The Militants Part 21

The Revenge careered along over the water as if mad to get to Lundy, under a strong west wind. In about two hours the pile of fantastic rocks lay stretched in plain view before us. We were a mile or more away--I am a very uncertain judge of distance--but we could see distinctly the clouds of birds, glittering white sea-gulls, blowing hither and thither above the wild little continent where were their nests. There are thousands and thousands of gulls on Lundy. We had sailed out from Clovelly at two in bright afternoon sunshine, but now, at nearly four, the blue was covering with gray, and I saw Cary look earnestly at the quick-moving sky.

"Is it going to rain?" I asked.

He stood at the rudder, feet apart and shoulders full of muscle and full of grace, the handkerchief around his neck a line of flame between blue clothes and olive face. A lock of bronze hair blew boyishly across his forehead.

"Worse than that," he said, and his eyes were keen as he stared at the uneven water in front of us. A basin of smoother water and the yellow tongue of a sand-beach lay beyond it at the foot of a line of high rocks. "The pa.s.sage is there"--he nodded. "If I can make it before the squall catches us"--he glanced up again and then turned to Sally. "Could you sail her a moment while I see to the sheet? Keep her just so." His hand placed Sally's with a sort of roughness on the rudder. "Are you afraid?" He paused a second to ask it.

"Not a bit," said the girl, smiling up at him cheerfully, and then he was working away, and the little Revenge was flying, ripping the waves, every breath nearer by yards to that tumbling patch of wolf-gray water.

As I said, I know less about a boat than a boy of five. I can never remember what the parts of it are called and it is a wonder to me how they can make it go more than one way. So I cannot tell in any intelligent manner what happened. But, as it seemed, suddenly, while I watched Sally standing steadily with both her little hands holding the rudder, there was a crack as if the earth had split, then, with a confused rushing and tearing, a ma.s.s of something fell with a long-drawn crash, and as I stared, paralyzed, I saw the mast strike against the girl as she stood, her hands still firmly on the rudder, and saw her go down without a sound. There were two or three minutes of which I remember nothing but the roaring of water. I think I must have been caught under the sail, for the next I knew I was struggling from beneath its stiff whiteness, and as I looked about, dazed, behold! we had pa.s.sed the reefs and lay rocking quietly. I saw that first, and then I saw Cary's head as it bent over something he held in his arms--and it was Sally! I tried to call, I tried to reach them, but the breath must have been battered out of me, for I could not, and Cary did not notice me. I think he forgot I was on earth. As I gazed at them speechless, breathless, Sally's eyes opened and smiled up at him, and she turned her face against his shoulder like a child. Cary's dark cheek went down against hers, and through the sudden quiet I heard him whisper.

"Sweetheart! sweetheart!" he said.

Both heads, close against each other, were still for a long moment, and then my gasping, rasping voice came back to me.

"Cary!" I cried, "for mercy's sake, come and take me out of this jib!"

I have the most confused recollection of the rest of that afternoon.

Cary hammered and sawed and worked like a beaver with the help of two men who lived on Lundy, fishermen by the curious name of Heaven. Sally and I helped, too, whenever we could, but all in a heavy silence. Sally was wrapped in dignity as in a mantle, and her words were few and practical. Cary, quite as practical, had no thought apparently for anything but his boat. As for me, I was like a naughty old cat. I fussed and complained till I must have been unendurable, for the emotions within me were all at cross-purposes. I was frightened to death when I thought of General Meade; I was horrified at the picture stamped on my memory of his daughter, trusted to my care, smiling up with that unmistakable expression into the eyes of a common sailor. Horrified! My blood froze at the thought. Yet--it was unpardonable of me--yet I felt a thrill as I saw again those two young heads together, and heard the whispered words that were not meant for me to hear.

Somehow or other, after much difficulty, and under much mental strain, we got home. Sally hardly spoke as we toiled up the stony hill in the dark beneath a pouring rain, and I, too, felt my tongue tied in an embarra.s.sed silence. At some time, soon, we must talk, but we both felt strongly that it was well to wait till we could change our clothes.

At last we reached the friendly brightness of the New Inn windows; we trudged past them to the steps, we mounted them, and as the front door opened, the radiant vision burst upon us of Anne Ford, come a day before her time, fresh and charming and voluble--voluble! It seemed the last straw to our tired and over-taxed nerves, yet no one could have been more concerned and sympathetic, and that we were inclined not to be explicit as to details suited her exactly. All the sooner could she get to her own affairs. Sir Richard Leigh's yacht was the burden of her lay, and that it was here and we had seen it added l.u.s.tre to our adventures.

That we had not been on board and did not know him, was satisfactory too, and neither of us had the heart to speak of Cary. We listened wearily, feeling colorless and invertebrate beside this brilliant creature, while Anne planned to send her card to him to-morrow, and conjectured gayeties for all of us, beyond. Sir Richard Leigh and his yacht did not fill a very large arc on our horizon to-night. Sally came into my room to tell me good-night, when we went up-stairs, and she looked so wistful and tired that I gave her two kisses instead of one.

"Thank you," she said, smiling mistily. "We won't talk to-night, will we, Cousin Mary?" So without words, we separated.

Next morning as I opened my tired eyes on a world well started for the day, there came a tap at the door and in floated Anne Ford, a fine bird in fine feathers, wide-awake and brisk.

