by Ada Cambridge.
Originally published in The Windsor Magazine (Ward, Lock & Bowden Ltd.) vol.1 #2 (Feb 1895).
"I am going," said Mrs. Atcheson to her young friend, Minna Smith, "to have tea on board the Seamew this afternoon, and the captain has asked me to bring you too. Will you come?"
She looked up, all suffused with smiles, from a note she had been reading. This was the note:
"Dear Mrs. Atcheson,—Bring your visitor by all means. I shall have no difficulty in finding someone to help us to entertain her. The children, I fancy, can amuse themselves.
"Yours very faithfully,
"John Brent."
John Brent was the captain of the Seamew, and the Seamew was not that sort of ship which makes a business of afternoon teas. She did not fly the white ensign, nor even the blue; she was merely an old merchant sailing vessel of about 1,600 tons, unloading steel rails and loading wheat at Williamstown. Williamstown, it may be remarked, still felt the stir of commerce in her veins, and the pier over the way did not lie naked as a breakwater for half the week as it does now.
Miss Smith was delighted. She was a bush girl, to whom ships were a novelty; at the same time she had cultivated a romantic passion for the sea, having sailor blood in her. She thought it was so very kind of Captain Brent to think of asking her.
At three o'clock she put her pretty little sailor hat on her pretty little curly head, and tied a sailor knot in the coquettish necktie that finished off her navy-blue serge gown. Mrs. Atcheson—whose husband was a pilot, cruising outside at this moment in a gale of wind—put on her beady bonnet and a little veil that ended at the tip of her nose, and they set forth on their expedition. The children did not go; they did not even know they had been invited. Mrs. Atcheson preferred the freedom of her own arrangement. She wished to do what was quite proper, but she did not wish to have her tête-à-tête with the captain interfered with.
The Seamew lay near the end of the pier, and a sister ship, called the Penguin, of the same company, chanced to lie beside her at the extreme end. The former had but recently arrived, the latter was ready for departure; her sails were bent, her flying jib-boom run out, her sides glossy with new paint, all spick and span as she could be, a foil to her neighbour, rusty and weather-beaten, whose toilet was still to make. The yards of the Seamew swung bare and lop-sided, her deck was in confusion with the open hatch and swinging cargo and clanking of the windlass, and her grimy hull was only made grimier by the stripes of gleaming scarlet that men on hanging platforms were beginning to daub upon it. But ships, and captains of ships, must not be judged by these outward appearances.
No sooner were the two ladies in view of their destination than two men cast themselves over the side of the Seamew, disappeared amongst railway trucks, and, emerging, saluted.
"There they are!" cried Mrs. Atcheson joyfully.
"Which is your captain?" inquired Minna Smith.
"Oh, the fair man—the fair man, of course. Such a nice fellow! But I never knew a fair man who wasn't," said Mrs. Atcheson, who was thirty-nine, and had had a vast experience of both sorts.
Minna pointed out that the other gentleman was dark. Having tawny locks of her own, inclining to the fieriness of Captain Brent's beard, she rather preferred dark men. As yet, however, they were only pictures to her mind—not men.
"So he is! And a handsome fellow too! I don't suppose all dark men are bad," the matron allowed, smiling her sweetest smile upon this one, whom she had never seen before.
Cordial greeting ensued, and the stranger was introduced as Captain Spurling of the Penguin. Mrs. Atcheson had not seen him before because his ship had spent her time in port at a Yarra wharf. She had loaded in the river, and was only touching at Williamstown on her way out. Her master was as much smarter than his host as she now was to the Seamew—a fine, tall, full-bearded, straight-nosed, black-eyed fellow, young for a sea captain, but not so young as he looked. Despite his colour, Mrs. Atcheson was strongly tempted to annex him, but she remained faithful to her older friend, who, having made Miss Smith's acquaintance, desired to know why the children had not turned up.
