To be a father; to have an image of his darling Rosa, and a fruit of their love to live and work for: this gave the sore heart a heavenly glow, and elasticity to bear. Should this dear object be born to an inheritance of debt, of poverty? Never.
He began to act as if he was even now a father. He entreated Rosa not to trouble or vex herself; he would look into their finances, and set all straight.
He paid all the bills, and put by a quarter's rent and taxes. Then there remained of his little capital just ten pounds.
He went to his printers, and had a thousand order-checks printed. These forms ran thus:—
“Dr. Staines, of 13 Dear Street, Mayfair (blank for date), orders of (blank here for tradesman and goods ordered), for cash. Received same time (blank for tradesman's receipt). Notice: Dr. Staines disowns all orders not printed on this form, and paid for at date of order.”
He exhibited these forms, and warned all the tradespeople, before a witness whom he took round for that purpose.
He paid off Pearman on the spot. Pearman had met Clara, dressed like a pauper, her soldier having emptied her box to the very dregs, and he now offered to stay. But it was too late.
Staines told the cook Mrs. Staines was in delicate health, and must not be troubled with anything. She must come to him for all orders.
“Yes, sir,” said she. But she no sooner comprehended the check system fully than she gave warning. It put a stop to her wholesale pilfering. Rosa's cooks had made fully a hundred pounds out of her amongst them since she began to keep accounts.
Under the male housekeeper every article was weighed on delivery, and this soon revealed that the butcher and the fishmonger had habitually delivered short weight from the first, besides putting down the same thing twice. The things were sent back that moment, with a printed form, stating the nature and extent of the fraud.
The washerwoman, who had been pilfering wholesale so long as Mrs. Staines and her sloppy-headed maids counted the linen, and then forgot it, was brought up with a run, by triplicate forms, and by Staines counting the things before two witnesses, and compelling the washerwoman to count them as well, and verify or dispute on the spot. The laundress gave warning—a plain confession that stealing had been part of her trade.
He kept the house well for three pounds a week, exclusive of coals, candles, and wine. His wife had had five pounds, and whatever she asked for dinner-parties, yet found it not half enough upon her method.
He kept no coachman. If he visited a patient, a man in the yard drove him at a shilling per hour.
By these means, and by working like a galley slave, he dragged his expenditure down almost to a level with his income.
Rosa was quite content at first, and thought herself lucky to escape reproaches on such easy terms.
But by and by so rigorous a system began to gall her. One day she fancied a Bath bun; sent the new maid to the pastry-cook's. Pastry-cook asked to see the doctor's order. Maid could not show it, and came back bunless.
Rosa came into the study to complain to her husband.
“A Bath bun,” said Staines. “Why, they are colored with annotto, to save an egg, and annotto is adulterated with chromates that are poison. Adulteration upon adulteration. I'll make you a real Bath bun.” Off coat, and into the kitchen, and made her three, pure, but rather heavy. He brought them her in due course. She declined them languidly. She was off the notion, as they say in Scotland.
“If I can't have a thing when I want it, I don't care for it at all.” Such was the principle she laid down for his future guidance.
He sighed, and went back to his work; she cleared the plate.
One day, when she asked for the carriage, he told her the time was now come for her to leave off carriage exercise. She must walk with him every day, instead.
“But I don't like walking.”
“I am sorry for that. But it is necessary to you, and by and by your life may depend on it.”
Quietly, but inexorably, he dragged her out walking every day.
In one of these walks she stopped at a shop window, and fell in love with some baby's things. “Oh! I must have that,” said she. “I must. I shall die if I don't; you'll see now.”
“You shall,” said he, “when I can pay for it,” and drew her away.
The tears of disappointment stood in her eyes, and his heart yearned over her. But he kept his head.
He changed the dinner hour to six, and used to go out directly afterwards.
She began to complain of his leaving her alone like that.
“Well, but wait a bit,” said he; “suppose I am making a little money by it, to buy you something you have set your heart on, poor darling!”
In a very few days after this, he brought her a little box with a slit in it. He shook it, and money rattled; then he unlocked it, and poured out a little pile of silver. “There,” said he, “put on your bonnet, and come and buy those things.”
She put on her bonnet, and on the way she asked how it came to be all in silver.
“That is a puzzler,” said he, “isn't it?”
“And how did you make it, dear? by writing?”
“No.”
“By fees from the poor people?”
“What, undersell my brethren! Hang it, no! My dear, I made it honestly, and some day I will tell you how I made it; at present, all I will tell you is this: I saw my darling longing for something she had a right to long for; I saw the tears in her sweet eyes, and—oh, come along, do. I am wretched till I see you with the things in your hand.”
They went to the shop; and Staines sat and watched Rosa buying baby-clothes. Oh, it was a pretty sight to see this modest young creature, little more than a child herself, anticipating maternity, but blushing every now and then, and looking askant at her lord and master. How his very bowels yearned over her!
And when they got home, she spread the things on a table, and they sat hand in hand, and looked at them, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, and went quietly to sleep there.
And yet, as time rolled on, she became irritable at times, and impatient, and wanted all manner of things she could not have, and made him unhappy.
Then he was out from six o'clock till one, and she took it into her head to be jealous. So many hours to spend away from her! Now that she wanted all his comfort.
Presently, Ellen, the new maid, got gossiping in the yard, and a groom told her her master had a sweetheart on the sly, he thought; for he drove the brougham out every evening himself; “and,” said the man, “he wears a mustache at night.”
Ellen ran in, brimful of this, and told the cook; the cook told the washerwoman; the washerwoman told a dozen families, till about two hundred people knew it.
At last it came to Mrs. Staines in a roundabout way, at the very moment when she was complaining to Lady Cicely Treherne of her hard lot. She had been telling her she was nothing more than a lay-figure in the house.
“My husband is housekeeper now, and cook, and all, and makes me delicious dishes, I can tell you; SUCH curries! I couldn't keep the house with five pounds a week, so now he does it with three: and I never get the carriage, because walking is best for me; and he takes it out every night to make money. I don't understand it.”
Lady Cicely suggested that perhaps Dr. Staines thought it best for her to be relieved of all worry, and so undertook the housekeeping.
