CHAPTER XIX.
FINETTA'S WAY
After a time Leslie got up, but she wanted to be alone a little longer; she felt that she could not talk even to her father just then; she wanted to be alone to think over all Yorke had told her. She walked a few yards toward the quay, and saw that Mr. Lisle was still painting; then she turned, and slowly paced in the direction of Ragged Point, which stretched out dark and sullen in the sunlight.
As she had said, not a doubt of Yorke's truth and honor cast a shadow over her happiness. If he said that it was necessary that they should be married at once and secretly, it must be so – it should be so! He was her lover, her master, her king. She had given herself to him absolutely; she trusted him because she could not help herself.
She had almost reached the point, and would have gone on, but she remembered that the tide was coming in, and that there would not be time to get round before the sea rose above the narrow ledge of rock at the foot of the cliffs, and she was turning back when she caught sight of something dark above a rock at the very foot of the point.
For a moment she thought it was a bird, then she saw that it was a hat – a woman's hat. Someone was sitting there. In an instant it struck her that it might be a stranger, unacquainted with the conformation of the coast line, and that if she sat there for a few minutes longer she would be unable to get back or to turn the point.
Leslie looked at the tide, and was startled to find that it had run up quicker than she had thought. There would be barely time to reach the woman behind the rock and warn her. She ran forward as quickly as she could and shouted at the top of her voice, but the voice of the incoming waves beating against the rocks drowned hers.
She looked round, hoping to see a boat or a fisherman, but no one was in sight; and she and the unknown, sitting there in all unconsciousness of her peril, were alone in the grim place.
Most women would have paused and thought of her own safety, but Leslie and selfishness had not yet made acquaintance, and she hurried on, running where there was a bare bit of sand, and scrambling over the rocks that lay in her path. At last she reached the one behind which the woman she had come to warn was sitting, and stood before her breathlessly.
"Oh, quick! Quick!" she cried pantingly. Then she stopped, and recoiled a little. It was a girl, seated in an attitude of weariness and lassitude, her elbows on her knees, her head bowed. Even in this first moment Leslie noted the grace and sorrowful abandon of the figure; but it was the uplifted face that made her recoil, for it was that of the woman she had seen below St. Martin's Tower – it was the woman who had sung the disreputable music-hall ditty.
There was no reckless gaiety in the face now, but a misery and despair so eloquent that even as she recoiled, Leslie's heart ached with pity for her.
The dark eyes looked at Leslie vacantly for a moment, then flashed with sudden anger.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" she asked, half sullenly, half defiantly.
Leslie flushed at the tone in which the greeting was conveyed.
"I – I saw you sitting here," she said quickly, and a little tremulously, for the dark face disquieted her, and inspired her with a vague uneasiness. "I saw you from the beach yonder, and I thought that perhaps you were a stranger."
"I am a stranger. Yes, what of it?" said the woman, as sullenly and suspiciously as before.
"And you do not know that this is Ragged Point, and that the tide is coming up fast, very fast," said Leslie quickly.
"Is it? What does it matter?" was the dull response.
"Oh, do you not understand?" said Leslie earnestly. "When the tide comes up here, where you are sitting, you will not be able to go on or turn back. You see how the point stretches out?"
The dark eyes looked wearily to right and left.
"I see," she said. "No, I didn't know it. I don't know how long I've been sitting here." She looked up at the sky. "The tide comes up here, does it?"
"Yes, yes!" said Leslie hurriedly. "Pray come away at once!" for the girl had made no attempt to get up. "We have only just time to get round the point, even if we run. Come at once!" and in her eagerness she held out her hand to help her to rise.
The girl disregarded the outstretched hand, and rose wearily, sullenly.
"I suppose I should have been drowned if you had not seen me?" she remarked listlessly.
"Oh, I hope not; I hope not!" said Leslie. "But I am very glad I did see you. I only caught sight of the top of your hat. You had better take my hand. I am used to getting over the rocks and stones."
"I can get on all right," said the girl sullenly, refusing the proffered assistance. "I'm as young as you are, and as strong," she added, glancing out of the corners of her dark eyes at Leslie.
