The Gentle Prisoner Read online

  "What's your name?" he asked.

  "Shelley."

  "I meant your Christian name."

  Her eyes widened again in faint reproof.

  "That is my Christian name," she replied.

  "I beg your pardon," he said at once. "It's a strange name for a girl, but it suits you. Here's another pound to go with the other."

  He pressed a note into her hand.

  "Thank you," she said gravely, and he smiled at her and walked on.

  He forgot her at once as he knocked on the open door of the cottage. He could see the obvious signs of departure inside; half-filled suitcases, books piled on the floor, and the general disorder of hurried packing. His eyes grew hard as he waited, and when Lucius himself came to the door, he remarked smoothly:

  "Good evening, Mr. Wynthorpe. You didn't give me to understand that you were leaving so soon."

  He thought Lucius lost colour at sight of him, but his skin had a naturally transparent look, and it might have been a trick of the light.

  "My dear fellow!" he exclaimed. "I didn't expect to see

  you. I'm sorry not to be able to ask you in, but as you see, we are in a state of chaos."

  "I think you will ask me in, all the same," Nicholas replied suavely. "You and I have some business to discuss, if I'm not mistaken."

  Lucius hesitated.

  "I'm exceedingly busy," he said. "We leave tomorrow morning."

  "Yesterday," said Nicholas mildly, "you asked for my help, Mr. Wynthorpe. Surely you haven't forgotten?"

  Lucius's eyes brightened, but he said:

  "I have regretted it, Mr. Penryn. I should not have sunk my pride so low as to beg from a stranger. But my daughter is very dear to me. Forgive me."

  "May I come in?" said Nicholas.

  Lucius stood aside, and he walked into the disordered living-room. Lucius shut the door.

  "You have decided to help us?" he said tentatively, and leant from the open window to glance up and down the shore. "You must forgive me for hurrying you, but there is so much yet to be done, and my daughter, as you know, is quite helpless."

  "Is your daughter upstairs?" Nicholas enquired.

  Lucius glanced from the window again.

  "No ... no ... she is out in her chair. I pay a boy from the village to push the chair. She likes to go out and watch the children playing on the shore, poor child."

  Nicholas removed a pile of clothing from a chair and sat down.

  "It must be quite a business moving about at such short notice with a crippled girl," he said.

  "Not easy," Lucius said with his deprecating smile. "Not easy - especially when we cannot afford to travel in comfort. But she never complains, and that, of course, makes it harder for me to bear. What did you wish to see me about, Mr. Penryn? I have, soon, to prepare my poor girl's supper."

  "Yesterday," Nicholas said, "you asked me for a thousand pounds."

  Lucius stood in a shaft of sunlight. The thick white hair, the finely cut features were illumined in a golden radiance.

  "I was unwittingly greedy," he said, "and I was desperate to help my daughter. But five hundred, perhaps - if you could have seen your way ... As I told you, I have been foolish, improvident ... I would pay you back, somehow..."

  Nicholas turned his face to the same shaft of sunlight, and the scar stood out cruelly.

  "You have never paid anyone back in your life," he said harshly.

  Lucius started.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I said," repeated Nicholas, "you have never repaid anyone in your life. I've been making enquiries about you, Wynthorpe. It was foolish of you to have quoted Mrs Anderson. Shall I tell you what I've discovered about you? You live by your wits. Begging letters, personal appeals to more gullible people than myself - principally women, I understand. You trade on the disabilities of rich people with your stories of a crippled daughter. I doubt very much if you have a daughter at all."

  Lucius's thin shoulders sagged.

  "Oh, yes," he said wearily, "I have a daughter."

  "A crippled daughter?"

  "Alas, yes. Can you blame me for trying to ease life a little for her? You are a rich man, Penryn. You cannot conceive of the problems of the poor."

  "You could have worked."

  "With a different upbringing perhaps. But what I've done, I've done only for my daughter. I would steal for my daughter, and am not ashamed to say it."

  "The way you live is only a form of stealing," Nicholas said dryly. "You realize, I suppose, that you risk prosecution every time you try and obtain money by false pretences ?"

