They were sitting together in the sunlight one May afternoon, the window wide open, the breeze coming in straight from the sea, drinking in the joy of each other’s presence as they were never tired of doing, when George passed his hand slowly down his wife’s cheeks, and shivered.
“Are you cold?” she asked anxiously, nestling up to him and putting her little arms round him as if to protect him from the spring air.
“No,” he said in a troubled voice, “I’m all right. But I’m afraid this place doesn’t suit you, Nouna; you’re getting so thin and white. You are paler than when I came back.”
Nouna’s face changed; after a moment’s pause she sprang up with her old vivacity, and running to a looking-glass, gazed at her own reflection for some minutes, and then crept back to her husband’s side with a bright light in her eyes. As he looked at her inquiringly, she drew up the sleeve of his coat as far as she could, very gently, and then baring her own arm also, laid it beside his, and glanced up into his face with an odd, tender, yearning expression which, after a moment’s wonderment, opened his own dull eyes. For a few seconds neither spoke again. Then he snatched her into his arms and their eyes held each other’s for some minutes in an ecstasy of relief and gratitude. George had loved his wife better than his career, better than his own happiness. Nouna, since the fall of her first idol—her mother—had turned all her devotion to the husband who had cherished her so tenderly. Both, therefore, dreaded life without the other a thousand times worse than death, and when it dawned upon them that they were not to be parted again, there was no further sorrow possible for them in this world.
“George,” said Nouna at last, in a broken whisper, “if you had never met me you would have been much happier, for you would have married that good Ella and have got on in the world and become a great man.”
“Yes,” said he at once.
“Well, aren’t you sorry?”
“No.”
“Why?”
It was not easy to explain. The sailor, sinking with his ship at twenty-five, does not in his last moments wish that he had been a grocer, though if he had he might have gone on contentedly selling tea and candles for half a century. George, struck down by misfortune in the prime of his youth, had tasted some of life’s supremest joys, and the rolling years could give him no delight such as he had felt in running the whole gamut of an absorbing passion. He hesitated before he answered her.
“If I had not married you,” he said at last, “you would never have been poor, you would have had as many lovely dresses and diamonds as you wanted, and nobody would ever have teased you to tell the truth, or to do anything you didn’t want to do. And yet you are not sorry you married me. What’s the reason?”
She curled herself about him. “I don’t know,” she said shyly. “You’ve made me feel things I didn’t—feel—before.”
“Well, Nouna, and you’ve done the same to me. Are you satisfied?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then so am I.”
And in this state of placid but languid contentment these two shipwrecked creatures drifted on day by day, tired out by the buffets of fortune, and making no effort to escape from the black archer who seemed to have marked them down. The young come to this stage more easily than the middle-aged; when their strong passions and eager desires burn low, quenched suddenly by ill-health or desperate misfortune, all the busy wheels of the world seem to stand still with them, and they cry, when they feel that the pulse of life beats weakly: “This is the end!” While older sufferers, who have shaken Time by the hand, and know his ways, and have learnt to bear his penalties patiently, see only the daily work interrupted against their will, waiting to be taken up again when the storm is over.
There came to Plymouth, when Lauriston and his wife had been a week there together, a friend who saw something of this, and set her wits to work, after her custom, to put right what she saw was wrong. Ella Millard had brought her whole family to the town on the plea that a fortnight of the Devonshire air would improve her sisters’ complexions, and arm them for the triumphs of the coming season. Having gained over her mother, from whom she inherited her own strong will, the rest yielded like lambs, and within a week of her resolution to come they were all installed in a house at the upper end of Lockyer Street, near the Hoe. By Sir Henry and his two eldest daughters, who all enjoyed a serene animal health, and to whose lymphatic temperament trials of the nervous system were meaningless words, the wan faces and languid movements of the Lauristons were looked upon as altogether fatal signs. But the more discriminating Ella would not give up hope so easily. It seemed to her contrary to common sense, and to the lofty qualities she attributed to him that the man who had been her ideal should allow himself to be snuffed out of life so easily. Afraid to depend entirely upon her own judgment in such an important matter, she refrained from setting her scathing little tongue to jibe at him for the inertness of his mind until she had found some person of authority to pronounce upon the health of his body. But George had never before in his life been in need of a doctor, and scouted the idea of seeing one now; while Nouna, on whose behalf Ella then pleaded, shrank sensitively from the ordeal of meeting a stranger, and only consented at last to see the physician whom George had called in to dress her arm on the memorable evening of his first visit to Mary Street. The very next day Dr. Bannerman arrived, and had an interview with both his patients. The entrance of the tall, slightly stooping figure, the sight of his dark, penetrating face, lean, lined, and impressive as that of a magician, raised a flush of excitement to Nouna’s face, and brought back to her husband’s mind a vivid recollection of the prophecy uttered by the doctor on that May evening. If the sharp eyed man of science knew all the circumstances that had chequered Lauriston’s life since he disregarded that warning, he would indeed think that his sinister prophecy had been amply fulfilled.
The interview was a short one. The doctor affected to have no recollection of either of his patients until George followed him out of the room, and stood face to face with him on the landing.
“You remember me, doctor, I suppose,” he said in a rather shamefaced way.
“Perfectly.”
“The first time you met me you were kind enough to read me a sermon. You might read me one to more purpose now.”
