MATERFAMILIAS
BY
ADA CAMBRIDGE
AUTHOR OF
THE THREE MISS KINGS, A MARRIAGE CEREMONY,
MY GUARDIAN, NOT ALL IN VAIN, FIDELIS,
A LITTLE MINX, ETC.
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1898
CONTENTS.
I.--THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL
II.--IN THE EARLY DAYS
III.--A PAGE OF LIFE
IV.--THE BROKEN CIRCLE
V.--A LITTLE MISUNDERSTANDING
VI.--DEPOSED
VII.--A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT
VIII.--THE SILVER WEDDING
IX.--GRANDMAMMA
X.--VINDICATED
CHAPTER I.
THE BEGINNING OF IT ALL.
My father in England married a second time when I was about eighteen.
She was my governess.
Mother herself had engaged her, and I believe had asked, when dying,
that she would remain to take care of us; and I don't say that she was
not a good woman. She had been nearly five years in the house, and we
had the habit of looking to her for advice in all family concerns; and
certainly she took great pains with my education. But of course I was
not going to stand seeing her put in mother's place. I told father so.
I said to him, kindly, but firmly: "Father, you will have to choose
between us. There will not be room under this roof for both."
He chose her. Consequently I left my home, though they both tried hard
to prevent it, and to reconcile me to their new arrangements. I will say
that for them. In fact, my father, pleading legal rights, forbade me to
go, except for some temporary visiting. I went on the understanding that
I was to return in a couple of months or so. But I was resolved not to
return, and I never did. While staying with my uncle, a medical man, I
privately married his assistant--one (if I may say so) of a
miscellaneous assortment of admirers. I am afraid I encouraged him to
propose an elopement; I certainly hastened its accomplishment. Then
after all our plottings and stratagems, when at last I had the ring on
my finger, I wrote to inform father of what he and Miss Coleman had
driven me to. Poor old father! It was a tremendous blow to him. But I
don't know why he should have made such a fuss about it, seeing that he
had done the same--practically the same--himself.
It was a greater disaster to me than to him, or to anybody--even to my
husband, who almost from the first regarded me as a millstone about his
neck; for _he_ could go away and enjoy himself when he liked, forgetting
that I existed. Indeed, it was a horrible catastrophe. When my own
children are so anxious to get married while they are still but
children, and think it so cruel of me to thwart them, I wish I could
tell them what I went through at their age! But I don't mention it. I
promised Tom I never would.
At twenty I was teaching for a living--I, who had been so petted and
coddled, hardly allowed to do a hand's turn for myself! My husband was
travelling about the world as a ship's doctor. Father wanted me to come
home, but I was too proud for that. Besides, I would not go where I had
to hear Edward insulted. After all, he was my husband, and our
matrimonial troubles were entirely our own concern. Not from him,
either, would I accept anything after I was able to earn for myself. I
taught at a school for thirty pounds a year, and managed to make that
do. It was a wretched life.
I was barely of age when the news came that Edward had caught fever
somewhere and been left in a Melbourne hospital by his ship, which was
returning without him. At once I made up my mind that it was my duty as
a wife to go to him. He had no friends in Australia, and not much money;
it was pathetic to think of him alone and helpless amongst utter
strangers; and I thought that if I did this for him he would remember it
afterwards, and be kind to me, and help me to make our married life a
little more like other people's. In those days there was no cable across
the world, and mails but once a month; so that when I started I was
altogether in the dark as to what I was going to. The first news of his
illness--with no particulars, except that it was fever--was all I ever
had.
I would not ask my father for money. Indeed, he would have frustrated
my purpose altogether had he known of it in time. I went to my old
godmother, Aunt Kate, who was very rich and fond of me, and begged the
loan of fifty pounds, not telling her what I wanted it for. She gave the
money outright, with another fifty added to it; so that I had plenty to
cover the cost of a comfortable voyage. I determined, however, to save
on the voyage all I could, that I might have something in my pocket on
landing, when funds would be sorely needed. To which end I engaged my
berth in the humblest passenger-boat available--Tom's little Racer, of
ever-beloved memory. They told me at the office that she was better than
her name--faster than many that were twice her size. I was young and
silly enough to believe them, and also to forget that by the time I
reached Australia Edward's illness would have long been a thing of the
past, and he perhaps back in England or well on his way thither.
If the Racer was one of the smallest ships in the Australian trade, her
master, Thomas Braye, must have been one of the youngest captains. At
that time he was under thirty, though he did not look it, being a big
man, quiet and grave in manner, deeply sensible of his professional
responsibilities. I remember thinking him rather rough and decidedly
plain when I saw him first; but he was gentleness and gentlemanliness
incarnate, and I never afterwards thought of his appearance except to
note the physical inadequacy of other men beside him.
