CHAPTER VII.
ON THE MAIL STEAMER.
Our final departure from the colony was a wretched business, and I do not feel inclined to dwell upon it. The Smiths and ourselves had never known until now how strong were the bonds of friendship that through long years had bound us together, and Tom and I bitterly realized what a tremendous probation ours was going to be. It was sad to see our pretty home, that had grown with my growth, and was a monument of I know not what ingenuity and contrivance, dismantled and stripped, and given up to strangers. It was a trial to hear, when the sale was over, that my beloved piano had been carted away to the township for the butcher’s children to strum upon; and that our drawing-room furniture, which had been made for us in England, was gone to adorn a public-house. It was a sore grief to have to part with Spring and Bronzewing, neither of my pets being allowed to accompany me home, of course.
Spring I gave to Tom to take care of, and so I was assured of his welfare, though the poor old dog whined and cried at leaving me until he almost broke my heart; but Bronzewing was too famous and too valuable to be disposed of in any such sentimental manner. He was put up to auction, and was fought for by two or three wealthy landowners in the district, one of whom purchased him for a sum that was sufficient, father said, to cover the cost of whatever finery mother and I might choose to treat ourselves to in Paris.
I parted from Tom at Booloomooloo, standing out in the public sunshine between the doorsteps and the buggy. Our four parents were gathered round us, all more or less overcome, on their own account, by the solemnity and sadness of the occasion, and in the midst of them we stood tight clasped in one another’s arms, and kissed our hearts out in the bitter sweetness of farewell. We were past caring what they or anybody else thought of it. My own father and mother preserved a grave silence towards me for hours after we had started; but if they had raged and stormed it would have been all the same. I should rather have enjoyed it than otherwise, in the defiant and despairing mood that I was then in.
During all our buggy and railway stages, and our little sojournings here and there, en route to Melbourne and the mail steamer, I was too profoundly miserable to see, or feel, or care for anything. But my natural vivacity, and the spirit of enterprise that always possessed me more or less, awoke in spite of me under the novel conditions of sea life. At the end of a fortnight or three weeks I had revived sufficiently to take a vigorous interest in my fellow-passengers, and to scandalize mother by a special partiality for a bearded young Queenslander who taught me to play chess. I was no good at chess, and gave no signs of promise that I ever should be. My head was not of that construction which the intricacies of the game demanded. But the learning of the moves, and of a few rudimental calculations, was a pleasant occupation when the teacher was so exceptionally agreeable. I thought it was very hard on me when mother objected to two or three games of chess a day, just when I was beginning to find a little amusement to drown the thought of all my troubles—until, to my unspeakable surprise and disgust, the Queensland gentleman made me an offer of marriage; which unpleasant incident, occurring on board ship, was unavoidably one of the widest public interest. This happened before we reached Galle, and threw me back into my original low spirits for a day or two. I recovered myself when we came to anchor in that lovely port, and I found myself furnished with unlimited pocket-money (surreptitiously, from father’s pockets) for all the charming native rubbish that I cared to purchase. And the addition of a number of little Indian children to our passenger-list made the rest of the voyage delightful. I am glad to say my rejected lover took himself off (though I was really very sorry for some things to see him go) and sought distraction in the pleasures of the chase with some coffee-planting acquaintances. So I and my little friends had no restraint upon our intercourse. There were some dear little girls, coming home with an invalid mother and no servant, to whom I particularly attached myself. I washed their hands and faces, and saw that their little wants were not overlooked at their own table; and we played together all day long, whensoever we had an opportunity. They were precocious little things, and not very strong, and had no idea of romping; so we entertained ourselves with quiet games.
One day we were absorbed in our favourite amusement—“keeping shop.” A sort of barricade was built up of chairs in a retired spot of deck, to represent the counter; the two little sisters sat on cushions on one side, and I knelt on the other, displaying scarfs, and veils, and handkerchiefs as my stock-in-trade.