“More purpose! No. You can read your own sermon now, and I come to my proper function, that of curing the results of the acts my warning could not save you from.”
“If you knew the whole story, doctor, you would hardly blame me.”
“I don’t blame you. How can I blame conduct which brings me a patient? If all men were wise, we poor medicine men might go sweep crossings.”
“But, doctor, if I had been a wiser man I should have been a worse one.”
“Not necessarily. And it shows no more virtue than wisdom to throw up the sponge when you are beaten by Fortune at the first round.”
George reddened. “First and last round too, isn’t it, doctor? Come, tell me honestly how long you give me to live.”
Dr. Bannerman looked at him steadily.
“If you remain mooning about here, hovering along like a moth in the sunshine, brooding over things which are past and beyond remedy, I give you a year. If you buckle to, make yourself new interests in life, start on a new career, and get new air into your lungs and new thoughts into your brain, I give you any time from ten years to five-and-twenty.”
George instinctively drew himself up into a more martial attitude.
“And my wife?” he asked with fresh interest and eagerness.
“I give her as long as she has a strong heart and a brave arm to take care of her.”
The young man turned his eyes away with a new light burning in them. At last he said with a tremor in his voice:
“You would not deceive us about this, of course, just to keep us lingering on a little longer?”
“Not a bit of it. You are both suffering from severe shock to the nervous system, and because each of you thought you were going to lose the other, neither has had the energy or the desire to pull round. You besides have a weak lung, and I tell you frankly you would not make her majesty such a smart young officer again. But a man of your intelligence must have other resources.”
George saw by the foregoing speech that very little of his history during the past year was unknown to the doctor. On the whole, this knowledge made him feel easier.
“I think I could write,” said he reflectively. “I have already given myself some sort of training for it, and if only all my ideas did not seem to be locked up somewhere out of my reach, I think I could express them at least intelligibly.”
“Good,” said Dr. Bannerman. “Then all we have to do is to find the key. I think I know a friend of yours whom we can consult about that. You shall hear the result of our conference very shortly. In the meanwhile, keep up your spirits and keep out of draughts, and English literature may yet thank your wife for taking you out of the army.”
George shook his hand warmly, and the doctor left the house. Half way down Lockyer Street he met Ella Millard, who was burning with impatience to know the result of the interview. As he came up she hastily dismissed a fair-haired young fellow of three or four and twenty, who trotted meekly off at once towards the Hoe. She was too deeply interested in what the doctor had to tell to utter more than the word “Well!” in a tremulous voice. She thought, however, by the expression of his face that his news could not be very bad.
“Well!” he repeated after her.
“Isit well?” said she impatiently.
The doctor smiled. “I think so.”
Her face softened. “I thought it could not be the worst; it would have been too dreadful—and too foolish,” she added sharply.
“That is just what I told him. Oh! I was very hard with him; I thought he wanted it. He has had an awful time of it lately, and the poor boy hardly knows even yet whether he is on his head or his heels. But it is quite time now that he made an effort to pull himself together. I gave him a good talking to, I can tell you.”
Her look seemed to implore mercy, but she said nothing. He continued: “They ought to go away. He thinks he could write, and I should encourage him to try.”
“And—his wife?” she asked, with a scarcely perceptible diminution of interest.
“There is nothing organically wrong with her at all. She will be herself again before him, and then help his recovery.”
“Helphim! Do you think so?” asked Ella doubtfully.
“Yes.”
“I thought you told me, that when you first saw her she produced on you a very different impression.”
“So she did. But then—she was a very different woman.”
Ella’s mouth twitched rather scornfully. She thought that the weird prettiness of Nouna’s little wasted face had bewitched even this middle-aged doctor.
“She is scarcely even yet an ideal companion for a man of intellect,” she said with a slight touch of her worst, most priggish manner.
“H’m, I don’t know,” said the doctor. “Your man of intellect is generally a man of something else besides; and the housekeeper-wife and the blue-stocking wife both frequently leave as much to be desired as—well, say, the flower-wife, if once the flower learns to turn to the sun, as, I think, little Mrs. Lauriston has done.”
“She is fond of him,” agreed Ella rather grudgingly.
“And what more does he ask of her?”
“Nothing more now; but will it be always so?”
“Who can tell? But love on both sides is a good matrimonial foundation. Have they any money?”
“Enough to live upon as quietly as they are doing now.”
“Ah! but they want something more than that. He ought to move about, to travel, and she ought to be tempted back to interest in life with some of the pretty things she is so fond of. Haven’t they any relations who could manage that?”
Ella’s face brightened with a little smile as she nodded assent. “I think the relations can be found,” she said.
Apparently the doctor thought he had put the suggestion into good hands, for he looked at her very good-humouredly as he held out his hand and bade her good-bye.
“The gentleman who was dismissed for me will be wishing me all the nauseous draughts I ever prescribed,” said he drily.
Ella grew superbly disdainful.
“Oh no,” she cried with haughty emphasis. “He is only a silly young fellow who was a fellow-officer of Mr. Lauriston’s, and who is so fond of him that he has come down here on purpose to see him, although he puts off doing so from day to day for fear of waking in him recollections which might distress him.”
The doctor was more than satisfied with this elaborate explanation.
“I dare say he manages to fill up his time agreeably enough—in this pleasant neighbourhood,” said he gravely.
