AN UNSATISFACTORY EXPLANATION
We went into the house, but no farther than the hall. For the moment
we were come there she placed herself in front of me. I remember that
the door of the house was never shut, and through the opening I could
see a shoulder of the hill and the stars above it, and hear the long
roar of the waves upon the beach.
"We are good friends, I hope, you and I," she said. "Plain speech is
the privilege of such friendship. Speak, then, as though you were
speaking to a man. Wherein have I not been frank with you?"
There must be, I thought, some explanation which would free her from
all suspicion of deceit. Else, how could she speak with so earnest a
tongue or look with eyes so steady?
"As man to man, then," I answered, "I am grieved I was not told that
Cullen Mayle had come secretly to Tresco and had thence escaped."
"Cullen!" she said, in a wondering voice. "He was on Tresco! Where?"
I constrained myself to answer patiently.
"In the Abbey grounds, on St. Helen's Island, and--" I paused,
thinking, nay hoping, that even at this eleventh hour she would speak,
she would explain. But she kept silence, nor did her eyes ever waver
from my face.
--"And," I continued, "on Castle Down."
"There!" she exclaimed, and added, thoughtfully, "Yes, there he would
be safe. But when was Cullen upon Tresco? When?"
So the deception was to be kept up.
"On the night," I answered, "when I first came to Merchant's Point."
She looked at me for a little without a word, and I could imagine that
it was difficult for her to hit upon an opportune rejoinder. There was
one question, however, which might defer her acknowledgments of her
concealments, and, to be sure, she asked it:
"How do you know that?" and before I could answer, she added another,
which astonished me by its assurance. "When did you find out?"
I told her, I trust with patience, of the key and the various steps by
which I had found out. "And as to when," I said, "it was this
afternoon."
At that she gave a startled cry, and held out a trembling hand towards
me.
"Had you known," she cried, "had you known only yesterday that Cullen
had come and had safely got him back, you would have been spared all
you went through last night!"
"What I went through last night!" I exclaimed, passionately. "Oh, that
is of small account to me, and I beg you not to suffer it to trouble
your peace. But--I do not say had I known yesterday, I say had I been
_told_ yesterday--I should have been spared a very bitter
disappointment."
"I do not understand," she said, and again she put out her hand
towards me and drew it in and stretched it out again with an
appearance of distress to which even at that moment I felt myself
softening. However, I took no heed of the hand. "In some way you blame
me, but I do not understand."
"You would, perhaps, find it easier to understand if you were at the
pains to remember that on the night I landed upon Tresco, I came over
Castle Down and past the shed to Merchant's Point."
"Well?" and she spoke with more coldness, as though her pride made her
stubborn in defiance. No doubt she was unaware that I was close to her
that night. It remained for me to reveal that, and God knows I did it
with no sense of triumph, but only a great sadness.
"As I stood in the darkness a little this side of the shed, a girl
hurried down the hill from it. She was dressed in white, so that I
could make no mistake. On the other hand, my dark coat very likely
made me difficult to see. The girl passed me, and so closely that her
frock brushed against my hand. Now, can you name the girl?"
She looked at me with the same stubbornness.
"No," she said, "I cannot."
"On the other hand," said I, "I can. One circumstance enables me to be
certain. I slipped on the grass that night, and catching hold of a
bush of gorse pricked my hand."
"Yes, I remember that."
"I pricked my hand a minute or two before the girl passed me. As I
say, she brushed against my hand, which was bleeding, and the next day
I saw the blood smirched upon a white frock--and who wore it, do you
think?"
"I did," she answered.
"Ah! Then you own it. You will own too that I have some cause of
discontentment in that you have played with me, whose one thought was
to serve you like an honest gentleman."
And at that the stubbornness, the growing resentment at my questions,
died clean out of her face.
"You would have!" she cried eagerly. "You would indeed have cause for
more than discontent had I played with you. But you do not mean that.
You cannot think that I would use any trickeries with you. Oh! take
back your words! For indeed they hurt me. You are mistaken here. I
wore the frock, but it was not I who was on Castle Down that night. It
was not I who brushed past you----"
"And the stain?" I asked.
"How it came there I do not know," she said. "But this I do know,--it
was not your hand that marked it. I never knew that Cullen was on
Tresco. I never saw him, much less spoke to him. You will believe
that? No! Why should I have kept it secret if I had?" and her head
drooped as she saw that still I did not believe.
There was silence between us. She stood without changing her attitude,
her head bent, her hands nervously clasping and unclasping. The wind
came through the open door into the hall. Once in the silence Helen
caught her breath; it was as though she checked a sob; and gradually a
thought came into my mind which would serve to explain her
silence--which would, perhaps, justify it--which, at all events, made
of it a mistaken act of kindness. So I spoke with all gentleness--and
with a little remorse, too, for the harshness I had shown:
"You said we were good friends, you hoped; and, for my part, I can say
that the words were aptly chosen. I am your friend--your good
_friend_. You will understand? I want you also to understand that it
was not even so much as friendship which brought me down to Tresco. It
was Dick's sturdy example, it was my utter weariness, and some spark
of shame Dick kindled in me. I was living, though upon my soul
_living_ is not the word, in one tiresome monotony of disgraceful
days. I had made my fortune, and in the making had somehow unlearnt
how fitly to enjoy it."
