An Unknown Lover - Mrs George de Horne Vaizey (microsoft ebook reader TXT) 📗

Katrine came slowly up the companion-way, and looked around the deck in search of her labelled chair. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and the sun was blazing out of a cloudless sky. Yesterday in Marseilles it had been grey and chill. The only cheerful thing had been Grizel’s face, fresh, pink-cheeked, unashamedly aglow. The secret of her happiness was patent to the most casual eye. Tired men and work-worn women looked at her as she passed, and glowed in sympathy, and from her their glance passed on to the tall man with the deep-set eyes, who walked by her side. Martin’s happiness was as great as his wife’s, but man-like he was at pains to conceal it. The consciousness of being observed was enough to extinguish his smiles, and Katrine was amusedly conscious that he was making an effort to appear depressed at the prospect of her own departure. The newly-married pair had accompanied her on board the steamer, armed with flowers, with fruit, with scent and bonbons, with cushions and medicines, until the small cabin had been blocked to overflowing, and the passengers who had braved the rigours of the Bay, debated among themselves as to the identity of the handsome girl who had such a luxurious send-off.

Standing on the deck amid the roar and bustle of approaching departure, the three had spoken their farewell words.

“I won’t say good-bye,” Grizel declared. “En avant! Katrine! There’s a good time coming!”

But the tears stood in Katrine’s eyes. She was leaving the known, the safe, and the sure, and sailing forth into the unknown. Fear seized her, and with it regret.

“If—if I come home soon... You won’t be cross if I turn up like a bad penny? You will take me in, until I find some work?”

“My dear girl, you know it! If you are not happy; if you don’t want to go, come back with us now! Never mind the clothes... We’ll arrange all that. You shan’t go one step against your will...”

Grizel laid her hand on her husband’s arm. Her cool, calm voice was like a tonic, bracing the hearers into composure.

“She is going of her own will, and if You would take her back with you now, I won’t, so you can choose between us! We’re ready for you, Katrine dear, when you’ve tried it, and grown tired, but not before. I’m just afraid we’ll have too long to wait! ... Now smile this minute! Would you leave me stranded on a foreign shore with a lugubrious spouse!”

Then Katrine laughed, and they kissed and embraced, and Grizel slipping her hand through her husband’s arm, drew him towards the gangway.

“Belovedest!” she whispered softly. “I’m here!” and Katrine looking down from her towering perch watched the lift of the charming face, caught the swift, mutual glance, and realised that no outside anxiety could mar the perfection of that love. She sighed, but the predominant sensation was relief, not pain. A chapter of her life was turned. She thanked God that it closed in sunshine!

And now it was the morning of her first day at sea. Tired after her long overland journey, she had retired to bed while her fellow-passengers were at dinner, and had slept so soundly in her narrow bunk that on waking there had been a moment’s blank bewilderment before she could realise her position. A stewardess stood before her bearing the early cup of tea; on the berth opposite a gaunt, grey-haired woman was sitting, cup in hand, staring at her with curious eyes.

“Mornin’!” she said tersely. “First introduction. You were asleep when I turned in last night. Glad you don’t snore!”

“Goodness! I never thought of that. How awful!” exclaimed Katrine, laughing in her turn. She sipped at her cup, and grimaced eloquently. “Ugh. What is it? Tea or coffee?”

“Mixed,” replied the other gravely. “To suit all tastes.”

She drank again with apparent enjoyment. “Always drink it myself out of principle. Charge you too much to leave out a meal... First trip?”

“First time in my life I ever slept in a berth. I’d no idea they were so comfortable.”

The grey-haired lady fumbled beneath her pillow, placed a pair of spectacles on her nose, and stared across with frank curiosity.

“Bride?”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Unnecessary, thank you. It’s my tenth voyage. Met shoals of brides. You look the type.”

Katrine ostentatiously displayed her left hand.

“I hope that’s a compliment. As a matter of fact, I am going out to join some friends in North Bengal.”

“Missionaries?”

Katrine jumped till the cup rattled in a threatening manner.

“No! Cer-tainly not.”

“Humph!” said the grey-haired woman, and scraped the sugar from her cup. “I’m sorry for any girl,” she announced tentatively between the spoonfuls, “who goes out to one of those lonely plantations... No fun. No chances. Fifty times worse than at home.”

“Is that so? Really? I’m sorry!” Katrine shook her head, and endeavoured to look perturbed.

