Hurricane Island

"I don't like that little buffer," declared Lane grumpily as we walked on. "He is too fussy and by-your-leave-please for me. Made me get out all my books yesterday, as if I were an office-boy."

"He feels responsible, I suppose," I ventured.

"Well, who's responsible if I'm not?" demanded the purser hotly. "I've been at sea fifteen years, and this brat hasn't so much as been sick in the Marguerite, I'll lay. Let him look after his own books. I'm all right."

It was quite manifest that Lane was decided in his likes and dislikes, as his unreasonable objection to the second officer had already discovered to me. The passengers were not visible during the morning, but in the afternoon I received a message calling me to Mr. Morland's cabin. I found him seated before a bureau with a docket of papers before him, and he was civil and abrupt.

"Is there anything you can recommend for sea-sickness, Dr. Phillimore?" he asked bluntly.

I told him of several remedies which had been tried, and mentioned cocaine as probably the best, adding that I had little faith in any of them. He thought a moment.

"Prepare me some cocaine," he said, and with a bow intimated that he had done with me.

It was civil as I have said, but it was also abrupt. He had the air of a martinet and the expression of a schoolmaster who set his pupil a task. But I made up the doses forthwith and let him have them.

Later I saw two figures walking upon the hurricane promenade, one of which I easily made out as Mr. Morland, and the other was a woman heavily cloaked in fur. A strong breeze was beating up channel, and as they stood and faced it the woman put her hand to her hat. But for the most part they walked to and fro, sometimes in conversation, but often in silence. Once, at eight bells, I noticed, from my point of observation, the woman stop, lean across the railing, and point towards the coast of France, which was fast fading into the gathering mists. She seemed to speak, her face turned level with her shoulders towards the man. He put out a hand and snapped his fingers, and they presently resumed their promenade. The sun had gone down, and darkness was settling on us; the Sea Queen ploughed steadily westward, her lights springing out one by one, and the figures on the hurricane deck were presently merged in shadow. As I leaned over the stern, reflecting, and contemplating now the dull wash of the water about the screw, I was conscious of some one's approach.

"Well, doctor," said the cheerful voice of Pye, "have you had a good look at our passengers?"

"Mr. Pye," said I, pleasantly enough, "I am a man of moods. And I have lived long in silence and routine as no doubt you yourself also. I find occupation even in my own thoughts."

"You are well equipped for the sea," he rejoined. "I'm not sure about myself. You see, I'm a Londoner, and I shall miss those peopled spaces. Here there's nothing but–" he waved his hand.

"At all events. I see you're a respectable sailor," I said, "which, apparently, others are not." His silence seemed to inquire of me. "I gave Mr. Morland a prescription for sea-sickness this afternoon."

"That would be for one of the ladies," he made answer; "he is evidently firm on his legs, and—and his companion. I suppose I may tell you that his companion is his sister," he said after a pause.

"Well, yes," I replied drily, for his precautions jarred on me. "For I suppose we shall discover the mystery in the course of the next twelve months."

"Mystery!" he repeated musingly. "I suppose I am by training somewhat circumspect. It's difficult to get out of it. But there's no mystery. Mr. and Miss Morland have brought a friend with them."

"If there's no mystery," I said, "the friend?"

"I have not heard her name," he replied, "or at least, if I have, I have forgotten. It is a friend of Miss Morland's. I believe she is a French lady."

The dusk had enclosed us, but through it I perceived some one hurriedly approaching. "Is it the doctor?" said the steward's voice, and I answered in the affirmative.

"You're wanted at once, sir. Mr. Morland has sent for you."

I moved off quickly, and had got half-way down the deck when a woman came forward noiselessly through the gloom.

"Dr. Phillimore," she said, "I want you to see to Mlle. Châteray at once. She is very ill."

I entered the state rooms without further question, hurried down the handsome corridor, and under Miss Morland's guidance found the cabin. Certain constitutions are peculiarly affected by the sea, and it is even undertaking a risk for some people to travel on that element. Clearly it was, as Pye hinted, for the French lady that my prescription had been required. Outside the cabin in the corridor I encountered Mr. Morland, who exhibited a troubled face unusual to one of such apparent equanimity. But he said nothing, only looked at his sister and turned away.