And he raised his hat and left her before she had time to utter another protest.
Now, quite unintentionally, Dr. Bannerman had done a very ill turn to a most harmless and kindly fellow-mortal. Clarence Massey, the humble companion whom he displaced at Ella’s side, having been attracted to Ella by the devotion with which she had worked for his friend George Lauriston, had raised up an altar to her in his most affectionate and warm heart, on which, figuratively speaking, he burned incense all day long. Whenever and wherever she would let him, he followed like a dog, bearing her snappish fits with beautiful meekness, accepting any remarks she liked to throw to him, as precious pearls to be treasured in his memory; gentle, loyal, and devoted always. Ella, who had begun by laughing at him, had been thawed by his distracted anxiety and misery over George Lauriston’s misfortunes, until from tolerating she had begun to like him. And now, just as she was getting so amiable to him that he had begun to entertain hopes which he had the sense and modesty to think extravagant, this light suggestion on the part of a stranger chilled her into anger at the thought that any one should think her capable of a serious thought for so unintellectual a person as Clarence Massey.
She had promised, on Doctor Bannerman’s approach, to rejoin Clarence on the Hoe; but it was with the step of an offended empress that the plain little girl met this well-provided young fellow, on whom a dozen mammas of marriageable daughters now fixed longing eyes.
“Well, what does he say?” asked Clarence, afraid from the expression of her face that the report was bad.
She told him briefly and coldly the substance of the doctor’s opinion, but without any hint of his last suggestion except the vague information that the pair had better go abroad. Then she walked briskly on in the direction of the Fort, and to Clarence’s meek request for permission to accompany her, she gave the most brusque, most chilling answer that he could “do as he pleased.” Of course he pleased to go, and when they got on to the narrow footpath which is only wide enough for one, he followed with tears in his eyes at the change in her, wondering what in the world had happened to make her so unkind to him. Meanwhile, however, an idea had come into her busy little head which helped the effect of the spring air in restoring her to good humour; so that when she stopped to look reflectively out to sea and caught sight of his disconsolate face, she smiled at him with mingled mercy and majesty and asked him why he looked so miserable.
“I’m not miserable now,” said he, brightening up at once. “It was only that I was afraid you didn’t want me.”
Ella grew prim again.
“It is very kind of you to come,” said she.
“Ella, don’t say that. How can you say that, when you know very well how happy it makes me to be with you!”
“Happy! How absurd! I wish, Clarence, you wouldn’t say such ridiculous things.”
“But, Ella, why is it ridiculous? It’s true, you know it’s true. You know very well I would follow you to the end of the world if you’d let me, that I’d do anything you wanted me to, that I’m never so happy as when I’m with you. Well, why is it ridiculous to say what is true and what you know?”
“But I don’t want to know it,” said Ella sharply. “If I had thought you would ever talk to me in such a silly way I would never have let you come out with me. When I’m thinking about serious things, too!”
“Can’t you see that this is serious to me?”
“It’s only all the more ridiculous. You must either promise never to talk such nonsense to me again, or you must give up the walks.”
“Very well, then, I must give up the walks,” said Clarence resignedly, “for I can’t make the promise.”
And he walked away over the rough grass, and began to look out to sea on his own account. Ella, in spite of the “serious things” which had occupied her thoughts, was forced to turn her attention to this importunate and foolish person close at hand, and she did so with a much graver countenance than was her wont in matters relating to him. The fact was that this unexpected threat of withdrawing his despised attentions woke her suddenly to the fact that she should miss them. Ella discovered all at once that she was not so insensible as she had imagined to the ordinary feminine pleasure in the possession of a devoted slave. Even a Clarence who occasionally talked nonsense would be better than no Clarence at all. Some expression of these conclusions found its way to her face, for the crestfallen swain was emboldened by her glance to draw near her again. She said no kind word however, and he was afraid that further pleading at the moment might be injudicious, so they stood very quietly side by side until Ella broke out vehemently:
“I wish I had twenty thousand pounds!”
The wish and the fiery manner in which it was uttered took Clarence so completely by surprise that instead of assuring her that she had only to say the word, and he would lay that sum at her feet, as perhaps she had expected of the impulsive little Irishman, he only said simply:
“What for?”
“To throw into the sea,” was her surprising answer.
He laughed, supposing that this was a faint sort of joke.
“I mean it,” she added gravely. “I can get five thousand pounds of my fortune from papa, but I want twenty thousand more.”
“But what a strange use for it; you are not in earnest about that!”
“Oh, yes, but I am.”
“Well, if anybody were to offer you twenty thousand pounds, what would you say to—him?”
“I should say, Thank you.”
“Prettily?”
Ella paused. He was bending his head to look into her eyes, and putting into that word a great deal of impertinent meaning. Then she flashed up into his face a grand glance full of magnificent haughtiness.
“Of course, because I am not handsome, you think I ought to jump at you!”
“Oh, no, I don’t. But whether you jump at me or away from me, you shall have the twenty thousand pounds.”
“What, without knowing what I am going to do with it?”
“You said you wanted it to throw into the sea.”
“Oh, yes, yes, so I do. But supposing I were to throw it to another man—amerman, for example?”
Clarence winced. “Whatever you do is right, Ella,” he said, at last. “You can throw it to whoever or whatever you like.”
