Kitobni o'qish: «Shifting Winds: A Tough Yarn», sahifa 3

Chapter Five.
The Breakfast Party at Seaside Villa

The morning after the storm was bright and beautiful. The breakers, indeed, were still thundering on the shore, but otherwise the sea was calm, and the sun shone into the breakfast parlour of Seaside Villa with a degree of intensity that might have warmed the heart of an oyster. It certainly warmed the heart of the household cat, which, being an early riser, was first down-stairs, and lay at full length on the rug, enjoying at once the heat of the glowing fire which tinged its brown back with red, and the blazing sun which turned its white breast yellow.

Presently a dark cloud entered the room. It sat on the brow of George Stuart, Esquire, of Wreckumoft, the head of the family. Mr Stuart walked up to the fire and turned his back to it, as if to offer it a deliberate insult, while yet he accepted all the benefit it could afford him on that cold December morning.

The cat being in his way, he moved it out of his way with his foot. He did it roughly, but he did not exactly kick it, for he was not a cruel, or naturally unkind man.

Having disposed of the cat, and looked twice at his watch, and blown his nose three times—the last twice unnecessarily—Mr Stuart rang the bell with violence.

Mrs Niven entered.

“Why is breakfast not ready?” said the master with asperity.

“Breakfast is ready, sir,” replied the housekeeper with dignity.

“Where is my sister, then, and the rest of them?” The questioner was partly answered by the abrupt and somewhat flurried entrance of the sister referred to.

“What’s the meaning of this, Peppy?” demanded Mr Stuart with a frown.

“My dear George,” said Miss Peppy, bustling about actively, “I really am sorry, but you know things can’t always be just as one would wish, and then when things do turn out occasionally as one would not wish, and as one had no expectation of, and, so to speak, without consulting one at all, (dear me, where is that key?)—and when one can’t help things turning out so, you know, it’s really too much to—to—you know what I mean, brother; come now, be reasonable.”

“I do not know what you mean, Peppy,” (the lady’s name when unabbreviated was Penelope, but as she never was so named by any one, she might as well not have had the name at all), “and,” continued Mr Stuart, emphatically, “I would advise you to be reasonable and explain yourself.”

“Dear George, how can you,” said Miss Peppy, who talked with great volubility, and who never for a moment ceased to bustle about the room in a series of indescribable, as well as unaccountable, not to say unnecessary, preparations for the morning meal, which had already been prepared to perfection by Mrs Niven; “you surely don’t forget—things do happen so surprisingly at times—really, you know, I can not see why we should be subjected to such surprises. I’m quite sure that no good comes of it, and then it makes one look so foolish. Why human beings were made to be surprised so, I never could understand. No one ever sees pigs, or horses, or cows surprised, and they seem to get through life a great deal easier than we do, at all events they have less worry, and they never leave their children at their neighbour’s doors and run away—what can have got it?—I’m quite sure I put it there last night with the thimble and scissors.”

Miss Peppy thrust her right hand deep into that mysterious receptacle of household miscellanies her pocket, and fingered the contents inquiringly for a few moments.

“What are you looking for?” inquired her brother impatiently.

“The key of the press,” said Miss Peppy with a look of weariness and disappointment.

“What key is that in your left hand?” said Mr Stuart.

“Why, I declare, that’s it!” exclaimed his sister with a laugh; “there is no accounting for things. My whole life is a series of small surprises and perplexities. I wonder what I was born for! It seems to me so ridiculous that so serious a thing as life should be taken up with such little trifles.”

“What’s that you say about trifles, aunt?” asked Kenneth, who entered the room at the moment, and saluted Miss Peppy on the cheek.

“Nothing, Kennie, nothing worth mentioning,” (she seated herself at the table and began to pour out the tea): “it seems that you have been saving more lives last night.”

“Well, yes, at least I saved one,” said Kenneth, with a look of mingled pride and pleasure; “stout John Furby, the coxswain of the new lifeboat, was knocked overboard and nearly drowned. Bucephalus and I chanced to be near the spot at the time, so we managed to pull him out between us.”

