EPITHALAMIUM
Our marriage day! Oh, day of days! Dawn of a new existence! All nature
seemed to sympathise with us in our supernal joy. For us, for us alone
in all the world the streamlets murmured, the breezes whispered
together, the wavelets plashed musically, the blue sky glowed, the sun
shone goldingly. The venerable pastor of the community--he who had
watched over every man and woman present from infancy, who had
christened, and married, and buried the whole population of the island
as they require these offices--read the time-honoured service of the
Church of England, which was followed with deepest reverential attention
by all present. When he blessed our union in the solemn language of the
ritual familiar to me in the days of my childhood, every head was bowed,
each woman's eye was wet with heart-felt sympathy and warmest affection
for their erst-while playmate.
The day was cloudless, a breeze at times sighed through the fragrant
foliage of the grove wherein the little church had been built. The
wavelets murmured on the beach, and the unresting surges seemed but to
exchange loving memories of coral islands and crystal seas, of waving
palms and the green gladness of tropic forests, of maidens,
feather-crowned and flower-bejewelled, dancing on silver strands beneath
the full-orbed midnight moon, or gliding, a laughing bevy of syrens,
beneath the translucent wave. No sullen, dirge-like refrain on that
paradisal day brought from the ocean voices the memory of drifting
wrecks, of stormy seas, of drowned seamen--no hint of danger, of
despair, of pestilence, and death; and yet all these phases of
experience I had known and reckoned with even in my short life.
No; these and kindred ills were forgotten, banished from earth and sea.
On this blissful morn the golden age of the earth seemed to have
returned. Recalling the half-forgotten classics of my boyhood, I could
fancy that I saw fauns peeping through the leaves of the orange grove,
that the ages had reverted to the freshness of the elder world, when the
flush of the fair Arcadian life informed all things with divinity.
And Miranda, my bride of brides! what words can describe her as she
stood, with an expression half-timid, half-rapt, and inspired, before
the humble altar that day? Her simple dress of virgin white which but
slightly concealed while it outlined the curves of her statuesque form;
her large dark eyes, which had often appeared to me to hold a shade of
melancholy, were now irradiated by the love-light which she, in the
purity and innocence of her heart, made no attempt to conceal. Her soft,
abundant tresses had been gathered up into becoming form and classic
simplicity, and, save a wreath of scarlet berries and the traditional
orange blossom, she wore no ornament. As all unconscious of her maiden
loveliness she stood beside me, with her head raised and an expectant
smile which disclosed her pearly teeth, she seemed to my enraptured gaze
a daughter of the wave,--no mortal maiden, but a being compact of air
and sea and sky, visible but beneath the moonbeams, and unrevealed to
the dwellers of the garish day.
* * * * *
We had been but a month wedded; our simple home, our tiny domain, our
forest rambles, our sea-baths at dawn and eve, as yet contented
us--filled us with all fullest delight in which mortal beings can revel
beneath this ethereal dome. And yet the spirit of unrest, the veritable
serpent of the world's fairest Aidenns, gradually found means to
discover himself.
Miranda and I had, indeed, begun to discuss our projected voyage to
Sydney, and I had many times described to her an ideal home on one of
the thousand and one bays which render the northern shore of the
unrivalled Sydney harbour matchless in beauty and convenience for those
who, like myself, have salt water in their blood. She agreed with me,
that with a boat, a garden, a bath-house, and a cottage built of the
beautiful white, pink-veined sandstone, which is so abundant beneath and
around Sydney, existence might be endured away from her island home,
with the aid of books and the inspiring idea of the coming fortune.
"And even if we do not make money," she said, "as people call it--what a
strange idea it seems to me, who have hardly ever seen any--we shall be
happy. I can't imagine people who are married and love each other ever
being unhappy. Then your mother and sisters--I am so much afraid of
them. They will regard me as a kind of savage, I am sure; and, indeed,
compared with them, or real civilised people, I am afraid that I shall
feel like one. And, oh! shall we ever be happier than we are now? Why
should we change? Do you think we can come back now and then and visit
my people? I should break my heart if I thought I should see them no
more!"
