A BRIEF REVENGE
"Ladies?" ejaculated the Commandant. "In my quarters?"
Vashti nodded demurely. "I think you might have told me," she said in a
tone of mild reproach.
"But--my dear young lady----"
"Thank you--"
"Hey?"
"--for calling me young." She reached out a hand, and, taking the
lantern from him, held it high so that the beams fell on her face. "It
is many years since our first meeting, and unhappily we have the date
of it fixed. Give me credit that I reminded you; for I don't mind
confessing that, though it hasn't come to a quarrel yet, my
looking-glass and I are not the friends we were."
Here, had the Commandant been a readier man, he might have answered
with a compliment, and a truthful one. For indeed it was a very
beautiful face that the lantern showed him, and--here was the strange
part of the business--it had been growing younger since she stepped off
the ship, and somehow it must have contrived, in spite of the darkness,
to convey a hint of its rejuvenescence, for the word "young" had
slipped from him quite involuntarily.
But, after all, there is nothing so subtle as simplicity, and, after
all, the Commandant managed to imply that she must be a witch.
"Then, my dear young lady," he replied, "since you have spirited these
females into my quarters, I can only ask you to go and spirit them away
again."
She shook her head.
"What! You won't?... Very well, then, I must deal with them, while you
go off with the lantern and search for Mrs. Treacher."
"You are a brave man," said she; "and--and I think--by the look of
them--you are going to have great fun."
The Commandant stood for a moment rubbing his chin and staring after
the lantern, as it vanished in the fog. With a shake of the shoulders
he pulled himself together, marched into the Barracks, and boldly
opened the door.
"Miss Gabriel!"
"Major Vigoureux!"
"Certainly, ma'am--these being my own quarters, unless--" He paused and
gazed around, as if to make sure that his eyes were not deceiving him.
"Yes, yes--and at this time of night. As I was just saying to Charlotte
here, 'Think what a terrible construction one might put on it!'"
The Commandant lifted his eyebrows. ("I behaved like a brute," he
confessed afterwards, "but the woman, a few hours before, had shown no
mercy to me.") "Indeed, ma'am?" said he. "A construction? Then you must
invent one for me, please, since I can think of none."
"We have had the most terrible experience, sir--the most terrible
fright! You have seen Mrs. Treacher?"
"Has anything happened to Mrs. Treacher?"
"No--but it all came about through the fog----"
"--and my husband deserting me," put in Mrs. Pope.
The Commandant passed a hand across his brow. The gesture seemed to
express perplexity; in truth it covered amusement and a kind of fearful
joy in his newly-found talent for dissimulation.
"My dear Mrs. Pope," he answered, his voice faltering a little, "You
don't mean to tell me that your excellent husband----"
"Of course she doesn't," snapped Miss Gabriel. "She means to say that
the gentlemen were escorting us home, but, meeting the coastguard with
the news of this terrible wreck----"
"A wreck, ma'am?"
"Why, God bless the man! Don't you know? Haven't you heard the guns
going?... But of course you have. Mrs. Treacher told me you were down
helping with the boats--you and her husband and Archelaus, though what
help you three supposed yourselves capable of giving," wound up Miss
Gabriel, reverting for a moment to her customary manner, "I don't
pretend to guess."
"As for that," the Commandant answered gravely, "I am happy to tell you
there has been no wreck. True, a vessel in distress--a large liner--had
found herself among the Hell-deeps, of all abominably awkward places.
But by the mercy of Heaven she managed to extricate herself, and has
dropped anchor, not half an hour ago, in the Roads."
Miss Gabriel stared. "The Hell-deeps ... and at anchor in the Roads?"
she repeated stupidly. "Oh, will someone kindly tell me whether I am
standing on my head or my heels! A large liner?--the thing's
impossible! And in a fog that thick you couldn't see your hand before
your face!"
"Are you quite sure, ladies," asked the Commandant, still gravely,
"that you are not exaggerating the thickness of the fog, somewhat?"
"What?" Miss Gabriel took him up, like an echo. "When we started for
home and found we were half-way up Garrison Hill, and all the time
convinced we were at Old Town, in the churchyard!"
The Commandant shook his head; and it must be conceded that he had some
excuse.
"But why in the churchyard?" he asked, gently.
"Because of the bell. If it comes to that"--Miss Gabriel threw herself
desperately on the offensive--"how do you account for the woman we saw
here, just now?"
