Generally she would remain mute with wide open eyes gazing at nothing
between the gnarled fruit trees. Once, however, she got up and walked
into the cottage. Mr. Smith followed her carrying the chair. He banged
it down resolutely and in that smooth inexpressive tone so many ears used
to bend eagerly to catch when it came from the Great de Barral he said:
"Let's get away."
She had the strength of mind not to spin round. On the contrary she went
on to a shabby bit of a mirror on the wall. In the greenish glass her
own face looked far off like the livid face of a drowned corpse at the
bottom of a pool. She laughed faintly.
"I tell you that man's getting--"
"Papa," she interrupted him. "I have no illusions as to myself. It has
happened to me before but--"
Her voice failing her suddenly her father struck in with quite an
unwonted animation. "Let's make a rush for it, then."
Having mastered both her fright and her bitterness, she turned round, sat
down and allowed her astonishment to be seen. Mr. Smith sat down too,
his knees together and bent at right angles, his thin legs parallel to
each other and his hands resting on the arms of the wooden arm-chair. His
hair had grown long, his head was set stiffly, there was something
fatuously venerable in his aspect.
"You can't care for him. Don't tell me. I understand your motive. And
I have called you an unfortunate girl. You are that as much as if you
had gone on the streets. Yes. Don't interrupt me, Flora. I was
everlastingly being interrupted at the trial and I can't stand it any
more. I won't be interrupted by my own child. And when I think that it
is on the very day before they let me out that you . . . "
He had wormed this fact out of her by that time because Flora had got
tired of evading the question. He had been very much struck and
distressed. Was that the trust she had in him? Was that a proof of
confidence and love? The very day before! Never given him even half a
chance. It was as at the trial. They never gave him a chance. They
would not give him time. And there was his own daughter acting exactly
as his bitterest enemies had done. Not giving him time!
The monotony of that subdued voice nearly lulled her dismay to sleep. She
listened to the unavoidable things he was saying.
"But what induced that man to marry you? Of course he's a gentleman. One
can see that. And that makes it worse. Gentlemen don't understand
anything about city affairs--finance. Why!--the people who started the
cry after me were a firm of gentlemen. The counsel, the judge--all
gentlemen--quite out of it! No notion of . . . And then he's a sailor
too. Just a skipper--"
"My grandfather was nothing else," she interrupted. And he made an
angular gesture of impatience.
"Yes. But what does a silly sailor know of business? Nothing. No
conception. He can have no idea of what it means to be the daughter of
Mr. de Barral--even after his enemies had smashed him. What on earth
induced him--"
She made a movement because the level voice was getting on her nerves.
And he paused, but only to go on again in the same tone with the remark:
"Of course you are pretty. And that's why you are lost--like many other
poor girls. Unfortunate is the word for you."
She said: "It may be. Perhaps it is the right word; but listen, papa. I
mean to be honest."
He began to exhale more speeches.
"Just the sort of man to get tired and then leave you and go off with his
beastly ship. And anyway you can never be happy with him. Look at his
face. I want to save you. You see I was not perhaps a very good husband
to your poor mother. She would have done better to have left me long
before she died. I have been thinking it all over. I won't have you
unhappy."
He ran his eyes over her with an attention which was surprisingly
noticeable. Then said, "H'm! Yes. Let's clear out before it is too
late. Quietly, you and I."
She said as if inspired and with that calmness which despair often gives:
"There is no money to go away with, papa."
He rose up straightening himself as though he were a hinged figure. She
said decisively:
"And of course you wouldn't think of deserting me, papa?"
"Of course not," sounded his subdued tone. And he left her, gliding away
with his walk which Mr. Powell described to me as being as level and wary
as his voice. He walked as if he were carrying a glass full of water on
his head.
Flora naturally said nothing to Anthony of that edifying conversation.
His generosity might have taken alarm at it and she did not want to be
left behind to manage her father alone. And moreover she was too honest.
She would be honest at whatever cost. She would not be the first to
speak. Never. And the thought came into her head: "I am indeed an
unfortunate creature!"
It was by the merest coincidence that Anthony coming for the afternoon
two days later had a talk with Mr. Smith in the orchard. Flora for some
reason or other had left them for a moment; and Anthony took that
opportunity to be frank with Mr. Smith. He said: "It seems to me, sir,
that you think Flora has not done very well for herself. Well, as to
that I can't say anything. All I want you to know is that I have tried
to do the right thing." And then he explained that he had willed
everything he was possessed of to her. "She didn't tell you, I suppose?"
Mr. Smith shook his head slightly. And Anthony, trying to be friendly,
was just saying that he proposed to keep the ship away from home for at
least two years. "I think, sir, that from every point of view it would
be best," when Flora came back and the conversation, cut short in that
direction, languished and died. Later in the evening, after Anthony had
been gone for hours, on the point of separating for the night, Mr. Smith
remarked suddenly to his daughter after a long period of brooding:
"A will is nothing. One tears it up. One makes another." Then after
reflecting for a minute he added unemotionally:
"One tells lies about it."
Flora, patient, steeled against every hurt and every disgust to the point
of wondering at herself, said: "You push your dislike of--of--Roderick
too far, papa. You have no regard for me. You hurt me."
He, as ever inexpressive to the point of terrifying her sometimes by the
contrast of his placidity and his words, turned away from her a pair of
faded eyes.
"I wonder how far your dislike goes," he began. "His very name sticks in
your throat. I've noticed it. It hurts me. What do you think of that?
You might remember that you are not the only person that's hurt by your
folly, by your hastiness, by your recklessness." He brought back his
eyes to her face. "And the very day before they were going to let me
out." His feeble voice failed him altogether, the narrow compressed lips
only trembling for a time before he added with that extraordinary
equanimity of tone, "I call it sinful."
Flora made no answer. She judged it simpler, kinder and certainly safer
to let him talk himself out. This, Mr. Smith, being naturally taciturn,
never took very long to do. And we must not imagine that this sort of
thing went on all the time. She had a few good days in that cottage. The
absence of Anthony was a relief and his visits were pleasurable. She was
quieter. He was quieter too. She was almost sorry when the time to join
the ship arrived. It was a moment of anguish, of excitement; they
arrived at the dock in the evening and Flora after "making her father
comfortable" according to established usage lingered in the state-room
long enough to notice that he was surprised. She caught his pale eyes
observing her quite stonily. Then she went out after a cheery
good-night.
