THE SLEEPING FAUN

I

“William writes that he is home from Italy, Helena; that he is married to Lucia Vasotti, and that he begs us to send the child to Great House on a visit, so that it may be less lonely for Lucia—a stranger in a strange land, as he justly observes.”

“And likely to remain so. Most unsuitable.”

“Hush, Helena, we must not be harsh. We will send the child, but only for a short time.”

Launce was that child, and that was the first word he had of Lucia Vasotti—her name, linked with “unsuitable.” It must have been blown to him on some wind of chance, because he was up in the dove-house at the time with three Ribston pippins and The Bride of Lammermoor. The flutter of homely wings was in his ears, the sharp fresh apple-scent on his lips, Lucia was maddening on the sunlit page before him, and “Lucia” was blown past him on the keen spring air. Until he died, that name was to him as the call of remembered music far away. Then old Pansy came and hauled him down the ladder in a hurry to be measured for two new shirts.

Launce was the only child at that time in the family, and he was used to being handed round a large circle of grown-ups for the comfort of this or that member thereof, like a foot-warmer. He remembered his Uncle William as a tall, dark man, incredibly supplied with shillings and generous of the same. Great House he did not know, but he was a child of steadfast mind. He went off very calmly, well shawled and muffled, with a small black box and two white mice in a cage. It was a day’s journey, of which he remembered little, save that the willow catkins were out and the southward-fronting gorse in bloom along the windy coast. He reached Great House just as a wild sunset was faring above the sea.

The house stood high for that level land, surrounded with a great sweep of terraces and plantations. It was built upon a fair and gracious plan, but the bitter sea and the north-east had taken their toll of it. The gardens were starved with sand, and the trees shorn off at wind-mark as with a sword. The buildings too were grey and wind-bitten, but now they swam in a strange red light. On the terrace above the beach a lady paced up and down, wrapped in a red cloak. And she moved like a moving flame in a still mist of fire.

“That is Unsuitable Lucia,” said Launce. He turned along the terrace path where the sea-shells gritted with the gravel, the mouse-cage tied up in a blue handkerchief in one hand, and his cap in the other, rehearsing the little speech that Aunt Helena had taught him last Sunday with his collect. As a result he was not very clear whether his “honoured aunt and the warm welcome that ever awaited dear William’s bride, however unexpected,” held a prominent position in the Church Service, or whether he must remind this Lucia that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, but need to be kept both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls. However, he had no time for either, for the lady saw him, and stood, holding out her hands.

“Are you Launce?”

The child went up to her; he could see that her eyes and hair would have been very dark without the red-gold light that shone in them as fire shines through smoke. Then she moved quickly and kissed him, and the vision was blotted in the folds of her red cloak, through which he saw the world as in a flame. “Are you Launce? I am your new Aunt Lucia, but you must call me Lucy, for I am English now. I shall love you, you little brown, long-nosed boy. Will you love me?”

But how could the boy answer, drowned in his first vision of what a face might be.

She laughed a little, and sent a long, ringing call up to the house—“William, O William, here is our nephew come.” And then there was Uncle William, jumping out of the window of the gun-room and running down the terraces, and saying. By Gad, now, was that big boy little Launce, and how glad he was to see him, and Mrs. Annerley had tea ready in her room. But first he’d better give the mice to Simmons.

“I’d rather have them in my room, if Aunt Lucia does not mind. They are not very mousy.”

“Afraid you’ll be lonely in the night, eh?”

“No, Uncle Will; I’m afraid they will be lonely, they are sensitive mice.”

And Lucia laughed. “Why should I mind, William, the pretty little living things in the house? There are so few of them.” She glanced at the house with a faint shiver. The sea had suddenly taken the sun, and they moved like grey ghosts in a ghostly garden. Only on Lucia’s face the light seemed to linger.

Uncle Will patted her hand as he had patted Launce. “Well, come along, laddie. You must be hungry, and Mrs. Annerley has slain the fatted calf. But go into the gun-room first. There’s someone there you see more often than you do me.”

“Who?”

“Your godfather.”

Launce went to the gun-room with a happy face, and greeted his godfather with a nod, as one boy greets another. Mr. Geoffrey Launcelot was sitting on the table, apparently busy in admiring his own legs, very effective in new gaiters. He went straight to the point, as was his custom. “How’s the brown rabbit?”

“Well, sir, thank you, and has seven little ones. I’ve given two to Bill’s boy.”

“That’s right. Always give away what you don’t want yourself. How’s Foxy?”

“He’s well too.”

“And what do you think of your new aunt?”

Launce stood gazing at him above the mouse-cage. He opened his lips to speak, but the vision came on him again, and something beat in his heart and choked his throat like the flutter of prisoned wings. He stood stammering, and felt with amazement his own cheeks grown wet with tears.

Mr. Launcelot handed him a handkerchief with an unmoved face. “Boy,” said he, “I’m sometimes damnably afraid you’re going to be a poet.”

