the shoreless sea

Front matter

2 fe »

** Fate is a sea without shore.”

Swinburne

Contents

PART fF

ESCAPE CHAPTER PAGE I.—DEIRDRE AND Guy . ? < ; - 3 Il.—Empty A , ‘ , A . - 44 iil—Auvunt Vi . , : : : : pete, IV.—QuEsT ; , : 4 : : - 104 V.—DEIRDRE AND TERENCE. : : Rea ee |

ARLE

II

Olivia was much more like her mother than any of the others. She was fourteen, long-legged and armed with a short, boyish crop of black curls, and a paleskinned, sullen face, which, however, could be entirely transformed by a singularly charming smile, which she bestowed only upon a favoured few. Her temper was extremely violent—perhaps that accounted for the reddish gleam in the dark eyes. Unlike Deirdre, Olivia hated her mother.

Horrible words to write, but they were true. After all, what cause had she to do otherwise? To her, “Mother” merely meant a beautifully dressed vision who floated into her ken perhaps once a week, and was possessed of a temper fully as violent as her own. When they did come in contact with each other it usually ended in Olivia being sent to bed supperless —departing with a shower of abuse on her lips, and hér curly head high in the air. But she was loyal to the few she loved—this strange, keen-tongued, hottempered little person. And chief among those was Deirdre.

She swung round now, dangling a long leg whose black stocking exhibited to the world a large hole on the knee. Her pink cotton dress was faded and badly made, much too short in arms and skirt, and stained all down the front with bicycle oil. A jagged rent at the waistband was clumsily fastened by a large and conspicuous black safety-pin that held together its yawning mouth. Deirdre’s quick eyes took in all this, and her mouth hardened—she was remembering the pink and swansdown vision in the gilt bed upstairs who would presently think of getting up and choosing a beautiful dress for the day out of the many beautiful dresses in that plate-glass wardrobe. The mother— and then the daughter, untidy, badly dressed, uncared for. She said to her sister :

“Stop your practising now, Livvy. We'll go for a walk—over to Gilly’s Farm. P’raps Howard will come.”

Olivia’s smile vanished, and her mouth grew sullen.

“I suppose,” she said slowly, “that She’’—the children never spoke of “Mother’—‘told you to s-stop me?”

Olivia stammered badly, but especially so in moments of excitement and anger. When she came to a ~ word which eluded her, she would wrinkle her retroussé nose in the funniest way imaginable, and finally bring it out with a little “Plop!” of triumph.

“Yes—you'd better stop—I’ve just had a row with Her, and your ‘Jolly Peasant’ would be the last straw.”

Olivia’s eyes suddenly blazed.

“Well, I-let it be!’ she cried. ‘‘D-damn Her! Let it be!”

And swinging furiously round again, she started banging out, with the right foot firmly glued on to the pedal, the excruciating finish of the “Peasant.”

Deirdre’s cool voice came to Olivia’s ears even through the noise.

“Do shut up, Livvy. And at once, please.” There was a note in her calm voice which even Olivia obeyed at times. So the pianist suspended an agonizing crash of discords to slam down the piano-lid, slip sulkily off the stool and march to the door, followed by her sister’s: “Get your hat and come on. And you might wash your hands first, old dear.”

Left by herself, Deirdre looked rapidly round the big, dim flower-filled drawing-room—forbidden Paradise except for the purpose of practising on the big grand piano. (The old schoolroom instrument having, under a succession of strumming fingers, long since given up the ghost.) It was at the grand piano that Deirdre looked—longingly, and with a covetous eye. She had a musical soul, and Olivia’s strummings were real agony to her. Once, years ago, a great pianist had stayed at Green Gables, and had played one night after dinner. Deirdre remembered creeping downstairs and huddling, a small, shivering nightgowned figure, outside the door, listening with chattering teeth, a blue nose, and ecstasy in her soul to the delicate laughter of Chopin, to strange, wild, disturbing Hungarian dances, and plaintive, oddly wistful Russian folk-songs

That was long ago, but she remembered it as a glimpse into a bewildering new world. Since then she had discovered that she had a voice which, although not at all strong, was remarkably sweet and true. She sang as a bird does, without effort and solely for her own delight, or when she was feeling happy. And on rare, stolen occasions—when Mrs. Bellamy was out or away—she slipped into the drawing-room and spent hours singing, and playing all the accompaniments which were not too difficult for her. Of course it was a secret—no one knew except the Family, and it was safe with them.

