  She would certainly call him Mr. Weyman, not Hugh. And the first thing she would say would be a “thank you” for his invitation to visit him; for she had not written the note of acceptance herself but left it to Doctor Hazzard. And now she thought that if only she had written herself, it would somehow have prepared the way better for the instant, almost reached now, when the boat would be close enough to the pier for the tall man to discern her, to meet her eyes, and for her to wave a greeting. And then, suddenly, she woke to the fact that that was not Hugh at all. The sun on the water had dazzled her. It was an older man, heavily bearded, foreign looking. He was taller, and certainly much broader than Hugh would ever be. She had never seen any one, except perhaps her father, stand out from a crowd as this man was standing out from it. Even from a distance his personality had reached her, impressed itself, and this had nothing to do with his unusual bulk and height. No, it was personality, bodiless, that reached across the water, and absorbed her attention. The big man had pushed his way through the crowd and soon stood right out at the edge of the pier, his head thrown back, eagerly scanning the Bermuda’s decks. Then, as the ship sidled a few yards nearer, he raised his big, long arms straight above his head in sudden cyclonic greeting, and laughed up a big laugh of gleaming white teeth almost into Ariel’s face. But it couldn’t be herself he was so ardently saluting, and she turned quickly to see who was near her, here on the sun deck. It was Mrs. Nevin again. She was there, with her children, almost at Ariel’s shoulder. And she was smiling down at the bearded man. But the children were looking at Ariel. She had so plainly refrained from inviting their acquaintance during the voyage that they had not once tried to force a contact. She had seemed to their sensitive child perceptions to be out with the flying fish and the dip of the waves, more than in her steamer chair beside their mother, for that was where her gaze had lived. But the small green feather, which fluttered its down incessantly against the brim of her hat, had all the while had a life, they felt, quite apart from its wearer’s. It had been a veritable fairy flag, waving recognition and good will to them whenever their play brought them near. And now Ariel had turned so quickly that she had caught the children’s glances of camaraderie with the feather. And suddenly she took in their magic, realized it, as they had from the very first recognized and taken in the magic of the feather her father had found and given her. She was aware of the children—really aware—at last. That was all that it needed. They saw her face lose its abstraction, come as alive as the wind-dancing feather. Ariel’s eyes and lips smiled. Everything went golden. The children’s hearts fluttered as though they were magic feathers. But even now when Ariel’s smile had taught them all that there was to know about her the children did not rush upon her. They came slowly, with sensitive delicacy, as children will,—but for all the delicacy, with an air of deep, almost frightening assurance. Each child, taking one of Ariel’s cold, ungloved hands, pressed close. “We’ll be in, in another minute,” Ariel faltered, tremulously and almost beneath her breath, as if to warn them of the unreasonableness of this sudden, overwhelming intimacy which must be lost almost as soon as consummated. “Look. There goes the gangplank. And there’s some one—some one I know.” Suddenly, and when she had really forgotten his very existence, she had seen Hugh. To her relief this first sight assured her that he had not changed in the five years. He was the same Hugh, her father’s eager, quiet friend of the hawklike dark head, poised, alert, on shoulders that for all their breadth had an indefinable air of elegance about them. In his darkness and poise he was in direct contrast to the blond-bearded person gesticulating to Mrs. Nevin. Hugh stood beside this giant, looking up at the decks of the Bermuda as he was looking up, but with a difference. Without excitement, but rapidly, his eyes were traveling along the tiers of decks and the bending faces. In another minute he would get to the last deck and find what he sought, Ariel. Their eyes would meet and in the meeting remember everything of that sunlit week of five years ago. Under one arm she saw that he was carrying, tucked there as though it might be any ordinary parcel, a big bunch of English violets. They were for her, of course. So why had she ever been shy, afraid? She had forgotten the children and was bending forward over the rail, waiting with genuine gayety now the moment of his recognition. But just before his glance, in its methodical journey, came to her deck, she had her first sense of change in him. After all, he was different, a little, from the Bermuda days. There was a