An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then in patience our proceeding be.
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together.
... I know love is begun by time.
I know him well: he is the brooch indeed
And gem of all the nation.
He made confession of you,
And gave you such a masterly report
For art...'twould be a sight indeed
If one could match you.
—Hamlet.
MRS. Crawford absolutely clung to Daireen all this evening. When the whist parties were formed in the cabin she brought the girl on deck and instructed her in some of the matters worth knowing aboard a passenger ship.
“On no account bind yourself to any whist set before you look about you: nothing could be more dangerous,” she said confidentially. “Just think how terrible it would be if you were to join a set now, and afterwards to find out that it was not the best set. You would simply be ruined. Besides that, it is better to stay on deck as much as possible during the first day or two at sea. Now let us go over to the major and Campion.”
So Daireen found herself borne onward with Mrs. Crawford's arm in her own to where Major Crawford and Doctor Campion were sitting on their battered deck-chairs lighting fresh cheroots from the ashes of the expiring ends.
“Don't tread on the tumblers, my dear,” said the major as his wife advanced. “And how is Miss Gerald now that we have got under weigh? You didn't take any of that liquid they insult the Chinese Empire by calling tea, aboard ship, I hope?”
“Just a single cup, and very weak,” said Mrs. Crawford apologetically.
“My dear, I thought you were wiser.”
“You will take this chair, Mrs. Crawford?” said Doctor Campion, without making the least pretence of moving, however.
“Don't think of such a thing,” cried the lady's husband; and to do Doctor Campion justice, he did not think of such a thing. “Why, you don't fancy these are our Junkapore days, do you, when Kate came out to our bungalow, and the boys called her the Sylph? It's a fact, Miss Gerald; my wife, as your father will tell you, was as slim as a lily. Ah, dear, dear! Time, they say, takes a lot away from us, but by Jingo, he's liberal enough in some ways. By Jingo, yes,” and the gallant old man kept shaking his head and chuckling towards his comrade, whose features could be seen puckered into a grin though he uttered no sound.
“And stranger still, Miss Gerald,” said the lady, “the major was once looked upon as a polite man, and politer to his wife than to anybody else. Go and fetch some chairs here, Campion, like a good fellow,” she added to the doctor, who rose slowly and obeyed.
“That's how my wife takes command of the entire battalion, Miss Gerald,” remarked the major. “Oh, your father will tell you all about her.”
The constant reference to her father by one who was an old friend, came with a cheering influence to the girl. A terrible question as to what might be the result of her arrival at the Cape had suggested itself to her more than once since she had left Ireland; but now the major did not seem to fancy that there could be any question in the matter.
When the chairs were brought, and enveloped in karosses, as the old campaigners called the furs, there arose a chatter of bungalows, and punkahs, and puggarees, and calapashes, and curries, that was quite delightful to the girl's ears, especially as from time to time her father's name would be mentioned in connection with some elephant-trapping expedition, or, perhaps, a mess joke.
When at last Daireen found herself alone in the cabin which her grandfather had managed to secure for her, she did not feel that loneliness which she thought she should have felt aboard this ship full of strangers without sympathy for her.
She stood for a short time in the darkness, looking out of her cabin port over the long waters, and listening to the sound of the waves hurrying away from the ship and flapping against its sides, and once more she thought of the purple mountain and the green Irish Lough. Then as she moved away from the port her thoughts stretched in another direction—southward. Her heart was full of hope as she turned in to her bunk and went quietly asleep just as the first waves of the Bay of Biscay were making the good steamer a little uneasy, and bringing about a bitter remorse to those who had made merry over the dumplings and buttered toast.
