IN THE SMOKE-ROOM.
The accident that occurred to little Winifred Leyton, and the rough
weather that succeeded it, had pretty well driven the idea of the
proposed theatricals out of the ladies’ heads. In the first place, an
unaccountable gloom seemed to have fallen upon the amateur company, and
they became so indifferent about the whole affair, that Miss Vere left
them to themselves, and sought refuge in her own studies.
Alice Leyton and Captain Lovell looked as if the world were over for
both of them. He had been afraid, since his interview with Mrs Leyton,
to speak more openly to her daughter than he had done, and the girl
imagined, in consequence, that he had been trifling with her. She spent
her time, therefore, in gazing in a melancholy fashion over the sea,
whilst he sat at the opposite side of the deck and gazed at her; and
Miss Vere said she was quite sick of them both.
Jack Blythe, too, was not in his usual spirits. The fair manageress
had fully intended to enlist the handsome young officer amongst her
volunteers, but he had decidedly refused to take any part in the
amusement, and she laid it all down to the charge of Alice Leyton,
and grew still more angry with her in consequence. But when the cold
weather continued to debar the ladies from sitting on deck, and the
evenings became long and tedious, the idea of the theatricals was once
more revived, and hailed as a distraction. Since the smoke-room had
been deserted by the card-players, the younger couples had crept in
and taken possession of it, and on the morning after the swamping of
the after cabin, several of them assembled there, with their books
and work and writing, Captain Lovell, as usual, looking unutterable
things at the love-stricken Alice, and Mr Fowler, who had never
disclosed the secrets of his past, his present, nor his future, to his
fellow-passengers, basking in the smiles of Miss Vere, with whom he was
a great favourite. Poor Harold Greenwood, who had fallen into terrible
disgrace with most of the ship’s company since his little _escapade_
with the lighted lucifer, and who had tried to indemnify himself for
cold looks and flagging conversation, by falling hopelessly in love
with the actress, was worshipping her at a respectful distance, and
Pemberton was doing the agreeable to Mrs Vansittart, whose daughter,
despite all her maternal warnings, persisted in walking the poop deck
on the arm of Godfrey Harland.
Mr Vansittart was also present, although he could not be numbered
amongst the young people, but his genial nature made him welcome
everywhere. The old gentleman was not so easy in his mind, however, as
he professed to be. Sundry hints and rumours concerning Harland had
greatly disturbed him lately, and he had made up his mind to speak
seriously to Grace on the subject. She had refused to listen to her
mother’s advice, but, if necessary, he would force her to attend to his
orders. He was not satisfied with what he had heard, nor with himself
for having admitted a stranger so intimately to their society. However,
luckily nothing was settled as yet, and he was determined to stop any
further philandering until he had had an opportunity to inquire into
the young man’s antecedents and connections.
‘Where is Grace?’ were the first words he had addressed to his wife on
joining her.
‘I don’t know, my dear,’ was the reply. ‘She left me half-an-hour ago--’
‘Miss Vansittart is on the poop with Mr Harland,’ interposed Alice
Leyton; ‘I saw them walking there just now.’
‘I must go and put a stop to this,’ said Mr Vansittart, commencing to
button up his greatcoat again.
His wife laid her hand on his arm.
‘Not just now, my dear. Wait till after lunch. It will look so peculiar
to drag her away from him in the sight of everybody.’
‘You are right, old lady,’ he said, reseating himself. ‘The business
will keep till after lunch.’
‘What part of the country are you going to, Alice?’ demanded Miss Vere,
with a view to turning the conversation.
‘We go straight home to Paradise Farm in the Hurunni, which is about
sixty miles from Christchurch. Father will meet us on arrival, and take
us up country. Isn’t it strange? He has never seen Winnie yet, and I
do not suppose he will recognise me. I was only fourteen when I left
New Zealand. How glad I shall be to see it again.’
‘You love a country life, Miss Leyton?’ said Lovell.
‘Oh, dearly! My father has a large sheep-run close to the Weka Pass,
and we live right up in the bush, with not another house within ten
miles of us. I shall milk the cows, and look after the garden and the
poultry, and teach baby as much as I know myself. It is just the sort
of life I love. I hate streets and towns, and a lot of houses all
staring at one another.’
‘And a lot of officers staring at you,’ said Jack Blythe, looking in at
the open door. ‘Come, Alice; be honest! You know you liked the officers
at Southsea.’
