With every hour the violence and power of the sea abated and though
there remained a fury of foaming waves across the channel of the
Leopard’s Rock, the outer sea dropped from hour to hour to a more easy
serenity; and in the afternoon the lifeboat was seen returning across
the grey, placated waters. A cold tranquillity had overspread the
heavens. With the ceasing of the wind the sky was clear, the clouds
drifting to the sad-coloured horizon. And Amy, still watching from the
window of the “Drum and Trumpet,” could see the new moon, crystal
clear above the dark shoulder of the jagged cliffs.
“There, madam,” remarked the innkeeper, who stood respectfully behind
the lady, “are those wild folk from Pen Hall Farm. It is not often
they come down to the shore when there are others about.”
Ambrosia glanced at the group his indicating finger pointed out--a
ragged, wild-looking woman with a child, and a burly, ferocious man.
“They have a bad name, have they not?” remarked Ambrosia absently,
“but I suppose they have some humanity, and are interested in the
lighthouse.”
“But I wonder they should come here, madam, when Mr. Sellar is about,
for they are very much in his bad graces. He is doing his best to
prove that their farm is not freehold, after all, and have them moved.
And it would be a charity to the neighbours could he succeed.”
“They show an effrontery in coming in here now,” remarked Ambrosia;
for she knew that these people were indeed noted as thieves and
law-breakers, poachers and vagabonds. “But I do not think,” she added
coldly, “that my brother takes much interest in them.”
But the innkeeper had replied that, while Mr. Sellar had been keeping
watch of the lighthouse from the “Drum and Trumpet,” he had
continually ridden over to Pen Hall Farm, to warn the inhabitants, no
doubt, of their trespasses. Ambrosia thought it odd in her brother to
have troubled his head when he was so concerned with other deep
matters, with such an affair as Pen Hall Farm. She thought it peculiar
that at such a moment as this, when they were waiting with so much
anxiety for the return of the boat with Lucius on board, that the
innkeeper should have troubled to mention this fact to her. Surely it
must have impressed him as very extraordinary. And she looked at him
keenly, wondering if there were something more behind his words.
But the innkeeper’s face was blank, and he suggested to the lady that
they should now go on the shore and welcome the boat back.
Ambrosia put on her pelisse and went out into the chill air. As she
passed the little group from Pen Hall Farm--a little group of whom no
one was taking the slightest notice--she glanced at the child, and
saw, gleaming on her woollen coat, the little trifle of turquoise and
pearls that the Countess Fanny had given her. And she turned away in
distaste, vexed that these people should be here at such a moment,
displaying such an ornament. Very likely that was the flimsy,
whimsical reason why Oliver had been over so often to Pen Hall Farm.
He knew that Fanny had stopped there and had given this trinket to the
child; and so he had connected these people with her name and drawn
them, as it were, into his infatuation.
Amy lifted high her flowing skirts, and stepped over the rough beach,
and waited by one of the flat greenstone rocks, and watched the boat
coming in with difficulty through the breaking surf.
The beach was crowded, and she remained apart from the others--apart,
even, from Mr. Spragge, who was so ready with his fluent consolations
and his conventional thanksgiving.
Amy reminded herself that she was not going to meet Lucius, her
betrothed, the young man whom she was going to marry in the spring,
but a stranger: she must be quite prepared to meet a stranger.
The fishers waded out into the surf to help the boat to land. Amy
scanned the occupants of this boat, but did not move from where she
stood, holding her fluttering shawl together on her breast, her veil
blowing out behind her--for the wind, such of it as remained, came
fresh and direct from the sea.
The tide being in their favour, the boat beached without much
difficulty. Ambrosia saw Oliver sitting there in his oilskins, and the
fishers who had manned the boat, and there--yes, there was Lucius. She
recognised his comely figure, though she could scarcely see his face.
Everyone was crowding round the boat; she must go too. She could not
any longer remain apart; and she advanced slowly, holding her skirts
together and walking fastidiously over the large flat, wet stones.
Lucius was one of the first to leap ashore and wade through the last
eddy of the surf, and so come out on to the beach close to Ambrosia.
