Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  Rebecca Torkill joined us at this moment.

  “Oh! Rebecca,” I said, “there is a ship coming up the estuary — do you think they can escape?”

  “The telescope should be on the shelf at the back stairhead,” she answered, as soon as she had taken a long look at the steamer. “Lord ha’ mercy on them, poor souls! — that’s the very way the Intrinsic drove up before the wind the night she was lost; and I think this will be the worse night of the two.”

  Mrs. Torkill returned with the long sea telescope, in its worn casing of canvas.

  I took the first “look out.” After wandering hither and thither over a raging sea, and sometimes catching the tossing head of some tree in the foreground, the glass lighted, at length, upon the vessel. It was a large steamer, pitching and yawing frightfully. Even to my inexperienced eye, it appeared nearly unmanageable. I handed the glass to Laura. I felt faint.

  Some of the Cardyllion boatmen came running along the road that passes in front of Malory. I saw that two or three of them had already arrived on the rising ground beside the churchyard, and were watching events from that wind-swept point. I knew all the Cardyllion boatmen, for we often employed them, and I said:

  “I can’t stay here — I must hear what the boatmen say. Come, Laura, come with me.”

  Laura was willing enough.

  “Nonsense! Miss Ethel,” exclaimed the housekeeper. “Why, dear Miss Grey, you could not keep hat or bonnet on in a wind like that! You could not keep your feet in it!”

  Remonstrance, however, was in vain. I tied a handkerchief tight over my head and under my chin — Laura did the same; and out we both sallied, notwithstanding Rebecca Torkill’s protest and entreaty. We had to go by the back door; it would have been impossible to close the hall-door against such a gale.

  Now we were out in the bright moonlight under the partial shelter of the trees, which bent and swayed with the roar of a cataract over our heads. Near us was the hillock we tried to gain; it was next to impossible to reach it against the storm. Often we were brought to a standstill, and often forced backward, notwithstanding all our efforts.

  At length, in spite of all, we stood on the little platform, from which the view of the rocks and sea beyond was clear. Williams, the boatman, was close to me, at my right hand, holding his low-crowned hat down on his head with his broad, hard hand. Laura was at my other side. Our dresses were slapping and rattling in the storm like the cracking of a thousand whips; and such a roaring was in my ears, although my handkerchief was tied close over them, that I could scarcely hear anything else.

  CHAPTER XI.

  CATASTROPHE.

  The steamer looked very near now and large. It was plain it had no longer any chance of clearing the rocks. The boatmen were bawling to one another, but I could not understand what they said, nor hear more than a word or two at a time.

  The steamer mounted very high, and then seemed to dive headlong into the sea, and was lost to sight. Again, in less than a minute, the black mass was toppling at the summit of the sea, and again it seemed swallowed up.

  “Her starboard paddle!” shouted a broad-shouldered sailor in a pilot-coat, with his palm to the side of his mouth.

  Thomas Jones was among these men, without a hat, and on seeing me he fell back a little. I was only a step or two behind them.

  “Thomas Jones,” I screamed, and he inclined his ear to my shrill question, “is there no life-boat in Cardyllion?”

  “Not one, miss,” he roared; “and it could not make head against that if there was.”

  “Not an inch,” bawled Williams.

  “Is there any chance?” I cried.

  “An anchor from the starn! A bad hold there — she’s draggin’ of it!” yelled Williams, whose voice, though little more than two feet away, sounded faint and half smothered in the storm.

  Just then the steamer reared, or rather swooped, like the enchanted horse, in the air, and high above its black shape shot a huge canopy of foam; and then it staggered over and down, and nothing but raging sea was there.

  “O God! are they all lost?” I shrieked.

  “Anchor’s fast. All right now,” roared the man in the pilot-coat.

  In some seconds more the vessel emerged, pitching high into the brilliant moonlight, and nearly the same thing was repeated again and again. The seafaring men who were looking on were shouting their opinions to one another, and from the little I was able to hear and understand, I gathered that she might ride it out if she did not drag her anchor, or “part” or “founder.” But the sea was very heavy, and the rocks just under her bows now.

