Works of Ellen Wood, page 258
“Why not?” inquired those around.
“He has been in three different vessels, three years running, has that monkey, and they all had enough of him. A worse boy never sailed than that young Paul; he is made up of ill-nature and mischief. The Rushing Water must have been hard up for hands to take him.”
“The Rushing Water is taking out a hand or two short,” chimed in an old fishwife. “Some gentleman took a whim to go out in her, and he wouldn’t be crowded, he said. They took this young shaver aboard last night: he can be put anywhere.”
Leaning over the side of the pier with Henry Yorke, and attended by a maid and footman, was Miss Saxonbury. The Rushing Water came gliding past, and her cheeks expressed plainly their consciousness of it. Standing upright in the boat, in a jaunty sailor’s costume, was Mr. Janson, handsomer than ever. He looked at her with a face schooled to impassiveness, and gravely raised his hat in token of adieu. She forgot her resolution for a moment: her eyes were strained yearningly on him, and the tears shone in them, as she waved her handkerchief in answer. Another grave bow ere he resumed his glazed hat, and the Rushing Water glided down the harbour.
A gentleman stood at Miss Saxonbury’s side, somewhat behind her. He had seen the signs of her emotion, and his lips parted with a defiant expression. He was a tall, powerfully-built man of near thirty, with remarkably white teeth, which he shewed too much. Without perceiving him, Miss Saxonbury turned to pursue her way to the top of the crowded pier. It was a work of difficulty, and Henry Yorke exercised his feet and his elbows.
“Harry, if you behave so rudely, if you push the people unnecessarily, I will send John home with you.”
“That you won’t I would jump over the pier first, and go home ducked, on purpose to get you into a row with mamma. You know you are not to dictate to me.”
“Hush! Be a good boy.”
“I say, Elizabeth, don’t you wish you were going out with Mr. Janson?”
It was a telling question, innocently put. And he who was following close behind, saw that her very neck was in a glow.
“I do,” continued Harry. “It is so nice to sail over the sea. I’ll be a sailor when I grow up.”
“Nice to sail over the sea!” cried Miss Saxonbury. “Don’t you remember how ill you were, only crossing here from London?”
“It was the nasty steamer made me ill. I do mean to be a sailor, Maria, and I’ll bring you lots of things home from foreign countries. Mamma thinks I only say it to tease her, when I want anything that she won’t give me. I’ll bring you a monkey from Africa.”
Every inch of ground, towards the extremity of the pier, was contested for, that being the best gazing place. The sea was calm and lovely, the light wind, which served to spread the sails, scarcely ruffling it; more than thirty boats were already out, studding the marine landscape, and the morning sun shone brightly on their canvas, as they skimmed over the water. Miss Saxonbury was struggling on, when a crash and shouting below, and a worse press than ever to the side of the pier, suggested that some untoward accident had occurred. The Rushing Water, in going out of harbour, had, by some mishap or mismanagement, which none on board could account for, struck against the end of the pier. The boy, Paul, had been left for a single moment near the rudder: could he have mischievously altered the boat’s course?
“What damage is done?” inquired Miss Saxonbury of a bystander, a fisherman, when the excitement was abating.
“Not much — as far as I can see. They will have to put back, though, till the evening’s tide, and give her a haul over.”
“Good morning, Miss Saxonbury. You are out early.”
She turned sharply round at the voice, to encounter Mr. Yorke. He was staying in the French town also, herself, no doubt, his motive-power. Perhaps he was waiting the opportunity to say to her what he had thought to say years ago.
“We came to see the boats go out,” she said, giving him her hand.
“I should scarcely have thought a fleet of paltry fishing-boats would be a sufficient attraction to call a young lady from her bed.”
“Oh, Mr. Yorke! Look at the numbers of English around: nearly every one we know is here. It is a sight which has the charm of novelty for many of us.”
“I see your friend young Janson’s courage has not failed him at the last,” he said, mockingly. “We shall be rid of him for a time.”
“For good, probably,” she replied with the utmost apparent indifference. “Before he returns, we shall no doubt have left for home.”
