The more he reflected, the more he was convinced of it; in marriage
lay his chance of contentment. And during the ensuing fortnight his
approval of Miss Pierways deepened. The house would not fill until the
following month, and the smallness of the party there at present was
favourable to the development of acquaintance.
Excepting that she was a trifle cold, there was really no scope for
adverse criticism upon Miss Pierways. She was unusually well read,
took an intelligent interest in matters on which women of her age were
rarely informed, and was accomplished to the extent that she played
the piano after dinner with brilliant execution and admirable hands
and wrists. Her coldness, theoretically, was no drawback to him, and
Heriot was a little puzzled by his own attitude. Her air was neither
so formal as to intimate that his advances would be unwelcome, nor so
self-conscious as to repel him by the warmth of its encouragement; yet,
in spite of his admiration, the idea of proposing to her dismayed him
when he forced himself to approach the brink.
His vacillation was especially irritating since he had learned that
the ladies were at the point of joining Van Buren in New York. The
opportunity of which he was failing to take advantage would speedily
be past, and he dreaded that if he suffered it to escape him, he would
recall the matter with regret. He perceived as well, however, that if
he were precipitate, he might regret that too, and he was sorry that
they were not remaining in Europe longer.
One evening, when their departure was being discussed, the mother
expressed surprise that he had never visited America, though she had
had no curiosity about it, herself, until she married an American; and
in answer Heriot declared that he had frequently thought of "running
across during the long vacation."
"If you ever do," she said, "I hope you will choose a year when we are
there."
"To tell you the truth, I was thinking of it this year."
"We may see you in New York, Sir George?" said Miss Pierways. "Really?
How strange that will seem! I've been eager to go to New York all my
life; but now that I'm going, I'm rather afraid. The idea of a great
city where I haven't any friends----"
"But you will have many friends, Agnes."
"By-and-by," answered Miss Pierways. "Yes, I suppose so. But it's very
fatiguing _making_ friends, don't you think so? And I tremble at the
voyage."
"How delightful it would be," remarked Mrs. Van Buren, "if we were
going by the same steamer, Sir George!"
Heriot laughed.
"It would be very delightful to me to make the voyage in your company.
But I might bore you frightfully; a week at sea must be a severe test.
I should be afraid of being found out."
"We are promised other passengers," observed Miss Pierways, looking
down with a faint smile. Her archness was a shade stiff, but her neck
was one of her chief attractions.
"Why don't you go, George?" said Lady Heriot cheerfully. "You'd much
better go by Mrs. Van Buren's boat than any other; and you've been
talking of making a trip to America 'next year' ever since I've known
you!"
This amiable fiction was succeeded by fresh protestations from Mrs.
Van Buren that no arrangement could be more charming, and Heriot,
half against his will, half with pleasure, found himself agreeing to
telegraph in the morning to inquire if he could obtain a berth.
He hardly knew whether he was sorry or glad when he had done so. That
the step would result in an engagement might be predicted with a
tolerable degree of certainty, and he would have preferred to arrive at
an understanding with himself under conditions which savoured less of
coercion.
Since a state-room proved to be vacant, however, he could do no less
now than engage it; and everybody appeared so much pleased, and Miss
Pierways was so very gracious, that the misgivings that disturbed him
looked momentarily more unreasonable than ever.
The night before he sailed, in their customary chat over whisky and
cigars, Sir Francis said to him:
"'Ask, and it shall be given unto you'!"
"I'm inclined to think you're right," said his brother. "I suppose it
will end in it.... She's a trifle like a well-bred machine--doesn't
it strike you so?--warranted never to get out of order!" The other's
look was significant, and Heriot added, "Very desirable in a wife, of
course! Only somehow----"
"'Only somehow' you're eccentric, George--you always were!"
"It's not my reputation," said Heriot drily; "I believe that I'm
considered particularly practical."
