Mary of Marion Isle

MARY OF MARION ISLE

Now the sky was light above, for suddenly the wind had begun to blow in fierce gusts that tore up from the south, but as yet the murk lay on the face of the water, since these gusts seemed to fly high in an abnormal fashion. So deep was that murk that she could not see the ship anchored on the edge of the Race, half a mile or more to the south of her, and still less a boat putting off rapidly from its side. As she reached the deep water, of a sudden the gale began to blow in earnest, driving waves in front of it which foamed and curved as they met the rush of the Race tearing from north to south.

Andrew slept till the first light that morning, and then it was the child who awakened him, saying:

«Where Mummy? Where Mummy? Janet want Mummy give her milk».

«Outside, dearie, I expect», he said sleepily. «Go and look for her». Then as he moved in the bed the pieces of slate rattled together, and by the light that crept up the cave he saw them. Taking them up he perceived that they were written on in Mary’s large and rather childish hand. He leapt from the bed, threw on his thick sealskin robe and drew his skin buskins on to his feet. Then he ran to the mouth of the cave where there was more light, and read the writing. It ran:

«Andrew, dearest Andrew,

«Your wife has told me that if we go on living together it will bring you, who are a great lord, to shame and ruin. But while we both live it must be together, since nothing could keep us apart. Therefore, that you may be saved I must die. This, I know, will shock and grieve your heart, but I am sure it is best for both of us, since if I hid away from you I should

371

H. RIDER HAGGARD

still die, if more slowly. Our darling I know that you will care for, and you need not tell her that you are her father. Give to her the necklace that I always wore, and let her also always wear it. If I have done wrong, I hope that God in heaven, Who made us men and women as we are, will forgive me. If I go on living anywhere outside the world and can do so, I will be near you till you die, and then I will be with you always, for like you I believe that nothing can keep those who love each other apart, and I know that you will always go on loving me. And now I go to swim into the Race and make an end, and you can say that I have fallen by accident into the sea, and go on to the great ship and sail to England, or to rule the country of which your wife spoke to me. But you will often think of our life upon the island, will you not? Also, you will care for and love our little Janet who will grow into a beautiful woman of whom you need not be ashamed, and who will soon forget all about her poor mother. Good-bye, dearest Andrew. You will never find anyone to love you better than this wild Mary who, you see, never loved anyone else except Old Tom, whom she will see presently, and our child, though both of them in another way. I will try to die bravely, swimming, as a wild woman should.

«I wish to tell you now that when first we met I knew you at once, since often I had looked at your face in the water in which I used to see things, also in dreams. So although I did not know it, I loved you, oh! much, much, long before you loved me.

«Your Mary».

372

MARY OF MARION ISLE

Andrew finished this terrible epistle and put it down. Then, choking the horror in his heart, he began to think swiftly as a man does in an emergency.

«Baby», he said to Janet, for so he still called her, «Dad go to find Mum. There Baby’s milk, she sit here by fire and drink it and not move. If Baby move, fire go out. She promise?»

«Yes, Dad, Baby talk to big penguin and pussy. Daddy come back soon».

He nodded, walked till he passed a rock which hid him, and then ran as he never ran before. In writing of the Race, Mary had given him a clue, since he knew that there was but one spot near by whence she could swim into it, and for that he headed. What passed through his tortured heart as he ran cannot be told, since it is beyond the power of language to describe. It was an agony unutterable. He feared that he must be too late, and if so, what then? To swim out after her into the Race and find her dead if not living, the divine creature who was sacrificing herself for him – that seemed the only way. But then there was the child. Well, they would come from the ship and discover her and in common mercy she would be looked after. And yet – oh! God help him! he knew not what to do. No hell could have torments equal to those that he suffered.

He became aware that a great gale had risen all at once, as though at the waving of a magician’s wand. It blew from the south-east right into his face and was so fierce that once or twice it almost stopped him in his stride. In great leaps he reached the shore at the point he sought, certain rocks which stretched out into the bay, lying between low cliffs. He was right in his guess, for there on a stone lay Mary’s skin robe.

373

H. RIDER HAGGARD

He looked about him for one short moment. Yonder was the cruiser. She was blowing her steam-whistle as though signalling, and appeared to be getting up her anchors, perhaps because she feared that the gale would drive her ashore. Nor was this all, for on the sea was a boat; he could see it from time to time as the rising waves tossed it aloft. Apparently it headed for the beach. No, it turned, or tried to turn, and a man stood up in it, waving his arms and pointing. Something had happened on that boat, but what it was he could not see because of the spume of the waves and the flying spindrift.

Oh Heaven! it was overturned, the seas had caught it broadside on and it had overturned. Men were climbing on to its bottom, and it drove in shore before the gale.

A ray of red light which appeared between the torn clouds caught the crest of a great sea, and on it he saw something that glinted as did nothing else but Mary’s hair. Three hundred yards away or more that hair glinted. He rushed into the water and began to swim. Again a great wave far away and on it the glinting hair, and near it another form tossed up suddenly. The two seemed to come together and grow confused. From time to time he saw them both as the seas threw them up. Then he saw only one swimming shoreward with the gale and the waves behind, but on that one was the glint as of Mary’s hair.

