The Seafarers

by John Bloundelle-Burton

'And the position, Bella. The position--think of that! In our circumstances, even though you come of a good stock and are descended from ladies and gentlemen on both sides from far-off years, you could never have hoped to make such a match.'

'The position is nothing to me, mother. I love Gilbert fondly. I long to be his wife. Why should I think of the position?'

'Every woman must think of it, child. When you are as old--and worn--as I am, you--you will teach your own children to think of it. It is everything to be the wife of a gentleman, better still the wife of a man of rank. Everything! Short of being the wife of a distinguished man, a man whose name is on everybody's tongue, there is no other position so good. And, even then, that distinguished man may not be a gentleman as well. That would be dreadful. Yet your husband will be both. Think, Bella! He is sure to become a nobleman, and he may become the most renowned admiral in the Navy.'

'You dear old mother! But I love Gilbert because he is Gilbert. Otherwise, neither the nobility which is certain, nor the renown which is prospective, would take me across the world to him. Do you think I would go to Bombay to marry the heir to a title or a possible admiral if I did not love him?'

'Heaven forbid!' Mrs. Waldron replied, as she sat up in her bed and smoothed her hair. 'Heaven forbid! Yet,' she murmured, perhaps a little weakly for a lady who had just delivered herself of such admirable sentiments, 'yet I do honestly think, darling, that the love you bear each other--yes! above all, the love--and the position--I must think of the position, Bella!--and the certainty of a brilliant future for you, reconcile me a little to parting with you. Some day, when you are a mother, you will understand me.'

'I understand you now, darling. Yet, yet--ah!' and now she sobbed on her mother's shoulder--'yet, to think of our being parted for so long--for three years! Gilbert must remain on the station for that length of time.' Now it is certain that Mrs. Waldron was sobbing too, yet, because there was something of the Spartan mother, something, too, of Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, about her, she calmed her sobs. For she, too, had been ruthlessly torn by an all-conquering lover, who would take no denial, from her parents, arms. Yet that lover had had no such proud future to offer her as the Gilbert of whom they spoke had to offer his beloved Arabella; for her there had been nothing to flavour her existence except the glorious spice tasted by us all--of loving and being loved. And now--now that she was what she called old--which was not the case, since she was still short of her forty-fifth year--now she knew--and, knowing, said--that love accompanied by brilliant prospects and an assured future was the most satisfactory of all loves.

'Your father,' Mrs. Waldron said, 'remained on his station, the Pacific, for seven years, and we were separated all that time. He there, I here, in London. And in lodgings, Bella--oh those lodgings and that cooking!--you remember, darling? You must remember the lodgings and the cooking, child though you were. And he was not a future peer, though he did once think he might become an admiral.'

'Forgive me, mother,' Bella said, kissing her mother again and again. 'I will not repine any more. I ought not to do so, I know. For is not my Gilbert the handsomest, bravest sailor that ever wore the Queen's uniform? And it won't be so long after all. Only--only--I do wish there wasn't that awful journey. Oh if there were only a bridge!' and for the first time she smiled. 'Or a railway,' she added.

'I am sure, Bella,' her mother said, forgetting how she would feel that evening when her child was gone, and neither the bright voice nor brisk footsteps would be heard any more in the house, 'I am sure you cannot complain of the manner in which you are going out. The vessel may not be as comfortable as they say the great liners are, but at least your uncle is the captain, and it is his own ship. And that cabin he showed us yesterday, when we went down to Gravesend, is far better than anything you could get in any liner, even the best. I had one once, when I went out to join your father at Halifax, in which there was nowhere but the pockets of my clothes to keep things in, while the other lady above me could open the scuttle as she lay in her berth. And your cabin is as big as a dining-room, with a sofa----'

'You dear, darling mother!' Bella exclaimed. 'You are an angel to comfort me thus, when I know all the time that your heart is as sad as mine. Oh if we had not to part!' And again the two women hugged and kissed each other.