SYLVIA TELLS MORE THAN SHE KNOWS
Hilary Chayne stayed away from Dorsetshire for ten complete days; and
though the hours crept by, dilatory as idlers at a street corner, he
obtained some poor compensation by reflecting upon his fine diplomacy. In
less than a week he would surely be missed; by the time that ten days had
passed the sensation might have become simply poignant. So for ten days
he wandered about the Downs of Sussex with an aching heart, saying the
while, "It serves her right." On the morning of the eleventh he received
a letter from the War Office, bidding him call on the following
afternoon.
"That will just do," he said. "I will go down to Weymouth to-day, and I
will return to London to-morrow." And with an unusual lightness of
spirit, which he ascribed purely to his satisfaction that he need punish
Sylvia no longer, he started off upon his long journey. He reached the
house of the Running Water by six o'clock in the evening; and at the
outset it seemed that his diplomacy had been sagacious.
He was shown into the library, and opposite to him by the window
Sylvia stood alone. She turned to him a white terror-haunted face,
gazed at him for a second like one dazed, and then with a low cry of
welcome came quickly toward him. Chayne caught her outstretched hands
and all his joy at her welcome lay dead at the sight of her distress.
"Sylvia!" he exclaimed in distress. He was hurt by it as he had never
thought to be hurt.
"I am afraid!" she said, in a trembling whisper. He drew her toward him
and she yielded. She stood close to him and very still, touching him,
leaning to him like a frightened child. "Oh, I am afraid," she repeated;
and her voice appealed piteously for sympathy and a little kindness.
In Chayne's mind there was suddenly painted a picture of the ice-slope on
the Aiguille d'Argentière. A girl had moved from step to step, across
that slope, looking down its steep glittering incline without a tremor.
It was the same girl who now leaned to him and with shaking lips and eyes
tortured with fear cried, "I am afraid." By his recollection of that day
upon the heights Chayne measured the greatness of her present trouble.
"Why, Sylvia? Why are you afraid?"
For answer she looked toward the open window. Chayne followed her glance
and this was what he saw: The level stretch of emerald lawn, the stream
running through it and catching in its brown water the red light of the
evening sun, the great beech trees casting their broad shadows, the high
garden walls with the dusky red of their bricks glowing amongst fruit
trees, and within that enclosure pacing up and down, in and out among the
shadows of the trees, Garratt Skinner and Walter Hine. Yet that sight she
must needs have seen before. Why should it terrify her beyond reason now?
"Do you see?" Sylvia said in a low troubled voice. For once distress had
mastered her and she spoke without her usual reticence. "There can be no
friendship between those two. No real friendship! You have but to see
them side by side to be sure of it. It is pretence."
Yet that too she must have known before. Why then should the pretence now
so greatly trouble her? Chayne watched the two men pacing in the garden.
Certainly he had never seen them in so intimate a comradeship. Garratt
Skinner had passed his arm through Walter Hine's and held him so, plying
him with stories, bending down his keen furrowed aquiline face toward him
as though he had no thought in the world but to make him his friend and
bind him with affection; and Walter Hine looked up and listened and
laughed, a vain, weak wisp of a creature, flattered to the skies and
defenceless as a rabbit.
"Why the pretence?" said Sylvia. "Why the linked arms? The pretence has
grown during these last days. What new thing is intended?" Her eyes were
on the garden, and as she looked it seemed that her terror grew. "My
father went away a week ago. Since he has returned the pretence has
increased. I am afraid! I am afraid!"
Garratt Skinner turned in his walk and led Walter Hine back toward the
house. Sylvia shrank from his approach as from something devilish. When
he turned again, she drew her breath like one escaped from sudden peril.
"Sylvia! Of what are you afraid?"
"I don't know!" she cried. "That's just the trouble. I don't know!" She
clenched her hands together at her breast. Chayne caught them in his and
was aware that in one shut palm she held something which she concealed.
Her clasp tightened upon it as his hands touched hers. Sylvia had more
reason for her fears than she had disclosed. Barstow came no more. There
were no more cards, no more bets; and this change taken together with
Garratt Skinner's increased friendship added to her apprehensions. She
dreaded some new plot more sinister, more terrible than that one of which
she was aware.
