The Gentle Prisoner Read online

  "Good night, Mr. Penryn," she said, reluctant to leave them together.

  When she was at the door, he spoke again.

  "The beast is not going to eat up your father," he said, and she gave him a startled look and slipped from the room.

  "Now what," remarked Lucius, frowning, "in the world did you mean by that? You haven't been talking to the girl, have you?"

  "She told me a fairy story, that's all."

  Nicholas did not sit down again, but stood with his back to the empty fireplace, his hands in his pockets, jingling his loose change.

  "I've a proposition to put to you, Wynthorpe," he said. "I'm prepared to overlook your past attempts at fraud and even to help you to some sort of settled way of living."

  Lucius relaxed in his chair.

  "My dear fellow, that's very generous of you - very generous. There is a - quid pro quo attached to your offer, no doubt." "Naturally." "And that is?"

  "I will help you in exchange for your daughter." A small sigh escaped Lucius. So he had not been wrong after all.

  "My dear chap," he said, "it's a little awkward. I wouldn't care to press such a delicate matter. Shelley is inexperienced and shockingly innocent. I don't know if she could ever be persuaded..."

  Nicholas' eyes narrowed and his voice was icy as he answered:

  "Please don't misunderstand me. I'm quite prepared to marry your daughter."

  Lucius flushed a little.

  "Foolish of me, of course. You had misled me by your obvious preference for solitude."

  "And yet, if I'm not mistaken, you wouldn't have been averse to the other alternative. What a conscienceless swine you must be!" There was bitter contempt in Nicholas' voice, and Lucius rallied.

  "Oh, come now, we're both men of the world," he said. "Virtue is all very well in its way, but it can be a damned bore at times. But you intrigue me. You can't pretend to have fallen in love with her at first sight - a girl twenty years younger than yourself!"

  Nicholas' face was impassive.

  "Call it what you will - the collector's instinct, perhaps. She is very - decorative."

  "Yes, yes, she has a quality - I'll give you that."

  "Yes ... she has quality ..." Nicholas said slowly, then bis head went up, his nostrils flaring a little. "So you'd really sell your daughter? You're even more contemptible than I had supposed."

  "I'm sorry," said Lucius mildly. "Weren't you serious, then?" "Perfectly. Weren't you?"

  "Oh, yes. I'd be a fool if I turned down such a proposition of security for my daughter, wouldn't I?" "That might depend." "On what?"

  "On how much you loved your daughter. You know very little about me." Lucius' smile was suave.

  "Enough to know that you would look after her," he said. "Collectors, after all, are fussy about their treasures."

  Nicholas' face hardened.

  "Very well, then. Here are my orders."

  "Orders?" Lucius' eyebrows went up.

  "Yes, orders. You will do as you're told in this matter, Wynthorpe, and I shall expect every co-operation from you. You will naturally not leave here in the morning, and you will allow me every facility for visiting your daughter. If you have pressing debts, which I'm sure you have, you will acquaint me

  of them, and the day I marry Shelley, I will settle two thousand a year on you for life on the understanding that this shall cease should you return to your old tricks. Do I make myself clear?" Lucius grinned.

  "Very clear. Tell me, did you think all this out while I was fetching the beer?" Nicholas made no answer and he said curiously, "You're a strange man. What do you expect to get out of this? Shelley knows nothing of men - she has certainly never been in love."

  "So much the better," said Nicholas harshly.

  "Young girls need careful handling, so I'm told. Do you think your - appearance is going to inspire confidence?"

  The scar stood out on Nicholas' cheek lividly for a moment.

  "That's my affair," he said quietly.

  "I trust so, my dear chap, I trust so. And what am I to tell Shelley?" Nicholas moved into the shadow.

  "You'll tell her nothing. Your plans have changed, that's all."

  "You don't want me to try to - persuade her into matrimony?"

  "When the time comes, I shall naturally expect you to use such influence as you may have - should that be necessary."

  "Well," said Lucius getting to his feet, "this is about the strangest transaction I've made in my life. I hope, for both our sakes that my daughter proves reasonable."

