Part 75 (1/2)
”What, dearest?”
”We'll forget the old story, won't we, and only think of _now_? That's the right way to take it, isn't it?”
She kissed his face as she answered, just as she might have kissed a child. ”Quite right, dear love,” she said; ”and now go to sleep. Or if you must talk a little more, talk about Conrad and Sally.”
”Ah yes!” he answered; ”that's all happiness. Conrad and Sally! But there's a thing....”
”What thing, dear? What is it?”
”I shall ask it you in the end, so why not now?” She felt in his hand a shudder that ran through him, as his hold on her fingers tightened.
”So why not now?” she repeated after him. ”Why hesitate?”
The tremor strengthened in her hand and was heard in his voice plainly as he answered with an effort: ”What became of the baby?”
”What became of the baby!” There was a new terror in Rosalind's voice as she repeated the words--a fear for his reason. ”What baby?”
”_The_ baby--_his_ baby--_his_ horrible baby!”
”Gerry darling! Gerry _dearest_! do think....” His puzzled eyes, bloodshot in his white face, turned full upon her; but he remained silent, waiting to hear more. ”You have forgotten, darling,” she said quietly.
His free hand that lay on the coverlid clenched, and a spasm caught his arm, as though it longed for something to strike or strangle. ”No, no!” said he; ”I am all right. I mean that d.a.m.ned monster's baby.
There _was_ a baby?” His voice shook on these last words as though he, too, had a fear for his own reason. His face flushed as he awaited her reply.
”Oh, Gerry darling! but you _have_ forgotten. His baby was Sally--my Sallykin!”
For it was absolutely true that, although he had as complete a knowledge, in a certain sense, of Sally's origin as the well-coached student has of the subject he is to answer questions in, he had forgotten it under the stress of his mental trial as readily as the student forgets what his mind has only acquiesced in for its purpose, in his joy at recovering his right to ignorance. Sally had an existence of her own quite independent of her origin. She was his and Rosalind's--a part of _their_ existence, a necessity. It was easy and natural for him to dissociate the living, breathing reality that filled so much of their lives from its mere beginnings. It was less easy for Rosalind, but not an impossibility altogether, helped by the forgiveness for the past that grew from the soil of her daughter's love.
”You _had_ forgotten, dear,” she repeated; ”but you know now.”
”Yes, I had forgotten, because of Sally herself; but she is _my_ daughter now....”
She waited, expecting him to say more; but he did not speak again. As soon as he was, or seemed to be, asleep, she rose quietly and left him.
She was so anxious that no trace of the tempest that had pa.s.sed over her should be left for Sally to see in the morning that she got as quickly as possible to bed; and, with a little effort to tranquillise her mind, soon sank into a state of absolute oblivion. It was the counterswing of the pendulum--Nature's protest against a strain beyond her powers to bear, and its remedy.
CHAPTER XLIV
OF A CONTRACT JOB FOR REPAIRS. HOW FENWICK HAD ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT AFTER ALL. WHICH IS WHICH, NOW OR TWENTY ODD YEARS AGO? HOW SALLY FOLLOWED JEREMIAH OUT. WHAT A LOT OF TALK ABOUT A LIFE-BELT!
A colourless dawn chased a grey twilight from the sea and white cliffs of St. Sennans, and a sickly effort of the sun to rise visibly, ending above a cloud-bank in a red half-circle that seemed a thing quite unconnected with the struggling light, was baffled by a higher cloud-bank still that came discouragingly from the west, and quenched the hopes of the few early risers who were about as St. Sennans tower chimed six. The gull that flew high above the green waste of white-flecked waters was whiter still against the inky blue of the cloud-curtain that had disallowed the day, and the paler vapour-drifts that paused and changed and lost themselves and died; but the air that came from the sea was sweet and mild for the time of year, and the verdict of the coastguardsman at the flagstaff, who in pursuance of his sinecure had seen the night out, was that the day was pretty sure to be an uncertain sart, with little froshets on the water, like over yander. He seemed to think that a certainty of uncertainty had all the value of a forecast, and was as well satisfied with his report as he was that he had not seen a smuggler through the telescope he closed as he uttered it.
”Well, I should judge it might be fairly doubtful,” was the reply of the man he was speaking with. It was the man who had ”Elinor”
and ”Bessie” tattooed on his arm. They were not legible now, as a couple of life-belts, or hencoops, as they are sometimes called, hung over the arm and hid them. The boy Benjamin was with his father, and carried a third. An explanation of them came in answer to interrogation in the eye of the coastguard. ”Just to put a touch of new paint on 'em against the weather.” The speaker made one movement of his head say that they had come from the pier-end, and another that he had taken them home to repaint by contract.
”What do you make out of S. S. P. C.?” the coastguard asked, scarcely as one who had no theory himself, more as one archaeologist addressing another, teeming with deference, but ready for controversy. The other answered with some paternal pride:
”Ah, there now! Young Benjamin, he made _that_ good, and asked for to make it red in place of black himself! Didn't ye, ye young sculping?
St. Sennans Pier Company, that's all it comes to, followed out. But I'm no great schoolmaster myself, and that's G.o.d's truth.” Both contemplated the judicious restoration with satisfaction; and young Benjamin, who had turned purple under publicity, murmured that it was black afower. He didn't seem to mean anything, but to think it due to himself to say something, meaning or no. The coastguardsman merely said, ”Makes a tidy job!” and the father and son went on their way to the pier.
A quarter of an hour before, this coastguard had looked after the visitor in a blue serge suit up at Lobjoit's, who had pa.s.sed him going briskly towards the fis.h.i.+ng-quarter. He had recognised him confidently, for he knew Fenwick well, and saw nothing strange in his early appearance. Now that he saw him returning, and could take full note of him, he almost suspected he had been mistaken, so wild and pallid was the face of this man, who, usually ready with a light word for every chance encounter--even with perfect strangers--now pa.s.sed him by ungreeted, and to all seeming unconscious of his presence.