Deirdre went into the garden through the big conservatory that opened out of the drawing-room, warm and pleasant with its banks of greenery and the scent of the demure, dumpy pink and blue hyacinths that were ranged on the shelves in earthenware pots. Outside she was joined by Olivia, swinging by its elastic an enormous and battered straw hat, a very ancient friend known to the Family as the Mushroom. It did not belong to anyone in particular, but they wore it in turns if they could not lay hands on their own headgear. It hung on a peg to itself in the lobby, and Deirdre, or Olivia, or even Roly would snatch it up and clap it on their heads, if they were in a hurry and wanted a hat. Olivia put it on, and it completely swamped her, like a very large extinguisher over a small candle, but she pushed it back from her face and grinned at Deirdre, all her ill-temper forgotten, showing a row of very white, pointed teeth like a squirrel’s, or some other little animal’s.

“Come on,” she said amiably. ‘“H-Howard and Roly are s-somewhere in the orchard, I think. Did you hear the row they were making? Did She hear?”

“Yes, She did,” said Deirdre shortly. “And She was awfully mad. She pitched into me, I can tell you!”

“D)-d-did She?” stammered Olivia, her eyes glittering. ‘The old beast! The p-p-p-p ”” She twisted her large pink mouth into an extraordinary shape, and managed to bring out with a pop! like a champagne cork being drawn—“Pig!”

It was characteristic of the attitude of the Family towards their mother that Deirdre seemed in no way surprised or shocked by this outburst. Instead, she cordially agreed.

“Yes, She is,’ she said. “But on the whole I think I managed to get one up on Her. MHulloa, there’s Howard and Roly!”

Howard and Roland Bellamy came arm-in-arm up the flower-bordered path at the end of which was the little white wicket that led to the large orchard. It was hard to believe that half an hour ago these two had been indulging in a hot skirmish outside Mrs. Bellamy’s window. Indeed the only trace of it was an angry flush that still burnt under Howard’s skin and a certain dishevelment of hair and person about Roly’s small and never too tidy ensemble. But the Bellamy temper was always one that flared up to Olympian heights for one brief, heated moment, and the next was forgotten. Olivia and Roly had been known to have a fight in the garden, rolling on the path biting each other, kicking and cursing with equal gusto, and the next minute with their arms round each other’s necks, engaged in amiable, even loving converse. Theirs was a combination of Southern and Irish temperament—hot-blooded and tempestuous, but quickly forgiving. Observe Howard and his small brother, the latter carelessly swinging the mashie, cause of all the excitement!

Howard was a tall handsome boy of nearly seventeen, with a good-tempered mouth and a certain laziness of eye. His adolescenee was marked by the regrettable purple socks that matched the silk handkerchief which drooped languidly out of his breast pocket. Altogether a very fair specimen of the average English schoolboy, clean cut and straight run, nothing very brilliant in the intellectual line, but with soaring hopes of getting his cricket colours next season.

Roly can be dismissed as a small, intensely grubby boy, with a very wide mouth, a scratch across his turned-up freckled nose, and a large grin that showed two teeth missing in front. He was, however, the possessor of a most charming and gravely courteous manner, which, when he cared to use it, could extract many a tip from his mother’s friends. Heated with the flush of battle, he bawled out as his sisters approached :

“T say, Livvy! I’m goin’ down to the mill-pond to see if that old raft is still there? Comin’ ?”

“No, thanks. I’m going with D-Deirdre. Go and fall in b-by yourself.”

“You're a coward! You won’t come ’cause you’re frightened, Sissy!”

“T’m not, you horrid, rude little beast!”

“Yah!” said Roly, putting out his tongue, and squinting horribly.

Olivia pushed back the Mushroom and advanced, her face scarlet. But Deirdre caught hold of her.

