SHOWS HOW A TOMBSTONE MAY CONVINCE WHEN ARGUMENTS FAIL
She showed him the scribbled note which M. Fournier had brought; she
told him M. Fournier's story; how that Ralph had run guns and
ammunition from England into Morocco on board the _Tarifa_; how that
he had been kidnapped between M. Fournier's villa and the town-gate;
how that he was not held to ransom, since no demand for ransom had
come to the little Belgian; and finally how that it was impossible to
apply for help to the Legation, since Ralph was already guilty of a
crime, and would only be rescued that way in order to suffer penal
servitude in England.
"What a coil to unravel!" said Charnock. "I know some Arabic. I could
go to Morocco. I went there once, but only to Tangier. But Morocco?
How shall one search Morocco without a clue?"
He rested his chin upon his hand, and stared gloomily at the wall.
Miranda was careful not to interrupt his reflections. If there was a
way out, she confidently relied upon this man to find it. Once she
shivered, and Charnock looked inquiringly towards her. She was gazing
at the soiled note which lay beneath her eyes upon the table, and saw
again the picture of Ralph being beaten inland under the sun. She
began to recall his acts and words, that she might make the best of
them; she fell to considering whether she had not herself been in a
measure to blame for the shipwreck of their marriage. And so, thinking
of such matters, she absently hummed over a tune, a soft plaintive
little melody from an _opéra-bouffe_. She ended it and hummed it over
again; until it came upon her that Charnock had been silent for a long
time, and she looked up from the note into his face.
He was not thinking out any plan. He was watching her with a singular
intentness, his head thrust forward from his shoulders, his face very
strained. It seemed that every fibre of his body listened and was
still, so that it might hear the better.
"Who taught you that tune?" he asked in a voice of suspense.
"Ralph," said she, in some surprise at the question; "at least I
picked it up from him."
And Charnock fell back in his chair; he huddled himself in it, he let
his chin drop upon his breast. He sat staring at her with eyes which
seemed suddenly deep-sunk in a face suddenly grown white. And slowly,
gradually, it broke in upon Miranda that he held the clue after all,
that that tune was the clue, that in a word Charnock knew how Ralph
had disappeared.
"You know!" she cried in her elation. "You know! Oh, and I sent you
away yesterday! What if you had gone! Only to think of it! You know!
That tune has given you the clue? It was Ralph's favourite! You heard
it--when? Where? Tell me!"
To her eager, joyous questions Charnock was silent. He did not move.
He still sat huddled in his chair, with his chin fallen on his breast,
and his eyes fixedly staring at her. Miranda's enthusiasm was chilled
by his silence; it was succeeded by fear. She became frightened; she
picked up the note and held it out to him and bade it speak for her.
Charnock did not take the note or change his position. But he said:--
"Even on your honeymoon, you see, he left you to stand alone, while he
gambled at the tables."
"But you mustn't think of that," she cried. "It's so small a thing."
"But so typical," added Charnock, quietly.
Miranda gave a moan and held her head between her hands. That Charnock
might refuse to help her, because with tears in her eyes she had
played the sedulous coquette, she had been prepared to acknowledge.
But that he would refuse to help, out of a mistaken belief that, by
refusing to help, he was helping best--that supposition had not so
much as occurred to her.
"Read the note again," she implored him. "_Do quickly what you can!_
And see, it is a week and more since M. Fournier was here. It is a
fortnight and more since Ralph was kidnapped in the Sôk. Quickly! And
nothing is done, and nothing will be done, unless you do it. Oh, think
of him--driven, his hands tied, beaten with sticks, sold for a slave
to trudge with loads upon his back, barefooted, through Morocco! You
will go," and her voice broke and was very tender as she appealed to
him. "Please! You will have pity on me, and on him." And she watched
Charnock's face for a sign of assent, her heart throbbing, her foot
beating the ground, and every now and then a queer tremulous moan
breaking from her dry lips.
Charnock, however, did not soften at the imagined picture of Ralph's
misfortunes, and he hardened his heart against the visible picture of
her distress.
"When I was at Algeciras, I asked many questions about Ralph Warriner.
I listened to many answers," he said curtly.
"Exaggerated answers," she returned, and as Charnock opened his mouth
to reply, she hastened to continue: "Listen! Listen! Here's the
strange thing! Not that I should need help, not that you should help
me, not that I should come to you for help. Those three things--they
are most natural. But that coming to you, I should come to the one man
who can help, who already knows the way to help. Don't you understand?
It is very clear to me. You were _meant_ to help, to help me in this
one trouble, so you were shown the means whereby to help." And seeing
Charnock still impenetrable, she burst out: "Oh, he will not help! He
will not understand!" and she took to considering how it was that he
knew, how it was that he recognised the tune.
"You were in Tangier once," she argued. "Yes. You told me that not
only to-day, but at Lady Donnisthorpe's. You crossed from Gibraltar?"
"Yes, just before I came to England and met you."
