The last days had come. They were staying at Liverpool at the North
Western Hotel: and Dyke, although as sweet to her as ever, was
preoccupied with final business. He hurried to and fro about this
new strange city unaccompanied by her now, talked in her presence
of such abstruse matters as the charter-party, bills of lading,
the ship’s clearance papers, and had no time to teach her what
it all meant. In some mysterious manner the agent of the owners
of the ship had “got upon his nerves,” as he said; but he was
long-suffering and indulgent towards this gentleman, permitting
himself no explosions; even asking him to dine at the hotel with
Captain Cairns, the first mate, and other men. They had a round
table in a corner of the big room, drank a great deal of champagne,
and talked rather too loudly for the comfort of their neighbours.
Miss Verinder’s table was at a distance, right on the other side of
the room, where she sat quite alone and ate her dinner with little
appetite. Dyke came over to her once, bowed to her, and stood by
the table; outwardly just a friend or an hotel acquaintance, a
person upon whom she had no claims of any kind. But he looked down
at her with eloquent eyes, and whisperingly told her how terrible
it was to be separated from her for one of their last three
evenings.
She understood. He was constant and loyal as ever; the only change
in him was what every woman must fatally see in the man she loves
when he begins to take up again a man’s job. She understood--only
it made her heart ache; and while telling the waiter that she did
not require any more of the dinner but would like a cup of coffee,
she thought of the essential force of those two hackneyed and
inexact words. A heartache! Of course her heart was not really
aching, and yet it _felt_ like that; the pain was mental, yet it
seemed physical--this dull oppressive discomfort that had taken the
taste away from the food, the colour from surrounding objects, the
brilliancy from the electric light, suggested something primitive
and instinctive that might be shared by dumb animals quite low down
the scale; say the young sheep driven into a different gate from
that through which its companion passed as they both approached the
shambles; or, at highest, the sensations of a dog when it loses its
master.
Separation. Anthony’s own word echoed itself as she sipped her
coffee and glanced across the room to the corner where he was being
jolly with an unexplained purpose to that agent of the shipowners.
She was losing him by inches; every moment those men, that ship,
the breezes of the wide estuary, the trackless ocean, and the call
of plains and hills that she had never seen were taking him bit
by bit even while he was still here. It was not like the end of a
dance; or the falling of a curtain at the end of a play, or the
blowing out of candles when the feast is over; it was like night
slowly creeping into a lampless room, where you have to sit and
wait, watching the walls fade and the window frames grow fainter,
until it is quite dark. Her world would be such a room to her when
the slow separation had been completed and she was finally alone.
Her brain and not her heart ached now, as for a few moments she
allowed herself to think of what separation would really mean to
her. Her eyes smarted, her throat grew hot, her head was full
of the dully throbbing anguish. She could scarcely breathe.
Then she drove thought away again, beating it from her with the
verbal weapons she had prepared against this emergency; saying to
herself, “It is wrong of me. I must not be selfish. I must look at
everything from his point of view. I know very well that if it were
in my power to keep him, I would urge him to go.”
And beneath the words and the thoughts and the pain, she had
now the sense of unreality or impossibility. They could not be
separated in this manner. Some chance would intervene; by no
action of her own but by some eleventh hour leniency of fate, the
consummation of the catastrophe would be prevented or at least
retarded; nature itself would recoil from adding this one more to
its tale of endless cruelties. It was with Miss Verinder, finishing
her coffee, as with children when they think of death, believing
that death is something that will certainly happen, and yet, owing
to some failure of the thought-machine at their disposal, being
unable to believe in its possibility.
It could not be that if on the fourth night from now she entered
this great dining-hall, she would find apparently the same crowd
of travellers, the swing-doors opening and shutting, the waiters
going round asking people whether they wanted any liqueur with
their coffee--and yet no Anthony Dyke to be seen or heard anywhere.
It could not be that she should creep back to London, a broken
useless thing wanted by nobody, and that her lover would have gone
from her for years if not for ever. It _must_ be impossible that
so strong, so overwhelmingly real a thing as he, should fade out
of her life and take his place among such weak impalpable things
as ghosts or dreams or haunting memories; that he for whom she had
forsaken and renounced her home, her parents, her friends, every
precept of education, every habit of the mind, should become again
scarcely more to her than he had been three months ago--a name in a
newspaper.
She went out of the room, and a party of travellers at the
nearest table to hers thought her a good-looking but hard sort
of young woman--too proud and defiantly British for their
taste--and, considering her youthfulness, too self-possessed and
self-satisfied. Did you hear how she spoke to the waiter? “No, no
liqueur, thank you.” Just like that--so off-hand.