“I hope so. I wonder at Lady Saxonbury’s having brought you here at all. I wonder that she should remain here! These continental towns are not places for Miss Saxonbury.”
“She remains for Henry’s improvement in French,” said Maria.
“And, that he may gain facility in speaking it, she sends him to the college, where he mixes with a dozen other English boys,” said Mr. Yorke. “And they abuse each other all day in genuine Queen’s English.”
“We are not going to associate with those pigs of French beggars,” interposed Master Yorke, shaking back his pretty curls in token of scorn.
“Pigs!” echoed the gentleman. “You are polite, sir.”
“At any rate it is what they are always calling us,” retorted the lad. “Gros cochons Anglais.”
In returning down the crowded pier, they got separated from Mr. Yorke, also from the servants. As Maria and Henry were passing through the old fortified gates of the port, three or four lads, all older than himself, came up to hold a conference with Harry. It appeared to be productive of some pleasurable excitement, for he turned to his sister with sparkling eyes and an eager face.
“Maria, may I go out fishing?”
“Fishing, no! You would send mamma into a fever. You know she never allows you to go near the water.”
“There’s no danger, Miss Saxonbury,” spoke up one of the inviters, a boy of fifteen or sixteen. “We are going up the canal in a boat for a mile or two, and then shall land and fish. He can’t come to any harm: we are accustomed to the management of a boat, and we shall take our provisions with us. We mean to make a day of it.”
“It is impossible that I can allow him to go,” replied Maria. “He can ask his mamma if he likes; but I am sure it will be useless.”
“It’s a shame then!” exclaimed Henry. “I can never do anything that I like. Won’t I when I get bigger!”
He walked sullenly by his sister’s side until they reached the streets. As they were passing the college, one or two boys were going in at the scholars’ entrance, and the old church clock, further off, chimed out nine.
“I shall go into school now,” said Henry.
“Nonsense,” returned Maria. “You have not had your breakfast.”
“I don’t want any. I don’t want to be marked late. It’s your fault for stopping so long upon the pier. So good-bye, Elizabeth.”
“Good-bye,” she repeated, scarcely heeding his departure or what she said, for at that moment Edward Janson appeared, crossing the street, having, landed from the Rushing Water. The sight made her oblivious to everything else.
At six o’clock, when they assembled to dinner, Henry was missing. Lady Saxonbury supposed he was kept in at school, not an unfrequent occurrence, and began dinner with a very bad grace. She inquired of John what time he went back to school after luncheon: she and Maria having been out in the middle of the day.
“Master Henry did not come home to luncheon, ma’am.”
Lady Saxonbury was indignant. “No breakfast, and keep him from two meals besides!” she uttered. “It is enough to throw him into a consumption. The master must be a bear. Go at once and bring the child home, John; bring him home by force if they object, and threaten them with the police. I’ll summons that master before the Criminal Tribunal.”
The footman went leisurely enough to the college; but he ran back again at full speed. Master Yorke had not been into class that day, and he was to be punished for it on the morrow.
“Not into class!” repeated the alarmed mother. “Elizabeth, you told me you left him at the college.”
“So I did. I saw him run to the gates. I — I think — I saw him enter,” she added, more hesitatingly, trying to remember whether she did or not.
“You think! What do you mean by that?” demanded Lady Saxonbury, who really cared nothing for anybody except her son. “You saw him, or you did not.”
“He never can have gone off with those boys!” suddenly exclaimed Maria, in alarm, remembering the fishing expedition.
“What boys? Why don’t you speak plain?”
“Jones and Anson, and a few more English lads, were going up the canal in a boat to fish, and they wanted Harry to go with them,” explained Maria. “I refused, of course.”
“Then he is sure to be gone! and if he is drowned you will have been the cause!” screamed Lady Saxonbury, in agitation. “After such a thing as that put into his head, you ought to have brought him home, and kept him here. You know what he is.”
