Lady Dysart said nothing, but her expression changed with such dramatic swiftness from vivid alarm to disapproval, that her mental attitude was as evident as if she had spoken.
“Hawkins is very popular in Lismoyle,” observed Lambert, tepidly.
“That I can very well understand,” said Lady Dysart, opening her parasol with an abruptness that showed annoyance, “since he takes so much trouble to make himself agreeable to the Lismoyle young ladies.”
Another outburst of jerky, amateur whistles from the steam launch gave emphasis to the remark.
“Oh, the trouble’s a pleasure,” said Lambert acidly. “I hope the pleasure won’t be a trouble to the young ladies one of these days.”
“Why, what do you mean?” cried Lady Dysart, much interested.
“Oh, nothing,” said Lambert, with a laugh, “except that’s he’s been known to love and ride away before now.”
He had no particular object in lowering Hawkins in Lady Dysart’s eyes, beyond the fact that it was an outlet for his indignation at Francie’s behaviour in leaving him, her oldest friend, to go and make a common laughing-stock of herself with that young puppy, which was the form in which the position shaped itself in his angry mind. He almost decided to tell Lady Dysart the episode of the Limerick tobacconist’s daughter, when they saw Miss Hope-Drummond and Captain Cursiter coming up the shrubbery path towards them, and he was obliged to defer it to a better occasion.
“What was all that whistling about, Captain Cursiter?” asked Lady Dysart, with a certain vicarious severity.
Captain Cursiter seemed indisposed for discussion. “Mr. Hawkins was trying the whistle, I think,” he replied with equal severity.
“Oh, yes, Lady Dysart!” broke in Miss Hope-Drummond, apparently much amused; “Mr. Hawkins has nearly deafened us with that ridiculous whistle; they would go off down the lake, and when we called after them to ask where they were going, and told them they would be late for tea, they did nothing but whistle back at us in that absurd way.”
“Why? What? Who have gone? Whom do you mean by they?” Lady Dysart’s handsome eyes shone like stars as they roved in wide consternation from one speaker to another.
“Miss Fitzpatrick and Mr. Hawkins!” responded Miss Hope-Drummond with childlike gaiety; “we were all talking on the pier, and we suddenly heard them calling out ‘good-bye!’ And Mr. Hawkins said he couldn’t stop the boat, and off they went down the lake! I don’t know when we shall see them again.”
Lady Dysart’s feelings found vent in a long-drawn groan. “Not able to stop the boat! Oh, Captain Cursiter, is there any danger? Shall I send a boat after them? Oh, how I wish this house was in the Desert of Sahara, or that that intolerable lake was at the bottom of the sea!”
This was not the first time that Captain Cursiter had been called upon to calm Lady Dysart’s anxieties in connection with the lake, and he now unwillingly felt himself bound to assure her that Hawkins thoroughly understood the management of the Serpolette, that he would certainly be back in a few minutes, and that in any case, the lake was as calm as the conventional mill-pond. Inwardly he was cursing himself for having yielded to Hawkins in putting into Bruff; he was furious with Francie for the vulgar liberties taken by her with the steam-whistle, an instrument employed by all true steam-launchers in the most abstemious way; and lastly, he was indignant with Hawkins for taking his boat without his permission, and leaving him here, as isolated from all means of escape, and as unprotected, as if his clothes had been stolen while he was bathing.
The party proceeded moodily into the house, and, as moodily, proceeded to partake of tea. It was just about the time that Mrs. Lambert was asking that nice, kind Miss Dysart for another cup of very weak tea—”Hog-wash, indeed, as Mr. Lambert calls it”— that the launch was sighted by her proprietor crossing the open space of water beyond Bruff Point, and heading for Lismoyle. Almost immediately afterwards Mrs. Lambert received the look from her husband which intimated that the time had arrived for her to take her departure, and some instinct told her that it would be advisable to relinquish the prospect of the second cup and to go at once.
