Never surely were the beauties of Sark seen under happier auspices, or through eyes attuned to more lively appreciation. For love-lit eyes see all things lovely, and no more perfect loveliness of sea and rock and flower and sky may be found than such as go to the making of this little isle of Sark.
He guided their more active energies through the anemone-studded and sponge-fringed caves under the Gouliots; through the long rough-polished, sea-scoured passages of the Boutiques; down the seamed cliffs at Les Fontaines and Grande Grève; along the precarious tracks and iron rings into Derrible; with the assistance of a rope, into Le Pot. And for rest-times they spent long delightful afternoons sitting among the blazing gorse cushions of the Eperquerie, and on that great rock that elbows Tintageu into the waves, and looks down on the one side on Port du Moulin and the Autelets, and on the other into Pegane Bay and Port á la Jument.
This high perch had a peculiar fascination for Margaret. She could have sat there day after day with perfect enjoyment. She never tired of it all—the crisp green waters below, with their dazzling fringe of foam round every gray rock and headland; the gold-tipped pinnacles of the Autelets, with their fluttering halos of gulls and sea-pies and cormorants, and their ridi-fringe of tawny seaweed and foamy lace; the rounded slopes of the Eperquerie; the bold cliffs behind, with their sprawling gray feet in the emerald sea, and their green and gold shoulders humping up into the blue sky; beyond them the black Gouliot rocks and foaming Race, and the long soft bulk of Brecqhou with its seamy sides and black-mouthed caves.
And here one day they had a novel experience, and Margaret learned something—got fullest proof, at all events, of something her heart had already told her.
They were sitting in the sea-ward cleft of this great rock behind Tintageu, one afternoon, and Graeme had just succeeded in getting the kettle to boil by means of an armful of old gorse bushes, when, straightening up for a rest, he said suddenly,—"Hello! Look at that now!" and pointed out towards Guernsey.
And there they saw a low white cloud, lying on the sea as though it had just dropped solidly out of the sky. Sea and sky were vivid vital blue, the sun shone brilliantly, Guernsey, Jethou, and Herm gleamed like jewels, and the white cloud lay between the upper and the nether blue like the white ghost of a new-born island not yet invested with the attributes of earth.
And, as they watched, it crept quickly along the blue-enamelled plain. It swallowed up the southern cliffs of Guernsey. Its creeping nose was level with the tall Doyle column. It crept on and on, till Castle Cornet disappeared and Peter Port was lost to sight. On and on—Jethou was gone, and bit by bit the long green and gold slopes of Herm were conquered, and its long white spear of sand ran out of the low white cloud. And still on, till all the outlying rocks and islands vanished, and where had been the glow and colour of life was nothing now but that strange pall-like cloud.
The blue of the sea in front had whitened, and suddenly the sentinel rocks at the tail of Brecqhou disappeared, and the white cloud came sweeping towards the watchers on the rock by Tintageu.
"We're in for it too," said Graeme, hastily emptying his kettle and packing up the tea-things. "Seems to me we'd better get ashore."
But the cloud was on them, soft films of gauzy mist with the sun still bright overhead. Then quickly-rolling folds of dense white cloud blotted out everything but the path on which they stood. The gorse and blue-bells and sea-pinks at their feet drooped suddenly wan and colourless, as though stricken with mortal sickness, and wept sad tears. They stood bewildered, while the pallid folds grew thicker and thicker, lit from above with a strange spectral glare, and coiling about them like the trailing garments of an army of ghosts. From the unseen abysses all round came the growl and wash of wave on rock and shingle, from the cliff above Pegane came the frightened bleat of a lamb, and an invisible gull went squawking over their heads on his way inland.
With an instinct for safer quarters, Miss Penny had started off towards the path which led precariously across the narrow neck to the mainland. The neck itself, with white clouds of mist billowing on either side, and streaming raggedly across the path, looked fearsome enough. She gave a startled cry and stood still.
"Stay here!" said Graeme to Margaret. "Don't move an inch!" and he felt his way, foot by foot, towards the causeway.
And Margaret, who had been regarding it all simply as a curious experience, felt suddenly very lonely and not very safe.
She heard him speak to Miss Penny, but she could not see two feet in front of her.
Then, after what seemed a long time, she heard above her—
"Miss Brandt? Margaret? Oh, good God!"—and there was in his voice a note that was new to her. Sharp and strident with keenest anxiety, it set a sudden fire in her heart, for it was for her.
"I am here, Mr. Graeme," she cried, and he came plunging down to her through the dripping gorse and bracken.
"Thank God!" he said fervently. "Why ever did you move?"
"I have not stirred."
"I must have got wrong. It is blinding. It will be safest to wait here, I think. Will you hold on to my arm?"
And as she slipped her hand through it she felt it trembling—the arm that had always been so strong and steadfast in her service—and she knew that this too was for her.
"Where is Hennie?" she asked.
"She's all right. I made her sit down among the bushes and told her she'd surely get smashed if she moved."
It was a good half-hour before the cloud drew off and they saw Guernsey, Herm, and Jethou sparkling in the sun once more.
Then they crossed the narrow path over the neck, and Margaret was glad they had not attempted it in the fog.
They picked up Miss Penny, damp but cheerful, and went home. For everything was dripping, and the pleasures of camping out were over for that day, but there were fires about that all the fogs that ever had been could not begin to extinguish.
