Set in Silver
reluctantly screwed my courage to the asking point, and got more out of
Sir Lionel. If he weren't the most generous man in the world he would
have privately dubbed me "Oliver Twist" by this time. Perhaps he has!
But I trust not. Anyhow, I shall get on without more requests, I hope,
until the next "allowance" day comes round; or until every pin is lost
and every hairpin has dropped out.
Because in the telegram I was forced to be economical, and ran only to
"All well. Love" ("much" scratched out as an extravagance), I must now
go back to the moment of Sir Lionel's unexpected, almost miraculous,
appearance at Tintagel.
There I was in the hall, scribbling dolefully about my symptoms. "Teuf,
teuf, teuf!" heard outside, between screeches of wind. In bounces Sir
Lionel, wet as a merman, dripping rivulets at every step, splashing,
swashing in his boots, drops dripping from his eyelashes; glares around,
looking ready to bite someone's head off without salt or sauce; sees me;
brightens with a watery gleam; comes toward me, rather shy and stiff,
yet evidently under the influence of--emotion of some sort. I didn't
know whether to expect a scolding or a blessing, so waited speechless.
"What a brute you must think me," was his first remark. I drank it as a
thirsty traveller lost on the Sahara would bolt a pint of dew.
"I didn't know what to think," I replied conservatively. "But you are
wet, aren't you?"
"Am I?" he asked, mildly surprised. "I hadn't noticed. I suppose I am.
It's raining."
"I should think it was," said I. And then we both laughed. It is the
nicest thing, to laugh with Sir Lionel! Whatever he might have done
against me, I forgave him all instantly.
"Never mind whether I'm wet or dry," he went on. "Whichever I am, it
won't hurt me. The only thing that has hurt was thinking of you being
here--abandoned. By Jove!--I've been in a murderous mood!"
"A good thing you weren't back in Bengal," said I, mildly.
He looked at me with a sharp look. "Who has been telling you tales about
me in Bengal?"
"I sometimes read newspapers," I explained.
"Schoolgirls have no business with newspapers. But hang Bengal! I want
to come to an understanding with you. Is it true or is it not that you
wanted to go with the Tyndals in their motor to-day?"
"I wanted to, if you wanted me to."
"I didn't. I hated the idea. But, of course, if you----"
"_I_ didn't. I hated the idea. But I thought your motor was too full for
such hilly country."
(Dearest, I longed to tell him who had said that _he_ had said, etc.,
etc.; but I'd promised; and one must keep one's promises even to Cats.)
"My dear child," Sir Lionel burst out, "little girls shouldn't do too
much independent thinking. It's bad for their health and their
guardians' tempers. If my motor had been too full for hilly country, you
wouldn't have been the Jonah to cast into the sea. Nick would have been
fed to the whales. But the idea was ridiculous--ridiculous!"
I was so happy, I didn't even want to defend myself. I understood most
of the mystery now. I suppose it's a compliment to a girl if a woman of
the world wants to get rid of her. Anyhow, I consoled myself for hours
of misery by laying that flattering unction to my soul.
If I had liked, I could have unravelled the whole tangle for Sir
Lionel's still puzzled mind; but if I had done so, I should have been
returning cat-claw for cat-claw; so I pretended to be "lost in it, my
lord"; and, indeed, it was true that I couldn't understand why the
Tyndals had failed me.
Sir Lionel explained that, just before reaching Bideford the silencer
worked loose, and so got upon Mrs. Norton's nerves that Apollo was
stopped in the pouring rain for Young Nick to right the wrong. As if to
prove the truth of the proverb, "the more haste the less speed," in his
hurry poor Buddha burnt his hand. While he was wringing it like a
distracted goblin, along came the Tyndal car, which had left Tintagel
about half an hour after Apollo. To Sir Lionel's amazement, no me!
Questions on his part; according to him, idiotic answers on the part of
the Tyndals. _He_ had thought, of course, I was going with them. _They_
had thought that I'd changed my mind, and gone earlier with him.
Everybody confused, apologetic, repeating the same silly excuses over
and over, three or four times. Nobody showing the slightest sign of
having a remnant of common sense.
"By Jove! I could have cheerfully executed the lot of them--all but the
boy, who seemed to have some glimmerings of sanity," grumbled Sir
Lionel. "He had wanted to run up and knock at your door, to make sure
you really had gone; but somebody--he began to say who, when Mrs. Tyndal
stepped on his foot--forbade him to do it."
I think I can guess who the somebody was, can't you? Though I don't see
what arguments she can have used to persuade the really good-natured
Tyndals to abandon me.
The rest of the story is, that when Sir Lionel found I had been left
behind, he said he would at once turn back and fetch me. Judging from
one or two things he let slip inadvertently, I fancy he wanted Emily to
come with him, but she drew the line at chaperoning in wet weather, and
missing her tea. She proposed telegraphing for me to come on by rail.
Sir Lionel wouldn't hear of my making such a journey unaccompanied--me,
a simple little French schoolgirl who had never travelled alone in her
life! Then Mrs. Senter, kind creature, volunteered to be his companion,
if he must return; but Sir Lionel firmly refused the unselfish offer,
saying he wouldn't for the world put her to so much unnecessary trouble.
