Harold Bindloss - For Jacinta

Jefferson was grimly in earnest, and it was evident that his thoroughness, which overlooked nothing, compelled the engineer's admiration. It also occurred to Austin that, while there are many ways in which a lover may prove his devotion, few other men would probably have cared for the one Jefferson had undertaken. He was not a very knightly figure when he emerged, smeared with rust and scale, from the second-hand boiler, or crawled about the launch's engines with blackened face and hands; but Austin, who remembered it was for Muriel Gascoyne he had staked all his little capital in that desperate venture, forebore to smile. He knew rather better than Jefferson did that it was a very forlorn hope indeed the latter was venturing on. One cannot heave a stranded steamer off without strenuous physical exertion, and the white man who attempts the latter in a good many parts of Western Africa incontinently dies.

At last all was ready, and one night Jefferson steamed off to the African liner from Las Palmas mole, taking with him the steamboat donkey-man and another English seafarer, who were at the time disgracefully drunk, as well as six Spaniards from the coasting schooners. He said that when he reached the Cumbria he would hire niggers, who would be quite as reliable, and considerably cheaper. As it happened, the Estremedura was going to sea that night, bound for the eastern islands, and Mrs. Hatherly, who was never seasick, and had heard that the climate of one of them where it scarcely ever rained was good for rheumatic affections, had determined to visit it in her. Jacinta, for no very apparent reason, decided to go with her, and it accordingly came about that most of her few acquaintances were with Muriel Gascoyne when she said good-bye to Jefferson at the head of the mole. She kissed him unblushingly, and then, when the launch panted away across the harbour, turned, a little pale in face, but with a firm step, towards the Estremedura , and an hour later stood with Jacinta on the saloon deck, watching the liner's black hull slide down the harbour. Then as the steamer lurched out past the mole, with a blast of her whistle throbbing across the dusky heave, Muriel shivered a little.

"I don't know whether we shall ever meet here again, but I think I could bear that now, and it really couldn't be so very hard, after all," she said. "It would have been horrible if he had gone and had not told me."

Jacinta looked thoughtful, as in fact she was. She was of a more complex, and, in some respects, more refined nature than her companion, while her knowledge of the world was almost startlingly extensive; but wisdom carries one no further than simplicity when one approaches the barriers that divide man's little life from the hereafter. Indeed, there is warrant for believing that when at last they are rolled away, it is not the wise who will see with clearest vision.

"I am not – quite – sure I understand," she said.

There was a trace of moisture on Muriel Gascoyne's cheek, but she held herself erect, and she was tall and large of frame, as well as a reposeful young woman. Though she probably did not know it, there was a suggestion of steadfast unchangeableness in her unconscious pose.

"Now," she said, very simply, "he belongs to me and I to him. If he dies out there – and I know that is possible – it can only be a question of waiting."

Jacinta was a little astonished. She felt that there had been a great and almost incomprehensible change in Muriel Gascoyne since she fell very simply and naturally in love with Jefferson. It was also very evident that she was not consoling herself with empty phrases, or repeating commendable sentiments just because they appealed to her fancy, as some women will. She seemed to be stating what she felt and knew.

"Ah!" said Jacinta, "you knew he might die there, and you could let him go?"

Muriel smiled. "My dear, I could not have stopped him, and now he is gone I think I am in one way glad that it was so. I do not want money – I have always had very little – but, feeling as he did, it was best that he should go. He would not have blamed me afterwards – of that I am certain – but I think I know what he would have felt if hardship came, and I wanted to spare it him." Then, with a faint smile, which seemed to show that she recognised the anti-climax, she became prosaic again. "One has to think of such things. Eight thousand pounds will not go so very far, you know."

Jacinta left her presently, and, as it happened, came upon Austin soon after the Estremedura steamed out to sea. He was leaning on the forward rails while the little, yacht-like vessel – she was only some 600 tons or so – swung over the long, smooth-backed undulations with slanted spars and funnel. There was an azure vault above them, strewn with the lights of heaven, and a sea of deeper blue which heaved oilily below, for, that night, at least, the trade breeze was almost still.

"The liner will be clear of the land by now," she said. "I suppose you are glad you did not go with Jefferson? You never told me that he had asked you to!"

Austin, who ignored the last remark, laughed in a somewhat curious fashion.

"Well," he said, reflectively, "in one respect Jefferson is, perhaps, to be envied. He is, at least, attempting a big thing, and if he gets wiped out over it, which I think is quite likely, he will be beyond further trouble, and Miss Gascoyne will be proud of him. In fact, it is she I should be sorry for. She seems really fond of him."

"Is that, under the circumstances, very astonishing?"

"Jefferson is really a very good fellow," said Austin, with a smile. "In fact, whatever it may be worth, he has my sincere approbation."

Jacinta made a little gesture of impatience. "Pshaw!" she said. "You know exactly what I mean. I wonder if there is one among all the men I have ever met who would – under any circumstances – do as much for me?"

She glanced at him for a moment in a fashion which sent a thrill through him; but Austin seldom forgot that he was the Estremedura 's purser. He had also a horror of cheap protestations, and he avoided the question.

"You could scarcely expect – me – to know," he said. "Suppose there was such a man, what would you do for him?"

There was just a trace of heightened colour in Jacinta's face. "I think, if it was necessary, and he could make me believe in him as Muriel believes in Jefferson, I would die for him."

Austin said nothing for a space, and looked eastwards towards Africa, across the long, smooth heave of sea, while he listened to the throbbing of the screw and the swash of the water beneath the steamer's side. He was quite aware that while Jacinta, on rare occasions, favoured her more intimate masculine friends with a glimpse of her inner nature, she never permitted them to presume upon the fact. He had, he felt, made some little progress in her confidence and favour, but it was quite clear that it would be inadvisable to venture further without a sign from her. Jacinta was able to make her servants and admirers understand exactly what line of conduct it was convenient they should assume. If they failed to do so, she got rid of them.

"Whatever is Mrs. Hatherly going to Fuerteventura for?" he asked.

"Dry weather," said Jacinta, with a little smile.

Austin laughed. "One would fancy that Las Palmas was dry and dusty enough for most people. I suppose you told her there is nowhere she can stay? They haven't a hotel of any kind in the island."

"That," said Jacinta, sweetly, "will be your business. You are a friend of Don Fernando, and he has really a comfortable house. Still, I expect three days of it will be quite enough for Mrs. Hatherly. You can pick us up, you know, when you come back from Lanzarote."

Austin made a little whimsical gesture of resignation. "There is, presumably, no use in my saying anything. After all, she will be company for Confidencia."