THE SIMPLE LIFE
IT must not be imagined for a moment that a person of the quality and
the dignity of Mrs. Ewart-Crane could long sustain life under the
conditions imposed upon her on that first night on the island. This
promiscuous mixing with people in a very different sphere of life
was not at all to her taste; she set about to remedy matters at the
earliest possible opportunity.
Her slumbers during that night in the hut had been spoiled, as she
declared, by the persistent snoring of Mrs. Stocker; Mrs. Stocker
was equally emphatic that she had not snored at all, but that Mrs.
Ewart-Crane, on the other hand, had been no quiet neighbour. To add to
the good woman's troubles, her daughter Enid appeared to have struck up
a sort of friendship with Bessie Meggison; there was much dodging to
and fro from one compartment of the hut to the other, and a dragging
aside in consequence of the improvised screen. More than that, Mrs.
Ewart-Crane was conscious that after a night during which she had
tossed about restlessly on what she designated as "leaves and twigs
and prickles" she did not look her best. It seemed, too, that until
something was devised ablutions were impossible.
However, Pringle had been early astir, and there was something at least
in the shape of breakfast, with a fire to warm the early morning air.
They gathered about it, and made the best of a bad situation, according
to their moods--Mr. Tant declaring wheezily that he had caught the
worst cold he had ever had in his life--and Daniel Meggison stating
that but for an absurd prejudice on the part of Pringle to allowing him
an early morning draught of strong waters to keep out the cold, this
was in reality the very life for which Daniel Meggison had been pining
throughout his existence.
The finding of a little spring of pure clear water in the side of the
hill above the wood to the west led to the unfortunate episode of the
barrel. There had, of course, been a barrel containing water, and the
contents had been jealously guarded; but the finding of the spring
supply caused the barrel to be regarded by Pringle as an ordinary
article for domestic use. Whether or not he felt that Mrs. Stocker
looked more dilapidated than Mrs. Ewart-Crane will never be known;
certain it is that he approached the former lady smilingly, with the
vessel partly filled with water, and delicately suggested that she
might use it for her ablutions in the privacy of the hut. Mrs. Stocker
was gratefully accepting this boon, forgetful of the fact that the
rigged-up sail, while it concealed her from the people on the other
side of it, did not mask her voice, when Mrs. Ewart-Crane swept it
aside, and stood indignant before the abashed Pringle and Mrs. Stocker.
"Is there no one in this community to whom I can appeal?" demanded
Mrs. Ewart-Crane. "Is it not sufficient that I am kept awake for the
greater part of one extremely long night, but that now, in the morning,
I am to be ousted from the position Society has never yet denied to me?
Who is this person, that she should be given precedence over me in such
a matter?"
"I'm very sorry, ma'am," said Pringle, scratching his chin--"but I
thought perhaps this lady"--he indicated Mrs. Stocker, who was standing
with folded arms on guard over the barrel--"I thought perhaps----"
"Well--what did you think?" demanded Mrs. Stocker.
Pringle had been on the very point of saying, as delicately as
possible, that he thought she needed it the most; but cowering under
her gaze he abjectly said--"Nothing, ma'am"; and pretended to hear a
voice calling him in the distance.
Mrs. Stocker held to her rights, and Mrs. Ewart-Crane went unwashed.
But the matter, of course, could not end there; and before nightfall it
was known that some other arrangement must be made, or Mrs. Ewart-Crane
at least would take her repose in the night air. Simon Quarle was
disposed to let her do it; Gilbert looked hopeless; but Jordan Tant
was firm about the matter, and said that another place must be found.
Accordingly a further search of the island was begun, Pringle throwing
himself into the matter with ardour, and with the utmost cheerfulness.
It was, after all, but an anticipating of after events. A little to the
south of those miniature hills which rose in the centre of the island a
sort of cave was discovered, going back some dozen feet into the hill
itself; and over the front of this the wonderful Pringle arranged a
sort of screen with the other sail, so that it might be lifted during
the day, and form a pleasant shelter under which to sit, and might be
lowered discreetly at night. To this place Mrs. Ewart-Crane and Enid
were duly escorted; and over them during the day Mr. Jordan Tant kept
watch and ward--extending that service even into the night, when he lay
down outside the screen to sleep.
So far as the larger hut was concerned, the screen which divided it
into two was kept in its place; Mrs. Stocker and Bessie occupied one
side, and Daniel Meggison and Aubrey, with Mr. Edward Stocker, the
other. They would have been willing to make arrangements for taking in
Simon Quarle (though this was somewhat against the wishes of Daniel
Meggison), but Simon settled the matter in characteristic fashion by
wrapping himself up in a great overcoat he wore, and sleeping in the
boat upon the shore.
