For the Term of His Natural Life
Page 36
At this happy conclusion to his labours, Frere went down to comfort thegirl for whose sake he had suffered Rex to escape the gallows. On hisway he was met by a man who touched his hat, and asked to speak withhim an instant. This man was past middle age, owned a red brandy-beatenface, and had in his gait and manner that nameless something thatdenotes the seaman.
"Well, Blunt," says Frere, pausing with the impatient air of a man whoexpects to hear bad news, "what is it now?"
"Only to tell you that it is all right, sir," says Blunt. "She's comeaboard again this morning."
"Come aboard again!" ejaculated Frere. "Why, I didn't know that shehad been ashore. Where did she go?" He spoke with an air of confidentauthority, and Blunt--no longer the bluff tyrant of old--seemed to quailbefore him. The trial of the mutineers of the Malabar had ruined PhineasBlunt. Make what excuses he might, there was no concealing the fact thatPine found him drunk in his cabin when he ought to have been attendingto his duties on deck, and the "authorities" could not, or would not,pass over such a heinous breach of discipline. Captain Blunt--who, ofcourse, had his own version of the story--thus deprived of the honour ofbringing His Majesty's prisoners to His Majesty's colonies of New SouthWales and Van Diemen's Land, went on a whaling cruise to the South Seas.The influence which Sarah Purfoy had acquired over him had, however,irretrievably injured him. It was as though she had poisoned his moralnature by the influence of a clever and wicked woman over a sensualand dull-witted man. Blunt gradually sank lower and lower. He becamea drunkard, and was known as a man with a "grievance against theGovernment". Captain Frere, having had occasion for him in somecapacity, had become in a manner his patron, and had got him the commandof a schooner trading from Sydney. On getting this command--not withoutsome wry faces on the part of the owner resident in Hobart Town--Blunthad taken the temperance pledge for the space of twelve months, and wasa miserable dog in consequence. He was, however, a faithful henchman,for he hoped by Frere's means to get some "Government billet"--the grandobject of all colonial sea captains of that epoch.
"Well, sir, she went ashore to see a friend," says Blunt, looking at thesky and then at the earth.
"What friend?"
"The--the prisoner, sir."
"And she saw him, I suppose?"
"Yes, but I thought I'd better tell you, sir," says Blunt.
"Of course; quite right," returned the other; "you had better start atonce. It's no use waiting."
"As you wish, sir. I can sail to-morrow morning--or this evening, if youlike."
"This evening," says Frere, turning away; "as soon as possible."
"There's a situation in Sydney I've been looking after," said the other,uneasily, "if you could help me to it."
"What is it?"
"The command of one of the Government vessels, sir."
"Well, keep sober, then," says Frere, "and I'll see what I can do. Andkeep that woman's tongue still if you can."
The pair looked at each other, and Blunt grinned slavishly.
"I'll do my best." "Take care you do," returned his patron, leaving himwithout further ceremony.
Frere found Vickers in the garden, and at once begged him not to talkabout the "business" to his daughter.
"You saw how bad she was to-day, Vickers. For goodness sake don't makeher ill again."
"My dear sir," says poor Vickers, "I won't refer to the subject. She'sbeen very unwell ever since. Nervous and unstrung. Go in and see her."
So Frere went in and soothed the excited girl, with real sorrow at hersuffering.
"It's all right now, Poppet," he said to her. "Don't think of it anymore. Put it out of your mind, dear."
"It was foolish of me, Maurice, I know, but I could not help it. Thesound of--of--that man's voice seemed to bring back to me some greatpity for something or someone. I don't explain what I mean, I know,but I felt that I was on the verge of remembering a story of some greatwrong, just about to hear some dreadful revelation that should make meturn from all the people whom I ought most to love. Do you understand?"
"I think I know what you mean," says Frere, with averted face. "Butthat's all nonsense, you know."
"Of course," returned she, with a touch of her old childish manner ofdisposing of questions out of hand. "Everybody knows it's all nonsense.But then we do think such things. It seems to me that I am double, thatI have lived somewhere before, and have had another life--a dream-life."
"What a romantic girl you are," said the other, dimly comprehending hermeaning. "How could you have a dream-life?"
"Of course, not really, stupid! But in thought, you know. I dream suchstrange things now and then. I am always falling down precipices andinto cataracts, and being pushed into great caverns in enormous rocks.Horrible dreams!"