"I beg your pardon? A--a woman, did you say?" (Oh, Major Vigoureux!)
"Yes, sir--a woman; a bedizened woman."
"My dear Elizabeth," pleaded Mrs. Pope feebly, "are we quite sure that
we saw her?--that it wasn't a--a sort of mistake? It certainly
seemed--for a moment---- But really, you know, there is no one in the
Islands----"
"My dear Charlotte, didn't we see her with our own eyes?"
Mrs. Pope sighed. "It seems to me I have seen such a number of
things--of incredible things--to-night."
"You are sure it wasn't Mrs. Treacher?" suggested the Commandant,
wickedly.
"Mrs. Treacher! Mrs. Trea---- Does Mrs. Treacher go about in silks and
furs and low bodices with a thousand pounds' worth of diamonds on her
abandoned neck?"
"Certainly not to my knowledge. But," said the Commandant, turning, as
the door opened, "you had better ask her for yourself."
Now, it may be that Mrs. Treacher had also allowed Vashti to bewitch
her. At any rate, she cordially hated Miss Gabriel, and she took, then
and there, what she herself called afterwards, a strong line.
"What are they wanting to know now?" she demanded, addressing the
Commandant.
"Miss Gabriel wants to know"--he answered, in a husky voice, while he
pretended to trim the lamp--"if you go about in silks and furs."
"No, I don't," replied Mrs. Treacher, setting down the bottle of gin.
"And what's more, I don't go a-sheevoing it around Garrison Hill in the
small hours, and a-holding on to railings, and a-clammering for strong
drink."
"That will do, Mrs. Treacher," interposed her master, suddenly reduced
to contrition at the sight of Miss Gabriel, who stood speechless,
opening and shutting her mouth like a fish. "The ladies have lost their
way in the fog, and were, on the whole, extremely fortunate to reach
here without accident. They will agree, I daresay, that the sooner I
escort them home the better. Fetch me a lantern, if you please."
"It--it is extremely good of you," stammered Miss Gabriel.
"My dear madam!" he protested, with a good-natured smile.
Miss Gabriel did not respond to it. But, though bitterly angry, for the
moment she was cowed, and she made no further reference to the
mysterious lady.
She declined the Commandant's arm. Mrs. Pope, however, took it almost
eagerly, and on the way down the hill he obtained from her a voluble if
somewhat incoherent account of the night's adventures. He did his best
now to make light of them. Accidents even more extraordinary had
happened in fogs before now. He related how two companies of the Naval
Brigade, under Sevastopol, had come within an ace of firing on each
other.... He told of the _Milo_, and her wonderful escape, but said
nothing of Vashti. In the midst of his narrative he found himself
wondering what answer he could make if they questioned him again upon
the apparition.
But neither Mrs. Pope nor Miss Gabriel made further allusion to it.
Their silence, for which at first he was merely thankful, began to
puzzle him after a while.
Could it be possible that he, too, had been cheated by an apparition?
He took leave of the ladies at their respective gates, retiring
delicately as soon as, waiting in the road, he had assured himself that
they were within doors. Miss Gabriel admitted herself with a latch-key.
Mrs. Pope's timid knock was answered by her astonished husband, who,
having just returned from the harbour, and assuming his spouse to be
long since in bed and asleep, had lit a candle to explore the
dining-room cellaret.
The front door was shut on their reciprocal surprise, and the
Commandant withdrew. He had sighed, before now, as he had shut Mr. and
Mrs. Pope's front gate after an evening's whist. Doubtless they were a
stupid couple.
* * * * *
A light shone from the Barracks--from the office window to the right of
the door. Within the office Vashti had dragged the sofa across the room
and sat, with her fur cloak thrown back, toasting her shoes before a
warm fire. In the dancing flame of it her diamonds sparkled as she
turned to him.
"Mrs. Treacher is upstairs," she said, "hunting out sheets to air for
me. Now fill your pipe, please, and sit down and tell me all about it."
Major Vigoureux found an old pipe on the mantel-shelf, dived in the
tobacco jar for a few dry crumbs, filled, and lit and stamped out a
spark that had dropped on the hearth-rug.
"It isn't a creditable story," said he, puffing slowly, and blinking at
the flash of jewels below her white throat. "In fact, I behaved like a
brute."
"Tell me about it," she repeated.
So he told her; and found himself smoking and watching her, while she
laughed softly, leaning forward to the fire, and gazing into the heart
of it.