‘Yes, I do,’ the captain answered, smiling grimly. ‘That’s his father.—Dr Whitaker! hi, you, sir; where have you got to? Don’t you see?—there’s your father.’
Edward turned at once to seek for him, full of a sudden unspoken compassion. He had not far to seek. A little way off, standing irresolutely by the gunwale, with a strange terrified look in his handsome large eyes, and a painful twitching nervously evident at the trembling corners of his full mouth, Dr Whitaker gazed intently and speechlessly at the fat mulatto in the white linen suit. It was clear that the old man did not yet recognise his son; but the son had recognised his father instantaneously and unhesitatingly, as he stood there playing the buffoon in broad daylight before the whole assembled ship’s company. Edward looked at the poor young fellow with profound commiseration. Never in his life before had he seen shame and humiliation more legibly written on a man’s very limbs and features. The unhappy young mulatto, thunderstruck by the blow, had collapsed entirely. It was too terrible for him. Coming in, fresh from his English education, full of youthful hopes and vivid enthusiasms, proud of the father he had more than half forgotten, and anxious to meet once more that ideal picture he had carried away with him of the liberator of Trinidad—here he was met, on the very threshold of his native island, by this horrible living contradiction of all his fervent fancies and imaginings. The Robert Whitaker he had once known faded away as if by magic into absolute nonentity, and that voluble, greasy, self-satisfied, buffoonish old brown man was the only thing left that he could now possibly call ‘my father.’
Edward pitied him far too earnestly to obtrude just then upon his shame and sorrow. But the poor mulatto, meeting his eyes accidentally for a single second, turned upon him such a mutely appealing look of profound anguish, that Edward moved over slowly toward the grim captain and whispered to him in a low undertone: ‘Don’t speak to that man Whitaker again, I beg of you. Don’t you see his poor son there’s dying of shame for him?’
The captain stared back at him with the same curious half-sardonic look that Marian had more than once noticed upon his impassive features. ‘Dying of shame!’ he answered, smiling carelessly. ‘Ho, ho, ho! that’s a good one! Dying of shame is he, for poor old Bobby! Why, sooner or later, you know, he’ll have to get used to him. Besides, I tell you, whether you talk to him or whether you don’t, old Bobby’ll go on talking about himself as long as there’s anybody left anywhere about who’ll stand and listen to him.—You just hark there to what he’s saying now. What’s he up to next, I wonder?’
‘Yes, ladies and gentlemen,’ the old mulatto was proceeding aloud, addressing now in a set speech the laughing passengers on board the Severn, ‘I’m de Honourable Robert Whitaker, commonly called Bobby Whitaker, de leadin’ member of de coloured party in dis island. Along wit my lamented friend Mr Wilberforce, an’ de British parliament, I was de chief instrument in procurin’ de abolition of slavery an’ de freedom of de slaves troughout de whole English possessions. Millions of my fellow-men were moanin’ an’ groanin’ in a painful bondage. I have a heart dat cannot witstand de appeal of misery. I laboured for dem; I toiled for dem; I bore de brunt of de battle; an’ in de end I conquered—I conquered. Wit de aid of my friend Mr Wilberforce, by superhuman exertions, I succeeded in passin’ de grand act of slavery emancipation. You behold in me de leadin’ actor in dat famous great an’ impressive drama. I’m an ole man now; but I have prospered in dis world, as de just always do, says de Psalmist, an’ I shall be glad to see any of you whenever you choose at my own residence, an’ to offer you in confidence a glass of de excellent staple produck of dis island—I allude to de wine of de country, de admirable beverage known as rum!’
There was another peal of foolish laughter from the crowd of negroes at this one ancient threadbare joke, and a faint titter from the sillier passengers on board the Severn. Edward looked over appealingly at the old buffoon; but the mulatto misunderstood his look of deprecation, and bowed once more profoundly, with immense importance, straight at him, like a sovereign acknowledging the plaudits of his subjects.
‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘I shall be happy to see any of you—you, sah, or you—at my own estate, Whitaker Hall, in dis island, whenever you find it convenient to visit me. You have on board my son, Dr Whitaker, de future leader of de coloured party in de Council of Trinidad; an’ you have no doubt succeeded in makin’ his acquaintance in de course of your voyage from de shores of England. Dr Whitaker, of de University of Edinburgh, after pursuin’ his studies’——
The poor young man gave an audible groan, and turned away, in his poignant disgrace, to the very furthest end of the vessel. It was terrible enough to have all his hopes dashed and falsified in this awful fashion; but to be humiliated and shamed by name before the staring eyes of all his fellow-passengers, that last straw was more than his poor bursting heart could possibly endure. He walked away, broken and tottering, and leaned over the opposite side of the vessel, letting the hot tears trickle unreproved down his dusky cheeks into the ocean below.
At that very moment, before the man they called Bobby Whitaker could finish his sentence, a tall white man, of handsome and imposing presence, walked out quietly from among the knot of people behind the negroes, and laid his hand with a commanding air on the fat old mulatto’s broad shoulder. Bobby Whitaker turned round suddenly and listened with attention to something that the white man whispered gently but firmly at his astonished ear. Then his lower jaw dropped in surprise, and he fell behind, abashed for a second, into the confused background of laughing negroes. Partly from his childish recollections, but partly, too, by the aid of the photographs, Edward immediately recognised the tall white man. ‘Marian, Marian!’ he cried, waving his hand in welcome towards the new-comer, ‘it’s my father, my father!’
And even as he spoke, a pang of pain ran through him as he thought of the difference between the two first greetings. He couldn’t help feeling proud in his heart of hearts of the very look and bearing of his own father—tall, erect, with his handsome, clear-cut face and full white beard, the exact type of a self-respecting and respected English gentleman; and yet, the mere reflex of his own pride and satisfaction revealed to him at once the bitter poignancy of Dr Whitaker’s unspeakable disappointment. As the two men stood there on the wharf side by side, in quiet conversation, James Hawthorn with his grave, severe, earnest expression, and Bobby Whitaker with his greasy, vulgar, negro joviality speaking out from every crease in his fat chin and every sparkle of his small pig’s eyes, the contrast between them was so vast and so apparent, that it seemed to make the old mulatto’s natural vulgarity and coarseness of fibre more obvious and more unmistakable than ever to all beholders.