LINDA AS AN ART CRITIC
Wednesday morning’s sun rose cloudless. A few persistent fog wreaths
lay, even as the day advanced, to leeward of the islands. There was an
undue ground-swell, although the surface of the water glistened, smooth
as oil, when the high spring tide began to flow in from the Atlantic.
None but an inveterate croaker could, however, prophesy actual mischief
from signs so trivial. Lord Rex Basire declared aloud--certain of his
guests arriving not as the time for departure drew nigh--that the day
must have been manufactured expressly for the subaltern’s picnic. No
wind, no sea, a nicely-tempered sun above one’s head, a favourable
tide--‘What more,’ asked Lord Rex, ‘especially if one add the item of a
powerful steamer, could the never satisfied heart of woman require?’
The heart of the most Venerable woman in the island required that there
should be neither ground-swell nor fog-bank. At the eleventh hour
came an excuse, on the score of weather, from Madame Corbie. The post
of chaperon-in-chief stood vacant. Happily for the youthful hosts,
Rosie Verschoyle’s mother was faithful--a little white passive lady,
accustomed to the iron rule of grown-up daughters, who only stipulated
that she should lie down, within reach of smelling-salts, before
leaving Guernsey harbour, and neither be spoken to nor looked at until
they arrived in smooth water off the coast of France. Old Cassandra,
in her scarlet cloak, was to the fore, with cans for fish, with crooks
for sea-weed, with a butterfly-net, with stoppered bottles--Cassandra,
burthened by a sole regret--that she had left her harp behind. If
these young people had wished, in mid ocean, to dance, how willingly
would Cassandra have harped to them! Doctor Thorne and his Linda were
punctual; so were the trio of pretty de Carteret sisters whom poor Mrs.
Verschoyle, according to a trite figure of speech, was to ‘look after.’
And still Rex Basire glanced vainly along the harbour road for the only
guests concerning whose advent he cared. The steam was up; the skipper
stood ready on the bridge. In another ten minutes the _Princess_ of
necessity must quit her moorings, and still the sunshine of Dinah
Arbuthnot’s face was wanting.
‘You look frightfully careworn, Lord Rex,’ said Rosie Verschoyle with
malicious intonation, as she followed the direction of his glances.
Pray, has your lobster salad not arrived? Is your ice melting? Or does
some anxiety even yet more tragic disturb your peace?’
‘There they are--no, by Jove! only the men. Twelve feet two of the
Arbuthnot cousins!’ exclaimed Lord Rex, with frank disrespect of
Rosie’s sympathy. ‘Is it possible Mrs. Arbuthnot can have thrown us
over? The thought is too atrocious!’
The tall figures of Gaston and Geoffrey--twelve feet two of the
Arbuthnot cousins--were descending by quick strides the stepway that
forms a short cut from the High Town of Petersport to the quay.
Before Rex Basire’s disappointment had had time to formulate itself
more coherently a clatter of ponies’ hoofs, a rush of wheels, made
themselves heard round the corner of the adjacent harbour road. A few
instants later and the welcomest sight the world could, just then, have
offered to Lord Rex was before him: Marjorie Bartrand, in her pony
carriage, and at Marjorie’s side, fairer than all summer mornings that
ever dawned, the blushing lovely face of Dinah Arbuthnot.
‘Have we to apologise? Are we really behind our time?’ cried Gaston,
as Lord Rex came forward to welcome them at the gangway. ‘It has been
a case of the fox and the goose and the bunch of grapes. My wife would
not start without Miss Bartrand; Geff would not start without my wife.
I was not allowed to start alone. The most delightful weather!--and
the most delightful party,’ added Gaston, looking at the sunlit world
around him with his pleasantest expression. ‘Miss Verschoyle, the Miss
de Carterets--Marjorie Bartrand! Why, all the pretty faces in Guernsey
are assembled on board the _Princess_!’
The four or five hours that followed were hours destined to be marked
with a red letter in the calendar of Dinah’s life. She felt the youth
at her heart, enjoyed the salt freshness of the morning, entered into
the mirth and spirit of the expedition like a child. Gaston’s conduct
was unexceptionable. Before they had quitted the harbour he took his
place beside his wife--jotting down each new effect of sky or wave
or passing fishing-boat in his note-book. He remained beside her
throughout the voyage. The pretty island girls, capital sailors all of
them, chatted in picturesque twos and threes with their bachelor hosts.
Lord Rex Basire devoted himself, with a show of perfect impartiality,
to every one.
If this was growing used to the perils of a factitious world, the first
plunge into a social vortex where more neophytes sink than swim, Dinah
found the process distinctly pleasant. And I am afraid the thought
of Linda, effaced for once, in grim earnestness, by all-effacing
sea-sickness down below, failed to take the edge off Mrs. Gaston
Arbuthnot’s enjoyment.
Herm, with its fringe of shell-spangled sands, was soon left behind.