"But this I know," interrupted Helen, now lifting her face to me.
"I never told you."
"But my violin told me. Do you remember? I wanted to know you through
and through, to the heart's core. So I took my violin and played to
you in the garden. And your face spoke in answer. So I knew you."
It was strange. This confession she made with a blush and a great deal
of confusion--a confession of a trick if you will, but a trick to
which no one could object, by which anyone might be flattered. But
that other more serious duplicity she could deny with an unwavering
assurance!
"You know then," I went on. "It makes it easier for me. I want you to
understand then that it was to serve myself I came, and I do verily
believe that I have served myself better than I have served you. Why,
I did not even know what you were like. I did not inquire of
Clutterbuck, he drew no picture of you to persuade me to my journey.
Thus then there is no reason why you should be silent concerning
Cullen out of any consideration for me."
She looked at me in perplexity. My hint had not sufficed. I must make
myself more clear.
"I have no doubt," I continued, "that you have seen. No doubt I might
have been more circumspect. No doubt I have betrayed myself this last
day. But, believe me, you are under no debt to me. If I can bring
Cullen Mayle back to you, I will not harbour a thought of jealousy."
Did she understand? I could not be sure. But I saw her whole face
brighten and smile--it was as though a glory shone upon it--and her
figure straighten with a sort of pride. Did she understand at the last
that she need practise no concealments? But she said nothing, she
waited for me to say what more I had to say. Well, I could make the
matter yet more plain.
"Besides," I said, "I knew--I knew very well before I set out from
London, Clutterbuck told me. So that it is my own fault, you see, if
when I came here I took no account of what he told me. And even so,
believe me, I do not regret the fault."
"Lieutenant Clutterbuck!" she exclaimed, with something almost of
alarm. "He told you what?"
"He told me of a night very like this. You were standing in this hall,
very likely as you stand now, and the door was open and the breeze and
the sound of the sea came through the open door as it does now. Only
where I stand Cullen Mayle stood, asking you to follow him out through
the world. And you would have followed, you did indeed begin to
follow----"
So far I had got when she broke in passionately, with her eyes afire!
"It is not true! How can men speak such lies? Lieutenant Clutterbuck!
I know--he told me the same story. It would have been much easier, so
much franker, had he said outright he was tired of his--friendship for
me and wished an end to it. I should have liked him the better had he
been so frank. But that he should tell you the same story. Oh! it is
despicable--and you believe it?" she challenged me. "You believe that
story. You believe, too, I went to a trysting with Cullen on Castle
Down, the night you came, and kept it secret from you and let you run
the peril of your life. You will have it, in a word, whatever I may
say or do," and she wrung her hands with a queer helplessness. "You
will have it that I love him. Pity, a sense of injustice, a feeling
that I wrongly possess what is rightly his--these things you will not
allow can move me. No, I must love him."
"Have I not proof you do?" I answered. "Not from Clutterbuck, but from
yourself. Have I not proof into what despair your love could throw
you?" And I took from my pocket the silk scarf. "Where did I get
this?"
She took it from my hands, while her face softened. She drew it
through her fingers, and a smile parted her lips. She raised her eyes
to me with a certain shyness, and she answered shyly:
"Yet you say you were not curious to know anything of me in London
before you started to the West."
The answer was no answer at all. I repeated my question:
"How do I come to have that scarf?"
"I can but guess," she said; "I did not know that Lieutenant
Clutterbuck possessed it. But it could be no one else. You asked it of
Lieutenant Clutterbuck in London."
For a moment I could not believe that I had heard a right. I stared at
her. It was impossible that any woman could carry effrontery to so
high a pitch. But she repeated her words.
"Lieutenant Clutterbuck gave it to you no doubt in London, and--will
you tell me?--I should like to know. Did you ask him for it?"
Should I strip away this pretence? Should I compel her to own where I
found it and how I came by it? But it seemed not worth while. I turned
on my heel without a word, and went straight out through the open door
and on to the hillside.
And so this was the second night which I spent in the gorse of Castle
Down. One moment I was hot to go back to London and speak to no woman
for the rest of my days. The next I was all for finding Cullen Mayle
and heaping coals of fire upon Helen's head. The coals of fire carried
the day in the end.
As morning broke I walked down to the Palace Inn fully resolved. I
would search for Cullen Mayle until I found him. I would bring him
back. I would see him married to Helen from a dark corner in St.
Mary's Church, and when the pair were properly unhappy and miserable,
as they would undoubtedly become--I was very sorry, but miserable they
would be--why then I would send her a letter. The writing in the
letter should be "Ha! ha!"--not a word more, not even a signature, but
just "Ha! ha!" on a blank sheet of paper.
But, as I have said, I had grown very young these last few days.