The lunch at Whale Island was over, and there was a slight breathing-space ere the garden-party, which followed it, began. Meanwhile, from Southsea pier, from down by the pontoon at the foot of the old Hard, and over from Gosport, picket-boats, steam pinnaces, and launches--all belonging to Her Majesty's ships lying out at Spithead--were coming fast, as well as shore boats and numerous other craft that blackened the waters. And they bore in them a gaily-dressed crowd of men and women, the ladies being adorned in all those beauteous garments which they know so well how to assume on such an occasion; while, among the gentlemen, frock-coats, tall hats, and white waistcoats, as well as full dress, or 'No. 1' uniform, were the order of the day. For all these ship's-boats, after putting off from the battleships and cruisers to which they belonged, had, by order of the Vice-Admiral commanding the Channel Squadron, called at the above-named places to fetch off the visitors to the Whale Island festivities.
Stephen Charke, in the uniform of the R.N.R., came in the picket-boat of theBacchus, wherein he had been lunching with the wardroom officers, and as she went alongside of Southsea pier, and afterwards at the Old Town pier, he had eagerly scanned the ladies who were waiting to be taken off. He was not, however, particularly disappointed or cast down at not seeing the one girl he was looking out for at either of them, since, in the continual departure of similar boats, and the running backwards and forwards of these craft between Whale Island and the landing-stages, it was, of course, hardly to be supposed that she would happen upon the particular boat in which he was.
He saw her, however, directly he, with his companions, had made their way to the lawn on which the wife of the Port-Admiral was receiving her guests, and--in so seeing her--he recognised instantly that he was not going to enjoy his afternoon as much as he had hoped to do.
'Who's that?' he asked of the Staff-Commander of theBacchus, with whom he happened to be walking at the moment. 'I mean that flag-lieutenant talking to the young lady in the white dress?'
'That?' replied his companion, regarding the young officer indicated. 'Oh, that's Gilbert Bampfyld, flag-lieutenant to the Rear-Admiral. He's a good chap; I'll introduce you later. A lucky fellow, too. He's heir to his uncle, Lord D'Abernon. He's all right,' he concluded inconsequently.
'I know the young lady,' Stephen said. 'I've been at sea with her uncle.'
'Good-looking,' said the Staff-Commander, who was a single man. 'Fine girl, too. I hope she's coming to the ball.'
'She is,' Charke replied, and then stood observing her companion from the little group of which they now formed part.
Certainly the young officer was 'all right,' if good looks and a manly figure can entitle any one to that qualification. He was undoubtedly handsome, with the manliness which women are stated (by authorities on such matters) to admire: his bright eyes and good complexion, as well as his clear-cut, regular features, leaving little else to desire. He was also fairly tall, while, if anything were required to set off his appearance, it was furnished by his full-dress and his flag-lieutenant's aiguillettes. He was talking now in an animated way, as Charke could see easily enough from where he stood by the refreshment tent; and it was not possible for him to doubt that he was making himself very interesting to Bella.
For a moment, Stephen stood hesitating as to whether he should go up and present himself to the girl who had never been out of his thoughts since he said 'goodbye' to her in West Kensington; then, while he still debated the matter in his mind, Bella saw him and smiled and nodded pleasantly, while she looked--as he thought--as though she expected he should come up to her. Which of course decided him.
There was no affectation in the manner wherewith Bella greeted him; in truth, she was glad to see him and, honestly, as she did everything else, she said so.
'I have been looking for you for the last half-hour,' she remarked, as he reached her side, 'and wondering if you were coming or not'; after which she introduced Stephen Charke and Gilbert Bampfyld to each other. Then, some other officers coming up at this moment, more introductions took place, while Bampfyld said that he must move off.
'I have escaped from my Admiral for a few moments,' he said, while he added with a laugh: 'I am not quite sure, however, that he is not congratulating himself on having escaped from me. I hope, Miss Waldron,' he added, 'that you have an invitation for the ball?'
'Yes,' Bella said; and she smiled at Lieutenant Bampfyld's request that he might not be forgotten on that occasion, though she did not say positively whether that calamity would occur or not. Then, when he had moved on to join the distinguished officer to whom it was his duty to be attached almost as tightly as a limpet to a rock, she said to Charke, 'Come, now, and see mamma. She is in the shade behind the tent, and she has found an old friend of father's.'
