I have said that the story of Flora de Barral was imparted to me in
stages. At this stage I did not see Marlow for some time. At last, one
evening rather early, very soon after dinner, he turned up in my rooms.
I had been waiting for his call primed with a remark which had not
occurred to me till after he had gone away.
“I say,” I tackled him at once, “how can you be certain that Flora de
Barral ever went to sea? After all, the wife of the captain of the
_Ferndale_—‘the lady that mustn’t be disturbed’ of the old
ship-keeper—may not have been Flora.”
“Well, I do know,” he said, “if only because I have been keeping in
touch with Mr Powell.”
“You have!” I cried. “This is the first I hear of it. And since
when?”
“Why, since the first day. You went up to town leaving me in the inn.
I slept ashore. In the morning Mr Powell came in for breakfast; and
after the first awkwardness of meeting a man you have been yarning with
overnight had worn off, we discovered a liking for each other.”
As I had discovered the fact of their mutual liking before either of
them, I was not surprised.
“And so you kept in touch,” I said.
“It was not so very difficult. As he was always knocking about the
river I hired Dingle’s sloop-rigged three-tonner to be more on an
equality. Powell was friendly but elusive. I don’t think he ever
wanted to avoid me. But it is a fact that he used to disappear out of
the river in a very mysterious manner sometimes. A man may land
anywhere and bolt inland—but what about his five-ton cutter? You can’t
carry that in your hand like a suit-case.
“Then as suddenly he would reappear in the river, after one had given
him up. I did not like to be beaten. That’s why I hired Dingle’s
decked boat. There was just the accommodation in her to sleep a man and
a dog. But I had no dog-friend to invite. Fyne’s dog who saved Flora
de Barral’s life is the last dog-friend I had. I was rather lonely
cruising about; but that, too, on the river has its charm, sometimes. I
chased the mystery of the vanishing Powell dreamily, looking about me at
the ships, thinking of the girl Flora, of life’s chances—and, do you
know, it was very simple.”
“What was very simple?” I asked innocently.
“The mystery.”
“They generally are that,” I said.
Marlow eyed me for a moment in a peculiar manner.
“Well, I have discovered the mystery of Powell’s disappearances. The
fellow used to run into one of these narrow tidal creeks on the Essex
shore. These creeks are so inconspicuous that till I had studied the
chart pretty carefully I did not know of their existence. One
afternoon, I made Powell’s boat out, heading into the shore. By the
time I got close to the mud-flat his craft had disappeared inland. But
I could see the mouth of the creek by then. The tide being on the turn
I took the risk of getting stuck in the mud suddenly and headed in. All
I had to guide me was the top of the roof of some sort of small
building. I got in more by good luck than by good management. The sun
had set some time before; my boat glided in a sort of winding ditch
between two low grassy banks; on both sides of me was the flatness of
the Essex marsh, perfectly still. All I saw moving was a heron; he was
flying low, and disappeared in the murk. Before I had gone half a mile,
I was up with the building the roof of which I had seen from the river.
It looked like a small barn. A row of piles driven into the soft bank
in front of it and supporting a few planks made a sort of wharf. All
this was black in the falling dusk, and I could just distinguish the
whitish ruts of a cart-track stretching over the marsh towards the
higher land, far away. Not a sound was to be heard. Against the low
streak of light in the sky I could see the mast of Powell’s cutter
moored to the bank some twenty yards, no more, beyond that black barn or
whatever it was. I hailed him with a loud shout. Got no answer. After
making fast my boat just astern, I walked along the bank to have a look
at Powell’s. Being so much bigger than mine she was aground already.
Her sails were furled; the slide of her scuttle hatch was closed and
padlocked. Powell was gone. He had walked off into that dark, still
marsh somewhere. I had not seen a single house anywhere near; there did
not seem to be any human habitation for miles; and now as darkness fell
denser over the land I couldn’t see the glimmer of a single light.
However, I supposed that there must be some village or hamlet not very
far away; or only one of these mysterious little inns one comes upon
sometimes in most unexpected and lonely places.