“No, no, no,” said Rosa; “I used to pay them all a part of their bills, and then a little more, and so I kept getting deeper; and I was ashamed to tell Christie, so that he calls deceit; and oh, he spoke to me so cruelly once! But he was very sorry afterwards, poor dear! Why are girls brought up so silly? all piano, and no sense; and why are men sillier still to go and marry such silly things? A wife! I am not so much as a servant. Oh, I am finely humiliated, and,” with a sudden hearty naivete all her own, “it serves me just right.”
While Lady Cicely was puzzling this out, in came a letter. Rosa opened it, read it, and gave a cry like a wounded deer.
“Oh!” she cried, “I am a miserable woman. What will become of me?”
The letter informed her bluntly that her husband drove his brougham out every night to pursue a criminal amour.
While Rosa was wringing her hands in real anguish of heart, Lady Cicely read the letter carefully.
“I don't believe this,” said she quietly.
“Not true! Why, who would be so wicked as to stab a poor, inoffensive wretch like me, if it wasn't true?”
“The first ugly woman would, in a minute. Don't you see the witer can't tell you where he goes? Dwives his bwougham out! That is all your infaumant knows.”
“Oh, my dear friend, bless you! What have I been complaining to you about? All is light, except to lose his love. What shall I do? I will never tell him. I will never affront him by saying I suspected him.”
“Wosa, if you do that, you will always have a serpent gnawing you. No; you must put the letter quietly into his hand, and say, 'Is there any truth in that?'”
“Oh, I could not. I haven't the courage. If I do that, I shall know by his face if there is any truth in it.”
“Well, and you must know the twuth. You shall know it. I want to know it too; for if he does not love you twuly, I will nevaa twust myself to anything so deceitful as a man.”
Rosa at last consented to follow this advice.
After dinner she put the letter into Christopher's hand, and asked him quietly was there any truth in that: then her hands trembled, and her eyes drank him.
Christopher read it, and frowned; then he looked up, and said, “No, not a word. What scoundrels there are in the world! To go and tell you that, NOW! Why, you little goose! have you been silly enough to believe it?”
“No,” said she irresolutely. “But DO you drive the brougham out every night?”
“Except Sunday.”
“Where?”
“My dear wife, I never loved you as I love you now; and if it was not for you, I should not drive the brougham out of nights. That is all I shall tell you at present; but some day I'll tell you all about it.”
He took such a calm high hand with her about it, that she submitted to leave it there; but from this moment the serpent doubt nibbled her.
It had one curious effect, though. She left off complaining of trifles.
Now it happened one night that Lady Cicely Treherne and a friend were at a concert in Hanover Square. The other lady felt rather faint, and Lady Cicely offered to take her home. The carriages had not yet arrived, and Miss Macnamara said to walk a few steps would do her good: a smart cabman saw them from a distance and drove up, and touching his hat said, “Cab, ladies?”
It seemed a very superior cab, and Miss Macnamara said “Yes” directly.
The cabman bustled down and opened the door; Miss Macnamara got in first, then Lady Cicely; her eye fell on the cabman's face, which was lighted full by a street-lamp, and it was Christopher Staines!
He started and winced; but the woman of the world never moved a muscle.
“Where to?” said Staines, averting his head.
She told him where, and when they got out, said, “I'll send it you by the servant.”
A flunkey soon after appeared with half-a-crown, and the amateur coachman drove away. He said to himself, “Come, my mustache is a better disguise than I thought.”
Next day, and the day after, he asked Rosa, with affected carelessness, had she heard anything of Lady Cicely.
“No, dear; but I dare say she will call this afternoon: it is her day.”
She did call at last, and after a few words with Rosa, became a little restless, and asked if she might consult Dr. Staines.
“Certainly, dear. Come to his studio.”
“No; might I see him here?”
“Certainly.” She rang the bell, and told the servant to ask Dr. Staines if he would be kind enough to step into the drawing-room.
Dr. Staines came in, and bowed to Lady Cicely, and eyed her a little uncomfortably.
She began, however, in a way that put him quite at his ease. “You remember the advice you gave us about my little cousin Tadcastah.”
“Perfectly: his life is very precarious; he is bilious, consumptive, and, if not watched, will be epileptical; and he has a fond, weak mother, who will let him kill himself.”
“Exactly: and you wecommended a sea voyage, with a medical attendant to watch his diet, and contwol his habits. Well, she took other advice, and the youth is worse; so now she is fwightened, and a month ago she asked me to pwopose to you to sail about with Tadcastah; and she offered me a thousand pounds a year. I put on my stiff look, and said, 'Countess, with every desiah to oblige you, I must decline to cawwy that offah to a man of genius, learning, and weputation, who has the ball at his feet in London.'”
“Lord forgive you, Lady Cicely.”
“Lord bless her for standing up for my Christie.”
Lady Cicely continued: “Now, this good lady, you must know, is not exactly one of us: the late earl mawwied into cotton, or wool, or something. So she said, 'Name your price for him.' I shwugged my shoulders, smiled affably, and as affectedly as you like, and changed the subject. But since then things have happened. I am afwaid it is my duty to make you the judge whether you choose to sail about with that little cub—Rosa, I can beat about the bush no longer. Is it a fit thing that a man of genius, at whose feet we ought all to be sitting with reverence, should drive a cab in the public streets? Yes, Rosa Staines, your husband drives his brougham out at night, not to visit any other lady, as that anonymous wretch told you, but to make a few misewable shillings for you.”
“Oh, Christie!”
“It is no use, Dr. Staines; I must and will tell her. My dear, he drove ME three nights ago. He had a cabman's badge on his poor arm. If you knew what I suffered in those five minutes! Indeed it seems cruel to speak of it—but I could not keep it from Rosa, and the reason I muster courage to say it before you, sir, it is because I know she has other friends who keep you out of their consultations; and, after all, it is the world that ought to blush, and not you.”
Her ladyship's kindly bosom heaved, and she wanted to cry; so she took her handkerchief out of her pocket without the least hurry, and pressed it delicately to her eyes, and did cry quietly, but without any disguise, like a brave lady, who neither cried nor did anything else she was ashamed to be seen at.
As for Rosa, she sat sobbing round Christopher's neck, and kissed him with all her soul.
“Dear me!” said Christopher. “You are both very kind. But, begging your pardon, it is much ado about nothing.”
Lady Cicely took no notice of that observation. “So, Rosa dear,” said she, “I think you are the person to decide whether he had not better sail about with that little cub, than—oh!”