  In this state of suspense a quarter of an hour or more must have passed. Suddenly the vessel seemed to rise nearer than before. The men crowded forward to the edge of the bank. It was plain something decisive had happened. Nearer it rose again, and then once more plunged forward and disappeared. I waited breathless. I waited longer than before, and longer. Nothing was there but rolling waves and springing foam beyond the rocks. The ship rose no more!

  The first agony of suspense was over. Where she had been the waves were sporting in the ghastly moonlight. In my wild horror I screamed — I wrung my hands. I could not turn for a moment from the scene. I was praying all the time the same short prayer over and over again. Minute after minute passed, and still my eyes were fixed on the point where the ship had vanished; my hands were clasped over my forehead, and tears welled down my cheeks.

  What’s that? Upon the summit of the bare rock, all on a sudden, the figure of a man appeared; behind this mass of black stone, as each wave burst in succession, the foam leaped in clouds. For a moment the figure was seen sharp against the silvery distance; then he stooped, as if to climb down the near side of the rock, and we lost sight of him. The boatmen shouted, and held up each a hand (their others were holding their hats on) in token of succour near, and three or four of them, with Thomas Jones at their head, ran down the slope, at their utmost speed to the jetty, under which, in shelter, lay the Malory boat. Soon it was moving under the bank, four men pulling might and main against the gale; though they rowed in shelter of the reef, on the pinnacle of which we had seen the figure for a moment, still it was a rough sea, and far from safe for an open boat, the spray driving like hail against them, and the boat pitching heavily in the short cross sea.

  No other figure crossed the edge of the rock, or for a a moment showed upon the bleak reef, all along which clouds of foam were springing high and wild into the air.

  The men who had been watching the event from the bank, seemed to have abandoned all further hope, and began to descend the hill to the jetty to await the return of the boat. It did return, bearing the one rescued man.

  Laura Grey and I went homeward. We made our way into the backyard, often forced to run, by the storm, in spite of ourselves. We had hardly reached the house when we saw the boatmen coming up.

  We were now in the yard, about to enter the house at the back-door, which stood in shelter of the building. I saw Mrs. Torkill in the steward’s house, with one of the maids, evidently in a fuss. I ran in.

  “Oh, Miss Ethel, dear, did you see that? Lord a’mercy on us! A whole shipful gone like that! I thought the sight was leaving my eyes.”

  I answered very little. I felt ill, I was trembling still, and ready to burst again into tears.

  “Here’s bin Thomas Jones, miss, to ask leave for the drownded man to rest himself for the night, and, as Mr. Carmel’s away, I knew your papa and mamma would not refuse; don’t you think so, miss? So I said, ay, bring him here. Was I right, miss? And me and Anne Wan is tidyin’ a bed for him.”

  “Quite right, I’m sure,” said I, my interest again awakened, and almost at the same moment into the flagged passage came Thomas Jones, followed by several of the Cardyllion boatmen, their great shoes clattering over the flags.

  In the front rank of these walked the one mortal who had escaped alive from the ship that was now a wreck on the fatal reef. You may imagine the interest with which I
looked at him. I saw a graceful but manly figure, a young man in a short sailor-like coat, his dress drenched and clinging, his hat gone, his forehead and features finely formed, very energetic, and, I thought, stern — browned by the sun; but, allowing for that tint, no drowned face in the sea that night was paler than his, his long black hair, lank with sea-water, thrown back from his face like a mane. There was blood oozing from under its folds near his temple; there was blood also on his hand, which rested on the breast of his coat; on his finger there was a thick gold ring. I had little more than a moment in which to observe all this. He walked in, holding his head high, very faint and fierce, with a slight stagger in his gait, a sullen and defiant countenance, and eyes fixed and gazing straight before him, as I had heard somnambulists described. I saw him in the candlelight for only a moment as he walked by, with boatmen in thick shoes, as I said, clattering beside him. I felt a strange longing to run and clasp him by the hand!

