Part 52 (1/2)
Cynthia opened the door and went out.
CHAPTER x.x.xV
THE LITTLE BIT EXTRA
Yet that August when Parliament had risen, Harry Rames and Cynthia were cruising in the Solent and no word had been spoken by her to remedy their trouble. It was Cynthia who had proposed this holiday and Harry had fallen in with her plan eagerly. They had chartered a small steam yacht of a hundred tons. Rames navigated the boat himself and slipping their moorings one afternoon, they left Cowes behind them and steamed away through the north channel of the s.h.i.+ngles to Poole.
Cynthia had ceased to wrestle with herself. She was content to lie in her deck chair and put into and out of the harbors of the West.
”This shall be the perfect holiday,” she had said. ”Whatever the future may hold for us, we will have this month together without visitors, without any shadows.”
They were tossed in Portland race; they steamed across the West Bay over a sea smooth and bright as a steel mirror. They dropped their anchor at Dartmouth. They rounded the Start on the next day and crossed the Bar of Salcombe harbor under the shadow of Bolt Head on just such an evening of sunset as that which the poet fixed in a few lines of deathless verse. Cynthia stood with her arm through Harry's, as very slowly with the lead going in the bows he set the boat over the shallows.
”Sunset and evening star,” Cynthia quoted.
”And one clear call for me,” Harry Rames continued and abruptly broke off like a guilty person who has spoken without thought. Cynthia walked to the end of the bridge. After all, this cruise had made a difference to Harry. She consoled herself by the reflection. He had recovered something of his buoyancy of spirits since he had trodden the planks of this little yacht and looked down from its flimsy bridge onto its narrow deck and tapering bow. He was interested in the boat, quick to induce her to give him of her best, and her bra.s.s shone like a woman's ornaments. They put out from Salcombe the next day, and keeping clear of Plymouth and Polperro and Fowey, heard the bell upon the Manacles in the afternoon and dropped anchor between the woods of Helford River. They stayed there for a day and made a pa.s.sage thence to Guernsey on a night of moonlight. Cynthia sat late upon the bridge while Rames in his great-coat kept the boat upon her course. Toward morning he came to her side and stooped over her.
”I thought you were asleep.”
”No.”
”Aren't you tired?”
”No.”
”You were lying so still.”
”Yes,” said Cynthia. ”I am storing this night up.”
The swish and sparkle of the water along the boat's sides, the rattle of the chain as the helmsman spun the wheel, the quiet orders of her husband, the infinite peace of sky and sea, and the yacht like a jewel hung between them, were indeed to dwell long in Cynthia's memories.
For their holiday was at an end. A sailor was sent ash.o.r.e at Guernsey for the s.h.i.+p's letters and he brought them on board whilst Harry and Cynthia were at breakfast in the deck cabin. There was one for Rames with the Hickleton postmark stamped upon the envelope. Harry tore it open reluctantly.
”Carberley has resigned,” he said. ”There will be a meeting of the executive on Friday night to adopt young Burrell.”
Cynthia looked out across the harbor.
”We ought to go back, oughtn't we?” she said slowly.
Harry glanced at his letter.
”It is not expected that the election will take place for five weeks,”
he answered.
Cynthia shook her head.
”We shall want all that time, Harry.” Then she cried with a sudden vehemence. ”You have got to win this fight, Harry. So much hangs on it for you and me.”
”I know, Cynthia,” he answered.