  "I hope so, too," said Nicholas politely. "I'll say good night now."

  Lucius led the way through the litter of the front room and they stood for a moment on the little terrace, looking out to sea.

  "Tell me," said Lucius curiously, "what will you do with Shelley when you've got her? Put her in a glass case?"

  A brief spasm of pain crossed Nicholas' dark face.

  "Perhaps," he said. "Good night."

  His footsteps rang firmly on the stone steps, then vanished as he reached the sand, and his tall figure was soon lost to sight in the darkness.

  Lucius shivered suddenly, and went back into the cottage and bolted the door.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Often, when Nicholas came to visit them, he would find Shelley on the shore. The first time, she was sitting just as he remembered her, dabbling her feet in a rock-pool while the little bearded artist painted by the breakwater.

  "Can you direct me to Gull Cottage?" he said, and watched the startled look fly into her eyes.

  "Mr. Penryn!" she exclaimed. "Did you know we were still here?"

  "Yes," he said, "I knew."

  Reserve descended on her.

  "Of course, you had something to do with it, hadn't you?"

  "Did your father tell you that?"

  "No. But it was after you had gone he changed his plans. An unexpected business deal, he said."

  "I see. But you were glad to stay?"

  "Oh, yes. And Mr. Lord is able to finish his picture."

  Nicholas walked behind the artist and looked over his shoulder. The painting was not very good - just the usual composition of sand and sea and light, and the conventional figure in the foreground

  "You are interested?" the artist asked. "You would like to buy it, perhaps ?"

  "No, I don't think so," said Nicholas, and sat down with his back to the breakwater to wait until the sitting was finished.

  Shelley pocketed her pound and stood looking uncertainly at Nicholas.

  "Did you want to see Father?" she asked.

  "No," he replied, "I came to see you."

  "Oh!" She put her hands behind her back and stood on one leg like a corrected child.

  "Aren't you used to people coming to see you?" he asked.

  She shook her head.

  "I don't know what to talk to you about," she said, and sounded a little embarrassed. He got up, brushing the sand from his clothes.

  "Let's walk along the shore and look for shells," he said.

  She turned obediently to accompany him, but she was no more than a polite child, walking sedately beside him, stooping sometimes to pick up a shell, answering when she was spoken to. When they returned to the cottage, in duty bound she asked him in for a cup of tea and with relief left him in the living-room, while she went out to the kitchen to boil a kettle.

  Lucius was out, and Nicholas and Shelley sat drinking tea together and making polite conversation until he returned.

  "Well," said Lucius, taking the lid off the teapot and peering inside, "I wondered when you would be making an appearance. Has Shelley entertained you nicely?" As Nicholas rose to leave. "Walk with Mr. Penryn to the cliff path, my dear. If he has taken the trouble to call upon you, the least you can do is to see him off."

  She got up at once and went with Nicholas to the door.

  "You don't need to come, you know," he said gently.

  "I'd like to," she replied politely. "It's a lovely evening."

 
They walked in comparative silence to the cliff path, then" Nicholas took her hand.

  "May I come again?" he asked.

  Her eyes opened widely.

  "But of course," she said. "Father is usually here."

  His smile was a little twisted as he watched her turn and run back along the shore with the free, joyous movement of a young colt released from the halter.

  He did not come again for over a week, and this time he brought her a present. It was an eighteenth-century singing bird in a painted box, and her pleasure was such that for a while she forgot her shyness of him.

  "Isn't it charming, Father?" she cried to Lucius when he came in. "And wasn't it kind of Mr. Penryn to bring it for me?"

  "Very pretty," Lucius said, cocking an eyebrow. "One of the treasures from the collection, I take it."

  "It has no great value," Nicholas replied carelessly.

  "Why don't you drive Shelley over one day and show her your collection?" Lucius asked slyly. "She should see Gara-

  zion, the home of the Penryns."

  "No." Nicholas' voice was suddenly harsh, and Shelley quietly put her singing bird away.

