The Light of Scarthey: A Romance

"And now, no doubt, you are not quite so pleased as you seemed at first with the apparition which has caused you the loss of one of your best horses!"

"Why child," cried Sir Adrian, "so that you be safe you might have left all Pulwick at the bottom of the sands for me!" And René who entered the room at that moment, heading the advance of Dame Margery with the posset, here caught the extraordinary sound of a laugh on his master's lips, and stepped back to chuckle to himself and rub his hands.

"Who would have believed that!" he muttered, "and I who was afraid to tell his honour! Oh, yes, there are better times coming. Now in with you, Mother Margery, see for yourself who is there."

Holding in both hands a fragrant, steaming bowl, the old crone made her slow entrance upon the scene, peering with dim eyes, and dropping tremulous curtseys every two or three steps.

"Renny towd me as you wanted summat hot for a lady," she began cautiously; and then having approached near for recognition at last, burst forth into a long-drawn cry!

"Eh, you never says! Eh, dear o' me," and was fain to relinquish the bowl to her fellow-servant who narrowly watching, dived forward just in time to catch it from her, that she might clasp her aged hands together once and again with ever-renewed gestures of astonishment. "An' it were truth then, an' I that towd Renny to give over his nonsense – I didn't believe it, I welly couldn't. Eh, Mester Adrian, but she's like the poor lady that's dead and gone, the spit an' image she is – e-eh, she is!"

Molly de Savenaye laughed aloud, stretched out her hand for the bowl, and began with dainty caution to sip its scalding contents.

"Ah, my dear Margery," said the master, "we little thought what a guest the sea would cast up at our doors to-night! and now we must do our best for her; when she's finished your comforting mixture I shall give her into your charge. You ought to put her to bed – it will not be the first time."

"Ah! it will not, and a troublesome child she was," replied Margery, after the usual pause for the assimilation of his remark, turning to the speaker from her palsied yet critical survey of her whilom nursling.

"And I'll see to her, never fear, I'll fettle up a room for her at once – blankets is airing already, an' sheets, an' Renny he's seen to the fire, so that as soon as Miss, here, is ready, I am."

Upon which, dropping a last curtsey with an assumed dignity which would have befitted a mistress of the robes, she took her departure, leaving Adrian smiling with amusement at her specious manner of announcing that his own bedroom – the only one available for the purpose in the ruins – was being duly converted into a lady's bower.

"It grieves me to think," mused he after a pause, while René still bursting with ungratified curiosity, hung about the further end of the room, "of the terrible anxiety they must be in about you at Pulwick, and of our absolute inability to convey to them the good news of your safety."

The girl gave a little laugh, with her lips over the cup, and shrugged her shoulders but said nothing.

"My God, yes," quoth René cheerfully from his corner. "Notre Dame d'Auray has watched over Mademoiselle to-day. She would not permit the daughter to die like the mother. And now we have got her ladyship we shall keep her too. This, if your honour remembers his sailor's knowledge, looks like a three-days' gale."

"You are right, I fancy," said Sir Adrian, going over to him and looking out of the window. "Mademoiselle de Savenaye will have to take up her abode in our lighthouse for a longer time than she bargained. I do not remember hearing the breakers thunder in our cave so loud for many years. I trust," continued the light-keeper, coming down to his fair guest again, "that you may be able to endure such rough hospitality as ours must needs be!"

"It has been much more pleasant and I feel far more welcome already than at Pulwick," remarked Mademoiselle, between two deliberate sips, and in no way discomposed, it seemed, at the prospect held out to her.

"How?" cried Sir Adrian with a start, while the unwonted flush mounted to his forehead, "you, not welcome at Pulwick! Have they not welcomed a child of Cécile de Savenaye at Pulwick?.. Thank God, then, for the accident that has sent you to me!"

The girl looked at him with an inquisitive smile in her eyes; there was something on her lips which she restrained. Surrendering her cup, she remarked demurely:

"Yes, it was a lucky accident, was it not, that there was some one to offer shelter to the outcast from the sea? It is like a tale of old. It is delightful. Delightful, too, not to be drowned, safe and sound … and welcome in this curious old place."

She had risen and, as the cloak fell from her steaming garments, again she shivered.

"But you are right," she said, "I must go to bed, and get these damp garments off. And so, my Lord of Scarthey, I will retire to my apartments; my Lady in Waiting I see yonder is ready for me."

With a quaint mixture of playfulness and gravity, she extended her hand, and Adrian stooped and kissed it – as he had kissed fair Cécile de Savenaye's rosy finger-tip upon the porch of Pulwick, twenty years before.

CHAPTER VII

FOREBODINGS OF GLADNESS

Molly de Savenaye in her improvised bedroom, wet as she was, could hardly betake herself to disrobing, so amused was she in surveying the fresh and romantic oddity of her surroundings, with their mixture of barbarous rudeness and almost womanish refinement.

