Dinah Arbuthnot thought over the few quarrels, the many misunderstandings of her married life, grown little, all, before the hour’s largeness. She thought how, in five or six minutes more—a collision, in weather like this, would be over briefly—in five or six minutes more she and Gaston might be parted, with never another kiss from his lips to hers. He would cherish the thought of her to his last breath, if she were lost to-night. She recognised the true metal in the man, was sure enough of that. Possibly, the remembrance of her, calm and untroubled in her grave, might prove a stronger influence over him for good, a keener stimulus to his genius, than her restless, jealous life had ever been!
On such terms, she asked herself, was death a thing to be met with craven fear?
Most of the party, obeying simple bodily wretchedness, crept, one after another, below—poor frightened, frozen Mrs. Verschoyle at length confessing that she would sooner be drowned comfortably in the cabin than stand up longer against the sickening roll of the anchored vessel on deck. Marjorie Bartrand, Dinah, and Miss Tighe lingered, Lord Rex and Geoffrey Arbuthnot (forced into comradeship for once) keeping up their spirits with cheerful talk, with stories well remembered or well invented, until a pale forecast of daylight began slowly, uncertainly, to filter through the fog. Then came a new untoward event to crown this night of misfortune. A lad on the forecastle had stumbled in the darkness over a coil of chain, and a cry quickly arose that the surgeon’s hand was wanted. The poor fellow lay in agony, with a twisted or broken ankle. Was there not some doctor on board among the gentlemen who could help him?
Away sped Geoffrey Arbuthnot on the instant, bestowing no consolatory word—Marjorie’s heart honoured him for the omission—on the ladies thus abandoned to their terrors and their fate.
‘And now,’ said old Cassandra Tighe, hollow and far-away her voice sounded through the blanket of fog, ‘I think we women folk will do well to betake ourselves elsewhere. Mr. Geoffrey Arbuthnot has set us an example of duty. You have been a pattern host,’ she added, addressing Lord Rex, ‘and it is right you should be set free. We must take our chance with the others in the cabin. You hear me, Marjorie Bartrand?’
Marjorie heard, but was stoutly recalcitrant. It was her duty, she said, to die hard, and according to Act of Parliament. She would in no wise give up her chance of the boats, should a collision befall the Princess; could swim like a sea-gull if the worst came to the worst. Lord Rex, of course, must be considered off duty. For herself, if Mrs. Arbuthnot would stay with her under one of the covered seats, she asked nothing better than to stop on deck and watch for sunrise. Cold? How would it be possible to take cold at midsummer—swathed, too, in all these wraps, and with the excitement of a first-class adventure to maintain the circulation of one’s blood.
And indeed, there burned a flame in Marjorie’s breast that kept her whole being warm, a flame, pure and delicate, the like of which kindles in these poor hearts of ours once only, perhaps, between our cradle and our shroud.
‘We are dismissed, Miss Tighe,’ said Lord Rex, gallantly offering his unwounded arm, as Cassandra tottered to her feet. ‘Cling to me like grim death. Don’t mind appearances. If Mrs. Arbuthnot and Miss Bartrand have the courage to freeze, we must leave them to become icicles. I want to see what can be done for our poor terrified ladies down below.’
Lord Rex must have seen to the terrified ladies expeditiously. Five minutes later he was at his post again, no rug, no greatcoat about his shoulders,—with feminine appreciation of detail, Dinah was prompt to mark this sign of self-forgetfulness,—simply hovering near, ready, she reluctantly acknowledged, to buy her life with his own should the moment of peril really come.
And Gaston Arbuthnot, all this time, was taking his rest, quietly irresponsible, away in Alderney! Dinah, being a just woman, did not credit her neglectful husband with the density of the fog. Still, in danger, as in safety, the master passion possessed her heart. Her thoughts, at one moment tender, at the next reproachful, were of Gaston always. And her lips kept silence. Marjorie Bartrand also was disinclined for talk. In Marjorie’s mind thrilled a remembrance so sweet, so new, that she was glad passively to rest under it, as we rest under the influence of a good and wholesome dream—a remembrance of the half confession made to her in the Langrune lane, whose flower smells and swaying yellow corn lingered in her senses still. And thus, happiness being a far likelier narcotic than pain, it came to pass ere long that while Dinah Arbuthnot watched with ever-increasing vigilance, the young girl’s eyes grew heavy. The sound of the fog-horn at each interval roused her up less effectually, her head dropped upon her companion’s shoulder. ‘Your wish has come true, although I have the misfortune to be myself, not Gaston.’ The cold and darkness vanished, blessed sunshine began to shine around her, the fog-horn changed to the note of the cricket among the ripening cornfields. Marjorie Bartrand slept.
