Meanwhile Tom and Mrs. Beauchamp had bought the sand-shoes and various other little necessaries, had had tea in an Oriental coffee shop, and, as the climax of a delightful afternoon, were coming home on the top of a tram—a leisurely proceeding that gave plenty of time for enjoyment. The weather had clouded over early in the afternoon, but they were halfway home before a fine rain began to fall and to blot out the shimmering sea. Just at sunset it cleared up for a little while, and a long path of gold stretched straight away to the horizon, showing the rocks and the island silhouetted very clear and black against a pale yellow sky.
"Mother," said Tom suddenly, "do the goats ever come down to drink?"
"What goats?"
"The goats on the island?"
"And do they drink what?"
"The sea."
"Oh dear no, Tom; they would not drink the sea-water—it is much too salt. I expect they stay on the island all the summer and come home in winter. I know their masters go and look after them at low tide."
"Well, is it low tide now?" persisted Tom.
Mrs. Beauchamp peered into the dusk.
"No; it is nearly high, I think. There is very little of the rocks to be seen."
"Well, there is something scrambling about on the island, quite low down, and it looks just like goats."
"Sea-birds, Tom?"
"They don'tscramble," said Tom.
"Well, fishermen perhaps. Show me where you see them."
But the black dots had disappeared. The fine drizzling rain had come on again, and the island was misty; heavy clouds were banked on the horizon, and it had grown suddenly cold and dark.
"Come inside, Tom," said Mrs. Beauchamp; "hold on to the rail and don't tumble off. Isn't it pleasant to think of the warm, cosy nursery and supper?"
"Is it supper-time?" asked Tom, amazed.
"Well, it is past six, and we are a good way from home yet. I hope all the family were safe under shelter before the rain came on. Do you see the white horses dashing up the sides of the island? It looks very cold, doesn't it?"
"I'm glad I'm not a goat," said Tom.
"So am I! See, there are the Parade lights. Get all the parcels together, and be ready to jump off when we stop."
A shopping expedition alone with mother was always a great treat. There was so much to tell afterwards—so many parcels to open and examine. Tom scampered up the Parade in advance of Mrs. Beauchamp's soberer footsteps, so it was he who first caught sight of nurse's face when the door was opened to his clamorous knock.
"Go up to the nursery, Master Tom," she said.
Tom dashed on merrily, and a minute later he heard his mother's voice in the hall, with a quick note of anxiety in it.
"What is it, nurse?"
"It's Miss Susie," said nurse, "and Master Dick."
Tom hung over the banisters to hear more.
"I left them out on the beach for a bit, whilst I came in to make the tea; and they had my orders to come when I signalled, but they never took no notice. So I ran down to the beach, and there wasn't a sign of them; and there was nothing more that I could do till you came home."
"How long ago?" asked Mrs. Beauchamp.
All of a sudden the tired look had come back to her face. She was anxious, but she was not frightened.
"It was about five I called to them, and it's past six now."
"Have you any idea where they are?"
"Well, I've heard Miss Susie speak of the town and buying sweets; and she's that audacious by times she might have dragged the poor child off without stopping to think—and it's a long three miles, and a regular downpour coming on."
Simultaneously both mother and nurse turned back to the pavement and looked critically at the sky and the sea. There was very little to be seen but scurrying clouds and one or two misty stars, but the boom of the waves on the shore was loud and importunate. Without a word they came in and shut the door.
"I don't think theycanbe on the beach," said their mother, as cheerfully as she could, "but it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I will go and speak to the policeman and the fishermen."
She spoke wearily, and the anxious line deepened between her eyes, as she stood irresolutely on the steps, looking into the darkness and feeling the lashing of the fine rain against her face. A sickening wave of fear rolled over her, but nurse could not tell it by her voice.
"No doubt they started for the town—Susie is thoughtless. Open my umbrella, please, nurse, and keep their supper hot."
"Idohope Master Dick don't get his nasty cough back," said nurse.
"Oh, I don't think he will," said Mrs. Beauchamp.
She ran down the steps, holding her umbrella firmly, and battling with the gusts of wind that swept the Parade. The insistent thunder of the waves sounded very dreary.
She ran over to the sea wall and down the wooden steps on to the beach. Two or three fishermen were sheltering close under the cliff; the wind was so loud that she had to shout at them to be heard.
