CHAPTER VIII

The moon was over sea. Coasting vessels that had run into the bay for

shelter from the North wind lay with their shadows thrown shoreward on

the cold smooth water, almost to the verge of the beach, where there was

neither breath nor sound of wind, only the lisp at the pebbles.

Mrs. Crickledon’s dinner and the state of his heart made young

Fellingham indifferent to a wintry atmosphere. It sufficed him that the

night was fair. He stretched himself on the shingle, thinking of the

Manzanilla, and Annette, and the fine flavour given to tobacco by a dry

still air in moonlight--thinking of his work, too, in the background, as

far as mental lassitude would allow of it. The idea of taking Annette to

see his first play at the theatre when it should be performed--was

very soothing. The beach rather looked like a stage, and the sea like

a ghostly audience, with, if you will, the broadside bulks of black

sailing craft at anchor for representatives of the newspaper piers.

Annette was a nice girl; if a little commonplace and low-born, yet

sweet. What a subject he could make of her father! “The Deserter”

offered a new complication. Fellingham rapidly sketched it in fancy--Van

Diemen, as a Member of the Parliament of Great Britain, led away from

the House of Commons to be branded on the bank! What a magnificent fall!

We have so few intensely dramatic positions in English real life that

the meditative author grew enamoured of this one, and laughed out a

royal “Ha!” like a monarch reviewing his well-appointed soldiery.

“There you are,” said Van Diemen’s voice; “I smelt your pipe. You’re a

rum fellow, to belying out on the beach on a cold night. Lord! I don’t

like you the worse for it. Twas for the romance of the moon in my young

days.”

“Where is Annette?” said Fellingham, jumping to his feet.

“My daughter? She ‘s taking leave of her intended.”

“What’s that?” Fellingham gasped. “Good heavens, Mr. Smith, what do you

mean?”

“Pick up your pipe, my lad. Girls choose as they please, I suppose”

“Her intended, did you say, sir? What can that mean?”

“My dear good young fellow, don’t make a fuss. We’re all going to

stay here, and very glad to see you from time to time. The fact is,

I oughtn’t to have quarrelled with Mart Tinman as I’ve done; I’m too

peppery by nature. The fact is, I struck him, and he forgave it. I

could n’t have done that myself. And I believe I’m in for a headache

to-morrow; upon my soul, I do. Mart Tinman would champagne us; but, poor

old boy, I struck him, and I couldn’t make amends--didn’t see my way;

and we joined hands over the glass--to the deuce with the glass!--and

the end of it is, Netty--she did n’t propose it, but as I’m in his--I

say, as I had struck him, she--it was rather solemn, if you had seen

us--she burst into tears, and there was Mrs. Cavely, and old Mart, and

me as big a fool--if I’m not a villain!”

Fellingham perceived a more than common effect of Tin man’s wine. He

touched Van Diemen on the shoulder. “May I beg to hear exactly what has

happened?”

“Upon my soul, we’re all going to live comfortably in Old England, and

no more quarreling and decamping,” was the stupid rejoinder. “Except

that I did n’t exactly--I think you said I exactly’?--I did n’t bargain

for old Mart as my--but he’s a sound man; Mart’s my junior; he’s rich.

He’s eco ... he’s eco... you know--my Lord! where’s my brains?--but he’s

upright--‘nomical!”

“An economical man,” said Fellingham, with sedate impatience.

“My dear sir, I’m heartily obliged to you for your assistance,” returned

Van Diemen. “Here she is.”

Annette had come out of the gate in the flint wall. She started slightly

on seeing Herbert, whom she had taken for a coastguard, she said. He

bowed. He kept his head bent, peering at her intrusively.

“It’s the air on champagne,” Van Diemen said, calling on his lungs to

clear themselves and right him. “I was n’t a bit queer in the house.”

“The air on Tinman’s champagne!” said Fellingham.

“It must be like the contact of two hostile chemical elements.”

Annette walked faster.

They descended from the shingle to the scant-bladed grass-sweep running

round the salted town-refuse on toward Elba. Van Diemen sniffed,

ejaculating, “I’ll be best man with Mart Tinman about this business!