By this time, Dinah judged, the sun must be close upon rising. It seemed to her that the different objects on board were growing a very little clearer. Moving with difficulty from her position, she rolled up a pillow out of one of the plaids, and slipped it under Marjorie’s sleeping head. She enveloped the girl’s whole figure in the thickest of their rugs, then began to pace, as sharply as her stiffened limbs would allow, up and down a short portion of the deck.
‘We are not to say “ta-ta” to the wicked world this time, Mrs. Arbuthnot.’ The wise remark was Lord Rex Basire’s. He had been absent during the last quarter of an hour, and now reappeared bearing a salver on which stood a cup of smoking coffee. (Looking back in after hours on the shifting scenes of this night, Dinah often felt, remorsefully, that her most fragrant and excellent coffee was prepared by Lord Rex’s own hand.) ‘I overheard the steward talking with the mate just now, and they prophesy a change of wind. If this comes true the fog will lift in half an hour. See, I have brought you some coffee.’
Dinah glanced towards Marjorie.
‘Oh, Miss Bartrand is fast asleep, dreaming of triposes and Girton! I watched her nodding before I went below. It would be cruelty to wake her.’
‘I must say the coffee smells tempting,’ Dinah admitted. Then, swayed by quick impulse: ‘Lord Rex, you are very unselfish!’ she exclaimed. ‘You have thought of nothing but other people, and their troubles, all this night.’
‘On the contrary, I have thought of myself. I have had a capital time, Mrs. Arbuthnot—for I have been near you.’ Dinah never looked more nobly handsome than at this moment. A cold night, passed without sleep, a greenish-yellow fog, must be fatal adversaries, at 3 A.M., to all mere prettiness. Dinah’s beauty could stand alone, without colouring, without animation. The lines of her head and throat, the full calm eyelids, the lips, the chin, could be no more shorn of their fair proportions than would those of the Venus Clytie—should the Venus Clytie chance to be exposed to the mercy of a Channel fog.
‘You have been near a very stupid person, my lord. I have had too much heaviness on my heart to talk,’ confessed Dinah. ‘I have scarce exchanged a dozen words even with Miss Bartrand.’
‘Mrs. Arbuthnot, have you forgiven me?—do, please, drink your coffee before it is cold—don’t make me feel that I am in your way—boring you as usual; have you forgiven a horribly foolish speech I made, just before you disappeared in the darkness, you know?’
‘Which foolish speech?’ asked Dinah Arbuthnot, laconically, but innocent of sarcasm.
‘Ah, which? I am glad you are good-naturedly inexact. And still,’ went on Lord Rex, with characteristic straightforwardness, ‘foolish or not, I meant every word I said. If the woman I loved was free, would look at me, I should be a changed man, would make my start in the world to-morrow.’
‘Make your start?’ repeated Dinah, off her guard.
‘Yes. Look after sheep in New Zealand, plant canes, or whatever they do plant, in South America, and feel that with her, and for her, I was leading a man’s life.’
And for a moment Dinah Arbuthnot’s pity verged on softness.
Listening to the genuine emotion in Rex Basire’s tone, glancing at the lad, in his thin drenched jacket, as he stood, holding the salver ready for her coffee cup, his devotion—by reason, perhaps, of an unacknowledged contrast—touched her. For a moment, only. Then she stood, self-accused, filled with a sickening detestation of her own weakness. That she was more than indifferent, personally, to Rex Basire, that he would have been distasteful to her in the days when she was fancy free, the girlish days before she first saw Gaston, extenuated nothing to Dinah’s sensitive conscience. She had tacitly condoned the folly of Rex Basire’s talk! Latent in her heart there must be the same vanity, the same small openness to flattery, which she had, without stint, condemned in women like Linda Thorne. Was this self-knowledge a necessary sequel to the abundantly bitter lessons which the last twenty-four hours had taught her?
‘Do you forgive me, Mrs. Arbuthnot? Speak one word, only. I should be the most miserable wretch living if I thought I had offended you, consciously or unconsciously.’
‘I have nothing to forgive.’ But the tone was unlike Dinah’s. She, herself, could detect its artificial ring. ‘On the contrary, you have done me a service. You have given me hot coffee when I was perishing with cold.’
A smile touched her lips, and, seeing this, and led away by her evasive answer, Lord Rex took courage.
‘Whatever evil luck the future may hold in store,’ he exclaimed, ‘I shall have this moment to look back upon. “Just once,” I shall be able to say, “on board a Channel steamer in a fog, the most beautiful of her sex——”’
‘Beg pardon, sir,’ cried a hearty voice, close at hand. ‘If you and the young lady’ll just step aside from this rope, here! Beg pardon, little Miss.’ A stalwart, rough-handed sailor touched Marjorie’s shoulder as though he were touching a bird. ‘Trouble you all to move a bit out of this, ladies! Captain’s just a-going to heave anchor. We want a clear passage down the ship.’
