He had not been alone a minute or two, and was looking about to see if Mrs. Smith was there, when he was accosted by the Captain. The Captain was a pleasant-looking, handsome man, about forty-five years of age, who had the good word of almost everybody on board, but who had not before spoken specially to Caldigate.
'Good morning, Mr. Caldigate. I hope you find yourself fairly comfortable where you are.'
'Pretty well, thank you, Captain.'
'If there is anything I can do.'
'We have all that we have a right to expect.'
'I wish, Mr. Caldigate, I could invite you and your friends to come astern among us sometimes, but it would be contrary to rule.'
'I can quite understand that, Captain.'
'You are doing a bit of roughing—no doubt for the sake of experience. If you only knew the sort of roughing I've had in my time!'
'I dare say.'
'Salt pork and hard biscuit, and only half enough of that. You find yourself among some queer fellow-passengers I dare say, Mr. Caldigate.'
'Everybody is very civil.'
'They're sure to be that to a gentleman. But one has to be careful. The women are the most dangerous.' Then the Captain laughed, as though it had only been a joke—this allusion to the women. But Caldigate knew that there was more than a joke in it. The Captain had intended to warn him against Mrs. Smith.
Chapter VII.
The Three Attempts
Something more than a month had gone by, and John Caldigate and Mrs. Smith were very close companions. This had not been effected without considerable opposition, partly on the part of Shand, and partly by the ship's inhabitants generally. The inhabitants of the ship were inimical to Mrs. Smith. She was a woman who had no friends; and the very female who had first appeared as a friend was now the readiest to say hard things of her. And Caldigate was a handsome well-mannered young man. By this time all the ladies in the first-class knew very well who he was, and some of them had spoken to him. On one or two occasions the stern law of the vessel had been broken; and he had been absolutely invited to sit on those august after-benches. He was known to be a gentleman, and believed, on the evidence of Dick Shand, to be possessed of considerable means. It was therefore a thing horrible to all of them, and particularly to Miss Green, that he should allow himself to be enticed into difficulties by such a creature as that Mrs. Smith. Miss Green had already been a little cold to the doctor in consequence of a pleasant half-hour spent by her in Caldigate's company, as they looked over the side of the vessel at the flying-fish. Mrs. Callander had been with them, and everything had been quite proper. But what a pity it was that he should devote so much of his time to that woman! 'Fancy his condition if he should be induced to marry her!' said Miss Green, holding up her hands in horror. The idea was so terrible that Mrs. Callander declared that she would speak to him. 'Nobody ever disliked interfering so much as I do,' said Mrs. Callander; 'but sometimes a word from a lady will go so far with a young man!' Mrs. Callander was a most respectable woman, whose father had begun life as a cattle drover in the colonies, but had succeeded in amassing a considerable fortune. 'Oh, I do wish that something may be done to save him!' said Miss Green.
Among the second-class passengers the same feeling existed quite as strongly. The woman herself had not only been able but had been foolish enough to show that in spite of her gown she considered herself superior to them all. When it was found that she was, in truth, handsome to look upon—that her words were soft and well chosen—that she could sit apart and read—and that she could trample upon Mrs. Crompton in her scorn—then, for a while, there were some who made little efforts to get into her good graces. She might even have made an ally of good-natured Mrs. Bones, the wife of the butcher who was going out with his large family to try his fortune at Melbourne. Mrs. Bones had been injured, after some ship fashion, by Mrs. Crompton, and would have made herself pleasant. But Mrs. Smith had despised them all, and had shown her contempt, and was now as deeply suspected by Mrs. Bones as by Mrs. Crompton or Mrs. Callander.
But of all the foes to this intimacy Dick Shand was for a time the most bitter and the most determined. No doubt this arose at first from jealousy. He had declared his purpose of unravelling the mystery; but the task had been taken out of his hands, and the unravelling was being done by another. And the more that the woman was abused, and the more intent were all the people in regard to her wicked determination to be intimate with Caldigate, the more interesting she became. Dick, who was himself the very imp of imprudence—who had never been deterred from doing anything he fancied by any glimmer of control—would have been delighted to be the hero of all the little stories that were being told. But as that morsel of bread had been taken, as it were, from between his very teeth by the unjustifiable interference of his friend, he had become more alive than any one else to the danger of the whole proceeding. He acknowledged to the Captain that his friend was making a fool of himself; and, though he was a little afraid of Caldigate, he resolved upon interfering.
'Don't you think you are making an ass of yourself about this woman?' he said.
'I daresay I am.'
'Well!'
'All the wise men, from David downwards, have made asses of themselves about women; and why should I be wiser than the rest?'
'That's nonsense, you know.'
'Very likely.'
'I am trying to talk to you in earnest.'
'You make such a failure of it, old boy, that I am compelled to talk nonsense in return. The idea of your preaching! Here I am with nothing special to do, and I like to amuse myself. Ought not that to be enough for you?'
'But what is to be the end of it?' Dick Shand asked, very solemnly.
'How can I tell? But the absurdity is that such a man as you should talk about the end of anything. Did you ever look before you leaped in your life?'
'We are to be together, you know, and it won't do for us to be hampered with that woman.'
'Won't it? Then let me tell you that, if I choose to hamper myself with that woman, or with a whole harem of women, and am not deterred by any consideration for myself, I certainly shall not be deterred by any consideration for you. Do you understand me?'
'That is not being a true partner,' said Shand.
'I'm quite sure of this—that I'm likely to be as true as you are. I'm not aware that I have entered into any terms with you by which I have bound myself to any special mode of living. I have left England, as I fancy you have done also, because I desired more conventional freedom than one can find among the folk at home. And now, on the first outset, I am to be cautioned and threatened by you because I have made acquaintance with a young woman. Of all the moral pastors and masters that one might come across in the world, you, Dick Shand, appear to me to be the most absurd. But you are so far right as this, that if my conduct is shocking to you, you had better leave me to my wickedness.'
'You are always so d–––– upsetting,' said Dick, 'that no one can speak to you.' Then Dick turned away, and there was nothing more said about Mrs. Smith on that occasion.
The next to try her hand was Mrs. Callander. By this time the passengers