Jasper, that day, spent a great deal of time with his mother. She had
told me that she really had had no 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 she
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.'
'Well then, we won't.'
'Maybe we won't have the chance,' said the dreadful little woman.
'Oh, at that moment a universal geniality reigns.'
'Well, 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 that she had not been in to see her. She had inquired by the
stewardess if she would receive her in her own cabin, and Grace Mavis
had replied that it was 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 (I was delighted to be almost back in my
dear old Europe again) and had less to spare for other matters. It will
doubtless appear to the critical reader that I had already devoted far
too much to the little episode of which my story gives an account, but
to this I can only reply that the event justified me. We sighted land,
the dim yet rich coast of Ireland, about sunset and I leaned on the edge
of the ship and looked at it. 'It doesn't look like much, does it?' I
heard a voice say, beside me; and, turning, I found Grace Mavis was
there. Almost for the first time she had her veil up, and I thought her
very pale.
'It will be more to-morrow,' I said.
'Oh yes, a great deal more.'
'The first sight of land, at sea, changes everything,' I went on. 'I
always think it's like waking up from a dream. It's a return to
reality.'
For a moment she made no response to this; then she said, 'It doesn't
look very real yet.'
'No, and meanwhile, this lovely evening, the dream is still present.'
She looked up at the sky, which had a brightness, though the light of
the sun had left it and that of the stars had not come out. 'It _is_ a
lovely evening.'
'Oh yes, with this we shall do.'
She stood there a while longer, while the growing dusk effaced the line
of the land more rapidly than our progress made it distinct. She said
nothing more, she only looked in front of her; but her very quietness
made me want to say something suggestive of sympathy and service. I was
unable to think what to say--some things seemed too wide of the mark and
others too importunate. At last, unexpectedly, she appeared to give me
my chance. Irrelevantly, abruptly she broke out:
'Didn't you tell me that you knew Mr. Porterfield?'
'Dear me, yes--I used to see him. I have often wanted to talk to you
about him.'
She turned her face upon me and in the deepened evening I fancied she
looked whiter. 'What good would that do?'
'Why, it would be a pleasure,' I replied, rather foolishly.
'Do you mean for you?'
'Well, yes--call it that,' I said, smiling.
'Did you know him so well?'
My smile became a laugh and I said--'You are not easy to make speeches
to.'
'I hate speeches!' The words came from her lips with a violence that
surprised me; they were loud and hard. But before I had time to wonder
at it she went on--'Shall you know him when you see him?'
'Perfectly, I think.' Her manner was so strange that one had to notice
it in some way, and it appeared to me the best way was to notice it
jocularly; so I added, 'Shan't you?'
'Oh, perhaps you'll point him out!' And she walked quickly away. As I
looked after her I had a singular, a perverse and rather an embarrassed
sense of having, during the previous days, and especially in speaking to
Jasper Nettlepoint, interfered with her situation to her loss. I had a
sort of pang in seeing her move about alone; I felt somehow responsible
for it and asked myself why I could not have kept my hands off. I had
seen Jasper in the smoking-room more than once that day, as I passed it,
and half an hour before this I had observed, through the open door,
that he was there. He had been with her so much that without him she had
a bereaved, forsaken air. It was better, no doubt, but superficially it
made her rather pitiable. Mrs. Peck would have told me that their
separation was gammon; they didn't show together on deck and in the
saloon, but they made it up elsewhere. The secret places on shipboard
are not numerous; Mrs. Peck's 'elsewhere' would have been vague and I
know not what license her imagination took. It was distinct that Jasper
had fallen off, but of course what had passed between them on this
subject was not so and could never be. Later, through his mother, I had
_his_ version of that, but I may remark that I didn't believe it. Poor
Mrs. Nettlepoint did, of course. I was almost capable, after the girl
had left me, of going to my young man and saying, 'After all, do return
to her a little, just till we get in! It won't make any difference after
we land.' And I don't think it was the fear he would tell me I was an
idiot that prevented me. At any rate the next time I passed the door of
the smoking-room I saw that he had left it. I paid my usual visit to
Mrs. Nettlepoint that night, but I troubled her no further about Miss
Mavis. She had made up her mind that everything was smooth and settled
now, and it seemed to me that I had worried her and that she had worried
herself enough. I left her to enjoy the foretaste of arrival, which had
taken possession of her mind. Before turning in I went above and found
more passengers on deck than I had ever seen so late. Jasper was walking
about among them alone, but I forebore to join him. The coast of Ireland
had disappeared, but the night and the sea were perfect. On the way to
my cabin, when I came down, I met the stewardess in one of the passages
and the idea entered my head to say to her--'Do you happen to know where
Miss Mavis is?'
'Why, she's in her room, sir, at this hour.'
'Do you suppose I could speak to her?' It had come into my mind to ask
her why she had inquired of me whether I should recognise Mr.
Porterfield.
'No, sir,' said the stewardess; 'she has gone to bed.'
'That's all right.' And I followed the young lady's excellent example.
The next morning, while I was dressing, the steward of my side of the
ship came to me as usual to see what I wanted. But the first thing he
said to me was--'Rather a bad job, sir--a passenger missing.'
'A passenger--missing?'
'A lady, sir. I think you knew her. Miss Mavis, sir.'
'_Missing?_' I cried--staring at him, horror-stricken.
'She's not on the ship. They can't find her.'
