Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts written by A. T. Quiller Couch
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A. T. Quiller Couch >> Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts
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"Then I've come for you."
"Come for me?"
"Iss; my name's Nance Trewartha, an' you'm wanted across the water,
quick as possible. Old Mrs. Slade's a-dyin' to-night, over yonder."
"She wants me?"
"She's one o' your congregation, an' can't die easy till you've seen
her. I reckon she's got something 'pon her mind; an' I was to fetch you
over, quick as I could."
As she spoke the church clock down in the town chimed out the hour, and
immediately after, ten strokes sounded on the clear air.
The minister consulted his own watch and seemed to be considering.
"Very well," said he after a pause. "I'll come. I suppose I must cross
by the ferry."
"Ferry's closed this two hours, an' you needn't wake up any in the
house. I've brought father's boat to the ladder below, an' I'll bring
you back again. You've only to step out here by the back door. An'
wrap yourself up, for 'tis a brave distance."
"Very well. I suppose it's really serious."
"Mortal. I'm glad you'll come," she added simply.
The young man nodded down in a friendly manner, and going back into the
room, slipped on his overcoat, picked up his hat, and turned the lamp
down carefully. Then he struck a match, found his way to the back-door,
and unbarred it. The girl was waiting for him, still in the centre of
the grass-plat.
"I'm glad you've come," she repeated, but this time there was something
like constraint in her voice. As he pulled-to the door softly she
moved, and led the way down to the water-side.
From the quay-door a long ladder ran down to the water. At low water
one had to descend twenty feet and more; but now the high tide left but
three of its rungs uncovered. At the young minister's feet a small
fishing-boat lay ready, moored by a short painter to the ladder.
The girl stepped lightly down and held up a hand.
"Thank you," said the young man with dignity, "but I do not want help."
She made no answer to this; but as he stepped down, went forward and
unmoored the painter. Then she pushed gently away from the ladder,
hoisted the small foresail, and, returning to her companion, stood
beside him for a moment with her hand on the tiller.
"Better slack the fore-sheet," she said suddenly.
The young man looked helplessly at her. He had not the slightest idea
of her meaning, did not in fact know the difference between a fore-sheet
and a mainsail. And it was just to find out the depth of his ignorance
that she had spoken.
"Never mind," she said, "I'll do it myself." She slackened and made
fast the rope, and took hold of the tiller again. The sails shook and
filled softly as they glided out from under the wall. The soft breeze
blew straight behind them, the tide was just beginning to ebb.
She loosed the main sheet a little, and the water hissed as they spun
down under the grey town towards the harbour's mouth.
A dozen vessels lay at anchor below the town quay, their lamps showing a
strange orange yellow in the moonlight; between them the minister saw
the cottages of Ruan glimmering on the eastern shore, and over it the
coast-guard flagstaff, faintly pencilled above the sky-line. It seemed
to him that they were not shaping their course for the little town.
"I thought you told me," he said at length, "that Mrs.--the dying
woman--lived across there."
The girl shook her head. "Not in Ruan itsel'--Ruan parish. We'll have
to go round the point."
She was leaning back and gazing straight before her, towards the
harbour's mouth. The boat was one of the class that serves along that
coast for hook-and-line as well as drift net fishing, clinker-built,
about twenty-seven feet in the keel, and nine in beam. It had no deck
beyond a small cuddy forward, on top of which a light hoar-frost was
gathering as they moved. The minister stood beside the girl, and
withdrew his eyes from this cuddy roof to contemplate her.
"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you don't take cold, wearing no
wrap or bonnet on frosty nights like this?"
She let the tiller go for a moment, took his hand by the wrist, and laid
it on her own bare arm. He felt the flesh, but it was firm and warm.
Then he withdrew his hand hastily, without finding anything to say.
His eyes avoided hers. When, after half a minute, he looked at her
again, her gaze was fixed straight ahead, upon the misty stretch of sea
beyond the harbour's mouth.
In a minute or two they were gliding out between the tall cliff and the
reef of rocks that guard this entrance on either side. On the reef
stood a wooden cross, painted white, warning vessels to give a wide
berth; on the cliff a grey castle, with a battery before it, under the
guns of which they spun seaward, still with the wind astern.
