Part 13

He called to Laurette for a basin of hot water. If this last love-letter of his dead friend were found torn open, he thought it might seem strange; and he wished to keep up to the end the fiction of his frank and honourable nature. Laurette had been surprised by his request for hot water; the smile with which he thanked her sent her away wondering whether he had gone mad. Farquhar took care to lock her out before beginning his delightful task. The water was steaming hot. He held the flap of the envelope low down in the vapour, intending to loosen the gum; the thought that Lucian was dead and buried beyond interference under several tons of granite was sweeter than honey, though he would have liked to bestow immortality upon Lucian’s spirit, that he might see this desecration and be powerless to protest. The paper turned grey and began to curl up from the edges; it detached itself from the underleaf with a small distinct sound. Farquhar drew out the enclosure and opened it with insolent triumph.

Long he sat there, motionless, the letter in his hand; but he did not read one word of it. After ten minutes he refolded it and replaced it and resealed the envelope and laid it down. He unlocked the door and called to Laurette: “I’m going back to the quarry.”

“But, monsieur, wherefore?”

“To find Mr. de Saumarez. Whether he’s alive or dead, I’ll not rest till I have him. Tell your brothers, if you like; I shall work, whether I’m helped or no.” He passed her by in the hall with a look so fierce and fell that the girl shrank out of his way.

One o’clock. The sweet plaintive tone of the church clock came down the valley from Vresse as Farquhar began to work. That mountain of granite, could he ever hope to remove it? He could not hope, but he could do it. He had gone through incredible exertions on that day, he was brought into pain by every stroke of the pick, he had neither hope to strengthen him, nor that excitement kin to delirium which had exalted him before to exalt him now; but the strength of his single will kept him unremittingly at the vain labour. And the force at the back of his will was the prime force of his life: devotion. All evil passions in his nature had in turn ranged themselves against that nobler quality, and been defeated. If a man ever was the slave of love, that was Noel Farquhar. He had purpose and lust and will to leave Lucian stifling under the granite, and to pry into his letter, and to marry Dolly in triumph over his grave; but that purpose and lust and will were bound by one stronger than he, and Noel Farquhar was labouring under incalculable difficulties to get for his friend the joy which he coveted for himself.

Laurette’s three brothers presently joined him, beginning to work in silence just over the spot where Farquhar judged that the victims were buried. The explosion had so greatly altered the configuration of the hill that certainty was not possible. Not one of the three had handled a pick before, and at first they damaged their own ankles more often than they removed any granite. There was a gruesome comicality in the scene; for Farquhar’s silent fury of work seemed to hallow the place like a church so that they dared not speak, and the three young Belgians hopping about and suppressing curses would have made Lucian laugh in his grave could he have seen them. Towards dawn a blood-red oval moon rose above the pines and dropped a tremulous ladder of crimson across the stream; white mists spun ghost-dances over it. A cold change and a strange wind heralded the day’s birth; the dawn itself quickened its white pulse in an empty sky. Virgin light came first, then warmth and colour, like the pink flutings of a shell, and the first timorous love-notes of the birds; and the three brothers looked at one another, and thought of _déjeuner_, and wondered how long the Englishman would continue to work. They themselves did not pause; and presently the youngest found his pick striking against solid rock amid the shale. He tried to work round it, but could not find the edge. The others came to help him, and soon they guessed that they had come on a large block of granite, expelled from the cliff by the first explosion, but hidden under the splinters from the second. So massive was it that to split it up by hand and cart it away seemed an impossibly slow process; yet they dared not use the blasting-powder, for the sake of what might lie beneath. In this perplexity they leaned on their picks and looked to Farquhar for directions, Félix, the soft-handed _pâtissier_, surreptitiously wrapping his handkerchief round his blistered fingers. Farquhar’s answer came briefly: “Dig round it.”

They fell to work, and before long discovered that, though the superficies of the block was large, its depth was small; it was, as it were, a scale split off the face of the cliff. Consequently, they might hope to raise it by levers; and again they turned to Farquhar for permission to fetch them. But a sombre fire dwelt in his eyes, and his answer came sternly: “Dig deeper.”

Wondering at first, then themselves infected by his deep excitement, they obeyed him; and suddenly little Gustave, with an involuntary “Sacré!” fell flat on his face. The point of his pick had gone through, under the slab, to some cavity beneath. As Félix stooped to examine it, Farquhar thrust him sans ceremony out of the way and himself knelt down to explore. He could not find bottom, and he sprang up again, his excitement flaming out as he called to them to widen the hole.

Now the toil went apace and the stones flew ringing aside. A gap appeared, and widened. Farquhar dropped on his knees and called, “Lucian! Lucian!” No answer. Up again and on with the work, and presently the gap was wide enough to admit a man’s head. Farquhar tried to crawl through, failed, and set the youngest of the boys to try; but it could not be done. Farquhar’s impatience would not wait till the stone was uncovered. He knelt again, and thrust his head and the upper part of his shoulders under the slab; then, resting his palms flat on the ground, he put all his colossal strength forth into the effort to raise it. It weighed—how much? Two tons, the eldest youth hazarded: a guess certainly exaggerated; for, as they watched, fascinated by the display of a power such as they had never imagined, fearing each moment to see him fail and faint, as they gazed and listened they heard the creakings of rending rocks and saw the gap grinning wider and Farquhar slowly raising himself on his hands and his bent arms straightening out till they stood firm as columns upbearing the architrave of a temple—until Farquhar stopped, and paused to see if the slab would subside, and then rose to his feet, white as ashes, his face seamed with grim lines and streaming with sweat. “Get a light,” he said. “I’m going in.”

One of them had a box of the odious little sulphur-matches so common abroad, which kindle with difficulty and burn at first with a blue light and an inexpressible smell, but are not easily extinguished. Neither had a candle, and neither was in the mood to go and fetch one. Farquhar struck several matches at once, and so soon as they burned steadily stepped down into the darkness. They could see the flame illumining his hair and reddening the side of his face, but of the aspect of the vault, nothing. Then they went out, or, rather, he dropped them. Sick with excitement, they heard him saying, in commonplace tones:

“Lend a hand, will you? I can’t get them up over the edge.”

He had Lucian’s body in his arms then, and, leaning downward into the dark, the three boys succeeded in dragging him into the air. Charlesworth’s huge frame was extricated with more difficulty; after, came Farquhar himself, who needed no help. He left Charlesworth to live or die as fate decreed, and went straight to Lucian.

Neither was dead, though Lucian was near it; long after Charlesworth was able to speak and walk, and even help to revive his companion in suffocation, he still lay deeply unconscious. His frail life was so easily imperilled; and they had first been half poisoned by fumes and afterwards half stifled by their own breath. At the first explosion the slab had split off and fallen like a roof above them; the second blast piled rocks upon it and made it the roof of a tomb. All this Charlesworth narrated as he sat fanning Lucian’s face, himself deathly white, with a jagged gash under his ear. Lucian looked like death itself, but still he breathed; and with the aid of copious douches of fresh water they brought him at last to consciousness. Farquhar straightway threw him over his shoulder and carried him to the hotel, leaving Charlesworth to follow as he might. Sad to say, the first use which Lucian made of his recovered speech was to murmur feebly at intervals, “I’m drunk—I’m drunk—O take me home to ma!”

At the hotel they received something like an ovation; and before ten minutes had passed Laurette had told her aunt in the village, and the aunt her husband, and half the men in Vresse were hurrying out to give welcome. Nothing would content them but that Farquhar should make an oration; and when he came out on the balcony, a ghastly figure with his bloodless face and the blood-stained bandage stained afresh on his arm, they cheered him like a king. Never was any one in Vresse so popular as the unpopular English master; they adored him for purging them from the guilt of blood. Even Charlesworth came in for a share of the glorification, because he had not let himself be murdered; and when they had shouted themselves hoarse, and trampled down all the tobacco growing in Laurette’s garden, and drunk six glasses apiece of Laurette’s most innocent beer, they went home wildly enthusiastic and perfectly sober. Farquhar, having displayed his scars for their edification with his usual ironical smile, went to his room to wash and change before visiting Lucian. He conceived that for the present he would have no more trouble with his workmen. Then, at last, he took the two blue letters and went to Lucian’s room.

The invalid was lying dressed upon the sofa; he had endured the doctor, had refused to go to bed, and was now ready to discuss his experience with gusto. He had already been doing so with Charlesworth, who got up from a chair by the sofa when Farquhar came in. The invalid at once patted the chair.

“Sit down, sit down,” he said, hospitably. “Let’s fight our battles all o’er again. I’ve been taking notes of everybody’s sensations all round, and I’m going to write a realistic Christmas-number tale—‘The Tragedy of Penywern Quarry; or, Little Willy Wears Poor Father’s Pants.’ How’s that for a title, hey?”

Charlesworth, however, declined to criticise. “I’ve got to thank you for my life, sir,” he said, looking Farquhar straight in the face, as he always did. “If we’d stayed in that hole till the shovel-and-pick department nosed us out to-day or to-morrow, I guess they’d have got empty shells for their pains. Now I’ve a use for my life, and so has my wife. I don’t know whether gratitude’s any use to you, sir, but you may count on mine.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Farquhar, easily. But he met and returned Charlesworth’s look with some degree of honesty; and when Farquhar was honest his eyes had the latent dangerous cruelty of one of the great cats, panther or leopard or tiger, and they showed the force of a will keen as a knife-blade to cut through obstacles. Charlesworth recognised these two unpleasant qualities and did not flinch; perhaps he had guessed that Farquhar was too good to be true. His steadiness called out a glint of satisfaction; when they had shaken hands, each felt this encounter to be the foundation of a friendship. “You’ll continue as manager?” Farquhar said, as the American was going; and, “While you want me, sir,” came the proudly respectful reply.

Farquhar was left alone with Lucian; the reckoning hour had come.

Lucian was looking after Charlesworth with a lamentable air. “I like that man, but he don’t care a red cent for me,” he said, pathetically. “He makes me feel so awfully small that I’m only fit for a microscope. And yet I’m sure I’ve been splendidly heroic. I had a splitting headache, and I never once let on. Though, to be sure, he mightn’t have known that. What are you looking so down in the mouth for, sonny?”

Farquhar flung the letter at him and turned on his heel; he stood staring out of the window, his hands thrust deep in his pockets and clenched there. He heard Lucian’s “Hullo!” the tearing of the envelope, the withdrawal of the folded sheet grating against the torn flap. Then Lucian sprang off the sofa and came and dropped a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m awfully glad, old man, and that’s the truth,” he said. “I knew you’d win.”

Farquhar wheeled round. “What’s that you say?”

“Congratulations: that’s what I say.”

“What the devil do you mean by such damnable nonsense as this?”

“Hasn’t she written to you?”

“Yes, confound her! I tell you, I was thirsting to leave you to die there, and rot, till the worms had done with you. I’d have given my right hand to do it. I’d have given my eyes.”

“Oho!” said Lucian. “You would, would you? Why didn’t you, then?”

“Confound you! What do you mean by asking such a question as that? You know well enough. Well, then, take her, and enjoy yourself. Mind you, I’ve given you back to her. You owe every second of joy you get out of her to me. And don’t you come playing the fool with your congratulations; I’d not swear but that some day I wouldn’t pick you up and snap your miserable little backbone in two, as I very well could. You’ll be feebler than your wife is, Lucian de Saumarez.”

“Has she been writing to you?”

“Haven’t I told you so?—curse her!”

“What does she say?”

“What does she say to you?”

They stood watching each other like stags preparing to fight. Then Lucian held out his letter. Farquhar held out his in return and took Lucian’s with his other hand; the letters changed owners simultaneously. Farquhar devoured the open page in an instant:

“DEAR MR. DE SAUMAREZ,—I have now made up my mind upon the question which you asked me. If you are still interested, and care to come and see me next time you are in England, I will tell you my decision.

“Sincerely yours,

“MIRABELLE FANE.”

“God! When’s the next train?” said Farquhar.

XIX

ROMANCE BRINGS UP THE NINE-FIFTEEN

Four o’clock at Gedinne station, thirteen miles from Vresse. Rain was streaming down in torrents, yet of the two passengers waiting for the train only one was under the shelter; and when the other in momentary absence of mind came under the glass, the first vacated his seat and took refuge in the storm. There he stayed, keeping an immovable face while the wind lashed him and the grey lances of rain assailed him, staring steadily at the silver-and-golden line along the horizon under the storm-cloud, and the amber glow which was slowly transfusing the sombre brown swells of vapour. Mademoiselle Hélène-Marie-Denise Bonin-Watelot, the signal-man’s eldest hope, with whom Farquhar had conscientiously made friends on his journeys to Brussels, came up and told him the number of the forks she had washed and the nature of the garters which she wore; but she got no _pralines_ to-day from the big pocket in the overcoat.

When the train came in, the rivals got into different carriages as far apart as might be. Glad enough were they to be moving at all, though they stopped at every station. No lover journeying to his bride, nor widow hurrying to the sick-bed of her only son, ever found the giant steam more laggard. Five o’clock brought them to Houyet, where they changed trains and had their second encounter; for the platform was crowded, and Farquhar, springing into an empty seat at the moment before their start, found himself face to face with Lucian, and fled out again with an exclamation which the Belgian ladies, sitting stout and placid in an atmosphere of indescribable tobacco, luckily did not understand. Lucian, spite of his anxiety, nearly choked with laughter to see his friend hurrying into the company of three babies and a nurse, in preference to travelling up with him. Farquhar had a delightful journey; he stood all the way to Dinant and enjoyed a chorus of wails at every tunnel.

Six o’clock: Dinant sailed into sight and brought their third change. And now they had to wait for a full half-hour. The rain was done; the sunlight streamed over the earth like a tissue of gold, and across the blue sky floated low huge masses of dove-grey cloud, clear-edged with pearl, and higher, motionless as though painted on the motionless dome, long plumes of immaculate white widened out to the wind. The indefatigable artist tried to describe the scene with a stump of lead-pencil on the back of Dolly’s letter while he waited.

Travelling up through the lovely rocky valley of the Meuse, bright-hung with rain-drops, Farquhar sat watch in hand counting the minutes; for their train was late, and there was a doubt whether it could catch the main-line connection at Namur, and if they failed in that they could not cross that night and must wait a whole day more ere hearing Dolly’s decree. Seven found them passing Yvoir, the sky bare of clouds, and the wide Meuse rosing herself in the sunset’s glow, which stained the very granite cliffs and dyed the green of young leaves madder-brown. Half-past seven: they were coming into Namur station, ten minutes late, and the Brussels express was due. Standing up, Farquhar held himself in readiness. Before the wheels were still he had sprung out, leaping with the train to balance his initial velocity, and was running along the platform towards the main line, for he knew his way. Lucian did not know his way, but he did not stay to ask it; he ran after Farquhar. There was a crowd, and two stout Belgians, excitedly discussing the wonderful rescue at Vresse, got right in his way: as he reached the platform the train began to move, and Lucian, who was too much exhausted to do more than just clutch at the foot-board, would certainly have been left had not somebody opened the door of a first-class carriage and hauled him in by the collar and tail of his coat. Lucian collapsed, utterly spent, his face as white as paper; the stranger ministered to his needs with half a glass of brandy, and assisted him to a seat. There Lucian lay with his eyes shut for several minutes before he found energy even to feel curiosity concerning his saviour. To a person of Lucian’s inquisitive temper, three minutes is an æon of time.

When his heart had moderated its suffocating pulsations and his eyes had ceased to swim, he made use of them, and discovered that his companion was a slight, fair-haired, good-looking young Englishman dressed in grey—who was watching him with a good deal of friendliness out of a pair of dark-grey eyes. Lucian smiled back and gave him a military salute, being still beyond speech.

“You were almost left behind,” said the stranger. Lucian nodded. “I hope I didn’t tear your coat.”

Lucian put up his hand and found a long rent, but he smiled on. “No, it’s all right, thanks. I’m no end obliged to you. I was dead set on catching this train; there’d have been Holy Moses to settle if I’d missed it.”

“I’m glad.”

“You crossing to-night?”

“Yes, I’m going back,” said the stranger, taking a paper out of his bag. Lucian made a bet with himself as to what that paper would be, and transferred a sixpence from the right-hand pocket of his coat to the left when the _Spectator_ came into view. The _Engineer Journal_ followed. “Oho!” said Lucian to himself; “a soldier of the king, my friend, are you? That’s why you look so smart.” He went on aloud: “I’ve a kind of idea you saved my life, you know.”

“By pulling you in? Surely not.”

“No-o; not that way. By the kindly, felicitous, and opportunitatious administration of O. D. V.”

“You ought not to run if you have trouble with your heart,” said the stranger, unfolding the _Spectator_ preparatory to beginning to read.

“Thirteen different sawboneses have told me that very same thing,” Lucian confessed; “but it’s one of those things no fellow can remember.”

“I dare say it is difficult,” the stranger assented, his eyes on the printed page.

In face of that august _Spectator_, Lucian had not the impudence to go on talking, though his own thoughts were far from pleasant company. He amused himself by studying the delicate and rather feminine profile and the long eyelashes of his vis-à-vis, trying from them to read his character and from his clothes his position and prospects; and the longer he looked the more certain he grew that both should be known to him.

“Where have I seen your face before? It seems so familiar to me!”

whistled Lucian softly to himself, trying to fit together fragments of memory, as in one of those terrible improving Scripture puzzles which had haunted the Sundays of his childhood. Bright sunshine, an architrave of light-coloured wood framing an open door, and some bright figure standing beside him: his brain served up these scraps of information, but he could not complete the picture. His feverish mind had cooled. Lucian was not by nature excitable; it was the electrical influence of Farquhar’s stormy temperament which threw him off his balance, and in his wildest movements he was never mastered by a single motive and passion to the exclusion of every other, as happened to Farquhar. So now, anxiety respecting Dolly lay like a core of ice within his heart while the surface of his fertile brain was occupied in weaving a romantic secret history for the quiet young aristocrat of the _Spectator_. By the time they had reached Brussels he had made him a bigamist inclining to trigamy, and was only not sure whether he had poisoned his first wife or his mother.

Nine, ten, half-past. Darkness had fallen, spangled with stars, and the southwest wind came sweeping across the sky with a full and steady pressure which reminded Lucian of the strong blue tide of the Trades. Brussels sparkling in lights lay far behind, and Ghent was passed, and they tore through Bruges with three screeches, leaving a trail of opalescent smoke threaded with fire, and noisily rocking and stuffily smelling as a Belgian train alone can. Over the wide flat lands they raced, with a throbbing repeated in triplets as clear as the gait of a galloping horse. No tunnels were here; a grating rush and a roar told when they passed a canal and mirrored their square golden windows one after one in the glass of the water, so dark and so still. Lucian leaned out, received a peppering of grit from the engine, and got his first breath of the sea. There in the west the sky glowed over Ostend. He relegated the aristocratic stranger to a prison dark and drear, with prospects of the gallows, and turned from his own fancies to face the facts of life. Years dropped away like dead leaves; he lived again through the hours when he gambled with Meryon while his wife lay dead above. In those hours he had come to know despair; and now, displacing the veils which resolute courage drew across the face of truth, he saw the same inexorable lineaments confronting him. He had met them now in every path of life. He was a failure: Dolly was not for him. He had known this, while refusing to believe; he did acknowledge it now, and reached the nadir of his troubles before the final sentence fell.

“We shall have a rough crossing,” said the stranger, folding up his paper. “Are you a good sailor?”

“Tolerably vile; are you?”

“Couldn’t be worse,” said the stranger, laughing. “Do you go below?”

“No; I lie where I fall and abide in my misery until my journey’s end. _Sic transit_ is my motto; and sick it always is, too.”

“You’ll get wet through if you stay on deck to-night. Why don’t you try a private cabin? They’re comfortable.”