'AND BEND THE GALLANT MAST, MY BOYS'
Events are now drawing near to that night when Bella was to have those
distressing dreams which have been mentioned at the opening of this
narrative; all was arranged for her departure to Bombay. A little
more, and she will be on her way to India and to wedlock.
Yet all had not been quite easy and smooth in the settlement of
affairs. At first, Mrs. Waldron, good, loving mother though she was,
and fully cognisant of the facts--namely, that Bella loved Lieutenant
Bampfyld madly and would be an unhappy woman if she did not become his
wife long ere three years had passed, and that the match which her
child was about to make was undoubtedly a brilliant one--refused to
hear of such a thing as that she should go out to him.
'If you are worth having,' she said, when first the proposal was
submitted to her, 'you are surely worth coming for.' And, since this
was a truism, it was hardly to be gainsaid. Yet, as we know by now,
she had been won over by her daughter's pleadings and entreaties; by,
too, the plain and undeniable fact that there was not the slightest
possibility of Lieutenant Bampfyld being able to come home to
marry her, or to return to England in any way--short of being
invalided--until the _Briseus_ herself returned.
Then, no sooner had this difficulty been surmounted than another
reared its head before mother and daughter. How was she to go out to
Bombay alone and unprotected? A young married woman, who had to
proceed to India to join her husband, might very well undertake such a
journey, but not a young single woman such as Bella was, while for
chaperon or protectress there was no one forthcoming. At first, it is
true, Mrs. Waldron had meditated accompanying Bella herself (she being
an old sailor, to whom long sea voyages were little more than railway
journeys are to some more stay-at-home ladies); only, down in the
depths of her nature, which was an extremely refined one, there was
some voice whispering to her that it would be indelicate to thus bring
her daughter out in pursuit of her affianced husband. It is true,
however, that authorities on social etiquette who have since been
consulted have averred that this was a false feeling which was in
possession of Mrs. Waldron's mind; but be that as it may, it existed.
Then, too, she still regarded the matter of her child going to her
future husband, instead of that husband coming to fetch her, as one of
particular delicacy; one of such nicety as to permit of no
elaboration; and she resolved that, come what might--even though she
should have to purchase, or hire rather, the services of an elderly
and austere travelling companion--she must not herself accompany
Bella.
'Heaven knows what is to be done,' she said to her daughter, as they
discussed the important point, 'but I suppose it will come to that';
the 'that' meaning the hired chaperon. Then she sighed a little,
remembering how the late Captain Waldron had encompassed thousands of
miles in a voyage which he made from the Antipodes to espouse her.
Yet, ere many days had passed, the clouds of obstruction were
suddenly removed in a manner which seemed almost--as the fond mother
stated--providential. Captain Pooley's ship had followed home, after a
week or so of interval, that in which Stephen Charke had returned to
England, and its arrival was soon succeeded by his own in Montmorency
Road.
'Going out to him to be married!' he exclaimed, after his sister--who
happened to be alone at the time of his visit--had made him acquainted
with what she had given her consent to some two or three months
before, on Gilbert's application backed up by Bella's supplications,
and which consent she had moaned over inwardly ever since she had so
given it. 'Going out to be married, eh? Why, she must want a husband
badly!' Yet, because he knew well enough the customs of Her Majesty's
service and the impossibility which prevailed in that service of an
officer coming home to marry his bride, he did not repeat her words,
'If she is worth having, she is worth coming for.'
'So other people have thought, if they have not openly said so,' Mrs.
Waldron replied. 'I am sure they must have thought so. Yet,' she went
on, with determination, 'I have agreed to it, and I cannot retract my
word. It is given, and must be kept. No, it is not that which troubles
me.'
'What, then?'
'Why, the getting out. How is the child to go alone, in a great liner,
with two or three hundred passengers, all the way to Bombay? How?' she
repeated.
'Bombay, eh? Bombay. Oh, well, if that's her destination, she can go
comfortably enough. There need be no trouble about that. Only she will
be more than double the time the P. and O., or any other line, would
take to carry her.'
'What do you mean, George?'
'Why,' he said, 'I happen to be taking the old _Emperor_ to Bombay
next month with a general cargo--calling at the Cape on the way. She
can go with me, and welcome. There's a cabin fit for a duchess which
she can have.'
* * * * * *
It was a cabin fit for a duchess, as Bella and her mother acknowledged
when, a fortnight later, they went down to Gravesend to inspect the
_Emperor of the Moon_, and after it had been decided in solemn family
conclave that, by this ship, the former should make the voyage to
India. And it was more than likely that the girl would make it under
particularly pleasant circumstances, since this was one of those
occasions on which Mrs. Pooley had decided to accompany her husband,
she not having felt very well during the past winter. At present, the
cabin was empty and denuded of everything, Pooley having decided to
have it refurnished; but when he told them how that furniture would be
arranged in the great roomy place, which would have been dignified as
a 'state-room' in one of the old clippers, Bella said again, as she
had said so often before, that 'he was the best old uncle in the
world.'
