He was in her arms, but in his heart he was at her feet, humbling himself in the dust before her, owning the majesty of her love. “Oh, Peggy! Peggy!” he cried in a tone that was precious to her. “What shall I say to you? How shall I be worthy of you? Oh, my dear, I am selfish. I am selfishness itself, if I take you at your word. I am a brute to wish to go. Think! Think again, dear. Say nothing now. Let us wait. There is a risk. God knows there is a risk if I go.”
“You will go to regain what you have lost,” she said firmly. “You will go to do your duty. I understand, I know, Charles. You go to fight; I stay to wait and pray. I am a sailor’s wife, and not the first. But I have counted the cost and I hold you cheap at it.” She met his eyes and tried to smile, nay, she did smile. “I see clearly now. There is but this one way for you and for me.”
He held her to him, but all that the man, unmanned, could say was “Peggy! Peggy!” as he drew her face down to his breast and held her close. “Oh, Peggy! Peggy!”
But his clasp told her all, and already she had some foretaste of her reward.
CHAPTER XX
AND giving, the young wife did not give by halves.
Love’s wisdom told her that a grudging gift is a vain sacrifice, and heavy as her heart was she did not let her fears cloud her face. She forced herself to be cheerful, she smiled across the breakfast table, and — last effort of courage — when the meal was over she sang as she went about her household work. The old man was deceived, for he was a simple soul; and for her husband, though she could not impose upon him who had so lately read her heart, her fortitude inspired and her cheerfulness consoled him. As her eyes followed him down the path to the Cove she marked the lightness of his step, and she thanked God for the courage that had been given to her.
But the bravest spirit has its moments of weakness. There followed days when the sea did not, a shield of blinding silver, mirror the sun’s splendour, when hail rattled against the streaming panes, and the south-wester, storming by the walls, beat down the fuchsia beside the door. Days, too, when fog grey and depressing hid the world, and the sound of the caulking-mallets rising out of the mist seemed to listening ears as the knell of hammers on coffins. And he was absent and busy, borne away on the stream of life, engaged every hour in the job of fitting-out the brig, of checking stores, of setting up rigging. He hurried to and fro, and the day was too short for him, too short for fears and well-nigh for regret.
But for Peggy the woman’s task of waiting had already begun. She sat at home, and she was alone.
She might make and mend for him, she might bend over the stout rig-and-furrow that grew upon her twinkling needles, but she must needs think. Though she let no row fall that was not close and true as love could make it, the task was still too short. And, the task done, what remained to her but to think and tremble at her thoughts?
All this she had the strength to hide from him. Welcoming him, noon and night, with smiles, she listened with hard-won patience to the tale of the day’s doings, to the successes and failures that filled his thoughts, but for her ranked only as they retarded or advanced the inevitable parting. She questioned, smiled, and played her part, yet there were times when the ordeal was almost more than she could bear, when she could have screamed aloud. There were other times when, her heart full to bursting, she longed to give way, to weep her fill and be comforted.
And one day when the preparations were well advanced the sympathy that she read in Charlotte Bicester’s eyes proved too much for her. It was a Sunday afternoon and the visitor had come in when the men were abroad. Charlotte marked the quivering lip, the fluttering hands, the piteous eyes, saw that there was something amiss and questioned Peggy. In a few minutes the tale was told and the young wife was pouring out her soul in her friend’s arms.
Charlotte was never slow to wax hot, and she flamed out. “But he must not go!” she cried, as if that closed the matter. “He shall not go! It is cruel, wicked, most wicked, child! He shall not leave you.”
“No, no,” Peggy sobbed. “He must go.”
“He must not!” Charlotte declared, fired with indignation in her friend’s cause. “I never heard of such a thing! At this moment when you are —
No! No! Certainly he cannot go. I will see to it, dear.”
