The Jolliest School of All by Angela Brazil (the best ebook reader for android TXT) 📖

"Why, Dad! What's the matter? Irene lent me the book. It belongs to her father."

"Her father! You don't mean to tell me your friend's father is David Beverley?"[305]

"Why not, Dad," whispered Lorna, looking with apprehension into his haggard, excited face.

She guessed even before he spoke what the answer was going to be.

"David Beverley is the man who ruined my life!"

The blow which had fallen was utterly overwhelming. For a moment Lorna fought against the knowledge like a drowning man battling with the waters.

"Oh, Dad! Surely there's some mistake. It can't be! Isn't it some other Beverley perhaps?"

"I know his writing only too well. There's no possibility of a mistake. Besides, I saw him in Naples—at the end of February. I haven't forgotten the shock it gave me. Why," turning almost fiercely upon Lorna, "didn't you tell me your schoolfellow's name before? Have you all this time been making friends with your father's enemy?"

"I thought I'd often talked about Renie," faltered poor Lorna. "Perhaps I never mentioned her surname. Oh, Dad! Dad! Is it really true? It's too horrible to be believed."

Lying in the soft Capri grass, with the pink cistus flowers brushing her hot cheeks, Lorna raged impotently against the tragedy of a fate which was changing the dearest friendship of her life into a feud. Irene!—the only one at school who had sympathized and understood her, who had behaved with a delicacy and kindness such as no other person had ever shown her, who had taken her into her home[306] circle and given her the happiest time she had ever had in her shadowed girlhood; Irene with her merry gray eyes and her bright sunny hair, the very incarnation of warm-hearted genuine affection—Irene, her roommate, her buddy, her chosen confidante. How was it possible ever to regard her as an enemy? Yet had she not vowed a solemn oath to hate all belonging to the man who had so desperately injured them? Oh! The world seemed turning upside down. Loyalty to her father and love for her friend dragged different ways, and in the bitter conflict her heart was torn in two.

Mr. Carson, haunted to the verge of insanity by the terror of discovery, was now obsessed with the one idea of escape from Mr. Beverley. He no longer felt safe on the island. Any moment he dreaded to meet faces that would betray recognition of his past. The calm and content of his visit were utterly shattered, and a sudden violent impulse urged him to return to Naples.

"Capri is not large enough to hold myself and David Beverley," he declared. "We'll go back by the night boat, Lorna. Meantime we'll borrow Signor Verdi's skiff and paddle about among the rocks. I feel easier on water than on land. I like the sense of a space of ocean round me. You can't suddenly meet a man when you've plenty of sea-room, can you?"

"No, no, Dad!" said Lorna, trying to soothe him. "We can walk down the steps to the cove and get[307] the skiff, and be quite away from everybody once we are on the sea."

She was ready to humor his every whim, for in the blackness of her trouble nothing seemed at present to really matter. The whirling eddies of her thoughts rushed through her brain in a perpetual series of questions and answers. Must hate strike the death knell of love? Surely the only thing to do with an injury is to forgive it. Would revenge wipe out the wrong or in any way solve anything? No, there would only be one more wrong done in the world, to go on in ever-widening circles of hatred and misery. Curses, like chickens, come home to roost, and "getting even" may bring its own punishment.

"Our only chance is to go away and start afresh in a new country," she sobbed. "At the other side of the Pacific we might forget—but no! Renie! Renie! If I go to the back of beyond I shan't forget you, and all you've been to me. The memory of you, darling, will last until the end of my life."

Mr. Carson found Signor Verdi working in his allotment, obtained leave from him to use the skiff, and climbing down the flight of steep steps cut in the rock, reached the cove where the boat was beached on the shingle. He had been an expert oarsman from his college days, and understood Neapolitan waters, so in a short time he and Lorna were skimming gently over the surface of the blue sea, keeping well away from rocks and out of currents,[308] but within reasonable distance of the land. Sometimes they rowed and sometimes they drifted, hardly caring in what direction they steered so long as they circled round the island. Their only object was to stop out on the sea, and, as they had brought a picnic basket with them, there was nothing to urge their return until sunset. In the course of the afternoon they had coasted below Monte Solaro, and found themselves approaching the entrance that led to the Blue Grotto. In the mornings, when the steamer brought its crowd of tourists, there was generally quite a little fleet of skiffs to be seen here, but now, with the exception of a solitary boat, the famous cavern was deserted. To avoid passing too near to even this one craft Mr. Carson steered away from the shore, but turned his head in consternation, for loud and unmistakable cries of "help" were ringing over the water, and the occupants, frantically waving handkerchiefs, were evidently doing their utmost to attract his attention. Common humanity demanded that he must at least go and see what was the matter, so he reluctantly altered his course.

