Phantom Fortune, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [free e novels .txt] 📗

men were born mariners, and that she was twenty times safer with them than when the yacht had been under the control of those honest, grinning red-whiskered English Jack Tars. But she liked the English sailors best, all the same; and she shrank from the faintest contact with these tawny-visaged strangers, plucking away the train of her gown as they passed her chair, lest they should brush against her drapery.

On deck this morning, with only those dark faces near, she had a sense of loneliness, of helplessness, of abandonment even. Unbidden the image of her home at Grasmere flashed into her mind--all things so calm, so perfectly ordered, such a sense of safety, of home--no peril, no temptation, no fever--only peace: and she had grown sick to death of peace. She had prayed for tempest: and the tempest had come.

There was a heavenly quiet in the air in the early summer morning, only the creaking of a spar, the scream of a seagull now and then. How pale the lamps were growing on board the yachts. Paler still, yellow, and dim, and blurred yonder in the town. The eastward facing windows were golden with the rising sun. Yes, this was morning. The yachts were moving away yonder, majestical, swan-like, white sails shining against the blue.

She closed her eyes, and tried to sleep; but sleep would not come. She was always listening--listening for the dip of oars, listening for a snatch of melody from a mellow baritone whose every accent she knew so well.

It came at last, the sound her soul longed for. She lay among her cushions with closed eyes, listening, drinking in those rich ripe notes as they came nearer and nearer, to the measure of dipping oars, _'La donna e mobile--'_

Nearer and nearer, until the little boat ground against the hull. She lifted her heavy eyelids as Montesma leapt over the gunwale, almost into her arms. He was at her side, kneeling by her low chair, kissing the little hands, chill with the freshness of morning.

'My own, my very own,' he murmured, passionately.

He cared no more for those copper-faced Helots yonder than if they had been made of wood. He had fate in his own hands now, as it seemed to him. He went to the skipper and gave him some orders in Spanish, and then the sails were unfurled, the _Cayman_ spread her broad white wings, and moved off among those other yachts which were gliding, gliding, gliding out to sea, melting from Cowes Roads like a vision that fadeth with the broad light of morning.

When the sails were up and the yacht was running merrily through the water, Montesma went back to Lady Lesbia, and they two sat side by side, gilded and glorified in the vivid lights of sunrise, talking as they had never talked before, her head upon his shoulder, a smile of ineffable peace upon her lips, as of a weary child that has found rest.

They were sailing for Havre, and at Havre they were to be married by the English chaplain, and from Havre they were to sail for the Havana, and to live there ever afterwards in a fairy-tale dream of bliss, broken only by an annual visit to Paris, just to buy gowns and bonnets. Surrendered were all Lesbia's ambitious hopes--forgotten--gone; her desire to reign princess paramount in the kingdom of fashion--her thirst to be wealthiest among the wealthy--gone--forgotten. Her dreams now were of the _dolce far niente_ of a tropical climate, a boudoir giving on the Caribbean sea, cigarettes, coffee, nights spent in a foreign opera house, the languid, reposeful existence of a Spanish dama--with him, with him. It was for his sake that she had modified all her ideas of life. To be with him she would have been content to dwell in the tents of the Patagonians, on the wild and snow-clad Pampas. A love which was strong enough to make her sacrifice duty, the world, her fair fame as a well-bred woman, was a love that recked but little of the paths along which her lover's hand was to lead. For him, to be with him, she renounced the world. The rest did not count.

The summer hours glided past them. The _Cayman_ was far out at sea; all the other yachts had vanished, and they were alone amidst the blue, with only a solitary three-master yonder, on the edge of the horizon. More than once Lesbia had talked of going below to change her ball gown for the attire of everyday life; but each time her lover had detained her a little longer, had pleaded for a few more words. Lady Kirkbank would be astir presently, and there would be no more solitude for them till they were married, and could shake her off altogether. So Lesbia stayed, and those two drank the cup of bliss, hushed by the monotonous sing-song of the sea, the rhythm of the swinging sails. But now it was broad morning. The hour when society, however late it may keep its revels overnight, is apt to awaken, were it only to call for a cup of strong tea and to turn again on the pillow of lassitude, after that refreshment, like the sluggard of Holy Writ. At ten o'clock the sun sent his golden arrows across the silken coverlet of her berth and awakened Lady Kirkbank, who opened her eyes and looked about languidly. The little cabin was heaving itself up and down in a curious way; Mr. Smithson's cigar-cases were sloping as if they were going to fall upon Lady Kirkbank's couch, and the looking-glass, with all its dainty appliances, was making an angle of forty-five degrees. There was more swirling and washing of water against the hull than ever Georgie Kirkbank had heard in Cowes Roads.

'Mercy on me! this horrid thing must be moving,' she exclaimed to the empty air. 'It must have broken loose in the night.'