But it was so evident that Mrs. Waldron was thoroughly enjoying herself with that old friend, who was a retired post-captain (she was, indeed, at the moment of their arrival engaged in reminiscences of the North American and West Indian stations), that they strolled away together, and, finding soon another shady seat, sat down and passed an agreeable hour or so. Wherefore, as you may thus see, Stephen Charke did spend a happy afternoon, notwithstanding that first apparition of the flag-lieutenant in converse with the girl who was now never out of his thoughts. Indeed, it would have been to him a perfect afternoon, had he not more than once seen Bampfyld (who again appeared to have escaped from his Admiral!) roaming about the place with a somewhat disconsolate, as well as penetrating, look upon his face; which look Charke construed into meaning that the other was seeking for the girl of whom he himself had now obtained temporary possession. However, even so, he did not think it necessary to call Bella's attention to the fact. But we must not tarry over these soft summer beguilements to which the old naval capital and all in her had given themselves up. There lie other matters before us--matters which, when they afterwards occurred, caused three people now partaking of these enjoyments to, perhaps, cast back their memories,--memories that were not untinged by regret. Suffice it, therefore, that we hurry on, and passing over another garden-party which took place at the Military Commandant's, and an 'at home' given on board the foreign visitors, flagship, as well as entertainments at which only the male sex were present, we come to the Naval ball at the Town Hall.
That was a great night, a night on which, if one may judge by subsequent events, many loving hearts were made happy; on which, too, some saw the dawn of the first promise of future happiness--and one man, at least, was made unhappy. It was a great night! A night no more forgotten by three people in the days that followed it than was the garden-party which preceded it by a day or so.
The First Lord of the Admiralty led off the quadrille with the wife of the Commander-in-Chief, while the Prince who was in command of the foreign fleet danced with the First Lord's wife; there being in that set, round which the other guests formed a vast circle, the most prominent individuals then present in Portsmouth. And Bella, standing close by with her hand upon the arm of Stephen Charke, while they waited for the first dance in which all the guests could participate, felt that, at last, she knew what a ball was.
'It isn't quite like a State Ball,' whispered Lieutenant Bampfyld to them as he passed by with his Admiral, he being qualified to give such information in consequence of his duties as flag-lieutenant having often given him the opportunity of attending those great functions, 'but it is much prettier.' Then he disappeared for a time.
'It could scarcely be prettier than it is,' Bella said to Charke. 'How has the room been made so beautiful?'
'The men of theVernonhave done it all,' her companion answered; 'they are good at that sort of thing.'
As, indeed, they seemed to be, judging by the effect they had produced. Trophies of arms, flags, devices, life-buoys white as snow, with the names of vessels belonging both to the visitors and ourselves painted in gold upon them, decorated the vast room; while, from the dockyard, had been unearthed old armour and weapons, such as, in these present days, are forgotten. Also the colour lent by various uniforms, naval, military, and marine, as well as by flowers and the bouquets carried by ladies, added to the brilliant scene--while the sombre black of civilians helped to give a contrast to the bright hues. For civilians were not forgotten: Admiralty officials, private residents, special correspondents--with a wary eye on their watches, so that they might be able to rush over to the Post-office with their last messages for the great London and provincial papers--were all there.
'Come,' said Stephen Charke, as the band of the Royal Marines struck up the first waltz, 'come, Miss Waldron; it is our turn now.'
And for ten minutes he realised what happiness meant.
That he would have to resign her for the greater part of the evening, he knew very well--her programme was already full!--his name appearing three times on it, and Lieutenant Bampfyld's also three times--yet, later, he did so none the less willingly for that knowledge. How could he? He loved the girl with his whole heart and soul--madly! 'I shall love her always, until I die,' he muttered to himself as he stood by, seeking no other partner and watching her dancing now with the flag-lieutenant. Then, next, he saw her dancing with the flag-lieutenant of the other Admiral--though that did not seem to him to be so disturbing a matter. 'Till I die!' he repeated again; and then once more called himself a fool.
His second dance with her arrived, and once more he was in his seventh heaven; for the moment he was again supremely happy.
'I hope I may have the pleasure of taking you in to supper,' he almost whispered in her ear as they paused for a moment for breath, and it seemed as if the light of his enjoyment--for that evening at least--had been suddenly extinguished when she, raising those sweet, clear eyes to his, exclaimed:
'Oh, I am so sorry! But I have promised Lieutenant Bampfyld that he shall do so.'
For the remainder of the ball Charke did not let a single dance pass by without taking part in it, and allowed his friends to introduce him right and left to any lady who happened to require a partner, though reserving, of course, the one for which he was engaged to Bella at what would be almost the end of the evening. In fact, as his friend the Staff-Commander said, 'he let himself go pretty considerably,' and he so far exemplified that gentleman's remark that he took in to supper one of the plainest of those middle-aged ladies who happened to be gracing the ball with their presence.
Yet this lady found nothing whatever to complain of to herself (to her friends she would have uttered no complaint of her cavalier, even though he had been as stupid as an owl and as dumb as a stone, she being a wary old campaigner), but, instead, thought him a charming companion. Perhaps, too, she had good reason to do so, since, from the moment he conducted her across the temporarily constructed bridge which led from the Town Hall proper to the supper tent erected in a vacant plot of ground, his conversation was full of smart sayings and pleasant, though occasionally sub-acid, remarks on things in general. Yet, naturally, it was impossible that she should know that the undoubtedly bright and piquant conversation with which he entertained her was partly produced by his bitterness at seeing Gilbert Bampfyld and Bella enjoying themselves thoroughly at a tableà-deuxclose by where he and his partner were seated, and partly by his stoical determination to 'let things go.' And by, also, another determination at which he had arrived--namely, to go to sea again at the very first moment he could find a ship.
