Part 3 (1/2)
_Page 56_]
The wealthy manufacturer's lady thought Captain D'Orville very absent and _distrait_ next day in the gardens; but from that time till he went on leave he devoted himself exclusively to her service, and she never dreamed that there was such a being in the world as the handsome governess at Miss Primrose's, or the loss that establishment had sustained in its junior a.s.sistant's departure.
And now Mary had been long dragging on her weary existence as a music-mistress in London. Miss Primrose's severe comments on the impropriety of evening walks with cavalry officers led to a dignified rejoinder from her teacher, and the conversation terminated in a small arrear of salary being paid up, and Mary's wardrobe (with the exception of a certain very handsome dress, afterwards sold cheap as ”returned”) being packed for travelling. In London she obtained sufficient employment to keep her from starving, and that was about all. A situation as ”Governess in a private family” was advertised for, and again and again she was disappointed in obtaining one, till at length hearing accidentally that Mrs. Kettering was in want of a ”finis.h.i.+ng governess” for Blanche, Mary Delaval proceeded to the town-house to make inquiries, and failing to obtain even the wished-for address, was returning in hopeless despondency, when she encountered the impertinences we have already detailed, and which were alone wanting to fill the bitter cup of dependency to overflowing.
Poor Mary! hers was ”a black cloud” through which it was indeed difficult to see ”the silver lining.”
CHAPTER IV
”LIBITINA”
THE DROWNING MAN CATCHES AT A BOAT-HOOK--A BRITISH FISHERMAN--THE MOTHER STRUCK DOWN--THE SICK-ROOM--WATCH AND WARD--THE VISITOR THAT WILL NOT BE DENIED--A PRESSING SUITOR--THE CHIEF MOURNER
To keep a gentleman waiting any length of time, either in hot water or cold, is decidedly a breach of the laws of politeness, to repair which we must return as speedily as possible to ”Cousin Charlie” and his friend, lying somewhat limp and blue at the bottom of ”Hairblower's”
dinghy; this worthy, under Providence, having been the means of saving the rash swimmer and the gallant boy who strove to rescue him from an untimely death, which a very few seconds more of submersion would have made a certainty. That Hairblower's boat-hook should have been ready at the nick of time was one of those ”circ.u.mstances,” as he called them, which he designated ”special,” and turned upon the fact of his having started a party of amateurs in the morning on a sort of marine picnic, from which they had returned prematurely, the gala proving a failure, with no greater loss than that of a spare oar and one or two small casks belonging to the seaman. It was on the hopeless chance of picking up these ”waifs and strays” as they drifted down with the tide, that ”Hairblower” was paddling about in a shallow skiff, denominated ”a dinghy,” when his attention was arrested by an adventurous swimmer striking boldly out at a long distance from the beach. As he said himself, ”There's no depending on these gentlemen, so I thought it very likely I might be wanted, and stood 'off and on'
till I saw Mr. Hardingstone making signals of distress. It's no joke that cramp isn't, half-a-mile out at sea; and I might have been too late with the boat-hook if it hadn't been for Master Charles--dear, dear, there's stuff in that lad you might cut an admiral out of, and they're going to make 'a soger' of him!”
He had contrived to pull the two exhausted swimmers into his little craft; and although Charlie very soon recovered himself, his friend, who was farther gone in his salt-water potations, gave them both some uneasiness before he came thoroughly to his senses.
