THE BLACKMAILERS
This interview with Pierre Vazon gave Bartlett Bayre much food for
reflection.
That the peasant and his daughter had some hold upon his uncle of a
doubtful kind he had long felt sure. Now, however, he could no longer
entertain any doubts on the subject.
The worst of it was, that the words used by Pierre Vazon, his tone,
his whole attitude, pointed rather to guilt than to madness in his
employer. If he had had convincing proofs of his master’s insanity,
the peasant would surely not have waited to make it known to a chance
visitor to the island, but would have communicated with old Mr Bayre’s
legal advisers, whose address could scarcely be unknown to so astute
and watchful a person.
Strong though his suspicions of his uncle were, yet stronger was the
young man’s disgust at the treachery of the peasant who had lived upon
his master’s bounty for so long. And he began to find excuses for the
savagery of the old man who, living shut up as he did, after having
experienced two cruel blows to his affections, was deceived, betrayed,
and perhaps bullied, by creatures meaner than himself.
And then it occurred to him even to excuse the frenzy which had
presumably led to his uncle’s intended attack on himself. How would
the recluse, living in himself, brooding always over his wrongs and
his losses, regard such an attempt as his own nephew had made to get
into his house?
Bayre saw the matter now in a new light, and determined to make one
more effort to solve the mystery of his uncle’s life, but to make it,
not from the outside, in aggressive fashion, but in a mood more
sympathetic towards the object of his surmises.
He was in this milder mood when, on the following morning, he met
Olwen Eden on the seashore, watching the gradual rising of the water,
as the tide came in, round the bases of the pillar-like rocks that
fringed the island.
By the way in which she turned at his approach, very slowly, and
without surprise, Bayre knew that she had been expecting to see him,
perhaps waiting for him to find her.
“I’ve been anxious about you,” said he, as he took her hand.
Already there was a pleasant sense of shy freemasonry between them. No
ordinary “Good-morning’s,” “How do you do’s?” and the like worrying
necessities of the casual acquaintance were needed between them any
longer.
“Anxious! Why?”
“Because of what happened last night. I was afraid he might be angry
with you for taking my part.”
“Taking your part? How did I do that?”
“Well, I think, if you hadn’t cried out when you did, that my uncle
would have brained me.”
“That’s what I thought. And that’s why I screamed. But, do you know,
afterwards, when you’d gone away and he called me out on the landing
to speak to me, and to tell me what had happened, I think I began to
feel there was some excuse for him.”
“I feel that too,” said Bayre.
And then they both began to look at each other shyly and to laugh
heartily at the same moment.
“What did he say?” asked Bayre, at last.
“I can’t tell you _all_,” said she, with a demure look. “What he said
demands considerable expurgation for your ears. We will say that he
hinted mildly that the front door is a more desirable entrance for a
dutiful and affectionate nephew than the drawing-room window. Will
that do?”
Bayre laughed again.
“I feel that myself, I assure you. But, on the other hand, hasn’t he
wiped out my offence by attempting to retaliate with an Indian war
club?”
“Now let’s be serious,” said she, when they had exhausted their
merriment over this view of the case. “He takes the matter very
seriously indeed, I can tell you. And when I suggested that his
eccentricity might well seem like insanity to a stranger, and that it
made you nervous to know that I was in the house, he said that was no
excuse for your action. And really, I almost think he was right.”
“So do I. And I mean to apologise to him.”
“I think he would rather not see you again, even for that.”
“But I want to apologise. I want also to put him on his guard against
certain persons who are more likely to do him injury than I am.”
She looked at him steadily.
“Do you think he doesn’t know? He’s not mad, Mr Bayre. There’s
something mysterious about him and about the place, but I don’t think
it’s that. Last night he spoke to me in a way no madman ever could
have done.”
“Don’t you know that many insane people could pass for sane, and do so
pass? There are many forms of brain disease. There’s the insanity of
delusions; there’s that which comes on in paroxysms and leaves the
victim calm and even rational in the intervals. How can you explain
such a scene as that I witnessed with my own eyes when I saw my uncle
destroying his own house?”
Olwen looked puzzled.
“I’ve seen him tapping the walls, as if listening for some expected
answer,” admitted she in a low voice. “And then I’ve wondered whether
he only _fancied_ that there was some person hidden about the house.
But at other times--”
“Well!”
“I’ve thought differently, as you know.”
“There _is_ a woman hidden in the house,” said Bayre, confidently.
And he described to her what he had seen on the previous night in the
room with the barred windows. Olwen was not surprised.
“After all,” she said presently, “there’s something in what he said,
that it’s no business of ours if he does keep some person shut up in
the house.”
