The Light of Scarthey: A Romance

He picked up the letter again, and sitting down placed it in front of him on the table. "'Tis a cruel letter, madam, that you have brought me," he said then, looking up at Molly with the most extraordinary pain in his eyes. "A cruel letter! Yet I am the same man now that I was this morning when she swore she would trust me to the end – and she could not trust me a few hours longer! Why did you not speak? One word from you as you stepped upon the ship would have saved my soul from the guilt of these men's death!" Then with a sharper uplifting of his voice, as a new aspect of his misfortune struck him: "And you – you, too! What have I to do with you, Adrian's wife? He does not know?"

She did not reply, and he cried out, clapping his hands together:

"It only wanted this. My God, it is I – I, his friend, who owes him so much, who am to cause him such fear, such misery! Do you know, madam, that it is impossible that I should restore you to him for days yet. And then when, and where, and how? God knows! Nothing must now come between me and my trust. I have already dishonourably endangered it. To attempt to return with you to-night, as perhaps you fancy I will – as, of course, I would instantly do had I alone myself and you to consider, would be little short of madness. It would mean utter ruin to many whom I have pledged myself to serve. And yet Adrian – my honour pulls me two ways – poor Adrian! What dumb devil possessed you that you did not speak before. Had you no thought for your woman's good name? Ill-fated venture, ill-fated venture, indeed! Would God that shot had met me in its way – had only my task been accomplished!"

He buried his head in his hands.

Lady Landale flushed and paled alternately, parted her lips to speak, and closed them once more. What could she say, and how excuse herself? She did not repent what she had done, though it had been sin all round; she had little reck of her woman's good name, as he called it; the death of the excise men weighed but lightly, if at all, upon her conscience; the thought of Adrian was only then a distasteful memory to be thrust away; nay – even this man's grief could not temper the wild joy that was in her soul to-night. Fevered with fatigue, with excitement, by her wound, her blood ran burning in her veins, and beat faster in every pulse.

And as she felt the ship rise and fall, and knew that each motion was an onward leap that separated her further and ever further from dull home and dull husband, and isolated her ever more completely with her sister's lover, she exulted in her heart.

Presently he lifted his head.

"Forgive me," he said, "I believe that you meant most kindly, and as you say, I should be grateful. Your service is ill-requited by my reproaches, and you have run risk indeed – merciful Heaven, had my old friend's wife been killed upon my ship through my doings! But you see I cannot command myself; you see how I am situated. You must forgive me. All that can be done to restore you to your home as soon as possible shall be done, and all, meanwhile, to mitigate the discomfort you must suffer here – And for your good intention to her and me, I thank you."

He had risen, and now bowed with a dignity that sat on his sailor freedom in no wise awkwardly. She, too, with an effort, stood up as if to arrest his imminent departure. A tall woman, and he but of average height, their eyes were nearly on a level. For a second or two her dark gaze sought his with a strange hesitation, and then, as if the truth in him awoke all the truth in her, the natural daring of her spirit rose proudly to meet this kindred soul. She would let no falsehood, no craven feminine subterfuge intervene between them.

"Do not thank me," she exclaimed, glowing with a brilliant scorn in which the greatness of her beauty, all worn as she was, struck him into surprise, yet evoked no spark of admiration. "What I did I did, to gratify myself. Oh, aye, if I were as other women I should smile and take your compliments, and pose as the martyr and as the self-sacrificing devoted sister. But I will not. It was nothing to me how Madeleine got in or out of her love scrapes. I would not have gone one step to help her break her promise to you, or even to save your life, but that it pleased me so to do. Madeleine has never chosen to make me her confidant. I would have let her manage her own affairs gaily, had I had better things to occupy my mind – but I had not, Captain Smith. Life at Pulwick is monotonous. I have roaming blood in my veins: the adventure tempted, amused me, fascinated me – and there you have the truth! Of course I could have given the letter to the men and sent them back to you with it – it was not because of my promise that I did not do it. Of course I could have spoken the instant I got on board, perhaps – " here a flood of colour dyed her face with a gorgeous conscious crimson, and a dimple faintly came and went at the corner of her mouth, "perhaps I would have spoken. But then, you must remember, you closed my lips!"

"My God!" said Captain Jack, and looked at her with a sort of horror.

But this she could not see for her eyes were downcast. "And now that I have come," she went on, and would have added, "I am glad I did," but that all of a sudden a new bashfulness came upon her, and she stammered instead, incoherently: "As for Adrian – René knew I had a message for you, and René will tell him – he is not stupid – you know – René, I mean."

"I am glad," answered the man gravely, after a pause, "if you have reasonable grounds for believing that your husband knows you to be on my ship. He will then be the less anxious at your disappearance: for he knows too, madam, that his wife will be as honoured and as guarded in my charge as she would be in her mother's house."

