A French pilot was signalled for. After his coming the Princess steamed slower and ever slower eastward. By and by—Langrune already visible across the expanse of yellowish sea—it became observable that the vessel’s movement could scarce be felt by those on board. The skipper stood consulting with the pilot on the bridge, the figures of the men at the wheel were motionless. There was a simultaneous hush in everybody’s talk, a momentary tension of the breath at the thought of something happening! And then came the blank, unmistakable order, ‘Stop her!’ Before leaving Petersport wrong reckoning had been made as to the difference between the hour of ebb in Guernsey and along the coast of France; the skipper had no choice but to anchor. Would the passengers await the turn of the tide and deeper water, or land, by help of the boats, on some rocks within easy reach, and trust to getting ashore across a tract of wide wet sand as best they might?
The stout-nerved Guernsey girls, accustomed to scores of bigger adventures at sand-eeling parties and conger expeditions, laughed at the horrors of the position. With Cassandra Tighe as leader, these young women announced their determination of reaching the shore forthwith, though not dry-footed. Among the chaperons arose murmurs of contumacy. Poor Mrs. Verschoyle, a ghastly figure, emerging tremulously from the cabin, observed that she looked on all voluntary sea-going excursions as a tempting of Providence. With a spot like L’Ancresse Common, not three miles from Petersport—L’Ancresse Common, where one could have had the society of our excellent Archdeacon and of Madame Corbie—why, said Mrs. Verschoyle, with the acerbity of mortal digestive revolt—why put one’s self at the mercy of tides and pilots at all?
Old Dr. Thorne was flatly rebellious. There was good champagne on board the Princess, thought the Doctor. There were Burmese cheroots—a warm sun. There was the ultimate certainty of floating up with the tide.
‘If any one be at a loss how to pass the afternoon hours let him take a siesta, or inquire if the skipper have a pack of cards stowed away. You see the wisdom of my remarks, I am sure, Lin, do you not?’
‘I see the wisdom of them for you and me, my dear,’ said Lin, graciously. Under cover of a doubly-folded gauze veil, protected by rice powder, a parasol, a well-adjusted Indian shawl, Linda Thorne had at length committed herself to the cruel eye of noon. ‘My own election is to abide by Mrs. Verschoyle, whatever happens. I am afraid we shall hardly win over the young ones, Robbie, to our staid philosophy.’
‘If Rosie and the Miss de Carterets land I shall land,’ said Mrs. Verschoyle, with dreary resignation.
The poor little lady’s elder daughters were married. She had three girls in the schoolroom still. She had also boys. Chaperonage at balls and picnics, nursing of measles or scarlatina, love affairs, school bills, breakages, all came to Mrs. Verschoyle as the burthens of her widowed, many childrened lot—heavy burthens to be borne under sorrowful protest. ‘If the picnic had only been at L’Ancresse Common,’ she repeated, ‘we should have the Archdeacon and Madame Corbie with us, and need never have got wet shoes at all.’
A consultation with the skipper resulted in a general lowering of the boats. A quarter of an hour later the whole of the party, save the Doctor, were landed on the Smaller Cancale, a reef of rock separated by a mile of treacherous sands from terra firma, and upon whose limited area a crowd of Parisians of both sexes were fishing—no, were following ‘la pêche’ (the terms are not convertible)—after the guise and in the vestments sacred to the Parisian heart.
Mrs. Verschoyle sank down on the first slippery point of rock that presented itself, vainly wishing, little though she loved the steamer, that her maternal duties had allowed her to remain there with the Doctor and the sailors. Cassandra Tighe started off, the lightest-hearted of the party, perhaps, to hunt for zoophytes and molluscs among the tide pools. The younger people, all, pronounced themselves in favour of an exploring walk inland before dinner—all except Mrs. Thorne.
‘I mean to look after your mother, Rosie,’ said Linda, removing her double folds of gauze, as she took her place at the elder lady’s side. ‘Please let me indulge my Indian laziness. Some one, positively, ought to stay with dear Mrs. Verschoyle, and I like to be that some one. It makes me remember my queer old governess days to find myself among Parisians.’ Linda was prone to these little bursts of retrospective humility. ‘And then, there is my husband! Robbie, no doubt, will eventually drift up with the tide. Quite too charming to leave all us, sober elders, together.’