Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (593 page)

CHAPTER IV

In a tiny bit of a looking-glass hung on the frame of the east window, Peyrol, handling the unwearable English blade, was shaving himself — -for the day was Sunday. The years of political changes ending with the proclamation of Napoleon as Consul for life had not touched Peyrol except as to his strong thick head of hair, which was nearly all white now. After putting the razor away carefully, Peyrol introduced his stockinged feet into a pair of sabots of the very best quality and clattered downstairs. His brown cloth breeches were untied at the knee and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his shoulders. That sea-rover turned rustic was now perfectly at home in that farm which, like a lighthouse, commanded the view of two roadsteads and of the open sea. He passed through the kitchen. It was exactly as he had seen it first, sunlight on the floor, red copper utensils shining on the walls, the table in the middle scrubbed snowy white; and it was only the old woman, Aunt Catherine, who seemed to have acquired a sharper profile. The very hen manuvring her neck pretentiously on the doorstep, might have been standing there for the last eight years. Peyrol shooed her away, and going into the yard washed himself lavishly at the pump. When he returned from the yard he looked so fresh and hale that old Catherine complimented him in a thin voice on his ``bonne mine.’’ Manners were changing, and she addressed him no longer as citoyen but as Monsieur Peyrol. He answered readily that if her heart was free he was ready to lead her to the altar that very day. This was such an old joke that Catherine took no notice of it whatever, but followed him with her eyes as he crossed the kitchen into the salle, which was cool, with its tables and benches washed clean, and no living soul in it. Peyrol passed through to the front of the house, leaving the outer door open. At the clatter of his clogs a young man sitting outside on a bench turned his head and greeted him by a careless nod. His face was rather long, sunburnt and smooth, with a slightly curved nose and a very well-shaped chin. He wore a dark blue naval jacket open on a white shirt and a black neckerchief tied in a slip-knot with long ends. White breeches and stockings and black shoes with steel buckles completed his costume. A brass-hilted sword in a black scabbard worn on a cross-belt was lying on the ground at his feet. Peyrol, silver-headed and ruddy, sat down on the bench at some little distance. The level piece of rocky ground in front of the house was not very extensive, falling away to the sea in a declivity framed between the rises of two barren hills. The old rover and the young seaman with their arms folded across their chests gazed into space, exchanging no words, like close intimates or like distant strangers. Neither did they stir when the master of the Escampobar Farm appeared out of the yard gate with a manure fork on his shoulder and started to cross the piece of level ground. His grimy hands, his rolled-up shirt sleeves, the fork over the shoulder, the whole of his working-day aspect had somehow an air of being a manifestation; but the patriot dragged his dirty clogs low-spiritedly in the fresh light of the young morning, in a way no real worker on the land would ever do at the end of a day of toil. Yet there were no signs of debility about his person. His oval face with rounded cheek-bones remained unwrinkled except at the corners of his almond-shaped, shiny, visionary’s eyes, which had not changed since the day when old Peyrol’s gaze had met them for the first time. A few white hairs on his tousled head and in the thin beard alone had marked the passage of years, and you would have had to look for them closely. Amongst the unchangeable rocks at the extreme end of the Peninsula, time seemed to have stood still and idle while the group of people poised at that southernmost point of France had gone about their ceaseless toil, winning bread and wine from a stony-hearted earth.

The master of the farm, staring straight before him, passed before the two men towards the door of the salle, which Peyrol had left open. He leaned his fork against the wall before going in. The sound of a distant bell, the bell of the village where years ago the returned rover had watered his mule and had listened to the talk of the man with the dog, came up faint and abrupt in the great stillness of the upper space. The violent slamming of the salle door broke the silence between the two gazers on the sea.

``Does that fellow never rest?’’ asked the young man in a low indifferent voice which covered the delicate tinkling of the bell, and without moving his head.

``Not on Sunday anyhow,’’ answered the rover in the same detached manner. ``What can you expect? The church bell is like poison to him. That fellow, I verily believe, has been born a sans-culotte. Every `dcadi’ he puts on his best clothes, sticks a red cap on his head and wanders between the buildings like a lost soul in the light of day. A Jacobin, if ever there was one.’’

