Chapter XXIII: The Sympathy of the Waves

The wet day had ended in a storm of wind and heavy rain, with waves running mountains high.

Polly had, of course, not remained in the house all that day.

When luncheon had come and gone she donned her rough, old-fashioned ulster, buttoned on her stout pair of boots, and pinned her sailor hat securely on her dark curls, then off she went, a little against Mrs. Blaine’s good counsel.

“You’ll get as wet as wet, miss. The wind is blowing straight from the sea, and it’ll drench you fair,” she remonstrated.

“Oh! I shall like it,” Polly cried, her spirits striving courageously to be bright as of yore. “I really want to be blown just inside out, Mrs. Blaine.”

And Mrs. Blaine laughed.

“It isn’t everybody as can get a wish as easily as you’ll get yours, miss,” she said, “but you’ll be back to afternoon tea, won’t you, miss? and mind you don’t lose your hat; the wind at Beachcroft is pretty strong.”

Polly was fully prepared to testify to the truth of this a few moments later, when she found herself driven back against a wall by the force of the rain-drenched wind, and had to stand there struggling to get her breath, for quite two or three minutes. But she was not alarmed—it would take a stronger wind than this to baffle Polly—moreover, she loved the fierceness of the elements, the stinging of the rain on her cheeks, and the keen, strong scent of the sea in her nostrils. It invigorated her, and seemed to sweep her through and through, driving away care and saddening thought, and all the other phantoms that had haunted her brain.

She picked her way slowly down the beach.

The sea was much nearer the parade now, and the thunder of its strong, high-rearing waves, as they leaped onto the beach and broke in a storm of snow-white foam, followed by the hissing noise of the receding water, as it drew shoals of stones into the ocean, was almost deafening.

Polly was a long time reaching any point of shelter, but she had picked out quickly a large shelving piece of rock that had been engulfed half an hour or so before by the restless waters, and here she determined to sit and watch the waves fulfill their allotted task, and recede from the shore.

By eventide the water’s edge would be as far out as it had been the preceding night, but it would take some time for that to come, and Polly promised herself a whole afternoon under the shelter of the seaweed-covered rock. It was strange to feel herself free. All the past year her days had been set to match her mother’s wishes, and sweet as this office of love had been, there was no doubt the girl needed a change altogether.

She could not have found a place better calculated to do her good than this wild, little coasting village, and Grace’s quick thought had been a very happy one.

It was not possible to restore her girlhood’s buoyancy in full, for whatever might have come, her life had passed through such dark shadows these many months that the trace of them would never wholly pass away; but assuredly even this short sojourn in fresh scenes, this break in her arduous and thoughtful existence, had done her good already. She forgot all those stinging, hurtful things that had driven her from home, as she sat and watched the rolling sea, and heard the thunder of the foam-decked waves break on the wet beach.

“It’s just lovely!” she said to herself. “How I wish Grace had come with me! When will she come? She said in a day or two. I must write to her to-night, and tell her to hurry up this day or two; I want her. How funny it is, and sad, too, that I should find a stranger so much sweeter, and kinder, and necessary to me than my own sisters. Grace is more than my friend, she is my comfort; yes, I want her very badly. Not that I am lonely, though. I feel quite, quite happy here.”

Forgetful of her promise to Mrs. Blaine, Polly spent the entire afternoon out of the house.

Gradually and gradually the waves receded, till there was a wide stretch of rock, and beach, and damp sand between the sea and herself.

The wind seemed to die down as the tide went out, and the rain became less fierce and settled into a thin drizzle.

Polly emerged from her cave, and picking up her skirts, went fleetly over the slippery rocks, down once more to the water’s edge.

She had discarded her old ulster and hat, and had left them tucked away in a corner of her late shelter.

She was not afraid of losing them, for, as she said to herself with a laugh, “he or she who would steal my ulster would undoubtedly steal trash; while as for my hat, well, the less said about that hat the better.”

So there was nothing to protect her slender figure in its rough black serge, and the wind played fine havoc with her pretty brown curls; but Polly cared not. A little rain would not hurt her, and as for the wind, she welcomed it as a friend.

Poising lightly and easily on the wet surface of the rocks, she sprang from one to another with all the assurance of a bird; and when she reached the end of the journey, she stood for one instant with outstretched hands, as though her spirit, indeed, would wing her across the ocean just as the seabirds took their flight.

Had there been anyone to admire the girl in this hour, there could have been found no one surely to deny her beauty. The eyes alone were a wealth of loveliness in themselves; the old fire, the old curious opalesque shades of color had come back to their depths, marking them as jewels of some priceless order in the quaint little brown face.

Unfortunately there was no other human being to gaze upon this pretty creature.

Beachcroft had a deserted, and doubtless to most eyes, a desolate look on this stormy August afternoon.

Mrs. Blaine was the first person to coincide with this idea.

She went to the door many times to look for Polly, and each time the wind and the rain drove her indoors again.

“If this had come in June and July I’d like to know where we’d have been!” she said to herself.

