CHANCE
A TALE IN TWO PARTS
by Joseph Conrad
|
|
Those that hold that all things are governed by Fortune
had not erred, had they not persisted there.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE
PART ITHE DAMSEL
CHAPTER ONEYOUNG POWELL AND HIS CHANCE
I believe he had seen us out of the window coming off to dine in
the dinghy of a fourteen-ton yawl belonging to Marlow my host and skipper.
We helped the boy we had with us to haul the boat up on the landing-stage
before we went up to the riverside inn, where we found our new acquaintance
eating his dinner in dignified loneliness at the head of a long table,
white and inhospitable like a snow bank.
The red tint of his clear-cut face with trim short black whiskers
under a cap of curly iron-grey hair was the only warm spot in the dinginess
of that room cooled by the cheerless tablecloth. We knew him already
by sight as the owner of a little five-ton cutter, which he sailed alone
apparently, a fellow yachtsman in the unpretending band of fanatics
who cruise at the mouth of the Thames. But the first time he addressed
the waiter sharply as steward we knew him at once for
a sailor as well as a yachtsman.
Presently he had occasion to reprove that same waiter for the slovenly
manner in which the dinner was served. He did it with considerable
energy and then turned to us.
If we at sea, he declared, went about our work
as people ashore high and low go about theirs we should never make a
living. No one would employ us. And moreover no ship navigated
and sailed in the happy-go-lucky manner people conduct their business
on shore would ever arrive into port.
Since he had retired from the sea he had been astonished to discover
that the educated people were not much better than the others.
No one seemed to take any proper pride in his work: from plumbers who
were simply thieves to, say, newspaper men (he seemed to think them
a specially intellectual class) who never by any chance gave a correct
version of the simplest affair. This universal inefficiency of
what he called the shore gang he ascribed in general to
the want of responsibility and to a sense of security.
They see, he went on, that no matter what they
do this tight little island wont turn turtle with them or spring
a leak and go to the bottom with their wives and children.
From this point the conversation took a special turn relating exclusively
to sea-life. On that subject he got quickly in touch with Marlow
who in his time had followed the sea. They kept up a lively exchange
of reminiscences while I listened. They agreed that the happiest
time in their lives was as youngsters in good ships, with no care in
the world but not to lose a watch below when at sea and not a moments
time in going ashore after work hours when in harbour. They agreed
also as to the proudest moment they had known in that calling which
is never embraced on rational and practical grounds, because of the
glamour of its romantic associations. It was the moment when they
had passed successfully their first examination and left the seamanship
Examiner with the little precious slip of blue paper in their hands.
That day I wouldnt have called the Queen my cousin,
declared our new acquaintance enthusiastically.
At that time the Marine Board examinations took place at the St.
Katherines Dock House on Tower Hill, and he informed us that
he had a special affection for the view of that historic locality, with
the Gardens to the left, the front of the Mint to the right, the miserable
tumble-down little houses farther away, a cabstand, boot-blacks squatting
on the edge of the pavement and a pair of big policemen gazing with
an air of superiority at the doors of the Black Horse public-house across
the road. This was the part of the world, he said, his eyes first
took notice of, on the finest day of his life. He had emerged
from the main entrance of St. Katherines Dock House a full-fledged
second mate after the hottest time of his life with Captain R-, the
most dreaded of the three seamanship Examiners who at the time were
responsible for the merchant service officers qualifying in the Port
of London.
We all who were preparing to pass, he said, used
to shake in our shoes at the idea of going before him. He kept
me for an hour and a half in the torture chamber and behaved as though
he hated me. He kept his eyes shaded with one of his hands.
Suddenly he let it drop saying, You will do! Before
I realised what he meant he was pushing the blue slip across the table.
I jumped up as if my chair had caught fire.
Thank you, sir, says I, grabbing the paper.
Good morning, good luck to you, he growls at me.
The old doorkeeper fussed out of the cloak-room with my hat.
They always do. But he looked very hard at me before he ventured
to ask in a sort of timid whisper: Got through all right, sir?
For all answer I dropped a half-crown into his soft broad palm.
Well, says he with a sudden grin from ear to ear, I
never knew him keep any of you gentlemen so long. He failed two
second mates this morning before your turn came. Less than twenty
minutes each: thats about his usual time.
I found myself downstairs without being aware of the steps
as if I had floated down the staircase. The finest day in my life.
The day you get your first command is nothing to it. For one thing
a man is not so young then and for another with us, you know, there
is nothing much more to expect. Yes, the finest day of ones
life, no doubt, but then it is just a day and no more. What comes
after is about the most unpleasant time for a youngster, the trying
to get an officers berth with nothing much to show but a brand-new
certificate. It is surprising how useless you find that piece
of asss skin that you have been putting yourself in such a state
about. It didnt strike me at the time that a Board of Trade
certificate does not make an officer, not by a long long way.
But the slippers of the ships I was haunting with demands for a job
knew that very well. I dont wonder at them now, and I dont
blame them either. But this trying to get a ship
is pretty hard on a youngster all the same . . .
He went on then to tell us how tired he was and how discouraged by
this lesson of disillusion following swiftly upon the finest day of
his life. He told us how he went the round of all the ship-owners
offices in the City where some junior clerk would furnish him with printed
forms of application which he took home to fill up in the evening.
He used to run out just before midnight to post them in the nearest
pillar-box. And that was all that ever came of it. In his
own words: he might just as well have dropped them all properly addressed
and stamped into the sewer grating.
Then one day, as he was wending his weary way to the docks, he met
a friend and former shipmate a little older than himself outside the
Fenchurch Street Railway Station.
He craved for sympathy but his friend had just got a ship
that very morning and was hurrying home in a state of outward joy and
inward uneasiness usual to a sailor who after many days of waiting suddenly
gets a berth. This friend had the time to condole with him but
briefly. He must be moving. Then as he was running off,
over his shoulder as it were, he suggested: Why dont you
go and speak to Mr. Powell in the Shipping Office. Our
friend objected that he did not know Mr. Powell from Adam. And
the other already pretty near round the corner shouted back advice:
Go to the private door of the Shipping Office and walk right
up to him. His desk is by the window. Go up boldly and say
I sent you.
Our new acquaintance looking from one to the other of us declared:
Upon my word, I had grown so desperate that Id have gone
boldly up to the devil himself on the mere hint that he had a second
mates job to give away.
It was at this point that interrupting his flow of talk to light
his pipe but holding us with his eye he inquired whether we had known
Powell. Marlow with a slight reminiscent smile murmured that he
remembered him very well.
Then there was a pause. Our new acquaintance had become involved
in a vexatious difficulty with his pipe which had suddenly betrayed
his trust and disappointed his anticipation of self-indulgence.
To keep the ball rolling I asked Marlow if this Powell was remarkable
in any way.
He was not exactly remarkable, Marlow answered with
his usual nonchalance. In a general way its very
difficult for one to become remarkable. People wont take
sufficient notice of one, dont you know. I remember Powell
so well simply because as one of the Shipping Masters in the Port of
London he dispatched me to sea on several long stages of my sailors
pilgrimage. He resembled Socrates. I mean he resembled him
genuinely: that is in the face. A philosophical mind is but an
accident. He reproduced exactly the familiar bust of the immortal
sage, if you will imagine the bust with a high top hat riding far on
the back of the head, and a black coat over the shoulders. As
I never saw him except from the other side of the long official counter
bearing the five writing desks of the five Shipping Masters, Mr. Powell
has remained a bust to me.
Our new acquaintance advanced now from the mantelpiece with his pipe
in good working order.
What was the most remarkable about Powell, he enunciated
dogmatically with his head in a cloud of smoke, is that he should
have had just that name. You see, my name happens to be Powell
too.
It was clear that this intelligence was not imparted to us for social
purposes. It required no acknowledgment. We continued to
gaze at him with expectant eyes.
He gave himself up to the vigorous enjoyment of his pipe for a silent
minute or two. Then picking up the thread of his story he told
us how he had started hot foot for Tower Hill. He had not been
that way since the day of his examinationthe finest day of his
lifethe day of his overweening pride. It was very different
now. He would not have called the Queen his cousin, still, but
this time it was from a sense of profound abasement. He didnt
think himself good enough for anybodys kinship. He envied
the purple-nosed old cab-drivers on the stand, the boot-black boys at
the edge of the pavement, the two large bobbies pacing slowly along
the Tower Gardens railings in the consciousness of their infallible
might, and the bright scarlet sentries walking smartly to and fro before
the Mint. He envied them their places in the scheme of worlds
labour. And he envied also the miserable sallow, thin-faced loafers
blinking their obscene eyes and rubbing their greasy shoulders against
the door-jambs of the Black Horse pub, because they were too far gone
to feel their degradation.
I must render the man the justice that he conveyed very well to us
the sense of his youthful hopelessness surprised at not finding its
place in the sun and no recognition of its right to live.
He went up the outer steps of St. Katherines Dock House, the
very steps from which he had some six weeks before surveyed the cabstand,
the buildings, the policemen, the boot-blacks, the paint, gilt, and
plateglass of the Black Horse, with the eye of a Conqueror. At
the time he had been at the bottom of his heart surprised that all this
had not greeted him with songs and incense, but now (he made no secret
of it) he made his entry in a slinking fashion past the doorkeepers
glass box. I hadnt any half-crowns to spare for
tips, he remarked grimly. The man, however, ran out after
him asking: What do you require? but with a grateful glance
up at the first floor in remembrance of Captain R-s examination
room (how easy and delightful all that had been) he bolted down a flight
leading to the basement and found himself in a place of dusk and mystery
and many doors. He had been afraid of being stopped by some rule
of no-admittance. However he was not pursued.
The basement of St. Katherines Dock House is vast in extent
and confusing in its plan. Pale shafts of light slant from above
into the gloom of its chilly passages. Powell wandered up and
down there like an early Christian refugee in the catacombs; but what
little faith he had in the success of his enterprise was oozing out
at his finger-tips. At a dark turn under a gas bracket whose flame
was half turned down his self-confidence abandoned him altogether.
I stood there to think a little, he said. A
foolish thing to do because of course I got scared. What could
you expect? It takes some nerve to tackle a stranger with a request
for a favour. I wished my namesake Powell had been the devil himself.
I felt somehow it would have been an easier job. You see, I never
believed in the devil enough to be scared of him; but a man can make
himself very unpleasant. I looked at a lot of doors, all shut
tight, with a growing conviction that I would never have the pluck to
open one of them. Thinkings no good for ones nerve.
I concluded I would give up the whole business. But I didnt
give up in the end, and Ill tell you what stopped me. It
was the recollection of that confounded doorkeeper who had called after
me. I felt sure the fellow would be on the look-out at the head
of the stairs. If he asked me what I had been after, as he had
the right to do, I wouldnt know what to answer that wouldnt
make me look silly if no worse. I got very hot. There was
no chance of slinking out of this business.
I had lost my bearings somehow down there. Of the many
doors of various sizes, right and left, a good few had glazed lights
above; some however must have led merely into lumber rooms or such like,
because when I brought myself to try one or two I was disconcerted to
find that they were locked. I stood there irresolute and uneasy
like a baffled thief. The confounded basement was as still as
a grave and I became aware of my heart beats. Very uncomfortable
sensation. Never happened to me before or since. A bigger
door to the left of me, with a large brass handle looked as if it might
lead into the Shipping Office. I tried it, setting my teeth.
Here goes!
It came open quite easily. And lo! the place it opened
into was hardly any bigger than a cupboard. Anyhow it wasnt
more than ten feet by twelve; and as I in a way expected to see the
big shadowy cellar-like extent of the Shipping Office where I had been
once or twice before, I was extremely startled. A gas bracket
hung from the middle of the ceiling over a dark, shabby writing-desk
covered with a litter of yellowish dusty documents. Under the
flame of the single burner which made the place ablaze with light, a
plump, little man was writing hard, his nose very near the desk.
His head was perfectly bald and about the same drab tint as the papers.
He appeared pretty dusty too.
I didnt notice whether there were any cobwebs on him,
but I shouldnt wonder if there were because he looked as though
he had been imprisoned for years in that little hole. The way
he dropped his pen and sat blinking my way upset me very much.
And his dungeon was hot and musty; it smelt of gas and mushrooms, and
seemed to be somewhere 120 feet below the ground. Solid, heavy
stacks of paper filled all the corners half-way up to the ceiling.
And when the thought flashed upon me that these were the premises of
the Marine Board and that this fellow must be connected in some way
with ships and sailors and the sea, my astonishment took my breath away.
One couldnt imagine why the Marine Board should keep that bald,
fat creature slaving down there. For some reason or other I felt
sorry and ashamed to have found him out in his wretched captivity.
I asked gently and sorrowfully: The Shipping Office, please.
He piped up in a contemptuous squeaky voice which made me start:
Not here. Try the passage on the other side. Street
side. This is the Dock side. Youve lost your way
. . .
He spoke in such a spiteful tone that I thought he was going to round
off with the words: You fool . . . and perhaps he meant
to. But what he finished sharply with was: Shut the door
quietly after you.
And I did shut it quietlyyou bet. Quick and quiet.
The indomitable spirit of that chap impressed me. I wonder sometimes
whether he has succeeded in writing himself into liberty and a pension
at last, or had to go out of his gas-lighted grave straight into that
other dark one where nobody would want to intrude. My humanity
was pleased to discover he had so much kick left in him, but I was not
comforted in the least. It occurred to me that if Mr. Powell had
the same sort of temper . . . However, I didnt give myself time
to think and scuttled across the space at the foot of the stairs into
the passage where Id been told to try. And I tried the
first door I came to, right away, without any hanging back, because
coming loudly from the hall above an amazed and scandalized voice wanted
to know what sort of game I was up to down there. Dont
you know theres no admittance that way? it roared.
But if there was anything more I shut it out of my hearing by means
of a door marked Private on the outside. It let me into
a six-feet wide strip between a long counter and the wall, taken off
a spacious, vaulted room with a grated window and a glazed door giving
daylight to the further end. The first thing I saw right in front
of me were three middle-aged men having a sort of romp together round
about another fellow with a thin, long neck and sloping shoulders who
stood up at a desk writing on a large sheet of paper and taking no notice
except that he grinned quietly to himself. They turned very sour
at once when they saw me. I heard one of them mutter Hullo!
What have we here?
I want to see Mr. Powell, please, I said, very
civil but firm; I would let nothing scare me away now. This was
the Shipping Office right enough. It was after 3 oclock
and the business seemed over for the day with them. The long-necked
fellow went on with his writing steadily. I observed that he was
no longer grinning. The three others tossed their heads all together
towards the far end of the room where a fifth man had been looking on
at their antics from a high stool. I walked up to him as boldly
as if he had been the devil himself. With one foot raised up and
resting on the cross-bar of his seat he never stopped swinging the other
which was well clear of the stone floor. He had unbuttoned the
top of his waistcoat and he wore his tall hat very far at the back of
his head. He had a full unwrinkled face and such clear-shining
eyes that his grey beard looked quite false on him, stuck on for a disguise.
You said just now he resembled Socratesdidnt you?
I dont know about that. This Socrates was a wise man, I
believe?
He was, assented Marlow. And a true friend
of youth. He lectured them in a peculiarly exasperating manner.
It was a way he had.
Then give me Powell every time, declared our new acquaintance
sturdily. He didnt lecture me in any way.
Not he. He said: How do you do? quite kindly to
my mumble. Then says he looking very hard at me: I dont
think I know youdo I?
No, sir, I said and down went my heart sliding into
my boots, just as the time had come to summon up all my cheek.
Theres nothing meaner in the world than a piece of impudence
that isnt carried off well. For fear of appearing shamefaced
I started about it so free and easy as almost to frighten myself.
He listened for a while looking at my face with surprise and curiosity
and then held up his hand. I was glad enough to shut up, I can
tell you.
Well, you are a cool hand, says he. And
that friend of yours too. He pestered me coming here every day
for a fortnight till a captain Im acquainted with was good enough
to give him a berth. And no sooner hes provided for than
he turns you on. You youngsters dont seem to mind whom
you get into trouble.
It was my turn now to stare with surprise and curiosity.
He hadnt been talking loud but he lowered his voice still more.
Dont you know its illegal?
I wondered what he was driving at till I remembered that procuring
a berth for a sailor is a penal offence under the Act. That clause
was directed of course against the swindling practices of the boarding-house
crimps. It had never struck me it would apply to everybody alike
no matter what the motive, because I believed then that people on shore
did their work with care and foresight.
I was confounded at the idea, but Mr. Powell made me soon
see that an Act of Parliament hasnt any sense of its own.
It has only the sense thats put into it; and thats precious
little sometimes. He didnt mind helping a young man to
a ship now and then, he said, but if we kept on coming constantly it
would soon get about that he was doing it for money.
A pretty thing that would be: the Senior Shipping-Master of
the Port of London hauled up in a police court and fined fifty pounds,
says he. Ive another four years to serve to get
my pension. It could be made to look very black against me and
dont you make any mistake about it, he says.
And all the time with one knee well up he went on swinging
his other leg like a boy on a gate and looking at me very straight with
his shining eyes. I was confounded I tell you. It made me
sick to hear him imply that somebody would make a report against him.
Oh! I asked shocked, who would think of such
a scurvy trick, sir? I was half disgusted with him for
having the mere notion of it.
Who? says he, speaking very low. Anybody.
One of the office messengers maybe. Ive risen to be the
Senior of this office and we are all very good friends here, but dont
you think that my colleague that sits next to me wouldnt like
to go up to this desk by the window four years in advance of the regulation
time? Or even one year for that matter. Its human
nature.
I could not help turning my head. The three fellows
who had been skylarking when I came in were now talking together very
soberly, and the long-necked chap was going on with his writing still.
He seemed to me the most dangerous of the lot. I saw him sideface
and his lips were set very tight. I had never looked at mankind
in that light before. When ones young human nature shocks
one. But what startled me most was to see the door I had come
through open slowly and give passage to a head in a uniform cap with
a Board of Trade badge. It was that blamed old doorkeeper from
the hall. He had run me to earth and meant to dig me out too.
He walked up the office smirking craftily, cap in hand.
What is it, Symons? asked Mr. Powell.
I was only wondering where this ere gentleman ad
gone to, sir. He slipped past me upstairs, sir.
I felt mighty uncomfortable.
Thats all right, Symons. I know the gentleman,
says Mr. Powell as serious as a judge.
Very well, sir. Of course, sir. I saw the gentleman
running races all by isself down ere, so I . . .
Its all right I tell you, Mr. Powell cut him
short with a wave of his hand; and, as the old fraud walked off at last,
he raised his eyes to me. I did not know what to do: stay there,
or clear out, or say that I was sorry.
Lets see, says he, what did you tell
me your name was?
Now, observe, I hadnt given him my name at all and
his question embarrassed me a bit. Somehow or other it didnt
seem proper for me to fling his own name at him as it were. So
I merely pulled out my new certificate from my pocket and put it into
his hand unfolded, so that he could read Charles Powell written
very plain on the parchment.
He dropped his eyes on to it and after a while laid it quietly
on the desk by his side. I didnt know whether he meant
to make any remark on this coincidence. Before he had time to
say anything the glass door came open with a bang and a tall, active
man rushed in with great strides. His face looked very red below
his high silk hat. You could see at once he was the skipper of
a big ship.
Mr. Powell after telling me in an undertone to wait a little
addressed him in a friendly way.
Ive been expecting you in every moment to fetch away
your Articles, Captain. Here they are all ready for you.
And turning to a pile of agreements lying at his elbow he took up the
topmost of them. From where I stood I could read the words: Ship
Ferndale written in a large round hand on the first page.
No, Mr. Powell, they arent ready, worse luck,
says that skipper. Ive got to ask you to strike
out my second officer. He seemed excited and bothered.
He explained that his second mate had been working on board all the
morning. At one oclock he went out to get a bit of dinner
and didnt turn up at two as he ought to have done. Instead
there came a messenger from the hospital with a note signed by a doctor.
Collar bone and one arm broken. Let himself be knocked down by
a pair horse van while crossing the road outside the dock gate, as if
he had neither eyes nor ears. And the ship ready to leave the
dock at six oclock to-morrow morning!
Mr. Powell dipped his pen and began to turn the leaves of
the agreement over. We must then take his name off,
he says in a kind of unconcerned sing-song.
What am I to do? burst out the skipper. This
office closes at four oclock. I cant find a man
in half an hour.
This office closes at four, repeats Mr. Powell glancing
up and down the pages and touching up a letter here and there with perfect
indifference.
Even if I managed to lay hold some time to-day of a man ready
to go at such short notice I couldnt ship him regularly herecould
I?
Mr. Powell was busy drawing his pen through the entries relating
to that unlucky second mate and making a note in the margin.
You could sign him on yourself on board, says he without
looking up. But I dont think youll find easily
an officer for such a pier-head jump.
Upon this the fine-looking skipper gave signs of distress.
The ship mustnt miss the next mornings tide. He
had to take on board forty tons of dynamite and a hundred and twenty
tons of gunpowder at a place down the river before proceeding to sea.
It was all arranged for next day. There would be no end of fuss
and complications if the ship didnt turn up in time . . . I couldnt
help hearing all this, while wishing him to take himself off, because
I wanted to know why Mr. Powell had told me to wait. After what
he had been saying there didnt seem any object in my hanging
about. If I had had my certificate in my pocket I should have
tried to slip away quietly; but Mr. Powell had turned about into the
same position I found him in at first and was again swinging his leg.
My certificate open on the desk was under his left elbow and I couldnt
very well go up and jerk it away.
I dont know, says he carelessly, addressing
the helpless captain but looking fixedly at me with an expression as
if I hadnt been there. I dont know whether
I ought to tell you that I know of a disengaged second mate at hand.
Do you mean youve got him here? shouts the other
looking all over the empty public part of the office as if he were ready
to fling himself bodily upon anything resembling a second mate.
He had been so full of his difficulty that I verify believe he had never
noticed me. Or perhaps seeing me inside he may have thought I
was some understrapper belonging to the place. But when Mr. Powell
nodded in my direction he became very quiet and gave me a long stare.
Then he stooped to Mr. Powells earI suppose he imagined
he was whispering, but I heard him well enough.
Looks very respectable.
Certainly, says the shipping-master quite calm and
staring all the time at me. His names Powell.
Oh, I see! says the skipper as if struck all of a heap.
But is he ready to join at once?
I had a sort of vision of my lodgingsin the North of
London, too, beyond Dalston, away to the deviland all my gear
scattered about, and my empty sea-chest somewhere in an outhouse the
good people I was staying with had at the end of their sooty strip of
garden. I heard the Shipping Master say in the coolest sort of
way:
Hell sleep on board to-night.
He had better, says the Captain of the Ferndale
very businesslike, as if the whole thing were settled. I cant
say I was dumb for joy as you may suppose. It wasnt exactly
that. I was more by way of being out of breath with the quickness
of it. It didnt seem possible that this was happening to
me. But the skipper, after he had talked for a while with Mr.
Powell, too low for me to hear became visibly perplexed.
I suppose he had heard I was freshly passed and without experience
as an officer, because he turned about and looked me over as if I had
been exposed for sale.
Hes young, he mutters. Looks smart,
though . . . Youre smart and willing (this to me very sudden
and loud) and all that, arent you?
I just managed to open and shut my mouth, no more, being taken
unawares. But it was enough for him. He made as if I had
deafened him with protestations of my smartness and willingness.
Of course, of course. All right. And then
turning to the Shipping Master who sat there swinging his leg, he said
that he certainly couldnt go to sea without a second officer.
I stood by as if all these things were happening to some other chap
whom I was seeing through with it. Mr. Powell stared at me with
those shining eyes of his. But that bothered skipper turns upon
me again as though he wanted to snap my head off.
You arent too big to be told how to do thingsare
you? Youve a lot to learn yet though you maynt think
so.
I had half a mind to save my dignity by telling him that if
it was my seamanship he was alluding to I wanted him to understand that
a fellow who had survived being turned inside out for an hour and a
half by Captain R- was equal to any demand his old ship was likely to
make on his competence. However he didnt give me a chance
to make that sort of fool of myself because before I could open my mouth
he had gone round on another tack and was addressing himself affably
to Mr. Powell who swinging his leg never took his eyes off me.
Ill take your young friend willingly, Mr. Powell.
If you let him sign on as second-mate at once Ill take the Articles
away with me now.
It suddenly dawned upon me that the innocent skipper of the
Ferndale had taken it for granted that I was a relative of the
Shipping Master! I was quite astonished at this discovery, though
indeed the mistake was natural enough under the circumstances.
What I ought to have admired was the reticence with which this misunderstanding
had been established and acted upon. But I was too stupid then
to admire anything. All my anxiety was that this should be cleared
up. I was ass enough to wonder exceedingly at Mr. Powell failing
to notice the misapprehension. I saw a slight twitch come and
go on his face; but instead of setting right that mistake the Shipping
Master swung round on his stool and addressed me as Charles.
He did. And I detected him taking a hasty squint at my certificate
just before, because clearly till he did so he was not sure of my christian
name. Now then come round in front of the desk, Charles,
says he in a loud voice.
Charles! At first, I declare to you, it didnt
seem possible that he was addressing himself to me. I even looked
round for that Charles but there was nobody behind me except the thin-necked
chap still hard at his writing, and the other three Shipping Masters
who were changing their coats and reaching for their hats, making ready
to go home. It was the industrious thin-necked man who without
laying down his pen lifted with his left hand a flap near his desk and
said kindly:
Pass this way.
I walked through in a trance, faced Mr. Powell, from whom I learned
that we were bound to Port Elizabeth first, and signed my name on the
Articles of the ship Ferndale as second matethe voyage
not to exceed two years.
You wont fail to joineh? says the captain
anxiously. It would cause no end of trouble and expense
if you did. Youve got a good six hours to get your gear
together, and then youll have time to snatch a sleep on board
before the crew joins in the morning.
It was easy enough for him to talk of getting ready in six
hours for a voyage that was not to exceed two years. He hadnt
to do that trick himself, and with his sea-chest locked up in an outhouse
the key of which had been mislaid for a week as I remembered.
But neither was I much concerned. The idea that I was absolutely
going to sea at six oclock next morning hadnt got quite
into my head yet. It had been too sudden.
Mr. Powell, slipping the Articles into a long envelope, spoke
up with a sort of cold half-laugh without looking at either of us.
Mind you dont disgrace the name, Charles.
And the skipper chimes in very kindly:
Hell do well enough I dare say. Ill look
after him a bit.
Upon this he grabs the Articles, says something about trying
to run in for a minute to see that poor devil in the hospital, and off
he goes with his heavy swinging step after telling me sternly: Dont
you go like that poor fellow and get yourself run over by a cart as
if you hadnt either eyes or ears.
Mr. Powell, says I timidly (there was by then only
the thin-necked man left in the office with us and he was already by
the door, standing on one leg to turn the bottom of his trousers up
before going away). Mr. Powell, says I, I
believe the Captain of the Ferndale was thinking all the time
that I was a relation of yours.
I was rather concerned about the propriety of it, you know,
but Mr. Powell didnt seem to be in the least.
Did he? says he. Thats funny, because
it seems to me too that Ive been a sort of good uncle to several
of you young fellows lately. Dont you think so yourself?
However, if you dont like it you may put him rightwhen
you get out to sea. At this I felt a bit queer. Mr.
Powell had rendered me a very good service:- because its a fact
that with us merchant sailors the first voyage as officer is the real
start in life. He had given me no less than that. I told
him warmly that he had done for me more that day than all my relations
put together ever did.
Oh, no, no, says he. I guess its
that shipment of explosives waiting down the river which has done most
for you. Forty tons of dynamite have been your best friend to-day,
young man.
That was true too, perhaps. Anyway I saw clearly enough
that I had nothing to thank myself for. But as I tried to thank
him, he checked my stammering.
Dont be in a hurry to thank me, says he.
The voyage isnt finished yet.
Our new acquaintance paused, then added meditatively: Queer
man. As if it made any difference. Queer man.
Its certainly unwise to admit any sort of responsibility
for our actions, whose consequences we are never able to foresee,
remarked Marlow by way of assent.
The consequence of his action was that I got a ship,
said the other. That could not do much harm, he
added with a laugh which argued a probably unconscious contempt of general
ideas.
But Marlow was not put off. He was patient and reflective.
He had been at sea many years and I verily believe he liked sea-life
because upon the whole it is favourable to reflection. I am speaking
of the now nearly vanished sea-life under sail. To those who may
be surprised at the statement I will point out that this life secured
for the mind of him who embraced it the inestimable advantages of solitude
and silence. Marlow had the habit of pursuing general ideas in
a peculiar manner, between jest and earnest.
Oh, I wouldnt suggest, he said, that
your namesake Mr. Powell, the Shipping Master, had done you much harm.
Such was hardly his intention. And even if it had been he would
not have had the power. He was but a man, and the incapacity to
achieve anything distinctly good or evil is inherent in our earthly
condition. Mediocrity is our mark. And perhaps its
just as well, since, for the most part, we cannot be certain of the
effect of our actions.
I dont know about the effect, the other stood
up to Marlow manfully. What effect did you expect anyhow?
I tell you he did something uncommonly kind.
He did what he could, Marlow retorted gently, and
on his own showing that was not a very great deal. I cannot help
thinking that there was some malice in the way he seized the opportunity
to serve you. He managed to make you uncomfortable. You
wanted to go to sea, but he jumped at the chance of accommodating your
desire with a vengeance. I am inclined to think your cheek alarmed
him. And this was an excellent occasion to suppress you altogether.
For if you accepted he was relieved of you with every appearance of
humanity, and if you made objections (after requesting his assistance,
mind you) it was open to him to drop you as a sort of impostor.
You might have had to decline that berth for some very valid reason.
From sheer necessity perhaps. The notice was too uncommonly short.
But under the circumstances youd have covered yourself with ignominy.
Our new friend knocked the ashes out of his pipe.
Quite a mistake, he said. I am not of
the declining sort, though Ill admit it was something like telling
a man that you would like a bath and in consequence being instantly
knocked overboard to sink or swim with your clothes on. However,
I didnt feel as if I were in deep water at first. I left
the shipping office quietly and for a time strolled along the street
as easy as if I had a week before me to fit myself out. But by
and by I reflected that the notice was even shorter than it looked.
The afternoon was well advanced; I had some things to get, a lot of
small matters to attend to, one or two persons to see. One of
them was an aunt of mine, my only relation, who quarrelled with poor
father as long as he lived about some silly matter that had neither
right nor wrong to it. She left her money to me when she died.
I used always to go and see her for decencys sake. I had
so much to do before night that I didnt know where to begin.
I felt inclined to sit down on the kerb and hold my head in my hands.
It was as if an engine had been started going under my skull.
Finally I sat down in the first cab that came along and it was a hard
matter to keep on sitting there I can tell you, while we rolled up and
down the streets, pulling up here and there, the parcels accumulating
round me and the engine in my head gathering more way every minute.
The composure of the people on the pavements was provoking to a degree,
and as to the people in shops, they were benumbed, more than half frozenimbecile.
Funny how it affects you to be in a peculiar state of mind: everybody
that does not act up to your excitement seems so confoundedly unfriendly.
And my state of mind what with the hurry, the worry and a growing exultation
was peculiar enough. That engine in my head went round at its
top speed hour after hour till eleven at about at night it let up on
me suddenly at the entrance to the Dock before large iron gates in a
dead wall.
* * * * *
These gates were closed and locked. The cabby, after shooting
his things off the roof of his machine into young Powells arms,
drove away leaving him alone with his sea-chest, a sail cloth bag and
a few parcels on the pavement about his feet. It was a dark, narrow
thoroughfare he told us. A mean row of houses on the other side
looked empty: there wasnt the smallest gleam of light in them.
The white-hot glare of a gin palace a good way off made the intervening
piece of the street pitch black. Some human shapes appearing mysteriously,
as if they had sprung up from the dark ground, shunned the edge of the
faint light thrown down by the gateway lamps. These figures were
wary in their movements and perfectly silent of foot, like beasts of
prey slinking about a camp fire. Powell gathered up his belongings
and hovered over them like a hen over her brood. A gruffly insinuating
voice said:
Lets carry your things in, Captin! Ive
got my pal ere.
He was a tall, bony, grey-haired ruffian with a bulldog jaw, in a
torn cotton shirt and moleskin trousers. The shadow of his hobnailed
boots was enormous and coffinlike. His pal, who didnt come
up much higher than his elbow, stepping forward exhibited a pale face
with a long drooping nose and no chin to speak of. He seemed to
have just scrambled out of a dust-bin in a tam-oshanter cap and
a tattered soldiers coat much too long for him. Being so
deadly white he looked like a horrible dirty invalid in a ragged dressing
gown. The coat flapped open in front and the rest of his apparel
consisted of one brace which crossed his naked, bony chest, and a pair
of trousers. He blinked rapidly as if dazed by the faint light,
while his patron, the old bandit, glowered at young Powell from under
his beetling brow.
Say the word, Captin. The bobbyll let
us in all right. E knows both of us.
I didnt answer him, continued Mr. Powell.
I was listening to footsteps on the other side of the gate, echoing
between the walls of the warehouses as if in an uninhabited town of
very high buildings dark from basement to roof. You could never
have guessed that within a stones throw there was an open sheet
of water and big ships lying afloat. The few gas lamps showing
up a bit of brick work here and there, appeared in the blackness like
penny dips in a range of cellarsand the solitary footsteps came
on, tramp, tramp. A dock policeman strode into the light on the
other side of the gate, very broad-chested and stern.
Hallo! Whats up here?
He was really surprised, but after some palaver he let me
in together with the two loafers carrying my luggage. He grumbled
at them however and slammed the gate violently with a loud clang.
I was startled to discover how many night prowlers had collected in
the darkness of the street in such a short time and without my being
aware of it. Directly we were through they came surging against
the bars, silent, like a mob of ugly spectres. But suddenly, up
the street somewhere, perhaps near that public-house, a row started
as if Bedlam had broken loose: shouts, yells, an awful shrill shriekand
at that noise all these heads vanished from behind the bars.
Look at this, marvelled the constable. Its
a wonder to me they didnt make off with your things while you
were waiting.
I would have taken good care of that, I said defiantly.
But the constable wasnt impressed.
Much you would have done. The bag going off round one
dark corner; the chest round another. Would you have run two ways
at once? And anyhow youd have been tripped up and jumped
upon before you had run three yards. I tell you youve had
a most extraordinary chance that there wasnt one of them regular
boys about to-night, in the High Street, to twig your loaded cab go
by. Ted here is honest . . . You are on the honest lay, Ted, aint
you?
Always was, orficer, said the big ruffian with feeling.
The other frail creature seemed dumb and only hopped about with the
edge of its soldier coat touching the ground.
Oh yes, I dare say, said the constable. Now
then, forward, march . . . Hes that because he aint game
for the other thing, he confided to me. He hasnt
got the nerve for it. However, I aint going to lose sight
of them two till they go out through the gate. That little chaps
a devil. Hes got the nerve for anything, only he hasnt
got the muscle. Well! Well! Youve had a chance
to get in with a whole skin and with all your things.
I was incredulous a little. It seemed impossible that
after getting ready with so much hurry and inconvenience I should have
lost my chance of a start in life from such a cause. I asked:
Does that sort of thing happen often so near the dock gates?
Often! No! Of course not often. But it aint
often either that a man comes along with a cabload of things to join
a ship at this time of night. Ive been in the dock police
thirteen years and havent seen it done once.
Meantime we followed my sea-chest which was being carried
down a sort of deep narrow lane, separating two high warehouses, between
honest Ted and his little devil of a pal who had to keep up a trot to
the others stride. The skirt of his soldiers coat
floating behind him nearly swept the ground so that he seemed to be
running on castors. At the corner of the gloomy passage a rigged
jib boom with a dolphin-striker ending in an arrow-head stuck out of
the night close to a cast iron lamp-post. It was the quay side.
They set down their load in the light and honest Ted asked hoarsely:
Wheres your ship, guvnor?
I didnt know. The constable was interested at
my ignorance.
Dont know where your ship is? he asked with
curiosity. And you the second officer! Havent
you been working on board of her?
I couldnt explain that the only work connected with
my appointment was the work of chance. I told him briefly that
I didnt know her at all. At this he remarked:
So I see. Here she is, right before you. Thats
her.
At once the head-gear in the gas light inspired me with interest
and respect; the spars were big, the chains and ropes stout and the
whole thing looked powerful and trustworthy. Barely touched by
the light her bows rose faintly alongside the narrow strip of the quay;
the rest of her was a black smudge in the darkness. Here I was
face to face with my start in life. We walked in a body a few
steps on a greasy pavement between her side and the towering wall of
a warehouse and I hit my shins cruelly against the end of the gangway.
The constable hailed her quietly in a bass undertone Ferndale
there! A feeble and dismal sound, something in the nature
of a buzzing groan, answered from behind the bulwarks.
I distinguished vaguely an irregular round knob, of wood,
perhaps, resting on the rail. It did not move in the least; but
as another broken-down buzz like a still fainter echo of the first dismal
sound proceeded from it I concluded it must be the head of the ship-keeper.
The stalwart constable jeered in a mock-official manner.
Second officer coming to join. Move yourself a bit.
The truth of the statement touched me in the pit of the stomach
(you know thats the spot where emotion gets home on a man) for
it was borne upon me that really and truly I was nothing but a second
officer of a ship just like any other second officer, to that constable.
I was moved by this solid evidence of my new dignity. Only his
tone offended me. Nevertheless I gave him the tip he was looking
for. Thereupon he lost all interest in me, humorous or otherwise,
and walked away driving sternly before him the honest Ted, who went
off grumbling to himself like a hungry ogre, and his horrible dumb little
pal in the soldiers coat, who, from first to last, never emitted
the slightest sound.
It was very dark on the quarter deck of the Ferndale
between the deep bulwarks overshadowed by the break of the poop and
frowned upon by the front of the warehouse. I plumped down on
to my chest near the after hatch as if my legs had been jerked from
under me. I felt suddenly very tired and languid. The ship-keeper,
whom I could hardly make out hung over the capstan in a fit of weak
pitiful coughing. He gasped out very low Oh! dear!
Oh! dear! and struggled for breath so long that I got up alarmed
and irresolute.
Ive been took like this since last Christmas twelvemonth.
It aint nothing.
He seemed a hundred years old at least. I never saw
him properly because he was gone ashore and out of sight when I came
on deck in the morning; but he gave me the notion of the feeblest creature
that ever breathed. His voice was thin like the buzzing of a mosquito.
As it would have been cruel to demand assistance from such a shadowy
wreck I went to work myself, dragging my chest along a pitch-black passage
under the poop deck, while he sighed and moaned around me as if my exertions
were more than his weakness could stand. At last as I banged pretty
heavily against the bulkheads he warned me in his faint breathless wheeze
to be more careful.
Whats the matter? I asked rather roughly, not
relishing to be admonished by this forlorn broken-down ghost.
Nothing! Nothing, sir, he protested so hastily
that he lost his poor breath again and I felt sorry for him. Only
the captain and his missus are sleeping on board. Shes
a lady that mustnt be disturbed. They came about half-past
eight, and we had a permit to have lights in the cabin till ten to-night.
This struck me as a considerable piece of news. I had
never been in a ship where the captain had his wife with him.
Id heard fellows say that captains wives could work a
lot of mischief on board ship if they happened to take a dislike to
anyone; especially the new wives if young and pretty. The old
and experienced wives on the other hand fancied they knew more about
the ship than the skipper himself and had an eye like a hawks
for what went on. They were like an extra chief mate of a particularly
sharp and unfeeling sort who made his report in the evening. The
best of them were a nuisance. In the general opinion a skipper
with his wife on board was more difficult to please; but whether to
show off his authority before an admiring female or from loving anxiety
for her safety or simply from irritation at her presencenobody
I ever heard on the subject could tell for certain.
After I had bundled in my things somehow I struck a match
and had a dazzling glimpse of my berth; then I pitched the roll of my
bedding into the bunk but took no trouble to spread it out. I
wasnt sleepy now, neither was I tired. And the thought
that I was done with the earth for many many months to come made me
feel very quiet and self-contained as it were. Sailors will understand
what I mean.
Marlow nodded. It is a strictly professional feeling,
he commented. But other professions or trades know nothing
of it. It is only this calling whose primary appeal lies in the
suggestion of restless adventure which holds out that deep sensation
to those who embrace it. It is difficult to define, I admit.
I should call it the peace of the sea, said Mr. Charles
Powell in an earnest tone but looking at us as though he expected to
be met by a laugh of derision and were half prepared to salve his reputation
for common sense by joining in it. But neither of us laughed at
Mr. Charles Powell in whose start in life we had been called to take
a part. He was lucky in his audience.
A very good name, said Marlow looking at him approvingly.
A sailor finds a deep feeling of security in the exercise of
his calling. The exacting life of the sea has this advantage over
the life of the earth that its claims are simple and cannot be evaded.
Gospel truth, assented Mr. Powell. No!
they cannot be evaded.
That an excellent understanding should have established itself between
my old friend and our new acquaintance was remarkable enough.
For they were exactly dissimilarone individuality projecting
itself in length and the other in breadth, which is already a sufficient
ground for irreconcilable difference. Marlow who was lanky, loose,
quietly composed in varied shades of brown robbed of every vestige of
gloss, had a narrow, veiled glance, the neutral bearing and the secret
irritability which go together with a predisposition to congestion of
the liver. The other, compact, broad and sturdy of limb, seemed
extremely full of sound organs functioning vigorously all the time in
order to keep up the brilliance of his colouring, the light curl of
his coal-black hair and the lustre of his eyes, which asserted themselves
roundly in an open, manly face. Between two such organisms one
would not have expected to find the slightest temperamental accord.
But I have observed that profane men living in ships like the holy men
gathered together in monasteries develop traits of profound resemblance.
This must be because the service of the sea and the service of a temple
are both detached from the vanities and errors of a world which follows
no severe rule. The men of the sea understand each other very
well in their view of earthly things, for simplicity is a good counsellor
and isolation not a bad educator. A turn of mind composed of innocence
and scepticism is common to them all, with the addition of an unexpected
insight into motives, as of disinterested lookers-on at a game.
Mr. Powell took me aside to say,
I like the things he says.
You understand each other pretty well, I observed.
I know his sort, said Powell, going to the window to
look at his cutter still riding to the flood. Hes
the sort thats always chasing some notion or other round and
round his head just for the fun of the thing.
Keeps them in good condition, I said.
Lively enough I dare say, he admitted.
Would you like better a man who let his notions lie curled
up?
That I wouldnt, answered our new acquaintance.
Clearly he was not difficult to get on with. I like him,
very well, he continued, though it isnt easy to
make him out. He seems to be up to a thing or two. Whats
he doing?
I informed him that our friend Marlow had retired from the sea in
a sort of half-hearted fashion some years ago.
Mr. Powells comment was: Fancied had enough of it?
Fancieds the very word to use in this connection,
I observed, remembering the subtly provisional character of Marlows
long sojourn amongst us. From year to year he dwelt on land as
a bird rests on the branch of a tree, so tense with the power of brusque
flight into its true element that it is incomprehensible why it should
sit still minute after minute. The sea is the sailors true
element, and Marlow, lingering on shore, was to me an object of incredulous
commiseration like a bird, which, secretly, should have lost its faith
in the high virtue of flying.
CHAPTER TWOTHE FYNES AND THE GIRL-FRIEND
We were on our feet in the room by then, and Marlow, brown and deliberate,
approached the window where Mr. Powell and I had retired. What
was the name of your chance again? he asked. Mr. Powell
stared for a moment.
Oh! The Ferndale. A Liverpool ship.
Composite built.
Ferndale, repeated Marlow thoughtfully.
Ferndale.
Know her?
Our friend, I said, knows something of every
ship. He seems to have gone about the seas prying into things
considerably.
Marlow smiled.
Ive seen her, at least once.
The finest sea-boat ever launched, declared Mr. Powell
sturdily. Without exception.
She looked a stout, comfortable ship, assented Marlow.
Uncommonly comfortable. Not very fast tho.
She was fast enough for any reasonable manwhen I was
in her, growled Mr. Powell with his back to us.
Any ship is thatfor a reasonable man, generalized
Marlow in a conciliatory tone. A sailor isnt a globe-trotter.
No, muttered Mr. Powell.
Times nothing to him, advanced Marlow.
I dont suppose its much, said Mr. Powell.
All the same a quick passage is a feather in a mans cap.
True. But that ornament is for the use of the master
only. And by the by what was his name?
The master of the Ferndale? Anthony. Captain
Anthony.
Just so. Quite right, approved Marlow thoughtfully.
Our new acquaintance looked over his shoulder.
What do you mean? Why is it more right than if it had
been Brown?
He has known him probably, I explained. Marlow
here appears to know something of every soul that ever went afloat in
a sailors body.
Mr. Powell seemed wonderfully amenable to verbal suggestions for
looking again out of the window, he muttered:
He was a good soul.
This clearly referred to Captain Anthony of the Ferndale.
Marlow addressed his protest to me.
I did not know him. I really didnt. He
was a good soul. Thats nothing very much out of the wayis
it? And I didnt even know that much of him. All I
knew of him was an accident called Fyne.
At this Mr. Powell who evidently could be rebellious too turned his
back squarely on the window.
What on earth do you mean? he asked. Anaccidentcalled
Fyne, he repeated separating the words with emphasis.
Marlow was not disconcerted.
I dont mean accident in the sense of a mishap.
Not in the least. Fyne was a good little man in the Civil Service.
By accident I mean that which happens blindly and without intelligent
design. Thats generally the way a brother-in-law happens
into a mans life.
Marlows tone being apologetic and our new acquaintance having
again turned to the window I took it upon myself to say:
You are justified. There is very little intelligent
design in the majority of marriages; but they are none the worse for
that. Intelligence leads people astray as far as passion sometimes.
I know you are not a cynic.
Marlow smiled his retrospective smile which was kind as though he
bore no grudge against people he used to know.
Little Fynes marriage was quite successful. There
was no design at all in it. Fyne, you must know, was an enthusiastic
pedestrian. He spent his holidays tramping all over our native
land. His tastes were simple. He put infinite conviction
and perseverance into his holidays. At the proper season you would
meet in the fields, Fyne, a serious-faced, broad-chested, little man,
with a shabby knap-sack on his back, making for some church steeple.
He had a horror of roads. He wrote once a little book called the
Tramps Itinerary, and was recognised as an authority
on the footpaths of England. So one year, in his favourite over-the-fields,
back-way fashion he entered a pretty Surrey village where he met Miss
Anthony. Pure accident, you see. They came to an understanding,
across some stile, most likely. Little Fyne held very solemn views
as to the destiny of women on this earth, the nature of our sublunary
love, the obligations of this transient life and so on. He probably
disclosed them to his future wife. Miss Anthonys views
of life were very decided too but in a different way. I dont
know the story of their wooing. I imagine it was carried on clandestinely
and, I am certain, with portentous gravity, at the back of copses, behind
hedges . . .
Why was it carried on clandestinely? I inquired.
Because of the ladys father. He was a savage
sentimentalist who had his own decided views of his paternal prerogatives.
He was a terror; but the only evidence of imaginative faculty about
Fyne was his pride in his wifes parentage. It stimulated
his ingenuity too. Difficultis it not?to introduce
ones wifes maiden name into general conversation.
But my simple Fyne made use of Captain Anthony for that purpose, or
else I would never even have heard of the man. My wifes
sailor-brother was the phrase. He trotted out the sailor-brother
in a pretty wide range of subjects: Indian and colonial affairs, matters
of trade, talk of travels, of seaside holidays and so on. Once
I remember My wifes sailor-brother Captain Anthony
being produced in connection with nothing less recondite than a sunset.
And little Fyne never failed to add The son of Carleon Anthony,
the poetyou know. He used to lower his voice for
that statement, and people were impressed or pretended to be.