You’ll stop with us, Mr.----what’s your Christian name? Stop with us as

long as you like. Old friends for me! The joke of it is that Nelson

was my man, and yet I went and enlisted in the cavalry. If you talk of

chemical substances, old Mart Tinman was a sneak who never cared a dump

for his country; and I’m not to speak a single sybbarel about that.....

over there... Australia... Gippsland! So down he went, clean over. Very

sorry for what we have done. Contrite. Penitent.”

“Now we feel the wind a little,” said Annette.

Fellingham murmured, “Allow me; your shawl is flying loose.”

He laid his hands on her arms, and, pressing her in a tremble, said,

“One sign! It’s not true? A word! Do you hate me?”

“Thank you very much, but I am not cold,” she replied and linked herself

to her father.

Van Diemen immediately shouted, “For we are jolly boys! for we are jolly

boys! It’s the air on the champagne. And hang me,” said he, as they

entered the grounds of Elba, “if I don’t walk over my property.”

Annette interposed; she stood like a reed in his way.

“No! my Lord! I’ll see what I sold you for!” he cried. “I’m an owner of

the soil of Old England, and care no more for the title of squire than

Napoleon Bonaparty. But I’ll tell you what, Mr. Hubbard: your mother

was never so astonished at her dog as old Van Diemen would be to hear

himself called squire in Old England. And a convict he was, for he

did wrong once, but he worked his redemption. And the smell of my

own property makes me feel my legs again. And I’ll tell you what, Mr.

Hubbard, as Netty calls you when she speaks of you in private: Mart

Tinman’s ideas of wine are pretty much like his ideas of healthy smells,

and when I’m bailiff of Crikswich, mind, he’ll find two to one against

him in our town council. I love my country, but hang me if I don’t

purify it--”

Saying this, with the excitement of a high resolve a upon him, Van

Diemen bored through a shrubbery-brake, and Fellingham said to Annette:

“Have I lost you?”

“I belong to my father,” said she, contracting and disengaging her

feminine garments to step after him in the cold silver-spotted dusk of

the winter woods.

Van Diemen came out on a fish-pond.

“Here you are, young ones!” he said to the pair. “This way, Fellowman.

I’m clearer now, and it’s my belief I’ve been talking nonsense.

I’m puffed up with money, and have n’t the heart I once had. I say,

Fellowman, Fellowbird, Hubbard--what’s your right name?--fancy an old

carp fished out of that pond and flung into the sea. That’s exile! And

if the girl don’t mind, what does it matter?”

“Mr. Herbert Fellingham, I think, would like to go to bed, papa,” said

Annette.

“Miss Smith must be getting cold,” Fellingham hinted.

“Bounce away indoors,” replied Van Diemen, and he led them like a bull.

Annette was disinclined to leave them together in the smoking-room, and

under the pretext of wishing to see her father to bed she remained with

them, though there was a novel directness and heat of tone in Herbert

that alarmed her, and with reason. He divined in hideous outlines what

had happened. He was no longer figuring on easy ice, but desperate at

the prospect of a loss to himself, and a fate for Annette, that tossed

him from repulsion to incredulity, and so back.

Van Diemen begged him to light his pipe.

“I’m off to London to-morrow,” said Fellingham. “I don’t want to go,

for very particular reasons; I may be of more use there. I have a cousin

who’s a General officer in the army, and if I have your permission--you

see, anything’s better, as it seems to me, than that you should depend

for peace and comfort on one man’s tongue not wagging, especially

when he is not the best of tempers if I have your permission--without

mentioning names, of course--I’ll consult him.”

There was a dead silence.

“You know you may trust me, sir. I love your daughter with all my heart.

Your honour and your interests are mine.”

Van Diemen struggled for composure.

“Netty, what have you been at?” he said.

“It is untrue, papa!” she answered the unworded accusation.

“Annette has told me nothing, sir. I have heard it. You must brace your

mind to the fact that it is known. What is known to Mr. Tinman is pretty

sure to be known generally at the next disagreement.”

“That scoundrel Mart!” Van Diemen muttered.

