AN INCUBUS
‘Thou hast bound up my wounds, and set me on thine own beast, and
brought me to an inn,’ said the stranger. ‘Blessed be thy living
witness to Christ’s parable.’
He had the inscrutable eyes of a hare. Say what he might, there was
always something at odds between them and the picked precision of his
speech. He sat propped against a pillow formed of Brion’s cloak; the
great horse-cloth was wrapped about his naked limbs; his clothes were
spread to dry near the glowing brazier; he had eaten little of the
food and drunk feverishly of the wine, and his tongue was loosened.
Brion nodded. ‘Let us have done with compliments. Am I to know your
name and business?’
‘I am a simple trader, an Englishman, by name John Melton.’
‘Well, we will return to that. And now, Master Melton, an it please
you, what brought a simple trader to such plight?’
‘Sir, I owe you the plain story; and here it is. In the darkness
before dawn this morning a hoy, standing off from the coast, was
driven ashore at Teignmouth by the fury of the wind and waves.
Something, I know not what, aroused in the rough folk who helped to
beach her a belief that there were Catholic emissaries from Picardy on
board, and in a moment the devil was ablaze in them. For some most
unjustifiable reason their suspicions fell on me, of whom their
fanatic hatred would have made an instant victim, casting me into a
fire of driftwood they prepared to build upon the shore, had I not
through God’s grace and the darkness succeeded in escaping from their
cruel hands. Battered and wounded, I fled at random, their shouts and
imprecations following me as I ran. By dawn I had gained the heights,
whence, hiding and observing, I could see the chase, now gathered in
volume, still furious on my tracks. Had they once scattered, I had
been lost, but they kept together, while I scurried on before, taking
advantage of every scrap of cover. Still they pressed on, like hounds
intent and inexorable, and to me, hurt and exhausted as I was, there
could have come but one end, had I not, through merciful Providence,
chanced, when near my last gasp, on a charitable stranger. That is all
my tale.’
Brion, regarding the speaker enigmatically, did not respond for a
moment.
‘So,’ said he at last, ‘you came in the boat?’
‘That is perfectly true.’
‘And from Picardy--where there are Jesuits?’
‘And traders.’
‘True; and pardoners among them, mayhap--vendors of spurious relics to
the credulous, pigs’ bones for saints,’ a feather of the cock that
crew St Peter into shame, and of other things no less false and
profitable--Papal indulgences, to wit, for any that would be traitors
to their country.’
‘It is not true.’
‘Why, I know you for a Papist, else would you ne’er have spoke of
“Catholic” emissaries.’
‘I deny it not. Denounce me for it, an you will. Wounded and in your
power, I shall not abjure my faith.’
‘Your necessity, as you should know, is your surest appeal to mine.’
‘Yet you can show so little Christian tolerance as to assume, without
proof, a certain vileness in me, and for no reason but just that I am
a Catholic. Tell me this, Sir: is Papistry, as you call it,
countenanced in your England?’
‘With reason, no.’
‘We’ll spare the reason. It is not countenanced, at least. Then, for
the convinced English Catholic there is no alternative to apostacy
but--Picardy, shall we say?’
‘God forbid I should quarrel with any man for his religion. Only for
yours, Picardy is a wholesomer climate than Devon.’
‘My hurts cry Amen to that.’
‘Why not have remained there, then?’
‘Is it so unusual for an exile to yearn towards the land of his
birth--especially an he envisage a prospect to combine some business
with pleasure there? But I see you do not believe me. Well, Sir,
bruised and battered though I be, I would sooner be put to lie out in
the fields than accept a bounty offered on such terms. Or would you be
the treacherous husbandman of the fable, with whom the poor driven fox
took shelter, and keep me here, to point out to the hunt my
hiding-place? It may ride up anon. Be sure those bloody miscreants
will rouse the neighbourhood, and there will be search for me. Well, I
am sick and friendless and at your mercy.’
He had spoken from the first in a voice weak and languid, though
always oddly preserving its dry particularity, and now sank back as if
exhausted, closing his eyes. But still Brion regarded him unmoved, it
seemed, by either his explanations or his taunts. Something, he felt,
rang false--he could not say what, but it certainly was not the man’s
physical hurts, which were very definite and serious. There was
reality enough in them to outweigh for the moment any thought of moral
deception. One in particular on the side, the result of a terrible
blow from a metal bar or stone, bore a sinister look. No rib, so far
as he could ascertain, was fractured, but he feared some bad internal
injury. He had done, and he did hereafter, all that he could to
alleviate the suffering caused by this injury, using what soft
compresses and tender balsams he could filch from Mother Harlock’s
preserves; but still the pain did not seem to mend, and its
persistence troubled him. Supposing the man were to die on his hands,
to what unresolvable difficulties would he not have committed himself?