Whilst our hardy seaman is putting them upon their legs, and administering hot brandy-and-water in a fisherman's house near the beach, we may spare a few lines to give some account of ”Hairblower,”
and the qualities by which he earned that peculiar designation. Born and bred a fisherman, one of that daring race with which our sea-board swarms, and from which Her Majesty's navy and the British merchant service recruit their best men, he was brought up from his very childhood to make the boat his cradle, and the wave his home. Wet or dry, calm or stormy, blow high, blow low, with a plank beneath his foot, and a few threads of canvas over his head, he was in his element; and long ere he reached the full strength of manhood he was known for the most reckless of all, even amongst those daring spirits who seem to think life by far the least valuable of their earthly possessions. Twice, as a boy, had he _volunteered_ to make up the crew of a lifeboat when the oldest hands were eyeing with doubtful glances that white, seething surf through which they would have to make their way to the angry, leaden sea beyond; and the men of Deal themselves, those heroes of the deep, acknowledged, with the abrupt freemasonry of the brave, that ”the lad was as tough as pin-wire, _heart_ to the backbone.” His carelessness of weather soon became proverbial, and his friends often expostulated with him on his rashness in remaining out at sea with a craft by no means qualified to encounter the sudden squalls of the Channel, or the heavy seas which come surging up from the Atlantic in a real Sou'-Wester. His uncle at length promised to a.s.sist him in building a lugger of somewhat heavier tonnage than the yawl he was accustomed to risk, and the _Spanking Sally_, of ill-fated memory, was the result. On the first occasion that the young skipper exultingly stamped his foot on a deck he could really call his own, he earned the nickname by which he was afterwards distinguished. His uncle expressed a hope that the owner would now be a trifle more careful in his ventures, and suggested that when it blew hard, and there was a heavy cargo on board, it was good seamans.h.i.+p to run for the nearest port. ”Blow,” repeated the gallant lad, while he pa.s.sed his fingers through thick glossy curls that the breeze was even then lifting from his forehead--”Blow, uncle! you'll never catch me putting _my_ helm down for weather, till it comes on stiff enough to blow every one of these hairs clean out of my figure-head!” From that hour, and ever afterwards, he was known by the _sobriquet_ of Hairblower, and as such we verily believe he had almost forgotten his own original name.
Hardingstone was soon sufficiently recovered to walk back to his hotel, and with his strong frame and const.i.tution scouted the idea of any ill effects arising from what he called ”a mere ducking.” Once, however, on their way home, he pressed Charlie's hand, and with a tear in his eye--strange emotion for him to betray--whispered, ”Charlie, you've the pluck of the devil; you've saved my life, and I shall never forget it.” We are an undemonstrative people: on the stage, or in a book, here would have been an opportunity for a perfect oration about grat.i.tude, generosity, and eternal friends.h.i.+p; but not so in real life; we cannot spare more than a sentence to acknowledge our rescue from ruin or destruction, and we are so afraid of being thought ”humbugs,” that we make even that sentence as cold as possible.
Mrs. Kettering, though, was a lady of a different disposition. She was in a terrible taking when her nephew returned, and she observed the feverish remains of past excitement, which the boy was unable to conceal. Bit by bit she drew from him the whole history of his gallant efforts to save Hardingstone, and the narrow escape they both had of drowning; and as Charlie finished his recital, and Blanche's eyes sparkled through her tears in admiration of his heroism, Mrs.
Kettering rang the bell twice for Gingham, and went off into strong hysterics.
”Dear me, miss, how providential!” said the Abigail, an hour or so afterwards, popping her head into the drawing-room, where Blanche and Charlie were awaiting news of his aunt, having left her to ”keep quiet”--”Dr. Globus is down here for a holiday, and Missus bid me send for him if she wasn't any better, and now she _isn't_ any better. What shall I do?”
”Send for him, I should think,” said Charlie, and forthwith despatched a messenger in quest of the doctor, whilst Blanche ran up-stairs to mamma's room with a beating heart and an aching presentiment, such as often foretells too truly the worst we have to apprehend.
The curtains were drawn round Mrs. Kettering's bed, and Blanche, hoping it might only be one of the nervous attacks to which her mother was subject, put them gently aside to see if she was sleeping. Even that young, inexperienced girl was alarmed at the dark flush on the patient's face, and the heavy snorting respirations she seemed to draw with such difficulty.
”O mamma, mamma!” said she, laying her head on the pillow by her mother's side, ”what is it? I beseech you to tell me! Dear mamma, what can we do to help you?”
Mrs. Kettering turned her eyes upon her daughter, but the pupils were distorted as though from some pressure on the brain, and she strove to articulate in vain. Blanche, in an agony of fear, rushed to the bell-rope, and brought Gingham and Charlie running up hardly less alarmed than herself. What could the lad do in a case like this? With the impetuosity of his character, he took his hat and hastened to Dr.