“I don’t like Bucephalus,” observed Miss Peppy, stirring her tea with her egg-spoon by mistake.

“Don’t you, aunt—why?”

“Because he’s so big and strong and fierce. I wonder you can take pleasure in riding such a great cart-horse, Kennie.”

Miss Peppy at this moment discovered her mistake in regard to the egg-spoon, and rectified it, observing with a look of resignation, that there was no accounting for the way in which things happened in this world.

“Don’t call my Bucephalus a cart-horse, aunt,” said Kenneth, beginning to eat languidly; “true, he is uncommonly big and strong, but then I am unusually big too, so we’re well matched; and then his limbs are as delicately turned as those of a racer; and you should see him taking a five-barred gate, aunt!—he carries me over as if I were a mere feather. Think of his swimming powers too. John Furby is not the first man he has enabled me to drag out of the stormy sea. Ah! he’s a noble horse—worthy of higher praise than you seem inclined to give him, believe me.”

“Well I’m sure I have no objection to the horse if you have none, Kennie, and it’s a good thing for a beast to be able to save human lives, though why human lives should require to be saved at all is a mystery that I never could fathom; surely if men would only agree to give up going to sea altogether, and never build any more ships, there would be no more drowning, and no need of lifeboats and cork boots—or coats, I forget which—that enable them to walk on the water, or float in it, I don’t remember which. I’m sure with all that I have to remember it’s no wonder—what with ridiculous little trifles to worry one, such as keys, and thimbles, and scissors, when we should be giving our minds to the solemn realities of life—and then,—as if that were not enough for any woman’s shoulders,—to have a little child left at one’s door.”

“Oh, by the way,” interrupted Kenneth, “I had quite forgotten the child. Mrs Niven told me about it, and I looked into the crib as I went up to bed last night, or rather this morning, and saw that it was sleeping—somewhat restlessly I fancied. Who brought it here?”

Mr Stuart, who had hitherto eaten his breakfast in silence, looked at his sister as if the reply would interest him.

Before the answer could be given the door opened, and a smart handsome youth of apparently eighteen years of age entered. His dress bespoke him a midshipman in the navy, and the hearty familiarity of his manner showed that he was on intimate terms with the family.

“Gildart, my boy, how are you?” cried Kenneth, springing up and shaking the youth warmly by both hands.

“Hearty, old fellow, and happy to see my ancient chum. How d’ye do, Miss Penelope? How are ye, Mr Stuart?”

My son Gildart had been Kenneth’s favourite companion when they were boys at school. They had not met for many years.

“Sit down,” said Kenneth, pressing his friend into a chair; “when did you arrive; where did you come from; what brought you home?—your appearance is so unexpected!—hope you’ve come to stay with us. Had breakfast?”

“Well, now, such a string of ’em to answer all at once,” replied Gildart Bingley, laughing. “Suppose I try to reply in the same order—came this morning; direct from China, where we’ve been sinking junks and peppering pirates; got leave of absence for a few weeks to run down here and see the old folks at home; whether I stay with you will depend on the treatment I receive; I have had breakfast, and came down here supposing that yours would have been over—but I’m capable of a second meal at any time; have tried a third occasionally with reasonable success. Now, Kennie—I’m not afraid to call you by the old name, you see, although you have grown so big and manly, not to say fierce—having answered your questions, will you be so good as to tell me if it’s all true that I hear of your having saved the life of a fisherman last night?”

“It is true that I pulled him out of the sea, aided and abetted by Bucephalus, but whether all that you have heard of me is true I cannot tell, not knowing what you have heard. Who told you of it?”

“Who? why the household of the Bingleys, to be sure—all speaking at once, and each louder than the other, with the exception of my pretty coz, by the way, who did not speak at all until the others were out of breath, and then she gave me such a graphic account of the affair that I would certainly have forgotten where I was, and been transported to the scene of action, had not her pretty flushed face and blazing black eyes riveted me to the spot where I sat. I actually gave vent to an irresistible cheer when she concluded. D’ye know, Kennie, you seem to have made an impression in that quarter? I wish I were you!”