“Oh, shut up!” she said. “You don’t want to get me into another row, do you? Roly, don’t be a rude little boy. Livvy, you can go with him if you like— I can walk to Gilly’s by myself.”

“T’ll come with you,” said Howard, who at the word “row” had pricked up his ears.

Olivia, who really wanted to go with Roly, hesitated, torn between her dignity and desire. Desire won, and dragging up one stocking, she followed the now admirable Roly through the garden out into the road. Deirdre and Howard followed more slowly, and it was only when they were out in the shady road that the boy spoke.

“T say, what’s all this about a row?”

“A row with Her, of course,” said Deirdre curtly.

“What ho! What was it about?”

“You—and Olivia. You making a row in the garden, and Livvy torturing the grand with the “Jolly Peasant.” ”

Howard stopped short, his pleasant boyish face flushing.

“Oh, I say! What rotten luck! But what’s it got to do with you how much row I make?”

“I being the eldest, am supposed to keep order among you all. She thinks I’m a sort of nursery governess and automaton rolled into one. Well, I’m not. I told Her so.”

“Qh, I say!’ said Howard again, and with distress. He was very fond of Deirdre, but did not quite understand her at times.

“For once I told Her what I thought of Her. I think,” said Deirdre without the slightest amusement or triumph, “that I got in one or two things rather neatly. She was almost stunned into silence—think of that !”

“T do!” grinned Howard appreciatively. He had no occasion to love his mother. “My aunt! I wish I’d heard you, old girl.”

“Howard, do you think She'll be any nicer now? Do you? Do you think She'll give me pretty clothes, and friends, and let me come down to dinner at nights? Oh, it isn’t fair that we all should be neglected like this!’ She was climbing a stile as she spoke, and she turned, with a foot on the first rung, tears actually in her green eyes. ‘Look at me!” she said despairingly. “Don’t I look awful? Simply abominably shabby and vile?”

Howard surveyed her with troubled eyes. Even his boyish eyes saw that somehow she was “wrong”— other chaps’ sisters at Lords’, or on Founders’ Day, didn’t look like this, all out of elbows and down at heel and shabby.

“It’s a shame!” he said hotly. “That old devil! Oh Lord, if only Dad had a bit more guts he’d pitch into Her, and make Her turn you out decently.”

“Yes, he would,” said Deirdre tonelessly. “But what’s the use? He won’t.”

There was something so despairing in her voice and walk that Howard, with a rare outburst of demonstrativeness, took her arm.

“T say, buck up, old girl,” he urged. “Just wait for a bit and she’s sure to knuckle down. Why don’t you get Aunt Vi to do something?”

“She’s away now—abroad. But I know she’d help me, the darling. She’s always pitching into Her about the way Livvy and Roly are allowed to run wild. Isn’t it jolly queer that two sisters like Aunt Vi and Her should be so different?”

— “Um! P’raps She’s a what-jer-call-it—a throw back, you know. Wish Aunt Vi had married Dad.”

“So do I—though for her sake I’m glad she didn’t. Dad’s an old dear, but he’s got about as much pep as a veal sandwich. But don’t you worry! I’m going to get out of this sort of life if I have to elope with someone! You watch me, my lad!”

With one of her sudden and bewildering changes of mood she was laughing now, and Howard, much relieved, dropped her arm.

“I say, do you mind if I hop it now? I want to buzz up to the links and have a round before lunch. What are you going to do?”

“Oh, just stroll round. Cheeroh—I may come up afterwards.”

She watched him out of sight, and.then wandered down a little path into Gilly’s Wood, a favourite haunt of hers when she wanted to be alone, bereft of even the beloved Howard’s company.

