Men, Women, and Ghosts Part 3

There were gray and silver clouds overhead, and all the light upon the sea slanted from low in the west: it was a red light, in which the bay grew warm; it struck across Pauline's hands, which she dipped, as the mood took her, into the waves, leaning upon the side of the boat, looking down into the water. One other sail only was to be seen upon the bay. They watched it for a while. It dropped into the west, and sunk from sight.

They were silent for a time, and then they talked of friendship, and nature, and eternity, and then were silent for a time again, and then spoke--in a very general and proper way--of separation and communion in spirit, and broke off softly, and the boat rose and fell upon the strong outgoing tide.

"Drifting, drifting on and on," hummed Pauline.

The west, paling a little, left a haggard look upon the Doctor's face.

"An honest man," the Doctor was saying, "an honest man, who loves his wife devotedly, but who cannot find in her that sympathy which his higher nature requires, that comprehension of his intellectual needs, that--"

"I always feel a deep compa.s.sion for such a man," interrupted Miss Dallas, gently.

"Such a man," questioned the Doctor in a pensive tone, "need not be debarred, by the shallow conventionalities of an unappreciative world, from a friendship which will rest, strengthen, and enn.o.ble his weary soul?"

"Certainly not," said Pauline, with her eyes upon the water; dull yellow, green, and indigo shades were creeping now upon its ruddiness.

"Pauline,"--Dr. Sharpe's voice was low,--"Pauline!"

Pauline turned her beautiful head. "There are marriages for this world; true and honorable marriages, but for this world. But there is a marriage for eternity,--a marriage of souls."

Now Myron Sharpe is not a fool, but that is precisely what he said to Miss Pauline Dallas, out in the boat on that September night. If wiser men than Myron Sharpe never uttered more unpardonable nonsense under similar circ.u.mstances, cast your stones at him.

"Perhaps so," said Miss Dallas, with a sigh; "but see! How dark it has grown while we have been talking. We shall be caught in a squall; but I shall not be at all afraid--with you."

They were caught indeed, not only in a squall, but in the steady force of a driving northeasterly storm setting in doggedly with a very ugly fog. If Miss Dallas was not at all afraid--with him, she was nevertheless not sorry when they grated safely on the dull white beach.

They had had a hard pull in against the tide. Sky and sea were black.

The fog crawled like a ghost over flat and cliff and field. The rain beat upon them as they turned to walk up the beach.

Pauline stopped once suddenly.

"What was that?"

"I heard nothing."

"A cry,--I fancied a cry down there in the fog."

They went back, and walked down the slippery sh.o.r.e for a s.p.a.ce. Miss Dallas took off her hat to listen.

"You will take cold," said Dr. Sharpe, anxiously. She put it on; she heard nothing,--she was tired and excited, he said.

They walked home together. Miss Dallas had sprained her white wrist, trying to help at the oars; he drew it gently through his arm.

It was quite dark when they reached the house. No lamps were lighted.

The parlor window had been left open, and the rain was beating in. "How careless in Harrie!" said her husband, impatiently.

He remembered those words, and the sound of his own voice in saying them, for a long time to come; he remembers them now, indeed, I fancy, on rainy nights when the house is dark.

The hall was cold and dreary. No table was set for supper. The children were all crying. Dr. Sharpe pushed open the kitchen door with a stern face.

"Biddy! Biddy! what does all this mean? Where is Mrs. Sharpe?"

"The Lord only knows what it manes, or where is Mrs. Sharpe," said Biddy, sullenly. "It's high time, in me own belafe, for her husband to come ashkin' and inquirin' her close all in a hape on the floor upstairs, with her bath-dress gone from the nails, and the front door swingin',--me never findin' of it out till it cooms tay-time, with all the children cryin' on me, and me head shplit with the noise, and--"

Dr. Sharpe strode in a bewildered way to the front door. Oddly enough, the first thing he did was to take down the thermometer and look at it.

Gone out to bathe in a temperature like that! His mind ran like lightning, while he hung the thing back upon its nail, over Harrie's ancestry. Was there not a traditionary great-uncle who died in an asylum? The whole future of three children with an insane mother spread itself out before him while he was b.u.t.toning his overcoat.