Major Crawford was an officer who had served for a good many years in India, and had there become acquainted with Daireen's father and mother. When Mr. Gerald was holding his grandchild in his arms aboard the steamer saying good-bye, he was surprised by a strange lady coming up to him and begging to be informed if it was possible that Daireen was the daughter of Colonel Gerald. In another instant Mr. Gerald was overjoyed to know that Daireen would be during the entire voyage in the company of an officer and his wife who were old friends of her father, and had recognised her from her likeness to her mother, whom they had also known when she was little older than Daireen. Mr. Gerald left the vessel with a mind at rest; and that his belief that the girl would be looked after was well-founded is already known. Daireen was, indeed, in the hands of a lady who was noted in many parts of the world for her capacities for taking charge of young ladies. When she was in India her position at the station was very similiar to that of immigration-agent-general. Fond matrons in England, who had brought their daughters year after year to Homburg, Kissingen, and Nice, in the “open” season, and had yet brought them back in safety—matrons who had even sunk to the low level of hydropathic hunting-grounds without success, were accustomed to write pathetic letters to Junkapore and Arradambad conveying to Mrs. Crawford intelligence of the strange fancy that some of the dear girls had conceived to visit those parts of the Indian Empire, and begging Mrs. Crawford to give her valuable advice with regard to the carrying out of such remarkable freaks. Never in any of these cases had the major's wife failed. These forlorn hopes took passage to India and found in her a real friend, with tact, perseverance, and experience. The subalterns of the station were never allowed to mope in a wretched, companionless condition; and thus Mrs. Crawford had achieved for herself a certain fame, which it was her study to maintain. Having herself had men-children only, she had no personal interests to look after. Her boys had been swaddled in puggarees, spoon-fed with curry, and nurtured upon chutney, and had so developed into full-grown Indians ready for the choicest appointments, and they had succeeded very well indeed. Her husband had now received a command from the War Office to proceed to the Cape for the purpose of obtaining evidence on the subject of the regulation boots to be supplied to troops on active foreign service; a commission upon this most important subject having been ordered by a Parliamentary vote. Other officers of experience had been sent to various of the colonies, and much was expected to result from the prosecution of their inquiries, the opponents of the Government being confident that gussets would eventually be allowed to non-commissioned officers, and back straps to privates.
Of course Major Crawford could not set out on a mission so important without the companionship of his wife. Though just at the instant of Daireen's turning in, the major fancied he might have managed to get along pretty well even if his partner had been left behind him in England. He was inclined to snarl in his cabin at nights when his wife unfolded her plans to him and kept him awake to give his opinion as to the possibility of the tastes of various young persons becoming assimilated. To-night the major expressed his indifference as to whether every single man in the ship's company got married to every single woman before the end of the voyage, or whether they all went to perdition singly. He concluded by wishing fervently that they would disappear, married and single, by a supernatural agency.
“But think, how gratified poor Gerald would be if the dear girl could think as I do on this subject,” said Mrs. Crawford persistently, alluding to the matter of certain amalgamation of tastes. At this point, however, the major expressed himself in words still more vigorous than he had brought to his aid before, and his wife thought it prudent to get into her bunk without pursuing any further the question of the possible gratification of Colonel Gerald at the unanimity of thought existing between his daughter and Mrs. Crawford.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose...
He's loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment but their eyes:
And where 'tis so the offender's scourge is weigh'd,
But never the offence.
Look here upon this picture, and on this.
Thus has he—and many more of the same breed that I know the drossy age dotes on—only got the tune of the time... a kind of yesty collection which carries them through and through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are out.—Hamlet.
THE uneasy bosom of the Bay of Biscay was throbbing with its customary emotion beneath the good vessel, when Daireen awoke the next morning to the sound of creaking timbers and rioting glasses. Above her on the deck the tramp of a healthy passenger, who wore a pedometer and walked three miles every morning before breakfast, was heard, now dilating and now decreasing, as he passed over the cabins. He had almost completed his second mile, and was putting on a spurt in order to keep himself up to time; his spurt at the end of the first mile had effectually awakened all the passengers beneath, who had yet remained undisturbed through the earlier part of his tramp.
Mrs. Crawford, looking bright and fresh and good-natured, entered Daireen's cabin before the girl was ready to leave it. She certainly seemed determined that the confidence Mr. Gerald had reposed in her with regard to the care of his granddaughter should not prove to have been misplaced.
