Arthur arrived in town in a melancholy condition. His was a temperament
peculiarly liable to suffer from attacks of depression, and he had,
with some excuse, a sufficiently severe one on him now. Do what he
would he could not for a single hour free his mind from the sick
longing to see or hear from Angela, that, in addition to the mental
distress it occasioned him, amounted almost to a physical pain. After
two or three days of lounging about his club—for he was in no mood for
going out—he began to feel that this sort of thing was intolerable, and
that it was absolutely necessary for him to go somewhere or do
something.
It so happened that, just after he had come to this decision, he
overheard two men, who were sitting at the next table to him in the
club dining-room, talking of the island of Madeira, and speaking of it
as a charming place. He accepted this as an omen, and determined that
to Madeira he would go. And, indeed, the place would suit him as well
as any other to get through a portion of his year of probation in, and,
whilst affording a complete change of scene, would not be too far from
England.
And so it came to pass that on the morrow Arthur found himself in the
office of Messrs. Donald Currie, for the purpose of booking his berth
in the vessel that was due to sail on the 14th. There he was informed
by the very affable clerk, who assisted him to choose his cabin, that
the vessel was unusually empty, and that, up to the present time,
berths had been taken for only five ladies, and two of them Jewesses.
“However,” the clerk added, by way of consolation, “this one,” pointing
to Mrs. Carr’s name on the list, “is as good as a cargo,” and he
whistled expressively.
“What do you mean?” asked Arthur, his curiosity slightly excited.
“I mean—my word, here she comes.”
At that moment the swing doors of the office were pushed open, and
there came through them one of the sweetest, daintiest little women
Arthur had ever seen. She was no longer quite young, she might be eight
and twenty or thirty, but, on the other hand, maturity had but added to
the charms of youth. She had big, brown eyes that Arthur thought could
probably look languishing, if they chose, and that even in repose were
full of expression, a face soft and blooming as a peach, and round as a
baby’s, surmounted by a quantity of nut-brown hair, the very sweetest
mouth, the lips rather full, and just showing a line of pearl, and
lastly, what looked rather odd on such an infantile countenance, a
firm, square, and very determined, if very diminutive chin. For the
rest, it was difficult to say which was the most perfect, her figure or
her dress.
All of which, of course, had little interest for Arthur, but what did
rather startle him was her voice, when she spoke. From such a woman one
would naturally have expected a voice of a corresponding nature,
namely, one of the soft and murmuring order. But hers, on the contrary,
though sweet, was decided, and clear as a bell, and with a peculiar
ring in it that he would have recognized amongst a thousand others.
On her entrance, Arthur stepped on one side.
“I have come to say,” she said, with a slight bow of recognition to the
clerk; “that I have changed my mind about my berth, instead of the
starboard deck cabin, I should like to have the port. I think that it
will be cooler at this time of year, and also will you please make
arrangements for three horses.”
“I am excessively sorry, Mrs. Carr,” the clerk answered; “but the port
cabin is engaged—in fact, this gentleman has just taken it.”
“Oh, in that case”—with a little blush—“there is an end of the
question.”
“By no means,” interrupted Arthur. “It is a matter of perfect
indifference to me where I go. I beg that you will take it.”
“Oh, thank you. You are very good, but I could not think of robbing you
of your cabin.”
“I must implore you to do so. Rather than there should be any
difficulty, I will go below.” And then, addressing the clerk, “Be so
kind as to change the cabin.”
“I owe you many thanks for your courtesy,” said Mrs. Carr, with a
little curtsey.
Arthur took off his hat.
“Then we will consider that settled. Good morning, or perhaps I should
say _au revoir_;” and, bowing again, he left the office.
“What is that gentleman’s name?” Mrs. Carr asked, when he was gone.
“Here it is, madam, on the list. ‘Arthur Preston Heigham, passenger to
Madeira.’”
“Arthur Preston Heigham!” Mrs. Carr said to herself, as she made her
way down to her carriage in Fenchurch Street. “Arthur is pretty, and
Preston is pretty, but I don’t much like Heigham. At any rate, there is
no doubt about his being a gentleman. I wonder what he is going to
Madeira for? He has an interesting face. I think I am glad we are going
to be fellow-passengers.”
The two days that remained to him in town, Arthur spent in making his
preparations for departure; getting money, buying, after the manner of
young Englishmen starting on a voyage to foreign parts, a large and
fearfully sharp hunting-knife, as though Madeira were the home of wild
beasts, and laying in a stock of various other articles of a useless
description, such as impenetrable sun-helmets and leather coats.
