A RUN ON THE BEACH
The girl's kiss was so spontaneous and so natural that it could not
convey any false impression to me. It was a manifest expression of
gratitude, and that only. Nevertheless it set my heart beating and my
veins tingling with delight. From that instant I did not feel quite a
stranger to the giver; nor could I ever feel as quite a stranger again.
Something of the same idea may have passed through the girl's mind, for
she blushed and looked around her shyly; but, with a proud lifting of
her head and a slight stamp of her foot on the rock, she put the matter
behind her, for the present. The old lady, in the midst of her concern
for her companion and herself, was able to throw a glance of disapproval
on me, as though I had done something wrong; from which I gathered that
the younger lady was not only very dear to her, but held in some sort of
unusual respect as well. It was peculiar that she should in the midst of
her present condition be able to give a thought to so trivial a thing.
For though death did not now stare her in the face, she was cold and
wet; the rock she stood on was hard and slippery, and the foam of the
breaking waves was even now curling around her feet.
She looked about her apprehensively; she did not know whether or no we
were on another isolated rock. I reassured her on this subject, and we
scrambled as quickly as we could over the rocks on our way shoreward.
The elder lady took up most of my time. Here and there in a difficult
place, for the wind by now blew so strongly that one found it hard to
balance oneself as is necessary when walking on rocks, I offered the
younger my hand. At first she firmly declined; but then, manifestly
thinking it churlish, she relented and let me help her. That kiss was
evidently rankling in her mind.
Both the women breathed more freely when we had reached the shore and
stood secure from the sea. And indeed by this time the view, as we
looked back, was enough to frighten one. Great waves topped with white
were rolling in from as far as we could see; dashing over the rocks,
sending up here and there white towers of spray, or rolling in on the
flat shore in front of us with an ominous roar. Woe betide any one who
might be isolated now on any rock beyond; he would be swept off, and
beaten on the rocks. The old lady groaned as she saw it, and then said
audibly a prayer of thankfulness. Even the girl grew white for a moment;
then, to my secret joy, unconsciously she drew closer to me. I took
control of the party.
"Come," I said, "you mustn't stand here in your wet clothes. Hurry to
the hotel and get dried. You will get your death of cold. We must all
run! Or hasten, at all events!" I added, as I took in the dimensions of
the elder lady.
"We have left our trap at the hotel" said the younger lady as we began
to walk quickly in the direction of Port Erroll.
As we were moving off it suddenly struck me that Gormala might have seen
the episode of the rescue. The very thought of such a thing filled me
with such dismay that I groaned aloud. Not for all the world would I
have had her have a hand in this; it was too sacred--too delightful--too
much apart from ordinary things! Whilst I was lost in a reverie of
inexpressible sweetness for perhaps two or three seconds altogether, I
was recalled to myself by the voice of the girl who came close to me:
"Are you hurt? Please tell me if you are. I am a First Aid."
"Hurt?" I asked, surprised "not at all. What on earth makes you think
so?"
"I heard you groan!"
"Oh that----" I began with a smile. Then I stopped, for again the
haunting fear of Gormala's interference closed over my heart like a wet
mist. With the fear, however, came a resolution; I would not have any
doubt to torment me. In my glance about the shore, as we came off the
rocks on to the beach, I had not seen a sign of anyone. At this part of
the shore the sandhills have faded away into a narrow flat covered with
bent-grass, beyond which the land slopes up directly to the higher
plain. There was not room or place for any one to hide; even one lying
amongst the long bents could be seen at a glance from above. Without a
word I turned to the left and ran as quickly as I could across the beach
and up the steep bank of the sandy plateau. With a certain degree of
apprehension, and my heart beating like a trip-hammer--I had certainly
taken this matter with much concern--I looked around. Then I breathed
freely; there was not a sign of anyone as far as I could see. The wind,
now coming fiercely in from the sea, swept the tall bent-grass till it
lay over, showing the paler green of its under side; the blue-green,
metallic shimmer which marks it, and which painters find it so hard to
reproduce, had all vanished under the stress.
