"MAN OVERBOARD!"
When Hetty recovered from the astonishment into which Mr. William
Crawford's words and manner had cast her, the first fact which struck
her memory was that he had called her Hetty. That might, no doubt, be
excused in a man of his time of life to a girl of hers (she considered
his thirty-six years entitled him to be considered quite middle-aged).
But she would have felt more comfortable if the question had not been
raised at all. It was, she urged in mitigation, to be taken into
account that he spoke under great excitement and in haste. But, after
all, the thing was not worth a moment's thought.
There was, however, a fact worth considering. This man, sleeping or
waking, did seem to have a special care of the lives of others. Had he
not rescued his wife from fire?--and here now was this dream, this
dreadful dream about the odious old ice-house. No doubt some men were
born with a natural taste for encountering risks, but her inclination
did not lead her to plunge into burning houses or flooded ice-houses.
For her part she would rather run away twenty miles.
And then what were these words he had said about herself? Now that
they came back to her they seemed foolish, impertinent, and she ought
to have been angry with him for laughing at her. But no; he had not
been laughing at her. He could not laugh at anything on earth after
having such an awful dream, and no doubt what he had said of herself
was only his exaggerated way of describing how terribly hard he had
wanted to save the drowning woman. But there was no person really
drowning, and it would be nonsense not to forget the whole interview
with him.
Yet it could hardly be got rid of in that way, for how would Alfred
take it? The whole affair was very provoking and horrible, and she
felt disposed to cry. Perhaps Alfred was right in his first estimate
of Crawford, and he was a little mad.
Yes, clearly the man ought to be in a lunatic asylum, and not allowed
to go about the country dreaming and terrifying people.
She had no doubt that in a few minutes a procession of men, carrying
planks on their shoulders and bags of tools in their hands, would
arrive and make the place unbearable with noise and chips.
Hetty would have made her mind quite easy on the last score if she
could have seen into the mind of William Crawford as he left the door.
For he had no more notion of going to any carpenter that day about the
job than he had of flinging himself off Welford Bridge into the South
London Canal. What he did intend doing was, to come back in a week and
say he found the wretched carpenters to whom he had given the order
had wholly misunderstood him and botched the job. This would be
economical as far as the doors were concerned, and would give him
another interview with Hetty.
He had no notion of keeping his promise to his wife either. What could
be easier and more pleasant than to enjoy a few hours' freedom in
town, and tell her on his return to Richmond that the difficulties to
be overcome at the ice-house were much greater than he had
anticipated, and that he had been most grievously delayed against his
will.
From a map he had discovered, since his former visit, that he could
come or go by water. At the end of one of the Pine Groves lay the
Mercantile Pier, and Crawford turned in that direction, resolved to
get to town by river.
It pleased him to know that there were two ways of approaching his
office, and the line from Crawford's House to the Mercantile Pier was
directly away from Camberwell, whereas the route by road was only at
right angles to it.
"I think what I said to Hetty must create some effect," he thought, as
he walked with brisk footstep and alert body. "It did all I intended
anyway. She may, when she gets over her surprise, be either pleased or
indignant; but she cannot be indifferent, she is too imaginative for
that."
He passed by the Neptune public-house, and entered the Pine Grove
leading to the Mercantile Pier. He had no need to ask his way: he
carried the map of the place in his head.
Here on either side of him rose the tall black palings. The path
between them was only a footway, and wound along sinuously for half a
mile between the great docks on either side. The path bent so acutely
that it was impossible to see further than a hundred yards before or
behind.
To Crawford, who was always expecting to find Philip Ray spring forth,
feel a burning sting, hear a report, and know that vengeance had
overtaken him at last, this characteristic had one great advantage: it
left both his sides protected. He could be approached only from the
front or rear.
The place was very secret and retired. There was not a sound beyond
the far-off hum of the city. Spying through the chinks in the palings
one could see nothing but broken dark grey ground littered with all
kinds of odds and ends of timber and metal objects, looking as dreary
and deserted and forlorn as a locked-up and deserted graveyard.
Overhead spread the faint blue sky, with the sun behind a dull grey
cloud, and above the paling to right and left, and, as it were, rising
from hulls lying far off inland, the lofty motionless spars of great
ships in the stillness of the upper air.
From the time Crawford entered the Pine Grove until he had got more
than half-way through he encountered no one. Then all at once he
became aware that he was gradually overtaking a woman who was walking
in front, and that footsteps which he had heard for some time behind
him were gradually gaining upon him.
With him every unknown woman was an object of curiosity: every unknown
man Philip Ray. The woman in front was poorly clad, and walked with
lagging step and dejected head. She did not promise to interest him.
He turned round. The man was not Philip Ray. Without further thought
of either he continued his walk.
Presently the man was level with him, and said, "Beg pardon, sir, but
I saw you pass the Neptune, and I thought I'd ask you if you had any
odd job hereabout on your property."
Crawford started and looked sharply at the man out of his dark furtive
eyes. The speaker he recognised as the man who had acted as his guide,
and explained to him the means of Philip Ray's mysterious
disappearance from the tow-path.
"No," he said sharply, "I have no job," and turned away to show he did
not wish to be spoken to again.
"Perhaps, sir, you don't know the stage is off?"
