Renshaw Fanning's Quest Part 33

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.

"EHEU!"

The homeward-bound mail steamer had hauled out from the Cape Town docks, and lay moored to the jetty. In less than an hour she would cast loose and start upon her voyage to Old England.

The funnel of the _Siberian_ shone like a newly blacked boot, as did her plated sides, glistening with a coating of fresh paint. Her scuttles flashed like eyes in the sun, and the gleam of her polished bra.s.swork was such as to cause semi-blindness for five minutes after you looked at it. The white pennon of the Union Steamship Company with its red Saint Andrew's cross fluttered at one tapering masthead; at the other the blue peter.

On board of her all was wild confusion. Her decks were crowded with pa.s.sengers and their friends seeing them off, the latter outnumbering the former six to one; with hawkers of curios and hawkers of books; with quay porters and stewards bringing on and receiving pa.s.sengers' luggage; with innumerable hat-boxes, and wraps, and hold-alls, and other loose gear; with squalling and rampageous children; with flurried and excited females rushing hither and thither, and getting into everybody's way while besieging every soul--from the chief officer to the cook's boy-- with frantic inquiries. The Babel of tongues was deafening, and over and above all the hara.s.sing rattle of the donkey engine lowering luggage into the hold. And to swell the clamouring crowd, an endless procession of cabs, driven by broad-hatted Malays, came dashing up to the jetty-- laden with pa.s.sengers and band-boxes and bananas and other truck of nondescript character.

Moving among the throng upon the ship's decks vere two ladies--one elderly, plethoric, matronly; the other young, vivacious, tastefully attired, and in short a very beautiful girl. Many a male glance was cast at her, accompanied by an aspiration--spoken or unspoken--that she was going to sail, and was not one of the "seeing-off" contingent.

"Don't you think, Violet," said the elder lady, "we'd better go down to your cabin now? They'll have taken your luggage there by this time."

"Not yet, Mrs Aldridge. I can still see my brown portmanteau among that heap for the hold. I want to see it go down myself, and be sure of it. Besides, there must be some more of my things under that pile of boxes."

"What a fine ship that New Zealand boat is!" said the old lady, looking at a large steamer anch.o.r.ed out in the bay and surrounded by a swarm of tiny craft, depleted or added to by a continuous string of boats between it and the sh.o.r.e. She, too, was flying the blue peter.

"Isn't she!" acquiesced Violet. "She's the _Rangatira_, and is nearly a thousand tons larger than the _Siberian_. I wonder if she'll be the first to start. Ah! there goes my portmanteau. Now I think we may go below."

The crowd in the saloon was not less dense than that on the decks, certainly not less noisy. Champagne corks were popping in all directions. Every table, every lounge was crowded. Stewards were skurrying hither and thither with their trays of bottles and gla.s.ses, steering their way with marvellous dexterity among the people, hara.s.sed by a chorus of orders, expostulations, objurgations from expectant or disappointed pa.s.sengers. Groups were making merry, and pledging each other in foaming b.u.mpers, the "seeing-off" contingent in particular making special play with the sparkling "gooseberry," all chattering, talking, laughing. The din was deafening, but the two ladies managed to thread their way through it at last.

"Well, it's quiet here, at any rate," said Violet, as they gained her cabin, of which by favour she was to enjoy the sole possession. "Quiet, but not cool--ugh!" for the scuttle being shut, that peculiar close odour which seems inseparable from all ship cabins, and is in its insufferable fugginess suggestive of seasickness, struck them in full blast.

"I'm glad I'm not going with you," said Mrs Aldridge. "I never could stand the sea. I declare I'm beginning to feel queer already."

"Oh no. All imagination," said Violet, gaily, flinging open the scuttle.

"And now, dear," went on the old lady, "I suppose we haven't many minutes more together. I needn't tell you how glad I have been to have had you with me, and Chris. Selwood will like to know that I saw you off, bright and cheerful."

