Somehow Good by William Frend De Morgan (best short novels TXT) 📕

her husband, stunned and dumb in his despair, dared not even long that she, too, should know, to share his burden.

"Those people are taking their time," said she. Not that she was pressingly anxious for them to come home. It was early still, and the more Gerry lived in the present the better. Sally and her lover were far and away the best foreground for the panorama of his mind just now, and she herself would be quite happy in the middle distance. There would be time and enough hereafter, when the storm had subsided, for a revelation of all those vanished chapters of his life in Canada and elsewhere.

It was restful to her, after the tension and trial of the night, to feel that he was happy with Sally and poor Prosy. What did it really matter how long they dawdled? She could hear in anticipation their voices and the laughter that would tell her of their coming. In a very little while it would be a reality, and, after all, the pleasure of a good symposium over Sally's betrothal was still to come. She and Gerry and the two principals had not spoken of it together yet. That would be a real happiness. How seldom it was that an engagement to marry gave such complete satisfaction to bystanders! And, after all, _they_ are the ones to be consulted; not the insignificant bride and bridegroom elect. Perhaps, though, she was premature in this case. Was there not the Octopus? But then she remembered with pleasure that Conrad had represented his mother as phenomenally genial in her attitude towards the new arrangement; as having, in fact, a claim to be considered not only a bestower of benign consent, but an accomplice before the fact. Still, Rosalind felt her own reserves on the subject, although she had always taken the part of the Octopus on principle when she thought Sally had become too disrespectful towards her. Anyhow, no use to beg and borrow troubles! Let her dwell on the happiness only that was before them all. She pictured a variety of homes for Sally in the time to come, peopling them with beautiful grandchildren--only, mind you, this was to be many, many years ahead! She could not cast herself for the part of grandmother while she twined that glorious hair into its place with hands that for softness and whiteness would have borne comparison with Sally's own.

In the old days, before the news of evil travelled fast, the widowed wife would live for days, weeks, months, unclouded by the knowledge of her loneliness, rejoicing in the coming hour that was to bring her wanderer back; and even as her heart laughed to think how now, at last, the time was drawing near for his return, his heart had ceased to beat, and, it may be, his bones were already bleaching where the assassin's knife had left him in the desert; or were swaying to and fro in perpetual monotonous response to the ground-swell, in some strange green reflected light of a sea-cavern no man's eye had ever seen; or buried nameless in a common tomb with other victims of battle or of plague; or, worst of all, penned in some dungeon, mad to think of home, waking from dreams of _her_ to the terror of the intolerable night, its choking heat or deadly chill. And all those weeks or months the dearth of news would seem just the chance of a lost letter, no more--a thing that may happen any day to any of us. And she would live on in content and hope, jesting even in anticipation of his return.

Even so Rosalind, happy and undisturbed, dwelt on the days that were to come for the merpussy and poor Prosy, as she still had chosen to call him, for her husband and herself; and all the while _there_, so near her, was the end of it all, written in letters of death.

They were taking their time, certainly, those people; so she would put her hat on and go to meet them. Mrs. Lobjoit wasn't to hurry breakfast, but wait till they came. All right!

It looked as if it would rain later, so it was just as well to get out a little now. Rosalind was glad of the sweet air off the sea, for the night still hung about her. The tension of it was on her still, for all that she counted herself so much the better, so much the safer, for that interview with Gerry. But oh, what a thing to think that now he knew _her_ as she had known him from the beginning! How much they would have to tell each other, when once they were well in calm water!... Why were those girls running, and why did that young man on the beach below shout to some one who followed him, "It's over at the pier"?

"Is anything the matter?" She asked the question of a very old man, whom she knew well by sight, who was hurrying his best in the same direction. But his best was but little, as speed, though it did credit to his age; for old Simon was said to be in his hundredth year. Rosalind walked easily beside him as he answered:

"I oondersta'and, missis, there's been a fall from the pier-head.... Oh yes, they've getten un out; ye may easy your mind o' that." But, for all that, Rosalind wasn't sorry her party were up at the hotel. She had believed them there long enough to have forgotten that she had no reason for the belief to speak of.

"You've no idea who it is?"

"Some do say a lady and a gentleman." Rosalind felt still gladder of her confidence that Sally and Gerry were out of the way. "'Ary one of 'em would be bound to drown but for the boats smart and handy--barring belike a swimmer like your young lady! She's a rare one, to tell of!"