The late Carleon Anthony, the poet, sang in his time of the domestic
and social amenities of our age with a most felicitous versification,
his object being, in his own words, to glorify the result of
six thousand years evolution towards the refinement of thought,
manners and feelings. Why he fixed the term at six thousand
years I dont know. His poems read like sentimental novels
told in verse of a really superior quality. You felt as if you
were being taken out for a delightful country drive by a charming lady
in a pony carriage. But in his domestic life that same Carleon
Anthony showed traces of the primitive cave-dwellers temperament.
He was a massive, implacable man with a handsome face, arbitrary and
exacting with his dependants, but marvellously suave in his manner to
admiring strangers. These contrasted displays must have been particularly
exasperating to his long-suffering family. After his second wifes
death his boy, whom he persisted by a mere whim in educating at home,
ran away in conventional style and, as if disgusted with the amenities
of civilization, threw himself, figuratively speaking, into the sea.
The daughter (the elder of the two children) either from compassion
or because women are naturally more enduring, remained in bondage to
the poet for several years, till she too seized a chance of escape by
throwing herself into the arms, the muscular arms, of the pedestrian
Fyne. This was either great luck or great sagacity. A civil
servant is, I should imagine, the last human being in the world to preserve
those traits of the cave-dweller from which she was fleeing. Her
father would never consent to see her after the marriage. Such
unforgiving selfishness is difficult to understand unless as a perverse
sort of refinement. There were also doubts as to Carleon Anthonys
complete sanity for some considerable time before he died.
Most of the above I elicited from Marlow, for all I knew of Carleon
Anthony was his unexciting but fascinating verse. Marlow assured
me that the Fyne marriage was perfectly successful and even happy, in
an earnest, unplayful fashion, being blessed besides by three healthy,
active, self-reliant children, all girls. They were all pedestrians
too. Even the youngest would wander away for miles if not restrained.
Mrs. Fyne had a ruddy out-of-doors complexion and wore blouses with
a starched front like a mans shirt, a stand-up collar and a long
necktie. Marlow had made their acquaintance one summer in the
country, where they were accustomed to take a cottage for the holidays
. . .
At this point we were interrupted by Mr. Powell who declared that
he must leave us. The tide was on the turn, he announced coming
away from the window abruptly. He wanted to be on board his cutter
before she swung and of course he would sleep on board. Never
slept away from the cutter while on a cruise. He was gone in a
moment, unceremoniously, but giving us no offence and leaving behind
an impression as though we had known him for a long time. The
ingenuous way he had told us of his start in life had something to do
with putting him on that footing with us. I gave no thought to
seeing him again.
Marlow expressed a confident hope of coming across him before long.
He cruises about the mouth of the river all the summer.
He will be easy to find any week-end, he remarked ringing the
bell so that we might settle up with the waiter.
* * * * *
Later on I asked Marlow why he wished to cultivate this chance acquaintance.
He confessed apologetically that it was the commonest sort of curiosity.
I flatter myself that I understand all sorts of curiosity. Curiosity
about daily facts, about daily things, about daily men. It is
the most respectable faculty of the human mindin fact I cannot
conceive the uses of an incurious mind. It would be like a chamber
perpetually locked up. But in this particular case Mr. Powell
seemed to have given us already a complete insight into his personality
such as it was; a personality capable of perception and with a feeling
for the vagaries of fate, but essentially simple in itself.
Marlow agreed with me so far. He explained however that his
curiosity was not excited by Mr. Powell exclusively. It originated
a good way further back in the fact of his accidental acquaintance with
the Fynes, in the country. This chance meeting with a man who
had sailed with Captain Anthony had revived it. It had revived
it to some purpose, to such purpose that to me too was given the knowledge
of its origin and of its nature. It was given to me in several
stages, at intervals which are not indicated here. On this first
occasion I remarked to Marlow with some surprise:
But, if I remember rightly you said you didnt know
Captain Anthony.
No. I never saw the man. Its years ago
now, but I seem to hear solemn little Fynes deep voice announcing
the approaching visit of his wifes brother the son of
the poet, you know. He had just arrived in London from
a long voyage, and, directly his occupations permitted, was coming down
to stay with his relatives for a few weeks. No doubt we two should
find many things to talk about by ourselves in reference to our common
calling, added little Fyne portentously in his grave undertones, as
if the Mercantile Marine were a secret society.
You must understand that I cultivated the Fynes only in the country,
in their holiday time. This was the third year. Of their
existence in town I knew no more than may be inferred from analogy.
I played chess with Fyne in the late afternoon, and sometimes came over
to the cottage early enough to have tea with the whole family at a big
round table. They sat about it, an unsmiling, sunburnt company
of very few words indeed. Even the children were silent and as
if contemptuous of each other and of their elders. Fyne muttered
sometimes deep down in his chest some insignificant remark. Mrs.
Fyne smiled mechanically (she had splendid teeth) while distributing
tea and bread and butter. A something which was not coldness,
nor yet indifference, but a sort of peculiar self-possession gave her
the appearance of a very trustworthy, very capable and excellent governess;
as if Fyne were a widower and the children not her own but only entrusted
to her calm, efficient, unemotional care. One expected her to
address Fyne as Mr. When she called him John it surprised one
like a shocking familiarity. The atmosphere of that holiday wasif
I may put it sobrightly dull. Healthy faces, fair complexions,
clear eyes, and never a frank smile in the whole lot, unless perhaps
from a girl-friend.
The girl-friend problem exercised me greatly. How and where
the Fynes got all these pretty creatures to come and stay with them
I cant imagine. I had at first the wild suspicion that
they were obtained to amuse Fyne. But I soon discovered that he
could hardly tell one from the other, though obviously their presence
met with his solemn approval. These girls in fact came for Mrs.
Fyne. They treated her with admiring deference. She answered
to some need of theirs. They sat at her feet. They were
like disciples. It was very curious. Of Fyne they took but
scanty notice. As to myself I was made to feel that I did not
exist.
After tea we would sit down to chess and then Fynes everlasting
gravity became faintly tinged by an attenuated gleam of something inward
which resembled sly satisfaction. Of the divine frivolity of laughter
he was only capable over a chess-board. Certain positions of the
game struck him as humorous, which nothing else on earth could do .
. .
He used to beat you, I asserted with confidence.
Yes. He used to beat me, Marlow owned up hastily.
So he and Fyne played two games after tea. The children romped
together outside, gravely, unplayfully, as one would expect from Fynes
children, and Mrs. Fyne would be gone to the bottom of the garden with
the girl-friend of the week. She always walked off directly after
tea with her arm round the girl-friends waist. Marlow said
that there was only one girl-friend with whom he had conversed at all.
It had happened quite unexpectedly, long after he had given up all hope
of getting into touch with these reserved girl-friends.
One day he saw a woman walking about on the edge of a high quarry,
which rose a sheer hundred feet, at least, from the road winding up
the hill out of which it had been excavated. He shouted warningly
to her from below where he happened to be passing. She was really
in considerable danger. At the sound of his voice she started
back and retreated out of his sight amongst some young Scotch firs growing
near the very brink of the precipice.
I sat down on a bank of grass, Marlow went on.
She had given me a turn. The hem of her skirt seemed to
float over that awful sheer drop, she was so close to the edge.
An absurd thing to do. A perfectly mad trickfor no conceivable
object! I was reflecting on the foolhardiness of the average girl
and remembering some other instances of the kind, when she came into
view walking down the steep curve of the road. She had Mrs. Fynes
walking-stick and was escorted by the Fyne dog. Her dead white
face struck me with astonishment, so that I forgot to raise my hat.
I just sat and stared. The dog, a vivacious and amiable animal
which for some inscrutable reason had bestowed his friendship on my
unworthy self, rushed up the bank demonstratively and insinuated himself
under my arm.
The girl-friend (it was one of them) went past some way as though
she had not seen me, then stopped and called the dog to her several
times; but he only nestled closer to my side, and when I tried to push
him away developed that remarkable power of internal resistance by which
a dog makes himself practically immovable by anything short of a kick.
She looked over her shoulder and her arched eyebrows frowned above her
blanched face. It was almost a scowl. Then the expression
changed. She looked unhappy. Come here! she
cried once more in an angry and distressed tone. I took off my
hat at last, but the dog hanging out his tongue with that cheerfully
imbecile expression some dogs know so well how to put on when it suits
their purpose, pretended to be deaf.
She cried from the distance desperately.
Perhaps you will take him to the cottage then. I cant
wait.
I wont be responsible for that dog, I protested
getting down the bank and advancing towards her. She looked very
hurt, apparently by the desertion of the dog. But if you
let me walk with you he will follow us all right, I suggested.
She moved on without answering me. The dog launched himself
suddenly full speed down the road receding from us in a small cloud
of dust. It vanished in the distance, and presently we came up
with him lying on the grass. He panted in the shade of the hedge
with shining eyes but pretended not to see us. We had not exchanged
a word so far. The girl by my side gave him a scornful glance
in passing.
He offered to come with me, she remarked bitterly.
And then abandoned you! I sympathized. It
looks very unchivalrous. But thats merely his want of tact.
I believe he meant to protest against your reckless proceedings.
What made you come so near the edge of that quarry? The earth
might have given way. Havent you noticed a smashed fir
tree at the bottom? Tumbled over only the other morning after
a nights rain.
I dont see why I shouldnt be as reckless as
I please.
I was nettled by her brusque manner of asserting her folly, and I
told her that neither did I as far as that went, in a tone which almost
suggested that she was welcome to break her neck for all I cared.
This was considerably more than I meant, but I dont like rude
girls. I had been introduced to her only the day beforeat
the round tea-tableand she had barely acknowledged the introduction.
I had not caught her name but I had noticed her fine, arched eyebrows
which, so the physiognomists say, are a sign of courage.
I examined her appearance quietly. Her hair was nearly black,
her eyes blue, deeply shaded by long dark eyelashes. She had a
little colour now. She looked straight before her; the corner
of her lip on my side drooped a little; her chin was fine, somewhat
pointed. I went on to say that some regard for others should stand
in the way of ones playing with danger. I urged playfully
the distress of the poor Fynes in case of accident, if nothing else.
I told her that she did not know the bucolic mind. Had she given
occasion for a coroners inquest the verdict would have been suicide,
with the implication of unhappy love. They would never be able
to understand that she had taken the trouble to climb over two post-and-rail
fences only for the fun of being reckless. Indeed even as I talked
chaffingly I was greatly struck myself by the fact.
She retorted that once one was dead what horrid people thought of
one did not matter. It was said with infinite contempt; but something
like a suppressed quaver in the voice made me look at her again.
I perceived then that her thick eyelashes were wet. This surprising
discovery silenced me as you may guess. She looked unhappy.
AndI dont know how to say itwellit suited
her. The clouded brow, the pained mouth, the vague fixed glance!
A victim. And this characteristic aspect made her attractive;
an individual touchyou know.
The dog had run on ahead and now gazed at us by the side of the Fynes
garden-gate in a tense attitude and wagging his stumpy tail very, very
slowly, with an air of concentrated attention. The girl-friend
of the Fynes bolted violently through the aforesaid gate and into the
cottage leaving me on the roadastounded.
A couple of hours afterwards I returned to the cottage for chess
as usual. I saw neither the girl nor Mrs. Fyne then. We
had our two games and on parting I warned Fyne that I was called to
town on business and might be away for some time. He regretted
it very much. His brother-in-law was expected next day but he
didnt know whether he was a chess-player. Captain Anthony
(the son of the poetyou know) was of a retiring
disposition, shy with strangers, unused to society and very much devoted
to his calling, Fyne explained. All the time they had been married
he could be induced only once before to come and stay with them for
a few days. He had had a rather unhappy boyhood; and it made him
a silent man. But no doubt, concluded Fyne, as if dealing portentously
with a mystery, we two sailors should find much to say to one another.
This point was never settled. I was detained in town from week
to week till it seemed hardly worth while to go back. But as I
had kept on my rooms in the farmhouse I concluded to go down again for
a few days.
It was late, deep dusk, when I got out at our little country station.
My eyes fell on the unmistakable broad back and the muscular legs in
cycling stockings of little Fyne. He passed along the carriages
rapidly towards the rear of the train, which presently pulled out and
left him solitary at the end of the rustic platform. When he came
back to where I waited I perceived that he was much perturbed, so perturbed
as to forget the convention of the usual greetings. He only exclaimed
Oh! on recognizing me, and stopped irresolute. When I asked him
if he had been expecting somebody by that train he didnt seem
to know. He stammered disconnectedly. I looked hard at him.
To all appearances he was perfectly sober; moreover to suspect Fyne
of a lapse from the proprieties high or low, great or small, was absurd.
He was also a too serious and deliberate person to go mad suddenly.
But as he seemed to have forgotten that he had a tongue in his head
I concluded I would leave him to his mystery. To my surprise he
followed me out of the station and kept by my side, though I did not
encourage him. I did not however repulse his attempts at conversation.
He was no longer expecting me, he said. He had given me up.
The weather had been uniformly fineand so on. I gathered
also that the son of the poet had curtailed his stay somewhat and gone
back to his ship the day before.
That information touched me but little. Believing in heredity
in moderation I knew well how sea-life fashions a man outwardly and
stamps his soul with the mark of a certain prosaic fitnessbecause
a sailor is not an adventurer. I expressed no regret at missing
Captain Anthony and we proceeded in silence till, on approaching the
holiday cottage, Fyne suddenly and unexpectedly broke it by the hurried
declaration that he would go on with me a little farther.
Go with you to your door, he mumbled and started forward
to the little gate where the shadowy figure of Mrs. Fyne hovered, clearly
on the lookout for him. She was alone. The children must
have been already in bed and I saw no attending girl-friend shadow near
her vague but unmistakable form, half-lost in the obscurity of the little
garden.
I heard Fyne exclaim Nothing and then Mrs. Fynes
well-trained, responsible voice uttered the words, Its
what I have said, with incisive equanimity. By that time
I had passed on, raising my hat. Almost at once Fyne caught me
up and slowed down to my strolling gait which must have been infinitely
irksome to his high pedestrian faculties. I am sure that all his
muscular person must have suffered from awful physical boredom; but
he did not attempt to charm it away by conversation. He preserved
a portentous and dreary silence. And I was bored too. Suddenly
I perceived the menace of even worse boredom. Yes! He was
so silent because he had something to tell me.
I became extremely frightened. But man, reckless animal, is
so made that in him curiosity, the paltriest curiosity, will overcome
all terrors, every disgust, and even despair itself. To my laconic
invitation to come in for a drink he answered by a deep, gravely accented:
Thanks, I will as though it were a response in church.
His face as seen in the lamplight gave me no clue to the character of
the impending communication; as indeed from the nature of things it
couldnt do, its normal expression being already that of the utmost
possible seriousness. It was perfect and immovable; and for a
certainty if he had something excruciatingly funny to tell me it would
be all the same.
He gazed at me earnestly and delivered himself of some weighty remarks
on Mrs. Fynes desire to befriend, counsel, and guide young girls
of all sorts on the path of life. It was a voluntary mission.
He approved his wifes action and also her views and principles
in general.
All this with a solemn countenance and in deep measured tones.
Yet somehow I got an irresistible conviction that he was exasperated
by something in particular. In the unworthy hope of being amused
by the misfortunes of a fellow-creature I asked him point-blank what
was wrong now.
What was wrong was that a girl-friend was missing. She had
been missing precisely since six oclock that morning. The
woman who did the work of the cottage saw her going out at that hour,
for a walk. The pedestrian Fynes ideas of a walk were extensive,
but the girl did not turn up for lunch, nor yet for tea, nor yet for
dinner. She had not turned up by footpath, road or rail.
He had been reluctant to make inquiries. It would have set all
the village talking. The Fynes had expected her to reappear every
moment, till the shades of the night and the silence of slumber had
stolen gradually over the wide and peaceful rural landscape commanded
by the cottage.
After telling me that much Fyne sat helpless in unconclusive agony.
Going to bed was out of the questionneither could any steps be
taken just then. What to do with himself he did not know!
I asked him if this was the same young lady I saw a day or two before
I went to town? He really could not remember. Was she a
girl with dark hair and blue eyes? I asked further. He really
couldnt tell what colour her eyes were. He was very unobservant
except as to the peculiarities of footpaths, on which he was an authority.
I thought with amazement and some admiration that Mrs. Fynes
young disciples were to her husbands gravity no more than evanescent
shadows. However, with but little hesitation Fyne ventured to
affirm thatyes, her hair was of some dark shade.
We had a good deal to do with that girl first and last,
he explained solemnly; then getting up as if moved by a spring he snatched
his cap off the table. She may be back in the cottage,
he cried in his bass voice. I followed him out on the road.
It was one of those dewy, clear, starry nights, oppressing our spirit,
crushing our pride, by the brilliant evidence of the awful loneliness,
of the hopeless obscure insignificance of our globe lost in the splendid
revelation of a glittering, soulless universe. I hate such skies.
Daylight is friendly to man toiling under a sun which warms his heart;
and cloudy soft nights are more kindly to our littleness. I nearly
ran back again to my lighted parlour; Fyne fussing in a knicker-bocker
suit before the hosts of heaven, on a shadowy earth, about a transient,
phantom-like girl, seemed too ridiculous to associate with. On
the other hand there was something fascinating in the very absurdity.
He cut along in his best pedestrian style and I found myself let in
for a spell of severe exercise at eleven oclock at night.
In the distance over the fields and trees smudging and blotching
the vast obscurity, one lighted window of the cottage with the blind
up was like a bright beacon kept alight to guide the lost wanderer.
Inside, at the table bearing the lamp, we saw Mrs. Fyne sitting with
folded arms and not a hair of her head out of place. She looked
exactly like a governess who had put the children to bed; and her manner
to me was just the neutral manner of a governess. To her husband,
too, for that matter.
Fyne told her that I was fully informed. Not a muscle of her
ruddy smooth handsome face moved. She had schooled herself into
that sort of thing. Having seen two successive wives of the delicate
poet chivied and worried into their graves, she had adopted that cool,
detached manner to meet her gifted fathers outbreaks of selfish
temper. It had now become a second nature. I suppose she
was always like that; even in the very hour of elopement with Fyne.
That transaction when one remembered it in her presence acquired a quaintly
marvellous aspect to ones imagination. But somehow her
self-possession matched very well little Fynes invariable solemnity.
I was rather sorry for him. Wasnt he worried!
The agony of solemnity. At the same time I was amused. I
didnt take a gloomy view of that vanishing girl
trick. Somehow I couldnt. But I said nothing.
None of us said anything. We sat about that big round table as
if assembled for a conference and looked at each other in a sort of
fatuous consternation. I would have ended by laughing outright
if I had not been saved from that impropriety by poor Fyne becoming
preposterous.
He began with grave anguish to talk of going to the police in the
morning, of printing descriptive bills, of setting people to drag the
ponds for miles around. It was extremely gruesome. I murmured
something about communicating with the young ladys relatives.
It seemed to me a very natural suggestion; but Fyne and his wife exchanged
such a significant glance that I felt as though I had made a tactless
remark.
But I really wanted to help poor Fyne; and as I could see that, manlike,
he suffered from the present inability to act, the passive waiting,
I said: Nothing of this can be done till to-morrow. But
as you have given me an insight into the nature of your thoughts I can
tell you what may be done at once. We may go and look at the bottom
of the old quarry which is on the level of the road, about a mile from
here.
The couple made big eyes at this, and then I told them of my meeting
with the girl. You may be surprised but I assure you I had not
perceived this aspect of it till that very moment. It was like
a startling revelation; the past throwing a sinister light on the future.
Fyne opened his mouth gravely and as gravely shut it. Nothing
more. Mrs. Fyne said, You had better go, with an
air as if her self-possession had been pricked with a pin in some secret
place.
And Iyou know how stupid I can be at timesI perceived
with dismay for the first time that by pandering to Fynes morbid
fancies I had let myself in for some more severe exercise. And
wasnt I sorry I spoke! You know how I hate walkingat
least on solid, rural earth; for I can walk a ships deck a whole
foggy night through, if necessary, and think little of it. There
is some satisfaction too in playing the vagabond in the streets of a
big town till the sky pales above the ridges of the roofs. I have
done that repeatedly for pleasureof a sort. But to tramp
the slumbering country-side in the dark is for me a wearisome nightmare
of exertion.
With perfect detachment Mrs. Fyne watched me go out after her husband.
That woman was flint.
* * * * *
The fresh night had a smell of soil, of turned-up sods like a gravean
association particularly odious to a sailor by its idea of confinement
and narrowness; yes, even when he has given up the hope of being buried
at sea; about the last hope a sailor gives up consciously after he has
been, as it does happen, decoyed by some chance into the toils of the
land. A strong grave-like sniff. The ditch by the side of
the road must have been freshly dug in front of the cottage.
Once clear of the garden Fyne gathered way like a racing cutter.
What was a mile to himor twenty miles? You think he might
have gone shrinkingly on such an errand. But not a bit of it.
The force of pedestrian genius I suppose. I raced by his side
in a mood of profound self-derision, and infinitely vexed with that
minx. Because dead or alive I thought of her as a minx . . .
I smiled incredulously at Marlows ferocity; but Marlow pausing
with a whimsically retrospective air, never flinched.
Yes, yes. Even dead. And now you are shocked.
You see, you are such a chivalrous masculine beggar. But there
is enough of the woman in my nature to free my judgment of women from
glamorous reticency. And then, why should I upset myself?
A woman is not necessarily either a doll or an angel to me. She
is a human being, very much like myself. And I have come across
too many dead souls lying so to speak at the foot of high unscaleable
places for a merely possible dead body at the bottom of a quarry to
strike my sincerity dumb.
The cliff-like face of the quarry looked forbiddingly impressive.
I will admit that Fyne and I hung back for a moment before we made a
plunge off the road into the bushes growing in a broad space at the
foot of the towering limestone wall. These bushes were heavy with
dew. There were also concealed mudholes in there. We crept
and tumbled and felt about with our hands along the ground. We
got wet, scratched, and plastered with mire all over our nether garments.
Fyne fell suddenly into a strange cavityprobably a disused lime-kiln.
His voice uplifted in grave distress sounded more than usually rich,
solemn and profound. This was the comic relief of an absurdly
dramatic situation. While hauling him out I permitted myself to
laugh aloud at last. Fyne, of course, didnt.
I need not tell you that we found nothing after a most conscientious
search. Fyne even pushed his way into a decaying shed half-buried
in dew-soaked vegetation. He struck matches, several of them too,
as if to make absolutely sure that the vanished girl-friend of his wife
was not hiding there. The short flares illuminated his grave,
immovable countenance while I let myself go completely and laughed in
peals.
I asked him if he really and truly supposed that any sane girl would
go and hide in that shed; and if so why?
Disdainful of my mirth he merely muttered his basso-profundo thankfulness
that we had not found her anywhere about there. Having grown extremely
sensitive (an effect of irritation) to the tonalities, I may say, of
this affair, I felt that it was only an imperfect, reserved, thankfulness,
with one eye still on the possibilities of the several ponds in the
neighbourhood. And I remember I snorted, I positively snorted,
at that poor Fyne.
What really jarred upon me was the rate of his walking. Differences
in politics, in ethics and even in aesthetics need not arouse angry
antagonism. Ones opinion may change; ones tastes
may alterin fact they do. Ones very conception of
virtue is at the mercy of some felicitous temptation which may be sprung
on one any day. All these things are perpetually on the swing.
But a temperamental difference, temperament being immutable, is the
parent of hate. Thats why religious quarrels are the fiercest
of all. My temperament, in matters pertaining to solid land, is
the temperament of leisurely movement, of deliberate gait. And
there was that little Fyne pounding along the road in a most offensive
manner; a man wedded to thick-soled, laced boots; whereas my temperament
demands thin shoes of the lightest kind. Of course there could
never have been question of friendship between us; but under the provocation
of having to keep up with his pace I began to dislike him actively.
I begged sarcastically to know whether he could tell me if we were engaged
in a farce or in a tragedy. I wanted to regulate my feelings which,
I told him, were in an unbecoming state of confusion.
But Fyne was as impervious to sarcasm as a turtle. He tramped
on, and all he did was to ejaculate twice out of his deep chest, vaguely,
doubtfully.
I am afraid . . . I am afraid! . . .
This was tragic. The thump of his boots was the only sound
in a shadowy world. I kept by his side with a comparatively ghostly,
silent tread. By a strange illusion the road appeared to run up
against a lot of low stars at no very great distance, but as we advanced
new stretches of whitey-brown ribbon seemed to come up from under the
black ground. I observed, as we went by, the lamp in my parlour
in the farmhouse still burning. But I did not leave Fyne to run
in and put it out. The impetus of his pedestrian excellence carried
me past in his wake before I could make up my mind.
Tell me, Fyne, I cried, you dont think
the girl was maddo you?
He answered nothing. Soon the lighted beacon-like window of
the cottage came into view. Then Fyne uttered a solemn: Certainly
not, with profound assurance. But immediately after he
added a Very highly strung young person indeed, which
unsettled me again. Was it a tragedy?
Nobody ever got up at six oclock in the morning to
commit suicide, I declared crustily. Its
unheard of! This is a farce.
As a matter of fact it was neither farce nor tragedy.
Coming up to the cottage we had a view of Mrs. Fyne inside still
sitting in the strong light at the round table with folded arms.
It looked as though she had not moved her very head by as much as an
inch since we went away. She was amazing in a sort of unsubtle
way; crudely amazingI thought. Why crudely? I dont
know. Perhaps because I saw her then in a crude light. I
mean this materiallyin the light of an unshaded lamp. Our
mental conclusions depend so much on momentary physical sensationsdont
they? If the lamp had been shaded I should perhaps have gone home
after expressing politely my concern at the Fynes unpleasant
predicament.
Losing a girl-friend in that manner is unpleasant. It is also
mysterious. So mysterious that a certain mystery attaches to the
people to whom such a thing does happen. Moreover I had never
really understood the Fynes; he with his solemnity which extended to
the very eating of bread and butter; she with that air of detachment
and resolution in breasting the common-place current of their unexciting
life, in which the cutting of bread and butter appeared to me, by a
long way, the most dangerous episode. Sometimes I amused myself
by supposing that to their minds this world of ours must be wearing
a perfectly overwhelming aspect, and that their heads contained respectively
awfully serious and extremely desperate thoughtsand trying to
imagine what an exciting time they must be having of it in the inscrutable
depths of their being. This last was difficult to a volatile person
(I am sure that to the Fynes I was a volatile person) and the amusement
in itself was not very great; but stillin the countryaway
from all mental stimulants! . . . My efforts had invested them with
a sort of amusing profundity.
But when Fyne and I got back into the room, then in the searching,
domestic, glare of the lamp, inimical to the play of fancy, I saw these
two stripped of every vesture it had amused me to put on them for fun.
Queer enough they were. Is there a human being that isnt
thatmore or less secretly? But whatever their secret, it
was manifest to me that it was neither subtle nor profound. They
were a good, stupid, earnest couple and very much bothered. They
were thatwith the usual unshaded crudity of average people.
There was nothing in them that the lamplight might not touch without
the slightest risk of indiscretion.
Directly we had entered the room Fyne announced the result by saying
Nothing in the same tone as at the gate on his return
from the railway station. And as then Mrs. Fyne uttered an incisive
Its what Ive said, which might have been
the veriest echo of her words in the garden. We three looked at
each other as if on the brink of a disclosure. I dont know
whether she was vexed at my presence. It could hardly be called
intrusioncould it? Little Fyne began it. It had to
go on. We stood before her, plastered with the same mud (Fyne
was a sight!), scratched by the same brambles, conscious of the same
experience. Yes. Before her. And she looked at us
with folded arms, with an extraordinary fulness of assumed responsibility.
I addressed her.
You dont believe in an accident, Mrs. Fyne, do you?
She shook her head in curt negation while, caked in mud and inexpressibly
serious-faced, Fyne seemed to be backing her up with all the weight
of his solemn presence. Nothing more absurd could be conceived.
It was delicious. And I went on in deferential accents: Am
I to understand then that you entertain the theory of suicide?
I dont know that I am liable to fits of delirium but by a
sudden and alarming aberration while waiting for her answer I became
mentally aware of three trained dogs dancing on their hind legs.
I dont know why. Perhaps because of the pervading solemnity.
Theres nothing more solemn on earth than a dance of trained dogs.
She has chosen to disappear. Thats all.
In these words Mrs. Fyne answered me. The aggressive tone was
too much for my endurance. In an instant I found myself out of
the dance and down on all-fours so to speak, with liberty to bark and
bite.
The devil she has, I cried. Has chosen
to . . . Like this, all at once, anyhow, regardless . . . Ive
had the privilege of meeting that reckless and brusque young lady and
I must say that with her air of an angry victim . . .
Precisely, Mrs. Fyne said very unexpectedly like a
steel trap going off. I stared at her. How provoking she
was! So I went on to finish my tirade. She struck
me at first sight as the most inconsiderate wrong-headed girl that I
ever . . .
Why should a girl be more considerate than anyone else?
More than any man, for instance? inquired Mrs. Fyne with a still
greater assertion of responsibility in her bearing.
Of course I exclaimed at this, not very loudly it is true, but forcibly.
Were then the feelings of friends, relations and even of strangers to
be disregarded? I asked Mrs. Fyne if she did not think it was
a sort of duty to show elementary consideration not only for the natural
feelings but even for the prejudices of ones fellow-creatures.
Her answer knocked me over.
Not for a woman.
Just like that. I confess that I went down flat. And
while in that collapsed state I learned the true nature of Mrs. Fynes
feminist doctrine. It was not political, it was not social.
It was a knock-me-down doctrinea practical individualistic doctrine.
You would not thank me for expounding it to you at large. Indeed
I think that she herself did not enlighten me fully. There must
have been things not fit for a man to hear. But shortly, and as
far as my bewilderment allowed me to grasp its naive atrociousness,
it was something like this: that no consideration, no delicacy, no tenderness,
no scruples should stand in the way of a woman (who by the mere fact
of her sex was the predestined victim of conditions created by mens
selfish passions, their vices and their abominable tyranny) from taking
the shortest cut towards securing for herself the easiest possible existence.
She had even the right to go out of existence without considering anyones
feelings or convenience since some womens existences were made
impossible by the shortsighted baseness of men.
I looked at her, sitting before the lamp at one oclock in
the morning, with her mature, smooth-cheeked face of masculine shape
robbed of its freshness by fatigue; at her eyes dimmed by this senseless
vigil. I looked also at Fyne; the mud was drying on him; he was
obviously tired. The weariness of solemnity. But he preserved
an unflinching, endorsing, gravity of expression. Endorsing it
all as became a good, convinced husband.
Oh! I see, I said. No consideration
. . . Well I hope you like it.
They amused me beyond the wildest imaginings of which I was capable.
After the first shock, you understand, I recovered very quickly.
The order of the world was safe enough. He was a civil servant
and she his good and faithful wife. But when it comes to dealing
with human beings anything, anything may be expected. So even
my astonishment did not last very long. How far she developed
and illustrated that conscienceless and austere doctrine to the girl-friends,
who were mere transient shadows to her husband, I could not tell.
Any length I supposed. And he looked on, acquiesced, approved,
just for that very reasonbecause these pretty girls were but
shadows to him. O! Most virtuous Fyne! He cast his
eyes down. He didnt like it. But I eyed him with
hidden animosity for he had got me to run after him under somewhat false
pretences.
Mrs. Fyne had only smiled at me very expressively, very self-confidently.
Oh I quite understand that you accept the fullest responsibility,
I said. I am the only ridiculous person in thisthisI
dont know how to call itperformance. However, Ive
nothing more to do here, so Ill say good-nightor good
morning, for it must be past one.
But before departing, in common decency, I offered to take any wires
they might write. My lodgings were nearer the post-office than
the cottage and I would send them off the first thing in the morning.
I supposed they would wish to communicate, if only as to the disposal
of the luggage, with the young ladys relatives . . .
Fyne, he looked rather downcast by then, thanked me and declined.
There is really no one, he said, very grave.
No one, I exclaimed.
Practically, said curt Mrs. Fyne.
And my curiosity was aroused again.
Ah! I see. An orphan.
Mrs. Fyne looked away weary and sombre, and Fyne said Yes
impulsively, and then qualified the affirmative by the quaint statement:
To a certain extent.
I became conscious of a languid, exhausted embarrassment, bowed to
Mrs. Fyne, and went out of the cottage to be confronted outside its
door by the bespangled, cruel revelation of the Immensity of the Universe.
The night was not sufficiently advanced for the stars to have paled;
and the earth seemed to me more profoundly asleepperhaps because
I was alone now. Not having Fyne with me to set the pace I let
myself drift, rather than walk, in the direction of the farmhouse.
To drift is the only reposeful sort of motion (ask any ship if it isnt)
and therefore consistent with thoughtfulness. And I pondered:
How is one an orphan to a certain extent?
No amount of solemnity could make such a statement other than bizarre.
What a strange condition to be in. Very likely one of the parents
only was dead? But no; it couldnt be, since Fyne had said
just before that there was really no one to communicate
with. No one! And then remembering Mrs. Fynes snappy
Practically my thoughts fastened upon that lady as a more
tangible object of speculation.
I wonderedand wondering I doubtedwhether she really
understood herself the theory she had propounded to me. Everything
may be saidindeed ought to be saidproviding we know how
to say it. She probably did not. She was not intelligent
enough for that. She had no knowledge of the world. She
had got hold of words as a child might get hold of some poisonous pills
and play with them for dear, tiny little marbles.
No! The domestic-slave daughter of Carleon Anthony and the little
Fyne of the Civil Service (that flower of civilization) were not intelligent
people. They were commonplace, earnest, without smiles and without
guile. But he had his solemnities and she had her reveries, her
lurid, violent, crude reveries. And I thought with some sadness
that all these revolts and indignations, all these protests, revulsions
of feeling, pangs of suffering and of rage, expressed but the uneasiness
of sensual beings trying for their share in the joys of form, colour,
sensationsthe only riches of our world of senses. A poet
may be a simple being but he is bound to be various and full of wiles,
ingenious and irritable. I reflected on the variety of ways the
ingenuity of the late bard of civilization would be able to invent for
the tormenting of his dependants. Poets not being generally foresighted
in practical affairs, no vision of consequences would restrain him.
Yes. The Fynes were excellent people, but Mrs. Fyne wasnt
the daughter of a domestic tyrant for nothing. There were no limits
to her revolt. But they were excellent people. It was clear
that they must have been extremely good to that girl whose position
in the world seemed somewhat difficult, with her face of a victim, her
obvious lack of resignation and the bizarre status of orphan to
a certain extent.
Such were my thoughts, but in truth I soon ceased to trouble about
all these people. I found that my lamp had gone out leaving behind
an awful smell. I fled from it up the stairs and went to bed in
the dark. My slumbersI suppose the one good in pedestrian
exercise, confound it, is that it helps our natural callousnessmy
slumbers were deep, dreamless and refreshing.
My appetite at breakfast was not affected by my ignorance of the
facts, motives, events and conclusions. I think that to understand
everything is not good for the intellect. A well-stocked intelligence
weakens the impulse to action; an overstocked one leads gently to idiocy.
But Mrs. Fynes individualist woman-doctrine, naively unscrupulous,
flitted through my mind. The salad of unprincipled notions she
put into these girl-friends heads! Good innocent creature,
worthy wife, excellent mother (of the strict governess type), she was
as guileless of consequences as any determinist philosopher ever was.
As to honouryou knowits a very fine medieval
inheritance which women never got hold of. It wasnt theirs.
Since it may be laid as a general principle that women always get what
they want we must suppose they didnt want it. In addition
they are devoid of decency. I mean masculine decency. Cautiousness
too is foreign to themthe heavy reasonable cautiousness which
is our glory. And if they had it they would make of it a thing
of passion, so that its own motherI mean the mother of cautiousnesswouldnt
recognize it. Prudence with them is a matter of thrill like the
rest of sublunary contrivances. Sensation at any cost,
is their secret device. All the virtues are not enough for them;
they want also all the crimes for their own. And why? Because
in such completeness there is powerthe kind of thrill they love
most . . .
Do you expect me to agree to all this? I interrupted.
No, it isnt necessary, said Marlow, feeling
the check to his eloquence but with a great effort at amiability.
You need not even understand it. I continue: with such
disposition what prevents womento use the phrase an old boatswain
of my acquaintance applied descriptively to his captainwhat prevents
them from coming on deck and playing hell with the ship
generally, is that something in them precise and mysterious, acting
both as restraint and as inspiration; their femininity in short which
they think they can get rid of by trying hard, but cant, and
never will. Therefore we may conclude that, for all their enterprises,
the world is and remains safe enough. Feeling, in my character
of a lover of peace, soothed by that conclusion I prepared myself to
enjoy a fine day.
And it was a fine day; a delicious day, with the horror of the Infinite
veiled by the splendid tent of blue; a day innocently bright like a
child with a washed face, fresh like an innocent young girl, suave in
welcoming ones respects likelike a Roman prelate.
I love such days. They are perfection for remaining indoors.
And I enjoyed it temperamentally in a chair, my feet up on the sill
of the open window, a book in my hands and the murmured harmonies of
wind and sun in my heart making an accompaniment to the rhythms of my
author. Then looking up from the page I saw outside a pair of
grey eyes thatched by ragged yellowy-white eyebrows gazing at me solemnly
over the toes of my slippers. There was a grave, furrowed brow
surmounting that portentous gaze, a brown tweed cap set far back on
the perspiring head.
Come inside, I cried as heartily as my sinking heart
would permit.
After a short but severe scuffle with his dog at the outer door,
Fyne entered. I treated him without ceremony and only waved my
hand towards a chair. Even before he sat down he gasped out:
Weve heardmidday post.
Gasped out! The grave, immovable Fyne of the Civil Service,
gasped! This was enough, youll admit, to cause me to put
my feet to the ground swiftly. That fellow was always making me
do things in subtle discord with my meditative temperament. No
wonder that I had but a qualified liking for him. I said with
just a suspicion of jeering tone:
Of course. I told you last night on the road that it
was a farce we were engaged in.
He made the little parlour resound to its foundations with a note
of anger positively sepulchral in its depth of tone. Farce
be hanged! She has bolted with my wifes brother, Captain
Anthony. This outburst was followed by complete subsidence.
He faltered miserably as he added from force of habit: The son
of the poet, you know.
A silence fell. Fynes several expressions were so many
examples of varied consistency. This was the discomfiture of solemnity.
My interest of course was revived.
But hold on, I said. They didnt
go together. Is it a suspicion or does she actually say that .
. .
She has gone after him, stated Fyne in comminatory
tones. By previous arrangement. She confesses that
much.
He added that it was very shocking. I asked him whether he
should have preferred them going off together; and on what ground he
based that preference. This was sheer fun for me in regard of
the fact that Fynes too was a runaway match, which even got into
the papers in its time, because the late indignant poet had no discretion
and sought to avenge this outrage publicly in some absurd way before
a bewigged judge. The dejected gesture of little Fynes
hand disarmed my mocking mood. But I could not help expressing
my surprise that Mrs. Fyne had not detected at once what was brewing.
Women were supposed to have an unerring eye.
He told me that his wife had been very much engaged in a certain
work. I had always wondered how she occupied her time. It
was in writing. Like her husband she too published a little book.
Much later on I came upon it. It had nothing to do with pedestrianism.
It was a sort of hand-book for women with grievances (and all women
had them), a sort of compendious theory and practice of feminine free
morality. It made you laugh at its transparent simplicity.
But that authorship was revealed to me much later. I didnt
of course ask Fyne what work his wife was engaged on; but I marvelled
to myself at her complete ignorance of the world, of her own sex and
of the other kind of sinners. Yet, where could she have got any
experience? Her father had kept her strictly cloistered.
Marriage with Fyne was certainly a change but only to another kind of
claustration. You may tell me that the ordinary powers of observation
ought to have been enough. Why, yes! But, then, as she had
set up for a guide and teacher, there was nothing surprising for me
in the discovery that she was blind. Thats quite in order.
She was a profoundly innocent person; only it would not have been proper
to tell her husband so.
CHAPTER THREETHRIFTAND THE CHILD
But there was nothing improper in my observing to Fyne that, last
night, Mrs. Fyne seemed to have some idea where that enterprising young
lady had gone to. Fyne shook his head. No; his wife had
been by no means so certain as she had pretended to be. She merely
had her reasons to think, to hope, that the girl might have taken a
room somewhere in London, had buried herself in townin readiness
or perhaps in horror of the approaching day
He ceased and sat solemnly dejected, in a brown study. What
day? I asked at last; but he did not hear me apparently.
He diffused such portentous gloom into the atmosphere that I lost patience
with him.
What on earth are you so dismal about? I cried, being
genuinely surprised and puzzled. One would think the girl
was a state prisoner under your care.
And suddenly I became still more surprised at myself, at the way
I had somehow taken for granted things which did appear queer when one
thought them out.
But why this secrecy? Why did they elopeif it
is an elopement? Was the girl afraid of your wife? And your
brother-in-law? What on earth possesses him to make a clandestine
match of it? Was he afraid of your wife too?
Fyne made an effort to rouse himself.
Of course my brother-in-law, Captain Anthony, the son of .
. . He checked himself as if trying to break a bad habit.
He would be persuaded by her. We have been most friendly
to the girl!
She struck me as a foolish and inconsiderate little person.
But why should you and your wife take to heart so strongly mere follyor
even a want of consideration?
Its the most unscrupulous action, declared Fyne
weightilyand sighed.
I suppose she is poor, I observed after a short silence.
But after all . . .
You dont know who she is. Fyne had regained
his average solemnity.
I confessed that I had not caught her name when his wife had introduced
us to each other. It was something beginning with an S-
wasnt it? And then with the utmost coolness Fyne
remarked that it did not matter. The name was not her name.
Do you mean to say that you made a young lady known to me
under a false name? I asked, with the amused feeling that the
days of wonders and portents had not passed away yet. That the
eminently serious Fynes should do such an exceptional thing was simply
staggering. With a more hasty enunciation than usual little Fyne
was sure that I would not demand an apology for this irregularity if
I knew what her real name was. A sort of warmth crept into his
deep tone.
We have tried to befriend that girl in every way. She
is the daughter and only child of de Barral.
Evidently he expected to produce a sensation; he kept his eyes fixed
upon me prepared for some sign of it. But I merely returned his
intense, awaiting gaze. For a time we stared at each other.
Conscious of being reprehensibly dense I groped in the darkness of my
mind: De Barral, De Barraland all at once noise and light burst
on me as if a window of my memory had been suddenly flung open on a
street in the City. De Barral! But could it be the same?
Surely not!
The financier? I suggested half incredulous.
Yes, said Fyne; and in this instance his native solemnity
of tone seemed to be strangely appropriate. The convict.
Marlow looked at me, significantly, and remarked in an explanatory
tone:
One somehow never thought of de Barral as having any children,
or any other home than the offices of the Orb; or any
other existence, associations or interests than financial. I see
you remember the crash . . .
I was away in the Indian Seas at the time, I said.
But of course
Of course, Marlow struck in. All the world
. . . You may wonder at my slowness in recognizing the name. But
you know that my memory is merely a mausoleum of proper names.
There they lie inanimate, awaiting the magic touchand not very
prompt in arising when called, either. The name is the first thing
I forget of a man. It is but just to add that frequently it is
also the last, and this accounts for my possession of a good many anonymous
memories. In de Barrals case, he got put away in my mausoleum
in company with so many names of his own creation that really he had
to throw off a monstrous heap of grisly bones before he stood before
me at the call of the wizard Fyne. The fellow had a pretty fancy
in names: the Orb Deposit Bank, the Sceptre
Mutual Aid Society, the Thrift and Independence Association.
Yes, a very pretty taste in names; and nothing else besidesabsolutely
nothingno other merit. Well yes. He had another name,
but thats pure luckhis own name of de Barral which he
did not invent. I dont think that a mere Jones or Brown
could have fished out from the depths of the Incredible such a colossal
manifestation of human folly as that man did. But it may be that
I am underestimating the alacrity of human folly in rising to the bait.
No doubt I am. The greed of that absurd monster is incalculable,
unfathomable, inconceivable. The career of de Barral demonstrates
that it will rise to a naked hook. He didnt lure it with
a fairy tale. He hadnt enough imagination for it . . .
Was he a foreigner? I asked. Its
clearly a French name. I suppose it was his name?
Oh, he didnt invent it. He was born to it, in
Bethnal Green, as it came out during the proceedings. He was in
the habit of alluding to his Scotch connections. But every great
man has done that. The mother, I believe, was Scotch, right enough.
The father de Barral whatever his origins retired from the Customs Service
(tide-waiter I think), and started lending money in a very, very small
way in the East End to people connected with the docks, stevedores,
minor barge-owners, ship-chandlers, tally clerks, all sorts of very
small fry. He made his living at it. He was a very decent
man I believe. He had enough influence to place his only son as
junior clerk in the account department of one of the Dock Companies.
Now, my boy, he said to him, Ive given you
a fine start. But de Barral didnt start. He
stuck. He gave perfect satisfaction. At the end of three
years he got a small rise of salary and went out courting in the evenings.
He went courting the daughter of an old sea-captain who was a churchwarden
of his parish and lived in an old badly preserved Georgian house with
a garden: one of these houses standing in a reduced bit of grounds
that you discover in a labyrinth of the most sordid streets, exactly
alike and composed of six-roomed hutches.
Some of them were the vicarages of slum parishes. The old sailor
had got hold of one cheap, and de Barral got hold of his daughterwhich
was a good bargain for him. The old sailor was very good to the
young couple and very fond of their little girl. Mrs. de Barral
was an equable, unassuming woman, at that time with a fund of simple
gaiety, and with no ambitions; but, woman-like, she longed for change
and for something interesting to happen now and then. It was she
who encouraged de Barral to accept the offer of a post in the west-end
branch of a great bank. It appears he shrank from such a great
adventure for a long time. At last his wifes arguments
prevailed. Later on she used to say: Its the only
time he ever listened to me; and I wonder now if it hadnt been
better for me to die before I ever made him go into that bank.
You may be surprised at my knowledge of these details. Well,
I had them ultimately from Mrs. Fyne. Mrs. Fyne while yet Miss
Anthony, in her days of bondage, knew Mrs. de Barral in her days of
exile. Mrs. de Barral was living then in a big stone mansion with
mullioned windows in a large damp park, called the Priory, adjoining
the village where the refined poet had built himself a house.
These were the days of de Barrals success. He had bought
the place without ever seeing it and had packed off his wife and child
at once there to take possession. He did not know what to do with
them in London. He himself had a suite of rooms in an hotel.
He gave there dinner parties followed by cards in the evening.
He had developed the gambling passionor else a mere card maniabut
at any rate he played heavily, for relaxation, with a lot of dubious
hangers on.
Meantime Mrs. de Barral, expecting him every day, lived at the Priory,
with a carriage and pair, a governess for the child and many servants.
The village people would see her through the railings wandering under
the trees with her little girl lost in her strange surroundings.
Nobody ever came near her. And there she died as some faithful
and delicate animals diefrom neglect, absolutely from neglect,
rather unexpectedly and without any fuss. The village was sorry
for her because, though obviously worried about something, she was good
to the poor and was always ready for a chat with any of the humble folks.
Of course they knew that she wasnt a ladynot what you
would call a real lady. And even her acquaintance with Miss Anthony
was only a cottage-door, a village-street acquaintance. Carleon
Anthony was a tremendous aristocrat (his father had been a restoring
architect) and his daughter was not allowed to associate with anyone
but the county young ladies. Nevertheless in defiance of the poets
wrathful concern for undefiled refinement there were some quiet, melancholy
strolls to and fro in the great avenue of chestnuts leading to the park-gate,
during which Mrs. de Barral came to call Miss Anthony my dearand
even my poor dear. The lonely soul had no one to
talk to but that not very happy girl. The governess despised her.
