"I WAS HIS DEAREST LIZZIE!"
"Alas! for pleasure on the sea,
And sorrow on the shore."
_Hood._
MRS. HOME'S entertainments to her friends generally took the form of a
picnic or gipsy tea, partly, we suspect, because these outings were in
great favour with Tom and Billy, and partly because she had a knack of
making these "camp affairs," as Mrs. Creery contemptuously dubbed them,
go off to every one's satisfaction. She had now issued invitations
for a tea at North Bay, where her guests were to ramble about, and
stroll on the beach, or botanize in the jungle; and two large boats
left the pier carrying the company, which comprised the host, hostess,
and family, Col. and Miss Denis, Miss Caggett, Mr. Latimer, Dr. Parks,
Dr. Malone, the Grahams from Chatham, and the Greens from Viper. Mr.
Quentin did not patronize these rustic _réunions_, and he was rather
annoyed to find that the Denises were bent on going, and leant over
the pier as they were rowed away, looking unutterable reproaches at
Helen—looks not lost on Miss Caggett, who was sitting beside her. It
was an oppressive afternoon; even at four o'clock the sky was molten
and the sea like oil, and Mr. Quentin shouted after the pleasure
party,—
"I would not be a bit surprised if you people were in for a storm
coming back—better not stay late."
"Storm! what nonsense! Why, the water is like glass!" exclaimed Mrs.
Home. "He merely says that because he is not coming himself—though I
asked him, and told him he might bring Mr. Lisle, for I really do not
see why he should be debarred from everything."
"If he is debarred, it's his own fault," rejoined Lizzie Caggett,
accepting the challenge in the absence of Mrs. Creery in the other
boat. "If he would only be open about himself, no one would mind his
poverty."
Mrs. Home looked sweetly incredulous, and Miss Caggett continued,—
"At any rate the chances are that he would not come if he was asked. I
don't suppose he has any decent clothes, and he is more in his element
in the bush, or out in that white boat of Mr. Quentin's, sailing among
the islands; he half lives on the water, but," with a peculiar laugh,
"there is no fear of his being drowned!"
Miss Lizzie was merciless to this mysterious pauper, chiefly because
she had an idea that he had talked his host out of certain matrimonial
designs that were very near to her heart. Jim Quentin's visits had
been less frequent, ever since he had given lodging to this odious
adventurer!
Now Mrs. Home considered Mr. Lisle inoffensive and gentlemanly-looking,
and quite entitled to keep his affairs to himself if he chose, and
she took up the cudgels at once, and the argument was waxing hot,
when, luckily, some one commenced to sing, and politeness enforced
silence. It was a long row to North Bay, fully eight miles, and it was
past five o'clock when the party landed, and began to walk about and
stretch their rather cramped legs, and to stroll along the beach with
a careless eye to shells.—But this was not a _bonâ fide_ shelling
trip.—Presently, in answer to a whistle, with various degrees of
alacrity they flocked round Mrs. Home's well-spread table-cloth, which
was laid out on the moss under a big Pedouk tree, and in a position,
that commanded a fine view of the open sea. Here every one ate and
drank, and were merry; and afterwards they sang songs and gave riddles
and exchanged stories, well-known or otherwise, and then by degrees
they scattered once more, and went up into the woods close by, in
couples or in small parties, and commenced (the ladies especially) to
tear down orchids that would be priceless in grey-skyed England; to
fill their hands and their baskets with enormous bunches of Eucharis
lilies that carpeted the jungle. Helen was somewhat surprised to find
herself alone with Lizzie Caggett, but this was a mere passing thought,
her whole attention was given to the flowers; she felt quite bewildered
among such an _embarras de richesse_, and she paused every now and then
to exclaim, and to gather handfuls. She was also in ecstasies at the
love-birds, honey-suckers, blue-jays and golden orioles that flew "with
a shocking tameness" across their path.
