* * * * *
Dawn at any rate came soon, as Ned had said it would.
The moonlight changed swiftly to sunlight, the heifer lowed for her bull-calf, a sleepy chaffinch chirruped his challenge to the coming day, and Ted Cruttenden coming into the verandah from the library saw Ned entering it from the music room, while at the hall door between them stood Aurelia, blushing at being caught so early.
She was in a loose, white overall, girded in at the waist with a leathern girdle, and her bare feet were shod in sandals.
"Good-morning," she said, without any trace of the blush in her voice. "See what I have found under the old yew tree. Grandfather's chair had torn the turf, and there it was. Do you think it can be the snake-ring grandfather told us about?"
The flat, bead-like stone she held out was no larger than a sixpence, but it had a hole through its greenish, semi-opaque lustre.
"I think it must be," said Ted, passing it on to Ned. "You will have 'all the wealth of the world.' Wasn't that what it is supposed to bring?"
"But I don't want money," she said.
"The wealth of the world is not all money," smiled Ned, handing the stone back to her. "There is love."
She laughed merrily. "I don't want that either. No! not if 'is 'air be 'ung round with gold."
They waved a good-bye to her from the turn of the draw-bridge.
"Till Christmas," said Ned cheerfully.
"Till Christmas," replied Ted cheerfully.
They found the village early astir. Miss Myfanwy Jones's holiday having come to an end, she was starting for Williams and Edwards with a pile of empty dress and bonnet boxes, which Alicia Edwards, the Reverend Morris Pugh, and the Adonis Mervyn were packing into the village shandrydan.
"It is most kind of you gentlemen to be up so early," said Myfanwy, dispensing her smiles impartially. "It is no use asking you, Mr. Morris," she said, throwing a little flavouring of regret into her voice, "you are too busy and too good; but if Mr. Mervyn comes up to town I trust he will call on me."
Mervyn, whose front lock looked exactly as if it had just left a curling-pin's care, nodded at her approvingly.
"That would be jolly fun," he said. "I have to go up for an examination in September."
"Good-bye, then, till September. Good-bye, Alicia." As she kissed the latter she whispered, "That will be a guinea to your account for the hat."
"You said a pound," protested Alicia.
"That was for cash, child. And what is a shilling? But two sixpences; and you shall pay when you are married, see you."
Would anything stop those waves except a Cornish coast? thought Helen Tressilian, as she watched the green-blue, solid water slip over a half-sunk rock, and with unabated strength, send up against a higher shelving mass a forty-foot column of reckless spray.
And the sky was so blue, the sun so hot, bringing out all the aromatic odours of the cliff herbs. How sweet they were! It would almost be worth while to be a humble bee to work so busily among the purple thyme. She let some heads of it she had picked fall on her lap with a little listless gesture. Yes! to work instead of droning out the days. To work as Herbert, the dead young husband of her dreams, had meant to work. It was seven years since she had lost him in Italy, whither they had gone on their honeymoon for his health. So he lay there dead through the breaking of a blood vessel; dead without a good-bye; dead under the blue sky amid the orange blossoms, while she, after her mother's death, kept house for her father, Sir Geoffrey Pentreath. And still on her roughest serge suits she wore the conventional muslin of widowhood round her throat and wrists.
And in her heart? In her heart she had set up such a fetich of bereavement that the idea of a second marriage was unthinkable. Yet it would have been advisable. The death of her only brother in South Africa sent the few farms, which was all that remained of the great Pentreath estates, to a distant cousin, and for long years past Sir Geoffrey had had no ready money. Poor father! It was the thought of her which made him----
She glanced to the left, over a great scaur of tumbled rocks like some giant's house in ruins, gave a little shiver and buried her face in her hands.
Poor father! Yet how could he? And how could he be mixed up with all those fateful, hateful people with money, who brought theirchauffeursto the old serving-hall at the Keep? Thosechauffeurswere the bane of her life; for what should she give them to eat!
Some one from behind clasped her wrists close, and held her hands still on her eyes.
"Guess!" said a sepulchrally gruff voice.
"My dear Ned! Where have you come from?" she answered gaily.
"How did you find out?" asked Ned Blackborough, seating himself on the thyme beside her.
"As if any one but Ned Cruttenden--I can't help the name, my dear--was ever quite so hoarse!"
"By George, Nell," he said, looking seawards, "it is good to be here. That's what one always says, isn't it, when the visible Body of the Lord is transfigured before one's eyes as it is now."
"You know, Ned, I do not agree with your Buddhistic notions," she said, a trifle severely.
"Beg pardon! They're not Buddhistic; but I'm always forgetting you don't like--though you will some day! Meanwhile I want to ask you a question: and as the butler told me you would be on the coast somewhere ... you've a most superior set of London servants just now, Nell----"
"To keep thechauffeurscompany," she interrupted, shrugging her shoulders. "One must--but don't let's talk of it--it's sickening---- And so you came to the old place?"
"To the old place, Nell," he repeated, looking at her with criticising eyes of kind affection, and thinking she looked as though she stood in need of physical and moral backing; "I always think of you here, looking out to sea, just under Betty Cam's chair----" he nodded his head backwards to the scaur of tumbled rocks. "If you get looking so long, Nell, you will be seeing ghostly things--like she did. She was your ancestress, you know, and it isn't safe----"
He spoke tentatively, but she evaded him. "You said you had a question," she asked; "what is it?"
"Only if you have room at the Keep?"
She laid her hand on his in swift reproof--"Was there ever a time when there was not room?"
He smiled. "True; but unfortunately I've--I've a second self now."
"Ned!" She stared at him. "Oh Ned! How could you--without a word! Who is she?"
"It is a he, my dear. We collided together and found out our respective names were the same. But of that anon. And there is a Scotch doctor too--a rattling good fellow, one Peter Ramsay, whom we picked up--but of that also anon. Meanwhile these are at the 'Crooked Ewe' regaling themselves, and--well! I can't leave them, you see, for they're my guests, but--but we could dine with thechauffeurs, you know."
"Don't be silly, Ned! Of course you must come. There's still room in the ruins for the family--andyouwon't mind----"
She broke off suddenly, and looked out to sea.
"Tired, Nell?" he asked quietly. "How you fuss, my dear cousin!"
"Who could help fussing?" she said without looking at him. "We could live so comfortably, father and I, on what we have got, if it were not for this craze of his to make money for me. Ah, Ned! I wish you had never lent him that fifteen thousand."
It was nearer twenty-five thousand, but that fact lay lightly on Ned Blackborough's mind.
"I believe it to be an excellent investment," he remarked coolly, "though I own I didn't know what he wanted it for at the time."
"And you don't know now?" she broke in passionately. "There it stands--despicable utterly--facing the sea--that sea." She pointed to it appealingly.
