Interludes Part 7

"It does not matter about being young."

"Oh, do not speak any more."

"Florence, do you love me? I shall go mad if you will not answer." He seized her hand as he leant forward, and gazed eagerly into her face, while he trembled violently with his own emotion. "Do you love me--say?"

"I think, I think--I do," she said very softly, looking him full in the face, while he seized her round the waist, and her head leant for one moment on his shoulder, and he kissed her forehead.

She started up, saying, "Oh, do let me go, please. I ought not to have said so."

He rose first, and lifted her up by the hand.

"I will tell you what it is, Hawkstone," said Glenville. "I think it is a d---d shame, and I shall tell him so. He may be a bigger fellow than I, but I could punch his head for him, if he were in the wrong and I in the right."

"I dare say you could, sir, and thank you, sir, for what you say. I thought you were a brave, kind gentleman when I first saw you, though you do like to have a bit of a joke at me at times."

"Bit of a joke! That's another matter. But I will never joke again, if this goes wrong. But are you quite sure that Nelly is in love with you really, and you with her."

"Why, sir, we have told each other so this hundred times; and I feel as sure she spoke the truth as G.o.d knows I did; and sometimes I think I am a fool to doubt her now. But you see, sir, she is flattered by the notice of a grand gentleman. It may be nothing, but, when I talk to her now, she seems weary like. It is not like what it was in the old days before you came, sir. We were to be married, sir, so soon as the gentle folk have left the town, that is about six weeks from to-day; but now I hardly know what to think. I think one thing one day, and another the next.

Sometimes I think I am jealous about nothing. Sometimes I think he is a gentleman, and will act as such; and sometimes I think, suppose he should harm her; and then I feel that if he dared to do it I would throttle him." Glenville could see the sailor's fists clenching as he spoke, and he replied, "Hush, Hawkstone, hus.h.!.+ This will all come right. I feel for you very much, but you must not be violent. I believe it is all folly, and Barton will forget all about it in a day or two."

"May be, may be, sir; but will she forget so soon? When a woman gets a thing of this sort into her head it sticks there, sir. There is nothing to drive it out. He will go off among his fine friends in London, or wherever it is; but she will be alone here in the little dull town, and it is mighty dull in the winter, sir."

"You see, Hawkstone, Barton is a friend of mine; and, though I have only known him a couple of years, I am sure he is a generous, good sort of fellow, and honest and truthful, though a bit thoughtless and careless. I am sure he will see his own folly and bad conduct when it is shown to him. This is a sham love of his. She is a very pretty girl, it is true.

You won't mind my saying that?"

"Say away, sir. I look more to what people mean than what they say."

"Well, no doubt, he has been struck by her beauty; but their positions are different, and he has only seen her for a week or two. Besides, he knows that you and she are fond of one another. I believe he is only idle and thoughtless. If I thought for a moment that he was contemplating a blackguardly act, he should be no friend of mine, and I would not only tell him so, but I would give him a good kicking, or look on with pleasure while you did it. But you must be quiet, Hawkstone, at present, for you know nothing, and a quarrel would only do you harm all round."

"It's not so easy to be quiet. The neighbours are beginning to talk, sir, though they don't let me hear what they say. I can see by their looks. What business has he to sit beside her on the quay? He is making a fool of her and of me. I cannot bear it. Sometimes I feel as if I should go mad. I don't know what those poor creatures in the Bible felt when they were possessed by the devil, but I believe he comes right into me when I think of this business." Then he bent over the boat and covered his face with his arms, and his great broad back heaved up and down, like a boat on the sea. Glenville left him alone, and puffed away vigorously at a cigar he was smoking in order to quiet his own feelings, which had been more excited than he liked.

After a few minutes, Hawkstone raised his head as if from a sleep, and suddenly exclaimed, "Hey, sir! The wind and the sea have not been idle while we have been talking. We must be sharp now. Shout to your friends, sir. I cannot shout just yet, I think."

Glenville shouted as loud as he was able.

