IX

The little party that lay in wait for the Alderney steamer in old Jack

Guille's boat off the Eperquerie, next morning, was eminently lacking

in the vivacity that usually distinguishes such parties when the sea

is smooth and the sky is blue. In fact, when they got on board, the

Captain decided in his own mind that they must all have quarrelled

before starting. There was no sign of anything of the kind about them

now, it is true, but that might just be their good manners. For

English people are not like the Sark and Guernsey folk, who, when they

do quarrel, let all the world know about it.

These four had apparently little to say to one another and less to

anyone else. If they had been going to a funeral they could hardly

have been more reserved.

And to something very like a funeral they were going, with the added

anxiety of very grave doubts as to the result of their visit.

They had had no difficulty in persuading the elder ladies that

Alderney was not for them. The steep path down to the Eperquerie

landing, and the tumbling about in a small boat until the steamer

came, did not greatly appeal to them. Moreover, Lady Elspeth's clear

eyes had noticed the signs of their clouding, in spite of their

efforts after naturalness, for to experienced eyes there is nothing so

unnatural as the attempt to be natural. If Mrs. Pixley noticed nothing

it was probably because her faculties had not yet fully recovered from

the shock to which they had been subjected. If she noticed she said

nothing, having no desire, perhaps, to add to the weight of her

already heavy burden.

"Now, my boy, what is it?" Lady Elspeth asked, when she had persuaded

Graeme to take her for a stroll in the evening, under plea of cramp

through overmuch sitting.

"Jeremiah Pixley is in Alderney and has written to Charles begging his

help to get on his way."

"Ah! And what are you going to do about it?".

Graeme outlined their ideas on the matter.

"He's an old rascal," said Lady Elspeth softly. "I doubt very much if

you'll get anything out of him."

"Can you suggest any better way of dealing with the matter?"

"I don't know that I can at the moment, but I doubt if you'll get any

satisfaction out of him. He'll stick to all he can, and his promise of

restitution is all bunkum, I should fear."

"And would you help him to get away in any case?"

"Personally, I think a course of penal servitude would be of the

greatest service to him. But, for Charles's sake and his mother's, the

sooner the whole matter is buried the better, and so I should be sorry

to hear of him being taken. It would only revive the scandal."

"That's just what we all feel;" and he saw that the problem of

Jeremiah Pixley was too much even for Lady Elspeth.

And so the party of four on the _Courier_ lacked vivacity, and found

no enjoyment in the lonely austerity of the Casquets or Ortach; and

the frowning southern cliffs of Alderney itself, as the steamer raced

up the Swinge to Braye Harbour, seemed to them but a poor copy of

their own little isle of Sark, lacking its gem-like qualities. But

then their minds were intent upon the business ahead and their outlook

was darkened.

X

"Would you like me to come up with you, Charles?" Graeme asked, as the

steamer rounded the breakwater.

"Yes, I'd like it," said Charles gloomily. "But I think I'd better go

alone. I don't believe anything's going to come of it."

"I'm afraid not--as far as we're concerned. You'll just have to keep a

stiff upper lip and stick to what you believe the right thing to do."

To which Charles replied only with a grim nod, and they went ashore.

"We'll walk up to the town with you," said Graeme, when they got

outside the harbour precincts. "When you've got as far as you can with

him, come down to the shore due West. You'll find us by that old fort

we saw from the boat;" and presently they branched off towards the

sea, while Charles went doggedly on into St. Anne on as miserable an

errand as ever son had.

He tramped on along the hot white road, till he found himself in the

sleepy little town, where the grass grew between the granite sets in

the roadways and a dreamy listlessness pervaded all things. He sought

out No. 99A High Street and knocked on the door.

It was opened by an elderly woman who seemed surprised at sight of a

visitor.

"Mr. Peace?" asked Charles, feeling thereby _particeps criminis_.

"He's inside. Will you come in?"

She opened a door off the passage, said, "A gentleman to see you;" and

Charles went in and closed the door behind him.

His father had started up from a couch where he had been lying. There

was a startled look in his eyes and his face was pale and worn, but a

touch of colour came back into his cheeks when he saw who his visitor

was.

He had shaved off his bit of side whisker. His face was grayer and

thinner and his body somewhat shrunken, even in these few days. He

wore a white tie, and his coat and waistcoat were of clerical cut. On

the table was a pair of gold spectacles and on the sideboard a soft

billycock hat. He looked the not-too-well-off country parson to the

life. The only outward and visible sign of the old Jeremiah was the

heavy gold pince-nez which lay between the top buttons of his

waistcoat, which he hauled out and fingered as of old the moment he

began to speak.