I promised this and other things, doubtless, at the time. But before we
had completed the conversation about our future life--which indeed
supplied us with endless subjects of interest--the great island
wonder-sign appeared. A shout--a rush of excited people past our hut
told of a ship in sight. We were down at the beach nearly as soon as
the others, and as a long, low barque came up before the wind, something
told me that she was the _Florentia_.
A boat--a whaleboat, with a kanaka crew--put off soon after she was at
anchor, and in the tall man at the steer-oar, whose commanding figure,
even at that distance, I seemed to know, there was no difficulty in
identifying our old friend Captain Carryall.
Directly he jumped ashore, a dozen of the islanders dashed into the surf
and ran the boat up on the beach. Our recognition was mutual.
"Well, young fellow!" he said, "I've been hunting you up half over the
South Seas. Wherever have you stowed yourself all this time? Why, what a
man you've grown--a couple of inches taller than me, and I'm no pony.
Brown as a berry, too! You'll have to come home with me this trip. Your
old man's beginning to get anxious about you--and you know he's not much
in that line--and your mother and sisters."
"Captain Carryall," I said, "there's no necessity for more reasons. I'm
going to Sydney with you if you'll give me a passage."
"Half a dozen if you want it," quoth the jolly sailor. "And now I must
have a word with my friends. Anybody been married since I was here last;
no Quintals--no Millses! Mary, how's this? Dorcas--Grace--Mercy Young,
I'm ashamed of you. And Miranda! Nobody run away with you yet? I see I
must take you to Sydney and show you at a Government House ball. Then
they'd see what a Pitcairn girl was like."
"You may do that yet," I said, "for, seriously, Miranda is now Mrs.
Hilary Telfer. We have been married more than a month."
The captain could not refrain from giving a prolonged whistle at this
announcement, which certainly appeared to take him by surprise. However,
he rallied with ease and celerity, and addressing Miranda, whose hand
he took as he spoke, said, "My dear! let me congratulate the son of my
old friend, Captain Telfer, upon his marriage with the best, cleverest,
and prettiest girl I have fallen across in all my wanderings. I don't
suppose you have any great amount of capital to begin life with; but if
two young people like you don't manage to find some path to fortune in a
country like Australia, I'm a Dutchman. He needs to be a good fellow,
and a man all round, to be worthy of Miranda Christian; but he can't
help, as the son of his father and his mother, being all that, and more.
So now, my dear! you must let me kiss you, as your husband's old friend,
and wish you all happiness."
Miranda blushed as the warm-hearted fellow folded her in his arms, but
submitted with becoming grace; and leaving her among her young friends,
he and I strolled away towards our hut to talk over affairs more at
leisure.
"Well, youngster!" said he, laying his hand on my shoulder, "I suppose
you've had enough island life for a while, and won't be sorry to see
Sydney Heads again. Nor I either. I've been out fifteen months this
time, and that's rather long to be away from one's home and picaninnies.
They'll be glad to see your face again at Rose Bay, I'll be bound. But
they certainly will be taken aback when you turn up as a married man.
Nineteen times out of twenty it's a mistake to tie one's self up for
life at your age. But all depends upon getting the right woman, and
Miranda is the one woman in a thousand that a man might be proud to
marry, whether he was rich or poor, and to work and wear out his life
for all his days. I've known her since she was a baby, and, taking her
all round, I don't know her equal anywhere. It seems queer to say so,
considering her birth and bringing up. But these Pitcairners are well
known to be the best and finest women, in all womanly ways, that the
world can show. And your wife is, and has always been, the flower of the
flock."
I grasped the captain's hand. I knew that I had secured a powerful ally;
and though I felt so secure in the wisdom of my choice that no
disapprobation of family and friends would have had power to affect me,
yet, in such matters, it is well to have a friend at court, and the
captain's reputation for sense and sagacity stood so high, that I felt
not only my relatives, but my acquaintances and friends, would be
strongly swayed by his judgment.
"Now that we've got so far," he said, "you had better make your
arrangements to sail with me on Sunday morning; this is Thursday, but my
passengers want to see the island and the people of whom they have heard
so much."
"Passengers!" I said. "How many? and where from?"
"Well, I picked them up at Honolulu. Half a dozen, and very nice people,
too. They came in an English yacht that went to San Francisco for them,
and they wanted to see Australia, and so came with me. They're rather
big people at home, I believe, though they're very quiet, and give
themselves no airs."
"Any ladies?"
