LINDA WARMS TO HER PART
But Dinah was not unobserved, not uncared for.
If Cassandra Tighe’s taste for piquant situation once in a hundred
times led her astray, the ninety-nine good offices performed by the
kindly old maid in the interval were sufficient, surely, to atone for
the single blunder.
Cassandra’s heart went out towards Dinah at the first moment when
the fair sad face passed before her in the garden of Miller’s Hotel.
She had listened with regret to stories of Gaston’s fickleness--even
while her talents as a narrator assisted in giving such stories wider
currency--had felt remorse, sharp and hard, for her own unwitting
share in the ‘Arbuthnot drama.’ At this hour of which I write, Dinah
standing mute, wan, beside her, Cassandra’s breast kindled with renewed
compassion towards the simple unbefriended country girl, a compassion
none the less genuine in that it went somewhat wide of Dinah’s actual
and present trouble.
‘You look thoroughly done up, my dear Mrs. Arbuthnot. I am afraid
to-day’s gadding about has been too much for you. Let us see,’ said
Cassandra, in a whisper, ‘if we cannot find some quiet corner, you and
I, where we may settle down and rest.’
Dinah turned on her a look of blank, unanswering pain. She wanted
neither sympathy nor support, wanted only to creep below, out of
sight, to avoid all temptation to disobedience, all possibility of
bringing down ridicule--on Gaston!
‘I feel chilled--nothing, that is, to speak of. You are very good, Miss
Tighe, but I had rather go down to the saloon alone, please. I am used
to being alone, and--and I have a cloak which I must look for.’
A note of suppressed passion was in her voice. It betrayed emotion
curiously at variance with the commonplace words, the staid reserved
manner. And, in a moment, Cassandra Tighe’s valorous spirit had armed
itself for action.
‘Dr. Thorne, will you stop that Luc boat, if you please? Never mind
my nets, they can go anywhere. Attendez, matelots! Attendez moi,’
cried Cassandra in her own peculiar French, and signalling with her
handkerchief to the boat, already a few lengths distant from the
steamer. ‘It would scarcely do, Doctor, to let matters shape themselves
with such very slight rough-hewing! Some one must go ashore without
delay. Think of Linda’s anxiety if the _Princess_ should leave before
she had been assured of your safety!’
‘I think of many things,’ said Dr. Thorne, with humour, ‘the dampness
of the night pre-eminently. Of course, I must go. Still, Linda might
have exercised her reason--such reason as Providence bestows on the
sex. Linda is not a child. What possible good could come from this kind
of wild-goose chase?’
And the old Doctor moved an inch or two, exceedingly crusty of mien, in
the direction of the companion ladder.
But this was not the plan of Cassandra Tighe’s campaign.
‘You will just stay comfortably where you are; you will keep a dry
plank under your feet, Dr. Thorne, and give me carte blanche to look
after your wife. If the _Princess_ starts without us, Linda and I must
find our way back to Guernsey. I have a purse in my pocket, Linda has a
brain in her head. We both know how to travel. To you, Mrs. Arbuthnot,
I confide my treasure.’ Turning round she gave Dinah a little chip
box, clasping the girl’s cold hands for an instant as she did so. ‘Take
care of _Pontia Daplidice_, my dear, and take care of yourself. Look
for your cloak by all means. Doctor Thorne, do you persuade Ozanne to
give us every possible moment’s law. I have a presentiment that all
will come right, that your good wife’s over-anxiety will not lead her
into mischief.’
The unwieldy Luc boat was by this time swaying to and fro at the bottom
of the ladder. A Luc fisherman stood, with bare brawny arms extended,
for Cassandra’s reception. A few seconds later Cassandra and boat,
alike, had become a dark spot on the water, luminous now with the
quick-moving facets of the rising tide. Dinah was alone, indeed!
She stood, for a time, mechanically watching the row of lights on
shore, mechanically listening to the steam as it puffed, with energy
unmistakable, from the funnels of the _Princess_. Then, uncertain of
tread, heavy of limb as of heart, she groped her way below, resolved,
silently, to endure whatever fate the coming half-hour might have in
store for her.
