An Unknown Lover, Mrs George de Horne Vaizey [best romantic novels in english txt] 📗
- Author: Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
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The animals were more attractive, but in the absence of even the smallest blade of grass their presence seemed difficult to explain. The goats appeared to live on bits of paper and scraps of orange peel, while the cows, dogs, and cats which with the goats wandered restlessly about the streets fared even worse. As for the camels and donkeys, they stood about in groups, or lay in the sand with their usual expression of bored resignation.
Vernon Keith laughed at Katrine’s undisguised dismay.
“Don’t judge the East by Port Said, Miss Beverley! It is a nightmare of a hole, where no one lives who is not absolutely compelled. Even these Arab coal-porter fellows bring their families here for two or three months, work like the devil, and then disappear into the desert to live like fighting cocks until their earnings are finished... Here’s a water hydrant,—suppose we stand here and watch the people fill their skins! It may give you a laugh, and that’s a difficult thing to achieve in this part of the world.”
Katrine looked around eagerly. A group of Europeans had already gathered round the hydrant, some of whom she recognised as passengers on her own boat; the others were strangers, for whom at the moment she had no attention to spare. An Arab woman was holding to the tap a crumpled mass of skin, into which the water was gradually falling. Even as she watched, the folded mass swelled and wriggled in life-like contortions. The crowd broke into laughter; the Arab woman, expectant of backsheesh, responded with a gleaming smile. Katrine danced on her toes like an excited child.
“What is it? What is it? A pig-skin? A calf-skin? A sloper? It’s just like a dying sloper! What can it be?”
Suddenly from out the sausage-like round shot a leg, kicking, as it were, into space; a second leg, more legs, a tail—then the Arab woman gave an adroit twist to the balloon, and a final shriek of laughter from the crowd greeted the cocking of frisky ears, above the life-like head!
The sight was so irresistibly comic, that even Vernon Keith was surprised into a smile, which broadened at sight of Katrine’s childlike delight. The clear treble of her laughter, the involuntary dance of her eager feet, the beauty of the sparkling face, made her indeed the cynosure of every eye. Fellow-passengers smiled at her with a kindliness which had in it an element of remorse. “The girl who walked about with that horrible man”—appeared suddenly in a different light,—not an adventuress after all, but a girl whose experience of life was behind her years, a child at heart who meant no harm. The strangers whispered among themselves, and speculated as to her relationship with the man and woman by her side.
The Arab woman shouldered her burden and walked away, enriched by several voluntary offerings, and the object of interest being removed, Katrine became embarrassingly conscious of the general scrutiny. She cast a rapid glance around the group, skimming quickly from one face to another, until suddenly, startlingly, she found herself held by the gaze of a pair of eyes, a man’s eyes, steely grey, with a curious effect of lightness against the deep tan of the skin. There was something in those eyes, a magnetism, an intentness, which gripped Katrine with a force amounting to positive pain. Each of us in his turn has had such an experience, but it is all too rare, for the eyes of our fellow-creatures, so far from being windows of the soul, are as a rule little more illuminating than any other feature. Tired eyes, shallow eyes, blank, expressionless eyes, one encounters them at every turn, but only at rare and memorable intervals eyes alive, magnetic, which not only look straight from the heart of their owner, but like a searchlight pierce straight to one’s own. When this experience comes, it forges a link which neither time nor distance can break. Two souls have met, and mutely acclaimed their kinship.
While one might have counted ten, Katrine stood, motionless, almost without breath, gazing deep into the strange man’s eyes, then with the wrench of physical effort, she turned aside, and slipped her hand through Mrs Mannering’s arm.
“Come! Let us go!”
They walked on. Vernon Keith on one side, Mrs Mannering on the other, large, gaunt, protective, her arm gripping the girl’s hand to her grey alpaca side. Katrine loved her for that grip, but her mind was still engrossed in visualising the figure of a tall man, thin, yet broad, of a tanned face, and light grey eyes.
The glare from the sand seemed of a sudden to have become monstrous, unbearable. She felt a tired longing for the cool white deck.
“How soon can we go back? How long will those—sweeps—take over their work?”
“Not long,” Vernon said. “They are incredibly quick. Three hours for a matter of eight or nine hundred tons. We will go to the hotel and get something to drink. Has the sun been too much for you? You look so suddenly tired.”
Beneath her breath Mrs Mannering grunted disgust at the blindness of man. When the hotel was reached, and she and Katrine sat alone for a few minutes waiting the arrival of drinks, she looked at the girl with a kindly twinkle and said abruptly:
“No need to take it to heart, my dear. Your own fault! You were worth looking at, and he looked—that’s all! A cat may look at a king.”
Katrine smiled faintly.