“I will settle that,” said Staines. “I have one beloved creature to provide for. I may have another. I MUST make money. Turning a brougham into a cab, whatever you may think, is an honest way of making it, and I am not the first doctor who has coined his brougham at night. But if there is a good deal of money to be made by sailing with Lord Tadcaster, of course I should prefer that to cab-driving, for I have never made above twelve shillings a night.”
“Oh, as to that, she shall give you fifteen hundred a year.”
“Then I jump at it.”
“What! and leave ME?”
“Yes, love: leave you—for your good; and only for a time. Lady Cicely, it is a noble offer. My darling Rosa will have every comfort—ay, every luxury, till I come home, and then we will start afresh with a good balance, and with more experience than we did at first.”
Lady Cicely gazed on him with wonder. She said, “Oh! what stout hearts men have! No, no; don't let him go. See; he is acting. His great heart is torn with agony. I will have no hand in parting man and wife—no, not for a day.” And she hurried away in rare agitation.
Rosa fell on her knees, and asked Christopher's pardon for having been jealous; and that day she was a flood of divine tenderness. She repaid him richly for driving the cab. But she was unnaturally cool about Lady Cicely; and the exquisite reason soon came out. “Oh yes! She is very good; very kind; but it is not for me now! No! you shall not sail about with her cub of a cousin, and leave me at such a time.”
Christopher groaned.
“Christie, you shall not see that lady again. She came here to part us. SHE IS IN LOVE WITH YOU. I was blind not to see it before.”
Next day, as Lady Cicely sat alone in the morning-room thinking over this very scene, a footman brought in a card and a note. “Dr. Staines begs particularly to see Lady Cicely Treherne.”
The lady's pale cheek colored; she stood irresolute a single moment. “I will see Dr. Staines,” said she.
Dr. Staines came in, looking pale and worn; he had not slept a wink since she saw him last.
She looked at him full, and divined this at a glance. She motioned him to a seat, and sat down herself, with her white hand pressing her forehead, and her head turned a little away from him.
He told her he had come to thank her for her great kindness, and to accept the offer.
She sighed. “I hoped it was to decline it. Think of the misery of separation, both to you and her.”
“It will be misery. But we are not happy as it is, and she cannot bear poverty. Nor is it fair she should, when I can give her every comfort by just playing the man for a year or two.” He then told Lady Cicely there were more reasons than he chose to mention: go he must, and would; and he implored her not to let the affair drop. In short, he was sad but resolved, and she found she must go on with it, or break faith with him. She took her desk, and wrote a letter concluding the bargain for him. She stipulated for half the year's fee in advance. She read Dr. Staines the letter.
“You ARE a friend!” said he. “I should never have ventured on that; it will be a godsend to my poor Rosa. You will be kind to her when I am gone?”
“I will.”
“So will Uncle Philip, I think. I will see him before I go, and shake hands. He has been a good friend to me; but he was too hard upon HER; and I could not stand that.”
Then he thanked and blessed her again, with the tears in his eyes, and left her more disturbed and tearful than she had ever been since she grew to woman. “O cruel poverty!” she thought, “that such a man should be torn from his home, and thank me for doing it—all for a little money—and here are we poor commonplace creatures rolling in it.”
Staines hurried home, and told his wife. She clung to him convulsively, and wept bitterly; but she made no direct attempt to shake his resolution; she saw, by his iron look, that she could only afflict, not turn him.
Next day came Lady Cicely to see her. Lady Cicely was very uneasy in her mind, and wanted to know whether Rosa was reconciled to the separation.
Rosa received her with a forced politeness and an icy coldness that petrified her. She could not stay long in face of such a reception. At parting, she said, sadly, “You look on me as an enemy.”
“What else can you expect, when you part my husband and me?” said Rosa, with quiet sternness.
“I meant well,” said Lady Cicely sorrowfully; “but I wish I had never interfered.”
“So do I,” and she began to cry.
Lady Cicely made no answer. She went quietly away, hanging her head sadly.
Rosa was unjust, but she was not rude nor vulgar; and Lady Cicely's temper was so well governed that it never blinded her heart. She withdrew, but without the least idea of quarrelling with her afflicted friend, or abandoning her. She went quietly home, and wrote to Lady ——, to say that she should be glad to receive Dr. Staines's advance as soon as convenient, since Mrs. Staines would have to make fresh arrangements, and the money might be useful.
The money was forthcoming directly. Lady Cicely brought it to Dear Street, and handed it to Dr. Staines. His eyes sparkled at the sight of it.
“Give my love to Rosa,” said she softly, and cut her visit very short.
Staines took the money to Rosa, and said, “See what our best friend has brought us. You shall have four hundred, and I hope, after the bitter lessons you have had, you will be able to do with that for some months. The two hundred I shall keep as a reserve fund for you to draw on.”
“No, no!” said Rosa. “I shall go and live with my father, and never spend a penny. O Christie, if you knew how I hate myself for the folly that is parting us! Oh, why don't they teach girls sense and money, instead of music and the globes?”
But Christopher opened a banking account for her, and gave her a check-book, and entreated her to pay everything by check, and run no bills whatever; and she promised. He also advertised the Bijou, and put a bill in the window: “The lease of this house, and the furniture, to be sold.”
Rosa cried bitterly at sight of it, thinking how high in hope they were, when they had their first dinner there, and also when she went to her first sale to buy the furniture cheap.
And now everything moved with terrible rapidity. The Amphitrite was to sail from Plymouth in five days; and, meantime, there was so much to be done, that the days seemed to gallop away.
Dr. Staines forgot nothing. He made his will in duplicate, leaving all to his wife; he left one copy at Doctors' Commons and another with his lawyer; inventoried all his furniture and effects in duplicate, too; wrote to Uncle Philip, and then called on him to seek a reconciliation. Unfortunately, Dr. Philip was in Scotland. At last this sad pair went down to Plymouth together, there to meet Lord Tadcaster and go on board H.M.S. Amphitrite, lying out at anchor, under orders for the Australian Station.
They met at the inn, as appointed; and sent word of their arrival on board the frigate, asking to remain on shore till the last minute.
Dr. Staines presented his patient to Rosa; and after a little while drew him apart and questioned him professionally. He then asked for a private room. Here he and Rosa really took leave; for what could the poor things say to each other on a crowded quay? He begged her forgiveness, on his knees, for having once spoken harshly to her, and she told him, with passionate sobs, he had never spoken harshly to her; her folly it was had parted them.