Launce steadied his nerves with Mrs. Annerley’s veal pie. He slept in a little gaunt room looking out over the gardens. Downstairs there was music—Lucia’s laughter, the piano. Uncle Will’s hunting songs, and then young Geoffrey’s tenor, high and wild as a bugle, ringing through the hollow corridors.

He fell asleep to the unaccustomed music, and he awoke to music—the bleak music of the wind and the sea.

He was late for breakfast, but Geoffrey was even later, strolling in imperturbably after the eggs, his curly hair still sleek from the sea.

“To-day,” Uncle Will announced, “we’re going to unpack wedding presents.”

Unpack—a happy word. Launce awoke from a dream of Lucia’s morning face behind the urn.

“Well, boy?”

“I have a new knife, sir. If I might cut the strings—?”

“Come into the hall. They are all there. And you shall cut all the strings.”

The grey old hall was littered with packages and cases and straw; the wind shook the curtains, and drove along the floor a fine dust that was not dust of the earth, but sand of the sea. Launce was sent for Lucia’s red cloak, a happy errand. And when he came back they had knocked a wooden case apart and stood above the swathed contents, waiting with a smile for the offices of the new knife.

There were many strings to be cut, but at last the packing and the sackcloth fell away. And Launce cried out suddenly and was silent. He felt again that flutter as of wings in his heart.

Yesterday he had looked his first on beauty living and mortal. Now he looked his first on beauty dead and all but immortal.

A boy was there, sleeping in the honey-coloured marble that seemed to have drunk its fill of some long-remembered sun. So soft, so warm, so golden-grey it shone in the dusk of the hall, that Launce cried out again to touch it and find it cold. The boy lay with his head thrown back on his arm. Vine-leaves, broken now, were falling from his hand, clinging to his curls, and vine-leaves lay where his little goat-hooves had crushed them ere he slept. His face was neither good nor evil, only beautiful. And his happy sleep seemed so light a thing that a laugh, a song, the touch of a bird’s wing or the shadow of a falling leaf must serve to break it, and awaken him to some unknown life apart from evil and from good, the rising and setting of whose days and nights was beauty.

“Well, my lady,” cried Uncle Will in his big voice, “you know where that comes from, hey?”

With one of her swallow-swift movements, Lucia stooped above it. “The villa,” she murmured, “the gardens, the laughing sea, and the sun—” She laid her cheek suddenly to the smooth, cold cheek of the sleeping faun. “I kiss you, O beautiful, for the sea and the sun—for Italy—”

“You are an odd kitten, Lucia,” said Uncle Will, “and you have some dust on your cheek. Let me wipe it off for you. And don’t forget to tell Mrs. Annerley about those sweetbreads.”

To Launce—and another—it seemed the little faun should have smiled and wakened beneath that kiss of hers.

Launce wrote home that evening:

“My dear Aunt Helena, I am very Well. The mice are very Well. Uncle William is very Well, and will write when he can gain Leisure. Aunt Lucia is very well. I am glad to be here to prevent her from being Lonely. My dear Godfather is here too, to prevent her from being Lonely. He sends his Compliments, and did not tell me how to spell it. He has new Gaiters. He has a new Horse, which he calls Monseigneur. I do my Latin daily, and am, my dear Aunt, your loving and dewtiful Nephew, Launce. My dear Aunt. She is bewtiful.”

II

Launce was very happy at Great House, in a way that was a little bewildered and dream-like. The grooms and gardeners liked him, and were kindly. There were horses in the stables, great store of pups and kittens, and a boy with red hair who kept two ferrets and had been known to win sevenpence on the races. He read Latin with Uncle Will, who had forgotten his syntax, but vastly revered Horace. He had long walks and talks with Lucia on the windy terraces, and might dream of her by the hour in a newly-dug cave behind the summer-house. Mr. Launcelot, fashionably languid by day, was wont to wake up in the evening and go thundering about the country on his great bay horse. Often he took Launce on the saddle in front of him, and the boy would spend an hour of delirious delight as they swooped in great curves above the hard beaches, returning with clouded stars ahead and the foam of the in-running tide at the horse’s heels. Sometimes they would all go off together, a merry party, Uncle Will on his steady grey weight-carrier, Launce on a fat pony, Lucia on a brave old mare with a touch of the Arab. Then at the last mile Uncle Will would say, “Give her a gallop, Geoff,” and the two light-weights would flash away, the old mare running as smooth as a swallow, and Geoffrey a neck behind, bearing hard on Monseigneur’s bit—away and away, down the levels of silver sand to the far lights of Great House. Uncle Will always rode that last mile with Launce in silence. Once he said, “I wish I weren’t forty-three, boy, and didn’t ride fourteen stone.” It occured to Launce that his godfather, fighting the great bay, was a fine thing to see.

