Late that afternoon, when the sun was beginning to stoop to the west, a
wind came creeping down from somewhere back of the mountains, and began
to stretch tentative cats’ paws over the lake. It had pushed before it
across the Atlantic a soft mass of orange-coloured cloud, that caught
the sun’s lowered rays, and spread them in a mellow glare over
everything. The lake turned to a coarse and furious blue; all the rocks
and tree stems became like red gold, and the polished brass top of the
funnel of the steam-launch looked as if it were on fire as Captain
Cursiter turned the _Serpolette’s_ sharp snout to the wind, and steamed
at full speed round Ochery Point. The yacht had started half an hour
before on her tedious zig-zag journey home, and was already far down to
the right, her sails all aglow as she leaned aslant like a skater,
swooping and bending under the freshening breeze.
It was evident that Lambert wished to make the most of his time, for
almost immediately after the _Daphne_ had gone about with smooth
precision, and had sprung away on the other tack, the party on the
launch saw a flutter of white, and a top-sail was run up.
“By Jove! Lambert didn’t make much on that tack,” remarked Captain
Cursiter to his brother-in-arms, as with an imperceptible pressure of
the wheel he serenely headed the launch straight for her destination. “I
don’t believe he’s done himself much good with that top-sail either.”
Mr. Hawkins turned a sour eye upon the _Daphne_, and said laconically,
“Silly ass; he’ll smother her.”
“Upon my word, I don’t think he’ll get in much before nine o’clock
to-night,” continued Cursiter; “it’s pretty nearly dead in his teeth,
and he doesn’t make a hundred yards on each tack.”
Mr. Hawkins slammed the lid of the coal bunker, and stepped past his
chief into the after-part of the launch.
“I say, Miss Mullen,” he began with scarcely suppressed malignity,
“Captain Cursiter says you won’t see your niece before to-morrow
morning. You’ll be sorry you wouldn’t let her come home in the launch
after all.”
“If she hadn’t been so late for her tea,” retorted Miss Mullen, “Mr.
Lambert could have started half an hour before he did.”
“Half an hour will be neither here nor there in this game. What Lambert
ought to have done was to have started after luncheon, but I think I may
remind you, Miss Mullen, that you took him off to the holy well then.”
“Well, and if I did, I didn’t leave my best pocket handkerchief hanging
in rags on the thorn bush, like some other people I know of!” Miss
Mullen felt that she had scored, and looked for sympathy to Pamela, who,
having as was usual with her, borne the heat and burden of the day in
the matter of packings and washings-up, was now sitting, pale and tired,
in the stern, with Dinah solidly implanted in her lap, and Max huddled
miserably on the seat beside her. Miss Hope-Drummond, shrouded in
silence and a long plaid cloak, paid no attention to anyone or anything.
There are few who can drink the dregs of the cup of pleasuring with any
appearance of enjoyment, and Miss Hope-Drummond was not one of them. The
alteration in the respective crews of the yacht and the steam-launch had
been made by no wish of hers, and it is probable that but for the
unexpected support that Cursiter had received from Miss Mullen, his
schemes for Mr. Hawkins’ welfare would not have prospered. The idea had
indeed occurred to Miss Hope-Drummond that the proprietor of the launch
had perhaps a personal motive in suggesting the exchange, but when she
found that Captain Cursiter was going to stand with his back to her, and
steer, she wished that she had not yielded her place in the _Daphne_ to
a young person whom she already thought of as “_that_ Miss Fitzpatrick,”
applying in its full force the demonstrative pronoun that denotes
feminine animosity more subtly and expressively than is in the power of
any adjective. Hawkins she felt was out of her jurisdiction and unworthy
of attention, and she politely ignored Pamela’s attempts to involve her
in conversation with him. Her neat brown fringe was out of curl; long
strands of hair blew unbecomingly over her ears; her feet were very
cold, and she finally buried herself to the nose in a fur boa that gave
her the effect of a moustached and bearded Russian noble, and began, as
was her custom during sermons and other periods of tedium, to elaborate
the construction of a new tea-gown.
To do Mr. Hawkins justice, he, though equally ill-treated by fate, rose
superior to his disappointment. After his encounter with Miss Mullen he
settled confidentially down in the corner beside Pamela, and amused
himself by pulling Dinah’s short, fat tail, and puffing cigarette smoke
in her face, while he regaled her mistress with an assortment of the
innermost gossip of Lismoyle.
