The Pillar of Light

But Enid scored a prompt success. She swept aside the almost unconscious reserve with which Jack's mother greeted her.

"You knew," she murmured wistfully. "We did not. They would not tell us. How you must have suffered until the news came that he had escaped."

Lady Margaret drew the timid girl nearer and kissed her.

"My dear," she whispered, "I am beginning to understand why Jack loves you. He is my only son, but you are worthy of him."

Mrs. Vansittart's appearance created a timely diversion. She had obtained a black lace dress. It accentuated the settled pallor of her face, but she was perfectly self-possessed, and uttered a nice womanly compliment to the two girls, who wore white demi-toilette costumes.

"You look delightful," she said. "When all is said and done, we women should never despise our wardrobe. That marvelous lighthouse had one grave defect in my eyes. It was dreadfully callous to feminine requirements."

Here was a woman rejuvenated, restored to her natural surroundings. They accounted for the subtle change in her by the fact that they had seen her hitherto under unfavorable conditions. Even Pyne, not wholly pleased with her in the past, found his critical judgment yielding when she apologized sweetly to Lady Margaret for her tardiness.

"There were two children saved from the wreck. Poor little mites, how they revelled in a hot bath! I could not leave them until they were asleep."

"I needed two hot baths," said Pyne. "No. 1 dug me out of the shell, and No. 2 helped me to recognize myself."

During dinner there was much to tell and to hear. Mrs. Vansittart said little, save to interpose a word now and then when Constance or Enid would have skimmed too lightly the record of their own services.

They did not hurry over the meal. All were in the best possible spirits, and the miseries of the Gulf Rock might never have existed for this lively company were it not that four among them bore clear tokens of the deprivations they had endured.

A waiter interrupted their joyous chatter at its highest. He bent over Mr. Traill and discreetly conveyed some communication.

"I am delighted," cried the millionaire heartily. "Show him in at once."

He rose from his chair to do honor to an unexpected guest.

"You will all be pleased to hear," he explained, "that Mr. Brand is ashore, and has come to see us."

Mrs. Vansittart stifled the cry on her lips. The slight color which had crept into her pale cheeks yielded to a deathly hue. It chanced that the others were looking expectantly towards the door and did not notice her.

Brand entered. In acknowledging Mr. Traill's cordial welcome he smilingly explained his presence.

"My superiors sent me emphatic orders to clear out," he said, "so I had no option but to obey. I conveyed Mr. Emmett to suitable quarters and hastened home, but found that the girls were playing truant. My housekeeper insisted that I should eat, else she would not be satisfied that I still lived, but I came here as quickly as possible."

At that instant his glance, traveling from one to another of those present, fell on Mrs. Vansittart.

He stood as one petrified. The kindly words of his host, the outspoken glee of the girls at his appearance, died away in his ears in hollow echoes. His eyes, frowning beneath wrinkled brows, seemed to ask if he were not the victim of some unnerving hallucination. They were fixed on Mrs. Vansittart's face with an all-absorbing intensity, and his set lips and clenched hands showed how utterly irresistible was the knowledge that, indeed, he was not deceived – that he was gazing at a living, breathing personality, and not at some phantom product of a surcharged brain.

She, too, yielding before the suddenness of an ordeal she had striven to avoid, betrayed by her laboring bosom that she was under the spell of some excitement of overwhelming power.

She managed to gain her feet. The consciousness that Constance, Enid, Lady Margaret even, were looking at her and at Brand with amazed anxiety, served to strengthen her for a supreme effort.

"Mr. Stephen Brand – and I – are old acquaintances," she gasped. "He may misunderstand – my presence here – tonight. Indeed – in this instance – I am not to blame. I could not – help myself. I am always – trying to explain – but somehow – I never succeed. Oh!"

With an agonized sigh she swayed listlessly and would have fallen had not Pyne caught her.

But she was desperately determined not to faint – there. This was her world, the world of society. She would not yield in its presence.

Her eyes wandered vaguely, helplessly, from the face of the man towards the others. Constance had hastened to her assistance, and the knowledge that this was so seemed to stimulate her to a higher degree. With fine courage she grasped the back of a chair and summoned a wan smile to her aid.

"You will forgive me – if I leave you," she murmured. "I am so tired – so very tired."

She walked resolutely towards the door. Brand drew aside that she might pass. He looked at her no more. His wondering daughter saw that big drops of perspiration stood on his forehead.

