THE SIGNAL
At the foot of a long flight of steps leading from the boat quay to the
placid waters of Penzance harbor a stoutly built craft was moored. It
had two occupants this bright January morning, and they were
sufficiently diverse in appearance to attract the attention of the local
squad of that great army of loungers which seems to thrive in
tobacco-blessed content at all places where men go down to the sea in
ships.
The pair consisted of a weather-beaten fisherman and a girl.
The man was scarred and blistered by wind and wave until he had attained
much outward semblance to his craft. Nevertheless, man and boat looked
reliable. They were sturdy and strong; antiquated, perhaps, and greatly
in want of a new coat; but shaped on lines to resist the elements
together for years to come. Ben Pollard and his pilchard-driver,
_Daisy_, were Cornish celebrities of note. Not once, but many times, had
they been made immortal--with the uncertain immortality of art--by
painters of the Newlyn school.
The girl, an animated cameo, to which the shabby picturesqueness of Old
Ben in his patched garments and old _Daisy_ in her unkempt solidity
supplied a fitting background, merited the tacit approval she received
from the pipe-smokers.
Flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, with a face of a delicate, flower-like beauty
which added to its mobile charm by the healthy glow of a skin brightened
and deepened in tone by an abiding love of the open air, she suggested,
by her attire, an artistic study of the color effects derivable from the
daringly trustful little plant which gave the boat its name. She wore a
coat and skirt of green cloth, lightly hemmed and cuffed with dark red
braid. Her large white hat was trimmed with velvet of a tone to match
the braid, and her neatly fitting brown boots and gloves were of the
right shade. Beneath her coat there was a glimpse of a knitted jersey of
soft white wool, this being a tribute to the season, though a winter in
Lyonnesse can usually shrug its comfortable shoulders at the deceitful
vagaries of the Riviera.
That she was a young person of some maritime experience was visible to
the connoisseurs above at a glance. She was busily engaged in packing
the spacious lockers of the _Daisy_ with certain stores of apples,
oranges and vegetables--ranging from the lordly new potato (an
aristocrat at that time of the year) to the plebeian cabbage--and her
lithe, active figure moved with an ease born of confidence in the
erratic principles of gravitation as codified and arranged by a rocking
boat.
Pollard, too, was overhauling his gear, seeing that the mast was
securely stepped and the tackle ran free. Whilst they worked they
talked, and, of course, the critics listened.
"Do you think the weather will hold, Ben?" asked the girl over her
shoulder, stooping to arrange some clusters of daffodils and narcissus
so that they should not suffer by the lurch of some heavy package when
the boat heeled over.
"The glass be a-fallin', sure, missy," said the old fellow cheerily,
"but wi' the wind backin' round to the norrard it on'y means a drop o'
wet."
"You think we will make the rock in good time?"
"We'm do our best, Miss Enid."
She sat up suddenly.
"Don't you dare tell me, Ben Pollard, that after all our preparations we
may have to turn back or run for inglorious shelter into Lamorna."
Her mock indignation induced a massive grin. "A mahogany table breaking
into mirth," was Enid's private description of Ben's face when he
smiled.
"'Ee knaw the coast as well as most," he said. "Further go, stronger
blow, 'ee knaw."
"And not so slow, eh, Ben? Really, you and the _Daisy_ look more tubby
every time I see you."
Thus disparaged, Pollard defended himself and his craft.
"Me an' _Daisy_'ll sail to Gulf Light quicker'n any other two tubs in
Penzance, missy. Her be a long run at this time o' year, but you'm get
there all right, I 'xpect. Wi' a norrard breeze we'm be safe enough. If
the wind makes 'ee c'n zee et comin', 'ee knaw."
She laughed quietly. Any reflection on the spanking powers of his
pilchard-driver would rouse Ben instantly.
"As if I didn't know all you could teach me," she cried, "and as if
anyone in all Cornwall could teach me better."
The old fisherman was mollified. He looked along the quay.
"Time we'm cast off," he said. "Miss Constance be a plaguey long time
fetchin' them wraps."
