When a die has been cast--cast irrevocably--as a rule there follows a
calm. It is sometimes the calm of peace, sometimes that of despair; but
there is always a stillness, effort is over, words don't avail, actions
are paralyzed.
Gerald Wyndham sat on deck most of that evening. There was a married
lady, a certain Mrs. Harvey, on board, she was going to Australia with
her husband and one little girl. She was about thirty, and very
delicate. Gerald's face took her fancy, and they struck up an
acquaintance.
The evening was so calm, so mild, the water so still, the sky above so
clear that the passengers brought wraps and lingered long on deck. Mrs.
Harvey talked all the time to Gerald. He answered her not only politely
but with interest. She was an interesting woman, she could talk well,
she had great sympathy, and she wanted to draw Wyndham out. In this she
failed, although she imagined she succeeded. He learned much of her
history, for she was very communicative, but when she joined her
husband downstairs later that evening she could not tell him a single
thing about their fellow-passenger.
"He has a nice face," they both remarked, and they wondered who he was.
It did not occur to them to speak of him as sad-looking. On the
contrary, Mrs. Harvey spoke of his cheerful smile and of his strong
appreciation of humor.
"It is delightful to meet a man who can see a joke," she said. "Most of
them are so dense."
"I wonder which family of Wyndhams he belongs to," remarked the
husband.
"I wonder if he is married," added the wife.
Then they both resolved that they would find out to-morrow. But they
did not, for the next day Wyndham did not come on deck at all. He
stayed in his own cabin, and had one or two interviews with the
captain.
"You know very little about me, Captain Jellyby," he said, once.
"I know that you are married to Miss Paget," replied the captain, "and
I am given to understand that she is a very charming young lady."
"I want you to keep the fact of my marriage to yourself."
The captain looked a little surprised.
"Certainly, if you wish it," he said.
"I do wish it. I am knocked over to-day, for the fact is, I--I have
gone through some trouble, but I don't mean to inflict my troubles on
you or my fellow-passengers. I hope I shall prove an acquisition rather
than otherwise on board the _Esperance_. But what I do not want, what
would be particularly repellant to me, is that the other saloon
passengers should gossip about me. When they find that I don't talk
about myself, or my people, or my wife, they will become curious, and
ply you with questions. Will you be mum on the subject?"
"Mum as the grave," said the captain rising and stretching himself.
"Lord, we'll have some fun over this. If there are a deadly curious,
gossiping, wrangling, hole-picking set in this wide world, it's the
saloon passengers on board a boat of this kind. I'll make up a
beautiful mystery about you, my fine fellow. Won't they enjoy it! Why,
it will be the saving of them."
"Make up any mystery you like," replied Wyndham, "only don't tell them
the truth. That is, I mean, what you know of the truth."
"And that's nothing," muttered the captain to himself as he went away.
"Bless me, he is a queer fellow. Touched--he must be touched."
Gerald spent twenty-four hours in God only knows what deep waters of
mental agony. The other passengers thought he was suffering from an
attack of sea-sickness, for they were just now meeting the heavy
channel sea, and the captain did not undeceive them. They passed
Plymouth before Gerald again appeared on deck, and when he once more
joined his fellow-passengers they were outside the Bay of Biscay.
Gerald had not suffered from any bodily discomfort, but others on board
the _Esperance_ were less fortunate, and when he once more took his
place in the saloon, and went up on deck, he found that work, which all
his life long seemed to fall to his share, once more waiting for him.
It was the work of making other people comfortable. The Harveys' little
girl was very weak and fretful. She had gone through a bad time, but
when Wyndham lifted her in his arms, sat down with her in a sheltered
part of the deck, and told her some funny fairy tales, his influence
worked like the wand of a good magician. She smiled, told Mr. Wyndham
he was a very nice man, gave him a kiss, and ran downstairs presently
to eat her supper with appetite.
Little Cecily Harvey was not the only person who came under Wyndham's
soothing influence. During this first evening he found himself more or
less in the position of a sort of general sick-nurse. But the next day
people were better, and then he appeared in another _role_. He could
entertain, with stories, with music, with song. He could recite; above
all things he could organize, and had a knack of showing off other
people to the best advantage. Long before a week had passed, Wyndham
was the most popular person on board. He was not only popular with
saloon passengers, but with the emigrants. There were several on
board, and he often spent some hours with them, playing with the
children, and talking with the mothers, or, rather, getting the mothers
to talk to him.
They were flying south now, and every day the air grew more balmy and
the sea smoother. The emigrants, boys and girls, fathers and mothers,
used to lie out on the deck in the sun, and a very pretty picture they
made; the children rolling about laughing and playing, and the mothers,
most of them were young mothers, looking on and regarding them with
pride.
