Geoffrey Hampstead: A Novel

by Stinson Jarvis

"Horribly so," said Nina. "It all seems just as if we were married. Not quite so bad, though, because I suppose I would then have to be civil. What a bore! Fancy having to be civil continually!"

"I believe that a fair amount of civility is considered—"

"Oh, you need not tell me what our married life will be. I know all about it. Mutual resignation and endearing nothings. Church on Sundays; wash on Mondays. It will be respectable and meritorious and virtuous and generally unbearable—"

"Hush, hush, Nina! Why do you talk in this strain? Why do you go out of your way to say unkind things? I know you do not mean a quarter of what you say. If I thought you did I—"

"Was I saying unkind things?" interrupted Nina. "I did not think of their being unkind. It seems natural enough to look at things in this way."

She was endeavoring now to neutralize her hasty words by softer tones, and she only made matters worse. It is difficult to climb clear of the consciousness of our own necessities when it envelops us like a fog, obscuring the path. In some way a good deal of what she said to Jack now seemed tinged with the wrong color, and out of the effort to be pleasant had begun to grow a distaste for his presence. Much as she still liked him, she always tried during this cruise to get into the boat or into the party where Jack was not.

It had been his own proposal that she should see a good deal of Hampstead, and so it never occurred to him to be jealous; and afterward she became more crafty in blinding his eyes to the real cause of the dissatisfaction she now expressed. While in Jack's presence her manner toward Geoffrey was studiously off-hand and friendly. Whatever her manner might be when they strolled off together, it was certain that an understanding existed between the two to conceal from Jack whatever interest they might have in one another. She was forced to think continuously of Geoffrey so that every other train of thought sank into insignificance, and was crowded out. A colder person, with temptation infinitely less, would have done what was right and would have captured the world's approbation. It would do harm to examine too closely the natures of many saints of pious memory and to be obliged to paint out their accustomed halo. If the convicted are ever more richly endowed than the social arbiters, they are different and not understood, and therefore judged. No sin is so great as that which we ourselves are not tempted to commit. Ignorance either deifies or spits upon what can not be understood. But, after all, we must have some standard, some social tribunal; and social wrong, no matter how it is looked at, must be prevented, no matter how well we understand that some are, as regards social law, made crooked.

But let us hasten more slowly.

Sunday morning, strangely enough, followed the Saturday night which had been spent at the Arlington. The daylight of Sunday followed about two hours after the last man coaxed himself to his berth from the yacht's deck and the tempting night. When all the others were fairly off in a solid sleep, as if wound up for twenty-four hours, one individual arrived at partial consciousness and wondered where he was. A sensation of pleasure pervaded him. Something new and enjoyable lay before him, but he could not make up his mind what it was. That he was not in 173 Tremaine Buildings seemed certain. If not there, where was he? To fully consider the matter he sat up in his berth and gave his head a thump on a beam overhead, which conveyed some intelligence to him. Then, lying back on the pillow, he laughed and rubbed his poll. "A lubber's mistake," quoth he; and then, after a little, "I wonder what it's like outside?" A lanky figure in a long white garment was presently to be seen stumbling up the companion-way, and a head appeared above the deck with hair disheveled looking like a sleepy bird of prey. All around it was so still that nothing could be heard but some one snoring down below. The yacht lay with her anchor-chain nowhere—a thread would have held her in position. The boats behind were lying motionless with their bows under the yacht's counter, drawn up there by the weight of their own painters lying in the water. Maurice gazed about the little wharf-surrounded harbor with curiosity and artistic pleasure. It could only have been this and the feeling of gladness in him that made him interested in the lumber-piles and railway-derricks about him, but it was all so new and strange to him. "Gad! to be off like this, on a yacht, and to live on board, you know!" said he, talking to himself, as he hoisted himself up by his arms and sat on the top of the sliding hatchway. He moved away soon after sitting down, because of about half an inch of cold dew on the hatch. This awakened him completely. He walked gingerly toward the stern and looked at the blaze of red and gold in the eastern sky where the sun was making a triumphal entry. Then he walked to the bow and watched the light gild the masts of the lumber-schooners and the fog-bank over the lake, and the carcass of a drowned dog floating close at hand. He saw bits of the shore beyond the town and wanted to go there. He wanted to inspect the little squat lighthouse that shone in its reflected glory better than it ever shone at night. Yes, he must see all these things. It was all fairyland to him. The gig was carefully pulled alongside when, happy thought! a smoke would be just the thing. The weird figure dived down for pipe, matches, and "'baccy," and soon came up smiling. "Never knew anything so quiet as this," he said, as he filled the pipe. The snore below seemed to be the only note typical of the scene—not very musical, perhaps, but eloquent and artistically correct.

He had not gone far in the gig when he came across the picturesque drowned dog. Really it would be too bad to allow this to remain where it was, even though gilded. The sun would get up higher, and then there would be no poetry about it, but only plain dog. So he went back to the deck and saw a boat-hook. That would do well enough to remove the eyesore with, but how could he row and hold the boat-hook at the same time? If he only had a bit of string, now, or a piece of rope! But these articles are not to be found on a well-kept deck, and it would not be right to wake up anybody. Happy thought! He took the pike-pole and rowed rapidly toward the dog, and, as he passed it, dropped the oars and grabbed the dog with the end of the pike-pole. His idea was that the momentum of the boat would, by repeated efforts, remove the dog. But the deceased was not to be coaxed in this way from the little harbor where he had so peacefully floated for four weeks. So Maurice, after suffering in the contest, went on board again. Still the snore below went on, and still nobody got up to help him. He searched the deck for any part of the rigging that would suit him, determined to cut away as much as he wanted of whatever came first. Ah! the signal halyards! He soon had about two hundred feet unrove, little recking of the man who had to "shin up" to the topmast-head to reeve the line again. The dog must go. That Margaret's eyes should not be insulted was so settled in his chivalrous little head that—well, in fact, the dog would have to go, and, if not by hook or by crook, he finally went lassoed a good two hundred feet behind, Rankin rowing lustily.