Chapter XIII

‘Father, father,’ Dr Whitaker whispered in a low voice, ‘let us go aside a little—down into my cabin or somewhere—away from this crowd here. I am so glad, so happy to be back with you again; so delighted to be home once more, dear, dear father. But don’t you see, everybody is looking at us and observing us!’

The old mulatto glanced around him with an oily glance of profound self-satisfaction. Yes, undoubtedly; he was the exact centre of an admiring audience. It was just such a house as he loved to play to. He turned once more to his trembling son, whose sturdy knees were almost giving way feebly beneath him, and redoubled the ardour of his paternal demonstrativeness. ‘My son, my son, my own dear boy!’ he said once more; and then, stepping back two paces and opening his arms effusively, he ran forward quickly with short mincing steps, and pressed the astonished doctor with profound warmth to his swelling bosom. There was an expansiveness and a gushing effusion about the action which made the spectators titter audibly; and the titter cut the poor young mulatto keenly to the heart with a sense of his utter helplessness and ridiculousness in this absurd situation. He wondered to himself when the humiliating scene would ever be finished. But the old man was not satisfied yet. Releasing his son once more from his fat grasp, he placed his two big hands akimbo on his hips, puckered up his eyebrows as if searching for some possible flaw in a horse or in a woman’s figure—he was a noted connoisseur in either—and held his head pushed jauntily forward, staring once more at his son with his small pig’s eyes from top to toe. At last, satisfied apparently with his close scrutiny, and prepared to acknowledge that it was all very good, he seized the young doctor quickly by the shoulders, and kissing him with a loud smack on either cheek, proceeded to slobber him piecemeal all over the face, exactly like a nine-months’-old baby. Dr Whitaker’s cheeks tingled and burned, so that even through that dusky skin, Edward, who stood a little distance off, commiserating him, could see the hot blood rushing to his face by the deepened and darkened colour in the very centre.

Presently, old Bobby seemed to be sufficiently sated with this particular form of theatrical entertainment, and turned round pleasantly to the remainder of the company. ‘My son,’ he said, not without a real touch of heart-felt, paternal pride, as he glanced towards the gentlemanly looking and well-dressed young doctor, ‘your fellow-passengers! Introduce me! Which is de son of my ole and valued friend, de Honourable James Hawtorn, of Wagwater?’

Dr Whitaker, glad to divert attention from himself on any excuse, waved his hand quietly towards Edward.

‘How do you do, Mr Whitaker?’ Edward said, in as low and quiet a tone as possible, anxious as he was to disappoint the little gaping crowd of amused spectators. ‘We have all derived a great deal of pleasure from your son’s society on our way across. His music has been the staple entertainment of the whole voyage. We have appreciated it immensely.’

But old Bobby was not to be put off with private conversation aside in a gentle undertone. He was accustomed to living his life in public, and he wasn’t going to be balked of his wonted entertainment. ‘Yes, Mr Hawtorn,’ he answered in a loud voice, ‘you are right, sah. De taste for music an’ de taste for beauty in de ladies are two tastes dat are seldom wantin’ to de sons or de grandsons of Africa, however far removed from de original negro.’ (As he spoke, he glanced back with a touch of contempt and an infinite superiority of manner at the pure-blooded blacks, who were now busily engaged in picking up portmanteaus from the deck, and squabbling with one another as to which was to carry the buckras’ luggage. Your mulatto, however dark, always in a good-humoured, tolerant way, utterly despises his coal-black brethren.) ‘Bote dose tastes are highly developed in my own pusson. Bote no doubt my son, Wilberforce Clarkson Whitaker, is liable to inherit from his fader’s family. In de exercise of de second, I cannot fail to perceive dat dis lady beside you must be Mrs Hawtorn. Sah’—with a sidelong leer of his fat eyes—‘I congratulate you mos’ sincerely on your own taste in female beauty. A very nice, fresh-lookin’ young lady, Mrs Hawtorn.’

Marian’s face grew fiery red; and Edward hardly knew whether to laugh off the awkward compliment, or to draw himself up and stroll away, as though the conversation had reached its natural ending.

‘And de odder young lady,’ Bobby went on, quite unconscious of the effect he had produced—‘de odder young lady? Your sister, now, or Mrs Hawtorn’s?’