They set the sleeping faun on an old pedestal against the sea wall, among a struggling growth of rusty wallflowers and sea-lavender, under the windows of Launce’s room and the gun-room. The boy would waken in the moonlight and watch that other boy asleep in the gusts of the night. Sometimes the waves would cover the flat beach almost to the bounds of the garden; and then in the early morning Launce would go and clear the little faun of dried weed and sand, and the bitter salt crusting of the sea. He begged a hardy rose of the gardener, and planted it at the faun’s head, but the wind uprooted it.

Lucia found him as he was taking it from the sand. “What are you doing, little boy?” She nearly always called him “little boy” with a smile that was a caress.

Launce found it hard to explain, and turned very red in the effort. “I thought he would like a flower.”

“But there are little flowers here.”

“Yes, I know. They are very sweet, but the lavender looks grey, and the wallflowers are like rust. I—I thought he would like something—different. These—these are not his flowers.”

She was dressed for riding, and stood looking at the child gravely, tapping the stone with her whip. “What then?”

“A red rose, Madonna.”

“Hush,” said Lucia quickly, “hush. You must not call me that.” She laid her fingers an instant on his lips.

Launce turned redder than ever. “I’m sorry, Aunt Lucy. I heard godfather call you that, and Uncle Will laughed. I thought it was polite.” He hoped she would laugh too, and kiss him in a pleased way, as she did when he remembered to give her her English name of Lucy.

But she still looked at him strangely. “These little flowers are just as sweet,” she said with earnestness: “they are brave and poor, but they content the heart. Oh, yes they content the heart.”

“Not his,” persisted Launce; “he wants roses, Aunt Lucy, red roses with the sun on ’em.” He looked up at her shamefacedly, and saw to his relief that she was smiling at last, though her eyes were shadowed.

“How do you know?”

Launce shuffled in the sand. There was nothing she might not have of him when she used that voice. He would have told her of his fight with the red-haired boy, of the cave behind the summer-house, even of the humiliating fact that he still kept, secretly, at the bottom of his play-box, a shapeless wooden doll called Ephraim. Now she lightly asked of him a harder thing—his dreams. Well, she should have them.

“I think he is not really asleep, the little faun. Aunt Lucy, I think in the night, the quiet dark night, he wakes up.”

“He wakes up—?”

“Yes. He’s not very clever. He does not know where he is. But he can do things.”

“What things, little boy?”

“I don’t quite know. But he knows something, and they know too. I think I’ve seen, Aunt Lucy—I’m almost sure I’ve seen. I think he calls things. He wakes and calls. It is like music, but there is no sound. It is like dancing, but he does not move. Only he is awake, somehow, inside the stone. And last night, when the moon came out between the clouds, I saw the rabbits dance on the path, and other things, too—”

“What things?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Launce desperately. “I fell asleep on the window-sill. Little queer things out of the larch-plantation, but all alive and dancing.”

“Dancing—?”

“Yes,” said Launce, fired by his own fancies—“like this.” He flung two handfuls of sand in the air, and began to dance on the starved grass. He was small and slight, and he moved, in his wild fit, like an elf of the woods, a leaf in the wind. All the steps he ever knew he wove into a medley, beautiful because of the speed and grace of his little flinging body. Then, dancing fast and faster, he lost them, and there was nothing but young life leaping in the air, as the blood in the heart, the wave on the sea. “This is how the little faun dances,” he cried, shrilly. And in a moment Lucia had swept up her trailing skirts, and was dancing too.

If the child danced like a leaf in the wind, she danced like a flame in the bracken, a swallow in the air. Launce dropped on his hands and knees to watch her, breathless, and she wove a chain of lovely movements around him as he knelt. Her feet moved like music, her green habit seemed to bear her up like a bubble with fire in the heart of it. Her wild face was flushed, exquisite under her shaken hair. But when Geoffrey Launcelot came down the path she stopped in a flash, and was once more the great lady of Great House.

“Will can’t come,” said Geoffrey, pulling on his gloves; he had apparently seen nothing of the dancing. “He bade me offer my escort, Signora.”

“Shall we ride, sir?” said Lucia gravely.

Mr. Launcelot bowed. “If you will so far honour me, Signora?”

Then, catching the subdued wonder of his eyes, Lucia laughed, and Geoffrey began to laugh, and Launce echoed them for very pleasure in the sound. “But do not call me that, Cousin Geoffrey,” said Lucia. “Do not say ‘Signora.’ ”

“What must I say?”

“Say ‘Cousin Lucy.’ That is English, and of the English custom. I wish to forget—the other—”

“Thank you, Cousin Lucy.” Geoffrey did not lift his eyes from his gloves. “I told Simmons to bring the horses round to the foot of the steps. Shall we mount there?”

