02 Morning at Jalna (23 page)

When Ernest saw Nicholas in tears, his own tears dried. He ceased to search for his compass. Casting his eyes over the tumbling waves he asked, “Why has the water turned from blue to green, Gussie?”

“It’s the clouds,” she answered.

“When do you think we’ll see land?” he went on.

“Pretty soon, I guess.”

“I’ll be glad, won’t you?”

“I’m not afraid,” she answered stoutly.

That cheered both the small boys. Nicholas said, “I’m hungry.”

She gave them dry biscuits, and a fig apiece.

“Lunch,” she answered, and opened her mouth wide in a yawn.

“Why are you yawning?” asked Ernest.

“I was on watch all the night.”

“Didn’t you sleep? Not one little nap?”

“I forget.” She spoke crossly.

“More tea, please,” they demanded.

She filled the empty bottle from the lake. The green waves strove to submerge both bottle and boat. Through the clouds that now covered the sky they had faint glimpses of the sun. Pale shafts of light from it touched the waves — now nearby — now distant. The lake looked like a strange uncharted ocean.

Presently Ernest found his compass. All three studied it. Augusta exclaimed, shouting to make herself heard, “We are now going east! Nicholas — go to the tiller! Try to change our course!”

But Nicholas was not able to change the helter-skelter course of the dinghy, which slid down one wave, wallowed in the trough, then staggered up the next wave, behaving as though it might at any moment overturn.

Ernest crept close to his sister. “Are you afraid, Gussie?”

She shook her head. “No, not really
afraid
, but I must find the right way. The wind has blown us off our course.” She held Ernest tightly by the hand.

He said, “I didn’t make much fuss about losing the spyglass, did I?” His forget-me-not-blue eyes, still wet with tears, sought her face for comfort. She thought sorrowfully of that loved possession.

The clouds separated and allowed the sun to shoulder his way between them. The lake appeared to be enjoying a rowdy dance in broad, if chilly, sunlight. Like an accompaniment to this wild ballet of the waves, the wind whistled shrilly and thunder in the distance sounded as muffled drums. The children had nothing to do but watch the weather, and it seemed determined to astonish them.

From the various clouds that, since break of day, gathered and dispersed in the troubled sky, one had emerged as more distinct, more threatening than any other. Now the other clouds moved away from it towards the horizon, leaving a space of a strange greenish colour as a background for it. This cloud took the shape of a man wearing a long cloak, with one arm upraised in a threatening gesture. Not only was the arm raised but, from its gaunt wrist, a hand depended, the forefinger of which pointed downward towards the dinghy.

“Are you afraid, Gussie?” asked Ernest in a tremulous voice. “Is it pointing at us?”

“It’s only a springtime cloud,” she answered. “What troubles me is that we are off our course.”

“When the lake calms,” said Nicholas, “we’ll put up the sail and I’ll take the tiller.”

In his shrill child’s voice Ernest called out, “Are you afraid, Nicholas?”

“No!”

“Do you wish you were home?”

“No,” came back boldly.

“There’s something dead in the lake!” screamed Ernest in terror. “It’s a drowned baby!”

It was only a large dead fish, pallid and cadaverous, turning over and over in the waves.

Now rain began to fall, pelting down from that menacing cloud in a blinding sheet. So violent it was that it flattened the tops of the rearing waves, took possession of the sky. The dinghy, with its young occupants, seemed to become the object of its vindictiveness. Ernest crouched with his head in Gussie’s rain-soaked skirt. Nicholas no longer made any pretence of bravery. He crawled through the water in the bottom of the boat to Gussie’s side. Blinded by the downpour, drenched to the skin, they clung together. They did not attempt to speak, but Gussie’s slender hands, cold yet comforting, every now and again patted the backs of the boys. The dove sat hunched on her shoulder, its beak sunk on its breast, its wet wings drooping. A very old bird it looked, though it was young.

This deluge of rain appeared to last for a very long time, though it was only a half-hour. It was impossible to guess the time of day. A strange yellowish twilight enveloped sky and lake. The wind had lessened but boisterous waves were white-capped, forming at the horizon a steady line of foam.

Nicholas, ashamed of the tears he had shed, now smiled at Gussie. “I’m hungry,” he said.

