CHAPTER VII.
The morning when Edward and Marian were to start on their voyage to Trinidad, with Nora in their charge, was a beautifully clear, calm, and sunny one. The tiny steam-tender that took them down Southampton Water, from the landing-stage to the moorings where the big ocean-going Severn lay at anchor, ploughed her way merrily through the blue ripplets that hardly broke the level surface. Though it was a day of parting, nobody was over-sad. General Ord had come down with Marian, his face bronzed with twenty years of India, but straight and erect still like a hop-pole, as he stood with his tall thin figure lithe and steadfast on the little quarter-deck. Mrs Ord was there too, crying a little, of course, as is only decorous on such occasions, yet not more so than a parting always demands from the facile eyes of female humanity. Marian didn’t cry much, either; she felt so safe in going with Edward, and hoped to be back so soon again on a summer visit to her father and mother. As for Nora, Nora was always bright as the sunshine, and could never see anything except the bright side of things. ‘We shall take such care of dear Marian in Trinidad, Mrs Ord!’ she said gaily. ‘You’ll see her home again on a visit in another twelvemonth, with more roses on her cheek than she’s got now, when she’s had a taste of our delicious West Indian mountain air.’
‘And if Trinidad suits Miss Ord—Mrs Hawthorn, I mean—dear me, how stupid of me!’ Harry Noel put in quietly, ‘half as well as it seems to have suited you, Miss Dupuy, we shall have no cause to complain of Hawthorn for having taken her out there.’
‘Oh, no fear of that,’ Nora answered, smiling one of her delicious childish smiles. ‘You don’t know how delightful Trinidad is, Mr Noel; it’s really one of the most charming places in all Christendom.’
‘On your recommendation, then,’ Harry answered, bowing slightly and looking at her with eyes full of meaning, ‘I shall almost be tempted to go out some day and see for myself how really delightful are these poetical tropics of yours.’
Nora blushed, and her eyes fell slightly. ‘You would find them very lovely, no doubt, Mr Noel,’ she answered, more demurely and in a half-timid fashion; ‘but I can’t recommend them, you know, with any confidence, because I was such a very little girl when I first came home to England. You had better not come out to Trinidad merely on the strength of my recommendation.’
Harry bowed his head again gravely. ‘As you will,’ he said. ‘Your word is law. And yet, perhaps some day, I shouldn’t be surprised if Hawthorn and Mrs Hawthorn were to find me dropping in upon them unexpectedly for a scratch dinner. After all, it’s a mere nothing nowadays to run across the millpond, as the Yankees call it.’
They reached the Severn about an hour before the time fixed for starting, and sat on deck talking together with that curious sense of finding nothing to say which always oppresses one on the eve of a long parting. It seems as though no subject of conversation sufficiently important for the magnitude of the occasion ever occurred to one: the mere everyday trivialities of ordinary talk sound out of place at such a serious moment. So, by way of something to do, the party soon began to institute a series of observations upon Edward and Marian’s fellow-passengers, as they came on board, one after another, in successive batches on the little tender.
‘Just look at that brown young man!’ Nora cried, in a suppressed whisper, as a tall and gentlemanly looking mulatto walked up the gangway from the puffing tug. ‘We shall be positively overwhelmed with coloured people, I declare! There are three Hottentot Venuses down in the saloon already, bound for Haiti; and a San Domingo general, as black as your hat; and a couple of walnut-coloured old gentlemen going to Dominica. And now, here’s another regular brown man coming on board to us. What’s his name, I wonder? Oh, there it is, painted as large as life upon his portmanteau! “Dr Whitaker, Trinidad.” Why, my dear, he’s actually going the whole way with us. And a doctor too! goodness gracious. Just fancy being attended through fever by a man of that complexion!’
‘Oh, hush, Nora!’ Marian cried, in genuine alarm. ‘He’ll overhear you, and you’ll hurt his feelings. Besides, you oughtn’t to talk so about other people, whether they hear you or whether they don’t.’