A flight of broad, shallow stone stairs led from the lower terrace to the beach. They were always scoured and swept by wind and wave, half buried in sand, with shells and bent-grass in the cracks. Simmons was holding the two horses on the beach-road beneath. Launce joined him, and was warned from Monseigneur’s heels. The others followed. Geoffrey handed Lucia down the old steps as though all London town were watching, and had for his reward the touch of her foot in his hand as she sprang to the saddle.

“Shall we take the boy?” he asked, with a look at Launce, hopping hopefully in the sand.

Lucia glanced with a little shrug at Monseigneur. “If you think it is safe.”

“I guarantee that, of the two, my neck is the only one like to be broken. And that, Cousin Lucy, is of consequence to nobody.”

Lucia was bubbling over with mischief. “I do think you take very good care of your neck, Cousin Geoffrey,” she said kindly. “I hear of you as a very reckless young man, but I see nothing of it. You do no very hard things, and you always change your boots when they are wet. And I have left my whip near the little faun—Dio mio!—”

The others echoed her startled cry. For Geoffrey, with a sudden little laugh, faced the bay horse at the broad steps and began forcing him up them, with hand and knee and spur—up, up, snorting and straining, to the terrace. He swung him round the little faun, caught up Lucia’s whip, and came down the steps again in one leaping, clattering rush that seemed as if it must end in red ruin.

“My God, sir!” cried old Simmons shrilly, snatching at Launce.

The bay came down on his knees in a shower of sand and shingle, staggered up and on, and was carried clear across the beach-road into the surf. Here the rider had the mastery in an instant. And before they could catch breath he was at Lucia’s side, splashed to the hair, on the wet and trembling horse.

“Here is your whip, Cousin Lucy,” he said, gently.

“My God, sir!” quavered old Simmons again, running to the horse’s knees.

Lucia did not take the whip. She sat looking at Geoffrey, trembling exceedingly. “How dare you!” she said at last, under her breath, “how dare you!”—and then, bending forward, she broke into wild tears.

The colour went from Geoffrey’s face as if he had been struck, and Launce, with a swift sense that the world had begun to go astray, saw that he too was shaking. “Here’s your whip, Cousin Lucy,” he said again, and even his voice shook.

But she struck it from his hand, struck it down in the sand, spurred the mare, and went off full speed down the beach. Geoffrey followed her in an instant. They saw her motion him away fiercely, saw him rein Monseigneur back two lengths in his thunderous canter. Then the silver shimmer of sun on leagues of grey beach and sea took them, and old Simmons turned with a sigh. “Lord be gentle wi’ ’em,” he said, aloud. “Come you wi’ me, Master Launce.”

The bleak gardens lay grey and quiet in the pale light. Only the crushed and trampled wallflowers and the old steps scarred with hooves served to show that a storm had passed. Launce, touching the little faun as he lay in his stone sleep, started back to find the leaf-covered breast warm, as if a heart beat there. But it was only the warmth of the sun.

That night Lucia did not go early to the drawing-room, but sat with Launce in the little room over the gardens till he fell asleep. The moon seemed to be reeling down the skies under a great press of steam-white cloud, and now the room was dark, now silver-bright. Sometimes Launce had no more of Lucia than her firm, small hand in his; sometimes he saw her face, pale and clear as the face of the little faun in the garden below. He was very sleepy, and there seemed to be music in the air; drowsing, he wondered if the little faun were calling them so, out to some unknown magic of the night. Presently there was more music in the room beneath—the gayest, brightest little laughing tunes imaginable, and a cheerful thumping noise. Uncle Will was apparently sitting on the window-sill and applauding with his feet; and the tunes went flying out of the window like little blue and golden birds.

“Sing, Geoff, sing,” cried Uncle Will in delight.

There was a silence, a changed chord on the instrument, and the high, wild voice rang out:—

Again the child was pierced with that wordless sense of the world astray, of loneliness, of loss. “Godfather Geoff is going away,” he said drowsily, “he told me so,” and felt for Lucia’s hand. The room seemed to open in the darkness, fronting a flood of silver. And he saw her face, shining with silent tears.

III

Great House by day was a mere pile of bleak grey stone, set in a wind-bitten garden. Selfish lovers, the sun and the wind took, but gave little. But at night the place seemed to come into its own. The straggling larch plantations took on mystery from the dark, the shivering birches took on grace, the sandy paths shone silver as if for the tread of unseen feet. By day everyone stayed away from the house as much as possible; only by night was it a home, with laughter and song and the light of welcoming windows. All that the day denied the night bestowed. And it was at night that Launce made his plans and discoveries.

It was one of these plans that led him, after being safely bestowed in bed by Mrs. Annerley, to rise and wrap himself in a coat and seek the garden by devious ways, with a small bottle in his pocket and the two white mice for company. The bottle contained the dregs of wine glasses, secured and preserved with some difficulty. He was going to try the effect of a ceremonial libation on the little faun.

