"Are these the famous white cliffs of England?" she said to the captain, for she rarely addressed herself unnecessarily to me. "Why they are but one quarter of the height of those of St. Valéry that I saw from the cabin window last night."
The captain, a simple man, sought to prove that England had counterbalancing advantages. He knew not that in certain humours a woman will find fault with anything. I thought that Mademoiselle took exception to the poor cliffs because they were those of my native land.
Madame proved more amenable to reason, however, and the captain, whose knowledge of French was not great, made an easier convert of her than of Lucille, who spoke English prettily enough, while her mother knew only the one tongue.
"There is bad weather coming," said the captain to me later in the day. "And I wish the tide served for Lowestoft harbour earlier than ten o'clock."
We anchored just astern of the coast-service gunboat, and a few hundred yards south of the pier at Lowestoft, awaiting the rise of the tide. At eleven o'clock we moved in, and passing through the dock into the river, anchored there for the night. I gave Madame the choice of passing the night on board and going ashore to the hotel, as it was too late to drive to Hopton. She elected to remain on board.
As ill fortune would have it, the evil weather foreseen by the captain came upon us in the night, and daylight next morning showed a grey and hopeless sea, with lowering clouds and a slantwise rain driving across all. The tide was low when the ladies came on deck, and the muddy banks of the river looked dismal enough, while the flat meadowland stretched away on all sides into a dim and mournful perspective of mist and rain.
The Hopton carriage was awaiting us at the landing-stage, and to those unaccustomed to such work the landing in a small boat no doubt presented difficulties and dangers of which we men took no account. The streets of Lowestoft were sloppy and half-deserted as we drove through them. A few fishermen in their oilskins seemed to emphasise the wetness and dismalness of England as they hurried down to the harbour in their great sea-boots. On the uplands a fine drizzle veiled the landscape, and showed the gnarled and sparse trees to small advantage.
Lucille sat with close-pressed lips and looked out of the streaming windows. There were unshed tears in her eyes, and I grimly realised the futility of human effort. All my plans had been frustrated by a passing rain.
At home, however, I found all comfortable enough, and fires alight in the hall and principal rooms.
It was late in the day that I came upon Lucille alone in the drawing-room. She was looking out of the window across the bleak table-land to the sea.