The boat was to sail at noon on Friday, and on the Thursday evening he
left Paddington by the mail that reaches Dartmouth about midnight. On
the pier, he and one or two other fellow-passengers found a boat
waiting to take them to the great vessel, that, painted a dull grey,
lay still and solemn in the harbour as they were rowed up to her, very
different from the active, living thing that she was destined to become
within the next twenty-four hours. The tide ebbing past her iron sides,
the fresh, strong smell of the sea, the tall masts pointing skywards
like gigantic fingers, the chime of the bell upon the bridge, the
sleepy steward, and the stuffy cabin, were all a pleasant variation
from the every-day monotony of existence, and contributed towards the
conclusion that life was still partially worth living, even when it
could not be lived with Angela. Indeed, so much are we the creatures of
circumstance, and so liable to be influenced by surroundings, that
Arthur, who, a few hours before, had been plunged into the depths of
depression, turned into his narrow berth, after a tremendous struggle
with the sheets—which stewards arrange on a principle incomprehensible
to landlubbers, and probably only partially understood by
themselves—with considerable satisfaction and a pleasurable sense of
excitement.
The next morning, or rather the earlier part of it, he devoted, when he
was not thinking about Angela, to arranging his goods and chattels in
his small domain, to examining the lovely scenery of Dartmouth
harbour—the sight of which is enough to make any outward-bound
individual bitterly regret his determination to quit his native land—
and to inspecting the outward man of his fellow-passengers with that
icy stolidity which characterizes the true-born Briton. But the great
event of the morning was the arrival of the mail-train, bringing the
bags destined for various African ports, loose letters for the
passengers, and a motley contingent of the passengers themselves.
Amongst these latter, he had no difficulty in recognizing the two
Jewesses, of whom the clerk in the office had spoken, who were
accompanied by individuals, presumably their husbands, and very
remarkable for the splendour of their diamond studs and the dirtiness
of their nails. The only other specimen of saloon-passenger womankind
that he could see was a pretty, black-eyed girl of about eighteen, who
was, as he afterwards discovered, going out under the captain’s care to
be a governess at the Cape, and who, to judge from the intense
melancholy of her countenance, did not particularly enjoy the prospect.
But, with the exception of some heavy baggage that was being worked up
from a cargo-boat by the donkey-engine, and a luxurious cane-chair on
the deck that bore her name, no signs were there of Mrs. Carr.
Presently the purser sent round the head-steward, a gentleman whom
Arthur mistook for the first mate, so smart was his uniform, to collect
the letters, and it wrung him not a little to think that he alone could
send none. The bell sounded to warn all not sailing to hurry to their
boats, but still there was nothing to be seen of his acquaintance of
the office; and, to speak the truth, he was just a little disappointed,
for what he had seen of her had piqued his curiosity, and made him
anxious to see more.
“I can’t wait any longer,” he heard the captain say; “she must come on
by the _Kinfauns_.”
It was full twelve o’clock, and the last rope was being loosed from the
moorings. “Ting-ting,” went the engine-room bell. “Thud-thud,” started
the great screw that would not stop again for so many restless hours.
The huge vessel shuddered throughout her frame like an awakening
sleeper, and growing quick with life, forged an inch or two a-head.
Next, a quartermaster came with two men to hoist up the gangway, when
suddenly a boat shot alongside and hooked on, amongst the occupants of
which Arthur had no difficulty in recognizing Mrs. Carr, who sat
laughing, like Pleasure, at the helm. The other occupants of the boat,
who were not laughing, he guessed to be her servants and the lady who
figured on the passenger-list as Miss Terry, a stout, solemn-looking
person in spectacles.
“Now, then, Agatha,” called out Mrs. Carr from the stern-sheets, “be
quick and jump up.”
“My dear Mildred, I can’t go up there; I can’t, indeed. Why, the
thing’s moving.”
“But you must go up, or else be pulled up with a rope. Here, I will
show the way,” and, moving down the boat, she sprang boldly, as it rose
with the swell, into the stalwart arms of the sailor who was waiting on
the gangway landing-stage, and thence ran up the steps to the deck.
“Very well, I am going to Madeira. I don’t know what you are going to
do; but you must make up your mind quick.”
“Can’t hold on much longer, mum,” said the boatman, “she’s getting way
on now.”