‘Hurt his feelings, my dear! O dear, no, not a bit of it. I know them better than you do. My dear Marian, these people haven’t got any feelings; they’ve been too much accustomed to be laughed at from the time they were babies, ever to have had the chance of acquiring any.’
‘Then the more shame,’ Edward interrupted gravely, ‘to those who have laughed them out of all self-respect and natural feeling. But I don’t believe, for my part, there’s anybody on earth who doesn’t feel hurt at being ridiculed.’
‘Ah, that’s so nice of you to think and talk like that, Mr Hawthorn,’ Nora answered frankly; ‘but you won’t think so, you know, I’m quite certain, after you’ve been a month or two on shore over in Trinidad.’
‘Good-morning, ladies and gentlemen,’ the captain of the Severn put in briskly, walking up to them as they lounged in a group on the clean-scrubbed quarter-deck—‘good-morning, ladies and gentlemen. Fine weather to start on a voyage. Are you all going with us?—Why, bless my heart, if this isn’t General Ord! I sailed with you, sir, fifteen years ago now or more, must be, when I was a second officer in the P. and O. service.—You don’t remember me; no, I daresay not; I was only a second officer then, and you sat at the captain’s table. But I remember you, sir—I remember you. There’s more folks know Tom Fool, the proverb says, than Tom Fool knows; and no offence meant, general, nor none be taken. And so you’re going out with us now, are you?—going out with us now? Well, you’ll sit at the captain’s table still, sir, no doubt, you and your party; and as I’m the captain now, you see, why, I shall have a better chance than I used to have of making your acquaintance.’
The captain laughed heartily as he spoke at his own small wit; but General Ord drew himself up rather stiffly, and answered in a somewhat severe tone: ‘No, I’m not going out with you this journey myself; but my daughter, who has lately married, and her husband here, are just setting out to their new home over in Trinidad.’
‘In Trinidad,’ the jolly captain echoed heartily—‘in Trinidad! Well, well, beautiful island, beautiful, beautiful! Must mind they don’t take too much mainsheet, or catch yellow Jack, or live in the marshes, that’s all; otherwise, they’ll find it a delightful residence. I took out a young sub-lieutenant, just gazetted, last voyage but two, when they had the yellow Jack awfully bad up at cantonments. He was in a deadly funk of the fever all the way, and always asking everybody questions about it. The moment he landed, who does he go and meet but an old Irish friend of the family, who was going home by the return steamer. The Irishman rushes up to him and shakes his hand violently and says he—“Me dear fellow,” says he, “ye’ve come in the very nick of time. Promotion’s certain; they’re dying by thousands. Every day, wan of ’em drops off the list; and all ye’ve got to do is to hould yer head up, keep from drinking any brandy, and don’t be frightened; and, be George, ye’ll rise in no time as fast as I have; and I’m going home this morning a colonel.”’
The general shuddered slightly. ‘Not a pleasant introduction to the country, certainly,’ he answered in his driest manner. ‘But I suppose Trinidad’s fairly healthy at present?’
‘Healthy! Well, yes, well enough as the tropics go, general.—But don’t you be afraid of your young people. With health and strength, they’ll pull through decently, not a doubt of it.—Let me see—let me see; I must secure ’em a place at my own table. We’ve got rather an odd lot of passengers this time, mostly; a good many of ’em have got a very decided touch o’ the tar-brush about ’em—a touch o’ the tar-brush. There’s that woolly-headed nigger fellow over there who’s just come aboard; he’s going to Trinidad too; he’s a doctor, he is. We mustn’t let your people get mixed up with all that lot, of course; I’ll keep ’em a place nice and snug at my own table.’
‘Thank you,’ the general said, rather more graciously than before.—‘This is my daughter, captain, Mrs Hawthorn. And this is my son-in-law, Mr Edward Hawthorn, who’s going out to accept a district judgeship over yonder in Trinidad.’