However, the thing was done, and might God help him in having acted
humanely on impulse instead of discreetly on reflection.
‘I pass by your bitter words,’ he said, standing over the prone
figure, ‘which some might think had savoured of ingratitude, but which
I take for an ill man’s ravings. Be assured, I shall not betray you.
What is to the point is how not to make myself suspect. It can be
done, and safely, but only at the expense of my company. You must do
without my visiting you, save at daily intervals. I will bring you all
you need from time to time, food, and more comforts, and so will
continue till you are in a condition to be released and sped upon your
way. By that time, let us hope, the hue and cry will have died down
and yourself be forgotten. That dark dawn can have little familiarised
your persecutors with your features. For the brazier, I will bring
to-morrow the wherewithal to screen it; yet methinks, once warmed,
you’ll need but little artificial heat in this subterranean chamber.
It were wise to kindle no taper but on urgent need. For the rest, you
are buried here as inviolate as in a tomb. No one of the household nor
the near neighbourhood would so much as come near the place: it hath
an evil reputation with the foolish. But that need not concern you.
Are you willing that I leave you now?’
The eyes were opened and staring at him again--strange blots in the
dying glow; the lips whispered, it seemed, some inarticulate
thanksgiving. Brion, with a curt ‘good-night,’ turned and mounted the
steps. In the chamber above, having closed and spun the wheel, he
paused a moment to see if any tell-tale gleam issued from the edges of
the orifice; but detecting no least hint of such, he went, satisfied,
into the night.
Henceforth he kept to his word, visiting the fugitive once at least a
day, bringing him good sustenance and more comfortable stuff for his
bedding, and staying to converse awhile as he bandaged the inflamed
and aching flesh. Sometimes he would go by the garden and sometimes by
the wood: the little sport of secrecy and evasion tickled him for a
while; it was like a game, and he was still boy enough to enjoy a
game. Yet now and again it _would_ occur to him that a game
indefinitely prolonged might lose its point, and expose, through
constant use, its own machinery; and so far no period to the one he
was playing seemed suggested. An uncomfortable feeling dawned and
developed in him that he had burdened himself, and at a crucial time,
with an undetachable incubus. As the days went on, in proportion as
the invalid’s main injury seemed to heal superficially, the inner hurt
appeared to intensify. The fact threatened to confirm his first most
grave suspicions; but it did not help to solve his difficulties. He
began to foresee the ultimate necessity of taking somebody into his
confidence. What if matters should go from bad to worse? He was doing
his best for the man; but his best was after all only the best of
ignorance. Good intentions might very well make bad nurses, unless
reinforced by knowledge. Instead of curing he might be actually
helping to kill.
The patient, in fact, in defiance of all the young man’s
ministrations, continued to look ghastly; he seemed to speak with
difficulty; he complained of eternal pain and unrest. And no wonder,
buried, so injured, in that dank and gloomy crypt. One welcome change
there was: soft and open Spring weather had followed on that day of
cold and storm, mitigating the frigid atmosphere of the stone chamber.
Going down the garden on the morning after the encounter, Brion felt
his every pore expanding with delight. Balm was in the air; an incense
rose from the earth; the winter aconites had blinked the frost from
their golden eyes, and, with their ruffs starched and smart, were
smiling in holiday rows under the wall. Even a surviving snowdrop or
two--those sweet little acolytes of Candlemas, as Clerivault called
them--opened their hearts to the sun, and betrayed to it the tender
green thoughts they were used to guard so shyly.
Brion, descending to the patient, found him, a little to his surprise,
shifted from the position in which he had left him the night before to
one in an angle of the wall where the brazier had been formerly set.
They had exchanged places, in fact. Remarking on the transposition, he
was informed by the other, in that weak, precisely-measured voice of
his, that, growing chill in the small hours, he had bethought himself
to take advantage of the warmth reflected to the stones by the then
extinguished charcoal, and had so made shift to effect the change,
which he had with difficulty accomplished, lying with his body against
the hot wall. That, as a stratagem, was resourceful enough: the
perplexing thing to Brion was how one in so feeble a state could have
put it into practice. Yet, again, that state seemed indisputable. One
had only to look at the man to know he could not be malingering.
They talked a little together, desultorily. The stranger was curious
about the superstition which kept his hiding-place inviolate; and
Brion, seeing no reason for concealment, told him all about the legend
of the departed buccaneer, and the fate of the unfortunate young
relative who had got to know more about his affairs than was good for
his health or hers. The eyes always seemed to listen to him more than
the ears: they blinked no facts, and confessed no emotions--none in
the least over their owner’s contiguity to the place of that dark
reputed tragedy. He was evidently ‘insusceptible,’ in the
superstitious sense.
