All the evening and all night long the gale continued. Now and then the
constant scream of it would leap upwards a couple of octaves as a
shriller blast struck the houses and again for a moment the mad chant
would drop into silence. From time to time like a tattoo of drums the
rain battered at the window-panes, but through it all, whether in hushes
of the wind or when its fiercest squall descended, the beat of the surf
sounded ever louder. And all through the night, the result perhaps of
his agitated talk with Nadine in the morning, or of his intimate
gale-encompassed isolation with her in the afternoon, Hugh turned and
tossed midway between sleeping and waking. Sometimes he seemed to
himself to be yelling round the house among the spirits of the air
seeking admittance, sometimes it seemed to him that he was being beaten
on by the hammer of the surf, and whether he was homelessly wandering
outside among the spirits of the wind, or was being done to death by
those incessant blows of the beating waves, it was Nadine that he
sought. And as the night went on the anguish of his desire grew ever
more acute, and the beating of the waves a more poignant torture, until
while yet no faintest lightening of winter's dawn had touched the gross
blackness of the night, he roused himself completely, and sat up in bed
and turned on his light.
To him awake the riot outside was vastly magnified compared with the
dimmer trouble of his dream; so was his yearning for Nadine. His windows
looked eastwards away from the quarter of the gale, and getting out of
bed, he lifted a sash, and peered out. Nothing whatever could be seen;
it was as if he gazed into the darkness of the nethermost pit, out of
which blown by the blast of the anger of God came the shrieks of souls
that might not rest, driven forever along, drenched by the river of
their unavailing tears. Even though he was awake the strange remote
horror of nightmare was on him, and it was in vain that he tried to
comfort himself, by saying, like some child repeating a senseless
lesson, "A deep depression has reached us traveling eastwards from the
Atlantic." He tried to read, but still the nightmare-sense possessed
him, and he fancied he had to read a whole line, neither more nor less,
between the poundings of the waves. Then as usually happens towards the
end of these Walpurgis nights, he got back to bed again, and slept
calmly and dreamlessly.
He and Seymour alone out of the party put in an appearance at breakfast
time: it seemed probable that the others were compensating themselves
for a disturbed night by breakfasting upstairs, and afterwards the two
went out together to look at the doings of the night. By this time the
wind had considerably moderated, the rain had ceased altogether, and the
thick pall of cloud that had last night overlain the sky was split up
into fragments and islands, and flying vapors, so that here and there
pale shafts of sunlight shone upon land and sea. But the thunder of the
surf had immeasurably increased, and when they went to the cliff-edge
which he and Nadine had passed down yesterday afternoon, they looked
upon an indescribable confusion of tremendous waters. The tide was low,
but the bay was still packed with the sea heaped-up by the wind, and the
end of the reef with its big scattered rocks was out beyond the walls of
breaking water. The sea appeared to have been driven distraught by the
stress of the night; cross currents carried the waves in all directions:
it almost seemed that some, shrinking from the wall of cliff in front,
were trying to beat out to sea again. Quite out, away from land, they
jousted and sparred with each other, not jestingly, but, it seemed, with
some grim purpose, as if they were practising their strength for deeds
of earnest violence, as for some fierce civil war among themselves. It
was round the furthest rocks of the reef that this sport of billowy
giants most centered: right across the bay ran some current that set on
to the end of the reef, and there it met with the waves coming straight
in-shore from the direction of the blowing of the gale. Then they
spouted and foamed together, yet not in play: some purpose, so regular
were these rounds of combat, seemed to underlie their wrestlings.
Hugh threw away a charred peninsula of paper, once a cigarette, which
the wind had smoked for him. He never had felt much sense of
comradeship in the presence of Seymour, and their after-breakfast stroll
had no more virtue than was the reward of necessary politeness.
"There is something rather senseless in this display of wasted energy,"
said Seymour. "Each of those waves would probably cook a dinner, if its
force was reasonably employed."
Hugh, in spite of his restless night, had something of Nadine's thrilled
admiration for the turmoil, and felt slightly irritated.
