An Unknown Lover Part 26

"I like ends," said Bedford once more.

Katrine thanked Providence that _her_ ends curled, and did not blow over her face in lanky streaks as did the ends of other women. Sometimes when she had been out in the wind she had felt it a pity to brush them back. She felt a glow of thankfulness for her own fair looks, which was inimitably removed from an ordinary conceit. To look pleasant in the eyes of others--that gave one joy. To-morrow she would wear a blue dress...

"It's against my upbringing to be untidy," she said demurely. "At home I have walked between a double fire. The vicar's wife on one side, and my Sunday School girls on the other. Both would have been scandalised by 'ends,' both expected me to be a model of neatness and decorum." She heaved a great sigh of relief. "Oh, I'm so thankful not to be a model any more! It's lovely to begin life again, away from criticism, to be free to do and think what I like!"

He stared at her, his eyes intent and searching beneath puckered brows.

It was a handsome, almost a beautiful face into which he looked: the softened light, the happy mood, even the floating ends of hair combined to give it an air of unusual youth. Nevertheless there were lines written thereon which told their own tale. Katrine noticed his scrutiny, and questioned him thereon:

"What are you thinking about?"

"You," he said simply. "We are talking about ourselves. You are so young in many ways, younger than your years, but you look--"

"Older?"

"Yes," he said again, serenely unconscious of offence. "It's not a girl's face. There are the marks of trouble, of suffering..."

Katrine sighed. On her lips flickered a smile which was strangely pathetic.

"Or of lack of trouble!" she corrected. "Oh, I mean it. It sounds incomprehensible to a man, but a woman would understand. Trouble would be easier to bear than the grey, monotonous routine month after month, year after year, which women have to live in small country towns.

Trouble is educational and enn.o.bling; monotony cramps growth at the roots. I am twenty-six, but there were women ten years older, still young, still pretty, jogtrotting along the same path, year after year, year after year. _Nothing had happened to them_! No man can understand all that that means. _Nothing had happened_!"

Bedford straightened himself significantly.

"They should _make_ things happen!"

"Perhaps in time to come they may, when they are more developed--they, and their parents! Many well-to-do parents think that their daughters ought to be contented to stay peacefully at home and arrange the flowers. I _had_ a real duty, but in some families nearby there were three or four women-girls _pottering_! I went to see one of them on her birthday last year. When I wished her many happy returns she shrank, as if I had hurt her. 'Another year!' she said. 'Three hundred and sixty-five days... _And all alike_!' It was fear that she felt, poor soul; fear of the blank! You can't understand."

"Personally, no. Monotony has not been my cross. When a man is knocking about the world he is inclined to envy the people who can vegetate peacefully at home, but thirty-six years of stagnation is a killing business!" He looked down at her with steady scrutiny. "I am glad _you_ had courage to cut yourself free before it came to that point."

"But I am different... I told you so. I had my work," protested Katrine, flus.h.i.+ng, "and moreover something _did_ happen. Fate came to my aid, and practically forced me away!"

"Yes?"

Once more Bedford leaned his elbows on the rail, and bent towards her with a keen interrogative glance. "Is it permissible to ask in what form?"

Why on earth need she blush? Katrine mentally railed at herself, but the more she fumed the hotter blazed the colour in her cheeks. Plying such a flag of betrayal it seemed obviously absurd to reply by a prim: "My brother married, and no longer required my services," and in Bedford's equally prim "Quite so," the scepticism seemed thinly veiled.

There was silence for several moments, while both gazed fixedly ahead.

Without looking in his direction Katrine knew exactly the expression which her companion's face would wear. The lips closed tight, drooping slightly to one side. The chin dropped, the eyes unnaturally grave.

Strange how clearly his changes of expression had already stamped themselves upon her mental retina! She knew how he would look, what she could not guess was what he would _think_ ... What _would_ he think!