“I am not going in, my dear,” she said as she entered the cabin. “I only stepped round to see that you were all right this morning. I knew you would be so, though Robinson the steward tells me that even the little sea there is on in the bay has been quite sufficient to make about a dozen vacancies at the breakfast-table. People are such fools when they come aboard a ship—eating boiled paste and all sorts of things, and so the sea is grossly misrepresented. Did that dreadfully healthy Mr. Thompson awake you with his tramping on deck? Of course he did; he's a dreadful man. If he goes on like this we'll have to petition the captain to lay down bark on the deck. Now I'll leave you. Come aloft when you are ready; and, by the way, you must take care what dress you put on—very great care.”
“Why, I thought that aboard ship one might wear anything,” said the girl.
“Never was there a greater mistake, my child. People say the same about going to the seaside: anything will do; but you know how one requires to be doubly particular there; and it's just the same in our little world aboard ship.”
“You quite frighten me, Mrs. Crawford,” said Daireen. “What advice can you give me on the subject?”
Mrs. Crawford was thoughtful. “If you had only had time to prepare for the voyage, and I had been beside you, everything might have been different. You must not wear anything pronounced—any distinct colour: you must find out something undecided—you understand?”
Daireen looked puzzled. “I'm sorry to say I don't.”
“Oh, you have surely something of pale sage—no, that is a bad tone for the first days aboard—too like the complexions of most of the passengers—but, chocolate-gray? ah, that should do: have you anything in that to do for a morning dress?”
Daireen was so extremely fortunate as to be possessed of a garment of the required tone, and her kind friend left her arraying herself in its folds.
On going aloft Daireen found the deck occupied by a select few of the passengers. The healthy gentleman was just increasing his pace for the final hundred yards of his morning's walk, and Doctor Campion had got very near the end of his second cheroot, while he sat talking to a fair-haired and bronze-visaged man with clear gray eyes that had such a way of looking at things as caused people to fancy he was making a mental calculation of the cubic measure of everything; and it was probably the recollection of their peculiarity that made people fancy, when these eyes looked into a human face, that the mind of the man was going through a similar calculation with reference to the human object: one could not avoid feeling that he had a number of formulas for calculating the intellectual value of people, and that when he looked at a person he was thinking which formula should be employed for arriving at a conclusion regarding that person's mental capacity.
Mrs. Crawford was chatting with the doctor and his companion, but on Daireen's appearing, she went over to her.
“Perfect, my child,” she said in a whisper—“the tone of the dress, I mean; it will work wonders.”
While Daireen was reflecting upon the possibility of a suspension of the laws of nature being the result of the appearance of the chocolate-toned dress, she was led towards the doctor, who immediately went through a fiction of rising from his seat as she approached; and one would really have fancied that he intended getting upon his feet, and was only restrained at the last moment by a remonstrance of the girl's. Daireen acknowledged his courtesy, though it was only imaginary, and she was conscious that his companion had really risen.
“You haven't made the acquaintance of Miss Gerald, Mr. Harwood?” said Mrs. Crawford.
“I have not had the honour,” said the man.
“Let me present you, Daireen. Mr. Harwood—Miss Gerald. Now take great care what you say to this gentleman, Daireen; he is a dangerous man—the most dangerous that any one could meet. He is a detective, dear, and the worst of all—a literary detective; the 'special' of theDomnant Trumpeter.”
Daireen had looked into the man's face while she was being presented to him, and she knew it was the face of a man who had seen the people of more than one nation.
“This is not your first voyage, Miss Gerald, or you would not be on deck so early?” he said.
“It certainly is not,” she replied. “I was born in India, so that my first voyage was to England; then I have crossed the Irish Channel frequently, going to school and returning for the holidays; and I have also had some long voyages on Lough Suangorm,” she added with a little smile, for she did not think that her companion would be likely to have heard of the existence of the Irish fjord.
“Suangorm? then you have had some of the most picturesque voyages one can make in the course of a day in this world,” he said. “Lough Suangorm is the most wonderful fjord in the world, let me tell you.”
