Jamaica Inn (1987) by Daphne du Maurier

Author:Daphne du Maurier
Format: epub
Published: 1987-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

TEN

She watched his profile in the half-light; sharp it was and clear, the prominent thin nose thrust downward like the curved beak of a bird. His lips were narrow and colourless, pressed firm together, and he leant forward with his chin resting on a long ebony cane that he held between his knees.

For the moment she could see nothing of his eyes; they were veiled by the short white lashes; and then he turned in his seat and considered her, his lashes fluttering, and the eyes that looked upon her were white also, transparent and expressionless as glass.

“So we ride together for the second time,” he said, and his voice was soft and low, like the voice of a woman. “Once more I have the good fortune to help you by the wayside. You are wet through to the skin; you had better take off your clothes.” He stared at her with cold indifference, and she struggled in some confusion with the pin that clasped her shawl.

“There is a dry rug here that will serve you for the rest of the journey,” he continued. “As for your feet, they will be better bare. This carriage is comparatively free from draught.”

Without a word she slipped out of her soaking shawl and bodice and wrapped herself in the coarse hair blanket that he held out to her. Her hair fell from its band and hung like a curtain about her bare shoulders. She felt like a child that has been caught on an escapade, and now sat with hands folded meekly together, obedient to the master’s word.

“Well?” he said, looking gravely upon her, and she found herself at once stumbling into an explanation of her day. As before at Altarnun, there was something about him that made her untrue to herself, made her sound like a fool and an ignorant country girl, for her story was poor telling, and she came out of it badly—just another woman who had cheapened herself at Launceston fair and had been left by the man of her choice to find her way home alone. She was ashamed to mention Jem by name, and she introduced him lamely as a man who lived by breaking horses and whom she had met once when wandering on the moor. And now there had been some trouble in Launceston over the sale of a pony, and she feared he had been caught in some dishonesty.

She wondered what Francis Davey must think of her, riding to Launceston with a casual acquaintance and then losing her companion in disgrace and running about the town bedraggled and wet after nightfall, like a woman of the streets. He heard her to the end in silence, and she heard him swallow once or twice, a trick she remembered.

“So you have not been too lonely after all?” he said at length. “Jamaica Inn was not so isolated as you supposed?”

Mary flushed in the darkness, and, though he could not see her face, she knew that his eyes were upon her, and she felt guilty, as though she had done wrong and this were an accusation.

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