Rainbow Cottage (20 page)

It was a long time they were out there in the water. Sheila slid farther down in her hiding place and heaped up sand to rest her head upon. She felt deadly weary after her long race up the beach and after her long night of wakefulness. She let her eyelids droop over her tired eyes, and a few slow tears welled up from the depths of her misery and slid down her cheeks. It was cool and quiet here, and no one could see her old blue serge with its great burned hole in the front breadth and its scorched blouse beneath. Little breezes played hide-and-seek among the rocks of the cove and slyly kissed the tears from her cheeks. But Sheila was so tired she did not feel them. She only felt the gentleness and peace of the place as she dropped off into deep sleep.

When she awoke everything seemed strange. She could not remember where she was. She did not know what had wakened her. Something cold and sinister was touching her hands, creeping up through her clothing, chilling her feet.

In sudden alarm she turned over and sat up and saw to her horror that there was water all around and below her—water creeping to her feet, water dashing up in a torrent at the sunny opening where she had come in. What could it mean? Where was she?

A
t first she could not collect her thoughts, could not tell what kind of place she was in nor what had happened to her. Then slowly, bit by bit, it came back to her. She had slapped Jacqueline, had gone away from Rainbow Cottage, and had hidden in a cave. This was the cave, but it was not like the place where she had lain down. It was dark and cold, and there was water all around her. Only the little heap of sand she had scooped up had kept her head out of the water. It was a chill, awful place, and what could have happened? Was this the strange thing they called the tide that had come up and surrounded her? She tried to remember what they had said about tides and how long they took to turn.

But suddenly a great pounding wave, greater than all that had preceded it, roared into the cavern, rising like a frightful wall in front of her and breaking all around and over her.

She gasped for breath and struggled to her feet, losing one worn old shoe in the attempt, and as the worst of the wave receded with a menace in its going that promised swift return, she splashed wildly toward the opening where gray day still showed a hope.

She tried to remember how the land lay where she had slipped around from the beach behind the rock, but when she stepped to where she thought it was, she found the water alarmingly deep and lost her footing. And when she drew back and tried again for a shallower place, she stepped sharply on a jagged rock with the shoeless foot and drew back into her cover again with a cry of pain.

Then she heard another of those terrifying waves coming on with the roar of a locomotive and shrank away, hiding her face against the rock and holding her breath till it was gone.

This one was worse than the last. She must do something quickly or make up her mind to drown.

Then with a mind sharpened by her peril, she remembered a great flat rock that had loomed higher than the rest just ahead of her cove. There had been a path up its jagged sides as if people climbed there. Could she possibly find her way up, and would it be high enough to save her?

She opened her eyes and looked ahead. Was that it, the gray dim thing out there? Could she get there? The water seemed deep around it, but it was her only hope. For, looking around, now she saw that the entire cove was filled with water, and when she tried to cross it and get farther up the beach, the water proved to be beyond her depth.

She waded out—to her knees, to her waist. The rock was just ahead of her now, and another breaker was coming. She plunged ahead and caught its sides, and a sharp shell cut her foot. Ah! There was a cleft for her hand. She clung to it and clutched for another jagged point, and strangely enough as she stood there waist deep in water clutching the granite wall, she heard her mother’s voice singing as it used to sing to her when she was a child going to sleep:

Ah! There came the breakers pounding like a great beast against the rock, roaring wildly into the cave behind her as if searching for her where she had been, and strangely enough not hurling her off her feet as she had expected. She seemed to be held in a little haven where the worst force of the waves could not reach, a spot out of the path of the tide as it rushed in.

And as the water hastened madly away again out to sea, seeming to babble angrily that she had escaped its fury, she felt herself drawn slowly with it, closer, and yet closer to the rock, and lifted slightly till her feet suddenly found a little foothold in a crevice of the rock.

Her heart beat wildly. Was this the beginning of the path up to the top of the rock?

She felt with the other foot, a little higher up, and, yes, surely there was a step, wide and low, and a place for her hand to hold. Could she get up before another awful volume of water overwhelmed her?

She sensed that on this side of the rock, a little farther to the left, there was comparative calm, and here strangely she found the foothold led. She crept on like a little frightened bird, out of breath and drenched and cold, yet clinging. Whenever the water surged around her feet again, she would just put her face close to the rock and cling, and always above the water’s roar she could hear her mother’s voice singing.

Once she almost lost her hold and felt herself slipping back, for the water was still above her knees, but when the next wave receded, she managed to draw herself on higher up. How high was that rock? High enough to stay above the highest wave?

Little by little she drew herself up, clinging with hands and arms and weary aching feet, sobbing as she crept along and beginning to pray as she sobbed.

“O Rock! Hide me! Hide me! Hide me!”

After what seemed like ages, she drew herself at last entirely out of the water where she could see the little rocky steps up to the summit, and inch by inch she finished the way and lay down upon that broad flat top. She remembered thinking as she dropped back and closed her tired eyes that it was about the size of a bed and wondering if the water would get high enough to wash her away from it. There was nothing to cling to here, just broad flat rock, worn smooth by many suns and seas.

After she was rested a little, she sat up and looked around her but was almost too terrified to stand it. The sea was all around her everywhere, and night was coming on. Was it night or only an awful storm? Her senses were too dazed to understand. Yes, a storm perhaps, for there were great dark clouds of purple and copper in the sky, and a ship with gray sails closely reefed was scuttling off in fright against the horizon, masts tilted ahead like one running, and there was jagged lightning in the sky. It was awesomely beautiful out there, like doom and the Judgment Day, and she could not look at it. She bent her head, shut her eyes again, and prayed. When that storm broke, where would she be?

