The Girl on the Boat | Page 2

world-famous writer on
Theosophy, the author of "The Spreading Light," "What of the
Morrow," and all the rest of that well-known series? I'm glad you asked
me. Yes, she was. She had come over to America on a lecturing tour.
About this time there was a good deal of suffering in the United States,
for nearly every boat that arrived from England was bringing a fresh
swarm of British lecturers to the country. Novelists, poets, scientists,
philosophers, and plain, ordinary bores; some herd instinct seemed to
affect them all simultaneously. It was like one of those great race
movements of the Middle Ages. Men and women of widely differing
views on religion, art, politics, and almost every other subject; on this
one point the intellectuals of Great Britain were single-minded, that
there was easy money to be picked up on the lecture-platforms of
America, and that they might just as well grab it as the next person.
Mrs. Hignett had come over with the first batch of immigrants; for,
spiritual as her writings were, there was a solid streak of business sense
in this woman, and she meant to get hers while the getting was good.
She was half way across the Atlantic with a complete itinerary booked,
before ninety per cent. of the poets and philosophers had finished
sorting out their clean collars and getting their photographs taken for
the passport.
She had not left England without a pang, for departure had involved
sacrifices. More than anything else in the world she loved her charming
home, Windles, in the county of Hampshire, for so many years the seat
of the Hignett family. Windles was as the breath of life to her. Its shady
walks, its silver lake, its noble elms, the old grey stone of its
walls--these were bound up with her very being. She felt that she
belonged to Windles, and Windles to her. Unfortunately, as a matter of
cold, legal accuracy, it did not. She did but hold it in trust for her son,
Eustace, until such time as he should marry and take possession of it
himself. There were times when the thought of Eustace marrying and
bringing a strange woman to Windles chilled Mrs. Hignett to her very
marrow. Happily, her firm policy of keeping her son permanently under
her eye at home and never permitting him to have speech with a female

below the age of fifty, had averted the peril up till now.
Eustace had accompanied his mother to America. It was his faint snores
which she could hear in the adjoining room as, having bathed and
dressed, she went down the hall to where breakfast awaited her. She
smiled tolerantly. She had never desired to convert her son to her own
early-rising habits, for, apart from not allowing him to call his soul his
own, she was an indulgent mother. Eustace would get up at half-past
nine, long after she had finished breakfast, read her correspondence,
and started her duties for the day.
Breakfast was on the table in the sitting-room, a modest meal of rolls,
porridge, and imitation coffee. Beside the pot containing this hell-brew,
was a little pile of letters. Mrs. Hignett opened them as she ate. The
majority were from disciples and dealt with matters of purely
theosophical interest. There was an invitation from the Butterfly Club,
asking her to be the guest of honour at their weekly dinner. There was a
letter from her brother Mallaby--Sir Mallaby Marlowe, the eminent
London lawyer--saying that his son Sam, of whom she had never
approved, would be in New York shortly, passing through on his way
back to England, and hoping that she would see something of him.
Altogether a dull mail. Mrs. Hignett skimmed through it without
interest, setting aside one or two of the letters for Eustace, who acted as
her unpaid secretary, to answer later in the day.
She had just risen from the table, when there was a sound of voices in
the hall, and presently the domestic staff, a gaunt Irish lady of advanced
years, entered the room.
"Ma'am, there was a gentleman."
Mrs. Hignett was annoyed. Her mornings were sacred.
"Didn't you tell him I was not to be disturbed?"
"I did not. I loosed him into the parlour." The staff remained for a
moment in melancholy silence, then resumed. "He says he's your
nephew. His name's Marlowe."

Mrs. Hignett experienced no diminution of her annoyance. She had not
seen her nephew Sam for ten years, and would have been willing to
extend the period. She remembered him as an untidy small boy who
once or twice, during his school holidays, had disturbed the cloistral
peace of Windles with his beastly presence. However, blood being
thicker than water, and all that sort of thing, she supposed she