I see, Im to act as a sort of bridesmaid and to give her away, Mrs. Nettlepoint obligingly said. Kind enough in fact for anything, she showed on this occasion that it was easy enough to know her. There is notoriously nothing less desirable than an imposed aggravation of effort at sea, but she accepted without betrayed dismay the burden of the young ladys dependence and allowed her, as Mrs. Mavis said, to hook herself on. She evidently had the habit of patience, and her reception of her visitors story reminded me afreshI was reminded of it whenever I returned to my native landthat my dear compatriots are the people in the world who most freely take mutual accommodation for granted. They have always had to help themselves, and have rather magnanimously failed to learn just where helping others is distinguishable from that. In no country are there fewer forms and more reciprocities.
It was doubtless not singular that the ladies from Merrimac Avenue shouldnt feel they were importunate: what was striking was that Mrs. Nettlepoint didnt appear to suspect it. However, she would in any case have thought it inhuman to show thisthough I could see that under the surface she was amused at everything the more expressive of the pilgrims from the South End took for granted. I scarce know whether the attitude of the younger visitor added or not to the merit of her good nature. Mr. Porterfields intended took no part in the demonstration, scarcely spoke, sat looking at the Back Bay and the lights on the long bridge. She declined the lemonade and the other mixtures which, at Mrs. Nettlepoints request, I offered her, while her mother partook freely of everything and I reflectedfor I as freely drained a glass or two in which the ice tinkledthat Mr. Jasper had better hurry back if he wished to enjoy these luxuries.
Was the effect of the young womans reserve meanwhile ungracious, or was it only natural that in her particular situation she shouldnt have a flow of compliment at her command? I noticed that Mrs. Nettlepoint looked at her often, and certainly though she was undemonstrative Miss Mavis was interesting. The candlelight enabled me to see that though not in the very first flower of her youth she was still fresh and handsome. Her eyes and hair were dark, her face was pale, and she held up her head as if, with its thick braids and everything else involved in it, it were an appurtenance she wasnt ashamed of. If her mother was excellent and common she was not commonnot at least flagrantly soand perhaps also not excellent. At all events she wouldnt be, in appearance at least, a dreary appendage; which in the case of a person hooking on was always something gained. Was it because something of a romantic or pathetic interest usually attaches to a good creature who has been the victim of a long engagement that this young lady made an impression on me from the firstfavoured as I had been so quickly with this glimpse of her history? I could charge her certainly with no positive appeal; she only held her tongue and smiled, and her smile corrected whatever suggestion might have forced itself upon me that the spirit within her was deadthe spirit of that promise of which she found herself doomed to carry out the letter.
What corrected it less, I must add, was an odd recollection which gathered vividness as I listened to ita mental association evoked by the name of Mr. Porterfield. Surely I had a personal impression, over-smeared and confused, of the gentleman who was waiting at Liverpool, or who presently would be, for Mrs. Nettlepoints protégée. I had met him, known him, some time, somewhere, somehow, on the other side. Wasnt he studying something, very hard, somewhereprobably in Paristen years before, and didnt he make extraordinarily neat drawings, linear and architectural? Didnt he go to a table dhôte, at two francs twenty-five, in the Rue Bonaparte, which I then frequented, and didnt he wear spectacles and a Scotch plaid arranged in a manner which seemed to say Ive trustworthy information that thats the way they do it in the Highlands? Wasnt he exemplary to positive irritation, and very poor, poor to positive oppression, so that I supposed he had no overcoat and his tartan would be what he slept under at night? Wasnt he working very hard still, and wouldnt he be, in the natural course, not yet satisfied that he had found his feet or knew enough to launch out? He would be a man of long preparationsMiss Maviss white face seemed to speak to one of that. It struck me that if I had been in love with her I shouldnt have needed to lay such a train for the closer approach. Architecture was his line and he was a pupil of the École des Beaux Arts. This reminiscence grew so much more vivid with me that at the end of ten minutes I had an odd sense of knowingby implicationa good deal about the young lady.
Even after it was settled that Mrs. Nettlepoint would do everything possible for her the other visitor sat sipping our iced liquid and telling how low Mr. Mavis had been. At this period the girls silence struck me as still more conscious, partly perhaps because she deprecated her mothers free flowshe was enough of an improvement to measure thatand partly because she was too distressed by the idea of leaving her infirm, her perhaps dying father. It wasnt indistinguishable that they were poor and that she would take out a very small purse for her trousseau. For Mr. Porterfield to make up the sum his own case would have had moreover greatly to change. If he had enriched himself by the successful practice of his profession I had encountered no edifice he had rearedhis reputation hadnt come to my ears.
Mrs. Nettlepoint notified her new friends that she was a very inactive person at sea: she was prepared to suffer to the full with Miss Mavis, but not prepared to pace the deck with her, to struggle with her, to accompany her to meals. To this the girl replied that she would trouble her little, she was sure: she was convinced she should prove a wretched sailor and spend the voyage on her back. Her mother scoffed at this picture, prophesying perfect weather and a lovely time, and I interposed to the effect that if I might be trusted, as a tame bachelor fairly sea-seasoned, I should be delighted to give the new member of our party an arm or any other countenance whenever she should require it. Both the ladies thanked me for thistaking my professions with no sort of abatementand the elder one declared that we were evidently going to be such a sociable group that it was too bad to have to stay at home. She asked Mrs. Nettlepoint if there were any one else in our party, and when our hostess mentioned her sonthere was a chance of his embarking but (wasnt it absurd?) he hadnt decided yetshe returned with extraordinary candour: Oh dear, I do hope hell go: that would be so lovely for Grace.
Somehow the words made me think of poor Mr. Porterfields tartan, especially as Jasper Nettlepoint strolled in again at that moment. His mother at once challenged him: it was ten oclock; had he by chance made up his great mind? Apparently he failed to hear her, being in the first place surprised at the strange ladies and then struck with the fact that one of them wasnt strange. The young man, after a slight hesitation, greeted Miss Mavis with a handshake and a Oh good-evening, how do you do? He didnt utter her namewhich I could see he must have forgotten; but she immediately pronounced his, availing herself of the American girls discretion to present him to her mother.
Well, you might have told me you knew him all this time! that lady jovially cried. Then she had an equal confidence for Mrs. Nettlepoint. It would have saved me a worryan acquaintance already begun.