"They would certainly cook your goose or mine," he remarked.
Seymour wondered whether it would be well to say, "Do you allude to
Nadine as our goose?" but, perhaps wisely, refrained.
"That would be to the good," he said. "Goose is a poor bird at any time,
but uneatable unless properly roasted."
Hugh did not attend to this polite rejoinder, for he had caught sight of
something incredible not so far out at sea, and he focused his eyes
instantly on it. For the moment, what he thought he had seen completely
vanished; directly afterwards he caught sight of it again, a
fishing-boat with mast broken, reeling drunkenly on the top of a huge
wave. His quick, long-sighted eye told him in that one moment of slewing
deck that it presented to them, before it was swallowed from sight in
the trough of the next wave, that there were two figures on it, clinging
to the stump of the broken mast.
"Look," he said, "there is a boat out there."
It rose again to the crest of a wave and again plunged giddily out of
sight. The incoming tide was bearing it swiftly shorewards, swiftly also
the cross-current that set towards the end of the reef was bearing it
there.
Hugh did not pause. He laid hold of Seymour by the shoulder.
"Run up to the house," he said, "and fetch a couple of men. Bring down
with you as much rope as you can find. Don't say anything to Nadine and
the women. But be quick."
He ran down to the beach himself, as Seymour went on his errand, seeing
at once that there were two things that might happen to this stricken
wanderer of a ship. In one case, the incoming tide with its following
waves might bear it straight on to the sandy beach; in the other the
cross-current, in which now it was laboring, might carry it across to
the reef where the waves were wrestling and roaring together. It was in
case of this first contingency that he ran down upon the sands to be
ready. The beach was steep there: it would ride it until it was flung
down by that fringe of toppling, hard-edged breakers. In that tumble and
scurry of surf it might easily be that strong arms could drag out of the
fury of the backwash whatever was cast there. The boat, a decked
fishing-boat, would be dumped down on the sand: there would be a
half-minute, or a quarter-minute, when something might be done. On the
other hand this greedy sucking current might carry it on to the reef.
Then, by the mercy of God, a rope might be of some avail, if a man could
reach them.
As he ran down the cliff, a sudden splash of sunlight broke through the
clouds, making a bright patch of illumination round the boat as it swung
over another breaker. There was only one figure there now, lying full
length on the deck, and clinging with both hands to the stump of the
mast. Then once again the water broke over it, lucidly green in the
sunlight, and all Hugh's heart went out to that solitary prone body,
lying there helpless in the hands of God and the gale. His heart stood
still to see whether when next the drifting boat reappeared it would be
tenantless, and with a sob in his throat, "Oh, thank God," he said, when
he saw it again.
It was still doubtful whether the current or the tide would win, and
Hugh pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and threw them on the beach, in
order to be able to rush in unimpeded of hand and muscle. Then with a
strange sickness of heart, he saw that the boat was getting in nearer,
but moving sideways across to the left, where the reef lay. And he
waited, in the suspense of powerlessness. The wind now had quite abated;
it was as if it had done its work, in making ready this theater of
plunging water; now waited to observe what drama should be moving across
the stage of billows.
Soon from behind, he heard across the shingle at the top of the beach
the approach of the others. Seymour had brought Berts and two men with
him, and they brought with them half-a-dozen long coils of rope, part
of the fire-rescue apparatus of the house. While watching and waiting
for them, his plan was quite made. It was no longer possible to hope
that the boat would come to land on the sandy beach, where without doubt
two or three able-bodied men could rescue any one cast up, but was
driving straight on to the rocks. Once there, rescue was all but
impossible; the only chance lay in reaching it before it was smashed to
atoms on the immense boulders and sharp-toothed fangs. Quickly he tied
three of the ropes together, and fastened the end round his body just
below the shoulders, and took off his boots.
