But on the fifth day Perry came to him and waved the document in his face.
‘Well, boy, we were blown off our course a bit that time. I could see it myself when I read it, but I thought ’twould be fairer not to tell you until old man Cowdray had cast his optics over it, see?’
‘What is it?’
‘I told your aunt. I thought it for the best after all. I thought it not important, but I thought it for the best. We took it to old Cowdray. It’s what I guessed. It’s a copy of the Will we already have. Just the same, word for word. See, look for yourself.’
Anthony took the document and unfolded it quietiy.
‘Folk usually keep a copy for themselves. Solicitor makes it out same time as the original. It’s for reference, d’you see?’
Anthony read through the first part of the Will. ‘Yes, but …’ He broke off, keenly aware that his uncle was watching him while pretending not to. ‘But if it was just a copy like this, why should he put it behind the picture?’ His intended question had been something quite different.
Perry chuckled and lit his pipe. ‘Come to that, why put anything there at all, where like as not it would never be found? You didn’t know Joe as I did, boy. He’d got the mind of a squirrel. Liked hiding things. Some folk do. There was a man I knew in ’ Frisco. When he died they found he’d papered his bedroom with dollar bills and stuck a wallpaper over them. Might never have been discovered but the man who took his room noticed a bit peeling. Friend found him two days later, room full of steam, three kettles going, still busy. When you’ve seen as much of the world as I have, boy, you’ll know it takes all sorts.’
‘Yes,’ said Anthony.
‘How was it you said you came to know of the hiding-place, did you say?’
Anthony tried quickly to remember what he had said. ‘Uncle Joe showed me. One day – I was in there, you see, and he showed me how it worked, just for fun.’
‘Was there anything in there then?’
‘I’m – not sure. I think – He said he sometimes put things in there.’
‘Well, ’twas a good thought to try.’ Perry chuckled again, but his mouth twitched. ‘A bright idea, if you follow me. I wonder you didn’t think of it before, though. I suppose you’d have given it to Aunt Madge if I hadn’t come up and frightened the wits out of you?’
‘Yes … I … I’d hardly thought. I didn’t really expect to find anything, you see.’
Perry seemed satisfied. ‘ Well, pity it wasn’t a deed of gift making over to us a thousand pounds, what?’ He dug him in the ribs again where he knew him to be most ticklish. ‘A thousand pounds each. Then we’d have gone off on the spree, just the two of us together, boy. How would that suit?’
‘Fine,’ said Anthony quietly.
‘We’d go off to Marseilles and Alexandria; those are the places for a good time cheap. I knew a girl once … And then we’d go across the Atlantic to Canada. We wouldn’t wait for your old father to send for you; we’d go and find him. That would give him a shock, wouldn’t it? We’d turn up at his camp one day, just when he came back from his diggings, and somebody’d say: “ Dick, here’s a young man called to see you,” and he’d say: “I wonder who in tarnation that can be?” And he’d go inside and you’d be standing there waiting for him …’
There was a good deal more of this before the conversation ended. Perry was trying to divert the boy’s mind and partly succeeding. While something in him rejected the vision as a spurious one, Anthony was yet beguiled by it because it approached so near to many he had had himself. The mood in which he fell in with Uncle Perry’s clumsy romancing and laughed at his jokes was therefore only partly assumed; and Perry the deceiver was himself deceived.
Never in his life would Anthony quite regain the frankness and freedom of manner he had lost during his stay with the Veals, that fresh, clear-eyed candour which feared nothing and withheld nothing. Always there would remain as a mark of these days a hint of reserve which would make him a little difficult to know. People would say of him: ‘He’s charming, but hard to understand’; and they would never know that they were reaching back into an untidy kitchen of Victorian days with Perry manoeuvring and bluffing and pushing back his hair and Aunt Madge’s shadow in the doorway, and the water lapping against the old stone quay outside.
Chapter Twenty Two
Further delay, the boy felt, would not help him or anyone else. Already he was greatly to blame for having waited so long. He must move at once.
