Читать книгу Rubies - Elizabeth Louisa Moresby - Страница 6

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FOR two nights I did not sleep well. I suppose my father being away, together with the other things, worried me, for as a rule I sleep like a dormouse. On the second night I dreamed of the horse with the loose shoe—a mountain road and a horse thundering down it, clattering a loose shoe. My mother’s dream, and for the first time in my life! And the odd thing is that though the dream is nothing frightening in itself, I woke in a cold sweat and shaking from head to foot. And lo and behold, the wind was screaming like mad all round the house, and one of the worst Channel storms was upon us. The south-westers spring up very suddenly in these parts, as many of the smugglers and better men know to their cost, and often Shoal Bay would be strewn with profitable litter that the people round came and carried off like ants—there again, the coastguards should have stopped it, but it was a saying with us that God and the coastguards turned a blind eye on Shoal Bay.

Thinking of this when my senses came awake, I jumped out of bed and into my duds, meaning to find out if the men were off and away to the bay, for I never knew it blow so hard in all my born days. I met Nancy in the kitchen, she having got up all in a fright, thinking the house would be about our ears, and from her I made out (and no easy matter for the yelling of the wind) that two of the hands had gone down toward Shoal Bay with lanterns. I got the hall door open, with the gale flat against it, and, telling her to keep a fire up until I got back, slipped out, making myself small, and so after them.

Through the meadows, the long, wet grass whipping my legs, and to the cliff’s brow. And there I halted a minute, for there came an awful sound on the wind—a gun! A ship’s last cry in the death agony! Far out at sea, one—two—and then only the answering thunder of the gale. That Cornish coast, with its cruel rocks, the hopes that have gone down off it, the anguish it has witnessed! I struggled over the brow of the low cliff and down through the clinging gorse bushes, and to the beach and the little knot of men with lanterns.

They huddled together, half in pity, half in expectation. They could do nothing. Giants could not have launched a boat against the yelling wind and thundering billows that crashed on the shore and rolled up white and hissing to our feet. We could see nothing of the ship; the night was black as hell. She might have weathered the horns of the bay, but if not, we all knew her doom. There was a long reef or rock ran out from the left, ending in a jag we called the Pillar, that stood up about six feet at springs, and the wind and sea together would drive any mortal thing in the bay straight on the Pillar Reef that night.

“Lord save us!” muttered Blean, the words blown from his lips. “I wish to God the Squire was here to-night. He might have a thought to help the poor devils, but it’s beyond me. I’ll warrant they’re all at their prayers by now.”

“And well they may!” shouted Stokes. “Look at the Pillar!”

The whole reef was one milk-white confusion of broken water, the more awful because the moon was hunted from rift to rift of black cloud and gleamed and gloomed upon it in turn. But the Pillar! The billows broke upon it like a boiling pot, and it caught the foam and spray and dashed them heavenward in wild wrath. The moon stared out, dazed, for a moment, and suddenly we saw a phantom shape driving on the Pillar—a black ghost on milky waters.

“What’s this? D’ye know her?” shouted a man, hooping his hands to carry his voice. “No English ship, I’ll swear!”

“You’re right, Saunders. A Frenchman, I’ll be bound, God help her!”

And as she wallowed, upheaving her glittering side in the moonlight, the sullen boom of a gun rent the storm once more.

“A gun! What can she be?” I cried, forgetting how many ships were armed during the War.

Not a man to be seen nor cry heard, save that one lion-roar of agony. It moved the stoniest heart, and the men who would rob her later were silent now, for Death stood white and beckoning on the reef and she plunged toward him as a woman to her lover. I saw her drawn quicker and quicker like a match into the vortex, until finally a mighty billow caught and cast her on the reef. There was a crash. God grant none that reads this page may ever hear the like! But not a human sound. Not one.

Presently, for more men had come running down to join us, there was a cry of “Take hands,” and we were making a line that ran out shoulder-deep into the furious surf. They put me at the outer end because of my height and strength. I know big Saul Bland’s hand, gripping mine, felt like hot iron. We had a rope about our waists and knew exactly where the wash would bring them. Collins, next but one to me, was the first to scream out, “A man!” and I stooped and was buried in a smother of racing water and got him, and we passed him along to the sands beyond reach of the white lash of the waves. And this time it was I who shouted, “Another!” and we got him too, and so with four more. And that was all we tore from the raging sea’s jaws, and of these three had the life beaten out of them and two were doubtful salvage. She bared her teeth that night in good earnest, and for weeks after the woeful tale went up and along the coast of lives lost in the storm.

We did what we could for the living and covered the four dead over (for one died under our hands), and I pass over the rest until the two stood up, and with the help of ready arms began to climb the cliff. The one they took to Saul Bland’s house.

“And take the other to our house, Tom Blean,” I said. “My father’s from home, but I’ll speak for him, and I’ll run on ahead and get ready.”

