One foot on shore : a novel

Front matter

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Book II. The Time Of Trial

“THE MORTAL COLDNESS OF THE SOUL, LIKE DEATH ITSELF, COMES DOWN” . ‘$y DAUR NA THINK ON JAMIE, FOR THAT WAD BE A SIN”. 4 : é “WHY WILT THOU EVER THUS BEFORE ME STAND, THOU GHOSTLY PAST?” . 3 “HER HEART IT IS ANOTHER’S; SHE NEVER CAN BE MINE” . 4 : A -

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1V CONTENTS.

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CHAPTER PAGE v. “IN THE HOUR OF MY DISTRESS” . . 229 vI. “A WILFU’ GIRL MAUN HAE HER WAY” 255 Vil. “LOVE WAS GIVEN THAT SELF MIGHT BE ANNULLED” . 5 : Z 4 . 284 vil. “I WILL LOVE HIM MORE, MORE THAN ERE

WIFE LOVED BEFORE’. : R - 805

ONE FOOT ON SHORE.

BOOK L

FIRST LOVE

“ Our days are broken into parts, And every fragment has a tale Of the abandonment of hearts, May make our freshest hopes turn pale ; Even in the plighting of our troth, Even in the passion of our oath, A cold hard voice may seem to mutter, ‘We know not what it is we utter.’” Monckton MILNzs.

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Chapter I. “and Twas There That Annie Laurie Gave Me Her Promise True.”

“ AND so you must leave the navy! Iam very sorry.”

“Oh, I don’t care about that. It is but a beggarly profession after all, doing housemaid’s work at housemaid’s wages. I am only sorry to have wasted some of the best years of my life in it.”

“But you were getting on so well-—you told me you were getting on so well at the College. You were certain to pass high, and—and then you would have been a distinguished man some day. Oh! I know

1—2 you would, and we should all have been so proud of you.”

“ And now I am going away to make my fortune, and then after that I shall come back, and you will be just as proud of me, as if I were a distinguished man, won’t you, _Florence? Oh, it is only the gomg away from you that I care about!” the young man went on, as he met Florence’s tearful eyes raised towards him for a moment with that look of love, beautiful when seen anywhere, but specially beautiful on a fair young face, such as that upon which Percy Gordon was now gazing. “ And you know I might have been ordered off to the other end of the world any day, even if I had been stopping on in the navy—at least as soon as my examination was over,” he added with a sigh. “It is a disappointment to me not to pass that, I own.”

“Oh, yes! You have worked so hard for it too.”

““Well—well,” said Percy with rather an evasive manner ; “it is not my doing, and I don’t see why you should blame me.”

“T did not mean to, indeed I did not mean to,” and Florence’s head drooped still lower. She had not meant to blame him in words ; all her life long she never meant to blame him in words, but his story had startled her somewhat, she had not been prepared for it, and gladly though she would have done so, she could not think it praiseworthy, nor even look upon him as injured, at least not as yet. With two hundred a year, and his pay, and no earthly prospects besides, he had contrived to run himself so hopelessly and inextricably into debt, that his uncle and former guardian, Lord Bulmer, had now advised his leaving the Navy at once, and sailmg by the very next opportunity for Australia, where he might join some cousins, who, having gone out a few years before under the most favourable auspices, were already more or less comfortably established there, and would be able to hold out a helping hand to Percy Gordon, who was to start almost destitute of capital, and with a pretty considerable load of debts still hanging about him, Lord Bulmer only undertaking to pay off a few of the most pressing for him.

This was the story that Percy Gordon had run down to St. James’s Cray to communicate to his cousin, Florence Berkeley. He had been to St. James’s Cray very often whilst studying at the Naval College at Portsmouth, for Colonel Berkeley was brother-in-law to Lord Bulmer, and though not generally a hospitable man had been so far won over by his nephew’s good looks and pleasant manners, when he first came across him, as to adopt him as his own nephew after a fashion, and to give the young man carte blanche to make himself at home at St. James’s Cray, whenever he could get leave from the college. So Saturdays and Sundays, days, which as every one acquainted with the Naval College knows, hang very heavily there, were for the most part spent by Perey Gordon at St. James’s Cray, and while there he beguiled the time, as such a young man was likely to do, by love-making with his little cousin, Florence Berkeley. Not that there was much need of making, it all came about very naturally and quickly.