“When can I have it?”
“I shall have to go up to town. I can raise it by next week.”
Ella put her hand on his arm impulsively.
“You’re a good fellow,” she said, in a very sweet voice.
And Clarence, who had never had such a mark of her favour before, felt all on fire, and wished he dared to hold her fingers where they had so unexpectedly placed themselves. But the overwhelming reverence he felt for this small girl taught him discretion, and you might have thought, by the stiffness with which he held himself under her touch, that a wasp had settled upon him, and that he was afraid to move for fear of provoking it to sting. But they walked back together to the Hoe in a very amicable manner, Clarence feeling that luck had helped him to make a splendid move, and Ella wondering whether by the acceptance of twenty thousand pounds from a man she could be considered in any way to have compromised herself.
Threeweeks passed very quietly for George Lauriston and his wife without any markedly apparent result of the doctor’s visit, except that George, trying to shake off the lethargy into which he had sunk since his imprisonment, had put himself into harness for a new battle with fortune by writing articles on the condition of the army for a local paper. He also took a journey to London to fulfil his long-promised revenge upon Rahas, and would probably have got himself into fresh trouble by using other than legal means of chastisement upon the Arabian, if that ingenious gentleman had not just got into a little difficulty with the excise officers over a large consignment of choice tobacco which was more than suspected of having paid no duty, and some silver goods not up to standard, the hall-mark on which had been forged, which forced him to leave the land of his adoption for shores where genius is more respected.
Both George and Nouna for a long time refrained from mentioning her mother’s name, and it was with some emotion that they both recognised her handwriting one day outside a letter directed to the husband, the postmark of which was Bath. George took it away to read, and Nouna made no remark, but when he came back to her, holding it open in his hand, he found that she was trembling with intense excitement. She took it from him with a passionately anxious glance, but gathered comfort from his gravely smiling face.
Nouna then read these words:
“My dear Mr. Lauriston,“I am writing to make a request which I pray you will generously grant. I know there are differences between us which would make another meeting undesirable and perhaps painful to both, I would not suggest that we should see each other again: but I implore you to let me see my daughter just once more. Six months ago I could have claimed this as a right, or I would have contrived it by a trick. But I have learnt to respect you, and I only ask. I am a different woman, I have grown old, I am changed, you would not mind her coming now—I swear it. Lord F. has been very generous, and I want nothing but just one more look at my daughter. Let her come and see the Condesa di Valdestillas, that is the name I bear here, and shall bear to the end of my life. A foreign title covers whatever of eccentricity is left in“Yours very sincerely,“Lakshmi di Valdestillas.”
“My dear Mr. Lauriston,
“I am writing to make a request which I pray you will generously grant. I know there are differences between us which would make another meeting undesirable and perhaps painful to both, I would not suggest that we should see each other again: but I implore you to let me see my daughter just once more. Six months ago I could have claimed this as a right, or I would have contrived it by a trick. But I have learnt to respect you, and I only ask. I am a different woman, I have grown old, I am changed, you would not mind her coming now—I swear it. Lord F. has been very generous, and I want nothing but just one more look at my daughter. Let her come and see the Condesa di Valdestillas, that is the name I bear here, and shall bear to the end of my life. A foreign title covers whatever of eccentricity is left in
“Yours very sincerely,
“Lakshmi di Valdestillas.”
Nouna was crying quietly as she finished. She clung to her husband’s arm.
“Must I go?” she whispered.
“Oh, yes,” said George promptly. “She has always loved you, Nouna; I will write to tell her you are coming.”
“Oh, George, George,” panted the little creature in the same low voice, “I feel so wicked for not wanting to go! But all my heart has turned to you now, and I can’t get the old feeling back.”
He clasped his hands round her shoulders.
“But you will, Nounday, you will have just the feeling that is right when you see her all by herself, lonely, waiting for you whom she has always loved better than anything in the world.”
All the sting had now gone out of his feelings towards the creature who, with all her odd mixture of coarseness and refinement, corruption and generosity, had lived to see the very virtues she had fostered in her child turn against her in the loneliness of her premature age. For George had learnt from Lord Florencecourt, who ran down to Plymouth two or three times to see him and Nouna, to whom he was beginning to be reconciled, that Chloris White had indeed retired from her old life, broken up and suddenly middle-aged, and had fixed her retreat in the pretty old city of Bath, where she lived safe from recognition in a colony of what the Colonel irreverently called “old tabbies,” feeling neither contrition for the past nor discontent with the present, and passing her time, with a serenity born of dulled faculties and worn-out energies, in petty charities and petty scandal.
Two days after the receipt of the letter George arrived with Nouna in Bath, left her at the door of her mother’s residence, a small, well-kept house in a quiet street, and walked up and down outside until she should rejoin him. When she reappeared at the door she was very serious, and she beckoned him to come up the steps to her.
“Mamma wishes—to say—good-bye to you,” she said in a tremulous voice.
Standing aside she let George see a bent figure, dressed in black, with greyish hair, and a wan dark face, who raised her great black burning eyes, but not with the old boldness, to his face. He took his hat off, and held out his hand. The lean little dark fingers she put into his were shaking.
