The Nymph and the Lamp

  “Shall we go on?” she said in a cold voice. The comedy was closed; but all the way back to the station that casual phrase of Sargent’s echoed in her mind.

  At the next tryst she was uneasy. When Skane tethered the ponies beside Old Two she asked, “Are you sure it’s safe to leave them here? Mightn’t they be seen from the north beach? After all there’s quite a bit of travel now between Main and the stations down east.”

  Skane shook his head vigorously. “I’ve tested it, my dear. When you ride past on the beach you can look through the gap in the dunes for a moment and see the old gable sticking out, but it’s just a quick glimpse, and you can’t see the spot where we tether the ponies at all. Anyhow it’s quite all right. Nobody’s going to turn off the hard footing on the beach to ride up this way. Besides, like a good many other places on the island it’s supposed to be haunted. The fellow who lived here last—the one who struggled so long with the dune—went off his rocker at last and cut his throat. None of the islanders would go inside as we did, even on a bet.”

  “I wish you’d told me that before I ventured into that chamber of horrors,” Isabel said reproachfully.

  “Oh, I’m just not superstitious. But can you see any of the others snooping about here? Giswell or Nightingale or any of those young savages of the lifesaving crew who believe so devoutly in the Fingerless Woman and the Singing Frenchman and the Thirteenth Sailor and all the other spooks and hobgoblins of Marina? My dear girl!”

  She shrugged and walked on. There was always something delicious in the sensation of crossing over the dune and coming upon the hidden pond. It seemed so perfect a retreat. The cool green of its turf was balm to the eyes after the fierce glare of the sands and the dazzle on the sea. The still water that reflected their trysts and then erased all trace from its surface was like a tutelary spirit dedicated to their secret. But on this day as they dropped upon the turf Isabel said abruptly, “Sometimes I have a feeling that we’re being watched.”

  “You’re a bit queer today,” Skane said. “What’s the matter?”

  He bent his head to kiss her but she turned her face away.

  “Give me a cigarette, please. I want to talk, Greg. We can’t go on like this—I can’t anyway. It’s different for you. But I’m still living with Matthew.”

  “Yes?” He frowned and shot her a quick glance.

  “I daresay you’ve wondered—I ought to tell you that there hasn’t been anything intimate between me and Matthew for a long time. Otherwise it would have been horrible.”

  “Yes.” He lit the cigarettes. Isabel sucked in a long whiff of smoke and blew it out. Abruptly she tossed the cigarette into the pool.

  “You must know how I feel, Greg. If I hated Matthew, if he were loathsome to me, or cruel, it would be different. But he isn’t. He’s kind, considerate, he’s everything a husband ought to be—except that he’s become so utterly distant since the winter began. There are times when he seems fairly happy but most of the time he seems depressed. He’s strange. He seems to be miles away. I can’t help feeling that soon after the autumn he began to regret the step he’d taken—me, I mean. I’ve asked him about it; I’ve said, ‘Matthew, is it me?’—but he always puts me off and says it’s nothing, that nothing’s changed. Well, I know better. Everything’s changed. You know how he’s given up his walks, his shooting, his visits up and down the island, everything he used to love. His whole life’s spoiled. And I know why. It’s on account of me. If you only knew how terrible that is to me. It’s bad enough to have been loved, and to feel that you’re not loved any more; but to feel that you’ve ruined a man’s whole life, and that he won’t admit it and there’s nothing you can do about it….”

  Skane broke in angrily, “I wish you wouldn’t go on like that, Isabel. Crying over spilt milk never did anybody any good. The important thing is that you love me now and I love you, I’m simply wild about you, and you know it. You’re the only woman who’s ever meant anything to me—and you’re everything.” He attempted to put his arm about her but she leaned away.

  “I believe you, Greg. If I didn’t I’d feel…soiled. But the fact remains that I’m living with Matthew and giving myself to you, and it’s not fair to either of you, and it’s not fair to me. That’s what I wanted to say.”

  “What do you propose to do about it?”

