Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean - Страница 64

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“But you said you saw!”

“I did not see you take it.”

“You did not see me take it!” There was relief in his eyes.

“I was afraid my hands had lost their cunning.”

She looked down at his long white hands.

“It is a pity you do not put them to a better purpose.”

“Carolan, do you despise me now?”

“I am deeply disappointed in you.”

“That is a pity. I had my dreams.”

“Dreams? What dreams?”

“Of the days of my safety… But what matter?”

She clasped her hands.

“Oh, Marcus, must you do these things?”

“I live by them, Carolan.”

“You live by robbery?”

“I have tried other methods.”

She pictured Everard’s face then, cool, a little stern; she could hear his calm voice.

“A man’s life,” she said, quoting him, ‘is surely what he makes it?”

“He has a hand in shaping his destiny certainly.”

“Well then…?”

“There are other considerations. There are people who are born in mansions; there are people born in Grape Street. It is not easy to be an honest man in Grape Street, Carolan.”

There was banter in his eyes, but they had lost some of their merriment.

“Carolan,” he said, coming closer to her, “I would like to tell you what I have told no one else. Will you listen to me?”

“Of course.”

“I want to give you a brief outline of my life. I am wicked; I am a criminal; I am unworthy to be called your friend. That is the truth, but I would have you know how it is I have sunk so low. Perhaps, later on when I am a rich, safe man, I shall call upon you and your husband in your happy home. I should like to do that, Carolan. I should like to see if you are happy. The parson will accept me because he will not know the secrets of my past, and his wife will accept me because, I hope, she will understand why I took to such evil ways. That will warm my heart, Carolan, if she will understand.”

Carolan was silent, her heart beating rapidly. She was realizing now how fervently she had hoped he would deny all knowledge of the purse.

“I must make it brief, Carolan. But you must understand that I cannot convey everything in the short time I have. You must see beyond my words. You must visualize a happy childhood; you must see everything that was mine. A good home, tender parents, an excellent education … right up to the time I was fourteen. Then my father died. My mother was a dear woman, a tender woman, but an unwise woman. A year after my father’s death, she sought to replace him. My stepfather? Ah! What stories I could tell you of that man. But I waste my words. Suffice it that, in less than a year after that disastrous marriage, my mother was dead. Her money was his; I had nothing. He had arranged it so. Sometimes I think he arranged her death. That sounds melodramatic, Carolan, but it is nevertheless true. I was alone; I was penniless. I stole some money from my stepfather and came to London. What dreams I had. You can well imagine what they were. I would make a fortune at the gaming-table, for were there not fortunes to be made in London! I will not harass you with my adventures; perhaps one day, in the secure, rich times ahead I may tell you. I will not tell you how I sank and sank. There is a life here in this great city of which I hope you will never know. I shall not tell you. Have you ever heard of a thieves’ kitchen, Carolan? It is a place… they abound here… where one is taught to pick pockets. These hands of mine -sensitive, are they not? Once they were to have been a musician’s hands; now they are pickers of pockets. They learned well. Ah! I was as apt a pupil with a pocket as I ever was with the spinet. I was caught, Carolan.” He paused to smile at her. Here “We can at least guide our footsteps upon the safest paths!”

He laid his hands on her shoulders.

“Why, you tremble, child! I am safe now; I am not such a fool as I was … I shall not again be so easily caught. I am too wily now. The memory of that is too strong within me. You thought I was thirty, Carolan, and I am barely twenty-four. You see the lines about my face, do you not?

That is what transportation does to you, Carolan. That is what stifling in the stinking hold of a convict ship for months on end does for you, Carolan. Oh, Carolan … Carolan, see me as I might have been had my father lived. A happy youth … for twenty-four is not so very old. A young man of substance, a fit companion for you, Carolan. And see me now … see me now.

See me as I should have been… not as life has made me!”

Her eyes were swimming with tears.

“You have suffered very much, Marcus. And I have hurt you; I am so stupid, so ignorant! There is so much I do not know.”

“And never shall know! I am sorry I had to speak of these things to you, Carolan. I would have it that you never knew of their existence.”

“Life is very cruel to some, Marcus.”

“It is also kind.”

“You can say that?”

“I can say it now, because I see that though I have told you so little, you have seen beyond my words. I see that when I come to that happy parsonage home I shall be welcomed in like an old friend.”

“You will,” said Carolan.

“You will! But, Marcus, this is folly surely! To go on with this … after that…”

His eyes lit up.

“The risk! The excitement! The adventure! And the hope, of course, that one day… one day … I shall settle down to security; that is when my eyes are not so sharp and my hands not so quick. Tonight you have made me wonder if that day is not approaching!”

“Marcus, how I wish I could do something! Words are such inadequate things; it is easy to talk sympathy … but I feel it, Marcus, I feel it.”

“You are right when you say words are inadequate; there can be so much behind them .. or just nothing at all. If! What a word! If my father had not died! If I had been an honest man, and if you had not been engaged to many a parson. Ah, Carolan! What a word it is!”

He had moved closer to her, and his eyes were brilliant.

“Oh, come!” she said coldly, for she was a little afraid of that passion in him.

“I know you well, Marcus; you have had many adventures of all kinds. You seek adventure right and left; at Vauxhall Gardens and here in my father’s shop among these musty old coats. Do not think I cannot understand.”

His hands hung at his sides, and a smile turned up the corners of his mouth.

“An adventurer! That is what you think of me, eh?”

“I fear so, Marcus. What would happen to you if they found the purse in your possession?”

He made a gesture to indicate the tying of a rope about his neck.

“Or,” he added, “I might be sent back to Botany Bay.”

“Marcus, you have suffered a good deal. You would prefer the hanging?”

“Never! Life is sweet; it is only those who have been in danger of losing it who know how sweet. Carolan, but now you know this, what now?”

“I cannot say. But of one thing I am certain; you must give this up. If you were caught, Marcus, if you were caught…”

“You would care so much?”

“One does not like to think of a friend with a noose about his neck!”

“You still think of me as a friend?”

“What rubbish you talk!”

“Carolan, I shall always remember.”

“And you will not… run these risks ?”

“I will think on it very seriously.”

“You have some money?”

“A little.”

“It is cheap, living in the country. You could work.”

He looked down at his hands, and grimaced.

“Perhaps there will be one very like you, Carolan.”

“I think you do not take this very seriously.”

“It is a mistake to take life seriously. Is it not by laughing at things serious that we render them ridiculous?”

“I wish you had not lied about the handkerchief you stole from me.”

“I… lied?”

“You said it was the first offence.”

“Indeed it was!”

“And the purse? And the many, many others?”

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