"I am glad you are strong," said Leslie gravely, as she looked at the swiftly, surely incoming sea; "for we shall have to run."
Her companion stopped and looked seaward too, and with a strange expression.
"Oh, why do you wait?" demanded Leslie. "Do you not understand that there is not a moment to lose?"
The girl laughed a reckless, miserable laugh, which was a grotesque reflection of the laugh which Leslie had heard on the tower when she had last seen her.
"I was thinking if it was worth while," she said moodily.
Leslie stared at her.
"Worth while!" she echoed unconsciously.
"Yes. I'm not sure it wouldn't be better and easier to stop here and let the water come up. It would save a lot of trouble." She laughed again.
With a faint shudder, Leslie turned away from the dark eyes and seized the speaker's arm.
"You must come at once!" she said firmly.
The woman drew back for a moment; then, as if yielding against her will, allowed Leslie to draw her forward.
They hurried over the rocks in silence for a moment or two, the waves splashing against their feet; then Leslie stopped and uttered an exclamation, her eyes fixed on the cliff before them, her face suddenly pale.
"What is the matter? Are we too late?" asked her companion dully and indifferently.
"Yes, we are too late!" replied Leslie in a low voice. Then she caught her breath and forced a smile. "Do not be frightened. We may get round the other way; the ledge of rock is wider there, but it is more difficult to get over. We must go back. Follow me."
She turned and sprang quickly from rock to rock, and her companion followed her example. They gained the spot where the girl had been sitting, but it was now covered by the sea, and they had to wade ankle deep.
Leslie caught the girl's hand.
"Hold fast!" she said in a quick whisper. "If we gain that point there, where the rock sticks out – ."
Even as she spoke a spurt of foam covered the spot indicated, and the waves dashed over it. She stopped and looked round her, her face white and set.
"We are too late here, too," she said with a smothered sob. "Too late!" and she covered her face with her hands.
The other girl leant against the cliff and stared dully at the angry waves, creeping, creeping like some wild beast towards them.
"You mean we are going to die," she said in a low, harsh voice. "Going to die like rats in a hole. Well," and she shrugged her shoulders, "I don't care much, myself. You see, when you came up just now, I was wishing I was dead."
Leslie shuddered, and put up her hand as if to stop her. Death was too near to be spoken of so lightly.
"Yes, I was. You're shocked, I dessay. I'm sorry for you. It's a pity you didn't stop where you were. You're not tired of life, judging by your face."
"Tired of life!" panted Leslie; "oh, no, no!"
"So I should say," said the other sullenly. "So you don't understand what I mean, and what I feel?"
"No, I don't understand," said Leslie, scarcely knowing what she was saying. "But it is dreadful, dreadful to hear you, and at such a moment. Hah!" She broke off with an exclamation of horror, and drew her companion back close to the face of the cliff, for a wave had dashed at their feet and wet them to the waist.
"It's coming up pretty fast," said the girl. "It won't take long to – . Isn't there any chance for you? I don't care about myself."
Leslie screened her eyes with her hand.
"A boat might be passing," she said faintly. "Oh, to think that they are so near – that there are people just round that bend, who, if they knew – only knew! – would risk their lives to save us," and she sank at the foot of the cliff and hid her face in her hands.
"I'm sorry," said the other. "It's rough on you to lose your life for me, a stranger, too."
Leslie sprang up, her eyes wild with despair.
"We will not die!" she cried. "We will not! Do you hear? Oh, I cannot die; I cannot leave him – like this!" and she beat her hands together.
"You're thinking of your husband – who?" asked the other, eyeing her half pityingly. "It's always a man. That's where I've got the pull of you," and she laughed. "My man wouldn't care whether I lived or died. He's left me already."
The anguish in her voice, the reckless despair, went to Leslie's heart. She shuddered as she looked at the dark eyes.
"Left you!" she breathed. "Oh, now I understand! Ah, yes; I know now why you want to die."
