A bird of passage

Helen and her partner ascended the steep gravel pathway, lined with palms, gold mohur, and orange-trees, and turning a sharp corner, came suddenly upon a full view of the sea, with the moon on her bosom. It was a soft, still, tropical night; not a sound broke the silence, save a distant murmur of human voices, or the dip of an oar in the water.

That moon overhead seldom looked down upon fairer scene, or a more well-favoured couple, than the pair who were now leaning over the rustic railings, and gazing at the prospect beneath them—or rather, the man was looking at the girl, and the girl was looking at the sea. Doubtless moon-shine idealizes the human form, just as it casts a glamour over the landscape; but at the present moment Helen appears almost as beautiful as her world-renowned namesake. Her lovely eyes have a fathomless, far-away expression, her pure, clear-cut profile is thrown into admirable relief by the glossy dark leaves of a neighbouring orange-tree. In her simple muslin dress, with its soft lace ruffles, and a row of pearls round her throat, she seemed the very type of a modest English maiden (no painted columbine this!), and, perhaps, a little out of place amid her Eastern surroundings. She continued to gaze straight before her, with her hands crossed on the top of the railing, and her eyes fixed on the sea. As she gazed, a boat shot out of the dim shadows, and across the white moonlit track, then passed into obscurity again.

"Thinking as usual, Miss Denis?" said her companion.

"Yes," she answered rather reluctantly, "thinking of something that I must say to you, and wondering how I am to say it."

"Is it much worse than last time?" he inquired with a smile (but there was an inflection of eagerness in his voice).

"Oh! quite different."

"Ah, she is going to announce that she is engaged to Quentin," he said to himself with a sharp twinge.

"Do you find it so very hard to tell me?" he inquired in a studiously indifferent tone.

"Yes, very hard; but I must. I owe you much, Mr. Lisle—and—I am your—friend—I wish to warn you." Suddenly sinking her voice to a whisper, she added,—"Mrs. Creery has had a letter about YOU!"

"Containing any startling revelations, any bad news?"

"Yes," she returned faintly. "Bad news. Oh, Mr. Lisle,—I am so sorry!"

"Is the news too terrible to be repeated?" he asked with marked deliberation.

Helen fidgeted with her fan, picked a bit of bark off the railing in front of her, and, after a long silence, and without raising her eyes, she said,—

"Must I tell you?"

"If you please," rather stiffly.

"She—she—hears that you have been in the army."

"Yes, so I was—I was not aware that it was criminal to hold her Majesty's commission; but, of course, Mrs. Creery knows best."

"She says you were—were obliged to—to leave disgraced," continued his companion in a rapid, broken whisper.

"Cashiered, you mean, of course!"

"Yes," glancing at him nervously. To her amazement, he was smiling.

"Do you believe this, Miss Denis?" he asked, raising himself suddenly from a leaning posture and looking at her steadily.

"No," she faltered. "I think not. No," more audibly, "I do not," blushing deeply as she spoke.

"Why?" he asked rather anxiously.

"I cannot give you any reason," she stammered, somewhat abashed by the steadfastness of his gaze, "except a woman's reason, that it is so——"

"I am sincerely grateful to you, Miss Denis; your confidence is not misplaced.—I am not the man in question. Mrs. Creery has got hold of the wrong end of the stick for once. I know of whom she is thinking," his face darkened as he spoke, "a namesake and, I am ashamed to say, a relation of mine. It is extremely good-natured of the old lady, to make me the subject of her correspondence." Then in quite another tone he said, "I suppose you have heard of our start to-morrow?"

"Yes," she replied, scarcely above a whisper.

"I'm a regular bird of passage, and ought to have been away weeks ago; and you yourself will probably be on the wing before long." (He was thinking of her marriage with Jim Quentin, but how could she know that?)

"Oh, not for a year at any rate! Papa does not expect that we shall be moved before then," she answered quite composedly. "I am sorry you are going to the Nicobars—I mean, you and Mr. Quentin," hastily correcting herself. "It's a horribly unhealthy place—soldiers and convicts die there by dozens from—fever," her lip quivered a little as she spoke.

"Not quite so bad as you think," returned her companion, moving his elbow an inch closer to her. "I'm an old traveller, you know,—and I will look after him for you."

"Look after who?" she asked in amazement.

