The Light of Scarthey Part 9

The looks of master and man crossed suddenly, and in the frank blue eyes of the Breton peasant, Sir Adrian read a reflex of his own thoughts.

"Yes," he said, more in answer to the look than to the exclamation, "yes, it is a strange thing, friend."

"And his Honour cannot read the riddle any more than you yourself, Rene," quoth Mademoiselle de Savenaye, composedly from her corner; "and, as for me, I can give no explanations until I am a little warmer."

"Why, truly," exclaimed Sir Adrian, striking his forehead, "we are a very pair of dolts! Hurry, Renny, hurry, call up Margery, and bid her bring some hot drink--tea, broth, or what she has--and blankets. Stay!

first fetch my furred cloak; quick, Rene, every moment is precious!"

With all the agitation of a rarely excited man Sir Adrian threw more wood on the fire, hunted for a cus.h.i.+on to place beneath her feet, and then, seizing the cloak from Rene's hands, he helped her to rise, and wrapped its ample folds round her as carefully as if she were too precious almost to be touched.

Thus enveloped she sank back in the great arm-chair with a cosy, deliberate, kitten-like movement, and stretched out her feet to the blaze, laying the little shoeless one upon Jem's grey muzzle.

Adrian knelt beside her, and began gently to chafe it with both hands.

And, as he knelt, silence fell between them, and the storm howled out yonder; he heard her give a little sigh--that sigh which would escape from Cecile's weariness in moments of rest, which had once been so familiar and so pathetic a sound in his ear. And once more the power of the past came over him; again he was upon the heath near Quiberon, and Cecile was sitting by him and seeking warmth by the secret fire.

"Oh, my darling," he murmured, "your poor little feet were so cold; and yet you would not let me gather them to my breast." And, stooping slowly, he kissed the pretty foot in its torn, stained stocking with a pa.s.sion he had not yet shown.

The girl looked on with an odd little smile. It was a novel experience, to inspire--even vicariously--such feelings as these; and there was something not unpleasant in the sense of the power which had brought this strange handsome man prostrate before her--a maidenly tremor, too, in the sensation of those burning lips upon her feet.

He raised his eyes suddenly, with the old expectation of a rebuff; and then, at the sight of the youthful, curious face above him, betook himself to sighing too; and, laying the little foot back tenderly upon the cus.h.i.+on, he rose.

From between the huge fur collar which all but covered her head, the black eyes followed him as alertly as a bird's; intercepting the soft melancholy of his gaze, she smiled at him, mischievous, confident, and uncommunicative, and snuggled deeper into the fur.

Leaning against the high mantel-board, he remained silent, brooding over her; the clock ticked off solemnly the fleeting moments of the wonderful hour; and ever and anon the dog drew a long breath of comfort and stretched out his gaunt limbs more luxuriously to the heat. After a while Sir Adrian spoke.

"He who has hospitality to dispense," said he, smiling down at her mutinous grace, "should never ask whence or how the guest came to his hearth ... and yet--"

She made a slight movement of laziness, but volunteered nothing; and he continued, his look becoming more wistful as he spoke:

"Your having reached this rock, during such weather, is startling enough; it is G.o.d's providence that there should live those in these ruins who are able to give you succour. But that you should come in to me at the moment you did--" He halted before the bold inquisitive brightness of her eyes. "Some day perhaps you will let me explain," he went on, embarra.s.sed. "Indeed I must have seemed the most absolute madman, to you. But he who thinks he sees one returned from death in angry waters, may be pardoned some display of emotion."

The girl sat up briskly and shook herself as if in protest against the sadness of his smile and look.

"I rise indeed from a watery grave," she said lightly, "or at least from what should have been my grave, had I had my deserts for my foolishness; as it has turned out I do not regret it now; though I did, about midway."

The red lips parted and the little teeth gleamed. "I have found such kindness and welcome." She caressed the dog who, lazily, tried to lick her hand. "It is all such an adventure; so much more amusing than Pulwick; so much more interesting than ever I fancied it might be!"