“The stillness was oppressive. I went back to my boat, made some coffee
over a spirit-lamp, devoured a few biscuits, and stretched myself aft,
to smoke and gaze at the stars. The earth was a mere shadow, formless
and silent, and empty, till a bullock turned up from somewhere, quite
shadowy too. He came smartly to the very edge of the bank as though he
meant to step on board, stretched his muzzle right over my boat, blew
heavily once, and walked off contemptuously into the darkness from which
he had come. I had not expected a call from a bullock, though a
moment’s thought would have shown me that there must be lots of cattle
and sheep on that marsh. Then everything became still as before. I
might have imagined myself arrived on a desert island. In fact, as I
reclined smoking a sense of absolute loneliness grew on me. And just as
it had become intense, very abruptly and without any preliminary sound I
heard firm, quick footsteps on the little wharf. Somebody coming along
the cart-track had just stepped at a swinging gait on to the planks.
That somebody could only have been Mr Powell. Suddenly he stopped
short, having made out that there were two masts alongside the bank
where he had left only one. Then he came on silent on the grass. When
I spoke to him he was astonished.
“Who would have thought of seeing you here!” he exclaimed, after
returning my good evening.
“I told him I had run in for company. It was rigorously true.
“You knew I was here?” he exclaimed.
“Of course,” I said. “I tell you I came in for company.”
“He is a really good fellow,” went on Marlow. “And his capacity for
astonishment is quickly exhausted, it seems. It was in the most
matter-of-fact manner that he said, ‘Come on board of me, then; I have
here enough supper for two.’ He was holding a bulky parcel in the crook
of his arm. I did not wait to be asked twice, as you may guess. His
cutter has a very neat little cabin, quite big enough for two men not
only to sleep but to sit and smoke in. We left the scuttle wide open,
of course. As to his provisions for supper, they were not of a
luxurious kind. He complained that the shops in the village were
miserable. There was a big village within a mile and a half. It struck
me he had been very long doing his shopping; but naturally I made no
remark. I didn’t want to talk at all except for the purpose of setting
him going.”
“And did you set him going?” I asked.
“I did,” said Marlow, composing his features into an impenetrable
expression which somehow assured me of his success better than an air of
triumph could have done.
“You made him talk?” I said after a silence.
“Yes, I made him ... about himself.”
“And to the point?”
“If you mean by this,” said Marlow, “that it was about the voyage of the
_Ferndale_, then again, yes. I brought him to talk about that voyage,
which, by the by, was not the first voyage of Flora de Barral. The man
himself, as I told you, is simple, and his faculty of wonder not very
great. He’s one of those people who form no theories about facts.
Straightforward people seldom do. Neither have they much penetration.
But in this case it did not matter I—we—have already the inner
knowledge. We know the history of Flora de Barral. We know something
of Captain Anthony. We have the secret of the situation. The man was
intoxicated with the pity and tenderness of his part. Oh yes!
Intoxicated is not too strong a word; for you know that love and desire
take many disguises. I believe that the girl had been frank with him,
with the frankness of women to whom perfect frankness is impossible,
because so much of their safety depends on judicious reticences. I am
not indulging in cheap sneers. There is necessity in these things. And
moreover she could not have spoken with a certain voice in the face of
his impetuosity, because she did not have time to understand either the
state of her feelings, or the precise nature of what she was doing.”
Had she spoken ever so clearly he was, I take it, too elated to hear her
distinctly. I don’t mean to imply that he was a fool. Oh dear no! But
he had no training in the usual conventions, and we must remember that
he had no experience whatever of women. He could only have an ideal
conception of his position. An ideal is often but a flaming vision of
reality.
To him enters Fyne, wound up, if I may express myself so irreverently,
wound up to a high pitch by his wife’s interpretation of the girl’s
letter. He enters with his talk of meanness and cruelty, like a bucket
of water on the flame.—Clearly a shock. But the effects of a bucket of
water are diverse. They depend on the kind of flame. A mere blaze of
dry straw, of course ... but there can be no question of straw there.
Anthony of the _Ferndale_ was not, could not have been, a straw-stuffed
specimen of a man. There are flames a bucket of water sends leaping
sky-high.
We may well wonder what happened when, after Fyne had left him, the
hesitating girl went up at last and opened the door of that room where
our man, I am certain, was not extinguished. Oh no! Nor cold; whatever
else he might have been.
“It is conceivable he might have cried at her in the first moment of
humiliation, of exasperation, ‘Oh, it’s you! Why are you here? If I am
so odious to you that you must write to my sister to say so, I give you
back your word.’ But then, don’t you see, it could not have been that.
I have the practical certitude that soon afterwards they went together
in a hansom to see the ship—as agreed. That was my reason for saying
that Flora de Barral did go to sea....”