Miss Caggett was accustomed to these sights; her enthusiasm—if she
had any—she kept bottled up for the benefit of a male companion, and
did not trouble herself to respond to Helen's raptures; she had dogged
her, and purposely kept off Dr. Malone, and singled her out as her own
special associate, in order that she, as she said to herself, "might
have it out with her here in the jungle," where she could be as shrill
as she pleased,—yea, as one of the island peacocks! where she could
give reins to her wrath, and no one but her unsuspicious rival would be
any the wiser!—Now on Ross the very walls had ears.
The two girls wandered along, one empty-handed, and the other laden
with spoils, till they came to an opening in the forest, where there
was a very beautiful shallow pool, apparently a spring. It was an
unusual sight, and Lizzie halted, and looked down into it, and beheld
the reflection of her own figure, and of her, at present, very cross,
discontented little face as seen in a mirror set in a lovely frame of
ferns, and mossy stones, and graceful grasses.
As she pondered over her own appearance, and felt an agonizing thrill,
at the patent fact that she was now beginning to look _old_! a bright
young face came into view over her shoulder—a bright young face that
she hated from the bottom of her heart! No wonder she was a prey to
envy, as she gazed at Helen's reflection; never had she looked better,
than in that soft white gown, with a wreath of Eucharis lilies
twined round her sailor hat. Lizzie stared, and noted every item of
that pretty vision, and felt a conviction of her own powerlessness
to crush the horrible truth, that one of those two faces was lovely,
and smiling, and young, and that the other was pinched, ill-tempered,
and _passée_—and that other her own! Her day was on the wane, the
summer of her life—oh, that it would come again! she would sell her
soul to recall it!—was gone. And in Helen Denis's case, she had all
her golden youth before her. These bitter thoughts were too much for
her self-control, her face worked convulsively, the corners of her
mouth went down, and all of a sudden she burst into tears! Helen was
dismayed; she led her gently to a fallen log of ebony, and implored of
her to tell her if she was ill, or what was the matter?
The tears were but a summer shower, and quickly spent, and Miss Caggett
came to herself, dried her eyes, and said that it was merely a slight
nervous seizure, the result of a racking headache, and meant nothing.
"But," she added, "I'm tired, and we may as well rest here awhile,
there is no hurry."
"Very well," agreed Helen, "I want to settle these flowers, they are in
a most dreadful state," proceeding to arrange her much-crowded basket.
"Then, whilst you arrange your flowers, dear, I will tell you a story,"
said Lizzie, now completely composed.
"Oh, do! how nice of you! I like stories, and this"—looking round—"is
the very place for one. A ghost story?"
"But mine is going to be a love-tale," said Miss Caggett briefly.
"I don't care for them so much," rejoined Helen, sorting out orchids as
she spoke. "However, anything _you_ like."
"Once upon a time there was a girl, and she lived in the East Indies
with her mother; her name was Lizzie Caggett," she commenced. Helen,
who was kneeling at the log, using it as a table for her flowers,
looked up as if she did not believe her ears. "Her name, as I tell you,
was Lizzie Caggett. She was not a great beauty like _some_ people,
but she was not bad-looking. A young man came to Port Blair, paid her
marked attention, fell in love with her, and she with him; he gave her
songs and presents, he wrote her heaps of letters, he told her that he
could not _live_ without her. His name was James Quentin!" She paused,
and Helen got up slowly from her knees and stood in front of her—her
heart was beating rather fast, and her colour was considerably brighter
than usual. "A girl arrived at Port Blair named Helen Denis, and he,
man-like, paid her attention at first because she was _new_,—he half
lives at her house, he is always at her side, and" (viciously) "he has
made her the talk of the whole place. He," also rising and suddenly
dropping the narrative form for plainer speaking, "is a hypocrite, he
told you a _lie_ about that piano!—it belongs to Mr. Baines—he has
pretended to you that he scarcely knew _me_. Scarcely ever was out
of our house, is nearer the truth! One thing he can't deny, and that
is his own hand-writing. Look here," dragging out a thick packet of
letters tied with blue ribbon, "you can read them if you like. You
won't!" in answer to a scornful gesture. "Then there," tossing them
violently on the ground, where they fell with a heavy thud, and the
ribbon coming undone, lay scattered about like a pack of cards.
