An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then in patience our proceeding be.
We'll put on those shall praise your excellence
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together.
... I know love is begun by time.
I know him well: he is the brooch indeed
And gem of all the nation.
He made confession of you,
And gave you such a masterly report
For art...'twould be a sight indeed
If one could match you.
--Hamlet.
|MRS. Crawford absolutely clung to Daireen all this evening. When the
whist parties were formed in the cabin she brought the girl on deck and
instructed her in some of the matters worth knowing aboard a passenger
ship.
“On no account bind yourself to any whist set before you look about you:
nothing could be more dangerous,” she said confidentially. “Just think
how terrible it would be if you were to join a set now, and afterwards
to find out that it was not the best set. You would simply be ruined.
Besides that, it is better to stay on deck as much as possible during
the first day or two at sea. Now let us go over to the major and
Campion.”
So Daireen found herself borne onward with Mrs. Crawford's arm in her
own to where Major Crawford and Doctor Campion were sitting on their
battered deck-chairs lighting fresh cheroots from the ashes of the
expiring ends.
“Don't tread on the tumblers, my dear,” said the major as his wife
advanced. “And how is Miss Gerald now that we have got under weigh? You
didn't take any of that liquid they insult the Chinese Empire by calling
tea, aboard ship, I hope?”
“Just a single cup, and very weak,” said Mrs. Crawford apologetically.
“My dear, I thought you were wiser.”
“You will take this chair, Mrs. Crawford?” said Doctor Campion, without
making the least pretence of moving, however.
“Don't think of such a thing,” cried the lady's husband; and to do
Doctor Campion justice, he did not think of such a thing. “Why, you
don't fancy these are our Junkapore days, do you, when Kate came out
to our bungalow, and the boys called her the Sylph? It's a fact, Miss
Gerald; my wife, as your father will tell you, was as slim as a lily.
Ah, dear, dear! Time, they say, takes a lot away from us, but by Jingo,
he's liberal enough in some ways. By Jingo, yes,” and the gallant old
man kept shaking his head and chuckling towards his comrade, whose
features could be seen puckered into a grin though he uttered no sound.
“And stranger still, Miss Gerald,” said the lady, “the major was once
looked upon as a polite man, and politer to his wife than to anybody
else. Go and fetch some chairs here, Campion, like a good fellow,” she
added to the doctor, who rose slowly and obeyed.
“That's how my wife takes command of the entire battalion, Miss Gerald,”
remarked the major. “Oh, your father will tell you all about her.”
The constant reference to her father by one who was an old friend, came
with a cheering influence to the girl. A terrible question as to what
might be the result of her arrival at the Cape had suggested itself to
her more than once since she had left Ireland; but now the major did not
seem to fancy that there could be any question in the matter.
When the chairs were brought, and enveloped in karosses, as the old
campaigners called the furs, there arose a chatter of bungalows, and
punkahs, and puggarees, and calapashes, and curries, that was quite
delightful to the girl's ears, especially as from time to time
her father's name would be mentioned in connection with some
elephant-trapping expedition, or, perhaps, a mess joke.
When at last Daireen found herself alone in the cabin which her
grandfather had managed to secure for her, she did not feel that
loneliness which she thought she should have felt aboard this ship full
of strangers without sympathy for her.
She stood for a short time in the darkness, looking out of her cabin
port over the long waters, and listening to the sound of the waves
hurrying away from the ship and flapping against its sides, and once
more she thought of the purple mountain and the green Irish Lough.
Then as she moved away from the port her thoughts stretched in another
direction--southward. Her heart was full of hope as she turned in to
her bunk and went quietly asleep just as the first waves of the Bay of
Biscay were making the good steamer a little uneasy, and bringing about
a bitter remorse to those who had made merry over the dumplings and
buttered toast.
Major Crawford was an officer who had served for a good many years in
India, and had there become acquainted with Daireen's father and mother.
When Mr. Gerald was holding his grandchild in his arms aboard the
steamer saying good-bye, he was surprised by a strange lady coming up to
him and begging to be informed if it was possible that Daireen was the
daughter of Colonel Gerald. In another instant Mr. Gerald was overjoyed
to know that Daireen would be during the entire voyage in the company
of an officer and his wife who were old friends of her father, and had
recognised her from her likeness to her mother, whom they had also known
when she was little older than Daireen. Mr. Gerald left the vessel with
a mind at rest; and that his belief that the girl would be looked after
was well-founded is already known. Daireen was, indeed, in the hands of
a lady who was noted in many parts of the world for her capacities for
taking charge of young ladies. When she was in India her position at
the station was very similiar to that of immigration-agent-general. Fond
matrons in England, who had brought their daughters year after year to
Homburg, Kissingen, and Nice, in the “open” season, and had yet brought
them back in safety--matrons who had even sunk to the low level of
hydropathic hunting-grounds without success, were accustomed to write
pathetic letters to Junkapore and Arradambad conveying to Mrs. Crawford
intelligence of the strange fancy that some of the dear girls had
conceived to visit those parts of the Indian Empire, and begging Mrs.
Crawford to give her valuable advice with regard to the carrying out of
such remarkable freaks. Never in any of these cases had the major's wife
failed. These forlorn hopes took passage to India and found in her a
real friend, with tact, perseverance, and experience. The subalterns
of the station were never allowed to mope in a wretched, companionless
condition; and thus Mrs. Crawford had achieved for herself a
certain fame, which it was her study to maintain. Having herself had
men-children only, she had no personal interests to look after. Her boys
had been swaddled in puggarees, spoon-fed with curry, and nurtured upon
chutney, and had so developed into full-grown Indians ready for the
choicest appointments, and they had succeeded very well indeed. Her
husband had now received a command from the War Office to proceed to
the Cape for the purpose of obtaining evidence on the subject of the
regulation boots to be supplied to troops on active foreign service;
a commission upon this most important subject having been ordered by
a Parliamentary vote. Other officers of experience had been sent to
various of the colonies, and much was expected to result from the
prosecution of their inquiries, the opponents of the Government being
confident that gussets would eventually be allowed to non-commissioned
officers, and back straps to privates.
Of course Major Crawford could not set out on a mission so important
without the companionship of his wife. Though just at the instant of
Daireen's turning in, the major fancied he might have managed to get
along pretty well even if his partner had been left behind him in
England. He was inclined to snarl in his cabin at nights when his wife
unfolded her plans to him and kept him awake to give his opinion as
to the possibility of the tastes of various young persons becoming
assimilated. To-night the major expressed his indifference as to whether
every single man in the ship's company got married to every single woman
before the end of the voyage, or whether they all went to perdition
singly. He concluded by wishing fervently that they would disappear,
married and single, by a supernatural agency.
“But think, how gratified poor Gerald would be if the dear girl could
think as I do on this subject,” said Mrs. Crawford persistently,
alluding to the matter of certain amalgamation of tastes. At this point,
however, the major expressed himself in words still more vigorous than
he had brought to his aid before, and his wife thought it prudent to get
into her bunk without pursuing any further the question of the possible
gratification of Colonel Gerald at the unanimity of thought existing
between his daughter and Mrs. Crawford.