Part 70 (1/2)
CHAPTER XX.
MR. FOUNTAIN remained in the town waiting for his niece's return. Six o'clock came--no boat. Eight o'clock--no boat, and a heavy gale blowing. He went down to the beach in great anxiety; and when he got there he soon found it was shared to the full by many human beings.
There were little knots of fishermen and sailors discussing it, and one poor woman, mother and wife, stealing from group to group and listening anxiously to the men's conjectures. But the most striking feature of the scene was an old white-haired man, who walked wildly, throwing his arms about. The others rather avoided him, but Mr.
Fountain felt he had a right to speak to him; so he came to him, and told him ”his niece was on board; and you, too, I fear, have some one dear to you in danger.”
The old man replied sorrowfully that ”his lovely new boat was in danger--in such danger that he should never see her again;” then added, going suddenly into a fury, that ”as to the two rascally bluejackets that were on board of her, and had borrowed her of his wife while he was out, all he wished was that they had been swamped to all eternity long ago, then they would not have been able to come and swamp his dear boat.”
Peppery old Fountain cursed him for a heartless old vagabond, and joined the group whose grief and anxiety were less ostentatious, being for the other boat that carried their own flesh and blood. But all night long that white-haired old man paced the sh.o.r.e, flinging his arms, weeping and cursing alternately for his dear schooner.
Oh holy love--of property! how venerable you looked in the moonlight, with your white hairs streaming! How well you imitated, how close you rivaled, the holiest effusions of the heart, and not for the first time nor the last.
”My daughter! my ducats! my ducats! my daughter!” etc.
The morning broke; no sign of either boat. The wind had s.h.i.+fted to the east, and greatly abated. The fishermen began to have hopes for their comrades; these communicated themselves to Mr. Fountain.
It was about one o'clock in the afternoon when this latter observed people streaming along the sh.o.r.e to a distant point. He asked a coastguard man, whom he observed scanning the place with a gla.s.s, ”What it was?”
The man lowered his voice and said, ”Well, sir, it will be something coming ash.o.r.e, by the way the folk are running.”
Mr. Fountain got a carriage, and, urging the driver to use speed, was hastily conveyed by the road to a part whence a few steps brought him down to the sea. He thrust wildly in among the crowd.
”Make way,” said the rough fellows: they saw he was one of those who had the best right to be there.
He looked, and there, scarce fifty yards from the sh.o.r.e, was the lugger, keel uppermost, drifting in with the tide. The old man staggered, and was supported by a beach man.
When the wreck came within fifteen yards of the sh.o.r.e, she hung, owing to the under suction, and could get neither way. The cries of the women broke out afresh at this. Then half a dozen stout fellows swam in with ropes, and with some difficulty righted her, and in another minute she was hauled ash.o.r.e.
The crowd rushed upon her. She was empty! Not an oar, not a boat-hook--nothing. But jammed in between the tiller and the boat they found a purple veil. The discovery was announced loudly by one of the females, but the consequent outcry was instantly hushed by the men, and the oldest fisherman there took it, and, in a sudden dead and solemn silence, gave it with a world of subdued meaning to Mr.
Fountain.
CHAPTER XXI.
MR. FOUNTAIN'S grief was violent; the more so, perhaps, that it was not pure sorrow, but heated with anger and despair. He had not only lost the creature he loved better than anyone else except himself, but all his plans and all his ambition were upset forever. I am sorry to say there were moments when he felt indignant with Heaven, and accused its justice. At other times the virtues of her he had lost came to his recollection, and he wept genuine tears. Now she was dead he asked himself a question that is sometimes reserved for that occasion, and then asked with bitter regret and idle remorse at its postponement, ”What can I do to show my love and respect for her?” The poor old fellow could think of nothing now but to try and recover her body from the sea, and to record her virtues on her tomb. He employed six men to watch the coast for her along a s.p.a.ce of twelve miles, and he went to a marble-cutter and ordered a block of beautiful white marble. He drew up the record of her virtues himself, and spelled her ”Fontaine,” and so settled that question by brute force.
Oh, you may giggle, but men are not most sincere when they are most reasonable, nor most reasonable when most sincere. When a man's heart is in a thing, it is in it--wise or nonsensical, it is all one; so it is no use talking.
I lack words to describe the gloom that fell on Mr. Bazalgette's home when the sad tidings reached it. And, indeed, it would be trifling with my reader to hang many more pages with black when he and I both know Lucy Fontaine is alive all the time.
Meantime the French sloop lay at her anchor, and Lucy fretted with impatience. At noon the next day she sailed, and, being a slow vessel, did not anchor off the port of ---- till daybreak the day after. Then she had to wait for the tide, and it was nearly eleven o'clock when Lucy landed. She went immediately to the princ.i.p.al inn to get a conveyance. On the road, whom should she meet but Mr. Hardie. He gave a joyful start at sight of her, and with more heart than she could have expected welcomed her to life again. From him she learned all the proofs of her death. This made her more anxious to fly to her aunt's house at once and undeceive her.
Mr. Hardie would not let her hire a carriage; he would drive her over in half the time. He beckoned his servant, who was standing at the inn door, and ordered it immediately. ”Meantime, Miss Fountain, if you will take my arm, I will show you something that I think will amuse you, though _we_ have found it anything but amusing, as you may well suppose.” Lucy took his arm somewhat timidly, and he walked her to the marble-cutter's shop. ”Look there,” said he. Lucy looked and there was an unfinished slab on which she read these words:
Sacred to the Memory OF LUCY FONTAINE, WHO WAS DROWNED AT SEA ON THE 10TH SEPT., 18--.
As her beauty endeared her to all eyes, So her modesty, piety, docilit
At this point in her moral virtues the chisel had stopped. Eleven o'clock struck, and the chisel went for its beer; for your English workman would leave the d in ”G.o.d” half finished when strikes the hour of beer.
The fact is that the shopkeeper had newly set up, was proud of the commission, and, whenever the chisel left off, he whipped into the workshop and brought the slab out, _pro tem.,_ into his window for an advertis.e.m.e.nt.