The good sleep, the novelty of the surroundings, the glimpse of blue through the port-hole, combined to produce an exhilarating effect. She felt gay and mischievous, too light-hearted to resent her companion’s curiosity, but none the less determined not to gratify it. She ate bread and butter, and sipped at the compound liquor in silence, the while the spectacled eyes continued their scrutiny.

“Odd thing—the Indian climate,” continued the stranger in ruminating fashion. “Changes the constitootion. Never know which way you’ll go, but it’s bound to be one. You’ll grow fat!”

That roused Katrine. Her head twisted round, indignant colour stained her cheeks.

“I shan’t! I shouldn’t dream of such a thing... Far more likely—”

“Excuse me—no! I’ve had experience. Some dwindle to skeletons, but not your build. Niece of mine sailed with me two years ago. Twenty-two-inch waist. Put on a stone in three months. All her bodices altered. Two stones more since then, and a double chin. Looks like her own mother. But of course if you take much exercise... Some of the civil appointments are quite good. If you keep horses, and ride each morning—”

“Just so,” assented Katrine. “Just so.” She was discomposed by the prospect of obesity, the more so as Dorothea’s excessive thinness would seem to confirm the assertion that the climate was extreme in its effects. A moment passed in the earnest consideration of the disadvantages of fat versus lean, then the grey-haired one plunged boldly into autobiography:

“My husband was a judge. Mannering. Bombay. Thousand a year pension, but not a penny to leave behind. No use any one making up to me! Got a boy in the Indian Cavalry. Going out now to pay him a call. Nice boy. Was, at least, when I saw him last. May have changed, of course.”

Katrine’s looks became suddenly infused with interest.

“Then our destinations are not far apart. Do you know—have you any friends in the — Regiment?”

“Not—one—soul!” said the stranger emphatically, and in a manner which seemed to imply that nothing would induce her to consent to such an entanglement. She hunched up the pillows behind her back, and continued forcibly. “Detest the military. Always did. Quite against my wishes that the boy went in; but there I am—silly fool! proud as any one of ’em, when I see him dressed up... Stinting myself for his gold lace! Well, well, we’re all fools at heart, my dear, every man jack of us, and women too... When are you going to take your bath?”

The catechism was over for the moment. Katrine staggered out of bed, robed herself in a dainty blue dressing-gown and smoothed her dark locks, uneasily conscious that not a ribbon, a lace, or a French knot itself escaped the scrutiny of the watching eyes. When she returned, fresh and rosy, her companion departed in her turn, and returned just as Katrine was finishing her hair in time to announce briskly:

“Warm sunny day! Seen three girls in white frocks. Sport one yourself, and cut ’em out! Great thing to make a good impression!”

“I don’t care,”—began Katrine haughtily, then the spirit of the hour choked the words in her throat. “Yes, after all, I do!” she laughed, and kneeling before her cabin trunk lifted a fresh white frock from the tray. “I’ll put on this, and do credit to our cabin!”

“Cheers!” cried the stranger, and with a pleasing frankness extracted her false teeth.

Katrine mounted the steps to the deck. There was still half an hour to spare before breakfast, but she wished it had been twice as long, as she paced slowly down the shining deck, and tasted for the first time the deep salt brine of the breeze. Only fifteen hours before she had shivered in rain and chill; now the sun was shining out of a cloudless sky, and the breeze was warm and sweet. The exhilaration of it all! The great vessel in its shining order, the air, the spray, the lap of the great green flood, the kaleidoscopic procession of passengers, strolling like herself, bareheaded, white-robed, revelling in the first taste of heat after the Northern cold!

Katrine was loath to tear herself away from the fascinating scene, but the duty of interviewing the steward lay before her. She descended, armed with a golden key, proffered her request, and met with a gracious consent.

Nothing could be easier. A party of three were landing at Port Said; Miss Beverley could be given a place at the same table, and Captain Bedford could also be accommodated on arrival.

So far so good! Katrine ate her breakfast with an enjoyment heightened by her fast of the night before, came to the conclusion that she should not grieve over the departure of the Port Said trio, and armed with a book and a sunshade, mounted once more to the deck.

The first business was to find her chair, and a difficult search it promised to be. She was wandering aimlessly to and fro reading the names attached to the backs of the serried rows, when a voice spoke in her ear:

“Can I help?” it asked. “You are looking for a chair, I think. If you give me the name, I’d be delighted to find it for you.”

The speaker was a tall, strikingly handsome man of some twenty-four or five years. Katrine had noticed him at an adjacent table during the lengthy breakfast; had also been conscious that he had noticed herself. She expressed her thanks, and in an incredibly short time the chair was produced, and placed in a comfortable position.

“May