"Oh, Ben, how can you say that? She had to go all the way to the
Cottage. Why, if she ran--"
"Here she be," he broke in, "an' she b'ain't runnin' neither. Her's got
a young man in tow."
What announcement would straighten the back of any girl of nineteen like
unto that? Enid Trevillion turned and stood upright.
"Why, it's Jack!" she cried, waving a delighted hand.
"So it be," admitted Pollard, after a surprised stare. "When I look
landward my eyes b'ain't so good as they was."
He stated this fact regretfully. No elderly sea-dog will ever
acknowledge to failing vision when he gazes at the level horizon he
knows so well. This is no pretence of unwilling age: it is wholly true.
The settled chaos of the shore bewilders him. The changeful sea cannot.
Meanwhile, the dawdlers lining the wharf, following Enid's signals with
their eyes, devoted themselves to a covert staring at the young people
hurrying along the quay.
Constance Brand, being a young and pretty woman, secured their instant
suffrages. Indeed, she would have won the favorable verdict of a more
severe audience. Taller than Enid, she had the brown hair and hazel eyes
of her father. To him, too, she owed the frank, self-reliant pose of
head and clearly cut, refined features which conveyed to others that
all-important first good impression. Blended with Stephen Brand's firm
incisiveness, and softening the quiet strength of her marked resemblance
to him, was an essential femininity which lifted her wholly apart from
the ruck of handsome English girls who find delight in copying the
manners and even the dress of their male friends.
Her costume was an exact replica of that of Enid. She walked well and
rapidly, yet her alert carriage had a grace, a subtle elegance, more
frequently seen in America than in England. Her lively face, flushed
with exercise, and, it may be, with some little excitement, conveyed the
same Transatlantic characteristic. One said at seeing her: "Here is a
girl who has lived much abroad." It came as a surprise to learn that she
had never crossed the Channel.
The man with her, Lieutenant John Percival Stanhope, R. N., was too
familiar a figure in Penzance to evoke muttered comment from the
gallery.
A masterful young gentleman he looked, and one accustomed to having his
own way in the world, whether in love or war. True type of the British
sailor, he had the physique of a strong man and the adventurously
cheerful expression of a boy.
The skin of his face and hands, olive-tinted with exposure, his dark
hair and the curved eyelashes, which drooped over his blue eyes, no less
than the artistic proclivities suggested by his well-chiseled features
and long, tapering fingers, proclaimed that Stanhope, notwithstanding
his Saxon surname and bluff bearing, was a Celt. His mother, in fact,
was a Tregarthen of Cornwall, daughter of a peer, and a leading figure
in local society.
One may ask: "Why should a youth of good birth and social position be on
such terms of easy familiarity with two girls, one of whom was the
daughter of a lighthouse-keeper, and the other her sister by adoption?"
Indeed, a great many people did ask this pertinent question; among
others, Lady Margaret Stanhope put it often and pointedly to her son,
without any cogent answer being forthcoming.
If she were denied enlightenment, although her maternal anxiety was
justifiable, the smokers on the pier, as representing the wider gossip
of the town, may also be left unsatisfied.
"This is a nice thing," he cried, when he came within speaking distance
of the girl in the boat. "I manage to bamboozle the admiral out of three
days' leave and I rush to Penzance to be told that Constance and you
are off to the Gulf Rock for the day. It is too bad of you, Enid."
Eyebrows were raised and silent winks exchanged among the human sparrows
lining the rails.
"So Master Jack came to see Miss Trevillion, eh? What would her ladyship
say if she heard that?"
"Why not come with us?" The audacity of her!
"By Jove," he agreed, "that would be jolly. Look here. Wait two minutes
until I scribble a line to the mater--"
"Nothing of the sort, Jack," interposed the other girl quietly, taking
from his arm the water-proof cloaks he was carrying for her. "You know
Lady Margaret would be very angry, and with very good reason. Moreover,
dad would be annoyed, too."
"The old girl is going out this afternoon," he protested.
