“Cease—rude Boreas—blustering—railer!!”
At which sly hit David was pleased, and burst into a loud, boisterous laugh.
Lucy put her hands to her ears. “Oh, don't! don't! this is worse than your blasphemies—laughing on the brink of eternity; these are not men—they are devils.”
“Do you hear that, Jack? Come, you behave!” roared David.
A faint snarl from Talboys. The water had penetrated him, and roused him from a state of sick torpor; he lay in a tidy little pool some eight inches deep.
The boat was bailed and lightened, but Lucy's fears were not set at rest. What was to hinder the recurrence of the same danger, and with more fatal effect? She timidly asked David's permission to let her keep the sea out. Instead of snubbing her as she expected, David consented with a sort of paternal benevolence tinged with incredulity. She then developed her plan; it was, that David, Jack, and she should sit in a triangle, and hold the tarpaulin out to windward and fence the ocean out. Jack, being summoned aft to council, burst into a hoarse laugh; but David checked him.
“There is more in it than you see, Jack—more than she sees, perhaps. My only doubt is whether it is possible; but you can try.”
Lucy and Jack then tried to get the tarpaulin out to windward; instead of which, it carried them to leeward by the force of the wind. The mast brought them up, or Heaven knows where their new invention would have taken them. With infinite difficulty they got it down and kneeled upon it, and even then it struggled. But Lucy would not be defeated; she made Jack gather it up in the middle, and roll it first to the right, then to the left, till it became a solid roll with two narrow open edges. They then carried it abaft, and lowered it vertically over the stern-port; then suddenly turned it round, and sat down. “Crack!” the wind opened it, and wrapped it round the boat and the trio.
“Hallo!” cried David, “it is foul of the rudder;” and, he whipped out his knife and made a slit in the stuff. It now clung like a blister.
“There, Mr. Dodd, will not that keep the sea out?” asked Lucy, triumphantly.
“At any rate, it may help to keep us ahead of the sea. Why, Jack, I seem to feel it lift her; it is as good as a mizzen.”
“But, oh, Mr. Dodd, there is another danger. We may broach to.”
“How can she broach to when I am at the helm? Here is the arm that won't let her broach to.”
“Then I feel safe.”
“You are as safe as on your own sofa; it is the discomfort you are put to that worries me.”
“Don't think so meanly of me, Mr. Dodd. If it was not for my cowardice, I should enjoy this voyage far more than the luxurious ease you think so dear to me. I despise it.”
“Mr. Dodd, now I am no longer afraid. I am, oh, so sleepy.”
“No wonder—go to sleep. It is the best thing you can do.”
“Thank you, sir. I am aware my conversation is not very interesting.” Having administered this sudden bloodless scratch, to show that, at sea or ashore, in fair weather or foul, she retained her sex, Lucy disposed herself to sleep.
David, steering the boat with his left hand, arranged the cushion with his right. She settled herself to sleep, for an irresistible drowsiness had followed the many hours of excitement she had gone through. Twice the heavy plunging sea brought her into light contact with David. She instantly awoke, and apologized to him with gentle dismay for taking so audacious a liberty with that great man, commander of the vessel; the third time she said nothing, a sure sign she was unconscious.
Then David, for fear she might hurt herself, curled his arm around her, and let her head decline upon his shoulder. Her bonnet fell off; he put it reverently on the other side the helm. The air now cleared, but the gale increased rather than diminished. And now the moon rose large and bright. The boat and masts stood out like white stone-work against the flint-colored sky, and the silver light played on Lucy's face. There she lay, all unconscious of her posture, on the man's shoulder who loved her, and whom she had refused; her head thrown back in sweet helplessness, her rich hair streaming over David's shoulder, her eyes closed, but the long, lovely lashes meeting so that the double fringe was as speaking as most eyes, and her lips half open in an innocent smile. The storm was no storm to her now. She slept the sleep of childhood, of innocence and peace; and David gazed and gazed on her, and joy and tenderness almost more than human thrilled through him, and the storm was no storm to him either; he forgot the past, despised the future, and in the delirium of his joy blessed the sea and the wind, and wished for nothing but, instead of the Channel, a boundless ocean, and to sail upon it thus, her bosom tenderly grazing him, and her lovely head resting on his shoulder, for ever, and ever, and ever.
Thus they sailed on two hours and more, and Jack now began to nod.
All of a sudden Lucy awoke, and, opening her eyes, surprised David gazing at her with tenderness unspeakable. Awaking possessed with the notion that she was sleeping at home on a bed of down, she looked dumfounded an instant; but David's eyes soon sent the blood into her cheek. Her whole supple person turned eel-like, and she glided quickly, but not the least bruskly, from him; the latter might have seemed discourteous.
“Oh, Mr. Dodd,” she cried, “what am I doing?”
“You have been getting a nice sleep, thank Heaven.”
“Yes, and making use of you even in my sleep; but we all impose on your goodness.”
“Why did you awake? You were happy; you felt no care, and I was happy seeing you so.”
Lucy's eyes filled. “Kind, true friend,” she murmured, “how can I ever thank you as I ought? I little deserved that you should watch over my safety as you have done, and, alas! risk your own. Any other but you would have borne me malice, and let me perish, and said, 'It serves her right.'”
“Malice! Miss Lucy. What for, in Heaven's name?”
“For—for the affront I put upon you; for the—the honor I declined.”
“Hate cannot lie alongside love in a true heart.”
“I see it cannot in a noble one. And then you are so generous. You have never once recurred to that unfortunate topic; yet you have gained a right to request me—to reconsider—Mr. Dodd, you have saved my life!!”
“What! do you praise me because I don't take a mean advantage? That would not be behaving like a man.”
“I don't know that. You overrate your sex—and mine. We don't deserve such generosity. The proof is, we reward those who are not so—delicate.”
“I don't trouble my head about your sex. They are nothing to me, and never will be. If you think I have done my duty like a man, and as much like a gentleman as my homely education permits, that is enough for me, and I shall sail for China as happy as anything on earth can make me now.”
Lucy answered this by crying gently, silently, tenderly.
“Don't ye cry. Have I said something to vex you?”
“Oh no, no.”
“Are you alarmed still?”
“Oh, no; I have such faith in you.”
“Then go to sleep again, like a lamb.”
“I will; then I shall not tease you with my conversation.”
“Now there is a way to put it.”
“Forgive me.”
