At the appointed time I was at my aunt’s next morning. Captain Butler and Will were there. We went to Richmond, and after we had arrived it rained for the rest of the day, but it was all one to me; indeed, I would rather have had it rain than sunshine, for it forced us to sit indoors, whilst Will, defying the rain, went out and left Captain Butler and me alone, which was just what I liked.
I will not catalogue these holiday trips; they made me feel as if I were living for the first time in all my life; they made me know that I was a girl with passions and tastes, yet easy to delight. I will not say that I enjoyed my liberty, because for years I had not known what restraint was; but I was sensible that my being able to go where I pleased and to do what I pleased was a prodigious privilege at this time, when I had lost my heart, and must have gone mad had I been withheld from the society of the man who had it.
Two days before Will sailed my aunt called upon me. Our holiday rambles had run out; that day was to be blank, and I was not to see Captain Butler again until Thursday—it was a Thursday, I remember—when we were going down to the docks to see Will off. I remarked a peculiar look in my aunt’s face, which prompted me, in my impetuous way, to say:
‘What’s brought you here? What have you come to tell me? Now don’t keep me waiting?’
‘Lor’, my dear, one would need the breath of a healthy giant to keep pace with your impatience. Give me leave to rest a minute.’
‘All’s well at home, I hope?’
‘Why, yes, of course, as well as it can be with a mother and father whose only child is leaving them, perhaps for ever, in a couple of days.’ Her eyes moistened. ‘But it is his wish, and it is his father’s wish, and that must make it right—yes, that must make it right; though I’d have been grateful, very grateful, if it hadn’t been the sea.’ She wept for a few minutes, and I held my peace. Then drying her eyes with a resolved motion of the handkerchief, she said: ‘You’ve been enjoying some lively days of late, Marian?’
‘Happy days. Poor Will!’ and now I felt as if I must cry, too.
‘You’re a strange creature, my dear. Whatever you do seems to me wrong. And yet, somehow, I can never satisfy my mind that your conduct’s improper. I believe you’d be the same were your mother living. Your father might have held you in, but you’d have had your way with your poor mother.’
‘What have I done?’ said I, bridling up and flushing in the face.
‘Nothing out of the ordinary,’ she answered mildly. ‘Of course, your going about so much with Captain Butler, often being alone with him, as Will has told us, is quite contrary to my ideas of good conduct. Do you want the man for a husband, Marian?’
I guessed by my temper that I looked hotly at her.
‘Do you, child, do you? You should answer me. If you do not answer me I will go, and I am sure that you will wish this house should be burnt down rather than that I should go.’
My temper went with this, and with it the blood out of my face.
‘What do you want me to say, aunt?’ I exclaimed in a faint voice.
‘Would you be content to marry Captain Butler?’
I looked down upon the ground and said softly:
‘I love him.’
‘He loves you. Do you know that?’
‘He has not told me so.’
‘He is a man of very gentlemanlike feelings, far above the average merchant sea-captain.’
‘Oh, don’t I know it!’ I cried.
‘Well, he loves you, and would be very glad to marry you. And I dare say he would,’ said my aunt, looking up and down my figure and then round the room, ‘but he’ll not offer marriage unless he is certain you’ll accept him. He spent last evening with us, and had a very long and serious talk with your uncle and me on the subject. He declines to recognise your stepfather, which is quite proper under the circumstances, and regards me and your uncle as taking the place of your parents. Now, my dear, he is very much in love with you, and his diffidence comes from your being well off. We had a very long and serious talk, and I am here to have a serious talk with you, if not a long one.’
I felt that my face was lighted up; I saw the reflection of its delight in her own placid expression. My heart bounded; I could have danced and sung and waltzed about the room. I sat down, locking my hands tightly upon my lap, and listened with all the composure I could summon.
She informed me that Captain Butler had been exceedingly candid, had exactly named his savings and his patrimony, which scarcely amounted to three thousand pounds, and that he was deliberating whether or not to invest all that he had in a share of the new barque, Arab Chief. Mr. Johnstone had advised him, supposing he should be so fortunate as to gain my consent to marry him, not to make me his wife until he had gone his first voyage and seen how his venture fell out.
‘Your uncle,’ said my aunt, ‘is strongly of opinion that a man has no business to go and marry a fine handsome young woman like you, then leave her after a week or a month, and not set eyes on her again till he returns home from round the world.’
‘I wish my uncle would mind his own business,’ said I, pouting, and feeling my face very long.
But my aunt insisted that my uncle was right. She added that Captain Butler cordially agreed with him. Captain Butler’s own wish was to betroth himself to me, then to make his voyage; then return and marry me and carry me away with him to sea.