Poor wretches! they clung together with a thousand vows of love and constancy. They were to pray for each other at the same hours: to think of some kind word or loving act, at other stated hours; and so they tried to fight with their suffering minds against the cruel separation; and if either should die, the other was to live wedded to memory, and never listen to love from other lips; but no! God was pitiful; He would let them meet again ere long, to part no more. They rocked in each other's arms; they cried over each other—it was pitiful.
At last the cruel summons came; they shuddered, as if it was their death-blow. Christopher, with a face of agony, was yet himself, and would have parted then: and so best. But Rosa could not. She would see the last of him, and became almost wild and violent when he opposed it.
Then he let her come with him to Milbay Steps; but into the boat he would not let her step.
The ship's boat lay at the steps, manned by six sailors, all seated, with their oars tossed in two vertical rows. A smart middy in charge conducted them, and Dr. Staines and Lord Tadcaster got in, leaving Rosa, in charge of her maid, on the quay.
“Shove off”—“Down”—“Give way.”
Each order was executed so swiftly and surely that, in as many seconds, the boat was clear, the oars struck the water with a loud splash, and the husband was shot away like an arrow, and the wife's despairing cry rang on the stony quay, as many a poor woman's cry had rung before.
In half a minute the boat shot under the stern of the frigate.
They were received on the quarter-deck by Captain Hamilton: he introduced them to the officers—a torture to poor Staines, to have his mind taken for a single instant from his wife—the first lieutenant came aft, and reported, “Ready for making sail, sir.”
Staines seized the excuse, rushed to the other side of the vessel, leaned over the taffrail, as if he would fly ashore, and stretched out his hands to his beloved Rosa; and she stretched out her hands to him. They were so near, he could read the expression of her face. It was wild and troubled, as one who did not yet realize the terrible situation, but would not be long first.
“HANDS MAKE SAIL—AWAY, ALOFT—UP ANCHOR”—rang in Christopher's ear, as if in a dream. All his soul and senses were bent on that desolate young creature. How young and amazed her lovely face! Yet this bewildered child was about to become a mother. Even a stranger's heart might have yearned with pity for her: how much more her miserable husband's!
The capstan was manned, and worked to a merry tune that struck chill to the bereaved; yards were braced for casting, anchor hove, catted, and fished, sail was spread with amazing swiftness, the ship's head dipped, and slowly and gracefully paid off towards the breakwater, and she stood out to sea under swiftly-swelling canvas and a light north-westerly breeze.
Staines only felt the motion: his body was in the ship, his soul with his Rosa. He gazed, he strained his eyes to see her eyes, as the ship glided from England and her. While he was thus gazing and trembling all over, up came to him a smart second lieutenant, with a brilliant voice that struck him like a sword. “Captain's orders to show you berths; please choose for Lord Tadcaster and yourself.”
The man's wild answer made the young officer stare. “Oh, sir! not now—try and do my duty when I have quite lost her—my poor wife—a child—a mother—there—sir—on the steps—there!—there!”
Now this officer always went to sea singing “Oh be joyful.” But a strong man's agony, who can make light of it? It was a revelation to him; but he took it quickly. The first thing he did, being a man of action, was to dash into his cabin, and come back with a short, powerful double glass. “There!” said he roughly, but kindly, and shoved it into Staines's hand. He took it, stared at it stupidly, then used it, without a word of thanks, so wrapped was he in his anguish.
This glass prolonged the misery of that bitter hour. When Rosa could no longer tell her husband from another, she felt he was really gone, and she threw her hands aloft, and clasped them above her head, with the wild abandon of a woman who could never again be a child; and Staines saw it, and a sharp sigh burst from him, and he saw her maid and others gather round her. He saw the poor young thing led away, with her head all down, as he had never seen her before, and supported to the inn; and then he saw her no more.
His heart seemed to go out of his bosom in search of her, and leave nothing but a stone behind: he hung over the taffrail like a dead thing. A steady foot-fall slapped his ear. He raised his white face and filmy eyes, and saw Lieutenant Fitzroy marching to and fro like a sentinel, keeping everybody away from the mourner, with the steady, resolute, business-like face of a man in whom sentiment is confined to action; its phrases and its flourishes being literally terra incognita to the honest fellow.
Staines staggered towards him, holding out both hands, and gasped out, “God bless you. Hide me somewhere—must not be seen SO—got duty to do—Patient—can't do it yet—one hour to draw my breath—oh, my God, my God!—one hour, sir. Then do my duty, if I die—as you would.”
Fitzroy tore him down into his own cabin, shut him in and ran to the first lieutenant, with a tear in his eye. “Can I have a sentry, sir?”
“Sentry! What for?”
“The doctor—awfully cut up at leaving his wife: got him in my cabin. Wants to have his cry to himself.”
“Fancy a fellow crying at going to sea!”
“It is not that, sir; it is leaving his wife.”
“Well, is he the only man on board that has got a wife?”
“Why, no, sir. It is odd, now I think of it. Perhaps he has only got that ONE.”
“Curious creatures, landsmen,” said the first lieutenant. “However, you can stick a marine there.”
“And I say, show the YOUNGSTER the berths, and let him choose, as the doctor's aground.”
“Yes, sir.”
So Fitzoy planted his marine, and then went after Lord Tadcaster: he had drawn up alongside his cousin, Captain Hamilton. The captain, being an admirer of Lady Cicely, was mighty civil to his little lordship, and talked to him more than was his wont on the quarterdeck; for though he had a good flow of conversation, and dispensed with ceremony in his cabin, he was apt to be rather short on deck. However, he told little Tadcaster he was fortunate; they had a good start, and, if the wind held, might hope to be clear of the Channel in twenty-four hours. “You will see Eddystone lighthouse about four bells,” said he.
“Shall we go out of sight of land altogether?” inquired his lordship.
“Of course we shall, and the sooner the better.” He then explained to the novice that the only danger to a good ship was from the land.
While Tadcaster was digesting this paradox, Captain Hamilton proceeded to descant on the beauties of blue water and its fine medicinal qualities, which, he said, were particularly suited to young gentlemen with bilious stomachs, but presently, catching sight of Lieutenant Fitzroy standing apart, but with the manner of a lieutenant not there by accident, he stopped, and said, civilly but smartly, “Well, sir?”