The housekeeper was distant in her manner. Moreover Mrs. de Barral
was no foolish gossiping woman. But she made some confidences
to Miss Anthony. Such wealth was a terrific thing to have thrust
upon one she affirmed. Once she went so far as to confess that
she was dying with anxiety. Mr. de Barral (so she referred to
him) had been an excellent husband and an exemplary father but you
see my dear I have had a great experience of him. I am sure he
wont know what to do with all that money people are giving to
him to take care of for them. Hes as likely as not to do
something rash. When he comes here I must have a good long serious
talk with him, like the talks we often used to have together in the
good old times of our life. And then one day a cry of anguish
was wrung from her: My dear, he will never come here, he will
never, never come!
She was wrong. He came to the funeral, was extremely cut up,
and holding the child tightly by the hand wept bitterly at the side
of the grave. Miss Anthony, at the cost of a whole week of sneers
and abuse from the poet, saw it all with her own eyes. De Barral
clung to the child like a drowning man. He managed, though, to
catch the half-past five fast train, travelling to town alone in a reserved
compartment, with all the blinds down . . .
Leaving the child? I said interrogatively.
Yes. Leaving . . . He shirked the problem. He
was born that way. He had no idea what to do with her or for that
matter with anything or anybody including himself. He bolted back
to his suite of rooms in the hotel. He was the most helpless .
. . She might have been left in the Priory to the end of time had not
the high-toned governess threatened to send in her resignation.
She didnt care for the child a bit, and the lonely, gloomy Priory
had got on her nerves. She wasnt going to put up with such
a life and, having just come out of some ducal family, she bullied de
Barral in a very lofty fashion. To pacify her he took a splendidly
furnished house in the most expensive part of Brighton for them, and
now and then ran down for a week-end, with a trunk full of exquisite
sweets and with his hat full of money. The governess spent it
for him in extra ducal style. She was nearly forty and harboured
a secret taste for patronizing young men of sortsof a certain
sort. But of that Mrs. Fyne of course had no personal knowledge
then; she told me however that even in the Priory days she had suspected
her of being an artificial, heartless, vulgar-minded woman with the
lowest possible ideals. But de Barral did not know it. He
literally did not know anything . . .
But tell me, Marlow, I interrupted, how do you
account for this opinion? He must have been a personality in a
sensein some one sense surely. You dont work the
greatest material havoc of a decade at least, in a commercial community,
without having something in you.
Marlow shook his head.
He was a mere sign, a portent. There was nothing in
him. Just about that time the word Thrift was to the fore.
You know the power of words. We pass through periods dominated
by this or that wordit may be development, or it may be competition,
or education, or purity or efficiency or even sanctity. It is
the word of the time. Well just then it was the word Thrift which
was out in the streets walking arm in arm with righteousness, the inseparable
companion and backer up of all such national catch-words, looking everybody
in the eye as it were. The very drabs of the pavement, poor things,
didnt escape the fascination . . . However! . . . Well the greatest
portion of the press were screeching in all possible tones, like a confounded
company of parrots instructed by some devil with a taste for practical
jokes, that the financier de Barral was helping the great moral evolution
of our character towards the newly-discovered virtue of Thrift.
He was helping it by all these great establishments of his, which made
the moral merits of Thrift manifest to the most callous hearts, simply
by promising to pay ten per cent. interest on all deposits. And
you didnt want necessarily to belong to the well-to-do classes
in order to participate in the advantages of virtue. If you had
but a spare sixpence in the world and went and gave it to de Barral
it was Thrift! Its quite likely that he himself believed
it. He must have. Its inconceivable that he alone
should stand out against the infatuation of the whole world. He
hadnt enough intelligence for that. But to look at him
one couldnt tell . . .
You did see him then? I said with some curiosity.
I did. Strange, isnt it? It was only once,
but as I sat with the distressed Fyne who had suddenly resuscitated
his name buried in my memory with other dead labels of the past, I may
say I saw him again, I saw him with great vividness of recollection,
as he appeared in the days of his glory or splendour. No!
Neither of these words will fit his success. There was never any
glory or splendour about that figure. Well, let us say in the
days when he was, according to the majority of the daily press, a financial
force working for the improvement of the character of the people.
Ill tell you how it came about.
At that time I used to know a podgy, wealthy, bald little man having
chambers in the Albany; a financier too, in his way, carrying out transactions
of an intimate nature and of no moral character; mostly with young men
of birth and expectationsthough I dare say he didnt withhold
his ministrations from elderly plebeians either. He was a true
democrat; he would have done business (a sharp kind of business) with
the devil himself. Everything was fly that came into his web.
He received the applicants in an alert, jovial fashion which was quite
surprising. It gave relief without giving too much confidence,
which was just as well perhaps. His business was transacted in
an apartment furnished like a drawing-room, the walls hung with several
brown, heavily-framed, oil paintings. I dont know if they
were good, but they were big, and with their elaborate, tarnished gilt-frames
had a melancholy dignity. The man himself sat at a shining, inlaid
writing table which looked like a rare piece from a museum of art; his
chair had a high, oval, carved back, upholstered in faded tapestry;
and these objects made of the costly black Havana cigar, which he rolled
incessantly from the middle to the left corner of his mouth and back
again, an inexpressibly cheap and nasty object. I had to see him
several times in the interest of a poor devil so unlucky that he didnt
even have a more competent friend than myself to speak for him at a
very difficult time in his life.
I dont know at what hour my private financier began his day,
but he used to give one appointments at unheard of times: such as a
quarter to eight in the morning, for instance. On arriving one
found him busy at that marvellous writing table, looking very fresh
and alert, exhaling a faint fragrance of scented soap and with the cigar
already well alight. You may believe that I entered on my mission
with many unpleasant forebodings; but there was in that fat, admirably
washed, little man such a profound contempt for mankind that it amounted
to a species of good nature; which, unlike the milk of genuine kindness,
was never in danger of turning sour. Then, once, during a pause
in business, while we were waiting for the production of a document
for which he had sent (perhaps to the cellar?) I happened to remark,
glancing round the room, that I had never seen so many fine things assembled
together out of a collection. Whether this was unconscious diplomacy
on my part, or not, I shouldnt like to saybut the remark
was true enough, and it pleased him extremely. It is
a collection, he said emphatically. Only I live
right in it, which most collectors dont. But I see that
you know what you are looking at. Not many people who come here
on business do. Stable fittings are more in their way.
I dont know whether my appreciation helped to advance my friends
business but at any rate it helped our intercourse. He treated
me with a shade of familiarity as one of the initiated.
The last time I called on him to conclude the transaction we were
interrupted by a person, something like a cross between a bookmaker
and a private secretary, who, entering through a door which was not
the anteroom door, walked up and stooped to whisper into his ear.
Eh? What? Who, did you say?
The nondescript person stooped and whispered again, adding a little
louder: Says he wont detain you a moment.
My little man glanced at me, said Ah! Well, irresolutely.
I got up from my chair and offered to come again later. He looked
whimsically alarmed. No, no. Its bad enough
to lose my money but I dont want to waste any more of my time
over your friend. We must be done with this to-day. Just
go and have a look at that garniture de cheminee yonder.
Theres another, something like it, in the castle of Laeken, but
mines much superior in design.
I moved accordingly to the other side of that big room. The
garniture was very fine. But while pretending to examine
it I watched my man going forward to meet a tall visitor, who said,
I thought you would be disengaged so early. Its
only a word or twoand after a whispered confabulation
of no more than a minute, reconduct him to the door and shake hands
ceremoniously. Not at all, not at all. Very pleased
to be of use. You can depend absolutely on my informationOh
thank you, thank you. I just looked in. Certainly,
quite right. Any time . . . Good morning.
I had a good look at the visitor while they were exchanging these
civilities. He was clad in black. I remember perfectly that
he wore a flat, broad, black satin tie in which was stuck a large cameo
pin; and a small turn down collar. His hair, discoloured and silky,
curled slightly over his ears. His cheeks were hairless and round,
and apparently soft. He held himself very upright, walked with
small steps and spoke gently in an inward voice. Perhaps from
contrast with the magnificent polish of the room and the neatness of
its owner, he struck me as dingy, indigent, and, if not exactly humble,
then much subdued by evil fortune.
I wondered greatly at my fat little financiers civility to
that dubious personage when he asked me, as we resumed our respective
seats, whether I knew who it was that had just gone out. On my
shaking my head negatively he smiled queerly, said De Barral,
and enjoyed my surprise. Then becoming grave: Thats
a deep fellow, if you like. We all know where he started from
and where he got to; but nobody knows what he means to do.
He became thoughtful for a moment and added as if speaking to himself,
I wonder what his game is.
And, you know, there was no game, no game of any sort, or shape or
kind. It came out plainly at the trial. As Ive told
you before, he was a clerk in a bank, like thousands of others.
He got that berth as a second start in life and there he stuck again,
giving perfect satisfaction. Then one day as though a supernatural
voice had whispered into his ear or some invisible fly had stung him,
he put on his hat, went out into the street and began advertising.
Thats absolutely all that there was to it. He caught in
the street the word of the time and harnessed it to his preposterous
chariot.
One remembers his first modest advertisements headed with the magic
word Thrift, Thrift, Thrift, thrice repeated; promising ten per cent.
on all deposits and giving the address of the Thrift and Independence
Aid Association in Vauxhall Bridge Road. Apparently nothing more
was necessary. He didnt even explain what he meant to do
with the money he asked the public to pour into his lap. Of course
he meant to lend it out at high rates of interest. He did sobut
he did it without system, plan, foresight or judgment. And as
he frittered away the sums that flowed in, he advertised for moreand
got it. During a period of general business prosperity he set
up The Orb Bank and The Sceptre Trust, simply, it seems for advertising
purposes. They were mere names. He was totally unable to
organize anything, to promote any sort of enterprise if it were only
for the purpose of juggling with the shares. At that time he could
have had for the asking any number of Dukes, retired Generals, active
M.P.s, ex-ambassadors and so on as Directors to sit at the wildest
boards of his invention. But he never tried. He had no real
imagination. All he could do was to publish more advertisements
and open more branch offices of the Thrift and Independence, of The
Orb, of The Sceptre, for the receipt of deposits; first in this town,
then in that town, north and southeverywhere where he could find
suitable premises at a moderate rent. For this was the great characteristic
of the management. Modesty, moderation, simplicity. Neither
The Orb nor The Sceptre nor yet their parent the Thrift and Independence
had built for themselves the usual palaces. For this abstention
they were praised in silly public prints as illustrating in their management
the principle of Thrift for which they were founded. The fact
is that de Barral simply didnt think of it. Of course he
had soon moved from Vauxhall Bridge Road. He knew enough for that.
What he got hold of next was an old, enormous, rat-infested brick house
in a small street off the Strand. Strangers were taken in front
of the meanest possible, begrimed, yellowy, flat brick wall, with two
rows of unadorned window-holes one above the other, and were exhorted
with bated breath to behold and admire the simplicity of the head-quarters
of the great financial force of the day. The word THRIFT perched
right up on the roof in giant gilt letters, and two enormous shield-like
brass-plates curved round the corners on each side of the doorway were
the only shining spots in de Barrals business outfit. Nobody
knew what operations were carried on inside except thisthat if
you walked in and tendered your money over the counter it would be calmly
taken from you by somebody who would give you a printed receipt.
That and no more. It appears that such knowledge is irresistible.
People went in and tendered; and once it was taken from their hands
their money was more irretrievably gone from them than if they had thrown
it into the sea. This then, and nothing else was being carried
on in there . . .
Come, Marlow, I said, you exaggerate surelyif
only by your way of putting things. Its too startling.
I exaggerate! he defended himself. My
way of putting things! My dear fellow I have merely stripped the
rags of business verbiage and financial jargon off my statements.
And you are startled! I am giving you the naked truth. Its
true too that nothing lays itself open to the charge of exaggeration
more than the language of naked truth. What comes with a shock
is admitted with difficulty. But what will you say to the end
of his career?
It was of course sensational and tolerably sudden. It began
with the Orb Deposit Bank. Under the name of that institution
de Barral with the frantic obstinacy of an unimaginative man had been
financing an Indian prince who was prosecuting a claim for immense sums
of money against the government. It was an enormous number of
scores of lakhsa miserable remnant of his ancestors treasuresthat
sort of thing. And it was all authentic enough. There was
a real prince; and the claim too was sufficiently realonly unfortunately
it was not a valid claim. So the prince lost his case on the last
appeal and the beginning of de Barrals end became manifest to
the public in the shape of a half-sheet of note paper wafered by the
four corners on the closed door of The Orb offices notifying that payment
was stopped at that establishment.
Its consort The Sceptre collapsed within the week. I wont
say in American parlance that suddenly the bottom fell out of the whole
of de Barral concerns. There never had been any bottom to it.
It was like the cask of Danaides into which the public had been pleased
to pour its deposits. That they were gone was clear; and the bankruptcy
proceedings which followed were like a sinister farce, bursts of laughter
in a setting of mute anguishthat of the depositors; hundreds
of thousands of them. The laughter was irresistible; the accompaniment
of the bankrupts public examination.
I dont know if it was from utter lack of all imagination or
from the possession in undue proportion of a particular kind of it,
or from bothand the three alternatives are possiblebut
it was discovered that this man who had been raised to such a height
by the credulity of the public was himself more gullible than any of
his depositors. He had been the prey of all sorts of swindlers,
adventurers, visionaries and even lunatics. Wrapping himself up
in deep and imbecile secrecy he had gone in for the most fantastic schemes:
a harbour and docks on the coast of Patagonia, quarries in Labradorsuch
like speculations. Fisheries to feed a canning Factory on the
banks of the Amazon was one of them. A principality to be bought
in Madagascar was another. As the grotesque details of these incredible
transactions came out one by one ripples of laughter ran over the closely
packed courteach one a little louder than the other. The
audience ended by fairly roaring under the cumulative effect of absurdity.
The Registrar laughed, the barristers laughed, the reporters laughed,
the serried ranks of the miserable depositors watching anxiously every
word, laughed like one man. They laughed hystericallythe
poor wretcheson the verge of tears.
There was only one person who remained unmoved. It was de Barral
himself. He preserved his serene, gentle expression, I am told
(for I have not witnessed those scenes myself), and looked around at
the people with an air of placid sufficiency which was the first hint
to the world of the mans overweening, unmeasurable conceit, hidden
hitherto under a diffident manner. It could be seen too in his
dogged assertion that if he had been given enough time and a lot more
money everything would have come right. And there were some people
(yes, amongst his very victims) who more than half believed him, even
after the criminal prosecution which soon followed. When placed
in the dock he lost his steadiness as if some sustaining illusion had
gone to pieces within him suddenly. He ceased to be himself in
manner completely, and even in disposition, in so far that his faded
neutral eyes matching his discoloured hair so well, were discovered
then to be capable of expressing a sort of underhand hate. He
was at first defiant, then insolent, then broke down and burst into
tears; but it might have been from rage. Then he calmed down,
returned to his soft manner of speech and to that unassuming quiet bearing
which had been usual with him even in his greatest days. But it
seemed as though in this moment of change he had at last perceived what
a power he had been; for he remarked to one of the prosecuting counsel
who had assumed a lofty moral tone in questioning him, thatyes,
he had gambledhe liked cards. But that only a year ago
a host of smart people would have been only too pleased to take a hand
at cards with him. Yeshe went onsome of the very
people who were there accommodated with seats on the bench; and turning
upon the counsel You yourself as well, he cried.
He could have had half the town at his rooms to fawn upon him if he
had cared for that sort of thing. Why, now I think of it,
it took me most of my time to keep people, just of your sort, off me,
he ended with a good humouredquite unobtrusive, contempt, as
though the fact had dawned upon him for the first time.
This was the moment, the only moment, when he had perhaps all the
audience in Court with him, in a hush of dreary silence. And then
the dreary proceedings were resumed. For all the outside excitement
it was the most dreary of all celebrated trials. The bankruptcy
proceedings had exhausted all the laughter there was in it. Only
the fact of wide-spread ruin remained, and the resentment of a mass
of people for having been fooled by means too simple to save their self-respect
from a deep wound which the cleverness of a consummate scoundrel would
not have inflicted. A shamefaced amazement attended these proceedings
in which de Barral was not being exposed alone. For himself his
only cry was: Time! Time! Time would have set everything right.
In time some of these speculations of his were certain to have succeeded.
He repeated this defence, this excuse, this confession of faith, with
wearisome iteration. Everything he had done or left undone had
been to gain time. He had hypnotized himself with the word.
Sometimes, I am told, his appearance was ecstatic, his motionless pale
eyes seemed to be gazing down the vista of future ages. Timeand
of course, more money. Ah! If only you had left me
alone for a couple of years more, he cried once in accents of
passionate belief. The money was coming in all right.
The deposits you understandthe savings of Thrift. Oh yes
they had been coming in to the very last moment. And he regretted
them. He had arrived to regard them as his own by a sort of mystical
persuasion. And yet it was a perfectly true cry, when he turned
once more on the counsel who was beginning a question with the words
You have had all these immense sums . . . with the indignant
retort What have I had out of them?
It was perfectly true. He had had nothing out of themnothing
of the prestigious or the desirable things of the earth, craved for
by predatory natures. He had gratified no tastes, had known no
luxury; he had built no gorgeous palaces, had formed no splendid galleries
out of these immense sums. He had not even a home.
He had gone into these rooms in an hotel and had stuck there for years,
giving no doubt perfect satisfaction to the management. They had
twice raised his rent to show I suppose their high sense of his distinguished
patronage. He had bought for himself out of all the wealth streaming
through his fingers neither adulation nor love, neither splendour nor
comfort. There was something perfect in his consistent mediocrity.
His very vanity seemed to miss the gratification of even the mere show
of power. In the days when he was most fully in the public eye
the invincible obscurity of his origins clung to him like a shadowy
garment. He had handled millions without ever enjoying anything
of what is counted as precious in the community of men, because he had
neither the brutality of temperament nor the fineness of mind to make
him desire them with the will power of a masterful adventurer . . .
You seem to have studied the man, I observed.
Studied, repeated Marlow thoughtfully. No!
Not studied. I had no opportunities. You know that I saw
him only on that one occasion I told you of. But it may be that
a glimpse and no more is the proper way of seeing an individuality;
and de Barral was that, in virtue of his very deficiencies for they
made of him something quite unlike ones preconceived ideas.
There were also very few materials accessible to a man like me to form
a judgment from. But in such a case I verify believe that a little
is as good as a feastperhaps better. If one has a taste
for that kind of thing the merest starting-point becomes a coign of
vantage, and then by a series of logically deducted verisimilitudes
one arrives at truthor very near the truthas near as any
circumstantial evidence can do. I have not studied de Barral but
that is how I understand him so far as he could be understood through
the din of the crash; the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the newspaper
contents bills, The Thrift Frauds. Cross-examination of
the accused. Extra specialblazing fiercely; the
charitable appeals for the victims, the grave tones of the dailies rumbling
with compassion as if they were the national bowels. All this
lasted a whole week of industrious sittings. A pressman whom I
knew told me Hes an idiot. Which was possible.
Before that I overheard once somebody declaring that he had a criminal
type of face; which I knew was untrue. The sentence was pronounced
by artificial light in a stifling poisonous atmosphere. Something
edifying was said by the judge weightily, about the retribution overtaking
the perpetrator of the most heartless frauds on an unprecedented
scale. I dont understand these things much, but
it appears that he had juggled with accounts, cooked balance sheets,
had gathered in deposits months after he ought to have known himself
to be hopelessly insolvent, and done enough of other things, highly
reprehensible in the eyes of the law, to earn for himself seven years
penal servitude. The sentence making its way outside met with
a good reception. A small mob composed mainly of people who themselves
did not look particularly clever and scrupulous, leavened by a slight
sprinkling of genuine pickpockets amused itself by cheering in the most
penetrating, abominable cold drizzle that I remember. I happened
to be passing there on my way from the East End where I had spent my
day about the Docks with an old chum who was looking after the fitting
out of a new ship. I am always eager, when allowed, to call on
a new ship. They interest me like charming young persons.
I got mixed up in that crowd seething with an animosity as senseless
as things of the street always are, and it was while I was laboriously
making my way out of it that the pressman of whom I spoke was jostled
against me. He did me the justice to be surprised. What?
You here! The last person in the world . . . If I had known I
could have got you inside. Plenty of room. Interest been
over for the last three days. Got seven years. Well, I am
glad.
Why are you glad? Because hes got seven years?
I asked, greatly incommoded by the pressure of a hulking fellow who
was remarking to some of his equally oppressive friends that the beggar
ought to have been poleaxed. I dont know whether
he had ever confided his savings to de Barral but if so, judging from
his appearance, they must have been the proceeds of some successful
burglary. The pressman by my side said No, to my
question. He was glad because it was all over. He had suffered
greatly from the heat and the bad air of the court. The clammy,
raw, chill of the streets seemed to affect his liver instantly.
He became contemptuous and irritable and plied his elbows viciously
making way for himself and me.
A dull affair this. All such cases were dull. No really
dramatic moments. The book-keeping of The Orb and all the rest
of them was certainly a burlesque revelation but the public did not
care for revelations of that kind. Dull dog that de Barralhe
grumbled. He could not or would not take the trouble to characterize
for me the appearance of that man now officially a criminal (we had
gone across the road for a drink) but told me with a sourly, derisive
snigger that, after the sentence had been pronounced the fellow clung
to the dock long enough to make a sort of protest. You
havent given me time. If I had been given time I would
have ended by being made a peer like some of them. And
he had permitted himself his very first and last gesture in all these
days, raising a hard-clenched fist above his head.
The pressman disapproved of that manifestation. It was not
his business to understand it. Is it ever the business of any
pressman to understand anything? I guess not. It would lead
him too far away from the actualities which are the daily bread of the
public mind. He probably thought the display worth very little
from a picturesque point of view; the weak voice; the colourless personality
as incapable of an attitude as a bed-post, the very fatuity of the clenched
hand so ineffectual at that time and placeno, it wasnt
worth much. And then, for him, an accomplished craftsman in his
trade, thinking was distinctly bad business. His
business was to write a readable account. But I who had nothing
to write, I permitted myself to use my mind as we sat before our still
untouched glasses. And the disclosure which so often rewards a
moment of detachment from mere visual impressions gave me a thrill very
much approaching a shudder. I seemed to understand that, with
the shock of the agonies and perplexities of his trial, the imagination
of that man, whose moods, notions and motives wore frequently an air
of grotesque mysterythat his imagination had been at last roused
into activity. And this was awful. Just try to enter into
the feelings of a man whose imagination wakes up at the very moment
he is about to enter the tomb . . .
* * * * *
You must not think, went on Marlow after a pause, that
on that morning with Fyne I went consciously in my mind over all this,
let us call it information; no, better say, this fund of knowledge which
I had, or rather which existed, in me in regard to de Barral.
Information is something one goes out to seek and puts away when found
as you might do a piece of lead: ponderous, useful, unvibrating, dull.
Whereas knowledge comes to one, this sort of knowledge, a chance acquisition
preserving in its repose a fine resonant quality . . . But as such distinctions
touch upon the transcendental I shall spare you the pain of listening
to them. There are limits to my cruelty. No! I didnt
reckon up carefully in my mind all this I have been telling you.
How could I have done so, with Fyne right there in the room? He
sat perfectly still, statuesque in homely fashion, after having delivered
himself of his effective assent: Yes. The convict,
and I, far from indulging in a reminiscent excursion into the past,
remained sufficiently in the present to muse in a vague, absent-minded
way on the respectable proportions and on the (upon the whole) comely
shape of his great pedestrians calves, for he had thrown one
leg over his knee, carelessly, to conceal the trouble of his mind by
an air of ease. But all the same the knowledge was in me, the
awakened resonance of which I spoke just now; I was aware of it on that
beautiful day, so fresh, so warm and friendly, so accomplishedan
exquisite courtesy of the much abused English climate when it makes
up its meteorological mind to behave like a perfect gentleman.
Of course the English climate is never a rough. It suffers from
spleen somewhat frequentlybut that is gentlemanly too, and I
dont mind going to meet him in that mood. He has his days
of grey, veiled, polite melancholy, in which he is very fascinating.
How seldom he lapses into a blustering manner, after all! And
then it is mostly in a season when, appropriately enough, one may go
out and kill something. But his fine days are the best for stopping
at home, to read, to think, to museeven to dream; in fact to
live fully, intensely and quietly, in the brightness of comprehension,
in that receptive glow of the mind, the gift of the clear, luminous
and serene weather.
That day I had intended to live intensely and quietly, basking in
the weathers glory which would have lent enchantment to the most
unpromising of intellectual prospects. For a companion I had found
a book, not bemused with the cleverness of the daya fine-weather
book, simple and sincere like the talk of an unselfish friend.
But looking at little Fyne seated in the room I understood that nothing
would come of my contemplative aspirations; that in one way or another
I should be let in for some form of severe exercise. Walking,
it would be, I feared, since, for me, that idea was inseparably associated
with the visual impression of Fyne. Where, why, how, a rapid striding
rush could be brought in helpful relation to the good Fynes present
trouble and perplexity I could not imagine; except on the principle
that senseless pedestrianism was Fynes panacea for all the ills
and evils bodily and spiritual of the universe. It could be of
no use for me to say or do anything. It was bound to come.
Contemplating his muscular limb encased in a golf-stocking, and under
the strong impression of the information he had just imparted I said
wondering, rather irrationally:
And so de Barral had a wife and child! That girls
his daughter. And how . . .
Fyne interrupted me by stating again earnestly, as though it were
something not easy to believe, that his wife and himself had tried to
befriend the girl in every wayindeed they had! I did not
doubt him for a moment, of course, but my wonder at this was more rational.
At that hour of the morning, you mustnt forget, I knew nothing
as yet of Mrs. Fynes contact (it was hardly more) with de Barrals
wife and child during their exile at the Priory, in the culminating
days of that mans fame.
Fyne who had come over, it was clear, solely to talk to me on that
subject, gave me the first hint of this initial, merely out of doors,
connection. The girl was quite a child then, he
continued. Later on she was removed out of Mrs. Fynes
reach in charge of a governessa very unsatisfactory person,
he explained. His wife had thenhmmet him;
and on her marriage she lost sight of the child completely. But
after the birth of Polly (Polly was the third Fyne girl) she did not
get on very well, and went to Brighton for some months to recover her
strengthand there, one day in the street, the child (she wore
her hair down her back still) recognized her outside a shop and rushed,
actually rushed, into Mrs. Fynes arms. Rather touching
this. And so, disregarding the cold impertinence of that . . .
hm . . . governess, his wife naturally responded.
He was solemnly fragmentary. I broke in with the observation
that it must have been before the crash.
Fyne nodded with deepened gravity, stating in his bass tone
Just before, and indulged himself with a weighty period
of solemn silence.
De Barral, he resumed suddenly, was not coming to Brighton for week-ends
regularly, then. Must have been conscious already of the approaching
disaster. Mrs. Fyne avoided being drawn into making his acquaintance,
and this suited the views of the governess person, very jealous of any
outside influence. But in any case it would not have been an easy
matter. Extraordinary, stiff-backed, thin figure all in black,
the observed of all, while walking hand-in-hand with the girl; apparently
shy, butand here Fyne came very near showing something like insightprobably
nursing under a diffident manner a considerable amount of secret arrogance.
Mrs. Fyne pitied Flora de Barrals fate long before the catastrophe.
Most unfortunate guidance. Very unsatisfactory surroundings.
The girl was known in the streets, was stared at in public places as
if she had been a sort of princess, but she was kept with a very ominous
consistency, from making any acquaintancesthough of course there
were many people no doubt who would have been more than willing tohmmake
themselves agreeable to Miss de Barral. But this did not enter
into the plans of the governess, an intriguing person hatching a most
sinister plot under her severe air of distant, fashionable exclusiveness.
Good little Fynes eyes bulged with solemn horror as he revealed
to me, in agitated speech, his wifes more than suspicions, at
the time, of that, Mrs., Mrs. Whats her names perfidious
conduct. She actually seemed to haveMrs. Fyne assertedformed
a plot already to marry eventually her charge to an impecunious relation
of her owna young man with furtive eyes and something impudent
in his manner, whom that woman called her nephew, and whom she was always
having down to stay with her.
And perhaps not her nephew. No relation at allFyne
emitted with a convulsive effort this, the most awful part of the suspicions
Mrs. Fyne used to impart to him piecemeal when he came down to spend
his week-ends gravely with her and the children. The Fynes, in
their good-natured concern for the unlucky child of the man busied in
stirring casually so many millions, spent the moments of their weekly
reunion in wondering earnestly what could be done to defeat the most
wicked of conspiracies, trying to invent some tactful line of conduct
in such extraordinary circumstances. I could see them, simple,
and scrupulous, worrying honestly about that unprotected big girl while
looking at their own little girls playing on the sea-shore. Fyne
assured me that his wifes rest was disturbed by the great problem
of interference.
It was very acute of Mrs. Fyne to spot such a deep game,
I said, wondering to myself where her acuteness had gone to now, to
let her be taken unawares by a game so much simpler and played to the
end under her very nose. But then, at that time, when her nightly
rest was disturbed by the dread of the fate preparing for de Barrals
unprotected child, she was not engaged in writing a compendious and
ruthless hand-book on the theory and practice of life, for the use of
women with a grievance. She could as yet, before the task of evolving
the philosophy of rebellious action had affected her intuitive sharpness,
perceive things which were, I suspect, moderately plain. For I
am inclined to believe that the woman whom chance had put in command
of Flora de Barrals destiny took no very subtle pains to conceal
her game. She was conscious of being a complete master of the
situation, having once for all established her ascendancy over de Barral.
She had taken all her measures against outside observation of her conduct;
and I could not help smiling at the thought what a ghastly nuisance
the serious, innocent Fynes must have been to her. How exasperated
she must have been by that couple falling into Brighton as completely
unforeseen as a bolt from the blueif not so prompt. How
she must have hated them!
But I conclude she would have carried out whatever plan she might
have formed. I can imagine de Barral accustomed for years to defer
to her wishes and, either through arrogance, or shyness, or simply because
of his unimaginative stupidity, remaining outside the social pale, knowing
no one but some card-playing cronies; I can picture him to myself terrified
at the prospect of having the care of a marriageable girl thrust on
his hands, forcing on him a complete change of habits and the necessity
of another kind of existence which he would not even have known how
to begin. It is evident to me that Mrs. Whats her name
would have had her atrocious way with very little trouble even if the
excellent Fynes had been able to do something. She would simply
have bullied de Barral in a lofty style. Theres nothing
more subservient than an arrogant man when his arrogance has once been
broken in some particular instance.
However there was no time and no necessity for any one to do anything.
The situation itself vanished in the financial crash as a building vanishes
in an earthquakehere one moment and gone the next with only an
ill-omened, slight, preliminary rumble. Well, to say in
a moment is an exaggeration perhaps; but that everything was
over in just twenty-four hours is an exact statement. Fyne was
able to tell me all about it; and the phrase that would depict the nature
of the change best is: an instant and complete destitution. I
dont understand these matters very well, but from Fynes
narrative it seemed as if the creditors or the depositors, or the competent
authorities, had got hold in the twinkling of an eye of everything de
Barral possessed in the world, down to his watch and chain, the money
in his trousers pocket, his spare suits of clothes, and I suppose
the cameo pin out of his black satin cravat. Everything!
I believe he gave up the very wedding ring of his late wife. The
gloomy Priory with its damp park and a couple of farms had been made
over to Mrs. de Barral; but when she died (without making a will) it
reverted to him, I imagine. They got that of course; but it was
a mere crumb in a Sahara of starvation, a drop in the thirsty ocean.
I dare say that not a single soul in the world got the comfort of as
much as a recovered threepenny bit out of the estate. Then, less
than crumbs, less than drops, there were to be grabbed, the lease of
the big Brighton house, the furniture therein, the carriage and pair,
the girls riding horse, her costly trinkets; down to the heavily
gold-mounted collar of her pedigree St. Bernard. The dog too went:
the most noble-looking item in the beggarly assets.
What however went first of all or rather vanished was nothing in
the nature of an asset. It was that plotting governess with the
trick of a perfect lady manner (severely conventional)
and the soul of a remorseless brigand. When a woman takes to any
sort of unlawful man-trade, theres nothing to beat her in the
way of thoroughness. Its true that you will find people
wholl tell you that this terrific virulence in breaking through
all established things, is altogether the fault of men. Such people
will ask you with a clever air why the servile wars were always the
most fierce, desperate and atrocious of all wars. And you may
make such answer as you caneven the eminently feminine one, if
you choose, so typical of the womens literal mind I dont
see what this has to do with it! How many arguments have
been knocked over (I wont say knocked down) by these few words!
For if we men try to put the spaciousness of all experiences into our
reasoning and would fain put the Infinite itself into our love, it isnt,
as some writer has remarked, It isnt womens doing.
Oh no. They dont care for these things. That sort
of aspiration is not much in their way; and it shall be a funny world,
the world of their arranging, where the Irrelevant would fantastically
step in to take the place of the sober humdrum Imaginative . . .
I raised my hand to stop my friend Marlow.
Do you really believe what you have said? I asked,
meaning no offence, because with Marlow one never could be sure.
Only on certain days of the year, said Marlow readily
with a malicious smile. To-day I have been simply trying
to be spacious and I perceive Ive managed to hurt your susceptibilities
which are consecrated to women. When you sit alone and silent
you are defending in your mind the poor women from attacks which cannot
possibly touch them. I wonder what can touch them? But to
soothe your uneasiness I will point out again that an Irrelevant world
would be very amusing, if the women take care to make it as charming
as they alone can, by preserving for us certain well-known, well-established,
Ill almost say hackneyed, illusions, without which the average
male creature cannot get on. And that condition is very important.
For there is nothing more provoking than the Irrelevant when it has
ceased to amuse and charm; and then the danger would be of the subjugated
masculinity in its exasperation, making some brusque, unguarded movement
and accidentally putting its elbow through the fine tissue of the world
of which I speak. And that would be fatal to it. For nothing
looks more irretrievably deplorable than fine tissue which has been
damaged. The women themselves would be the first to become disgusted
with their own creation.
There was something of womens highly practical sanity and
also of their irrelevancy in the conduct of Miss de Barrals amazing
governess. It appeared from Fynes narrative that the day
before the first rumble of the cataclysm the questionable young man
arrived unexpectedly in Brighton to stay with his Aunt.
To all outward appearance everything was going on normally; the fellow
went out riding with the girl in the afternoon as he often used to doa
sight which never failed to fill Mrs. Fyne with indignation. Fyne
himself was down there with his family for a whole week and was called
to the window to behold the iniquity in its progress and to share in
his wifes feelings. There was not even a groom with them.
And Mrs. Fynes distress was so strong at this glimpse of the
unlucky girl all unconscious of her danger riding smilingly by, that
Fyne began to consider seriously whether it wasnt their plain
duty to interfere at all riskssimply by writing a letter to de
Barral. He said to his wife with a solemnity I can easily imagine
You ought to undertake that task, my dear. You have known
his wife after all. Thats something at any rate.
On the other hand the fear of exposing Mrs. Fyne to some nasty rebuff
worried him exceedingly. Mrs. Fyne on her side gave way to despondency.
Success seemed impossible. Here was a woman for more than five
years in charge of the girl and apparently enjoying the complete confidence
of the father. What, that would be effective, could one say, without
proofs, without . . . This Mr. de Barral must be, Mrs. Fyne pronounced,
either a very stupid or a downright bad man, to neglect his child so.
You will notice that perhaps because of Fynes solemn view
of our transient life and Mrs. Fynes natural capacity for responsibility,
it had never occurred to them that the simplest way out of the difficulty
was to do nothing and dismiss the matter as no concern of theirs.
Which in a strict worldly sense it certainly was not. But they
spent, Fyne told me, a most disturbed afternoon, considering the ways
and means of dealing with the danger hanging over the head of the girl
out for a ride (and no doubt enjoying herself) with an abominable scamp.
CHAPTER FOURTHE GOVERNESS
And the best of it was that the danger was all over already.
There was no danger any more. The supposed nephews appearance
had a purpose. He had come, full, full to tremblingwith
the bigness of his news. There must have been rumours already
as to the shaky position of the de Barrals concerns; but only
amongst those in the very inmost know. No rumour or echo of rumour
had reached the profane in the West-Endlet alone in the guileless
marine suburb of Hove. The Fynes had no suspicion; the governess,
playing with cold, distinguished exclusiveness the part of mother to
the fabulously wealthy Miss de Barral, had no suspicion; the masters
of music, of drawing, of dancing to Miss de Barral, had no idea; the
minds of her medical man, of her dentist, of the servants in the house,
of the tradesmen proud of having the name of de Barral on their books,
were in a state of absolute serenity. Thus, that fellow, who had
unexpectedly received a most alarming straight tip from somebody in
the City arrived in Brighton, at about lunch-time, with something very
much in the nature of a deadly bomb in his possession. But he
knew better than to throw it on the public pavement. He ate his
lunch impenetrably, sitting opposite Flora de Barral, and then, on some
excuse, closeted himself with the woman whom little Fynes charity
described (with a slight hesitation of speech however) as his Aunt.
What they said to each other in private we can imagine. She
came out of her own sitting-room with red spots on her cheek-bones,
which having provoked a question from her beloved charge,
were accounted for by a curt I have a headache coming on.
But we may be certain that the talk being over she must have said to
that young blackguard: You had better take her out for a ride
as usual. We have proof positive of this in Fyne and Mrs.
Fyne observing them mount at the door and pass under the windows of
their sitting-room, talking together, and the poor girl all smiles;
because she enjoyed in all innocence the company of Charley. She
made no secret of it whatever to Mrs. Fyne; in fact, she had confided
to her, long before, that she liked him very much: a confidence which
had filled Mrs. Fyne with desolation and that sense of powerless anguish
which is experienced in certain kinds of nightmare. For how could
she warn the girl? She did venture to tell her once that she didnt
like Mr. Charley. Miss de Barral heard her with astonishment.
How was it possible not to like Charley? Afterwards with naive
loyalty she told Mrs. Fyne that, immensely as she was fond of her she
could not hear a word against Charleythe wonderful Charley.
The daughter of de Barral probably enjoyed her jolly ride with the
jolly Charley (infinitely more jolly than going out with a stupid old
riding-master), very much indeed, because the Fynes saw them coming
back at a later hour than usual. In fact it was getting nearly
dark. On dismounting, helped off by the delightful Charley, she
patted the neck of her horse and went up the steps. Her last ride.
She was then within a few days of her sixteenth birthday, a slight figure
in a riding habit, rather shorter than the average height for her age,
in a black bowler hat from under which her fine rippling dark hair cut
square at the ends was hanging well down her back. The delightful
Charley mounted again to take the two horses round to the mews.
Mrs. Fyne remaining at the window saw the house door close on Miss de
Barral returning from her last ride.
And meantime what had the governess (out of a noblemans family)
so judiciously selected (a lady, and connected with well-known county
people as she said) to direct the studies, guard the health, form the
mind, polish the manners, and generally play the perfect mother to that
luckless childwhat had she been doing? Well, having got
rid of her charge by the most natural device possible, which proved
her practical sense, she started packing her belongings, an act which
showed her clear view of the situation. She had worked methodically,
rapidly, and well, emptying the drawers, clearing the tables in her
special apartment of that big house, with something silently passionate
in her thoroughness; taking everything belonging to her and some things
of less unquestionable ownership, a jewelled penholder, an ivory and
gold paper knife (the house was full of common, costly objects), some
chased silver boxes presented by de Barral and other trifles; but the
photograph of Flora de Barral, with the loving inscription, which stood
on her writing desk, of the most modern and expensive style, in a silver-gilt
frame, she neglected to take. Having accidentally, in the course
of the operations, knocked it off on the floor she let it lie there
after a downward glance. Thus it, or the frame at least, became,
I suppose, part of the assets in the de Barral bankruptcy.
At dinner that evening the child found her company dull and brusque.
It was uncommonly slow. She could get nothing from her governess
but monosyllables, and the jolly Charley actually snubbed the various
cheery openings of his little chumas he used to
call her at times,but not at that time. No doubt the couple
were nervous and preoccupied. For all this we have evidence, and
for the fact that Flora being offended with the delightful nephew of
her profoundly respected governess sulked through the rest of the evening
and was glad to retire early. Mrs., Mrs.Ive really
forgotten her namethe governess, invited her nephew to her sitting-room,
mentioning aloud that it was to talk over some family matters.
This was meant for Flora to hear, and she heard itwithout the
slightest interest. In fact there was nothing sufficiently unusual
in such an invitation to arouse in her mind even a passing wonder.
She went bored to bed and being tired with her long ride slept soundly
all night. Her last sleep, I wont say of innocencethat
word would not render my exact meaning, because it has a special meaning
of its ownbut I will say: of that ignorance, or better still,
of that unconsciousness of the worlds ways, the unconsciousness
of danger, of pain, of humiliation, of bitterness, of falsehood.
An unconsciousness which in the case of other beings like herself is
removed by a gradual process of experience and information, often only
partial at that, with saving reserves, softening doubts, veiling theories.
Her unconsciousness of the evil which lives in the secret thoughts and
therefore in the open acts of mankind, whenever it happens that evil
thought meets evil courage; her unconsciousness was to be broken into
with profane violence with desecrating circumstances, like a temple
violated by a mad, vengeful impiety. Yes, that very young girl,
almost no more than a childthis was what was going to happen
to her. And if you ask me, how, wherefore, for what reason?
I will answer you: Why, by chance! By the merest chance, as things
do happen, lucky and unlucky, terrible or tender, important or unimportant;
and even things which are neither, things so completely neutral in character
that you would wonder why they do happen at all if you didnt
know that they, too, carry in their insignificance the seeds of further
incalculable chances.
Of course, all the chances were that de Barral should have fallen
upon a perfectly harmless, naive, usual, inefficient specimen of
respectable governess for his daughter; or on a commonplace silly adventuress
who would have tried, say, to marry him or work some other sort of common
mischief in a small way. Or again he might have chanced on a model
of all the virtues, or the repository of all knowledge, or anything
equally harmless, conventional, and middle class. All calculations
were in his favour; but, chance being incalculable, he fell upon an
individuality whom it is much easier to define by opprobrious names
than to classify in a calm and scientific spiritbut an individuality
certainly, and a temperament as well. Rare? No.
There is a certain amount of what I would politely call unscrupulousness
in all of us. Think for instance of the excellent Mrs. Fyne, who
herself, and in the bosom of her family, resembled a governess of a
conventional type. Only, her mental excesses were theoretical,
hedged in by so much humane feeling and conventional reserves, that
they amounted to no more than mere libertinage of thought; whereas the
other woman, the governess of Flora de Barral, was, as you may have
noticed, severely practicalterribly practical. No!
Hers was not a rare temperament, except in its fierce resentment of
repression; a feeling which like genius or lunacy is apt to drive people
into sudden irrelevancy. Hers was feminine irrelevancy.
A male genius, a male ruffian, or even a male lunatic, would not have
behaved exactly as she did behave. There is a softness in masculine
nature, even the most brutal, which acts as a check.
While the girl slept those two, the woman of forty, an age in itself
terrible, and that hopeless young wrong un of twenty-three
(also well connected I believe) had some sort of subdued row in the
cleared rooms: wardrobes open, drawers half pulled out and empty, trunks
locked and strapped, furniture in idle disarray, and not so much as
a single scrap of paper left behind on the tables. The maid, whom
the governess and the pupil shared between them, after finishing with
Flora, came to the door as usual, but was not admitted. She heard
the two voices in dispute before she knocked, and then being sent away
retreated at oncethe only person in the house convinced at that
time that there was something up.
Dark and, so to speak, inscrutable spaces being met with in life
there must be such places in any statement dealing with life.
In what I am telling you of nowan episode of one of my humdrum
holidays in the green country, recalled quite naturally after all the
years by our meeting a man who has been a blue-water sailorthis
evening confabulation is a dark, inscrutable spot. And we may
conjecture what we like. I have no difficulty in imagining that
the womanof forty, and the chief of the enterprisemust
have raged at large. And perhaps the other did not rage enough.
Youth feels deeply it is true, but it has not the same vivid sense of
lost opportunities. It believes in the absolute reality of time.
And then, in that abominable scamp with his youth already soiled, withered
like a plucked flower ready to be flung on some rotting heap of rubbish,
no very genuine feeling about anything could existnot even about
the hazards of his own unclean existence. A sneering half-laugh
with some such remark as: We are properly sold and no mistake
would have been enough to make trouble in that way. And then another
sneer, Waste time enough over it too, followed perhaps
by the bitter retort from the other party You seemed to like
it well enough though, playing the fool with that chit of a girl.
Something of that sort. Dont you see iteh . . .
Marlow looked at me with his dark penetrating glance. I was
struck by the absolute verisimilitude of this suggestion. But
we were always tilting at each other. I saw an opening and pushed
my uncandid thrust.
You have a ghastly imagination, I said with a cheerfully
sceptical smile.
Well, and if I have, he returned unabashed. But
let me remind you that this situation came to me unasked. I am
like a puzzle-headed chief-mate we had once in the dear old Samarcand
when I was a youngster. The fellow went gravely about trying to
account to himselfhis favourite expressionfor
a lot of things no one would care to bother ones head about.
He was an old idiot but he was also an accomplished practical seaman.
I was quite a boy and he impressed me. I must have caught the
disposition from him.
Wellgo on with your accounting then, I said,
assuming an air of resignation.
Thats just it. Marlow fell into his stride
at once. Thats just it. Mere disappointed
cupidity cannot account for the proceedings of the next morning; proceedings
which I shall not describe to youbut which I shall tell you of
presently, not as a matter of conjecture but of actual fact. Meantime
returning to that evening altercation in deadened tones within the private
apartment of Miss de Barrals governess, what if I were to tell
you that disappointment had most likely made them touchy with each other,
but that perhaps the secret of his careless, railing behaviour, was
in the thought, springing up within him with an emphatic oath of relief
Now theres nothing to prevent me from breaking away from
that old woman. And that the secret of her envenomed rage,
not against this miserable and attractive wretch, but against fate,
accident and the whole course of human life, concentrating its venom
on de Barral and including the innocent girl herself, was in the thought,
in the fear crying within her Now I have nothing to hold him
with . . .
I couldnt refuse Marlow the tribute of a prolonged whistle
Phew! So you suppose that . . .
He waved his hand impatiently.
I dont suppose. It was so. And anyhow why
shouldnt you accept the supposition. Do you look upon governesses
as creatures above suspicion or necessarily of moral perfection?
I suppose their hearts would not stand looking into much better than
other peoples. Why shouldnt a governess have passions,
all the passions, even that of libertinage, and even ungovernable passions;
yet suppressed by the very same means which keep the rest of us in order:
early trainingnecessitycircumstancesfear of consequences;
till there comes an age, a time when the restraint of years becomes
intolerableand infatuation irresistible . . .
But if infatuationquite possible I admit, I
argued, how do you account for the nature of the conspiracy.
You expect a cogency of conduct not usual in women,
said Marlow. The subterfuges of a menaced passion are not
to be fathomed. You think it is going on the way it looks, whereas
it is capable, for its own ends, of walking backwards into a precipice.
When one once acknowledges that she was not a common woman, then
all this is easily understood. She was abominable but she was
not common. She had suffered in her life not from its constant
inferiority but from constant self-repression. A common woman
finding herself placed in a commanding position might have formed the
design to become the second Mrs. de Barral. Which would have been
impracticable. De Barral would not have known what to do with
a wife. But even if by some impossible chance he had made advances,
this governess would have repulsed him with scorn. She had treated
him always as an inferior being with an assured, distant politeness.
In her composed, schooled manner she despised and disliked both father
and daughter exceedingly. I have a notion that she had always
disliked intensely all her charges including the two ducal (if they
were ducal) little girls with whom she had dazzled de Barral.
What an odious, ungratified existence it must have been for a woman
as avid of all the sensuous emotions which life can give as most of
her betters.
She had seen her youth vanish, her freshness disappear, her hopes
die, and now she felt her flaming middle-age slipping away from her.
No wonder that with her admirably dressed, abundant hair, thickly sprinkled
with white threads and adding to her elegant aspect the piquant distinction
of a powdered coiffureno wonder, I say, that she clung desperately
to her last infatuation for that graceless young scamp, even to the
extent of hatching for him that amazing plot. He was not so far
gone in degradation as to make him utterly hopeless for such an attempt.