“Then you know it,” she cried with a good deal of surprise. “You must know the dear old lough or you would not talk so.” She did not seem to think that his assertion should imply that he had seen a good many other fjords also.
“I think I may say I know it. Yes, from those fine headlands that the Atlantic beats against, to where the purple slope of that great hill meets the little road.”
“You know the hill—old Slieve Docas? How strange! I live just at the foot.”
“I have a sketch of a mansion, taken just there,” he said, laughing. “It is of a dark brown exterior.”
“Exactly.”
“It looks towards the sea.”
“It does indeed.”
“It is exceedingly picturesque.”
“Picturesque?”
“Well, yes; the house I allude to is very much so. If I recollect aright, the one window of the wall was not glazed, and the smoke certainly found its way out through a hole in the roof.”
“Oh, that is too bad,” said Daireen. “I had no idea that the peculiarities of my country people would be known so far away. Please don't say anything about that sketch to the passengers aboard.”
“I shall never be tempted to allude, even by the 'pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,' to the—the—peculiarities of your country people, Miss Gerald,” he answered. “It is a lovely country, and contains the most hospitable people in the world; but their talent does not develop itself architecturally. Ah! there is the second bell. I hope you have an appetite.”
“Have you been guarded enough in your conversation, Daireen?” said Mrs. Crawford, coming up with the doctor, whose rising at the summons of the breakfast-bell was by no means a fiction.
“The secrets of the Home Rule Confederation are safe in the keeping of Miss Gerald,” said Mr. Harwood, with a smile which any one could see was simply the result of his satisfaction at having produced a well-turned sentence.
The breakfast-table was very thinly attended, more so even than Robinson the steward had anticipated when on the previous evening he had laid down that second plate of buttered toast before the novices.
Of the young ladies only three appeared at the table, and their complexions were of the softest amber shade that was ever worked in satin in the upholstery of mock-mediæval furniture. Major Crawford had just come out of the steward's pantry, and he greeted Daireen with all courtesy, as indeed he did the other young ladies at the table, for the major was gallant and gay aboard ship.
After every one had been seated for about ten minutes, the curtain that screened off one of the cabin entrances from the saloon was moved aside, and the figure of the young man to whom Mrs. Crawford had alluded as Mr. Glaston appeared. He came slowly forward, nodding to the captain and saying good-morning to Mrs. Crawford, while he elevated his eyebrows in recognition of Mr. Harwood, taking his seat at the table.
“You can't have an appetite coming directly out of your bunk,” said the doctor.
“Indeed?” said Mr. Glaston, without the least expression.
“Quite impossible,” said the doctor. “You should have been up an hour ago at least. Here is Mr. Thompson, who has walked more than three miles in the open air.”
“Ah,” said the other, never moving his eyes to see the modest smile that spread itself over the features of the exemplary Mr. Thompson. “Ah, I heard some one who seemed to be going in for that irrepressible thousand miles in a thousand hours. Yes, bring me a pear and a grape.” The last sentence he addressed to the waiter, who, having been drilled by the steward on the subject of Mr. Glaston's tastes, did not show any astonishment at being asked for fruit instead of fish, but hastened off to procure the grape and the pear.
While Mr. Glaston was waiting he glanced across the table, and gave a visible start as his eyes rested upon one of the young ladies—a pleasant-looking girl wearing a pink dress and having a blue ribbon in her hair. Mr. Glaston gave a little shudder, and then turned away.
“That face—ah, where have I beheld it?” muttered Mr. Harwood to the doctor.
“Dam puppy!” said the doctor.
Then the plate and fruit were laid before Mr. Glaston, who said quickly, “Take them away.” The bewildered waiter looked towards his chief and obeyed, so that Mr. Glaston remained with an empty plate. Robinson became uneasy.
“Can I get you anything, sir?—we have three peaches aboard and a pine-apple,” he murmured.
“Can't touch anything now, Robinson,” Mr. Glaston answered.
“The doctor is right,” said Mrs. Crawford. “You have no appetite, Mr. Glaston.”
