John Caldigate Part 4

For some days after that Caldigate kept himself aloof from Mrs. Smith, not at all because he had ceased to notice her or to think about her, but from a feeling of dislike to exhibit rivalry with his friend. Shand was making himself very particular, and he thought that Shand was a fool for his pains. He was becoming angry with Shand, and had serious thoughts of speaking to him with solemn severity. What could such a woman be to him? But at the bottom of all this there was something akin to jealousy. The woman was good-looking, and certainly clever, and was very interesting. Shand, for two or three evenings running, related his success; how Mrs. Smith had communicated to him the fact that she utterly despised those Cromptons, who were distant cousins of her late husband's, and with whom she had come on board; how she preferred to be alone to having aught to do with them; how she had one or two books with her, and pa.s.sed some hours in reading; and how she was poor, very poor, but still had something on which to live for a few weeks after landing.

But Caldigate fancied that there must be a betrayal of trust in these revelations, and though he was in truth interested about the woman, did not give much encouragement to his friend.

'Upon my word,' he said, 'I don't seem to care so very much about Mrs.

Smith's affairs.'

'I do,' said Shand, who was thick-skinned and irrepressible. 'I declared my intention of unravelling the mystery, and I mean to do it.'

'I hope you are not too inquisitive?'

'Of course she likes to have some one to whom she can talk. And what can people talk about on board s.h.i.+p except themselves? A woman who has a mystery always likes to have it unravelled. What else is the good of a mystery?'

He was thick-skinned and irrepressible, but Caldigate endeavoured to show his displeasure. He felt that the poor woman was in coa.r.s.e hands; and he thought that, had matters gone otherwise, he might have accepted, in a more delicate manner, so much confidence as she chose to vouchsafe.

So it was when they had been a fortnight at sea. They had left home in mid-winter; but now they were in the tropics, near the line, and everything was sultry, sleepy, and warm. Flying-fishes were jumping from the waves on to the deck, and when the dusk of night was come, the pa.s.sengers would stand by the hour together watching the phosphorus on the water. The Southern Cross had shown itself plainly, and possessed the heavens in conjunction with the Bear. The thick woollen drawers which had been so carefully prepared, were no longer in use, and men were going about in light pantaloons and linen jackets,--those on the quarter-deck at first beautifully clean and white, while our friends of the second cabin were less careful. The women, too, had got quit of their wraps, and lounged about the deck in light attire. During the bright hours of the day the aristocrats, in the stern, were shrouded from the sun by a delightful awning; but, forward, the pa.s.sengers sought the shade of the loose idle sails, or screened themselves from the fierce rays as best they might among the hatchways and woodwork But it was when the burning sun had hidden himself, when the short twilight had disappeared, and the heavens were alive and alight with stars, that all the world of the s.h.i.+p would be crowded on the upper deck. There they would remain, long after the lamps below had been extinguished, some of them sleeping through the whole night in the comparative coolness of the air. But it was from eight, when tea would be over, till midnight, that the hum of voices would be thickest, and the tread of those who walked for their exercise the most frequent.

At such times Caldigate would be often alone; for though he had made acquaintances, and had become indeed intimate with some of those around him, he had never thrust himself into the life of the s.h.i.+p as Shand had done. Charades were acted in the second cabin, in which Shand always took part,--and there were penny readings, at which Shand was often the reader. And he smoked much and drank somewhat with those who smoked and drank. The awe at first inspired by his university superiority and supposed rank in the world had faded almost into nothing, but by Caldigate, unconsciously, much of this had been preserved. I am not sure that he did not envy his friend, but at any rate he stood aloof. And, in regard to Mrs. Smith, when he saw her walking one evening with Shand in the sweetly dim light of the evening, with her hand upon Shand's arm, he made up his mind that he would think no more about her.

They had been at sea just a fortnight when this happened. And in about a quarter of an hour after this resolve had been formed Mrs. Smith was standing by him and talking to him. A ball was being held on the quarter-deck, or rather, as there was in truth no quarter-deck to the Goldfinder, on that clean, large, luxurious expanse devoted to the aristocracy in the after-part of the vessel. From among the second-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, two fiddlers and a flute player had been procured, who formed the band. At sea you have always to look for your musicians among the second-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers. And now under the awning young and old were standing up, and making themselves happy beneath the starlight and the glimmer of the dozen s.h.i.+p-lamps which had been hung around. On board s.h.i.+p there are many sources of joy of which the land knows nothing. You may flirt and dance at sixty; and if you are awkward in the turn of a valse, you may put it down to the motion of the s.h.i.+p. You need wear no gloves, and may drink your soda-and-brandy without being ashamed of it.

It was not for John Caldigate to join the mazes of that dance, though he would have liked it well, and was well fitted by skill and taste for such exercise. But the ground was hallowed on which they trod, and forbidden to him; and though there was probably not a girl or a dancing married woman there who would not have been proud to stand up with Mr.