"And she expects you to go with her. Now, Jack, don't let us quarrel
before we have met for five minutes. We will see you tomorrow."
He helped her down the stone steps.
"Enid," he murmured, "Connie and you must promise to drive with me to
Morvah in the morning. I will call for you at eleven sharp."
"What a pity you can't sail out to the rock with us today. Tomorvah is
so distant."
The minx lifted her blue eyes to his with such ingenuous regret in them
that Stanhope laughed, and pipes were shifted to permit the listeners
above their heads to snigger approval of her quip.
"Dad will wig us enough as it is, Enid," said the other girl. "We are
bringing him a peace-offering of fruits of the earth, Jack."
"Will you be able to land?"
"One never can tell. It all depends on the state of the sea near the
rock. Anyhow, we can have a chat, and send up the vegetables by the
derrick."
"We'm never get there thiccy tide if we'm stop here much longer,"
interrupted Ben.
"Hello, old grampus! How are you? Mind you keep these young ladies off
the stones."
"And mind you keep your tin-pot off the stones," growled Pollard. "They
was a-sayin' larst night her were aground at Portsea."
"They said right, Father Ben. That is why I am here."
Enid glanced at him with ready anxiety. There was nothing of the flirt
in her manner now.
"I hope you had no mishap," she said, and Constance mutely echoed the
inquiry. Both girls knew well what a serious thing it was for a
youngster to run his first boat ashore.
"Don't look so glum," he chuckled. "I am all right. Got a bit of kudos
out of it really. We fouled the _Volcanic_ and strained our steering
gear. That is all."
It was not all. He did not mention that, during a torpedo attack on a
foggy night, he ran up to three battleships undefended by nets and
stenciled his initials within a white square on five different parts of
their sleek hulls, thus signifying to an indignant admiral and three
confounded captains (dictionary meaning of "confounded") that these
leviathans had been ingloriously sunk at their moorings by torpedoes.
"It sounds unconvincing," said Constance. "You must supply details
tomorrow. Enid, that horrid pun of yours ruins the word."
"Are we also to supply luncheon?" chimed in Enid.
"Perish the thought. I have lived on sandwiches and bottled beer for a
week. There! Off you go."
He gave the boat a vigorous push and stood for a little while at the
foot of the steps, ostensibly to light a cigar. He watched Constance
shipping the rudder whilst Enid hoisted the sail and old Ben plied a
pair of oars to carry the boat into the fair way of the channel.
They neared the harbor lighthouse. The brown sail filled and the _Daisy_
got way on her. Then she sped round the end of the solid pier and
vanished, whereupon Lieutenant Stanhope walked slowly to the Promenade,
whence he could see the diminishing speck of canvas on the shining sea
until it was hidden by Clement's Island.
At last, the devotees of twist and shag, resting their tired arms on the
railing, were able to exchange comments.
"Brace o' fine gells, them," observed the acknowledged leader, a
broken-down "captain" of a mine abandoned soon after his birth.
"Fine," agreed his nearest henchman. Then, catching the gloom of the
captain's gaze after Stanhope's retreating figure, he added:
"But what does that young spark want, turning their pretty heads for
them, I should like to know?"
"They didn't seem partic'lar stuck on 'im," ventured another.
"The ways of women is curious," pronounced the oracle. "I once knew a
gell--"
But his personal reminiscences were not of value. More to the point was
the garbled, but, in the main, accurate account he gave of the rescue of
an unknown child by one of the keepers of the Gulf Rock lighthouse on a
June morning eighteen years earlier.
Stephen Brand was the name of the man, and there was a bit of a mystery
about him, too. They all knew that a light-keeper earned a matter of £70
to £80 a year--not enough to maintain a daughter and an adopted child in
slap-up style, was it? A small villa they lived in, and a governess they
had, and ponies to ride when they were big enough. The thing was
ridiculous, wasn't it?
Everybody agreed that it was.
People said Brand was a swell. Well, that might or might not be true.