If Mr. Lambert’s motive in hurrying back to Lismoyle was the hope of finding the steam-launch there, his sending along our friend the black mare, till her sleek sides were in a lather of foam, was unavailing. As he drove on to the quay the Serpolette was already steaming back to Bruff round the first of the miniature headlands that jagged the shore, and the good turkey-hen’s twitterings on the situation received even less attention than usual, as her lord pulled the mare’s head round and drove home to Rosemount.
The afternoon dragged wearily on at Bruff; Lady Dysart’s mood alternating between anger and fright as dinner-time came nearer and nearer and there was still no sign of the launch.
“What will Charlotte Mullen say to me?” she wailed, as she went for the twentieth time to the window and saw no sign of the runaways upon the lake vista that was visible from it. She found small consolation in the other two occupants of the drawing-room. Christopher, reading the newspaper with every appearance of absorbed interest, treated the alternative theories of drowning or elopement with optimistic indifference; and Miss Hope-Drummond, while disclaiming any idea of either danger, dwelt on the social aspect of the affair so ably as almost to reduce her hostess to despair. Cursiter was down at the pier, seriously debating with himself as to the advisability of rowing the long four miles back to Lismoyle, and giving his opinion to Mr. Hawkins in language that would, he hoped, surprise even that bland and self-satisfied young gentleman. There Pamela found him standing, as desolate as Sir Bedivere when the Three Queens had carried away King Arthur in their barge, and from thence she led him, acquiescing with sombre politeness in the prospect of dining out for the second time in one week, and wondering whether Providence would again condemn him to sit next Miss Hope-Drummond, and prattle to her about the Lincolnshire Cursiters. He felt as if talking to Pamela would make the situation more endurable. She knew how to let a man alone, and when she did talk she had something to say, and did not scream twaddle at you, like a peacock. These unamiable reflections will serve to show the irritation of Captain Cursiter’s mind, and as he stalked into dinner with Lady Dysart, and found that for her sake he had better make the best of his subaltern’s iniquity, he was a man much to be pitied.
* * *
CHAPTER XXIII.
At about this very time it so happened that Mr. Hawkins was also beginning to be sorry for himself. The run to Lismoyle had been capital fun, and though the steering and the management of the machinery took up more of his attention than he could have wished, he had found Francie’s society more delightful than ever. The posting of a letter, which he had fortunately found in his pocket, had been the pretext for the expedition, and both he and Francie confidently believed that they would get back to Bruff at about six o’clock. It is true that Mr. Hawkins received rather a shock when, on arriving at Lismoyle, he found that it was already six o’clock, but he kept this to himself, and lost no time in starting again for Bruff.
The excitement and hurry of the escapade had conspired, with the practical business of steering and attending to the various brass taps, to throw sentiment for a space into the background, and that question as to whether forgiveness should or should not be extended to him, hung enchantingly on the horizon, as delightful and as seductive as the blue islands that floated far away in the yellow haze of the lowered sun. There was not a breath of wind, and the launch slit her way through tranquil, oily spaces of sky that lay reflected deep in the water, and shaved the long rocky points so close that they could see the stones at the bottom looking like enormous cairngorms in the golden shallows.
“That was a near thing,” remarked Mr. Hawkins complacently, as a slight grating sound told that they had grazed one of these smooth-backed monsters. “Good business old Snipey wasn’t on board!”
“Well, I’ll tell old Snipey on you the very minute I get back!”
“Oh, you littl
e horror!” said Mr. Hawkins.
Both laughed at this brilliant retort, and Hawkins looked down at her, where she sat near him, with an expression of fondness that he did not take the least pains to conceal.
“Hang it! you know,” he said presently, “I’m sick of holding this blooming wheel dead amidships; I’ll just make it fast, and let her rip for a bit by herself.” He suited the action to the word, and came and sat down beside her.
“Now you’re going to drown me again, I suppose, the way Mr. Lambert did,” Francie said. She felt a sudden trembling that was in no way caused by the danger of which she had spoken; she knew quite well why he had left the wheel, and her heart stood still with the expectation of that explanation that she knew was to come.