He wore a rough suit of clothes which he had probably found in the
lighthouse, and which were much stained and worn; and this changed
him, in Ambrosia’s mind, as much as the alteration in his features.
He was not pale as she had expected, but tanned and reddened by
exposure, and all the finer lines of his face appeared to have been
marred or effaced. The countenance was older, harder; there was now
not the least touch of effeminacy or delicacy about Lucius Foxe; and
in this altered visage the grey eyes showed much lighter and clearer
than Amy had ever remembered them to be: odd, pale-grey eyes, blank as
glass, it seemed to Amy as she held out her hand with an embarrassed
gesture, trying to force a warm and a natural welcome.
“Lucius, at last! It seems as if you had come back from the grave!”
“So I feel, Ambrosia,” he replied serenely. “I scarcely thought to
return at all.”
“No,” agreed Ambrosia hurriedly, “we were in great fear and dread for
your safety. This is indeed a great mercy, Lucius, and makes amends
for much. You must hasten to your father, for I fear he will hardly
survive the suspense.”
“My father!” repeated Lucius strangely. “Yes, I must make haste to see
him.”
“You’re well, Lucius? You bore it without too great a strain?”
“I had the light to look after,” replied the young man simply, “and
there didn’t seem time to think of anything else.”
Others were coming up now, with congratulations and questions and
admiration. Amy observed that only Oliver remained in the boat and
made no attempt to leave it, but sat there motionless when the boat
was beached.
“Oliver would go to meet you,” she said, nervously. “Nothing could
restrain him. You have seen him and spoken to him?”
“I have seen him,” said Lucius.
“Well,” cried Dr. Drayton cheerfully, “we thought you would be dead,
sir! Or half dead, at least--starved and wasted; but it seems I am not
required after all!”
“The food went very short, and I was scarce of water,” said Lucius,
“but I am not ill, thank you. As I said just now to Amy, there was the
light to look after, and somehow one didn’t seem able to think of
anything else. Thank God there was plenty of fuel and oil there; but
in future we must see that there are better supplies of food and
water, in case anyone else has to endure so long a vigil.”
“Why doesn’t Oliver get out of the boat?” asked Amy. “Dr. Drayton, do
you go and tell him to get out of the boat. He seems like one amazed.”
The doctor turned to (what the fishers had not dared to do) suggest to
Mr. Sellar that he now left the boat, which was beached.
When he was thus directly addressed, Oliver Sellar rose, and made a
stiff movement as if to step over the side of the boat; but instead of
doing so, he collapsed and fell headlong, half on the shore. They
thought it was an accident, that he had lost his balance, all stiff
from the cold as he must be; but they discovered immediately that he
was insensible, and when the heavy big man had been dragged away to a
higher part of the beach, and the doctor bent over him, he said that
it was no accident, but a fit or seizure of the kind that Mr. Sellar
had had when the Countess Fanny’s bonnet and cashmere shawl were
brought in to Sellar’s Mead--nothing dangerous, but he must be carried
into the “Drum and Trumpet,” and left quiet for a while. And Dr.
Drayton remarked, with a smile, that it was odd that he had come to
attend Lucius and found himself so conveniently there to attend
Oliver.
“I had feared a recurrence of this,” he observed, “on the least alarm;
but what alarm could Mr. Sellar have had just now?”
“It was emotion,” said Ambrosia hurriedly, and very pale. “He has been
watching the lighthouse so long, you know; now the vigil is over and
Lucius is safe. That would be enough for one in the state of Oliver.”
“Been watching the lighthouse?” asked Lucius quickly. “Why?”
“It obsessed him,” replied Amy. “He was thinking of you out there, I
suppose; I don’t quite know, Lucius. But he has not been home often
during the last six weeks; he spent his time here at the little inn,
watching your light, and wondering every night if you could get off.
We all wondered that, you know; but to one whose nerves were as raw as
Oliver’s--well, it might become an infatuation, you know, Luce.”