The cabin lamps were as yet unlighted. Dinah entered the ladies’
saloon, at hazard. She sank down on the couch nearest the door. Then,
burying her face between her hands, she strove, with might, to collect
her thoughts, to stifle the resentment against Gaston which conscience,
sternly just, already condemned as paltry--ungenerous.
It was of her own perverse will that she accepted Rex Basire’s
invitation. How often had Gaston warned her that, with her temper,
her opinions, she would find ‘society’ a dangerous experiment; a game
in which she would be likely to stake gold against other players’
counters! She had come here to-day to please herself. She had no right
of control over her husband’s actions. Gaston lived according to the
light of his own conscience, not hers. He was courteous by temperament,
fond of little unforeseen deviations from any laid-down programme,
prompt, always, in putting his time, his energy, himself, at the
service of his friends.
‘Langrune is not the end of the earth.’ She recalled his cheery,
amused tone, as he was vanishing with Linda across the dunes. ‘If the
_Princess_ should start without us, we must get back by Cherbourg
to-morrow. It will fit in very well.’ She remembered Doctor Thorne--his
self-possession, his confidence in Gaston. ‘If my friend Arbuthnot is
there, one’s fears are set at rest.’ She could imagine Linda’s witty
reproduction of the whole too delicious accident when they should get
back to Guernsey. Oh, let her gain mastery over herself--mastery! Let
to-day’s lesson be a deeper one than can be gained by nice observance
of tone, or look, or manner. Let her have learned to conquer small
jealousies, to be wary of quick judgments, to construe the actions, the
intentions of others, nobly.
Dinah resolved in the spirit to be strong. Meanwhile, she realised,
with growing certitude, that she was weak, exceedingly, in the flesh.
Her breath came with greater effort, her hands grew colder and more
clammy. Rising with difficulty, she set herself to search for her cloak
among a pyramid of wraps that lay, disordered, on a neighbouring couch,
dimly discernible by aid of a newly-lighted lamp from the main cabin.
Dinah Arbuthnot’s cloak lay (can Fate not be ironical even in the
disposition of a heap of shawls?) immediately above a soft, long Indian
scarf belonging to Mrs. Thorne. As she lifted it, the subtle Eastern
perfume, associated always with Linda’s presence, seemed to Dinah, in
a second, to fill the cabin. A feeling of sickness, a sudden access of
keen personal repulsion, took hold of her--all-powerful hold; for, this
time, it was instinct, not reason, that moved her anger. She flung down
her cloak, with a childish sense of disgust at having handled it. She
sank back, passively, upon the sofa....
A few minutes later came in the steward to light the centre lamp.
Seeing one of the guests alone, and deathly white, he took the
commonsense, or steward’s view of the situation. Feeling queer,
already? Let him get the lady a brandy-and-soda, a glass of wine,
then? Settle the system before they got into rough water--though, for
the matter of that, they would have a splendid passage. Sea like a
millpond, tide favourable. Nothing but running into one of these here
Channel fogs to be feared.
‘I will take some soda-water, if you please.’ Odd and far away Dinah’s
voice sounded to herself. ‘I am a good sailor in general. I would
rather have a rough sea than a smooth one. But this evening I am a
little tired. I feel thirsty.’
She drank the soda-water with a sense of refreshment. ‘The wretchedest
preparation, without the B., that could be made for a voyage,’ thought
the steward, as he stood, salver in hand, waiting for her glass. Then,
when the man had again left her alone, she crept back into her place,
held her hands tight to her throat to relieve the cruel sensation that
well-nigh choked her, and waited.
Waited--how long she knew not--perhaps, a short ten minutes only. In
recalling the whole scene, later--the swell of the rising water, the
murmur of voices in the adjacent cabin, the clinging, overpowering
Indian perfume--in summing up, I say, each external detail of that
miserable evening, it would afterwards seem to Dinah Arbuthnot that no
year of her life ever took so much hard living through as those mortal
minutes.
At length they came to an end. Doubt was to be set at rest, or turned
into yet sharper certainty. For she could tell, first by the muffled
thud of rowlocks, then by the splash of oar blades in the water, that
the second boat was arriving. She could distinguish Geoffrey’s voice,
Lord Rex Basire’s, old Doctor Thorne’s--very loud this last, and
didactic, but yielding Dinah’s heart no consolation. Would not Doctor
Thorne talk loud and didactically whether his Linda had returned from
her quest of him or not?