"Yes," was the bitter response. "That's where we women are such fools. We care. Men don't. You think your husband, or sweetheart, or whoever he is, will break his heart for the loss of you!" she laughed mockingly. "Not he! They don't break their hearts so easily! He'll get over it and marry another woman almost before you're – cold in your grave, I was going to say."
Leslie shrank back from her as far as she could, and put her hands up to her ears.
"Oh, hush, hush!" she panted. "It is not true! It is wicked and false! I will not listen to you. Oh, forgive me!" she broke off, her indignation and horror softened by the misery on the white face and dark eyes staring so hopelessly at the angry sea. "How you must have suffered, how you must have loved him to be so wretched, so indifferent."
"Oh, yes, I loved him. I loved him – well, as much as you loved the man you're thinking of – ."
"When – when did it happen – when did he leave you? Why? Tell me," said Leslie. "Let us talk – try and forget that it is coming nearer and nearer, that we have only a few minutes – "
"Yes, we haven't long," was the response. "I've been watching that rock there, almost in a line with us. You could see the top a moment ago; it's covered now. When did he leave me? Only a few nights ago. Why? The old story. He got tired of me, I suppose. Anyhow, he met someone else."
"And – and you were to have been his wife!" breathed Leslie pityingly. "And you loved him! Oh, how could he be so cruel, so heartless?"
The other looked down at her, and laughed harshly.
"Why, men are like that, all of them."
"No, no! Not all! They are not all so base, so vile."
"You think so. You wait! Perhaps your turn will come. But I forgot," she laughed again. "Your man won't have the chance to leave you – there, I beg your pardon," for Leslie had shrunk away from her. "Don't mind me or what I say. I'm half out of my mind. I've had no sleep since – since he left me, and I've come a long journey, and eaten nothing. Yes, I'm half mad. I was a fool to follow him. I ought to have stayed at home; but I've got my punishment."
"You came after him? He is here, then?" asked Leslie in a pitying whisper, watching the waves as she spoke.
"Yes," said she; then with a sigh, "Yes, and I've seen him. I meant to speak to him, to – to – try and get him back; but my heart failed me, and I crept out here to be alone. It wasn't only to see him that I came. I wanted to see her."
"Her?" repeated Leslie, half absently.
"Yes. The woman that stole him from me. But it doesn't matter now. Nothing matters to us two, does it? How much longer?"
The question almost drove Leslie frantic with agony, the anguish of despair. It was all very well for this poor creature, abandoned, deserted by the man she loved, to take death so coolly; but she, Leslie, was not deserted and unhappy. Her lover, her Yorke, was going to make her his wife; in a few days, a few hours, he would be waiting for her. Yorke, Yorke! Her heart called to him. And though the name did not leave her lips, the voice within her seemed to give her courage, to fill her with a fierce, almost savage, determination to live.
She looked up at the cliff with straining eyes. It was almost perpendicular and smooth just above them, but a little further along there were a few scrubby bushes projecting from the surface. It was just possible, if they could reach those, that they might at least gain some few inches of foothold. Just possible, though the mere thought of the attempt made her tremble.
"What are you staring up there for?" asked her companion. "You couldn't climb it, if you tried."
"No," panted Leslie. "But we will try!"
The other shook heir head, but Leslie seized her by the hand.
"Come!" she gasped hoarsely. "Better to try and – and fall, than stand here to wait for death. I cannot wait! Come, hold my hand tightly. We will escape or die together."
As if she had caught something of Leslie's frantic desire of life, the other girl gripped Leslie's hand.
"Come on, then," she said. "Though you'd have more chance alone."
"No, no! Together or not at all," cried Leslie, and she plunged into the water.
For a moment or two it seemed as if they would be carried off their feet, as if they had rushed into the arms of the death from which they had been shrinking; but they were both young and strong, and they accomplished together that which would have been impossible if they had been separate.
Gasping for breath, half blinded by the spray, deafened by the roar of the waves, they stood on a narrow ledge of rock, clutching at the bush above their heads, the water rushing nearly to their knees.
CHAPTER XX.
"I'M GOING TO LIVE, AND SO ARE YOU."
