Part 12 (1/2)
”Harry, eight years ago I was as madly in love with Lady Penryn as you are now with Lucy Lugur. All that you are suffering I have suffered.
Eight years ago we parted with tears and embraces and the most solemn promises of faithful love. In four months she was married to Lord Penryn.”
”Oh, John, what did you do?”
”I forgot her.”
”How could you?”
”As soon as I knew she was another man's wife, I did not dare to think of her, and finding how much _thought_ had to do with this sin, I filled my thoughts with complex and fatiguing business; in a word, I refused to think of her in any way.
”Six years afterwards I met her at a garden party; she was with a crowd of men and women. She had lost all her power over me. My pulses beat at their ordinary calm pace and my heart was unmoved.”
”And how did she bear the ordeal?”
”She said, 'Good afternoon, Mr. Hatton. I think we may have met before.' A few days ago, we pa.s.sed each other on the highway between Hatton and Overton. I lifted my hat, and she pretended not to see me.”
”Oh, John, how could the woman treat you so!”
”She acted wisely. I thank her for her discretion. Now, Harry, give yourself and Lucy time to draw back, if either of you find out you have been mistaken. There are many engagements in life that can be broken and no great harm done; but a marriage engagement, if once fulfilled, opens to you the gates of all Futurity, and if there are children it is irrevocable by any law. No divorce undoes it. You may likely unroll a long line of posterity who will live when you are forgotten, but whose actions, for good or evil, will be traced back to you.”
”Well, then, John, if I am to go away and give myself an opportunity to draw back, I want to go immediately. Lucy's father takes her to an aunt in Bradford tomorrow. I think when people grow old, they find a perfect joy in separating lovers.”
”It is not only your love affairs that want pause and consideration, Harry. You appear to hate your business as much as you ought to love and honor it, and I am in hopes that a few weeks or months of nothing to do will make you glad to come back to the mill. If not--”
”What then will you do for me, John?”
”I will buy your share of the mill.”
”Thank you, John. I know you are good to me, but you cannot tell how certain I am about Lucy; yes, and the mill, too.”
”Well, my dear lad, I believe you tonight; but what I want you to believe is that tomorrow some new light may s.h.i.+ne and you may see your thoughts on these two subjects in a different way. Just keep your mind open to whatever you may see or hear that can instruct your intentions.
That is all I ask. If you are willing to be instructed, the Instructor will come, not perhaps, but certainly.”
Four days after this conversation life in Hatton had broken apart, and Harry was speeding down the Bay of Biscay and singing the fine old sea song called after it, to the rhythm and music of its billowy surge. The motion of the boat, the wind in the sails, the ”chanties” of the sailors as they went about their work, and the evident content and happiness around him made Harry laugh and sing and toss away his cap and let the fresh salt wind blow on his hot brain in which he fancied the clack and clamor of the looms still lingered. He thought that a life at sea, resting or sailing as the mood took him, would be a perfect life if only Lucy were with him.
Sitting at dinner he very pointedly made the absence of women the great want in this otherwise perfect existence. The captain earnestly and strongly denied it. ”There is nowhere in the world,” he said, ”where a woman is less wanted than on a s.h.i.+p. They interfere with happiness and comfort in every way. If we had a woman on board tonight, she would be deathly seasick or insanely frightened. A s.h.i.+p with a woman's name is just as much as any captain can manage. You would be astonished at the difference a name can make in a s.h.i.+p. When this yacht belonged to Colonel Brotherton, she was called the _Dolphin_, and G.o.d and angels know she tried to behave like one, diving and plunging and careering as if she had fins instead of sails. I was captain of her then and I know it. Well, your father bought her, and your mother threw a bottle of fine old port over her bow, and called her the _Martha Hatton_, and she has been a different s.h.i.+p ever since--ladylike and respectable, no more b.u.t.ting of the waves, as if she was a ram; she lifts herself on and over them and goes curtseying into harbor like a d.u.c.h.ess.”
As they talked the wind rose, and the play of its solemn music in the rigging of the yacht and in the deep ba.s.s of the billows was, as Harry said, ”like a chant of High Ma.s.s. I heard one for the sailors leaving Hull last Christmas night,” he said, ”and I shall never forget it.”
”But you are a Methodist, sir?”
”Oh, that does not hinder! A good Methodist can pray wherever there is honest prayer going on. John was with me, and I knew by John's face he was praying. I was but a lad, but I said 'Our Father,' for I knew that Christ's words could not be wrong wherever they were said.”
”Well, sir, I hope you will recover your health soon and be able to return to your business.”
”My health, Captain, is firstrate! I have not come to sea for my health.
Surely to goodness, John did not tell you that story?”