Deliberately she gave him the old loving name, but he appeared not to
hear what she had taken on her lips. Surely he was as estranged as, in
her most despondent moods, she had feared. How flat and stale this
meeting seemed, after all these weeks of waiting, watching and
suspense. Not one spark of rapture to enliven them--not one flash of
relief or joy to bring them together. Chill and formal they stood
looking at each other on the wet beach, with the grey background of
rocks and sea and sky.…
“I must not keep you from your father,” murmured Amy.
“No,” added Mr. Spragge, who stood close to them, “I must take you
there at once. That was my embassy, you know, Lord Vanden: to take you
home immediately. Miss Sellar will come too, no doubt; the carriage is
ready a little way up the road.” Then he added: “Where’s the boy?”
“Oh, yes!” added Amy. “Where’s the boy? I had forgotten the boy--where
is he? Surely you owe him a great deal, and we must see that he is
properly looked after.”
“The boy,” said Lucius, “is dead--drowned.”
Ambrosia recoiled, with an exclamation of horror. Not only was the
fact in itself dreadful, but Lucius had spoken in so stiff and brutal
a manner.
“Drowned?” she exclaimed.
And Mr. Spragge said:
“Why, this is very distressing, Lord Vanden! Poor lad! And how did it
happen?”
“I have told all the people who came to take me off,” replied Lucius
stiffly, as if he did not wish to go over an unpleasant matter again.
“It was the night when the French barque went down--you must have seen
the rockets.”
“Yes, yes,” they both said at once, “we saw the rockets.”
“Well, that was the night. They put out a boat, and it was broken on
the rocks. I went down to see if I could save any of them, and I did
do so. I found men clinging on the rocks. The boy would come too, and
hold the lantern. The rocks were slippery… well, that’s all there is.
We tried to rescue him when he lost his foothold--the sailor that I
had pulled in and myself; but of course he was gone in a second. And I
suppose it is of no great concern to anyone,” added Lucius, “since he
was but a poor waif from Falmouth.”
“Then,” cried Ambrosia incredulously, “you’ve been alone
there--_alone_ for all these weeks?”
“Alone,” smiled Lucius.
“It’s very horrible!” shivered Ambrosia.
“Yes,” said Lucius drily; “but do you know, it seems already so long
ago, and it happened so swiftly, and I knew so little about the boy,
that it does not seem to me now so horrible; and it was not a bad
death, was it?--for a poor wretch who had but little prospects.”
“Did you know anything about him?” asked Mr. Spragge. “Is there anyone
to whom we should give notice of his death--any relative whom we could
compensate?”
“I know nothing about him,” said Lucius, proceeding up the beach, with
these two walking slowly either side of him. “Nothing at all. He told
me his name was Philip, and seemed to know no other; while I had him
he was a good, obedient boy, but of so little strength or capacity
that he was of not much use to me; and it was through his own daring
that he lost his life, insisting on coming out on the rocks to hold
the lantern.”
“The Frenchmen--what happened to them?” asked Mr. Spragge.
“The barque went to pieces, I believe,” said Lucius. “I saw no more of
her. I had the men on the lighthouse two or three days--I hardly
remember which--hoping the lifeboat would come, for the storm fell a
little after then, as you may remember.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Spragge, “but the boat here is not strong enough;
that’s why your father had another boat sent over from Falmouth.
Without that we should scarce have reached you, even to-day.”
“Other ships passed,” continued Luce, telling his tale without much
animation, and in a formal manner, “and I contrived a signal to one
and they sent a boat off; they were French also, it seemed, bound for
Brest; and they took on board my Frenchmen. We lowered them with rope,
and that’s the last I know of it.”
“Well, well,” sighed Mr. Spragge, “I’m sorry for the boy!”
Lucius asked who now was going to take the watch in the lighthouse. He
had seen the two men who had been left in his place; they had been
rowed out in the boat that took them off. They were strangers to him.
Mr. Spragge explained that they were new men from Falmouth, sent by
his father, since none of the fisher-folk was either willing to go or
capable of undertaking such a task as these long watches in the
lighthouse of St. Nite’s during this perpetual stormy weather.