"I'm going in," he said; "you all hold the rope and pay it out. If I
come near the end of it, tie a fresh piece on--"
Suddenly across the shingle came footsteps, and a cry. Nadine ran down
the beach towards them. She was clad only in a dressing-gown, that
rainbow-hued one in which one night last June she had entertained a
company in her bedroom, and slippers so that her ankles showed white and
bare. She saw what Hugh intended, and something within her, some denizen
of her soul, who till that moment had been unknown to her, took
possession of her.
"No, Hughie, not you, not you," she screamed. "Seymour, anybody, but not
you!"
The cry had come from her very heart; she could no more have stifled it
than she could have stopped the beating of it. Then, suddenly, she
realized what she had said, and sank down on the beach, burying her face
in her hands.
"Take care of her, Seymour," said Hugh, and there was more heroism
required for these few little words, than for the desperate feat he was
about to attempt. He did not look round again, nor wish to say anything
more, and there was no time to lose.
"Now, you chaps!" he called out, and ran forward to the edge of the
water.
At the moment an immense billow poised and curled just in front of him.
The wash of it covered him waist-deep and he floundered and staggered as
the rush of water went by him. Then as it drew out to sea again he ran
with it, to where another breaker was toppling in front of him. With a
low outward spring he dived into the hollowed water head foremost and
passed through it.
The beach was very steep here, and coming up again through and beyond
the line of surf, he found himself in deep water. Behind him lay the
breaking line of billows, but in front the huge mountains of water rose
and fell unbroken. As he was lifted up on the first of these, swimming
strongly against it, he saw not a hundred yards from him his helpless
and drifting goal. He could see, too, who it was who lay there,
desperately clinging to the stump of the mast with white slender wrists;
it was quite a young boy. And at that sight, Hugh's pity and
determination were strung higher than ever. Here was a young creature,
in desperate plight among these desperate waterways, one who should not
yet have known what peril meant. And at the risk of spending a little
strength, when strength was so valuable, Hugh gave a great shout of
notice and encouragement. Then he was swallowed up in the trough of a
wave again. But when he rose next, he saw that the boy had raised his
head, and that he saw him.
The current that swept towards the rocks, swept also a little
shorewards, and Hugh measuring the distance between the boat and the
fatal breakers with his eye, and measuring again the distance between
the boat and himself, knew that he must exert himself to the point of
exhaustion to get to the boat before it was drifted to its final
destruction. But as he swam he knew he had made a mistake in not taking
off his shirt and trousers also and giving himself an unimpeded use of
his limbs. His trousers particularly dragged and hampered him; then
suddenly he remembered a water-game at which he used to be expert at
school, namely taking a header into the bathing-place in flannels and
undressing in the water. It seemed worth while to sacrifice a few
seconds to accomplish that, and, as cool and collected as when he was
doing it for mere sport at school, he trod water, slipped his legs out
of his trousers, and saw them float away from him. Then twice as
vigorous, he struck out again. His shirt did not bother him: besides,
the rope was tied round his chest, and there was not time for more
disencumbrances.
For the next five minutes, for he was fighting the tide, he just swam
and swam. Occasionally rising to a wave it seemed to him that he was
making no headway at all, but somehow that did not discourage him. The
only necessity that concerned him was that he must go till he could go
no longer. And all the time, like a dream and yet like a draught of wine
to him was Nadine's involuntary cry, "No, Hughie, not you!" He did not
trouble to guess what that meant. He was only conscious that it
invigorated and inspired him.
The minutes passed; once the rope seemed to jerk him back, and he found
himself swearing underneath his breath. Then, though it was terribly
heavy, he realized that it was free again, and that he was not being
hampered. Then he suddenly found himself much closer to the boat than he
had any idea of, and this, though he was getting very tired, gave him a
new supply of nervous force. He swam into three valleys more, he
surmounted three ridges of water, and lo, the boat was on the peaks
directly opposite to him, and from opposite sides they plunged into the
same valley together. Not fifty yards off to the left, incredible
fountains of foam spouted and aspired.
Then, oh, blessed moment! he caught hold of the side of the lurching
fishing-smack, and a pale little boyish frightened face was close to
his. He clung for a second to the side, and they went up and down two
big billows together. Then he got breath enough to speak.