Contrary to her hopes she found Anthony yet in the saloon. Sitting in
his arm-chair at the head of the table he was picking up some business
papers which he put hastily in his breast pocket and got up. He asked
her if her day, travelling up to town and then doing some shopping, had
tired her. She shook her head. Then he wanted to know in a half-jocular
way how she felt about going away, and for a long voyage this time.
"Does it matter how I feel?" she asked in a tone that cast a gloom over
his face. He answered with repressed violence which she did not expect:
"No, it does not matter, because I cannot go without you. I've told you
. . . You know it. You don't think I could."
"I assure you I haven't the slightest wish to evade my obligations," she
said steadily. "Even if I could. Even if I dared, even if I had to die
for it!"
He looked thunderstruck. They stood facing each other at the end of the
saloon. Anthony stuttered. "Oh no. You won't die. You don't mean it.
You have taken kindly to the sea."
She laughed, but she felt angry.
"No, I don't mean it. I tell you I don't mean to evade my obligations. I
shall live on . . . feeling a little crushed, nevertheless."
"Crushed!" he repeated. "What's crushing you?"
"Your magnanimity," she said sharply. But her voice was softened after a
time. "Yet I don't know. There is a perfection in it--do you understand
me, Roderick?--which makes it almost possible to bear."
He sighed, looked away, and remarked that it was time to put out the lamp
in the saloon. The permission was only till ten o'clock.
"But you needn't mind that so much in your cabin. Just see that the
curtains of the ports are drawn close and that's all. The steward might
have forgotten to do it. He lighted your reading lamp in there before he
went ashore for a last evening with his wife. I don't know if it was
wise to get rid of Mrs. Brown. You will have to look after yourself,
Flora."
He was quite anxious; but Flora as a matter of fact congratulated herself
on the absence of Mrs. Brown. No sooner had she closed the door of her
state-room than she murmured fervently, "Yes! Thank goodness, she is
gone." There would be no gentle knock, followed by her appearance with
her equivocal stare and the intolerable: "Can I do anything for you,
ma'am?" which poor Flora had learned to fear and hate more than any voice
or any words on board that ship--her only refuge from the world which had
no use for her, for her imperfections and for her troubles.
* * * * *
Mrs. Brown had been very much vexed at her dismissal. The Browns were a
childless couple and the arrangement had suited them perfectly. Their
resentment was very bitter. Mrs. Brown had to remain ashore alone with
her rage, but the steward was nursing his on board. Poor Flora had no
greater enemy, the aggrieved mate had no greater sympathizer. And Mrs.
Brown, with a woman's quick power of observation and inference (the
putting of two and two together) had come to a certain conclusion which
she had imparted to her husband before leaving the ship. The morose
steward permitted himself once to make an allusion to it in Powell's
hearing. It was in the officers' mess-room at the end of a meal while he
lingered after putting a fruit pie on the table. He and the chief mate
started a dialogue about the alarming change in the captain, the sallow
steward looking down with a sinister frown, Franklin rolling upwards his
eyes, sentimental in a red face. Young Powell had heard a lot of that
sort of thing by that time. It was growing monotonous; it had always
sounded to him a little absurd. He struck in impatiently with the remark
that such lamentations over a man merely because he had taken a wife
seemed to him like lunacy.
Franklin muttered, "Depends on what the wife is up to." The steward
leaning against the bulkhead near the door glowered at Powell, that
newcomer, that ignoramus, that stranger without right or privileges. He
snarled:
"Wife! Call her a wife, do you?"
"What the devil do you mean by this?" exclaimed young Powell.
"I know what I know. My old woman has not been six months on board for
nothing. You had better ask her when we get back."
And meeting sullenly the withering stare of Mr. Powell the steward
retreated backwards.
Our young friend turned at once upon the mate. "And you let that
confounded bottle-washer talk like this before you, Mr. Franklin. Well,
I am astonished."
"Oh, it isn't what you think. It isn't what you think." Mr. Franklin
looked more apoplectic than ever. "If it comes to that I could astonish
you. But it's no use. I myself can hardly . . . You couldn't
understand. I hope you won't try to make mischief. There was a time,
young fellow, when I would have dared any man--any man, you hear?--to
make mischief between me and Captain Anthony. But not now. Not now.
There's a change! Not in me though . . . "
Young Powell rejected with indignation any suggestion of making mischief.
"Who do you take me for?" he cried. "Only you had better tell that
steward to be careful what he says before me or I'll spoil his good looks
for him for a month and will leave him to explain the why of it to the
captain the best way he can."
This speech established Powell as a champion of Mrs. Anthony. Nothing
more bearing on the question was ever said before him. He did not care
for the steward's black looks; Franklin, never conversational even at the
best of times and avoiding now the only topic near his heart, addressed
him only on matters of duty. And for that, too, Powell cared very
little. The woes of the apoplectic mate had begun to bore him long
before. Yet he felt lonely a bit at times. Therefore the little
intercourse with Mrs. Anthony either in one dog-watch or the other was
something to be looked forward to. The captain did not mind it. That
was evident from his manner. One night he inquired (they were then alone
on the poop) what they had been talking about that evening? Powell had
to confess that it was about the ship. Mrs. Anthony had been asking him
questions.
"Takes interest--eh?" jerked out the captain moving rapidly up and down
the weather side of the poop.
"Yes, sir. Mrs. Anthony seems to get hold wonderfully of what one's
telling her."
"Sailor's granddaughter. One of the old school. Old sea-dog of the best
kind, I believe," ejaculated the captain, swinging past his motionless
second officer and leaving the words behind him like a trail of sparks
succeeded by a perfect conversational darkness, because, for the next two
hours till he left the deck, he didn't open his lips again.
On another occasion . . . we mustn't forget that the ship had crossed the
line and was adding up south latitude every day by then . . . on another
occasion, about seven in the evening, Powell on duty, heard his name
uttered softly in the companion. The captain was on the stairs, thin-
faced, his eyes sunk, on his arm a Shetland wool wrap.
"Mr. Powell--here."
"Yes, sir."
"Give this to Mrs. Anthony. Evenings are getting chilly."