“Good-bye, Mr. Lauriston. I shall not see you again. It has made me happy to see you. Remember when you think of me that I had no chance—from the beginning. But I kept my child pure, and so God sent you to her. I dare not bless you, but I thank you; if I were better I would pray for you. Good-night. Good-bye.”
The long evening shadows were creeping over the quiet streets, as George and his wife, walking slowly away, caught the final glimpse of a pale, drawn face, and great eyes like flaming fires, straining in the gloom for a last look at them. Nouna was very quiet, but she was much happier than she had been in coming.
“George,” she said in a low voice, “I can think about her and love her now just as I used to do. When may I see her again? She would not tell me.”
And George could not tell her either, though he gave her a ready assurance that she should come whenever she was summoned; for he had a shrewd suspicion that, in spite of Lord Florencecourt’s belief that she was happy and contented, the restless spirit of the reputed Countess was untamed still, and chafed in secret under the new bonds of broken health, changed habits, and disappointed ambition. Two days later this suspicion was confirmed, when he received the tidings, conveyed to him only, of the sudden end of the Condesa di Valdestillas, who had been found dead in her bed from an overdose of a sleeping-draught. But as she left a sealed letter for George with instructions to keep the news of her death from her daughter until Nouna was stronger, full of passionate thanks to him, and equally passionate regrets that she might not leave what she possessed to her child, he was not deceived, though he was the only person who ever knew the secret.
Poor Sundran, who was with her mistress to the last, implored George, who went at once to Bath on learning the tidings, to let her come back to her darling Missee Nouna. And as he was sure enough now of his influence over his wife no longer to dread that of the black woman, he promised that, at no distant time, she should return to her service.
On hearing that the “Condesa di Valdestillas” was dead, Lord Florencecourt, finally relieved from his fears, openly acknowledged Nouna as his daughter “by a former wife,” as indeed poor Chloris, thinking over the position of affairs on the eve of her first and last attempt at reparation, had foreseen that he would do, and settled a handsome allowance upon her. He came down to Plymouth in the last week of May to make this determination known to his son-in-law. He was accompanied by his niece Ella, who was in a state of strong but subdued excitement, but who gave no reason which her uncle could consider adequate for her entreaty that she might thus leave London for a few days in the height of the gaieties of the season.
On their arrival in Plymouth, Ella chose to remain alone at the hotel while the Colonel went to call upon the Lauristons. He thought this decision very extraordinary; but on his return a light came to him; for in the sitting-room, standing close by his niece’s side, and bending over her to speak with a passionate earnestness which seemed to infect the usually self-contained girl, was Clarence Massey. They both started guiltily on Lord Florencecourt’s entrance, and Clarence shook with nervousness as he greeted him. Ella rushed at her uncle, and asked about the health of the invalids with great vivacity and interest.
“What were you talking about when I came in?” asked the Colonel bluntly, when he had informed her that George and Nouna were neither better nor worse than they had been three weeks ago.
“We were talking about them—about the Lauristons,” answered Ella.
And Clarence echoed her words. The Colonel looked from the one to the other incredulously. His niece seized both his hands impulsively, with a light-hearted laugh.
“We must tell you—it’s a great secret, but it’s coming out now, and you shall be the first to hear it,” said she.
Then she made him sit down, and told him, rather breathlessly, a long story, to which Clarence played Chorus, and to which the Colonel listened with amazement, admiration, and something like consternation too.
“And who’s to pay for it all?” he asked at last in bewilderment.
“Oh, we’ve arranged all that,” said Ella airily.
Again Clarence echoed, “We’ve arranged all that.”
And this astonishing unanimity naturally led Lord Florencecourt to a conclusion the expression of which would have filled Ella with the loftiest indignation. In the meantime, having been informed of the plot, he was pressed into the service of the conspirators, and that evening, when it had grown dark, they all three went to the house where the Lauristons were staying, and the Colonel entered, leaving the two young people to walk up and down outside in a state of breathless expectancy.
“Break it gently!” was Ella’s last injunction as he left them.
Lord Florencecourt found his way up stairs to his son-in-law’s sitting-room in a state of great nervousness. He found George and Nouna, pale, thin, and languid as ever, the former sitting at the table, writing, while his tiny wife, curled up on the sofa with a large ball of wool, some long wooden pins, and a small, misshapen piece of work which was the result of many evenings’ labour, flattered herself that she was knitting. They were both surprised by this second visit from the Colonel, and by the fact that now he had come he seemed to have nothing to say.
“What are you doing?” he asked Nouna at last.
“I’m making George a comforter,” she answered proudly. “I can’t be idle while my husband’s at work.”
“Well, it keeps you quiet at any rate,” he observed injudiciously, a glance at the comforter having convinced him that if ever it should be finished and worn it would belie its name. The Colonel fidgeted for a few moments, and the young people began to assume an attitude of expectancy, perceiving that something was to come of this unusual restlessness. “I suppose you wouldn’t like to leave Plymouth—to go anywhere—to—India, for instance,” he blurted out at last.
Nouna sprang up with a cry, a great light in her eyes. George’s face flushed; he crossed the room and came to support his wife, who was tottering.
“Why does he say it? why does he say it? It can’t be true, oh, it can’t be true!” sobbed she, burying her face in his breast.
“What does it mean, Colonel? Are you serious?” asked George in a hoarse voice.
