High Tide (Chapin)

by Anna Alice Chapin

High Tide

By Anna Alice Chapin
Author of “Dog Collars,” etc.

APPROVE of me, Jerry? Do I look all right?”

Mrs. Darrell revolved slowly and anxiously before her husband. There was a mirror in the dressing room, which, one might have supposed, could have told a woman rather more, anent her personal appearance, than the heavy, near-sighted man just then adjusting his white tie for the evening. But Mrs. Darrell, unlike ordinary women, knew how little a looking-glass really counted, when one came down to it. Lying things were mirrors, she had found; liars at their very best, giving a woman back the fairest or the ugliest of her according to her own capricious mood—or a defect in the lighting!

Being also unusual in that she honestly cared only for the opinion of the man she loved, she depended very little upon mirrors, especially at crucial moments such as this, when she was preparing to welcome her husband's friends and relatives for the first time. She looked at him.

“Is—is that lock of hair supposed to hang down over your left ear like that?” he inquired doubtfully.

Leila had taken some pains with that effectively drooping tress, but she merely said:

“Like it better pinned up, Jerry?”

“I think so. Would look a bit less odd,” her spouse pronounced judicially. “I don't like odd things, you know, dearest.”

“I know,” she said, suddenly humble. “Yet I'm odd! I wonder why you like me? Look at me, and my hair again, Jerry.”

He fumbled for his rimless glasses, failed to find them, and then it was not really tact but because even his near-sightedness could not ignore the obvious, that he said: “It would be a pity to hide your ear, anyway. You've very pretty ears, Leila!”

“Oh, you old darling!”

She flung herself into his big, kind arms, and he patted her gently. He was devoted to his wife, but he never could get used to her breathless, deep, desperate devotion to himself. On the honeymoon it had been startling, but pleasant. It was pleasant enough now, but an intensity of emotion which grew instead of subsiding conservatively. Darrell was a brave man enough, but his wife, in her strange, still, yet vivid moods sometimes almost frightened him. So he patted her gently, still marveling deeply as she clung to him at the ruthless yet restrained ardor of this strange vital thing which he loved, and which, mysteriously but indubitably, he had made love him.

Close against his breast she whispered:

“I'll do it all over again, Jerry!”

“Do what all over again? Your hair? Oh, it looks all right enough now, but it won't if you rumple it on my shirt front. And look at my tie. It's ruined for to-night. I'll have to put on a fresh one.”

“Do,” said Leila, laughing as she surveyed the very crooked bow which he had originally achieved. “It's a mercy, dear, that you have to. And this time, angel, I'll tie it. Where, oh, where, Jerry, did you learn to tie white ties?”

Jeremy Darrell, for all his well-known “slow ways,” was not in the least stupid, and the obvious rejoinder did come to his lips—but stopped there—“Where did you?” But he genuinely loved Leila, and accepted her and all concerning her with absolute trust and simple, confident delicacy. So he kissed her hand, somewhat clumsily, and merely said: “Sure to be better now you've done it. Guess I'll stroll outside, and see if the hampers and things have come down from town all right—eh?”

“Do! I'll attend to the lock of hair you don't like, and then go out on the porch to wait. I do look really nice, Jerry?”

“Bully!”

“D'you think they'll like me—your friends?”

“They'd better,” her liege lord remarked, with the proprietary scowl she loved. She laughed again, and again looked deep into his eyes, that eager, almost terrible love of hers flaming in her gaze. Then she turned quickly away, and began to busy herself with her hair at the dressing table.

“Jer-ry!” she cried, just as he was almost out of the room. “Love me?”

“You? Love you? Me? Rather!” returned Jeremy Darrell, with a supreme and rather beautifully confident tranquility. Then he departed, with his heavy step and the bulky carriage that was not without dignity.

Leila smoothed her hair. She, too, could see the smoldering fire in her own eyes. It did not startle her, but it sobered her queerly. “I love him so!” she whispered voicelessly to herself. “What should I do if I were to lose him? What would I do to keep him? What would I——” She sat very still, staring at the brilliant yet relentless charm of her own face. She had never loved any one very much before; she did not know what it might mean, in time, to love like this. She had an idea that it might prove troublesome under complicating conditions.

Leila Darrell—Leila Starland as she had been called when Jeremy ran across her on an ocean crossing—was a peculiar, exotic little being, mysterious in her way, yet with a practical executive quality which kept her personality from being too elusive and baffling for the Darrell appreciation.