“No,” he replied; “notnow,” and he gave the least glance towards the girl in pink, who began to feel that all her school dreams of going forth into the world of men to conquer and overcome were being realised beyond her wildest anticipations.
Then there was a pause at the table, which the good major broke by suddenly inquiring something of the captain. Mr. Glaston, however, sat silent, and somewhat sad apparently, until the breakfast was over.
Daireen went into her cabin for a book, and remained arranging some volumes on the little shelf for a few minutes. Mr. Glaston was on deck when she ascended, and he was engaged in a very serious conversation with Mrs. Crawford.
“Something must be done. Surely she has a guardian aboard who is not so utterly lost to everything of truth and right as to allow that to go on unchecked.”
These words Daireen could make out as she passed the young man and the major's wife, and the girl began to fear that something terrible was about to happen. But Mr. Harwood, who was standing above the major's chair, hastened forward as she appeared.
“Why, Major Crawford has been telling me that your father is Colonel Gerald,” he said. “Mrs. Crawford never mentioned that fact, thinking that I should be able to guess it for myself.”
“Did you know papa?” Daireen asked.
“I met him several times when I was out about the Baroda affair,” said the “special.”
“And as you are his daughter, I suppose it will interest you to know that he has been selected as the first governor of the Castaways.”
Daireen looked puzzled. “The Castaways?” she said.
“Yes, Miss Gerald; the lovely Castaway Islands which, you know, have just been annexed by England. Colonel Gerald has been chosen by the Colonial Secretary as the first governor.”
“But I heard nothing of this,” said Daireen, a little astonished to receive such information in the Bay of Biscay.
“How could you hear anything of it? No one outside the Cabinet has the least idea of it.”
“And you——” said the girl doubtfully.
“Ah, my dear Miss Gerald, the resources of information possessed by theDominant Trumpeterare as unlimited as they are trustworthy. You may depend upon what I tell you. It is not generally known that I am now bound for the Castaway group, to make the British public aware of the extent of the treasure they have acquired in these sunny isles. But I understood that Colonel Gerald was on his way from Madras?”
Daireen explained how her father came to be at the Cape, and Mr. Harwood gave her a few cheering words regarding his sickness. She was greatly disappointed when their conversation was interrupted by Mrs. Crawford.
“The poor fellow!” she said—“Mr. Glaston, I mean. I have induced him to go down and eat some grapes and a pear.”
“Why couldn't he take them at breakfast and not betray his idiocy?” said Mr. Harwood.
“Mr. Harwood, you have no sympathy for sufferers from sensitiveness,” replied the lady. “Poor Mr. Glaston! he had an excellent appetite, but he found it impossible to touch anything the instant he saw that fearful pink dress with the blue ribbon hanging over it.”
“Poor fellow!” said Mr. Harwood.
“Dam puppy!” said the doctor.
“Campion!” cried Mrs. Crawford severely.
“A thousand pardons! my dear Miss Gerald,” said the transgressor. “But what can a man say when he hears of such puppyism? This is my third voyage with that young man, and he has been developing into the full-grown puppy with the greatest rapidity.”
“You have no fine feeling, Campion,” said Mrs. Crawford. “You have got no sympathy for those who are artistically sensitive. But hush! here is the offending person herself, and with such a hat! Now admit that to look at her sends a cold shudder through you.”
“I think her a devilish pretty little thing, by gad,” said the doctor.
The young lady with the pink dress and the blue ribbon appeared, wearing the additional horror of a hat lined with yellow and encircled with mighty flowers.
“Something must be done to suppress her,” said Mrs. Crawford decisively. “Surely such people must have a better side to their natures that one may appeal to.”
“I doubt it, Mrs. Crawford,” said Mr. Harwood, with only the least tinge of sarcasm in his voice. “I admit that one might not have been in utter despair though the dress was rather aggressive, but I cannot see anything but depravity in that hat with those floral splendours.”
“But what is to be done?” said the lady. “Mr. Glaston would, no doubt, advocate making a Jonah of that young person for the sake of saving the rest of the ship's company. But, however just that might be, I do not suppose it would be considered strictly legal.”
