The Tidal Wave and Other Stories Part 37

And with the thought he turned, breathless from the buffeting spray of a mighty wave, to find a woman standing near him on the swirling deck.

She stood poised lightly as a bird prepared for flight, her head bare, her face upturned to the storm. Her hands were fast gripped upon the rail, and the gleam of a gold ring caught Carey's eye. He saw that she was unconscious of his presence. The shifting, uncertain light had not revealed him. For a s.p.a.ce he stood watching her, unperceived, wondering at the courage that upheld her. Her hair had blown loose in the wind, and lay in a black ma.s.s upon her neck. He could not see her features, but her bearing was superb.

And then at length, as if his quiet scrutiny had somehow touched in her a responsive chord, she turned her head and saw him. Their eyes met, and a curious thrill ran tingling through the man's veins. He had never seen this woman before, but as she looked at him, with wonderful dark eyes that seemed to hold a pa.s.sionate exultation in their depths, he suddenly felt as if he had known her all his life. They were comrades. It was no hysterical panic that had driven her up from below. Like himself, she had been drawn by the magic of the storm.

Impulsively, almost involuntarily, he moved a pace towards her and stretched out a hand along the dripping rail.

She gave him her own instantly and confidently, responding to his action with absolute simplicity. It was a gesture of sympathy, of fellowship. She bore herself as a queen, but she did not condescend to him.

No words pa.s.sed between them. Both realised the impossibility of speech in that shrieking tempest. Moreover, there was no need for speech.

Earth's petty conventions had fallen away from them. They were as children standing hand in hand on the edge of the unknown, hearing the same thunderous music, bound by the same magic spell.

Carey wondered later how long a time elapsed whilst they stood thus, intently watching. It might have been for merely a few minutes, or it might have been for the greater part of an hour. He never knew.

The spell broke at length suddenly and terribly, with a grinding crash that flung them both sideways upon the slippery deck. He went down, still clinging instinctively to the rail, and the next instant, by its aid, he was on his feet again, dragging his companion up with him.

There followed a pause--a shuddering, expectant pause--while wind and sea raged all around them like beasts of prey. And through it there came the sound of the engine throbbing impotently spasmodically, like the heart of a dying man. Quite suddenly it ceased, and there was a frightful uproar of escaping steam. The deck on which they stood began to tilt slowly upwards.

Carey knew what had happened. They had struck a rock in that awful darkness, and they were going down with frightful rapidity into the seething, storm-tossed water.

He had never been shipwrecked before, but, as by instinct, he realised the madness of remaining where he was. A coil of rope lay almost at his feet, and he stooped and seized it. There had come a brief lull in the storm, but he knew that there was not a moment to spare. Still supporting his companion, he began to bind the rope around them both.

She looked up at him quickly, and he saw her lips move in protest. She even set her hands against his breast, as if to resist him. But he overcame her almost savagely. It was no moment for argument.

The slope of the deck was becoming every instant more acute. The wind was racing back across the sea. Above them--very far above them, it seemed--there was a confusion of figures, but the tumult of wind and waves drowned all other sound. Carey's feet began to slip on that awful slant. They were sinking rapidly, rapidly.

He knotted the rope and gathered himself together. An instant he hung on the rail, breathing deeply. Then with a jerk he relaxed his grip and leaped blindly into the howling darkness, hurling himself and the woman with him far into the raging sea.

It was suffocatingly hot. Carey raised his arms with a desperate movement. He felt as if he were swimming in hot vapour. And he had been swimming for a long time, too. He was deadly tired. A light flashed in his eyes, and very far above him--like an object viewed through the small end of a telescope--he saw a face. Vaguely he heard a voice speaking, but what it said was beyond his comprehension. It seemed to utter unintelligible things. For a while he laboured to understand, then the effort became too much for him. The light faded from his brain.

Later--much later, it seemed--he awoke to full consciousness, to find himself in a Breton fisherman's cottage, watched over by a kindly little French doctor who tended him as though he had been his brother.

"_Monsieur_ is better, but much better," he was cheerily a.s.sured. "And for _madame_ his wife he need have no inquietude. She is safe and well, and only concerns herself for _monsieur_."

This was rea.s.suring, and Carey accepted it without comment or inquiry.

He knew that there was a misunderstanding somewhere, but he was still too exhausted to trouble himself about so slight a matter. He thanked his kindly informant, and again he slept.

Two days later his interest in life revived. He began to ask questions, and received from the doctor a full account of what had occurred.

He had been washed ash.o.r.e, he was told--he and _madame_ his wife--lashed fast together. The ship had been wrecked within half a mile of the land. But the seas had been terrific. There had not been many survivors.

Carey digested the news in silence. He had had no friends on board, having embarked only at Gibraltar.

At length he looked up with a faint smile at his faithful attendant.