Florence was too young to have as yet known many young men, and at the first glance she decided that she had never seen anyone half so beautiful as Percy Gordon. After the first long talk with him she was quite equally convinced, that she had never known anyone half so clever, and this long talk came very soon after the first sight of him, for Colonel Berkeley had no idea of putting himself out to entertain his young guest, though he did happen rather to lke the lad, and Mrs. Berkeley never talked to anyone, and as to Miss Berkeley, who generally did the agreeable for the household, Percy had the good taste, as the younger sister thought it, to prefer Florence to her, and at once to show this preference pretty decidedly, and perhaps this did more than all the rest to win Florence’s heart ; for though she was too much accustomed to be set aside for that eldest sister even to feel that she was so any longer, yet, though she would willingly have done so, she could not altogether herself admire that sister’s ways of going on.

Miss Berkeley, better known as Fanny, was much handsomer than her younger. sister, and eight years older; both advantages at the time of which we are speaking, when Florence was only sixteen, not having as yet fined down from too robust girlhood, nor been brought out, and thus polished by contact with the brilliant world of fashion. Notwithstanding Percy at once preferred her to Fanny with her fine features, well-developed figure, and abundance of fair hair, always displayed to advantage, as well as in accordance with the last new discoveries in the art of hair-dressing. And Fanny after the first surprise at the novelty of the thing took it very amiably, and left Florence and Percy to amuse themselves, without expending any of her fascinations to lure Percy to herself, and, if by some chance she ever found herself alone with him, generally choosing for the subject of her discourse “that dear sweet child, Florence.” In these conversations, which were however very few and far between, Florence being generally forthcoming when Percy was anywhere in the neighbourhood of St. James’s Cray, Percy never waxed at all enthusiastic in the younger sister’s praises, seeming indeed almost chilled by the fair Fanny’s warmth, but all the same, each time he saw her, he became more and more convinced that his cousin Florence was the sweetest, fondest, simplest darling that ever breathed. Each time he saw her, that was, in between whiles, he contrived to forget it sometimes, but only to be again more firmly convinced of it the next time of seeing her, and now he was very sorry indeed to think he was about to leave her, and for such a long time too. For, sanguine though he seemed, Percy knew that a fortune must take a little time in being made out of nothing, or worse than nothing, even in Australia.

Leaving Florence was not however the only thing that he was sorry about ; for to a young man who was fond of grand dinners, and fine clothes, fond also of fine people, and all the innumerable luxuries that such a fondness renders almost necessaries ; to such a young man the idea of going to Australia, to work perhaps for his daily bread, was anything but a cheering one. But just at this moment, when he was walking by her side, he was so much the most sorry at the thought of leaving Florence, that all his other causes of regret seemed to him nothing, and so now seeing her head droop, he felt that his last words

HER PROMISE TRUE. i had not been kind ones ; perhaps too, for a moment, that after all it was his own doing, and that if—if—if everythmg had been different, why then he need not have been forced to go away from her now. So he drew her arm lovingly within his own, saying fondly: “ You will not think anyharm of me, when I am gone, will you, Florence? You know we shall both have to think so often of each other, whilst I am far away.”

Then Florence looked up and smiled, and Percy went on emboldened :—

‘How I shall long to come home! and you must not fancy I am never coming back, if I take some time about it. You will wait for me, will you not, darling ?”

Florence smiled again, but this time she did not look up, and her smile was rather a curious one, not a happy one certainly, indeed a very melancholy smile.

“ Dear Percy,” she said after a few moments’ pause, “you will work hard, won’t you ?”

“T don’t suppose I shall have any choice,” he replied half peevishly. ‘I shall have to work for what I eat, I suppose.”

“Oh, not so bad as that! is it really ? oh Percy, you don’t want any money now, do you? I know I have not got much, but—” And Florence clasped her hands upon his arm, and looked up beseechingly into his face.

They were a very pretty picture to look upon, as they stood thus under the fullflowering lilacs and laburnums, for it was the merry month of May when this sorrowful parting took place. Few young men indeed have more beautiful faces than that of Percy Gordon ; his was not the style to go down with those who only admire that type of manly beauty, which footmen find so lucrative, namely the beauty that stands six foot high in its stockings, for Percy had never attained beyond the middle height; but his figure was good, and his face, at the time of which we speak, was simply perfect.

