Miranda of the Balcony Part 9

That her matter-of-fact acceptance of the news was entirely due to the fact that the news dazed her, Miranda did not trouble to explain.

"The altar," continued the stranger, in a voice of genuine admiration, "was a master-stroke. To erect an altar to the memory of a husband who is still alive, to pray devoutly before it, is highly ingenious and--may I say?--brave. Religion is a trump-card, Mrs. Warriner, in most of the games where you sit with law and order for your opponents; but not many women have the bravery to play it for its value."

Miranda coloured at his words. There had been some insincerity in her daily prayers before the altar, though the self-satisfied man who spoke to her had not his finger upon the particular flaw,--enough insincerity to cause Miranda some shame, now that she probed it, and yet in the insincerity there had been also something sincere. The truth is, Miranda could bring herself to wish neither that her husband was dead if he was alive, nor that he should come to life again if he was dead; she made a compromise--she daily prayed with great fervour for his soul's salvation before the altar she had erected to his memory. But this again was not a point upon which she troubled to enlighten her companion. She was more concerned to discover who the man was, and on what business he had come.

"You knew my husband at Gibraltar," she said, "and yet--"

"It is true," replied the man, in answer to her suspicion. "You need not be afraid, Mrs. Warriner. I have not come from Scotland Yard. I have had, I admit, relations with the police, but they have always been of an involuntary kind."

"You a.s.sume," said she, with some pride, "that I have reason to fear Scotland Yard, whereas nothing was further from my thoughts. Only you say that you knew my husband at Gibraltar. You pretend to come from him--"

"By no means. We are at cross-purposes, I fancy. I do not come from him, though most certainly I did know him at Gibraltar. But I admit that he never invited me to his house."

"In that case," said Miranda, with a cold bow, "I can do no more than thank you for the news you give me and wish you a good day."

She walked by him. He turned and imperturbably fell into step by her side. "Clever," said he, "clever!" Miranda stopped. "Who are you? What is your business?" she asked.

"As to who I am, you hold my card in your hand."

Mrs. Warriner had carried it from the Cathedral, unaware that she held it. She now raised it to her eyes and read, _Major Ambrose Wilbraham_.

Wilbraham noted, though he did not understand, the rapid, perplexed glance which she shot at him. Charnock had spoken to her of a Major Wilbraham, had described him, and undoubtedly this was the man. "As to my business," he continued, "I give you the news that your husband is alive, but I have also something to sell."

"What?"

"Obviously my silence. It might be awkward if it was known in certain quarters that Captain Warriner, who sold the mechanism of the new Daventry quick-firing gun to a foreign power; who slipped out of Gibraltar just a night before his arrest was determined on, and who was wrecked a year ago in the Scillies, is not only alive, but in the habit of paying periodical visits to England."

Mrs. Warriner again read the name upon the card. "Major Ambrose Wilbraham," she said, with an incredulous emphasis on the _Major_.

"Captains," he retorted airily, "have at times deviated from the narrow path, so that a Major may well be forgiven a peccadillo. But I will not deceive you, Mrs. Warriner. The rank was thrust upon me by a barman in Shaftesbury Avenue, and I suffered it, because the t.i.tle after all gives me the entrance to the chambers of many young men who have, or most often have not, just taken their degrees. So Major I am, but my mess is any bar within a mile of Piccadilly Circus. Shall we say that I hold brevet rank, and am seconded for service in the n.o.ble regiment of the soldiers of fortune?"

"And the enemies you fight with," said Miranda, with a contemptuous droop of the lips, "are women like myself."

"Pardon me," retorted Wilbraham, with unabashed good humour. "Women like yourself, Mrs. Warriner, are the _vivandieres_ whom we regretfully impress to supply our needs upon the march. Our enemies are the rozzers--again I beg your pardon--the gentlemen in blue who lurk at the street corners, by whom from time to time we are worsted and interned."

They walked across the square along a narrow street down towards the Tajo, that deep chasm which bisects the town. The heat was intense, the road scorched under foot, and they walked slowly. They made a strange pair in the old, quaint streets, the woman walking with a royal carriage, delicate in her beauty and her dress; the man defiant, battered and worn, with an eye which from sheer habit scouted in front and aside for the chance which might toss his day's rations in his way.

Their talk was stranger still, for by an unexpressed consent, the subject of the bargain to be struck was deferred, and as they walked Wilbraham ill.u.s.trated to Miranda the career of a man who lives by his wits, and dwelt even with humour upon its alternations of prosperity and starvation. "I have been a manager of theatrical companies in 'the smalls,'" he said, "a billiard-marker at Trieste, a racing tipster, a vender of--photographs, and I once carried a sandwich-board down Bond Street, and saw the women I had danced with not so long before draw their delicate skirts from the defilement of my rags. However, I rose to a better position. It is funny, you know, to go right under, and then find there are social degrees in the depths. I have had good times too, mind you. Every now and then I have struck an A1 copper-bottomed gold mine, and then there were dress suits and meals running into one another, and ormolu rooms on the first floor."

Dark sayings, unintelligible shibboleths, came and went among his words and obscured their meaning; accents and phrases from many countries betrayed the vicissitudes of his life; but he spoke with the accent of a gentleman, and with something of a gentleman's good humour; so that Miranda, moved partly by his recital and perhaps partly because her own misfortunes had touched her to an universal sympathy, began to be interested in the man who had experienced so much that was strange to her, and they both slipped into a tolerance of each other and a momentary forgetfulness of their relationship as blackmailer and blackmailed.