'Then where to God is she?'
I remember his queer face. 'Well sir, I suppose you know that as well as
I.'
'Do you mean she has jumped overboard?'
'Some time in the night, sir--on the quiet. But it's beyond every one,
the way she escaped notice. They usually sees 'em, sir. It must have
been about half-past two. Lord, but she was clever, sir. She didn't so
much as make a splash. They say she _'ad_ come against her will, sir.'
I had dropped upon my sofa--I felt faint. The man went on, liking to
talk, as persons of his class do when they have something horrible to
tell. She usually rang for the stewardess early, but this morning of
course there had been no ring. The stewardess had gone in all the same
about eight o'clock and found the cabin empty. That was about an hour
ago. Her things were there in confusion--the things she usually wore
when she went above. The stewardess thought she had been rather strange
last night, but she waited a little and then went back. Miss Mavis
hadn't turned up--and she didn't turn up. The stewardess began to look
for her--she hadn't been seen on deck or in the saloon. Besides, she
wasn't dressed--not to show herself; all her clothes were in her room.
There was another lady, an old lady, Mrs. Nettlepoint--I would know
her--that she was sometimes with, but the stewardess had been with _her_
and she knew Miss Mavis had not come near her that morning. She had
spoken to _him_ and they had taken a quiet look--they had hunted
everywhere. A ship's a big place, but you do come to the end of it, and
if a person ain't there why they ain't. In short an hour had passed and
the young lady was not accounted for: from which I might judge if she
ever would be. The watch couldn't account for her, but no doubt the
fishes in the sea could--poor miserable lady! The stewardess and he,
they had of course thought it their duty very soon to speak to the
doctor, and the doctor had spoken immediately to the captain. The
captain didn't like it--they never did. But he would try to keep it
quiet--they always did.
By the time I succeeded in pulling myself together and getting on, after
a fashion, the rest of my clothes I had learned that Mrs. Nettlepoint
had not yet been informed, unless the stewardess had broken it to her
within the previous few minutes. Her son knew, the young gentleman on
the other side of the ship (he had the other steward); my man had seen
him come out of his cabin and rush above, just before he came in to me.
He _had_ gone above, my man was sure; he had not gone to the old lady's
cabin. I remember a queer vision when the steward told me this--the wild
flash of a picture of Jasper Nettlepoint leaping with a mad compunction
in his young agility over the side of the ship. I hasten to add that no
such incident was destined to contribute its horror to poor Grace
Mavis's mysterious tragic act. What followed was miserable enough, but I
can only glance at it. When I got to Mrs. Nettlepoint's door she was
there in her dressing-gown; the stewardess had just told her and she was
rushing out to come to me. I made her go back--I said I would go for
Jasper. I went for him but I missed him, partly no doubt because it was
really, at first, the captain I was after. I found this personage and
found him highly scandalised, but he gave me no hope that we were in
error, and his displeasure, expressed with seamanlike plainness, was a
definite settlement of the question. From the deck, where I merely
turned round and looked, I saw the light of another summer day, the
coast of Ireland green and near and the sea a more charming colour than
it had been at all. When I came below again Jasper had passed back; he
had gone to his cabin and his mother had joined him there. He remained
there till we reached Liverpool--I never saw him. His mother, after a
little, at his request, left him alone. All the world went above to
look at the land and chatter about our tragedy, but the poor lady spent
the day, dismally enough, in her room. It seemed to me intolerably long;
I was thinking so of vague Porterfield and of my prospect of having to
face him on the morrow. Now of course I knew why she had asked me if I
should recognise him; she had delegated to me mentally a certain
pleasant office. I gave Mrs. Peck and Mrs. Gotch a wide berth--I
couldn't talk to them. I could, or at least I did a little, to Mrs.
Nettlepoint, but with too many reserves for comfort on either side, for
I foresaw that it would not in the least do now to mention Jasper to
her. I was obliged to assume by my silence that he had had nothing to do
with what had happened; and of course I never really ascertained what he
_had_ had to do. The secret of what passed between him and the strange
girl who would have sacrificed her marriage to him on so short an
acquaintance remains shut up in his breast. His mother, I know, went to
his door from time to time, but he refused her admission. That evening,
to be human at a venture, I requested the steward to go in and ask him
if he should care to see me, and the attendant returned with an answer
which he candidly transmitted. 'Not in the least!' Jasper apparently was
almost as scandalised as the captain.
At Liverpool, at the dock, when we had touched, twenty people came on
board and I had already made out Mr. Porterfield at a distance. He was
looking up at the side of the great vessel with disappointment written
(to my eyes) in his face--disappointment at not seeing the woman he
loved lean over it and wave her handkerchief to him. Every one was
looking at him, every one but she (his identity flew about in a moment)
and I wondered if he did not observe it. He used to be lean, he had
grown almost fat. The interval between us diminished--he was on the
plank and then on the deck with the jostling officers of the
customs--all too soon for my equanimity. I met him instantly however,
laid my hand on him and drew him away, though I perceived that he had no
impression of having seen me before. It was not till afterwards that I
thought this a little stupid of him. I drew him far away (I was
conscious of Mrs. Peck and Mrs. Gotch looking at us as we passed) into
the empty, stale smoking-room; he remained speechless, and that struck
me as like him. I had to speak first, he could not even relieve me by
saying 'Is anything the matter?' I told him first that she was ill. It
was an odious moment.