CHAPTER V. ON THE ISLAND
When, shortly after daybreak, the felucca rounded the point of the island, and stood in for the little bay of Maddalena, Lucy was roused from sleep by her maid with the tidings, “Give me the glass, quickly,” cried she, as she rushed to the window, and after one rapid glance, which showed her the little craft gayly decked with the flag of England, she threw herself upon her bed, and sobbed in very happiness. In truth, there was in the long previous day’s expectancy – in the conflict of her hope and fear – a tension that could only be relieved by tears.
How delightful it was to rally from that momentary gush of emotion, and feel so happy! To think so well of the world as to believe that all goes for the best in it, is a pleasant frame of mind to begin one’s day with; to feel that though we have suffered anxiety, and all the tortures of deferred hope, it was good for us to know that everything was happening better for us than we could have planned it for ourselves, and that positively it was not so much by events we had been persecuted as by our own impatient reading of them. Something of all these sensations passed through Lucy’s mind as she hurried here and there to prepare for her guests, stopping at intervals to look out towards the sea, and wonder how little way the felucca made, and how persistently she seemed to cling to the selfsame spot.
Nor was she altogether unjust in this. The breeze had died away at sunrise; and in the interval before the land-wind should spring up there was almost a dead calm.
“Is she moving at all?” cried Lucy, to one of the sailors who lounged on the rocks beneath the window.
The man thought not. They had kept their course too far from shore, and were becalmed in consequence.
How could they have done so? – surely sailors ought to have known better! and Tom, who was always boasting how he knew every current, and every eddy of wind, what was he about? It was a rude shock to that sweet optimism of a few moments back to have to own that here at least was something that might have been better.
“And what ought they to do, what can they do?” asked she, impatiently, of the sailor.
“Wait till towards noon, when the land-breeze freshens up, and beat.”
“Beat means, go back and forward, scarcely gaining a mile an hour?”
The sailor smiled, and owned she was not far wrong.
“Which means that they may pass the day there,” cried she, fretfully.
“They’re not going to do it, anyhow,” said the man; “they are lowering a boat, and going to row ashore.”
“Oh, how much better! and how long will it take them?”
“Two hours, if they ‘re good rowers; three, or even four, if they ‘re not.”
“Come in and have a glass of wine,” said she; “and you shall look through the telescope, and tell me how they row, and who are in the boat, – I mean how many are in it.”
“What a fine glass! I can see them as if they were only a cable’s length off. There’s the Signorino Maso, your brother, at the bow oar; and then there’s a sailor, and another sailor; and there’s a signore, a large man, —per Bacco, he’s the size of three, – at the stroke; and an old man, with white hair, and a cap with gold lace round it, steering; he has bright buttons down his coat.”
“Never mind him. What of the large man, – is he young?”
“He pulls like a young fellow! There now, he has thrown off his coat, and is going at it in earnest! Ah, he’s no signore after all.”
“How no signore?” asked she, hastily.
“None but a sailor could row as he does! A man must be bred to it to handle an oar in that fashion.”
She took the glass impatiently from him, and tried to see the boat; but whether it was the unsteadiness of her hand, or that some dimness clouded her eyes, she could not catch the object, and turned away and left the room.
The land-wind freshened, and sent a strong sea against the boat, and it was not until late in the afternoon that the party landed, and, led by Tom, ascended the path to the cottage. At his loud shout of “Lucy,” she came to the door looking very happy indeed, but more agitated than she well liked. “My sister, Colonel Cave,” said Tom, as they came up; “and here’s an old acquaintance, Lucy; but he’s a major now. Sir Brook is away to England, and sent you all manner of loving messages.”
“I have been watching your progress since early morning,” said Lucy, “and, in truth, I scarcely thought you seemed to come nearer. It was a hard pull.”
“All Trafford’s fault,” said Tom, laughing; “he would do more than his share, and kept the boat always dead against her rudder.”
“That’s not the judgment one of our boatmen here passed on him,” said Lucy; “he said it must be a sailor, and no signore, who was at the stroke oar.”
“See what it is to have been educated at Eton,” said Cave, slyly; “and yet there are people assail our public schools!”
Thus chatting and laughing, they entered the cottage, and were soon seated at table at a most comfortable little dinner.
“I will say,” said Tom, in return for some compliment from the Colonel, “she is a capital housekeeper. I never had anything but limpets and sea-urchins to eat till she came, and now I feel like an alderman.”
