Give him heedful note;
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
And after we will both our judgments join.
Thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart: but it is no matter.
You must needs have heard, how I am punish'd
With sore distraction. What I have done
I here proclaim was madness.—Hamlet.
IT was very generally thought that it was a fortunate circumstance for Mr. Oswin Markham that there chanced to be in the fore-cabin of the steamer an enterprising American speculator who was taking out some hundred dozens of ready-made garments for disposal to the diamond miners—and an equal quantity of less durable clothing, in which he had been induced to invest some money with a view to the ultimate adoption of clothing by the Kafir nation. He explained how he had secured the services of a hard-working missionary whom he had sent as agent in advance to endeavour to convince the natives that if they ever wished to gain a footing among great nations, the auxiliary of clothing towards the effecting of their object was worth taking into consideration. When the market for these garments would thus be created, the speculator hoped to arrive on the scene and make a tolerable sum of money. In rear of his missionary, he had scoured most of the islands of the Pacific with very satisfactory results; and he said he felt that, if he could but prevail upon his missionary in advance to keep steady, a large work of evangelisation could be done in South Africa.
By the aid of this enterprising person, Mr. Markham was able to clothe himself without borrowing from any of the passengers. But about the payment for his purchases there seemed likely to be some difficulty. The bank order for four hundred pounds was once again in the possession of Mr. Markham, but it was payable in England, and how then could he effect the transfer of the few pounds he owed the American speculator, when he was to leave the vessel at St. Helena? There was no agency of the bank at this island, though there was one at the Cape, and thus the question of payment became somewhat difficult to solve.
“Do you want to leave the craft at St. Helena, mister?” asked the American, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
“I do,” said Mr. Markham. “I must leave at the island and take the first ship to England.”
“It's the awkwardest place on God's footstool, this St. Helena, isn't it?” said the American.
“I don't see that it is; why do you say so?”
“Only that I don't see why you want so partickler to land thar, mister. Maybe you'll change yer mind, eh?”
“I have said that I must part from this ship there,” exclaimed Mr. Markham almost impatiently. “I must get this order reduced to money somehow.”
“Wal, I reckon that's about the point, mister.” said the speculator. “But you see if you want to fly it as you say, you'll not breeze about that it's needful for you to cut the craft before you come to the Cape. I'd half a mind to try and trade with you for that bit of paper ten minutes ago, but I reckon that's not what's the matter with me now. No,sir; if you want to get rid of that paper without much trouble, just you give out that you don't care if you do go on to the Cape; maybe a nibble will come from that.”
“I don't know what you mean, my good fellow,” said Markham; “but I can only repeat that I will not go on to the Cape. I shall get the money somehow and pay you before I leave, for surely the order is as good as money to any one living in the midst of civilisation. I don't suppose a savage would understand it, but I can't see what objection any one in business could make to receiving it at its full value.”
The American screwed up his mouth in a peculiar fashion, and smiled in a still more peculiar fashion. He rather fancied he had a small piece of tobacco in his waistcoat pocket, nor did the result of a search show that he was mistaken; he extracted the succulent morsel and put it into his mouth. Then he winked at Mr. Markham, put his hands in his pockets, and walked slowly away without a word.
Markham looked after him with a puzzled expression. He did not know what the man meant to convey by his nods and his becks and his wreathed smiles. But just at this moment Mr. Harwood came up; he had of course previously made the acquaintance of Markham.
“I suppose we shall soon be losing you?” said Harwood, offering him a cigar. “You said, I think, that you would be leaving us at St. Helena?”
“Yes, I leave at St. Helena, and we shall be there in a few days. You see, I am now nearly as strong as ever, thanks to Campion, and it is important for me to get to England at once.”
“No doubt,” said Harwood; “your relatives will be very anxious if they hear of the loss of the vessel you were in.”
Markham gave a little laugh, as he said, “I have no relatives; and as for friends—well, I suppose I shall have a number now.”
“Now?”
“Yes; the fact is I was on my way home from Australia to take up a certain property which my father left to me in England. He died six months ago, and the solicitors for the estate sent me out a considerable sum of money in case I should need it in Australia—this order for four hundred pounds is what remains of it.”
“I can now easily understand your desire to be at home and settled down,” said Harwood.
“I don't mean to settle down,” replied Markham. “There are a good many places to be seen in the world, small as it is.”
“A man who has knocked about in the Colonies is generally glad to settle down at home,” remarked Harwood.
“No doubt that is the rule, but I fear I am all awry so far as rules are concerned. I haven't allowed my life to be subject to many rules, hitherto. Would to God I had! It is not a pleasant recollection for a son to go through life with, Harwood, that his father has died without becoming reconciled to him—especially when he knows that his father has died leaving him a couple of thousands a year.”