Miss Caggett after this outbreak paused, and folded her arms akimbo,
but her eyes were gleaming, and her lips working convulsively.
Helen was thunderstruck, never had it dawned upon her till now, that
she had come and seen, and conquered, this furious lady's lover; the
sudden announcement gave her a shock and for some seconds she was
speechless.
"There," proceeded Miss Caggett, pointing to a letter at her feet,
"three months ago I was his dearest Lizzie, and now you are his dearest
Helen," and she laughed like a hyena.
"You are altogether mistaken, and quite wrong," cried her companion,
speaking at last; "I am nothing to him but an ordinary acquaintance,
and I don't think you should repeat these terrible things about him to
me! You can't care very _much_ for him, or you would not say that he
is a hypocrite and does not speak the truth. As to his making me the
talk of the place, I am quite distressed to hear that Port Blair is so
hard up for a topic." Helen was very angry, and her face was an open
book, in which every emotion that swayed her was eloquently expressed.
Mr. Quentin was utterly indifferent to her, and this fact gave her
a considerable advantage over Miss Caggett. Besides being angry she
was disgusted, and looked down upon her opponent with a glance of
unmistakable scorn.
"Of course you will _tell_ him all I have said," exclaimed Lizzie, with
a hysterical smile.
"Oh, of course," ironically.
Miss Caggett was filled with a horrible fear that she had overshot her
mark (which had been merely to blacken Mr. Quentin to Helen, to arouse
her ire, and take advantage of the ensuing quarrel and coolness, and
once more ingratiate herself with her late adorer). But who would have
expected Miss Denis to be supremely ironical and scornful, and to have
taken the news in this very strange way, for Lizzie believed that no
girl living could be indifferent to James Quentin? Instead of tearing
her hair and weeping and denouncing him, she was quite unmoved. She had
even spurned his letters! hateful, cold-blooded thing!
"Shall you tell him all I have said about him?" she reiterated
defiantly.
"Your suggestion is of course prompted by what you would do _yourself_
under similar circumstances," returned her companion in a cutting tone.
"Do you pretend that you don't _like_ him?" demanded Miss Caggett;
"that you never told me you thought him handsome? Do you pretend that
you are not in love with him and have lured him away from _me_?"
"_I_ pretend nothing; I do not even pretend to be his friend before
his face, and then abuse him unmercifully behind his back! And now,"
pointing with the tip of her shoe, "there are your letters. I advise
you not to leave them here for the amusement of some picnic party. And
I _request_ that you will never speak to me in such a way again, nor
mention the name of your friend Mr. Quentin."
So saying, Helen picked up her basket, turned her back on Lizzie, and
walked off into the jungle in a rather stately fashion, never once
looking back at the little figure on the log. If she had done so, she
would have seen that little figure shaking a tiny menacing fist in her
direction; but ignorance was bliss, and she rambled on mechanically,
her mind not a little disturbed by the recent "scene." Lizzie Caggett
was _not_ a nice girl—not a lady—and as to Mr. Quentin, she had
never quite trusted his dreamy blue eyes. Now she came to ponder
over the subject, his stories were often a bad fit—one tale did not
exactly match another—he forgot what he had said previously, and
although he had angrily disowned Miss Caggett, yet she had noticed one
mezzo soprano song among his music, on which was scribbled in pencil,
"Lizzie, with J.'s love." Deeply occupied in unravelling various new
ideas, the young lady strayed further and further into the wood,
occasionally stopping to cull some too tempting flower or fern—and
pondering as she plucked. She was extremely reluctant to go back to the
company and to face Miss Caggett after their late conversation, but
a sudden cessation of birds' notes, a duskiness, and a little chill
wind, warned her that it was really time to retrace her steps. She
had come further than she imagined, and it was fully half an hour ere
she had extricated herself from among the trees and once more gained
the open space looking down upon the shore. But what was this? To
her astonishment the beach was deserted. There was no sign of living
creature to be seen (save the dying embers of the gipsy fire), and, did
her eyes deceive her, or did she really behold two heavily laden boats
steadily rowing back to Ross? Indeed, one was already a mere speck on
the water, and she had been left behind! At first she could not realize
her position; she, the chief guest—in whose honour the party had been
given—she forgotten and abandoned to pass the night on that terrible,
desolate mainland alone! She ran to a rock jutting out far into the
water and waved her parasol, and screamed, and called, but the boats
were far beyond earshot, and the awnings were up.