She hoped to keep him straight with that enormous bribe. She was
clearly a woman uncommon enough to live without illusionswhich,
of course, does not mean that she was reasonable. She had said
to herself, perhaps with a fury of self-contempt In a few years
I shall be too old for anybody. Meantime I shall have himand
I shall hold him by throwing to him the money of that ordinary, silly,
little girl of no account. Well, it was a desperate expedientbut
she thought it worth while. And besides there is hardly a woman
in the world, no matter how hard, depraved or frantic, in whom something
of the maternal instinct does not survive, unconsumed like a salamander,
in the fires of the most abandoned passion. Yes there might have
been that sentiment for him too. There was no doubt.
So I say again: No wonder! No wonder that she raged at everythingand
perhaps even at him, with contradictory reproaches: for regretting the
girl, a little fool who would never in her life be worth anybodys
attention, and for taking the disaster itself with a cynical levity
in which she perceived a flavour of revolt.
And so the altercation in the night went on, over the irremediable.
He arguing Whats the hurry? Why clear out like this?
perhaps a little sorry for the girl and as usual without a penny in
his pocket, appreciating the comfortable quarters, wishing to linger
on as long as possible in the shameless enjoyment of this already doomed
luxury. There was really no hurry for a few days. Always
time enough to vanish. And, with that, a touch of masculine softness,
a sort of regard for appearances surviving his degradation: You
might behave decently at the last, Eliza. But there was
no softness in the sallow face under the gala effect of powdered hair,
its formal calmness gone, the dark-ringed eyes glaring at him with a
sort of hunger. No! No! If it is as you say
then not a day, not an hour, not a moment. She stuck to
it, very determined that there should be no more of that boy and girl
philandering since the object of it was gone; angry with herself for
having suffered from it so much in the past, furious at its having been
all in vain.
But she was reasonable enough not to quarrel with him finally.
What was the good? She found means to placate him. The only
means. As long as there was some money to be got she had hold
of him. Now go away. We shall do no good by any more
of this sort of talk. I want to be alone for a bit.
He went away, sulkily acquiescent. There was a room always kept
ready for him on the same floor, at the further end of a short thickly
carpeted passage.
How she passed the night, this woman with no illusions to help her
through the hours which must have been sleepless I shouldnt like
to say. It ended at last; and this strange victim of the de Barral
failure, whose name would never be known to the Official Receiver, came
down to breakfast, impenetrable in her everyday perfection. From
the very first, somehow, she had accepted the fatal news for true.
All her life she had never believed in her luck, with that pessimism
of the passionate who at bottom feel themselves to be the outcasts of
a morally restrained universe. But this did not make it any easier,
on opening the morning paper feverishly, to see the thing confirmed.
Oh yes! It was there. The Orb had suspended paymentthe
first growl of the storm faint as yet, but to the initiated the forerunner
of a deluge. As an item of news it was not indecently displayed.
It was not displayed at all in a sense. The serious paper, the
only one of the great dailies which had always maintained an attitude
of reserve towards the de Barral group of banks, had its manner.
Yes! a modest item of news! But there was also, on another page,
a special financial article in a hostile tone beginning with the words
We have always feared and a guarded, half-column leader,
opening with the phrase: It is a deplorable sign of the times
what was, in effect, an austere, general rebuke to the absurd infatuations
of the investing public. She glanced through these articles, a
line here and a line thereno more was necessary to catch beyond
doubt the murmur of the oncoming flood. Several slighting references
by name to de Barral revived her animosity against the man, suddenly,
as by the effect of unforeseen moral support. The miserable wretch!
. . .
* * * * *
You understand, Marlow interrupted the current
of his narrative, that in order to be consecutive in my relation
of this affair I am telling you at once the details which I heard from
Mrs. Fyne later in the day, as well as what little Fyne imparted to
me with his usual solemnity during that morning call. As you may
easily guess the Fynes, in their apartments, had read the news at the
same time, and, as a matter of fact, in the same august and highly moral
newspaper, as the governess in the luxurious mansion a few doors down
on the opposite side of the street. But they read them with different
feelings. They were thunderstruck. Fyne had to explain the
full purport of the intelligence to Mrs. Fyne whose first cry was that
of relief. Then that poor child would be safe from these designing,
horrid people. Mrs. Fyne did not know what it might mean to be
suddenly reduced from riches to absolute penury. Fyne with his
masculine imagination was less inclined to rejoice extravagantly at
the girls escape from the moral dangers which had been menacing
her defenceless existence. It was a confoundedly big price to
pay. What an unfortunate little thing she was! We
might be able to do something to comfort that poor child at any rate
for the time she is here, said Mrs. Fyne. She felt under
a sort of moral obligation not to be indifferent. But no comfort
for anyone could be got by rushing out into the street at this early
hour; and so, following the advice of Fyne not to act hastily, they
both sat down at the window and stared feelingly at the great house,
awful to their eyes in its stolid, prosperous, expensive respectability
with ruin absolutely standing at the door.
By that time, or very soon after, all Brighton had the information
and formed a more or less just appreciation of its gravity. The
butler in Miss de Barrals big house had seen the news, perhaps
earlier than anybody within a mile of the Parade, in the course of his
morning duties of which one was to dry the freshly delivered paper before
the firean occasion to glance at it which no intelligent man
could have neglected. He communicated to the rest of the household
his vaguely forcible impression that something had gone d---bly wrong
with the affairs of her father in London.
This brought an atmosphere of constraint through the house, which
Flora de Barral coming down somewhat later than usual could not help
noticing in her own way. Everybody seemed to stare so stupidly
somehow; she feared a dull day.
In the dining-room the governess in her place, a newspaper half-concealed
under the cloth on her lap, after a few words exchanged with lips that
seemed hardly to move, remaining motionless, her eyes fixed before her
in an enduring silence; and presently Charley coming in to whom she
did not even give a glance. He hardly said good morning, though
he had a half-hearted try to smile at the girl, and sitting opposite
her with his eyes on his plate and slight quivers passing along the
line of his clean-shaven jaw, he too had nothing to say. It was
dull, horribly dull to begin ones day like this; but she knew
what it was. These never-ending family affairs! It was not
for the first time that she had suffered from their depressing after-effects
on these two. It was a shame that the delightful Charley should
be made dull by these stupid talks, and it was perfectly stupid of him
to let himself be upset like this by his aunt.
When after a period of still, as if calculating, immobility, her
governess got up abruptly and went out with the paper in her hand, almost
immediately afterwards followed by Charley who left his breakfast half
eaten, the girl was positively relieved. They would have it out
that morning whatever it was, and be themselves again in the afternoon.
At least Charley would be. To the moods of her governess she did
not attach so much importance.
For the first time that morning the Fynes saw the front door of the
awful house open and the objectionable young man issue forth, his rascality
visible to their prejudiced eyes in his very bowler hat and in the smart
cut of his short fawn overcoat. He walked away rapidly like a
man hurrying to catch a train, glancing from side to side as though
he were carrying something off. Could he be departing for good?
Undoubtedly, undoubtedly! But Mrs. Fynes fervent thank
goodness turned out to be a bit, as the Americanssome
Americanssay previous. In a very short time
the odious fellow appeared again, strolling, absolutely strolling back,
his hat now tilted a little on one side, with an air of leisure and
satisfaction. Mrs. Fyne groaned not only in the spirit, at this
sight, but in the flesh, audibly; and asked her husband what it might
mean. Fyne naturally couldnt say. Mrs. Fyne believed
that there was something horrid in progress and meantime the object
of her detestation had gone up the steps and had knocked at the door
which at once opened to admit him.
He had been only as far as the bank.
His reason for leaving his breakfast unfinished to run after Miss
de Barrals governess, was to speak to her in reference to that
very errand possessing the utmost possible importance in his eyes.
He shrugged his shoulders at the nervousness of her eyes and hands,
at the half-strangled whisper I had to go out. I could
hardly contain myself. That was her affair. He was,
with a young mans squeamishness, rather sick of her ferocity.
He did not understand it. Men do not accumulate hate against each
other in tiny amounts, treasuring every pinch carefully till it grows
at last into a monstrous and explosive hoard. He had run out after
her to remind her of the balance at the bank. What about lifting
that money without wasting any more time? She had promised him
to leave nothing behind.
An account opened in her name for the expenses of the establishment
in Brighton, had been fed by de Barral with deferential lavishness.
The governess crossed the wide hall into a little room at the side where
she sat down to write the cheque, which he hastened out to go and cash
as if it were stolen or a forgery. As observed by the Fynes, his
uneasy appearance on leaving the house arose from the fact that his
first trouble having been caused by a cheque of doubtful authenticity,
the possession of a document of the sort made him unreasonably uncomfortable
till this one was safely cashed. And after all, you know it was
stealing of an indirect sort; for the money was de Barrals money
if the account was in the name of the accomplished lady. At any
rate the cheque was cashed. On getting hold of the notes and gold
he recovered his jaunty bearing, it being well known that with certain
natures the presence of money (even stolen) in the pocket, acts as a
tonic, or at least as a stimulant. He cocked his hat a little
on one side as though he had had a drink or twowhich indeed he
might have had in reality, to celebrate the occasion.
The governess had been waiting for his return in the hall, disregarding
the side-glances of the butler as he went in and out of the dining-room
clearing away the breakfast things. It was she, herself, who had
opened the door so promptly. Its all right,
he said touching his breast-pocket; and she did not dare, the miserable
wretch without illusions, she did not dare ask him to hand it over.
They looked at each other in silence. He nodded significantly:
Where is she now? and she whispered Gone into the
drawing-room. Want to see her again? with an archly black
look which he acknowledged by a muttered, surly: I am damned
if I do. Well, as you want to bolt like this, why dont
we go now?
She set her lips with cruel obstinacy and shook her head. She
had her idea, her completed plan. At that moment the Fynes, still
at the window and watching like a pair of private detectives, saw a
man with a long grey beard and a jovial face go up the steps helping
himself with a thick stick, and knock at the door. Who could he
be?
He was one of Miss de Barrals masters. She had lately
taken up painting in water-colours, having read in a high-class womans
weekly paper that a great many princesses of the European royal houses
were cultivating that art. This was the water-colour morning;
and the teacher, a veteran of many exhibitions, of a venerable and jovial
aspect, had turned up with his usual punctuality. He was no great
reader of morning papers, and even had he seen the news it is very likely
he would not have understood its real purport. At any rate he
turned up, as the governess expected him to do, and the Fynes saw him
pass through the fateful door.
He bowed cordially to the lady in charge of Miss de Barrals
education, whom he saw in the hall engaged in conversation with a very
good-looking but somewhat raffish young gentleman. She turned
to him graciously: Flora is already waiting for you in the drawing-room.
The cultivation of the art said to be patronized by princesses was
pursued in the drawing-room from considerations of the right kind of
light. The governess preceded the master up the stairs and into
the room where Miss de Barral was found arrayed in a holland pinafore
(also of the right kind for the pursuit of the art) and smilingly expectant.
The water-colour lesson enlivened by the jocular conversation of the
kindly, humorous, old man was always great fun; and she felt she would
be compensated for the tiresome beginning of the day.
Her governess generally was present at the lesson; but on this occasion
she only sat down till the master and pupil had gone to work in earnest,
and then as though she had suddenly remembered some order to give, rose
quietly and went out of the room.
Once outside, the servants summoned by the passing maid without a
bell being rung, and quick, quick, let all this luggage be taken down
into the hall, and let one of you call a cab. She stood outside
the drawing-room door on the landing, looking at each piece, trunk,
leather cases, portmanteaus, being carried past her, her brows knitted
and her aspect so sombre and absorbed that it took some little time
for the butler to muster courage enough to speak to her. But he
reflected that he was a free-born Briton and had his rights. He
spoke straight to the point but in the usual respectful manner.
Beg you pardon, maambut are you going away for
good?
He was startled by her tone. Its unexpected, unlady-like harshness
fell on his trained ear with the disagreeable effect of a false note.
Yes. I am going away. And the best thing for all
of you is to go away too, as soon as you like. You can go now,
to-day, this moment. You had your wages paid you only last week.
The longer you stay the greater your loss. But I have nothing
to do with it now. You are the servants of Mr. de Barralyou
know.
The butler was astounded by the manner of this advice, and as his
eyes wandered to the drawing-room door the governess extended her arm
as if to bar the way. Nobody goes in there.
And that was said still in another tone, such a tone that all trace
of the trained respectfulness vanished from the butlers bearing.
He stared at her with a frank wondering gaze. Not till
I am gone, she added, and there was such an expression on her
face that the man was daunted by the mystery of it. He shrugged
his shoulders slightly and without another word went down the stairs
on his way to the basement, brushing in the hall past Mr. Charles who
hat on head and both hands rammed deep into his overcoat pockets paced
up and down as though on sentry duty there.
The ladies maid was the only servant upstairs, hovering in
the passage on the first floor, curious and as if fascinated by the
woman who stood there guarding the door. Being beckoned closer
imperiously and asked by the governess to bring out of the now empty
rooms the hat and veil, the only objects besides the furniture still
to be found there, she did so in silence but inwardly fluttered.
And while waiting uneasily, with the veil, before that woman who, without
moving a step away from the drawing-room door was pinning with careless
haste her hat on her head, she heard within a sudden burst of laughter
from Miss de Barral enjoying the fun of the water-colour lesson given
her for the last time by the cheery old man.
Mr. and Mrs. Fyne ambushed at their windowa most incredible
occupation for people of their kindsaw with renewed anxiety a
cab come to the door, and watched some luggage being carried out and
put on its roof. The butler appeared for a moment, then went in
again. What did it mean? Was Flora going to be taken to
her father; or were these people, that woman and her horrible nephew,
about to carry her off somewhere? Fyne couldnt tell.
He doubted the last, Flora having now, he judged, no value, either positive
or speculative. Though no great reader of character he did not
credit the governess with humane intentions. He confessed to me
naively that he was excited as if watching some action on the stage.
Then the thought struck him that the girl might have had some money
settled on her, be possessed of some means, of some little fortune of
her own and therefore
He imparted this theory to his wife who shared fully his consternation.
I cant believe the child will go away without running
in to say good-bye to us, she murmured. We must
find out! I shall ask her. But at that very moment
the cab rolled away, empty inside, and the door of the house which had
been standing slightly ajar till then was pushed to.
They remained silent staring at it till Mrs. Fyne whispered doubtfully
I really think I must go over. Fyne didnt
answer for a while (his is a reflective mind, you know), and then as
if Mrs. Fynes whispers had an occult power over that door it
opened wide again and the white-bearded man issued, astonishingly active
in his movements, using his stick almost like a leaping-pole to get
down the steps; and hobbled away briskly along the pavement. Naturally
the Fynes were too far off to make out the expression of his face.
But it would not have helped them very much to a guess at the conditions
inside the house. The expression was humorously puzzlednothing
more.
For, at the end of his lesson, seizing his trusty stick and coming
out with his habitual vivacity, he very nearly cannoned just outside
the drawing-room door into the back of Miss de Barrals governess.
He stopped himself in time and she turned round swiftly. It was
embarrassing; he apologised; but her face was not startled; it was not
aware of him; it wore a singular expression of resolution. A very
singular expression which, as it were, detained him for a moment.
In order to cover his embarrassment, he made some inane remark on the
weather, upon which, instead of returning another inane remark according
to the tacit rules of the game, she only gave him a smile of unfathomable
meaning. Nothing could have been more singular. The good-looking
young gentleman of questionable appearance took not the slightest notice
of him in the hall. No servant was to be seen. He let himself
out pulling the door to behind him with a crash as, in a manner, he
was forced to do to get it shut at all.
When the echo of it had died away the woman on the landing leaned
over the banister and called out bitterly to the man below Dont
you want to come up and say good-bye. He had an impatient
movement of the shoulders and went on pacing to and fro as though he
had not heard. But suddenly he checked himself, stood still for
a moment, then with a gloomy face and without taking his hands out of
his pockets ran smartly up the stairs. Already facing the door
she turned her head for a whispered taunt: Come! Confess
you were dying to see her stupid little face once more,to
which he disdained to answer.
Flora de Barral, still seated before the table at which she had been
wording on her sketch, raised her head at the noise of the opening door.
The invading manner of their entrance gave her the sense of something
she had never seen before. She knew them well. She knew
the woman better than she knew her father. There had been between
them an intimacy of relation as great as it can possibly be without
the final closeness of affection. The delightful Charley walked
in, with his eyes fixed on the back of her governess whose raised veil
hid her forehead like a brown band above the black line of the eyebrows.
The girl was astounded and alarmed by the altogether unknown expression
in the womans face. The stress of passion often discloses
an aspect of the personality completely ignored till then by its closest
intimates. There was something like an emanation of evil from
her eyes and from the face of the other, who, exactly behind her and
overtopping her by half a head, kept his eyelids lowered in a sinister
fashionwhich in the poor girl, reached, stirred, set free that
faculty of unreasoning explosive terror lying locked up at the bottom
of all human hearts and of the hearts of animals as well. With
suddenly enlarged pupils and a movement as instinctive almost as the
bounding of a startled fawn, she jumped up and found herself in the
middle of the big room, exclaiming at those amazing and familiar strangers.
What do you want?
You will note that she cried: What do you want? Not: What has
happened? She told Mrs. Fyne that she had received suddenly the
feeling of being personally attacked. And that must have been
very terrifying. The woman before her had been the wisdom, the
authority, the protection of life, security embodied and visible and
undisputed.
You may imagine then the force of the shock in the intuitive perception
not merely of danger, for she did not know what was alarming her, but
in the sense of the security being gone. And not only security.
I dont know how to explain it clearly. Look! Even
a small child lives, plays and suffers in terms of its conception of
its own existence. Imagine, if you can, a fact coming in suddenly
with a force capable of shattering that very conception itself.
It was only because of the girl being still so much of a child that
she escaped mental destruction; that, in other words she got over it.
Could one conceive of her more mature, while still as ignorant as she
was, one must conclude that she would have become an idiot on the spotlong
before the end of that experience. Luckily, people, whether mature
or not mature (and who really is ever mature?) are for the most part
quite incapable of understanding what is happening to them: a merciful
provision of nature to preserve an average amount of sanity for working
purposes in this world . . .
But we, my dear Marlow, have the inestimable advantage of
understanding what is happening to others, I struck in.
Or at least some of us seem to. Is that too a provision
of nature? And what is it for? Is it that we may amuse ourselves
gossiping about each others affairs? You for instance seem
I dont know what I seem, Marlow silenced me,
and surely life must be amused somehow. It would be still
a very respectable provision if it were only for that end. But
from that same provision of understanding, there springs in us compassion,
charity, indignation, the sense of solidarity; and in minds of any largeness
an inclination to that indulgence which is next door to affection.
I dont mean to say that I am inclined to an indulgent view of
the precious couple which broke in upon an unsuspecting girl.
They came marching in (its the very expression she used later
on to Mrs. Fyne) but at her cry they stopped. It must have been
startling enough to them. It was like having the mask torn off
when you dont expect it. The man stopped for good; he didnt
offer to move a step further. But, though the governess had come
in there for the very purpose of taking the mask off for the first time
in her life, she seemed to look upon the frightened cry as a fresh provocation.
What are you screaming for, you little fool? she said
advancing alone close to the girl who was affected exactly as if she
had seen Medusas head with serpentine locks set mysteriously
on the shoulders of that familiar person, in that brown dress, under
that hat she knew so well. It made her lose all her hold on reality.
She told Mrs. Fyne: I didnt know where I was. I
didnt even know that I was frightened. If she had told
me it was a joke I would have laughed. If she had told me to put
on my hat and go out with her I would have gone to put on my hat and
gone out with her and never said a single word; I should have been convinced
I had been mad for a minute or so, and I would have worried myself to
death rather than breathe a hint of it to her or anyone. But the
wretch put her face close to mine and I could not move. Directly
I had looked into her eyes I felt grown on to the carpet.
It was years afterwards that she used to talk like this to Mrs. Fyneand
to Mrs. Fyne alone. Nobody else ever heard the story from her
lips. But it was never forgotten. It was always felt; it
remained like a mark on her soul, a sort of mystic wound, to be contemplated,
to be meditated over. And she said further to Mrs. Fyne, in the
course of many confidences provoked by that contemplation, that, as
long as that woman called her names, it was almost soothing, it was
in a manner reassuring. Her imagination had, like her body, gone
off in a wild bound to meet the unknown; and then to hear after all
something which more in its tone than in its substance was mere venomous
abuse, had steadied the inward flutter of all her being.
She called me a little fool more times than I can remember.
I! A fool! Why, Mrs. Fyne! I do assure you I had never
yet thought at all; never of anything in the world, till then.
I just went on living. And one cant be a fool without one
has at least tried to think. But what had I ever to think about?
And no doubt, commented Marlow, her life had
been a mere life of sensationsthe response to which can neither
be foolish nor wise. It can only be temperamental; and I believe
that she was of a generally happy disposition, a child of the average
kind. Even when she was asked violently whether she imagined that
there was anything in her, apart from her money, to induce any intelligent
person to take any sort of interest in her existence, she only caught
her breath in one dry sob and said nothing, made no other sound, made
no movement. When she was viciously assured that she was in heart,
mind, manner and appearance, an utterly common and insipid creature,
she remained still, without indignation, without anger. She stood,
a frail and passive vessel into which the other went on pouring all
the accumulated dislike for all her pupils, her scorn of all her employers
(the ducal one included), the accumulated resentment, the infinite hatred
of all these unrelieved years ofI wont say hypocrisy.
The practice of perfect hypocrisy is a relief in itself, a secret triumph
of the vilest sort, no doubt, but still a way of getting even with the
common morality from which some of us appear to suffer so much.
No! I will say the years, the passionate, bitter years, of restraint,
the iron, admirably mannered restraint at every moment, in a never-failing
perfect correctness of speech, glances, movements, smiles, gestures,
establishing for her a high reputation, an impressive record of success
in her sphere. It had been like living half strangled for years.
And all this torture for nothing, in the end! What looked at
last like a possible prize (oh, without illusions! but still a prize)
broken in her hands, fallen in the dust, the bitter dust, of disappointment,
she revelled in the miserable revengepretty safe tooonly
regretting the unworthiness of the girlish figure which stood for so
much she had longed to be able to spit venom at, if only once, in perfect
liberty. The presence of the young man at her back increased both
her satisfaction and her rage. But the very violence of the attack
seemed to defeat its end by rendering the representative victim as it
were insensible. The cause of this outrage naturally escaping
the girls imagination her attitude was in effect that of dense,
hopeless stupidity. And it is a fact that the worst shocks of
life are often received without outcries, without gestures, without
a flow of tears and the convulsions of sobbing. The insatiable
governess missed these signs exceedingly. This pitiful stolidity
was only a fresh provocation. Yet the poor girl was deadly pale.
I was cold, she used to explain to Mrs. Fyne.
I had had time to get terrified. She had pushed her face
so near mine and her teeth looked as though she wanted to bite me.
Her eyes seemed to have become quite dry, hard and small in a lot of
horrible wrinkles. I was too afraid of her to shudder, too afraid
of her to put my fingers to my ears. I didnt know what
I expected her to call me next, but when she told me I was no better
than a beggarthat there would be no more masters, no more servants,
no more horses for meI said to myself: Is that all? I should
have laughed if I hadnt been too afraid of her to make the least
little sound.
It seemed that poor Flora had to know all the possible phases of
that sort of anguish, beginning with instinctive panic, through the
bewildered stage, the frozen stage and the stage of blanched apprehension,
down to the instinctive prudence of extreme terrorthe stillness
of the mouse. But when she heard herself called the child of a
cheat and a swindler, the very monstrous unexpectedness of this caused
in her a revulsion towards letting herself go. She screamed out
all at once You mustnt speak like this of Papa!
The effort of it uprooted her from that spot where her little feet
seemed dug deep into the thick luxurious carpet, and she retreated backwards
to a distant part of the room, hearing herself repeat You mustnt,
you mustnt as if it were somebody else screaming.
She came to a chair and flung herself into it. Thereupon the somebody
else ceased screaming and she lolled, exhausted, sightless, in a silent
room, as if indifferent to everything and without a single thought in
her head.
The next few seconds seemed to last for ever so long; a black abyss
of time separating what was past and gone from the reappearance of the
governess and the reawakening of fear. And that woman was forcing
the words through her set teeth: You say I mustnt, I mustnt.
All the world will be speaking of him like this to-morrow. They
will say it, and theyll print it. You shall hear it and
you shall read itand then you shall know whose daughter you are.
Her face lighted up with an atrocious satisfaction. Hes
nothing but a thief, she cried, this father of yours.
As to you I have never been deceived in you for a moment. I have
been growing more and more sick of you for years. You are a vulgar,
silly nonentity, and you shall go back to where you belong, whatever
low place you have sprung from, and beg your breadthat is if
anybodys charity will have anything to do with you, which I doubt
She would have gone on regardless of the enormous eyes, of the open
mouth of the girl who sat up suddenly with the wild staring expression
of being choked by invisible fingers on her throat, and yet horribly
pale. The effect on her constitution was so profound, Mrs. Fyne
told me, that she who as a child had a rather pretty delicate colouring,
showed a white bloodless face for a couple of years afterwards, and
remained always liable at the slightest emotion to an extraordinary
ghost-like whiteness. The end came in the abomination of desolation
of the poor childs miserable cry for help: Charley!
Charley! coming from her throat in hidden gasping efforts.
Her enlarged eyes had discovered him where he stood motionless and dumb.
He started from his immobility, a hand withdrawn brusquely from the
pocket of his overcoat, strode up to the woman, seized her by the arm
from behind, saying in a rough commanding tone: Come away, Eliza.
In an instant the child saw them close together and remote, near the
door, gone through the door, which she neither heard nor saw being opened
or shut. But it was shut. Oh yes, it was shut. Her
slow unseeing glance wandered all over the room. For some time
longer she remained leaning forward, collecting her strength, doubting
if she would be able to stand. She stood up at last. Everything
about her spun round in an oppressive silence. She remembered
perfectlyas she told Mrs. Fynethat clinging to the arm
of the chair she called out twice Papa! Papa!
At the thought that he was far away in London everything about her became
quite still. Then, frightened suddenly by the solitude of that
empty room, she rushed out of it blindly.
* * * * *
With that fatal diffidence in well doing, inherent in the present
condition of humanity, the Fynes continued to watch at their window.
Its always so difficult to know what to do for the best,
Fyne assured me. It is. Good intentions stand in their own
way so much. Whereas if you want to do harm to anyone you neednt
hesitate. You have only to go on. No one will reproach you
with your mistakes or call you a confounded, clumsy meddler. The
Fynes watched the door, the closed street door inimical somehow to their
benevolent thoughts, the face of the house cruelly impenetrable.
It was just as on any other day. The unchanged daily aspect of
inanimate things is so impressive that Fyne went back into the room
for a moment, picked up the paper again, and ran his eyes over the item
of news. No doubt of it. It looked very bad. He came
back to the window and Mrs. Fyne. Tired out as she was she sat
there resolute and ready for responsibility. But she had no suggestion
to offer. People do fear a rebuff wonderfully, and all her audacity
was in her thoughts. She shrank from the incomparably insolent
manner of the governess. Fyne stood by her side, as in those old-fashioned
photographs of married couples where you see a husband with his hand
on the back of his wifes chair. And they were about as
efficient as an old photograph, and as still, till Mrs. Fyne started
slightly. The street door had swung open, and, bursting out, appeared
the young man, his hat (Mrs. Fyne observed) tilted forward over his
eyes. After him the governess slipped through, turning round at
once to shut the door behind her with care. Meantime the man went
down the white steps and strode along the pavement, his hands rammed
deep into the pockets of his fawn overcoat. The woman, that woman
of composed movements, of deliberate superior manner, took a little
run to catch up with him, and directly she had caught up with him tried
to introduce her hand under his arm. Mrs. Fyne saw the brusque
half turn of the fellows body as one avoids an importunate contact,
defeating her attempt rudely. She did not try again but kept pace
with his stride, and Mrs. Fyne watched them, walking independently,
turn the corner of the street side by side, disappear for ever.
The Fynes looked at each other eloquently, doubtfully: What do you
think of this? Then with common accord turned their eyes back
to the street door, closed, massive, dark; the great, clear-brass knocker
shining in a quiet slant of sunshine cut by a diagonal line of heavy
shade filling the further end of the street. Could the girl be
already gone? Sent away to her father? Had she any relations?
Nobody but de Barral himself ever came to see her, Mrs. Fyne remembered;
and she had the instantaneous, profound, maternal perception of the
childs lonelinessand a girl too! It was irresistible.
And, besides, the departure of the governess was not without its encouraging
influence. I am going over at once to find out,
she declared resolutely but still staring across the street. Her
intention was arrested by the sight of that awful, sombrely glistening
door, swinging back suddenly on the yawning darkness of the hall, out
of which literally flew out, right out on the pavement, almost without
touching the white steps, a little figure swathed in a holland pinafore
up to the chin, its hair streaming back from its head, darting past
a lamp-post, past the red pillar-box . . . Here, cried
Mrs. Fyne; shes coming here! Run, John! Run!
Fyne bounded out of the room. This is his own word. Bounded!
He assured me with intensified solemnity that he bounded; and the sight
of the short and muscular Fyne bounding gravely about the circumscribed
passages and staircases of a small, very high class, private hotel,
would have been worth any amount of money to a man greedy of memorable
impressions. But as I looked at him, the desire of laughter at
my very lips, I asked myself: how many men could be found ready to compromise
their cherished gravity for the sake of the unimportant child of a ruined
financier with an ugly, black cloud already wreathing his head.
I didnt laugh at little Fyne. I encouraged him: You
did!very good . . . Well?
His main thought was to save the child from some unpleasant interference.
There was a porter downstairs, page boys; some people going away with
their trunks in the passage; a railway omnibus at the door, white-breasted
waiters dodging about the entrance.
He was in time. He was at the door before she reached it in
her blind course. She did not recognize him; perhaps she did not
see him. He caught her by the arm as she ran past and, very sensibly,
without trying to check her, simply darted in with her and up the stairs,
causing no end of consternation amongst the people in his way.
They scattered. What might have been their thoughts at the spectacle
of a shameless middle-aged man abducting headlong into the upper regions
of a respectable hotel a terrified young girl obviously under age, I
dont know. And Fyne (he told me so) did not care for what
people might think. All he wanted was to reach his wife before
the girl collapsed. For a time she ran with him but at the last
flight of stairs he had to seize and half drag, half carry her to his
wife. Mrs. Fyne waited at the door with her quite unmoved physiognomy
and her readiness to confront any sort of responsibility, which already
characterized her, long before she became a ruthless theorist.
Relieved, his mission accomplished, Fyne closed hastily the door of
the sitting-room.
But before long both Fynes became frightened. After a period
of immobility in the arms of Mrs. Fyne, the girl, who had not said a
word, tore herself out from that slightly rigid embrace. She struggled
dumbly between them, they did not know why, soundless and ghastly, till
she sank exhausted on a couch. Luckily the children were out with
the two nurses. The hotel housemaid helped Mrs. Fyne to put Flora
de Barral to bed. She was as if gone speechless and insane.
She lay on her back, her face white like a piece of paper, her dark
eyes staring at the ceiling, her awful immobility broken by sudden shivering
fits with a loud chattering of teeth in the shadowy silence of the room,
the blinds pulled down, Mrs. Fyne sitting by patiently, her arms folded,
yet inwardly moved by the riddle of that distress of which she could
not guess the word, and saying to herself: That child is too
emotionalmuch too emotional to be ever really sound!
As if anyone not made of stone could be perfectly sound in this world.
And then how sound? In what senseto resist what?
Force or corruption? And even in the best armour of steel there
are joints a treacherous stroke can always find if chance gives the
opportunity.
General considerations never had the power to trouble Mrs. Fyne much.
The girl not being in a state to be questioned she waited by the bedside.
Fyne had crossed over to the house, his scruples overcome by his anxiety
to discover what really had happened. He did not have to lift
the knocker; the door stood open on the inside gloom of the hall; he
walked into it and saw no one about, the servants having assembled for
a fatuous consultation in the basement. Fynes uplifted
bass voice startled them down there, the butler coming up, staring and
in his shirt sleeves, very suspicious at first, and then, on Fynes
explanation that he was the husband of a lady who had called several
times at the houseMiss de Barrals mothers friendbecoming
humanely concerned and communicative, in a man to man tone, but preserving
his trained high-class servants voice: Oh bless you, sir,
no! She does not mean to come back. She told me so herselfhe
assured Fyne with a faint shade of contempt creeping into his tone.
As regards their young lady nobody downstairs had any idea that she
had run out of the house. He dared say they all would have been
willing to do their very best for her, for the time being; but since
she was now with her mothers friends . . .
He fidgeted. He murmured that all this was very unexpected.
He wanted to know what he had better do with letters or telegrams which
might arrive in the course of the day.
Letters addressed to Miss de Barral, you had better bring
over to my hotel over there, said Fyne beginning to feel extremely
worried about the future. The man said Yes, sir,
adding, and if a letter comes addressed to Mrs. . . .
Fyne stopped him by a gesture. I dont know .
. . Anything you like.
Very well, sir.
The butler did not shut the street door after Fyne, but remained
on the doorstep for a while, looking up and down the street in the spirit
of independent expectation like a man who is again his own master.
Mrs. Fyne hearing her husband return came out of the room where the
girl was lying in bed. No change, she whispered;
and Fyne could only make a hopeless sign of ignorance as to what all
this meant and how it would end.
He feared future complicationsnaturally; a man of limited
means, in a public position, his time not his own. Yes.
He owned to me in the parlour of my farmhouse that he had been very
much concerned then at the possible consequences. But as he was
making this artless confession I said to myself that, whatever consequences
and complications he might have imagined, the complication from which
he was suffering now could never, never have presented itself to his
mind. Slow but sure (for I conceive that the Book of Destiny has
been written up from the beginning to the last page) it had been coming
for something like six yearsand now it had come. The complication
was there! I looked at his unshaken solemnity with the amused
pity we give the victim of a funny if somewhat ill-natured practical
joke.
Oh hang it, he exclaimedin no logical connection
with what he had been relating to me. Nevertheless the exclamation
was intelligible enough.
However at first there were, he admitted, no untoward complications,
no embarrassing consequences. To a telegram in guarded terms dispatched
to de Barral no answer was received for more than twenty-four hours.
This certainly caused the Fynes some anxiety. When the answer
arrived late on the evening of next day it was in the shape of an elderly
man. An unexpected sort of man. Fyne explained to me with
precision that he evidently belonged to what is most respectable in
the lower middle classes. He was calm and slow in his speech.
He was wearing a frock-coat, had grey whiskers meeting under his chin,
and declared on entering that Mr. de Barral was his cousin. He
hastened to add that he had not seen his cousin for many years, while
he looked upon Fyne (who received him alone) with so much distrust that
Fyne felt hurt (the person actually refusing at first the chair offered
to him) and retorted tartly that he, for his part, had never
seen Mr. de Barral, in his life, and that, since the visitor did not
want to sit down, he, Fyne, begged him to state his business as shortly
as possible. The man in black sat down then with a faint superior
smile.
He had come for the girl. His cousin had asked him in a note
delivered by a messenger to go to Brighton at once and take his
girl over from a gentleman named Fyne and give her house-room
for a time in his family. And there he was. His business
had not allowed him to come sooner. His business was the manufacture
on a large scale of cardboard boxes. He had two grown-up girls
of his own. He had consulted his wife and so that was all right.
The girl would get a welcome in his home. His home most likely
was not what she had been used to but, etc. etc.
All the time Fyne felt subtly in that mans manner a derisive
disapproval of everything that was not lower middle class, a profound
respect for money, a mean sort of contempt for speculators that fail,
and a conceited satisfaction with his own respectable vulgarity.
With Mrs. Fyne the manner of the obscure cousin of de Barral was
but little less offensive. He looked at her rather slyly but her
cold, decided demeanour impressed him. Mrs. Fyne on her side was
simply appalled by the personage, but did not show it outwardly.
Not even when the man remarked with false simplicity that Florrieher
name was Florrie wasnt it? would probably miss at first all her
grand friends. And when he was informed that the girl was in bed,
not feeling well at all he showed an unsympathetic alarm. She
wasnt an invalid was she? No. What was the matter
with her then?
An extreme distaste for that respectable member of society was depicted
in Fynes face even as he was telling me of him after all these
years. He was a specimen of precisely the class of which people
like the Fynes have the least experience; and I imagine he jarred on
them painfully. He possessed all the civic virtues in their very
meanest form, and the finishing touch was given by a low sort of consciousness
he manifested of possessing them. His industry was exemplary.
He wished to catch the earliest possible train next morning. It
seems that for seven and twenty years he had never missed being seated
on his office-stool at the factory punctually at ten oclock every
day. He listened to Mrs. Fynes objections with undisguised
impatience. Why couldnt Florrie get up and have her breakfast
at eight like other people? In his house the breakfast was at
eight sharp. Mrs. Fynes polite stoicism overcame him at
last. He had come down at a very great personal inconvenience,
he assured her with displeasure, but he gave up the early train.
The good Fynes didnt dare to look at each other before this
unforeseen but perfectly authorized guardian, the same thought springing
up in their minds: Poor girl! Poor girl! If the women of
the family were like this too! . . . And of course they would be.
Poor girl! But what could they have done even if they had been
prepared to raise objections. The person in the frock-coat had
the fathers note; he had shown it to Fyne. Just a request
to take care of the girlas her nearest relativewithout
any explanation or a single allusion to the financial catastrophe, its
tone strangely detached and in its very silence on the point giving
occasion to think that the writer was not uneasy as to the childs
future. Probably it was that very idea which had set the cousin
so readily in motion. Men had come before out of commercial crashes
with estates in the country and a comfortable income, if not for themselves
then for their wives. And if a wife could be made comfortable
by a little dexterous management then why not a daughter? Yes.
This possibility might have been discussed in the persons household
and judged worth acting upon.
The man actually hinted broadly that such was his belief and in face
of Fynes guarded replies gave him to understand that he was not
the dupe of such reticences. Obviously he looked upon the Fynes
as being disappointed because the girl was taken away from them.
They, by a diplomatic sacrifice in the interests of poor Flora, had
asked the man to dinner. He accepted ungraciously, remarking that
he was not used to late hours. He had generally a bit of supper
about half-past eight or nine. However . . .
He gazed contemptuously round the prettily decorated dining-room.
He wrinkled his nose in a puzzled way at the dishes offered to him by
the waiter but refused none, devouring the food with a great appetite
and drinking (swilling Fyne called it) gallons of ginger
beer, which was procured for him (in stone bottles) at his request.
The difficulty of keeping up a conversation with that being exhausted
Mrs. Fyne herself, who had come to the table armed with adamantine resolution.
The only memorable thing he said was when, in a pause of gorging himself
with these French dishes he deliberately let his eyes
roam over the little tables occupied by parties of diners, and remarked
that his wife did for a moment think of coming down with him, but that
he was glad she didnt do so. She wouldnt
have been at all happy seeing all this alcohol about. Not at all
happy, he declared weightily.
You must have had a charming evening, I said to Fyne,
if I may judge from the way you have kept the memory green.
Delightful, he growled with, positively, a flash of
anger at the recollection, but lapsed back into his solemnity at once.
After we had been silent for a while I asked whether the man took away
the girl next day.
Fyne said that he did; in the afternoon, in a fly, with a few clothes
the maid had got together and brought across from the big house.
He only saw Flora again ten minutes before they left for the railway
station, in the Fynes sitting-room at the hotel. It was
a most painful ten minutes for the Fynes. The respectable citizen
addressed Miss de Barral as Florrie and my dear,
remarking to her that she was not very big theres not
much of you my dear in a familiarly disparaging tone. Then
turning to Mrs. Fyne, and quite loud Shes very white in
the face. Whys that? To this Mrs. Fyne made
no reply. She had put the girls hair up that morning with
her own hands. It changed her very much, observed Fyne.
He, naturally, played a subordinate, merely approving part. All
he could do for Miss de Barral personally was to go downstairs and put
her into the fly himself, while Miss de Barrals nearest relation,
having been shouldered out of the way, stood by, with an umbrella and
a little black bag, watching this proceeding with grim amusement, as
it seemed. It was difficult to guess what the girl thought or
what she felt. She no longer looked a child. She whispered
to Fyne a faint Thank you, from the fly, and he said to
her in very distinct tones and while still holding her hand: Pray
dont forget to write fully to my wife in a day or two, Miss de
Barral. Then Fyne stepped back and the cousin climbed into
the fly muttering quite audibly: I dont think youll
be troubled much with her in the future; without however looking
at Fyne on whom he did not even bestow a nod. The fly drove away.
CHAPTER FIVETHE TEA-PARTY
Amiable personality, I observed seeing Fyne on the
point of falling into a brown study. But I could not help adding
with meaning: He hadnt the gift of prophecy though.
Fyne got up suddenly with a muttered No, evidently not.
He was gloomy, hesitating. I supposed that he would not wish to
play chess that afternoon. This would dispense me from leaving
my rooms on a day much too fine to be wasted in walking exercise.
And I was disappointed when picking up his cap he intimated to me his
hope of seeing me at the cottage about four oclockas usual.
It wouldnt be as usual. I put a particular
stress on that remark. He admitted, after a short reflection,
that it would not be. No. Not as usual. In fact it
was his wife who hoped, rather, for my presence. She had formed
a very favourable opinion of my practical sagacity.
This was the first I ever heard of it. I had never suspected
that Mrs. Fyne had taken the trouble to distinguish in me the signs
of sagacity or folly. The few words we had exchanged last night
in the excitementor the botherof the girls disappearance,
were the first moderately significant words which had ever passed between
us. I had felt myself always to be in Mrs. Fynes view her
husbands chess-player and nothing elsea conveniencealmost
an implement.
I am highly flattered, I said. I have
always heard that there are no limits to feminine intuition; and now
I am half inclined to believe it is so. But still I fail to see
in what way my sagacity, practical or otherwise, can be of any service
to Mrs. Fyne. One mans sagacity is very much like any other
mans sagacity. And with you at hand
Fyne, manifestly not attending to what I was saying, directed straight
at me his worried solemn eyes and struck in:
Yes, yes. Very likely. But you will comewont
you?
I had made up my mind that no Fyne of either sex would make me walk
three miles (there and back to their cottage) on this fine day.
If the Fynes had been an average sociable couple one knows only because
leisure must be got through somehow, I would have made short work of
that special invitation. But they were not that. Their undeniable
humanity had to be acknowledged. At the same time I wanted to
have my own way. So I proposed that I should be allowed the pleasure
of offering them a cup of tea at my rooms.
A short reflective pauseand Fyne accepted eagerly in his own
and his wifes name. A moment after I heard the click of
the gate-latch and then in an ecstasy of barking from his demonstrative
dog his serious head went past my window on the other side of the hedge,
its troubled gaze fixed forward, and the mind inside obviously employed
in earnest speculation of an intricate nature. One at least of
his wifes girl-friends had become more than a mere shadow for
him. I surmised however that it was not of the girl-friend but
of his wife that Fyne was thinking. He was an excellent husband.
I prepared myself for the afternoons hospitalities, calling
in the farmers wife and reviewing with her the resources of the
house and the village. She was a helpful woman. But the
resources of my sagacity I did not review. Except in the gross
material sense of the afternoon tea I made no preparations for Mrs.
Fyne.
It was impossible for me to make any such preparations. I could
not tell what sort of sustenance she would look for from my sagacity.
And as to taking stock of the wares of my mind no one I imagine is anxious
to do that sort of thing if it can be avoided. A vaguely grandiose
state of mental self-confidence is much too agreeable to be disturbed
recklessly by such a delicate investigation. Perhaps if I had
had a helpful woman at my elbow, a dear, flattering acute, devoted woman
. . . There are in life moments when one positively regrets not being
married. No! I dont exaggerate. I have saidmoments,
not years or even days. Moments. The farmers wife
obviously could not be asked to assist. She could not have been
expected to possess the necessary insight and I doubt whether she would
have known how to be flattering enough. She was being helpful
in her own way, with an extraordinary black bonnet on her head, a good
mile off by that time, trying to discover in the village shops a piece
of eatable cake. The pluck of women! The optimism of the
dear creatures!
And she managed to find something which looked eatable. Thats
all I know as I had no opportunity to observe the more intimate effects
of that comestible. I myself never eat cake, and Mrs. Fyne, when
she arrived punctually, brought with her no appetite for cake.
She had no appetite for anything. But she had a thirstthe
sign of deep, of tormenting emotion. Yes it was emotion, not the
brilliant sunshinemore brilliant than warm as is the way of our
discreet self-repressed, distinguished, insular sun, which would not
turn a real lady scarletnot on any account. Mrs. Fyne looked
even cool. She wore a white skirt and coat; a white hat with a
large brim reposed on her smoothly arranged hair. The coat was
cut something like an army mess-jacket and the style suited her.
I dare say there are many youthful subalterns, and not the worst-looking
too, who resemble Mrs. Fyne in the type of face, in the sunburnt complexion,
down to that something alert in bearing. But not many would have
had that aspect breathing a readiness to assume any responsibility under
Heaven. This is the sort of courage which ripens late in life
and of course Mrs. Fyne was of mature years for all her unwrinkled face.
She looked round the room, told me positively that I was very comfortable
there; to which I assented, humbly, acknowledging my undeserved good
fortune.
Why undeserved? she wanted to know.
I engaged these rooms by letter without asking any questions.
It might have been an abominable hole, I explained to her.
I always do things like that. I dont like to be
bothered. This is no great proof of sagacityis it?
Sagacious people I believe like to exercise that faculty. I have
heard that they cant even help showing it in the veriest trifles.
It must be very delightful. But I know nothing of it. I
think that I have no sagacityno practical sagacity.
Fyne made an inarticulate bass murmur of protest. I asked after
the children whom I had not seen yet since my return from town.
They had been very well. They were always well. Both Fyne
and Mrs. Fyne spoke of the rude health of their children as if it were
a result of moral excellence; in a peculiar tone which seemed to imply
some contempt for people whose children were liable to be unwell at
times. One almost felt inclined to apologize for the inquiry.
And this annoyed me; unreasonably, I admit, because the assumption of
superior merit is not a very exceptional weakness. Anxious to
make myself disagreeable by way of retaliation I observed in accents
of interested civility that the dear girls must have been wondering
at the sudden disappearance of their mothers young friend.
Had they been putting any awkward questions about Miss Smith.
Wasnt it as Miss Smith that Miss de Barral had been introduced
to me?
Mrs. Fyne, staring fixedly but also colouring deeper under her tan,
told me that the children had never liked Flora very much. She
hadnt the high spirits which endear grown-ups to healthy children,
Mrs. Fyne explained unflinchingly. Flora had been staying at the
cottage several times before. Mrs. Fyne assured me that she often
found it very difficult to have her in the house.
But what else could we do? she exclaimed.
That little cry of distress quite genuine in its inexpressiveness,
altered my feeling towards Mrs. Fyne. It would have been so easy
to have done nothing and to have thought no more about it. My
liking for her began while she was trying to tell me of the night she
spent by the girls bedside, the night before her departure with
her unprepossessing relative. That Mrs. Fyne found means to comfort
the child I doubt very much. She had not the genius for the task
of undoing that which the hate of an infuriated woman had planned so
well.
You will tell me perhaps that childrens impressions are not
durable. Thats true enough. But here, child is only
a manner of speaking. The girl was within a few days of her sixteenth
birthday; she was old enough to be matured by the shock. The very
effort she had to make in conveying the impression to Mrs. Fyne, in
remembering the details, in finding adequate wordsor any words
at allwas in itself a terribly enlightening, an ageing process.
She had talked a long time, uninterrupted by Mrs. Fyne, childlike enough
in her wonder and pain, pausing now and then to interject the pitiful
query: It was cruel of her. Wasnt it cruel, Mrs.
