Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel

by Stinson Jarvis

But Charlie's nerves were a little irritable to-day, and he swung himself on deck and went forward. A long boom was lowered out over the side and properly guyed; then a long line of sail, tied in stops, went up and up to the topmast-head; the foot of it was hauled out to the end of the boom; then there was a pull on a rope, and, as the wind broke away the stops, hundreds of yards of sail spread out as if by magic to the breeze, filling away forward like a huge three-cornered balloon, the foot of which almost swept the surface of the water.

"Look at that for a sail, Nina," said Jack. "Now you'll see her git right up and git."

When Jack was talking about yachts or sailing it was next to impossible for him to speak in anything but a jargon of energetic slang and metaphor picked up among the sailors, who, in their turn, picked up all they could while ashore. He seemed to take a pleasure in throwing the English grammar overboard. His heart warmed to sailors. He was fond of their oddities and forcible unpolished similes; and when he sometimes sought their society for a while, he was well received. When a man in good clothes begins to talk sailing grammatically to lake-sailors they seem to feel that he is not, as far as they can see, in any way up to the mark. His want of accuracy in sailing vernacular attaches to his whole character.

If Jack intended to say that the spinnaker would make the Ideal go fast, he was right. She was traveling down the lake almost as fast as she would go in a race with the same breeze. A long thin line of fine white bubbles extending back over the tops of several blue waves showed where her keel had divided the water and rubbed it into white powder as she passed. Jack had no time for continued conversation now. He had to watch his compass and the sails, the wind, and the land. He did not wish the wake behind the vessel to look like a snake-fence from bad steering, and to get either of the sails aback, while under such a pressure, would be a pretty kettle of fish. He was enjoying himself. Some good Samaritan handed him a pipe filled and lighted, and with his leg slung comfortably over the shaft of the wheel, his pipe going, Nina in front of him, and all his friends around him, he felt that the moment could hardly be improved.

Some time after the buildings of Toronto had dwindled away to nothing, and the thin spire of St. James's Cathedral had become a memory, the steward announced that luncheon was ready. One of the hands relieved Jack at the wheel, and all went below except Mrs. Dusenall, who was left lying among cushions and pillows arranged comfortably on deck, where she preferred to remain, as she was feeling the motion of the boat.

Luncheon was a movable feast on the Ideal—as liable to be shifted about as the hands of a wayward clock. The cabin was prettily decorated with flowers, and the table, weighted so as to remain always horizontal, was covered with snowy linen and delicate glass, while a small conceit full of cut flowers faced each of the guests. The steward and stewardess buzzed about with bottles and plates, and any appetite that could not have been tempted must have been in a bad way. The absence of that apology for a chaperon, who was trying to enjoy the breezes overhead, gave the repast an informality which the primness of the Misses Dusenall soon failed to check, although at first their precise intonations and carefully copied English accent did something to restrain undue hilarity on the part of those who did not know them well.

The idea of being able to entertain in this style gave the Misses Dusenall an inflation which at first showed itself in a conversation and manner touchingly English. The average English maiden, though by nature sufficiently insular in manner and speech, is taught to be more so. The result is that among strangers she rarely seems quite certain of herself, as if anxious lest she should wreck herself on a slip of the tongue or the sounding of a false note. Her prudish manners and her perfect knowledge of what not to say often suggest Swift's definition of "a nice man." One trembles to think what effect the emancipation of marriage will have upon some of these wildly innocent creatures. In Canada, and especially in the United States, we are thankful to take some things for granted, without the advertisement of a manner which seems to say: "I am so awfully pure and carefully brought up, don't you know."

The Misses Dusenall on this occasion soon found themselves in a minority (not the minority of Matthew Arnold), and before leaving the table they adopted some of that more genial manner and speech which, if slightly faulty, we are satisfied to consider as "good enough for the colonies."

Maurice seemed to expand as the English fog gradually lifted. The aged appearance that anxiety was giving him had disappeared. Amid the chatter going on, in which it was difficult to get an innings, Jack Cresswell seized a bottle of claret and called out that he proposed a toast.

"What? toasts at such an informal luncheon as this, Jack?" exclaimed Propriety, with the accent somewhat worn off.