“Come on, mum; I won’t let you in,” said the man of the ladder,
seductively.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear, what shall I do?” groaned Miss Terry, wringing the
hand that was not employed in holding on.
“John,” called Mrs. Carr to a servant who was behind Miss Terry, and
looking considerably alarmed, “don’t stand there like a fool; put Miss
Terry on to that ladder.”
Mrs. Carr was evidently accustomed to be obeyed, for, thus admonished,
John seized the struggling and shrieking Miss Terry, and bore her to
the edge of the boat, where she was caught by two sailors, and, amidst
the cheers of excited passengers, fairly dragged on to the deck.
“Oh! Mrs. Carr,” said the chief officer, reproachfully, when Miss Terry
had been satisfactorily deposited on a bench, “you are late again; you
were late last voyage.”
“Not at all, Mr. Thompson. I hate spending longer than is necessary
aboard ship, so, when the train got in, I took a boat and went for a
row in the harbour. I knew that you would not go without me.”
“Oh, yes, we should have, Mrs. Carr; the skipper heard about it because
he waited for you before.”
“Well, here I am, and I promise that I won’t do it again.”
Mr. Thompson laughed, and passed on. At this moment Mrs. Carr perceived
Arthur, and, bowing to him, they fell into conversation about the
scenery through which the boat was passing on her way to the open sea.
Before very long, indeed, as soon as the vessel began to rise and fall
upon the swell, this talk was interrupted by a voice from the seat
where Miss Terry had been placed.
“Mildred,” it said, “I do wish you would not come to sea; I am
beginning to feel ill.”
“And no wonder, if you will insist upon coming up ladders head
downwards. Where’s John? He will help you to your cabin; the deck one,
next to mine.”
But John had vanished with a parcel.
“Mildred, send some one quick, I beg of you,” remarked Miss Terry, in
the solemn tones of one who feels that a crisis is approaching.
“I can’t see anybody except a very dirty sailor.”
“Permit me,” said Arthur, stepping to the rescue.
“You are very kind; but she can’t walk. I know her ways; she has got to
the stage when she must be carried. Can you manage her?”
“I think so,” replied Arthur, “if you don’t mind holding her legs, and
provided that the vessel does not roll,” and, with an effort, he
hoisted Miss Terry baby-fashion into his arms, and staggered off with
her towards the indicated cabin, Mrs. Carr, as suggested, holding the
lower limbs of the prostrate lady. Presently she began to laugh.
“If you only knew how absurd we look,” she said.
“Don’t make me laugh,” answered Arthur, puffing; for Miss Terry was by
no means light, “or I shall drop her.”
“If you do, young man,” ejaculated his apparently unconscious burden
with wonderful energy, “I will never forgive you.”
A remark, the suddenness of which so startled him, that he very nearly
did.
“Thank you. Now lay her quite flat, please. She won’t get up again till
we drop anchor at Madeira.”
“If I live so long,” murmured the invalid.
Arthur now made his bow and departed, wondering how two women so
dissimilar as Mrs. Carr and Miss Terry came to be living together. As
it is a piece of curiosity that the reader may share, perhaps it had
better be explained.
Miss Terry was a middle-aged relative of Mrs. Carr’s late husband, who
had by a series of misfortunes been left quite destitute. Her distress
having come to the knowledge of Mildred Carr, she, with the kind-
hearted promptitude that distinguished her, at once came to her aid,
paid her debts, and brought her to her own house to stay, where she had
remained ever since under the title of companion. These two women,
living thus together, had nothing whatsoever in common, save that Miss
Terry took some reflected interest in beetles. As for travelling,
having been brought up and lived in the same house of the same county
town until she reached the age of forty-five, it was, as may be
imagined, altogether obnoxious to her. Indeed, it is more than doubtful
if she retained any clear impression whatsoever of the places she
visited. “A set of foreign holes!” as she would call them,
contemptuously. Miss Terry was, in short, neither clever nor strong
minded, but so long as she could be in the company of her beloved
Mildred, whom she regarded with mingled reverence and affection, she
was perfectly happy. Oddly enough, this affection was reciprocated, and
there probably was nobody in the world for whom Mrs. Carr cared so much
as her cousin by marriage, Agatha Terry. And yet it would be impossible
to imagine two women more dissimilar.