"Dear Captain Brent, it was so good of you to ask them! But Maudie had a little cold, and Jacky was awake half the night with toothache, and the weather was so bad—"
They walked on together. Captain Spurling and Minna followed. The latter, being unaccustomed to society and the other sex, wore a modest blush and smile that were very becoming; and the bold eyes of her gallant escort dwelt admiringly upon her. "I am decidedly in luck," he thought. "I don't think I ever saw a prettier young creature." Which was quite true. And her great charm lay in the evident fact that she was not yet quite old enough to know how pretty she was.
He helped her with much tender care up the somewhat rude gangway of the Seamew, steadying her with his arm; and in a very short time they were left to their devices by the chaperon and the host. Mrs. Atcheson cared for captains—one at a time—but not for ships, and when the wind seemed likely to tear her best bonnet to pieces she retired to the saloon, whence she refused to budge until it was time to return to her family; but Minna was eager to see everything that was to be seen, and revelled in the merry blast that brought the dew of the salt sea to her fresh young lips, and the bloom of a carmine rose-petal to her cheeks. Wherefore she stayed outside—and Captain Spurling stayed with her.
From the poop he showed her his own ship first of all, pointing out wherein she was superior to other ships of her kind, and especially to the Seamew; then he directed her gaze to the ships across the water and the St. Kilda and Brighton shores, through a telescope that he held steady for her. He walked her out upon the bridge—merely an open platform between the boats—and explained the working of the compass and the wheel, while the freshening wind blew her up against him, and, but for him, might have blown her off. He showed her the little engine-room, with the forge and tools in it, the bo'sun's and the sailmaker's lockers, the cook's galley, and the tiny forehouse shared by these men and the carpenter, one of whom was performing a rough toilet in it; and, further on, he did the honours of the cavernous fo'c's'le, the modesty of whose inmates was protected by its dense gloom. He introduced her to the fowls, hanging in a huge bird-cage under the boat skids, aft of the deckhouse, and to the pigs in their sty forward; and he instructed her in the matter of running and standing rigging, and mysteries of that kind. She did not understand the half of it, but was charmed with everything, and above all with him—the most devoted and delightful showman. When the rain came along on the back of the wind, slanting and stinging, and shelter was desirable, neither of them felt drawn cuddy-wards. Captain Spurling's suggestion that a descent into the Seamew's stomach—'tween-decks and the hold—might possibly be an interesting excursion, was considered a most happy one, and unhesitatingly jumped at.
The men were ceasing work, having sent up the last of those dangerous-looking bundles of railway iron, and only a part of the main hatch was left unclosed. She was lowered to him through this and down the perpendicular ladders, with great care, and found herself in an awesome place of shades, astonishingly vast. Of course she had no fears—with him—but when that black cavern suddenly rang to a blood-curdling yell that she did not know the cause of, she jumped and gasped, and clutched her companion's arm.
"Don't be frightened," he murmured, locking hand and arm together. "It is only a cat. Here, puss! puss! puss!"
A pair of yellow eyes glared out of the gloom forward, and disappeared.
"Oh-h-h!" sighed Minna, with her hand upon her heart.
It was certainly a creepy place, to one unaccustomed to it, in that owl's light; and the ship cat was as wild as any Bengal tiger. She was supposed to visit the cook at a certain hour daily, but otherwise lived in solitude, under hatches, waging savage warfare with the rats. Disturbed and startled by the apparition of a lady, she moved about in the mysterious distance with stealthy creepings and scamperings, rending the silence at intervals with that sudden snarling "yowl," which is distressing to the human ear at the best of times, and now echoed through the ship's emptiness in a most dismal manner.
"Shoo!" cried Captain Spurling; and he pressed his left arm to his side. "We might have had a little more light upon the subject. However, I can see, if you can't. You trust to me."
"It is like a witch's cave," she laughed tremblingly, "with that creature mewing. How uncanny it sounds in this great hollow place! I had no idea the Seamew was so enormous."
He led her into the bows, and they stood invisible, looking back to where the light filtered down from above, dim with rain, on so small a portion of the enclosure. The girl's heart was beating fast, as the heart of seventeen is bound to do under such circumstances. The man felt it, like an electric thrill in the air.
"I suppose that is the mast?" she queried breathlessly.