"There are two married couples, and a young lady, with her brother."
"That's very serious, captain," said I. "I don't quite know how Miranda
will get on with travelling Englishwomen--they're rather difficult
sometimes."
"Miranda will get on with any one," answered the captain, with a decided
air. "She will sit on my right hand, as a bride, and no one in my ship
will show her less than proper respect. Anyhow, these people are not
that sort. You'll see she's all ready to start on Sunday morning. 'The
better the day, the better the deed.'"
So the captain went to pay a visit to the people of the settlement,
among whom his free, pleasant manner and generous bearing had made him
most popular. The girls crowded around him, laughing and plying him with
questions about the commissions he had promised to execute for them,
and the presents he had brought. These attentions he never omitted. Full
of curiosity they were, too, about the English ladies on board. "How
they were dressed?" "How long they would stay in Sydney?" "What they
would think of the poor Pitcairn girls?" and so on.
With the elders he told of the whaleships he had spoken, and of their
cargoes of oil--of the Quintals, or Youngs, Mills, or M'Coys who were
harpooners and boat-steerers on board some of the Sydney whalers, and of
the chances of their "lay" or share of profit being a good one. Besides
all this, the captain consented to act as their ambassador to the
Governor-General in Sydney, and lay before that potentate certain
defects of their island administration--small, perhaps, in themselves,
but highly important to the members of an isolated community. In
addition to all this, he (as I heard afterwards) specially attended to
my marriage with Miranda, of which he highly approved; telling the old
pastor and the elders of the community that he had known my father for
ever so many years; that he was highly respected now, when retired, but
had been well known in the South Seas and New Zealand many years ago as
the captain of the _Orpheus_, one of the most successful whalers that
ever sailed through Sydney Heads.
"Captain Telfer of the _Orpheus_!" said one of the oldest men of the
group, "I remember him well. I was cast away on Easter Island the time
the _Harriet_ was wrecked in a hurricane. He gave me a free passage to
Tahiti, a suit of clothes, and ten dollars when I left the ship. He
wanted me to finish the voyage with him and go to Sydney. I was sorry
afterwards I didn't. He was a fine man, and a better seaman never trod
plank. No wonder Hilary is such a fine chap. I can see the likeness now.
I don't hold with our young women going off this island in a general
way, but Miranda is a lucky girl to have Captain Telfer's son for a
husband." All this the captain told me afterwards with slight
embellishments and variations of his own.
My reputation had fairly gone before, but this light thrown on my
parentage placed me in a most exalted position--next to their spiritual
pastor and master, before whom they bowed in genuine respect and
reverence. Perhaps there is no man in the whole world more honoured and
admired in the South Seas than the captain of a ship. And now that the
name of my father's barque, once pretty well known south of the line,
had been recalled from the past, every doubt as to the future of Miranda
and myself was set at rest.
We were invested, so to speak, with the blessing of the whole community,
and began our modest preparations with added cheerfulness and resolve.
In the afternoon we saw a boat put off from the _Florentia_ and the
visitors land. They were five in number. We could see them walk over to
the village, where they were met by some of the principal people and a
few of the women and girls. We had been making ready for our voyage, and
having finished our simple meal, sat in the shade of our orange tree,
near the door, and awaited the strangers whom I judged rightly that
curiosity and the captain would bring to our dwelling.
In less than an hour's time we saw them strolling along the path which
led to our nest. As they approached we arose and went to meet them, when
the captain with all due form introduced us, "The Honourable Mr. and
Mrs. Craven, Colonel Percival, Mr. Vavasour, and his sister, Miss
Vavasour." Mrs. Percival had remained on board, as her little boy of
four or five years old was not well. Miranda, rather to my surprise, was
perfectly unembarrassed, and talked away to the stranger ladies as if
she had been accustomed to the society business all her life.
I could see that they were pleased and surprised at her appearance, as
also gratified with the manner in which she invited them to inspect our
simple dwelling.
"Oh! what a charming nest of a place--quite a bower of bliss!" cried
Miss Vavasour. "I declare I will come here when I am married and spend
my honeymoon. What shade and fragrance combined! What a lovely crystal
lakelet to bathe in! and I suppose, Mrs. Telfer, you go out fishing in
that dear canoe? What an ideal life!"