"Reputations," retorted the Baronet, attempting an epigram, as he
sometimes did in the course of his second whisky-and-potash, and
failing signally in the endeavour, "are like tombstones--generally
false." He realised the reality of tombstones, and became
controversial. "_I've_ known you from a boy, and I say you were always
eccentric. It was nothing but your eccentricity that you had to thank
before. Here's a nice girl, a girl who will certainly have a good
settlement, a girl who's undeniably handsome, ready to say 'yes' at the
asking, and you grumble--I'm hanged if you don't grumble!--because you
see she is to be depended on. What the devil do you want?"
"I want to be fond of her," answered Heriot. "I admit all you've said
of her; I want to like her more."
"So you ought to; but what does it matter if you don't? All women are
alike to the men who've married them after a year or two. She'll make
an admirable mother, and that's the main thing, I suppose?"
Was it?
Heriot recalled the criticism during his first day on board. Neither
of the ladies was visible until Queenstown was reached, and he paced
the deck, pursuing his reflections by the aid of tobacco. She would
"make an admirable mother, and that was the main thing"! Of the second
half of the opinion he was not so sure. To marry a woman simply because
one believed she would shine in a maternal capacity was somewhat too
altruistic, he thought. However, he was fully aware that Miss Pierways
had other recommendations.
She appeared with her mother at the head of the companion-way while he
was wishing that he hadn't come, and he found their chairs for them,
and arranged their rugs, and subsequently gave their letters to the
steward to be posted.
After leaving Queenstown, Mrs. Van Buren's sufferings increased, and
the girl, who, saving for a brief interval, was well and cheerful, was
practically in his charge. It was Heriot who accompanied her from the
saloon after breakfast, and strolled up and down with her till she was
tired. When the chair and the rug--the salient features of a voyage are
the woman, the chair, and the rug--were satisfactorily arranged, it was
he who sat beside her, talking. Flying visits she made below, while her
mother kept her cabin; but for the most part she was on deck--or in the
saloon, or in the reading-room--and for the most part Heriot was the
person to whom she looked for conversation. If he had been a decade or
two younger, he would probably have proposed to her long before they
sighted Sandy Hook, and it surprised him that he did not succumb to the
situation as it was. A woman is nowhere so dangerous, and nowhere is a
man so susceptible, as at sea. The interminable days demand flirtation,
if one is not to perish of boredom. Moonlight and water are notoriously
potent, even when viewed for only half an hour; and at sea, the man and
the girl look at the moonlight on the water together regularly every
evening. And it is very becoming to the girl. Miss Pierways' face was
always a disappointment to Heriot at breakfast. The remembrance of
its factitious softness the previous night made its hardness in the
sunshine look harder. He wondered if it was the remembrance of its
hardness at breakfast that kept him from proposing to her when they
loitered in the moonlight. He was certainly doing his best to fall in
love with her, and everything conspired to assist him; but the days
went on, and the momentous question remained unuttered.
"We shall soon be there," she said one evening as they strolled about
the deck after dinner. "I'm beginning to be keen. Have you noticed how
everybody is saying, 'New York' now? At first no one alluded to it--we
mightn't have been due for a year--and since yesterday nobody's talking
of anything else!"
"Nearly everyone I've spoken to seems to have made the trip half a
dozen times," said Heriot. "I feel dreadfully untravelled in the
smoking-room. When are you going to Niagara? Niagara is one of the
things I'm determined not to miss."
"I was talking to some girls who have lived in New York all their
lives--when they weren't in Europe--and they haven't been there yet.
They told me they had been to the panorama in Westminster!"
"I have met a Londoner who had never been to the Temple."
"No? How perfectly appalling!" she exclaimed, none the less fervently
because she hadn't been to it herself. "Oh yes, I know I shall adore
Niagara! I want to see a great deal of America while I'm there."
"I wish _I_ had time to see more; I should like to go to California."
"I wouldn't see California for any consideration upon earth!" she
declared. "California, to me, is Bret Harte--I should be so afraid of
being disillusioned. When we went to Ireland once, do you know, Sir
George, it was a most painful shock to me! My ideas of Ireland were
founded on Dion Boucicault's plays--I expected to see all the peasants
in fascinating costumes, with their hair down their backs, just as one
sees them on the stage. The reality was terrible. I shudder when I
recall the disappointment."
