A Rent In A Cloud

“Because the wind has chopped round, and is coming from the eastward. Down your helm, and let her find her own way. We have the noble privilege of not caring whither. How she spins through it now.”

“It is immensely exciting,” said she, and her colour heightened as she spoke.

“Have you superstitions about dates?” he asked after another pause.

“No; I don’t think so. My life has been so uneventful. Few days record anything memorable. But why did you ask?”

“I am – I am a devout believer in lucky and unlucky days, and had I only bethought me this was a Friday, I’d have put off our sail till to-morrow.”

“It is strange to see a man like you attach importance to these things.”

“And yet it is exactly men like me who do so. Superstitions belong to hardy, stern, rugged races, like the northmen, even more than the’ natives of southern climes. Too haughty and too self-dependent to ask counsel from others like themselves, they seek advice in the occult signs and faint whispers of the natural world. Would you believe it, that I cast a horoscope last night to know if I should succeed in the next project I undertook?”

“And what was the answer?”

“An enigma to this purpose: that if what I undertook corresponded with the entrance of Orion into the seventh house – Why are you laughing?”

“Is it not too absurd to hear such nonsense from you?”

“Was it not the grotesque homage of the witch made Macbeth a murderer? What are you doing, child? Luff – luff up; the wind is freshening.”

“I begin to think there should be a more skilful hand on the tiller. It blows freshly now.”

“In three days more, Florence,” said he gravely, “it will be exactly two years since we sailed here all alone. Those two years have been to me like a long, long life, so much of danger and trouble and suffering have been compassed in them. Were I to tell you all, you’d own that few men could have borne my burden without being crushed by it. It was not death in any common shape that I confronted; but I must not speak of this. What I would say is, that through all the perils I passed, one image floated before me – one voice was in my ear. It was yours.”

“Dear Harry, let me implore you not to go back to these things.”

“I must, Florence – I must,” said he, still more sadly. “If I pain you, it is only your fair share of suffering.”

“My fair share! And why?”

“For this reason. When I knew you first, I was a worn-out, weary, heart-sick man of the world. Young as I was, I was weary of it all; I thought I had tasted of whatever it had of sweet or bitter. I had no wish to renew my experiences. I felt there was a road to go, and I began my life-journey without interest, or anxiety or hope. You taught me otherwise, Florence; you revived the heart that was all but cold, and brought it back to life and energy; you inspired me with high ambitions and noble desires; you gave confidence where there had been distrust, and hope where there had been indifference.”

“There, there!” cried she, eagerly; “there comes another squall. You must take the helm; I am getting frightened.”

“You are calmer than I am, Florence dearest. Hear me out. Why, I ask you – why call me back to an existence which you intended to make valueless to me? Why ask me to go a road where you refuse to journey?”

“Do come here! I know not what I am doing. And see, it grows darker and darker over yonder!”

“You steered me into stormier waters, and had few compunctions for it. Hear me out, Florence. For you I came back to a life that I ceased to care for; for you I took on me cares, and dangers, and crosses, and conquered them all; for you I won honours, high rewards, and riches, and now I come to lay them at your feet, and say, ‘Weigh all these against the proofs of that other man’s affection. Put into one scale these successes, won alone for you; these trials, these wounds – and into the other some humdrum letters of that good-enough creature, who is no more worthy of you than he has the courage to declare it.’”

As he spoke a clap of thunder, sharp as a cannon-shot broke above their heads, and a squall struck the boat aloft, bending her over till she half filled with water, throwing at the same time the young girl from her place to the lee-side of the boat.

Lifting her up, Calvert placed her on the seat, while he supported her with one arm, and with the other hand grasped the tiller.

“Is there danger?” whispered she faintly.

“No, dearest, none. I’ll bale out the water when the wind lulls a little. Sit close up here, and all will be well.”

The boat, however, deeply laden, no longer rose over the waves, but dipped her bow and took in more water at every plunge.

“Tell me this hand is mine, my own dearest Florence – mine for ever, and see how it will nerve my arm. I am powerless if I am hopeless. Tell me that I have something to live for, and I live.”

“Oh, Harry, is it when my heart is dying with fear that you ask me this? Is it generous – is it fair? There! the sail is gone! the ropes are torn across.”

“It is only the jib, darling, and we shall be better without it. Speak, Florence! say it is my own wife I am saving – not the bride of that man, who, if he were here, would be at your feet in craven terror this instant.”

“There goes the mast!”

At the word the spar snapped close to the thwart and fell over the side, carrying the sail with it. The boat now lay with one gunwale completely under water, helpless and water-logged. A wild shriek burst from the girl, who thought all was lost.