I ran back to join the ladies. The elder one had continued walking
stolidly along the shore, leaving a track of wet on the half dry sand
as she went; but the younger one had lingered and came towards me as I
approached.
"I hope there was nothing wrong?" she asked in a most natural way.
"No," I said it without thinking, for there was something about the
girl which made me feel as if we were old friends, and I spoke to her
unconsciously in this strain. "It's all right. She's not there!"
"Who?" she asked with unconsciousness of any _arrière pensée_, an
unconsciousness similar to my own.
"Gormala!" I answered.
"And who is Gormala?" For quite a minute or two I walked on without
speaking, for I wanted to think before I answered. I felt that it would
be hard to explain the odd way in which the Seer-woman seemed to have
become tangled up in my life; and yet I wanted to tell this girl. I
feared that she might laugh at me; that she might think me ridiculous;
that she might despise me; or even that she might think me a lunatic!
Then again Gormala might come and tell things to her. There was no
accounting for what the woman might do. She might come upon us at any
moment; she might be here even now! The effect of her following or
watching me had begun to tell on my mind; her existence haunted me. I
looked around anxiously, and breathed freely. There was no sign of her.
My eyes finally fetched up on the face of the girl.... Her beautiful,
dark eyes were fixed on me with interest and wonder.
"Well!" she said, after a pause, "I don't suppose I'm more inquisitive
than my neighbours, but I should just like to know, right here, what's
wrong with you. You looked round that time just as if you were haunted!
Why did you run away that time and search round as if some one had taken
a pot-shot at you and you wanted to locate him? Why did you groan before
you went, and come back humming? Who is Gormala, anyhow; and why were
you glad that you didn't see her? Why didn't you answer me when I asked
you who she was? Why did you walk along with your head up and your eyes
staring, as though you were seeing visions? And why----"
All at once she stopped, and a swift blush swept over her face and even
her neck. "Oh," she said in a low tone with a note of pathos in her
voice, "I beg your pardon! my unruly tongue ran away with me. I have no
right to ask so many questions--and from a stranger too!" She stopped as
suddenly as she had begun.
"You might have spared me that!" I said "I know I have been rude in
delaying to answer your question about Gormala; but the fact is that
there are so many odd things in connection with her that I was really
considering whether you would think me a fool or a lunatic if I told
them to you. And you certainly would not understand why I didn't want
to see her, if I didn't. And perhaps not even if I did," I added as an
afterthought. The girl's awkwardness slipped from her like a robe; the
blush merged into a smile as she turned to me and said:
"This is most interesting. O! do tell me--if you don't mind."
"I shall be delighted" I said, and I only expressed my thought.
"Gormala" I began; but just then the stout lady in front of us, who was
now a considerable way ahead, turned round and called to us. I could
only hear "Miss Anita;" but the girl evidently understood, for she
called out:
"All right! We are coming at once!" and she hurried on. It gave me a
thrill of pleasure that she said "we" not "I;" it was sweet to have a
part in such a comprehension. As we went she turned to me and said:
"You must tell me all about it; I shan't be happy till I hear the whole
story, whatever it is. This is all too lovely and exciting. I hadn't an
idea when we went out sleepily this morning that there would be so much
in the day to think of afterwards." I felt that I had taken my courage
in both hands as I said:
"You'll both dine with me at the hotel, won't you. You have missed
lunch and must be hungry, so we can dine early. It will be such a true
pleasure to me; and I can tell you all about everything afterwards, if
we can manage to get a moment alone."
She paused, and I waited anxiously. Then she spoke with a delightful
smile:
"That must be as Mrs. Jack says. But we shall see!" With this I had to
be content for the present.