Caldigate of Folking, there was not one who would have dared to take the hand of a second-cla.s.s pa.s.senger. So he stood, just within his own boundary, and looked and longed. Then there was a voice in his ear. 'Do you dance, Mr. Caldigate?'

It was a very pleasant voice, low, but distinct and silvery, infinitely better again than the gown; a voice so distinct and well-managed that it would have been noticed for its peculiar sweetness if coming from any high-bred lady. He turned round and found her face close to his. Why had she come to speak to him when she must have perceived that he had intentionally avoided her.

'I used to be very fond of dancing,' he said, 'but it is one of the things that have gone away.'

'I, too, was fond of dancing; but, as you say, it has gone away. It will come back to you, in half-a-dozen years, perhaps. It can never come back to me. Things do come back to men.'

'Why more than to women?'

'You have a resurrection;--I mean here upon earth. We never have. Though we live as long as you, the pleasure-seeking years of our lives are much shorter. We burst out into full flowering early in our spring, but long before the summer is over, we are no more than huddled leaves and thick stalks.'

'Are you a thick stalk, Mrs. Smith?'

'Unfortunately, not. My flowers are gone while my stalk is still thin and sensitive. And then women can't recuperate.'

'I don't quite know what that means.'

'Yes, you do. It is good English enough even for Cambridge by this time.

If you had made a false step, got into debt and ran away, or mistaken another man's wife for your own, or disappeared altogether under a cloud for a while, you could retrieve your honour, and, sinking at twenty-five or thirty, could come up from out of the waters at thirty-five as capable of enjoyment and almost as fresh as ever. But a woman does not bear submersion. She is draggled ever afterwards. She must hide everything by a life of lies, or she will get no admittance anywhere.

The man is rather the better liked because he has sown his wild oats broadly. Of all these ladies dancing there, which dances the best? There is not one who really knows how to dance.'

Chapter VI

Mrs. Smith

She had changed the conversation so suddenly, rus.h.i.+ng off from that great question as to the condition of women generally to the very unimportant matter of the dancing powers of the ladies who were manoeuvring before them, that Caldigate hardly knew how to travel with her so quickly. 'They all dance well enough for s.h.i.+p dancing,' he replied; 'but as to what you were saying about women----'

'No, Mr. Caldigate; they don't dance well enough for s.h.i.+p dancing.

Dancing, wherever it be done, should be graceful. A woman may at any rate move her feet in accordance with time, and she need not skip, nor prance, nor jump, even on board s.h.i.+p. Look at that stout lady.'

'Mrs. Callander?'

Everybody by this time knew everybody's name.

'If she is Mrs. Callander?'

Mrs. Smith, no doubt, knew very well that it was Mrs. Callander.

'Does not your ear catch separately the thud of her footfall every time she comes to the ground?'

'She is fat, fair, and forty.'

'Fat enough;--and what she lacks in fairness may be added on to the forty; but if she were less ambitious and had a glimmer of taste, she might do better than that. You see that girl with the green scarf round her? She is young and good-looking. Why should she spring about like a bear on a hot iron?'

'You should go and teach them.'

'It is just what I should like; only they would not be taught; and I should be stern, and tell them the truth.'

'Why don't you go and dance with them yourself?'

'I!'

'Why not? There is one second-cla.s.s lady there?' This was true. For though none of the men would have been admitted from the inferior rank to join the superior, the rule of demarcation had so far been broken that a pretty girl who was known to some of the first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers had been invited to come over the line and join the amus.e.m.e.nts of the evening. 'She dances about as well as any of them.'

'If you were among them would you dare to come out and ask me to join them? That is a question which you won't even dare to answer.'

'It is a little personal.'

'"No," you ought to say. "I could not do that because your clothes are so poor, and because of your ragged old hat, and I am not quite sure that your shoes are fit to be seen." Is not that what you would say, if you said what you thought?'

'Perhaps it is.'

'And if you said all that you thought, perhaps you would remind me that a woman of whom n.o.body knows anything is always held to be disreputable.

That girl, no doubt, has her decent belongings. I have n.o.body.'

'You have your friends on board.'

'No, I have not. I have not a single friend on board. Those Cromptons were very unwillingly persuaded to take a sort of interest in me, though they really know nothing about me. And I have already lost any good which might come from their protection. She told me yesterday, that I ought not to walk about with Mr. Shand.'

'And what did you say?'

'Of course I told her to mind her own business. I had no alternative. A woman has to show a little spirit or she will be trodden absolutely into the dirt. It was something to have a woman to speak to, even though I had not a thought in common with her;--though she was to my feeling as inferior to myself as I no doubt am thought to be by that fat prancing woman to herself. Even Mrs. Crompton's countenance was of value. But if I had yielded she would have taken it out in tyranny. So now we don't speak.'