WHEN Stella was first able to appear out of the shelter of her father’s grounds for a walk, she was the object of a sort of ovation—as much of an ovation as it is possible to make in such a place. She was leaning on her sister’s arm and was supported on the other side by a stick, as it was only right a girl should be who had gone through so much. And she was very prettily pale, and looked more interesting than words could say, leaning heavily (if anything about Stella could be called heavy) upon Katherine, and wielding her stick with a charming air of finding it too much for her, yet at the same time finding it indispensable. There was nobody in the place who did not feel the attraction of sympathy, and the charm of the young creature who had been rescued from the very jaws of death and restored to the family that adored her. To think what might have been!—the old man broken-hearted and Katherine in deep mourning going and coming all alone, and perhaps not even a grave for the unfortunate Stella—lost at sea! Some of the ladies who thronged about her, stopping her to kiss her and express the depths of sympathetic anguish through which they had gone, declared that to think of it made them shudder. Thank Heaven that everything had ended so well! Stella took all these expressions of sympathy very sweetly. She liked to be the chief person, to awaken so much emotion, to be surrounded by so many flatteries. She felt, indeed, that she, always an interesting person, had advanced greatly in the scale of human consideration. She was more important by far since she had “gone through” that experience. They had been so near to losing her; everybody felt now fully what it was to have her. The rector had returned thanks publicly in church, and every common person about the streets curtsied or touched his hat with a deeper sentiment. To think that perhaps she might have been drowned—she, so young, so fair, so largely endowed with everything that heart could desire! If her neighbours were moved by this sentiment, Stella herself was still more deeply moved by it. She felt to the depths of her heart what a thing it was for all these people that she should have been saved from the sea.
Public opinion was still more moved when it was known where Stella was going when she first set foot outside the gates—to inquire after the rash young man who, popular opinion now believed, had beguiled her into danger. How good, how sweet, how forgiving of her! Unless, indeed, there was something—something between them, as people say. This added a new interest to the situation. The world of Sliplin had very much blamed the young men. It had thought them inexcusable from every point of view. To have taken an inexperienced girl out, who knew nothing about yachting, just when that gale was rising! It was intolerable and not to be forgiven. This judgment was modified by the illness of Captain Scott, who, everybody now found, was delicate, and ought not to have exposed himself to the perils of such an expedition. It must have been the other who was to blame, but then the other conciliated everybody by his devotion to his friend. And the community was in a very soft and amiable mood altogether when Stella was seen to issue forth from her father’s gates leaning on Katherine at one side and her stick on the other, to ask for news of her fellow-sufferer. This mood rose to enthusiasm at the sight of her paleness and at the suggestion that there probably was something between Stella and Captain Scott. It was supposed at first that he was an honourable, and a great many peerages fluttered forth. It was a disappointment to find that he was not so; but at least his father was a baronet, and himself an officer in a crack regiment, and he had been in danger of his life. All these circumstances were of an interesting kind.
Stella, however, did not carry out this tender purpose at once. When she actually visited the hotel and made her way upstairs into Captain Scott’s room her own convalescence was complete, and the other invalid was getting well, and there was not only Katherine in attendance upon her, but Sir Charles, who was now commonly seen with her in her walks, and about whom Sliplin began to be divided in its mind whether it was he and not the sick man between whom and Stella there was something. He was certainly very devoted, people said, but then most men were devoted to Stella. Captain Scott had been prepared for the visit, and was eager for it, notwithstanding the disapproval of the nurse, who stood apart by the window and looked daggers at the young ladies, or at least at Stella, who took the chief place by the patient’s bedside and began to chatter to him, trying her best to get into the right tone, the tone of Mrs. Seton, and make the young man laugh. Katherine, who was not “in it,” drew aside to conciliate the attendant a little.
“I don’t hold with visits when a young man is so weak,” said the nurse. “Do you know, miss, that his life just hung on a thread, so to speak? We were on the point of telegraphing for his people, me and the doctor; and he is very weak still.”
“My sister will only stay a few minutes,” said Katherine. “You know she was with them in the boat and escaped with her life too.”
“Oh, I can see, miss, as there was no danger of her life,” said the nurse, indignant. “Look at her colour! I am not thinking anything of the boat. A nasty night at sea is a nasty thing, but nothing for them that can stand it. But he couldn’t stand it; that’s all the difference. The young lady may thank her stars as she hasn’t his death at her door.”
“It was her life that those rash young men risked by their folly,” said Katherine, indignant in her turn.
“Oh, no,” cried the nurse. “I know better than that. When he was off his head he was always going over it. ‘Don’t, Charlie, don’t give in; there’s wind in the sky. Don’t give in to her. What does she know?’ That was what he was always a-saying. And there she sits as bold as brass, that is the cause.”