In a boat close to the entrance of the grotto were several young people, and Lorna instantly recognized Angus, Stewart, Jess, Michael, and Peachy. They appeared in much anxiety, and directly they were within hailing distance they called out their news:

"Mr. Beverley and Vincent and Irene have gone[309] inside the grotto, and they don't seem able to get out again. We can hear them shouting for help."

The party, in their British imprudence, had not brought a boatman, and they were uncertain what to do. Their own barque was too large to go through the narrow opening into the cavern, and they looked hopefully at Mr. Carson's little skiff.

"We don't know what's happened," gulped Jess.

"They went in to explore the Roman passage."

"Just by themselves."

"They've been gone such a long time," volunteered the others.

"Listen," said Peachy.

For from out the low entrance of the grotto floated a faint far-off echoing ghost of a shout.

Lorna glanced imploringly at her father. He did not hesitate for a moment. The man who had injured him was inside the cavern, perhaps in deadly danger, and he was going to risk his own life and his daughter's to save him. And risk there undoubtedly was. A breeze had arisen and agitated the surface of the water, so that the ingress was smaller than ever and more difficult to compass. When waves lashed the tideless Mediterranean even the Capri fishermen shunned entering the grotto, for they knew its perils only too well. Telling Lorna to lie flat on her back Mr. Carson took the same position, and with infinite difficulty managed to maneuver the skiff into the rocky entrance. There was[310] barely room, for each wave bumped it against the roof, but by clinging to the chain he worked his way along and shot through into the lake within. On the right of the cavern three figures, holding a light, stood on a kind of landing-place, while a skiff drifting far off in the shadows told its own tale.

Mr. Carson rowed at once to retrieve the truant boat, and towed it back to its owners.

"We thought we had tied it securely," explained Mr. Beverley. "We were utterly aghast when we came back and found it had drifted. It would have been a horrible experience to stay here all night. If the sea rose we might even have been imprisoned for days. We were fools to come, but I didn't realize the danger."

"The sea is much rougher already," said Mr. Carson. "It'll be a ticklish matter to get out again, and the sooner we do it the better. Will you go first and I'll follow on after?"

"It's like you, Lorna, to come to rescue us. I always called you my good angel," choked Irene, as she entered the skiff. "I thought just now I was never going to see you again in this world. Let's get out of this horrible place as fast as we can. It's like Dante's Inferno. I've never been so frightened in all my life."

One after the other the two skiffs started on their risky exit from the grotto, scraping and bumping against the roof with the water on a level with the[311] gunwale; one wave indeed overflowed and soused them, but the next moment they sighted the sky and grazing through the entrance they gained the open water.

It was only when, in the clear afternoon daylight he turned to thank his rescuer that a flash of recognition flooded Mr. Beverley's face.

"Cedric Houghten! You! You!" he stammered, as if almost disbelieving the evidence of his own eyes.

"Yes, it is I; but having seen me, forget me," returned Mr. Carson, his dark face flushed and his hand on the oar. "It's the one favor you can do me for saving you. Let me vanish as I came, and don't try to follow me. I only hope we may never cross each other's paths again."

"Cedric! Come back!" yelled Mr. Beverley, as the skiff shot away. "Man alive! We've been searching for you for years. Don't you know that we've proved your innocence! Come back, I say, and let me tell you."

It was late that evening, after a very long talk with Mr. Beverley, that Lorna's father explained to her the circumstances that had cleared his name.

"David had no more embezzled the money than I, and, thank God, he has no idea I ever distrusted him. When a further sum went, Mr. Fenton set a trap,[312] and discovered to his infinite grief that it was his own son who had been robbing the firm. It practically broke him, and he has retired from all active share in the business now. They packed young Fenton off to New Zealand to try farming instead of finance, but he's not doing any good there. Mr. Fenton, it seems, was most anxious to find me and right the injustice done me, but I had hidden myself so well under an assumed name in Naples that it was impossible for them to trace me. They advertised in the Agony column of The Times, but I avoided English papers, so never saw the advertisements. My efforts to escape notice were only too successful, and, although I didn't know it, I was actually defeating my own ends by my caution. If, as I intended, I had started for a new continent, I might so completely have broken all links with my old life that I might have gone to my grave in ignorance that my innocence was proved. It was only the marvelous chance of this afternoon's meeting that cleared up the tangle. I can look the world in the face again, now, and not fear the sight of an Englishman. Oh, the joy of having got one's honor back untarnished! Next best to that is to know it was not my friend who had wronged me. The belief in his treachery was half the bitterness of those dreadful years. Capri has been a fortunate island for us, Lorna. It's truly called the 'Mascot of Naples,' and I shall love it to the end of my days. I can take my old name again now and be proud of it. You're Lorna[313] Houghten in future, not Lorna Carson. What a triumph to write to our relations and tell them the glorious