The man went off with an ill grace, while Mary waited by the entrance, turning her back on the little group of men who stood by the fire and stared. Among them she recognized the dealer and the little lynx-eyed man.
She was aware of a sudden sense of foreboding. In a few moments the servant returned with a tray of glasses, which he distributed among the company by the fire, and later he appeared again with cake and ham. He took no more notice of Mary, and only when she called to him for the third time did he come towards her. "I'm sorry," he said; "we've plenty here tonight without wasting our time over people from the fair. There's no man here by the name of Merlyn. I've asked outside, and nobody had heard of him."
Mary turned at once for the door, but the lynx-eyed man was there before her. "If it's the dark gypsy fellow who tried to sell my partner a pony this afternoon, I can tell you about him," he said, smiling wide, and showing a row of broken teeth. Laughter broke out from the group by the fire.
She looked from one to the other. "What have you to say?" she said.
"He was in the company of a gentleman barely ten minutes ago," returned the lynx-eyed man, still smiling, and looking her up and down, "and with the help of some of us he was persuaded to enter a carriage that was waiting at the door. He was inclined to resist us at first, but a look from the gentleman appeared to decide him. No doubt you know what became of the black pony? The price he was asking was undoubtedly high."
His remark brought forth a fresh burst of laughter from the group by the fire. Mary stared steadily at the little lynx-eyed man.
"Do you know where he went?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders, and pulled a mock face of pity.
"His destination is unknown to me," he said, "and I regret to say that your companion left no message of farewell. However, it is Christmas Eve, the night is young yet, and you can see for yourself it's no weather to remain outside. If you care to wait here until your friend chooses to return, myself and the rest of these gentlemen will be delighted to entertain you."
He laid a limp hand on her shawl. "What a blackguard the fellow must be to desert you," he said smoothly. "Come in and rest, and forget him."
Mary turned her back on him without a word and passed out through the door once more. As it closed behind her she caught the echo of his laughter.
She stood in the deserted market square with the gusty wind and scattered showers of rain for company. So the worst had happened, and the theft of the pony had been discovered. There was no other explanation. Jem had gone. Stupidly she stared before her at the dark houses, wondering what was the punishment for theft. Did they hang men for that as well as murder? She felt ill in body, as though someone had beaten her, and her brain was in confusion. She could see nothing clearly, she could make no plans. She supposed that Jem was lost to her now anyway, and she would never see him again. The brief adventure was over. For the moment she was stunned, and, hardly knowing that she did so, she began to walk aimlessly across the square towards the castle hill. If she had consented to stay in Launceston this would never have happened. They would have gone from the shelter of the doorway and found a room in the town somewhere; she would have been beside him, and they would have loved one another.
And, even if he had been caught in the morning, they would have had those hours alone. Now that he was gone from her, mind and body cried out in bitterness and resentment, and she knew how much she had wanted him. It was her fault that he had been taken, and she could do nothing for him. No doubt they would hang him for this; he would die like his father before him. The castle wall frowned down upon her and the rain ran in rivulets beside the road. There was no beauty left in Launceston anymore; it was a grim, gray, hateful place, and every bend in the road hinted at disaster. She stumbled along with the mizzling rain driving in her face, caring little where she went, and careless of the fact that eleven long miles lay between her and her bedroom at Jamaica Inn. If loving a man meant this pain and anguish and sickness, she wanted none of it. It did away with sanity and composure, and made havoc of courage. She was a babbling child now when once she had been indifferent and strong. The steep hill rose before her. They had clattered down it in the afternoon; she remembered the gnarled tree-trunk at the gap in the hedge. Jem had whistled, and she had sung snatches of song. Suddenly she came to her senses, and faltered in her steps. It was madness to walk any further; the road stretched like a white ribbon in front of her and two miles of it would bring exhaustion in this wind and rain.
She turned again on the slope of the hill, with the winking lights of the town beneath her. Someone perhaps would give her a bed for the night, or a blanket on the floor. She had no money; they would have to trust her for payment. The wind tore at her hair, and the small stunted trees bowed and curseyed before it. It would be a wild, wet dawn to Christmas Day.
She went away down the road, driven like a leaf before the wind, and out of the darkness she saw a carriage crawling up the hill towards her. It looked like a beetle, stubby and black, and its progress was slow, with the full force of the weather against it. She watched it with dull eyes; the sight conveyed no message to her brain, except that somewhere on an unknown road Jem Merlyn traveled to his death perhaps by the same manner. The carriage had crept up to her and was passing by, before she ran towards it on an impulse and called to the driver wrapped in a greatcoat on the seat. "Are you taking the Bodmin road?" she cried. "Have you a passenger inside?" The driver shook his head and whipped on his horse, but before Mary could step aside an arm came out of the carriage window, and a hand was laid on her shoulder. "What does Mary Yellan do alone in Launceston on Christmas Eve?" said a voice from within.
