John Bloundelle-Burton - The Seafarers

Then she greeted him warmly, saying all the pleasant little words of welcome that a woman whose heart goes in unison with her good breeding knows how to say; and made him welcome. Yet, as she did so, she observed that he was graver, more sad, it seemed to her, than she had ever remarked before.

'You are not ill?' she asked, as this fact became more and more apparent to her. 'Surely, you, a sailor, have not come back from the sea unwell? At least I hope not.'

'No,' he said, 'no. Nor, I hope, do I seem so. Do you know that, besides any desire to call and see you, I came for another purpose?' and now his eyes rested on her with so strange a light-so mournful, deep a light-that in a moment her woman's instinct told her what he meant as plainly as though his voice had done so.

Like a flash of lightning, that instinct revealed to her the fact that this man loved her; that, from the moment they had parted, months ago, she had never been absent from his mind. She knew it; she was certain she was right-she could not be deceived! Then to herself she said: 'Heaven help him-Heaven prevent him from telling me so.'

But aloud, her heart full of pity, she said: 'Indeed,' and smiled bravely on him while she spoke. 'Indeed, what was that purpose?'

'To congratulate you. To-

'Congratulate me!'

'Yes. I met the Emperor of the Moon at Capetown. We were both homeward bound. And-and-your uncle told me the news. I offer my congratulations now.' Yet, as he said the words, she saw that his face was turned a little aside so that she could not perceive his eyes. Congratulations! Well, they might be sincere in so far as that, because he loved her, he wished her well and desired that she should be happy, but-but-otherwise-no! it was not to be thought upon.

As he said the words: 'I congratulate you,' he followed an old custom-one more foreign than English-and held out his hand, taking hers. And he kept it, too, fast in his own, while he said in the voice that his struggles with the elements had made so deep and sonorous:

'Yes, I congratulate you. I must do that. To-to-see you happy-to know you are so, is all that I have-all-I hope for now. Yet there is no treachery to him in what I say. Heaven help me! I mean none-but-but-I-from the first-I have lo-'

'No, no,' she murmured, striving to withdraw her hand, yet not doing so angrily. 'No, no. Don't say it, Mr. Charke. Don't, pray don't.' And, now, neither could he see her eyes nor her averted face. 'Don't say it. You do not desire to make me unhappy?' she murmured.

'Never, as God hears me. But-I have said it. I had to say it. Goodbye.'

'Goodbye,' she said-and then, as he neared the door, she turned once and looked at him with eyes that were full of intense pity and compassion.

Events are now drawing near to that night when Bella was to have those distressing dreams which have been mentioned at the opening of this narrative; all was arranged for her departure to Bombay. A little more, and she will be on her way to India and to wedlock.

Yet all had not been quite easy and smooth in the settlement of affairs. At first, Mrs. Waldron, good, loving mother though she was, and fully cognisant of the facts-namely, that Bella loved Lieutenant Bampfyld madly and would be an unhappy woman if she did not become his wife long ere three years had passed, and that the match which her child was about to make was undoubtedly a brilliant one-refused to hear of such a thing as that she should go out to him.

'If you are worth having,' she said, when first the proposal was submitted to her, 'you are surely worth coming for.' And, since this was a truism, it was hardly to be gainsaid. Yet, as we know by now, she had been won over by her daughter's pleadings and entreaties; by, too, the plain and undeniable fact that there was not the slightest possibility of Lieutenant Bampfyld being able to come home to marry her, or to return to England in any way-short of being invalided-until the Briseus herself returned.

Then, no sooner had this difficulty been surmounted than another reared its head before mother and daughter. How was she to go out to Bombay alone and unprotected? A young married woman, who had to proceed to India to join her husband, might very well undertake such a journey, but not a young single woman such as Bella was, while for chaperon or protectress there was no one forthcoming. At first, it is true, Mrs. Waldron had meditated accompanying Bella herself (she being an old sailor, to whom long sea voyages were little more than railway journeys are to some more stay-at-home ladies); only, down in the depths of her nature, which was an extremely refined one, there was some voice whispering to her that it would be indelicate to thus bring her daughter out in pursuit of her affianced husband. It is true, however, that authorities on social etiquette who have since been consulted have averred that this was a false feeling which was in possession of Mrs. Waldron's mind; but be that as it may, it existed. Then, too, she still regarded the matter of her child going to her future husband, instead of that husband coming to fetch her, as one of particular delicacy; one of such nicety as to permit of no elaboration; and she resolved that, come what might-even though she should have to purchase, or hire rather, the services of an elderly and austere travelling companion-she must not herself accompany Bella.

'Heaven knows what is to be done,' she said to her daughter, as they discussed the important point, 'but I suppose it will come to that'; the 'that' meaning the hired chaperon. Then she sighed a little, remembering how the late Captain Waldron had encompassed thousands of miles in a voyage which he made from the Antipodes to espouse her.

Yet, ere many days had passed, the clouds of obstruction were suddenly removed in a manner which seemed almost-as the fond mother stated-providential. Captain Pooley's ship had followed home, after a week or so of interval, that in which Stephen Charke had returned to England, and its arrival was soon succeeded by his own in Montmorency Road.

'Going out to him to be married!' he exclaimed, after his sister-who happened to be alone at the time of his visit-had made him acquainted with what she had given her consent to some two or three months before, on Gilbert's application backed up by Bella's supplications, and which consent she had moaned over inwardly ever since she had so given it. 'Going out to be married, eh? Why, she must want a husband badly!' Yet, because he knew well enough the customs of Her Majesty's service and the impossibility which prevailed in that service of an officer coming home to marry his bride, he did not repeat her words, 'If she is worth having, she is worth coming for.'

'So other people have thought, if they have not openly said so,' Mrs. Waldron replied. 'I am sure they must have thought so. Yet,' she went on, with determination, 'I have agreed to it, and I cannot retract my word. It is given, and must be kept. No, it is not that which troubles me.'

'What, then?'

'Why, the getting out. How is the child to go alone, in a great liner, with two or three hundred passengers, all the way to Bombay? How?' she repeated.

'Bombay, eh? Bombay. Oh, well, if that's her destination, she can go comfortably enough. There need be no trouble about that. Only she will be more than double the time the P. and O., or any other line, would take to carry her.'

'What do you mean, George?'

'Why,' he said, 'I happen to be taking the old Emperor to Bombay next month with a general cargo-calling at the Cape on the way. She can go with me, and welcome. There's a cabin fit for a duchess which she can have.'

* * * * * *

It was a cabin fit for a duchess, as Bella and her mother acknowledged when, a fortnight later, they went down to Gravesend to inspect the Emperor of the Moon , and after it had been decided in solemn family conclave that, by this ship, the former should make the voyage to India. And it was more than likely that the girl would make it under particularly pleasant circumstances, since this was one of those occasions on which Mrs. Pooley had decided to accompany her husband, she not having felt very well during the past winter. At present, the cabin was empty and denuded of everything, Pooley having decided to have it refurnished; but when he told them how that furniture would be arranged in the great roomy place, which would have been dignified as a 'state-room' in one of the old clippers, Bella said again, as she had said so often before, that 'he was the best old uncle in the world.'