And the haggard face sank out of sight. Mrs. Anthony was surprised on
seeing the shawl.
"The captain wants you to put this on," explained young Powell, and as
she raised herself in her seat he dropped it on her shoulders. She
wrapped herself up closely.
"Where was the captain?" she asked.
"He was in the companion. Called me on purpose," said Powell, and then
retreated discreetly, because she looked as though she didn't want to
talk any more that evening. Mr. Smith--the old gentleman--was as usual
sitting on the skylight near her head, brooding over the long chair but
by no means inimical, as far as his unreadable face went, to those
conversations of the two youngest people on board. In fact they seemed
to give him some pleasure. Now and then he would raise his faded china
eyes to the animated face of Mr. Powell thoughtfully. When the young
sailor was by, the old man became less rigid, and when his daughter, on
rare occasions, smiled at some artless tale of Mr. Powell, the
inexpressive face of Mr. Smith reflected dimly that flash of evanescent
mirth. For Mr. Powell had come now to entertain his captain's wife with
anecdotes from the not very distant past when he was a boy, on board
various ships,--funny things do happen on board ship. Flora was quite
surprised at times to find herself amused. She was even heard to laugh
twice in the course of a month. It was not a loud sound but it was
startling enough at the after-end of the _Ferndale_ where low tones or
silence were the rule. The second time this happened the captain himself
must have been startled somewhere down below; because he emerged from the
depths of his unobtrusive existence and began his tramping on the
opposite side of the poop.
Almost immediately he called his young second officer over to him. This
was not done in displeasure. The glance he fastened on Mr. Powell
conveyed a sort of approving wonder. He engaged him in desultory
conversation as if for the only purpose of keeping a man who could
provoke such a sound, near his person. Mr. Powell felt himself liked. He
felt it. Liked by that haggard, restless man who threw at him
disconnected phrases to which his answers were, "Yes, sir," "No, sir,"
"Oh, certainly," "I suppose so, sir,"--and might have been clearly
anything else for all the other cared.
It was then, Mr. Powell told me, that he discovered in himself an already
old-established liking for Captain Anthony. He also felt sorry for him
without being able to discover the origins of that sympathy of which he
had become so suddenly aware.
Meantime Mr. Smith, bending forward stiffly as though he had a hinged
back, was speaking to his daughter.
She was a child no longer. He wanted to know if she believed in--in
hell. In eternal punishment?
His peculiar voice, as if filtered through cotton-wool was inaudible on
the other side of the deck. Poor Flora, taken very much unawares, made
an inarticulate murmur, shook her head vaguely, and glanced in the
direction of the pacing Anthony who was not looking her way. It was no
use glancing in that direction. Of young Powell, leaning against the
mizzen-mast and facing his captain she could only see the shoulder and
part of a blue serge back.
And the unworried, unaccented voice of her father went on tormenting her.
"You see, you must understand. When I came out of jail it was with joy.
That is, my soul was fairly torn in two--but anyway to see you happy--I
had made up my mind to that. Once I could be sure that you were happy
then of course I would have had no reason to care for life--strictly
speaking--which is all right for an old man; though naturally . . . no
reason to wish for death either. But this sort of life! What sense,
what meaning, what value has it either for you or for me? It's just
sitting down to look at the death, that's coming, coming. What else is
it? I don't know how you can put up with that. I don't think you can
stand it for long. Some day you will jump overboard."
Captain Anthony had stopped for a moment staring ahead from the break of
the poop, and poor Flora sent at his back a look of despairing appeal
which would have moved a heart of stone. But as though she had done
nothing he did not stir in the least. She got out of the long chair and
went towards the companion. Her father followed carrying a few small
objects, a handbag, her handkerchief, a book. They went down together.
It was only then that Captain Anthony turned, looked at the place they
had vacated and resumed his tramping, but not his desultory conversation
with his second officer. His nervous exasperation had grown so much that
now very often he used to lose control of his voice. If he did not watch
himself it would suddenly die in his throat. He had to make sure before
he ventured on the simplest saying, an order, a remark on the wind, a
simple good-morning. That's why his utterance was abrupt, his answers to
people startlingly brusque and often not forthcoming at all.
It happens to the most resolute of men to find himself at grips not only
with unknown forces, but with a well-known force the real might of which
he had not understood. Anthony had discovered that he was not the proud
master but the chafing captive of his generosity. It rose in front of
him like a wall which his respect for himself forbade him to scale. He
said to himself: "Yes, I was a fool--but she has trusted me!" Trusted! A
terrible word to any man somewhat exceptional in a world in which success
has never been found in renunciation and good faith. And it must also be
said, in order not to make Anthony more stupidly sublime than he was,
that the behaviour of Flora kept him at a distance. The girl was afraid
to add to the exasperation of her father. It was her unhappy lot to be
made more wretched by the only affection which she could not suspect. She
could not be angry with it, however, and out of deference for that
exaggerated sentiment she hardly dared to look otherwise than by stealth
at the man whose masterful compassion had carried her off. And quite
unable to understand the extent of Anthony's delicacy, she said to
herself that "he didn't care." He probably was beginning at bottom to
detest her--like the governess, like the maiden lady, like the German
woman, like Mrs. Fyne, like Mr. Fyne--only he was extraordinary, he was
generous. At the same time she had moments of irritation. He was
violent, headstrong--perhaps stupid. Well, he had had his way.
A man who has had his way is seldom happy, for generally he finds that
the way does not lead very far on this earth of desires which can never
be fully satisfied. Anthony had entered with extreme precipitation the
enchanted gardens of Armida saying to himself "At last!" As to Armida,
herself, he was not going to offer her any violence. But now he had
discovered that all the enchantment was in Armida herself, in Armida's
smiles. This Armida did not smile. She existed, unapproachable, behind
the blank wall of his renunciation. His force, fit for action,
experienced the impatience, the indignation, almost the despair of his
vitality arrested, bound, stilled, progressively worn down, frittered
away by Time; by that force blind and insensible, which seems inert and
yet uses one's life up by its imperceptible action, dropping minute after
minute on one's living heart like drops of water wearing down a stone.
He upbraided himself. What else could he have expected? He had rushed
in like a ruffian; he had dragged the poor defenceless thing by the hair
of her head, as it were, on board that ship. It was really atrocious.