Guessing, perhaps, something concerning the difficulty in which
his master found himself with these uninvited guests, Pringle had
even arranged a separate sleeping place for Gilbert Byfield. On the
top of the hill, just above the spring--the highest point in the
island--Pringle laced branches, dragged from the trees, firmly together
between the trunks of some young saplings growing in a bunch; and after
roofing them over in the same way, contrived a very comfortable sort
of hut for his master. For his own part, he preferred the freedom of
the open air on these warm nights, despite Gilbert's protests; more
than that, the moon still proving bright, he devoted some portion of
the night to keeping watch, in the hope that some passing vessel might
cross the wide track of silver that lay upon the waters.
Thus it came about that only Jordan Tant, in his devotion, was left
outside; and even he succumbed after a night or two, and crept up the
hill, and craved shelter from Gilbert.
"Personally, I should be glad if I might be permitted to share this
place with you--at night, I mean," said Mr. Jordan Tant. "Technically,
of course, we are rivals, and that is a point upon which I shall never
give way. I shudder to think what might have happened had Enid come to
this place without that constant reminder of my devotion which my mere
presence here affords. Nevertheless, even those claims must be waived
when one is cold, and--and lonely."
"Come in, by all means," said Gilbert, smiling. "If it comes to that,
I'm a little lonely myself--and a little bit afraid concerning the
future. Frankly, I don't know what is to become of us."
"You alarm me," exclaimed Mr. Tant, seating himself on the ground, and
staring at his friend.
"You see, we might stay here for months--and I haven't the ghost of a
notion what we're to get to eat," went on Gilbert. "I don't care to
alarm the ladies about the matter, and I've said nothing to anyone
yet, except Pringle. But he tells me that the tinned foods are almost
gone, and even his ingenuity hasn't been sufficient to enable him to
catch any fish. In other words, my dear Tant, we're on the verge of
starvation."
"We may see a vessel," said Mr. Tant, with a gloomy face.
"And that vessel may not see us," retorted Gilbert. "In any case, we
don't seem to have been noticed yet, and the position is a desperate
one. If nothing happens within the next twenty-four hours we must have
a volunteer party for the boat, and that party must start off in the
hope of discovering some other land comparatively near."
"I suppose you've no idea where we are?" asked Tant.
Gilbert Byfield shook his head. "Not the least in the world," he said.
"I paid no heed to the direction in which the vessel was going during
those few days of our voyage, nor do I even know at what rate we went,
nor how far. There's one curious thing about this island, by the way."
"What's that?" asked the other.
"Why, that the vegetation is not tropical, nor, for the matter of that,
is the climate. I am more puzzled than I can say; but all the puzzling
in the world won't help us. Food we must have, and clothing; the ladies
especially are at a serious inconvenience, in having nothing but what
they stand up in."
"Personally, of course, I should like to do something of an apparently
brave nature--something in the way of a rescue--just to impress Enid,"
said Mr. Tant thoughtfully. "But I expect that when it comes to the
pinch that sort of thing will fall to your share, and I shall have to
stand aside and look on. And she admires brave men; she's rather rubbed
that point in once or twice."
"I'll promise you that if anything does happen that calls for bravery,
you shall have the first chance, Tant," said Gilbert.
"I wasn't exactly suggesting that; there's nothing selfish about me, I
hope," retorted Tant.
Presently he leaned back against the trunk of a tree, and fell into an
uneasy slumber. Anxiety kept Byfield awake, and presently also urged
him to leave the rough little hut, and to set off on a ramble in the
moonlight. Pringle, sleeping like a dog with one eye open, stirred and
sat up; then, reassured, lay down to sleep again. Gilbert picked his
way down the hillside into the wood, hearing more and more distinctly
as he moved the murmur of the sea. And most of all now, in the silence
of the night, he thought of Bessie--Bessie who had never complained;
Bessie who worked hard, even here, for others; Bessie who had been,
in her love and her innocence, so shamefully treated. He knew that he
had brought ruin upon her, in the sense that she would never accept
from him any help in the future, even should it happen that they were
rescued from that place. He knew that she must start in some other
Arcadia Street that old sordid battle of life he had but interrupted.
He remembered bitterly enough how she had avoided him almost completely
in this place; he knew that she felt that everyone about her knew now
in what way she had lived, and on whose charity; he understood that she
raged fiercely within herself at the thought of uncharitable eyes that
watched her, and uncharitable lips that whispered about her.
He went down through the wood, and came out upon the shore at the
western side of the island. And there, standing startlingly enough in
that deserted place, was a woman at the very margin of the sea, her
figure showing dark against the moonlit water and the sky. He went
forward wonderingly, and yet with a vague feeling in his mind that he
knew who it was; and so came to her, and spoke her name.
"Bessie!"