The hand was firm, but the voice was gentle. A pale face stared at her from the dark interior of the carriage: white hair and white eyes beneath the black shovel-hat. It was the vicar of Altarnun.
10
She watched his profile in the half-light; sharp it was and clear, the prominent thin nose thrust downward like the curved beak of a bird. His lips were narrow and colorless, pressed firm together, and he leaned forward with his chin resting on a long ebony cane that he held between his knees.
For the moment she could see nothing of his eyes; they were veiled by the short white lashes; and then he turned in his seat and considered her, his lashes fluttering, and the eyes that looked upon her were white also, transparent and expressionless as glass.
"So we ride together for the second time," he said, and his voice was soft and low, like the voice of a woman. "Once more I have the good fortune to help you by the wayside. You are wet through to the skin; you had better take off your clothes." He stared at her with cold indifference, and she struggled in some confusion with the pin that clasped her shawl.
"There is a dry rug here that will serve you for the rest of the journey," he continued. "As for your feet, they will be better bare. This carriage is comparatively free from draft."
Without a word she slipped out of her soaking shawl and bodice and wrapped herself in the coarse hair blanket that he held out to her. Her hair fell from its band and hung like a curtain about her bare shoulders. She felt like a child that has been caught on an escapade, and now sat with hands folded meekly together, obedient to the master's word.
"Well?" he said, looking gravely upon her, and she found herself at once stumbling into an explanation of her day. As before at Altarnun, there was something about him that made her untrue to herself, made her sound like a fool and an ignorant country girl, for her story was poor telling and she came out of it badly--just another woman who had cheapened herself at Launceston fair and had been left by the man of her choice to find her way home alone. She was ashamed to mention Jem by name, and she introduced him lamely as a man who lived by breaking horses, and whom she had met once when wandering on the moor. And now there had been some trouble in Launceston over the sale of a pony, and she feared he had been caught in some dishonesty.
She wondered what Francis Davey must think of her, riding t
o Launceston with a casual acquaintance, and then losing her companion in disgrace and running about the town bedraggled and wet after nightfall, like a woman of the streets. He heard her to the end in silence, and she heard him swallow once or twice, a trick she remembered.
"So you have not been too lonely after all?" he said at length. "Jamaica Inn was not so isolated as you supposed?"
Mary flushed in the darkness, and, though he could not see her face, she knew that his eyes were upon her, and she felt guilty, as though she had done wrong and this was an accusation.
"What was the name of your companion?" he asked quietly; and she hesitated a moment, awkward and uncomfortable, her sense of guilt stronger than ever.
"He was my uncle's brother," she replied, aware of the reluctance in her voice, the admission dragging from her like a confession.
Whatever his opinion of her had been hitherto, he was unlikely to raise it after this. Barely a week had passed since she had called Joss Merlyn a murderer, and yet she had ridden from Jamaica Inn with his brother without compunction, a common barmaid who would see the fun of the fair.
"You think ill of me, of course," she went on hurriedly. "Mistrusting and loathing my uncle as I do, it was hardly in keeping to make a confidant of his brother. He is dishonest and a thief, I know that; he told me as much at the beginning; but beyond that..." Her words trailed off with some uncertainty. After all, Jem had denied nothing; he had made little or no attempt to defend himself when she accused him. And now she ranged herself on his side, she defended him instead, without reason and against her sane judgment, bound to him already because of his hands upon her and a kiss in the dark.
"You mean the brother knows nothing of the landlord's trade by night?" continued the gentle voice at her side. "He is not of the company who bring the wagons to Jamaica Inn?"
Mary made a little gesture of despair. "I don't know," she said; "I have no proof. He admits nothing; he shrugs his shoulders. But he told me one thing: that he had never killed a man. And I believed him. I still believe him. He said also that my uncle was running straight into the hands of the law, and they would catch him before long. He surely would not say that if he was one of the company."
She spoke now to reassure herself rather than the man at her side, and Jem's innocence became suddenly of vital importance.
"You told me before you had some acquaintance with the squire," she said quickly. "Perhaps you have influence with him too. You could no doubt persuade him to deal mercifully with Jem Merlyn when the time comes? After all, he is young; he could start life afresh; it would be easy enough for you in your position."
His silence was an added humiliation, and, feeling those cold white eyes upon her, she knew what a little graceless fool he must think her, and how feminine. He must see that she was pleading for a man who had kissed her once, and that he despised her went without saying.
"My acquaintance with Mr. Bassat of North Hill is of the slightest," he told her gently. "Once or twice we have given one another good afternoon, and we have spoken of matters relating to our respective parishes. It is hardly likely that he should spare a thief because of me, especially if the thief is guilty and happens to be the brother of the landlord of Jamaica Inn."
Mary said nothing. Once again this strange man of God had spoken words of logic and wisdom, and there was no argument in reply. But she was caught in the sudden fever of love that devastates reason and makes havoc of logic, therefore his words acted as an irritant and created fresh turmoil in her brain.