"Why, Quentin, to be sure. I know all about it. I," lowering his voice, "am in the secret."

"Mr. Lisle, will you kindly tell me at once what you mean?"

"Certainly, Miss Denis. I mean that Quentin is the happiest of men."

"I am extremely pleased to hear it, but why?" she interrogated firmly.

"What is the use of fencing with me in this way?" he exclaimed with a gesture of impatience. "You may trust me.—I know all about it. Quentin has told me himself, that he is engaged to you."

"Engaged to me!" she echoed with glowing eyes. "Mr. Lisle, you are joking."

"Do I look as if I was joking?" he demanded rather bitterly.

"It is not the case. It is the first that I have heard of it," exclaimed the young lady in a voice trembling with agitation and indignation. "How dared he say so?"

Mr. Lisle felt bewildered; a rapturous possibility made his brain reel. Yet who was he to believe? Quentin had been very positive; he had never known him to utter a deliberate lie. And here, on the other hand, stood this girl, saying "No;" and if ever the truth was traced upon proud, indignant lips, it was written on hers.

"Do you believe me, Mr. Lisle?" she asked impatiently.

For fully a moment he did not speak; and was it the moonlight, or some sudden emotion, that made him look so white?

"I do believe you, of course," he answered in a low voice. "And now," he continued in the same low tone, urged to speak by an irresistible impulse, "perhaps you can guess why i have stayed away? How, from a sense of mistaken loyalty, my lips have been locked?"

Her eyes, which up to this, had been fixed intently on his, now sank. Suddenly a suspicion of the truth now dawned upon her mind, and she turned aside her face.

"Miss Denis," he said, "I see you have guessed my secret—I love you."

These three magic words were almost inaudible; barely louder than the orange leaves which whispered in the scented air. Nevertheless a busy little zephyr caught them up, carried them away, and murmured them to the sleepy flowers and the drowsy waves, that washed the invulnerable rocks beneath them.

Helen made no reply. This was the first love-tale to which she had ever listened, and those three syllables stirred every fibre of her heart.

"Do you remember that time on the wreck," he continued, "when you told me that I was leading a lazy, useless life, and that I ought to go back to the outer world? You little guessed that it was you, yourself, who were keeping me a prisoner here!"

Still the young lady said nothing, but kept her face steadily turned towards the sea.

He waited a moment, as if expecting some reply, but none came. At last he said, in quite a different tone,—

"I see how it is.—I have been a presumptuous idiot! And, after all, I had no right to expect that you would care a straw about me. I am years older than you are; I am—"

"Mr. Lisle," she interrupted, turning towards him at last, and speaking with apparent effort, "you are quite wrong.—I—I——" she stopped, and a little half-frightened smile played round her mouth, as she added, almost under her breath, "But what will papa say?"

"Then you mean to say 'Yes'!" he exclaimed, coming nearer to her, and grasping the railing firmly in his hand, to conceal how it shook.

Again she made no reply, but this time Mr. Lisle undoubtedly took silence for consent.

Mrs. Creery and Dr. Parkes were standing on the very summit of the hill, overlooking everything and everybody, and the former had not failed to notice a couple at some distance below them, leaning over the rails, and contemplating the sea, a tall girl in white, Helen Denis, of course; and who was the man? It looked like Captain Durand. There, Captain Durand had just bent over her, and kissed her hand! Pretty doings, certainly, for a married man.

"There!" she exclaimed, suddenly nudging Dr. Parkes, "did you see that?"

"See what, my dear madam?"

"That man down there with Helen Denis. I believe it's Captain Durand; he has just kissed her hand. Oh! WAIT till I see his wife!"

"Pooh!" returned her companion contemptuously, "the moonlight must have deceived you, it was his own hand; he was stroking his moustache."

"Oh, well, I'm not so sure of that!—but I suppose I must take your word for it, doctor."

Meanwhile, to return to Mr. Lisle, who had kissed Helen's hand. (Mrs. Creery's eyes seldom deceived her.) "Won't you say something to me, Helen?" he pleaded anxiously.

"Yes," turning round and drawing her fingers away, "I will.—I say—don't go to the Nicobars."

"But I must; I have promised Quentin and Hall, and I cannot break my word. I would gladly give half I possess to get out of it; but I little guessed this afternoon, when Quentin asked me to go and I said 'Yes,' that I would so soon have such very strong reasons for saying 'No.'"

