YVONNE: A STEAMER ROMANCE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1976, 7 March 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

YVONNE: A STEAMER ROMANCE.

Bt tin-: Adthoi; or " At>o\ai<?, Q,C." iv Tim " Akhosy." It is Sunday — and the Hteamer is out on the open neft. A long, dirk, handsomo stormier it I s *; and it cuts a white path for itself through the sapphire waters, and leaves a shadowy, brown" wawnng truck behind it. Out of "u;ht of land; ah, what freedom! Ah, what a free, deep, peaceful rest from the caret! of the world ; almost too deep for words. Just for this hour — or these hours — what has all the rest of the world to do with thiet steamer ? The strong sun shine*? down on it ; the wide glistening hoavenn stretch over it ; the white sen-gulls danco on the tiny waves all round about it ; and it outs its swift way atraight on. It is a haven of rest, out on the open sea. The passengerß lie dotted in easy positions about the clean white deok ; their hats drawn over their eyes ; their eyes looking down into the depths. The lazy waves, and the black hurrying smoke, and the thumping engines— everything speaks; all in a pure, strange, grand language, that lifts these weary, worldly passengers out of themselves, up to a something immeasurably better and higher— if undefinable. Three of them lean over the boats ; their heads down on the smooth white canvas; a fourth has cast himself full length not far from the funnel ; here an old lady snores peacefully; over there, again, another plies her knitting-pins. Upon tho deck two figures only are in mation. They are pacing, pacing, as if there were no such thing aa rest in all the world. The one is a man, and the other a woman ; they meet and re-meet, again and again ; they do not take their eyes from the deck ; neither appears to notico the other ; it seems as if they were to pace on there for ever. The sun grows always hotter. The man was a tall, brown-faced man of soldierly bearing, handsomely-featured, plea-sant-eyed. He walked with a sharp, regular tread, announcing that there was strength pomewhere in his character. The girl was little and graceful, small-faced, lustrous-eyed. She wore a plain dress, ruby-tinted, that must have dated before the age of short, ungraceful walking-skins, for it swept the deok after her two or three inches or more. From her walk one could tell nothing of her oharacter — except that Bhe was graceful. The man might have been twenty-nine or thirty jears of age, certainly not morj ; ho was assuredly a gentleman : the girl might have numbered eighteen or nineteen summers, but she hardly looked as if she numbered so many ; there was no mistaking that she was a lady. They paced on alone. Suddenly something of an amusing nature seemed to have found its way into the man's thoughts, for an unmistakable smile crept into and played over hia features. About the same time the girl's face softened, then broke into sunshine. She was opposite the gangway; be had to come to the wheel; they turned and raised their eyes — still smiling. The eyes met : keen, deep-set blue eyes, his ; dreamy, largo-pupilled dark eycH, hers, meeting in a strange fascination. There was an expression of intense amusement about the corners of his mouth, and a dark flush en his face ; the girl, blushing painfully, was preter- ' naturally grave. As the man passed, he glanced at the girl quickly and critically; then relapsed into gravity. Four, or five times more they passed each other ; then the girl left the deck. The man half turned to look after her, and paced on aa before. Suddenly, something lying on the white wood, a little square insignificant looking something caught the man's eye. He picked it up, and looked at it — and smiled. At the same moment the girl re- appeared on deck, carrying a bundle of magazines and a cloak. She settled herself on a distant seat, never so much as turning her head towards him. He waited until she was settled, then changed the direction of his walk sharply, and stood before her. She raised her small face, a world of cold surprise in its expression. He lifted his hat slightly, and smiled. " Excuse me," he said, " is this yours ? " Astonishment, mingled with pleasure, flashed out of her eyes. " Oh — yes ! Thank you ho much. I must have dropped it." He laughed, handing it to her ; looking at her with interest ; eyeing her over with tho well-bred air permitted to a man of the world. " Ycr, you dropped it. I am glad I noticed it. Photographs are sueh — suoh dieagree&ble things to drop, do you not think so? " He was engaged on a rapid mental category, something after this fashion; "Well-cut little face; prettier even than I thought. Nice mouth ; lovely eyes ; wonderfully sweet expression and " Bhe interrupted hia thoughts abruptly, looking up at him very quietly. " Disagreeable 1 In what way do you mean ? " He started ; and shot a searching glance at her, and laughed rather confusedly. Well — ah — don't you think so? I've had Buch awkward things happen to me in that way. I remember onee — it was on a boat, too — I dropped a photograph, just as you dropped this ; and in the middlo of dinner the steward brought it back to me upon a plate. — Tremendously awkward, you know." The beautiful dark eyes turned upon him, clouded in something like doubt, and finally drooped back upon the photograph. "I thank you very muon," she repeated quietly. " I don't know how vexed