His step from the door-sill to the gravel had the nature of a plunge from land to water, so different was the hush outside, to the ordered, companionable stillness of the house. His heart beat high. The night was one of heavy calm, the sea beneath the sandy terraces was almost silent. A few stars showed, and the hollow sky was full of the wandering cries of peewits wheeling inland above the salt marshes and the crumbling dunes. The little faun was very cold and very still in the dark. He laid the little silken, throbbing bodies of the mice in the curved stone fingers, and they cowered there without a movement.

“There’s no dancing to-night,” said Launce to himself, leaning his little dark face above the drowsing face of stone. Nothing moved in the plantations; nothing flickered on the lawn. Faunus was no more than a cunning stone carved long ago by men forgotten. “He’s not here to-night,” said Launce gravely to the mice, “he’s gone away. I must make haste.”

The mice cuddled closer. All sense of imminent life was gone from the faun. Launce glanced into the darkness. Was he free of the stone at last, let loose, a little flitting shape, stone-white yet shadowy—a swift beast-shape half-fashioned into man—snuffing at Lucia’s bed of daffodils, cutting down the irises with heedless hooves, peering into the windows with wrinkled eyelids, calling wordlessly in the night—a happy thing of darkness, knowing neither hope nor regret? Launce took out some rose-leaves from the pot-pourri jar, and the bottle of wine; he drew the cork with his teeth, and it squeaked and made him jump. He held it in readiness.

“O Faun,” whispered Launce, shakily, in a desperate hurry, “I salute you. Hail, O Faun. Drink, and remember. Vale.” And he poured out the wine.

He stood staring, waiting for the miracle, and the wine ran in a dark stain on the little faun’s breast, as if he were hurt to death. There came no wonder but the wonder of the wind.

The hush seemed to thrill, and the herald of the great gust ran rustling through the garden, stirring the leaves to the sound of innumerable little hurrying hooves. Launce felt that he was ringed round by hundreds of capering creatures suddenly imprisoned. But the force let loose was only the wind.

The great gust seemed to leap from the heart of the sky. The stars reeled and went out. Sand and surf the wind caught up as with hands and flung across the wall. For a moment all the powers of the night seemed to be let loose in storm and ruin. Then with a great voice they passed out to sea, and there was stillness again, save for the noise as of numberless little pattering feet among the restless leaves. Launce snatched the mice and ran up the larch plantation like a rabbit, toward the lighted windows of the house. The whole night and all it held seemed to be sweeping after him on threatening wings.

There were voices and footsteps on the gravel, and a beam of light from the gun-room window. His godfather and uncle Will were walking there and talking together. Launce, a mouse in each hand, was just going to fling himself upon them regardless of the result, when something in his uncle’s voice, something in the younger man’s attitude as he listened, held him back. Just what was passing he neither saw nor heard. But he saw Geoffrey swing round as quick as thought and strike the other heavily.

Launce fell on his knees in the shadow of the trees. He was too frightened to move. He longed to hide his eyes or his ears, but he had to hold the restless little mice. His world was breaking and falling.

His uncle caught the raised hand, and his own was swung back for the answering blow. Launee could see Geoffrey’s face, steady and white as he waited for it, his uncle’s flushed and dark. “Are you mad, Geoffrey?” he asked, breathlessly.

There was no answer. To the frightened boy, unwillingly listening, it seemed a silence so dead that the thudding of his own heart must be heard. The night was calm again, yet the whole of life as he knew it was in disorder.

“Are you mad, Geoffrey?” asked William again, but in a different voice.

Geoffrey’s face seemed to be a little raised, a little paler, but again there was no answer.

William’s fist dropped; he stepped back, and passed his hand over his forehead in a bewildered way. “It’s a queer thing,” he said, rather unsteadily, “but I can’t hit you back. You’re like a younger brother, you know, Geoff. I can’t hit you.”

And at that a sort of fury seemed to flash into the younger man’s face. “You must,” he cried, hoarsely.

“Gad, but I can’t, my good fellow,” said William, with a twisted sort of smile, putting his hands in his pockets. “After all, ’tis not the first time we’ve hit each other.”

“This is different, and you know it.”

“Yes. But I daresay it was my fault. I had no right to question you.”

“You have no right to shame me so.”

“Hey?”

“I say,” cried Geoffrey, passionately, “you have no right to shame me so. I was in the wrong, and you know it. You’ve no right to keep me in the wrong forever.”

“D’you want me to call you out? Geoff, Geoff, what the devil’s the matter with you to-night?”

“The devil, perhaps, as you say. I’m not drunk. And strike you must, or that blow of mine will stand between us forever. If you of your generosity forget it, shall I—? Strike me, Will, strike me—hard.”

William raised his hand slowly, and slowly lowered it. “If you’re not drunk with wine, you are with something else, I think,” he said, roughly. “I cannot hit you when I’m not in a rage, and that’s the end of it. Go and get Simmons to pump on your head.”

