Short Fiction · The Journey to Panama (2/3)

“No; they are not. There is no young man with them. I generally observe that on board ship no one is congenial to unmarried ladies except unmarried men. It is a recognised nautical rule. Uncommon hot, isn’t it? We are beginning to feel the tropical air. I shall go and cool myself with a cigar in the fiddle.” The “fiddle” is a certain part of the ship devoted to smoking, and thither Mr. Morris betook himself. Forrest, however, did not accompany him, but going forward into the bow of the vessel, threw himself along upon the sail, and meditated on the loneliness of his life.

On board the Serrapiqui, the upper tier of cabins opened on to a long gallery, which ran round that part of the ship, immediately over the saloon, so that from thence a pleasant inspection could be made of the viands as they were being placed on the tables. The custom on board these ships is for two bells to ring preparatory to dinner, at an interval of half an hour. At the sound of the first, ladies would go to their cabins to adjust their toilets; but as dressing for dinner is not carried to an extreme at sea, these operations are generally over before the second bell, and the lady passengers would generally assemble in the balcony for some fifteen minutes before dinner. At first they would stand here alone, but by degrees they were joined by some of the more enterprising of the men, and so at last a kind of little drawing-room was formed. The cabins of Miss Viner’s party opened to one side of this gallery, and that of Mr. Morris and Forrest on the other. Hitherto Forrest had been contented to remain on his own side, occasionally throwing a word across to the ladies on the other; but on this day he boldly went over as soon as he had washed his hands and took his place between Amelia and Miss Viner.

“We are dreadfully crowded here, Ma’am,” said Amelia.

“Yes, my dear, we are,” said her mother. “But what can one do?”

“There’s plenty of room in the ladies’ cabin,” said Miss Viner. Now if there be one place on board a ship more distasteful to ladies than another, it is the ladies’ cabin. Mr. Forrest stood his ground, but it may be doubted whether he would have done so had he fully understood all that Amelia had intended.

Then the last bell rang. Mr. Grumpy gave his arm to Miss Grumpy. The brother-in-law gave his arm to Amelia, and Forrest did the same to Miss Viner. She hesitated for a moment, and then took it, and by so doing transferred herself mentally and bodily from the charge of the prudent and married Mr. Grumpy to that of the perhaps imprudent, and certainly unmarried Mr. Forrest. She was wrong. A kindhearted, motherly old lady from Jamaica, who had seen it all, knew that she was wrong, and wished that she could tell her so. But there are things of this sort which kindhearted old ladies cannot find it in their hearts to say. After all, it was only for the voyage. Perhaps Miss Viner was imprudent, but who in Peru would be the wiser? Perhaps, indeed, it was the world that was wrong, and not Miss Viner. “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” she said to herself, as she took his arm, and leaning on it, felt that she was no longer so lonely as she had been. On that day she allowed him to give her a glass of wine out of his decanter. “Hadn’t you better take mine, Miss Viner?” asked Mr. Grumpy, in a loud voice, but before he could be answered, the deed had been done.

“Don’t go too fast, old fellow,” Morris said to our hero that night, as they were walking the deck together before they turned in. “One gets into a hobble in such matters before one knows where one is.”

“I don’t think I have anything particular to fear,” said Forrest.

“I dare say not, only keep your eyes open. Such haridans as Mrs. Grumpy allow any latitude to their tongues out in these diggings. You’ll find that unpleasant tidings will be put on board the ship going down to Panama, and everybody’s eye will be upon you.” So warned, Mr. Forrest did put himself on his guard, and the next day and a half his intimacy with Miss Viner progressed but little. These were, probably, the dullest hours that he had on the whole voyage.

Miss Viner saw this and drew back. On the afternoon of that second day she walked a turn or two on deck with the weak brother-in-law, and when Mr. Forrest came near her, she applied herself to her book. She meant no harm; but if she were not afraid of what people might say, why should he be so? So she turned her shoulder towards him at dinner, and would not drink of his cup.

“Have some of mine, Miss Viner,” said Mr. Grumpy, very loudly. But on that day Miss Viner drank no wine.

The sun sets quickly as one draws near to the tropics, and the day was already gone, and the dusk had come on, when Mr. Forrest walked out upon the deck that evening a little after six. But the night was beautiful and mild, and there was a hum of many voices from the benches. He was already uncomfortable, and sore with a sense of being deserted. There was but one person on board the ship that he liked, and why should he avoid her and be avoided? He soon perceived where she was standing. The Grumpy family had a bench to themselves, and she was opposite to it, on her feet, leaning against the side of the vessel. “Will you walk this evening, Miss Viner?” he asked.

