The Ship of Stars Part 33

It was about this time that word came of the Trinity Board's intention to replace the old lighthouse with one upon the outer rock.

For the Chief Engineer had visited it and decided that Taffy was right. To be sure no mention was made of Taffy in his report; but the great man took the first opportunity to offer him the post of foreman of the works, so there was certainly nothing to be grumbled at. The work did not actually start until the following spring; for the rock, to receive the foundations, had to be bored some feet below high-water level, and this could only be attempted on calm days or when a southerly wind blew from the high land well over the workmen's heads, leaving the insh.o.r.e water smooth. On such days Taffy, looking up from his work, would catch sight of a small figure on the cliff-top leaning aslant to the wind and watching.

For the child was adventurous and took no account of his lameness.

Perhaps if he thought of it at all, having no chance to compare himself with other children, he accepted his lameness as a condition of childhood--something he would grow out of. His mother could not keep him indoors; he fidgeted continually. But he would sit or stand quiet by the hour on the cliff-top watching the men as they drilled and fixed the dynamite, and waiting for the bang of it. Best of all, however, were the days when his grandfather allowed him inside the light-house, to clamber about the staircase and ladders, to watch the oiling and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of the great lantern, and the s.h.i.+ps moving slowly on the horizon. He asked a thousand questions about them.

"I think," said he one day before he was three years old, "that my father is in one of those s.h.i.+ps."

"Bless the child!" exclaimed old Pezzack. "Who says you have a father?"

"_Everybody_ has a father. d.i.c.ky Tregenza has one; they both work down at the rock. I asked d.i.c.ky, and he told me."

"Told 'ee what?"

"That everybody has a father. I asked him if mine was out in one of those s.h.i.+ps, and he said very likely. I asked mother, too, but she was was.h.i.+ng-up and wouldn't listen."

Old Pezzack regarded the child grimly. "'Twas to be, I s'pose," he muttered.

Lizzie Pezzack had never set foot inside the Raymonds' cottage.

Humility, gentle soul as she was, could on some points be as unchristian as other women. As time went on it seemed that not a soul beside herself and Taffy knew of Honoria's suspicion. She even doubted, and Taffy doubted too, if Lizzie herself knew such an accusation had been made. Certainly never by word or look had Lizzie hinted at it. Yet Humility could not find it in her heart to forgive her. "She may be innocent," was the thought; "but through her came the injury to my son." Taffy by this time had no doubt at all. It was George who poisoned Honoria's ear; George's shame and Honoria's pride would explain why the whisper had never gone further; and nothing else would explain.

Did his mother guess this? He believed so at times, but they never spoke of it.

The lame child was often in the Raymonds' kitchen. Lizzie did not forbid or resent this. And he liked Humility, and would talk to her at length while he nibbled one of her dripping-cakes. "People don't tell the truth," he observed sagely on one of these occasions.

(He p.r.o.nounced it "troof," by the way.) "_I_ know why we live here.

It's because we're near the sea. My father's on the sea somewhere looking for us, and grandfather lights the lamp every night to tell him where we are. One night he'll see it and bring his s.h.i.+p in and take us all off together."

"Who told you all this?"

"n.o.body. People won't tell me nothing (nofing). I has to make it out in my head."

At times, when his small limbs grew weary (though he never acknowledged this) he would stretch himself on the short turf of the headland and lie staring up at the white gulls. No one ever came near enough to surprise the look which then crept over the child's face. But Taffy, pa.s.sing him at a distance, remembered another small boy, and s.h.i.+vered to remember and compare--

"A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

--But how when the boy is a cripple?

One afternoon he was stooping to inspect an obstinate piece of boring when the man at his elbow said:

"Hullo! edn' that young Joey Pezzack in diffities up there? Blest if the cheeld won't break his neck wan of these days!"

Taffy caught up a coil of rope, sprang into a boat, and pushed across to land. "Don't move!" he shouted. At the foot of the cliff he picked up Joey's crutch and ran at full speed up the path worn by the workmen. This led him round to the verge ten feet above the ledge where the child clung white and silent. He looped the rope in a running noose and lowered it.

"Slip this under your arms. Can you manage, or shall I come down?

I'll come if you're hurt."

"I've twisted my foot. It's all right, now you're come," said the little man bravely; and slid the rope round himself in the most business-like way.

"The gra.s.s was slipper--" he began, as soon as his feet touched firm earth: and with that he broke down and fell to sobbing in Taffy's arms.

Taffy carried him--a featherweight--to the cottage where Lizzie stood by her table was.h.i.+ng up. She saw them at the gate and came running out.

"It's all right. He slipped--out on the cliff. Nothing more than a scratch or two, and perhaps a sprained ankle."

He watched while she set Joey in a chair and began to pull off his stockings. He had never seen the child's foot naked. She turned suddenly, caught him looking, and pulled the stocking back over the deformity.

"Have you heard?" she asked.

"What?"

"_She_ has a boy! Ah!" she laughed harshly, "I thought that would hurt you. Well, you _have_ been a silly!"

"I don't think I understand."

"You don't think you understand!" she mimicked. "And you're not fond of her, eh? Never were fond of her, eh? You silly--to let him take her, and never tell!"

"Tell?"

She faced him, hardening her gaze. "Yes, tell--" She nodded slowly; while Joey, un.o.bserved by either, looked up with wide, round eyes.

"Men don't fight like that." The words were out before it struck him that one man had, almost certainly, fought like that. Her face, however, told him nothing. She could not know. "_You_ have never told," he added.

"Because--" she began, but could not tell him the whole truth.

And yet what he said was true. "Because you would not let me," she muttered.

"In the churchyard, you mean--on her wedding day?"

"Before that."

"But before that I never guessed."

"All the same I knew what you were. You wouldn' have let me.

It came to the same thing. And if I had told--Oh, you make it hard for me!" she wailed.

He stared at her, understanding this only--that somehow he could control her will.

"I will never let you tell," he said gravely.

"I hate her!"

"You shall not tell."

"Listen"--she drew close and touched his arm. "He never cared for her; it's not his way to care. She cares for him now, I dessay--not as she might have cared for _you_--but she's his wife, and some women are like that. There's her pride, any way. Suppose--suppose he came back to me?"

"If I caught him--" Taffy began: but the poor child, who for two minutes had been twisting his face heroically, interrupted with a wail:

"Oh, mother! my foot--it hurts so!"