On Monday they heard they would arrive at Brindisi on the Tuesday
morning, and Tamara persuaded Mrs. Hardcastle to agree to disembarking
there instead of going on to Trieste.
"We shall be home all the sooner," she said. And so it was settled. But
there was still all Monday to be got through.
It was a perfect day, the blue Mediterranean was not belying its name.
Tamara felt in great spirits, as she came on deck at about eleven
o'clock, to find Millicent taking a vigorous walk round and round with
the Russian Prince. They seemed to be laughing and chattering like old
friends. Again Tamara resented it.
"He is only making fun of poor Millie," she thought, "who never sees a
thing," and she settled herself in her chair and let her eyes feast on
the blue sea---What should she do with her life? This taste of change and foreign
skies had unsettled her. How could she return to Underwood and the
humdrum everyday existence there? She seemed to see it mapped out on a
plain as one who stood on a mountain. She seemed to realize that always
there had been dormant in her some difference from the others. She
remembered now how often she perceived things that none of them saw,
and she knew it was because of this that it had grown into a habit with
her from early childhood to suppress the expression of her thoughts,
and keep them to herself--until outwardly, at all events, she was of
the same stolid mould as her family. The dears! they could not help it.
But about one point she was determined. She would think and act for
herself in future. Aunt Clara's frown should not prohibit any book or
any action. The world should teach her what it could.
Tamara had received a solid education; now she would profit by it, and
instead of letting all her knowledge lie like a bulb in a root-house,
she would plant it and tend it, and would hope to see sweet flowers
springing forth.
"Next summer I shall be twenty-five years old," she said to herself,
"and the whole thing has been a waste."
Each time the energetic promenaders passed her chair she heard a few
words of their conversation, on hunting often, and the dogs, and the
children, Bertie's cleverness, and Muriel's chickenpox, but always the
Prince seemed interested and polite.
Presently the old man, Stephen Strong, came up and took Mrs.
Hardcastle's chair.
"May I disturb your meditations?" he said. "You look so wise."