Fyne?
For Charley she found excuses. He at any rate had not said
anything, while he had looked very gloomy and miserable. He couldnt
have taken part against his auntcould he? But after all
he did, when she called upon him, take that cruel woman away.
He had dragged her out by the arm. She had seen that plainly.
She remembered it. That was it! The woman was mad.
Oh! Mrs. Fyne, dont tell me she wasnt mad.
If you had only seen her face . . .
But Mrs. Fyne was unflinching in her idea that as much truth as could
be told was due in the way of kindness to the girl, whose fate she feared
would be to live exposed to the hardest realities of unprivileged existences.
She explained to her that there were in the world evil-minded, selfish
people. Unscrupulous people . . . These two persons had been after
her fathers money. The best thing she could do was to forget
all about them.
After papas money? I dont understand,
poor Flora de Barral had murmured, and lay still as if trying to think
it out in the silence and shadows of the room where only a night-light
was burning. Then she had a long shivering fit while holding tight
the hand of Mrs. Fyne whose patient immobility by the bedside of that
brutally murdered childhood did infinite honour to her humanity.
That vigil must have been the more trying because I could see very well
that at no time did she think the victim particularly charming or sympathetic.
It was a manifestation of pure compassion, of compassion in itself,
so to speak, not many women would have been capable of displaying with
that unflinching steadiness. The shivering fit over, the girls
next words in an outburst of sobs were, Oh! Mrs. Fyne,
am I really such a horrid thing as she has made me out to be?
No, no! protested Mrs. Fyne. It is your
former governess who is horrid and odious. She is a vile woman.
I cannot tell you that she was mad but I think she must have been beside
herself with rage and full of evil thoughts. You must try not
to think of these abominations, my dear child.
They were not fit for anyone to think of much, Mrs. Fyne commented
to me in a curt positive tone. All that had been very trying.
The girl was like a creature struggling under a net.
But how can I forget? she called my father a cheat and a swindler!
Do tell me Mrs. Fyne that it isnt true. It cant
be true. How can it be true?
She sat up in bed with a sudden wild motion as if to jump out and
flee away from the sound of the words which had just passed her own
lips. Mrs. Fyne restrained her, soothed her, induced her at last
to lay her head on her pillow again, assuring her all the time that
nothing this woman had had the cruelty to say deserved to be taken to
heart. The girl, exhausted, cried quietly for a time. It
may be she had noticed something evasive in Mrs. Fynes assurances.
After a while, without stirring, she whispered brokenly:
That awful woman told me that all the world would call papa
these awful names. Is it possible? Is it possible?
Mrs. Fyne kept silent.
Do say something to me, Mrs. Fyne, the daughter of
de Barral insisted in the same feeble whisper.
Again Mrs. Fyne assured me that it had been very trying. Terribly
trying. Yes, thanks, I will. She leaned back
in the chair with folded arms while I poured another cup of tea for
her, and Fyne went out to pacify the dog which, tied up under the porch,
had become suddenly very indignant at somebody having the audacity to
walk along the lane. Mrs. Fyne stirred her tea for a long time,
drank a little, put the cup down and said with that air of accepting
all the consequences:
Silence would have been unfair. I dont think
it would have been kind either. I told her that she must be prepared
for the world passing a very severe judgment on her father . . .
* * * * *
Wasnt it admirable, cried Marlow interrupting
his narrative. Admirable! And as I looked
dubiously at this unexpected enthusiasm he started justifying it after
his own manner.
I say admirable because it was so characteristic. It
was perfect. Nothing short of genius could have found better.
And this was nature! As they say of an artists work: this
was a perfect Fyne. Compassionjudiciousnesssomething
correctly measured. None of your dishevelled sentiment.
And right! You must confess that nothing could have been more
right. I had a mind to shout Brava! Brava!
but I did not do that. I took a piece of cake and went out to
bribe the Fyne dog into some sort of self-control. His sharp comical
yapping was unbearable, like stabs through ones brain, and Fynes
deeply modulated remonstrances abashed the vivacious animal no more
than the deep, patient murmur of the sea abashes a nigger minstrel on
a popular beach. Fyne was beginning to swear at him in low, sepulchral
tones when I appeared. The dog became at once wildly demonstrative,
half strangling himself in his collar, his eyes and tongue hanging out
in the excess of his incomprehensible affection for me. This was
before he caught sight of the cake in my hand. A series of vertical
springs high up in the air followed, and then, when he got the cake,
he instantly lost his interest in everything else.
Fyne was slightly vexed with me. As kind a master as any dog
could wish to have, he yet did not approve of cake being given to dogs.
The Fyne dog was supposed to lead a Spartan existence on a diet of repulsive
biscuits with an occasional dry, hygienic, bone thrown in. Fyne
looked down gloomily at the appeased animal, I too looked at that fool-dog;
and (you know how ones memory gets suddenly stimulated) I was
reminded visually, with an almost painful distinctness, of the ghostly
white face of the girl I saw last accompanied by that dogdeserted
by that dog. I almost heard her distressed voice as if on the
verge of resentful tears calling to the dog, the unsympathetic dog.
Perhaps she had not the power of evoking sympathy, that personal gift
of direct appeal to the feelings. I said to Fyne, mistrusting
the supine attitude of the dog:
Why dont you let him come inside?
Oh dear no! He couldnt think of it! I might indeed
have saved my breath, I knew it was one of the Fynes rules of
life, part of their solemnity and responsibility, one of those things
that were part of their unassertive but ever present superiority, that
their dog must not be allowed in. It was most improper to intrude
the dog into the houses of the people they were calling onif
it were only a careless bachelor in farmhouse lodgings and a personal
friend of the dog. It was out of the question. But they
would let him bark ones sanity away outside ones window.
They were strangely consistent in their lack of imaginative sympathy.
I didnt insist but simply led the way back to the parlour, hoping
that no wayfarer would happen along the lane for the next hour or so
to disturb the dogs composure.
Mrs. Fyne seated immovable before the table charged with plates,
cups, jugs, a cold teapot, crumbs, and the general litter of the entertainment
turned her head towards us.
You see, Mr. Marlow, she said in an unexpectedly confidential
tone: they are so utterly unsuited for each other.
At the moment I did not know how to apply this remark. I thought
at first of Fyne and the dog. Then I adjusted it to the matter
in hand which was neither more nor less than an elopement. Yes,
by Jove! It was something very much like an elopementwith
certain unusual characteristics of its own which made it in a sense
equivocal. With amused wonder I remembered that my sagacity was
requisitioned in such a connection. How unexpected! But
we never know what tests our gifts may be put to. Sagacity dictated
caution first of all. I believe caution to be the first duty of
sagacity. Fyne sat down as if preparing himself to witness a joust,
I thought.
Do you think so, Mrs. Fyne? I said sagaciously.
Of course you are in a position . . . I was continuing
with caution when she struck out vivaciously for immediate assent.
Obviously! Clearly! You yourself must admit .
. .
But, Mrs. Fyne, I remonstrated, you forget that
I dont know your brother.
This argument which was not only sagacious but true, overwhelmingly
true, unanswerably true, seemed to surprise her.
I wondered why. I did not know enough of her brother for the
remotest guess at what he might be like. I had never set eyes
on the man. I didnt know him so completely that by contrast
I seemed to have known Miss de Barralwhom I had seen twice (altogether
about sixty minutes) and with whom I had exchanged about sixty wordsfrom
the cradle so to speak. And perhaps, I thought, looking down at
Mrs. Fyne (I had remained standing) perhaps she thinks that this ought
to be enough for a sagacious assent.
She kept silent; and I looking at her with polite expectation, went
on addressing her mentally in a mood of familiar approval which would
have astonished her had it been audible: You my dear at any rate are
a sincere woman . . .
I call a woman sincere, Marlow began again after giving
me a cigar and lighting one himself, I call a woman sincere when
she volunteers a statement resembling remotely in form what she really
would like to say, what she really thinks ought to be said if it were
not for the necessity to spare the stupid sensitiveness of men.
The womens rougher, simpler, more upright judgment, embraces
the whole truth, which their tact, their mistrust of masculine idealism,
ever prevents them from speaking in its entirety. And their tact
is unerring. We could not stand women speaking the truth.
We could not bear it. It would cause infinite misery and bring
about most awful disturbances in this rather mediocre, but still idealistic
fools paradise in which each of us lives his own little lifethe
unit in the great sum of existence. And they know it. They
are merciful. This generalization does not apply exactly to Mrs.
Fynes outburst of sincerity in a matter in which neither my affections
nor my vanity were engaged. Thats why, may be, she ventured
so far. For a woman she chose to be as open as the day with me.
There was not only the form but almost the whole substance of her thought
in what she said. She believed she could risk it. She had
reasoned somewhat in this way; theres a man, possessing a certain
amount of sagacity . . .
Marlow paused with a whimsical look at me. The last few words
he had spoken with the cigar in his teeth. He took it out now
by an ample movement of his arm and blew a thin cloud.
You smile? It would have been more kind to spare my
blushes. But as a matter of fact I need not blush. This
is not vanity; it is analysis. Well let sagacity stand.
But we must also note what sagacity in this connection stands for.
When you see this you shall see also that there was nothing in it to
alarm my modesty. I dont think Mrs. Fyne credited me with
the possession of wisdom tempered by common sense. And had I had
the wisdom of the Seven Sages of Antiquity, she would not have been
moved to confidence or admiration. The secret scorn of women for
the capacity to consider judiciously and to express profoundly a meditated
conclusion is unbounded. They have no use for these lofty exercises
which they look upon as a sort of purely masculine gamegame meaning
a respectable occupation devised to kill time in this man-arranged life
which must be got through somehow. What womens acuteness
really respects are the inept ideas and the sheeplike
impulses by which our actions and opinions are determined in matters
of real importance. For if women are not rational they are indeed
acute. Even Mrs. Fyne was acute. The good woman was making
up to her husbands chess-player simply because she had scented
in him that small portion of femininity, that drop of
superior essence of which I am myself aware; which, I gratefully acknowledge,
has saved me from one or two misadventures in my life either ridiculous
or lamentable, I am not very certain which. It matters very little.
Anyhow misadventures. Observe that I say femininity,
a privilegenot feminism, an attitude. I am
not a feminist. It was Fyne who on certain solemn grounds had
adopted that mental attitude; but it was enough to glance at him sitting
on one side, to see that he was purely masculine to his finger-tips,
masculine solidly, densely, amusingly,hopelessly.
I did glance at him. You dont get your sagacity recognized
by a mans wife without feeling the propriety and even the need
to glance at the man now and again. So I glanced at him.
Very masculine. So much so that hopelessly was not
the last word of it. He was helpless. He was bound and delivered
by it. And if by the obscure promptings of my composite temperament
I beheld him with malicious amusement, yet being in fact, by definition
and especially from profound conviction, a man, I could not help sympathizing
with him largely. Seeing him thus disarmed, so completely captive
by the very nature of things I was moved to speak to him kindly.
Well. And what do you think of it?
I dont know. Hows one to tell? But
I say that the thing is done now and theres an end of it,
said the masculine creature as bluntly as his innate solemnity permitted.
Mrs. Fyne moved a little in her chair. I turned to her and
remarked gently that this was a charge, a criticism, which was often
made. Some people always ask: What could he see in her?
Others wonder what she could have seen in him? Expressions of
unsuitability.
She said with all the emphasis of her quietly folded arms:
I know perfectly well what Flora has seen in my brother.
I bowed my head to the gust but pursued my point.
And then the marriage in most cases turns out no worse than
the average, to say the least of it.
Mrs. Fyne was disappointed by the optimistic turn of my sagacity.
She rested her eyes on my face as though in doubt whether I had enough
femininity in my composition to understand the case.
I waited for her to speak. She seemed to be asking herself;
Is it after all, worth while to talk to that man? You understand
how provoking this was. I looked in my mind for something appallingly
stupid to say, with the object of distressing and teasing Mrs. Fyne.
It is humiliating to confess a failure. One would think that a
man of average intelligence could command stupidity at will. But
it isnt so. I suppose its a special gift or else
the difficulty consists in being relevant. Discovering that I
could find no really telling stupidity, I turned to the next best thing;
a platitude. I advanced, in a common-sense tone, that, surely,
in the matter of marriage a man had only himself to please.
Mrs. Fyne received this without the flutter of an eyelid. Fynes
masculine breast, as might have been expected, was pierced by that old,
regulation shaft. He grunted most feelingly. I turned to
him with false simplicity. Dont you agree with me?
The very thing Ive been telling my wife, he
exclaimed in his extra-manly bass. We have been discussing
A discussion in the Fyne menage! How portentous!
Perhaps the very first difference they had ever had: Mrs. Fyne unflinching
and ready for any responsibility, Fyne solemn and shrinkingthe
children in bed upstairs; and outside the dark fields, the shadowy contours
of the land on the starry background of the universe, with the crude
light of the open window like a beacon for the truant who would never
come back now; a truant no longer but a downright fugitive. Yet
a fugitive carrying off spoils. It was the flight of a raideror
a traitor? This affair of the purloined brother, as I had named
it to myself, had a very puzzling physiognomy. The girl must have
been desperate, I thought, hearing the grave voice of Fyne well enough
but catching the sense of his words not at all, except the very last
words which were:
Of course, its extremely distressing.
I looked at him inquisitively. What was distressing him?
The purloining of the son of the poet-tyrant by the daughter of the
financier-convict. Or only, if I may say so, the wind of their
flight disturbing the solemn placidity of the Fynes domestic
atmosphere. My incertitude did not last long, for he added:
Mrs. Fyne urges me to go to London at once.
One could guess at, almost see, his profound distaste for the journey,
his distress at a difference of feeling with his wife. With his
serious view of the sublunary comedy Fyne suffered from not being able
to agree solemnly with her sentiment as he was accustomed to do, in
recognition of having had his way in one supreme instance; when he made
her elope with himthe most momentous step imaginable in a young
ladys life. He had been really trying to acknowledge it
by taking the rightness of her feeling for granted on every other occasion.
It had become a sort of habit at last. And it is never pleasant
to break a habit. The man was deeply troubled. I said: Really!
To go to London!
He looked dumbly into my eyes. It was pathetic and funny.
And you of course feel it would be useless, I pursued.
He evidently felt that, though he said nothing. He only went
on blinking at me with a solemn and comical slowness. Unless
it be to carry there the familys blessing, I went on,
indulging my chaffing humour steadily, in a rather sneaking fashion,
for I dared not look at Mrs. Fyne, to my right. No sound or movement
came from that direction. You think very naturally that
to match mere good, sound reasons, against the passionate conclusions
of love is a waste of intellect bordering on the absurd.
He looked surprised as if I had discovered something very clever.
He, dear man, had thought of nothing at all.
He simply knew that he did not want to go to London on that mission.
Mere masculine delicacy. In a moment he became enthusiastic.
Yes! Yes! Exactly. A man in love . . . You
hear, my dear? Here you have an independent opinion
Can anything be more hopeless, I insisted to the fascinated
little Fyne, than to pit reason against love. I must confess
however that in this case when I think of that poor girls sharp
chin I wonder if . . .
My levity was too much for Mrs. Fyne. Still leaning back in
her chair she exclaimed:
Mr. Marlow!
* * * * *
As if mysteriously affected by her indignation the absurd Fyne dog
began to bark in the porch. It might have been at a trespassing
bumble-bee however. That animal was capable of any eccentricity.
Fyne got up quickly and went out to him. I think he was glad to
leave us alone to discuss that matter of his journey to London.
A sort of anti-sentimental journey. He, too, apparently, had confidence
in my sagacity. It was touching, this confidence. It was
at any rate more genuine than the confidence his wife pretended to have
in her husbands chess-player, of three successive holidays.
Confidence be hanged! Sagacityindeed! She had simply
marched in without a shadow of misgiving to make me back her up.
But she had delivered herself into my hands . . .
Interrupting his narrative Marlow addressed me in his tone between
grim jest and grim earnest:
Perhaps you didnt know that my character is upon the
whole rather vindictive.
No, I didnt know, I said with a grin.
Thats rather unusual for a sailor. They always seemed
to me the least vindictive body of men in the world.
Hm! Simple souls, Marlow muttered moodily.
Want of opportunity. The world leaves them alone for the
most part. For myself its towards women that I feel vindictive
mostly, in my small way. I admit that it is small. But then
the occasions in themselves are not great. Mainly I resent that
pretence of winding us round their dear little fingers, as of right.
Not that the result ever amounts to much generally. There are
so very few momentous opportunities. It is the assumption that
each of us is a combination of a kid and an imbecile which I find provokingin
a small way; in a very small way. You neednt stare as though
I were breathing fire and smoke out of my nostrils. I am not a
women-devouring monster. I am not even what is technically called
a brute. I hope theres enough of a kid and
an imbecile in me to answer the requirements of some really good woman
eventuallysome day . . . Some day. Why do you gasp?
You dont suppose I should be afraid of getting married?
That supposition would be offensive . . .
I wouldnt dream of offending you, I said.
Very well. But meantime please remember that I was not
married to Mrs. Fyne. That ladys little finger was none
of my legal property. I had not run off with it. It was
Fyne who had done that thing. Let him be wound round as much as
his backbone could standor even more, for all I cared.
His rushing away from the discussion on the transparent pretence of
quieting the dog confirmed my notion of there being a considerable strain
on his elasticity. I confronted Mrs. Fyne resolved not to assist
her in her eminently feminine occupation of thrusting a stick in the
spokes of another womans wheel.
She tried to preserve her calm-eyed superiority. She was familiar
and olympian, fenced in by the tea-table, that excellent symbol of domestic
life in its lighter hour and its perfect security. In a few severely
unadorned words she gave me to understand that she had ventured to hope
for some really helpful suggestion from me. To this almost chiding
declarationbecause my vindictiveness seldom goes further than
a bit of teasingI said that I was really doing my best.
And being a physiognomist . . .
Being what? she interrupted me.
A physiognomist, I repeated raising my voice a little.
A physiognomist, Mrs. Fyne. And on the principles of that
science a pointed little chin is a sufficient ground for interference.
You want to interferedo you not?
Her eyes grew distinctly bigger. She had never been bantered
before in her life. The late subtle poets method of making
himself unpleasant was merely savage and abusive. Fyne had been
always solemnly subservient. What other men she knew I cannot
tell but I assume they must have been gentlemanly creatures. The
girl-friends sat at her feet. How could she recognize my intention.
She didnt know what to make of my tone.
Are you serious in what you say? she asked slowly.
And it was touching. It was as if a very young, confiding girl
had spoken. I felt myself relenting.
No. I am not, Mrs. Fyne, I said. I
didnt know I was expected to be serious as well as sagacious.
No. That science is farcical and therefore I am not serious.
Its true that most sciences are farcical except those which teach
us how to put things together.
The question is how to keep these two people apart,
she struck in. She had recovered. I admired the quickness
of womens wit. Mental agility is a rare perfection.
And arent they agile! Arent theyjust!
And tenacious! When they once get hold you may uproot the tree
but you wont shake them off the branch. In fact the more
you shake . . . But only look at the charm of contradictory perfections!
No wonder men give ingenerally. I wont say I was
actually charmed by Mrs. Fyne. I was not delighted with her.
What affected me was not what she displayed but something which she
could not conceal. And that was emotionnothing less.
The form of her declaration was dry, almost peremptorybut not
its tone. Her voice faltered just the least bit, she smiled faintly;
and as we were looking straight at each other I observed that her eyes
were glistening in a peculiar manner. She was distressed.
And indeed that Mrs. Fyne should have appealed to me at all was in itself
the evidence of her profound distress. By Jove shes
desperate too, I thought. This discovery was followed by
a movement of instinctive shrinking from this unreasonable and unmasculine
affair. They were all alike, with their supreme interest aroused
only by fighting with each other about some man: a lover, a son, a brother.
But do you think theres time yet to do anything?
I asked.
She had an impatient movement of her shoulders without detaching
herself from the back of the chair. Time! Of course?
It was less than forty-eight hours since she had followed him to London
. . . I am no great clerk at those matters but I murmured vaguely an
allusion to special licences. We couldnt tell what might
have happened to-day already. But she knew better, scornfully.
Nothing had happened.
Nothings likely to happen before next Friday week,if
then.
This was wonderfully precise. Then after a pause she added
that she should never forgive herself if some effort were not made,
an appeal.
To your brother? I asked.
Yes. John ought to go to-morrow. Nine oclock
train.
So early as that! I said. But I could not find
it in my heart to pursue this discussion in a jocular tone. I
submitted to her several obvious arguments, dictated apparently by common
sense but in reality by my secret compassion. Mrs. Fyne brushed
them aside, with the semi-conscious egoism of all safe, established,
existences. They had known each other so little. Just three
weeks. And of that time, too short for the birth of any serious
sentiment, the first week had to be deducted. They would hardly
look at each other to begin with. Flora barely consented to acknowledge
Captain Anthonys presence. Good morninggood nightthat
was allabsolutely the whole extent of their intercourse.
Captain Anthony was a silent man, completely unused to the society of
girls of any sort and so shy in fact that he avoided raising his eyes
to her face at the table. It was perfectly absurd. It was
even inconvenient, embarrassing to herMrs. Fyne. After
breakfast Flora would go off by herself for a long walk and Captain
Anthony (Mrs. Fyne referred to him at times also as Roderick) joined
the children. But he was actually too shy to get on terms with
his own nieces.
This would have sounded pathetic if I hadnt known the Fyne
children who were at the same time solemn and malicious, and nursed
a secret contempt for all the world. No one could get on terms
with those fresh and comely young monsters! They just tolerated
their parents and seemed to have a sort of mocking understanding among
themselves against all outsiders, yet with no visible affection for
each other. They had the habit of exchanging derisive glances
which to a shy man must have been very trying. They thought their
uncle no doubt a bore and perhaps an ass.
I was not surprised to hear that very soon Anthony formed the habit
of crossing the two neighbouring fields to seek the shade of a clump
of elms at a good distance from the cottage. He lay on the grass
and smoked his pipe all the morning. Mrs. Fyne wondered at her
brothers indolent habits. He had asked for books it is
true but there were but few in the cottage. He read them through
in three days and then continued to lie contentedly on his back with
no other companion but his pipe. Amazing indolence! The
live-long morning, Mrs. Fyne, busy writing upstairs in the cottage,
could see him out of the window. She had a very long sight, and
these elms were grouped on a rise of the ground. His indolence
was plainly exposed to her criticism on a gentle green slope.
Mrs. Fyne wondered at it; she was disgusted too. But having just
then commenced author, as you know, she could not tear
herself away from the fascinating novelty. She let him wallow
in his vice. I imagine Captain Anthony must have had a rather
pleasant time in a quiet way. It was, I remember, a hot dry summer,
favourable to contemplative life out of doors. And Mrs. Fyne was
scandalized. Women dont understand the force of a contemplative
temperament. It simply shocks them. They feel instinctively
that it is the one which escapes best the domination of feminine influences.
The dear girls were exchanging jeering remarks about lazy uncle
Roderick openly, in her indulgent hearing. And it was so
strange, she told me, because as a boy he was anything but indolent.
On the contrary. Always active.
I remarked that a man of thirty-five was no longer a boy. It
was an obvious remark but she received it without favour. She
told me positively that the best, the nicest men remained boys all their
lives. She was disappointed not to be able to detect anything
boyish in her brother. Very, very sorry. She had not seen
him for fifteen years or thereabouts, except on three or four occasions
for a few hours at a time. No. Not a trace of the boy, he
used to be, left in him.
She fell silent for a moment and I mused idly on the boyhood of little
Fyne. I could not imagine what it might have been like.
His dominant trait was clearly the remnant of still earlier days, because
Ive never seen such staring solemnity as Fynes except
in a very young baby. But where was he all that time? Didnt
he suffer contamination from the indolence of Captain Anthony, I inquired.
I was told that Mr. Fyne was very little at the cottage at the time.
Some colleague of his was convalescing after a severe illness in a little
seaside village in the neighbourhood and Fyne went off every morning
by train to spend the day with the elderly invalid who had no one to
look after him. It was a very praiseworthy excuse for neglecting
his brother-in-law the son of the poet, you know, with
whom he had nothing in common even in the remotest degree. If
Captain Anthony (Roderick) had been a pedestrian it would have been
sufficient; but he was not. Still, in the afternoon, he went sometimes
for a slow casual stroll, by himself of course, the children having
definitely cold-shouldered him, and his only sister being busy with
that inflammatory book which was to blaze upon the world a year or more
afterwards. It seems however that she was capable of detaching
her eyes from her task now and then, if only for a moment, because it
was from that garret fitted out for a study that one afternoon she observed
her brother and Flora de Barral coming down the road side by side.
They had met somewhere accidentally (which of them crossed the others
path, as the saying is, I dont know), and were returning to tea
together. She noticed that they appeared to be conversing without
constraint.
I had the simplicity to be pleased, Mrs. Fyne commented
with a dry little laugh. Pleased for both their sakes.
Captain Anthony shook off his indolence from that day forth, and accompanied
Miss Flora frequently on her morning walks. Mrs. Fyne remained
pleased. She could now forget them comfortably and give herself
up to the delights of audacious thought and literary composition.
Only a week before the blow fell she, happening to raise her eyes from
the paper, saw two figures seated on the grass under the shade of the
elms. She could make out the white blouse. There could be
no mistake.
I suppose they imagined themselves concealed by the hedge.
They forgot no doubt I was working in the garret, she said bitterly.
Or perhaps they didnt care. They were right.
I am rather a simple person . . . She laughed again .
. . I was incapable of suspecting such duplicity.
Duplicity is a strong word, Mrs. Fyneisnt it?
I expostulated. And considering that Captain Anthony himself
. . .
Oh wellperhaps, she interrupted me. Her
eyes which never strayed away from mine, her set features, her whole
immovable figure, how well I knew those appearances of a person who
has made up her mind. A very hopeless condition
that, specially in women. I mistrusted her concession so easily,
so stonily made. She reflected a moment. Yes.
I ought to have saidingratitude, perhaps.
After having thus disengaged her brother and pushed the poor girl
a little further off as it wereisnt womens cleverness
perfectly diabolic when they are really put on their mettle?after
having done these things and also made me feel that I was no match for
her, she went on scrupulously: One doesnt like to use
that word either. The claim is very small. Its so
little one could do for her. Still . . .
I dare say, I exclaimed, throwing diplomacy to the
winds. But really, Mrs. Fyne, its impossible to
dismiss your brother like this out of the business . . .
She threw herself at his head, Mrs. Fyne uttered firmly.
He had no business to put his head in the way, then,
I retorted with an angry laugh. I didnt restrain myself
because her fixed stare seemed to express the purpose to daunt me.
I was not afraid of her, but it occurred to me that I was within an
ace of drifting into a downright quarrel with a lady and, besides, my
guest. There was the cold teapot, the emptied cups, emblems of
hospitality. It could not be. I cut short my angry laugh
while Mrs. Fyne murmured with a slight movement of her shoulders, He!
Poor man! Oh come . . .
By a great effort of will I found myself able to smile amiably, to
speak with proper softness.
My dear Mrs. Fyne, you forget that I dont know himnot
even by sight. Its difficult to imagine a victim as passive
as all that; but granting you the (I very nearly said: imbecility, but
checked myself in time) innocence of Captain Anthony, dont you
think now, frankly, that there is a little of your own fault in what
has happened. You bring them together, you leave your brother
to himself!
She sat up and leaning her elbow on the table sustained her head
in her open palm casting down her eyes. Compunction? It
was indeed a very off-hand way of treating a brother come to stay for
the first time in fifteen years. I suppose she discovered very
soon that she had nothing in common with that sailor, that stranger,
fashioned and marked by the sea of long voyages. In her strong-minded
way she had scorned pretences, had gone to her writing which interested
her immensely. A very praiseworthy thing your sincere conduct,if
it didnt at times resemble brutality so much. But I dont
think it was compunction. That sentiment is rare in women . .
.
Is it? I interrupted indignantly.
You know more women than I do, retorted the unabashed
Marlow. You make it your business to know themdont
you? You go about a lot amongst all sorts of people. You
are a tolerably honest observer. Well, just try to remember how
many instances of compunction you have seen. I am ready to take
your bare word for it. Compunction! Have you ever seen as
much as its shadow? Have you ever? Just a shadowa
passing shadow! I tell you it is so rare that you may call it
non-existent. They are too passionate. Too pedantic.
Too courageous with themselvesperhaps. No I dont
think for a moment that Mrs. Fyne felt the slightest compunction at
her treatment of her sea-going brother. What he thought
of it who can tell? It is possible that he wondered why he had
been so insistently urged to come. It is possible that he wondered
bitterlyor contemptuouslyor humbly. And it may be
that he was only surprised and bored. Had he been as sincere in
his conduct as his only sister he would have probably taken himself
off at the end of the second day. But perhaps he was afraid of
appearing brutal. I am not far removed from the conviction that
between the sincerities of his sister and of his dear nieces, Captain
Anthony of the Ferndale must have had his loneliness brought
home to his bosom for the first time of his life, at an age, thirty-five
or thereabouts, when one is mature enough to feel the pang of such a
discovery. Angry or simply sad but certainly disillusioned he
wanders about and meets the girl one afternoon and under the sway of
a strong feeling forgets his shyness. This is no supposition.
It is a fact. There was such a meeting in which the shyness must
have perished before we dont know what encouragement, or in the
community of mood made apparent by some casual word. You remember
that Mrs. Fyne saw them one afternoon coming back to the cottage together.
Dont you think that I have hit on the psychology of the situation?
. . .
Doubtless . . . I began to ponder.
I was very certain of my conclusions at the time, Marlow
went on impatiently. But dont think for a moment
that Mrs. Fyne in her new attitude and toying thoughtfully with a teaspoon
was about to surrender. She murmured:
Its the last thing I should have thought could happen.
You didnt suppose they were romantic enough,
I suggested dryly.
She let it pass and with great decision but as if speaking to herself,
Roderick really must be warned.
She didnt give me the time to ask of what precisely.
She raised her head and addressed me.
I am surprised and grieved more than I can tell you at Mr.
Fynes resistance. We have been always completely at one
on every question. And that we should differ now on a point touching
my brother so closely is a most painful surprise to me.
Her hand rattled the teaspoon brusquely by an involuntary movement.
It is intolerable, she added tempestuouslyfor Mrs.
Fyne that is. I suppose she had nerves of her own like any other
woman.
Under the porch where Fyne had sought refuge with the dog there was
silence. I took it for a proof of deep sagacity. I dont
mean on the part of the dog. He was a confirmed fool.
I said:
You want absolutely to interfere . . . ? Mrs.
Fyne nodded just perceptibly . . . Wellfor my part . .
. but I dont really know how matters stand at the present time.
You have had a letter from Miss de Barral. What does that letter
say?
She asks for her valise to be sent to her town address,
Mrs. Fyne uttered reluctantly and stopped. I waited a bitthen
exploded.
Well! Whats the matter? Wheres the
difficulty? Does your husband object to that? You dont
mean to say that he wants you to appropriate the girls clothes?
Mr. Marlow!
Well, but you talk of a painful difference of opinion with
your husband, and then, when I ask for information on the point, you
bring out a valise. And only a few moments ago you reproached
me for not being serious. I wonder who is the serious person of
us two now.
She smiled faintly and in a friendly tone, from which I concluded
at once that she did not mean to show me the girls letter, she
said that undoubtedly the letter disclosed an understanding between
Captain Anthony and Flora de Barral.
What understanding? I pressed her. An
engagement is an understanding.
There is no engagementnot yet, she said decisively.
That letter, Mr. Marlow, is couched in very vague terms.
That is why
I interrupted her without ceremony.
You still hope to interfere to some purpose. Isnt
it so? Yes? But how should you have liked it if anybody
had tried to interfere between you and Mr. Fyne at the time when your
understanding with each other could still have been described in vague
terms?
She had a genuine movement of astonished indignation. It is
with the accent of perfect sincerity that she cried out at me:
But it isnt at all the same thing! How can you!
Indeed how could I! The daughter of a poet and the daughter
of a convict are not comparable in the consequences of their conduct
if their necessity may wear at times a similar aspect. Amongst
these consequences I could perceive undesirable cousins for these dear
healthy girls, and such like, possible causes of embarrassment in the
future.
No! You cant be serious, Mrs. Fynes
smouldering resentment broke out again. You havent
thought
Oh yes, Mrs. Fyne! I have thought. I am still
thinking. I am even trying to think like you.
Mr. Marlow, she said earnestly. Believe
me that I really am thinking of my brother in all this . . .
I assured her that I quite believed she was. For there is no law
of nature making it impossible to think of more than one person at a
time. Then I said:
She has told him all about herself of course.
All about her life, assented Mrs. Fyne with an air,
however, of making some mental reservation which I did not pause to
investigate. Her life! I repeated. That
girl must have had a mighty bad time of it.
Horrible, Mrs. Fyne admitted with a ready frankness
very creditable under the circumstances, and a warmth of tone which
made me look at her with a friendly eye. Horrible!
No! You cant imagine the sort of vulgar people she became
dependent on . . . You know her father never attempted to see her while
he was still at large. After his arrest he instructed that relative
of histhe odious person who took her away from Brightonnot
to let his daughter come to the court during the trial. He refused
to hold any communication with her whatever.
I remembered what Mrs. Fyne had told me before of the view she had
years ago of de Barral clinging to the child at the side of his wifes
grave and later on of these two walking hand in hand the observed of
all eyes by the sea. Pictures from Dickenspregnant with
pathos.
CHAPTER SIXFLORA
A very singular prohibition, remarked Mrs. Fyne after
a short silence. He seemed to love the child.
She was puzzled. But I surmised that it might have been the
sullenness of a man unconscious of guilt and standing at bay to fight
his persecutors, as he called them; or else the fear of
a softer emotion weakening his defiant attitude; perhaps, even, it was
a self-denying ordinance, in order to spare the girl the sight of her
father in the dock, accused of cheating, sentenced as a swindlerproving
the possession of a certain moral delicacy.
Mrs. Fyne didnt know what to think. She supposed it
might have been mere callousness. But the people amongst whom
the girl had fallen had positively not a grain of moral delicacy.
Of that she was certain. Mrs. Fyne could not undertake to give
me an idea of their abominable vulgarity. Flora used to tell her
something of her life in that household, over there, down Limehouse
way. It was incredible. It passed Mrs. Fynes comprehension.
It was a sort of moral savagery which she could not have thought possible.
I, on the contrary, thought it very possible. I could imagine
easily how the poor girl must have been bewildered and hurt at her reception
in that householdenvied for her past while delivered defenceless
to the tender mercies of people without any fineness either of feeling
or mind, unable to understand her misery, grossly curious, mistaking
her manner for disdain, her silent shrinking for pride. The wife
of the odious person was witless and fatuously conceited.
Of the two girls of the house one was pious and the other a romp; both
were coarse-mindedif they may be credited with any mind at all.
The rather numerous men of the family were dense and grumpy, or dense
and jocose. None in that grubbing lot had enough humanity to leave
her alone. At first she was made much of, in an offensively patronising
manner. The connection with the great de Barral gratified their
vanity even in the moment of the smash. They dragged her to their
place of worship, whatever it might have been, where the congregation
stared at her, and they gave parties to other beings like themselves
at which they exhibited her with ignoble self-satisfaction. She
did not know how to defend herself from their importunities, insolence
and exigencies. She lived amongst them, a passive victim, quivering
in every nerve, as if she were flayed. After the trial her position
became still worse. On the least occasion and even on no occasions
at all she was scolded, or else taunted with her dependence. The
pious girl lectured her on her defects, the romping girl teased her
with contemptuous references to her accomplishments, and was always
trying to pick insensate quarrels with her about some fellow
or other. The mother backed up her girls invariably, adding her
own silly, wounding remarks. I must say they were probably not
aware of the ugliness of their conduct. They were nasty amongst
themselves as a matter of course; their disputes were nauseating in
origin, in manner, in the spirit of mean selfishness. These women,
too, seemed to enjoy greatly any sort of row and were always ready to
combine together to make awful scenes to the luckless girl on incredibly
flimsy pretences. Thus Flora on one occasion had been reduced
to rage and despair, had her most secret feelings lacerated, had obtained
a view of the utmost baseness to which common human nature can descendI
wont say a propos de bottes as the French would
excellently put it, but literally a propos of some mislaid
cheap lace trimmings for a nightgown the romping one was making for
herself. Yes, that was the origin of one of the grossest scenes
which, in their repetition, must have had a deplorable effect on the
unformed character of the most pitiful of de Barrals victims.
I have it from Mrs. Fyne. The girl turned up at the Fynes
house at half-past nine on a cold, drizzly evening. She had walked
bareheaded, I believe, just as she ran out of the house, from somewhere
in Poplar to the neighbourhood of Sloane Squarewithout stopping,
without drawing breath, if only for a sob.
We were having some people to dinner, said the anxious
sister of Captain Anthony.
She had heard the front door bell and wondered what it might mean.
The parlourmaid managed to whisper to her without attracting attention.
The servants had been frightened by the invasion of that wild girl in
a muddy skirt and with wisps of damp hair sticking to her pale cheeks.
But they had seen her before. This was not the first occasion,
nor yet the last.
Directly she could slip away from her guests Mrs. Fyne ran upstairs.
I found her in the night nursery crouching on the floor, her
head resting on the cot of the youngest of my girls. The eldest
was sitting up in bed looking at her across the room.
Only a nightlight was burning there. Mrs. Fyne raised her up,
took her over to Mr. Fynes little dressing-room on the other
side of the landing, to a fire by which she could dry herself, and left
her there. She had to go back to her guests.
A most disagreeable surprise it must have been to the Fynes.
Afterwards they both went up and interviewed the girl. She jumped
up at their entrance. She had shaken her damp hair loose; her
eyes were drywith the heat of rage.
I can imagine little Fyne solemnly sympathetic, solemnly listening,
solemnly retreating to the marital bedroom. Mrs. Fyne pacified
the girl, and, fortunately, there was a bed which could be made up for
her in the dressing-room.
Butwhat could one do after all! concluded Mrs.
Fyne.
And this stereotyped exclamation, expressing the difficulty of the
problem and the readiness (at any rate) of good intentions, made me,
as usual, feel more kindly towards her.
Next morning, very early, long before Fyne had to start for his office,
the odious personage turned up, not exactly unexpected
perhaps, but startling all the same, if only by the promptness of his
action. From what Flora herself related to Mrs. Fyne, it seems
that without being very perceptibly less odious than his
family he had in a rather mysterious fashion interposed his authority
for the protection of the girl. Not that he cares,
explained Flora. I am sure he does not. I could not
stand being liked by any of these people. If I thought he liked
me I would drown myself rather than go back with him.
For of course he had come to take Florrie home.
The scene was the dining-roombreakfast interrupted, dishes growing
cold, little Fynes toast growing leathery, Fyne out of his chair
with his back to the fire, the newspaper on the carpet, servants shut
out, Mrs. Fyne rigid in her place with the girl sitting beside herthe
odious person, who had bustled in with hardly a greeting,
looking from Fyne to Mrs. Fyne as though he were inwardly amused at
something he knew of them; and then beginning ironically his discourse.
He did not apologize for disturbing Fyne and his good lady
at breakfast, because he knew they did not want (with a nod at the girl)
to have more of her than could be helped. He came the first possible
moment because he had his business to attend to. He wasnt
drawing a tip-top salary (this staring at Fyne) in a luxuriously furnished
office. Not he. He had risen to be an employer of labour
and was bound to give a good example.
I believe the fellow was aware of, and enjoyed quietly, the consternation
his presence brought to the bosom of Mr. and Mrs. Fyne. He turned
briskly to the girl. Mrs. Fyne confessed to me that they had remained
all three silent and inanimate. He turned to the girl: Whats
this game, Florrie? You had better give it up. If you expect
me to run all over London looking for you every time you happen to have
a tiff with your auntie and cousins you are mistaken. I cant
afford it.
Tiffwas the sort of definition to take ones breath
away, having regard to the fact that both the word convict and the word
pauper had been used a moment before Flora de Barral ran away from the
quarrel about the lace trimmings. Yes, these very words!
So at least the girl had told Mrs. Fyne the evening before. The
word tiff in connection with her tale had a peculiar savour, a paralysing
effect. Nobody made a sound. The relative of de Barral proceeded
uninterrupted to a display of magnanimity. Auntie told
me to tell you shes sorrythere! And Amelia (the
romping sister) shant worry you again. Ill see to
that. You ought to be satisfied. Remember your position.
Emboldened by the utter stillness pervading the room he addressed
himself to Mrs. Fyne with stolid effrontery:
What I say is that people should be good-natured. She
cant stand being chaffed. She puts on her grand airs.
She wont take a bit of a joke from people as good as herself
anyway. We are a plain lot. We dont like it.
And thats how trouble begins.
Insensible to the stony stare of three pairs of eyes, which, if the
stories of our childhood as to the power of the human eye are true,
ought to have been enough to daunt a tiger, that unabashed manufacturer
from the East End fastened his fangs, figuratively speaking, into the
poor girl and prepared to drag her away for a prey to his cubs of both
sexes. Auntie has thought of sending you your hat and coat.
Ive got them outside in the cab.
Mrs. Fyne looked mechanically out of the window. A four-wheeler
stood before the gate under the weeping sky. The driver in his
conical cape and tarpaulin hat, streamed with water. The drooping
horse looked as though it had been fished out, half unconscious, from
a pond. Mrs. Fyne found some relief in looking at that miserable
sight, away from the room in which the voice of the amiable visitor
resounded with a vulgar intonation exhorting the strayed sheep to return
to the delightful fold. Come, Florrie, make a move.
I cant wait on you all day here.
Mrs. Fyne heard all this without turning her head away from the window.
Fyne on the hearthrug had to listen and to look on too. I shall
not try to form a surmise as to the real nature of the suspense.
Their very goodness must have made it very anxious. The girls
hands were lying in her lap; her head was lowered as if in deep thought;
and the other went on delivering a sort of homily. Ingratitude
was condemned in it, the sinfulness of pride was pointed outtogether
with the proverbial fact that it goes before a fall.
There were also some sound remarks as to the danger of nonsensical notions
and the disadvantages of a quick temper. It sets ones best
friends against one. And if anybody ever wanted friends
in the world its you, my girl. Even respect for
parental authority was invoked. In the first hour of his
trouble your father wrote to me to take care of youdont
forget it. Yes, to me, just a plain man, rather than to any of
his fine West-End friends. You cant get over that.
And a fathers a father no matter what a mess hes got himself
into. You aint going to throw over your own fatherare
you?
It was difficult to say whether he was more absurd than cruel or
more cruel than absurd. Mrs. Fyne, with the fine ear of a woman,
seemed to detect a jeering intention in his meanly unctuous tone, something
more vile than mere cruelty. She glanced quickly over her shoulder
and saw the girl raise her two hands to her head, then let them fall
again on her lap. Fyne in front of the fire was like the victim
of an unholy spellbereft of motion and speech but obviously in
pain. It was a short pause of perfect silence, and then that odious
creature (he must have been really a remarkable individual in
his way) struck out into sarcasm.
Well? . . . Again a silence. If
you have fixed it up with the lady and gentleman present here for your
board and lodging you had better say so. I dont want to
interfere in a bargain I know nothing of. But I wonder how your
father will take it when he comes out . . . or dont you expect
him ever to come out?
At that moment, Mrs. Fyne told me she met the girls eyes.
There was that in them which made her shut her own. She also felt
as though she would have liked to put her fingers in her ears.
She restrained herself, however; and the plain man passed
in his appalling versatility from sarcasm to veiled menace.
You haveeh? Well and good. But before I
go home let me ask you, my girl, to think if by any chance you throwing
us over like this wont be rather bad for your father later on?
Just think it over.
He looked at his victim with an air of cunning mystery. She
jumped up so suddenly that he started back. Mrs. Fyne rose too,
and even the spell was removed from her husband. But the girl
dropped again into the chair and turned her head to look at Mrs. Fyne.
This time it was no accidental meeting of fugitive glances. It
was a deliberate communication. To my question as to its nature
Mrs. Fyne said she did not know. Was it appealing?
I suggested. No, she said. Was it frightened,
angry, crushed, resigned? No! No! Nothing
of these. But it had frightened her. She remembered
it to this day. She had been ever since fancying she could detect
the lingering reflection of that look in all the girls glances.
In the attentive, in the casualeven in the grateful glancesin
the expression of the softest moods.
Has she her soft moods, then? I asked with interest.
Mrs Fyne, much moved by her recollections, heeded not my inquiry.
All her mental energy was concentrated on the nature of that memorable
glance. The general tradition of mankind teaches us that glances
occupy a considerable place in the self-expression of women. Mrs.
Fyne was trying honestly to give me some idea, as much perhaps to satisfy
her own uneasiness as my curiosity. She was frowning in the effort
as you see sometimes a child do (what is delightful in women is that
they so often resemble intelligent childrenI mean the crustiest,
the sourest, the most battered of them doat times). She
was frowning, I say, and I was beginning to smile faintly at her when
all at once she came out with something totally unexpected.
It was horribly merry, she said.
I suppose she must have been satisfied by my sudden gravity because
she looked at me in a friendly manner.
Yes, Mrs. Fyne, I said, smiling no longer. I
see. It would have been horrible even on the stage.
Ah! she interrupted meand I really believe her
change of attitude back to folded arms was meant to check a shudder.
But it wasnt on the stage, and it was not with her lips
that she laughed.
Yes. It must have been horrible, I assented.
And then she had to go away ultimatelyI suppose.
You didnt say anything?
No, said Mrs. Fyne. I rang the bell and
told one of the maids to go and bring the hat and coat out of the cab.
And then we waited.
I dont think that there ever was such waiting unless possibly
in a jail at some moment or other on the morning of an execution.
The servant appeared with the hat and coat, and then, still as on the
morning of an execution, when the condemned, I believe, is offered a
breakfast, Mrs. Fyne, anxious that the white-faced girl should swallow
something warm (if she could) before leaving her house for an interminable
drive through raw cold air in a damp four-wheelerMrs. Fyne broke
the awful silence: You really must try to eat something,
in her best resolute manner. She turned to the odious person
with the same determination. Perhaps you will sit down
and have a cup of coffee, too.
The worthy employer of labour sat down. He might
have been awed by Mrs. Fynes peremptory mannerfor she
did not think of conciliating him then. He sat down, provisionally,
like a man who finds himself much against his will in doubtful company.
He accepted ungraciously the cup handed to him by Mrs. Fyne, took an
unwilling sip or two and put it down as if there were some moral contamination
in the coffee of these swells. Between whiles he
directed mysteriously inexpressive glances at little Fyne, who, I gather,
had no breakfast that morning at all. Neither had the girl.
She never moved her hands from her lap till her appointed guardian got
up, leaving his cup half full.
Well. If you dont mean to take advantage of this
ladys kind offer I may just as well take you home at once.
I want to begin my dayI do.
After a few more dumb, leaden-footed minutes while Flora was putting
on her hat and jacket, the Fynes without moving, without saying anything,
saw these two leave the room.
She never looked back at us, said Mrs. Fyne.
She just followed him out. Ive never had such a
crushing impression of the miserable dependence of girlsof women.
This was an extreme case. But a young manany mancould
have gone to break stones on the roads or something of that kindor
enlistedor
It was very true. Women cant go forth on the high roads
and by-ways to pick up a living even when dignity, independence, or
existence itself are at stake. But what made me interrupt Mrs.
Fynes tirade was my profound surprise at the fact of that respectable
citizen being so willing to keep in his home the poor girl for whom
it seemed there was no place in the world. And not only willing
but anxious. I couldnt credit him with generous impulses.
For it seemed obvious to me from what I had learned that, to put it
mildly, he was not an impulsive person.
I confess that I cant understand his motive,
I exclaimed.
This is exactly what John wondered at, at first, said
Mrs. Fyne. By that time an intimacyif not exactly confidencehad
sprung up between us which permitted her in this discussion to refer
to her husband as John. You know he had not opened his
lips all that time, she pursued. I dont blame
his restraint. On the contrary. What could he have said?