She could not help being a little anxious as the hours slipped on and on, and Polly never came, but already she had caught enough knowledge of the girl’s nature to feel convinced she would not be harmed by such infelicitous weather as most people would be.

She set about preparing a dainty little dinner, and she took far more care for Polly’s repast than she did for that which was going up to her drawing-room lodgers, two old ladies, who, needless to say, had not dared to put their noses outside the door this day, and had watched Polly’s peregrinations amid the wet rocks with a scandalized air.

The dinner was almost complete when there came a ring at the bell, and Mrs. Blaine went hurriedly to answer the summons, expecting, of course, to see Polly’s slim form standing on the step.

“She’ll just be drenched,” she said to herself, and visions of Polly, indulging in a hot bath and partaking of some of her wonderful herb concoction to ward off a cold, came to her as she went.

The recommendations she had received from Grace to take the greatest care possible of Miss Pennington were translated very literally by the good soul; it was, therefore, with a sincere intention of taking the girl in hand now that Mrs. Blaine opened the door.

The figure on the step was not Polly’s, but a very tall, stalwart individual, who had evidently alighted from the fly that was crawling slowly back to the station.

“How are you, Blainey? I have come down for one night; can you take me in?” asked Valentine, genially.

“Lor’, Mr. Valentine, what a surprise! Come in—come in! Lucky enough I’ve the dining-room floor empty just yesterday. There, I am glad to see you, and that’s the truth, sir. Miss Grace she said nothing about your coming when she wrote yesterday.”

“She did not know it, that’s why,” Valentine explained.

He looked about the small, humbly furnished room with pleasure, all was so bright and fresh, and Blainey’s welcome was so sincere, he felt already better.

“I’m a bit overworked,” he further explained, “and so I ran down here all on the spur of the moment. I know you are always glad to see me, and now you are going to give me one of your own particular little dinners, if it’s no trouble.”

“Nothing’s a trouble for you, or Miss Grace, or Mr. Sacha. I’ve got too good a memory of all the kindness I’ve had from all of you, sir. As I was a-telling Miss Grace’s young lady, when she arrived here yesterday, I——”

“What young lady? Is——”

Then Valentine stopped, and his heart beat very quickly.

He guessed at once who it was that had come even before Mrs. Blaine could speak the name.

“Such a dear, nice young lady, with the sweetest eyes, sir, but a very fragile look, like. She wants care, sir, as Miss Grace wrote, and I’m afeared I’m not doing my duty letting her stay out all this blessed afternoon in this weather.”

“Is Miss Pennington out now?” Valentine queried, his voice catching a touch of anxiety. “But surely this is very late; it is just eight o’clock, and it’s quite a wild night.”

“Oh! she loves the rain and the wind, so she says, sir! But you’re right, it is very late. I must send my old man down to find her. She’ll be down on the beach, I expect.”

Valentine pulled on his mackintosh again.

“I’ll go,” he said, briefly. “I know Miss Pennington, and besides, I’m a bit stronger than Blaine, and if she should have fallen and hurt herself——”

“Oh! don’t say that!” Mrs. Blaine cried, and the tears started to her eyes. “Oh! sir, what will Miss Grace say if she’ve hurt herself——”

Valentine hastened to reassure her, and strode away in the growing darkness as he spoke.

“What a funny world we live in, to be sure!” he said to himself as he went. “I come away from London for the purpose of pulling myself together and learning, if possible, to forget this girl, and I arrive to find her here before me. Is there a destiny in this? Or is it only mere chance?” Then came a thought that made his pulses thrill. “Shall I dare my fate? Shall I speak and know the worst—hear from her lips the confirmation of what my heart tells me is true?”

The blustering wind had almost gone, but the rain was falling.

Dark as the evening was—extraordinarily dark for August—it was possible for Valentine to scan the shore and to distinguish at once if any person was moving on it.

He stood and looked carefully over the expanse of low-stretching rocks, and he was about to turn away, convinced that he must look for Polly in some other direction, when the flutter of something white in the distance caught his eye.

The heavy storm clouds parted at that instant, and permitted a flicker of pale moonlight to streak the sea and the shore, and as he stood still, hesitating, the white fluttering came to him this time quite clearly.

“It is a signal. Some one is there!” he said to himself. Then, like lightning, came the thought, “It is she, and she is hurt!”

Forthwith he started to get down to the spot where the white showed, and he soon found it was by no means an easy undertaking. The rocks gave but poor footing for his powerful steps, and he had pretty quickly to fling aside his hampering mackintosh and pursue his way with as little plunging as possible.

By degrees he drew nearer to where he imagined Polly to be. Just before approaching her he called aloud.

“Hello! Is anyone there?” he said, and his voice was not in the least like his usual voice.

It was Polly who answered him, undoubtedly and assuredly Polly.

“As you have come so far,” her voice said, clearly and sharply, “I suppose you must have seen that some one was here.”

“What is the matter?” shouted Valentine.

“How do I know what is the matter?” queried Polly, irritably. “I’m all crumpled up, and I think I’m broken all over.”

Valentine smiled to himself.

There was not much real hurt, he was now assured; nevertheless, he feared she might have sprained herself in some way.