Nine months had passed since the entertainment of the foreign fleet at Portsmouth--months that had been pregnant with events concerning the three persons with whom this narrative deals; and Bella sat now, at the end of a dull March afternoon, in the pretty drawing-room in West Kensington. She sat there meditating deeply, since she happened to be alone at the moment, owing to Mrs. Waldron having gone out to pay several calls.
Of all who had been at those entertainments, of all in the party which, in the preceding June, had gathered together at Portsmouth, the three ladies of the family, Mrs. Waldron, Mrs. Pooley, and Bella, were alone in England; the three men--the three sailors--were all gone to different parts of the world. Captain Pooley had sailed with his vessel to Australia; Stephen Charke had gone to China as first officer of a large vessel; and Gilbert Bampfyld, who, in consequence of the Rear-Admiral's retirement, no longer wore the aiguillettes of a flag-lieutenant, had been appointed to theBriseus, on the East Indian station.
And Bella, sitting now in her arm-chair in front of the drawing-room fire, with a letter lying open on her lap before her, was thinking of the writer of that letter, as well as of all that it contained. If one glances at it as it lies there before her, much may be gleaned of what has happened in those nine months; while perhaps, also, some idea, some light, may be gained of that which is to come.
'My Darling,' it commenced (and possibly the writer, far away, may have hoped that, as he wrote those words, they would be kissed as often by the person to whom they were addressed as he fondly desired), 'My Darling--Your letter came to me to-day, and I must write back to you at once--this very instant--not only because I want to put all my thoughts on paper, but also because I can thus catch the P. and O. mail. How good! how good you are! While, also, I do not forget how good your mother is. I know I ought not--at least I suppose I ought not--to ask you to do such a thing as come out to me, and I can assure you I hesitated for weeks before daring to do so. Yet, when I reflected that, if you could not bring yourself to come, as well as induce your mother to give her consent to your coming, we could not possibly be married for three years, I could not hesitate any longer. And now--now--oh, Bella, my darling! I could dance for joy if my cabin was big enough to allow of such a thing--you are coming! You will come! How happy we shall be! I can think of nothing else--nothing. You don't know how I feel, and it's useless for me to try to tell you....'
No more need be read of this letter, however, and, since the reader will shortly be informed of what led to it, nothing more need be said than that, after a good deal of explanation as to how the young lady to whom it was addressed was to make her plans for reaching Bombay, it was signed 'Gilbert Bampfyld.'
So that one sees now what had been the outcome of that week of delight at Portsmouth during the last summer; one understands all that had been the result of those garden-parties and that ball.
They--the festivities--were followed by a renewal of the acquaintanceship between Mrs. Waldron and her daughter and Gilbert Bampfyld, as, indeed, the latter had quite made up his mind should be the case, and as--since the truth must always be spoken--Bella had hoped would happen. They were followed, that is to say, directly the naval man[oe]uvres were over, for which important function both divisions of the Channel Squadron were of course utilised, while not a week had elapsed from the time of the return of the ships to their stations before Gilbert Bampfyld presented himself in Montmorency Road. And that presentation of himself at this suburban retreat was, it is surely unnecessary to say, succeeded by many other things, all showing what was impending and what actually happened later on. Gilbert Bampfyld told Bella that he loved her and wanted her for his wife, and--well, one can imagine the rest. What was there to stand between those loving hearts? What? Nothing to impede their engagement, nothing that need have impeded their immediate marriage, except the fact that Bella's maiden modesty could never have been brought to consent to a union so hurriedly entered into as would have been necessary, had she agreed to become Gilbert's wife ere he set out for Bombay to join theBriseus, to which he was now appointed.
One regrets, however, when describing such soft and glowing incidents as these, that space is so circumscribed (owing to the canvas having to be filled with larger events now looming near) as to leave no room for more minute description of this love idyl. It would have been pleasant to have dwelt upon Bella's ecstatic joy at having been asked to be the wife of the one man--the first man--whose love she had ever desired (ah, that is it--to be the first man or the first girl who has ever touched the heart of him or her we worship); only it must not be--the reader's own imagination shall be asked to fill the missing description. Let those, therefore, who remember the earliest whispered word of love they ever spoke or had spoken to them; who recall still the first kiss they ever gave or took; and those who can remember, also, all the joy that came to them when first they loved and knew themselves beloved, fill the hiatus. That will suffice.
'We shall be so happy, dearest,' Gilbert said, when all preliminaries had been arranged in so far as their engagement was concerned, and when he did not know at the time that he was about to be sent on foreign service, but hoped that he would either be allowed to remain in the Channel Squadron or be transferred to the Training Squadron, or, at worst, appointed to the Mediterranean. 'We shall be so happy, darling. I hoped from the first to win you--though--though sometimes I feared there might be some one else.'