I could see he was observing the man very thoughtfully.
And so, Mr. Fyne listened, observed and meditated,
I said. Thats an excellent way of coming to a conclusion.
And may I ask at what conclusion he had managed to arrive? On
what ground did he cease to wonder at the inexplicable? For I
cant admit humanity to be the explanation. It would be
too monstrous.
It was nothing of the sort, Mrs. Fyne assured me with some resentment,
as though I had aspersed little Fynes sanity. Fyne very
sensibly had set himself the mental task of discovering the self-interest.
I should not have thought him capable of so much cynicism. He
said to himself that for people of that sort (religious fears or the
vanity of righteousness put aside) moneynot great wealth, but
money, just a little moneyis the measure of virtue, of expediency,
of wisdomof pretty well everything. But the girl was absolutely
destitute. The father was in prison after the most terribly complete
and disgraceful smash of modern times. And then it dawned upon
Fyne that this was just it. The great smash, in the great dust
of vanishing millions! Was it possible that they all had vanished
to the last penny? Wasnt there, somewhere, something palpable;
some fragment of the fabric left?
Thats it, had exclaimed Fyne, startling his
wife by this explosive unseating of his lips less than half an hour
after the departure of de Barrals cousin with de Barrals
daughter. It was still in the dining-room, very near the time
for him to go forth affronting the elements in order to put in another
days work in his countrys service. All he could
say at the moment in elucidation of this breakdown from his usual placid
solemnity was:
The fellow imagines that de Barral has got some plunder put
away somewhere.
This being the theory arrived at by Fyne, his comment on it was that
a good many bankrupts had been known to have taken such a precaution.
It was possible in de Barrals case. Fyne went so far in
his display of cynical pessimism as to say that it was extremely probable.
He explained at length to Mrs. Fyne that de Barral certainly did
not take anyone into his confidence. But the beastly relative
had made up his low mind that it was so. He was selfish and pitiless
in his stupidity, but he had clearly conceived the notion of making
a claim on de Barral when de Barral came out of prison on the strength
of having looked after (as he would have himself expressed
it) his daughter. He nursed his hopes, such as they were, in secret,
and it is to be supposed kept them even from his wife.
I could see it very well. That belief accounted for his mysterious
air while he interfered in favour of the girl. He was the only
protector she had. It was as though Flora had been fated to be
always surrounded by treachery and lies stifling every better impulse,
every instinctive aspiration of her soul to trust and to love.
It would have been enough to drive a fine nature into the madness of
universal suspicioninto any sort of madness. I dont
know how far a sense of humour will stand by one. To the foot
of the gallows, perhaps. But from my recollection of Flora de
Barral I feared that she hadnt much sense of humour. She
had cried at the desertion of the absurd Fyne dog. That animal
was certainly free from duplicity. He was frank and simple and
ridiculous. The indignation of the girl at his unhypocritical
behaviour had been funny but not humorous.
As you may imagine I was not very anxious to resume the discussion
on the justice, expediency, effectiveness or what not, of Fynes
journey to London. It isnt that I was unfaithful to little
Fyne out in the porch with the dog. (They kept amazingly quiet
there. Could they have gone to sleep?) What I felt was that
either my sagacity or my conscience would come out damaged from that
campaign. And no man will willingly put himself in the way of
moral damage. I did not want a war with Mrs. Fyne. I much
preferred to hear something more of the girl. I said:
And so she went away with that respectable ruffian.
Mrs. Fyne moved her shoulders slightlyWhat else could
she have done? I agreed with her by another hopeless gesture.
It isnt so easy for a girl like Flora de Barral to become a factory
hand, a pathetic seamstress or even a barmaid. She wouldnt
have known how to begin. She was the captive of the meanest conceivable
fate. And she wasnt mean enough for it. It is to
be remarked that a good many people are born curiously unfitted for
the fate awaiting them on this earth. As I dont want you
to think that I am unduly partial to the girl we shall say that she
failed decidedly to endear herself to that simple, virtuous and, I believe,
teetotal household. Its my conviction that an angel would
have failed likewise. Its no use going into details; suffice
it to state that before the year was out she was again at the Fynes
door.
This time she was escorted by a stout youth. His large pale
face wore a smile of inane cunning soured by annoyance. His clothes
were new and the indescribable smartness of their cut, a genre
which had never been obtruded on her notice before, astonished Mrs.
Fyne, who came out into the hall with her hat on; for she was about
to go out to hear a new pianist (a girl) in a friends house.
The youth addressing Mrs. Fyne easily begged her not to let that
silly thing go back to us any more. There had been, he
said, nothing but ructions at home about her for the last
three weeks. Everybody in the family was heartily sick of quarrelling.
His governor had charged him to bring her to this address and say that
the lady and gentleman were quite welcome to all there was in it.
She hadnt enough sense to appreciate a plain, honest English
home and she was better out of it.
The young, pimply-faced fellow was vexed by this job his governor
had sprung on him. It was the cause of his missing an appointment
for that afternoon with a certain young lady. The lady he was
engaged to. But he meant to dash back and try for a sight of her
that evening yet if he were to burst over it. Good-bye,
Florrie. Good luck to youand I hope Ill never see
your face again.
With that he ran out in lover-like haste leaving the hall-door wide
open. Mrs. Fyne had not found a word to say. She had been
too much taken aback even to gasp freely. But she had the presence
of mind to grab the girls arm just as she, too, was running out
into the streetwith the haste, I suppose, of despair and to keep
I dont know what tragic tryst.
You stopped her with your own hand, Mrs. Fyne, I said.
I presume she meant to get away. That girl is no comedianif
I am any judge.
Yes! I had to use some force to drag her in.
Mrs. Fyne had no difficulty in stating the truth. You
see I was in the very act of letting myself out when these two appeared.
So that, when that unpleasant young man ran off, I found myself alone
with Flora. It was all I could do to hold her in the hall while
I called to the servants to come and shut the door.
As is my habit, or my weakness, or my gift, I dont know which,
I visualized the story for myself. I really cant help it.
And the vision of Mrs. Fyne dressed for a rather special afternoon function,
engaged in wrestling with a wild-eyed, white-faced girl had a certain
dramatic fascination.
Really! I murmured.
Oh! Theres no doubt that she struggled,
said Mrs. Fyne. She compressed her lips for a moment and then
added: As to her being a comedian thats another question.
Mrs. Fyne had returned to her attitude of folded arms. I saw
before me the daughter of the refined poet accepting life whole with
its unavoidable conditions of which one of the first is the instinct
of self-preservation and the egoism of every living creature.
The fact remains nevertheless that youyourselfhave,
in your own words, pulled her in, I insisted in a jocular tone,
with a serious intention.
What was one to do, exclaimed Mrs. Fyne with almost
comic exasperation. Are you reproaching me with being too
impulsive?
And she went on telling me that she was not that in the least.
One of the recommendations she always insisted on (to the girl-friends,
I imagine) was to be on guard against impulse. Always! But
I had not been there to see the face of Flora at the time. If
I had it would be haunting me to this day. Nobody unless made
of iron would have allowed a human being with a face like that to rush
out alone into the streets.
And doesnt it haunt you, Mrs. Fyne? I asked.
No, not now, she said implacably. Perhaps
if I had let her go it might have done . . . Dont conclude, though,
that I think she was playing a comedy then, because after struggling
at first she ended by remaining. She gave up very suddenly.
She collapsed in our arms, mine and the maids who came running
up in response to my calls, and . . .
And the door was then shut, I completed the phrase
in my own way.
Yes, the door was shut, Mrs. Fyne lowered and raised
her head slowly.
I did not ask her for details. Of one thing I am certain, and
that is that Mrs. Fyne did not go out to the musical function that afternoon.
She was no doubt considerably annoyed at missing the privilege of hearing
privately an interesting young pianist (a girl) who, since, had become
one of the recognized performers. Mrs. Fyne did not dare leave
her house. As to the feelings of little Fyne when he came home
from the office, via his club, just half an hour before dinner, I have
no information. But I venture to affirm that in the main they
were kindly, though it is quite possible that in the first moment of
surprise he had to keep down a swear-word or two.
* * * * *
The long and the short of it all is that next day the Fynes made
up their minds to take into their confidence a certain wealthy old lady.
With certain old ladies the passing years bring back a sort of mellowed
youthfulness of feeling, an optimistic outlook, liking for novelty,
readiness for experiment. The old lady was very much interested:
Do let me see the poor thing! She was accordingly
allowed to see Flora de Barral in Mrs. Fynes drawing-room on
a day when there was no one else there, and she preached to her with
charming, sympathetic authority: The only way to deal with our
troubles, my dear child, is to forget them. You must forget yours.
Its very simple. Look at me. I always forget mine.
At your age one ought to be cheerful.
Later on when left alone with Mrs. Fyne she said to that lady: I
do hope the child will manage to be cheerful. I cant have
sad faces near me. At my age one needs cheerful companions.
And in this hope she carried off Flora de Barral to Bournemouth for
the winter months in the quality of reader and companion. She
had said to her with kindly jocularity: We shall have a good
time together. I am not a grumpy old woman. But on
their return to London she sought Mrs. Fyne at once. She had discovered
that Flora was not naturally cheerful. When she made efforts to
be it was still worse. The old lady couldnt stand the strain
of that. And then, to have the whole thing out, she could not
bear to have for a companion anyone who did not love her. She
was certain that Flora did not love her. Why? She couldnt
say. Moreover, she had caught the girl looking at her in a peculiar
way at times. Oh no!it was not an evil lookit was
an unusual expression which one could not understand. And when
one remembered that her father was in prison shut up together with a
lot of criminals and so onit made one uncomfortable. If
the child had only tried to forget her troubles! But she obviously
was incapable or unwilling to do so. And that was somewhat perversewasnt
it? Upon the whole, she thought it would be better perhaps
Mrs. Fyne assented hurriedly to the unspoken conclusion: Oh
certainly! Certainly, wondering to herself what was to
be done with Flora next; but she was not very much surprised at the
change in the old ladys view of Flora de Barral. She almost
understood it.
What came next was a German family, the continental acquaintances
of the wife of one of Fynes colleagues in the Home Office.
Flora of the enigmatical glances was dispatched to them without much
reflection. As it was not considered absolutely necessary to take
them into full confidence, they neither expected the girl to be specially
cheerful nor were they discomposed unduly by the indescribable quality
of her glances. The German woman was quite ordinary; there were
two boys to look after; they were ordinary, too, I presume; and Flora,
I understand, was very attentive to them. If she taught them anything
it must have been by inspiration alone, for she certainly knew nothing
of teaching. But it was mostly conversation which
was demanded from her. Flora de Barral conversing with two small
German boys, regularly, industriously, conscientiously, in order to
keep herself alive in the world which held for her the past we know
and the future of an even more undesirable qualityseems to me
a very fantastic combination. But I believe it was not so bad.
She was being, she wrote, mercifully drugged by her task. She
had learned to converse all day long, mechanically, absently,
as if in a trance. An uneasy trance it must have been! Her
worst moments were when off dutyalone in the evening, shut up
in her own little room, her dulled thoughts waking up slowly till she
started into the full consciousness of her position, like a person waking
up in contact with something venomousa snake, for instanceexperiencing
a mad impulse to fling the thing away and run off screaming to hide
somewhere.
At this period of her existence Flora de Barral used to write to
Mrs. Fyne not regularly but fairly often. I dont know how
long she would have gone on conversing and, incidentally,
helping to supervise the beautifully stocked linen closets of that well-to-do
German household, if the man of it had not developed in the intervals
of his avocations (he was a merchant and a thoroughly domesticated character)
a psychological resemblance to the Bournemouth old lady. It appeared
that he, too, wanted to be loved.
He was not, however, of a conquering temperamenta kiss-snatching,
door-bursting type of libertine. In the very act of straying from
the path of virtue he remained a respectable merchant. It would
have been perhaps better for Flora if he had been a mere brute.
But he set about his sinister enterprise in a sentimental, cautious,
almost paternal manner; and thought he would be safe with a pretty orphan.
The girl for all her experience was still too innocent, and indeed not
yet sufficiently aware of herself as a woman, to mistrust these masked
approaches. She did not see them, in fact. She thought him
sympatheticthe first expressively sympathetic person she had
ever met. She was so innocent that she could not understand the
fury of the German woman. For, as you may imagine, the wifely
penetration was not to be deceived for any great length of timethe
more so that the wife was older than the husband. The man with
the peculiar cowardice of respectability never said a word in Floras
defence. He stood by and heard her reviled in the most abusive
terms, only nodding and frowning vaguely from time to time. It
will give you the idea of the girls innocence when I say that
at first she actually thought this storm of indignant reproaches was
caused by the discovery of her real name and her relation to a convict.
She had been sent out under an assumed namea highly recommended
orphan of honourable parentage. Her distress, her burning cheeks,
her endeavours to express her regret for this deception were taken for
a confession of guilt. You attempted to bring dishonour
to my home, the German woman screamed at her.
Heres a misunderstanding for you! Flora de Barral, who
felt the shame but did not believe in the guilt of her father, retorted
fiercely, Nevertheless I am as honourable as you are.
And then the German woman nearly went into a fit from rage. I
shall have you thrown out into the street.
Flora was not exactly thrown out into the street, I believe, but
she was bundled bag and baggage on board a steamer for London.
Did I tell you these people lived in Hamburg? Well yessent
to the docks late on a rainy winter evening in charge of some sneering
lackey or other who behaved to her insolently and left her on deck burning
with indignation, her hair half down, shaking with excitement and, truth
to say, scared as near as possible into hysterics. If it had not
been for the stewardess who, without asking questions, good soul, took
charge of her quietly in the ladies saloon (luckily it was empty)
it is by no means certain she would ever have reached England.
I cant tell if a straw ever saved a drowning man, but I know
that a mere glance is enough to make despair pause. For in truth
we who are creatures of impulse are not creatures of despair.
Suicide, I suspect, is very often the outcome of mere mental wearinessnot
an act of savage energy but the final symptom of complete collapse.
The quiet, matter-of-fact attentions of a ships stewardess, who
did not seem aware of other human agonies than sea-sickness, who talked
of the probable weather of the passageit would be a rough night,
she thoughtand who insisted in a professionally busy manner,
Let me make you comfortable down below at once, miss,
as though she were thinking of nothing else but her tipwas enough
to dissipate the shades of death gathering round the mortal weariness
of bewildered thinking which makes the idea of non-existence welcome
so often to the young. Flora de Barral did lie down, and it may
be presumed she slept. At any rate she survived the voyage across
the North Sea and told Mrs. Fyne all about it, concealing nothing and
receiving no rebukefor Mrs. Fynes opinions had a large
freedom in their pedantry. She held, I suppose, that a woman holds
an absolute rightor possesses a perfect excuseto escape
in her own way from a man-mismanaged world.
* * * * *
What is to be noted is that even in London, having had time to take
a reflective view, poor Flora was far from being certain as to the true
inwardness of her violent dismissal. She felt the humiliation
of it with an almost maddened resentment.
And did you enlighten her on the point? I ventured
to ask.
Mrs. Fyne moved her shoulders with a philosophical acceptance of
all the necessities which ought not to be. Something had to be
said, she murmured. She had told the girl enough to make her come
to the right conclusion by herself.
And she did?
Yes. Of course. She isnt a goose,
retorted Mrs. Fyne tartly.
Then her education is completed, I remarked with some
bitterness. Dont you think she ought to be given
a chance?
Mrs. Fyne understood my meaning.
Not this one, she snapped in a quite feminine way.
Its all very well for you to plead, but I
I do not plead. I simply asked. It seemed natural
to ask what you thought.
Its what I feel that matters. And I cant
help my feelings. You may guess, she added in a softer
tone, that my feelings are mostly concerned with my brother.
We were very fond of each other. The difference of our ages was
not very great. I suppose you know he is a little younger than
I am. He was a sensitive boy. He had the habit of brooding.
It is no use concealing from you that neither of us was happy at home.
You have heard, no doubt . . . Yes? Well, I was made still more
unhappy and hurtI dont mind telling you that. He
made his way to some distant relations of our mothers people
who I believe were not known to my father at all. I dont
wish to judge their action.
I interrupted Mrs. Fyne here. I had heard. Fyne was not
very communicative in general, but he was proud of his father-in-lawCarleon
Anthony, the poet, you know. Proud of his celebrity without
approving of his character. It was on that account, I strongly
suspect, that he seized with avidity upon the theory of poetical genius
being allied to madness, which he got hold of in some idiotic book everybody
was reading a few years ago. It struck him as being truth itselfilluminating
like the sun. He adopted it devoutly. He bored me with it
sometimes. Once, just to shut him up, I asked quietly if this
theory which he regarded as so incontrovertible did not cause him some
uneasiness about his wife and the dear girls? He transfixed me
with a pitying stare and requested me in his deep solemn voice to remember
the well-established fact that genius was not transmissible.
I said only Oh! Isnt it? and he thought
he had silenced me by an unanswerable argument. But he continued
to talk of his glorious father-in-law, and it was in the course of that
conversation that he told me how, when the Liverpool relations of the
poets late wife naturally addressed themselves to him in considerable
concern, suggesting a friendly consultation as to the boys future,
the incensed (but always refined) poet wrote in answer a letter of mere
polished badinage which offended mortally the Liverpool people.
This witty outbreak of what was in fact mortification and rage appeared
to them so heartless that they simply kept the boy. They let him
go to sea not because he was in their way but because he begged hard
to be allowed to go.
Oh! You do know, said Mrs. Fyne after a pause.
WellI felt myself very much abandoned. Then his
choice of lifeso extraordinary, so unfortunate, I may say.
I was very much grieved. I should have liked him to have been
distinguishedor at any rate to remain in the social sphere where
we could have had common interests, acquaintances, thoughts. Dont
think that I am estranged from him. But the precise truth is that
I do not know him. I was most painfully affected when he was here
by the difficulty of finding a single topic we could discuss together.
While Mrs. Fyne was talking of her brother I let my thoughts wander
out of the room to little Fyne who by leaving me alone with his wife
had, so to speak, entrusted his domestic peace to my honour.
Well, then, Mrs. Fyne, does it not strike you that it would
be reasonable under the circumstances to let your brother take care
of himself?
And suppose I have grounds to think that he cant take
care of himself in a given instance. She hesitated in a
funny, bashful manner which roused my interest. Then:
Sailors I believe are very susceptible, she added with
forced assurance.
I burst into a laugh which only increased the coldness of her observing
stare.
They are. Immensely! Hopelessly! My dear
Mrs. Fyne, you had better give it up! It only makes your husband
miserable.
And I am quite miserable too. It is really our first
difference . . .
Regarding Miss de Barral? I asked.
Regarding everything. Its really intolerable
that this girl should be the occasion. I think he really ought
to give way.
She turned her chair round a little and picking up the book I had
been reading in the morning began to turn the leaves absently.
Her eyes being off me, I felt I could allow myself to leave the room.
Its atmosphere had become hopeless for little Fynes domestic
peace. You may smile. But to the solemn all things are solemn.
I had enough sagacity to understand that.
I slipped out into the porch. The dog was slumbering at Fynes
feet. The muscular little man leaning on his elbow and gazing
over the fields presented a forlorn figure. He turned his head
quickly, but seeing I was alone, relapsed into his moody contemplation
of the green landscape.
I said loudly and distinctly: Ive come out to smoke
a cigarette, and sat down near him on the little bench.
Then lowering my voice: Tolerance is an extremely difficult virtue,
I said. More difficult for some than heroism. More
difficult than compassion.
I avoided looking at him. I knew well enough that he would
not like this opening. General ideas were not to his taste.
He mistrusted them. I lighted a cigarette, not that I wanted to
smoke, but to give another moment to the consideration of the advicethe
diplomatic advice I had made up my mind to bowl him over with.
And I continued in subdued tones.
I have been led to make these remarks by what I have discovered
since you left us. I suspected from the first. And now I
am certain. What your wife cannot tolerate in this affair is Miss
de Barral being what she is.
He made a movement, but I kept my eyes away from him and went on
steadily. That isher being a woman. I have
some idea of Mrs. Fynes mental attitude towards society with
its injustices, with its atrocious or ridiculous conventions.
As against them there is no audacity of action your wifes mind
refuses to sanction. The doctrine which I imagine she stuffs into
the pretty heads of your girl-guests is almost vengeful. A sort
of moral fire-and-sword doctrine. How far the lesson is wise is
not for me to say. I dont permit myself to judge.
I seem to see her very delightful disciples singeing themselves with
the torches, and cutting their fingers with the swords of Mrs. Fynes
furnishing.
My wife holds her opinions very seriously, murmured
Fyne suddenly.
Yes. No doubt, I assented in a low voice as before.
But it is a mere intellectual exercise. What I see is that
in dealing with reality Mrs. Fyne ceases to be tolerant. In other
words, that she cant forgive Miss de Barral for being a woman
and behaving like a woman. And yet this is not only reasonable
and natural, but it is her only chance. A woman against the world
has no resources but in herself. Her only means of action is to
be what she is. You understand what I mean.
Fyne mumbled between his teeth that he understood. But he did
not seem interested. What he expected of me was to extricate him
from a difficult situation. I dont know how far credible
this may sound, to less solemn married couples, but to remain at variance
with his wife seemed to him a considerable incident. Almost a
disaster.
It looks as though I didnt care what happened to her
brother, he said. And after all if anything . .
.
I became a little impatient but without raising my tone:
What thing? I asked. The liability to
get penal servitude is so far like genius that it isnt hereditary.
And what else can be objected to the girl? All the energy of her
deeper feelings, which she would use up vainly in the danger and fatigue
of a struggle with society may be turned into devoted attachment to
the man who offers her a way of escape from what can be only a life
of moral anguish. I dont mention the physical difficulties.
Glancing at Fyne out of the corner of one eye I discovered that he
was attentive. He made the remark that I should have said all
this to his wife. It was a sensible enough remark. But I
had given Mrs. Fyne up. I asked him if his impression was that
his wife meant to entrust him with a letter for her brother?
No. He didnt think so. There were certain reasons
which made Mrs. Fyne unwilling to commit her arguments to paper.
Fyne was to be primed with them. But he had no doubt that if he
persisted in his refusal she would make up her mind to write.
She does not wish me to go unless with a full conviction that
she is right, said Fyne solemnly.
Shes very exacting, I commented. And then
I reflected that she was used to it. Would nothing less
do for once?
You dont mean that I should give waydo you?
asked Fyne in a whisper of alarmed suspicion.
As this was exactly what I meant, I let his fright sink into him.
He fidgeted. If the word may be used of so solemn a personage,
he wriggled. And when the horrid suspicion had descended into
his very heels, so to speak, he became very still. He sat gazing
stonily into space bounded by the yellow, burnt-up slopes of the rising
ground a couple of miles away. The face of the down showed the
white scar of the quarry where not more than sixteen hours before Fyne
and I had been groping in the dark with horrible apprehension of finding
under our hands the shattered body of a girl. For myself I had
in addition the memory of my meeting with her. She was certainly
walking very near the edgecourting a sinister solution.
But, now, having by the most unexpected chance come upon a man, she
had found another way to escape from the world. Such world as
was open to herwithout shelter, without bread, without honour.
The best she could have found in it would have been a precarious dole
of pity diminishing as her years increased. The appeal of the
abandoned child Flora to the sympathies of the Fynes had been irresistible.
But now she had become a woman, and Mrs. Fyne was presenting an implacable
front to a particularly feminine transaction. I may say triumphantly
feminine. It is true that Mrs. Fyne did not want women to be women.
Her theory was that they should turn themselves into unscrupulous sexless
nuisances. An offended theorist dwelt in her bosom somewhere.
In what way she expected Flora de Barral to set about saving herself
from a most miserable existence I cant conceive; but I verify
believe that she would have found it easier to forgive the girl an actual
crime; say the rifling of the Bournemouth old ladys desk, for
instance. And thenfor Mrs. Fyne was very much of a woman
herselfher sense of proprietorship was very strong within her;
and though she had not much use for her brother, yet she did not like
to see him annexed by another woman. By a chit of a girl.
And such a girl, too. Nothing is truer than that, in this world,
the luckless have no right to their opportunitiesas if misfortune
were a legal disqualification. Fynes sentiments (as they
naturally would be in a man) had more stability. A good deal of
his sympathy survived. Indeed I heard him murmur Ghastly
nuisance, but I knew it was of the integrity of his domestic
accord that he was thinking. With my eyes on the dog lying curled
up in sleep in the middle of the porch I suggested in a subdued impersonal
tone: Yes. Why not let yourself be persuaded?
I never saw little Fyne less solemn. He hissed through his
teeth in unexpectedly figurative style that it would take a lot to persuade
him to push under the head of a poor devil of a girl quite sufficiently
pluckyand snorted. He was still gazing at the distant
quarry, and I think he was affected by that sight. I assured him
that I was far from advising him to do anything so cruel. I am
convinced he had always doubted the soundness of my principles, because
he turned on me swiftly as though he had been on the watch for a lapse
from the straight path.
Then what do you mean? That I should pretend!
No! What nonsense! It would be immoral.
I may however tell you that if I had to make a choice I would rather
do something immoral than something cruel. What I meant was that,
not believing in the efficacy of the interference, the whole question
is reduced to your consenting to do what your wife wishes you to do.
That would be acting like a gentleman, surely. And acting unselfishly
too, because I can very well understand how distasteful it may be to
you. Generally speaking, an unselfish action is a moral action.
Ill tell you what. Ill go with you.
He turned round and stared at me with surprise and suspicion.
You would go with me? he repeated.
You dont understand, I said, amused at the incredulous
disgust of his tone. I must run up to town, to-morrow morning.
Let us go together. You have a set of travelling chessmen.
His physiognomy, contracted by a variety of emotions, relaxed to
a certain extent at the idea of a game. I told him that as I had
business at the Docks he should have my company to the very ship.
We shall beguile the way to the wilds of the East by improving
conversation, I encouraged him.
My brother-in-law is staying at an hotelthe Eastern
Hotel, he said, becoming sombre again. I havent
the slightest idea where it is.
I know the place. I shall leave you at the door with
the comfortable conviction that you are doing whats right since
it pleases a lady and cannot do any harm to anybody whatever.
You think so? No harm to anybody? he repeated
doubtfully.
I assure you its not the slightest use, I said
with all possible emphasis which seemed only to increase the solemn
discontent of his expression.
But in order that my going should be a perfectly candid proceeding
I must first convince my wife that it isnt the slightest use,
he objected portentously.
Oh, you casuist! I said. And I said nothing more
because at that moment Mrs. Fyne stepped out into the porch. We
rose together at her appearance. Her clear, colourless, unflinching
glance enveloped us both critically. I sustained the chill smilingly,
but Fyne stooped at once to release the dog. He was some time
about it; then simultaneously with his recovery of upright position
the animal passed at one bound from profoundest slumber into most tumultuous
activity. Enveloped in the tornado of his inane scurryings and
barkings I took Mrs. Fynes hand extended to me woodenly and bowed
over it with deference. She walked down the path without a word;
Fyne had preceded her and was waiting by the open gate. They passed
out and walked up the road surrounded by a low cloud of dust raised
by the dog gyrating madly about their two figures progressing side by
side with rectitude and propriety, and (I dont know why) looking
to me as if they had annexed the whole country-side. Perhaps it
was that they had impressed me somehow with the sense of their superiority.
What superiority? Perhaps it consisted just in their limitations.
It was obvious that neither of them had carried away a high opinion
of me. But what affected me most was the indifference of the Fyne
dog. He used to precipitate himself at full speed and with a frightful
final upward spring upon my waistcoat, at least once at each of our
meetings. He had neglected that ceremony this time notwithstanding
my correct and even conventional conduct in offering him a cake; it
seemed to me symbolic of my final separation from the Fyne household.
And I remembered against him how on a certain day he had abandoned poor
Flora de Barralwho was morbidly sensitive.
I sat down in the porch and, maybe inspired by secret antagonism
to the Fynes, I said to myself deliberately that Captain Anthony must
be a fine fellow. Yet on the facts as I knew them he might have
been a dangerous trifler or a downright scoundrel. He had made
a miserable, hopeless girl follow him clandestinely to London.
It is true that the girl had written since, only Mrs. Fyne had been
remarkably vague as to the contents. They were unsatisfactory.
They did not positively announce imminent nuptials as far as I could
make it out from her rather mysterious hints. But then her inexperience
might have led her astray. There was no fathoming the innocence
of a woman like Mrs. Fyne who, venturing as far as possible in theory,
would know nothing of the real aspect of things. It would have
been comic if she were making all this fuss for nothing. But I
rejected this suspicion for the honour of human nature.
I imagined to myself Captain Anthony as simple and romantic.
It was much more pleasant. Genius is not hereditary but temperament
may be. And he was the son of a poet with an admirable gift of
individualising, of etherealizing the common-place; of making touching,
delicate, fascinating the most hopeless conventions of the, so-called,
refined existence.
What I could not understand was Mrs. Fynes dog-in-the-manger
attitude. Sentimentally she needed that brother of hers so little!
What could it matter to her one way or anothersetting aside common
humanity which would suggest at least a neutral attitude. Unless
indeed it was the blind working of the law that in our world of chances
the luckless must be put in the wrong somehow.
And musing thus on the general inclination of our instincts towards
injustice I met unexpectedly, at the turn of the road, as it were, a
shape of duplicity. It might have been unconscious on Mrs. Fynes
part, but her leading idea appeared to me to be not to keep, not to
preserve her brother, but to get rid of him definitely. She did
not hope to stop anything. She had too much sense for that.
Almost anyone out of an idiot asylum would have had enough sense for
that. She wanted the protest to be made, emphatically, with Fynes
fullest concurrence in order to make all intercourse for the future
impossible. Such an action would estrange the pair for ever from
the Fynes. She understood her brother and the girl too.
Happy together, they would never forgive that outspoken hostilityand
should the marriage turn out badly . . . Well, it would be just the
same. Neither of them would be likely to bring their troubles
to such a good prophet of evil.
Yes. That must have been her motive. The inspiration
of a possibly unconscious Machiavellism! Either she was afraid
of having a sister-in-law to look after during the husbands long
absences; or dreaded the more or less distant eventuality of her brother
being persuaded to leave the sea, the friendly refuge of his unhappy
youth, and to settle on shore, bringing to her very door this undesirable,
this embarrassing connection. She wanted to be done with itmaybe
simply from the fatigue of continuous effort in good or evil, which,
in the bulk of common mortals, accounts for so many surprising inconsistencies
of conduct.
I dont know that I had classed Mrs. Fyne, in my thoughts,
amongst common mortals. She was too quietly sure of herself for
that. But little Fyne, as I spied him next morning (out of the
carriage window) speeding along the platform, looked very much like
a common, flustered mortal who has made a very near thing of catching
his train: the starting wild eyes, the tense and excited face, the distracted
gait, all the common symptoms were there, rendered more impressive by
his native solemnity which flapped about him like a disordered garment.
Had heI asked myself with interestresisted his wife to
the very last minute and then bolted up the road from the last conclusive
argument, as though it had been a loaded gun suddenly produced?
I opened the carriage door, and a vigorous porter shoved him in from
behind just as the end of the rustic platform went gliding swiftly from
under his feet. He was very much out of breath, and I waited with
some curiosity for the moment he would recover his power of speech.
That moment came. He said Good morning with a slight
gasp, remained very still for another minute and then pulled out of
his pocket the travelling chessboard, and holding it in his hand, directed
at me a glance of inquiry.
Yes. Certainly, I said, very much disappointed.
CHAPTER SEVENON THE PAVEMENT
Fyne was not willing to talk; but as I had been already let into
the secret, the fair-minded little man recognized that I had some right
to information if I insisted on it. And I did insist, after the
third game. We were yet some way from the end of our journey.
Oh, if you want to know, was his somewhat impatient
opening. And then he talked rather volubly. First of all
his wife had not given him to read the letter received from Flora (I
had suspected him of having it in his pocket), but had told him all
about the contents. It was not at all what it should have been
even if the girl had wished to affirm her right to disregard the feelings
of all the world. Her own had been trampled in the dirt out of
all shape. Extraordinary thing to sayI would admit, for
a young girl of her age. The whole tone of that letter was wrong,
quite wrong. It was certainly not the product of asay,
of a well-balanced mind.
If she were given some sort of footing in this world,
I said, if only no bigger than the palm of my hand, she would
probably learn to keep a better balance.
Fyne ignored this little remark. His wife, he said, was not
the sort of person to be addressed mockingly on a serious subject.
There was an unpleasant strain of levity in that letter, extending even
to the references to Captain Anthony himself. Such a disposition
was enough, his wife had pointed out to him, to alarm one for the future,
had all the circumstances of that preposterous project been as satisfactory
as in fact they were not. Other parts of the letter seemed to
have a challenging toneas if daring them (the Fynes) to approve
her conduct. And at the same time implying that she did not care,
that it was for their own sakes that she hoped they would go
against the worldthe horrid world which had crushed poor papa.
Fyne called upon me to admit that this was pretty coolconsidering.
And there was another thing, too. It seems that for the last six
months (she had been assisting two ladies who kept a kindergarten school
in Bayswatera mere pittance), Flora had insisted on devoting
all her spare time to the study of the trial. She had been looking
up files of old newspapers, and working herself up into a state of indignation
with what she called the injustice and the hypocrisy of the prosecution.
Her father, Fyne reminded me, had made some palpable hits in his answers
in Court, and she had fastened on them triumphantly. She had reached
the conclusion of her fathers innocence, and had been brooding
over it. Mrs. Fyne had pointed out to him the danger of this.
The train ran into the station and Fyne, jumping out directly it
came to a standstill, seemed glad to cut short the conversation.
We walked in silence a little way, boarded a bus, then walked again.
I dont suppose that since the days of his childhood, when surely
he was taken to see the Tower, he had been once east of Temple Bar.
He looked about him sullenly; and when I pointed out in the distance
the rounded front of the Eastern Hotel at the bifurcation of two very
broad, mean, shabby thoroughfares, rising like a grey stucco tower above
the lowly roofs of the dirty-yellow, two-storey houses, he only grunted
disapprovingly.
I wouldnt lay too much stress on what you have been
telling me, I observed quietly as we approached that unattractive
building. No man will believe a girl who has just accepted
his suit to be not well balanced,you know.
Oh! Accepted his suit, muttered Fyne, who seemed
to have been very thoroughly convinced indeed. It may have
been the other way about. And then he added: I am
going through with it.
I said that this was very praiseworthy but that a certain moderation
of statement . . . He waved his hand at me and mended his pace.
I guessed that he was anxious to get his mission over as quickly as
possible. He barely gave himself time to shake hands with me and
made a rush at the narrow glass door with the words Hotel Entrance on
it. It swung to behind his back with no more noise than the snap
of a toothless jaw.
The absurd temptation to remain and see what would come of it got
over my better judgment. I hung about irresolute, wondering how
long an embassy of that sort would take, and whether Fyne on coming
out would consent to be communicative. I feared he would be shocked
at finding me there, would consider my conduct incorrect, conceivably
treat me with contempt. I walked off a few paces. Perhaps
it would be possible to read something on Fynes face as he came
out; and, if necessary, I could always eclipse myself discreetly through
the door of one of the bars. The ground floor of the Eastern Hotel
was an unabashed pub, with plate-glass fronts, a display of brass rails,
and divided into many compartments each having its own entrance.
But of course all this was silly. The marriage, the love, the
affairs of Captain Anthony were none of my business. I was on
the point of moving down the street for good when my attention was attracted
by a girl approaching the hotel entrance from the west. She was
dressed very modestly in black. It was the white straw hat of
a good form and trimmed with a bunch of pale roses which had caught
my eye. The whole figure seemed familiar. Of course!
Flora de Barral. She was making for the hotel, she was going in.
And Fyne was with Captain Anthony! To meet him could not be pleasant
for her. I wished to save her from the awkwardness, and as I hesitated
what to do she looked up and our eyes happened to meet just as she was
turning off the pavement into the hotel doorway. Instinctively
I extended my arm. It was enough to make her stop. I suppose
she had some faint notion that she had seen me before somewhere.
She walked slowly forward, prudent and attentive, watching my faint
smile.
Excuse me, I said directly she had approached me near
enough. Perhaps you would like to know that Mr. Fyne is
upstairs with Captain Anthony at this moment.
She uttered a faint Ah! Mr. Fyne! I could
read in her eyes that she had recognized me now. Her serious expression
extinguished the imbecile grin of which I was conscious. I raised
my hat. She responded with a slow inclination of the head while
her luminous, mistrustful, maidens glance seemed to whisper,
What is this one doing here?
I came up to town with Fyne this morning, I said in
a businesslike tone. I have to see a friend in East India
Dock. Fyne and I parted this moment at the door here . . .
The girl regarded me with darkening eyes . . . Mrs. Fyne did
not come with her husband, I went on, then hesitated before that
white face so still in the pearly shadow thrown down by the hat-brim.
But she sent him, I murmured by way of warning.
Her eyelids fluttered slowly over the fixed stare. I imagine
she was not much disconcerted by this development. I live
a long way from here, she whispered.
I said perfunctorily, Do you? And we remained
gazing at each other. The uniform paleness of her complexion was
not that of an anaemic girl. It had a transparent vitality and
at that particular moment the faintest possible rosy tinge, the merest
suspicion of colour; an equivalent, I suppose, in any other girl to
blushing like a peony while she told me that Captain Anthony had arranged
to show her the ship that morning.
It was easy to understand that she did not want to meet Fyne.
And when I mentioned in a discreet murmur that he had come because of
her letter she glanced at the hotel door quickly, and moved off a few
steps to a position where she could watch the entrance without being
seen. I followed her. At the junction of the two thoroughfares
she stopped in the thin traffic of the broad pavement and turned to
me with an air of challenge. And so you know.
I told her that I had not seen the letter. I had only heard
of it. She was a little impatient. I mean all about
me.
Yes. I knew all about her. The distress of Mr. and Mrs.
Fyneespecially of Mrs. Fynewas so great that they would
have shared it with anybody almostnot belonging to their circle
of friends. I happened to be at handthat was all.
You understand that I am not their friend. I am only
a holiday acquaintance.
She was not very much upset? queried Flora de Barral,
meaning, of course, Mrs. Fyne. And I admitted that she was less
so than her husbandand even less than myself. Mrs. Fyne
was a very self-possessed person which nothing could startle out of
her extreme theoretical position. She did not seem startled when
Fyne and I proposed going to the quarry.
You put that notion into their heads, the girl said.
I advanced that the notion was in their heads already. But
it was much more vividly in my head since I had seen her up there with
my own eyes, tempting Providence.
She was looking at me with extreme attention, and murmured:
Is that what you called it to them? Tempting . . .
No. I told them that you were making up your mind and
I came along just then. I told them that you were saved by me.
My shout checked you . . . She moved her head gently from
right to left in negation . . . No? Well, have it your
own way.
I thought to myself: She has found another issue. She wants
to forget now. And no wonder. She wants to persuade herself
that she had never known such an ugly and poignant minute in her life.
After all, I conceded aloud, things are not always
what they seem.
Her little head with its deep blue eyes, eyes of tenderness and anger
under the black arch of fine eyebrows was very still. The mouth
looked very red in the white face peeping from under the veil, the little
pointed chin had in its form something aggressive. Slight and
even angular in her modest black dress she was an appealing andyesshe
was a desirable little figure.
Her lips moved very fast asking me:
And they believed you at once?
Yes, they believed me at once. Mrs. Fynes word
to us was Go!
A white gleam between the red lips was so short that I remained uncertain
whether it was a smile or a ferocious baring of little even teeth.
The rest of the face preserved its innocent, tense and enigmatical expression.
She spoke rapidly.
No, it wasnt your shout. I had been there some
time before you saw me. And I was not there to tempt Providence,
as you call it. I went up there forfor what you thought
I was going to do. Yes. I climbed two fences. I did
not mean to leave anything to Providence. There seem to be people
for whom Providence can do nothing. I suppose you are shocked
to hear me talk like that?
I shook my head. I was not shocked. What had kept her
back all that time, till I appeared on the scene below, she went on,
was neither fear nor any other kind of hesitation. One reaches
a point, she said with appalling youthful simplicity, where nothing
that concerns one matters any longer. But something did keep her
back. I should have never guessed what it was. She herself
confessed that it seemed absurd to say. It was the Fyne dog.
Flora de Barral paused, looking at me, with a peculiar expression
and then went on. You see, she imagined the dog had become extremely
attached to her. She took it into her head that he might fall
over or jump down after her. She tried to drive him away.
She spoke sternly to him. It only made him more frisky.
He barked and jumped about her skirt in his usual, idiotic, high spirits.
He scampered away in circles between the pines charging upon her and
leaping as high as her waist. She commanded, Go away.
Go home. She even picked up from the ground a bit of a
broken branch and threw it at him. At this his delight knew no
bounds; his rushes became faster, his yapping louder; he seemed to be
having the time of his life. She was convinced that the moment
she threw herself down he would spring over after her as if it were
part of the game. She was vexed almost to tears. She was
touched too. And when he stood still at some distance as if suddenly
rooted to the ground wagging his tail slowly and watching her intensely
with his shining eyes another fear came to her. She imagined herself
gone and the creature sitting on the brink, its head thrown up to the
sky and howling for hours. This thought was not to be borne.
Then my shout reached her ears.
She told me all this with simplicity. My voice had destroyed
her poisethe suicide poise of her mind. Every act of ours,
the most criminal, the most mad presupposes a balance of thought, feeling
and will, like a correct attitude for an effective stroke in a game.
And I had destroyed it. She was no longer in proper form for the
act. She was not very much annoyed. Next day would do.
She would have to slip away without attracting the notice of the dog.
She thought of the necessity almost tenderly. She came down the
path carrying her despair with lucid calmness. But when she saw
herself deserted by the dog, she had an impulse to turn round, go up
again and be done with it. Not even that animal cared for herin
the end.
I really did think that he was attached to me. What
did he want to pretend for, like this? I thought nothing could
hurt me any more. Oh yes. I would have gone up, but I felt
suddenly so tired. So tired. And then you were there.
I didnt know what you would do. You might have tried to
follow me and I didnt think I could runnot up hillnot
then.
She had raised her white face a little, and it was queer to hear
her say these things. At that time of the morning there are comparatively
few people out in that part of the town. The broad interminable
perspective of the East India Dock Road, the great perspective of drab
brick walls, of grey pavement, of muddy roadway rumbling dismally with
loaded carts and vans lost itself in the distance, imposing and shabby
in its spacious meanness of aspect, in its immeasurable poverty of forms,
of colouring, of lifeunder a harsh, unconcerned sky dried by
the wind to a clear blue. It had been raining during the night.
The sunshine itself seemed poor. From time to time a few bits
of paper, a little dust and straw whirled past us on the broad flat
promontory of the pavement before the rounded front of the hotel.
Flora de Barral was silent for a while. I said:
And next day you thought better of it.
Again she raised her eyes to mine with that peculiar expression of
informed innocence; and again her white cheeks took on the faintest
tinge of pinkthe merest shadow of a blush.
Next day, she uttered distinctly, I didnt
think. I remembered. That was enough. I remembered
what I should never have forgotten. Never. And Captain Anthony
arrived at the cottage in the evening.
Ah yes. Captain Anthony, I murmured. And
she repeated also in a murmur, Yes! Captain Anthony.
The faint flush of warm life left her face. I subdued my voice
still more and not looking at her: You found him sympathetic?
I ventured.
Her long dark lashes went down a little with an air of calculated
discretion. At least so it seemed to me. And yet no one
could say that I was inimical to that girl. But there you are!
Explain it as you may, in this world the friendless, like the poor,
are always a little suspect, as if honesty and delicacy were only possible
to the privileged few.
Why do you ask? she said after a time, raising her
eyes suddenly to mine in an effect of candour which on the same principle
(of the disinherited not being to be trusted) might have been judged
equivocal.
If you mean what right I have . . . She move
slightly a hand in a worn brown glove as much as to say she could not
question anyones right against such an outcast as herself.
I ought to have been moved perhaps; but I only noted the total absence
of humility . . . No right at all, I continued, but
just interest. Mrs. Fyneits too difficult to explain
how it came abouthas talked to me of youwellextensively.
No doubt Mrs. Fyne had told me the truth, Flora said brusquely with
an unexpected hoarseness of tone. This very dress she was wearing
had been given her by Mrs. Fyne. Of course I looked at it.
It could not have been a recent gift. Close-fitting and black,
with heliotrope silk facings under a figured net, it looked far from
new, just on this side of shabbiness; in fact, it accentuated the slightness
of her figure, it went well in its suggestion of half mourning with
the white face in which the unsmiling red lips alone seemed warm with
the rich blood of life and passion.
Little Fyne was staying up there an unconscionable time. Was
he arguing, preaching, remonstrating? Had he discovered in himself
a capacity and a taste for that sort of thing? Or was he perhaps,
in an intense dislike for the job, beating about the bush and only puzzling
Captain Anthony, the providential man, who, if he expected the girl
to appear at any moment, must have been on tenterhooks all the time,
and beside himself with impatience to see the back of his brother-in-law.
How was it that he had not got rid of Fyne long before in any case?
I dont mean by actually throwing him out of the window, but in
some other resolute manner.
Surely Fyne had not impressed him. That he was an impressionable
man I could not doubt. The presence of the girl there on the pavement
before me proved this up to the hiltand, well, yes, touchingly
enough.
It so happened that in their wanderings to and fro our glances met.
They met and remained in contact more familiar than a hand-clasp, more
communicative, more expressive. There was something comic too
in the whole situation, in the poor girl and myself waiting together
on the broad pavement at a corner public-house for the issue of Fynes
ridiculous mission. But the comic when it is human becomes quickly
painful. Yes, she was infinitely anxious. And I was asking
myself whether this poignant tension of her suspense dependedto
put it plainlyon hunger or love.
The answer would have been of some interest to Captain Anthony.
For my part, in the presence of a young girl I always become convinced
that the dreams of sentimentlike the consoling mysteries of Faithare
invincible; that it is never never reason which governs men and women.
Yet what sentiment could there have been on her part? I remembered
her tone only a moment since when she said: That evening Captain
Anthony arrived at the cottage. And considering, too, what
the arrival of Captain Anthony meant in this connection, I wondered
at the calmness with which she could mention that fact. He arrived
at the cottage. In the evening. I knew that late train.
He probably walked from the station. The evening would be well
advanced. I could almost see a dark indistinct figure opening
the wicket gate of the garden. Where was she? Did she see
him enter? Was she somewhere near by and did she hear without
the slightest premonition his chance and fateful footsteps on the flagged
path leading to the cottage door? In the shadow of the night made
more cruelly sombre for her by the very shadow of death he must have
appeared too strange, too remote, too unknown to impress himself on
her thought as a living forcesuch a force as a man can bring
to bear on a womans destiny.
She glanced towards the hotel door again; I followed suit and then
our eyes met once more, this time intentionally. A tentative,
uncertain intimacy was springing up between us two. She said simply:
You are waiting for Mr. Fyne to come out; are you?
I admitted to her that I was waiting to see Mr. Fyne come out.
That was all. I had nothing to say to him.
I have said yesterday all I had to say to him, I added
meaningly. I have said it to them both, in fact.
I have also heard all they had to say.
About me? she murmured.
Yes. The conversation was about you.
I wonder if they told you everything.
If she wondered I could do nothing else but wonder too. But
I did not tell her that. I only smiled. The material point
was that Captain Anthony should be told everything. But as to
that I was very certain that the good sister would see to it.
Was there anything more to disclosesome other misery, some other
deception of which that girl had been a victim? It seemed hardly
probable. It was not even easy to imagine. What struck me
most was herI suppose I must call itcomposure. One
could not tell whether she understood what she had done. One wondered.
She was not so much unreadable as blank; and I did not know whether
to admire her for it or dismiss her from my thoughts as a passive butt
of ferocious misfortune.