  She plucked at the grass. A minute passed before she spoke. “I can’t leave Matthew, not while he’s so kind to me. I owe him so much. I feel it’s got to come from him. He’s got to tell me that it’s all over between us. Meanwhile,” she went on slowly, “it seems to me you should do something yourself, Greg.” Her tone hardened. “Greg, the boat is coming in a few days. I wish you’d go. Wireless to Hurd that you want leave, and after that go on to some other station. Don’t say no, please! Hear me out. It seems the only way out of this frightful tangle. If you’ll only go away and let me settle my thoughts a bit! After this boat there won’t be another till August. That will give me three or four months to sort myself out.”

  “And what then, Isabel?”

  She faced him. “When I’m certain Matthew doesn’t love me any more, that he wants nothing but his old life back again—then, Greg, I’ll leave Marina and come to you. That’s the only decent thing. It’s reasonable at any rate, and we haven’t done much reasoning so far.” She hesitated a moment. “There’s something else, very important to me. I want you to go on leave, see your people, your friends, get the feel of civilized life again after all this time out here—and ask yourself in August if I still mean the same thing to you. I can’t help thinking that, well, you’d been here two years or more, away from everyone and everything that a man normally wants; and then I came and you fell in love with me. I’ve got no illusions about myself, Greg. I’m not at all the sort of woman men go mad about when there are others to be had.”

  “That’s where you’re absolutely wrong,” Skane said quickly. “I daresay you didn’t know, you don’t seem to realize even now, that quite apart from looks—and I can dispute with you on that—you’ve got something very few women have. It can’t be described. It isn’t anything physical. It’s nothing that can be seen or touched or even suspected. I suppose a woman might have that quality and go all her life without knowing it unless some man made love to her and found her marvelous.”

  “Isn’t that what every man tells a woman when he’s making love?” she asked, with a sudden smile.

  “I’m talking about what a man feels within himself,” he answered impatiently, “and I know that here or anywhere I’d still feel the same about you. And that’s why I won’t leave Marina unless you leave at the same time. Isabel, darling, I’m thinking of your own happiness quite as much as mine. Marina’s a tough place for any woman. It’s no place at all for a sensitive woman like you, and Carney had no earthly right to bring you here. I knew that from the first. He knows it now. He’s tried every way he knows to make you realize that, but he’s too generous a soul to come right out and tell you to go. Don’t you see that for the sake of all of us there’s only one thing for you to do? You spoke of doing the decent thing. The decent thing for both of us is to go to Carney together and face it out, now, before the Elgin comes—for as you say, we can’t go on like this.”

  He said this in a rapid eager tone, gesturing with his hand towards the west. Isabel remained in her defensive attitude, half turned away and staring at the pool.

  “I still say you should go—and I must wait,” she answered stubbornly. “The other day something happened that made me realize we’d been playing a very old and rather sordid little drama, and it hurt me to think that every beastly mind in the world had been laughing at it since time began. If we ran away together we wouldn’t have to face it—but poor Matthew would. I can’t do that to him. Please say you’ll go, and let me stay till August.”

  “No! My dear girl, what do you take me for, an utter fool?”

  She sprang to her feet. “Let’s go back to the station. I can’t let you make l
ove to me today, Greg. I’m not in the mood.” Skane rose and caught her shoulders. He felt her trembling. “Look here, darling, tell me the truth. Are you sure your mind’s not made up already? Are you trying to send me away on a vague promise that you know you won’t keep, simply because you can’t bear to hurt me now, or Carney in August?”

  Isabel refused to meet his eyes. The pool blazed at their feet in the downpour of sunshine; and as she turned her head away she saw a shadow falling down the slope and extending swiftly to the water. It was long and grotesque, the shape of a creature neither man nor beast. And there was a sound, a scuffle of sand, a rustle in the spire-grass on the crest of the hollow. They looked up, startled, and saw a pony poised on the rim above their heads, and Sara Giswell in the saddle.

  CHAPTER 25

  The girl and the pony made a picturesque statue seen thus from below, and against the sun. A brace of wild duck hung limp from the horn of the saddle. The reins were in her left hand and in the crook of her right elbow lay Giswell’s old Mauser rifle. She had on a pair of faded blue denim trousers and a mackinaw shirt, and might have been any of the slim young men of the lifesaving station except for the long brown hair about her shoulders and the pout of breasts in the taut shirt. On her feet were a pair of seamen’s rubber boots, the usual wear of the island men, with the tops turned out and folded to the ankles. Strapped about one of these was a rusty spur. The dark eyes glittered in her brown young face. She sat erect, looking down upon them with a mixture of triumph and contempt.