“And you——”
“I am such a son,” said Markham, turning round suddenly. “I did all that I could to make my father's life miserable till—a climax came, and I found myself in Australia three years ago with an allowance sufficient to keep me from ever being in want. But I forget, I'm not a modern Ancient Mariner, wandering about boring people with my sad story.”
“No,” said Harwood, “you are not, I should hope. Nor am I so pressed for time just now as the wedding guest. You did not go in for a sheep-run in Australia?”
“Nothing of the sort,” laughed the other. “The only thing I went in for was getting through my allowance, until that letter came that sobered me—that letter telling me that my father was dead, and that every penny he had possessed was mine. Harwood, you have heard of people's hair turning white in a few hours, but you have not often heard of natures changing from black to white in a short space; believe me it was so with me. The idea that theologians used to have long ago about souls passing from earth to heaven in a moment might well be believed by me, knowing as I do how my soul was transformed by that letter. I cast my old life behind me, though I did not tell any one about me what had happened. I left my companions and said to them that I was going up country. I did go up country, but I returned in a few days and got aboard the first ship that was sailing for England, and—here I am.”
“And you mean to renew your life of wandering when you reach England?” said Harwood, after a pause.
“It is all that there is left for me,” said the man bitterly, though a change in his tone would have made his words seem very pitiful. “I am not such a fool as to fancy that a man can sow tares and reap wheat. The spring of my life is over, and also the summer, the seed-time and the ripening; shall the harvest be delayed then? No, I am not such a fool.”
“I cannot see that you might not rest at home,” said Harwood. “Surely you have some associations in England.”
“Not one that is not wretched.”
“But a man of good family with some money is always certain to make new associations for himself, no matter what his life has been. Marriage, for instance; it is, I think, an exceedingly sure way of squaring a fellow up in life.”
“A very sure way indeed,” laughed Markham. “Never mind; in another week I shall be away from this society which has already become so pleasant to me. Perhaps I shall knock up against you in some of the strange places of the earth, Harwood.”
“I heartily hope so,” said the other. “But I still cannot see why you should not come on with us to the Cape. The voyage will completely restore you, you can get your money changed there, and a steamer of this company's will take you away two days after you land.”
“I cannot remain aboard this steamer,” said Markham quickly. “I must leave at St. Helena.” Then he walked away with that shortness of ceremony which steamer voyagers get into a habit of showing to each other without giving offence.
“Poor beggar!” muttered Harwood. “Wrecked in sight of the haven—a pleasant haven—yes, if he is not an uncommonly good actor.” He turned round from where he was leaning over the ship's side smoking, and saw the man with whom he had been talking seated in his chair by the side of Daireen Gerald. He watched them for some time—for a long time—until his cigar was smoked to the very end. He looked over the side thoughtfully as he dropped the remnant and heard its little hiss in the water; then he repeated his words, “a wreck.” Once more he glanced astern, and then he added thoughtfully, “Yes, he is right; he had much better part at St. Helena—very much better.”
Mr. Markham seemed quite naturally to have found his place in Mrs. Crawford's set, exclusive though it was; for somehow aboard ship a man amalgamates only with that society for which he is suited; a man is seldom to be found out of place on account of certain considerations such as one meets on shore. Not even Mr. Glaston could raise any protest against Mr. Markham's right to take a place in the midst of the elect of the cabin. But the young lady in whose birthday book Mr. Markham had inscribed his name upon the first day of his appearance at the table, thought it very unkind of him to join the band who had failed to appreciate her toilet splendours.
During the day on which he gave Harwood his brief autobiographical outline, Mr. Oswin Markham was frequently by the side of Miss Gerald and Mrs. Crawford. But towards night the major felt that it would be unjust to allow him to be defrauded of the due amount of narratory entertainment so necessary for his comfort; and with these excellent intentions drew him away from the others of the set, and, sitting on the secluded bridge, brought forth from the abundant resources of his memory a few well-defined anecdotes of that lively Arradambad station. But all the while the major was narrating the stories he could see that Markham's soul was otherwhere, and he began to be disappointed in Mr. Markham.
“I mustn't bore you, Markham, my boy,” he said as he rose, after having whiled away about two hours of the night in this agreeable occupation. “No, I mustn't bore you, and you look, upon my soul, as if you had been suffering.”
“No, no, I assure you, I never enjoyed anything more than that story of—of—the Surgeon-General and the wife of—of—the Commissary.”
“The Adjutant-General, you mean,” interrupted the major.
“Of course, yes, the Adjutant; a deucedly good story!”