“When men assign us the humble office of providing for them, I remark they are never chary of their compliments,” said Lucy, laughingly. “Master Tom is willing to praise my cookery, though he says nothing of my companionship.”
“It was such a brotherly speech,” chimed in Cave.
“Well, it’s jolly, certainly,” said Tom, as he leaned back in his chair, “to sit here with that noble sea-view at our feet, and those grand old cliffs over us.”
While Cave concurred, and strained his eyes to catch some object out seaward, Trafford, for almost the first time, found courage to address Lucy. He had asked something about whether she liked the island as well as that sweet cottage where first he saw her, and by this they were led to talk of that meeting, and of the long happy day they had passed at Holy Island.
“How I ‘d like to go back to it!” said Lucy, earnestly.
“To the time, or to the place? To which would you wish to go back?”
“To the Nest,” said Lucy, blushing slightly; “they were about the happiest days I ever knew, and dear papa was with us then.”
“And is it not possible that you may all meet together there one of these days? He’ll not remain at the Cape, will he?”
“I was forgetting that you knew him,” said she, warmly; “you met papa since I saw you last: he wrote about you, and told how kindly and tenderly you had nursed him on his voyage.”
“Oh, did he? Did he indeed speak of me?” cried Trafford, with intense emotion.
“He not only spoke warmly about his affection for you, but he showed pain and jealousy when he thought that some newer friends had robbed him of you – but perhaps you forget the Cape and all about it.”
Trafford’s face became crimson, and what answer he might have made to this speech there is no knowing, when Tom cried out, “We are going to have our coffee and cigar on the rocks, Lucy, but you will come with us.”
“Of course; I have had three long days of my own company, and am quite wearied of it.”
In the little cleft to which they repaired, a small stream divided the space, leaving only room for two people on the rocks at either side; and after some little jesting as to who was to have the coffee-pot, and who the brandy-flask, Tom and Cave nestled in one corner, while Lucy and Trafford, with more caution as to proximity, seated themselves on the rock opposite.
“We were talking about the Cape, Major Trafford, I think,” said Lucy, determined to bring him back to the dreaded theme.
“Were we? I think not; I think we were remembering all the pleasant days beside the Shannon.”
“If you please, more sugar and no brandy; and now for the Cape.”
“I ‘ll just hand them the coffee,” said he, rising and crossing over to the others.
“Won’t she let you smoke, Trafford?” said Tom, seeing the unlighted cigar in the other’s fingers; “come over here, then, and escape the tyranny.”
“I was just saying,” cried Cave, “I wish our Government would establish a protectorate, as they call it, over these islands, and send us out here to garrison them; I call this downright paradise.”
“You may smoke, Major Trafford,” said Lucy, as he returned; “I am very tolerant about tobacco.”
“I don’t care for it – at least not now.”
“You’d rather tell me about the Cape,” said she, with a sly laugh. “Well, I ‘m all attention.”
“There’s really nothing to tell,” said he, in confusion. “Your father will have told you already what a routine sort of thing life is, – always meeting the same people, – made ever more uniform by their official stations. It’s always the Governor, and the Chief-Justice, and the Bishop, and the Attorney-General.”
“But they have wives and daughters?”
“Yes; but official people’s wives and daughters are always of the same pattern. They are only females of the species.”
“So that you were terribly bored?”
“Just so, – terribly bored.”
“What a boon from heaven it must have been then to have met the Sewells!” said she, with a well-put-on carelessness.
“Oh, your father mentioned the Sewells, did he?” asked Trafford, eagerly.
“I should think he did mention them! Why, they were the people he was so jealous of. He said that you were constantly with him till they came, – his companion, in fact, – and that he grieved heavily over your desertion of him.”
“There was nothing like desertion; besides,” added he, after a moment, “I never suspected he attached any value to my society.”
“Very modest, certainly; and probably, as the Sewells did attach this value, you gave it where it was fully appreciated.”
“I wish I had never met them,” muttered Trafford; and though the words were mumbled beneath his breath, she heard them.
“That sounds very ungratefully,” said she, with a smile, “if but one half of what we hear be true.”
“What is it you have heard?”
“I ‘m keeping Major Trafford from his cigar, Tom; he’s too punctilious to smoke in my company, and so I shall leave him to you;” and so saying, she arose, and turned towards the cottage.
Trafford followed her on the instant, and overtook her at the porch.
