Jamaica Inn

"God Almighty, why did you go with them?" he said.

  "They were crazy with drink. I don't think they knew what they were doing. I could no more have stood against them than a child. There were a dozen of them or more, and my uncle... he led them. He and the pedlar. If you know about it, why do you ask me? Don't make me remember. I don't want to remember."

  "How much have they hurt you?"

  "Bruises, scratches--you can see for yourself. I tried to escape, and I grazed my side. They caught me again, of course. They bound my hands and feet down on the shore, and tied sacking over my mouth so that I could not scream. I saw the ship come through the mist, and I could do nothing--alone there in the wind and the rain. I had to watch them die."

  She broke off, her voice trembling, and she turned on her side, her face in her hands. He made no move towards her; he sat there silently on the bed beside her, and she felt him far from her, wrapped in secrecy.

  She was lonelier then than before.

  "Was it my brother who hurt you most?" he said presently.

  She sighed wearily. It was all too late and did not matter now.

  "I've told you he was drunk," she said. "You know, better than I perhaps, what he can do then."

  "Yes, I know." He paused a moment, and then once again he took her hand.

  "He shall die for this," he said.

  "His death will not bring back the men he killed."

  "I'm not thinking of them now."

  "If you're thinking of me, don't waste your sympathy. I can revenge myself in my own way. I've learned one thing at least--to rely on myself."

  "Women are frail things, Mary, for all their courage. You are best out of this business now. The issue lies with me."

  She did not answer him. Her plans were her own and he did not enter into them.

  "What do you intend to do?" he asked.

  "I have not made up my mind," she lied.

  "If he leaves tomorrow night, you have little to decide," he said.

  "He expects me to go with him, and Aunt Patience as well."

  "And you?"

  "That will depend upon tomorrow."

  Whatever she felt for him, she would not hazard her plans into his keeping. He was still an unknown quantity, and above all else an enemy to justice. It came to her then that by betraying her uncle she might also betray him.

  "If I ask you to do something, how would you answer me?" she said.

  He smiled then for the first time, mocking and indulgent, as he had done in Launceston, and her heart leaped to him at once, encouraged at the change.

  "How can I tell?" he said.

  "I want you to go away from here."

  "I'm going now."

  "No, I mean away from the moors, away from Jamaica Inn. I want you to tell me you won't return here again. I can stand up against your brother; I'm in no danger from him now. I don't want you to come here tomorrow. Please promise me you'll go away."

  "What have you got in your mind?"

  "Something which has no concern with you, but might bring you to danger. I can't say anymore. I would rather you trusted me."

  "Trust you? Good God, of course I trust you. It's you who won't trust me, you damned little fool." He laughed silently, and bent down to her, putting his arms round her, and he kissed her then as he had kissed her in Launceston, but deliberately now, with anger and exasperation.

  "Play your own game by yourself, then, and leave me to play mine," he told her. "If you must be a boy, I can't stop you, but for the sake of your face, which I have kissed, and shall kiss again, keep away from danger. You don't want to kill yourself, do you? I have to leave you now; it will be daylight within the hour. And if both our plans miscarry, what then? Would you mind if you never saw me again? No, of course you would not care."

  "I have not said so. You hardly understand."

  "Women think differently to men; they travel separate paths. That's why I have no liking for them; they make for trouble and confusion. It was pleasure enough to take you to Launceston, Mary, but when it comes to life and death, like my business now, God knows I wish you a hundred miles away, or sitting primly, your sewing in your lap, in a trim parlor somewhere, where you belong to be."

  "That's never been my life, nor ever will."

  "Why not? You'll wed a farmer one day, or small tradesman, and live respectably among your neighbors. Don't tell them you lived once at Jamaica Inn, and had love made to you by a horse-thief. They'd shut their doors against you. Good-bye, and here's prosperity to you."

  He rose from the bed and went towards the window, climbing through the gap he had broken in the pane; and, swinging his legs over the porch, with one hand on the blanket, he lowered himself to the ground.