“No business of ours?” cried Bayre. “If he keeps a woman shut up
against her will!”
“Ah, but it can’t be against her will,” said Olwen, “for there’s no
doubt she could make herself heard if she chose. Remember, this place
is a regular haunt of tourists in the summer; they come over by dozens
to see Mr Bayre’s collection. Now how is it possible, considering that
you can get round the house without difficulty, that a woman could be
shut up against her will in it, with only a feeble old man as jailer?
You can see that it’s impossible.”
“But she may have only been there a few months, or weeks, since the
tourist season?” suggested Bayre, half-heartedly.
For indeed Olwen’s objection seemed to be a reasonable one.
“But I’ve been here all that time,” rejoined she. “And though I have
the same feeling as you, that there is someone shut up there, I can’t
understand how she can be kept there against her will. It’s true I
don’t go all over the house; but I do go all round it. And if this
absurd thing were possible, that a live woman were imprisoned there, I
can’t believe that she wouldn’t have made me some sign during all this
time.”
This did indeed seem conclusive, though it left the matter more
mysterious than ever.
“It’s only during the last few weeks that you’ve had this idea of a
woman shut up there?” said he.
“Yes. Since your first visit. I remember talking to you one day about
romance, and your teasing me a little about my ambition to write
novels. Well, now that I’ve come in contact with romance, I don’t like
it at all; and I’d willingly exchange this uneasy feeling I always
have that something’s going to happen--something mysterious,
awful--for a nice, tame, flat, commonplace existence such as they
describe in books by the word ‘suburban.’”
Bayre laughed.
“No,” said he. “Believe me, you’d better suffer the ills you know, the
imaginary lady who, after all, doesn’t interfere with you, and the
rather lonely existence you lead here, than fly to the cold mutton,
the cheap piano and the villa one brick thick, which are some of the
suburban ills you dream not of.”
He said this fiercely, fighting down that ugly subconsciousness that
the one-brick-thick villa, or the even lower horror of the cheap flat,
was all that he could reasonably hope to offer that foolish woman,
whoever she might be, who would ever consent to link her life with the
clerk of small salary and unsatisfied ambition.
Perhaps the quick-witted girl guessed something of that which was in
his mind, for her answer was given in very gentle, almost soothing,
tones.
“I think the thickness of the villa must depend a good deal upon the
character of the tenants,” she prettily said.
And Bayre smiled shyly, wishing that he dared say more. But she would
not give him time. He was to remember that she had thrust aside all
sentiment, had banished it from their intercourse. They were to behave
to each other as if that crazy avowal of his love for her had never
been offered. Bayre looked wistful, but he submitted. A time would
come--perhaps!
“I’m grateful to you for one thing, at any rate,” she said, following
the train of her thoughts rather than that of the conversation, “that
you’ve got rid of Monsieur Blaise for me.”
“I!” echoed Bayre.
“Yes, you,” said Olwen, as she began to climb the steep path to the
top of the cliff. “I have an idea that, but for your coming, and the
mysterious visit to my uncle to which it led, I should have dropped at
last, in a helpless sort of way, into the lion’s mouth.”
“You wouldn’t!” cried Bayre, indignantly. And hastening after her up
the slope, he hissed out in her ear, “If I thought there was any
danger of that, I’d stay here, throw up my appointment, spoil my
chances in life, such as they are, and stick here like a limpet till
I’d persuaded you to spoil your chances too, to come away with me,
though it wouldn’t even be to the jerry-built villa, but to two rooms
on some dingy top-floor, with a man who would give his life for you!”
Perhaps this bland superiority to sentiment which Miss Eden had worn
so bravely was only a mask after all. Certain it is that, as she now
turned fiercely and haughtily round on him, addressing him as if he
were the lowest of slaves, there burned in her bright eyes a fire
which was that neither of anger nor of contempt, while there was
something inviting, something sympathetic in the very gesture with
which she made as if to beat off her too passionate lover.
“Didn’t I forbid you to talk like that to me? How dare you? Do you
suppose I want to starve myself, or to see you starve?” she asked,
with her pretty head held very high and her breast heaving with
excitement. “Understand, once for all, I forbid you to talk of those
things. You’re to go back to your office and work, work, work; and
you’re to spend the next ten years of your life perhaps in struggling,
struggling to get the hearing that comes to every man who has anything
to tell. And I’m going back to my life, which is not such a bad one
after all. And if I liked to marry another Monsieur Blaise--(if
there’s another such treasure about who would have me)” she added with
demure fun sparkling in her eyes--“why, it’s no business of yours, and
I’m quite at liberty to do it if I like. There!”
With which girlish challenge Miss Eden turned again, and continued her
scramble upwards, not, however, disdaining the help of a friendly but
respectful hand when the way was rough or the ground slippery.
