Driven to Bay: A Novel (Complete‪)‬

The August sun had just sunk below the horizon, as Jack Blythe, a passenger by the down train from London to Portsmouth, walked leisurely home to a little cottage situated on Southsea Common.

He was a tall, well-built young fellow of five-and-twenty, with a remarkably graceful figure. His hair was pale brown, with the faintest tinge of gold upon it; his eyes were grey and languid in their expression—his general appearance somewhat delicate. And yet Jack Blythe (who had been christened Vernon) was one of the merriest, most manly fellows in existence. The very fact of his proper name having been mysteriously changed to ‘Jack’ was a proof of his being a favourite with his own sex: as for the other, they, one and all, combined to spoil him. Few, seeing Jack for the first time, would have guessed his profession. He looked like a poet, but he was a sailor, and belonged to the roughest part of the profession—the Merchant Service. He had been educated, indeed, with a view to very different work; but when it was too late for him to enter the Royal Navy, he had intimated his unalterable decision to go to sea, and his mother, who was his only surviving parent, had, with many tears, consented to his wishes. But he was a good son and a good sailor, and she had never repented of letting him have his own way.

As he approached his destination, he was accosted by another young man who had run half-way across the common to meet him.

‘Hullo, Jack! how are you? You’re the very man I want,’ cried the new-comer effusively.

‘What for, Reynolds? To pull an oar in a boating party, or to rig up a tent for a camping-out expedition?’ asked Blythe.

‘Better than that, old boy! I’ve bought that little yacht, the Water Witch, at last, and you must sail her for me. I have my party all ready, and we can start for the Island to-morrow morning.’

‘I should very much like to join you, old man,’ said Jack, ‘but it can’t be done. I may have to go to town again to-morrow to meet an influential friend.’

‘Hang it! You are always going up to town!’ ejaculated the other. ‘One day off can surely do you no harm.’

‘It might, at present, Reynolds. I have stayed on shore too long already, and I find some difficulty in getting a ship. I have sent in my application for a berth on board the Pandora, and as I have good interest, I hope I may get it. But nothing is certain in this world, and I cannot afford to relax my energies until I am provided for. You see my twelve-month’s pay is nearly gone—that’s where the shoe pinches; so, if I lose my chance of the Pandora, I shall have to hunt up all the skippers and owners in the docks.’

‘You’ll get a ship fast enough,’ grumbled Reynolds; ‘you’ve passed for chief officer. What more do you want? Come, old boy,’ he continued coaxingly, ‘say you’ll give up to-morrow to the Water Witch and me—’

‘I will, if it is possible! I can say no more,’ replied Jack Blythe.

‘Alice Leyton has promised to accompany us,’ resumed Reynolds, meaningly.

‘Has she?’ remarked Jack without a blush. ‘Well, if I can join the party, she will prove an extra attraction to it, naturally. But it is as necessary for her sake as for my own that I should get employment as soon as possible.’

And, with a wave of the hand, Jack Blythe continued his walk to his mother’s cottage.

‘I don’t believe he cares a rap for that girl,’ thought Reynolds, as he, too, turned homewards. ‘Fancy! calmly resigning a whole day on the water with the woman he is supposed to be in love with. Bah! The fellow’s not made of flesh and blood.’

But in this, as in many things, Mr Reynolds was mistaken. It was a hard trial for Vernon Blythe to relinquish what was, to him, one of the greatest pleasures in life. He would have given anything in reason to have had an opportunity to test the sailing powers, and seen the behaviour of the saucy little Water Witch under his guidance; and for a while he felt half disposed to gratify his desire at the expense of his duty.

‘Shall I go?’ he asked himself as he strode onwards. ‘After all, it will only be a day more, and I don’t half like the idea of Alice going without me. She doesn’t mean any harm, I know—still, she is rather free in her manners, and apt to say more than she means, and Reynolds certainly admires her. Pshaw! I am talking nonsense! I have promised to meet Mr Barber, and I must be firm. Besides, if Alice is not to be trusted on a water-party without my protection, how am I to leave her (as I soon may) to take a voyage to New Zealand alone? I must trust her “all in all, or not at all.” I was a fool even to think of such a thing!’

And starting off at a brisk pace, he soon reached his mother’s cottage.

Mrs Blythe was on the look-out for her son’s return. He was her only child, and she loved him as only a mother can love the one treasure of her heart. His father, who was an officer in the Royal Navy, had been drowned at sea whilst Vernon was a baby, and it had been the one wish of her widowed life that her boy should not be a sailor. But as he grew up, the inherited instinct developed itself, and she had been forced to part with her darling; since which her life had been divided into two parts only—the days when Vernon was at home, and the days when he was not. Mrs Blythe always called her son ‘Vernon.’ It had been her own maiden name, and she would recognise him by no other. She thought the nickname of ‘Jack’ both low and vulgar, and was disgusted whenever she heard him addressed by it. She was a round, rosy little woman, very unlike her son, who inherited his beauty from his father, but she was a good mother to him, and he loved her devotedly. Although she had such good reason to hate and dread the sea, yet she felt she could not live away from it, and had been settled in Southsea ever since her husband’s death. Her cottage, which faced the common, was surrounded by a pretty garden, enclosed by a wooden paling and a little rustic gate. The room where she awaited her son was neatly furnished, the walls being covered with the curiosities which Vernon, and his father before him, had brought her home from different parts of the world. Talipots and fans from Rangoon, and bangles and hookahs from Calcutta hung by the side of skins and palm-leaf trophies from the West Coast, and green stone and carved wooden weapons from Maori land. Daintily-painted boxes, and wonderfully-carved pagodas were piled up with ornamented whales’ teeth, and the inexhaustible fern leaves from St Helena, and necklaces and poisoned spears from the Sandwich Islands. Here, in fact, were to be seen specimens of art from every quarter of the globe, and with a story attached to each, marking the milestones along the widow’s path of life, and hallowed by her smiles and tears. The room had more the appearance of a museum than a private dining-room, but these innumerable curiosities were Mrs Blythe’s greatest treasures, over which she brooded whilst her son was absent on his long sea voyages. She had had him all to herself for twelve months now, but the holiday was drawing to a close, and each day she dreaded to hear him say that he must leave her.