She emphatically belonged to another world from his—not an inferior, but an alien and wider world—and frankly admitted that her “past” had had to do with Bohemia, and the strange and scattered universe that lies outside that little country. That she was of good blood was obvious, but she was “different; people sometimes said that it was merely because she was foreign. Others a trifle more discriminating, made the distinction that she “had lived abroad so much.” Others still, most discerning of all, accepted her simply as a particularly charming citizen of the world who carried with her the fragrances of little-known corners of this earth, the shadows and glimmerings of adventurous happenings not familiar to commonplace lives.

She had told Jeremy Darrell very little about herself; that she was free, alone in the world, and—with a straight and fiery look upon her golden eyes—that there was no reason—that there was no reason—why he should not marry her, and that some day she would tell him everything about herself. Even literal Jeremy had doubted the complete veracity of this airy promise, but he was too wise a business man and judge of character not to believe the absolute honesty and clarity which he saw in Leila's eyes. He had, in fact, married her as quickly as he could get her. They had traveled a bit, and now, having taken a cottage overhanging the sea, for the summer, were about to welcome Jeremy's old friends for the first time that night. They would be a kindly, well-bred, stodgy crowd, Jerry's “set”—such of them as had been available—but they belonged to him, and to his honest, clean, upright life, and Leila thrilled to meet them as she could not have thrilled at the prospect of a court presentation.

Alone, before the mirror, she revolved slowly and this time more critically. A creature of prescience and intuitions, she was swept by clouds of unreasonable forebodings, of questions concerning to-night, simple social gathing as it was scheduled to be.

“'Mirror, mirror, tell me true,'” she quoted fancifully. “But you won't mirror, you won't! How does the rest of that old rhyme go? 'Mirror, mirror, tell me true,' then something about the future—the future——”

She tried to take stock of herself with the speculative, observant regard of those who were so soon to look her over. She was a small, firmly made woman, whose indubitable grace and charm were strong rather than ethereal, the grace and charm of a lovely little panther rather than a sylph of the spheres. With her dark gold hair and gold-flecked eyes, she was sufficiently delectable to behold, yet she frowned at her own image. Even with the offending lock of hair pinned back, there was something unconventional, unusual about her, and she resented the fact.

“They will say you are 'odd,' my dear,” she told the glowing reflection. “And that will be the end of you. Oh, but it mustn't be, for Jerry's sake! They're his friends; I'd make myself all over again to please him, and them. I'd do anything. I——” Suddenly her eyes widened queerly, in quite genuine astonishment: “Why, I believe I'd commit a crime—murder or something—for Jerry! Isn't that—funny—of me?”

She had chosen to dress in deep tawny gold, leaving the square of her creamy neck splendidly bare, and wore a big black velvet cloak, for the winds were wild down there above the surf, and high tide, with its increase of chill and sharpness of air, was but an hour or two away. And she and Darrell had agreed to have their first party on the “porch” that was perched well over the incoming waves.

Her frock was fashionable enough, but not extreme; she wore no jewels; the gold-toned satin was cut most conservatively; and yet—and, and yet——

She shook her head disapprovingly. She looked somehow, too vivid. Her own coloring was too sharply white and red and gold, for one thing. She had delicately tender lips, which nevertheless could sometimes look mysteriously hard, as if a soft and perfect flower were turned for the space of a second to unyielding metal. It was not the shape or the character of the mouth that disturbed her now; it was too red. She wished she might paint out the brilliant coral, and at the same time paint out or subdue her own too vital personality. It was herself, the throbbing, thrilling Leila, whom she would have made colorless, and sleek, and ordinary, to please Jerry's friends.

The clatter of dishes on the gusty porch recalled her to the practicalities of life. Hawkins, most perfect of butlers, would be getting the dainty tables ready, and she must direct him. She switched. off the electric light, and whirled lightly out to confront that dignitary with a suddenness that startled even his somewhat cumbersome superiority.

“Everything all right, Hawkins? Oh yes, I see! No, put that smaller wicker table where the wind won't reach it; it's blowing up quite a gale, isn't it?”

She shivered, looking out to sea, where the far skyline was only faintly discernible under the hurrying clouds, where the waves looked already a mere obscure tumble of black, touched here and there by feathery lines of dim foam. High tide and a storm were coming together. She wrapped the heavy black velvet cloak about her, and turned back to survey the porch which was to be the setting for her début into Jeremy's own particular crowd.

It was the usual over-the-sea veranda, large and square enough to be used as a room on occasion, with heavy Venetian blinds, and a starry garland of electric lights along the sloping cedar roof. A flight of wooden steps led down to the water. At low tide there was a tiny bathing beach which she and Jeremy proposed to use; at flood, the water swirled high beneath the porch, and sometimes, in particularly wild weather, drenched it with spray and bits of seaweed.

