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Ebook has 667 lines and 58454 words, and 14 pages

n, 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."

"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.

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.

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.

"This is Monday," Tom repeated, "and I sail on Friday. If we are going to do it, Mary, I'd like it done before I leave. There's nothing to wait for, if we don't wait for the letters, is there?"

I told him nothing--that I was in his hands; and he proposed that we should walk out then and there to find some one to "splice" us, as he appropriately termed it, because it would be so much easier to attend to all the other business after we were man and wife than before.

Sailors have a terse way of acting as well as of speaking, and the change that made life such a different thing for both of us actually took place that very day as ever was. When the unknown admirer would have followed young Mrs. Filmer in her evening walk--it was too hot to go out earlier--there was no such person. Mrs. Braye was dining delicately at a pleasant seaside hostelry, in the company of her lawful protector, whose name alone was like a charm to keep his proud wife in safety.

We gave ourselves until Wednesday morning. Then we worked all Wednesday and Thursday, like two navvies, to settle ourselves in the small lodging that we selected for our first home. We were as poor as poor could be and had to proceed accordingly, but little I cared for that, or for anything now that I had him. On Friday afternoon he sailed--a subordinate on that trumpery intercolonial boat, after being captain and lord of an English ship--and I cried all night, and counted the hours all day till he returned, when I went quite daft with joy. Not that much joy was allowed us, even now, seeing that the greater part of his short sojourn in port had to be spent on board. But it was wonderful what value we could cram into the precious minutes when we did get them. Again we had the agony of parting, the weary interval of separation, the renewed bliss of the return, continually intensified; and then the letters came--the letters we had tried, so unsuccessfully, to wait for. Father desired me to come home for a time--a foregone conclusion--and Miss Coleman did the same in more impassioned sentences. I daresay it was heartless, but I laughed and danced with delight to know that it was all too late for advice of that sort. And, to counteract any possible feeling of remorse, Aunt Kate wrote in the sweetest way, all fun and jokes, practically approving and encouraging me in the course I had taken. To a young woman so situated, she said, fathers were quite useless and superfluous, and she advised me to please myself, as I had always done--that was how she put it. Best of all, she sent me a draft for ?500, either to come home with or for a wedding present, as the case might be. And this precious windfall enabled us to take a little private house that we could make a proper home of.

The worst of being on these small lines is the uncertainty about the movements of your ship. In winter Tom would run one trip for months, or suddenly stop in the middle for docking and repairs--a mere excuse for laying up, I used to say, because trade was not paying expenses--in which case he would have a holiday without salary, and the pleasure of his companionship would be marred by anxieties about money. In summer there were occasional special excursions, "round tours," that kept him away for a month or six weeks at a time; and these were what I dreaded most.

We had not yet had this long separation, but I knew--knew, but would not admit--there was danger of it when we had been married a little less than a year. It was our second Australian summer, and the time of all times when I could not endure to part from him. I had now grown accustomed to having him at home for a day and a couple of nights weekly--happily he had a command again, such as it was, and could do as he liked in port--and that was far, far too little, under the circumstances.

My husband looked most concerned when he saw what I was doing. "Hullo, Polly, what's up?" was his greeting, as he faced me from the doorway; and his bright home-look vanished like a lamp blown out.

I could not speak for the rush of tears. I held out the newspaper, pointing to the fatal spot, and, when he took it, abandoned myself upon his shoulder.

He read in silence, with an arm round my waist. For a whole minute and more we heard the clock ticking. Then he cleared his throat, and said soothingly: "After all, it mayn't come to anything--at any rate, not till afterwards. People don't care to be away from their homes at Christmas. It's only an approximate date."

He was wrong. The postponements that invariably take place at other times did not occur this time--as if on purpose. The hot weather set in early, and it seemed that many people did desire to escape, not from it only, but from the social responsibilities of the so-called festive season. The Bendigo was a good boat, as everybody knew, and her captain a great favourite with the travelling public. I don't wonder at it! So that the passenger list filled rapidly, and every day brought us less hope of a reprieve. Tom seemed a year older each time that he returned from the regular voyage, bringing this information, and I know I nearly drove him mad with my pale face and tear-sodden eyes. One day he told me so.

"After all," I said, with a gulp and a smile, "the other poor seamen's wives have to take their chance of this sort of thing, so why not I?"

"You," he replied, in his fond, stupid way, "are not like the others, my pretty one."

He meant that I was far more choice and precious.

He had me in his arms now, with my face under his left ear.

"My brave girl!" he murmured. "My own brave girl!"

Just as when he called me that before, my heart rose elated. I determined to deserve the title.

I choked, and burst into fresh tears.

"God keep you safe for me," he prayed, as he held me to him, heart to heart. "And you'll take care of yourself, my Polly. You won't fret, and make yourself sick and weak--promise that you won't--for my sake!"