Looking back at the occasion when we first got on speaking terms
on the road by the quarry, I had to admit that she presented some points
of a problematic appearance. I dont know why I imagined
Captain Anthony as the sort of man who would not be likely to take the
initiative; not perhaps from indifference but from that peculiar timidity
before women which often enough is found in conjunction with chivalrous
instincts, with a great need for affection and great stability of feelings.
Such men are easily moved. At the least encouragement they go
forward with the eagerness, with the recklessness of starvation.
This accounted for the suddenness of the affair. No! With
all her inexperience this girl could not have found any great difficulty
in her conquering enterprise. She must have begun it. And
yet there she was, patient, almost unmoved, almost pitiful, waiting
outside like a beggar, without a right to anything but compassion, for
a promised dole.
Every moment people were passing close by us, singly, in two and
threes; the inhabitants of that end of the town where life goes on unadorned
by grace or splendour; they passed us in their shabby garments, with
sallow faces, haggard, anxious or weary, or simply without expression,
in an unsmiling sombre stream not made up of lives but of mere unconsidered
existences whose joys, struggles, thoughts, sorrows and their very hopes
were miserable, glamourless, and of no account in the world. And
when one thought of their reality to themselves ones heart became
oppressed. But of all the individuals who passed by none appeared
to me for the moment so pathetic in unconscious patience as the girl
standing before me; none more difficult to understand. It is perhaps
because I was thinking of things which I could not ask her about.
In fact we had nothing to say to each other; but we two, strangers
as we really were to each other, had dealt with the most intimate and
final of subjects, the subject of death. It had created a sort
of bond between us. It made our silence weighty and uneasy.
I ought to have left her there and then; but, as I think Ive
told you before, the fact of having shouted her away from the edge of
a precipice seemed somehow to have engaged my responsibility as to this
other leap. And so we had still an intimate subject between us
to lend more weight and more uneasiness to our silence. The subject
of marriage. I use the word not so much in reference to the ceremony
itself (I had no doubt of this, Captain Anthony being a decent fellow)
or in view of the social institution in general, as to which I have
no opinion, but in regard to the human relation. The first two
views are not particularly interesting. The ceremony, I suppose,
is adequate; the institution, I dare say, is useful or it would not
have endured. But the human relation thus recognized is a mysterious
thing in its origins, character and consequences. Unfortunately
you cant buttonhole familiarly a young girl as you would a young
fellow. I dont think that even another woman could really
do it. She would not be trusted. There is not between women
that fund of at least conditional loyalty which men may depend on in
their dealings with each other. I believe that any woman would
rather trust a man. The difficulty in such a delicate case was
how to get on terms.
So we held our peace in the odious uproar of that wide roadway thronged
with heavy carts. Great vans carrying enormous piled-up loads
advanced swaying like mountains. It was as if the whole world
existed only for selling and buying and those who had nothing to do
with the movement of merchandise were of no account.
You must be tired, I said. One had to say something
if only to assert oneself against that wearisome, passionless and crushing
uproar. She raised her eyes for a moment. No, she was not.
Not very. She had not walked all the way. She came by train
as far as Whitechapel Station and had only walked from there.
She had had an ugly pilgrimage; but whether of love or of necessity
who could tell? And that precisely was what I should have liked
to get at. This was not however a question to be asked point-blank,
and I could not think of any effective circumlocution. It occurred
to me too that she might conceivably know nothing of it herselfI
mean by reflection. That young woman had been obviously considering
death. She had gone the length of forming some conception of it.
But as to its companion fatalitylove, she, I was certain, had
never reflected upon its meaning.
With that man in the hotel, whom I did not know, and this girl standing
before me in the street I felt that it was an exceptional case.
He had broken away from his surroundings; she stood outside the pale.
One aspect of conventions which people who declaim against them lose
sight of is that conventions make both joy and suffering easier to bear
in a becoming manner. But those two were outside all conventions.
They would be as untrammelled in a sense as the first man and the first
woman. The trouble was that I could not imagine anything about
Flora de Barral and the brother of Mrs. Fyne. Or, if you like,
I could imagine anything which comes practically to the same
thing. Darkness and chaos are first cousins. I should have
liked to ask the girl for a word which would give my imagination its
line. But how was one to venture so far? I can be rough
sometimes but I am not naturally impertinent. I would have liked
to ask her for instance: Do you know what you have done with
yourself? A question like that. Anyhow it was time
for one of us to say something. A question it must be. And
the question I asked was: So hes going to show you the
ship?
She seemed glad I had spoken at last and glad of the opportunity
to speak herself.
Yes. He said he wouldthis morning. Did
you say you did not know Captain Anthony?
No. I dont know him. Is he anything like
his sister?
She looked startled and murmured Sister! in a puzzled
tone which astonished me. Oh! Mrs. Fyne, she
exclaimed, recollecting herself, and avoiding my eyes while I looked
at her curiously.
What an extraordinary detachment! And all the time the stream
of shabby people was hastening by us, with the continuous dreary shuffling
of weary footsteps on the flagstones. The sunshine falling on
the grime of surfaces, on the poverty of tones and forms seemed of an
inferior quality, its joy faded, its brilliance tarnished and dusty.
I had to raise my voice in the dull vibrating noise of the roadway.
You dont mean to say you have forgotten the connection?
She cried readily enough: I wasnt thinking.
And then, while I wondered what could have been the images occupying
her brain at this time, she asked me: You didnt see my
letter to Mrs. Fynedid you?
No. I didnt, I shouted. Just then
the racket was distracting, a pair-horse trolly lightly loaded with
loose rods of iron passing slowly very near us. I wasnt
trusted so far. And remembering Mrs. Fynes hints
that the girl was unbalanced, I added: Was it an unreserved confession
you wrote?
She did not answer me for a time, and as I waited I thought that
theres nothing like a confession to make one look mad; and that
of all confessions a written one is the most detrimental all round.
Never confess! Never, never! An untimely joke is a source
of bitter regret always. Sometimes it may ruin a man; not because
it is a joke, but because it is untimely. And a confession of
whatever sort is always untimely. The only thing which makes it
supportable for a while is curiosity. You smile? Ah, but
it is so, or else people would be sent to the rightabout at the second
sentence. How many sympathetic souls can you reckon on in the
world? One in ten, one in a hundredin a thousandin
ten thousand? Ah! What a sell these confessions are!
What a horrible sell! You seek sympathy, and all you get is the
most evanescent sense of reliefif you get that much. For
a confession, whatever it may be, stirs the secret depths of the hearers
character. Often depths that he himself is but dimly aware of.
And so the righteous triumph secretly, the lucky are amused, the strong
are disgusted, the weak either upset or irritated with you according
to the measure of their sincerity with themselves. And all of
them in their hearts brand you for either mad or impudent . . .
I had seldom seen Marlow so vehement, so pessimistic, so earnestly
cynical before. I cut his declamation short by asking what answer
Flora de Barral had given to his question. Did the poor
girl admit firing off her confidences at Mrs. Fyneeight pages
of close writingthat sort of thing?
Marlow shook his head.
She did not tell me. I accepted her silence, as a kind
of answer and remarked that it would have been better if she had simply
announced the fact to Mrs. Fyne at the cottage. Why didnt
you do it? I asked point-blank.
She said: I am not a very plucky girl. She looked
up at me and added meaningly: And you know it. And
you know why.
I must remark that she seemed to have become very subdued since our
first meeting at the quarry. Almost a different person from the
defiant, angry and despairing girl with quivering lips and resentful
glances.
I thought it was very sensible of you to get away from that
sheer drop, I said.
She looked up with something of that old expression.
Thats not what I mean. I see you will have it
that you saved my life. Nothing of the kind. I was concerned
for that vile little beast of a dog. No! It was the idea
ofof doing away with myself which was cowardly. Thats
what I meant by saying I am not a very plucky girl.
Oh! I retorted airily. That little dog.
He isnt really a bad little dog. But she lowered
her eyelids and went on:
I was so miserable that I could think only of myself.
This was mean. It was cruel too. And besides I had not
given it upnot then.
* * * * *
Marlow changed his tone.
I dont know much of the psychology of self-destruction.
Its a sort of subject one has few opportunities to study closely.
I knew a man once who came to my rooms one evening, and while smoking
a cigar confessed to me moodily that he was trying to discover some
graceful way of retiring out of existence. I didnt study
his case, but I had a glimpse of him the other day at a cricket match,
with some women, having a good time. That seems a fairly reasonable
attitude. Considered as a sin, it is a case for repentance before
the throne of a merciful God. But I imagine that Flora de Barrals
religion under the care of the distinguished governess could have been
nothing but outward formality. Remorse in the sense of gnawing
shame and unavailing regret is only understandable to me when some wrong
had been done to a fellow-creature. But why she, that girl who
existed on sufferance, so to speakwhy she should writhe inwardly
with remorse because she had once thought of getting rid of a life which
was nothing in every respect but a cursethat I could not understand.
I thought it was very likely some obscure influence of common forms
of speech, some traditional or inherited feelinga vague notion
that suicide is a legal crime; words of old moralists and preachers
which remain in the air and help to form all the authorized moral conventions.
Yes, I was surprised at her remorse. But lowering her glance unexpectedly
till her dark eye-lashes seemed to rest against her white cheeks she
presented a perfectly demure aspect. It was so attractive that
I could not help a faint smile. That Flora de Barral should ever,
in any aspect, have the power to evoke a smile was the very last thing
I should have believed. She went on after a slight hesitation:
One day I started for there, for that place.
Look at the influence of a mere play of physiognomy! If you
remember what we were talking about you will hardly believe that I caught
myself grinning down at that demure little girl. I must say too
that I felt more friendly to her at the moment than ever before.
Oh, you did? To take that jump? You are a determined
young person. Well, what happened that time?
An almost imperceptible alteration in her bearing; a slight droop
of her head perhapsa mere nothingmade her look more demure
than ever.
I had left the cottage, she began a little hurriedly.
I was walking along the roadyou know, the road.
I had made up my mind I was not coming back this time.
I wont deny that these words spoken from under the brim of
her hat (oh yes, certainly, her head was downshe had put it down)
gave me a thrill; for indeed I had never doubted her sincerity.
It could never have been a make-believe despair.
Yes, I whispered. You were going along
the road.
When . . . Again she hesitated with an effect
of innocent shyness worlds asunder from tragic issues; then glided on
. . . When suddenly Captain Anthony came through a gate out of
a field.
I coughed down the beginning of a most improper fit of laughter,
and felt ashamed of myself. Her eyes raised for a moment seemed
full of innocent suffering and unexpressed menace in the depths of the
dilated pupils within the rings of sombre blue. It washow
shall I say it?a night effect when you seem to see vague shapes
and dont know what reality you may come upon at any time.
Then she lowered her eyelids again, shutting all mysteriousness out
of the situation except for the sobering memory of that glance, nightlike
in the sunshine, expressively still in the brutal unrest of the street.
So Captain Anthony joined youdid he?
He opened a field-gate and walked out on the road. He
crossed to my side and went on with me. He had his pipe in his
hand. He said: Are you going far this morning?
These words (I was watching her white face as she spoke) gave me
a slight shudder. She remained demure, almost prim. And
I remarked:
You have been talking together before, of course.
Not more than twenty words altogether since he arrived,
she declared without emphasis. That day he had said Good
morning to me when we met at breakfast two hours before.
And I said good morning to him. I did not see him afterwards till
he came out on the road.
I thought to myself that this was not accidental. He had been
observing her. I felt certain also that he had not been asking
any questions of Mrs. Fyne.
I wouldnt look at him, said Flora de Barral.
I had done with looking at people. He said to me: My
sister does not put herself out much for us. We had better keep
each other company. I have read every book there is in that cottage.
I walked on. He did not leave me. I thought he ought to.
But he didnt. He didnt seem to notice that I would
not talk to him.
She was now perfectly still. The wretched little parasol hung
down against her dress from her joined hands. I was rigid with
attention. It isnt every day that one culls such a volunteered
tale on a girls lips. The ugly street-noises swelling up
for a moment covered the next few words she said. It was vexing.
The next word I heard was worried.
It worried you to have him there, walking by your side.
Yes. Just that, she went on with downcast eyes.
There was something prettily comical in her attitude and her tone, while
I pictured to myself a poor white-faced girl walking to her death with
an unconscious man striding by her side. Unconscious? I
dont know. First of all, I felt certain that this was no
chance meeting. Something had happened before. Was he a
man for a coup-de-foudre, the lightning stroke of love?
I dont think so. That sort of susceptibility is luckily
rare. A world of inflammable lovers of the Romeo and Juliet type
would very soon end in barbarism and misery. But it is a fact
that in every man (not in every woman) there lives a lover; a lover
who is called out in all his potentialities often by the most insignificant
little thingsas long as they come at the psychological moment:
the glimpse of a face at an unusual angle, an evanescent attitude, the
curve of a cheek often looked at before, perhaps, but then, at the moment,
charged with astonishing significance. These are great mysteries,
of course. Magic signs.
I dont know in what the sign consisted in this case.
It might have been her pallor (it wasnt pasty nor yet papery)
that white face with eyes like blue gleams of fire and lips like red
coals. In certain lights, in certain poises of head it suggested
tragic sorrow. Or it might have been her wavy hair. Or even
just that pointed chin stuck out a little, resentful and not particularly
distinguished, doing away with the mysterious aloofness of her fragile
presence. But any way at a given moment Anthony must have suddenly
seen the girl. And then, that something had happened to
him. Perhaps nothing more than the thought coming into his head
that this was a possible woman.
Followed this waylaying! Its resolute character makes me think
it was the chins doing; that common mortal touch
which stands in such good stead to some women. Because men, I
mean really masculine men, those whose generations have evolved an ideal
woman, are often very timid. Who wouldnt be before the
ideal? Its your sentimental trifler, who has just missed
being nothing at all, who is enterprising, simply because it is easy
to appear enterprising when one does not mean to put ones belief
to the test.
Well, whatever it was that encouraged him, Captain Anthony stuck
to Flora de Barral in a manner which in a timid man might have been
called heroic if it had not been so simple. Whether policy, diplomacy,
simplicity, or just inspiration, he kept up his talk, rather deliberate,
with very few pauses. Then suddenly as if recollecting himself:
Its funny. I dont think you are annoyed
with me for giving you my company unasked. But why dont
you say something?
I asked Miss de Barral what answer she made to this query.
I made no answer, she said in that even, unemotional
low voice which seemed to be her voice for delicate confidences.
I walked on. He did not seem to mind. We came to
the foot of the quarry where the road winds up hill, past the place
where you were sitting by the roadside that day. I began to wonder
what I should do. After we reached the top Captain Anthony said
that he had not been for a walk with a lady for years and yearsalmost
since he was a boy. We had then come to where I ought to have
turned off and struck across a field. I thought of making a run
of it. But he would have caught me up. I knew he would;
and, of course, he would not have allowed me. I couldnt
give him the slip.
Why didnt you ask him to leave you? I inquired
curiously.
He would not have taken any notice, she went on steadily.
And what could I have done then? I could not have started
quarrelling with himcould I? I hadnt enough energy
to get angry. I felt very tired suddenly. I just stumbled
on straight along the road. Captain Anthony told me that the familysome
relations of his motherhe used to know in Liverpool was broken
up now, and he had never made any friends since. All gone their
different ways. All the girls married. Nice girls they were
and very friendly to him when he was but little more than a boy.
He repeated: Very nice, cheery, clever girls. I
sat down on a bank against a hedge and began to cry.
You must have astonished him not a little, I observed.
Anthony, it seems, remained on the road looking down at her.
He did not offer to approach her, neither did he make any other movement
or gesture. Flora de Barral told me all this. She could
see him through her tears, blurred to a mere shadow on the white road,
and then again becoming more distinct, but always absolutely still and
as if lost in thought before a strange phenomenon which demanded the
closest possible attention.
Flora learned later that he had never seen a woman cry; not in that
way, at least. He was impressed and interested by the mysteriousness
of the effect. She was very conscious of being looked at, but
was not able to stop herself crying. In fact, she was not capable
of any effort. Suddenly he advanced two steps, stooped, caught
hold of her hands lying on her lap and pulled her up to her feet; she
found herself standing close to him almost before she realized what
he had done. Some people were coming briskly along the road and
Captain Anthony muttered: You dont want to be stared at.
What about that stile over there? Can we go back across the fields?
She snatched her hands out of his grasp (it seems he had omitted
to let them go), marched away from him and got over the stile.
It was a big field sprinkled profusely with white sheep. A trodden
path crossed it diagonally. After she had gone more than half
way she turned her head for the first time. Keeping five feet
or so behind, Captain Anthony was following her with an air of extreme
interest. Interest or eagerness. At any rate she caught
an expression on his face which frightened her. But not enough
to make her run. And indeed it would have had to be something
incredibly awful to scare into a run a girl who had come to the end
of her courage to live.
As if encouraged by this glance over the shoulder Captain Anthony
came up boldly, and now that he was by her side, she felt his nearness
intimately, like a touch. She tried to disregard this sensation.
But she was not angry with him now. It wasnt worth while.
She was thankful that he had the sense not to ask questions as to this
crying. Of course he didnt ask because he didnt
care. No one in the world cared for her, neither those who pretended
nor yet those who did not pretend. She preferred the latter.
Captain Anthony opened for her a gate into another field; when they
got through he kept walking abreast, elbow to elbow almost. His
voice growled pleasantly in her very ear. Staying in this dull
place was enough to give anyone the blues. His sister scribbled
all day. It was positively unkind. He alluded to his nieces
as rude, selfish monkeys, without either feelings or manners.
And he went on to talk about his ship being laid up for a month and
dismantled for repairs. The worst was that on arriving in London
he found he couldnt get the rooms he was used to, where they
made him as comfortable as such a confirmed sea-dog as himself could
be anywhere on shore.
In the effort to subdue by dint of talking and to keep in check the
mysterious, the profound attraction he felt already for that delicate
being of flesh and blood, with pale cheeks, with darkened eyelids and
eyes scalded with hot tears, he went on speaking of himself as a confirmed
enemy of life on shorea perfect terror to a simple man, what
with the fads and proprieties and the ceremonies and affectations.
He hated all that. He wasnt fit for it. There was
no rest and peace and security but on the sea.
This gave one a view of Captain Anthony as a hermit withdrawn from
a wicked world. It was amusingly unexpected to me and nothing
more. But it must have appealed straight to that bruised and battered
young soul. Still shrinking from his nearness she had ended by
listening to him with avidity. His deep murmuring voice soothed
her. And she thought suddenly that there was peace and rest in
the grave too.
She heard him say: Look at my sister. She isnt
a bad woman by any means. She asks me here because its
right and proper, I suppose, but she has no use for me. There
you have your shore people. I quite understand anybody crying.
I would have been gone already, only, truth to say, I havent
any friends to go to. He added brusquely: And you?
She made a slight negative sign. He must have been observing
her, putting two and two together. After a pause he said simply:
When I first came here I thought you were governess to these
girls. My sister didnt say a word about you to me.
Then Flora spoke for the first time.
Mrs. Fyne is my best friend.
So she is mine, he said without the slightest irony
or bitterness, but added with conviction: That shows you what
life ashore is. Much better be out of it.
As they were approaching the cottage he was heard again as though
a long silent walk had not intervened: But anyhow I shant
ask her anything about you.
He stopped short and she went on alone. His last words had
impressed her. Everything he had said seemed somehow to have a
special meaning under its obvious conversational sense. Till she
went in at the door of the cottage she felt his eyes resting on her.
That is it. He had made himself felt. That girl was,
one may say, washing about with slack limbs in the ugly surf of life
with no opportunity to strike out for herself, when suddenly she had
been made to feel that there was somebody beside her in the bitter water.
A most considerable moral event for her; whether she was aware of it
or not. They met again at the one oclock dinner.
I am inclined to think that, being a healthy girl under her frail appearance,
and fast walking and what I may call relief-crying (there are many kinds
of crying) making one hungry, she made a good meal. It was Captain
Anthony who had no appetite. His sister commented on it in a curt,
businesslike manner, and the eldest of his delightful nieces said mockingly:
You have been taking too much exercise this morning, Uncle Roderick.
The mild Uncle Roderick turned upon her with a What do you know
about it, young lady? so charged with suppressed savagery that
the whole round table gave one gasp and went dumb for the rest of the
meal. He took no notice whatever of Flora de Barral. I dont
think it was from prudence or any calculated motive. I believe
he was so full of her aspects that he did not want to look in her direction
when there were other people to hamper his imagination.
You understand I am piecing here bits of disconnected statements.
Next day Flora saw him leaning over the field-gate. When she told
me this, I didnt of course ask her how it was she was there.
Probably she could not have told me how it was she was there.
The difficulty here is to keep steadily in view the then conditions
of her existence, a combination of dreariness and horror.
That hermit-like but not exactly misanthropic sailor was leaning
over the gate moodily. When he saw the white-faced restless Flora
drifting like a lost thing along the road he put his pipe in his pocket
and called out Good morning, Miss Smith in a tone of amazing
happiness. She, with one foot in life and the other in a nightmare,
was at the same time inert and unstable, and very much at the mercy
of sudden impulses. She swerved, came distractedly right up to
the gate and looking straight into his eyes: I am not Miss Smith.
Thats not my name. Dont call me by it.
She was shaking as if in a passion. His eyes expressed nothing;
he only unlatched the gate in silence, grasped her arm and drew her
in. Then closing it with a kick
Not your name? Thats all one to me. Your
names the least thing about you I care for. He was
leading her firmly away from the gate though she resisted slightly.
There was a sort of joy in his eyes which frightened her. You
are not a princess in disguise, he said with an unexpected laugh
she found blood-curdling. And thats all I care for.
You had better understand that I am not blind and not a fool.
And then its plain for even a fool to see that things have been
going hard with you. You are on a lee shore and eating your heart
out with worry.
What seemed most awful to her was the elated light in his eyes, the
rapacious smile that would come and go on his lips as if he were gloating
over her misery. But her misery was his opportunity and he rejoiced
while the tenderest pity seemed to flood his whole being. He pointed
out to her that she knew who he was. He was Mrs. Fynes
brother. And, well, if his sister was the best friend she had
in the world, then, by Jove, it was about time somebody came along to
look after her a little.
Flora had tried more than once to free herself, but he tightened
his grasp of her arm each time and even shook it a little without ceasing
to speak. The nearness of his face intimidated her. He seemed
striving to look her through. It was obvious the world had been
using her ill. And even as he spoke with indignation the very
marks and stamp of this ill-usage of which he was so certain seemed
to add to the inexplicable attraction he felt for her person.
It was not pity alone, I take it. It was something more spontaneous,
perverse and exciting. It gave him the feeling that if only he
could get hold of her, no woman would belong to him so completely as
this woman.
Whatever your troubles, he said, I am the man
to take you away from them; that is, if you are not afraid. You
told me you had no friends. Neither have I. Nobody ever
cared for me as far as I can remember. Perhaps you could.
Yes, I live on the sea. But who would you be parting from?
No one. You have no one belonging to you.
At this point she broke away from him and ran. He did not pursue
her. The tall hedges tossing in the wind, the wide fields, the
clouds driving over the sky and the sky itself wheeled about her in
masses of green and white and blue as if the world were breaking up
silently in a whirl, and her foot at the next step were bound to find
the void. She reached the gate all right, got out, and, once on
the road, discovered that she had not the courage to look back.
The rest of that day she spent with the Fyne girls who gave her to understand
that she was a slow and unprofitable person. Long after tea, nearly
at dusk, Captain Anthony (the son of the poet) appeared suddenly before
her in the little garden in front of the cottage. They were alone
for the moment. The wind had dropped. In the calm evening
air the voices of Mrs. Fyne and the girls strolling aimlessly on the
road could be heard. He said to her severely:
You have understood?
She looked at him in silence.
That I love you, he finished.
She shook her head the least bit.
Dont you believe me? he asked in a low, infuriated
voice.
Nobody would love me, she answered in a very quiet
tone. Nobody could.
He was dumb for a time, astonished beyond measure, as he well might
have been. He doubted his ears. He was outraged.
Eh? What? Cant love you? What do
you know about it? Its my affair, isnt it?
You dare say that to a man who has just told you! You must
be mad!
Very nearly, she said with the accent of pent-up sincerity,
and even relieved because she was able to say something which she felt
was true. For the last few days she had felt herself several times
near that madness which is but an intolerable lucidity of apprehension.
The clear voices of Mrs. Fyne and the girls were coming nearer, sounding
affected in the peace of the passion-laden earth. He began storming
at her hastily.
Nonsense! Nobody can . . . Indeed! Pah!
Youll have to be shown that somebody can. I can.
Nobody . . . He made a contemptuous hissing noise.
More likely you cant. They have done something
to you. Somethings crushed your pluck. You cant
face a manthats what it is. What made you like this?
Where do you come from? You have been put upon. The scoundrelswhoever
they are, men or women, seem to have robbed you of your very name.
You say you are not Miss Smith. Who are you, then?
She did not answer. He muttered, Not that I care,
and fell silent, because the fatuous self-confident chatter of the Fyne
girls could be heard at the very gate. But they were not going
to bed yet. They passed on. He waited a little in silence
and immobility, then stamped his foot and lost control of himself.
He growled at her in a savage passion. She felt certain that he
was threatening her and calling her names. She was no stranger
to abuse, as we know, but there seemed to be a particular kind of ferocity
in this which was new to her. She began to tremble. The
especially terrifying thing was that she could not make out the nature
of these awful menaces and names. Not a word. Yet it was
not the shrinking anguish of her other experiences of angry scenes.
She made a mighty effort, though her knees were knocking together, and
in an expiring voice demanded that he should let her go indoors.
Dont stop me. Its no use. Its
no use, she repeated faintly, feeling an invincible obstinacy
rising within her, yet without anger against that raging man.
He became articulate suddenly, and, without raising his voice, perfectly
audible.
No use! No use! You dare stand here and tell me
thatyou white-faced wisp, you wreath of mist, you little ghost
of all the sorrow in the world. You dare! Havent
I been looking at you? You are all eyes. What makes your
cheeks always so white as if you had seen something . . . Dont
speak. I love it . . . No use! And you really think that
I can now go to sea for a year or more, to the other side of the world
somewhere, leaving you behind. Why! You would vanish . .
. what little there is of you. Some rough wind will blow you away
altogether. You have no holding ground on earth. Well, then
trust yourself to meto the seawhich is deep like your
eyes.
She said: Impossible. He kept quiet for a while,
then asked in a totally changed tone, a tone of gloomy curiosity:
You cant stand me then? Is that it?
No, she said, more steady herself. I am
not thinking of you at all.
The inane voices of the Fyne girls were heard over the sombre fields
calling to each other, thin and clear. He muttered: You
could try to. Unless you are thinking of somebody else.
Yes. I am thinking of somebody else, of someone who
has nobody to think of him but me.
His shadowy form stepped out of her way, and suddenly leaned sideways
against the wooden support of the porch. And as she stood still,
surprised by this staggering movement, his voice spoke up in a tone
quite strange to her.
Go in then. Go out of my sightI thought you said
nobody could love you.
She was passing him when suddenly he struck her as so forlorn that
she was inspired to say: No one has ever loved menot in
that wayif thats what you mean. Nobody would.
He detached himself brusquely from the post, and she did not shrink;
but Mrs. Fyne and the girls were already at the gate.
All he understood was that everything was not over yet. There
was no time to lose; Mrs. Fyne and the girls had come in at the gate.
He whispered Wait with such authority (he was the son
of Carleon Anthony, the domestic autocrat) that it did arrest her for
a moment, long enough to hear him say that he could not be left like
this to puzzle over her nonsense all night. She was to slip down
again into the garden later on, as soon as she could do so without being
heard. He would be there waiting for her tilltill daylight.
She didnt think he could go to sleep, did she? And she
had better come, orhe broke off on an unfinished threat.
She vanished into the unlighted cottage just as Mrs. Fyne came up
to the porch. Nervous, holding her breath in the darkness of the
living-room, she heard her best friend say: You ought to have
joined us, Roderick. And then: Have you seen Miss
Smith anywhere?
Flora shuddered, expecting Anthony to break out into betraying imprecations
on Miss Smiths head, and cause a painful and humiliating explanation.
She imagined him full of his mysterious ferocity. To her great
surprise, Anthonys voice sounded very much as usual, with perhaps
a slight tinge of grimness. Miss Smith! No.
Ive seen no Miss Smith.
Mrs. Fyne seemed satisfiedand not much concerned really.
Flora, relieved, got clear away to her room upstairs, and shutting
her door quietly, dropped into a chair. She was used to reproaches,
abuse, to all sorts of wicked ill usageshort of actual beating
on her body. Otherwise inexplicable angers had cut and slashed
and trampled down her youth without mercyand mainly, it appeared,
because she was the financier de Barrals daughter and also condemned
to a degrading sort of poverty through the action of treacherous men
who had turned upon her father in his hour of need. And she thought
with the tenderest possible affection of that upright figure buttoned
up in a long frock-coat, soft-voiced and having but little to say to
his girl. She seemed to feel his hand closed round hers.
On his flying visits to Brighton he would always walk hand in hand with
her. People stared covertly at them; the band was playing; and
there was the seathe blue gaiety of the sea. They were
quietly happy together . . . It was all over!
An immense anguish of the present wrung her heart, and she nearly
cried aloud. That dread of what was before her which had been
eating up her courage slowly in the course of odious years, flamed up
into an access of panic, that sort of headlong panic which had already
driven her out twice to the top of the cliff-like quarry. She
jumped up saying to herself: Why not now? At once!
Yes. Ill do it nowin the dark! The
very horror of it seemed to give her additional resolution.
She came down the staircase quietly, and only on the point of opening
the door and because of the discovery that it was unfastened, she remembered
Captain Anthonys threat to stay in the garden all night.
She hesitated. She did not understand the mood of that man clearly.
He was violent. But she had gone beyond the point where things
matter. What would he think of her coming down to himas
he would naturally suppose. And even that didnt matter.
He could not despise her more than she despised herself. She must
have been light-headed because the thought came into her mind that should
he get into ungovernable fury from disappointment, and perchance strangle
her, it would be as good a way to be done with it as any.
You had that thought, I exclaimed in wonder.
With downcast eyes and speaking with an almost painstaking precision
(her very lips, her red lips, seemed to move just enough to be heard
and no more), she said that, yes, the thought came into her head.
This makes one shudder at the mysterious ways girls acquire knowledge.
For this was a thought, wild enough, I admit, but which could only have
come from the depths of that sort of experience which she had not had,
and went far beyond a young girls possible conception of the
strongest and most veiled of human emotions.
He was there, of course? I said.
Yes, he was there. She saw him on the path directly
she stepped outside the porch. He was very still. It was
as though he had been standing there with his face to the door for hours.
Shaken up by the changing moods of passion and tenderness, he must
have been ready for any extravagance of conduct. Knowing the profound
silence each night brought to that nook of the country, I could imagine
them having the feeling of being the only two people on the wide earth.
A row of six or seven lofty elms just across the road opposite the cottage
made the night more obscure in that little garden. If these two
could just make out each other that was all.
Well! And were you very much terrified? I asked.
She made me wait a little before she said, raising her eyes: He
was gentleness itself.
I noticed three abominable, drink-sodden loafers, sallow and dirty,
who had come to range themselves in a row within ten feet of us against
the front of the public-house. They stared at Flora de Barrals
back with unseeing, mournful fixity.
Lets move this way a little, I proposed.
She turned at once and we made a few paces; not too far to take us
out of sight of the hotel door, but very nearly. I could just
keep my eyes on it. After all, I had not been so very long with
the girl. If you were to disentangle the words we actually exchanged
from my comments you would see that they were not so very many, including
everything she had so unexpectedly told me of her story. No, not
so very many. And now it seemed as though there would be no more.
No! I could expect no more. The confidence was wonderful
enough in its nature as far as it went, and perhaps not to have been
expected from any other girl under the sun. And I felt a little
ashamed. The origin of our intimacy was too gruesome. It
was as if listening to her I had taken advantage of having seen her
poor bewildered, scared soul without its veils. But I was curious,
too; or, to render myself justice without false modestyI was
anxious; anxious to know a little more.
I felt like a blackmailer all the same when I made my attempt with
a light-hearted remark.
And so you gave up that walk you proposed to take?
Yes, I gave up the walk, she said slowly before raising
her downcast eyes. When she did so it was with an extraordinary
effect. It was like catching sight of a piece of blue sky, of
a stretch of open water. And for a moment I understood the desire
of that man to whom the sea and sky of his solitary life had appeared
suddenly incomplete without that glance which seemed to belong to them
both. He was not for nothing the son of a poet. I looked
into those unabashed eyes while the girl went on, her demure appearance
and precise tone changed to a very earnest expression. Woman is
various indeed.
But I want you to understand, Mr. . . . she had actually
to think of my name . . . Mr. Marlow, that I have written to
Mrs. Fyne that I havent beenthat I have done nothing to
make Captain Anthony behave to me as he had behaved. I havent.
I havent. It isnt my doing. It isnt
my faultif she likes to put it in that way. But she, with
her ideas, ought to understand that I couldnt, that I couldnt
. . . I know she hates me now. I think she never liked me.
I think nobody ever cared for me. I was told once nobody could
care for me; and I think it is true. At any rate I cant
forget it.
Her abominable experience with the governess had implanted in her
unlucky breast a lasting doubt, an ineradicable suspicion of herself
and of others. I said:
Remember, Miss de Barral, that to be fair you must trust a
man altogetheror not at all.
She dropped her eyes suddenly. I thought I heard a faint sigh.
I tried to take a light tone again, and yet it seemed impossible to
get off the ground which gave me my standing with her.
Mrs. Fyne is absurd. Shes an excellent woman,
but really you could not be expected to throw away your chance of life
simply that she might cherish a good opinion of your memory. That
would be excessive.
It was not of my life that I was thinking while Captain Anthony
waswas speaking to me, said Flora de Barral with an effort.
I told her that she was wrong then. She ought to have been
thinking of her life, and not only of her life but of the life of the
man who was speaking to her too. She let me finish, then shook
her head impatiently.
I meandeath.
Well, I said, when he stood before you there,
outside the cottage, he really stood between you and that. I have
it out of your own mouth. You cant deny it.
If you will have it that he saved my life, then he has got
it. It was not for me. Oh no! It was not for me that
IIt was not fear! There! She finished petulantly:
And you may just as well know it.
She hung her head and swung the parasol slightly to and fro.
I thought a little.
Do you know French, Miss de Barral? I asked.
She made a sign with her head that she did, but without showing any
surprise at the question and without ceasing to swing her parasol.
Well then, somehow or other I have the notion that Captain
Anthony is what the French call un galant homme. I should
like to think he is being treated as he deserves.
The form of her lips (I could see them under the brim of her hat)
was suddenly altered into a line of seriousness. The parasol stopped
swinging.
I have given him what he wantedthats myself,
she said without a tremor and with a striking dignity of tone.
Impressed by the manner and the directness of the words, I hesitated
for a moment what to say. Then made up my mind to clear up the
point.
And you have got what you wanted? Is that it?
The daughter of the egregious financier de Barral did not answer
at once this question going to the heart of things. Then raising
her head and gazing wistfully across the street noisy with the endless
transit of innumerable bargains, she said with intense gravity:
He has been most generous.
I was pleased to hear these words. Not that I doubted the infatuation
of Roderick Anthony, but I was pleased to hear something which proved
that she was sensible and open to the sentiment of gratitude which in
this case was significant. In the face of mans desire a
girl is excusable if she thinks herself priceless. I mean a girl
of our civilization which has established a dithyrambic phraseology
for the expression of love. A man in love will accept any convention
exalting the object of his passion and in this indirect way his passion
itself. In what way the captain of the ship Ferndale gave
proofs of lover-like lavishness I could not guess very well. But
I was glad she was appreciative. It is lucky that small things
please women. And it is not silly of them to be thus pleased.
It is in small things that the deepest loyalty, that which they need
most, the loyalty of the passing moment, is best expressed.
She had remained thoughtful, letting her deep motionless eyes rest
on the streaming jumble of traffic. Suddenly she said:
And I wanted to ask you . . . I was really glad when I saw
you actually here. Who would have expected you here, at this spot,
before this hotel! I certainly never . . . You see it meant a
lot to me. You are the only person who knows . . . who knows for
certain . . .
Knows what? I said, not discovering at first what she
had in her mind. Then I saw it. Why cant you
leave that alone? I remonstrated, rather annoyed at the invidious
position she was forcing on me in a sense. Its true
that I was the only person to see, I added. But,
as it happens, after your mysterious disappearance I told the Fynes
the story of our meeting.
Her eyes raised to mine had an expression of dreamy, unfathomable
candour, if I dare say so. And if you wonder what I mean I can
only say that I have seen the sea wear such an expression on one or
two occasions shortly before sunrise on a calm, fresh day. She
said as if meditating aloud that she supposed the Fynes were not likely
to talk about that. She couldnt imagine any connection
in which . . . Why should they?
As her tone had become interrogatory I assented. To
be sure. Theres no reason whatever thinking
to myself that they would be more likely indeed to keep quiet about
it. They had other things to talk of. And then remembering
little Fyne stuck upstairs for an unconscionable time, enough to blurt
out everything he ever knew in his life, I reflected that he would assume
naturally that Captain Anthony had nothing to learn from him about Flora
de Barral. It had been up to now my assumption too. I saw
my mistake. The sincerest of women will make no unnecessary confidences
to a man. And this is as it should be.
Nono! I said reassuringly. Its
most unlikely. Are you much concerned?
Well, you see, when I came down, she said again in
that precise demure tone, when I came downinto the garden
Captain Anthony misunderstood
Of course he would. Men are so conceited, I said.
I saw it well enough that he must have thought she had come down
to him. What else could he have thought? And then he had
been gentleness itself. A new experience for that
poor, delicate, and yet so resisting creature. Gentleness in passion!
What could have been more seductive to the scared, starved heart of
that girl? Perhaps had he been violent, she might have told him
that what she came down to keep was the tryst of deathnot of
love. It occurred to me as I looked at her, young, fragile in
aspect, and intensely alive in her quietness, that perhaps she did not
know herself then what sort of tryst she was coming down to keep.
She smiled faintly, almost awkwardly as if she were totally unused
to smiling, at my cheap jocularity. Then she said with that forced
precision, a sort of conscious primness:
I didnt want him to know.
I approved heartily. Quite right. Much better.
Let him ever remain under his misapprehension which was so much more
flattering for him.
I tried to keep it in the tone of comedy; but she was, I believe,
too simple to understand my intention. She went on, looking down.
Oh! You think so? When I saw you I didnt
know why you were here. I was glad when you spoke to me because
this is exactly what I wanted to ask you for. I wanted to ask
you if you ever meet Captain Anthonyby any chanceanywhereyou
are a sailor too, are you not?that you would never mentionneverthatthat
you had seen me over there.
My dear young lady, I cried, horror-struck at the supposition.
Why should I? What makes you think I should dream of .
. .
She had raised her head at my vehemence. She did not understand
it. The world had treated her so dishonourably that she had no
notion even of what mere decency of feeling is like. It was not
her fault. Indeed, I dont know why she should have put
her trust in anybodys promises.
But I thought it would be better to promise. So I assured her
that she could depend on my absolute silence.
I am not likely to ever set eyes on Captain Anthony,
I added with convictionas a further guarantee.
She accepted my assurance in silence, without a sign. Her gravity
had in it something acute, perhaps because of that chin. While
we were still looking at each other she declared:
Theres no deception in it really. I want you
to believe that if I am here, like this, to-day, it is not from fear.
It is not!
I quite understand, I said. But her firm yet
self-conscious gaze became doubtful. I do, I insisted.
I understand perfectly that it was not of death that you were
afraid.
She lowered her eyes slowly, and I went on:
As to life, thats another thing. And I dont
know that one ought to blame you very muchthough it seemed rather
an excessive step. I wonder now if it isnt the ugliness
rather than the pain of the struggle which . . .
She shuddered visibly: But I do blame myself, she exclaimed
with feeling. I am ashamed. And, dropping
her head, she looked in a moment the very picture of remorse and shame.
Well, you will be going away from all its horrors,
I said. And surely you are not afraid of the sea.
You are a sailors granddaughter, I understand.
She sighed deeply. She remembered her grandfather only a little.
He was a clean-shaven man with a ruddy complexion and long, perfectly
white hair. He used to take her on his knee, and putting his face
near hers, talk to her in loving whispers. If only he were alive
now . . . !
She remained silent for a while.
Arent you anxious to see the ship? I asked.
She lowered her head still more so that I could not see anything
of her face.
I dont know, she murmured.
I had already the suspicion that she did not know her own feelings.
All this work of the merest chance had been so unexpected, so sudden.
And she had nothing to fall back upon, no experience but such as to
shake her belief in every human being. She was dreadfully and
pitifully forlorn. It was almost in order to comfort my own depression
that I remarked cheerfully:
Well, I know of somebody who must be growing extremely anxious
to see you.
I am before my time, she confessed simply, rousing
herself. I had nothing to do. So I came out.
I had the sudden vision of a shabby, lonely little room at the other
end of the town. It had grown intolerable to her restlessness.
The mere thought of it oppressed her. Flora de Barral was looking
frankly at her chance confidant,
And I came this way, she went on. I appointed
the time myself yesterday, but Captain Anthony would not have minded.
He told me he was going to look over some business papers till I came.
The idea of the son of the poet, the rescuer of the most forlorn
damsel of modern times, the man of violence, gentleness and generosity,
sitting up to his neck in ships accounts amused me. I
am sure he would not have minded, I said, smiling. But
the girls stare was sombre, her thin white face seemed pathetically
careworn.
I can hardly believe yet, she murmured anxiously.
Its quite real. Never fear, I said encouragingly,
but had to change my tone at once. You had better go down
that way a little, I directed her abruptly.
* * * * *
I had seen Fyne come striding out of the hotel door. The intelligent
girl, without staying to ask questions, walked away from me quietly
down one street while I hurried on to meet Fyne coming up the other
at his efficient pedestrian gait. My object was to stop him getting
as far as the corner. He must have been thinking too hard to be
aware of his surroundings. I put myself in his way, and he nearly
walked into me.
Hallo! I said.
His surprise was extreme. You here! You dont
mean to say you have been waiting for me?
I said negligently that I had been detained by unexpected business
in the neighbourhood, and thus happened to catch sight of him coming
out.
He stared at me with solemn distraction, obviously thinking of something
else. I suggested that he had better take the next city-ward tramcar.
He was inattentive, and I perceived that he was profoundly perturbed.
As Miss de Barral (she had moved out of sight) could not possibly approach
the hotel door as long as we remained where we were I proposed that
we should wait for the car on the other side of the street. He
obeyed rather the slight touch on his arm than my words, and while we
were crossing the wide roadway in the midst of the lumbering wheeled
traffic, he exclaimed in his deep tone, I dont know which
of these two is more mad than the other!
Really! I said, pulling him forward from under the
noses of two enormous sleepy-headed cart-horses. He skipped wildly
out of the way and up on the curbstone with a purely instinctive precision;
his mind had nothing to do with his movements. In the middle of
his leap, and while in the act of sailing gravely through the air, he
continued to relieve his outraged feelings.
You would never believe! They are mad!
I took care to place myself in such a position that to face me he
had to turn his back on the hotel across the road. I believe he
was glad I was there to talk to. But I thought there was some
misapprehension in the first statement he shot out at me without loss
of time, that Captain Anthony had been glad to see him. It was
indeed difficult to believe that, directly he opened the door, his wifes
sailor-brother had positively shouted: Oh, its
you! The very man I wanted to see.
I found him sitting there, went on Fyne impressively
in his effortless, grave chest voice, drafting his will.
This was unexpected, but I preserved a noncommittal attitude, knowing
full well that our actions in themselves are neither mad nor sane.
But I did not see what there was to be excited about. And Fyne
was distinctly excited. I understood it better when I learned
that the captain of the Ferndale wanted little Fyne to be one
of the trustees. He was leaving everything to his wife.
Naturally, a request which involved him into sanctioning in a way a
proceeding which he had been sent by his wife to oppose, must have appeared
sufficiently mad to Fyne.
Me! Me, of all people in the world! he repeated
portentously. But I could see that he was frightened. Such
want of tact!
He knew I came from his sister. You dont put
a man into such an awkward position, complained Fyne. It
made me speak much more strongly against all this very painful business
than I would have had the heart to do otherwise.
I pointed out to him concisely, and keeping my eyes on the door of
the hotel, that he and his wife were the only bond with the land Captain
Anthony had. Who else could he have asked?
I explained to him that he was breaking this bond,
declared Fyne solemnly. Breaking it once for all.
And for whatfor what?
He glared at me. I could perhaps have given him an inkling
for what, but I said nothing. He started again:
My wife assures me that the girl does not love him a bit.
She goes by that letter she received from her. There is a passage
in it where she practically admits that she was quite unscrupulous in
accepting this offer of marriage, but says to my wife that she supposes
she, my wife, will not blame heras it was in self-defence.
My wife has her own ideas, but this is an outrageous misapprehension
of her views. Outrageous.
The good little man paused and then added weightily:
I didnt tell that to my brother-in-lawI mean,
my wifes views.
No, I said. What would have been the good?
Its positive infatuation, agreed little Fyne,
in the tone as though he had made an awful discovery. I
have never seen anything so hopeless and inexplicable in my life.
II felt quite frightened and sorry, he added, while I
looked at him curiously asking myself whether this excellent civil servant
and notable pedestrian had felt the breath of a great and fatal love-spell
passing him by in the room of that East-end hotel. He did look
for a moment as though he had seen a ghost, an other-world thing.
But that look vanished instantaneously, and he nodded at me with mere
exasperation at something quite of this worldwhatever it was.
Its a bad business. My brother-in-law knows nothing
of women, he cried with an air of profound, experienced wisdom.
What he imagined he knew of women himself I cant tell.
I did not know anything of the opportunities he might have had.
But this is a subject which, if approached with undue solemnity, is
apt to elude ones grasp entirely. No doubt Fyne knew something
of a woman who was Captain Anthonys sister. But that, admittedly,
had been a very solemn study. I smiled at him gently, and as if
encouraged or provoked, he completed his thought rather explosively.
And that girl understands nothing . . . Its sheer lunacy.
I dont know, I said, whether the circumstances
of isolation at sea would be any alleviation to the danger. But
its certain that they shall have the opportunity to learn everything
about each other in a lonely tete-a-tete.
But dash it all, he cried in hollow accents which at
the same time had the tone of bitter ironyI had never before
heard a sound so quaintly ugly and almost horribleYou
forget Mr. Smith.
What Mr. Smith? I asked innocently.
Fyne made an extraordinary simiesque grimace. I believe it
was quite involuntary, but you know that a grave, much-lined, shaven
countenance when distorted in an unusual way is extremely apelike.
It was a surprising sight, and rendered me not only speechless but stopped
the progress of my thought completely. I must have presented a
remarkably imbecile appearance.
My brother-in-law considered it amusing to chaff me about
us introducing the girl as Miss Smith, said Fyne, going surly
in a moment. He said that perhaps if he had heard her real
name from the first it might have restrained him. As it was, he
made the discovery too late. Asked me to tell Zoe this together
with a lot more nonsense.
Fyne gave me the impression of having escaped from a man inspired
by a grimly playful ebullition of high spirits. It must have been
most distasteful to him; and his solemnity got damaged somehow in the
process, I perceived. There were holes in it through which I could
see a new, an unknown Fyne.
You wouldnt believe it, he went on, but
she looks upon her father exclusively as a victim. I dont
know, he burst out suddenly through an enormous rent in his solemnity,
if she thinks him absolutely a saint, but she certainly imagines
him to be a martyr.
It is one of the advantages of that magnificent invention, the prison,
that you may forget people which are put there as though they were dead.
One neednt worry about them. Nothing can happen to them
that you can help. They can do nothing which might possibly matter
to anybody. They come out of it, though, but that seems hardly
an advantage to themselves or anyone else. I had completely forgotten
the financier de Barral. The girl for me was an orphan, but now
I perceived suddenly the force of Fynes qualifying statement,
to a certain extent. It would have been infinitely
more kind all round for the law to have shot, beheaded, strangled, or
otherwise destroyed this absurd de Barral, who was a danger to a moral
world inhabited by a credulous multitude not fit to take care of itself.