I should have been to lose my brother's likeness." He half laughed, looking down at the glistening card. "It waß just such another I dropped myself. You would have had my sincere sympathy, I'm sure " She glanced quickly at him, smiling very kindly. It was your brother's photograph that you lost too, then. Yes, I daro say I might have felt awkward if you had brought this to me when I was at dinner." He leaned a little upon the arm of the seat, a .id smiled at her. He bad a remarkably firm straight-cut chin and mouth; he looked well when he smiled, and he probably knew that he did. "I'm sure I should never have risked anything so unpardonable." She looked at him a little wonderingly ; and dropped her eyes again. "Are you— are you very fond of your brother ? " she asked. He laughed outright then, showing all his straight, white teeth as be did so. There certainly was a singular oharm about the face. " I should have been — if I had had one ; but I'm afraid you misunderstood me just now — because, you see— l never had a brother." She coloied up to the roots of her hair, and started. "Oh!" she said, stiffly. "I beg your pardon 1 I understood " " Yes— l know you did. Well, for the life of roe I can't remember whose photo that was. It was a lady's, I know ; I think it must have been my sister's. I have a married sister about, somewhere." The girl settled herself more comfortably upon the narrow Beat, and ostentatiously turned over a page of her book. A flash of mischief mingled with the amusement in his deep-set eyes. He hesitated a minute, and Btraightening himself, ohanged his tone. "Tho next land we sight will be Marabnrough Head; tho last wo sighted was off tho L'»Ht const of Scotland somewhere. Nice boat;! theae Dunraven boats." " I beg your pardon ? " " Don't you think they aro nice ? " ••What are?"

" Why— the boit<* I " bt c lcddencd again, turning over another lcaC an had turned tho last one. " I don't quite understand you." " Whici is to say — pardon me for the liberal translation — that you would prefer to rrad." " Thank you ; I should like to road, if you don't mind," Bhe retorted, blushing furioualy. He. bowed low, and left her without a word, his mouth curling down in amusement — or pique -or something ; and in another moment was pacing rapidly backwards and forwards as before. The ateamer hurries on ; eight-bella ring out, and the old lady at the top of the cabin ptaird bedtire herself, and disappears down the companion ladder. The captain leaves the bridge, and comes along to tho main-deck, exchanging a word here and there with this or that passenger as he goes by. He joins the bro^rn faced man of soldierly appearance; they pace the deck together, in the full glare of the sunshine, talking and laughing a little from timt to time. A steward's boy trips swiftly about in his white apron. A low mowing and bleating come from the imprisoned cows and sheep in the lower deok, Suddenly there rises into view a faint misty outline far away, to the eastward ; the outline becomes more denned ; the waves sparkle, and the steamer still hurries on, its brass And its shining wood glancing in the sun. Gradually the great yellow cliffs and the green grans, and the lonely light-houie, stand out distinct and bright against a summer sky. The passengers rouse themselves, and get their field-glasses; the girl in the ruby dress shuts her book and goes over to the side of the vessel ; only the brown-faced man paces on alone. All at once there comes the sharp blowing of a steamer's whiatle ; thit steamer answers back as sharply. With the rapidity of lightning, every cook, every steward, every man, woman, and child is on the deck. Another moment, and a long, dark vessel, identical ia form with this, meets this one only at a few yards' distance. The little crowd of figures assembled on that deck wave and halloa wildly also. Only a moment, and it is vanishing ; the two crowds gaze at each other's receding figures, and the two crowds disappear. This little interchange of ■ympathy takes place twice in the seven days while the summer changes into winter, and the winter changes into summer, the crowds augmenting or thinning according to the season. Afterall.it is just these little interchanges which bring a sweetness and a merriment into life. The girl in the ruby dresa stands by the wheel, and watches the receding vessel. Then she turns sharp round and runs fair against the brown faced soldier. He steps back and bows without speaking ; her dark eyes meet his ; she hesitates, and smiles. 11 Oh I— lb that Plamborough head ? " •'Yea. It looks very calm and Sundaylike, does it not? Would you like a glass ? M •' No, thank you. Oh 1 and I—l— am very much obliged to you for bringing me back that photograph." He bowed very gravely again. " Pray don't mention it ; thore is nothing to be obliged about. And now, can Ido anything elso for you— besides photographs ? — or may I ivuime my walk?" Hfcr ilice flushed crimson ; tear? of effended pr»Ue oo*Jected, and filled the eloquent eyes. Hd^vaiteti k answer for a moment; and getting' nonfc bowed and set off away down the dtiokfegain. She turned aside, biting her lipd in Bitter mortification. Even as she tamed, a low laugh broke out behind her. She wheeled round angrily, her eyes sparkling in the bunshine. He put one arm on the railing, and smiled. " You gave me my cong6 so sternly a little while age," he said, laughing, " that I thought I would just do as I had buen done by. " Nay," he added, more gravely, " don't let us qurrrel, one ought not, ycu know — upon a Sunday." " I think you are very rude," she cried out, her cheeks flaming. " I did not intend it for rudeness," he pleaded. "You are not angry with me? You are not going to quarrel with me ?" The anger died out of her Btnall face, as suddenly as it had flashed into it ; she was evidently a creature of emotion. " Why, I hardly know you," she answered, laughing and looking at him. A strange light came into his eyes as he watched her. He drooped them for a mo incut, then stuck one hand into each of his jacket pockets, and faced her abruptly. 