CHAPTER XVI
"For Fate has wove the thread of life with pain!"—Pope.
When empty Rockham is a haven of delight, whether the little connecting coves be awash with the tide, or the limpets, in an unglued state, are airing themselves awaiting the return of the water.
You can wander at will, if you have the right boots on, over the never-ending sharp ridges of the rocks; you can pass hours gathering laver, though it is not at its best just there; and you can find sea-anemones and such treasure-trove as pit props, and boxes of butter, yea! and even casks of wine after a storm if the gods be kind to you.
Also you can don your bathing dress in comfort behind the wreck, one of many, which has remained as witness to the force of the terrific gales and the ripping propensities of the saw-teethed rocks.
Walk in from Lee or Mortehoe, Woolacombe or Croyde, over fields in which lambs stand on their front feet in exuberance of youth, or caper on their back ones until called to order by their maternal parent; or through lanes lined with primroses and violets, or roses, or nuts, or berries, according to the season, whilst on the top twig of the high hedges yellow-hammers, chaffinches, robins and the like gossip to you about the hawk hovering in the distance.
Arrived there, pause on the edge of the incline. Don't go down if you see a paper bag fluttering in the breeze, because a paper bag is but a forerunner of lanky locks dripping on a towel-covered shoulder, and bare and uncomely feet fiddling in the warm sand, whilst adjacent is the rock over which the faded blue bathing dress hangs out to dry.
Wait for the empty hour and then fly into the second cove, and the next, and the next, but—don't forget the tide!
The sand-covered rough-haired terrier stood with his head cocked on one side, looking at the wonderful, waving, glistening mass in front of him.
It certainly looked like seaweed, but it didn't smell like it, and long bits of it floated in the air just like golden threads; besides, there was something uncanny about it which sent thrills into the roots of his rough hair, causing it to rise in clumps along his spine.
It looked as if there were something dead underneath, too, and yet it didn't; anyway it certainly did not look as though it were meant to be played with or barked at; and he hastened back along the treacherous narrow passage, which connects the two last coves, in search of him-who-knew-all and was never afraid.
"No, old fellow!" was the only response he got to his invitation to "come and see." "I've already been fooled over anemones, and rooks, and passing cloud shadows, and very dead starfish—nothing' doin', so calm yourself!"
But the dog backed into a pool, emitting barks which were strangled at birth, snapped at a bit of rock which caught him unawares upon his unprotected flank, trotted forward, backed again into the pool, and turning, ran down the passage, came back and did it all over again.
Talk about water-drops wearing away a stone, why they are simply not in it when compared with a dog's method of wearing down your resistance. After the fifth repetition of the above tactics the man rose, stretched, put his pipe in his pocket, and hurling a pebble at the delighted quadruped, followed in its wake.
"Just look at that, and don't say I've brought you here for nothing," said the terrier, as plainly as he could with eyes and quivering body and tail.
The man looked and held up a finger, which caused the dog to sit up and beg, and walked as softly as possible up to Leonie who, tired out with worry, heartache, and a long swim, was sitting fast asleep on that one slanting, delightfully comfortable rock seat, with her hair spread out over her face, and down to her knees, mantle wise, to dry.
It is a somewhat ticklish job to lift an unknown lady's hair and tell her abruptly that you think the tide is on the turn, and the man stood in perplexity, while his brain refused obstinately to register anything more practical than an overwhelming admiration for the picture before him.
However, with the attempt to unravel the problem, his hand went instinctively to the pocket which held his pipe, and the slight movement simultaneously upset his balance and solved the problem.
He slipped with a rasp of nails on rock, waved his arms in a manner likely to cause envy in any mere flag-wagger, and recovered himself with all the clatter and confusion inseparable, under such circumstances, from the saving of self-respect and the knees of skirt or breeches.
Quite unconscious that her stockings and high boots were upon another rock, her skirt only reached just below the knee and her legs and beautiful feet were bare, Leonie sat up as straight as she could and peered from between her masses of hair; upon which the dog, thinking that he alone was responsible for the discovery of this wild beast, yelped and barked and growled as he slid in and out of the pools.
