The Key of the Chest (26 page)

Ah, away, away, into the seas! The seas – the backs of the waves – the herds of the ocean – the tumultuous, onrushing, wind-driven seas – spindrift-lashed and blinded – piling up – and up – and over… O God!

The minister got out of bed and stood in his white nightshirt staring at all he saw and could not see beyond the darkness and in the darkness, far and for ever lost, and here, at hand, close to him.

Groping, he found the door, and opened it, and listened. The corridor was cold to his bare feet, it was still, both hearkening and dead, with invisible eyes for his back.

He turned the knob of her door and went in. His intrusion came upon him so strongly, so desperately, that softly he called ‘Flora!' For one extreme moment he heard, not a sound but an intensity of listening from the bed. This so wrought upon him that he floundered about and hit into a chair and heard the rustle of a candlestick and matchbox.

Before human sound could be made, before anything could be uttered, he grabbed wildly at the candlestick, upset it, groped about the floor, muttering quickly, harshly, found the matchbox, pushed it open, pushed it out of his hand, found it again, broke the first match, cried silently for everything, for one thing, to wait, wait – and with hands now so trembling that they could hardly strike the match, struck it.

The bed was empty. The pillows were white and smooth.
The sheet was folded over the counterpane, smooth and white. Everything was straight, straight lines, untouched, spotless and quiet. The red cinder of the match dropped from his stung fingers, hesitated a moment, and, in a red wink, went out.

A man of sixty does not change radically, not readily. His structure has taken so long to build, has stood so many stresses, from without and from within, from powers that undermine, from acids working corrosively in the dark, from hidden sins and desperate self-knowledge, from all that which would destroy it, that at last its uprights have become rigid, and when the storms of emotion, suddenly liberated, assail it, it stands of itself, gathering about it an impervious heedlessness, a withdrawn weariness, an automatic endurance.

The minister knew that even he himself could not get through this structure now. In the pulpit, to-day, he had not got through it, for all that he had been deeply moved, by communion with the people, by the cry of Abraham for his son Isaac (that cry which had rung in his ears to-day for the first time), and afterwards by the approval of Mr. Gwynn, the civilized man with the quiet eyes and the perfect manners, speaking his few words with deep understanding, beyond the understanding of the personal tragedy to that tragedy which sits far and lonely in the heart of each one, working with his few words, of sympathy and learning, dear to the minister's own learning and its memories.

And the structure came out of it as out of a mist, smoother a little in its pride, in its endurance.

Here was the structure set up for the people. In power it had been set up for him to sustain. The personal backed by the eternal; pride lifted to the realm of the non-human by divine sanction, to judgment beyond all earthly judgments. The structure upon a hill, remorseless as a gibbet, setting the wind to divine harmonies about the swinging bodies of the unbelievers.

He had wearied of his tired wife. When a person dies sorrow may enter the heart – but behind the sorrow there is freedom. The body in freedom moves away from the grave,
throws off the old entanglement. From all graves, people thus turn away and the sun is shining or the rain soft in the face, and there is one less, but not the one that is each one turning away. And the sins there may have been are buried with the dead.

The sins are buried, and, expiated or not, they crumble in the grave and in the heart that turns away. Turns away to freedom.

But the structure remains…

Flora stood suddenly beyond the room. Her body upright, full-size as in life, but with the bloom faint and evanescent, moved down slanting shafts of space, passed through him and passed away, came again and passed away, came and was gone.

She was his lost youth. The youth that had been lost in his earnestness and studies, in his divine idealisms, in his repression of secret sins, in all the horrible shifts and makeshifts, the feverish strife of youth, collecting in the gloom, already the gloom of pride, little talismans of learned metal that will one day be welded into the ideal, the heavenly structure.

And Flora grows up as his lost youth and he loves her. Not now with youth's wretched carnal love, but freely in the mind, as that which he has created and sees moving about and delights in, while the structure stands behind him, strengthened in grace.

The structure is assailed by the same human force as steals his daughter and sucks away her love. Wrath stirs, jealousy moves darkly, the jungle comes to life. Paths here he had never known, swamps that horrify and fascinate, wrath that lures, anger that hates, and a driving force that is beyond reason.

The structure remains, and on that structure he will crucify love and hate.