"If only I knew," she cried. "Oh, if only I knew!"
Archie Parminter had paid one visit to the house, had stayed for one
night; and he and Garratt Skinner and Walter Hine had sat up till
morning, talking together in the library. Sylvia waking up from a fitful
sleep, had heard their voices again and again through the dark hours; and
when the dawn was gray, she had heard them coming up to bed as on the
first night of her return; and as on that night there was one who
stumbled heavily. It was since that night that terror had distracted her.
"I have no longer any power," she said. "Something has happened to
destroy my power. I have no longer any influence. Something was done upon
that night," and she shivered as though she guessed; and she looked at
her clenched hand as though the clue lay hidden in its palm. There lay
her great trouble. She had lost her influence over Walter Hine. She had
knowledge of the under side of life--yes, but her father had a greater
knowledge still. He had used his greater knowledge. Craftily and with a
most ingenious subtlety he had destroyed her power, he had blunted her
weapons. Hine was attracted by Sylvia, fascinated by her charm, her
looks, and the gentle simplicity of her manner. Very well. On the other
side Garratt Skinner had held out a lure of greater attractions, greater
fascination; and Sylvia was powerless.
"He has changed," Sylvia went on, with her eyes fixed on Walter Hine.
"Oh, not merely toward me. He has changed physically. Can you understand?
He has grown nervous, restless, excitable, a thing of twitching limbs.
Oh, and that's not all. I will tell you. This morning it seemed to me
that the color of his eyes had changed."
Chayne stared at her. "Sylvia!" he exclaimed.
"Oh, I have not lost my senses," she answered, and she resumed: "I only
noticed that there was an alteration at first. I did not see in what the
alteration lay. Then I saw. His eyes used to be light in color. This
morning they were dark. I looked carefully to make sure, and so I
understood. The pupils of his eyes were so dilated that they covered the
whole eyeball. Can you think why?" and even as she asked, she looked at
that clenched hand of hers as though the answer to that question as well
lay hidden there. "I am afraid," she said once more; and upon that Chayne
committed the worst of the many indiscretions which had signalized his
courtship.
"You are afraid? Sylvia! Then let me take you away!"
At once Sylvia drew back. Had Chayne not spoken, she would have told him
all that there was to tell. She was in the mood at this unguarded moment.
She would have told him that during these last days Walter Hine had taken
to drink once more. She would have opened that clenched fist and showed
the thing it hid, even though the thing condemned her father beyond all
hope of exculpation. But Chayne had checked her as surely as though he
had laid the palm of his hand upon her lips. He would talk of love and
flight, and of neither had she any wish to hear. She craved with a great
yearning for sympathy and a little kindness. But Chayne was not content
to offer what she needed. He would add more, and what he added marred the
whole gift for Sylvia. She shook her head, and looking at him with a sad
and gentle smile, said:
"Love is for the happy people."
"That is a hard saying, Sylvia," Chayne returned, "and not a true one."
"True to me," said Sylvia, with a deep conviction, and as he advanced to
her she raised her hand to keep him off. "No, no," she cried, and had he
listened, he might have heard a hint of exasperation in her voice. But he
would not be warned.
"You can't go on, living here, without sympathy, without love, without
even kindness. Already it is evident. You are ill, and tired. And you
think to go on all your life or all your father's life. Sylvia, let me
take you away!"
And each unwise word set him further and further from his aim. It seemed
to her that there was no help anywhere. Chayne in front of her seemed to
her almost as much her enemy as her father, who paced the lawn behind her
arm in arm with Walter Hine. She clasped her hands together with a quick
sharp movement.