“May I just venture to ask,” said Bayre, when they arrived rather
breathless at the top of the cliff, “whether you mean to beguile the
time with any more novel-writing?”
And if there had been mischief in her eyes during her last speech, it
was his turn to be quietly humorous now. She drew herself up
defiantly.
“Oh, _I have_ beguiled it in that way,” she said promptly. “I’ve
written a whole one since you were here last.”
“Won’t you let me see it? Being an unsuccessful writer myself, I’m a
first-class critic ready-made.”
She shook her head and smiled, looking down.
“Oh, I don’t for a moment suppose it would stand criticism, especially
your criticism.”
“Why especially mine?”
“I know, from what you said to me before about my lack of experience,
that you’re not prepared to be complimentary.”
“Compliments do a novel no good, either when they’re spoken or when
they’re written. What you want to make a book successful is criticism
that’s absolutely venomous. Couldn’t you trust me to supply that?”
The girl threw him a bright glance.
“No,” said she, mischievously, as she turned and ran away, leaving him
more in love with her than ever.
This interview with the girl he loved acted upon Bartlett Bayre as a
powerful stimulant, and under its influence he decided not to delay
one moment, but to go once more up to the _château_ and to see his
uncle again.
In the apologetic mood in which he now found himself, he felt, without
much reason, perhaps, that he would find admission easier than before.
He was not, however, called upon to make the attempt, for on entering
the avenue which led to the great house, he came face to face with his
uncle, wrapped to the chin in a stout ulster, taking a brisk
constitutional up and down under the bare trees.
“Oh, it’s you again, is it?” said old Mr Bayre, without removing his
old pipe from his mouth.
“Yes, sir, I’ve come to apologise.”
“Good Heavens! that’s news indeed!”
“And I’ve come to warn you that you are putting confidence in certain
people who don’t deserve it,” went on the young man, taking no notice
of his uncle’s sneer.
The old man looked him full in the eyes.
“Whom do you mean?” said he.
“Come a little way with me, sir, and I’ll show you--without one word,
too,” answered the young man.
His uncle continued to look at him with scrutinising eyes for some
moments; then, agreeing to the proposition with a simple nod, he went
out through the gate at the end of the avenue side by side with him.
The young man led the way towards the cottage of the Vazons without a
word more, and his uncle being equally taciturn, they trudged on
together, in the face of a keen wind, in dead silence.
They met no one on the way, and when they came to the cottage they
walked quickly past the window, and the younger man lifted the latch
of the door and led the way into the comfortable living-room, which
was kitchen as well.
The only occupant of the room, as it chanced, was the baby in its
cradle, so that nothing could have been easier than was the unmasking
of the two conspirators.
Young Bayre crossed the room quickly, turned the cradle to the light,
and pointed down at the child.
“You are paying the Vazons for the care of a child, sir,” said he. “Is
this the one?”
The old man uttered an exclamation, and at that moment the sound of
voices brought Marie into the room.
One glance at the faces of the two gentlemen showed her that her fraud
was discovered, and she uttered a low, frightened cry.
Old Mr Bayre caught her by the arm in a tumult of rage.
“That child,” cried he, in a shaking voice, a voice full not only of
anger but of fear. “Whose is it?”
She looked from the one man to the other, stammered, and turned
furiously upon the younger.
“Lâche!” cried she in a hoarse voice, “it is you who have done this.
I know it. What business was it of yours to come here making
mischief?”
And she stood with her hand to her heart, panting with fear and rage.
“Whose is this child?” repeated old Mr Bayre, furiously. “It is not
mine.”
He shook her roughly by the arm as he spoke.
But his anger woke an answering spirit in the girl. Drawing herself
away from him, she stood at bay. And frowning up at him from under her
thick eyebrows, with a look which changed her rather handsome face
into one hideous and repellent, she hissed out, in a menacing tone,--
“Yours? No. Of course I know that.”
Old Mr Bayre paused an instant. Then he made a sort of spring at her,
and asked, in a low voice,--
“What has become of the other--of mine?”
The girl looked frightened again. She hesitated, she faltered, she
looked from one man to the other, she began to cry and to sob. In vain
did the elder try to get a word of answer from her; she would do
nothing but sob and complain bitterly that there was no pleasing such
masters, that she would take no more care of the child since she was
not trusted. Monsieur might get somebody else to do it, for she would
not.
And then, in the midst of her weeping, she suddenly stopped, raised
her head, and strained her ears. Then, with a joyful cry, “Ha! My
father!” she dashed open the door and admitted old Pierre, who looked
from one to the other of the group with a mixture of anxiety and
brutal cunning in his eyes.