  "Mr. Penryn knows I have no knowledge of such things," she said.

  "I would like to take you one day to the little village of Polpen and show you the dancing Druids," Nicholas said. "Will you come?"

  "If you would like me to," she replied politely.

  "Really, my sweet," Lucius said when he had gone, "you might show a little more enthusiasm. Penryn is quite an important man in his way, and he seems to have taken a fancy to you."

  "Do you owe him money, Father?" she asked simply. "Why do you ask?"

  "Well that first night, I thought it must be money he had come about." Lucius laughed.

  "Well, in a sense, I suppose it was, so be nice to him, child."

  It soon became evident, even to Shelley, that Nicholas came for the purpose of seeing her. There were moments when she forgot her shyness in the delight of some unexpected pleasure, and then she would become the child he remembered running freely on the shore, but there were times when he alarmed her, although he was always gentle, times when his face twisted cruelly in its disfigurement and his voice was harsh and bitter until he remembered she was afraid of him. For her father's sake she tried to behave as he wished, but always she had the impression that Nicholas had some hold on them, that should he choose to drop his gentle mask, he could destroy them both by some magic formula.

  One day as Nicholas came down to the shore he saw a small crowd gathered at the water's edge. Fisherman were making a stretcher from pieces of driftwood, while the curious onlookers pressed forward to the water. At that moment he saw Shelley push her way through the crowd and run blindly across the sand towards him. He called her sharply and she paused. For the first time she seemed really glad to see him, running to him, and catching him by the sleeve.

  "Mr. Penryn! Oh, I'm glad you've come!" she cried and her eyes were wide and filled with horror.

  "What is it, child? What's happened?" he asked.

  "A body's been washed up - a young fisherman - we knew him quite well." She shuddered. "I saw him and he was all swollen and horrible."

  He drew her into a recess in the cliffside and put his arms round her trembling body.

  "I know," he said. "I know. These things can be horrible. You shouldn't have watched."

  "Father took me. He wanted to see. I didn't know death was so ugly."

  He pressed her head against his breast, stroking her hair with gentle fingers, angry with Lucius,tender for her ignorance.

  "It isn't always," he said. "Death is often very beautiful and very peaceful. Try not to think of the body that's left. We can't always help what happens to our bodies, you know."

  She looked up at him, and saw the scar, harsh and remorseless, twisting his dark face into a semblance of pain.

  "No," she said. "No. I'll remember."

  He held her there while the sad little procession wended its way back to the village, and for a short while he was no longer a stranger. For a moment she found in him the strength and tender assurance for which she had always sought in her father, and was comforted.

  "Come," he said when the last fisher child had walked soberly home. "We'll walk along the shore the other way and look for shells."

  They sat on the warm, sun-baked rocks and watched the sails in the bay, and Shelley found she could talk to him quite easily. She told him of small forgotten incidents of her childhood; the first dead bird she had found one snowy Christmas, its claws stretched to the sky in mute defeat, the loss of a school friend who had formed another attachment, the little blind nun who had never seen the sun...

  "You seem to remember all the sad things," he said. "You were a lonely child, weren't you, Shelley?"

  "Was I? I don't know. The nuns were very kind, but it was lonely sometimes staying behind for holidays. The school

  seemed so empty when everyone had gone."

  "Did you not go home to your father, then?"

  "Not often. I think it wasn't always convenient for him to have me, and we have no other relations."

  "And you're still lonely."

  "Oh, no. I have Father now."

  His jaw tightened but he said nothing, and glancing at his face she said a little timidly:

  "I think all human beings are a little lonely. No one can ever quite get to the secret places."

  He turned to smile a little sadly at her.

  "Yes, Shelley, that's true, but sometimes two people can understand each other well enough not to feel shut out."

  "Have you felt that?" she asked.

  "No," he said abruptly. "No, I never have."