“That I will, if you will take some repose. There, I will lash you to my arm with this handkerchief; then you can lie the other way, and hold on by the handkerchief—there.”
She closed her eyes and fell apparently to sleep, but really to thinking.
Then David nudged Jack, and waked him. “Speak low now, Jack.”
“What is it, sir?”
“Land ahead.”
Jack looked out, and there was a mountain of jet rising out of the sea, and, to a landsman's eye, within a stone's throw of them.
“Is it the French coast, sir? I must have been asleep.”
“French coast? no, Channel Island—smallest of the lot.”
“Better give it a wide berth, sir. We shall go smash like a teacup if we run on to one of them rocky islands.”
“Why, Jack,” said David, reproachfully, “am I the man to run upon a leeshore, and such a night as this?”
“Not likely. You will keep her head for Cherbourg or St. Malo, sir; it is our only chance.”
“It is not our only chance, nor our best. We have been running a little ahead of this gale, Jack; there is worse in store for us; the sea is rolling mountains high on the French coast this morning, I know. We are like enough to be pooped before we get there, or swamped on some harbor-bar at last.”
“Well, sir, we must take our chance.”
“Take our chance? What! with heads on our shoulders, and an angel on board that Heaven has given us charge of? No, I sha'n't take my chance. I shall try all I know, and hang on to life by my eyelids. Listen to me. 'Knowledge is gold;' a little of it goes a long way. I don't know much myself, but I do know the soundings of the British Channel. I have made them my study. On the south side of this rocky point there is forty fathoms water close to the shore, and good anchorage-ground.”
“Then I wish we could jump over the thundering island, and drop on the lee side of it; but, as we can't, what's the use?”
“We may be able to round the point.”
“There will be an awful sea running off that point, sir.”
“Of course there will. I mean to try it, for all that.”
“So be it, sir; that is what I like to hear. I hate palaver. Let one give his orders, and the rest obey them. We are not above half a mile from it now.”
“You had better wake the landsman. We must have a third hand for this.”
“No,” said a woman's voice, sweet, but clear and unwavering. “I shall be the third hand.”
“Curse it,” cried David, “she has heard us.”
“Every word. And I have no confidence in Mr. Talboys; and, believe me, I am more to be trusted than he is. See, my cowardice is all worn out. Do but trust me, and you shall find I want neither courage nor intelligence.”
David eyed her keenly, and full in the face. She met his glance calmly, with her fine nostrils slightly expanding, and her compressed lip curving proudly.
“It is all right, Jack. It is not a flash in the pan. She is as steady as a rock.” He then addressed her rapidly and business-like, but with deference. “You will stand by the helm on this side, and the moment I run forward, you will take the helm and hold it in this position. That will require all your strength. Come, try it. Well done.”
“How the sea struggles with me! But I am strong, you see,” cried Lucy, her brow flushed with the battle.
“Very good; you are strong, and, what is better, resolute. Now, observe me: this is port, this is starboard, and this is amidships.”
“I see; but how am I to know which to do?”'
“I shall give you the word of command.”
“And all I have to do is to obey it?”
“That is all; but you will find it enough, because the sea will seem to fight you. It will shake the boat to make you leave go, and will perhaps dash in your face to make you leave go.”
“Forewarned, forearmed, Mr. Dodd. I will not let go. I will hold on by my eyelids sooner than add to your danger.”
“Jack, she is on fire; she gives me double heart.”
“So she does me. She makes it a pleasure.”
They were now near enough the point to judge what they had to do, and the appearance of the sea was truly terrible; the waves were all broken, and a surge of devouring fire seemed to rage and roar round the point, and oppose an impassable barrier between them and the inky pool beyond, where safety lay under the lee of the high rocks.
“I don't like it,” said David. “It looks to me like going through a strip of hell fire.”
“But it is narrow,” said Lucy.
“That is our chance; and the tide is coming in. We will try it. She will drench us, but I don't much think she will swamp us. Are you ready, all hands?”
“Oh! please wait a minute, till I do up my hair.”
“Take a minute, but no more.”
“There, it is done. Mr. Dodd, one word. If all should fail, and death be inevitable, tell me so just before we perish, and I shall have something to say to you. Now, I am ready.”
“Jump forward, Jack.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stand by to jibe the foresail.”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“See our sweeps all clear.”
“Ay.”
David now handled the main sheet, and at the same time looked earnestly at Lucy, who met his eye with a look of eager attention.
“Starboard a little. That will do. Steady—steady as you go,” As the boat yielded to the helm, Jack gathered in on the sheet, took two turns round the cleat, and eased away till the sail drew its best: so far so good. Both sails were now on the same side of the boat, the wind on her port quarter; but now came the dangerous operation of coming to the wind, in a rough and broken sea, among the eddies of wind and tide so prevalent off headlands. David, with the main sheet in his right hand, directed Lucy with his left as well as his voice.
“Starboard the helm—starboard yet—now meet her—so!” and, as she rounded to Jack and he kept hauling the sheets aft, and the boat, her course and trim altered, darted among the breakers like a brave man attacking danger. After the first plunge she went up and down like a pickax, coming down almost where she went up; but she held her course, with the waves roaring round her like a pack of hell-hounds.
More than half the terrible strip was passed. “Starboard yet,” cried David; and she headed toward the high mainland under whose lee was calm and safety. Alas! at this moment a snorter of a sea broke under her broadside, and hove her to leeward like a cork, and a tide eddy catching her under the counter, she came to more than two points, and her canvas, thus emptied, shook enough to tear the masts out of her by the board.
“Port your helm! PORT! PORT!” roared David, in a voice like the roar of a wounded lion; and, in his anxiety, he bounded to the helm himself; but Lucy obeyed orders at half a word, and David, seeing this, sprang forward to help Jack flatten in the foresheet. The boat, which all through answered the helm beautifully, fell off the moment Lucy ported the helm, and thus they escaped the impending and terrible danger of her making sternway. “Helm amidships!” and all drew again: the black water was in sight. But will they ever reach it? She tosses like a cork. Bang! A breaker caught her bows, and drenched David and Jack to the very bone. She quivered like an aspen-leaf but held on.
