CHAPTER XVII.

THE BLACKMAILERS

This interview with Pierre Vazon gave Bartlett Bayre much food for reflection.

That the peasant and his daughter had some hold upon his uncle of a doubtful kind he had long felt sure. Now, however, he could no longer entertain any doubts on the subject.

The worst of it was, that the words used by Pierre Vazon, his tone, his whole attitude, pointed rather to guilt than to madness in his employer. If he had had convincing proofs of his master’s insanity, the peasant would surely not have waited to make it known to a chance visitor to the island, but would have communicated with old Mr Bayre’s legal advisers, whose address could scarcely be unknown to so astute and watchful a person.

Strong though his suspicions of his uncle were, yet stronger was the young man’s disgust at the treachery of the peasant who had lived upon his master’s bounty for so long. And he began to find excuses for the savagery of the old man who, living shut up as he did, after having experienced two cruel blows to his affections, was deceived, betrayed, and perhaps bullied, by creatures meaner than himself.

And then it occurred to him even to excuse the frenzy which had presumably led to his uncle’s intended attack on himself. How would the recluse, living in himself, brooding always over his wrongs and his losses, regard such an attempt as his own nephew had made to get into his house?

Bayre saw the matter now in a new light, and determined to make one more effort to solve the mystery of his uncle’s life, but to make it, not from the outside, in aggressive fashion, but in a mood more sympathetic towards the object of his surmises.

He was in this milder mood when, on the following morning, he met Olwen Eden on the seashore, watching the gradual rising of the water, as the tide came in, round the bases of the pillar-like rocks that fringed the island.

By the way in which she turned at his approach, very slowly, and without surprise, Bayre knew that she had been expecting to see him, perhaps waiting for him to find her.

“I’ve been anxious about you,” said he, as he took her hand.

Already there was a pleasant sense of shy freemasonry between them. No ordinary “Good-morning’s,” “How do you do’s?” and the like worrying necessities of the casual acquaintance were needed between them any longer.

“Anxious! Why?”

“Because of what happened last night. I was afraid he might be angry with you for taking my part.”

“Taking your part? How did I do that?”

“Well, I think, if you hadn’t cried out when you did, that my uncle would have brained me.”

“That’s what I thought. And that’s why I screamed. But, do you know, afterwards, when you’d gone away and he called me out on the landing to speak to me, and to tell me what had happened, I think I began to feel there was some excuse for him.”

“I feel that too,” said Bayre.

And then they both began to look at each other shyly and to laugh heartily at the same moment.

“What did he say?” asked Bayre, at last.

“I can’t tell you _all_,” said she, with a demure look. “What he said demands considerable expurgation for your ears. We will say that he hinted mildly that the front door is a more desirable entrance for a dutiful and affectionate nephew than the drawing-room window. Will that do?”

Bayre laughed again.

“I feel that myself, I assure you. But, on the other hand, hasn’t he wiped out my offence by attempting to retaliate with an Indian war club?”

“Now let’s be serious,” said she, when they had exhausted their merriment over this view of the case. “He takes the matter very seriously indeed, I can tell you. And when I suggested that his eccentricity might well seem like insanity to a stranger, and that it made you nervous to know that I was in the house, he said that was no excuse for your action. And really, I almost think he was right.”

“So do I. And I mean to apologise to him.”

“I think he would rather not see you again, even for that.”

“But I want to apologise. I want also to put him on his guard against certain persons who are more likely to do him injury than I am.”

She looked at him steadily.

“Do you think he doesn’t know? He’s not mad, Mr Bayre. There’s something mysterious about him and about the place, but I don’t think it’s that. Last night he spoke to me in a way no madman ever could have done.”

“Don’t you know that many insane people could pass for sane, and do so pass? There are many forms of brain disease. There’s the insanity of delusions; there’s that which comes on in paroxysms and leaves the victim calm and even rational in the intervals. How can you explain such a scene as that I witnessed with my own eyes when I saw my uncle destroying his own house?”

Olwen looked puzzled.

“I’ve seen him tapping the walls, as if listening for some expected answer,” admitted she in a low voice. “And then I’ve wondered whether he only _fancied_ that there was some person hidden about the house. But at other times--”

“Well!”

“I’ve thought differently, as you know.”

“There _is_ a woman hidden in the house,” said Bayre, confidently.

And he described to her what he had seen on the previous night in the room with the barred windows. Olwen was not surprised.

“After all,” she said presently, “there’s something in what he said, that it’s no business of ours if he does keep some person shut up in the house.”

