The Beach of Dreams Part 12

Then came the question of the flour, that too must be kept in reserve and the opening they had made in the top of the barrel closed up properly. This operation took time and was conducted with a good deal of grumbling which fell on deaf ears. The thing was done and that was the main thing. Four blankets were taken from the other barrel and that too was closed. Then with the shovels the whole lot was sanded over and the rocks replaced, the girl helping in the work as well as directing.

When everything was finished they made three bundles, using the blankets as holdalls, and started back.

It was now noon and the breeze that had been blowing ever since dawn had died away, but great clouds were banking up over the islands, vast, solemn, leaden-coloured clouds rolling up from the far sea and piling one on the other like alps on alps.

They had nearly reached the caves when a roll of thunder like the ruffle of m.u.f.fled drums came over the water, but they got under shelter before the rain began to fall, just a few heavy drops, at first, and then in a moment a cataract.

The islands vanished, the sea vanished to within a few hundred yards of the beach, the voices of the gulls and the breaking of the waves became merged and vague in the hiss of the sheeting rain.

"The chaps that left the truck in that cask forgot to shove in some oilskins," said La Touche as he undid his load.

Cleo had come into the men's cave to help to unpack. Half-way back she had taken her boots off. Owing to the absence of stockings her right heel had become chafed and she had taken them off determining not to wear them any more. She was kneeling now, bare-footed, taking the things from Bompard's bundle and La Touche's remark made her look up. It was the tone rather than the words that irritated her. The recollection of an oilskin coat which she had used when fishing in Norway the year before rose in her mind. It had been put away for a long time and when taken out had been found all stuck up and quite ruined.

"You can't be much of a sailor," said she, "not to know that oilskin doesn't stand packing. The men who buried these things did. If they had known that you were so particular about rain they might have put in an umbrella."

Dead silence followed this thrust of the tongue which she instantly regretted, not because of hurting La Touche's feelings, but because she instantly felt that it had helped to widen the division between her and her mates. The extraordinary fact was that she, having a.s.sumed the responsibility of office, was, seemingly, held responsible by the others for all unpleasant happenings; she felt that the rain of Kerguelen was now, in a way, being laid at her door.

Then, again, she had singled out La Touche as a direct opponent. She felt that he and she were already matching each other and there was likely to be a struggle between them for dominance.

Women have been gifted above men with an instinctive knowledge of character. She divined in La Touche a character weak yet capable of violence, incapable of leading yet jealous of being led, and especially of being led by a woman. That was the danger point.

However, there was no use in trying to say anything smooth and she went on with her work, helping to stow the things and, when that was finished, taking off two of the blankets to her own cave.

A fire was impossible owing to the rain so they dined off biscuits and canned stuff, cold.

Bompard and La Touche on this little expedition had discovered a water source only a quarter of a mile inland, a deep pond cut in the rocks and fed by the rains. Bompard referred to it as he ate.

"But as long as the boat holds together," said he, "we don't want to bother about water; she'll catch and hold all we want. I've heard tell it rains here months on end."

"When it's not blowing," said La Touche. Cleo said nothing. It came to her almost as a new impression that conversation as we know it was almost impossible with her companions. They had no outlook over anything but the material and they seemed to see nothing but the black side of things. She felt also that any attempt to rally them and cheer them would be dumbly resented and would only help to widen even more the division between her and them.

When the meal was finished she put the plates out in the rain to wash them. Then a bright idea came to her and getting the roll of wire she asked La Touche to shew her how to make rabbit snares.

La Touche took the roll of wire and held it in his hands for a moment.

"This is all very well," said he, "but where is your wire cutters?"

They had nothing to cut the wire with, and he seemed to look on the fact as a triumph of his own cleverness over Cleo's, till Bompard intervened and shewed how, by knotting the wire and pulling hard, a break might be made. This accomplished, and three lengths of wire having been procured, the surly one proceeded to make a snare and to demonstrate how it might be set.

At the end of the business the girl regretted that she had ever started it. She had put herself under the tuition of La Touche and allowed the intimacy of master and pupil, allowed even in this slight way that he was her superior.

A yelling wind from the mountains arose that afternoon and drove the rain away across the islands. It held for half an hour and then of a sudden ceased and a howling wind from the islands rose and drove the rain back again towards the mountains.