He did not know where Maenporth was, but he slipped out just before supper and asked Jack Robbins, who told him that it was a few miles beyond Swanpool.
That evening there were visitors to supper: Captain Stevens of The Grey Cat and Captain Shaw of Lavengro, which had come in a couple of days after the other ship. They were both due to leave again soon, and Aunt Madge had shaken herself out of her sloth and cooked them a supper reminiscent of the restaurant in its best days. But this was even better because it was free and Joe had always charged them full price.
Captain Shaw, a fat man with a trace of Mongol blood in him, grew expansive with the wine and began to pay Aunt Madge extravagant compliments which she lapped up like a dignified tabby offered a bowl of cream. Then, having made himself popular, he began to undo the good work by referring to Joe and the way he had starved his beloved ship; if they ever revictualled in Falmouth they always ran short of provisions and supplies before the voyage was done, and if they victualled at any other port Joe always complained of extravagance and took a percentage off the captain’s wages.
Aunt Madge was nothing if not jealous of her late husband’s reputation, and she began to look as if the cream had turned sour. Perry grinned and twitched and rumbled in the background like an extinct volcano, content it seemed to let someone else have the limelight and divert Madge’s attention from him.
Presently the party adjourned to the sitting-room upstairs, and Anthony went with them and sat and looked through another volume of The Quiver while they played whist. At nine-thirty he wished them all good night and went slowly up to bed.
He sat on his bed in the dark for fifteen minutes, and then picked up his shoes and came down again. Never since he had been here had anyone climbed the second flight of stairs to see if he was in bed – the fact that his light was out was deemed good enough – so he felt fairly safe in taking the chance. And if they had gone to bed before he returned, as seemed probable, he knew a way of prising open the scullery window and there shouldn’t be much difficulty in wriggling his body through.
As he passed the parlour he heard Captain Shaw’s thick voice: ‘Aye, aye, Mrs Veal, I grant you that. But how was I to know ye had the ace?’
He slipped out through the back door and was rather upset to find a thin mist lying over the river. There would in any case be no moon tonight, and he had hoped the stars would be out. At present the mist lay on the water more than over the town, but as the night advanced it might spread, and he had never been to Maenporth in his life.
All his cautious, baby instincts told him to give up the project; the thought of creeping upstairs again and sliding between the sheets suddenly became infinitely desirable; he could put the visit off until tomorrow when the weather might be better – or even until Saturday when Tom would be home at Penryn. He might go all the way and be unable to find the house. If the fog came down he might even lose his way and wander through the secret little lanes all night. Then the fat would be in the fire; if Aunt Madge knew he had been out she would take care that he didn’t go again. Better to return.
But there was growing up in Anthony already an obstinate dislike of being overborne by his weaker instincts. He quietly shut the door behind him and put on his mackintosh and cap and a scarf. In this life you had to do what you meant to do or else shrivel up in self-contempt.
He set off at a trot. The faster he moved the sooner he would be there, the sooner he was there the less chance there was of Tom’s being in bed, the sooner he was back the better pros
pect he had of slipping in before the door was locked.
Up Killigrew Street and across Western Terrace and down the hill to Swanpool. There were still plenty of lights about and a number of pedestrians. The grey mist began to move around him in waves, increasing when he got near the sea, but it was not a cold mist and he was soon perspiring. By the time he had passed the cemetery and reached the bottom of the hill it was bellows-to-mend, and he fell into a walk. The swans were asleep, hidden somewhere in the rushes, and ahead of him the waves cracked dismally and rattled on the pebbly beach. The sound was sad and old and impersonal, as if it spoke of creation and decay.
From the mouth of the little cove he mounted the next hill and thought he would never get to the top of it. Then by great good fortune he came upon a pony and trap turning out of a side lane.
‘Please, sir, is this the way to Maenporth?’ he called up into the darkness.