  I got into our own back-door, and found Laura Grey in the room in which we usually had our tea. She was as much excited as I.

  “Could you have imagined,” she almost cried, “anything so frightful? I wish I had not seen it. It will always be before my eyes.”

  “That is what I feel also; but we could not help it, we could not have borne the suspense. That is the reason why the people who are least able to bear it sometimes see the most dreadful sights.”

  As we were talking, and wondering where the steamer came from, and what was her name, and how many people were probably on board, in came Rebecca Torkill.

  “I sent them boatmen home, miss, that rowed the boat out to the rock for that poor young man, with a pint o’ strong ale, every one round, and no doubt he’ll give them and Thomas Jones something in hand for taking him off the rock when he comes to himself a bit. He ought to be thanking the Almighty with a contrite heart.”

  “He did not look as if he was going to pray when I saw him,” I said.

  “Nor to thank God, nor no one, for anything,” she chimed in. “And he sat down sulky and black as you please, at the side o’ the bed, and said never a word, but stuck out his foot to Thomas Jones to unbutton his boot. I had a pint o’ mulled port ready, and I asked him if I should send for the doctor, and he only shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, as he might turn up his nose at an ugly physic. And he fell a-thinking while Jones was takin’ off the other boot, and in place of prayin’ or thanksgiving, I heard him muttering to himself and grumbling; and, Lord forgive me if I wrong him, I think I heard him cursing some one. There was a thing for a man just took alive out o’ the jaws o’ death by the mercy o’ God to do! There’s them on earth, miss, that no lesson will teach, nor goodness melt, nor judgment frighten, but the last one, and then all’s too late.”

  It was late by this time, and so we all got to our beds. But I lay long awake in the dark, haunted by the ceaseless rocking of that dreadful sea, and the apparition of that one pale, bleeding messenger from the ship of death. How unlike my idea of the rapture of a mortal just rescued from shipwreck! His face was that of one to whom an atrocious secret has been revealed, who was full of resentment and horror; whose lips were sealed.

  In my eyes he was the most striking figure that had ever appeared before me. And the situation and my own dreadful excitement had elevated him into a hero.

  CHAPTER XII.

  OUR GUEST.

  The first thing I heard of the stranger in the morning was that he had sent off early to the proprietor of the “Verney Arms” a messenger with a note for two large boxes which he had left there, when the yacht Foam Bell was at Cardyllion about a fortnight before. The note was signed with the letters R. M.

  The Foam Bell had lain at anchor off the pier of Cardyllion for only two hours, so no one in the town knew much about her. Two or three of her men, with Foam Bell across the breasts of their blue shirts and on the ribbons of their flat glazed hats, had walked about the quaint town, and drunk their beer at the “George and Garter.” But there had not been time to make acquaintance with the townspeople. It was only known that the yacht belonged to Sir Dives Wharton, and that the gentleman who left the boxes in charge of the proprietor of the “Verney Arms,” was not that baronet.

  The handwriting was the same as that in the memorandum he had left with the hotel-keeper, and which simply told him that the big black boxes were left to be called or written for by Edward Hathaway, and mentioned no person whose initials were R. M. So Mr. Hughes, of the “Verney Arms,” drove to Malory to see the gentleman at the steward’s house, and having there recognised him as the very gentleman who left the boxes in his charge, he sent them to him as directed.

  Shortly after, Doctor Mervyn, our old friend walked up the avenue, and saw me and Laura at the window.

  It was a calm, bright morning; the storm had done its awful work, and was at rest, and sea and sky looked glad and gentle in the brilliant sun. Already about fifty drowned persons had been carried up and laid upon the turf in the churchyard in rows, with their faces upward. I was glad it was upon the slope that was hid from us.

  How murderous the dancing waves looked in the sunlight! And the black saw-edged reef I beheld with a start and a shudder. The churchyard, too, had a changed expression. What a spectacle lay behind that familiar grassy curve! I did not see the incongruous muster of death. Here a Liverpool dandy; there a white-whiskered City man; sharp bag-men; little children — strange companions in the churchyard — hard-handed sailors; women, too, in silk or serge — no distinction now.

