Althea was an excellent sailor and her voyage back to England was as
smooth and as swift as money could make it. She had been seen off by
many affectionate friends, and, since leaving America, the literature,
the flowers and the fruit with which they had provided her had helped to
pass the hours, tedious at best on ship-board. Two other friends, not so
near, but very pleasant--they were New York people--were also making the
voyage, but as they were all very sea-sick, intercourse with them
consisted mainly in looking in upon them as they lay, mute and enduring,
within their berths, and cheering them with the latest reports of
progress. Althea looked in upon them frequently, and she read all her
books, and much of her time, besides, had been spent in long, formless
meditations--her eyes fixed on the rippled, grey expanse of the Atlantic
while she lay encased in furs on her deck chair. These meditations were
not precisely melancholy, it was rather a brooding sense of vague
perplexity that filled the dream-like hours. She had left her native
land, and she was speeding towards her lover and towards her new life;
there might have been exhilaration as well as melancholy in these facts.
But though she was not melancholy, she was not exhilarated. It was a
confused regret that came over her in remembering Boston, and it was a
confused expectancy that filled her when she looked forward to Gerald.
Gerald had written to her punctually once a week while she had been in
America, short, but very vivid, very interesting and affectionate
letters. They told her about what he was doing, what he was reading, the
people he saw and his projects for their new life together. He took it
for granted that this was what she wanted, and of course it was what she
wanted, only--and it was here that the confused regrets arose in
remembering Boston--the letters received there, where she was so much of
a centre and so little of a satellite, had seemed, in some way, lacking
in certain elements that Boston supplied, but that Merriston House, she
more and more distinctly saw, would never offer. She was, for her own
little circle, quite important in Boston. At Merriston House she would
be important only as Gerald Digby's wife and as the mistress of his
home, and that indeed--this was another slightly confusing fact--would
not be great importance. Even in Boston, she had felt, her importance
was still entirely personal; she had gained none from her coming
marriage. Her friends were perfectly accustomed to the thought of
coronets and ancient estates in connection with foreign alliances, and
Althea was a little vexed in feeling that they really did not appreciate
at its full value the significance of a simple English gentleman with a
small country seat. 'I suppose you'll live quite quietly, Althea, dear,'
more than one old friend had said, with an approbation not altogether
grateful to her. 'Your aunt tells me that it's such a nice little place,
your future home. I'm so glad you are not making a great worldly
match.' Althea had no wish to make a great worldly match, but she did
not care that her friends should see her upon such an over-emphatically
sober background.
The report of Gerald's charm had been the really luminous fact in her
new situation, and it had been most generously spread by Aunt Julia.
Althea had felt warmed by the compensatory brightness it cast about her.
Althea Jakes was not going to make a great match, but she was, and
everybody knew it, going to marry a 'perfectly charming' man. This,
after all, was to be crowned with beams. It was upon the thought of that
charm that she dwelt when the long meditations became oppressively
confused. She might be giving up certain things--symbolised by the
books, the fruit, the flowers, that testified to her importance in
Boston; she might be going to accept certain difficulties and certain
disappointments, but the firm ground on which she stood was the fact
that Gerald was charming. At moments she felt herself yearn towards that
charm; it was a reviving radiance in which she must steep her rather
numbed and rather weary being. To see his eyes, to see his smile, to
hear his voice that made her think of bells and breezes, would be enough
to banish wistfulness, or, at all events, to put it in its proper place
as merely temporary and negligible.
Althea's heart beat fast as the shores of Ireland stole softly into
sight on a pearly horizon, and it really fluttered, like that of any
love-sick girl, when her packet of letters was brought to her at
Queenstown. In Gerald's she would feel the central rays coming out to
greet her. But when she had read Gerald's letter it was as if a blank
curtain had fallen before her, shutting out all rays. He was not coming
to meet her at Liverpool. The sharpness of her dismay was like a box on
the ear, and it brought tears to her eyes and anger to her heart. Yes,
actually, with no contrition, or consciousness of the need for it, he
said quite gaily and simply that he would see her in London on Saturday;
he had a ball in the country for Friday night. He offered not the least
apology. He was perfectly unaware of guilt. And it was this innocence
that, after the first anger, filled poor Althea with fear. What did it
bode for the future? Meanwhile there was the humiliating fact to face
that she, the cherished and appreciated Althea, who had never returned
to America without at least three devoted friends to welcome her, was to
land on the dismal Liverpool docks and find no lover to greet her there.
What would Mrs. Peel and Sally Arlington think when they saw her so
bereft? It was the realisation of what they would think, the memory of
the American wonder at the Englishman's traditional indifference to what
the American woman considered her due in careful chivalry, that roused
her pride to the necessity of self-preservation. Mrs. Peel and Sally, at
all events, should not imagine her to be either angry or surprised. She
would show them the untroubled matter-of-fact of the English wife. And
she succeeded admirably in this. When Miss Arlington, sitting up and
dressed at last, said, in Mrs. Peel's cabin, where, leaning on Althea's
arm, she had feebly crept to tea, 'And what fun, Althea, to think that
we shall see him to-morrow morning,' Althea opened candidly surprised
eyes: 'See him? Who, dear?'
'Why, Mr. Digby, of course. Who else could be him?' said Miss Arlington.
'But he isn't coming to Liverpool,' said Althea blandly.
'Not coming to meet you?' Only tact controlled the amazement in Miss
Arlington's question.
'Didn't you know? Gerald is a very busy man; he has had a long-standing
engagement for this week, and besides I shouldn't have liked him to
come. I'd far rather meet comfortably in London, where I shall see him
the first thing on Saturday. And then you'll see him too.'
She only wished that she could really feel, what she showed them--such
calm, such reasonableness, and such detachment.