“One word, – only one,” cried he, eagerly. “I see how I have been misrepresented to you. I see what you must think of me; but will you only hear me?”
“I have no right to hear you,” said she, coldly.
“Oh, do not say so, Lucy,” cried he, trying to take her hand, but which she quickly withdrew from him. “Do not say that you withdraw from me the only interest that attaches me to life. If you knew how friendless I am, you would not leave me.”
“He upon whom fortune smiles so pleasantly very seldom wants for any blandishments the world has to give; at least, I have always heard that people are invariably courteous to the prosperous.”
“And do you talk of me as prosperous?”
“Why, you are my brother’s type of all that is luckiest in life. Only hear Tom on the subject! Hear him talk of his friend Trafford, and you will hear of one on whom all the good fairies showered their fairest gifts.”
“The fairies have grown capricious, then. Has Tom told you nothing – I mean since he came back?”
“No; nothing.”
“Then let me tell it.”
In very few words, and with wonderfully little emotion, Trafford told the tale of his altered fortunes. Of course he did not reveal the reasons for which he had been disinherited, but loosely implied that his conduct had displeased his father, and with his mother he had never been a favorite. “Mine,” said he, “is the vulgar story that almost every family has its instance of, – the younger son, who goes into the world with the pretensions of a good house, and forgets that he himself is as poor as the neediest man in the regiment. They grew weary of my extravagance, and, indeed, they began to get weary of myself, and I am not surprised at it! and the end has come at last. They have cast me off, and, except my commission, I have now nothing in the world. I told Tom all this, and his generous reply was, ‘Your poverty only draws you nearer to us.’ Yes, Lucy, these were his words. Do you think that his sister could have spoken them?”
“‘Before she could do so, she certainly should be satisfied on other grounds than those that touch your fortune,” said Lucy, gravely.
“And it was to give her that same satisfaction I came here,” cried he, eagerly. “I accepted Tom’s invitation on the sole pledge that I could vindicate myself to you. I know what is laid to my charge, and I know too how hard it will be to clear myself without appearing like a coxcomb.” He grew crimson as he said this, and the shame that overwhelmed him was a better advocate than all his words. “But,” added he, “you shall think me vain, conceited, – a puppy, if you will, – but you shall not believe me false. Will you listen to me?”
“On one condition I will,” said she, calmly.
“Name your condition. What is it?”
“My condition is this: that when I have heard you out, – heard all that you care to tell me – if it should turn out that I am not satisfied – I mean, if it appear to me a case in which I ought not to be satisfied – you will pledge your word that this conversation will be our last together.”
“But, Lucy, in what spirit will you judge me? If you can approach the theme thus coldly, it gives me little hope that you will wish to acquit me.”
A deep blush covered her face as she turned away her head, but made no answer.
“Be only fair, however,” cried he, eagerly. “I ask for nothing more.” He drew her arm within his as he spoke, and they turned towards the beach where a little sweep of the bay lay hemmed in between lofty rocks. “Here goes my last throw for fortune,” said Trafford, after they had strolled along some minutes in silence. “And oh, Lucy, if you knew how I would like to prolong these minutes before, as it may be, they are lost to me forever! If you knew how I would like to give this day to happiness and hope!”
She said nothing, but walked along with her head down, her face slightly averted from him.
“I have not told you of my visit to the Priory,” said he, suddenly.
“No; how came you to go there?”
“I went to see the place where you had lived, to see the garden you had tended, and the flowers you loved, Lucy. I took away this bit of jasmine from a tree that overhung a little rustic seat. It may be, for aught I know, all that may remain to me of you ere this day closes.”
“My dear little garden! I was so fond of it!” she said, concealing her emotion as well as she could.
“I am such a coward,” said he, angrily; “I declare I grow ashamed of myself. If any one had told me I would have skulked danger in this wise, I ‘d have scouted the idea! Take this, Lucy,” said he, giving her the sprig of withered jasmine; “if what I shall tell you exculpate me – if you are satisfied that I am not unworthy of your love, – you will give it back to me; if I fail – ” He could not go on, and another silence of some seconds ensued.
“You know the compact now?” asked he, after a moment. She nodded assent.