After a time the voices began to disperse. There came the measured
yoy-a-hoy of the sailors, the shuffle of feet, the fall of cable on
deck. Then Dinah heard the steward saying to one of the boys that they
had weighed anchor. And not a moment too soon. With the air so thick,
and the glass nohow, the skipper ought to have started, on this badly
buoyed coast, a couple of hours ago. A French pilot might be all very
well, but to his, the steward’s mind, English daylight was better.
Dinah knelt upon a sofa, inclined her face to the cool air of an open
porthole, and watched the receding French coast. There lay the villages
of Luc and Langrune, a line of lights flickering, misty and irregular,
above the shimmer of the sea. Far away in the distance rose one larger
light, the signal lantern in the tower of La Delivrande. Dinah watched,
automatically. She noted scarcely more than a playgoer, carried away by
excitement, notes the scene-painting at the most thrilling situation of
a drama. To her, as to a child, the whole world was concentrated under
the passion that governed herself. Had Gaston come back? She longed to
know this with a longing which one must call to mind her narrow past
life, her more than girlish simplicity, rightly to understand. And
still she did not attempt to leave the cabin. Her strength, moral and
physical, seemed paralysed. How should she make her way, alone, up on
deck, search in the darkness for Gaston, ask questions, parry, with a
jest, such airy explanation of her husband’s disappearance as might, on
all sides, be offered her?
A voice, close at her elbow, made her start guiltily.
‘No one in the ladies’ saloon? Well, then, Mrs. Gaston Arbuthnot
must have tumbled overboard. Her husband and I have vainly searched
the _Princess_ for her.’ Oh, kindly Cassandra! Was no small bit of
embroidery tacked on, just at this juncture, over the bare truth? ‘So
much for trusting valuable entomological specimens out of one’s own
hands!’
‘Miss Tighe, I am here. I have been trying to get a little warm. Your
moth is safe,’ stammered Dinah.
She scarcely knew in what fashion the words left her dry and trembling
lips.
‘Moth? A country-bred girl like you not to know that a speckled
white, although, by luck, we caught him out of hours, is a butterfly!
Well, I have brought back our other pair of butterflies, safe and
sound.’ Before saying this Cassandra had put on her spectacles and
carried her box beneath the doorway lamp. She made a great show of
examining its contents, critically, thus allowing Dinah to recover her
self-possession, unnoticed. ‘From certain murmurings I overheard among
the sailors I believe we, all three, narrowly escaped being abandoned
to our fate.’
‘Mrs. Thorne had begun to think that her husband was on board?’
Dinah’s constrained tone was one of doubt rather than inquiry.
‘My dear, nobody ever knows what Mrs. Thorne thinks. Linda is a
charming woman, the pleasantest companion, when she chooses, in the
world. But, as the Doctor says, Linda might reason. These electric
transitions, from gay to grave, and back to gay again, are embarrassing
in a world where the rest of us walk by rule. Linda Thorne is all
impulse.’
‘Ah!’
‘At the first word of the Doctor’s disappearance, to run off,
helter-skelter, like a schoolgirl ... yes, Linda Thorne,’ cried
Cassandra, peering round at some person or persons across her shoulder,
‘I am talking of you. Come down and hear all the wicked things I have
to say. At the first word of the Doctor’s disappearance to run off
like a schoolgirl, taking somebody else’s husband with her! It was
atrocious! Who is that behind you, Linda? Mr. Gaston Arbuthnot. Tell
Mr. Gaston Arbuthnot, from me, that everything worth looking after on
board the _Princess_ is found.’
As Cassandra Tighe scored her point, not without a little air of
triumph, Linda tripped gaily down into the cabin.
‘We are to have the very finest weather, Miss Tighe, and all the world
means to remain on deck. Only, of course, one wants shawls. What! Mrs.
Arbuthnot?’
Pausing in her search among the heap of wraps, it would seem that Linda
recognised Dinah’s presence with amiable surprise. But Dinah was coldly
silent.
‘Surely you, of all people, are not going to become a cabin passenger?
My dear creature, I have just escaped the quaintest little adventure
in the world! But for Miss Tighe’s advent, I should have eloped, yes,
run clean, straight away, with your husband. We were planning it all
out, from a commercial standpoint, as we flew, frantically, along the
sandhills after Robbie. Were we not, Miss Tighe?’
