When ten minutes later I re-took my seat in the cab, I was in love for the first time in my life. And then it was that I began to regret not having been content to remain quietly in Sir Benjamin's office, where I might have found other opportunities of improving my acquaintance with his charming daughter. It was certainly the irony of fate, that when I wanted to embrace the nautical profession, no opportunity was vouchsafed me; but when I did not want to take to it, I had no option but to do so.
It is not my intention, even had I the space, to narrate all that befell me before my departure on my first voyage, but will content myself by remarking that not only did my uniform almost satisfy me, but that on my first day of wearing it (and you may be sure, like most youths, I seized the opportunity as soon as it presented itself), who should drive up to our door but Maud Plowden herself. I had forgotten until then that my mother and she had developed a sudden but intimate acquaintanceship.
What she said to me or what I said to her during the space that she remained under our roof I cannot recall, but I remember that when she went away, it seemed as if all the sunshine had gone out of the house.
What a strange and indeed weird experience that first falling in love is, and, as a rule, how signally we fail to estimate its true importance in the building up of a life's character! Is it not a time of high ambitions, of pure intentions, of great resolves,—when not to succeed is a thing impossible? A period of our lives when women are all pure and noble, and men all brave and honest! Oh, the pity, for humanity's sake, that there should ever come an awakening!
On the Thursday following that tea-drinking, I joined my ship, the Beretania, then lying in the East India Docks. My mother came to see me off, and her tears and parting blessing opened my eyes to my conduct towards herself, showing me my position in a new and exceedingly unpleasant light.
And now as my doings for the term of my apprenticeship would form but poor reading, let me skip a few years, and come to the time when I returned to England to a certain extent tired of Father Ocean, but very proud of my position as third mate. I was then, to all intents and purposes, a man, six feet in height, broad of shoulder, and, if my doting mother could be believed, not altogether deficient in good looks. On that point, however, I must be mute.
As we had just hailed from China, it was only natural that I should have brought with me a whole cargo of curios. These I intended for family presents, and on the day following my arrival I sorted them out, retaining those I most admired for my mother herself, and setting apart those I did not care very much about for transmission to any relatives and acquaintances she might think worthy of the notice. Among the prettiest of the things was an exquisitely inlaid tortoiseshell and ivory card-case, which, in my own mind, I had destined for Maud, if I could but find an opportunity of giving it to her.
This came sooner than I expected, for on the afternoon following my arrival she dropped in to five o'clock tea, and as she intended to walk back, I had the delight, not only of presenting her with my gift, but also of escorting her, at my mother's desire, a little way upon her homeward road. Now I'm not vain enough to think that she was already in love with me (the sin of conceit cannot at least be laid to my charge), but I'm certain, and even she herself admits it now, that after that night she was not altogether indifferent to me. However, be that as it may, I saw her no more during my leave ashore, and it must have been two full years before I looked into her face again.
When I reached England the next time, I had not only been twice round the world, visiting China, Australia, and both North and South America in so doing, but had passed my examination for chief officer, though I only held a second officer's position.
It was close upon Christmas when we arrived, the Serpentine was frozen, and skating parties were in full swing. Now skating is an amusement of which I have always been fond, though naturally in my profession I did not get many opportunities of indulging in it. For this reason, when I did I made the most of them, and that season was a notable instance.