Chapter 38
Her attachment to G.o.dfrey was a forcible ill.u.s.tration of the capriciousness of love. There had been every reason why she should dislike him, she had been fully prepared to do so. She had never seen one single trait in him to induce her to alter this preconceived opinion; he had openly derided her and set her authority at naught ever since their first meeting, yet she was fond of him.
Her looks testified the deepest concern. As the scream of the storm-wind dashed against the window of the warm, comfortable room, she s.h.i.+vered.
"Elsa," she cried, "how dared you leave that child out by himself? You are not to be trusted in the least! Where did you leave him--answer me--was it on the cliffs?"
"No!" cried Elsa, sharply, "it was not. He would not be likely to go by the cliffs, it is twice as long, you know it is. He went along the Quarry Road, I tell you. He is gone to Brent."
"Make yourself easy, Miss Charlotte," said Mr. Fowler, "he is not likely to try the cliff road home in weather like this. He will come by the quarries, if they let him come at all. How long had you parted from him when we met you, Elsa?"
"Oh, more than an hour, I should think."
"There, you see! He is as safely sheltered as we are by now!"
Miss Charlotte went restlessly to the window.
"I am anxious; he is so delicate, and so rash," she said. "I shall send Penton out along the Quarry Road."
"I will walk to Brent and back for you, Miss Willoughby," said Claud, in his quiet way.
"My dear fellow," said Henry Fowler, "you will scarcely keep your feet."
"Oh, nonsense about that. I'm all right--I have my mackintosh here. I enjoy a good sou'-wester."
"I'll come with you," said Henry at once.
Of course the ladies protested, but the gentlemen were firm; and, having first taken something to keep the cold out, they started forth into all the excitement of a furious gale on the Devons.h.i.+re coast.
Once fairly out in it, Claud felt that he would not have missed it for worlds. There was such a stimulus in the seething motion of the atmosphere, such a weird fascination in the screaming of the blast and the hoa.r.s.e roaring of the distant ocean.
"This is rather a wild-goose chase," yelled Henry in his companion's ear.
"Never mind; what's the odds so long as we can set their minds at rest,"
bawled Claud in return.
"Naught comes to no harm--the young imp is all right enough," howled Henry; and then, having strained their vocal chords to the utmost, any further attempt at conversation was given up as impossible.
They pa.s.sed the narrow gorge where the mouth of the quarries lay and where the limekilns cast a weird gloom upon the night. The streaming rain hissed and fizzed as it fell upon the glowing surface, and, altogether, Claud thought, the whole scene was something like the last act of the _Walkure_--he almost felt as if he could hear the pa.s.sionate s.h.i.+ver of Wagnerian violins in the rush of the mighty tempest.
In the low, sheltered road, they could just manage to keep their feet.
Every now and then they paused, and shouted G.o.dfrey's name at the utmost pitch of their voices; but they heard no response; and at last staggered down the little stony high street of Brent, without having met a single soul.
Usually the narrow street was musical with the murmur of the stream that flowed down its midst. To-night the storm-fiend overpowered all such gentle sounds. Claud, blindly stumbling in the dark, managed to go over his ankles in running water, but quickly regained his footing, and was right glad when the lights of the "Welcome, Traveller," streamed out upon the gloom.
They swung open the door. The bar was deserted, and Mr. Fowler's call only brought a female servant from the kitchen. Every soul in the town, she told them, was down at the quay--the word to haul up the boats had been cried through the village at dusk, and now the gale had come, and the fis.h.i.+ng smacks had not come in.
Claud remembered how they had sat on the cliff black berrying only two days before, and watched the fishermen start, how the boats with their graceful red brown sails had danced and dipped on the sparkling blue water,
And now--the cruel, crawling foam, the black abyss of howling destruction, and the frantic wives a.s.sembled on the quay, watching "for those who will never come back to the town."
The inn servant was positive that Master Brabourne had not been in Brent that afternoon or evening, but Mr. Fowler, not quite relying on the accuracy of her statement, determined to make his way down to the sh.o.r.e.
The village was congested with excitement, as they approached they could dimly descry a dark crowd and tossing lanterns, and could hear the terrific thunder of the billows as they burst upon the beach. Then, suddenly, as they hurried on, up through the murky night rushed a rocket, a streak of vivid light, that struck on the heart like the cry of a human voice for help. Another--another--it was clear that some frantic feeling agitated the swaying crowd. As Claud dashed forward, he uttered a short exclamation.
"The yacht!"
"Good G.o.d, yes, it must be!" cried Henry Fowler in horror.
In a moment they were down in the thick of it all, seizing the arm of one of the weatherbeaten fellows present, and asking what was amiss?
It was the yacht, as Claud had divined, and, when her exact situation had been explained to him, he felt his heart fail at the thought of her deadly peril, at the (to him) new sensation of standing within a few yards of a band of living human beings hovering over the wide spread jaws of death.
