Love on the Ocean Nothing is so easy as falling in love on a long sea voyage,
except falling out of love. Especially was this the case in the
days when the wooden clippers did finely to land you in Sydney or
in Melbourne under the four full months. We all saw far too much of
each other, unless, indeed, we were to see still more. Our
superficial attractions mutually exhausted, we lost heart and
patience in the disappointing strata which lie between the surface
and the bed–rock of most natures. My own experience was confined to
the round voyage of the Lady Jermyn, in the year 1853. It was no
common experience, as was only too well known at the time. And I
may add that I for my part had not the faintest intention of
falling in love on board; nay, after all these years, let me
confess that I had good cause to hold myself proof against such
weakness. Yet we carried a young lady, coming home, who, God knows,
might have made short work of many a better man! Eva Denison was her name, and she cannot have been more than
nineteen years of age. I remember her telling me that she had not
yet come out, the very first time I assisted her to promenade the
poop. My own name was still unknown to her, and yet I recollect
being quite fascinated by her frankness and self–possession. She
was exquisitely young, and yet ludicrously old for her years; had
been admirably educated, chiefly abroad, and, as we were soon to
discover, possessed accomplishments which would have made the
plainest old maid a popular personage on board ship. Miss Denison,
however, was as beautiful as she was young, with the bloom of ideal
health upon her perfect skin. She had a wealth of lovely hair, with
strange elusive strands of gold among the brown, that drowned her
ears (I thought we were to have that mode again?) in sunny ripples;
and a soul greater than the mind, and a heart greater than either,
lay sleeping somewhere in the depths of her grave, gray
eyes. We were at sea together so many weeks. I cannot think what I
was made of then! It was in the brave old days of Ballarat and Bendigo, when
ship after ship went out black with passengers and deep with
stores, to bounce home with a bale or two of wool, and hardly hands
enough to reef topsails in a gale. Nor was this the worst; for not
the crew only, but, in many cases, captain and officers as well,
would join in the stampede to the diggings; and we found Hobson's
Bay the congested asylum of all manner of masterless and deserted
vessels. I have a lively recollection of our skipper's indignation
when the pilot informed him of this disgraceful fact. Within a
fortnight, however, I met the good man face to face upon the
diggings. It is but fair to add that the Lady Jermyn lost every
officer and man in the same way, and that the captain did obey
tradition to the extent of being the last to quit his ship.
Nevertheless, of all who sailed by her in January, I alone was
ready to return at the beginning of the following
July. I had been to Ballarat. I had given the thing a trial. For
the most odious weeks I had been a licensed digger on Black Hill
Flats; and I had actually failed to make running expenses. That,
however, will surprise you the less when I pause to declare that I
have paid as much as four shillings and sixpence for half a loaf of
execrable bread; that my mate and I, between us, seldom took more
than a few pennyweights of gold–dust in any one day; and never once
struck pick into nugget, big or little, though we had the
mortification of inspecting the "mammoth masses" of which we found
the papers full on landing, and which had brought the gold–fever to
its height during our very voyage. With me, however, as with many a
young fellow who had turned his back on better things, the malady
was short–lived. We expected to make our fortunes out of hand, and
we had reckoned without the vermin and the villainy which rendered
us more than ever impatient of delay. In my fly–blown blankets I
dreamt of London until I hankered after my chambers and my club
more than after much fine gold. Never shall I forget my first hot
bath on getting back to Melbourne; it cost five shillings, but it
was worth five pounds, and is altogether my pleasantest
reminiscence of Australia. There was, however, one slice of luck in store for me. I
found the dear old Lady Jermyn on the very eve of sailing, with a
new captain, a new crew, a handful of passengers (chiefly
steerage), and nominally no cargo at all. I felt none the less at
home when I stepped over her familiar side. In the cuddy we were only five, but a more uneven quintette I
defy you to convene. There was a young fellow named Ready, packed
out for his health, and hurrying home to die among friends. There
was an outrageously lucky digger, another invalid, for he would
drink nothing but champagne with every meal and at any minute of
the day, and I have seen him pitch raw gold at the sea–birds by the
hour together. Miss Denison was our only lady, and her step–father,
with whom she was travelling, was the one man of distinction on
board. He was a Portuguese of sixty or thereabouts, Senhor Joaquin
Santos by name; at first it was incredible to me that he had no
title, so noble was his bearing; but very soon I realized that he
was one of those to whom adventitious honors can add no lustre. He
treated Miss Denison as no parent ever treated a child, with a
gallantry and a courtliness quite beautiful to watch, and not a
little touching in the light of the circumstances under which they
were travelling together. The girl had gone straight from school to
her step–father's estate on the Zambesi, where, a few months later,
her mother had died of the malaria. Unable to endure the place
after his wife's death, Senhor Santos had taken ship to Victoria,
there to seek fresh fortune with results as indifferent as my own.