"I sympathise."
"Of course you're laughing at me! I shall have my revenge, if you don't
like New York. But, I don't know--I may feel guilty. You mustn't blame
us if you don't like New York, Sir George. Fortunately you won't have
time to be very bored, though; will you?"
"'Fortunately'?"
"Fortunately if it doesn't amuse you, I mean. When does the--how do you
say it? When does your holiday end?"
"I must be back in London on the twenty-fourth of next month; I'm
almost American myself. I shall have such a fleeting glimpse of the
country, that I must really think of writing a book about it."
"You have something better to do than write vapid books. To me your
profession seems the most fascinating one there is. If I were a man,
I'd rather be called to the Bar than anything. You'd be astonished
if you knew how many biographies of eminent lawyers I've read--they
enthralled me as a child. I don't know any career that suggests such
power to me as the Bar. Don't smile: sometimes, when we're talking and
I remember the tremendous influence you wield, I tremble."
She lifted her eyes to him, deprecating her enthusiasm, which was too
palpably a pose, and again Heriot was conscious that the opportunity
was with him, if he could but grasp it. They had paused by the
taffrail, and he stood looking at her, trying to speak the words that
would translate their relations to a definite footing. He no longer had
any doubt as to her answer; he could foresee her reply--at least the
manner of her reply--with disturbing clearness. He knew that she would
hesitate an instant, and droop her head, and ultimately murmur correct
phrases that would exhilarate him not at all. In imagination he already
heard her tones, as she promised to be his wife. He supposed, as they
were screened from observation, that he might take her hand. How
passionless, how mechanical and flat it would all be! He replied with a
commonplace, and after a few moments they continued their stroll. When
he turned in, however, he reproached himself more forcibly than he had
done yet, and his vacillation was by no means at an end. He was at war,
not with his judgment, but with his instinct, and it was the perception
of this fact that always increased his perturbation.
They landed the following day, and, after being introduced to Mr. Van
Buren in the custom-house, Heriot drove to an hotel. The hotel he
found excellent; New York he found wonderful, but a city different
from what he had expected. He had vaguely pictured New York as a Paris
where everybody talked English. This was before the introduction of
the automobile had changed the face of Paris, and the face of the
Parisian--before it incidentally reduced the number of half-fed horses
barbarously used in that city, which is the negro's paradise, and
the "horse's hell"--and the Boulevard was even more unlike Broadway
then than now. Broadway, broad in name only till it spread into the
brightness of Union Square, suggested London more than Paris--London in
an unprecedented burst of energy. The tireless vigour of the throng,
the ubiquitous rush of the Elevated Railway confused him. Though he
paid homage to the cuisine of America, which proved as much as much
superior to that of England as the worst transatlantic train was to
our best of that period, he told himself that he was disappointed. The
truth was that, not wishing to take the Van Burens' invitations too
literally, and having no other acquaintances here, he was dull.
American hospitality, however, is the most charming in the world,
and he spent several very agreeable hours inside the big brownstone
house. Nothing could have exceeded the geniality of Van Buren's manner,
nor was this due solely to the position of his visitor and a hope
of their becoming connected. The average American business man will
show more kindness to a stranger, who intrudes into his office, than
most Englishmen display to one who comes to them with a letter of
introduction from a friend, and Van Buren's welcome was as sincere as
it was attractive.
Heriot stayed in New York a week, and then fulfilled his desire to
visit Niagara. On his return he called in Fifth Avenue again. He was
already beginning to refer to his homeward voyage, and he was still
undetermined whether he would propose to Miss Pierways or not. The days
slipped by without his arriving at a conclusion; and then one morning
he told himself he had gone too far to retreat now--that the step,
which was doubtless the most judicious he could take, should be made
without delay.
He called at the house the same afternoon--for on the next day but
one the _Etruria_ sailed--and he found the ladies at home. He sat
down, wondering if he would be left alone with Miss Pierways and take
his departure engaged to her. But for half an hour there seemed no
likelihood of a tête-à-tête. Presently there were more callers and they
were shown into another room. Mrs. Van Buren begged him to excuse her.