"Have you been here long?" she said.
"Yes, most of the day." A short black pipe was removed to allow of the remark.
"Have you seen some children playing about—a little girl in a red jersey, a boy in a sailor suit?"
The answer was very deliberate. A great many boys and girls had been playing on the sands—there always were a "rack" of them—the rain came and swamped them. He hadn't noticed no red jersey in particular.
"Did you see any of them on the rocks?"
No; but then they might have been, for he hadn't been looking that way.
"Butsomeof you would have seen them," Mrs. Beauchamp urged. "If two children had been scrambling on the rocks at sunset, some of you would have noticed them?"
"Maybe, maybe not."
"Is it high tide?" she asked.
"In another hour." And some one added out of the darkness, "Don't you be feared, ma'am; children and chickens come home to roost."
Mrs. Beauchamp thanked him gratefully and felt comforted.
Again she wearily climbed the steps, and flew rather than walked down the long Parade. The flickering gas lamps showed between patches of darkness, the rain drizzled on, and she felt helpless and bewildered, not knowing where to turn next. Wherever Dickie was, bronchitis must be dogging his footsteps, and all the time she seemed to hear Susie's voice appealing to her. Poor Susie! who always came back to her best friend—who was always so sorry afterwards!
She spoke to the policeman at the corner of the Parade, and he was very determined. He would go to the police station and give notice, he said; but there wasn't the least use in her wearing herself out by running on into the town. He knew the young lady from No. 17 quite well by sight—a very sensible young lady!—and he was as certain as that he stood there that she had not passed him since five o'clock. She was on the beach then with the little boy and some other young ladies and gentlemen; he had seen them himself. They were playing and shouting, and having a fine time. No, he was quite certain he wasn't making a mistake; he knew her by her face, and her brown plaits, and her scarlet jersey. She certainly was playing with other children.
Mrs. Beauchamp tried to push aside the urgent fear that was knocking at her heart. If even the policeman had confidence in Susie, should her mother be behindhand? She told the policeman, for his information and her own comfort, that she was only frightened because the little boy had been ill, and it was such a cold, wet night, but at the same time she thought she would walk round to the town by the beach. "And you will go to the police station? Some one may have seen them. I cannot feel satisfied doing nothing."
"If you take my advice, lady," said the policeman, "you should go home first. Perhaps they'll have got back, or perhaps the other young lady could give you an idea. Children know a good deal of each other's ways."
The advice was sensible and practical, and Mrs. Beauchamp was relieved at any definite suggestion. Amy might possibly know something about the others which she had not confided to nurse. She caught at the hope, and fought her way back before the wind, up the long, wet Parade, until she stood, drenched and breathless, at the door.
Nurse opened it almost on her knock, and peered anxiously behind her into the dark, but Mrs. Beauchamp shook her head.
"No, I have done nothing," she said, in a strained voice. "I can't think what to do—no one has seen them, nurse."
Her voice trembled a little, but she tried to smile. She would not break down.
"I want to speak to Amy, nurse, and Master Tom; but Amy is less excitable. Send them to me on the stairs here; we must not wake baby."
"I've questioned them," said nurse, "but they don't seem to know anything. They'll be ready enough to tell if they do; they are very upset."
Mrs. Beauchamp sat upon the lowest stair, with her anxious eyes fixed on the nursery door. They were curiously like Susie's eyes, but with a sweeter expression. They were smiling still, but it was such a sad smile that after one look Amy flew helter-skelter downstairs and flung herself into the welcoming arms.
"Amy," said her mother gently, "don't cry now; I haven't time. I am anxious about Dickie's bronchitis"—it was curious how she clung to the belief that it was only the bronchitis that troubled her—"it is so rainy and cold! Do you know where Susie has gone?"
"No, mother," said Amy. She knelt upon the stair with her pale little face pressed against her mother's cheek.
"Think, Amy," Mrs. Beauchamp urged.
"I have thoughted and thoughted," said Amy, "and I can only remember that once, a long time ago, the twins said—"
"What twins?"
"Oh, I forgot you didn't know. They are twins, and they are friends of Susie's. They are very reckless on the rocks, and sometimes Susie went too."
"But when, Amy?"