"The mizen—yes; and the main beyond it. You can't see the iron-work under the deck, bracing it across and across? No, that's not a rat. Don' be alarmed—I will take care of you. By-and-by all this will be filled with bags of wheat, right up to the top—"
He was interrupted by an agonized wail, as of soul in torment, and Minna's hand on his arm contracted for a moment. He laid his own right hand upon it soothingly.
"It is so dark!" she faltered. "Hadn't we better go back to the others?"
He drew her—or rather, she drew him—forward, where the light was better. There the sailmaker, since the lower deck was cleared of cargo, had been at work; his implements and a heap of weather-worn sails were spread upon the spacious floor, a bolt of new canvas near them.
"Sit here," said Captain Spurling, kicking the latter article to a safe distance from the yawning mouth of the hold and the feeble daylight; "sit and rest yourself a little before you go up. It is raining still; wait till it leaves off, so that you don't get wet."
She seated herself on the bundle, and he presently lowered himself into a nest of sail-cloth, whence he could see into her pretty face and watch the play of her innocent emotions as she listened and talked to him—the stirrings of the young womanhood which had come into being so recently that he was the first man to recognise it.
It was a full half-hour before they climbed back into the world, and they were summoned by a hail from Captain Brent.
"It's hard lines," said Captain Spurling—and from this remark the reader will infer the preceding conversation—"it's awfully hard lines that I've got to go, just when I have begun to know you."
"Yes," she sighed, with her foot upon the ladder. "But you will come back again some day?"
"I hope so. One never knows. You will give a thought to me sometimes when I am away upon the sea?"
She looked at him eloquently, too deeply moved for speech, imagining the blissfulness of companionship with such a man in all the perils of his noble work and romantic solitude, the rapture of tropical cyclones and Cape Horn icebergs, which would have no terrors in such a case. Never had she loved the sea and all belonging to it as she loved it now.
They emerged upon the windy beach and entered the little saloon in silence. On a table by the rudder-trunk was spread the captain's equivalent for afternoon tea—port wine, and almonds and raisins, dried figs, and English fancy biscuits—and he sat beside it. Mrs. Atcheson lolled upon a red velvet sofa that curved with the curve of the ship's blunt stern, under a row of portholes, and she was too much absorbed in her companion and conversation to notice, as she ought to have done, the colour and expression of Miss Smith's face.
* * *
She lay awake all night, dreaming finer dreams than ever come in sleep; and in the morning her hostess gave her a commission.
"Oh, my dear, I am so frightfully busy!" Mrs. Atcheson explained. "You know that I have asked Captain Brent to come in to-night for a game of whist, and I must have two or three to meet him. That means supper. I have a fowl to dress, and oyster patties to make, and I don't know what else; otherwise I would go myself. But I really don't see how I can spare the time."
"What is it? Let me do it," urged Minna, anxious to be useful.
"Oh, my dear girl, would you? Oh, I should be so much obliged to you! It is just to go to the pier with this parcel for Captain Spurling—the Penguin is still there, I see, and I'm so afraid of being too late with it. He kindly offered to take anything for me to England, and I thought it a good opportunity to send some cast-off clothes for my sister's children."
Minna blushed from top to toe. Even Mrs. Atcheson could not fail to see it.
"Are you too shy?" she laughed. "But of course you need not go on board. And Jacky shall escort you. I would not ask you, Minna, to do anything that was improper, my dear. You have only to hand the parcel to Captain Spurling, and come away directly. I dare not trust Jacky alone with it, or I would not trouble you."
Terrified, but exulting, Miss Smith presently set forth upon this errand, Jacky, aged ten, accompanying her. He gathered a few friends by the way—Saturday-morning schoolboys, loafing about the streets—so that by the time she reached the Penguin she had four cavaliers; none too many for the support she needed. Jacky, who had the cheek of a dozen, shouted, "Skipper, ahoy!"—for which she could have boxed his ears—and Captain Spurling responded in person, to her mingled mortification and delight.
"Give him the parcel, Jacky," she implored, in a frantic undertone. "Give it to him, with mother's message, and come away."