The speaker did not think much of him. He was a quiet, unsociable chap,
though Jones, a Trinity pensioner, who kept the "Pilchard and Seine"
now, wouldn't hear a wrong word about him, and always called him
"cap'n." A pretty sort of a captain! But then, they all knew what an old
slow-coach Jones was. They did: Jones's pints were retailed on the
premises for money down.
Then there was Spence, lame Jim, who lived at Marazion: he told a fine
tale about a fight with a shark before Brand reached the boat in which
was the blessed baby--that very girl, Enid, they had just seen. Was it
true? How could he say? There was a lot about it at the time in the
local papers, but just then his own mind was given to thoughts of
enlisting, as a British expedition was marching across the desert to
relieve Khartoum--and cause Gordon's death.
No: Brand and the two girls had not dwelt all the time in Penzance. The
light-keepers went all over the kingdom, you know, but he had hit upon
some sort of fog-signal fad--Brand was always a man of fads: he once
told the speaker that all the Polwena Mine wanted was work--and the Gulf
Rock was the best place for trying it. At his own request the Trinity
people sent him back there two years ago. Some folk had queer tastes,
hadn't they? And talking so much had made him dry.
Then the conversation languished, as the only obvious remark of any
importance was not forthcoming.
Meanwhile, the _Daisy_ sped buoyantly towards the southwest. Although
she was broad in beam and staunch from thwart to keel it was no light
undertaking to run fourteen miles out and home in such a craft.
But old Ben Pollard knew what he was about. Not until the granite pillar
of the distant Gulf Rock opened up beyond Carn du was it necessary to
turn the boat's head seawards. Even then, by steering close to the
Runnelstone, they need not, during two-thirds of the time, be more than
a mile or so distant from one of the many creeks in which they could
secure shelter in case of a sudden change in the weather.
Thenceforward there was nothing for it but a straight run of six miles
to the rock, behind which lay the Scilly Isles, forty miles away, and
well below the boat's horizon.
So, when the moment came for the final decision to be made, Pollard cast
an anxious eye at a great bank of cloud mounting high in the north.
There was an ominous drop in the temperature, too. The rain he
anticipated might turn to snow, and snow is own brother to fog at sea,
though both are generally absent from the Cornish littoral in winter.
"Ben," cried Enid, breaking off a vivid if merciless description of a
new disciple who had joined the artistic coterie at Newlyn, "what are
you looking at?"
He scratched his head and gazed fixedly at the white battalions sweeping
in aërial conquest over the land.
"She do look like snaw," he admitted.
"Well, what does that matter?"
Without waiting for orders Constance had eased the helm a trifle. The
_Daisy_ was now fairly headed for the rock. With this breeze she would
be there in less than an hour.
"It be a bit risky," grumbled Ben.
"We will be alongside the lighthouse before there can be any serious
downfall," said practical Constance.
"Surely we can make the land again no matter how thick the weather may
be."
Ben allowed himself to be persuaded. In after life he would never admit
that they were free agents at that moment.
"It had to be," he would say. "It wur in me mind to argy wi' she, but I
just couldn't. An' how often do us zee snaw in Carnwall? Not once in a
blue moon." And who would dispute him? No West-country man, certainly.
At a distance of five miles one small fishing craft is as like another
as two Liliputians to the eye of Gulliver. In a word, it needs
acquaintance and nearness to distinguish them.
As it happened, Stephen Brand did happen to note the _Daisy_ and the
course she was shaping. But, during the short interval when his
telescope might have revealed to him the identity of her occupants, he
was suddenly called by telephone from the oil-room to the kitchen. When
next he ran aloft in a wild hurry to signal for assistance, he found, to
his despair, that the Land's End was already blotted out in a swirling
snowstorm, and the great plain of blue sea had shrunk to a leaden patch
whose visible limits made the reef look large by comparison.
With the mechanical precision of habit he set the big bell in motion.
Its heavy boom came fitfully through the pelting snow-flakes to the ears
of the two girls and old Ben. The latter, master of the situation now,
announced his intention to 'bout ship and make for Mount's Bay.