Nothing assured him that his person could be attractive to this or any
other woman. And his proceedings were enough in themselves to make
anyone odious. He must have been bereft of his senses. She must fatally
detest and fear him. Nothing could make up for such brutality. And yet
somehow he resented this very attitude which seemed to him completely
justifiable. Surely he was not too monstrous (morally) to be looked at
frankly sometimes. But no! She wouldn't. Well, perhaps, some day . . .
Only he was not going ever to attempt to beg for forgiveness. With the
repulsion she felt for his person she would certainly misunderstand the
most guarded words, the most careful advances. Never! Never!
It would occur to Anthony at the end of such meditations that death was
not an unfriendly visitor after all. No wonder then that even young
Powell, his faculties having been put on the alert, began to think that
there was something unusual about the man who had given him his chance in
life. Yes, decidedly, his captain was "strange." There was something
wrong somewhere, he said to himself, never guessing that his young and
candid eyes were in the presence of a passion profound, tyrannical and
mortal, discovering its own existence, astounded at feeling itself
helpless and dismayed at finding itself incurable.
Powell had never before felt this mysterious uneasiness so strongly as on
that evening when it had been his good fortune to make Mrs. Anthony laugh
a little by his artless prattle. Standing out of the way, he had watched
his captain walk the weather-side of the poop, he took full cognizance of
his liking for that inexplicably strange man and saw him swerve towards
the companion and go down below with sympathetic if utterly
uncomprehending eyes.
Shortly afterwards, Mr. Smith came up alone and manifested a desire for a
little conversation. He, too, if not so mysterious as the captain, was
not very comprehensible to Mr. Powell's uninformed candour. He often
favoured thus the second officer. His talk alluded somewhat
enigmatically and often without visible connection to Mr. Powell's
friendliness towards himself and his daughter. "For I am well aware that
we have no friends on board this ship, my dear young man," he would add,
"except yourself. Flora feels that too."
And Mr. Powell, flattered and embarrassed, could but emit a vague murmur
of protest. For the statement was true in a sense, though the fact was
in itself insignificant. The feelings of the ship's company could not
possibly matter to the captain's wife and to Mr. Smith--her father. Why
the latter should so often allude to it was what surprised our Mr.
Powell. This was by no means the first occasion. More like the
twentieth rather. And in his weak voice, with his monotonous intonation,
leaning over the rail and looking at the water the other continued this
conversation, or rather his remarks, remarks of such a monstrous nature
that Mr. Powell had no option but to accept them for gruesome jesting.
"For instance," said Mr. Smith, "that mate, Franklin, I believe he would
just as soon see us both overboard as not."
"It's not so bad as that," laughed Mr. Powell, feeling uncomfortable,
because his mind did not accommodate itself easily to exaggeration of
statement. "He isn't a bad chap really," he added, very conscious of Mr.
Franklin's offensive manner of which instances were not far to seek.
"He's such a fool as to be jealous. He has been with the captain for
years. It's not for me to say, perhaps, but I think the captain has
spoiled all that gang of old servants. They are like a lot of pet old
dogs. Wouldn't let anybody come near him if they could help it. I've
never seen anything like it. And the second mate, I believe, was like
that too."
"Well, he isn't here, luckily. There would have been one more enemy,"
said Mr. Smith. "There's enough of them without him. And you being here
instead of him makes it much more pleasant for my daughter and myself.
One feels there may be a friend in need. For really, for a woman all
alone on board ship amongst a lot of unfriendly men . . . "
"But Mrs Anthony is not alone," exclaimed Powell. "There's you, and
there's the . . . "
Mr. Smith interrupted him.
"Nobody's immortal. And there are times when one feels ashamed to live.
Such an evening as this for instance."
It was a lovely evening; the colours of a splendid sunset had died out
and the breath of a warm breeze seemed to have smoothed out the sea. Away
to the south the sheet lightning was like the flashing of an enormous
lantern hidden under the horizon. In order to change the conversation
Mr. Powell said:
"Anyway no one can charge you with being a Jonah, Mr. Smith. We have had
a magnificent quick passage so far. The captain ought to be pleased. And
I suppose you are not sorry either."
This diversion was not successful. Mr. Smith emitted a sort of bitter
chuckle and said: "Jonah! That's the fellow that was thrown overboard by
some sailors. It seems to me it's very easy at sea to get rid of a
person one does not like. The sea does not give up its dead as the earth
does."
"You forget the whale, sir," said young Powell.
Mr. Smith gave a start. "Eh? What whale? Oh! Jonah. I wasn't
thinking of Jonah. I was thinking of this passage which seems so quick
to you. But only think what it is to me? It isn't a life, going about
the sea like this. And, for instance, if one were to fall ill, there
isn't a doctor to find out what's the matter with one. It's worrying. It
makes me anxious at times."
"Is Mrs. Anthony not feeling well?" asked Powell. But Mr. Smith's remark
was not meant for Mrs. Anthony. She was well. He himself was well. It
was the captain's health that did not seem quite satisfactory. Had Mr.
Powell noticed his appearance?
Mr. Powell didn't know enough of the captain to judge. He couldn't tell.
But he observed thoughtfully that Mr. Franklin had been saying the same
thing. And Franklin had known the captain for years. The mate was quite
worried about it.
This intelligence startled Mr. Smith considerably. "Does he think he is
in danger of dying?" he exclaimed with an animation quite extraordinary
for him, which horrified Mr. Powell.
"Heavens! Die! No! Don't you alarm yourself, sir. I've never heard a
word about danger from Mr. Franklin."
"Well, well," sighed Mr. Smith and left the poop for the saloon rather
abruptly.
As a matter of fact Mr. Franklin had been on deck for some considerable
time. He had come to relieve young Powell; but seeing him engaged in
talk with the "enemy"--with one of the "enemies" at least--had kept at a
distance, which, the poop of the _Ferndale_ being aver seventy feet long,
he had no difficulty in doing. Mr. Powell saw him at the head of the
ladder leaning on his elbow, melancholy and silent. "Oh! Here you are,
sir."
"Here I am. Here I've been ever since six o'clock. Didn't want to
interrupt the pleasant conversation. If you like to put in half of your
watch below jawing with a dear friend, that's not my affair. Funny taste
though."