He actually brought himself to smile. Smiling back she said, “Let’s find out what’s left in the hamper.”

But the contents of the hamper were floating in water. He took from it a piece of pie but it fell apart in his hand. He threw it overboard. At the onslaught of the next wave, the dinghy rocked precariously, the hamper was overturned and its contents floated or were dissolved. Nicholas rescued a cornmeal muffin.

“It’s not bad,” he said, biting into it. “Have one?” he asked of Ernest.

But the little boy shook his head and then pressed his face against Gussie’s side. “I’ll never be hungry again,” he muttered.

The movement of the clouds showed that another deluge of rain was imminent.

“It would help us to sing a hymn,” said Gussie.

Ernest raised his head.

Their young voices were scarcely audible above the uproar of the elements. The boys raised their eyes towards where they hoped God might be lending an ear to them as they sang:

Eternal Father! strong to save,

Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,

Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limits keep;

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee

For those in peril on the sea!

The boys raised their faces, but Gussie sat with her heavy-lidded eyes downcast, her face showing pallid between the mass of dripping hair that hung on either side over her shoulders. She might have been a young creature of the storm, created from the anguished elements.

Scarcely had the singing of the hymn come to an end when the second deluge of rain enveloped them. This they suffered, crouching together in silence, Ernest’s face again hidden against Augusta’s side. This downpour of rain was briefer than the earlier one but even more penetrating. Any tiniest space left undrenched was now sought out and filled to its limit.

When the rain ceased, which it did reluctantly with a drizzle, the clouds moved westward and the tumbling green lake was revealed. The water in the bottom of the boat moved this way and that, on its surface floating morsels of food, and treasures the children had brought aboard with them. Now the sun shone bright and with warmth in it. Ernest raised his face, strangely mottled in red and white. He raised his tear-drenched eyes to the heavens, and looked askance at the lake.

Tumbling in it was the pallid shape of the large dead fish. “The fish!” he screamed, “the fish!” and threw himself on Gussie.

“It’s not the same fish,” said Nicholas, his voice sounding hoarse and strange. “It’s a bigger one.” He peered at it in curiosity.

At the next moment the boat rocked deeply in the trough, the dead fish rose on the wave and was flung with a wriggle into the dinghy.

“Nicholas — put it out!” ordered Gussie, with frightening intensity.

The boy, splashing in the water, caught the fish in his two hands, but its body was so slippery that he dropped it in fright. “It’s not dead!” he screamed. “It’s living! If you want it put out — do it yourself.”

Desperately Gussie disengaged herself from Ernest’s clinging arms. She grasped the dead fish and threw it overboard. Caught in the next wave it disappeared.

Searching the sodden edibles in the hamper she found more figs and offered them to the boys. Nicholas eagerly devoured his but Ernest turned his face away. “I shall never eat again,” he said.

Again he settled down to cling to Gussie, to hide his face against her. She clasped him but never in all her life had she felt so tired. Pains racked her body. Exhaustion weighed her eyelids. She thought that she had shut her eyes for only a few minutes, but when she opened them again the wind had lessened, the waves somewhat subsided. She saw the taut figure of Nicholas striving to raise the sail. But it resisted, being so wet and, when he had raised it just a little way, it caught the wind, the boom swung wildly outwards, and the boat heeled uncomfortably. They were drifting, buffeted by the boisterous waves.

“I’m starving,” Nicholas said in a hoarse voice. “I’m wet to the skin. You look terrible, Gussie. Do you think Ernest is dying?”

“If only I had something warm and dry to wrap him in,” she said.

Nicholas said, “Look at the dove! Certainly he is dying.”

The dove had resigned himself to the tether by which he was confined. The toes of his little red feet were turned inward and his draggled breast rested on them. His eyes were closed. He ignored the corn that Gussie offered him.

She gathered the last of her courage in a desperate effort to achieve the end of the journey, to reach the beckoning land of America. Her fingers were stiff from cold, so that she could not readily undo the ribbon that held the dove. Even when he was freed he sat drooping.

“Gussie — what are you doing?” cried Nicholas.

“I am sending him home. He will know the way. The direction he takes will show us the way we should go.”