Somewhere down along that shoreline not so very far away was Rainbow Cottage, and peace and safety. What a fool she had been! What an awful fool! What did it matter what that silly Jacqueline had said? Even about her precious mother? Words could not hurt her anymore. She was gone from this earth. Words of a girl like that meant nothing anyway. She had only been trying to anger her, trying to keep her from having anything to do with Angus Galbraith. Just words flung out like darts. Jacqueline had been battling for herself. She, Sheila, should not have minded. Even the infuriating insinuations could not have insulted either herself or her parents if she had not chosen to take them that way. What a silly fool she had been! She had condescended to fight—she who had taken Christ for her Savior, fighting with a girl who obviously did not know Him.

She put her face down into her cold, wet hands and sobbed.

“Oh, forgive me, God. Forgive me, please!” she cried aloud into the seclusion of the howling storm.

It was very dark. The storm was rushing on, roaring terrifically. Lurid colors appeared in the sky, wild jaws of death in the sea, towering now and then even above her rock, rearing up like walls and threatening then dropping and breaking with tempestuous noise just below where she was stranded.

All the little frightened ships on the horizon line had fled for safety. The storm had the sea to itself as far as she could see. It was dark. Frightfully dark. Off at her right, far away in the vague grayness and blackness, a searchlight shot out its fitful glare, darted across the scene, clashed with the play of lightning, and shot in again. That must be the revolving light Grandmother had told her about.

Far down the beach, a little light just like a speck of stardust appeared. That would be perhaps where Rainbow Cottage stood. It might be that Janet had a light in the kitchen. Or, no, the wall around the kitchen garden would hide that. It must be a light upstairs. Maybe in the north window of the room that had been hers!

Oh, what a fool, what a fool! To have left that pleasant haven, that shelter that God had sent her to, just because she was angry and did what was beneath a guest of the house—slapped another guest, a member of the family, too! Just like a little beast she had been, snarling and fighting! Why had she let her hot temper get the better of her? How many times had her mother warned her that she had a hasty pride inherited from her father that would be her undoing, as it had been his, if she did not take control of it! Ah! But it was too late now! She had driven herself out of that lovely home, and the love of her Grandmother, and the place where God had meant her to be safe.

It took another hour of terror and slowly approaching death to bring Sheila to see that, even after she had done that hasty deed that put her in the wrong, she should not have run away. That it was only pride and unwillingness to confess herself in the wrong and humbly ask pardon that had sent her flying from that loving care. She should have gone straight to Grandmother and told her what had happened, should have gone straight to Jacqueline and asked her to forgive. It would have been humiliating, yes, but when one has lost control of one’s self and done wrong, one should be humiliated.

God showed her herself there upon that tiny islet in that great howling storm. God spoke to her little, frightened soul. Earthly things fell away. The crashing heaven opened brilliant gateways in the blackness of the clouds and clashed them shut again. The other world seemed just above the rending of the skies. She gave a frightened look above. There were distinct layers of clouds of different colors each whirling in a separate course and horrid green and copper lights shivering in between them, with jagged lines of lightning flashing up and down the sky.

The water was rising now, she could sense that, even though it was too dark to see distinctly. Each time a great mountain of a wave rose between her and the horizon it was higher than before. The spray was dashing in her face. Her clothing was soaked through. Her hair, too. Her hat was gone, she did not know how long ago. She had no memory of where or when it had fallen. She was freezing cold and shivering like a leaf in a gale, but she was scarcely aware of that, there was so much shivering, moving, noise around her. Her teeth were chattering, and her face was wet with tears and spray.

She sat up again and braced her arms out behind her, the flat of her hands upon the smooth rock, trying to find some place to cling, some way to make a suction between her hand and the rock, but it was slippery and frightening. She felt dizzy and terrified.

Shuddering, she lay down again and closed her eyes. It could not be so long now before that water would wash over her rock. There was no doubt about it any longer. Did it take long to die by drowning? Was it more than a gasp and a choking and then the end? She was not afraid to die, and she knew that it did not matter what became of the body after death, but somehow it seemed so terrifying to be swept off into that wide sea, to be tossed about by cruel waves, thrown against unknown rocks. Floating down, down, and out among the strange, ferocious inhabitants of the ocean. She wouldn’t know it, of course. They wouldn’t be able to frighten her when she was dead—those terrible sharks and whales and other sea creatures about which she had read—but the thought of them now was petrifying. Oh, if the end would only hasten! Let it come quickly and be over!

She lay there trying to take her mind from such thoughts, trying to pray, trying to be calm. And then she felt the first wave really wash across her body and suck away back into the briny deep, holding her down for the moment, sucking her close to the rock. Just for the instant, it comforted her that the water was helping to anchor her to her rock.

It was some time before another wave reached so far, but when it came it destroyed her confidence, for it lifted her up for just an instant and gave her that awful feeling of helplessness in the hands of the great, cruel, mighty ocean.

When it receded again, she clutched at her rock and began to pray.

“Oh God, please forgive me. Please make Grandmother know I am sorry. And please take me Home quick! I am so afraid!”

Was her mother out there in the storm calling to her to let her know she need not be afraid? She closed her eyes and tried to listen, and there came the old hymn just as she had sung it the night she died:

It comforted her to listen. It helped her not to be so afraid when the next great wave lifted her higher than before and almost washed her off the far edge of the rock into the sea. She was surprised when it ebbed away and left her still on the firm stone. She gathered strength to creep back as far to the inner edge as possible without rolling off. But she knew that only another wave or two and she would go.