The Odds - Ethel May Dell (read full novel .TXT) 📗

wanderings his heart had always turned with a warm thrill of memory to the little old fishing-town where much of his restless boyhood had been spent. He had returned to it as to a familiar friend and found it but slightly changed. A new hotel had been erected where the old Crayfish Inn had once stood. And this, so far as he had been able to judge in his first walk through the place on the evening of his arrival, was the sole alteration.
He had heard that the shore had crumbled beyond the town, but he had left that to be investigated on the morrow. The fishing-harbour was the same; the brown-sailed fishing-boats rocked with the well-remembered swing inside; the water poured roaring in with the same baffled fury; and children played as of old on the extreme and dangerous edge of the stone quay.
The memory of that selfsame quay roused deeper recollections in Merefleet's mind as he sat and dined alone at the little table near the door.
There came to him the thought, with a sudden, stabbing regret, of a little dark-eyed sister who had hung with him over that perilous edge and laughed at the impotent breakers below. He could hear the silvery echoes of her laughter across half a lifetime, could feel the warm hand that clasped his own. A magic touch swept aside the years and revealed the old, glad days of his boyhood.
Merefleet pushed away his plate and sat with fixed eyes, fascinated by the rosy vision. They were side by side in a fishing-smack, he and the playmate of his childhood. There was an old fisherman in charge with grizzled hair, whose name, he recollected without effort, was Quiller. He was showing the little maid how to tie a knot that was warranted never to come undone.
Merefleet watched the ardent, flushed face with a deep reverence. He had not seen it so vividly since the day he had kissed it for the last time and gone forth into the seething sea of life to fight the whirlpools. Well, he had emerged triumphant so far as earthly success went. He had breasted the tide and risen above the billows. He was wealthy, and he was celebrated. No mortal power rose up in his path to baulk him of his desire. Only desire itself had failed him, and ambition had become mockery.
For twenty years he had not had time to stop and think. For twenty years he had wrestled ceaselessly with the panting crowd. He had bartered away the best years of his life to the gold god, and he was satiated with the success of this transaction.
In all that time he had not mourned, as he mourned to-night, the loss of the twin-sister who had been as his second and better self. He had not realised till he sat alone in the place, where as a boy he had never known solitude, how utterly flat and undesirable was the future that stretched out like a trackless desert at his feet.
And in that moment he would have cast away the whole bulk of his great possessions for one precious day of youth out of the many that had fled away for ever.
A woman's laugh, high, inconsequent, rang through the great coffee-room, and all but one looked towards the corner whence it proceeded. An American voice began at once to explain the joke with considerable volubility.
Bernard Merefleet rose from his chair with a frowning countenance and made his way down to the old stone quay below the hotel.


