CORNERED
A bright fire was burning in the grate. Without a word she drew a chair
towards it and sat down, whilst Bobby and Sam took their seats, one at
the side of the table, the other on the couch by the door.
For half a minute none of them spoke.
It was Martia who broke the silence.
"He has been here waiting for us," said she. Then turning to Sam: "You
must have told him that the boat came from Poole. I don't blame you. It
was just the thing one might say in conversation, and you did not know
he was a rogue."
"I blame myself," said Sam. "No, I didn't know he was a rogue, but I
shouldn't have had all that champagne and stuff. I've let you two down.
Well, there it is."
He crossed his arms.
"Yes," replied Martia. "There it is, and there's no use crying over
spilt milk. The question is, what are we to do? I don't like the thing
at all. He comes here to wait for us, conceals nothing, not even his
name, and meets us like that with a smile, knowing quite well that we
know all about his hand in the Genoa business. You remember Pirelli's
warning to beware of what he might do? I feel that he is a terribly
dangerous man and a terribly clever one. I would much rather he had
concealed himself and tried to steal the things from us by a trick, as
he did at Genoa."
Sam uncrossed his arms, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
Bobby rose and came to the fire, leaning on the mantelpiece.
"You're right," he said. "He must have something up his sleeve or he
wouldn't be acting openly as he is."
"He has nothing up his sleeve," said Sam, talking as though he were
addressing the pattern on the carpet. "It's just this: we can't fight
him, and he knows it. Our business is shady; that's his strength."
"But why didn't he speak to us?"
"I don't know. We've got to wait and see. We'll leave the first move
to him, and I'll go on getting the stuff on shore. I'm not going to be
stopped by him, or show that we are a bit afraid."
"All the same," said Bobby, "if we bring any of the stuff on shore
to-night, I'll sleep in the cottage with it."
"Yes," said Sam. "Either you or I will keep watch, and we'll have news
from Behrens in the morning what to do about it. You'd better drop him
a note this evening giving him details."
At four o'clock, Bowler turning up, they put off to the _Lorna_. Sam
had obtained hampers for the packing of the vases. This work and the
transportation of the things to the cottage took them until eight
o'clock, when they returned to the inn for supper, leaving Bowler on
guard at the cottage. Glastonbury had consented to stay on board the
ship for the night as watchman.
There was no sign of Visconti at the inn. They found from the waiter
that he had dined at six o'clock and gone to Bournemouth; to the
theatre.
It was an unfortunate day for the expedition, and a still more
unfortunate day for Bobby. At nine o'clock, leaving the others in the
coffee-room, he went out to smoke a pipe, taking his way along the
quays by the light of a nearly full moon. Away across the harbour water
he could see the anchor-light of the _Lorna Doone_, and beyond her
the ghostly silhouette of the _Sandfly_ at her moorings; but he was
thinking neither of ships nor of the expedition just completed, nor of
the beauty of the cold, clear winter's night. He was thinking of Martia.
He was free now, free to say to her what he wanted to say, to tell her
what she must have guessed by this--that she was the only woman in the
world so far as he was concerned. She had never given him what one
might call encouragement; they had been shipmates and friends, that
was all; but he knew, or fancied he knew, that all would be right.
The only thing holding him back was his position. If things turned
out well, if Behrens were able to dispose of the marbles taken from
Hyalos, his worldly position would be assured. They were worth a very
large sum, perhaps fifty thousand pounds, perhaps more. The energy and
activity of Visconti in the matter was a guarantee of their worth, and
he, Bobby, was to receive half the profits. Sam had always definitely
refused to share, though, when it came to the point, Bobby had
determined to make him share. Leaving that aside, if things went well,
Bobby would be well off; if they went the other way he would be as poor
as when they started.
He was not the man to ask a woman to share his poverty. No. He could
say nothing to Martia till the money was secure, and that could not be
till Visconti was defeated in whatever plans he had made against them,
and until Behrens had written his cheque and the cheque was cashed.
He turned from the end of the wharf into a mean street that led him by
big warehouses to a path that opened on to the Bournemouth Road. Poole,
that once prosperous shipping port, is, especially on a winter's night
like this, a town of the dead. Not a soul did he meet on his way, and
the road beneath the moon showed nothing but a light from Bowler's
cottage and, as he drew closer, Bowler himself smoking a pipe on guard
outside.
He gave the old sailor good-night and, returning to the inn, knocked
his pipe out in the porch.
He felt suddenly easy in his mind. The deserted town, the fact that
Bowler was on guard at the cottage, and that Glastonbury was taking
charge of the _Lorna_, conspired to create this feeling. All would
be well. There was nothing to fear. This was England, not Italy, and
Visconti, whatever he might attempt, would fail. As he came into the
lighted hall his spirits had risen to the point of exultation.
He was fey.
He put his hat on the rack, and came towards the coffee-room.
Now, the coffee-room of the _Anchor_ is situated at the end of a short
passage floored with thick matting that takes a footstep without a
sound. The coffee-room door was a bit open, and as he reached it a
voice broken made him pause; Sam's voice, broken with emotion:
"I swear to you, Martia, I will never commit that foolishness again.
Never again. I have done with drink of any sort for ever--if you will
only believe me."
And Martia's voice:
"I believe you, and I will trust you. I would have said nothing about
it, only that marriage is a thing more serious even than life--it is
the lives of two people for always and always."
Then a sound as though Sam were snivelling and the girl comforting him.
Bobby turned and stole away. He came into the hall and went to the
hat-rack, put on his hat, absolutely unconscious of what he was doing,
stood for a moment as if undecided, and then stumbled up the stairs to
his bedroom.
So that was it. Martia was engaged to Sam. Not only in love with him,
evidently, but engaged to him. He walked the room with his hat still on
his head, recognising the plain fact yet unable to accommodate his mind
to it.
Then slowly, and little by little, the monstrousness of the whole
business began to piece itself together like the picture that makes a
jig-saw puzzle.
This pair had never shown the least sign of mutual attachment from
start to finish of the voyage--if Sam's lapses from sobriety were left
out of count. Then immediately after landing they were carrying on like
this!
At the beginning of things, when they had first met, it was evident
that they had known each other before; but they had said not one word
of recognition. He remembered how Sam had shaved off his beard when he
had heard that Martia was joining them.
Bobby, trying to think, sat down on the side of his bed and took off
his hat, flung it in a corner of the room, and nursed his knee.
From the very first there had been a mystery in their relationship;
yet the solution of that mystery--mutual love masked and hidden--was
antagonistic to all he knew about them and their relationship on the
voyage. Yet there was no way of refusing it.
"I believe you and I will trust you. I would have said nothing about
it, only that marriage is a thing more serious even than life."
When a girl talks like that to a man and comforts him when he snivels,
what more is to be said? Well, there was one good thing, anyhow. Now
that he knew how things lay, he was saved from making a fool of himself
by asking Martia to marry him. This thought, however, brought little
comfort.
The iron had literally entered his soul. He had not known the intensity
and power of his love for this girl till now that it had been stricken
down, a thing ruined yet living still--ruined yet living still.
He rose and opened the window and looked into the night, telling
himself that whatever happened in the future, nothing mattered now.