  "Not entirely false," said Lucius humbly. "If you could see my daughter - "

  There was the sound of light feet on the steps outside, and the door was flung open.

  "Father!" called a voice, "Has your visitor gone? Did you

  remember the eggs? I've earned a pound today ..."

  Nicholas turned sharply, aware of Lucius' quick gesture of protest. The young girl he had met on the shore ran into the room, her feet still bare, and flung her arms round the older man's neck.

  "Haven't you finished your packing yet, lazybones?" she said, then turned and saw Nicholas. "Oh! I'm sorry. I thought you were alone."

  Lucius turned away.

  "My daughter, Shelley," he said wearily. "Mr. Penryn." "We've already met," said Nicholas grimly, and she drew back against her father at the expression on his face. Lucius drew away from the girl.

  "I think perhaps, my dear, you had better go down to the shore again for a little. This gentleman has come on a business matter."

  "Let her stay!" said Nicholas harshly. "My business is very brief, and she might as well hear it from me as from you."

  "Please..." Lucius' voice had unexpected dignity, "Shelley knows nothing of my affairs - nothing - do you understand?"

  Nicholas glanced at the girl regarding him with the grave enquiry he had remarked in her earlier. She drew back a little, aware of the new hostility in him.

  "Do we owe you money, Mr. Penryn?" she asked quite simply.

  "Not yet," he replied a little grimly. "Please, Shelley," her father said.

  "It's quite extraordinary," said Nicholas slowly, staring at her.

  She smoothed her hair nervously, and glanced at her father.

  "The likeness to my picture," said Nicholas. "You must have noticed, surely?"

  "Oh, yes," said Lucius. "I noticed at once."

  "And missed the opportunity of cashing in on the coincidence?"

  "One can't think of everything," Lucius said, and smiled. "And supper?" Shelley asked again, her hand on the doorhandle.

  "I think, perhaps, I will stay," Nicholas said, watching her.

  Lucius looked at him quickly and then at his daughter, and his head went up.

  "Splendid!" he said, rubbing his hands together. "Shelley makes an excellent omelette. I will go round to the pub for some beer. Shelley, my child, what will Mr. Penryn think? A torn frock and your feet bare like a fishergirl's!"

  "He thinks I'm a child," she said simply. "He gave me a pound."

  "Then return it at once, my dear. You should never take money from strangers."

  She held out the note to Nicholas, but he shook his head and his smile was a little cynical.

  "No, keep it for luck," he said. "How old is your daughter, Wynthorpe?"

  "Eighteen," said Lucius with a quick glance at him. "But she prefers, for some reason, to look like a schoolgirl. Run and change, my dear. Put on your pretty white dress."

  "But it's packed," she said, looking bewildered.

  "Never mind. Unpack it. And don't forget your rose, my child - it came from this gentleman's garden."

  She gave Nicholas a strange, startled look and ran out of the room.

  "I almost believe you were telling the truth for once," said Nicholas, going to the window and turning his back. "Is it true she's ignorant of the way you live, or does she play the crippled daughter for you when it's convienient?"

&n
bsp; "Shelley knows nothing more of me than the fact that I cannot always pay my bills," Lucius replied. "She has been educated in a convent school although we are not Catholics, and is very simple and unsophisticated."

  "And what are your plans for her?" he asked.

  Lucius went and stood beside him.

  "What would you suggest?" he enquired softly.

  "I have no suggestions," said Nicholas shortly. "Doubtless you'll find a place for her in your scheme of life. Handled properly, she should prove a useful asset."

  "You're very bitter, aren't you?"

  "No one likes being made a fool of. You were just plausible

  enough to put over your crippled daughter and nearly get away with it. I merely feel sorry for that girl if she's really as innocent as you make out." Lucius shrugged gracefully.

  "And what action are you planning to take yourself?" Nicholas frowned.

  "I don't know yet. I could prosecute, you know." "And your witnesses?" Nicholas looked at him coldly.

