Edward smiled quietly, but answered nothing.
‘Well, sir,’ the captain went on as soon as he had recovered fully from the temporary effects of his self-inflicted strangulation, ‘and have you ever been in the West Indies before, or is this your first visit?’
‘I was born there,’ Edward answered. ‘I’m a Trinidad man by birth; but I’ve lived so long in England, and went there so young, that I don’t really recollect very much about my native country.’
‘Mr Hawthorn’s father you may know by name,’ the general said, a little assertively. ‘He is a son of the Honourable James Hawthorn, of Agualta Estate, Trinidad.’
The captain drew back for a moment with a curious look, and scanned Edward closely from head to foot with a remarkably frank and maritime scrutiny; then he whistled low to himself for a few seconds, and seemed to be ruminating inwardly upon some very amusing and unusual circumstance. At last he answered slowly, in a more reserved and somewhat embarrassed tone: ‘O yes, I know Mr Hawthorn of Agualta—know him personally; well-known man, Mr Hawthorn of Agualta. Member of the Legislative Council of the island. Fine estate, Agualta—very fine estate indeed, and has one of the largest outputs of rum and sugar anywhere in the whole West Indies.’
‘I told you so,’ Harry Noel murmured parenthetically. ‘The governor is coiny. They’re all alike, the whole breed of them. Secretiveness large, acquisitiveness enormous, benevolence and generosity absolutely undeveloped. When you get to Trinidad, my dear Teddy, bleed him, bleed him!’
‘Well, well, Mrs Hawthorn,’ the captain said gallantly to Marian, who stood by rather wondering what his sudden change of demeanour could possibly portend, ‘you shall have a seat at my table—certainly, certainly; you shall have a seat at my table. The general’s an old passenger of mine on the P. and O.; and I’ve known Mr Hawthorn of Agualta Estate ever since I first came upon the West India liners.—And the young lady, is she going too?’ For Captain Burford, like most others of his craft, had a quick eye for pretty faces, and he had not been long in picking out and noticing Nora’s.
‘This is Miss Dupuy of Orange Grove,’ Marian said, drawing her young companion a little forward. ‘Perhaps you know her father too, as you’ve been going so long to the island.’
‘What! a daughter of Mr Theodore Dupuy of Orange Grove and Pimento Valley,’ the captain replied briskly. ‘Mr Theodore Dupuy’s daughter! Lord bless my soul, Mr Theodore Dupuy! O yes, don’t I just know him! Why, Mr Dupuy’s one of the most respected and well-known gentlemen in the whole island. Been settled at Orange Grove, the Dupuys have, ever since the old Spanish occupation.—And so you’re taking out Mr Theodore Dupuy’s daughter, are you, Mrs Hawthorn? Well, well! Taking out Mr—Theodore Dupuy’s daughter. That’s a capital joke, that is.—O yes, you must all sit at the head of my table, ladies; and I’ll do everything that lies in my power to make you comfortable.’
Meanwhile, Edward and Harry Noel had strolled off for a minute towards the opposite end of the deck, where the mulatto gentleman was standing quite alone, looking down steadily into the deep-blue motionless water. As the captain moved away, Nora Dupuy gave a little start, and caught Marian Hawthorn’s arm excitedly and suddenly. ‘Look there!’ she cried—‘oh, look there, Marian! Do you see Mr Hawthorn? Do you see what he’s doing? That brown man over there, with the name on the portmanteau, has turned round and spoken to him, and Mr Hawthorn’s actually held out his hand and is shaking hands with him!’