Clara Maynard The True and the False - A Tale of the Times

Excerpt

Chapter One.

The blue waters of the British Channel sparkled brightly in the rays of the sun, shining forth from a cloudless sky, as a light breeze from the northward filled the sails of a small yacht which glided smoothly along the southern coast of England. At the helm of the little vessel stood her owner, Captain Maynard, a retired naval officer. Next to his fair young daughter, Clara, the old sailor looked upon his yacht as one of the most beautiful things in existence. Though her crew consisted but of two men and a boy, and she measured scarcely five-and-twenty tons, he declared that if it were necessary he would sail round the world in her without the slightest hesitation.

“Flatten in the jib, and take a pull at the main-sheet, my lads, and we shall run into the bay without a tack, if the wind holds as it does now,” he sang out.

The men, as they came aft to execute the latter order, had to disturb some of the passengers, of whom there were several, seated on cloaks round the skylight, or standing up holding on to the weather rigging, or leaning against the main-boom. Clara Maynard, accustomed to yachting, promptly moved to windward, aided by Harry Caulfield, a young military officer, who had ridden over that morning to Luton, for the pleasure of making a trip on board the yacht; but her aunt, Miss Sarah Pemberton, looked somewhat annoyed at being asked to shift her seat. Harry, however, came to her assistance, and placed a camp-stool for her against the weather bulwarks.

“I am sorry, Sarah, to inconvenience you,” said the captain, good-naturedly, “but we haven’t as much room on board the Ariadne as on the deck of a line-of-battle ship.”

The captain had called his yacht after the first ship in which he went to sea.

The cutter having rounded a lofty point, a small and beautiful bay opened out ahead; and the wind remaining steady, without making another tack, she stood in directly for it.

“We could not have chosen a more lovely spot for our picnic,” exclaimed Clara. “See, Aunt Sarah—I am sure you will be pleased when you get there. Watch those picturesque cliffs, ever changing in shape as we sail along—and see those breezy downs above them, and the fine yellow sands below, and that pretty valley with the old fisherman’s cottage on one side, and the clear stream running down its centre, and leaping over the rocks in a tiny cascade.”

“I shall be very glad to get safe on shore,” answered Miss Pemberton, who had been persuaded, much against her will, to venture for the first time on board the little Ariadne.

She had been invited, on the death of Clara’s mother, her younger sister, to take up her abode with her widowed brother-in-law, and had only lately accepted his frequently repeated offer. Whatever good qualities she might have possessed, she was certainly not attractive in appearance, being tall and thin, with a cold and forbidding manner. Clara treated her aunt with due respect, and did all she could to win her affections, though she tried in vain to bestow that love she would willingly have given....