PRINCESS TATTERS
Mr Lawrence approached the figure of the young lady sobbing against
the bulkhead, and placed his hand lightly upon her shoulder. She shook
him off with a passionate convulsion of her whole form, which was full
of disgust, aversion, and contemptuous wrath. It was a masterpiece of
movement, eloquent in the highest possible degree of what she chose
him to believe was in her mind. Her mother, Mrs Kitty O'Hara, had
been famous for her artful strokes in this way. No actress surpassed
her, and few were the equals of Mrs O'Hara in the remarkable gift of
personification of passion by action.
Mr Lawrence drew back a step.
"Loving you as I do," he exclaimed softly, "loving me as I know you
do, my dearest girl, my sweet mistress, the sole star of my desire,
how must it grieve me to see you weeping, how much more that I am to
think those tears flow through me? But I have faith in time, in the
unconquerable quality of my love, and in the assurance of my soul, for
though I have descended to artifice to enable me to win you, pure gem
of your sex as you are, you do not despise me for my struggle. You
recognise and approve an effort which has cost me many little pangs;
for, dearest madam, my sweetest Lucy, 'tis all for love, and the world
would be lost for me if you denied me, if I did not win you."
She stayed her sobbing to exclaim in the high, strained notes she had
before spoken in: "Send me home, sir! send me back to my father! There
are ships about. You speak falsely if you say there are no ships. We
are still near my home. Do as I say before you drive me mad!"
She rounded from the bulkhead as she pronounced these words. Her eyes
seemed to be on fire; her cheeks glowed. Again she bared her teeth in
her wild, insane grin. She appeared transformed. He knew that certain
violent and heart-changing passions and emotions could so work in a
beautiful face as to make it look repulsive and devilish, such as
jealousy or criminal insult, but he never could have believed of Lucy
Acton that her loveliness could undergo the amazing transformation he
witnessed; for he did not think to recall that her mother had been a
great actress, and that this girl might have inherited perhaps the
finest side of her genius.
"There is no ship, I assure you, madam. They have my instructions on
deck to keep clear of any sail that heaves into sight, because I am not
the man to allow my dream of happiness to be dissolved by a Frenchman's
capture of this vessel. And what must we expect to find in these narrow
waters but the ships of the enemy intent upon easy captures, bloodless
prizes such as the _Minorca_ would make?"
For answer she threw herself down upon the deck. She fell as though in
a swoon, and lay motionless with her face buried once more in her arm
that now reposed upon the carpeted planks. Her tears or sobs assured
him that she had not fainted, and understanding that his wisest policy
would be to leave her to her thoughts, he cast an adoring look upon
the prostrate figure and quitted the cabin, slamming the door noisily
after him that she might know he was gone, but silently turning the
key outside, for it was not then his intention that she should go on
deck and meet the crew until the statement he had made to Mr Eagle had
passed in growling whispers through the men.
It was customary on board the _Minorca_, and doubtless in many other
ships carrying merchandise, for the mate to dine in the cabin with
the captain in his watch below, that is to say, when he had no duty
on deck. The second mate kept a look-out, and when the chief mate was
done, the second went below to dinner. If the mate had the watch during
the dinner-hour, he remained on deck until he was relieved by the
captain.
The cabin dinner-hour on board the _Minorca_ was one o'clock. When Mr
Lawrence first met Mr Eagle, and perceived that he was little superior
to a working hand before the mast, he had made up his mind to hold no
intercourse with him outside the absolute requirements of the ship's
routine. He had told him plainly that he desired to dine alone, and
that when the mate's duty kept him on deck he, Mr Lawrence, would
relieve him after he had finished his meal. This arrangement perhaps
secretly pleased Mr Eagle, even on the spot when it was first named,
for he easily witnessed in Mr Lawrence a man so out and away superior
to himself that he judged he would feel like taking a great liberty
every time he sat down with the master of the ship.
The dinner was served this day at one o'clock. The humpbacked steward
brought the dishes aft from the galley or caboose, as the little
cooking place used to be called. The ship had only just come out of
port, and she had brought with her a stock of fresh provisions, meat,
and vegetables, and the like, which would supply the cabin and the
forecastle with fresh messes for some days. Mr Lawrence had also caused
a couple of hen-coops to be filled with poultry.