But at least once each one turns away from a grave, and the sunlight is on the face or the soft rain, and lo! that which is buried is not buried but is the sunlight and the rain, for love knows no burial but remains everywhere.

The framework of his body, the skeleton of bones, collapsed towards the bed, the knees hit the floor, the arms
lifted but not to God, they lifted upward and over the structure in a blind cry, and they crashed it down on the bed and his head fell between his arms and he sobbed heavily.

‘Good morning, Doctor. It's a better morning.'

The doctor returned the greeting cheerfully, asking after the patient.

Mr. Gwynn, who was taking the air at the front door, looked over his shoulder with a conspiratorial air. ‘On the warpath, I
think
.'

‘That's good!'

‘Is it?'

Just then Michael came round the up end of the house. ‘He's gone. Damn him!' His brows were drawn.

‘What's wrong now?' the doctor asked pleasantly.

‘Oh, it doesn't matter. We can do without him,' replied Michael. ‘Damn funny thing that you can never find a man when you really want him.'

Further talk disclosed that Erchie had set out that morning for either Cruime or Badloan, which lay south of Ardnarie. The doctor suggested that the old boy, knowing there would be no call on the boat—

‘But there is a call,' interrupted Michael. ‘That's just what I want him for.'

‘You don't mean you're thinking – of putting to sea?'

‘That's just what I do mean. Now. At once,' answered Michael, with a challenging impatient flash of his dark eyes.

‘But, look here – though the wind has dropped a bit, outside there's a terrific sea running.'

‘I know. Well?'

‘Well – why?' challenged the doctor.

‘Because I want to have a look at the Stormy Isles,' answered Michael, holding the doctor's eyes.

To further talk, Michael replied with a swift –‘Damn it, I have the only boat with power on this coast. Am I going to
sit here while others, like your precious friend in the manse, sits in – whatever he does sit in?'

They saw that nothing was going to stop him.

‘If you fellows don't care about coming,' said Michael, ‘right! I'll manage her.' He turned his back on them and entered the house.

Mr. Gwynn looked at the doctor.

‘I can't,' said the doctor. ‘Besides, it's quite mad.'

‘I know,' agreed Mr. Gwynn.‘He has got some sort of feeling about it. At breakfast he mentioned a “roaring cave”.'

‘Good God! If he tries to land there, he'll simply be heaved up and smashed to atoms.' The doctor grew alarmed.

‘You couldn't possibly?…'

‘How can I?' It angered the doctor that a fellow like Michael, just because of his mood, should so tyrannize over others.

Michael came out, buttoning a black oilskin.

‘Wait a minute,' said Mr. Gwynn to him.

‘I'll get the dinghy ready,' called Michael, and he strode away.

The doctor, in his weatherproof coat and leggings, walked down with Mr. Gwynn, now like an elderly gnome in a sou'wester and a black oilskin that nearly reached his ankles. Michael was baling the last drop out of the dinghy. The three of them handed her down stern first to the water by the low stone jetty.

‘In you get,' ordered Michael.

The doctor hesitated, then stepped in.

Michael pushed off from the jetty and, taking the oars, began to turn her round.

‘Here!' cried the doctor sharply.

Michael paused and flashed a look at him. As he realized he had been turning the dinghy against the sun, he dug his oars in to hold her, and let out a laugh. Mr. Gwynn laughed also, throwing his head up. Michael swung the dinghy
deiseil
, his expression full of life. ‘Good old Doc!' he shouted. In an instant the temper of his mood was completely changed.

‘I feel nothing can harm us now!' called Mr. Gwynn.

‘Hush, be quiet!' said the doctor, smiling but inwardly thinking them fools.

‘Why?' asked Mr. Gwynn.

‘They might hear you,' replied the doctor, with a narrow ironic look.

‘
They
,' murmured Mr. Gwynn, and he gazed upon the vacant air.

The
Stormy Petrel
had a four-cylinder fourteen horsepower Kelvin petrol engine. The effects of Michael's cliff fall became apparent when he tried to swing the fly-wheel. Pain stung sharply from bruised flesh and his face went ghastly. The doctor insisted on probing him thoroughly. Satisfied, he turned to the engine which was cold, but after one or two false starts, it kept the roar going. Michael transferred the mooring to the dinghy, came back along the top of the high deck and stiffly down into the open cockpit aft. The doctor, who had used up too much energy too quickly in swinging the engine, was pleased to breathe without moving and let Michael carry on. Michael shoved the engine into gear. There was a rumble in the water beneath them and the
Stormy Petrel
was at last under way, with the dinghy falling astern. For a long moment the doctor looked at that dinghy, which they were leaving behind, with deep misgiving.

