The Light of Scarthey: A Romance

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE FIGHT FOR THE OPEN

  As o'er the grass, beneath the larches there We gaily stepped, the high noon overhead, Then Love was born--was born so strong and fair. Knowest thou! Love is dead.

  _Gipsy Song._

  At last he was free. He had wrested his bride and the treasure trustedto his honour from the snares so unexpectedly laid on his path;whatever troubles might remain stored against him in the dim distanceof time, he would not reck them now. The present and the immediatefuture were full of splendour and triumph.

  All those golden schemes worked out under yonder light ofScarthey--God bless it--now receding in the gloom behind his swiftrunning ship, whether in the long watches of the night, or in therecent fevered resolves of imminent danger, they had come to passafter all! And she, the light of his life, was with him. She hadtrusted her happiness, her honour, herself, to his love. The thoughtillumined his brain with glory as he rushed back to the silent muffledfigure that still stood awaiting his coming.

  "At last!" he said, panting in the excess of his joy; "At last,Madeleine ... I can hardly believe it! But selfish brute that I am,you must be crushed with fatigue. My brave darling, you would make meforget your tender woman's frame, and you are wounded!"

  Supporting her--for the ship, reaching the open sea, had begun to rollmore wildly--he led her back into the little room now lighted by thefitful rays of a swinging lamp. With head averted, she sufferedherself to be seated on a kind of sofa couch.

  When he had closed the door, he seized her hand, on which ran streaksof half-dried blood, and covered it with kisses.

  "Ah, Madeleine! here in the sanctuary I had prepared for you, where Ithought you would be so safe, so guarded, tell me that you forgive mefor having brought this injury to you. Wounded, torn, bleeding.... Iwho would give all my blood, my life, if life were not so precious tome now that you have come into it, to save you from the slightestpain! At least here you are secure, here you can rest, but--but thereis no one to wait on you, Madeleine." He fell on his knees beside her."Madeleine, my wife, you must let me tend you." Then, as she shiveredslightly, but did not turn to him, he went on in tones of the mostrestrained tenderness mingled with humblest pleading:

  "Had it not been for your accident, I had not ventured even to crossthe threshold of this room. But your wound must be dressed; darling,darling, allow me, forgive me; the risk is too great."

  Rising to his feet again he gently pulled at her cloak. Molly spokenot a word, but untied it at the neck and let it fall away from herfair young body; and keeping her hooded face still rigidly averted,she surrendered her wounded arm.

  He muttered words of distress at the sight of the broad blood stains;stepped hurriedly to a little cupboard where such surgical stores asmight be required on board were hoarded, and having selected scissors,lint, and bandages, came back and again knelt down by her side to cutoff, with eager, compassionate hands, the torn and maculated sleeve.

  The wound was but a surface laceration, and a man would not have givena thought to it in the circumstances. But to see this soft, whitewoman's skin, bruised black in parts, torn with a horrid red gap inothers; to see the beauty of this round arm thus brutally marred, thustwitching with pain--it was monstrous, hideously unnatural in thelover's eyes!

  With tenderness, but unflinchingly, he laved the mangled skin withcool, fresh water; pulled out, with far greater torture to himselfthan to her, some remaining splinters embedded in the flesh; coveredthe wound with lint, and finished the operation by a bandage as neatas his neat sailor's touch, coupled with some knowledge of surgery,gained in the experiences of his privateering days, could accomplishit. He spoke little: only a word of encouragement, of admiration forher fortitude now and then; and she spoke not at all during theministration. She had raised her other hand to her eyes, with agesture natural to one bracing herself to endurance, and had kept itthere until, his task completed, her silence, the manner in which shehid her face from him awoke in him all that was best and loftiest inhis generous heart.

  As he rose to his feet and stood before her, he too dared not speakfor fear of bruising what he deemed an exquisite maidenliness, beforewhich his manhood was abashed at itself. For some moments there was nosound in the cabin save that of the swift rushing waters behind thewooden walls and of the labour and life of the ship under full sail;then he saw the tumultuous rising of her bosom, and thought she wasweeping.

