THE LIGHT REKINDLED
Look not upon the sky at eventide,
For that makes sorrowful the heart of man;
Look rather here into my heart,
And joyful shalt thou always be.
_Luteplayer's Song._
It was on the fifth day after Sir Adrian's return to his island home.
Outwardly the place was the same. A man had been engaged to attend to
the lighthouse duties, but he and his wife lived apart in their own
corner of the building and never intruded into the master's apartments
or into the turret-room which had been Captain Jack's.
From the moment that Sir Adrian, attended by Rene, had re-entered the
old rooms, the peel had resumed its wonted aspect. But the peace, the
serenity which belonged to it for so many years, had fled--fled, it
seemed to Sir Adrian, for ever. Still there was solitude and, in so
far, repose. It was something to have such a haven of refuge for his
bruised spirit.
The whole morning of this day had been spent in counting out and
securing, in separate lots, duly docketted and distinguished, a
portion of that unwieldy accumulation of wealth, the charge of which
he had accepted, against the time when it should be called for and
claimed by its depositors.
The task was by no means simple, and required all his attention; but
there is a blessing even in mere mechanical labour, that soothes the
torment of the mind. In the particular occupation upon which he had
been engaged there was, moreover, a hidden touching element. It was
work for the helpless dead, work for that erring man but noble soul
who had been his loyal friend. As Sir Adrian tied up each bag of gold
and labelled it with the name of some unknown creditor who had trusted
Jack, dimly the thought occurred that it would stand material proof,
call for recognition that this Captain Smith, who had died the death
of a felon, had been a true man even in his own chosen lawless path.
On the table, amid the papers and books, a heap of gold pieces yet
untold, remainder of his allotted day's task, awaited still his
ministering hand. But he was tired. It was the dreamy hour of the day
when the shadows grow long, the shafts of light level; and Sir Adrian
sat at his open window, gazing at the distant view of Pulwick, while
his thoughts wandered into the future, immediate and distant. With the
self-detachment of his nature these thoughts all bore upon the future
of the woman whom he pictured to himself lying behind those sunlit
windows yonder, framed by the verdure of leafy June, gathering slowly
back her broken strength for the long life stretching before her.
Unlike the musings which in the lonely days of old had ever drifted
irresistibly towards the past and gathered round the image of the
dead, all the power of his mind was now fixed upon what was to come,
upon the child, still dearer than the mother, who had all her life to
live. What would she do? What could _he_ do for her, now that she
required his helping hand no more? Life was full of sorrow past and
present; and in the future there lurked no promise of better things.
The mind of man is always fain, even in its darkest hour, to take
flight into some distant realm of hope. To those whom life has utterly
betrayed there is always the hope of approaching death--but this,
even, reason denied to him. He was so strong; illness had never taken
hold of him; he came from such long-lived stock! He might almost
outlive her, might for ever stand as the one ineluctable check upon
her peace of mind. And his melancholy reflections came circling back
to their first starting-point--that barren rock of misery in a vast
sea of despondency--there was nothing to be done.
The barriers raised between them, on his side partly by the poisonous
words of his brother, partly by the phantom of that old love of which
the new had at first been but an eluding reflex, and on hers, by the
chilly disillusion which had fallen so soon upon her ardent nature;
these sank into insignificance, contrasted to the whirl of baulked
passion which had passed over her life, to leave it utterly blasted,
to turn her indifference to hate.
Yes, that was the burden of his thoughts: she hated and dreaded him.
His love, his forbearance, his chivalrousness had been in vain. All he
had now to live upon was the memory of those few days when, under the
spell of oblivion the beloved child had smiled on him in the
unconscious love born of her helplessness and his care. But even this
most precious remembrance of the present was now, like that of the
past, to be obscured by its abrupt and terrible end.
Death had given birth to the first and last avowal of love in her who
had perished between his arms under the swirling waters of the
Vilaine--but it was Life itself, returning life and health of mind,
which had changed looks of trust and affection into the chilly stare
of dread in the eyes of her whom with all the strength of his hoarded
manhood he now loved alone. The past for all its sorrows had held
sweetness: the present, the future, nothing but torment. And now, even
the past, with its love and its sorrow was gone from him, merged in
the greater love and sorrow of the present. How long could he bear
it?--Useless clamour of the soul! He must bear it. Life must be
accepted.
