In the Tideway.
by Flora Annie Steel.
PROLOGUE
A Statue of charity with helpless childhood gathered to the ample bosom, and helpless age sheltered by the ample veil behind it, a crimson curtain concealing an angle in the stairway. In front a crowd streaming slackly, yet steadily, up the steps; a crowd which broke into little eddies of greeting, little backwaters of gossip, whilst the waves from the rear, taking advantage of the pause, rippled higher and higher. A crowd complaining indifferently of the crush, the heat, the impossibility of being in two places at once--not with reference to the hay-sweet meadows and copses where the nightingales were singing to the moon that summer"s night, but in regard to some other hot staircase, where society was due some time ere the sun rose.
To the man who, in a comfortable niche behind the statue, sate removed from the pressure of the current, the scene was framed by Charity"s mantle. Perhaps it needed the setting; a crowd generally does whether it be in the old Kent Road or Grosvenor Square.
"The Big Bear! I beg your pardon, Mr. Lockhart. Why aren"t you in Rome, and is there room for me on that peaceful seat?"
"There is always room for Golden Locks beside the Big Bear--and now, Lady Maud, why should I be in Rome at this season of the year?"
"Because, being an artist, you should not mind malaria. Besides, what is malaria to this insufferable heat and crush? Doesn"t it strike you that our hostess thinks getting into society, and getting society into her rooms, are synonymous terms? Did you ever see such a--"
"Charity, Lady Maud, Charity!" interrupted her companion, pointing to the protecting arm stretched between them and the crowd. "Let it cover the mult.i.tude--"
"Of sins? Thank you. I suppose I am wicked. But you--why are you here in the swim? When you profess to despise us--to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil--"
"Because I came to see one who should have nothing to do with that Trinity of Evil either. I came to see you, Lady Maud. I couldn"t pa.s.s through Babylon without giving you my congratulations. So you are going to be married--"
He paused, looking her in the face curiously.
"Well! Why don"t you say "at last"? It is what every lady thinks, I"m sure. People have been coming perilously near calling me "poor Lady Maud" these last two seasons, and now--yes! I am to marry Mr.
Wilson--you know him, I think."
"Yes, I do know that fortunate man, and, pardon me, Lady Maud, but you and I have been confidential, haven"t we? ever since in a _tourbillon_ of white frills and blue sashes you chose to prefer my walnuts to other folks" sweeties at dessert. Now about Eustace. What is to become of him?"
The pretty face winced just a little.
"Haven"t you heard? Eustace is to be married also; indeed, we think of choosing the same day."
"Out of bravado?"
"Nothing of the kind. Eustace and I have put away--childish things. We have decided to be sensible, and he is marrying Louisa Capper, the American heiress. I like Louisa."
"I trust that feeling is shared by Eustace."
"How hopelessly old-fashioned you are, Big Bear! I don"t believe you will ever learn to shave yourself in tufts, and become a civilized poodle. Of course he likes her. She is really a very nice girl, and then she only has a father. Don"t you think the American "_par-par_"
is less objectionable as a rule than the "_mar-mar_"? To be serious,--which I should not trouble to be with ninety-nine people out of a hundred,--Eustace and I have seen the error of our ways, and we intend--in fact, I personally expect to be very happy. As I said, Louisa is very--"
"Where do you spend the honeymoon?" he interrupted, not being in the least interested in Louisa"s part in the business.
"Again hopelessly old-fashioned! There is but one place, nowadays, in which to spend a honeymoon,--Paris. It is so full of distractions.
Then Mr. Wilson has taken a grouse moor near the North Pole; Eustace is to come there in his new yacht, and we are to have a real good time; as Louisa--"
"Near the North Pole? Didn"t know grouse grew there."
"Well, it is not very far from it. I forget the name,--but see! there is Eustace behind old Lady Brecknock"s feathers. He will remember."
A very handsome dark man in the stream saw her signal and drifted sideways to shelter.
"Charity cometh," he began.
"Please not. Mr. Lockhart has patented it already; besides, I want you to tell me the name of that place in the Hebrides. Roederay! Yes, of course! I remember now that it put me in mind of dry champagne. By the way, you used to paint that coast once, Mr. Lockhart; do you by chance know Roederay?"
What is called a flicker of expression crossed her hearer"s face. It is a poor description for the absolute blank which a chance word brings to some imaginative people by summoning them from the present into the past.
"I know it well," he replied. "And if you will excuse me, Lady Maud, I don"t think it has much in common with dry champagne."
Her clear, rather scornful eyes were on him critically.
"a.s.sociation belongs to Hope as well as Memory, Mr. Lockhart. You may have had a _mauvais quart d"heure_ at Roederay. We intend to have a good time; don"t we, Eustace?"
"Rather!"
"I doubt it," retorted the elder man; "civilized people, like you, Eustace, for instance, shouldn"t go to those places. To begin with, there is always a difficulty about dinner."
Lady Maud laughed. "Not in these days of ice and telegraphs. Besides, some of us like high teas--don"t we, Eustace?"
His face did not change, though the appeal took him back many years in his turn; but then, the speaker was in that past as she was in the present. To say sooth, she occupied them both fully.
"Yes, we can endure them. Do you remember those holidays at Lynmouth, Maud, and the feeds we had on the cliffs? I wonder if any boy ate more strawberries and cream at a sitting than I could do in those days?"
"Have you changed much since then?" she asked, smiling up at him mischievously. "I don"t see it, do you, Mr. Lockhart?"
"Not a bit," replied the elder, laying his hand affectionately on the other"s shoulder. "Eustace is just what he was as a boy--not to be stinted in his enjoyment of good things. To return, however, to Roederay. You won"t like its simplicity, its habit of taking one right down to first principles."
"It couldn"t! we are too complex--aren"t we, Eustace?"
"And then it is grim. There is an island full of dead people, who appear--"
"Ah! I know all about the stone coffins and the bones; Professor Endorwick told me, and he is coming north on purpose to explore all the antiquities. There he is in the crush with Cynthia Strong. I wonder when that will come off? Call them here, Eustace, and wisdom shall confound this Evil Prophet. Why, the professor, Mr. Lockhart, thinks _Eilean-a-varai_ alone is sufficient inducement for a visit to Roederay."
"_Eilean-a-varai_--Isle of the Dead, you call it? We used to prefer another name: _Eilean-a-fa-ash_--Island of Rest. It lies right out in the sunset, like Avilion."
Lady Maud gave a little shiver.
"Oh no! that is ever so much more grim than the other. I hate things which--which appeal to the imagination."
"I am quite aware of it," he replied quietly; "hence my prophecy that Roederay will not suit you."
She sate playing with her fan idly. "Island of Rest indeed! There never was such a place--there never will be. Ah, professor, come like a good soul and do battle for civilization and culture. Are we not far better than the primitives of the North Pole? Are we not stronger, wiser, more original--"
The learned professor, being a little deaf, did not quite catch her words. He was, in addition, much given to the jocular style when addressing the weaker s.e.x, which he held to have been created for the sole purpose of exercising the social qualities of man. So, an appropriate remark having occurred to him, he came forward primed with it.
"Charity, Lady Maud, is, as a rule said to cover a mult.i.tude of sins; in this case it conceals the virtues."