STELLA, however, courageous as she was, was not bold enough to address Sir Charles and his companion as Charlie and Algy when they appeared, not next day, but some days later; for their engagements with Mrs. Seton and others of their friends were not so lightly to be pushed aside for the attraction of her society as the girl supposed. It was a little disappointing to meet them with their friends, not on the same sudden level of intimacy which had been developed by the picnic, and to be greeted indifferently, “like anybody else,” after that entertainment and its sudden fervour of acquaintance. When, however, Mrs. Seton left the hotel, and the young men had no longer that resource in their idleness, they appeared at the Cliff without further invitation, and with an evident disposition to profit by its hospitality which half flattered and half offended the girls.
“They have never even left cards,” said Katherine, after the picnic, “but now that their friends have gone they remember that you asked them, Stella.”
“Well,” cried Stella, “that is so much the more friendly. Do you suppose they haven’t hundreds of places to go to? And when they choose us, are we to be disagreeable? I shan’t be so at least.”
She ran downstairs indeed wreathed with smiles, and received them with an eager gratification, which was very flattering to the young men, who opened their eyes at the luxury of the luncheon and gave each other a look which said that here was something worth the trouble. Old Mr. Tredgold, in his shabby coat and his slippers, was a curious feature in the group; but it was by no means out of keeping that a rich old father, who had begun life with half a crown, should thus fulfil his part, and the young men laughed at his jokes, and elevated an eyebrow at each other across the table, with a sense of the fun of it, which perplexed and disturbed the two young women, to whom they were still figures unaccustomed, about whose modes and manners they were quite unassured. Katherine took it all seriously, with an inclination towards offence, though it is not to be supposed that the advent of two young officers, more or less good-looking and a novelty in her life, should not have exercised a little influence upon her also. But Stella was in a state of suppressed excitement which made her eyes shine indeed, and brightened her colour, but was not very pleasant to behold for anyone who loved her. She was half offended with her father for the share he took in the conversation, and angry with the young men who listened to and applauded him, without remarking her own attempts to be witty. Her voice, though it was a pretty voice, grew a little shrill in her endeavours to attract their attention and to secure the loud outbursts of laughter which had been used to accompany Mrs. Seton’s sallies. What was it about Mrs. Seton which amused them? She said nothing remarkable, except for rudeness and foolishness, and yet they laughed; but to Stella’s funniest remarks they gave but a gape of inattention, and concentrated their attention on her father—on papa! What could they possibly see in him?
It was consolatory, however, when they all went out into the garden after lunch, to find that they came one on each side of her instinctively with a just discrimination, leaving Katherine out. Stella, to do her justice, did not want Katherine to be left entirely out. When her own triumph was assured she was always willing that there should be something for her sister. But it was well at least that the strangers should recognise that she was the centre of everything. She led them, as in duty bound, through all the rare trees and shrubs which were the glory of the Cliff. “This papa had brought all the way from Brazil, or somewhere. It is the first one that ever was grown in England; and just look at those berries! Wain, the gardener, has coaxed them to grow, giving them all sorts of nice things to eat. Oh, I couldn’t tell you all he has given them—old rags and rusty nails and all kinds of confectioneries!”
“Their dessert, eh?” said Sir Charles. He had stuck his glass in his eye, but he looked gloomily at all the wonderful plants. Algy put up his hand to his moustache, under which his mouth gaped more open than usual, with a yawn. Stella remembered that Mrs. Seton had proposed to pop a worm into it, and longed to make use, though at second hand, of that famous witticism, but had not the courage. They looked about blankly even while she discoursed, with roving yet vacant looks, seeking something to entertain them. Stella could not entertain them—oh, dreadful discovery! She did not know what to say; her pretty face began to wear an anxious look, her colour became hectic, her eyes hollow with eagerness, her voice loud and shrill with the strain. Mrs. Seton could keep them going, could make them laugh at nothing, could maintain a whirl of noisy talk and jest; but Stella could not amuse these two heavy young men. Their opaque eyes went roving round the beautiful place in search of some “fun,” their faces grew more and more blank. It was Katherine, who did not pretend to be amusing, who had so very little to say for herself, who interposed:
“Don’t you think,” she said, “Stella, they might like to look at the view? Sliplin Harbour is so pretty under the cliff, and then there are some yachts.”
“Oh, let’s look at the yachts,” the young men said, pushing forward with a sudden impulse of interest. The bay was blazing in the afternoon sunshine, the distant cliff a dazzle of whiteness striking sharp against the blue of sky and sea; but the visitors did not pause upon anything so insignificant as the view. They stumbled over each other in their anxiety to see the little vessel which lay at the little pier, one white sail showing against the same brilliant background. Whose was it? Jones’s for a wager, the Lively Jinny. No, no, nothing of the sort. Howard’s the Inscrutable, built for Napier, don’t you know, before he went to the dogs.
