The Seafarers. John Bloundelle-Burton

le-Burton

      The Seafarers

      CHAPTER I

      'SWEETER THAN BLUE-EYED VIOLETS OR THE DAMASK ROSE'

      That Bella Waldron should have felt sad, and her night's rest have been disturbed in consequence, was, in the circumstances, most natural. For one cannot suppose that any young girl leaves her home, her mother, and her country without much grief and perturbation; without tears and sorrow and heavy sighs, as well as tremendous fears that she may never return to, nor see, them again. And such is what Bella was about to do when this particular night should have come to an end: she was about to traverse not one ocean, but two; to pass from a life that, if not luxurious, was at least comfortable, to another which, if more brilliant, would undoubtedly be strange, and, consequently, not easily to be adopted at first. In fact, to go from one side of the world to the other.

      Yet, all the same, it was singular that, between her intervals of weeping and sobbing, and when she had at last cried herself to sleep, she should have been tormented with such frightful dreams as those which came to her. Dreams of horrors that in their weirdness became almost ludicrous, or would have been ludicrous to those who, knowing of them, did not happen to be experiencing them. Thus, the idea of a crocodile regarding one with a glittering eye from its ambush in the sand, seems for some reason, in our waking moments, to conjure up a comical sense of terror-perhaps because of the 'glittering eye'; yet there was nothing comical about it to the mind of Bella as she awoke with a shriek from her sleep after the vision of the creature had had momentary existence in the cells of her brain. And, even when she was thoroughly awakened and knew that she had only been suffering from a bad dream, she still shuddered at the recollection, and muttered, 'It appeared as if it was creeping towards me to seize me with its horrid jaws! Oh, it was dreadful!'

      Then she slept again-only, however, to dream of other things. Of a desolate shore at first, with, upon it, a misty creature waving its hands mournfully above its head, those hands being enveloped in some gauzy material, so that the figure appeared more like a skirt-dancer than aught else; then, of two lions fighting savagely; and then of a vast black cave with an opening as high as St. Paul's and as wide as a railway terminus is long, against which, armed with a spear and protected with a buckler, she seemed to stand trembling. Trembling, too, because she could not see one yard into the deep and profound darkness before her, yet into which, as she peered furtively and with horror, she appeared to perceive things-forms half-animal and half-human-crawling, revolving, creeping about. Then, again, she awoke with a start.

      But by now the room was light with the gray, mournful glimmer of the approaching dawn; so light that she could see her wicker-basket trunks in their American-cloth wrappers standing by the wall, with the lids open against it; soon, too, she heard the sparrows twittering outside, as well as other congenial suburban sounds, such as the newspaper boys shrieking hideously to one another, and the milkman uttering piercing yells; and-though it was her last day in England-she was glad to spring out of bed and know herself once more a unit in the actual world instead of a wanderer in a world of dreams.

      'I wish,' the girl muttered to herself, standing by the window and drawing up the blind half-way, whereby she was enabled to see that the gray dawn of a May morning gave promise of a warm, fine day later on, 'that, if I were to have such bad dreams at all, I might have been spared them on the very day of my departure for the other side of the globe. I am not superstitious, yet, yet-well! – I shall think of this dream, I know, for many a day to come.' Then she slipped on her dressing-gown, thrust her pretty little white feet into some warm, felt bath-slippers, and, opening her door quietly, because it was still early and she did not wish to awaken those in the house who might be asleep, she went across the passage to her mother's room.

      Yet, ere she did so, let us regard this young girl, whose story and adventures we are now to follow-this girl whose dreams of leering crocodiles and dark, mystic caves, with hideous creatures gyrating in them, will, as we shall see, be far outnumbered and outshone by the actual realities that she will experience in her passage across the world. For it had been resolved on by Fate, or Providence, or Destiny, or whatever one may term that power which controls our earthly existence, that to Bella Waldron were to come experiences, strange, horrible, and fantastic, such as the last decade of our expiring century rarely assaults men with, and women hardly ever. Standing there in the now clear light of the morning, her long dressing-gown enshrouding her tall, shapely, and svelte figure, and with her masses of hair hanging dishevelled-hair a warm brown with golden gleams in it, such as has the ripening corn-an observer would decide at once that she was beautiful. Beautiful, also, by the gift of clear, hazel-gray eyes-eyes that were pure and innocent in their glance; beautiful as well by her softly-rounded face, her rich red lips-the upper one divinely short-and also by her colouring. If, too, one applies to her the lines of that old poet dead and gone two hundred years ago, the words describing Gloriana: -

      More fair than the red morning's dawn,

      Sweeter than pearly dews that scent the lawn,

      Than blue-eyed violets, or the damask rose

      When in her hottest fragrancy she glows,

      Bella Waldron may be considered as depicted.

      'Mother,' she said, going in now to the room where the poor lady whom she addressed had herself passed a sad and tearful night, bemoaning the fact that soon-in a few hours-indeed now-because the fateful day had come-her child was to be torn from her. 'Oh, mother! It is to-day-to-day! Oh, my darling! how can I part from you?' And then, folding her mother in her arms while she sat on the bedside, the two women wept together.

      'Yet,' said Mrs. Waldron, to whom advancing years brought the power of philosophic resignation, if not the thorough strength to overcome that which rendered her unhappy, 'yet, Bella, my dearest, it is so much for you. Such a position, such a future! Oh, think of it! A position you could scarcely ever have hoped to obtain. And the love, my child, the love! Think how Gilbert loves you and you love him. For you do love him, Bella. Of all men, he is the one for you.'

      'With my whole heart and soul I love him!' her daughter answered. 'Mother, if I had never met him I do not believe I could have ever loved any other man. Ah, I am glad Juliet called Romeo the god of her idolatry! It has taught me how to think of Gilbert.'

      'And the position, Bella. The position-think of that! In our circumstances, even though you come of a good stock and are descended from ladies and gentlemen on both sides from far-off years, you could never have hoped to make such a match.'

      'The position is nothing to me, mother. I love Gilbert fondly. I long to be his wife. Why should I think of the position?'

      'Every woman must think of it, child. When you are as old-and worn-as I am, you-you will teach your own children to think of it. It is everything to be the wife of a gentleman, better still the wife of a man of rank. Everything! Short of being the wife of a distinguished man, a man whose name is on everybody's tongue, there is no other position so good. And, even then, that distinguished man may not be a gentleman as well. That would be dreadful. Yet your husband will be both. Think, Bella! He is sure to become a nobleman, and he may become the most renowned admiral in the Navy.'

      'You dear old mother! But I love Gilbert because he is Gilbert. Otherwise, neither the nobility which is certain, nor the renown which is prospective, would take me across the world to him. Do you think I would go to Bombay to marry the heir to a title or a possible admiral if I did not love him?'

      'Heaven forbid!' Mrs. Waldron replied, as she sat up in her bed and smoothed her hair. 'Heaven forbid! Yet,' she murmured, perhaps a little weakly for a lady who had just delivered herself of such admirable sentiments, 'yet I do honestly think, darling, that the love you bear each other-yes! above all, the love-and the position-I must think of the position, Bella! – and the certainty of a brilliant future for you, reconcile me a little to parting with you. Some day, when you are a mother, you will understand me.'

      'I understand you now, darling. Yet, yet-ah!' and now she sobbed on her mother's shoulder-'yet, to think of our being parted for so long-for three years! Gilbert must remain on the station for that length of time.' Now it is certain that Mrs. Waldron was sobbing too, yet, because there was something of the Spartan mother, something, too, of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, about her, she