As the girls sat basking in the window-seat for a few minutes after breakfast one morning, they surprised a private conversation between their cavalier and Master Johnnie Vautrin. Graeme, with his back to them, sat smoking on the low stone wall. Johnnie was, as usual, bunched up in the hedge opposite.
"Well, Johnnie?" they heard. "Seen any crows this morning?"
"Ouaie!"
"How many then, you wretched little croaker?"
"J'annéveu deu et j'annéveu troy."
"Ah now, it's not polite—as I've told you before—to talk to an uneducated foreigner, in a language he does not understand. How many, in such English as you have attained to, and what did they mean according to your wizardry?"
"Pergui, you, too, are not polite! Your words are like this"—measuring off an expanding half yard in the air,—"they are all wind."
"Smart boy! How many crows did you see this morning?"
"First I saw two and then I saw three."
"Two and three make five. Croaker! Five crows mean someone's going to be sick. And which way did they go this time?"
"Noh, noh! First it wass two, and when they had gone then it wass three more."
"I see. And two black crows—what might they mean now?"
"Two crows they mean good luck."
"Clever boy! Continue! Three black crows mean——?"
"Three crows—they mean a marrying,—ouaie, Dame!"
"Ah, a marrying! That's better! That is very much better. It strikes me, Johnnie, that two lucky crows are worth twopence, and three marrying crows are worth threepence. And as luck would have it I've got exactly five pennies in my pocket. Catch, bearer of good tidings! Here you are—one, two, three, four, five! Well caught! Is it going to keep fine?" and Marielihou stopped licking herself to look at Graeme, and then went on again with an air of,—"I could tell you things if I would, but it's not worth while,"—in her ugly green eyes.
"I don' think," said Johnnie, jumping at the chance of ill news.
"You don't, you little rascal? Here, give me back my hard-earned pence! You're a little humbug."
"What's Johnnie been up to now?" asked Miss Penny, as she came out into the open.
"He's giving me lessons in necromancy and the black art of crows. He declines to pledge his honour on the continued brightness of the day."
"Oh, Johnnie! And we're going to Brecqhou!"
"I cann'd help."
"But you might send us on our way rejoicing."
"Gimme six pennies an' I will say it will be fine."
"I'm beginning to think you're of a grasping disposition, Johnnie. If you don't take care you'll die rich."
"Go'zamin, I wu'n't mind."
Then Graeme came out again, with the hamper he had had packed in the kitchen under his own supervision, and their cloaks, which, thanks to Johnnie, he had picked off the nails in the passage, and they set off for Havre Gosselin and Brecqhou.
"You'll not forget to come back for us about eight," Graeme shouted to the boatmen, as they pushed off from the fretted black rock on which their passengers had just made precarious landing.
"Nossir!" and they pulled away to their fishing.
"If it should be a fine sunset," he explained to the ladies, "the view of the Sark cliffs from Belême there, opposite the Gouliots, is one of the finest sights in the island."
The place they had landed was a rough ledge on the south side just under the Pente-à-Fouaille, some distance past the Pirates' Cave, and the ascent, though steep, was not so difficult as it looked. Graeme, however, in his capacity of chaperon, insisted on convoying them separately to the top—whereby he got holding Margaret's hand for the space of sixty pulse-beats—and then went down again for the cloaks and provisions.
Brecqhou, at the moment, was uninhabited. Its late occupant had thrown up his post suddenly, and gone to live on Sark with his wife, and a new caretaker had not yet been appointed. So they went straight to the house, deposited their belongings in the sitting-room, and then started out for a long ramble round the island.
First they struck west to Le Nesté, and scrambled among the rough rocks of the Point, stepping cautiously over the gulls' nests which lay thick all about, some with eggs and some with young.
The wonders of the sea-gardens in the rock-pools of Moie Batarde, and the entrancing views of Herm and Jethou and Guernsey, gleaming across the sapphire sea, with a magnificent range of snowy cloud-mountain breasting slowly up the deep blue of the sky behind, and looking solid enough to sit on, as Miss Penny said, absorbed them till midday.
Then they returned to the house, lit a fire of dried gorse, filled their kettle at the well and set it to boil, and carried out a table and chairs, for eating indoors was out of the question with such beneficence of sunshine inviting them to the open.
All the afternoon was occupied with the wonders of the Creux-à-Vaches, with its bold scarps and rounded slopes draped with ferns and enamelled with flowers, and the crannies and indentations of the northern side of the island. They sat for a time on Belême cliff entranced with the wonderful view of the bold western headlands of Sark, unrolled before them like a gigantic panorama from Bec-du-Nez to the Moie de Bretagne,—a sight the like of which one might travel many thousand miles and still not equal. And they promised themselves a still finer view when the setting sun washed every cliff and crag and cranny with living gold.
But as they turned to tramp through the ragwort and bracken towards the house, intent on cups of tea, the sight of the western sky gave them sudden start. The solid range of snow-white cloud-mountains had climbed the heavens half-way to the zenith, and was stretching thin white streamers still further afield. And its base in the west had grown dark and threatening, with pallid wisps of cloud scudding up it like flying scouts bearing ill tidings.
"Wind, I'm afraid," said Graeme, "and maybe thunder—"
And as he spoke a zigzag flash ripped open the dark screen, and a crackling peal came rattling over the lead-coloured sea and bellowed past them in long-drawn reverberations.
"Johnnie was right after all, the little monkey."
"I'm sorry now I didn't give him that sixpence," said Miss Penny.