Stella pressed forward into the discussion with questions which she did not know to be irrelevant. What was the meaning of clipper-rigged? Did raking masts mean anything against anyone’s character? Which was the jib, and why should it be of one shape rather than another? The gentlemen paid very little attention to her. They went on discussing the identity of the toy ship with interest and fervour.
“Why, I know her like the palm of my hand,” cried Sir Charles. “I steered her through that last westerly gale, and a tough one it was. I rather think if any one should know her, it’s I. The Lively Jinny, and a livelier in the teeth of a gale I never wish to see.”
“Pooh!” said the other. “You’re as blind as a bat, Charlie, everyone knows; you wouldn’t know your best friend at that distance. It’s Howard’s little schooner that he bought when poor Napier went to——”
“I tell you it’s Jinny, the fetish of Jones’s tribe. I know her as well as I know you. Ten to one in sovs.”
“I’ll take you,” cried the other. “Howard’s, and a nice little craft; but never answers her helm as she ought, that’s why he calls her the Inscrutable.”
“What a strange thing,” cried Stella, toiling behind them in her incomprehension, “not to answer your helm! What is your helm, and what does it say to you? Perhaps she doesn’t understand.”
This, she thought, was à la mode de Mrs. Seton, but it produced no effect, not even a smile.
“You could see the figure-head with a glass,” said Captain Scott. “Where’s the glass, Miss Tredgold? There ought to be a glass somewhere.”
“Jove!” cried Sir Charles. “Fancy a look-out like this and no telescope. What could the people be thinking of?”
“You are very rude to call papa and me the people,” cried Stella, almost in tears. “Who cares for a silly little cockle-shell of a boat? But it is a good thing at least that it gives you something to talk about—which I suppose you can understand.”
“Hullo!” said the one visitor to the other, under his breath, with a look of surprise.
“If it is only a glass that is wanted,” said Katherine, “why shouldn’t we all have a look? There is a telescope, you know, upstairs.”
Stella flashed out again under the protection of this suggestion. “I’ll run,” she said, being in reality all compliance and deeply desirous to please, “and tell one of the footmen to bring it down.”
“Too much trouble,” and “What a bore for you to have us on your hands!” the young men said.
“Don’t, Stella,” said Katherine; “they had better go up to papa’s observatory, where they can see it for themselves.”
“Oh, yes,” cried the girl, “come along, let’s go to papa’s observatory, that will be something for you to do. You always want something to do, don’t you? Come along, come along!” Stella ran on before them with heated cheeks and blazing eyes. It was not that she was angry with them, but with herself, to think that she could not do what Mrs. Seton did. She could not amuse them, or keep up to their high level of spirits, and the vacancy of the look which came over both their faces—the mouth of Algy under his moustache, the eyes of Charlie staring blankly about in search of a sensation—were more than her nerves could bear. And yet she was alarmed beyond measure, feeling her own prestige in question, by the thought that they might never come again.
Papa’s observatory was a terrace on the leads between the two gables where the big telescope stood. Was it a pity, or was it not, that papa was there in his shabby coat sniffing at the ships as they went out to sea? He had an extended prospect on all sides, and he was watching a speck on the horizon with much interest through the glass. “Perhaps you young fellows have got some interest in the shipping like me?” he said. “There, don’t you see the Haitch and the Ho on the pennant just slipping out of sight? I have a deal of money in that ship. I like to see them pass when it’s one I have an interest in. Put your little peeper here, Stella, you’ll see her yet. They pay very well with proper care. You have to keep your wits about you, but that’s the case with all investments. Want to see any particular ship, eh? I hope you’ve got some money in ’em,” Mr. Tredgold said.
“Oh, papa, take your horrid thing away; you know I never can see anything,” cried Stella. “Now look, now look, Sir Charles! Remember, I back you. The Jenny before the world.”
“Miss Tredgold, put a sixpence on me,” said Algy; “don’t let a poor fellow go into the ring unprotected. It’s Howard’s or nobody’s.”
“Betting?” said Mr. Tredgold. “It is not a thing I approve of, but we all do it, I suppose. That little boat, if that is what you’re thinking of, belongs to none of those names. It’s neither the Jones nor the Howard. It’s the Stella, after that little girl of mine, and it’s my boat, and you can take a cruise in it if you like any day when there’s no wind.”
“Oh, papa,” cried Stella, “is it really, really for me?”