For there were strange places in Deirdre’s soul— hidden gardens and pleasances that the boy, who loved her perhaps better than any of the others, was dimly aware of, and never sought to explore. She would get queer moods, that Olivia once declared “gave her the pip’—moods when she walked and talked miles away from everyone else, with dreaming eyes that looked at the everyday world and saw it not. On such occasions she would retire to Gilly’s Wood and sit, arms clasping knees, dreaming, brooding, planning— escape. Escape into the world that she wanted so desperately, escape from ugly clothes, and obscurity, and loneliness

Distapesci ae

III

Few penetrated into Gilly’s Wood, for a large noticeboard on the outskirts of it announced that “Trespassers would be prosecuted.” Therefore Deirdre, who for years had been granted the free run of it by Farmer Gilly, a great friend of hers, found all the solitude there that she could desire.

Gilly’s Wood was large, and a little stream ran through it, spanned at intervals by picturesque little bridges made of logs. Deirdre loved it at all times— when the first primroses and wind-flowers made a _ delicate carpet for one’s feet; in bluebell time; in the Autumn, when she walked ankle-deep in the orange and russet sea of dead leaves, the silence broken only by the soft whispering of falling leaves or the little “plop!” of a beech nut falling; and even in the Winter, when the ground by the stream was thick in mud, and the trees. stood stripped and black against a dreary sky. But bluebell time was her favourite, and it was bluebell time now.

She went to her favourite place—a natural little clearing by the stream—one shimmer of mauve blue. A giant beech tree hung over the stream—she sat down in her usual place, a sort of chair formed by its great twisted mossy roots.

The girl lay back and closed her eyes. Her thoughts started gathering as usual, like bees round a honeypot, round the dream of her life

Escape, escape!

Funnily enough, no thoughts of love, or of a Fairy Prince who might help her to escape, ever entered her head. She would do it herself, independently, flaunting it in the face of the Lady in the Gilt Bed. ’ She would get out, and drag Olivia out with her. Howard and Roly were all right—they were boys—

Roly would soon be going to a preparatory school, and afterwards following Howard to Harrow. But it was for herself and Olivia that she felt sorry. If they had been sent to boarding school it would have perhaps been better. But that did not fit in with Mrs. Bellamy’s scheme of things. Deirdre and Olivia could pick up anything they could with an inefficient governess at home, and then Deirdre could look after Roly for her. It dispensed with a nurse, and Mrs. Bellamy, despite her extravagance about herself, was canny. Her husband’s firm had lately suffered a very severe loss, and she realized that the more expenses were cut down the better. So the children ran wild, a set of untidy, uncared-for little hooligans, while Deirdre planned escape

She opened her eyes suddenly—how hot it was! The sun penetrated even through the thickly interlaced leaves above her. The bluebells were all round her, right down to the edge of the stream, where the ferns grew, washing up to the tree trunks in great waves of shimmery blue. The scent of them came to her in a sudden sweet breath—and the lazy drone of the bees blundering clumsily in and out of the delicate bells.

How hot it was! Deirdre sat up and looked at the stream—it murmured along so coldly—she could see the shining brown smoothness of the stones at the bottom

It took her only a minute or so to drag off those clumsy heavy shoes and thick stockings, and to dabble her pink toes in the clear water. How cool it was, and refreshing! She sent a shower of dew-drops flying with one foot, and laughed with the easily pleased amusement of a child. She picked a few bluebells and stuck them in her hair, bending to look at her laughing young face in the stream.

As she raised her eyes she saw the Boy. He was leaning against a tree on the opposite bank—he must have been watching her for some minutes. They stared at each other for a few seconds, the girl with her red lips parted, the boy smiling. Then he said “Hulloa!”’ like a child at a party, and she, smiling back, “Hulloa!’”

“Tm coming over! May I?”

She nodded, dumbly, watching him with eyes that were rather pathetically wistful.

He cleared the stream in one long leap, and stood looking down at her, laughing very gloriously. And she laughed too, a strange happy feeling possessing her.

He sat down and they stared at each other again, quite without embarrassment or curiosity. Indeed, each felt an odd sense of familiarity, as if long, long ago they had sat in this very wood and looked at each other thus. It was like, instead of a first encounter, a meeting after having been parted for years —Deirdre stared at the boy, and he stared back at her.

He was a tall lad, slenderly built, but with the figure of an athlete—he was perhaps nineteen years old. For the rest, Deirdre got an impression of a dark-skinned, thin, eager face, very bright, laughing brown eyes, and untidy hair as black as her own. The mouth was well cut, with sensitive lips that laughed at her with a certain rather charming audacity.

