following Mrs. Lovyes about, but in a way that was unnoticeable unless you had other reasons to suspect that his thoughts were following her.

"His conduct in this respect was particularly brought home to me on Christmas Day. The afternoon was warm and sunny, and I walked over the hill at Merchant's Point, meaning to bathe in the little sequestered bay beyond. From the top of the hill I saw Mrs. Lovyes walking along the strip of beach alone, and as I descended the hill-side, which is very deep in fern and heather, I came plump upon Jarvis Grudge, stretched full-length on the ground. He was watching Mrs. Lovyes with so greedy a concentration of his senses that he did not remark my approach. I asked him when he meant to enter his new house.

"'I do not know that I ever shall,' he replied.

"'Then why did you build it?' I asked.

"'Because I was a fool!' and then he burst out in a pa.s.sionate whisper. 'But a fool I was to stay here, and a fool's trick it was to build that house!' He shook his fist in its direction. 'Call it Grudge's Folly, and there's the name for it!' and with that he turned him again to spying upon Mrs. Lovyes.

"After a while he spoke again, but slowly and with his eyes fixed upon the figure moving upon the beach.

"'Do you remember the night I came ash.o.r.e? You had caught a shark that day, and you told me of it. The great lilac shadow which rises from the depths and circles about the bait, and sinks again and rises again and takes--how long?--two years maybe before he snaps it.'

"'But he does not carry it away,' said I, taking his meaning.

"'Sometimes--sometimes," he snarled.

"'That depends on how quick we are with the gaff."

"'You!' he laughed, and taking me by the elbows, he shook me till I was giddy.

"'I owe Mrs. Lovyes everything,' I said. At that he let me go. The ferocity of his manner, however, confirmed me in my fears, and, with a boy's extravagance, I carried from that day a big knife in my belt.

"'The gaff, I suppose,' said Mr. Grudge with a polite smile when first he remarked it. During the next week, however, he showed more contentment with his lot, and once I caught him rubbing his hands and chuckling, like a man well pleased; so that by New Year's Eve I was wellnigh relieved of my anxiety on Mrs. Lovyes' account.

"On that night, however, I went down to Grudge's cottage, and peeping through the window on my way to the door, I saw a strange man in the room. His face was clean-shaven, his hair tied back and powdered; he was in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, with a satin waistcoat, a sword at his side, and s.h.i.+ning buckles to his shoes. Then I saw that the big chest stood open. I opened the door and entered.

"'Come in!' said the man, and from his voice I knew him to be Mr.

Crudge. He took a candle in his hand and held it above his head.

"'Tell me my name,' he said. His face, shaved of its beard and no longer hidden by his hair, stood out distinct, unmistakable.

"'Lovyes,' I answered.

"'Good boy,' said he. 'Robert Lovyes, brother to John.'

"'Yet he did not know you,' said I, though, indeed, I could not wonder.

"'But she did,' he cried, with a savage exultation. 'At the first glance, at the first word, she knew me.' Then, quietly, 'My coat is on the chair beside you.'

"I took it up. 'What do you mean to do?' I asked.

"'It is New Year's Eve,' he said grimly. 'The season of good wishes.