“No business of ours?” cried Bayre. “If he keeps a woman shut up against her will!”

“Ah, but it can’t be against her will,” said Olwen, “for there’s no doubt she could make herself heard if she chose. Remember, this place is a regular haunt of tourists in the summer; they come over by dozens to see Mr Bayre’s collection. Now how is it possible, considering that you can get round the house without difficulty, that a woman could be shut up against her will in it, with only a feeble old man as jailer? You can see that it’s impossible.”

“But she may have only been there a few months, or weeks, since the tourist season?” suggested Bayre, half-heartedly.

For indeed Olwen’s objection seemed to be a reasonable one.

“But I’ve been here all that time,” rejoined she. “And though I have the same feeling as you, that there is someone shut up there, I can’t understand how she can be kept there against her will. It’s true I don’t go all over the house; but I do go all round it. And if this absurd thing were possible, that a live woman were imprisoned there, I can’t believe that she wouldn’t have made me some sign during all this time.”

This did indeed seem conclusive, though it left the matter more mysterious than ever.

“It’s only during the last few weeks that you’ve had this idea of a woman shut up there?” said he.

“Yes. Since your first visit. I remember talking to you one day about romance, and your teasing me a little about my ambition to write novels. Well, now that I’ve come in contact with romance, I don’t like it at all; and I’d willingly exchange this uneasy feeling I always have that something’s going to happen--something mysterious, awful--for a nice, tame, flat, commonplace existence such as they describe in books by the word ‘suburban.’”

Bayre laughed.

“No,” said he. “Believe me, you’d better suffer the ills you know, the imaginary lady who, after all, doesn’t interfere with you, and the rather lonely existence you lead here, than fly to the cold mutton, the cheap piano and the villa one brick thick, which are some of the suburban ills you dream not of.”

He said this fiercely, fighting down that ugly subconsciousness that the one-brick-thick villa, or the even lower horror of the cheap flat, was all that he could reasonably hope to offer that foolish woman, whoever she might be, who would ever consent to link her life with the clerk of small salary and unsatisfied ambition.

Perhaps the quick-witted girl guessed something of that which was in his mind, for her answer was given in very gentle, almost soothing, tones.

“I think the thickness of the villa must depend a good deal upon the character of the tenants,” she prettily said.

And Bayre smiled shyly, wishing that he dared say more. But she would not give him time. He was to remember that she had thrust aside all sentiment, had banished it from their intercourse. They were to behave to each other as if that crazy avowal of his love for her had never been offered. Bayre looked wistful, but he submitted. A time would come--perhaps!

“I’m grateful to you for one thing, at any rate,” she said, following the train of her thoughts rather than that of the conversation, “that you’ve got rid of Monsieur Blaise for me.”

“I!” echoed Bayre.

“Yes, you,” said Olwen, as she began to climb the steep path to the top of the cliff. “I have an idea that, but for your coming, and the mysterious visit to my uncle to which it led, I should have dropped at last, in a helpless sort of way, into the lion’s mouth.”

“You wouldn’t!” cried Bayre, indignantly. And hastening after her up the slope, he hissed out in her ear, “If I thought there was any danger of that, I’d stay here, throw up my appointment, spoil my chances in life, such as they are, and stick here like a limpet till I’d persuaded you to spoil your chances too, to come away with me, though it wouldn’t even be to the jerry-built villa, but to two rooms on some dingy top-floor, with a man who would give his life for you!”

Perhaps this bland superiority to sentiment which Miss Eden had worn so bravely was only a mask after all. Certain it is that, as she now turned fiercely and haughtily round on him, addressing him as if he were the lowest of slaves, there burned in her bright eyes a fire which was that neither of anger nor of contempt, while there was something inviting, something sympathetic in the very gesture with which she made as if to beat off her too passionate lover.

“Didn’t I forbid you to talk like that to me? How dare you? Do you suppose I want to starve myself, or to see you starve?” she asked, with her pretty head held very high and her breast heaving with excitement. “Understand, once for all, I forbid you to talk of those things. You’re to go back to your office and work, work, work; and you’re to spend the next ten years of your life perhaps in struggling, struggling to get the hearing that comes to every man who has anything to tell. And I’m going back to my life, which is not such a bad one after all. And if I liked to marry another Monsieur Blaise--(if there’s another such treasure about who would have me)” she added with demure fun sparkling in her eyes--“why, it’s no business of yours, and I’m quite at liberty to do it if I like. There!”

With which girlish challenge Miss Eden turned again, and continued her scramble upwards, not, however, disdaining the help of a friendly but respectful hand when the way was rough or the ground slippery.

