Part 3

“My God, sir!” cried old Simmons shrilly, snatching at Launce.

The bay came down on his knees in a shower of sand and shingle, staggered up and on, and was carried clear across the beach-road into the surf. Here the rider had the mastery in an instant. And before they could catch breath he was at Lucia’s side, splashed to the hair, on the wet and trembling horse.

“Here is your whip, Cousin Lucy,” he said, gently.

“My God, sir!” quavered old Simmons again, running to the horse’s knees.

Lucia did not take the whip. She sat looking at Geoffrey, trembling exceedingly. “How dare you!” she said at last, under her breath, “how dare you!”—and then, bending forward, she broke into wild tears.

The colour went from Geoffrey’s face as if he had been struck, and Launce, with a swift sense that the world had begun to go astray, saw that he too was shaking. “Here’s your whip, Cousin Lucy,” he said again, and even his voice shook.

But she struck it from his hand, struck it down in the sand, spurred the mare, and went off full speed down the beach. Geoffrey followed her in an instant. They saw her motion him away fiercely, saw him rein Monseigneur back two lengths in his thunderous canter. Then the silver shimmer of sun on leagues of grey beach and sea took them, and old Simmons turned with a sigh. “Lord be gentle wi’ ’em,” he said, aloud. “Come you wi’ me, Master Launce.”

The bleak gardens lay grey and quiet in the pale light. Only the crushed and trampled wallflowers and the old steps scarred with hooves served to show that a storm had passed. Launce, touching the little faun as he lay in his stone sleep, started back to find the leaf-covered breast warm, as if a heart beat there. But it was only the warmth of the sun.

That night Lucia did not go early to the drawing-room, but sat with Launce in the little room over the gardens till he fell asleep. The moon seemed to be reeling down the skies under a great press of steam-white cloud, and now the room was dark, now silver-bright. Sometimes Launce had no more of Lucia than her firm, small hand in his; sometimes he saw her face, pale and clear as the face of the little faun in the garden below. He was very sleepy, and there seemed to be music in the air; drowsing, he wondered if the little faun were calling them so, out to some unknown magic of the night. Presently there was more music in the room beneath—the gayest, brightest little laughing tunes imaginable, and a cheerful thumping noise. Uncle Will was apparently sitting on the window-sill and applauding with his feet; and the tunes went flying out of the window like little blue and golden birds.

“Sing, Geoff, sing,” cried Uncle Will in delight.

There was a silence, a changed chord on the instrument, and the high, wild voice rang out:—

Again the child was pierced with that wordless sense of the world astray, of loneliness, of loss. “Godfather Geoff is going away,” he said drowsily, “he told me so,” and felt for Lucia’s hand. The room seemed to open in the darkness, fronting a flood of silver. And he saw her face, shining with silent tears.

III

Great House by day was a mere pile of bleak grey stone, set in a wind-bitten garden. Selfish lovers, the sun and the wind took, but gave little. But at night the place seemed to come into its own. The straggling larch plantations took on mystery from the dark, the shivering birches took on grace, the sandy paths shone silver as if for the tread of unseen feet. By day everyone stayed away from the house as much as possible; only by night was it a home, with laughter and song and the light of welcoming windows. All that the day denied the night bestowed. And it was at night that Launce made his plans and discoveries.

It was one of these plans that led him, after being safely bestowed in bed by Mrs. Annerley, to rise and wrap himself in a coat and seek the garden by devious ways, with a small bottle in his pocket and the two white mice for company. The bottle contained the dregs of wine glasses, secured and preserved with some difficulty. He was going to try the effect of a ceremonial libation on the little faun.

His step from the door-sill to the gravel had the nature of a plunge from land to water, so different was the hush outside, to the ordered, companionable stillness of the house. His heart beat high. The night was one of heavy calm, the sea beneath the sandy terraces was almost silent. A few stars showed, and the hollow sky was full of the wandering cries of peewits wheeling inland above the salt marshes and the crumbling dunes. The little faun was very cold and very still in the dark. He laid the little silken, throbbing bodies of the mice in the curved stone fingers, and they cowered there without a movement.

“There’s no dancing to-night,” said Launce to himself, leaning his little dark face above the drowsing face of stone. Nothing moved in the plantations; nothing flickered on the lawn. Faunus was no more than a cunning stone carved long ago by men forgotten. “He’s not here to-night,” said Launce gravely to the mice, “he’s gone away. I must make haste.”

