“I have felt the same, but we must not be selfish. Besides, we agreed that they ought to associate with the passengers during the voyage.”
Sir Gordon’s face grew full of puckers, as he drew out and lit a cheroot, which he smoked in silence, while Bayle went to the side and gazed at the black water, spangled with the reflected stars that burned above in the vast bejewelled arch of heaven.
“I don’t like it,” muttered Sir Gordon to himself, “and I don’t understand Bayle. No,” he continued after a pause, “I cannot ask him that. Time settles all these matters, and it will settle this.”
From where he sat he could, by turning his head, gaze beneath the awning looped up like some great marquee. Here, by the light of the shaded lamps, the passengers and officers gathered night after night as they sailed on through the tropics. At times there would be a dance, more often the little tables would be occupied by players at some game, while first one lady and then another would take her place at the piano.
There were other eyes beside Sir Gordon’s watching beneath the awning, and a signal would be given by a low whistle whenever Julia was seen to approach the instrument. Then a knot of the soldiers and sailors would collect to listen to her clear thrilling voice as she sang some sweet old-time ballad. It was always Philip Eaton who pressed her to sing, led her to the piano, and stood over her, holding a lamp or turning over the leaves. He it was, too, who was the first to applaud warmly; and often and often from where he leaned over the bulwarks listening, too, Bayle could see the ingenuous girlish face look up with a smile at the handsome young officer, who would stay by her side afterwards perhaps the greater part of the evening, or he would lead her to where Captain Otway was lolling back, talking to Mrs Captain Otway, a handsome, fashionable-looking woman, who seemed to win her way day by day more and more to the friendship of Millicent Hallam.
At such times Sir Gordon would sit alone and fume, while Bayle watched the black, starlit water, closing his eyes when Julia sang or Mrs Hallam played some old piece, that recalled the doctor’s cottage at King’s Castor.
Afterwards he would turn his head and look beneath the awning sadly—the warm, soft glow of the swinging lamp lighting up face after face, which then seemed to fade away into the shadow.
He was strangely affected at such times. Now it was the present, and they were at sea; anon it seemed that he was leaning over the rustic seat in the doctor’s garden, and that was not the awning and the quarterdeck, but the little drawing-room with the open windows. Time had not glided on; and in a curious, dreamy fashion, that did not seem to be Julia, the child he had taught, but Millicent; and that was not Lieutenant Eaton leaning over her, but Robert Hallam.
Then one of the shadows on the awning would take a grotesque resemblance to little Miss Heathery, to help out the flights of fancy; and Bayle would listen for the tinkling notes of the piano again, and feel surprised not to hear a little bird-like voice piping “Gaily the troubadour.”
Next there would be a burst of merry conversation, and perhaps a laugh; and as Bayle turned his head again to gaze half wonderingly, the lamp-light would fall, perhaps, upon the faces of mother and daughter, the centre of the group near the piano.