"Ah, Charles! This is good of you. I hardly expected a personal visit.

I was beginning to fear you had not got my letter, or that you had

decided not to answer it."

"It followed me to Sark."

"Ah! you are back in Sark?"

"I thought it well to take my mother there, to be out of things for a

time."

"Quite so, quite so! That was very thoughtful of you. This is a

terrible calamity that has befallen us. But, as I said in my letter, I

have every hope of being able to redeem matters if I can only get to

where that is possible."

"Where's that?"

"Well, in the first place to Spain--"

"And afterwards?"

Mr. Pixley hesitated. "Perhaps--for your own sake--it would be as well

you should not know--for the present, at all events. You may be asked

questions. If you don't know, you can truthfully say so."

"I gather that you have funds put away somewhere."

"If I can get to where I want to go, I can at all events make a fresh

start. And I am prepared to devote the rest of my life to the one

object I have named.... The last few years have been very wearying. I

have had trouble with my heart at times;" and he put his hand to his

side to emphasise it. "But if I can get quietly away I shall soon pull

round and be ready for work again, now that the strain is over."

"You know you're asking me to do what I've no right to do?" said

Charles gloomily.

"I know, my boy, and it is very bitter for me to have to ask it. But I

can't get away without your help, and the alternative is not pleasant

to think of--for either of us.... I do not ask more than I would

willingly have done for you if the positions were reversed.... On the

whole, I do not think I have been a bad father to you. Circumstances,

indeed, have been too strong for me at the end, but--"

"I am willing to do what you want--and more, on one condition."

"What is that? Anything in reason--"

"I will provide you with funds to get away, and I will send you three

hundred pounds each year--"

"Good lad!"

"On condition that you hand over to me all the property you've got

stowed away--"

"Damn!"

"So that I may hand it over to your creditors."

"Why not write at once to Scotland Yard and tell them where I am? But,

after all, I'm not sure that even your world would applaud so filial

an act as that."

"I'm prepared to make sacrifices myself to help right some of this

wrong--"

"I had to make many for you, my boy, before you were old enough to

understand it--before my own position was assured. Ay, and since too.

I would have flung it all up years ago but for you. I wanted you to be

set firmly on your feet before the crash came. It has been killing

work. I'm glad it's over--whatever the end may be. If you can't see

your way to help me, the end is obvious and close at hand. I have, I

think, something under two pounds in my pocket. If I'd waited to get

more I should not be here. The end came unexpectedly. Old Coxley

called for some securities which I had--which I couldn't give him at

the moment, and I had to go at once or not at all."

Charles stood up. He would have liked to tell him all he felt about

the matter. How the tampering with securities hit him more hardly than

almost anything could have done, since straight dealing in such

matters is the very first of Stock Exchange tenets. How, if he had

come to him, he would have strained himself to the utmost to set

things right.

But, facile talker as he was on matters that were of no account, he

found himself strangely tongue-tied here.

"Well?" he asked. "Will you let me help you?"

"As you will, my boy ... If you do, it offers me a chance--my only

chance. If you don't----" he shrugged his heavy shoulders meaningly.

"Do what I ask," urged Charles. "It is the only possible amends you

can make."

Mr. Pixley shook his head. "It is out of the question. I could do

nothing with three hundred a year----"

"You could live quietly on that in many places."

"I don't want simply to live. I want to work and redeem myself."

"You have worked hard enough and long enough," said Charles; and he

might have added, as was in his mind, "And it has all ended in this."

"I would like to help you," he said, as he moved slowly towards the

door, striving hard to keep the stiff upper lip Graeme had enjoined on

him. "But I don't think you should expect me to do what I know to be

wrong. I'll do what I said----"

Mr. Pixley shook his head. His face was gray, his lips pinched in.

Charles went out and closed the door behind him.

But he could not leave him so. He had known from the first that he

would have to help him, right or wrong.

He opened the door again quietly and went in. His father was sitting

at the table with his head in his hands. Charles laid down the money

he had, with Graeme's assistance, prepared, laid his hand on his

shoulder for a moment, and went quietly out again, and out of the

house.

It was a miserable business altogether. He never forgot that last

sight of him sitting at the mean little table in the mean little room

with his head in his hands.