“Courage, dearest – courage! she’ll float still. Hold close to me and fear nothing. It is not Loyd’s arm that you have to trust to, but that of one who never knew terror!”

The waves surged up now with every heaving of the boat, so as to reach their breasts, and, sometimes striking on the weather-side, broke in great sheets of water over them.

“Oh, can you save us, Harry – can you save us?” cried she.

“Yes, if there’s aught worth saving,” said he, sternly. “It is not safety that I am thinking of; it is what is to come after. Have I your promise? Are you mine?”

“Oh! do not ask me this; have pity on me.”

“Where is your pity for me? Be quick, or it will be too late. Answer me – mine or his?”

“His to the last!” cried she, with a wild shriek; and clasping both her hands above her head, she would have fallen had he not held her.

“One chance more. Refuse me, and I leave you to your fate!” cried he, sternly.

She could not speak, but in the agony of her terror she threw her arms around and clasped him wildly. The dark dense cloud that rested on the lake was rent asunder by a flash of lightning at the instant, and a sound like a thousand great guns shook the air. The wind skimming the sea, carried sheets of water along and almost submerged the boat as they passed.

“Yes or no!” shouted Calvert, madly, as he struggled to disengage himself from her grasp.

“No!” she cried, with a wild yell that rung above all the din of the storm, and as she said it he threw her arms wide and flung her from him. Then, tearing off his coat, plunged into the lake.

The thick clouds as they rolled down from the Alps to meet the wind, settled over the lake, making a blackness almost like night, and only broken by the white flashes of the lightning. The thunder rolled out as it alone does in these mountain regions, where the echoes keep on repeating till they fill the very air with their deafening clamour. Scarcely was Calvert a few yards from the boat than he turned to swim back to her, but already was she hid from his view. The waves ran high, and the drift foam blinded him at every instant. He shouted out at the top of his voice; he screamed “Florence! Florence!” but the din around drowned his weak efforts, and he could not even hear his own words. With his brain mad by excitement, he fancied every instant that he heard his name called, and turned, now hither, now thither, in wild confusion. Meanwhile, the storm deepened, and the wind smote the sea with frequent claps, sharp and sudden as the rush of steam from some great steam-pipe. Whether his head reeled with the terrible uproar around, or that his mind gave way between agony and doubt, who can tell? He swam madly on and on, breasting the waves with his strong chest, and lost to almost all consciousness, save of the muscular effort he was making – none saw him more!

The evening was approaching, the storm had subsided, and the tall Alps shone out in all the varied colours of rock, or herbage, or snow-peak; and the blue lake at the foot, in its waveless surface, repeated all their grand outlines and all their glorious tints. The water was covered with row-boats in every direction, sent out to seek for Florence and her companion. They were soon perceived to cluster round one spot, where a dismasted boat lay half-filled with water, and a figure, as of a girl sleeping, lay in the stern, her head resting on the gunwale. It was Florence, still breathing, still living, but terror-stricken, lost to all consciousness, her limbs stiffened with cold. She was lifted into a boat and carried on shore.

Happier for her the long death-like sleep – that lasted for days – than the first vague dawn of consciousness, when her senses returning, brought up the terrible memory of the storm, and the last scene with Calvert. With a heart-rending cry for mercy she would start up in bed, and, before her cry had well subsided, would come the consciousness that the peril was past, and then, with a mournful sigh, would she sink back again to try and regain sufficient self-control to betray nothing; not even of him who had deserted her.

Week after week rolled by, and she made but slow progress towards recovery. There was not, it is true, what the doctors could pronounce to be malady – her heightened pulse alone was feverish – but a great shock had shaken her, and its effects remained in an utter apathy and indifference to everything around her.

She wished to be alone – to be left in complete solitude, and the room darkened. The merest stir or movement in the house jarred on her nerves and irritated her, and with this came back paroxysms of excitement that recalled the storm and the wreck. Sad, therefore, and sorrowful to see as were the long hours of her dreary apathy, they were less painful than these intervals of acute sensibility; and between the two her mind vibrated.

One evening about a month after the wreck, Emily came down to her aunt’s room to say that she had been speaking about Joseph to Florry. “I was telling her how he was detained at Calcutta, and could not be here before the second mail from India; and her reply was, ‘It is quite as well. He will be less shocked when he sees me.’”

“Has she never asked about Calvert?” asked the old lady.

“Never. Not once. I half suspect, however, that she overheard us that evening when we were talking of him, and wondering that he had never been seen again. For she said afterwards, ‘Do not say before me what you desire me not to hear, for I hear frequently when I am unable to speak, or even make a sign in reply.’”