Nick he would have brought, but the unfortunate brown image was
suffering so much pain from his burnt hand, that the only humane thing
to do was to drive him to a doctor's--which was exactly what Sir Lionel
did. Rooms were already engaged at the Royal Hotel; he dumped out Emily,
Mrs. Senter, and the luggage there; left Young Nick having his hand
treated; and without so much as crossing the threshold of the hotel,
turned Apollo's bright bonnet toward Tintagel and me. Rain was coming
down in floods. He said nothing about that, but I knew. The storm drew
down twilight like the lid of a box; the road was deep in mud;
everything that could happen to delay the car did happen; once Sir
Lionel had to mend a tire himself, and almost wished he hadn't made
Young Nick disgorge the stolen tool; he ought to have arrived at
Tintagel an hour before he did; but here he was at last. And would I
have a sandwich, and then start, or would I prefer to wait for dinner?
I snatched at the sandwich idea, and his eye brightened. He said he only
_looked_ wet, for everything was waterproof, and he was "right as
rain"--which sounded too appropriate to be comfortable.
We ate as the Israelites of old in Passover days, figuratively with our
staves in our hands; at least, I had a bag in mine, and Sir Lionel a
road book, because he'd lost his way once in his haste, and didn't want
to make further mistakes.
By the time we were ready to start, it was as if Merlin had woven an
enchantment of invisibility, not only over the castle ruins, but over
the whole landscape, which was blotted out behind a white avalanche of
rain. The wind howled, mingling with the boom of the sea; and altogether
it was such a bewitched, Walpurgis world that I tingled with excitement.
Sir Lionel wanted to put me inside the car, but I pleaded that I had
been so lonely and sad all day, I must be close to someone now. This
plea instantly broke down his determination, which had been very
square-chinned and firm till I happened to think of that argument.
He knew my coat to be waterproof, because he chose it himself in London,
and I tied on a perfectly sweet rain-hood, which I'd never needed
before, because this was the only real storm we'd had. It is a crimson
hood, and I knew I was nice in it, from the look of Sir Lionel's eyes.
This was my first night run in the car, and the first time since
starting on the tour that I'd sat on the front seat by his side. Early
as it was, it "made night," and Sir Lionel lit the great lamps.
Instantly it was as if a curtain of darkness unrolled on either side,
leaving only the road clear and pale, spouting mud, and the rain in
front like a silver veil floating across black velvet. I sat close to
Sir Lionel. I can't tell you how good the sense of his nearness and
protection was, and how glad I felt to know that he hadn't really wanted
to send me away from him. I would have given up anything--no,
_everything_ else in the world just then, for the sake of that
knowledge--except, of course, your dear love. We didn't talk much, but
he is one of those men to whom you don't need to talk. The silence was
like that unerring kind of speech when you can't say the wrong thing if
you try; and if Sir Lionel had said in the wind and darkness: "I have
got to drive the car into the sea, and you and I must die together in
five minutes," I should have answered: "Very well. With you I'm not
afraid." And it would have been true.
The hills looked stupendous before we quite came to them; great bunchy
black humps of night; but they seemed to kneel like docile elephants as
we drew near, to let Apollo mount upon their backs. We passed lovely old
cottages, which in the strange white light of our Bleriots looked flat,
as stage scenery, against that wide-stretched "back-cloth" of inky
velvet. It was like motoring in a dream--one of those dreams born before
you've quite dropped asleep, while your eyes are still open. We tore
through Boscastle, and on to Bude, along an empty road, with the trees
flying by like torn black flags, and the rain giving a glimpse now and
then of tall cliffs, as its veil blew aside. I was never so happy in my
life, and when I just couldn't help saying so to Sir Lionel, what do you
suppose he answered? "That's exactly what I was thinking." And then he
added: "Good girl! Grand little sportswoman! I'm proud of you!"
Presently, once in a while the dazzling radiance of our lamps would die
down and threaten to fail. At last it did fail altogether, and we were
blotted out in the night, as if we had suddenly ceased to exist.
"Carbide all used up," explained Sir Lionel. By this time we were near
Hartland Point (the promontory of Hercules for the ancients) and Sir
Lionel said that the best thing to do was to crawl on slowly until we
should come to Clovelly. There we could leave the car at the top of the
hill, go down to the village, rouse someone at a hotel, get hot coffee,
and wait until dawn, when the lamps would no longer be needed.
We could distinguish nothing in the night, except a glimmer of road
between dark banks, until suddenly, looking far down toward the moaning
sea, we caught sight of a few lights like yellow stars which seemed to
have been tossed over a precipice, and to have caught on a steep
hillside, as they rolled. "That's Clovelly," said Sir Lionel. He stopped
the car on a kind of natural plateau and lifted me lightly down, so that
I shouldn't splash into unseen abysses of mud. Apollo would be safe
there, he said, though in old days the folk of Clovelly used to be not
only desperate smugglers, but wreckers, and would entice ships upon the
rocks by means of lure-lights. They were very different now, and as
honest and kind-hearted as any people in the world.
There was no dawn yet, but the wind had dropped a little, and the long
crystal spears of rain seemed to bring with them an evanescent, ethereal
glitter, reflected from unseen stars above the clouds. The trembling
silver haze dimly showed us how to pick our way down a steep, narrow
street of steps, over which fountains of water played and swirled. There
were lights of boats in a little harbour, far, far below, and the