In those times sailors lacked the addition of the harness cask and
bread barge, to the bitter wooden beef and the coarse worm-eaten
ship's biscuit which science and experience have contributed to the
scurvy-making fare which seamen are obliged to eat. Yet a sort of
provision was made to supplement the brine-hardened meat and the worms
of the sailor's bread. The captain of a man-of-war, for instance, at
sea, would breakfast on coffee, toast, potted beef and tongue, sliced
_à la_ Vauxhall. Whole legs of mutton were tinned.
Mr Lawrence sat down alone in the plain little cabin of the _Minorca_
on this the first day of the vessel's sailing, and upon the table were
placed by Paul a boiled fowl, a piece of boiled bacon, a round of cold
fresh beef boiled, a dish of sausages, and two or three dishes of
vegetables. Paul having already received instructions placed a tray
furnished for a meal beside his master on the table; and Mr Lawrence
cut some fowl and bacon, adding vegetables, and filled a small tumbler
with red wine, and then, stepping to the door of the berth in which
Lucy Acton was confined, he almost noiselessly inserted the key and
softly shot the latch, and resumed his seat, and Paul, bearing the tray
of food, knocked on the door, and receiving no reply entered, and the
motion of the ship upon a long, steady heave of swell slammed the door
to after him.
Mr Lawrence, with his back turned upon this cabin door, heard Lucy's
voice, but not what she said. If Paul answered her his voice was so
sunk by the awfulness of her presence, by all that she meant being
at sea, by all that she had typified to this forlorn vagrant when on
shore, that his accents were inaudible in the cabin.
After a few minutes he came out. He approached the cabin table and
stood close. His face wore a mingled look of astonishment and fear, and
he was very pale. He was as grotesque as something fanciful in a fairy
story, with his red hair, hump, long arms, rounded legs, and whilst he
stood he scratched himself as a monkey does. His chin was enormous, and
out of all proportion to his face.
"Is Miss Acton eating her dinner?"
"No, sir."
"What did she say to you?"
"Why, your honour, when I went in she looked at me and burst into a
laugh that turned my blood cold."
"She didn't know you to be the man that gave her the letter that
brought her here?"
"She didn't look as if she remembered me, your honour, and she said
nothing about it."
"What did she say?"
"Why, your honour, she says whilst I hold the tray, 'What are you?'
'I'm the ship's steward, your ledyship,' says I. 'Ay, but what else?'
says she. 'What forest was you caught in?' I didn't understand her,
sir, and didn't answer. 'Do you come from Africa?' says she, 'or have
you broke loose from a travelling wild beast show?'"
Mr Lawrence arched his eyebrows. Certainly he did not recognise the
sweet and sympathetic Lucy Acton in these questions.
"And then she says, frowning as though she'd up with a knife off the
tray and run it into me, 'What have you got there?' 'Your dinner, your
ledyship,' says I. 'Put it down upon the floor!' says she in a sort of
shriek, as if she was trying to sing. 'Don't you see I'm in tatters?
They've got me here who am a princess at home, and these are my rags
and all I've got,' says she, spreading her dress with her hands as
though she was goin' to skip. 'Beggars in rags feed on the floor:
they feed so. Anywhere's good enough for them. I've seen 'em sitting
on the edge of ditches eating. Put the food on the floor! That's how
princesses in tatters dine.' I did as I was ordered, your honour, and
came away."
"Go in presently and see if she's done, and ask if she'll have some
fruit pie or cake, and report if the tray is still on the deck."
"Yes, sir," answered Paul, who was not sailor enough to say, "Ay, ay,
sir," which should have been his speech.
Mr Lawrence was exceedingly thoughtful. What opinion he was arriving
at, whether he was beginning to think that the girl was really mad or
that she was merely acting with extravagant absurdity in the hope of
disgusting him, you could not have told by looking at his face.
In about ten minutes after Paul had made his report, Mr Lawrence told
him to knock on Miss Acton's cabin door and enter. This time the door
swung to and fro, and Mr Lawrence, who had turned in his seat to follow
the steward's movements, saw Miss Acton upon all fours upon the deck
with her face close to the tray, as though she was taking up the food
with her mouth. A swing of the vessel hove the door to its latch, and
hid the extraordinary picture.
