TO Mrs. Peachey, one very consoling circumstance connected with Helen’s
going to India was the good she would probably be able to do to “those
surrounding her.” Helen had always been “active” at home; she had been
the inspiration of work-parties, the life and soul of penny-readings.
She often took the entire superintendence of the night school. The
Canbury branch of the Y. W. C. T. U. did not know how it should get on
without her. Besides playing the organ of St. Stephen’s, in which,
however, another Miss Peachey was by this time ready to succeed her.
Much as Mrs. Peachey and the parish would miss Helen, it was a
sustaining thought that she was going amongst those whose need of her
was so much greater than Canbury’s. Mrs. Peachey had private chastened
visions, chiefly on Sunday afternoons, of Helen in her new field of
labor. Mrs. Peachey was not destitute of imagination, and she usually
pictured Helen seated under a bread-fruit tree in her Indian garden,
dressed in white muslin, teaching a circle of little “blacks” to read
the Scriptures. Helen was so successful with children; and so far as
being tempted to its ultimate salvation with goodies was concerned, a
black child was probably just like a white one. Of course, Helen would
have to adapt her inducements to circumstances—it was not likely that a
little Bengali could be baited with a Bath bun. Doubtless she would have
to offer them rice or—what else was it they liked so much?—oh yes!
sugar-cane. Over the form of these delicacies Mrs. Peachey usually went
to sleep, to dream of larger schemes of heathen emancipation which Helen
should inaugurate. Mr. Peachey, who knew how hard the human heart could
be, even in Canbury, among an enlightened people enjoying all the
blessings of the nineteenth century, was not so sanguine. He said he
believed these Hindus were very subtle-minded, and Helen was not much at
an argument. He understood they gave able theologians very hard nuts to
crack. Their ideas were entirely different from ours, and Helen would be
obliged to master their ideas before effecting any very radical change
in them. He was afraid there would be difficulties.
Mrs. Plovtree settled the whole question. Helen was not going out as a
missionary, except in so far as that every woman who married undertook
the charge of _one_ heathen, and she could not expect to jump into work
of that sort all at once. Besides, the people were so difficult to get
at, all shut up in zenanas and places. And she did not know the
language; first of all, she would have to conquer the language; not that
it would take Helen long, for see what she did in French and German at
school in less than a year! For her part, she would advise Helen to try
to do very little at first—to begin, say, with her own servants; she
would have a number of them, and they would be greatly under her
personal influence and control. Mrs. Plovtree imparted an obscure idea
of Helen’s responsibility for the higher welfare of her domestics, and a
more evident one that it would be rather a good thing to practice on
them, that they would afford convenient and valuable material for
experiments. In all of which Mrs. Peachey thoughtfully acquiesced,
though in fancy she still allowed herself to picture Helen leading in
gentle triumph a train of Rajahs to the bosom of the Church—a train of
nice Rajahs, clean and savoury. That, as I have said, was always on
Sunday afternoons. On the secular days of the week they discussed other
matters, non-spiritual, and personal, to which they were able to bring
more definiteness of perspective, and they found a great deal to say.
[Illustration: MRS. PEACHEY HAD PRIVATE CHASTENED VISIONS, CHIEFLY ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOONS, OF HELEN IN HER NEW FIELD OF LABOUR.]
A friend of young Browne’s had gone home opportunely on six months’
leave, and his recently acquired little wife would be “delighted,” she
said, to wreak her new-found dignity upon Helen in the capacity of
chaperone for the voyage out. But for this happy circumstance, Helen’s
transportation would have presented a serious difficulty, for the
Peacheys were out of the way of knowing the ever-flowing and returning
tide of Anglo-Indians that find old friends at Cheltenham and take
lodgings in Kensington, and fill their brief holiday with London
theatres and shopping. As it was, there was great congratulation among
the Peacheys, and they hastened to invite Mr. and Mrs. Macdonald to
spend a short time at the rectory before the day on which the ship
sailed. Mrs. Macdonald was extremely sorry that they couldn’t come;
nothing would have given them more pleasure, but they had so many
engagements with old friends of her husband’s, and the time was getting
so short and they had such a quantity of things to do in London before
they sailed, that—the Peacheys must resign themselves to disappointment.