Now the sun came through the clouds. The dove sat drooping till the first warmth touched it, then as though new life had inspired it, it raised its wings, two sharply-pointed pinions, skyward. It then in a flutter of energy flew to the top of the mast. This was no quiet perch but rocking as a slender tree in a gale. There the dove sat, staring into the sun, quiet as though carved from alabaster.

The wet shivering children stared up at him entranced.

Suddenly, without warning, he spread his wings and soared upward. Now he was no longer Gussie’s dove but a flying bird belonging to sky and lake. He did not falter in the direction he took but sped swiftly on, growing smaller and smaller, till he was no more than a bit of thistledown.

Gussie said, “It’s just like I thought. We are drifting back to where we started from.”

“Perhaps,” Nicholas said, in his new hoarse voice, “we shall see home again.”

Augusta stood clinging by one hand to the mast and with the other shading her eyes from the glare of the sun.

XXV

The Rescue

Adeline Whiteoak had been awake since sunrise, and that after a restless night. Sunrise had been brilliant. After a few hours of heavy sleep, induced by a sleeping draught, the fiery blaze of the sunrise struck her full in the face. Her eyes flying open discovered Philip leaning over her and her first half-unconscious thought was, “How funny he looks!” for his face was covered by a yellow stubble, and his eyes were bloodshot. All came back to her. The nightmare dreams of her few drugged hours of sleep.

“Don’t look so terrified,” he said. “At last we have news.”

“News?” she repeated, struggling to sit up. “News? For the love of God — what news?”

He helped her to rise. “Not what you’d like to hear,” he said.

She whispered, “Have their bodies been found?”

“No. I think they may still be alive. A young man is here whose boat they have taken. Tite Sharrow brought him. You’d better come and see him. Try to control yourself, dearest.”

She was pressing her hand against her side to quiet her heart. “Who is he?”

“A young bank clerk from the town. He owns a small sailing boat which he is just learning to handle. He kept it in a boathouse that he built himself —”

“Are they drowned then?” she whispered through shaking lips.

“We don’t know. Come and talk to him.”

He led her through the hall that somehow looked strange to her. The young man was in the porch and with him Tite Sharrow.

The young man, fair and thin, took an eager step towards her. “My name,” he said, “is Blanchflower. I’m afraid it is my boat your children have taken.”

“Blanchflower,” repeated Adeline, as though by the repetition of his name she would postpone the dread news he brought. “In Ireland I once knew a man of that name.”

“I’m in the Royal Bank in town. I’ve been saving for years for that boat — it’s dreadful to think that it may be the means —”

“You think my children may be on the lake in it?”

“It’s not in the boathouse, Mrs. Whiteoak.” He looked at her pityingly.

Tite Sharrow spoke up. “I discovered that this gentleman’s boat was not in the boathouse, so I went to the town to find out about it.”

The bank clerk interrupted, “This lad,” he nodded towards Tite, “walked all the way to the town to find me. He must have walked all night. But we had a lift back here. I found that my dinghy was gone. There were small footprints about. I’m afraid …”

“Could you see any sign of the boat? On the lake, I mean.”

“No, Mrs. Whiteoak. And I’m afraid the lake is a bit rough.” The young man looked deeply concerned.

Philip said, “The worst is that the young ’uns don’t know the first thing about handling a sail.”

Tite raised his weary eyes to Philip’s face. “Boss,” he said, in his low grave voice, “I know a man in Stead who owns a small steam vessel. He takes picnic parties out in it. If I had money to offer him —”

Philip spoke with impatience and terrible anxiety. “You must take me to this man, as soon as possible. Can you ride a fast horse?”

“I can do anything, Boss, if it’s in a good cause.”

“I must go too!” cried Adeline.

She would not be dissuaded, but must change her clothes.

Tite, serious with the weight of responsibility, set out first to interview the owner of the steamship. As he galloped over the country road, sometimes through deep puddles, he had no care for himself or for the horse. His deep engrossing thought was for the rescue of the children. Dark clouds had canopied the sky. Heavy rain threatened. Distant thunders sounded across the lake.

Young Isaac Busby came also to Jalna — after an urgent message from Philip. Scarcely had he arrived when the deluge descended. Adeline was in despair, trailing in her long skirts from one room to another, wringing her hands after she had tried to see through the wall of rain that blurred the windows. At noonday it was twilight. Out of the dimness the white form of Augusta’s dove appeared. The rain ceased.