He hated England just now, sore and beaten down as he still felt, but he had felt that to run away from it was cowardly, even if he had been able to afford it. This suggestion of change for himself and joy for Nouna therefore came upon his heart like a ray of bright light in the dead grey level of their languid lives.
“Make all your preparations to-night,” said the Colonel, “for you will have to start to-morrow.”
And, as if afraid of committing himself by any explanation, he left the room, and darted out of the house like a lad before they had time to stop him. In the street Ella and Clarence met him, full of excitement.
“Well?” said they at the same time, both quivering with excitement.
“It’s all right. I told them—just enough and no more. I said it rather suddenly perhaps, but I was afraid they’d ask questions. They’re to be ready to start to-morrow, I said. You couldn’t have managed better yourself, Ella. They were delighted, absolutely delighted.”
The Colonel was right. To these two beings, whose hearts and minds were still scarcely as convalescent as their bodies after the trials of the preceding few months, the suggestion of this great change came as the grant of a new bright life to them. Nouna, in particular, was half crazy with delight, and seemed to recover in a moment all her lost vivacity, as she babbled of palms and sunshine, palaces with stately domes and graceful minarets, of elephants with rich trappings, birds with bright plumage, and dark depths of jungle where the tiger was known to lurk, and where every step was hedged with fascinating peril. That night she scarcely slept, and next morning, when Lord Florencecourt again made his appearance, accompanied this time by Ella, he was quite bewildered by the change in his daughter’s looks. Ella herself, although very quiet, was almost as much excited, as she asked whether they were ready. George, with dull masculine pertinacity, worried everybody by asking for details of the journey for which they had so hastily prepared; but at last perceiving, by the evasive answers he got, that some surprise was intended, he was in the end content to hold his tongue, and to wait patiently till the proper time should bring enlightenment. Arrangements had been made, they were told, for the transport of their luggage, and they had nothing to do but to start in the company of Ella and the Colonel. They set out on foot, which was one astonishing thing, and they were taken in the direction of the Hoe, which was another. It was a beautiful, bright May morning. From the seat by the camera obscura they all stood for a moment, looking down at the water, when suddenly Nouna burst forth into a cry of admiration at the sight of a beautiful yacht which was anchored half-way between the shore and Drake’s Island.
“When did it come?” she cried with much interest. “It wasn’t here yesterday. What a beautiful little thing!”
“Little thing!” cried Lord Florencecourt, with untimely impetuosity. “Why it’s 150 tons; big enough to go round the world in!”
Then an awkward silence fell upon everybody, for, vulgarly speaking, the cat was out of the bag. And the conversation was kept up with difficulty until, descending the cliff, they all came to the little landing-pier, where a small boat was waiting with Clarence Massey standing up in it, waving his hat frantically and beaming with unspeakable enthusiasm. Neither George nor Nouna asked any questions now; and they all got into the little boat in a state of surprising silence, and were rowed straight out towards the beautiful yacht without anybody’s remarking upon the strangeness of the circumstance. But as they drew near her, Nouna caught sight of the name, painted in bright gold letters on the stern—“Scheherazade.” She touched her husband’s arm, and made him read it too. Before he could speak, they were close under the yacht, and Lord Florencecourt was leading the way on board. Nouna climbed up next like a cat, and the rest followed quickly.
Then Ella took the young wife by the hand, and, leaving the three men on the deck, led her on a tour of inspection. The yacht was a tiny floating palace, fitted up by the dainty taste of one woman to suit the luxurious fancy of another. The rooms were hung with rich tapestry, and with delicate China silks embroidered in gold and pale colours. The woodwork was painted with birds and flowers on a background of faint grey landscape. The bed-room was fitted up with satin-wood, and hung with rose-coloured silk; while in order that George might have a corner better suited to masculine taste in this dainty little craft, a very small room, dark with old oak and serviceable leather, had been appointed for him as a study. Every corner of the yacht held something beautiful and curious: skins of white bears, mounted in maroon velvet; carvings in ivory, securely fixed on dark brackets that showed off their lacelike outlines; treasures in bronze, in delicate porcelain, in exquisitely tinted glass from Salviati’s, met the eyes at every turn. The whole furnishing and fitting of the little vessel, down to the choice of silver-gilt teaspoons from Delhi and a lamp which was said to have been dug up at Pompeii, had clearly been a labour of love.
Nouna was overwhelmed; she walked along with her hand in Ella’s, scarcely uttering a sound, until at last she heard the words whispered in her ear: “This is a present for you—all for you, with my love. You are to make good use of it, and be very happy in it. No”—she stopped Nouna, who was breaking into tears, and incoherent, passionate thanks—“you may thank me when you and your husband both come sailing back strong and rosy and well.”
Nouna smiled at her with glistening eyes as she put her little hands round the girl’s shoulders.
“I can’t thank you, I can scarcely try. You were born to be a good fairy to everybody. Kiss me, kiss me hard, and give me some of your own sweetness that I may be a better wife.”
When they came on deck again they were both very quiet; and George, who had in the meantime learnt that this fairy yacht was a present to his wife, and also that, in common with the fairy presents of tradition, for a whole year at least it would entail no expense upon its owner, could do nothing but shake Ella’s hand warmly and murmur some incoherent words.