He has told me since that _his_ first feeling on seeing _me_ was one of
strong annoyance. Though a married woman and going out to my husband, I
was but a young girl in fact--far too young and far too pretty (though I
say it) to be travelling as I was, without an escort. It unfortunately
happened that I was the only lady in the saloon, and that the ship was
too small to have a stewardess. Three wives of artisans herded with
their husbands and children in the black hole they called the steerage,
and one of them was summoned aft as soon as we were in the river to keep
me company. But as the others were disagreeable about it, and she was a
coarse and dirty creature, I myself begged Captain Braye to send her
back again. Poor Tom! By the way, I did not call him Tom then, of
course; I did not even know his Christian name. He says he never
undertook a job so unwillingly as he did that job of taking care of me.
How absurd it seems--now!
We sailed in late autumn, in the twilight of the afternoon. I remember
the look of the Thames as we were towed down--the low, cold sky, the
slate-coloured mist, with mere shadows of shores and ships just looming
through it. Nothing could have been more dreary. And yet I enjoyed it.
The feeling that I was free of that horrible schoolroom, and that still
more horrible lodging-house, where I cooked meals over an etna on a
painted washstand, and ate them as I sat on a straw-stuffed bed--the
prospect of long rest from the squalid scramble that life had become,
from all-day work that had tired me to death--oh, no one can understand
what luxury that was! Besides, I had hopes of the future, based on
Edward's convalescence and reform, to buoy me up. And then I loved the
sea. People are born to love it, or not to love it; it is a thing
innate, like genius, never to be acquired, and never to be lost, under
any circumstances. When the Channel opened out, and the long swell began
to lift and roll, I knew that I was in my native element, though a
dweller inland from birth up to this moment. The feel of the buoyant
deck and of the pure salt wind was like wings to soul and body.
But I had to pay my footing first. It came upon me suddenly, in the
midst of my raptures, and I staggered below, and cast myself, dressed as
I was, upon my bunk. Never, never had I felt so utterly forsaken! When
ill before, with my little, trivial complaints, Miss Coleman had waited
on me hand and foot--everybody had coddled me; now I was overwhelmed in
unspeakable agonies, and nobody cared. It is true that--though I would
not have her--the steerage woman came in the middle of the night; and
once I roused from a merciful snatch of sleep to find my bracket lamp
alight where all had been darkness. These things indicated that some one
was concerned about me--Tom, of course--but I did not realize it then. I
was alone in my misery, alone in the wide world, of no consequence even
to my own husband; and I wished I was dead.
Early in the morning--it was a rough morning, and we were in a heavy,
wintry sea--the captain tapped at my door. I was too deadly ill even to
answer him; so he turned the handle and looked in. Seeing that I was
dressed, he advanced with a firm step, and, standing over me, said, in
the same voice with which he ordered the sailors to do things--
"Mrs. Filmer, you must come up on deck."
I merely shook my head. I was powerless to lift a finger.
"Oh, yes, you must. You will feel ever so much better in the air."
"I can't," I wailed, and closed my eyes. I believe the tears were
running down my face.
He stood for a minute in silence. I felt him looking at me. Then he
said, with a kindness in his voice that made me shake with sobs--
"I'll go and rig up a chair or something for you. Be ready for me when I
come back in ten minutes. If you can't walk, we will carry you."
He departed, and the steerage woman arrived, very sulky. I was obliged
to accept her help this time. Captain Braye, I felt, did not mean to be
defied, and it was a physical impossibility for me to make a toilet for
myself. When he returned he brought the steward with him, and, before I
knew it, he had whisked a big rug round and round me, and taken me up in
his arms. I weighed about seven stone, and he is the strongest man I
know. The steward carried my feet, but it was a mere pretense of
carrying; he was only there as a sort of chaperon, because Tom was so
absurdly particular. Up on the poop, with the ship violently rolling
and pitching, the man could not keep his own feet, and let mine go, and
we did not miss him. Tom bore me safely and easily, like a Blondin with
his pole, to where he had fixed a folding-chair for me--it was his own
chair, for I had not been able to afford one--and there he set me down,
in the midst of pillows and an opossum rug, with that sort of powerful
gentleness which is the manliest thing I know. All at once he made me
feel that I was in shelter and at rest. As long as I remained on that
ship I could cease fighting with the difficulties of my lot. He would
take care of me. There are women who don't want men to take care of
them--I am not one of those; I have no vocation for independence.
I found I could not sit in that chair, luxurious as it was. I think all
my worries and hard work and bad meals must have undermined me. Even
though Tom made me drink brandy and water, I could not hold myself up.
"Oh," I sighed wretchedly, "I feel so faint and swimmy, I _must_ lie
down!"