Inside I found a blue chamber, roomy and well lighted by electricity, an elegant broad bed affixed to the one wall, and upon it, stretched in the most wonderful déshabille, my patient. Mlle. Châteray was of middle height, of a pleasant fulness, and dark of feature. She had large eyes that, as I entered, were roaming in a restless way about the room, and her voice was lifted sharply abusive of her maid, a mild Frenchwoman who stood by her.

"She is in a state of collapse, Dr. Phillimore," said my guide's voice in my ear.

I knew better than that. It was hysteria, or I had never seen hysteria, and the mal-de-mer had been merely provocative. I took her hand without ceremony, and, wheeling on me her lustrous eyes, she broke out in torrential French.

She would die if she remained there. They were beasts to keep her there. Why was she not put ashore at Havre? Havre was a port, as every one knew, and there were ports not only in England. I had a kind face and would do as she bade me.... Very well, then, let her be put ashore. She began to tear at her elaborate dressing-gown, and I was afraid of one of those outbreaks which are known as crises des nerfs. I took her hands firmly.

"You shall be put ashore as you wish," I said, "and in the meantime, while the yacht is going about, you will drink what I give you. It will comfort you."

She gazed into my eyes, ceasing to struggle, and then said more quietly: "Yes—yes, give it me quick."

It was a case for bromide, and I turned away at once to go to my surgery.

"You will lie exactly as you are, mademoiselle," I said peremptorily, "until I return."

I left the cabin and descended, and I think I was not gone more than ten minutes. When Mlle. Châteray had taken the draught, I turned to her maid: "She will be quieter now," I said. "Let me know if anything further develops," and I moved towards the door. Miss Morland stood in my way.

For the first time I observed her. Her cloak had fallen from her, leaving her fine figure in the full illumination of the light. Her head was set well back above the eloquent lines of a strong throat and the square shoulders underneath. The lace over her bosom stirred with her breathing, and to my fancy at the moment she was as a statue into which life was flowing suddenly. I saw this before I met her gaze, and the calm beauty of that confirmed my fancy. She moved then and opened the door for me.

"You have promised she shall be landed?" she said in a low voice.

"Madam, I would promise anything in such a case," I answered.

A faint smile passed over her face, for we were now outside the cabin and in the ladies' boudoir.

"You can promise relief, then, I understand?" she queried.

"She will probably be all right to-night, though I cannot say the hysteria will not recur," I replied.

An expression flitted over her face, but whether it was of pity or annoyance I could not have said.

"My brother will not put the yacht about," she said.

"I'm not going to ask him," I rejoined.

"I thank you, doctor," said she simply, "and so will he."

"It is my business," I responded indifferently.

She had spoken with distance, even coldly, and with the air of condescension. There was no necessity to thank me at all, and certainly not in that way.

Bidding her good evening, I went down again, and as I went a problem which had vaguely bothered me during my administrations recurred, now more insistently. There was something familiar in Mlle. Châteray's face. What was it?

I spent some time in the surgery, and later joined the officers at dinner. Captain Day wore a short dinner-jacket like my own, but the others had made no attempt to dress. Perhaps that was the reason why the captain devoted his attention to me. His voice was that of a cultivated man, and he seemed to converse on the same level of cultivation. He made a figure apart from the rest of the company, to which little Pye was now joined, and as I looked down and across the table (from which only Holgate was absent on duty) their marvellous unlikeness to him struck me. Even Sir John Barraclough and Lane seemed by comparison more or less of a piece, though the first officer ignored the purser quite markedly. Captain Day, I discovered, had some taste in letters, and as that also had been my consolation in my exile in Wapping, I think we drew nearer on a common hobby. I visited my patient about nine o'clock, and found her sleeping. As she lay asleep, I was again haunted by the likeness to some one I had seen before; but I was unable to trace it to its source nor did I trouble my head in the matter, since resemblances are so frequently accidental and baffling.

Pye had invited me to his room earlier in the day, and I went straight to him from the deck cabin. To find Holgate there was not unpleasing, as it seemed in a way to recall what I almost began to consider old times—the time that was in the "Three Tuns." Pye mixed the toddy, and we smoked more or less at our ease. I spoke of my patient, in answer to a question, as one suffering from sea-sickness.