There was scarcely an emigrant mother on board that ship who had not
confided her story, her hopes and her fears to Wyndham, before the
voyage was over.
Soon that thing happened which had happened long ago at
Jewsbury-on-the-Wold, which had happened in the small house in
Park-lane, which had happened even with the odds against him to his
wife--everybody loved Wyndham. Hearts warmed as he came near, eyes
brightened when they looked at him. He was in the position of a
universal favorite. That sometimes is a dangerous position. But not in
his case, for he was too unselfish to make enemies.
All this time, while his life was apparently drifting, while the hours
were apparently gliding on to no definite or especial goal, to a
landing at Melbourne--to a journey across a new Continent--while his
days were going by to all intents and purposes like anybody else's
days, he knew that between him and them lay an immeasurable gulf. He
knew that he was not drifting, but going very rapidly down a hill. The
fact is, Wyndham knew that the end, as far as he was concerned, was
near.
His father-in-law had planned one thing, but he had planned another. He
told no one of this, he never whispered this to a living creature, but
his own mind was inexorably made up. He knew it when he bade his
father good-bye that last Sunday; when he looked at Lilias and
Marjory, and the other children, he knew it; he knew it when he kissed
his wife's cheek that last morning when she slept. In his own way he
could be a man of iron will. His will was as iron in this special
matter. Only once had his determination been shaken, and that was when
he pleaded with Valentine, and when he hoped against hope that she
would listen to his prayer. The last lingering sparks of that hope died
away when the captain refused to touch at Plymouth. After that moment
his own fixed will never wavered.
His father-in-law had asked him for half a death; he should have a
whole one. That was all. Many another man had done what he meant to do
before. Still it was the End--the great End. No one could go beyond it.
He made his plans very carefully; he knew to effect his object he must
be extremely careful. He would die, but it must never be supposed,
never breathed by mortal soul that he had passed out of this world
except by accident. He knew perfectly what the captain thought of him
during the first couple of days of his residence on board the
_Esperance_.
"Captain Jellyby is positive that I am touched in the head," thought
Wyndham. "I must undo that suspicion."
He took pains, and he succeeded admirably. Wyndham was not only a
favorite on board, but he was cheerful, he was gay. People remarked not
on his high but on his good spirits.
"Such a merry, light-hearted fellow," they said of him.
Wyndham overheard these remarks now and then. The captain openly
delighted in him.
"The ship will never be lucky again when you leave her," he said.
"You're worth a free passage to any captain. Why you keep us all in
good humor. Passengers, emigrants, sailors and all. Here, come along. I
thought you rather a gloomy young chap when first I set eyes on you;
but now--ah, well, you were homesick. Quite accountable. Here, I have a
request from the second mate, and one or two more of the jack tars down
there. They want you to sing them a song after supper. They say it
isn't fair that we should have you to ourselves in the saloon."
Gerald laughed, said he would be happy to oblige the sailors, and
walked away.
"As jolly a chap as ever I laid eyes on," muttered the captain. "I
liked him from the first, but I was mistaken in him. I thought him
gloomy. Not a bit. I wonder his wife could bear to let him out of her
sight. I wouldn't if I were a lass. There, hark to him now! Bless me,
we are having a pleasant voyage this time."
So they were. No one was ill; the amount of rough weather was decidedly
below the average, and cheerfulness and contentment reigned on board.
The ship touched at Teneriffe, but only for a few hours, and then sped
on her way to the Cape. It was now getting very hot, and an awning was
spread over the deck. Under this the saloon passengers sat, and smoked
and read. No one suspected, no one had the faintest shadow of a
suspicion that black care lurked anywhere on board that happy ship,
least of all in the breast of the merriest of its crew, Gerald Wyndham.
The _Esperance_ reached the Cape in safety, there some of the
passengers, Gerald amongst them, landed, for the captain intended to
lie at anchor for twenty-four hours. Then again they were away, and now
they were told they must expect colder weather for they were entering
the Southern Ocean, and were approaching high latitudes of polar cold.
They would have to go through the rough sea of the "Roaring Forties,"
and then again they would emerge into tropical sunshine.
Soon after they left the Cape, little Cecily Harvey fell ill. She
caught a chill and was feverish, and the doctor and her mother forbade
her to go on deck. She was only eight years old, a pretty, winsome
child. Gerald felt a special tenderness for her, for she reminded him
of his own little sister Joan. During this illness she often lay for
hours in his arms, with her little feverish cheek pressed against his,
and her tiny hot hand comforted by his firm cool clasp.