“So you think I want to drown you, do you?” said Hawkins, getting very close to her, and trying to look under the wide brim of her hat. “Turn round and look me in the face and say you’re ashamed of yourself for thinking of such a thing.”
“Go on to your steering,” responded Francie, still looking down and wondering if he saw how her hands were trembling.
“But I’m not wanted to steer, and you do want me here, don’t you?” replied Hawkins, his face flushing through the sunburn as he leaned nearer to her, “and you know you never told me last night if you were angry with me or not.”
“Well, I was.”
“Ah, not very—” A rather hot and nervous hand, burned to an unromantic scarlet, turned her face upwards against her will. “Not very?” he said again, looking into her eyes, in which love lay helpless like a prisoner.
“Don’t,” said Francie, yielding the position, powerless, indeed, to do otherwise.
Her delicate defeated face was drawn to his; her young soul rushed with it, and with passionate, innocent sincerity, thought it had found heaven itself. Hawkins could not tell how long it was before he heard again, as if in a dream, the click-clicking of the machinery, and wondered, in the dazed way of a person who is “coming to” after an anæsthetic, how the boat was getting on.
“I must go back to the wheel, darling,” he whispered in the small ear that lay so close to his lips; “I’m afraid we’re a little bit off the course.”
As he spoke, his conscience reminded him that he himself had got a good deal off his course, but he put the thought aside. The launch was duly making for the headland that separated them from Bruff, but Hawkins had not reflected that in rounding the last point he had gone rather nearer to it than was usual, and that he was consequently inside the proper course. This, however, was an easy matter to rectify, and he turned the Serpolette’s head out towards the ordinary channel. A band of rushes lay between him and it, and he steered wide of them to avoid their parent shallow. Suddenly there was a dull shock, a quiver ran through the launch, and Hawkins found himself sitting abruptly on the india-rubber matting at Francie’s feet. The launch had run at full speed upon the soft, muddy shallow that extended unconscionably far beyond the bed of rushes, and her sharp nose was now digging itself deeper and deeper into the mud. Hawkins lost no time in reversing the engine, but by the time they had gone full speed astern for five minutes, and had succeeded only in lashing the water into a thick, pea-soupy foam all round them, he began to feel exceedingly anxious as to their prospects of getting off again.
“Well, we’ve been and gone and done it this time,” he said, with a laugh that had considerably more discomfiture than mirth in it; “I expect we’ve got to stay here till we’re taken off.”
Francie looked all round the lake; not a boat was in sight, not even a cottage on the shore from which they might hope for help. She was standing up, pale, now that the tide of excitement had ebbed a little, and shaken by a giddy remembrance of that moment when the yacht heeled over and flung her into blackness.
“I told you you were going to drown me,” she said, shivering and laughing together; and “oh—! what in the name of goodness will I say to Lady Dysart?”
“Oh, we’ll tell her it was an accident, and she won’t say a word,” said Hawkins with more confidence than he felt. “If the worst comes to the worst I’ll swim ashore and get a boat.”
“Oh don’t, don’t! you mustn’t do that!” she cried, catching at his arm as if she already saw him jumping overboard; “I’d be frightened—I could’nt bear to see you—don’t go away from me!”
Her voice failed pathetically, and, bared of all their wiles, her eyes besought him through the tears of a woman’s terror and tenderness. Hawkins looked at her with a kind of ecstacy.
“Do you care so much as all that,” he said, “you silly little thing!”
After this there was nothing to be done except sit down again, and with her head on his shoulder, allow that fatal anæsthetic to rob him of all considerations beyond Francie’s kisses.
* * *
CHAPTER XXIV.
Dinner at Bruff was over. It had been delayed as long as possible in the belief that each moment would bring back the culprits, and it had dragged painfully through its eight courses, in spite of Lady Dysart’s efforts to hasten Gorman and his satellite in their inexorable orbit. Everyone except Garry and Miss Hope-Drummond had been possessed by an anxiety which Lady Dysart alone had courage to express. She indeed, being a person who habitually said what other people were half afraid to think, had dilated on all possible calamities till Cursiter, whose temper was momently becoming worse, many times wished himself on the lake, rowing dinnerless and vengeful on the track of the fugitives.