“Starboard one point,” cried David, sitting down, and lifting an oar out from the boat; but just as Lucy, in obeying the order, leaned a little over the lee gunwale with the tiller, a breaker broke like a shell upon the boat's broadside abaft, stove in her upper plank, and filled her with water; some flew and slapped Lucy in the face like an open hand. She screamed, but clung to the gunwale, and griped the helm: her arm seemed iron, and her heart was steel. While she clung thus to her work, blinded by the spray, and expecting death, she heard oars splash into the water, and mellow stentorian voices burst out singing.
In amazement she turned, squeezed the brine out of her eyes, and looked all round, and lo! the boat was in a trifling bobble of a sea, and close astern was the surge of fire raging, and growling, and blazing in vain, and the two sailors were pulling the boat, with superhuman strength and inspiration, into a monster mill-pool that now lay right ahead, black as ink and smooth as oil, singing loudly as they rowed:
“Cheerily oh oh! (pull) cheerily oh oh! (pull)To port we go oh (pull), to port we go (pull).”
FLARE!! a great flaming eye opened on them in the center of the universal blackness.
“Look! look!” cried Lucy; “a fire in the mountain.”
It was the lantern of a French sloop anchored close to the shore. The crew had heard the sailors' voices. At sight of it David and Jack cheered so lustily that Talboys crawled out of the water and glared vaguely. The sailors pulled under the sloop's lee quarter: a couple of ropes were instantly lowered, the lantern held aloft, ruby heads and hands clustered at the gangway, and in another minute the boat's party were all upon deck, under a hailstorm of French, and the boat fast to her stern.
THE skipper of the ship, hearing a commotion on deck, came up, and, taking off his cap, made Lucy a bow in a style remote from an English sailor's. She courtesied to him, and, to his surprise, addressed him in Parisian French. When he learned she was from England, and had rounded that point in an open boat, he was astonished.
“Diables d'Anglais!” said he.
The good-natured Frenchman insisted on Lucy taking sole possession of his cabin, in which was a cheerful stove. His crew were just as kind to David, Jack, and Talboys. This latter now resumed his right place—at the head of mankind; being the only one who could talk French, he interpreted for his companions. He improved upon my narrative in one particular: he led the Frenchmen to suppose it was he who had sailed the boat from England, and weathered the point. Who can blame him?
Dry clothes were found them, and grog and beef.
While employed on the victuals, a little Anglo-Frank, aged ten, suddenly rolled out of a hammock and offered aid in the sweet accents of their native tongue. The sound of the knives and forks had woke the urchin out of a deep sleep. David filled the hybrid, and then sent him to Lucy's cabin to learn how she was getting on. He returned, and told them the lady was sitting on deck.
“Dear me,” said David, “she ought to be in her bed.” He rose and went on deck, followed by Mr. Talboys. “Had you not better rest yourself?” said David.
“No, thank you, Mr. Dodd; I had a delicious sleep in the boat.”
Here Talboys put in his word, and made her a rueful apology for the turn his pleasure-excursion had taken.
She stopped him most graciously.
“On the contrary, I have to thank you, indirectly, for one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent. I never was in danger before, and it is delightful. I was a little frightened at first, but it soon wore off, and I feel I should shortly revel in it; only I must have a brave man near just to look at, then I gather courage from his eye; do I not now, Mr. Dodd?”
“Indeed you do,” said David, simply enough.
Lucy Fountain's appearance and manner bore out her words. Talboys was white; even David and Jack showed some signs of a night of watching and anxiety; but the young lady's cheek was red and fresh, her eye bright, and she shone with an inspired and sprightly ardor that was never seen, or never observed in her before. They had found the way to put her blood up, after all—the blood of the Funteyns. Such are thoroughbreds: they rise with the occasion; snobs descend as the situation rises. See that straight-necked, small-nosed mare stepping delicately on the turnpike: why, it is Languor in person, picking its way among eggs. Now the hounds cry and the horn rings. Put her at timber, stream, and plowed field in pleasing rotation, and see her now: up ears; open nostril; nerves steel; heart immovable; eye of fire; foot of wind. And ho! there! What stuck in that last arable, dead stiff as the Rosinantes in Trafalgar Square, all but one limb, which goes like a water-wagtail's? Why, by Jove! if it isn't the hero of the turnpike road: the gallant, impatient, foaming, champing, space-devouring, curveting cocktail.
Out of consideration for her male companions' infirmities, and observing that they were ashamed to take needful rest while she remained on deck, Lucy at length retired to her cabin.
She slept a good many hours, and was awakened at last by the rocking of the sloop. The wind had fallen gently, but it had also changed to due east, which brought a heavy ground-swell round the point into their little haven. Lucy made her toilet, and came on deck blooming like a rose. The first person she encountered was Mr. Talboys. She saluted him cordially, and then inquired for their companions.
“Oh, they are gone.”
“Gone! What do you mean?”
“Sailed half an hour ago. Look, there is the boat coasting the island. No, not that way—westward; out there, just weathering that point Don't you see?”
“Are they making a tour of the island, then?”
Here the little Anglo-Frank put in his word. “No, ma'ainselle, gone to catch sheep bound for ze East Indeeze.”
“Gone! gone! for good?” and Lucy turned very pale. The next moment offended pride sent the blood rushing to her brow. “That is just like Mr. Dodd; there is not another gentleman in the world would have had the ill-breeding to go off like that to India without even bidding us good-morning or good-by. Did he bidyougood-by, Mr. Talboys?”
“No.”
“There, now, it is insolent—it is barbarous.” Her vexation at the affront David had put on Mr. Talboys soon passed into indignation. “This was done to insult—to humiliate us. A noble revenge. You know we used sometimes to quiz him a little ashore, especially you; so now, out of spite, he has saved our lives, and then turned his back arrogantly upon us before we could express our gratitude; that is as much as to say he values us as so many dogs or cats, flings us our lives haughtily, and then turned his back disdainfully on us. Life is not worth having when given so insultingly.”
Talboys soothed the offended fair. “I really don't think he meant to insult us; but you know Dodd; he is a good-natured fellow, but he never had the slightest pretension to good-breeding.”
“Don't you think,” replied the lady, “it would be as well to leave off detracting from Mr. Dodd now that he has just saved your life?”
Talboys opened his eyes. “Why, you began it.”
“Oh, Mr. Talboys, do not descend to evasion. What I say goes for nothing. Mr. Dodd and I are fast friends, and nobody will ever succeed in robbing me of my esteem for him. But you always hated him, and you seize every opportunity of showing your dislike. Poor Mr. Dodd! He has too many great virtues not to be envied—and hated.”