moody hunger in his eyes, and something gaunt, unfed, in the face that she had remembered only as keen, without shadows. But his face would light up in the old way when he discovered her. This might be his look when alone and unaware of friends near. The light, however, when it came, was not for Ariel. It was Mrs. Nevin his searching glance was halted by, and the glory that transfigured the dark, uplifted face took away Ariel’s breath. Mrs. Nevin laughed down a greeting, and murmured above her breath, so that Ariel caught the words, “Now how’d he know I was coming?” It flashed through Ariel’s mind that much reading of Aldous Huxley during the voyage, if that was the author’s name, must have dulled Mrs. Nevin’s perceptions, if she did not see that it had needed surprise as well as joy, so to shatter Hugh’s reserve. Mrs. Nevin called to her children, who still pressed against Ariel, holding her hands, “There’s Uncle Hugh, darlings. Wave to him. See, he has found us. Isn’t it nice of him to meet our boat!” Hugh returned the children’s obedient salutes, but the light was gone. Was it merely habitual reserve returning to duty, or had the sudden delight really as suddenly died? Ariel knew instantly and intuitively that these children were not related to Hugh, although Mrs. Nevin had called him uncle. Now he had to see herself, wedged in between the children. She tried to smile down at him, to help him to his recognition, but her lips were as cold as the wind in her face. She could not smile. His glance was passing her by as casually as it had passed a hundred other bending faces above the deck rails. After a little farther search it returned to Mrs. Nevin who bent forward, held out her gloved hands, and called down, “Toss, Hugh! Toss! I can catch!”—laughing. For just an instant Hugh appeared puzzled. Then he remembered the violets jammed under his arm, and tossed them up to the waiting hands. It was an expert toss, and Ariel remembered how her father had once drawn her attention to the fact that all Hugh’s motions were expert, effective. The smell of the violets, so near now, was dizzying her with nostalgia. She wanted to cry out, “They are mine, not yours. He brought them for me. He never even knew you were on the boat!” But instead, she loosened the children’s hands from hers and turned her back to the pier. Through the darkness of tears she moved away toward the stairs, with the intention of making sure that her baggage had left her stateroom. It would be time enough to identify herself to Hugh, who had forgotten her, when she came off the ship. She was almost the last person down the gangway. Hugh was there at the foot, looking anxious, for he had begun to be afraid he had missed Ariel Clare in the disembarking crowd. But even when she stopped by him and with head back, so that he might see her face plainly under the brim of her green hat, said, “I’m Ariel, Mr. Weyman. It’s kind of you to have me and to meet me,” he looked doubtful. “You!” he murmured, obviously taken aback and surprised. “Why, I thought you were the twins’ nurse!” But even as he spoke he saw that it was indeed Ariel, standing with the look that she used to wear sometimes before vanishing away into hot, white sunlight, years and years ago when he was young and she was an unreal fairy creature, hovering almost unnoticed somewhere on the edges of his first deep experience of friendship. Of course this was she; how hadn’t he known? “But the twins were clinging to you like burrs, weren’t they!” he insisted, explaining his stupidity. “It looked, you know, as if you belonged, body and soul, to Persis and Nicky. But of course it’s you.” Yet even now when he was at last shaking hands with her Hugh was looking over her head at a group of people a few yards away, with Mrs. Nevin at its center. The big man, the foreign-looking, bearded personage who had come to meet Mrs. Nevin, was beside her, his hand on her arm. He was possessive in his bearing, and openly exuberant that the lady had landed and was for the moment, at least, under his protection. And now a great sheaf of yellow roses in Mrs. Nevin’s arms quite obscured the violets, if, indeed, she still had them. Ariel was conscious that Hugh returned his attention to herself with an almost painful effort. “Your luggage will be under C,” he unnecessarily informed her, and then added with a sudden access of responsibility, “This is the way. We’ll do our best to speed things up in spite of the unlucky popularity of your letter. We’ll grab tea somewhere then, and get right along to Wild Acres, where Mother and Anne are waiting for us. They would have come in to meet you with me—Anne would, anyway—but we’ve got another visitor with us—Prescott Enderly, the novelist. Know his stuff?” And all the while he was skillfully guiding her through a milling crowd of over-anxious people. |
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