‘Ah! I was young then, and knew no better,’ replied Alice, blushing;
‘but now I am wiser.’
‘What a wonderful effect the sea air has had upon you,’ remarked Jack,
laughing. ‘I have heard it is considered a cure for love, but never
before for vanity.’
‘Oh, now, Jack, do go away!’ exclaimed Alice; ‘you are interrupting all
our conversation.’
‘Yes; and coming in just at the wrong time, and spoiling the effect of
your pretty speeches. It was awfully inconsiderate of me. I will atone
for it now. I will go.’
And he disappeared.
‘What a bright, handsome face Mr Blythe has. I think he is one of the
finest young fellows I ever saw. I wish he was in my company,’ remarked
Miss Vere.
‘Oh, Miss Vere! I wish you would take _me_ into your company, don’t
you know?’ sighed Mr Greenwood. ‘I would do anything for you, ’pon
my word I would,--play parts, or take the tickets, or sweep out the
theatre,--anything, only to be near you--to see you--and feel I was of
some use, don’t you know? Couldn’t you manage it, eh?’
‘Why, Mr Greenwood, what do you mean by talking of prostituting your
talents by sweeping a floor?’ cried the actress, heartily amused. ‘What
would your family say to such a degradation? No, no! What you have to
do now is to learn your part for our theatricals, and when they are
over, we’ll talk about the other thing. But we have interrupted Alice
in her description of her New Zealand home.’
‘There is not much more to tell,’ said Alice. ‘It is lovely, as I
remember it, and I hope I shall think it lovely still. But--’ with a
long-drawn sigh--‘it is the _people_, and not the _place_, that make a
home.’
‘Just my sentiments,’ replied Captain Lovell. ‘I am going to Geraldine,
but I have no friends there.’
‘You will be a long way from us,’ said Alice timidly.
‘Yes. But I suppose there is some sort of conveyance between the
places.’
‘Of course there is! You mustn’t think that New Zealand is a perfectly
uncivilised country. There are trains running all through it.’
‘Are you going to farm, Captain Lovell?’ asked Fowler.
‘That is my intention. A friend of mine has bought a place out there,
and I am about to join him. I know but little about ploughshares and
wurzels, but my friend Cathcart is a crack hand at it all; and I am
sure I shall prefer a free life to the slavery of the army. That is to
say, if--if--’
‘If what?’ demanded Fowler.
‘If I can settle down there,--make a home for myself, in fact,’ said
the captain, with a shy look at his inamorata.
‘Persuade some one to settle down with you, you mean?’ laughed his
companion.
‘Yes! _that_ is what I mean,’ acquiesced Lovell, apparently relieved to
have the matter settled for him. ‘What are your own plans?’
‘Oh! mine are very uncertain. I may remain three months, or six, but I
hope to return home _via_ the Canal before a year is over my head.’
‘Private business, I presume?’
‘Strictly private.’
‘Oh, Mr Fowler! you are so close; I am sure there is a lady in the
case,’ laughed Miss Vere.
‘If she were anything like _you_, Miss Vere, I should pray there might
be. But I have no such luck.’
‘Do you know the country at all?’ asked Lovell.
‘I am sorry to say _no_; but I have friends out there who will soon set
me all right.’
‘I wonder what the shooting is like,’ said the captain thoughtfully.
‘Why, _I_ can tell you that!’ exclaimed Alice. ‘The Middle Island
abounds with game--Paradise ducks, grey ducks, swans, and pheasants;
and if you want bigger sport, there are wild cattle and boars.’
‘Is there good hunting there also?’
‘Very little. We have no foxes or hares. I have seen the harriers out,
but I have never known them to find.’
‘That is very disappointing,’ replied Lovell. ‘I should have
thought, since the country contains boars, there would be plenty of
pig-sticking.’
‘But you won’t have any time for hunting. The farm will take up all
your attention. You will have to plough, and reap, and harrow, and
drive the cattle home. Everybody works in the bush, even the women; in
fact, I think the women work almost harder than the men.’
‘And why shouldn’t they?’ said Miss Vere. ‘When women do more work
in England, they will have a better claim to be acknowledged on an
equality with man.’
‘Do you not admit, then, that man is the superior animal, Miss Vere?’
asked Mr Fowler, with a view to draw the actress out.
‘In weight, strength, and stature, Mr Fowler--yes. But intellectually,
I think his superiority is at least open to question.’
