The Pillar of Light Part 42

"Is it possible to catch up? The last few days on the rock ought to figure high in averages."

"Jack," cried Constance, finding this direct attack somewhat disconcerting, "did my father say that any arrangements were to be made for landing?"

"Yes, miss," interposed a sailor at the door. "The skipper's orders are: 'Women an' children to muster on the lower deck.'"

Then began a joyous yet strangely pathetic procession, headed by Elsie and Mamie, who were carried downstairs by the newly arrived lighthouse-men. The children cried and refused to be comforted until Pyne descended with them to the life-boat. The women followed, in terrible plight, notwithstanding the wraps sent them on the previous day. Each, as they pa.s.sed Stephen Brand, bade him farewell and tearfully asked the Lord to bless him and his.

Among them came Mrs. Vansittart. Her features were veiled more closely than ever. Whilst she stood behind the others in the entrance, her glance was fixed immovably on Brand's face. No Sybilline prophetess could have striven more eagerly to wrest the secrets of his soul from its lineaments. Nevertheless, when he turned to her with his pleasant smile and parting words of comfort, she averted her eyes, uttered an incoherent phrase of thanks for his kindness, and seemed to be unduly terrified by the idea that she must be swung into the life-boat by the crane.

She held out her hand. It was cold and trembling.

"Don't be afraid," he said gently, patting her on the shoulder as one might rea.s.sure a timid child. "Sit down and hold the rope. The basket cannot possibly be overturned."

Pyne, helping to unload the tremulous pa.s.sengers beneath, noted the lady's att.i.tude, and added a fresh memorandum to the stock he had already acc.u.mulated.

"Who is that?" asked Brand from the purser, who stood beside him.

"Mrs. Vansittart."

Brand experienced a momentary surprise.

"She seemed to avoid me," he thought, but the incident did not linger in his mind.

The life-boat, rising and falling on the strong and partly broken swell, required the most expert management if the weary people on the rock were to be taken off in safety.

When Constance and Enid, followed by Stanhope, reached the boat after giving Brand a farewell hug, there was no more room. The crew pulled off towards the waiting vessel, and here a specially prepared gangway rendered the work of trans.h.i.+pment easy.

Mr. Traill was leaning over the bulwark as the life-boat ranged alongside. He singled out Pyne at once, and gave him a cheery cry of recognition. At first he could not distinguish Mrs. Vansittart, and, indeed, it must be confessed that he was striving most earnestly to descry one face which had come back to him out of the distant years.

When his glance fell on Enid, his nephew, who was thinking how best to act under the circ.u.mstances, was a.s.sured that the father saw in the girl the living embodiment of her mother.

He thought it would be so. His own recollection of his aunt's portraits had already helped him to this conclusion, and how much more startling must a flesh and blood creation be than the effort of an artist to place on canvas the fugitive expression which const.i.tutes the greatest charm of a mobile countenance.

Enid, having heard so much about Mr. Pyne's uncle, was innocently curious to meet him. At first she was vaguely bewildered. The sunken eyes were fixed on hers with an intensity that gave her a momentary sense of embarra.s.sment. Luckily the exigencies of the hour offered slight scope to emotion. All things were unreal, out of drawing with previous experiences of her well-ordered life. The irregular swaying of the boat and the tug seemed to typify the new phase.

Pyne swung himself to the steamer's deck before the gangway was made fast, thereby provoking a loud outcry from the deserted children.

Grasping his uncle's hand he said:

"Wait until you read Brand's letter. No one else knows."

So, Mr. Traill, with fine self-control, greeted Mrs. Vansittart affectionately, and handed her over to a stewardess, who took her to a cabin specially prepared for her. Her low-spoken words were not quite what he expected.

"Don't kiss me," she murmured, "and please don't look at me. In my present condition I cannot bear it."

Relatives of the s.h.i.+pwrecked pa.s.sengers and crew, many of whom were waiting in Penzance, were not allowed on board. This arrangement was made by Mr. Traill after consulting a local committee organized to help the unfortunates who needed help so greatly. The unanimous opinion was expressed that a few lady members of the committee, supplied with an abundance of clothing, etc., would afford prompt relief to the sufferers, whilst the painful scenes which must follow the meeting of survivors with their friends would cause confusion and delay on the vessel.

Pyne, watching all things, saw that Mrs. Vansittart did not meet his uncle with the eagerness of a woman restored to the arms of the man she was about to marry.

She was distraught, aloof in her manner, apparently interested only in his eager a.s.surance that she would find an a.s.sortment of new garments in the cabin.

The millionaire himself was too fl.u.s.tered to draw nice distinctions between the few words she spoke and what he expected her to say. When she quitted him he walked towards the group of young people. They were laughingly exchanging news and banter as if all that had gone before were the events of a lively picnic. At last, he met Enid.

Pyne introduced his uncle, and it was a trying experience for this man to stand face to face with his daughter. In each quick flash of her delighted eyes, in every tone of her sweet voice, in every winsome smile and graceful gesture, he caught and vivified long-dormant memories of his greatly loved wife of nineteen years ago.

Somehow he was glad Mrs. Vansittart had not lingered by his side. The discovery of Enid's ident.i.ty involved considerations so complex and utterly unforeseen that he needed time and anxious thought to arrange his plans for the future.

The animated bustle on deck prevented anything in the nature of sustained conversation. Luckily, Mr. Traill himself, whose open-handed generosity had made matters easy for the reception committee, was in constant demand.

Mrs. Sheppard had sent a portmanteau for Constance and Enid, so they, too, soon scurried below with the others.

The life-boat returned to the rock, where the four lighthouse men sent to relieve Brand were now helping the sailors to carry the injured men downstairs and a.s.sisting the sick to reach the entrance.

As soon as this second batch was transferred to the tug, the vessel started for Penzance; the Trinity tender would land the others.

There was a scene of intense enthusiasm when the steamer reached the dock. The vociferous cheering of the townspeople smothered the deep agony of some who waited there, knowing all too well they would search in vain for their loved ones among these whom death had spared.

The two girls modestly escaped at the earliest moment from the shed used as a reception-room. All the inhabitants knew them personally or by sight; they attracted such attention that they gladly relinquished to other hands any further charge of the s.h.i.+pwrecked people. So, after a few words of farewell for the hour, Stanhope piloted them to a waiting carriage and drove away with them.

Mrs. Vansittart did not emerge from her cabin until the deck was deserted. She found Mr. Traill looking for her. In a neat black dress and feather hat she was rehabilitated.

"Why didn't you show up earlier?" he asked in good-humored surprise.

"The breeze on deck was first-rate. It brought the color into many a pale cheek. And the way in which the crowd let itself go was splendid.

Look at these waiting thousands--quivering yet with excitement!"

"I am worn out," she said quietly; "take me to your hotel. You have engaged rooms there I suppose?"

"Of course."

"When do you purpose leaving Penzance?"

"Well--er--that is part of the explanation I promised you."

"We can talk matters over in the hotel. Where is your nephew?"

For the first time he marked her air of constraint.

"Believe me, Etta," he said hurriedly, "that what I have to tell you will come as a great surprise, but it should be a very pleasant one."

"Anything that gratifies you will be welcomed by me," she said simply.

"You have not said where Charlie is."

"Hiding in that shed. He refused Mr. Stanhope's offer of a rig-out on board. In his present disguise he pa.s.ses as a stoker, and everybody wants to see the man who saved all of you."

"Have you a closed carriage here?"

"Yes."

"Let us go. Charlie can come with us."