Fitzroy came forward directly, saluted, and said he had orders from the first lieutenant to show Lord Tadcaster the berths. His lordship must be good enough to choose, because the doctor—couldn't.
“Why not?”
“Brought to, sir—for the present—by—well, by grief.”
“Brought to by grief! Who the deuce is grief? No riddles on the quarter-deck, if you please, sir.”
“Oh no, sir. I assure you he is awfully cut up; and he is having his cry out in my cabin.”
“Having his cry out! why, what for?”
“Leaving his wife, sir.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“Well, I don't wonder,” cried little Tadcaster warmly. “She is, oh, so beautiful!” and a sudden blush o'erspread his pasty cheeks. “Why on earth didn't we bring her along with us here?” said he, suddenly opening his eyes with astonishment at the childish omission.
“Why, indeed?” said the captain comically, and dived below, attended by the well-disciplined laughter of Lieutenant Fitzroy, who was too good an officer not to be amused at his captain's jokes. Having acquitted himself of that duty—and it is a very difficult one sometimes—he took Lord Tadcaster to the main-deck, and showed him two comfortable sleeping-berths that had been screened off for him and Dr. Staines; one of these was fitted with a standing bed-place, the other had a cot swung in it. Fitzroy offered him the choice, but hinted that he himself preferred a cot.
“No, thank you,” says my lord mighty dryly.
“All right,” said Fitzroy cheerfully. “Take the other, then, my lord.”
His little lordship cocked his eye like a jackdaw, and looked almost as cunning. “You see,” said he, “I have been reading up for this voyage.”
“Oh, indeed! Logarithms?”
“Of course not.”
“What then?”
“Why, 'Peter Simple'—to be sure.”
“Ah, ha!” said Fitzroy, with a chuckle that showed plainly he had some delicious reminiscences of youthful study in the same quarter.
The little lord chuckled too, and put one finger on Fitzroy's shoulder, and pointed at the cot with another. “Tumble out the other side, you know—slippery hitches—cords cut—down you come flop in the middle of the night.”
Fitzroy's eye flashed merriment: but only for a moment. His countenance fell the next. “Lord bless you,” said he sorrowfully, “all that game is over now. Her Majesty's ship!—it is a church afloat. The service is going to the devil, as the old fogies say.”
“Ain't you sorry?” says the little lord, cocking his eye again like the bird hereinbefore mentioned.
“Of course I am.”
“Then I'll take the standing bed.”
“All right. I say, you don't mind the doctor coming down with a run, eh?”
“He is not ill: I am. He is paid to take care of me: I am not paid to take care of him,” said the young lord sententiously.
“I understand,” replied Fitzroy, dryly. “Well, every one for himself, and Providence for us all—as the elephant said when he danced among the chickens.”
Here my lord was summoned to dine with the captain. Staines was not there; but he had not forgotten his duty; in the midst of his grief he had written a note to the captain, hoping that a bereaved husband might not seem to desert his post if he hid for a few hours the sorrow he felt himself unable to control. Meantime he would be grateful if Captain Hamilton would give orders that Lord Tadcaster should eat no pastry, and drink only six ounces of claret, otherwise he should feel that he was indeed betraying his trust.
The captain was pleased and touched with this letter. It recalled to him how his mother sobbed when she launched her little middy, swelling with his first cocked hat and dirk.
There was champagne at dinner, and little Tadcaster began to pour out a tumbler. “Hold on!” said Captain Hamilton; “you are not to drink that;” and he quietly removed the tumbler. “Bring him six ounces of claret.”
While they were weighing the claret with scientific precision, Tadcaster remonstrated; and, being told it was the doctor's order, he squeaked out, “Confound him! why did not he stay with his wife? She is beautiful.” Nor did he give it up without a struggle. “Here's hospitality!” said he. “Six ounces!”
Receiving no reply, he inquired of the third lieutenant, which was generally considered the greatest authority in a ship—the captain, or the doctor.
The third lieutenant answered not, but turned his head away, and, by violent exertion, succeeded in not splitting.
“I'll answer that,” said Hamilton politely. “The captain is the highest in his department, and the doctor in his: now Doctor Staines is strictly within his department, and will be supported by me and my officers. You are bilious, and epileptical, and all the rest of it, and you are to be cured by diet and blue water.”
Tadcaster was inclined to snivel: however, he subdued that weakness with a visible effort, and, in due course, returned to the charge. “How would you look,” quavered he, “if there was to be a mutiny in this ship of yours, and I was to head it?'
“Well, I should look SHARP—hang all the ringleaders at the yardarm, clap the rest under hatches, and steer for the nearest prison.”
“Oh!” said Tadcaster, and digested this scheme a bit. At last he perked up again, and made his final hit. “Well, I shouldn't care, for one, if you didn't flog us.”
“In that case,” said Captain Hamilton, “I'd flog you—and stop your six ounces.”
“Then curse the sea; that is all I say.”
“Why, you have not seen it; you have only seen the British Channel.” It was Mr. Fitzroy who contributed this last observation.
After dinner all but the captain went on deck, and saw the Eddystone lighthouse ahead and to leeward. They passed it. Fitzroy told his lordship its story, and that of its unfortunate predecessors. Soon after this Lord Tadcaster turned in.
Presently the captain observed a change in the thermometer, which brought him on deck. He scanned the water and the sky, and as these experienced commanders have a subtle insight into the weather, especially in familiar latitudes, he remarked to the first lieutenant that it looked rather unsettled; and, as a matter of prudence, ordered a reef in the topsails, and the royal yards to be sent down: ship to be steered W. by S. This done, he turned in, but told them to call him if there was any change in the weather.
During the night the wind gradually headed; and at four bells in the middle watch a heavy squall came up from the south-west.
This brought the captain on deck again: he found the officer of the watch at his post, and at work. Sail was shortened, and the ship made snug for heavy weather.
At four A.M. it was blowing hard, and, being too near the French coast, they wore the ship.
Now, this operation was bad for little Tadcaster. While the vessel was on the starboard tack, the side kept him snug; but, when they wore her, of course he had no leeboard to keep him in. The ship gave a lee-lurch, and shot him clean out of his bunk into the middle of the cabin.
He shrieked and shrieked, with terror and pain, till the captain and Staines, who were his nearest neighbors, came to him, and they gave him a little brandy, and got him to bed again. Here he suffered nothing but violent seasickness for some hours. As for Staines, he had been swinging heavily in his cot; but such was his mental distress that he would have welcomed seasickness, or any reasonable bodily suffering. He was in that state when the sting of a wasp is a touch of comfort.
