In the Tideway Part 7

He flushed with pleasure at her tone and words.

"Well, good-bye," she said, turning to Will Lockhart. "I hope the elements won't be too strong for you."

"Or for you."

Confidence here also, but of a different sort,--the sort which can give a reason for the faith that is in it. It seemed, however, as if Lady Maud's wish was not to be fulfilled; for as Rick Halmar and his companion set off across the moor, the southwest wind, even at that distance from the sh.o.r.e, sent a shower of spindrift in their faces.

"No leaving Carbost Bay for you tonight," shouted Rick against the wind. "You had better stay at our place. You used to know Aunt Will long ago, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I must get on. It may calm any moment, and the yacht sails as soon as possible."

Nevertheless when, after scudding with the wind at their backs for two miles, they came upon the ferry, one glance showed even Will Lockhart's inexperienced eye that the c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l of a boat, bobbing up and down in the backwater, could never fight its way through that mad melee of wind against tide in the middle of the narrow stream.

Comparative calm reigned to one side in the inland loch, and to the other in the open sea; but here the waves leapt at each other in pyramids, sending jets of spray upwards with the very force of their meeting. A good thrower could easily have flung a stone across the channel; for all that, it was impa.s.sable till the tired tide should turn and join the wind in its race eastward. So, at any rate, said Rick, adding that his aunt would be delighted at a _contretemps_ which would procure her a visit from an old friend.

Why Will Lockhart should have hesitated, when it was raining cats and dogs, and it was two-and-twenty years since he had parted in anger from the hot-headed, quick-tongued chit of eighteen, who was now, by all accounts, a brisk, contented woman of forty, is not easy of explanation. Perhaps the thought of Lady Maud's triumph rankled; perhaps, when all was said and done, he was not quite indifferent to that possible future with the professor. But he did hesitate for a moment. That early love-affair had strangely enough been his first and last: not because it was in itself absorbing, but because other things more absorbing than Love had stepped in to take possession of his life. For a year or two, no doubt, resentment had lingered, not very keenly felt, but sufficiently so to prevent other love-affairs. Then he had painted his first successful picture, and that had been an end of all things, save Art, and a rather unreal remembrance that he had loved and lost.

However, common sense came to his aid, as it was bound to do in that drenching rain. And, after all, the professor was not in the well-remembered drawing-room whither Rick led him; neither was Miss Willina. Fortunately, perhaps, for her dignity, of which she was extremely tenacious, she had been in the potting-shed feeding a late brood of chickens presented to her that morning by an inexperienced young mother, who had preferred a bed of nettles behind the peat stack to the comforts of the hen-house nursery. So she had ample opportunity of seeing them pa.s.s up the ferry-path and of grasping the situation; to say nothing of smoothing her hair and washing her hands, before putting in an appearance; the which is a great support to most women in the crises of life. As a matter of fact, however, Miss Willina had never regarded this episode of her earliest years of conquest as one of supreme importance; perhaps some slight inkling that it really did mean more than she was prepared to admit was at the bottom of her deliberate want of romance on the subject. She had had many admirers, had them still for that matter; she was perfectly aware, for instance, of the professor's interest; but, for all that, she had never felt inclined to marry since those salad days when she had drowned her resentment in the knowledge that half the men who knew her were at her feet. Why should she marry? There was plenty of time and opportunity if she wished it; and then, when time pa.s.sed, leaving her still Miss Macdonald, she told herself and every one else that it was of her own free will and pleasure. As it undoubtedly was. She scouted regrets, and only when the masterful current of her vitality slackened, as even hers had to do at times, did she wonder if that early love-affair had not been at the bottom of her cold-bloodedness.

Will Lockhart did not think her much changed. The daintiness and wilfulness he chiefly remembered were still there, and it was like old times to hear her order him up with Rick, to "change his feet," and see the swift touch with which she rescued an antimaca.s.sar from annihilation when he sate down. And this want of change depressed him, by emphasizing the long years which he could not forget.

There she was, much as he remembered her, and he--people told him also that he had changed but little. Yet in those old days it had seemed impossible to conceive of life apart, and here they were, both free, both unmarried, talking calmly, with a new generation for listener, about that past time. What had kept them separate except their own free will? Nothing! and yet had either of them deliberately antic.i.p.ated this ending when they quarrelled over the bread and b.u.t.ter? And now she was thinking of the professor, or at any rate the professor was thinking of her. That was Lady Maud's account, and there was certainly a suspicion of consciousness when the learned man's name was mentioned; a palpable flush indeed, when a faint whistle overbore that of the wind, and she started from her chair.

"Rick! it can't surely be Mr. Endorwick!"

The blush made her look years younger, and Will Lockhart felt distinctly aggrieved at the fact.

"By George, it is, though," replied her nephew, after a glance through the field-gla.s.ses which hung ready for the purpose on the window-k.n.o.b.

"There he is on the other side of the stream. He has hoisted the flag, and is blowing away at the whistle like fits. His umbrella's inside out, and his mackintosh floating on the breeze. Do look, Aunt Will.

It's awfully comic."