Mr. Traill, no less astonished than the rest, offered to conduct Mrs. Vansittart to her room.

"No," she said, "I will go alone. I am used to it now, after so many years."

There was a ring of heartfelt bitterness in her voice which appealed to more than one of the silent listeners.

As the door closed behind her, Brand seemed to recover his senses.

"I must ask your pardon, Mr. Traill," he said quietly. "I assume that the lady who has just left us did not expect to see me here tonight. It would be idle to deny that the meeting was a shock to both of us. It revived painful memories."

Mr. Traill, scarce knowing what he said, so taken aback was he, exclaimed hastily:

"Mrs. Vansittart claimed you as an old acquaintance. The odd thing is that you, at any rate, did not discover that fact earlier."

The lighthouse-keeper looked round the table. He saw pain in many eyes, but in Pyne's steady gaze there was encouragement.

"Mrs. Vansittart!" he said slowly. "Is that her name? I did not know. How should I, the recluse, hear of her? And in your first message to the rock you called her Etta. When I knew her her name was Nanette, for the lady who calls herself Mrs. Vansittart was my wife, is yet for aught I know to the contrary."

"Father!" Constance clung to him in utmost agitation. "Do you mean that she is my mother?"

"Yes, dear one, she is. But let us go now. I fear my home-coming has brought misery in its train. I am sorry indeed. It was wholly unexpected. Poor Nanette! She ever deceived herself. I suppose she hoped to avoid me, as if fate forgot the tears in the comedy of life."

"Can I not go to her?" asked Constance, white-faced and trembling.

"No, my child, you cannot. Has she claimed you? She cast you off once. I might have forgiven her many things – never that. Come, Enid! What need for your tears? We faced worse troubles together three days ago, and you, at any rate, can look foward to happiness. Good-by, Lady Margaret, and you, too, Mr. Traill. I will see you tomorrow, I hope. Forgive me for my unconscious share in this night's suffering."

CHAPTER XVII

MRS. VANSITTART GOES HOME

Stephen Brand and the two girls passed silently down the broad stairs of the hotel unaccompanied by any of the others. There was nothing incomprehensible in this, nor any savor of discourtesy.

In the first place, Mr. Traill was so profoundly shocked by the lighthouse-keeper's revelation that he collapsed into a chair and remained there, bowed and wordless, for many minutes. Both Pyne and Stanhope did move towards the door, but Enid, watchful, self-sacrificing, eager to save those she loved from further pain, telegraphed an emphatic order to Stanhope to remain where he was, and Pyne murmured to him:

"Guess she's right, anyhow. We'll all feel a heap better in the morning."

The person who exhibited the clearest signs of distress was Lady Margaret. Her position was one of extraordinary difficulty. Three of the actors in the breathless scene which had been sprung on her with the suddenness of an explosion were absolute strangers in her life before that evening.

Brand she knew, indeed, but only by sight. She had met Constance and Enid occasionally, at arm's length, so to speak, regarding them truly as dangerous young persons where marriageable sons were concerned. Enid had justified her suspicions, and her ladyship had yielded so far as to give her approval to an engagement she could not prevent.

Circumstances had conspired to force her hand. Stanhope, being an outspoken young man, had made no secret of his desperate resolve to rescue Enid, so the newspapers supplied the remainder of the romance, and even Lady Margaret herself had contributed to it under the magnetic influence of the hour.

It was one thing, however, to be thrilled with the adventures of the rock-bound people, but quite another to figure prominently in connection with a social scandal of the first magnitude. She knew Penzance too well to hope that the incident would sink into oblivion. Obviously, the matter could not rest in its present stage. She must expect disagreeable disclosures, significant head-shakings of those who knew little and wanted to know more. All the tea-table artillery of a small town would be focused on her defensive position were she loyal to the girl whom her son had chosen as his helpmate.

This same son, too, after he had recovered from the amazement of Mrs. Vansittart's dramatic departure and Brand's admission, betrayed a composure that was distinctly irritating.

"You won't mind if we smoke, mother," he said. "The situation requires tobacco. Don't you feel like that, Pyne?"

"If Lady Margaret doesn't object, I admit that different sorts of poison might act as tonics," answered Pyne. "Here, uncle, try a brandy and soda. Lady Margaret, a glass of champagne. I've been expecting a disturbance, but didn't look for it tonight."