“And what can I show you to-day, madam?” I inquired of the elder child, with much ceremony, when we had arranged ourselves to our satisfaction.
She considered for a moment, with her wise little face full of importance, and then she asked for some pink satin for a ball dress. I immediately spread out a snuff-coloured pocket-handkerchief of daddy’s, and she passed it through her little fingers, knitted her brows, shook her head; and when I told her it was cheap at £16 a yard, said she was afraid it was not good enough. Acting on this hint I produced a gossamer veil, which I told her was a very sweet thing in satins, that I thought I could let her have, as a favour, for £500 the dress. “It is a piece that was made for the Duchess of Edinburgh,” I explained confidentially; “only the Duchess found that she really had so many dresses in her trousseau that she would never have an opportunity of wearing it.”
The little one’s face shone with delight at this announcement, and she consulted with her sister as to the advisability of securing such an undoubted bargain. Forty-seven yards was rather more than she required, she said; but I told her that was the quantity for a court dress with a train, and that of course I could not cut it. So she purchased the whole, and it was laid on one side; and then it was her sister’s turn to be served. This little mite had been in a fever of impatience for the pink satin to be disposed of; and now she burst out breathlessly, “Please, I want some purple velvet—no, some crimson velvet—for a ball dress, and some diamond fringe to trim it with.”
I gravely brought out a woollen scarf, and told her that that was the richest crimson velvet that was made. It was £200 a yard, but, of course, that was a mere trifle for such a superior article. She trembled with excitement as she poked her thin little finger through the holes in the knitting, and inquired anxiously whether I was sure that it was quite the latest fashion.
“Oh dear, yes,” was my unhesitating reply. “It is the most fashionable of all materials this season. The Queen sent for a dress exactly like this, only last week.”
“It couldn’t have been the Queen,” broke in the elder child, who had been watching the proceedings critically. “Mamma says the Queen never wears anything but black.”
“Dear me, no, of course not! What could I have been thinking of? It was the Princess of Wales I meant. The Princess wore it at a garden-party at Chiswick, and it was immensely admired. Crimson velvet has been quite the rage ever since.”
“And diamond fringe?”
“Well, of course hers had diamond fringe, because she is a princess. She had a few of her spare boxes of diamonds made up on purpose, and she found she had just enough to trim the polonaise with, without having to touch her necklaces, and bracelets, and tiaras, and things. But diamond fringe is not generally worn, and I am afraid I have none by me just now. I can show you some pearl embroidery, if that will do, or some real Brussels lace.”
As I turned to search for a strip of tatting in my workbag, which was to do duty for Brussels lace, I met the steady look of a pair of keen dark eyes, watching my proceedings from an embarrassingly short distance. They belonged to a gentlemanly, slight-framed man, whom I had not noticed before, and who must have joined us a few days previously at Galle. He was leaning on the back of a friend’s chair—the friend being elderly, and dozing over a magazine on his knee, with his chin so buried in his shirt front that his grey beard tickled his nose—and he was resting all his weight on his folded arms, and looked as if he had been watching me for any length of time. There was something in his face which (without taking any offensive liberty with mine) was so amused and so comical, and I myself felt so extremely silly, caught unawares at my childish games, that I could not help laughing. At this he took his arms from his chair back, and pulled off his hat hurriedly; and I, at the same moment, scrambled to my feet and tilted the counter over, to the consternation and disgust of my little customers.
“Oh,” he exclaimed, taking two long steps into the “shop,” and putting our apparatus in order again, “I am so sorry! I did not know I was an eavesdropper until you surprised me just now. I was so interested in the mimicry of your little companions, and to see you amusing them so prettily. Is not the child the mother of the woman, as well as the father of the man? I was just thinking that, when you turned round, and showed me how rude I was.”
