The Journeying Boy (35 page)

Mr Thewless was fleetingly conscious that this suggestion – in which he saw no special cogency – had been made to him before. ‘You think he will be all right?’ he asked. ‘I am bound to say I feel a little anxious for his safety.’

‘As right as rain.’ Cyril Bolderwood’s reassurance was so confident as to have no need of being emphatic. ‘Of course, this countryside is full of every sort of rascal, as I think I’ve told you. But they wouldn’t harm a lad – and especially an English lad. It’s astonishing how popular the English are in Eire. Just the same as in India, nowadays. Nothing too good for them. And all because they’ve climbed down and cleared out. Why, if it wasn’t for the presence of yourself and Humphrey, it would probably be champ this morning after all – and that in spite of all the fuss I made yesterday.’

Mr Thewless had by this time finished his tea, got out of bed, and wrapped himself in a dressing-gown. It ought to have been pleasant to shave while enjoying the society of one so informally companionable as his host. But somehow he felt slightly intruded upon – he was growing old and secretive, he supposed – and in an endeavour to dissipate this churlish feeling he too moved over to the window. ‘Ah,’ he said; ‘I see that the motor-cruiser has gone.’

‘It has – and I don’t think we’ll see it again.’

‘I don’t see any sign of Humphrey.’ Mr Thewless, dazzled by the morning light, was peering vaguely at the distant mountain, rather as if his charge might appear in infinitesimal silhouette on the summit of it. ‘And I
am
rather anxious, I must repeat.’

‘The boy will be quite all right, you may be sure.’ Once more Cyril Bolderwood was soothing. ‘As a matter of fact, I rather think that Ivor must have gone with him – or, at any rate, that Ivor has followed him out. They had some plan, you may remember, of going off early together.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Mr Thewless wished that he could be certain of just what he
did
remember. That the night had held wild doings he was well assured. But there might, he judged, be humiliating reasons for his preserving only a somewhat distorted recollection of them. ‘I am afraid,’ he pursued, ‘that – after last night, you know – I am in a decidedly nervous state of mind.’

‘Last night?’ Cyril Bolderwood looked momentarily puzzled. Then he laughed heartily. ‘To be sure – and I am afraid you really had rather a bad time. It’s not being used to nonsense of that sort.’

‘I see.’ But Mr Thewless was very certain that he did
not
see. ‘Nonsense?’ he queried diffidently.

‘Atrocious and rascally criminals,’ said Cyril Bolderwood. He spoke with the greatest good humour. ‘Abominable and thieving ruffians, breaking in in the middle of the night. And yet one can’t be angry with them for long. Children, my dear fellow – mere children. And, of course, you must remember their religion.’

‘Ah,’ said Mr Thewless. He was beginning to feel slightly unnerved.

‘I’ve had them break in before. It’s why I shut up so carefully at nights. But the tiresome villains managed to get in somehow. They were after the whisky, you know – nothing but the whisky. How could they tell that you and I hadn’t left much of it, eh?’ And Cyril Bolderwood laughed more boisterously still.

Mr Thewless’ discomfort increased. He took his host’s last reference to be by way of tactful reminder that any distorted picture of the night’s adventures which be might cherish had its origin in potations which could not with delicacy be more specifically referred to. It was true that he
had
drunk rather a lot of whisky – and, moreover, to Irish whisky he was quite unused. Conceivably it had some quite special hallucinatory power. Yet by all this he was not, in his heart, quite convinced. ‘My impression,’ he said boldly, ‘was decidedly different. I thought they were after, not the whisky, but Humphrey.’

‘Humphrey? Good lord!’ And Cyril Bolderwood delightedly chuckled. ‘Why, that’s just the sort of notion the dear, fanciful lad would think up himself.’

This was disturbingly true; it cohered absolutely with Mr Thewless’ own obstinate reading of much in his recent experience. Nevertheless, he tried again. ‘I have a recollection – really quite a distinct recollection – of these intruders dogging me through the house. I was convinced that they were trailing me to Humphrey’s room.’

‘Odd,’ said Cyril Bolderwood easily. ‘A very odd trick for the mind to play. But, of course, we must remember that you had been thoroughly fatigued.’

‘And my recollection stretches further. I had, just before the general alarm, a direct encounter with one of the prowlers. He was wrapped in a sheet.’

‘A sheet!’ Cyril Bolderwood looked blankly at his guest.

‘And I threw something at him. I think it was a candlestick. The sheet fell and I had a moment in which I recognized him. He had travelled with me on the train from Euston to just before Heysham.’