"Shall I go and help you find her?" asked Miss Dallas, tremulously; "or shall I stay and look after hot flannels and--things? What shall I do?"

"_I_ don't care what you do!" said the Doctor, savagely. To his justice be it recorded that he did not. He would not have exchanged one glimpse of Harrie's little homely face just then for an eternity of sunset-sailing with the "friend of his soul." A sudden cold loathing of her possessed him; he hated the sound of her soft voice; he hated the rustle of her garments, as she leaned against the door with her handkerchief at her eyes. Did he remember at that moment an old vow, spoken on an old October day, to that little missing face? Did he comfort himself thus, as he stepped out into the storm, "You have 'trusted her,' Myron Sharpe, as 'your best earthly friend'"?

As luck, or providence or G.o.d--whichever word you prefer--decreed it, the Doctor had but just shut the door when he saw me driving from the station through the rain. I heard enough of the story while he was helping me down the carriage steps. I left my bonnet and bag with Miss Dallas, pulled my water-proof over my head, and we turned our faces to the sea without a word.

The Doctor is a man who thinks and acts rapidly in emergencies, and little time was lost about help and lights. Yet when all was done which could be done, we stood there upon the slippery weed-strewn sand, and looked in one another's faces helplessly. Harrie's little boat was gone.

The sea thundered out beyond the bar. The fog hung, a dead weight, upon a buried world. Our lanterns cut it for a foot or two in a ghostly way, throwing a pale white light back upon our faces and the weeds and bits of wreck under our feet.

The tide had turned. We put out into the surf not knowing what else to do, and called for Harrie; we leaned on our oars to listen, and heard the water drip into the boat, and the dull thunder beyond the bar; we called again, and heard a frightened sea-gull scream.

"_This_ yere's wastin' valooable time," said Hansom, decidedly. I forgot to say that it was George Hansom whom Myron had picked up to help us. Anybody in Lime will tell you who George Hansom is,--a clear-eyed, open-hearted sailor; a man to whom you would turn in trouble as instinctively as a rheumatic man turns to the sun.

I cannot accurately tell you what he did with us that night. I have confused memories of searching sh.o.r.e and cliffs and caves; of touching at little islands and inlets that Harrie fancied; of the peculiar echo which answered our shouting; of the look that settled little by little about Dr. Sharpe's mouth; of the sobbing of the low wind; of the flare of lanterns on gaping, green waves; of spots of foam that writhed like nests of white snakes; of noticing the puddles in the bottom of the boat, and of wondering confusedly what they would do with my travelling-dress, at the very moment when I saw--I was the first to see it--little empty boat; of our hauling alongside of the tossing, silent thing; of a bit of a red scarf that lay coiled in its stern; of our drifting by, and speaking never a word; of our coasting along after that for a mile down the bay, because there was nothing in the world to take us there but the dread of seeing the Doctor's eyes when we should turn.

It was there that we heard the first cry.

"It's sh.o.r.eward!" said Hansom.

"It is seaward!" cried the Doctor.

"It is behind us!" said I.

Where was it? A sharp, sobbing cry, striking the mist three or four times in rapid succession,--hushing suddenly,--breaking into shrieks like a frightened child's,--dying plaintively down.

We struggled desperately after it, through the fog. Wind and water took the sound up and tossed it about. Confused and bewildered, we beat about it and about it; it was behind us, before us, at our right, at our left,--crying on in a blind, aimless way, making us no replies,--beckoning us, slipping from us, mocking us utterly.

The Doctor stretched his hands out upon the solid wall of mist; he groped with them like a man struck blind.

"To die there,--in my very hearing,--without a chance--"

And while the words were upon his lips the cries ceased.

He turned a gray face slowly around, shivered a little, then smiled a little, then began to argue with ghastly cheerfulness:--

"It must be only for a moment, you know. We shall hear it again,--I am quite sure we shall it again, Hansom!"

Hansom, making a false stroke, I believe for the first time in his life, snapped an oar and overturned a lantern. Some drift-wood, covered with slimy weeds, washed heavily up at our feet. I remember that a little disabled ground-sparrow, chased by the tide, was fluttering and drowning just in sight, and that Myron drew it out of the water, and held it up for a moment to his cheek.

Bending over the ropes, George spoke between his teeth to me:--

"It may be a night's job on 't, findin' of the body."