  "You really are a blackguard, aren't you?" he said. "I don't imagine it would be difficult to trace back your other activities and produce witnesses enough for the purpose. I came here intending to do that very thing. Society should be protected against parasites like you."

  "It would be Shelley who would suffer if I went to prison," Lucius said softly.

  "Why should I care what happens to your daughter?"

  "But I think you do. Perhaps, after all, she has already begun to be an asset to me. Ah, here she is!"

  Nicholas turned from the window. His expression was exceedingly uncompromising as he watched the girl enter the room. She came in hesitatingly as though the stranger's presence made her uneasy. In her long white dress she looked older but more unsure of herself. The white Frau Karl Druschki was pinned to her shoulder.

  "It's kind of you to invite me for supper," he said quite gently.

  Lucius fetched a large earthenware jug from the sideboard and patted his daughter's shoulder in passing.

  "I'll go and fetch the beer," he said. "Entertain Mr. Penryn nicely while I'm gone."

  "Will you be long?" she asked him anxiously.

  "Not long, but long enough," he said, and went out, laughing.

  She moistened her lips nervously and began to talk to Nicholas.

  "Are you staying here, Mr. Penryn?"

  "No, I live in this district, about twenty miles away, across the moor."

  "Oh. I've never been inland. The moor is rather grim, isn't it?"

  "Some people think so."

  "Do you come to St. Bede much?"

  "Not very often, except on business."

  "Oh," she said again. "Was it business you had with my father?"

  He glanced at her puzzled face.

  "I wasn't really thinking of that," he said gently. "My real business is china-clay. Look!" He led her th the window. "There's one of our ships taking a cargo of china-clay to Brittany. It's dug up out of the ground and turned into pottery, and porcelain, and water-colours and paints. If you were to go up on the moor you would see the workings, looking rather like the pyramids in miniature."

  "It sounds very interesting," she said politely.

  She sat down on the window-seat and folded her hands, quietly in her lap.

  "I'm sorry about the pound," she said shyly. "I didn't like to return it for fear of offending you."

  "And I'm sorry for offering it," he retorted. "If I'd realized you were really a grown-up young lady, I wouldn't have dreamed of it, of course."

  "I'm not very grown-up, really," she said, and he smiled suddenly.

  As before, her face lost its gravity and she smiled back.

  "That's better," he said, sitting down beside her. "Now tell me all you've been doing since you left school."

  She relaxed, flinging back her head so that the rather touching hollows of her throat and collar-bones were revealed.

  "Well, first we went to London, but I didn't like it very much. Father had to be out a lot and we had rather stuffy rooms and the landlady was cross. Then we went to a place on the river where Father had to do a business deal. I liked the river and wanted to stay, but Father said we must go as soon as he had finished his business, and we came here."

  "And you like it here?"

  "Oh, yes, but we have to leave tomorrow and my portrait is only half-finished, and Mr. Lord is very annoyed."

  "I see." His regard was suddenly gentle. "Do you mind if I call you Shelley? As you said yourself, you're not quite grown-up. How did you get your name? Is it a family one?"

  "No." Her voice was soft. "It was my mother's wish. She loved the poet, Shelley, and wanted her child called after him, whatever sex it should be."

  "Poor drowned Shelley ... Do you remember your mother?"

  "No. She died when I was born."

  This much, then, was true.

  He touched the rose pinned to her shoulder.

  "My rose becomes you," he said lightly. "Why did you look at me so strangely when your father asked you to wear it?"

  She looked down at her hands and a faint colour came into her cheeks.

  "Because of something he said when he gave it to me," she replied.

  "Oh? What was that?" "You might be offended."

  "Nothing your father said could offend me," he said dryly. "Well, he said - 'here you are, my dear - from the garden of the beast.'"

  He drew back as if she had struck him.

  "I should undoubtedly veil myself before strangers," he said with acid bitterness.

  The colour rushed to her face.

  "Oh, no, no, it wasn't meant like that," she said, her voice breathless with dismay.

  "How else? That and something else which I hope you don't understand."