Talboys stood puzzled, and was at a loss which way to steer his tongue, the wind being so shifty. At last he observed a little haughtily that “he never made Mr. Dodd of so much importance as all this. He owned hehadquizzed him, but it was not his intention to quiz him any more; for I do feel under considerable obligations to Mr. Dodd; he has brought us safe across the Channel; at the same time, I own I should have been more grateful if he had beat against the wind and landed us on our native coast; the lugger is there long before this, and our boat was the best of the two.”
“Absurd!” replied Lucy, with cold hauteur. “The lugger had a sharp stern, but ours was a square stern, so we were obliged torun;if we hadbeat,we should all have been drowned directly.”
Talboys was staggered by this sudden influx of science; but he held his ground. “There is something in that,” said he; “but still, a—a——”
“There, Mr. Talboys,” said the young lady suddenly, assuming extreme languor after delivering a facer, “pray do not engage me in an argument. I do not feel equal to one, especially on a subject that has lost its interest. Can you inform me when this vessel sails?”
“Not till to-morrow morning.”
“Then will you be so kind as to borrow me that little boat? it is dangling from the ship, so it must belong to it. I wish to land, and see whether he has cast us upon an in- or an uninhabited island.”
The sloop's boat speedily landed them on the island, and Lucy proposed to cross the narrow neck of land and view the sea they had crossed in the dark. This was soon done, and she took that opportunity of looking about for the lateen, for her mind had taken another turn, and she doubted the report that David had gone to intercept the East-Indiaman. A short glance convinced her it was true. About seven miles to leeward, her course west-northwest, her hull every now and then hidden by the waves, her white sails spread like a bird's, the lateen was flying through the foam at its fastest rate. Lucy gazed at her so long and steadfastly that Talboys took the huff, and strolled along the cliff.
When Lucy turned to go back, she found the French skipper coming toward her with a scrap of paper in his hand. He presented it with a low bow; she took it with a courtesy. It was neatly folded, though not as letters are folded ashore, and it bore her address. She opened it and read:
“It was not worth while disturbing your rest just to see us go off. God bless you, Miss Lucy! The Frenchman is bound for ——, and will take you safe; and mind you don't step ashore till the plank is fast.
“Yours, respectfully,
That was all. She folded it back thoughtfully into the original folds, and turned away. When she had gone but a few steps she stopped and put her rejected lover's little note into her bosom, and went slowly back to the boat, hanging her sweet head, and crying as she went.
MR. FOUNTAIN remained in the town waiting for his niece's return. Six o'clock came—no boat. Eight o'clock—no boat, and a heavy gale blowing. He went down to the beach in great anxiety; and when he got there he soon found it was shared to the full by many human beings. There were little knots of fishermen and sailors discussing it, and one poor woman, mother and wife, stealing from group to group and listening anxiously to the men's conjectures. But the most striking feature of the scene was an old white-haired man, who walked wildly, throwing his arms about. The others rather avoided him, but Mr. Fountain felt he had a right to speak to him; so he came to him, and told him “his niece was on board; and you, too, I fear, have some one dear to you in danger.”
The old man replied sorrowfully that “his lovely new boat was in danger—in such danger that he should never see her again;” then added, going suddenly into a fury, that “as to the two rascally bluejackets that were on board of her, and had borrowed her of his wife while he was out, all he wished was that they had been swamped to all eternity long ago, then they would not have been able to come and swamp his dear boat.”
Peppery old Fountain cursed him for a heartless old vagabond, and joined the group whose grief and anxiety were less ostentatious, being for the other boat that carried their own flesh and blood. But all night long that white-haired old man paced the shore, flinging his arms, weeping and cursing alternately for his dear schooner.
Oh holy love—of property! how venerable you looked in the moonlight, with your white hairs streaming! How well you imitated, how close you rivaled, the holiest effusions of the heart, and not for the first time nor the last.
“My daughter! my ducats! my ducats! my daughter!” etc.
The morning broke; no sign of either boat. The wind had shifted to the east, and greatly abated. The fishermen began to have hopes for their comrades; these communicated themselves to Mr. Fountain.
It was about one o'clock in the afternoon when this latter observed people streaming along the shore to a distant point. He asked a coastguard man, whom he observed scanning the place with a glass, “What it was?”
The man lowered his voice and said, “Well, sir, it will be something coming ashore, by the way the folk are running.”
Mr. Fountain got a carriage, and, urging the driver to use speed, was hastily conveyed by the road to a part whence a few steps brought him down to the sea. He thrust wildly in among the crowd.
“Make way,” said the rough fellows: they saw he was one of those who had the best right to be there.
He looked, and there, scarce fifty yards from the shore, was the lugger, keel uppermost, drifting in with the tide. The old man staggered, and was supported by a beach man.
When the wreck came within fifteen yards of the shore, she hung, owing to the under suction, and could get neither way. The cries of the women broke out afresh at this. Then half a dozen stout fellows swam in with ropes, and with some difficulty righted her, and in another minute she was hauled ashore.
The crowd rushed upon her. She was empty! Not an oar, not a boat-hook—nothing. But jammed in between the tiller and the boat they found a purple veil. The discovery was announced loudly by one of the females, but the consequent outcry was instantly hushed by the men, and the oldest fisherman there took it, and, in a sudden dead and solemn silence, gave it with a world of subdued meaning to Mr. Fountain.
MR. FOUNTAIN'S grief was violent; the more so, perhaps, that it was not pure sorrow, but heated with anger and despair. He had not only lost the creature he loved better than anyone else except himself, but all his plans and all his ambition were upset forever. I am sorry to say there were moments when he felt indignant with Heaven, and accused its justice. At other times the virtues of her he had lost came to his recollection, and he wept genuine tears. Now she was dead he asked himself a question that is sometimes reserved for that occasion, and then asked with bitter regret and idle remorse at its postponement, “What can I do to show my love and respect for her?” The poor old fellow could think of nothing now but to try and recover her body from the sea, and to record her virtues on her tomb. He employed six men to watch the coast for her along a space of twelve miles, and he went to a marble-cutter and ordered a block of beautiful white marble. He drew up the record of her virtues himself, and spelled her “Fontaine,” and so settled that question by brute force.
Oh, you may giggle, but men are not most sincere when they are most reasonable, nor most reasonable when most sincere. When a man's heart is in a thing, it is in it—wise or nonsensical, it is all one; so it is no use talking.