"Now, little chap," he said, "don't be frightened, for we're all right.
Catch hold of the rope here, close to my body, and just jump in. Yes,
that's right. Plucky boy! Take hold with both hands of the rope. Not so
cold, is it?"
Once again, before he let go of the boat, they rose to an immense wall
of water, and Hugh saw the figures on the beach, four of them standing
in the wash of the sea, paying out the rope, and one standing there also
a little apart waving seawards, clapping her hands. And what she said
came to him clear and distinct across the hills and valleys of
destruction.
"Oh, Hughie, well done, well done!" she cried.
"Now pull, all of you, pull him in!"
He was glad she added that, for in the hurry of the moment he had given
no instructions as to what they were to do when he reached the boat; and
what seemed so obvious out here might not have seemed so obvious to
those on the beach, and he was not sure that there was enough power left
in him to shout to them. But Nadine understood: once she had said she
understood him too well. It was enough now that she understood him
enough.
He let go of the boat. For a moment it seemed inclined to follow them,
and he thought the bowsprit was going to hit him. Then he felt a little
pull on the rope under his shoulders, and the boat made a sort of bow of
farewell, and slid away towards the spouting towers of foam. Hugh was
utterly exhausted: he could just paddle with a hand or kick downwards to
keep his head above water, but he gave away one breath yet.
"Nothing to be frightened at," he said. "We're all right now."
The buoyant water, for all the wickedness of its foam and savage hunger,
sustained him sufficiently. He turned round seawards in the water so
that the great surges did not overwhelm him from behind, and put an arm
on the rope underneath the boy's neck, so as to support them both. He
forced himself even in his utter weariness to be collected and to
remember that for several minutes yet there was nothing whatever to be
done, except with the minimum possible of exertion to keep afloat, while
the rope towed them back towards that line of steep towers and curling
precipices beyond which lay the shore, and those who stood on the shore.
Sometimes the crest of a wave broke over them, almost smothering him,
but then again they found themselves on a downward hillside of water,
where the panting lungs could be satisfied, and the laboring heart
supplied. Somewhere inside of him he knew he wanted to know where this
poor foundered fishing-smack had come from and how this young boy had
managed to cling to it, but he had not sufficient strength to give voice
to his desire, for all that he had must be husbanded to meet that final
assault of the row of breakers through which they had to pass.
And as they got nearer, he began to form his plan. This young unknown
life, precious to him now as an unborn baby to a woman, was given into
his charge. It seemed to him that, as a woman has to bring the life
within her to birth whatever it costs her, so he had to save the life of
this unknown little fisher-boy, and take all risks himself. Whatever lay
beyond that line of breakers, his business was here, and he did not for
one second argue the values. He did not forget Nadine nor her last cry
to him as he set forth on his peril, but for the moment there was
something that concerned him even more than Nadine, and he had to make
the best plans he could for saving this young life that had been put in
his hands, even if he fought God over it. The only question was how to
get the best chance of saving it.
They were close in now, and this three-minute pause of floating had
restored him. He was just conscious of bitter cold, even as he was
conscious of the group on the edge of the sand, and of the hissing
waters. But none of these things seemed to have anything to do with him;
they were but external phenomena. Between him and the shore were still
three towering lines of breakers, sharp-edged and steep as rocks: the
third of these suddenly fumbled and disappeared with a thick thud, and
an uprising of shattered spray. And suddenly his plan proved itself,
fully-finished to his mind.
