The Unknown Sea Part 8

With a thin sigh and a vigorous kiss two elements received his descent.

Diadyomene leaned over the dark, and called 'Farewell.' The word was echoed back by him hoa.r.s.ely; and again from further distance it came, ringing sound.

Beneath her breath she said, 'Some day I will have grey eyes weeping before my face.' Then laughter possessed her, and away she sprang, to revel in the release of peals of wicked delight.

Very cold-hearted the sea-bred are, and their malice is very keen.

CHAPTER VI

Lois drew forward a young creature, whose dark head did not fully uplift.

'Christian,' she said, 'this is your cousin Rhoda.'

He blurted out 'Cousin!' in astonishment. Two faces stiffened; the girl's eyes declined.

'My niece,' said Lois briefly, 'and so cousin by adoption.'

Giles kicked his heel, so he guarded his tongue duly.

Considerate of embarra.s.sing the girl with open observation, he took note discreetly how kin was just legible on the two faces. The eyes of both were set overdeep for womankind; they were alike in the moulding of the bones; but the face of Rhoda gave promise of a richer beauty than could ever have been the portion of Lois. For a minute it bloomed in a vivid blush, for their eyes met as she, too, by stealth was observing him for his great height and breadth and alien complexion.

When afterwards his mother said, 'You know whose child she is?' he answered, 'Yes.'

'Christian, I thank G.o.d for my good man.'

Her sense he could not adjust till long afterwards, when a fuller account of Rhoda's past was given to him. Now Giles told but little.

'No, she had never set eyes on her before. I? Oh yes, I had--the pretty little piece! But when I bring her in, and have said no more than one cough, the wife goes clean past me, and has the girl in her arms, and calls her by her sister's name, and sobs hard and dry like a man. It turned me silly and rotten, it did. I knew for a minute she didn't fairly know it was not somehow her sister; no older than Rhoda she was, poor thing, when she last stood under our roof; and their last parting had not been over tender. Well, I had messed the business--I knew I should,--for there was the wife going on, saying things, and there was Rhoda getting scared and white, and putting out a hand to me. And then I go one worse, for I get hold of her, and say, "She takes you for your mother, child,"

that the wife may get the hang of it; and at that down she sits sudden, all of a shake. But the poor wench says, "My _mother_!" for--well, I suppose I had lied sometime--she thought she was the truly begotten orphan of an estranged brother. Nothing would come handy but the truth--the wife being there; so I even told it all. Yes, I did, though it did seem cruel hard for a young wench to have that story from a beard.

But it worked well; for when the poor child knew not how to bestow her eyes, nor to bear the red of shame, up stands the wife to her, just woman by woman, and looks fierce at me, and to her Rhoda closes all a-quiver, and in a moment the wife has kissed her, blight and all, and Rhoda is crying enough for both. That was over an hour before you came in on us, when out jumped "cousin" and "niece" to clinch the business. I knew she would never go back on them. To think that all these years--well--well.'

'Well, Dad--all these years?' said Christian, incited by Lois's words to be curious of Giles's conduct; for he was a comrade of easy imperfection, not insistent of the highest rect.i.tudes, nor often a consistent exemplar of Lois's strict precepts. Giles drew in.

'A grape has grown from a thorn, that's all,' he said.

'But how came you----'

'And a pumpkin has overgrown too. Here--clear out, you've left a moderate body no room to turn.'

So Christian understood he was to be excluded from full confidence. Loyal every inch of him, he respected Giles's reserve and never questioned Rhoda herself. He did but listen.

Clear, colourless years, regulated under convent control, was all the past she knew; serene, not unhappy, till the lot of a portionless orphan lay provided for her in a sordid marriage, that her young instinct knew to be prost.i.tution, though the Church and the world sanctioned it as a holy estate. To her this blessed transplantation into a very home gave a new, warm atmosphere that kindled fresh life. The blanch bud expanded and glowed, fresh, dewy, excellent as the bloom of her name. And very sweet incense her shy grat.i.tude distilled.

It was to Giles she gave her best affection, to Lois most reverence and devotion. But to Christian went a subtle tribute, spontaneous even in an innocent convent-girl, to an admirable make of manhood; some quick shivers of relief that a certain widower with yellow teeth did not possess her. And in Christian thrilled an equivalent response; though he knew not how Rhoda's maiden charm, her winning grace, her shadow even, her pa.s.sing breath, evoked unaware, with a keen, blissful sting at heart, vivid remembrance of the sea-witch Diadyomene.

'She likes the old hunks best of the lot,' said Giles with complaisance.

'My bright little bird! There's never a one of you young fellows stands to cut me out.'

He c.o.c.ked an eye at Christian.

'Now Philip comes along, and will have her for seeing the caught frigate-bird. And off she is flying, when back she skims and will have me too. Oh! but he looked less than sweet, and he's a fine figure too for a maid's eye, and a lad of taste--he is.'

'He! May be, for his fancies are ever on the brew, hot or cold,' said Christian in scorn.

'She's a rare pretty wench, and a good,' said Giles, with a meditative eye.

'She is: too rare and good for any of Philip's make; an even blend of conceit and laziness is he.'

'That's so, that's so,' returned Giles coolly to this heat, 'but I don't say he would make a bad pair for just so much as the boundary walk.'

'How!' said Christian 'but she will walk with me--she's my cousin.'

'Have you asked her?'

'No.'

'Well, I think she's worth an asking. She's shy, and she's nice, and she's got a spirit too, and more than one, I wager, won't be backward.

Rhoda! Rhoda! why, what's this grave face you are bringing us, my pretty?'

The girl's eyes addressed Christian's with childlike candour and wonder.

'Why is it,' she said, 'that the mother of that tall Philip doubles her thumb when you pa.s.s by?'

He flushed with knit brows, but laughed and jested: 'I guess because she does not like the colour of my hair.' But Rhoda had noted a pause, and a quick turn of the eye upon Giles.

'When the boundary is walked, Rhoda, will you pair with me?'

'Oh!' she said, 'Philip wanted to bespeak me, and I said him no, till my uncle should have had the refusal of me first.'

She curtsied before the old man in bright solicitation.

'Ah! my maid, here's a lame leg that can't manage the steep. You must take my proxy, Christian here.'

'But that's another matter,' she said; 'I doubt if I be free.'

Christian's face clouded, but he had no notion of pressing her to exchange obligation for inclination. When he was away, Rhoda asked, troubled and timid:

'I have vexed him. Is it for this? or that I was curious----'

'About that doubled thumb? Not that. He'll clear that to you himself if I know him. Well, then, I will, to spare it him.'

He set forth Christian's position and the ordeal not yet quite suspended.

Rhoda went straight after Christian. She presented both hands to him.

With a glowing cheek and brave eyes, 'I will walk with you!' she said.

'I am proud, cousin! But so? What of Philip?'