She had no confidence in those savage-looking sailors, and she had a vision of the yacht drifting at the mercy of winds and waves, drifting for days, weeks, and months; drifting to the German Ocean, drifting to the North Pole. Mr. Smithson and Montesma on shore--no one on board to exercise authority over those fearful men.

Perhaps they had mutinied, and were carrying off the yacht as their booty, with Lesbia and her chaperon, and all their gowns.

'I am almost glad that harpy Seraphine has my diamonds,' thought poor Georgie, 'or I should have had them with me on board this hateful boat.'

And then she rapped vehemently against the panel of the cabin, and screamed for Rilboche, whose den was adjacent.

Rilboche, who detested the sea, made her appearance after some delay, looking even greener than her mistress, who, in rising from her berth, already began to suffer the agonies of sea-sickness.

'What does this mean?' exclaimed Lady Kirkbank; 'and where are we going?'

'That's what I should like to know, my lady. But I daresay Lady Lesbia and Mr. Montesma can tell you. They are both on deck.'

'Montesma! Why, we left him on shore!'

'Yes, my lady, but he came on board at five o'clock this morning. I looked at my watch when I heard him land, and he and Lady Lesbia have been sitting on deck ever since.'

'And now it is ten. Five hours on deck--impossible!'

'Time doesn't seem long when one is happy, my lady,' murmured Rilboche, in her own language.

'Help me to dress this instant,' screamed her mistress: 'that dreadful Spaniard is eloping with us.'

Despite the hideous depression of that malady which strikes down Kaiser and beggar with the same rough hand, Lady Kirkbank contrived to get herself dressed decently, and to stagger up the companion to that part of the deck where the Persian carpet was spread, and the bamboo chairs and tables were set out under the striped awning. Lesbia and her lover were sitting together, he giving her a first lesson in the art of smoking a cigarette. He had told her playfully that every man, woman, and child in Cuba was a smoker, and she had besought him to let her begin, and now, with infinite coquetry, was taking her first lesson.

'You shameless minx!' exclaimed Georgie, pale with anger.

'Where is Smithson--my poor, good Smithson?'

'Fast asleep in his bed at Formosa, I hope, dear Lady Kirkbank,' the Cuban answered, with perfect _sang froid_. 'Smithson is out of it, as you idiomatic English say. I hope, Lady Kirkbank, you will be as kind to me as you have been to Smithson; and depend upon it I shall make Lady Lesbia as good a husband as ever Smithson could have done.'

'You!' exclaimed the matron, contemptuously. 'You!--a foreigner, an adventurer, who may be as poor as Job, for anything I know about you.'

'Job was once rather comfortably off, Lady Kirkbank; and I can answer for it that Montesma's wife will know none of the pangs of poverty.'

'If you were a beggar I would not care,' said Lesbia, drawing nearer to him.

They had both risen at Lady Kirkbank's approach, and were standing side by side, confronting her. Lesbia had shrunk from the idea of poverty with John Hammond; yet, for this man's sake, she was ready to face penury, ruin, disgrace, anything.

'Do you mean to tell me that Lord Maulevrier's sister, a young lady under my charge, answerable to me for her conduct, is capable of jilting the man to whom she has solemnly bound herself, in order to marry you?' demanded Lady Kirkbank, turning to Montesma.

'Yes; that is what I am going to do,' answered Lesbia, boldly. 'It would be a greater sin to keep my promise than to break it. I never liked that man, and you know it. You badgered me into accepting him, against my own better judgment. You drifted me so deeply into debt that I was willing to marry a man I loathed in order to get my debts paid. _This_ is what you did for the girl placed under your charge. But, thank God, I have released myself from your clutches. I am going far away to a new world, where the memory of my old life cannot follow me. People may be angry or pleased! I do not care. I shall be the wife of the man I have chosen out of all the world for my husband--the man God made to be my master.'

'You are----' gasped Lady Kirkbank. 'I can't say what you are. I never in my life felt so tempted to use improper language.'

'Dear Lady Kirkbank, be reasonable,' pleaded Montesma; 'you can have no interest in seeing Lesbia married to a man she dislikes.'

Georgia reddened a little, remembering that she was interested to the amount of some thousands in the Smithson and Haselden alliance; but she took a higher ground than mercenary considerations.

'I am interested in doing the very best for a young lady who has been entrusted to my care, the granddaughter of an old friend,' she answered, with dignity. 'I have no objection to you in the abstract, Don Gomez. You have always been vastly civil, I am sure----'

'Stand by us in our day of need, Lady Kirkbank, and you will find me the staunchest friend you ever had.'

'I am bound in honour to consider Mr. Smithson, Lesbia,' said Lady Kirkbank. 'I wonder that a decently-brought up girl can behave so abominably.'

'It would be more abominable to marry a man I detest. I have made up my mind, Lady Kirkbank. We shall be at Havre to-morrow morning, and we shall be married