"Just before! Still you won't understand? You find out
somehow--somehow in Tangier you come across a tune, an incident,
something. Immediately after you meet a woman, at the first sight of
whom you offer her your succour, and the time comes when she needs it,
and that one incident you witnessed just before you met her gives you,
and you alone in all the world, the opportunity to help her. Don't you
remember, when you first were introduced at Lady Donnisthorpe's, what
was your first feeling--one of disappointment, because I did not seem
to stand in any need? Well, I do stand in need now--and now you turn
away. And for my sake too! Was there ever such a tangle! Such a
needless irony and tangle, and all because a man cannot put a woman
from his thoughts!" And then she laughed bitterly and harshly, and so
fell back again upon her guesses.
"You were in Tangier--how long?"
"For a day."
"When? Never mind! I know. I met you in June. You were in Tangier for
a day in May. In May!" she repeated, and stopped. Then she uttered a
cry. "May, that was the month. M. Fournier said May. You were the
man," and leaning forward she laid a clutching hand upon Charnock's
arm, which lay quiet on the table. "You were the unknown man who cried
'Look out!' through the closed door of M. Fournier's shop."
Charnock started. He was prepared to deny the challenge, if assent
threatened to disclose his clue. But it did not. M. Fournier knew
nothing of the blind beggar at the cemetery gate where Charnock had
first heard the comic opera tune and registered it in his memory. That
was evident, since in all M. Fournier's story, there was no mention
anywhere of Hassan Akbar.
"Yes," he admitted. "It was I."
"And you shouted it not as a menace--so M. Fournier thought and was
wrong--but as a warning to Ralph, my husband, whom you will not speak
a word to save. You spoke a word then, very likely you saved him then.
Well, do just as much now. I ask no more of you. Only speak the word!
Tell me the clue, I myself will follow it up. Oh, he will not speak!"
and in her agitation she rose up and paced the room.
Charnock rose too. Miranda flew to the door and leaned her back
against it.
"Just for a moment! Listen to what M. Fournier said! He said that if
once we could lay our hands upon the man who shouted through the door,
we should lay our hands upon the means to rescue Ralph. Think how
truly he spoke, in a truer sense than he intended. You know why he
disappeared. You know who captured him. And if you don't speak, I
shall have no peace until I die," and she sat herself again at the
table.
"Do you still care for him?" asked Charnock, with some gentleness.
Miranda, who was wrought almost to frenzy, drummed upon the table with
her clenched fists.
"Must we debate that question while Ralph--" Then she mastered
herself. "I know you," she said. "If I were to tell you that I loved
him heart and soul, you would go upon this errand, straight as an
arrow, for my sake. But I promised there should be nothing but truth
between you and me. I do not love him. Now, will you go to Morocco?
Or, if you will not go, will you speak?"
"No. Let him stay there! Where he cannot harm you. What if I was
_meant_ to keep you from rescuing him?"
"You do not know," she replied. "You can do me no greater service than
by rescuing Ralph, by bringing him back to me. Will you believe that?"
"No," said he, calmly, and she rose from her chair.
"But if I proved it to you?"
"You cannot."
"I will."
She looked at the clock.
"It is four o'clock," she said. "Two hours and a quarter before the
train leaves for Algeciras. Will you meet me on the platform? I had
thought to spare myself--this. But you shall have the proof. I will
not tell you of it, but I will show it to you to-morrow at Gibraltar."
She spoke now with great calmness. She had hit upon the means to
persuade. She was convinced that she had, and he was afraid that she
had.
"Very well," said he. "The 6.15 for Algeciras."
They travelled to Gibraltar that night. Miranda stayed at the Bristol,
Charnock at the Albion; they met the next morning, and walked through
the long main street. Here and there an officer looked at her with a
start of surprise and respectfully raised his hat, and perhaps took a
step or two towards her. But she did not stop to speak with anyone. It
was two years since she had set foot within the gates of Gibraltar,
and no doubt the stones upon which she walked had many memories
wherewith to bruise her. Charnock respected her silence, and kept pace
with her unobtrusively. They passed into the square with Government
House upon the one side and the mess-rooms upon the other. Charnock
sketched a picture of her in his fancies, the picture of a young girl
newly-come from the brown solitudes of Suffolk into this crowded and
picturesque fortress with the wonder of a new world in her eyes, and
contrasted it with the woman who walked beside him, and inferred the
increasing misery of her years. He was touched to greater depths of
sympathy than he had ever felt before even when she had lain with her
head upon her arms in an abandonment of distress; so that now the
uncomplaining uprightness of her figure made his heart ache, and the
sound of her footsteps was a pain. But of the most intolerable of all
her memories he had still to learn. She led him into the little
cemetery, guided him between the graves, and stopped before a
headstone on which Charnock read:--
RUPERT WARRINER,
Aged 2 Years.
and the date of his birth and death.
The headstone was of marble, and had been sculptured with a poetic
fancy; a boy, in whose face Charnock could trace a likeness to
Miranda, looked out and laughed between the open lattices of a window.
