Chapter III: The Wooing

It is said that rogues know each other by instinct--certain it is that the Squire and Captain Crandon had no need of disguises once they had crossed glances, and therefore each man cloaked himself with an elaborate pretence of being unable to see through the other's garment. It was not by any wish of Squire Bendigo's that Captain Crandon heard of the rumour of the ten thousand pounds, but when one has circulated a report with diligence for several years it is impossible to withdraw it at will, and so the Squire found, and it only needed this report of Sophie's marriage portion for Crandon to attempt the capture in earnest; what happened to the map history does not relate, but the Captain stayed at the "Bendigo Arms," making explorations in the familiar but always surprising country of a woman's mind. A mind simpler, more passionate, and more one-ideaed than any he had met before, a mind at once proud, confiding and reckless--a mind fitted, both by the quality of it and its loneliness, to be easily influenced by the flattery of love.

Sophie Bendigo had a fixed belief in her star. The predictions of the Wise Woman and of her eager mother, and her own knowledge of her superiority to the people among whom she moved, all tended to give her that confidence in her fate which does not think misfortune possible. She had always led a hard life with her best of fathers, the smiling old rogue who had never been heard to address a rude word to her, and who was harsh and immutable as granite. She had always waited, with such sureness she had not even felt impatience, for her opportunity to come, and mingled with the half-shy, half-innocently sensuous imaginings of a young girl on the subject of love, ran a streak of personal ambition, a hardness inherited from her father.

At first, before he had found out beyond a doubt that the Captain was a needy fortune-hunter, the Squire allowed his visits at Troon, and Crandon soon grew to be on terms of intimacy with the members of the household. These consisted of the Bendigos, father and daughter, Lylie Ruffiniac, her brother, and the servant, a girl called Hester Keast. The three latter were supposed to live more or less in the back premises and take their meals in the kitchen, but once when Crandon surprised Lylie Ruffiniac with the Squire, there were two glasses of spirits and water on the table, and, several weeks after, when he had to meet Sophie by stealth and at night, he saw a light being carried from the servants' quarters towards the Squire's room. As for Hester Keast, she was a pretty girl in her way--a way at once heavier and less strong than Sophie's. She had the dewy brown eyes, the easily affected, over-thin skin, and the soft red mouth, blurred at the edges, which betray incapacity for resistance. There was no harm in the girl, she was merely a young animal, with very little instinct of self-protection to counteract her utter lack of morals. Crandon kissed her behind the door on his second visit, and James Ruffiniac's wooing of her had long passed the preliminary stages--so long that with him ideas of marriage were growing misty, the thing seemed so unnecessary. Lylie's blood was controlled by scheming, and the most charitable explanation of the Squire's tortuous nature was that some mental or moral twist in him made him love evil for its own sake, and embrace it as his good. Such was the household where, for the last three years, Sophie had lived, practically alone--her egoism had done her that much service, it had won her aloofness. Crandon, who was by nature predisposed to think the worst of humanity, made the mistake, at first, of thinking Sophie's innocence assumed--it seemed a thing so incredible in that house of hidden schemings and furtive amours. When he found that partly a natural fastidiousness, and partly her young crudity had kept her clean in thought and knowledge as well as in deed, he wisely guessed there must be some outside influence on the side of the angels, and scenting opposition to his own schemes, he set himself to discover all he could. That was not difficult in such a sparsely inhabited district, hemmed in on three sides by the sea, and he soon made, at St. Annan's Vicarage, the acquaintance of its vicar, Mr. Charles le Petyt. He no sooner set eyes on the clergyman's plain and frail physique, with the burning eyes and quick nervous hands, than he knew he was right to fear him as an influence, though he could scorn him as a rival.