Mrs. Macdonald hoped that they would all meet on board the _Khedive_,
but held out very faint hopes of making acquaintance sooner than that.
It was a bright agreeable letter as the one or two that came before had
been, but it left them all in a difficulty to conjure up Mrs. Macdonald,
and unitedly they lamented the necessity. What Mr. Macdonald was like,
as Mrs. Plovtree observed, being of no consequence whatever. But it was
absolute, and not until the _Khedive_ was within an hour of weighing
anchor at the Royal Albert Docks, did the assembled Peacheys, forlorn on
the main deck in the midst of Helen’s boxes, get a glimpse of Mrs.
Macdonald. Then it was brief. One of the stewards pointed out the
Peachey group to a very young lady in a very tight-fitting tailor-made
dress, swinging an ulster over her arm, who approached them briskly with
an outstretched hand and a business-like little smile. “I think you must
be Mr. and Mrs. Peachey,” she said; “I am Mrs. Macdonald. And where is
the young lady?” Mr. Peachey unbent the back of his neck in the clerical
manner, and Mrs. Peachey indicated Helen as well as she could in the
suffusion of the moment, taking farewell counsels of her sisters with
pink eyelids. “But you mustn’t _mind_ her going, Mrs. Peachey!” Mrs.
Macdonald went on vivaciously, shaking hands with the group, “she will
be sure to like it. Everybody likes it. _I_ am devoted to India! She’ll
soon get accustomed to everything, and then she won’t want to come
home—that’s the way it was with me. I dare say you won’t believe it, but
I’m dying to get back! You’ve seen your cabin?” she demanded of Helen,
“is it forward or aft? Are you port or starboard?”
The Peacheys opened their eyes respectfully at this nautical
proficiency, and Helen said she was afraid she didn’t know, it was down
some stairs and one turned to the left, toward the end of a long
passage, and then to the right into a little corner.
“Oh, then you’re starboard and a little forward of the engines!” Mrs.
Macdonald declared. “Very lucky you are! You’ll have your port open far
oftener than we will—we’re weather-side and almost directly over the
screw. So much for not taking one’s passage till three weeks before
sailing—and very fortunate we were to get one at all, the agent said. We
have the place to ourselves though, one can generally manage that by
paying for it you know—one comfort! How many in your cabin?”
“Three of us!” Helen responded apprehensively, “and it _is_ such a
little one! And the one whose name is Stitch has piled all her rugs and
portmanteaux on my bed, and there’s nowhere to put mine!”
“Oh, the cabins in this ship are not small,” returned Mrs. Macdonald
with seriousness. “She’s got a heavy cargo and they’re pretty low in the
water, if you like, but they’re not small. Wait till you get used to it
a little. As to Madam Stitch, just pop her bags and things on the
floor—don’t hesitate a moment. One _must_ assert one’s rights on
shipboard—it’s positively the only way! But there are some people to see
me off—I must fly!” She gave them a brisk nod and was on the wing to her
friends when Mrs. Peachey put a hand on her arm. “You spoke of the
ship’s being low in the water, Mrs. Macdonald. You don’t think—you don’t
think there is any danger on that account?”
Little Mrs. Macdonald stopped to enjoy her laugh. “Oh dear, no!” she
said with vast amusement, “rather the other way I should think—and we’ll
be a great deal steadier for it!” Then she went, and the Peacheys saw
her in the confused distance babbling as gaily in the midst of her
new-comers as if a thought of the responsibilities of chaperonage had
never entered her head.
“Helen, I believe you are older than she is!” exclaimed the youngest
Miss Peachey.
“I don’t like her,” remarked the second succinctly. “She giggles and she
gabbles. Helen, I wish some of _us_ were going with you.”
“She doesn’t seem to mind travelling,” said the Miss Peachey with the
prospective claim to the title.