The mice cuddled closer. All sense of imminent life was gone from the faun. Launce glanced into the darkness. Was he free of the stone at last, let loose, a little flitting shape, stone-white yet shadowy—a swift beast-shape half-fashioned into man—snuffing at Lucia’s bed of daffodils, cutting down the irises with heedless hooves, peering into the windows with wrinkled eyelids, calling wordlessly in the night—a happy thing of darkness, knowing neither hope nor regret? Launce took out some rose-leaves from the pot-pourri jar, and the bottle of wine; he drew the cork with his teeth, and it squeaked and made him jump. He held it in readiness.

“O Faun,” whispered Launce, shakily, in a desperate hurry, “I salute you. Hail, O Faun. Drink, and remember. Vale.” And he poured out the wine.

He stood staring, waiting for the miracle, and the wine ran in a dark stain on the little faun’s breast, as if he were hurt to death. There came no wonder but the wonder of the wind.

The hush seemed to thrill, and the herald of the great gust ran rustling through the garden, stirring the leaves to the sound of innumerable little hurrying hooves. Launce felt that he was ringed round by hundreds of capering creatures suddenly imprisoned. But the force let loose was only the wind.

The great gust seemed to leap from the heart of the sky. The stars reeled and went out. Sand and surf the wind caught up as with hands and flung across the wall. For a moment all the powers of the night seemed to be let loose in storm and ruin. Then with a great voice they passed out to sea, and there was stillness again, save for the noise as of numberless little pattering feet among the restless leaves. Launce snatched the mice and ran up the larch plantation like a rabbit, toward the lighted windows of the house. The whole night and all it held seemed to be sweeping after him on threatening wings.

There were voices and footsteps on the gravel, and a beam of light from the gun-room window. His godfather and uncle Will were walking there and talking together. Launce, a mouse in each hand, was just going to fling himself upon them regardless of the result, when something in his uncle’s voice, something in the younger man’s attitude as he listened, held him back. Just what was passing he neither saw nor heard. But he saw Geoffrey swing round as quick as thought and strike the other heavily.

Launce fell on his knees in the shadow of the trees. He was too frightened to move. He longed to hide his eyes or his ears, but he had to hold the restless little mice. His world was breaking and falling.

His uncle caught the raised hand, and his own was swung back for the answering blow. Launee could see Geoffrey’s face, steady and white as he waited for it, his uncle’s flushed and dark. “Are you mad, Geoffrey?” he asked, breathlessly.

There was no answer. To the frightened boy, unwillingly listening, it seemed a silence so dead that the thudding of his own heart must be heard. The night was calm again, yet the whole of life as he knew it was in disorder.

“Are you mad, Geoffrey?” asked William again, but in a different voice.

Geoffrey’s face seemed to be a little raised, a little paler, but again there was no answer.

William’s fist dropped; he stepped back, and passed his hand over his forehead in a bewildered way. “It’s a queer thing,” he said, rather unsteadily, “but I can’t hit you back. You’re like a younger brother, you know, Geoff. I can’t hit you.”

And at that a sort of fury seemed to flash into the younger man’s face. “You must,” he cried, hoarsely.

“Gad, but I can’t, my good fellow,” said William, with a twisted sort of smile, putting his hands in his pockets. “After all, ’tis not the first time we’ve hit each other.”

“This is different, and you know it.”

“Yes. But I daresay it was my fault. I had no right to question you.”

“You have no right to shame me so.”

“Hey?”

“I say,” cried Geoffrey, passionately, “you have no right to shame me so. I was in the wrong, and you know it. You’ve no right to keep me in the wrong forever.”

“D’you want me to call you out? Geoff, Geoff, what the devil’s the matter with you to-night?”

“The devil, perhaps, as you say. I’m not drunk. And strike you must, or that blow of mine will stand between us forever. If you of your generosity forget it, shall I—? Strike me, Will, strike me—hard.”

William raised his hand slowly, and slowly lowered it. “If you’re not drunk with wine, you are with something else, I think,” he said, roughly. “I cannot hit you when I’m not in a rage, and that’s the end of it. Go and get Simmons to pump on your head.”