I lack words to describe the gloom that fell on Mr. Bazalgette's home when the sad tidings reached it. And, indeed, it would be trifling with my reader to hang many more pages with black when he and I both know Lucy Fontaine is alive all the time.
Meantime the French sloop lay at her anchor, and Lucy fretted with impatience. At noon the next day she sailed, and, being a slow vessel, did not anchor off the port of —— till daybreak the day after. Then she had to wait for the tide, and it was nearly eleven o'clock when Lucy landed. She went immediately to the principal inn to get a conveyance. On the road, whom should she meet but Mr. Hardie. He gave a joyful start at sight of her, and with more heart than she could have expected welcomed her to life again. From him she learned all the proofs of her death. This made her more anxious to fly to her aunt's house at once and undeceive her.
Mr. Hardie would not let her hire a carriage; he would drive her over in half the time. He beckoned his servant, who was standing at the inn door, and ordered it immediately. “Meantime, Miss Fountain, if you will take my arm, I will show you something that I think will amuse you, thoughwehave found it anything but amusing, as you may well suppose.” Lucy took his arm somewhat timidly, and he walked her to the marble-cutter's shop. “Look there,” said he. Lucy looked and there was an unfinished slab on which she read these words:
Sacred to the MemoryOFLUCY FONTAINE,WHO WAS DROWNED AT SEA ON THE10TH SEPT., 18—.As her beauty endeared her to all eyes,So her modesty, piety, docilit
At this point in her moral virtues the chisel had stopped. Eleven o'clock struck, and the chisel went for its beer; for your English workman would leave the d in “God” half finished when strikes the hour of beer.
The fact is that the shopkeeper had newly set up, was proud of the commission, and, whenever the chisel left off, he whipped into the workshop and brought the slab out,pro tem.,into his window for an advertisement.
Hardie pointed it out to Lucy with a chuckle. Lucy turned pale, and put her hand to her heart. Hardie saw his mistake too late, and muttered excuses.
Lucy gave a little gasp and stopped him. “Pray say no more; it is my fault; if people will feign death, they must expect these little tributes. My uncle has lost no time.” And two unreasonable tears swelled to her eyes and trickled one after another down her cheeks; then she turned her back quickly on the thing, and Mr. Hardie felt her arm tremble. “I think, Mr. Hardie,” said she presently, with marked courtesy, “I should, under the circumstances, prefer to go home alone. My aunt's nerves are sensitive, and I must think of the best way of breaking to her the news that I am alive.”
“It would be best, Miss Fountain; and, to tell the truth, I feel myself unworthy to accompany you after being so maladroit as to give you pain in thinking to amuse you.”
“Oh, Mr. Hardie,” said Lucy, growing more and more courteous, “you are not to be called to account for my weakness; thatwouldbe unjust. I shall have the pleasure of seeing you at dinner?”
“Certainly, since you permit me.”
He put Lucy into the carriage and off she drove. “Come,” thought Mr. Hardie, “I have had an escape; what a stupid blunder for me to make! She is not angry, though, so it does not matter. She asked me to dinner.”
Said Lucy to herself: “The man is a fool! Poor Mr. Dodd!hewould not have shown me my tombstone—to amuse me.” And she dismissed the subject from her mind.
She sent away the carriage and entered Mr. Bazalgette's house on foot. After some consideration she determined to employ Jane, a girl of some tact, to break her existence to her aunt. She glided into the drawing-room unobserved, fully expecting to find Jane at work there for Mrs. Bazalgette. But the room was empty. While she hesitated what to do next, the handle of the door was turned, and she had only just time to dart behind a heavy window-curtain, when it opened, and Mrs. Bazalgette walked slowly and silently in, followed by a woman. Mrs. Bazalgette seated herself and sighed deeply. Her companion kept a respectful silence. After a considerable pause, Mrs. Bazalgette said a few words in a voice so thoroughly subdued and solemn, and every now and then so stifled, that Lucy's heart yearned for her, and nothing but the fear of frightening her aunt into a hysterical fit kept her from flying into her arms.
“I need not tell you,” said Mrs. Bazalgette, “why I sent for you. You know the sad bereavement that has fallen on me, but you cannot know all I have lost in her. Nobody can tell what she was to all of us, but most of all to me. I was her darling, and she was mine.” Here tears choked Mrs. Bazalgette's words, for a while. Recovering herself, she paid a tribute to the character of the deceased. “It was a soul without one grain of selfishness; all her thoughts were for others, not one for herself. She loved us all—indeed, she loved some that were hardly worthy of so pure a creature's love; but the reason was, she had no eye for the faults of her friends; she pictured them like herself, and loved her own sweet image in them.Andsuch a temper! and so free from guile. I may truly say her mind was as lovely as her person.”
“She was, indeed, a sweet young lady,” sighed the woman.
“She was an angel, Baldwin—an angel sent to bear us company a little while, and now she is a saint in Heaven.”
“Ah! ma'am, the best goes first, that is an old saying.”
“So I have heard; but my niece was as healthy as she was lovely and good. Everything promised long life. I hoped she would have closed my eyes. In the bloom of health one day, and the next lying cold, stark, and drenched!! Oh, how terrible! Oh, my poor Lucy! oh! oh! oh!”
“In the midst of life we are in death, ma'am. I am sure it is a warning to me, ma'am, as well as to my betters.”
“It, is, indeed, Baldwin, a warning to all of us who have lived too much for vanities, to think of this sweet flower, snatched in a moment from our bosoms and from the world; we ought to think of it on our knees, and remember our own latter end. That last skirt you sent me was rather scrimped, my poor Baldwin.”
“Was it, ma'am?”
“Oh, it does not matter; I shall never wear it now; and, under such a blow as this, I am in no humor to find fault. Indeed, with my grief I neglect my household and my very children. I forget everything; what did I send for you for?” and she looked with lack-luster eyes full in Mrs. Baldwin's face.
“Jane did not say, ma'am, but I am at your orders.”
“Oh, of course; I am distracted. It was to pay the last tribute of respect to her dear memory. Ah! Baldwin, often and often the black dress is all; but here the heart mourns beyond the power of grief to express by any outward trappings. No matter; the world, the shallow world, respects these signs of woe, and let mine be the deepest mourning ever worn, and the richest. And out of that mourning I shall never go while I live.”
“No, ma'am,” said Baldwin soothingly.
