THE THREE COLOURS
The sun was high above the Welsh hills; the _Peregrine_ had sheered
her way through a hundred miles or more of fretted waters before her
captain, in his hammock slung for the nonce near the men's quarters,
stirred from his profound sleep--nature's kind restorer to healthy
brain and limbs--after the ceaseless fatigue and emotions of the last
thirty-six hours.
As he leaped to his feet out of the swinging canvas, the usual vigour
of life coursing through every fibre of him, he fell to wondering, in
half-awake fashion, at the meaning of the unwonted weight lurking in
some back recess of consciousness.
Then memory, the ruthless, arose and buffeted his soul.
The one thing had failed him without which all else was as nothing;
fate, and his own hot blood, had conspired to place his heart's desire
beyond all reasonable hope. Certain phrases in Madeleine's letter
crossed and re-crossed his mind, bringing now an unwonted sting of
anger, now the old cruel pain of last night. The thought of the
hateful complication introduced into his already sufficiently involved
affairs by the involuntary kidnapping of his friend's wife filled him
with a sense of impotent irritation, very foreign to his temper; and
as certain looks and words of the unwished-for prisoner flashed back
upon him, a hot colour rose, even in his solitude, to his wholesome
brown cheek.
But in spite of all, in spite of reason and feeling alike his
essential buoyancy asserted itself. He could not despair. He had not
been given this vigour of soul and body to sit down under misfortune.
Resignation was for the poor of heart; only cravens gave up while it
was yet possible to act. His fair ship was speeding with him as he
loved to feel her speed; around him spread the vast spaces in which
his spirit rejoiced--salt sea and vaulted heavens; the full air of the
open, the brisk dash of the wind filled him with physical exhilaration
at every breath, and tingled in his veins; the sporting blood, which
had come to him from generations of hunting squires, found all its
craving satisfied in this coursing across the green ocean fields, and
the added element of danger was as the sting of the brine to his
palate. What--despair now? with his perilous enterprise all but
accomplished, the whole world, save one country, before him, and
Madeleine unwed! Another might, but not Jack Smith; not Hubert
Cochrane!
He was actually trolling out the stave of a song as he sprang up the
companion ladder after his rough breakfast in the galley, but the
sound expired at the sight of the distant flutter of a woman's scarf
in the stern of the ship. He halted and ran his fingers through his
crisp hair with an expressive gesture of almost comical perplexity;
all would be plain sailing enough, with hope at the prow again, but
for this--he stamped his foot to choke down the oath of
qualification--this encumbrance. Adrian's wife and Madeleine's sister,
as such entitled to all honour, all care, and devotion; and yet, as
such again, hideously, doubly unwelcome to him!
As he stood, biting his lips, while the gorgeous sunshine of the young
spring morning beat down upon his bare head, the brawny figure of the
mate, his mahogany-tinted face wrinkled into as stiff a grin as if it
had been indeed carved out of the wood in question, intervened between
his abstracted gaze and the restless amber beyond.
"It's a fine day, sir," by way of opening conversation.
The irrepressible satisfaction conveyed by the wide display of
tobacco-stained teeth, by the twinkle in the hard, honest eyes called
up a queer, rueful grimace to the other man's face.
"Do you know, Curwen," he said, "that you brought me the wrong young
lady last night?"
The sailor jumped back in amazement. "The wrong young lady, sir,"
staring with starting, incredulous eyeballs, "the wrong, young lady!"
here he clapped his thigh, "Well of all--the wrong young lady! Are you
quite sure, sir?"
Captain Jack laughed aloud. But it was with a bitter twist at the
corners of his lips.
"Well I'm----," said poor Curwen. All his importance and
self-satisfaction had left him as suddenly as the starch a soused
collar. He scanned his master's face with almost pathetic anxiety.
"Oh, I don't blame you--you did your part all right. Why, I myself
fell into the same mistake, and we had not much time for finding it
out, had we? The lady you see--the lady--she is the other lady's
sister and she came with a message. And so we carried her off before
we knew where we were--or she either," added Captain Jack as a
mendacious after thought.
"Well I'm----," reiterated Curwen who then rubbed his scrubby,
bristling chin, scratched his poll and finally broke into another
grin--this time of the kind classified as sheepish.
"And what'll be to do now?"
"By the God that made me, I haven't a notion! We must take all the
care of her we can, of course. Serve her her meals in her cabin, as
was arranged, and see that she is attended to, just as the other young
lady would have been you know, only that I think she had better be
served alone, and I shall mess downstairs as usual. And then if we can
leave her at St. Malo, we shall. But it must be in all safety, Curwen,
for it's a terrible responsibility. Happily we have now the time to
think. Meanwhile I have slept like a log and she--I see is astir
before me."
"Lord bless you, sir, she has been up these two hours! Walking the
deck like a sailor, and asking about things and enjoying them like.
Ah, she is a rare lady, that she is! And it is the wrong one--well
this is a go! And I was remarking to Bill Baxter, just now, that it
was just our captain's luck to have found such a regular sailor's
young woman, so I said--begging pardon for the word. And not more than
he is worth, says he, and so said I also. And she the wrong lady after
all! Well, it's a curious thing, sir, nobody could be like to guess it
from her. She's a well-plucked one, with her wound and all. She made
me look at it this morning, when I brought her a cup of coffee and a
bite: 'You're old enough to be my father,' says she, as pretty as can
be, 'so you shall be doctor as well as lady's maid; and, if you've
got a girl of your own, it'll be a story to tell her by the fire at
night, when you're home again,' so she said; and never winced when I
put my great fingers on her arm. I was all of a tremble, I declare,
with her a smiling up at me, but the wound--it's doing finely; healing
as nice as ever I see, and not a sign of sickness on her. The very
lady as I was saying, for our captain--but here she comes."
This was an unwontedly long speech for Curwen; and, silent again, he
effaced himself discreetly, just in time to avoid the angry
ejaculation that had sprung to his captain's lips, but not without a
backward glance of admiration at the tall, alert figure now bearing
down in their direction with steps already firmly balanced to the
movement of the ship.
At a little distance from Captain Jack, Molly paused as if to
scrutinise the horizon, and enjoy the invigorating atmosphere. In
reality her heart was beating fast, her breath came short; and the
gaze she flung from the faint outline of coast upon one side to the
vast monotony of sparkling sea upon the other conveyed no impression
to her troubled mind. The next instant he was by her side. As she
smiled at him, he noticed that her face was pale, and her eyes darkly
encircled.
"Ah, madam," said he, as he drew close and lifted his hand to his
head, with a gesture of formal courtesy that no doubt somewhat
astonished a couple of his men who were watching the group with covert
smiles and nudges, being as yet unaware of the misadventure, "you
relieve my mind of anxiety. How is the arm? Does it make you suffer
much? No! You must be strong indeed."
"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 ecu 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 la_ (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 cafes, 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, _bedame_ (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."