"What's she like?" inquired Holgate.

"I should say handsome," I rejoined. "I understood from Mr. Pye that she is French."

"I think I heard so," said Pye, "but you could tell."

"Well, she spoke French," I said with a smile.

Pye's smile seemed to commend my reticence, but Holgate, ignoring the obvious retort on me, pursued a different subject.

"Upon my soul, I envy people like those millionaires. Here am I working like a navvy for a bare living, never been able to marry; Pye probably in the same case; and you, doctor?"

"No; I'm a bachelor," I answered.

"Well, take us three—no doubt in our different walks every bit as capable as Mr. Morland on his Wall Street, or wherever it is. It isn't a righteous distribution of this world's goods."

"It is odd," said I, speaking my thoughts, "how you came to take up this life."

"The sort of blunder," said Holgate, "that is made in three cases out of four. I hankered after it in my teens, and once out of them it was too late. Who is going to adapt a youth of twenty-one, without capital, to a commercial life, or a legal life, or a medical life? There is no changing the dice. When the hands are dealt you must abide by them."

"Yes, we are all waifs," said I sententiously, not being greatly interested in the argument.

"When I came back from my last voyage," pursued Holgate, "I was in Paris for a bit, and went into the Comédie one night, and–"

I never heard the rest of Holgate's reminiscence, for the word regarding the theatre suddenly sent a message to my memory and lighted it up instantaneously. I said aloud, and with some excitement,

"Trebizond!"

Holgate ceased talking, and Pye removed his cigarette hastily.

"What, may we venture to ask, is Trebizond?" he said presently.

I smiled foolishly. "Oh, it is only that I have made a discovery," I said, "a small discovery."

Again there was silence.

"Perhaps we are worthy to hear it," suggested Holgate equably.

Pye still held his cigarette between his fingers and looked at me out of his gold-rimmed glasses.

"Oh, nothing much," said I, and glanced at my watch. "I'm sorry, I must see my patient safe for the night. I'll look in again."

I left them and went upstairs, knocking on the boudoir door. Miss Morland opened it.

"Mlle. Châteray is still sleeping," she said formally.

"I will leave a dose with her maid," I replied, "so that if it be necessary it may be given in the night."

"You will, of course, be in attendance if required," she said coldly.

I bowed.

"I am paid for it, madam," I answered, though I must confess to a hostile feeling within my heart.

"I think, then, that is all," she said, and I took my dismissal at the hands of the arrogant beauty with an internal conflict of anger and admiration.

I did not return to Pye, but went to my own cabin in an irritable condition. It ought not to have mattered to me that the sister of a millionaire, my employer, should treat me more or less as a lackey; but it did. I threw myself on my bunk and took down a book at random from my little shelf. Out of its pages tumbled an evening news-sheet which I now remembered to have bought of a screaming boy as I hurried into the dock gates on the previous afternoon. I had not had time to look at it in my various preoccupations, but, after all, it was the last news of my native land I should have for some time, and so I opened it and began the perusal.

It was one of those half-penny journals which seem to combine the maximum of vulgarity with a minimum of news. But I passed over the blatant racing items and murder trials with less than my customary distaste, and was rambling leisurely through the columns when I was arrested by a paragraph and sat up briskly. It was the tail that interested me.

"… It is stated that Prince Frederic is in London. The name of the lady who has so infatuated him is Mlle. Yvonne Trebizond, the well-known prima donna."

I had recalled the name Trebizond during Holgate's talk, and it seemed strange now that this second discovery should fall so coincidently. The face of Mlle. Châteray had taken me back, by a sudden gust of memory, to certain pleasant days in Paris before I was banished to the East End. I had frequented the theatres and the concert-rooms, and I remembered the vivacious singer, a true comédienne, with her pack of tricks and her remarkable individuality. Mlle. Châteray, then, was no other than Yvonne Trebizond, and–

I looked down at the paper and read another sentence, which, ere that illumination, had had no significance, but now was pregnant with it.

"The prince has the full support and sympathy of his sister, Princess Alix."

I rose abruptly. I can keep my own counsel as well as a lawyer's clerk, but I saw no reason in the world for it now. I had left my glass untouched and my cigar unlit in Pye's cabin. I went back forthwith to finish both.