"I quite agree with you and feel quite envious," said Mrs. Craven.
"Charlie and I have been married too long to have our honeymoon over
again; but it would have been idyllic, wouldn't it, Charlie?"
"Splendid place to smoke in," assented her husband. "No hounds meet
nearer than Sydney, though, I presume. Drawback rather, isn't it?"
"You men are always thinking of horses, and hounds or guns," pouted Miss
Vavasour. "What can one want with them here? What can life offer more
than this endless summer, this fairy bower, this crystal wave, this air
which is a living perfume? It is an earthly paradise."
"And the beloved object," added Mrs. Craven, with quiet humour. "You
have left him out. It would be an incomplete paradise without Adam."
"Oh! here he comes!" exclaimed Miranda (as she told me afterwards), who
had not been attending to the enthusiastic speech, but was watching
bird-like for my approach.
"Who? Adam?" said Miss Vavasour, laughingly.
"Oh, no!" answered she, smiling at the apparent absurdity. "You must
excuse me a little, but I was looking out for Hilary."
"Now, then, ladies!" said the cheerful voice of Captain Carryall, "we
must get back to our boat. It's dangerous to stop ashore all night,
isn't it, Miranda? We must leave you to finish your packing. It's a long
voyage to Sydney, eh? It may be years before you see the island again."
We all went down together to the boat, where the visitors were seen off
by all the young people of the island, the girls wondering with
respectful admiration at the English ladies' dresses, hats, boots, and
shoes--in fact, at everything they did and said as well. It was a
revelation to them, not that they had any envious feeling about those
cherished possessions. They had been too well trained for that, and were
secure in the guidance of their deeply-rooted religious faith and lofty
moral code. On the other hand, their visitors admired sincerely the
noble forms and free, graceful bearing of the island maidens, as well as
the splendid athletic development of the men.
"Here, you Thursday Quintal, come and show these ladies how you can
handle a steer-oar," called out the captain. "He was the boat-steerer on
board the _Florentia_ one voyage, and steered in the pulling race for
whaleboats at the regatta on anniversary day, which we won the year
before last in Sydney harbour. We'll bring you ashore in the morning."
"Ay, ay, captain," said the young fellow, showing his splendid teeth in
a pleasant smile. "It will feel quite natural to take an oar in a boat
of yours again."
The wind had freshened during the afternoon, and the rollers on the
beach lifted the whaleboat as she came up to the landing rather higher
than the ladies fancied. However, they were carefully seated, and at the
captain's word, "Give way, my lads," the crew picked her up in great
style, while Quintal, standing with easy grace at the stern, the sixteen
foot oar in his strong grasp, directed her course with instinctive skill
so as to avoid the growing force of the wave. As he stood there--tall,
muscular, glorious in the grace and dignity of early manhood--he seemed
the embodiment of a sculptor's dream.
"What a magnificent figure!" said Mrs. Craven to her young friend. "How
rare it is to see such a form in Mayfair!"
"I surmise, as our American girl said at Honolulu," replied Miss
Vavasour, "that you might look a long time before you saw such a man
among our 'Johnnies'; and what eyes and teeth he has! Really I feel
inclined to rebel. Here's this Mr. Telfer, too, and what a grand-looking
fellow he is, and an English gentleman besides in all his ways. He can
make his way to this out of the way speck in the ocean, and secure a
Miranda for a life companion--glorious girl she is too--while we poor
English spins have to wait till a passable _pretendu_ comes along,--old,
bald, stupid, or diminutive, as the case may be,--and are bound to take
him under penalty of dying old maids. I call it rank injustice, and I'd
head a revolution tomorrow; and oh!--"
The interjection which closed the speech of this ardent woman's righter
was caused by the onward course of a breaking wave, which was not
avoided so deftly as usual, and splashed the speaker and Mrs. Craven.
"Hulloa! Quintal, what are you about?" said the captain, "is this your
steering that I've been blowing about to these ladies and gentlemen?
Miss Vavasour! I'm afraid it's your fault, you know the rule aboard
ship? Passengers are requested not to speak to the man at the wheel."
"But there's no regulation, captain, that the man at the steer-oar is
not to look at the passengers," said Mrs. Craven. "However, here we are
nearly on board, so there's no harm done, and we're only a trifle
damped."
