The Tidal Wave - Ethel May Dell (top books to read TXT) 📗

come, Molly!" he protested. "I did tell you, you know. I told you the day after it happened. Don't you remember? I had to account for the skirt."
She wrenched her hands away from him. The thrill of laughter in his voice seemed to jar all her nerves. She was, moreover, wearied with the emotions of the day.
"Oh, don't you see," she cried passionately, "how different it might have been? If you had told me--if you had made me understand! I could have cared--I did care--only you seemed to me--unworthy. How could I know? What chance had I?"
She bowed her head suddenly, and burst into a storm of bitter weeping.
Charlie turned white to his lips. He stood perfectly motionless till the anguished sobbing goaded him beyond endurance. Then he flung round with a jerk.
"Stop, for Heaven's sake!" he exclaimed harshly. "I can't bear it. It's too much--too much."
He moved close to her, his face twitching, and took her shaking shoulders between his hands.
"Molly!" he said almost violently. "You don't know what you said just now. You didn't mean it. It has always been Fisher--always, from the very beginning."
She did not contradict him. She did not even answer him. She was sobbing as in passionate despair.
And it was that moment which Fisher chose for poking his head into the smoking-room in search of Charlie, whom he expected to find dozing over the fire, ignorant of the fact that it was close upon dinner-time.
Charlie leapt round at the opening of the door, but Fisher had taken stock of the situation. He entered with that in his face which the boy had never seen there before--a look that it was impossible to ignore.
Charlie met Fisher half-way across the room.
"Come into the billiard-room!" he said hurriedly.
He seized Fisher's arms with muscular fingers.
"Not here," he whispered urgently. "She is tired--upset. There is nothing really the matter."
But Fisher resisted the impulsive grip.
"I will talk to you presently," he said. "You clear out!"
He pushed past Charlie and went straight to the girl. His jaw was set with a determination that would have astonished most of his friends.
"What is it, Molly?" he said, halting close beside her. "What is wrong, child?"
But Molly could not tell him. She turned towards him indeed, laying an imploring hand on his arm; but she kept her face hidden and uttered no word.
It was Charlie who plunged recklessly into the opening breach--plunged with a wholesale gallantry, regardless of everything but the moment's emergency.
"It's my doing, Fisher," he declared, his voice shaking a little. "I've been making an ass of myself. It was, partly your fault, too--yours and Bertie's. Let her go! I'll explain."
He was excited and he spoke quickly, but his eyes were very steady.
"Molly," he said, "you go upstairs! You've got to dress, you know, and you'll be late. I'll make it all right. Don't you worry yourself!"
Molly lifted a perfectly white face and looked at Fisher. She met his eyes, struggled with herself a moment, then with quivering lips turned slowly away. He did not try to stop her. He realised that Charlie must be disposed of before he attempted to extract an explanation from her.
Charlie sprang to the door, shut it hastily after her, and turned the key.
"Now!" he said, and, wheeling, marched straight back to Fisher and halted before him. "You want an explanation. You shall have one. You gave my show away this afternoon. You made her imagine that in taking me for an ordinary--or perhaps I should say a rather extraordinary--fool she had done me an injustice. She came in her sweetness and told me she was sorry. And I--forgot myself, and said things that made her cry. That is the whole matter."
"What did you say to her?" demanded Fisher.
"I'm not going to tell you."
"You shall tell me!" said Fisher.
He took a step forward, all the hidden force in him risen to the surface.
Charlie faced him for a second with his head flung defiantly back, then, as Fisher laid a powerful hand on his shoulder, he stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled a little.
"No, old chap," he said. "I'll apologise to you, if you like. But you haven't any right to ask for more."
"I have a right to know why what you said upset her," Fisher said.
Charlie shook his head.
"Not the smallest," he said. "But I should have thought your imagination might have accomplished that much. Surely you needn't grudge the tears of pity a woman wastes over a man she has had to disappoint?"
He spoke with his eyes on Fisher's face. He was not afraid of Fisher, yet his look of relief was unmistakable as the hand on his shoulder relaxed.
"You care for her, then?" Fisher said.
Charlie flung impetuously away from him.
"Oh, need we discuss the thing any further?" he said. "I'm on the wrong side of the hedge, and that's enough. I hope you won't say any more to her about it. You will only distress her."
He walked to the end of the room and came slowly back to Fisher, whose eyes were sternly fixed upon him. He thrust out his hand impulsively.
"Forgive me, old chap!" he said. "After all, I've got the hardest part."
Fisher's face softened.
"I'm sorry, boy," he said, and took the proffered hand.
"I'll clear out to-morrow," Charlie said. "You'll forget this foolery of mine?" gripping Fisher's hand hard for a moment.
Fisher did not answer him. He struck him instead a sounding blow on the shoulder, and Charlie turned away satisfied. He had played a difficult game with considerable skill. That it had been a losing game did not at the moment enter into his calculations. He had not played for his own stakes.


