He seemed to have been struck dumb by the fury of her candour. His teeth were fastened upon his under lip, his cheek had grown pale.
"Will you leave this cabin," she said without turning, "and acquaint the first ship you meet with that you have a young gentlewoman on board who desires to be set ashore in England? I do not ask you," she continued, with the cutting sneer that was on her lip as plain in her voice as though her face was visible to him, "to return this ship and her contents to their lawful owner. But if you suppose that you are going to gain me by keeping me a prisoner in this den, if you imagine that all the horror which my soul can feel for a wicked, unscrupulous man is not likely to be with me in all thoughts of you that come to me with your presence, or fill me with madness when I am alone, then better for you if you should go to the stack of muskets which is in the cabin, load one and shoot yourself."
And clapping her hands as though she was in the box of a theatre ravished by some transcendently fine performance, she once more delivered herself of the maniac laugh which had curdled Paul's blood and which though ringing from lips, though proceeding from a face hidden from him, seemed to strike Mr Lawrence as nothing which she had spoken had, and save but for the swaying of the ship he stood as motionless as a statue facing another statue whose back was turned to him.
CHAPTER XII MR LAWRENCE REFLECTS
When Mr Lawrence found that nothing he could say, nothing he could implore, nothing he could entreat his companion to forgive, provoked Lucy into looking round from the window through which she gazed at the sea, nor caused her to alter her posture, which curiously suggested with dramatic art that she was alone, that the man was gone, that she was engrossed by thoughts of her own, he withdrew. After closing the door he seemed to hesitate over turning the key, but turned it nevertheless and pocketed it as before.
The cabin was empty. Mr Pledge was again superintending work forward. Mr Eagle kept the look-out. This was the ship's first day from home. The watches had not been set, and it would be "all hands" with the ship's company until the second dog-watch came round. The vessel swayed on the heave of the swell with the ponderosity, you would have looked for in one of her mould. She creaked in every timber. She pitched rapidly, albeit the blue afternoon hollow was very shallow, but the sullenness of the sturdy round bows was in her longwise motion. If Lucy meant to be sea-sick she was neglecting her chance, for here was movement more fitted to discompose the land-going stomach than the lofty billow that is swung by the storm. But so far this sweet and amazing young lady had proved herself as good a sailor as Mr Lawrence himself.
Whilst he stood in reflection at the cabin table, the steward Paul came down the steps bearing a tray of refreshments so prettily decorated as to prove that the ship's cook had been chosen with judgment. The pyramid of sandwiches might have kindled a light in the dulled eye of one lying oppressed with nausea. In addition were a plate of cold tongue, a small plate of brawn, with two or three other delicacies. On the tray stood a bottle of red wine and a tumbler. Mr Lawrence told Paul, handing him the key as he gave him the directions, to take the tray to Miss Acton, place it on the table in perfect silence, and quit the cabin, making no answer if she spoke to him. When this was done and the key received by Mr Lawrence, he took a tumbler from a rack out of the skylight and entered the berth which under the name of "sick-bay" had been fitted up for his own use. Here he contrived to find a bottle of brandy, a small caulker of which without water he swallowed.
This interior presented a very inhospitable look; its rough-hewn bunks might have been intended for the accommodation of prisoners. The deck was without carpet. Indeed the only colour or warmth which this melancholy hole presented to the eye or the mind was to be found in such wearing apparel as swung from hooks, in Mr Lawrence's sea-chest, in the nautical instruments, in the shelves with their little burden of tin box, a few books, and so forth.