A minute or two later Paul came out, shutting the door after him.
"I saw her," said Mr Lawrence. "She is on her hands and knees. What did
you say?"
"I asked her if she'd have some fruit pie or cake. She didn't look up
nor answer. She's chucked most of what I took in about the cabin."
"She has made no meal, then?"
"I couldn't tell, your honour. The piece of chicken is on the bed, and
I see the piece of bacon under it. I dunno what she was doin' with her
nose a-nuzzling of the tray as though she was a-smelling of the salt."
"Don't enter the cabin for half an hour. Then go in and clear up. And
if she speaks, make no answer, and take no notice of her, but clean up
the mess."
He left the table, and turned the key softly in Lucy's door, withdrew
it, and went on deck. The breeze that had blown the _Minorca_ out
of Old Harbour still sang in her shrouds, but with a fresh and a
stronger song. The sea ran in lines of brine which flashed friskily.
The mountainous clouds sailed down the blue heavens with the solemn
majesty of line-of-battle ships draped in sun-empearled cloth from
truck to waterway. The bluff-bowed barque was darting foam from her to
right and left as she thrust through the streaming waters and rolled
with dignity, slowly to leeward and yet more slowly to windward as she
brought the violet shadowed cavities of her canvas to the wind. The
hens were noisy in their coops, and cocks crew. The sound of waters
broken and in motion was musical. The shadows of the rigging slided
gently to and fro over the wide breadth of white planks. The men in the
picturesque garb of the merchant sailor of that day, some of them in
striped pantaloons flowing to the shoe, some in short-cut blue jackets,
and most of them in round hats, were distributed over several parts of
the ship. Mr Eagle walked the weather side of the quarterdeck. In reply
to Mr Lawrence's question, he said that nothing had been in sight and
nothing was in sight. This Mr Lawrence verified by a searching sweep of
his gaze round the horizon, and Mr Eagle went below into the cabin to
eat his dinner.
When he was there he bade Paul go forward and tell Mr Pledge that
dinner awaited him. This privilege was Pledge's because, though he was
the ship's boatswain and also her carpenter, he kept watch and headed
the starboard division of the crew as second mate.
He was a tall, lank man, rather knock-kneed, with a long neck, and,
which was very unusual in those days, his chin was garnished with a
quantity of straggling reddish hair. His face looked as though it had
been put together without much judgment. His nose, which was broken,
was not in line; his mouth was somewhat on one side, one eyebrow was
raised and the other depressed. His eyes were small, of a deep, moist,
soft blue. He had served in the American Navy, and had much to tell
about Yankee captains and commodores. He was dressed in the garb of the
common sailor, and it is not wonderful that Mr Lawrence should decline
to meet him at table, which, if it did not make their footing equal,
must bring them into relations the fastidious, haughty, handsome naval
officer would regard in an uncommon degree objectionable.
He entered the cabin and took his place. Mr Eagle at the foot of the
table carved the boiled beef. When they were fairly under way with
their dinner Paul went forward, and the two men were alone in the
cabin, out of hearing of Mr Lawrence's ears through the open skylight
if they suppressed their voices, equally out of hearing of the inmate,
under lock and key, of the captain's cabin.
Though Mr Lawrence had communicated the intelligence of the girl being
on board and of his holding sealed orders from Captain Acton in
confidence to Mr Eagle, the sensations excited in this plain and acid
sailor by the extraordinary, astounding, and unexpected revelations had
filled him to bursting point with a fever and passion for giving the
news. In short, the man's mind was much too small to retain what had
been poured into it, and of course it overflowed. To whom other than
Tom Pledge could he speak? Pledge and he had sailed in Captain Acton's
employ for two or three voyages; they were friends, and visited each
other ashore where each had a little cottage and a wife. So after a
careful survey of the skylight, which lay open just above the table,
and a cautious look round, Mr Eagle said: "Tom, did you observe me and
the Capt'n walkin' up and down this morning in conversation?"
"Ay," answered Pledge, "and I wondered what there was between ye to
keep ye so busy in talk."