The high table-land of Sark became a fairy-like vision, hanging
suspended, as on Mahomet’s thread, between heaven and sea, ere it
vanished out of ken. After an hour’s steady steaming Alderney’s tall
cliffs were sighted through the haze; and then, shortly before one,
the south-west swell gave signs of lessening. The _Princess_ was to
leeward of the Point of Barfleur, and lunch, served after a desultory
and scrambling fashion, began to find hearty welcome among the watchers
on deck.
At the cheery whizzing of champagne corks old Doctor Thorne aroused
himself from a comfortable siesta he had been enjoying in the bows, and
came aft. The sight of Linda’s husband, a tumbler of Moet in his hand,
his puggareed hat pushed back from his sun-shrivelled Indian visage,
brought back the thought of Linda Thorne to the general mind.
‘Mrs. Thorne! Shall Mrs. Thorne not have champagne sent to her?’ cried
Gaston, who was reclining, a picture of virtuous contentment, beside
his wife. ‘Or, better still, now that we have a smooth deck, Doctor,
shall Mrs. Thorne not come up into the light of day?’
The old Doctor shook his head as he accepted a goodly plate of lobster
salad from the steward’s boy.
‘Poor girl! My poor dear Lin! A typically severe case of _mal de
mer_ always. Stop a bit--no hurry--just give me a trifle more of the
dressing. I have collected a mass of data about sea-sick persons,’
observed the Doctor, draining down his champagne, with relish, ‘and I
am wholly against any attempt at nourishing them. Quite a mistake to
administer stimulants. (Thank you, Lord Rex, you may give me another
quarter of a tumbler of your excellent Moet.) A mistake to imagine
persons as sea-sick as my poor wife can digest anything.’
‘I think you are disgracefully heartless, Doctor,’ cried Rosie
Verschoyle, in her thin, gay accents. ‘Mrs. Thorne and dear mamma
must require wine much more than all we well people. I declare it is
positively shameful to think how we have been enjoying the voyage while
they were in misery. Now, who will help me carry something to our poor
martyrs below?’
‘Who,’ of course, meant Lord Rex Basire. Following the airy flutter
of Rosie Verschoyle’s dress, Lord Rex dutifully assisted in conveying
biscuits, champagne, and sympathetic messages to the martyrs--as far
as the cabin door. Though the deck was smooth, Linda showed coyness as
to returning thither. Her belief in human nature, especially in Gaston
Arbuthnot’s human nature, was, I fear, frailish. The livid cheeks,
pale lips, and sunken eyes of recent sea-sickness were tests to which
Linda, under no conditions, would have dreamt of exposing a sentimental
friendship!
‘Mrs. Thorne is quite too good--the dearest, most unselfish creature
living!’ Rosie Verschoyle announced these little facts before all
hearers, on her return to upper air. ‘Doctor Thorne, I hope you are
listening to my praises of your wife. Mrs. Thorne is not ill, not very
ill herself, but she will not leave my poor frightened mother for a
moment. I call that real, quiet heroism. In glorious weather like this
to remain shut up in the cabin of a steamer for another person’s sake!’
‘Our good Smeet! She knows so well to efface herself.’
There was a twinkle in Gaston Arbuthnot’s shrewd eyes. Possibly, as
Rosie Verschoyle spoke, the words of Madame Benjamin’s eulogy came back
to him.
A league or two beyond Barfleur a French pilot was signalled for, the
pilotage from the Point to Langrune being tortuous and difficult. Does
the reader know the fairness of that little-visited strip of Norman
coast? Fairness at its zenith, perhaps, in April, when the orchards
bordering the shore are heavy with white pear, or rose-pink apple
bloom; when the black-thorn blossoms so lavishly that, if the wind
be south, you may distinguish whiffs of the wild, half-bitter aroma
far out at sea. But exquisite, too, on a late June day like this, the
yellow colza in full harvest, the barley-fields ready for the sickle,
the Caen-stone spires and homesteads standing out in white relief
against the level horizon-line of sky.
A French pilot was signalled for. After his coming the _Princess_
steamed slower and ever slower eastward. By and by--Langrune already
visible across the expanse of yellowish sea--it became observable that
the vessel’s movement could scarce be felt by those on board. The
skipper stood consulting with the pilot on the bridge, the figures of
the men at the wheel were motionless. There was a simultaneous hush in
everybody’s talk, a momentary tension of the breath at the thought of
something happening! And then came the blank, unmistakable order, ‘Stop
her!’ Before leaving Petersport wrong reckoning had been made as to the
difference between the hour of ebb in Guernsey and along the coast of
France; the skipper had no choice but to anchor. Would the passengers
await the turn of the tide and deeper water, or land, by help of the
boats, on some rocks within easy reach, and trust to getting ashore
across a tract of wide wet sand as best they might?
The stout-nerved Guernsey girls, accustomed to scores of bigger
adventures at sand-eeling parties and conger expeditions, laughed at
the horrors of the position. With Cassandra Tighe as leader, these
young women announced their determination of reaching the shore
forthwith, though not dry-footed. Among the chaperons arose murmurs of
contumacy. Poor Mrs. Verschoyle, a ghastly figure, emerging tremulously
from the cabin, observed that she looked on all voluntary sea-going
excursions as a tempting of Providence. With a spot like L’Ancresse
Common, not three miles from Petersport--L’Ancresse Common, where one
could have had the society of our excellent Archdeacon and of Madame
Corbie--_why_, said Mrs. Verschoyle, with the acerbity of mortal
digestive revolt--why put one’s self at the mercy of tides and pilots
at all?