The pair were still seated as if expecting me.

"Patient all right, doctor?" inquired Holgate.

I nodded. "Mr. Pye," I said, "I find my discovery has amplified itself. When I was here it was of small dimensions. Now it has grown to the proportions of a—well, a balloon," I ended.

Both men gazed at me steadily.

"Out with it, man," urged the third officer.

"I have your permission?" I asked the lawyer's clerk, smiling.

"When you have told me what it is, I will tell you," said he, gravely jocose.

I put the paper in Holgate's hands, and pointed to the paragraph. He read it slowly aloud and then looked up.

"Well?" he asked.

"I am going to tell you something which you know," I said, addressing Pye. "The lady in the deck cabin is Mlle. Trebizond."

Holgate started. "Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, but Pye was quite silent, only keeping his eyes on me.

"I recognized her, but couldn't name her," I went on. "Now it has come back to me."

"Which means, of course," said Pye unemotionally, "that Mr. Morland is–"

"The Prince," said Holgate with a heavy breath.

Pye resumed his cigarette. "With all these sensations, my dear Holgate," he remarked, "I have forgotten my duty. Perhaps you will help yourself."

Holgate did so. "Good Heavens!" he said again, and then, "I suppose, if you're right, that we carry Cæsar and his fortunes. He has got off with the lady and the plunder."

"The plunder!" I echoed.

He indicated the paragraph, and I read now another sentence which I had overlooked.

"The prince has expressed his intention, according to rumour, of marrying as he chooses, and as he inherits more than a million pounds from his mother, he is in a position to snap his fingers at the Empress. In that case, no doubt, he would follow precedent, and take rank as an ordinary subject."

I looked up at Holgate.

"We carry Cæsar and his fortune," he said with a smiling emphasis on the singular, and then he waved his arm melodramatically. "And to think we are all paupers!" and grinned at me.

"It is inequitable," said I lightly; "it's an unjust distribution of this world's goods," echoing therein his own remark earlier in the evening.

Pye sat still, with an inexpressive face. His admirable silence, however, now ceased.

"So we shall have this gossip all over the ship to-morrow."

"No," said I curtly, for the suggestion annoyed me. "It is nothing to me. I told you because you knew. And I told Mr. Holgate–" I paused.

"Because I'm your chum," said the third officer.

I did not contradict him. I had spoken really out of the excitement of my discovery. Certainly I had not spoken because Holgate was my chum.

CHAPTER IV

An Amazing Proposition

As I had said, it was no business of mine, and, having divulged my news, I was in no haste to go about with it like a common gossip. That Prince Frederic of Hochburg was Mr. Morland, and that Miss Morland was Princess Alix, I was as assured as that I had identified in my patient the well-known Parisian singer Yvonne Trebizond. But, having made the discovery, I promised myself some interest in watching the course of the rumour. It would spread about the ship like fire and would be whispered over taffrails, in galleys, and in stokehole. But, to my surprise, I could observe no signs of this flight of gossip. No one certainly offered me any communication on the subject, and I observed no curiosity and no surprise. The mess conducted itself with equanimity, and nothing was hinted of princes or of emperors, or of mysterious secrets. No facts ever hid themselves so cunningly as these obviously somewhat startling facts, and I wondered at the silence, but still held my tongue.

Mademoiselle continued to give me trouble during the next day, but that was more in the way of unreasonable demands and petulance than through hysteric exhibitions. She did not repeat her request to be landed, which was now quite impracticable, as we were well out in the Atlantic, but she referred to it.

"Where are we, doctor?" she inquired languidly, and I told her; at which she considered. "Well, perhaps it is worth it," she said and smiled at me confidingly.

Of Mr. Morland I saw little, for he was shut in his cabin a great part of the day, reading or writing, and smoking without cessation. And he walked regularly on the hurricane deck with his sister. Once I encountered him in mademoiselle's room, and he nodded.

"She is getting well, doctor; is it not so?" he asked in a pleasant way, and exhibited a tenderness in his words and manner to mademoiselle which I should not have associated with him.