Mr Eagle again looked up at the skylight, and said as softly as his
gruff voice permitted: "What d'ye think, Tom, of our sailin' under
sealed orders from Captain Acton which the Captain's to read in
latitood twenty north and longitood thirty west? The contents of them
sealed orders aren't exactly known to the Capt'n, but he told me from
what Capt'n Acton let fall, he believed that the ship was to be
carried to another port, and there handed over to a Spanish gent as was
a-waitin' to receive her, and that the whole ship's company was to be
discharged and sent 'ome at Captain Acton's expense and the wages they
had agreed for trebled. What d'ye say to that?"
Pledge, who chewed slowly as a cow the cud, watched his companion
steadfastly, his temples throbbing with the action of his jaws, and
said: "Do you believe it, John?"
"So help me God, yes, then, as I sit here," answered Mr Eagle.
"Who is to work the ship for him?" asked Pledge. "For you may depend
upon it that if the crew are to be carried away to an unbeknown place,
they'll all go below to a man, for Jack's as good as his master when it
comes to his having to do something which he didn't agree for."
"I put it as you do, though in different words," said Mr Eagle, "and he
answered that Captain Acton's orders must be obeyed, that the crew's
refusal would be mutiny, and that if they wouldn't work the ship
to a port, where he could ship a fresh crew, he'd heave a-back the
main-topsail yard and wait for a man-o'-war to come along."
"Well, I'm jiggered!" said Mr Pledge, now looking slightly startled,
for he was an old sailor, he well understood the despotic powers of
the captain of a ship, and he readily perceived that Mr Lawrence's
threats in case of refusal by the crew were to be carried out.
"But that's not all," continued Mr Eagle, with another glance at the
skylight. "It ain't even 'arf all, and I think you'll agree with me
that the rummiest part's got to come."
"Another slice, John!" said Pledge, pushing his plate, and cutting a
big chunk from a loaf.
"Who d'ye think's aboard?"
"Who?"
"Why, Captain Acton's daughter, Miss Lucy Acton!"
"What's she a-doing' of _here_?" enquired Pledge, pulling away his
plate heavy with meat and fat.
"She's a-running away with Mr Lawrence!"
"Or is Mr Lawrence a-running away with _her_?"
"According to his yarn," said Eagle with sour solemnity, "they've
rooned away with each other."
"Where is she?" asked Pledge.
Eagle dumbly pointed to the Captain's cabin. "It's an artfully laid
plot," said he, "if the Capt'n's to be believed. She's supposed to be
locked up agin her will. By-and-by she's to go among the sailors and
swear that she's been carried off by violence. This is to make her
father believe that she never consented to run away, as she don't want
to lose the fortune as 'ud otherwise come to her."
"Wasn't there some talk a bit of a time past of him a-courting of her?"
said Pledge.
"Why, yes, now that you remind me, I recollect."
"Well, John," said Pledge, "it's not for me nor the likes of me to
interfere in such a galavantin' job as this. If the young lady's been
run away with with her own consent, it's not for me, I says, to pay any
attention to what's 'appening. People who fall in love with each other
and are objected to by their relatives will sometimes carry on their
business in a way as might make pious, respectable old parients feel
their hair standing short up on their heads. I've lived long enough in
this 'ere world to descover that no good ever comes to a man by messing
about in other people's consarns. But when it comes to this ship being
navigated to another port than the one agreed for, why, naturally
you set me a-thinking, John. I don't know nothing about them sealed
orders you refer to, but it seemed strange to me when I heard of it,
and it's strange to me still, that Mr Lawrence should have been chosen
to command this vessel when the berth was yourn by right of sarvice.
Was it because Captain Acton couldn't be sure of your a-executing his
wishes? What d'ye think yourself, John? You've got to consider it's
two naval officers acting together; they know each other's mind, and I
guess that when Captain Acton chose Mr Lawrence to take charge of his
ship he knew that he was in the 'ands of a man who'd listen to no talk,
who was used to man-o'-war's discipline, and would act if it came to
having to shoot men down so as to gain his ends."
Mr Eagle, whose views were undoubtedly in accord with Mr Pledge's,
viewed his companion in acid silence.
