The Light of Scarthey: A Romance

"Yes, I am strong," answered she, and flushed, and looked out across the sea, inhaling the air with dilated nostrils.

Within her, her soul was crying out to him. It was as if there was a tide there, as fierce and passionate as the waves around her, all bearing, straining to him, and this with a struggle and flow so resistless, that she could neither remember the past, nor measure the future, but only feel herself carried on, beaten and tossed upon these great waters, like a helpless wreck.

"I trust you are well attended to," began the man constrainedly again. "I fear you will have to endure much discomfort. I had reckoned – ." Here he halted galled by the thought of what it was he had reckoned upon, the thought of the watchful love that was to have made of the little ship a very nest for his bride, of the exquisite joy it was to have harboured! And he set his teeth at fate.

She played for a while with her little finger tips upon the rail, then turned her gaze, full and bold, upon him.

"I do not complain," she said.

He bowed gravely. "We will do our best for you, and if you will take patience, the time will pass at last, as all time passes. I have a few books, they shall be brought into your cabin. In three days we shall be in St. Malo – There, if you like – " he hesitated, embarrassed.

"There!" echoed Lady Landale with her eyes still fixed upon his downcast face – "If I like – what?"

"We could leave you – "

Her bosom rose and fell quickly with stormy breaths. "Alone, moneyless, in a strange town – that is well and kindly thought!" she said.

Whence had come to her this strange power of feeling pain? She had not known that one could suffer in one's heart like this; she, whose quarrel with life hitherto had been for its too great comfort, security and peace. She felt a lump rise to her throat, and tears well into her eyes, blurring all the sunlit vision and she turned her head away and beat her sound left hand clenched upon the ledge.

"Before heaven," cried Jack, distressed out of his unnatural stiffness, "you mistake me, Lady Landale! I am only anxious to do what is best for you, what Adrian would wish. To leave you alone, deserted, helpless at St. Malo, you could not have thought I should mean that? No, indeed, I would have seen you into safe hands, in some comfortable hotel, with a maid to wait upon you – I know of such a place – Adrian could not have been long in coming to fetch you. I should have had a letter ready to post to him the instant we landed. As to money," flushing boyishly, "that is the least consideration – there is no dearth of that to fear. If you prefer it I can, however, convey you somewhere upon the English coast after we quit St. Malo; but that will entail a longer residence for you here on board ship; and it is no fit place for you."

Still looking out across the sea, Molly replied, in a deep shaken voice, unlike her own, "You did not think it unfit for my sister."

"Your sister? But your sister was to have been my wife!"

Burning through the mists of her unshed tears once more her glance returned to his: "And I – " she cried and here was suddenly silent again, gazing at the thin circlet of gold upon her left hand, beneath the flashing diamonds. After a moment then, she broke out fiercely – "Oh do with me what you will, but for God's sake leave me in peace!" And stamping, turned her shoulder on him to stare straight outwards as before.

Captain Jack drew back, paused an instant, clutched his hair with a desperate gesture and slowly walked away.

The voyage of the Peregrine was as rapid as her captain had hoped, and the dawn of the fourth day broke upon them from behind the French coast, where Normandy joins old Armorica.

For a little while, Lady Landale, awakened from her uneasy sleep by the unusual stir on deck, lay languidly watching the light as it filtered through the port-hole of her little cabin, the colours growing out of greyness on the walls; listening to the tramp of feet and the mate's husky voice without. Then her heart tightened with a premonition of the coming separation. She sat up and looked out of her window: as the horizon rose and fell giddily to her eye there lay the fatal line of land. The land of her blood but to her now, the land of exile!

She had seen but little of Captain Jack these last two days; interchanged but few and formal words with him, now and then, as they met morning and evening or came across each other during the day. She felt that he avoided her. But she had seen him, she had heard his voice, they had been close to each other upon the great seas, however divided, and this had been something to feed upon. Now what prospect before her hungry heart but – starvation?

At least the last precious moments should not be lost to her. She rose and dressed in haste; a difficult operation in her maimed state. Before leaving her narrow quarters, she peered into the looking-glass with an eagerness she had never displayed in the days of her vain girlhood.

"What a fright!" she said to the anxious face that looked back at her with yearning eyes and dark burning lips. And she thought of Madeleine's placid fairness as Cain might of Abel's modest altar.