'There could never have been any one else. Never, after I had once met you,' she murmured. 'Oh, Gilbert!' and then she, too, said she was so happy. Yet a moment later she whispered: 'But, somehow, it seems too good to be true. All has come so easily in the way that I--well, as we--desired, that sometimes I think there may be--that something may arise to--to----'
'What--prevent our marriage? Nothing can do that. Nothing could have done that--nothing!'
'Suppose your uncle, Lord D'Abernon, had objected?' she said, remembering that she had heard how this nobleman was not always given to making things quite as easy and comfortable to those by whom he was surrounded as was considered desirable. 'Suppose that had happened?'
'Oh, he's all right,' Gilbert replied. 'He expected his opinion to be asked and his consent obtained, and all that sort of thing, but, outside that, he's satisfied. And if he wasn't, it wouldn't have made any difference to me--after I had once seen you.' For which remark he was rewarded with one of those chaste salutes which Bella had learnt by now to bestow without too much diffidence. As regards Mrs. Waldron--well, she was a mother, and it was not to be supposed that such a distinguished match as Bella was about to make could be aught but satisfactory to her; while Captain Pooley, who had not yet departed with theEmperor of the Moonfor Australia, told his niece that she was a lucky girl. He also informed Gilbert that, as he was a childless man, Bella would eventually fall heiress to anything he and his wife might leave behind them. Matters looked, therefore, as though they would all go merry as the proverbial marriage bell. All, as the old romancists used to say, was very well.
Then fell the first blow--the one that was to separate those two fond hearts. Gilbert was suddenly appointed to theBriseusand ordered to proceed to Bombay to join her at once, and a fortnight later he was gone, and poor Bella was left behind lamenting.
She was sitting, lamenting still, before her fire on this March day, with this newly-arrived letter on her lap--in solemn truth, she had been lamenting his departure ever since it had taken place--when, suddenly, there broke in upon her ears the sound of a visitor's knock below. Then, ere she could distinguish whose voice was addressing the servant who had answered the door, she heard a manly footstep on the stairs, and, a moment later, the maidservant announced: 'Mr. Charke.' Mr. Charke! the man whose memory had almost faded from her mind--as she had reproached herself for more than once, when it did happen to recur to her--the man whom she had learnt to like so much during all that happy time last year. Now, as she gazed on him, and noticed how brown he was as he came forward--more deeply browned, indeed, than she had thought it possible for him, who was already so tanned and sunburnt, to be--and noticed, too, the strong, self-reliant look on his face, she reproached herself again. She acknowledged, also, that she had liked him so much that even her new-found happiness ought not to have driven all recollection of him entirely from her mind.
Then she greeted him warmly, saying all the pleasant little words of welcome that a woman whose heart goes in unison with her good breeding knows how to say; and made him welcome. Yet, as she did so, she observed that he was graver, more sad, it seemed to her, than she had ever remarked before.
'You are not ill?' she asked, as this fact became more and more apparent to her. 'Surely, you, a sailor, have not come back from the sea unwell? At least I hope not.'
'No,' he said, 'no. Nor, I hope, do I seem so. Do you know that, besides any desire to call and see you, I came for another purpose?' and now his eyes rested on her with so strange a light--so mournful, deep a light--that in a moment her woman's instinct told her what he meant as plainly as though his voice had done so.
Like a flash of lightning, that instinct revealed to her the fact that this man loved her; that, from the moment they had parted, months ago, she had never been absent from his mind. She knew it; she was certain she was right--she could not be deceived! Then to herself she said: 'Heaven help him--Heaven prevent him from telling me so.'
But aloud, her heart full of pity, she said: 'Indeed,' and smiled bravely on him while she spoke. 'Indeed, what was that purpose?'
'To congratulate you. To----
'Congratulate me!'
'Yes. I met theEmperor of the Moonat Capetown. We were both homeward bound. And--and--your uncle told me the news. I offer my congratulations now.' Yet, as he said the words, she saw that his face was turned a little aside so that she could not perceive his eyes. Congratulations! Well, they might be sincere in so far as that, because he loved her, he wished her well and desired that she should be happy, but--but--otherwise--no! it was not to be thought upon.
As he said the words: 'I congratulate you,' he followed an old custom--one more foreign than English--and held out his hand, taking hers. And he kept it, too, fast in his own, while he said in the voice that his struggles with the elements had made so deep and sonorous:
'Yes, I congratulate you. I must do that. To--to--see you happy--to know you are so, is all that I have--all--I hope for now. Yet there is no treachery to him in what I say. Heaven help me! I mean none--but--but--I--from the first--I have lo----'
'No, no,' she murmured, striving to withdraw her hand, yet not doing so angrily. 'No, no. Don't say it, Mr. Charke. Don't, pray don't.' And, now, neither could he see her eyes nor her averted face. 'Don't say it. You do not desire to make me unhappy?' she murmured.