That preposterous blush would surely suggest a reason more personal than a brother's marriage. A love affair, a lover, but mercifully a lover in England, since she had already explained that Jack Middleton and his wife were her sole friends in India. Yes! that would be the explanation, a persistent lover--a lover who had been refused, a lover left behind to recover at his ease. Katrine's self-possession was restored by this a.s.surance. Certainly she had had lovers... She adopted what was evidently intended to be an "Isabel Carnaby air," and demanded lightly:

"And now, Captain Bedford, it is your turn to confess your troubles."

"I have none," he said instantly. He looked full into her face with his twinkling eyes. "Or if I had--I have forgotten."

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

The next morning broke hot and still. The breeze had died down and its absence was shown in pallid faces, and limp, exhausted att.i.tudes. A few daring spirits waxed apoplectic over deck sports. Jackey, the mischievous, roamed from one deck chair to another, teasing, protesting, whimpering, and ultimately curled up in a corner of the deck, and falling asleep became instantly converted into a vision of exquisite childhood, all pink cheeks, golden curls, and rounded limbs. As for Katrine she felt very tired, very lazy, very thankful that her hair was curled by nature not by art, very content to lie back in her luxurious chair and be amused and waited upon by a man who appeared abundantly satisfied to be so employed. The voyage had turned, so far as she was concerned, into one long _tete-a-tete_, for Bedford had presented so impenetrable a front to would-be acquaintances, that he was now left severely alone to devote himself to her amus.e.m.e.nt.

Mrs Mannering joked and quizzed, Keith kept sourly afar, the pa.s.sengers stared with mounting curiosity, and Katrine, who had lived all her life beneath the tyranny of "They say," amazed herself by a sudden reckless indifference. _Let_ them say! Let them stare! Let them laugh!--It meant nothing to her. These days were her own; not an hour, not a moment should be wasted though a whole world criticised.--It is a truism that in the growth of friends.h.i.+p a day at sea is equal to a week on sh.o.r.e; less than a week had pa.s.sed since Bedford joined the s.h.i.+p, yet Katrine acknowledged to herself that they had reached a degree of intimacy which she at least had never before experienced. There was not a subject which had engrossed her attention, not a problem which had baffled, not a hope or a fear, an ambition or a dream, save only those which concerned Jim Blair, which she had not discussed at length with this friend of a few days, and each fresh discussion left her more conscious of help and sympathy, and of profound admiration for his broad-minded, open-hearted character. Now the high-water mark of intimacy had been reached when silence could be prolonged without apology, a vibrant silence broken at length by a remark which but put into words the point to which the thoughts of each had arrived. Katrine had at first been amused and delighted at this similarity of thought; later on she grew afraid.

This morning the great heat was not conducive to conversation. Katrine held a book on her lap, and from time to time flicked over pages, but she was too languid even to read; from time to time her eyes met Bedford's and they smiled a wordless greeting. The morning was not half over, but already her eyelids drooped heavily; she shut the book, and composed herself to sleep.

Suddenly, startlingly, the torpid silence was rent in twain. A woman's voice rose in a shriek--high, frenzied, appalled. As by an echo it was repeated on every side, until the very air vibrated with the sound. The serried rows of chairs were emptied, and thrust aside; white-faced, gasping, the pa.s.sengers rushed to the rail, and hung over, desperately scanning the sea. The vibrant cry gained volume; its incoherence took shape, and became definite words--words among those the most dreaded in a life on sea...

"_Man overboard_!"

Katrine had leaped with the rest, had rushed to the gunwale to strain her eyes over the retreating line of foam left by the vessel's progress.

Startled she was, and shocked, but the true realisation of the tragedy was delayed until the moment when, afar off, clear in the blaze of the sun, two arms appeared suddenly above the waves, groped into s.p.a.ce, flung themselves widely apart, and disappeared!

The sight of those helpless hands brought a terrible realisation; they tore at the heart. Every face on board the great vessel was blanched with horror: women wept and clung; men stood grim and silent, with lips tightly set.