"That won't do, I'm afeard," said Hawkstone, and he gave a loud halloo, which rang from cliff to cliff, and brought out a cloud of gulls, sailing round and round for a while in great commotion, but soon disappearing into the cliffs again.

We were most of us already descending when we heard Hawkstone's voice; the boat was soon ready; but where were Thornton and his lady love? After waiting a while, Hawkstone shouting more than once, it was proposed that someone should go in search for them. Hawkstone was getting very impatient, and warned us we should have a hard struggle to get home again.

"It will be a bad job if we cannot get round the point," cried he, "for then we shall have to land in the bay, and although there will be no danger if we get off soon, yet the ladies will get a wetting, and maybe the boat will be damaged. We shall just get a little water going out, for the surf is running in strong."

"It is very wonderful," said Mrs. Bagshaw, "how suddenly the wind rises on this coast, and the waves answer to the lash like wild colts. The change from calm to storm is most remarkable."

"Very," thought I to myself, when I called to mind the sudden changes of temper which I had noticed in her.

"What can that duffer Thornton be about all this long time?" asked Barton.

Mrs. Bagshaw and I exchanged glances. "I am not sure," said she to me, "that I have not been doing a very imprudent thing in letting them land."

It was full ten minutes after the arrival of the rest of the party before Thornton and Florence made their appearance, looking very confused and awkward. Glenville preceded them, shouting and laughing. "Here they are, caught at last, and apparently quite pleased at keeping us all waiting, and quite unable to give any account of what they have been doing. One little fern has fallen before their united efforts in the s.p.a.ce of half an hour or more. Hawkstone says he'll be shot if he lends you his boat to go a row in another time. Don't you, Hawkstone?"

"No, sir, I didn't say that. If a gentleman and a lady like to loiter on the hill it's nothing to a poor boatman how long they stay, leastways wind and weather permitting, as the packet says."

Hawkstone pushed us off through the surf, and it was no easy matter, and, I daresay, required some judgment and presence of mind to seize the right moment between the breaking of the great waves. With all his skill we managed to s.h.i.+p a little water, amid the laughing shrieks of the ladies and the boisterous shouts of "two" and "three," who got some of the water down their backs. We were soon under weigh, however, and tugging manfully on, occasionally missing a stroke when the boat lurched on a great wave, and making but slow progress. Fortunately we had not far to go before we arrived opposite to the parade, where a small crowd of people was watching our movements with great interest, and the pocket handkerchiefs again fluttered from the land. The signals, however, met with no response from us. Tug as we would, we seemed to make very little way, notwithstanding Hawkstone's "Well rowed, gentlemen, she's moving fast. We shall do it yet."

The waves were now running high, white crested, and with a long, wide sweep in them. We were forced to steer close to the rocks at the point in order to keep as much as possible out of the tide, which was running so strongly a few yards from the land that we never could have made any way against it there. As it was I could see that for many seconds we did not open a single point of rock, and it was all we could do to keep the boat from dropping astern. Just as I was beginning to despair of ever getting back in safety, and was aware that my wind was going, and that both arms and legs were on the point of giving way, a loud shout from Hawkstone alarmed us all. He jumped up, shouting, "Row hard on the bow side, ease off on the stroke," and in a moment (how he got from the bows I shall never know!) we saw him seated behind the stern-board with the tiller in his hand. The boat shot round, s.h.i.+pping a heavy sea, and we were at one moment within a yard of the rock underneath the parade. "Row hard, all!" was soon the cry, and away we shot before wind and tide in the opposite direction to that in which we had been going. Again we heard Hawkstone's voice, "Steady, keep steady. There's nothing to fear.