  "Madeleine," he cried with passionate anxiety, "speak! Let me see yourface--are you faint? Lie upon this couch. Let me get you wine--oh thatthese days were passed and I could call you wife and never leave you!Madeleine, my love, speak!"

  Molly rose to her feet, and with a gesture of anger threw off her hoodand turned round upon him. And there in the light of the lamp, heglared like one distraught at the raven locks, the burning eyes of astrange woman.

  She was very pale.

  "No," said Molly, defiantly, when twice or thrice his laboured breathhad marked the passing of the horrible moment, "I am not Madeleine."Then she tried to smile; but unconsciously she was frightened, and thesmile died unformed as she pursued at random:

  "You know me--perhaps by hearsay--as I know you, Captain Smith."

  But he, shivering under the coldness of his disappointment, answeredin a kind of weary whisper:

  "Who are you--you who speak with her voice, who stand at her heightand move and walk as she does? I have seen you surely--Ah, I know....Madam, what a cruel mockery! And she, where is she?"

  Still staring at her with widely dilated eyes, he seized his foreheadbetween his hands. The gesture was one of utter despair. Before thisweakness Molly promptly resumed the superiority of self-possession.

  "Yes," she said, and this time the smile came back to her face, "I amLady Landale, and my sister Madeleine--I grieve to have to say so--hasnot had that courage for which you gave her credit to-night."

  Little was required at a moment like this to transmute such thoughtsas seethed in the man's head to a burst of fury. Fury is action, andaction a relief to the strained heart. There was a half-concealed,unintended mockery in her tones which brought a sudden fire of angerto his eyes. He raised both hands and shook them fiercely above hishead:

  "But why--why in the name of heaven--has such a trick been played onme ... at such a time?"

  He paused, and trembling with the effort, restrained himself to a moredecent bearing before the woman, the lady, the friend's wife. His armsfell by his side, and he repeated in lower tones, though the flame ofhis gaze could not be subdued:

  "Why this deception, this playing with the blindness of my love? Whythis comedy, which has already had one act so tragic?--Yes, think ofit, madam, think of the tragedy this is now in my life, since she isleft behind and I never now, with these men's lives to account for,may go back and claim her who has given me her troth! Already I stakedthe fortune of my trust, on the bare chance that she would come. Whatthough her heart failed her at the eleventh hour?--God forgive her forit!--surely she never sanctioned this masquerade?... Oh no! she wouldnot stoop to such an act, and human life is not a thing to jest upon.She never played this trick, the thought is too odious. What have youdone! Had I known, had I had word sooner--but half an hoursooner--those corpses now rolling under the wave with their sunkenship would still be live men and warm.... And I--I should not be thehopeless outlaw, the actual murderer that this night's work has madeof me!"

  His voice by degrees rose once more to the utmost ring of bitternessand anger. Molly, who had restored her cloak to her shoulders and satdown, ensconced in it as closely as her swaddled arm would allow her,contemplated him with a curious mixture of delight and terror; delightin his vigour, his beauty, above everything in his mastery andstrength; and delight again at the new thrill of the fear it imposedupon her daring soul. Then she flared into rage at the thought of thecoward of her blood who had broken faith with such a man as this, andshe melted all into sympathy with his anger--A right proper man mostcruelly used an
d most justifiably wrathful!

  And she, being a woman whose face was at most times as a book on whichto read the working of her soul, there was something in her look, asin silence she listened and gazed upon him, which struck him suddenlydumb. Such a look on a face so like, yet so unlike, that of his lovewas startling in the extreme--horrible.

  He stepped back, and made as if he would have rushed from the room.Then bethinking himself that he was a madman, he drew a chair near herin a contrary mood, sat down, and fixed his eyes upon her verysteadily.

  She dropped her long lids, and demurely composed her features by someinstinct that women have, rather than from any sense of the impressionshe had produced.