“Do you doubt me?” asked the lady, with a touch of sharpness that did not seemed called for by Baldwin's humble acquiescence.
“Oh, no, ma'am; it is a very natural thought under the present affliction, and most becoming the sad occasion. Well, ma'am, the deepest mourning, if you please, I should say cashmere and crape.”
“Yes, that would be deep. Oh, Baldwin, it is her violent death that kills me. Well?”
“Cashmere and crape, ma'am, and with nothing white about the neck and arms.”
“Yes; oh yes; but will not that be rather unbecoming?”
“Well, ma'am—” and Baldwin hesitated.
“I hardly see how Icouldwear that, it makes one look so old. Now don't you think blackglacesilk, and trimmed with love-ribbon, black of course, but scalloped—”
“That would be very rich, indeed, ma'am, and very becoming to you; but, being so near and dear, it would not be so deep as you are desirous of.”
“Why, Baldwin, you don't attend to what I say; I told you I was never going out of mourning again, so what is the use of your proposing anything to me that I can't wear all my life? Now tell me, can I always wear cashmere and crape?”
“Oh no, ma'am, that is out of the question; and if it is for a permanency, I don't see how we could improve onglacesilk, with crape, and love-ribbons. Would you like the body trimmed with jet, ma'am?”
“Oh, don't ask me; I don't know. If my darling had only died comfortably in her bed, then we could have laid out her sweet remains, and dressed them for her virgin tomb.”
“It would have been a satisfaction, ma'am.”
“A sad one, at the best; but now the very earth, perhaps, will never receive her. Oh yes, anything you like—the body trimmed with jet, if you wish it, and let me see, a gauze bodice, goffered, fastened to the throat. That is all, I think; the sleeves confined at the wrist just enough not to expose the arm, and yet look light—you understand.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“She kissed me just before she went on that fatal excursion, Baldwin; she will never kiss me again—oh! oh! You must call on Dejazet for me, and bespeak me a bonnet to match; it is not to be supposed I can run about after her trumpery at such a time; besides, it is not usual.”
“Indeed, ma'am, you are in no state for it; I will undertake any purchases you may require.”
“Thank you, my good Baldwin; you are a good, kind, feeling, useful soul. Oh, Baldwin, if it had pleased Heaven to take her by disease, it would have been bad enough to lose her; but to be drowned! her clothes all wetted through and through; her poor hair drenched, too; and then the water is so cold at this time of year—oh! oh! Send me a cross of jet, and jet beads, with the dress, and a jet brooch, and a set of jet buttons, in case—besides—oh! oh! oh!—I expect every moment to see her carried home, all pale and wetted by the nasty sea—oh! oh!—and an evening dress of the same—the newest fashion. I leave it to you; don't ask me any questions about it, for I can't and won't go into that. I can try it on when it is made—oh! oh! oh!—it does not do to love any creature as I loved my poor lost Lucy—and a black fan—-oh! oh!—and a dozen pair of black kid gloves—oh!—and a mourning-ring—and—”
“Stop, aunt, or your love for me will be your ruin!” said Lucy, coldly, and stood suddenly before the pair, looking rather cynical.
“What, Lucy! alive! No, her ghost—ah! ah!”
“Be calm, aunt; I am alive and well. Now, don't be childish, dear; I have been in danger, but here I am.”
Mrs. Bazalgette and Mrs. Baldwin flew together, and trembled in one another's arms. Lucy tried to soothe them, but at last could not help laughing at them. This brought Baldwin to her senses quicker than anything; but Mrs. Bazalgette, who, like many false women, was hysterical, went off into spasms—genuine ones. They gave her salts—in vain. Slapped her hands—in vain.
Then Lucy cried to Baldwin, “Quick! the tumbler; I must sprinkle her face and bosom.”
“Oh, don't spoil my lilac gown!” gasped the sufferer, and with a mighty effort she came to. She would have come back from the edge of the grave to shield silk from water. Finally she wreathed her arms round Lucy, and kissed her so tenderly, warmly and sobbingly, that Lucy got over the shock of her shallowness, and they kissed and cried together most joyously, while Baldwin, after a heroic attempt at jubilation, retired from the room with a face as long as your arm.A bas les revenants!!She went to the housekeeper's room. The housekeeper persuaded her to stay and take a bit of dinner, and soon after dinner she was sent for to Mrs. Bazalgette's room.
Lucy met her coming out of it. “I fear I camemal apropos,Mrs. Baldwin; if I had thought of it, I would have waited till you had secured that munificent order.”
“I am much obliged to you, miss, I am sure; but you were always a considerate young lady. You'll be glad to learn, miss, it makes no difference; I have got the order; it is all right.”
“That is fortunate,” replied Lucy, kindly, “otherwise I should have been tempted to commit an extravagance with you myself. Well, and what is my aunt's new dress to be now?”
“Oh, the same, miss.”
“The same? why, she is not going into mourning on my return? ha! ha!”
“La bless you, miss, mourning? you can't call that mourning—glacesilk and love-ribbons scalloped out, and cetera. Of course it was not my business to tell her so; but I could not help thinking to myself, if that is the way my folk are going to mourn for me, they may just let it alone. However, that is all over now; and your aunt sent for me, and says she, 'Black becomesme;you will make the dresses all the same.'” And Baldwin retired radiant.
Lucy put her hand to her bosom. “Make the dresses all the same—all the same, whether I am alive or dead. No, I will not cry; no, I will not. Who is worth a tear? what is worth a tear? All the same. It is not to be forgotten—nor forgiven. Poor Mr. Dodd!!”
Mr. Fountain learned the good news in the town, so his meeting with Lucy was one of pure joy. Mr. Talboys did not hear anything. He had business up in London, and did not stay ten minutes in ——.
The house revived, andjubilabat, jubilabat.But after the first burst of triumph things went flat. David Dodd was gone, and was missed; and Lucy was changed. She looked a shade older, and more than one shade graver; and, instead of living solely for those who happened to be basking in her rays, she was now and then comparatively inattentive, thoughtful, anddistraite.
Mr. Fountain watched her keenly; ditto Mrs. Bazalgette. A slight reaction had taken place in both their bosoms. “Hang the girl! there were we breaking our hearts for her, and she was alive.” She had “beguiledthem of their tears.”—Othello. But they still loved her quite well enough to take charge of her fate.