He had been swimming for not more than a quarter of an hour, and the
minutes of that fierce outward struggle which had seemed so long to him
had to Nadine passed in a flash. For once she had got completely outside
herself, and, concentrated and absorbed in another, the time had gone by
in one flare of triumphant expectation. For one moment after that
heart's cry had been flung out of her she had sat dazed and bewildered
by the consciousness that it seemed to have revealed to her, for until
she had cried out that Seymour, that anybody but Hugh, must make the
desperate attempt, she had not known her own heart, nor could she have,
for it was not till then that it was unlocked to herself. When she
looked up again Hugh had already plunged through the breakers, and was
swimming, and instantly her soul was with him there in the inhuman sea,
glorying in his strength, proud of the splendid and desperate adventure,
and not for one moment doubtful of its success. None but he, she felt,
could do it, and it was impossible that he should fail. She would not
have had him back by her side saying that the attempt was mere suicide,
for all the happiness that the world contained, and had she been able to
change places with the boy who clung to the helpless boat, she would
have sprung ecstatic to the noble risk, for the sake of having Hugh
battle the seas on his way to rescue her. Failing that, it had been
gloriously ordained that he should do this, and that she should stand
with heart uplifted and be privileged to see the triumphant venture. She
saw him reach the boat, knowing that he would, and clapped her hands and
called to him, and with bright eyes and laughing mouth she eagerly
watched him getting nearer. Then, just at the moment when Hugh made his
plan, she realized that between him and her there lay that precipice of
water that kept flinging itself down in thunder on the shore, and ever
re-forming again. And the light died out of her face, and she grew ashen
gray to the lips and watched.
Hugh had been floating with his face seawards. Now he turned round to
the shore again. She saw him smile at the boy, as they rose on the crest
of a wave, and she saw him speak.
"Now we're all right," was what he said. "Get on my back, and hold on to
my shoulders."
The rope had ceased to pull. The men in control of it just held it taut,
waiting to pull when the exact moment came. The boy did as he was told,
and next moment the two rose up on the crest of the line of breakers.
Twenty feet below him as they topped it, Hugh looked over upon the
backwash of the preceding wave which was being dragged into the billow
which bore them and was growing higher as it rose to its ruin. But the
boy's fall would be broken: at least this plan seemed to give the best
chance.
Then the wave curled, and he was flung forwards, twisting as he fell. He
saw the slim little figure he had been carrying shot over his shoulder,
and flung clear of the direct impact of the wave on the beach, and he
heard his mind say, "That won't hurt him."
Then he felt something stupendous, as heavy as the world, strike him on
the back. After that he felt nothing more at all.
* * * * *
As dusk was closing in, Nadine sat in the window of her big
black-painted bedroom, where so many well-attended sessions had been
held. Hugh had been in the surgeon's hands since they carried him in,
and all that could be done had been done. Afterwards Nadine had seen the
surgeon, and learned from him all there was to fear and the little there
was to hope for. It was possible that Hugh might not live till the
morning, but simply pass away from the shock of his injuries. On the
other hand his splendid constitution might pull him through that. But
given that he lived through the immediate danger, it was doubtful if he
could ever lead an active life again. The boy he had saved was
practically unhurt, and was fast asleep.
Nadine sat there very quiet both in mind and body. She did not want to
rave or rebel, she merely let her mind sit, as it were, in front of
these things, and contemplate them, like a picture, until they became
familiar. She felt they were not familiar yet; though she knew them to
be true, they were somehow unreal and incredible. She did not yet grasp
them: it seemed to her that her mind was stunned and was incapable of
apprehending them. So she had to keep her attention fixed on them, until
they became real. Yet she found it difficult to control her mind: it
kept wandering off into concentric circles round the center of the only
significant thing in the world.
Out on the sea the sun had set, and there were cloud-bars of fading
crimson on the horizon level across a field of saffron yellow. This
yellow toned off into pale watery green, and high up in the middle of
that was one little cloud like an island that still blazed in the
sunlight of the upper air. Somehow that aroused a train of
half-forgotten reminiscences. There had been a patch of sunlight once
like an island, on the gray of the sea ... it was connected with a
picture ... yes, it was a sketch which Esther had made for Hugh, and she
had put in the island reluctantly, saying it looked unreal in nature and
would be worse in art. But Hugh had wanted it there, and, as Esther
worked, she herself had walked with him along the beach from which he
had been carried up to-day, and she had told him that he lived in
unrealities, and pictured to himself that some day he and she would live
on some golden sunlit island together. She remembered it all now.