Old Margery's fumbling hands were not nimble either, and it was long since she had acted as attendant upon one of her own sex. And so the matter progressed but slowly; but the speed of Margery's tongue was apparently not affected by its length of service. It wagged ceaselessly; the girl between her own moods of curious speculation vouchsafing an amused, half-contemptuous ear.

Presently, however, as the nurse's reminiscences wandered from the less interesting topic of her own vicissitudes, the children she had reared or buried, and the marvellous ailments she had endured, to an account of those days when she had served the French Madam and her babes, Molly, slowly peeling a clinging sleeve from her arm, turned a more eager and attentive face to her.

"Ah," quoth Margery, appraising her with blear eyes, "it's a queer thing how ye favour your mother, miss. She had just they beautiful shoulders and arms, as firm an' as white; but you're taller, I think, and may be so, to speak, a stouter make altogether. Eh, dear, you were always a fine child and the poor lady set a deal of store on you, she did. She took you with her and left your sister with my Sally, when she was trapesing up to London and back with Mester Adrian, ay, and me with ye. And many the day that I wished myself safe at Pulwick! And I mind the day she took leave of you, I do that, well."

Here Dame Margery paused and shook her head solemnly, then pursued in another key:

"See now, miss, dear, just step out of they wet things, will ye now, and let me put this hot sheet round ye?"

"But I want to hear about myself," said Molly, gratefully wrapping the hot linen round her young beauty, and beginning to rub her black locks energetically. "Where was it my mother parted from me?"

"Why, I'll tell you, miss. When Madam – we allus used to call her Madam, ye know – was goin' her ways to the ship as was to take her to France, I took you after her mysel' down to the shore that she might have the very last of ye. Eh, I mind it as if it were yesterday. Mester Adrian was to go with her – Sir Adrian, I should say, but he was but Mester Adrian then – an' a two three more o' th' gentry as was all fur havin' a share o' th' fightin'. Sir Thomas himsel' was theer – I like as if I could see him now, poor owd gentleman, talkin' an' laughin' very hard an' jov'al, an' wipin' 's e'en when he thought nobody noticed. Eh, dear, yes! I could ha' cried mysel' to see th' bonny young lady goin' off fro' her bairns. An' to think she niver came back to them no more. Well, well! An' Mester Adrian too – such a fine well-set-up young gentleman as he were – and he niver comed back for ten year an' when he did, he was that warsened – " she stopped, shook her head and groaned.

"Well, but how about me, nurse," observed Molly, "what about me?"

"Miss, please it was this way. Madam was wantin' a last look at her bairn – eh, she did, poor thing! You was allus her favoryite, ye know, miss – our Sally was wet-nurse to Miss Maddyline, but Madam had you hersel'. Well, miss, I'd brought you well lapped up i' my shawl an' William Shearman – that was Thomas Shearman's son, feyther to William an' Tom as lives over yonder at Pulwick village – well, William was standin' in 's great sea-boots ready to carry her through th' surf into the boat; an' Mester Adrian – Sir Adrian, I mean – stood it might be here, miss, an' there was Renny, an' yon were th' t'other gentry. Well, Madam stopped an' took you out o' my arms, an' hugged you to her breast – an' then she geet agate o' kissin' you – your head an' your little 'ands. An' you was jumpin' an' crowin' in her arms – the wind had blown your cap off, an' your little downy black hair was standing back. (Just let me get at your hair now, miss, please – Eh! it's cruel full of sand, my word, it is.)"

"It's 'ard, when all's said an' done, to part wi' th' babe ye've suckled, an' Madam, though there was niver nought nesh about 'er same as there is about most women, an' specially ladies – she 'ad th' mother's 'eart, she 'ad, miss, an when th' time coom for her to leave th' little un, I could see, as it were, welly burstin'. There we stood wi' th' wind blowin' our clothes an' our 'air, an' the waves roarin', an' one bigger nor th' t'others ran up till th' foam reached Madam's little feet, but she niver took no notice. Then all of a sudden she gets th' notion that she'd like to take you with 'er, an' she turns an' tells Mester Adrian so. 'She shall come with me,' she says, quite sharp an' determined, an' makes a sign to William Shearman to carry 'em both over. 'No, no,' says Mester Adrian, 'quite impossible,' says he, as wise as if he'd been an owd man i' stead o' nobbut a lad, ye might say. 'It would be madness both for you an' th' child. Now,' he says, very quiet an' gentle, 'if I might advise, I should say stay here with the child.' Eh, I couldn't tell ye all he said, an' then Sir Tummas coom bustlin' up, 'Do, now, my dear; think of it,' he says, pattin' her o' th' hand. 'Stay with us,' he says, 'ye'll be welcome as th' flowers in May!' An' there was Renny wi' 's 'at off, an' th' tears pourin' down his face, beggin' an' prayin' Madam to stop – at least, I reckoned that was what he were sayin' for it was all in 's own outlandish gibberish. The poor lady! she'd look from one to th' t'other an' a body a' must think she'd give in – an' then she'd unbethink hersel' again. An' Sir Thomas, he'd say, 'Do now, my dear,' an' then when she'd look at him that pitiful, he'd out wi' 's red 'andkercher an' frown over at Mester Adrian, an', says he, 'I wonder ye can ax her!' Well, all of a sudden off went th' big gun in th' ship – that was to let 'em know, miss, do ye see – an' up went Madam's head, an' then th' wind fetched th' salt spray to her face, an' a kind o' change came over her. She looked at the child, then across at the ship – an' then she fair tossed ye back to me. Big William catched her up in his arms just same as another bairn, an' carried her to the boat."

