“Fairly well, I think,” lied André.
“Good crop of tomatoes?” continued grandpapa. Rachell knew that he knew the tomatoes were diseased this year. Need he turn the dagger in the wound? She stretched out her foot under the table and touched André’s boot very, very gently. . . . By her touch the dagger was subtly withdrawn.
Dinner passed somehow. Roast beef was followed by apricot tart, Stilton cheese—into which grandpapa poured a little port wine to increase its colony of tasty maggots—plum cake and dessert. Then they all went into the library and grandpapa and André smoked cigars, and they all gazed bleakly at the garden and the harbour through windows that were apparently hermetically sealed.
Rachell gripped her hands together and felt for the thousandth time that if she had to live here always she would go mad. Something must happen to prevent it. Something must, must happen to prevent it. But what? It seemed to her now, in the depression subsequent to overeating, that her vision and hopes of last night were just moonshine. She knew a moment of utter, black despair. The smoking of the cigars seemed interminable to her, but when at last nothing was left of them but evil-smelling wreaths twisting round the room like bad spells she suggested they should all go down to the harbour and see if there was any news about the wreck . . . André was getting whiter and whiter. . . . Cigars never suited him, but in grandpapa’s opinion a man who could not smoke his cigar was a white livered nincompoop—and she feared that unless fresh air were administered promptly something really dreadful might occur.
“Shan’t come with you,” said grandpapa, “don’t care if the beggars are drowned. Serve ’em right for taking to steam. Should have stuck to sail. Good-bye. See you next week. What?” And spreading his newspaper over his head he was snoring almost before they got out into the hall.
Thankfully, with the air of children let out of school, they went down the hill towards the harbour.
“Do you feel better, darling?” asked Rachell. “It was that cigar, only if you refuse it annoys him so.”
André, taking great gulps of fresh air, nodded. The children ran on ahead and, though it was Sunday, were not rebuked. . . . Everyone’s spirits rose.
At the very bottom of Le Paradis respectability left off suddenly with the turning to La Rue Clubin. Colin glanced up it but all its glory had been quenched by Sunday. The booths were gone, the gay jostling crowds were gone. Mère Tangrouille had gone, nothing was left of yesterday’s delights but the mangy cats and a few dirty children playing in the gutter.
“Something ought to be done about that street,” said Rachell, “it’s a perfect disgrace, and they say the sweets they sell there are simply poison. Luckily the children never go near it.”
André assented and Colin, overhearing, wore the expression of a seraph.
They passed the Town Church and came to the harbour. It was a glorious still hot day with a sea like smooth turquoise silk. Impossible to think that menace could lie hidden below that soft shimmering surface, yet the crowds that thronged the harbour wall bore witness that it was so.
“André,” cried Rachell, “the boats are coming in! The children! I don’t want the children to see!”
But it was too late. All the children but fat Colette, burrowing and squeezing, had already wormed their way through the crowds to the harbour wall, leaving their more ample parents hemmed in by stout perspiring Islanders in their Sunday best.
One by one the boats left the open sea, swung silently into the shelter of the harbour and glided across to the steps. Sympathetic hands were held out to help white-faced exhausted men and women up the steps to safety. The crowd, swaying a little with excitement, was silent except for little tense murmured ejaculations that ran hither and thither like darting flames in a stubble field.
“Ah, holy Virgin, poor souls, poor souls!” Rachell heard as she stood there clinging to André’s arms. “All night on the open sea in the little boats, and always a swell round Catian Roque—” “ ’Tis the devil’s own place, that reef. They say there’s a demon hid in the caves below—” “I passed the reef once with my father. Black and scarred the rocks are, and the water round them always black like pitch, and makes a sucking sound that turns the blood cold in your veins—” “They were too many for the boats. A third of them was lost—” “They could see the dead floating on the water when the fog lifted—” “Yes, a third of them lost.”
Some among the crowd, as each boat came in, were agonizedly scrutinizing the faces of the rescued, desperately hoping to see an expected face, for there had been Islanders on the wrecked ship. Now and then there was a snapping of self-control and a little burst of sobbing cut the hush like a whip. It was horrible. Rachell could hardly bear it. She caught sight of a woman’s unconscious face as they lifted her from the boat. Why had she fainted? Had she seen her child dead on the water when the fog lifted? Rachell clutched Colette’s hand tightly in hers and shut her eyes. She wished she could go home, but they could not move for the press, and where, oh where, were the children?
