‘Where is Madeira?’ I asked Mrs. Lee.
‘It is in the Atlantic,’ she said smiling; ‘it is an island. Did not I tell you that I went there with Alice? Over and over again, before your memory left you, have you heard of Madeira. Is it possible that the image of an island does not occur to you when you pronounce the name of it?’ I hung my head. ‘I shall be glad,’ she continued, ‘when we have passed Madeira; for Alice will then be able to go on deck. The sun will be hot, and every day it will grow hotter; yet I dread the heat of the tropics. The fiery heat of that part of the sea often proves more injurious to very delicate invalids like Alice than excessive cold; and if we should be becalmed! That fear makes me wish I had chosen a steamer. And yet a steamer would have been too swift for our purpose.’
‘What do you mean by being becalmed?’ said I.
‘A ship is becalmed when the wind drops and leaves her motionless,’ she answered. ‘I have heard of a ship becalmed on the equator for six weeks at a time. Indeed, I wish I knew less about the sea than I do. The captains who called upon my husband were full of the ocean, and unsparing in their experiences. Imagine if we were to be for six weeks in a roasting calm under the almost vertical sun! It might kill Alice.’
I left the dinner table some considerable time before the passengers rose, and entered Alice Lee’s cabin. The girl reclined in an easy-chair with a shawl over her shoulders, and a skin upon her knees. The time was shortly after seven. In the east was a shadow of evening, but the brassy tinge of the glory of the sunset sank deep into that shadow, and flung a faint delicate complexion of rose upon the light that streamed through the eastward-facing porthole into the interior. In this weak light the sweet face of Alice Lee showed like a spirit as one thinks or dreams of such things.
She fondled my hand as she greeted me. ‘Bring that chair close beside me,’ she said; ‘and tell me how you have been passing the time.’
I seated myself beside her, and whilst she held my hand I brought a smile to her face by telling her of my conversation with Mr. Harris, the chief officer. And then I told her of what had passed in the captain’s cabin, and I also repeated Mrs. Webber’s ideas concerning my past.
We were uninterrupted. The evening in the east deepened into a bluish darkness, and through the cabin window I saw a large trembling star coming and going as the ship rolled. The berth was unlighted, but there was an opening over the doorway, and through this opening when the saloon lamps were burning there floated sheen enough to enable Alice and me to dimly discern each other’s faces.
She told me that she had added a few names to the list she had made out, and that, if I was willing, we would go through the whole of them next morning. And then having discoursed on various matters, our conversation, imperceptibly to myself—with such exquisite delicacy was the subject introduced by her—wandered into solemn subjects.
Shall I tell you what she said? My memory carries every word of it. I can open the book of my life, and betwixt the pages find the pressed flowers of that dear girl’s thoughts and teaching, and the perfume of those flowers is still so fresh, that never can they want life and colour and beauty whilst their sweet smell clings to them.