At the first sounding of the alarm, a life-belt had been tossed into the sea, attached to a flag, which made a patch of colour to mark the spot of the disaster. It was horrible to see how far that mark was left behind, before, with a jar which sent a quiver throughout the s.h.i.+p's great bulk, the engines reversed, in response to the order from the bridge. Meantime the fourth officer and his men were clambering with cat-like agility into the boat suspended over the stern-davits, which eager hands began to lower, even before the last man had reached his perch. Another moment, and the crew were bending to their oars, and the boat was speeding through the water towards that floating patch of red and blue; but there had been no further waving of hands; the straining eyes had caught no second glimpse of a dark head.

Katrine, shaking and gasping, felt the touch of a quieting hand on her arm, and releasing her hold of the gunwale, swayed backward with a sob of relief. She did not need to look; the strong, quiet touch was identification enough. She needed him, and he was there. She closed her eyes, gripping fast to the outstretched arm.

"Will he be able to swim? Can he keep up long enough?"

"I hope so. The life-belt is there. Even if he is not, men are brought back to life, you know, after hours of unconsciousness... He is bound to rise again..."

Katrine shuddered. A moment before she had been exhausted with heat; now hands and feet were icy cold. For the first time in her life she was brought face to face with death, and the violent change of scene, combined with the inability to do anything but stand still and watch, made a hard test of endurance. She managed to keep quiet, to refrain from the tears and sobs of the surrounding women, but she clung like a child to Bedford's arms, and rested her head against his broad shoulder.

For the moment the action was as impersonal as if he had been a stone or a log; her physical condition necessitated a prop; she clung to the nearest support out of a natural, unthinking impulse, and just as naturally, just as simply, he cradled her in his arms.

The suffocating moments crawled by, the while the onlookers held their breath. The boat had reached the spot marked by the red flag, was drifting slowly round and round, the men's faces bent low over the water, but there came no sign of the white, waving arms; the dark, ball-like head.

Katrine gasped a weak enquiry:

"I thought--_three times_? If it is one of the crew, surely he can swim?"

Bedford made no reply. She raised her head, caught sight of a set face, and cried again, with a still sharper edge of surprise:

"It is _not_ a sailor! A pa.s.senger then? Some one--we know?"

Her thoughts flew swiftly over the familiar forms. A jovial head of a family, seated at her own table in the saloon; a young husband a.s.siduously waiting upon a pretty new wife; the handsome pursuer of steams.h.i.+p flirtations,--one after another their figures rose before her.

These were all young, thoughtless, daring; a moment's recklessness might have precipitated them to their fate. An hour ago, five minutes ago, they had been nothing to her, less than nothing, now the mere tie of humanity rent her heart at the thought of their peril. She lifted her eyes to the face above her, panting breathless enquiries.

"Tell me! Tell me!"

"My--my dear girl," stammered the man huskily, "My poor girl--" He pa.s.sed his arm more firmly round her waist, "Yes! you know him, I did not mean to tell you yet, but I am afraid you'll have to know! It's Vernon Keith--"

"No! No!" Katrine fought with outstretched hands, striving to push him away. She no longer needed to lean; the shock had strung her into vitality, and a pa.s.sionate denial of the tragic reversals of life. An hour ago she had beckoned to Keith as he pa.s.sed by, and had fed him with chocolates. He had eaten, smiled, and grimaced, and she had rated him for his ingrat.i.tude. It was impossible that a man could eat chocolates, and take part in the trivial chit-chat of s.h.i.+pboard, and within sixty minutes be fighting for his life in those churning waves!

"_It's impossible_!" she cried. "I was talking to him here, an hour ago. He was well--as well as usual... we talked--he _smiled_! It is _impossible_ that he can be dead!"

"They may find him yet. It's only a few minutes. Everything is possible. You can do no good by waiting, dear. Come and sit down!"