"He isn't a bad chap," said the impartial Powell.
The mate snorted angrily, tapping the deck with his foot; then: "Isn't
he? Well, give him my love when you come together again for another nice
long yarn."
"I say, Mr. Franklin, I wonder the captain don't take offence at your
manners."
"The captain. I wish to goodness he would start a row with me. Then I
should know at least I am somebody on board. I'd welcome it, Mr. Powell.
I'd rejoice. And dam' me I would talk back too till I roused him. He's
a shadow of himself. He walks about his ship like a ghost. He's fading
away right before our eyes. But of course you don't see. You don't care
a hang. Why should you?"
Mr. Powell did not wait for more. He went down on the main deck. Without
taking the mate's jeremiads seriously he put them beside the words of Mr.
Smith. He had grown already attached to Captain Anthony. There was
something not only attractive but compelling in the man. Only it is very
difficult for youth to believe in the menace of death. Not in the fact
itself, but in its proximity to a breathing, moving, talking, superior
human being, showing no sign of disease. And Mr. Powell thought that
this talk was all nonsense. But his curiosity was awakened. There was
something, and at any time some circumstance might occur . . . No, he
would never find out . . . There was nothing to find out, most likely.
Mr. Powell went to his room where he tried to read a book he had already
read a good many times. Presently a bell rang for the officers' supper.
CHAPTER SIX--. . . A MOONLESS NIGHT, THICK WITH STARS ABOVE, VERY DARK ON
THE WATER
In the mess-room Powell found Mr. Franklin hacking at a piece of cold
salt beef with a table knife. The mate, fiery in the face and rolling
his eyes over that task, explained that the carver belonging to the mess-
room could not be found. The steward, present also, complained savagely
of the cook. The fellow got things into his galley and then lost them.
Mr. Franklin tried to pacify him with mournful firmness.
"There, there! That will do. We who have been all these years together
in the ship have other things to think about than quarrelling among
ourselves."
Mr. Powell thought with exasperation: "Here he goes again," for this
utterance had nothing cryptic for him. The steward having withdrawn
morosely, he was not surprised to hear the mate strike the usual note.
That morning the mizzen topsail tie had carried away (probably a
defective link) and something like forty feet of chain and wire-rope,
mixed up with a few heavy iron blocks, had crashed down from aloft on the
poop with a terrifying racket.
"Did you notice the captain then, Mr. Powell. Did you notice?"
Powell confessed frankly that he was too scared himself when all that lot
of gear came down on deck to notice anything.
"The gin-block missed his head by an inch," went on the mate
impressively. "I wasn't three feet from him. And what did he do? Did
he shout, or jump, or even look aloft to see if the yard wasn't coming
down too about our ears in a dozen pieces? It's a marvel it didn't. No,
he just stopped short--no wonder; he must have felt the wind of that iron
gin-block on his face--looked down at it, there, lying close to his
foot--and went on again. I believe he didn't even blink. It isn't
natural. The man is stupefied."
He sighed ridiculously and Mr. Powell had suppressed a grin, when the
mate added as if he couldn't contain himself:
"He will be taking to drink next. Mark my words. That's the next
thing."
Mr. Powell was disgusted.
"You are so fond of the captain and yet you don't seem to care what you
say about him. I haven't been with him for seven years, but I know he
isn't the sort of man that takes to drink. And then--why the devil
should he?"
"Why the devil, you ask. Devil--eh? Well, no man is safe from the
devil--and that's answer enough for you," wheezed Mr. Franklin not
unkindly. "There was a time, a long time ago, when I nearly took to
drink myself. What do you say to that?"
Mr. Powell expressed a polite incredulity. The thick, congested mate
seemed on the point of bursting with despondency. "That was bad example
though. I was young and fell into dangerous company, made a fool of
myself--yes, as true as you see me sitting here. Drank to forget.
Thought it a great dodge."
Powell looked at the grotesque Franklin with awakened interest and with
that half-amused sympathy with which we receive unprovoked confidences
from men with whom we have no sort of affinity. And at the same time he
began to look upon him more seriously. Experience has its prestige. And
the mate continued:
"If it hadn't been for the old lady, I would have gone to the devil. I
remembered her in time. Nothing like having an old lady to look after to
steady a chap and make him face things. But as bad luck would have it,
Captain Anthony has no mother living, not a blessed soul belonging to him
as far as I know. Oh, aye, I fancy he said once something to me of a
sister. But she's married. She don't need him. Yes. In the old days
he used to talk to me as if we had been brothers," exaggerated the mate
sentimentally. "'Franklin,'--he would say--'this ship is my nearest
relation and she isn't likely to turn against me. And I suppose you are
the man I've known the longest in the world.' That's how he used to
speak to me. Can I turn my back on him? He has turned his back on his
ship; that's what it has come to. He has no one now but his old
Franklin. But what's a fellow to do to put things back as they were and
should be. Should be--I say!"
His starting eyes had a terrible fixity. Mr. Powell's irresistible
thought, "he resembles a boiled lobster in distress," was followed by
annoyance. "Good Lord," he said, "you don't mean to hint that Captain
Anthony has fallen into bad company. What is it you want to save him
from?"
"I do mean it," affirmed the mate, and the very absurdity of the
statement made it impressive--because it seemed so absolutely audacious.
"Well, you have a cheek," said young Powell, feeling mentally helpless.
"I have a notion the captain would half kill you if he were to know how
you carry on."
"And welcome," uttered the fervently devoted Franklin. "I am willing, if
he would only clear the ship afterwards of that . . . You are but a
youngster and you may go and tell him what you like. Let him knock the
stuffing out of his old Franklin first and think it over afterwards.
Anything to pull him together. But of course you wouldn't. You are all
right. Only you don't know that things are sometimes different from what
they look. There are friendships that are no friendships, and marriages
that are no marriages. Phoo! Likely to be right--wasn't it? Never a
hint to me. I go off on leave and when I come back, there it is--all
over, settled! Not a word beforehand. No warning. If only: 'What do
you think of it, Franklin?'--or anything of the sort. And that's a man
who hardly ever did anything without asking my advice. Why! He couldn't
take over a new coat from the tailor without . . . first thing, directly
the fellow came on board with some new clothes, whether in London or in
China, it would be: 'Pass the word along there for Mr. Franklin. Mr.