Outside, the sea lay as smooth as within the harbour. The wind blew
steadily off the shore, so that, close-hauled, one might fetch up or
down Channel with equal ease. The girl began to flatten the sails, and
asked her companion to bear a hand. Their hands met over a rope, and
the man noted with surprise that the girl's was feverishly hot.
Then she brought the boat's nose round to the eastward and, heeling
gently over the dark water, they began to skirt the misty coast with the
breeze on their left cheeks.
"How much farther?" asked the minister.
She nodded towards the first point in the direction of Plymouth.
He turned his coat-collar up about his ears and wondered if his duty
would often take him on such journeys as this. Also he felt thankful
that the sea was smooth. He might, or might not, be given to
sea-sickness: but somehow he was sincerely glad that he had not to be
put to the test for the first time in this girl's presence.
They passed the small headland and still the boat held on its way.
"I had no idea you were going to take me this distance. Didn't you
promise me the house lay just beyond the point we've just passed?"
To his amazement the girl drew herself up, looked him straight in the
face and said--
"There's no such place."
"_What?_"
"There's no such place. There's nobody ill at all. I told you a lie."
"You told me a lie--then why in the name of common sense am I here?"
"Because, young man--because, sir, I'm sick o' love for you, an' I
want'ee to marry me."
"Great heaven!" the young minister muttered, recoiling. "Is the girl
mad?"
"Ah, but look at me, sir!" She seemed to grow still taller as she stood
there, resting one hand on the tiller and gazing at him with perfectly
serious eyes. "Look at me well before you take up with some other o'
the girls. To-morrow they'll be all after 'ee, an' this'll be my only
chance; for my father's no better'n a plain fisherman, an' they're all
above me in money an' rank. I be but a Ruan girl, an' my family is
naught. But look at me well; there's none stronger nor comelier, nor
that'll love thee so dear!"
The young man gasped. "Set me ashore at once!" he commanded, stamping
his foot.
"Nay, that I will not till thou promise, an' that's flat. Dear lad,
listen--an' consent, consent--an' I swear to thee thou'll never be sorry
for't."
"I never heard such awful impropriety in my life. Turn back; I order
you to steer back to the harbour at once!"
She shook her head. "No, lad; I won't. An' what's more, you don't know
how to handle a boat, an' couldn't get back by yoursel', not in a
month."
"This is stark madness. You--you abandoned woman, how long do you mean
to keep me here?"
"Till thou give in to me. We'm goin' straight t'wards Plymouth now, an'
if th' wind holds--as 'twill--we'll be off the Rame in two hours.
If you haven't said me yes by that maybe we'll go on; or perhaps we'll
run across to the coast o' France--"
"Girl, do you know that if I'm not back by day-break, I'm ruined!"
"And oh, man, man! Can't 'ee see that I'm ruined, too, if I turn back
without your word? How shall I show my face in Troy streets again, tell
me?"
At this sudden transference of responsibility the minister was
staggered.
"You should have thought of that before," he said, employing the one
obvious answer.
"O' course I thought of it. But for love o' you I made up my mind to
risk it. An' now there's no goin' back." She paused a moment and then
added, as a thought struck her, "Why, lad, doesn' that prove I love 'ee
uncommon?"
"I prefer not to consider the question. Once more--will you go back?"
"I can't."
He bit his lips and moved forward to the cuddy, on the roof of which he
seated himself sulkily. The girl tossed him an end of rope.
"Dear, better coil that up an' sit 'pon it. The frost'll strike a chill
into thee."
With this she resumed her old attitude by the tiller. Her eyes were
fixed ahead, her gaze passing just over the minister's hat. When he
glanced up he saw the rime twinkling on her shoulders and the star-shine
in her dark eyes. Around them the heavens blazed with constellations.
Never had the minister seen them so multitudinous or so resplendent.
Never before had the firmament seemed so alive to him. He could almost
hear it breathe. And beneath the stars the little boat raced eastward,
with the reef-points pattering on its tan sails.
