The Truant Spirit Read online

  Sabina bit her lip, trying to keep back the tears.

  “I’m not a foreigner,” she said, defending the only item in his accusations which she felt to be unjustified.

  The stranger at the other end of the bar spoke for the first time. “The term doesn’t imply what you think. It simply means you are not a native of these parts. You might at least serve the young lady with a drink on this filthy night, landlord, even if she hasn’t any money. I’ll pay.”

  Sabina turned to look at him, disturbed by the harshness of his voice and the unexpected intrusion into her affairs. His face was in shadow, but she got the impression of pronounced features and a dark complexion.

  “No, thank you,” she said, “I—I don’t drink much.

  “Very right and proper. What’ll it be?”

  The landlord regarded her with weary resignation.

  “Come off it, lady,” he said. “I don’t belong to these parts, neither. I’m familiar with such tales where I come from. Might as well get something for your trouble since you’ve found a gent to oblige.”

  Sabina said nothing, hating them both, aware now that she was tired and hungry and that running away had been a mistake from the start.

  “Brandy,” the stranger said a little sharply, and when the drink was bought, carried it with his own to the far end of the bar as if to exclude the landlord from further conversation.

  “You’d better take the next stool,” he said, and Sabina could do no less than comply.

  She sat beside him, twining her legs nervously round the long legs of the stool, and stared down at the small glass of brandy in awkward silence.

  “Aren’t you going to drink it?” her companion inquired, and she detected mockery in his voice.

  She picked up her glass and took a good gulp, which made her cough. Tante liked her fine after dinner, but brandy to Sabina had usually meant hot milk and sickness.

  “You’ve been badly brought up, or have you got your eye on the clock for closing time?” the stranger said.

  She did not understand him and took another gulp to evade answering.

  “Dear me!” he remarked mildly. “You’d better bring another, landlord; your optic must give short measure.”

  “And what do you mean by that, sir?” demanded the landlord belligerently.

  “It was a jest,” the stranger replied equably. “Never think that we should be questioning your hospitality.”

  Sabina giggled with the consoling impression that they were both in league against the disagreeable landlord, but when the second brandy was slapped down in front of her she regarded it dubiously.

  “Oh, I don’t think—” she began, but the stranger observed carelessly:

  “Two will do you good, but make this one last, please.

  Brandy—even the stuff dished out in English pubs—is not meant to be taken at a draught.”

  She felt reproved and, glancing at him sideways, relinquished the impression that he was somehow on her side. He had removed his hat, and his face, revealed fully for the first time, was not reassuring. He had a slightly saturnine look, she thought, with black eyebrows that lifted at the corners and a hard, twisted mouth. His hair was black and very thick, and his eyes, when he turned unexpectedly to regard her, were a cold, clear blue, disconcerting and somehow alien in his dark face.

  “Well, you’ve had a good look—now it’s my turn,” he said, but she averted her face, embarrassed that he had caught her staring, and was immediately confronted with her own reflection in the fly-blown mirror behind the bar. It was a discouraging face, she reflected mournfully, very conscious of his eyes on her profile. The pointed chin and high, rounded forehead did not seem balanced by eyes that were too large and too widely spaced. The fine, pale hair, still damp from the rain, brushed her shoulders in unfashionable disorder, and her cheek-bones, as Tante had often told her, were too pronounced. She sighed and he said with a sudden disarming warmth: “Tell me how you’ve come to be stranded.”

  The brandy had given her the courage to confide.

  “I’ve run away,” she said and his eyebrows rose.

  “From school?”

  “Oh, no, I’ve finished with school. From my aunt and Marthe and from—” She paused.

  “And from who else?”

  “The man I’m going to marry.”

  “Indeed. You are engaged, then?”

  “Well, not exactly, but Tante has arranged matters.”

  “Tante? But you are not French.”