‘So do I, Miss Vere,’ said Dr Lennard, who had joined the party. ‘I
believe that the female brain only needs development, and that as
civilisation advances, and _Woman_ boldly asserts her rights, she will
find herself absolutely equal with Man in all things.’
‘But is a woman’s brain as large as a man’s?’ demanded Captain Lovell,
who had a head like a bullet.
‘In proportion to her size there is very little difference--about
one-fiftieth--which, as brain power, can easily be made up by its
finer texture,’ replied the doctor. ‘My belief is, that the wretched
education women have hitherto received has been the sole cause of
their keeping in the background, and that when they obtain a fair field
they will come to the front. Don’t you agree with me, Miss Vere?’
‘Certainly I do. See how they _have_ come to the front in almost every
profession they have been allowed to enter, and in so short a time too.
It will not be long now before women will support themselves entirely
by their own labour, and be independent of marriage and men.’
‘That will be a sad day for us,’ laughed Mr Fowler.
‘Do you think so? I don’t! I think we have sold ourselves for board
and lodging long enough, and shall choose better when we are free to
choose.’
‘We have much to thank women for even now,’ said Dr Lennard. ‘The
greatest geniuses the world has ever seen have repeatedly acknowledged
that they owed all their moral and intellectual positions to their
mothers. And it is a well-known fact, that there has never been an
extraordinarily clever man born of a stupid mother, nor a giant of a
little woman. And yet, in either case, the father may have been a fool
or a dwarf.’
‘How do you account, then, for woman’s inferior position?’ said Lovell.
‘Because she has been kept down!’ cried Miss Vere. ‘She has never been
allowed to enjoy the sports, or follow the vocations, to which she has
an equal right with man. She has been debarred from proper exercise
by a set of prudes, who consider all out-door amusements unfitted for
modest and womanly women, but which are in reality the very means most
necessary to develop a woman’s brain, as well as her body. How then can
men wonder if--if--’
‘Let me assist you, Miss Vere,’ interrupted the doctor. ‘I think you
were going to say that the corpuscles of your sex are devoid of the
brain nourishing oxygen, and, if so, I quite agree with you.’
‘Yes; that is what I meant, doctor; but I was too ignorant--fault of my
feminine education again, you see--to find words in which to express
myself.’
‘Everything depends on the rearing of girls,’ remarked Dr Lennard.
‘Parents are careful to bring up their sons to healthful occupations
and exercises, but their daughters are but too often doomed, by the
injustice and short-sighted folly of the world, to a life of inertion.’
‘Hardly _injustice_, doctor,’ said Mrs Vansittart; ‘it is their own
choice. I am sure women have every liberty now-a-days.’
‘Yes, _injustice_. The doctor is perfectly right. There is no other
word for it,’ exclaimed Alice, suddenly bursting into eloquence.
‘So you are going to take up the gauntlet for your sex?’ laughed the
doctor. ‘You do not look a very ill-used person, though, Miss Alice,
with that rose-leaf complexion and peachy cheek.’
‘Doctor, it is very rude to be so personal. You quite confuse me. What
was I talking about?’ said the girl.
‘Injustice to your lovely sex,’ replied Mr Fowler.
‘Oh, yes. Why have many of our cleverest women written under an assumed
name, and signed their works by a masculine one, except that they knew
how difficult it is to convince the world that anything really good can
be produced by a woman. And then you deny that men are unjust to us.’
‘Why, Alice, you astonish me. I had no idea that you could talk so
well,’ said Captain Lovell, as she finished her peroration.
But if her eloquence had astonished the young officer, his familiarity
with her surprised his hearers still more. It was the first time he had
called her by her Christian name in public, and Alice coloured scarlet
as she heard it. A painful pause ensued, in which Miss Vere came to the
rescue.
‘Well, it seems to me,’ she said, ‘that in discussing women’s brains,
we have quite forgotten that we met to discuss the private theatricals.
Miss Leyton, have you quite decided to play “Julia” to Captain Lovell’s
“Faulkner”?’
‘Yes, quite, I think,’ replied Alice, who was still as red as a peony.
‘Then we must fix on the dresses. I think you told me you had a white
dress that--’
‘There is such a splendid ship in sight, do you know?’ exclaimed Harold
Greenwood, suddenly bursting in upon them. ‘She has four masts, and is
going to Calcutta. Won’t you come on deck and see her, eh?’
‘Oh, we must run up and see the ship,’ cried everybody, as they
deserted the smoke-room.
[Illustration]