The Man behind the Legend: Memoirs, Autobiographical Novels & Essays of Jack London. Jack London
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been a sailor, and sailors, I have heard, are—are—”
Her voice faltered and died away.
“Are addicted to having a wife in every port?” he suggested. “Is that what you mean?”
“Yes,” she answered in a low voice.
“But that is not love.” He spoke authoritatively. “I have been in many ports, but I never knew a passing touch of love until I saw you that first night. Do you know, when I said good night and went away, I was almost arrested.”
“Arrested?”
“Yes. The policeman thought I was drunk; and I was, too—with love for you.”
“But you said we were children, and I said it was impossible, for you, and we have strayed away from the point.”
“I said that I never loved anybody but you,” he replied. “You are my first, my very first.”
“And yet you have been a sailor,” she objected.
“But that doesn’t prevent me from loving you the first.”
“And there have been women—other women—oh!”
And to Martin Eden’s supreme surprise, she burst into a storm of tears that took more kisses than one and many caresses to drive away. And all the while there was running through his head Kipling’s line: “And the Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under their skins.” It was true, he decided; though the novels he had read had led him to believe otherwise. His idea, for which the novels were responsible, had been that only formal proposals obtained in the upper classes. It was all right enough, down whence he had come, for youths and maidens to win each other by contact; but for the exalted personages up above on the heights to make love in similar fashion had seemed unthinkable. Yet the novels were wrong. Here was a proof of it. The same pressures and caresses, unaccompanied by speech, that were efficacious with the girls of the working-class, were equally efficacious with the girls above the working-class. They were all of the same flesh, after all, sisters under their skins; and he might have known as much himself had he remembered his Spencer. As he held Ruth in his arms and soothed her, he took great consolation in the thought that the Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady were pretty much alike under their skins. It brought Ruth closer to him, made her possible. Her dear flesh was as anybody’s flesh, as his flesh. There was no bar to their marriage. Class difference was the only difference, and class was extrinsic. It could be shaken off. A slave, he had read, had risen to the Roman purple. That being so, then he could rise to Ruth. Under her purity, and saintliness, and culture, and ethereal beauty of soul, she was, in things fundamentally human, just like Lizzie Connolly and all Lizzie Connollys. All that was possible of them was possible of her. She could love, and hate, maybe have hysterics; and she could certainly be jealous, as she was jealous now, uttering her last sobs in his arms.
“Besides, I am older than you,” she remarked suddenly, opening her eyes and looking up at him, “three years older.”
“Hush, you are only a child, and I am forty years older than you, in experience,” was his answer.
In truth, they were children together, so far as love was concerned, and they were as naive and immature in the expression of their love as a pair of children, and this despite the fact that she was crammed with a university education and that his head was full of scientific philosophy and the hard facts of life.
They sat on through the passing glory of the day, talking as lovers are prone to talk, marvelling at the wonder of love and at destiny that had flung them so strangely together, and dogmatically believing that they loved to a degree never attained by lovers before. And they returned insistently, again and again, to a rehearsal of their first impressions of each other and to hopeless attempts to analyze just precisely what they felt for each other and how much there was of it.
The cloud-masses on the western horizon received the descending sun, and the circle of the sky turned to rose, while the zenith glowed with the same warm color. The rosy light was all about them, flooding over them, as she sang, “Good-by, Sweet Day.” She sang softly, leaning in the cradle of his arm, her hands in his, their hearts in each other’s hands.
Chapter XXII
Mrs. Morse did not require a mother’s intuition to read the advertisement in Ruth’s face when she returned home. The flush that would not leave the cheeks told the simple story, and more eloquently did the eyes, large and bright, reflecting an unmistakable inward glory.
“What has happened?” Mrs. Morse asked, having bided her time till Ruth had gone to bed.
“You know?” Ruth queried, with trembling lips.
For reply, her mother’s arm went around her, and a hand was softly caressing her hair.
“He did not speak,” she blurted out. “I did not intend that it should happen, and I would never have let him speak—only he didn’t speak.”
“But if he did not speak, then nothing could have happened, could it?”
“But it did, just the same.”
“In the name of goodness, child, what are you babbling about?” Mrs. Morse was bewildered. “I don’t think I know what happened, after all. What did happen?”
Ruth looked at her mother in surprise.
“I thought you knew. Why, we’re engaged, Martin and I.”
Mrs. Morse laughed with incredulous vexation.
“No, he didn’t speak,” Ruth explained. “He just loved me, that was all. I was as surprised as you are. He didn’t say a word. He just put his arm around me. And—and I was not myself. And he kissed me, and I kissed him. I couldn’t help it. I just had to. And then I knew I loved him.”
She paused, waiting with expectancy the benediction of her mother’s kiss, but Mrs. Morse was coldly silent.
“It is a dreadful accident, I know,” Ruth recommenced with a sinking voice. “And I don’t know how you will ever forgive me. But I couldn’t help it. I did not dream that I loved him until that moment. And you must tell father for me.”
“Would it not be better not to tell your father? Let me see Martin Eden, and talk with him, and explain. He will understand and release you.”
“No! no!” Ruth cried, starting up. “I do not want to be released. I love him, and love is very sweet. I am going to marry him—of course, if you will let me.”
“We have other plans for you, Ruth, dear, your father and I—oh, no, no; no man picked out for you, or anything like that. Our plans go no farther than your marrying some man in your own station in life, a good and honorable gentleman, whom you will select yourself, when you love him.”
“But I love Martin already,” was the plaintive protest.
“We would not influence your choice in any way; but you are our daughter, and we could not bear to see you make a marriage such as this. He has nothing but roughness and coarseness to offer you in exchange for all that is refined and delicate in you. He is no match for you in any way. He could not support you. We have no foolish ideas about wealth, but comfort is another matter, and our daughter should at least marry a man who can give her that—and not a penniless adventurer, a sailor, a cowboy, a smuggler, and Heaven knows what else, who, in addition to everything, is hare-brained and irresponsible.”
Ruth was silent. Every word she recognized as true.
“He wastes his time over his writing, trying to accomplish what geniuses and rare men with college educations sometimes accomplish. A man thinking of marriage should be preparing for marriage. But not he. As I have said, and I know you agree with me, he is irresponsible. And why should he not be? It is the way of sailors. He