But that was not what Peggy wanted. Pity she claimed and a word of sympathy — and a good cry. But no one must arraign him, no one must come between them. The storm sank as quickly as it had arisen; she disengaged herself, and mopped her eyes. “No, dear,” she said with dignity, “we have considered it, and he is right to go. Quite right. I wish it. I would not keep him if I could.”
“Not keep him! I don’t believe it!”
“No, certainly not,” Peggy said, bristling up, and as ready to fight as she had been to weep. “No, certainly not. We are in full agreement about it, Charlotte. He must go, and he is right to go. But,” she added, weakening and turning tearful eyes on her friend, “it almost breaks my heart to let him go.”
“And yet you let him go?”
“Of course! But you cannot understand.” Charlotte thought that she did understand. She did not believe Peggy. “The man is a wretch!” she thought. “An unfeeling, ungrateful wretch to talk of leaving her!” Still she ceased to argue and confined herself to administering the comfort that Peggy needed and that gradually brought back a smile to her face.
None the less Charlotte left the cottage determined that the thing should not be. Her friend should not be sacrificed, she should not be racked and tormented. Heavens, had not the child suffered enough? Had she not given up enough, offered enough — father, sister, friends, position on — the altar of this man? Was she never to have peace? Charlotte burned to speak her mind to some one, and in her indignation would have gone that moment to the Cove and brought the offender to book. But Peggy, smiling through her tears and much the better for the break-down, saw her from the door, and Charlotte dared not turn towards the Cove lest the other should divine her purpose. Still her resolution held; it was but putting off the matter for a few hours, she thought.
And then in Beremouth, at the point where the road that climbed the headland left the street, she met Sir Albery, coming, as she supposed, from the Rectory, and in a trice and with her usual impulsiveness she decided that he was the proper person to interfere. A moment’s thought might have induced even Charlotte to doubt the wisdom of this, but she did not allow herself the moment. She poured out her story, and heated to a white heat by her recital, “Isn’t it a burning shame?” she cried. “Isn’t it the last straw?” Then as he did not reply, “Did you know of this?” she asked, prepared to denounce him if he differed from her. “Monstrous, I call it! Surely you didn’t, or you would have done something.” Wyke’s face was grave. “I heard two days ago,” he said, “that he was likely to go.”
“And you have done nothing!”
“I?” His tone said as plainly as possible — What have I to do with it?
And for most people that would have closed the matter, but Charlotte was of stouter stuff. “Yes, you!” she retorted. “Why not? You were fond of her!”
He reddened with vexation. “Miss Bicester,” he said, “you go too far! You forget that — that Mrs. Bligh is another man’s wife.”
“Oh!” Charlotte rose in her scorn. “And that being so, you wash your hands of her! You don’t care what happens to her! That’s it, is it?” Really the girl was beyond bearing! Exasperated, he ground the point of his stick into the ground. “But what are you in it?” he protested, with an irritation that was natural enough in the circumstances. “What is it to you, Miss Bicester? Why are you for ever taking up their cause and — and troubling about them?”
It was Charlotte’s turn to redden. “Why?” she exclaimed. “Why? I thought I had told you once. Because I was her friend, and I am not like some, I stick. I don’t turn my back and say it is no business of mine, because she’s down! Because she’s poor and all her fine friends have sent her to Coventry! She’s goi
ng to have a baby — I suppose I should not know it, but I do — and this will about kill her! And am I to stand by and do nothing like all the rest, like her good-for-nothing sister, whom I would like to shake! And like — well, I won’t say that. Only I won’t stand, for one, and see this. It will kill her, I tell you. Do you understand that?”
For a moment Charlotte’s anger raised her almost to the pitch of comeliness, and Wyke eyed her whimsically, discovering something new and surprising in her. “There are not many friends like you, Miss Bicester,” he said.
“Then I would not call them friends,” she retorted. “Friends, indeed! I would not give that for them!” and she snapped her fingers. “But we are off the point. The point is, Sir Albery, are you going to do anything? That is what I want to know.”
