If Isola had any disinclination to visit Captain Hulbert’s yacht, her headache only served to defer the evil day, for after that first tea-drinking came other invitations and other arrangements, fishing-parties, luncheons off Mevagissey, entertainments in which Isola must needs share when she saw her husband and his sister bent upon the enjoyment of the hour, delighted with the Vendetta and her warm-hearted skipper.
They were not John Hulbert’s only friends in the neighbourhood. Everybody seemed glad to welcome the rover to his native village. Almost everybody had known him in his boyhood; and there was a general consensus of opinion that he was a much better fellow than his brother. He was less courted; but he was better liked. There had been a touch of cynicism about Lostwithiel which frightened matter-of-fact country people.
“One could never feel sure he wasn’t laughing in his sleeve at our rustic ignorance,” said Mrs. Baynham. “I am more at my ease with Captain Hulbert, and my husband and he were great friends when he was a boy. They used to go fishing together, when Baynham’s practice wasn’t as good as it is now.”
So the brief Indian summer passed in pleasant idlesse on a tranquil sea. The equinoctial gales had not begun to rage yet. There was a lull before the coming of the great winds which were to blow good ships on shore, and startle sleepers in the dead of night. All now was fair and placid—sunlit waters, golden evenings. They spent one bright, balmy day off Mevagissey, a day which was like a long dream to Isola, as she sat on deck in a low folding-chair, wrapped in a great feathery rug from the South Sea Islands, with her languid head reclining against a plush-covered cushion, one of the many effeminate luxuries which abounded in the cabins below. Everybody else was intent upon the nets. Everybody else was full of interest and movement and expectation; but she sat apart from all, with her ivory knitting-needles lying idle in her lap, amidst a soft mass of white wool, which her industry was to convert into a garment for the baby.
Allegra was enraptured with the yacht. She would fain have taken Isola down to the cabins, to explore their wonders of luxury and contrivance, so much comfort and elegance in so restricted an area; but Isola refused to leave the deck.
“I hate all cabins,” she said. “They are always suffocatingly hot.”
So Mrs. Baynham went below with Allegra, and they two explored the two principal cabins with wondering admiration, and even peeped into the cook’s galley, and the odd little places where steward and sailors contrived to bestow themselves.
The chief cabin, saloon, or whatever one liked to call it, was as daintily decorated as a lady’s boudoir. There were nests of richly bound books, Oriental bronzes, and all kinds of continental pottery, Japanese and Indian embroideries, Venetian mirrors, quaint little carved cupboards for wine or cigars. Every corner and cranny was utilized.
“What a delicious drawing-room!” cried Allegra. “I could live here all my life. Fancy, how delightful! A floating life. No such thing as satiety. One might open one’s eyes every morning on a fresh coast, glorified, as one sees it across the bright, blue water. To explore the Mediterranean, for instance, floating from city to city—the cities of the past, the cities of the Gospel, the shores that were trodden by the feet of St. Paul and his companions—the cities of the Christian saints and martyrs, the island birthplaces of Greek gods and heroes. Think, Mrs. Baynham! A yacht like this is a master-key to open all the gateways of the world.”