"Why do you say that, Charlie?" asked Mr. Traill, rising and stretching his limbs as a man who tests his bones after a heavy fall.

"It was hanging around, just as one prophesies a storm after an electrical feeling in the air. Mrs. Vansittart recognized Brand, and made her calculations accordingly. Let us give her the credit due to her. As soon as she discovered him, the marriage project was off."

"I had that kind of impression myself. Glad I mentioned it to you, now."

"Of course you are. I'll bet any reasonable sum that Mrs. Vansittart intended to leave Penzance tomorrow as soon as she had made you understand that she could not, under any circumstances, become my aunt."

A ghost of a smile flitted across Mr. Traill's face. His nephew's way of putting things was delightfully unequivocal.

"What we are apt to lose sight of," continued Pyne, "is the manner in which Brand received what must have been a staggering blow. He met his wife tonight after a separation of more than twenty years. And how he took it! When he spoke, it was really in her behalf. The thing is too amazing. Of course, now that the thunder and lightning have started, the sky will clear all the sooner."

"Unhappily such affairs do not arrange themselves so readily," snapped Lady Margaret. She was becoming more angry with each wave of reflection. "Young men like you do not realize the effect of such – such unpleasant exposures on family life. How will the early history of her parents affect the future of Constance Brand? As for the other girl – "

Her ladyship threw up her hands in helpless abandonment. To her mind, the adoption of poor Enid, the sea-waif, assumed a darker appearance now that Brand's matrimonial adventures revealed sinister features.

Jack Stanhope caught her by the shoulder.

"Mother," he cried, "before you say another word let me tell you something you ought to know. Enid is Mr. Traill's daughter!"

Now this good woman loved her son dearly. All her thoughts were of him and for him. Her look of blank incredulity yielded to the confirmation she saw writ on all three faces.

She burst into tears.

"Apparently I am the last person to be taken into anybody's confidence," she sobbed.

"Madam," said Mr. Traill, bending over her, "in this instance, at least, you have no cause to feel aggrieved. Neither the girl herself, nor her sister by adoption, nor Mrs. Vansittart, to whom, until the past half-hour, I considered myself to be engaged, is aware of the undoubted fact which your son has just told you. Let me say that I, as her father, am proud to think she has won the affections of such a man as Stanhope. There is no reason why you, his mother, should not be equally satisfied with the pedigree and prospects of my daughter."

His calm assumption of a rank equal if not superior to her own was convincing to a woman of her temperament. Assuredly that evening was a memorable one to her ladyship. The repose of Vere de Vere was rudely shocked for once. Nevertheless, the knowledge that her lifelong ambition had been realized in a way little dreamed of by any of those most concerned was in itself consoling. Mr. Traill, quite unconsciously, loomed large in the social eye of Penzance, and the widowed lady had not been so long withdrawn from the wealth-worshiping world of London as to be wholly unleavened with the worship of the golden calf.

So it was with quickened interest that she set herself to listen to the story of Enid's parentage, and, if her fear of local gossip-mongers shrank as her perception of Enid's real social position increased, much may be forgiven to the motherly sentiment that no wife can be too good for an excellent son.

Meanwhile Brand and the sorrow-laden girls, ushered by obsequious servants to the entrance hall, were constrained to comfort themselves with true British phlegm in view of the interest caused by their appearance.

The hour was not late, about half past nine. Even whilst the hall porter was summoning a cab the news spread, within and without, that the lighthouse-keeper and his daughters, whose exploits filled the minds of all men, were standing near the door.

Several people, complete strangers, came to them and offered warm congratulations. A smart journalist pressed forward and wove his own complimentary utterances into an interview. A crowd gathered quickly on the pavement. Policemen, those marshals of every English demonstration, cleared a path for them through the throng. So, with smiling words on their lips and anguish in their hearts, they made a triumphal exit. How little could the friendly enthusiasts who cheered them realize that these three had been atrophied by the deadly malevolence of fate in the very hour when a great achievement had ended happily.

Enid suffered almost as keenly as Brand and his daughter. Their joys and sorrows were hers. The startling nature of Brand's avowal rendered it difficult for either Enid or Constance to piece together certain fragmentary memories of Mrs. Vansittart's odd behavior during her enforced sojourn on the rock. So thoroughly had she shattered those dimly outlined impressions by the quietly vivacious charm of her manner at dinner that they both experienced a jumble of sensations. A terrified woman, in wet and torn clothing, cowering in the gaunt interior of a storm-girt lighthouse, is a very different being when attired in expensive garments and surrounded by the luxuries of a first-class hotel.

