during the long voyage julia dismissed her work and its obligations from her mind, and resigned herself to that form of happiness women are able to extract from the mere fact of being in love, even when indefinitely separated from the object. her fear that she might have alienated tay by her excursion into his brain had been banished by his letters, and she was free to enjoy herself miserably. she was delighted to find that he filled every waking moment, that neither literature nor the several pleasant people with whom she made acquaintance could send him to the rear, and she cultivated long hours of solitude and idleness during which she thought of nothing else. she projected her spirit into the future and california, and dreamed of happiness only: politics, reform, and the improvement of the race were not for dreams. the only real rival of love is art, for that in itself is a deep personal passion, its function an act of creation, fed by some mysterious perversion of sex, and demanding all the imagination’s activities. this rival tay was mercifully spared, and the god of duty, always arbitrarily elevated and largely the child of egoism, stands a poor chance when gasping in the furnace of love. abstractly, julia purposed to return to her duty when its call became imperious, but during this period of liberty she felt she would be more than fool to close her eyes to any of the beatic pictures composed by her imagination and the tumults of sex.
of course there were hours when she felt profoundly depressed and miserable, when she stormed and protested, and hated the fluid desert that prevented her from changing her course and fleeing to tay. but this, also, was novel and exciting and part of love’s curriculum; she revelled in every manifestation of her long-denied womanhood, and was further thrilled with the belief that no woman had ever suffered such an upheaval before. she wrote a daily letter to tay, revealing herself without mercy, and found a keen delight in this new power of his to annihilate the profound reserve of her nature.
the only thing she didn’t tell him was of the return of her old longing for children. that inherent desire had slunk into horrified retreat at france’s betrothal kiss, and had visited her but fitfully in india, but now it reasserted itself almost as tyrannically as her longing for the man who was the mate of her sex as surely as of her soul and brain. she even felt a passionate delight that she soon could satisfy it vicariously in fanny. she had never ceased to love this child she once had cuddled daily in her arms, and was far more excited at the prospect of being with her again, than of seeing her strange old mother. to be sure, her love for that once fond parent had risen in all its old strength during this carnival of the primal, but mrs. edis at her best was unresponsive, and after the long separation unlikely to thaw for some time to come. in fanny she could find satisfaction for her maternal yearnings until they found their natural outlet. and she should take her back to london, with or without her mother’s consent. fanny! what did she look like? she had been an adorable little dark baby; surely she must have inherited the beauty of the family. some were dark and others almost blond, like herself, but both the byams and the edises had always been famous for their looks. even mrs. winstone had grudgingly admitted that fanny had exterior promise, and if she had turned out a beauty, ishbel should give her the best of girl’s good times in london. and she herself should have something to cling to during these awful months—perhaps years—of separation.
after she changed steamers at barbadoes and began the leisurely journey up the caribbean sea, she was much diverted by the beauty of the long chain of islands, and began to thrill with the prospect of seeing her birthplace once more. her roots were in nevis; it held the dust of generations of her ancestors; it was the one perfect, peaceful, and happy memory of her life, and never could she love even california as well. she knew that she should have flown to it in her trouble were it empty of both her mother and fanny.
after the steamer left antigua, she never took her eyes from the stately pyramid, shadowy at first, detaching itself with a sharper definition every moment. when she was close enough to see the green on its sweeping lines, its waving fields of cane, its fine ruins of old “great houses,” the white roads, deserted save for an occasional laborer or a colored woman swinging along with a basket on her head, a pic’nie clinging to her hip, the waving palms on the shore, the white cloud that hovered by day over the lost crater, and extinguished the island at night, she ran to her stateroom to quell an almost unbearable excitement. but collins was packing, and collins was already puzzled, perturbed, and speculating. no quicker antidote to tumultuous emotions could be devised. julia’s tears retreated, and she began to rearrange her flying locks before the mirror; but it was impossible to keep the exultation out of her voice.
“we’re nearly there, collins!”
“yes, mum.”
“it is my old home! just think of it, i haven’t seen it for sixteen years.”
“yes, mum.”
“i’m sure you will enjoy staying here for a bit, nevis is so beautiful. there’s nothing in all europe like it.”
“i shan’t be sea-sick. i’m thankful for that.”
“how do i look? i haven’t seen my waist line since i left london.”
“i dressed you this morning, mum. you look quite all right. shall i really sleep in a christian bed to-night, and have a decent cup of tea?”