‘And was, Sir,’ he said, ‘this business of the wheel some of that
Fulke’s contriving?’
‘No,’ said Brion. ‘I understand it was here long before his time.’
‘It is a clever contrivance, whoever designed it. I have seen some in
my day, and none, I think, so well thought out. _Prudens
simplicitas._’
* * * * * *
Day succeeded day, and week week, and still the patient showed no
signs of mending, but sat propped against the wall, with that eternal
aspect of weakness and suffering which had never changed since Brion
first brought him into the pit. The young fellow was at his wits’ end
to know what to do. Time was flying, and at any moment he might
receive his summons from Plymouth. At length he made up his mind, and
laid bare the whole truth to Clerivault--enormously, as may be
supposed, to that paragon’s astonishment.
‘I believe,’ said Brion, ‘the poor wretch is dying: and I cannot leave
him to die there. What am I to do?’
‘A secret chamber--in the old well-house!’ gasped Clerivault; ‘and to
discover it--God’s ’slid! thou must have dared alone the haunted
terrors of that place!’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Brion impatiently--‘and a fig for such bugbears. But
that is not the point. He must be brought out--brought here--put to
bed--old Harlock must see him--God o’ mercy! I shall go demented!’
He started striding forth and back, his fingers wound desperately in
his hair. Clerivault quieted him down:--
‘Ah, peace, my sweetheart! We will arrange it.’
‘But you do not know--my fears, my suspicions, my distractions. I will
not, for all the world, that mine Uncle and he be brought
together--nor so much as learn, each one, that the other is in the
house.’
‘No need to, if he is dying.’
‘He may not die, if at all, until after we are gone.’
‘H’mph!’
It was a problem, in truth, of which, on profound consideration, there
appeared only one solution. Nol and Phineas and William and Mrs
Harlock must be taken into one confidence on the subject, and form a
conspiracy to keep the fact of the stranger’s presence in the house a
secret equally from their lord and from the whole world. If the man
survived, he was to be packed quietly away on his recovery; if he
died, then the authorities must be informed, the plain explanation
being that the body was that of a poor stranger whom the young master
had found injured by the way, and had of his pity brought home to
tend. Nobody knew who he was or whence come, so nobody could say.
So Clerivault took it upon himself to inform and instruct the
household, and so it was settled. As to any risk of search at this
date, it was considered negligible. If the neighbourhood _had_ been
aroused, it had shown no disposition to suspect the Grange of
harbouring the fugitive. Some vague rumours of the Teignmouth affair
had come Clerivault’s way, but it did not appear from them how far the
pursuit had been pressed, or whether, even, it had been of that
determined character which perhaps the fears of the victim had
magnified. In all probability the whole affair was by now completely
forgotten.
Brion, to be sure, had no liking for the arrangement; but he was in a
desperate quandary, and, short of an inhumanity impossible to him,
could see no other way out of it. And then the summons to the voyage
came; and that clinched the matter.
On the evening of the day when he received it, he went to visit his
patient, and to impress upon him the necessity for his instant removal
to the house. Somewhat to his astonishment and displeasure, he
encountered an opposition where he had the least expected one.
‘You would rather remain where you are, Master Melton?’ said he,
haughtily surprised. ‘Then give me leave to tell you that you will
remain to perish, since, I being gone, none other could be found to
approach within a score yards of this thicket under which you lie
buried.’
‘Sir, my beneficent saviour,’ answered the other, with a low-voiced,
measured humility: ‘may it never be yours to suffer the hounding of
malignant foes, or, having escaped, broken and demoralised, from their
violence, be urged to tempt the Providence which has found you a
secure retreat by leaving it untimely for another.’
‘Untimely!’ cried Brion with impatience. ‘I tell you, man, I quit here
to-morrow: I shall be absent for many months. What would you do?’
‘With utmost deference, Sir, would it not be possible for you, ere you
go, to convey hither to me a moderate store of food and drink, and,
having so satisfied your hospitable conscience, dismiss from your mind
all question of further responsibility regarding my welfare? Then, if
at last forced by my condition to reveal myself, I could make shift to
emerge from this confinement, if only to beg of your people a corner
in which to die?’
The young man stood fairly astounded before this cool proposition.
‘_No_, Master Melton,’ said he, with emphasis: ‘it would not be
possible. If the worst were to come upon you--you force me to speak
plain--you would be in no state to make the effort you imply: in which
case--but I leave to your imagination the pleasant sequel. Come,
prepare yourself to shift. You shall be conveyed to a comfortable bed,
and your hurts tended by one of a better skill and knowledge than ever
I could pretend to. The household is pledged to secrecy: in the matter
of risk, I believe on my soul there is no shadow of any--you are long
forgotten by the very men who chased you. And the moment you are fit
to travel you shall be free to go. Come.’