Neither spoke. For the most part the minister avoided the girl's eyes,
and sat nursing his wrath. The whole affair was ludicrous; but it meant
the sudden ruin of his good name, at the very start of his career.
This was the word he kept grinding between his teeth--"ruin," "ruin."
Whenever it pleased this mad creature to set him ashore, he must write
to Deacon Snowden for his boxes and resign all connection with Troy.
But would he ever get rid of the scandal? Could he ever be sure that,
to whatever distance he might flee, it would not follow him? Had he not
better abandon his calling, once and for all? It was hard.
A star shot down from the Milky Way and disappeared in darkness behind
the girl's shoulders. His eyes, following it, encountered hers.
She left the tiller and came slowly forward.
"In three minutes we'll open Plymouth Sound," she said quietly, and then
with a sharp gesture flung both arms out towards him. "Oh, lad, think
better o't an' turn back wi' me! Say you'll marry me, for I'm perishin'
o' love!"
The moonshine fell on her throat and extended arms. Her lips were
parted, her head was thrown back a little, and for the first time the
young minister saw that she was a beautiful woman.
"Ay, look, look at me!" she pleaded. "That's what I've wanted 'ee to do
all along. Take my hands: they'm shapely to look at and strong to work
for 'ee."
Hardly knowing what he did, the young man took them; then in a moment he
let them go--but too late; they were about his neck.
With that he sealed his fate for good or ill. He bent forward a little
and their lips met.
So steady was the wind that the boat still held on her course; but no
sooner had the girl received the kiss than she dropped her arms, walked
off, and shifted the helm.
"Unfasten the sheet there," she commanded, "and duck your head clear."
As soon as their faces were set for home, the minister walked back to
the cuddy roof and sat down to reflect. Not a word was spoken till they
reached the harbour's mouth again, and then he pulled out his watch.
It was half-past four in the morning.
Outside the Battery Point the girl hauled down the sails and got out the
sweeps; and together they pulled up under the still sleeping town to the
minister's quay-door. He was clumsy at this work, but she instructed
him in whispers, and they managed to reach the ladder as the clocks were
striking five. The tide was far down by this time, and she held the
boat close to the ladder while he prepared to climb. With his foot on
the first round, he turned. She was white as a ghost, and trembling
from top to toe.
"Nance--did you say your name was Nance?"
She nodded.
"What's the matter?"
"I'll--I'll let you off, if you want to be let off."
"I'm not sure that I do," he said, and stealing softly up the ladder,
stood at the top and watched her boat as she steered it back to Ruan.
Three months after, they were married, to the indignant amazement of the
minister's congregation. It almost cost him his pulpit, but he held on
and triumphed. There is no reason to believe that he ever repented of
his choice, or rather of Nance's. To be sure, she had kidnapped him by
a lie; but perhaps she wiped it out by fifty years of honest affection.
On that point, however, I, who tell the tale, will not dogmatise.
WHICH?
The scene was a street in the West End of London, a little south of
Eaton Square: the hour just twenty-five minutes short of midnight.
A wind from the North Sea had been blowing all day across the Thames
marshes, and collecting what it could carry; and the shop-keepers had
scarcely drawn their iron shutters before a thin fog drifted up from
lamp-post to lamp-post and filled the intervals with total darkness--all
but one, where, half-way down the street on the left-hand side, an
enterprising florist had set up an electric lamp at his private cost, to
shine upon his window and attract the attention of rich people as they
drove by on their way to the theatres. At nine o'clock he closed his
business: but the lamp shone on until midnight, to give the rich people
another chance, on their way home, of reading that F. Stillman was
prepared to decorate dinner-tables and ball-rooms, and to supply bridal
bouquets or mourning wreaths at short notice.
The stream of homeward-bound carriages had come to a sudden lull.
The red eyes of a belated four-wheeler vanished in the fog, and the
florist's lamp flung down its ugly incandescent stare on an empty
pavement. Himself in darkness, a policeman on the other side of the
street flashed his lantern twice, closed the slide and halted for a
moment to listen by an area railing.
Halting so, he heard a rapid footfall at the upper corner of the street.
It drew nearer. A man suddenly stepped into the circle of light on the
pavement, as if upon a miniature stage; and as suddenly paused to gaze
upward at the big white globe.