“I think not,” she answered.

“Then I shall persevere in asking till you are sure. It will do you good, for I have not seen you walking all day.”

“Have you not? Then I will take a turn. Oh, Mr. Forrest, if you knew what it was to have to live with such people as those.” And then, out of that, on that evening, there grew up between them something like the confidence of real friendship. Things were told such as none but friends do tell to one another, and warm answering words were spoken such as the sympathy of friendship produces. Alas, they were both foolish; for friendship and sympathy should have deeper roots.

She told him all her story. She was going out to Peru to be married to a man who was nearly twenty years her senior. It was a long engagement, of ten years standing. When first made, it was made as being contingent on certain circumstances. An option of escaping from it had then been given to her, but now there was no longer an option. He was rich and she was penniless. He had even paid her passage-money and her outfit. She had not at last given way and taken these irrevocable steps till her only means of support in England had been taken from her. She had lived the last two years with a relative who was now dead. “And he also is my cousin⁠—a distant cousin⁠—you understand that.”

“And do you love him?”

“Love him! What; as you loved her whom you have lost?⁠—as she loved you when she clung to you before she went? No; certainly not. I shall never know anything of that love.”

“And is he good?”

“He is a hard man. Men become hard when they deal in money as he has done. He was home five years since, and I swore to myself that I would not marry him. But his letters to me are kind.”

Forrest sat silent for a minute or two, for they were up in the bow again, seated on the sail that was bound round the bowsprit, and then he answered her, “A woman should never marry a man unless she loves him.”

“Ah,” says she, “of course you will condemn me. That is the way in which women are always treated. They have no choice given them, and are then scolded for choosing wrongly.”

“But you might have refused him.”

“No; I could not. I cannot make you understand the whole⁠—how it first came about that the marriage was proposed, and agreed to by me under certain conditions. Those conditions have come about, and I am now bound to him. I have taken his money and have no escape. It is easy to say that a woman should not marry without love, as easy as it is to say that a man should not starve. But there are men who starve⁠—starve although they work hard.”

“I did not mean to judge you, Miss Viner.”

“But I judge myself, and condemn myself so often. Where should I be in half-an-hour from this if I were to throw myself forward into the sea? I often long to do it. Don’t you feel tempted sometimes to put an end to it all?”

“The waters look cool and sweet, but I own I am afraid of the bourne beyond.”

“So am I, and that fear will keep me from it.”

“We are bound to bear our burden of sorrow. Mine, I know, is heavy enough.”

“Yours, Mr. Forrest! Have you not all the pleasures of memory to fall back on, and every hope for the future? What can I remember, or what can I hope? But, however, it is near eight o’clock, and they have all been at tea this hour past. What will my Cerberus say to me? I do not mind the male mouth, if only the two feminine mouths could be stopped.” Then she rose and went back to the stern of the vessel; but as she slid into a seat, she saw that Mrs. Grumpy was standing over her.

From thence to St. Thomas the voyage went on in the customary manner. The sun became very powerful, and the passengers in the lower part of the ship complained loudly of having their portholes closed. The Spaniards sat gambling in the cabin all day, and the ladies prepared for the general move which was to be made at St. Thomas. The alliance between Forrest and Miss Viner went on much the same as ever, and Mrs. Grumpy said very ill-natured things. On one occasion she ventured to lecture Miss Viner; but that lady knew how to take her own part, and Mrs. Grumpy did not get the best of it. The dangerous alliance, I have said, went on the same as ever; but it must not be supposed that either person in any way committed aught that was wrong. They sat together and talked together, each now knowing the other’s circumstances; but had it not been for the prudish caution of some of the ladies there would have been nothing amiss. As it was there was not much amiss. Few of the passengers really cared whether or no Miss Viner had found an admirer. Those who were going down to Panama were mostly Spaniards, and as the great separation became nearer, people had somewhat else of which to think.

And then the separation came. They rode into that pretty harbour of St. Thomas early in the morning, and were ignorant, the most of them, that they were lying in the very worst centre of yellow fever among all those plague-spotted islands. St. Thomas is very pretty as seen from the ships; and when that has been said, all has been said that can be said in its favour. There was a busy, bustling time of it then. One vessel after another was brought up alongside of the big ship that had come from England, and each took its separate freight of passengers and luggage. First started the boat that ran down the Leeward Islands to Demerara, taking with her Mr. Grumpy and all his family.