On board the _Daphne_ the aspect of things was less comfortable.
Although the wind was too much in her teeth for her to make much advance
for home, there was enough to drive her through the water at a pace that
made the long tacks from side to side of the lake seem as nothing, and
to give Francie as much as she could do to keep her big hat on her head.
She was sitting up on the weather side with Lambert, who was steering;
and Christopher, in the bows, was working the head sails, and acting as
movable ballast when they went about. At first, while they were beating
out of the narrow channel of Ochery, Francie had found it advisable to
lie in a heap beneath a tarpaulin, to avoid the onslaught of the boom at
each frequent tack, but now that they were out on the open lake, with
the top-sail hoisted, she had risen to her present position, and, in
spite of her screams as the sharp squalls came down from the mountains
and lifted her hat till it stood on end like a rearing horse, was
enjoying herself amazingly. Unlike Miss Hope-Drummond, she was
pre-eminently one of those who come home unflagging from the most
prolonged outing, and to-day’s entertainment, so far from being
exhausting, had verified to the utmost her belief in the charms of the
British officer, as well as Miss Fanny Hemphill’s prophecies of her
success in such quarters. Nevertheless she was quite content to return
in the yacht; it was salutary for Mr. Hawkins to see that she could do
without him very well, it took her from Charlotte’s dangerous
proximity, and it also gave her an opportunity of appeasing Mr. Lambert,
who, as she was quite aware, was not in the best of tempers. So far her
nimble tongue had of necessity been idle. Christopher’s position in the
bows isolated him from all conversation of the ordinary pitch, and
Lambert had been at first too much occupied with the affairs of his boat
to speak to her, but now, as a sharper gust nearly snatched her hat from
her restraining hand, he turned to her.
“If it wasn’t that you seem to enjoy having that hat blown inside out
every second minute,” he said chillingly, “I’d offer to lend you a cap.”
“What sort is it?” demanded Francie. “If it’s anything like that old
deerstalker thing you have on your head now, I wouldn’t touch it with
the tongs!”
Lambert’s only reply was to grope under the seat with one hand, and to
bring out a red knitted cap of the conventional sailoring type, which he
handed to Francie without so much as looking at her. Miss Fitzpatrick
recognised its merits with half a glance, and, promptly putting it on
her head, stuffed the _chef-d’œuvre_ of the night before under the seat
among the deck-swabs and ends of rope that lurked there. Christopher,
looking aft at the moment, saw the change of head-gear, and it was,
perhaps, characteristic of him that even while he acknowledged the
appropriateness of the red cap of liberty to the impertinence of the
brilliant face beneath it, he found himself reminded of the extra
supplement, in colours, of any Christmas number--indubitably pretty, but
a trifle vulgar.
In the meantime the object of this patronising criticism, feeling
herself now able to give her undivided attention to conversation,
regarded Mr. Lambert’s sulky face with open amusement, and said:
“Well, now, tell me what made you so cross all day. Was it because Mrs.
Lambert wasn’t out?”
Lambert looked at her for an instant without speaking. “Ready about,” he
called out. “Mind your head! Lee helm!”
The little yacht hung and staggered for a moment, and then, with a
diving plunge, started forward, with every sail full and straining.
Francie scrambled with some difficulty to the other side of the tiny
cockpit, and climbed up on to the seat by Mr. Lambert, just in time to
see a very fair imitation of a wave break on the weather bow and splash
a sparkling shower into Christopher’s face.
“Oh, Mr. Dysart! are you drowned?” she screamed ecstatically.
“Not quite,” he called back, his hair hanging in dripping points on his
forehead as he took off his cap and shook the water out of it. “I say,
Lambert, it’s beginning to blow pretty stiff; I’d take that top-sail off
her, if I were you.”
“She’s often carried it in worse weather than this,” returned Lambert;
“a drop of water will do no one any harm.”
Mr. Lambert in private, and as much as possible in public, affected to
treat his employer’s son as a milksop, and few things annoyed him more
than the accepted opinion on the lake that there was no better man in a
boat than Christopher Dysart. His secret fear that it was true made it
now all the more intolerable that Christopher should lay down the law to
him on a point of seamanship, especially with Francie by, ready in that
exasperating way of hers to laugh at him on the smallest provocation.
