Читать книгу Splendid Joy - Marguerite Williams - Страница 6

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“WOULD you care to come for a sail this morning?” Royce spoke casually, but his keen eyes were studying Clare’s expressive face. She flushed with undisguised pleasure.

“It would be delightful,” she responded without affectation. “It’s very kind of you.”

He gave a short laugh.

“Oh, no, it isn’t. I’m getting rather tired of my own company, and I hate being bored.” He looked at her thin dress. “Go and put on a warm coat,” he commanded, “we shall get the breeze out there; and put something on your head that will stick.”

She laughed happily as she turned to obey him. It was delightful to have someone telling her what to do.

“I’m going for a sail,” she explained, putting her head into the kitchen where Mrs. Hulbert was shelling peas.

“That’s right!” agreed the kind woman heartily. “It’ll do you a world of good.”

She rose, lifted the top from the stove, tossed the pods out of her apron into the fire, and bustled to the door. “I’ll help you into your warm jersey.”

“I shan’t need to be waited on much longer,” Clare asserted as they laboriously got the wounded arm into the sleeve. “The splint’s coming off directly. Won’t it be just lovely to be able to do my own hair again!”

She pulled her little hat over her brown curls, then ran down the narrow stairs as she had not since she came.

“Take care of her, Mr. Royce,” Mrs. Hulbert said, following her into the porch. She patted Clare’s arm affectionately as she looked at him—quite unconscious that he knew exactly how far she had got in her speculations.

“All right,” he said lightly. “But don’t worry if we don’t come back!”

They went down the golden sandy shore, Clare’s eyes on the blue waters—seeing only sunshine; the motherly woman looking after them—seeing orange blossoms.

“Are you comfortable?” Royce demanded, as Clare sat back against the cushions that he had put ready.

“Perfectly,” she said contentedly—and the boat shot out seawards.

Royce moved about for a few minutes, manipulating the sails, then he came and sat beside her and took the rudder.

“Now you have to talk to me,” he commanded, looking at her with a smile.

Could this be the man who a few days before had been a stranger?

“Not easy,” she said, answering his smile. “If you knew how outside everything I have been for the last year you would understand how difficult.”

“Have you been outside things?” he asked, with interest.

Clare’s eyes were on the wind-filled sails. Her happiness was obvious.

“For months and months I spent my days between the reading room of the British Museum, a typewriter, and an old grumbler,” she said; and her voice was glad because those days were past. “Now—listen! The swish of the water—the rush of the wind in the sails! Do you know what heavenly sounds those are?” She looked up at him. “You can’t know how heavenly unless you knew the typewriter and the grumbler.”

“It’s worth the wretched old things, isn’t it?”

“Quite!” she agreed emphatically.

He rose and trimmed the sail. Clare trailed her left hand in the cool water.

“Didn’t the reading room make you very wise?” he suggested.

“I was only gathering straw there—to make bricks for the building of an historian,” she explained.

“Then you breathed into them the breath of life?”

“I am very sorry—but I didn’t. He wanted nothing but bald political facts, cold dates and the strategies of kings in battle. Those are not history.”

“You’re right! No wonder the modern historian is not a ‘best seller.’ Gibbon, Macaulay, Froude and the men who made history live, never lacked a public. So you were limited to making bricks—all day?”

“Yes.” She hesitated; then she added quietly, “The evenings were beautiful—but sad. My sister was ill—for a long time.... So you understand that I am all behind. I hardly know what’s been going on in the world. I don’t know what plays have been running or have failed. I don’t know what stars have risen or set. I don’t know what musical geniuses have been discovered. I don’t even know what new religions have been born and died.”

She lifted her hand and held it up in the sunshine, watching the sparkling drops.

“It will be so exciting catching up,” she explained with a bright laugh.

“You’ve got the things that really count,” he asserted—offering no sympathy, “and everything costs.”

“How do you know that I have?” she asked in surprise.

“One can see that,” he said quietly. “How long are you going to enjoy these heavenly sounds before the wretched old typewriter clicks again?”

“It may be a new one,” she suggested, putting her hand back in the water. “I’ve said good-bye to the old one—the wretched old one—for ever; under compulsion, because my arm got smashed.”

“That’s something to the good!”

Clare laughed happily. “Yes,” she agreed. “It’s ever so exciting not knowing what’s going to happen next.” She did not mention the hours when the thought of her laggard health and her tiny dwindling capital hung over her as a cloud, and she could not feel the excitement of the game; but perhaps Martyn Royce understood.

