The Light of Scarthey: A Romance

THE NIGHT

So the blood burned within her,
And thus it cried to her:
And there, beside the maize field
The other one was waiting —
He, the mysterious one.

    Luteplayer's Song.
The mantle of night had already fallen upon the land when Lady Landale, closely wrapped in her warmest furs, with face well ensconced under her close bonnet, and arms buried to the elbow in her muff, sallied from her room on the announcement that the carriage was waiting. As, with her leisurely daintiness, she tripped it down the stairs, she crossed Mr. Landale, and paused a moment, ready for the skirmish, as she noticed the cynical curiosity with which he examined her.

"Whither, my fair sister," said he, ranging himself with his best courtesy against the bannisters, "so late in the day?"

"To my lord and master's side, of course," said Molly.

"Why – is not Adrian coming back to-night?"

"Apparently not, since he has graciously permitted me to join him upon his rock. I trust you will not find it too unhappy in our absence: that would be the crowning misfortune of a day when everything seems to have gone wrong. Sophia invisible with her vapours; Madeleine with the megrim; and you in and out of the house as excited and secret as the cat when she has licked all the cream. I suppose I shall end by knowing what it is all about. Meanwhile I think I shall enjoy the tranquillity of the island – although I have actually to tear myself away from the prospect of a tête-à-tête evening with you."

But as Rupert's serenity was not to be moved, her ladyship hereupon allowed herself to be escorted to the carriage without further parley.

As she drove away through the dark night, first down the level, well-metalled avenue, then along the uneven country road, and finally through the sand of the beach in which hoofs and tyres sank noiselessly, inches deep, Molly gave herself up, with almost childish zest to the leaven of imagination… Here, in this dark carriage, was reclining, not Lady Landale (whose fate deed had already been signed, sealed and delivered to bring her nothing but disappointment), but her happier sister, still confronted with the fascinating unknown, hurrying under cover of night, within sound of the sea, to that enthralling lure, a lover – a real lover, ardent, daring, young, ready to risk all, waiting to spread the wings of his boat, and carry her to the undiscovered country.

Glowing were these fleeting images of the "might have been," angry the sudden relapses into the prose of reality.

No, Madeleine, the coward, who thought she had loved her lover, was now in her room, weak and weeping, whilst he, no doubt, paced the deck in mad impatience (as a lover should), now tortured by the throes of anxiety, now hugging himself with the thought of his coming bliss … that bliss that never was to be his. And in the carriage there was only Molly, the strong-hearted but the fettered by tie and vow, the slave for ever of a first girlish fancy but too successfully compassed; only Lady Landale rejoining her husband in his melancholy solitude; Lady Landale who never – never! awful word! would know the joys which yonder poor fool had had within her grasp and yet had not clutched at.

Molly had read, as permitted, her sister's letter, and to some purpose; and scorn of the girl who from some paltry quibble could abandon in danger the man she professed to love, filled her soul to the exclusion of any sisterly or ever womanly pity.

At the end of half an hour the carriage was stopped by the black shadow of a man, who seemed to spring up from the earth, and who, after a few rapid words interchanged with the coachman, extinguished both the lights, and then opened the door.

Leaning on the offered elbow Molly jumped down upon the yielding sand.

"René?" she asked; for the darkness even on the open beach was too thick to allow of recognition.

"René, your ladyship – or Mademoiselle is it?" answered the man in his unmistakable accent. "I must ask; for, by the voice no one can tell, as your ladyship, or Mademoiselle knows – and the sky is black like a chimney."

"Lady Landale, René," and as he paused, she added, "My sister would not come."

"Ah, mon Dieu! She would not come," repeated the man in tones of dismay; and the black shadow was struck into a moment of stillness. Then with an audible sigh Mr. Potter roused himself, and saying with melancholy resignation, "The boat is there, I shall be of return in a minute, My Lady," took the traveller's bag on his shoulder and disappeared.

The carriage began to crunch its way back in the darkness and Molly was left alone.

In front of her was a faint white line, where the rollers spread their foam with mournful restless fugue of long drawn roar and hissing sigh.

In the distance, now and then glancing on the crest of the dancing billows, shone the steady light of Scarthey. The rising wind whistled in the prickly star-grass and sea-holly. Beyond these, not a sight, not a sound – the earth was all mystery.

Molly looked at the light – marking the calm spot where her husband waited for her; its very calm, its familiar placidity, monotony, enraged her; she hearkened to the splashing, living waves, to the swift flying gusts of the storm wind, and her soul yearned to their life, and their mysteriousness.

What she longed for, she herself could not tell. No words can encompass the desire of pent-up young vitality for the unknown, for the ideal, for the impossible. But one thing was overpoweringly real: that was the dread of leaving just then the wide, the open world whose darkness was filled to her with living scenes of freedom and space, and blood-stirring emotions; of re-entering the silent room under the light; of consorting with the shadowy personality, her husband; of feeling the web of his melancholy, his dreaminess, imprison as it were the wings of her imagination and the thoughtful kindness of his gaze, paralyse the course of her hot blood through her veins.