“Ah, not bad, is it? But there goes six bells; I must think about turning in. Come and join me in a glass of brandy-and-water.”
“No, no; not to-night—not to-night. The fact is I feel—I feel queer.”
“You're not quite set on your feet yet, my boy,” said the major critically. “Take care of yourself.” And he walked away, wondering if it was possible that he had been deceived in his estimate of the nature of Mr. Markham.
But Mr. Markham continued sitting alone in the silence of the deserted deck. His thoughts were truly otherwhere. He lay back upon his seat and kept his eyes fixed upon the sky—the sky of stars towards which he had looked in agony for those four nights when nothing ever broke in upon the dread loneliness of the barren sea but those starlights. The terrible recollection of every moment he had passed returned to him.
Then he thought how he had heard of men becoming, through sufferings such as his, oblivious of everything of their past life—men who were thus enabled to begin life anew without being racked by any dread memories, the agony that they had endured being acknowledged by Heaven as expiation of their past deeds. That was justice, he felt, and if this justice had been done to these men, why had it been withheld from him?
“Could God Himself have added to what I endured?” he said, in passionate bitterness. “God! did I not suffer until my agony had overshot its mark by destroying in me the power of feeling agony—my agony consumed itself; I was dead—dead; and yet I am denied the power of beginning my new life under the conditions which are my due. What more can God want of man than his life? have I not paid that debt daily for four days?” He rose from his chair and stood upright upon the deck with clenched hands and lips. “It is past,” he said, after a long pause. “From this hour I throw the past beneath my feet. It is my right to forget all, and—I have forgotten all—all.”
Mr. Harwood had truly reason to feel surprised when, on the following day, Oswin Markham came up to him, and said quietly:
“I believe you are right, Harwood: after all, it would be foolish for me to part from the ship at St. Helena. I have decided to take your advice and run on to the Cape.”
Harwood looked at him for a few moments before he answered slowly:
“Ah, you have decided.”
“Yes; you see I am amenable to reason: I acknowledge the wisdom of my counsellors.” But Harwood made no answer, only continued with his eyes fixed upon his face. “Hang it all,” exclaimed Markham, “can't you congratulate me upon my return to the side of reason? Can't you acknowledge that you have been mistaken in me—that you find I am not so pig-headed as you supposed?”
“Yes,” said Harwood; “you are not pig-headed.” And, taking all things into consideration, it can hardly be denied that Mr. Oswin Markham's claim to be exempted from the class of persons called pig-headed was well founded.
'Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you: and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?—Hamlet.
MRS. Crawford felt that she was being unkindly dealt with by Fate in many matters. She had formed certain plans on coming aboard the steamer and on taking in at a glance the position of every one about her—it was her habit to do so on the occasion of her arrival at any new station in the Indian Empire—and hitherto she had generally had the satisfaction of witnessing the success of her plans; but now she began to fear that if things continued to diverge so widely from the paths which it was natural to expect them to have kept, her skilful devices would be completely overthrown.
Mrs. Crawford had within the first few hours of the voyage communicated to her husband her intention of surprising Colonel Gerald on the arrival of his daughter at the Cape; for he could scarcely fail to be surprised and, of course, gratified, if he were made aware of the fact that his daughter had conceived an attachment for a young man so distinguished in many ways as the son of the Bishop of the Calapash Islands and Metropolitan of the Salamander Archipelago—the style and titles of the father of Mr. Glaston.
But Daireen, instead of showing herself a docile subject and ready to act according to the least suggestion of one who was so much wiser and more experienced than herself, had begun to think and to act most waywardly. Though she had gone ashore at Madeira contrary to Mr. Glaston's advice, and had even ventured to assert, in the face of Mr. Glaston's demonstration to the contrary, that she had spent a pleasant day, yet Mrs. Crawford saw that it would be quite possible, by care and thoughtfulness in the future, to overcome all the unhappy influences her childishness would have upon the mind of Mr. Glaston.
Being well aware of this, she had for some days great hope of her protégée; but then Daireen had apparently cast to the winds all her sense of duty to those who were qualified to instruct her, for she had not only disagreed from Mr. Glaston upon a theory he had expressed regarding the symbolism of a certain design having for its chief elements sections of pomegranates and conventionalised daisies—Innocence allured by Ungovernable Passion was the parable preached through the union of some tones of sage green and saffron, Mr. Glaston assured the circle whom he had favoured with his views on this subject—but she had also laughed when Mr. Harwood made some whispered remark about the distressing diffusion of jaundice through the floral creation.
