The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs by James P. Blaylock Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: James P. Blaylock
I still was, a bit. I told them that a man had been assaulted, because I didn’t know what else to call it, but they were in no haste to venture into Heathfield. I bid them good day and quite coolly walked away into the woods and came here, every step of the way thinking I should turn back, regretting that I had left St. Ives in such peril.”
“By God they would have shot you, too, Alice, if you had,” Tubby told her sensibly. “You must see that. Your value to them was to draw St. Ives into Heathfield. Once you had, you were worth nothing. Jack and I would have been sitting here playing Whist while the two of you disappeared out of existence. But here you are, alive and well, precisely because you weren’t rash. Now we three can put our considerable shoulders to the wheel.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “They allowed me to go. They want something, and they believe that I might provide it for them. They wouldn’t have hindered me.”
“Perhaps,” Tubby said. “But in any event you were better out of it. And they wouldn’t have had to kill you. They’d simply have had to remove your cap. You couldn’t have prevailed against them. The three of us might, however.”
I half listened to Tubby’s assurances, but I had been shocked to stony silence by Alice’s pronouncements. St. Ives taken? It was almost too much for me to grasp, even though I had feared that very thing. There were indeed three of us, but clearly there was only the one cap, and no time to find the elusive “wheel” that we were to put our shoulders to. I couldn’t abide waiting. I strode to the corner full of bloody-minded thoughts and plucked up the cap, looking out the window toward the edge of the forest, which was dark now. There was no question of the identity of the man with his arm in a sling, nor any question of his being a cold-blooded devil. Alice had described the third man: clearly the Peddler, but at that moment I didn’t much care if he was Beelzebub in a dogcart.
Tubby saw what I was up to with the cap straightaway. “Don’t be unwise, Jack,” he said, taking me by the arm. “Alice has just escaped from that mire of human scum. There’s no sense in your wading back in.”
“There’s but the one cap,” I told him, as if that justified my going alone or at all.
“And there’s no telling how many of the villains are at work. St. Ives sees things far more clearly than either of us. Now that the prey has fallen into the trap, they’ll almost certainly return to Beachy Head. The battle of Heathfield was lost, although thank God Alice was not. Your visiting the scene of the battle can’t come to anything useful. At best it’s a mere delay. We’ll do what St. Ives asked and take the battle to them, by heaven. It wasn’t but half an hour ago that you were telling me the same thing. Listen to yourself if you won’t listen to me, but listen to yourself sober, for God’s sake, and not drunk on anger.”
There was of course a great deal of sense in what he said, although I still couldn’t see more than a red glimmer of it. But then Alice prevailed upon me to read the message on the folded piece of foolscap that she had found in the cap—apparently the first of the two messages that St. Ives had written out that morning, for the nib of the pen was still sharp.
“Dearest Alice…” it began, and what followed was the plea of a man whose hopes were defeated. His first concern, you see, was to put things right between the two of them. But Alice’s tears as we silently read the note made it clear that she had no idea that things had gone wrong, no earthly notion of the Professor’s misery, the ebbing of his hope, as if he believed that love was as shifting and transitory as the tides. What strange things we convince ourselves of when the shadows descend upon us!
In short, the first part of the note, written hastily in the darkness of the early morning hours, is none of our business here.
“Follow the track
“By God they would have shot you, too, Alice, if you had,” Tubby told her sensibly. “You must see that. Your value to them was to draw St. Ives into Heathfield. Once you had, you were worth nothing. Jack and I would have been sitting here playing Whist while the two of you disappeared out of existence. But here you are, alive and well, precisely because you weren’t rash. Now we three can put our considerable shoulders to the wheel.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “They allowed me to go. They want something, and they believe that I might provide it for them. They wouldn’t have hindered me.”
“Perhaps,” Tubby said. “But in any event you were better out of it. And they wouldn’t have had to kill you. They’d simply have had to remove your cap. You couldn’t have prevailed against them. The three of us might, however.”
I half listened to Tubby’s assurances, but I had been shocked to stony silence by Alice’s pronouncements. St. Ives taken? It was almost too much for me to grasp, even though I had feared that very thing. There were indeed three of us, but clearly there was only the one cap, and no time to find the elusive “wheel” that we were to put our shoulders to. I couldn’t abide waiting. I strode to the corner full of bloody-minded thoughts and plucked up the cap, looking out the window toward the edge of the forest, which was dark now. There was no question of the identity of the man with his arm in a sling, nor any question of his being a cold-blooded devil. Alice had described the third man: clearly the Peddler, but at that moment I didn’t much care if he was Beelzebub in a dogcart.
Tubby saw what I was up to with the cap straightaway. “Don’t be unwise, Jack,” he said, taking me by the arm. “Alice has just escaped from that mire of human scum. There’s no sense in your wading back in.”
“There’s but the one cap,” I told him, as if that justified my going alone or at all.
“And there’s no telling how many of the villains are at work. St. Ives sees things far more clearly than either of us. Now that the prey has fallen into the trap, they’ll almost certainly return to Beachy Head. The battle of Heathfield was lost, although thank God Alice was not. Your visiting the scene of the battle can’t come to anything useful. At best it’s a mere delay. We’ll do what St. Ives asked and take the battle to them, by heaven. It wasn’t but half an hour ago that you were telling me the same thing. Listen to yourself if you won’t listen to me, but listen to yourself sober, for God’s sake, and not drunk on anger.”
There was of course a great deal of sense in what he said, although I still couldn’t see more than a red glimmer of it. But then Alice prevailed upon me to read the message on the folded piece of foolscap that she had found in the cap—apparently the first of the two messages that St. Ives had written out that morning, for the nib of the pen was still sharp.
“Dearest Alice…” it began, and what followed was the plea of a man whose hopes were defeated. His first concern, you see, was to put things right between the two of them. But Alice’s tears as we silently read the note made it clear that she had no idea that things had gone wrong, no earthly notion of the Professor’s misery, the ebbing of his hope, as if he believed that love was as shifting and transitory as the tides. What strange things we convince ourselves of when the shadows descend upon us!
In short, the first part of the note, written hastily in the darkness of the early morning hours, is none of our business here.
“Follow the track