"I don't suppose it would have made much difference—except to Johnnie. However, I hope it will soon blow over. Good thing we've got a shelter, and we can enjoy our tea while the elements settle matters among themselves outside."
The storm broke over them before the kettle boiled. The rain thrashed the house fiercely under the impulse of a wild south-west wind, which grew wilder every minute, and the thunder bellowed about them as though the very heavens were cracking.
"This is a trifle rough on inoffensive pilgrims," said Graeme. "I'm really sorry to have got you into it."
"You didn't do it on purpose, did you, Mr. Graeme?" asked Miss Penny, with pointed emphasis.
"I did not. I devoutly wish you were both safe home in the Rue Lucas."
"All in good time. Meanwhile, we might be worse off, and this tea is going to be excellent. Margaret, my child, do you know that tea under these conditions is infinitely preferable to tea in Melgrave Square, under any conditions whatsoever?"
"It is certainly a change," said Margaret.
"And a very decided improvement. It's what some of my young friends would call 'just awfully jolly decent,'" said Miss Penny.
"We're not out of the wood—that is to say, the island—yet," suggested Graeme.
"Or we shouldn't be here enjoying ourselves like this. Brecqhou is sheer delight."
"On a fine day," said Margaret quietly.
"Or in a thunderstorm," asserted Miss Penny militantly. But Margaret would not fight lest it should seem like casting reflections on their present estate.
The thunder rolled over the wide waters with a majesty of utterance novel to their unaccustomed city ears, the rain drew a storm-gray veil over everything past the well, the wind waxed into hysterical fury, tore at the roof and gables, and went shrieking on over Sark. And above the rush of wind and rain, in the short pauses between the thunder-peals, the hoarse roar of the waves along the black bastions of Brecqhou grew louder and louder in their ears.
Graeme's face grew somewhat anxious, as he stood at the window and peered westward as far as he could see, and found nothing but fury and blackness there. He had a dim recollection of hearing of outer islands such as this being cut off from the mainland for days at a time. He could imagine what the sea must be like among the tumbled rocks below. And he had seen the Race of the Gouliot in storm time once before, and doubted much if any boat would face the whirl and rush of its piled-up waters.
What on earth were they to do if the men could not get across for them?
Suppose they had to pass the night there?
Good Heavens! Suppose they could not get across for days? What were they to live on?—to come at once to the lowest but most pressing necessity of the situation?
They had weather-proof shelter. Firing they could procure from the interior woodwork of the house and outbuildings. And they had a small amount of tea and sugar, and half a tin of condensed milk, and rather more than half of the day's provisions, since they had contemplated high tea before embarking again. He determined that, if the storm showed no signs of abating, the high tea must be a low one, since its constituents might possibly have to serve for to-morrow's breakfast as well.
Both girls, their own perceptions strung tight by the electric state of matters outside, noticed the touch of anxiety in his face as he turned from the window, but both declined to show it.
"How's her head, Captain?" asked Miss Penny jovially.
"Dead on to a lee shore," he answered in her own humour. "But the anchorage is good and we're not likely to drift."
"Come! That's something to be thankful for, under the circumstances. Brecqhou banging broadside on to that big black Gouliot rock would be a most unpleasant experience. How about the sunset cliffs of Sark?"
"They're very much under a cloud. I'm afraid we must pass them for this time and choose a better. The cliffs indeed are there, but the sun is much a-wanting."
"Hamlet without the ghost of a father or even a sun."
"Truly!" And looking at Margaret, he said earnestly, "I can't tell you how sorry I am it has turned out this way."
"But it is no fault of yours, Mr. Graeme. No one could possibly have foreseen such a breakdown in the weather, with such a glorious morning as we had."
"After all, I'm not at all sure it isn't all Mr. Graeme's fault," said Miss Penny musingly.
"As how?" he asked.
"Didn't you stop me giving Johnnie Vautrin six demanded pennies to keep it fine all day?"
"I discouraged the imposition, certainly. But I don't suppose Johnnie could have done much—except with your sixpence."
"He's a queer clever boy, is Johnnie. He certainly said it wasn't going to keep fine."
"Little humbug!"
"Yet you gave him fivepence for seeing—or saying he saw—two crows and three crows, because two crows mean good luck and three crows mean——"
"You talk as if you believed his nonsense, Hennie," broke in Margaret.
"Perhaps I do—to some extent. He certainly declined to pledge himself to a fine day, and it remains to be seen if the rest of his—"
"—Humbug," suggested Graeme.
"We'll say predictions, since we're in a superstitious land,—come true. I shouldn't be a bit surprised. Thunderstorms are not, as a rule, deadly, and it is conceivable that they may, at times, even be means of grace. Would you mind piling some more gorse on that fire, Mr. Graeme? A counter-illumination is cheerful when the heavens without are all black and blazing. What a joke it would be if we had to stop here all night!"—she said it with intention, and Graeme understood and blessed her.
"We'll hope it won't come to that," he said, as lightly as he could make it. "But, if it should, we could make ourselves fairly comfortable. Robinson Crusoes up to date!"
"No—Swiss Family Robinsons!" was Margaret's quota to the lightening of gloom. "The way everything turned up just when that interesting family required it struck me as marvellous even when I was a child."
"You always were of an acutely enquiring—not to say doubting—disposition, my dear, ever since I knew you," said Miss Penny.
"I always liked to get at the true truth of things, and humbug always annoyed me."
"No wonder you found Mr. Pixley a trial, dear," said Miss Penny.
