Materfamilias

by Ada Cambridge

"Indeed?" I said, bowing. He had never mentioned her name to me. But, as he explained when I told him so, he couldn't be expected to remember the names of the thousands of strangers he carried in the course of the year. I reminded him that she considered herself not a stranger, but a friend; and he said, with a laugh, "Oh, they all do that."

I confess I did not take to Mrs. Harris. I should not have liked any one coming in our way as she did, when we wanted to be free and peaceful, but she was particularly repugnant to me. She gushed too much; she talked too familiarly of Tom—to me also, not discriminating between one captain's wife and another; and she accosted the servants and officers as they passed quite as if the ship belonged to her. However, I stood it as long as she chose to sit there, making herself pleasant, as she doubtless supposed. As soon as it occurred to her to go and look at her cabin I seized my hood and cloak, and went to seek sanctuary on the bridge with Tom. It was nearly six o'clock, and he was just casting off.

"Oh, Polly," he said, turning to me with a slightly worried air, "you wouldn't mind staying on deck till we get down the river a bit, would you, pet? It don't look professional, you know, for ladies to show up here. And Mrs. Harris might——"

I interrupted him in what he was going to say, because anything to do with Mrs. Harris had nothing whatever to do with the case.

"Passengers," said I, "are one thing—the captain's wife is another—quite another—and especially when the old man has asked me, as a sort of favour to himself, to make myself at home, as he calls it. Is he on the wharf, by the way? I should like to wave a hand to him. It would please him awfully. Thank Heaven, we are not subject to Mrs. Harris, nor to anybody else, on board this, ship. That's the beauty of it."

"I feel in a sense subject to Watson," said Tom, "and he's a punctilious sort of chap. I don't care to seem to make too free with his command—for it's his, not mine. And there are heaps of people about besides the old man. You really would oblige me very much, Polly——"

"Oh, of course, dear!"

I saw his point of view, and at once effaced myself. I went into the little bridge house, just behind the wheel—he was satisfied with that—where I could see him close to me through the bow window, and speak to him when I chose. He lit the candle lamp at the head of the bunk, so that I could lie there and read; but I did not want to read. I preferred to stand by the window, which held all there was of table—the top of drawers and lockers—on which I spread my arms, propping my face in hollowed palms, and to look out upon the river with the sunset upon it, and the fading daylight, and the starry lights ashore. To call that city-skirting stream romantic is to provoke the derision of those who know it best, but it was romantic that night—to me. Anything can be romantic under certain circumstances, in certain states of atmosphere and mind.

We were alone together. The dinner-bell rang downstairs, but Tom never left the bridge till he was out of the river, and I did not need to ask him to let me share his meal. The steward brought us up a tray, and we stood in the warm little cabin—the table was not made to sit at—and ate roast chicken and apple pie, like travellers at a railway buffet, Tom stepping out and back between hasty mouthfuls to see that all was right. He was intensely business-like, and as happy as a boy at his old work. We both had the young feeling that comes to holiday-makers who don't have a holiday very often. I could not help it.

Then—when we steamed out between the river lights into the bay—how we sniffed the first breath of the salt sea! And what memories it brought to us!—to me, at least, who had been so long away from it. The passengers were at dinner still, and it was falling dark, and there were no spectators save the man at the wheel, who was nothing but a voice, an echo of the quiet word of command, most pleasant to hear; I was free to roam the bridge from end to end, hanging to my husband's supporting arm—to bathe myself in air that was literally new life to both of us. Cold and clean and briny to the lips—oh, what is there to equal it in the way of medicine for soul and body? What sort of insensate creatures can they be who do not love the sea?