“Many acts of justice are done that are not legal,” replied Harwood gravely. “From a legal standpoint, Cain was no murderer—his accuser being witness and also judge. He would leave the court without a stain on his character nowadays. Meantime, major, suppose we have a smoke on the bridge.”
“He fancies he has said something clever,” remarked Mrs. Crawford when he had walked away; and it must be confessed that Mr. Harwood had a suspicion to that effect.
His will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth:
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The safety and the health of this whole state,
And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
Unto the voice and yielding of that body,
Whereof he is the head.
Osric.... Believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing; indeed, to speak feelingly of him, he is the card... of gentry.
Hamlet.... His definement suffers no perdition in you... But, in the verity of extolment I take him to be a soul of great article.—Hamlet.
THE information which Daireen had received on the unimpeachable authority of the special correspondent of theDominant Trumpeterwas somewhat puzzling to her at first; but as she reflected upon the fact hat the position of governor of the newly-acquired Castaway group must be one of importance, she could not help feeling some happiness; only in the midmost heart of her joy her recollection clasped a single grief—-a doubt about her father was still clinging to her heart. The letter her grandfather had received which caused her to make up her mind to set out for the Cape, merely stated that Colonel Gerald had been found too weak to continue the homeward voyage in the vessel that had brought him from India. He had a bad attack of fever, and was not allowed to be moved from where he lay at the Cape. The girl thought over all of this as she reflected upon what Mr. Harwood had told her, and looking over the long restless waters of the Bay of Biscay from her seat far astern, her eyes became very misty; the unhappy author represented by the yellow-covered book which she had been reading lay neglected upon her knee. But soon her brave, hopeful heart took courage, and she began to paint in her imagination the fairest pictures of the future—a future beneath the rich blue sky that was alleged by the Ministers who had brought about the annexation, evermore to overshadow the Castaway group—a future beneath the purple shadow of the giant Slieve Docas when her father would have discharged his duties at the Castaways.
She could not even pretend to herself to be reading the book she had brought up, so that Mrs. Crawford could not have been accused of an interruption when she drew her chair alongside the girl's, saying:
“We must have a little chat together, now that there is a chance for it. It is really terrible how much time one can fritter away aboard ship. I have known people take long voyages for the sake of study, and yet never open a single book but a novel. By the way, what is this the major has been telling me Harwood says about your father?”
Daireen repeated all that Harwood had said regarding the new island colony, and begged Mrs. Crawford to give an opinion as to the trustworthiness of the information.
“My dear child,” said Mrs. Crawford, “you may depend upon its truth if Harwood told it to you. TheDominant Trumpetersends out as many arms as an octopus, for news, and, like the octopus too, it has the instinct of only making use of what is worth anything. The Government have been very good to George—I mean Colonel Gerald—he was always 'George' with us when he was lieutenant. The Castaway governorship is one of the nice things they sometimes have to dispose of to the deserving. It was thought, you know, that George would sell out and get his brevet long ago, but what he often said to us after your poor mother died convinced me that he would not accept a quiet life. And so it was Mr. Harwood that gave you this welcome news,” she continued, adding in a thoughtful tone, “By the way, what do you think of Mr. Harwood?”
“I really have not thought anything about him,” Daireen replied, wondering if it was indeed a necessity of life aboard ship to be able at a moment's notice to give a summary of her opinion as to the nature of every person she might chance to meet.
“He is a very nice man,” said Mrs. Crawford; “only just inclined to be conceited, don't you think? This is our third voyage with him, so that we know something of him. One knows more of a person at the end of a week at sea than after a month ashore. What can be keeping Mr. Glaston over his pears, I wonder? I meant to have presented him to you before. Ah, here he comes out of the companion. I asked him to return to me.”
But again Mrs. Crawford's expectations were dashed to the ground. Mr. Glaston certainly did appear on deck, and showed some sign in a languid way of walking over to where Mrs. Crawford was sitting, but unfortunately before he had taken half a dozen steps he caught sight of that terrible pink dress and the hat with the jaundiced interior. He stopped short, and a look of martyrdom passed over his face as he turned and made his way to the bridge in the opposite direction to where that horror of pronounced tones sat quite unconscious of the agony her appearance was creating in the aesthetic soul of the young man.