Of his sister I saw even less, except in the distance, but her, too, I met in her friend's room. Mademoiselle was talkative that day, the second of my attendance on her, and spoke of things with a terrifying frankness, sometimes in bad English, but oftener in her own tongue. She rehearsed her sensations during sea-sickness, criticised Miss Morland, and asked me about Barraclough, whom she had seen passing by her window once or twice.

"Sir John," she said, speaking pretty broken English. "Then he is noble. Oh, comme il est gentil, comme il est beau!" and as quickly fell to cross-questioning me on my parentage and history.

It was in the thick of this that Miss Morland made her entrance. I do not know if it be a confession of weak-mindedness, or even of snobbishness (I hope not), but the fact was that since I had discovered Miss Morland's identity I did not judge her coldness and aloofness so hardly. I am disposed to think it was merely a reasonable attitude on my part produced by the knowledge of her circumstances, and what I set down as her trials. She bowed to me, and addressed some words to mademoiselle which, sympathetic in their import, were yet somewhat frigid in tone. Mademoiselle replied laughing:

"You are very good, my dear, but I am progressing. We are sailing into the land of romance and will find what we shall find there."

I lingered beyond what was necessary, and thus it happened that Miss Morland and I left the cabin together. Outside she spoke: "Is there any likelihood of a recurrence of the attack?"

"I don't think so," I answered. "But Mlle. Trebizond is a nervous subject."

It was the look in her eyes that made me suddenly realise my indiscretion. A light flashed in them, almost as if she would have struck me.

"Mlle. Châteray is almost well enough to dispense with a doctor's services," she said with an accent on the name.

"You must allow me to be the judge of that," I replied flushing. She was silent.

"Naturally," she said at last, and turned away.

The newspaper had stated that Princess Alix was sympathetic to her brother's attachment, but was she altogether so? I could not but attribute her coolness and her reticence to some scruple. She walked daily with her brother, and it was evident that she was fond of him, or why was she here? But how much of personal prejudice and of private conviction had she sacrificed on that pious altar?

I was sure that if the news of our passengers were bruited about at all I should hear of it from Lane, who was a gossip at heart; and as he said nothing I knew that Holgate had been silent—why, I could not conceive, unless Pye had gagged him. But in any case it appeared that Holgate also could keep his own counsel and hold his tongue. That he could speak I had yet to realise, as the astonishing narrative I am now approaching demonstrates.

It was the evening of our fifth day out, and the long swell of the Atlantic was washing on our port side, so that the Sea Queen heeled over and dipped her snout as she ran. I had misgivings for my late patient, whom I had not seen for the last thirty-six hours, although she had made an appearance on the hurricane deck in a chair.

Holgate asked me to his cabin with his customary urbanity, saying that he wanted a few words with me. Once the door was shut he settled down on his bunk and lit a cigar.

"Help yourself, doctor," he said.

I declined and remained standing, for I was anxious to get away. He looked at me steadily out of his dark eyes.

"Do you know where we're going, doctor?" he asked.

"No," said I, "but I should be glad to."

"I've just discovered," he replied; "Buenos Ayres."

I told him that I was glad to hear it, as we should run into better weather.

"I couldn't just make up my mind," he went on, "till to-day. But it's pretty plain now, though the old man has not said so. Any fool can see it with the way we're shaping." He puffed for a moment or two and then resumed: "I've been thinking over things a bit, and, if your theory is correct, Mr. Morland is to marry the lady at Buenos Ayres and probably make his home there, or, it may be, in some other part of America. A capital place for losing identity is the States."

I said that it was quite probable.

"But as the yacht's chartered for a year," pursued Holgate evenly, "the odds are that there's to be cruising off and on, may be up the west coast of America, may be the South Seas, or may be Japan. There's a goodly cruise before us, doctor."

"Well, it will be tolerable for us," I answered.

"Just so," he replied, "only tolerable—not eighteen carat, which seems a pity."

"Shall we strike for higher wages?" I asked drily.

"I've been thinking over what you said, doctor," said the third officer, taking no heed of this, "and it's gone home pretty deep. Prince Frederic has cut himself adrift from his past—there's no getting behind that. The Emperor has thrown him up, and there's no one outside a penny-a-liner cares two pinches for him or what becomes of him. He's done with. The Chancelleries of Europe won't waste their time on him. He's negligible."