“you shall, you shall! and if my mother still kills stringy old cows, i’ll get good english beef for you from bath house.”
“thank god, mum. everything on board ship tastes that horrid i could eat a cow cooked particular, no matter how stringy. don’t lean on the rail too much. linen crushes that easy.”
julia, who wore a linen coat and skirt of crash brown linen, with a hat and parasol, and shoes and gloves, of a darker shade, nodded at herself in the glass and returned to the deck. for the moment tay was forgotten.
the steamer was rounding the island and she stared at bath house, the greatest hotel in the world in its time, a picturesque ruin in her memory, now rebuilt in part and showing many signs of life. colored servants were hanging out of the upper windows cheering the ship, and gayly dressed people were sitting on the terrace. but julia, although for a moment she resented the least of the changes in her island, soon forgot bath house as she eagerly gazed through her field-glass at the groups down by the jetty. there was the usual crowd of whites and negroes, some with much business to attend to when the ship cast anchor, more with none whatever. in a moment she detached a group striving to detach itself from the pushing crowd—all charles town seemed to have turned out—and saw mrs. winstone, mr. pirie, several people of the same class, and one young girl. could that be fanny? once more her hands shook. the girl was dancing up and down, waving her handkerchief. it must be. julia laid aside her field-glass and waved in return. then the delay seemed endless.
the water had become suddenly alive with boats. little black boys were diving for pennies. it was a gay tropical picture; and, behind, the palms and the cocoanut-trees, fringing the suave flowing lines of the great volcano.
the ladder was swung, the first officer gave her his arm, and she descended to the boat, followed by the uneasy collins, who looked at the heaving waters below that frail craft with dire forebodings. but julia had no sympathy in her for collins. her thoughts were on fanny, when they were not adjusting her mask of bright cool serenity. she had no intention of making an exhibition of herself in public.
all doubt of fanny’s identity was set at rest, for a girl’s long supple figure was flying down the jetty, and she was waving frantically and calling out, “aunt julia! aunt julia!” julia received a momentary shock, not quite sure that she liked being called aunt by this tall girl, who looked more than her eighteen years. but that was a trifle and she gazed with both fondness and admiration at the blooming beauty of the girl who now stood quite alone on the edge of the jetty. fanny was very dark, showing the french strain in their blood (mrs. edis’s father had found his wife on martinique); her large eyes and abundant hair were black, her skin olive and claret, her full large mouth as red as one of the hibiscus flowers of her native island; her figure, both slender and full, was as beautiful as her face, even in the white cotton frock which she probably had made itself. julia thought she had never seen a more perfect type of voluptuous young womanhood, and reflected that she should not be long marrying her off in london, even without a dowry.
she smiled happily, and a moment later, elevated to the jetty by the boatman, was enveloped, smothered, overwhelmed by fanny.
“oh, aunt julia!” cried the girl between her kisses. “just to think you are here at last! something is actually happening on this old island. oh, promise me that you will take me away with you.”
“yes, yes, indeed,” gasped julia, her spirits unaccountably dashed. “of course i will, darling. how beautiful you are!”
“oh, am i? much good it has done me so far. i’ve just spoken to a young man for the first time in my life, and he has gray hair.”
“you poor child! did—did—my mother come down?”
“not she. the steamer wasn’t expected until seven, and she was asleep. when i saw it coming, i ran. she’d never have let me come. i’ve never been outside the estate alone before. even aunt maria hasn’t taken me down to bath house. there she is with an old gentleman that wears a wig.”
they had reached the end of the long jetty, and julia kissed her aunt, shook hands with mr. pirie, who had eyes for no one but fanny, and was introduced to a young gray-haired man named morison.
“morison,” she repeated mechanically to herself. “where have i heard that name?”
but she had no time to think. mrs. winstone was talking rapidly. julia wondered if the tropics had affected her aunt’s nerves. she was twirling her parasol, and her eyes had more intelligence in them than she usually admitted, save when conducting a dilettante suffrage meeting.
“really, julia!” she exclaimed. “it’s too tiresome. but i didn’t expect the royal mail for hours yet; came down to see hannah and pirie at bath house, and sent the horses to be shod. they’re not ready, and there’s nothin’ else—everybody drivin’. do you think you could walk up the mountain in this heat?”
“of course she can’t!” cried fanny. “of course she can’t!”
“i’m sure i could,” began julia, but once more fanny enveloped her.