She laughed back because she felt impelled to do so—there was something in this boy that called to her as insistently as a voice.

He spoke first, and he spoke gaily, as if they had been friends for years.

“I say, what ripping feet you have.”

Deirdre looked at them with new eyes—no one had ever told her this before. They were beautiful, small and narrow, with a high, delicate instep, all white and rosy, like apple-blossom.

“You don’t mind me saying that, do you?” asked the boy, leaning forward anxiously.

Deirdre smiled at him.

“T like it!” she told him childishly.

He looked relieved.

“Then that’s all right! I thought you looked a ripper when I saw you. What’s your name? I say, I feel that we’re going to be awful pals.”

Again that tingle of happiness all through her— This boy, with his audacious, smiling mouth, his gay eyes, his splendid youth

“Deirdre,” she said like a child.

“Deirdre what?”

A strange impish impulse made her shake her head.

“Just Deirdre

“Oh, very well! If you won’t tell me I won’t tell you! Deirdre—what a jolly queer name! Deirdre

—I rather like it though. Haven’t you got a nickname ?”

It did not seem a bit strange to be asked this by a strange. boy of perhaps five minutes’ acquaintance. She shook her head, laughing.

“Well, I shall call you ‘Dear.’ It’s so much shorter than Deirdre—I say, do you mind?” He shot her the funniest look of anxiety and entreaty and gay audacity. She didn’t mind in the least, and told him so. Indeed she exulted in it. He propped up his chin on his hands, still keeping his eyes fixed on her. “Then that’s all right,” he remarked comfortably. “T say, it’s awfully queer but I feel as if I’d known you for ages and ages f

“Do you really? SodoI! Isn’t it strange?”

They looked at each other appraisingly, and with something that was almost a little awed in their eyes. Then Deirdre said:

“What’s your name? I’ve told you mine?”

“What? Oh, my name’s Guy—I shan’t tell you the other part as you won't tell me! Now as we're going’ to be pals we may as well exchange histories, etc., mayn’t we? I’m nineteen, and I and my mother are staying near here at—no, I don’t think I'll tell you the name as you’re so keen on mysteries!’’ His dark eyes challenged hers gaily. “I wish you could meet my mother. She’s just the toppingest thing in mothers going—though I expect,” he added generously, “that yours is pretty near her.’’ Deirdre smiled a little at this. “I am at Winchester, you know—I shall be leaving next term, though, worse luck. And then comes the ’Varsity, and—well, I think that’s about all there is to tell you. Now you He leaned back comfortably and prepared to listen.

Deirdre hesitated for a moment, then she said slowly:

“Tf I tell you the truth you won’t be shocked, will you?”

“Shocked! Good Lord, no! Of course, don’t tell me if you don’t want to——”

“Oh, but I do! It’s only that it may seem rather— rather awful to you. You see, you’ve got a topping mother and I haven’t. It makes no end of difference. My mother gave us all picturesque names when we were born, and then wiped her hands of us. It’s horrible to say—it may sound terrible to you—but we all loathe our mother.”

“Oh, I say!” ejaculated Guy in distress.

“There, I knew that you’d be shocked! But so would you, if you were badly dressed, and kept in the background, and made to look after a small brother and sister all the time Ye

“But look here,’ Guy said awkwardly, “are your people—er—badly off?”

“Badly off! No, there’d be some excuse if they were! But we live in a large house, and my mother is always giving parties and things, and she dresses gloriously. Yet Olivia and I go about in old clothes looking like ragamuffins—and she never speaks to me, or kisses me, or has me down in the drawing-room! Never, never! She hates me! I don’t know why, but she hates me!’

The boy felt an extraordinary flood of anger, hearing these forlorn words, and seeing her tightly folded lips quiver a little in spite of themselves. The colour rushed up under his dark skin, and he impetuously caught hold of her hand. Just held it for a second tight, and then dropped it, but it seemed to her like a mute expression of sympathy.