Ned looked out to the clear horizon, so definite yet so undefined, where a liner, after taking its bearings from the lighthouse far away to the west, was steering straight up Channel. It seemed to glide evenly between sea and sky, and yet here the thunder of each wave filled the air with sound. Ay! a sea not to be safely faced by anything despicable.
"You are letting this beast of an hotel get on your mind, Nell," he said, after a pause. "After all, half the white and coloured cliffs of Old England are so desecrated----"
"Don't excuse it," she interrupted almost fiercely; "it's inexcusable. When I think what Jeff would have said--Jeff who loved every stone--dear old Jeff----" She broke off and hid her face in her hands.
"Curse South Africa!" said Ned under his breath.
She looked up after a while. "You see," she began more composedly, "what stings is that it is all done for me; and I--fifty pounds a year would keep me going as a hospital nurse; and I shall never be anything else, Ned, never! I lost everything for myself seven years ago, and what I have belongs to others. And there is so much in the past for which atonement should be made. You don't belong to the Pentreaths, you see; but they were a wild race--Betty Cam, as you reminded me! Think of her! Why, Ned, when I see at night that hateful place all lit up with electric light and shining far, far out to sea, I feel as if we were doing it all over again! Luring ships to the rocks!"
"My dear Nell, what an imagination you've got!" expostulated her cousin.
She pulled herself up. "Have I? But it is so useless. And it seems to get worse and worse since Mr. Hirsch came in. He is at the Keep now, arranging for a light railway. And oh, Ned! the place where we used to picnic as children--you remember, of course--is all placarded as 'eligible building-sites.'"
Ned whistled, and looked out to sea. As he had said, the white cliffs of Marine England were so disfigured everywhere; but that did not bring much consolation for the destruction of absolute beauty.
"Well," he said, "I only hope some one may think them so, and that the hotel is crowded up to the garrets. It's got to be; for the farmers and the little shopkeepers at Haverton, who put their piles into it--because my uncle did--will expect a dividend!"
"And the others too," she added bitterly. "You know Mr. Hirsch has floated it. It's quoted on the Stock Exchange now, and they are going to run up select jerry-built villas with the money they get on the new shares, as they ran up the jerry-built hotel----"
"With mine," laughed Ned, a trifle uneasily. "Well, my dear child, I hadn't any intention of building it--but it's there--and let us come and look at it. It can't help, can it, being in a lovely spot?"
"Can't it?" she said coldly; "but I try to forget its existence--it gets on my nerves."
"Apparently," he said quietly.
"And so it would on yours," she retorted, "if you lived within hail of it, and nothing else was talked about day and night. But there--let's leave it alone! You can see it on your way to the 'Crooked Ewe.' We shall expect you to lunch, of course."
"Thanks," he replied; "and--and I think you'll like the Scotch doctor--he is so awfully keen. So full too of his work at Blackborough. He is house-surgeon, I think, to some hospital there."
Her face, a moment before, almost sullen in its obstinate objection, lit up at once. "Not St. Peter's!" she cried. "How interesting---- Why! it is the best, they say, in the kingdom; and I mean to have my training in the children's ward there."
"You look rather as if you ought to go there as a patient, Nell," he replied, shaking his head; "and you are a perfect child still. I wonder if you will ever learn----"
"What?" she asked quickly.
"Yourself," he laughed, as he started up the scaur.
Betty Cam's chair lay at the top; a huge slab of gneiss with another forming the back, bearing no particular resemblance to a chair at all. Still there it was that Betty Cam, the witch, used to sit, and, after lighting her false fire, fling her arms about and mutter incantations till deadly storms arose.
Many are such stories, current on the wild west coast, and still firmly believed of the people; none perhaps better authenticated than this, that on the nights of fierce sou'westers a glow of light could still be seen at Betty Cam's chair, and that more than once the ghost of the ghostly Indiaman which, with all sails set, had sailed one awful winter's night straight up the bay, straight over the cliff, nipped up Betty Cam, and sailed away with her right over far Darty-moor to Hell, had been seen pursuing the same extraordinary course.
Ned felt as if he could have put other folk aboard for that trip, as, cresting the hill-top, he came full in sight of the Sea-view Hotel.
He sat down promptly on the chair, and gave a low whistle of dismay.
Cam's point, as he had known it, that gorse-covered promontory sheer down in purpling cliff to the blue-green sea, was gone. In its place was an ineffectual attempt at a--at a tea-garden! Winding walks here, winding walks there, meandering toward aimless summer-houses, kiosks, bandstands, which were recklessly scattered about the bare soil. For it was bare. Gorse would grow there, or scented purple thyme, or any of the innumerable small aromatic herbs which the south-west wind loves, but grass and most garden flowers were helpless before the constant breeze, which, instant in season and out of season, swept over the point laden with salt, and even in this flat, calm, June weather making the steel guy-ropes of the flag-staff hum like a hive of swarming bees.
As for the Sea--view--ye gods! the pestilential obviousness of that name!--Hotel, if it also were not guyed by ropes it looked as if it would be the better of it. What was it, standing on the very edge of the cliff--Italian--Greek--Gothic--or a Swiss chalet? There were reminiscences of all in its medley of inconsequent towers, gables, battlements, balconies. A lunatic asylum built by the patients! Utterly irrational, utterly out of touch with its surroundings of earth, and sea, and sky. Yes! quite antagonistic to the little fishing village in the bay below, to the supreme fairness of the coast trending away westward in headland after headland. Above all, absolutely unfit to face that wide waste of water, so smooth, so silent on the far horizon, so restless, so clamorous in its assault on the near cliffs. You could hear the angry roar of the waves on the rocks, see the weather--stains on those thin walls.
And as he watched a strange thing came about. In every wide window of the huge façade a blaze of light showed, and round the arches hung with lamps in the tea-garden, a multi-coloured flash shone for a second, and then went out again.
They must be trying the electric light. Then he laughed suddenly. It tickled his fancy--apt to be vagrant--to think how this gigantic modern sham, full of false civilisation, full of lifts, lounges, bars, winter-gardens, a real up-to-date, twentieth-century substitute for a home, engineered on the latest American lines, must look to any home-bound ship passing up channel. A beacon distinctly; but a beacon warning the world against what?
"Trinity House and Betty Cam had better settle it between them," he muttered to himself, as, turning at right angles, he set off over the moorland to the "Crooked Ewe," where Peter Ramsay and Ted Cruttenden were awaiting him.
He had picked up the former crossing over from Cardiff to Ilfracombe, and finding he had a few days to spare before taking up his new appointment, Ned had asked him to come on with him and see the prettiest part of Cornwall, and perhaps stop a night with his uncle Sir Geoffrey Pentreath--if there was room.