He hesitated. “It is a fair risk,” he said. “I don’t see that it is any more.”
But she had her answer. “If it were his risk, may be! You may depend upon it, it would not trouble me — fair or unfair. But it is her risk that I’m thinking about. He may not be worth much, but she has bought him dearly, and is she to lose him? Is she to live in fear and anguish, for it is nothing better, and be broken-hearted at last? The man has the feelings of a stone to think of it! No one but a brute would treat her so!”
“But I thought,” he said, smiling, “that you liked him.”
Charlotte cooled down. “Well, I did,” she admitted.
“Then why do you think so ill of him now?”
She hesitated. “Because I’ve seen her,” she said. “And she is breaking her heart about it. The man has no right to go!”
“But what can I do? What do you want me to do?”
“Speak to him. Put it before him. Tell him what you think of him. What her friends think of him.”
Wyke frowned. “You don’t know what you ask,” he said. “Come between husband and wife? And I — I of all people? You don’t know what you are asking.”
But Charlotte was firm. “Yes, I do,” she said. “I ask you to act, and I say you have the right to act. You more than anyone.”
“Surely less than anyone,” he protested, colouring. “You put me in a false position. I step out of my place! Step out of it damnably! Damnably!” he repeated. “It is impossible.”
“And yet you will do it.”
“If I do, I am a fool!”
“Then be a fool!” cried this odd girl. “And you may be thankful all your life that you were!”
He looked down the quiet Sunday street in which they were the only loiterers, and annoyance was written large on his face. “Well, I’ll see,” he said at last, and grudgingly. “But I have told you what I think. I think the whole thing wrong. Quite wrong!”
“And yet you’ll do it,” she replied. “I leave it to you.” And before he could repeat his refusal she turned and hurried away, leaving him to digest the business as best he might.
“I shall do nothing of the kind,” he said, looking after her; and having given a minute to gloomy reflection, he followed her along the street. But when he had covered a hundred yards at a pace that grew slower with every yard, he stopped. “D — n the girl!” he muttered. He turned and went back, and with dragging steps he made for the churchyard and the walk that ran over the headland. He could not make up his mind. He did not mean to do anything — the girl was mad! But he might as well go that way and — and see. She had put it on him, confound her — and if anything happened? He had a vision of Peggy, white-faced, piteous, fear-stricken, staring at him with appealing eyes.
Once he stood. And once he turned and went back a few paces. The thing was absurd, impossible, it was no business of his. But he went on. Five minutes saw him over the point, and within sight of the cottage; and there, as luck would have it, he saw Bligh coming up from the Cove, and still on the farther side of the wicket-gate. The man was there, and if the thing was to be done, if it were not altogether impossible — Wyke quickened his pace that he might meet the other before he entered.
“Can I have a word with you?” he said. He would fain have said it in a tone of goodwill, but he spoke with constraint. He could not help it.
Bligh on his side did not bless the meeting. Chance had from time to time brought the two face to face in the town, and they had passed with a silent greeting. But since the day when they had met at the wedding they had never spoken. To escape, however, was impossible. “Yes,” he replied, not without dignity, “if you wish it.”
“I hear,” Wyke said, “that you are going out with the Peggy. May I ask if that is true?”
Bligh nodded.
“It is true, then?”
“It is. What of it?” He was on his guard, watchful and a little suspicious.
“Only this,” Wyke replied, hardening his heart, “but I think it is a thing that should weigh with you, and I think it is a thing that I have a right to say, Mr. Bligh. I can enter into your feelings, and I understand why you wish to go. No, hear me out, I beg,” he continued, as he saw that Bligh was preparing to interrupt him. “There must be risk, and I dare say a good deal of risk. Have you the right to run that risk? Your wife—”
“Oh, that’s it,” Bligh said, not very pleasantly. “That’s it, is it? You are thinking of her, Sir Albery?”
Wyke’s colour rose, but he answered firmly. “Yes,” he said, “I am thinking of her.”