It was a relief to drive to their cottage in silence, yet, so easily moulded is our human clay, it was a greater relief when the tension of the noisy rattle of the cab was relaxed. It cost some effort to assure Mrs. Sheppard, a buxom, motherly soul of sixty or thereabouts, that they could not possibly eat any supper. The effort was forthcoming. They pleaded weariness, and at last they were alone.

Constance knelt by her father's side when he dropped listlessly into the armchair placed in his accustomed corner.

"Now, dad," she said, bravely unemotional, "there will be no more tears. Tell me all that I ought to know."

Enid drew a hassock to his feet and seated herself there, clasping her hands about her knees.

"Whatever she did I am sorry for her," said the girl decisively. "And she cannot have been a really bad woman, dad, or you would not have loved her once."

Brand sighed deeply. His strong will had deserted him for a little while. He shrank from the ordeal before him. Why should he be called on to sully the mirror of his daughter's innocence by revealing to her the disgrace of her mother?

Constance caught something of the dread in his soul.

"Don't tell me if it hurts you, dad. I am content to bear more than I have borne tonight if it lessens your sufferings," she whispered.

He placed an arm around each of them.

"It is God's will," he said, "that I should have to face many trials at a period when I expected nothing but some few years of quiet happiness."

"Nothing in this world can part us from you," said Constance.

"Oh, nothing," agreed Enid solemnly, nestling closer. Her earnestness was helpful. He smiled wistfully.

"You forget, Enid, that there is a grave chance of you, at any rate, leaving me for another," he said.

She blushed.

"That is the worst of girls getting married," she protested. "They are supposed to be delighted because they are going to live with strange people. Girls who are of that mind cannot be happy at home. If I thought that being married to Jack implied separation from you and Constance – "

"You would give him up, and weep your eyes out." He pressed her pouting lips together as he went on: "Now, my dear ones, I wish both of you to be prepared for very unexpected changes. Two most important events in your lives have taken place within a few hours. Constance, if you saw your mother tonight, Enid also saw her father. I have known for two days that Enid's father is Mr. Traill."

For an instant, it must be confessed, Constance and Enid alike feared that the mental and physical strain he had undergone had temporarily deranged him. It was not sheer incredulity but real terror he saw in their eyes. Somehow, their self-effacement in his behalf touched him more keenly than anything else had done during this troubled period.

He bowed his head. A strong man in agony cannot endure the scrutiny of loving eyes.

"Enid," he said brokenly, "my words to you must be few. Good fortune needs but slight explanation. The proofs of my statement I do not possess, but Mr. Traill's letter to me could not have been written by such a man if he were not sure of his facts. Here it is. Read it aloud."

He handed her her father's plain-spoken communication. Constance, incapable of deeper depths of amazement than those now probed, looked over her sister's shoulder. Together they deciphered the somewhat difficult handwriting of a man whose chief task for years had been to sign his name.

This drawback was good in its result. They persevered steadily to the end. Then Enid, the comforter, broke down herself.

"It cannot be true, dad," she cried. "I have been one of your daughters all my life. Why should I be taken from you now?"

"I believe it is quite true," said Brand quietly, and the need there was to console her was beneficial to himself. "Mr. Traill speaks of proofs. You have met him. I exchanged barely a word, a glance, with him, but it is not believable that he would make these solemn statements without the most undeniable testimony."

"Indeed, Enid," murmured Constance, "it sounds like the truth, else he would never have spoken so definitely of my father's first claim on your affections."

Brand stroked the weeping girl's hair.

"One does not cry, little one, when one is suddenly endowed with a wealthy and distinguished relative. Now, I did not spring this revelation on you without a motive. If a cleavage has to come let us, at least, face every consideration. Providence, by inscrutable decree, ordained that my wife and I should meet after twenty-one years. That cannot have been a purposeless meeting. In my careless youth, when I assigned all things their scientific place, I have scoffed at presentiments and vague portents of coming evils. I retract the immature judgment then formed. During the height of the hurricane, when I feared the very lantern would be hurled into the sea, I was vouchsafed a spiritual warning. I could not read its import. These things baffle a man, especially one whose mind leans towards materialism. Nevertheless, I knew, though not in ordered comprehension, that my life was tending towards a supreme crisis. As the storm died, so I became normal, and I attributed a glimpse of the unseen to mere physical facts. I was wrong. The coming of that ill-fated vessel was heralded to me. I lacked the key of the hidden message. Now I possess it. On board that ship, Constance, was your mother. How strange that her advent should be bound up also with the mystery of Enid's parentage!"