"Pulwick; you come from Pulwick?" said Sir Adrian musing; "true, Rene has said it but just now. Yet, it is of a piece with the strangeness of it all."

"Yes," said Mademoiselle de Savenaye, once more collecting her cloak, which her hurried movement had thrown off her shoulder. "Madelon and I are now at Pulwick--I am Molly, cousin, please to remember--or rather I am here, very warm now, and comfortable, and she is somewhere along the sh.o.r.e--perhaps--she and John, as wet as drowned rats. Well, well, I had best tell you the tale from the beginning, or else we never shall be out of the labyrinth.--We started from Pulwick, for a ride by the sh.o.r.e, Madelon and I. When we were on the strand it came on to rain. There was smoke out of your chimney. I proposed a canter as far as the ruins, for shelter. I knew very well Madelon would not follow; but I threw poor Lucifer--you know Lucifer, Mr. Landale has reserved him for me; of course you know Lucifer, I believe he belongs to you!

Well, I threw him along the causeway. John, he's the groom you know, and Madelon, shrieked after me. But it was beautiful--this magnificent tearing gallop in the rain--I was not going to stop.--But when we were half way, Lucifer and I, I saw suddenly that the foam seemed to cover the sand in front of me. Then I pulled up quick and turned round to look behind me. There was already a frightful wind, and the sand and the rain blinded me almost, but there was no mistake--the sea was running between the sh.o.r.e and me. Oh! my G.o.d! but I was frightened then; I beat poor Lucifer until my whip broke, and he started away with a will. But when his feet began to splash the water he too became frightened and stopped. I did not know what to do; I pulled out my broach to spur him with the pin, but, at the first p.r.i.c.k I gave him, he reared, and swerved and I fell right on my face in the froth. I got up and began to run through the water; then I came to some stones and I knew I was saved, though the water was up to my knees and rus.h.i.+ng by like a torrent. When I had clambered up the beach I thought again of poor Lucifer. I looked about and saw him a little way off. He was shaking and tossing his dear black head, and neighing, though I really did not hear him, for the wind was in my ears; his body was stock still, I could not see his legs.... And gradually he sank lower, and lower, and lower, and at last the water pa.s.sed over his head. Oh! it was horrible, horrible!"

The girl shuddered and her bright face clouded. After a moment she resumed:

"It was only then I thought of the moving sands they spoke of the other day at Pulwick--and that was why Madelon and that poltroon groom would not follow me! Yet perhaps they were wise, after all, for the thought of being buried alive made me turn weak all of a sudden. My knees shook and I had to sit down, although I knew I had pa.s.sed through the danger. But I was so sorry for poor Lucifer! I thought if I had come down and led him, poor fellow, he might have come with me.

Death is so awful, so hideous; he was so full of life and carried me so bravely, only a few minutes before! Is it not a shame that there should be such a thing as death?" she cried, rebelliously, and looked up at the man above her, whose face had grown white at the thought of the danger she had barely escaped.

"I waited," she resumed at length, "till I thought he must be quite dead, there below, and came up to the ruins, and looked for an entrance. I knocked at some doors and called, but the wind was so loud, no one heard. And then, at last, there was one door I could open, so I entered and came up the stairs and startled you, as you know. And that is how I came here and how Lucifer is drowned."

As she finished her tale at last, she looked up at her companion. But Sir Adrian, who had followed her with ever-deepening earnestness of mien, remained silent; noticing which she added quickly and with a certain tinge of defiance:

"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 Rene 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 a.s.similation 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 a.s.sumed dignity which would have befitted a mistress of the robes, she took her departure, leaving Adrian smiling with amus.e.m.e.nt 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 Rene 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 G.o.d, yes," quoth Rene 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 ladys.h.i.+p 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 Cecile de Savenaye at Pulwick?... Thank G.o.d, 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 s.h.i.+vered.

"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 Cecile de Savenaye's rosy finger-tip upon the porch of Pulwick, twenty years before.