* * * * *
Clear-hued--calm--waveless--dawned our farewell day. I was glad of it.
Rain and storm-clouds lower the spirits more distinctly when one is
about to make a departure than at any other time, besides the
inconvenience of wet or bedraggled garments. It was the Sabbath day, and
the pastor arranged a special service in commemoration of Miranda's
marriage and departure from the island. All the ship's company that
could be spared came, of course; the visitors made a point of attending.
The little church was crowded. Except the youngest children and their
guardians, every soul on the island was there.
After the Church of England service, which the islanders had at their
fingers' ends, and in which they all most reverently joined, hymns were
sung, in which the rich voices of the young girls were heard to great
advantage. There was a strange and subtle harmony pervading the
part-singing, which seemed natural to the race, more particularly in
those parts in which the whole of the congregation joined. As Miranda
played on the harmonium, it may have occurred to her friends and
playmates for the last time, many of them could not restrain their
tears. The aged pastor after the Liturgy preached a feeling and
sympathetic address, which certainly went to the hearts of all present.
He made particular allusion to our union and departure.
"One of the children of the island," he said, "who had endeared herself
to all by her unselfish kindness of heart, who had been marked out by
uncommon gifts, both mental and physical, was to leave them that day.
She might be absent for years, perhaps they might not see her face
again,--that face upon which no one had seen a frown, nor hear that
voice which had never uttered an unkind word," here the greater part of
the congregation, male and female, fell a-weeping and lamenting loudly.
"But they must take comfort; our beloved one was not departing alone,
she had been joined in holy matrimony with a youth of whom any damsel
might feel proud; he was the husband of her choice, the son of a master
mariner well known and highly respected in former years throughout the
wide Pacific. He himself had often heard of him in old days, and the son
of such a father was worthy to be loved and trusted. The child of our
hearts would go forth, even as Rebecca left her home and her people with
Isaac, and God's blessing would surely rest upon all her descendants as
upon the children of the promise.
"He would ask all now assembled to join in prayers for the welfare of
Hilary Telfer and Miranda, his wife."
As the venerable man pronounced the words of the benediction, echoed
audibly by the whole of the congregation, the sobs of the women were
audible, while tears and stifled sighs were the rule, and not the
exception. As the congregation rose from their knees, he walked down to
the _Florentia's_ boats, it having been so arranged by the captain, who
had invited all who could by any means attend, to lunch on board his
vessel. Farewells were said on the beach to all who were perforce
detained by age, infirmity, or other causes, and at length we were
safely seated in the captain's boat, and putting off, were followed by a
perfect fleet of every size and carrying capacity.
Miranda hid her face and wept silently. I did not attempt to persuade
her to moderate her grief, as the outlet of over-strung feelings, of
genuine and passionate regret, it was a natural and healthful
safety-valve for an overburdened heart.
"I don't think I was ever more impressed with our Church service," said
Mrs. Craven. "That dear, venerable old man, and his truly wonderful
congregation! How earnestly they listened, and how reverently they
behaved!"
"Think of our rustics in a village church!" said Miss Vavasour, "the
conceited choir, the sleeping labourers, the giggling school children,
where do you ever see anything like what we have witnessed to-day?
However did they manage to grow up so blameless, and to keep so good and
pure minded? Can you tell me, Mr. Telfer?"
"My knowledge of my wife's people is chiefly from hearsay," I said; "I
can remember the old tale of the Mutiny of the _Bounty_ when I was a
school-boy in Sydney. Captain Bligh, of the ill-fated ship, was
afterwards the Governor of New South Wales. Whether his conduct provoked
the mutiny, of which Miranda's great grandfather was the leader, or
whether the crew were overcome by the temptations of a life in that
second garden of Eden, Tahiti, has been disputed, and perhaps can never
be definitely known. This much is certain, that the sole surviving
mutineer, John Adams, deeply repentant, changed his rule of life.
Morning and evening prayer was established, and a system of instruction
for the children and young people regularly carried out. Such was the
apparently accidental commencement of the religious teaching of the
little community at the beginning of the century. Some of the results
you have witnessed to-day."
"It certainly is the most wonderful historiette in the whole world,"
said Miss Vavasour, who had listened with deep interest. "I never saw so
many nice people in one place before--all good--all kind--all contented,
and all happy. It makes one believe in the millennium; I must try what I
can do with our village when I get back to Dorsetshire."