How charming the place looked now, she thought, with the string of lights, and the tiny tables piled with fine glass and china and silver—some of it the Darrell heirlooms—and a few quaint and out-of-the-ordinary objects which she herself had collected in her world wanderings. One, a small dull-blue stone paper weight with a sharp point at one end, she picked up and fingered idly. It had been put there to hold a table cloth from blowing in the blast, and she heard Hawkins murmur a remonstrance as she let the white linen folds swirl for a moment before putting the paper weight down, but the thing fascinated her. It had, she vaguely recalled, come from Mexico, and would be, with its heavy yet deadly keen point, no mean weapon. Weapon! There it was again. Now why, she asked herself, should her mind run on weapons and—murder—to-night?

She laughed quickly and light-heartedly. She had nothing to fear from the world, nothing. As a very young girl she had been married to a horrible man much older than herself; he was dead, years since, and now she was safely and happily wedded to one nearer her own age, one who was not only good and kind and already a figure of public significance, but whom she adored. She was as yet only a year or two past thirty, and life looked very fair to her.

“Take down the two big hammocks, Hawkins, please! Just roll them up out of the way, where they can be hung easily again to-morrow. One over there in the far corner. And one here by the steps; there's a place just ready for it. See the little niche in the railing on each side! What on earth's the matter, Hawkins? You look quite green!”

Hawkins swallowed hard. His sallow face did indeed show olive in contrast to his immaculate shirt front.

“N-nothing, madam,” he stammered, nervously; “only there is a rumor of an escaped criminal, a murderer, fancy, or—or something like that, madam! I—I feel quite upset myself about it, madam!” He turned back his coat to disclose a revolver, which must certainly destroy the perfect fit of those perfect clothes. “I hope Mr. Darrell is armed, madam?” he added anxiously. “And you, madam——”

Mrs. Darrell laughed at that.

“Mr. Darrell can take care of himself, Hawkins. How absurd of you to carry a pistol! My husband may have one somewhere at that. As for me——” she touched the Mexican paper weight, with an oddly lingering touch—“This would kill anybody, Hawkins, I am quite sure, if I, personally, were ever obliged to act in self-defense! I wouldn't worry.”

“Very good, madam.”

Hawkins turned away, still troubled, to arrange Limoges and Dresden, Sheffield, and Old Colonial silver, with a deftness which no one would have expected from his stiff appearance, had they not known that he was a dyed-in-the-wool butler, come of a long line of butlers, and dedicated to the vocation or avocation by habit, training, and inclination.

Jeremy Darrell had a fine sense of the artistic in affairs such as the one in hand. His spirit rebelled against a slip in the arrangements for a “party” he was giving, and Leila sensed something wrong when she heard his voice in a deep rumble from back of the cottage:

“Hawkins! Oh, Hawkins! The champagne is all right—frappé to a turn, I should say by the feel of the bottles—but the claret is too cold. Man, don't you know that red wines should never be chilled?”

“Yes, sir, I know, of course. I'm coming; I haven't been easy in my mind this evening, that's all, sir.”

He hurried away, and Mrs. Darrell was alone. She sank down upon the rolled-up hammock near the steps, for, like most small women, she liked lowly seats, and again she gazed out to sea, her mind strangely filled with conflicting emotions. The past, instead of the future, had for some inexplicable reason, suddenly risen before her, and the golden present swam somewhat jerkily across it. The winds were rising, the tide was coming in; already the flat waves were crawling about the foot of the steps—in—out—in—out—over the wet sand. The smell of sea and sea-weed was strong, and the cry of the gale had an eerie note like the voice of the dead come back.

The dead come back, the dead come back. She shuddered in darkest memory, thanking what powers might be that her own dead could not come back.

And then——

She heard a dragging, stealthy, shuffling step coming up toward her from the sea. The drip, drip of sea water came to her, as if some ocean monster were creeping in from the far deeps. Mrs. Darrell did not move; a queer spell was on her. What was it that was coming? She knew that it was danger, but she never thought of the escaped criminal poor Hawkins feared so much. She had a curious but quite definite conviction that the thing approaching was a personal menace to her mind rather than her body.

She sat still, her eyes fixed on the edge of the topmost step—waiting. It seemed a long time before It appeared—was It really a supernatural creature from full fathom five? She waited. She faintly heard Jeremy—who, determined to see himself that everything was going smoothly, had taken charge—in autocratic but good-humored altercation with Hawkins and the caterer, about some one of the trivial, agreeable preparations for festivities such as this. She knew that what she waited for would be neither trivial nor agreeable. So she sat still, her whole attention concentrated, riveted upon the top of the flight of wooden steps.