Charles and Sophie had practically grown up together, Charles' six years of seniority making him stand in the place of an elder brother to her, until he had become her urgent lover. Charles' father, the former Vicar of St. Annan, had given Sophie what little education she possessed--a medley of mythology and history, some incorrect geography, and a smattering of literature--all the things that go to fire the imagination. Mixed with these was a mass of all the wild legendary lore of the Duchy, solemnly believed in by the common people at that date, and by no means without its effect on the gentry. Sophie would not have been of her race and time if she had not had faith in charms, witches, death-warnings and love-potions; and in Charles the spiritual sense was so acute that, though from sheer sensitiveness it rejected the more vulgar superstitions, it responded like a twanged string to the breath of a less gross world. The finer side of Sophie, the delicate feeling for the beautiful, which owed so much of its existence to Charles, received a severe shock when she discovered the change in his viewing of her. She had been so used to think of him as her brother, and as her leader in the intangible matters which were sealed books to the rest at Troon, that the discovery of warm, human sentiments in him filled her with repulsion, and she took to avoiding him as much as she had sought him before. Poor Charles, whose earthly love, though as reverent, was as fiery as his heavenly affections, and who was handicapped by the lover's inability to understand that his devotion can be repellent, suffered acutely. It was some time before he understood that Sophie was so accustomed to see him burning with a white flame that she could not forgive him for being alight with a red one as well. A more sensual love, and coarser in its expression than his could ever be, would have revolted her less coming from a less exalted man--Mr. Le Petyt paid for the high opinion she held him in. If Lucius Crandon had never come to Troon, Sophie would in time have grown used to the idea of Charles as a husband, for there is no combination of circumstances, incredible as it appears to youth, that time does not soften and make bearable. But Sophie, destiny-ridden, gave no heed to Charles, save as a friend who had made her dread him even while she was still fond of him, and Lucius Crandon stepped in just when her nerves, awakened to the existence of actual love, were beginning to calm from the shock and even to set towards curiosity--just when she was most receptive. Pitiful and ignorant Sophie, whose only protection from gross housemates and a hot-blooded, cold-hearted lover, was a dreamer as guileless as herself!

With all his unworldliness, the unfailing instinct of the spiritual-minded warned Mr. Le Petyt against the Captain, and when the Squire, strangely friendly, sent word asking his vicar to come and see him on urgent business, Mr. Le Petyt guessed to what matter the business related. He found the Squire seated in his writing-room, a glass of rare old smuggled brandy before him and a packet of letters on his knee. The Squire was a big, pursy man, with a large and oddly impassive face, where even the hanging folds of flesh seemed rigid; only his small eyes, of a clear light grey, twinkled like chips of cut steel from between his wrinkled lids. His bull neck, wide as his head across the nape, sagged in a thick fold over his cravat, and his thighs swelled against the close-fitting cloth of his riding-breeches. The only contradiction to the stolidity of the man was his hands, and they were never still, but were for ever fiddling with something; with his waistcoat buttons, his rings, with a paper-knife, or the cutlery at table, or with any live thing they could get. Charles Le Petyt well remembered how, as a small boy, he had come on him superintending the reaping, and fingering a puppy behind his back. Whether the Squire was aware of what he was doing or whether his fingers did their work instinctively, without his brain, Charles never could decide, but when the Squire, turning away from the reapers, unlocked his hands, the puppy lay limp across his palm--the life choked out of it. The Squire stood still for a moment, looking at the little body, and then, moving away in a straight line from the labourers, so that it was concealed from them, he dropped it into a rabbit-hole and stuffed it down with his cane. Sick to the heart, little Charles stood at gaze, and glancing up, the Squire saw he was watched, and for a moment his impassive features were convulsed with rage--he looked as though he would have liked to treat Charles as he had the puppy. The memory of that day would have been enough, without the sight of Sophie's dread of her father, to prevent Mr. Le Petyt from joining in the general praise of Squire Bendigo.

The two men made a great contrast as they sat opposite to each other in the little room, the Squire solid and imperturbable, the parson transparent in mind and physical texture, the quick colour flying up under his skin with his emotions. The dust lay thickly over the table and books, for Sophie, the careful housewife, was seldom admitted here, and however Lylie Ruffiniac spent the hours when she was closeted with the Squire, it was evidently not in work. The evening light shone into the low-browed room through an ash-tree by the window, filling the air with a luminous gloom, gilding the dust films, gleaming on Mr. Le Petyt's shoe-buckles, and making a bright crescent in the glass of spirits which the Squire was jerking between his finger and thumb.

"You want to consult me on something?" began the younger man, going straight to the point. The Squire, with a gesture of protest for such methods, nevertheless fell into an agreeing humour.