"And where is--_madame_?" he asked.

The little doctor hesitated, and spread out his hands deprecatingly.

"Oh, _monsieur_, I regret--I much regret--to have to inform you that she is already departed for Paris. Her solicitude for you was great, was pathetic. The first words she speak were: 'My husband, do not let him know!' as though she feared that you would be distressed for her. And then she recover quick, quick, and say that she must go--that _monsieur_ when he know, will understand. And so she depart early in the morning of yesterday while _monsieur_ is still asleep."

He was watching Carey with obvious anxiety as he ended, but the Englishman's face expressed nothing but a somewhat elaborate indifference.

"I see," he said, and relapsed into silence.

He made no further reference to the matter, and the doctor discreetly abstained from asking questions. He presently showed him an English paper which contained the information that Mr. and Mrs. Carey were among the rescued.

"That," he remarked, "will alleviate the anxiety of your friends."

To which Carey responded, with a curt laugh: "No one knew that we were on board."

He left for Paris on the following day, allowing the doctor to infer that he was on his way to join his wife.

I

It was growing dark in the empty cla.s.s-room, but there was nothing left to do, and the French mistress, sitting alone at her high desk, made no move to turn on the light. All the lesson books were packed away out of sight. There was not so much as a stray pencil trespa.s.sing upon that desert of orderliness. Only the waste-paper basket, standing behind _Mademoiselle_ Treves's chair, gave evidence of the tempest of energy that had preceded this empty calm in the midst of which she sat alone.

It was crammed to overflowing with torn exercise books, and all manner of schoolgirls' rubbish, and now and then it creaked eerily in the desolate silence as though at the touch of an invisible hand.

It was very cold in the great room, for the fire had gone out long ago.

There was no one left to enjoy it except _mademoiselle_, who apparently did not count. For most of the pupils had departed in the morning, and those who were left were collected in the great hall speeding one after another upon their homeward way. All day the wheels of cabs had crunched the gravel below the cla.s.s-room window, but they were not so audible now, for the ground was thickly covered with snow, which had been drearily falling throughout the afternoon.

It lay piled upon the window-sill, casting a ghostly light into the darkening room, vaguely outlining the slender figure that sat so still before the high desk.

Another cab-load of laughing girls was just pa.s.sing out at the gate.

There could not be many left. The darkness increased, and _mademoiselle_ drew a quick breath and shivered. She wished the departures were all over.

There came a light step in the pa.s.sage, and a daring whistle, which broke off short as a hand impetuously opened the cla.s.s-room door.

"Why, _mademoiselle!_" cried a fresh young voice. "Why, _cherie!_" Warm arms encircled the lonely figure, and eager lips pressed the cold face.

"Oh, _cherie_, don't grizzle!" besought the newcomer. "Why, I've never known you do such a thing before. Have you been here all this time? I've been looking for you all over the place. I couldn't leave without one more good-bye. And see here, _cherie_, you must--you must--come to my birthday-party on New Year's Eve. If you won't come and stay with me, which I do think you might, you must come down for that one night. It's no distance, you know. And it's only a children's show. There won't be any grown-ups except my cousin Reggie, who is the sweetest man in the world, and Mummy's Admiral who comes next. Say you will, _cherie_, for I shall be sixteen--just think of it!--and I do want you to be there. You will, won't you? Come, promise!"

It was hard to refuse this pet.i.tioner, so warmly fascinating was she.

_Mademoiselle_, who, it was well known, never accepted any invitations, hesitated for the first time--and was lost.

"If I came just for that one evening then, Gwen, you would not press me to stay longer?"

"Bless you, no!" declared Gwen. "I'll drive you to the station myself in Mummy's car to catch the first train next morning, if you'll come. And I'll make Reggie come too. You'll just love Reggie, _cherie_. He's my exact ideal of what a man ought to be--the best friend I have, next to you. Well, it's a bargain then, isn't it? You'll come and help dance with the kids--you promise? That's my own sweet _cherie_! And now you mustn't grizzle here in the dark any longer. I believe my cab is at the door. Come down and see me off, won't you?"

Yet again she was irresistible. They went out together, hand in hand, happy child and lonely woman, and the door of the deserted cla.s.s-room banged with a desolate echoing behind them.

II

It was ten days later, on a foggy evening, in the end of the year, that Reginald Carey alighted at a small wayside station, and grimly prepared himself for a five-mile trudge through dark and muddy lanes to his destination.

The only conveyance in the station yard was a private motor car, and his first glance at this convinced him that it was not there to await him.

He paused under the lamp outside to turn up his collar, and, as he did so, a man of gigantic breadth and stature, wearing goggles, came out of the station behind him and strode past. He glanced at Carey casually as he went by, looked again, then suddenly stopped and peered at him.