Materfamilias

"Heaven knows!" he ejaculated. "The glass is falling again, fast."

"Never mind the glass. It is always falling."

"I wouldn't, if I had any sort of proper ship under me. But this – she isn't fit for women to sail in."

"If she is good enough for you," I remarked cheerfully, "she is good enough for me."

"But she isn't. I don't ask for much – at my age – but I do want a ship of some sort, not a sieve. Oh, dear! oh, dear!" – looking round him with a restless sigh – "we shall be months getting to Melbourne at this rate."

"I don't care," I said, "if we are years."

He made no comment on this statement, which I blushed to perceive was a mistake; and I hastened to remind him that Edward's illness must have been over long ago. Then he began, in an abrupt manner, to ask me how I thought the passengers were bearing the trial of short rations which he had been compelled to lay upon them.

One day we were at great peace, because the weather was beautiful and the water in the well diminished. A hammock of sailcloth had been made for me, and slung in a nice place, and I lay there almost the whole day through, swinging softly with the ship as she soared and dived over mile-long billows or swayed in the deep beam swells with the airy motion of a bird upon the wing. The Racer could feel like that at times, even yet; and I was too happy for speech or thought – that is, in a sad and pensive fashion. So, I know, was Tom, although he too had no words and hardly a look for me as he paced to and fro. It was just the consciousness that I was there – that he was there – permitted to rest together for an interval from our battle with fate. Even the sight of his substantial figure, never out of my mind's eye, while my other eyes saw only the lifting and sinking of the gunwale against the gleaming, silky sea – even the roar of his strong voice, occasionally using "language" in a professional way – could not take away the sense as of an enchanted world enveloping us, as if we were disembodied spirits in some heavenly sphere. But I can't describe it. Perhaps the reader understands.

The night was lovelier than the day – there was a moon shining – and one literally ached with the sweetness of it. Each of us was on the way to bed, and somehow we could not resist the temptation to linger by the rail a little. The ship was under command of the chief officer, and all was well for the time. We were alone where we stood.

Speaking of the change of weather and his late responsibilities, he said: "If I am ever so unfortunate as to lose the lives committed to me, I shall just stand still and go down with the ship – when I have done what I can do."

"If that should come," I returned, "please don't put me into a boat and send me off without you. Let me stand still and go down too."

"Not if there's a chance for the boat," he said.

We had spoken in a light way, but deep thoughts welled up in us. "Oh," I broke out – for I had not his self-control – "oh, it would be better than anything that could happen to me now!"

All he said to that was "Hush – sh – sh!" but I could not check myself immediately.

"I would rather die that way than live – as I must live when I no longer have you to take care of me!" I wailed, reckless. "Oh, I wish I could! I wish I could!"

And indeed I meant it. Even as we went down, I thought, he would keep the sea monsters from terrifying and devouring me; he would take care of me, regardless of himself – that was inevitable – until we were both dead. The fear of death was nothing to the fear of life as it would present itself at my journey's end. I had no fear of death – with him.

He laid his broad, brown hand on mine that clutched the rail – a solemn gesture – and he said, in a shaking voice, "My dear, it's well you remind me that it's my business to take care of you. We have got our duty to do, both of us. Come, it's getting late; it's bed time. We mustn't stay here in the moonlight and let ourselves get foolish."

Still holding my hand, he led me downstairs. At the door of my cabin he gave it a great strong squeeze, and then let it go without another word. He did not kiss me. Oh, true heart! Death to him would have been infinitely easier than the ordeal I made him suffer through those long weeks. But he never allowed himself to be overcome.

It was not long after this that the dreaded moment came when land was reported. Words cannot describe my terror of the impending change. It was my only safe haven – my home – from which I was, as I thought, to be cast out, and I simply dared not imagine what sort of life awaited me.

The crippled Racer anchored in Hobson's Bay at nightfall. Most of the passengers went off in boats, and those who rowed to the ship returned with them. Dressed in walking clothes, I sat in the little cabin that had been my sitting-room, listening and shivering, trying (with the example I had before me) to brace myself to meet things as a brave woman should; but no one came for me. Only Tom. Rather late in the evening, when all had gone except the steerage woman and her children, with whose husband and father he had made some business arrangement, the captain entered my private apartment alone for the first time. There was an indescribable expression on his face, which had looked so fagged of late. His eyes did not meet mine. His whole frame trembled like a girl's.

"Oh, has he come?" I cried – I believe I almost shrieked.

"No," said he; "he hasn't come. You'd better go to bed now – go and sleep if you can – and I'll tell you about it to-morrow."

"What is it?" I implored. "What has happened? What have you heard? Oh, tell me now, for pity's sake!"

He sat down on the little bunk beside me, and took my hand between his two hands; he did it as a father might do it, to support my weakness under the shock coming.

"The fact is, Mrs. Filmer – the fact is, dear – I sent ashore for news. I thought I'd better make some inquiries first. And – and – and – "

"I know – I know! He has left the country, and abandoned me again!"

"No, poor fellow! He died of that illness – six months ago."

