All this time the Princess, lying well outside the Luc rocks, was getting up her steam. Before the waltz had ended a red light, hung from the vessel’s bows, gave the signal for those on shore to hurry their departure. There was a flutter of airy dresses as the English party emerged from the ball-room into darkness, a ripple of talk as they filed, Indian fashion, hand steadying hand, down the narrow path that led from the casino to the little fishing slip or jetty.
And then unexpectedly came the first misadventure that had arisen to mar this day of calm and sunshine. When the party had embarked in two of the unwieldy flat-bottomed boats of the country, it occurred to Lord Rex, as commander-in-chief, that their number should be counted. And soon the cry arose that one was wanting! Seventeen human souls left Guernsey that morning—on this point all were confident. Sixteen human souls only were forthcoming now. And no efforts of memory, individual or collective, could hit upon the defaulter’s name.
Mrs. Verschoyle exclaimed in a hollow voice that it was a most uncomfortable omen. She would be sorry to depress the younger people’s spirits, but, for her part, she would sooner set sail in the teeth of a hurricane than have had this thing occur. ‘Let the counting be more systematic,’ said the poor lady, jumping to her feet, and for once in her life launching into independent action. ‘Let me repeat each name slowly, beginning with the youngest of the gentlemen, and let each person answer as he is called. Mr. Smith? Brown? Jones? Lord Rex? The two Mr. Arbuthnots? Doctor Thorne?’
After Doctor Thorne’s name there was a moment’s silence. Then Linda, tragic of accent, ejaculated, ‘Robbie! Of course!’ And then, I regret to say, most of the younger people began to laugh. ‘But it may be a matter of life and death,’ cried Mrs. Thorne. ‘If you please, Lord Rex, I will go on shore at once. The Princess may start, probably will start, without me. My duty is to look for Robbie. Oh, I am most uneasy! It is all my selfishness. Robbie ought never to have been brought on such an expedition. I am certain something has happened to him! I shall never forgive myself while I live.’
These amiable anxieties were the exact sentiments suited to the occasion. Mrs. Thorne expressed them with agitated dignity, and, of course, no one laughed again. Consolations, even, were forthcoming. Dr. Thorne had been seen, in the flesh, outside Luc Casino; or, if not the Doctor, some old gentleman exactly like him, with a puggaree, sand-shoes, a white umbrella, and smoking an enormous cigar, just like the cigar poor dear Doctor Thorne always used to smoke. It was the prettiest, least wise, of the De Carteret sisters who offered this bit of evidence. The gentleman was observed to look in for a while at the dancing, and then to walk away in the direction, Ada de Carteret believed, of the sea.
‘The sea! And who can tell that the sea has not surrounded him! In out-of-the-way French places the tide always swells up with a circuit.’ Tears were in Linda’s voice as she proclaimed this maritime fact. ‘I am most uneasy.’ She adjusted her Indian shawl with grace round her shoulders, then skipped lightly to land. ‘Robbie ought never to have been brought—it was all my selfishness—I am torn in pieces by remorse.’
The young ladies, with the exception of one flint soul, cried, ‘No, no,’ in chorus. Mrs. Thorne positively must not say these dreadful things, when every one knew she had such a character for unselfishness! Mrs. Verschoyle felt for her smelling-salts, then settled herself gloomily down, prepared for the worst. Mrs. Verschoyle felt within her the courage of a prophet whose own dark sayings are on the eve of fulfilment.
Gaston Arbuthnot, in his quiet, unmoved manner, rose. Stepping on shore, Gaston volunteered to go in search of the missing Doctor.
These were just the scenes wherein Linda so infinitely diverted him,—Frenchman as he was in three-fourths of his nature,—little scenes in which, on the boards of domestic life, she played such admirable farce without knowing it!
‘I shall walk straight back to Langrune, Mrs. Thorne. Notwithstanding your solemn tone, in spite of Miss de Carteret’s evidence, I believe the Doctor has never missed any of us, and at this moment is smoking his cigar, possibly sipping his “little glass,” at the Hotel Chateaubriand.’