Miss Verinder had the same air of hardness and resolution, together
with a new and metallic form of gaiety, next morning when Dyke took
her with him to visit the ship. The _Mercedaria_--a steamer of
about three thousand tons--had come out into the river now, and she
lay moored in the bright but soft sunlight towards the Birkenhead
shore. With her one tall funnel and two raking masts, she looked,
not only small, but a battered and rather disreputable kind of
tramp, when compared with the lofty shining mass of a big liner a
little higher up the river. But she loomed up high and solid, as
their boat passed under her stern.
Dyke took the honoured visitor here and there about the vessel,
showing her first the saloon, and what they pompously called the
state rooms. This accommodation, although originally planned for
a few passengers as well as the ship’s officers, seemed to Miss
Verinder’s untutored eye appallingly inadequate and restricted
for so long a voyage. The state rooms were but dark and stuffy
cupboards, with a bunk in each. A rough partition of woodwork,
left plain and unvarnished, had been erected athwartship at the
back of the saloon, which itself was a dull malodorous den, with
a table surrounded by seven permanently fixed swivel chairs. A
large oil lamp hung beneath a skylight above the table, and really,
this was all of furniture or decoration. It was a relief to emerge
on the upper deck, and feel again the air and warmth. Here Dyke
showed her the chart-room--quite a comfortable retreat--immediately
below the bridge, with leather cushions to its benches and printed
certificates in frames against the wall.
An unshaved but smiling steward or cook followed them up, to say
that by the orders of Captain Cairns he had put out a bottle of
champagne and some biscuits down below, for the lady. Captain
Cairns himself, immensely improved in appearance now that he was
wearing uniform, welcomed her very courteously, and said he only
wished that she was going with them across the sea. He was busy,
Captain Cairns, making these kindly civilities brief and to the
point, and then at once resuming his task. There were lighters
alongside, and the last of the cargo was being hoisted on board by
the noisy rattling steam winches.
On this pleasant sunny morning the very air seemed full of bustling
activity; the whole stream was alive with traffic; crowded steam
ferry-boats shot diagonally across it, and made their practised
curves, as they glided to the huge landing-stages. Tugs whistling
insistently went up and down, together with strings of barges;
and farther off, one saw the long forest of masts that told of
unceasing trade. It was as though everybody was hurrying to get
away, and the great city itself, seen from here with diminished
eminence and towers and domes brought together by the distance,
seemed to be sitting on the waters, calmly meditating in the midst
of a foolish tumult.
Miss Verinder stood near a boat that hung inboard on its davits,
with her gloved hand on the rail and her gauze scarf gently
stirring in the friendly breeze, while she talked and smiled,
gaily and cheerfully. This is the woman’s portion. One must not
say anything, or do anything, to bother one’s man or to lower his
spirits when he is taking up his own burden of care and anxiety.
She watched, with intelligent interest, the toil of the sailors and
the winches, as the wooden cases one after another came up from
the hidden barge, swung round, and disappeared in their proper
hold. This part of the cargo, as Dyke explained, was coming in
last because it would go out first. The sailors, he assured her,
although they certainly looked a shabby untrimmed gang, apparently
of all nationalities too, were a real good lot. Oh, yes, one could
trust old Cairns for that, and everything else.
With her heart aching rather worse than last night, Miss Verinder
laughed and showed most intelligent interest.
Some of the big cases had on them, marked roughly in black paint,
the words, “Bicycles” and “Bicycle accessories.” Oh, yes, of
course, this was that consignment of which Dyke had spoken. The
bicycles for the people of Uruguay, all bitten with the fashionable
craze--the bicycles, of which the mere notion had caused Mr.
Cairns to laugh so uproariously. Making conversation, she reminded
Dyke of the Captain’s humour.
But Dyke looked at her doubtfully. Indeed his whole face clouded
and he answered with a strange glumness. Then abruptly he took
her by the arm, drawing her across the deck to the corresponding
boat on the other side. There he told her firmly that he could not
allow the continuance of a deception, however trifling. He could
not leave her in the dark about anything in any way concerning him.
Between him and her there must not be a secret, even though the
secret was devoid of all importance. Well then, he had to confess,
or rather to inform her, that all these bicycles--and he looked
round to be sure that they were not overheard--those bicycles,
don’t you know, were not really bicycles. No, they were, in fact,
rifles, and so forth, technically known as small arms.