  She watched him from the window, instinctively waving him farewell, but he had turned and gone without looking back at her, slipping across the yard like a shadow. Slowly she pulled up the blanket and replaced it on the bed. Morning would soon be here; she would not sleep again.

  She sat on her bed, waiting until her door should be unlocked; and she made her plans for the evening to come. She must not draw suspicion upon herself during the long day; she must act passively, sullenly perhaps, as though feeling had at last been stifled in her, and she was prepared to undertake the proposed journey with the landlord and Aunt Patience.

  Then, later, she would make some excuse--fatigue perhaps, a desire to rest in her room before the strain of the night journey--and then would come the most dangerous moment of her day. She would have to leave Jamaica Inn secretly and unobserved, and run like a hare to Altarnun. This time Francis Davey would understand; time would be against them, and he must act accordingly. She would then return to the inn, with his approval, and trust that her absence had remained unnoticed. This was the gamble. If the landlord went to her room and found her gone, her life would be worth nothing. She must be prepared for that. No excuse would save her then. But if he believed her to be sleeping still, then the game would continue. They would make preparations for the journey; they might even climb into the cart and come out upon the road; after that her responsibility would end. Their fate would be in the hands of the vicar of Altarnun. Beyond this she could not think, nor had she any great desire to look ahead.

  So Mary waited for the day; and, when it came, the long hours stretched interminably before her; every minute was an hour, and an hour a particle of eternity itself. The atmosphere of strain was apparent among them all. In silence, haggardly, they waited for the night. Little progress could be made during the light of day; intrusion was always possible. Aunt Patience wandered from the kitchen to her room, her footsteps pattering incessantly in the passage and on the stairs, as she made helpless and ineffectual preparations. She would make bundles of what poor clothes remained to her, and then undo them again, when the memory of some forgotten garment jogged her wandering mind. She pottered in the kitchen aimlessly, opening the cupboards, looking into drawers, and she fingered her pots and pans with restless fingers, incapable of deciding which to take and which to leave behind. Mary helped her as best she could, but the unreality of her task made it the more difficult; she knew, while her aunt did not, that all this labor was in vain.

  Her heart misgave her at times, when she allowed her thoughts to dwell upon the future. How would Aunt Patience act? How would she look when they came to take her husband from her? She was a child, and must be tended as a child. Again she pattered from the kitchen, climbing the stairs to her room, and Mary would hear her drag her box on the floor, pace up and down, up and down, as she wrapped a single candlestick in a shawl and put it side by side with a cracked teapot and a faded muslin cap, only to unwrap them again and discard them for treasures more ancient.

  Joss Merlyn would watch her moodily, cursing her in irritation now and again as she dropped something on the floor, or caught her foot and stumbled. His mood had changed again overnight. His watch in the kitchen had not improved his temper, and the very fact that the hours had been undisturbed and his visitor had not
come upon him made him if possible more restless than before. He roamed about the house, nervy and abstracted, muttering to himself at times, peering from the windows as though he expected to see someone come upon him unawares. His nerves reacted upon his wife and Mary. Aunt Patience watched him anxiously, and she too turned her eyes to the window, and would listen, her mouth working, her hands twisting and untwisting her apron.

  No sound came from the pedlar in the barred room, nor did the landlord go to him or mention him by name; and this silence was sinister in itself, strange and unnatural. Had the pedlar shouted obscenities, or thundered on the door, it would have been more in keeping with his character; but he lay there in the darkness without sound or movement, and for all her loathing of him Mary shuddered at the possibility of his death.

  At the midday meal they sat round the table in the kitchen, eating silently, furtively almost, and the landlord, who usually had the appetite of an ox, drummed moodily with his fingers on the table, the cold meat on his plate untouched. Once Mary lifted her eyes and saw him staring at her beneath shaggy brows. The wild fear ran through her mind that he suspected her, and had some knowledge of her plans. She had counted upon his high humor of the preceding night, and had been prepared to fall in with it, if necessary, answer banter with banter, setting up no opposition to his will. He sat sullen, though, wrapped in gloom, and this was a mood she had experienced before, and, she knew now, led to danger. At length she took courage in both hands and asked him what time he intended to leave Jamaica Inn.

