Well I don't know. If it had come to that she would have been most
likely fished out, what with her natural want of luck and the good many
people on the quay and on board. And just where the Ferndale was
moored there hung on a wall (I know the berth) a coil of line, a pole,
and a life-buoy kept there on purpose to save people who tumble into the
dock. It's not so easy to get away from life's betrayals as she thought.
However it did not come to that. He followed her with his quick gliding
walk. Mr. Smith! The liberated convict de Barral passed off the solid
earth for the last time, vanished for ever, and there was Mr. Smith added
to that world of waters which harbours so many queer fishes. An old
gentleman in a silk hat, darting wary glances. He followed, because mere
existence has its claims which are obeyed mechanically. I have no doubt
he presented a respectable figure. Father-in-law. Nothing more
respectable. But he carried in his heart the confused pain of dismay and
affection, of involuntary repulsion and pity. Very much like his
daughter. Only in addition he felt a furious jealousy of the man he was
going to see.
A residue of egoism remains in every affection--even paternal. And this
man in the seclusion of his prison had thought himself into such a sense
of ownership of that single human being he had to think about, as may
well be inconceivable to us who have not had to serve a long (and
wickedly unjust) sentence of penal servitude. She was positively the
only thing, the one point where his thoughts found a resting-place, for
years. She was the only outlet for his imagination. He had not much of
that faculty to be sure, but there was in it the force of concentration.
He felt outraged, and perhaps it was an absurdity on his part, but I
venture to suggest rather in degree than in kind. I have a notion that
no usual, normal father is pleased at parting with his daughter. No. Not
even when he rationally appreciates "Jane being taken off his hands" or
perhaps is able to exult at an excellent match. At bottom, quite deep
down, down in the dark (in some cases only by digging), there is to be
found a certain repugnance . . . With mothers of course it is different.
Women are more loyal, not to each other, but to their common femininity
which they behold triumphant with a secret and proud satisfaction.
The circumstances of that match added to Mr. Smith's indignation. And if
he followed his daughter into that ship's cabin it was as if into a house
of disgrace and only because he was still bewildered by the suddenness of
the thing. His will, so long lying fallow, was overborne by her
determination and by a vague fear of that regained liberty.