They nodded, supporting the poor wretch, and I ran hell for leather, the wind thrusting me on like hands the way I had come. There was a cheerful light in the big kitchen and the dancing of a good fire, for my mother was up and doing and all was ready.

I dashed in all dripping, raining Channel water on the floor, and she caught me in her arms as if it were I who had escaped drowning.

“Only one,” I said, and sank, half done, into a chair.

Twenty minutes later came the flotsam and jetsam, painfully supported by Blean and Stokes, his left foot in a bloody bandage and wrapped in some odd-come-short garments on the beach, a man behind carrying his dripping clothes in a bundle under his arm. He stopped at the door and tried to bow to my mother, and she, all in a flutter of pity, could scarcely bear it.

“Oh, don’t mind me, you poor thing!” she cried, her eyes brimming over. “Nancy, fetch a cushion. Phoebe, the stool for his feet and a hot drink.”

And for a minute there was such a flurry of hot drinks and pity that I could not get a look at the stranger at all. She had a roll of clean linen fetched and her huswife, and dressed his foot with delicate fingers, kneeling before him to do it.

“Indeed, madam, you are most angel-kind,” he said, in a moved, uncertain way. “If I could help it I would never allow you to take so much trouble—but your fingers are like heaven about me.”

He spoke in a voice that struck me as very pleasant, in spite of a marked foreign accent which I could not place. The English was perfect, but clipped, with a soft rolling of the letter ‘r’ and raising and lowering of the note, and he used his hands as a Britisher never can, not even when he is play-acting.

Mother whispered to me as she came to the cupboard for her scissors:

“Not a Frenchman—what is he, Roger? But I like the look of him.”

And so did I. Not that he was handsome, you understand. I have no use for frontispiece beauty in a man. But courteous to a degree, and as if he could not help it and begged you not to be discomposed because he was doing his best for you—I cannot explain it!

“Madam, I must entreat!” raising himself, though his lips were white with pain, as my mother knelt before him again. “See, I will put my foot on a chair, and so you need not kneel.”

Have you never noticed how courtesy draws out the like in others? My mother spoke like a Court lady, though indeed her ways were always graceful.

“Would not your mother kneel to do this? And I am sure she is a greater lady than I,” she said, looking up with moist eyes from the torn foot.

“You say very true, madam, she would. And she would thank and bless you for your goodness.”

He leaned back, closing his eyes, and when she lifted the basin and rose we found he had quietly fainted away. We thought at first he was dead, no less, and though there was no chance for a doctor in such weather, I telephoned to Dr. Bligh to come next day, and we got Tom Blean, and he and I carried him up to the blue room and got him into bed in my pyjamas.

Mother noticed to me that his linen was all of the best, and that he wore about his neck a thin gold chain with a cross on it—but not the cross we all know—one with the points curiously bent and twisted at right angles. I knew it later for the amulet called the swastika.

He hardly had his senses yet, but when his head was on the pillow he put out his hand to feel for the cross. My mother sat up with him for the rest of the night, and said he tossed and moaned in his sleep and talked a language she did not know, very quick and eager.

The morning dawned as blue and innocent as if there were nothing to be ashamed of in the black night’s murder, and the gorged sea was rocking itself asleep when I ran down to have a look before breakfast. Not a sign of the ship. The waves broke gently on the Pillar with a chime lazy and measured like a lullaby, though outside the bay the swell was still heavy. There was scarcely a sound but the mirthless chuckle of the great gulls sweeping low in search of food. Only by one thing could a man tell the mischief. Shoal Bay was full of people, scurrying in by cart and a-foot to have their share of the plunder before the coastguards should come (and indeed no one was in a hurry to fetch them!) and guard what was left, according to law. I myself, climbing on the reef with the tide out, found wedged among the mussels and weed a brass-bound box, as heavy as I could lift, and took possession of it with a kind of instinct that it might belong to our guest, for it had a fine twisted monogram cut into the brass.

It was far from a pleasant sight to see how the men and women were hurrying to pick up what they could and none caring a curse for the corner where lay stretched and stiff another sort of drift from the cruel sea. The night before, not one there but would have done his best to save them. Now it was over, and catch as catch can.

It sickened me, and I hoisted my box and back to the house, and at the door I met Mother. Dr. Bligh had been and said he could not better her dressing, and our guest would be a prisoner some days, but was improving hand over hand. I put the box under my bed until I could talk it over with her.

“And now come along, Roger, and sup your porridge.”

The guest had rejected that dish, but made a good breakfast otherwise. He had given his name—Ivan Vandaloff. Russian. I must confess that had chilled my mother a little, and did me, for every Russian seemed a possible Bolshevik, and heaven only knew what troubles it might bring about our ears. I wished my father had been there to deal with it, but, telephone as I would, I could get no news of him in Gwent. We consoled ourselves by reflecting that with such manners Mr. Vandaloff could scarcely be one of the rabble running Russia to the precipice—and why might he not be a refugee? She warmed to him again directly I suggested that.