"I will not let you take me away," she cried. "For I do not love you";
and her voice had lost its gentleness and grown cold and hard. Chayne
began again, but whether it was with a renewal of his plea, she did not
hear. For she broke in upon him quickly:
"Please, let me finish. I am, as you said, a little over-wrought! Just
hear me out and leave me to bear my troubles by myself. You will make it
easier for me"; she saw that the words hurt her lover. But she did not
modify them. She was in the mood to hurt. She had been betrayed by her
need of sympathy into speaking words which she would gladly have
recalled; she had been caught off her guard and almost unawares; and she
resented it. Chayne had told her that she looked ill and tired; and she
resented that too. No wonder she looked tired when she had her father
with his secret treacheries on one side and an importunate lover upon
the other! She thought for a moment or two how best to put what she had
still to stay:
"I have probably said to you," she resumed, "more than was right or
fair--I mean fair to my father. I have no doubt exaggerated things. I
want you to forget what I have said. For it led you into a mistake."
Chayne looked at her in perplexity.
"A mistake?"
"Yes," she answered. She was standing in front of him with her forehead
wrinkled and a somber, angry look in her eyes. "A mistake which I must
correct. You said that I was living here without kindness. It is not
true. My father is kind!" And as Chayne raised his eyes in a mute
protest, she insisted on the word. "Yes, kind and thoughtful--thoughtful
for others besides myself." A kind of obstinacy forced her on to enlarge
upon the topic. "I can give you an instance which will surprise you."
"There is no need," Chayne said, gently, but Sylvia was implacable.
"But there is need," she returned. "I beg you to hear me. When my father
and I were at Weymouth we drove one afternoon across the neck of the
Chesil beach to Portland."
Chayne looked at Sylvia quickly.
"Yes?" he said, and there was an indefinable change in his voice. He had
consented to listen, because she wished it. Now he listened with a keen
attention. For a strange thought had crept into his mind.
"We drove up the hill toward the plateau at the top of the island, but as
we passed through the village--Fortune's Well I think they call it--my
father stopped the carriage at a tobacconist's, and went into the shop.
He came out again with some plugs of tobacco--a good many--and got into
the carriage. You won't guess why he bought them. I didn't."
"Well?" said Chayne, and now he spoke with suspense. Suspense, too, was
visible in his quiet attitude. There was a mystery which for Sylvia's
sake he wished to unravel. Why did Gabriel Strood now call himself
Garratt Skinner? That was the mystery. But he must unravel it without
doing any hurt to Sylvia. He could not go too warily--of that he had been
sure, ever since Kenyon had refused to speak of it. There might be some
hidden thing which for Sylvia's sake must not be brought to light.
Therefore he must find out the truth without help from any one. He
wondered whether unconsciously Sylvia herself was going to give him the
clue. Was she to tell him what she did not know herself--why Gabriel
Strood was now Garratt Skinner? "Well?" he repeated.
"As we continued up the hill," she resumed, "my father cut up the tobacco
into small pieces with his pocket knife. 'Why are you doing that?' I
asked, and he laughed and said, 'Wait, you will see.' At the top of the
hill we got out of the carriage and walked across the open plateau. In
front of us, rising high above a little village, stood out a hideous
white building. My father asked if I knew what it was. I said I guessed."
"It was the prison," Chayne interrupted, quickly.
"Yes."
"You went to it?"
Upon the answer to the question depended whether or no Chayne was to
unravel his mystery, to-day.
"No," replied Sylvia, and Chayne drew a breath. Had she answered "Yes,"
the suspicion which had formed within his mind must needs be set aside,
as clearly and finally disproved. Since she answered "No," the suspicion
gathered strength. "We went, however, near to it. We went as close to it
as the quarries. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and as we came to
the corner of the wall which surrounds the quarries, my father said,
'They have stopped work now.'"
"He knew that?" asked Chayne.
"Yes. We turned into a street which runs down toward the prison. On one
side are small houses, on the other the long wall of the Government
quarries. The street was empty; only now and then--very seldom--some one
passed along it. On the top of the wall, there were sentry-boxes built at
intervals, for the warders to overlook the convicts. But these were empty
too. The wall is not high; I suppose--in fact my father said--the quarry
was deep on the other side."
"Yes," said Chayne, quietly. "And then?"