“You little minx,” said the old man as she kissed him, “you little fair weather flatterer, always pleased when you get something! I know you, for all you think you keep it up so well. Papa’s expected always to be giving you something—the only use, ain’t it? of an old man. It’s a bit late in the season to buy a boat, but I got it a bargain, a great bargain.”
“Then it was Jones’s,” cried Sir Charles.
“Then Howard was the man,” cried his friend.
“That’s delightful,” cried Stella, clapping her hands. “Do keep it up! I will put all my money on Sir Charles.” And they were so kind that they laughed with her, admiring the skip and dance of excitement which she performed for their pleasure. But when it turned out that Mr. Tredgold did not know from whom he had bought the boat, and that the figure-head had been removed to make room for a lovely wooden lady in white and gold with a star on her forehead, speculation grew more and more lively than ever. It was Stella, in the excitement of that unexpected success, who proposed to run down to the pier to examine into the yacht and see if any solution was possible. “We have a private way,” she cried. “I’ll show you if you’d like to come; and I want to see my yacht, and if the Stella on it is like me, and if it is pretty inside, and everything. And, Kate, while we’re gone, you might order tea. Papa, did you say the Stella on the figure-head was to be like me?”
“Nothing that is wooden could be like you,” said Sir Charles graciously. It was as if an oracle had spoken. Algy opened his mouth under his moustache with a laugh or gape which made Stella long there and then to repeat Mrs. Seton’s elegant jest. She was almost bold enough in the flush of spirits which Sir Charles’s compliment had called forth.
“I wish Stella would not rush about with those men,” said Katherine, as the noise of their steps died away upon the stairs.
“Jealous, eh?” said her father. “Well, I don’t wonder—and they can’t both have her. One of them might have done the civil by you, Katie—but they’re selfish brutes, you know, are men.”
Katherine perhaps walked too solemnly away in the midst of this unpalatable consolation, and was undutifully irritated by her father’s tin-tinkle of a laugh. She was not jealous, but the feeling perhaps was not much unlike that unlovely sentiment. She declared indignantly to herself that she did not want them to “do the civil” to her, these dull frivolous young men, and that it was in the last degree injurious to her to suggest anything of the sort. It was hopeless to make her father see what was her point of view, or realise her feelings—as hopeless as it was to make Stella perceive how little fit it was that she should woo the favour of these rude strangers. Mrs. Seton might do it with that foolish desire to drag about a train with her, to pose as a conqueror, to—— Katherine did not know what words to use. But Stella, a girl! Stella, who was full of real charm, who was fit for so much better things! On the whole, Katherine found it was better to fulfil the homely duties that were hers and give her orders about the tea. It was the part in life that was apportioned to her, and why should she object to it? It might not be the liveliest, but surely it was a more befitting situation than Stella’s rush after novelty, her strain to please. And whom to please? People who sneered at them before their faces and did not take pains to be civil—not even to Stella.
It did her good to go out into the air, to select the spot under the acacia where the tea-table stood so prettily, with its shining white. It was still warm, extraordinary for October. She sat down there gazing out upon the radiance of the sea and sky; the rocky fringe of sand was invisible, and so was the town and harbour which lay at the foot of the cliff; beyond the light fringe of the tamarisk trees which grew there as luxuriantly as in warmer countries there was nothing but the sunny expanse of the water, dazzling under the Western sun, which was by this time low, shining level in the eyes of the solitary gazer. She saw, almost without seeing it, the white sail of a yacht suddenly gleam into the middle of the prospect before her, coming out all at once from the haven under the hill. Someone was going out for a sail, a little late indeed; but what could be more beautiful or tempting than this glorious afternoon! Katherine sighed softly with a half sensation of envy. A little puff of air came over her, blowing about the light acacia foliage overhead, and bringing down a little shower of faintly yellow leaves. The little yacht felt it even more than the acacia did. It seemed to waver a little, then changed its course, following the impulse of the breeze into the open. Katherine wondered indifferently who it could be. The yachting people were mostly gone from the neighbourhood. They were off on their longer voyages, or they had laid up their boats for the season. And there had begun to grow a windy look, such as dwellers by the sea soon learn to recognise about the sky. Katherine wished calmly to herself in her ignorance of who these people were that they might not go too far.
She was sitting thus musing and wondering a little that Stella and her cavaliers did not come back for tea, when the sound of her father’s stick from the porch of the house startled her, and a loud discussion with somebody which he seemed to be carrying on within. He came out presently, limping along with his stick and with a great air of excitement. “I said they were only to go when there was no wind. Didn’t you hear me, Katie? When there was no wind—I said it as plain as anything. And look at that; look at that!” He was stammering with excitement, and could scarcely keep his standing in his unusual excitement.