The whole party was now out of doors, and on its way down to the landing-place, in the dark twilight; Lady Dysart coming last of all, and driving before her the much incensed Gorman, whom she had armed with the gong, in the idea that its warlike roar would be at once a guide and a menace to the wanderers. So far it had only had the effect of drawing together in horrified questioning all the cattle in the lower part of the park, and causing them to rush, bellowing, along by the railings that separated them from the siren who cried to them with a voice so commanding and so mysterious. Gorman was fully alive to the indignity of his position, and to the fact that Master Garry, his ancient enemy, was mocking at his humiliation; but any attempt to moderate his attack upon the gong was detected by his mistress.
“Go on, Gorman! Beat it louder! The more they bellow the better, it will guide them into the landing-place.”
Christopher’s affected misapprehension of his mother’s pronouns created a diversion for some time, as it was perhaps intended to do. He had set himself to treat the whole affair with unsympathetic levity, but, in spite of himself, an insistent thorn of anxiety made it difficult for him to make little of his mother’s vigorous panic. It was absurd, but her lamentations about the dangers of the lake and of steam-launches found a hollow echo in his heart. He remembered, with a shudder that he had not felt at the time, the white face rising and dipping in the trough of the grey lake waves; and though his sense of humour, and of the supreme inadequacy and staleness of swearing, usually deprived him of that safety valve, he was conscious that in the background of his mind the traditional adjective was monotonously coupling itself with the name of Mr. Hawkins. He was walking behind the others down the path to the pier. Here and there great trees that looked tired from their weight of foliage stood patiently spreading their arms to the dew, and in the intervals between Gorman’s fantasias on the gong, he could hear how the diffident airs from the lake whispered confidentially to the sleeping leaves. There was no moon; the sky was thickened with a light cloudiness, and in the mystical twilight the pale broad blossoms of an elder-bush looked like constellated stars in a nearer and darker firmament. Christopher walked on, that cold memory of danger and disquiet jarring the fragrance and peace of the rich summer night.
The searchers ranged themselves on the pier; the gong was stilled, and except for the occasional stamping of a hoof, or low booming complaint from the cattle, there was perfect silence. All were listening for some sound from the lake before Christopher and Cursiter carried out their int
ention of starting in a boat to look for the launch. Suddenly in the misty darkness into which all were staring, a vivid spark of light sprang out. It burned for a few seconds only, a sharp distinct star, and then disappeared.
“There they are!” cried Lady Dysart. “The gong, Gorman! The gong!”
Gorman sounded with a will, and the harsh, brazen blare spread and rolled over the lake, but there was no response.
“They must hear that,” said Cursiter to Christopher; “why the devil don’t he whistle?”
“How should I know?” answered Christopher, with a crossness which was in some irrational way the outcome of extreme relief; “I suppose he fooled with it till it broke.”
“Perhaps they are not there after all,” suggested Miss Hope-Drummond cheerfully.
“How can you say such a thing, Evelyn!” exclaimed Lady Dysart indignantly; “I know it was they, and the light was a signal of distress!”
“More likely to have been Hawkins lighting a cigarette,” said Christopher; “if everyone would stop talking at the same time we might be able to hear something.”
A question ran like a ripple through Pamela’s mind, “What makes Christopher cross to-night?” but the next instant she forgot it. A distant shout, unmistakably uttered by Hawkins, came thinly to them across the water, and in another second or two the noise of oars could be distinctly heard. The sound advanced steadily.
“Show a light there on the pier!” called out a voice that was not Hawkins’.
Cursiter struck a match, a feeble illuminant that made everything around invisible except the faces of the group on the pier, and by the time it had been tossed, like a falling star, into the tarry blackness of the water, the boat was within conversational distance.
“Is Miss Fitzpatrick there?” demanded Lady Dysart.
The Real Charlotte Page 20