This was very sad to Mrs. Crawford. She was nearly angry with Daireen, and if she could have afforded it, she would have been angry with Mr. Harwood; she was, however, mindful of the influence of the letters she hoped the special correspondent of theDominant Trumpeterwould be writing regarding the general satisfaction that was felt throughout the colonies of South Africa that the Home Government had selected so efficient and trustworthy an officer to discharge the duties in connection with the Army Boot Commission, so she could not be anything but most friendly towards Mr. Harwood.
Then it was a great grief to Mrs. Crawford to see the man who, though undoubtedly well educated and even cultured, was still a sort of adventurer, seating himself more than once by the side of Daireen on the deck, and to notice that the girl talked with him even when Mr. Glaston was near—Mr. Glaston, who had referred to his sudden arrival aboard the ship as being melodramatic. But on the day preceding the expected arrival of the steamer at St. Helena, the well-meaning lady began to feel almost happy once more, for she recollected how fixed had been Mr. Markham's determination to leave the steamer at the island. Being almost happy, she thought she might go so far as to express to the man the grief which reflecting upon his departure excited.
“We shall miss you from our little circle, I can assure you, Mr. Markham,” she said. “Your coming was so—so”—she thought of a substitute for melodramatic—“so unexpected, and so—well, almost romantic, that indeed it has left an impression upon all of us. Try and get into a room in the hotel at James Town that the white ants haven't devoured; I really envy you the delicious water-cress you will have every day.”
“You will be spared the chance of committing that sin, Mrs. Crawford, though I fear the penance which will be imposed upon you for having even imagined it will be unjustly great. The fact is, I have been so weak as to allow myself to be persuaded by Doctor Campion and Harwood to go on to the Cape.”
“To go on to the Cape!” exclaimed the lady.
“To go on to the Cape, Mrs. Crawford; so you see you will be bored with me for another week.”
Mrs. Crawford looked utterly bewildered, as, indeed, she was. Her smile was very faint as she said:
“Ah, how nice; you have been persuaded. Ah, very pleasant it will be; but how one may be deceived in judging of another's character! I really formed the impression that you were firmness itself, Mr. Markham!”
“So I am, Mrs. Crawford, except when my inclination tends in the opposite direction to my resolution; then, I assure you, I can be led with a strand of floss.”
This was, of course, very pleasant chat, and with the clink of compliment about it, but it was anything but satisfactory to the lady to whom it was addressed. She by no means felt in the mood for listening to mere colloquialisms, even though they might be of the most brilliant nature, which Mr. Markham's certainly were not.
“Yes, I fancied that you were firmness itself,” she repeated. “But you allowed your mind to be changed by—by the doctor and Mr. Harwood.”
“Well, not wholly, to say the truth, Mrs. Crawford,” he interposed. “It is pitiful to have to confess that I am capable of being influenced by a monetary matter; but so it is: the fact is, if I were to land now at St. Helena, I should be not only penniless myself, but I should be obliged also to run in debt for these garments that my friend Phineas F. Fulton of Denver City supplied me with, not to speak of what I feel I owe to the steamer itself; so I think it is better for me to get my paper money turned into cash at the Cape, and then hurry homewards.”
“No doubt you understand your own business,” said the lady, smiling faintly as she walked away.
Mr. Oswin Markham watched her for some moments in a thoughtful way. He had known for a considerable time that the major's wife understood her business, at any rate, and that she was also quite capable of comprehending—nay, of directing as well—the business of every member of her social circle. But how was it possible, he asked himself, that she should have come to look upon his remaining for another week aboard the steamer as a matter of concern? He was a close enough observer to be able to see from her manner that she did so; but he could not understand how she should regard him as of any importance in the arrangement of her plans for the next week, whatever they might be.
But Mrs. Crawford, so soon as she found herself by the side of Daireen in the evening, resolved to satisfy herself upon the subject of the influences which had been brought to bear upon Mr. Oswin Markham, causing his character for determination to be lost for ever.
Daireen was sitting alone far astern, and had just finished directing some envelopes for letters to be sent home the next day from St. Helena.
“What a capital habit to get into of writing on that little case on your knee!” said Mrs. Crawford. “You have been on deck all day, you see, while the other correspondents are shut down in the saloon. You have had a good deal to tell the old people at that wonderful Irish lake of yours since you wrote at Madeira.”
Daireen thought of all she had written regarding Standish, to prevent his father becoming uneasy about him.
“Oh, yes, I have had a good deal of news that will interest them,” she said. “I have told them that the Atlantic is not such a terrible place after all. Why, we have not had even a breeze yet.”
“No,wehave not, but you should not forget, Daireen, the tornado that at least one ship perished in.” She looked gravely at the girl, though she felt very pleased indeed to know that her protégée had not remembered this particular storm. “You have mentioned in your letters, I hope, how Mr. Markham was saved?”