‘I leave these matters to your own conscience,’ was the dry answer.
Possibly, Cassandra recollected that the butterflies were not flying
very frantically at the moment when she captured them on the starlit
dunes. ‘If you had run away with Mrs. Arbuthnot’s husband, I should
have taken good care to run with you. I warned the Doctor of my
intentions before I left the _Princess_.’
‘It was quite too unselfish, Miss Tighe, and, pecuniarily, most
àpropos. I possessed five sous in copper (Guernsey currency); Mr.
Arbuthnot was worth something under twenty francs. We should have had
to leave our watches at the Mont de Piété, for me, alas! no novel
experience, the moment we reached Cherbourg. Things have turned out,
under Providence, for the best. Only, I think, I _think_,’ admitted
Linda, with arch frankness, ‘the Doctor rather regrets having to retire
into insignificance. If I had not come back, Robbie would have remained
the hero of the situation.’
Mrs. Thorne ran through all this in her accustomed little tired,
inconsequential way of talking, winding up, finally, with a long and
earnest yawn. She then danced up to a strip of mirror at the best
lighted end of the cabin and settled herself to the contemplation of
her own image with interest. She dabbed her cheeks first with rice
powder, then with eau-de-cologne, then with powder again, producing
these cosmetics without a show of disguise from a tiny gilt case that
hung at her waist-belt. She arranged the folds of her cachemire scarf
above her sleek head in a certain Gitana mode, which, like all good
art, gave an idea of unpremeditation, and became her mightily; she
pinned a knot of feathery grass, a memento, doubtless, of the starlit
dunes, in her breast.
Easy to predict that Linda Thorne would not be sea-sick to-night! She
was warming to the situation, intended to work up her part--everything
in human life was a part to Linda Thorne--with spirit.
‘Come up on deck, Mrs. Arbuthnot, will you not? Surely, with your
splendid sea-going qualities, you are not going to stop down in this
Black Hole of Calcutta?’
‘Mrs. Arbuthnot will come up when I do,’ cried Cassandra, who, with an
added pair of spectacles on her nose, was pinning out insects under a
lamp. ‘Go your ways, Linda Thorne, wise ones if you can, and leave Mrs.
Arbuthnot and me to follow ours.’
‘I would not be wise if I might,’ said Linda, giving an expressive
backward glance across her shoulder. ‘If I were wise ... I should see
myself as other people see me.’
And having uttered this, the acutest speech that ever left her lips,
away floated Mrs. Thorne, with her powdered cheeks, her cachemires, and
her Indian fragrance, from the cabin.
Dinah could hear the languid accents, the little stage laugh (learnt
from the stalls), for a good many seconds later. She could distinguish
the voices, too, of Gaston, and of Rosie Verschoyle. How heart-whole
they all seemed. How frequent was their laughter! What a light time the
past hours had been to every one of the party but herself! Gaston’s
philosophy, thought Dinah, taking an unconscious downward step, might
be the true one after all, then. Live while we live! What had she
profited by a strain of feeling too tall for the occasion, by the
tiptoe attitude, by throwing away gold where a more reasonable member
of society would have quietly staked counters?
‘Any admittance here?’ exclaimed a masculine voice, as an impatient
hand pushed back the cabin door. ‘Why, Mrs. Arbuthnot, I have been
searching for you everywhere. I want you to come up on deck at once,
please, and see a comet. Not a comet really, you know,’ Lord Rex went
on, looking hard at Dinah’s white face. ‘Some kind of Japanese fire
balloon sent up by the French people. However, it does just as well as
one.’
‘Yes, my dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, go,’ cried old Cassandra, glancing up,
over her double spectacles, from her pinning. ‘It will take me an
hour’s work to bring all my specimens straight. And your colour shows
you want oxygen. You are right, Lord Rex. Take Mrs. Arbuthnot on deck
to see this comet which is not a comet. I shall follow by and by.’
And Dinah Arbuthnot obeyed. She did more. Dinah allowed the tips of her
cold fingers to rest within Rex Basire’s hand as he pioneered her up
the cabin stairs into the semi-darkness of the night.