Daireen having glanced up and seen the look of dismay upon his face, and the flight of Mr. Glaston, could not avoid laughing outright so soon as he had disappeared. But Mrs. Crawford did not laugh. On the contrary she looked very grave.
“This is terrible—terrible, Daireen,” she said. “That vile hat has driven him away. I knew it must.”
“Matters are getting serious indeed,” said the girl, with only the least touch of mockery in her voice. “If he is not allowed to eat anything at breakfast in sight of the dress, and he is driven up to the bridge by a glimpse of the hat, I am afraid that his life will not be quite happy here.”
“Happy! my dear, you cannot conceive the agonies he endures through his sensitiveness. I must make the acquaintance of that young person and try to bring her to see the error of her ways. Oh, how fortunate you had this chocolate-gray!”
“I must have thought of it in a moment of inspiration,” said Daireen.
“Come, you really mustn't laugh,” said the elder lady reprovingly. “It was a happy thought, at any rate, and I only hope that you will be able to sustain its effect by something good at dinner. I must look over your trunks and tell you what tone is most artistic.”
Daireen began to feel rebellious.
“My dear Mrs. Crawford, it is very kind of you to offer to take so much trouble; but, you see, I do not feel it to be a necessity to choose the shade of my dress solely to please the taste of a gentleman who may not be absolutely perfect in his ideas.”
Mrs. Crawford laughed. “Do not get angry, my dear,” she said. “I admire your spirit, and I will not attempt to control your own good taste; you will never, I am sure, sink to such a depth of depravity as is manifested by that hat.”
“Well, I think you may depend on me so far,” said Daireen.
Shortly afterwards Mrs. Crawford descended to arrange some matters in her cabin, and Daireen had consequently an opportunity of returning to her neglected author.
But before she had made much progress in her study she was again interrupted, and this time by Doctor Campion, who had been smoking with Mr. Harwood on the ship's bridge. Doctor Campion was a small man, with a reddish face upon which a perpetual frown was resting. He had a jerky way of turning his head as if it was set upon a ratchet wheel only capable of shifting a tooth at a time. He had been in the army for a good many years, and had only accepted the post aboard theCardwell Castlefor the sake of his health.
“Young cub!” he muttered, as he came up to Daireen. “Infernal young cub!—I beg your pardon, Miss Gerald, but I really must say it. That fellow Glaston is getting out of all bounds. Ah, it's his father's fault—his father's fault. Keeps him dawdling about England without any employment. Why, it would have been better for him to have taken to the Church, as they call it, at once, idle though the business is.”
“Surely you have not been wearing an inartistic tie, Doctor Campion?”
“Inartistic indeed! The puppy has got so much cant on his finger-ends that weak-minded people think him a genius. Don't you believe it, my dear; he's a dam puppy—excuse me, but there's really no drawing it mild here.”
Daireen was amused at the doctor's vehemence, however shocked she may have been at his manner of getting rid of it.
“What on earth has happened with Mr. Glaston now?” she asked. “It is impossible that there could be another obnoxious dress aboard.”
“He hasn't given himself any airs in that direction since,” said the doctor. “But he came up to the bridge where we were smoking, and after he had talked for a minute with Harwood, he started when he saw a boy who had been sent up to clean out one of the hencoops—asked if we didn't think his head marvellously like Carlyle's—was amazed at our want of judgment—went up to the boy and cross-questioned him—found out that his father sells vegetables to the Victoria Docks—asked if it had ever been remarked before that his head was like Carlyle's—boy says quickly that if the man he means is the tailor in Wapping, anybody that says his head is like that man's is a liar, and then boy goes quietly down. 'Wonderful!' says our genius, as he comes over to us; 'wonderful head—exactly the same as Carlyle's, and language marvellously similar—brief—earnest—emphatic—full of powah!' Then he goes on to say he'll take notes of the boy's peculiarities and send them to a magazine. I couldn't stand any more of that sort of thing, so I left him with Harwood. Harwood can sift him.”