The little midshipman sighed, and helped himself to a second slice of buttered toast. Kenneth laughed lightly, glanced askance at his father, and requested another cup of tea. Mr Stuart glanced at his son, frowned at his finished egg, and stuck the spoon through the bottom of the shell as he would have struck a dagger into the hopes of Kenneth, had he possessed the power.

“Peppy,” he said, pushing his cup from him, “before our young friend arrived, you were speaking of the little boy who was left mysteriously here last night—”

“It’s a girl,” interrupted Miss Peppy, “not but that it might have been a boy, brother, if it had been born so, but one cannot ignore facts, and to the best of my belief it was a girl last night. To be sure I was very sleepy when I saw it, but it may be a boy this morning for all I know to the contrary. I’m sure the perplexities that do surround us in this world!” (Here Miss Peppy sighed.) “But if there is any doubt on the question we had better ring for Mrs Niven, and send her up-stairs to ascertain.”

At that moment Mrs Niven entered, and handed a letter to Mr Stuart.

“Niven,” said Miss Peppy, who spoke so fast, all in one tone, that no one had a chance of interrupting her,—“Niven, will you be so good as to go up-stairs and inquire whether the girl—no, the boy—I—I mean the young human being, that—”

“La! ma’am,” exclaimed the housekeeper in surprise, “why do you call her a boy? She’s as sweet and lovely a girl as ever my two heyes looked on. I never saw nothink like ’er golden ’air—it’s quite ’eavenly, ma’am, if I may use the hexpression.”

“Oh! she is a girl then? ah! I thought so,” said Miss Peppy, with a sigh of resignation, as if the fact were a perplexity too deep for investigation, at least at that time.

“It matters nothing to me,” said Mr Stuart sternly, “whether she be a boy or a girl, I mean to send her to the workhouse.”

“Workhouse, brother!” exclaimed Miss Peppy in surprise.

“Workhouse, sir!” echoed Mrs Niven in horror.

“Father!” said Kenneth, remonstratively.

“Mrs Niven,” said Mr Stuart, breaking the seal of the letter very slowly, “you may leave the room. Sister, I do not choose to have my intentions commented on in such a manner, especially before the domestics. This child I have nothing whatever to do with; it has no claim on me, and I shall certainly hand it over to the parochial authorities to be dealt with—”

“According to law,” suggested the middy.

“Yes, according to law,” assented Mr Stuart with much severity, applying himself to the letter while the rest of the party rose from table.

“Dear me!” he exclaimed, with an expression of annoyance, as his eye fell on the first lines, “I find that Emma and her good-for-nothing husband will, in all likelihood, be here to-night.”

“To-night, father!” said Kenneth, with a look of gladness.

“Probably,” replied Mr Stuart. “The vessel in which they sailed from Australia was seen off the Lizard yesterday, at least my agent writes that he thinks it was the ‘Hawk,’ but the fog was too thick to permit of a clear sight being obtained; so, I suppose, we shall be inflicted with them and their child to-night or to-morrow.”

“To-night or to-morrow, it may be so, if they have weathered the storm,” muttered Kenneth in a deep, sad tone.

Chapter Six.
Kenneth indulges in Suspicions and Surmises

“Will you walk or ride?” said Kenneth Stuart as he and Gildart issued from Seaside Villa, and sauntered down the avenue that led to the principal gate.

“Ride, by all means,” said Gildart, “if you have a respectable horse. I love to ride, not only on the ‘bursting tide,’ but on the back of a thoroughbred, if he’s not too tough in the mouth, and don’t incline to shy.”

Kenneth replied that he had a mount to give him, which, although not quite thoroughbred, was nevertheless a good animal, and not addicted to the bad qualities objected to.

As he spoke Daniel Horsey walked up, and, touching his hat, asked if the horses would be required.

“Yes, Dan. Is Bucephalus none the worse of last night’s work?”

“Niver a taste, sur. He’s like a lark this mornin’.”

“Well, saddle him, and also the brown horse. Bring them both over to Captain Bingley’s as soon as you can.”

“Yis, sur.” Dan touched his cap, and walked smartly away.

“Why to my father’s?” asked Gildart.

