“Enough to clear the decks!”
He was after all rather dry and he went about his business. He had made
me uneasy, and instead of going below I took a few turns more. The other
walkers dropped off pair by pair—they were all men—till at last I was
alone. Then after a little I quitted the field. Jasper and his
companion were still behind their lifeboat. Personally I greatly
preferred our actual conditions, but as I went down I found myself
vaguely wishing, in the interest of I scarcely knew what, unless it had
been a mere superstitious delicacy, that we might have half a gale.
Miss Mavis turned out, in sea-phrase, early; for the next morning I saw
her come up only a short time after I had finished my breakfast, a
ceremony over which I contrived not to dawdle. She was alone and Jasper
Nettlepoint, by a rare accident, was not on deck to help her. I went to
meet her—she was encumbered as usual with her shawl, her sun-umbrella and
a book—and laid my hands on her chair, placing it near the stern of the
ship, where she liked best to be. But I proposed to her to walk a little
before she sat down, and she took my arm after I had put her accessories
into the chair. The deck was clear at that hour and the morning light
gay; one had an extravagant sense of good omens and propitious airs. I
forget what we spoke of first, but it was because I felt these things
pleasantly; and not to torment my companion nor to test her, that I
couldn’t help exclaiming cheerfully after a moment, as I have mentioned
having done the first day: “Well, we’re getting on, we’re getting on!”
“Oh yes, I count every hour.”
“The last days always go quicker,” I said, “and the last hours—!”
“Well, the last hours?” she asked; for I had instinctively checked
myself.
“Oh one’s so glad then that it’s almost the same as if one had arrived.
Yet we ought to be grateful when the elements have been so kind to us,” I
added. “I hope you’ll have enjoyed the voyage.”
She hesitated ever so little. “Yes, much more than I expected.”
“Did you think it would be very bad?”
“Horrible, horrible!”
The tone of these words was strange, but I hadn’t much time to reflect
upon it, for turning round at that moment I saw Jasper Nettlepoint come
toward us. He was still distant by the expanse of the white deck, and I
couldn’t help taking him in from head to foot as he drew nearer. I don’t
know what rendered me on this occasion particularly sensitive to the
impression, but it struck me that I saw him as I had never seen him
before, saw him, thanks to the intense sea-light, inside and out, in his
personal, his moral totality. It was a quick, a vivid revelation; if it
only lasted a moment it had a simplifying certifying effect. He was
intrinsically a pleasing apparition, with his handsome young face and
that marked absence of any drop in his personal arrangements which, more
than any one I’ve ever seen, he managed to exhibit on shipboard. He had
none of the appearance of wearing out old clothes that usually prevails
there, but dressed quite straight, as I heard some one say. This gave
him an assured, almost a triumphant air, as of a young man who would come
best out of any awkwardness. I expected to feel my companion’s hand
loosen itself on my arm, as an indication that now she must go to him,
and I was almost surprised she didn’t drop me. We stopped as we met and
Jasper bade us a friendly good-morning. Of course the remark that we had
another lovely day was already indicated, and it led him to exclaim, in
the manner of one to whom criticism came easily, “Yes, but with this sort
of thing consider what one of the others would do!”
“One of the other ships?”
“We should be there now, or at any rate tomorrow.”
“Well then I’m glad it isn’t one of the others”—and I smiled at the young
lady on my arm. My words offered her a chance to say something
appreciative, and gave him one even more; but neither Jasper nor Grace
Mavis took advantage of the occasion. What they did do, I noticed, was
to look at each other rather fixedly an instant; after which she turned
her eyes silently to the sea. She made no movement and uttered no sound,
contriving to give me the sense that she had all at once become perfectly
passive, that she somehow declined responsibility. We remained standing
there with Jasper in front of us, and if the contact of her arm didn’t
suggest I should give her up, neither did it intimate that we had better
pass on. I had no idea of giving her up, albeit one of the things I
seemed to read just then into Jasper’s countenance was a fine implication
that she was his property. His eyes met mine for a moment, and it was
exactly as if he had said to me “I know what you think, but I don’t care
a rap.” What I really thought was that he was selfish beyond the limits:
that was the substance of my little revelation. Youth is almost always
selfish, just as it is almost always conceited, and, after all, when it’s
combined with health and good parts, good looks and good spirits, it has
a right to be, and I easily forgive it if it be really youth. Still it’s
a question of degree, and what stuck out of Jasper Nettlepoint—if, of
course, one had the intelligence for it—was that his egotism had a
hardness, his love of his own way an avidity. These elements were jaunty
and prosperous, they were accustomed to prevail. He was fond, very fond,
of women; they were necessary to him—that was in his type; but he wasn’t
in the least in love with Grace Mavis. Among the reflexions I quickly
made this was the one that was most to the point. There was a degree of
awkwardness, after a minute, in the way we were planted there, though the
apprehension of it was doubtless not in the least with himself. To
dissimulate my own share in it, at any rate, I asked him how his mother
might be.
His answer was unexpected. “You had better go down and see.”
“Not till Miss Mavis is tired of me.”
She said nothing to this and I made her walk again. For some minutes she
failed to speak; then, rather abruptly, she began: “I’ve seen you talking
to that lady who sits at our table—the one who has so many children.”
“Mrs. Peck? Oh yes, one has inevitably talked with Mrs. Peck.”
“Do you know her very well?”
“Only as one knows people at sea. An acquaintance makes itself. It
doesn’t mean very much.”
“She doesn’t speak to me—she might if she wanted.”
“That’s just what she says of you—that you might speak to her.”
“Oh if she’s waiting for that!” said my companion with a laugh. Then she
added: “She lives in our street, nearly opposite.”
“Precisely. That’s the reason why she thinks you coy or haughty. She
has seen you so often and seems to know so much about you.”
“What does she know about me?”
“Ah you must ask her—I can’t tell you!”
“I don’t care what she knows,” said my young lady. After a moment she
went on: “She must have seen I ain’t very sociable.” And then, “What are
you laughing at?” she asked.
“Well”—my amusement was difficult to explain—“you’re not very sociable,
and yet somehow you are. Mrs. Peck is, at any rate, and thought that
ought to make it easy for you to enter into conversation with her.”
“Oh I don’t care for her conversation—I know what it amounts to.” I made
no reply—I scarcely knew what reply to make—and the girl went on: “I know
what she thinks and I know what she says.” Still I was silent, but the
next moment I saw my discretion had been wasted, for Miss Mavis put to me
straight: “Does she make out that she knows Mr. Porterfield?”
“No, she only claims she knows a lady who knows him.”
“Yes, that’s it—Mrs. Jeremie. Mrs. Jeremie’s an idiot!” I wasn’t in a
position to controvert this, and presently my young lady said she would
sit down. I left her in her chair—I saw that she preferred it—and
wandered to a distance. A few minutes later I met Jasper again, and he
stopped of his own accord to say: “We shall be in about six in the
evening of our eleventh day—they promise it.”
“If nothing happens, of course.”
“Well, what’s going to happen?”
“That’s just what I’m wondering!” And I turned away and went below with
the foolish but innocent satisfaction of thinking I had mystified him.