Not long after they had left Dartmouth, the afternoon set in dull, and
towards evening the sea freshened sufficiently to send most of the
passengers below, leaving those who remained to be finally dispersed by
the penetrating drizzle that is generally to be met with off the
English coast. Arthur, left alone on the heaving deck, surveyed the
scene, and thought it very desolate. Around was a grey waste of tossing
waters, illumined here and there by the setting rays of an angry sun,
above, a wild and windy sky, with not even a sea-gull in all its space,
and in the far distance a white and fading line, which was the shore of
England.
Faint it grew, and fainter yet, and, as it disappeared, he thought of
Angela, and a yearning sorrow fell upon him. When, he wondered sadly,
should he again look into her eyes, and hold that proud beauty in his
arms; what fate awaited them in the future that stretched before them,
dim as the darkening ocean, and more uncertain. Alas! he could not
tell, he only felt that it was very bitter to be parted thus from her
to whom had been given his whole heart’s love, to know that every
fleeting moment widened a breach already far too wide, and not to know
if it would again be narrowed, or if this farewell would be the last.
Then he thought, if it should be the last, if she should die or desert
him, what would his life be worth to him? A consciousness within him
answered, “nothing.” And, in a degree, his conclusion was right; for,
although it is, fortunately, not often in the power of any single
passion to render life altogether worthless; it is certain that, when
it strikes in youth, there is no sickness so sore as that of the heart;
no sorrow more keen, and no evil more lasting than those connected with
its disappointments and its griefs. For other sorrows, life has salves
and consolations, but a noble and enduring passion is not all of this
world, and to cure its sting we must look to something beyond this
world’s quackeries. Other griefs can find sympathy and expression, and
become absorbed little by little in the variety of love’s issues. But
love, as it is, and should be understood—not the faint ghost that
arrays itself in stolen robes, and says, “I am love,” but love the
strong and the immortal, the passkey to the happy skies, the angel
cipher we read, but cannot understand—such love as this, and there is
none other true, can find no full solace here, not even in its earthly
satisfaction.
For still it beats against its mortal bars and rends the heart that
holds it; still strives like a meteor flaming to its central star, or a
new loosed spirit seeking the presence of its God, to pass hence with
that kindred soul to the inner heaven whence it came, there to be
wholly mingled with its other life and clothed with a divine identity:
—there to satisfy the aspirations that now vaguely throb within their
fleshly walls, with the splendour and the peace and the full measure of
the eternal joys it knows await its coming.
And is it not a first-fruit of this knowledge, that the thoughts of
those who are plunged into the fires of a pure devotion fly upwards as
surely as the sparks? Nothing but the dross, the grosser earthly part
is purged away by their ever-chastening sorrow, which is, in truth, a
discipline for finer souls. For did there ever yet live the man or
woman who, loving truly, has suffered, and the fires burnt out, has not
risen Phoenix-like from their ashes, purer and better, and holding in
the heart a bright, undying hope? Never; for these have walked
bare-footed upon the holy ground, it is the flames from the Altar that
have purged them and left their own light within! And surely this holds
also good of those who have loved and lost, of those who have been
scorned or betrayed; of the suffering army that cry aloud of the empty
bitterness of life and dare not hope beyond. They do not understand
that having once loved truly it is not possible that they should
altogether lose: that there is to their pain and the dry-rot of their
hopes, as to everything else in Nature, an end object. Shall the soul
be immortal, and its best essence but a thing of air? Shall the one
thought by day and the one dream by night, the ethereal star which
guides us across life’s mirage, and which will still shine serene at
the moment of our fall from the precipice of Time: shall this alone,
amidst all that makes us what we are, be chosen out to see corruption,
to be cast off and forgotten in the grave? Never! There, by the
workings of a Providence we cannot understand, that mighty germ awaits
fruition. There, too, shall we know the wherefore of our sorrow at
which, sad-eyed, we now so often wonder: there shall we kiss the rod
that smote us, and learn the glorious uses and pluck the glowing fruits
of an affliction, that on earth filled us with such sick longing, and
such an aching pain.
Let the long-suffering reader forgive these pages of speculative
writing, for the subject is a tempting one, and full of interest for us
mortals. Indeed, it may chance that, if he or she is more than
five-and-twenty, these lines may even have been read without
impatience, for there are many who have the memory of a lost Angela
hidden away somewhere in the records of their past, and who are fain,
in the breathing spaces of their lives, to dream that they will find
her wandering in that wide Eternity where “all human barriers fall, all
human relations end, and love ceases to be a crime.”