When she emerged upon deck, a strange and beautiful scene was spread to her gaze. A golden haze enveloped the water and the coast, but out of it, in brown jagged outline, against the blazing background of glowing sunlight rose the towers, the pointed roofs and spires of that old corsair's hive, St. Malo. The waters were bright green, frothed with oily foam around the ship. The masts cast strange long black shadows, and Molly saw one spring from her own feet as she moved into the morning glow. The Peregrine, she noticed, was cruising parallel with the coast, instead of making for the harbour, and just now all was very still on board. Two men, conspicuous against the yellow sky, stood apart, a little forward, with their backs turned to her.

One of these was Captain Jack, gazing steadily at the town through a telescope; the other the mate. Both were silent. Silently herself and unnoticed Molly went up and stood beside them; observing her sister's lover as intently as he that unknown distant point, she presently saw the lean hand nearest her tremble ever so slightly as it held the glass; then he turned and handed it to his companion, saying briefly, "See what you make of it."

The man lifted the glass, set it, looked, dropped his hand and faced his captain. Their eyes met, but neither spoke for a second or two.

"It is so, then?" said the captain at last.

"Aye, sir, no mistake about that. There's the tricolour up again – and be damned to it – as large as life, to be sure!"

The healthy tan of the captain's face had not altered by one shade; his mouth was set in its usual firm line, but, by the intuition of her fiery soul, the woman beside him knew that he had received a blow.

"A strange thing," went on Curwen in a grumbling guttural bass, "and it's only a year ago since they set up the old white napkin again. You did not look for this, sir?" He too had his intuitions.

"No, Curwen, it is the last thing I looked for. And it spells failure to me – failure once more!"

As he spoke he turned his head slightly and perceiving Molly standing close behind him glanced up sharply and frowned, then strove to smooth his brow into conventional serenity and greeted her civilly.

Curwen, clenching his hard hands together round the telescope, retired a step and stood apart, still hanging on his captain's every gesture like a faithful dog.

"What does it mean?" asked Molly, disregarding the morning salutation.

"It means strange things to France," responded Captain Jack slowly, with a bitter smile; "and to me, Madam, it means that I have come on a wild goose chase – "

He stretched out his hand for the glass once more as he spoke – although even by the naked eye the flag, minute as it was, could be seen to flash red in the breeze – and sought the far-off flutter again; and then closing the instrument with an angry snap, tossed it back.

"But what does it mean?" reiterated Molly, a wild impatience, a wild hope trembling in her breast.

"It means, Madam, that I have brought my pigs to the wrong market," cried Captain Jack, still with the smile that sat so strangely upon his frank lips; "that the goods I have to deliver, I cannot deliver. For if there is any meaning in symbols, by the wave of that tricolour yonder the country has changed rulers again. My dealings were to be with the king's men, and as they are not here, at least, no longer in power – how could they be under that rag? – I must even trot the cargo home again. Not a word to the men, Curwen, but give the order to sheer off! We have lowered the blue, white and red too often, have not we? to risk a good English ship, unarmed, under the nozzles of those Republican or Imperial guns."

The man grinned. The two could trust each other. Molly turned away and moved seawards, for she knew that the joy upon her face was not to be hidden. Captain Jack fell to pacing the deck with bent head, and long, slow steps.

Absorbed in dovetailing the last secret arrangements of his venture, and more intent still, during his very few hours of idleness, on the engrossing thought of love, he had had no knowledge of the extraordinary challenge to fate cast by Bonaparte, of that challenge which was to end in the last and decisive clash of French and English hosts. He had not even heard of the Corsican's return to France with his handful of grenadiers, for newspapers were scarce at Scarthey. But even had he heard, like the rest of the world, he would no doubt have thought no more of it than as a mad freak born of the vanquished usurper's foolhardy restlessness.

But the conclave of plenipotentiaries assembled at Vienna were not more thunderstruck when, on that very 19th of March, the semaphore brought them news of the legitimate King of France once more fled, and of his country once more abandoned to the hated usurper, than was Captain Jack as he watched the distant flagstaff in the sunrise, and saw, when the morning port gun had vomited forth its white cloud on the ramparts of St. Malo, the fatal stripes run up the slender line in lieu of the white standard.

But Jack Smith's mind, like his body, was quick in action. The sun had travelled but a degree or two over the wide undulating land, the mists were yet rising, when suddenly he halted, and called the mate in those commanding tones that had, from the first time she had heard them, echoed in Molly's heart:

"Bring her alongside one of those smacks yonder, the furthest out to sea."

Thereupon followed Curwen's hoarse bellow, an ordered stampede upon the deck, and gracefully, with no more seeming effort than a swan upon a garden pond, the Peregrine veered and glided towards the rough skiff with its single ochre sail and its couple of brown-faced fishermen, who had left their nets to watch her advance. Captain Jack leant over the side, his hands over his mouth, and hailed them in his British-French – correct enough, but stiff to his tongue, as Molly heard and smiled at, and loved him for, in woman's way, when she loves at all.