He was a middle-aged man, dressed in an ill-fitting suit of broad-cloth,
with a shabby silk hat and country-made boots. He stared up at the
globe, as if to take his bearings in the fog; then pulled out a watch.
As the light streamed down upon its dial, a woman sidled out from the
hollow of a shop-door behind him, and touched his elbow.
"Deary!" she began. "Going home, deary?"
"Heh? Let me alone, please," said the man roughly. "I am not that
sort." She had almost slipped her arm in his before he turned to speak;
but now she caught it away, gasping. Mock globes danced before his eyes
and for the moment he saw nothing but these: did not see that first she
would have run, then moved her hands up to cover her face. Before they
could do so he saw it, all white and damned.
"Annie!"
"Oh, Willy . . ." She put out a hand as if to ward him off, but dropped
both arms before her and stood, swaying them ever so slightly.
"So this . . . So _this_ . . ." He choked upon the words.
She nodded, hardening her eyes to meet his. "He left me. He sent no
money--"
"I see."
"I was afraid."
"Afraid?"
"Afraid to do it . . . suddenly . . . to put an end. . . . It's not so
easy to starve, really. Oh, Willy, can't you hit me?"
He seemed to be reflecting. "I--I say," he said abruptly, "can't we
talk? Can't we get away somewhere and talk?"
Her limp arms seemed to answer: they asked, as plainly as words,
"What is there to say?"
"I don't know. . . . Somewhere out of this infernal light. I want to
think. There must be somewhere, away from this light . . ." He broke
off. "At home, now, I can think. I am always thinking at home."
"At home . . ." the woman echoed.
"And you must think too?"
"Always: everywhere."
"Ah!" he ran on, as one talking against time: "but what do you suppose
I think about, nine times out of ten? Why"--and he uttered it with an
air of foolish triumph--"of the chances that we might meet . . . and
what would happen. Have you ever thought of that?"
"Always: everywhere . . . of that . . . and the children."
"Grace looks after them."
"I know. I get word. She is kind."
"You think of them?"
"Don't, Willy!"
He harked back. "Do you know, whenever I've thought of it . . . the
chance of our meeting . . . I've wondered what I should say. Hundreds
and hundreds of times I've made up my mind what to say. Why, only just
now--I've come from the theatre: I still go to the theatre sometimes;
it's a splendid thing to distract your thoughts: takes you out of
_yourself--Frou--Frou_, it was . . . the finest play in the world . . .
next to _East Lynne_. It made me cry, to-night, and the people in the
pit stared at me. But one mustn't be ashamed of a little honest
emotion, before strangers. And when a thing comes _home_ to a man . . .
So you've thought of it too--the chance of our running against one
another?"
"Every day and all the day long I've gone fearing it: especially in
March and September, when I knew you'd be up in town buying for the
season. All the day long I've gone watching the street ahead of me
. . . watching in fear of you. . . ."
"But I never guessed it would happen like this." He stared up
irritably, as though the lamp were to blame for upsetting his
calculations. The woman followed his eyes.
"Yes . . . the lamp," she assented. "Something held my face up to it,
just now, when I wanted to hide. It's like as if our souls were naked
under it, and there is nothing to say."
"Eh? but there is. I tell you I've thought it out so often!
I've thought it all out, or almost all; and that can't mean nothing."
He cleared his throat. "I've made allowances, too--" he began
magnanimously.
But for the moment she was not listening. "Yes, yes . . ." She had
turned her face aside and was gazing out into the darkness. "Look at
the gas-jets, Willy--in the fog. What do they remind you of?
That Christmas-tree . . . after Dick was born. . . . Don't you remember
how he mistook the oranges on it for lanterns and wanted to blow them
out . . . how he kicked to get at them . . ."
"It's odd: I was thinking of Dick, just now, when you--when you spoke to
me. The lamp put me in mind of him. I was wondering what it cost.
We have nothing like it at home. Of course, if I bought one for the
shop, people would talk--'drawing attention,' they'd say, after what has
happened. But I thought that Dick, perhaps . . . when he grows up and
enters the business . . . perhaps he might propose such a thing, and
then I shan't say no. I should carry it off lightly . . . After all,
it's the shop it would call attention to . . . not the house. And one
must advertise in these days."