'Never, as God hears me. But--I have said it. I had to say it. Goodbye.'
'Goodbye,' she said--and then, as he neared the door, she turned once and looked at him with eyes that were full of intense pity and compassion.
Events are now drawing near to that night when Bella was to have those distressing dreams which have been mentioned at the opening of this narrative; all was arranged for her departure to Bombay. A little more, and she will be on her way to India and to wedlock.
Yet all had not been quite easy and smooth in the settlement of affairs. At first, Mrs. Waldron, good, loving mother though she was, and fully cognisant of the facts--namely, that Bella loved Lieutenant Bampfyld madly and would be an unhappy woman if she did not become his wife long ere three years had passed, and that the match which her child was about to make was undoubtedly a brilliant one--refused to hear of such a thing as that she should go out to him.
'If you are worth having,' she said, when first the proposal was submitted to her, 'you are surely worth coming for.' And, since this was a truism, it was hardly to be gainsaid. Yet, as we know by now, she had been won over by her daughter's pleadings and entreaties; by, too, the plain and undeniable fact that there was not the slightest possibility of Lieutenant Bampfyld being able to come home to marry her, or to return to England in any way--short of being invalided--until theBriseusherself returned.
Then, no sooner had this difficulty been surmounted than another reared its head before mother and daughter. How was she to go out to Bombay alone and unprotected? A young married woman, who had to proceed to India to join her husband, might very well undertake such a journey, but not a young single woman such as Bella was, while for chaperon or protectress there was no one forthcoming. At first, it is true, Mrs. Waldron had meditated accompanying Bella herself (she being an old sailor, to whom long sea voyages were little more than railway journeys are to some more stay-at-home ladies); only, down in the depths of her nature, which was an extremely refined one, there was some voice whispering to her that it would be indelicate to thus bring her daughter out in pursuit of her affianced husband. It is true, however, that authorities on social etiquette who have since been consulted have averred that this was a false feeling which was in possession of Mrs. Waldron's mind; but be that as it may, it existed. Then, too, she still regarded the matter of her child going to her future husband, instead of that husband coming to fetch her, as one of particular delicacy; one of such nicety as to permit of no elaboration; and she resolved that, come what might--even though she should have to purchase, or hire rather, the services of an elderly and austere travelling companion--she must not herself accompany Bella.
'Heaven knows what is to be done,' she said to her daughter, as they discussed the important point, 'but I suppose it will come to that'; the 'that' meaning the hired chaperon. Then she sighed a little, remembering how the late Captain Waldron had encompassed thousands of miles in a voyage which he made from the Antipodes to espouse her.
Yet, ere many days had passed, the clouds of obstruction were suddenly removed in a manner which seemed almost--as the fond mother stated--providential. Captain Pooley's ship had followed home, after a week or so of interval, that in which Stephen Charke had returned to England, and its arrival was soon succeeded by his own in Montmorency Road.
'Going out to him to be married!' he exclaimed, after his sister--who happened to be alone at the time of his visit--had made him acquainted with what she had given her consent to some two or three months before, on Gilbert's application backed up by Bella's supplications, and which consent she had moaned over inwardly ever since she had so given it. 'Going out to be married, eh? Why, she must want a husband badly!' Yet, because he knew well enough the customs of Her Majesty's service and the impossibility which prevailed in that service of an officer coming home to marry his bride, he did not repeat her words, 'If she is worth having, she is worth coming for.'
'So other people have thought, if they have not openly said so,' Mrs. Waldron replied. 'I am sure they must have thought so. Yet,' she went on, with determination, 'I have agreed to it, and I cannot retract my word. It is given, and must be kept. No, it is not that which troubles me.'
'What, then?'
'Why, the getting out. How is the child to go alone, in a great liner, with two or three hundred passengers, all the way to Bombay? How?' she repeated.
'Bombay, eh? Bombay. Oh, well, if that's her destination, she can go comfortably enough. There need be no trouble about that. Only she will be more than double the time the P. and O., or any other line, would take to carry her.'
'What do you mean, George?'
'Why,' he said, 'I happen to be taking the oldEmperorto Bombay next month with a general cargo--calling at the Cape on the way. She can go with me, and welcome. There's a cabin fit for a duchess which she can have.'
* * * * * *
It was a cabin fit for a duchess, as Bella and her mother acknowledged when, a fortnight later, they went down to Gravesend to inspect theEmperor of the Moon, and after it had been decided in solemn family conclave that, by this ship, the former should make the voyage to India. And it was more than likely that the girl would make it under particularly pleasant circumstances, since this was one of those occasions on which Mrs. Pooley had decided to accompany her husband, she not having felt very well during the past winter. At present, the cabin was empty and denuded of everything, Pooley having decided to have it refurnished; but when he told them how that furniture would be arranged in the great roomy place, which would have been dignified as a 'state-room' in one of the old clippers, Bella said again, as she had said so often before, that 'he was the best old uncle in the world.'