Worn out with sickness, Tadcaster would not move. Invited to breakfast, he swore faintly, and insisted on dying in peace. At last exhaustion gave him a sort of sleep, in spite of the motion, which was violent, for it was now blowing great guns, a heavy sea on, and the great waves dirty in color and crested with raging foam.
They had to wear ship again, always a ticklish manoeuvre in weather like this.
A tremendous sea struck her quarter, stove in the very port abreast of which the little lord was lying, and washed him clean out of bed into the lee scuppers, and set all swimming around him.
Didn't he yell, and wash about the cabin, and grab at all the chairs and tables and things that drifted about, nimble as eels, avoiding his grasp!
In rushed the captain, and in staggered Staines. They stopped his “voyage autour de sa chambre,” and dragged him into the after saloon.
He clung to them by turns, and begged, with many tears, to be put on the nearest land; a rock would do.
“Much obliged,” said the captain; “now is the very time to give rocks a wide berth.”
“A dead whale, then—a lighthouse—anything but a beast of a ship.”
They pacified him with a little brandy, and for the next twenty-four hours he scarcely opened his mouth, except for a purpose it is needless to dwell on. We can trust to our terrestrial readers' personal reminiscences of lee-lurches, weather-rolls, and their faithful concomitant.
At last they wriggled out of the Channel, and soon after that the wind abated, and next day veered round to the northward, and the ship sailed almost on an even keel. The motion became as heavenly as it had been diabolical, and the passengers came on deck.
Staines had suffered one whole day from sea-sickness, but never complained. I believe it did his mind more good than harm.
As for Tadcaster, he continued to suffer, at intervals, for two days more, but on the fifth day out he appeared with a little pink tinge on his cheek and a wolfish appetite. Dr. Staines controlled his diet severely, as to quality, and, when they had been at sea just eleven days, the physician's heavy heart was not a little lightened by the marvellous change in him. The unthinking, who believe in the drug system, should have seen what a physician can do with air and food, when circumstances enable him to ENFORCE the diet he enjoins. Money will sometimes buy even health, if you AVOID DRUGS ENTIRELY, and go another road.
Little Tadcaster went on board, pasty, dim-eyed, and very subject to fits, because his stomach was constantly overloaded with indigestible trash, and the blood in his brain-vessels was always either galloping or creeping, under the first or second effect of stimulants administered, at first, by thoughtless physicians. Behold him now—bronzed, pinky, bright-eyed, elastic; and only one fit in twelve days.
The quarter-deck was hailed from the “look-out” with a cry that is sometimes terrible, but in this latitude and weather welcome and exciting. “Land, ho!”
“Where away?” cried the officer of the watch.
“A point on the lee-bow, sir.”
It was the island of Madeira: they dropped anchor in Funchal Roads, furled sails, squared yards, and fired a salute of twenty-one guns for the Portuguese flag.
They went ashore, and found a good hotel, and were no longer dosed, as in former days, with oil, onions, garlic, eggs. But the wine queer, and no madeira to be got.
Staines wrote home to his wife: he told her how deeply he had felt the bereavement; but did not dwell on that; his object being to cheer her. He told her it promised to be a rapid and wonderful cure, and one that might very well give him a fresh start in London. They need not be parted a whole year, he thought. He sent her a very long letter, and also such extracts from his sea journal as he thought might please her. After dinner they inspected the town, and what struck them most was to find the streets paved with flag-stones, and most of the carts drawn by bullocks on sledges. A man every now and then would run forward and drop a greasy cloth in front of the sledge, to lubricate the way.
Next day, after breakfast, they ordered horses; these on inspection, proved to be of excellent breed, either from Australia or America—very rough shod, for the stony roads. Started for the Grand Canal—peeped down that mighty chasm, which has the appearance of an immense mass having been blown out of the centre of the mountain.
They lunched under the great dragon tree near its brink, then rode back admiring the bold mountain scenery. Next morning at dawn, rode on horses up the hill to the convent. Admired the beautiful gardens on the way. Remained a short time; then came down in hand-sleighs—little baskets slung on sledges, guided by two natives; these sledges run down the hill with surprising rapidity, and the men guide them round corners by sticking out a foot to port or starboard.
Embarked at 11.30 A.M.
At 1.30, the men having dined, the ship was got under way for the Cape of Good Hope, and all sail made for a southerly course, to get into the north-east trades.
The weather was now balmy and delightful, and so genial that everybody lived on deck, and could hardly be got to turn in to their cabins, even for sleep.
Dr. Staines became a favorite with the officers. There is a great deal of science on board a modern ship of war, and, of course, on some points Staines, a Cambridge wrangler, and a man of many sciences and books, was an oracle. On others he was quite behind, but a ready and quick pupil. He made up to the navigating officer, and learned, with his help, to take observations. In return he was always at any youngster's service in a trigonometrical problem; and he amused the midshipmen and young lieutenants with analytical tests; some of these were applicable to certain liquids dispensed by the paymaster. Under one of them the port wine assumed some very droll colors and appearances not proper to grape-juice.
One lovely night that the ship clove the dark sea into a blaze of phosphorescence, and her wake streamed like a comet's tail, a waggish middy got a bucketful hoisted on deck, and asked the doctor to analyze that. He did not much like it, but yielded to the general request; and by dividing it into smaller vessels, and dropping in various chemicals, made rainbows and silvery flames and what not. But he declined to repeat the experiment: “No, no; once is philosophy; twice is cruelty. I've slain more than Samson already.”
As for Tadcaster, science had no charms for him; but fiction had; and he got it galore; for he cruised about the forecastle, and there the quartermasters and old seamen spun him yarns that held him breathless.
But one day my lord had a fit on the quarter-deck, and a bad one; and Staines found him smelling strong of rum. He represented this to Captain Hamilton. The captain caused strict inquiries to be made, and it came out that my lord had gone among the men, with money in both pockets, and bought a little of one man's grog, and a little of another, and had been sipping the furtive but transient joys of solitary intoxication.
Captain Hamilton talked to him seriously; told him it was suicide.
“Never mind, old boy,” said the young monkey; “a short life and a merry one.”