"Mr. Wyndham," she said on one of these occasions. "I wish you wouldn't
do it."
"Do what, Cecily?"
"Run up the rigging as you do. I heard one of the sailors talking to
Mrs. Meyrich the other day, and he said you were too daring, and some
day you'd have a slip, and be overboard, if you did not look sharp."
"Oh, I'll take care of myself, Cecily. At one time I thought of being a
sailor, and I was always climbing, always climbing at home. There isn't
the least fear. I'm not rash. I'm a very careful fellow."
"Are you? I'm glad of that. Had you tall trees at your home?"
Gerald gave the little hand a squeeze.
"They were like other trees," he said. "Don't let us talk of them."
"Mustn't we? I'm sorry. I wanted to hear all about your home."
"I haven't a home, Cecily. Once I had one, but you can understand that
it is painful to speak of what one has lost."
"I'm very sorry for you, dear Mr. Wyndham. Did you lose a little
sister, too? Is that why you squeeze me so tight?"
"I have lost many little sisters; we won't talk of them, either. What
is the matter, Cecily? Do you feel faint?"
"No, but I hate this rough, choppy sea. I want it to be smooth again as
it used to be. Then I can go on deck, and lie under the awning, and you
can sit near me, and tell me stories. Will you?"
Gerald did not answer.
"_Will_ you, Mr. Wyndham?"
"I can lie to everyone else but not to the child," muttered Gerald.
He roused himself, and sought to divert her attention.
"We are in the 'Roaring Forties' now," he said. "Isn't that a funny
name? The sea is always very choppy and rough here, but it won't last
long. You will soon be in pleasant weather and smooth seas again."
Cecily was not satisfied, and Gerald presently left her and went on
deck.
The weather was not pleasant just now, it was cold and squally, always
veering about and causing a choppy and disagreeable motion with the
ship. Some of the ladies took again to their beds, and went through
another spell of sea-sickness; the more fortunate ones sat and chatted
in the great saloon--not one of them ventured on deck. Gerald, who was
not in the least indisposed in body, found plenty to do in his _role_
of general cheerer and comforter. When he was not nursing little Cecily
he spent some time with the emigrants, amongst whom he was a great
favorite.
On this particular day a round-faced young woman of five and twenty, a
certain Mrs. Notley, came up to him the moment he appeared on the lower
deck.
"They do say it, sir, and I thought I'd speak to you, so that you
wouldn't mind. They do say you're over rash in helping the
sailors--over rash, and none so sure-footed as you think yourself."
"Folly," said Gerald, laughing good-humoredly. "So I can't run up a
rope or tighten a rigging without people imagining that I am putting my
precious life in jeopardy. Don't you listen to any foolish tales, Mrs.
Notley. I'm a great deal too fond of myself to run any risks. I shan't
slip, if that's what you mean--for that matter I have always been
climbing, since I was a little chap no bigger than that urchin of yours
there."
"Ay, sir, that's all very well, but it's different for all that on
board ship; there may come a lurch when you least look for it, and then
the surest-footed and the surest-handed is sometimes outwitted. You'll
excuse my mentioning of it, sir, but you're a bonny young gentleman,
and you has the goodwill of everyone on board."
"Thank you, Mrs. Notley, I like to hear you say so. It is pleasant to
be liked."
"Ah, sure you are that, and no mistake, and you'll forgive me
mentioning it, sir, but you'll be careful, won't you? You ain't married
for sure, for your face is too lightsome for that of a married man. But
maybe you has a mother and a sweetheart, and you might think of them,
sir, and not be over daring."
Wyndham's face grew suddenly white.
"As it happens I have neither a mother nor sweetheart," he said. Then
he turned away somewhat abruptly, and Mrs. Notley feared she had
offended him.
The sailors prophesied "dirty weather;" they expected it, for this was
the roughest part of the voyage. Gerald was very fond of talking to the
sailors and getting their opinions. He strolled over to where a group
of them were standing now, and they pointed to some ugly looking
clouds, and told him that the storm would be on them by night.
Nothing very bad, or to be alarmed at, they said, still a rough and
nasty sea, with a bit of a gale blowing. The women and children
wouldn't like it, poor things, and it would be a dark night too, no
moon.
Gerald asked a few more questions.
"I have a great anxiety to see a storm," he said. "If it gets really
stormy, I'll come up; I can shelter beside the man at the wheel."
"Better not, sir," one or two said. "The vessel is sure to lurch over a
good bit, and it takes more sea-weather legs than yours to keep their
footing at such a time."
