Jamaica Inn Page 4
He fell silent a moment, gazing at his empty glass. He picked it up, and put it down again. "No," he said, "I've said enough. I'll have no more tonight. Go up to bed, Mary, before I wring your neck. Here's your candle. You'll find your room over the porch."
Mary took the candlestick without speaking, and was about to pass him when he seized hold of her shoulder and twisted her round.
"There'll be nights sometimes when you hear wheels on the road," he said, "and those wheels will not pass on, but they'll stop outside Jamaica Inn. And you'll hear footsteps in the yard, and voices beneath your window. When that happens, you'll stay in your bed, Mary Yellan, and cover your head with the blankets. Do you understand?"
"Yes, uncle."
"Very well. Now get out, and if you ever ask me a question again I'll break every bone in your body."
She went out of the room and into the dark passage, bumping against the settle in the hall, and so upstairs, feeling her way with her hands, judging her whereabouts by turning round and facing the stairs again. Her uncle had told her the room over the porch, and she crept across the dark landing, which was unlit, past two doors on either side--guest-rooms she imagined, waiting for those travelers who never came nowadays, nor sought shelter beneath the roof of Jamaica Inn--and then stumbled against another door and turned the handle, and saw by the flickering flame of her candle that this was her room, for her trunk lay on the floor.
The walls were rough and unpapered, and the floorboards bare. A box turned upside down served as a dressing-table, with a cracked looking-glass on top. There was no jug or basin; she supposed she would wash in the kitchen. The bed creaked when she leaned upon it, and the two thin blankets felt damp to her hand. She decided she would not undress, but would lie down upon it in her traveling clothes, dusty as they were, with her cloak wrapped round her. She went to the window and looked out. The wind had dropped, but it was still raining--a thin wretched drizzle that trickled down the side of the house, and smeared the dirt on the windowpane.
A noise came from the far end of the yard, a curious groaning sound like an animal in pain. It was too dark to see clearly, but she could make out a dark shape swinging gently to and fro. For one nightmare of a moment, her imagination on fire with the tales Joss Merlyn had told her, she thought it was a gibbet, and a dead man hanging. And then she realized it was the signboard of the inn, that somehow or other, through neglect, had become insecure upon its nails and now swung backwards, forwards, with the slightest breeze. Nothing but a poor battered board, that had once known prouder days in its first erection, but whose white lettering was now blurred and gray, and whose message was at the mercy of the four winds--Jamaica Inn--Jamaica Inn. Mary pulled down the blind and crept to her bed. Her teeth were chattering, and her feet and hands were numb. For a long while she sat huddled on the bed, a prey to despair. She wondered whether it were possible to break from the house and find her way back the twelve long miles to Bodmin. She wondered whether her weariness would prove too much for her, and if with an agony of fatigue she would drop by the roadside, and fall asleep where she lay, only to be wakened by the morning light and to see the great form of Joss Merlyn towering above her.
She closed her eyes, and at once she saw his face smiling at her, and then the smile changing to a frown, and the frown breaking into a thousand creases as he shook with rage, and she saw his great mat of black hair, his hooked nose, and the long powerful fingers that held such deadly grace.
She felt caught here now, like a bird in a net, and however much she struggled she would never escape. If she wished to be free she must go now, climb from her window and run like a mad thing along the white road that stretched like a snake across the moors. Tomorrow it would be too late.
She waited until she heard his footsteps on the stairs. She heard him mutter to himself, and to her relief he turned aside and went along the other passage to the left of the staircase. In the distance a door closed, and there was silence. She decided that she would wait no longer. If she stayed even one night beneath this roof her nerve would go from her, and she would be lost. Lost, and mad, and broken, like Aunt Patience. She opened the door and stole into the passage. She tiptoed to the head of the stairs. She paused and listened. Her hand was on the banister and her foot on the top stair when she heard a sound from the other passage. It was somebody crying. It was someone whose breath came in little gasps and spasms, and who tried to muffle the sound in a pillow. It was Aunt Patience. Mary waited a moment, and then she turned back and went to her own room again, and threw herself on her bed and closed her eyes. Whatever she would have to face in the future, and however frightened she would be, she would not leave Jamaica Inn now. She must stay with Aunt Patience. She was needed here. It might be that Aunt Patience would take comfort from her, and they would come to an understanding, and, in some way which she was now too tired to plan, Mary would act as a protector to Aunt Patience, and stand between her and Joss Merlyn. For seventeen years her mother had lived and worked alone, and known greater hardships than Mary would ever know. She would not have run away because of a half-crazy man. She would not have feared a house that reeked of evil, however lonely it stood on its wind-blown hill, a solitary landmark defying man and storm. Mary's mother would have the courage to fight her enemies. Yes, and conquer them in the end. There would be no giving way for her.
And so Mary lay upon her hard bed, her mind teeming while she prayed for sleep, every sound a fresh stab to her nerves, from the scratching of a mouse in the wall behind her to the creaking of the sign in the yard. She counted the minutes and the hours of an eternal night, and when the first cock crew in a field behind the house she counted no more, but sighed, and slept like a dead thing.