  I and Laura could not walk in that direction till all this direful seeking and finding were over.

  The doctor, seeing us at the open window, raised his hat. The autumn sun through the thin leaves touched his bald head as he walked over to the window-stool, and placing his knee on the bench on which Mr. Carmel used sometimes to sit, he told us all he knew of the ship and the disaster. It was a Liverpool steamer called the Conway Castle, bound for Bristol. One of her paddles was disabled early in the gale, and thus she drove to leeward, and was wrecked.

  “And now,” said the doctor, “I’m going to look in upon the luckiest man in the kingdom, the one human being who escaped alive out of that ship. He must have been either the best or the worst man on board — either too good to be drowned or too bad, by Jove! He is the gentleman you were so kind as to afford shelter to last night in the steward’s house there, round the corner, and he sent for me an hour ago. I daresay he feels queer this morning; and from what Thomas Jones says, I should not be surprised if he had broken a bone somewhere. Nothing of any great consequence, of course; but he must have got a thund’ring fling on those rocks. When I’ve seen him — if I find you here — I’ll tell you what I think of him.”

  After this promise, you may be sure we did wait where we were, and he kept his word. We were in a fever of curiosity; my first question was, “Who is he?”

  “I guessed you’d ask that the first moment you could,” said the doctor, a little pettishly.

  “Why?” said I.

  “Because it is the very question I can’t answer,” he replied. “But I’ll tell you all I do know,” he continued, taking up his old position at the window, and leaning forward with his head in the room.

  Every word the oracle spoke we devoured. I won’t tell his story in his language, nor with our interruptions. I will give its substance, and in part its details, as I received them. The doctor was at least as curious as we were.

  His patient was up, sitting by the fire, in dressing-gown and slippers, which he had taken with other articles of dress from the box which stood open on the floor. The window-curtain was partly drawn, the room rather dark. He saw the young man with his feet on the fender, seated by the wood fire. His features, as they struck the doctor, were handsome and spirited; he looked ill, with pale cheek and lips, speaking low and smiling.

  “I’m Doctor Mervyn,” said the doctor, making his bow, and eyeing the stranger curiously.

  “Oh! Thanks, Doctor Mervyn! I hope it is no
t a long way from your house, I am here very ridiculously circumstanced. I should not have had any clothes, if it had not been for a very lucky accident, and for a day or two I shall be totally without money — a mere Robinson Crusoe.”

  “Oh, that don’t matter; I shall be very happy to see after you in the meantime, if there should be anything in my way,” answered the doctor, bluntly.

  “You are very kind, thanks. This place, they tell me, is called Malory. What Mr. Ware is that to whom it belongs?”

  “The Honourable Mr. Ware, brother of Lord H —— . He is travelling on the Continent at present with his wife, a great beauty some fifteen years since; and his daughter, his only child, is at present here with her governess.”

  “Oh, I thought some one said he had two?”

  The doctor reasserted the fact, and for some seconds the stranger looked on the floor abstractedly.

  “You wished a word or two of advice, I understand?” interrupted the doctor at length. “You have had a narrow escape, sir — a tremendous escape! You must have been awfully shaken. I don’t know how you escaped being smashed on those nasty rocks.”

  “I am pretty well smashed, I fancy,” said the young man.

  “That’s just what I wanted to ascertain.”

  “From head to foot, I’m covered with bruises,” continued the stranger; “I got off with very few cuts. I have one over my temple, and half-a-dozen here and there, and one here on my wrist; but you need not take any trouble about them — a cut, when I get one, heals almost of itself. A bit of court-plaster is all I require for them, and Mrs. Something, the housekeeper here, has given me some; but I’m rather seedy. I must have swallowed a lot of salt water, I fancy. I’ve got off very well, though, if it’s true all the other people were drowned. It was a devil of a fluke; you’d say I was the luckiest fellow alive, ha, ha, ha! I wish I could think so.”