“It’s not the end of it. Here, then, strike with this.” He caught up a heavy hunting-crop from the window-sill of the gun-room, and thrust it into William’s hand. “Strike with this.”

“I will not—”

“It would not be the first time you had thrashed me.”

“This is different, and you know it—”

“I know it.” He slipped off his coat, and stood. “Hit with that,” he said, between his teeth.

Fired by the fierier soul, William raised the whip and struck, hastily and heedlessly, all bewildered. It was a whip used for Monseigneur in his vicious moods, and a little flick of rending linen and a thread of scarlet followed across Geoffrey’s shoulders. William flung down the whip with an oath. “There, you madman,” he cried, “I’ll do no more,” and for an instant it seemed to the trembling boy that he had Geoffrey in his arms.

They stood silent, with only the dim stars and the cries of the peewits above the garden. The wind had died down again and all the leaves were still.

“Geoff,” said William at last, almost in a whisper, “is it Lucia?”

Geoffrey raised his eyes slowly. “You shall have the truth to-night, if you never have it again. To-night, there’s no honour in a lie. Yes.”

“I should have guessed. Since—Italy?”

“I do not know. Since we came here, something that slept seemed to wake. As the tide covers that beach there—I could not help it. I fought it. If she knows, it is not from any word of mine, Will.”

“You need not tell me that, thank God.”

Geoffrey groaned. “But it was no use, so I was going. I must go to-morrow.”

“Yes, you must go at once. I’m all at sea. Don’t think I’m not sorry. I’m so damnably sorry I don’t know what to say. This marrying and giving in marriage always costs something; I’d rather it had cost my right hand than you. Gad, this is a queer way of talk. I suppose I ought to want to murder you. But I love you and trust you, Geoff, to the hilt. And you’ll go to-morrow—?”

“Yes. I shall never come back.”

“So it is as bad as that? I hope Lucia guesses nothing. She is a tender-hearted child, and it would distress her terribly. This is a queer life, Geoff, and it will be a queer house without you somewhere about half the time. There’s always a price to pay.”

“Yes, there is always a price to pay. This time I pay it,” said Geoffrey, turning away. But he came back. “Give me one thing out of all you have,” he said steadily, “I was to ride with her to-morrow morning. May I have that—still?”

For a moment William was silent. Then his face cleared. “After all, she might suspect and be distressed if you did not. Yes, yes, go, Geoff. I told you I trusted you. God help you.”

“God help us all,” said Geoffrey, looking at him strangely, and caught up his coat, and went. As he passed, the sky seemed to thrill once more, and the heralding air breathed through the garden, waking the leaves to a sound of innumerable soft voices and following feet.

IV

Launce dreamed in the early dawn that he was on board ship, and that the little faun of the garden had the wheel, and was steering the ship through a sea of dried rose-leaves. When Mrs. Annerley came in to wake him, he realized that Great House was creaking and straining like a ship in the battle of heavy seas. But the battle was of the winds.

“Is it a storm, Mrs. Annerley?” Launce sat up in bed awestruck. He could see the leaded panes of the window all blurred with driven sand, but he could not hear it. There was no lull in the wind.

“Come up this last hour, it has, my lamb.” The old lady looked very pale and troubled. “Such a tempest I never did see in so short a while. ’Twas gusty, so to say, all night, and this gale came up with the sun.”

“Which way is it blowing?”

“Straight in from the sea, oh dear, and driving the waves before it like the roaring lions seeking what they may devour in the Scriptures.”

“But there’s nothing to devour here, Mrs. Annerley.”

“There’s Great House and the lives of it, my lamb. You pick up white shells in the onion-beds, don’t you, dearie? Where the sea has been once, the sea will be again. And they two—my lovely ladyship and him I used to give jam to for love of his fair face when he shouldn’t have had it, and he two feet high—oh dear, oh dear. I hope I know my place, but tides may deal the judgments of the Almighty no less than thunderbolts.”

Launce dressed quickly and ran downstairs, wild with excitement. At the door of the breakfast-room he stopped. It was empty save for his uncle, who sat at the head of the table, staring out of the window into the grey fury of the day. He moved no more than a man of stone, and his face had the bleak colour of stone.

Launce slipped silently into his place. A pale servant attended to him, but the man’s eyes were all the time covertly on his master.

Presently Uncle Will spoke, without turning his head. “Send for Simmons again,” he said, in a dead voice.