When we came up to her, Mrs. Jack said in a woeful way:
"Oh, Miss Anita, I don't know what to do. The sand is so heavy, and my
clothes are so weighty with the wet, and my boots squish so with the
water in them that I'm beginning to think I'll never be able to get warm
or dry again; though I'm both warm enough and dry enough in other ways."
As she spoke she moved her feet somewhat after the manner of a bear
dancing, so as to make her wet boots squeak. I would have liked to have
laughed, though I really pitied the poor thing; but a glance at the
concern on Miss Anita's face checked me. Very tenderly she began to help
and comfort the old lady, and looked at me pleadingly to help her. "Why
dear" she said "no wonder it is hard walking for you with your clothes
so wringing wet," and she knelt down on the wet sand and began to wring
them out. I looked around to see what I could do to help. Just opposite,
where we were the outcrop of rock on which the Hawklaw is based sent up
a jagged spur of granite through the sand, close under the bent-covered
hillocks. I pointed to this and we led the old lady over to it and made
her sit down on a flat rock. Then we proceeded to wring her out, she
all the while protesting against so much trouble being taken about
her. We pulled off her spring-side boots, emptied them out and, with
considerable difficulty, forced them on again. Then we all stood up, and
the girl and I took her arms and hurried her along the beach; we all
knew that nothing could be done for real comfort till we should have
reached the hotel. As we went she said with gratitude in every note of
her voice, the words joggling out of her as she bumped along:
"Oh, my dears, you are very good to me."
Once again the use of the plural gave me pleasure. This time, however,
it was my head, rather than my heart, which was affected; to be so
bracketted with Miss Anita was to have hope as well as pleasure.
Things were beginning to move fast with me.
When we got to Cruden there was great local excitement, and much running
to and fro on the part of the good people of the hotel to get dry
clothes for the strange ladies. None of us gave any detail as to how the
wetting took place; by some kind of common consent it was simply made
known for the time that they had been overtaken by the tide. When once
the incomplete idea had been started I took care not to elaborate it. I
could see plainly enough that though the elder lady had every wish to be
profuse in the expression of her gratitude to me, the younger one not
only remained silent but now and again restrained her companion by a
warning look. Needless to say, I let things go in their own way; it was
too sweet a pleasure to me to share anything in the way of a secret with
my new friend, to imperil such a bliss by any breach of reticence. The
ladies were taken away to bedrooms to change, and I asked that dinner
for the three of us might be served in my room. When I had changed my
own clothes, over which operation I did not lose any time, I waited in
the room for the arrival of my guests. Whilst the table was being laid I
learned that the two ladies had come to the hotel early in the day in a
dogcart driven by the younger one. They had given no orders except that
the horse should be put up and well cared for.
It was not long before the ladies appeared. Mrs. Jack began to express
her gratitude to me. I tried to turn it aside, for though it moved me
a little by its genuineness, I felt somewhat awkward, as though I were
accepting praise under false pretences. Such service as I had been able
to render, though of the utmost importance to them, had been so easy of
execution to me that more than a passing expression of thanks seemed
out of place. After all I had only accepted a wetting on behalf of two
ladies placed in an awkward position. I was a good swimmer; and my part
of the whole proceeding was unaccompanied by any danger whatever, I
thought, of course, had it been later in the coming of the storm, things
might have been very different. Here I shuddered as my imagination gave
me an instantaneous picture of the two helpless women in the toils of
the raging sea amongst those grim rocks and borne by that racing tide
which had done poor Lauchlane Macleod to death. As if to emphasise my
fears there now came a terrific burst of wind which seemed to sweep over
the house with appalling violence. It howled and roared above us, so
that every window, chimney and door, seemed to bear the sound right in
upon us. Overhead was heard, between the burst which shook the windows
and doors, that vague, booming sound, which conveys perhaps a better
sense of nature's forces when let loose, than even the concrete
expression of their violence. In this new feeling of the possibilities
of the storm, I realised the base and the truth of the gratitude which
the ladies felt; and I also realised what an awful tragedy might have
come to pass had I or some one else not come down the path from
Whinnyfold just when I did.