‘Dear me.’ This time Cyril Bolderwood was not amused. He was mildly embarrassed, as a man must be to whom a guest obstinately propounds fantasies that have come to him
in vino
. ‘That is very curious, to be sure – very curious, indeed. But I must really leave you, my dear fellow, to finish dressing. Breakfast will be in a quarter of an hour. I think you may find that a cup or two of strong coffee may do you a world of good. And – don’t forget! – champ is off and eggs are on. Now I’ll go out for a stroll and try if I can see the others.’

And thus, with a smile of more than customary joviality, the master of Killyboffin left the room. Mr Thewless, before turning to his shaving water, remained for some moments staring out of the window. He was browbeaten, bewildered, worried. He was also, had he known it, on the verge of being extremely angry.

The breakfast-table was generously appointed for four. But only the elder Mr Bolderwood and Mr Thewless faced each other across it. A massive silver contraption, which opened at a touch upon at least a dozen boiled eggs, emphasized the depleted condition of the company.

‘Ivor,’ said Mr Bolderwood, ‘must still be hunting Humphrey up. I took a turn in the grounds, but there was no sign of either of them. A bit odd, eh? One would expect two hungry young people – guns or no guns – to be waiting for the gong. I hope that egg isn’t too hard for your liking.’

‘It is quite excellent; a great treat.’ Having made this eminently conventional response, Mr Thewless was silent for some moments. Then, rather abruptly, he spoke again. ‘I suppose, sir, you will inform the police?’

Cyril Bolderwood looked mildly startled. ‘You mean if Humphrey runs away? I hardly think so. It would be my inclination to get in touch with his father first.’

‘I certainly mean nothing of the sort.’ Mr Thewless was as emphatic as he was surprised. ‘What I refer to is last night’s housebreaking.’

‘Oh, that!’ Cyril Bolderwood’s laughter – and with a quality now really irritating to his auditor – rang out anew. ‘Yes, I suppose I better had. Yes, I must ring up Sean Cushin, and he must go round and give the horrible scoundrels a talking to.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I could do it in about ten minutes.’

‘Ten minutes?’

‘When the girl opens the telephone exchange in the village for the day. At night, you know, we are quite cut off from the world. In all these ways, my dear chap, we are shockingly unprogressive here in the south. This ruffianly Government in Dublin dislikes anything it can’t find an ancient Irish word for. Telephones must be included. For the purpose of getting news about the country those fellows would probably prefer beacons on the top of Slieve League and Ben Bulben.’ And Mr Thewless’ host, as he offered this political information, chipped the top off his second egg.

There was silence for a minute. Mr Thewless was conscious that he was listening with some eagerness for the sound of approaching voices. The vehement tones of Humphrey Paxton, even if raised in some tiresome chronicle of fictitious perils, would at this juncture have been music to his ears.

But
were
the perils with which Humphrey tortured or entertained himself indeed merely–? Mr Thewless, before the half-apprehended threat of something like a Copernican revolution in his thinking – or better, perhaps, of a return to the primitive, the monstrous, the Ptolemaic hypothesis, the Humphrey-centric theory, as it might be called, of his own first alarms on the Heysham train: Mr Thewless, confronted by this, wisely suspended speculation for a while and sought the material recruitment of another egg.

Cyril Bolderwood, too, ate silently. There was now a slight frown, as of the first dawn of anxiety, on his normally candid brow. He rose, walked to the window, and stared out at the limited prospect commanded from the ground floor. Then he moved to the door, flung it open, and fell to his familiar shouting to invisible retainers. His instructions, it seemed, were for some sort of search to be made for the late-comers. Then he crossed to a sideboard, poured himself out a second cup of coffee, and returned to the table. But immediately he was back at the window. ‘Those foreign trawlers,’ he said abruptly. ‘Did you notice if they’ve sailed or not?’

Mr Thewless looked up in surprise. His host’s tone forbade the supposition that this question was asked merely in a conversational way. ‘Why, yes,’ he answered. ‘I noticed that they had sailed.’

‘Um.’ Cyril Bolderwood reached gloomily for the marmalade. ‘And Ivor is usually so very discreet. If anything, he is a young man too much to the circumspect side. May I offer you the marmalade? I shouldn’t have thought it of him.’

To Mr Thewless this was, for the moment, altogether mysterious. He possessed, however, very considerable intelligence – was he not eminently capable with capable boys? – and this fact (which conceivably had not become apparent to his host) did now result in a dim apprehension of being ‘got at’. But at least the marmalade was excellent, and he helped himself to a little more of it.