I have always considered that if gentle breeding shows itself in any physical peculiarity at all, it is in the quality and purity of one’s voice and accent. Tom, though his voice was deep and sonorous, had that clear, incisive crispness of speech which is so expressively authoritative, as well as so musical to listen to; and my new friend, with a more delicate and high-pitched organ, resembled him so much in the using of it that I was reminded of him at once, and felt kindly disposed in consequence.
“Do not say that,” I responded frankly. “I deserved to be laughed at, and I am sure you could not help it.”
“I was not laughing at you, I assure you,” he said warmly. “I was wishing I had such a knack of interesting others, as you seem to interest everybody about you. These little ones would have had a very dreary time of it if you had not been on board. Wouldn’t you?” he added, addressing the children, who were staring at him silently, with evident disfavour.
“Are you coming to keep shop?” the youngest inquired, gravely; “or do you want to buy anything? Because we don’t keep gentlemen’s things. Do we, Miss Chamberlayne?”
“No,” I said, smiling; “the tailor’s shop is over the way.”
“I take the hint,” he said, bowing slightly, as he lifted his hat, and showing a pleasant, thoughtful, friendly face, with thin dark hair a little worn away at the temples. And he sauntered to the far end of the deck, and was lost to our view, leaving me with an uneasy suspicion that I had been pert.
I did not see him again—except far away at the dinner-table—until next morning, when, having exhausted the treasures of imagination, in the shape of drapery and jewels, the little girls and I were engaged in a new game, paying calls upon one another in different parts of the ship. They had been to call on me in my cabin, where I had shown them photographs and given them cake and lemonade; and now I was returning their call, sitting on the edge of my chair in a very hot patch of sunlight, with my card-case in my hand, while they gracefully reclined under the shade of the awning on two more chairs, which they vainly endeavoured to fill.
“And how did you leave the children, Mrs. Mortimer?” inquired my elder hostess. “I hope they are all quite well.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Montgomery, they are all quite well, I am happy to say. Marie Antoinette had rather a bad fall downstairs this morning, and bruised her forehead; and Gustavus Adolphus ran away with a finger-glass last night when the butler was clearing the table after a large dinner-party, and fell down with it in the hall and cut himself; but I put a plaster on, and gave him a dose of castor oil, and he is all right again to-day.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Ellie, the little one, with very round eyes, “do you give your children castor oil when they cut their fingers?”
“Certainly,” I replied. “It is a new plan that was recommended to me, and I find it answers admirably; they don’t cut themselves half so much as they used to do when I gave them cakes and lollies to make them stop crying. I should strongly advise you to try it the next time you have any accident amongst your little ones. By the way, how is your baby, Mrs. Trelawny? I met your nurse taking it for an airing in the carriage yesterday, and she said she was afraid it was cutting another tooth.”
Little Ellie was gazing out to sea, full of perplexity about the castor oil; but at this interesting question her eyes came back to me sparkling with delight. “Yes,” she said eagerly, “it cut a new tooth this morning. I heard it crying when I was in my boudoir, and I rang the bell for Mr. Trelawny, and asked him to send for the doctor. But he said ‘nonsense,’ so we didn’t send, and baby got his tooth all by himself.”
“My husband never says ‘nonsense’ to me,” broke in the elder child, drawing herself up.
This unexpected remark upset my gravity, and I had to stifle a laugh in my pocket-handkerchief. At the same time I cast about in my mind for a new topic of conversation, and happily thought of servants. Before I could broach it, however, we were interrupted by our new acquaintance, who had evidently been hanging about at no great distance from us.
“Shall I be the footman?” he said, slightly lifting his hat to me, and addressing Mrs. Montgomery, “and show this lady out?” Before any of us could answer him, he approached my chair, and continued, in quite an altered tone, “Forgive me for interrupting you again, but I really am afraid you will risk a sunstroke if you sit here any longer with that heat pouring down upon your head.”