"You don't mean to cast stones of doubt at that shining pillar of the law and society, Miss Penny?" said Graeme, tempted to enlarge on so congenial a subject.
"Mr. Pixley does not appeal to me—nor I to him. I like him just as much as he likes me. And that's just that much,"—with a snap of the fingers.
"I'm afraid you and I are in the same boat," said Graeme enjoyably.
"I shouldn't be a bit surprised,—and for the same reason. We both like—"
"What shall we do for provisions, Mr. Graeme, if the storm continues?" asked Margaret, and Miss Penny smiled knowingly.
"I suggest husbanding those we have. It can't surely last long."
"Mrs. Carré was telling us the other night that once no steamer could get to Sark from Guernsey for three weeks," chirped Miss Penny. "If a steamer couldn't get to Sark, how should a small boat get to Brecqhou—Q.E.D.?"
"Gracious!" cried Margaret in dismay.
"Mr. Graeme would have to catch rabbits for us—and fish. And I believe there are potatoes growing outside there. Our clothing will be in rags, Meg. Mr. Graeme will be a wild man of the woods, and all our portraits will appear in the illustrated papers. The Outcasts of Brecqhou. Marooned on an Uninhabited Island. Three Weeks Alone."
"I'm off for a look round," said Graeme. "If that boat should be waiting for us, somewhere down below, it would be too stupid for us to be waiting for it up here," and he turned up his coat collar and pulled his cap over his brows.
"You'll get soaked," said Margaret. "Please take this, it will help a little," and she jumped up and thrust her golfing cloak into his hands. He seemed about to refuse, then thanked her hastily, and threw it over his shoulders and went out.
The wind caught him and whirled him along towards Belême cliffs. He tacked to the south and made a slant for the place where they had landed. As soon as he was out of sight of the house he drew the hood of the cloak over his head and rejoiced in it.
To be wearing her cloak brought Margaret appreciably nearer. Possibly that hood had even been over her head, had touched her shining hair, her fair soft cheek. He pressed it to his face, to his lips, and the hot blood danced in his veins at his temerity. The gale bellowed outside and drove him staggering, but inside the hood was the uplifting warmth and glow of personal contact with the beloved. Her very mantle was sacred to him. He fancied he could detect in it a subtle intimation of herself. He hugged it close, and leaned back upon the gale, and drifted towards the southern cliffs.
One glance at the black rocks below,—now hidden by the rushing fury of the surges, now outstanding gaunt and grim, with creamy cascades pouring back into the roaring welter below,—showed him how impossible it would have been for any boat to approach there.
He plunged on through the masses of dripping ragwort towards the eastern cliff, and stood absorbed by the grim fury of the Gouliot Race. The driven waves split on the western point of Brecqhou and came rocketing along the ragged black rocks on either side in wild bursts of foam. The Gouliot Passage was roaring with the noise of many waters, and boiling and seething like a gigantic pot. The sea was white with beaten spume for half a mile each way, and up through the tumbling marbled surface great black coils of water came writhing and bubbling from their tribulation on the hidden rocks below. The black fangs of the Gouliots were grimmer than ever. The long line of scoured granite cliffs on either side looked like great bald-headed eagles peering out hungrily for their prey.
There were no boats at the anchorage in Havre Gosselin. He learned afterwards that they had all run to the shelter of Creux Harbour on the other side of the island. He breasted the gale and headed for the house.
"I'm very much afraid we're stuck for the night," he said, as they looked up enquiringly on his entrance. "There's not a sign of a boat, and I'm quite sure no boat could face that sea. Sark looks like an outcast island—the very end of the world."
"Then we'll make ourselves comfortable here," said Miss Penny. "We began to fear you'd been blown over the cliffs. Is there plenty of wood in the house?"
"I'll go and get some more," and he came back with a great armful of broken driftwood, and went again for as much gorse as he could carry in a rude wooden fork he found near the stack.
"You must be soaked through and through," said Margaret.
"Bit damp, but your cloak was a great help," and he piled gorse and chunks of wood on the fire till its roaring almost drowned the noise of the storm outside.
"Well, I call this absolutely ripping," said Miss Penny exuberantly, as they sat by the fire of many-coloured flames, after a slender cup of tea and as hearty a meal as Graeme would allow them in view of possible contingencies. "Do please smoke, Mr. Graeme. It just needs a whiff of tobacco to complete our enjoyment."
"Sark," she added, leaning back with her hands clasped behind her head, "when no one knows you're there, is just heavenly. No letters, no telegrams, no intrusion of the commonplace outside world! Those are distinctly heavenly attributes, you know—"
It was truly extraordinary how, with nothing more than a very general intention thereto, she played into his hands at times. Here now was a very simple question he had been wanting to put to Miss Brandt for days past. For the answer to it might shed light in several directions. But he had been loth to force matters, and had quietly waited such opportunity as might arise in a natural way without undue obtrusion of the doubt that was in his mind.
"'Peace—perfect peace!' as Adam Black used to sigh," he said. "And by the way"—turning to Margaret—"speaking of letters, I have often wondered at times if you ever received two that I sent you concerning Lady Elspeth—just about the time she was called away to Scotland?"
She looked back at him with surprise, and his question was answered and his doubt solved before ever she opened her lips.
"About Lady Elspeth? No,—I certainly never got them."
"H'm!" he nodded thoughtfully. "The first I feared might have gone astray through some stupidity of the post-office. But the second I dropped into your letter-box myself. Moreover—"
"I never got them,"—with a charming touch of colour.