He wondered rather how Helen had found this room, as he looked round the long lunch table; but, as his uncle confided to him, half of the guests belonged to the hotel. There had been a committee of ways and means, and several people--notably Mr. Robert Jenkin, who was sitting next Helen--were over from Wellhampton for the day. Yes! that was Mr. Hirsch at her other side, a most able man, but rather too near hisbête noire, Mr. Jenkin, to show to advantage.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Hirsch was making himself extremely disagreeable to his enemy by insisting on keeping the conversation at a much higher level of culture than any to which Mr. Jenkin could aspire, for he had begun and gone on with life for a considerable time as a local ironmonger. Then fortune had favoured him, and he became the local millionaire, remaining still, however, so Mr. Hirsch declared, "the petty tradesman."
The latter was a very clever, very dapper little German Jew, with nothing to show his ancestry and his age, except a slight foreign lisp, and a still more slight tendency to size below the last button of his waistcoat, a tendency which gave him more concern than it need have done, since it really only showed in profile. For the rest, he was inscrutably good-natured. Money stuck to him, and his many kindnesses never interfered with his keen eye for business--or beauty.
It was Helen's handsome, melancholy face which had been the secret of his interest in Sir Geoffrey's venture; on the principle of opposites, it is to be supposed, since he was a frank pagan, abon viveurborn.
So he talked lightly of Rome, and a few of the crowned heads of Europe with whom he had a bowing acquaintance; but finding this rather too interesting to Mr. Jenkin, he settled down on Bayreuth, and gossipedParsifal, becoming after a time really engrossed, and saying almost with tears in his eyes, "Ah! my dear lady, how I should love to show you it."
He felt seriously sentimental; in truth, the remark was as near a proposal as he had gone for quite a number of years.
"We intend, Mrs. Tressilian," put in Mr. Jenkin, not to be outdone, "to get the Yaller Peking band down from the Halls durin' our season--July-August. It'll play durin' meals, an' after dinner in the Pirates' Pavilion. An' I'm sure, Mrs. Tressilian, the conductor--he ain't really a Chinaman, ma'am, the pig-tail bein' only a thing to catch on--ha! ha! ha! that ain't a bad joke, is it, Hirsch? Pig-tails a thing to catch on to--ha! ha! ha!"
Mr. Hirsch surveyed him with distasteful wonder.
"You don't wear one, do you, Mr. Jenkin?" he asked suavely, his foreign accent coming out, as it always did, when he was annoyed.
"No, sir, I don't," snapped his adversary; "but as I was sayin', ma'am, I'm sure if you had a hankerin' after any particular tune, he'd play it. I don't know about Percival, but hisrepertoireof Cake Walk is the first, I'm told, in Europe."
Meanwhile Ned Blackborough was taking stock of the rest of the company. On the whole--queer! The Wrexhams he knew, of course. She went in for spiritualism and he for spirits; both good enough sorts even at that; but the bulk smelt distinctly of money.
And his uncle?
Ned had not seen him for over a year, and he was frankly taken aback by the change in him. His face, weakly handsome as ever, hale still in its thin ruddiness, had lost the cheery look which had survived even the death of his only son, who had "died as a Pentreath should." This and such vague comfortings regarding "rest," and being "with his mother," and of the youthful company whom "the gods love,"--comfortings with which humanity has always met bereavement, had not only been on his lips, but in his heart. He had always been an optimist--and now? Anxiety sat on every feature. The man was haggard. And what was this grievance against Helen which made such sentences as "Mrs. Tressilian will have her own opinion, no doubt," or "You must ask my daughter; I cannot answer for her," quite noticeably frequent in his conversation.
As he sat listening while his next-door neighbour, a very talkative and a very deaf lady, assured him that her motor, which she had bought in Paris, was the only one of its kind in England, and that it was absolutely, entirely, shakeless and noiseless, Lord Blackborough had time for cogitation.
They were very smart people, and it was a very smart luncheon: champagne,pâte-de-foie en aspic, liquers, and cigarettes on the lawn. A newrégimecertainly for the kindly old Keep, where, as a boy, he had spent his holidays with his aunt, his mother's sister. Yes! a newrégime, especially if thechauffeurswere being similarly regaled downstairs!
And what a fine old place it was! set so deep out of the way of the wind in a hollow of old pines and oaks, and yet so close to the sea that even now the hollow boom of the Atlantic waves sounded against the shrill voices of those smart women as a bassoon sounds against a violin. Ay! and in the winter sou'-westers, the rush and hush of the sea blent with the rush and hush of the leaves. He could imagine Betty Cam--h'm, that was Helen's fault for being so tragic! He looked round for her, and saw her talking to Dr. Ramsay. Ted also was well employed, hanging on Mr. Hirsch's lips as he spoke airily of bulls and bears. Ted, if he didn't take care, would become a zoologist also!
So thought Ned Blackborough as he wandered away from the lawns that were still kept smooth and green, towards the wilderness of garden beyond. And the thought of money bringing the thought of Aura, he smiled, lit a cigar, and went still further afield to find a certain peach tree that used to have peaches on it.
The others were happy, why should he not have his share of enjoyment?
As a matter of fact, however, Helen and Dr. Ramsay were not enjoying themselves; at leastshewas not, for he had met her assertion that the one wish of her life ("since my husband's death seven years ago," being interpolated with the usual note of resigned reverence in her voice) had been to be a hospital nurse, with a dubious shake of the head.
"I wouldn't if I were you," he said slowly. "I rather doubt your being fit for it. One requires a lot of stamina."
She stared at him almost haughtily. "But I am very strong, I assure you," she replied, with a smile of great tolerance, "I daresay I look pale--for the Cornish coast; but, oh! I am very strong!"
"Physically, perhaps." His Scotch accent gave the qualification great precision.
"Then, mentally----" she almost gasped.
"Mentally, no," he replied quite calmly.
"Excuse me," she remarked, "but I really do not think you know me well enough."
"Do I not?" he remarked, his brown eyes smiling into hers; "you forget that I am a doctor, and, Mrs. Tressilian, your nervous system is at the present moment--mind you, it's no blame--in absolutely unstable equilibrium."
"Unstable equilibrium! Really, Dr. Ramsay"
"My dear lady," he said, "I have been thinking all lunchtime that if you would only allow yourself to be hypnotised, you would be clairvoyant. I shouldn't wonder if you would be able to project yourself! and think what that might mean! Why, you might give us a clue----" he paused quite excited.
"And what has that to do with nursing?" she asked coldly.
"It makes for a temperament that is too--what shall I call it?--unpractical. You have a gift--a great gift--but it is not for nursing; you are too sentimental."
"And how do you arrive at that conclusion?" she asked, interested in spite of herself.