  A little while they sat thus again in silence. In the silence, therolling of the ship and the manner in which, as she raced on her way,she seemed to breathe and strain, worked in with the mood of each; inhis, with the storm and stress of his soul; in hers, as the veryexpression of her new freedom and reckless pleasure.

  Then he spoke; the strong emotion that had warmed her had now left hisvoice. It was cold and scornful.

  "Madam, I await your explanation. So far, I find myself only thevictim of a trick as unworthy and cruel as it is purposeless."

  She had delayed carrying out her mission with the most definiteperverseness. She could not but acknowledge the justice of hisreproof, realise the sorry part she must play in his eyes, theinexcusable folly of the whole proceeding, and yet she was strung to avery lively indignation by the tone he had assumed, and suddenly sawherself in the light of a most disinterested and injured virtue.

  "Captain Smith," she exclaimed, flashing a hot glance at him, "youassume strangely the right to be angry with me! Be angry if you willwith things as they are; rail against fate if you will, but begrateful to me.--I have risked much to serve you."

  The whole expression of his face changed abruptly to one of eager,almost entreating, inquiry.

  "Do me the favour," she continued, "to look into the pocket of mycloak--my arm hurts me if I move--you will find there a letteraddressed to you. I was adjured to see that it should reach you insafety. I promised to place it in your own hands. This could hardlyhave been done sooner, as you know."

  The words all at once seemed to alter the whole situation. He sprangup and came to her quickly.

  "Oh, forgive me, make allowances for me, Lady Landale, I am quitedistracted!" There had returned a tinge of hope into his voice. "Whereis it?" he eagerly asked, seeking, as directed, for the pocket. "Ah!"and mechanically repeating, "Forgive me!" he drew out the letter atlast and retreated, feverishly opening it under the light of the lamp.

  Molly had turned round to watch. Up to this she had felt no regret forhis disillusion, only an irritable heat of temper that he should wasteso much love upon so poor an object. But now all her heart went to himas she saw the sudden greyness that fell on his face from the readingof the very first line; there was no indignation, no blood-stirringemotion; it was as if a cold pall had fallen upon his generous spirit.The very room looked darker when the fire within the brave soul wasthus all of a sudden extinguished.

  He read on slowly, with a kind of dull obstinacy, and when he came tothe miserable end continued looking at the paper for the moment. Thenhis hand fell; slowly the letter fluttered to the floor, and he lethis eyes rest unseeingly, wonderingly upon the messenger.

  After a little while words broke from him, toneless, the mere echo ofdazed thoughts: "It is over, all over. She has lost her trust. Shedoes not love me any more."

  He picked up the letter again, and sitting down placed it in front ofhim on the table. "'Tis a cruel letter, madam, that you have broughtme," he said then, looking up at Molly with the most extraordinarypain in his eyes. "A cruel letter! Yet I am the same man now that Iwas this morning when she swore she would trust me to the end--and shecould not trust me a few hours longer! Why did you not speak? One wordfrom you as you stepped upon the ship would have saved my soul fromthe guilt of these men's death!" Then with a sharper uplifting of hisvoice, 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 somuch, 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 comebetween me and my trust. I have already dishonourably endangered it.To attempt to return with you to-night, as perhaps you fancy Iwill--as, of course, I would instantly do had I alone myself and youto consider, would be little short of madness. It would mean utterruin to many whom I have pledged myself to serve. And yet Adrian--myhonour pulls me two ways--poor Adrian! What dumb devil possessed youthat you did not speak before. Had you no thought for your woman'sgood name? Ill-fated venture, ill-fated venture, indeed! Would Godthat 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 allround; 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 herconscience; the thought of Adrian was only then a distasteful memoryto be thrust away; nay--even this man's grief could not temper thewild joy that was in her soul to-night. Fevered with fatigue, withexcitement, by her wound, her blood ran burning in her veins, and beatfaster in every pulse.

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

  Presently he lifted his head.