"The fact is, Charles," he began, with that disarming air of candour none assumed better than he, "I have had cause to be uneasy at the intimacy between my dear but headstrong daughter and this Captain Crandon, so I wrote to a trustworthy man I know in London to find out all he could for me. His letter came to-day by Mr. Borlace, who was riding down in all haste from London to his wife's bedside--thus does Providence permit the trials of others to be of use to us."

Here he paused, but Mr. Le Petyt, throwing in no suitable remark, he continued:

"I will read you some extracts from the letter, and you shall judge for yourself whether a parent's anxiety has not been justified. Let me see--ah, here we are! 'I find' (says my informant) 'that about the year 1744 Crandon became acquainted with a Miss Isabel Thirsk, then at her uncle's. Miss Thirsk was remarkably genteel, delicate, and of a very amiable disposition, which gained her a great number of admirers. Her uncle, observing that Crandon always discovered an inclination of conversing with his niece alone, desired him to explain himself fully on a point so very delicate. Crandon declared he counted Miss Thirsk on the most honourable terms, but the young lady's uncle desired that Crandon's visits should be less frequent, lest his niece should suffer in her reputation. Soon after, this gentleman's affairs caused him to be absent from his home for some time, during which Crandon proposed a private marriage, which the young lady consented to, and for some time they lived together without any of their relations being privy to it. The natural consequence arising, and her uncle, some time after his return, suspecting it, she readily acknowledged she was with child, and protested she was married to Crandon four months before, adding, that her husband, who was soon to set out for London, had not yet publicly acknowledged her for his wife. Accordingly the uncle dispatched a messenger to Crandon demanding full acknowledgment of his wife before his departure for England. Crandon wrote in answer that he never intended to deny his marriage with Miss Thirsk, and that he would ever love her with conjugal tenderness, but that at the moment he had to hasten to London, which he did. There he every day saw young fellows making their fortunes by marriage, and he imagined nothing but his being married could hinder him from being as successful as the rest, thus he began to neglect a person whose beauty and virtue merited a more worthy spouse. When he returned to Scotland that country was involved in a civil war, and rebellion raging in its bowels. He found all the relations of Miss Thirsk joined in the mad expedition and in all probability would suffer at the hands of their country for disturbing its peace. He therefore concluded that it was not in their power to give him any disturbance, and, consequently, it was a good opportunity for renouncing his wife. The affair, at last, after various meetings and expostulations of friends, came to a trial before the Lords of Session in Scotland, who found the marriage valid and settled fifty pounds a year on the lady, which she now enjoys by their decree.'"

The Squire put down the papers.

"So much for Captain Crandon!" he said, in a glow of rage at the man for trying to deceive him, mingled with pride in his own acuteness and a dash of assumed piety: "Who but a person, something worse than a villain, could ever have indulged a thought of using so innocent, so lovely a being as Miss Thirsk in such a monstrous manner! Surely Divine justice will pursue him for this unnatural, this unheard-of piece of brutality!"

"Divine justice has at least saved Sophie from the same fate," replied Mr. Le Petyt. His first feeling was for her, his second, to his own shame, was the relief of the jealous lover.

"Ah--Sophie!" said the Squire thoughtfully--"that is where I crave your help. She is headstrong, poor child, sadly headstrong, but your opinions have always had weight with her. You have an influence, Charles. Use it to save my unhappy child from this villain Crandon."

"I would save her from all villainy if I could," said Mr. Le Petyt.

The Squire pulled the bell-rope, and on the appearance of Lylie, splendid in what even the guileless parson could not but see was a new silk, stiff enough to stand up by itself, the Squire told her curtly to desire "Miss's" presence. Lylie withdrew with downdropped lids, and a few minutes later Sophie appeared. She glanced quickly from one man to the other, and scenting a conspiracy, remained standing, her head up, and her hands strongly clasped behind her. She was against the window, so that subtleties of expression were lost to Mr. Le Petyt, and only the aloofness of her pose struck at him miserably, as confounding him and her father together. The big white muslin cap she wore showed delicately dark against the daylight, the outstanding frill of it framing the solid shadow of face and neck with a semi-transparent halo, and a yoke of light lay across her shoulders--to Mr. Le Petyt's quick fancy she looked like some virgin-saint of old at her trial.