She was looking at him steadily now. "Yes," she assented, "people would
talk."
"And they pity me. I do hate to be pitied, in that way. Even the
people up here, at the old lodgings . . . I won't come to them again.
If I thought the children . . . One never can tell how much children
know--"
"Don't, Willy!"
He plunged a hand into his pocket. "I daresay, now, you're starving?"
Her arms began to sway again, and she laughed quietly, hideously.
"Don't--don't--don't! I make money. That's the worst. I make money.
Oh, why don't you hit me? Why was you always a soft man?"
For a moment he stood horribly revolted. But his weakness had a better
side, and he showed it now.
"I say, Annie . . . is it so bad?"
"It is hell."
"'Soft'?" he harked back again. "It might take some courage to be
soft."
She peered at him eagerly; then sighed. "But you haven't that sort of
courage, Willy."
"They would say . . ." he went on musing, "I wonder what they would say?
. . . Come back to the lamp," he cried with sudden peevishness.
"Don't look out there . . . this circle of light on the pavement . . .
like a map of the world."
"With only our two shadows on it."
"If it were all the world . . ." He peered around, searching the
darkness. "If there were nothing to concern us beyond, and we could
stay always inside it . . ."
"--With the light shining straight down on us, and our shadows close at
our feet, and so small! But directly we moved beyond they would
lengthen, lengthen . . ."
"'Forsaking all other'--that's what the Service says. And what does
that mean if we cannot stand apart from all and render account to each
other only? I tell you I've made allowances. I didn't make any in the
old days, being wrapped up in the shop and the chapel, and you not
caring for either. There was fault on my side: I've come to see that."
"I'd liefer you struck me, Willy, instead of making allowances."
"Oh, come, that's nonsense. It seems to me, Annie, there's nothing we
couldn't help to mend together. It would never be the same, of course:
but we can understand . . . or at least overlook." In his magnanimity
he caught at high thoughts. "This light above us--what if it were the
Truth?"
"Truth doesn't overlook," she answered, with a hopeless scorn which
puzzled him. "No, no," she went on rapidly, yet more gently, "Truth
knows of the world outside, and is wakeful. If we move a step our
shadows will lengthen. They will touch all bright things--they will
fall across the children. Willy, we cannot move!"
"I see . . ."
"Ah?" She craned forward and almost touched his arm again.
"Annie, it comes to me now--I see for the first time how happy we might
have been. How came we two to kill love?"
The woman gave a cry, almost of joy. Her fingers touched his sleeve
now. "We have not killed love. We--I--had stunned him: but (O, I see!)
he has picked up his weapons again and is fighting. He is bewildered
here, in this great light, and he fights at random . . . fights to make
you strong and me weak, you weak and me strong. We can never be one
again, never. One of us must fall, must be beaten . . .he does not see
this, but O, Willy, he fights . . . he fights!"
"He shall fight for you. Annie, come home!"
"No, no--for you--and the children!"
"Come!"
"Think of the people!" She held him off, shaking her head, but her eyes
were wistful, intent upon his. "You have lived it down. . . . It would
all begin again. Look at me . . . think of the talk . . ."
"Let them say what they choose. . . I wonder what they would say . . ."
The Policeman stepped forward and across the road-way. He had heard
nothing, and completely misunderstood all he had seen.
"Come, you must move on there, you two!" he commanded harshly.
Suddenly, as he said it, the light above was extinguished.
"Hullo!" He paused, half-way across. "Twelve o'clock already!
Then what's taken my watch?"
A pair of feet tip-toed away in the darkness for a few yards, then broke
into a nervous run.
As a matter of fact it still wanted five minutes of midnight. And while
the Policeman fumbled for his watch and slipped back the slide of his
lantern, the white flame leaped back into the blind eye above and blazed
down as fiercely as ever.
"Something wrong with the connection, I suppose," said the Policeman,
glancing up and then down at the solitary figure left standing under the
lamp.
"Why, hullo! . . ." said he again.
But which was it?--the man or the woman?
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