“TI wonder why she hates me? It seems so dreadful, doesn’t it?”

“Is she pretty?’

“Oh, yes—dark, you know, with a sort of golden skin and dark eyes. And she wears such topping clothes that she looks about twenty-five.”

“That of course explains it. Just take a peep at yourself in that jolly little stream affair, and you'll see why she doesn’t like you.”

Deirdre peeped obediently. She saw reflected in the water her own vivid, young dryad’s face, with its beautiful mouth, its strange green eyes, its heavy waves of lustreless black hair.

And the boy watched her, smiling.

“Well, do you see?”

“T suppose you mean because I’m pretty? Do you think I am?”

“T shan’t tell you what I Sevens would take too long, and it might make you vain ‘é

This wonderful boy with his laughing mouth!

“T’m not vain. No one has ever told me I was pretty before. They used to call me ‘Cat’s-eyes’ at home because my eyes are that horrible green ¥

“Horrible! Don’t be silly! They’re exactly like very deep, clear lakes, with a lot of jewels and things sunk at the bottom that one can’t quite see but one knows are there 2

This wonderful boy!

And the amazing part is that he said this quite sincerely and simply, without any self-consciousness or confusion, and just as simply Deirdre listened. _

She surveyed him curiously. He was certainly the most bewildering, strange, wonderful boy that she had ever met.

“Do you like poetry?”

“Like it? It’s my hobby! I find some bit that has a sort of haunting sound, and I think of it, and store it up for days. That’s what I shall do when I’ve finished at the ’Varsity—write, you know. Not poetry, because it’s such a fag looking for a rhyme. But books and things.”’

“Honestly?’ There was awe in her wide gaze. Certainly this was a marvellous youth.

“Oh, rather—I’ve always intended to.”’

He went on, laughingly—“I say, how rummy it is that we should be gassing away like this in no time, isn’t it? Must be what-d’you-call-it—Destiny you Know, that sent me here.”

“You're trespassing, anyway,” said Deirdre severely.

“Am I? Well, it was worth it, after all mins

They looked at each other again with grave eyes that suddenly were alight with mirth. They laughed together—for no particular reason other than the perfectly adequate one that they were both very young, and the bees in the bluebells were droning in a low, pleasant burr, and a blackbird was calling somewhere in the woods.

Suddenly the boy lifted his head.

“Listen to that fellow,’ he said. “He’s calling your name! ‘Dear! Dear! Dear!” He smiled at her, and she listened too.

“Dear! Dear! Dear!” fluted the blackbird.

“This wood must be yours,” said Guy gaily. “Even the birds know it! I say, you're not a thingummy— a dryad affair, are you? You look rather like one, you know! Promise you won’t disappear into the stream, or turn into an oak tree, or any rot like that, won’t your”

“No, I won’t turn into an oak tree, but I’ve got to go now. It must be nearly lunch time. Where are my stockings? Oh, you're sitting on them!”

He tossed them over, and watched her, frowning, as, quite free from self-consciousness, she drew them on, hiding the pink and white slenderness of her pretty feet.

“Tt seems a shame to hide them,” he said abruptly.

“And these stockings are so thick too——’”’

“You ought to have those shiny silk ones, like mother’s, and silver shoes a

Deirdre smiled.

“Always silver shoes?”

“Always and always—like a Fairy Princess, you know. They'd twinkle as you walked of

The girl got up, and he gathered up his long person from the soft mossy ground.

“Good-bye 7

“Oh, I say—aren’t you coming again? Do come to-morrow !”

They stood looking at each other—the boy half smiling, half grave, the girl serious.

“Do you want me to come?”

“Rather! © Why’—his voice was injured—‘I thought we were going to be pals!’ His warm gaze swept her, surrounded her.

“All right—yes, [ll come.”’

“You will? Oh, well played! Well then, it’s not good-bye, is it? Only au revoir %

“Au revoir, then “s

“Au revoir—Dear.

His eyes were audaciously mocking, challenging her —she had to laugh—this boy called for laughter. And, laughing, she went—as quickly as the fleeing dryad he had compared her to. The woods lay still and waited for the morrow,