Drip—drip— drip—drip—drip—drip—and that creeping step coming up and closer every second, though the seconds lagged.

Then a hand—yes, it seemed to be a hand, though of a clammy hue and dripping salt water—appeared, first feeling for, then clinging to the wooden planks of the porch floor. It was almost at her feet. Her throat contracted slightly, and she seemed te go a long time without breathing.

Then came the face, livid, drenched, horrible, a monstrous mask for a human soul. It should have been that of a merman of most evil sort, but the creature was a mortal—and Mrs. Darrell recognized him.

Mrs. Darrell recognized him indeed! She smothered a shriek, and her hand closed on her tightened throat. Otherwise she made no sign; she was past that, for it was her dead come back to life, her terrible dead come back to life.

They faced each other with a queer, fixed gaze. He seemed, for a moment as appalled as she; then a peculiar, ugly grin twisted his mouth, and his yellow teeth showed unpleasantly.

“Leila!” he muttered huskily.

“I thought you were dead,” she managed to utter with stiff lips that no longer were too red, but lost in the blank pallor of her face. “So that dreadful doctor lied in his letter?”

“Of course he lied. I was near dead, but I pulled through. I was as sick of you, Leila, as you were of me. I never could stand a saint!”

She braced herself and rose, still facing him. Was it her own disordered fancy that made her imagine she heard approaching motor cars, or only the rushing wind and the whirl of her brain? She fingered the little Mexican weapon, and remembered that she had told Hawkins she could always use it in self-defense. But she was quite fearless; she knew instinctively that it was Jeremy whom she might have to defend, Jeremy, and his fine public-spirited career and reputation.

“Anyway, you weren't my wife—not on the level, Leila!” the man added, with that cold twisted grin. “I had a wife already when I ran across you in Paris twelve years ago. You were easy—hasty, helpless, impulsive, anxious to be protected from this wicked world—so trustful, too!” He laughed noiselessly. “I think I mesmerized you. What's the matter? Shock too much for you? It may interest you to-know that they're after me. The law at last—murder——”

She was swaying giddily, and the world went black before her for the space of an instant. She was free—free—Jeremy's true, true wife forever more! And Starland was a fugitive from justice. He would go to the electric chair if they caught him. God had ordained that he should die. Her head and vision cleared swiftly, miraculously. Now she could hear the whirl of the automobiles distinctly above everything. All this creature could do was to make a scene before Jerry's friends, create a scandal or a nine-days' wonder, but—— Her fingers closed tightly on the stone weapon of defense.

“Going to hide me, Leila?” muttered the man. “You'd better, for people are coming, and I swear I'll claim you. I'll——”

“Yes,” said Leila Darrell, steadily and clearly. “I am going to hide you!”

Her arm flashed upward.

 

It was a brilliant, glowing, yet deadly white hostess who welcomed her guests that night; all white and gold and red, the red of her beautiful firm, vermilion mouth. She sat, a strange, memorable little vision, in her tawny satin gown, on a rolled-up hammock that was covered by a black velvet cloak. She did not rise as Darrell ushered out the first to be welcomed, a cousin of his, pleasant, middle-aged, well dressed, matter-of-fact.

“It's cousin Lydia, the cousin I've always been so fond of since I was a little boy, you know——” he began, then stopped short, seeing—for with his glasses on he was astute enough—a queer look about his wife. She was in the act, just then, of throwing away a Mexican bluestone paper weight, as though for some reason of her own she did not like to feel the touch of it between her fingers.

“What is wrong, dear?” he said quickly. “You are terribly pale! And why not put your cloak about you?”

“Leila raised her hand steadily to meet her husband's cousin Lydia's kind, fat beringed one, and smiled at her vividly.

“Try to like Jeremy's wife!” she said softly, and then added, with a clear golden look at Jeremy, the first lie she ever had or ever would tell him: “I've twisted my ankle, Jerry, and it hurts a bit. Nothing seriously out of order, but I'll sit still for the evening I think. And I'm hoping the black velvet is a becoming contrast. Do you think so, Jeremy's cousin Lydia?”

“Your wife is quite lovely, Jeremy,” said that good lady benevolently. “I hope you're not in severe pain, my dear?”

“Indeed I'm not!” She laughed exultantly. “Only a little cold—and I understand from Hawkins that I ought to be immensely alarmed! Did he tell you about an escaped prisoner?”