Old Dr. Thorne was flatly rebellious. There was good champagne on board
the _Princess_, thought the Doctor. There were Burmese cheroots--a warm
sun. There was the ultimate certainty of floating up with the tide.
‘If any one be at a loss how to pass the afternoon hours let him take a
siesta, or inquire if the skipper have a pack of cards stowed away. You
see the wisdom of my remarks, I am sure, Lin, do you not?’
‘I see the wisdom of them for you and me, my dear,’ said Lin,
graciously. Under cover of a doubly-folded gauze veil, protected by
rice powder, a parasol, a well-adjusted Indian shawl, Linda Thorne had
at length committed herself to the cruel eye of noon. ‘My own election
is to abide by Mrs. Verschoyle, whatever happens. I am afraid we shall
hardly win over the young ones, Robbie, to our staid philosophy.’
‘If Rosie and the Miss de Carterets land I shall land,’ said Mrs.
Verschoyle, with dreary resignation.
The poor little lady’s elder daughters were married. She had three
girls in the schoolroom still. She had also boys. Chaperonage at
balls and picnics, nursing of measles or scarlatina, love affairs,
school bills, breakages, all came to Mrs. Verschoyle as the burthens
of her widowed, many childrened lot--heavy burthens to be borne under
sorrowful protest. ‘If the picnic had only been at L’Ancresse Common,’
she repeated, ‘we should have the Archdeacon and Madame Corbie with us,
and need never have got wet shoes at all.’
A consultation with the skipper resulted in a general lowering of the
boats. A quarter of an hour later the whole of the party, save the
Doctor, were landed on the Smaller Cancale, a reef of rock separated
by a mile of treacherous sands from terra firma, and upon whose
limited area a crowd of Parisians of both sexes were fishing--no, were
following ‘_la pêche_’ (the terms are not convertible)--after the guise
and in the vestments sacred to the Parisian heart.
Mrs. Verschoyle sank down on the first slippery point of rock that
presented itself, vainly wishing, little though she loved the
steamer, that her maternal duties had allowed her to remain there
with the Doctor and the sailors. Cassandra Tighe started off, the
lightest-hearted of the party, perhaps, to hunt for zoophytes and
molluscs among the tide pools. The younger people, all, pronounced
themselves in favour of an exploring walk inland before dinner--all
except Mrs. Thorne.
‘I mean to look after your mother, Rosie,’ said Linda, removing her
double folds of gauze, as she took her place at the elder lady’s side.
‘Please let me indulge my Indian laziness. Some one, positively, ought
to stay with dear Mrs. Verschoyle, and I like to be that some one. It
makes me remember my queer old governess days to find myself among
Parisians.’ Linda was prone to these little bursts of retrospective
humility. ‘And then, there is my husband! Robbie, no doubt, will
eventually drift up with the tide. Quite too charming to leave all us,
sober elders, together.’
‘Sober elders’--so Dinah realised, with a contracting heart--was a
sufficiently elastic term to embrace Mr. Gaston Arbuthnot. Before
landing from the boats, Gaston, with keen artistic vision, had descried
some marvellously pretty fisher-girl among the crowd of French people
on the rocks. Not a real red-handed, rough-haired fisher-girl, but the
latest Worth idea of a duly got-up _pêcheuse_, the very subject, Gaston
declared, for his own meretricious pencil. He must make a stealthy
study of her forthwith. And indeed, at this present moment, not many
paces distant from Mrs. Verschoyle and her devoted friend, Gaston
Arbuthnot, sketch-book in hand, was already at work.
Dinah lingered aimlessly. The desire of her heart was to stay beside
her husband. Her pleasure would have been to watch his quick, clever
pencil, to hear him discourse, in his light strain, about these
foreigners, whose theatrical manners and dress, overwhelming to her in
her ignorance, must to him be familiar. She felt that the brightness
of her day would be clouded if she left Gaston! And yet, mused Dinah,
troubled of spirit, _do_ wives, in society, hang jealously at their
husband’s elbow, or watch their pencil, or listen to their talk with
delight? Would she expose herself--far worse, would she expose Gaston
to ridicule, by shirking the walking party?
An expressive glance, shot from Mr. Arbuthnot’s eyes, set these
questionings only too sharply at rest.
‘Look carefully in through the cottage windows, Dinah.’ He bestowed on
her a little valedictory wave of two fingers. ‘Capital bits of ware are
still to be unearthed in these parts of the world. If you see a likely
cup or saucer, get Geoffrey to talk French for you.’ Gaston Arbuthnot
was a dabbler in most branches of _bric-à-brac_, and up to the present
date had never lost money by his dealings. ‘Mrs. Thorne, when we have
got rid of these young people, I want you to criticise me. My beautiful
fishing-girl grows too much like a figure from the mode-books.’
Linda Thorne, promptly obedient, took up her position at the artist’s
side.