“May I just venture to ask,” said Bayre, when they arrived rather breathless at the top of the cliff, “whether you mean to beguile the time with any more novel-writing?”

And if there had been mischief in her eyes during her last speech, it was his turn to be quietly humorous now. She drew herself up defiantly.

“Oh, _I have_ beguiled it in that way,” she said promptly. “I’ve written a whole one since you were here last.”

“Won’t you let me see it? Being an unsuccessful writer myself, I’m a first-class critic ready-made.”

She shook her head and smiled, looking down.

“Oh, I don’t for a moment suppose it would stand criticism, especially your criticism.”

“Why especially mine?”

“I know, from what you said to me before about my lack of experience, that you’re not prepared to be complimentary.”

“Compliments do a novel no good, either when they’re spoken or when they’re written. What you want to make a book successful is criticism that’s absolutely venomous. Couldn’t you trust me to supply that?”

The girl threw him a bright glance.

“No,” said she, mischievously, as she turned and ran away, leaving him more in love with her than ever.

This interview with the girl he loved acted upon Bartlett Bayre as a powerful stimulant, and under its influence he decided not to delay one moment, but to go once more up to the _château_ and to see his uncle again.

In the apologetic mood in which he now found himself, he felt, without much reason, perhaps, that he would find admission easier than before. He was not, however, called upon to make the attempt, for on entering the avenue which led to the great house, he came face to face with his uncle, wrapped to the chin in a stout ulster, taking a brisk constitutional up and down under the bare trees.

“Oh, it’s you again, is it?” said old Mr Bayre, without removing his old pipe from his mouth.

“Yes, sir, I’ve come to apologise.”

“Good Heavens! that’s news indeed!”

“And I’ve come to warn you that you are putting confidence in certain people who don’t deserve it,” went on the young man, taking no notice of his uncle’s sneer.

The old man looked him full in the eyes.

“Whom do you mean?” said he.

“Come a little way with me, sir, and I’ll show you--without one word, too,” answered the young man.

His uncle continued to look at him with scrutinising eyes for some moments; then, agreeing to the proposition with a simple nod, he went out through the gate at the end of the avenue side by side with him.

The young man led the way towards the cottage of the Vazons without a word more, and his uncle being equally taciturn, they trudged on together, in the face of a keen wind, in dead silence.

They met no one on the way, and when they came to the cottage they walked quickly past the window, and the younger man lifted the latch of the door and led the way into the comfortable living-room, which was kitchen as well.

The only occupant of the room, as it chanced, was the baby in its cradle, so that nothing could have been easier than was the unmasking of the two conspirators.

Young Bayre crossed the room quickly, turned the cradle to the light, and pointed down at the child.

“You are paying the Vazons for the care of a child, sir,” said he. “Is this the one?”

The old man uttered an exclamation, and at that moment the sound of voices brought Marie into the room.

One glance at the faces of the two gentlemen showed her that her fraud was discovered, and she uttered a low, frightened cry.

Old Mr Bayre caught her by the arm in a tumult of rage.

“That child,” cried he, in a shaking voice, a voice full not only of anger but of fear. “Whose is it?”

She looked from the one man to the other, stammered, and turned furiously upon the younger.

“Lâche!” cried she in a hoarse voice, “it is you who have done this. I know it. What business was it of yours to come here making mischief?”

And she stood with her hand to her heart, panting with fear and rage.

“Whose is this child?” repeated old Mr Bayre, furiously. “It is not mine.”

He shook her roughly by the arm as he spoke.

But his anger woke an answering spirit in the girl. Drawing herself away from him, she stood at bay. And frowning up at him from under her thick eyebrows, with a look which changed her rather handsome face into one hideous and repellent, she hissed out, in a menacing tone,--

“Yours? No. Of course I know that.”

Old Mr Bayre paused an instant. Then he made a sort of spring at her, and asked, in a low voice,--

“What has become of the other--of mine?”

The girl looked frightened again. She hesitated, she faltered, she looked from one man to the other, she began to cry and to sob. In vain did the elder try to get a word of answer from her; she would do nothing but sob and complain bitterly that there was no pleasing such masters, that she would take no more care of the child since she was not trusted. Monsieur might get somebody else to do it, for she would not.

And then, in the midst of her weeping, she suddenly stopped, raised her head, and strained her ears. Then, with a joyful cry, “Ha! My father!” she dashed open the door and admitted old Pierre, who looked from one to the other of the group with a mixture of anxiety and brutal cunning in his eyes.