She stood looking after them like a modern Dido, with strange, fixed,
despairing eyes, then turned and gazed behind her at the thick, black,
and now forbidding-looking forest, that loomed all round her, and
encompassed the shore. She sat down on the rock, locked her arms round
her knees, and watched the two heartless boats till they were quite
out of sight. This operation lasted for some time, and when there was
nothing further to be seen in the direction of Ross, she turned her
face towards the open sea, and beheld, to her horror, a large canoe
coming rapidly in her direction! It was still at some distance, but she
knew that the build of the boat was not European, nor did Europeans go
out boating in _tall hats_. She did not wait for a closer inspection;
she fled—fled for dear life—right up into the much-dreaded forest,
and dashed among the underwood like a mad creature; in a certain
thick covert she threw herself down, and there she lay panting like a
hunted hare. From her hiding-place, she could see the savages; they
paddled close into the shore, attracted by the smoke of the fire that
had boiled Mrs. Home's mild domestic kettle! They came in a big red
war canoe, and were about fifty in number; one or two remained in the
canoe, the rest sprang over the side, and waded to land—followed by a
whole legion of dogs. They swarmed round the fire, and found but little
to repay their visit, beyond a box of matches, which was evidently a
great prize. There were several monster fish caught by Mrs. Creery's
boatmen,—and left behind as worthless—these they tore to pieces, and
devoured raw. A tin of Swiss milk and half a loaf of bread were also
discovered and shared. Whilst they sat round the embers in a circle,
and greedily discussed these rarities and the fish, Helen, with every
nerve in her body throbbing, and her heart nearly bounding out of
her bosom, was presented by her own vivid memory with that scene in
Robinson Crusoe, where he sees the savages sitting round a fire, and
feasting on their human victims! Supposing they were to discover her,
and kill her, and eat her? At this moment she nearly shrieked aloud,
for a large red dog, a kind of pariah (who, unknown to her, had been
sniffing among the underwood), now suddenly thrust up his head close
to hers, and gazed at her in amazement for some seconds; luckily for
Helen, instead of breaking at once into a loud "bay," and triumphantly
announcing his "find," he was evidently one of the barrack curs whom
the General had colonized; he had seen a European before,—and probably
understood English! At first, when she whispered in a faltering voice,
"Oh, Toby, Toby, like a dear, good dog, go away, and don't betray me,"
he took no notice, but merely stood staring with his round yellow eyes.
However, when emboldened by desperation, she said, "Hoosh! be off!" and
made a movement as though to pick up a stone—he fled!
But what if a less educated animal were to discover her? If he did,
she was lost. She lay in her hiding-place scarcely daring to breathe,
the very sound of her own heart seemed appalling; indeed, it stood
quite still for some seconds, when—the fish being despatched—the
aborigines stood up and sauntered back to their canoe, and several
of them pointing at the jungle, seemingly suggested a ramble in that
direction! But these enterprising spirits had no weight, and Helen,
although fainting with terror, noticed that a fat old man, in a huge
cocked hat (evidently a person of much authority), waved his hands with
decision towards the horizon; and making gestures at the big bank of
clouds that were gathering there, peremptorily collected all his party,
who immediately swarmed out into the canoe, followed by their pack of
dogs, and paddled away as swiftly and as suddenly as they had come—and
Helen breathed a deep sigh of relief, when she was once more left upon
the mainland, entirely alone!