“oh, no, darling,” she cried entreatingly. “you’d faint in that heat—climbing. it was bad enough coming down. and, oh, i do want another glimpse of bath house. you’ve no idea how excited i was all the time it was building. it was like an old romance come to life. but much good it has done me. and it has an orchestra!”
julia laughed outright. fanny might not possess the priceless gift of tact, but she was enchantingly young. her exuberant youth, in fact, made everybody else feel superannuated, and her next remark, as she and julia started for the hotel arm in arm, did not remove the impression.
“how oddly young you look, aunt julia,” observed the girl, whose large curious eyes were exploring every detail of julia’s appearance. “of course i knew you were much younger than granny or aunt maria, or i shouldn’t have been so keen to have you come home, but you look almost a girl. i suppose it’s because you are quite a little thing and haven’t grown either scrawny or fat.”
“really,” said her aunt, dryly, “i’m five feet three and a half, and thirty-four is a long way from old age.”
“well, it’s not young,” said fanny, who appeared to be of a hopelessly literal turn. “thirty-four! why you are only a year younger than mother would have been.”
this remark touched a chord which for the moment routed anxious vanity. julia put her arm about fanny’s waist, no slenderer than her own. “i wish you were mine!” she said fondly. “but sister is the next best thing. i can’t have you calling me aunt. that is much too remote—i have wanted you for so many years. you must imagine that you are my little sister, and call me julia. will you?”
“yes, if you like. but promise me that you will bring me to bath house every day. you will want to come yourself, if only to get away from great house, and you have friends there—a nice old lady named macmanus—and i saw two or three women with such frocks! did you bring me any frocks from london?”
“ah—i didn’t! but, you see, i not only left in such a hurry, but i had no idea whether you were tall or short. of course i brought you some presents.”
“oh, did you? what are they?”
“some pretty silver things for your dressing-table, and a manicure set, and some scarves, and all sorts of fol-de-rols that pretty girls like.”
“well, that’s too sweet of you,” and fanny, kissed her again. “but i’d rather have had frocks. what shall i do if you take me to the party at bath house on thursday night?—and you must! you must! there’s no dressmaker on nevis that could make a party-gown.”
“you shall have any of my evening gowns you want. you are taller, but collins is quite a genius.”
fanny almost danced. “that will be heavenly. oh—oh—talk about frocks!”
“what a pretty woman!”
they were both looking at a very smart young woman advancing down the palm avenue. she had a dark vivid little face, and wore a frock of sublimated pink linen, and a soft drooping black hat. she smiled and waved her parasol as she caught julia’s eye.
“of course you’ve forgotten me, mrs. france,” she cried gayly.
“this is mrs. morison, of new york, julia,” said mrs. winstone, who had accelerated her steps. her voice had lost its drawl.
“mrs. morison?” asked julia, with a premonitory tremor.
“yes—emily tay—but of course you’ve quite forgotten me. i never forgot you, though—and that terrible old castle you showed me for a solid hour.”
julia had taken her hand mechanically, wondering if nevis were shaking herself loose from the sea.
“of course i do remember you. i liked your independence. but how odd you should be here.”
“not a bit of it. i’m always after novelty—restless american, you know, and this is the very latest. besides, my husband had an attack of wall street prostration, and this wasn’t too far. but it’s simply enchanting to see you again—i’ve been so proud these last two or three years to be able to say i knew you.”
fanny cast a glance over her shoulder, then fell back between mr. pirie and mr. morison.
“i saw dan in new york,” dan’s sister rattled on. “it was too funny. he was in a beastly glum temper, until i mentioned your name. then he cleared up so suddenly that i had my suspicions. do you remember how dead in love with you he was at the tender age of fifteen, and what a time cherry had inducing him to go home without you? i’ve just the ghost of an idea he hasn’t got over it. poor dan! of course you’d never look at him.”
“and why not?” asked julia, in arms.
“well, you are some person over there, and california is the jumping-off place.”
“i thought it was the most beautiful country in the world.”
“oh, it’s that, all right. but after london—or new york! i do want dan to transfer his energies to new york. it’s the only place in america to live.”
“perhaps he thinks he can do more good in his own state.”
“new york being in no need of a clean-up! however, no doubt you’re right. dan’s a tremendous gun out there, if he does make himself unpopular. i try to console myself with the thought that he’s making a national reputation, but meanwhile my income doesn’t go up. however, of course you’re not interested in our politics. dan’ll be delighted to hear that we’ve met again. here we are. you must be dying for your tea.”