"Moreover——?" said Miss Penny expectantly, with a dancing light in her eyes.
"Well," he said, after a pause, "to tell you the whole story, Mr. Pixley assured me that you had had them and had handed them on to him."
"Mr. Pixley said that?" and Margaret sat up, with very much more than a touch of colour in her face now. In fact it was militantly red and vastly indignant.
"Yes. I—well, I called upon him at his office just to find out if—well, if you were ill or anything like that, you know. And among other interesting information he told me that, and cut off my head with his glasses and threw my remains out into the street;" at which Margaret smiled through her indignation.
"Mr. Pixley," said Miss Penny emphatically, "is a—a Johnnie Vautrin on a larger scale. Had he any other interesting items of information for you, Mr. Graeme?"
"Well—yes, he had. But I can estimate them now at their proper value, and it can rest there."
"It was Mr. Black's enthusiasm for Sark at that Whitefriars' dinner that put it into my head when—when we were wondering where to go. I remember now," said Margaret.
"It was Black's enthusiasm for Sark that put it into my head when I was wondering where to go," said Graeme.
"There you are, you see," said Miss Penny. "I knew you must have had some common inspiration."
"I am greatly indebted to Black. He's one of the finest fellows I know. He's done me more than one good turn, but I shall always count Sark his chiefest achievement," said Graeme heartily.
The wind howled round the house, and whuffled in the chimney, and sent spurts of sweet-scented smoke to mingle with the fuller flavour of Graeme's tobacco. The walls were bare plaster, discoloured with age and careless usage. The chairs were common kitchen chairs, and the table a plain deal one. But the driftwood burned with flames whose forked tongues sang silently but eloquently of wanderings under many skies, of rainbow isles in sunny seas, of vivid golden days and the black wonders of tropic nights, of storms and calms, and all the untold mysteries of the pitiless sea.
But to two at least of the party—and perhaps even to three—that bare room was radiant beyond any they had ever known.
Orange and amber lightening into sunshine, purple into heliotrope, tender greens and lucent blues, burning crimson and fiery red, were the flames of the driftwood, and in these surely the imagination may find its happiest auguries. For if the dancing flames, out of their chastened knowledge, sang only of the past, in the minds of their watchers they were singing of futures brighter and more glowing than anything the past had ever known. And so, to two at least of them,—and perhaps to three,—never surely was there room so radiant as that bare room in that empty house on Brecqhou.
Miss Penny had the high endowment of a large heart, a wide imagination, and sentiment sufficient for a high-class girls' boarding-school.
She found herself for the moment out of place, yet she could not remove herself without too obvious an intention. She did the next best thing. She settled herself on her chair in a corner, slipped off her shoes, sat on her feet, and went to sleep.
Margaret, indeed, glanced at her suspiciously once or twice, without moving her head by so much as a hair's-breadth. But she seemed really and truly asleep, and for a moment Margaret was amazed that anyone could think of sleep in that enchanted room. But then she remembered that it was different—Hennie was Hennie, and she was she, and it was for her that the crystal ball of life had opened of a sudden and shown the radiance within.
How long they sat in silence before the rainbow fire she never knew.
Hennie was snoring gently—purring as one might say—in the most genuinely ingenuous fashion.
Graeme, in the riot of happy possibilities evoked by the disclosure of Mr. Pixley's perfidy, would have been content to sit there for ever, since Margaret was at his side. It was enough to know that she was there. He did not need to turn his head to enjoy the sight of her with gross material vision. Every tight-strung fibre of his being told him of her nearness, in ways compared with which sight and sound and touch are gross and feeble travesties of communication. Their spirits surely reached out and touched in that silent communion before the rainbow fire.
There were many things he wanted to ask her now. But they could wait, they could wait. The Doubting Castles he had built in his despair had had no foundations. He was building anew already, and now with rosy hope and golden faith, and the topstones of his building mingled with the stars.
He woke of a sudden to a sense of lack of consideration for her in his own enjoyment. Doubtless she was tired out, and was only kept from following Miss Penny's example by his crass stupidity in sitting there in that stolid fashion.
"Pray forgive me!" he said, as he rose quietly. "You must be tired, too. I will take the other room and you can join Miss Penny."
"I'm not the least tired. I never felt more awake in my life. Surely the wind has fallen."
He went to the door and opened it and looked out.
"It is only a lull. It will probably blow up again stronger than ever," and as he turned he found her at his elbow.
"Let us go outside," she said, and he could have taken her into his arms. Instead, he tiptoed across the room and got her cloak, and placed it on her shoulders with a new, vast sense of proprietorship.
He knew just how she felt. Even that room of rare delights was not large enough just then for her and for him. The whole wide world, and the illimitable heights of the heavens, could scarce contain that which was in them. Their hearts were full, and that which was in them was that of which God is the ultimate perfection. And in their ears, in the gaps of the storm, was the roaring thunder of the great white waves as they tore along the black sides of Brecqhou.
"Tell me more about those letters," she said briefly. "What did you write?"
"I wrote, nominally, to inform you of Lady Elspeth's sudden call to Scotland, but actually to tell you how sorely I regretted the sudden break in our acquaintance which had become to me so very great a delight."
"And when you got no answer?"
"I waited and waited, and then I had a sudden fear that you might be ill. And to satisfy myself I called on Mr. Pixley at his office. He told me you were quite well, that you had had my letters, and had handed them to him."
"Anything more?"