Bligh could hardly have been blamed if he had resented the intrusion; indeed the words, “Had you not better mind your own business?” rose to his lips. But his better nature or his respect for the man, or possibly the scruples that he had felt prevailed. He stood a moment silent. Then, “Is that all?” he asked.
“It covers all,” the other answered. “I think that you ought to consider her. I think you ought to remember, Mr. Bligh, that your life is no longer yours to risk, and that you have no right to risk it or to inflict on her the anguish and the possible loss that this venture may cost her. No, man — you have not the right!” he repeated more warmly.
“And I might answer,” Bligh rejoined — but he said it with a smile—” that you have not the right to come between us.”
Sir Albery winced. “To come between you, no,” he said. “God forbid! But to speak to you as I am speaking, yes.” And then, with a fine simplicity, “I loved her,” he said. “She has chosen you, but I loved her and I would spare her.”
Bligh nodded. “I own your right,” he said. “But what if she wishes — if it is her own wish that I should go?”
“In that case there is no more to be said. If she wishes it.”
“We will ask her,” Bligh rejoined, rising to the other’s level. “She shall tell you herself what she wishes.”
Wyke had not counted on this, and he drew back. He had a horror of facing her, and a dread of what he would see. “Oh, but,” he protested, “I did not mean — if you tell me it is so — that should—”
But Bligh waved that aside. “We will ask her,” he repeated.
He signed to the other to go first, and Wyke, with mingled anger and vexation at the position in which he had placed himself, gave way. He had prepared himself for hard words, for a clash, but he had not foreseen this, and he felt himself caught. He was a shy as well as a proud man, and he would have given a large sum to be spared the scene that awaited him. But he could not refuse, and he passed through the gate that the other held back.
Bligh pushed open the door. “Are you there, Peggy?” he asked, raising his voice. “I am bringing you a visitor. Here is Sir Albery Wyke. He wishes to ask you a question.”
Peggy was bending over the table, busy about some household task, and she had just that much warning and no more. She looked up, she saw her old lover hesitating on the threshold, and the blood flew to her face. She had not spoken to him since the day when he had stood behind her at her marriage, a grim, silent witness, and memories of that day and of his suit clothed her with shame. But though her face burned she held up her head bravely, and Bligh told himself with pride that he would not have
her look other than she did.
Probably Sir Albery suffered more than she suffered. He bowed, muttering something incoherent about an intrusion, and her husband’s wish. He turned resentfully to Bligh.
“It’s about my sailing with the Peggy,” Bligh said. Of the three he was the most at his ease. “Sir Albery is troubled about it, and it is good of him to be so. I have told him that I have left the decision to you, and that if you are against my sailing I will not go!”
Peggy knitted her brow. “Well?” she said. If she understood she did not show it.
“He wishes to hear from your lips, dear, if you are willing.”
“That you should go?”
“Yes.”
Peggy did not blench. “But I have told you so,” she said, frowning. The blush had faded from her cheek and she seemed to Sir Albery to be pale and changed. But she spoke with decision. “It is at my wish that he does go,” she continued. “If it had lain with him he would not have gone. But, for me — would you have me keep him here idle, wasted, clerking for that man? Do you think that he was made for that, to live out his life under a cloud, to pay all his life for a single mistake, to rust down there with the old moorings and the worn-out boats? Do you think,” she repeated, her voice rising proudly, “that I married him for that? To fetter him and bind him, my love no better than the green weed that hangs about those rotting timbers? Shall I take all and give nothing? No, let him go!” Peggy’s voice rang with something approaching exultation. “Let him go whatever it cost! Better, far better to lose him, if it be God’s will, than to be a stay and a clog upon him! Let him go and let him prove, if the chance be given him, that the world has been unjust to him!”
Bligh turned to Sir Albery. He smiled. “Are you satisfied?” he asked. But his voice was unsteady.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 761