Franklin wanted in the cabin.' In I would go. 'Just look at my back,
Franklin. Fits all right, doesn't it?' And I would say: 'First rate,
sir,' or whatever was the truth of it. That or anything else. Always
the truth of it. Always. And well he knew it; and that's why he dared
not speak right out. Talking about workmen, alterations, cabins . . .
Phoo! . . . instead of a straightforward--'Wish me joy, Mr. Franklin!'
Yes, that was the way to let me know. God only knows what they
are--perhaps she isn't his daughter any more than she is . . . She
doesn't resemble that old fellow. Not a bit. Not a bit. It's very
awful. You may well open your mouth, young man. But for goodness' sake,
you who are mixed up with that lot, keep your eyes and ears open too in
case--in case of . . . I don't know what. Anything. One wonders what
can happen here at sea! Nothing. Yet when a man is called a jailer
behind his back."
Mr. Franklin hid his face in his hands for a moment and Powell shut his
mouth, which indeed had been open. He slipped out of the mess-room
noiselessly. "The mate's crazy," he thought. It was his firm
conviction. Nevertheless, that evening, he felt his inner tranquillity
disturbed at last by the force and obstinacy of this craze. He couldn't
dismiss it with the contempt it deserved. Had the word "jailer" really
been pronounced? A strange word for the mate to even _imagine_ he had
heard. A senseless, unlikely word. But this word being the only clear
and definite statement in these grotesque and dismal ravings was
comparatively restful to his mind. Powell's mind rested on it still when
he came up at eight o'clock to take charge of the deck. It was a
moonless night, thick with stars above, very dark on the water. A steady
air from the west kept the sails asleep. Franklin mustered both watches
in low tones as if for a funeral, then approaching Powell:
"The course is east-south-east," said the chief mate distinctly.
"East-south-east, sir."
"Everything's set, Mr. Powell."
"All right, sir."
The other lingered, his sentimental eyes gleamed silvery in the shadowy
face. "A quiet night before us. I don't know that there are any special
orders. A settled, quiet night. I dare say you won't see the captain.
Once upon a time this was the watch he used to come up and start a chat
with either of us then on deck. But now he sits in that infernal stern-
cabin and mopes. Jailer--eh?"
Mr. Powell walked away from the mate and when at some distance said,
"Damn!" quite heartily. It was a confounded nuisance. It had ceased to
be funny; that hostile word "jailer" had given the situation an air of
reality.
* * * * *
Franklin's grotesque mortal envelope had disappeared from the poop to
seek its needful repose, if only the worried soul would let it rest a
while. Mr. Powell, half sorry for the thick little man, wondered whether
it would let him. For himself, he recognized that the charm of a quiet
watch on deck when one may let one's thoughts roam in space and time had
been spoiled without remedy. What shocked him most was the implied
aspersion of complicity on Mrs. Anthony. It angered him. In his own
words to me, he felt very "enthusiastic" about Mrs. Anthony.
"Enthusiastic" is good; especially as he couldn't exactly explain to me
what he meant by it. But he felt enthusiastic, he says. That silly
Franklin must have been dreaming. That was it. He had dreamed it all.
Ass. Yet the injurious word stuck in Powell's mind with its associated
ideas of prisoner, of escape. He became very uncomfortable. And just
then (it might have been half an hour or more since he had relieved
Franklin) just then Mr. Smith came up on the poop alone, like a gliding
shadow and leaned over the rail by his side. Young Powell was affected
disagreeably by his presence. He made a movement to go away but the
other began to talk--and Powell remained where he was as if retained by a
mysterious compulsion. The conversation started by Mr. Smith had nothing
peculiar. He began to talk of mail-boats in general and in the end
seemed anxious to discover what were the services from Port Elizabeth to
London. Mr. Powell did not know for certain but imagined that there must
be communication with England at least twice a month. "Are you thinking
of leaving us, sir; of going home by steam? Perhaps with Mrs. Anthony,"
he asked anxiously.
"No! No! How can I?" Mr. Smith got quite agitated, for him, which did
not amount to much. He was just asking for the sake of something to talk
about. No idea at all of going home. One could not always do what one
wanted and that's why there were moments when one felt ashamed to live.
This did not mean that one did not want to live. Oh no!
He spoke with careless slowness, pausing frequently and in such a low
voice that Powell had to strain his hearing to catch the phrases dropped
overboard as it were. And indeed they seemed not worth the effort. It
was like the aimless talk of a man pursuing a secret train of thought far
removed from the idle words we so often utter only to keep in touch with
our fellow beings. An hour passed. It seemed as though Mr. Smith could
not make up his mind to go below. He repeated himself. Again he spoke
of lives which one was ashamed of. It was necessary to put up with such
lives as long as there was no way out, no possible issue. He even
alluded once more to mail-boat services on the East coast of Africa and
young Powell had to tell him once more that he knew nothing about them.
"Every fortnight, I thought you said," insisted Mr. Smith. He stirred,
seemed to detach himself from the rail with difficulty. His long,
slender figure straightened into stiffness, as if hostile to the
enveloping soft peace of air and sea and sky, emitted into the night a
weak murmur which Mr. Powell fancied was the word, "Abominable" repeated
three times, but which passed into the faintly louder declaration: "The
moment has come--to go to bed," followed by a just audible sigh.
"I sleep very well," added Mr. Smith in his restrained tone. "But it is
the moment one opens one's eyes that is horrible at sea. These days! Oh,
these days! I wonder how anybody can . . . "
"I like the life," observed Mr. Powell.
"Oh, you. You have only yourself to think of. You have made your bed.
Well, it's very pleasant to feel that you are friendly to us. My
daughter has taken quite a liking to you, Mr. Powell."
He murmured, "Good-night" and glided away rigidly. Young Powell asked
himself with some distaste what was the meaning of these utterances. His
mind had been worried at last into that questioning attitude by no other
person than the grotesque Franklin. Suspicion was not natural to him.
And he took good care to carefully separate in his thoughts Mrs. Anthony
from this man of enigmatic words--her father. Presently he observed that
the sheen of the two deck dead-lights of Mr. Smith's room had gone out.
The old gentleman had been surprisingly quick in getting into bed.