  “Oh, no. Tante is my aunt by marriage, and she prefers to be addressed in the French manner—she is French, of course.” “And why do you run away from this man you say you are to marry?”

  “Because—well, I don’t know that I can really explain. I’m not running away from him, exactly, though I think he’s an elderly roue, but—well, I suppose it was what Tante would call a crise de nerfs, only I’m not supposed to suffer from that.”

  “I see. And your—fiance—does he understand about crises de nerfs?”

  “I don’t know,” said Sabina simply, “I’ve never met him.”

  As soon as she had spoken she realised that she had been misled by a warmth which did not exist. The stranger’s eyes held a chill appraisal and the corner of his mouth had a cynical twist.

  “You don’t believe me?” she faltered, and he gave the suspicion of a shrug which reminded her of Tante.

  “It doesn’t sound very likely, does it?” he replied. A fiance you have never met and an unknown destination in Cornwall. What are you really running away from, or is our friend the landlord by any chance right and this is just a rather ingenuous story?”

  Sabina raised her pointed chin.

  “I’ve told you the truth,” she said with dignity, “or at least a part of it. There were other reasons, too, that made me come to Cornwall.”

  “I’m sure there were,” he countered dryly. “But I should think up something less dated for your next attempt. ”

  “Dated?” she repeated blankly. The brandy and the closeness of the little bar were making her feel sleepy.

  “Well, in this year of grace girls are not married off by their relations to unknown suitors. What old-fashioned trash have you been reading?”

  “In France they are,” said Sabina, and he frowned.

  “But we are not in France. What do you plan as your next move?”

  Sabrina felt suddenly isolated. She was conscious of the two men waiting for her reply and of the slow, loud ticking of the clock on the wall. Rain still beat against the windows and somewhere a dog barked once.

  When she did not answer the uncomfortable stranger said with a hint of impatience:

  “Well, where are you trying to get to? At least you must know that.”

  “Oh, yes,” she replied with relief. “I was going to a place called Truan, but the last train will have gone by now.”

  “In that case I can give you a lift in my car,” he said smoothly. “It happens that I’m going to Truan myself. Your friends will doubtless straighten out the matter of the lost purse and luggage tomorrow.”

  “My friends?”

  “If your story is true, presumably someone is expecting you.”

  “No ... no, they aren’t ... she said guiltily, and saw the scepticism back in his chilly regard.

  “Then where were you proposing to stop?” he asked and

  sounded suddenly bored with the whole affair.

  “I thought—at the village inn—unless it’s like this one and doesn’t let rooms,” she said timidly.

  “Whether it does or not, you will scarcely be welcomed at this hour of night with no luggage and no money. Really, my dear young lady, I’m hanged if I know whether you’re as simple as you sound or not very bright at making a touch.”

  “A touch?” It was a new expression to Sabina, but the landlord enlightened her, winking at his other customer as he did so.

  “Putting on the screws—or as the cops would have it, obtaining money under false p
retences,” he said, and Sabina flushed scarlet.

  “Oh! ” she cried, knocking over her unfinished brandy as she slithered off the stool and made blindly for the door.

  Almost at once she felt a hand grip her shoulder with uncompromising firmness and turned to find the stranger beside her.

  “Not so fast,” he said softly. “I’m inclined to think we’ve misjudged you, after all.”

  “Speak for yourself,” snapped the landlord sourly. “But whatever larks you like to get up to with the young person, you’ll do it off these premises. It’s closing time.”

  They left the public-house together, the stranger’s hand still firmly gripping Sabina’s shoulder, as if he knew all about that instinct of hers to run off again into the darkness. They stood outside in the rain and heard the landlord bolt the door behind them. The light over the door went out suddenly and Sabina was afraid. Marthe’s warnings about strange men came back to point a horrid lesson in regard to truancy, and in the darkness her companion appeared very tall and alarming. He made her no easier by remarking a little grimly:

  “Whatever the truth of the matter may be, you are not a very wise young woman to confide preposterous stories to a perfect stranger. Now you’ll have to accept that lift to Truan.”