"I wish they would let you off; I have a presentiment about the Nicobars."

"Presentiment of what?"

"I cannot say, but of something bad. Do you believe in presentiments?" looking at him wistfully.

"No, and yet I should not say so! That night of the storm, when you ran down the pier steps and called me back, your voice and your face haunted me afterwards for days. I had a kind of conviction that I had met my fate, and so I had, you see! By the way, I wonder why you like me, Helen? or what you see in me?"

The young lady smiled, but said nothing.

"All the world can understand my caring for you, but I am, in one way, an utter stranger; you could not answer a single question about me, if you were asked! As far as appearances go, I am an idler, a mere time-killer, without friends, station, or money."

"If you are idle you will have to amend your ways——"

"And work for you as well as myself," he interrupted with a laugh.

"As to friends, I would say you could share mine, but then I have so few. Still——"

"Still, for better or worse you will be Mrs. Gilbert Lisle?"

"Yes—some day," faltered the young lady.

"I know I am not half as fascinating, nor a quarter as good-looking as Quentin; honestly, what do you see in me, Helen?"

"Do you expect me to pander to your conceit, and to make you pretty speeches?" she asked with rather a saucy smile.

"Indeed I do not; all the pretty speeches, of course, should come from me. I only want to hear the truth," he returned, looking at her with his steady dark eyes.

"Well, then, since you must know, and you seem generally to have your own way, I will try and tell you. Somehow, from the first—yes, the very first—I was sure that you were a person that I could trust; and ever since that time on the wreck——" she paused.

"Yes," he repeated, "ever since that time on the wreck?—go on, Helen."

"I have felt that—that—I would not be afraid to go through anything with you, to—to spend my life with you. There!" becoming crimson, she added, "I know I have said too much, far too much," clasping her hands together nervously.

A look more eloquent than words illumined Lisle's face.

"And you would give yourself to me in this blind confidence? Helen, I little dreamt when I came down here rather aimlessly, that in these unknown islands, I should find such a pearl beyond price. You cannot understand what it is to me, to feel that I am valued for myself, simply as Gilbert Lisle, poor, obscure, and—" he paused, his voice sounded rather husky, and then he went on, "I must see your father to-night. But how? I left him at billiards. I wonder what he will say to me?"

"Perhaps, perhaps," began Helen rather nervously, "I had better speak to him first. I know he likes you but——"

"Yes, there would seem to be a very considerable but," smiling significantly. "Nevertheless, I hope he will listen to me. No, Helen, I would rather talk to him myself."

"At any rate, you will not ask me to leave him for ages,—not for a long time?"

"What do you call a long time?"

"Two or three years; he will be so lonely."

"Two or three years!—and pray what is to become of me?"

"Have you no relations?"

"Yes, some. Chiefly a father, who is pining for the day when I shall introduce him to a daughter-in-law."

"Now you are joking, surely," looking at him with a bewildered face. "I have heard of mothers being anxious to get their daughters married—but a father his sons, never!"

"Ah," repressing a smile, "well, you see, you live and learn."

"And what is your father like?"

"He is old, of course; he has white hair and a red face, and is short in stature and in temper."

"You do not speak of him very respectfully."

"You are always hauling me up, Helen. First I am lazy, now I am unfilial."

"I beg your pardon. I forget, I am too ready to say the first thing that comes into my head."

"Never mind begging my pardon. I like to be lectured by you," taking her hand in his.

"Do not—supposing Mrs. Creery were to see you?" trying to withdraw hers,—and vainly.

"What if she did?" he returned boldly; "it is my own property."

Thus silenced, Helen submitted to have her arm drawn within her lover's, and her hand clasped tightly in his.

"Where does your father live, and what does he do, and like?" she asked presently.

"He lives in London. What does he do? Nothing particular. What does he like? He likes a rubber of whist, he likes politics, he likes his own way. He is certain to like you."

"Oh, I always get on well with old gentlemen," she rejoined with some complacency.

Her companion looked at her with an odd twinkle in his eye, and said,—

"As, for instance?"

"As, for instance, the General, Colonel Home, Dr. Parkes."

"And you call them old gentlemen! Why, they are men in the prime of life! Perhaps you consider me an old gentleman also!"