I was recalled to myself by an expression of concern by Mrs. Jack:
"Look how pale he has got. I do hope he has not been hurt." Mechanically
I answered:
"Hurt! I was never better in my life," then I felt that my pallor must
have left me and that I grew red with pleasure as I heard Miss Anita
say:
"Ah! I understand. He did not have any fear for himself; but he
is beginning to feel how terrible it was for us." The fulness of
understanding on the part of the beautiful girl, her perfect and ready
sympathy, the exactness of her interpretation of my mind, made for me an
inexpressible pleasure.
When I told Mrs. Jack that I had ventured to claim them both as my
guests, and hoped that they would honour me by dining with me, she
looked at her companion in the same inquiring way which I had already
noticed. I could not see the face of the younger lady at the moment as
it was turned away from me, but her approval was manifest; the answer
was made gladly in the affirmative. Then I put forth a hope that they
would allow me to have a carriage ready to take them home, whenever they
might desire, so that they might feel at ease in remaining till they had
been thoroughly restored after their fatigue. I added that perhaps it
would be good for Miss Anita. Mrs. Jack raised her eyebrows slightly,
and I thought there was a note of distance in her voice, as though she
resented in a quiet way my mentioning the name:
"Miss Anita!" she said; and there was that unconscious stiffening of
the back which evidences that one is on guard. I felt somewhat awkward,
as though I had taken a liberty. The younger lady saw my difficulty, and
with a quick smile jumped to the rescue.
"Oh Mrs. Jack" she said "I quite forgot that we were never introduced;
but of course he heard you mention my name. It was rather hurried our
meeting; wasn't it? We must set it right now." Then she added very
demurely:
"Dear Mrs. Jack, will you present to Miss Anita, Mr.----" she looked at
me interrogatively.
"Archibald Hunter" I said, and the presentation was formally made. Then
Miss Anita answered my question about the carriage:
"Thank you for your kind offer, Mr. Archibald Hunter" I thought she
dwelt on the name, "but we shall drive back as we came. The storm will
not be quite so bad inland, and as it does not rain the cart will be all
right; we have plenty of wraps. The lamps are good, and I know the road;
I noted it well as we came. Is not that right?" she added, turning to
her companion.
"Quite right, my dear! Do just as you like," and so the manner of their
going was arranged.
Then we had dinner; a delightful, cosy meal. The fire leaped whenever
the wind roared; and as the darkness of the storm made a sort of
premature nightfall, it gave a pleasant, homely look to everything.
After dinner we sat round the fire, and I think for a time we were
all content. To me it was so like a dream. To sit there close to the
beautiful stranger, and to think of the romantic beginning of our
acquaintance, was enjoyment beyond words. As yet I did not dare to
cast a glance forwards; but I was content to wait for that. I had a
conviction that my own mind was made up.
After a little while we all became silent. Mrs. Jack was beginning to
doze in her chair, and we two young folk instinctively banded ourselves
together with our youthful superiority over sleep and fatigue. I
sat quite still; there was something so sweet in this organised
companionship of silence that it enraptured me. I did not need Miss
Anita's look of caution to remain quiet; there was something in her
face, some power or quality which was as eloquent as speech. I began to
think of it; and the habit of introspection, which had now become a part
of my nature, asserted itself. How much of this quality I thought, was
in her face, how much in my own eyes and the brain that lay behind them.
I was recalled to myself by a whisper:
"I thought for a moment you were going to sleep too. Hsh!" she placed a
finger on her lip a moment and then tiptoed over to the sofa; taking a
soft cushion she placed it under Mrs. Jack's head, which had now fallen
over sideways upon the arm of the chair. Then she sat beside me again,
and bending over said softly:
"While she is asleep would you mind walking down to the beach, I want to
see the waves. They must be big by now; I can hear their roaring from
here."