He rose to leave, but was pressed to remain.
"I want to talk to you when they've gone," she said; "I haven't half
exhausted my list of messages to London."
Heriot resumed his seat, and Miss Pierways smiled.
"Poor mamma wishes she were going herself, if she told the truth! Now
that we're here, it is I who like New York, not she."
"We're creatures of custom," he said; "your mother has lived in London
too long to accustom herself to America very easily... Of course you'll
be over next season?"
"Oh yes. Shall you ever come to America again, Sir George?"
"I--I hardly know," he answered. "I certainly hope to."
"Oh, then, you will! You're your own master."
"Is anybody his own master?"
"To the extent of travelling to America, many people, I should think!"
He remembered with sudden gratification that he had never said a word
to her that might not have been spoken before a crowd of listeners.
What was there to prevent him withholding the proposal if he liked!
"I've no doubt I shall come," he said abstractedly.
She looked slightly downcast. It was not the reply that she had hoped
to hear.
"I shall always owe a debt of gratitude to you and to Mr. and Mrs. Van
Buren for making my visit so pleasant to me," he found himself saying
next. "My trip has been a delightful experience."
She murmured a conventional response, but chagrin began to creep about
her heart.
Heriot diverged into allusions which advanced the position not at all.
They spoke of New York, of England, of the voyage--she perfunctorily,
and he with ever-increasing relief. And now he felt that he had been on
the verge of the precipice for the last time. He had escaped--and by
the intensity of his gratitude he realised how ill-judged had been his
action in playing around it.
When Mrs. Van Buren reappeared, followed by her husband, her daughter's
face told her that the climax had not been reached; and bold in
thanksgiving, Heriot excused himself when he was asked to dine with
them that evening. Had he been offered the alternative of the next
evening, he could not without rudeness have found a pretext for
refusing; but on the morrow, as luck would have it, the Van Burens were
dining out.
The footman opened the big door, and Heriot descended the steps with a
sensation that was foreign to him, and not wholly agreeable. He knew
that he did not want to marry Miss Pierways, and that he had behaved
like a fool in trying to acquire the desire, but he was a little
ashamed of himself. His conduct had not been irreproachable; and he was
conscious that when the steamer sailed and the chapter was closed for
good and all, he would be glad to have done with it. He had blundered
badly. Nevertheless he would have blundered worse, and been a still
greater fool, if the affair had terminated in an engagement. Of course
his brother would say distasteful things when they met, and Lady Heriot
would convey her extreme disapproval of him without saying anything.
That he must put up with! Of two evils, he had at any rate chosen the
lesser.
He repeated the assurance with still more conviction on Saturday
morning during the quarter of an hour in which the cab rattled him to
the boat. The experience had been a lesson to him, and he was resolved
that henceforward he would dismiss the idea of marriage from his mind.
He saw his portmanteau deposited in his cabin, and he returned to the
deck as the steamer began to move. The decks were in the confusion
that obtains at first. Passengers still hung at the taffrail, taking a
farewell gaze at friends on the landing-stage. The chairs were huddled
in a heap, and stewards bustled among stacks of luggage, importuned at
every second step with instructions and inquiries.
The deep pulsations sounded more regular; the long line of sheds
receded; and the figures of the friends were as little dark toys,
waving specks of white. Even the most constant among the departing
began to turn away now. The hastening stewards were importuned more
frequently than before. Everybody was in a hurry, and all the women in
the crowd that flocked below seemed to be uttering the words "baggage"
and "state-room" at the same time.
A few men were temporarily in possession of the deck, striding to and
fro behind pipes or cigars. The regulation as to "No smoking abaft
this" was not in force yet, or was, at least, disobeyed at present.
Heriot sauntered along the length of deck until it began to fill
again. The pile of chairs received attention--they were set out in a
row under the awning. The deck took a dryness and a whiteness, and a
few passengers sat down, and questioned inwardly if they would find
one another companionable. He bent his steps to the smoking-room. But
it was empty and uninviting thus early, and he forsook it after a few
minutes. As the door slammed behind him, he came face to face with the
woman who had been his wife.