Just about this time the steward Paul came down the companion steps
with the cabin key which he had received from Mr Lawrence. He took
no notice of the two men seated at the table, but stepped to Lucy's
door, knocked, paused, inserted the key, and passed in. He emerged
in less than two minutes holding the tray that was covered literally
with broken victuals, and locking the door was about to step up the
companion ladder when Mr Pledge said: "Who've you got locked up in that
there cabin?"
"You must ask the Captain that, sir, if you want to know," Paul
answered.
"You dog! D'ye know I'm second mate? Answer me, or I'll flay ye before
sundown," said Pledge, turning scarlet.
"I durs'nt," whined Paul. "I've the Captain's orders to keep my mouth
shut," and he hastened up the steps.
He was followed by Mr Eagle, who thought it about time to relieve the
Captain.
Mr Pledge had eaten his last morsel of cheese and was leaving the
table, when his attention was arrested by a knocking on Lucy's door,
accompanied by the cries of a female; but what she said he could not
hear. So Mr Pledge, taking some steps, stood close to the door.
The voice of Lucy within cried out: "Is anybody there?"
"I'm here, ma'am," answered Pledge.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Thomas Pledge, acting second mate of this 'ere ship, ma'am."
"Open this door!"
"I can't, ma'am, it's locked," and in proof of his assurance, Pledge
turned the handle and shook the door.
"I demand to be set at liberty!" cried Lucy, in the strained, wild
voice that had frightened the hunchback steward. "The villain who
commands this ship lured me into her by pretending that Captain Acton,
who is my father and the owner of the vessel, lay seriously injured
through an accident, and wished to see me. I demand to be returned to
my home! I have been stolen away by a base artifice. The crew of this
ship are the servants of my father, and they would know his wish must
be to recover me, and your duty, and Mr Eagle's, and the men's, is to
turn the ship for Old Harbour, and surrender me up to my father. If
this is not done I shall go mad. I am mad now. The wretch who by a lie
has seduced me into this vessel, has driven me crazy."
And with that she fell to singing, from which she broke off after a few
moments to burst into a shrieking, lunatic laugh.
Thomas Pledge's mind was of a very common order. He had gathered from
Eagle that the girl was to pretend a situation of acute distress, that
when she was married her father should not hold her responsible for her
elopement. Her words might have carried weight, and even conviction,
but for the song and loud unmeaning laugh that closed them, in which
Mr Pledge saw nothing but acting, not having experience of insanity in
any shape or form. And shouting through the door, "I'll go and report
to the Captain, ma'am, that you're locked up and want to get out," he
turned, with the intention of making for the companion ladder, when he
saw Mr Lawrence standing a few paces abaft the steps, tall, stern,
frowning, his face fierce with the strain, and indeed almost fury, of
the attention with which he had bent his ears to catch the syllables of
Lucy through the bulkhead.
Mr Pledge started like a guilty thing surprised.
"What are you doing at that cabin door, sir?" asked Mr Lawrence. "I
do not enquire what you are doing in this cabin, for, according to
the custom of this ship, and perhaps of others in your Service, you
take your meals here. But what are you doing at that door, conversing
through it with the lady inside?"
"The lady thumped and I went to see what was the matter, sir," said Mr
Pledge, awed in his old man-o'-war instincts by the over-bearing, I may
say, the overwhelming demeanour of Mr Lawrence, which was to his words
as the thunder of the explosion is to the message of the firearm.
"Has Mr Eagle been talking to you about the subject of our conversation
this morning?" said Mr Lawrence.
Now, Tom was too sound a shipmate to betray John. He answered doggedly,
as though Mr Lawrence as well as himself must be aware that he was
trespassing on ground he had no right to tread: "We yarned of course
together. We've sailed together afore, and can always find something
to talk about, sir."
