.... I've made a new acquaintance. I was lying in the orchard, and
presently, not seeing me, he came along—a man of middle height, with
a singularly good balance, and no lumber—rather old blue clothes, a
flannel shirt, a dull red necktie, brown shoes, a cap with a leather
peak pushed up on the forehead. Face long and narrow, bronzed with a
kind of pale burnt-in brownness; a good forehead. A brown moustache,
beard rather pointed, blackening about the cheeks; his chin not visible,
but from the beard's growth must be big; mouth I should judge sensuous.
Nose straight and blunt; eyes grey, with an upward look, not exactly
frank, because defiant; two parallel furrows down each cheek, one
from the inner corner of the eye, one from the nostril; age perhaps
thirty-five. About the face, attitude, movements, something immensely
vital, adaptable, daring, and unprincipled.
He stood in front of the loggia, biting his fingers, a kind of
nineteenth-century buccaneer, and I wondered what he was doing in this
galley. They say you can tell a man of Kent or a Somersetshire man;
certainly you can tell a Yorkshire man, and this fellow could only have
been a man of Devon, one of the two main types found in this county. He
whistled; and out came Pasiance in a geranium-coloured dress, looking
like some tall poppy—you know the slight droop of a poppy's head, and
the way the wind sways its stem.... She is a human poppy, her fuzzy
dark hair is like a poppy's lustreless black heart, she has a poppy's
tantalising attraction and repulsion, something fatal, or rather
fateful. She came walking up to my new friend, then caught sight of me,
and stopped dead.
“That,” she said to me, “is Zachary Pearse. This,” she said to him, “is
our lodger.” She said it with a wonderful soft malice. She wanted to
scratch me, and she scratched. Half an hour later I was in the yard,
when up came this fellow Pearse.
“Glad to know you,” he said, looking thoughtfully at the pigs.
“You're a writer, aren't you?”
“A sort of one,” I said.
“If by any chance,” he said suddenly, “you're looking for a job, I could
put something in your way. Walk down to the beach with me, and I'll tell
you; my boat's at anchor, smartest little craft in these parts.”
It was very hot, and I had no desire whatever to go down to the beach—I
went, all the same. We had not gone far when John Ford and Dan Treffry
came into the lane. Our friend seemed a little disconcerted, but soon
recovered himself. We met in the middle of the lane, where there was
hardly room to pass. John Ford, who looked very haughty, put on his
pince-nez and stared at Pearse.
“Good-day!” said Pearse; “fine weather! I've been up to ask Pasiance
to come for a sail. Wednesday we thought, weather permitting; this
gentleman's coming. Perhaps you'll come too, Mr. Treffry. You've never
seen my place. I'll give you lunch, and show you my father. He's worth a
couple of hours' sail any day.” It was said in such an odd way that
one couldn't resent his impudence. John Ford was seized with a fit of
wheezing, and seemed on the eve of an explosion; he glanced at me, and
checked himself.
“You're very good,” he said icily; “my granddaughter has other things
to do. You, gentlemen, will please yourselves”; and, with a very slight
bow, he went stumping on to the house. Dan looked at me, and I looked at
him.
“You'll come?” said Pearse, rather wistfully. Dan stammered: “Thank you,
Mr. Pearse; I'm a better man on a horse than in a boat, but—thank you.”
Cornered in this way, he's a shy, soft-hearted being. Pearse smiled his
thanks. “Wednesday, then, at ten o'clock; you shan't regret it.”
“Pertinacious beggar!” I heard Dan mutter in his beard; and found myself
marching down the lane again by Pearse's side. I asked him what he was
good enough to mean by saying I was coming, without having asked me. He
answered, unabashed:
“You see, I'm not friends with the old man; but I knew he'd not be
impolite to you, so I took the liberty.”
He has certainly a knack of turning one's anger to curiosity. We were
down in the combe now; the tide was running out, and the sand all
little, wet, shining ridges. About a quarter of a mile out lay a cutter,
with her tan sail half down, swinging to the swell. The sunlight was
making the pink cliffs glow in the most wonderful way; and shifting
in bright patches over the sea like moving shoals of goldfish. Pearse
perched himself on his dinghy, and looked out under his hand. He seemed
lost in admiration.
“If we could only net some of those spangles,” he said, “an' make gold
of 'em! No more work then.”
“It's a big job I've got on,” he said presently; “I'll tell you about it
on Wednesday. I want a journalist.”
“But I don't write for the papers,” I said; “I do other sort of work. My
game is archaeology.”
“It doesn't matter,” he said, “the more imagination the better. It'd be
a thundering good thing for you.”
His assurance was amazing, but it was past supper-time, and hunger
getting the better of my curiosity, I bade him good-night. When I looked
back, he was still there, on the edge of his boat, gazing at the sea. A
queer sort of bird altogether, but attractive somehow.
Nobody mentioned him that evening; but once old Ford, after staring
a long time at Pasiance, muttered a propos of nothing, “Undutiful
children!” She was softer than usual; listening quietly to our talk,
and smiling when spoken to. At bedtime she went up to her grand-father,
without waiting for the usual command, “Come and kiss me, child.”
Dan did not stay to supper, and he has not been here since. This morning
I asked Mother Hopgood who Zachary Pearse was. She's a true Devonian;
if there's anything she hates, it is to be committed to a definite
statement. She ambled round her answer, and at last told me that he
was “son of old Cap'en Jan Pearse to Black Mill. 'Tes an old family to
Dartymouth an' Plymouth,” she went on in a communicative outburst. “They
du say Francis Drake tuke five o' they Pearses with 'en to fight
the Spaniards. At least that's what I've heard Mr. Zachary zay; but
Ha-apgood can tell yu.” Poor Hopgood, the amount of information she
saddles him with in the course of the day! Having given me thus to
understand that she had run dry, she at once went on:
“Cap'en Jan Pearse made a dale of ventures. He's old now—they du say
nigh an 'undred. Ha-apgood can tell yu.”
“But the son, Mrs. Hopgood?”
Her eyes twinkled with sudden shrewdness: She hugged herself placidly.
“An' what would yu take for dinner to-day? There's duck; or yu might
like 'toad in the hole,' with an apple tart; or then, there's—Well!
we'll see what we can du like.” And off she went, without waiting for my
answer.
To-morrow is Wednesday. I shan't be sorry to get another look at this
fellow Pearse....