"Nonsense," she returned with a smile. "Now tell me something about your mother."

"Ah! my mother," he answered with a sudden change in his expression. "My mother died five years ago."

"I am sorry," began Helen.

"And I am sorry, that she did not live to know you. She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw—and the best."

"You were better off than I was. I do not remember my mother; she was lovely, too," returned Helen, jealous for a certain painted miniature that was the most precious of her treasures.

Mr. Lisle looked at Helen thoughtfully. His mind suddenly travelled back to the night that she had landed on Ross—and a certain scathing sketch of the late Mrs. Denis. Of course this child beside him was totally ignorant of her mother's foibles. "The prettiest woman in India" had, at any rate, bequeathed her face to her daughter. Yes, he noted the low brow, straight nose, short upper lip, and rounded chin. But what if Helen had also inherited the disposition of the false, fair, unscrupulous Greek?

That was impossible; he was bitterly ashamed of the thought, and mentally hurled it from him with scorn. His lady-love was rather surprised at his long silence. Of what was he thinking?

"It is a well-known fact," he said at length, "that the value people place upon themselves is largely discounted by the world; but when I came down here, merely to see what the place was like, and to shoot and fish, I never guessed that I should be taken for counterfeit coin by the head of the society for the propagation of scandal."

"Meaning Mrs. Creery," said Helen with a smile.

"Yes. Because I declined to unbosom myself to her, and tell her where I came from, where I was going, what was my age, my religion, etc., etc., she made up her mind that I was a kind of social outcast, and was not to be tolerated in decent company. This, as you may have remarked, sat very lightly on my mind; I did not come here for society, but it amused me to see how Mrs. Creery set me down as a loafer and a pauper. It does not always follow that, because a fellow wears a shabby coat, his pockets must be empty. I am not a poor man; far from it. Do you think, if I were, I would have the effrontery to go to your father, and say, 'Here I am. I have no profession, no prospects, no money. Hand me over your treasure, your only child, and let us see if what is not enough for one to live on will suffice for two?' Were a man to come to me with such a suggestion, I should hand him over to the police."

Helen looked at him in awe-struck astonishment.

"Then you are rich,—and no one guesses it here!"

"Oh, the General knows all about me; so does Quentin; so shall you! How I wish," he exclaimed with sudden vehemence, "that these miserable Nicobars had never been discovered! Six weeks will seem a century, especially in the company of Quentin. I shall be obliged to have it out with Master James," he added, with a rather stern curve of his lips. "I had thought that lying was an obsolete vice! Only that Hall is going, and is entirely depending on me as a kind of buffer between him and Quentin,—whom he detests,—I would not consider my promise binding. I never knowingly associate with——" he stopped short, and apparently finished the sentence to himself. "Anyway, it will seem years till I come back!"

"And you will come back?" she said, looking at him with a strangely wistful face.

For a moment he returned her gaze in reproachful amazement. Then, stretching his hand out towards the east, replied,—

"As sure as the sun will rise there to-morrow, so surely will I return. What have I said or done that you should doubt me now—you who have trusted me so generously?"

"I cannot tell. I have a strange feeling that I cannot get out of my head; and yet I'm sure you would laugh were you to hear it, Mr. Lisle."

"Gilbert," he corrected.

"Yes, Gilbert," she repeated softly.

"I must tell you, Helen, what I have more than once been tempted to confide to you. I am not what I seem. I——"

"It was not captain Durand, after all," interrupted a harsh female voice close by, and at this critical moment Mrs. Creery and Dr. Parkes came swooping down from the hill-top.

"Helen and Mr. Lisle! Well, I declare! Pray do you know that every one is going home? What can you have been thinking of? The band played 'God save the Queen' half an hour ago."

Mr. Lisle drew himself up to his full height (which was five feet ten), and looked as if he wished the good lady—say, at Jericho; and Helen fumbled with her fan, and murmured some incoherent excuse. They both hung back, evidently expecting and hoping that the elder couple would lead the way down the hill; but, alas! for their expectations, Mrs. Creery suddenly put out a plump hand and drew Helen's reluctant one under her own arm, saying, as she shouldered herself between her and her cavalier,—

"Come along with me; it's high time little girls like you were at home," and without another word Helen was, as it were, marched off under a strong escort in the direction of the ball-room.