“Dear _me_, Helen!” began Mrs. Peachey almost dolorously, “she—she seems
very bright,” changing her comment. After all they must make the best of
it. The Rev. Peachey clasped his stick behind his back, and tapped the
deck with it, saying nothing, with rather a pursing of his wide shaven
lips, Helen looked after Mrs. Macdonald helplessly, and her family
exchanged glances in which that lady might have read depreciation.
“Your roll-up, Helen?” exclaimed Mrs. Peachey.
“Here, mamma.”
“You have seven small pieces, remember! _Have_ you got your keys? Are
you sure you are dressed warmly enough? It will be some time before you
get to India, you know!” Mrs. Peachey had suffered an accession of
anxiety in the last ten minutes.
They stood looking at each other in the common misery of coming
separation, casting about for last words and finding none of any
significance, for people do not anticipate an event for a whole year
without exhausting themselves on the topic of it. Helen would keep a
little diary; she would post it at Gibraltar, Naples, Port Said, and
Colombo; and they were to write overland to Naples, and by the next mail
to Calcutta, which would reach before she did. These time-worn
arrangements were made over again. Helen thought of a last affectionate
message to her Aunt Plovtree and was in the act of wording it, when a
steward with a yellow envelope inquired of them for “any lady by the
name of Peachey.” The contents of the yellow envelope had telegraphic
brevity. “Good-bye and God bless you! J. Plovtree.” Helen read, and
immediately took out her handkerchief again. “Just like Jane!” said Mrs.
Peachey, sadly, with her eyes full, and Mr. Peachey, to cover his
emotion read aloud the hours at which the message had been received and
delivered. “Forty-two minutes” he announced “fairly quick!” Helen
proposed a walk on the quarter-deck. “The luggage, my dear child!” Mrs.
Peachey cried. “We mustn’t leave the luggage, with all these people
about! James, dear, it would not be safe to leave the luggage, would it!
You and the girls may go, Helen. Your father and I will stay here.”
[Illustration: AUNT PLOVTREE.]
“Oh, no!” Helen returned reproachfully, and clung to them all.
The crowd on the deck increased and grew noisier, people streamed up and
down the wide gangway. Cabin luggage came rattling down in cabs,
perilously late, the arm of the great steam-crane swung load after load
high in air and lowered it into the hold, asserting its own right of
way. “That’s one of your tin-lined boxes, Helen,” exclaimed Mrs.
Peachey, intent on the lightening of the last load, “and oh, I’m _sure_
it is not safe, dear! James won’t you _call_ to them that it is not
safe!” But the long deal case with “MISS PEACHEY, CALCUTTA,” in big
black letters on it was already describing an arc over the heads of the
unwary, and as it found its haven Mrs. Peachey made a statement of
excited relief, “I never saw such carelessness!” said she.
A number of ladies, dressed a good deal alike, arrived upon the deck in
company and took up a position near the forward part of the ship, where
the second class passengers were gathered together, producing little
black books. From these they began to sing with smiling faces and great
vigour, various hymns, with sentiments appropriate to long voyages,
danger, and exile from home. It was a parting attention from their
friends to a number of young missionaries for Burmah, probably designed
to keep up their spirits. The hymns were not exclusively of any church
or creed—Moody and Sankey contributed as many of them as the _Ancient
and Modern_, but they were all lustily emotional and befitting the
occasion to the most unfortunate degree. The departing missionaries
stood about in subdued groups and tried to wave their handkerchiefs. One
or two young lady missionaries found refuge in their cabins where they
might sob comfortably. The notes rang high and bathed the whole ship in
elegy, plaintively fell and reveled in the general wreck of spirits and
affectation of hilarity. It began to rain a little, but the ladies were
all provided with umbrellas, and under them sang on.
“While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high.”
“What idiots they are!” remarked the youngest plain-spoken Miss Peachey
when it became impossible to ignore the effect upon Helen’s feelings any
longer. “As if they couldn’t find anything else to sing than _that_!”