"Never saw such lazy people!" she exclaimed. "I've just been in to see Sally and she refuses to notice me. I suppose it's exhaustion from shipwreck. But I wasn't shipwrecked, and I've had my breakfast, and it's too glorious a morning to stay indoors, so I'm going to walk down to the water and look at Sir Richard's boat, and send off my card to him by a sailor or something. Then, if he's a good boy, he will turn up to-day, and then--!" The end of Anne's sentence was wordless ecstasy.

But the mention of the sailor had opened the flood-gates for me, and in rushed all my responsibilities. What should I do with this situation into which I had so easily slipped, and let Sally slip? Should I instantly drag her off to France like a proper chaperone? Then how could I explain to Anne--Anne would be heavy dragging with that lodestone of a yacht in the harbor. Or could we stay here as we had planned and not see Cary again? The unformed shapes of different questions and answers came dancing at me like a legion of imps as I lay with my head on the pillow and looked at Anne's confident, handsome face, and admired the freshness and cut of her pale blue linen gown.

"Well, Cousin Mary," she said at last, "you and Sally seem both to be struck dumb from your troubles. I'm going off to leave you till you can be a little nicer to me. I may come back with Sir Richard--who knows!

Wish me good luck, please!" and she swept off on a wave of good-humor and good looks.

I lay and thought. Then, with a pleasant leisure that soothed my nerves a little, I dressed, and went down to breakfast in the quaint dining-room hung from floor to ceiling with china brought years ago from the far East by a Clovelly sailor. As I sat over my egg and toast Sally came in, pale, but sweet and crisp in the white that Southern girls wear most. There was a constraint over us for the reckoning that we knew was coming. Each felt guilty toward the other and the result was a formal politeness. So it was a relief when, just at the last bit of toast, Anne burst in, all staccato notes of suppressed excitement.

"Cousin Mary! Sally! Sir Richard Leigh is here! He's there!" nodding over her shoulder. "He walked up with me--he wants to see you both.

But"--her voice dropped to an intense whisper--"he has asked to see Miss Walton first--wants to speak to her alone! What does he mean?" Anne was in a tremendous flutter, and it was plain that wild ideas were coursing through her. "You are my chaperone, of course, but what can he want to see you for alone--Cousin Mary?"

I could not imagine, either, yet it seemed quite possible that this beautiful creature had taken a susceptible man by storm, even so suddenly. I laid my napkin on the table and stood up.

"The chaperone is ready to meet the fairy prince," I said, and we went across together to the little drawing-room.

It was a bit dark as Anne opened the door and I saw first only a man's figure against the window opposite, but as he turned quickly and came toward us, I caught my breath, and stared, and gasped and stared again.

Then the words came tumbling over each other before Anne could speak.

"Cary!" I cried. "What are you doing here--in those clothes?"

Poor Anne! She thought I had made some horrid mistake, and had disgraced her. But I forgot Anne entirely for the familiar brown eyes that were smiling, pleading into mine, and in a second he had taken my hand and bending over, with a pretty touch of stateliness, had kissed it, and the charm that no one could resist had me fast in its net.

"Miss Walton! You will forgive me? You were always good to me--you won't lay it up against me that I'm Richard Leigh and not a picturesque Devonshire sailor! You won't be angry because I deceived you! The devil tempted me suddenly and I yielded, and I'm glad. Dear devil! I never should have known either of you if I had not."

There were more of the impetuous sentences that I cannot remember, and somewhere among them Anne gathered that she was not the point of them, and left the room like a slighted but still reigning princess. It was too bad that any one should feel slighted, but if it had to be, it was best that it should be Anne.

Then my sailor told me his side of the story; how Sally's tip for the rescue of her hat had showed him what we took him to be; how her question about a boat had suggested playing the part; how he had begun it half for the fun of it and half, even then, for the interest the girl had roused in him--and he put in a pretty speech for the chaperone just there, the clever young man! He told me how his yacht had come sooner than he had expected, and that he had to give up one afternoon with her was so severe a trial that he knew then how much Sally meant to him.

"That moonlight sail was very close sailing indeed," he said, his face full of a feeling that he did not try to hide. "There was nearly a shipwreck, when--when she steered wrong." And I remembered.

Then, with no great confidence in her mood, I went in search of my girl.

She is always unexpected, and a dead silence, when I had anxiously told my tale, was what I had not planned for. After a minute,

"Well?" I asked.

And "Well?" answered Sally, with scarlet cheeks, but calmly.

"He is waiting for you down-stairs," I said.

Then she acted in the foolish way that seemed natural. She dropped on her knees and put her face against my shoulder.

"Cousin Mary! I can't! It's a strange man--it isn't our sailor any more.

I hate it. I don't like Englishmen."

"He's very much the same as yesterday," I said. "You needn't like him if you don't want to, but you must go and tell him so yourself." I think that was rather clever of me.

So, holding my hand and trembling, she went down. When I saw Richard Leigh's look as he stood waiting, I tried to loosen that clutching hand and leave them, but Sally, always different from any one else, held me tight.

"Cousin Mary, I won't stay unless you stay," she said, firmly.

I looked at the young man and he laughed.

"I don't care. I don't care if all the world hears me," he said, and he took a step forward and caught her hands.

Sally looked up at him. "You're a horrid lord or something," she said.

He laughed softly. "Do you mind? I can't help it. It's hard, but I want you to help me try to forget it. I'd gladly he a sailor again if you'd like me better."

"I did like you--before you deceived me. You pretended you were that."

"But I have grievances too--you said I was a queer little rat of a man."

Sally's laugh was gay but trembling. "I did say that, didn't I?"

"Yes, and you tried to underpay me, too."

"Oh, I didn't! You charged a lot more than the others."