The three girls were jammed against the harbour wall but Colin, with his amazing genius for being where he wanted to be, was at the very top of a flight of steps, clinging to the rope handrail to prevent himself being pushed into the water by the crowd behind him. But he was not in the least alarmed. He was enjoying himself enormously. It was really better than the circus.
And now the very last boat had rounded the buoy at the harbour mouth and was skimming like a bird over the still water. . . . The last boat. . . . The crowd bent and swayed in an eerie silence. It was as though a sudden tempest rocked them, a hideous tempest that brought with it no familiar sound of wind-lashed trees but only a horrible deathlike hush. The boat drew up at the steps and the faces of those on board were clearly seen. There were one or two cries of welcome, so sharp with agonized relief that there was more pain than joy in them, but three or four tense figures turned abruptly and, pushing blindly against the crowd, stumbled away towards the town.
Colin, mad with excitement, was oblivious of either joy or agony. He gave a great whoop of joy. The boat was his boat. It was Hélier Falliot’s boat. In the bows stood Hélier himself with Guilbert beside him. Colin identified himself instantly with Hélier and Guilbert and felt himself the hero of the hour. It was his boat. He had toiled all the morning saving the shipwrecked. His heart swelled with vicarious pride. Sprawling down the slimy steps like a young crab, he was the first to lay steadying hands upon the gunnel. Here he remained, holding on like grim death, with men stepping over him, men kicking him, men prodding him and saying, “Damn you, boy, get out of the way,” women above crying “Mind the child,” and sea water washing over his best boots. It was his boat, and he was not to be detached from it until the last of those he had rescued was safely on shore. He crouched with his eyes shut, boots scraping his head and water splashing up into his face, but gradually as the commotion died he opened one eye and found himself looking at the last occupant of the boat, a grizzled man, his torn shirt and trousers dripping with sea water, who sat in the stern with his head in his hands.
“Found him clinging to a bit of wreckage,” muttered Hélier to someone in his musical patois, “wouldn’t be picked up till all the rest were safe. Only just room for him in the boat.” He crossed to the stranger and tapped him on the shoulder. “M’sieur,” he said gently, “nous sommes arrivés.”
The man lifted his head, and he and Colin looked straight at each other. Colin had never seen so strange a creature. He had a rugged ugly face, hard and self-contained, and just now grey with exhaustion. He had a great scar across one cheek and an untidy thicket of grey beard that emphasized the look of wildness in his strange yellow eyes.
“C’est lîle. Venez, m’sieur.” Hélier thrust his hands under the man’s armpits and pulled him to his feet. Colin, drawn in some incomprehensible way by the stare of those yellow eyes, scrambled over the gunnel, went to him and seized hold o
f him frantically by his torn dripping shirt, as though he intended never to let him go. . . .
It was at this point that Rachell, for the first and last time in her dignified life, created a most deplorable disturbance.
She had been standing quietly by André, haunted by the thought of the unconscious woman she had seen lifted from the boat, and by those stricken figures who had crept away from the glaring, horrible sea, when she had opened her eyes suddenly as though someone had struck her a blow in the face. Through a sudden gap in the crowd she saw the boat at the harbour steps and her son Colin clinging to an ugly, rough-looking man with a torn shirt. She stared at the man’s face. It was the man of her “seeing.” . . .
All control fled from her. She became as a desperate creature fighting for life. Abandoning Colette she flung herself upon the crowd in front of her. Pushing, kicking, striking right and left with her parasol, she fought her way to the top of the steps. Hélier was just helping the man up them. She seized his arm.
“You are to bring him to Bon Repos,” she cried, her voice rising almost to a scream. “To Bon Repos. Do you hear? As soon as he is recovered you are to bring him to me. Mrs. du Frocq. The farm called Bon Repos.”
She shook Hélier’s brawny arm savagely and gazed into his dumbfounded face like a mad thing.