"I couldn't sleep; I came out into the silence and the moonlight; I
wanted to think," she said; and in that solemn hour it seemed as though
the barrier she had raised between them had gone down again, and could
not ever again separate them. She seemed to look at him with the old
friendliness; she let her hands rest in his, while they stood together,
with only the sea and the moon for company.
"I couldn't sleep--and I too wanted to think," he said. "I wanted to
think most about you--about all that I had wanted and longed to do for
you--and about all the ruin I have brought upon you. I have remembered
all that you said to me on board the yacht--all that I deserved you
should say to me."
"I don't want you to remember that," she told him earnestly. "I lay
awake there to-night, and remembered that you were the only one that
had ever gone out of your way to do anything for me, or to help me; I
remembered that you spent your money recklessly for me, and to give me
pleasure. And after that I said vile things to you, and told you that I
hated you."
"I deserved it every bit," said Gilbert. "I didn't understand at the
time--but I treated you like a child, without care or thought of your
feelings in the matter--or of your future. I lied to you, and deceived
you; but there was one matter about which I didn't lie."
"What was that?" she asked.
"When I said I loved you. That was true enough--it grows more true
every day I live. I wouldn't part with any hour of all that we have
spent together; I wouldn't go back, or undo anything I have done, if
the undoing meant that I must lose any hour of that time. The yacht is
gone--and we are poor castaways who may never leave this place alive;
yet I'm glad--selfishly and brutally glad--for my own sake. Do you
understand me, Bessie?"
She nodded slowly, keeping her head turned away from him. "Yes--I
understand," she replied. "And I believe you. I never meant anything
that I said to you on the yacht--about the hating part, I mean," she
added in a whisper.
He put his arms about her, and drew her close to him. "Have you nothing
further to say to me?--or do you shut me out of your life altogether,
Bessie?" he asked.
She bent her head down until her face was hidden on his arm. "You know
I can't do that, dear," she whispered. "I've tried hard to do it--but
love won't let me."
They stood for a long time there, without word or movement; it seemed
as though, while he held her in his arms and she lay contentedly on
his breast, no words were needed. And all else was forgotten--past
bitternesses and misunderstandings--and even their present situation.
That they were poor prisoners, cast away hopelessly and helplessly on
an island of which they did not even know the name, did not matter
then; for love has wide wings that may stretch even across great
continents and great seas. Arcadia Street and Fiddler's Green and all
the rest of the amazing business lay far behind; they stood here in the
moonlight and silence, forgetting even the grotesque figures that slept
so near them.
[Illustration: "THEY STOOD HERE IN THE MOONLIGHT AND SILENCE." _Page
253_]
"It is strange to think, sweetheart, how all the life we knew--the
only life we seemed to understand--is left behind and forgotten," he
whispered presently. "We were this and that in the world--and it was as
if the great place could not go on without us; and in a moment we're
swept away, and lost, and left stranded, high and dry out of all the
hurly-burly of it. What is going to become of us I don't know--but even
that doesn't matter."
"Nothing matters at all; nothing will ever matter again," she
whispered. "But oh, my dear love--I do pray you never to let me
make-believe any more--always to let me understand exactly what is
happening--exactly the truth. The poor game has been played out now to
the bitter end; promise me that whatever the future may hold for us, my
dear, we shall face it hand in hand, and without any pretence about it.
Promise me that solemnly."
He kissed her lips, and promised solemnly that in future she should
always know the truth.
They left the sea behind them, and went up together through the woods
towards the hut that had been made for him by the industrious Pringle;
it was a shorter way to her own sleeping place in the bigger hut. Quite
near to the place where the unconscious Jordan Tant crouched inside
his shelter and slumbered fitfully the pair halted for a moment, as a
sudden thought occurred to Gilbert.
"My darling Bessie--I want you to understand that I wouldn't have
anything that has happened changed in the least," he said, in a low
tone. "I could never have had you all to myself in any other place;
foolish scruples and conventions would have crept in, and you would
have run away from me, and I should have lost you in the big world. If
someone came to me to-morrow, and told me that we could be rescued, and
could go back to the commonplace world again, honestly I think that I
would not be glad. If only we can manage to live somehow I want to stop
here with you always."
They went on down across the hill, and disappeared from sight. Within
a few yards of where they had stopped Pringle raised himself on his
elbow, wide awake, and stared after them.
"That settles it!" he said to himself. "I was in two minds about it,
after what I found out this mornin'; but if the guv'nor wants an
island, an island he shall have. I was never in love myself--not to
any great extent; but it's pretty to see it in others. Pringle, my
boy, you are on an island, whatever Nature may say to the contrary;
consequently, keep your mouth shut, and go to sleep."
He dropped down again contentedly--chuckled once softly to himself--and
slept.