KENRICK’S RETURN.
In the dull dark days of November Mr. and Mrs. Dulcimer took their ward to Southampton, there to await her lover’s return. They were to spend a week at Culverhouse with Sir Kenrick, and then he was to go with them when they went back to Little Yafford. Mrs. Dulcimer had planned it all. If Kenrick was ailing still—though that was not likely, Mrs. Dulcimer said, after the sea voyage—Rebecca could nurse him. There was no beef tea like Rebecca’s, no such calves’ foot jelly.
They went to the Dolphin Hotel at Southampton, and Mr. Dulcimer at once descended upon the old book-shops in the High Street, like a vulture upon carrion—very much like a vulture, since he cared only for the dead. Mrs. Dulcimer took Beatrix for a gentle walk, which meant a contemplation of all the shop windows. Beatrix looked pale and out of spirits.
‘I know you are anxious about Kenrick,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer.
Beatrix blushed. Her conscience smote her for not being anxious enough about her wounded lover. Had it been Cyril thus returning, what agonies of hope and fear would have rent her breast! But it was only Kenrick, the man she had promised, out of simple gratitude and esteem, to marry. Her feeling about him, as the hour of their meeting drew nigh, was an ever-increasing dread.
The day came for the arrival of the steamer. The weather had been favourable, late as it was in the year, and the boat came into the docks on the very day she was expected. Mrs. Dulcimer and Beatrix had been walking on the platform for an hour in the afternoon, when the Vicar came bustling up to them.
‘The steamer is just coming in,’ he cried, and they were all hurried off to the docks.
There were a great many people, a crowd of anxious faces all looking towards the open water across which the big steamer was cleaving her steady way.
Who was that on the high bridge beside the captain, looking shoreward through a glass?
‘Kenrick,’ exclaimed Mr. and Mrs. Dulcimer simultaneously.