"If my gift to you means enough. Will it count any less than if we'd waited? You see, I have waited until now—waited for you."
"I've waited for you, too."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Just what you mean."
"Is that true? I see by your face it is."
"I guess it's not true. I didn't want any of the harbor girls."
"That makes it true enough. I wouldn't have minded—but I'm so glad."
She rose up out of my arms and turned the lantern low. In the pale glimmer that remained, she took the pins from her dusky hair and shook it down about her shoulders. Her preparations for her bridal adventure went unhurriedly forward, but I could not keep my own hands from flying. Before long, the tresses were more beautiful than before, their dark waves set off by a dim and secret luster of naked flesh. I became aware of beauty in its realness, beyond fancy's reach. All men who have loved woman know a like moment of revelation, of breathless unbelief, and those who have not loved woman cannot know it, because their eyes are dim.
"Be gentle with me, Homer," she told me as we lay side by side.
Passion came upon me as a gale upon a ship, gathering and rushing, so strong that it seemed an exterior force rather than one expression of my own strength, but when I remembered it was no more or less than that, that I was its master and it could not master me, her trembling ceased and the fear went out of her eyes. Then the storm within me shook me no more. Sometimes I had dreamed of sailing wide, still waters of infinite depth, and I half-remembered that dream, and instead of tumult I knew mystery and bliss.
She was giving me her beauty in mysterious ways. Bliss came upon us both, rising and growing until it seemed to pass all bounds, but it was not an unworldly dream from which we would wake; it was real as the lantern's glimmer. Like a long wave rolling under the moon it broke at last.
In that ecstasy and its warm and lovely aftermath, I could not doubt that we were joined forever.
CHAPTER 7
Far Voyage
A SENSE of triumph over evil stars stayed with us. As we dressed for a short journey of great consequence, we must pause and kiss and laugh; and in the bravado of our elation we were tempted to dally with time, for who could harm us now? So we asked each other by our gaiety or quiet joy; but perhaps we did not ask ourselves, from being not quite as brave as we wished to be. Although the midnight bells had not yet rung, our movements became increasingly brisk. We did not wait even to eat the supper Jim had prepared, but promised to do justice to it as soon as we had run an errand.
Truly I had no deep fear of Sophia's father or brother or suitor making us trouble. Somehow it did not fit into the picture. The tenuous shadows cast across my mind seemed to be fear of fate. Sophia appeared to be spared even this. Darkly flushed, she poured two glasses of wine, kissed the rim of one, and handed it to me. "To us in America."
I signaled with a lantern for our shore gig. It took so long to come that we fell silent and felt a little chill. But its sail filled with the crackle that sailors love to hear; the boatmen need not break out their oars; one dark hull after another dropped behind us as we skipped up the bay. When we had gained the dank wharf, Sophia slipped her arm into mine and we strode out. The inshore wind helped fly us up the steps, so soon we gained the byway on the hillside where the Baptist mission perched. It had been founded close to the waterfront, handy to sailors and longshoremen and their ilk.
From the wine shop at the corner, Farmer Blood had kept watch for me. Now he joined us quickly, and my heart glowed over his plain face and powerful, solid form. A lamp glimmered dimly in a window of the mission; when I had knocked on the door, there was only a brief wait, then it opened, disclosing an old Maltese woman in a black cloak with a candle in her hand.
"Ah!" she breathed at sight of us, her worn face lighting with a smile. "Coom tees way."
She led us to the little parlor of our destination where the lamp burned low. Turning up its wick, she said something in broken English, nodding and smiling, and withdrew. I followed Sophia's gaze to the window fronting the street and now clearly lighted.
"Please draw that curtain. Homer," she said.
I did so, then could not help but watch Sophia's struggles with her fears. They were rising now; they had prevailed over her elation, and she could not even simulate it now; the beautiful dark glow was gone from her face, and her eyes moved quickly. I thought she was trying to hold her fears at bay by fixing her attention on her surroundings. She looked at the plain, cheap, but solid furniture and the clean floor with its Brussels carpet, and she smiled a little tender smile over the small organ. Then she fixed her eyes with a curious intensity on a picture that I had barely noticed and forgotten.
It was a colored print of a portrait of George III, and apparently a very popular picture, since I had seen the same several times in English customhouses and the like. Its accent was on regalness, not humanity. The large features of the Hanover had been idealized to look like those of a Roman emperor; the eyes had a haughty stare; the shoulders were draped in ermine. With that dreadfully strained smile I had thought never to see again, she turned her back on it. I took the opportunity to ask for her passport. Although standing close together, it seemed that we three stood one by one as Preacher Morgan came into the room.
The big, balding man was smiling and self-assured. If he had stuffed the tail of his nightshirt into his trousers and hid the rest under his waistcoat, clerical coat, and stock, it was no one's business but his own. He greeted me warmly, then turned expectantly to Sophia. When I introduced her, he did not bow—clergymen should bow only to God—but shook hands with her cordially.
"Your hand is cold, my dear," he said, "but they say that is the sign of a warm heart."
When I had introduced Farmer Blood, he asked to see any papers verifying Sophia's and my eligibility to marry. He took these under the lamp to study through spectacles; I turned to find Sophia staring again at the king's picture, her eyes wide and black in her pallid face.
"What is it, Sophia?" I asked.
"Can't you tell him to please take it down and hang it somewhere else?"
"Of course I can't. It's his king."
The thought came to me that I might get rid of it by some subterfuge, but instantly I dismissed it.
"I can't stand to have him looking on— "
"That's just nerves, Sophia. It doesn't go with my gallant girl—"
"I'm not gallant. Our Eliza was gallant and so is the Vindictive, and all the ships are gallant, but I'm a coward— "
The minister's sonorous voice broke in.
"These are quite satisfactory. They establish beyond any doubt that you two are unmarried and of age to marry by your own will. Mr. Blood, I take you for an honest man. Will you take oath that this man and this woman who've come to me to be joined in matrimony are not close kindred?"
"Sir, I know all about Mate Whitman's family, and they're not kin at all."
"Then you two may take your places in the center of the room.
I'm sure my wife is about ready by now, and I shall summon her."
Opening an inner door, he called "Dear?" At once a pleasant-faced woman of middle size and age, neatly but plainly dressed, came in and kissed Sophia on the cheek. She sat down at the stool, thumped with her hands and pumped vigorously with her feet, and out came "Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes." Except for a few squeaks in the first bar, it was a melodious and pleasing rendition of the ancient love song, in my mind the most noble ever composed. I took Sophia firmly by the hand and drew her beside me. The minister stepped in front of us with his open book. When the music died away, he began an ancient ceremony.