‘Ha!’ the jovial captain answered in his bluff voice, doffing his hat sailor-fashion to Marian and Edward. ‘Going to hang up the niggers out in Trinidad, are you, sir? Going to hang up the niggers! Well, well, they deserve it all, every man-Jack of ’em, the lazy beggars; they all deserve hanging. A pestering set of idle, thieving, hulking vagabonds, as ever came around to coal a ship in harbour! I’d judge ’em, I would—I’d judge ’em.’ And the captain pantomimically expressed the exact nature of his judicial sentiments by pressing his own stout bull-neck, just across the windpipe, with his sturdy right hand, till his red and sunburnt face grew even redder and redder with the suggested suspension.
Edward smiled quietly, but answered nothing.
‘Well, sir,’ the captain went on as soon as he had recovered fully from the temporary effects of his self-inflicted strangulation, ‘and have you ever been in the West Indies before, or is this your first visit?’
‘I was born there,’ Edward answered. ‘I’m a Trinidad man by birth; but I’ve lived so long in England, and went there so young, that I don’t really recollect very much about my native country.’
‘Mr Hawthorn’s father you may know by name,’ the general said, a little assertively. ‘He is a son of the Honourable James Hawthorn, of Agualta Estate, Trinidad.’
The captain drew back for a moment with a curious look, and scanned Edward closely from head to foot with a remarkably frank and maritime scrutiny; then he whistled low to himself for a few seconds, and seemed to be ruminating inwardly upon some very amusing and unusual circumstance. At last he answered slowly, in a more reserved and somewhat embarrassed tone: ‘O yes, I know Mr Hawthorn of Agualta—know him personally; well-known man, Mr Hawthorn of Agualta. Member of the Legislative Council of the island. Fine estate, Agualta—very fine estate indeed, and has one of the largest outputs of rum and sugar anywhere in the whole West Indies.’
‘I told you so,’ Harry Noel murmured parenthetically. ‘The governor is coiny. They’re all alike, the whole breed of them. Secretiveness large, acquisitiveness enormous, benevolence and generosity absolutely undeveloped. When you get to Trinidad, my dear Teddy, bleed him, bleed him!’
‘Well, well, Mrs Hawthorn,’ the captain said gallantly to Marian, who stood by rather wondering what his sudden change of demeanour could possibly portend, ‘you shall have a seat at my table—certainly, certainly; you shall have a seat at my table. The general’s an old passenger of mine on the P. and O.; and I’ve known Mr Hawthorn of Agualta Estate ever since I first came upon the West India liners.—And the young lady, is she going too?’ For Captain Burford, like most others of his craft, had a quick eye for pretty faces, and he had not been long in picking out and noticing Nora’s.
‘This is Miss Dupuy of Orange Grove,’ Marian said, drawing her young companion a little forward. ‘Perhaps you know her father too, as you’ve been going so long to the island.’
‘What! a daughter of Mr Theodore Dupuy of Orange Grove and Pimento Valley,’ the captain replied briskly. ‘Mr Theodore Dupuy’s daughter! Lord bless my soul, Mr Theodore Dupuy! O yes, don’t I just know him! Why, Mr Dupuy’s one of the most respected and well-known gentlemen in the whole island. Been settled at Orange Grove, the Dupuys have, ever since the old Spanish occupation.—And so you’re taking out Mr Theodore Dupuy’s daughter, are you, Mrs Hawthorn? Well, well! Taking out Mr—Theodore Dupuy’s daughter. That’s a capital joke, that is.—O yes, you must all sit at the head of my table, ladies; and I’ll do everything that lies in my power to make you comfortable.’
Meanwhile, Edward and Harry Noel had strolled off for a minute towards the opposite end of the deck, where the mulatto gentleman was standing quite alone, looking down steadily into the deep-blue motionless water. As the captain moved away, Nora Dupuy gave a little start, and caught Marian Hawthorn’s arm excitedly and suddenly. ‘Look there!’ she cried—‘oh, look there, Marian! Do you see Mr Hawthorn? Do you see what he’s doing? That brown man over there, with the name on the portmanteau, has turned round and spoken to him, and Mr Hawthorn’s actually held out his hand and is shaking hands with him!’
‘Well,’ Marian answered in some surprise, ‘I see he is. Why not?’
‘Why not? My dear, how can you ask me such a question! Why, of course, because the man’s a regular mulatto—a coloured person.’