"So you shall," he answered, like a kind father, and he shouted to the
steward to bring up a mattress and pillows. In five minutes there was a
bed on the deck floor, and I was in it, swathed in fur and blankets,
like a chrysalis in its cocoon, more absolutely comfortable than I had
ever been in my life. I still felt ill and exhausted, and could not bear
the thought of food; but I breathed the sweet, cold, reviving air, and
yet was as warm as a toast, and no spray or rain could touch me. When he
had tucked me up to his satisfaction, placing his oilskins over all, he
took some rope and lashed me to the bars of the hen-coops behind me. And
there I lay all day, resting and dozing. No matter how the ship rolled,
it could not roll me out of my nest; being so secure, I felt the motion
to be soothing rather than the reverse. When not asleep, I gazed at the
pure sky and the gleaming tiers of sails, listened to the voices of the
wind and of the sea, and watched the stalwart figure of my dear
commander. At short intervals he would come over to ask if I was all
right; and at least once an hour he brought something with him--brandy
and water or strong broth--and fed me with it out of a spoon. Oh, Tom!
Tom! And I had almost forgotten what it was like to be tended and cared
for in that way.
In a day or two I was well enough to walk about the ship and occupy
myself, and he was more reserved with me again. But still I always knew
that he was keeping guard over my comings and goings, and I felt as safe
as possible. His officers and my fellow saloon-passengers--none of them
gentlemen like him--were too much interested in my movements after I
began to move, and his eye seemed always upon them. Now and then I was
embarrassed and annoyed, and at such moments he quietly stepped in to
relieve me, never making a fuss, but promptly putting people back into
their proper places. At the first hint of trouble of this sort he had a
spare cabin turned into a little sitting-room for me--my boudoir, he
called it--where I might always retire when I wanted privacy. I found it
a comfort at times, but still my sleeping-berth would have done almost
as well; for I never wanted any visitor but him, and he never asked to
come. When it was weather for it, I lived on the poop in his
folding-chair--always lashed ready for me--and that's where I preferred
to be. Even when not weather for it, I often begged to stay, for the
support of his company; and sometimes, but not always, he would allow me
to do so, making me fast with ropes, and surrounding me with a screen of
tarpaulin. For hours I would lie, like a cradled baby, and watch his
gallant figure and his alert eyes, and listen to his steady tramp, as he
went up and down. I had no fear of anything while he was there, and he
seemed always there. I learned afterwards how terribly he deprived
himself of rest and sleep because of his responsibility for the safety
of us all.
For the Racer was an ancient vessel of the tramp description, little
fitted to do battle with such storms as we encountered. Her old timbers
creaked and groaned, as if in their last agony, when buffeted by the
heavy seas; and the way she took in water at the pores, without actually
springing leaks, was dreadful. The clacking of the pumps and the gushing
of the inexhaustible stream seemed always in one's ears, and when waves
broke over her and drained down through a stove-in skylight, of course
it was far worse--even dangerous. She simply wallowed about like a log,
too heavy and lumbering to get out of the way of anything. I could not
bear to see Tom's stern and haggard face, to know the strain he was
enduring, and that I could do nothing to lighten it; but as for
_danger_--I never thought of such a thing! Not that I am at all a
courageous person, as a rule.
I believe we were somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Cape when the
most noteworthy of our experiences befell us. We were struggling with
the chronic "dirty" weather--absurd adjective for a thing so majestic
and inspiring!--and I was on deck, firmly tied to my chair, and my
chair to the mast, dry under oilskins, and only my face exposed to wind
and spray, which threatened to take the skin off. I could hardly see the
length of the ship through the spindrift of the gale, and the way it
shrieked in the rigging was like fiends let loose. Bee--a--utiful!
And Tom wanted to spoil all my pleasure by shutting me down in a nasty,
stuffy, smelly, pitch-dark cabin, where I couldn't breathe and shouldn't
know anything that went on, nor have a soul to speak to. However, I was
getting used to him by this time, and so, when he staggered up and
announced that he had come to take me below, because it was no longer
fit for me to be on deck, I told him flatly that I would not go.
"You must go," said he.
"I won't go," said I.
"The captain's commands must be obeyed, Mrs. Filmer."
"Not in this case, Captain."
"In every case, Madam."
"Not a bit of it," I persisted, laughing in his face, which was rather
grim, but yet not quite inflexible. "I am not one of your sailors, to be
ordered about. I shall do what I like. And this is exactly what I like."
He condescended to argue, and then of course I would not give in. He
said he must use force and carry me, but that was an obviously
impossible thing to do without my assistance, considering the angle of
the decks. When I saw him looking really worried, I condescended to
plead myself, and I suppose he could not resist that. He has told me
since that he never felt the same man after this act of weakness, but
I'm sure I cannot see where the weakness came in. With great difficulty,
and meanwhile flashing anxious glances hither and thither, he got more
rope and made fresh windings and tyings about me.