"Yes," said Molly, gazing into the burning logs with brilliant eyes, but speaking low, as if to herself, so that her attendant's deaf ears failed to catch the meaning of the words. "Ah, that was life indeed! Happy mother to have seen such life – though she did die young."

"As ye say, miss," answered Margery, making a guess at the most likely comment from a daughter's lips, "it was cruel hard – it was that. 'Come, make haste!' cries the other young gentlemen: my word, they were in a hurry lest Madam happen to change her mind. I could welly have laughed to see their faces when Mester Adrian were trying to persuade her to stop at Pulwick, and let the men go alone. 'T wern't for that they reckoned to go all that road to France, ye may think, miss. Well, miss, in a few minutes they was all out i' the boat wi' th' waves tossin' 'em – an' I stood watchin' with you i' my arms, cryin' and kickin' out wi' your little legs, an' hittin' of me wi' your little 'ands, same as if ye knowed summat o' what was agate, poor lamb, an' was angry wi' me for keepin' ye. Then in a little while the big, white sails o' th' ship went swellin' out an' soon it was gone. An' that was th' last we saw o' Madam. A two-three year arter you an' Miss Maddyline was fetched away, to France, as I've been towd. I doubt you didn't so much as think there was such a place as Pulwick, though many a one there minds how they dandled and played wi' you when you was a wee bairn, miss."

"Well, I am very glad to be back in England, anyhow," said Molly, nimbly slipping into bed. "Oh, Margery, what delicious warm sheets, and how good it is to be in bed alive, dry, and warm, after all!"

A new atmosphere pervaded Scarthey that night. The peaceful monotony of years, since the master of Pulwick had migrated to his "ruins," was broken at last, and happily. A warm colour seemed to have crept upon the hitherto dun and dull surroundings and brightened all the prospects.

At any rate René, over his busy work in the lantern, whistled and hummed snatches of song with unwonted blithesomeness, and, after lighting the steady watch-light and securing all his paraphernalia with extra care, dallied some time longer than usual on the outer platform, striving to snatch through the driven wraith a glance of the distant lights of Pulwick. For there, in the long distance, ensconced among the woods, stood a certain gate-lodge of greystone, much covered with ivy, which sheltered, among other inmates, the gatekeeper's blue-eyed, ripe and ruddy daughter – Dame Margery's pet grandchild.

The idea of ever leaving the master – even for the sake of the happiness to be found over yonder – was not one to be entertained by René. But what if dreams of a return to the life of the world should arise after to-day in the recluse's mind? Ah, the master's eyes had been filled with light!.. and had he not actually laughed?

René peered again through the wind, but nothing could be seen of the world abroad, save grey, tumbling waters foaming at the foot of the islet; fretful waters coalescing all around with the driven, misty air. A desolate view enough, had there been room for melancholy thoughts in his heart.

Blithely did he descend the steep wooden stairs from the roaring, weather-beaten platform, to the more secure inhabited keep; and, humming a satisfied tune, he entered upon Margery in her flaming kitchen, to find the old lady intent on sorting out a heap of feminine garments and spreading them before the fire.

René took up a little shoe, sand-soiled and limp, and reverentially rubbed it on his sleeve.

"Well, mother," he said, cheerfully, "it is a long while since you had to do with such pretty things. My faith, these are droll doings, ah – and good, too! You will see, Mother Margery, there will be good out of all this."

But Margery invariably saw fit, on principle, to doubt all the opinions of her rival.

Eh, she didn't hold so much wi' wenches hersel', an' Mester Adrian, she reckoned, hadn't come to live here all by himsel' to have visitors breaking in on him that gate!

"There be visitors and visitors, mother – I tell you, I who speak to you, that his honour is happy."

Margery, with a mysterious air, smoothed out a long silk stocking and gave an additional impetus to the tremor Nature had already bestowed upon her aged head.

Well, it wasn't for her to say. She hoped and prayed there was nowt bad a coomin' on the family again; but sich likenesses as that of Miss to her mother was not lucky, to her minding; it was not. Nowt good had come to Mester Adrian from the French Madam. Ah, Mester Adrian had been happy like with her too, and she had taken him away from his home, an' his people, an' sent him back wi'out 's soul in the end.