A sort of itch for settling other people's destinies, and so gaining a title to their curses for our pragmatical and fatal interference, is the commonest of all the forms of sanctioned lunacy.
Moreover, these two had imbibed the spirit of rivalry, and each was stimulated by the suspicion that the other was secretly at work.
Lucy's voluntary promise in the ballroom was a double sheet-anchor to Mr. Fountain. It secured him against the only rival he dreaded. Talboys, too, was out of the way just now, and the absence of the suitor is favorable to his success, where the lady has no personal liking for him. To work went our Machiavel again, heart and soul, and whom do you think he had the cheek, or, as the French say, the forehead, to try and win over?—Mrs. Bazalgette.
This bold step, however, was not so strange as it would have been a month ago. The fact is, I have brought you unfairly close to this pair. When you meet them in the world you will be charmed with both of them, and recognize neither. There are those whose faults are all on the surface: these are generally disliked; there are those whose faults are all at the core: they charm creation. Mrs. Bazalgette is allowed by both sexes to be the most delightful, amiable woman in the county, and will carry that reputation to her grave. Fountain is “the jolliest old buck ever went on two legs.” I myself would rather meet twelve such agreeable humbugs—six of a sex—at dinnerthan the twelve apostles, and so would you, though you don't know it. These two, then, had long ere this found each other mighty agreeable. The woman saw the man's vanity, and flattered it. The man the woman's, and flattered it. Neither saw—am I to say?—his own or her own, or what? Hang language!!! In short, they had long ago oiled one another's asperities, and their intercourse was smooth and frequent: they were always chatting together—strewing flowers of speech over their mines and countermines.
Mr. Fountain, then, who, in virtue of his sex, had the less patience, broke ground.
“My dear Mrs. Bazalgette, I would not have missed this visit for a thousand pounds. Certainly there is nothing like contact for rubbing off prejudices. I little thought, when I first came here, the principal attraction of the place would prove to be my fair hostess.”
“I know you were prejudiced, my dear Mr. Fountain. I can't say I ever had any against you, but certainly I did not know half your good qualities. However, your courtesy to me when I invaded you at Font Abbey prepared me for your real character; and now this visit, I trust, makes us friends.”
“Ah! my dear Mrs. Bazalgette, one thing only is wanting to make you my benefactor as well as friend—if I could only persuade you to withdraw your powerful opposition to a poor old fellow's dream.”
“What poor old fellow?”
“Me.”
“You? why, you are not so very old. You are not above fifty.”
“Ah! fair lady, you must not evade me. Come, can nothing soften you?”
“I don't know what you mean, Mr. Fountain”; and the mellifluous tones dried suddenly.
“You are too sagacious not to know everything; you know my heart is set on marrying my niece to a man of ancient family.”
“With all my heart. You have only to use your influence with her. If she consents, I will not oppose.”
“You cruel little lady, you know it is not enough to withdraw opposition; I can't succeed without your kind aid and support.”
“Now, Mr. Fountain, I am a great coward, but, really, I could almost venture to scold you a little. Is not a poor little woman to be allowed to set her heart on things as well as a poor old gentleman who does not look fifty? You know my poor little heart is bent on her marrying into our own set, yet you can ask me to influence her the other way—me, who have never once said a word to her for my own favorites! No; the fairest, kindest, and best way is to leave her to select her own happiness.”
“A fine thing it would be if young people were left to marry who they like,” retorted Fountain. “My dear lady, I would never have asked your aid so long as there was the least chance of her marrying Mr. Hardie; but, now that she has of her own accord declined him—”
“What is that? declined Mr. Hardie? when did he ever propose for her?”
“You misunderstand me. She came to me and told me she would never marry him.”
“When was that? I don't believe it.”
“It was in the ball-room.”
Mrs. Bazalgette reflected; then she turned very red. “Well, sir,” said she, “don't build too much on that; for four months ago she made me a solemn promise she would never marry any lover you should find her, and she repeated that promise in your very house.”
“I don't believe it, madam.”
“That is polite, sir. Come, Mr. Fountain, you are agitated and cross, and it is no use being cross either with me or with Lucy. You asked my co-operation. You gentlemen can ask anything; and you are wise to do these droll things; that is where you gain the advantage over us poor cowards of women. Well, I will co-operate with you. Now listen. Lucy'spenchantis neither for Mr. Hardie, nor Mr. Talboys, but for Mr. Dodd.”
“You don't mean it?”
“Oh, she does not caremuchfor him; she has refused him to my knowledge, and would again; besides, he is gone to India, so there is an end ofhim.She seems a little languid and out of spirits; it may be because heisgone. Now, then, is the very time to press a marriage upon her.”
“The very worst time, surely, if she is really such an idiot as to be fretting for a fellow who is away.”
Mrs. Bazalgette informed her new ally condescendingly that he knew nothing of the sex he had undertaken to tackle.
“When a cold-blooded girl like this, who has no strong attachment, is out of spirits, and all that sort of thing, then is the time she falls to any resolute wooer. She will yield if we both insist, and wewillinsist. Only keep your temper, and let nothing tempt you to say an unkind word to her.”
She then rang the bell, and desired that Miss Fountain might be requested to come into the drawing-room for a minute.
“But what are you going to do?”
“Give her the choice of two husbands—Mr. Talboys or Mr. Hardie.”
“She will take neither, I am afraid.”
“Oh, yes, she will.”
“Which?”
“Ah! the one she dislikes the least.”
“By Jove, you are right—you are an angel.” And the old gentleman in his gratitude to her who was outwitting him, and vice versa, kissed Mrs. Bazalgette's hand with great devotion, in which act he was surprised by Lucy, who floated through the folding-doors. She said nothing, but her face volumes.
“Sit down, love.”
“Yes, aunt.”
She sat down, and her eye mildly bored both relatives, like, if you can imagine a gentle gimlet, worked by insinuation, not force.
Then the favored Fountain enjoyed the inestimable privilege of beholding a small bout of female fence.
The accomplished actress of forty began.
The novice held herself apparently all open with a sweet smile, the eye being the only weapon that showed point.
“My love, your uncle and I, who were not always just to one another, have been united by our love for you.”
“So I observed as I came in—ahem!”
“Henceforth we are one where your welfare is concerned, and we have something serious to say to you now. There is a report, dearest, creeping about that you have formed an unfortunate attachment—to a person beneath you.”
“Who told you that, aunt? Name, as they say in the House.”