"We shall hold on here for about two minutes," said the woman grimly, "if the bush don't give way before that."
Leslie turned her face to the wall, and shut her eyes.
"And he will be waiting for me!" she murmured. "He will not know, will think I have mistrusted him. I shall never see him again, never hear his voice! Oh, why did we part to-day; why didn't I ask him, pray him to take me with him. Never to see him again – ." She broke off with a sob that shook her. "My arm is numbed, I am falling!" she said with a wail. "Tell him – tell him – oh, God, and I love him so!"
The agony in her voice seemed to go straight to her companion's heart. The dark face flushed red, her eyes shone with a kind of pity.
"Hold on!" she said, almost hissed between her white teeth shut fast. "You shan't die! You tried to save me, you risked your life for me, and I'll save you. Put your arm round my neck. Don't be afraid. I'm strong. I can dance for hours; my ankles are like steel. Cling to me, I say, with one hand, anyhow."
Scarcely knowing what she was doing, Leslie released the bush with one hand, and put her arm round her companion's neck.
"If I'd only a drop of brandy!" muttered the woman. "How cold your arm feels; you're not going to faint! For God's sake don't do that, or we're both lost; for I don't mean to let you go now. Die! Who says we're going to die? I want to live now! After all, he's not quite lost – my man, I mean! He may come back. I'll get him back. I'll best this other woman or know the reason why!"
Her face was flushed, her voice husky with excitement.
"No use, no use!" moaned Leslie.
"No use! What do you mean! Am I ugly, hump-backed? Do you mean she's better looking than I am! I don't believe it! He's been caught by a new face. That isn't what you mean? You're going to fall? Not you! Hold on tight now, for I'm going to have a shy at the bush above. There's a bit of a path." She laughed fiercely, defiantly. "Old Faber had us do gymnastics. I used to hate 'em; but I'm much obliged to him now. Put your foot against the rock and spring – not too hard, mind – when I do. Once let me get a grip of that bush up there, and I'll hang on or fight my way till my arms drop off. Die! Why should I? I was a fool! I'll get him back, you see if I don't! No, we won't die. You shall have your husband again! Now!" she breathed between her clenched teeth. "If you've got any pluck in you, if you want to see your husband again, put your heart into it! Now!"
She made a spring; they both sprang at the same moment, as if they were one body inspired by the same will, and the woman got hold of the bush, and clung with the strength and tenacity of a leopardess.
"Ah!" she gasped. "We've done it! Cling on to me! We'll wait while I count twenty, and then we'll go for the path."
"No – no!" panted Leslie. "I could not, I could not! Let us stay here till – ."
"Till this bit of ledge crumbles under us with our weight, and lets us drop like poisoned flies! No, no! I don't feel like that. It isn't convenient to die now; it was just now! I'm going to live, to live! And so are you!"
She counted the twenty, then put her arm around Leslie's waist.
"Now! Put your hand on my shoulder and cling with the other to the bits of bush and stump, and don't look down! Mind that, or you'll drop, as sure as fate."
Leslie shuddered. Her heart was beating wildly, but a grand hope was creeping over her. Was it possible that she should live and see Yorke once more?
Slowly she felt her way along the surface with her hand, till she got hold of the dry but firmly rooted scrub, then she drew herself up and along the narrow ledge, which was a fissure in the rock rather than a path. No one, in cold blood, could have maintained a footing there for more than thirty seconds, but these two were fighting for dear life, and their blood was burning at fever heat, and they managed, almost miraculously, to creep, crawl, drag themselves upward and still upward.
Below them roared the angry waves, as if with mocking rage at their attempts to escape their voracious maw. Above their heads whirled the gulls, screaming weirdly. Every now and then a stone, displaced by their feet, rolled and sprang from point to point, and ultimately bounded into the gulf below them; and each time Leslie felt that in a moment she would be bounding and falling like the stone, to the hideous death.
For some minutes neither spoke. They could hear each other's breath coming in thick, labored gasps; and Leslie, who was in front, now and again felt her companion's breath striking, like that of a hot furnace, on her neck.