“But, Anthony,” said Miss Verinder, looking at him timidly but
intently, “isn’t that what you call gun-running?”
“Oh, no, I don’t call it that. I shouldn’t think of calling
it that, Emmie,” and he laughed. With a very uncharacteristic
confusion, even sheepishness, he answered her further questions. He
had released her arm, and he stood there really like a naughty boy
answering a governess. He could only try to laugh it off. He had no
excuses.
“But, Anthony, isn’t it dangerous?”
His eyes gave a flash, and sheepishness vanished.
“Oh, I know _that_ wouldn’t deter you, Tony. But, I mean, isn’t it
against the law?”
“Well, there’s no revolution in Uruguay--not at this minute,
anyhow. I don’t pretend to any blind respect for the law; but I
don’t see why the law should object. No,” and he laughed now with
unembarrassed cheerfulness. “If they don’t stop us here, they won’t
stop us out there. So don’t you worry, darling. If we get safe out
of the Mersey, I promise we’ll get safe into Rio Grande.”
* * * * *
It was their last day. After a misty morning there had been a
little rain, then the dark sky fought the sunlight, and now a
settled gloom lay on the town and the river, with presages of more
rain. Smoke was rolling languidly from the _Mercedaria’s_ ugly
yellow funnel. She was to sail before night. She was to sail in
five hours.
Miss Verinder wandered about her disconsolately, and talked to
Dyke from time to time. He was very busy. Down below Reynolds, the
steward or cook, was busy too; in his shirt sleeves, packing away
all kinds of light consumable stores in the narrow compartment
that was his whole realm. She gave money to Reynolds, begged him
to take care of Mr. Dyke as well as he could. Reynolds promised.
She sat for a long while alone on the bunk in Dyke’s cabin, staring
at trunks that were like old friends to her, trunks that had
been in his room at the hotel such a little while ago; and she
fingered many parcels all thrown down there on the bunk, the things
she had bought for him yesterday and the day before--comforts,
contrivances, and books. That small square parcel contained the
poems of Tennyson. He loved them--especially the _Idylls of the
King_. Both head and heart were aching so intolerably that she had
to clench her hands sometimes; and her breathing was affected. She
felt that she might suffocate if she did not have more air, and
yet she did not like to go up to the deck where Dyke and Cairns
were busy with some one in the chart-room. Down here, in this small
buried cabin, she had a feeling that the ship was enormous, a
monster of the deep now gathering energy, angrily shivering, like
the men on the upper deck panting to get to work.
Then she heard Dyke’s voice calling to her, and she went up with
him. He said that he had been looking for her everywhere. As she
came out into the daylight he noticed her whiteness, and saw that
sharpened, hardened aspect of the face that had once impressed
itself on the attention of her father. Her nose seemed much too
thin, her chin much too pointed and the almost colourless lips
were drawn inward by an ugly contraction; seeing her thus, no
sane person could have described her as a pretty girl, indeed it
would have been kind not to call her plain; but this marring of
her beauty, this swift disfigurement, for one who not only knew
the cause but was himself the cause stirred deeper wells of love
and made admiration more poignantly sincere. He took her twitching
fingers, and in a husky whisper muttered words of encouragement and
hope.
“It--it’s quite all right, Tony. I--I’ll not disgrace you.”
“You see, Emmie dear. The time will pass,” he mumbled. “Back soon
as I can.”
“Yes--I know. But not too soon--not--not till you’ve done your
work.”
For perhaps seventy seconds they stood holding hands, and looking
at each other.
“Anthony.”
“Oh, Emmie. It’s awful, isn’t it?”
Then some one shouted to him. Some one had just come up the side.
“You’ll let me stay to the last moment, won’t you?” she said, with
a spasmodic clutch of her fingers. “You won’t send me ashore, till
you need?”
“No, no,” he said, hurrying away.
It was now about three in the afternoon, and during the next hour
she had but flying sentences from him at long intervals. Worrying,
annoying things, as she gathered, occupied all his thoughts. Men
came and went. There were gusts of loud swearing in the chart-room
and confidential irritable exchanges as Captain Cairns appeared
and disappeared. Then there was talk of the pilot. Something was
very much on Anthony’s nerves, obviously; she learned from his
snatches of explanation that this concerned certain formalities
that should have been completed but were not--the ship’s papers not
yet absolutely in order, clearances still required, the port or
custom-house authorities rubbed the wrong way by sheer stupidness
and now becoming troublesome when there was no leisure to soothe
them? She did not know. She only knew that Anthony was angry, using
strong language and saying he would go and attend to it himself
since he could trust nobody else.