Then Hamilton represented that it was very ungentleman-like to go and tempt poor Jack with his money, to offend discipline, and get flogged. “How will you feel, Tadcaster, when you see their backs bleeding under the cat?”
“Oh, d—n it all, George, don't do that,” says the young gentleman, all in a hurry.
Then the commander saw he had touched the right chord. So he played on it, till he got Lord Tadcaster to pledge his honor not to do it again.
The little fellow gave the pledge, but relieved his mind as follows: “But it is a cursed tyrannical hole, this tiresome old ship. You can't do what you like in it.”
“Well, but no more you can in the grave: and that is the agreeable residence you were hurrying to but for this tiresome old ship.”
“Lord! no more you can,” said Tadcaster, with sudden candor. “I FORGOT THAT.”
The airs were very light; the ship hardly moved. It was beginning to get dull, when one day a sail was sighted on the weather-bow, standing to the eastward: on nearing her, she was seen, by the cut of her sails, to be a man-of-war, evidently homeward bound: so Captain Hamilton ordered the main-royal to be lowered (to render signal more visible) and the “demand” hoisted. No notice being taken of this, a gun was fired to draw her attention to the signal. This had the desired effect; down went her main-royal, up went her “number.” On referring to the signal book, she proved to be the Vindictive from the Pacific Station.
This being ascertained, Captain Hamilton, being that captain's senior, signalled “Close and prepare to receive letters.” In obedience to this she bore up, ran down, and rounded to; the sail in the Amphitrite was also shortened, the maintopsail laid to the mast, and a boat lowered. The captain having finished his despatches, they, with the letter-bags, were handed into the boat, which shoved off, pulled to the lee side of the Vindictive, and left the despatches, with Captain Hamilton's compliments. On its return, both ships made sail on their respective course, exchanging “bon voyage” by signal, and soon the upper sails of the homeward-bounder were seen dipping below the horizon: longing eyes followed her on board the Amphitrite.
How many hurried missives had been written and despatched in that half-hour. But as for Staines, he was a man of forethought, and had a volume ready for his dear wife.
Lord Tadcaster wrote to Lady Cicely Treherne. His epistle, though brief, contained a plum or two.
He wrote: “What with sailing, and fishing, and eating nothing but roast meat, I'm quite another man.”
This amused her ladyship a little, but not so much as the postscript, which was indeed the neatest thing in its way she had met with, and she had some experience, too.
“P.S.—I say, Cicely, I think I should like to marry you. Would you mind?”
Let us defy time and space to give you Lady Cicely's reply: “I should enjoy it of all things, Taddy. But, alas! I am too young.”
N.B.—She was twenty-seven, and Tad sixteen. To be sure, Tad was four feet eleven, and she was only five feet six and a half.
To return to my narrative (with apologies), this meeting of the vessels caused a very agreeable excitement that day; but a greater was in store. In the afternoon, Tadcaster, Staines, and the principal officers of the ship, being at dinner in the captain's cabin, in came the officer of the watch, and reported a large spar on the weather-bow.
“Well, close it, if you can; and let me know if it looks worth picking up.”
He then explained to Lord Tadcaster that, on a cruise, he never liked to pass a spar, or anything that might possibly reveal the fate of some vessel or other.
In the middle of his discourse the officer came in again, but not in the same cool business way: he ran in excitedly, and said, “Captain, the signalman reports it ALIVE!”
“Alive?—a spar! What do you mean? Something alive ON it, eh?”
“No, sir; alive itself.”
“How can that be? Hail him again. Ask him what it is.”
The officer went out, and hailed the signalman at the mast-head. “What is it?”
“Sea-sarpint, I think.”
This hail reached the captain's ears faintly. However, he waited quietly till the officer came in and reported it; then he burst out, “Absurd! there is no such creature in the universe. What do you say, Dr. Staines?—It is in your department.”
“The universe in my department, captain?”
“Haw! haw! haw!” went Fitzroy and two more.
“No, you rogue, the serpent.”
Dr. Staines, thus appealed to, asked the captain if he had ever seen small snakes out at sea.
“Why, of course. Sailed through a mile of them once, in the archipelago.”
“Sure they were snakes?”
“Quite sure; and the biggest was not eight feet long.”
“Very well, captain; then sea-serpents exist, and it becomes a mere question of size. Now which produces the larger animals in every kind,—land or sea? The grown elephant weighs, I believe, about five tons. The very smallest of the whale tribe weighs ten; and they go as high as forty tons. There are smaller fish than the whale, that are four times as heavy as the elephant. Why doubt, then, that the sea can breed a snake to eclipse the boa-constrictor? Even if the creature had never been seen, I should, by mere reasoning from analogy, expect the sea to produce a serpent excelling the boa-constrictor, as the lobster excels a crayfish of our rivers: see how large things grow at sea! the salmon born in our rivers weighs in six months a quarter of a pound, or less; it goes out to sea, and comes back in one year weighing seven pounds. So far from doubting the large sea-serpents, I believe they exist by the million. The only thing that puzzles me is, why they should ever show a nose above water; they must be very numerous, I think.”
Captain Hamilton laughed, and said, “Well, this IS new. Doctor, in compliment to your opinion, we will go on deck, and inspect the reptile you think so common.” He stopped at the door, and said, “Doctor, the saltcellar is by you. Would you mind bringing it on deck? We shall want a little to secure the animal.”
So they all went on deck right merrily.
The captain went up a few ratlines in the mizzen rigging, and looked to windward, laughing all the time: but, all of a sudden, there was a great change in his manner. “Good heavens, it is alive—LUFF!”
The helmsman obeyed; the news spread like wildfire. Mess kids, grog kids, pipes, were all let fall, and some three hundred sailors clustered on the rigging like bees, to view the long-talked-of monster.
It was soon discovered to be moving lazily along, the propelling part being under water, and about twenty-five feet visible. It had a small head for so large a body, and, as they got nearer, rough scales were seen, ending in smaller ones further down the body. It had a mane, but not like a lion's, as some have pretended. If you have ever seen a pony with a hog-mane, that was more the character of this creature's mane, if mane it was.
They got within a hundred yards of it, and all saw it plainly, scarce believing their senses.
When they could get no nearer for the wind, the captain yielded to that instinct which urges man always to kill a curiosity, “to encourage the rest,” as saith the witty Voltaire. “Get ready a gun—best shot in the ship lay and fire it.”