"'Ee doan' ketch me tryin' to sail close to Gulf Rock when 'ee can't zee
a boat's length ahead," he said, emphatically. "I be sorry, ladies both,
but 'ee knaw how the tide runs over the reef, an' 'tes easy to drive to
the wrong side of the light. We'm try again tomorrow. On'y the
flowers'll spile. All the rest--"
Crash! A loud explosion burst forth from the dense heights of the storm.
The _Daisy_, sturdy as she was, seemed to shiver. The very air trembled
with the din. Pollard had his hand on the sail to swing it to starboard
when Constance put the tiller over to bring the boat's head up against
the wind. For an instant he hesitated. Even he, versed in the ways of
the sea, was startled. Both girls positively jumped, the sudden bang of
the rocket was so unexpected.
"Mister Brand must ha' zeed us," pronounced Ben. "That's a warnin' to we
to go back."
The words had scarce left his lips when another report smote the great
silence, otherwise unbroken save by the quiet plash of the sea against
the bows and the faint reverberations of the distant bell.
"That is too urgent to be intended for us," said Constance. "We were
just half way when the snow commenced."
"I did not notice any vessel near the rock," cried Enid, tremulously.
"Did you, Ben?"
Pollard's slow utterance was not quick enough. Before he could answer, a
third rocket thundered its overpowering summons.
"That is the 'Help wanted' signal," cried Constance. "Ben, there is no
question now of going back. We must keep our present course for twenty
minutes at least, and then take to the oars. The bell will guide us."
"Oh, yes, Ben," agreed Enid. "Something has gone wrong on the rock
itself. I am quite sure there was no ship near enough to be in trouble
already."
"By gum, we'm zee what's the matter," growled Ben. "Steady it is, Miss
Brand. Ef we'm in trouble I'd as soon ha' you two gells aboard as any
two men in Penzance."
At another time the compliment would have earned him a torrent of
sarcasm. Now it passed unheeded. The situation was bewildering,
alarming. There were three keepers in the lighthouse. The signal
foreboded illness, sudden and serious illness. Who could it be?
In such a crisis charity begins at home. Constance, with set face and
shining eyes, Enid, flushed and on the verge of tears, feared lest their
own beloved one should be the sufferer.
To each of them Stephen Brand was equally a kind and devoted father. He
never allowed Enid to feel that she was dependent on his bounty. Only
the other day, when she hinted at the adoption of an art career as a
future means of earning a livelihood, he approved of the necessary study
but laughed at the reason.
"With your pretty face and saucy ways, Enid," he said, "I shall have
trouble enough to keep you in the nest without worrying as to the manner
of your leaving it. Work at your drawing, by all means. Avoid color as
the bane of true art. But where Connie and I live you shall live, until
you choose to forsake us."
No wonder these girls thought there was no other man in the world like
"dad." Their delightful home was idyllic in its happiness: their only
sorrow that Brand should be away two months out of three on account of
the pursuit in which he passed his hours of leisure during recent years.
Neither dared to look at the other. They could not trust themselves even
to speak. There was relief in action, for thought was torture.
The docile _Daisy_ steadily forged through the waves. The spasmodic
clang of the bell came more clearly each minute. Pollard, kneeling in
the bows, peered into the gloom of the swirling snow. He listened
eagerly to the bell. With right hand or left he motioned to Constance to
bring the boat's head nearer to the wind or permit the sail to fill out
a little more.
Enid, ready to cast the canvas loose at the first hint of danger,
consulted her watch frequently. At last she cried:
"Twenty minutes, Ben."
What a relief it was to hear her own voice. The tension was becoming
unbearable.
"Right y' are, missy. No need to slack off yet. 'Tes clearin' a bit.
We'm heave to alongside the rock in less'n no time."
The fisherman was right. His trained senses perceived a distinct
diminution in the volume of snow. Soon they could see fifty, a hundred,
two hundred yards ahead. On the starboard quarter they caught a
confused rushing noise, like the subdued murmur of a millrace. The tide
had covered the rock.
