Nettlepoint wouldn't yet have been told, 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 hadn't gone to the old lady's cabin.I catch again the sense of my dreadfully seeing something at that moment, catch the wild flash, under the steward's words, of Jasper Nettlepoint leaping, with a mad compunction in his young agility, over the side of the ship.Ihasten to add, however, that no such incident was destined to contribute its horror to poor Grace Mavis's unwitnessed and unlighted 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 with a shawl about her; the stewardess had just told her and she was dashing 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 strength, was a definite settlement of the question.From the deck, where Imerely turned round and looked, I saw the light of another summer day, the coast of Ireland green and near and the sea of a more charming colour than it had shown 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--Inever 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, the dreadful day, intolerably long; Iwas thinking so of vague, of inconceivable yet inevitable Porterfield, and of my having to face him somehow 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, since I quite felt how little it would now make for ease 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 good man 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--for my strained eyes--in his face; disappointment at not seeing the woman he had so long awaited 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 it didn't strike him.He used to be gaunt and angular, but had grown almost fat and stooped a little.The interval between us diminished--he was on the plank and then on the deck with the jostling agents of the Customs; too soon for my equanimity.I met him instantly, however, to save him from exposure--laid my hand on him and drew him away, though I was sure he had no impression of having seen me before.It was not till afterwards that I thought this rather characteristically dull 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 couldn't even relieve me by saying "Is anything the matter?" I broke ground by putting it, feebly, that she was ill.
It was a dire moment.
End