  After that things were easier when Nicholas came to St. Bede. Shelley would often watch for him and rim along the sands to meet him, her pale hair flying in the wind. They would bathe in the warm waters of the sheltered bay, and Shelley from the shallows would watch Nicholas' black head as he swam strongly out to sea.

  "Next year I shall seriously have to teach you to swim, you lazy young woman," he told her once.

  "Next year?" Her fair eyebrows disappeared beneath her fringe, "But we shall be gone before the winter."

  "Will you?" he said. It was a slip which Lucius would have enjoyed.

  "Oh, Father would never spend the winter here."

  "No," said Nicholas smoothly, "I don't suppose he would."

  Shelley learned a little of the Penryns from the fishermen. There had always been Penryns in these parts, they said. Generations of them had owned the clay works and the little coasters that put out in the bay, but now there were none left but this one, this Old Nick with the ugly face and a hard head for business. Penryn of Garazion. But from Nicholas himself, she learned nothing at all. He never spoke of Garazion or offered to take her there, and he never spoke of his past life or of the reason for his scarred face. A stranger he was, but a stranger

  who, Shelley sometimes thought, was at times closer to her than her own father.

  "And that," she said aloud, "is rather odd." They were sitting in the thyme and heather on the mainland looking down the steep cliff path which had brought them up.

  "What is rather odd?" he asked idly, but she looked embarrassed.

  "Nothing," she said hastily. "I'd forgotten you. I was thinking aloud."

  "Will you forget me, I wonder, when I go away?"

  "Why?" she looked bewildered. "Are you going away?"

  "For a little while, on business. You won't see me again for a fortnight or so after today, Shelley."

  "Oh ..." She sounded rather blank. "I - I think I'll miss you."

  "I hoped you might. Shelley, do you think you could bear to marry me?"

  The question was so abrupt that at first she only stared at him.

  "What did you say?" she asked at last.

  "I asked if you could bear to marry me." His voice was quite unemotional.

  "I thought that's what you said," She sat very erect in the heather, a
nd the wind blew long fair hair across her face. "Is it - is it a kind of joke?"

  He pulled out a pipe and began filling it with tobacco.

  "It's no joke, I assure you," he said. "Why - does it seem funny?"

  "Oh, no ... no, not at all," she gave a nervous little laugh. "Only you see, no one's ever proposed to me before and - and - well, I don't know you!"

  "Why do you suppose I kept coming to see you?" His pipe was alight now, and she suddenly found his eyes on her with their old piercing regard.

  She averted her own and looked out to sea.

  "I thought Father owed you money," she said in a low voice.

  "I see. You don't know much about men, do you, Shelley?"

  "No."

  "Does it seem so strange to you that I should want to marry you?" She was silent. "Look at me. Am I too old?"

  She turned her face unwillingly towards him, shy with embarrassment, aware, again, of that compelling quality in him. "I don't know how old you are." "Thirty-eight."

  "Is that all?" There was a flash of surprise in her eyes, then the embarrassment returned. "Or is it my face?" His voice was suddenly harsh. She flushed vividly. "No-oh, no!"

  "You protest with a little too much fervour," he said grimly. "You are not the first woman to recoil from being kissed by me, though there were always plenty to be bought."

  She stared at him helplessly and put out a tentative hand. "If someone loved you..."

  "You're very young," he said, and the scar stood out lividly as it did when he was moved. "Very young and very foolish. I learnt long ago not to expect love from a woman. I'm not asking you to love me, but you might, I think, be kind."

  She sprang to her feet and stood taut and poised for flight.

  "No... no. .. I can't," she said.

  He got up and deliberately knocked out his pipe and put it in his pocket.

  "I'll ask you again when I come back," he said gently, and saw that she was crying. He held out his hands, "Oh, my dear - all right, I won't touch you. Go home and think it over quietly."

  "No!" she said again. "I'm sorry ... no ..."

  She turned with a quick, lithe movement, and fled from him down the cliffpath.

  He let her go, angry with his own clumsiness. He had frightened her, and he had allowed the bitterness of years to shake his habitual control. His was no passion to offer schoolgirls; he should have known better...