IX

"Jove! It's a wild night," said Archie Croft comfortably, as he stretched out his legs to the smoking-room fire. "What's become of Charlie? He doesn't usually retire early."
"I don't believe he has retired," said Bertie Richmond sleepily. "I saw him go out something over an hour ago."
"Out?" said Croft. "What on earth for?"
"Up to some fool trick or other, no doubt," said Fisher from the smoking-room sofa.
"Hullo, Fisher! I thought you were asleep," said Bertie. "You ought to be. It's after midnight. Time we all turned in if we mean to start early with the guns to-morrow."
Croft stretched himself and rose leisurely.
"It's a positively murderous night!" he remarked, strolling to the window. "There must be a tremendous sea."
He drew aside the blind, staring at the blackness that seemed to press against the pane. A moment later, with a sharp exclamation, he ripped back the blind and flung the window wide open. An icy spout of rain and snow whirled into the room. Richmond turned round to expostulate, but was met by a face of such wild excitement that his protest remained unuttered.
"I saw a rocket!" Croft declared.
"Oh, rats!" murmured Fisher.
"It isn't rats!" he said indignantly. "It's a ship down among those infernal rocks. I'm off to see what's doing."
"Hi! Wait a minute!" exclaimed his host, starting up. "You are perfectly certain, are you, Croft? No humbug? I heard no report."
"Who could hear anything in a gale like this?" returned Croft impatiently. "Yes, of course, I am certain. Are you coming?"
"I must send a man on horseback to the life-boat station," said Bertie, starting towards the door. "It's two miles round the headland. They may not know there is anything up."
He was out of the room with the words. The rest of the men in the smoking-room followed. Fisher remained to shut the window. He stood a couple of seconds before it, facing the hurricane. The night was like pitch. The angry roar of the sea half-a-mile away surged up on the tearing gale like the voice of a devouring monster. He turned away into the cosy room and followed the others.
The whole party went out into the raging night. They groped their way after Bertie to the stables. A groom was dispatched on horseback to the life-boat station. Lanterns were then procured, and, with the blast full in their teeth, they fought their way to the shore.
Here were darkness and desolation unspeakable. The tide was high. Great waves, flashing white through the darkness, came smiting through the rocks as if they would rend the very surface of the earth apart. The clouds scurrying overhead uncovered a star or two and instantly drew together in impenetrable darkness.
Down by the sea-wall that protected the little village nestling between the cliffs and the sea they found a knot of men and women. A short distance away in the boiling tumult there shone a shifting light, but between it and the shore the storm-god held undisputed possession.
"That's her!" explained one of the men to Bertie Richmond. "She's sunk right down in them rocks, sir. It's a little schooner. I see her masts a-stickin' up just now."
The man was one of his own gardeners. He yelled his information into Bertie's ear with great enjoyment.
"Have you sent to the lifeboat chaps?" shouted Bertie.
"Young gentleman went an hour ago," came the answer. "But they are off on another job to Mulworth, t'other side of the station. He wanted us to go out in a fishing-boat. But no one 'ud go. He be gone for a bit o' rope now. You see, sir, them rocks 'ud dash a boat to pieces like a bit o' eggshell. There's only three chaps aboard as far as we could see awhile ago. And not a hundred yards off us. But it's a hundred yards of death, as you might say. No boat could live through it. It ain't worth the trying."
A hundred yards of death and only three little human lives to be gained by the awful risk of braving that hundred yards!
Bertie turned away, feeling sick, yet silently agreeing. Who could hope to pass unharmed through that raging darkness, that tossing nightmare of great waters? Yet the thought of those three lives beating outward in agony and terror while he and his friends stood helplessly by took him by the throat.
Suddenly through a lull of the tempest there came a great shout.
The clouds had drifted asunder and a few stars shone vaguely down on the wild scene. The dim light showed the doomed vessel wedged among the rocks that stuck up, black and threatening, through the racing foam.
Nearer at hand, huddled on the stout sea-wall, stood the little group of watchers, their faces all turned outwards towards the two masts of the little schooner, which remained faintly discernible through the shifting gloom.
It was not more than a hundred yards away, Bertie realised. Yet the impossibility of rescue was as apparent as if it had been a hundred miles from land. He fancied he could see a couple of figures half-way up one of the masts, but the light was elusive. He could not be certain of this.
Suddenly a hand gripped his elbow, and he found Archie Croft beside him, yelling excitedly.
"Don't let him go!" he bawled. "It's madness--sheer madness!"
Bertie turned sharply. Close to him, his head bare, and clothed still in evening dress, stood Charlie Cleveland. A coil of rope lay at his feet. He had knotted one end firmly round his body.
"Listen, you fellows!" he cried. "I'm going to have a shot at it. Pay out the rope as I go. Count up to five hundred, and if it is limp, pull it in again. If it holds, make it fast! Got me?"
He turned at once to a flight of iron steps that led off the wall down into the awful, seething water. But someone, Fisher,