"Father, dear, if you can bear it, tell me of my mother. She knew me, and that is why she asked me to kiss her."

"She asked you to kiss her?" Each word was a crescendo of surprise.

"Yes. One night she came to me. Oh, I remember. She wished Mr. Pyne to telegraph to his uncle. When he quitted us to take the message she, too – how weird it all seems now – admitted that she experienced something of the intuitive knowledge of the future you have just spoken of."

"I am not surprised. Poor Nanette! She was always a dreamer, in a sense. Never content, she longed for higher flights. She was a woman in ambition 'ere she ceased to be a child. When I married her, she was only eighteen. I was ten years older. My thought was to educate her to a somewhat higher ideal of life than the frivolities of a fashionable world. It was a mistake. If a girl harbors delusions before marriage the experience of married life is not a cure but an incentive. A less tolerant man would have made her a safer husband."

Constance would listen to nothing which would disparage him.

"I hate to be unjust to her even in my thoughts, but where could she have found a better husband than you, dad?"

"Millionaire indeed!" protested Enid, breaking in with her own tumultuous thoughts. "I would not exchange you for twenty millionaires."

"My methods cannot have been so ill-considered if they have brought me two such daughters," he said, with a mournful smile. "But there! I am only deluding myself into a postponement of a painful duty. My secret must out – to you, at any rate. When I married your mother, Constance, I was an attaché at the British Embassy in Paris. Her maiden name was Madeleine Nanette de Courtray. Her family, notwithstanding the French sound of her name, was almost wholly English. They were Jersey people, recruited from British stock, but two generations of English husbands were compelled to assume the style de Courtray owing to entailed estates on the island. There is something quaint in the idea, as it worked out. The place was only a small farm. When we were married the stipulation lapsed, because it was more advisable for me to retain my own name. I was then the heir to a title I can now claim. I am legally and lawfully Sir Stephen Brand, ninth baronet, of Lesser Hambledon, in Northumberland."

"And you became a lighthouse-keeper!"

It was Enid who found breath for the exclamation. Constance braced herself for that which was to come. That Stephen Brand was a well-born man was not a new thing in their intelligence.

"Yes, a cleaner of lamps and transmitter of ship's signals. Have we been less happy?" A most vehement "No!" was the answer.

"Don't run away with the idea that I was, therefore, endowed with ample means. There are baronets poorer than some crossing-sweepers. The estate was encumbered. During my father's life, during my own until five years ago, it yielded only a thousand a year. Even now, after fifteen years of retrenchment – you both forget that whilst I was stationed at Flamborough Head I was absent for a few days to attend my father's funeral – it produces only a little over three thousand. Enough for us, eh, to enjoy life on? Enough to satisfy Lady Margaret's scruples, Enid, as to her son's absurd notion of matrimony? Enough, too, Constance, to mate you to the man of your choice, whatever his position?"

"Dad," murmured Constance, "is there no hope of the old days coming back again?"

"Who can tell? These things are not in mortal ken. I need hardly say that my allowance of one third of the family revenues was barely sufficient to maintain a junior in the diplomatic service. Yet I married, Heaven help me, in the pursuance of an ideal, only to find my ideal realized, after much suffering, on lonely rocks and bleak headlands. With strict economy, we existed happily until you were born. My wife, at first, was sufficiently delighted to exchange Jersey society for Paris and the distinguished circle in which we moved there. But you were not many months old until a change came. A Frenchman, a rich fop, began to pay her attentions which turned her head. I do not think she meant any harm. People never do mean harm who accomplish it most fatally. I did that which a man who respects himself loathes to do – I protested. There was a scene, tears, and wild reproaches. Next day the crash came. She endeavored to mislead me as to an appointment. God knows I only wished to save her, but it was too much to ask me to pass over in silence the schemes of a libertine, though he, too, was infatuated by her beauty. I discovered them in a clandestine meeting, and – and – my blood was hot and the country was France. We fought next morning, and I killed him."