But, no; this was not how Fate and Captain Spurling meant to deal with such a chance. Off went the skipper's cap, and his handsome face shone transfigured when he recognised the bashful girl, shrinking away from the group of brazen boys. But it was only a looking-glass to reflect the light in hers, which magenta blushes could not hide from him. He was down the gangway in two seconds.
"What, Miss Smith! And you have brought the parcel yourself? How kind of you! How good of you! Come up and have a little rest after your walk."
"Oh, no! oh, no," she replied, with tragic gravity. "I must not stay, indeed. I should not have come, only there was no one else. We are very busy at home and Mrs. Atcheson wants me."
"Just for five minutes—just to have a look at my ship before we go. The boys will like to see it—eh, boys? And you have no objection to gingerbread nuts, I suppose?"
Jacky jumped to the bait, and was over the side in a twinkling, his mates at his heels. It appeared to Minna that she could not stand on the pier by herself, nor seem ungracious to and suspicious of a man like this man. And, after all, she had an escort—four escorts—which made it all quite proper. So, with downcast eyes and fluttering heart, she ascended the wobbling plank that served for gangway, steadied by the strong hand; and she stood on the Penguin's deck in the morning sunlight, slim and sweet, with her hair shining, the prettiest young creature that had ever been seen there—to Captain Spurling's mind.
And what became of the four escorts? Unlimited gingerbread was placed at their disposal, and then the bo'sun was called and instructed to show them round. He performed his duty thoroughly. He showed them everything. And they were too much taken up with the mysteries of pantry and store-room, with the medicine chest and the flag-locker, with cutlasses and shark hooks, with harpoons and scientific instruments, to remember that Miss Smith existed. When they went forward, out of sight and sound, she forgot that they did.
The captain entertained her in his smart little cuddy. He showed her the two or three empty cabins available for chance passengers, with his own small suite on one side and the berths of officers and apprentices on the other; and that was all the sight-seeing they did on this occasion. She had not the zest of yesterday, and seemed afraid even to peep through the doors. The only apartment which her modesty permitted her to enter was his little sitting-room astern. He had cut off with a partition his red velvet sofa and private table, preferring the dignity of seclusion where Captain Brent preferred fresh air. Behind that partition, which made the outer cabin seem cramped and stuffy, he had not only his sofa and table and his arm-chair, but a number of fancy trifles—pictures and Japanese storks, and brackets with little ornaments on them—in the boudoir style; and the general effect was one of great elegance—to the taste of the bush girl. There were several photographic portraits—one of a dark-eyed boy that she concluded was Captain Spurling's brother, it was so like him; but he did not tell her whose the faces were, and she thought it would be rude to ask him. The ports were open, and ripples of light played over the low ceiling, reflected from the rippling tide.
"I must not stay," she ejaculated, hurried and breathless, and yet she found herself sitting on the red velvet sofa, with a cushion at her back (Captain Brent would have despised a cushion even more than he would have scorned a paper fan). And presently she found Captain Spurling sitting beside her, with his arm around her waist. Had he been required to defend his conduct, he would have pleaded the irresistible circumstances, for there are men who see a natural validity in this excuse, and a chaperon of thirty-nine has no business to ignore the fact; while, as for Minna's conduct, she was a young thing, and knew no better. As young things do, when fine fellows provoke them to it, she had fallen frantically in love; and of course she took this particularly fine fellow for a god in human shape, and king who could do no wrong. If he put his arm round her waist, it was because—oh, bliss unspeakable!—because he loved her too. Such had been her bringing up, strange as it may appear, in a land of precocious girls.
She fluttered in his embrace, like a wild bird in a snare, and then yielded to it, dropping her head upon his shoulder.
"Oh," she wailed in tears, "when—when shall I ever see you again?"