“Yes. It seems conclusive,” I agreed. “But even without that—if, as
you seem to think, the very desolation of that girlish figure had a sort
of perversely seductive charm, making its way through his compassion to
his senses (and everything is possible)—then such words could not have
been spoken.”
“They might have escaped him involuntarily,” observed Marlow. “However,
a plain fact settles it. They went off together to see the ship.”
“Do you conclude from this that nothing whatever was said?” I inquired.
“I should have liked to see the first meeting of their glances upstairs
there,” mused Marlow. “And perhaps nothing was said. But no man comes
out of such a ‘wrangle’ (as Fyne called it) without showing some traces
of it. And you may be sure that a girl so bruised all over would feel
the slightest touch of anything resembling coldness. She was
mistrustful; she could not be otherwise; for the energy of evil is so
much more forcible than the energy of good that she could not help
looking still upon her abominable governess as an authority. How could
one have expected her to throw off the unholy prestige of that long
domination? She could not help believing what she had been told; that
she was in some mysterious way odious and unlovable. It was cruelly
true—_to her_. The oracle of so many years had spoken finally. Only
other people did not find her out at once.—I would not go so far as to
say she believed it altogether. That would be hardly possible. But
then haven’t the most flattered, the most conceited of us their moments
of doubt? Haven’t they? Well, I don’t know. There may be lucky beings
in this world unable to believe any evil of themselves. For my own part
I’ll tell you that once, many years ago now, it came to my knowledge
that a fellow I had been mixed up with in a certain transaction—a
clever fellow whom I really despised—was going around telling people
that I was a consummate hypocrite. He could know nothing of it. It
suited his humour to say so. I had given him no ground for that
particular calumny. Yet to this day there are moments when it comes
into my mind, and involuntarily I ask myself, ‘What if it were true?’
It’s absurd, but it has on one or two occasions nearly affected my
conduct. And yet I was not an impressionable ignorant young girl. I
had taken the exact measure of the fellow’s utter worthlessness long
before. He had never been for me a person of prestige and power, like
that awful governess to Flora de Barral. See the might of suggestion?
We live at the mercy of a malevolent word. A sound, a mere disturbance
of the air, sinks into our very soul sometimes. Flora de Barral had
been more astounded than convinced by the first impetuosity of Roderick
Anthony. She let herself be carried along by a mysterious force which
her person had called into being, as her father had been carried away
out of his depth by the unexpected power of successful advertising.
“They went on board that morning. The _Ferndale_ had just come to her
loading berth. The only living creature on board was the ship-keeper—
whether the same who, had been described to us by Mr Powell, or
another, I don’t know. Possibly some other man. He, looking over the
side, saw, in his own words, ‘the captain come sailing round the corner
of the nearest cargo-shed, in company with a girl.’ He lowered the
accommodation ladder down on to the jetty....”
“How do you know all this?” I interrupted.
Marlow interjected an impatient:
“You shall see by and by.... Flora went up first, got down on deck and
stood stock-still till the captain took her by the arm and led her aft.
The ship-keeper let them into the saloon. He had the keys of all the
cabins, and stumped in after them. The captain ordered him to open all
the doors, every blessed door; state-rooms, passages, pantry,
fore-cabin—and then sent him away.
“The _Ferndale_ had magnificent accommodation. At the end of a passage
leading from the quarter-deck there was a long saloon, its sumptuosity
slightly tarnished perhaps, but having a grand air of roominess and
comfort. The harbour carpets were down, the swinging lamps hung, and
everything in its place, even to the silver on the sideboard. Two large
stern-cabins opened out of it, one on each side of the rudder casing.
These two cabins communicated through a small bathroom between them, and
one was fitted up as the captain’s state-room. The other was vacant,
and furnished with armchairs and a round table, more like a room on
shore, except for the long curved settee following the shape of the
ship’s stern. In a dim inclined mirror, Flora caught sight down to the
waist of a pale-faced girl in a white straw hat trimmed with roses,
distant, shadowy, as if immersed in water, and was surprised to
recognise herself in those surroundings. They seemed to her arbitrary,
bizarre, strange. Captain Anthony moved on, and she followed him. He
showed her the other cabins. He talked all the time loudly in a voice
she seemed to have known extremely well for a long time; and yet, she
reflected, she had not heard it often in her life. What he was saying
she did not quite follow. He was speaking of comparatively indifferent
things in a rather moody tone, but she felt it round her like a caress.