Now theEmperor of the Moonwas a smart, though old-fashioned, full-rigged ship of about six hundred tons, her lines being perfect, while leaving her full of room inside. Her saloon was a comfortable one, well furnished with plush-covered chairs and benches--the covering being quite new; a piano--also looking new--was lashed to the stem of the mizzen-mast, while there were swinging vases, in which, no doubt, fresh ferns and flowers would be placed later. On deck she was very clean and white, with much brass and everything neat and shipshape, while the seaman who should regard her bows and stern would at once acknowledge that she left little to desire, old as she was. For, in the days when she was laid, they built ships with a view to both sea qualities and comfort, and theEmperor of the Moonlacked neither. Her sleeping-cabins were bedrooms, her saloon was a dining-room as good as you would find in a fifty-pound-a-year suburban residence, and her masts would have done credit to one of Her Majesty's earlier ships.
Altogether, Bella was pleased with everything, especially with her cabin, which was on the port side of the saloon, and she was, besides, pleasantly excited at the idea of so long a sailing voyage.
'I know,' she said to her uncle, 'that we shall have a delightful time of it, and for companionship I shall have you and auntie. That's enough.'
'You will have some one else, too,' Pooley said, with a smile; 'you know I have two officers. Come'--and again he smiled--'it is our "lay days,"' by which he meant that they were shipping their cargo. 'Come, I will introduce them to you.' Then he led the way up the companion to the deck.
They met one of these officers, the second mate, a young man whom Pooley introduced as Mr. Fagg, and then, while they were all talking together, Bella heard a deep, low voice behind her say: 'How do you do, Miss Waldron?' A voice that caused her to start as she turned round to find herself face to face with Stephen Charke.
'You!' she exclaimed involuntarily. 'You! Are you going on this voyage?'
'I am first officer,' he said. 'I wanted a berth, and Captain Pooley has given me one.' And amidst her uncle's joyous laughter and his remark that he knew this would be a pleasant surprise for Bella, and while, too, Mrs. Waldron said that she was delighted to think he would be in the ship to look after her daughter, that daughter had time to think herself--to reflect.
In her heart, she would far rather that Charke had not been here; while she wondered, too, how he could have brought himself to accept his present position, knowing, as he must have known, that she was going in the ship.
'It is so vain, so useless,' she thought; 'and can only lead to discomfort. We shall both feel embarrassed all the way. Oh, I wish he were not coming!' Then, although she pitied him, and although she had always liked him, she resolved that, through the whole of the time they were together in the ship, she would see as little of Stephen Charke as possible.
'You do not object to my presence, I hope?' he said a moment later, as they both stood by the capstan alone--Pooley and his wife and sister having moved off forward. 'I should be sorry to think that my being here was disagreeable to you. I have to earn my living, you know.'
'What right could I have to object, Mr. Charke?'
'Perhaps you think I have behaved indiscreetly?'
For a moment she let her eyes fall on him and rest upon his own; then she said: 'I will not give any opinion. You have to earn your living, as you say; while as for me--well, you know what I am going to India for.'
'Yes,' he answered. 'I do know.' After which he added: 'Do not be under any wrong impression. I shall not annoy you. I am the chief officer of this ship and you are a passenger. That is, I understand, how the voyage is to be made?'
'If you please,' Bella replied very softly, and the tones of her voice might well have brought some comfort to him, if anything short of the possession of her love could have done so.
A fortnight or three weeks later the pilot had left theEmperor of the Moon, the lee main braces were manned, the ship was lying over under her canvas, the wind was well astern. Bella was on her way to India and her lover!
Let us pass over this parting between mother and child, the fond embraces, the tears and sobs which accompanied that parting following after the dawn when we first made the girl's acquaintance, and following, too, that night of unrest and disturbing dreams. No description of such partings is necessary; many of us, young and old, men and women, have had to make them; to part from the loved, gray-haired mother who has sobbed on our breast ere we went forth to find our livelihood, if not our fortune, in a strange world; many of us have had to let the child of our longings and our hopes and prayers go forth from us who have sheltered and nurtured it--from us who have perhaps prayed God night and day that, in His mercy, it might never leave our side. We go away ourselves because we must; also they go from us because they must; and there is nothing but the same hope left in all our hearts--the hope that we shall not be forgotten--that, as the years roll by, those we have left behind will keep a warm spot for us in their memory, or that those who have left us behind will sometimes turn their thoughts back longingly to us in our desolation. It has to be, and it has to be borne; alas, that parting is the penalty we all have to pay for having ever been permitted to be together.
And, so, across the seas, the stout oldEmperor of the Moonwent; buffeting with the Channel, throwing aside the rough waves with her forefoot as though she despised them, sinking England and home behind her with every plunge she made.