3
Mary woke to a high wind from the west, and a thin watery sun. It was the rattling of the window that roused her from her sleep, and she judged from the broad daylight and the color of the sky that she had slept late, and that it must be past eight o'clock. Looking out of the window and across the yard, she saw that the stable door was open, and there were fresh hoof-marks in the mud outside. With a great sense of relief she realized that the landlord must have gone from home, and she would have Aunt Patience to herself, if only for a little time.
Hurriedly she unpacked her trunk, pulling out her thick skirt and colored apron, and the heavy shoes she had worn at the farm, and in ten minutes she was down in the kitchen, and washing in the scullery at the back.
Aunt Patience came in from the chicken-run behind the house with some new-laid eggs in her apron, which she produced with a little smile of mystery. "I thought you'd like one for your breakfast," she said. "I saw you were too tired to eat much last night. And I've saved you a spot of cream for your bread." Her manner was normal enough this morning, and in spite of the red rims round her eyes, which bespoke an anxious night, she was obviously making an effort to be cheerful. Mary decided it was only in the presence of her husband that she went to pieces like a frightened child, and when he was away she had that same child's aptitude for forgetting, and could seize pleasure from little situations such as this of making breakfast for Mary, and boiling her an egg.
They both avoided any reference to the night before, and Joss's name was not mentioned. Where he had gone, and on what business, Mary neither asked nor cared; she was only too relieved to be rid of him.
Mary could see that her aunt was eager to speak of things unconnected with her present life; she seemed afraid of any questions, so Mary spared her, and plunged into a description of the last years at Helford, the strain of the bad times, and her mother's illness and death.
Whether Aunt Patience took it in or not she could not tell; certainly she nodded from time to time, and pursed her lips, and shook her head, and uttered little ejaculations; but it seemed to Mary that years of fear and anxiety had taken away her powers of concentration, and that some underlying terror prevented her from giving her whole interest to any conversation.
During the morning there w
as the usual work of the house, and Mary was thus able to explore the inn more thoroughly.
It was a dark, rambling place, with long passages and unexpected rooms. There was a separate entrance to the bar, at the side of the house, and, though the room was empty now, there was something heavy in the atmosphere reminiscent of the last time it was full: a lingering taste of old tobacco, the sour smell of drink, and an impression of warm, unclean humanity packed one against the other on the dark stained benches.
For all the unpleasant suggestion that it conjured, it was the one room in the inn that had vitality, and was not morne and drear. The other rooms appeared neglected or unused; even the parlor by the entrance-porch had a solitary air, as though it were many months since an honest traveler had stepped upon the threshold and warmed his back before a glowing fire. The guest-rooms upstairs were in an even worse state of repair. One was used for lumber, with boxes piled against the wall, and old horse-blankets chewed and torn by families of rats or mice. In the room opposite, potatoes and turnips had been stored upon a broken-down bed.
Mary guessed that her own small room had been in much the same condition, and that she owed it to her aunt that it was now furnished at all. Into their room, along the further passage, she did not venture. Beneath it, down a passage that ran parallel to the one above, long and in the opposite direction from the kitchen, was another room, the door of which was locked. Mary went out into the yard to look at it through the window, but there was a board nailed up against the frame, and she could not see inside.
The house and outbuildings formed three sides of the little square that was the yard, in the center of which was a grass bank and a drinking-trough. Beyond this lay the road, a thin white ribbon that stretched on either hand to the horizon, surrounded on each side by moorland, brown and sodden from the heavy rains. Mary went out onto the road and looked about her, and as far as her eyes could see there was nothing but the black hills and the moors. The gray slate inn, with its tall chimneys, forbidding and uninhabited though it seemed, was the only dwelling-place on the landscape. To the west of Jamaica high tors reared their heads; some were smooth like downland, and the grass shone yellow under the fitful winter sun; but others were sinister and austere, their peaks crowned with granite and great slabs of stone. Now and again the sun was obscured by cloud, and long shadows fled over the moors like fingers. Color came in patches; sometimes the hills were purple, ink-stained, and mottled, and then a feeble ray of sun would come from a wisp of cloud, and one hill would be golden-brown while his neighbor still languished in the dark. The scene was never once the same, for it would be the glory of high noon to the east, with the moor as motionless as desert sand; and away to the westward arctic winter fell upon the hills, brought by a jagged cloud shaped like a highwayman's cloak, that scattered hail and snow and a sharp spittle rain onto the granite tors. The air was strong and sweet-smelling, cold as mountain air, and strangely pure. It was a revelation to Mary, accustomed as she was to the warm and soft climate of Helford, with its high hedges and tall protecting trees. Even the east wind had been no hardship there, for the arm of the headland acted as a defense to those on land, and it was only the river that ran turbulent and green, the wave-crests whipped with foam.