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

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

  "Do not thank me," she exclaimed, glowing with a brilliant scorn inwhich the greatness of her beauty, all worn as she was, struck himinto 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 smileand take your compliments, and pose as the martyr and as theself-sacrificing devoted sister. But I will not. It was nothing to mehow Madeleine got in or out of her love scrapes. I would not have goneone step to help her break her promise to you, or even to save yourlife, but that it pleased me so to do. Madeleine has never chosen tomake me her confidant. I would have let her manage her own affairsgaily, had I had better things to occupy my mind--but I had not,Captain Smith. Life at Pulwick is monotonous. I have roaming blood inmy veins: the adventure tempted, amused me, fascinated me--and thereyou have the truth! Of course I could have given the letter to the menand sent them back to you with it--it was not because of my promisethat I did not do it. Of course I could have spoken the instant I goton board, perhaps----" here a flood of colour dyed her face with agorgeous conscious crimson, and a dimple faintly came and went at t
hecorner of her mouth, "perhaps I would have spoken. But then, you mustremember, 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 Ihave come," she went on, and would have added, "I am glad I did," butthat all of a sudden a new bashfulness came upon her, and shestammered instead, incoherently: "As for Adrian--Rene knew I had amessage for you, and Rene will tell him--he is not stupid--youknow--Rene, I mean."

  "I am glad," answered the man gravely, after a pause, "if you havereasonable grounds for believing that your husband knows you to be onmy ship. He will then be the less anxious at your disappearance: forhe knows too, madam, that his wife will be as honoured and as guardedin 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, burstinto tears. She felt cold now, and broken, and her stiffening woundpained her. But nevertheless, as she lay upon the little velvetpillow, and wept her rare tears were strangling sobs, the very ache ofher wound had a strange savour that she would not have exchanged forany past content.

  * * * * *

  Rene, having obeyed his mistress's orders, and left her alone with thesailors on the beach, withdrew within the shelter of the door, butremained waiting, near enough to be at hand in case he should becalled.

  It was still pitch dark and the rollers growled under a rough wind; hecould catch the sound of a man's voice, now and again, between theclamour of the sea and the wuthering of the air, but could notdistinguish a word. Presently, however, this ceased, and there came tohim the unmistakable regular beat of oars retreating. The interviewwas 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, theservant emerged to seek her ladyship.

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

  Milady had landed without Mademoiselle; had stopped to speak to two ofthe _Peregrine_, whilst he waited apart. The men had departed in theirboat.

  "The _Peregrine_ men! But the ship has been out of sight these eighthours!" ejaculated Sir Adrian, bewildered. Then, catching fear fromhis 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 wasnowhere to be found. "As God is my witness," he repeated, "I waswithin call. My Lady ordered me to leave her. Your honour knows MyLady has to be obeyed."

  "Get lanterns!" said Sir Adrian, the anguish of a greater dreaddriving 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 somany miserable hours--faced each other with white and haggard faces.Then with the same deadly fear in their hearts, they hurried out intothe soughing wind, down to the beach, baited on all sides by theswift-darting hissing surf. Running their lanterns close to theground, they soon found, by the trampled marks upon the sand, wherethe conclave had been held. From thence a double row of heavyfootprints led to the shelving bit of beach where it was the customfor boats to land from seawards.

  "See, your honour, see," cried Rene, in deepest agitation, "the printof this little shoe, here--and there, and here again, right down tothe 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 hascome--we can see no farther."

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

  "And if your honour will look to sea, he will perceive the ship'slights yonder, upon the water. That is the captain's ship.... Yourhonour, I must avow to you that I have concealed something fromyou--it was wrong, indeed, and now I am punished--but that poorMonsieur the Captain, I was so sorry for him, and he so enamoured. Hehad 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 riskof his life. He supplicated me not to tell you, for fear you wouldwish to prevent it, or think it your duty to. Mademoiselle hadpromised, 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 MyLady came alone, your honour, as I said. The courage had failed toMademoiselle, I suppose, at the last moment, and Madame bore a messageto the captain. But the captain was not able to leave his ship, itseems; and, my faith," cried Mr. Potter; his spirits rising, as thefirst ghastly dread left him, "the mystery explains itself! It isquite simple, your honour will see. As the captain did not come to theisland, according to his promise to Mademoiselle--he had good reasons,no doubt--Madame went herself to his ship with her message. She hadthe spirit for it--Ah! if Mademoiselle had had but a little of itto-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, inthis black night--what madness! The boat, instantly; and let us rowfor those lights as we never rowed before!"