“Oh, my _dear_,” rebuked Mrs. Peachey, drying her eyes, “we may be sure
that their motive is everything that is good.” Whereat the youngest Miss
Peachey, unsubdued, muttered “_Motive!_”
“H’all this for the cabin, miss?” asked a steward, grasping a hat-box
and a portmanteau. “I don’t _quite_ know ‘ow that there _long_ box is
a-going in, miss. Is it accordin’ to the Company’s regillations, miss?”
Mr. Peachey interposed, with dignity, and said that it was—the precise
measurements. It came from the Army and Navy Stores, he was quite sure
the size was correct. The man still looked dubious, but when Helen said,
regardless of measurements, that she must have it, that it contained
nearly everything she wanted for the voyage, he shouldered it without
further dissent. He was accustomed to this ultimatum of seafaring
ladies, and bowed to it.
Mrs. Peachey began to think that they ought to go down to the cabin and
stay beside the luggage, there were so many odd-looking people about;
but she succumbed to the suggestion of being carried off; and they all
went up on the quarter-deck. Mrs. Macdonald was there—they might see
something more of Mrs. Macdonald. They clung to the hope.
They did see something more of Mrs. Macdonald—a little. She interrupted
herself and her friends long enough to approach the Peacheys and ask if
all Helen’s luggage was on board, “wedding presents and all?” jocularly.
Mrs. Peachey replied fervently that she hoped so, and Mrs. Macdonald
said, Oh, that was all right then, and Was she a good sailor? Oh, well,
she would soon get over it. And oh, by the by—departing to her beckoning
friends again—it was all right about their seats at table—Miss Peachey
was to sit by them—she had seen the head steward and he said there would
be no difficulty. Having thus reassured them, “I’ll see you again,” said
Mrs. Macdonald, and noddingly departed.
The first whistle shrilled and bellowed, and a parting stir responded to
it all over the ship. Mrs. Peachey looked agitated, and laid a hand on
Helen’s arm. “There is no cause for haste, mamma,” said the Rev.
Peachey, looking at his watch. “We have still twenty minutes, and there
is a quantity of freight yet to be got on board.” The missionary ladies
began a new hymn,
“Oh, think of the friends over there!”
“Only twenty minutes, my love! Then I think we ought really to be
getting off! My darling child——”
The whistle blew again stertorously, and the gangway began to throng
with friends of the outward-bound. The dear, tender, human-hearted
Peacheys clustered about the girl they were giving up—the girl who was
going from their arms and their fireside an infinite distance, to a land
of palm-trees and yams, to marry—and what a lottery marriage was!—a
young Browne. They held her fast, each in turn. “I almost w-wish I
w-weren’t go—” sobbed Helen in her mother’s embraces. “Helen!” said the
youngest Miss Peachey sternly, with a very red nose, “you do _nothing of
the sort_! You’re only too pleased and proud to go, and so should I be
in your place!” Which rebuke revived Helen’s loyalty to her Browne if it
did not subdue the pangs with which she hugged her sister.
At last the gangway was withdrawn and all the Peacheys were on the other
side of it. It rained faster, the missionary ladies still sang on,
people called last words to their friends in the damp crowd below. A box
of sweets was thrown to a young lady on the main deck—it dropped into
the black water between the ship and the wharf and was fished out with
great excitement. The Peacheys gathered in a knot under their several
umbrellas, and Helen stood desolately by herself watching them, now and
then exchanging a watery smile. They cast off the ropes, the Lascars
skipped about like monkeys, the crowd stood back, slowly the great ship
slipped away from the wharf into the river, and as she moved down stream
the crowd ran with her a little way, drowning the missionary ladies with
hurrahs. In the Peacheys’ last glimpse of their Helen she was standing
beside little Mrs. Macdonald and a stout gentleman with a pale face,
rather flabby and deeply marked about the mouth and under the eyes—a
gentleman whom nature had intended to be fair but whom climatic
conditions had darkened in defiance of the intention. Mrs. Macdonald
tapped the gentleman in a sprightly way with her parasol, for the
Peacheys’ benefit, and he took off his hat. The Peachey family supposed,
quite correctly, that that must be Mr. Macdonald.
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