"Excuse me!" He touched the muslin cuff she wore with a hand she could not help admiring: it was so shapely, so strong, so skilful-looking, albeit so small for a man of his height.
Yet her eyes flashed a quick challenge at him. "You mean that it is sentimental and unpractical to mourn those one loves. I do not agree with you."
The sunlight glinting through his eyes turned them almost to amber. There was a world of gentle raillery in them at which, however, it was impossible to be angry.
"To wear your heart on your sleeve?--yes," he replied. "Ah, Mrs. Tressilian, believe me, you are lost to the world! What a wife you would have made with your ardent imagination to some grovelling slave tied down, as I am, by the nose, to the body of things! But that is another story, and so is clairvoyance, though in your present state I'm convinced you could see. The point at issue remains that----" he paused.
"Well!" she asked almost eagerly.
He laughed. "My patients say I prescribe Paradise, when I beg them not to fash themselves. But there is one thing I have found out. I can't tell you why, but worry stops the working of the vital machine. It gets into the cogs somehow and clogs the wheels. Then you fall back on reserve-force, and having exhausted that, feel exhausted. We doctors nowadays are helpless before the feeling of hustle. We prescribe rest-cures, but you can worry as much, perhaps more, on the flat of the back! The remedy lies with the patient. And you have so much imagination, Mrs. Tressilian. Used cheerfully, it is the most valuable therapeutic agent we have. Ah! here comes your father. Some of the hotel people want to take us all back to tea, and I expect he is coming to ask you about it."
She looked at him steadily, but he showed no consciousness, and she turned to meet Sir Geoffrey feeling baffled. She had known about and had meant to avoid this tea; but something in the very directness of Dr. Ramsay's unsought diagnosis roused her to show him its incorrectness.
Anyhow she found herself rather to her disgust not only going to the hotel, but going in the front seat of Mr. Hirsch's motor.
And once in the wide, south-western verandah--which was built so close to the perpendicular cliff that leaning over the balustrade you could see nothing but the sea--while the salt wind clung to her cheek like the fierce kiss of a lover, bringing with it an unwonted flush of colour, she was forced to admit that the place had its charms; that it was not all vulgarised. There was laughter and music, of course (both of them loud), about the tea-tables, but at the further end comparative peace reigned around the couch of an invalid lady, whose little girl was apparently a great friend of Sir Geoffrey's. He was always so good to children, she remembered with a pang, picturing herself as she was at little Maidie's age.
The child's mother, Amy Massingham, was very dark--dark, with those large lustrous eyes, and very white teeth, which suggest Indian blood; and she must have been beautiful before languor and pallor had come instead of rich colour and vivacity. Still, even at her best she could never have touched the exceeding brightness and beauty of her little daughter Maidie. She was incomparable. A little vivid tropical bird flitting about Sir Geoffrey, chattering, her small round face glowing with brilliant tints, sparkling, dimpling, her teeth showing in a flash of smiles that seemed to irradiate her body and soul, while her cloud of dark hair, still golden bronze at its curly tips, floated about with her.
She was like a ripe pomegranate, yellow and red-brown in her dainty little yellow silk frock.
Perched now on Sir Geoffrey's long lap, she was stroking his soft moleskin knees, and swinging herself backwards and forwards rhythmically.
"And when daddie comes from India," she insisted, "we won't go 'way and leave 'oo, Sir Geoffley, will we, mumsie? We'em goin' to stop at Seaview always, an' always, an' always. Ain't we, mums?"
Amy Massingham smiled gently: she did everything so very gently that she failed, as it were, to do anything at all. Her impact was not strong enough to move any fixed object.
"Well, my precious! It would be delightful, and dear Sir Geoffrey is so kind, isn't he? but I'm afraid dadda can't manage it. You see, Mrs. Tressilian, darling old Dick is only home on short leave--really only to see me--but his people will want to have him first thing."
"Oh, mumsie! We'se goin' to have him the firstest thing of all," protested Maidie, who was now on the floor, fondling the big curly retriever who was always Sir Geoffrey's shadow, "for his ship'll pass over there--right over there, don't you see, Mrs. T'sllian."
She was by this time leaning over the balustrade beside Helen and looked up at her--such a sparkling, brilliant little maid!--with fearless eye. Something in the childless woman's heart went out to her, and beyond her again to the grave far away under the orange-trees of the man who was dying when she married him. If she could have had such a child!--it had been better, perhaps.
"Supposing we were to put up a signal here, saying, 'Mumsie and Maidie waiting for you,' wouldn't it be fun?" she said, smiling.
"Will you do it?" said the child quickly.
She shook her head. "It was only supposing, Maidie," she replied.
The little brilliant creature's face fell. "Oh! I wis' you would--make 'em stop right here, just this corner. I want him to stop, an' then I'd go on the ship too, an' sail, an' sail, an' sail." She had forgotten her disappointment in the new idea. That is what the world does generally, thought Helen; and yet----
"I suppose you love your father, don't you, Maidie?" she asked suddenly.
The child looked at her gravely. "'Normous much," she replied, repeating her stock phrase. "An' I love Sir Geoffley 'normous much too. We 're goin' to live together, an' I'm to be his darlin' for ever an' ever an' nay! Ain't we? Ain't we?"
And she flung herself into his arms as he approached them, an unreserved joyous bundle of curls, smiles, and dimples. His face relaxed from the hard look of pressing anxiety it had worn all day. He caught the child up, tossing her like a feather above his long length, then cuddling her close to kiss.
"For ever, and ever, and aye!" he echoed; "Never fear, Maidie, I'm yours to command."
Then he set her down and turned to his daughter. "Helen!" he said, "I've some business here which may keep me awhile. You'll drive back with Hirsch, of course."
She did not meet his eyes, but kept hers far out at sea.
"I think not, father," she said gently, "I want to walk home with Ned. I have something to say to him."
Sir Geoffrey looked at her resentfully. "Ned has found a sick Indian friend upstairs and won't be available--you'd better go."
She turned round then. "No, father, I can't. It isn't fair--on him. Even coming here----" She broke off, and turned to the sea again.
He came closer, hesitated. "Nell," he said almost pitifully, "can't you--to please me? He really is a good fellow at bottom. I wouldn't ask it otherwise. It would free me--from you don't know what. And, my God! in London half the pretty women one meets are married to such awful bounders."
"It is because Mr. Hirsch isn't a bounder--because he really is in some ways a good fellow," she said, "that I will not--I can walk back with the others."
He stood looking at her with anger and affection in his eye for a moment, then strode off to say good-bye to Mrs. Massingham.
"I suppose your husband may drop in any moment," he said cheerfully.
"Any moment," she echoed, "we are so excited, Maidie and I. This morning we saw such a big vessel passing, right away on the horizon. The manager thought it might be a transport."
