The Pillar of Light Part 6

Her costume was an exact replica of that of Enid. She walked well and rapidly, yet her alert carriage had a grace, a subtle elegance, more frequently seen in America than in England. Her lively face, flushed with exercise, and, it may be, with some little excitement, conveyed the same Transatlantic characteristic. One said at seeing her: "Here is a girl who has lived much abroad." It came as a surprise to learn that she had never crossed the Channel.

The man with her, Lieutenant John Percival Stanhope, R. N., was too familiar a figure in Penzance to evoke muttered comment from the gallery.

A masterful young gentleman he looked, and one accustomed to having his own way in the world, whether in love or war. True type of the British sailor, he had the physique of a strong man and the adventurously cheerful expression of a boy.

The skin of his face and hands, olive-tinted with exposure, his dark hair and the curved eyelashes, which drooped over his blue eyes, no less than the artistic proclivities suggested by his well-chiseled features and long, tapering fingers, proclaimed that Stanhope, notwithstanding his Saxon surname and bluff bearing, was a Celt. His mother, in fact, was a Tregarthen of Cornwall, daughter of a peer, and a leading figure in local society.

One may ask: "Why should a youth of good birth and social position be on such terms of easy familiarity with two girls, one of whom was the daughter of a lighthouse-keeper, and the other her sister by adoption?"

Indeed, a great many people did ask this pertinent question; among others, Lady Margaret Stanhope put it often and pointedly to her son, without any cogent answer being forthcoming.

If she were denied enlightenment, although her maternal anxiety was justifiable, the smokers on the pier, as representing the wider gossip of the town, may also be left unsatisfied.

"This is a nice thing," he cried, when he came within speaking distance of the girl in the boat. "I manage to bamboozle the admiral out of three days' leave and I rush to Penzance to be told that Constance and you are off to the Gulf Rock for the day. It is too bad of you, Enid."

Eyebrows were raised and silent winks exchanged among the human sparrows lining the rails.

"So Master Jack came to see Miss Trevillion, eh? What would her ladyship say if she heard that?"

"Why not come with us?" The audacity of her!

"By Jove," he agreed, "that would be jolly. Look here. Wait two minutes until I scribble a line to the mater--"

"Nothing of the sort, Jack," interposed the other girl quietly, taking from his arm the water-proof cloaks he was carrying for her. "You know Lady Margaret would be very angry, and with very good reason. Moreover, dad would be annoyed, too."

"The old girl is going out this afternoon," he protested.

"And she expects you to go with her. Now, Jack, don't let us quarrel before we have met for five minutes. We will see you tomorrow."

He helped her down the stone steps.

"Enid," he murmured, "Connie and you must promise to drive with me to Morvah in the morning. I will call for you at eleven sharp."

"What a pity you can't sail out to the rock with us today. Tomorvah is so distant."

The minx lifted her blue eyes to his with such ingenuous regret in them that Stanhope laughed, and pipes were shifted to permit the listeners above their heads to sn.i.g.g.e.r approval of her quip.

"Dad will wig us enough as it is, Enid," said the other girl. "We are bringing him a peace-offering of fruits of the earth, Jack."

"Will you be able to land?"

"One never can tell. It all depends on the state of the sea near the rock. Anyhow, we can have a chat, and send up the vegetables by the derrick."

"We'm never get there thiccy tide if we'm stop here much longer,"

interrupted Ben.

"h.e.l.lo, old grampus! How are you? Mind you keep these young ladies off the stones."

"And mind you keep your tin-pot off the stones," growled Pollard. "They was a-sayin' larst night her were aground at Portsea."

"They said right, Father Ben. That is why I am here."

Enid glanced at him with ready anxiety. There was nothing of the flirt in her manner now.

"I hope you had no mishap," she said, and Constance mutely echoed the inquiry. Both girls knew well what a serious thing it was for a youngster to run his first boat ash.o.r.e.

"Don't look so glum," he chuckled. "I am all right. Got a bit of kudos out of it really. We fouled the _Volcanic_ and strained our steering gear. That is all."

It was not all. He did not mention that, during a torpedo attack on a foggy night, he ran up to three battleships undefended by nets and stenciled his initials within a white square on five different parts of their sleek hulls, thus signifying to an indignant admiral and three confounded captains (dictionary meaning of "confounded") that these leviathans had been ingloriously sunk at their moorings by torpedoes.

"It sounds unconvincing," said Constance. "You must supply details tomorrow. Enid, that horrid pun of yours ruins the word."

"Are we also to supply luncheon?" chimed in Enid.

"Perish the thought. I have lived on sandwiches and bottled beer for a week. There! Off you go."

He gave the boat a vigorous push and stood for a little while at the foot of the steps, ostensibly to light a cigar. He watched Constance shipping the rudder whilst Enid hoisted the sail and old Ben plied a pair of oars to carry the boat into the fair way of the channel.

They neared the harbor lighthouse. The brown sail filled and the _Daisy_ got way on her. Then she sped round the end of the solid pier and vanished, whereupon Lieutenant Stanhope walked slowly to the Promenade, whence he could see the diminishing speck of canvas on the shining sea until it was hidden by Clement's Island.

At last, the devotees of twist and s.h.a.g, resting their tired arms on the railing, were able to exchange comments.

"Brace o' fine gells, them," observed the acknowledged leader, a broken-down "captain" of a mine abandoned soon after his birth.

"Fine," agreed his nearest henchman. Then, catching the gloom of the captain's gaze after Stanhope's retreating figure, he added:

"But what does that young spark want, turning their pretty heads for them, I should like to know?"

"They didn't seem partic'lar stuck on 'im," ventured another.

"The ways of women is curious," p.r.o.nounced the oracle. "I once knew a gell--"

But his personal reminiscences were not of value. More to the point was the garbled, but, in the main, accurate account he gave of the rescue of an unknown child by one of the keepers of the Gulf Rock lighthouse on a June morning eighteen years earlier.

Stephen Brand was the name of the man, and there was a bit of a mystery about him, too. They all knew that a light-keeper earned a matter of 70 to 80 a year--not enough to maintain a daughter and an adopted child in slap-up style, was it? A small villa they lived in, and a governess they had, and ponies to ride when they were big enough. The thing was ridiculous, wasn't it?

Everybody agreed that it was.

People said Brand was a swell. Well, that might or might not be true.

The speaker did not think much of him. He was a quiet, unsociable chap, though Jones, a Trinity pensioner, who kept the "Pilchard and Seine"

now, wouldn't hear a wrong word about him, and always called him "cap'n." A pretty sort of a captain! But then, they all knew what an old slow-coach Jones was. They did: Jones's pints were retailed on the premises for money down.

Then there was Spence, lame Jim, who lived at Marazion: he told a fine tale about a fight with a shark before Brand reached the boat in which was the blessed baby--that very girl, Enid, they had just seen. Was it true? How could he say? There was a lot about it at the time in the local papers, but just then his own mind was given to thoughts of enlisting, as a British expedition was marching across the desert to relieve Khartoum--and cause Gordon's death.

No: Brand and the two girls had not dwelt all the time in Penzance. The light-keepers went all over the kingdom, you know, but he had hit upon some sort of fog-signal fad--Brand was always a man of fads: he once told the speaker that all the Polwena Mine wanted was work--and the Gulf Rock was the best place for trying it. At his own request the Trinity people sent him back there two years ago. Some folk had queer tastes, hadn't they? And talking so much had made him dry.

Then the conversation languished, as the only obvious remark of any importance was not forthcoming.