  "It was the old fairy-tale - Beauty and the Beast - don't you remember? The poor merchant went to the beast's palace and stole a rose for his daughter."

  "This beast was an ugly sort of devil, I imagine - repulsive, in fact."

  "Well, yes, he was, but he couldn't help it. He was enchanted, you see."

  "And what happened then?"

  She drew back a little at the grimness of his voice.

  "In return for the rose, the beast took Beauty and she had to live in the palace with him for a year and a day or else her father would have been eaten up."

  A curious expression crossed his face.

  "A very sensible arrangement," he said briskly. "I must read up my fairy-tales when I get home."

  "And you're not offended?"

  He looked at her then, a long, piercing look, and watched the distressed colour fade from her face.

  "No, I'm not offended," he said gently. "Here's your father coming back."

  There was a small back parlour uncluttered by the signs of their departure, and here Shelley prepared their meal and set candles on the table and flowers in an old chipped blue bowl. She waited on them silently, her dress fluttering mothlike in the candle-light as she passed behind their chairs, and afterwards she brought coffee, then cleared the table while they sat and talked.

  Lucius talked well, weaving fancy into fact with long accustomed ease, but he missed none of his guest's reactions to the evening and observed his eyes resting several times with thoughtful scrutiny on Shelley.

  But the girl seemed shy. She responded only briefly to his attempts to bring her into the conversation, answering: "Yes, Mr. Penryn," "No, Mr. Penryn," until Lucius could have shaken her.

  "Convent life has made you gauche, my sweet," he said a little acidly, and Nicholas saw her flush. She looked at her father with puzzled pleading, aware that he wanted something of her, but aware too of the uneasy influence of the dark stranger.

  "Do you live all alone, Mr. Penryn?" she asked with an effort, saying the first thing that came into her head.

  "Yes," he answered gravely. "Quite alone."

  "He shuts himself up in a big house in the middle of a moor with a high wall all round," said Lucius a little waspishly. "And lives with beaut
iful inanimate things. You never saw

  such treasures, Shelley - they must be worth a fortune, eh, Penryn?"

  "I don't care for things," Shelley said.

  "You little Philistine! These things, as you call them, are worth a fortune - a collector's paradise."

  She felt Nicholas' eyes on her, and looked at him dumbly.

  "I think Shelley means that treasures worth a fortune have no intrinsic value for her," he said quietly. "You would prefer to deal in flesh and blood commodities, wouldn't you, Shelley?'

  "To love only things seems a little empty, somehow," she said shyly.

  "Occasionally that's all that's left to some of us," he remarked and his voice was dry.

  "But surely you of all men, Penryn," said Lucius with light malice, "need never want for companionship? Money, they say, unlocks all doors. Why should you allow a physical misfortune to turn you into a hermit?"

  "I don't care for the kind of companionship which is bought," said Nicholas with cold disdain.

  Shelley raised her head. It was getting dark and her face and her white dress were scarcely more than pale outlines in the failing light.

  "You cannot buy people," she said softly.

  Nicholas moved, unconsciously shielding his disfigurement with his hand,

  "Can't you, Shelley?" he said with gentle irony. "I've usually found you can."

  She was silent, aware of a strange kind of power in him, and he knew she was a little afraid.

  "I must be going," he said on a different note. "And I think we have a little business to discuss first, Wynthorpe."

  Lucius made a vague gesture towards his daughter.

  "Shelley, my child, isn't it time you were in bed?" he said.

  "Oh! Yes, Father ..." Her voice was bewildered, but she rose at once.

  She stooped to kiss her father, and her cheek lingered for a moment against his.

  "Good night, Father."

  He returned her kiss a little impatiently.

  "Run along, child. Say good night nicely to Mr. Penryn. You are not likely to meet him again, is she, Penryn?"

  Nicholas rose, and she held out her hand, aware of the hostility between the two men. But his clasp was firm and curiously gentle, and the ugliness of his disfigurement was softened for the moment in shadow.

  "Good night, Shelley," he said. "And thank you for my excellent omelette."