"You'll have your work cut out for you, Miss Vavasour," said Colonel
Percival. "Fancy the old poachers and the hardened tramps, the
beer-drinking yokels and the rough field-hands. Work of years, and
doubtful then."
"Oh! dear, why do we call ourselves civilised, I wonder?" sighed the
enthusiastic damsel, just awakened to a sense of the duties of property
in correlation with the "rights." "I really believe Englishmen--the
lower classes, of course--are the most ill-mannered, uncivilised people
in the world. Look at those dear islanders, how polite and unselfish
they are in their behaviour to each other, and to us! It makes me feel
ashamed of my country. Why, even at a presentation to Her Majesty people
push, and crush, and look as black as thunder if you tread on their
absurd trains."
"You ought to come out and join the Melanesian Mission, my dear," said
Mrs. Craven. "There is no knowing, with your energy and convictions,
what good you might do."
"I wish I could," said the girl eagerly. "But I'm not good enough, I
wish I was. If I felt I could keep up my present feelings I'd go
to-morrow. But I'm selfish and worldly-minded, like my neighbours in
Christendom. It would be no use. I should only spoil my own life, and
not mend theirs."
"Such has been the confession of many an earnest reformer, who had
started in life with high hopes and a scorn of consequences," said Mr.
Vavasour quietly; "it is by far the most common result of heroic
self-sacrifice. If we did not occasionally see the accomplished fact, as
in this case, we might well despair."
"And this was an accident of accidents," said Miss Vavasour sorrowfully.
"No missionary society sent away the pioneer preachers to the heathen
with prayers, and flags, and collections. No, here is the grandest feat
ever accomplished in the world's history. The most religious, contented,
consistent community in the whole world evolved from a crew of runaway
sailors and a few poor savage women! Really there must be some good in
human nature after all, reviled and insulted as it is by all the extra
good people."
The _Florentia_ had not had so large a party on board since the last
successful affair in Sydney harbour. That one included dancing, which
did not enter into this entertainment. Nothing, however, could have gone
off better. The curiosity of the young women about the ladies'
belongings was amply gratified, and the luncheon voted the very best one
at which they had ever been entertained.
A mirthful and joyous gathering it was. The visitors were charmed with,
the naturally refined and courteous manners of the guests. And, finally,
as the day wore on, and the breeze from the land promised a good offing,
Miranda came up from her cabin, to which she had elected to retire, and
bade farewell to friends and kinsfolk, who departed in their boats, much
less saddened of mien than they had been in the morning.
* * * * *
Once more at sea. The _Florentia_, though a whaler, and not ornamented
up to yachting form, was yet extremely neat and spotlessly clean, as far
as could be managed by a smart and energetic captain. She was a fast
sailer, and as the wind off the land freshened at sundown, she spread
most of her canvas and sped before the breeze after a fashion which
would have made her a not unworthy comrade of the _Leonora_.
Miranda had retired to her cabin. Her heart was too full for jesting
converse, and after she had watched the last speck of her loved island
disappear below the horizon, she was fain to go below to hide her tears,
and relieve her feelings by unrestrained indulgence in grief.
For my part, after a cheerful dinner in the cuddy, I remained long on
deck, pacing up and down, and revolving in my mind plans for our future.
As I felt the accustomed sway of the vessel, listened to the creaking of
the rigging, which was music in my ears, and watched the waves fall back
from her sides in hissing foam-flakes, as the aroused vessel, feeling
the force of the rising gale, drove through the darkening wave-masses,
and seemed to defy the menace of the deep, the memories of my early
island life came back to me. The luxurious, halcyon days, the starlit,
silent nights, when ofttimes I had wandered to the shore, and seating
myself on a coral rock, gazed over the boundless watery waste, wondering
ever about my career, my destined fate.