So I kept up to the last, to hearten him. The very last was the seeing the ship go by at nightfall, on her way to sea. I lived where I lived on purpose to have this view of her as she passed in and out. I watched for her for an hour, and when she came it was too dark for me to see my darling on the bridge through the strong glasses he had given me on purpose that I might see him, and the flutter of his cabin towel against the black funnel. Nor could he see me in the blue dusk of the shore, with the evening afterglow behind it. But he sent a farewell toot across the water, and I pulled the blind to the top of my window, and lit up my room with every lamp and candle I could find. I knew he was looking, and that he knew I knew it. We always signalled good-night in this way when he passed out late.

So I kept up to the very last. But when I saw his mast-head light go round the pier, like a bright star in the evening sky, and glide towards the sea that was to keep him from me so long when I wanted him so desperately, then I collapsed like a spent bubble, and all my courage went out of me. I think I fainted there by the window, all of a heap upon the floor.

At any rate, his back was hardly turned--he could scarcely have cleared the Heads, we reckoned--when the catastrophe befell. I have often tried to imagine what his feelings were when, at his first port of call, the intelligence was conveyed to him that he had a son, and that mother and child were doing well. He attempted to express them by letter, but he is not literary. And he can't gush. All the same, I know--I know!

Did I say that the happiest moment of my life was when he called me a brave girl? I was wrong. The happiest moment of my life--even though Tom was away from me--was the moment when I heard the first cry of my own child. Words cannot describe the effect on me of that little voice so suddenly audible, as great an astonishment as if one had never expected it; but every mother in the world will understand.

Oh, I am getting maudlin with these reminiscences! I can't help it.

However, I suppose all this is silly. At any rate, the silly fashion is to call it so.

The old lady patted my shoulder soothingly, and assured me he would be home in no time, if I would have but a grain of patience; while I had to reflect that it was impossible to go a-travelling without money. I would have "given anything" indeed, but I had nothing to give, though Tom had amply provided for all my wants at home. Moreover, I could only have left the house, while she was in it, over the dead body of my nurse. I could manage the old lady, but not her; she was a rock of resolution where her duty was concerned.

I went straight into town and cashed that draft, taking my son with me--proud to carry him myself, though he nearly dragged my arms off. At the same time I ascertained at the company's office that the Bendigo was hourly expected to report herself from Sydney.

That same night I had a wire from him. He was safe at Sydney, all well; and would I telegraph immediately to inform him how it was with me? Would I also write fully and at once, so that he might get the letter before he left?

"We will telegraph immediately, to set his dear mind at rest," I said to the son, who smiled and guggled as if he perfectly understood--and I am sure he did; "but we won't write fully and at once. We can get to him as quickly as a letter, and he would rather have us than a million letters. Oh, what a simply overwhelming surprise we shall give him!" I was so full of this blissful prospect that I never thought how I might be embarrassing him in his professional capacity.

There were no intercolonial railways then, and we could not have stood the wear and tear of overland travel if there had been. Nor was there any choice in the matter of sea transport. I was obliged to take the mail steamer that brought me Aunt Kate's money, for it was the only vessel going to Sydney that could get me there in time. I had to be very smart to catch her, and just managed it, leaving my home at the mercy of a plausible red-nosed charwoman who was all but a perfect stranger to me.

The voyage, even without the nursemaid whom I did not feel justified in adding to my other extravagances, not only did me no harm, but really invigorated me. A new-made mother, I had been informed, was never sea-sick, and my experience seemed to prove the fact; while as for baby, in spite of his catching a little cold, which he might have caught at home, the exquisite sea air must have been better for him than the gutter smells of Melbourne. He was as good as gold, and the stewardess was an angel, and we slept like tops all through our two nights on board.

It was nearly four before I could get off the mail boat, and it was considerably past that hour when I hurried up the gangway of the Bendigo, panting, and bathed in perspiration--for Sydney is a hot place in January--looking everywhere for Tom. The second officer, who knew me, uttered an exclamation as he ran to take my bag from the cabman; and the way he looked at baby--then asleep, fortunately--was very funny.

"Oh, Mr. Jones," I cried, "is the captain on board?"

"No, Mrs. Braye; he's on shore," was the reply, accompanied with violent blushes. "You must have missed him somehow. Are you--are you going back with us?"

"Of course I am," I said, as calmly as I could. "But he does not know it yet. I had some business in Sydney, and I thought I would give him a surprise. Don't tell him, please; I will go up to his cabin on the bridge and wait for him."

"He may be here any moment," said the young man. And, looking to right and left in an embarrassed way, he asked if he should call the stewardess.

"Not yet," I returned affably. "I will ring when I want her. He will sleep for a long time. He's such a good baby--not the least little bit of trouble." And then I turned back the lace handkerchief from the placid face, and asked Mr. Jones what he thought of that for a month-old child.

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