"Yes,—he said you were shortly to marry his son."
"That is what he wished,—and that is why I am here."
"Thank God! Then I may tell you, Margaret. I had been building castles and you were mistress of them all and of my whole heart. When Mr. Pixley knocked them into dust I came here to fight it out by myself, and a black time I had. Then God, in His goodness, put it into your heart to come too. Will you marry me, Margaret?"
"Yes, Jock."
And there, in the lull of the gale, in the lee of the lonely house on Brecqhou, they plighted their troth with no more need of feeble words, for their hearts had gone out to one another.
And all along the gaunt black rocks the great waves, which a moment before had been growling in dull agony, roared a mighty chorus of delight, and rolled it up the sloping seams of Longue Pointe, and flashed it on in thunderous bursts of foam from Bec-du-Nez to L'Etac.
And Miss Henrietta Penny, awakening about this time, and finding herself alone, laughed happily to herself, and sighed just once, and said from her heart, "God bless them!"—and did not go to sleep again, though to look at her you would never have known it, save for the fact that she no longer purred in her sleep,—for the woman has yet to be born who ever pleaded guilty to actual snoring.
Graeme slept that night just as much as might have been expected under the circumstances, and that was not one wink. Nevertheless, when morning came, he felt as strong and joyous as a young god. New life had come to him in the night, and he felt equal to the conquering of worlds. For love is life, and the strength and the joy of it.
He was out with the dawn, to a gray rushing morning full of the sounds of sea and wind. He drew a canful of water from the well, and had such a wash as no soap and a handkerchief would permit of. Then he drew another canful and left it outside the door of the ladies' room, and strode off to Belême to see if the boats had got back to their anchorage. But the little bay was a scene of storm and strife, a wild confusion of raging seas and stubborn rocks, the fruits of the conflict flying up the cliffs in spongy gouts of spume, and dappling the waters far and wide with fantasies of troubled marbling,—and there was not a boat to be seen.
But the sight of the great white seas roaring up the Sark headlands, as far as he could see on either hand, was one never to be forgotten. It was worth the price they had paid, even though it spelt a further term of captivity, and he turned back to his duties with that new glad glow in his heart which was no longer simply hope but the full and gracious assurance of loftiest attainment.
He had seen potatoes growing in a plot near the house. So, after lighting a fire in the kitchen and setting the kettle to boil, he rooted about till he found the remains of a spade and set himself to unaccustomed labours.
When Miss Penny came out of her room, freshfaced and comely coiffured, she found a ring of potatoes roasting in the ashes and the kettle boiling, and Graeme came in, bright-eyed and wind-whipped, wiping his hands on a very damp handkerchief.
"I am so glad, Mr. Graeme," she said, with sparkling eyes and face, and hearty outstretched hand.
"Margaret has told you?"
"Of course Margaret has told me. Am I not her keeper, and haven't I been hoping for this since ever I saw you?"
"That is very good of you. I thought, perhaps—"
"Thought it might take me by surprise, I suppose—and perhaps that I might take it badly? Not a bit! It fulfils my very highest hopes. And I can assure you you have got a prize. There are not many girls like Margaret Brandt."
"Don't I know it? I have known it from the very first time I met her—at that blessed Whitefriars' dinner."
"I think you will make her very happy."
"I promise you I will do my very best."
And then Margaret came into the kitchen and knew what was toward.
She looked like a queen and a princess and a goddess all in one, with a flood of happy colour in her face and a glad glow in her eyes, and no more hint of maidenly shyness about her than was right and natural. And Miss Penny's eyes were misty of a sudden, as Graeme went quickly up to her friend, and feasted his hungry eyes on her face for a moment, and then bent and gallantly kissed her hand. For in both their faces was the great glad light that is the very light of life, and Miss Penny was wondering if, in some distant future time, it might perchance be vouchsafed to her also to attain thereto.
"I hope you both slept well," he said gaily. "I've done my best in the provisioning line. I know we've got plenty of salt, for one generally forgets it and so I always put in two packets."
"You've done splendidly," said Miss Penny, tying up tea in a piece of muslin and dropping it into the kettle.
"I'd have tried for a rabbit, but I wasn't sure if either of you could skin it—"
"Ugh! Don't mention it!"
"And I knew I couldn't, so we'll have to put up with roasted potatoes and imagine the rabbit. I've been told they do that in some parts of Ireland,—hang up a bit of bacon in a corner and point at it with the potato and so imagine the flavour."
"Potatoes are excellent faring—when there's nothing better to be had," said Miss Penny, rooting in the basket. "However, here are three of yesterday's sandwiches, slightly faded, and some biscuits—in good condition, thanks to the tin. Come, we shan't absolutely starve!"
And they enjoyed that meal—two of them, at all events, and perhaps three—as they had never enjoyed a meal before.
"And the weather?" asked Margaret.
"The blessed weather is just as it was; perhaps even a bit more so,—the most glorious weather that ever was on land or sea!"
"But——" said Margaret, smiling at his effervescence.
"No, I'm afraid it can't last very much longer, and potatoes and salt I know would begin to pall in time. After breakfast you shall see the grandest sight of your lives,—and for the rest, we will live in hope."
And, after all, they saw what they had specially come to see—a sunset from Belême cliff.