“I believe I devoted an entire page to Mr. Markham,” Daireen replied with a smile.
“That is right, my dear. You have also said, I am sure, how we all hope he is—a—a gentleman.”
“Hope?” said Daireen quickly. Then she added after a pause, “No, Mrs. Crawford, I don't think I said that. I only said that he would be leaving us to-morrow.”
Mrs. Crawford's nicely sensitive ear detected, she fancied, a tinge of regret in the girl's last tone.
“Ah, he told you that he had made up his mind to leave the ship at St. Helena, did he not?” she asked.
“Of course he is to leave us there, Mrs. Crawford. Did you not understand so?”
“I did indeed; but I am disappointed in Mr. Markham. I thought that he was everything that is firm. Yes, I am disappointed in him.”
“How?” said Daireen, with a little flush and an anxious movement of her eyes. “How do you mean he has disappointed you?”
“He is not going to leave us at St. Helena, Daireen; he is coming on with us to the Cape.”
With sorrow and dismay Mrs. Crawford noticed Daireen's face undergo a change from anxiety to pleasure; nor did she allow the little flush that came to the girl's forehead to escape her observation. These changes of countenance were almost terrifying to the lady. “It is the first time I have had my confidence in him shaken,” she added. “In spite of what Mr. Harwood said of him I had not the least suspicion of this Mr. Markham, but now——”
“What did! Mr. Harwood say of him?” asked Daireen, with a touch of scorn in her voice.
“You need not get angry, Daireen, my child,” replied Mrs. Crawford.
“Angry, Mrs. Crawford? How could you fancy I was angry? Only what right had this Mr. Harwood to say anything about Mr. Markham? Perhaps Mr. Glaston was saying something too. I thought that as Mr. Markham was a stranger every one here would treat him with consideration, and yet, you see——”
“Good gracious, Daireen, what can you possibly mean?” cried Mrs. Crawford. “Not a soul has ever treated Mr. Markham except in good taste from the day he came aboard this vessel. Of course young men will talk, especially young newspaper men, and more especially youngDominant. Trumpetermen. For myself, you saw how readily I admitted Mr. Markham into our set, though you will allow that, all things considered, I need not have done so at all.”
“He was a stranger,” said Daireen.
“But he is not therefore an angel unawares, my dear,” said Mrs. Crawford, smiling as she patted the girl's hand in token of amity. “So long as he meant, to be a stranger of course we were justified in making him as pleasant as possible; but now, you see, he is not going to be a stranger. But why should we talk upon so unprofitable a subject? Tell me all the rest that you have been writing about.”
Daireen made an attempt to recollect what were the topics of her letters, but she was not very successful in recalling them.
“I told them about the—the albatross, how it has followed us so faithfully,” she said; “and how the Cape pigeons came to us yesterday.”
“Ah, indeed. Very nice it will be for the dear old people at home. Ah, Daireen, how happy you are to have some place you can look back upon and think of as your home. Here am I in my old age still a vagabond upon the face of the earth. I have no home, dear.” The lady felt that this piece of pathos should touch the girl deeply.
“No, no, don't say that, my dear Mrs. Crawford,” Daireen said gently. “Say that your dear kind goodnature makes you feel at home in every part of the world.”
This was very nice Mrs. Crawford felt, as she kissed the face beside her, but she did not therefore come to the conclusion that it would be well to forget that little expression of pleasure which had flashed over this same face a few minutes before.
At this very hour upon the evening following the anchors were being weighed, and the good steamer was already backing slowly out from the place it had occupied in the midst of the little fleet of whale-ships and East Indiamen beneath the grim shadow of that black ocean rock, St. Helena. The church spire of James Town was just coming into view as the motion of the ship disclosed a larger space of the gorge where the little town is built. The flag was being hauled down from the spar at the top of Ladder Hill, and the man was standing by the sunset gun aboard H.M.S.Cobra. The last of the shore-boats was cast off from the rail, and then, the anchor being reported in sight, the steamer put on full speed ahead, the helm was made hard-a-starboard, and the vessel swept round out of the harbour.
Mr. Harwood and Major Crawford were in anxious conversation with an engineer officer who had been summoned to the Cape to assist in a certain council which was to be held regarding the attitude of a Kafir chief who was inclined to be defiant of the lawful possessors of the country. But Daireen was standing at the ship's side looking at that wonderful line of mountain-wall connecting the batteries round the island. Her thoughts were not, however, wholly of the days when there was a reason why this little island should be the most strongly fortified in the ocean. As the steamer moved gently round the dark cliffs she was not reflecting upon what must have been the feelings of the great emperor-general who had been accustomed to stand upon these cliffs and to look seaward. Her thoughts were indeed undefined in their course, and she knew this when she heard the voice of Oswin Markham beside her.
