The Swindler and Other Stories Part 41

It came in gusts of gaiety. The wash of the sea, as it crept up the beach, was very mysterious and remote.

Below, on the piled shingle, a man stood alone, staring out over the darkness, motionless and absorbed.

The watcher above him struck a match at length and kindled a cigarette.

His face was lit up during the operation. It was the face of a man who had seen a good deal of the world and had not found the experience particularly refreshing. Yet, as he looked down upon the silent figure below him, there was more of compa.s.sion than cynicism in his eyes. There was a glint of humour also, like the shrewd half-melancholy humour of a monkey that possesses the wisdom of all the ages, and can impart none of it.

Suddenly there was a movement on the shingle. The lonely figure had turned and flung itself face downwards among the tumbling stones. The abandonment of the action was very young, and perhaps it was that very fact that made it so indescribably pathetic. To Lester Cheveril, leaning on the sea-wall, it appealed as strongly as the crying of a child. He glanced over his shoulder. The place was deserted. Then he deliberately dropped his cigarette-case over the wall and exclaimed: "Confound it!"

The p.r.o.ne figure on the shingle rolled over and sat up.

"Hullo!" said Cheveril.

There was a distinct pause before a voice replied: "Hullo! What's the matter?"

"I've dropped my cigarette-case," said Cheveril. "Beastly careless of me!"

Again there was a pause. Then the man below him stumbled to his feet.

"I've got a match," he said. "I'll see if I can find it."

"Don't trouble," said Cheveril politely. "The steps are close by."

He walked away at an easy pace and descended to the beach. The flicker of a match guided him to the searcher. As he drew near, the light went out, and the young man turned to meet him.

"Here it is," he said gruffly.

"Many thanks!" said Cheveril. "It's so confoundedly dark to-night. I scarcely expected to see it again."

The other muttered an acknowledgment, and stood prepared to depart.

Cheveril, however, paused in a conversational att.i.tude. He had not risked his property for nothing.

"A pretty little place, this," he said. "I suppose you are a visitor here like myself?"

"I'm leaving to-morrow," was the somewhat grudging rejoinder.

"I only came this afternoon," said Cheveril. "Is there anything to see here?"

"There's the sea and the lighthouse," his companion told him curtly--"nothing else."

Cheveril smiled faintly to himself in the darkness.

"Try one of these cigarettes," he said sociably. "I don't enjoy smoking alone."

He was aware, as his unknown friend accepted the offer, that he would have infinitely preferred to refuse.

"Been here long?" he asked him, as they plunged through the shingle towards the sand.

"I've lived here nearly all my life," was the reply. And, after a moment, as if the confidence would not be repressed: "I'm leaving now--for good."

"Ah!" said Cheveril sympathetically. "It's pretty beastly when you come to turn out. I've done it, and I know."

"It's infernal," said the other gloomily, and relapsed into silence.

"Going abroad?" Cheveril ventured presently.

"Yes. Going to the other side of the world." Surliness had given place to depression in the boy's voice. Sympathy, albeit from an unknown quarter, moved him to confidence. "But it isn't that I mind," he said, a moment later. "I should be ready enough to clear out if it weren't for--some one else!"

"A woman, I suppose?" Cheveril said.

He was aware that his companion glanced at him sharply through the gloom, and knew that he was momentarily suspected of eavesdropping.

Then, with impulsive candour, the answer came:

"Yes; the girl I'm engaged to. She has got to stay behind and marry--some one else."

Cheveril's teeth closed silently upon his lower lip. This, also, was one of the things he knew.

"You can't trust her, then?" he said, after a pause.

"Oh, she cares for me--of course!" the boy answered. "But there isn't a chance for us. They are all dead against me, and the other fellow will be on the spot. He hasn't asked her yet, but he means to. And her people will simply force her to accept him when he does. Of course they will!

He is Cheveril, the millionaire. You must have heard of him. Every one has."

"I know him well," said Cheveril.

"So do I--by sight," the boy plunged on recklessly--"an undersized little animal with a squint."

"I didn't know he squinted," Cheveril remarked into the darkness. "But, anyhow, they can't make her marry against her will."

"Can't they?" returned the other fiercely. "I don't know what you call it, then. They can make her life so positively unbearable that she will have to give in, if it is only to get away from them. It's perfectly fiendish; but they will do it. I know they will do it. She hasn't a single friend to stand by her."

"Except you," said Cheveril.

They had nearly reached the water. The rush and splash of the waves held something solemn in their harmonies, like the chords of a splendid symphony. Cheveril heard the quick, indignant voice at his side like a cry of unrest breaking through.

"What can I do?" it said. "I have never had a chance till now. I have just had a berth in India offered to me; but I can't possibly hope to support a wife for two years at least. And meanwhile--meanwhile----"

It stopped there; and a long wave broke with a roar, and rushed up in gleaming foam almost to their feet. The younger man stepped back; but Cheveril remained motionless, his face to the swirling water.

Quite suddenly at length he turned, as a man whose mind is made up, and began to walk back to the dimly lighted parade. He marched straight up the shingle, as if with a definite purpose in view, and mounted the rickety iron ladder to the pavement.

His companion followed, too absorbed by his trouble to feel any curiosity regarding the stranger to whom he had poured it out.

Under a flaring gas-lamp, Cheveril stood still.

"Do you mind telling me your name?" he said abruptly.

That roused the boy slightly. "My name is Willowby," he answered--"James Willowby."