Miss Willina's face was a study of dignity and humour; the first prevailed. "Eric! I am surprised at your levity. The poor man will be drenched to the skin, and he so delicate; such a distinguished scholar too; we could ill afford to lose him."

"Give me the gla.s.s," said Will Lockhart grimly. The sight of his supposed successor signalling for the impossible gave him a thrill of satisfaction; for he, at least, was on the right side of the stream.

And then to the keen little creature at his side came a mood well remembered.

"The born idiot! Any Christian would have stopped at the hotel even if he was wanting to come on. A fool for his pains! Ah! what's the use of blowing like a hooter with the wind and tide against you? Gracious goody! Rick, what's to be done? The gawk can't be left there like a windmill."

The comparison was not inapt; for the professor, seeing them, doubtless, against the firelight within, was waving his arms frantically.

"I'll go down and signal him to that bieldy bit behind the big rock.

It's out of the wind anyhow, and the tide will be turning before he could walk back to shelter. And I'll stop in the boat-house; it will comfort him to see me smoking, especially if he has forgotten his matches. Besides, I must put new rowlocks to the four-oar. We'll want her, and the men too, if any one is to cross the stream tonight."

"That's a nice boy," said Will Lockhart, putting down the gla.s.ses as Rick's figure on its way to the boat-house blocked out the professor's increasing despair. "Just about the age I was when--" He paused and looked at his companion.

"Yes! You were twenty-one, and I was eighteen."

They were standing close together, the firelight throwing their shadows out faintly against the growing darkness, but on their faces the dull autumn twilight lingered, blotting out all traces of the pa.s.sage of time.

He came a little nearer to her.

"I wonder why we quarrelled?" he said argumentatively. "I don't mean what we quarrelled about. That was never very difficult to find, was it? But why did we quarrel finally that last time? I don't recollect that you were more wilful than usual."

"No doubt you were more aggravating," she retorted quickly. "Do you wish to begin it all over again? I will if you've a mind to."

"Begin what?"

"The quarrel, of course."

"No, thank you. There's the professor hauling down his flag; he has seen Rick, and acknowledged his defeat. Good man! Don't you think, Miss Macdonald, that it would be more comfortable by the fire than here at the window?"

"More comfortable than the professor is, poor man. That is what you mean. How selfish all you men are, and then you expect me not to see through you!"

"I don't think I ever was quite so _exigeant_ as that, was I? And, do you know, I rather wish you would just cast your eye over my innermost thoughts at the present moment. It would save me beating about the bush."

Perhaps, despite her outward calm, she was a little excited; for she had taken up her knitting, half mechanically, and now the needles clashed fast and furious. He was leaning towards her, his elbows on his knees, his hands loosely clasped together, and something of his youth, not so much in its romance as in its imperious desire to know and understand, was in his face.

"Miss Macdonald, I've no right to ask, but are you going to marry--that man on the other side?"

She gave a little conscious laugh, half-nervous, half-gratified. "That is what you call beating about the bush, I suppose? Why--why should I marry anybody?"

For the life of him he could not tell, save that in a vague way that dead past seemed so pitiful: because it was dead and past. "Why did we quarrel?" he repeated. "If the _Clansman_ hadn't come in unexpectedly that evening after her time, and so given me an opportunity of going off in the sulks, we should have made it up as usual. It seems such a little thing to come between us."

She laid down her knitting and looked at him thoughtfully. A woman less truthful than Miss Willina might have allowed the inevitable satisfaction of being remembered to give an extra tinge of regret and romance to that past, which in sober fact had had little of either; but Miss Willina's sense of humour was of the rare kind which is not blunted by egotism.

"Ridiculously little. In the novels--I read dozens of them in the winter--it is always something pathetic. A letter left in a blotting book, or a wrong initial on the envelope, or a false announcement of marriage. Something not to be foreseen or helped. Or if it isn't the fault of fate, they get brain fever and forget their own names. But we! We just quarrelled, and didn't care to make it up. It isn't in the least romantic, I'm afraid."

"But we didn't forget," he said in the same argumentative tone. "At least I didn't."

"Of course not. Does any one ever forget,--absolutely?" Her voice trembled slightly. The pathos of memory was not to be ignored entirely.

"It seems such a pity--you and I leading such lonely lives."

"Lonely? You should see my Noah's Ark."

"Well! Don't scoff at me. I suppose it is absurd, but to-night somehow--"

She interrupted him with a soft hand laid on his. "Don't, please don't. It is like children trying to pretend that their shadows on the wall are alive. But they are shadows; nothing but shadows, and the light which throws them--" she pointed to the window with a laugh that was half a sob. "Poor man! he ought to be extinguished by this time."

"Perhaps you are right," he replied sadly, still holding her hand; "but it seems hard--the shadows were so pretty."

"Not so pretty as the reality."

"What is that?"

"That we have met and forgiven each other--without payment."

"Aunt Will," shouted Rick, bursting into the room, "there's the professor in the front hall dripping like a drowned rat. I got the men and ferried him over on the first chance; now they are waiting for Mr.

Lockhart."