"Keep on! Hold tight!" she heard her say presently. "Keep your eyes up; the path's broadening. If – if we can hold on another minute or two – or a year, for that's what it seems like! – we're saved!"
Leslie could not reply; her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth; her lips, dry and stiff, would not move. But still as she climbed her heart's voice murmured "Yorke, Yorke!" and she drew courage from it. It was worth fighting for, this life of hers, this life which his love had made so precious, so beauteous. If she lived she would be his wife. His wife! Yes, she would live, she would fight on while there was breath in her body, while there was strength in her fingers to clutch an inch of even the moss on the cliff's surface.
In such moments Time is not. It is swallowed up in the agony, the suspense, the mingled hope and despair which rack and wring the heart and brain. She scarcely knew how long they had been making their awful journey through the valley of the shadow of death, scarcely realized that they were saved, when she saw the edge of the cliff just above her, and with one great effort raised herself above it – above it! – and threw herself upon the level ground, gripping the short turf with her hot fingers as if she dreaded that something would drag her back again, and hurl her into the awful sea whose voice still howled faintly in her ears.
She lay thus for a minute or two, her companion lying at her elbow, panting, beside her; then, with a great sob, Leslie rose to her knees and poured out her heart in thanksgiving to Him who had restored her to life – and to Yorke!
The woman stood and eyed her with a pale face and half lowered lids.
"Where are we?" she said at last.
Leslie rose and turned to her with both hands outstretched.
"Oh, what can I say, how can I thank you?" she exclaimed in great agitation. "You have saved my life!"
The woman wiped her lips and forced a smile.
"That's a rum way of putting it," she said, her voice shaking a little. "If I did, you saved mine first. It was a narrow squeak for both of us."
She looked round almost impatiently.
"Where are we?" she repeated. "I – I want to get back to London as soon as I can. I – 've been half out of my mind, I think, and this – this affair has pulled me round. Don't you take any notice of what I said about – about him, the man I spoke of. I don't believe I've lost him, after all. I can get him back." She laughed discordantly, and flushed, as if half ashamed of the new hope that the escape from death had seemed to give her. "He's – he's no worse than the rest. They're all alike, easily taken with a new face. And – and I know he likes me. He was sorry for going directly after he'd left me, and – yes – " she pushed the black hair from her face – "yes, I'll bet my life I get him back."
Leslie looked at her with a smile of sympathy and encouragement.
"Yes," she said, "I hope so; ah, yes, I hope so! It was dreadful to see you and hear you when we were – down there!" and she glanced with a shudder at the edge of the cliff.
"Yes, I was pretty low then," said the other. "It was a hard fight, wasn't it? You and I ought to be friends; but – " she paused and looked hard and almost shyly at Leslie's face – "but perhaps you wouldn't care for that. You're a lady – a swell, I can see, and I – well, I'm not fit – ."
Leslie put out her hand to stop her.
"You must not talk like that now – now, just when we have escaped death together. And I hope – ah! yes, I hope that you will be happier, that he – " she blushed, and her voice grew low; love was so sacred a thing to her – "that he you love will come back to you. If he does you must forgive him, and take him back – ."
She stopped, for the tall, graceful figure in front of her swayed and staggered; and the dark eyes grew suddenly heavy and closed.
Leslie uttered a cry of alarm.
"Oh, what is it? You are ill, faint – ."
The other opened her lips as if to speak, then fell heavily forward on Leslie's arm.
Leslie knelt beside her on the grass, and looked round anxiously. The solitude was as intense as that which they had just left. They were still alone together with no help near.
Leslie remembered that a small spring ran from a cleft on the cliff, and, though the thought of going near the edge made her heart quake, she gently set the woman's head down, and, stooping over the cliff, wet her handkerchief in the rill, and, returning, bathed the white face with one hand while she unfastened the bosom of the lifeless woman's dress with the other.
As she did so her hand came in contact with something hard, though for a second or two she was too intent upon watching for some signs of returning consciousness in the face on her knee to look to see what it was; but presently her eye caught a plain gold locket.