“He is my friend. He must come to me. To Bon Repos.” She stamped her foot in her urgency and shook the sailor again. The stranger, too exhausted to be conscious of her, stood swaying in Hélier’s grip.
“Très bon, m’dame, presently we will bring him.” Hélier’s native courtesy conquered his astonishment. He made a gesture of politeness with one arm whilst heaving the stranger up the steps with the other. . . . Rachell stood back, panting a little, her hands at her breast. . . . Willing hands stretched down from above, and the man was borne off to the tavern just beyond the harbour wall.
Meanwhile André, with Colette sobbing with fright clutched beneath one arm, had arrived upon the scene of action.
“What in the world, Rachell,” he demanded, “that ugly-looking vagabond! Are you mad?”
A crowd was surrounding them now, for Rachell was well known on the Island. Mrs. du Frocq of Bon Repos—the old doctor’s beautiful daughter-in-law—hitherto a model of dignity and restraint . . . There was a certain pleasure in seeing her tumble off her pedestal and turn into an ordinary hysterical woman—the crowd pressed a little nearer. . . . They were terribly conspicuous. . . . Dreadful. . . . André had never before been so near losing his temper with his wife.
But with the same suddenness with which she had lost it Rachell recovered her self-control.
“André,” she said, “we must go home and prepare for him. I will explain—”
With lovely gestures she gathered her family to her, settled her lace mantle, erected her parasol and took her husband’s arm. The crowd fell back respectfully as she sailed through them with the motion of a superbly gliding swan. Other people might have left behind them an unfavourable impression, but, as usual, nothing was left in the wake of Rachell’s magnificent exit but a sense of exquisite rightness.
Chapter 3
I
THE fogs of August writhed away behind the arched dome of the September sky, tipped like a shining bowl over an earth and sea clear and unsullied and bright as polished enamel. It never rained very much on the Island in summer, yet so richly stored with water was its earth that the wells were always brimful, and the water-lanes musical with their impatient little streams hurrying to the sea. Rich and lush was the grass around the wells and the ferns in the lanes were of an almost savage green, framing in their plumes patches of sky of so deep a blue that, gazing at it, one thought of the coolness of lake water rather than a limitless depth of sun-warmed space. Only on the cliff edge the short grass was dry and brown, panting for the autumn rains. Not so the heather. The little wiry stalks had crept and twisted everywhere, carrying a myriad purple bells over the cliff face and right down over the rocks almost to the sea. Dry and crisp and tiny were these little flowers of wind-swept space, giving out a faint almost metallic sound as the hand passed over them, with none of the caressing softness of more sheltered flowers yet pouring over the barren cliff a flood of opulent, almost blaring colour, triumphant as a trumpet blast.
Wherever one looked the heather colour was repeated. Out at sea purple cloud shadows striped jade green water and in the du Frocq’s garden purple Michaelmas daisies bloomed above the spilled rose petals. The passion flowers round the windows were out, hiding their sacred sorrows under the green leaves.
Nature was perhaps aware of coming weariness, a little conscious that spring was a long time ago, but before the storms of winter overwhelmed her she was determined to flaunt a still vivid beauty before the eyes of men. If they could no longer revel in the cool blue and gold of her youth they should lower their eyes reverently before this regal purple of her age.
And the man who stood on the flat rock above La Baie des Mouettes did so, and sighed a little. It was very early and, in spite of a summer sky and sea, there was a cold nip in the air. “Autumn,” he muttered and shivered. He had lived so long abroad, under a sun whose blazing warmth was a fact of existence to be counted on, that the thought of once more facing chill winds and driving sleet sent a little thrill of horror through him. He cursed himself for a fool under his breath. Assuredly he was a fool to stay and face an Island winter when all the warmth of the world was his for the taking. He would go. Nothing held him. He would be a fool to stay. He had been a fool to come. He had sailed from France to the Island intending to stay for one day only, simply to hear once more the Island patois singing in the lanes and the streams tinkling in the water-lanes, to see if the honeysuckle on the cliffs was as thick as it used to be, and if the little Church of St. Raphael still stood four-square to the great gales. Then he had meant to go back again to the hot countries where his life had passed from a riotously hopeful youth to a maturity scorched with bitterness.
