She wondered whether the Thornton children would prove companionable, or a nuisance. They were all younger than she was: which was a pity.
II
On the journey back to Ferndale both father and mother were silent, actuated by that tug of jealousy against sympathy which a strong common emotion begets in familiar rather than passionate companions. They were above the ordinary sentimentalities of grass-bereavement (above choking over small shoes found in cupboards): but not above a rather strong dose of the natural instincts of parenthood, Frederic no less than his wife.
But when they were nearly home, Mrs. Thornton began to chuckle to herself.
“Funny little thing, Emily! Did you notice almost the last thing she said? She said ‘I’ve got an earthquake.’ She must have got it mixed up in her silly old head with earache.”
There was a long pause: and then she remarked again:
“John is so much the most sensitive: he was absolutely too full to speak.”
III
When they got home it was many days before they could bring themselves openly to mention the children. When some reference had to be made, they spoke round them, in an uncomfortable way, as if they had died.
But after a few weeks they had a most welcome surprise. The Clorinda was calling at the Caymans, and taking the Leeward Passage: and while riding off the Grand Cayman Emily and John wrote letters, and a vessel bound for Kingston had taken charge of them and eventually they reached Ferndale. It had not even occurred to either parent that this would be possible.
This was Emily’s:
My dear parents,
This ship is full of Turtles. We stopped here and they came out in boats. There is turtles in the saloon under the tables for you to put your feet on, and turtles in the passages and on the deck, and everywhere you go. The captain says we mustn’t fall overboard now because his boats are full of turtles too, with water. The sailors bring the others on deck every day to have a wash and when you stand them up they look just as if they had pinafores on. They make such a funny sighing and groaning in the night, at first I thought it was everybody being ill, but you get used to it, it is just like people being ill.
And John’s:
My Pearest Parents,
The captain’s son Henry is a wonderful chap, he goes up the rigging with his hands alone, he is ever so strong. He can turn round under a bellying pin without touching the deck, I can’t but I hang from the ratlines by my heels which the sailors say is very brave, but they don’t like Emily doing it, funny. I hope you are both in excellent health, one of the sailors has a monkey but its tail is Sore.
That was the last news they could expect for many months. The Clorinda was not touching anywhere else. It gave Mrs. Thornton a cold feeling in the stomach to measure just how long. But she argued, logically enough, that the time must come to an end, all time does: there is nothing so inexorable as a ship, plodding away, plodding away, all over the place, till at last it quite certainly reaches that small speck on the map which all the time it had intended to reach. Philosophically speaking, a ship in its port of departure is just as much in its port of arrival: two point-events differing in time and place, but not in degree of reality. Ergo, that first letter from England was as good as written, only not quite … legible yet. And the same applied to seeing them. (But here one must stop, for the same argument applied to old age and death, it wouldn’t do.)
Yet, a bare fortnight after the arrival of this first budget, still another letter arrived, from Havana. The Clorinda had put in there unexpectedly, it appeared: the letter was from Captain Marpole.
“What a dear man he is,” said Alice. “He must have known how anxious we would be for every scrap of news.”
Captain Marpole’s letter was not so terse and vivid as the children’s had been: still, for the news it contained, I give it in full:
Havana de Cuba.
Honoured Sir and Madam,
I hasten to write to you to relieve you of any uncertainty!
After leaving the Caymans we stood for the Leeward Passage, and sighted the Isle of Pines and False Cape on the morning of the 19th and Cape S. Antonio in the evening, but were prevented from rounding the same by a true Norther, the first of the season, on the 22nd, however, the wind coming round sufficiently we rounded the cape in a lively fashion and stood N½E. well away from the Coloradoes which are a dangerous reef lying off this part of the Cuban coast. At six o’clock on the morning of the 23rd there being light airs only I sighted three sail in the Northeast, evidently merchantmen bound on the same course as ourselves, at the same time a schooner of similar character was observed standing out towards us from the direction of Black Key, and I pointed her out to my mate just before going below, having the wind of us he was within hailing distance by ten in the morning, judge then of our astonishment when he rudely opened ten or twelve disguised gun-ports and unmasked a whole broadside of artillery trained upon us, ordering us at the
