The Corsican Lovers

by Charles Felton Pidgin

Miss Enright was nearly thirty years of age, tall, thin, sallow, and with but few claims to personal beauty. She was a character, in a way. From her earliest years, Helen Enright had been a student. She loved to learn, and learned to love learning for its own sake. There were no colleges for women in those days, but her father was wealthy and she had been supplied with competent tutors in every line of study that she chose to undertake. She had a passion for mathematics. Her literary recreation was history, and there were few women of her age in England who could solve knotty mathematical problems or pass so severe an examination as she could have done in the history of England and the Continental countries.

The voyage had restored her strength, and she had evinced a desire to become acquainted with the technical details of the vessel which her father commanded, and with the principles of navigation. Her father’s duties were such that he could not devote the required time necessary to give her the desired instruction, so, at her suggestion, for her father usually allowed her to have her own way in everything, one of the officers was detailed to act as her tutor in seamanship. That officer was Lieutenant Victor Duquesne.

Miss Helen, of course, had met him before at the Naval Academy and at her father’s house, and was much pleased at his selection, for he had impressed her as being very handsome, very polite, and very dignified, and although she did not, as a rule, care much for the society of young men, on one occasion she found herself lamenting the fact that he was so young. Victor was but twenty-three. Perhaps the cause of her lamentation was the knowledge that she was seven years older than he, which, to her eminently practical mind, was an insuperable obstacle to an intimacy extending beyond the limits of—friendship.

It was late that morning when Jack arose and gazed out of his window and found that the quay was crowded with the inhabitants of Ajaccio. Jack’s first inclination was to join them. Then he reflected that Mr. Glynne would undoubtedly be there, and he wished to avoid all possibility of recognition until he had seen Bertha. He decided, therefore, to go downstairs and see if he could learn anything about the new arrival and the reason for the appearance of that formidable warship at that port. He found the landlord in a state of pleasurable excitement.

“What vessel is that in the bay?” inquired Jack.

“That,” answered the landlord, “is the British ship Osprey, commanded by Admiral Enright, and I have been notified that the Admiral, with his daughter and one officer, will dine at the hotel and possibly pass the night here.”

“The Osprey! Admiral Enright!” exclaimed Jack, excitedly. “Why, that is Victor’s ship. How fortunate!”

“What’s that?” inquired the landlord.

“Nothing,” answered Jack, abruptly. “I was only saying that I think I know one of the officers. What a dunce!” he commented to himself as he walked away, “but then I have been through so much since I parted from Victor, and then to think that my quest of Bertha should bring us both together again in this town! How strange! What a mighty little world this is, after all.”

He could scarcely contain himself, yet he felt that the only plan for him would be to await the arrival of the ship’s officers and ascertain if Victor was aboard. He did not wish to run the risk of meeting Mr. Glynne, so he returned to his room and passed the time in gazing out of the window toward the harbour, and in watching the crowd of people passing to and fro.