I admitted that it was rather warm, and I got up from my chair, which he immediately removed to a shady place. And, though the little girls hoped he would go away again, he did not. To tell the truth, I did not want him to think that we wished to get rid of him (and I did not wish it); and I dare say he had the instinct to divine that, though I gave him no invitation to stay. He fell into a comfortable lounging attitude near me, and we began to talk—Mrs. Trelawny and Mrs. Montgomery nestling meanwhile upon my skirts, in silent indignation.
I hope I am not a flirt, or anything of that sort which I ought not to be. But sometimes I have my doubts. It is in my constitution, somehow, to like the society of men better than that of women; and nature, I am fain to hope, justifies herself in these matters, and does not leave us responsible. Whether it is that men are more intellectually entertaining, or more thoroughly cultured, or take more trouble to make things pleasant, I do not know; but it is certain that I have more interest, and find more sympathy (as a rule) in the conversation of my fellow-men than I do in that of my fellow-women—and particularly of my fellow-girls. I cannot help it; nor, any less, can I help betraying my preferences. It is not in me to disguise my sentiments, though I have often tried to do so. Now I am telling the truth about it, I will say one thing in my own favour—I do not want men to make love to me, as flirts are said to do; and I am quite positively sure that I never consciously encourage them in that direction. If they will do it—and, unhappily, they will sometimes—it is very tiresome, of course; and no one suffers from it more than I do. It takes all the comfort from my intercourse with them for ever after, and deprives me of my pleasantest friendships just when they begin to be valuable. I consider this unfortunate infirmity of nice men the one great drawback to my enjoyment of their society.
I sat in a long-armed wicker chair, with my hat off and my toes dangling, and had a delightful chat with my new acquaintance, undisturbed by any scruples as to the propriety of so doing. I knew (without thinking of it until long afterwards) that he was not a man to take liberties, or in any way to “forget his place;” and I could have no shadow of uneasiness, at this stage of our acquaintance, as to what it might develop into if it were followed up. Indeed, at this period of my career, I had not begun to reflect upon these matters—notwithstanding my experiences with respect to the gentleman from Queensland who had taught me chess. It had not yet occurred to me to dream of likening myself, even in the vaguest and most distant way, to a flirt, or to suppose for a moment that anybody else would presume to do so.
I told my new friend, in the frankest manner, where I had come from, and where I was going to, and what I hoped to do and see when I got there. I pointed out my father and mother from amongst the passengers—daddy hotly discussing politics with another Australian passenger—mother sitting with the invalid mother of my little girls, and reading aloud to her about lady helps; and, when I found that he was an Englishman, and had only been absent from his country for a few months, I induced him to enter into the fullest particulars as to what the life I looked forward to would probably have for me in the way of sight-seeing and general enjoyment. He was giving me a charming description of the “march-past” of the famous teams of the coaching club, and I was listening eagerly, unconscious of the flight of time, when I suddenly caught sight of mother looking at me from over the top of her book, with a grave intentness that I found very disconcerting. As soon as I could I rose from my chair and went over to her, with my little companions holding fast to either hand.
“Who is that gentleman, Kitty?” she asked quietly, looking away to where he now stood, with his arms folded on the railing, gazing out to sea. I was sorry she could only see a commonplace dark-blue back and legs, and nothing of the refinement of his pleasant face.
“I don’t know, mother,” I replied.
“You don’t know!” she echoed in astonishment, “Do you mean your father is not acquainted with him?”
“I don’t think so. No, I know he is not, for I showed him which was daddy just now.”
“Then who introduced him to you, dear?”
“Nobody.”
“Don’t you know his name?”
“No,” I murmured shamefacedly, beginning to see the drift of her questions.
“Then, my dear child, will you remember another time that I object to your talking to strangers. It is not”—she hesitated, casting about for a word that would indicate impropriety without too plainly expressing it—“it is not good manners. He”—glancing again at the distant serge-clad figure by the railing—“ought to have known better than to speak to you, if he is what a gentleman should be.”
“I am quite sure he is a gentleman,” I said emphatically.
Mother made no reply. She reserved her opinion.