The young clerk who owned the dinghy had remained with Adeline. He ran on to the soy grass to investigate, for Bessie had cried out in her excitement at discovering the ghostly shape of the dove. Adeline followed him.

“Is it Gussie’s bird?” she asked, her hand to her throat.

“The maid has gone upstairs to open your daughter’s window. The maid thinks that if it is the pet bird,” answered young Blanchflower, “it will fly into the house.”

The two stood watching the gable where the dove had alighted. Now they saw it slowly, as though wearily, wing its way into Gussie’s room. To Adeline it was the final blow. She would have sunk to the ground but Blanchflower supported her. So Philip found them when he came with the news that arrangements had been made to hire the steamship.

“The children are lost — drowned,” Adeline was just able to articulate. “The dove has come back to tell us.”

“We must not lose hope,” he said, and ran up the two flights of stairs to Gussie’s room.

When he came down again he moved more slowly.

“Well?” asked Adeline.

“It’s Gussie’s dove — looking very draggled. But I believe it’s brought good news…. Will you come on the steamship? The owner is having it got ready. Isaac Busby is here on a fast horse.”

Young Blanchflower said in an undertone to Philip, “Do you think Mrs. Whiteoak should accompany us? Supposing we should find the dinghy floating — with no one in it?”

“My wife,” Philip returned haughtily, “is not the sort of woman to be left behind.”

Two hours later the steamer, fresh-painted and trig for summer service, was moving in erratic fashion about the lake in search of the dinghy with the lost children. There were on board the captain and his crew of two, Philip and Adeline, Wilmott and Isaac Busby, young Blanchflower and Titus Sharrow.

Tite had the sharpest eyesight. He stood in the bow and it was he who first, after hours of search, sighted the dinghy. “I’ve found it!” he cried. “I’ve found it! Can’t you see?”

But none of the others could as yet see the small boat. They crowded into the bow of the steamship. Adeline stood on a seat, Philip supporting her. Now she discovered the dinghy and the three small half-drowned figures in it. “They’re dead!” she screamed, while Philip clasped her tightly. “Don’t look,” he said. “Don’t look.”

The engine of the steamer slowed down its speed. As the two boats drew near, Tite leaped overboard. After the splash he could be seen striking out for the dinghy. The steamer stopped.

“Children! Children!” screamed Adeline. “I’m here! Look up!”

Three white little faces were raised towards her. She and the others in the steamship saw Tite clamber over the side of the dinghy…. It was he who lifted the children, one by one, and placed them in extended arms.

Young Blanchflower remarked to Philip, “That half-breed is a wonderful fellow. I’ve never seen anything more neatly done.”

“He shall be well rewarded,” said Philip.

“It was remarkable,” went on Blanchflower, “how he discovered my boathouse and got the idea that the children had run off with my boat.”

“He is an altogether remarkable fellow,” said Philip. “Mr. Wilmott can tell you that.” But Philip hardly knew what he was saying. His eyes were fixed on the three limp figures, dripping and scarcely conscious. It was he who took them from Tite into his own arms and carried them to the cabin.

“Gussie — Nick — Ernie —” he kept saying. “Papa’s here — you’re safe. Mamma is here — speak to her.” But only moans came from their blue lips. Nicholas was the first to show interest in his rescue. “Tite,” he got out, then could not continue. “Yes — yes —” said Philip. “Tite found you. He was the first to sight the dinghy.”

Nicholas smiled. “I’m glad you found us,” he said.

“How hoarse his voice is!” cried Adeline. “Oh, how miserable he looks!”

“He smiled,” said Philip.

Young Blanchflower carried Gussie. To him she appeared beautiful and romantic. He thought, as he crossed the doorsill into the small cabin that smelt of paint and putty, “Why — I might be an old-time bridegroom, carrying his stolen bride over the threshold of his castle!” He was a hopelessly romantic young man.