“It’ll do him no harm if he does get a drop of water over him,” he said
to her in a low voice, forgetting for the moment his attitude of
disapproval. “Take some of the starch out of him for once!” He took a
pull on the main sheet, and, with a satisfied upward look at the
top-sail in question, applied himself to conversation. The episode had
done him good, and it was with almost fatherly seriousness that he
began:
“Now, Francie, you were telling me a while ago that I was cross all day.
I’m a very old friend of yours, and I don’t mind saying that I was
greatly put out by the way”--he lowered his voice--“by the way you were
going on with that fellow Hawkins.”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘going on,’” interrupted Francie, with a
slight blush. “What’s the harm in talking to him if he likes to talk to
me?”
“Plenty of harm,” returned Lambert quickly, “when he makes a fool of you
the way he did to-day. If you don’t care that Miss Dysart and the rest
of them think you know no better than to behave like that, _I_ do!”
“Behave like what?”
“Well, for one thing, to let him and Garry Dysart go sticking grass in
your stockings that way after luncheon; and for another to keep Miss
Dysart waiting tea for you for half an hour, and your only excuse to be
to tell her that he was ‘teaching you to make ducks and drakes’ the
other side of the island.” The fatherly quality had died out of his
voice, and the knuckles of the hand that held the tiller grew white from
a harder grip.
Francie instinctively tucked away her feet under her petticoats. She was
conscious that the green pattern still adorned her insteps, and that
tell-tale spikes of grass still projected on either side of her shoes.
“How could I help it? It was just a silly game that he and Garry Dysart
made up between them; and as for Miss Dysart being angry with me, she
never said a word to me. She was awfully good; and she and her brother
had kept the teapot hot for me, and everything.” She looked furtively at
Christopher, who was looking out at the launch, now crossing their path
some distance ahead. “It was more than _you’d_ have done for me!”
“Yes, very likely it was; but I wouldn’t have been laughing at you in my
sleeve all the time as they were, or at least as he was, anyhow!”
“I believe that’s a great lie,” said Francie unhesitatingly; “and I
don’t care a jack-rat what he thought, or what you think either! Mr.
Hawkins is a very nice young man, and I’ll talk to him just as much as I
like! And he’s coming to tea at Tally Ho to-morrow; and what’s more, I
asked him! So now!”
“Oh, all right!” said Lambert, in such a constrained voice of anger,
that even Francie felt a little afraid of him. “Have him to tea by all
means; and if I were you I should send down to Limerick and have Miss
M‘Carthy up to meet him!”
“What are you saying? Who’s Miss M‘Carthy?” asked Francie, with a
disappointing sparkle of enjoyment in her eyes.
“She’s the daughter of a George’s Street tobacconist that your friend
Mr. Hawkins was so sweet about a couple of months ago that they packed
him off here to be out of harm’s way. Look out, Dysart, I’m going about
now,” he continued without giving Francie time to reply. “Lee-helm!”
“Oh, I’m sick of you and your old ‘lee-helm’!” cried Francie, as she
grovelled again in the cockpit to avoid the swing of the boom. “Why
can’t you go straight like Captain Cursiter’s steamer, instead of
bothering backwards and forwards, side-ways, like this? And you always
do it just when I want to ask you something.”
This complaint, which was mainly addressed to Mr. Lambert’s canvas
yachting shoes, received no attention. When Francie came to the surface
she found that the yacht was at a more uncomfortable angle than ever,
and with some difficulty she established herself on the narrow strip of
deck, outside the coaming, with her feet hanging into the cockpit.
“Now, Mr. Lambert,” she began at once, “you’d better tell me Miss
M‘Carthy’s address, and all about her, and perhaps if you’re good I’ll
ask you to meet her too.”
As she spoke, a smart squall struck the yacht, and Lambert luffed her
hard up to meet it. A wave with a ragged white edge flopped over her
bows, wetting Christopher again, and came washing aft along the deck
behind the coaming.
“Look out aft there!” he shouted. “She’s putting her nose into it! I
tell you that top-sail’s burying her, Lambert.”