Now the _Emperor of the Moon_ was a smart, though old-fashioned,
full-rigged ship of about six hundred tons, her lines being perfect,
while leaving her full of room inside. Her saloon was a comfortable
one, well furnished with plush-covered chairs and benches--the
covering being quite new; a piano--also looking new--was lashed to the
stem of the mizzen-mast, while there were swinging vases, in which, no
doubt, fresh ferns and flowers would be placed later. On deck she was
very clean and white, with much brass and everything neat and
shipshape, while the seaman who should regard her bows and stern would
at once acknowledge that she left little to desire, old as she was.
For, in the days when she was laid, they built ships with a view to
both sea qualities and comfort, and the _Emperor of the Moon_ lacked
neither. Her sleeping-cabins were bedrooms, her saloon was a
dining-room as good as you would find in a fifty-pound-a-year suburban
residence, and her masts would have done credit to one of Her
Majesty's earlier ships.
Altogether, Bella was pleased with everything, especially with her
cabin, which was on the port side of the saloon, and she was, besides,
pleasantly excited at the idea of so long a sailing voyage.
'I know,' she said to her uncle, 'that we shall have a delightful time
of it, and for companionship I shall have you and auntie. That's
enough.'
'You will have some one else, too,' Pooley said, with a smile; 'you
know I have two officers. Come'--and again he smiled--'it is our "lay
days,"' by which he meant that they were shipping their cargo. 'Come,
I will introduce them to you.' Then he led the way up the companion to
the deck.
They met one of these officers, the second mate, a young man whom
Pooley introduced as Mr. Fagg, and then, while they were all talking
together, Bella heard a deep, low voice behind her say: 'How do you
do, Miss Waldron?' A voice that caused her to start as she turned
round to find herself face to face with Stephen Charke.
'You!' she exclaimed involuntarily. 'You! Are you going on this
voyage?'
'I am first officer,' he said. 'I wanted a berth, and Captain Pooley
has given me one.' And amidst her uncle's joyous laughter and his
remark that he knew this would be a pleasant surprise for Bella, and
while, too, Mrs. Waldron said that she was delighted to think he would
be in the ship to look after her daughter, that daughter had time to
think herself--to reflect.
In her heart, she would far rather that Charke had not been here;
while she wondered, too, how he could have brought himself to accept
his present position, knowing, as he must have known, that she was
going in the ship.
'It is so vain, so useless,' she thought; 'and can only lead to
discomfort. We shall both feel embarrassed all the way. Oh, I wish he
were not coming!' Then, although she pitied him, and although she had
always liked him, she resolved that, through the whole of the time
they were together in the ship, she would see as little of Stephen
Charke as possible.
'You do not object to my presence, I hope?' he said a moment later, as
they both stood by the capstan alone--Pooley and his wife and sister
having moved off forward. 'I should be sorry to think that my being
here was disagreeable to you. I have to earn my living, you know.'
'What right could I have to object, Mr. Charke?'
'Perhaps you think I have behaved indiscreetly?'
For a moment she let her eyes fall on him and rest upon his own; then
she said: 'I will not give any opinion. You have to earn your living,
as you say; while as for me--well, you know what I am going to India
for.'
'Yes,' he answered. 'I do know.' After which he added: 'Do not be
under any wrong impression. I shall not annoy you. I am the chief
officer of this ship and you are a passenger. That is, I understand,
how the voyage is to be made?'
'If you please,' Bella replied very softly, and the tones of her voice
might well have brought some comfort to him, if anything short of the
possession of her love could have done so.
A fortnight or three weeks later the pilot had left the _Emperor of
the Moon_, the lee main braces were manned, the ship was lying over
under her canvas, the wind was well astern. Bella was on her way to
India and her lover!
Let us pass over this parting between mother and child, the fond
embraces, the tears and sobs which accompanied that parting following
after the dawn when we first made the girl's acquaintance, and
following, too, that night of unrest and disturbing dreams. No
description of such partings is necessary; many of us, young and old,
men and women, have had to make them; to part from the loved,
gray-haired mother who has sobbed on our breast ere we went forth to
find our livelihood, if not our fortune, in a strange world; many of
us have had to let the child of our longings and our hopes and prayers
go forth from us who have sheltered and nurtured it--from us who have
perhaps prayed God night and day that, in His mercy, it might never
leave our side. We go away ourselves because we must; also they go
from us because they must; and there is nothing but the same hope left
in all our hearts--the hope that we shall not be forgotten--that, as
the years roll by, those we have left behind will keep a warm spot for
us in their memory, or that those who have left us behind will
sometimes turn their thoughts back longingly to us in our desolation.
It has to be, and it has to be borne; alas, that parting is the
penalty we all have to pay for having ever been permitted to be
together.
And, so, across the seas, the stout old _Emperor of the Moon_ went;
buffeting with the Channel, throwing aside the rough waves with her
forefoot as though she despised them, sinking England and home behind
her with every plunge she made.
And at the moment that she was leaving the Lizard far away astern of
her, and was running well out into the Atlantic, a telegram was
delivered in Montmorency Road addressed to Bella, which was opened by
her mother. A telegram signed 'Gilbert,' which ran: 'Don't start.
_Briseus_ appointed to East Coast Africa, slaver catching.' A telegram
that had come three days too late! A telegram that was re-forwarded to
Capetown, where it lay for forty-seven days awaiting the arrival of
the _Emperor of the Moon_, and, then,--was forgotten!