However grim and hateful was this new country, however barren and untilled, with Jamaica Inn standing alone upon the hill as a buffer to the four winds, there was a challenge in the air that spurred Mary Yellan to adventure. It stung her, bringing color to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes; it played with her hair, blowing it about her face; and as she breathed deep she drew it through her nostrils and into her lungs, more quenching and sweeter than a draft of cider. She went to the water-trough, and put her hands under the spring. The water ran clear and icy-cold. She drank some, and it was unlike any water she had drunk before, bitter, queer, with a lingering peat taste like the smoke from the turf fire in the kitchen.
It was deep and satisfying, for her thirst went from her.
She felt strong in her body and emboldened in spirit, and she went back into the house to find Aunt Patience, her appetite sharp for the dinner that she hoped awaited her. She fell to with a will upon stewed mutton and turnips, and, her hunger appeased now for the first time for four-and-twenty hours, she felt her courage return to her, and she was ready to question her aunt and risk the consequences.
"Aunt Patience," she began, "why is my uncle the landlord of Jamaica Inn?" The sudden direct attack took the woman by surprise, and for a moment she stared at Mary without reply. Then she flushed scarlet, and began to work her mouth. "Why," she faltered, "it's--it's a very prominent place here, on the road. You can see that. This is the main road from the south. The coaches pass here twice a week. They come from Truro, and Bodmin, and so on, to Launceston. You came yourself yesterday. There's always company on the road. Travelers, and private gentlemen, and sometimes sailors from Falmouth."
"Yes, Aunt Patience. But why don't they stop at Jamaica?"
"They do. They often ask for a drink in the bar. We've a good custom here."
"How can you say that when the parlor is never used, and the guest-rooms are stored with lumber, fit only for rats and mice? I've seen them for myself. I've been to inns before, smaller ones than this by far. There was an inn at home, in the village. The landlord was a friend of ours. Many a time mother and I had tea in the parlor; and upstairs, though there were only two rooms, they were furnished and fitted up in style for travelers."
Her aunt was silent for a moment, working her mouth and twisting her fingers in her lap. "Your Uncle Joss doesn't encourage folk to stay," she said at length. "He says you never know who you are going to get. Why, in a lonely spot like this we might be murdered in our beds. There's all sorts on a road like this. It wouldn't be safe."
"Aunt Patience, you're talking nonsense. What is the use of an inn that cannot give an honest traveler a bed for the night? For what other purpose was it built? And how do you live, if you have no custom?"
"We have custom," returned the woman sullenly. "I've told you that. There's men come in from the farms and outlying places. There are farms and cottages scattered over these moors for miles around, and folk come from there. There are evenings when the bar is full of them."
"The driver on the coach yesterday told me respectable people did not come to Jamaica anymore. He said they were afraid."
Aunt Patience changed color. She was pale now, and her eyes roved from side to side. She swallowed, and ran her tongue over her lips.
"Your Uncle Joss has a strong temper," she said; "you have seen that for yourself. He is easily roused; he will not have folk interfering with him."
"Aunt Patience, why should anyone interfere with a landlord of an inn who goes about his rightful business? However hot-tempered a man may be, his temper doesn't scare people away. That's no excuse."
Her aunt was silent. She had come to the end of her resources, and sat stubborn as a mule. She would not be drawn. Mary tried another question.
"Why did you come here in the first place? My mother knew nothing of this; we believed you to be in Bodmin; you wrote from there when you married."
"I met your uncle in Bodmin, but we never lived there," replied Aunt Patience slowly. "We lived near Padstow for a while, and then we came here. Your uncle bought the inn from Mr. Bassat. It had stood empty a number of years, I believe, and your uncle decided it would suit him. He wanted to settle down. He's traveled a lot in his time; he's been to more places than I can remember the names. I believe he was in America once."
"It seems a funny thing to come to this place to settle," said Mary. "He couldn't have chosen much worse, could he?"
"It's near his old home," said her aunt. "Your uncle was born only a few miles away, over on Twelve Men's Moor. His brother Jem lives there now in a bit of a cottage, when he's not roaming the country. He comes here sometimes, but your Uncle Joss does not care for him much."
"Does Mr. Bassat ever visit the inn?"
"No."
Aunt Patience fidgeted with her fingers, and worked her mouth.
"There was some misunderstanding," she replied. "Your uncle bought it through a friend. Mr. Bassat did not know who Uncle Joss was until we were settled in, and then he was not very pleased."
"Why did he mind?"
"He had not seen your uncle since he lived at Trewartha as a young man. Your uncle was wild as a lad; he got a name for acting rough. It wasn't his fault, Mary, it was his misfortune. The Merlyns all were wild. His young brother Jem is worse than ever he was, I am sure of that. But Mr. Bassat listened to a pack of lies about Uncle Joss, and was in a great way when he discovered that he'd sold Jamaica to him. There, that's all there is to it."
She leaned back in her chair, exhausted from her cross-examination. Her eyes begged to be excused further questioning and her face was pale and drawn. Mary saw she had suffered enough, but with the rather cruel audacity of youth she ventured one question more.
"Aunt Patience," she said, "I want you to look at me and answer me this, and then I won't worry you again. What has the barred room at the end of the passage to do with the wheels that stop outside Jamaica Inn by night?"