He moved cautiously toward her, and he heard her laughing softly to herself as he plunged wildly from one piece of treacherous seaweed to another.

He certainly was not a figure of grace at this moment.

As he came quite close to her he spoke in his natural voice, and Polly gave a great start. She recognized him then. Before he had seemed to her one of the few strangers she had caught sight of from her window.

“I hope it is not so bad as that,” Valentine said.

“Oh,” she hurried to reply, “I am not really hurt at all. I—I just slipped, and somehow I managed to get my left arm wedged in here, and I can’t move it very easily. I also twisted my foot. How d’ye do, Mr. Ambleton?” she finished, demurely.

Val sat down on an adjoining rock and proceeded to help her. Her position was not a pleasant one.

“But you must suffer very much, I am afraid,” he said, as little by little he drew the small arm from its uncomfortable place. “You must tell me if I hurt you.”

“It all hurts a little,” Polly said, wincing beneath his touch. “My hand and wrist are so swollen that I am afraid the arm is broken. Is it?”

He felt it tenderly from wrist to shoulder, and as far as he could judge, there was nothing broken or displaced, either.

“You must be badly bruised,” he said.

“I am,” Polly observed, quietly. “I am as—as Mrs. Blaine would say, a mask of bruises. I am rather glad you came, you know, Mr. Ambleton. I was making up my mind I should have to stay here all night, and then, I suppose, by the morning I should not have been here at all, seeing that the tide comes in at midnight.”

“How long have you been like this?” asked Valentine, unable to withstand the witching delight of the situation, even though she was suffering, and her heart was closed against him.

“I think it must have been a month,” Polly said, thoughtfully.

“I want to get you up on your feet. Can you stand?”

“If I lean on you; but I expect you won’t like that. I am very heavy, you know.”

“Give me your right hand,” Valentine ordered gruffly.

“What are you doing down here?” queried the girl, as she was lifted slowly to her feet, a proceeding not unconnected with a good deal of discomfort.

“I came to blow away some cobwebs out of my brains.”

“How funny!” Polly said, faintly; “so did I! Aren’t—aren’t cobwebs nasty, clinging things?”

She hardly knew if she were speaking coherently, for Valentine was moving her slowly back over the rocks again, and her injured arm throbbed and quivered with a feverish pain that was well-nigh unbearable, while she had a funny lightness in her head.

Whether he answered or no, she could not tell.

She was not fully conscious of all that followed, save that she realized she was being taken nearer and nearer to the parade.

As they were passing the rock which she called her “home,” she asked to stop.

“I have left my hat and ulster here,” she explained. “I want to get them. Mrs. Blaine will think I have gone mad if I go back like this.”

“Polly, do you know you are wet through?” demanded Valentine, as they both sat down and recovered breath a little.

“What do you mean by calling me ‘Polly’?” she asked, frigidly, and he hurriedly apologized.

“I beg your pardon. I forgot myself.”

They sat very still again, and Polly felt all the hot unrest and trouble unfold itself in her heart again. She could endure the bodily pain, but this was another kind of pain, and she fretted under it.

She seemed hemmed about as by a network of unpleasant circumstances. Of what use to run away, ostensibly, from her mother and her daily life; but, in reality, from the chance of meeting this man, and then to be thrown in close contact with him in the course of twenty-four hours.

She tried to fall back into her old sharp speech, but body, and heart, and brain were weary.

“After all, what does it matter? Call me what you like, it makes no difference.”

“Doesn’t it?” Valentine said, quickly. “That’s a big mistake—a very, big mistake.”

He had brought out her ulster, and she had let him throw it round her shoulders. Her hat she still kept on her lap.

“Oh! don’t let us discuss these sort of things,” she said, still wearily.

She did not understand him, but she felt a curious sensation that they were verging on something dangerous.

“By all means; it is high time you were indoors,” Valentine said, coldly. “Do you know it is nearly nine o’clock?”

“Is it? I dare say, I lost all count of time down there. What—what are you going to do, Val?” the girl added, hurriedly, as he stepped over to her and picked her up as though she had been a child.

“I am going to carry you,” Valentine said, coolly; then he laughed and looked down at her. “At last I am your master,” he said, and he held her small form closer in his arms.

“What do you mean by that?” Polly’s voice sounded very low indeed.

“I dare say you know what I mean quite well. If you don’t, I will explain it to you to-morrow. To-night the only explanation you can have is supper and bed.”

He moved on briskly up the remaining portion of the beach till the parade was reached. There Polly stopped him.

“Put me down,” she commanded. “If you are my master it is your duty to obey me.”

At this they both laughed, and the laugh seemed to free something in the hearts of both.

Though the rain was falling, and the hour was growing later and later, they made no haste to reach Mrs. Blaine’s hospitable door.

“I am going to ask you a question, Polly. Will you answer it?”

“Ask it first, and then we will see.”

Valentine drew breath.

“It is a big question, Polly,” he said, and his voice sounded very tender, very gentle, very, very sweet in her ears; “but you can settle it with one small word. Polly, you know I love you, dear. Will you be my wife?”