“This calls for a celebration,” said my father. “I wonder what they can offer us.”
Helena was blushing and the unusual colour in her face made her look quite pretty. Matthew seemed delighted. His face was shining with virtue; and the thought came into my mind that the proposal was another of his good works. He looked very young and I thought: Is he being very noble? And does he understand what this means?
Helena stood there holding Matthew’s hand. There was a look in her eyes which I had noticed in the alcove during the storm. She was like a drowning person clinging to a raft. I felt very uneasy.
My father was saying, “I am going to organize something. We must drink to this engagement. I’ll see what I can get. We’ll ask the Captain to join us in half an hour in our cabin.”
We left Helena and Matthew walking the deck and went down to my parents’ cabin.
“Well, this is a surprise,” said my mother.
“It’s Matthew performing another of his good deeds, I believe,” put in Jacco.
“I feared that,” added my mother.
“He is so earnestly good,” I said. “He really does want to spend his life helping others.”
“Supplying their needs,” mused my father. “What does Helena need most now? A husband. So Matthew offers himself.”
“And Helena … what does she think, I wonder,” said my mother.
“Helena is so lost and bewildered,” I told them, “so frightened that she will cling to anyone who offers help.”
“This is a very special sort of help,” said my mother. “Oh dear, I hope it works out well for them.”
“He has the rest of the voyage to think about it,” my father reminded us. “Perhaps it was all suggested on the spur of the moment. It may be that by the time they get to Sydney …”
“Who knows?” I said.
“They’ll be able to marry easily in Sydney if they are still in the mind to,” my father explained. “There won’t be a lot of ceremony. They are so used to girls coming out to be married and so they get through the performance with the utmost speed.”
“She was so worried about the baby,” I said. “That’s what she is doing it for.”
“I understand that is her reason,” put in my mother. “As for him … I imagine he has rather a simplified picture of life.”
“Most good people have,” I replied.
My father looked at me and smiled. “There speaks our wise girl. Now listen to me. This is their affair. What we think of this hasty marriage is of no account. They have to work it out for themselves. They have to live it. It’s up to them.”
“It may well be that it will work out all right,” said Jacco. “I should imagine Matthew is just about as easygoing as anyone could be.”
“As long as he can pursue his own virtuous road,” said my father. “And Helena knows him up to a point. I know their acquaintance has been brief, but they have met every day, so compared with friendships at home when a friend or lover is seen perhaps once a week, their meetings on this ship are tantamount to months of acquaintanceship on shore. Let us wish them good luck and hope that all will be well.”
“There is nothing else we can do,” my mother pointed out. “They have made up their minds.”
Helena, I thought, because she needs marriage for her baby and he because he needs to make sacrifices and do good works.
I wondered if they were really the right reasons for a marriage.
The Captain arrived with two bottles of what he said he kept for special occasions. Mrs. Prevost was tittering with excitement and even Mr. Prevost seemed to have forgotten his absorption with the land for a while. The Captain made a little speech in which he said that it was not the first time romance had come to his ship. There was nothing like ships for romance.
Helena and Matthew stood there accepting the congratulations—Helena still flushed and looking almost happy, or perhaps that was relief; and Matthew had a look about him of such shining pleasure which could only come from the awareness of his virtue.
He was a very good young man and I felt that I loved him for saving Helena from the rough stormy sea and then giving her a chance to escape from a situation which she found so intolerable that she was ready to die to be rid of it.
The days began to speed by. The atmosphere of the ship was changing. We were about to leave that closed world in which we had lived for so many weeks. It had been rather an unreal world, I thought, looking back. Now we were coming into reality.
People changed subtly. The Prevosts were abstracted and in Jim Prevost’s eyes there was a look of faint anxiety. He had been so sure on the way out that he was going to find what he wanted. Now he was not so sure. As for his wife, I thought she seemed a little nostalgic, as though she was suddenly realizing all she was losing. After all, it must be a great wrench to go to a new country, a new life. I could understand their feelings.
And Matthew? He was becoming very excited at the prospect of finding the material he needed for his book. I could see the dreams in his eyes. He was going to marry Helena; she was to be his disciple who would share in his work. He had a simple uncomplicated way of ordering his life. Helena had changed too. It may have been that the baby was having an effect on her. Perhaps it seemed to her now like a living person—her very own child. I wondered how often she thought of John and whether she was peacefully contemplating a life ahead with Matthew. I think she was still in a bemused state, but I believed she felt herself fortunate to have found a man who would act as father to her child.
As for myself and my family—it was different with us. This was merely a visit and when it was over we should all go back to life as it had been before.
My father was perhaps a little quieter than usual. I daresay he remembered a great deal of that part of his life when he had come to her in chains—figuratively—a prisoner of Mother England, to submit to the humiliating ordeal of being chosen as someone’s slave during seven years of bondage. And my mother would share his mood for their lives were so closely interwoven, and even, at periods, when she was a child, she had known him and thought of him in that land overseas.
Jacco was exuberant. He was longing to explore. He had found the entire voyage exciting and interesting, as it had been for me but for Helena’s problems.
And so we came to Sydney.
I stood on deck as we approached what has been called the finest harbour in the world. And what a sight is was! It was early morning; the sun was just coming up and the sea was pale aquamarine, calm and beautiful. My father, standing beside me, slipped his arm through mine. I turned to look at him and I saw the faraway look in his eyes. I knew he was thinking of arriving here all those years ago. I turned from him to look at the magnificent harbour with its cove-like indentations fringed with foliage and numerous sandy beaches.
My mother came and joined us and we stood silently together.
It was some time before we could go ashore. We had said our goodbyes to the Captain and those members of the crew with whom we had become friendly. The Prevosts were with us when we went off. They said we must keep in touch and my father explained that we should be staying at the Grand Hotel in Sydney for a little while and then we should be going to a property he owned some hundred or so miles north of Sydney. It was known simply as Cadorsons and was near a place called Sealands Creek. Knowing a little of the land, he would be happy to advise them at any time they cared to call upon him. That seemed to give them a certain comfort and it was clearer than ever that now their dreams were about to be realized they were growing very apprehensive.
Helena and Matthew were to stay with us for the time being. I knew that Helena wanted to stay with me, but Matthew wanted to go off in search of material as soon as possible. But for the time being we should all stay at the hotel until my father had discovered what accommodation there would be for us at the property at Sealands Creek.