"You appear anxious for his safety?" he said; and she wondered whether it was mockery she heard in his voice, or reproof, or understanding; but quick as a flash of lightning he continued: "And if your new friend was guilty of other things, of conspiring with his brother against the belongings and perhaps the lives of his fellow-men, what then, Mary Yellan? Would you still seek to save him?" She felt his hand upon hers, cool and impersonal; and, because she was on edge after the excitement of the day, and was both frightened and frustrated in one, and loved a man against her judgment who was now lost to her through her own fault, she broke down, and began to rave like a child deprived.
"I didn't bargain for this," she said fiercely. "I could face the brutality of my uncle, and the pathetic dumb stupidity of Aunt Patience; even the silence and the horror of Jamaica Inn itself could be borne without shrinking and running away. I don't mind being lonely. There's a certain grim satisfaction in this struggle with my uncle that emboldens me at times, and I feel I'll have the better of him in the long run, whatever he says or does. I'd planned to take my aunt away from him, and see justice done, and then, when it was all over, to find work on a farm somewhere, and live a man's life, like I used to do. But now I can't look ahead anymore; I can't make plans or think for myself; I go round and round in a trap, all because of a man I despise, who has nothing to do with my brain or my understanding. I don't want to love like a woman or feel like a woman, Mr. Davey; there's pain that way, and suffering, and misery that can last a lifetime. I didn't bargain for this; I don't want it."
She leaned back, her face against the side of the carriage, worn out by her torrent of words and already ashamed of her outburst. She did not care what he thought of her now. He was a priest, and therefore detached from her little world of storm and passion. He could have no knowledge of these things. She felt sullen and unhappy.
"How old are you?" he asked abruptly.
"Twenty-three," she told him.
She heard him swallow in the darkness, and, taking his hand away from hers, he placed it once more upon the ebony stick and sat in silence.
The carriage had climbed away from the Launceston valley and the shelter of the hedges and was now upon the high ground leading to the open moorland, exposed to the full force of the wind and the rain. The wind was continuous but the showers were intermittent, and now and again a wild star straggled furtively behind a low-sweeping cloud and hung for an instant like a pinprick of light. Then it would go, obscured and swept away by a black curtain of rain, and from the narrow window of the carriage nothing could be seen but the square dark patch of sky.
In the valley, the rain had fallen with greater steadiness, and the wind, though persistent, had been moderate in strength and checked in its passage by the trees and the contour of the hill. Here on the high ground there was no such natural shelter; there was nothing but the moor on either side of the road, and, above, the great black vault of the sky; and there was a scream in the wind that had not been before.
Mary shivered, and edged closer to her companion like a dog to his fellow. Still he said nothing, but she knew that he had turned and was looking down upon her, and for the first time she was aware of his proximity as a person; she could feel his breath on her forehead. She remembered that her wet shawl and bodice lay on the floor at her feet, and she was naked under her rough blanket. When he spoke again she realized how near he was to her, and his voice came as a shock, confusing suddenly, and unexpected.
"You are very young, Mary Yellan," he said softly; "you are nothing but a chicken with the broken shell still around you. You'll come through your little crisis. Women like you have no need to shed tears over a man encountered once or twice, and the first kiss is not a thing that is remembered. You will forget your friend with his stolen pony very soon. Come now, dry your eyes; you are not the first to bite your nails over a lost lover."
He made light of her problem, and counted it as a thing of no account; that was her first reaction to his words. And then she wondered why he had not used the conventional phrases of comfort, said something about the blessing of prayer, the peace of God, and life everlasting. She remembered that last ride with him, when he had whipped his horse into a fever of speed, and how he had crouched in his seat, with the reins in his hands; and he had whispered words under his breath she had not understood. Again she felt something of the same discomfort she had experienced then; a sensation of uneasiness that she connected instinctively with his freak hair and eye
s, as though his physical departure from normality was a barrier between him and the rest of the world. In the animal kingdom a freak was a thing of abhorrence, at once hunted and destroyed, or driven out into the wilderness. No sooner had she thought of this than she reproached herself as narrow and un-Christian. He was a fellow-creature and a priest of God; but as she murmured an apology to him for having made a fool of herself before him, and talking like a common girl from the streets, she reached for her clothes and began to draw them on furtively under cover of the blanket.
"So I was right in my surmise, and all has been quiet at Jamaica Inn since I saw you last?" he said after a while, following some train of thought. "There have been no wagons to disturb your beauty-sleep, and the landlord has played alone with his glass and his bottle?"
Mary, still fretful and anxious, with her mind on the man she had lost, brought herself back to reality with an effort. She had forgotten her uncle for nearly ten hours. At once she remembered the full horror of the past week, and the new knowledge that had come to her. She thought of the interminable sleepless nights, the long days she had spent alone, and the staring bloodshot eyes of her uncle swung before her again, his drunken smile, his groping hands.