A STORY FOR GIRLS.
By EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen Sisters,” etc.
CHAPTER XII.
A FAIR ISLAND.
“Oh, how lovely!” cried Sheila.
The glow of a golden sunset was on sea and shore, as the great vessel rounded the corner and came into view of the harbour of Funchal. The lonely Desertas to their left lay bathed in the reflected light from the westering sun, whilst upon their right lay the fair island of Madeira, its wild mountain range cleft with great ravines, and dotted with innumerable quintas and little houses shining in a sort of shimmering glory, the white city with its many buildings and spires lying peacefully on the margin of the sea, the shore alive with little boats, looking like so many caterpillars upon the green water as the rowers pushed them outwards towards the great in-coming steamer.
“Oh, Miss Adene, I am quite sorry the voyage is over; but how lovely Madeira is!”
“Yes, I told you you would be pleased! And see over yonder, beyond the town, on that sort of promontory as it looks from here, that is the New Hotel, where we are all going. It looks a little bare from here, but the garden is a wilderness of flowers when we get there. It is the most homelike hotel I was ever in, and I have had a good many experiences. Yes, those boats are to take us off. We cannot get very close inshore. The harbourage is not good, and in rough weather the mails have to stand a good way out, and I have known passengers swung on board in baskets by the steam-crane. But that is quite exceptional. Generally it is like to-day, calm and quiet, and the boats take us off without any trouble. Mr. Reid will come out in one, and take all trouble off our hands. We just give him our keys and tell him the number of our boxes, and he passes it through the Customs and brings it up, and we have no sort of trouble at all.”
Mrs. Cossart was very much relieved to find how easily everything was done when once the kindly hotel proprietor came on board. She was able to give her undivided care to Effie, whilst Sheila was running about saying good-bye to captain, officers, and such passengers as were going on to the Cape or the Canaries, and in the end found herself left behind by that boat, and had to go ashore under Miss Adene’s wing, which, however, troubled her no whit.
“A bullock-cart! Oof! How perfectly delicious!” she cried, as they were shown the conveyance in which they were to be carried to the hotel. “Oh, you dear creatures! What sweet faces they have! Oh, I hope they are kind to you! Miss Adene, isn’t it lovely to go in a bullock-cart? Oh, I hope it is a long way!”
“It takes about twenty minutes. You see, the bullies do not go very fast,” laughed Miss Adene, as she took her place. “This is what we call a carro; it has runners like a sledge instead of wheels. You see, all the streets are paved with cobble-stones, so that the runners slide easily along them; and it is the same everywhere in the island right up into the hills; nothing but these paved roads for bullock carros, and running carros, and sleds for carrying goods. But the mountain carros are much lighter than these that they use in the town, or they could not get them up the steep, steep roads.”
Sheila was in an ecstasy as they went jogging along through the quaint little town. She exclaimed with delight at everything she saw, the little brown-legged, dark-eyed children, the women with shawls over their heads, the little boys running with strange calls at the heads of the bullocks, and, above all, at the gorgeous masses of the flowering creepers which draped the walls of the houses and fell in great curtains over the outside mirantes. Deep orange bignonia, bougainvillia, purple and scarlet, delicate plumbago, with roses and heliotrope in such masses that the eye was dazzled and the air heavy with perfume.
“I could not have believed it if I had not seen it!” cried Sheila again and again. “And, oh, how hot and delicious it is! Effie must get well here!”
The New Hotel was a fine building, and there was pretty little Mrs. Reid waiting smiling in the hall to give them a welcome. Miss Adene had several kindly questions to ask, and went off with Mrs. Reid to the suite of rooms which had been bespoken for the Dumaresqs, whilst Sheila was handed over to the care of a tall, slight, ladylike girl, who took her up and up to the rooms selected by Mrs. Cossart.
“It is a long way up, but they thought the air would be fresher and the rooms more quiet for the lady who is ill,” she explained; and Sheila, to whom stairs were no trouble, was delighted. After all, it was only on the second floor; only, the rooms being lofty, the journey seemed a little long.
“Oh, Effie,” cried Sheila, “what a splendid room! How high, and cool, and delicious! Oh, I do like these white walls! And what views we get! Oh, how I love those great, great wild mountains! And there is the dear sea out of this one. It is nice to have two different views, and both so lovely! Oh, how happy we shall be!”