“It’s not the end of it. Here, then, strike with this.” He caught up a heavy hunting-crop from the window-sill of the gun-room, and thrust it into William’s hand. “Strike with this.”

“I will not—”

“It would not be the first time you had thrashed me.”

“This is different, and you know it—”

“I know it.” He slipped off his coat, and stood. “Hit with that,” he said, between his teeth.

Fired by the fierier soul, William raised the whip and struck, hastily and heedlessly, all bewildered. It was a whip used for Monseigneur in his vicious moods, and a little flick of rending linen and a thread of scarlet followed across Geoffrey’s shoulders. William flung down the whip with an oath. “There, you madman,” he cried, “I’ll do no more,” and for an instant it seemed to the trembling boy that he had Geoffrey in his arms.

They stood silent, with only the dim stars and the cries of the peewits above the garden. The wind had died down again and all the leaves were still.

“Geoff,” said William at last, almost in a whisper, “is it Lucia?”

Geoffrey raised his eyes slowly. “You shall have the truth to-night, if you never have it again. To-night, there’s no honour in a lie. Yes.”

“I should have guessed. Since—Italy?”

“I do not know. Since we came here, something that slept seemed to wake. As the tide covers that beach there—I could not help it. I fought it. If she knows, it is not from any word of mine, Will.”

“You need not tell me that, thank God.”

Geoffrey groaned. “But it was no use, so I was going. I must go to-morrow.”

“Yes, you must go at once. I’m all at sea. Don’t think I’m not sorry. I’m so damnably sorry I don’t know what to say. This marrying and giving in marriage always costs something; I’d rather it had cost my right hand than you. Gad, this is a queer way of talk. I suppose I ought to want to murder you. But I love you and trust you, Geoff, to the hilt. And you’ll go to-morrow—?”

“Yes. I shall never come back.”

“So it is as bad as that? I hope Lucia guesses nothing. She is a tender-hearted child, and it would distress her terribly. This is a queer life, Geoff, and it will be a queer house without you somewhere about half the time. There’s always a price to pay.”

“Yes, there is always a price to pay. This time I pay it,” said Geoffrey, turning away. But he came back. “Give me one thing out of all you have,” he said steadily, “I was to ride with her to-morrow morning. May I have that—still?”

For a moment William was silent. Then his face cleared. “After all, she might suspect and be distressed if you did not. Yes, yes, go, Geoff. I told you I trusted you. God help you.”

“God help us all,” said Geoffrey, looking at him strangely, and caught up his coat, and went. As he passed, the sky seemed to thrill once more, and the heralding air breathed through the garden, waking the leaves to a sound of innumerable soft voices and following feet.

IV

Launce dreamed in the early dawn that he was on board ship, and that the little faun of the garden had the wheel, and was steering the ship through a sea of dried rose-leaves. When Mrs. Annerley came in to wake him, he realized that Great House was creaking and straining like a ship in the battle of heavy seas. But the battle was of the winds.

“Is it a storm, Mrs. Annerley?” Launce sat up in bed awestruck. He could see the leaded panes of the window all blurred with driven sand, but he could not hear it. There was no lull in the wind.

“Come up this last hour, it has, my lamb.” The old lady looked very pale and troubled. “Such a tempest I never did see in so short a while. ’Twas gusty, so to say, all night, and this gale came up with the sun.”

“Which way is it blowing?”

“Straight in from the sea, oh dear, and driving the waves before it like the roaring lions seeking what they may devour in the Scriptures.”

“But there’s nothing to devour here, Mrs. Annerley.”

“There’s Great House and the lives of it, my lamb. You pick up white shells in the onion-beds, don’t you, dearie? Where the sea has been once, the sea will be again. And they two—my lovely ladyship and him I used to give jam to for love of his fair face when he shouldn’t have had it, and he two feet high—oh dear, oh dear. I hope I know my place, but tides may deal the judgments of the Almighty no less than thunderbolts.”

Launce dressed quickly and ran downstairs, wild with excitement. At the door of the breakfast-room he stopped. It was empty save for his uncle, who sat at the head of the table, staring out of the window into the grey fury of the day. He moved no more than a man of stone, and his face had the bleak colour of stone.

Launce slipped silently into his place. A pale servant attended to him, but the man’s eyes were all the time covertly on his master.

Presently Uncle Will spoke, without turning his head. “Send for Simmons again,” he said, in a dead voice.

Old Simmons was there so quickly he must have been waiting outside. He was very wet. His eyes also were on his master with that look Launce could not read, nor see without fear.

“What time did you say they started?” Was that indeed Uncle Will’s voice?

“Soon after daylight, sir, quite early. Mr. Geoffrey, he had the horses ready, and her ladyship came down the side stairs.”

“And you heard them say nothing—as to where they were going?”

“Nothing at all, sir. Mr. Geoffrey said nothing. They turned down the beach road—”

A sound of despair was in the room, yet the master had not spoken.

