‘And why did you do that?’
‘God knows,’ said the sailor.
The sound of the piano checked their conversation, as a young lady with a roving eye was, after much persuasion, beginning to play a selection of operatic airs. To talk during music was not a habit of Lady Eliza’s, so the two sat silent until the fantasia had ended in an explosion of trills and a chorus of praise from the listeners.
‘Is that your daughter?’ she inquired; ‘I move so seldom from my place that I know very few people here.’
‘Heaven forbid, ma’am! That’s my Lucy standing by the tea-table.’
‘You don’t admire that kind of music?’
‘If anyone had presumed to make such a noise on any ship of mine, I’d have put ’em in irons,’ said Captain Somerville.
They both laughed, and Lady Eliza’s look rested on Cecilia, who had been forced into the velvet chair, and sat listening to Barclay as he stood before her making conversation. Her eyes softened.
‘What do you think of my girl?’ she said.
‘I have only seen one to match her,’ replied the old man, ‘and that was when I was a midshipman on board the flagship nearly half a century ago. It was at a banquet in a foreign port where the fleet was being entertained. She was the wife of some French grandee. Her handkerchief dropped on the floor, and when I picked it up she gave me a curtsey she might have given the King, though I was a boy more fit to be birched at school than to go to banquets. Another young devil, a year or two my senior, said she had done it on purpose for the flag-lieutenant to pick up instead of me; he valued himself on knowing the world.’