“What is the matter, papa? Look at what? Oh, the boat. But we have nothing to do with any boat,” she cried. “Why should you disturb yourself? The people can surely take care of—— Papa! what is it?”
He had sunk into a chair, one of those set ready on the grass for Stella and her friends, and was growing purple in the face and panting for breath. “You fool! you fool! Stella,” he cried, “Stella, my little girl. Oh, I’ll be even with those young fools when I catch them. They want to drown her. They want to run away with her. Stella! my little girl!”
Katherine had awakened to the fact before these interrupted words were half uttered. And naturally what she did was perfectly unreasonable. She rushed to the edge of the cliff, waving aloft the white parasol in her hand, beckoning wildly, and crying, “Come back, come back!” She called all the servants, the gardener and his man, the footmen who were looking out alarmed from the porch. “Go, go,” she cried, stamping her foot, “and bring them back; go and bring them back!” There was much rushing and running, and one at least of the men flung himself helter-skelter down the steep stair that led to the beach, while the gardeners stood gazing from the cliff. Katherine clapped her hands in her excitement, giving wild orders. “Go! go! don’t stand there as if nothing could be done; go and bring them back!”
“Not to contradict you, Miss Katherine——” the gardener began.
“Oh, don’t speak to me—don’t stand talking—go, go, and bring them back.”
Mr. Tredgold had recovered his breath a little. “Let us think,” he said—“let us think, and don’t talk nonsense, Kate. There’s a breeze blowing up, and where will it drive them to, gardener? Man, can’t you tell where it’ll drive them to? Round by the Needles, I shouldn’t wonder, the dangerousest coast. Oh, my little girl, my little girl! Shall I ever see her again? And me that said they were never to go out but when there was no wind.”
“Not to the Needles, sir—not to the Needles when there’s a westerly breeze. More likely round the cliffs Bembridge way; and who can stop ’em when they’re once out? It’s only a little cruise; let ’em alone and they’ll come home, with their tails be’ind them, as the rhyme says.”
“And I said they were only to go out if there was no wind, gardener!” The old gentleman was almost weeping with alarm and anxiety, but yet he was comforted by what the man said.
“They are going the contrary way,” cried Katherine.
“Bless you, miss, that’s tacking, to catch the breeze. They couldn’t go far, sir, could they? without no wind.”
“And that’s just what I wanted, that they should not go far—just a little about in the bay to please her. Oh, my little girl! She will be dead with fright; she will catch her death of cold, she will.”
“Not a bit, sir,” cried the gardener. “Miss Stella’s a very plucky one. She’ll enjoy the run, she’ll enjoy the danger.”
“The danger!” cried father and sister together.
“What a fool I am! There ain’t none, no more than if they was in a duck pond,” the gardener said.
And, indeed, to see the white sail flying in the sunshine over the blue sea, there did not seem much appearance of danger. With his first apprehensions quieted down, Mr. Tredgold stumbled with the help of his daughter’s arm to the edge of the cliff within the feathery line of the tamarisk trees, attended closely by the gardener, who, as an islander born, was supposed to know something of the sea. The hearts of the anxious gazers fluctuated as the little yacht danced over the water, going down when she made a little lurch and curtsey before the breeze, and up when she went steadily by the wind, making one of those long tacks which the gardener explained were all made, though they seemed to lead the little craft so far away, with the object of getting back.
“Them two young gentlemen, they knows what they’re about,” the gardener said.
“And there’s a sailor-man on board,” said Mr. Tredgold—“a man that knows everything about it, one of the crew whose business it is——”
“I don’t see no third man,” said the gardener doubtfully.
“Oh, yes, yes, there’s a sailor-man,” cried the father. The old gentleman spoke with a kind of sob in his throat; he was ready to cry with weakness and trouble and exasperation, as the little vessel, instead of replying to the cries and wailings of his anxiety by coming right home as seemed to him the simplest way, went on tacking and turning, sailing further and further off, then heeling over as if she would go down, then fluttering with an empty sail that hung about the mast before she struck off in another direction, but never turning back. “They are taking her off to America!” he cried, half weeping, leaning heavily on Katherine’s arm.
“They’re tacking, sir, tacking, to bring her in,” said the gardener.
“Oh, don’t speak to me!” cried the unhappy father; “they are carrying her off to America. Who was it said there was nothing between this and America, Katie? Oh, my little girl! my little girl!”
And it may be partly imagined what were the feelings of those inexperienced and anxious people when the early October evening began to fall, and the blue sky to be covered with clouds flying, gathering, and dispersing before a freshening westerly gale.