Shortly afterwards the lamp in the foremost skylight of the saloon was
turned out; and this was the sign that the steward had taken in the tray
and had retired for the night.
Young Powell had settled down to the regular officer-of-the-watch tramp
in the dense shadow of the world decorated with stars high above his
head, and on earth only a few gleams of light about the ship. The lamp
in the after skylight was kept burning through the night. There were
also the dead-lights of the stern-cabins glimmering dully in the deck far
aft, catching his eye when he turned to walk that way. The brasses of
the wheel glittered too, with the dimly lit figure of the man detached,
as if phosphorescent, against the black and spangled background of the
horizon.
Young Powell, in the silence of the ship, reinforced by the great silent
stillness of the world, said to himself that there was something
mysterious in such beings as the absurd Franklin, and even in such beings
as himself. It was a strange and almost improper thought to occur to the
officer of the watch of a ship on the high seas on no matter how quiet a
night. Why on earth was he bothering his head? Why couldn't he dismiss
all these people from his mind? It was as if the mate had infected him
with his own diseased devotion. He would not have believed it possible
that he should be so foolish. But he was--clearly. He was foolish in a
way totally unforeseen by himself. Pushing this self-analysis further,
he reflected that the springs of his conduct were just as obscure.
"I may be catching myself any time doing things of which I have no
conception," he thought. And as he was passing near the mizzen-mast he
perceived a coil of rope left lying on the deck by the oversight of the
sweepers. By an impulse which had nothing mysterious in it, he stooped
as he went by with the intention of picking it up and hanging it up on
its proper pin. This movement brought his head down to the level of the
glazed end of the after skylight--the lighted skylight of the most
private part of the saloon, consecrated to the exclusiveness of Captain
Anthony's married life; the part, let me remind you, cut off from the
rest of that forbidden space by a pair of heavy curtains. I mention
these curtains because at this point Mr. Powell himself recalled the
existence of that unusual arrangement to my mind.
He recalled them with simple-minded compunction at that distance of time.
He said: "You understand that directly I stooped to pick up that coil of
running gear--the spanker foot-outhaul, it was--I perceived that I could
see right into that part of the saloon the curtains were meant to make
particularly private. Do you understand me?" he insisted.
I told him that I understood; and he proceeded to call my attention to
the wonderful linking up of small facts, with something of awe left yet,
after all these years, at the precise workmanship of chance, fate,
providence, call it what you will! "For, observe, Marlow," he said,
making at me very round eyes which contrasted funnily with the austere
touch of grey on his temples, "observe, my dear fellow, that everything
depended on the men who cleared up the poop in the evening leaving that
coil of rope on the deck, and on the topsail-tie carrying away in a most
incomprehensible and surprising manner earlier in the day, and the end of
the chain whipping round the coaming and shivering to bits the coloured
glass-pane at the end of the skylight. It had the arms of the city of
Liverpool on it; I don't know why unless because the _Ferndale_ was
registered in Liverpool. It was very thick plate glass. Anyhow, the
upper part got smashed, and directly we had attended to things aloft Mr.
Franklin had set the carpenter to patch up the damage with some pieces of
plain glass. I don't know where they got them; I think the people who
fitted up new bookcases in the captain's room had left some spare panes.
Chips was there the whole afternoon on his knees, messing with putty and
red-lead. It wasn't a neat job when it was done, not by any means, but
it would serve to keep the weather out and let the light in. Clear
glass. And of course I was not thinking of it. I just stooped to pick
up that rope and found my head within three inches of that clear glass,
and--dash it all! I found myself out. Not half an hour before I was
saying to myself that it was impossible to tell what was in people's
heads or at the back of their talk, or what they were likely to be up to.
And here I found myself up to as low a trick as you can well think of.
For, after I had stooped, there I remained prying, spying, anyway
looking, where I had no business to look. Not consciously at first, may
be. He who has eyes, you know, nothing can stop him from seeing things
as long as there are things to see in front of him. What I saw at first
was the end of the table and the tray clamped on to it, a patent tray for
sea use, fitted with holders for a couple of decanters, water-jug and
glasses. The glitter of these things caught my eye first; but what I saw
next was the captain down there, alone as far as I could see; and I could
see pretty well the whole of that part up to the cottage piano, dark
against the satin-wood panelling of the bulkhead. And I remained
looking. I did. And I don't know that I was ashamed of myself either,
then. It was the fault of that Franklin, always talking of the man,
making free with him to that extent that really he seemed to have become
our property, his and mine, in a way. It's funny, but one had that
feeling about Captain Anthony. To watch him was not so much worse than
listening to Franklin talking him over. Well, it's no use making excuses
for what's inexcusable. I watched; but I dare say you know that there
could have been nothing inimical in this low behaviour of mine. On the
contrary. I'll tell you now what he was doing. He was helping himself
out of a decanter. I saw every movement, and I said to myself mockingly
as though jeering at Franklin in my thoughts, 'Hallo! Here's the captain
taking to drink at last.' He poured a little brandy or whatever it was
into a long glass, filled it with water, drank about a fourth of it and
stood the glass back into the holder. Every sign of a bad drinking bout,
I was saying to myself, feeling quite amused at the notions of that
Franklin. He seemed to me an enormous ass, with his jealousy and his
fears. At that rate a month would not have been enough for anybody to
get drunk. The captain sat down in one of the swivel arm-chairs fixed
around the table; I had him right under me and as he turned the chair
slightly, I was looking, I may say, down his back. He took another
little sip and then reached for a book which was lying on the table. I
had not noticed it before. Altogether the proceedings of a desperate
drunkard--weren't they? He opened the book and held it before his face.
If this was the way he took to drink, then I needn't worry. He was in no
danger from that, and as to any other, I assure you no human being could
have looked safer than he did down there. I felt the greatest contempt
for Franklin just then, while I looked at Captain Anthony sitting there
with a glass of weak brandy-and-water at his elbow and reading in the
cabin of his ship, on a quiet night--the quietest, perhaps the finest, of
a prosperous passage. And if you wonder why I didn't leave off my ugly
spying I will tell you how it was. Captain Anthony was a great reader
just about that time; and I, too, I have a great liking for books. To
this day I can't come near a book but I must know what it is about. It
was a thickish volume he had there, small close print, double columns--I
can see it now. What I wanted to make out was the title at the top of
the page. I have very good eyes but he wasn't holding it conveniently--I
mean for me up there. Well, it was a history of some kind, that much I
read and then suddenly he bangs the book face down on the table, jumps up
as if something had bitten him and walks away aft.