All the visitors on board now felt that their task was done. The luggage was on board, the steam was up, the hands were ready to hoist the anchors; and both George and Nouna showed signs of having suffered as much excitement as their still weak frames could bear. Lord Florencecourt, Ella and Clarence took their leave quickly, descended from the yacht into the little boat, and rowed away in the sunshine, while the young husband and wife waved them good-bye.
“Where are we going to, George?” asked Nouna, when the little boat had reached the pier, and the passengers were landed.
“Just where you like. You are its mistress, you know.”
She drew a long breath of pleasure.
“Tell the captain to go, as quickly as possible, to some place—nearer than India—where there are palms and blue skies, and bright birds.”
George obeyed, and, coming back, told her that they were going first to Malta. She was satisfied, considering that Valetta was a pretty name, and remembering she had heard the air was good for people with weak lungs.
“Yes, yes, let us go to Malta, George, and there you will get well,” said she.
And she drew him towards a pretty little pavilion which had been erected on the deck. The hanging curtains were crimson and gold, and could be looped back to command a view of the sea in any direction.
“Why didn’t Ella take me in there?” she said.
“Perhaps it contains some great treasure which she kept as abonne boucheat the last,” suggested he, smiling.
Already she had an inkling of the truth, and when she tore back the nearest curtain and found, kneeling on the ground on a leopard’s skin among white silken cushions which were to support her young mistress’s head, the old servant Sundran trembling with joy, she gave way, and fell sobbing into the Indian woman’s arms.
“Oh, George, George,” she whispered passionately, springing up again to her husband’s side, “Ella must have an angel from heaven hovering about her to whisper to her just what will make people happiest! Aren’t you afraid of waking up and finding it isn’t real?”
“No, Nounday,” said he, tenderly, but with a thoughtful face; “I’d rather think that we have been in a dreary, feverish sleep, and that we are sent away to wake us up to life again!”
Ten minutes later the anchor was weighed, and they were steaming out towards the breakwater and the open sea.
Meanwhile Ella and Clarence had engaged a small, swift boat to row them across to the foot of Mount Edgecumbe Park; and climbing at a great pace up the steep road that skirts the walls, they got into the field below Maker Church to get a last glimpse of the yacht. They were in time to see clearly against the blue of sea and sky the bright-hued pavilion with its curtains thrown back, and a group of scarcely distinguishable figures underneath.
“Yes—yes, I can see them—I can see them, George and Nouna and Sundran, too!” said Clarence excitedly.
Ella was shorter-sighted, stamped her foot with impatience because she could not make them out, and was fain to be content with watching the yacht until it was a mere speck. At last she could scarcely see it, for her eyes grew dim with rising tears. Clarence had now time to feel angrily jealous of her interest in the vessel.
“Poor little girl! Poor little Nouna!” she said at last. “How white and worn she looks still, so different from the brilliant little creature who came to us at Maple Lodge!”
“Perhaps she will die and leave him free,” said Clarence rather bitterly.
But Ella’s expression changed to one of sincerest anxiety.
“Oh, no, indeed I hope she won’t! It would break his heart!” she said.
“I thought you considered her such an inappropriate wife for him?”
Ella reddened. She had thought so once, and she thought so no longer; but when and how her thoughts and feelings on the subject had changed, she hardly knew.
“It is very difficult to judge accurately in such matters. You see it’s impossible to deny that they’re passionately fond of each other, and you mustn’t judge of the chances of a marriage by the way it came about, you know.”
“No,” said Clarence, interested, “marriage is an odd thing.”
“Well,” said Ella brusquely, “we must be getting back now.”
“Won’t you wait till the yacht’s out of sight?”
Ella stopped and looked out to sea again, but she dug the end of her sunshade into the ground with nervous impatience.
“I’m so sorry it’s all over; we’ve had such a jolly time getting it all ready, haven’t we?” said he sentimentally.
“Oh, yes, well enough,” she answered rather crossly, feeling herself an unpleasant void at the heart which she feared might lead to some foolish exhibition of weakness.
“It was an interest in life, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, but there are plenty more left.”
“For you, yes, because you’re so good.”
“Nonsense, I’m no better than you might be if you liked. It was your money that did most of it, remember. I assure you I don’t forget the obligation.”
“Now, Ella, don’t be ridiculous. What do I care about the miserable money?”
“You’d care a great deal, if you were wise. A rich man who makes himself comparatively poor by the good things he does with his money is a fine fellow.”
Clarence cleared his throat two or three times, and began to shake violently.
“Do you—do you think, Ella,” he began at last huskily, “that you’d ever—care to—care to—make a fine fellow—of me?”
Ella turned sharply about and faced him.
“Can’t you do it for yourself?” she asked loftily.
Clarence shook his head.
“Now you know I can’t,” he pleaded gently. Then, as she made no answer, he looked out to sea again, and saw that theScheherazadewas dwindling to a little grey point on the horizon. “Now I’ll give you till the yacht is out of sight to make up your mind,” said he.
Then they both looked at the vanishing speck. The moments passed, and neither spoke, though they could hear and almost feel the beating of each other’s heart, and though each felt the silence to be desperately disconcerting.
“It’s gone!” said he.
“No, it isn’t!” cried she.