“You take a great liberty to say so,” said Katherine, returning to her sister’s side.
Stella was now in full career.
“Oh, do you remember the first puff—how it made us all start? How we laughed at him for looking always at the sky! Don’t you remember, Captain Scott, I kept asking you what you were looking for in the sky, and you kept shaking your head?”
Here Stella began shaking her head from side to side and laughing loudly—a laugh echoed by the two young men, but faintly by the invalid, who shook his head too.
“Yes, I saw the wind was coming,” he said. “We ought not to have given in to you, Miss Stella. It doesn’t matter now it’s all over, but it wasn’t nice while it lasted, was it?”
“Speak for yourself, Algy,” said Sir Charles. “You were never made for a sailor. Miss Stella is game for another voyage to-morrow.”
“Oh, if you like,” cried Stella, “with a good man. I shall bargain for a good man—that can manage sails and all that. What is the fun of going out when the men with you won’t sit by you and enjoy it. And all that silly tacking and nonsense—there should have been someone to do it, and you two should have sat by me.”
They both laughed at this and looked at each other. “The fun is in the sailing—for us, don’t you know,” said Sir Charles. It was not necessary in their society even to pretend to another motive. Curiously enough, though Stella desired to ape that freedom, she was not—perhaps no woman is—delivered from the desire to believe that the motive was herself, to give her pleasure. She did not even now understand why her fellow-sufferers should not acknowledge this as the cause of their daring trip.
“Papa wants to thank you,” she said, “for saving my life; but that’s absurd, ain’t it, for you were saving your own. If you had let me drown, you would have drowned too.”
“I don’t know. You were a bit in our way,” said Sir Charles. “We’d have got on better without you, we should, by George! You were an awful responsibility, Miss Stella. I shouldn’t have liked to have faced Lady Scott if Algy had kicked the bucket; and how I should have faced your father if you——”
“If that was all you thought of, I shall never, never go out with you again,” cried Stella with an angry flush. But she could not make up her mind to throw over her two companions for so little. “It was jolly at first, wasn’t it?” she said, after a pause, “until Al—Captain Scott began to look up to the sky, and open his mouth for something to fall in.”
But they did not laugh at this, though Mrs. Seton’s similar witticism had brought on fits of laughter. Captain Scott swore “By George!” softly under his breath; Sir Charles whistled—a very little, but he did whistle, at which sound Stella rose angry from her seat.
“You don’t seem to care much for my visit,” she cried, “though it tired me very much to come. Oh, I know now what is meant by fair-weather friends. We were to be such chums. You were to do anything for me; and now, because it came on to blow—which was not my fault——”
Here Stella’s voice shook, and she was very near bursting into tears.
“Don’t say that, Miss Stella; it’s awfully jolly to see you, and it’s dreadful dull lying here.”
“And weren’t all the old cats shocked!” cried Sir Charles. “Oh, fie!” putting up his hands to his eyes, “to find you had been out half the night along with Algy and me.”
“I have not seen any old cats yet,” said Stella, recovering her temper, “only the young kittens, and they thought it a most terrible adventure—like something in a book. You don’t seem to think anything of that, you boys; you are all full of Captain Scott’s illness, as if that dreadful, dreadful sail was nothing, except just the way he caught cold. How funny that is! Now I don’t mind anything about catching cold or being in bed for a week; but the terrible sea, and the wind, and the dark—these are what I never can get out of my mind.”
“You see you were in no danger to speak of; but Algy was, poor fellow. He is only just clear of it now.”
“I only got up for the first time a week ago,” said Stella, aggrieved; but she did not pursue the subject. “Mrs. Seton is coming across to see us—both the invalids, she says; and perhaps she is one of the old cats, for she says she is coming to scold me as well as to pet me. I don’t know what there is to scold about, unless perhaps she would have liked better to go out with you herself.”
“That is just like Lottie Seton,” they both said, and laughed as Stella’s efforts never made them laugh. Why should they laugh at her very name when all the poor little girl could do in that way left them unmoved?
“She’s a perfect dragon of virtue, don’t you know?” said Algy, opening his wide mouth.
“And won’t she give it to the little ’un!” said Sir Charles, with another outburst.
“I should like to know who is meant by the little ’un; and what it is she can give,” said Stella with offence.
They both laughed again, looking at each other. “She’s as jealous as the devil, don’t you know?” and “Lottie likes to keep all the good things to herself,” they said.
Stella was partly mollified to think that Mrs. Seton was jealous. It was a feather in her little cap. “I don’t know if you think that sail was a good thing,” she said. “She might have had it for me. It is a pity that she left so soon. You always seem to be much happier when you have her near.”
“She’s such fun, she’s not a bad sort. She keeps fellows going,” the young men replied.