"Ahoy, the friend! A golden piece for him who will come on board and tell the news of the town."

A brief consultation between the fisher pair.

"Un écu d'or," repeated Captain Jack. Then there was a flash of white teeth on the two weather-beaten faces.

"On y va, patron," cried one of the fellows, cheerfully, and jumped into his dinghey, while his comrade still stared and grinned, and the stalwart lads of the Peregrine grinned back at the queer foreign figure with the brown cap and the big gold earrings.

Soon the fisherman's bare feet were thudding on the deck, and he stood before the English captain, cap in hand, his little, quick black eyes roaming in all directions, over the wonders of the beautiful white ship, with innocent curiosity. But before Captain Jack could get his tongue round another French phrase, Molly, detaching herself from her post of observation, came forward, smiling.

"Let me speak to him," she said, "he will understand me better, and it will go quicker. What is it you want to know?"

Captain Jack hesitated a moment, saw the advantage of the suggestion, and then accepted the offer with the queer embarrassment that always came over him in his relations with her.

"You are very good," he said.

"Oh, I like to talk the father and mother tongue," she said, gaily and sweetly. Her eyes danced; he had never seen her in this mood, and, as before, grudgingly had to admit her beauty.

"And if you will allow it," she went on, "I am glad to be of use too."

The fisherman, twirling his cap in his knotted fingers, stared at her open mouthed. Une si belle dame! like a queen and speaking his tongue that it was a music to listen to. This was in truth a ship of marvels. Ah, bon Dieu, oui, Madame, there were news at St. Malo, but it depended upon one's feelings whether they were to be regarded as good or bad —Dame, every one has one's opinions – but for him —pourvu qu'on lui fiche la paix– what did it matter who sat on the throne – His Majesty the King – His Majesty the Emperor, or Citizen Bonaparte. Oh, a poor fisherman, what was it to him? He occupied himself with his little fishes, not with great folk. (Another white-teethed grin.) What had happened? Parbleu, it began by the military, those accursed military (this with a cautious look around, and gathering courage by seeing no signs of disapproval, proceeding with greater volubility). The poor town was full of them, infantry and artillery; regiments of young devils – and a band of old ones too. The veterans of celui là (spitting on the deck contemptuously) they were the worst; that went without saying. A week ago there came a rumour that he had escaped – was in France – and then the ferment began – duels every day – rows in the cafés, fights in the ports. At night one would hear shouts in the streets —Vive l'Empereur! and it spread, it spread. Ma foi– one regiment mutinied, then another – and then it was known that the Emperor had reached Paris. Oh, then it was warm! All those gentlemen, the officers who were for the King, were arrested. Then there was a grand parade on the place d'armes– Yes, he went there too, though he did not care much about soldiers. All the garrison was there. The colonel of the veterans came out with a flag in its case. Portez armes! Good. They pull out the flag from the case: it's the old tricolour with the eagle on the top! Presentez armes! And this time it was all over. Ah, one should have seen that, heard the houras, seen the bonfires! Monsieur le Maire and the rest, appointed by the King, they were in a great fright, they had to give way – what does Madame say? Traitors? Oh, bédame (scratching his head), it was no joke with the military just now – the whole place was under military law and, saperlotte, when the strong commands it is best for the weak to obey. As for him, he was only a poor fisherman. What did he know? he was not a politician: every one to his trade. So long as they let one have the peace – He thanked the gentleman, thanked him much; thanked the lady, desired to wish her the good-morning and Monsieur too. Did they like no little fresh soles this morning? He had some leaping then below in his boat. No? well the good-morning then.

They had heard enough. The fisherman paddled back to his skiff, and Molly stood watching from a little distance the motionless figure of the captain of the Peregrine as with one hand clenching the hand-rail he gazed towards St. Malo with troubled eyes.

After a few minutes Curwen advanced and touched him lightly on the arm.

Captain Jack turned slowly to look at him: his face was a little pale and his jaw set. But the mate, who had served under him since the day he first stepped upon the old St. Nicholas, a gallant, fair-faced lad (and who knew "every turn of him," as he would have expressed it himself), saw that he had taken his decision; and he stepped back satisfied, ready to shape his course for the near harbour, or for the Pacific Ocean, or back to Scarthey itself at his master's bidding.

"Call the men up," said the captain, "they have earned their bounty and they shall have it. Though their skipper is a poorer man than he thought to be, by this fool's work yonder, his good lads shall not suffer. Tush, man, that's the order – not a word. And after that, Curwen, let her make for the sea again, northwards."