"I could give you a modern edition of Don Guzman," he said. "I was a money-lender's tout at Gibraltar at one time. It's to that I owed my acquaintance with Warriner. It's to that I owe my present acquaintance with you." He came to a dead stop in the full swing of narration. He halted in his steps and banged the point of his stick down into the road. "But I have done with it," he cried, and drawing a great breath, he showed to Miranda a face suddenly illuminated. "The garrets and the first floors, the stale billiard rooms, the desperate scouting for food like a d.a.m.ned sea-gull--I beg your pardon, Mrs. Warriner. Upon my word, I do! But imagine a poor beggar of a bankrupt painter who, after fifteen years, suddenly finds himself with a meal upon the table and his bills paid! I am that man. Fifteen years of what I have described to you! It might have been less, no doubt, but I hadn't learnt my lesson. Fifteen years, and from first to last not one thing done of the few things worth doing; fifteen years of a murderous hunt for breakfast and dinner! And I've done with it, thanks to you, Mrs.

Warriner." And his face hardened at once and gleamed at her, very cruel and menacing. "Yes, thanks to you! We'll not forget that." And as he resumed his walk the astounding creature began gaily to quote poetry:

"I resume Life after death; for 'tis no less than life After such long, unlovely labouring days.

A great poet, Mrs. Warriner. What do you think?"

"No doubt," said Miranda, absently. That one cruel glance had chilled the sympathy in her; Major Wilbraham would not spare either Ralph or herself with the memory of those fifteen years to harden him.

They came to the Ciudad, the old intricate Moorish town of tortuous lanes in the centre of Ronda. Before a pair of heavy walnut doors curiously encrusted with bright copper nails Wilbraham came to a stop.

"Your house, I think, Mrs. Warriner," and he took off his hat and wiped his forehead.

"I should prefer," said she, "to hear what you have to say in the Alameda."

"As you will. I am bound to say that I could have done with a soda and I'm so frisky, but I recognise that I have no right to trespa.s.s upon your hospitality."

They went on, crossed a small plaza, and so came down to the Tajo. A bridge spans the ravine in a single arch; in the centre of the bridge Miranda stopped, leaned over the parapet and looked downwards.

Wilbraham followed her example. For three hundred feet the walls of the gorge fell sheer, at the bottom the turbulence of a torrent foamed and roared, at the top was the span of the bridge. In the brickwork of the arch a tiny window looked out on air.

"Do you see that window?" said Miranda, drily. "The prison is underfoot in the arch of the bridge."

"Indeed, how picturesque," returned Wilbraham, easily, who was quite untouched by any menace which Miranda's words might suggest. Miranda looked across the road towards a guardia. Wilbraham lazily followed the direction of her glance; for all the emotion which he showed blackmail might have been held in Spain an honourable means of livelihood. Miranda turned back. "That window," she said, "is the window of the prison."

"The view," remarked Wilbraham, "would compensate in some measure for the restriction."

"Chains might add to the restriction."

"Chains _are_ unpleasant," Wilbraham heartily agreed.

Miranda realised that she had tempted defeat in this little encounter.

She accepted it and walked on.

"You were wise to come off that barrow, Mrs. Warriner," Wilbraham remarked in approval.

They crossed the bridge and entered the Mercadillo, the new Spanish quarter of the town, ascended the hill, and came to the bull ring.

Before that Wilbraham stopped. "Why do we go to the Alameda?"

"We can talk there on neutral ground."

"It seems a long way."

"On the other hand," replied Miranda, "the Alameda is close to the railway station. By the bye, how did you know where I lived?"

"There was no difficulty in discovering that. I learnt at Gibraltar that you lived at Ronda, and the station-master here told me where.

When I saw your house I did not wonder at your choice. You were wise to take a Moorish house, I fancy--the patio with the tamarisks in the middle and the fountain and the red and green tiles--very pleasant, I should think. A door or two stood open. The rooms seemed charming, low in roof, with dark panels, of a grateful coolness, and so far as I could judge, with fine views."

"You went into the house, then?" exclaimed Miranda.

"Yes, I asked for you, and was told that Miss Holt was at home. I thought it wise to go in--one never knows. So I introduced myself, but not my business, to Miss Holt--your cousin, is she not? A profound sentimentalist, I should fancy; I noticed she was reading _Henrietta Temple_. She complained of being much alone; she nurses grievances, no doubt. Sentimentalists have that habit--what do you say?" Miranda could have laughed at the shrewdness of the man's perceptions, had she not been aware that the shrewdness was a weapon directed against her own breast.

They reached the Alameda. Miranda led the way to a bench which faced the railings. Wilbraham looked quickly and suspiciously at her, and then walked to the railings and looked over. The Alameda is laid out upon the very edge of the Ronda plateau, and Wilbraham looked straight down a sheer rock precipice of a thousand feet. He remained in that posture for some seconds. From the foot of that precipice the plain of the Vega stretched out level as a South-sea lagoon. The gardens of a few cottages were marked out upon the green like the squares of a chess-board; upon the hedges there was here and there the flutter of white linen. Orchards of apples, cherries, peaches, and pears, enriched the plain with their subdued colours, and the Guadiaro, freed from the confinement of its chasm, wound through it with the glitter and the curve of a steel spring. A few white Moorish mills upon the banks of the stream were at work, and the sound of them came droning through the still heat up to Wilbraham's ears.

Wilbraham, however, was not occupied with the scenery, for when he turned back to Miranda his face was dark and angry.

"Why did you bring me to the Alameda?" he asked sternly.