"All the same," remarked a burly-looking sailor, who was to take his
place at the wheel for some hours that night, and thought Gerald's
company would be a decided acquisition, "I could put the gent into a
corner where he'd be safe enough round here, and it's something to see
a gale in these parts--something to live for--not that there'll be much
to-night, only a bit of a dirty sea; but still----"
"Expect me, Loggan, if it does come," said Wyndham. He laughed and
turned away. He walked slowly along the upper deck. Captain Jellyby
came up and had a word with him.
"Yes, we're in for a dirty night," he remarked.
Then Wyndham went downstairs. He chatted for a little with the ladies
in the saloon. Then he went into his own cabin. He shut the door. The
time had arrived--the hour had come.
He felt wonderfully calm and quiet; he was not excited, nor did his
conscience smite him with a sense of any special wrong-doing. Right or
wrong he was going to do something on which no blessing could be asked,
over which no prayer could be uttered. He had been brought up in a
house where prayers had been many; he had whispered his own baby
prayers to his mother when he was a little child. Well, well, he would
not think of these things now. The hour was come, the moment for action
was ripe. There was a little daylight, and during that time he meant to
occupy himself with one last task; he would write a letter to his wife,
a cheerful, bright everyday letter, to the wife for whose sake he was
about to rush unbidden into the arms of death. He had a part to act,
and this letter was in the programme. To make all things safe and above
suspicion he must write it, and leave it carelessly on his table, so
that the next ship they touched should convey it to her.
He took out a sheet of foreign notepaper, and wrote steadily. His hand
did not shake, he covered the whole sheet of paper; his words were
bright, contented; no shadow of gloom touched them. They were full of
anticipation, of pleasure in the moment--of pleasure in the coming
reunion.
The writing of this letter was the very hardest task of the man's whole
life. When it was over great drops of sweat stood on his forehead. He
read it steadily, from beginning to end, however, and his only fear was
that it was too bright, and that she might see through it, as in a
mirror, the anguish beneath.
The letter was written, and now Wyndham had nothing to do. He had but
to sit with his hands before him, and wait for the gathering darkness
and the ever-increasing gale.
He sat for nearly an hour in his own cabin, he was past any consecutive
thought now; still, so great was the constraint he was able to put over
himself that outwardly he was quite calm. Presently he went into the
saloon. Cecily Harvey alone was there, all the ladies having gone in to
dinner. She sprang up with a cry of delight when she saw Gerald.
"Mr. Wyndham, have you come to stay with me? Why aren't you at dinner?
How white you look."
"I am not hungry, Cecily. I thought you would be alone, and I came out
to see you. I wanted you to give me a kiss."
"Of course I will--of course I will," said the affectionate child,
throwing her arms around his neck.
"You remind me of one of the little sisters I have lost," he said
hurriedly. "Thank you, Cecily, thank you. Be a good child, always. I
would say 'God bless you' if I dared."
"Why don't you dare? You are a good man, a very good man, the best I
know."
"Hush, Cecily, you don't know what you are talking about. Give me
another kiss. Thank you sweet little girl."
He went back again to his own cabin. The longing for compassion at this
crucial moment had made him run a risk in talking so to Cecily. He
blamed himself, but scarcely regretted the act.
It was certainly going to be a dirty night, and already the sailors
were busy overhead. The good ship creaked and strained as she to fought
her way through the waters. The ladies loudly expressed their
uneasiness, and the gentleman-passengers fought down some qualms which
they considered unmanly.
Wyndham rose from his seat in the dark, pressed his lips to the letter
he had written to his wife, suddenly he started, reeled a step and fell
back.
There is no accounting for what happened--but happen it did.
_Valentine herself stood beside him, stretched out her arms to him,
uttered a brief cry, and then vanished._
He felt like a madman; he pressed his hands to his head and rushed on
deck.
* * * * *
"Stand there, Mr. Wyndham, there," said the sailor Loggan. "You'll be
safe enough. Oh, yes, more than one wave will wash us. Shall I lash you
to the wheel, sir? Maybe it would be safer."
"No, no, thank you."
The voice was quite quiet and calm again.
Certainly the night was a rough one, but between and under the loud
voice of the storm, Loggan and his companion exchanged some cheerful
phrases.
"No, sir, I ain't never afeared."
"What if you were to go to the bottom?"
"The will of the good God be done, sir. I'd go a-doing of my duty."
"You're an honest fellow, Loggan; shake hands with me."
"That I will, Mr. Wyndham. What are you doing with that rope, sir? It's
cold, it's slippery--oh, the knot has got loose, I'll call a man to
tighten it, sir; let me--let me. You'll be over, sir, if you don't look
out; we're going to lunge this way. Take care, sir--take care--_for
God's sake, take care_!"
Wyndham took care.