Her mind came back to the center again, and started off anew on that
splendid deed of the morning. She had quite lost her head when she
called out, "No, Hughie, not you!" It must have been Hugh to do it, no
one else could have done it. The idea of Berts or Seymour wrestling with
and overcoming that mountainous and maddened sea was unthinkable. Only
Hugh could have done it, and the deed was as much part of him as his
brown eyes or his white strong teeth. And if at the end the sea had
flung him down and broken him, that was after he had laughed at the
peril and snatched its prey out of its very jaws! Even as things were
now with him, Nadine could not regret what he had done, and if time had
run back, and she saw him again plunging into that riot and turmoil, she
felt that she would not now cry out to him like that. She would have
called Godspeed to him instead.
Once again her mind rippled away from its center. She had called out to
Seymour or Berts to go. At the time it had been quite instinctive, but
she saw now what had prompted her instinct. She meant--though then she
did not know she meant it--that she could spare any one but Hugh. That
was what it came to, and she wondered if Hugh had understood that.
Seymour without doubt must have done so: he was so clever. Probably he
would tell her he understood, and ask her if it was not that which was
implied. But all such consideration seemed to her to matter very little.
There was only one thing that mattered, and that was not whether Hugh
lived or died even, but simply the fact of Hugh.
Her mother had telegraphed that she was coming at once; and Nadine
remembering that she had not told the servants got up and rang the bell.
But before it was answered there came an interruption for which she had
been waiting. One of the two nurses whom the surgeon from Chester had
brought with him knocked at the door. She had been tidying up, and
removing all traces of what had been done.
"The room is neat again now," she said, "and you may come and just look
at him."
"Is he conscious or in pain?" asked Nadine.
"No; but he may regain consciousness at any time, but I don't think he
will have any pain."
They went together up the long silent passages in which there hung that
curious hush which settles down on a house when death is hovering by it,
and came to his door which stood ajar. Then from some sudden qualm and
weakness of flesh, Nadine halted, shrinking from entering.
"Do not come unless you feel up to it," said Nurse Bryerley. "But there
is nothing that will shock you."
Nadine hesitated no more, but entered.
They had carried him not to his own room, but to another with a
dressing-room adjoining. His bed stood along the wall to the left of
the door, and he lay on his back with his head a little sideways towards
it. There was nothing in the room that suggested illness, and when
Nadine looked at his face there was nothing there that suggested it
either. His eyes were closed, but his face was as untroubled as that of
some quiet sleeper. In the wall opposite were the western-looking
windows and the room was lit only by that fast-fading splendor. The
cloud-island still hung in the sky, but it had turned gray as the light
left it.
Then even as Nadine looked at him, his eyes opened and he saw her.
"Nadine," he said.
The nurse stepped to the bedside.
"Ah, you are awake again," she said. "How do you feel?"
"Rather tired. But I want to speak to Nadine."
"Yes, you can speak to her," she said and signed to the girl to come.
Nadine came across the room to him, and knelt down.
"Oh, Hughie," she said, "well done!"
He looked at her, puzzled for the moment, with troubled eyes.
"You said that before," he said. "It was the last thing you said. Why
did you--oh, I remember now. Yes, what a bang I came! How's the little
fellow, the one on my back?"
"Quite unhurt, Hughie. He is asleep."
"I thought he wouldn't be hurt. It was the best plan I could think of.
I say, why did you call to me not to go at first? I had to."
"I know now you had to," said she.
"I want to ask you something else. How badly am I hurt?"
Nadine looked up at the nurse a moment, who nodded to her. She
understood exactly what that meant.
"You are very badly hurt, dear Hughie," she said; "But--but it is worth
it fifty times over."
Hugh was silent a moment.
"Am I going to die?" he asked.
Nadine did not need instruction about this.
"No, a thousand times, no!" she said. "You're going to get quite well.
But you must be patient and rest and sleep."
Nadine's throat grew suddenly small and aching, and she could not find
her voice for a moment.
"You are quite certainly going to live," she said. "To begin with, I
can't spare you!"
Hugh's eyelids fluttered and quivered.