Both were growing intensely excited. Ella opened her eyes wider and wider, and strained them to the utmost. Clarence tried to speak, but she stopped him by thrusting out her hand right in front of him, holding her breath. He looked down at it for a couple of seconds, and then ventured to take it very gently in his right hand, and to put his left on her shoulder. When he had remained in this position for a few moments, she drew a long breath, and blinked her eyes violently.
“Don’t cry,” said Clarence soothingly, and he stooped and kissed her.
“I haven’t answered you,” she objected, raising her shoulder pettishly.
“Never mind that now. Let me comfort you, and you shall answer me by and by.”
But Ella still looked persistently out to sea.
“The yacht’s quite gone now,” she said in a disconsolate voice, “and with it your twenty thousand pounds. I suppose, from a strictly business point of view, I owe you some compensation.”
“Well, twenty thou is twenty thou,” said Clarence, whose spirits were rising.
Ella raised her hand to her chin reflectively, a little beam of mischief coming into her eyes.
“On the whole,” she said at last musingly, making no further objection to the encroachments of her companion’s arm, “considering that I’m the ugly duckling of the family, perhaps I might have made a worse bargain! And to tell you the truth, Clarence,” she added presently in a gentler voice, with a touch of shyness, when he had made her seal the contract with a kiss for each thousand, “if you had gone your way and I had gone mine after the way you behaved over that yacht, I—I should have missed you awfully!”
The sun was growing hot over the land and over the sea, and a dim white haze seemed to soften the line between blue sky and blue ocean, as they stood still side by side under the tower of old Maker Church, savouring of the strange sweetness of having crowned an old romance and laid the foundation of a new one with the fitting up of the yachtScheherazade.
Away over the quiet sea the little yacht steamed, the red-gold evening sunlight bathing her decks and cresting with jewels each tiny wave in her track. Under the silken canopy of the little pavilion George was still sitting, with Nouna curled up asleep by his side; while the freshening breeze, which rustled in the heavily fringed curtains, blew straight in his face, bringing health and hope with its eager kiss, and sweeping away like noxious vapours the dark memories of the bygone winter. Ambition was stirring again within him, and a craving for hard work, that his faults and follies in the past might be atoned for by worthy achievement in the future. Lost in thought, he had for a moment forgotten the present, when a slight movement of her right arm, which lay across his own, brought his sleeping wife again to his recollection. Bending down with a softened expression in his eyes, he looked long at the tiny face, the sweeping black eye-lashes, and the full red lips, the mutinous curves of which gave him a warning he scarcely needed that, when once the depression of weak health was past, it might still need all his love for her and all her love for him to keep the little wilful creature within the due bounds of dignified matronhood. The “semblance of a soul,” as Rahas called it, had indeed peeped forth in her, and George Lauriston’s belief that “the influence of an honest man’s love was stronger than that of any mesmerist who ever hid pins,” had been amply justified; but Nouna was not, and never would be, the harmless domestic creature, absorbed in household duties, whom a husband can neglect or ignore with impunity. Such as she was, however, George was more than content that she should be, and the wavering young heart which had turned to him in the dark days he was determined by every loving and wise means to keep true to him in the brighter time.
And so, with good promise of a fair future, the sun went down in a golden haze on the calm sea, as the yacht still sped on for the warm lands of orange and palm.
THE END.
Florence Warden was the pseudonym of Florence Alice (Price) James.
The Ward & Downey edition (3 vol., London, 1887) was referenced for most of the changes listed below.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g.armchair/arm-chair, lattice-work/lattice work, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Punctuation: missing periods, quotation mark pairings/nestings, etc.
Italicize two incidents of “fiacre” to maintain consistency.
[Chapter VI]
Change “At last a boardcreekedin the hall outside” tocreaked.
[Chapter VII]
“of which hervegetabenature… began todescribleto her visitor” tovegetableanddescribe, respectively.
[Chapter X]
“Miss Nouna Weston to our officeaquickly as possible on receipt” toas.
[Chapter XI]
“and wasfamilarwith every phase of fast life” tofamiliar.
[Chapter XII]
“pang of yearning towards the sincere andoteadfastold friend” tosteadfast.
[Chapter XIV]
“at last she scarcely gave more, …,thenan occasional nod” tothan.
(“You came here thismorniugto see your husband drill?”) tomorning.
[Chapter XV]
“little tyrant that evercapitivateda man’s senses and wormed”captivated.
[Chapter XVI]
“and certainly done his utmost to persuade him toaeceptit” toaccept.
[Chapter XVII]
“and the swarthywhite robedSundran, walking with noiseless” towhite-robed.
[Chapter XXI]
“first direction and then set aboutcarrvingout the second” tocarrying.
[Chapter XXII]
“rattled on Dicky,encourgedby George’s lenity” toencouraged.
[Chapter XXIII]
“Even thehighflownspeech was like Nouna in her serious” tohigh-flown.
“keep her from having her life ruined by any man’spig headedness” topig-headedness.
[Chapter XXVI]
(“That if I would call in—somedy—baymyself—he would show) today—by.
“one of thewidowswas burst open with a crash” towindows.
[Chapter XXVII]
“quick turn of every head to the left, and and hoarse cry” delete oneand.
“by the time he got inside thegate wayof the house” togate-way.
[Chapter XXVIII]
“Chloris shruggedhisshoulders, but she was impressed” toher.
[Chapter XXX]
“To his surprise, the Orientalseemquite relieved to find that” toseemed.
[End of text]