"I believe she is. She swam round the Cat Buoy in a worse sea than this two days ago."

"And she would, too!" Then the old boy's voice changed as he went on, garrulous: "But there be seas, missis, no man can swim in. My fower boys, they were fine swimmers--all fower!"

"But were they?..." Rosalind did not like to say drowned; but old Simon took it as spoken.

"All fower of 'em--fine lads all--put off to the wreck--wreck o' th' brig Thyrsis, on th' Goodwins--and ne'er a one come back. And I had the telling of it to their mother. And the youngest, he never was found; and the others was stone dead ashore, nigh on to the Foreland. There was none to help. Fifty-three year ago come this Michaelmas."

"Is their mother still living?" Rosalind asked, interested. Old Simon had got to that stage in which the pain of the past is less than the pleasure of talking it over. "Died, she did," said he, almost as though he were unconcerned, "thirty-five year ago--five year afower ever I married my old missis yander." Rosalind felt less sympathy. If she were to lose Sally or Gerry, would she ever be able to talk like this, even if she lived to be ninety-nine? Possibly yes--only she could not know it now. She felt too curious about what had happened at the pier to think of going back, and walked on with old Simon, not answering him much. He seemed quite content to talk.

She did not trouble herself on the point of her party returning and not finding her. Ten chances to one they would hear about the accident, and guess where she had gone. Most likely they would follow her. Besides, she meant to go back as soon as ever she knew what had happened.

Certainly there were a great many people down there round about Lloyd's Coffeehouse! Had a life been lost? How she hoped not! What a sad end it would be to such a happy holiday as theirs had been! She said something to this effect to the old man beside her. His reply was: "Ye may doubt of it, in my judgment, missis. The rowboats were not long enough agone for that. Mayhap he'll take a bit of nursing round, though." But he quickened his pace, and Rosalind was sorry that a sort of courtesy towards him stood in her way. She would have liked to go much quicker.

She could not quite understand the scared look of a girl to whom she said, "Is it a bad accident? Do you know who it is?" nor why this girl muttered something under her breath, then got away, nor why so many eyes, all tearful, should be fixed on _her_. She asked again of the woman nearest her, "Do you know who it is?" but the woman gasped, and became hysterical, making her afraid she had accosted some anxious relative or near friend, who could not bear to speak of it. And still all the eyes were fixed upon her. A shudder ran through her. Could that be pity she saw in them--pity for _her_?

"For God's sake, tell me at once! Tell me what this is...."

Still silence! She could hear through it sobs here and there in the crowd, and then two women pointed to where an elderly man who looked like a doctor came from a doorway close by. She heard the hysterical woman break down outright, and her removal by friends, and then the strong Scotch accent of the doctor-like man making a too transparent effort towards an encouraging tone.

"There's nae reason to anteecipate a fatal tairmination, so far. I wouldna undertake myself to say the seestolic motion of the heart was...." But he hesitated, with a puzzled look, as Rosalind caught his arm and hung to it, crying out: "Why do you tell _me_ this? For God's sake, speak plain! I am stronger than you think."

His answer came slowly, in an abated voice, but clearly: "Because they tauld me ye were the girl's mither."

In the short time that had passed since Rosalind's mind first admitted an apprehension of evil the worst possibility it had conceived was that Vereker or her husband was in danger. No misgiving about Sally had entered it, except so far as a swift thought followed the fear of mishap to one of them. "How shall Sally be told of this? When and where will she know?"

Two of the women caught her as she fell, and carried her at the Scotch doctor's bidding into a house adjoining, where Fenwick had been carried in a half-insensible collapse that had followed his landing from the cobble-boat in which he was sculled ashore.

* * * * *


"Tell me what has happened. Where is Dr. Vereker?" Rosalind asks the question of any of the fisher-folk round her as soon as returning consciousness brings speech. They look at each other, and the woman the cottage seems to belong to says interrogatively, "The young doctor-gentleman?" and then answers the last question. He is looking to the young lady in at the Coffeehouse. But no one says what has happened. Rosalind looks beseechingly round.

"Will you not tell me now? Oh, tell me--tell me the whole!"

"It's such a little we know ourselves, ma'am. But my husband will be here directly. It was he brought the gentleman ashore...."

"Where is the gentleman?" Rosalind has caught up the speaker with a decisive rally. Her natural strength is returning, prompted by something akin to