“Can you fancy what would be my thoughts at this time if I had kept to my resolution—and if I were now up there among those big rocks?” he asked.
She shook her head, but did not utter a word in answer.
“I wonder what would yours have been now if I had kept to my resolution,” he then said.
“I cannot tell you, indeed,” she answered. “I cannot fancy what I should be thinking.”
“Nor can I tell you what my thought would be,” he said after a pause. He was leaning with one arm upon the moulding of the bulwarks, and she had her eyes still fixed upon the ridges of the island. He touched her and pointed out over the water. The sun like a shield of sparkling gold had already buried half its disc beneath the horizon. They watched the remainder become gradually less and less until only a thread of gold was on the water; in another instant this had dwindled away. “I know now how I should have felt,” he said, with his eyes fixed upon the blank horizon.
The girl looked out to that blank horizon also.
Then from each fort on the cliffs there leaped a little flash of light, and the roar of the sunset guns made thunder all along the hollow shore; before the echoes had given back the sound, faint bugle-calls were borne out to the ocean as fort answered fort all along that line of mountain-wall. The girl listened until the faintest farthest thin sound dwindled away just as the last touch of sunlight had waned into blankness upon the horizon.
Polonius. What treasure had he, my lord?
Hamlet. Why,
“One fair daughter and no more,
The which he loved passing well.”
O my old friend, thy face is valanced since I saw thee last.... What, my young lady and mistress! By'r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last.... You are all welcome.—Hamlet.
HOWEVER varying, indefinite, and objectless the thoughts of Daireen Gerald may have been—and they certainly were—during the earlier days of the voyage, they were undoubtedly fixed and steadfast during the last week. She knew that she could not hear anything of her father until she would arrive at the Cape, and so she had allowed herself to be buoyed up by the hopeful conversation of the major and Mrs. Crawford, who seemed to think of her meeting with her father as a matter of certainty, and by the various little excitements of every day. But now when she knew that upon what the next few days would bring forth all the happiness of her future life depended, what thought—what prayer but one, could she have?
She was certainly not good company during these final days. Mr. Harwood never got a word from her. Mr. Glaston did not make the attempt, though he attributed her silence to remorse at having neglected his artistic instructions. Major Crawford's gallantries received no smiling recognition from her; and Mrs. Crawford's most motherly pieces of pathos went by unheeded so far as Daireen was concerned.
What on earth was the matter, Mrs. Crawford thought; could it be possible that her worst fears were realised? she asked herself; and she made a vow that even if Mr. Harwood had spoken a single word on the subject of affection to Daireen, he should forfeit her own friendship for ever.
“My dear Daireen,” she said, two days after leaving St. Helena, “you know I love you as a daughter, and I have come to feel for you as a mother might. I know something is the matter—what is it? you may confide in me; indeed you may.”
“How good you are!” said the child of this adoption; “how very good! You know all that is the matter, though you have in your kindness prevented me from feeling it hitherto.”
“Good gracious, Daireen, you frighten me! No one can have been speaking to you surely, while I am your guardian——”
“You know what a wretched doubt there is in my mind now that I know a few days will tell me all that can be told—you know the terrible question that comes to me every day—every hour—shall I see him?—shall he be—alive?”
Even the young men, with no touches of motherly pathos about them, had appreciated the girl's feelings in those days more readily than Mrs. Crawford.
“My poor dear little thing,” she now said, fondling her in a way whose soothing effect the combined efforts of all the young men could never have approached. “Don't let the doubt enter your mind for an instant—it positively must not. Your father is as well as I am to-day, I can assure you. Can you disbelieve me? I know him a great deal better than you do; and I know the Cape climate better than you do. Nonsense, my dear, no one ever dies at the Cape—at least not when they go there to recover. Now make your mind easy for the next three days.”
But for just this interval poor Daireen's mind was in a state of anything but repose.
During the last night the steamer would be on the voyage she found it utterly impossible to go to sleep. She heard all of the bells struck from watch to watch. Her cabin became stifling to her though a cool breeze was passing through the opened port. She rose, dressed herself, and went on deck though it was about two o'clock in the morning. It was a terrible thing for a girl to do, but nothing could have prevented Daireen's taking that step. She stood just outside the door of the companion, and in the moonlight and soft air of the sea more ease of mind came to her than she had yet felt on this voyage.
While she stood there in the moonlight listening to the even whisperings of the water as it parted away before the ship, and to the fitful flights of the winged fish, she seemed to hear some order as she thought, given from the forward part of the vessel. In another minute the officer on watch hastened past her. She heard him knock at the captain's cabin which was just aft of the deck-house, and make the report.