Regular delicately chiselled features, eyes of the blue of the Neapolitan violet with long dark shadowing lashes, glossy brown hair, a complexion that was just sufliciently browned for none to be able to call it effeminate, but clear and smooth as any woman’s, and reddened by a delicate peachy glow, such as is very rare to see even among women ; a rich red underlip, with an impulsive quiver in it telling how highlywrought his nature was, and a forehead that spokewell for his intellectual powers, besides beingvery lovely also in its fairness ; all these charms were Percy Gordon’s, and yet he had a beauty far beyond all these. His was pre-eminently a speaking face, lights and shades played over it a hundred in a minute, and the beauty of his eyes, like that of most eyes worth speaking about at all, had to be felt in order to be known.

It was with a very beautiful expression that Percy now smiled upon his little cousin’s imploring upturned face, a pretty face enough, too—also with blue eyes and dark lashes, but the blue far deeper than that of Percy’s, and the lashes not so long or dark, but with a sort of dewy freshness about them, reminding one much of violets, and at the first glance prepossessing in the owner’s favour. The eyes were the chief beautyin Florence’s face; her complexion was only that of a healthy English girl, her chin too large and heavy, her nose too small for beauty, and her hair, though luxuriant enough, of the most common-place brown, but her expression saved her ; that and her eyes together had made Percy think her a very pretty girl the first time he saw her, and he could not help pausing for a moment to think so now again, before he said :— , ‘No, darling, I don’t want any money now. I have got enough to take me out, and—and for myself, you know; it is only my debts that I have got nothing for. Oh Florence, dear Florence, you are worth all the rest of the world put together. Pray for me, pray for me, won’t you, my darling ? for now without you I shall go wrong altogether—oh, I know I shall, and it is all hopeless.”

Then she reasoned with him in her childish way, and they talked on and on, till the dinner-bell rang, and they went in ; Florence to be scolded for not having dressed, and Percy to be talked at all dinner time by Colonel Berkeley, who, as he had been an extravagant man in his own younger days, and had only got out of his scrapes through having, fortunately for him, a kind generous old father, tried to make up for his own youthful follies by an extreme severity towards those of the rising generation.

“So you are to be sent out to Australia, to go to the dogs quietly, without making so much noise about it as you would in England, eh Percy?” said he grimly.

“JT am going to Australia to make my fortune, I hope, uncle,” replied Perey in anything but a hopeful tone of voice, and gulping down a glass of wine as he spoke, as if to give himself courage for what was coming.

“Your fortune! your fiddle-stick ! you’ve gambled away already all the fortune you’re ever likely to have; you're not likely to make another now, my fine gentleman. No! ‘Waste not, want not, is the proverb I hold by, and at the rate at which you've wasted, you're likely to want for a precious deal before you’ve done with it. Oh, you talk very grandly now, but you will sing with the other side of your mouth, before you have been out in Australia a twelvemonth. I know the state in which poor devils come home from there, and glad they are if they can get home too! With their constitutions shattered by all the privations ~. they have gone through, and not a penny in their pockets to bless themselves with.

And you look mighty like roughing it in

HER PROMISE TRUE. by the bush, that you do!” and Colonel Berkeley laughed aloud, and looked round the table just to show how in his own opinion he had the laugh all on his side. Thus glancing, his eye lit upon Florence, down whose flushed cheek one large hot tear was fast following the other. * What! crying, baby? now what in the Heaven’s name does it signify to you whether your cousin Percy starves out in Australia, or here at home, as starve he'll have to do, wherever he goes, for a spendthrift fool as he is? But come now, none of your snivelling here. Stop that row, or just go out of the room, if you please. You can’t eat any dinner whilst you are crying in that way, so don’t say I am unkind, and won't give you any; you may come back, when you can behave like a young lady.”

And Florence sobbing: convulsively hurried from the room, while Percy, with scarlet cheeks, sprang up to open the door for

VOL. I.

o her, and then finding himself too late, sat down again, exclaiming—

“But I do say you are unkind, uncle, and you always are unkind to Florence. Because she is so young and gentle, you think you can do what you like with her, and you would never speak in this way to Fanny, who is more up to things, and would. give you as good as she got. You know that as well as I do, and I call it disgraceful and awfully shabby of you, and so I won't stand being lectured by you any longer. I’m not the first fellow by a long way that has run through his money, and I shan’t be the last either, and if I do starve in Australia, I hope it may give you a great deal of pleasure, but I shall take precious good care not to please you in that way, if I can help it, and I expect youll see me back again long before you look for me, and with a fortune too.”