Lambert made no answer to either Francie or Christopher. He had as much
as he could do to hold the yacht, which was snatching at the tiller like
a horse at its bit, and ripping her way deep through the waves in a
manner too vigorous to be pleasant. It was about seven o’clock, and
though the sun was still some height above the dark jagged wall of the
mountains, the clouds had risen in a tawny fleece across his path, and
it was evident that he would be seen no more that day. The lake had
turned to indigo. The beds of reeds near the shore were pallid by
contrast as they stooped under the wind; the waves that raced towards
the yacht had each an angry foam-crest, having, after the manner of lake
waves, lashed themselves into a high state of indignation on very short
notice, and hissed and effervesced like soda-water all along the
lee-gunwale of the flying yacht. A few seagulls that were trying to
fight their way back down to the sea, looked like fluttering scraps of
torn white paper against the angry bronze of the clouds, and the pine
trees on the point, under the lee of which they were scudding, were
tossing like the black plumes of a hearse.
Lambert put the yacht about, and headed back across the lake.
“We did pretty well on that tack, Dysart,” he shouted. “We ought to get
outside Screeb Point with the next one, and then we’ll get the wind a
point fairer, and make better weather of it the rest of the way home.”
He could see the launch, half a mile or so beyond the point, ploughing
steadily along on her way to Lismoyle, and in his heart he wished that
Francie was on board of her. He also wished that Christopher had held
his confounded tongue about the top-sail. If he hadn’t shoved in his oar
where he wasn’t wanted, he’d have had that top-sail off her twenty
minutes ago; but he wasn’t going to stand another man ordering him about
in his own boat.
“Look here, Francie,” he said, “you must look out for yourself when I’m
going about next time. It’s always a bit squally round this point, so
you’d better keep down in the cockpit till we’re well on the next tack.”
“But I’ll get all wet down there,” objected Francie, “and I’d much
rather stay up here and see the fun.”
“You talk as if it was the top of a tram in Sackville Street,” said
Lambert, snatching a glance of provoked amusement at her unconcerned
face. “I can tell you it will take a good deal more holding on to than
that does. Promise me now, like a good child,” he went on, with a sudden
thrill of anxiety at her helplessness and ignorance, “that you’ll do as
I tell you. You _used_ to mind what I said to you.”
He leaned towards her as he spoke, and Francie raised her eyes to his
with a laugh in them that made him for the moment forgetful of
everything else. They were in the open water in the centre of the lake
by this time. And in that second a squall came roaring down upon them.
“Luff!” shouted Christopher, letting go the head sheets. “Luff, or we’re
over!”
Lambert let go the main sheet and put the tiller hard down with all the
strength he was master of, but he was just too late. In that moment,
when he had allowed his thoughts to leave his steering, the yacht had
dragged herself a thought beyond his control. The rough hand of the wind
struck her, and, as she quivered and reeled under the blow, another and
fiercer gust caught hold of her, and flung her flat on her side on the
water.
Before Christopher had well realised what had happened, he had gone deep
under water, come to the surface again, and was swimming, with a vision
before him of a white figure with a red cap falling headlong from its
perch. He raised himself and shook the water out of his eyes, and
swimming a stroke or two to get clear of the mast, with its sails
heaving prone on the water like the pinions of a great wounded bird, he
saw over the shoulders of the hurrying waves the red cap and the white
dress drifting away to leeward. Through the noise of the water in his
ears, and the confusion of his startled brain, he heard Lambert’s voice
shouting frantically he did not know what; the whole force of his nature
was set and centred on overtaking the red cap, to which each stroke was
bringing him nearer and nearer as it appeared and reappeared ahead of
him between the steely backs of the waves. She lay horribly still, with
the water washing over her face; and as Christopher caught her dress,
and turned, breathless, to try to fight his way back with her to the
wrecked yacht, he seemed to hear a hundred voices ringing in his ears
and telling him that she was dead. He was a good and practised swimmer,
but not a powerful one. His clothes hung heavily about him, and with one
arm necessarily given to his burden, and the waves and wind beating him
back, he began to think that his task was more than he would be able to
accomplish. He had up to this, in the intensity of the shock and
struggle, forgotten Lambert’s existence, but now the agonised shouts
that he had heard came back to him, and he raised himself high in the
water and stared about with a new anxiety. To his intense relief he saw
that the yacht was still afloat, was, in fact, drifting slowly down
towards him, and in the water not ten yards from him was her owner,
labouring towards him with quick splashing strokes, and evidently in a
very exhausted state. His face was purple-red, his eyes half starting
out of his head, and Christopher could hear his hard breathing as he
slowly bore down upon him.