And at the moment that she was leaving the Lizard far away astern of her, and was running well out into the Atlantic, a telegram was delivered in Montmorency Road addressed to Bella, which was opened by her mother. A telegram signed 'Gilbert,' which ran: 'Don't start.Briseusappointed to East Coast Africa, slaver catching.' A telegram that had come three days too late! A telegram that was re-forwarded to Capetown, where it lay for forty-seven days awaiting the arrival of theEmperor of the Moon, and, then,--was forgotten!
From the time the men had sheeted home the topsails as theEmperor of the Moongot under way until now when, having left the Cape of Good Hope behind her, she was travelling through the water at a very fair speed and with her head set due north, scarcely anything had occurred much worthy of note. Soon--after the first two days had passed, during which time Bella had lain flat in her berth in the large roomy cabin provided for her by her uncle, while his wife had administered to her odd glasses of champagne, little cups of rich, succulent soup, and such like delicacies--the girl was able to reach the deck. And, once there and under an awning stretched from the ensign staff to past the mizzen-mast, she would sit and meditate for hours on the forthcoming meeting with her lover which was drawing nearer and nearer with each plunge of the Emperor's forefoot into the sapphire sea. Sometimes, too, she would read aloud a novel to Mrs. Pooley, who, perhaps because she was good and motherly, and fat, would listen to nothing but the most romantic love-stories which the vivid brains of fashionable novelists could turn out; though, when alone, and reading for her own amusement, Bella would pore over books of adventure in wild parts of the world, or devour some of the histories of marine voyages which her uncle possessed in his neat mahogany bookcases below.
Of Stephen Charke she saw, of course, a good deal, as it was natural she should do. You cannot be in a ship, however large or small, without seeing much of all on board; but when it comes to sitting down every twenty-four hours to what Captain Pooley called 'four square meals a day, with intervals between for refreshments,' you must not only be brought into constant touch with your companions, but also enter into much discourse with them. Yet, as the girl told herself, Charke was behaving well, extremely well; so that, gradually, she lost all sense of discomfort that would otherwise have arisen through being thrown continuously into his society, and, ere long, she would observe his approach without the slightest tremor of susceptibility. Soon, too, she began to acknowledge to herself that Stephen was a gentleman in his feelings, and that, no matter what his sentiments might be towards her--if they existed still and were unchanged from what they had once been--he at least knew how to exercise that control over them which a gentleman should be capable of. Until now, he had never said one word to her that any other person might not have uttered who had found himself thrown into her society on board theEmperor of the Moon, nor had he unduly sought her presence or, being in it, endeavoured to remain there as long as it was possible.
Nothing of much note had occurred thus far on the voyage, it has been said; yet there had of course been some of those incidents without which no voyage of any distance is ever made. Once through the Bay, and, while they ran swiftly south, they had found themselves in a dense fog--a most unusual thing in such a latitude and at such a time of year; then, upon the top of that fog, there had sprung up a stiff breeze which gradually developed into a gale, so that, from clewing the main royal to furling the top-gallant sails of the mizzen and foremasts was but the action of a moment, as was the next work of taking in the main top-gallant sail. And thus, ere long, Bella had her first experience of what a storm at sea was like, and, as she heard the live stock grunting and squealing forward; the ship's furniture more or less thundering about wherever it could get loose; the piano--on which, only the night before, she had played the accompaniment to her uncle's deep bass voice as he trolled out 'In Cellar Cool'--thumping heavily against the bulkhead to which it was usually lashed, and the cries of the sailors as they uttered words which might not, perhaps, be properly denominated as 'cries, alone, she began to wonder how her darling Gilbert could ever have chosen such a calling. While, too, the streaming planks when, at last, she ventured on deck, the dull sepia clouds and the mournful look of the Emperor herself, under reefed topsails, foresail, fore topmast staysail, main trysail and spanker, as she rolled and yawed about in the troughs and hollows of the sea, and took the water first over one bow and then over another--and then, for a change, over her stem--only increased that wonder.
Yet, lo! the next morning--for the sea is a great quick-change artist, volatile and variable as a flirt, though too often as tragic as Medea herself--when Bella looked out of her scuttle, against which the green water now slapped boisterously but not viciously--all was changed. A bright sun shone down from the blue heavens, the ship had still got a roll on her, though not an unpleasant one--and the girl felt hungry. Which was as good a sign that the storm was over as could well be wished for.
'It has been a rough night,' Stephen Charke said, as he rose from his breakfast on her entrance to the saloon, helped her to her chair, and bade the steward bring coffee and hot rolls and bacon--all of which were already perfuming the air. 'Your uncle is now on deck. We have been there all night.'
'I thought,' said Bella, pouring out her coffee and smiling pleasantly, since now all fear had departed from her mind that Charke would misconstrue any friendly marks of intimacy she might be disposed to graciously bestow on him, 'that I was at the end of my journey. Indeed, that we all were; that it was brought to a sudden end; accomplished. That----'
'That,' said Stephen, smiling too, sadly enough, yet enhancing wonderfully his dark, handsome looks by doing so, 'that perhaps Mr. Bampfyld might miss his bride!'
