John Holdsworth, Chief Mate

by William Clark Russell

But there were two persons on whose destiny this man’s death was to exercise an influence as wonderful, and gracious, and beneficial, as though, instead of a dead drunkard, he was a good spirit—an angel charged with a mission of love, sent by God Himself to work out and complete the happiness of the man who had been heavily tried, but who, in his bitterest trial, had never been found wanting.

And I truly think that for such men—men who in their sorrow reverentially bow their heads and say, “God knows, I believe in Him; He shall lead me as a little child”—who murmur not, but, praising their Heavenly Father always, make their actions a profound heroism by obeying His voice in all seasons, not more faithfully in moments of joy than in moments of anguish—for such men we shall seldom err in prophesying a time in their lives when the heat of the day shall be shaded from them, and their burden and their conflict removed. “O man, greatly beloved, go thou thy way till the end; for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of thy days.”

Dolly had asked to be left alone with her child. Deeming Holdsworth a stranger, she had felt the restraint of his presence upon her, deeply as she was moved by his goodness. Her heart ached: misery had mastered her. The mere sense of having found a friend in this her time of piteous need could not suffice her. More was imperative: communion with God, communion with the husband who, she believed, looked down upon her from Heaven. To no mortal eyes could she lay bare the exquisite grief that lacerated her heart; and though she should find no comfort even in the Heaven she turned to, yet her full and poignant misery demanded escape in words and tears, and she asked to be left alone.

Holdsworth entered the room facing his own apartment. This was Mrs. Parrot’s drawing-room. Here she had a piano; here she had some wonderful stuffed birds under glass shades; here she herself sat on Sundays with her mother, when her house was unoccupied.

He struggled to calm himself, that he might master and appreciate all the significance of the position in which he was placed by the sudden death of Conway. But his moods were wild and hurrying; the play of emotion was quick and painful. He saw his wife in her grief; he saw her wrestling, with no eye but her child’s upon her, with the anguish that filled her; he felt her loneliness: he felt the cruel hopelessness that weighed in her heart as lead; he felt, above all, the dreadful sense of degradation which must attend her reflections upon the death of her husband, Conway; upon the wretched, miserable life she had led with him; upon the complete and bitter reversal of the sole end for which she had married him.

The barrier that divided them was gone. Could there be any scruple now to hold him back from her? If there yet lingered one feeling of delicacy to prompt him to delay his confession for a little, until the dead was buried, until something of the horror of the sudden death had yielded to time, should it not be removed by the knowledge of her misery, which he had it in his power to dissipate and turn to gladness? Why should she weep? Why should she feel one instant of pain, when he could change her tears to smiles, her grief to joy?

He stole to the door of the room she was in and listened. He heard her sobbing, and that sound vanquished his last hesitation.

He turned the handle gently and entered. She was on her knees beside the sofa, her arms twined about Nelly, her face buried in the child’s lap. She started, looked at him, and rose slowly to her feet. He approached and stood before her.

“Will you not trust me as a friend?” he said, in a voice a little above a whisper.

She tried to answer him, but her sobs choked her voice. He seated himself and took Nelly on his knee, and, whilst he smoothed the child’s hair, continued: “There is hope, there is comfort for you and this little one. Check your sobs and listen to me. I can give you comfort, for I have known what it is to lose one that is dearer to me than my heart’s blood, to lose her and to find her again. She was my wife, and I left her to go to sea. The ship I sailed in was wrecked, and for many days I lay consumed with hunger and thirst in an open boat, seeing miserable creatures like myself dying around me one by one. And when I was rescued my memory was gone; I could not remember my own name, my home, the wife I had left, the country I had sailed from. But the voice of God one day directed me to leave Australia and go to England. I reached London, and there a man spoke to me of Hanwitch, a name familiar and dear to me for my wife’s sake. And when I came to Southbourne, the beloved old village gave me back my memory. I knew whom I had come to seek, and what I had lost. They told me that my wife thought me dead, and was married and lived with my child here—in this road—in that house yonder! O Dolly! O wife!”