There was no further peace. Lady Saxonbury not only sent about the town, but went herself, to the houses of the boys’ parents, and to every place where there was a possibility of hearing of him. The other parents were alarmed now. With some difficulty they discovered which canal the young gentlemen had favoured with their company, and bent their steps to it in a body, Mr. Jones carrying a lantern, for it was dark then. They had not proceeded along its banks many minutes when they encountered a small army of half-a-dozen, looking like drowned rats. It proved to be the young gentlemen themselves, who had all been in the water, through the upsetting of the boat “Where is Henry?” asked Lady Saxonbury, trembling so that she could scarcely put the question. “Has he been with you?”
“Yes, he has been with us.”
“Where is he? Oh, where is he?”
“He was in the boat when it capsized. We can’t make out where he is. I’m sure he scrambled out.” Maria was very pale. “How are you sure?” she asked, in a dread tone.
“I am positive I saw him,” cried Philip Anson, “and I spoke to him. I said to him, ‘That was a splash and a near touch, wasn’t it, Hal?’ and he answered, ‘By Jove, if it wasn’t!’”
“No, it was me answered you that, Phil,” interposed a little fellow about Henry’s age.
“Well, I’m positive he is out,” rejoined Phil Anson, “for I know I saw him, and his hair had got the curl out of it, and was hanging down straight.”
“Did any of the rest of you see him?” inquired Maria, in painful suspense.
All the boys began talking together. The result to be gathered was, that they could not be sure whether he was out or not; it was all a scramble at the time, and nearly dark.
“Oh, mamma, do not despair!” implored Maria. But Lady Saxonbury had fainted away, and was lying on the towing-path.
CHAPTER VII.
A Lost Boy.
IT was a terrible misfortune. Apart from Lady Saxonbury’s almost insane grief for the child himself, it was a great misfortune in a pecuniary point of view. With her son’s death a considerable portion of her income passed from her; her resources as the widow of Sir Arthur Saxonbury not being large. Just enough was left her to starve upon, she groaned, taking an exaggerated view of things, as she was apt to do. Her grief was, indeed, pitiable. She persisted in attributing all the blame of the boy’s death to Maria. She commenced a system of unkind treatment, could not endure the sight of her; and when she did see her, it was only to break out into sobs and harsh reproaches.
“I should not bear it,” observed Mr. Yorke, one day, to Maria.
“Is it just?” returned Maria, in a passionate tone of appeal. “When I saw him to the door of the college, how could I imagine that he pretended to go in only to blind me — that he would disobediently run to the canal the moment I was out of sight? Is it just of Lady Saxonbury?”
“No. Very unjust. I say I should emancipate myself.”
“I cannot live this life. It makes me so wretched that I sometimes begin to doubt whether I am not really guilty. I will go away rather than bear it.”
“Let me emancipate you, Maria,” said Mr. Yorke. She cast at him a rapid glance. The hour was come that she had expected; sometimes doubted, if she had not dreaded.
“You cannot be ignorant of my intentions,” he resumed, “or why I have stayed here in this place, which I hate. You must know that I love you passionately; far more passionately than he did, Maria.”
“Than who did?” she exclaimed, with a rush of conscious colour.
“Janson. As if you did not know.”
“Why do you bring up Janson?” she said. “What is Janson to me?”
“Maria, you will be my wife? Do not refuse,” he impetuously added. “I have sworn that if you are not mine you shall never be another’s.”
“Mr. Yorke!”
“I cannot live without you. I love you too passionately for my own peace. You must be mine, Maria. It was your father’s wish.”
What was she to answer? She did not know. A conflict was at work within her. She liked Mr. Yorke, but — she loved Edward Janson. Edward Janson, however, she could never hope to marry, and her days were passed in striving to forget him. With Mr. Yorke she should go back to the dear old home at Saxonbury.
“Give me until to-morrow, and you shall have an answer,” she said to him. “This has come upon me suddenly.”
“Very well. Remember, Maria, that during the suspense I shall neither eat nor sleep; I shall have neither peace nor rest. Be my wite, and your days shall be a dream of love.”
“A dream of love!” she bitterly repeated, as he left her. “For him, perhaps: not for me!”
