She would certainly call him Mr. Weyman, not Hugh. And the first thing
she would say would be a "thank you" for his invitation to visit him;
for she had not written the note of acceptance herself but left it to
Doctor Hazzard. And now she thought that if only she had written
herself, it would somehow have prepared the way better for the instant,
almost reached now, when the boat would be close enough to the pier for
the tall man to discern her, to meet her eyes, and for her to wave a
greeting.
And then, suddenly, she woke to the fact that that was not Hugh at all.
The sun on the water had dazzled her. It was an older man, heavily
bearded, foreign looking. He was taller, and certainly much broader than
Hugh would ever be. She had never seen any one, except perhaps her
father, stand out from a crowd as this man was standing out from it.
Even from a distance his personality had reached her, impressed itself,
and this had nothing to do with his unusual bulk and height. No, it was
personality, bodiless, that reached across the water, and absorbed her
attention.
The big man had pushed his way through the crowd and soon stood right
out at the edge of the pier, his head thrown back, eagerly scanning the
_Bermuda's_ decks. Then, as the ship sidled a few yards nearer, he
raised his big, long arms straight above his head in sudden cyclonic
greeting, and laughed up a big laugh of gleaming white teeth almost into
Ariel's face. But it couldn't be herself he was so ardently saluting,
and she turned quickly to see who was near her, here on the sun deck.
It was Mrs. Nevin again. She was there, with her children, almost at
Ariel's shoulder. And she was smiling down at the bearded man. But the
children were looking at Ariel. She had so plainly refrained from
inviting their acquaintance during the voyage that they had not once
tried to force a contact. She had seemed to their sensitive child
perceptions to be out with the flying fish and the dip of the waves,
more than in her steamer chair beside their mother, for that was where
her gaze had lived. But the small green feather, which fluttered its
down incessantly against the brim of her hat, had all the while had a
life, they felt, quite apart from its wearer's. It had been a veritable
fairy flag, waving recognition and good will to them whenever their play
brought them near. And now Ariel had turned so quickly that she had
caught the children's glances of camaraderie with the feather. And
suddenly she took in _their_ magic, realized it, as they had from the
very first recognized and taken in the magic of the feather her father
had found and given her. She was aware of the children--really aware--at
last.
That was all that it needed. They saw her face lose its abstraction,
come as alive as the wind-dancing feather. Ariel's eyes and lips smiled.
Everything went golden. The children's hearts fluttered as though _they_
were magic feathers.
But even now when Ariel's smile had taught them all that there was to
know about her the children did not rush upon her. They came slowly,
with sensitive delicacy, as children will,--but for all the delicacy,
with an air of deep, almost frightening assurance. Each child, taking
one of Ariel's cold, ungloved hands, pressed close.
"We'll be in, in another minute," Ariel faltered, tremulously and almost
beneath her breath, as if to warn them of the unreasonableness of this
sudden, overwhelming intimacy which must be lost almost as soon as
consummated. "Look. There goes the gangplank. And there's some one--some
one I know." Suddenly, and when she had really forgotten his very
existence, she had seen Hugh.
To her relief this first sight assured her that he had not changed in
the five years. He was the same Hugh, her father's eager, quiet friend
of the hawklike dark head, poised, alert, on shoulders that for all
their breadth had an indefinable air of elegance about them. In his
darkness and poise he was in direct contrast to the blond-bearded person
gesticulating to Mrs. Nevin. Hugh stood beside this giant, looking up at
the decks of the _Bermuda_ as he was looking up, but with a difference.
Without excitement, but rapidly, his eyes were traveling along the tiers
of decks and the bending faces. In another minute he would get to the
last deck and find what he sought, Ariel. Their eyes would meet and in
the meeting remember everything of that sunlit week of five years ago.
Under one arm she saw that he was carrying, tucked there as though it
might be any ordinary parcel, a big bunch of English violets. They were
for her, of course. So why had she ever been shy, afraid? She had
forgotten the children and was bending forward over the rail, waiting
with genuine gayety now the moment of his recognition.
But just before his glance, in its methodical journey, came to her deck,
she had her first sense of change in him. After all, he was different, a
little, from the Bermuda days. There was a moody hunger in his eyes, and
something gaunt, unfed, in the face that she had remembered only as
keen, without shadows. But his face would light up in the old way when
he discovered her. This might be his look when alone and unaware of
friends near.