‘Unless you are here in a quarter of an hour, sharp, we shall leave you behind,’ called out Lord Rex, when Gaston had proceeded some paces on his errand. ‘The Princess is chartered until to-morrow only. Whatever the rest of us do, the skipper will take care not to lose his tide.’
Linda Thorne, by this time, in her agitation, and her Indian shawl, was at Gaston’s side. So the exordium might be taken as addressed to them both.
‘All right,’ answered Mr. Arbuthnot leisurely. Langrune is not the end of the earth. If by the time we secure the Doctor, the steamer has weighed anchor, we must all get back to Guernsey viâ Cherbourg. That would fit in very well. The Lady of the Isles crosses from Cherbourg to-morrow,’ went on Gaston, raising his voice as he looked back over his shoulder towards the boats. ‘We should just have time to visit the dockyard before starting.’
And then the two figures sped onward, side by side. They were watched with keen speculative interest by the occupants of the boats. No one, save simple Mrs. Verschoyle, felt disturbed as to the Doctor’s ultimate fate. Was an old gentleman who had taken admirable care of himself for forty years in India a likely subject to be spirited away on the sands, between Luc and Langrune? But the situation had a dramatic piquancy that stirred even the unimaginative minds of the Miss de Carterets and their attendant subalterns. For there was Dinah! Impossible to forget that Mrs. Gaston Arbuthnot, that lowly-born young woman with the beautiful eyes, and set, sad mouth, was also watching the two figures as they disappeared in the darkness.
‘A quarter of an hour. By Jove! ten minutes of that quarter must be nearly gone.’
And taking out his watch, Lord Rex struck a vesuvian in order to learn the time. It was exactly eight minutes to nine, and at nine, sharp, the Princess was to weigh her anchor. The moment for action had come. Now, what was the wisest thing to do? One point seemed certain—it was useless for both boats to wait longer. Let the smaller boat, at the head of the jetty, start for the steamer at once, let the captain be told what had happened, and asked to put off his departure as long as practicable. If Gaston Arbuthnot and the Thornes arrived in time, the second boat would bring them off. If not—why, common sense could really dictate no better plan than Gaston’s own. Langrune was not the end of the world A railway to Cherbourg existed. The Lady of the Isles would no doubt bring the lost sheep comfortably back to their respective folds to-morrow.
Dinah as it happened was, with Ada de Carteret and the elder ladies, in the boat at the head of the jetty. And soon before Dinah’s eyes, as before the eyes of one who dreams, the reflections of the Casino lamps, the children’s Chinese lanterns, were dancing with fairy-like brightness across the moving water. She realised that her day of pleasure was over, that every one—yes, she could catch the voices of Marjorie and of Geff, holding merry talk in the other boat—every one took the adventure jestingly, and that her heart felt like lead, that her hands were ice-cold, that each breath she drew was a conscious and painful effort. Well—if she had enough bodily strength to act her part out, she thought, say no word to betray her plebeian emotions, and so bring down ridicule on her husband or herself, she must be content! Once on board the steamer she could hide herself in the cabin, away from sight, and there wait, until the comedy (or tragedy) had reached its next act. This one wretched comfort remained to her. She would be able to screen herself, for a while at least, from observation—to be alone!
But a new and still more diverting incident was about to be woven into the text of the play.
‘If I were not in such a nervous state,’ cried Mrs. Verschoyle, when the boat was within three or four lengths of the Princess, ‘if I were not so morally shaken that I distrust my own senses, I should say our good Doctor was on board. There came a flash of light just now beside the wheel, the lighting, perhaps, of a fusee, and for a second it seemed to me that I saw Doctor Thorne’s figure distinctly. A pity some reliable person was not looking!’
