Pearl Buck - The Eternal Wonder

“You have my place, boy,” she said at his ear. “Whenever I’m on a ship, my place is here at the prow.”

He was so startled that he stepped back and trod on her foot. She grimaced and then laughed.

“What a heavy-footed lad you are,” she cried against the wind.

“I’m sorry—so sorry,” he stammered, but she only laughed and, tucking her hand in his elbow, she drew him with her.

“There’s room for the two of us, surely,” she said, and held him there, her hand still in his arm and her bright hair flying back from her face.

He stood there then, linked to her, the strong west wind pressing her against him, and together and yet completely separate and in total silence they gazed across the sea. It might have been an hour before either of them moved or spoke, but he was conscious of her in a strange new way, shy and not shy together. Then she stepped back, releasing her hold on his arm.

“I’m going below,” she said. “I’ve letters to write. I hate writing letters, don’t you?”

“I have only my mother and my grandfather, and I haven’t written them,” he said.

“Ah, but you should and you must,” she told him. “Put your letters in the ship’s post and they’ll be mailed as soon as we land. I’ll give you some English stamps.”

She nodded and turned away and left him standing there and feeling strangely alone and somehow restless. He did not want to stay there alone. It had not really occurred to him to write his mother or his grandfather until he reached England. There would then be so much more to tell—London, for example. But now he felt she was right—he should write them. The letters could be mailed that much earlier. He went below and found a quiet corner in the dining saloon and wrote two letters, each surprisingly long. There was something pleasurable in trying to put into written language some of the sights of the sea and sky and ship. Of Lady Mary he wrote not a word, not knowing, indeed, what to say. If he singled her out, what would they think? And for that matter, why should he single her out, a woman nearly old enough to be his mother? But not quite—

“AND SO WHERE WILL YOU BE GOING in England?” she inquired abruptly.

It was the last day on the ship. Next morning, before noon, they would be landing at Southampton. There he would take the train to London. His grandfather had given him specific directions.

“To London. My grandfather gave me the name of a place—a small hotel, very clean,” he told her now.

“It’s odd, your being alone,” she said.

“My father and mother were coming too,” he told her, “but he died. Then she thought he’d have wanted me to come anyway. I’m—rather young for college, you see.”

“How old are you?” she asked in her pretty, silvery English voice.

“Sixteen,” he said reluctantly, half-ashamed to be so young.

“Sixteen! Oh, I say—not really!” she cried. He nodded and she stared at him.

“But you’re so—enormously tall! I’d have said twenty, at least. American men look so young anyway—yes, twenty—maybe twenty-two. Good Heavens, you child ! Why, you can’t go wandering about alone! Where are you bound for?”

“China,” he said simply.

She gasped and then broke into bright laughter. “China! Oh, nonsense! Why ever China?”

“My grandfather lived there for seven years and he says they’re the wisest, most civilized people on Earth.”

“But you don’t speak Chinese, surely?”

“I can learn languages very easily.”

“What do you speak now?” she demanded.

“English, French, German, Italian—some Spanish. I was going to take it this year. I would have before, but my father thought the literatures in the other languages were more important. Besides, I might go to Spain. There it would be very easy for me to pick it up. Of course, I don’t count Latin—it’s basic anyway.”

She looked at him with a curious, penetrating gaze, her eyes very dark.

“Look here,” she said decisively. “You are not going to London to some small hotel alone. You are coming home with me. I’ve a place outside of London and you’ll learn about England from there.”

“But—”

“No buts—you’ll do what I say! I live quite alone since my husband was killed in the war—Sir Moresby Seaton. It will cheer me up to have someone young in the house. I can’t bear relatives. Who knows? I might even go to China with you. I went to America, and that’s almost as odd. I went quite alone, too—and had a marvelous time. Americans are such talkers, aren’t they—not you, though! You’re a silent lad.”

“I like listening,” he said, “and watching.”

“But it is a very old castle,” she continued, “and it has quite a history in my husband’s family. He was the last male, and we had no children, alas. His fault or mine, who knows—or cares? And he was rather old-fashioned—‘traditional’ would be a better word, perhaps, for he loved sports—hunting and all that sort of thing, but he believed if one had no children, well, one hadn’t them. And so when I die the castle will go to a nephew—a nice chap, older than you by twenty years, married and with three sons, so there’ll always be a Seaton in the castle, and that’s all that matters. Curiously enough, I’m glad now that I have no children. I can be myself—not divided. Children do divide a woman, in an odd sort of way. One’s never quite whole after the division. There’s always something gone. And I shan’t marry again—ever! I’ve made up my mind on that. Not sentimentally, either—but because I find I like being alone. I don’t believe in a one-and-only—though I was frightfully in love with my husband. Oh, yes—I was happily married—happily enough, that is.”

“Then why—,” he began, but she interrupted him in her gently ruthless way.

“Why ask you to the castle? It’s a question I can’t answer. You’re someone in yourself—though you’re only a boy, yet. I don’t know who you are. You’re not very American. You’re someone quite apart. I shan’t bother about you, you know. You’ll be free to come and go. And I’ll be free, too. You’ll understand that. I’ve a curious feeling that you understand everything. There’s something about you… I don’t know… something old and wise… and quiet—very strange! I suppose you’re what the people of India would call ‘an old soul.’ We went to India once, my husband and I. Actually, it was on our honeymoon. We wanted to see the Taj Mahal by moonlight together—banal, wasn’t it? But I’m glad we did. I’ll never forget. And then we got really interested in India. There’s no other country, I’m sure, where one feels the people are born old and wise and— knowing . You have that same knowing .”

He laughed. “And yet I don’t even know what you mean by that word!”

“You’re young, too,” she retorted. “And you weren’t born in India. You were born in a very new, brash young country—which was a great mistake, I fear!”

She laughed, and then they were silent again and for a very long time, but quite at ease, in spite of silence. That was what puzzled him. He was at ease with her, as though he had known her always. And yet she was a stranger, living a life entirely unlike his own. He felt excitement, more than the excitement of being in a new country.

IT WAS DUSK WHEN THEY DROVE through a small village and he saw, a few miles beyond, in the open countryside, softly rolling hills, the outline of a crenellated wall, and above it the turreted roofs of the castle.

“William the Conqueror built it,” she explained, “and for five hundred years it was a royal seat. Then it was given to an ancestor of my husband as a reward for some feat of honor in war. And Seatons have been there ever since, until now, and I suppose it’s only by the generosity of the nephew—no, my husband insisted I was to have the right to live here for my life, if I wished. I daresay someday I shall want to live somewhere else—perhaps even with someone though not married—or alone, if I still like being alone.”