The Patagonia Part 11

"Maternal fiddlesticks! It was she who began it."

"Then why did you come up today?" I asked.

"To keep you quiet."

Mrs. Nettlepoint's dinner was served on deck, but I went into the saloon.

Jasper was there, but not Grace Mavis, as I had half-expected. I sought to learn from him what had become of her, if she were ill--he must have thought I had an odious pertinacity--and he replied that he knew nothing whatever about her. Mrs. Peck talked to me--or tried to--of Mrs.

Nettlepoint, expatiating on the great interest it had been to see her; only it was a pity she didn't seem more sociable. To this I made answer that she was to be excused on the score of health.

"You don't mean to say she's sick on this pond?"

"No, she's unwell in another way."

"I guess I know the way!" Mrs. Peck laughed. And then she added: "I suppose she came up to look after her pet."

"Her pet?" I set my face.

"Why Miss Mavis. We've talked enough about that."

"Quite enough. I don't know what that has had to do with it. Miss Mavis, so far as I've noticed, hasn't been above today."

"Oh it goes on all the same."

"It goes on?"

"Well, it's too late."

"Too late?"

"Well, you'll see. There'll be a row."

This wasn't comforting, but I didn't repeat it on deck. Mrs. Nettlepoint returned early to her cabin, professing herself infinitely spent. I didn't know what "went on," but Grace Mavis continued not to show. I looked in late, for a good-night to my friend, and learned from her that the girl hadn't been to her. She had sent the stewardess to her room for news, to see if she were ill and needed a.s.sistance, and the stewardess had come back with mere mention of her not being there. I went above after this; the night was not quite so fair and the deck almost empty. In a moment Jasper Nettlepoint and our young lady moved past me together. "I hope you're better!" I called after her; and she tossed me over her shoulder--"Oh yes, I had a headache; but the air now does me good!"

I went down again--I was the only person there but they, and I wanted not to seem to dog their steps--and, returning to Mrs. Nettlepoint's room, found (her door was open to the little pa.s.sage) that she was still sitting up.

"She's all right!" I said. "She's on the deck with Jasper."

The good lady looked up at me from her book. "I didn't know you called that all right."

"Well, it's better than something else."

"Than what else?"

"Something I was a little afraid of." Mrs. Nettlepoint continued to look at me; she asked again what that might be. "I'll tell you when we're ash.o.r.e," I said.

The next day I waited on her at the usual hour of my morning visit, and found her not a little distraught. "The scenes have begun," she said; "you know I told you I shouldn't get through without them! You made me nervous last night--I haven't the least idea what you meant; but you made me horribly nervous. She came in to see me an hour ago, and I had the courage to say to her: 'I don't know why I shouldn't tell you frankly that I've been scolding my son about you.' Of course she asked what I meant by that, and I let her know. 'It seems to me he drags you about the ship too much for a girl in your position. He has the air of not remembering that you belong to some one else. There's a want of taste and even a want of respect in it.' That brought on an outbreak: she became very violent."

"Do you mean indignant?"

"Yes, indignant, and above all fl.u.s.tered and excited--at my presuming to suppose her relations with my son not the very simplest in the world. I might scold him as much as I liked--that was between ourselves; but she didn't see why I should mention such matters to herself. Did I think she allowed him to treat her with disrespect? That idea wasn't much of a compliment to either of them! He had treated her better and been kinder to her than most other people--there were very few on the ship who hadn't been insulting. She should be glad enough when she got off it, to her own people, to some one whom n.o.body would have a right to speak of. What was there in her position that wasn't perfectly natural? what was the idea of making a fuss about her position? Did I mean that she took it too easily--that she didn't think as much as she ought about Mr.

Porterfield? Didn't I believe she was attached to him--didn't I believe she was just counting the hours till she saw him? That would be the happiest moment of her life. It showed how little I knew her if I thought anything else."

"All that must have been rather fine--I should have liked to hear it," I said after quite hanging on my friend's lips. "And what did you reply?"

"Oh I grovelled; I a.s.sured her that I accused her--as regards my son--of nothing worse than an excess of good nature. She helped him to pa.s.s his time--he ought to be immensely obliged. Also that it would be a very happy moment for me too when I should hand her over to Mr. Porterfield."

"And will you come up today?"

"No indeed--I think she'll do beautifully now."

I heaved this time a sigh of relief. "All's well that ends well!"

Jasper spent that day a great deal of time with his mother. She had told me how much she had lacked hitherto proper opportunity to talk over with him their movements after disembarking. Everything changes a little the last two or three days of a voyage; the spell is broken and new combinations take place. Grace Mavis was neither on deck nor at dinner, and I drew Mrs. Peck's attention to the extreme propriety with which she now conducted herself. She had spent the day in meditation and judged it best to continue to meditate.

"Ah she's afraid," said my implacable neighbour.

"Afraid of what?"

"Well, that we'll tell tales when we get there."

"Whom do you mean by 'we'?"

"Well, there are plenty--on a ship like this."

"Then I think," I returned, "we won't."

"Maybe we won't have the chance," said the dreadful little woman.

"Oh at that moment"--I spoke from a full experience--"universal geniality reigns."

Mrs. Peck however knew little of any such law. "I guess she's afraid all the same."

"So much the better!"

"Yes--so much the better!"

All the next day too the girl remained invisible, and Mrs. Nettlepoint told me she hadn't looked in. She herself had accordingly inquired by the stewardess if she might be received in Miss Mavis's own quarters, and the young lady had replied that they were littered up with things and unfit for visitors: she was packing a trunk over. Jasper made up for his devotion to his mother the day before by now spending a great deal of his time in the smoking-room. I wanted to say to him "This is much better,"

but I thought it wiser to hold my tongue. Indeed I had begun to feel the emotion of prospective arrival--the sense of the return to Europe always kept its intensity--and had thereby the less attention for other matters.

It will doubtless appear to the critical reader that my expenditure of interest had been out of proportion to the vulgar appearances of which my story gives an account, but to this I can only reply that the event was to justify me. We sighted land, the dim yet rich coast of Ireland, about sunset, and I leaned on the bulwark and took it in. "It doesn't look like much, does it?" I heard a voice say, beside me; whereupon, turning, I found Grace Mavis at hand. Almost for the first time she had her veil up, and I thought her very pale.

"It will be more tomorrow," I said.

"Oh yes, a great deal more."

"The first sight of land, at sea, changes everything," I went on. "It always affects me as waking up from a dream. It's a return to reality."

For a moment she made me no response; then she said "It doesn't look very real yet."

"No, and meanwhile, this lovely evening, one can put it that the dream's still present."