They both watched the grave silently for a while. Then Miranda said
gently, "Now do you understand? When Rupert was born, it seemed to me
that here was a blossom on the thorn bush of the world. But you see
the blossom never flowered. He died of diphtheria. It was hard when he
died;" and Charnock suddenly started at her side.
"Those flowers!" he said hoarsely.
Upon the grave were scattered jonquils, geraniums, roses, pinks,
camellias--all the rich reds and yellows of Miranda's garden.
"You were cutting them, packing them, that afternoon when Wilbraham
came?"
Mrs. Warriner shrank from looking at Charnock.
"Yes," she confessed in a whisper.
"My God!" he exclaimed. Miranda glanced at him in fear. So it was
coming; he was remembering the use to which she had put those flowers.
Would he loathe her sufficiently to withdraw his help?
"Do you know what I thought?" he continued. "No, you can't guess. You
could not imagine it. I actually believed that you were cutting those
flowers so that you might send them to--" and he broke off the
sentence. "But it's too odious to tell you."
"But I meant you should believe just that," she cried. "I meant you to
believe it. Oh, how utterly hateful! How could I have done it? I
wanted to hide that from you, but it was right you should know. I must
have been mad," and she convulsively clasped and unclasped her hands.
"I understand why you dropped that bunch from the cliff," said
Charnock, "after Wilbraham had picked a flower from it."
"I wanted to bring you here," said Miranda, "so that you might know
why I ask this service of you. As I told you, I have no love left for
Ralph, but he was that boy's father, and the boy is dead. I cannot
leave Ralph in Morocco a slave. He was Rupert's father. Perhaps you
remember that after I met you at Lady Donnisthorpe's I came back at
once to Ronda. I had half determined not to return at all, and when
you first told me Ralph was alive, my first absorbing thought was,
where should I hide myself? But it occurred to me that he might be in
need, and he was Rupert's father. So I came back, and when Wilbraham
blackmailed me, I submitted to the blackmail again because he was
Rupert's father; and because he was Rupert's father, when I learned in
what sore need he stood, I sent that glove to you."
"I understand," said Charnock, and they turned and walked from the
cemetery.
"Now will you speak?" she asked.
"No," he returned, "but I will go myself to Morocco."
"It is your life I am asking you to risk," said Miranda, who now that
she had gained her end, began at once to realise the consequences it
would entail upon her friend.
"I know that and take the risk," replied Charnock.
They walked out towards Europa Point, and turned into the Alameda.
"There is something else," said Miranda. "Your search will cost money.
Every farthing of that I must pay. You will promise me that?"
"Yes."
"I wrote to M. Fournier yesterday. He will supply you. There is one
thing more. This search will interrupt your career."
"It will, no doubt," he assented readily, and sitting down upon a seat
he spoke to her words which she never forgot. "The quaint thing is
that I have always been afraid lest a woman should break my career. I
lived as a boy high up on the Yorkshire hills, two miles above a busy
town. All day that town whirred in the hollow below. I could see it
from my bedroom window, and all night the lights blazed in the
factories; and when I went down into its streets there were always
grimed men speeding upon their business. There was a certain grandeur
about it which impressed me,--the perpetual shuffle of the looms, the
loud, clear song of the wheels. That seemed to me the life to live.
And I made up my mind that no woman should interfere. A brake on the
wheel going up hill, a whip in the driver's hand going down,--that
was what I thought of woman until I met you."
"And proved it true," cried Miranda.
"And learned that there are better things than getting on," said
Charnock.
Miranda turned to him with shining eyes, and in a voice which left him
in no doubt as to the significance of her words, she cried:--
"My dear, we are Love's derelicts, you and I," and so stopped and said
no more.
They went back to the hotel and lunched together and came out again to
the geraniums and bellas sombras of the Alameda. But they talked no
more in this strain. They were just a man and a woman, and the flaming
sword kept their lips apart. But they knew it and were not aggrieved,
for being a man and a woman they knew not grievances.
The evening came down upon Gibraltar, the riding lanterns glimmered
upon the masts in the bay; away to the left the lighthouse on Europa
Point shot out its yellow column of light; above, the Spanish sky grew
purple and rich with innumerable stars.
"The boat leaves early," said Charnock. "I will say good-bye now."
Miranda caught the hand which he held out to her and held it against
her breast.
"But I shall see you again--once--please, once," she said, "when you
bring Ralph back to me;" and so they separated in the Alameda.
Charnock walked away and left her standing there, nor looked back.
Stray lines and verses of ballads which he had heard sung by women in
drawing-rooms here and there about the world came back to him--ballads
of knights and cavaliers who had ridden away at their ladies' behests.
He had laughed at them then, but they came back to him now, and he
felt himself linked through them in a community of feeling with the
generations which had gone before. Men had gone out upon such errands
as he was now privileged to do, and would do so again when he was
dust, with just the same pride which he felt as he walked homewards on
this night through the streets of Gibraltar. He realised as he had
never realised before, through the fellowship of service, that in bone
and muscle and blood he was of the family of men, son of the men who
had gone before, father of the men who were to follow. The next
morning he crossed the straits to Tangier.