For full five minutes they walked along without a word, and then Trafford, at first timidly, but by degrees more boldly, began a narrative of his visit to the Sewells’ house. It is not – nor need it be – our task to follow him through a long narrative, broken, irregular, and unconnected as it was. Hampered by the difficulties which on each side beset him of disparaging those of whom he desired to say no word of blame, and of still vindicating himself from all charge of dishonor, he was often, it must be owned, entangled, and sometimes scarcely intelligible. He owned to have been led into high play against his will, and equally against his will induced to form an intimacy with Mrs. Sewell, which, beginning in a confidence, wandered away into Heaven knows what of sentimentality, and the like. Trafford talked of Lucy Lendrick and his love, and Mrs. Sewell talked of her cruel husband and her misery; and they ended by making a little stock-fund of affection, where they came in common to make their deposits and draw their cheques on fortune.
All this intercourse was the more dangerous that he never knew its danger; and though, on looking back, he was astonished to think what intimate relations subsisted between them, yet, at the time, these had not seemed in the least strange to him. To her sad complaints of neglect, ill-usage, and insult, he offered such consolations as occurred to him: nor did it seem to him that there was any peril in his path, till his mother burst forth with that atrocious charge against Mrs. Sewell for having seduced her son, and which, so far from repelling with the indignation it might have evoked, she appeared rather to bend under, and actually seek his protection to shelter her. Weak and broken by his accident at the race, these difficulties almost overcame his reason; never was there, to his thinking, such a web of entanglement. The hospitality of the house he was enjoying outraged and violated by the outbreaks of his mother’s temper; Sewell’s confidence in him betrayed by the confessions he daily listened to from his wife; her sorrows and griefs all tending to a dependence on his counsels which gave him a partnership in her conduct. “With all these upon me,” said he, “I don’t think I was actually mad, but very often I felt terribly close to it. A dozen times a day I would willingly have fought Sewell; as willingly would I have given all I ever hoped to possess in the world to enable his wife to fly his tyranny, and live apart from him. I so far resented my mother’s outrageous conduct, that I left her without a good-bye.”
I can no more trace him through this wandering explanation than I dare ask my reader to follow. It was wild, broken, and discursive. Now interrupted by protestations of innocence, now dashed by acknowledgments of sorrow, who knows if his unartistic story did not serve him better than a more connected narrative, – there was such palpable truth in it!
Nor was Lucy less disposed to leniency that he who pleaded before her was no longer the rich heir of a great estate, with a fair future before him, but one poor and portionless as herself. In the reserve with which he shrouded his quarrel with his family, she fancied she could see the original cause, – his love for her; and if this were so, what more had she need of to prove his truth and fidelity? Who knows if her woman’s instinct had not revealed this to her? Who knows if, in that finer intelligence of the female mind, she had not traced out the secret of the reserve that hampered him, of the delicate forbearance with which he avoided the theme of his estrangement from his family? And if so, what a plea was it for him! Poor fellow, thought she, what has he not given up for me!
Rich men make love with great advantages on their side. There is no doubt that he who can confer demesnes and diamonds has much in his favor. The power that abides in wealth adds marvellous force to the suitor’s tale; but there is, be it owned, that in poverty which, when allied with a sturdy self-dependence, appeals wonderfully to a woman’s mind. She feels all the devotion that is offered her, and she will not be outdone in generosity. It is so fine of him, when others care for nothing but wealth and riches, to be satisfied with humble fortune, and with me! There is the summing up, and none need be more conclusive.
How long Trafford might have gone on strengthening his case, and calling up fresh evidence to his credit, – by what force of words he might still have sustained his character for fidelity, – there is no saying; but his eloquence was suddenly arrested by the sight of Cave and Tom coming to meet them.
“Oh, Lucy,” cried he, “do not quit my arm till you tell me my fate. For very pity’s sake, do not leave me in the misery of this anxiety,” said he, as she disengaged herself, affecting to arrange her shawl.
“I have a word to say to my brother,” said she, hurriedly; “keep this sprig of jasmine for me. I mean to plant it somewhere;” and without another word she hastened away and made for the house.
“So we shall have to sail at once, Trafford,” said Cave. “The Admiral has sent over the ‘Gondomar’ to fetch us; and here’s a lieutenant with a despatch waiting for us at the cottage.”
“The service may go – No, I don’t mean that; but if you sail to-morrow you sail without me.”
“Have you made it all right?” whispered Tom in his ear.
“I ‘m the happiest fellow in Europe,” said he, throwing his arm round the other’s shoulder. “Come here, Tom, and let me tell you all – all.”