Chapter 10

Hadrian too slept badly. He had been awakened by the opening of the door, and had not realised what the question meant. But the soft, straying tenderness of her hand on his face startled something out of his soul. He was a charity boy, aloof and more or less at bay. The fragile exquisiteness of her caress startled him most, revealed unknown things to him.

In the morning she could feel the consciousness in his eyes, when she came downstairs. She tried to bear herself as if nothing at all had happened, and she succeeded. She had the calm self-control, self-indifference, of one who has suffered and borne her suffering. She looked at him from her darkish, almost drugged blue eyes, she met the spark of consciousness in his eyes, and quenched it. And with her long, fine hand she put the sugar in his coffee.

But she could not control him as she thought she could. He had a keen memory stinging his mind, a new set of sensations working in his consciousness. Something new was alert in him. At the back of his reticent, guarded mind he kept his secret alive and vivid. She was at his mercy, for he was unscrupulous, his standard was not her standard.

He looked at her curiously. She was not beautiful, her nose was too large, her chin was too small, her neck was too thin. But her skin was clear and fine, she had a high-bred sensitiveness. This queer, brave, high-bred quality she shared with her father. The charity boy could see it in her tapering fingers, which were white and ringed. The same glamour that he knew in the elderly man he now saw in the woman. And he wanted to possess himself of it, he wanted to make himself master of it. As he went about through the old pottery-yard, his secretive mind schemed and worked. To be master of that strange soft delicacy such as he had felt in her hand upon his face,—this was what he set himself towards. He was secretly plotting.

He watched Matilda as she went about, and she became aware of his attention, as of some shadow following her. But her pride made her ignore it. When he sauntered near her, his hands in his pockets, she received him with that same commonplace kindliness which mastered him more than any contempt. Her superior breeding seemed to control him. She made herself feel towards him exactly as she had always felt: he was a young boy who lived in the house with them, but was a stranger. Only, she dared not remember his face under her hand. When she remembered that, she was bewildered. Her hand had offended her, she wanted to cut it off. And she wanted, fiercely, to cut off the memory in him. She assumed she had done so.

One day, when he sat talking with his “uncle”, he looked straight into the eyes of the sick man, and said:

“But I shouldn’t like to live and die here in Rawsley.”

“No—well—you needn’t,” said the sick man.

“Do you think Cousin Matilda likes it?”

“I should think so.”

“I don’t call it much of a life,” said the youth. “How much older is she than me, Uncle?”

The sick man looked at the young soldier.

“A good bit,” he said.

“Over thirty?” said Hadrian.

“Well, not so much. She’s thirty-two.”

Hadrian considered a while.

“She doesn’t look it,” he said.

Again the sick father looked at him.

“Do you think she’d like to leave here?” said Hadrian.

“Nay, I don’t know,” replied the father, restive.

Hadrian sat still, having his own thoughts. Then in a small, quiet voice, as if he were speaking from inside himself, he said:

“I’d marry her if you wanted me to.”

The sick man raised his eyes suddenly, and stared. He stared for a long time. The youth looked inscrutably out of the window.

“_You!_” said the sick man, mocking, with some contempt. Hadrian turned and met his eyes. The two men had an inexplicable understanding.

“If you wasn’t against it,” said Hadrian.

“Nay,” said the father, turning aside, “I don’t think I’m against it. I’ve never thought of it. But—But Emmie’s the youngest.”

He had flushed, and looked suddenly more alive. Secretly he loved the boy.

“You might ask her,” said Hadrian.

The elder man considered.

“Hadn’t you better ask her yourself?” he said.

“She’d take more notice of you,” said Hadrian.

They were both silent. Then Emmie came in.

For two days Mr. Rockley was excited and thoughtful. Hadrian went about quietly, secretly, unquestioning. At last the father and daughter were alone together. It was very early morning, the father had been in much pain. As the pain abated, he lay still, thinking.

“Matilda!” he said suddenly, looking at his daughter.

“Yes, I’m here,” she said.

“Ay! I want you to do something—”

She rose in anticipation.

“Nay, sit still. I want you to marry Hadrian—”

She thought he was raving. She rose, bewildered and frightened.

“Nay, sit you still, sit you still. You hear what I tell you.”

“But you don’t know what you’re saying, father.”

“Ay, I know well enough. I want you to marry Hadrian, I tell you.”