  “So this is the place! I wondered where it was, after I seen the ponies tied outside Old Two a fortnight back. I crep’ to the window an’ listened but there wasn’t a sound an’ I was scar’t to go inside…”

  Skane cleared his throat. “Look here, Sara, Mrs. Carney and I…”

  “Ho, yes! Miz Carney an’ you! I seen Miz Carney an’ you ridin’ up this way every afternoon you could git away. I knowed what you was up to, too, on’y I couldn’t find the place.” The girl had a theatrical advantage, looking upon them from that height, and they felt curiously small. Skane stood tense and watchful but Isabel was furious. Her eyes met Sara’s in a mutual instinctive hate. From that moment Skane was only a spectator. Isabel stepped away from him and clenched her fists. She cried, “How dare you talk to us like that!”

  The girl threw back her head and laughed, showing a row of excellent white teeth. “Ho, I dare all right! Don’t make no mistake about that! You ain’t heard nothin’ yit, Miz Carney. Too good for the likes of us, wasn’t you? Wouldn’t come down to see us people at Three, nor Four, nor East Light, would you? Wouldn’t let your men come, neither, would you? Wouldn’t go nowhere but down to the Gov’nor’s house, so Greg Skane could play his music for you. Ho yes, very high an’ partic’lar, wasn’t you? But you wasn’t partic’lar with your men! Your husband, he wasn’t enough. It had to be all three, an’ Greg Skane for special!”

  Isabel uttered an outraged gasp and swung away. “Come, Greg!”

  “Wait!” Skane said in an odd voice. He had not moved. He was watching Sara with a most careful interest.

  “If you think I’m going to stay here listening to that jealous little wildcat.”

  “I said wait!”

  She paused, and Sara laughed triumphantly. “She’ll stay all right. She’ll listen, too. If she don’t, Carney will, an’ so will everyone from East Light down to West.”

  “Do you think, you vicious little fool, that my husband would believe you?”

  “He’ll hear me anyhow, an’ I guess he can add two two’s as good as anyone. I knowed there was somethin’ queer about you from the day you come to Marina. I said you looked like a witch, with that white face an’ those eyes all hollow an’ burnin’ like, an’ showin’ your legs to the men in that dress you wore. Ho yes! Pa told me to shut up, but I was right. You’re a witch, all right. Carney never looked at a woman till you met him ashore somewheres an’ put a spell on him. An’ he ain’t been the same man since. Vedder, he was smart, he lit out the day you come. But the others, they stayed an’ got ’witched like Carney. You’ve had ’em all under your fingers, all winter, shut up in the station with you, makin’ ’em do what you liked. I know. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  Sara paused for breath. She was working herself up to a fury and already she was shaking and panting with the stress of it. Her young voice was strident and she thrust out her face and spat the words like a bad-tempered child. Isabel was too angry to be concerned about the outcome of this discovery. It was awkward looking up against the sun and since Skane would not move she adopted an attitude of frigid contempt, staring at the reeds across the pool. She stood in a cold rage under the rain of words that fell from Sara’s lips, making no effort to reply. And as it turned out, nothing that she could have said would have stung the bitter young creature on the pony more than her silence and apparent indifference.

  The girl’s voice cracked as she cried out oaths and obscenities that she must have heard from the young lifeboatmen in their hunts among the ponds, in their frequent brawls and during their severe labors on the beach when stores were being carried from the boats. Many were terms that Isabel had never heard, but she could guess their drift. Whole pages of Rabelais were being flung at her head, synonym by synonym, in the dialect of Marina and in the voice of a young girl.

  In the midst of this she became aware that Skane was moving slowly up the slope, never taking his eyes from Sara’s face, and calling to her softly whenever she paused for breath. “Sara! Sara!” He had exactly the air and movements of a man who approaches a restive horse with a halter clutched behind his back. Isabel looked up then and saw that the rifle lay no longer in the crook of Sara’s arm. It was thrown across the saddle, with one brown hand grasping the barrel and the other behind the bolt, and the muzzle pointed down towards the pool.