“Because, after your father and Miss Gordon were exposed to such unwonted fatigue, I wish to inquire for them personally.”

“Humph! you’re not satisfied with my assurance that they are well?”

“Not quite, my boy,” said Kenneth, with a smile; “I wish to have the assurance from the lips of your sweet cousin.”

“Whew! in love!” exclaimed Gildart.

“No; not in love yet,” replied the other; “but, to change the subject, did you observe the manner in which my father received the news of the arrival of the ‘Hawk?’”

“Well, it did not require a fellow to have his weather eye very wide-open to perceive that your father has a decided objection to his son-in-law, and does not seem over anxious to meet with him or his wife or child. What have they been up to, Kennie—eloped, eh?”

“No, they did not exactly elope, but they married without my father’s consent, or rather against his wishes, and were discarded in consequence. You must not think my father is an unkind man, but he was deeply disappointed at poor Emma’s choice; for, to say truth, her husband was a wild harum-scarum sort of fellow, fond of steeple-chasing—”

“Like you,” interpolated Gildart.

“Like me,” assented Kenneth, with a nod, “and also of yachting and boating, like you.”

“Like me,” assented the middy.

“Nevertheless,” resumed Kenneth, “a good-hearted fellow in the main, who, I am certain, would have acted his part in life well if he had been better trained. But he was spoiled by his father and mother, and I must admit that poor Tom Graham was not over fond of work.”

“Ha!” ejaculated Gildart.

“Hum!” responded his friend, “do either of us, I wonder, perceive in ourselves any resemblance to him in this latter point? I suppose it would require a third party to answer that question truly. But, to continue—My father gave Emma, (for he would not consent to see Tom), a thousand pounds, and dismissed her from his presence, as he said, ‘for ever,’ but I am convinced that he did not mean what he said, for he paced about his bedroom the whole of the night after his last interview with poor Emma, and I heard him groan frequently, although the partition that separates our rooms is so thick that sounds are seldom heard through it. Do you know, Gildart, I think we sometimes judge men harshly. Knowing my father as I do, I am convinced that he is not the cold, unfeeling man that people give him credit for. He acted, I believe, under a strong conviction that the course he adopted was that of duty; he hoped, no doubt, that it would result in good to his child, and that in the course of time he should be reconciled to her. I cannot conceive it possible that any one would cast off his child deliberately and for ever. Why, the man who could do so were worse than the beasts that perish.”

“I agree with you. But what came of Tom and Emma?” asked Gildart.

“They went to Australia. Tom got into business there. I never could make out the exact nature of it, but he undoubtedly succeeded for a time, for Emma’s letters to me were cheerful. Latterly, however, they got into difficulties, and poor Emma’s letters were sad, and came less frequently. For a year past she has scarcely written to me at all. Tom has never written. He was a high-spirited fellow, and turned his back on us all when my father cast him and Emma off.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Gildart, “nevertheless his high spirit did not induce him to refuse the thousand pounds, it would seem.”

“You wrong him, Gildart; Emma knew him well, and she told me that she had placed the money in a bank in her own name, without telling him of it. Any success that attended him at first was the result of his own unaided energy and application to business. It is many years now since they went away. Some time ago we heard that they, with their only daughter, little Emma, were coming back to England, whether in wealth or in poverty I cannot tell. The vessel in which they were to sail is named the ‘Hawk,’ and that is the ship that my father has heard of as having been seen yesterday.”

“How comes it, Kenneth, that you have never opened your lips to me on this subject during our long acquaintance? I did not know even that you had a sister.”

“Why, to say truth, the subject was not one on which I felt disposed to be communicative. I don’t like to talk of family squabbles, even to my most intimate friends.”

“So we may look for some family breezes and squalls ere long, if not gales,” said Gildart with a laugh.

Kenneth shook his head gravely.

“I fear much,” said he, “that the ‘Hawk’ was exposed to last night’s gale; she must have been so if she did not succeed in making some harbour before it came on; but I cannot shake off the feeling that she is wrecked, for I know the vessel well, and practical men have told me that she was quite unseaworthy. True, she was examined and passed in the usual way by the inspectors, but every one knows that that does not insure the seaworthiness of vessels.”