Mr Lawrence seemed to read the man's thoughts. Unscrupulous as was
this Naval gentleman, he was an extremely clever fellow. Preserving
a severe austerity of countenance, a demeanour upon which the word
discipline was writ large, he exclaimed: "It is not my intention to ask
you if Mr Eagle has broken his faith with me and communicated to you
the confidence I imparted to him this morning. You are, sir, by virtue
of your rank aboard the ship free of this cabin, and it is therefore
desirable that I should trust you. The lady in yonder berth is Miss
Lucy Acton, who consented to elope with me, providing it should be
understood by all on board that she was being kidnapped or stolen from
her home. That this should appear, it was arranged between us that she
should be locked up as though she were a prisoner, and then in a day or
two I should enlarge her, and she would go amongst the crew and speak
of my cunning and stratagem, and her desperate lot in being torn from
her father's home. All which would in due course reach her father's
ears, and mollify his wrath at her giving me her hand in the existing
state of my fortunes, and preserve to her the fortune she must inherit
as Captain Acton's only child. Now, sir," continued Mr Lawrence in his
frowning, imperious way, "this is submitted to you in confidence, and
it is manifestly my wish that some of the crew should credit her story
that they may give the evidence we desire when they are called upon to
tell what they know!"
"Well, sir," answered Mr Pledge, pleased by the skipper's candour and
condescension, "it's not for a plain sailor man like me to put his hand
into such a tar-bucket as this. I know my bit, and I'm a-willing for to
do it, and if the hands get to hear the story of the lady it'll come
from her or from that there humpbacked steward who waits upon her, and
not from me, for I'm for minding my own affairs, and sticking like a
barnacle to a ship's bottom to the ondertakings I enter into."
He said this with a grave nod of the head, that the significance of
the closing passage of his speech might be mastered, for it was then
running through his mind that more lay behind the presence of Lucy
Acton on board than Mr Lawrence suspected he knew: by which he referred
to the sealed orders.
Mr Lawrence made no answer, and Mr Pledge seeing that he was to
go, went on deck by the only exit, namely, the companion ladder.
Immediately after he had passed through the hatch the steward Paul
descended.
"Did you clear away the mess from Miss Acton's berth?" asked Mr
Lawrence.
"Yes, sir."
"The lady, I presume, ate nothing?"
"I couldn't see that she had, your honour."
"When you have cleared this table, go forward and tell the cook to
cut a plate of the most delicate beef and chicken sandwiches he can
contrive. Get a bottle of red wine and a glass, and be ready to carry
the refreshments to the lady when I've left her."
He approached Miss Acton's door. Lucy was seated on a locker under a
window, three of which embellished the stern of the _Minorca_. The
ocean as the ship lightly depressed her stern, was visible through this
window, a blue field decked with flowers of foam that rose and sank.
The large glazed space filled the cabin with light, which trembled with
the pulse of the white wake streaming fan-wise, and with the shivering
of the sunlight into splinters of diamond brilliance by the fretful
motions of the breeze-brushed waters.
Miss Lucy Acton sat with her eyes veiled by downcast lids fixed in a
stare as lifeless as the dead upon her hands, which lay clasped in her
lap. So motionless was she, you would have said she slept. Much of the
lovely bloom that always gave to her lineaments a choice sweetness
was absent, but not the less did as much of her face as was visible
express its refined and delicate beauty.
When Mr Lawrence entered she did not raise her eyes, nor whilst he
stood looking at her did she discover by any sort of movement the least
knowledge of his presence.
"Lucy!" he said, speaking the word in the wooing voice of love.
She made no sign. He repeated her name as though startled by her
immobility in which an element of tragedy might have been found in the
singular, unwinking fixity of her stare upon her hands. He stepped to
her side, and peered closely into her face and listened to hear if she
breathed. Oh yes: she breathed, she was alive. But though he put his
face so close to her's that she might have felt his breath upon her
cheek, her form did not move by so much as might indicate the passage
of a thrill, her eyes remained as steadfast in their gaze as though
they were painted.
He withdrew a step, and exclaimed: "Lucy, why will you not speak to me?
Why will you not look at me? You know that all this is done in the holy
name of love, and God who knows me knows that I would not cause you a
pang, that your beautiful eyes should not be shadowed by a tear drawn
by any action of mine if I could have believed that loving me as I know
you do, that loving you as you know I do, you would have come to me at
the summons of my passion, and hand in hand with me as my wife, taken
your chance of all that might have followed."