The light, however, when it came, was not for Ariel. It was Mrs. Nevin
his searching glance was halted by, and the glory that transfigured the
dark, uplifted face took away Ariel's breath.
Mrs. Nevin laughed down a greeting, and murmured above her breath, so
that Ariel caught the words, "Now how'd he know I was coming?"
It flashed through Ariel's mind that much reading of Aldous Huxley
during the voyage, if that was the author's name, must have dulled Mrs.
Nevin's perceptions, if she did not see that it had needed surprise as
well as joy, so to shatter Hugh's reserve.
Mrs. Nevin called to her children, who still pressed against Ariel,
holding her hands, "There's Uncle Hugh, darlings. Wave to him. See, he
has found us. Isn't it nice of him to meet our boat!"
Hugh returned the children's obedient salutes, but the light was gone.
Was it merely habitual reserve returning to duty, or had the sudden
delight really as suddenly died? Ariel knew instantly and intuitively
that these children were not related to Hugh, although Mrs. Nevin had
called him uncle. Now he had to see herself, wedged in between the
children. She tried to smile down at him, to help him to his
recognition, but her lips were as cold as the wind in her face. She
could not smile. His glance was passing her by as casually as it had
passed a hundred other bending faces above the deck rails. After a
little farther search it returned to Mrs. Nevin who bent forward, held
out her gloved hands, and called down, "Toss, Hugh! Toss! I can
catch!"--laughing.
For just an instant Hugh appeared puzzled. Then he remembered the
violets jammed under his arm, and tossed them up to the waiting hands.
It was an expert toss, and Ariel remembered how her father had once
drawn her attention to the fact that all Hugh's motions were expert,
effective. The smell of the violets, so near now, was dizzying her with
nostalgia. She wanted to cry out, "They are mine, not yours. He brought
them for me. He never even knew you were on the boat!" But instead, she
loosened the children's hands from hers and turned her back to the pier.
Through the darkness of tears she moved away toward the stairs, with the
intention of making sure that her baggage had left her stateroom. It
would be time enough to identify herself to Hugh, who had forgotten her,
when she came off the ship.
She was almost the last person down the gangway. Hugh was there at the
foot, looking anxious, for he had begun to be afraid he had missed Ariel
Clare in the disembarking crowd. But even when she stopped by him and
with head back, so that he might see her face plainly under the brim of
her green hat, said, "I'm Ariel, Mr. Weyman. It's kind of you to have me
and to meet me," he looked doubtful.
"You!" he murmured, obviously taken aback and surprised. "Why, I thought
you were the twins' nurse!" But even as he spoke he saw that it was
indeed Ariel, standing with the look that she used to wear sometimes
before vanishing away into hot, white sunlight, years and years ago when
he was young and she was an unreal fairy creature, hovering almost
unnoticed somewhere on the edges of his first deep experience of
friendship. Of course this was she; how hadn't he known? "But the twins
were clinging to you like burrs, weren't they!" he insisted, explaining
his stupidity. "It looked, you know, as if you belonged, body and soul,
to Persis and Nicky. But of course it's you."
Yet even now when he was at last shaking hands with her Hugh was looking
over her head at a group of people a few yards away, with Mrs. Nevin at
its center. The big man, the foreign-looking, bearded personage who had
come to meet Mrs. Nevin, was beside her, his hand on her arm. He was
possessive in his bearing, and openly exuberant that the lady had landed
and was for the moment, at least, under his protection. And now a great
sheaf of yellow roses in Mrs. Nevin's arms quite obscured the violets,
if, indeed, she still had them. Ariel was conscious that Hugh returned
his attention to herself with an almost painful effort.
"Your luggage will be under C," he unnecessarily informed her, and then
added with a sudden access of responsibility, "This is the way. We'll do
our best to speed things up in spite of the unlucky popularity of your
letter. We'll grab tea somewhere then, and get right along to Wild
Acres, where Mother and Anne are waiting for us. They would have come in
to meet you with me--Anne would, anyway--but we've got another visitor
with us--Prescott Enderly, the novelist. Know his stuff?" And all the
while he was skillfully guiding her through a milling crowd of
over-anxious people.