11 Do you believe in such a thing as fascination ?" The dark smoke of the funnel flitted about them ; the yellow cliffs were already receding in the distance. The color rose up into her delicately-chiselled little face again, but she laughed quietly. " Unhappily— l think you need hardly aßk me." He laughed himself, still with the, same puzzled look about his eyes. " Yes, we are most certainly a case in point, there is no doubt about it. But I meant even more than such a fascination aß— as that. I don't know if fascination is the proper word for what I mean. Did you ever feel drawn to a person— irresistibly, unaccountably interested in them, haunted by them from the first moment they come across your path ?—? — Mind, 1 am uot speaking of love at first sight ; I believe in that too ; 1 believe there is no greater truth than that such a thing does exist. lam a man who has seen a good deal of life ; and lam not by any means a romantic man. But 1 believe, as surely as I am standing here speaking to you, that there are people who give their very hearts and souls away to each other in a glance; and go through life adoring one another — all at a distance— up to old age, or maybe up to the end. l ? ate decrees that they should never know one another; fate decrees that they should live and die separately ; and they do so — 1 am speaking of people — equals in class, you understand me — where the petty barriers of society are too frigid to bo lightly broken ; people who see each other day by day, and yet whom fate, or chance, or what you will, denie3 what the world calls an introduction. It makes one very bitter to think of it — and I am certain it is true." She looked at him thoughtfully. " You speak as if — you had felt it." He brought his eyes back from dreamland with a quick flash. •'/— if you knew me better, I don't think you would suggest BUoh a thing. But you know it was not love at first sight that I wanted to ask you about ; it was the other thing— that strange interest with which one person sometimes inspires another. Well, I will tell you this : it is a very plain and a very blunt thiug to tell you, but you mußt excuse me ; I— feel it now." She simply stared at him ; her little flushed face looking into the sunburnt determination of his in sheer bewilderment, the curdling waters rushing and seething around the hull of tho vessel. After au instant's pause, he went en hurriedly : " Did it ever strike you to wonder whether you haunted anybody in that way? somebody you met long ago in a crowd ; or somebody who trod on your dress at a flowerbViow ; or somebody, maybe, who merely saw you pass by. I assure you that last is not bo unlikely. Is it not strange to think of these unknown ohorda of sympathy betwixt you and these unknown somebodies ? And I will tell you another way by whioh sympathy

unites people— by dreams. Ju3t suppose, now, that all the people who ever dreamt of you were to come in'a body to declare themselves to you, what a ridiculously incongruous, and what an amusing body it would be I You walk up a street, and somebody meets you ; a somebody who ha 3 met you indifferently ft hundred times before, but just to day yon notice that he looks at you intently, »nd turn<? away with an expression of suppressed amusement, and you wonder why. Take my word for it, ho dreamt last nij;ht that you and he vrere eating baked potatoes, with lawntennis racketi for spoons, at the top of Lochnngnr; or — or something equally ridiouloua." She stopped him, laughing in spite of herself. " Excuse me — but did you dream thftt about me last night, since you say you feel it?" He laughed himself, looking down at her. " No— ours is of the fascination order; and I do think we ought to be immorcalised by our suffering fellow-creatures, becauso we have done what I don't suppose any of them ever did before. We have felt it, and we have talked it out together in a common-serJse way. Oh, but I beg your pardon ; all this time I have been using the plural number where I ought to have kept to the singular." She lifted her eyes to him, smiling and coloring very deeply. The steamer hurried on ; the drowsy passengers bestirred themselves here and there : Flamborough Head was fading into distance ; the sister steamer stood out a black spot on the horizon. And only an hour had passed since eight-bells rang. An hour; only a short hour ; and a glance had done it all ! Ah me! let us pray for our eyes t We have need of it. The hours went by. The steamer beat, and thumped, and hurried on ; past this county, past that county— a glimp3e of land here and there— then sea, sea. Faint, dreamily-tolhng bells, and many vessels. Where are we ? Coming to the Roads. A long, low line of buaily-twinkling lights, under a grey