  She pulled away from him, but his fingers tightened on her shoulder.

  “No, you don’t,” he said. “If your story is true, you need help of a kind, and, if you’re having me on, the sooner you’re sent back to where you belong the better. In either case I can’t very well leave you standing in the rain on a cold winter’s night. There’s my car. Get in.”

  There was no alternative. She waited wretchedly while he opened the door of the car, noticing that he limped as he walked; then she got in without speaking, and the treacherous tears overflowed at last. If he observed that she was crying he made no comment as he got in beside her and drove away. She sat as far from him as was possible, convinced now that at her very first bid for freedom she had fallen into the hands of an unscrupulous despoiler, but he took no notice of her, and presently her tears ceased and she was conscious only of a great weariness and the forlorn hope that this was merely a continuation of her dream in the train.

  The roads were narrow and the banks high. Every so often there was a break in the banks and wild, uninhabited country seemed to lie beyond, but it was too dark to see much and rain blurred window and windscreen alike.

  Her companion spoke suddenly, making her jump.

  “I don’t take advantage of children, you know, however opportune the situation,” he said with a hint of laughter in his voice.

  She made an effort to recapture her adult dignity.

  “That relieves me,” she replied with polite gravity, “but I’m not a child. I’m nineteen.”

  “Indeed? And contemplating a marriage of convenience with—an elderly roue, I think you called him.”

  “But you didn’t believe me.”

  “Well, perhaps you haven’t made the situation very clear. Suppose you try to explain all over again. We have fifteen miles or so to drive, and it will pass the time.”

  He was only humouring her, she knew, but her fear of him had gone. With the landlord’s unpleasant company removed, perhaps she could convince him.

  She began at the beginning with Tante’s adoption of her, sketching in the confused details of her upbringing with careful exactitude.

  “It was not that they wished me to be lonely, you must understand,” she said, “but there was not much money, and Tante naturally felt cheated because the house could not be sold.”

  “The house?”

  “Yes, I own a house, but Tante discovered too late it was entailed in trust for my—my children—and of course that made things difficult for everybody.”

  He gave her a swift glance. Unless she had a very lively imagination it seemed scarcely likely that she should be inventing this detail for his edification.

  “Yes, I understand your aunt’s disillusionment,” he observed dryly. “And how does the elderly suitor come into the story?”

  “Oh, on account of the house. It really belongs in his family, and the only way he can get it back is by taking me with it, Tante says. You see, it suits all round. Tante wants to get me off her hands and have—security for her old age, and the house could be useful to him, while it’s a white elephant to us, so—it seemed the simplest way out. Don’t you agree?”

  “Very neat and tidy. There’s only one loose end. How do you know, if you’ve never met him, that your elderly roue is willing to marry a stranger, even if you are?”

  “Tante has arranged matters,” she replied. “Only yesterday she went to France to make the final arrangements.”

  “To France! Is it a French family you are about to marry into, then?”

  He spoke sharply, and she answered with apology.

  “Oh, yes. Didn’t I make that clear? I wouldn’t suppose, as you pointed out, that an Englishman would be so obliging as to marry a girl he had never met.”

  There was a long silence, and she could sense his change of mood, though whether he was still sceptical or merely disinterested she had no means of knowing.

  At last he asked: “What’s the name of this house you say you

  own?”

  “Penruthan. It’s near this village, Truan, where we are going. That was the real reason I ran away,” she added shyly. “I’ve never seen it and—well, I suppose that shouldn’t make any difference, really, but I wanted to get there first.”

  “Penruthan ...” he repeated slowly and she inquired with interest if he knew the place.

  “Yes, ” he said. “This isn’t my first visit to Truan, you know. Penruthan is quite a landmark in these parts.

  He began to slow down, and presently he stopped the car on the side of a moorland road and lit a cigarette. He did not offer one to Sabina, and appeared to have forgotten her.