Then returned the strange and wayward memories of Hayston and his
lawless associates--the reckless traders, the fierce half-castes, the
savage islanders! Again I heard the soft voices of Lalia, Nellie,
Kitty of Ebon, and smiled as I recalled their pleading, infantine ways,
their flashing eyes, so eloquent in love or hate. All were gone; all had
become phantoms of the past. With that stage and season of my life they
had passed away--irrevocably, eternally--and now I possessed an
incentive to labour, ambition, and self-denial such as I had never
before known. With such a companion as Miranda, where was the man who
would not have displayed the higher qualities of his nature, who would
not have risen to the supremest effort of labour, valour, or
self-abnegation? Before Heaven I vowed that night, that neither toil nor
trouble, difficulty nor danger, should deter me from the pursuit of
fortune and distinction. So passed our first day at sea.
With the one that followed the gale abated, and as the _Florentia_ swept
southward under easy sail, comfort was restored. The passengers settled
themselves down to the enjoyment of that absolute rest and passive
luxuriousness which characterise board-ship life in fine weather. Miss
Vavasour and Miranda were soon deep in earnest conversation, both for
the time disregarding the books with which they had furnished
themselves. Mrs. Craven had devoted herself to an endless task of
knitting, which apparently supplied a substitute for thought, reading,
recreation, and conversation.
I was talking to the captain when a lady came up the companion, followed
by the colonel, who half lifted, half led a fine little boy of four or
five years of age.
"Oh," said the captain, with a sudden movement towards the new arrivals,
"I see Mrs. Percival has come on deck. Come over and be introduced." We
walked over, and I received a formal bow from a handsome, pale woman,
who had evidently been sojourning in the East. There is a certain
similarity in all "Indian women," as they are generally called, which
extends even to manner and expression. Long residence in a hot climate
robs them of their roses, while the habit of command, resulting from
association with an inferior race, gives them a tinge of hauteur--not to
say unconscious insolence of manner--which is scarcely agreeable to
those who, from circumstances, they may deem to be socially inferior.
So it was that Miranda, in spite of Miss Vavasour's nods and signals,
received but the faintest recognition, and retreated to her chair
somewhat chilled by her reception. She, however, took no apparent notice
of the slight, and was soon absorbed in conversation with Miss Vavasour,
her brother, and Mrs. Craven, who had moved up her chair to join the
party. The colonel deserted his former friends to devote himself to his
family duties, while the captain and I walked forward and commenced a
discussion which had, at any rate, a strong personal interest for me.
"Now look here, Hilary," said he, as he lighted a fresh cigar. He had
been smoking on the quarter-deck under protest, as it were, and thus
commenced: "Listen to me, my boy! I've been thinking seriously about you
and Miranda. Your start in life when you get to Sydney is important. I
think I can give you a bit of advice worth following. You understand all
the dialects between here and the Line Islands, don't you?"
"More than eight," I answered; "I can talk with nearly every islander
from here to the Gilberts. I have learned so much, at any rate, in my
wanderings."
"And a very good thing, too, for it's not a thing that can be picked up
in a year, no matter how a man may work, and he's useless or nearly so
without it; you can keep accounts, write well, and all that?"
I replied that I had a number of peculiar accounts to keep as
supercargo to the _Leonora_, as well as all Hayston's business letters
to write; that my office books were always considered neat, complete,
and well kept. Then he suddenly said, "You are the very man we want!"
"Who are we, and what is the man wanted for?" I asked.
"For the South Sea Island trade, and no other," said Captain Carryall,
putting his hand on my shoulder. "Old Paul Frankston (you've heard of
him) and I have laid it out to establish a regular mercantile house in
Sydney for the development of the island trade. The old man will back
us, and the name of Paul Frankston is good from New Zealand to the North
Pole and back again. I will do the whaling, cruising, and cargo
business--cocoa-nut oil, copra, and curios--while you will live in one
of those nice white houses at North Shore, somewhere about Neutral Bay,
where you can see the ships come through the Heads; Miranda can have a
skiff, and you a ten-tonner, so as not to forget your boating and your
sea-legs. What do you think of that, eh?"
"It is a splendid idea!" I cried, "and poor Miranda will be within sound
of the sea. If she were not, she would pine away like her own araucarias
which will not live outside of the wave music. But how about the cash
part of it? I haven't much. Most of my savings went down in the
_Leonora_."
"Oh, we'll manage that somehow! Old Paul will work that part of the
arrangement. I daresay your father will advance what will make your
share equal, or nearly so, to ours."
"It sounds well," I said. "With partners like Mr. Frankston and yourself
a man ought to be able to do something. I know almost every island where
trade can be got, and the price to a cowrie that should be paid. There
ought to be a fortune in it in five years. What a pity Hayston couldn't
have had such a chance."
