"I did not anticipate that we should have friends with us," murmured the new mistress. She felt truly uncomfortable, really sorry for the contretemps; all eyes were turned upon her, following the dark condemning ones of Richard.
"We must make the best of our beef; there are worse misfortunes at sea," said Isaac, his good-natured voice breaking the silence. "You will judge of our appetites better when you get more used to us," he added to my lady with a kind smile.
"I should think there is worse misfortunes at sea," observed Captain Copp, forgetting his grammar in his wish to smooth the unpleasantness. "Bless and save my wooden leg! if us sailors had such a glorious piece of beef to sit down to of a day on the long voyages, we should not hear quite so much of hardships. I remember once--it was the very voyage before the one when I saw that sea-serpent in the Pacific--our tins of preserved meat turned bad, and an awful gale we met washed away our live stock. Ah, you should have been with us then, Mr. Richard; you'd never despise a piece of prime beef again."
Richard vouchsafed no answer: he had been thoroughly vexed. Captain Copp, seated at my lady's right hand, asked her to take wine with him, and then took it with the table generally.
My lady got away as soon as she could: hardly knowing whether to resent the advent of the visitors, the free and easy hospitality that appeared to prevail at the Red Court, or her own mistake in not having provided better. With that dark resolute face of power in her mind--Richard's--instinct whispered her that it would not answer to draw the reins too tight. At any rate, she felt uncomfortable at the table, and quitted it.
Leaving Miss Thornycroft and mademoiselle to go where they pleased, she went up at once to her chamber: a roomy apartment facing the sea. By its side was a small dressing-room, or boudoir; with a pleasant window to sit at on a summer's day. It was night now, but my lady threw up the window, and remained at it. A mist was arising out at sea: not much as yet. She was musing on the state of affairs. Had she made a mistake in coming to the Red Court for life? Early days as yet to think so, but a doubt of it lay upon her spirit.
The subdued tones of the piano underneath were echoing to the beautiful touch of Mademoiselle Derode; the soft, light touch that she had not been able to impart to her pupil. Mary Anne Thornycroft's playing, though clear, brilliant, and good, was, like herself, firm and decisive. You never heard the low melodious music from her that charms the heart to sweet sadness, rather than wins the ear and the admiration.
Suddenly, as my lady stood listening and musing, a figure, very dim and shadowy, appeared on the edge of the plateau, and she strained her eyes on it with a start.
Not of fear; she had no superstition in her hard composition, and all she felt was curiosity--surprise. Mademoiselle Derode might have given utterance to a faint scream, and scuttered away where she could not see the plateau, in dread belief that the ghost was walking. My lady had the good sense to know that a figure, shadowy by this light, might be very substantial by daylight. All in a moment she lost sight of it. It appeared to be standing still on the plateau's edge, whether looking this way or over the sea, her far sight, remarkably keen, could not tell her, but as she looked the figure disappeared. It was gone, so, far as she could see; certainly it did not walk either to the right or the left. For a brief instant my lady wondered whether it had fallen over the cliff--as the poor coastguard-man had once done.
Footsteps underneath. Some one was crossing the garden, apparently having come from the direction of the plateau, and making for the solitary door in the dead wall at the unused end of the house; the end that she had been warned could not welcome ladies. TO her intense surprise she recognised her husband, but dressed differently from what he had been at dinner. The black frock coat (his usual attire) was replaced by one of common velveteen, the gaiters were buttoned over the pantaloons, the customary hat by a disreputable wide-awake. Where could he have been?--when she had thought him busy with his guests!