It was with a gloomy eye that she surveyed the Liverpool docks in the
bleak dawn next morning, seated in her chair, Amelie beside her, a
competent Atlas, bearing a complicated assortment of bags, rugs, and
wraps. No, she had nothing to hope from these inhospitable shores; no
welcoming eyes were there to greet hers. It was difficult not to cry as
she watched the ugly docks draw near and saw the rows of ugly human
faces upturned upon it--peculiarly ugly in colour the human face at this
hour of the morning. Then, suddenly, Amelie made a little exclamation
and observed in dispassionate yet approving tones, 'Tiens; et voila
Monsieur Frankline.'
'Who? Where?' Althea rose in her chair.
'Mais oui; c'est bien Monsieur Frankline,' Amelie pointed. 'Voila ce qui
est gentil, par exemple,' and by this comment of Amelie's Althea knew
that Gerald's absence was observed and judged. She got out of her
chair, yet with a strange reluctance. It was not pleasure that she felt;
it was, rather, a fuller realisation of pain. Going to the railing she
looked down at the wharf. Yes, there was Franklin's pale buff-coloured
countenance raised to hers, serene and smiling. He waved his hat. Althea
was only able not to look dismayed and miserable in waving back. That
Franklin should care enough to come; that Gerald should care too little.
But she drew herself together to smile brightly down upon her faithful
lover. Franklin--Franklin above all--must not guess what she was
feeling.
'Well,' were his first words, as she came down the gangway, 'I thought
we'd keep up our old American habits.' The words, she felt, were very
tactful; they made things easier for her; they even comforted her a
little. One mustn't be too hard on Gerald if it was an American habit.
'It _is_ a nice one,' she said, grasping Franklin's hand. 'I must make
Gerald acquire it.'
'Why don't you keep it for me?' smiled Franklin. She felt, as he piloted
her to the Customs, that either his tact or his ingenuousness was
sublime. She leaned on it, whichever it was.
'Have you seen Gerald?' she asked, as they stood beside her marshalled
array of boxes. 'He seemed very fit and happy in the letters I had at
Queenstown.'
'No, I've not seen him yet,' smiled Franklin, looking about to catch the
eye of an official.
'Then'--was on the tip of Althea's tongue--'how did you know I was not
going to be met?' She checked the revealing question, and Franklin's
next remark--whether tactful or ingenuous in its appropriateness she
once more could not tell--answered it: 'I've been seeing a good deal of
Miss Buchanan; she told me Mr. Digby wouldn't be able to come up here.'
'Oh--Helen!' Althea was thankful to be able to pass from the theme of
Gerald and his inabilities. 'So you have been seeing her. Have you been
long in London? Have you seen her often?'
'I got to London last Monday, and I've seen her as often as she could
let me. We're very good friends, you know,' said Franklin.
She didn't know at all, and she found the information rather
bewildering. At Merriston her own situation had far too deeply absorbed
her to leave her much attention for other people's. She had only noticed
that Helen had been kind to Franklin. She suspected that it was now his
ingenuousness that idealised Helen's tolerant kindness. But though her
superior sophistication made a little touch of irony unavoidable, it was
overwhelmed in the warm sense of gratitude.
Everything was in readiness for her; her corner seat in the train,
facing the engine; a foot-warmer; the latest magazines, and a box of
fruit. How it all brought back Boston--dear Boston--and the reviving
consciousness of imaginative affection. And how it brought back
Franklin. Well, everybody ought to be his good friend, even if they
weren't so in reality.
'You didn't suppose I'd forget you liked muscatels?' inquired Franklin,
with a mild and unreproachful gentleness when she exclaimed over the
nectarines and grapes. 'Now, please, sit back and let me put this rug
around you; it's chilly, and you look rather pale.' He then went off
and looked out for her friends and for Amelie. Mrs. Peel and Sally, when
they arrived with him, showed more than the general warmth of
compatriots in a foreign land. They knew Franklin but slightly, and he
could but have counted with them as one of Althea's former suitors; but
now, she saw it, he took his place in their eyes as the devoted friend,
and, as the journey went on, counted for more and more in his own right.
Sally and Mrs. Peel evidently thought Franklin a dear. Althea thought so
too, her eyes dwelling on him with wistful observation. There was no
charm; there never had been charm; but the thought of charm sickened her
a little just now. What she rested in was this affection, this kindness,
this constant devotion that had never failed her in the greatest or the
littlest things. And though it was not to see him change into a
different creature, not to see him move on into a different category--as
he had changed and moved in the eyes of the Miss Buchanans--he did gain
in significance when, after a little while, he informed them of the new
fact in his life--the fact of millions. They were Americans of an old
stock, and millions meant to them very external and slightly suspicious
things--things associated with rawness and low ideals; but they couldn't
associate Franklin with low ideals. They exclaimed with interest and
sympathy over his adventure, and they felt nothing funny in his projects
for benefiting physics. They all understood each other; they took light
things--like millions--lightly, and grave things--like ideals and
responsibilities--gravely. And, ah yes, there it was--Althea turning her
head to look at the speeding landscape of autumnal pearl and gold,
thought, over her sense of smothered tears--they knew what things were
really serious. They couldn't mistake the apparent for the real
triviality; they knew that some symbols of affection--trifling as they
might be--were almost necessary. But then they understood affection. It
was at this point that her sore heart sank to a leaden depression.
Affection--cherishing, forestalling, imaginative affection--there was no
lack of it, she was sure of that, in this beautiful England of pearl and
gold which, in its melancholy, its sweetness, its breathing out of
memories immemorial, so penetrated and possessed her; but was there not
a terrible lack of it in the England that was to be hers, and where she
was to make her home?