There was a second cause for annoyance. Four or five of the crew
were on shore instead of on board--five, perhaps six of Cairns’s
international mob absent, playing the fool, getting drunk, what
not, just as their services were urgently required. Cairns was as
angry as Dyke about this. The second mate must go off in a boat
at once and bring those men aboard dead or alive, with or without
their kit; and Dyke exploded, roaring threats--advising the captain
to put them in irons after breaking their bones. And then, with
more talk of another boat, a boat for Mr. Dyke; with more talk
about the pilot, the tide, those papers--then, after all this,
suddenly, Miss Verinder understood. The ship was going to sail
before its time. The ship was going to sail as soon as it possibly
could.
“Yes, my darling, yes. No, you can’t stay now. I’m going ashore
myself. I haven’t a minute to spare. Come along.”
As they were rowed away from the ship the other boat parted from
them, and Dyke shouted further menaces across the water. He was
worried, irritated, answering his Emmie’s questions automatically.
She sat bolt upright, rigid, so that her slim body jerked all in
one piece as the rowers plunged their oars faster and faster, but
she still showed a sympathetic intelligent interest. Replying to
her quite sensible inquiries, Dyke told her at which landing-place
the mate’s boat would lie waiting for those men; also that if the
mate failed to find the absentees he would return to the ship
without them. If Dyke could polish off his rather ticklish bit of
business, he intended that the ship should leave her moorings in
two hours.
“So it’s good-bye, Emmie”--they were close to the shore
now--“Good-bye, my best--my dearest--my only love.”
She did not reply, she could not reply. This manner of parting with
him was too bitter. It was too bitter.
He hurried her across the landing-stage and through the crowd on
the sloped bridge, put her into a cab, and told the driver to
take her to the hotel. One more squeeze of the hand, and he had
vanished. She could not see if he jumped into another cab himself
or crossed the wide roadway towards lofty buildings on the other
side. Anyhow he was about his business. It had begun to rain, a
gust of cold wind swept through the cab windows.
At the hotel, as she passed his room, the door stood open, and
she saw the chambermaid with brush and broom making its emptiness
neat and clean for another lodger. There was a litter of crumpled
newspapers on the tiled hearth; the low table on which he packed
his last valise had been pushed away from the foot of the bed; and
the window curtains were looped up high, to keep them out of the
dust that the broom was making.
Miss Verinder went into her own room, and remained for a minute
motionless, with clenched hands, struggling for breath. This
parting was too bitter--much too bitter. It was more than she
could bear. She rang the bell, and continued to ring it until the
chambermaid came to help her. Then she began to pack, with feverish
haste.
* * * * *
Dusk was falling rapidly and the port light of the _Mercedaria_
made a red reflection in the grey stream when, after less than two
hours, Dyke got back on board. He had achieved his object, but he
roared in anger again at hearing that the mate had not returned
with those men.
They came while he was still shouting. Their boat was alongside.
They were coming up the ladder. Captain Cairns, on the bridge with
the pilot, looked down at the vague clambering forms and cursed
them one by one and all together. They were in tarpaulin coats,
clutching at their bundles or chests and seeming to have an absurd
amount of baggage; one at least of them--if not every one of them,
as the Captain said--appeared to be drunk. The others had to aid
him as he sprang weakly and clumsily from the boat to the ladder.
Then soon the _Mercedaria_ began to glide down the river, emitting
a melancholy siren blast to demand her rights of way. They were
off. The dusk was deepening, the rain swept along with them;
all was greyness, mistiness, and smoke, and the city towers and
pinnacles seemed to sink lower and to fade behind banks of cloud,
below which hundreds of lights began to twinkle feebly. The
wretchedness and misery of departure enveloped the whole broad
estuary.
Dyke had put on a waterproof and a sou’wester, and he prowled to
and fro below the bridge gazing across the water, now on this side,
now on that. He was quiet now, and yet not altogether easy in his
mind. The fretfulness caused by dread of delay and interruption
could not immediately be subdued, and perhaps certain doubts still
lingered. He went down to the lower deck, made his way aft and
stood for a while right at the stern, looking out intently. One
might have supposed that he was now silently brooding on his love,
sadly thinking of the girl he had left behind him; but in truth he
thought only of the voyage and the venture. Watching and waiting,
as the low land slid away and the darkness fell, he was wondering
if a steam pinnace with those confounded custom-house people would
come racing after him, and feeling that he would like to sink them
if they came. But nothing happened. It was all right.