And yet, thither she was going, must be going! Ah Madeleine, fool – you may well weep, yonder on your pillow, for the happiness that was yours and that you have dropped from your feeble hands!

In a few minutes the black shadow re-appeared close to her.

"If My Lady will lean on my shoulder, I shall lead her to the boat." And after a few steps, the voice out of the darkness proceeded in explanation: "I have not taken a lantern, I have put out those of the carriage, for I must tell My Lady, that since what arrived this morning, there may be gabelous– they call them the preventive here – in every corner, and the light might bring them, as it does the night papilions, and … as I thought Mademoiselle was to accompany you – they might have frightened her. These people want to know so much!"

"I know nothing of what has happened this morning, that you speak of as if the whole world must know," retorted Lady Landale coolly. "You are all hatching plots and sitting on secrets, but nobody confides in me. It seems then, that you expected Mademoiselle, my sister, here for some purpose and that you regret she did not come; may I ask for an explanation?"

A few moments elapsed before the man replied, and then it was with embarrassment and diffidence: "For sure, I am sorry, My Lady … there have been misfortunes on the island this morning – nothing though to concern her ladyship – and, as for Mademoiselle, mother Margery would have liked to see her, no doubt … and Maggie the wife also – and – and no doubt also Mademoiselle would have liked to come… What do I know?"

"Oh, of course!" said Molly with her little note of mocking laughter.

Then again they walked a while in silence. As René lifted his mistress in his arms to carry her over the licking hissing foam, she resumed: "It is well, René, you are discreet, but I am not such a fool as people seem to think. As for her, you were right in thinking that she might easily be frightened. She was afraid even to come out!"

René shoved his boat off, and falling to his sculls, suddenly relapsed into the old vernacular: "Ah Madame," he sighed, "c'est bien triste – un gentilhomme si beau – si brave!"

During the crossing no further words passed between them.

"So brave – so handsome?" The echo of the words came back to the woman in every lap of the water on the sides of the boat, in every strain of the oars.

The keel ground against the beach, and René leaped out to drag the boat free of the surf. As he did so, two blacker outlines segregated themselves from the darkness and a rough voice called out, subdued but distinct: "Savenaye, St. Malo!"

"Savenaye, St. Malo!" repeated René, and helped Lady Landale to alight. Then one of the figures darted forward and whispered a rapid sentence in the Frenchman's ear. René uttered an exclamation, but his mistress intervened with scant patience:

"My good René," said she, "take the bag into the peel, and come back for me. I have a message for these gentlemen."

René hesitated. As he did so a rustle of anger shook the lady in her silks and furs. "Do you hear me?" she repeated, and he could guess how her little foot stamped the yielding sand.

"Oui, Madame," said he, hesitating no longer. Immediately the other two drew near. Molly could just see that they stood in all deference, cap in hand.

"Madam," began one of these in hurried words, "there is not a moment to be lost: the captain had to remain on board."

"What!" interrupted Lady Landale with much asperity, "not come in person!" She had been straining her eyes to make out something of her interlocutor's form, unable to reconcile her mind's picture with the coarse voice that addressed her – And now all her high expectations fell from her in an angry rush. "Have I come all this way to be met by a messenger! Who are you?"

"Madam," entreated the husky voice, "I am the mate of the Peregrine. The captain has directed me to beg and pray you not to be afraid, but to have good courage and confidence in us – the schooner is there; in five minutes you can be safe on board. You see, madam," continued the man with an earnestness that spoke well of his devotion, "the captain found he couldn't, he dared not leave the ship – he is the only one who knows the bearings of these waters here – any one of us might run her on the bank, and where would we be then, madam, and you, if we were found in daylight still in these parts? – 'For God's sake, Curwen,' says he, 'implore the lady not to be afraid and tell her to trust, as she has promised,' so he says. And for God's sake, say I, madam, trust us. In five minutes you will be with him? Say the word, madam, am I to make the signal? There he is, eating his heart out. There are all the lads ready waiting for your foot on the ladder, to hoist sail. No time to lose, we are already behind. Shall I signal?"

Molly's heart beat violently; under the sudden impulse, the fascination of the black chasm, of the peril, the adventure, the unfathomed, took possession of her, and whirled her on.

"Yes," she said.

On the very utterance of the word the man, who had not yet spoken, uncovered a lantern, held it aloft, as rapidly replaced it under his coat, and moved away.

Almost immediately, against the black pall, behind the dim line of grey that marked the shore, suddenly sprang up three bright points in the form of a triangle.

It was as if all the darkness around had been filled with life; as if the first fulfilment of those promises with which it had been drawing this woman's soul was now held out to her to lure her further still.

"See, madam, how they watch! – By your leave."