“—down the beach road. The weather was not near so bad then, but, such as it was, they gave no heed to it.”

“I see. They gave no heed to it. Could they shelter in the dunes?”

“Hardly, sir. Mr. Geoffrey would not risk her ladyship near the quicksands, and the dunes will be moving.”

“Could they shelter anywhere?”

“No, sir. Old Bassey, the shepherd, is downstairs, and he says the North road and the Marshcotes road are not to be passed. The walls and the dyke at Cotes will be gone by this, and the roads swept away.” He and the waiting servant exchanged a look so swift it was almost imperceptible.

“Well?” Uncle Will did not move nor turn his head. A carving-fork lay on the table, and he picked it up idly, snapping the spring-guard with the click of a trigger.

“The best thing to do will be to run back for it, sir.”

“Run back?”

“Yes. Gallop for home before the sea gets over the beach. And that’s what Master Geoff’s doing, I’ll wager.” Simmons’ face was that of the well-trained servant, but his voice betrayed it. It broke at “Master Geoff.” “You can trust Master Geoff, sir,” he went on.

“Trust him?” repeated Uncle Will, snapping the guard. “Thank you, Simmons, that will do. You had better change your wet coat.” He got up and strode out of the room; they heard him open the outer door, heard the wind leap in like a waiting enemy.

“He’s gone to the terraces,” said Simmons quickly to the other man, and followed him.

Launce ran and thrust his hand into the old man’s. “I must go too,” he said piteously.

Simmons wrapped a shawl round him and they went out into the gardens.

The wind and the sand were almost more than sight and breath could bear. Launce felt that the life must be blown out of his body. Another old man, Bassey, the shepherd, staggered up to them, caught his other arm, and the three struggled to the lower terrace where nearly all the household were gathered. Uncle Will was standing at the head of the stone steps; the others stayed apart from him. Only their eyes never left him, except to look along the lost and blinded road for Geoffrey and Lucia.

Sheltered by the other, Launce could catch breath and think. He longed to go to his uncle, but dared not. He was so sorry for Uncle Will, so fond of him. But oh, the others, the others—

“D’ye think he’ll bring her back?” shouted one of the grooms. He shouted, but it came as a whisper.

“There’ll be naught else to do—”

“Nay, I didn’t mean that. Will he get her through?”

“If Master Geoffrey had the mind, Simmons, he’d get her through hell.”

The cook broke in angrily. “Bad luck to you, and Master Launce at your very gaiters, and he but a child.”

“The surf’s at the edge of the road.”

“And the tide far from the full. Never was such a sea, Simmons. The whole garden’ll go, and the terraces. Looky. There’s the drive gone—”

The long drive that wound down by easy levels to the beach road ended now in a crumbling little cliff of gravel. Cries broke out from the group of servants.

“The shake of the waves—”

“ ’Tis like as if the land were falling of itself.”

“Lord ha’ mercy on them.”

Uncle Will strode over to the group. “Is it any good going out?”

“Not any use, sir. What two can’t do, twenty couldn’t do. And there’s not a horse in the stables that’s devil enough to fight with this except the old blood-mare and Monseigneur, and that’s the truth, sir.”

“Yes, sir, that’s the truth.”

William turned in silence and went back to his post

One of the maids broke into a keening cry, shrill and wild as a gull’s, but the wind whipped it from her lips.

A great wave broke in thunder on the beach. They could scarcely hear it: they felt the shock in the earth they stood on. The wind snatched the foam from the crest, tore the foam into mist, and drove the mist through the garden. When they cleared the salt from their eyes they saw a young fir-seedling, growing just outside the lower terrace, heel over in a slow arc and vanish.

The old shepherd turned a white face to Simmons. “Th’ water’s o’er the beach road.”

“Lord ha’ mercy on ’em.”

Gradually they one and all drew to the head of the stone steps where the master stood, and huddled behind him, silent now. He did not heed them. He was as still as the little faun, who lay smiling and sleeping in the storm; the pale light gleamed on the marble till it had the likeness of a body from which the life had gone like a flown bird.

Launce looked at his uncle fearfully, and his face, colourless and streaming with spray, was like the face of a drowned man. The child looked away trembling, and would not look back. And he it was at last who pointed and screamed: “I see them! They’re there—”

“Where, then?”

“The boy’s dreaming. ’Tis too late—”

“There’s naught but the scud and the driving weed.”

But William stooped his face to the child’s. “Where did you see them, laddie?” His face was torn with pain and dripping with foam, but it was no longer dead. The boy did not fear it.

“There—oh, Uncle Will, quite close—for a minute—when the spindrift cleared—”

They all surged forward. His uncle was down on the lower step with a leap, and as he stood the sea broke to his knee. There was nothing but the flying spray and the sting of the sand.

“He saw naught at all.”