The sea suddenly seemed to go mad, with cross currents meeting. Waves seemed fighting waves and the gulls seemed filled with the general torment, clanging and blowing about hither and thither like leaves in autumn.

Cleo went to her cave and wrapping herself in one of the blankets, with the other folded double to lie upon, took her place upon the floor with her head on the sailcloth.

It was her first really bad moment. Her first moment of real depression.

The rain and the fact that their position as regarded food was secure, so that there was nothing to fight against at the moment, conspired to overthrow her.

Hitherto she had fought bravely and the struggle had kept her up; the sudden easing of the situation had brought new forces against her. Time suddenly appeared before her eyes asking: "How are you to kill me? You can't, you have no weapons. Would you like a book? Would you like embroidery work to do, companions to talk with, music to listen to?

Fate, under the name of civilization, gave you all these and more, they have been taken from you and now you see me as I am, the great terror."

She fought this Bogey by thinking of La Touche. She had raised La Touche against herself. She knew that something in herself had risen against La Touche.

She felt that his respect for a woman of the higher cla.s.ses was, as regarded herself, wearing thin, owing to propinquity. That he resented being "bossed" by a woman, that her superior quickness of mind and energy vexed him and that one day he would try to master her. He was of the type that is too mean to rule, yet hates to be ruled. There was also the jealousy of the male at the superiority of the female. She was physically weaker than he, a fact that means little in civilized life where power is in the hands of Order, but which means everything in primitive life. And they were steadily drifting to the primitive.

These thoughts, troublesome enough, were still excellent in their way.

They gave her occupation for her mind.

Then she fell asleep, awaking towards evening to find Bompard at the cave mouth telling her that supper was ready.

CHAPTER XII

THE QUARREL

Next morning broke fine. She was awakened by voices quarrelling and came out to find a breezy and absolutely cloudless day, with the sea running smooth and the sunlight on the far islands.

The two men, who had fallen out over some trifle, were wrangling like fish-women, Bompard having the worst of it, as his ineffectual southern oaths were no match for the language of the other.

The girl stood looking at La Touche, but he seemed not to mind in the least.

Then she turned away and walked down to the boat.

She heard Bompard say: "There, you have sent her off, talking like that," and what La Touche replied she could not hear, but she guessed it was something not complimentary to Bompard or herself.

The boat was half full of rain-water. She rinsed her hands in it, then, standing with the warm sun upon her, she almost forgot the men, looking at the purple islands and the gulls like new minted gold and the great arch of the bay lined out with a thread of creamy foam.

After a while, turning round, she saw that Bompard was lighting a fire with the remains of the wood and, coming up, she helped in the business.

He had arranged the little fire between pieces of rock so as to make a stand for the kettle, and La Touche was opening the hermetically sealed canister of tea with his knife; neither man was speaking and the meal pa.s.sed off almost in silence.

She felt that any moment the quarrel might break out again and her instinct was to get away from them.

She had left the fisherman's knife and belt in her cave; she went to the cave and strapped the belt around her waist. The boat hook was lying on the sand; she picked it up and, carrying it, walked away down the beach in the direction of the cache.

The boat hook was a weapon of sorts and it was better out of the men's way; the knife was different. It had come to her that in this place it was better to be armed and she determined always to wear it.

But no sounds of quarrelling followed her, only the quarrelling of the gulls, and half a mile away, looking back, she saw that the men had separated. La Touche was standing by the boat and Bompard was walking towards the Lizard point. She sat down to rest for a moment and she watched the figure of Bompard. It grew smaller and smaller till it reached the point, then it vanished over the rocks.

She saw La Touche walk away towards the caves; he disappeared, and the beach, now dest.i.tute of life, lay sung to by the sea and flown over by the gulls. Nothing speaking of man lay there but the boat that looked like a toy cast there by a child. It held her eyes, focussed her thoughts, and became the centre of a sudden longing, a desire soul searching as the desire for water--the desire for civilization, for the things and people that she knew.

Her companions had become horrible to her. To go on living with them seemed appalling. The rocks, the sea, the gulls, even the rain, all these fitted with her mind--they seemed in some way familiar, but with the men she had nothing in common.