“Well then,” said Stella, getting up quickly, “you’ll be amused, for she is coming. I brought you some grapes and things. I don’t know if you’ll find them amusing. Kate, I think I’m very tired. Coming out so soon has thrown me back again. And these gentlemen don’t want any visits from us, I feel sure.”
“Don’t say that, Miss Stella,” cried Sir Charles. “Algy’s a dull beggar, that’s the truth. He won’t say what he thinks; but I hope you know me. Here, you must have my arm downstairs. You don’t know the dark corners as I do. Algy, you dumb dog, say a word to the pretty lady that has brought you all these nice things. He means it all, Miss Stella, but he’s tongue-tied.”
“His mouth is open enough,” said Stella as she turned away.
“Choke full of grapes, and that is the truth,” said his friend. “And he’s been very bad really, don’t you know? Quite near making an end of it. That takes the starch out of a man, and just for a bit of fun. It wasn’t his fun, don’t you know? it was you and I that enjoyed it,” Sir Charles said, pressing his companion’s hand. Yes, she felt it was he whom she liked best, not Algy with his mouth full of grapes. His open mouth was always a thing to laugh at, but it is dreary work laughing alone. Sir Charles, on the other hand, was a handsome fellow, and he had always paid a great deal more attention to Stella than his friend. She went down the stairs leaning on his arm, Katherine following after a word of farewell to the invalid. The elder sister begged the young man to send to the Cliff for anything he wanted, and to come as soon as he was able to move, for a change. “Papa bade me say how glad we should be to have you.”
Algy gaped at Katherine, who was supposed to be a sort of incipient old maid and no fun at all, with eyes and mouth wide. “Oh, thanks!” he said. He could not master this new idea. She had been always supposed to be elderly and plain, whereas it appeared in reality that she was just as pretty as the other one. He had to be left in silence to assimilate this new thought.
“Mind you tell me every word Lottie Seton says. She is fun when she is proper, and she just can be proper to make your hair stand on end. Now remember, Miss Stella, that’s a bargain. You are to tell me every word she says.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort; you must think much of her indeed when you want to hear every word. I wonder you didn’t go after her if you thought so much of her as that.”
“Oh, yes, she’s very amusing,” said Sir Charles. “She doesn’t always mean to be, bless you, but when she goes in for the right and proper thing! Mrs. Grundy is not in it, by Jove! She’ll come to the hotel and go on at Algy; but it’s with you that the fun will be. I should like to borrow the servant’s clothes and get in a corner somewhere to hear. Lottie never minds what she says before servants. It is as if they were cabbages, don’t you know?”
“You seem to know a great deal about Mrs. Seton, Sir Charles,” said Stella severely; but he did not disown this or hesitate as Stella expected. He said, “Yes, by Jove,” simply into his big moustache, meaning Stella did not know what of good or evil. She allowed him to put her into the carriage which was waiting without further remark. Stella began to feel that it was by no means plain sailing with these young soldiers. Perhaps they were not so silly with her as with Mrs. Seton, perhaps Stella was not so clever; and certainly she did not take the lead with them at all.
“I think they are rude,” said Katherine; “probably they don’t mean any harm. I don’t think they mean any harm. They are spoiled and allowed to say whatever they like, and to have very rude things said to them. Your Mrs. Seton, for instance——”
“Oh, don’t say my Mrs. Seton,” said Stella. “I hate Mrs. Seton. I wish we had never known her. She is not one of our kind of people at all.”
“But you would not have known these gentlemen whom you like but for Mrs. Seton, Stella.”
“How dare you say gentlemen whom I like? as if it was something wrong! They are only boys to play about,” Stella said.
Which, indeed, was not at all a bad description of the sort of sentiment which fills many girlish minds with an inclination that is often very wrongly defined. Boys to play about is a thing which every one likes. It implies nothing perhaps, it means the most superficial of sentiments. It is to be hoped that it was only as boys to play about that Mrs. Seton herself took an interest in these young men. But her promise of a visit and a scold was perplexing to Stella. What was she to be scolded about, she whom neither her father nor sister had scolded, though she had given them such a night! And what a night she had given herself—terror, misery, and cold, a cold, perhaps, quite as bad as Algy Scott’s, only borne by her with so much more courage! This was what Stella was thinking as she drove home. It was a ruddy October afternoon, very delightful in the sunshine, a little chilly out of it, and it was pleasant to be out again after her week’s imprisonment, and to look across that glittering sea and feel what an experience she had gained. Now she knew the other side of it, and had a right to shudder and tell her awe-inspiring story whenever she pleased. “Oh, doesn’t it look lovely, as if it could not harm anyone, but I could tell you another tale!” This was a possession which never could be taken from her, whoever might scold, or whoever complain.