Maidie looked up and nodded her cloud of curls. "But it wasn't, you see," she said; "for she's--(here she nodded again at Helen)--goin' to signal 'Stop here!'"
"That was only supposing, Maidie!"
"Supposing an' supposing an' supposin'. 'Free times 'free is 'free," quoted Maidie slyly, "Just you wait an' see."
"Yes! wait and see," laughed Sir Geoffrey; "Goodbye, little one! Next time, I suppose, daddy will have put my nose out of joint, and you won't have anything to say to me--eh?"
She grew crimson to her ear-tips. "Never! never! never!" she cried, stamping her foot wilfully; "we's goin' to live together for everan'everan'--aye!"
The bystanders laughed at her sudden passion, and Sir Geoffrey's thin, ruddy face actually flushed a still deeper red.
"All right, little lady," he said half-sheepishly. "Never you fear! I'll keep my promise for ever an' never an'-naye!"
The London footman was rolling out the dressing-gong as if he had been apprenticed to a bronze, when Ned Blackborough returned from his sick friend at the Seaview Hotel; but he took no heed to its warning, and turning down a side passage sought a room in the older part of the house where, as a rule, his uncle was to be found.
And sure enough, there he was, seated at his so-called writing-table, and turning round a trifle startled, pen in hand, at the sound of the opening door. But Ned's quick eye detected neither paper nor ink. The pen, then, was a mere shelter against the unlooked-for visitor.
It was a quaint room, full from floor to ceiling of the man and his immediate forbears, that succession of Sir Richards and Sir Geoffreys who had inherited the ever-lessening estate of Pentreath for the last two hundred years. Fishing-rods, guns, hunting-horns, and dueling-pistols testified to their amusements, a tin box labelled "Pentreath Estate Records," to their occupation, and a complete set of theAnnual RegisterandGentleman's Magazineto their literary tastes. There was a weighing-machine also, and in a glass case the sword presented to the then Sir Richard by Prince Charlie; for the Pentreaths were always on the losing side in everything. Yet they had always held their heads high in the past.
But now Sir Geoffrey's haggard face looked as if it had been seeking refuge in the hands, one of which he held out in kindly greeting.
"So it's you, Ned!--like old times. I'm glad to see you back again, my boy."
"And I'm glad to be back, sir," he replied, paused, and then feeling there was no good in beating about the bush, made a plunge.
"I've got something to say to you, sir. We are leaving to-morrow morning, and I may not have another opportunity----" he paused again.
"Not much time before dinner," said Sir Geoffrey, consulting his watch. "But fire away. Going to get married?--eh?"
"Perhaps," said Ned coolly, "but this is about the hotel."
"Damn the hotel! What's up now?" Never was curse more heartily or more hopelessly given. "Well--go on."
"I don't know who is responsible for installing the electric light, but it isn't safe. The wires are always fusing. They keep it very dark, but my friend--who is a bit of an electrical engineer himself--found out when he was awake last night----"
Sir Geoffrey's face was hidden by his hand again as he interrupted Ned with a short laugh.
"Oh! that's it--why, they always 'krab' each other's work--always! And--and your money's safe enough now; the place is insured."
"I wasn't thinking of the money, sir," cried Ned outraged. "I was thinking of all those women and children."
Sir Geoffrey's face came up from his hand full of such passionate resentment that Ned was fairly startled. "By Gad, sir!" he cried, "and what right have you to suppose I don't think of them? night and day, sir--day and night!" Then his eyes finding Ned's, he stretched out his hand towards him in almost childish helplessness. "Oh, Ned! Ned!" he said, "you can't think what a relief it is to talk of this with--with one of ourselves--with--with a gentleman instead of a cursed money grubber--though I will say this for Hirsch, he isn't a cad."
"Then you've known of this before, sir," said Ned slowly. "I see----"
"Known! My God! Ned, what haven't I known since the devil entered into me to start this thing! I wouldn't tell you, Ned, for I knew you'd be like Helen; but I told the heir, and he liked it. All he wants is money. And I--all I wanted was to make something--just something for Helen after poor old Jeff--went. He'd have looked after her, you see--the Pentreaths have always kept our women well--always cared for them. But he died! Ay!"--here his trembling lip stiffened itself, "died as a Pentreath should for his Queen and his country."
In the pause that ensued Ned thought bitterly that he had died in an attempt to hold the yeomanry of England from showing the road to the rear. That was the truth, and behind that truth what a record of ignorance, ineptitude, greed of gain. Nothing for nothing, not even patriotism, was the modern motto; a cheap loaf and a disintegrated empire--caveat emptoreven in the face of war.
"You can't believe it all, Ned," went on Sir Geoffrey, speaking now with less passion but more eagerness, as if his memories brimmed over, "until you've been through with it. I meant it all to be above board, but it wasn't. The jobbery was awful. Every man just clamouring for money. A gentleman oughtn't to touch a thing like that--it's pitch, Ned. He has to keep in with builders and masons and plumbers--Oh, my God!--the plumbers!--all thinking of nothing but 'pay, pay, pay.' Ah! Kipling knew the game when he wrote that refrain for England's heroism, her patriotism. It will go down to the ages, Ned, as one man's insight into what we English are becoming." He was walking up and down the room now, restlessly. "They were all bad, but Jenkin was the worst--and he ought to have known. It was his nephew who put in the electric plant. You'll say I ought to have struck, Ned, and so I ought, but your money was gone, Ned, and their's too, poor devils!--a lot of the farmers and people only put in a few pounds because it was my idea, you see. It had to go on. And what did I know about sea-sand and second-class putty. It isn't gentleman's work and that's a fact. But the jolly old Atlantic knew sharp enough and sent salt through the plaster and sea-spray through the concrete.... Then, when we were in a bad way, and Jenkin--pettifogging tradesman!--all for saving every penny, I met Hirsch. Between ourselves, Ned, he began by fancying Helen, and I--I--well! He isn't a cad, you know, and half those men one meets are; yet their wives don't--don't seem to mind."
He paused and looked at Ned Blackborough appealingly, but he was inexorable.
"Hardly the man I should have thought you'd have chosen, sir, as the father of your grandchildren."
Sir Geoffrey took it full in the face without flinching. "No," he said simply, "I suppose not. But I've gone down, Ned, gone down terribly. I sometimes wonder if she--if your aunt, I mean, would know me again if--if I saw her."
He took a turn or two without speaking, then gave an afterthought excuse which made Ned smile, and yet feel inclined to curse.