She was dumbfounded. He was a man of few words.

“You’ll do what I tell you,” he said.

She looked at him slowly.

“What put such an idea in your mind?” she said proudly.

“He did.”

Matilda almost looked her father down, her pride was so offended.

“Why, it’s disgraceful,” she said.

“Why?”

She watched him slowly.

“What do you ask me for?” she said. “It’s disgusting.”

“The lad’s sound enough,” he replied, testily.

“You’d better tell him to clear out,” she said, coldly.

He turned and looked out of the window. She sat flushed and erect for a long time. At length her father turned to her, looking really malevolent.

“If you won’t,” he said, “you’re a fool, and I’ll make you pay for your foolishness, do you see?”

Suddenly a cold fear gripped her. She could not believe her senses. She was terrified and bewildered. She stared at her father, believing him to be delirious, or mad, or drunk. What could she do?

“I tell you,” he said. “I’ll send for Whittle tomorrow if you don’t. You shall neither of you have anything of mine.”

Whittle was the solicitor. She understood her father well enough: he would send for his solicitor, and make a will leaving all his property to Hadrian: neither she nor Emmie should have anything. It was too much. She rose and went out of the room, up to her own room, where she locked herself in.

She did not come out for some hours. At last, late at night, she confided in Emmie.

“The sliving demon, he wants the money,” said Emmie. “My father’s out of his mind.”

The thought that Hadrian merely wanted the money was another blow to Matilda. She did not love the impossible youth—but she had not yet learned to think of him as a thing of evil. He now became hideous to her mind.

Emmie had a little scene with her father next day.

“You don’t mean what you said to our Matilda yesterday, do you, father?” she asked aggressively.

“Yes,” he replied.

“What, that you’ll alter your will?”

“Yes.”

“You won’t,” said his angry daughter.

But he looked at her with a malevolent little smile.

“Annie!” he shouted. “Annie!”

He had still power to make his voice carry. The servant maid came in from the kitchen.

“Put your things on, and go down to Whittle’s office, and say I want to see Mr. Whittle as soon as he can, and will he bring a will-form.”

The sick man lay back a little—he could not lie down. His daughter sat as if she had been struck. Then she left the room.

Hadrian was pottering about in the garden. She went straight down to him.

“Here,” she said. “You’d better get off. You’d better take your things and go from here, quick.”

Hadrian looked slowly at the infuriated girl.

“Who says so?” he asked.

“_We_ say so—get off, you’ve done enough mischief and damage.”

“Does Uncle say so?”

“Yes, he does.”

“I’ll go and ask him.”

But like a fury Emmie barred his way.

“No, you needn’t. You needn’t ask him nothing at all. We don’t want you, so you can go.”

“Uncle’s boss here.”

“A man that’s dying, and you crawling round and working on him for his money!—you’re not fit to live.”

“Oh!” he said. “Who says I’m working for his money?”

“I say. But my father told our Matilda, and _she_ knows what you are. _She_ knows what you’re after. So you might as well clear out, for all you’ll get—guttersnipe!”

He turned his back on her, to think. It had not occurred to him that they would think he was after the money. He _did_ want the money—badly. He badly wanted to be an employer himself, not one of the employed. But he knew, in his subtle, calculating way, that it was not for money he wanted Matilda. He wanted both the money and Matilda. But he told himself the two desires were separate, not one. He could not do with Matilda, _without_ the money. But he did not want her _for_ the money.

When he got this clear in his mind, he sought for an opportunity to tell it her, lurking and watching. But she avoided him. In the evening the lawyer came. Mr. Rockley seemed to have a new access of strength—a will was drawn up, making the previous arrangements wholly conditional. The old will held good, if Matilda would consent to marry Hadrian. If she refused then at the end of six months the whole property passed to Hadrian.

Mr. Rockley told this to the young man, with malevolent satisfaction. He seemed to have a strange desire, quite unreasonable, for revenge upon the women who had surrounded him for so long, and served him so carefully.

“Tell her in front of me,” said Hadrian.

So Mr. Rockley sent for his daughters.

At last they came, pale, mute, stubborn. Matilda seemed to have retired far off, Emmie seemed like a fighter ready to fight to the death. The sick man reclined on the bed, his eyes bright, his puffed hand trembling. But his face had again some of its old, bright handsomeness. Hadrian sat quiet, a little aside: the indomitable, dangerous charity boy.