"I don't know," said Amy, with literal truthfulness. "They didn't tell me; they said I was a baby." Amy's eyes filled. "I wish Susie could be found," she said.
"But you are helping me to find her," said her mother. "Now I have something to go on.—Did you know, Tom? Have you ever been on the rocks with the twins?"
"They told me not to tell," said Tom sturdily.
"But, Tom, that does not matter; it is right to break such a promise."
"If you break your promise you go to hell," said Tom.
"No, no, Tom—not when it is a matter—a matter of life and death. Do you think they went on the rocks to-night?"
"I will tell you if you want me to," said Tom, "but Susie will be angry. I don't know if she went to-day; so there!"
"Did you ever go?"
"Heaps and heaps of times," said Tom.
"And who are the twins?"
"I don't know."
"But theirname, Tom?" she urged.
"I truly don't know, mummy."
"O Tom!"
Tom too had broken down, and his arms were round her neck.
"O mother, Susie didn't mean to go. She often and often didn't want to. Don't be angry with Susie. Nurse often said, 'I can't think where you get your stockings in such a mess.' But the twins asked Susie, and she went; often and often she didn't want to—"
"Poor Susie," said Mrs. Beauchamp.
"And you needn't think she's drowned," said Tom, "because Susie knows quite well how to walk on seaweed. She wouldn't be such a silly as to be drowned."
Tom's testimony and the policeman's! She alone—Susie's mother—had been faithless and unbelieving. She began to regain her confidence in Susie. She got up a minute later with a more hopeful smile. As she shook out her wet umbrella she stooped to kiss Amy's eager face.
"It is so much easier to find four people than two," she said, "particularly when two of them are twins, and one wears a scarlet jersey. Some one must have seen such a noisy crew, and there is less chance of their having disappeared."
"Susie isn't such a silly as all that," said Tom, with serene confidence.
Mrs. Beauchamp's eyes shone, and when Tom opened the door she looked out, over his head, into the deepening night. A few stars had struggled through the clouds, and the moon shone fitfully above the island. It looked very big and black and peaceful, and Mrs. Beauchamp paused for a moment and looked back at it.
"If," she said to herself, and then again "if" out loud.
But whatever the disturbing thought might be, she would not give it entrance. She fixed her mind resolutely on the twins and the red jersey, and pinned her hopes on the police inspector.
But it was extraordinarily difficult to find any clue to the missing family, and the long, miserable hours passed, and brought Mrs. Beauchamp no nearer to the twins. She trudged up and down the Parade, to the police station, and down the steps to the beach, over and over again, with feet so tired that they almost refused to carry her.
The wet pavement reflected the flickering gas-lamps. One by one the lights in the windows were put out, and late visitors hurried home. She clung to the policeman's solid tramp with a lingering hope, but she was growing desperate; and over everything was the fine rain, coming in gusts from a cloudy sky, wetting her hair, her face, and soaking her skirts. It was a miserable night, and the police inspector deeply sympathized with her. He went along the town road and cross-examined the policeman. He made inquiries and issued orders, and took upon himself to beg the pale, tired lady to go home and wait and see what turned up. But Mrs. Beauchamp felt that to sit at home doing nothing would be intolerable. She shook her head and turned again on to the Parade, and with her went Susie's light feet, so real, so active, that she almost saw the red jersey on a level with her shoulder, and those brown, defiant eyes. For it was of Susie that her mind was full—poor Susie, who had "often and often not wanted to go," but who had gone.
It was easier for little Dickie; all his life it would be easier for Dick than for this eager, forgetful, repentant daughter, whose passionate sorrow always came too late.
Mrs. Beauchamp leaned over the railing at the top, and looked down on to the sands, debating whether it was worth another effort. The group of fishermen still stood close under the shelter of the cliff; their gruff voices floated up to her, and gave her a feeling of companionship. She ran down on to the beach, but when she stood in front of them she felt it impossible to speak. One by one they rose awkwardly, and gazed at her in an embarrassing silence, but making no suggestion, so that it was she who spoke first.
"I have not found them; I cannot trace them anyhow. Can none of you help me?"
Her sweet, impatient voice appealed to them rather hopelessly, and there was no response.