‘Ais, sonny. Straight acrost the moor, then down-along the hill and turn … Are ’ee going thur? Jump up, I’ll give’ee a lift.’
Anthony accepted the invitation, glad not only of the lift but of the company. The farmer was curious to know what a youngster like him was doing out past his bedtime, but he evaded a direct answer until they had gone down another steep hill and through a narrow thickly wooded lane which came out once again within sound of the sea.
‘Now, son, this is whar’ee do want to go. Down this yur path: that ’ouse nigh buried ’midst the trees: that’s Mrs Lanyon’s ’ouse. This old broom of a fog. See it now, do’ee? Tha’s a boy. Now, Emmie, ck, ck, come on, my ’andsome …’
Anthony walked down the dark, muddy lane towards where the gables of a sizeable house showed among the fir trees. The sigh of the sea was abruptly cut off by the dripping hedges as he walked up the short shingle drive and pulled the front-door bell.
There were lighted windows in the front of the house and a glimmer in the hall which increased as a uniformed maid turned up the lamp before opening the door.
‘Yes?’ she said.
‘Is Mr Tom Harris staying here, please?’
‘Well …’
‘Could I see him, please? He …’
‘He’s busy now. What do you want?’
‘Tell him it’s Anthony. He asked me to call.’
The maid hesitated, then opened the door. ‘You’d best come in. You’ll have to wait, I expect.’
With a sense of timidity the boy entered the hall and the maid turned the lamp up. Hunting trophies and a few shields came to view and peered down at him suspiciously. Then the maid went into a room on the left and he caught sight of a well-lit drawing-room and people sitting round on chairs. At the end of the room was a piano and several people standing up with violins and things.
She reappeared. ‘He said for you to wait. He said he’d not be long.’
‘Thank you.’ When he was alone he stopped twirling his cap and dropped it on a chair and sat on it. Wisps of fog had followed him into the hall. Then someone began to play the piano in the room. It was a pleasant sort of piece to listen to, not with any detectable tune but a lot of nice ripples running up and down, up and down, like the sea coming in on a sunny day.
The music suddenly became louder and was damped again as Tom Harris slid out of the room through the smallest gap he could make in the door. He came towards the boy smiling and handsome and gentlemanly in a black evening dress suit.
‘Hullo, Anthony; this is a surprise. Come in here. My sister’s having a musical evening. You’ve some news?’
He led the way into a small library, taking with him the hall lamp. Usually Anthony had seen him in tweeds, and he was suddenly struck by the different worlds in which Tom and Patricia revolved. Patricia had hinted as much to him, but he had never personally realised what she meant until now. Tom was a gentleman. Pat, although he had never known her to be the least bit common or vulgar, was not quite what the world at present understood as a lady. Tom had been brought up to find his pleasures in this sort of an evening: people dressed for dinner and having musical evenings and card parties and the rest. Pat had spent her evenings in the atmosphere of the restaurant. Even though she no longer did so the deeper differences remained. This was another gap between them, perhaps wider and deeper than their lovers’ quarrels.
Anthony did not reason all this out, for he hadn’t the time or the experience; what he sensed was the outlines of the difference, and, aware of himself as a connection of Pat’s, he felt the inferiority for her. Then he told his story, forgetting social complexes as he went on.
In silence Tom heard him out almost to the end.
‘Do you think he was lying to you this afternoon? What makes you sure? Did you read the document you found?’
‘Yes. It wasn’t the same.’
‘In what way did it differ?’
‘The Will I found seemed to leave the – the property nearly all to Pat. I think it just left the restaurant business to Aunt Madge, but I didn’t get a chance of reading it all through.’
‘Any other divergence?’
‘Di …’
‘Difference between what you found and what he showed you.’
‘Yes. Well … what I saw Uncle Joe put behind the picture and what Uncle Perry showed me can’t be the same thing. I saw Uncle Joe sign the other, and the captain and mate of the Lady Tregeagle witnessed it. The thing Uncle Perry showed me wasn’t signed or witnessed.’