“Fixed light right ahead, sir.”
She knew then that the first glimpse of the land which they were approaching had been obtained, and her anxiety gave place to peace. That message of the light seemed to be ominous of good to her. She returned to her cabin, and found it cool and tranquil, so that she fell asleep at once; and when she next opened her eyes she saw a tall man standing with folded arms beside her, gazing at her. She gave but one little cry, and then that long drooping moustache of his was down upon her face and her bare arms were about his neck.
“Thank you, thank you, Dolly; that is a sufficiently close escape from strangulation to make me respect your powers,” said the man; and at the sound of his voice Daireen turned her face to her pillow, while the man shook out with spasmodic fingers his handkerchief from its folds and endeavoured to repair the injury done to his moustache by the girl's embrace.
“Now, now, my Dolly,” he said, after some convulsive mutterings which Daireen could, of course, not hear; “now, now, don't you think it might be as well to think of making some apology for your laziness instead of trying to go asleep again?”
Then she looked up with wondering eyes.
“I don't understand anything at all,” she cried. “How could I go asleep when we were within four hours of the Cape? How could any one be so cruel as to let me sleep so dreadfully? It was wicked of me: it was quite wicked.”
“There's not the least question about the enormity of the crime, I'm afraid,” he answered; “only I think that Mrs. Crawford may be responsible for a good deal of it, if her confession to me is to be depended upon. She told me how you were—but never mind, I am the ill-treated one in the matter, and I forgive you all.”
“And we have actually been brought into the dock?”
“For the past half-hour, my love; and I have been waiting for much longer. I got the telegram you sent to me, by the last mail from Madeira, so that I have been on the lookout for theCardwell Castlefor a week. Now don't be too hard on an old boy, Dolly, with all of those questions I see on your lips. Here, I'll take them in the lump, and think over them as I get through a glass of brandy-and-water with Jack Crawford and the Sylph—by George, to think of your meeting with the poor old hearty Sylph—ah, I forgot you never heard that we used to call Mrs. Crawford the Sylph at our station before you were born. There, now I have got all your questions, my darling—my own darling little Dolly.”
She only gave him a little hug this time, and he hastened up to the deck, where Mrs. Crawford and her husband were waiting for him.
“Now, did I say anything more of her than was the truth, George?” cried Mrs. Crawford, so soon as Colonel Gerald got on deck.
But Colonel Gerald smiled at her abstractedly and pulled fiercely at the ends of his moustache. Then seeing Mr. Harwood at the other side of the skylight, he ran and shook hands with him warmly; and Harwood, who fancied he understood something of the theory of the expression of emotion in mankind, refrained from hinting to the colonel that they had already had a chat together since the steamer had come into dock.
Mrs. Crawford, however, was not particularly well pleased to find that her old friend George Gerald had only answered her with that vague smile, which implied nothing; she knew that he had been speaking for half an hour before with Harwood, from whom he had heard the first intelligence of his appointment to the Castaway group. When Colonel Gerald, however, went the length of rushing up to Doctor Campion and violently shaking hands with him also, though they had been in conversation together before, the lady began to fear that the attack of fever from which it was reported Daireen's father had been suffering had left its traces upon him still.
“Rather rum, by gad,” said the major, when his attention was called to his old comrade's behaviour. “Just like the way a boy would behave visiting his grandmother, isn't it? Looks as if he were working off his feelings, doesn't it? By gad, he's going back to Harwood!”
“I thought he would,” said Mrs. Crawford. “Harwood can tell him all about his appointment. That's what George, like all the rest of them nowadays, is anxious about. He forgets his child—he has no interest in her, I see.”
“That's devilish bad, Kate, devilish bad! by Jingo! But upon my soul, I was under the impression that his wildness just now was the effect of having been below with the kid.”
“If he had the least concern about her, would he not come to me, when he knows very well that I could tell him all about the voyage? But no, he prefers to remain by the side of the special correspondent.”
“No, he doesn't; here he comes, and hang me if he isn't going to shake hands with both of us!” cried the major, as Colonel Gerald, recognising him, apparently for the first time, left Harwood's side and hastened across the deck with extended hand.
“George, dear old George,” said Mrs. Crawford, reflecting upon the advantages usually attributed to the conciliatory method of treatment. “Isn't it like the old time come back again? Here we stand together—Jack, Campion, yourself and myself, just as we used to be in—ah, it cannot have been '58!—yes, it was, good gracious, '58! It seems like a dream.”