Violet kissed her heartily. A strange compunction came over the girl.

The old lady had been very kind to her during her brief stay. Mrs Aldridge was a relation of Selwood's, and to her care Violet had been consigned for the few days during which the _Siberian_ should be lying in Cape Town docks. Upon which good ship Selwood had safely conveyed her, having, at considerable inconvenience to himself, escorted her to Port Elizabeth, and seen the last of her safe on board.

"Oh, where is my brown hold-all?" cried Violet, suddenly looking round.

"It contains all my wraps--sunshade--everything. Dear Mrs Aldridge, do wait here and mount guard over my things while I go up and find it. The stewards are so careless. Besides, they might put some one else in the cabin, and then it wouldn't be so easy to get them out."

As Violet gained the deck, the short sharp strokes of the ship's bell rang out its warning summons. The "seeing-off" contingent must prepare to go ash.o.r.e, unless it would risk an involuntary voyage. Mrs Aldridge, naturally p.r.o.ne to flurry, sitting there among Violet's boxes and bundles, started at the sound.

"Oh dear! I shall be carried to sea!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, piteously. "Why doesn't she come?"

Minutes slipped by, and still Violet did not appear. Again rang out the sharp imperative strokes of the bell.

"I must go and look for her," cried the old lady, starting up with that intent. Peering wildly around she reached the deck. Still no sign of Violet.

Two great red conveyances, each drawn by four horses, came clattering up the jetty. They were the mail carts. With lightning swiftness their contents were transferred to the deck and to the hold. The captain, resplendent in b.u.t.tons and gold lace, was on the bridge. The steam-pipe was roaring as though impatient of further restraint. Already the pa.s.sing to and fro between the steamer and the jetty had about ceased.

"Violet--Violet! Oh, where can she be?" cried the old lady, in a perfect agony of mind.

Ah, she might have gone back to the cabin. She would go and see.

Turning, she was hastening to carry out that idea when again the brazen clang of the bell, this time startling in its peremptory note, caused her to stop short.

"Now, marm--if you're not going with us it's time to leave," said a gruff voice at her side. "Quick, please, she's a-moving already," and half thrusting, half lifting the bewildered old lady, the burly quartermaster transferred her to the gangway plank, which no sooner had she crossed than it was withdrawn.

The great steamer slid gently from her moorings, a crowd following her to the end of the jetty, hooraying violently, waving handkerchiefs, bawling out parting fragments of chaff and s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs, and amid all this champagne-bred enthusiasm, its blaring clamour drowning the real grief of the sorrowing few, the propeller of the good ship _Siberian_ throbbed faster and faster, as she swung steadily into her course _en route_ for the Old Country.

Left there upon the jetty, hardly knowing whether she stood on her head or not, poor old Mrs Aldridge was quite overcome. What had become of Violet? Could any harm have happened to the girl? Could she have fallen overboard unseen? No, that could hardly be. They must have missed each other in the crowd and confusion. That was it. Still the thought that she had not taken a last and more affectionate farewell filled the good old lady with profound regret. Well, standing there would not mend matters. She must get home.

And as she turned to leave the jetty, the warning notes of the sh.o.r.e bell on board the New Zealand steamer came floating across the bay.

Through the creaming surges of Table Bay the _Rangatira_ is speeding on her southward course. The loom of the mountainous coast has faded into night, and now the dark velvety vault above is ablaze with mysterious stars, crowding the zenith, hanging literally in patches of sheeny gold rather than twinkling with the feeble and scattered glimmer of more chilly lat.i.tudes. There is a damp, sensuous richness in the atmosphere, just tempered by the keen whiff of the salt sea.

The prow of the mighty vessel cleaves up a rushing l.u.s.trous wave on either side, and streaming afar in her wake lies a broad band of milky phosph.o.r.escent whiteness, striving to rival the very heavens in the starry atoms gleaming in its depths. The tall, tapering masts reel wildly against the spangled sky, and the harsh clang of the labouring engines make weird harmony with the thunderous throb of the propeller as the great ship drives in her power before the chasing billows.