“You'll have to be a long time coming, if you wait till I look for you,” said the domestic tyrant grimly. He had been put down now, and was not likely to make himself quite so disagreeable again for a little while, but at his best he was grim, and those around him had to put up with it.

At last dinner was over. To Percy it had seemed to last for ages, that last dinner he was ever to join in at St. James’s Cray, where before now he had shared in so many pleasant meals, and he hurried away to the schoolroom, where, as he had expected, he found Florence sitting in the twilight, her elbows resting on the windowsill, her chin supported by her hands, and her eyes gazing fixedly out into the evening. Then Percy sat down beside her, and, as he had often done before, he told her how he loved her, and how she could not possibly know what she was to him, so much more than he could ever hope to be to her—he was simply all the world to her —and how for her sake he would be steady

2—2, and work hard, and how he would write long letters to her. She must not mind if they were stupid, for he was not good at letter writing, but to her he would write a little bit every day, and then he should be sure to leave out nothing; and she must write Jong letters to him also. Then Florence looked quite bright and brave, and said she would, and that indeed she knew the time would pass quite quickly.

“Oh, it will seem like nothing to look back upon,” she said merrily, and then Percy grew almost angry, and said he believed she did not mind parting from him. Of course it was very nice for her in her comfortable home, she would soon meet with other friends, and forget him.

“But I shall never care for any one as I care for you, Percy,” said she, quite simply, yet earnestly, with the dewy blue eyes fixed on his.

“That is what girls say,” replied Percy,

HER PROMISE TRUE. veil

“but oh! I know it can never be the same again.”

“JT was reading a quaint old poem the other day,” said Florence, very seriously, “it said how, when two people really loved each other, they were like a pair of compasses, which, however far apart the two points may go, always remain united in reality, as lovers do by their strong love for one another. As long as that is the case it does not much matter how far the points are separated.”

“Yes, it does though. That is all very well for people to say, when they are not going to be separated, but when they are, it does matter, and there is no use in saying it does not.”

Then Florence was silent, and after a while Fanny came quickly through the garden to the schoolroom window, and warned the two young things that tea was already in the drawing-room, and thus saved them from another scolding.

D2. HER PROMISE TRUE.

She had never done this before, but they were both too much. pre-occupied to take notice of this, or to thank her, and the rest of the evening passed very gloomily. As they were separating for the night, Mrs. Berkeley asked her nephew, (she and Colonel Berkeley always called him nephew, though he was no relation in reality) what train he had to leave them by next morning.

“By the 7.30,” said he, with a shudder.

“‘Good-night then, and good-bye, my dear boy,” said gentle Mrs. Berkeley. “I shall not be able to see you to-morrow, as you start so early, but Ill tell Stevens to take care that you have a comfortable breakfast at half-past six; that will give you just about time enough to get to the station. And you know, dear Percy, that you will always have all our best wishes and prayers that you may do well in Australia. Though very, very sorry for your imprudence, that does not make us forget how fond we have always been of you, and we shall always be glad to hear of you, if ever you can find time for a letter. Good-bye now, my dear boy; I dare say the girls will see you to-morrow morning again,”

“ No, that they won't,” interrupted Colonel Berkeley, “I won't have any of that nonsense—do you hear, girls? Be down for your own breakfast at nine, and don’t be getting up at unearthly hours to say good-bye to a young scapegrace, who does not deserve that anyone should waste another thought upon him. Good-night, young fellow, I’m sorry you're the one out of them all to go to the dogs, but now not all your good looks will save you, so don’t be trusting to them, but make up your mind to it at once. Many a better man than you has had to do it before you,” growled the Colonel, “and all you have got to look to now is that you don’t come turning up again like a bad shilling that nobody has any use for. Thatis what your uncle Lord Bulmer means by sending you to the Antipodes; you're a bad shilling now, and that youll remain, but don’t take to turning up.”

“Thank you, uncle, for wishing never to see me again,” said Percy, with the crimson underlip quivering even more than usual ; and then with Colonel Berkeley looking on to see that his injunctions were complied with, and the leave-takings not put off till next day, Percy said good-bye to his cousins, but Florence smiled as he did so, and he knew he should see her again.