Brent lay in a break of the chalk cliffs which was more then half-a-mile in width. Through this tunnel the unbroken might of the wind rushed with terrific force, sweeping vehemently inland up the flat river-valley, and seeming to carry the whole sea in its train. The very violence of each wave, as it broke, made the bystanders stagger back a few paces; the tide was rolling in with a rapidity which seemed miraculous; already it had driven them back almost as far as the market-place, and it was not yet high water.
There was but one hope for the strange vessel. Change of tide had been known to bring change of wind; therein lay her solitary chance. If, with the ebb, the wind s.h.i.+fted its quarter and kept her off sh.o.r.e, the sea was not too heavy for her to live in; but if no change took place--if the waves continued to roll in for another hour as they were rolling now, with that screaming blast las.h.i.+ng them on as though the Eumenides were behind them, no change of tide could avail--no ebb could save the cutter from being driven on the sunken coast-rocks, and from being steadily beaten to pieces.
Was there a chance? Would it happen, this change of wind for which everyone was waiting in such an agony of expectation? In breathless horror the young man watched, parting, as he did so, with a few delusions he had previously cherished respecting the Devons.h.i.+re climate.
He had held a vague belief that storm and tempest were the portion only of "wild Tintagel on the Cornish coast," and that here, among the warm red cliffs, no roaring billows lifted their heads. He had now to hear how, once upon a time, the inhabitants of Brent built themselves a harbor and a pier, and how in one night the sea tore them up, dashed them to pieces, and bore the fragments far inland; and of how the Spanish wrecks were hurled so frequently on the coast that the fisher-folk intermarried with the refugees, which union resulted in the lovely, dark-haired, blue-eyed race whose beauty had so struck Lady Mabel Wynch-Frere.
Meanwhile, the lifeboat's crew stood with their boat all ready to launch, if they could see the smallest hope of making any way in such a sea. One old mariner watched the scarcely discernible movements of the yacht with a telescope. She was under jib and trysail only, the intention of the crew being evidently, if it were possible, to work her to windward, and so keep her off sh.o.r.e.
"Them aboard of her knows what to du," said the old salt, with approbation. "They ain't going daown without showing a bit o' fight first."
"Why on earth don't they take in all their canvas?" cried the inexperienced Claud.
"If they did, they'd come straight in, stem on, and be aground in five minutes or less," was the response.
It was difficult, however, to see of what possible use any amount of knowledge of navigation could be to the fated craft. Slowly she was being borne to her doom by the remorseless gale. She pitched and rolled every moment nearer and still nearer to the coast--to the low sunken rocks which would grind her to powder, and where no lifeboat could reach her.
The women prayed aloud, with sobs and shrieks of sympathy. To Claud it was like a chapter in a novel, a scene in a play. He had never before seen real people--people in whose midst he stood--go mad with pity and terror. He had never before heard women cry out, as these did, straight to the Great Father in their need.
"Oh, Lord Christ, save 'em! Have mercy on 'em, poor souls!" screamed an old fishwife at his side, bent with age and infirmity.
It seemed as if he could hardly do better than silently echo her prayer:
"G.o.d save all poor souls lost in the dark!"
The moments of suspense lengthened. The knot of spectators held their breath. It would be high water directly, and the gale was still driving in the frantic sea, boiling and eddying. The night was cleft by the momentary gleam of another rocket sent up from the yacht. Though evidently terribly distressed, she did not seem disabled, and rose from crest to crest of the mountainous rollers with a marvellous lightness.
It was easy to see that she surprised all the old salts who were watching her. As she rolled nearer, her proportions were dimly to be seen. In the gloom she seemed like a great quivering white bird, palpitating and throbbing as if alive and sentient.
"Eh, what a beauty, what a beauty! What a cruel shame if she is lost,"
gasped one of the men in tones of real anguish.
Then, suddenly, from further along the crowd came a shout faintly heard above the storm. Claud could not distinguish the words, but a vague sense of atmospheric change came over him. A manifest sensation ran through the a.s.sembly; and it seemed as if there were a momentary cessation of the blinding gusts of spray which had drenched him.
A fresh stillness fell on the crowd, broken only by the sobbing whistling of the wind, which faltered, died down, burst forth again, and then seemed to go wailing off over the sea.
What had happened? Claud steadied his nerves and looked round bewildered. Surely that wave which broke was not so high as the last. It seemed at first as though the ocean had become a whirlpool, as though conflicting currents were sucking and eddying among the coast-rocks till the force of the tide was broken and divided. He turned to look for Henry Fowler, but could not see him. Moving further along the wet track left by one of the highest billows on the road, still clutching his cap with both hands, he found him presently superintending the lifeboat men, who were making a start at last.