"But there mightn't be any children, you know. What good would they be--the old place has gone from the Pentreaths--gone utterly. Let me see--where was I? Oh yes! Hirsch came and saw it, and said it was the finest site in Britain. And so it is. There's not a better for health or beauty than Cam's point. So he put us on our feet again, and spent an awful lot on what he called 'colour wash.' At least it seems an awful lot to me, and Jenkin was wild. But we had to run it, or the new company wouldn't have caught on--we have to make it fizz, you see--but I wish to God I'd never begun,--I wish to God I'd never begun----"
He was still walking up and down muttering to himself.
"And meanwhile," asked Ned, in spite of his supreme pity, "what is to be done? The wires may fuse any moment--so Charteris thinks----"
Sir Geoffrey caught at the doubt--"It's not so bad as that--I don't think it's so bad. When the season's over and the new company secure, we shall put a new plant in and insure the place properly. And meanwhile we are awfully careful. I was two hours there to-day myself, seeing what the workmen had done; and it was quite a little thing--put out in a moment."
"But you don't know anything about electricity, do you, sir?" asked Ned quietly, "and I thought you said it was insured."
Sir Geoffrey's face reddened. "Yes, in a way. Hirsch insured when he came in. He wouldn't put his money in without it."
"Would he put his wife and children in, I wonder?" asked Ned bitterly. "But I still don't quite understand about the insurance----"
Sir Geoffrey fidgeted. "I'll get Hirsch to explain. It's all right, I believe, though. But they'll insure anything nowadays, if you pay a decent premium--any mortal thing." He paused and stood the image of hopeless perplexity; and then--rather to his relief--the dinner gong sounded. "Good Lord! And I'm not dressed," he muttered, "we'd better go."
But as he reached the stairs where they divided, he held out that friendly, welcoming, family hand again, saying:--"Thanks, Ned, it's been such an awful relief not to be thinking of money. I suppose when one comes into so much as you have, that--that you don't think of it any more?"
Was it so, Ned Blackborough wondered. Hardly; for Mr. Hirsch had millions and still thought of more. No! he personally had been tired of money for some time.Caveat emptorwas an excellent legal if not absolutely moral axiom; but when men allowed your millions to confuse the issue in their treatment of you, then--then one could wish the millions were not in the equation!
And of late--ever, in fact, since he had left the floating deposit and had seen Aura--he smiled at the remembrance of her standing framed in scarlet and white, handing back the sovereign with that peremptory "Take it please!"
Why should not he and she go forth in the wilderness in their sandalled feet to forget--and to remember? That was life. To forget so much, and to remember so much that one had forgotten.
He pulled himself up after a time from the unaccustomed line of thought or reverie, telling himself it was all nonsense--sheer nonsense. Yet it was attractive.
Suddenly the words "Go! sell all that thou hast," recurred to him, making him wonder if it were a hard saying or no. For the moment he felt inclined to obey it literally.
They were halfway through dinner ere Lord Blackborough appeared at the table. To begin with he had wired to his valet for dress clothes, and, accustomed to the routine of good service, had expected to find them in his room. They were not, however, and only by the help of a tearful little Cornish maiden at whom all the racketty job servants from London were swearing profusely as she fled about trying to do everything at once, did he discover his suit-case in the servants' hall, where two lordlychauffeursaccosted him scornfully as some one's belated valet. He escaped from them--and from the cook who, solemnly drunk, was using inconceivable language to theentréeshe was dishing up--only to find that his man had forgotten to put the studs in his shirt. Whereupon he also cursed as he broke his finger-nails over the job. And yet all the time at the back of his brain, the thought of Aura lingered, and in the front of it his uncle's face, so foolishly, childishly, helplessly wanting money.
What else had the old man expected but chicanery when he dabbled in the Pool. It was nothing but a clutching whirlpool of hands trying to grasp at a golden sovereign in the centre! Every one clutched, he as much as any one. Then with a jar, his mind reverted to the shade of many a tree he had seen in India, where men lived, and apparently lived happily, possessed of nothing but their souls, devoid of all things save the inevitable garment of flesh.
The shade of a Bo-tree!
This certainly was not it, he thought, as with a smiling apology he slipped into the empty place and found himself in the battle-ground of a heated discussion.
A trifle dazzling surely, these lights and flowers and fair women. Helen looked well in white at the head of the table between Mr. Hirsch and Dr. Ramsay; and, thank Heaven! she had left off weepers in the evening. What a difference there was between lace and stiff crimped muslin; and how young she looked.
The rapidity of thought is immeasurable, the velocity of its vibration untranslatable in terms of mere human flesh and blood. These thoughts and millions of others suggested by the wholeentouragewhich in a second became part of Ned Blackborough's life-experience, passed into his mind and left him free at once to listen to his cousin's gay--
"Here's Ned! I'll appeal to him! Do you think it fair that we women shouldn't have votes?"
"We shall have to settle our terminology first, Helen," he replied in the same tone. "What is fair? I presume what Mrs. Tressilian considers to be right."
"Thatisn't fair if you like," she retorted. "Fair is"--she paused.
"Exactly so!" laughed Peter Ramsay. "Is there an outside standard or is there not? That is the question."
Mr. Hirsch, who always wore white waistcoats in the evening (they were not so becoming as black ones) answered it.
"Of course there is a standard--the general consensus of opinion."
"Made up of units?" suggested Dr. Ramsay.
"Quite so!" retorted the financier, "but it gives the limit of safety. Between certain lines you can negotiate--even on the Stock Exchange, ha, ha!" His laugh was curiously explosive and shook him from head to foot.
"But surely thereisa standard," said Helen softly.
"There is a standard which, collectively, we accept, Helen. It comes back in the end to our personal verdict, I'm afraid," said her cousin, "and it is curious how that verdict varies," he continued addressing Mr. Hirsch. "You, I expect, believe in the law of supply and demand. Now, I feel, somehow, that if I were to charge a thousand pounds for a glass of water which a distracted husband wanted for his dying wife, I should be doing a detestably mean thing, even though the man was quite willing and able to pay for it." There was a pause.
"That is rather a stiff example," said Ted Cruttenden; "but theoretically, a man surely has the right to get the best price he can for his wares; without that axiom commerce would come to an end."
"What would the world be without it, I wonder?" remarked Dr. Ramsay. "Supposing it was made penal for any one to take more than ten per cent. profit----"
"I should be a pauper," laughed Mr. Hirsch, his bright eyes dancing. "That would not suit me at all. Why, I should have nothing over to give away, and my charities cover my sins. Imagine it, a world where there was no 'coup,' where your brains were of no use to you. Pah!" He poured himself out a glass of water abstractedly, and drank it as if to take away the taste.
He was in great form that night, the rebuff of Helen's refusal to drive home with him having acted on his abundant vitality much as the attempt of a rival on the Stock Exchange to limit his freedom of action would have done, that is, it stimulated his determination to do as he chose.