Globus's house with such speed as to overtake the messenger he had previously despatched; Gingham was sent down to hunt up a prescription of that skilful physician, which had once before been beneficial; and Blanche sat her down in her mother's room, to watch, and tremble, and pray for the beloved form, stretched senseless within those white curtains.
She could scarce believe it. In that very room, not six hours ago, she had pinned her mother's shawl, and smoothed her own ringlets. Yet it seemed as if this had occurred to some one else--not to herself. With the unaccountable propensity great excitement ever has for trifling, she arranged the disordered toilet-table; she even counted the curl-papers that lay in their little triangular box; then she went down on her knees, and prayed, as those pray who feel it is the last resource. When she rose, a pa.s.sion of weeping somewhat relieved her feelings, but with composure came the consciousness of the awful possibility--the separation that might be--to-night, even; and the dim, blank future, desolate, without a mother. But the familiar noises in the street brought her back to the present, and it seemed impossible that this should be the same world in which till now she had scarcely known any anxiety or affliction. Then a soothing hope stole over her that these dreadful misgivings might be groundless; that the doctor would come, and mamma would soon be better; and she would nurse her, and love her more and more, and never be wilful again; but in the midst, with a pang that almost stopped her heart, flashed across her the recollection of her father's death--the suspense, the confusion, the sickening certainty, the dreary funeral, and how, in her little black frock, she had clasped mamma's neck, and thought she had saved all, since she had not lost her. And now, must this come again? And would there be no mother to clasp when it was over? Blanche groaned aloud. But hark! the door-bell rings, there is a steady footstep on the stair, and she feels a deep sensation of relief, as though the doctor held the scales of life and death in his hands.
Gingham, in the meantime, whose composure was not proof against anything in the shape of serious illness or danger, had been wandering over the house with her mistress's keys in her hand, seeking for that prescription which she had herself put by, not three days before, but of which she had totally forgotten the hiding-place. Music, work-boxes, blotting-books were turned over and tumbled about in vain, till at length she bethought her of her mistress's writing-desk, and on opening that ”sanctum,” out fell a paper in her lady's hand, which ignorant Gingham herself at once perceived was meant for no such eyes as hers. She caught a glimpse, too, of her own name between its folds, and even in the hurry and emergency of the moment we are not prepared to say that female curiosity could have resisted the temptation of ”just one peep,” but at that instant ”Cousin Charlie” and the doctor were heard at the door, and as Gingham thrust the mysterious doc.u.ment into her bosom, the former entered the room, and rated her soundly for prying about amongst Aunt Kettering's papers when she ought to have been up-stairs attending to herself.
Dr. Globus felt Mrs. Kettering's pulse, and turned to Blanche (who was watching his countenance as the culprit does that of the juryman who declares his fate) with a face from which it was impossible to gather hope or fear.
”Your mamma must be kept _very_ quiet, Miss Blanche,” said the doctor, with whom his young friend was a prime favourite. ”I must turn you all out but Mrs. Gingham. I should like to remain here for a while to watch the effect of some medicine I shall give her; but we cannot have too few people in the room.” And to enhance this significant hint he pointed to the door, at which Charlie was lingering with a white, anxious face.
”But tell me, _dear_ doctor,” implored Blanche, in an agony of suspense, ”_pray_ tell me, is there any danger? Will _nothing_ do her any good?”
Poor girl, did you ever know a doctor that would reply to such a question?
”We must keep her quiet, my dear,” was all the answer she got; and Blanche was forced to go down-stairs, much against her will, and wait in blank dismay, with her hand clasping Cousin Charlie's, and her eyes turned to the clock, on which the minutes seemed to lengthen into hours, whilst ever and anon a footstep overhead seemed to indicate there would be some news of the patient; yet no door opened, no step was heard upon the stairs. Not a word did the cousins exchange, though the boy moved at intervals restlessly in his chair. The calm, beautiful evening deepened into the purple haze of night over the Channel, the lamps began to twinkle in the street, and still the cousins sat and waited, and still n.o.body came.