HOMEWARD BOUND
In the corner of the light diligence, seating six inside, which had
brought her from Montreuil, Mary Audley leant forward, looking out
through the dingy panes for the windmills of Calais. Joséphine slept in
the corner facing her, as she had slept for two hours past. Their
companions, a French shopkeeper and her child, and an English bagman,
sighed and fidgeted, as travellers had cause to sigh and fidget in days
when he was lucky who covered the distance from Paris to Calais in
twenty-five hours. The coach rumbled on. The sun had set, a small rain
was falling. The fading light tinged the plain of the Pas de Calais
with a melancholy which little by little dyed the girl’s thoughts.
She was on her way to her own country, to those on whom she might be
dependent without shame. And common sense, of which she had a large
share, told her that she had cause, great cause to be thankful. But the
flush of relief, to which the opening prospect had given rise, was
ebbing. The life before her was new, those amongst whom she must lead
that life were strange; nor did the cold phrases of her uncle’s
invitation, which ignored both her father and the letters that she had
written, promise an over-warm welcome.
Still, “Courage!” Mary murmured to herself, “Courage!” And she recalled
a saying which she had learned from the maid, “At the worst, ten
fingers!” Then, seeing that at last they were entering the streets of
the town and that the weary journey was over—she had left Paris the day
before—she touched Joséphine. “We are there,” she said.
The maid awoke with her eyes on the bagman, who was stout. “Ah!” she
muttered. “In England they are like that! No wonder that they travel
seeing that their bones are so padded! But, for me I am one ache.”
They jolted over the uneven pavement, crossed a bridge, lumbered
through streets scarcely wider than the swaying diligence, at last with
a great cracking of whips they swerved to the left and drew up amid the
babel of the quay. In a twinkling they were part of it. Porters dragged
down, fought for, snatched up their baggage. English-speaking touts
shook dirty cards in their faces. Tide-waiters bawled questions in
their ears. The postilion, the conductor, all the world stretched
greedy palms under their noses. Other travellers ran into them, and
they ran into other travellers. All this, in the dusk, in the rain,
while the bell on the deck overhead clanged above the roar of the
escaping steam, and a man shouted without ceasing, “Tower steamer!
Tower steamer! Any more for England?”
Joséphine, after one bitter exchange of words with a lad who had seized
her handbag, thrust her fingers into her ears and resigned herself.
Even Mary for a moment was aghast. She was dragged this way and that,
she lost one article and recovered it, lost another and recovered that,
she lost her ticket and rescued it from a man’s hand. At last, her
baggage on board, she found herself breathless at the foot of the
ladder, with three passengers imploring her to ascend, and six touts
clinging to her skirts and crying for drink-money. She had barely time
to make her little gift to the kind-hearted maid—who was returning to
Paris by the night coach—and no time to thank her, before they were
parted. Mary was pushed up the ladder. In a moment she was looking down
from the deck on the wet, squalid quay, the pale up-turned faces, the
bustling crowd.
She picked out the one face which she knew, and which it pained her to
lose. By gestures and smiles, with a tear in the eye, she tried to make
amends to Joséphine for the hasty parting, the half-spoken words. The
maid on her side was in tears, and after the French fashion was proud
of them. So the last minute came. The paddles were already turning, the
ship was going slowly astern, when a man pushed his way through the
crowd. He clutched the ladder as it was unhooked, and at some risk and
much loss of dignity he was bundled on board. There was a lamp
amidships, and, as he regained his balance, Mary, smiling in spite of
herself, saw that he was an Englishman, a man about thirty, and plainly
dressed. Then in her anxiety to see the last of Joséphine she crossed
the deck as the ship went about, and she lost sight of him.
She continued to look back and to wave her handkerchief, until nothing
remained but a light or two in a bank of shadow. That was the last she
was to see of the land which had been her home for ten years; and
chilled and lonely she turned about and did what, had she been an older
traveller, she would have done before. She sought the after-cabin.
Alas, a glance from the foot of the companion was enough! Every place
was taken, every couch occupied, and the air, already close, repelled
her. She climbed to the deck again, and was seeking some corner where
she could sit, sheltered from the wind and rain, when the captain saw
her and fell foul of her.
“Now, young lady,” he said, “no woman’s allowed on deck at night!”
“Oh, but,” she protested, “there’s no room downstairs!”
“Won’t do,” he answered roughly. “Lost a woman overboard once, and as
much trouble about her as about all the men, drunk or sober, I’ve ever
carried. All women below, all women below, is the order! Besides,” more
amicably, as he saw by a ray of lantern-light that she was young and
comely, “it’s wet, my dear, and going to be d—d wet, and as dark as
Wapping!”
“But I’ve a cloak,” she petitioned, “if I sit quite still, and——”
A tall form loomed up at the captain’s elbow. “This is the lady I am
looking for,” the new-comer said. “It will be all right, Captain
Jones.”