“Well, but even suppose they have been wrecked,” suggested Gildart, “it does not follow that they have been drowned.”

“I don’t know,” replied the other in a low voice—“I have a strange, almost a wild suspicion, Gildart.”

“What may that be?”

“That the little girl who was left so mysteriously at our door last night is my sister’s child,” said Kenneth.

“Whew!” whistled the midshipman, as he stopped and gazed at his friend in surprise; “well, that is a wild idea, so wild that I would advise you seriously to dismiss it, Kennie. But what has put it into your head?—fancied likeness to your sister or Tom, eh?”

“No, not so much that, as the fact that she told Niven last night that her name is Emmie.”

“That’s not Emma,” said Gildart.

“It is what I used to call my sister, however; and besides that there is a seaman named Stephen Gaff, who, I find, has turned up somewhat suddenly and unaccountably last night from Australia. He says he has been wrecked; but he is mysterious and vague in his answers, and do what I will I cannot get rid of the idea that there is some connexion here.”

“It is anxiety, my boy, that has made you think in this wild fashion,” said Gildart. “Did I not hear Mrs Niven say that the child gave her name as Emmie Wilson?”

“True, I confess that the name goes against my idea; nevertheless I cannot get rid of it, so I mean to canter to-day down to Cove, where Gaff stays, and have a talk with him. We can go together by the road along the top of the cliffs, which is an exceedingly beautiful one. What say you?”

“By all means: it matters nothing to me what course you steer, so long as we sail in company. But pray don’t let the fascinating Lizzie detain you too long. Oh! you need not laugh as if you were invulnerable. I’ll engage to say that you’ll not come away under an hour if you go into the house without making me a solemn promise to the contrary.”

“Why, Gildart, it strikes me that you must be in love with your fascinating cousin from the way in which you speak.”

“Perhaps I am,” said the middy, with a tremendous sigh; “but come, here we are, and the horses at the door before us; they must have been brought round by the other road. Now, then, promise that you’ll not stay longer than half an hour.”

Kenneth smiled, and promised.

On entering my residence, which had been named, by Mrs Bingley’s orders, “Bingley Hall,” the young men found my pretty niece coming down the staircase in that most fascinating of all dresses, a riding-habit, which displayed her neat and beautifully rounded figure to perfection. Lizzie could not be said to blush as she bowed acknowledgment to Kenneth’s salutation, for a blush, unless it were a very deep one, usually lost itself among the blush roses that at all times bloomed on her cheek; but she smiled with great sweetness upon the stalwart youth, and informed him that, having just been told that John Furby was still suffering from the effects of his recent accident, she had ordered out her pony and was about to ride down to Cove to see him.

Kenneth began to remark on the curious coincidence that he too had come out with the intention of riding down to the same place; but the volatile middy burst in with—

“Come, Lizz, that’s jolly, we’re bound for the same port, and can set sail in company; whether we keep together or not depends on circumstances, not to mention wind and weather. I rather think that if we take to racing, Bucephalus and Kenneth will be there first.”

“Bucephalus is always well behaved in the company of ladies, which is more than I can say of you, Gildart,” retorted his friend, as he opened the door to let Lizzie Gordon pass out.

“And we won’t race, good cousin,” said Lizzie, “for my uncle is to ride with me, and you know he is not fond of going very fast.”

“How d’ye know that, lass?” said I, coming down-stairs at the moment; “not a few of my friends think that I go much too fast for this century—so fast, indeed, that they seem to wonder that I have not ridden ahead of them into the next! How d’ye do, Kenneth? Gildart was not long of finding you out, I see.”

Saying this, I mounted my cob and cantered down the avenue of Bingley Hall, followed by the young people, whose fresh and mettlesome steeds curvetted and pranced incessantly.

It may be as well to remark here, good reader, that at the time of which I write I was unacquainted, as a matter of course, with many of the facts which I am now narrating: they were made known to me piecemeal in the course of after years. I feel that this explanation is necessary in order to account for my otherwise unaccountable knowledge of things that were said and done when I was not present.