And when he stopped she could hear, alarming in the sudden silence, the
precipitated beating of her heart.”
The ship-keeper dodged about the quarter-deck, out of hearing, and
trying to keep out of sight. At the same time, taking advantage of the
open doors with skill and prudence, he could see the captain and “that
girl” the captain had brought aboard. The captain was showing her round
very thoroughly. Through the whole length of the passage, far away aft
in the perspective of the saloon the ship-keeper had interesting
glimpses of them as they went in and out of the various cabins, crossing
from side to side, remaining invisible for a time in one or another of
the state-rooms, and then reappearing again in the distance. The girl,
always following the captain, had her sunshade in her hands. Mostly she
would hang her head, but now and then she would look up. They had a lot
to say to each other, and seemed to forget they weren’t alone in the
ship. He saw the captain put his hand on her shoulder, and was
preparing himself with a certain zest for what might follow, when the
“old man” seemed to recollect himself, and came striding down all the
length of the saloon. At this move the ship-keeper promptly dodged out
of sight, as you may believe, and heard the captain slam the inner door
of the passage. After that disappointment the ship-keeper waited
resentfully for them to clear out of the ship. It happened much sooner
than he had expected. The girl walked out on deck first. As before she
did not look round. She didn’t look at anything; and she seemed to be
in such a hurry to get ashore that she made for the gangway and started
down the ladder without waiting for the captain.
What struck the ship-keeper most was the absent, unseeing expression of
the captain, striding after the girl. He passed him, the ship-keeper,
without notice, without an order, without so much as a look. The
captain had never done so before. Always had a nod and a pleasant word
for a man. From this slight the ship-keeper drew a conclusion
unfavourable to the strange girl. He gave them time to get down on the
wharf before crossing the deck to steal one more look at the pair over
the rail. The captain took hold of the girl’s arm just before a couple
of railway trucks drawn by a horse came rolling along and hid them from
the ship-keeper’s sight for good.
Next day, when the chief mate joined the ship, he told him the tale of
the visit, and expressed himself about the girl “who had got hold of the
captain” disparagingly. She didn’t look healthy, he explained. “Shabby
clothes, too,” he added spitefully.
The mate was very much interested. He had been with Anthony for several
years, and had won for himself in the course of many long voyages, a
footing of familiarity, which was to be expected with a man of Anthony’s
character. But in that slowly-grown intimacy of the sea, which in its
duration and solitude had its unguarded moments, no words had passed,
even of the most casual, to prepare him for the vision of his captain
associated with any kind of girl. His impression had been that women
did not exist for Captain Anthony. Exhibiting himself with a girl! A
girl! What did he want with a girl? Bringing her on board and showing
her round the cabin! That was really a little bit too much. Captain
Anthony ought to have known better.
Franklin (the chief mate’s name was Franklin) felt disappointed; almost
disillusioned. Silly thing to do! Here was a confounded old
ship-keeper set talking. He snubbed the ship-keeper, and tried to think
of that insignificant bit of foolishness no more; for it diminished
Captain Anthony in his eyes of a jealously devoted subordinate.
Franklin was over forty; his mother was still alive. She stood in the
forefront of all women for him, just as Captain Anthony stood in the
forefront of all men. We may suppose that these groups were not very
large. He had gone to sea at a very early age. The feeling which
caused these two people to partly eclipse the rest of mankind were of
course not similar; though in time he had acquired the conviction that
he was “taking care” of them both. The “old lady” of course had to be
looked after as long as she lived. In regard to Captain Anthony, he
used to say that: why should he leave him? It wasn’t likely that he
would come across a better sailor or a better man or a more comfortable
ship. As to trying to better himself in the way of promotion, commands
were not the sort of thing one picked up in the streets, and when it
came to that, Captain Anthony was as likely to give him a lift on
occasion as anyone in the world.
From Mr Powell’s description Franklin was a short, thick black-haired
man, bald on the top. His head sunk between the shoulders, his staring
prominent eyes and a florid colour, gave him a rather apoplectic
appearance. In repose, his congested face had a humorously melancholy
expression.
The ship-keeper having given him up all the keys and having been chased
forward with the admonition to mind his own business and not to chatter
about what did not concern him, Mr Franklin went under the poop. He
opened one door after another; and, in the saloon, in the captain’s
state-room and everywhere, he stared anxiously as if expecting to see on
the bulkheads, on the deck, in the air, something unusual—sign, mark,
emanation, shadow—he hardly knew what—some subtle change wrought by
the passage of a girl. But there was nothing. He entered the
unoccupied stern-cabin and spent some time there unscrewing the two
stern ports. In the absence of all material evidences his uneasiness
was passing away. With a last glance round he came out and found
himself in the presence of his captain advancing from the other end of
the saloon.