  Isabel was not alarmed. She knew very little of firearms and it was obvious that Sara’s rage had reached a point where she was unaware of the rifle and only vaguely aware of Skane. The girl rose in the stirrups as if from this added height she could add force to the stream of vituperation that fell from her yelling mouth. Suddenly she paused. Without shifting that hateful gaze from Isabel she said hoarsely, “Don’t come no further, Greg Skane. I know what you’re thinkin’ an’ it ain’t a-goin’ to do you no good, nor her.”

  “Sara, don’t be a little fool,” Skane said, and began to run.

  “Stay where you are!” the girl screamed. The pony reared.

  The shot made a shocking sound in the hollow and it was followed by a shocking silence. Isabel felt a violent blow as if an invisible fist had struck her side. It staggered her for a moment but she recovered and turned her eyes slowly from Skane to the girl, and to the old seal-rifle falling from Sara’s hands and slithering down the slope. She heard her own voice demanding in an amazed tone, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “My God!” Skane said, and came towards her. Sara was sitting crouched on the pony with her hands spread over her face. Isabel looked down then, and saw a patter of red drops falling like dye from the edge of her scarlet jacket and splashing on her right boot and the sand. A wave of giddiness passed through her but she remained fully conscious, and she was saying in a bewildered voice, “I must sit down,” when Skane caught her falling to the turf.

  She lay very still while Skane wrenched open her clothes. The bullet had entered the right side near the lowermost rib and passed through her waist at a steep angle, emerging just above the flank. He tore her chemise in ragged strips, and as he tried to stop the gush of blood with hasty wads and bandages he called over his shoulder, “Were those soft-nosed bullets you were using?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did they have a bright metal jacket and a dark bit at the end?”

  “Yes.”

  “Christ!”

  Sara slid from the pony’s back and came slowly down to the pool. She stopped some distance away from the prone form on the grass. The storm had go
ne from her face and there was now a naive and frightened curiosity.

  “Is she dead?”

  “No, but she’s badly hurt. Go and bring our ponies here. You know where they are.”

  “I didn’t do it,” she whimpered, like a child whose ball has broken a window. “It was your fault, jumpin’ at the pony’s head. The gun went off.”

  “You had your finger on the trigger, didn’t you? Go and get the ponies.”

  Isabel was still conscious when Skane lifted her into the saddle. She uttered a gasp of agony, and Skane gritted his teeth. He adjusted the pads and bandages.

  “Come here and steady her while I get on my pony.” Sara came reluctantly and held Isabel in a very gingerly way. Her mouth was drawn down in a child’s grimace and the tears streamed. She watched Skane’s grim face and cried out a babble of questions and entreaties that he did not trouble to answer.

  “She ain’t a-goin’ to die, is she? ’Twasn’t my fault. I didn’t mean to hurt her, I just meant to call her names. You love her, don’t you? What you goin’ to tell Carney? You goin’ to say I done it? Please, Greg, don’t say it was me, I didn’t want to do her no real harm an’ Pa will take his belt an’ whip me terrible. Greg! Oh Greg, I loved you so an’ I couldn’t bear to see you with her. I know I ain’t good enough for you but she ain’t neither. Is she hurt real bad?”

  Skane rode in close to Isabel’s pony and put his arm across her shoulders.

  “Now give me those reins.”

  Sara put them in his left hand, looking up in his face. “What shall I say?” she cried.

  “Nothing!”

  “Can’t I do something to help you?”

  “Yes,” he said savagely: “get out of my sight!”

  He rode off slowly, heading across the island towards the lagoon and picking the way along the ravines where the going was easiest. It was awkward to keep the ponies together and hold Isabel as well. Several times he had to stop and adjust the bandages, and each time he was appalled by the amount of blood that soaked them and dripped down her leg and the pony’s flank. Isabel sat dazed and wordless, clinging gallantly to her senses, knowing how difficult it would be for Skane to get her anywhere if she fainted. Fortunately she was riding the staid Lide-Jarge, but even so the pony was made uneasy by the dead-alive burden in the saddle which sat and swayed but did not grip with its knees. Skane had a continual dread that some further alarm, however slight, a sudden stir of wind in the marram, a ball of sea foam blown across the path, a pair of wild duck squattering away from one of the ponds, would cause the nervous beast to toss Isabel off and bolt.