A pair of blue eyes
said Knight with great blandness.
She was never tired of asking her lover questions and admiring his
answers, good, bad, or indifferent as they might be. The evening grew
dark and night came on, and lights shone upon them from the horizon and
from the sky.
“Now look there ahead of us, at that halo in the air, of silvery
brightness. Watch it, and you will see what it comes to.”
She watched for a few minutes, when two white lights emerged from the
side of a hill, and showed themselves to be the origin of the halo.
“What a dazzling brilliance! What do they mark?”
“The South Foreland: they were previously covered by the cliff.”
“What is that level line of little sparkles—a town, I suppose?”
“That’s Dover.”
All this time, and later, soft sheet lightning expanded from a cloud in
their path, enkindling their faces as they paced up and down, shining
over the water, and, for a moment, showing the horizon as a keen line.
Elfride slept soundly that night. Her first thought the next morning
was the thrilling one that Knight was as close at hand as when they
were at home at Endelstow, and her first sight, on looking out of the
cabin window, was the perpendicular face of Beachy Head, gleaming white
in a brilliant six-o’clock-in-the-morning sun. This fair daybreak,
however, soon changed its aspect. A cold wind and a pale mist descended
upon the sea, and seemed to threaten a dreary day.
When they were nearing Southampton, Mrs. Swancourt came to say that her
husband was so ill that he wished to be put on shore here, and left to
do the remainder of the journey by land. “He will be perfectly well
directly he treads firm ground again. Which shall we do—go with him, or
finish our voyage as we intended?”
Elfride was comfortably housed under an umbrella which Knight was
holding over her to keep off the wind. “Oh, don’t let us go on shore!”
she said with dismay. “It would be such a pity!”
“That’s very fine,” said Mrs. Swancourt archly, as to a child. “See,
the wind has increased her colour, the sea her appetite and spirits,
and somebody her happiness. Yes, it would be a pity, certainly.”
“’Tis my misfortune to be always spoken to from a pedestal,” sighed
Elfride.
“Well, we will do as you like, Mrs. Swancourt,” said Knight, “but——”
“I myself would rather remain on board,” interrupted the elder lady.
“And Mr. Swancourt particularly wishes to go by himself. So that shall
settle the matter.”
The vicar, now a drab colour, was put ashore, and became as well as
ever forthwith.
Elfride, sitting alone in a retired part of the vessel, saw a veiled
woman walk aboard among the very latest arrivals at this port. She was
clothed in black silk, and carried a dark shawl upon her arm. The
woman, without looking around her, turned to the quarter allotted to
the second-cabin passengers. All the carnation Mrs. Swancourt had
complimented her step-daughter upon possessing left Elfride’s cheeks,
and she trembled visibly.
She ran to the other side of the boat, where Mrs. Swancourt was
standing.
“Let us go home by railway with papa, after all,” she pleaded
earnestly. “I would rather go with him—shall we?”
Mrs. Swancourt looked around for a moment, as if unable to decide.
“Ah,” she exclaimed, “it is too late now. Why did not you say so
before, when we had plenty of time?”
The Juliet had at that minute let go, the engines had started, and they
were gliding slowly away from the quay. There was no help for it but to
remain, unless the Juliet could be made to put back, and that would
create a great disturbance. Elfride gave up the idea and submitted
quietly. Her happiness was sadly mutilated now.
The woman whose presence had so disturbed her was exactly like Mrs.
Jethway. She seemed to haunt Elfride like a shadow. After several
minutes’ vain endeavour to account for any design Mrs. Jethway could
have in watching her, Elfride decided to think that, if it were the
widow, the encounter was accidental. She remembered that the widow in
her restlessness was often visiting the village near Southampton, which
was her original home, and it was possible that she chose water-transit
with the idea of saving expense.
“What is the matter, Elfride?” Knight inquired, standing before her.
“Nothing more than that I am rather depressed.”
“I don’t much wonder at it; that wharf was depressing. We seemed
underneath and inferior to everything around us. But we shall be in the
sea breeze again soon, and that will freshen you, dear.”
The evening closed in and dusk increased as they made way down
Southampton Water and through the Solent. Elfride’s disturbance of mind
was such that her light spirits of the foregoing four and twenty hours
had entirely deserted her. The weather too had grown more gloomy, for
though the showers of the morning had ceased, the sky was covered more
closely than ever with dense leaden clouds. How beautiful was the
sunset when they rounded the North Foreland the previous evening! now
it was impossible to tell within half an hour the time of the
luminary’s going down. Knight led her about, and being by this time
accustomed to her sudden changes of mood, overlooked the necessity of a
cause in regarding the conditions—impressionableness and elasticity.
Elfride looked stealthily to the other end of the vessel. Mrs. Jethway,
or her double, was sitting at the stern—her eye steadily regarding
Elfride.
“Let us go to the forepart,” she said quickly to Knight. “See there—the
man is fixing the lights for the night.”
Knight assented, and after watching the operation of fixing the red and
the green lights on the port and starboard bows, and the hoisting of
the white light to the masthead, he walked up and down with her till
the increase of wind rendered promenading difficult. Elfride’s eyes
were occasionally to be found furtively gazing abaft, to learn if her
enemy were really there. Nobody was visible now.