We can run her into the bay!" Nothing to fear! But there had been. One moment of delay, and we should have been dashed on the rocks. I do not know why it was, but the waves now seemed gigantic. Perhaps excitement or fear made them seem larger, or perhaps the change in the direction of the course of the boat had that effect. Certainly they now seemed to rear their white crests high above us, and to menace us with their huge forms. The roar of the breakers upon the beach added to the excitement of the scene. The ladies sat pale and silent. I believe all would have gone well, but at the most exigent moment, when we were riding on the surf which was to land us, "bow" and "three" missed their strokes and fell into the bottom of the boat; and, amid great confusion, the boat swerved round; and, a great wave striking her upon her broadside, she upset, and rolled the whole party over and over into about three feet of water. All scrambled as well as they could to the sh.o.r.e; but in a moment we saw with dismay that one of the ladies was floating away on the retreating wave, and Thornton was plunging after the helpless form.

Meanwhile the party on the parade had rushed frantically round to the bay, shouting and screaming as they came.

"Where's the life-buoy?" shouted Captain O'Brien vaguely.

"Fetch the life-boat!" cried Captain Kelly, in a voice of command, although there was no one to fetch it, and, for aught he knew, the nearest was in London. The two Misses Bankes screamed at intervals like minute guns. Mr. and Mrs. Delamere and their younger daughter looked on in speechless agony. The young artist, like a sensible fellow, seized up a coil of rope and dragged it towards the sea. The colonel embraced Mrs.

Bagshaw before the mult.i.tude.

"She will be drowned!" cried one.

"She is saved!" cried another.

"He has caught her, thank G.o.d! Well done!" shrieked a third.

Thornton had reached Florence, and was endeavouring to stagger back with her in his arms; but the waves were too strong for him, and they both fell, and were lost to sight in an enormous breaker, while everyone held their breath. As the wave dispersed three forms could be seen struggling forwards; and, amid the wildest cheers and excitement Hawkstone rolled Thornton and his lady love upon the sand, and then threw himself on his back quite out of breath.

Florence neither heard nor saw anything for some time. Captain Kelly suggested water as being the best restorative under the circ.u.mstances.

Porkington wished he had not forgotten his brandy flask. The doctor's son thought of bleeding, and played with a little pocket-knife in a suggestive fas.h.i.+on. On a sudden Glenville, who always had his wits about him, discovered the Drag seated on a rock in a state of helpless terror, and smelling at a bottle of aromatic vinegar as though her life was in danger. "Lend that to me--quick, Miss Candlis.h.!.+" he cried, and seized the bottle. The Drag struggled to keep possession of it, but in vain, and then fainted away. The young lady soon recovered sufficiently under the influence of the smelling bottle to walk home with the a.s.sistance of Thornton and Mrs. Delamere. The rest of the party began to separate amid much talking and laughter; for as soon as the danger was pa.s.sed the whole thing seemed to be a joke; and we had so much to talk of, that we hardly noticed how we got away. But on looking back I observed that the young artist brought up the rear with Miss Bagshaw, and was evidently being most attentive. Hawkstone received everybody's thanks and praise in a simple, good-humoured way, and proceeded to fasten up the boat out of reach of the tide.

CHAPTER V.--THE BALL.

Mrs. Porkington, attired in the white silk which we all knew so well, reclined upon the sofa. Porkington, who was, or should be, her lord and master, was perched upon the music stool. The Drag, in a pink muslin of a draggled description, sat in a deep easy chair, displaying a great deal of skinny ancle and large feet.

"It has always surprised me, my dear," said Mrs. Porkington, "how fond you are of dancing."

"Why, what can you mean?" said he. "Why, I never danced in my life."

"Oh, of course not," replied she. "I am aware you cannot dance, nor did I insinuate that you could, my dear, nor did I say so that I am aware.

But you enjoy these b.a.l.l.s so much, you know you do."

"Well, yes," he said, languidly, "I like to see the young folks enjoy themselves."

"Now, for my part," said his wife, "I am sure I am getting quite tired, and wish the b.a.l.l.s were at an end."

"My dear, I am sure I thought you liked them, or I would never have taken the tickets."

"Now, my dear, my dear, I must beg, I must entreat, that you will not endeavour to lay the expense of those tickets upon my shoulders. I am sure I have never been asked to be taken to one of the b.a.l.l.s this season."