"You are a spoilt child," was all he said. He did not look happy, but I
was very pleased with the issue of our encounter. I felt that it had
strengthened my position somehow--taken away all my awe and fear of
him--and I would not have missed my subsequent experiences on deck that
day for anything.
They were really tremendous. No sooner had I been trussed up like an
Indian baby in preparation for contingencies--no sooner had Tom left me
to give his undivided attention to the ship--than the chronic gale
produced a spasmodic and special one which I am sure was a cyclone of
the first magnitude, though he would not give it that name in the book.
What he called nor'-nor'-east had been the direction of the storm we had
grown used to, but just before he asked me to go below it had shifted to
"nor'," and now it jumped all at once to "sou'-west," with effects upon
the sea and the poor ship that were truly startling. Those wall-sided
mountains of water, that were bad enough to get over when we knew which
way they were going, began a furious dance together, all jumbled up
anyhow; and the first treacherous monster created by the change of wind
crashed bodily inboard quite close to where I sat--"pooped" us, as Tom
expressed it--and, washing over me, simply swept all before it,
including the wheel and the two poor men steering, who were driven upon
rail and rigging with such force as to injure both of them. How my
lashings held as they did I cannot understand--or, rather, I can, of
course--when strong wood was being torn from iron fastenings; and how I
issued alive from that tremendous shower-bath is much more wonderful. It
must have been the packing round me that saved my bones from being
smashed like the boats and hen-coops. I heard Tom's shout of warning
just before I was overwhelmed, and when I emerged, and could expand my
breathless lungs, I answered him, with a strange and joyful lifting of
the heart, "All right! I'm safe! Don't mind me, Captain!"
If he had minded me at that moment we should have been lost together,
ship and all. She began to broach to, as they call it, and the
supplementary wheel had to be used at once to stop it, and just then our
lives hung upon a hair. The decks were filled to the brim, and I could
hear the deluge thudding down through the shattered skylight upon the
table set for dinner. And she rolled all but bottom upwards, the broken
rail going under and I dangling in air above it, and--and, in short, if
any one but Tom had been her captain she would never have been heard of
from that day. I am quite convinced of that. No man born could have
accomplished what he did--he says, "Nonsense," but I know what I am
talking about--although I was just as sure that _he_ would accomplish it
as I was that the sun would rise next morning. I calmly held on to my
supports, and waited and watched. Sometimes I clenched my teeth and shut
my eyes, while I prayed for his preservation in the perils he did not
seem to see. He called to me at short intervals, "Are you all right?"
and I called back, "All right!" And when the worst was over for the
moment, he scrambled to where I was, and fixed me up afresh. Never shall
I forget the look on his face and the ring in his voice when he spoke to
me. "Brave girl! Brave girl!" I think it was the happiest moment of my
life.
"But I don't understand it," he said to me, later, when there was time
to breathe and talk. "Why are you not frightened? When you were first on
board, crying because you were seasick----"
"I did _not_ cry because I was seasick," I indignantly interposed, "but
because I was lonely and miserable. You would have cried if you had been
in my place."
"I thought," he continued, heedless of the interruption, "that you were
a poor little baby creature, without an ounce of pluck in you. But
you've got the courage of a grenadier. How is it?"
"It is because I am with you," I answered promptly.
I don't know what feeling I allowed to get into my voice, but something
struck him. Motionless where he stood, he stared at the great waves
silently, for what seemed a long time; then abruptly walked forward to
give an order, and did not come back.
We were mostly silent when we were together after that. How hard I tried
to think of a common topic to discuss, and could not! So did he. But
while I had nothing to do but to think, he was terribly preoccupied with
the condition of the ship. She had recovered to a certain extent, and
was able to stagger on again, but she was a living wreck, all splintered
and patched, and the difficulty of keeping the water down was greater
than before. The pumps were always clanking, and the carpenter
hammering, and the sailmaker putting canvas plasters over weak places.
The whole ship's company were glum and weary, and the passengers--wet,
ill-fed, and wretched--complained loudly all the time, indifferent as to
how much they added to the poor captain's cares. He, though firm with
everybody, never lost his temper, or seemed to give way to the
depression that must at times have weighed him down. He was worthy to
command who could so command himself--worthy to be a sailor, which is
the noblest calling in the world. As for me--well, it was no credit to
me that I, of all on board, was satisfied to be there, and consequently
happy. I kept a serene and smiling face to cheer him. It was the least
that I could do.
And it did cheer him. To my unspeakable comfort I was assured of that,
though he did not say so. I could see it in his face, and hear it in his
voice, when now and then he came to sit beside me, evidently for rest
and peace.
"And so," he said, on one of these occasions, speaking in an
absent-minded way--"and so you are not nervous with me? Well, I hope I
shall be able to justify your trust."
"You will," I said calmly. "You could not help it."
"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.