"He'd have had the cash, and the other partners the experience, in less
than that time," said the captain, smiling sardonically. "He was a
first-rate organiser if he had not been such a d--d scoundrel. He had
some fine qualities, I allow; as a seaman he had no equal. In the good
old fighting days he would have been a splendid robber baron. But in
these modern times, where there is a trifle of law and order in most
countries, even in the South Seas he was out of place."
"He was far from a model mariner," I said, "but it hurts me to hear him
condemned. He had splendid points in his character, and no one but
myself will ever know how much good there was mixed up with his
recklessness and despair. I left him, but I couldn't help being fond of
him to the last."
"It was a good thing for you that you did--a very good thing. You will
live to be thankful for it. He was a dangerous beggar, and neither man
nor woman could escape his fascination. However, that's all past and
gone now. You're married and settled, remember, and you're to be Hilary
Telfer, Esq., J.P., and all the rest of it directly, and the only
sea-going business you can have for the future is to be Commodore of the
Neutral Bay Yacht Club, or some such title and distinction. And now I've
done for the present. You go and see what Miranda thinks of it. I won't
agree to anything unless she consents."
Miranda was charmed with the idea of a mercantile marine enterprise, so
much in accordance with her previous habits and experiences. The added
inducement of living on the sea-shore, with a boat, a jetty, and a
bathing-house, decided her. She implicitly believed in Captain
Carryall's power and ability to make our fortune; was also certain that,
with Mr. Frankston's commercial aid, we should soon be as rich as the
Guldensterns, the Rothschilds of the Pacific. She surrendered herself
thereupon to a dream of bliss, alloyed only at intervals by a tinge of
apprehension that the great undiscovered country of Sydney society might
prove hostile or indifferent.
So much she communicated to Miss Vavasour as she and Mrs. Craven were
reclining side by side on their deck chairs, while the _Florentia_ was
gliding along on another day all sunshine, azure, and favouring breeze.
"Don't you be afraid, my dear," said the kind-hearted Mrs. Craven, "you
and your husband are quite able to hold your own in Sydney society or
any other; indeed, I shall be inclined to bet that you'd be the rage
rather than otherwise. I wish I had you in Northamptonshire, I'd
undertake to 'knock out' (as Charlie says) the local belles in a
fortnight."
Miranda laughed the childishly happy laugh of unspoiled girlhood. "Dear
Mrs. Craven, how good of you to say so; but, of course, I know I'm a
sort of savage, who will improve in a year or two if every one is as
kind as you and Miss Vavasour here; but suppose they should be like
her," and she motioned towards Mrs. Percival.
This lady had never relaxed the coldness and hauteur towards Miranda and
myself. She had been unable to modify her "Indian manner," as Captain
Carryall and Mr. Vavasour called it, and about which they made daily
jokes.
As she passed the little group, she bowed slightly and without
relaxation of feature, going forward to the waist of the ship, where she
sat down and was soon absorbed in a book. The three friends smiled at
each other, and continued their conversation.
"I should like to dress you for a garden-party, Miranda," said Miss
Vavasour; "let me see now, a real summer day, such as we sometimes get
in dear old England--not like this one perhaps, but very nice. A lovely
old manor house like Gravenhurst or Hunsdon--such a lawn, such old
trees, such a river, a marquee under an elm a hundred years old, and the
county magnates marching in from their carriages."
"Oh, how delicious!" cried Miranda. "I have read such descriptions in
books, but you--oh, how happy you must be to have lived it all!"
"It's very nice, but as to the happiness, that doesn't always follow,"
confessed the English girl with a half sigh. "I almost think you have
the greater share of that. Anyhow, just as the company are assembled, I
am seen walking down from the house. We are of the house party, you
know, Miranda and I. She is dressed in a soft, white, embroidered
muslin, very simply made, with a little, a very little Valenciennes
lace. Its long straight folds hang gracefully around her matchless
figure, and are confined at the waist by a broad, white moiré sash;
white gloves, a white moiré parasol, a large Gainsborough hat with
fleecy white feathers, and Miranda's costume is complete--the very
embodiment of fresh, fair girlhood, unspotted from the world of fashion
and folly."