‘All that talk,’ pursued Cyril Bolderwood presently, ‘about the North Cape and the Midnight Sun. Unwise, I fear, with so imaginative and restless a boy.’

‘My dear sir’ – Mr Thewless was suddenly impatient – ‘I must say, quite frankly, that I judge you to be indulging a bee in your bonnet. For you are apparently apprehensive of Humphrey’s attempting to run away to sea, or something of the sort. And it seems to me entirely unlikely.’ Here Mr Thewless paused, abruptly visited by suspicion. ‘But your anxiety
is
really about that? You are not attempting to divert my mind from the consideration of risks of a different order? For a number of things that have happened do make me occasionally feel–’

‘Other risks?’ Cyril Bolderwood interrupted with brisk incredulity. ‘Of course not! Mere fancies, my dear fellow – like your odd notions about the whisky-thieves last night. But about Humphrey’s perhaps cutting and running I am a little anxious, I admit.’

At this Mr Thewless felt so exasperated that he paused before framing a reply. And in the resulting silence the sound of a telephone bell was heard shrilling in the next room. Cyril Bolderwood jumped to his feet. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that worthless girl has opened her exchange at last. And here’s somebody been waiting to get through, I’ll be bound, this last half-hour. Excuse me, my dear Thewless, while I take the call myself.’

Cyril Bolderwood hurried out. He was absent for a long time. Mr Thewless looked at his watch, looked out of the window, took another piece of toast. Could his host, conceivably, be right? His own acquaintance with Humphrey Paxton was brief – hardly sufficiently substantial, certainly, for the hazarding of any very confident opinion. But Cyril Bolderwood’s acquaintance with the boy was briefer still; and there was no sign that of this distant connexion he had previously known very much by hearsay. Yet Cyril Bolderwood had been talking as one might do from a settled familiarity with Humphrey’s character. There was surely something artificial in this; there was, as it were, a perceptible forcing of the pace…

Mr Thewless paused on this conception, and as he did so his host returned to the breakfast-room. He looked, Mr Thewless thought, oddly pale – and moreover it was visibly with a trembling hand that he now poured himself out a third cup of coffee. Could he have had some calamitous news, and was he now nerving himself to break this to his guest? Mr Thewless took another look, and was convinced by indefinable but powerful signs, that he was in the presence of a man in a panic. And at this, inevitably enough, all his own repressed anxieties surged up in him. Could Humphrey really have run away to sea in a trawler? He nerved himself to speak. ‘Mr Bolderwood,’ he said, ‘I hope you have not had bad news?’

‘No, no – nothing of the sort.’ And the owner of Killyboffin Hall sat down heavily. ‘The telephone call was about something entirely trifling. A mere matter of domestic economy, nothing more. I must really apologize for having left you so abruptly. But none of the servants is reliable with the telephone. The miserable rascals–’ But here Cyril Bolderwood’s voice trailed off, as if he had not the heart for entering upon one of his familiar imprecations. ‘The fact is, I have been thinking.’ He broke off again, and stared into his cup. It was, Mr Thewless thought, demonstrably true that his host was thinking very hard indeed – much as if, on the issue, his whole life depended.

‘I beg your pardon. You struck me as rather upset.’ Mr Thewless hesitated. ‘For a moment I had a horrid feeling that you might have been right, and that Humphrey had really bolted.’

‘Dear me, no.’ In Cyril Bolderwood’s glance as he looked up there was a momentary gleam that told of swift decision. ‘To tell you the honest truth, my dear fellow, I have never really been afraid of
that
. In fact you were more or less in the target area a few minutes ago. I have anxieties about Humphrey that I was anxious to conceal from you. And being unable altogether to conceal my feelings, I rather played up the runaway notion.’

At this Mr Thewless set down his cup and presented his entertainer with an expression that was altogether new. ‘Explain yourself,’ he said sternly.

‘Well, my dear chap, we must admit, to begin with, that you had a deuced queer experience yesterday afternoon. The more I think of it, the odder does that affair in the railway tunnel appear to be. And then consider last night. Consider the fellows masquerading as whisky-thieves. I didn’t want to alarm you, you will understand, and I made light of it as far as I could. Still, it was a bit sinister, wasn’t it? Trailing you like that in order to get at the lad. And one of the criminals having been on your train the day before. I don’t like that – I don’t like it at all. It is suspicious, my dear Thewless; positively suspicious.’