night sky. What is this, then This is Yarmouth. A pitching, and tossing, and heaving. What, a storm at last ? No, no; only the Nore; crossing the Nore — that is all. Night, sable night— and sleep. But the engines are little given to sleeping. If you waken in ihe small hours, and hear them thumping and thundering — for they never seem to work so hard as by night— and raise your head a little, wondering, sleepily, " Where can we be ? I wish I knew juat where we are," they will answer back to you at once: "Never mind; leave it to us; you'll see where you are in the morning." So you turn on your pillow, and fall fast asleep again. And in the morning you will wake up with a Btart to find a strong hot sun glaring in at you, through your little round cabin window ; and a sound of flopping water ; and the engines beating in a tired, peaceful sort of way. You spring up and strain your eyei out at the green banks, and trees, and lictla houses, and big houses, and fishing- boats, and sailing boats, and mighty vessels. " The Thames I " you cry. And you will dress and rush upstairs ; and gaze. That was what the little delicate-faced girl who had paced the main deck did ; exactly that. The man who had paced it with her was there too, gazing also ; only he had been there all night. She had leaned her arms on the bulwarks, and watches the scene. The houses thicken, and the water loses its freshness. They have Bpoken of the green banks, and the river, and the big old veteran powder-ships, and the landing-stage to come; all in a friendly, kindly, half-indifferent way. And now suddenly, as the steamer flits on, and great, white, German vessel casts its shadow upon them : as good-luck, or ill luck, or some luck will have it, the.w eyet meet. Not casually ; not indifferently ; a long, searching, solving, reading look. After a muiute he turned away to this side ; and she to that side ; but it seemed as if this look bad in one moment severed the past from the future. And he bent his head down, and looked again into them. " Yvonne." She started, and blushed; and finally stammered in answer : " How did you know that my^name was— Yvonne?" " Because I saw it on the photograph. ' To dear Yvonne.' Yvonne— Yvonne— nevermind your name just now. I have something very much more important to speak to you about. Listen to me. I cannot let you paafl away out of my sight without at least an attempt to fight against it. I have thought of it all night. I have thought that it would be sheer madness ; yet I must speak to you. You know nothing about me ; and I know nothing about you, except this— and I swear to you that I don't care a jot to know anything more— that you are Yvonne. Dear Yvonne, sweet Yvonne 1 I think you like me ; I saw it in your eyes that you liked me. Aa for loving, I am not speaking about loving ; yet, oh heaven, could you read my heart, Yvonne ! I don't know how to beat about the bush when lam in earnest ; I only know that I wish with all my heart and soul and strength that you would promise me this : that if you are a free woman in two years hence, you will let me try to make you love me." The sunshine flashed and played ; and the great tears stood in her eyes. She raised them to him very earnestly. " I believe in you," she said quietly. " I believe you mean what you say. And I—yes,1 — yes, Ido like you. But think of the diilicultica. In two years you do not know where you may be. And in two years you will have forgotten me. Ah, yes, you think just now that it will not be so ; but it will ; it could hardly be otherwise." " Yvonne,"— he stopped her with a quick movement, his brows knitted together pasBionately — "do you think I don't know myself ? My past life has not exaotly been that of a saint, but at least I cannot reproach myself with inconstancy. Let it be longer than two years, if you will ; and you will nee whether I can forget »o easily. Do you remember what you told me about yourself — and I think it was the only thing you did tell me — that it would be two years upon the next twenty-fifth of December until you started for home ? You said you had made the calculation, and that the twenty-fifth fell upon a Saturday, and that, come weal or come woe, if you were in life you would be starting by the lUamer upon that day. I do not know why you should be so long away from home ; nay, do not tell me ; Ido not wish to know, I will leave you alone during these two yean. You are free ; free to do what you like ; to marry whom you wish ; only, child, for heaven* «ako, if you are still free at the end of them, be upon the steamer. Yvonne, I will be there." There came a long pause. The pasting*^ moved to and fro about the steamer. A gaily-built little yaoht danced past them ; and the captain— up on the bndgo— took off his hat and waved it in greeting to somebody on board. Very slowly Bhe raised her Boft, dark eyes, still shining with tears, and looked at him. *' I promise," she said ; " and yet — yet I do not even know to" |whom I am promising." He put out his brown hand, and closed it over hers, just for an inat*»t.-_J^Say *-I promise, Paul,' "he said. "It is not a pretty name, but it is a short one ; you will not forget it ; and it is mine, llepeat it alter me, Yvonne—' I promise, Paul.' " She repeated it after him as he told her. He dropped her hand, and they stood straight upright again and talked of other things. And the steamer sped on its way. {To be Continued]