He was now taking Miss Denison back to England, to make her home
with other relatives, before he himself returned to Africa (as he
once told me) to lay his bones beside those of his wife. I hardly
know which of the pair I see more plainly as I write—the young girl
with her soft eyes and her sunny hair, or the old gentleman with
the erect though wasted figure, the noble forehead, the steady eye,
the parchment skin, the white imperial, and the eternal cigarette
between his shrivelled lips. No need to say that I came more in contact with the young
girl. She was not less charming in my eyes because she provoked me
greatly as I came to know her intimately. She had many irritating
faults. Like most young persons of intellect and inexperience, she
was hasty and intolerant in nearly all her judgments, and rather
given to being critical in a crude way. She was very musical,
playing the guitar and singing in a style that made our shipboard
concerts vastly superior to the average of their order; but I have
seen her shudder at the efforts of less gifted folks who were also
doing their best; and it was the same in other directions where her
superiority was less specific. The faults which are most
exasperating in another are, of course, one's own faults; and I
confess that I was very critical of Eva Denison's criticisms. Then
she had a little weakness for exaggeration, for unconscious egotism
in conversation, and I itched to tell her so. I felt so certain
that the girl had a fine character underneath, which would rise to
noble heights in stress or storm: all the more would I long now to
take her in hand and mould her in little things, and anon to take
her in my arms just as she was. The latter feeling was resolutely
crushed. To be plain, I had endured what is euphemistically called
"disappointment" already; and, not being a complete coxcomb, I had
no intention of courting a second. Yet, when I write of Eva Denison, I am like to let my pen
outrun my tale. I lay the pen down, and a hundred of her sayings
ring in my ears, with my own contradictious comments, that I was
doomed so soon to repent; a hundred visions of her start to my
eyes; and there is the trade–wind singing in the rigging, and
loosening a tress of my darling's hair, till it flies like a tiny
golden streamer in the tropic sun. There, it is out! I have called
her what she was to be in my heart ever after. Yet at the time I
must argue with her—with her! When all my courage should have gone
to love–making, I was plucking it up to sail as near as I might to
plain remonstrance! I little dreamt how the ghost of every petty
word was presently to return and torture me. So it is that I can see her and hear her now on a hundred
separate occasions beneath the awning beneath the stars on deck
below at noon or night but plainest of all in the evening of the
day we signalled the Island of Ascension, at the close of that last
concert on the quarter–deck. The watch are taking down the extra
awning; they are removing the bunting and the foot–lights. The
lanterns are trailed forward before they are put out; from the
break of the poop we watch the vivid shifting patch of deck that
each lights up on its way. The stars are very sharp in the vast
violet dome above our masts; they shimmer on the sea; and our
trucks describe minute orbits among the stars, for the trades have
yet to fail us, and every inch of canvas has its fill of the gentle
steady wind. It is a heavenly night. The peace of God broods upon
His waters. No jarring note offends the ear. In the forecastle a
voice is humming a song of Eva Denison's that has caught the fancy
of the men; the young girl who sang it so sweetly not twenty
minutes since who sang it again and again to please the crew she
alone is at war with our little world she alone would head a mutiny
if she could. "I hate the captain!" she says again. "My dear Miss Denison!" I begin; for she has always been
severe upon our bluff old man, and it is not the spirit of
contrariety alone which makes me invariably take his part. Coarse
he may be, and not one whom the owners would have chosen to command
the Lady Jermyn; a good seaman none the less, who brought us round
the Horn in foul weather without losing stitch or stick. I think of
the ruddy ruffian in his dripping oilskins, on deck day and night
for our sakes, and once more I must needs take his part; but Miss
Denison stops me before I can get out another word. "I am not dear, and I'm not yours," she cries. "I'm only a
school–girl—you have all but told me so before to–day! If I were a
man—if I were you—I should tell Captain Harris what I thought of
him!" "Why? What has he done now?" "Now? You know how rude he was to poor Mr. Ready this very
afternoon!" It was true. He had been very rude indeed. But Ready also had
been at fault. It may be that I was always inclined to take an
opposite view, but I felt bound to point this out, and at any
cost. "You mean when Ready asked him if we were out of our course?