For the day remained gray and boisterous until late in the afternoon. They had lunched—with less exuberance than they had breakfasted—on potatoes and salt and a thin medicinal-tasting decoction made from breakfast's tea-leaves; they were looking forward with no undue eagerness to potato dinner without even the palliative of medicinal tea; and even Miss Penny acknowledged that, choice being offered her, she would give the preference to some other vegetable for a week to come;—when, of a sudden, the gray veil of the west opened slowly, like the lifting of an iron curtain, and let the light behind shine through.
And the light was as they could imagine the light of heaven—a pure lucent yellow as of the early primrose, but diaphanous and almost transparent, as though this, which seemed to them light, was itself in reality but an outer veil hiding the still greater glory behind. The curtain lifted but a span, and the lower rim of it curved in a gentle arch from the middle of Guernsey to the filmy line of Alderney. All below the sharp-cut rim was the sea of heavenly primrose, with here and there a floating purple island edged with gold. All above was sombre plum-colour flushed with rose, the edges fraying in the wind, and floating in thin rosy streamers up the dark sky above.
The sun, larger than they had ever seen him in their lives, dropped gently like a great brass shield from behind the dark curtain into the sea of primrose light, and the primrose flushed with crimson over Guernsey and with tender green and blue over Alderney.
They hastened away to Belême cliff, and then they saw what they had hoped to see, and more;—the mighty granite frontlets of Sark all washed with living gold—- shining from their long conflict with the waves, and gleaming, every one, like a jewel,—from Bec-du-Nez to Moie de Bretagne. And, out in the dimness, behind which lay Jersey, there suddenly appeared the perfect circle of a rainbow such as none of them had ever dreamed of—a perfect orb of the living colours of the Promise—resting bodily on the dark sea like a gigantic iridescent soap-bubble, glowing and pulsing and throbbing under the level beams of the setting sun.
"Wonderful!" murmured Margaret.
"I never saw more than half a bow before," whispered Miss Penny.
"Nor I," said Graeme. "But then, you see, nothing ever was as it is now. Things happened last night."
At which Miss Penny smiled and murmured, "Of course! That accounts for everything. The whole world is changed."
And they watched and watched, in breathless admiration, first the cliffs, and then the bow, and then the sun, and then the cliffs and bow again, till the last tiny rim of the sun sank behind the dark line of Herm, and the bow went out with a snap, and the cliffs in front grew gray and sank back into their sleep, as the shadows crept up out of the sea.
And, presently, the primrose sea in the clouds lost its transparent softness and flushed with rose and carmine. The tender greens and blues in the north deepened, and the sky above glowed crimson right into the far east. And the sea below was like a ripe plum with a rippling bloom upon it, and then it answered to the glow "above and became like burnished copper. And over it, from the south end of Sark, came a dancing white sail, at sight of which Graeme leaped to his feet.
"The show is over," he cried, "and here comes your highnesses' carriage."
"I wouldn't have missed it for anything," said Margaret softly, with a rapt face still.
"It was worth living on potatoes for a month for," said Miss Penny. "All the same, I hope Mrs. Carré will have some dinner for us when we get home."
The boat was heading for the Pente-à-Fouaille where they had landed the day before, and they hurried to meet it, Graeme full of misgivings as to the embarkation, for the waves were still roaring up the rocks in bursts of foam, though the wind had fallen somewhat.
But the boatmen knew their business, and had brought an extra hand for its safe accomplishment. They dropped the sail and pulled round a corner of the black rock. Then, while two of them kept the boat from destruction, the other stood and Graeme dropped the girls one by one into his arms, and was a very thankful man when he tumbled in himself, all in a heap, and wiped the big drops of sweat from his brow.
A stroke or two with the oars and they were plunging back through the hissing white caps, but not, as he had expected, to Havre Gosselin.
"Where to?" he shouted to the blue-guernseyed stalwart nearest him.
"Grande Grève. We couldn' beach in Havre Gosselin, and mebbe the leddies wouldn' like to climb the ladders," with a grin at the leddies.
"Not much!" said Miss Penny. "Margaret, my dear, prepare yourself! I'm going to be sick if this goes on much longer."
But before she had time to be sick they had rounded the shoulder of Port-és-Saies, and their boat's nose ran up the soft sand of a low tide in Grande Grève, and the green waves came curling exultantly in over the stern. The men leaped out and hauled bravely, and in a moment the girls were ashore.
"Couldn' get back nohow last night, sir. 'Twould a bin as much as our lives were worth. Hope ye didn' starve," said the spokesman with another genial grin.
"No, we didn't expect you. We dug potatoes and cooked them. Here you are, and thanks for coming as soon as you could," and, from their smiling faces, their reward without doubt covered not only that which they had actually done but that also which they had unwittingly helped to do.
The boat shoved off and made for its own anchorage, and Graeme led the girls up the toilsome path to the Coupée.
It was after nine when they reached the cottage, and the first thing they saw was Johnnie Vautrin sitting in the hedge opposite, with Marielihou licking her lips alongside.
"I just seen seven crows," cried Johnnie gleefully.
"Little rascal! You dream crows," said Graeme, whose desires at the moment ran to something more palatable and satisfying.
"And what do seven crows mean, Johnnie?" asked Margaret.
"Seven crows means everything's oll right!"
"Clever boy! You see just what you want to see," said Graeme, and then Mrs. Carré appeared at the door of the cottage.
"Ah then, here you are!" she said, with a large welcoming smile. "And the dinner I haf been keeping for you for an hour an' more."
"You're a good angel, Mrs. Carré," said Graeme gratefully. "We are a bit late, aren't we? I hope you've put yesterday's dinner and to-day's together. We've had nothing to eat to speak of for a month. What did you think when we never turned up last night?"