At noon the Penguin was towed out. At night Miss Smith's headache was so bad that she could not join the whist party. A few days later she went home to her mother, who thought her very little benefited by her seaside trip. She was pale and absent-minded; she shunned companionship; she confessed to sleeping poorly. When asked what was the matter, or whether anything was the matter, she, of course, said, "Nothing." Mrs. Smith, who had a family of ten, every one of which was cherished as if an only child, knew better, but would not force the confidence that was not freely given. A girl growing up does not realize that her mother is far more accustomed to being young than she is, and shuts her out as one who cannot possibly understand. So Minna's parent, homely and hard-working, erroneously supposed to have no soul above poultry and butter, could only watch her pretty first-born, of whom she was so fond and proud, with an aching heart, and contrive little treats and outings, beaten-up eggs and cups of beef-tea, to cheer her. The instinct that is so rarely at fault in such a case divined a love affair at once, and Mrs. Atcheson, in strict confidence, was written to. Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Atcheson had been at school together.
The reply of the latter was emphatic. "Certainly not. She met nobody at my house, and even if she had, she is too much of a child to think of such things at present. Do not, my dear Eliza, put ideas of love and marriage into her head; she will grow up and have her woman's troubles quite soon enough. Keep her innocent as long as you can. I daresay she has a little indigestion, or some irregularity of that sort. I should consult a doctor if I were you."
Mrs. Smith did not consult a doctor. She knew a nice young squatter, a good son and an excellent man of business, with an honest eye for a pretty girl; and she asked him to come and see them. He came, nothing loth, and came again, and yet again—until the expected result ensued. And then Minna refused him. As it would have been an excellent match, Mr. Smith like the historic father in New Zealand, reasoned and remonstrated; in fact, he wanted to lock her up on a diet of bread and water until she repented of her contumacy. But Mrs. Smith drew the Jovian lightning upon her own head. She would not have the child bothered, she declared, and threw over her candidate without hesitation, though with many inward pangs.
Other young men were beckoned to—good, clean, solid bush fellows—and responded readily; for Mrs. Smith, who was said to be a drudge and a slave to her own family, could think of no better cure for her girl's complaint than the old-fashioned "comfortable home" and contingent babies. Not every young woman, by a long way, has a choice of husbands in this so-called favoured land; a vast number do not get the chance of one; but Minna was so exceptionally sweet and pretty that it would have been an easy matter to "settle" her satisfactorily had she been inclined to settle. But she would not hear of it. She refused her third offer as resolutely as she had done the first. And the third, from a father's point of view, was the best of them all.
"What in the name of fortune do you want?" roared Mr. Smith, justifiably exasperated—nay, fit to dance with rage—at this childish folly and the placid obstinacy of the culprit's face. "Are you waiting for the Prince of Wales?"
"I suppose you mean the Duke of York?" returned his daughter, with a pale smile. "Don't be angry with me, father. I don't wish to be married. And if I did, I don't want a man of that sort."
"Of that sort!" he shouted. "Of that sort! The only fault he has is that he's a thousand times too good for you."
And then the mother interposed.
"Let her alone, Jimmy. She is over young for husbands yet; and I'm sure we're in no hurry to get rid of her, bless her!" And she paused in her search for a son-in-law, and reproached herself for having, perhaps, "put ideas" into her child's head before it was old enough to receive them.
Meanwhile, Minna's heart was away upon the sea. She thought of the sea all day and dreamed of it all night, and read of it in as many of Clark Russell's novels as the local mechanics' institute could supply; and of course she had made up her young mind that only a sailor could satisfy her. Also that her love for the particular sailor responsible for this state of things was "that love which only comes once in a lifetime"—peculiar, as we know, to young people in their teens.
She looked in many newspapers for tidings of the Penguin, but found none. At long intervals she would come upon the name of the Seamew, and of the Albatross, and the Petrel, and other boats of that line in the columns of shipping news, but she never happened to discover the whereabouts of the most precious of all vessels after the sad Saturday when she stood alone on the back beach of Williamstown to watch it fade upon the horizon, homeward bound. She had fits of fever over this matter, alternating with fits of cold despair when she convinced herself that the Penguin had gone down with all hands, leaving none to tell the tale.
At last she saw that the Seamew had returned to Melbourne. Immediately she resolved to repair thither in order to question Captain Brent about his friend. She confessed for the first time that she was out of health, and said that only sea air could restore her.