“She’s all right, Lambert!” Christopher cried out, though his heart
belied the words. “I’ve got her! Hold hard; the yacht will be down on us
in a minute.”
Whether Lambert heard the words or no was not apparent. He came
struggling on, and as soon as he got within reach, made a snatch at
Francie’s dress. Christopher had contrived to get his left arm round her
waist, and to prop her chin on his shoulder, so that her face should be
above the water, and, as Lambert’s weight swung on him, it was all he
could do to keep her in this position.
“You’ll drown us all if you don’t let go!” Uttermost exertion and want
of breath made Christopher’s voice wild and spasmodic. “Can’t you tread
water till the boat gets to us?”
Lambert still speechlessly and convulsively dragged at her, his breath
breaking from him in loud gasps, and his face working.
“Good God, he’s gone mad!” thought Christopher; “we’re all done for if
he won’t let go.” In desperation he clenched his fist, with the
intention of hitting Lambert on the head, but just as he gathered his
forces for this extreme measure something struck him softly in the back.
Lambert’s weight had twisted him round so that he was no longer facing
the yacht, and he did not know how near help was. It was the boom of the
_Daphne_ that had touched him like a friendly hand, and he turned and
caught at it with a feeling of more intense thankfulness than he had
known in all his life.
The yacht was lying over on her side, half full of water, but kept
afloat by the air-tight compartments that Mrs. Lambert’s terrors had
insisted on, and that her money had paid for, when her husband had first
taken to sailing on the lake. Christopher was able with a desperate
effort to get one knee on to the submerged coaming of the cockpit, and
catching at its upper side with his right hand, he recovered himself and
prepared to draw Francie up after him.
“Come, Lambert, let go!” he said threateningly, “and help me to get her
out of the water. You need not be afraid, you can hold on to the boat.”
Lambert had not hitherto tried to speak, but now with the support that
the yacht gave him, his breath came back to him a little.
“Damn you!” he spluttered, the loud sobbing breaths almost choking him,
“I’m not afraid! Let her go! Take your arm from round her, I can hold
her better than you can. Ah!” he shrieked, suddenly seeing Francie’s
face, as Christopher, without regarding what he said, drew her steadily
up from his exhausted grasp, “she’s dead! you’ve let her drown!”
His head fell forward, and Christopher thought with the calm of despair,
“He’s going under, and I can’t help him if he does. Here, Lambert! man
alive, don’t let go! There! do you hear the launch whistling? They’re
coming to us?”
Lambert’s hand, with its shining gold signet-ring, was gripping the
coaming under water with a grasp that was already mechanical. It seemed
to Christopher that it had a yellow, drowned look about it. He put out
his foot, and, getting it under Lambert’s chin, lifted his mouth out of
the water. The steam-launch was whistling incessantly, in long notes, in
short ones, in jerks, and he lifted up his voice against the forces of
the wind and the hissing and dashing of the water to answer her. Perhaps
it was the dull weight on his arm and the stricken stillness of the face
that lay in utter unconsciousness on his shoulder, but he scarcely
recognised his own voice, it was broken with such a tone of stress and
horror. He had never before heard such music as Hawkins’ shout hailing
him in answer, nor seen a sight so heavenly fair as the bow of the
_Serpolette_ cutting its way through the thronging waves to their
rescue. White faces staring over her gunwale broke into a loud cry when
they saw him hanging, half-spent, against the tilted deck of the
_Daphne_. It was well, he thought, that they had not waited any longer.
The only question was whether they were not even now too late. His head
swam from excitement and fatigue, his arms and knees trembled, and when
at last Francie, Lambert, and finally he himself, were lifted on board
the launch, it seemed the culminating point of a long and awful
nightmare that Charlotte Mullen should fling herself on her knees beside
the bodies of her cousin and her friend, and utter yell after yell of
hysterical lamentation.