“Yes—of course. Stupid of me. But there was something in his eyes that—startled! Did you ever have that curious feeling on meeting a stranger? Not recognition—it’s more like expectation—as if he mattered!”
Mrs Mannering grunted again.
“I know a fool when I see him, and an honest man. I know when to be civil, or to give a wide berth. Common-sense, I call it; not curious at all. Rather a fine figure, that man! You’d make a good pair. I’ve been thinking, you know, he might be that friend who is coming on board... Eh, what?”
To her surprise Katrine violently resented the suggestion.
“Oh, no!” she cried loudly. “I am sure he is not. Captain Bedford will be quite different.” A look almost of fear flitted over her face. “I’m quite sure it was not he!”
Mrs Mannering shrugged her shoulders, “Well! have it your own way. If I were a pretty, unattached female, and was introduced to that man as my travelling companion, I should feel I was in for a good time! On the other hand, if you were a bride, my dear, I’d stick to you like glue, out of sympathy for the poor man waiting his turn...”
Katrine hesitated, fighting an impulse which prompted her to confide in this kind, shrewd woman, to confess the real object of her journey, and secure her help and counsel. The words trembled on her lip; another second and they would have found speech; then the door opened and Vernon Keith appeared, followed by a waiter bearing refreshments. The opportunity was past.
On returning to the ship Katrine found several letters waiting, one of which bore Jim Blair’s well-known writing. She tore it open immediately on reaching her cabin, and was disappointed to find it unusually short. Excitement, restlessness, and an unusual press of business made it impossible, he explained, to write at length, the more so as he was pledged not to speak of the subject which lay nearest his heart. He hoped she had made some woman friend on board, who would look after her, as not even the best of men could do. Bedford would probably have to hurry off immediately on landing to bring up a company of men, but as Dorothea would explain, the agent in Bombay had been instructed to look after tickets, baggage, etc., and make every arrangement for the four days’ journey. Could she not find some woman who would share the carriage for even part of the way? Her second letter, following hard on the heels of that memorable acceptance, had been perhaps a necessary corrective, but she could hardly expect it to be welcome! So far the letter was grave, commonplace, almost business-like, but at the end an effort had evidently been made to adopt a lighter tone. He referred to her examination paper, declared that a careful examination of ears having been made, by means of tape measure and mirror, he might be considered to have passed with honours. As to the wife’s little ways, his mode of procedure would in each case be the same,—“Kiss the wife!”
That evoked a smile, but despite the effort at brightness Katrine was conscious of the underlying depression, which the last sentence put into words. “Now that our meeting is so near, I am consumed with doubts. Not of my own feelings—never think that, but of yours! Why should you care for me, Katrine? What is there about me to attract a girl like you? I kick myself for my boldness and self-confidence; but at least, dear, you shall not be worried. Be sure of that! No thought of me must interfere with what seems best for you, and your happiness. Keep that thought before you, dear, through all the hours which carry you across the sea, and find courage in it. No happiness can come to me, which leaves you empty or dissatisfied!”
Katrine folded the letter, replaced it in its envelope, and sat on the side of her bunk staring vacantly into space. For the first time the reading of a letter from Jim had left behind a feeling of disappointment and jar. He had struck a wrong note, and one which awoke in her a feeling of resentment. Surely now, when she was actually on her way, he should have hidden his doubts and affected an even stronger confidence and determination. She had looked forward to the receipt of this letter, expecting to be cheered, assured; now she could have found it in her heart to wish that it had not arrived! Jim Blair, depressed and doubtful, was an unfamiliar figure, with which she had no association. From the beginning of their correspondence it had been his assurance, this breezy self-confidence, amounting almost to audacity, which had captured her imagination; now when she needed it most that assurance had failed!
Katrine laid herself down and made a pretence of sleep, which fatigue presently turned into reality. She was awakened by the ringing of the first dinner bell, and lengthened out the process of dressing by a bath, and an elaborate re-arrangement of hair. She also displayed an unusual self-abnegation in the matter of the mirror, so that when the last gong rang, her toilette was still incomplete, and Mrs Mannering sailed off alone, clasping jet bracelets round bony wrists.
Even when she had the cabin to herself Katrine showed no anxiety to hurry. The plain truth was that she dreaded entering the saloon, and facing the meeting which lay ahead. Until that afternoon she had looked forward with eagerness to the arrival of Captain Bedford, whose society would disperse the feeling of loneliness which is never more acute than in the midst of a crowd. He was the Middletons’ friend, Jim’s friend; reported to be good, staid, steady-going; not too young, straight as a die, and a splendid soldier,—in short an elder-brother-sort-of-man, agreeably free from romance. They would meet, not as strangers, but with such a bond of common interests,
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