Old Simmons was there so quickly he must have been waiting outside. He was very wet. His eyes also were on his master with that look Launce could not read, nor see without fear.

“What time did you say they started?” Was that indeed Uncle Will’s voice?

“Soon after daylight, sir, quite early. Mr. Geoffrey, he had the horses ready, and her ladyship came down the side stairs.”

“And you heard them say nothing—as to where they were going?”

“Nothing at all, sir. Mr. Geoffrey said nothing. They turned down the beach road—”

A sound of despair was in the room, yet the master had not spoken.

“—down the beach road. The weather was not near so bad then, but, such as it was, they gave no heed to it.”

“I see. They gave no heed to it. Could they shelter in the dunes?”

“Hardly, sir. Mr. Geoffrey would not risk her ladyship near the quicksands, and the dunes will be moving.”

“Could they shelter anywhere?”

“No, sir. Old Bassey, the shepherd, is downstairs, and he says the North road and the Marshcotes road are not to be passed. The walls and the dyke at Cotes will be gone by this, and the roads swept away.” He and the waiting servant exchanged a look so swift it was almost imperceptible.

“Well?” Uncle Will did not move nor turn his head. A carving-fork lay on the table, and he picked it up idly, snapping the spring-guard with the click of a trigger.

“The best thing to do will be to run back for it, sir.”

“Run back?”

“Yes. Gallop for home before the sea gets over the beach. And that’s what Master Geoff’s doing, I’ll wager.” Simmons’ face was that of the well-trained servant, but his voice betrayed it. It broke at “Master Geoff.” “You can trust Master Geoff, sir,” he went on.

“Trust him?” repeated Uncle Will, snapping the guard. “Thank you, Simmons, that will do. You had better change your wet coat.” He got up and strode out of the room; they heard him open the outer door, heard the wind leap in like a waiting enemy.

“He’s gone to the terraces,” said Simmons quickly to the other man, and followed him.

Launce ran and thrust his hand into the old man’s. “I must go too,” he said piteously.

Simmons wrapped a shawl round him and they went out into the gardens.

The wind and the sand were almost more than sight and breath could bear. Launce felt that the life must be blown out of his body. Another old man, Bassey, the shepherd, staggered up to them, caught his other arm, and the three struggled to the lower terrace where nearly all the household were gathered. Uncle Will was standing at the head of the stone steps; the others stayed apart from him. Only their eyes never left him, except to look along the lost and blinded road for Geoffrey and Lucia.

Sheltered by the other, Launce could catch breath and think. He longed to go to his uncle, but dared not. He was so sorry for Uncle Will, so fond of him. But oh, the others, the others—

“D’ye think he’ll bring her back?” shouted one of the grooms. He shouted, but it came as a whisper.

“There’ll be naught else to do—”

“Nay, I didn’t mean that. Will he get her through?”

“If Master Geoffrey had the mind, Simmons, he’d get her through hell.”

The cook broke in angrily. “Bad luck to you, and Master Launce at your very gaiters, and he but a child.”

“The surf’s at the edge of the road.”

“And the tide far from the full. Never was such a sea, Simmons. The whole garden’ll go, and the terraces. Looky. There’s the drive gone—”

The long drive that wound down by easy levels to the beach road ended now in a crumbling little cliff of gravel. Cries broke out from the group of servants.

“The shake of the waves—”

“’Tis like as if the land were falling of itself.”

“Lord ha’ mercy on them.”

Uncle Will strode over to the group. “Is it any good going out?”

“Not any use, sir. What two can’t do, twenty couldn’t do. And there’s not a horse in the stables that’s devil enough to fight with this except the old blood-mare and Monseigneur, and that’s the truth, sir.”

“Yes, sir, that’s the truth.”

William turned in silence and went back to his post

One of the maids broke into a keening cry, shrill and wild as a gull’s, but the wind whipped it from her lips.

A great wave broke in thunder on the beach. They could scarcely hear it: they felt the shock in the earth they stood on. The wind snatched the foam from the crest, tore the foam into mist, and drove the mist through the garden. When they cleared the salt from their eyes they saw a young fir-seedling, growing just outside the lower terrace, heel over in a slow arc and vanish.

The old shepherd turned a white face to Simmons. “Th’ water’s o’er the beach road.”