"Poor girl!" she thought. "It is the gift of the man who has deserted her. And she wears it near her heart. Poor girl, poor girl!"
At that moment the white lips parted, and the dark eyes opened.
"Yorke!" she breathed. "Is it you, Yorke? Have you come back to me?"
The words struck upon Leslie's ear at first without any significance. She scarcely heard them or took them in for a space during which one could have counted fifty.
Then, gradually it came upon her, gradually, slowly.
"Yorke! Is it you, Yorke? Have you come back to me?"
She repeated them mechanically, as one repeats a phrase in a foreign language, the meaning of which one does not understand. Then she began to tremble, and a faint, sick dread fell upon her.
All the time she bathed the white face and lips and brushed the dark hair from the low, handsome forehead; doing it mechanically, absently.
Yorke? Had this girl said Yorke, or, was she mistaken?
She waited, breathless, the sick feeling weighing on her heart; and presently the full lips opened again, and again the name – the beloved name – was breathed. There could be no mistake this time. Leslie heard it plainly.
It was Yorke.
Her hand trembled, the beautiful face on her lap grew dim, and seemed to fade away. Then she made an effort and forced the dread from her heart, and a smile to her lips.
What if this girl, the beautiful girl, had called upon Yorke? Surely there was more than one man of that name in the world, the great big wide world; and this woman's Yorke was not, could not be, hers, Leslie's.
She could have laughed at her wicked, worse than wicked, foolish fears! Could have laughed if it had not been for the stress of circumstances.
How could she suspect for a moment that he Yorke – the Duke of Rothbury, her lover, so good and true and stanch – should be the Yorke whom this woman loved, and who had, by her own account, deserted her!
"Oh, I wrong him cruelly, wickedly, even by this momentary doubt!" she told herself. "He would not have doubted me as I have done him, though only for a second!" And her face flushed.
But though she reproached herself, her mind was at work, and, against her will, she remembered how she had first seen this girl.
She recalled the scene, the incident, at St. Martin's Tower. Yorke had stood beside her looking down, and he had started – yes, and turned pale, white to the lips, as the woman's voice had floated up to them.
Did he know her?
All her being rose in revolt at the idea, the suspicion. And yet – . She remembered his face as it had looked at that moment. She had thought that he had turned pale with anger that such a song should have been sung in her presence, and had loved him for his anxiety on her account.
She tried to thrust the dawning suspicion from her as if it were some insidious demon whispering in her ear, but still she could not forget that this woman had told her that she had come down here to Portmaris, had followed the man she loved to this place; and Yorke had come down here, had come down – !
The rays of the setting sun struck the two figures, the white face lying on Leslie's lap adding a lustre to the dark hair that swept across Leslie's dress.
How beautiful she looked, Leslie thought in a dull, vague way; how beautiful! Any man might well lose his heart to such a woman, even though she were not a lady, and capable of singing such a song as she had heard these lips sing. Any man, even – . No, not Yorke! He would not, could not have loved her. It was she, Leslie herself, whom he loved, not this woman!
Even as she laid the flattering unction to her soul, her eye fell again upon the locket.
It was lying open, face downward, upon the woman's snow-white breast.
A desire, an overwhelming desire to take it up and see what face was enshrined in it seized upon her. One glance, and this vague, unjust suspicion of hers would be set at rest for ever. She knew, knew, that it would not be Yorke's, her Yorke's, face she should see.
She fought against the desire, the craving. Love was a sacred thing to her, and it would seem like sacrilege to touch this trinket which this poor girl wore, doubtless the gift of the man she loved so dearly, the man whose desertion had caused her to weary of life, to desire death.
"No, no, I cannot, I will not!" Leslie breathed pantingly, but even as she spoke the words her hand stole towards the locket upon which the rich sunlight was falling. Once, twice, her hand approached it and drew back, but at the third time she took it up, raised it slowly, and then swiftly turned it upwards.
Then still holding it, her eyes riveted upon it with a gaze of horror and agony, she cried —
"Yorke! It is Yorke!"