"Luff et is!" roared Ben, suddenly. "Steady now."
Out of the blurred vista a ghostly column rose in front. Smooth and
sheer were its granite walls, with dark little casements showing black
in the weird light. The boat rushed past the Trinity mooring-buoy. She
held on until they heard the sea breaking.
"Lower away!" cried Ben, and the yard fell with a sharp rattle that
showed how thoroughly Enid had laid to heart Pollard's tuition.
Constance brought the _Daisy_ round in a wide curve, and Ben got out the
oars to keep her from being dashed against the reef.
Enid's eyes were turned towards the gallery beneath the lantern.
"Lighthouse ahoy!" she screamed in a voice high-pitched with emotion.
There was no answering clang of the door leading from the room on a
level with the balcony. Not often had the girls visited the rock, but
they knew that this was the first sign they might expect of their
arrival being noted if there were no watchers pacing the "promenade."
"Help us, Ben," cried Constance, and their united shouts might be heard
a mile away in the prevailing stillness. A window half way up the tower
was opened. A man's head and shoulders appeared.
It was Stephen Brand.
"Thank God!" murmured Constance.
Enid, on whose sensitive soul the storm, the signal, the hissing rush of
the boat through the waves, had cast a spell of indefinite terror, bit
her lip to restrain her tears.
Brand gave a glance of amazement at the three uplifted faces. But this
was no time for surprise or question.
"I am coming down," he shouted. "Providence must have sent you at this
moment."
He vanished.
"What can it be?" said Constance, outwardly calm now in the assurance
that her father was safe.
"Must ha' bin a accident," said Ben. "That signal means 'Bring a
doctor.' An' there ain't a blessed tug in harbor, nor won't be till the
tide makes."
"That will mean delay," cried Enid.
"Five or six hours at least, missy."
The main door at the head of the iron ladder clamped to the stones swung
back, and Brand leaned out. He had no greeting for them, nor words of
astonishment.
"When will the tug reach here, Ben?" he asked.
The fisherman told him the opinion he had formed.
"Then you girls must come and help me. Jackson scalded his hands and
arms in the kitchen, and Bates was hurrying to the store-room for oil
and whitening when he slipped on the stairs and broke his leg. We must
get them both ashore. Ben, you can take them?"
"Ay, ay, sir."
"Now, Constance, you first. Hold tight and stand in the skip. Your boat
cannot come near the rock."
He swung the derrick into place and began to work the windlass.
Constance, cool as her father, whispered to the excited Enid:
"Let us divide the parcels and take half each."
"Oh, I should have forgotten all about them," said Enid, stooping to
empty the lockers.
Constance, without flickering an eyelid, stepped into the strong basket
with its iron hoops, and, having arranged some of the plethoric paper
bags at her feet, told her father to "hoist away."
She arrived safely. Enid followed her, with equal _sang froid_, though a
lift of forty odd feet whilst standing in a skip and clinging to a rope
is not an every-day experience.
"Dang me," said Ben, as Enid, too, was swung into the lighthouse, "but
they're two plucked 'uns."
The great bell tolled away, though the snow had changed to sleet, and
the heights beyond the Land's End were dimly visible, so its warning
note was no longer needed. The sky above was clearing. A luminous haze
spreading over the waters heralded the return of the sun. But the wind
was bitterly cold; the fisherman watching the open door, with one eye on
the sea lest an adventurous wave should sweep the _Daisy_ against the
rock, murmured to himself:
"'Tes a good job the wind 's i' the norrard. This sort o' thing's a
weather-breeder, or my name ain't Ben Pollard."
And that was how Enid came back to the Gulf Rock to enter upon the
second great epoch of her life.
Once before had the reef taken her to its rough heart and fended her
from peril. Would it shield her again--rescue her from the graver danger
whose shadow even now loomed out of the deep. What was the bell saying
in its wistful monotony?
Enid neither knew nor cared. Just then she had other things to think
about.