Pushing her hair back, and shielding her eyes from the sun and her face from the man, she flashed one swift glance from his shoes to his hair; that non-looking, all-seeing glance of woman which leaves fork lightning at the post, and causes you to wish you had spent a little more time upon your toilet.
Although she had barely looked at him, Leonie could have described the man before her down to the minutest detail.
No doubt about it he was good to look upon, with his steady eyes, the straight ultra-refined nose with slightly-distended nostrils, and a jaw which, in shape and strength, belied the almost feminine beauty of the mouth.
He stood well over six feet, though you would hardly have thought so because of the massive shoulders which seemed to have been created to carry the troubles of the entire world.
His hands, the outward, visible and infallible sign of the inner man, were perfect male hands, long and thin with square-tipped sensitive fingers, and a certain look of steel about the back and wrists.
But although he had been looking at her steadily for quite a minute, owing to some inexplicable overpowering sensation which had seized upon him, he would most certainly not have been able to tell you the colour of her hair or that her feet were bare.
"I beg your pardon," he said quite suddenly and a little hoarsely, "but my dog brought me to you—and as I think the tide is on the turn, I thought——"
But any further description of his thoughts was cut short in most unseemly fashion as, with an ear-splitting bark, the terrier hurled himself into the girl's lap, standing up to put its fore-paws round her neck, wriggling and squirming until the four feet, collar, and head were thoroughly knotted in the beautiful hair.
Leonie held on to her scalp to lessen the pain as stray hairs were literally dragged out by the roots, whilst tears of agony streamed down her face on to the man's hands as he held the squirming animal and endeavoured to loosen its bonds.
"Cut it!"
"What! All that!"
"Oh! I can spare it, but I can't stand the pain much longer, and I can't bear having my head touched. Look, I'll hold the dog firmly on my lap and bend my head, it won't hurt quite as much then, only do be quick!"
She put both hands on the shivering dog, who seemed to have sensed that something had gone agley, and pressing him down upon her knees bent her head, and her hair fell in waves about the man's feet as he unclasped a pocket-knife.
What there was in the attitude, whether it was the humility of the bent head or the utter abandon of the waving hair about his knees, the man never knew, but he suddenly began to hack savagely and ruthlessly at the great strands until the dog was freed and flung far on to the sands.
Then he bent and took hold of Leonie, lifting her bodily from her seat into his arms, crushing her desperately against his breast.
Just for one moment he stared down with blazing eyes, the nostrils quivering slightly, and the lips drawn back enough to show the white even teeth, whilst the rough tweed of his coat marked her cheek, and the strength of his arms and hands bruised her body even through her clothes; then he frowned, pushed her hair almost roughly right off her face, and looked at her with the dawn of recognition in his eyes.
And for just as long Leonie lay quite still, her eyes half closed, her scarlet mouth opened slightly, enough to show the small white teeth.
And then, she was standing on her feet with her hands clenched in his against his breast.
"You!"
"And you!" she replied, striving gently to release her hands.
"Forgive me! For God's sake forgive me! I—I have no excuse!"
A seagull perched itself on the point of a jagged rock, uttered its raucous cry and was gone towards Bull Point Lighthouse shining in the sun; a flock of rooks suddenly swirled from the cliffs, screaming battle upon their opponents as Leonie answered.
"There is nothing to forgive! Some things are beyond our ken. Will you get me my boots and stockings?"
Her hands shook ever so slightly under the strain of the control she was forcing upon herself, and the pupils of her eyes were strangely dilated, looking like bits of night sky set in a moon circle; but she spoke and moved quickly as the man, having brought the foot-gear and unwound the cut hair from the abject dog, leant down and picked up a tough seaweed root.
"No!" she said sharply, laying her hand on his. "No! It's too late to beat him!"
"I must!"
"I say no!"
"But you don't understand!"
Her lashes lay like a fringe on the cheek over which swept a flood of colour as she whispered so softly that the lap of the water almost drowned the word.
"Please!"
Save for the murmur of the water there was no sound whatever in the rock-strewn empty spot; and save for the swaying of the seaweed in the pools there was no movement as those two stood close to each other and Fate counted time.