She was up indeed most unnecessarily early the next morning, hoping that it might occur to Percy also to get up early, and beguiling the time, till he appeared, by choosing out the loveliest flower in all the garden for his button-hole. As she came back to the house with her hands full of dewy blossoms, from which to make her selection, she was a little startled to see Fanny in the breakfast-room.

“Oh, Fanny! I did not think you would be up,” she exclaimed, fearing a little now that Fanny might have obtained permission, and might begin scolding her for being up without it.

“Well, you see, dear, I knew you would be, and two are safe to be less scolded than one. You need not be frightened, I'll make myself scarce as soon as he appears, only I thought Td countenance the proceeding, for you've helped me before now, and very likely may again, and one good turn deserves another. But has the boy overslept himself? he'll never be in time.”

“The clock is fast, I think,” said Florence, nervously glancing from her flowers to the clock, and from the clock to the flowers, and feeling hot and cold all at once.

“T hope cousin Percy will appreciate that moss rose-bud,” said Fanny, somewhat satirically, “it is very small, but then certainly it is very early in the year, and I hope the gardener may like missing it from the conservatory. Oh, you wasteful child, would not one flower do, but you must needs gather a whole handful? On occasions like this it is the sentiment of the eift that people value and not the quantity, and cousin Percy can never press all that lot in the leaves of his Bible, where of course like every true sailor he is bound to treasure up the gift of his lady-love. By-the-bye, has cousin Percy got a Bible at all—did you ever enquire that, my serious little sister ?”

“Yes, he has,” said Percy, sauntering listlessly through the half-open door at this moment, with anything but the air of a young man about to start upon a journey, “and I think it very impertinent of you to suspect me of having none. But I don’t suppose you read yours much from. what I

HER PROMISE TRUE. oy see of your goings on,” he added, with a meaning look.

“You had better not waste your time supposing any such nonsense,’ she retorted, with a heightened colour ; “if you don’t set to work on your breakfast at once, you'll not be in time for your train; it will be sharp work even now.”

“Oh, there is not any time for breakfast, and it is all nonsense trying to eat so early in the morning, I don’t care about anything now. Are those flowers for me, Florrie ?”

“Yes; at least, which will you have for your button-hole ? you can’t wear them all there, I know,” said she, almost laughing in her nervous excitement, yet with strangely pale cheeks. ‘I could not make up my mind which you would like best, so I picked them all.”

“Give them all to me then,” said he, holding out his hand, “you don’t want them yourself, you know; you can’t put them back on their plants now, and the gardener must know all about it, so you may as well let me take them away with me. I have not much else to take with me,” and he put his arms round her, and kissed her, not exactly in a cousinly way, but Fanny had “made herself scarce” by this time, as she had before promised to do, and they were alone together now, clasped in each other’s arms for the last time in their lives. Yes, as Percy had said the night before, it would never be the same again—never—never. At last it was she who bade him leave her.

“Think of me often, my darling,” he said, ‘and wait for me patiently ; you do not know how impatient I shall be. But promise you will think often of me.”

“Oh, how can you ask me, when you know—you know—but be good, Percy, you will try to be good, will you not ? promise me that, promise me you will try.”

“Yes, [ltry. I have tried, Florence, but—yes, I will try; good-bye, my own darling.”

“Good-bye,” and Florence ran to the window to strain her eyes looking after him, and Percy crushed his hat down over his eyes, nor ever looked back once, and brushed by Fanny in the hall, and jumped into the dog-cart, that was to rattle him away from Paradise, without having an idea that Fanny was calling after him— “ Good-bye, cousin Percy, I hope you will get on well in Australia,” and the dog-cart rattled away, and for two people love’s young dream was over and ended, and otherwise the world went on as before.

“Florence,” said Fanny, going back into the breakfast-room, “‘ may I ask if you are to be considered engaged to cousin Percy ?”

Florence was watching a distant bend of the road, where she might catch the last glimpse of the dog-cart, that contained him, who was all the world to her ; she thought she saw it go by now, but the tears, which would keep forming in her eyes in spite of herself, dazed her, and she could not be sure, so she winked them vigorously away, and continued to strain her eyes without answering. But no dog-cart passed, so she supposed it must have gone by already, and that it was that which she had seen mistily through her tears. She turned away from the window, there was nothing more she cared to see out there, now.