Pearl Of Pearl Island Part 38

They called for him at the hotel about eleven o'clock, and went joking through the sunny lanes of Pet.i.t Dixcart, crossed the brook that runs out of Hart's-Tongue Valley, and followed it by the winding path along the side of the cliff, among the gorse and ferns, down into the bay.

They had a right merry bathe with no grave casualties. Miss Penny, indeed, got out of her depth twice, to the extent of quite two inches, and shrieked for help, which Charles Svendt gallantly hastened to render; while Graeme and Margaret swam across from head to head, watched enviously by the paddlers in shallow waters.

They went home by the climbing path up the hillside, rested on The Quarter-deck while Charles Svendt got his breath back, and so, by the old Dixcart hotel, and the new one nestling among its flowers and trees, and up the Valley, to the Vicarage.

The Vicar was basking in the shade of the trees in front of the house.

"Ah-ha--Mr. and Mrs. Graeme! Good-morning! You are none the worse for being married? Non?" as he shook hands joyously all round, with both hands at once.

"Not a bit," laughed Graeme. "We're all as happy as sandboys."

"Comment donc--sandboys? What is that?"

"Happy little boys who dispense with clothes and paddle all day in the sand and water."

"Ah--you have been bathing! What energie! And you danced till--?"

"About four o'clock, I suppose. The sun was just thinking of rising as we were thinking of retiring."

"But it is marvellous! And you are not tired?"

"The bathe has freshened us all up," said Margaret.

Then Mrs. Vicar came out at sound of their voices, and felicitated them, and begged them to rest a while in the shade. But they were all hungry, and Charles Svendt laughingly a.s.serted that he had swallowed so much salt-water, in rescuing Miss Penny from a watery grave, that his const.i.tution absolutely needed a tiny tot of whisky, or the consequences might be serious.

So they went laughingly on their way, and Charles tried his best to get Miss Penny to go and show him the way to the Bel-Air, pleading absolute confusion still as to the points of the compa.s.s and the lie of the land.

He was to lunch with them at the Red House, but insisted on going home first to straighten up and make himself presentable. So they led him to the Avenue, and set his face straight down it, and bade him follow his nose and turn neither to the right hand nor to the left, and then they turned off through the fields by their own short-cut, and went merrily home.

PART THE SIXTH

I

Graeme was just finis.h.i.+ng a beautiful knot in his tie, when he heard hasty feet crossing the verandah to the open front door. There was some unknown quant.i.ty in them that gave him sudden start.

"Graeme!" sharp, hoa.r.s.e,--a voice he did not recognise.

He ran hastily out of the east bedroom, which he was using as a dressing-room.

"h.e.l.lo there!" as he sprang down the stairs, "Why--Pixley? What's wrong, man?"

For Charles Pixley was standing there, leaning in at the doorway, looking as though he would fall headlong but for the supporting jamb.

He had a brown envelope in his hand and a crumpled pink telegram. His face was white, and drawn, and haggard. His very figure seemed to have shrunk in these few minutes. Never had Graeme seen so ghastly a change in a man in so short a time.

Before Pixley could speak Miss Penny came hurrying along the path with a face full of sympathetic anxiety.

"What is it?" she asked. "I saw Mr. Pixley pa.s.s, and his face frightened me. Oh, what is wrong?"

Pixley glanced at her out of his woeful eyes, and at Margaret, who had just come running down the stairs. He seemed to hesitate for a moment.

Then he groaned--

"You will have to know," and motioned them all into the dining-room and shut the door.

"This "--jerking out the telegram--"was waiting for me," and he handed it to Graeme, who smoothed it out and read, while Pixley dropped into a chair.

"Pixley. Bel-Air. Sark.

"Zizel, Amadou, Zebu, Zeta. Eno."

"Code," said Pixley briefly. "Meanings underneath," and dropped his head into his hands.

"Zizel," read Graeme slowly--"There is bad news. Amadou--your father.

Zebu--has bolted. Zeta--we fear the smash will be a bad one. Eno--?"

"My partner's initials--they certify the wire," said Pixley hoa.r.s.ely.

And they looked soberly at one another and very pitifully at the broken man before them.

"Don't take it too hard, Pixley," said Graeme quietly, laying a friendly hand on the other's shoulder. "It may not be as bad as this puts it. Codes are brutally bald things, you know"

The bowed head shook pitifully. He raised his white face and looked round at them with a shocked shrinking in his eyes.

"G.o.d forgive him!" he jerked. "And G.o.d forgive me, for I have doubted him at times! He was so--so--so demned good"--and Graeme's lips twitched in spite of himself, so closely was the expression in accord with his own feelings. But Pixley did not see the twitch, for he was looking at Margaret and Hennie Penny, and he was saying with vehemence--

"Will you believe me that I knew absolutely nothing of this? He never discussed his affairs with me nor I mine with him, and we had no business together except on purely business lines. If he had to buy or sell he sent it my way, of course,--nothing more. You will believe me, Graeme--"

"Every word, my boy--"

"We all believe it, Mr. Pixley," said Hennie Penny warmly.

"And I know it, Charles," said Margaret.

"It is very good of you all," he groaned. "I must get back at once, Graeme. How soon is there a boat?"

"Five o'clock. You'll have to stop a night in Guernsey, which is a nuisance."

Charles Svendt shook his head in dumb misery. It was crus.h.i.+ng to be so far away--thirty hours at least, and he gnas.h.i.+ng within to be on the spot and at work, learning the worst, seeing what could be done.

Then, with a preliminary knock on the door, Mrs. Carre came in with brilliant lobsters and crisp lettuces for lunch, and, hungry as they all were, their souls loathed the thought of eating.

"They are just out of the pot," beamed she, "and the lettuces were growing not five min'ts ago. Ech!"--at sight of Pixley--"is he ill?"

"Mr. Pixley has just had bad news from home, Mrs. Carre," said Graeme.

"He will have to go by to-day's boat."