"I'm willing to do what I can," one of them said at last. "At daylight I'll bring round my boat and go over the rocks. It's an ebb tide."
"Oh no," she said, and shuddered. "I can't sit still till daylight—indeed I cannot. It is only ten o'clock now."
"It's a fair offer, lady," said the man.
"But it is going to be a fine night," she pleaded. "The rain is over. If I could find the twins of whom my children speak! Can you not help me? You are at least men."
"Why, ma'am"—it was a new voice that answered her—"if it's children you want, I'll find them fast enough if they are on shore; it's only the sea that keeps her own. A set of lubberly men that can't help a lady in distress! That's not how the Royal Navy acts. And don't you cry, lady. Lads and lasses don't get mislaid as easy as that; bad halfpennies come back to their moorings. We'll knock at every door in the town before we give up."
He was an old man, but there was a very different note in his voice from the flabby sympathy of the other men. He put out his pipe with a horny thumb, and gave a rather contemptuous look round the lounging group of longshoremen. "Royal Navy" was written all over him—in his keen eyes, his upright carriage, and his kindly, respectful manner. At the confidence in his voice Mrs. Beauchamp's wavering hope steadied, but she suddenly felt the strain of the anxiety and fatigue. As she turned she stumbled over something small and black that the ebb-tide had left in the ridge of damp seaweed on the beach. She slipped and recovered herself, for the old man's hand was on her arm.
"Steady, ma'am," he said cheerfully; "it's only a bit of an old boot."
"A bit of a boot!" The object swam before Mrs. Beauchamp's eyes, her hands trembled. "It is a child's," she said, and there was anguish in her voice.
"Oh, well"—he picked it up and flung it on one side—"the sea don't give up boots without the feet they held. Wherever the little girl is, ma'am, she's gone without her boots. Carry on."
The Royal Navy, as the senior service, went first, and Mrs. Beauchamp stumbled after him; but there was new hope springing in her heart. His sturdy common-sense had infected her. Was it she only who doubted Susie—who had no confidence in her common-sense? The sea gives back only what it takes, and it had given back only Susie's empty boot.
Stumbling, dizzy, tired out, she still felt a divine peace at her heart as she heard the comfortable, steady steps beside her, and saw the fine, weather-beaten face, with its clear, keen eyes.
"You see, ma'am," he said, "longshoremen are good lads enough for sunshine and fair weather, but it's the Royal Navy you look to when it comes to foul weather and storm. That's where I got my training, and it stands by you. Maybe you'd like to rest a bit and let me go on? I'll knock at every door in the place before I give in, and I'll bring them children with me."
"No, oh no," she said. Her voice was hoarse with fatigue, but was undaunted. "I shall sail humbly in the wake of the Royal Navy. Only, tell me what you mean to do."
He stood for a moment under a lamp, and his keen eyes seemed to see through her. "I propose to begin with the first street out of the Parade," he said, "and so on, by sections. I'll go first where I'm known. There can't be such a rack of twins in the town that they can't be traced. Trust me, lady."
"Ido! Ido!" she said; "but I feel frightened."
"Where's your faith, ma'am?" he said, rather sternly.
"I am sure I don't know," she said, with a faint smile. "It may be the will—the will of—Providence—that the children should not come home."
The old man stood still again, and raised his cap from a silvery head.
"There's One above as won't let him go too far," he said. "We have our orders, which is enough for me. Carry on."
And really faith or fortune did seem to befriend Mrs. Beauchamp at last. It was just after they had knocked at the second closed door, and had received a very short negative to their inquiry, which the maidservant evidently considered to be an ill-timed joke, that a door on the opposite side of the road opened suddenly, and a great stream of light flashed out.
There were some confused farewells, a gathering up of skirts, and laughter; and in a minute the Royal Navy was standing at the salute before the master of the house.
"The lady and I are looking for some twins, sir."
Instead of the ready "No" they half expected, the man paused, and smiled whimsically.
"Well, what have the little beggars been doing now?" he said.
Never had any words sounded quite so sweet to Mrs. Beauchamp. She too came into the circle of light, and lifted her sweet, tired, beseeching face.
"My children were playing with the twins this evening," she said, "and they have never come home. Of course they may not beyourtwins; but we hope—"
"Come in, come in," he interrupted, holding the door hospitably open until it had swallowed them all up. "Of course it is my twins. No one else's twins are ever half so troublesome."