‘I wish you’d told me this before, Anthony, before investigating yourself.’
‘I know … I know. Sorry.’ He could not quite explain the complex pull of loyalties which had made him reluctant to inform against his aunt in such a way as to make it obvious that he did not trust her.
‘You see we’ve nothing at all to go on. If the Will was as you say, they – well, they may have destroyed it. Then it’s only your word against his.’
‘But there’s the captain and mate of the Lady Tregeagle. I don’t know –’
‘When Lady Tregeagle left she was going to Alexandria. She may pick up another cargo there and be months returning. And, of course, their testimony proves very little without a document to back it up.’
‘But if they said –’
‘Yes, I know.’ Tom began to walk up and down the room. ‘ If the mate and captain of the Lady Tregeagle were prepared to swear that they had witnessed on such and such a date a Will made by Joe Veal, and you swore that you had found such a Will, your aunt would be in a very difficult position morally. But legally, without the document we could save our breath. Besides, Joe being so secretive as he was, it’s unlikely he told the captain and the mate what it was they were signing. I’m afraid, old boy, that there’s nothing to be done.’
Anthony stared up at the young solicitor as he turned from the window. All that day and for three days before, a conviction had burned in him that his actions of the other night had irrevocably destroyed his hopes of helping Pat. Tom’s attitude confirmed this. But the odd thing was that he felt Tom did not care. He remembered Tom’s attitude once before when he had seemed relieved that Pat had been cut out of her father’s Will. If Tom really loved Patricia he should be more concerned for her future than his own gain – even supposing that there would be any gain to him in Pat’s loss, which at present seemed unlikely. He personally might have made a complete failure of his attempt to help, but it was wrong to treat the news with indifference. After the excitement of stealing out of the house and the long run and the drive through the mist Anthony felt suddenly let down. He had brought news of vital importance; possibly he was too late with it, but the only chance of not being too late was to take some action at once. He had not stopped to reason what action could be taken: Tom would know that; the main thing was to get the information to him. Let Tom turn on him furiously now for his mistakes if he chose, but not treat the information as if it did not matter.
Harris stopped and looked at the boy with his intent brown eyes. ‘Does anyone else know of this?’
Anthony shook h
is head.
‘Do you think Perry knows you suspect him of lying?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Has he any idea that you’ve come here?’
‘Oh, no.’
‘Well, then, he mustn’t have. You realise that, Anthony. He mustn’t have any idea. We must keep this a dead secret between ourselves.’
‘What are you going to do?’
Tom shrugged. ‘What is there to do? I’ll make further inquiries, but it’s most essential that Perry shouldn’t know we’re suspicious. Do understand that. Because – because, you see, if he so much as suspects a thing the new Will, if it still exists, is likely to be burnt. Give him time, Anthony. There’s nothing to hurt for a day or two. Give him time.’
Faintly to their ears came the sound of applause as the pianist finished her second piece.
‘I’d better be going,’ said Anthony.
‘Has Patricia been over since I saw you last?’
‘No.’
Tom said: ‘You can’t walk straight back. I’ll get you some sandwiches and something to drink.’
He protested that he didn’t want anything, but Tom left the room and presently returned with a dish of tongue sandwiches and a cup of steaming coffee.
‘If you wait an hour,’ he said, ‘Mr and Mrs Vellenoweth will be driving back to Falmouth and can give you a lift.’
‘I’d rather go, Tom. You see, they might miss me. It’s not very far, and …’
‘Perhaps you’re right. It was sporting of you to come here like this. Will you have tea with me at Mount House next Sunday?’
He met Tom’s eyes for a moment. ‘Oh, I don’t suppose there’ll be anything fresh by then.’
‘Come, anyhow.’
‘I’ll try. Sometimes Aunt Madge wants me to go out with her.’
As Tom saw him to the door, string instruments could be heard tuning up in the drawing-room. Tom put a hand on his shoulder.