Clare looked away to the rugged coast that they were passing; to the steep jagged rocks—the cliffs beautiful in purple and gold.

“Aren’t you glad you’re alive?” her companion demanded.

“Yes,” she assented, looking at the distant glory of gorse and heather. “Isn’t it a lovely world!”

Royce tucked the apron round her and smiled into her eyes.

“You’re just a kid!” he exclaimed, amused.

“I often feel sorry for the medium-rich people with a settled income,” she remarked contemplatively, sharing her thoughts in friendliness. “It’s so much more thrilling to fight for one, and see it grow—both ways.”

“Most people who see it grow—small—don’t look at it in that light,” he responded, screwing up his eyes against the glistening water.

“But there’s always more than one way of looking at a thing,” she reminded him, superfluously. “That’s another reason why life’s so exciting—it gives you a big choice.”

Clare had never doubted life’s interest, even when she had most dreaded its sorrow.

“A big choice of what you will have?” he challenged, suspecting that she had had little.

“A big choice of the way you will take what you have,” she amended.

“I choose, too, what I will have,” Royce declared; and the girl wondered whether he had yet known defeat.

“Men are freer to choose than women,” she suggested.

“Oh, nonsense! Make up your mind what you want and then go for it.”

“Suppose that when you’ve got it, it isn’t what you thought!”

“You should make sure first. But anyway, you’ve taken the risks. You mustn’t grumble. You’ve had the excitement of the chase, and you pay, that’s all.”

He looked across the water—shorewards.

“Hullo—you see that boat, she’s trying to race us! She means to be round the point first, and she’s full sail on. Now for it. I bet we win!”

The vessels were sailing on the wind. The one that had attracted Martyn’s attention was pointing more directly for the head that they were making for, but very soon Clare realized that the sensitive hand on the tiller beside her belonged to an expert who knew his boat.

The light of the race was in Martyn’s eyes. The wind whistled in the canvas. Clare’s brown curls were tossed about her eyes, the salt spray was flung against her cheeks. The boat raced along—the water rippling over her lee-side. A little pool began to grow in the lap of the apron. Clare laughed—because the world was so beautiful. She looked at her companion. His eyes were bright. He was looking away to the yacht that had attempted to get ahead of him. Slowly she was being left behind. Steadily the distance between them lengthened; nearer and nearer came the point they were making for. It was difficult to beat Martyn Royce.

“She’ll sail too near the wind if she doesn’t mind,” he exclaimed. “Good! I knew that she would”—he added with a smile of satisfaction, as they rounded the head, leaving their rival behind, with sails flapping. “Perhaps he’ll like to try again!”

He emptied the little pool of water from the lap of the apron.

“Are you enjoying it?” he demanded.

“Perfectly!”

“Yes?” he inquired.

“What?” she asked doubtfully. He was too keen.

“You were going to say?”

“I wasn’t going to say it—” she laughed.

“Oh, do. I’m interested.”

He turned the boat homeward.

“I was only thinking it strange that a day or two ago we seemed strangers.”

“And now we seem friends, you mean?”

“Well, yes,” she admitted.

“I shouldn’t count too much on that,” he said seriously. “People are so different when you know them.”

“Always?”

“Always!—I have very few friends.”

She did not look at him, she was wondering about his life.

“Should I find you very different?” she questioned.

“Oh—yes; you haven’t seen the scoundrel yet.”

“I don’t think I ever shall,” she laughed.

“At least don’t say you weren’t warned! Dear Mrs. Hulbert will be getting anxious. It’s just as well not to alarm people too soon,”—and he steered for the shore. “You must come again tomorrow,” he added, as he helped her out on to the sand.

“Thank you,” she said frankly, “it’s been lovely.”

“It’s better than drugs anyway?”

“Heaps!” she agreed. Then she went up the slope to the cottage.

Royce went on alone, but this time Clare’s thoughts followed him.

For three weeks she had seen him nearly every day, and she had hardly given him a thought. Then without warning he had quietly entered her life—as a vital human being to be thankful for. When she had shrunk before the dread of returning, sleep-destroying pain, his hand—the hand that had before been that of a stranger—had grasped hers; the dread had gone, and she had rested in safety. Now he had given her more....

In the evening the aspect of the sky changed. The distant cliffs were wrapped in mist. The sky hung heavy and grey before them. The grey sea was rising into a storm.

But the light was still in Clare’s eyes. She was seeing the sunlight on white sails; she was hearing the lap of breaking water; and as she fell asleep—healthfully tired through the buffeting of the breezes—she had the memory of a strong cool hand on hers.

What did the storms matter?