And then he sent a great, jovial shout up the stairs,—
"Dot and Dash, you are wanted!"
Instantly there were a scuffle in the upper passage and a rush of bare feet to the top of the stairs. Mrs. Beauchamp, looking up, saw two slim figures in white, and in another minute she was confronted by two pairs of the very brightest and most daring black eyes she had ever seen.
Without a moment's hesitation Dot hurled herself against the slight figure in the hall, and began a confused, breathless, incoherent statement. "I could not sleep. Neither of we have slept all night. Susie said she knew about the tides; she said she was quite certain"—most familiar words in Mrs. Beauchamp's ears—"that she would get home all right. But Dick had hurt his foot, and we left her on the rocks, sitting quite in a pool. And it has rained so ever since; and perhaps she is on the rocks still, and it is pitchy dark, and both of we feel as if we couldn't bear it."
She paused for breath, but Mrs. Beauchamp's arms tightened round her—always so ready to hold and comfort.
"Thank you," she said, very quietly; "you are giving me great comfort. They would notstayon the rocks, would they?"
"No, of course not." Dot spoke with comforting certainty. "They would clamber on to the island if the tide was high; but it is so terrifying in the dark. And it was our fault—Susie didn't want to come."
"It was a pity," said Mrs. Beauchamp.
Her eyes, over Dot's dishevelled head, flew to the doorway, and met those other alert eyes that understood and answered their question. When did a woman in distress ever appeal in vain to the Royal Navy?
"I'll get my boat out, and be ready in a quarter of an hour," he said. "You can meet me by the steps, lady, and you'd best bide in shelter as long as you can."
"Thank you. Can you?—is it possible? Those men said I must wait till daylight."
"Lubberly loafers," said the Royal Navy. "In the Service things are ordered different."
He opened the door and went out. Through the opening Mrs. Beauchamp caught a glimpse of sailing clouds and starlight.
Dot was pressing on her again.
"Please forgive us if Susie gets home; it has been so miserable. I knew Dash wasn't asleep because of his breathing. It has been dreadful for you and for Susie, but it is worse for us."
Her voice fell to a husky whisper; her great black eyes were full of passionate entreaty; she shivered in her thin nightdress.
"My poor, poor children"—there was nothing but the sweetest sympathy in Mrs. Beauchamp's comforting touch—"I forgive younow—now while Susie is out there and I am still waiting for her. I will let you know directly we are back and they are safe. You must let me go now."
Their father had disappeared, and Dash came hurrying downstairs in a shamefaced, sidelong fashion to be comforted. He did not like being left beyond the reach of consolation. But Mrs. Beauchamp disengaged the clinging arms.
"We will sit up till we know about them," Dot said, with tears.
"No; you must go to bed and wait there," Mrs. Beauchamp said firmly. "I know," she went on hurriedly, as there were signs of another storm, "that it is far harder; but duties like thatarehard, and it is the only thing you can do to help."
"Very well," said Dot, with commendable meekness.
"Very well," echoed Dash.
"Here, get back to bed." The master of the house, booted and mackintoshed, had come back into the hall, and the twins scampered up the stairs at the unaccustomed sternness of his voice. He had a glass of wine and some biscuits in his hand, and he spoke almost as severely to Mrs. Beauchamp as he had done to the twins. "Of course I am going with you. I have rugs and mackintoshes and some brandy. Can you suggest anything else? No," as she returned the half-emptied glass; "drinkallthe wine. Iinsiston it."
Mrs. Beauchamp obeyed mechanically. She seemed to feel new life, a sense of protection, an atmosphere of help; there was some one else to command and to decide.
The last sight she saw as she went out into the night was Dot's fuzzy head leaning over the banisters at a dangerous angle.
Outside the rain had lessened, and the stars shone more securely. Without a word she hurried down the cross street and on to the Parade by her companion's side, but her feet no longer lagged. Hope had sprung anew in her heart, and as they turned the corner she looked up at him smiling.
"I only know you as 'the father of the twins,'" she said, "and it is a long address."
"My name is Amherst." Then a moment later, as they picked their way across the muddy road to the top of the steps, "I have been trying all this time to find a reason, and I can only frame an excuse—they have no mother!"