“Lord ha’ mercy on ’em.”

Gradually they one and all drew to the head of the stone steps where the master stood, and huddled behind him, silent now. He did not heed them. He was as still as the little faun, who lay smiling and sleeping in the storm; the pale light gleamed on the marble till it had the likeness of a body from which the life had gone like a flown bird.

Launce looked at his uncle fearfully, and his face, colourless and streaming with spray, was like the face of a drowned man. The child looked away trembling, and would not look back. And he it was at last who pointed and screamed: “I see them! They’re there—”

“Where, then?”

“The boy’s dreaming. ’Tis too late—”

“There’s naught but the scud and the driving weed.”

But William stooped his face to the child’s. “Where did you see them, laddie?” His face was torn with pain and dripping with foam, but it was no longer dead. The boy did not fear it.

“There—oh, Uncle Will, quite close—for a minute—when the spindrift cleared—”

They all surged forward. His uncle was down on the lower step with a leap, and as he stood the sea broke to his knee. There was nothing but the flying spray and the sting of the sand.

“He saw naught at all.”

“Back, I tell ye. Keep hold of the child. He’s all crazy-like—”

Launce was sobbing and screaming to follow his uncle. “I saw them, I tell you—quite close—”

The maid who had cried before tossed her arms and shrieked against the wind, her face white and wild. “Master Geoffrey—he’s there—”

“What’s got the silly wench?”

“Maybe she’s right. And her ladyship, you fool?”

“Aye, there’s two—”

And in a moment they saw them, clear and close under the wall of the lower terrace, fighting forward foot by foot. The horses huddled so near together they could not see one from the other, but Geoffrey rode on the outside, sheltering Lucia, and it seemed that his arm was round her, either to hold her in the saddle or to catch her from it if need were. Then the scud hid them.

Another great wave rose, and the wild-eyed maid shrieked terribly. The cook laid a hand over her mouth, but she suddenly slid down in a heap on the gravel and was quiet. But no one heeded her. The younger men were down on the lowest step with their master, their arms interlaced. And the great wave broke and buried them to the waist.

“Where are they to get up?”

“The drive’s gone and the road’s gone, and the surf breaks on the wall. ’Tis all sliding sand—”

“Here, here.” Suddenly as an apparition, the riders showed from the gloom but a few yards from the steps. Geoffrey had the mare by the bridle, and the waves broke on the great bay. Both horses were reeling on their legs, the surf creaming at their withers and the sand sucking under their hooves. Monseigneur’s nostrils were blood-bright, his eyes dreadful. On the steps, the men were holding their master back by main force.

“Wait an instant, sir—”

“Give Mr. Geoffrey a chance, sir. He knows what he’s doing—”

“Ah, look!” Monseigneur’s shoulder, Geoffrey’s strength were thrusting the mare at the steps. Her head was almost within their reach. She saw safety and flung forward, with the last of her strength, up and away from the water. A dozen hands were at her bridle. They had her up four steps before she crumpled forward and fell, and William leaped back with Lucia.

He gave no more than a look at the life in her beautiful dazed face, and let them take her, and turned to his friend. But it was long enough.

Heard even above the storm, there was a great cry.

The men on the steps, waiting with arms locked for Monsiegneur as they had waited for the mare, were up to the waist in surf. But a dozen strong hands were ready for the bridle as the horse rose pawing for an instant at the lowest stair. Someone screamed: “Jump for it, Master Geoff.” But Geoffrey stayed in the saddle, the backwash scoured the sand from beneath Monseigneur’s hooves, and somehow the ready hands fell short. Half the sea seemed to raise itself and hang poised above the beach and the gardens, a grey wall curbed and ramparted with running white. They saw them an instant clear—the dreadful straining head of the great horse; Geoffrey with his hand up and his face raised. It was not pale or lost, but flushed with the very fulness of life, the face of one who looks on a thing that is good. His lips moved. It seemed that something went past them on the wind, a voice and a cry—“Lucia—”

Then the great wave fell.

Launce flung face down on the gravel like the kitchen-maid. The world went out. Voices and wild words passed him.

“He reined him back, I tell you, as I’m a living man!”

“What d’ye mean?”

“There, at the foot of the steps. We’d a’ had Monseigneur as we had the mare. Sim’s hand was on the bridle. But Master Geoff reined him back.”