On the hurricane deck, under the lee of one of the boats swung inward and resting on chocks, leaning over the taffrail, stand two figures--one tall, powerful, masculine--wrapped in a long ulster, the other lithe, graceful, feminine--cloaked and hooded, for, if the atmosphere contains no chill, it holds a dampness which bids fair to do duty for the same.

Surely that oval face, those delicate, regular features can belong to no other than Violet Avory. No need to identify her companion.

"You did that well, Violet," Sellon was saying. "The idea of that old party sitting there mounting guard over your wraps on board the wrong ship is a reminiscence that'll set me up in laughter for the rest of my life."

"Poor old Mrs Aldridge," said Violet, with a touch of compunction.

"I'm afraid she won't get over it in a hurry--and she's a good old thing. But it's all Hilda Selwood's fault. She shouldn't have set her relations on to 'police' me." And the speaker's tone became hard and defiant.

"Ha, ha! It wasn't in them to upset our little programme, though. When old Selwood put you on board the _Siberian_ at Fort Elizabeth, he reckoned it was all safe then. So it was, as far as he was concerned.

He's a good chap, though, is Selwood, and I wouldn't willingly plant such a sell upon him if I could help it, but I couldn't. It's ever a case of two 'sells' as between him and me, to distort his old joke. It was nearly a third one, though, Violet, for I was beginning to make up my mind you were never coming. In another minute I should have gone ash.o.r.e again when I saw your cab tearing along like mad. As it was, we only fetched the _Rangatira_ by the skin of our teeth, and a royal honorarium to the boatmen."

"Ah, Maurice, I have got you now--and you are mine. Are you not, darling?"

"It looks uncommonly like it."

"For life?"

"For that identical period. So now, cheer up, my Violet. The world is a mere football at the feet of those who have the means to exploit it, and we have. That wretched little foggy England isn't the whole world."

The great steamship went shearing on through the midnight sea, heaving to the Atlantic surge, as she stood upon her course. But the other vessel swiftly speeding northward--soon would she arrive with a forestalment in a measure--in the unaccountable non-appearance of one of her pa.s.sengers--of the terrible news which must eventually be broken to Violet's mother.

But whereas Violet's own will was the sole principle which had been allowed to govern her life from the day of her birth, it must be admitted, sorrowfully, that her mother was now only reaping what she had sown.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE.

CONCLUSION.

Three years have gone by.

Now three years cover a pretty fair section of time. A good deal can be got into that s.p.a.ce. But the hand of Time, with its changes and chances, has pa.s.sed but lightly over peaceful, prosperous Sunningdale.

It has, perchance, added a touch of h.o.a.r-frost to Christopher Selwood's brown beard, but only through the harmless agency of wear and tear, as that jolly individual puts it. For the seasons have been good, the stock healthy, and crops abundant--and on the strength of such highly favourable conditions we may be sure that genial Christopher's characteristic light-heartedness and general contentment has undergone no rebate. This can hardly be said to apply to the brace of diminutive heroes whose thirst for battle was so inconsiderately nipped in the bud on the memorable night of the attack upon the house. For now they must find outlet for their martial ardour in fistic combat with their school-fellows--or in the more risky line of trying how far they can trench upon the patience of a cane-wielding master. In a word, they are both at school; a state of life which, in common with youth in general and Colonial youth in particular, they emphatically do not prefer. The same lot has befallen Effie, and she, too, is being put through the scholastic mill, though, thanks to the greater adaptability of her s.e.x, the process is far less distasteful to her than to those two young scapegraces, Fred and Basil. So that, save in holiday time, Sunningdale is quieter than when we saw it last? Is it? There is plenty of small fry left to create its share of clatter in the place of those absent under pedagogic discipline.

One change, however, has Time in his course brought round. Marian Fanning is a bride of two months.