Love's Usuries Part 3

"Never!" he vowed. "We will go under first!"

He trod the water for a moment while he scanned the expanse behind them.

"Go on," he begged of her; "I will catch you up: spare yourself as much as you can."

His precaution was needless; nothing was to be seen on the still surface of the sea, and, as the rock now screened the sh.o.r.e, it was impossible to guess what might be taking place there. Presently he gained on her.

"Safe so far," he said. "Don't speak; float a little."

He caught the side of the life-belt she wore and swam out, drawing her in the direction of the island. Some sailing boats fluttered across the horizon, but their route lay in an opposite direction to that of the swimmers, who had now left the rocks and were well in the open.

Gradually the St Malo coast grew more indistinct, and by degrees in front of them the spikes that had represented Cezambre developed into rocks. Then Leonie a.s.sembled her flagging forces and struck out with renewed zest. The sun was going down, and a cool breeze came up behind them and seemed to give them impetus and freshened courage. Before twilight they had safely piloted themselves to sh.o.r.e.

As they rose from the depths he flung his arms round her with a sense of ecstatic relief.

"Now, dearest, we must brave it out; go to the coastguard's hut, and"--he pointed to an oilskin satchel which he had worn across his shoulders--"buy him."

Leonie cast on her lover a glance of awe and pride and wors.h.i.+p. He seemed to be G.o.d and fairy tale miraculously combined. She believed herself to be treading Elysium as they took their way to the humble stone cabin occupied by the coastguard and his son, the only inhabitants of the island. Her young brain reeled with the intoxication of freedom.

How much rosier than any she had before seen were the sea-pinks that flowered their way; how surprisingly azure the common bluebells that nodded and waved and seemed, as they pa.s.sed, to be ringing chimes to celebrate her happiness. And even the potatoes that grew in the little garden plot where this coastguard Crusoe toiled, had they not a world of wonder in their blossoms, in their golden eyes, which watched and watched and glowed, as she believed, before the triumphant coming of their Love?

A rude hobbledehoy of the St Malo peasant cla.s.s opened the hut door and stared. Then he said something in his opaque _patois_ which only Leonie could elucidate. She had often imitated the vulgar of her race from sheer _plaisanterie_.

She replied in the same key, and, seeing that the youth comprehended, the artist prompted a duologue.

"He says," Leonie began by explaining, "the coastguard is ill, he cannot leave him to go ash.o.r.e, and does not know what to do. He refuses to take us back in his boat."

"He is under the delusion we want to go back? Good! Give him money and say we will stop here and attend his sick man."

This explanation ensured their entry. The boy was evidently relieved of a burden. The hut was composed merely of two rooms, in one of which a weather-beaten old man was evidently bedridden from pain. He looked askance at the two bathers, but at the same time his son put a coin into the sufferer's hand. The youth, with the ac.u.men of his kind, understood the relative value of eloquence and action.

"Clothes--food," Leonie translated at her lover's request.

The boy shook his head. Then his eyes fell on the rough suit belonging to his father which was slung across the end of the bed.

"That might do for me," the artist cogitated, with wrinkled brow, "but for you?" He looked seriously at his sweetheart. The boy's eyes followed his glance and read it. The sick man turned in his bed, groaned, and wondered when these troublesome people were going away.

Leonie rubbed a gentle hand on the invalid's shoulder; it was presumably the seat of the worst pain. He suffered rheumatism in its most acute form, so the coastguard explained between his throes. He was afraid to seek help from the land, lest his condition should be known and he be removed from his post. Their silence was implored with tears and prayers--he would give them food and shelter if they would keep his secret. They promised a.s.suringly.

Meanwhile the lad had disappeared into the inner room--it suggested a combined kitchen and workshop--and came back dangling from his arm some fragmentary portions of his wardrobe, which he displayed with pride.

"If madame would condescend?" he hinted.

At the word "madame" Leonie blushed delightedly.

He led the way into the kitchen, and deposited the dry clothes on a chair.

Ralph remained by the sick man, rubbing the afflicted limb, and expressing himself in the vilest French he knew in hope to imitate the local jargon.