"Funny thing shame is. I had been behaving badly and aware of it in a
way, but I didn't feel really ashamed till the fright of being found out
in my honourable occupation drove me from it. I slunk away to the
forward end of the poop and lounged about there, my face and ears burning
and glad it was a dark night, expecting every moment to hear the
captain's footsteps behind me. For I made sure he was coming on deck.
Presently I thought I had rather meet him face to face and I walked
slowly aft prepared to see him emerge from the companion before I got
that far. I even thought of his having detected me by some means. But
it was impossible, unless he had eyes in the top of his head. I had
never had a view of his face down there. It was impossible; I was safe;
and I felt very mean, yet, explain it as you may, I seemed not to care.
And the captain not appearing on deck, I had the impulse to go on being
mean. I wanted another peep. I really don't know what was the beastly
influence except that Mr. Franklin's talk was enough to demoralize any
man by raising a sort of unhealthy curiosity which did away in my case
with all the restraints of common decency.
"I did not mean to run the risk of being caught squatting in a suspicious
attitude by the captain. There was also the helmsman to consider. So
what I did--I am surprised at my low cunning--was to sit down naturally
on the skylight-seat and then by bending forward I found that, as I
expected, I could look down through the upper part of the end-pane. The
worst that could happen to me then, if I remained too long in that
position, was to be suspected by the seaman aft at the wheel of having
gone to sleep there. For the rest my ears would give me sufficient
warning of any movements in the companion.
"But in that way my angle of view was changed. The field too was
smaller. The end of the table, the tray and the swivel-chair I had right
under my eyes. The captain had not come back yet. The piano I could not
see now; but on the other hand I had a very oblique downward view of the
curtains drawn across the cabin and cutting off the forward part of it
just about the level of the skylight-end and only an inch or so from the
end of the table. They were heavy stuff, travelling on a thick brass rod
with some contrivance to keep the rings from sliding to and fro when the
ship rolled. But just then the ship was as still almost as a model shut
up in a glass case while the curtains, joined closely, and, perhaps on
purpose, made a little too long moved no more than a solid wall."
* * * * *
Marlow got up to get another cigar. The night was getting on to what I
may call its deepest hour, the hour most favourable to evil purposes of
men's hate, despair or greed--to whatever can whisper into their ears the
unlawful counsels of protest against things that are; the hour of ill-
omened silence and chill and stagnation, the hour when the criminal plies
his trade and the victim of sleeplessness reaches the lowest depth of
dreadful discouragement; the hour before the first sight of dawn. I know
it, because while Marlow was crossing the room I looked at the clock on
the mantelpiece. He however never looked that way though it is possible
that he, too, was aware of the passage of time. He sat down heavily.
"Our friend Powell," he began again, "was very anxious that I should
understand the topography of that cabin. I was interested more by its
moral atmosphere, that tension of falsehood, of desperate acting, which
tainted the pure sea-atmosphere into which the magnanimous Anthony had
carried off his conquest and--well--his self-conquest too, trying to act
at the same time like a beast of prey, a pure spirit and the "most
generous of men." Too big an order clearly because he was nothing of a
monster but just a common mortal, a little more self-willed and
self-confident than most, may be, both in his roughness and in his
delicacy.
As to the delicacy of Mr. Powell's proceedings I'll say nothing. He
found a sort of depraved excitement in watching an unconscious man--and
such an attractive and mysterious man as Captain Anthony at that. He
wanted another peep at him. He surmised that the captain must come back
soon because of the glass two-thirds full and also of the book put down
so brusquely. God knows what sudden pang had made Anthony jump up so. I
am convinced he used reading as an opiate against the pain of his
magnanimity which like all abnormal growths was gnawing at his healthy
substance with cruel persistence. Perhaps he had rushed into his cabin
simply to groan freely in absolute and delicate secrecy. At any rate he
tarried there. And young Powell would have grown weary and compunctious
at last if it had not become manifest to him that he had not been alone
in the highly incorrect occupation of watching the movements of Captain
Anthony.
Powell explained to me that no sound did or perhaps could reach him from
the saloon. The first sign--and we must remember that he was using his
eyes for all they were worth--was an unaccountable movement of the
curtain. It was wavy and very slight; just perceptible in fact to the
sharpened faculties of a secret watcher; for it can't be denied that our
wits are much more alert when engaged in wrong-doing (in which one
mustn't be found out) than in a righteous occupation.
He became suspicious, with no one and nothing definite in his mind. He
was suspicious of the curtain itself and observed it. It looked very
innocent. Then just as he was ready to put it down to a trick of
imagination he saw trembling movements where the two curtains joined.
Yes! Somebody else besides himself had been watching Captain Anthony. He
owns artlessly that this roused his indignation. It was really too much
of a good thing. In this state of intense antagonism he was startled to
observe tips of fingers fumbling with the dark stuff. Then they grasped
the edge of the further curtain and hung on there, just fingers and
knuckles and nothing else. It made an abominable sight. He was looking
at it with unaccountable repulsion when a hand came into view; a short,
puffy, old, freckled hand projecting into the lamplight, followed by a
white wrist, an arm in a grey coat-sleeve, up to the elbow, beyond the
elbow, extended tremblingly towards the tray. Its appearance was weird
and nauseous, fantastic and silly. But instead of grabbing the bottle as
Powell expected, this hand, tremulous with senile eagerness, swerved to
the glass, rested on its edge for a moment (or so it looked from above)
and went back with a jerk. The gripping fingers of the other hand
vanished at the same time, and young Powell staring at the motionless
curtains could indulge for a moment the notion that he had been dreaming.
But that notion did not last long. Powell, after repressing his first
impulse to spring for the companion and hammer at the captain's door,
took steps to have himself relieved by the boatswain. He was in a state
of distraction as to his feelings and yet lucid as to his mind. He
remained on the skylight so as to keep his eye on the tray.
Still the captain did not appear in the saloon. "If he had," said Mr.
Powell, "I knew what to do. I would have put my elbow through the pane
instantly--crash."