The emotion of an impassioned heart, the melody of a rich and manly
voice were in his words, and no man, though he should hate the fellow
for his wrong-doing, could have doubted his sincerity whilst listening
to his speech. Add to this his superb figure, his handsome face glowing
with feeling, the hereditary dignity of his demeanour; but these were
expressions of his meaning which she would not raise her eyes to
witness.
All on a sudden and when the silence that followed had not lasted ten
seconds, she sprang to her feet with a shriek; she dashed her hands to
her face, she rushed as though pursued to the other end of the cabin,
and there crouched with her face to the bulkhead, hidden in her hands;
and thus she stood rocking herself sideways, moaning: "Why am I not
sent home? Why am I here a prisoner? What will my father think has
become of me? Home, home, home! In the hands of a man that dare rob his
employer! At the mercy of one who of all Captain Acton's friends and
acquaintances should feel the most deeply obliged to him." She wheeled
round and out of her incommunicable attitude and language of distress,
and said, looking at him vacantly with a cold, pale smile: "Are you Mr
Lawrence, the son of Sir William Lawrence, Captain Acton's friend?"
"You know, madam, that I am," he answered, bowing with graceful
suavity, and with a light smile that was like saying, "I understand the
import of your tactics, and am willing to wait and watch you."
"I know, sir," she exclaimed with the vehement indignation and contempt
conveyed by that perfection of art which conceals art and which is a
gift of intuition beyond the reach of those not born with it, "that Sir
William Lawrence has a son, and that he was dismissed from the Navy for
a brutal, drunken outrage of which he alone, of all the gentlemen and
officers in the Service, was capable."
He coloured brightly at this, and his frown was as though a shadow had
come between him and the light that revealed his face.
"I know," she continued, still preserving her accent of scorn and
viewing him with eyes that did not seem to be her's, so did she
contrive to diminish the breadth of the beauty of the lids, so did she
manage to look passions and feelings which the memory of her oldest
friend could never have recalled as vitalising her brooding half-hooded
gaze: "I know that this man came ashore and lived upon his father who
was poor, and drank and gambled until his name provoked nothing but a
shrug, and that one day in a fit of pity, for which doubtless he has
asked God's pardon, Captain Acton, who loves Admiral Lawrence, gave
his poor creature of a son command of a ship. This I know," she said,
letting her eyes fall suddenly from his face down upon her fingers,
which she seemed to count as she proceeded. "But I had always supposed
that there was some spirit of goodness left in Mr Walter Lawrence. I
believed that though he might gamble and drink and live in idleness
upon the bounty of his father, he with all his imperfections was a
man incapable of outraging the feelings of a young girl, incapable
of betraying the generous confidence of one who stood to him as a
warm-hearted friend. Can _you_ be that Mr Lawrence?" she said, peering
at him in such a peculiar fashion, with such archness of contempt
that a spectator, short-sighted and at a little distance, would have
supposed she was looking at the handsome fellow through an eye-glass.
"Oh, I am going mad to suppose it--mad to think it possible!"
She flashed her hands to her forehead, sobs seemed to shake her, she
turned on her heel and went to the big stern window, and looked out
upon the sea.
He seemed to have been struck dumb by the fury of her candour. His
teeth were fastened upon his under lip, his cheek had grown pale.
"Will you leave this cabin," she said without turning, "and acquaint
the first ship you meet with that you have a young gentlewoman on
board who desires to be set ashore in England? I do not ask you," she
continued, with the cutting sneer that was on her lip as plain in her
voice as though her face was visible to him, "to return this ship and
her contents to their lawful owner. But if you suppose that you are
going to gain me by keeping me a prisoner in this den, if you imagine
that all the horror which my soul can feel for a wicked, unscrupulous
man is not likely to be with me in all thoughts of you that come to
me with your presence, or fill me with madness when I am alone, then
better for you if you should go to the stack of muskets which is in the
cabin, load one and shoot yourself."
And clapping her hands as though she was in the box of a theatre
ravished by some transcendently fine performance, she once more
delivered herself of the maniac laugh which had curdled Paul's blood
and which though ringing from lips, though proceeding from a face
hidden from him, seemed to strike Mr Lawrence as nothing which she
had spoken had, and save but for the swaying of the ship he stood as
motionless as a statue facing another statue whose back was turned to
him.