The Drowned Sailor Page 3

People who are unaccustomed to feeling embarrassment themselves are not wont to consider that sensation in others.

  Clare now stood firm before him and required to know immediately what his objection was to her friend. She would not stand by and hear Ravella insulted. He showed himself a little humbled then, and spoke quietly and earnestly, glancing darkly at his foe all the while.

  ‘In my opinion,’ he said, ‘she’s not so kind to you as she appears to be, Clare.’

  ‘I care very little for opinions in general,’ said Ravella blithely, ‘and yours in particular, Mr. Trevick.’

  He smarted at that, but bit his tongue, out of consideration, I suppose, for his lover’s feelings. She, however, was not satisfied, and pressed the matter further, prompting Trevick to withdraw behind a stony reserve.

  Ravella stepped to Clare’s side. ‘Don’t mind us,’ she soothed. ‘We’ve fallen out over who likes you best, and he’s jealous that since I’m so often your companion, you might very well marry me. I tell you I don’t mind it. If I can laugh, you may as well.’

  ‘But it isn’t funny for me to be caught up between you both,’ said Clare, in a hurt tone.

  Her fiancé cleared his brow and wrapped his great arms about her shoulders. ‘It’s all my nerves, and fears,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I can’t be easy until I marry you.’

  ‘But you won’t marry her,’ declared Ravella, drawing Clare from his embrace by the arm, to his scowling chagrin. ‘Unless she sleeps alone tonight,’ she added. ‘And since it’s coming on for dark now, we must get away.’

  Trevick began to grow angry again at this, but Clare, calmed by his assurances, assured him in turn. ‘Now, James, you know it’s all arranged that I stay in Hurlevor. It’s tradition, and I won’t break it.’

  He turned a gloomy eye to me, and replied: ‘Well, but let me drive you down, at least. The rain’s started.’

  ‘No no, we’ll dash it in no time,’ said Ravella, ‘and remember, if you drive her, you must drive me.’ —and that silenced his objections.

  One drawn-out kiss was the lovers’ parting, and a word that when they kissed again, it would be as man and wife, before Ravella hurried the expectant bride away. We watched them from the front window slip through the dusk towards the cover of the trees along the cliff path, battling an umbrella against the rising wind and the first shower.

  Left with Trevick, I soon discovered that he had no inclination for festivities, and though I was granted his hospitality for the night, our revels did not extend beyond recollections by the fire, deep into the evening, while a storm summoned up outside and beat over the house. The wind moaned, the rain rattled and the sea roared and seethed.

  I found out from my companion that the wedding had been arranged very lately; indeed, it had all been a somewhat hasty business. I remarked on the absence of his family and hers, and asked when they would be arriving. He told me that he was the last of the Trevick line, and had no close family; some of their friends, and Clare’s relations, would drive down tomorrow. It was to be a simple, quiet affair, without bother or a seething multitude.

  We talked long and late, as I say, and Trevick proved himself very eloquent in conversation at last; but there was something melancholy about him throughout, and whenever he smiled or laughed, some secret recollection checked him. On the eve of such an important day, however, he might reasonably be haunted by doubts. In the firelight (it was an old house, with a traditional open grate) I studied his stern profile and handsome jaw, and did not wonder at Clare’s attraction, or her willingness to endure his temper to keep him. Falling into silence, we sat with scotches at our fingertips, listening to the gale sounding hollow in the chimney, and the ticking clock striving against the perpetual breaking of the waves just without.

  ‘It’s a wild night,’ I observed.

  ‘Wild,’ he breathed, his thoughts clearly roaming on some distant subject. He looked up dreamily, murmuring: ‘Wild and happy—’ and sighed in contentment. But before I could ask his meaning, he brought himself to his senses sharply, as though stung, stood up, and said goodnight.

  I pondered a while, watching the embers and listening to the weather. There was much to hear— the wind battering about the gables and the torrents scattering over the slates were noisy, but the sea, bursting over the rocks and shale in great bellows, was noisiest, being just below— the living rooms had moved up to the first floor of recent years, since those on the ground had become so cold and damp from the proximity of the water. In my lazy mood, fit for the hour, I soon dropped into a nap, during which the waves seemed to flood my mind, and I dreamed of tall, jagged crests of foam rearing up and smashing onto granite crags near-against the back door. I thought I saw and heard the sucking back-draft sinking under sandy shelves, dragging in chairs and furniture from the house, drawing them into the sea with the fish and shells; and it seemed as though every wave clawed out another roomful and all its inhabitants, leaving only a briny shell-house stood on the shore.