“Goodbye, Miss Viner,” said Mrs. Grumpy. “I hope you’ll get quite safely to the end of your voyage; but do take care.”

“I’m sure I hope everything will be right,” said Amelia, as she absolutely kissed her enemy. It is astonishing how well young women can hate each other, and yet kiss at parting.

“As to everything being right,” said Miss Viner, “that is too much to hope. But I do not know that anything is going especially wrong.⁠—Goodbye, Sir,” and then she put out her hand to Mr. Grumpy. He was at the moment leaving the ship laden with umbrellas, sticks, and coats, and was forced to put them down in order to free his hand.

“Well, goodbye,” he said. “I hope you’ll do, till you meet your friends at the isthmus.”

“I hope I shall, Sir,” she replied; and so they parted.

Then the Jamaica packet started.

“I dare say we shall never see each other again,” said Morris, as he shook his friend’s hand heartily. “One never does. Don’t interfere with the rights of that gentleman in Peru, or he might run a knife into you.”

“I feel no inclination to injure him on that point.”

“That’s well; and now goodbye.” And thus they also were parted. On the following morning the branch ship was despatched to Mexico; and then, on the afternoon of the third day, that for Colon⁠—as we Englishmen call the town on this side of the Isthmus of Panama. Into that vessel Miss Viner and Mr. Forrest moved themselves and their effects; and now that the three-headed Cerberus was gone, she had no longer hesitated in allowing him to do for her all those little things which it is well that men should do for women when they are travelling. A woman without assistance under such circumstances is very forlorn, very apt to go to the wall, very ill able to assert her rights as to accommodation; and I think that few can blame Miss Viner for putting herself and her belongings under the care of the only person who was disposed to be kind to her.

Late in the evening the vessel steamed out of St. Thomas’ harbour, and as she went Ralph Forrest and Emily Viner were standing together at the stern of the boat looking at the retreating lights of the Danish town. If there be a place on the earth’s surface odious to me, it is that little Danish isle to which so many of our young seamen are sent to die⁠—there being no good cause whatever for such sending. But the question is one which cannot well be argued here.

“I have five more days of self and liberty left me,” said Miss Viner. “That is my life’s allowance.”

“For Heaven’s sake do not say words that are so horrible.”

“But am I to lie for Heaven’s sake, and say words that are false; or shall I be silent for Heaven’s sake, and say nothing during these last hours that are allowed to me for speaking? It is so. To you I can say that it is so, and why should you begrudge me the speech?”

“I would begrudge you nothing that I could do for you.”

“No, you should not. Now that my incubus has gone to Barbados, let me be free for a day or two. What chance is there, I wonder, that the ship’s machinery should all go wrong, and that we should be tossed about in the seas here for the next six months? I suppose it would be very wicked to wish it?”

“We should all be starved; that’s all.”

“What, with a cow on board, and a dozen live sheep, and thousands of cocks and hens! But we are to touch at Santa Martha and Cartagena. What would happen to me if I were to run away at Santa Martha?”

“I suppose I should be bound to run with you.”

“Oh, of course. And therefore, as I would not wish to destroy you, I won’t do it. But it would not hurt you much to be shipwrecked, and wait for the next packet.”

“Miss Viner,” he said after a pause⁠—and in the meantime he had drawn nearer to her, too near to her considering all things⁠—“in the name of all that is good, and true, and womanly, go back to England. With your feelings, if I may judge of them by words which are spoken half in jest⁠—”

“Mr. Forrest, there is no jest.”

“With your feelings a poorhouse in England would be better than a palace in Peru.”

“An English workhouse would be better, but an English poorhouse is not open to me. You do not know what it is to have friends⁠—no, not friends, but people belonging to you⁠—just so near as to make your respectability a matter of interest to them, but not so near that they should care for your happiness. Emily Viner married to Mr. Gorloch in Peru is put out of the way respectably. She will cause no further trouble, but her name may be mentioned in family circles without annoyance. The fact is, Mr. Forrest, that there are people who have no business to live at all.”

“I would go back to England,” he added, after another pause. “When you talk to me with such bitterness of five more days of living liberty you scare my very soul. Return, Miss Viner, and brave the worst. He is to meet you at Panama. Remain on this side of the isthmus, and send him word that you must return. I will be the bearer of the message.”

“And shall I walk back to England?” said Miss Viner.