Then Leonie smiled radiantly and sat down upon a rock with a stocking in each hand.
"Come and lunch in the next cove!" her companion said in a matter-of-fact voice, carefully winding the cut strands of hair and slipping them, without asking permission, into his breast pocket. "It's not so sunny in there, and I've cold soup and cold chicken, salad, jelly and cream—will you?"
"Ra-ther!" said she, beginning to lace her boots. And picnicking is fun in the last cove at Rockham. The air smells so heavenly, the wind is so soft, the clouds so lumpy and white; and there are little caves in which to dress and undress for the purpose of bathing, to boil the kettle, or hunt for those little bits of over-dried wood which go off with the report of a pistol and plop out to singe your garments.
And so very few get as far!
Somehow the tide is generally on the turn, and if by chance it is not, the tortuous and narrow passages between the coves, with their rocking rocks and hidden pools, are enough to twist the ankles and temper of anyone who is not Devon born or bred.
"Yes! I am due to sail for India about this day month," said Jonathan Cuxson, Jan for short, a little later, as he drove the cold drumstick of a Devon chicken into the paper bag containing salt, while Leonie, holding the fellow leg in both hands, or at least the fingers of both hands, gnawed right heartily at the middle thereof, and the pardoned dog sat quivering with hope deferred.
"Isn't this perfectly wonderful," he went on, and Leonie mumbled "whum-whum" as interestedly and politely as her bone would allow. "I mean our meeting like this!"
She smiled and sat forward, resting one hand upon the rocks, and the puppy, with a lamentable slump in manners, crawled up from behind and gently relieved her of the bone which still had luscious scraps of white flesh adhering to it, and a dream of a shining gristly knob at the end.
"Your idea of picnicing is somewhat luxurious," she said, taking a cardboard plate full of jelly which he had smothered in cream. "Tell me what you are going to make of your life!"
"You must blame or thank Mrs. Pugsley for the luxury. I'm at
Woolacombe, perched on the top of the hill, and she simply spoils me.
Will you have a cigarette?"
Leonie shook her head, and the two great, hastily twisted plaits wriggled like shining snakes, causing the dog to lay one paw on his bone and snarl.
"I don't smoke!"
"How delightful!" said Jan Cuxson. "I was sure you didn't—I love women who smell of lavender."
"Won't you smoke—your pipe—and tell me what you are going to make of your life."
"They—the plans—have all been fogged up this morning !" he said slowly after a moment's pause. "How strange it all is. Do you know that I was going up to town next week to hunt up you, of all people? Do you remember anything of my father's death?"
"We don't talk about it," said Leonie quietly, and the man looked at her with a sudden questioning in the steady eyes.
"I am taking on his work, you know, specialising in the brain. I have got through all my exams quite decently, thanks, I think, to his wonderful notes, have travelled a bit in the east, and before settling down intended to go to India—what for do you think?"
Leonie shook her head. "Holiday?"
"Er—yes, almost. You know I simply loved my father, and his very last entry in his book of notes was about you. One line was this: 'Most interesting—shall go to India and find the ayah.' He died of heart failure, you know, and he must have written the last line before he died—it is: 'The answer to the problem concerning Leonie Hetth is in the third volume upon——' There was nothing after that—I thought he would be awfully pleased if I carried out his last wishes, and meant to hunt you up and see if you were still—er—bothered with dreams and then——"
He stopped short as Leonie leapt to her feet and ran back from a wave which had most unexpectedly swirled upon her from behind a rock.
"Quick!" she laughed, "quick—the tide will be in. Where's the dog?"
The dog was cavorting with a crab in a pool.
"Jingles!" sternly admonished his master, who was heaving everything pell-mell into his haversack. "By the way, what became of Jingles the first?"
A shadow crept into Leonie's eyes as she thought of the pain and disaster she invariably seemed to bring to those she loved most.
"He—he was run over—it was my fault, I whistled him across the road and a car caught him. If we hurry," she continued, "we shall be in time for tea—Auntie will love to see you again!"
"Oh! of course—I'd almost forgotten her—will she?"