  "When I am prepared," he told her shortly, and would say no more.

  She schooled herself to continue, though, and when she had helped to clear the meal away and, at her own suggestion, adding deceit upon deceit, had impressed upon her aunt the necessity of packing a basket of provisions against the journey, she turned to her uncle and spoke again.

  "If we are to travel tonight," she said, "would it not be better if Aunt Patience and myself rested now during the afternoon, and so could start out fresh upon the journey? There will be no sleep for any of us tonight. Aunt Patience has been upon her feet since daybreak, and I too, for that matter. We do little good, as far as I can see, waiting here for the dusk to fall." She kept her voice as casual as possible, but the tight band across her heart was a sign that she waited his answer with misgiving, and she could not look into his eyes. He debated the matter a moment, and to control her anxiety she turned away and pretended to fumble in the cupboard.

  "You may rest if you will," he said at length. "There'll be work for you both, later. You are right when you say there will be no sleep for you tonight. Go then; I shall be well rid of you for the time."

  The first step had been achieved, and Mary lingered awhile with her pretended work in the cupboard, fearing that haste to leave the kitchen should be judged suspicious. Her aunt, who acted always like a dummy to suggestion, followed her meekly upstairs when the time came, and padded along the further passage to her own room as an obedient child would do.

  Mary entered her own little room above the porch and closed the door, turning the key. Her heart beat fast at the prospect of adventure, and she could hardly tell whether excitement or fear had the mastery. It was close on four miles to Altarnun by the road, and she could walk the distance in an hour. If she left Jamaica Inn at four o'clock, when the light was failing, she would be back again soon after six; and the landlord would hardly come to rouse her before seven. She had three hours, then, in which to play her part, and she had already determined upon her method of departure. She would climb out onto the porch, and fall to the ground, as Jem had done this morning. The drop was an easy one, and she would escape with little more than a scratch and a jar to her nerves. At any rate, it would be safer to do this than to risk coming upon her uncle in the passage below. The heavy entrance-door would never open noiselessly, and to go through the bar would mean passing the open kitchen.

  She put on her warmest dress, and fastened her old shawl across her shoulders with trembling, hot hands. It was the enforced delay that irked her most. Once she was upon the road, the purpose of the walk would bring courage, and the very movement of her limbs would be a stimulant.

  She sat by the window, looking out upon the bare yard and the high road where no one ever passed, waiting for the clock in the hall below to strike four. When it sounded at last, the strokes rang out in the silence like an alarm, pounding her nerves; and, unlocking the door, she listened for a moment, hearing footsteps echo the strokes, and whispers in the air.

  It was imagination, of course; nothing moved. The clock ticked on into the next hour. Every second was precious to her now, and she must waste no time to be gone. She shut the door, locking it again, and went to the window. She crawled through the gap, as Jem had done, her hands on the sill, and in a moment she was astride the porch, looking down upon the ground.

  The distance seemed greater, now that she crouched above it, and she had no blanket to control her fall and let her swing, as he had done. The tiles of the porch were slippery, and gave no grip to hands or feet. She turned, clinging desperately to the security of the windowsill, that seemed desirable suddenly, and a thing well known; then she shut her eyes and launched herself into the air. Her feet found the ground almost immediately--the jump was nothing, as she had already foreseen--but the tiles had grazed her hands and arms and brought back to her again a vivid memory of her last fall, from the carriage in the gully-way beside the shore.

  She looked up at Jamaica Inn, sinister and gray in the approaching dusk, the windows barred; she thought of the horrors the house had witnessed, the secrets now embedded in its walls, side by side with the other old memories of feasting and firelight and laughter before her uncle cast his shadow upon it; and she turned away from it, as one turns instinctively from a house of the dead, and went out upon the road.