Franklin, at once, looked for the girl. She wasn’t to be seen. The
captain came up quickly. ‘Oh! you are here, Mr Franklin.’ And the
mate said, ‘I was giving a little air to the place, sir.’ Then the
captain, his hat pulled down over his eyes, laid his stick on the table
and asked in his kind way: ‘How did you find your mother,
Franklin?’—‘The old lady’s first-rate, sir, thank you.’ And then they
had nothing to say to each other. It was a strange and disturbing
feeling for Franklin. He, just back from leave, the ship just come to
her loading berth, the captain just come on board, and apparently
nothing to say! The several questions he had been anxious to ask as to
various things which had to be done had slipped out of his mind. He,
too, felt as though he had nothing to say.
The captain, picking up his stick off the table, marched into his
state-room and shut the door after him. Franklin remained still for a
moment and then started slowly to go on deck. But before he had time to
reach the other end of the saloon he heard himself called by name. He
turned round. The captain was staring from the doorway of his
state-room. Franklin said, “Yes, sir.” But the captain, silent, leaned
a little forward grasping the door handle. So he, Franklin, walked aft
keeping his eyes on him. When he had come up quite close he said again,
“Yes, sir?” interrogatively. Still silence. The mate didn’t like to be
stared at in that manner, a manner quite new in his captain, with a
defiant and self-conscious stare, like a man who feels ill and dares you
to notice it. Franklin gazed at his captain, felt that there was
something wrong, and in his simplicity voiced his feelings by asking
point-blank:
“What’s wrong, sir?”
The captain gave a slight start, and the character of his stare changed
to a sort of sinister surprise. Franklin grew very uncomfortable, but
the captain asked negligently:
“What makes you think that there’s something wrong?”
“I can’t say exactly. You don’t look quite yourself, sir,” Franklin
owned up.
“You seem to have a confoundedly piercing eye,” said the captain in such
an aggressive tone that Franklin was moved to defend himself.
“We have been together now over six years, sir, so I suppose I know you
a bit by this time. I could see there was something wrong directly you
came on board.”
“Mr Franklin,” said the captain, “we have been more than six years
together, it is true, but I didn’t know you for a reader of faces. You
are not a correct reader though. It’s very far from being wrong. You
understand? As far from being wrong as it can very well be. It ought
to teach you not to make rash surmises. You should leave that to the
shore people. They are great hands at spying out something wrong. I
dare say they know what they have made of the world. A dam’ poor job of
it and that’s plain. It’s a confoundedly ugly place, Mr Franklin. You
don’t know anything of it? Well—no, we sailors don’t. Only now and
then one of us runs against something cruel or underhand, enough to make
your hair stand on end. And when you do see a piece of their wickedness
you find that to set it right is not so easy as it looks.... Oh! I
called you back to tell you that there will be a lot of workmen, joiners
and all that, sent down on board first thing to-morrow morning to start
making alterations in the cabin. You will see to it that they don’t
loaf. There isn’t much time.”
Franklin was impressed by this unexpected lecture upon the wickedness of
the solid world surrounded by the salt, uncorruptible waters on which he
and his captain had dwelt all their lives in happy innocence. What he
could not understand was why it should have been delivered, and what
connection it could have with such a matter as the alterations to be
carried out in the cabin. The work did not seem to him to be called for
in such a hurry. What was the use of altering anything? It was a very
good accommodation, spacious, well-distributed, on a rather
old-fashioned plan, and with its decorations somewhat tarnished. But a
dab of varnish, a touch of gilding here and there, was all that was
necessary. As to comfort, it could not be improved by any alterations.
He resented the notion of change; but he said dutifully that he would
keep his eye on the workmen if the captain would only let him know what
was the nature of the work he had ordered to be done.
“You’ll find a note of it on this table. I’ll leave it for you as I go
ashore,” said Captain Anthony hastily. Franklin thought there was no
more to hear, and made a movement to leave the saloon. But the captain
continued after a slight pause, “You will be surprised, no doubt, when
you look at it. There’ll be a good many alterations. It’s on account
of a lady coming with us. I am going to get married, Mr Franklin!”