No less than Barquentine he was a traditionalist to his marrow. He knew in his heart that things were going wrong.
What chance had he had of taking the pulse of the halls and towers? Apart from the marshlight of his intuition and the native gloom of his temperament, on what else was he basing his suspicions? Was it merely his ingrained pessimism and the fear which had understandably grown stronger since his banishment, that, with himself away, the castle was the weaker?
It was this, and very little more. And yet had his fears been mere speculations he would never have made, during the last twenty days, his three unlawful journeys. For he had moved through the midnight corridors of the place – and although as yet he had made no concrete discoveries, he had become aware almost at once of a change. Something had happened, or something was happening which was evil and subversive.
He knew full well that the risks involved in his being found in the castle after his banishment were acute, and that his chances of discovering in the darkness of sleeping halls and corridors, the cause of his apprehension, was remote indeed. Yet he had dared to flaunt the letter of the Groan law in order, in his solitary way, to find whether or not its spirit, as he feared, was sickening.
And now, as he sat half hidden among the ferns that grew at the door of his cave, turning over in his mind those incidents that had in one way or another, over the past years, caused his suspicions of foul play to fructify, he was suddenly aware that he was being watched.
He had heard no sound, but the extra sense he had developed in the woods gave warning. It was as though something had tapped him between his shoulder-blades.
Instantly his eyes swept the scene before him and he saw them at once, standing motionlessly at the edge of a wood away to his right. He recognized them instantaneously although the girl had grown almost out of recognition. Was it possible that they did not recognize him? There was no doubt that they were staring at him. He had forgotten how different he must look, especially to Fuchsia, with his long hair, his beard and ragged clothes.
But now, as they began to run in his direction, he stood up and began to make his way towards them over the rocks.
It was Fuchsia who first recognized the gaunt exile. Just over twenty years old, she stood there before him, a swarthy, strangely melancholy girl, full of love and fear and courage and anger and tenderness. These things were so raw in her breast that it seemed unfair that anyone should be so hotly charged.
To Flay, she was a revelation. Whenever he had thought of her it had always been as a child, and here suddenly she stood before him, a woman, flushed, excited, her eyes upon his face, her hands upon her hips, as she regained her breath.
Mr Flay lowered his head in deference to his visitor.
‘Ladyship,’ he said – but before Fuchsia could answer Titus came up, his hair in his eyes.
‘I told you!’ he panted. ‘I told you I’d find him! I told you he had a beard and there’s the dam he made and there’s his cave over there and that’s where I slept and where we cooked and …’ he paused for breath, and then … ‘Hullo, Mr Flay. You look wonderful and wild!’
‘Ah!’ said Flay. ‘Most likely, lordship, ragged life and no doubt of it. More days than dinners, lordship.’
‘Oh, Mr Flay,’ said Fuchsia. ‘I am so happy to see you again – you were always so kind to me. Are you all right out here, all alone?’
‘Of course he’s all right!’ said Titus. ‘He’s a sort of savage. Aren’t you Mr Flay?’
‘Like enough, lordship,’ said Flay.
‘O, you were too small and you can’t remember, Titus,’ said Fuchsia. ‘I remember it all. Mr Flay was father’s first servant – above them all, weren’t you, Mr Flay – until he disappeared …’
‘I know,’ said Titus. ‘I’ve heard it all in Bellgrove’s class – they told me all about it.’
‘They don’t know anything,’ said Flay. ‘They don’t know anything, ladyship.’ He had turned to Fuchsia and then, dropping his head forward again, ‘Humbly invite you to my cave,’ he said, ‘for rest, for shade and fresh water.’
Mr Flay led the way to his cave, and when they had passed through the entrance and Fuchsia had been shown the double chimney and they had drunk deeply from the spring, for they were hot and thirsty, Titus lay down under the ferny wall of the inner cave and their ragged host sat a little way apart. His arms were folded about his shanks; his bearded chin was on his knees – while his gaze was fixed upon Fuchsia.
She, on her side, while noticing his childlike scrutiny, gave him no cause to feel embarrassed, for she smiled when their eyes met, but kept her gaze wandering about the walls and ceiling, or turning to Titus asked him whether he had noticed this or that on his last visit.
But a time came when a silence fell upon the cave. It was the kind of silence that becomes hard to break. But it was broken in the end, and, strangely enough, by Mr Flay himself, the least forthcoming of the three.
‘Ladyship … Lordship,’ he said.
‘Yes, Mr Flay?’ said Fuchsia.
‘Been away, banished, many years, ladyship,’ he opened his hard-lipped mouth as though to continue, but had to close it again for the lack of a phrase. But after a while he commenced again. ‘Lost touch, Lady Fuchsia, but forgive me – must ask you questions.’
‘Of course, Mr Flay, what sort of questions?’
‘I know the sort,’ said Titus – ‘about what’s happened since I was last here and what’s been discovered, isn’t it, Mr Flay? And about Barquentine’s being dead and …’
‘Barquentine dead?’ Flay’s voice was sudden and hard.
‘Oh yes,’ said Titus. ‘He was burned to death, you know, wasn’t he, Fuchsia?’
‘Yes, Mr Flay. Steerpike tried to save him.’
‘Steerpike?’ muttered the long, ragged, motionless figure.