“Back, I tell ye. Keep hold of the child. He’s all crazy-like—”

Launce was sobbing and screaming to follow his uncle. “I saw them, I tell you—quite close—”

The maid who had cried before tossed her arms and shrieked against the wind, her face white and wild. “Master Geoffrey—he’s there—”

“What’s got the silly wench?”

“Maybe she’s right. And her ladyship, you fool?”

“Aye, there’s two—”

And in a moment they saw them, clear and close under the wall of the lower terrace, fighting forward foot by foot. The horses huddled so near together they could not see one from the other, but Geoffrey rode on the outside, sheltering Lucia, and it seemed that his arm was round her, either to hold her in the saddle or to catch her from it if need were. Then the scud hid them.

Another great wave rose, and the wild-eyed maid shrieked terribly. The cook laid a hand over her mouth, but she suddenly slid down in a heap on the gravel and was quiet. But no one heeded her. The younger men were down on the lowest step with their master, their arms interlaced. And the great wave broke and buried them to the waist.

“Where are they to get up?”

“The drive’s gone and the road’s gone, and the surf breaks on the wall. ’Tis all sliding sand—”

“Here, here.” Suddenly as an apparition, the riders showed from the gloom but a few yards from the steps. Geoffrey had the mare by the bridle, and the waves broke on the great bay. Both horses were reeling on their legs, the surf creaming at their withers and the sand sucking under their hooves. Monseigneur’s nostrils were blood-bright, his eyes dreadful. On the steps, the men were holding their master back by main force.

“Wait an instant, sir—”

“Give Mr. Geoffrey a chance, sir. He knows what he’s doing—”

“Ah, look!” Monseigneur’s shoulder, Geoffrey’s strength were thrusting the mare at the steps. Her head was almost within their reach. She saw safety and flung forward, with the last of her strength, up and away from the water. A dozen hands were at her bridle. They had her up four steps before she crumpled forward and fell, and William leaped back with Lucia.

He gave no more than a look at the life in her beautiful dazed face, and let them take her, and turned to his friend. But it was long enough.

Heard even above the storm, there was a great cry.

The men on the steps, waiting with arms locked for Monsiegneur as they had waited for the mare, were up to the waist in surf. But a dozen strong hands were ready for the bridle as the horse rose pawing for an instant at the lowest stair. Someone screamed: “Jump for it, Master Geoff.” But Geoffrey stayed in the saddle, the backwash scoured the sand from beneath Monseigneur’s hooves, and somehow the ready hands fell short. Half the sea seemed to raise itself and hang poised above the beach and the gardens, a grey wall curbed and ramparted with running white. They saw them an instant clear—the dreadful straining head of the great horse; Geoffrey with his hand up and his face raised. It was not pale or lost, but flushed with the very fulness of life, the face of one who looks on a thing that is good. His lips moved. It seemed that something went past them on the wind, a voice and a cry—“Lucia—”

Then the great wave fell.

Launce flung face down on the gravel like the kitchen-maid. The world went out. Voices and wild words passed him.

“He reined him back, I tell you, as I’m a living man!”

“What d’ye mean?”

“There, at the foot of the steps. We’d a’ had Monseigneur as we had the mare. Sim’s hand was on the bridle. But Master Geoff reined him back.”

“For God’s sake, don’t say so to the master, then. He’s like mad down there. We had to hold him, or he’d have killed Sim that caught him out of the rush.”

“He reined Monsiegneur back, or we’d a’ had him up the steps before the wave fell. We’d a’ saved him.” The groom seemed to be sobbing.

“Not against his will, lad. He’s al’ays took his will, has our Master Geoff—”

“And her ladyship—?”

“Hush. None’ll know that—”

Someone picked Launce up, and carried him indoors and put him to bed; but the world did not come back. The house was silently astir. Mrs. Annerley, weeping, sat by the child all day, her prayer-book in her hand. The storm was full of voices—the voice of a man who walked up and down the terrace calling openly for his friend, and the voice that cried for ever in the wind, would cry for evermore—“Lucia, Lucia—”

At night the wind lulled and he could hear Mrs. Annerley reading softly—“Graciously look upon our afflictions. Pitifully behold the sorrows of our hearts. Mercifully forgive the sins of Thy people.” He fell asleep, and awoke to the world again. But it was a changed world.

The wind was still, the sky blown cold and clear. A great swell broke in silver on the beach. All the wall and the lower terrace was gone, the flowers and the young larches were gone, and the sleeping faun was gone also, swept away and buried in the ruin of the sand. All along the line of the breakers, men moved quietly, searching.

Launce took the white mice and ran to the stables. He found old Simmons sitting on a bucket in Monseigneur’s empty stall, his hands over his ears, and Launce knew that both listened to the same thing. He would have no need to explain. He spoke with a sob. “I can’t bear it any more. Take me home, Simmons, take me home.”

So the old man took him home, to the dove-house and the brown rabbit and Pansy and the kind, mild faces he knew best, which should presently heal him and set him at rest.

But he was a child no more.