"Oh, poor twins!" she said.
The tide was distinctly lower, and the wind had died down. The long waves rolled in with almost oily smoothness, and showed no ridge of foam when they broke upon the beach. Patches of seaweed caught and reflected the moonlight.
The old sailor was baling out the boat, and half a dozen hands held her to the shore. An air of excitement pervaded every one, and one or two men offered their services rather sheepishly; but the Royal Navy did not need assistance.
He settled Mrs. Beauchamp in the bow, with the rugs for a cushion; then he pushed off with his oar, and in another minute they were gliding out from under the shadow of the cliff, making straight for the island in front of them.
Mr. Amherst had taken the other oar, and was rowing bow. On their left little crests of half-submerged rocks showed black against the sea, and on the far horizon the false dawn made a silver line between sky and sea.
Mrs. Beauchamp held the lines mechanically and leant forward, straining her eyes to steer for a possible landing-place; but the beating of her heart had quieted down, and she had a curious feeling that she was drifting, drifting, in this solemn silence, out of a region of torturing fear into the peaceful harbour of a dream.
The twist of the oars in the rowlocks, the rhythmical dip, and the ripple of water against the boat were restful in their monotony. She felt her eyes closing as something slipped through her fingers—Susie's boot, with its long damp laces! She looked at her lap in horror, and tried to push the dreadful object away; but there was nothing there, excepting the wet lines that had fallen from her fingers. Some one put out a rough, kind hand to steady her, and she straightened herself with a start, meeting the old sailor's keen eyes.
"Carry on, ma'am, carry on." Then, a moment later, "Way enough!"
In a minute Mr. Amherst had caught at the crags and drawn the boat alongside, and Ben had sent his voice pealing up against the cliff in a volume of sound that was absolutely terrifying.
"Hulloo! Hulloo—oo!"
A few frightened sea-birds flew out of the crevices in the cliff and wheeled about their heads, but there was no other sound. Mrs. Beauchamp's eyes filled with agonized tears, but the sailor's cheeriness was infectious.
"I'll wake them," he said.
Again his voice went up into the night, as if he defied the poor defences of the dark.
"Hulloo! Hulloo—oo!"
"Susie!" cried Mrs. Beauchamp, in her thinner treble.
And this time therewasan answer—a cry small and faint; not at all like Susie's boisterous everyday voice, but human. Ben was out of the boat in a minute, scrambling from peak to peak, and shouting as he went.
Mrs. Beauchamp sat down with an uncertain movement, and covered her face with her hands; whilst Mr. Amherst, clinging to the rock for fear the ebbing tide should carry them out to sea, spoke to her with whimsical entreaty. "Mrs. Beauchamp, please don't faint until Nelson comes back! Pull yourself together—heexpectsus to do our duty; and, besides, you will frighten the children."
The last suggestion had an instantaneous effect. From that calm region where love and despair were alike forgotten she came back with a conscious effort to the unsteady boat, and Mr. Amherst's alarmed eyes, and the lapping water against the bow.
"That's right," said Mr. Amherst, with great relief in his voice. "I really didn't know how to get to you. Listen!"
"Safe!" The great voice came pealing down the cliff, waking the echoes on the shore, and with a sort of incredulous joy Mrs. Beauchamp listened to the sturdy steps coming slowly, surely, carefully down, with a little ripple of shale following them.
She clutched at the gunwale of the boat until she hurt her hands, and strained her eyes for the sight she longed to see. First there came the stalwart figure of the sailor with a bundle in his arms, and behind him a slim, bare-footed, bareheaded, stumbling little creature, who almost fell into the expectant arms waiting for her.
"He's quite warm, mother." It was Susie's voice, faint, eager, appealing, caught by deep sobs. "He has never coughed once—he has nevermoved. He is quite warm; feel him."
"O Susie! And you?"
"Me! Oh, I'm all right," said Susie, wondering. "I did take care of him; I tried my very best."
"But where are your clothes, Susie? And it rained so."
"They are round Dick," said Susie. "Mother, they kept him beautifully warm."
The men jumped into the boat and pushed off. The little bundle of flannel and serge that held Dickie rolled quite comfortably to the bottom of the boat; but Susie's mother held two frozen feet in her warm hands and said nothing. Words did not come easily.