Marian laughed. ‘Really, dear,’ she answered, more amused than angry, ‘you mustn’t be so entirely filled up with your foolish little West Indian prejudices. The young man’s a doctor, and no doubt a gentleman in education and breeding, and, for my part, I can’t for the life of me see why one shouldn’t shake hands with him as well as with any other respectable person.’
‘Oh, but Marian, you know—a brown man!—his father and mother!—the associations—no, really!’
Marian smiled again. ‘They’re coming this way,’ she said; ‘we shall soon hear what they’re talking about. Perhaps he knows something about your people, or Edward’s.’
Nora looked up quite defiant. ‘About my people, Marian!’ she said almost angrily. ‘Why, what can you be thinking of! You don’t suppose, do you, that my people are in the habit of mixing casually with woolly-headed mulattoes?’
She had hardly uttered the harsh words, when the mulatto gentleman walked over towards them side by side with Edward Hawthorn, and lifted his hat courteously to Marian.
‘My wife,’ Edward said, as Marian bowed slightly in return: ‘Dr Whitaker.’
‘I saw your husband’s name upon his boxes, Mrs Hawthorn,’ the mulatto gentleman said with a pleasant smile, and in a soft, clear, cultivated voice; ‘and as my father has the privilege of knowing Mr Hawthorn of Agualta, over in Trinidad, I took the liberty of introducing myself at once to him. I’m glad to hear that we’re to be fellow-passengers together, and that your husband has really decided to return at last to his native island.’
‘Thank you,’ Marian answered simply. ‘We are all looking forward much to our life in Trinidad.’ Then, with a little mischievous twinkle in her eye, she turned to Nora. ‘This is another of our fellow-passengers, Dr Whitaker,’ she said demurely—‘my friend, Miss Dupuy, whom I’m taking out under my charge—another Trinidadian: you ought to know one another. Miss Dupuy’s father lives at an estate called Orange Grove—isn’t it, Nora?’
The mulatto doctor lifted his hat again, and bowed with marked politeness to the blushing white girl. For a second, their eyes met. Dr Whitaker’s looked at the beautiful half-childish face with unmistakable instantaneous admiration. Nora’s flashed a little angrily, and her nostrils dilated with a proud quiver; but she said never a word; she merely gave a chilly bow, and didn’t attempt even to offer her pretty little gloved hand to the brown stranger.
‘I have heard of Miss Dupuy’s family by name,’ the mulatto answered, speaking to Marian, but looking askance at the same time toward the petulant Nora. ‘Mr Dupuy of Orange Grove is well known throughout the island. I am glad that we are going to have so much delightful Trinidad society on our outward passage.’
‘Thank him for nothing,’ Nora murmured aside to Harry Noel, moving away as she spoke towards Mrs Ord at the other end of the vessel. ‘What impertinence! Marian ought to have known better than to introduce me to him.’
‘It’s a pity you don’t like the coloured gentleman,’ Harry Noel put in provokingly. ‘The appreciation is unfortunately not mutual, it seems. He appeared to me to be very much struck with you at first sight, Miss Dupuy, to judge by his manner.’
Nora turned towards him with a sudden fierceness and haughtiness that fairly surprised the easy-going young barrister. ‘Mr Noel,’ she said in a tone of angry but suppressed indignation, ‘how dare you speak to me so about that negro fellow, sir—how dare you? How dare you mention him and me in the same breath together? How dare you presume to joke with me on such a subject? Don’t speak to me again, pray. You don’t know what we West Indians are, or you’d never have ventured to utter such a speech as that to any woman with a single drop of West Indian blood in her whole body.’
Harry bowed silently and bit his lip; then, without another word, he moved back slowly toward the other group, and allowed Nora to join Mrs Ord by the door of the companion-ladder.