She remained in her room until evening, communing with herself, and then she sought Lady Saxonbury, saying she wished to consult her.
“I am not worth consulting now,” was the querulous answer. “My spirits are gone, my heart is broken.”
“Mr. Yorke wants me to marry him.”
“Mr. Yorke!” returned her stepmother, somewhat aroused. “Has he asked you?”
“Yes; to-day.”
“Then you are more lucky than you deserve.”
“I do not know whether to accept or reject him.”
“Reject him!” fiercely interposed Lady Saxonbury. “You are out of your senses. With his fine fortune, his position, his amiability” —— ——
“Is he amiable?” asked Maria. “He puzzles me at times.”
“What puzzles you?”
“His words. I don’t understand them. And the expression of his countenance.”
“Had you not better set up for a phrenologist — or whatever they call the charlatans who pretend to read faces?” sarcastically retorted Lady Saxonbury.
“Mamma, listen. If I do accept him, it will be because I am unhappy with you.”
“Pray, why should there be an ‘if’ in the matter at all? Why should you hesitate, or think of rejecting him?”
“Because I do not love him,” answered Maria, in a low tone. “I like Mr. Yorke, but it requires more than liking to marry a man: or ought to require it.”
“Oh, if you are going to run on about romance and sentiment, I do not understand it,” returned Lady Saxonbury. “I never did more than ‘like’ my two husbands, yet I was happy with them. My love was wasted on somebody else; when I was almost a child.”
“Was it?” cried Maria, eagerly.
“It was. It was over and done with before I married, and I did not make the less good wife. It is so with ninety-nine women out of every hundred; and rely upon it, their wedded lives are all the happier for their early romance being over. Romance and reality do not work well together, Maria. You are inexperienced, child.”
Maria was beginning to think so.
“I give you my advice, Maria, and I give it for your happiness. Marry Mr. Yorke, and be thankful. Reject him, and pass your after-life in repining, in self-reproach at your own folly.”
Mr. Yorke received the answer he wished for. They were to be married in England, in autumn, but preparations were at once commenced. It was only to be expected that Lady Saxonbury would now go home immediately, but she declined to do so. In spite of the somewhat cynical remonstrances of Mr. Yorke, she flatly refused. She would go home for the wedding in September, she said, and she would not go before. Perhaps some vague hope of recovering, even yet, the body of the child from the canal, chained her to the place. So Mr. Yorke remained on perforce in the despised town, feeling that he and they were alike out of place in it.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Return of the “Rushing Water.”
AUGUST came in, and the fishing-boats began to return from Iceland, laden with their spoil: by ones, by twos, by threes, by little fleets of them. At length all were in, save two, the Belle Héléne and the Rushing Water. These two delayed much, and a report got about, nobody knew how, for it was certainly without foundation, that the Rushing Water was wrecked. Miss Saxonbury, in spite of herself and her betrothal, heard the evil fear with a sickening heart, and looked out for it in secret more yearningly than any one.
Or than any, save one. For, if her anxiety was great, what was it compared with that of poor Mrs. Janson? One day, it was on a Friday, Thérése had gone to the fish-market to purchase the usual fast-day’s dinner, when in the midst of her squally bargaining with the fish-vendor, news flew about the market that one of the two missing boats was signalled — it was thought to be the Rushing Water. Dashing the disputed fish back on the woman’s board, away went Thérése to her mistress, and without circumlocution announced that the Rushing Water was making the harbour.
Mrs. Janson went down to the port. The boat was then in, and being moored to the side: La Belle Héléne. She asked the crew news of the Rushing Water, but they had not seen her on their passage home. Yet the Rushing Water had been one of the first boats to leave Iceland.
Disheartening news. As Mrs. Janson went back again, with a heavy step, she encountered Miss Saxonbury.
“Young lady, go home and pray,” she said, in her abrupt, stern manner; “pray that you may not have caused his death, as well as his misery. Stay upon your knees until Heaven shall be pleased to hear you, as I am going to do. There is little hope now.”