For a moment Bella's hazel eyes flashed at him, and he thought how wondrously beautiful they looked as they did so--then a serious expression came on her face. While, after pausing a moment, as though scarcely knowing what answer to make or whether she should make one at all, she said: 'Yes. That he might miss his bride. My death, and that alone, could cause him to do so.' And as she spoke she looked Stephen straight in the face, while feeling again--to her regret--that old sentiment of doubt of him which she had come to believe she had conquered and subdued.
'His death would cause the same result,' he answered, speaking slowly, hesitatingly, for in truth he felt as if he were treading on dangerous ground. And in a moment he found such was the case.
'Mr. Charke,' the girl said, very quietly now, 'I should be so much obliged to you if, during the remainder of our journey together, you will neither discuss my affairs nor those of my future husband, nor him. It will make the voyage pleasanter to me if you will do that.'
As she spoke, the bell struck two, and, since the watches had been disorganised by the storm of the night, that sound meant that Captain Pooley would now come below for his breakfast, and his place above be taken by the mate. Therefore, he turned towards the stairs, muttering: 'I beg your pardon, I am sure. Pray forgive me. I will not offend again.' Then he disappeared on to the deck.
Yet an hour later he stood by her side beneath the awning, and now he was directing her attention to something that, a mile off, was the object of attention from every one on board. The captain and his wife were both regarding it fixedly; so, too, were the men forward; the only persons not present being, of course, the watch below and the second mate, Mr. Fagg, who had now turned in.
'What do you make it out to be?' asked Pooley of Stephen, as they still gazed at it. 'It is not a baby nor a child; yet it is scarcely bigger than the first. Can it be a dog?'
'No,' said Charke authoritatively, as though his younger eyesight was not to be disputed; 'it is either a young tiger or a panther cub afloat on a water-cask. There has been a wreck during the night, I expect, and it has got adrift. Perhaps,' he said, 'if we cruise around a bit we may find some human life to save.'
'How should it be aboard any ship?' asked the captain. 'Who takes tigers or panthers for passengers?'
'Plenty of people,' Charke answered quietly. 'They are brought home to sell to the menageries and zoos. A cub like that is worth twenty pounds--worth looking after. Guffies bring them home sometimes, sailors often. Meanwhile,' he added, 'according to the set of the waves, that thing will be alongside us in a quarter of an hour. I'll bet a day's pay it strikes the ship betwixt the main and mizzen channels.'
'Oh,' exclaimed Mrs. Pooley and Bella together, 'do let us save it and get it on board! It will,' said the latter, 'be such a lovely plaything--and such a curiosity! Fancy a girl from West Kensington who has never had a plaything or pet more stupendous than a canary, a cat, or a fox-terrier, having a tiger. Why,' she exclaimed, with a laugh which gave to her short upper lip an appearance of tantalising beauty, 'Una will be outdone by me--a girl of the nineteenth century!'
Tantalising or not as that smile might be, it led to the salvation of the cub; for, with a swift look at the captain which was meant to ask for his assent, Charke called to one of the sailors to get over into the channels and down on to the fourth futtock, he telling him with wonderful accuracy the exact spot where the water-cask would strike the stationary ship. Five minutes later, that which he had calculated with such precision came to pass, the cask touched the vessel's side almost immediately beneath the man's feet, and, in another moment, the cub had been caught by its loose skin in the exact middle of its back and hauled up, squealing, spitting and scratching, on to the deck.
'The little beast!' exclaimed the mate, as he sucked the back of his hand where the creature had clawed him; 'the little beast! this is a pretty reward for our saving it from drowning!' and he administered a sound kick to the thing as it lay on the deck. So sound and rousing a one, indeed, that it gave a grunt of pain, and, with its claws--about as big, or bigger, than those of a good-sized cat--endeavoured to fasten on to his legs. While, from its yellow, scintillating eyes, it emitted a glance of such malignant ferocity as, had it been more fully grown, might have alarmed a braver man than he.
'Oh, how cruel to kick that poor little half-drowned thing!' Bella exclaimed reproachfully; 'it never meant to hurt you, only it was frightened. Poor little thing!' she said again, and, even as she spoke, she knelt down on the deck and stroked the wet, striped ball that lay there. And it seemed as if her gentleness had some power to soothe whatever ferocious instincts--still dormant and undeveloped at present--were smouldering within it. For, instead of now using its paws as weapons with which to strike out and attack anything near it, it played with her as a kitten plays with a ball, tapping at her hand and trying to catch it, and pushing and kicking against her with its hind legs.
'You see,' she said, looking up at Charke with a glance in which she could not disguise her dislike of his violence, 'you see, at present, at least, it does not try to harm those who treat it well.'
'Yes,' he said, 'I see.' Then he added, half-bitterly, half-morosely: 'No one doubts your powers of fascination, Miss Waldron.'