“I am positive Mr. Tinman did not speak of you, papa,” said Annette, and

turned her eyes from the half-paralyzed figure of her father on Herbert

to put him to proof.

“No, but he made himself heard when it was being discussed. At any rate,

it’s known; and the thing to do is to meet it.”

“I’m off. I’ll not stop a day. I’d rather live on the Continent,”

said Van Diemen, shaking himself, as to prepare for the step into that

desert.

“Mr. Tinman has been most generous!” Annette protested tearfully.

“I won’t say no: I think you are deceived and lend him your own

generosity,” said Herbert. “Can you suppose it generous, that even in

the extremest case, he should speak of the matter to your father, and

talk of denouncing him? He did it.”

“He was provoked.”

“A gentleman is distinguished by his not allowing himself to be

provoked.”

“I am engaged to him, and I cannot hear it said that he is not a

gentleman.”

The first part of her sentence Annette uttered bravely; at the

conclusion she broke down. She wished Herbert to be aware of the truth,

that he might stay his attacks on Mr. Tinman; and she believed he had

only been guessing the circumstances in which her father was placed; but

the comparison between her two suitors forced itself on her now, when

the younger one spoke in a manner so self-contained, brief, and full of

feeling.

She had to leave the room weeping.

“Has your daughter engaged herself, sir?” said Herbert.

“Talk to me to-morrow; don’t give us up if she has we were trapped, it’s

my opinion,” said Van Diemen. “There’s the devil in that wine of--Mart

Tinman’s. I feel it still, and in the morning it’ll be worse. What can

she see in him? I must quit the country; carry her off. How he did it,

I don’t know. It was that woman, the widow, the fellow’s sister. She

talked till she piped her eye--talked about our lasting union. On my

soul, I believe I egged Netty on! I was in a mollified way with that

wine; all of a sudden the woman joins their hands! And I--a man of

spirit will despise me!--what I thought of was, ‘now my secret’s safe!’

You’ve sobered me, young sir. I see myself, if that’s being sober. I

don’t ask your opinion of me; I am a deserter, false to my colours,

a breaker of his oath. Only mark this: I was married, and a common

trooper, married to a handsome young woman, true as steel; but she was

handsome, and we were starvation poor, and she had to endure persecution

from an officer day by day. Bear that situation in your mind....

Providence dropped me a hundred pounds out of the sky. Properly

speaking, it popped up out of the earth, for I reaped it, you may say,

from a relative’s grave. Rich and poor ‘s all right, if I’m rich and

you’re poor; and you may be happy though you’re poor; but where there

are many poor young women, lots of rich men are a terrible temptation to

them. That’s my dear good wife speaking, and had she been spared to me

I never should have come back to Old England, and heart’s delight and

heartache I should not have known. She was my backbone, she was my

breast-comforter too. Why did she stick to me? Because I had faith

in her when appearances were against her. But she never forgave this

country the hurt to her woman’s pride. You’ll have noticed a squarish

jaw in Netty. That’s her mother. And I shall have to encounter it,

supposing I find Mart Tinman has been playing me false. I’m blown on

somehow. I’ll think of what course I’ll take ‘twixt now and morning.

Good night, young gentleman.”

“Good night; sir,” said Herbert, adding, “I will get information from

the Horse Guards; as for the people knowing it about here, you’re not

living much in society--”

“It’s not other people’s feelings, it’s my own,” Van Diemen silenced

him. “I feel it, if it’s in the wind; ever since Mart Tinman spoke the

thing out, I’ve felt on my skin cold and hot.”

He flourished his lighted candle and went to bed, manifestly solaced by

the idea that he was the victim of his own feelings.

Herbert could not sleep. Annette’s monstrous choice of Tinman in

preference to himself constantly assailed and shook his understanding.

There was the “squarish jaw” mentioned by her father to think of. It

filled him with a vague apprehension, but he was unable to imagine that

a young girl, and an English girl, and an enthusiastic young English

girl, could be devoid of sentiment; and presuming her to have it, as one

must, there was no fear, that she would persist in her loathsome choice

when she knew her father was against it.