"Then we walked slowly along the street, and whenever there was no one
near, my father threw some tobacco over the wall. 'I don't suppose they
have a very enjoyable time,' he said. 'They will be glad to find the
tobacco there to-morrow.' We walked up the street and turned and came
back, and when we reached the corner he said with a laugh, 'That's all,
Sylvia. My pockets are empty.' We walked back to the carriage and drove
home again to Weymouth."
Sylvia had finished her story, and the mystery was clear to Chayne. She
had told him the secret which she did not know herself. He was sure now
why Gabriel Strood had changed his name; he knew now why Gabriel Strood
no longer climbed the Alps; and why Kenyon would answer no question as to
the disappearance of his friend.
"I have told you this," said Sylvia, "because you accused my father of
unkindness and want of thought. Would you have thought of those poor
prisoners over there in the quarries? If you had, would you have taken so
much trouble just to give them a small luxury? I think they must have
blessed the unknown man who thought for them and showed them what so many
want--a little sympathy and a little kindness."
Chayne bowed his head.
"Yes," he said, gently. "I was unjust."
Indeed even to himself he acknowledged that Garratt Skinner had shown an
unexpected kindness, although he was sure of the reason for the act. He
had no doubt that Garratt Skinner had labored in those quarries himself,
and perhaps had himself picked up in bygone days, as he stooped over his
work, tobacco thrown over the walls by some more fortunate man.
"I am glad you acknowledge that," said Sylvia, but her voice did not
relent from its hostility. She stood without further word, expecting him
to take his leave. Chayne recollected with how hopeful a spirit he had
traveled down from London. His fine diplomacy had after all availed him
little. He had gained certainly some unexpected knowledge which convinced
him still more thoroughly that the sooner he took Sylvia away from her
father and his friends the better it would be. But he was no nearer to
his desire. It might be that he was further off than ever.
"You are returning to London?" she asked.
"Yes. I have to call at the War Office to-morrow."
Sylvia had no curiosity as to that visit. She took no interest in it
whatever, he noticed with a pang.
"And then?" she asked slowly, as she crossed the hall with him to the
door. "You will go home?"
Chayne smiled rather bitterly.
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Into Sussex?"
"Yes."
She opened the door, and as he came out on to the steps she looked at him
with a thoughtful scrutiny for a few moments. But whether her thoughts
portended good or ill for him, he could not tell.
"When I was a boy," he said abruptly, "I used to see from the garden of
my house, far away in a dip of the downs, a dark high wall standing up
against the sky. I never troubled myself as to how it came to have been
built there. But I used to wonder, being a boy, whether it could be
scaled or no. One afternoon I rode my pony over to find out, and I
discovered--What do you think?--that my wall was a mere hedge just three
feet high, no more."
"Well!" said Sylvia.
"Well, I have not forgotten--that's all," he replied.
"Good-by," she said, and he learned no more from her voice than he had
done from her looks. He walked away down the lane, and having gone a few
yards he looked back. Sylvia was still standing in the doorway, watching
him with grave and thoughtful eyes. But there was no invitation to him to
return, and turning away again he walked on.
Sylvia went up-stairs to her room. She unclenched her hand at last. In
its palm there lay a little phial containing a colorless solution. But
there was a label upon the phial, and on the label was written "cocaine."
It was that which had struck at her influence over Walter Hine. It was to
introduce this drug that Archie Parminter had been brought down from
London and the West End clubs.
"It's drunk a good deal in a quiet way," Archie had said, as he made a
pretence himself to drink it.
"You leave such drugs to the aristocracy, Walter," Garratt Skinner had
chimed in. "Just a taste if you like. But go gently."
Sylvia had not been present. But she conjectured the scene, and her
conjecture was not far from the truth. But why? she asked, and again fear
took hold of her. "What was to be gained?" There were limits to Sylvia's
knowledge of the under side of life. She did not guess.
She turned to her mirror and looked at herself. Yes, she looked tired,
she looked ill. But she was not grateful for having the fact pointed out
to her. And while she still looked, she heard her father's voice calling
her. She shivered, as though her fear once more laid hold on her. Then
she locked the bottle of cocaine away in a drawer and ran lightly down
the stairs.