The fugitive uttered a little sigh.
‘I yield all,’ said he, ‘to him to whom I owe all.’
He crawled painfully from under the cloth which covered him, and which
he fumbled back into the wall-corner where he had lain; and, supported
by Brion, laboriously climbed the steps into the chamber above.
‘Are you not going to close the wheel?’ said he, panting and pallid,
as they paused a moment, after emerging from the aperture.
‘Presently will serve,’ answered Brion: ‘when I have seen you into
safety.’
‘Now, Sir, now, let me entreat you! If any accident should happen--if
it should be overlooked--a clue----’
‘Peace, then!’ exclaimed the young man; and he hurriedly and rather
pettishly did as he was asked. Truly this most unconscionable invalid
was a trial to one’s patience.
Outside the ilex clump, Clerivault, white and grim, stood waiting in
the thunderous dusk. He had volunteered to dare the terrors of the
awful place; but Brion, seeing what the offer cost him, had laughingly
declined his company, saying he could manage much better by himself.
They took the stranger between them, and, without more ado, carried
rather than supported him to the house, and, smuggling him by a back
way to the upper chamber, remotest from Quentin Bagott’s quarters,
which had been prepared for him, put him to bed, and left him in the
hands of that old wintry bird of prey, Mother Harlock, who forthwith
proceeded to examine his hurts with the dark relish peculiar to her
kind. Coming to seek Brion presently, she gave him, in a muttered
whisper, the result of her diagnosis:--
‘The man’s sore smitten.’
‘Will he die?’
‘A hath a dog’s chance--given my vuln’ry water. ’Twere distilled from
the plantain in the year of its becoming a bird.’
‘Of what becoming a bird? The plantain? Does the plantain become a
bird?’
‘Every seventh year, and cries “cuckoo!” Did you not know it, child?’
‘On my faith, no.’
‘Ay. ’Tis the reason it lacks a nest of its own.’
‘But----’ he gave it up, bubbling with expressionless laughter. ‘You
had better go and get it,’ said he.
He had hoped for something more informative. As it was, her verdict
left him exactly where he had been. However, there was no help for it;
the man was there, and there he must now remain, until Destiny decided
one way or the other on the question of his disposal. In the meantime
the faithful souls who were to represent his authority during his
absence would see to it that his instructions were implicitly carried
out.
He parted from his Uncle that evening, as he and Clerivault had to be
on their way at an early hour the following morning. Going in to the
recluse, with a certain emotion at his heart, he found him
characteristically occupied between a Vulgate and a great tankard of
burnt sack plentifully laced with Nantes brandy. A thread of incense,
rising from a tiny chafing dish on the table, seemed designed, like a
pious kissing-comfit, to neutralise the pungent breath of that ungodly
mixture; while the mentality which could appropriate such material to
such a use appeared further illustrated in the faldstool, or
prie-Dieu, set before a bureau on which stood a laughing head in
bronze of a leaf-crowned Dionysus.
The ex-Judge looked up vacantly, as Brion entered, and motioned him
mechanically to a seat.
‘Not now,’ said the young man. ‘The time that remains to me here is
short. I have come to ask your blessing on my venture, Uncle Quentin.’
Staring a moment, the other shook his head.
‘What venture, nephew?’
‘Have you forgotten? To the New World.’
He seemed to listen and weigh; and then a sudden light went up in his
brain:--
‘To the New World? My blessing? A devil’s viaticum that! A curse from
my lips might speed thee better.’
‘Come, Uncle. You will not start me on such handicap, like the poor
scratch in the game. I of all should know what your blessing is worth
to one you love.’
Bagott passed his hand across his eyes.
‘Do you say so, boy? Yet you will leave me.’
‘Would you not have me go?’
‘To the New World? Ay.’ He seemed to muse, pondering some vision. ‘For
whither she hath gone should not her son follow?’ He stared and stared
before him, till his eyes ran with weak tears. ‘I loved your mother,
Brion,’ he sobbed: ‘I loved your mother.’
It was useless to prolong the scene. The young man knelt, and took the
shaking hands in his, and, kissing them, laid them on his own head.
They slipped down to imprison his face, to draw it towards the
dishonoured lips whose utterance had yet never meant to him aught but
truth and love.
By six o’clock the next day he and Clerivault and Nol porter were on
the Plymouth road, the latter riding with them to convey the baggage,
and to bring back the horses. Their way took them by Holne Chase and
the head of the Horse-shoe Glen. It was a fair April morning, blue and
white and gold. The birds were singing as they never sang but about
that lovely haunted spot. It seemed suddenly to Brion that the fetters
of long years were broken, and that he was riding forth to challenge
the vision not of what was to be, but of what had been and fled. Love
was on the heights, and it was the morning of an older day.