I must say I thought it was a silly question to put. It was the
same the other evening about the cargo. If the skipper says we're
in ballast why not believe him? Why repeat steerage gossip, about
mysterious cargoes, at the cuddy table? Captains are always touchy
about that sort of thing. I wasn't surprised at his letting
out." My poor love stares at me in the starlight. Her great eyes
flash their scorn. Then she gives a little smile—and then a little
nod—more scornful than all the rest. "You never are surprised, are you, Mr. Cole?" says she. "You
were not surprised when the wretch used horrible language in front
of me! You were not surprised when it was a—dying man—whom he
abused!" I try to soothe her. I agree heartily with her disgust at the
epithets employed in her hearing, and towards an invalid, by the
irate skipper. But I ask her to make allowances for a rough,
uneducated man, rather clumsily touched upon his tender spot. I
shall conciliate her presently; the divine pout (so childish it
was!) is fading from her lips; the starlight is on the tulle and
lace and roses of her pretty evening dress, with its festooned
skirts and obsolete flounces; and I am watching her, ay, and
worshipping her, though I do not know it yet. And as we stand there
comes another snatch from the forecastle:—
"What will you do, love, when I am going.
With white sail flowing,
The seas beyond?
What will you do, love—"
"They may make the most of that song," says Miss Denison
grimly; "it's the last they'll have from me. Get up as many more
concerts as you like. I won't sing at another unless it's in the
fo'c'sle. I'll sing to the men, but not to Captain Harris. He
didn't put in an appearance tonight. He shall not have another
chance of insulting me." Was it her vanity that was wounded after all? "You forget,"
said I, "that you would not answer when he addressed you at
dinner." "I should think I wouldn't, after the way he spoke to Mr.
Ready; and he too agitated to come to table, poor
fellow!" "Still, the captain felt the open slight." "Then he shouldn't have used such language in front of
me." "Your father felt it, too, Miss Denison." I hear nothing plainer than her low but quick
reply: "Mr. Cole, my father has been dead many; many years; he died
before I can remember. That man only married my poor mother. He
sympathizes with Captain Harris—against me; no father would do
that. Look at them together now! And you take his side, too; oh! I
have no patience with any of you—except poor Mr. Ready in his
berth." "But you are not going." "Indeed I am. I am tired of you all." And she was gone with angry tears for which I blamed myself
as I fell to pacing the weather side of the poop—and so often
afterwards! So often, and with such unavailing
bitterness! Senhor Santos and the captain were in conversation by the
weather rail. I fancied poor old Harris eyed me with suspicion, and
I wished he had better cause. The Portuguese, however, saluted me
with his customary courtesy, and I thought there was a grave
twinkle in his steady eye. "Are you in deesgrace also, friend Cole?" he inquired in his
all but perfect English. "More or less," said I ruefully. He gave the shrug of his country—that delicate gesture which
is done almost entirely with the back—a subtlety beyond the power
of British shoulders. "The senhora is both weelful and pivish," said he, mixing the
two vowels which (with the aspirate) were his only trouble with our
tongue. "It is great grif to me to see her growing so unlike her
sainted mother!" He sighed, and I saw his delicate fingers forsake the
cigarette they were rolling to make the sacred sign upon his
breast. He was always smoking one cigarette and making another; as
he lit the new one the glow fell upon a strange pin that he wore, a
pin with a tiny crucifix inlaid in mosaic. So the religious cast of
Senhor Santos was brought twice home to me in the same moment,
though, to be sure, I had often been struck by it before. And it
depressed me to think that so sweet a child as Eva Denison should
have spoken harshly of so good a man as her step–father, simply
because he had breadth enough to sympathize with a coarse old salt
like Captain Harris. I turned in, however, and I cannot say the matter kept me
awake in the separate state–room which was one luxury of our empty
saloon. Alas? I was a heavy sleeper then.