Presently Susie spoke again in that strained whisper. "Mother, when I went to sleep I dreamt a ferryman came for us, and his boat was close to the shore, and we were stepping in when you called me back. I knew your voice, and you said 'Susie' quite plainly. I wouldn't go, and I wouldn't let him take Dick! I screamed and held him tight, and the ferryman said we must pay him, all the same; and then you gave him two pennies, and he went away."
"Susie, Ididcall. In my heart I have called all night."
"Yes, I know," said Susie. "When I woke and saw the sailor, I thought it was the ferryman."
"Ihadpaid," said Mrs. Beauchamp.
"Oh, I knew you would," said Susie.
Mrs. Beauchamp took the rug that Mr. Amherst threw to her, and folded it close and warm about Susie's wet locks and damp body; and presently the difficult, sobbing breaths grew quieter, but her mother knew that she was not asleep by the fierce pressure of her fingers.
The day was breaking as the boat was beached, and a dozen willing hands pulled her high and dry. The sea-birds were awake, fluttering about the head of the island; the ebbing tide had left the rocks very black and bare.
When they set Susie on her feet she was too stiff to stand alone, and never for one moment did she loose her hold of her mother's dress. It was the Royal Navy that finally took her into wonderfully tender keeping, and carried her up the steps and along the Parade, and laid her, still wrapped in the rug, on her own white bed, that nurse had made comfortably ready.
Dickie woke flushed and warm from his rosy sleep when they brought him in, and looked at the old sailor with round, bewildered eyes.
"Is it Father Neptune?" he asked.
"No, darling, no."
"Oh, I see he hasn't got his three-pronged fork. Is it Nelson then?"
"I am sure I don't know," said Mrs. Beauchamp, and her laugh was very near tears.—"You will tell the twins at once, please," she said to Mr. Amherst as she said good-bye. "I cannot bear to feel that they may be awake and waiting."
But Dot and Dash had not passed a sleepless night of misery. Long ago, tired out with sorrow, they had fallen asleep on the nursery window-sill, and dreamt that they were sailing on unknown seas in fairy boats!
And the wonderful part of it all was that Susie was not even ill! She slept "into the middle of next week," as nurse expressed it; but it was a deep, steady, peaceful sleep, quite undisturbed by any commotion around her. Amy sat most of the morning crouched up on the floor, just inside the room, and waited for the opening of those brown eyes; whilst nurse had even got Dick and baby safely dressed and out on the sands before Susie's eyelids quivered, and she stretched her stiff limbs, and started up with a cry, "Mother!"
"My darling Susie!"
"O mother! I was so afraid you were a dream."
"Then what are you?"
"Atroublesome comfort. Nurse said so, and it is true."
She sat straight up in bed, with her knees drawn up and her hands clasped round them. Her hair was rough, and there were no little stiff pigtails telling of nurse's energetic brushing. On her hands there were bruises and scratches that hurt her; but nothing mattered now that she was within reach of the comfortable arms, and could lay her head on the blue serge knee.
"Mummy, is Dick well?"
"Quite well, darling."
"Mother"—she pressed closer and hid her face—"I am sorry, but I don't know how to say it. I didn't like the twins to think me a baby, and I felt quite certain that I could get back."
"Perhaps you are too certain, darling."
"You mean," said Susie, "that there is too much talk and too littledo."
"Perhaps thatiswhat I mean, Susie; but when I try to think about it clearly I only see a poor little cold, frightened child, and Dick as warm as toast."
"I never thought about it, mother. I only prayed and prayed that he might not get bronchitis."
"It is because you did not think about it that I love you, Susie."
"I will try and be better," said Susie humbly.
Straight across the room she caught sight of a reflection in the glass, and she sat suddenly more upright and gazed at it. It reminded her of that reflection in the train; but this mouth was smiling, not set into sulky lines—these eyes were not full of angry tears!
"Oh, I am perfectly certain I can be good," cried Susie eagerly.
The reflection in the glass seemed to hesitate; the sparkling eyes fell, and Susie's face went down upon her knees.
She groaned in despair.
"It seems as if I couldn't help it," she said. "I am always perfectly certain."