Effie was lying on the sofa, but she was looking interested and animated. The maid passed in and out, looking about her, and keeping an eye on her young charge.
“Yes, I like being up here. I feel as though I could breathe. I was afraid it might be too hot below. Father and mother have the room next but one looking south over the sea, and Susan has the next one, though it is big, so that we are all together. She may have to move when the hotel fills up; but she is to be there now. I think I shall like this place, Sheila; and the people seem so kind.”
Kindness indeed seemed to prevail here. The Portuguese chambermaid, in her odd, broken English, was wishful to know what kind of bedding and pillows the ladies liked; and when she brought in anything asked for, she would set it down with a beaming smile, saying, “Sank you, my ladies.” The curly-haired waiter who brought up afternoon tea almost at once was wishful to know what the ladies liked; and before long, Mrs. Reid had come up to see if Effie were comfortable, and talk cheerfully and kindly to her till called off in another direction.
“I must just run down and round the garden!” cried Sheila, after they had eagerly drunk their tea. “I wonder if I might bring you back some flowers? If I see Mrs. Reid, I will ask her.”
Mrs. Reid quite laughed at the question as Sheila passed her going out.
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“As many as ever you like. And take care not to slip on the pebbled paths. People have got to get used to them.”
Ronald was outside, and hailed Sheila eagerly.
“Come along and let us explore!” he cried. “Give me your hand. These cobbles are mighty slippery. They say gravel would be washed away by the tropical showers even if they could get it. But it’s precious queer walking down these steep places. One wants to be a bullock for that.”
It was a strange, wild garden, with great palms growing in the beds, and the walls of the terraces, for it was all more or less terraced out of the face of the cliff, covered with curtains of creepers, most of them a mass of bloom. Roses in sprays as long as your arm drooped temptingly within reach, and the little heavy-scented gardenia filled the air with fragrance.
Sheila ran from place to place, exclaiming and admiring, glancing with shy interest at other visitors strolling about, and making her companion laugh again and again by her enthusiasm.
“Oof, a tennis-court!” she cried, darting suddenly through an opening. “Oh, did you ever see anything so lovely? It is like a Tadema picture!”
It was rather, for the floor was of concrete, looking white in the fading light, and there were stone seats all round it for spectators, whiter still. All round a trellis had been placed, wired in against balls, and this trellis was just one sheet of glorious colour. Curtains of bougainvillia hung over at one place, at another heliotrope of roses made a perfect screen, intermingled with scarlet geranium, poinsettia, and plumbago. Through little gaps in this floral curtain, and through vistas of palm and cactus beyond, could be caught glimpses of the blue sea, and overhead the sky rose sapphire clear, with that peculiar purity and depth of colour which characterises those latitudes.
“Oh, isn’t it lovely?” cried Sheila in ecstasy.
“Awfully pretty,” replied her companion, “though the floor might be better for playing. There are some big cracks. Do you like tennis, Miss Cholmondeley?”
“Oof, yes!” cried the girl eagerly; “but I have not had much practice this summer. Effie was ill, and I was not going to parties. Do you play well, Mr. Dumaresq?”
“No, not well according to the modern standard; but perhaps you will condescend to play with me. But come along; I want to see what that little building is up there. In there is the bungalow, a sort of dependence of the hotel. The Reids offered it to us as an independent home of our own, but as Guy is rather lame and weak, and we should have to come up to the hotel for meals, we declined; there are too many steps. But it is a pretty place; such a sheer drop to the sea below. It must be like living in a ship’s cabin. Now I want to see how to get to that other building. I think there’s a sort of a path round here. I’ve a fancy it may be the billiard-room from my aunt’s description of the place.”
A billiard-room it was—half of it, at least; the other half was quite empty save for a piano and some chairs round the walls.
“It looks made for a dance!” cried Sheila, pirouetting round. “Are all hotels as perfectly delightful as this?”
The sun had just dipped behind the hills, and the shadows were coming on apace.
“I suppose it gets dark pretty soon here,” said Ronald. “Let us go back to the house now. We must finish the garden to-morrow. There is plenty more to see.”
