Was the water blue, or was it purple that day? Randal Courteney
stretched his lazy length on the shady side of the great natural
breakwater that protected Hurley Bay from the Atlantic rollers, and
wondered. It was a day in late September, but the warmth of it was as a
dream of summer returned. The season was nearly over, or he had not
betaken himself thither, but the spell of heat had prolonged it unduly.
It had been something of a shock to him to find the place still occupied
by a buzzing crowd of visitors. He never came to it till he judged the
holidays to be practically over. For he loved it only when empty. His
idea of rest was solitude.
He wondered how long this pearly weather would last, and scanned the sky
for a cloud. In vain! There was no cloud all round that blue horizon,
and behind him the cliffs stood stark against an azure sky. Summer was
lingering, and even he had not the heart to wish her gone.
Something splashed noisily on the other side of the rocky breakwater.
Something squeaked and gurgled. The man frowned. He had tramped a
considerable distance to secure privacy. He had his new novel to think
out. This invasion was intolerable. He had not even smoked the first
pipe of his meditations. Impatiently he prepared to rise and depart.
But in that moment a voice accosted him, and in spite of himself he
paused. "I want to get over the breakwater," said the voice. "There's
such a large crab lives this side."
It was an engaging voice--a voice with soft, lilting notes in it--the
voice of a child.
Courteney's face cleared a little. The grimness went out of his frown,
the reluctance from his attitude. He stood up against the rocky barrier
and stretched his hands over to the unseen owner of the voice.
"I'll help you," he said.
"Oh!" There was an instant's pause; then two other hands, wet, cool,
slender, came up, clasping his. A little leap, a sudden strain, and a
very pink face beneath a cloud of golden hair laughed down into his.
"You must pull," she said; "pull hard!"
Courteney obeyed instructions. He pulled, and a pair of slim shoulders
clad in white, with a blue sailor collar, came into view. He pulled
again, and a white knee appeared, just escaping a blue serge skirt. At
the third pull she was over and standing, bare-footed, by his side. It
had been a fairy leap. He marvelled at the lightness of her till he saw
her standing so, with merry eyes upraised to his. Then he laughed, for
she was laughing--the infectious laugh of the truant.
"Oh, thank you ever so much," she said. "I knew it was much nicer this
side than the other. No one can see us here, either."
"Is that why you wanted to get over?" he asked.
She nodded, her pink face all mystery. "It's nice to get away from
everyone sometimes, isn't it? Even Rosa Mundi thinks that. Did you know
that she is here? It is being kept a dead secret."
"Rosa Mundi!" Courteney started. He looked down into the innocent face
upraised to his with something that was almost horror in his own. "Do
you mean that dancing woman from Australia? What can a child like you
know of her?"
She smiled at him, the mystery still in her eyes. "I do know her. I
belong to her. Do you know her, too?"
A sudden hot flush went up over Courteney's face. He knew the woman;
yes, he knew her. Was it years ago--or was it but yesterday?--that he
had yielded to the importunities of his friend, young Eric Baron, and
gone to see her dance? The boy had been infatuated, wild with the lure
of her. Ah well, it was over now. She had been his ruin, just as she had
been the ruin of others like him. Baron was dead and free for ever from
the evil spell of his enchantress. But he had not thought to hear her
name in this place and on the lips of a child.
It revolted him. For she had utterly failed to attract his fancy. He
was fastidious, and all he had seen in her had been the sensuous charm
of a sinuous grace which, to him, was no charm at all. He had almost
hated her for the abject adoration that young Eric's eyes had held. Her
art, wonderful though he admitted it to be, had wholly failed to enslave
him. He had looked her once--and once only--in the eyes, judged her, and
gone his way.
And now this merry-eyed, rosy-faced child came, fairy-footed, over the
barrier of his reserve, and spoke with a careless familiarity of the
only being in the world whom he had condemned as beyond the pale.
"I'm not supposed to tell anyone," she said, with sapphire eyes uplifted
confidingly to his. "She isn't--really--here before the end of the week.
You won't tell, will you? Only when I saw you plodding along out here by
yourself, I just had to come and tell you, to cheer you up."
He stood and looked at her, not knowing what to say. It was as if some
adverse fate were at work, driving him, impelling him.
The soft eyes sparkled into laughter. "I know who you are," chuckled the
gay voice on a high note of merriment. "You are Randal Courteney, the
writer. It's not a bit of good trying to hide, because everybody knows."
He attempted a frown, but failed in its achievement. "And who are you?"
he said, looking straight into the daring, trusting eyes. She was, not
beautiful, but her eyes were wonderful; they held a mystery that
beckoned and eluded in the same subtle moment.
"I?" she said. "I am her companion, her familiar spirit. Sometimes she
calls me her angel."
The man moved as if something had stung him, but he checked himself with
instinctive self-control. "And your name?" he said.
She turned out her hands with a little gesture that was utterly
unstudied and free from self-consciousness. "My name is Rosemary," she
said. "It means--remembrance."
"You are her adopted child?" Courteney was, looking at her curiously.
Out of what part of Rosa Mundi's strange, fretted existence had the
desire for remembrance sprung to life? He had deemed her a woman of many
episodes, each forgotten as its successor took its place. Yet it seemed
this child held a corner in her memory that was to last.
She turned her face to the sun. "We have adopted each other," she said
naïvely. "When Rosa Mundi is old, I shall take her place, so that she
may still be remembered."
The words, "Heaven forbid!" were on Courteney's lips. He checked them
sharply, but something of his original grimness returned as he said,
"And now that you are on the other side of the breakwater, what are you
going to do?"
She looked up at him speculatively, and in a moment tossed back the
short golden curls that clustered at her neck. She was sublimely young.
In the eyes of the man, newly awakened, she had the look of one who has
seen life without comprehending it. "I always like to get the other side
of things, don't you?" she said. "But I won't stay with you if you are
bored. I am going right to the end of the rocks to see the tide come
in."
"And be washed away?" suggested Courteney.
"Oh no," she assured him confidently. "That won't happen. I'm not nearly
so young as I look. I only dress like this when I want to enjoy myself.
Rosa Mundi says"--her eyes were suddenly merry--"that I'm not
respectable. Now, don't you think that sounds rather funny?"
"From her--yes," said Courteney.
"You don't like her?" The shrewd curiosity of a child who desires
understanding upon a forbidden subject was in the question.