I was sitting in the porch after breakfast, having my before-work cigarette and wondering what Father would think of all this, when I heard the sound of a stick come clumping down the stairs and got up to meet it.

“Won’t you take my arm, Mr. Vandaloff? It’s pleasant here with the roses and sunshine, and here’s a chair. But ought you to be up?”

I got him into the long chair, and he lay back weakly.

“This is heavenly,” he said with a long sigh.

All we had learned of the wrecked ship was that she was the Belle Aurore, but where from and where bound not a soul knew as yet, so I was keen to hear, but would not hurry him because of good manners.

As he lay back I liked the look of him even better than the night before. I have seldom seen a face which better expressed a cheerful temper and good humour with himself and all the world. His features were clean-cut, with a good straight nose and rather full but well-shaped lips, hair and eyes black as midnight and noticeable with full black brows, his colour reminding me of an old ivory box in the parlour, a relic of my father’s Burmese days, the complexion being of a slightly yellowish tint like old lace. He was extremely slight, and his fingers long and slender—I am one who notices hands, which I think betray birth and breeding more clearly than the face. But the charm was the man’s look of simple good nature. That was captivating and gave me the same kind of pleasure as a child’s or dog’s trusting approach. His clothes had been dried and looked a little the worse for sea water, but were of the best.

Presently he opened his eyes upon me.

“Thank you, Mr. Pendarvis, for all your goodness. You and your mother must want to know more about the guest the sea has forced upon you, and yet you are too polite to ask.”

“No hurry,” I said, laughing. “Get well first, and then time enough to tell us what you like.”

“Then—but will you call Mrs. Pendarvis, if she can spare us a few minutes?”

I did so, and she came along all in a flutter. Crippled as he was, he bowed and tried to reach out to pull a chair for her. He spoke earnestly.

“If I could only thank you, madam, I might speak till to-morrow and still leave unsaid all I feel. But when I tell my mother her gratitude will repay even you if you could know it.”

His English was like a book, much more correct than most people talk, and as if he had learnt it with care, but so foreign, so oddly clipped! It was the only unattractive thing about him, and had a cheap sound—I can’t tell why. He would not let her answer, but went on:

“My name is Ivan Vandaloff, of St. Petersburg—I should say, Leningrad, though the change does not please me. My father lost his land and money and met his death in distressed circumstances, and I was on my way on board the Belle Aurore to France, intending then to come to England to see a nobleman who is a cousin through his wife, who, I hope, will help me to some honest work. And here I am in England where the waves have landed me! But I think he cannot be far, as this is Cornwall.”

Even before he had finished Kyriel shot into my mind. His Russian wife—of course. I was as certain as if he had said it. I interrupted my mother.

“This is Shoal Bay, and Lord Kyriel’s place, Hatton Park, is only an hour’s walk from here.”

Being weak, the little surprise brought the blood to his temples, and he opened his eyes on me, but controlled himself.

“Certainly I mean Lord Kyriel. His wife and my mother were cousins. How strange! It seems the sea has brought me to the place I wanted. I was to have landed at Gwent and come by rail. Then will you add to your kindness by sending a message to his lordship? It is serious for me, having lost all my valuables in a box which went down with the ship.”

I had another inspiration.

“Was it a box of foreign wood, bound with brass—for I found one on the rocks this morning?”

“Yes, yes!” he cried joyfully. “Oh, lucky house this has been to me! For all the good you have brought me I thank you a thousand times! Bring it here this moment, my friend!”

He became more foreign in his excitement, face flushing as a British face never does nor can. His foreignness and the fresh mix-up with Kyriel made my heart misgive me. Life was getting so extraordinary. A week ago, not a ruffle in our placid life and the daily round of farming, riding, fishing, and now—heaven only knew what was upon us! And there was my father away—I was fairly puzzled with it all.

And when I brought the box, there he was, talking like an old friend to my mother, and her face alight with interest.

“The very one!” he cried in a kind of rapture. “Well, that makes all the difference between hope and misery to me. Presently I will show you some of what is in it. And now, Mr. Pendarvis, will you do me the favour of sending word to Lord Kyriel that I am here, hindered by a wounded foot from going to him?”

You may guess that this request gave me something to think of. How on earth could I go to Hatton Park in the light of day? And as to writing from our house I could not see my way. And then Mr. Vandaloff might not be welcome, for all I could tell. So there I stood, wishing with all my heart I had never heard of Kyriel nor he of me.

After a minute’s pause I suggested the telephone, but he looked doubtful on that.

“I am very anxious to send him a written word, if possible. There is a reason. You see, he has no expectation of my coming.”

I must own it seemed to me I was fast becoming Kyriel’s errand-boy, and I did not like it. So again I hesitated and Vandaloff saw it.

“I ask too much,” he said politely. “No matter. No hurry.”

My mother settled it.

“Roger will certainly go. There are reasons why I would not choose to intrude on Lord Kyriel, but that is neither here nor there, when a guest is concerned. You shall have your answer in two hours.”

I went, as unwilling as man could be.