``Yes. There is hardly a hamlet in France where there isn’t a sans-culotte or two. But some of them have managed to change their skins if nothing else.’’

``This one won’t change his skin, and as to his inside he never had anything in him that could be moved. Aren’t there some people that remember him in Toulon? It isn’t such a long time ago. And yet . . .’’ Peyrol turned slightly towards the young man . . . ``And yet to look at him . . .’’

The officer nodded, and for a moment his face wore a troubled expression which did not escape the notice of Peyrol who went on speaking easily:

``Some time ago, when the priests began to come back to the parishes, he, that fellow’’ — -Peyrol jerked his head in the direction of the salle door — -``would you believe it? — -started for the village with a sabre hanging to his side and his red cap on his head. He made for the church door. What he wanted to do there I don’t know. It surely could not have been to say the proper kind of prayers. Well, the people were very much elated about their reopened church, and as he went along some woman spied him out of a window and started the alarm. `Eh, there! look! The jacobin, the sans-culotte, the blood-drinker! Look at him.’ Out rushed some of them, and a man or two that were working in their home patches vaulted over the low walls. Pretty soon there was a crowd, mostly women, each with the first thing she could snatch up — -stick, kitchen knife, anything. A few men with spades and cudgels joined them by the water-trough. He didn’t quite like that. What could he do? He turned and bolted up the hill, like a hare. It takes some pluck to face a mob of angry women. He ran along the cart track without looking behind him, and they after him, yelling: `A mort! A mort le buveur de sang!’ He had been a horror and an abomination to the people for years, what with one story and another, and now they thought it was their chance. The priest over in the presbytery hears the noise, comes to the door. One look was enough for him. He is a fellow of about forty but a wiry, long-legged beggar, and agile — -what? He just tucked up his skirts and dashed out, taking short cuts over the walls and leaping from boulder to boulder like a blessed goat. I was up in my room when the noise reached me there. I went to the window and saw the chase in full cry after him. I was beginning to think the fool would fetch all those furies along with him up here and that they would carry the house by boarding and do for the lot of us, when the priest cut in just in the nick of time. He could have tripped Scevola as easy as anything, but he lets him pass and stands in front of his parishioners with his arms extended. That did it. He saved the patron all right. What he could say to quieten them I don’t know, but these were early days and they were very fond of their new priest. He could have turned them round his little finger. I had my head and shoulders out of the window — -it was interesting enough. They would have massacred all the accursed lot, as they used to call us down there — -and when I drew in, behold there was the patronne standing behind me looking on too. You have been here often enough to know how she roams about the grounds and about the house, without a sound. A leaf doesn’t pose itself lighter on the ground than her feet do. Well, I suppose she didn’t know that I was upstairs, and came into the room just in her way of always looking for something that isn’t there, and noticing me with my head stuck out, naturally came up to see what I was looking at. Her face wasn’t any paler than usual, but she was clawing the dress over her chest with her ten fingers — -like this. I was confounded. Before I could find my tongue she just turned round and went out with no more sound than a shadow.’’

When Peyrol ceased, the ringing of the church bell went on faintly and then stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

``Talking about her shadow,’’ said the young officer indolently, ``I know her shadow.’’

Old Peyrol made a really pronounced movement. ``What do you mean?’’ he asked. ``Where?’’

``I have got only one window in the room where they put me to sleep last night and I stood at it looking out. That’s what I am here for — -to look out, am I not? I woke up suddenly, and being awake I went to the window and looked out.’’

``One doesn’t see shadows in the air,’’ growled old Peyrol.

``No, but you see them on the ground, pretty black too when the moon is full. It fell across this open space here from the corner of the house.’’

``The patronne,’’ exclaimed Peyrol in a low voice, ``impossible!’’

``Does the old woman that lives in the kitchen roam, do the village women roam as far as this?’’ asked the officer composedly. ``You ought to know the habits of the people. It was a woman’s shadow. The moon being to the west, it glided slanting from that corner of the house and glided back again. I know her shadow when I see it.’’

``Did you hear anything?’’ asked Peyrol after a moment of visible hesitation.