  The evening was fine--that at least favored her--and she strode out towards her destination with her eyes fixed upon the long white road that lay ahead. Dusk came as she walked, bringing shadows across the moors that lay on either side of her. Away to the left the high tors, shrouded at first in mist, were gathered to the darkness. It was very still. There was no wind. Later, there would be a moon. She wondered if her uncle had reckoned with this force of nature that would shine upon his plans. For herself it would not matter. Tonight she had no fear of the moors; they did not concern her. Her business was with the road. The moors lost their significance when unnoticed and untrodden; they loomed beyond her and away from her.

  She came at length to the Five Lanes, where the roads branched, and she turned to her left, down the steep hill of Altarnun. Excitement rose high within her now as she passed the twinkling cottage lights, and smelt the friendly smoke of chimneys. Here were neighborly sounds that had long been lost to her: the barking of a dog, the rustle of trees, the clank of a pail as a man drew water from a well. There were open doors, and voices from within. Chickens clucked beyond a hedge, and a woman called shrilly to a child, who answered with a cry. A cart lumbered past her into the shadows, and the driver gave her good evening. Here was a drowsy movement, a placidity and a peace; here were all the old village smells she knew and understood. She passed them by; and she went to the vicarage beside the church. There were no lights here. The house was shrouded and silent. The trees closed in upon it, and once again she was vividly aware of her first impression that this was a house that lived in its own past, and slept now, with no knowledge of the present. She hammered upon the door and she heard the blows echo through the empty house. She looked in through the windows, and her eyes met nothing but the soft and negative darkness.

  Then, cursing her stupidity, she turned back again towards the church. Francis Davey would be there, of course. It was Sunday. She hesitated a moment, uncertain of her movements, and then the gate opened and a woman came out into the road, carrying flowers.

  She stared hard at Mary, knowing her a stranger, and would have passed her by with a good night had not Mary turned and followe
d her.

  "Forgive me," she said; "I see you have come from the church. Can you tell me if Mr. Davey himself is there?"

  "No, he is not," said the woman; and then, after a moment, "Were you wishing to see him?"

  "Very urgently," said Mary. "I have been to his house, and I can get no answer. Can you help me?"

  The woman looked at her curiously, and then shook her head.

  "I am sorry," she said. "The vicar is from home. He went away today to preach at another parish, many miles from here. He is not expected back in Altarnun tonight."

  14

  At first Mary stared at the woman in disbelief. "Away from home?" she repeated. "But that is impossible. Surely you are mistaken?"

  Her confidence had been such that she rejected instinctively this sudden and fatal blow to her plans. The woman looked offended; she saw no reason why this stranger should doubt her word. "The vicar left Altarnun yesterday afternoon," she said. "He rode away after dinner. I ought to know, for I keep house for him."

  She must have seen something of the agony of disappointment in Mary's face, for she relented and spoke with kindness. "If there is any message you would like me to give him when he does return--" she began, but Mary shook her head hopelessly, spirit and courage gone from her in a moment with the news.

  "It will be too late," she said in despair. "This is a matter of life and death. With Mr. Davey gone, I don't know where I can turn."

  Once more a gleam of curiosity came into the woman's eyes. "Has someone been taken sick?" she enquired. "I could point you out where our doctor lives, if that would help you. Where have you come from tonight?"

  Mary did not answer. She was thinking desperately of some way out of the situation. To come to Altarnun and then return again without help to Jamaica Inn was impossible. She could not place confidence in the village people, nor would they believe her tale. She must find someone in authority--someone who knew something of Joss Merlyn and Jamaica Inn.

  "Who is the nearest magistrate?" she said at length.

  The woman puckered her brow and considered the question. "There's no one close by us here in Altarnun," she said doubtfully. "Why, the nearest would be Squire Bassat over to North Hill, and that must be over four miles from here--maybe more, maybe less. I cannot say for certain, for I have never been there. You surely would not walk out there tonight?"