Good-bye to those few transcendental moments, good-bye to the moonlight on the water, the scent of orange-flowers, and all the appropriate surroundings to a love-tale! Say good-bye to Gilbert Lisle and love's young dream, Helen Denis, and go quietly down the hill with Mrs. Creery's heavy arm firmly locked in yours.

The two gentlemen followed in dead silence. Dr. Parkes was infinitely diverted with this little scene; he had been young himself, and it did not need the light of his own past experience to tell him, that this good-looking, impecunious fellow beside him had been trying his hand at making love to the island belle; but Mrs. Creery was a deal too sharp for him, and on the whole, "though he was evidently a gentleman," casting a glance at his companion's aristocratic profile and erect, rather soldierly figure, he considered that it was a deuced piece of cheek for him to think of making up to Helen Denis! Alas! little did Dr. Parkes and the careful matron in his van, guess that they were merely carrying away the key of the stable, the steed (meaning the young lady's heart) had been stolen long ago.

As to Mr. Lisle's thoughts, the reader can easily imagine them—disgust, impatience, rage were the least of them. How was he to get another word with Helen? How was he to have a chance of seeing Colonel Denis? Oh! rash and fatal promise that he had made that afternoon. When the ladies all emerged, shawled and cloaked from the mess-room verandah, he made one bold effort to walk home with his fiancée; but every one was leaving simultaneously, and they all descended in one compact body, Dr. Malone escorting Miss Denis on one side, and Captain Rodney on the other; while her accepted lover walked alone behind, and angrily gnawed his moustache. However, he was the last to bid her good-bye, he even went a few paces down the little walk; meanwhile from the high road a crowd looked on—and waited! This was a trying ordeal, and Dr. Parkes' voice was heard shouting impatiently,—

"Now then, Lisle! if you are coming in my boat, look sharp, will you, there's a good fellow?"

He felt a fierce desire to throttle the little doctor! Moments to him were more precious than diamonds, and what was half an hour more or less to a dried-up old fogey like that?

He stopped for a second under the palm-trees, and whispered,—

"I'll come over to-morrow early; I mean this morning, if I may, and if I can possibly manage it; if not, good-bye, darling—our first and last good-bye. I shall be back in six weeks," and then he wrung her hand and went. (A more tender leave-taking was out of the question, in the searching glare of the moonlight, and under the batteries of forty pairs of eyes.)

Poor, ignorant Colonel Denis! who was standing within three yards, little guessed what Gilbert Lisle was whispering to his daughter; indeed, he was not aware that he had been whispering at all! nor that here was a robber who wished to carry off his treasure—his all—his one ewe lamb.

No, this guileless, unsuspicious gentleman, nodded a friendly "good night" to the thief, and went slowly yawning up the steps, then, turning round, said sleepily,—

"Well, and how did my little girl enjoy herself?"

His little girl looked very lovely in his fond eyes, as she stood below him in her simple white gown, with her face still turned towards the roadway."

"Oh! very, very much, papa!" she replied most truthfully, now entering the dim verandah, and thereby hiding the treacherous blushes that mounted to her very temples.

"That's right!" kissing her as he spoke. "There, be off to bed; it's nearly two o'clock! dreadful hours for an old gentleman like me!"

But Miss Denis did not obey her parent's injunction; on the contrary, she went into the drawing-room, laid down her candle, removed her gloves, and rested her hot face in her hands, and tried to collect her thoughts, and realize her bliss. She was so happy, she could not bear to go to bed, for fear she might go to sleep. She wanted to make the most of the delicious present, to think over every moment, every word, every look, that she had exchanged with Mr. Lisle this most wonderful evening. And to think that all along he had stayed away because he had thought that she was engaged to Jim Quentin—he had said so. Jim Quentin! And she curled her lip scornfully, as she recollected a recent little scene between that gentleman and herself.

For a whole hour she sat in the dimly-lighted drawing-room, looking out on the stars, listening to the sea, and tasting a happiness that comes but once in most people's lifetime. She was rudely aroused from her mental ecstacy, by a tall figure appearing in the doorway, clothed in white; no ghost this—merely her ayah, with her cloth wrapped round her, saying in a drowsy voice,—

"Missy never coming to bed to-night?"