And Mrs. Verschoyle, to her own surprise, had seen correctly. The Doctor it proved to be—the Doctor smoking one of the ship’s best cheroots, and enjoying the summer night with unruffled innocence. He advanced gallantly to assist the ladies in their embarkation, and heard with gusto the story of his own supposed fate. Surrounded by the tide? Tut, tut! Linda might have known, had she exercised her reason, whither he had betaken himself. ‘Only you ladies never do reason,’ said the Doctor, addressing Mrs. Verschoyle. ‘It was growing damp on shore—and let me give you a bit of advice, my dear madam: whenever you feel that clinging kind of chill, after gun-fire, get on board ship, if you have the chance. Get an honest plank, instead of the abominable miasmal emanations of Mother Earth, under your feet. Yes, yes,’ went on the Doctor comfortably, ‘I hailed one of the Princess’s boats and came on board two hours ago, have drunk my cup of coffee, and beaten Ozanne at his own game, cribbage.’
‘And your wife’s anxiety?’
‘My dear Mrs. Verschoyle, I am penitent! Only my wife, you see, might have reasoned. It would have deprived you all, no doubt, of a harmless excitement; but Linda, I think, might have reasoned. Any way, it is better to be drowned by one’s friends’ imaginations than run the risk, in earnest, of a pair of damp shoes.’
To this Mrs. Verschoyle gave a qualified assent. The mention of damp shoes affected her. Still, she was not a little shocked at Doctor Thorne’s levity—‘At his advanced age,’ thought poor Mrs. Verschoyle, perturbedly, ‘and after the awful narrowness of his escape!’
‘The fear is, Doctor, that Mrs. Thorne will be left behind,’ cried Ada de Carteret, with meaning. ‘At the first word of danger Linda started off along the Langrune road to look for you.’
‘Linda ought to have reasoned——’
‘And Lord Rex declares the captain must weigh anchor at nine, sharp! It is like a scene in a novel—the last scene but one, with everything in a delicious tangle still. Why, Doctor, you are the hero of the day!’
‘I feel enormously flattered,’ said the old Doctor. ‘It is a very long time since a charming young lady has said anything so pretty to me.’
‘But your wife, Doctor Thorne!’ expostulated Cassandra Tighe, who with her nets and cases had been the last to leave the boat. ‘Do you realise that if Ozanne saves his tide—if we return to Guernsey to-night—Mrs. Thorne will remain in France?’
‘I cannot believe it. Ozanne would not surely be so ungallant. (Allow me, Miss Tighe, to help you with a few of your packages.) No, no. The skipper would not be so ungallant. And then my dear Linda is the most famous traveller! Surely I have told you what wonderful presence of mind she showed once in the Nilgiri Hills? Lost, actually lost, for four entire days! If, by mischance, Linda should be left alone, she will make her way home to-morrow, viâ Cherbourg, and enjoy the adventure.’
‘And Mrs. Thorne is not alone,’ cried Ada de Carteret, clapping her hands, and no doubt feeling that the position grew more and more deliciously tangled. ‘Mr. Arbuthnot is with her—not Marjorie Bartrand’s coach, but the other one: the singing, flirting, good-looking Mr. Arbuthnot,’ added this vivacious young lady, profoundly forgetful that the good-looking Mr. Arbuthnot’s wife stood within three yards of her elbow.
‘Then my fears are set at rest,’ observed the Doctor genially. ‘If my friend Arbuthnot is there my fears are set thoroughly at rest. Meanwhile, I may as well speak to the skipper. The tide, of course, must be saved. Still, it would be only right to let Ozanne know how affairs stand.’
And Dinah had listened to it all—youthful jest, aged philosophy, all! And standing among the others, with a queer sensation that she had suddenly oldened by a dozen years, some pallid ghost of a smile rose to her lips. Here was a grand opportunity, verily, of learning a lesson at first hand, a chance in a thousand for readjusting one’s standard, for observing the nicer little shades of feeling and usage which prevail in the world to which one would fain belong.
A smile, I say, rose to Dinah’s lips. Which of us does not remember how, in sharp mental stress, he has found himself looking on at the trivial accessories of his pain, as a stranger might, derisively! In the poor girl’s heart was death.
She knew that for Gaston to have set at naught her pleadings, for Gaston to have quitted her thus, might render to-night a bitter crisis in the lives of both.