  Her doubts returned as she sat beside him listening to the wind and the rain. They seemed to be miles from anywhere, and nothing had passed them on the road.

  “Why have you stopped?” she asked, and he replied absently: “Not for the reason you suppose. Tell me, what’s the name of this Frenchman who wants your house?”

  “Rene Bergerac. He has a hotel. I believe it s quite famous.”

  “Rene Bergerac .”

  “Have you heard of him, too?” she asked, no longer surprised that on this unpredictable evening coincidence should make a

  bond between herself and this stranger.

  “Naturally, anyone who has visited France has heard the name of Rene Bergerac—the father at any rate, if not the son.”

  He spoke with the now familiar dryness, and she said, like a child caught out in a gross invention:

  “Now I suppose you believe me less than ever.”

  “On the contrary,” he replied, flinging away his half-smoked cigarette, “it might even begin to make a little sense.”

  “You know M. Bergerac, perhaps?”

  He smiled without humour.

  “In a sense I suppose I do. What gives you the idea that he’s an elderly roue?”

  “Things that Tante and Marthe have said, I suppose,” she answered, and added politely: “I’m sorry if I have hurt your feelings.”

  “Why should you hurt my feelings?” he retorted unsympathetically, and she realised he was angry. “It’s not I you think of in such unflattering terms, though I fancy up till this moment you had reservations about my intentions. And what of the good Marthe? Won’t she take fright at your disappearance and communicate immediately with Madame?”

  “Not tonight, anyway. She is visiting her friend in Hampstead, and when she comes back she will find my note explaining.”

  “And tomorrow?”

  “I had not thought as far as tomorrow,” she faltered, and his smile was a little sardonic.

  “Bad generalship?” he remarked. “For tonight, then, you’d better come home with me.”

  “Home ... with yo
u?”

  In the dim glow from the dashboard he could see her astonished eyes widen to such an extent that her pale, small face seemed to shrink visibly.

  “Now don’t get other ideas,” he said hastily. “It’s not really my home. I’m on a visit to my old governess. She’s the widow of the late vicar of Truan and very respected.”

  “But she won’t be expecting you to bring a stranger so late at

  night.”

  His eyebrows lifted still higher at the corners, accentuating that fleeting satanic likeness he possessed as he said:

  “Ah, but you see, a parson’s wife learns to give shelter to the needy; nothing ever surprises her; also she happens to be quite fond of me.”

  He spoke lightly, but she knew he was still angry, either with her or at the inconvenience to himself. She sat there blinking at him, aware that she had no choice but to agree and that, whatever the outcome of this adventure, she was too tired to argue.

  “Well, if you really think—” she began doubtfully, and he restarted his engine.

  “I think on the whole it was lucky you ran into me and not another type of pub-crawler at this hour of the night,” he observed caustically. “Tomorrow we’ll see about retrieving your missing belongings.”

  He had accepted her story. In the happiness which came with relief, she felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude towards him.

  ‘Thank you,” she said shyly. “Don’t—don’t you want to know my name?”

  “Your name? Oh, yes. What is your name?”

  “Sabina. Sabina Lamb.” He made no immediate comment, and she thought he had not heard her and repeated her name again.

  “A lamb being led to the slaughter, or a fairly complacent victim?” he said, but if he meant it as a joke she did not respond.

  “I’ve grown up with the idea,” she replied gently. “Only I wish sometimes he was stronger.”

  “An invalid as well as a roue?”

  “N-no,” she said doubtfully. “But I think his digestion is weak.”

  He grunted non-committally, and they sat there in silence with the engine of the car gently turning over, and Sabina said: “You know my name, but you haven’t told me yours.”

  “Haven’t I?” he answered absently. “It’s Brockman— I’m called Brock for short. We’d better be getting on or Bunny will have given me up. Are you warm enough?” he added as he saw