Michael was now in the highest spirits. Standing upright, with the tiller by his right leg, he could see over the high cabin, could see the waves far ahead, with a white cap showing here and there. The
Stormy Petrel
was a thirty-foot craft, gracefully narrow, indeed under eight feet in beam, with a neat forefoot capable of over eight knots, and painted white.

‘Pretty good, isn't she?' called Michael.

The doctor who was leaning against the house, staring ahead, turned his face. ‘We'll soon see,' he answered.

Michael laughed and chaffed the doctor for wanting to visit his mouldy old patients when he could come on a trip like this.

She began to feel the sea as they moved from the lee of the Ros. The storm was certainly broken; the wind was
going down, but with all the uncertainty of November in its going. The clouds had lightened and one patch of blue was for Mr. Gwynn as bright as summer.

Then she began to roll. Until they cleared the Head at the south entrance to Loch Ros, they were going to have the seas nearly beam on. Had the doctor been at the tiller he would have headed more directly into the weather until the time came to put her about and run south. But he did not like to say anything to Michael.

As they drew near the Head, however, the motion of the boat became alarming. The waves were nearly as heavy as they had been under the storm, only not now dangerous, if the boat were handled properly. They were opening the sea beyond the headland of the Ros and the doctor knew that that vast body of ocean ran back right to the Arctic. He didn't like the look of things at all…. Now they were taking it! He saw the big one coming. It threw Michael off his feet. The boat yawed away. In an instant, the doctor had the tiller. Mr. Gwynn was drenched, but with an eye for Michael's reaction. There was a tense moment after Michael had righted himself. The doctor was seated, the tiller gripped in a hand that showed white knuckles. His face, drawn and cold, was to the coming waves.

‘Where away now?' cried Michael, for they were making into the seas, taking them at a comfortable angle. The doctor did not answer.

‘Here, where are you going?' called Michael. ‘We want to see the shore.'

The doctor did not look at him, but said calmly, ‘If you think I'm going to sit in this boat while you run her along a lee shore, you're mistaken.'

‘Why? Not frightened are you?'

The doctor's expression hardened. It was Michael's boat. He should give up the tiller, which Michael was waiting for. The trial of strength tautened.

‘All right,' said the doctor, without any heat. ‘It's your boat. But if you want to run her along that shore, then you must first put about and land me. I'm not going.'

‘Who asked you to come?'

‘You said you were going to the Stormy Isles. I'll go with you. But not along that shore.'

‘No?'

‘No.' Then in a moment the doctor called, ‘Look out!' He took her over the shoulder of the high sea.

‘Oh, all right!' called Michael. ‘Didn't know you had your certificate.' He laughed and the tension was broken.

‘Close the throttle a bit,' called the doctor, as the spray came over in a curtain.

‘How's that?'

‘Better.' The doctor's spirits immediately began to rise now that he had charge of her, and under reduced speed she rode the waves like a bird. ‘She's a nice craft,' he said with a gleam.

‘You keep her steady till I check the oil drip, you twister,' cried Michael.

Mr. Gwynn laughed, and turned up the front of his sou'wester.

The doctor became even more comfortable when he saw Michael feel parts of the engine for heat. She had a fine steady beat.

Presently, choosing his moment, he put her about and now they were running before it. Far to the south they could see the Stormy Isles, with flecks of white that were rock-spouting seas. He laid a course on them.

Michael, through his powerful field glasses, began sweeping the shore.

In a little while, he decided that a certain scrambling figure searching the cliffs was Dougald MacIan. Mr. Gwynn had a look. Then Michael handed the glasses to the doctor and took the tiller.

The doctor picked up the figure. It was undoubtedly Dougald MacIan. Small and lonely he looked, curiously pathetic, hunting that wild shore like a persistent, bereft animal. The doctor watched him for a long time. Then he lowered the glasses and nodded to Michael. ‘It is,' he said.

Michael immediately took the glasses and abandoned the tiller to the doctor.