The captain turned sharply. “Oh, my lord,” he said, “I didn’t know; but
with petticoats and a dark night, blest if you know where you are! I’m
sure I beg the young lady’s pardon. Quite right, my lord, quite right!”
With a rough salute he went forward and the darkness swallowed him.
“Lord Audley?” Mary said. She spoke quietly, but to do so she had to
steady her voice.
“Yes,” he replied. “I knew that you were crossing to-night, and as I
had to go over this week I chose this evening. I’ve reserved a cabin
for you.”
“Oh, but,” she remonstrated, “I don’t think you should have done that!
I don’t know that I can——”
“Afford it?” he said coolly. “Then—as it is a matter of some
shillings—your kinsman will presume to pay for it.”
It was a small thing, and she let it pass. “But who told you,” she
asked, “that I was crossing to-night?”
“The Princess. You don’t feel, I suppose, that as you are crossing, it
was my duty to stay in France?”
“Oh no!” she protested.
“But you are not sure whether you are more pleased or more vexed? Well,
let me show you where your cabin is—it is the size of a milliner’s box,
but by morning you will be glad of it, and that may turn the scale.
Moreover,” as he led the way across the deck, “the steward’s boy, when
he is not serving gin below, will serve tea above, and at sea tea is
not to be scorned. That’s your number—7. And there is the boy. Boy!” he
called in a voice that ensured obedience, “Tea and bread and butter for
this lady in number 7 in an hour. See it is there, my lad!”
She smiled. “I think the tea and bread and butter may turn the scale,”
she said.
“Right,” he replied. “Then, as it is only eight o’clock, why should we
not sit in the shelter of this tarpaulin? I see that there are two
seats. They might have been put for us.”
“Is it possible that they were?” she asked shrewdly. “Well, why not?”
She had no reason to give—and the temptation was great. Five minutes
before she had been the most lonely creature in the world. The parting
from Joséphine, the discomfort of the boat, the dark sea and the darker
horizon, the captain’s rough words, had brought the tears to her eyes.
And then, in a moment, to be thought of, provided for, kindly
entreated, to be lapped in attentions as in a cloak—in very fact, in
another second a warm cloak was about her—who could expect her to
refuse this? Moreover, he was her kinsman; probably she owed it to him
that she was here.
At any rate she thought that it would be prudish to demur, and she took
one of the seats in the lee of the screen. Audley tucked the cloak
about her, and took the other. The light of a lantern fell on their
faces and the few passengers who still tramped the windy deck could see
the pair, and doubtless envied him their shelter. “Are you
comfortable?” he inquired—but before she could answer he whistled
softly.
“What is it?” Mary asked.
“Not much.” He laughed to himself.
Then she saw coming along the deck towards them a man who had not found
his sea-legs. As he approached he took little runs, and now brought up
against the rail, now clutched at a stay. Mary knew the man again. “He
nearly missed the boat,” she whispered.
“Did he?” her companion answered in the same tone. “Well, if he had
quite missed it, I’d have forgiven him. He is going to be ill, I’ll
wager!”
When the man was close to them he reeled, and to save himself he
grasped the end of their screen. His eyes met theirs. He was past much
show of emotion, but his voice rose as he exclaimed, “Audley. Is that
you?”
“It is. We are in for a rough night, I’m afraid.”
“And—pardon me,” the stranger hesitated, peering at them, “is that Miss
Audley with you?”
“Yes,” Mary said, much surprised.
“Oh!”
“This is Mr. Basset,” Audley explained. Mary stared at the stranger.
The name conveyed nothing to her.
“I came to meet you,” he said, speaking with difficulty, and now and
again casting a wild eye abroad as the deck heaved under him. “But I
expected to find you at the hotel, and I waited there until I nearly
missed the boat. Even then I felt that I ought to learn if you were on
board, and I came up to see.”
“I am very much obliged to you,” Mary answered politely, “but I am
quite comfortable, thank you. It is close below, and Lord Audley found
this seat for me. And I have a cabin.”
“Oh yes!” he answered. “I think I will go down then if you—if you are
sure you want nothing.”
“Nothing, thank you,” Mary answered with decision.
“I think I—I’ll go, then. Good-night!”
With that he went, making desperate tacks in the direction of the
companion. Unfortunately what he gained in speed he lost in dignity,
and before he reached the hatch Lord Audley gave way to laughter.
“Oh, don’t!” Mary cried. “He will hear you. And it was kind of him to
look for me when he was not well.”
But Audley only laughed the more. “You don’t catch the full flavor of
it,” he said. “He’s come three hundred miles to meet you, and he’s too
ill to do anything now he’s here!”
“Three hundred miles to meet me!” she cried in astonishment.
“Every yard of it! Don’t you know who he is? He’s Peter Basset, your
uncle’s nephew by marriage, who lives with him. He’s come, or rather
your uncle has sent him, all the way from Stafford to meet you—and he’s
gone to lie down! He’s gone to lie down! There’s a squire of dames for
you! Upon my honor, I never knew anything richer!”
And my lord’s laughter broke out anew.