Daireen laughed at this new story of the young man whose movements seemed to be regarded as of so much importance by every one aboard the steamer. She began really to feel interested in this Mr. Glaston; and she thought that perhaps she might as well be particular about the tone of the dress she would select for appearing in before the judicial eyes of this Mr. Glaston. She relinquished the design she had formed in her mind while Mrs. Crawford was urging on her the necessity for discrimination in this respect: she had resolved to show a recklessness in her choice of a dress, but now she felt that she had better take Mrs. Crawford's advice, and give some care to the artistic combinations of her toilette.
The result of her decision was that she appeared in such studious carelessness of attire that Mr. Glaston, sitting opposite to her, was enabled to eat a hearty dinner utterly regardless of the aggressive splendour of the imperial blue dress worn by the other young lady, with a pink ribbon flowing over it from her hair. This young lady's imagination was unequal to suggesting a more diversified arrangement than she had already shown. She thought it gave evidence of considerable strategical resources to wear that pink ribbon over the blue dress: it was very nearly as effective as the blue ribbon over the pink, of the morning. The appreciation of contrast as an important element of effect in art was very strongly developed in this young lady.
Mrs. Crawford did not conceal the satisfaction she felt observing the appetite of Mr. Glaston; and after dinner she took his arm as he went towards the bridge.
“I am so glad you were not offended with that dreadful young person's hideous colours,” she said, as they strolled along.
“I could hardly have believed it possible that such wickedness could survive nowadays,” he replied. “But I was, after the first few minutes, quite unconscious of its enormity. My dear Mrs. Crawford, your young protégée appeared as a spirit of light to charm away that fiend of evil. She sat before me—a poem of tones—a delicate symphony of Schumann's played at twilight on the brink of a mere of long reeds and water-flags, with a single star shining through the well-defined twigs of a solitary alder. That was her idea, don't you think?”
“I have no doubt of it,” the lady replied after a little pause. “But if you allow me to present you to her you will have an opportunity of finding out. Now do let me.”
“Not this evening, Mrs. Crawford; I do not feel equal to it,” he answered. “She has given me too much to think about—too many ideas to work out. That was the most thoughtful and pure-souled toilette I ever recollect; but there are a few points about it I do not fully grasp, though I have an instinct of their meaning. No, I want a quiet hour alone. But you will do me the favour to thank the child for me.”
“I wish you would come and do it yourself,” said the lady. “But I suppose there is no use attempting to force you. If you change your mind, remember that we shall be here.”
She left the young man preparing a cigarette, and joined Daireen and the major, who were sitting far astern: the girl with that fiction of a fiction still in her hand; her companion with a cheroot that was anything but insubstantial in his fingers.
“My dear child,” whispered Mrs. Crawford, “I am so glad you took your own way and would not allow me to choose your dress for you. I could never have dreamt of anything so perfect and——yes, it is far beyond what I could have composed.”
Mrs. Crawford thought it better on the whole not to transfer to Daireen the expression of gratitude Mr. Glaston had begged to be conveyed to her. She had an uneasy consciousness that such a message coming to one who was as yet unacquainted with Mr. Glaston might give her the impression that he was inclined to have some of that unhappy conceit, with the possession of which Mrs. Crawford herself had accredited the race generally.
“Miss Gerald is an angel in whatever dress she may wear,” said the major gallantly. “What is dress, after all?” he asked. “By gad, my dear, the finest women I ever recollect seeing were in Burmah, and all the dress they wore was the merest——”
“Major, you forget yourself,” cried his wife severely.
The major pulled vigorously at the end of his moustache, grinning and bobbing his head towards the doctor.
“By gad, my dear, the recollection of those beauties would make any fellow forget not only himself but his own wife, even if she was as fine a woman as yourself.”
The doctor's face relapsed into its accustomed frown after he had given a responsive grin and a baritone chuckle to the delicate pleasantry of his old comrade.