"Sophie," said the Squire gently, "I feel I should not be doing my duty by my dear daughter if I did not inform her that her lover, Lucius Crandon, is a married man."

He watched, smiling. She stood a little tense, but with scorn of him and not with fear, and he went on:

"He married a Miss Isabel Thirsk, by whom he had a child----"

A slight convulsion swept over Sophie, passed, and left her rigid, and the Squire continued:

"A lovely child, I believe--a boy, and the image of his father. . . . But that is not the chief matter of interest. Captain Crandon deserted his young and trusting wife, and appealed against the validity of the marriage. The law decided against him, and condemned him to pay fifty pounds a year for her support. It was a sad scandal, a very sad scandal. You, my sweet child, do not know the wickedness of the world as I do, therefore I must shield you from it--in short, I forbid you to have speech with Captain Crandon again."

"Is that all?" asked Sophie.

"All--save that I should much regret having to lock you up in your room to enforce obedience."

"And you, Charles?" cried Sophie, "are you, too, in this plot to speak ill of an absent man?"

"Sophie," cried Mr. Le Petyt, "do not take it so, I beg of you. There seems only too little doubt that what your father says is true."

"You are against me, too!" said Sophie cruelly. "Papa, I am going to meet Captain Crandon now, and I shall ask him for the truth."

"Sophie! You will not believe him?" exclaimed Mr. Le Petyt, half-rising in his agitation.

"Every word he says," cried Sophie, with a little laugh of utter confidence. Her hand was on the latch, and the Squire, restrained by Mr. Le Petyt's presence, dared not put out a hand to stop her by force. For half a moment more the three emotions held--the scorn of the girl, the distress of the one man and the vindictiveness of the other, then the door had closed behind Sophie as the will to see her lover swept her on; and the taunt, one-ideaed feeling of the men fell into complexity as they turned first towards each other, then away, in the gathering dusk.

Sophie found Crandon awaiting her by the dam above Vellan-Crowse mill. The daylight was all but gone and a darkly soft glamour seemed to hold the full-foliaged trees and shadowed water in a hush of expectation. There was still enough of red reflecting from the West to make the grass and leaves a vivid though subdued green; but of the hollow in the bushes, where the lovers met, darkness already seemed to make a nest. Everything to lull the mind and stir the heart and blood was there, and Sophie's generous trust, her pride in taking his word against the world, were not more powerful allies of Crandon's tongue than the time and the place. It was of little avail later to marvel that his ingenious reconstruction of events won upon her; his garbled confession of a _liaison_ with Isabel Thirsk, and denial of the marriage, his statement of Miss Thirsk's infidelities, and his evident nobility in voluntarily allowing her an income. As for the sin itself--"It was before I met you. You could make me what you will."

Sophie, only too willing to be convinced, sat by him in the little clearing, and listened almost in silence. Behind them on both sides the hazel-bushes made a faintly whispering screen of darkness, at their feet the mill-dam lay silent save for the occasional plop-plop of the tiny trout rising at late flies, on the further bank the hedge was a network of tangled black against the deepening sky, while overhead the elms and sycamores were pierced by the first faint stars. The two were set in a hushed sphere of aloofness, and for Sophie it was the world. "Trust me, my sweet Sophie--only trust me!" was whispered in her ear, and when she answered that she did, and he told her that if it were really so she would not draw away from him, she let his arms creep round her and his mouth come to hers. Weeks of carefully calculated love making had gone to make her pliable, kisses at which all the chill girlhood of her would earlier have shuddered, as it had at the same thing in Charles Le Petyt, she now bore, if not yet with passion, yet with the woman's tolerance of it in the man she loves. Crandon knew it was the moment to bind her to him irrevocably, for he guessed that to a woman of her type faithfulness is a necessity of self-respect, and with him desire was one with deliberate planning. Whether he threw a spell of words over her, or whether the mere force of his thought pleaded with her to prove she trusted him utterly, Sophie could never have told. She only knew that the still night, the soft air, the rustling leaves and the pricking stars, his presence, dimly seen but deeply felt, and the beating in her own frame, all cried to her, "It was for this that I was born! For this, for this, for this!"