Sir Adrian rose and, standing, paused a moment to let his sight,
wandering beyond the immense sands, seek repose for a moment in the
blue haze marking the horizon of the hills. The day was pure,
exquisite in its waning beauty; the breeze as light and soft as a
caress. In the great stillness of the bay the sisters sea and land
talked in gentle intermittent murmurs. Now and then the cries of
circling sea-fowl brought a note of uncanny joy into the harmony that
seemed like silence in its unity.
A beautiful harmonious world! But to him the very sense of the outer
peace gave a fresh emphasis to the discordance of his own life. He
brought his gaze from afar and slowly turned to resume his work. But
even as he turned a black speck upon the nearer arm of sea challenged
his fleeting attention. He stood and watched--and, as he watched, a
sensation, the most poignant and yet eerie he had ever known clutched
him by the heart.
A boat was approaching: a small row-boat in which the oars were plyed
by a woman. By the multi-coloured, glaring shawl (poor Jack's
appreciated gift) he knew her, but without attaching name or
personality to his recognition; for all his being was drawn to the
something that lay huddled, black and motionless, in the stern. He
felt to the innermost fibre of him that this something was a woman
too--this woman Molly. But the conviction seized him with a force that
was beyond surprise. And all the vital heat in him fled to his heart,
leaving him deadly cold.
As her face grew out of the distance towards him, a minute white patch
amid the dark cloud of silk and lace that enwrapt it, it seemed as
though he had known for centuries that she was thus to come to him.
And the glow of his heart spread to his brain.
When the boat was about to land, he began, like one walking in his
sleep, to move away; and, slowly descending the stairs of the keep, he
advanced towards the margin of the sea. He walked slowly, for the body
was heavy whilst the soul trembled within its earthly bounds.
Molly had alighted and was toiling, with her new born and yet but
feeble strength upon the yielding sand, supported between Rene and
Moggie. She halted as she saw him approach, and, when he came close,
looked up into his face. Her frail figure wavered and bent, and she
would have fallen on her knees before him, but that he opened his arms
wide and caught her to him.
An exclamation rose to Moggie's lips, to die unformed under an
imperious glance from Rene who, with shining eyes and set mouth, had
stood apart to watch the momentous issue.
Adrian felt his wife nestle to him as he held her. And then the tide
of his long-bound love overflowed. And gathering her up in his arms as
if she were a child, he turned to carry the broken woman with him into
the shelter, the silence of the ruins.
At the foot of the outer wall, just out of reach of high water, yet
within reach of its salt spray, a little mound of red stony soil rose
very slightly above the green turf; at its head, a small stone cross,
roughly hewn, was let into the masonry itself. The grave of Hubert
Cochrane was not obtrusive: in a few months it would have merged again
into the greensward, and its humble memorial symbol would be covered
with moss and lichen like the matrix of stone which encompassed it.
Involuntarily as he passed it, the man, with his all too light burden,
halted. A flame shot through him as Molly turned her head to gaze too:
he shook with a brief agony of jealousy--jealousy of the dead! The
next instant he felt her recoil, look up pleadingly and cling to him
again, and he knew into the soul of his soul that the words spoken by
those loyal lips--now clay beneath that clay--were coming true, that,
out of his house laid desolate to him was to rise a new and stately
mansion.
Grasping her closer he hurried into the sanctuary of the old room,
where he had first seen her bright young beauty.
At the door he gently suffered her to stand, still supporting her with
one arm about her waist. As they entered, she cast a rapid glance
around: her eyes, bedewed with rising tears, fell upon the heap of
gold glinting under the rays of the sinking sun, and she understood
the nature of the task her coming had interrupted. Her tears gushed
forth; catching his hand between hers, and looking up at him with a
strange, wonderful humility, she pressed it to her lips.
What need for words between them, then?
He stood a little while motionless in front of her, entranced yet
still almost incredulous, as one suddenly freed from long intolerable
pain, when there rose once more, for the last time, before his mind's
eye the ideal image that had been the companion of twenty years of his
existence. It was vivid almost as life. He saw Cecile de Savenaye bend
over her child with grave and tender look, then turn and smile upon
him with the old exquisite sweetness that he had adored so madly in
that far off past. And then, it was as if she had merged into Molly.
Behold, she was gone! there was no Cecile, only Molly the woman he
loved. Molly, whom now he seized to his heart, who smiled at him
through her tears as he bent to kiss her lips.
Twilight was waning and the light of Scarthey beamed peacefully over
the yellow sands; and the waves receded dragging away sand and shingle
from the foot of the hidden grave.