"Why do I waste my time on you?" she cried; "you who are not worth an honest thought. Pshaw! 'Lord Maclaren, illustrious nobleman and great sportsman'"—she was quoting from an American paper—"go and tell them that for ten days you have humbled yourself to me, and have begged my pity on your knees. Go and tell them that my crew have held their sides when the parts have been changed, and you have been the woman. Oh, they shall know, don't mistake that; your wife shall read it on her wedding tour. I will send it to her myself, I, who have brought the laugh to my side now, scion of a noble house. Go, and take the recollection of your picnic here as the best present I can give to you."
I was told that Maclaren looked at her for some moments in profound astonishment when she pointed to the cabin door. Then, without a word, he went on deck, to find the yacht's boat manned and waiting for him. He said himself that many emotions filled him as he stepped off the yacht—anger at the outrage, desire for revenge, but chiefly the emotions of the thought, was there time to reach St. Peter's for the wedding ceremony? He did not doubt that lies would save him from the American woman, if things so happened that he could reach England by the morning of the next day. But could he? Where was he? Where was he to be put ashore? He asked the men at the oars these questions in a breath, standing up for one moment as the boat pushed off to shake his fist at the yacht, and cry, "D—n you all!" But the answer that he got did not reassure him. He was to be put ashore, the seaman said, at Crotoy, the little town on a tongue of land in the bay of the Somme. There was a steamer thence once a day to Saint Valery, from which point he could reach Boulogne by rail. He realized in a moment that all his hope depended on catching the steamer. If she had not sailed, he would arrive at Boulogne before sunset, and, if need were, could get across by the night mail and a special train from Folkestone. But if she had sailed! This possibility he dared not contemplate.
The men were now rowing rapidly towards the shore, whose sandy dunes and flat outlines were becoming marked above the sea-line. The yacht lay far out, drifting on a glassy mirror of water; the sun was sinking with great play of yellow and red fire in the arc of the west. Maclaren had then, however, no thought for Nature's pictures, or for seascapes. One burning anxiety alone troubled him—had the steamer sailed? He offered the men ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred pounds if they would catch her. The remark of one of them that she left on the top of the tide begot in him a mad eagerness to learn the hour of high-water; but none of those with him could remember it. He found himself swaying his body in rhythm with the oars as coxswains do; or standing up to look at the white houses shorewards. Another half-hour's rowing brought him a sight of the pier; he shouted out with a laugh that might have come from a jackal when he saw that the steamer was moored against it, and that smoke was pouring heavily from her funnels.
"Men," he said, "if you catch that boat, I'll give you two hundred and fifty pounds!" and later on their lethargy moved him to such disjointed exclamations as "For the love of heaven, get on to it!" "Now, then, a little stronger—fine fellows, all of you—a marriage depends upon this." "I'll give you a gold watch apiece, as I'm alive." "By——, she's moving—no, she isn't, there's time yet, if you'll put your backs on to it—time, time—oh, Lord, what a crawl, what a cursed crawl!"
If one had peered into the faces of the yachtsmen critically, one might have detected the ripples of smirks about their lips; but Maclaren could not take his eyes away from the steamer, and the import of the suppressed amusement was lost upon him. The little town of Crotoy, with the garish établissement des bains, the picturesque church, and the time-wrecked ramparts escarped by the ceaseless play of currents, was then not half a mile away; but a bell was ringing on the pier, and there was all the hurry and the press known in "one packet" or "one train" towns. Those who had much to do did it slowly, that they might enjoy leisure to blow whistles or to shout; those who had little atoned by great displays of ineffective activity. Some ran wildly to and fro near the steamer; others bawled incomprehensible ejaculations, and incited, both those who were to leave by the ship, and those who were not, to hurry, or they would be late. Presently the little passenger steamer whistled with a hoarse and lowing shriek, and cast foam behind her wheels. Maclaren observed the motion, and cried out as a man in pain, waving his arms wildly. Those on shore mistook as much as they could see of his surprising signals for a parting salute to the vessel; and she left ten minutes after her time—without him.
He was hot from the battle of excitement, rivulets of perspiration trickling upon his face; but he had breath to curse the crew of the yacht's boat for five minutes when he stepped ashore; and the request of the coxswain to drink his health stirred up uncounted gifts for oath-making within him. In a quarter of an hour he was raving about the town of Crotoy, threatening to do himself injury if a boat were not forthcoming to carry him to St. Valery, whence he could get train to Boulogne. But the day was nigh gone, and the local seamen were at their homes. Few cared for his commission, and the man who took it ultimately set him down just twenty minutes after the last train had left.
The accounts given in the society papers for the abandonment of the wedding between Lord Maclaren and the Hon. Christine King were many. The true one is found in the simple statement that his lordship did not reach England until the evening of the day which had been fixed for the ceremony. So the presents were returned—and I kept the pearls which were to have made the famous anchor bracelet. And when I think the matter over, I cannot wonder at Maclaren's hatred of them, or of his wish that I should burn them.
"Sutton," he said, "I was more than a fool. I ought to have remembered that Evelyn Lenox was with me when I saw the piece of stuff similar to that I wanted you to make. Why, I got the very notion of it from her, and it was only when one of your idiots let a society journalist know what you were doing for me that she heard of the marriage, and of my being at Ramsgate."
But the rest of his remarks were purely personal.