And the others seemed in high spirits also, so that even Ned forgot the very existence of the Seaview Hotel, until some one said laughingly that there must be electricity in the air, or magnetism, or hypnotism, and suggested aséanceof some kind.
"No," cried Lady Wrexham, who posed as being well in with the Psychical Research Society. "Let us crystal gaze--or stay, a magic mirror. Only a little ink in the palm of the hand, Mrs. Tresillian. It so often comes off when I'm in the room, and I'm sure you could 'scry,' I see it in your eyes."
Helen's caught Dr. Ramsay's instantly, almost resentfully, but he was silent.
"Perhaps I'm a witch also, who knows?" she said, speaking at him. "Old Betty Cam was an ancestress of ours, wasn't she, father? and she was the devil's own warlock. But you shan't be disappointed, Lady Wrexham. There is a real magical crystal that came from Thibet somewhere in the house. I will find it for you to-morrow, or rather to-day, for it is past twelve o'clock. Time for every one who isn't a witch to be in her bed, surely."
There was a decision about the remark which would not be gainsaid, so the ladies, some with, some without lights, dawdled upstairs like wise and foolish virgins, calling down jokes and good-nights to the men on their way to the billiard-room, while Ned Blackborough, seizing his opportunity, waylaid Mr. Hirsch and begged for five minutes in Sir Geoffrey's den.
"About the hotel," echoed Mr. Hirsch when Ned broached the subject. "Pardon!But excuse me if I change my cigarette for a cigar. There is always so much to be said concerning that business."
He spoke with a smile, but his face had hardened at once, and Ned, listening, could not but admire his companion's uncompromising directness. He was aware of course, he said, that the money Sir Geoffrey had invested was a loan from Lord Blackborough, and therefore he treated him, as a shareholder, a large shareholder, with absolute freedom.
Well! Mr. Hirsch had found Sir Geoffrey in difficulties, and had helped him. Why? Because, having a greatpenchantfor Mrs. Tressilian, he was glad to be of use. The hotel would practically have to be rebuilt. At present its condition would disgrace a jerry-built villa near London. And they had perpetrated this inconceivable sham in full face of the Atlantic.
But it was always the way when such schemes were not properly floated at first. There never was enough money to allow for the inevitable leakage. Then little men had little ways, and the methods of a tuppenny--ha' penny ring, like this had been, were simply horrible.
But the site was gigantic, absolutely gigantic, and if you could only get rid of that bloated mechanic Jenkin and his gang, you could make anything of it. But they were incurably vulgar--they had wanted a gramaphone in the hall, they allowed one in the steward's room.
The words reminded Ned that, as he walked up to the hotel, lost in admiration of that marvellous sea surging against the sheer cliff, he had been greeted by shrieks of laughter and the sound of a double shuffle done to the latest music hall "catch on." And he smiled. Hirsch was right. It was incurably vulgar. Who was it who said that, since nowadays he had to choose between solitude and vulgarity, he chose the former?
Mr. Hirsch's cigar had actually gone out in his irritation, but he was alight again and went on.
Regarding the insurance? Yes. He had made a temporary arrangement to secure his own money and Sir Geoffrey's, and a little over; you could secure anything nowadays by a high enough premium. In fact, the best thing that could happen now, if he might be excused for saying so, was--was a fresh start--without Jenkin! The hotel would practically have to be rebuilt anyhow at the end of the season. Meanwhile, regarding the electric light. It was bad--that was Jenkin again--but they were exercising extreme care, and could do no more.
"But supposing," began Ned.
"My dear Lord Blackborough," said Mr. Hirsch, with a curious smile as he arose and pulled down his white waistcoat, "I never deal in suppositions. As a business man, I can't afford it. I know this has been worrying Sir Geoffrey, who has old-fashioned ideas of responsibility, but--ah! here he comes. I was just saying, sir, how disturbed you were this morning about the slight alarm at the Seaview last night. But, as I told you, it really lessens the odds of its occurring again. To make any fuss just at present, when you need to get all the money you can in order to start the thing fair, would be suicidal. I don't, in fact, see that we are bound to do any more than we are doing. There is a certain risk in all large buildings as badly supplied with water as this one is. But surely one must credit people with eyes.Caveat Emptor!Lord Blackborough,Caveat Emptor!That immoral but comfortable piece of wisdom is the backbone of all reasonable speculation. Good-night. If I may, I'll have some whisky and water in the billiard room on my way upstairs."
Ned came back from the door and looked at his uncle.
"Well, sir," he said, "what is to be done?"
Sir Geoffrey's face was a study of irresolution. "Let's leave it till to-morrow, Ned," he said at last; "the night will bring wisdom. But I expect Hirsch is right. He has a wonderfully clear head; and I only wish that Helen----"
"I would leave Helen out of the business if I were you, sir," interrupted Ned angrily.
It was intolerable to think of her as possible part payment. As he lit his candle and made his way to the old wing, "among the ruins," as she called it, he told himself that he had half a mind to buy out all other interests and spend an extra thousand or two in throwing the whole gim-crack building over the cliffs. And it was all so useless! Helen didn't want the money; she was craving to live on an hospital nurse's pay.
"Ned," said a voice at the door, just as he had taken off his coat, "let me in, please, I must see you."
It was Helen herself. Her eyes were blazing bright, her face was pale. She had flung a white shawl over her bare shoulders, yet she shivered.
"Ned," she said swiftly, "thank God you're here! You must come with me--you will, won't you? Put on your thick shoes and come as you are. It is quite warm--there is only a fog."
"Come," he echoed, "come where?"
She seemed a trifle confused, and passed her hand over her forehead.
"Down to the point, of course; they must be warned----"
"Warned of what? What have you heard?"
"I didn't hear, I saw. Ah! do come quick, I ought to be there, you know, showing a light."
She spoke in curiously even tones, and for an instant Ned thought she was sleep-walking or dreaming. One of those deadly dreams of excessive hurry in which, no matter what you do, thought leaves the labouring body far behind.
"You saw it! But where, and what?"
She was silent for a second, looking at him half-dazed, then she spoke quite naturally. "It was in the crystal--the one they brought from Thibet. He said I could, and so I saw----"
Suddenly her whole bearing changed.
"Fire! fire! fire!" The cry, loud and clear, came as she turned and fled, he after her down the dark passage, led by the glimmer of her white gown.
Had she gone mad, or had she really seen something?
There was a little outside door, once the postern gate of the old Keep, which opened at the angle of the wing and the main part of the house. He followed her through that, losing her almost immediately in the dense white fog which clung to the damp walls. The windows of Sir Geoffrey's study were open, and as he ran past them, following the path, he heard something which sent the blood in a wild leap through his veins. It was a furious insistent ringing of the telephone call bell, which Sir Geoffrey, in his first delight with his new toy on the point, had put in so that he might be constantly in touch with the workmen.
