The early morning saw the party afloat again on the bay, under all the sail their boat would carry, making straight for Lippenstock, and in the best of spirits. Even Peter Wilkie was gay; there was breakfast in prospect, and a bath, at Lippenstock. As for the others, the present was enough, and they did not waste thought upon the future: cutting smoothly through the glassy tide which babbled at their prow, fanned by cool airs, and seated where it was best to be, exchanging short sentences in undertones, with long and pleasant gaps of silence in between. If any brow betrayed a line of discontent, it was Blount's. Things had not ended altogether as he had hoped or wished. When he had hired Jake and his boat, he had thought that perhaps he should meet Margaret wandering by herself, that he might persuade her to an elopement, and sail away; and this was all which had come of it. They were sailing, indeed, but the "away" was only for Margaret, while he, "poor devil," as he told himself with deep compassion, must stay behind at Lippenstock. However, there would be other chances, more excursions and merrymakings at which he might surreptitiously assist, and some time win his point. She was worth it, as he told himself, lying gazing up in her face, while her eyes roved idly across the dancing water; and even if it should come to her mother's ears that he had been on the island that night, the news would aid his hopes, rather than hinder. It would incite her to worry the girl worse than ever, and Margaret was not of the kind to be worried for long. There was the look in her nostril of one who could take the bit in her teeth and bolt, if fretted too far by injudicious reining.
Rose and Joseph sat behind the other two, Rose calmly, even impassively perhaps, accepting the assiduous little cares of which it seemed as if Joseph could not lavish enough. At last he took her hand, lying nerveless on her lap, and began to examine it.
"Take off your glove, dearest," he whispered; "I want to measure your finger. How can I feel secure of this treasure I so little deserve, till I have fettered it with a link? When I see my ring upon your hand, I shall feel better assured that we are indeed engaged."
There came a line of faint contraction between her eyebrows, which was scarcely a frown. It may have been mere impatience, or perhaps it was dread or remorse.
"Not now," she said abruptly, withdrawing her hand and looking away to the harbour, which was wearing near. "My glove is tight; my hands feel hot and swollen this morning. Another time," and drew a quick short breath which seemed half a sob. Then turning round to him, as though she feared he might feel vexed, she added, with a doubtful smile, "There's time enough, you know. We shall be at the wharf before I could draw it on again;" and then, hurried and constrained, plunged into voluble expression of such commonplaces as occurred to her.
Joseph felt chilled, though he told himself there was no ground for feeling so. It seemed as if the first thin cloud had come between him and the sun, the sun so lately risen, in whose beams he had been warming his poor starved heart. He had little to answer to the commonplaces; they ran themselves out ere long, and both were lapsing into silence when they reached the shore.
The party of four which drove from Lippenstock was not a very talkative one; in fact, if the truth were told, all were more or less sleepy. The hour was still on the early side of noon; but when the day begins between three o'clock and four, for persons whose waking hour is seven--when those persons, instead of breaking their fast when they get up, spend hours in the keen morning air and on the water before breakfast, a heaviness supervenes, and the system of the individual makes it late in the day, however early be the time which the clock may indicate. Wilkie, as was not unnatural, began to feel the expedition something of a bore. He had not been admired so much by the ladies, or consulted by the men, as to compensate for irregular meals or hours, and indifferent repose on the open shore. Margaret had parted from Walter, and for her the pleasure was over--something to remember and think about, but all of the past. Rose was pensive and very still, though it did not appear from her behaviour of what nature were her thoughts. Joseph was yet under the influence of that chilling sensation which had fallen on him in the boat--a creeping melancholy which stole on him in spite of every consideration which good sense could suggest, the reaction perhaps from his transports of the night before. He found himself sinking into despondent broodings, from which every now and then he would awaken with a start, and tip up his horses with an unnecessary flick of the whip. How much these dumb servants have to bear from the wayward moods of their masters, and how many an unmerited cut descends upon their patient sides!
Rose spent the remainder of the morning in her room, sitting listless and despondent where she had sunk on entering it. There was no eye present before whom she must hang out the veils and disguises of conventional life. Her head hung forward on her breast, her hands lay folded on her lap. The light had faded from her eyes, her features were drawn and set, and she looked as unlike a promised bride, a woman who, of her own free will, has accepted an offer of marriage, as it was possible to imagine.
The man was all she could desire, she told herself. The disparity in their years did not once present itself to her mind. She felt very friendly to him, liked him, respected him; but she could not love. "Could she ever love any one?"--that was the miserable thought which rose before her mind; and she was no inexperienced maid whose heart still sleeps, to fool herself into the belief that such liking as hers was the mysterious visitant she had read about in books, and awaited to descend and stir the waters of her being. It was duty, not love, which she was taking to her breast. She knew it, and looked forward to her life in the greyness of the coming years with an overflowing sense of pity. But she did not falter or think of drawing back. No; she would go on with it, and do her duty, and no one should ever know. But it was pitiful, all the same; though it must be--for she would have it so. Here in her solitary chamber there needed no disguise; and she looked hopelessly around her, wondering if there could be any escape, or if this weary part she was undertaking to play would last for long. It might last for fifty years, she thought, looking down at her hands. How shapely and strong they looked--so firm, and with so full a tide of vigorous life tingling in every pulse! And the ring--she remembered the morning's episode in the boat. It was not there yet; the jeweller had not begun to make it. How it would scorch, that little hoop of gold and brilliants, and confine and shackle her! There was respite for the present, but it would not be for long--and she scarcely desired that it should be.
The gong sounded sooner than she could have believed. She must go down and face the world again, and play her part; but there was consolation even in this. It showed how quickly time could wear away. The years, be they ever so grey, would run their course with the same even and imperceptible current, and there would be an end at last. She rose to resume the armour of conventional life. She bathed her temples, smoothed her hair before the glass, and arrayed herself as usual; and when the next gong sounded, she was once more her ordinary self--bright, proud, and confident, without a sign of care, or seemingly a wish left unfulfilled.