Sheila had sprays of roses and heliotrope in her hands as she ran upstairs to Effie. A lamp had been brought in, and the big, lofty room looked quite gay.
“Oh, what roses!” cried Effie in real delight. “Aren’t they splendid? I am going to like this place immensely, Sheila, and we have such a good plan. Susan isn’t to have the big room next door; it’s to be turned into a sitting-room for us. Mrs. Reid will get it done to-morrow, and Susan will sleep in a little room close by; then this great turret place will be all our own, and we can have our friends up to tea and all that sort of thing. I want to get to know the Dumaresqs better. You get on with them very well, don’t you, Sheila?”
“They are very kind to me. I think they were sorry for me on ship-board because I was alone at first. Lady Dumaresq is lovely, and the little boy is so sweet, and Miss Adene has always been like a friend.”
Effie was moving about the room a little restlessly.
“I don’t quite know how it is—I suppose it’s being ill—but I don’t seem to get on with people quite in the easy way you do, Sheila; but you know at home, before I was ill, they all used to listen and laugh as they do now to you. I don’t want to be left out in the cold.”
“Oh, no!” cried Sheila eagerly, though with a slightly heightened colour. Somehow she too had the feeling that people did not take very much to Effie. They all asked kindly after her, but a little of her conversation seemed to go a long way.
Mrs. Cossart here came in to say that she would dine upstairs with Effie, but that Sheila had better go down with her uncle. So Susan was sent for to get at a dress, the luggage having arrived all safe, and the girl was soon arrayed in a soft black net evening gown, very simple, but very becoming, with a spray of white roses fastened upon her shoulder.
“Mind you tell me about all the people when you come back!” said Effie, who was quite lively and bright in spite of the fatigues and excitements of the day; and Sheila was all curiosity herself, for she had never before stayed at a big hotel, and the novelty of the life amused and interested her immensely.
In the drawing-room there were a few old ladies and a couple of gentlemen reading the paper. They did not look very amusing, Sheila thought. Then the Dumaresqs came in, except Sir Guy, who was not well enough to appear. But Lady Dumaresq looked bright and happy, confident that the warmth and beauty about him would soon put him right.
A gong sounded, and there was a move to the adjoining dining-room, and Sheila found herself seated at a long table between her uncle and Ronald Dumaresq, who coolly took possession of the empty seat laid for Effie, whilst the other guests filed in, some to the long table, and some to the small ones at the side, and the business of dinner began.
Sheila was not hungry, but she enjoyed watching and listening. A rather handsome lady opposite was making advances to their party with an air of assurance and friendly patronage which rather amused Sheila.
“A regular old hotel stager,” whispered Ronald to her in an aside, “would know the sort anywhere. Keeps her husband in good order, one can see. Rather a fine woman, but I don’t care for her style.”
Then there were the usual habitués of a health resort—a wife with a delicate husband, a husband with a delicate wife, a mother with a little asthmatic boy (who would have been better in bed at such an hour), a few travellers bent on pleasure and relaxation rather than health. Sheila tried to piece histories on to the different faces, and Ronald made some comical remarks and shrewd guesses. But the party was not large for the size of the hotel. The season was quite early. It was not often so full as this till after Christmas. A rather wet summer and the threatened outbreak of influenza had frightened a good many people off before the usual time.
“I think I’m glad of it,” said Sheila. “It is such fun watching them. They are all rather quiet now, but I suppose they will make more noise when they get to know each other.”
“We must try and set a good example,” answered Ronald. “Now come on to the verandah outside and see the moonlight on the sea.”
The covered verandah outside the drawing-room, with its comfortable chairs and lounges, was quite an institution at the New. Although on the entrance side the drawing-room appeared a ground-floor room, from the verandah one looked right down over the terraced garden with a sheer drop on to the next level of twenty or thirty feet. The view over the harbour was lovely, the town lights and those of the ships gleaming out in the soft darkness.
“There goes the Plymouth Castle,” said Ronald, pointing out the vanishing lights of the great steamer. Sheila waved her hand in a parting salutation.
“Good-bye, dear old ship. I liked being on you very much, but I don’t want to be on you now, for you have brought us to the most charming and delightful place. Oh, how happy I am going to be here!”
(To be continued.)