CHAPTER II

The air was keen and salt. He paused on the well-worn stone wall and turned his face to the spray. A hundred memories were at work in his brain, and the relief of solitude was unspeakable. It was horribly lonely, but he hugged his loneliness. That laughing voice in the hotel coffee-room had driven him forth to seek it. No mental or physical discomfort would have induced him to return.
He propped himself against a piece of stonework and gazed moodily out to sea. He did not want to leave this haven of his childhood. Yet the thought of remaining in close proximity to a party of tourists was detestable to him. Why in the world couldn't they stop away, he wondered savagely? And then his own inconsistency occurred to him, and he smiled grimly. For the place undoubtedly had its charm.
A fisherman in a blue jersey lounged on to the quay at this point of his meditations, and, old habit asserting itself, Merefleet greeted him with a remark on the weather. The man halted in front of him in a conversational attitude. Merefleet knew the position well. It came back to him on a flood of memory. He could not believe that it was twenty years since he had talked with such an one.
"Wind in the nor'-east, sir," said the man.
"Yes. It's cold for the time of year," said Merefleet.
The man assented.
"Fish plentiful?" asked Merefleet.
"Nothing to boast of," was the guarded reply.
Merefleet had expected it. Right well he knew these fisher-folk.
"You get a few visitors now, I see," Merefleet observed.
The fisherman nodded. "Don't know what they come for," he observed. "Bathing ain't good, and them pleasure-boats--well"--he lifted his shoulders expressively--"half-a-capful of wind would upset 'em. There's a lady staying at this here hotel--an American lady she be--what goes out every day regular, she and a young gentleman with her. They won't have me nor yet any of my mates to go along, and yet--bless you--they could no more manage that boat if a squall was to come up nor they could fly. I told her once as it wasn't safe. And she laughed in my face, sir. She did, really."
Merefleet smiled a little.
"Well, if she likes to run the risk it's not your fault," he said.
"No, sir. It ain't. But that don't make me any easier. She's a pretty young lady, too," the man added. "Maybe you've seen her, sir."
Merefleet shook his head. He had heard her, and he had no desire to improve his acquaintance with her.
"As pretty a young lady as you would wish to see," continued the fisherman reflectively. "Wonderful, she is. 'Tain't often we get such a picture in this here part of the country. Ever been to America, sir?"
"Just come home," said Merefleet.
"Are all the ladies over there as pretty as this one, I wonder?" said his new acquaintance in an awed tone.
"She seems to have made a considerable impression," said Merefleet, with a laugh. "What is the lady like?"
But the man's descriptive powers were not equal to his admiration. "I couldn't tell you what she's like, sir," he said. "But she's that sort of young lady as makes you feel you oughtn't to talk to her with your hat on. Ever met that sort of lady, sir?"
Merefleet uttered a short laugh. The man's simplicity amused him.
"I can't say I have," he said carelessly. "Good-looking women are not always the best sort, in my opinion."
"That's very true, sir," assented his companion thoughtfully. "There's my wife, for instance. She's as good a woman as you'd find anywhere, but her best friend couldn't call her handsome, nor even plain."
And Merefleet laughed again. The man's talk had diverted his thoughts. The intolerable sense of desolation had been lifted from his spirit. He began to feel he had been somewhat unnecessarily irritated by a very small matter.
He lighted a cigar and presented one to his new friend. "I shall get you to row me out for a couple of hours to-morrow," he said. "By the way, did you ever know a man called Quiller who had some fishing craft in these parts twenty years ago?"
The man beamed at the question. "That's my father, sir. He lives along with my wife and the kids. Will you come and see him, sir? Oh, yes, he's well and hearty. But he's getting on in years, is dad. He don't go out with the luggers now. You'll come and see him, eh, sir?"
"To-morrow," said Merefleet, turning. "He will remember me, perhaps. No, I won't give you my name. The old chap shall find out for himself. Good-night."
And he began to saunter back towards his hotel.
The searchlight of a man-of-war anchored outside the harbour was flashing over the shore as he went. He watched the long shaft of light with half-involuntary attention. He noted in an idle way various details along the cliffs that were revealed by the white glow. It touched the hotel at last and rested there for the fraction of a minute.
And then a strange thing happened.
Looking upwards as he was, with fascinated eyes, following the slanting line of light, Merefleet saw a sight which was destined to live in his memory for all the rest of his life, strive as he might to rid himself of it.
As in a dream-picture he saw the figure of a girl standing on the steps of the terrace in front of the hotel. The searchlight discovered her and lingered upon her. She stood in the brilliant line of light, a splendid vision of almost unearthly beauty. Her neck and arms were bare, curved with the exquisite grace of a Grecian statue. Her face was turned towards the light--a marvellous face, touched with a faint, triumphant smile. She was dressed in a robe of pure white that fell around her in long, soft folds.
Merefleet gazed upon the wonder before him and asked himself one breathless question: "Is that--a woman?"
And the answer seemed to spring from the very depth of his being: "No! A goddess!"
It was the most gloriously perfect picture of beauty he had ever looked upon.
The searchlight flashed on and the hotel garden was left in darkness.
A chill sense of loss swept down upon Merefleet, but the impression did not last. He threw away his cigar with an impetuosity oddly out of keeping with his somewhat rugged and unimpressionable nature. A hot desire to see that face again at close quarters possessed him--the face of the loveliest woman he had ever beheld.
He reached the hotel and sat down in the vestibule. Evidently this marvellous woman was staying in the place. He watched the doorway with a strange feeling of excitement. He had not been so moved for years.
At length there came a quick, light tread. The next moment he was gazing again upon the vision that had charmed him out of all commonsense. She stood, framed in the night, white and pure and gloriously, most surpassingly, beautiful. Merefleet felt his heart throb heavily. He sat in dead silence, looking at her with fascinated eyes. Had he called her a Greek goddess? He had better have said angel. For this was no earth-born loveliness.
She stood for several seconds looking towards him with shining, radiant eyes. Then she moved forward. Merefleet's eyes were fixed upon her. He could not have looked away just then. He was absurdly uncertain of himself.
She paused near him with the light pouring full upon her. Her eyes met his with a momentary questioning. Then ruthlessly she broke the spell.
"Say, now!" she said in brisk, high tones. "Isn't that searchlight thing a real cute invention?"


CHAPTER III

Merefleet shivered at the words. He did not answer her. The shock had been too great. He sat stiff and silent, waiting for more.
The American girl looked at him with a pitying little smile. She was wholly unabashed.
"I reckon the man who invented searchlights was no fool," she remarked. "I just wish that quaint old battleship would come right along here. It's not exciting, this place."
"New Silverstrand would be more to your taste, I fancy," said Merefleet, reluctantly forced to speak.
The