"By Jove!" he said, and next moment they had quite closed.
The nurse signed to Nadine to get up and she rose very softly and
tiptoed away. At the door she looked round once at Hugh, but already he
was asleep. Then still softly she came back and kissed him on the
forehead and was gone again.
She had been with him but a couple of minutes, but as she went back to
her room, she heard the stir of arrivals in the hall, and went down.
Dodo had that moment arrived.
"Nadine, my dear," she said, "I started the moment I got your telegram.
Tell me all you can. How is he? How did it happen? You only said he had
had a bad accident, and wanted me."
Nadine kissed her.
"Oh! Mama," she said. "Thank God it wasn't an accident. It was done on
purpose. He meant it just like that. But you don't know anything; I
forgot. Will you come to my room?"
"Yes, let us go. Now tell me at once."
"We have had a frightful gale," she said, "and this morning Hughie saw a
fishing-boat close in land, driving on to the reef. There was just one
shrimp of a boy on it, and Hughie went straight in, like a duck to
water, and got him off and swam back with him. There was a rope and
Seymour and Berts pulled him in. And when they got close in, Hughie put
the boy on his back--oh, Mama, thank God for men like that!--and the
breakers banged him down on the beach, and the boy was unhurt. And
Hughie may die very soon, or he may live--"
Nadine's voice choked for a moment. All day she had not felt a sob rise
in her throat.
"And if he lives," she said, "he may never be able to walk again, and I
love him."
Then came the tempest of tears, tears of joy and sorrow, a storm of
them, fruitful as autumn rain, fruitful as the sudden deluges of April,
with God-knows-what warmth of sun behind. The drought of summer in her,
the ice of winter in her had been broken up in the rain that makes the
growth and the life of the world. The frozen ground melted under it, the
soil, cracked with drought, drank it in: the parody of life that she had
lived became but the farce that preceded sweet serious drama, tragedy it
might be, but something human.... And Dodo, woman also, understood that:
she too had lived years that parodied herself, and knew what the
awakening to womanhood was, and the immensity of that unsuspected
kingdom. It had come late to her, to Nadine early: some were almost born
in consciousness of their birthright, others died without realizing it.
So, mother and daughter, they sat there in silence, while Nadine wept
her fill.
"It was the splendidest adventure," she said at length, lifting her
head. "It was all so gay. He shouted to that little boy in the boat to
encourage him to cling on, and oh, those damned reefs were so close. And
when they rode in, Hughie like a horse with a child on his back over
that--that precipice, he said something again to encourage him."
Nadine broke down again for a moment.
"Hughie never thought about himself at all," she said. "He used always
to think about me. But when he went on his adventure he didn't think
about me. He thought only of that little stupid boy, God bless him. And,
oh, Mummie, I gave myself away--I got down to the beach just before
Hughie went in, and I lost my head and I screamed out, 'Not you, Hughie:
Seymour, Berts, anybody, but not you!' It wasn't I who screamed;
something inside me screamed, and the one who screamed was--was my love
for Hughie, and I never knew of it. But inside me something swelled, and
it burst. Yes: Hughie heard, I am sure, and Seymour heard, and I don't
care at all."
Nadine sat up, with a sort of unconscious pride in her erectness.
"I saw him just now," she said, "and he quite knew me, and asked if he
was going to die. I told him 'he certainly was not; I couldn't spare
him.'"
Nadine gave a little croaking laugh.
"And he instantly went to sleep," she said.
The veracious historian is bound to state that this was an adventure
absolutely after Dodo's heart. All her life she had loved impulse, and
disregarded its possibly appalling consequences. Never had she reasoned
before she acted, and she could almost have laughed for joy at these
blind strokes of fate. Hugh's splendid venture thrilled her, even as it
thrilled Nadine, and for the moment the result seemed negligible. A
great thing had 'got done' in the world: now by all means let them hope
for the best in its sequel, and do their utmost to bring about the best,
not with a fainting or regretful heart, but with a heart that rejoiced
and sang over the glory of the impetuous deed that brought about these
dealings of love and life.