He swam outwards and onwards, breasting the waters as best he might. Again a great wave, and not thirty yards away from him the glinting hair, and underneath it seen in the clear water another shape. Now through a thin veil of water he saw the face beneath the hair. It was that of Mary, white and

374

MARY OF MARION ISLE

strained and set, swimming doggedly shorewards with one hand – the other seemed to be gripping that which was beneath the water.

She saw him also and through the scream of the gale that gathered moment by moment, he heard her voice cry faintly, «Help her!»

Oh, thank God! it was Mary, and Mary alive. Now if she drowned, he could drown with her!

With frantic efforts he drove himself forward against the sea and wind, and at last amidst the crest foam of a great comber they met. Then he saw that Mary had her left hand twisted in the hair of another woman, a senseless woman whom she was dragging with her through the water. She was almost spent, but still she did not leave go, but struggled forward with slow strokes. Their bodies knocked together. He ranged himself alongside of her and with his left hand gripped the arm of the senseless woman. As he did so, she turned over and he saw her face. It was that of Clara still clad in her heavy furs.

Had it not been that the seas and the ever-growing gale were behind them, driving them onwards, never could they have come to the shore, but as it was, more dead than living, they reached it at last and staggered through the shallowing water, dragging Clara between them and clinging to rocks to save themselves from being swept seawards again by the backwash of the waves. They reached the little spit of sand where was the stone on which lay Andrew’s skin robe with Mary’s. They pulled Clara from the water and then fell in a heap exhausted, spitting foam from their mouths. Presently Andrew

375

H. RIDER HAGGARD

raised himself upon his knees and looked at Clara as a doctor does. She was still and white with her mouth and eyes open.

«I think that she is dead», he gasped.

«I tried to save her», said Mary in a kind of choking wail. «I went to lose myself and found her, washed from the boat».

Then Mary rose also and made as though she would re-en- ter the sea. With a spring he was upon her, flinging his arms about her body.

«No!» he cried. «If you move I will stun you».

Now muttering, «I did my best, I did my best to save her!» she sank down in a heap upon the sand.

«Swear that you will not», and he pointed to the sea. «Swear by God Who has given you back your life».

«I swear», said Mary, and her head fell upon her breast. Then he brought the robe into which she slowly thrust her

arms, while he also clothed himself, for the wind was bitter. They tottered to Clara, and he did all that his skill taught him should be done to those who seemed to be dead from drowning, at least all that he could there, pressing the water from her lungs.

Still she did not stir.

«We must get her to the caves», said Andrew. «Help me if you can».

So with frightful efforts, between them they dragged and carried her over that rocky road, and at last laid her down by the fire. Here Andrew renewed his attempts to revive her. For two hours he worked although the blood from a cut in his head almost blinded him, but without avail.

376

MARY OF MARION ISLE

Clara’s tale was told. She was dead. Towards the end of the time they saw men standing before them, the survivors of the boat’s crew, for only one had been drowned; the rest had clung to it and, being a lifeboat, it did not sink, but at last was washed ashore. They helped as best they could, and from them Andrew learned the story.

During the night the glass had begun to fall so rapidly that before dawn the captain had said that if Lady Atterton wished to fetch the people from the island, she must do so as soon as it was light, as he feared a gale was coming up which would force him to put out to the open sea within a few hours. Clara consented unwillingly, as Andrew guessed, because she knew that no one except herself could persuade him to leave that place, and that if the sailors were told to bring him by force, a course of which perhaps she thought, that he would run away and hide with the woman and child, or fight them. So she went, thinking doubtless, as the captain did, that there was plenty of time before the gale came. As it happened this rose with startling suddenness when the boat, with Clara on board, had only been a few minutes in the water. With her siren the ship signalled to them to return. As they were putting about Clara grew frightened and stood up in the boat. At this moment a big sea struck them and washed her overboard. Again they turned and tried to follow her, with the result that the boat was overset. Soon afterwards they saw that a woman was trying to save her. Then they saw no more, for they and the boat were blown far away from the pair and great seas rose between them. That was all, except that in their confusion and emergency they believed that Mary had

377

H. RIDER HAGGARD

swum out to rescue Clara and for no other purpose. Nor did anyone undeceive them.

To these men Andrew gave what food and clothes he had, and sent them to live in the other cave until such time as the cruiser, that had beat out to sea to escape shipwreck, should return again.

The gale was hellish, though fortunately it was but beginning when Mary in her holy madness had met it in the Race. Even so she must have perished, weighted as she was with the senseless Clara, had not her native strength and daily practice for many years enabled her to swim like a seal and to dive through breaking waves. It blew and blew with hurricane strength, turning over great rocks and, for the first time since it had been lit, carrying away the fire in front of the cave, to the last glowing ash.

There in the shelter of that cave and with their child, the two lay exhausted, listening to its raging. At length, when the wind abated somewhat, Andrew went out and with the assistance of the seamen dug a deep grave at that very spot round the protecting corner of rock where he and his wife had talked together on the previous day. In this grave he laid Clara, and there for the third time read the Burial Service on Marion Isle, as now he learned that it was called.

Then Andrew returned to the cave and spoke alone with Mary, for night was falling, and the child had been put to sleep.

«I suppose that we are both sinners», he said, «but if so, I hope and believe that the agony which we have passed has paid the price. When you tried to take your life this morning, Mary, you did a thing as wrong as it was noble, not under-

378