Amy stood wretched and irresolute; it was her plain duty to follow her
brother, who was being laboriously carried by four or five fishers
into the inn; but her wish was to go with Lucius. Perhaps all this
estrangement and formality was only the result of their first meeting:
here in public among all these people, on this gloomy, open beach. If
she could go with him to Lefton Park, surely there some kindliness,
some friendliness, would spring up between them! She had not
mentioned, of course, the Countess Fanny. She wondered if she should
do so--if it would be generous in her to say that there was no further
news of the girl; and yet he must surmise as much--probably he has
asked Oliver, or the men in the boat.
Well, if he did not speak of her, perhaps so much the better. Perhaps
if he never took that name on his lips it might gradually leave his
heart, and they might be as they once had been, before the foreign
girl came to St. Nite’s Head.
“Are you coming with us, Miss Sellar?” asked the clergyman, as they
reached the Earl’s carriage.
Lucius did not second this request.
“I suppose I should stay with Oliver,” said Amy sadly. Then, with an
attempt to move her one-time lover to some compassion she turned to
him and added: “I live a solitary life now; Oliver is sick, as you
see, and he is often afflicted in body.”
“Poor Amy!” said Lucius, and yet without tenderness. “You also have
had your vigil. Come with us now--your brother is well enough with Dr.
Drayton.” But he did not speak in any manner to induce her to come,
but stood there indifferently, as if he awaited the pleasure of a
stranger to whom he owed courtesy--no more than courtesy.
But Amy could not leave it at that. She must endeavour to break within
his guard, even if it were with weapons that inflicted a wound upon
herself.
“Nothing has been heard of Fanny,” she said, in a loud voice that was
almost shrill, and which made Mr. Spragge look at her in dismay. “She
has not been found, Lucius.”
“No,” said Lucius, “no--one scarcely hoped it, after all these weeks.”
“But Oliver found something of hers--in Flimwel Grange, of all places;
he must go there one night, in one of his mad moods. And what did he
find, in one of the empty rooms, but one of her coral bracelets!
Perhaps you remember them, Lucius--she nearly always wore them--grapes
and vines in coral.”
“A coral bracelet?” repeated Lucius, with every accent of alarm and
terror. “You say he found a coral bracelet?”
“Yes; what is there so odd in it, Lucius?”
“I think it extremely odd,” said Mr. Spragge, “and to be found in such
a place, too; it is a mystery that one cannot attempt to solve.”
“Oliver has suffered,” remarked Lucius, in a calmer tone.
“I think he will always suffer,” said Amy, “and that I must always
stand by and see him suffer. I will go to him now. Perhaps, later, you
will come to Sellar’s Mead, Lucius.” She held out her hand, and he
took it in his, which was, she remarked, so ruined and toil-worn and
scarred; different indeed from the smooth hands that she had long
touched.
“Good-bye, Amy,” he said; “yes, of course I’ll come soon. I’m
distressed about Oliver.… For the moment everything seems strange, you
know,” he added, in a half apology, “but we shall get it all adjusted
presently. I feel half deafened still, by the noise of the sea in my
ears, and the wind in that underground tunnel, and my eyes half
blinded with the dazzle of the waves--those white lines, you know,
always advancing towards you and always breaking at the foot of the
lighthouse, one after another. Well--for a day or two, then, Amy--and
forgive me!”
He got into the carriage, followed by Mr. Spragge; she saw him droop
into an attitude of languor and apathy in one of the corners, and put
those two poor stained and roughened hands before his face.
Well, so it was over, this long-promised meeting! After the suspense,
and the watching, and the waiting, they had met and parted again, both
like strangers. Estranged, estranged--he from her and she from Oliver;
that dead girl between them all, always.
As she turned back to the “Drum and Trumpet,” she saw the three from
Pen Hall Farm, moving slowly away from the sea. Ferocious and savage
they looked, and they were talking together in excited though low
hoarse accents.
Ambrosia could guess that they were talking about the boy, who had
lodged with them for a little while. No doubt they had come down there
to get some share of his reward, and were angered to find that he was
dead, and there would be no reward. She must see to it that something
was sent to them. Whatever they were, there must be no meanness over
this matter. They should have the boy’s wages, and perhaps more.
She went into the “Drum and Trumpet,” to find Oliver still
unconscious.
That night, the tempest began to rise again.