This was soon done. Bang went the gun. The shot struck the water close to the brute, and may have struck him under water, for aught I know. Any way, it sorely disturbed him; for he reared into the air a column of serpent's flesh that looked as thick as the maintopmast of a seventy-four, opened a mouth that looked capacious enough to swallow the largest buoy anchor in the ship, and, with a strange grating noise between a bark and a hiss, dived, and was seen no more.
When he was gone, they all looked at one another like men awaking from a dream.
Staines alone took it quite coolly. It did not surprise him in the least. He had always thought it incredible that the boa-constrictor should be larger than any sea-snake. That idea struck him as monstrous and absurd. He noted the sea-serpent in his journal, but with this doubt, “Semble—more like a very large eel.”
Next day they crossed the line. Just before noon a young gentleman burst into Staines's cabin, apologizing for want of ceremony; but if Dr. Staines would like to see the line, it was now in sight from the mizzentop.
“Glad of it, sir,” said Staines; “collect it for me in the ship's buckets, if you please. I want to send A LINE to friends at home.”
Young gentleman buried his hands in his pockets, walked out in solemn silence, and resumed his position on the lee-side of the quarter-deck.
Nevertheless, this opening, coupled with what he had heard and read, made Staines a little uneasy, and he went to his friend Fitzroy, and said, “Now, look here: I am at the service of you experienced and humorous mariners. I plead guilty at once to the crime of never having passed the line; so, make ready your swabs, and lather me; your ship's scraper, and shave me; and let us get it over. But Lord Tadcaster is nervous, sensitive, prouder than he seems, and I'm not going to have him driven into a fit for all the Neptunes and Amphitrites in creation.”
Fitzroy heard him out, then burst out laughing. “Why, there is none of that game in the Royal Navy,” said he. “Hasn't been this twenty years.”
“I'm so sorry,” said Dr. Staines. “If there's a form of wit I revere, it is practical joking.”
“Doctor, you are a satirical beggar.”
Staines told Tadcaster, and he went forward and chaffed his friend the quartermaster, who was one of the forecastle wits.
“I say, quartermaster, why doesn't Neptune come on board?”
Dead silence.
“I wonder what has become of poor old Nep?”
“Gone ashore!” growled the seaman. “Last seen in Rateliff Highway. Got a shop there—lends a shilling in the pound on seamen's advance tickets.”
“Oh! and Amphitrite?”
“Married the sexton at Wapping.”
“And the Nereids?”
“Neruds!” (scratching his head.) “I harn't kept my eye on them small craft. But I BELIEVE they are selling oysters in the port of Leith.”
A light breeze carried them across the equator; but soon after they got becalmed, and it was dreary work, and the ship rolled gently, but continuously, and upset Lord Tadcaster's stomach again, and quenched his manly spirit.
At last they were fortunate enough to catch the southeast trade, but it was so languid at first that the ship barely moved through the water, though they set every stitch, and studding sails alow and aloft, till really she was acres of canvas.
While she was so creeping along, a man in the mizzentop noticed an enormous shark gliding steadily in her wake. This may seem a small incident, yet it ran through the ship like wildfire, and caused more or less uneasiness in three hundred stout hearts; so near is every seaman to death, and so strong the persuasion in their superstitious minds, that a shark does not follow a ship pertinaciously without a prophetic instinct of calamity.
Unfortunately, the quartermaster conveyed this idea to Lord Tadcaster, and confirmed it by numerous examples to prove that there was always death at hand when a shark followed the ship.
Thereupon Tadcaster took it into his head that he was under a relapse, and the shark was waiting for his dead body: he got quite low-spirited.
Staines told Fitzroy. Fitzroy said, “Shark be hanged! I'll have him on deck in half an hour.” He got leave from the captain: a hook was baited with a large piece of pork, and towed astern by a stout line, experienced old hands attending to it by turns.
The shark came up leisurely, surveyed the bait, and, I apprehend, ascertained the position of the hook. At all events, he turned quietly on his back, sucked the bait off, and retired to enjoy it.
Every officer in the ship tried him in turn, but without success; for, if they got ready for him, and, the moment he took the bait, jerked the rope hard, in that case he opened his enormous mouth so wide that the bait and hook came out clear. But, sooner or later, he always got the bait, and left his captors the hook.
This went on for days, and his huge dorsal fin always in the ship's wake.
Then Tadcaster, who had watched these experiments with hope, lost his spirit and appetite.
Staines reasoned with him, but in vain. Somebody was to die; and, although there were three hundred and more in the ship, he must be the one. At last he actually made his will, and threw himself into Staines's arms, and gave him messages to his mother and Lady Cicely; and ended by frightening himself into a fit.
This roused Staines's pity, and also put him on his mettle. What, science be beaten by a shark!
He pondered the matter with all his might; and at last an idea came to him.
He asked the captain's permission to try his hand. This was accorded immediately, and the ship's stores placed at his disposal very politely, but with a sly, comical grin.
Dr. Staines got from the carpenter some sheets of zinc and spare copper, and some flannel: these he cut into three-inch squares, and soaked the flannel in acidulated water. He then procured a quantity of bell-wire, the greater part of which he insulated by wrapping it round with hot gutta percha. So eager was he, that he did not turn in all night.
In the morning he prepared what he called an electric fuse—he filled a soda-water bottle with gunpowder, attaching some cork to make it buoyant, put in the fuse and bung, made it water-tight, connected and insulated his main wires—enveloped the bottle in pork—tied a line to it, and let the bottle overboard.
The captain and officers shook their heads mysteriously. The tars peeped and grinned from every rope to see a doctor try and catch a shark with a soda-water bottle and no hook; but somehow the doctor seemed to know what he was about, so they hovered round, and awaited the result, mystified, but curious, and showing their teeth from ear to ear.
“The only thing I fear,” said Staines, “is that, the moment he takes the bait, he will cut the wire before I can complete the circuit, and fire the fuse.”
Nevertheless, there was another objection to the success of the experiment. The shark had disappeared.
“Well,” said the captain, “at all events, you have frightened him away.”
“No,” said little Tadcaster, white as a ghost; “he is only under water, I know; waiting—waiting.”
“There he is,” cried one in the ratlines.
There was a rush to the taffrail—great excitement.
“Keep clear of me,” said Staines quietly but firmly. “It can only be done at the moment before he cuts the wire.”
The old shark swam slowly round the bait.
He saw it was something new.