CHAPTER XXII LINDA AS AN ART CRITIC
Wednesday morning’s sun rose cloudless. A few persistent fog wreaths lay, even as the day advanced, to leeward of the islands. There was an undue ground-swell, although the surface of the water glistened, smooth as oil, when the high spring tide began to flow in from the Atlantic. None but an inveterate croaker could, however, prophesy actual mischief from signs so trivial. Lord Rex Basire declared aloud—certain of his guests arriving not as the time for departure drew nigh—that the day must have been manufactured expressly for the subaltern’s picnic. No wind, no sea, a nicely-tempered sun above one’s head, a favourable tide—‘What more,’ asked Lord Rex, ‘especially if one add the item of a powerful steamer, could the never satisfied heart of woman require?’
The heart of the most Venerable woman in the island required that there should be neither ground-swell nor fog-bank. At the eleventh hour came an excuse, on the score of weather, from Madame Corbie. The post of chaperon-in-chief stood vacant. Happily for the youthful hosts, Rosie Verschoyle’s mother was faithful—a little white passive lady, accustomed to the iron rule of grown-up daughters, who only stipulated that she should lie down, within reach of smelling-salts, before leaving Guernsey harbour, and neither be spoken to nor looked at until they arrived in smooth water off the coast of France. Old Cassandra, in her scarlet cloak, was to the fore, with cans for fish, with crooks for sea-weed, with a butterfly-net, with stoppered bottles—Cassandra, burthened by a sole regret—that she had left her harp behind. If these young people had wished, in mid ocean, to dance, how willingly would Cassandra have harped to them! Doctor Thorne and his Linda were punctual; so were the trio of pretty de Carteret sisters whom poor Mrs. Verschoyle, according to a trite figure of speech, was to ‘look after.’ And still Rex Basire glanced vainly along the harbour road for the only guests concerning whose advent he cared. The steam was up; the skipper stood ready on the bridge. In another ten minutes the Princess of necessity must quit her moorings, and still the sunshine of Dinah Arbuthnot’s face was wanting.
‘You look frightfully careworn, Lord Rex,’ said Rosie Verschoyle with malicious intonation, as she followed the direction of his glances. Pray, has your lobster salad not arrived? Is your ice melting? Or does some anxiety even yet more tragic disturb your peace?’
‘There they are—no, by Jove! only the men. Twelve feet two of the Arbuthnot cousins!’ exclaimed Lord Rex, with frank disrespect of Rosie’s sympathy. ‘Is it possible Mrs. Arbuthnot can have thrown us over? The thought is too atrocious!’
The tall figures of Gaston and Geoffrey—twelve feet two of the Arbuthnot cousins—were descending by quick strides the stepway that forms a short cut from the High Town of Petersport to the quay. Before Rex Basire’s disappointment had had time to formulate itself more coherently a clatter of ponies’ hoofs, a rush of wheels, made themselves heard round the corner of the adjacent harbour road. A few instants later and the welcomest sight the world could, just then, have offered to Lord Rex was before him: Marjorie Bartrand, in her pony carriage, and at Marjorie’s side, fairer than all summer mornings that ever dawned, the blushing lovely face of Dinah Arbuthnot.
‘Have we to apologise? Are we really behind our time?’ cried Gaston, as Lord Rex came forward to welcome them at the gangway. ‘It has been a case of the fox and the goose and the bunch of grapes. My wife would not start without Miss Bartrand; Geff would not start without my wife. I was not allowed to start alone. The most delightful weather!—and the most delightful party,’ added Gaston, looking at the sunlit world around him with his pleasantest expression. ‘Miss Verschoyle, the Miss de Carterets—Marjorie Bartrand! Why, all the pretty faces in Guernsey are assembled on board the Princess!’
The four or five hours that followed were hours destined to be marked with a red letter in the calendar of Dinah’s life. She felt the youth at her heart, enjoyed the salt freshness of the morning, entered into the mirth and spirit of the expedition like a child. Gaston’s conduct was unexceptionable. Before they had quitted the harbour he took his place beside his wife—jotting down each new effect of sky or wave or passing fishing-boat in his note-book. He remained beside her throughout the voyage. The pretty island girls, capital sailors all of them, chatted in picturesque twos and threes with their bachelor hosts. Lord Rex Basire devoted himself, with a show of perfect impartiality, to every one.
If this was growing used to the perils of a factitious world, the first plunge into a social vortex where more neophytes sink than swim, Dinah found the process distinctly pleasant. And I am afraid the thought of Linda, effaced for once, in grim earnestness, by all-effacing sea-sickness down below, failed to take the edge off Mrs. Gaston Arbuthnot’s enjoyment.
Herm, with its fringe of shell-spangled sands, was soon left behind. The high table-land of Sark became a fairy-like vision, hanging suspended, as on Mahomet’s thread, between heaven and sea, ere it vanished out of ken. After an hour’s steady steaming Alderney’s tall cliffs were sighted through the haze; and then, shortly before one, the south-west swell gave signs of lessening. The Princess was to leeward of the Point of Barfleur, and lunch, served after a desultory and scrambling fashion, began to find hearty welcome among the watchers on deck.