“No matter; these things are commonly said without foundation in this wicked world; but, still, it is always worth our while to prove them false, not, of course, directly—'qui s'excuse s'accuse''—but indirectly.”
“I agree with you, and I shall do so in my uncle's presence. You were present, aunt—though uninvited—when the gentleman you allude to offered me what I consider a great honor, and you heard me decline it; you are therefore fully able to contradict that report, whose source, by the by, you have not given me, and of course you will contradict it.”
Mrs. Bazalgette colored a little. But she said affectionately: “These silly rumors are best contradicted by a good marriage, love, and that brings me to something more important. We have two proposals for you, and both of them excellent ones. Now, in a matter where your happiness is at stake, your uncle and I are determined not to let our private partialities speak. We do press you to select one of these offers, but leave you quite free as to which you take. Mr. Talboys is a gentleman of old family and large estates. Mr. Hardie is a wealthy, and able, and rising man. They are both attached to you; both excellent matches.
“Whichever you choose your uncle and I shall both feel that an excellent position for life is yours, and no regret that you did not choose our especial favorite shall stain our joy or our love.” With this generous sentiment tears welled from her eyes, whereat Fountain worshiped her and felt his littleness.
But Lucy was of her own sex, and had observed what an unlimited command of eye-water an hysterical female possesses. She merely bowed her head graciously, and smiled politely. Thus encouraged to proceed, her aunt dried her eyes with a smile, and with genial cheerfulness proceeded: “Well, then, dear, which shall it be—Mr. Talboys?”
Lucy opened her eyessoinnocently. “My dear aunt, I wonder at that question from you. Did you not make me promise you I would never marry that gentleman, nor any friend of my uncle's?”
“And did you?” cried Fountain.
“I did,” replied the penitent, hanging her head. “My aunt was so kind to me about something or other, I forget what.”
Fountain bounced up and paced the room.
Mrs. Bazalgette lowered her voice: “It is to be Mr. Hardie, then?”
“Mr. Hardie!!!” cried Lucy, rather loudly, to attract her uncle's attention.
“Oh, no, the same objection applies there; I made my uncle a solemn promise not to marry any friend of yours, aunt. Poor uncle! I refused at first, but he looked so unhappy my resolution failed, and I gave my promise. I will keep it, uncle. Don't fear me.”
It caused Mrs. Bazalgette a fierce struggle to command her temper. Both she and Fountain were dumb for a minute; then elastic Mrs. Bazalgette said:
“We were both to blame; you and I did not really know each other. The best thing we can do now is to release the poor girl from these silly promises, that stand in the way of her settlement in life.”
“I agree, madam.”
“So do I. There, Lucy, choose, for we both release you.”
“Thank you,” said Lucy gravely; “but how can you? No unfair advantage was taken of me; I plighted my word knowingly and solemnly, and no human power can release persons of honor from a solemn pledge. Besides, just now you would release me; but you might not always be in the same mind. No, I will keep faith with you both, and not place my truth at the mercy of any human being nor of any circumstance. If that is all, please permit me to retire. The less a young lady of my age thinks or talks about the other sex, the more time she has for her books and her needle;” and, having delivered this precious sentence, with a deliberate and most deceiving imitation of the pedantic prude, she departed, and outside the door broke instantly into a joyous chuckle at the expense of the plotters she had left looking moonstruck in one another's faces. If the new allies had been both Fountain, the apple of discord this sweet novice threw down between them would have dissolved the alliance, as the sly novice meant it to do; but, while the gentleman went storming about the room ripe for civil war, the lady leaned back in her chair and laughed heartily.
“Come, Mr. Fountain, it is no use your being cross with a female, or she will get the better of you. She has outwitted us. We took her for a fool, and she is a clever girl. I'll—tell—you—what, she is a very clever girl. Never mind that, she is only a girl; and, if you will be ruled by me, her happiness shall be secured in spite of her, and she shall be engaged in less than a week.”
Fountain recognized his superior, and put himself under the lady's orders—in an evil hour for Lucy.
The poor girl's triumph over the forces was but momentary; her ground was not tenable. The person promised can release the person who promises—volenti non fit injuria.Lucy found herself attacked with female weapons, that you and I, sir, should laugh at; but they made her miserable. Cold looks; short answers; solemnity; distance; hints at ingratitude and perverseness; kisses intermitted all day, and the parting one at night degraded to a dignified ceremony. Under this impalpable persecution the young thoroughbred, that had steered the boat across the breakers, winced and pined.
She did not want a husband or a lover, but she could not live without being loved. She was not sent into the world for that. She began secretly to hate the two gentlemen that had lost her her relations' affection, and she looked round to see how she could get rid of them without giving fresh offense to her dear aunt and uncle. If she could only make it their own act! Now a man in such a case inclines to give the obnoxious parties a chance of showing themselves generous and delicate; he would reveal the whole situation to them, and indicate the generous and manly course; but your thorough woman cannot do this. It is physically as well as morally impossible to her. Misogynists say it is too wise, and not cunning enough. So what does Miss Lucy do but turn round and make love to Captain Kenealy? And the cold virgin being at last by irrevocable fate driven to love-making, I will say this for her, she did not do it by halves. She felt quite safe here. The good-natured, hollow captain was fortified against passion by self-admiration. She said to herself: “Now here is a peg with a military suit hanging to it; if I can only fix my eyes on this piece of wood and regimentals, and make warm love to it, the love that poets have dreamed and romances described, I may surely hope to disgust my two admirers, and then they will abandon me and despise me. Ah! I could love them if they would only do that.”
Well, for a young lady that had never, to her knowledge, felt the tender passion, the imitation thereof which she now favored that little society with was a wonderful piece of representation. Was Kenealy absent, behold Lucy uneasy and restless; was he present; but at a distance, her eye demurely devoured him; was he near her, she wooed him with such a god-like mixture of fire, of tenderness, of flattery, of tact; she did so serpentinely approach and coil round the soldier and his mental cavity, that all the males in creation should have been permitted to defile past (like the beasts going into the ark), and view this sweet picture a moment, and infer how women would be wooed, and then go and do it. Effect:
Talboys and Hardie mortified to the heart's core; thought they had altogether mistaken her character. “She is a love-sick fool.”
On Bazalgette: “Ass! Dodd was worth a hundred of him.”
On Kenealy: made him twirl his mustache.
On Fountain: filled him with dismay. There remained only one to be hoodwinked.