“How annoying of Hawkins!” exclaimed Jeremy Darrell. “He had no business frightening you.”

“I don't frighten well, Jerry,” she said sweetly. “I'm not afraid of anything, not of anything at all!”

“As a matter of fact,” her husband went on, half to her and half to cousin Lydia Darrell, “they traced the man's footprints down almost to this cottage. I didn't want Leila to know; I scarcely knew what an intrepid little wife I had. If the man tried to take shelter anywhere under this house, as the local deputy was inclined to believe, the high tide must have him by now!”

“Yes,” said Leila Darrell quietly. “The high tide must have him by now! Jerry, darling, I do really feel shivery; fetch me your hunting coat, there's an old dear. It's warm, and it ought to look well, too!”

It did, that coat of the hunting “pink” that is really scarlet, and that matched her lips that were still too red. So, red and white and gold, she crouched against the black of the velvet-covered hammock until all the guests were gone.

Then, and then only, did Mrs. Darrell raise herself slowly from the somber throne she had improvised for herself out of the rolled-up hammock and the black velvet cloak. She looked curiously at this strangely shaped couch on which she had half reclined during the entire evening. A slow, difficult smile touched her lips which straightway grew stern again with the enigmatic half-beautiful sternness of the Sphynx.

Outside the motors were whirring, and people were calling good-bys; she was quite alone for a minute or two, anyway.

She looked up and down the porch, with the empty wicker chairs and disordered tables, the rockers clattering in the gale as if ghosts sat in them, the table covers fluttering fantastically, and the swinging lights overhead dancing to and fro in an impish, almost a diabolical fashion. There was no living thing there save herself. She could hear Hawkins moving about the dining room just inside the house, her husband's deep and cheerful tones as he sped their parting guests. The small and pleasant noises were for the moment not small at all to her, but loud and clamorous above the loud and clamorous midnight wind. They formed a brief safe curtain of trivial sounds between her and horror.

Listening, still with that strange, stern smile upon her lips, she bent, pulled the black cloak from the queerly rolled hammock, and, with another swift glance around, caught hold of the roll with all her strength.

It was close to the top of the steps, and she could have lifted the house at that minute. In another moment it would be in the pounding swirl of water, which would rip it apart, pound it, and perhaps what it held, to pieces. Dead men told no tales; dead men told no tales.

When Jeremy Darrell returned, his wife was standing, supporting herself by a cedar pillar. The hunting coat lay at her feet like a pool of blood in that light, and her black velvet cloak was hanging on her arm. She was staring down into the swirling water that came so close beneath them—very marvelously close at the hour of high tide.

“Everybody gone!” he announced, with a sigh of comfortable relief. “Why, you're standing, Leila! Ankle better, old girl?”

She nodded, still gazing at the black and stormy water.

“The hammock,” she said, with a marked effort. “I—I pushed it over.” She pointed, and stood still looking, looking.

“By Jove, how did you manage to do that?” said her husband. “Not that it matters. It never was much of a hammock. Useful enough to-night, though, on account of the poor ankle, wasn't it, dear?”

She nodded, and stood gazing down. The hammock had disappeared. There was no doubt that in the changing tide it would be loosened, rent, and whatever it held given to the open sea. The waves, when trusted, at high tide, seldom betray secrets.

All at once she had to choke back a shriek, for it seemed to her that she saw a hand, a human hand, floating there in the dusk and rush and clangor of water. She flung her black velvet cloak violently at it, to cover it.

Then as her brain instantly cleared, she laughed hysterically, knowing that it had been only fancy. But the horrible cloak had gone. She caught hold of Darrell and clung to him, as the chairs rocked and clattered in the wind, and the lights danced a fiendish saraband all their own in time to nothing at all but the rhythmless music of the wild high tide.

“Leila!” Jeremy Darrell exclaimed almost severely. “What is the matter with you? What an extraordinary thing to do—to throw your cloak away like that! We shall never be able to get it, now!”

“Never!” she gasped dryly, and he thought the sudden whitening of her lips came from the pain in her ankle.

“You're unstrung, Leila!” he said, with swift compunction and gentleness. “Your ankle probably got more of a wrench than you realized. How could you have done it? How did it happen? Never mind now. But the cloak, Leila. Not that I really care, I'll get you a dozen like it if you like, but——”

She shook her head. He went on holding her tenderly as he towered over her.

“Here comes Hawkins, Leila. Brace up. Ill help you in. And as for the cloak—well, it was merely such an odd thing to do, and you know how I hate your doing odd things!”

“Yes,” she whispered, hiding her face against him. “I must never forget how you hate my doing—odd things!”