"Oh, but I knew you would be all right. There iss a house on Brecqhou, and there iss watter, and you had things to eat, and it was better on Brecqhou last night than on the watter."
"It was," said Graeme heartily, and sped off up the garden for a much-needed wash and brush-up.
"Now what would I like myself if I was in their place?" asked Miss Penny of herself, while she rectified the omissions of the last two days in the matter of Nature's cravings for a more varied diet than Brecqhou afforded.
"Why, to be alone and free from the observation of Miss Hennie Penny," she promptly answered herself, and as promptly acted on it.
"Meg, my dear, I am aweary. I am not accustomed to playing Swiss Family Robinson. By your leave, Monsieur and Mademoiselle, I will wish you good-night and pleasant dreams," and she went off into the bedroom.
"May she have as tactful a chaperone when her own time comes," said Graeme, with a smile. "Do you think you would sleep better if you went to bed at once or if you had a little walk first?"
"I am not the least bit sleepy," said Margaret.
"Then a stroll will do you good," and they went out into the night. And Miss Penny, as she heard their feet on the cobbles, smiled to herself a little wistfully.
Such a night of stars! The gale had swept the heavens and thinned the upper air till the Milky Way was a wide white track strewn thick with jewels, and the greater lights shone large and close. As they sauntered in silence towards La Tour, their faces towards the stars among which their full hearts were ranging in glorious companionship, one of the lesser lights silently loosed its hold and dropped slowly from zenith to horizon, in a fiery groove that momentarily eclipsed all else.
And while Graeme was still pressing to his heart the soft arm that lay in his, in silent enjoyment of the sight and at their sharing it, another star swung loose, and another, and another, till the glittering vault seemed laced with fiery trails and they stood in rapt admiration.
"What a sight!" said Margaret softly. "I have never seen anything like that before."
"Nor I. The very stars rejoice with us.... You have made me the happiest man in all the world this day, Margaret. I can hardly believe it is real ..."
"I am real," she said, with a low warm little laugh. "And I am happy. Kiss me, Jock!" and he kissed her there under the falling stars, and she him, in a way that left no doubt as to what was in them, and the evening incense of the honeysuckle and hawthorn wafted fragrance all about them.
There was still a tender touch of colour in the sky over the western sea as they came out on the Eperquerie.
"When are you free, Margaret?" he asked,—the first word since they kissed in the lane.
"I am twenty-one on New Year's Day."
"Six whole months! How can we possibly wait all that time?"
"Why should we?" she asked delightfully.
"Undoubtedly—why should we?" he said, on fire with her charming readiness. "You are probably by this time ringed with legal pains and penalties, but they are all less than nothing."
"What could they do?"
"I believe they clap the male malefactor into prison——"
"I will go with you."
"I'm not sure if there are any married cells."
"And how long would they keep us there?"
"Till, in their opinion, I had purged my contempt, I believe."
"And how long would that be?"
"I've no idea. It probably depends on circumstances. Do you know that, until Lady Elspeth told me, I had rib idea that you had any money. It was rather a blow to me."
"I don't see why."
"But I told our old friend that if—well, if, you understand—I should insist on everything you had being settled on yourself."
"You and Lady Elspeth seem to have discussed matters pretty freely," she said, with a laugh.
"She's the dearest old lady in the world, and delights in mothering me. She got me in a corner that afternoon, and taxed me with coming to her house for reasons other than simply to see herself——"
"And you——?"
"I had to own up, of course, and then she crushed me by telling me that you were an heiress, and that Mr. Pixley probably had views of his own concerning you."
"Which he had, but they happened not to coincide with mine, and so I came to Sark."
"Happy day! I see you yet, standing in the hedge by the Red House, and I believing you a vision."
"I could hardly believe my eyes either. You seemed to come jumping right out of the sky."
"I jumped right into heaven—the highest jump that ever was made."
"I was a bit put out at first, you know——"
"I know you were."
"I thought you had learned we were coming, and had followed us here."
"Whereas——" he laughed.
"Exactly!"
"But yes, I can marry you in the church," said the Vicar, blowing out smoke, and laughing enjoyably across at Graeme, who sat in another garden chair under the big trees in front of the Vicarage.
"In spite of the fact that we are aliens?"
"Oh, it is not so bad as that. We ab-sorbed you by conquest and so you are really a part of us. We are all one family now."
"And such a marriage would be perfectly legal and unassailable?"
"I shall marry you more firmly than if you were married in Cant-er-bury Cath-edral," laughed the Vicar.
"That should suffice. But why more firmly? How improve on perfection?"
"I will tell you," said the Vicar, with increased enjoyment, as he leaned forward and tapped Graeme's knee. "It is this way.—If you are married in Cant-er-bury Cath-edral you can be divorced,—n'est-ce pas? Oui! Eh bien!—If you are married in my church of Sark you can never be divorced. C'est ça! It is the old Norman law."
"We will be married in your church of Sark," said Graeme, with conviction.
"That is right. I shall marry you so that you shall never be able to get away from one another."
"Please God, we'll never want to!"
"Ah yes! Of course. C'est ça!"
"We have never had a case of the kind, as far as I know. Certainly not in my time," said the Seigneur, smiling quizzically across the tea-table at Graeme. "But you gentlemen of the pen are allowed a certain amount of license in such matters, are you not?"
"We sometimes take it, anyhow. But one likes to stick as close to fact as possible."