He bowed again in a stately way and then immediately left her.

Molly sank back upon her couch, and she could not have said why, burst into tears. She felt cold now, and broken, and her stiffening wound pained her. But nevertheless, as she lay upon the little velvet pillow, and wept her rare tears were strangling sobs, the very ache of her wound had a strange savour that she would not have exchanged for any past content.

René, having obeyed his mistress's orders, and left her alone with the sailors on the beach, withdrew within the shelter of the door, but remained waiting, near enough to be at hand in case he should be called.

It was still pitch dark and the rollers growled under a rough wind; he could catch the sound of a man's voice, now and again, between the clamour of the sea and the wuthering of the air, but could not distinguish a word. Presently, however, this ceased, and there came to him the unmistakable regular beat of oars retreating. The interview was over, and breathing a sigh of relief at the thought that, at last, his master's friend would soon be setting on his way to safety, the servant emerged to seek her ladyship.

A few minutes later he dashed into Sir Adrian's room with a livid face, and poured forth a confused tale:

Milady had landed without Mademoiselle; had stopped to speak to two of the Peregrine, whilst he waited apart. The men had departed in their boat.

"The Peregrine men! But the ship has been out of sight these eight hours!" ejaculated Sir Adrian, bewildered. Then, catching fear from his servant's distraught countenance:

"My wife," he exclaimed, bounding up; and added, "you left her, Renny?"

The man struck his breast: he had searched and called… My Lady was nowhere to be found. "As God is my witness," he repeated, "I was within call. My Lady ordered me to leave her. Your honour knows My Lady has to be obeyed."

"Get lanterns!" said Sir Adrian, the anguish of a greater dread driving the blood to his heart. Even to one who knew the ground well, the isle of Scarthey, on a black, stormy night, with the tide high, was no safe wandering ground. For a moment, the two – comrades of so many miserable hours – faced each other with white and haggard faces. Then with the same deadly fear in their hearts, they hurried out into the soughing wind, down to the beach, baited on all sides by the swift-darting hissing surf. Running their lanterns close to the ground, they soon found, by the trampled marks upon the sand, where the conclave had been held. From thence a double row of heavy footprints led to the shelving bit of beach where it was the custom for boats to land from seawards.

"See, your honour, see," cried René, in deepest agitation, "the print of this little shoe, here – and there, and here again, right down to the water's edge. Thank God – thank God! My Lady has had no accident. She has gone with the sailors to the boat. Ah! here the tide has come – we can see no farther."

"But why should she have gone with them?" came, after a moment, Sir Adrian's voice out of the darkness. "Surely that is strange – and yet … Yes, that is indeed her foot-print in the sand."

"And if your honour will look to sea, he will perceive the ship's lights yonder, upon the water. That is the captain's ship… Your honour, I must avow to you that I have concealed something from you – it was wrong, indeed, and now I am punished – but that poor Monsieur the Captain, I was so sorry for him, and he so enamoured. He had made a plan to lift off Mademoiselle Madeleine with him to-night, marry her in France; and that was why he came back again, at the risk of his life. He supplicated me not to tell you, for fear you would wish to prevent it, or think it your duty to. Mademoiselle had promised, it seemed, and he was mad with her joy, the poor gentleman! and as sure of her faith as if she had been a saint in Heaven. But My Lady came alone, your honour, as I said. The courage had failed to Mademoiselle, I suppose, at the last moment, and Madame bore a message to the captain. But the captain was not able to leave his ship, it seems; and, my faith," cried Mr. Potter; his spirits rising, as the first ghastly dread left him, "the mystery explains itself! It is quite simple, your honour will see. As the captain did not come to the island, according to his promise to Mademoiselle – he had good reasons, no doubt – Madame went herself to his ship with her message. She had the spirit for it – Ah! if Mademoiselle had had but a little of it to-night, we should not be where we are!"

Sir Adrian caught at the suggestion out of the depths of his despair. "You are right, Renny, you must be right. Yet, on this rough sea, in this black night – what madness! The boat, instantly; and let us row for those lights as we never rowed before!"

Even as the words were uttered the treble glimmer vanished. In vain they strained their eyes: save for the luminous streak cast by their own beacon lamp, the gloom was unbroken.

"His honour will see, a boat will be landing instantly with My Lady safe and sound," said René at last. But his voice lacked confidence, and Sir Adrian groaned aloud.

And so they stood alone in silence, forced into inaction, that most cruel addition to suspense, by the darkness and the waters which hemmed them in upon every side. The vision of twenty dangerous places where one impetuous footfall might have hurled his darling into the cruel beating waves painted themselves – a hideous phantasmagory – upon Sir Adrian's brain. Had the merciless waters of the earth that had murdered the mother, grasped at the child's life also? He raised his voice in a wild cry, it seemed as if the wind caught it from him and tore it into shreds.