In twenty minutes more, the first warning bell rang for those who were going ashore, to get ready for their departure. There was the usual hurried leave-taking on every side; there was the usual amount of shedding of tears; there was the usual shouting and bawling, and snorting and puffing; and there was the usual calm indifference of the ship’s officers, moving up and down through all the tearful valedictory groups, as through an ordinary incident of humanity, experienced regularly every six weeks of a whole lifetime. As Marian and her mother were taking their last farewells, Harry Noel ventured once more timidly to approach Nora Dupuy and address a few parting words to her in a low undertone.
‘I’m sorry I offended you unintentionally just now, Miss Dupuy,’ he said quietly. ‘I thought the best apology I could offer at the moment was to say nothing just then in exculpation. But I really didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, and I hope we still part friends.’
Nora held out her small hand to him a trifle reluctantly. ‘As you have the grace to apologise,’ she said, ‘I shall overlook it. Yes, we part friends, Mr Noel; I have no reason to part otherwise.’
‘Then there’s no chance for me?’ Harry asked in a low tone, looking straight into her eyes, with a searching glance.
‘No chance,’ Nora echoed, dropping her eyes suddenly, but speaking very decidedly. ‘You must go now, Mr Noel; the second bell’s ringing.’
Harry took her hand once more, and pressed it faintly. ‘Good-bye, Miss Dupuy,’ he said—‘good-bye—for the present. I daresay we shall meet again before long, some day—in Trinidad.’
‘O no!’ Nora cried in a low voice, as he turned to leave her. ‘Don’t do that, Mr Noel; don’t come out to Trinidad. I told you it’d be quite useless.’
Harry laughed one of his most teasing laughs. ‘My father has property in the West Indies, Miss Dupuy,’ he answered in his usual voice of light badinage, paying her out in her own coin; ‘and I shall probably come over some day to see how the niggers are getting on upon it—that was all I meant. Good-bye—good-bye to you.’
But his eyes belied what he said, and Nora knew they did as she saw him look back a last farewell from the deck of the retreating little tender.
‘Any more for the shore—any more for the shore?’ cried the big sailor who rang the bell. ‘No more.—Then shove off, cap’n’—to the skipper of the tug-boat.
In another minute, the great anchor was heaved, and the big screw began to revolve slowly through the sluggish water. Next moment, the ship moved from her moorings and was fairly under weigh. Just as she moved, a boat with a telegraph-boy on board rowed up rapidly to her side, and a voice from the boat shouted aloud in a sailor’s bass: ‘Severn, ahoy!’
‘Ahoy!’ answered the ship’s officer.
‘Passenger aboard by the name of Hawthorn? We’ve got a telegram for him.’
Edward rushed quickly to the ship’s side, and answered in his loudest voice: ‘Yes. Here I am.’
‘Passenger aboard by the name of Miss Dupuy? We’ve got a telegram for her.’
‘This is she,’ Edward answered. ‘How can we get them?’
‘Lower a bucket,’ the ship’s officer shouted to a sailor.—‘You can put ’em in that, boy, can’t you?’
The men in the boat caught the bucket, and fastened in the letters rudely with a stone taken from the ballast at the bottom. The screw still continued to revolve as the sailors drew up the bucket hastily. A little water got over the side and wet the telegrams; but they were both still perfectly legible. Edward unfolded his in wondering silence, while Marian looked tremulously over his right shoulder. It contained just these few short words:
‘From Hawthorn, Trinidad, to Hawthorn, R.M.S. Severn, Southampton.—For God’s sake, don’t come out. Reasons by letter.’
Marian gazed at it for a moment in speechless surprise; then she turned, pale and white, to her husband beside her. ‘O Edward,’ she cried, looking up at him with a face of terror, ‘what on earth can it mean? What on earth can they wish us not to come out for?’
Edward held the telegram open before his eyes, gazing at it blankly in inexpressible astonishment. ‘My darling,’ he said, ‘my own darling, I haven’t the very remotest notion. I can’t imagine why on earth they should ever wish to keep us away from them.’
At the same moment, Nora held her own telegram out to Marian with a little laugh of surprise and amusement. Marian glanced at it and read it hastily. It ran as follows:
‘From Dupuy, Trinidad, to Miss Dupuy, R.M.S. Severn, Southampton.—Don’t come out till next steamer. On no account go on board the Severn.’