“There’s the will,” said their father, pointing them to the paper.

The two women sat mute and immovable, they took no notice.

“Either you marry Hadrian, or he has everything,” said the father with satisfaction.

“Then let him have everything,” said Matilda boldly.

“He’s not! He’s not!” cried Emmie fiercely. “He’s not going to have it. The guttersnipe!”

An amused look came on her father’s face.

“You hear that, Hadrian,” he said.

“I didn’t offer to marry Cousin Matilda for the money,” said Hadrian, flushing and moving on his seat.

Matilda looked at him slowly, with her dark-blue, drugged eyes. He seemed a strange little monster to her.

“Why, you liar, you know you did,” cried Emmie.

The sick man laughed. Matilda continued to gaze strangely at the young man.

“She knows I didn’t,” said Hadrian.

He too had his courage, as a rat has indomitable courage in the end. Hadrian had some of the neatness, the reserve, the underground quality of the rat. But he had perhaps the ultimate courage, the most unquenchable courage of all.

Emmie looked at her sister.

“Oh, well,” she said. “Matilda—don’t bother. Let him have everything, we can look after ourselves.”

“I know he’ll take everything,” said Matilda, abstractedly.

Hadrian did not answer. He knew in fact that if Matilda refused him he would take everything, and go off with it.

“A clever little mannie—!” said Emmie, with a jeering grimace.

The father laughed noiselessly to himself. But he was tired....

“Go on, then,” he said. “Go on, let me be quiet.”

Emmie turned and looked at him.

“You deserve what you’ve got,” she said to her father bluntly.

“Go on,” he answered mildly. “Go on.”

Another night passed—a night nurse sat up with Mr. Rockley. Another day came. Hadrian was there as ever, in his woollen jersey and coarse khaki trousers and bare neck. Matilda went about, frail and distant, Emmie black-browed in spite of her blondness. They were all quiet, for they did not intend the mystified servant to learn anything.

Mr. Rockley had very bad attacks of pain, he could not breathe. The end seemed near. They all went about quiet and stoical, all unyielding. Hadrian pondered within himself. If he did not marry Matilda he would go to Canada with twenty thousand pounds. This was itself a very satisfactory prospect. If Matilda consented he would have nothing—she would have her own money.

Emmie was the one to act. She went off in search of the solicitor and brought him with her. There was an interview, and Whittle tried to frighten the youth into withdrawal—but without avail. The clergyman and relatives were summoned—but Hadrian stared at them and took no notice. It made him angry, however.

He wanted to catch Matilda alone. Many days went by, and he was not successful: she avoided him. At last, lurking, he surprised her one day as she came to pick gooseberries, and he cut off her retreat. He came to the point at once.

“You don’t want me, then?” he said, in his subtle, insinuating voice.

“I don’t want to speak to you,” she said, averting her face.

“You put your hand on me, though,” he said. “You shouldn’t have done that, and then I should never have thought of it. You shouldn’t have touched me.”

“If you were anything decent, you’d know that was a mistake, and forget it,” she said.

“I know it was a mistake—but I shan’t forget it. If you wake a man up, he can’t go to sleep again because he’s told to.”

“If you had any decent feeling in you, you’d have gone away,” she replied.

“I didn’t want to,” he replied.

She looked away into the distance. At last she asked:

“What do you persecute me for, if it isn’t for the money. I’m old enough to be your mother. In a way I’ve been your mother.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’ve been no mother to me. Let us marry and go out to Canada—you might as well—you’ve touched me.”

She was white and trembling. Suddenly she flushed with anger.

“It’s so _indecent_,” she said.

“How?” he retorted. “You touched me.”

But she walked away from him. She felt as if he had trapped her. He was angry and depressed, he felt again despised.

That same evening she went into her father’s room.

“Yes,” she said suddenly. “I’ll marry him.”

Her father looked up at her. He was in pain, and very ill.

“You like him now, do you?” he said, with a faint smile.

She looked down into his face, and saw death not far off. She turned and went coldly out of the room.

The solicitor was sent for, preparations were hastily made. In all the interval Matilda did not speak to Hadrian, never answered him if he addressed her. He approached her in the morning.

“You’ve come round to it, then?” he said, giving her a pleasant look from his twinkling, almost kindly eyes. She looked down at him and turned aside. She looked down on him both literally and figuratively. Still he persisted, and triumphed.