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

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

  And so they stood alone in silence, forced into inaction, that mostcruel addition to suspense, by the darkness and the waters whichhemmed them in upon every side. The vision of twenty dangerous placeswhere one impetuous footfall might have hurled his darling into thecruel beating waves painted themselves--a hideous phantasmagory--uponSir Adrian's brain. Had the merciless waters of the earth that hadmurdered the mother, grasped at the child's life also? He raised hisvoice in a wild cry, it seemed as if the wind caught it from him andtore it into shreds.

  "Hark!" whispered Rene, and clasped his master's icy hand. Like anecho of Sir Adrian's cry, the far-off ring of a human voice had risenfrom the sea.

  Again it came.

  "_C'est de la mer, Monseigneur!_" panted the man; even as he spoke thedarkness began to lift. Above their heads, unnoticed, the clouds hadbeen rifted apart beneath the breath of the north wind; the horizonwidened, a misty wing-like shape was suddenly visible against thereceding gloom.

  The captain's ship! The _Peregrine_!

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

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

  "Great Heavens!" muttered Adrian. "He will surrender; he mustsurrender! He could not be so base, so wicked, as to fight andendanger _her_!"

  But the servant's keener sight, trained by long stormy nights ofwatching, was following in its dwindling, mysterious course that mistyvision in which he thought to recognize the _Peregrine_.

  "_Elle file, elle file joliment la goelette!_ Mother of Heaven, theregoes the gun again! I never thought my blood would turn to water onlyto hear the sound of one like this. But your honour must not bediscouraged; he can surely trust the captain. Ah, the clouds--I cansee no more."

  The wild blast gathering fresh droves of vapour from the huddledmasses on the horizon was now, in truth, herding them fiercely acrossthe 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 risingstorm.

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

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

  Both knew it to be of no avail, but physically and mentally to moveabout was, at least, better than to stand still. Step by step theyscanned afresh the sand, the shingle, the rocks, the walls, to returnonce more to the trace of the slender feet, leading beside the greatdouble track of heavy sea boots to the water's edge.

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

  Rene endeavouring to stand between his master and the driving blastlaid down his lantern too, and strove by thumping his breastvigorously to infuse a little warmth into his numbed limbs and at thesame time to relieve his overcharged feelings.

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

  Sir Adrian sprang to his feet.

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

  "Hold up your light, your honour--ah, your honour, did I not sayit?--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 Rene.

  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, andthrew the light of his lantern upon the dark figures now rising one byone and pressing forward. Five or six men, drenched from head to foot,swearing and grumbling; with faces pinched with cold, all loweringwith the same expression of anger and resentment and shining whitelyat him out of the confusion. He saw the emptying seats, the shippedoars, the name _Peregrine_ in black letters upon the white paint ofthe dingey; and she?... she was not there!

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

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

  "It is good news, your honour, after all, good news. My Lady is onboard the _Peregrine_. I made these men speak. They are the revenuemen--that God may damn them! and they were after the captain; but heran down their cutter, that brave captain. And these are all that weresaved from her, for she sank like a stone. The _Peregrine_ is as soundas a bell, they say--ah, she is a good ship! And the captain, out ofhis kind heart, sent these villains ashore in his own boat, instead ofbraining them or throwing them overboard. But they saw a lady besidehim the whole time, tall, in a great black cloak. My Lady in her blackcloak, just as she landed here. Of course Monsieur the Captain couldnot have sent her back home with these brigands then--not even amessage--that would have compromised his honour. But his honour cansee now how it is. And though My Lady has been carried out to sea, heknows now that she is safe."