``The window being open I heard somebody snoring. It couldn’t have been you, you are too high. Moreover, from the snoring,’’ he added grimly, ``it must have been somebody with a good conscience. Not like you, old skimmer of the seas, because, you know, that’s what you are, for all your gunner’s warrant.’’ He glanced out of the corner of his eyes at old Peyrol. ``What makes you look so worried?’’

``She roams, that cannot be denied,’’ murmured Peyrol, with an uneasiness which he did not attempt to conceal.

``Evidently. I know a shadow when I see it, and when I saw it, it did not frighten me, not a quarter as much as the mere tale of it seems to have frightened you. However, that sans-culotte friend of yours must be a hard sleeper. Those purveyors of the guillotine all have a first-class fireproof Republican conscience. I have seen them at work up north when I was a boy running barefoot in the gutters. . . .’’

``The fellow always sleeps in that room,’’ said Peyrol earnestly.

``But that’s neither here nor there,’’ went on the officer, ``except that it may be convenient for roaming shadows to hear his conscience taking its ease.’’

Peyrol, excited, lowered his voice forcibly. ``Lieutenant,’’ he said, ``if I had not seen from the first what was in your heart I would have contrived to get rid of you a long time ago in some way or other.’’

The lieutenant glanced sideways again and Peyrol let his raised fist fall heavily on his thigh. ``I am old Peyrol and this place, as lonely as a ship at sea, is like a ship to me and all in it are like shipmates. Never mind the patron. What I want to know is whether you heard anything? Any sound at all? Murmur, footstep?’’ A bitterly mocking smile touched the lips of the young man.

``Not a fairy footstep. Could you hear the fall of a leaf — -and with that terrorist cur trumpeting right above my head? . . .’’ Without unfolding his arms he turned towards Peyrol, who was looking at him anxiously. . . . ``You want to know, do you? Well, I will tell you what I heard and you can make the best of it. I heard the sound of a stumble. It wasn’t a fairy either that stubbed its toe. It was something in a heavy shoe. Then a stone went rolling down the ravine in front of us interminably, then a silence as of death. I didn’t see anything moving. The way the moon was then, the ravine was in black shadow. And I didn’t try to see.’’

Peyrol, with his elbow on his knee, leaned his head in the palm of his hand. The officer repeated through his clenched teeth: ``Make the best of it.’’

Peyrol shook his head slightly. After having spoken, the young officer leaned back against the wall, but next moment the report of a piece of ordnance reached them as it were from below, travelling around the rising ground to the left in the form of a dull thud followed by a sighing sound that seemed to seek an issue amongst the stony ridges and rocks near by.

``That’s the English corvette which has been dodging in and out of Hyres Roads for the last week,’’ said the young officer, picking up his sword hastily. He stood up and buckled the belt on, while Peyrol rose more deliberately from the bench, and said:

``She can’t be where we saw her at anchor last night. That gun was near. She must have crossed over. There has been enough wind for that at various times during the night. But what could she be firing at down there in the Petite Passe? We had better go and see.’’

He strode off, followed by Peyrol. There was not a human being in sight about the farm and not a sound of life except for the lowing of a cow coming faintly from behind a wall. Peyrol kept close behind the quickly moving officer who followed the footpath marked faintly on the stony slope of the hill.

``That gun was not shotted,’’ he observed suddenly in a deep steady voice.

The officer glanced over his shoulder.

``You may be right. You haven’t been a gunner for nothing. Not shotted, eh? Then a signal gun. But who to? We have been observing that corvette now for days and we know she has no companion.’’

He moved on, Peyrol following him on the awkward path without losing his wind and arguing in a steady voice: ``She has no companion but she may have seen a friend at daylight this morning.’’

``Bah!’’ retorted the officer without checking his pace. ``You talk now like a child or else you take me for one. How far could she have seen? What view could she have had at daylight if she was making her way to the Petite Passe where she is now? Why, the islands would have masked for her two-thirds of the sea and just in the direction too where the English inshore squadron is hovering below the horizon. Funny blockade that! You can’t see a single English sail for days and days together, and then when you least expect them they come down all in a crowd as if ready to eat us alive. No, no! There was no wind to bring her up a companion. But tell me, gunner, you who boast of knowing the bark of every English piece, what sort of gun was it?’’