"Indigestion," returned Frere. "You don't take exercise enough. Youshouldn't read so much. Have a good five-mile walk."
"And in these dreams," continued Sylvia, not heeding his interruption,"there is one strange thing. You are always there, Maurice."
"Come, that's all right," says Maurice.
"Ah, but not kind and good as you are, Captain Bruin, but scowling, andthreatening, and angry, so that I am afraid of you."
"But that is only a dream, darling."
"Yes, but--" playing with the button of his coat.
"But what?"
"But you looked just so to-day in the Court, Maurice, and I think that'swhat made me so silly."
"My darling! There; hush--don't cry!"
But she had burst into a passion of sobs and tears, that shook herslight figure in his arms.
"Oh, Maurice, I am a wicked girl! I don't know my own mind. I thinksometimes I don't love you as I ought--you who have saved me and nursedme."
"There, never mind about that," muttered Maurice Frere, with a sort ofchoking in his throat.
She grew more composed presently, and said, after a while, lifting herface, "Tell me, Maurice, did you ever, in those days of which you havespoken to me--when you nursed me as a little child in your arms, and fedme, and starved for me--did you ever think we should be married?"
"I don't know," says Maurice. "Why?"
"I think you must have thought so, because--it's not vanity, dear--youwould not else have been so kind, and gentle, and devoted."
"Nonsense, Poppet," he said, with his eyes resolutely averted.
"No, but you have been, and I am very pettish, sometimes. Papa hasspoiled me. You are always affectionate, and those worrying ways ofyours, which I get angry at, all come from love for me, don't they?"
"I hope so," said Maurice, with an unwonted moisture in his eyes.
"Well, you see, that is the reason why I am angry with myself for notloving you as I ought. I want you to like the things I like, and to lovethe books and the music and the pictures and the--the World I love;and I forget that you are a man, you know, and I am only a girl; and Iforget how nobly you behaved, Maurice, and how unselfishly you riskedyour life for mine. Why, what is the matter, dear?"
He had put her away from him suddenly, and gone to the window, gazingacross the sloping garden at the bay below, sleeping in the soft eveninglight. The schooner which had brought the witnesses from Port Arthur layoff the shore, and the yellow flag at her mast fluttered gently in thecool evening breeze. The sight of this flag appeared to anger him, for,as his eyes fell on it, he uttered an impatient exclamation, and turnedround again.
"Maurice!" she cried, "I have wounded you!"
"No, no. It is nothing," said he, with the air of a man surprised ina moment of weakness. "I--I did not like to hear you talk in thisway--about not loving me."
"Oh, forgive me, dear; I did not mean to hurt you. It is my silly way ofsaying more than I mean. How could I do otherwise than love you--afterall you have done?"
Some sudden desperate whim caused him to exclaim, "But suppose I had notdone all you think, would you not love me still?"
Her eyes, raised to his face with anxious tenderness for the pain shehad believed herself to have inflicte
d, fell at this speech.
"What a question! I don't know. I suppose I should; yet--but what is theuse, Maurice, of supposing? I know you have done it, and that is enough.How can I say what I might have done if something else had happened?Why, you might not have loved me."
If there had been for a moment any sentiment of remorse in his selfishheart, the hesitation of her answer went far to dispel it.
"To be sure, that's true," and he placed his arm round her.
She lifted her face again with a bright laugh.
"We are a pair of geese--supposing! How can we help what has past? Wehave the Future, darling--the Future, in which I am to be your littlewife, and we are to love each other all our lives, like the people inthe story-books."
Temptation to evil had often come to Maurice Frere, and his selfishnature had succumbed to it when in far less witching shape than thisfair and innocent child luring him with wistful eyes to win her. Whathopes had he not built upon her love; what good resolutions had he notmade by reason of the purity and goodness she was to bring to him? Asshe said, the past was beyond recall; the future--in which she wasto love him all her life--was before them. With the hypocrisy ofselfishness which deceives even itself, he laid the little head upon hisheart with a sensible glow of virtue.
"God bless you, darling! You are my Good Angel."
The girl sighed. "I will be your Good Angel, dear, if you will let me."
CHAPTER VI. MR. MEEKIN ADMINISTERS CONSOLATION.