The Stormy Isles began to define themselves more clearly. Even on a calm summer day, landing was, more often than
not, quite impossible because of the swell. Mostly they were sheer cliff wall, with great colonies of sea-birds inhabiting narrow ledges, and with skerries on which cormorants spread their wings or seals sunned themselves. Now and then a lobster fisherman was lost or a naturalist marooned.

Looking on that stormy scene, Michael dropped his glasses and turned to the doctor with a smile.

‘I have a confession to make,' he said. ‘Do you know a little boy named Hamish Macleod? His uncle is Norman.'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, he – Hamish – on whom I have conferred the freedom of the Ros – mentioned “The Roaring Cave”. I awoke some time during the night with the name in my ears. That's why you're here.'

The doctor switched his eyes to Mr. Gwynn. They both silently shook their heads and Mr. Gwynn added a negligible shrug. There was nothing one could do about this sort of thing. Nothing.

Michael, whose pallor was whipped with colour, laughed at them. ‘All the same, to-day it is to the leeward side of Puffin Island. I have been there.'

‘And landed?'

‘Well, no. The wind wasn't right.'

‘Supposing you were in a sailing boat, in the darkness of night, in a storm—'

‘With my lady love,' interposed Michael. ‘Go on.'

‘Would you – or would you not,' inquired the doctor, ‘give that scene in front of you a wide berth?'

‘Like to turn back?' asked Michael, a teasing humour in the challenge of his head.

‘Why not?' replied the doctor.‘You could then root us out of bed in the middle of the night to do the trip in more realistic conditions.'

‘Jolly good idea!' cried Michael. ‘What do you say, Gwynn?'

But the engine replied for Mr. Gwynn with a distinctly sarcastic cough. The effect was very dramatic. Their faces froze and waited. The engine coughed again, spluttered, picked up, spluttered, and stopped.

Michael dived upon it through the door, for it lay bedded on the threshold of the cabin. He tickled the
carburettor, caught the starting handle and swung it round and round. The engine went off with a roar. The doctor got the boat straightened up and was hesitating which side of the islands to head away for, lest it happened again, when it happened. This time Michael's wild swinging had no effect.

‘It's either the plugs or a choke in the petrol feed,' said the doctor, joining Michael at the engine.

Michael was white and wildly erratic. ‘She's never done this before!' he cried across the engine. ‘Damnation!'

The doctor was trying to flood the carburettor when the
Stormy Petrel
, having lost way and broached to, was lifted on a wave and thrown bodily. Michael pitched right across the engine and yelled as his bare hands came against hot metal. The doctor, thrown on his back, could not help him. Mr. Gwynn was rolling on the floor of the cockpit, having bashed his head against the side of the door through which he had been staring. As she righted herself, the boat threw Michael off the engine.

‘Take a hold!' yelled the doctor, back at the carburettor. It would not flood. ‘The feed is choked. Where's your tools?'

As she was flung wildly again, Michael this time held on, though his feet were thrown against the engine. He got round to a locker on the doctor's side. Suddenly they were facing each other.

‘Your petrol tank?' asked the doctor in a level searching voice.

The petrol tank, painted white, was pinned flat against the wooden wall, on the port side of the door. Michael turned to it and rapped it. It rang like an empty drum. It
was
empty.

‘Have you a spare tin?'

Forward through the cabin staggered Michael, followed by the doctor, past the tiny galley and lavatory, into the bow of the
Stormy Petrel
.

‘Christ!' cried Michael. ‘He's taken it out of her!'

There were odds and ends of gear but no petrol tin.

‘The blasted fool! The damned idiot!' His invective grew. His rage consumed him.

‘Have you a bit of sail?' asked the doctor sharply.

The boat threw them. They collided. ‘Have you no sail?'

There had been a triangular sail that could be laced to the mast. But it had been getting mouldy. For several weeks it had been drying in one of the outhouses. It had never, in the life of the boat, been needed.

There was no sail.

Nothing, thought the doctor, as he stared at Michael, could now save them from being smashed on the cliff walls. Nothing.

Michael left him, in a wild mad energy, to search lockers, to do something. The doctor stood where he was, his eyes going over the useless junk in that narrow heaving space. A steep sea, catching her at an awkward angle, might fill the open cockpit at any moment. She was top heavy for this game.