"And I am perfectly certain that I hear your breakfast on the stairs," said Mrs. Beauchamp, "and that is the important thing."
She raised Susie's crimson face, and smoothed the rebellious hair, and patted the pillow into a comfortable shape. Every good nurse knows that tears and protestations must wait their time, and that little patients cannot be allowed the luxury of repentance!
Susie would have liked to pour out volumes of self-reproach and ease her burdened heart, so it was perhaps one little step in the right direction when she resolutely closed her lips and welcomed Amy and the breakfast with a smile.
She came downstairs in the afternoon and lay on the horsehair sofa in the sitting-room, and held a sort of levée of her visitors. Tom was subdued, and the twins were envious—nothing uncommon ever happened to them! They knew too much or were too cautious, but they sat on two stools by the window and followed Mrs. Beauchamp's movements with their uncanny eyes, until the concentrated gaze made her nervous.
"Both of we would like to be your children," said Dash suddenly.
Mrs. Beauchamp tried to feel grateful for the compliment, and to hide the dismay it inspired.
"It seems rather hard," Dot added, "that Susie should have everything—anda mother too—and we haven't."
"Perhaps you may share me," she suggested.
But the twins viewed the position gloomily. "Us two like things of our own," they said.
"Well, you can't have mother," said Dick doggedly. "You can have our buckets when we leave, and my boat, and Amy's shells."
"Oh, not my shells," cried Amy, aggrieved.
"That's selfish of you," said Tom; "but I have a proper collection, and you haven't. You can have nurse," he generously added.
"Oh no, not nurse," said Dick.
"And that's greedy," said Tom: "you want every one."
"Yes, I do," said Dick sturdily.
"Us two," said Dot suddenly, "have adopted you for our mother. It is the only way we can have you for our own."
"You can't have her," cried Tom indignantly; "she's ours."
"That doesn't matter," said Dot; "us two have settled it. She can't help us adopting her. We are her kind of children now.—Aren't we, father?"
Mr. Amherst removed the twins before it came to blows, and left the excited family sitting silently in the dusky room.
Mrs. Beauchamp, very tired and peaceful, was drawing a dispirited darning needle through very worn stockings, and by Susie's sofa sat an upright figure with keen eyes and silver hair.
"The little lady will be sleeping soon," he said. He rose and held out a horny hand.
"In a softer bed than she had last night," said Mrs. Beauchamp gently.
"Well, as we make our bed so we lie in it," he said.
"Yes," said Susie, in a subdued voice.
He paused and smiled at her.
"But so much we didn't know of went to the making of the bed," he said, "that perhaps little missy lay softly enough after all."
"It is a pity about Miss Susie's boot," nurse said regretfully. "Of course it's a mercy the poor child was brought back safe; and never shall I forget what we suffered unknowing. But talking of beds brings back that boot to me, and it's no use telling me it doesn't matter, for it's sheer waste of the pair."
Life in London seemed rather tame to the little Beauchamps after that summer holiday, with the paddling and the boats, the rocks and the island! They took as much of it all home as they could convey in biscuit tins, and buckets, and cardboard boxes. But, after all, one cannot shut the ocean into a glass aquarium or hold the sunset on a palette, and there were many things that only memory could bring back to them—the sea-birds wheeling against the blue sky, for instance, the ebbing and flowing tide, the miles of seaweed on the beach, and one night the memory of which will only die with Susie.
Dick has long forgotten it, for he lay "very softly" in the bed that Susie made for him; but at any moment Susie can shut her eyes and hear the trampling of the surf and the beating of the rain, and see the misty stars!
The twins have taken their adopted mother very seriously, and have established her in the citadel of their hearts. Like the pirates that they are, they have stolen her love, and love her passionately in return. Their undivided affection does not give her a very peaceful life, but it is certainly never dull, and the bold black eyes have grown very dear to her.
The traditions of the Royal Navy are always the mainspring of life in the Beauchamps' nursery; they "carry on" under the auspices of Nelson, and in obedience to his signal they do what England expects! Duty is their watchword, and Ben is their model. Nurse often stands amazed at an obedience that is almost alarming; but when she begins to think that Miss Susie or Master Tom is growing too good to live, she is generally reassured by some quite unlooked-for crime, and, to her relief, the "troublesome comforts" remain troublesome.