"What!" cried Crawford, stopping and confronting the man. "What do you
mean by the stage being off?" He remembered that Red Jim had told him
about the floating stage at Boland's Ait. Could it be that the
floating bridge had been removed, and that Ray's visit to the islet
and its idiotic owner had ceased? or that the owner had taken himself
away?
Jim pointed down the Grove. "The stage that goes from the land to the
pier had to be taken away for repairs, and you have to get from the
shore to the pier in a small boat, and when the tide is low, as it is
now, you have to go down a long ladder so as to get to the bed of the
river, and from the bed of the river to the small boat; and people
with plenty of money don't care about doing that. So when I saw you
turn into the Grove I thought I'd come and tell you, as I felt sure if
you knew you wouldn't think of going by boat, and I remembered you
gave me two tanners a fortnight ago."
"Then I won't give you anything now," said Crawford sharply, as he
resumed his way. His anger had been aroused by the hopes raised and
cast down by Red Jim's two speeches about the stage.
"Not as much as a tanner?"
"Not as much as half a farthing. I made a very bad bargain the last
time, and this must be given in with what you did before. Besides,
this is no use to me, for I intend going by boat all the same.
Good-day. If you beg again I shall call the police."
The man abated his pace with a malediction, and Crawford went on, Red
Jim followed him slowly, cursing his own luck.
The delay caused by the dialogue with Red Jim had given the woman a
good start, and by the time Crawford reached the head of the ladder
the woman was in the act of being handed into the small boat.
When Crawford looked down he was very sorry he had not given Red Jim
sixpence for his news and advice, and gone back by land. But it was
too late to retrace his steps. He felt a dogged determination not to
give Jim anything or be jeered at by him.
Half the descent was easy enough, as it was by rude wooden stairs; but
the other half had to be accomplished by means of a broad ladder of
very muddy, slippery, and rotten looking steps. The foreshore, too,
looked muddy, slimy, uninviting, and here and there was steaming in an
unpleasant manner under the influence of the sun, now shining clearly
between vast plains of pale grey clouds.
Crawford hated boats for two reasons. First, he couldn't pull; and,
second, he always felt nervous in them, and he could not swim.
However, there was not much time for liking or disliking, for the men
in the small boat beckoned him to come on. There were already in the
boat the crew of two men, the woman who had preceded him down the
lane, and six other women.
With repugnance he descended to the foreshore, and with repugnance and
difficulty got into the boat. All the passengers except one were aft.
Crawford took a seat on the starboard side, next to the woman who had
preceded him down the Grove.
She took no notice of his coming aboard. She appeared unconscious of
everything round her. She wore a thick black veil, and kept her head
bowed upon her chest, giving him the idea that she suffered from some
deformity, or disease, or dire calamity. She clasped her elbow in one
hand, her arm across her chest, and her other hand across her eyes.
The moment she entered the boat she had assumed this posture, and had
not moved since.
Her attitude was the result of two causes: her eyes were weak from
recent illness, and she was suffering from incurable sorrows.
Her clothes were worn and betokened poverty, her purse penury. Under
her thin frayed dress her shoulders bore marks of recent scratches;
under the bosom of her dress her heart bore open wounds of anguish.
She was on her way to a free hospital about her eyes.
Disease had lately threatened her life, but even Death refused to have
her. At what she believed to be her last hour she provided for her
only child, the apple of her eye, her solitary joy, by placing him in
safety, but beyond the power of a recalling cry from her lips. She had
then put aside money for her sepulchre.
Death had disdained her, and she was now wandering about alone with
the vast world as a tomb and a solitude, and a broken heart and the
fate of an outcast, and the undying gnawing remorse for company, with
for the sustentation of her living body the money she had devised for
its decay. An illness had taken away her voice, which was her bread.
Just as the boat shoved off, Red Jim reached the head of the stairs,
and stood there regarding the progress of his patron. He noticed that
the ebb tide was running very fast, and that the men kept the boat
heading a little up stream to make allowance for leeway. He noticed
that Crawford was the last passenger on the starboard side, and that,
therefore, he would be on the inside when the boat got alongside. "I
hope," thought Red Jim, "that there's some nice fresh paint or a nice
long nail waiting for him when he's going up the side."
He saw the boat touch the side, and Crawford stagger instantly to his
feet. He saw him sway to and fro, and then suddenly fall back against
the hulk, boom the boat off with his legs, and drop overboard between
the boat and the hulk.
Red Jim uttered a loud shout of triumph, and then began shouting and
dancing like mad for joy.
"He'll shoot in under the hulk and be drowned!" cried Red Jim
exultingly.
Then an oath:
"That ---- woman's got him!
"Catch him! Hold him!" cried the boatmen. "Hold on for your life or
he'll be sucked under!"
The veiled woman had seized the sinking man and thrown herself on her
knees--was holding on with all the power of her enfeebled arms.
"Trim the boat! Trim the boat, ---- you, or she'll capsize! On deck,
there!" shouted the boatman to the hulk.
By this time aid had come from the deck, and the submerged man had
been seized by the hooks and had hold of a line. Up to this the
boatmen had been completely powerless, for all the women had crowded
to the starboard side, and bore down the boat's gunwale until it
washed level with the water, and if the men attempted to get near the
starboard side aft the boat must have gone over at once. And now the
passengers went on board the hulk.
When the woman who had saved him was relieved of his weight, she gave
a loud cry, and fell back fainting in the boat.