My eyes sparkled, and I jumped up and walked the room greatly excited. But after this my aunt grew tedious. Was it imaginable that any sort of love fit to base so solemn an affair as marriage upon could exist between two people who had known each other a fortnight only? Here was I joyously avowing my love for Captain Butler and expressing the utmost eagerness to marry him. Did I know what I was talking about? Had I given a moment’s reflection to what marrying a sailor signified? I was rich, young, and handsome; I had a fine house of my own; I had liberty and health; I was without children to tease me, to pale me with midnight watchings, to burden my spirits with anxiety for their future. Should I not be giving myself away very cheaply by marrying a sea-captain, a respectable, good-looking man certainly, but poor, following a calling in which no one can make any sort of figure, an underpaid, perilous, beggarly vocation? She did not deny that Captain Butler came from a highly respectable stock. He had mentioned two members of his family whom Mr. Johnstone perfectly well knew by name. His father had been in the Royal Navy and had served under Collingwood and Lord Exmouth and had died a poor lieutenant.
‘Oh, he’s a gentleman by birth,’ said my aunt, ‘and superior to his position. There’s his calling, out of which, to be sure, he can get a living, so as to be independent of his wife, which must always be the first consideration with every man of spirit. And, then, you have plenty of money for both, and for as many as may come, should ever he find himself out of employment. But what do you know of each other? How can you tell that you will be able to live happily together? What! In a fortnight? Ridiculous! Why, I have lived one-and-twenty years with your uncle, and we don’t even yet understand each other. You have by no means a sweet temper. But what time do you give the poor fellow to find you out in? And he may be quite a fiend himself, for all you know. It needs not much wig to hide a pair of horns. A tail will lie curled up out of sight under a fashionable coat, and your cloven hoof fits any shoe, my dear.’
So she chatted and teased and worried me with her advice and old-fashioned precepts. And then she angered me, and we quarrelled awhile, and afterwards cried and kissed. However, when her visit was ended, I had promised her, in answer to her earnest, almost tearful entreaty, that, though I should consent to engage myself to Captain Butler, I would not marry him until he had returned from his next voyage, which, if he went to the West Indies and South America, would not keep him very long away from me, so that I should have plenty of time to judge of his character whilst he was ashore and abundance of leisure afterward to reflect upon my observations and prepare myself for the very greatest change that can befall a woman.
I did not see Captain Butler again until Thursday. In the brief interval I had made up my mind to accept him at once if he proposed. Oh, my few days of holiday association with him had filled my heart with a passion of love! Not my happiness only—my very life was in his power.
I went to my uncle’s house on Thursday, early in the morning. We were to see poor Will off. We all tried to put on a cheerful air, and Will talked big of the presents he would bring home for his mother and me; but his mother’s eyes were red with a night of secret weeping; and whenever the lad’s sight went to her face his mouth twitched and, if he was speaking, his voice trembled and broke. His father looked often at him.
Captain Butler met us at the docks. I guessed he witnessed in my looks that my aunt had spoken to me. He gazed at me fondly as he held my hand, but there was nothing of significance to be said between us at this time of sorrowful leave-taking. We went on board with Will. When I kissed the dear fellow, I broke down and wept; and then Mr. Johnstone led the way to the Brunswick Hotel, and we went upstairs to a room which commanded a view of the ship, and sat at a window watching her as she hauled out of dock.
By the time the ship had been towed out of sight past Greenwich Reach, it was hard upon one o’clock. My uncle had ordered some sandwiches and sherry as an excuse for us to sit and watch the ship. This was no entertainment for me, who had not partaken of it, indeed, and who had breakfasted but lightly early that morning. My uncle called for the bill, and then rose to go. He told us he had an appointment which he would have barely time to keep. My aunt said to me:
‘What are you going to do?’ I returned no answer, for I had not made up my mind. ‘Come home with me, dear,’ said my aunt, ‘and dine with us at half-past two.’
I did not care to go home with her; first, because I felt I should be losing sight of Captain Butler, and, next, because they were full of grief for the departure of their son; so that my presence would be a sort of impertinence, whilst, again, I could not at all relish the prospect of a long and melancholy afternoon and evening spent in the neighbourhood of the Tower. So, after reflecting a minute or two, I said:
‘I’ll not go home with you, aunt. I’ll dine here and then take rail to Fenchurch Street and make my way to Hyde Park. A brisk walk will do me good. I feel as though I had lost a brother.’
‘I can’t stop,’ said my uncle, beginning to bustle.
My aunt saw how it was, and looked at me reproachfully.
‘I must return with your uncle,’ said she. ‘Are you to be left alone here? But what if you are? Your being alone about London and the neighbourhood is quite too much a habit with you, Marian—a practice I can’t approve. Which way do you go?’ she continued, looking at Captain Butler.
‘I’ll remain with Miss Johnstone, if she will suffer me to do so,’ he replied.
I smiled and coloured and bowed to him.
‘I can stop no longer,’ said my uncle, pulling out a great watch.
My aunt looked ‘hung in the wind,’ to use the phrase of the sailor, as though she understood she ought not to leave me alone with Captain Butler; but she correctly guessed that I did not want her; indeed, her remaining would have made me angry, and no doubt my fear of her intentions showed in my face.
‘Well,’ said she, ‘I could not leave you in better hands. Captain Butler will carefully look after you, I am sure.’ And she went quickly after her husband, who would wait for her no longer.
Captain Butler rang the bell and ordered some dinner. I was to be his guest, he said.