He spoke sufficiently to crave bread and drink, and to learn that these were only obtained when fetched from the land in the island boat. His son, the coastguard said, was seldom allowed to go ash.o.r.e, lest he should commit himself and divulge the fact that illness kept his sire from duty. Fortunately the boat had been provisioned that morning, and there was food for several days.

During the conversation the artist adjusted the coastguard's overcoat and trousers, which latter were three inches too short for his lengthy British limbs.

Presently a transformed Leonie emerged from the inner chamber. "An ideal fisher boy," the painter thought, as his enraptured eye travelled up and down the coa.r.s.e blue clothing. When it reached some loose locks of her s.h.i.+ning hair he became puzzled. She, divining his thought, felt in the pocket of her newly-acquired coat, and drew forth a maze of gold, soft as fleece of raw silk fresh from the coc.o.o.n, and gave it him.

He began to scold at the sacrifice.

"It is a web to entangle your love for always," she murmured, with cooing lips, which seemed, there and then, to suck the heart out of him.

He would fain have swept the coastguard and his son from the hut, but the exuberant _patois_ of "madame," the more exuberant by reason of her characteristic disguise, broke out, demanding of the lad refreshment, and ill.u.s.trating her request with significant pantomime. The childish joy of this n.o.ble Breton damsel as she devoured the rude meal in company with their quaint hosts delighted him, and the charming _abandon_ with which she threw herself into the comedy of the situation brought heat to his already tingling blood.

Suddenly she grew grave.

"I was so hungry I forgot to ask a blessing," whereupon the buoyant little creature uprose from her seat and offered a prayer. The short Latin sentence was familiar to Ralph's ear; it was common to the whole Catholic Church; but now it had a parenthesis--a parenthesis during which her loving eyes looked first to his, then heavenward--a parenthesis of praise and thanksgiving _for him_.

He bent his head to hide the flush that overspread his cheeks, and, for an instant, he buried his face in his hands.

When the meal was over, Leonie ran into the potato garden. She gathered some loose weeds of which he did not know the name, picking here and there carefully that all of them should be of the right sort.

"I could not go to sleep and leave the old man to his pains," she said.

"Of these"--she pointed to the herbs--"the poor people make poultices when they suffer."

He took the bundles from her hands and kissed her fingers. "You shall sleep, dearest, and I will devote myself to the poor fellow. We have reason to be very grateful to him."

"Very well, doctor," she laughed. "You must be careful to stew the leaves very soft."

Then she walked in and commanded the boy to get gra.s.s in a bag for a pillow, declaring merrily that some fis.h.i.+ng nets and canvas in the kitchen would make her a couch fit for a queen.

The poultices certainly soothed, though they did not cure, the sufferer.

This fact Ralph painfully discovered during the long hours of the night.

His limbs were weary, and though the floor at the foot of the coastguard's bed was hard, he yearned heartily for rest. But the poor invalid, by whose side the son snored obdurately, hourly implored relief. Faithful to his word, the nurse, uprose at intervals and put fresh leaves in the stewpan, warming them on a rustic stove till soft enough for use. This lasted till day dawn. Then the lad went forth a-shrimping, and Ralph decided to refresh himself with a plunge in the sea. Was.h.i.+ng utensils, he had discovered, were unknown in Cezambre.

He was speeding down the garden in bathing suit when he caught a glimpse of his purple dolphin riding the waves.

"I squeezed myself out of the window so as not to wake you," she spluttered, through the surf. "I thought, _mon cheri_, you would repose for ever."

"The old man is very thankful to you for your prescription." He avoided the confession of his night's unrest. "We must gather some more of those herbs to-day."

"Perhaps, but not till evening. You don't know that we must hide. There may come strangers for trips on boats from St Servan, and one is never sure."

"Your people?"

"Oh no; they would do nothing so _roturier_--English and Americans----"

"They would not know us; you forget what a good gamin my n.o.ble lady makes."

"I did forget," she chuckled. "I will dig potatoes, and you may take the boy to the other side of the island. The strangers only go there to stare one moment at the rocks and cry 'Oh!'"

When at midday the trippers landed at Cezambre, they saw no one but an urchin bent double over a spade. His face was covered with mud, some of which was also spattered on the floss silk of his hair.

A tourist addressed him, and received a reply in broad _patois_ which he could not understand.