  As my head began to nod with this fretful doze I started awake to a new sound, which was a persistent clattering. Since it came from outside, I concluded at first that it must be a gate knocking in the wind somewhere; but as it repeated in determined bursts, I thought it sounded very near at hand, on this side of the house, that is, against the sea. Idly I listened, hoping to drop back into a comfortable snooze, but every time it rang out, rat-tat-tat, tat-tat, it set me on edge, and wore at my nerves, until I was quite annoyed with such a sharp racket amidst the tempest’s roar.

  Then I was set more than ever alert, for there was a shrieking gust, the knocking hammered, and then, during a sudden lull in the storm, I caught a voice, just a gasp, calling.

  I jumped up in surprise, sure I must be mistaken, as nobody could be out in such weather, and certainly not (as the voice seemed to indicate) off the road, on the beach. I strained to hear more, but the storm held full sway, challenged only by this infernal clattering. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the knocking was indeed knocking, as of some poor person wanting to come in. I stepped over to the window to peer out, but in the dark could hardly discern the terrace that fronted the shingle-beach. Nevertheless, my drowsy imagination was hot at work, and explained that this might well be some fisherman who had been cast overboard and swum ashore, now knocking for help.

  I hesitated. Trevick had not stirred, and was doubtless asleep. There was nobody else at home. I resolved to go and answer the door.

  So I fumbled down the stairs, not knowing where to find any of the switches, and blundered into the hallway in the dark. The sea and storm were tremendously loud down here, though they were deafening above, and freezing damp draughts whistled through the passage.

  Now more timid of my surmise, I cried out if anybody was there outside? But in the screaming din it was to no avail. Then I started, as the rapping repeated as before, and the rear door juddered in its frame beneath a shower of blows, the cause of the noise.

  I hurried forward at that summons and pulled back the bolts: immediately the door slammed wide open and the hurricane rushed in with a quantity of spray. A great bulk fell against me, smothering me in soaking brine, while a deft dripping hand threw the door closed again and shut the bolt.

  In the black I could see nothing, but clearly this was some huge man, streaming wet as though he had really walked out of the sea, and he leaned, I suppose for weariness, against the wall, holding me under him, while his breath came in icy pants that set me shuddering. Before I could recover and speak, his clammy hands abruptly gripped me, his cold jaw rasped against my cheek, and his ice-lips murmured next to my ear. I shuddered and winced under those hard hands, and did not hear him at first; but he took a tighter hold and demanded in a deep and moving voice: ‘Is she here?’

  I was astonished, and asked: ‘Who do you mean?’

  His eyes glinted in the dark, and he said again, more fiercely: ‘Is she here?’

  I trembled, for there was something dreadful about him, notwit
hstanding the uncanny situation. He smelt strongly of the ocean, and from our closeness I could feel that he was drenched through and through, and no part of him had any heat. As my eyes grew a little inclined to the obscurity I made out his forehead, with dank locks dredged over the brow, and two dark shadows beneath, where his eyes lurked. I did not like him at all, and sorely wished I had not let him in.

  ‘Let me up, let go of my arms,’ I protested, but there was no response, and he only peered at me, or past, or through me, I cannot say. ‘Who are you?’ I pressed. ‘What are you doing, roving about on such a night, knocking on doors at all hours? Who are you, what do you want?’

  ‘Is she here?’ he urged, as though he had not understood me.

  ‘Who? Who do you want? Why have you come out in all this weather? Who are you? You’re as cold as ice, are you sick?’ I was panicky in my confusion, for he neither shivered nor moved nor released his hold, and I became alarmed, shivering myself, half for his being so chilly, and half for dread of him. I said to him again: ‘Let me go, there’s nobody here for you— no woman, I mean. Do you want Mr. Trevick? Why didn’t you come in the morning? What do you want? What’s the matter with you?’

  Then he let out a long, dreadful sigh that shook his whole frame, and released