Yet, perhaps there was more in it than that. Perhaps he had hoped that the pain of seeing the Island again would be sufficiently great to rise and submerge the searing flame of disappointment that ran backwards and forwards within him. To exchange one pain for another is sometimes as great a relief as cessation of pain. If that had been his wish it had not been granted him. Sometimes for a moment a pain that had its roots in his green youth rose like a well of water and promised refreshment, but while he was still taking great gasps of relief, like a parched man seeing a cup of water, it receded and he was left alone again with his scorching bitterness. He had come for one day, had found neither rest nor comfort, and yet had stayed a month. . . . He was a fool. . . . He turned his back abruptly and climbed up the grassy slope to the cliff top.
It was the same slope that Michelle had climbed a month ago but now it was slippery as glass, and only a man who had learnt in his youth how to negotiate it would have attempted it. . . . He climbed it with the carelessness of a reckless man.
At the top he turned and looked down again at the exquisite beauty of La Baie des Mouettes, and for a moment that little spring of refreshment rose in him. . . . The green and the blue and the purple. . . . The soft creaming of the waves round the rocks. . . . The gleam of wet pebbles. . . . After the scorching sands of the desert these things were good.
He raised his eyes to the gulls soaring, dipping, swerving, diving, backwards and forwards, up and down, round and round. Their wings were tracing a pattern, or a spell whose filaments were twisting round him and binding him to this blasted little Island. A spell? He smiled at the childish word, reminding him of the fairybooks of his childhood. Yet how else describe that power which Rachell and her children had over him? He had thought that no human being would ever again hold him, yet here he was, a wanderer, tethered against his will, and by a woman and a handful of commonplace children. . . . No, not commonplace . . . Michelle . . . Peronelle . . . Jacqueline . . .
Colin . . . Colette. . . . These were each separate and unique strands in the spell that bound him.
He swung suddenly on his heel and walked away. He would have to stay. Something stronger than himself would keep him at Bon Repos. Their need of him? As this thought slipped abruptly into his mind he laughed out loud, and his laugh was as harsh and mocking as the gulls’ own. Need? That was a word that he had never allowed admittance into his scheme of things. It had been his aim, always, that he should need nothing and that nothing should need him. Perfect freedom from all ties, absolute aloneness, had been his abiding ambition and he had pursued it with a ferocity that had the desired effect of keeping him isolated like a savage bonfire. What then? He could not admit for a moment that any weakening had come with age, and slewed abruptly away from his own thoughts.
Instead he went back in memory to that day a month ago when he had first become aware of Rachell and her tribe of children—that day of the wreck. It had been a hideous night, a hideous morning, and yet he had enjoyed it. Very few things stirred him in these days, yet the shuddering thrill that passed through the ship as she grated on the rocks had thrilled rather pleasantly in his soul—it had been a new experience to a man who thought he had drained the last dregs of experience. Then the night of activity—strapping lifebelts on the terrified women—lowering the boats—calming the children—it had all acted upon him as a narcotic and he had forgotten the ceaseless burden of his own disillusionment. When the bustle was over he had taken to the water with a sense of relief. There was no room for him in the boats and death seemed certain—he would be able to slip thankfully from a narcotic to extinction. Yet once in the sea he found himself automatically keeping himself afloat, and when the chance of clinging to some wreckage came to him he clung to it as though he were the ardent boy he had been forty years ago. Afterwards he had marvelled at this incident. There had been more in it than the natural instinct of self preservation. Perhaps the first filament of the spell had tightened round him then. When the fog had lifted and the boats from the Island had arrived he had been the last to be saved. He had waited cynically, not drawing attention to himself, still holding out a welcoming hand to death just round the corner, yet with the other still clinging to his spar. When Hélier’s brawny hands had gripped him and hauled him into the boat he had spat out the sea water that filled his mouth and then laughed. . . . His laugh had not been pleasant to hear. . . . What sort of a fool was he? He had been near to complete freedom, without taking the path of obvious suicide and branding himself as a coward in men’s eyes, and yet he had deliberately locked on the shackles again. . . . Savagely he shook off Hélier’s ministering hands. . . . After that he had collapsed.