And as they moved, and while Marjorie was still rubbing the sleep from her heavy eyes, began one of those gorgeous transformation pageants, only to be witnessed in the fog districts of Europe. Through the uncertain twilight, a violet streak that might be taken for coast, was already visible on the port bow. Anon, to eastward, came a glow, felt rather than seen by the eager watchers on board the Princess. A tint of pinkish-yellow began to filter through the driving mists. Then the wind strengthened. In another minute an enchantment of solemn flame and amber rose over the distant table-land of Sark, a sensation of warmth tingled in the air. The fog wreaths sank, as if drawn down by magic hands into the waters, and Petersport, its windows twinkling, its red roofs bathed in purest sunshine, lay disclosed.
A quarter of an hour later the Princess was in harbour. Not a carriage, not a luggage truck stood on the deserted quays. One conveyance only was to be seen, Cassandra Tighe’s village cart. Her faithful old factotum, Annette, stood at the pony’s head. Among the smart, Anglicised young island servants it was the fashion to call Annette a little weak-headed. Tears of joy streamed down the honest creature’s cheeks—symptoms, one would say, of a strong heart rather than a weak head—as Cassandra, scarlet cloak, nets, boxes, and all, crossed the gangway. Mistress and serving-woman kissed each other on the cheeks. Then arose the question of transport. How many souls could one tiny village cart be made to carry?
‘Mrs. Verschoyle, of course, and Mrs. Arbuthnot. Oh, from Mrs. Arbuthnot,’ cried Cassandra, ‘I will receive no denial. Miller’s Hotel lies on the way to Mrs. Verschoyle’s house, and we would not for worlds’—Cassandra glanced obliquely at Lord Rex Basire—‘take any of our tired hosts out of their way. The young ladies can walk safely home together in a band—a case of mutual chaperonage. All but Marjorie Bartrand. You, Marjorie,’ said Miss Tighe, ‘are my bad sixpence. I don’t know how to get you off my hands.’
Lord Rex rather faintly suggested that he should conduct Miss Bartrand to the Manoir. But Marjorie laughed at the idea of wanting an escort.
‘I would walk, alone, from the pier to Tintajeux, any dark midnight in December, and enjoy the walk. Many thanks, Lord Rex, but I prefer my own company. I—I——
She hesitated, stopped short. Geoffrey Arbuthnot had joined them. His patient was going on well, would be carried by his mates to the hospital as soon as the hospital doors were opened, some two hours hence. ‘And I am free,’ added Geff. ‘Just in time, I hope, Miss Bartrand, to walk out with you to Tintajeux?’
‘Oh, no, Mr. Arbuthnot. Miss Bartrand would prefer her own company,’ cried a quartette of mischievous girls’ voices in chorus.
But Marjorie had generally the courage of her opinions. Geff Arbuthnot got one glance from beneath a sweep of jetty lashes which told him he was not rejected.
Away started the village cart, Annette urging the pony to a gallop over the rough Guernsey quays. In less than ten minutes’ time Dinah had bidden good-bye to Mrs. Verschoyle and Cassandra, and with nerveless touch was pushing back the garden gate of Miller’s Hotel.
Mindful of Mr. and Mrs. Arbuthnot’s possible return, the servants had left unbolted an unconspicuous side-door by which Gaston usually came in when he was out late. Through this door Dinah entered. With weary steps she made her way to her sitting-room. Then, drawing up the blind, she looked round her, almost as one might look who, for the first time after a death, stands face to face with the familiar objects of his ruined life. Something had, for ever, died since she left this room. Gaston’s sketch-books, some of his modelling tools, his chalks, were scattered on a table. A white rose she gave him before they started, yesterday, lay withered on the window-seat. Dinah took the flower in her hand mechanically. Its indefinable, delicate aroma, Gaston’s favourite scent, unlocked a thousand poignant associations in the poor girl’s brain. Their days of courtship, their first married happiness, nay, her own perfect unswerving loyalty, seemed all to have become as falsehood to her. She had learnt her lesson over-well, had eaten of the tree of knowledge, would walk in Eden, at her lover’s side, no more.
It was a moment of such blank surrender, such total sense of loss, as comes but once in a lifetime.
Fortunately, the world’s average of hope remains constant, poor consolation though an acquaintance with the law may be to the hopeless. At this moment rapid steps approached along the pavement. There was the sound of hearty youthful laughter. Looking forth, the rose crushed with passion between her hands, Dinah beheld a young girl and a man pass the window. It was Marjorie and Geff, starting away, with buoyant pace, in the direction of Tintajeux. A prophecy of all the joint to-morrows of their lives shone brightly on the faces of both.