"Sea air did not do you much good when you tried it before," Mrs. Smith remarked, but allowed the child to have her own way, as usual. Maria Atcheson was written to, and Minna was consigned to her with an equivalent for her "keep" in the shape of a noble hamper of farm produce.
The chaperon expressed herself as quite shocked by the girl's appearance when they met on the Spencer Street platform.
"Why, how thin you've got!" she exclaimed. "I should hardly have known you. I expect you've just been moped to death up there. How people can stand the bush year in and year out I can't conceive, especially a girl of your age. I know it would kill me in no time. But you'll soon get all right now you are in my hands, Minna. It is not beef-tea that you want, with all due deference to your mother, but a few theatres and parties and things of that sort."
"Like we had last time," said Minna, with averted face. "Do you remember our afternoon on board the Seamew? By the way, the Seamew is in again, isn't she?"
"I believe so. Is this your portmanteau?"
"Yes; that's all. I suppose you have seen Captain Brent?"
"Not yet."
"Not yet? The ship has been here for more than a week!"
"Oh, I am sick of ships! Come along; let us get home. I am going to take you to a chrysanthemum show this afternoon, and we shall only just have time to lunch and dress."
The fervour of Mrs. Atcheson's friendships was only equalled by their brevity, and, as Minna presently discovered, Captain Brent had had his day.
So it was a little while before she found an opportunity to get sight and speech of him. Three days of passionate anxiety intervened. Then she excused herself from certain calls, caught Jacky on his return from school, bribed him to go for a walk with her, and flattered his pride as escort by asking him to show her the ships at the railway pier.
"Do you remember the gingerbread nuts that Captain Spurling gave you, Jacky?"
"Oh, yes; he wasn't a bad sort, was he?"
"I wonder where he is now? I suppose you don't know?"
"Never heard a word of him from that day to this. But I'll tell you who is here, Miss Smith—old Captain Brent, and he's worth a dozen Spurlings any day."
"Why?" asked Miss Smith, indignant and concerned.
"Oh, he's awfully kind, you know. Since he's been in this time he's given us boys the best tuck-out we ever had in our lives."
Minna laughed, and her step grew brisk. "Perhaps we might pay him a little call now, Jacky. What do you say?"
Jacky said, in all sincerity, that he was "on."
It was a late call. The distance from the Strand at Williamstown to the railway pier is much longer than it looks, and this was a time of year when the shades of evening fell early—soon after five o'clock, in fact. The ships, when they were reached, loomed vast and vague, infinitely majestic and imposing, in the brooding hush of a sea-foggy night that had quite closed in. All work for the day was over, and the old pier was deserted, the few yellow gleams on its rail metals and the hulls that lined it serving but to deepen its air of solitude and make darkness visible. Nevertheless, Captain Brent was at home—contrary to the custom of captains in port—and he welcomed his visitors cordially. He wanted them to stay and dine with him, and was much disappointed when Miss Smith reluctantly refused, on the ground that Mrs. Atcheson did not know where they were. "We were just having a little walk," she explained, "and being so near we thought we might as well say 'How d'ye do.'" Which, Captain Brent declared, was a most friendly act on their part. And he brought out his port wine; and the bush girl, not to hurt his feelings, sipped a little of it, not at all understanding how good it was.
Over the nauseous glass she found an opportunity to mention Captain Spurling.
"I hope he is quite well," she said, in a casual way. "I have not seen his ship mentioned in the papers. I hope he reached home safely after leaving here?"
"Oh, yes," said Captain Brent. "He got home all right. Found a new baby added to the family circle."
"A baby!" gasped Minna, petrified.
"Three weeks old. And, what was a great deal worse, found that his daughter had run away and got married. Eloped with a music-master."
"His daughter! Do you mean his daughter?"
"The eldest. Nothing but a child, of course. But that's the worst of being a sailor, Miss Smith. You can't take care of the young girls when they want protection most, and they won't mind their mothers these times. Why, she couldn't have been a day older than you are. Not nineteen till May, I think they said. Young hussy! And as for that music-master, I believe Spurling pretty nearly killed him, and serve him right."
"I," said Minna, in a dazed way, as if talking in her sleep, "I shall be nineteen in May."