At first I did not understand the meaning of the words. It was an event that had never entered into my calculations, strange to say. But the moment I realised the position – it is a dreadful, dreadful thing to confess, but God knows I never meant any harm – my arms instinctively went up to Tom's stooping shoulders and, hiding my face in his breast, I nearly swooned with joy.

CHAPTER II

IN THE EARLY DAYS

I was not a girl, but a woman, when I married Tom. He, a man incapable of grossness in any shape or form, was still a man, healthily natural, of ripe experience in the ways of men. Whatever our faults in the past – if they were faults – the result was to teach us what we could never otherwise have learned, the meaning of wedlock in its last perfection. Don't let any one run down second marriages to me! The way to them must necessarily be painful and troubled, and one always desires passionately to keep one's children out of it; but the end of the journey, bringing together, open-eyed to all the conditions, educated to discriminate and understand, two born mates like Tom and me – ah, well! One mustn't say all one thinks about these matters – except, of course, to him.

Talking of being open-eyed, I was so blind at one time as actually to fancy that he was in no hurry to have me. When I gave him to understand – hardly knowing what I did – that I should die or something without him to take care of me, he said he asked nothing better than to take care of me, God knew, but that how to do it for the best was what bothered him. It did not bother me in the slightest degree. I depended on him – only on him of all the world – and I told him so; and yet he wanted, after that, to send me back to my father with some old woman whom I had never seen, in another ship, while he took the Racer home – which never would have got home, nor he either. And I a married woman, independent in my own right, and over twenty-one! However, I flatly refused to go, except with him, as I had come. He said he would not trust my life to that rotten tub again, and I said – I forget what I said; but I hurt his feelings by it; and then I cried bitterly, and said I would go out and be a housemaid.

The deadlock was suddenly ended by the Racer being condemned by the authorities of the port as unfit for sea again. When that happened we both decided to stay in the new country, and, having him near me, I was quite content to postpone matrimony until things became a little settled. It was soon plain enough that he was not anxious to postpone for the mere sake of doing so; he only wanted a clear understanding with father first, as well as with his owners, and to give me time for second thoughts, and for considering the advice of my family.

It took long for letters to come and go, and I began to be haunted in my walks by a strange man, who – I suppose – admired me. Tom found this out on the same day that he accepted an appointment as chief officer with a Melbourne shipping company. I could not imagine what had happened when he came to see me at my poor lodging with such a resolute face.

"Mary," he said, "who's that fellow hanging round outside? I've seen him several times."

"Tom," I protested sincerely, "I don't know any more than you do. But he is a rude man; he stares at me and follows me, and I can't get rid of him. Of course, he sees that I am – " I was going to say "unprotected," and hastily substituted "alone," which was not much better.

"Well, now, look here – I've got a ship, Mary" – he did not pain me with further explanations on that head; later I wept to think of his subservient position in that ship – "and this means an income, dear. Not much, but perhaps enough – "

"Does it mean that you are going away?" I cried, terrified.

"Not far. Only for a few days at a time. I start on Friday. This is Monday."

He took my hands; he looked into my eyes; I knew him so well that I knew just what he was going to say. The colour poured into my face, but I made no mock-modest pretence of being shy or shocked.

As a preliminary, he questioned me as if I were on trial for my life. "Answer me quite truthfully, Mary" – he called me Mary before we were married, but always Polly afterwards – "tell me, on your solemn word of honour, do you love me – beyond all possible doubt – beyond all chance of changing or tiring, after it's too late?"

I told him that I loved him beyond doubt, beyond words, beyond everything, and should do so, I was absolutely convinced, to my life's end. I further declared that he knew it as well as I did, and was simply wasting breath.

"And you really and truly do wish to marry me, Mary?"

I attempted to laugh at his tragic gravity and his awkward choice of words. I said I didn't unless he did, that I wouldn't inconvenience him or force his inclination for the world. I asked him, plainly, whether he thought that quite the way to put it.

"Yes," he said. "For I want to make sure that I – that circumstances – are not taking advantage of you while you are young and helpless. And yet how can I be sure?"

He took my face between his hands and gazed at it, as if he would look down through my eyes to the bottom of my soul. I shut them after a moment, and tears began to ooze between the lids at the thought that he could doubt me. One trickled out and splashed upon his knee, and my heart began to heave with the impulse to cry in earnest. Then he drew my face – drew me into his arms, and we sat a little without speaking, hearing our hearts thump.

"We'll chance it, shall we?" he whispered between short breaths. "Sooner or later it must come to that, and better as soon as possible if I have to leave you in Melbourne alone. You won't be so much alone if you belong to me, even when I am away – will you, sweetheart?"

I merely sighed – that kind of long, full, vibrating sigh which means that your feelings are too deep for words.

"I think I shall be able to answer to your father – I hope so," he continued, rallying his constant self-control. "I think I am justified, Mary. If not – "

But I would not let him go upon that tack. Justification was absolute, in my view of the case. I know what the ill-natured reader will say – she will say that I threw myself at his head, that I forced myself upon him, that I did not give him a chance to get out of marrying me if he had wanted to; but that is only because she knows nothing whatever about it. I cannot explain. I simply state the fact that we had one mind between us on the matter, and if she doesn't believe me I can't help it.