He went up again to the chart-room and stood there, cheerful,
rubbing his hands. He slapped jolly old Cairns on the back and
the two sat there for a bit, drinking whisky and water, and gaily
chatting, like two schoolboys glorying in the success of their
latest prank.
* * * * *
The pilot had been dropped. It was black night now and the
_Mercedaria_ was safely out at sea; rain and wind drove at her as
she ploughed across the pleasant heave and swell, rolling scarcely
at all, but filled with throbbings and vibrations--with delightful
sounds too, of orders repeated through the darkness, the scurry of
footsteps, of the rudder chains clanking in their grooves, the work
of her screw, the splash of water against her bows: sounds that
are so stimulating and seductive to those who delight in journeys
by sea, but so insidiously distressing, so suggestive of augmented
woe, to those unpractised in the ways of the unsteady deep.
Every throb and murmur rejoiced the heart of Dyke; the very
smells of the ship were refreshing to him. Some of them rose,
to welcome and cheer, as he went down the companion-way towards
the comfortable lamp-light of the saloon. There was the peculiar
characteristic stuffiness, with odours of leather, stale salt
water, and dead fish, enriched at the moment by the efforts of
Reynolds the steward frying meat and onions in grease, and that oil
lamp burning cheerily but with a smoky flame.
Dyke stood in the saloon doorway, his face all wet, his beard
glistening, and the water falling from his coat to the floor. He
stood there, dripping but full of enjoyment, for one moment; then
Reynolds in the cuddy heard him shout.
“Great heavens! Emmie!”
She was calmly sitting at the table, with the lamp-light on her
white face; and she spoke to him in gentle pleading tones.
“Don’t be angry with me.”
But he was angry, terribly angry; with himself or fate, rather than
with her. He did not speak harshly or unkindly to her herself, but
he addressed the woodwork, the skylight, and all inanimate things
with dreadful severity. He waved his arms, he pulled at his hair;
never had she seen him so agitated, so perturbed.
“Tony dear, what does it matter?”
He said that her presence there had put him in a hideously false
position. He said that he must not of course blame her; what she
had done was noble, heroic, angelic; only he ought to have warned
her of the disastrous effect of such an act. “Emmie, you reckless
self-sacrificing saint, you really have carted me. You’ve made me
break my solemn promise. In all my life I’ve never gone back on my
word. My old father foresaw, he feared--and I gave him my word of
honour that I wouldn’t take you out of England.”
Poor Miss Verinder said forlornly, “You must tell your father the
fault is mine. It is I who have run away with you, not you with me.”
But Dyke then said they must stop the ship and land her as soon
as possible. He would go and consult with Captain Cairns. Miss
Verinder said no, she begged him not to think of doing that; she
would go with him to their port of destination and then quietly
return to England. Deprecatingly she explained that she had not
planned this treacherous act, she had never meant to do anything at
all on her own initiative or without his explicit approval; but the
accelerated departure, that hasty good-bye, the bundling her into a
cab and disappearing, had been too much for her. Then the thought
had come of the mate’s boat lying there waiting--and then “Tony, I
had to do it. I couldn’t, I _couldn’t_ help it.” And she concluded
with urgent entreaties that Mr. O’Donnell, the second mate, should
not be made to suffer for her imprudence. Mr. O’Donnell, she said,
had at first strongly objected to bring her off, but she had not
been quite truthful to Mr. O’Donnell. She had “over-persuaded” Mr.
O’Donnell. After that he had been kindness itself; lending her one
of the men’s coats, helping her out of the boat, troubling about
her luggage.
“Tony!” and she stretched out her hand.
She was deadly pale, trembling a little, and her dark hair hung
down loosely about her pleading eyes. Dyke stooped over her and
kissed her cold forehead.
“Emmie!”
Reynolds came in with a tray of plates, and was followed by heavy
waves of that odour of fried steak and onions; he fixed the tray to
the table in some ingenious manner, and every time the _Mercedaria_
softly heaved the plates made a musical clatter. Those invisible
chains rumbled behind Miss Verinder’s head, and before her eyes
two scuttles with brass bolts slowly sank a few feet and as slowly
rose. She shivered, but went on talking; her gentle voice a little
shaky, but very sweet still.
“And I meant--dear Tony--not to give anybody any trouble--not to
get in anybody’s way. But now I fear--that I may not be quite well
on the voyage--at least at first. Tony!” And she looked at him
despairingly.
“I do feel so ill. Can I go and lie down anywhere?”