‘This is Miss Dupuy of Orange Grove,’ Edward answered hesitatingly; for he hardly knew what remark old Bobby might next venture upon. And indeed, as a matter of fact, the old mulatto’s conversation, even in the presence of ladies, was not at all times restrained by all those artificial rules of decorum imposed on most of us by what appeared to him a ridiculously strait-laced and puritanical white conventionality.

But Edward’s answer seemed to have an extraordinary effect in sobering and toning down the old man’s exuberant volubility; he pulled off his hat with a respectful bow, and said in a lower and more polite voice: ‘I have de honour of knowing Miss Dupuy’s fader; I am proud to make Miss Dupuy’s acquaintance.’

‘Here, Bobby!’ the captain called out from a little forward—‘you come here, say. The first-officer wants to introduce you’—with a wink at Edward—‘to His Excellency the Peruvian ambassador.—Look here, Mr Hawthorn; don’t you let Bobby talk too long to your ladies, sir. He sometimes blurts out something, you know, that ladies ain’t exactly accustomed to. We seafaring men are a bit rough on occasion ourselves, certainly; but we know how to behave for all that before the women.—Bobby, don’t; you’d better be careful.’

‘Thank you,’ Edward said, and again felt his heart smitten with a sort of remorse for poor Dr Whitaker. That quick, sensitive, enthusiastic young man to be tied down for life to such a father! It was too terrible. In fact, it was a tragedy.

‘Splendid take-down for that stuck-up, young brown doctor,’ the English officer exclaimed aside in a whisper to Edward. ‘Shake a little of the confounded conceit out of him, I should say. He wanted taking down a peg.—Screaming farce, isn’t he, the old father?’

‘I never saw a more pitiable or pitiful scene in my whole life,’ Edward answered earnestly. ‘Poor fellow, I’m profoundly sorry for him; he looks absolutely broken-hearted.’

The young officer gazed at him in mute astonishment. ‘Can’t see a joke, that fellow Hawthorn,’ he thought to himself. ‘Had all the fun worked out of him, I suppose, over there at Cambridge. Awful prig! Quite devoid of the sense of humour. Sorry for his poor wife; she’ll have a dull life of it.—Never saw such an amusing old fool in all my days as that ridiculous, fat old nigger fellow!’

Meanwhile, James Hawthorn had been standing on the wharf, waiting for the first crush of negroes and hangers-on to work itself off, and looking for an easy opportunity to come aboard in order to meet his son and daughter. By-and-by the crush subsided, and the old man stepped on to the gangway and made his way down upon the deck.

In a moment, Edward was wringing his hand fervently, and father and son had exchanged one single kiss of recognition in that half-shamefaced, hasty fashion in which men of our race usually get through that very un-English ceremony of greeting.

‘Father, father,’ Edward said, ‘I am so thankful to see you once more; so anxious to see my dear mother.’

There were tears standing in both their eyes as his father answered: ‘My boy, my boy! I’ve denied myself this pleasure for years; and now—now it’s come, it’s almost too much for me.’

There was a moment’s pause, and then Mr Hawthorn turned to Marian. ‘My daughter,’ he said, kissing her with a fatherly kiss, ‘we know you, and love you already, from Edward’s letters; and we’ll do our best, as far as we can, to make you happy.’

There was another pause, and then the father said again: ‘You didn’t get my telegram, Edward?’

‘Yes, father, I got it; but not till we were on the very point of starting. The steamer was actually under weigh, and we couldn’t have stopped even if we had wished to. There was nothing for it but to come on as we were, in spite of it.’

‘Oh, Mr Hawthorn, there’s papa!’ Nora cried excitedly. ‘There he is, coming down the gangway.’ And as she spoke, Mr Dupuy’s portly form was seen advancing towards them with slow deliberateness.

For a second, he gazed about him curiously, looking for Nora; then, as he saw her, he walked over towards her in his leisurely, dawdling, West Indian fashion. Nora darted forward and flung her arms impulsively around him. ‘So you’ve come, Nora,’ the old gentleman said quietly, disembarrassing himself with elephantine gracefulness from her close embrace—‘so you’ve come, after all, in spite of my telegram!—How was this, my dear? How was this, tell me?’

‘Yes, papa,’ Nora answered, a little abashed at his serene manner. ‘The telegram was too late—it was thrown on board after we’d started. But we’ve got out all safe, you see.—And Marian—you know—Marian Ord—Mrs Hawthorn that is now—she’s taken great care of me; and, except for the hurricane, we’ve had such a delightful voyage!’