The little steamship, after this first excursion of her season, turned about and made her way homeward. There were two slippery haircloth sofas in her cabin, and the children wrapped in blankets were laid on these. Ernest caused the greatest anxiety to his parents. In spite of frequent sips of brandy he still continued to shiver. He seemed only half-conscious. Adeline held him in her arms. Philip divided his time between the two older children, chafing their hands and feet, patting their backs reassuringly. On deck, Tite Sharrow squatted in the warm sunshine which now made itself pleasantly felt. A look of extreme peace lay like a veil on his face. For some reason Wilmott avoided him.

The owner of the dinghy, Peter Blanchflower, descended from the steamer into the little craft. Thankful he was to have it restored to him, not damaged — only dirty. He sloshed through the water, in which floated the debris of the children’s voyage. He found an empty tin and began to bail out the water. Wilmott, leaning over the rail of the steamer, asked:

“Would you like me to help you?”

“Not unless you want to come, sir.”

“Are you sailing back to your boathouse?”

“Yes. The wind is in the right direction. We should arrive some time before the others, who must come from the pier by road. I’d like to have your company, sir.”

Climbing with agility over the rail Wilmott too descended into the dinghy. Between them they put the sailing gear in order. Isaac Busby came to look down on their activities. He said to young Blanchflower, “In my opinion you should share equally in the reward with Tite Sharrow.”

Blanchflower raised his face which the spring sunlight discovered as particularly candid, unassuming, and attractive. With the sail’s rope between his teeth he said, “I have done nothing.”

Wilmott said, “I agree. The reward should be shared.” Wilmott felt that he would be more comfortable in his own mind if Tite were not given the full reward. To him there was something shady in this rescue, though he could not have told what.

Blanchflower, however, was obdurate, refusing any part in the reward. Tite stood now, at a little distance, listening. A lithe dark figure, his beautiful torso glistening in the sunshine, he listened as though aloof from all these doings.

At about the same time the steamer and the dinghy moved in different directions across the gay springtime lake, the steamer returning to Stead, the dinghy, breeze borne, to the boathouse. Philip called out to Wilmott and Blanchflower an invitation to come to dinner. So, having housed the dinghy and conveyed the news of the rescue to Annabelle, the two set out to walk to Jalna. On the way Blanchflower exclaimed to Wilmott, “I cannot think of a better life than that led by you and the Whiteoaks. When I take my holidays I’d like nothing so well as to come and camp by your river, if I might.”

“You’d be very welcome,” said Wilmott, who found the young man congenial company. He even confided to him that, some years before, he had written a novel but had never yet mustered the courage to send the manuscript to a publisher. Blanchflower, a confirmed reader of fiction, said with fervour that there was nothing he would enjoy so much as reading the novel.

By the time they reached Jalna they found the family returned, the doctor’s gig in front of the door, and the children tucked in bed. They had been given warm bread and milk, though Nicholas had great difficulty in swallowing because of inflamed tonsils. Little Ernest lay in beatific happiness, simply at being able to hold his mother’s hand and gaze out of swollen eyes into her solicitous face. He did not notice how pale she was or the blue shadows beneath her eyes. His mind was dazed by the joy of lying safe in her bed, with her beside him. Nicholas was on the sofa in the library, with Nero on the rug beside him and Philip close by. Now and again Philip would say, “All right, old man?” and Nicholas would nod, his eyes filling with tears, his hand reaching towards Philip.

Augusta, having been given a hot bath, a drink of beef broth, was tucked up in bed. She could hear her dove cooing on the gable above. She was content to lie tranquil, unutterably tired, savouring the fact that she and the boys had been rescued from the peril of the lake.

She dozed, but was waked by the consciousness that someone was standing by the bed, looking down at her. It was young Blanchflower standing there with a cup of steaming coffee in his hand.

“Your mother was bringing this to you,” he said, “but she looked so weary I asked if I might.” And he added, “I have a young sister about your age.”

She did not try to hide her weakness from him.

He put a hand behind her shoulders and, raising her a little, held the coffee cup to her lips. She drank.

Never again, in all her life, did any drink taste so delicious. Never again did any young man look so beautiful. She would have liked to kiss his hand. Instead she whispered, “I ran away.”

“So did I — once,” he said, and tucked the quilt about her. “I ran — to Canada.”

“I’m glad,” Gussie whispered. When next she opened her eyes he was gone, but, in her fancy, his image had effectually banished the image of Guy Lacey.