"I will go with delight;" I said "but you must wrap up properly. It will
not do to run any chance of a chill."
"All right, oh wise man! I obey, King Solomon! I shall wait to put on my
own clothes till I get back; and you can lend me a mackie-coat if you
will." I got one of mine for her, the newest; and we walked over the
sandhills to the beach.
The wind was blowing furiously. It never left off for a moment; but
occasionally there were bursts of such added violence that we found it
difficult to keep our feet. We clung to each other at such moments, and
the very sense of the strength which enabled me to shield her somewhat
from the violence of the storm, made a new feeling of love--I could not
now disguise it from myself. Something went out from me to her; some
subtle feeling which must, I suppose, have manifested itself in some
way, how I know not, for I kept guard upon myself. For one blissful
moment, possibly of forgetfulness, she clung to me as the weak cling to
the strong, the clinging of self-surrender which is equally dear to the
weak and the strong, to the woman and the man. And then she drew herself
sharply away from me.
There was no misunderstanding the movement; it was an intentional and
conscious one, and the motive which lay behind both was her woman's
mystery. I did not know much about women, but I could make no mistake
as to this. Inasmuch as Providence has thought fit in its wisdom to
make men and women different, it is just as well that each sex should
at critical times use its own potentialities for its protection and
advancement. Herein comes, in the midst of an unnatural civilisation,
the true utility of instinct. Since we have lost the need of early
information of the presence of game or of predatory animals or hostile
men, even our instincts adapt themselves to our surroundings. Many
an act which may afterwards seem the result of long and careful
premeditation is, on reflection, found to be simply the result of that
form of momentary impulse which is in reality a blind obedience to
some knowledge of our ancestors gained through painful experience.
Some protective or militant instinct whose present exercise is but a
variant of its primal use. For an instant the man and the woman were
antagonistic. The woman shrank, therefore it was the man's interest to
advance; all at once the man in me spoke through the bashfulness and
reticence of years:
"Why do you shrink from me? Have I done anything?"
"Oh no!"
"Then why?" A hot blush mantled her face and neck. Had she been an
English girl I should not probably have had a direct answer; she would
have switched conversation on some safer track, or have, after some
skirmishing, forbidden the topic altogether. This girl's training,
however, had been different. Her equal companionship in study with boys
in school and college had taught her the futility of trying to burke a
question when her antagonist was masculine; and the natural pluck and
dominance--the assertion of individuality which is a part of an American
woman's birthright--brought up her pride. Still blushing, but bearing
herself with additional dignity, she spoke. Had she been more
self-conscious, and could she have seen herself at the moment, she would
have recognised to the full that with so much pride and so much dignity
she could well afford to discuss any topic that she chose.
"The fault is not yours. It is, or it was, my own."
"You mean when I gave you back your brooch?" The blood deepened and
deepened to a painful intensity. In a low voice, in the tone of speech,
but with only the power of a whisper she answered me:
"Yes!" This was my chance and I said with all the earnestness I had, and
which I felt to the full:
"Let me say something. I shall not ever allude to it again unless you
wish. I took that sweet acknowledgment of your gratitude exactly as it
was meant. Do believe that I am a gentleman. I have not got a sister, I
am sorry to say, but if I had, I should not mind her giving a kiss to a
stranger under such circumstances. It was a sweet and womanly act and I
respect--and--like you more for it. I wouldn't, of course, for all the
world you hadn't done it; and I shall never forget it. But believe me
I shall never forget myself on account of it. If I did I should be a
howling cad;--and--that's all."
As I spoke her face brightened and she sighed with an expression of
relief. The blush almost faded away, and a bright smile broke over her
face. With a serious deep look in the eyes which glistened through her
smile she held out her hand and said:
"You are a good fellow, and I thank you with all my heart."
I felt as if I walked on air as we forced our way through the storm
which roared around us, over the sandhills towards the sea. It was with
an exultation that made my head swim that I noticed that she kept step
with me.