Mr Dupuy drew himself up to his stateliest eminence and looked straight across at Marian Hawthorn with stiff politeness. ‘I didn’t know it was to Mrs Hawthorn, I’m sure,’ he said, ‘that I was to be indebted for your safe arrival here in Trinidad. It was very good of Mrs Hawthorn, I don’t doubt, to bring you out to us and act as your chaperon. I am much obliged to Mrs Hawthorn for her kind attention and care of you on the voyage. I must thank Mrs Hawthorn very sincerely for the trouble she may have been put to on your account.—Good-morning, Mrs Hawthorn!—Good-morning, Mr Hawthorn! Your son, I suppose? Ah, so I imagined.—Good-morning, good-morning.’ He raised his hat with formal courtesy to Marian, and bowed slightly to the son and father. Then he drew Nora’s arm carefully in his, and was just about to walk her immediately off the steamer, when Nora burst from him in the utmost amazement and rushed up to kiss Marian. ‘Papa,’ she cried, ‘I don’t think you understand. This is Marian Ord, don’t you know? General Ord’s daughter, that I’ve written to you about so often. She’s my dearest friend, and now she’s married to Mr Edward Hawthorn—this is he—and Aunt Harriet gave me in charge to her to come across with; and I must just say good-bye to her before I leave her.—Thank you, dear, thank you both so much for all your kindness. Not, of course, that it matters about saying good-bye to you, for you and we will be such very, very near neighbours, and of course we’ll see a great deal of one another.—Won’t we, papa? We shall be near neighbours, and see a great deal of Marian always, now she’s come here to live—won’t we?’

Mr Dupuy bowed again very stiffly. ‘We shall be very near neighbours, undoubtedly,’ he answered with unruffled politeness; ‘and I shall hope to take an early opportunity of paying my respects to—to your friend, General Ord’s daughter.—I am much obliged, once more, to Mrs Hawthorn for her well-meant attentions. Good-morning.—This way, Nora, my dear. This way to the Orange Grove carriage.’

‘Father,’ Edward exclaimed, in doubt and dismay, looking straight down into his father’s eyes, ‘what does it all mean? Explain it all to us. I’m utterly bewildered. Why did you telegraph to us not to come? And why did Nora Dupuy’s father telegraph to her, too, an identical message?’

Mr Hawthorn drew a deep breath and looked back at him with a face full of consternation and pity. ‘He telegraphed to her, too, did he?’ he muttered half to himself in slow reflection. ‘He telegraphed to prevent her from coming out in the Severn! I might have guessed as much—it’s very like him.—My boy, my boy—and my dear daughter—this is a poor welcome for you, a very poor welcome! We never wanted you to come out here; and if we could, we would have prevented it. But now that you’ve come, you’ve come, and there’s no helping it. We must just try to do our best to make you both tolerably comfortable.’

Marian stood in blank astonishment and silent wonder at this strange greeting. A thousand vague possibilities floated instantaneously through her mind, to be dismissed the next second, on closer consideration, as absolutely impossible. Why on earth did this handsome, dignified, courtly old gentleman wish to keep them away from Trinidad? He wasn’t poor; he wasn’t uneducated; he wasn’t without honour in his own country. That he was a gentleman to the backbone, she could see and feel the moment she looked at him and heard him speak. What, then, could be his objection to his son’s coming out to visit him in his own surroundings? Had he committed some extraordinary crime? Was he an ex-convict, or a fraudulent bankrupt, or a defaulting trustee? Did he fear to let his son discover his shame? But no. The bare idea was absolutely impossible. You had only to gaze once upon that fine, benevolent, clear-cut, transparently truthful face—as transparently truthful as Edward’s own—to see immediately that James Hawthorn was a man of honour. It was an insoluble mystery, and Marian’s heart sank within her as she wondered to herself what this gloomy welcome foreboded for the future.

‘Father,’ Edward exclaimed, looking at him once more with appealing eyes, ‘do explain to us what you mean? Why didn’t you want us to come to Trinidad? The suspense is too terrible! We shall be expecting something worse than the reality. Tell us now. Whatever it is, we are strong enough to bear it. I know it can be nothing mean or dishonourable that you have to conceal from us! For Marian’s sake, explain it, explain it!’

The old man turned his face away with a bitter gesture. ‘My boy, my boy, my poor boy,’ he answered slowly and remorsefully, ‘I cannot tell you. I can never tell you. You will find it out for yourself soon enough. But I—I—I can never tell you!’