Removed from the scrutiny of the world, she could seem a little foolish—she spent some time trying to find a place to hide the canvas money belt in which she kept her cash and documents. Under the sofa? Behind the picture? In the empty flower vase or the medicine cabinet? A corner of the carpet was loose and she hid her money belt there. Then she stepped out into the corridor. She wore black clothes and a tricorne hat, and looked a little as George Washington might have looked had he lived to be so old.
The festivities in the crowded staterooms had moved out into the corridor, where men and women stood drinking and talking. She couldn’t deny that it would have been pleasanter if a few friends had come down to put a social blessing on her departure. Without the orchid on her shoulder, how could these strangers guess that in her own home she was a celebrated woman, known to everyone and famous for her good works? Mightn’t they, glancing at her as she passed, mistake her for one of those cussed old women who wander over the face of the earth trying to conceal or palliate that bitter loneliness that is the fitting reward for their contrary and selfish ways? She felt painfully disarmed and seemed to have only the fewest proofs of her identity. What she wanted then was some common room, where she could sit down and watch things.
She found a common room, but it was crowded and all the seats were taken. People were drinking and talking and crying, and in one corner a grown man stood saying good-bye to a little girl. His face was wet with tears. Honora had never seen or dreamed of such mortal turmoil. The go-ashore was being sounded, and while many of the farewells were cheerful and lighthearted, many of them were not. The sight of a man parting from his little daughter—it must be his little daughter, separated from him by some evil turn of events—upset Honora terribly. Suddenly the man got to his knees and took the child in his arms. He concealed his face in her thin shoulder, but his back could be seen shaking with sobs, while the public-address system kept repeating that the hour, the moment, had come. She felt the tears form in her own eyes, but the only way she could think of to cheer the little girl was to give her the orchid, and by now the corridors were to crowded for Honora to make her way back to her stateroom. She stepped over the high brass sill onto a deck.
The gangways were thronged with visitors leaving the ship. The stir was tremendous. Below her she could see a strip of dirty harbor water, and overhead there were gulls. People were calling to one another over this short distance, this still unaccomplished separation, and now all but one of the gangways were up, and the band began to play what seemed to her to be circus music. The loosening of gigantic hemp lines was followed by the stunning thunder of the whistle, so loud it must ruffle the angels in Heaven. Everyone was calling, everyone was waving—everyone but her. Of all the people standing on the deck, only she had no one to part with, only her going was lonely and meaningless. In simple pride, she took a handkerchief out of her pocketbook and began to wave it to the faces that were so swiftly losing their outline and their appeal. “Good-bye, good-bye, my dear, dear friend,” she called to no one. “Thank you. . . . Thank you for everything. . . . Good-bye and thank you. . . . Thank you and good-bye.”
At seven o’clock she put on her best clothes and went up to dinner. She shared a table with a Mr. and Mrs. Sheffield from Rochester, who were going abroad for the second time. They were traveling with orlon wardrobes. During dinner they told Honora about their earlier trip to Europe. They went first to Paris, where they had nice weather—nice drying weather, that is. Each night, they took turns washing their clothes in the bathtub and hanging them out to dry. Going down the Loire they ran into rain and were not able to do any wash for nearly a week, but once they reached the sea the weather was sunny and dry, and they washed everything. They flew to Munich on a sunny day and did their wash in the Regina Palast, but in the middle of the night there was a thunderstorm and all their clothing, hung out on a balcony, got soaked. They had to pack their wardrobes wet for the trip to Innsbruck, but they reached Innsbruck on a clear and starry night and hung everything out to dry again. There was another thunderstorm in Innsbruck, and they had to spend a day in their hotel room, waiting for their clothes to dry. Venice was a wonderful place for laundry. They had very little trouble in Italy, and during their Papal audience Mrs. Sheffield convinced herself that the Pope’s vestments were made of orlon. They remembered Geneva for its rainy weather, and London was very disappointing. They had theater tickets, but nothing would dry, and they had to spend two days in their room. Edinburgh was even worse, but in Skye the clouds lifted and the sun shone, and they took a plane home from Prestwick with everything clean and dry. The sum of their experience was to warn Honora against planning to do much wash in Bavaria, Austria, Switzerland and the British Isles.
Toward the end of this account, Honora’s face got very red, and suddenly she leaned across the table and said, “Why don’t you stay home and do your wash? Why do you travel halfway around the world, making a spectacle of yourself in front of the waiters and chambermaids of Austria and France? I’ve never owned a stitch of orlon, or whatever you call it, but I expect I’ll find laundries and dry cleaners in Europe just as at home, and I’m sure I’d never travel for the pleasure of hanging out a clothesline.”
The Sheffields were shocked and embarrassed. Honora’s voice carried, and passengers at the nearby tables had turned to stare at her. She tried to extricate herself by calling a waiter. “Check,” she called. “Check. Will you please bring me my check?”
“There is no check, madam,” the waiter said.
“Oh, yes,” she said, “I forgot,” and limped out of the room.
She was too angry at the Sheffields to be remorseful, but she was faced again with the fact that her short temper was one of her worst qualities. She wandered around the decks to cool off, admiring the yellowish shroud lights and thinking how like a second set of stars they were. She was standing on the stern deck, watching the wake, when a young man in a pinstriped suit joined her. They had a pleasant conversation about the stars, and then she went to bed and slept soundly.
In the morning, after a hearty breakfast, Honora arranged for a deck chair on the leeward side. She then settled herself with a novel (Middlemarch) and prepared to relax and enjoy the healthfulness of the sea air. Nine quiet days would conserve her strength and perhaps even lengthen her life. It was the first time that she had ever planned a rest. Sometimes after lunch on a hot day she would shut her eyes for five minutes but never for longer. In the mountain hotels where she went for a change of air she had always been an early riser, a marathon chair rocker and a tireless bridge player. Up until now there had always been things to do, there had always been demands on her time, but now her old heart was weary and she should rest. She pressed her head against the chair cushion and drew the blanket over her legs. She had seen thousands of travel advertisements in which people her age stretched out in deck chairs, watching the sea. She had always wondered what pleasant reveries passed through their minds. Now she waited for this enviable tranquillity to steal over her. She shut her eyes, but she shut them emphatically; she drummed her fingers on the wooden armrest and wriggled her feet. She counseled herself to wait, to wait, to wait for repose to overtake her. She waited perhaps ten minutes before she sat up impatiently and angrily. She had never learned to sit still, and, as with so much else in life, it seemed too late now for her to learn.