“Shall we go below?” said Knight, seeing that the deck was nearly
deserted.
“No,” she said. “If you will kindly get me a rug from Mrs. Swancourt, I
should like, if you don’t mind, to stay here.” She had recently fancied
the assumed Mrs. Jethway might be a first-class passenger, and dreaded
meeting her by accident.
Knight appeared with the rug, and they sat down behind a weather-cloth
on the windward side, just as the two red eyes of the Needles glared
upon them from the gloom, their pointed summits rising like shadowy
phantom figures against the sky. It became necessary to go below to an
eight-o’clock meal of nondescript kind, and Elfride was immensely
relieved at finding no sign of Mrs. Jethway there. They again ascended,
and remained above till Mrs. Snewson staggered up to them with the
message that Mrs. Swancourt thought it was time for Elfride to come
below. Knight accompanied her down, and returned again to pass a little
more time on deck.
Elfride partly undressed herself and lay down, and soon became
unconscious, though her sleep was light. How long she had lain, she
knew not, when by slow degrees she became cognizant of a whispering in
her ear.
“You are well on with him, I can see. Well, provoke me now, but my day
will come, you will find.” That seemed to be the utterance, or words to
that effect.
Elfride became broad awake and terrified. She knew the words, if real,
could be only those of one person, and that person the widow Jethway.
The lamp had gone out and the place was in darkness. In the next berth
she could hear her stepmother breathing heavily, further on Snewson
breathing more heavily still. These were the only other legitimate
occupants of the cabin, and Mrs. Jethway must have stealthily come in
by some means and retreated again, or else she had entered an empty
berth next Snewson’s. The fear that this was the case increased
Elfride’s perturbation, till it assumed the dimensions of a certainty,
for how could a stranger from the other end of the ship possibly
contrive to get in? Could it have been a dream?
Elfride raised herself higher and looked out of the window. There was
the sea, floundering and rushing against the ship’s side just by her
head, and thence stretching away, dim and moaning, into an expanse of
indistinctness; and far beyond all this two placid lights like rayless
stars. Now almost fearing to turn her face inwards again, lest Mrs.
Jethway should appear at her elbow, Elfride meditated upon whether to
call Snewson to keep her company. “Four bells” sounded, and she heard
voices, which gave her a little courage. It was not worth while to call
Snewson.
At any rate Elfride could not stay there panting longer, at the risk of
being again disturbed by that dreadful whispering. So wrapping herself
up hurriedly she emerged into the passage, and by the aid of a faint
light burning at the entrance to the saloon found the foot of the
stairs, and ascended to the deck. Dreary the place was in the extreme.
It seemed a new spot altogether in contrast with its daytime self. She
could see the glowworm light from the binnacle, and the dim outline of
the man at the wheel; also a form at the bows. Not another soul was
apparent from stem to stern.
Yes, there were two more—by the bulwarks. One proved to be her Harry,
the other the mate. She was glad indeed, and on drawing closer found
they were holding a low slow chat about nautical affairs. She ran up
and slipped her hand through Knight’s arm, partly for love, partly for
stability.
“Elfie! not asleep?” said Knight, after moving a few steps aside with
her.
“No: I cannot sleep. May I stay here? It is so dismal down there,
and—and I was afraid. Where are we now?”
“Due south of Portland Bill. Those are the lights abeam of us: look. A
terrible spot, that, on a stormy night. And do you see a very small
light that dips and rises to the right? That’s a light-ship on the
dangerous shoal called the Shambles, where many a good vessel has gone
to pieces. Between it and ourselves is the Race—a place where
antagonistic currents meet and form whirlpools—a spot which is rough in
the smoothest weather, and terrific in a wind. That dark, dreary
horizon we just discern to the left is the West Bay, terminated
landwards by the Chesil Beach.”
“What time is it, Harry?”
“Just past two.”
“Are you going below?”
“Oh no; not to-night. I prefer pure air.”
She fancied he might be displeased with her for coming to him at this
unearthly hour. “I should like to stay here too, if you will allow me,”
she said timidly.
“I want to ask you things.”
“Allow you, Elfie!” said Knight, putting his arm round her and drawing
her closer. “I am twice as happy with you by my side. Yes: we will
stay, and watch the approach of day.”
So they again sought out the sheltered nook, and sitting down wrapped
themselves in the rug as before.
“What were you going to ask me?” he inquired, as they undulated up and
down.
“Oh, it was not much—perhaps a thing I ought not to ask,” she said
hesitatingly. Her sudden wish had really been to discover at once
whether he had ever before been engaged to be married. If he had, she
would make that a ground for telling him a little of her conduct with
Stephen. Mrs. Jethway’s seeming words had so depressed the girl that
she herself now painted her flight in the darkest colours, and longed
to ease her burdened mind by an instant confession. If Knight had ever
been imprudent himself, he might, she hoped, forgive all.
“I wanted to ask you,” she went on, “if—you had ever been engaged
before.” She added tremulously, “I hope you have—I mean, I don’t mind
at all if you have.”
“No, I never was,” Knight instantly and heartily replied. “Elfride”—and
there was a certain happy pride in his tone—“I am twelve years older
than you, and I have been about the world, and, in a way, into society,