"Hark!" whispered René, and clasped his master's icy hand. Like an echo of Sir Adrian's cry, the far-off ring of a human voice had risen from the sea.

Again it came.

"C'est de la mer, Monseigneur!" panted the man; even as he spoke the darkness began to lift. Above their heads, unnoticed, the clouds had been rifted apart beneath the breath of the north wind; the horizon widened, a misty wing-like shape was suddenly visible against the receding gloom.

The captain's ship! The Peregrine!

As master and man peered outward as if awaiting unconsciously some imminent solution from the gliding spectre, it seemed as if the night suddenly opened on the left to shoot forth a burst of red fire. A few seconds later, the hollow boom of cannon shook the air around them. Sir Adrian's nails were driven into René's hands.

The flaming messenger had carried to both minds an instant knowledge of the new danger.

"Great Heavens!" muttered Adrian. "He will surrender; he must surrender! He could not be so base, so wicked, as to fight and endanger her!"

But the servant's keener sight, trained by long stormy nights of watching, was following in its dwindling, mysterious course that misty vision in which he thought to recognize the Peregrine.

"Elle file, elle file joliment la goëlette! Mother of Heaven, there goes the gun again! I never thought my blood would turn to water only to hear the sound of one like this. But your honour must not be discouraged; he can surely trust the captain. Ah, the clouds – I can see no more."

The wild blast gathering fresh droves of vapour from the huddled masses on the horizon was now, in truth, herding them fiercely across the spaces it had cleared a few moments before. Confused shouts, strange clamour seemed to ring out across the waves to the listeners: or it might have been only the triumphant howlings of the rising storm.

"Will not your honour come in? The rain is falling."

"No, Renny, no, give me my lantern again, friend, and let us examine anew."

Both knew it to be of no avail, but physically and mentally to move about was, at least, better than to stand still. Step by step they scanned afresh the sand, the shingle, the rocks, the walls, to return once more to the trace of the slender feet, leading beside the great double track of heavy sea boots to the water's edge.

Sir Adrian knelt down and gazed at the last little imprint that seemed to mock him with the same elusive daintiness as Molly herself, as if he could draw from it the answer to the riddle.

René endeavouring to stand between his master and the driving blast laid down his lantern too, and strove by thumping his breast vigorously to infuse a little warmth into his numbed limbs and at the same time to relieve his overcharged feelings.

As he paused at length, out of breath, the noise of a methodical thud and splash of oars arose, above the tumult of the elements, very near to them, upon their left.

Sir Adrian sprang to his feet.

"She returns, she returns," shouted René, capering, in the excess of the sudden joy, and waving his lantern; then he sent forth a vigorous hail which was instantly answered close by the shore.

"Hold up your light, your honour – ah, your honour, did I not say it? – while I go to help Madame. Now then, you others down there," running to the landing spot, "make for the light!"

The keel ground upon the shingle.

"My Lady first," shouted René.

Some one leaped up in the boat and flung him a rope with a curse.

"The lady, ay, ay, my lad, you'd better go and catch her yourself. There she goes," pointing enigmatically behind him with his thumb.

Sir Adrian, unable to restrain his impatience, ran forward too, and threw the light of his lantern upon the dark figures now rising one by one and pressing forward. Five or six men, drenched from head to foot, swearing and grumbling; with faces pinched with cold, all lowering with the same expression of anger and resentment and shining whitely at him out of the confusion. He saw the emptying seats, the shipped oars, the name Peregrine in black letters upon the white paint of the dingey; and she?.. she was not there!

The revulsion of feeling was so cruel that for a while he seemed turned to stone, even his mind becoming blank. The waves lashed in up to his knees; he never felt them.

René's strong hands came at last to drag him away, and then René's voice, in a hot whisper close to his ear, aroused him:

"It is good news, your honour, after all, good news. My Lady is on board the Peregrine. I made these men speak. They are the revenue men – that God may damn them! and they were after the captain; but he ran down their cutter, that brave captain. And these are all that were saved from her, for she sank like a stone. The Peregrine is as sound as a bell, they say – ah, she is a good ship! And the captain, out of his kind heart, sent these villains ashore in his own boat, instead of braining them or throwing them overboard. But they saw a lady beside him the whole time, tall, in a great black cloak. My Lady in her black cloak, just as she landed here. Of course Monsieur the Captain could not have sent her back home with these brigands then – not even a message – that would have compromised his honour. But his honour can see now how it is. And though My Lady has been carried out to sea, he knows now that she is safe."