Emmie raved and wept, the secret flew abroad. But Matilda was silent and unmoved, Hadrian was quiet and satisfied, and nipped with fear also. But he held out against his fear. Mr. Rockley was very ill, but unchanged.

On the third day the marriage took place. Matilda and Hadrian drove straight home from the registrar, and went straight into the room of the dying man. His face lit up with a clear twinkling smile.

“Hadrian—you’ve got her?” he said, a little hoarsely.

“Yes,” said Hadrian, who was pale round the gills.

“Ay, my lad, I’m glad you’re mine,” replied the dying man. Then he turned his eyes closely on Matilda.

“Let’s look at you, Matilda,” he said. Then his voice went strange and unrecognisable. “Kiss me,” he said.

She stooped and kissed him. She had never kissed him before, not since she was a tiny child. But she was quiet, very still.

“Kiss him,” the dying man said.

Obediently, Matilda put forward her mouth and kissed the young husband.

“That’s right! That’s right!” murmured the dying man.

SAMSON AND DELILAH

A man got down from the motor-omnibus that runs from Penzance to St Just-in-Penwith, and turned northwards, uphill towards the Polestar. It was only half past six, but already the stars were out, a cold little wind was blowing from the sea, and the crystalline, three-pulse flash of the lighthouse below the cliffs beat rhythmically in the first darkness.

The man was alone. He went his way unhesitating, but looked from side to side with cautious curiosity. Tall, ruined power-houses of tin-mines loomed in the darkness from time to time, like remnants of some by-gone civilization. The lights of many miners’ cottages scattered on the hilly darkness twinkled desolate in their disorder, yet twinkled with the lonely homeliness of the Celtic night.

He tramped steadily on, always watchful with curiosity. He was a tall, well-built man, apparently in the prime of life. His shoulders were square and rather stiff, he leaned forwards a little as he went, from the hips, like a man who must stoop to lower his height. But he did not stoop his shoulders: he bent his straight back from the hips.

Now and again short, stump, thick-legged figures of Cornish miners passed him, and he invariably gave them goodnight, as if to insist that he was on his own ground. He spoke with the west-Cornish intonation. And as he went along the dreary road, looking now at the lights of the dwellings on land, now at the lights away to sea, vessels veering round in sight of the Longships Lighthouse, the whole of the Atlantic Ocean in darkness and space between him and America, he seemed a little excited and pleased with himself, watchful, thrilled, veering along in a sense of mastery and of power in conflict.

The houses began to close on the road, he was entering the straggling, formless, desolate mining village, that he knew of old. On the left was a little space set back from the road, and cosy lights of an inn. There it was. He peered up at the sign: “The Tinners’ Rest”. But he could not make out the name of the proprietor. He listened. There was excited talking and laughing, a woman’s voice laughing shrilly among the men’s.

Stooping a little, he entered the warmly-lit bar. The lamp was burning, a buxom woman rose from the white-scrubbed deal table where the black and white and red cards were scattered, and several men, miners, lifted their faces from the game.

The stranger went to the counter, averting his face. His cap was pulled down over his brow.

“Good-evening!” said the landlady, in her rather ingratiating voice.

“Good-evening. A glass of ale.”

“A glass of ale,” repeated the landlady suavely. “Cold night—but bright.”

“Yes,” the man assented, laconically. Then he added, when nobody expected him to say any more: “Seasonable weather.”

“Quite seasonable, quite,” said the landlady. “Thank you.”

The man lifted his glass straight to his lips, and emptied it. He put it down again on the zinc counter with a click.

“Let’s have another,” he said.

The woman drew the beer, and the man went away with his glass to the second table, near the fire. The woman, after a moment’s hesitation, took her seat again at the table with the card-players. She had noticed the man: a big fine fellow, well dressed, a stranger.

But he spoke with that Cornish-Yankee accent she accepted as the natural twang among the miners.

The stranger put his foot on the fender and looked into the fire. He was handsome, well coloured, with well-drawn Cornish eyebrows, and the usual dark, bright, mindless Cornish eyes. He seemed abstracted in thought. Then he watched the card-party.

The woman was buxom and healthy, with dark hair and small, quick brown eyes. She was bursting with life and vigour, the energy she threw into the game of cards excited all the men, they shouted, and laughed, and the woman held her breast, shrieking with laughter.