Dodo's eyes danced as she spoke, danced and were dim at the same time.
"Oh, Nadine, and you saw it!" she said. "How glorious for you to see
that, and to know at the same moment that you loved him. And, my dear,
if Hughie is to die, you must thank God for him without any regret.
There is nothing to regret. And if he lives--"
"Oh, Mama, one thing at a time," said Nadine. "If he only lives, if only
I am going to be allowed to take care of him, and to do what can be
done."
She paused a moment.
"I am so glad you have come," she said; "it was dear of you to start at
once like that. Did Papa Jack want you not to go?"
"My dear, he hurried me off to that extent that I left the only bag that
mattered behind."
"That was nice of him. They have been so hopeless, all of them here,
because they didn't understand. Berts has been looking like a funeral
all day, the sort with plumes. And Edith has been running in and out
with soup for me, soup and mince and glasses of port I think--I think
Seymour understood though, because he was quite cheerful and normal. Oh,
Mama, if Hughie only lives, I will marry Seymour as a thank-offering."
Dodo looked at her daughter in amazement.
"Not if Seymour understands," she said.
Nadine frowned.
"It's the devil's own mess," she observed.
"But the devil never cleans up his messes," said Dodo. "That's what we
learn by degrees. He makes them, and we clean them up. More or less,
that is to say."
She paused a moment, and flung the spirit of her speech from her.
"I don't mean that," she said. "It is truer to say that God makes
beautiful things, and we spoil them. And then He makes them beautiful
again. It is only people who can't see at all, that see the other aspect
of it. I think they call them realists--I know it ends in 'ist.' But it
doesn't matter what you call them. They are wrong. We have got to hold
our hearts high, and let them beat, and let ourselves enjoy and be happy
and taste things to the full. It is easier to be miserable, my dear, for
most people. We are the lucky ones. Oh, if I had been a charwoman, like
that thing in the play, with a husband who stole and was sent to prison,
I should have found something to be happy about. Probably a large
diamond in the grate, which I should have sold without being traced."
These remarkable statements were not made without purpose. Dodo knew
quite well that courage and patience and cheerfulness would be needed by
Nadine, and she was willing to talk the most outrageous nonsense to give
the sense of vitality to her, to make her see that no great happening
like this, whatever the end, was a thing to moan and brood over. It must
be taken with much more than resignation--a quality which she
despised--and with hardly less than gaiety. Such at any rate was her
private human gospel, which she found had not served her so badly.
"I have quite missed my vocation," she said. "I ought to have been born
in poverty-stricken and criminal classes to show the world that being
hungry does not make you unhappy any more than having three diamond
tiaras makes you happy. You've got that birthright, Nadine, live up to
it. Never anticipate trouble, and if it comes embrace and welcome it: it
is part of life, and thus it becomes your friend. Oh, I wish I had been
here this morning! I would have shouted for glee to see that darling
Hughie go churning out to sea. I am jealous of you. Just think: if Papa
Jack had come a-wooing of you, as I really thought he might be doing in
the summer, you would have married him and I should be looking after
Hughie. Isn't that like me? I want everybody's good times myself."
These amazing statements were marvelously successful.
"I won't give my good time away even to you," said Nadine.
"No, you are sharper than a serpent's tooth. Now, darling, we will go
very quietly along the passage, and just see if Hughie is asleep. I
should so like to wake him up--I know he is asleep--in order to tell him
how splendid it all is. Don't be frightened: I'm not going to. We will
just go to the door, and that enormous nurse whom I saw peering over the
banisters, will tell us to go away. And then I shall go to dress for
dinner, and you will too--"
"Oh, Mama, I can't come down to dinner," said Nadine.
"Yes, dear, you can and you will. There's going to be no sadness in my
house. If you don't, I shall send Edith up to you with mince and her
'cello and soup. Oh, Nadine, and it was all just for a little stupid
boy, who very likely would have been better dead. He will now probably
grow up, and be an anxiety to his parents, if he's got any--they usually
haven't--and come to a bad and early end. What a great world!"