"It's dejeuner, I think," said I, scarce able to speak for laughing.
"Ay, that'll be it," cried the captain. "Well, as Mr. and Mrs. Barclay don't relish the notion of a public degener, we must drink their healths in a bottle of champagne."
He put his head out of the cabin and called to the steward, who brought the wine, and for hard upon half an hour my poor darling and I had to listen to speeches from old Parsons and the lawyer. Even M'Cosh must talk. In slow and rugged accents he invited us to consider how fortunate we were in having fallen into the hands of Captain Parsons. Had he been master of the Carthusian there could have been no marriage, for he would not have known what to do. He had received a valuable professional hint that morning, and he begged to thank Captain Parsons for allowing him to be present on so interesting an occasion.
This said, the proceedings ended. Mrs. Barstow, passing Grace's hand under her arm, carried her off to her cabin, and I, accepting a cigar from the captain's box, went on deck to smoke it and to see if there was anything in sight likely to carry us home.
A number of passengers approached with smiling faces, guessing the wedding over, but they speedily perceived that I was in no temper for talking, and were good-natured enough to leave me to myself. Even Mr. Tooth, who promised to become a bore, carried his jokes and his grins to another part of the deck in a very short while, and I leaned against the rail, cigar in mouth, lost in thought, casting looks at the sea, or directing my eyes over the side where the white water, in a wide and throbbing sheet, was racing past.
Married! Could I believe it? If so—if I was indeed a wedded man, then, I suppose, never in the annals of love-making could anything stranger have happened than that a young couple, eloping from a French port, should be blown out into the ocean and there united, not by a priest, by but a merchant skipper. And supposing the marriage to be valid, as Mr. Higginson, after due deliberation, had declared such ocean wedding ceremonies as this to be, and supposing when we arrived ashore, Lady Amelia Roscoe, despite Grace's and my association and the ceremony which had just ended, should continue to withhold her sanction, thereby rendering it impossible for my cousin to marry us, might not an exceedingly fine point arise—something to put the wits of the lawyers to their trumps, in the case of her ladyship or me going to them? I mean this: that seeing that our marriage took place at sea, seeing, moreover, that we were in a manner urged, or, as I might choose to put it, compelled by Captain Parsons to marry—he assuming, as master of the ship, the position of guardian to the girl, and as her guardian exhorting and hurrying us to this union for her sake—would not the question of Lady Amelia Roscoe's consent be set aside, whether on the grounds of the peculiarity of our situation, or because it was impossible for us to communicate with her, or because the commander of the ship, a person in whom is vested the most despotic powers, politely, hospitably, but substantially, too, ordered us to be married? I cannot put the point as a lawyer would, but I trust I make intelligible the thoughts which occupied my mind as I stood on the decks of the Carthusian after quitting the captain's cabin.
About twenty minutes later, Grace arrived, accompanied by Mrs. Barstow. My darling did not immediately see me, and I noticed the eager way in which she stood for some moments scanning the bright and leaping scene of ocean. The passengers raised their hats to her, one or two ladies approached and seemed to congratulate her; she then saw me, and in a moment was at my side.
"How long is this to last, Herbert?"
"At any hour something may heave in sight, dearest."
"It distresses me to be looked at. And yet, it is miserable to be locked up in Mrs. Barstow's cabin, where I am unable to be with you."