Mary of Marion Isle

MARY OF MARION ISLE

«Mary», he went on wildly, «I cannot leave you».

«No leave me, only stop here. I leave, and quick before I cry. Only want say this. If Andrew come and get tired of Mary, or want to go away in ship or something, she never say No. Mary not wish to be trouble, she only Andrew’s here, and always easy die».

That was the end, he could bear no more. That day they went back to the caves together, he leaning on her strong arm.

Then began the happy, happy life of these poor sinners, if such they were. There in their caves they lived together, a perfectly mated pair in body and mind and spirit. They rose with the sun and carried through their daily toil, laughing the hours away, and when the sun sank they went back to their cave and slept thankful and rejoicing until he came again.

The summer passed, the winter returned, but for them it had no terrors who were both strong and healthy. Spring drew on once more, and with the spring came Mary’s child.

Andrew had been much perturbed about the arrival of this in fact, which must take place in the absence of the ordinary conveniences, although as a doctor, of course, he knew all that should be done. He was an anxious-minded man, especially where those he loved were concerned, and carefully enough he thought out every contingency and made preparation for every danger, so far as the means at his disposal allowed. As it turned out he might have spared himself the trouble. Mary went on doing her work just as usual to the very day of the occurrence, which caused him to think that the date had been miscalculated. So it happened that he departed on some daily round, it was connected with skinning a seal that

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lay dead at a distance, and returned to find that there was no supper cooked. While he was wondering over the cause of this omission, he heard Mary calling him from the cave. Entering he found her lying on her bed, looking a little pale, but smiling. Presently she threw back the skin rug and showed him a babe, a most beautiful and perfect girl.

«Janet come back», she said. «I always tell you Janet come back!»

In a week she was perfectly well again and wished to get up, even showing temper when he would not allow her to do so. In fact, to her who from childhood had led a primitive and natural life, this business was nothing, as it is nothing to a savage woman. Nor was there any trouble about the child or any necessity of supplementing its natural food. The mother bloomed and grew even more beautiful than before, and the child was strong and healthy as a young seal. Also he observed with a kind of wonder that daily it became more like his lost Janet.

So now there were three at the caves instead of two, and that was all the difference. Mary did her work as before, only with her babe, which by her wish Andrew had christened Janet, slung in a skin upon her back, as an Esquimaux woman does, the sole change being that Andrew must swim out and attend to the nets, which she declared he did very badly.

So the time went on. Janet was a strong and forward child who soon found her sturdy little feet; indeed, at a year old she could toddle about, gurgling in a jolly fashion, and a few months later could say «Dad and Mum» and other words.

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Ailments she had absolutely none, since there were no germs to infect her, and she cut her teeth with ease.

So, as has been said, they were absolutely happy, or would have been were it not for the fact that there are always flies in every human pot of ointment, and theirs was no exception, since in it buzzed and struggled two veritable bluebottles. The larger of these, which particularly affected Andrew’s side of the pot, was a moral insect. In his way he was a strict sort of man who might do wrong, but whose conscience always called upon him to pay the price full measure, pressed down and running over. Now that conscience told him that his conduct in the matter of Mary was of a questionable order. He knew that if he had acted in any other way, not only would it have been contrary to the earnest desires and most natural impulses of both of them, but that the issue in all probability would have been their deaths, since it was scarcely possible, fretting as they would have done, that they could have continued to live solitary and separated on that narrow island. Accidents would have happened, and one of them would have given up the struggle, and then, broken-hearted, the other would have followed. Still, there was the strict letter of the law, the potent law which had been inculcated in him since childhood, which says that a man may not marry again unless he is absolutely sure that his wife is dead. And of this Andrew was by no means sure. Simply he could not tell, nor indeed did he wish her to be dead. Only if she were alive, what then was his position and that of Mary; also that of their beloved child?

While they remained undiscovered upon that island all these things, it was true, mattered little, since he felt quite sure

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that the world believed him to be dead, and no doubt by this time had forgotten him altogether. Probably, if she were still alive, Clara, who was not a person of deep affections or one likely to waste time mourning over any husband, had also forgotten him. Indeed, she might have married again if any quite suitable alliance came her way, as he devoutly hoped she had, especially as she would have done so in perfect innocence.

But, and here was the second fly, a very Beelzebub of a fly: suppose that she had not, and suppose that accursed albatross to which in his folly he had tied the tin plate, had fallen into the hands of men in some part of the civilized world. Then the whole earth would buzz with the romance of the business, and as he was a peer and worse still, a big officer of the State at the time of his disappearance, the Government would send a man-of-war to look for him. Or if it did not, some enterprising newspaper in search of advertisement and good copy would organize a relief expedition. Some one or other would surely come. And then – the shame of it all, and what was almost as bad, the ridicule, of which it made him cold even to think. Well, on one thing he was determined, nothing would induce him to abandon Mary. He would tell Clara that he was sorry and that she must take her remedy, looking upon him as one dead.

For her part Mary did not trouble so much about these dangers. It seemed to her right and natural that she and Andrew who loved each other so devotedly, should live together as man and wife. On that point her conscience did not prick her. But she who could read him like a book, knew what was passing in his mind, although of it he said little or nothing,

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and this in turn affected hers, since what Andrew suffered, she must also suffer. So it came about that notwithstanding their mutual joy in each other, they lived in great dread; the wide wings of that fatal albatross overshadowed them, even while they kissed and thanked God for the child whom they both adored, as they adored each other. For in fact, they never doubted but that this bird would fulfil its ill-omened mission. The chances against it might be a thousand to one, and yet they were sure that the evil lot would fall out of all that were in the sack.