“Oh, my, it’ll be the death o’ me,” she panted. “Now, come on, Mr. Trevorrow, play fair. Play fair, I say, or I s’ll put the cards down.”

“Play fair! Why who’s played unfair?” ejaculated Mr. Trevorrow. “Do you mean t’accuse me, as I haven’t played fair, Mrs. Nankervis?”

“I do. I say it, and I mean it. Haven’t you got the queen of spades? Now, come on, no dodging round me. _I_ know you’ve got that queen, as well as I know my name’s Alice.”

“Well—if your name’s Alice, you’ll have to have it—”

“Ay, now—what did I say? Did you ever see such a man? My word, but your missus must be easy took in, by the looks of things.”

And off she went into peals of laughter. She was interrupted by the entrance of four men in khaki, a short, stumpy sergeant of middle age, a young corporal, and two young privates. The woman leaned back in her chair.

“Oh, my!” she cried. “If there isn’t the boys back: looking perished, I believe—”

“Perished, Ma!” exclaimed the sergeant. “Not yet.”

“Near enough,” said a young private, uncouthly.

The woman got up.

“I’m sure you are, my dears. You’ll be wanting your suppers, I’ll be bound.”

“We could do with ’em.”

“Let’s have a wet first,” said the sergeant.

The woman bustled about getting the drinks. The soldiers moved to the fire, spreading out their hands.

“Have your suppers in here, will you?” she said. “Or in the kitchen?”

“Let’s have it here,” said the sergeant. “More cosier—_if_ you don’t mind.”

“You shall have it where you like, boys, where you like.”

She disappeared. In a minute a girl of about sixteen came in. She was tall and fresh, with dark, young, expressionless eyes, and well-drawn brows, and the immature softness and mindlessness of the sensuous Celtic type.

“Ho, Maryann! Evenin’, Maryann! How’s Maryann, now?” came the multiple greeting.

She replied to everybody in a soft voice, a strange, soft _aplomb_ that was very attractive. And she moved round with rather mechanical, attractive movements, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. But she had always this dim far-awayness in her bearing: a sort of modesty. The strange man by the fire watched her curiously. There was an alert, inquisitive, mindless curiosity on his well-coloured face.

“I’ll have a bit of supper with you, if I might,” he said.

She looked at him, with her clear, unreasoning eyes, just like the eyes of some non-human creature.

“I’ll ask mother,” she said. Her voice was soft-breathing, gently singsong.

When she came in again:

“Yes,” she said, almost whispering. “What will you have?”

“What have you got?” he said, looking up into her face.

“There’s cold meat—”

“That’s for me, then.”

The stranger sat at the end of the table and ate with the tired, quiet soldiers. Now, the landlady was interested in him. Her brow was knit rather tense, there was a look of panic in her large, healthy face, but her small brown eyes were fixed most dangerously. She was a big woman, but her eyes were small and tense. She drew near the stranger. She wore a rather loud-patterned flannelette blouse, and a dark skirt.

“What will you have to drink with your supper?” she asked, and there was a new, dangerous note in her voice.

He moved uneasily.

“Oh, I’ll go on with ale.”

She drew him another glass. Then she sat down on the bench at the table with him and the soldiers, and fixed him with her attention.

“You’ve come from St Just, have you?” she said.

He looked at her with those clear, dark, inscrutable Cornish eyes, and answered at length:

“No, from Penzance.”

“Penzance!—but you’re not thinking of going back there tonight?”

“No—no.”

He still looked at her with those wide, clear eyes that seemed like very bright agate. Her anger began to rise. It was seen on her brow. Yet her voice was still suave and deprecating.

“I _thought_ not—but you’re not living in these parts, are you?”

“No—no, I’m not living here.” He was always slow in answering, as if something intervened between him and any outside question.

“Oh, I see,” she said. “You’ve got relations down here.”

Again he looked straight into her eyes, as if looking her into silence.

“Yes,” he said.

He did not say any more. She rose with a flounce. The anger was tight on her brow. There was no more laughing and card-playing that evening, though she kept up her motherly, suave, good-humoured way with the men. But they knew her, they were all afraid of her.

The supper was finished, the table cleared, the stranger did not go. Two of the young soldiers went off to bed, with their cheery: