The Man Within · Part II · Chapter 7 (1/2)

VII

A tall, thin man with sharp pointed face sat at a table laid for dinner. He had been at most picking at the food, for he raised, not from his plate but from a stack of papers beside it, a pair of dark, tired eyes. From a high forehead the hair receded in a grey curling wave.

It was not at him that Andrews stared, but at the lady who sat with him and who now gazed at Andrews with a particular challenging air that he knew well from pothouse women. She was pretty and richly dressed with a small red pouting impertinent mouth and curious eyes.

“What is it, Mr. Farne?” the man said, while the woman, resting a round chin on two small fists, stared steadily at Andrews in frank amazement.

Andrews put a hand on Mr. Farne’s shoulder and steadied himself. “Invited to dinner,” he said, “but I really thought Mr. Farne would be alone. Not dressed for company. I’ll be going,” and removing his hand, he turned to the door.

“Stay where you are, my man,” Mr. Farne said sharply. Andrews stared at him for a moment in amazement, so changed was that gentle voice. “My man.” That was what one called a servant. “Look here,” he said, anger rising slowly through a brain dizzy with drink, “who do you think you are talking to? Just because you know I haven’t a penny. How dare you ‘my man’ me?” He clasped and unclasped his fingers, exercising them before they should play their part in shaking Mr. Farne. Mr. Farne paid him no attention, but crossed to the man at the table and began to whisper.

“Suppose that I called you ‘my man?’ ” the woman said in a soft, rather sugary voice. She reminded Andrews of a young and desirable Mrs. Butler.

“For heaven’s sake, Lucy,” her companion murmured, “can’t you keep your fingers off any man?”

She shrugged her shoulders and pouted at Andrews. “You see,” she said, “what a bear he is? Can you imagine what it’s like living with him?”

Andrews, catching above a low-cut dress sight of fine shoulders and the beginnings of two firm young breasts, smiled back. I must be very drunk, he thought. Here was a young and easy woman. O, to have a clear brain.

“Will you come and sit down here, Mr. Absolom?” the man with the tired eyes said, and Mr. Farne pulled out a chair opposite the girl. Andrews sat down and found a glass of muscatel at his hand. He sipped a little. “It’s good of you,” he said and repeated his earlier statement, “not dressed for company.” He scowled at Mr. Farne who had taken a chair on his other side nearer the door. “Introduce me,” he said.

“This is Sir Henry Merriman,” Mr. Farne said. The name seemed somehow familiar to Andrews. “Your good health, Sir Henry,” he said and spilt a little wine on the table cloth. Mr. Farne fidgeted.

“And I,” said the girl opposite him, smiling maliciously at Mr. Farne, “am the not very respectable appendage of Sir Henry. Mr. Farne does not approve of me. Mr. Farne, you know, is a regular churchgoer.”

“Hold your tongue, Lucy,” said Sir Henry sharply. He raised his glass to Andrews. “And your health, Mr.⁠—,” he stopped and waited. The eyes were dark rimmed, as though he spent too few of his hours in sleep. Somewhere very deep in them lay a sharp gleam like a candle shining at the end of a succession of long, dim halls.

“Mr. Absolom,” Andrews said.

Sir Henry laughed courteously. “Yes, but your real name?” When Andrews did not answer, he asked with an air of polite, indifferent inquiry, “Is it perhaps Mr. Carlyon?” The candle was growing larger and brighter. It was being carried forward by an unseen hand through the long dusty chambers.

Oh, but this was comic, Andrews thought. To be mistaken for Carlyon of all people. He began to laugh so loudly and uncontrollably that he found it hard to answer. “No, no, not Carlyon,” he spluttered.

Straight on top of his own words came Sir Henry’s. “But you know Carlyon?” The air of indifference had gone. Something urgent and fanatical had taken their place. The voice cut through the mist of drink straight to Andrews’s understanding. “What do you mean?” he cried. He got unsteadily to his feet. “I’m going. I won’t stay here to be insulted. Of course I don’t know him. What should I know a damned smuggler for?” He put his hand to his head and cursed himself. He was not so drunk that he did not know that he had betrayed himself again. Drink and hunger had confused him. He was no match for sober wits. “I’m going,” he repeated.

“Sit down,” Mr. Farne said sharply. He rose and locked the door. Andrews watched him in amazement and then sat down. They were too much for him.

“Lucy, you’d better go to bed,” said Sir Henry.

She made a grimace at him. “I won’t be sent to bed,” she said. “I’ll either stay here or go down to the bar and find some company.”

“Oh stay then,” Sir Henry replied, as though too tired to argue. He turned to Andrews. “Now, young man, you may as well tell us everything. We are friends. We only want to help you.”

“This is a free country,” Andrews protested mechanically, “you can’t keep me here if I want to go.”

“Why no,” Sir Henry said, “but there is nothing to prevent my handing you over to the police.”

“Oh, I don’t fear that,” Andrews answered. “On what charge?”

“Smuggling,” said Mr. Farne, “and murder.”

“Why should you give us that trouble?” Sir Henry continued. “You are innocent, I know, of the second charge.”

“Well, then, why can’t you leave me alone?” Andrews muttered with sulky tearfulness.

“I am here,” Sir Henry said with unexpected energy, “to hang these murderers. You want that, too, don’t you?”

I must be careful, Andrews told himself, give away nothing. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said aloud.

Mr. Farne sniffed impatiently and Sir Henry fidgeted with his fingers. “You informed against these men,” he said. “An anonymous letter to the Customs,” he looked up at Andrews with contempt and curiosity.

“Why do you say I did it?” Andrews asked.

“Oh, there’s no doubt. No doubt at all.” He spread a dirty envelope on the table. “Absolom, son of King David. Look at this capital A and this K. You gave yourself away finely, my friend. I have your letter to the Customs in my pocket. You wrote it with your left hand, but you can’t destroy those twirls and twists.”

“All right,” Andrews gave a gesture of surrender, “I’ll admit it. Only give me something to eat.”

“Go and find a waiter, Lucy,” Sir Henry said, “and tell him to bring up a steak for Mr.⁠—.”

“Andrews.”

“And tell him also that he must find a bed in the hotel. Mr. Andrews is staying here for the next few days.”

They did not speak to him again, until he had eaten. He felt then not only refreshed but clearer in the brain. He was caught, and deep beneath his superficial fear, he was thankful. The initiative had been taken out of his hands. He was being driven remorselessly along the right road, and it was no use to struggle any more. He glanced surreptitiously round him. Mr. Farne was reading and Sir Henry was deep in his papers, his long, white, unringed hands moving nervously in rhythm with his thoughts. The girl was dozing in her chair. He watched her with greedy interest. “What fun can she get out of that man?” he thought. “He thinks of nothing but his work. He can’t make her wriggle as I could.” For one moment he was perturbed by the thought of Elizabeth. She was more desirable and more lovely, but infinitely more distant. “It’s hopeless,” he thought. “What’s the use of thinking of her?” He could not believe that she was intended for any man and least of all for himself. Besides it was because of her that he found himself here and why should he not take the fun when he must needs take the risk? Here was someone who was not too good for him, formed of the same lustful body and despicable heart.

She opened her eyes and found him watching her. She smiled. “We must find you some clean clothes,” she said. “I’m sure Mr. Farne would lend you some of his. They are very sober of course. Mr. Farne is a churchgoer.” Mr. Farne jumped out of his chair and walked with little irritated steps towards the window, where he stood, his back turned to them, watching the High Street with a forced interest. “Mr. Farne and I have never been true friends,” she said, her small lips twisting at the corners with annoyance that there should be any man who did not desire her and contempt that Mr. Farne should be so lacking in what she considered manhood.

Sir Henry looked up from his papers. “Go to bed, Lucy,” he said with asperity.

She watched him mischievously. “And you?” she said.

“I am busy,” he said.

Her face was momentarily touched with a very faint tenderness. “You are not going to work again all night, Henry?” she asked. “You must get some sleep.”

He said, “I’m all right,” with a slight tone of astonishment, as though he were surprised at an unaccustomed anxiety. “Go along now. I’ve got a lot of work to do before tomorrow.”

She got up, but before she went to the door, paused for a moment at the table. “You are overworking,” she said.

He smiled. “It’s my career. Besides, I particularly want to win this case.”

“You’ll kill yourself sooner or later,” she said.

“O you needn’t be afraid,” he said drily and impatiently. “I’ll find you a new keeper first.”

She flushed and glanced at Andrews with an angry smile. “I can find one for myself at any time,” she replied.

“I should not advise you to choose Mr. Andrews,” Sir Henry said with an amused smile, as though he were watching an angry and ridiculous child. “Mr. Andrews lacks means.” She went out and slammed the door behind her.

Andrews was confused, but not this time with drink. He felt as if he had come suddenly out of a mysterious windswept silence into a place of hurried noise and movement and crowds. A temporary homesickness for the cottage and Elizabeth was banished by Lucy’s smile, which promised “fun.” If she intends to play me off against this man Merriman, he thought, I’m game. Drink no longer blurred his brain, but it had left a small restless feeling of desire and a strong belief in his own fascination. He longed to follow Lucy out of the room.

“Look here,” he said, “what do you want with me?”

Sir Henry looked up. “Are you sober now?” he asked.

“I was never drunk,” Andrews said angrily. “Only hungry.”

“Well, then, what I want is to see you in the witness box. I’m leading for the Crown. If you are not a witness you must see for yourself that there’s only one other place for you.”

“What use am I to you?” Andrews protested. “I’d gone before the fight began.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Sir Henry said. “All I want is your evidence that these men landed, that you were with them when they landed.”

“But the risk?” Andrews said.

“You should have thought of that when you sent the letter. But I’ll do my best for you. I’ll have you watched as long as you stay in Lewes. You can remain at this inn. I’ve had a room taken for you. Afterwards it’s your own lookout, but you’ll have the whole of England to drop into. You exaggerate the risk. I advise you, however, after this to give up smuggling.” He looked at Andrews curiously. “I can’t imagine why you ever started. You talk like an educated young man.”

“I can read Latin and Greek, if you call that education. I haven’t been taught how to live. What can I do when this is over?”

Sir Henry tapped the table impatiently with his fingers. “You are a lucky find for me,” he said. “There’s no cause to be grateful to you, but I’ll give you some introductions in London when this trial is over. You ought to be able to get a job as a clerk. But you had better act honestly in the future or you’ll end where I hope your companions will end.”

“Don’t prate to me,” Andrews cried, “about honesty. You are not risking your life in this trial as I am. You are paid for it.”

“Don’t be impertinent,” Mr. Farne returned from the window. “You are doing this to save your own skin, not for justice.”

“For neither, I think,” Andrews replied, his anger dispelled by the vision of Elizabeth raising his cup to her lips. But I can never return there, he thought. When this is over I must clear out. I don’t suppose I shall ever see her again. The thought was a sharp pain, which made him clench his hands and long for the relief of tears. Deliberately he turned his back in mind upon the cottage and shut out all sight and sound and remembrance of it, and fixed instead his eyes upon the danger in front of him which he must be cunning to evade. In this quiet room over the High Street, in the presence of the two barristers, all fear of violence seemed absurd. The peace which he had experienced the night before was like a dream, and into a dream nightmare could easily enter. But now he was awake, amid real surroundings, among calm, ordinary people, and it was impossible to believe that he was really hunted by a sudden death. His flight seemed no longer to be necessarily eternal. When this was over he would go to London and leave the past behind and live like an ordinary man, working daily for his bread. I shall be able to buy books, he thought, his heart leaping, and go in and listen to the music at St. Paul’s and the Abbey. The streets would be full of cabs and the pavements crowded with people. He would walk here and there and be no more conspicuous than an ant in an ant hill. It would be a pain to be so happy, he thought, and then realised that that ache was not a prophecy of bliss but of vacancy. He put his head on his hands. What will be the use, he wondered, with my life empty of her forever? When it was warm, he would want her to be with him to bask in the warmth and when cold to crouch with him over the fire. Always in his brain when he woke would be the thought, she is only a few hours away. Go and see if she is in the cottage. She may have moved or be lost or be dying or hungry or lonely. And every morning fear would struggle with the thought and win. There could be no more peace for him in that constant struggle than in flight. What then am I to do? he asked himself with a tired gesture of the hands.

The two barristers were speaking to each other, ignoring Andrews.

“And Parkin?” Mr. Farne said. “What do you think of Parkin?”

“He’s the best judge the prisoners could have. He’s a conceited windbag who likes to hear the sound of his own voice. If there’s one honest man on the jury Parkin will alienate him by his snobbery or else confuse him by the length of his summing up. Farne, you ought to be going to bed. You’ve got a long day in front of you and the best part of the evening too if I know Parkin. He’ll sit till there are no more candles to burn.”

“And you, Sir Henry?” Mr. Farne asked with a trace of anxiety.

“Oh I, Farne, I’ve still a little more work to do. I need less sleep. I’m older. Farne, shall we get a conviction?”

“Not unless you get some sleep, Sir Henry.”

“I don’t know why you are all worrying like this⁠—you and Lucy. Farne, will there ever be a time when a jury can be trusted to give a verdict according to the evidence in a smuggling case? It makes one tired of justice and long for martial law.”

“Don’t say that, Sir Henry. Justice is justice. What about this man, Sir Henry? Do you want him any more tonight?”

They are treating me like a servant again, Andrews thought, but his anger had no time to rise before it was quenched by Merriman’s tired, courteous tones. “A waiter will show you to your room, Mr. Andrews,” he said. “Sleep well. Tomorrow we face the guns.” He passed his hand across his face as though he were trying to remember all those things which are necessary to the comfort of men to whom work was not the great and most abiding pleasure. “If you are thirsty, Mr. Andrews,” he said, “order what you like.” Mr. Farne grunted disapprovingly, and holding open the door waited for Andrews to pass through.

“I should advise you to drink no more tonight,” he said, when they stood in the dark passage without. “Good night.”