Midsummer's Eve (22 page)

I felt numb suddenly. I remembered the hopeless look in her eyes. True, I had felt she was better since we all knew. She had my support and that of my parents and Jacco. None of us had allowed a shadow of reproach to come into our attitude; it had been as though we believed there was nothing reprehensible about an unmarried girl’s bringing a baby into the world—and that was, without doubt, contrary to general convention.

We had all declared we would be with her. She was not alone.

And yet … I could not get those words out of my mind.

I hurried along the deck. Perhaps she was still there contemplating this terrible thing. Quite a lot of people thought of it when they were in a situation which seemed too tragic to face, but carrying it out to the conclusion was another matter.

I had to find her.

I went on calling her name. If I had stayed with her instead of going on deck … I ought never to have left her. I should have seen the mood she was in, read the despair in her eyes. How many girls over the centuries had found themselves in such a position after recklessly submitting to the demands of a lover? And how many had taken this way out?

I thought of Aunt Amaryllis who loved her daughter so dearly. I thought of Uncle Peter. What would he think when he heard his daughter had been unable to face the consequences for which he in a way was responsible? John Milward was responsible. Joe was, too, because he had exposed her father and his action had cost Helena her future happiness. I was responsible for not taking care of her, for not seeing the danger signals. It seemed to me like a chain of guilt and I was a link in that chain.

“Helena!” I cried desperately. “Where are you?”

No answer … just the mocking shriek of the wind and the sound of the sea battering the side of the ship.

I staggered along the deck. I must find my father and mother. I must give the alarm. But what could be done? The ship could not turn round and go back. How would they ever find her in such a sea?

I went along the deck as quickly as I could. The wind tore at my cloak; my hair was streaming about my face. I was wet with the spray for the seawater was spilling over the decks.

I clung to the rail and made my progress as quickly as I could. At the end of the deck was a small alcove overhung by a life boat. It was a little sheltered from the wind.

As I approached I saw someone huddled there.

“Helena!” I cried in joy.

Yes, it was indeed Helena and she was not alone. Matthew Hume was sitting close to her.

I hurried into the comparative shelter of the alcove.

“Helena,” I gasped. “I wondered where you were. You gave me a fright.”

She did not speak. She lifted her eyes to my face and they seemed full of tragedy.

Matthew said: “She’s all right now. She’s going to be all right. You’ve nothing to worry about now.”

“Annora has been very good to me,” said Helena. “She is the best friend I ever had.”

“I know,” he said.

She looked at me. “Annora, I was going to do it. It would have been so easy. I thought that in this weather they could have thought—or pretended to think—I had fallen over.”

“What are you saying, Helena?”

“I came up to do it. I thought it the best way. I was thinking I couldn’t go on. It was best for me and the little baby. You see, my child won’t have a name …”

“It will have a name,” I said sternly, “Your name.”

“But that’s not good for a baby. It’s a stigma. It’s not good to come into the world at a disadvantage. It’s bad enough without.”

She was talking as though she were in a trance. I had almost forgotten Matthew Hume.

Then he said: “Come and sit with us, Annora. It’s a little sheltered here.”

I sat down beside Helena.

“I was so worried,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Annora.”

“If you had … do you realize how unhappy we all should have been?”

“Just for a while. It would have been forgotten soon. This time next year you would hardly think of me at all.”

“What nonsense! I should always think of you.” I suddenly realized that Matthew Hume knew our secret.

I said to him: “I’m sorry you’ve been brought into all this.”

“I thank God I was. It was fortuitous. Here I was just at the right moment. There is a purpose in it. I was sent on this ship for just this.”

He was, of course, an idealist and I thought at the moment I needed someone who was practical, like either of my parents.

“Yes,” said Helena, “I was going to do it. I wanted it to seem like an accident. It could have. It could seem as though I had come up here for some fresh air and fallen overboard.”

“Helena, how could you think of doing such a thing? How could you hurt us so!”

“I didn’t think. I just believed that it would be better for us all.”

I put my arm round her and held her against me.

I said: “I am going to take you back to the cabin. You’re going to lie down.”

“No,” she said. “I want to stay here. I feel comforted by you … both of you. Matthew knows about everything. I’ve told him.”

“I knew there was some trouble,” he said. “I did not know of what kind. I have just been praying that I could help, and this was God’s answer. I was here at the right moment.”

“You saved me from that,” said Helena.

“Thank you, Matthew,” I said.

“Now we have to convince her that she must never try to do this again. It’s wicked. It’s criminal. It’s taking life … your own and your child’s.”

“Yes,” said Helena, “I know. But I felt so lost and frightened. I really don’t know how I can go on. I know that Annora and her parents will look after me until the baby is born, but what then? I’ve got to go on for the rest of my life with everyone knowing that I have a child and no husband. How can I do that?”

“You can,” I said. “We’re going to help you.”

Silence fell on us and we sat there for a long time listening to the sea thrashing the sides of the ship.

There seemed to grow up between Helena and Matthew a special relationship. He had saved her and I was sure he could not help feeling a glow of satisfaction because of that. Anyone would be gratified to save someone’s life—but with Matthew it went deeper than that. He had made it his mission in life to succour his fellow human beings and Helena had given him the most obvious chance he had ever had.

He talked to her a great deal about his object in life. I would come upon them sitting in the alcove; he would be talking and she would be staring out to sea; whether she was listening or not I was not sure, but she sat on silently while he talked.

We went ashore at Capetown—a party of us, as we had done in Madeira. It was wonderful, after so much rough weather at sea, to be on dry land and in warm sunshine. Moreover Capetown will always be for me one of the most beautiful places in the world. I think it was because I felt happy on that day.

I was so relieved that Helena was still with us. I could not have borne it if she had succeeded. In my heart I should have blamed Joe and I could never forget the sight of him, standing there putting the incriminating papers into his pocket. Between them he and Uncle Peter had ruined Helena’s life; and I had played my little part in the drama by making Joe’s task easy.

But she had been saved in time by Matthew and from now on I was going to be extra watchful. I looked at the blue calm waters, the great Table Mountain and the beautiful Bay and I felt more at peace than I had for a long time.

The day passed all too quickly and we were at sea again. Now we were in the calm and peaceful waters of the Indian Ocean and delightful weather seemed to have its effect on us all.

Helena said to me: “I wish I could go on sailing like this forever. I never want this to stop. But it will have to soon and then …”

I said: “Remember we are here with you, and when the baby is born we are going to love it so much that everything will have been worthwhile.”

“Promise you won’t leave me,” she said. “Promise you’ll stay with me forever.”

“I will be with you as long as you need me.”

She smiled and seemed almost happy.

We were astounded when the news broke.

Matthew announced it after we left the dinner table. There were my parents, Jacco and I, and of course Matthew and Helena and the Prevosts.

Matthew said: “Helena and I are going to be married.”

We all stared at them. We had seen no real sign that there was any special attraction between them. Of course they had talked now and then, but Matthew was so enthusiastic about his mission in life that he talked earnestly about it to anyone who would listen.

For a few seconds no one spoke. Jacco recovered himself first.

“Well, congratulations. They say this sort of thing does happen on ships.”

“Helena and I have made up our minds,” said Matthew. “We shall be married as soon as we reach Sydney.”

My mother kissed Helena and I said: “I hope you will be very happy, dear Helena.”

“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.