Anything anywhere was a mine of interest to Elfride, and so was this.
“It is well enough now,” said Mrs. Swancourt, after they had passed the Nore, “but I can’t say I have cared for my voyage hitherto.” For being now in the open sea a slight breeze had sprung up, which cheered her as well as her two younger companions. But unfortunately it had a reverse effect upon the vicar, who, after turning a sort of apricot jam colour, interspersed with dashes of raspberry, pleaded indisposition, and vanished from their sight.
The afternoon wore on. Mrs. Swancourt kindly sat apart by herself reading, and the betrothed pair were left to themselves. Elfride clung trustingly to Knight’s arm, and proud was she to walk with him up and down the deck, or to go forward, and leaning with him against the forecastle rails, watch the setting sun gradually withdrawing itself over their stern into a huge bank of livid cloud with golden edges that rose to meet it.
She was childishly full of life and spirits, though in walking up and down with him before the other passengers, and getting noticed by them, she was at starting rather confused, it being the first time she had shown herself so openly under that kind of protection. “I expect they are envious and saying things about us, don’t you?” she would whisper to Knight with a stealthy smile.
“Oh no,” he would answer unconcernedly. “Why should they envy us, and what can they say?”
“Not any harm, of course,” Elfride replied, “except such as this: ‘How happy those two are! she is proud enough now.’ What makes it worse,” she continued in the extremity of confidence, “I heard those two cricketing men say just now, ‘She’s the nobbiest girl on the boat.’ But I don’t mind it, you know, Harry.”
“I should hardly have supposed you did, even if you had not told me,” said Knight with great blandness.
She was never tired of asking her lover questions and admiring his answers, good, bad, or indifferent as they might be. The evening grew dark and night came on, and lights shone upon them from the horizon and from the sky.
“Now look there ahead of us, at that halo in the air, of silvery brightness. Watch it, and you will see what it comes to.”
She watched for a few minutes, when two white lights emerged from the side of a hill, and showed themselves to be the origin of the halo.
“What a dazzling brilliance! What do they mark?”
“The South Foreland: they were previously covered by the cliff.”
“What is that level line of little sparkles—a town, I suppose?”
“That’s Dover.”
All this time, and later, soft sheet lightning expanded from a cloud in their path, enkindling their faces as they paced up and down, shining over the water, and, for a moment, showing the horizon as a keen line.
Elfride slept soundly that night. Her first thought the next morning was the thrilling one that Knight was as close at hand as when they were at home at Endelstow, and her first sight, on looking out of the cabin window, was the perpendicular face of Beachy Head, gleaming white in a brilliant six-o’clock-in-the-morning sun. This fair daybreak, however, soon changed its aspect. A cold wind and a pale mist descended upon the sea, and seemed to threaten a dreary day.
When they were nearing Southampton, Mrs. Swancourt came to say that her husband was so ill that he wished to be put on shore here, and left to do the remainder of the journey by land. “He will be perfectly well directly he treads firm ground again. Which shall we do—go with him, or finish our voyage as we intended?”
Elfride was comfortably housed under an umbrella which Knight was holding over her to keep off the wind. “Oh, don’t let us go on shore!” she said with dismay. “It would be such a pity!”
“That’s very fine,” said Mrs. Swancourt archly, as to a child. “See, the wind has increased her colour, the sea her appetite and spirits, and somebody her happiness. Yes, it would be a pity, certainly.”
“ ’Tis my misfortune to be always spoken to from a pedestal,” sighed Elfride.
“Well, we will do as you like, Mrs. Swancourt,” said Knight, “but—”
“I myself would rather remain on board,” interrupted the elder lady. “And Mr. Swancourt particularly wishes to go by himself. So that shall settle the matter.”
The vicar, now a drab colour, was put ashore, and became as well as ever forthwith.
Elfride, sitting alone in a retired part of the vessel, saw a veiled woman walk aboard among the very latest arrivals at this port. She was clothed in black silk, and carried a dark shawl upon her arm. The woman, without looking around her, turned to the quarter allotted to the second-cabin passengers. All the carnation Mrs. Swancourt had complimented her stepdaughter upon possessing left Elfride’s cheeks, and she trembled visibly.
She ran to the other side of the boat, where Mrs. Swancourt was standing.
“Let us go home by railway with papa, after all,” she pleaded earnestly. “I would rather go with him—shall we?”
Mrs. Swancourt looked around for a moment, as if unable to decide. “Ah,” she exclaimed, “it is too late now. Why did not you say so before, when we had plenty of time?”
The Juliet had at that minute let go, the engines had started, and they were gliding slowly away from the quay. There was no help for it but to remain, unless the Juliet could be made to put back, and that would create a great disturbance. Elfride gave up the idea and submitted quietly. Her happiness was sadly mutilated now.
The woman whose presence had so disturbed her was exactly like Mrs. Jethway. She seemed to haunt Elfride like a shadow. After several minutes’ vain endeavour to account for any design Mrs. Jethway could have in watching her, Elfride decided to think that, if