When for the fourth time the pale spring came since the sending off of the albatross – making Andrew’s fifth upon the island, although there was no sign of it among the hosts of migratory fowl which came there to nest, it is true that hope grew strong in them, and they took comfort. But still in their hearts they knew that the hope was vain and that though Fate might delay its stroke, surely it would fall. Here it may be well to state what happened to this bird.

It flew away for thousands of miles and, probably irked to death by the tin plate tied about its neck of which it could not be rid, ultimately perished upon a wild part of the shore of Western Australia. There it lay and rotted till, by a strange chance, a man engaged in prospecting for minerals walked along this beach which was rarely trodden, seeking for outcrops among the cliffs. While he was thus engaged his trained eye caught the glitter of something in the midst of a pile of bones and feathers. Thinking that this might indicate the presence of mineral he walked to the spot and there found the plate, much rusted but still quite legible. Ultimately he

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CHAPTER XXIII

THE FATAL ALBATROSS

For once in her life Lady Atterton met with a piece of bad luck and, what afflicted her still more, was put into a ridiculous position. As Andrew had guessed, she escaped from the shipwreck, for be it known that no one had come to harm when the ship was lost. Within a few hours of the foundering of the Neptune, a sister ship of the same line which had received her S.O.S. message found the boats and picked up everybody, except Andrew and Jacks, who, for very good reasons, were believed to be drowned.

On her return to London, Clara, dressed in most becoming widow’s weeds, received many condolences on the loss of a high official position and also on that of her husband. The only person who did not condole was Mrs. Josky with whom she had a tumultuous interview.

That good lady, seconded by Laurie, «made bold» to tell her outright that she had not done what she might to rescue Andrew, or to search for him after he was supposed to be drowned. In vain did Clara assume the cold and haughty peeress for their benefit. Mrs. Josky in her indignation alleged in vulgar, Whitechapel language that she did not «care a damn for peeresses», adding that all women were the same

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under their clothes, with this difference, that some had a heart and some had a dried walnut where that organ ought to be. Clara, still imperturbably calm, rang the bell and requested the footman to show these persons out. So they went, but at the door Laurie, who had brought her baby with her, fired a parting shot in an interval of her mother’s invectives. It was to this effect:

«If his lordship’s dead, there’s this comfort for him, that he’s well rid of you, who never cared a brass halfpenny about him like mother and I did».

They departed, leaving Clara, who objected to the primary emotions in action, somewhat perturbed. The worst of it was that they seemed to have generated a certain antagonistic atmosphere in that lordly mansion. Perhaps they conversed then, or afterwards, with the footman and the butler, who had also been shipwrecked on the Neptune. At any rate Clara observed a coldness in the demeanour of these and other menials which the passage of time did not efface, or even lessen. The truth was that everyone in West House loved Andrew, whereas their sentiments for Clara were of a different order.

By degrees Clara shed her widow’s weeds and once more bloomed into the brilliant Society lady, as her rank, wealth, and cleverness gave her a right to do. But now, as before, her ambitions being unquenched, she found that she needed a man to help her in her climbing. So, having persuaded the Court of Probate to «presume» Andrew’s death, she set to work to find another husband. In due course a perfectly suitable person presented himself, a dried-up and childless widower whose rank was superior to that of Andrew, who was also

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a member of the Government and one who thought that her great fortune would be very helpful in his career.

Now came the bad luck. This engagement in high life was announced, with suitable prominence and polite allusions to the lady’s former tragic bereavement, in The Times, Morning Post, and other papers upon a certain morning. In those that appeared in the afternoon was printed the sensational cable from Australia which told of the finding of the tin plate amongst the bones of an albatross upon an antipodean beach. Naturally Clara, chancing to read the paragraph in an early edition of the Westminster Gazette, was much disturbed.

«Really», she said to herself, «this is just like Andrew. If he meant to turn up, in common decency he might have done so before – or at least on any other day».

Then she sat down to think a while and as a result determined, like a wise woman, to do nothing without consulting her lawyer. So having caused a telephone message to be sent to that eminent solicitor to tell him to expect her, she dressed and started.

But here again bad luck pursued her, for when she reached her door, in front of which quite a little crowd had gathered, since many had read the news or seen the headings on the placards, whom should she meet rushing up but Mrs. Josky and Laurie, each of them waving a halfpenny paper.

«What did I tell you, my lady», screamed Mrs. Josky. «He’s living after all!»

«And you going to be married again», vociferated Laurie, always an uncontrolled person. «Well, I’d have waited a while, I would».

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«Even if I hadn’t stopped to look for him», added Mrs. Josky. Then Clara drove off, leaving the pair explaining every-

thing to an interested and ever-increasing crowd.

The end of it was that, with the assistance of her lawyer, Clara wrote a most discreet letter to the noble Viscount to which she had promised herself en secondes noces, saying that under the circumstances, painful as they were unexpected, everything must rest in abeyance until the facts were ascertained. She added that, as he would understand, her «poor woman’s heart» was «torn in two».

His lordship answered by special messenger that he quite agreed with her, since bigamy, even if accidental, was an awkward business.

About her poor woman’s heart he said nothing at all, contenting himself with the dubious finale of «Yours in mingled hope and fear».

«The wretch!» ejaculated Clara. «Within three months he will be married to that odious Lady Atkins». And he was!

On further reflection Clara saw that in order to obliterate this ridiculous interlude in her career from the public mind, it was necessary that she should do something interesting which would awaken sympathy for herself. To explain her woes on any and every occasion and to demonstrate the raptures of her hope were not enough. No, she herself must head the relief expedition to search for Andrew, and be careful that the fact was well advertised in the Press. She did not in the least wish to undertake any such adventure, having had quite enough of the sea, especially in the neighbourhood of those horrible islands. Andrew was a past episode in her life. Long ago she

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