“Exactly like a dream, by Jingo, my dear,” said the major pensively, for he was thinking what an auxiliary to the realistic effect of the scene a glass of brandy-and-water, or some other Indian cooling drink, would be. “Just like a vision, you know, George, isn't it? So if you'll come to the smoking-room, we'll have that light breakfast we were talking about.”
“He won't go, major,” said the lady severely.
“He wishes to have a talk with me about the dear child. Don't you, George?”
“And about your dear self, Kate,” replied Colonel Gerald, in the Irish way that brought back to the lady still more vividly all the old memories of the happy station on the Himalayas.
“Ah, how like George that, isn't it?” she whispered to her husband.
“My dear girl, don't be a tool,” was the parting request of the major as he strolled off to where the doctor was, he knew, waiting for some sign that the brandy and water were amalgamating.
“I'm glad that we are alone, George,” said Mrs. Crawford, taking Colonel Gerald's arm. “We can talk together freely about the child—about Daireen.”
“And what have we to say about her, Kate? Can you give me any hints about her temper, eh? How she needs to be managed, and that sort of thing? You used to be capital at that long ago.”
“And I flatter myself that I can still tell all about a girl after a single glance; but, my dear George, I never indeed knew what a truly perfect nature was until I came to understand Daireen. She is an angel, George.”
“No,” said the colonel gently; “not Daireen—she is not the angel; but her face, when I saw it just now upon its pillow, sent back all my soul in thought of one—one who is—who always was an angel—my good angel.”
“That was my first thought too,” said Mrs. Crawford. “And her nature is the same. Only poor Daireen errs on the side of good nature. She is a child in her simplicity of thought about every one she meets. She wants some one near her who will be able to guide her tastes in—in—well, in different matters. By the way, you remember Austin Glaston, who was chaplain for a while on theTelemachus, and who got made Bishop of the Salamanders; well, that is his son, that tall handsome youngman—I must present you. He is one of the most distinguished men I ever met.”
“Ah, indeed? Does he write for a newspaper?”
“Oh, George, I am ashamed of you. No, Mr. Glaston is a—a—an artist and a poet, and—well, he does nearly everything much better than any one else, and if you take my advice you will give him an invitation to dinner, and then you will find out all.”
Before Colonel Gerald could utter a word he was brought face to face with Mr. Glaston, and felt his grasp responded to by a gentle pressure.
“I'm very glad to meet you, Mr. Glaston; your father and I were old friends. If you are staying at Cape Town, I hope you will not neglect to call upon my daughter and myself,” said the colonel.
“You are extremely kind,” returned the young man: “I shall be delighted.”
Thus Daireen on coming on deck found her father in conversation with Mr. Glaston, and already acquainted with every member of Mrs. Crawford's circle.
“Mr. Glaston has just promised to pay you a visit on shore, my dear,” said the major's wife, as she came up.
“How very kind,” said Daireen. “But can he tell me where I live ashore, for no one has thought fit to let me know anything about myself. I will never forgive you, Mrs. Crawford, for ordering that I was not to be awakened this morning. It was too cruel.”
“Only to be kind, dear; I knew what a state of nervousness you were in.”
“And now of course,” continued the girl, “when I come on deck all the news will have been told—even that secret about the Castaway Islands.”
“Heavens':” said the colonel, “what about the Castaway Islands? Have they been submerged, or have they thrown off the British yoke already?”
“I see you know all,” she said mournfully, “and I had treasured up all that Mr. Harwood said no one in the world but himself knew, to be the first to tell you. And now, too, you know every one aboard except—ah, I have my secret to tell at last. There he stands, and even you don't remember him, papa. Come here, Standish, and let me present you. This, papa, is Standish Macnamara, and he is coming out with us now to wherever we are to live.”
“Good gracious, Daireen!” cried Mrs. Crawford.
“What, Standish, Prince of Innishdermot!” said the colonel. “My dear boy, I am delighted to welcome you to this strange place. I remember you when your curls were a good deal longer, my boy.”
Poor Standish, who was no longer in his sailor's jacket, but in the best attire his Dublin tailor could provide, blushed most painfully as every one gazed at him—every one with the exception of Daireen, who was gazing anxiously around the deck as though she expected to see some one still.
“This is certainly a secret,” murmured Mrs. Crawford.
“Now, Daireen, to the shore,” said Colonel Gerald. “You need not say good-bye to any one here. Mrs. Crawford will be out to dine with us to-morrow. She will bring the major and Doctor Campion, and Mr. Harwood says he will ride one of my horses till he gets his own. So there need be no tears. My man will look after the luggage while I drive you out.”
“I must get my bag from my cabin,” Daireen said, going slowly towards the companion. In a few moments she reappeared with her dressing-bag, and gave another searching glance around the deck.
“Now,” she said, “I am ready.”