The Pillar of Light Part 44

Mr. Traill looked at his watch. A carriage stopped at the hotel.

"Here's Stanhope, and his mother," cried Pyne; so his uncle hurried off to receive his guests.

Lady Margaret was a well-preserved woman of aristocratic pose. But her serenity was disturbed. Although the land was ringing with the fame of her son's exploit, and her mother's heart was throbbing with pride, there had been tearful hours of vigil for her. Not without a struggle had she abandoned her hope that he would make a well-endowed match.

When Constance and Enid arrived she was very stately and dignified, scrutinizing, with all a mother's incredulity, the girl who had caused her to capitulate.

But Enid scored a prompt success. She swept aside the almost unconscious reserve with which Jack's mother greeted her.

"You knew," she murmured wistfully. "We did not. They would not tell us. How you must have suffered until the news came that he had escaped."

Lady Margaret drew the timid girl nearer and kissed her.

"My dear," she whispered, "I am beginning to understand why Jack loves you. He is my only son, but you are worthy of him."

Mrs. Vansittart's appearance created a timely diversion. She had obtained a black lace dress. It accentuated the settled pallor of her face, but she was perfectly self-possessed, and uttered a nice womanly compliment to the two girls, who wore white demi-toilette costumes.

"You look delightful," she said. "When all is said and done, we women should never despise our wardrobe. That marvelous lighthouse had one grave defect in my eyes. It was dreadfully callous to feminine requirements."

Here was a woman rejuvenated, restored to her natural surroundings. They accounted for the subtle change in her by the fact that they had seen her hitherto under unfavorable conditions. Even Pyne, not wholly pleased with her in the past, found his critical judgment yielding when she apologized sweetly to Lady Margaret for her tardiness.

"There were two children saved from the wreck. Poor little mites, how they revelled in a hot bath! I could not leave them until they were asleep."

"I needed two hot baths," said Pyne. "No. 1 dug me out of the sh.e.l.l, and No. 2 helped me to recognize myself."

During dinner there was much to tell and to hear. Mrs. Vansittart said little, save to interpose a word now and then when Constance or Enid would have skimmed too lightly the record of their own services.

They did not hurry over the meal. All were in the best possible spirits, and the miseries of the Gulf Rock might never have existed for this lively company were it not that four among them bore clear tokens of the deprivations they had endured.

A waiter interrupted their joyous chatter at its highest. He bent over Mr. Traill and discreetly conveyed some communication.

"I am delighted," cried the millionaire heartily. "Show him in at once."

He rose from his chair to do honor to an unexpected guest.

"You will all be pleased to hear," he explained, "that Mr. Brand is ash.o.r.e, and has come to see us."

Mrs. Vansittart stifled the cry on her lips. The slight color which had crept into her pale cheeks yielded to a deathly hue. It chanced that the others were looking expectantly towards the door and did not notice her.

Brand entered. In acknowledging Mr. Traill's cordial welcome he smilingly explained his presence.

"My superiors sent me emphatic orders to clear out," he said, "so I had no option but to obey. I conveyed Mr. Emmett to suitable quarters and hastened home, but found that the girls were playing truant. My housekeeper insisted that I should eat, else she would not be satisfied that I still lived, but I came here as quickly as possible."

At that instant his glance, traveling from one to another of those present, fell on Mrs. Vansittart.

He stood as one petrified. The kindly words of his host, the outspoken glee of the girls at his appearance, died away in his ears in hollow echoes. His eyes, frowning beneath wrinkled brows, seemed to ask if he were not the victim of some unnerving hallucination. They were fixed on Mrs. Vansittart's face with an all-absorbing intensity, and his set lips and clenched hands showed how utterly irresistible was the knowledge that, indeed, he was not deceived--that he was gazing at a living, breathing personality, and not at some phantom product of a surcharged brain.

She, too, yielding before the suddenness of an ordeal she had striven to avoid, betrayed by her laboring bosom that she was under the spell of some excitement of overwhelming power.

She managed to gain her feet. The consciousness that Constance, Enid, Lady Margaret even, were looking at her and at Brand with amazed anxiety, served to strengthen her for a supreme effort.

"Mr. Stephen Brand--and I--are old acquaintances," she gasped. "He may misunderstand--my presence here--tonight. Indeed--in this instance--I am not to blame. I could not--help myself. I am always--trying to explain--but somehow--I never succeed. Oh!"

With an agonized sigh she swayed listlessly and would have fallen had not Pyne caught her.

But she was desperately determined not to faint--there. This was her world, the world of society. She would not yield in its presence.

Her eyes wandered vaguely, helplessly, from the face of the man towards the others. Constance had hastened to her a.s.sistance, and the knowledge that this was so seemed to stimulate her to a higher degree. With fine courage she grasped the back of a chair and summoned a wan smile to her aid.

"You will forgive me--if I leave you," she murmured. "I am so tired--so very tired."

She walked resolutely towards the door. Brand drew aside that she might pa.s.s. He looked at her no more. His wondering daughter saw that big drops of perspiration stood on his forehead.

Mr. Traill, no less astonished than the rest, offered to conduct Mrs.

Vansittart to her room.

"No," she said, "I will go alone. I am used to it now, after so many years."

There was a ring of heartfelt bitterness in her voice which appealed to more than one of the silent listeners.

As the door closed behind her, Brand seemed to recover his senses.

"I must ask your pardon, Mr. Traill," he said quietly. "I a.s.sume that the lady who has just left us did not expect to see me here tonight. It would be idle to deny that the meeting was a shock to both of us. It revived painful memories."

Mr. Traill, scarce knowing what he said, so taken aback was he, exclaimed hastily:

"Mrs. Vansittart claimed you as an old acquaintance. The odd thing is that you, at any rate, did not discover that fact earlier."

The lighthouse-keeper looked round the table. He saw pain in many eyes, but in Pyne's steady gaze there was encouragement.

"Mrs. Vansittart!" he said slowly. "Is that her name? I did not know.

How should I, the recluse, hear of her? And in your first message to the rock you called her Etta. When _I_ knew her her name was Nanette, for the lady who calls herself Mrs. Vansittart was my wife, is yet for aught I know to the contrary."

"Father!" Constance clung to him in utmost agitation. "Do you mean that she is my mother?"

"Yes, dear one, she is. But let us go now. I fear my home-coming has brought misery in its train. I am sorry indeed. It was wholly unexpected. Poor Nanette! She ever deceived herself. I suppose she hoped to avoid me, as if fate forgot the tears in the comedy of life."

"Can I not go to her?" asked Constance, white-faced and trembling.

"No, my child, you cannot. Has she claimed you? She cast you off once. I might have forgiven her many things--never that. Come, Enid! What need for your tears? We faced worse troubles together three days ago, and you, at any rate, can look foward to happiness. Good-by, Lady Margaret, and you, too, Mr. Traill. I will see you tomorrow, I hope. Forgive me for my unconscious share in this night's suffering."

CHAPTER XVII

MRS. VANSITTART GOES HOME