‘But why, Miss Johnstone, do you wish to go all the way to Hyde Park?’
‘It is no wish. I’ll go wherever you please.’
‘We are close to Greenwich here. Shall we take a turn about Greenwich Park presently? The days are still short, and you are not so far from your house at Greenwich as you would be at Kensington.’
I consented, and then we stood at the window, looking at the scene of the river from the docks, talking about Will and the sea-life and such matters until dinner was ready. I longed to hear him say that he loved me. The language of his eye was not satisfying enough. I wanted him to take my hand and ask me to be his wife. I had thought my appetite good until I sat down, and then I could not eat. My heart beat fast. I felt my colour come and go. I was alone with the man that I loved. I seemed to have lost my self-control, and behaved like a shy school-girl, and there were moments when I could have wished my aunt had not left us.
The waiter was slow, and it was nearly three o’clock before we rose. Captain Butler went to the window, looked out, and said to me: ‘I am afraid this fine day is not going to last. There’s a thickness gathering upon the river, and the sun looks like the rising moon. The afternoons are still short. Shall we hold Greenwich Park over for another day?’
‘If you like.’
‘How amiable you are! You give me my way in everything.’
‘What shall we do?’
‘Stop here for a little while, if you don’t mind. We have this room to ourselves for the present.’
He took me by the hand. I trembled and sat down, and he seated himself beside me. Am I to repeat what he said—in what words he told me how great his love was for me—in what terms he asked me to be his wife? All this I could unfold, ancient as it is in my memory. I could give it to you as though it were of yesterday’s happening. But the black curtain still remains down on the memorable, the horrible, the tragical scene it is to rise upon soon, and I must not linger over such recollections as I am now dictating to my friend.
It was quite in keeping that I, a sailor’s daughter, should be wooed and asked in marriage by a sailor in scenes full of shipping, within hearing of the cries and choruses of seamen and the hundred noises of the busy docks. A red mist lay upon the river, and the sun hung pale and rayless, like a great lemon, in the west. We were occupying a room that might have been the coffee-room. Several tables were draped and ready for guests, but we had been alone when my uncle and aunt left us, and we remained alone. He held me to him and kissed me; he looked proudly and gratefully at me and said that he loved me from the moment he had set eyes on me; that he thought me the handsomest woman he had ever seen in his life; that he adored me for my spirit—much more to this effect he said. But he told me he never would have had the heart to offer for my hand if he had not found some encouragement in my looks. Then he went over the long talk he’d had about me with Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone.
‘They begged,’ said he, ‘if you accepted me that we should not be married until my return from my next voyage.’
‘They are dear to me,’ said I, looking at him, ‘but they are not my guardians, and have no control over me.’
‘But they may be right, Marian, and they have a claim upon you too. I hope to do well next trip. I believe I shall do well enough,’ said he, smiling and smoothing the back of my hand, ‘to enable me to put something to your own fortune. I wish to be independent of you. You are not a woman to respect a man that is dependent upon you.’
‘My aunt was right,’ said I. ‘We don’t understand each other yet. Certainly you don’t understand me.’
He kissed me and said he knew what was in my mind, but all the same when he was my husband he wished to be independent of my fortune.
‘You shall have it all,’ I exclaimed, ‘and that will make you independent of me.’
‘Marian,’ said he gravely, ‘now that you have consented to be my wife I’ll tell you what I schemed; there would seem something unnatural in my going to sea and leaving my young bride behind me. I want you to be at my side when you are my wife. I do not know that I shall follow the sea much longer! A great deal will depend upon the issue of my next voyage. If I leave you behind, betrothed to me, you will have plenty of time to consider whether you, as a beauty and a fortune, have done wisely in accepting the hand of a plain merchant captain.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense, Tom,’ said I, giving his name bluntly, and not at all relishing his sentimental fastidiousness, which I attributed to the influence of my uncle.
‘My dear girl, when we are married, we mean to live together happily, don’t we?’
‘It will depend upon us both, Marian. When a sailor carries a ship into unnavigated waters, if he is a good sailor, and does not mean to cast his ship away, he heaves the lead as he goes, warily sounds along every fathom of his road until he brings up in a safe anchorage. This is what you must do, and it’s for me to give you time to heave the lead, dear.’
‘You want time to heave it yourself, Tom.’
‘My darling,’ he cried, catching me to him, ‘I would marry you to-morrow.’
Presently, when we had composed ourselves, he said that he was going down to Sunderland next week, and would be away for about a week; and then he talked to me about purchasing a share in the new vessel, and seemed to want my advice. He named several instances of merchants who, having speculated in this way in shipping, had risen out of small beginnings into great opulence. He told me that he would be better off than most investors, inasmuch as he would have command of his own venture, so to speak, be able to control things and push his business to the limits of all successful directions.
In this sort of conversation the afternoon passed away. At last, at about five o’clock, we were interrupted by a party of captains and others coming in to dine, on which Tom paid the bill and we left. He accompanied me to my house, and bade me farewell at the door, after arranging to call for me at eleven o’clock next morning.