Then somethingwaswrong. What? As he spurted ahead towards Helen's ghost-like figure seen in the clearer atmosphere beyond, he asked himself how she could have known.
"Where are you going?" he called breathlessly, "that isn't the way to the hotel."
She turned for a moment, then ran on, her voice coming back to him, "It is the light--the light on Betty Cam's chair--the light for the ship."
"Helen! Helen! go back, what good can you do? Let me go and see," he called, striving desperately to overtake her; but she was as swift as a hare, and so dimly seen, too, dodging about among those huge boulders. And everywhere the sea-fog hung thick. "Helen! Helen!" His cry came back to him, but no other sound did he hear save the rising roar of the waves as he neared the cliff.
Right ahead of him rose Betty Cam's chair. Well! if she was going there he would catch her up then; and he would see--yes! he would see from there if anything was wrong.
For a moment he saw her above him,--on the sky-line was it? And, if so, why was the sky so clear? Was there a glow? Great God! there was! a glow in the sky and at her feet.
"Helen! Helen!" he cried as he sped on. "Tell me, what is it?"
There was no answer, but the next instant he had gained the crest, and could see. It was fire, but fire seen through fog. The strangest sight--a huge vignette, a magic-lantern slide, sharp in the centre, fading to an aureole. Close as they were, he could see nothing save dim shadows in the blaze of light.
"The ship! the ship! It is coming so fast--oh! so fast," said a monotonous voice beside him. Helen--Good God! how ill she looked, all unlike herself--was seated on Betty Cam's chair, pointing with her right hand far out to sea.
"Nell!" he said swiftly, "Come! I can't leave you here, and I must get down at once, the road's just below us, they will need all the help----"
As he spoke he knew some was coming, for a live spark showed swift curving through the white fog where the road should be, racing like a great fuse to the heart of a mine. It must be a motor--Hirsch's most likely--Thank Heaven he was at least a man of action! Yes, that was his voice coining back as the light flashed, raced, disappeared.
"For God's sake, be calm, sir, we've done all we could, we'll do all we can!"
Not true! not true! except the last. "Helen!" he cried roughly, "your father--come!"
Did she smile? He did not wait to make certain, but leaving her, dashed down the hill. Halfway he turned doubtfully, hoping she had followed him; but, already almost lost in the mist, he saw the lonely figure with the faint glow about it still seated on Betty Cam's chair.
As he dashed on again a curious shuddering boom rolled through the fog. He wondered vaguely what it was, but his whole mind was set on that nebulous circle of flaming light. He was nearer now, the vignetting grew sharper, towers and balconies began to loom luridly, beset by tongues of flame. It must be all on fire--a wide sweep from end to end.
Again that shuddering boom--what was it? My God! Could Helen be right again, and was it a ship in distress? As he ran, he counted ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, fifty-five, sixty. A ship! a ship, indeed! Was there to be no ending or horrors? He was on the upward rise now. The aureole had gone. He could see the flames leaping while the crowd stood still.
A large crowd, thank God! so they must be all out surely!
He met a man running back, calling as he ran, "A ship in distress on the rocks--the life-boat--more help needed there, come!"
"Are they all out?" he shouted, and the man nodded as he ran.
A relief, indeed!
He slackened speed, as more fisher-folk ran past him back totheirwork,theirtrade.
All out! my God! what a relief! No! by Heaven! There was a sudden stir in the crowd, and high upon the furthermost seaword balcony, as yet untouched by the flames, a little white figure showed bending over the balustrade, and calling to some one below.
The answer reached him, making him leap forward--
"All right, little lady! I'm coming!"
There was a struggle ahead of him, a tall figure breaking loose from hands that would have held it back; and then his uncle----
"For God's sake," he shouted as he ran--"think of Helen!"
The voice arrested Sir Geoffrey for a second, and Ned never forgot the look of that scared, kindly, distraught face he saw for a moment.
"I am thinking of her," came the answer. Then the pause ended.
Ned was after him without a moment's consideration; life seemed so small a thing to him that he could not stop to think of it; but Ted Cruttenden sprang forward, also, to hold him back. The Fates did that, however, for as he would have plunged into the burning house, the upper hinge of one of the wide hall doors gave way, and as it swung inwards with a crash, just touched Ned's forearm, and snapped it like a bulrush.
As he staggered, Ted had hold of him. "You can't," he said. "He knows every turn, and may do it yet if the stairs stand. It's madness for you. And my God! there's Mrs. Tresillian. Why did they let her come? we didn't tell her on purpose----"
Ned, dazed with a pain he had hardly located, had only time to wonder stupidly how she had managed to change her dress--she wore a coat and skirt--before she was beside him clinging to his unhurt arm.
"Father!" she said. "Ned, where is father?"
He shook his head. "Doing his duty, I suppose," he muttered; "I tried to follow, but got hurt. Try to keep calm if you can, Nell, there's a chance still."
Yes! a chance, if the fire-proof stairs were fire-proof. She stood quiet, silent; only once he heard her say to herself, "Why did I wait--oh! why didn't I come at once?"
So the minutes passed, and the crowds of Camhaven fisherfolk giving up hope of more excitement here tonight, sought it elsewhere, though already a murmur had come out of the fog that there was no immediate danger; a big ship was on the sunken rocks, and had established communication with the shore. That was all.
And still the minutes passed, and Ned stood holding Helen's hand in his.
Yet there was no sign of returning feet upon the fireproof stair.
A little breeze springing up had drifted the smoke south-west, obscuring the balcony so they could see nothing.
Those who knew her began to look at her with pitying eyes. Then in an instant something in which all else was forgotten--a sharp sound like the crack of a rifle, a quick upburst of sparks, then a great crash, and for a few moments silence and darkness.
The roof had fallen in.
"I'll take her home, Lord Blackborough," said Peter Ramsay, for all her height lifting her easily. "You will be wanted here. Mr. Hirsch, I may use your motor?"
"Broken," replied Mr. Hirsch, who was as white as a sheet, the tears almost running down his cheeks. "I drove it myself, and I didn't understand, but the Wrexham's is here. My God! what a frightful thing--shrecklich! schrecklich!" His voice shook; these things were not in the bond.
Yet one bond had been kept, for in an hour's time, when the flames had eaten their full of the frail thing which had dared to usurp Cam's point, they found Sir Geoffrey half-way down the stair caught in a trap between two gaps in what had been scheduled as a fire-proof staircase.
He held the child in his arms, her head, wrapped in his coat to preserve her from the smoke, nestled close upon his breast.
"For ever never an-naye!" That promise anyhow had been kept as a Pentreath should have kept it!