But I observed to Fyne that, however insane was the view she held, one
could not declare the girl mad on that account.
So she thinks of her fatherdoes she? I suppose
she would appear to us saner if she thought only of herself.
I am positive, Fyne said earnestly, that she
went and made desperate eyes at Anthony . . .
Oh come! I interrupted. You havent
seen her make eyes. You dont know the colour of her eyes.
Very well! It dont matter. But it could
hardly have come to that if she hadnt . . . Its all one,
though. I tell you she has led him on, or accepted him, if you
like, simply because she was thinking of her father. She doesnt
care a bit about Anthony, I believe. She cares for no one.
Never cared for anyone. Ask Zoe. For myself I dont
blame her, added Fyne, giving me another view of unsuspected
things through the rags and tatters of his damaged solemnity.
No! by heavens, I dont blame herthe poor devil.
I agreed with him silently. I suppose affections are, in a
sense, to be learned. If there exists a native spark of love in
all of us, it must be fanned while we are young. Hers, if she
ever had it, had been drenched in as ugly a lot of corrosive liquid
as could be imagined. But I was surprised at Fyne obscurely feeling
this.
She loves no one except that preposterous advertising shark,
he pursued venomously, but in a more deliberate manner. And
Anthony knows it.
Does he? I said doubtfully.
Shes quite capable of having told him herself,
affirmed Fyne, with amazing insight. But whether or no,
Ive told him.
You did? From Mrs. Fyne, of course.
Fyne only blinked owlishly at this piece of my insight.
And how did Captain Anthony receive this interesting information?
I asked further.
Most improperly, said Fyne, who really was in a state
in which he didnt mind what he blurted out. He isnt
himself. He begged me to tell his sister that he offered no remarks
on her conduct. Very improper and inconsequent. He said
. . . I was tired of this wrangling. I told him I made allowances
for the state of excitement he was in.
You know, Fyne, I said, a man in jail seems
to me such an incredible, cruel, nightmarish sort of thing that I can
hardly believe in his existence. Certainly not in relation to
any other existences.
But dash it all, cried Fyne, he isnt
shut up for life. They are going to let him out. Hes
coming out! Thats the whole trouble. What is he coming
out to, I want to know? It seems a more cruel business than the
shutting him up was. This has been the worry for weeks.
Do you see now?
I saw, all sorts of things! Immediately before me I saw the
excitement of little Fynemere food for wonder. Further
off, in a sort of gloom and beyond the light of day and the movement
of the street, I saw the figure of a man, stiff like a ramrod, moving
with small steps, a slight girlish figure by his side. And the
gloom was like the gloom of villainous slums, of misery, of wretchedness,
of a starved and degraded existence. It was a relief that I could
see only their shabby hopeless backs. He was an awful ghost.
But indeed to call him a ghost was only a refinement of polite speech,
and a manner of concealing ones terror of such things.
Prisons are wonderful contrivances. Shutopen. Very
neat. Shutopen. And out comes some sort of corpse,
to wander awfully in a world in which it has no possible connections
and carrying with it the appalling tainted atmosphere of its silent
abode. Marvellous arrangement. It works automatically, and,
when you look at it, the perfection makes you sick; which for a mere
mechanism is no mean triumph. Sick and scared. It had nearly
scared that poor girl to her death. Fancy having to take such
a thing by the hand! Now I understood the remorseful strain I
had detected in her speeches.
By Jove! I said. They are about to let
him out! I never thought of that.
Fyne was contemptuous either of me or of things at large.
You didnt suppose he was to be kept in jail for life?
At that moment I caught sight of Flora de Barral at the junction
of the two streets. Then some vehicles following each other in
quick succession hid from my sight the black slight figure with just
a touch of colour in her hat. She was walking slowly; and it might
have been caution or reluctance. While listening to Fyne I stared
hard past his shoulder trying to catch sight of her again. He
was going on with positive heat, the rags of his solemnity dropping
off him at every second sentence.
That was just it. His wife and he had been perfectly aware
of it. Of course the girl never talked of her father with Mrs.
Fyne. I suppose with her theory of innocence she found it difficult.
But she must have been thinking of it day and night. What to do
with him? Where to go? How to keep body and soul together?
He had never made any friends. The only relations were the atrocious
East-end cousins. We know what they were. Nothing but wretchedness,
whichever way she turned in an unjust and prejudiced world. And
to look at him helplessly she felt would be too much for her.
I wont say I was thinking these thoughts. It was not
necessary. This complete knowledge was in my head while I stared
hard across the wide road, so hard that I failed to hear little Fyne
till he raised his deep voice indignantly.
I dont blame the girl, he was saying.
He is infatuated with her. Anybody can see that.
Why she should have got such a hold on him I cant understand.
She said Yes to him only for the sake of that fatuous,
swindling father of hers. Its perfectly plain if one thinks
it over a moment. One neednt even think of it. We
have it under her own hand. In that letter to my wife she says
she has acted unscrupulously. She has owned up, then, for what
else can it mean, I should like to know. And so they are to be
married before that old idiot comes out . . . He will be surprised,
commented Fyne suddenly in a strangely malignant tone. He
shall be met at the jail door by a Mrs. Anthony, a Mrs. Captain Anthony.
Very pleasant for Zoe. And for all I know, my brother-in-law means
to turn up dutifully too. A little family event. Its
extremely pleasant to think of. Delightful. A charming family
party. We three against the worldand all that sort of thing.
And what for. For a girl that doesnt care twopence for
him.
The demon of bitterness had entered into little Fyne. He amazed
me as though he had changed his skin from white to black. It was
quite as wonderful. And he kept it up, too.
Luckily there are some advantages in thethe profession
of a sailor. As long as they defy the world away at sea somewhere
eighteen thousand miles from here, I dont mind so much.
I wonder what that interesting old party will say. He will have
another surprise. They mean to drag him along with them on board
the ship straight away. Rescue work. Just think of Roderick
Anthony, the son of a gentleman, after all . . .
He gave me a little shock. I thought he was going to say the
son of the poet as usual; but his mind was not running
on such vanities now. His unspoken thought must have gone on and
uncle of my girls. I suspect that he had been roughly handled
by Captain Anthony up there, and the resentment gave a tremendous fillip
to the slow play of his wits. Those men of sober fancy, when anything
rouses their imaginative faculty, are very thorough. Just
think! he cried. The three of them crowded into
a four-wheeler, and Anthony sitting deferentially opposite that astonished
old jail-bird!
The good little man laughed. An improper sound it was to come
from his manly chest; and what made it worse was the thought that for
the least thing, by a mere hairs breadth, he might have taken
this affair sentimentally. But clearly Anthony was no diplomatist.
His brother-in-law must have appeared to him, to use the language of
shore people, a perfect philistine with a heart like a flint.
What Fyne precisely meant by wrangling I dont know,
but I had no doubt that these two had wrangled to a profoundly
disturbing extent. How much the other was affected I could not
even imagine; but the man before me was quite amazingly upset.
In a four-wheeler! Take him on board! I muttered,
startled by the change in Fyne.
Thats the plannothing less. If I am to
believe what I have been told, his feet will scarcely touch the ground
between the prison-gates and the deck of that ship.
The transformed Fyne spoke in a forcibly lowered tone which I heard
without difficulty. The rumbling, composite noises of the street
were hushed for a moment, during one of these sudden breaks in the traffic
as if the stream of commerce had dried up at its source. Having
an unobstructed view past Fynes shoulder, I was astonished to
see that the girl was still there. I thought she had gone up long
before. But there was her black slender figure, her white face
under the roses of her hat. She stood on the edge of the pavement
as people stand on the bank of a stream, very still, as if waitingor
as if unconscious of where she was. The three dismal, sodden loafers
(I could see them too; they hadnt budged an inch) seemed to me
to be watching her. Which was horrible.
Meantime Fyne was telling me rather remarkable thingsfor him.
He declared first it was a mercy in a sense. Then he asked me
if it were not real madness, to saddle ones existence with such
a perpetual reminder. The daily existence. The isolated
sea-bound existence. To bring such an additional strain into the
solitude already trying enough for two people was the craziest thing.
Undesirable relations were bad enough on shore. One could cut
them or at least forget their existence now and then. He himself
was preparing to forget his brother-in-laws existence as much
as possible.
That was the general sense of his remarks, not his exact words.
I thought that his wifes brothers existence had never
been very embarrassing to him but that now of course he would have to
abstain from his allusions to the son of the poetyou know.
I said yes, yes in the pauses because I did not want him
to turn round; and all the time I was watching the girl intently.
I thought I knew now what she meant with herHe was most
generous. Yes. Generosity of character may carry
a man through any situation. But why didnt she go then
to her generous man? Why stand there as if clinging to this solid
earth which she surely hated as one must hate the place where one has
been tormented, hopeless, unhappy? Suddenly she stirred.
Was she going to cross over? No. She turned and began to
walk slowly close to the curbstone, reminding me of the time when I
discovered her walking near the edge of a ninety-foot sheer drop.
It was the same impression, the same carriage, straight, slim, with
rigid head and the two hands hanging lightly clasped in frontonly
now a small sunshade was dangling from them. I saw something fateful
in that deliberate pacing towards the inconspicuous door with the words
Hotel Entrance on the glass panels.
She was abreast of it now and I thought that she would stop again;
but no! She swerved rigidlyat the moment there was no one
near her; she had that bit of pavement to herselfwith inanimate
slowness as if moved by something outside herself.
A confounded convict, Fyne burst out.
With the sound of that word offending my ears I saw the girl extend
her arm, push the door open a little way and glide in. I saw plainly
that movement, the hand put out in advance with the gesture of a sleep-walker.
She had vanished, her black figure had melted in the darkness of
the open door. For some time Fyne said nothing; and I thought
of the girl going upstairs, appearing before the man. Were they
looking at each other in silence and feeling they were alone in the
world as lovers should at the moment of meeting? But that fine
forgetfulness was surely impossible to Anthony the seaman directly after
the wrangling interview with Fyne the emissary of an order of things
which stops at the edge of the sea. How much he was disturbed
I couldnt tell because I did not know what that impetuous lover
had had to listen to.
Going to take the old fellow to sea with them, I said.
Well I really dont see what else they could have done
with him. You told your brother-in-law what you thought of it?
I wonder how he took it.
Very improperly, repeated Fyne. His manner
was offensive, derisive, from the first. I dont mean he
was actually rude in words. Hang it all, I am not a contemptible
ass. But he was exulting at having got hold of a miserable girl.
It is pretty certain that she will be much less poor and miserable,
I murmured.
It looked as if the exultation of Captain Anthony had got on Fynes
nerves. I told the fellow very plainly that he was abominably
selfish in this, he affirmed unexpectedly.
You did! Selfish! I said rather taken aback.
But what if the girl thought that, on the contrary, he was most
generous.
What do you know about it, growled Fyne. The
rents and slashes of his solemnity were closing up gradually but it
was going to be a surly solemnity. Generosity! I
am disposed to give it another name. No. Not folly,
he shot out at me as though I had meant to interrupt him. Still
another. Something worse. I need not tell you what it is,
he added with grim meaning.
Certainly. You needntunless you like,
I said blankly. Little Fyne had never interested me so much since
the beginning of the de Barral-Anthony affair when I first perceived
possibilities in him. The possibilities of dull men are exciting
because when they happen they suggest legendary cases of possession,
not exactly by the devil but, anyhow, by a strange spirit.
I told him it was a shame, said Fyne. Even
if the girl did make eyes at himbut I think with you that she
did not. Yes! A shame to take advantage of a girlsa
distresses girl that does not love him in the least.
You think its so bad as that? I said.
Because you know I dont.
What can you think about it, he retorted on me with
a solemn stare. I go by her letter to my wife.
Ah! that famous letter. But you havent actually
read it, I said.
No, but my wife told me. Of course it was a most improper
sort of letter to write considering the circumstances. It pained
Mrs. Fyne to discover how thoroughly she had been misunderstood.
But what is written is not all. Its what my wife could
read between the lines. She says that the girl is really terrified
at heart.
She had not much in life to give her any very special courage
for it, or any great confidence in mankind. Thats very
true. But this seems an exaggeration.
I should like to know what reasons you have to say that,
asked Fyne with offended solemnity. I really dont
see any. But I had sufficient authority to tell my brother-in-law
that if he thought he was going to do something chivalrous and fine
he was mistaken. I can see very well that he will do everything
she asks him to dobut, all the same, it is rather a pitiless
transaction.
For a moment I felt it might be so. Fyne caught sight of an
approaching tram-car and stepped out on the road to meet it. Have
you a more compassionate scheme ready? I called after him.
He made no answer, clambered on to the rear platform, and only then
looked back. We exchanged a perfunctory wave of the hand.
We also looked at each other, he rather angrily, I fancy, and I with
wonder. I may also mention that it was for the last time.
From that day I never set eyes on the Fynes. As usual the unexpected
happened to me. It had nothing to do with Flora de Barral.
The fact is that I went away. My call was not like her call.
Mine was not urged on me with passionate vehemence or tender gentleness
made all the finer and more compelling by the allurements of generosity
which is a virtue as mysterious as any other but having a glamour of
its own. No, it was just a prosaic offer of employment on rather
good terms which, with a sudden sense of having wasted my time on shore
long enough, I accepted without misgivings. And once started out
of my indolence I went, as my habit was, very, very far away and for
a long, long time. Which is another proof of my indolence.
How far Flora went I cant say. But I will tell you my idea:
my idea is that she went as far as she was ableas far as she
could bear itas far as she had to . . .
PART IITHE KNIGHT
CHAPTER ONETHE FERNDALE
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
mustnt be disturbed of the old ship-keepermay 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 over-night 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 Dingles sloop-rigged three-tonner to
be more on an equality. Powell was friendly but elusive.
I dont 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 inlandbut what
about his five-ton cutter? You cant 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. Thats
why I hired Dingles decked boat. There was just the accommodation
in her to sleep a man and a dog. But I had no dog-friend to invite.
Fynes dog who saved Flora de Barrals 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 lifes chancesand, 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 Powells 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 Powells 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 Powells 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 Powells. 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 couldnt
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 moments 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 didnt 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. Hes 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. Iwehave 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 dont 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 wifes interpretation of the girls
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, its 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,
dont 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 shipas agreed. That was my reason for saying that Flora
de Barral did go to sea . . .
Yes. It seems conclusive, I agreed. But
even without thatif, 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 trueto
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 havent the most flattered, the most
conceited of us their moments of doubt? Havent they?
Well, I dont know. There may be lucky beings in this world
unable to believe any evil of themselves. For my own part Ill
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 transactiona clever
fellow whom I really despisedwas 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? Its 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 fellows
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-keeperwhether the same who had been described to us
by Mr. Powell, or another, I dont 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-cabinand 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
captains state-room. The other was vacant, and furnished
with arm-chairs and a round table, more like a room on shore, except
for the long curved settee following the shape of the ships 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 recognize 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 werent 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 didnt 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 girls
arm just before a couple of railway trucks drawn by a horse came rolling
along and hid them from the ship-keepers 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 didnt 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 Anthonys 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 mates 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 wasnt 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. Powells 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 captains state-room and everywhere, he stared anxiously as
if expecting to see on the bulkheads, on the deck, in the air, something
unusualsign, mark, emanation, shadowhe hardly knew whatsome
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 wasnt 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 ladys 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 didnt 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:
Whats 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 theres something wrong?
I cant say exactly. You dont 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 didnt know you
for a reader of faces. You are not a correct reader though.
Its 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 thats plain. Its a confoundedly
ugly place, Mr. Franklin. You dont know anything of it?
Wellno, we sailors dont. 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
dont loaf. There isnt 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.
Youll find a note of it on this table. Ill
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. Therell
be a good many alterations. Its on account of a lady coming
with us. I am going to get married, Mr. Franklin!
CHAPTER TWOYOUNG POWELL SEES AND HEARS
You remember, went on Marlow, how I feared that
Mr. Powells want of experience would stand in his way of appreciating
the unusual. The unusual I had in my mind was something of a very
subtle sort: the unusual in marital relations. I may well have
doubted the capacity of a young man too much concerned with the creditable
performance of his professional duties to observe what in the nature
of things is not easily observable in itself, and still less so under
the special circumstances. In the majority of ships a second officer
has not many points of contact with the captains wife.
He sits at the same table with her at meals, generally speaking; he
may now and then be addressed more or less kindly on insignificant matters,
and have the opportunity to show her some small attentions on deck.
And that is all. Under such conditions, signs can be seen only
by a sharp and practised eye. I am alluding now to troubles which
are subtle often to the extent of not being understood by the very hearts
they devastate or uplift.
Yes, Mr. Powell, whom the chance of his name had thrown upon the
floating stage of that tragicomedy would have been perfectly useless
for my purpose if the unusual of an obvious kind had not aroused his
attention from the first.
We know how he joined that ship so suddenly offered to his anxious
desire to make a real start in his profession. He had come on
board breathless with the hurried winding up of his shore affairs, accompanied
by two horrible night-birds, escorted by a dock policeman on the make,
received by an asthmatic shadow of a ship-keeper, warned not to make
a noise in the darkness of the passage because the captain and his wife
were already on board. That in itself was already somewhat unusual.
Captains and their wives do not, as a rule, join a moment sooner than
is necessary. They prefer to spend the last moments with their
friends and relations. A ship in one of Londons older docks
with their restrictions as to lights and so on is not the place for
a happy evening. Still, as the tide served at six in the morning,
one could understand them coming on board the evening before.
Just then young Powell felt as if anybody ought to be glad enough
to be quit of the shore. We know he was an orphan from a very
early age, without brothers or sistersno near relations of any
kind, I believe, except that aunt who had quarrelled with his father.
No affection stood in the way of the quiet satisfaction with which he
thought that now all the worries were over, that there was nothing before
him but duties, that he knew what he would have to do as soon as the
dawn broke and for a long succession of days. A most soothing
certitude. He enjoyed it in the dark, stretched out in his bunk
with his new blankets pulled over him. Some clock ashore beyond
the dock-gates struck two. And then he heard nothing more, because
he went off into a light sleep from which he woke up with a start.
He had not taken his clothes off, it was hardly worth while. He
jumped up and went on deck.
The morning was clear, colourless, grey overhead; the dock like a
sheet of darkling glass crowded with upside-down reflections of warehouses,
of hulls and masts of silent ships. Rare figures moved here and
there on the distant quays. A knot of men stood alongside with
clothes-bags and wooden chests at their feet. Others were coming
down the lane between tall, blind walls, surrounding a hand-cart loaded
with more bags and boxes. It was the crew of the Ferndale.
They began to come on board. He scanned their faces as they passed
forward filling the roomy deck with the shuffle of their footsteps and
the murmur of voices, like the awakening to life of a world about to
be launched into space.
Far away down the clear glassy stretch in the middle of the long
dock Mr. Powell watched the tugs coming in quietly through the open
gates. A subdued firm voice behind him interrupted this contemplation.
It was Franklin, the thick chief mate, who was addressing him with a
watchful appraising stare of his prominent black eyes: Youd
better take a couple of these chaps with you and look out for her aft.
We are going to cast off.
Yes, sir, Powell said with proper alacrity; but for
a moment they remained looking at each other fixedly. Something
like a faint smile altered the set of the chief mates lips just
before he moved off forward with his brisk step.
Mr. Powell, getting up on the poop, touched his cap to Captain Anthony,
who was there alone. He tells me that it was only then that he
saw his captain for the first time. The day before, in the shipping
office, what with the bad light and his excitement at this berth obtained
as if by a brusque and unscrupulous miracle, did not count. He
had then seemed to him much older and heavier. He was surprised
at the lithe figure, broad of shoulder, narrow at the hips, the fire
of the deep-set eyes, the springiness of the walk. The captain
gave him a steady stare, nodded slightly, and went on pacing the poop
with an air of not being aware of what was going on, his head rigid,
his movements rapid.
Powell stole several glances at him with a curiosity very natural
under the circumstances. He wore a short grey jacket and a grey
cap. In the light of the dawn, growing more limpid rather than
brighter, Powell noticed the slightly sunken cheeks under the trimmed
beard, the perpendicular fold on the forehead, something hard and set
about the mouth.
It was too early yet for the work to have begun in the dock.
The water gleamed placidly, no movement anywhere on the long straight
lines of the quays, no one about to be seen except the few dock hands
busy alongside the Ferndale, knowing their work, mostly silent
or exchanging a few words in low tones as if they, too, had been aware
of that lady who mustnt be disturbed. The
Ferndale was the only ship to leave that tide. The others
seemed still asleep, without a sound, and only here and there a figure,
coming up on the forecastle, leaned on the rail to watch the proceedings
idly. Without trouble and fuss and almost without a sound was
the Ferndale leaving the land, as if stealing away. Even
the tugs, now with their engines stopped, were approaching her without
a ripple, the burly-looking paddle-boat sheering forward, while the
other, a screw, smaller and of slender shape, made for her quarter so
gently that she did not divide the smooth water, but seemed to glide
on its surface as if on a sheet of plate-glass, a man in her bow, the
master at the wheel visible only from the waist upwards above the white
screen of the bridge, both of them so still-eyed as to fascinate young
Powell into curious self-forgetfulness and immobility. He was
steeped, sunk in the general quietness, remembering the statement shes
a lady that mustnt be disturbed, and repeating to himself
idly: No. She wont be disturbed. She wont
be disturbed. Then the first loud words of that morning
breaking that strange hush of departure with a sharp hail: Look
out for that line there, made him start. The line whizzed
past his head, one of the sailors aft caught it, and there was an end
to the fascination, to the quietness of spirit which had stolen on him
at the very moment of departure. From that moment till two hours
afterwards, when the ship was brought up in one of the lower reaches
of the Thames off an apparently uninhabited shore, near some sort of
inlet where nothing but two anchored barges flying a red flag could
be seen, Powell was too busy to think of the lady that mustnt
be disturbed, or of his captainor of anything else unconnected
with his immediate duties. In fact, he had no occasion to go on
the poop, or even look that way much; but while the ship was about to
anchor, casting his eyes in that direction, he received an absurd impression
that his captain (he was up there, of course) was sitting on both sides
of the aftermost skylight at once. He was too occupied to reflect
on this curious delusion, this phenomenon of seeing double as though
he had had a drop too much. He only smiled at himself.
As often happens after a grey daybreak the sun had risen in a warm
and glorious splendour above the smooth immense gleam of the enlarged
estuary. Wisps of mist floated like trails of luminous dust, and
in the dazzling reflections of water and vapour, the shores had the
murky semi-transparent darkness of shadows cast mysteriously from below.
Powell, who had sailed out of London all his young seamans life,
told me that it was then, in a moment of entranced vision an hour or
so after sunrise, that the river was revealed to him for all time, like
a fair face often seen before, which is suddenly perceived to be the
expression of an inner and unsuspected beauty, of that something unique
and only its own which rouses a passion of wonder and fidelity and an
unappeasable memory of its charm. The hull of the Ferndale,
swung head to the eastward, caught the light, her tall spars and rigging
steeped in a bath of red-gold, from the water-line full of glitter to
the trucks slight and gleaming against the delicate expanse of the blue.
Time we had a mouthful to eat, said a voice at his
side. It was Mr. Franklin, the chief mate, with his head sunk
between his shoulders, and melancholy eyes. Let the men
have their breakfast, bosun, he went on, and have
the fire out in the galley in half an hour at the latest, so that we
can call these barges of explosives alongside. Come along, young
man. I dont know your name. Havent seen the
captain, to speak to, since yesterday afternoon when he rushed off to
pick up a second mate somewhere. How did he get you?
Young Powell, a little shy notwithstanding the friendly disposition
of the other, answered him smilingly, aware somehow that there was something
marked in this inquisitiveness, natural, after allsomething anxious.
His name was Powell, and he was put in the way of this berth by Mr.
Powell, the shipping master. He blushed.
Ah, I see. Well, you have been smart in getting ready.
The ship-keeper, before he went away, told me you joined at one oclock.
I didnt sleep on board last night. Not I. There was
a time when I never cared to leave this ship for more than a couple
of hours in the evening, even while in London, but now, since
He checked himself with a roll of his prominent eyes towards that
youngster, that stranger. Meantime, he was leading the way across
the quarter-deck under the poop into the long passage with the door
of the saloon at the far end. It was shut. But Mr. Franklin
did not go so far. After passing the pantry he opened suddenly
a door on the left of the passage, to Powells great surprise.
Our mess-room, he said, entering a small cabin painted
white, bare, lighted from part of the foremost skylight, and furnished
only with a table and two settees with movable backs. That
surprises you? Well, it isnt usual. And it wasnt
so in this ship either, before. Its only since
He checked himself again. Yes. Here we shall feed,
you and I, facing each other for the next twelve months or moreGod
knows how much more! The bosun keeps the deck at meal-times
in fine weather.
He talked not exactly wheezing, but like a man whose breath is somewhat
short, and the spirit (young Powell could not help thinking) embittered
by some mysterious grievance.
There was enough of the unusual there to be recognized even by Powells
inexperience. The officers kept out of the cabin against the custom
of the service, and then this sort of accent in the mates talk.
Franklin did not seem to expect conversational ease from the new second
mate. He made several remarks about the old, deploring the accident.
Awkward. Very awkward this thing to happen on the very eve of
sailing.
Collar-bone and arm broken, he sighed. Sad,
very sad. Did you notice if the captain was at all affected?
Eh? Must have been.
Before this congested face, these globular eyes turned yearningly
upon him, young Powell (one must keep in mind he was but a youngster
then) who could not remember any signs of visible grief, confessed with
an embarrassed laugh that, owing to the suddenness of this lucky chance
coming to him, he was not in a condition to notice the state of other
people.
I was so pleased to get a ship at last, he murmured,
further disconcerted by the sort of pent-up gravity in Mr. Franklins
aspect.
One mans food another mans poison, the
mate remarked. That holds true beyond mere victuals.
I suppose it didnt occur to you that it was a dam poor
way for a good man to be knocked out.
Mr. Powell admitted openly that he had not thought of that.
He was ready to admit that it was very reprehensible of him. But
Franklin had no intention apparently to moralize. He did not fall
silent either. His further remarks were to the effect that there
had been a time when Captain Anthony would have showed more than enough
concern for the least thing happening to one of his officers.
Yes, there had been a time!
And mind, he went on, laying down suddenly a half-consumed
piece of bread and butter and raising his voice, poor Mathews
was the second man the longest on board. I was the first.
He joined a month laterabout the same time as the steward by
a few days. The bosun and the carpenter came the voyage
after. Steady men. Still here. No good man need ever
have thought of leaving the Ferndale unless he were a fool.
Some good men are fools. Dont know when they are well off.
I mean the best of good men; men that you would do anything for.
They go on for years, then all of a sudden
Our young friend listened to the mate with a queer sense of discomfort
growing on him. For it was as though Mr. Franklin were thinking
aloud, and putting him into the delicate position of an unwilling eavesdropper.
But there was in the mess-room another listener. It was the steward,
who had come in carrying a tin coffee-pot with a long handle, and stood
quietly by: a man with a middle-aged, sallow face, long features, heavy
eyelids, a soldierly grey moustache. His body encased in a short
black jacket with narrow sleeves, his long legs in very tight trousers,
made up an agile, youthful, slender figure. He moved forward suddenly,
and interrupted the mates monologue.
More coffee, Mr. Franklin? Nice fresh lot. Piping
hot. I am going to give breakfast to the saloon directly, and
the cook is raking his fire out. Nows your chance.
The mate who, on account of his peculiar build, could not turn his
head freely, twisted his thick trunk slightly, and ran his black eyes
in the corners towards the steward.
And is the precious pair of them out? he growled.
The steward, pouring out the coffee into the mates cup, muttered
moodily but distinctly: The lady wasnt when I was laying
the table.
Powells ears were fine enough to detect something hostile
in this reference to the captains wife. For of what other
person could they be speaking? The steward added with a gloomy
sort of fairness: But she will be before I bring the dishes in.
She never gives that sort of trouble. That she doesnt.
No. Not in that way, Mr. Franklin agreed, and
then both he and the steward, after glancing at Powellthe stranger
to the shipsaid nothing more.
But this had been enough to rouse his curiosity. Curiosity
is natural to man. Of course it was not a malevolent curiosity
which, if not exactly natural, is to be met fairly frequently in men
and perhaps more frequently in womenespecially if a woman be
in question; and that woman under a cloud, in a manner of speaking.
For under a cloud Flora de Barral was fated to be even at sea.
Yes. Even that sort of darkness which attends a woman for whom
there is no clear place in the world hung over her. Yes.
Even at sea!
* * * * *
And this is the pathos of being a woman. A man can struggle
to get a place for himself or perish. But a womans part
is passive, say what you like, and shuffle the facts of the world as
you may, hinting at lack of energy, of wisdom, of courage. As
a matter of fact, almost all women have all thatof their own
kind. But they are not made for attack. Wait they must.
I am speaking here of women who are really women. And its
no use talking of opportunities, either. I know that some of them
do talk of it. But not the genuine women. Those know better.
Nothing can beat a true woman for a clear vision of reality; I would
say a cynical vision if I were not afraid of wounding your chivalrous
feelingsfor which, by the by, women are not so grateful as you
may think, to fellows of your kind . . .
Upon my word, Marlow, I cried, what are you
flying out at me for like this? I wouldnt use an ill-sounding
word about women, but what right have you to imagine that I am looking
for gratitude?
Marlow raised a soothing hand.
There! There! I take back the ill-sounding word,
with the remark, though, that cynicism seems to me a word invented by
hypocrites. But let that pass. As to women, they know that
the clamour for opportunities for them to become something which they
cannot be is as reasonable as if mankind at large started asking for
opportunities of winning immortality in this world, in which death is
the very condition of life. You must understand that I am not
talking here of material existence. That naturally is implied;
but you wont maintain that a woman who, say, enlisted, for instance
(there have been cases) has conquered her place in the world.
She has only got her living in itwhich is quite meritorious,
but not quite the same thing.
All these reflections which arise from my picking up the thread of
Flora de Barrals existence did not, I am certain, present themselves
to Mr. Powellnot the Mr. Powell we know taking solitary week-end
cruises in the estuary of the Thames (with mysterious dashes into lonely
creeks) but to the young Mr. Powell, the chance second officer of the
ship Ferndale, commanded (and for the most part owned) by Roderick
Anthony, the son of the poetyou know. A Mr. Powell, much
slenderer than our robust friend is now, with the bloom of innocence
not quite rubbed off his smooth cheeks, and apt not only to be interested
but also to be surprised by the experience life was holding in store
for him. This would account for his remembering so much of it
with considerable vividness. For instance, the impressions attending
his first breakfast on board the Ferndale, both visual and mental,
were as fresh to him as if received yesterday.
The surprise, it is easy to understand, would arise from the inability
to interpret aright the signs which experience (a thing mysterious in
itself) makes to our understanding and emotions. For it is never
more than that. Our experience never gets into our blood and bones.
It always remains outside of us. Thats why we look with
wonder at the past. And this persists even when from practice
and through growing callousness of fibre we come to the point when nothing
that we meet in that rapid blinking stumble across a flick of sunshinewhich
our life isnothing, I say, which we run against surprises us
any more. Not at the time, I mean. If, later on, we recover
the faculty with some such exclamation: Well! Well!
Ill be hanged if I ever, . . . it is probably because
this very thing that there should be a past to look back upon, other
peoples, is very astounding in itself when one has the time,
a fleeting and immense instant to think of it . . .
I was on the point of interrupting Marlow when he stopped of himself,
his eyes fixed on vacancy, orperhaps(I wouldnt
be too hard on him) on a vision. He has the habit, or, say, the
fault, of defective mantelpiece clocks, of suddenly stopping in the
very fulness of the tick. If you have ever lived with a clock
afflicted with that perversity, you know how vexing it issuch
a stoppage. I was vexed with Marlow. He was smiling faintly
while I waited. He even laughed a little. And then I said
acidly:
Am I to understand that you have ferreted out something comic
in the history of Flora de Barral?
Comic! he exclaimed. No! What makes
you say? . . . Oh, I laugheddid I? But dont
you know that people laugh at absurdities that are very far from being
comic? Didnt you read the latest books about laughter written
by philosophers, psychologists? There is a lot of them . . .
I dare say there has been a lot of nonsense written about
laughterand tears, too, for that matter, I said impatiently.
They say, pursued the unabashed Marlow, that
we laugh from a sense of superiority. Therefore, observe, simplicity,
honesty, warmth of feeling, delicacy of heart and of conduct, self-confidence,
magnanimity are laughed at, because the presence of these traits in
a mans character often puts him into difficult, cruel or absurd
situations, and makes us, the majority who are fairly free as a rule
from these peculiarities, feel pleasantly superior.
Speak for yourself, I said. But have you
discovered all these fine things in the story; or has Mr. Powell discovered
them to you in his artless talk? Have you two been having good
healthy laughs together? Come! Are your sides aching yet,
Marlow?
Marlow took no offence at my banter. He was quite serious.
I should not like to say off-hand how much of that there was,
he pursued with amusing caution. But there was a situation,
tense enough for the signs of it to give many surprises to Mr. Powellneither
of them shocking in itself, but with a cumulative effect which made
the whole unforgettable in the detail of its progress. And the
first surprise came very soon, when the explosives (to which he owed
his sudden chance of engagement)dynamite in cases and blasting
powder in barrelstaken on board, main hatch battened for sea,
cook restored to his functions in the galley, anchor fished and the
tug ahead, rounding the South Foreland, and with the sun sinking clear
and red down the purple vista of the channel, he went on the poop, on
duty, it is true, but with time to take the first freer breath in the
busy day of departure. The pilot was still on board, who gave
him first a silent glance, and then passed an insignificant remark before
resuming his lounging to and fro between the steering wheel and the
binnacle. Powell took his station modestly at the break of the
poop. He had noticed across the skylight a head in a grey cap.
But when, after a time, he crossed over to the other side of the deck
he discovered that it was not the captains head at all.
He became aware of grey hairs curling over the nape of the neck.
How could he have made that mistake? But on board ship away from
the land one does not expect to come upon a stranger.
Powell walked past the man. A thin, somewhat sunken face, with
a tightly closed mouth, stared at the distant French coast, vague like
a suggestion of solid darkness, lying abeam beyond the evening light
reflected from the level waters, themselves growing more sombre than
the sky; a stare, across which Powell had to pass and did pass with
a quick side glance, noting its immovable stillness. His passage
disturbed those eyes no more than if he had been as immaterial as a
ghost. And this failure of his person in producing an impression
affected him strangely. Who could that old man be?
He was so curious that he even ventured to ask the pilot in a low
voice. The pilot turned out to be a good-natured specimen of his
kind, condescending, sententious. He had been down to his meals
in the main cabin, and had something to impart.
That? Queer fisheh? Mrs. Anthonys
father. Ive been introduced to him in the cabin at breakfast
time. Name of Smith. Wonder if he has all his wits about
him. They take him about with them, it seems. Dont
look very happyeh?
Then, changing his tone abruptly, he desired Powell to get all hands
on deck and make sail on the ship. I shall be leaving you
in half an hour. Youll have plenty of time to find out
all about the old gent, he added with a thick laugh.
* * * * *
In the secret emotion of giving his first order as a fully responsible
officer, young Powell forgot the very existence of that old man in a
moment. The following days, in the interest of getting in touch
with the ship, with the men in her, with his duties, in the rather anxious
period of settling down, his curiosity slumbered; for of course the
pilots few words had not extinguished it.
This settling down was made easy for him by the friendly character
of his immediate superiorthe chief. Powell could not defend
himself from some sympathy for that thick, bald man, comically shaped,
with his crimson complexion and something pathetic in the rolling of
his very movable black eyes in an apparently immovable head, who was
so tactfully ready to take his competency for granted.
There can be nothing more reassuring to a young man tackling his
lifes work for the first time. Mr. Powell, his mind at
ease about himself, had time to observe the people around with friendly
interest. Very early in the beginning of the passage, he had discovered
with some amusement that the marriage of Captain Anthony was resented
by those to whom Powell (conscious of being looked upon as something
of an outsider) referred in his mind as the old lot.
They had the funny, regretful glances, intonations, nods of men who
had seen other, better times. What difference it could have made
to the bosun and the carpenter Powell could not very well understand.
Yet these two pulled long faces and even gave hostile glances to the
poop. The cook and the steward might have been more directly concerned.
But the steward used to remark on occasion, Oh, she gives no
extra trouble, with scrupulous fairness of the most gloomy kind.
He was rather a silent man with a great sense of his personal worth
which made his speeches guarded. The cook, a neat man with fair
side whiskers, who had been only three years in the ship, seemed the
least concerned. He was even known to have inquired once or twice
as to the success of some of his dishes with the captains wife.
This was considered a sort of disloyal falling away from the ruling
feeling.
The mates annoyance was yet the easiest to understand.
As he let it out to Powell before the first week of the passage was
over: You cant expect me to be pleased at being chucked
out of the saloon as if I werent good enough to sit down to meat
with that woman. But he hastened to add: Dont
you think Im blaming the captain. He isnt a man
to be found fault with. You, Mr. Powell, are too young yet to
understand such matters.
Some considerable time afterwards, at the end of a conversation of
that aggrieved sort, he enlarged a little more by repeating: Yes!
You are too young to understand these things. I dont say
you havent plenty of sense. You are doing very well here.
Jolly sight better than I expected, though I liked your looks from the
first.
It was in the trade-winds, at night, under a velvety, bespangled
sky; a great multitude of stars watching the shadows of the sea gleaming
mysteriously in the wake of the ship; while the leisurely swishing of
the water to leeward was like a drowsy comment on her progress.
Mr. Powell expressed his satisfaction by a half-bashful laugh.
The mate mused on: And of course you havent known the
ship as she used to be. She was more than a home to a man.
She was not like any other ship; and Captain Anthony was not like any
other master to sail with. Neither is she now. But before
one never had a care in the world as to herand as to him, too.
No, indeed, there was never anything to worry about.
Young Powell couldnt see what there was to worry about even
then. The serenity of the peaceful night seemed as vast as all
space, and as enduring as eternity itself. Its true the
sea is an uncertain element, but no sailor remembers this in the presence
of its bewitching power any more than a lover ever thinks of the proverbial
inconstancy of women. And Mr. Powell, being young, thought naively
that the captain being married, there could be no occasion for anxiety
as to his condition. I suppose that to him life, perhaps not so
much his own as that of others, was something still in the nature of
a fairy-tale with a they lived happy ever after termination.
We are the creatures of our light literature much more than is generally
suspected in a world which prides itself on being scientific and practical,
and in possession of incontrovertible theories. Powell felt in
that way the more because the captain of a ship at sea is a remote,
inaccessible creature, something like a prince of a fairy-tale, alone
of his kind, depending on nobody, not to be called to account except
by powers practically invisible and so distant, that they might well
be looked upon as supernatural for all that the rest of the crew knows
of them, as a rule.
So he did not understand the aggrieved attitude of the mateor
rather he understood it obscurely as a result of simple causes which
did not seem to him adequate. He would have dismissed all this
out of his mind with a contemptuous: What the devil do I care?
if the captains wife herself had not been so young. To
see her the first time had been something of a shock to him. He
had some preconceived ideas as to captains wives which, while
he did not believe the testimony of his eyes, made him open them very
wide. He had stared till the captains wife noticed it plainly
and turned her face away. Captains wife! That girl
covered with rugs in a long chair. Captains . . . !
He gasped mentally. It had never occurred to him that a captains
wife could be anything but a woman to be described as stout or thin,
as jolly or crabbed, but always mature, and even, in comparison with
his own years, frankly old. But this! It was a sort of moral
upset as though he had discovered a case of abduction or something as
surprising as that. You understand that nothing is more disturbing
than the upsetting of a preconceived idea. Each of us arranges
the world according to his own notion of the fitness of things.
To behold a girl where your average mediocre imagination had placed
a comparatively old woman may easily become one of the strongest shocks
. . .
Marlow paused, smiling to himself.
Powell remained impressed after all these years by the very
recollection, he continued in a voice, amused perhaps but not
mocking. He said to me only the other day with something
like the first awe of that discovery lingering in his tonehe
said to me: Why, she seemed so young, so girlish, that I looked
round for some woman which would be the captains wife, though
of course I knew there was no other woman on board that voyage.
The voyage before, it seems, there had been the stewards wife
to act as maid to Mrs. Anthony; but she was not taken that time for
some reason he didnt know. Mrs. Anthony . . . ! If
it hadnt been the captains wife he would have referred
to her mentally as a kid, he said. I suppose there must be a sort
of divinity hedging in a captains wife (however incredible) which
prevented him applying to her that contemptuous definition in the secret
of his thoughts.
I asked him when this had happened; and he told me that it was three
days after parting from the tug, just outside the channelto be
precise. A head wind had set in with unpleasant damp weather.
He had come up to leeward of the poop, still feeling very much of a
stranger, and an untried officer, at six in the evening to take his
watch. To see her was quite as unexpected as seeing a vision.
When she turned away her head he recollected himself and dropped his
eyes. What he could see then was only, close to the long chair
on which she reclined, a pair of long, thin legs ending in black cloth
boots tucked in close to the skylight seat. Whence he concluded
that the old gentleman, who wore a grey cap like the captains,
was sitting by herhis daughter. In his first astonishment
he had stopped dead short, with the consequence that now he felt very
much abashed at having betrayed his surprise. But he couldnt
very well turn tail and bolt off the poop. He had come there on
duty. So, still with downcast eyes, he made his way past them.
Only when he got as far as the wheel-grating did he look up. She
was hidden from him by the back of her deck-chair; but he had the view
of the owner of the thin, aged legs seated on the skylight, his clean-shaved
cheek, his thin compressed mouth with a hollow in each corner, the sparse
grey locks escaping from under the tweed cap, and curling slightly on
the collar of the coat. He leaned forward a little over Mrs. Anthony,
but they were not talking. Captain Anthony, walking with a springy
hurried gait on the other side of the poop from end to end, gazed straight
before him. Young Powell might have thought that his captain was
not aware of his presence either. However, he knew better, and
for that reason spent a most uncomfortable hour motionless by the compass
before his captain stopped in his swift pacing and with an almost visible
effort made some remark to him about the weather in a low voice.
Before Powell, who was startled, could find a word of answer, the captain
swung off again on his endless tramp with a fixed gaze. And till
the supper bell rang silence dwelt over that poop like an evil spell.
The captain walked up and down looking straight before him, the helmsman
steered, looking upwards at the sails, the old gent on the skylight
looked down on his daughterand Mr. Powell confessed to me that
he didnt know where to look, feeling as though he had blundered
in where he had no businesswhich was absurd. At last he
fastened his eyes on the compass card, took refuge, in spirit, inside
the binnacle. He felt chilled more than he should have been by
the chilly dusk falling on the muddy green sea of the soundings from
a smoothly clouded sky. A fitful wind swept the cheerless waste,
and the ship, hauled up so close as to check her way, seemed to progress
by languid fits and starts against the short seas which swept along
her sides with a snarling sound.
Young Powell thought that this was the dreariest evening aspect of
the sea he had ever seen. He was glad when the other occupants
of the poop left it at the sound of the bell. The captain first,
with a sudden swerve in his walk towards the companion, and not even
looking once towards his wife and his wifes father. Those
two got up and moved towards the companion, the old gent very erect,
his thin locks stirring gently about the nape of his neck, and carrying
the rugs over his arm. The girl who was Mrs. Anthony went down
first. The murky twilight had settled in deep shadow on her face.
She looked at Mr. Powell in passing. He thought that she was very
pale. Cold perhaps. The old gent stopped a moment, thin
and stiff, before the young man, and in a voice which was low but distinct
enough, and without any particular accentnot even of inquiryhe
said:
You are the new second officer, I believe.
Mr. Powell answered in the affirmative, wondering if this were a
friendly overture. He had noticed that Mr. Smiths eyes
had a sort of inward look as though he had disliked or disdained his
surroundings. The captains wife had disappeared then down
the companion stairs. Mr. Smith said Ah! and waited
a little longer to put another question in his incurious voice.
And did you know the man who was here before you?
No, said young Powell, I didnt know anybody
belonging to this ship before I joined.
He was much older than you. Twice your age. Perhaps
more. His hair was iron grey. Yes. Certainly more.
The low, repressed voice paused, but the old man did not move away.
He added: Isnt it unusual?
Mr. Powell was surprised not only by being engaged in conversation,
but also by its character. It might have been the suggestion of
the word uttered by this old man, but it was distinctly at that moment
that he became aware of something unusual not only in this encounter
but generally around him, about everybody, in the atmosphere.
The very sea, with short flashes of foam bursting out here and there
in the gloomy distances, the unchangeable, safe sea sheltering a man
from all passions, except its own anger, seemed queer to the quick glance
he threw to windward where the already effaced horizon traced no reassuring
limit to the eye. In the expiring, diffused twilight, and before
the clouded night dropped its mysterious veil, it was the immensity
of space made visiblealmost palpable. Young Powell felt
it. He felt it in the sudden sense of his isolation; the trustworthy,
powerful ship of his first acquaintance reduced to a speck, to something
almost undistinguishable, the mere support for the soles of his two
feet before that unexpected old man becoming so suddenly articulate
in a darkening universe.
It took him a moment or so to seize the drift of the question.
He repeated slowly: Unusual . . . Oh, you mean for an elderly
man to be the second of a ship. I dont know. There
are a good many of us who dont get on. He didnt
get on, I suppose.
The other, his head bowed a little, had the air of listening with
acute attention.
And now he has been taken to the hospital, he said.
I believe so. Yes. I remember Captain Anthony
saying so in the shipping office.
Possibly about to die, went on the old man, in his
careful deliberate tone. And perhaps glad enough to die.
Mr. Powell was young enough to be startled at the suggestion, which
sounded confidential and blood-curdling in the dusk. He said sharply
that it was not very likely, as if defending the absent victim of the
accident from an unkind aspersion. He felt, in fact, indignant.
The other emitted a short stifled laugh of a conciliatory nature.
The second bell rang under the poop. He made a movement at the
sound, but lingered.
What I said was not meant seriously, he murmured, with
that strange air of fearing to be overheard. Not in this
case. I know the man.
The occasion, or rather the want of occasion, for this conversation,
had sharpened the perceptions of the unsophisticated second officer
of the Ferndale. He was alive to the slightest shade of
tone, and felt as if this I know the man should have been
followed by a he was no friend of mine. But after
the shortest possible break the old gentleman continued to murmur distinctly
and evenly:
Whereas you have never seen him. Nevertheless, when
you have gone through as many years as I have, you will understand how
an event putting an end to ones existence may not be altogether
unwelcome. Of course there are stupid accidents. And even
then one neednt be very angry. What is it to be deprived
of life? Its soon done. But what would you think
of the feelings of a man who should have had his life stolen from him?
Cheated out of it, I say!
He ceased abruptly, and remained still long enough for the astonished
Powell to stammer out an indistinct: What do you mean?
I dont understand. Then, with a low Good-night
glided a few steps, and sank through the shadow of the companion into
the lamplight below which did not reach higher than the turn of the
staircase.
The strange words, the cautious tone, the whole person left a strong
uneasiness in the mind of Mr. Powell. He started walking the poop
in great mental confusion. He felt all adrift. This was
funny talk and no mistake. And this cautious low tone as though
he were watched by someone was more than funny. The young second
officer hesitated to break the established rule of every ships
discipline; but at last could not resist the temptation of getting hold
of some other human being, and spoke to the man at the wheel.
Did you hear what this gentleman was saying to me?
No, sir, answered the sailor quietly. Then, encouraged
by this evidence of laxity in his officer, made bold to add, A
queer fish, sir. This was tentative, and Mr. Powell, busy
with his own view, not saying anything, he ventured further. They
are more like passengers. One sees some queer passengers.
Who are like passengers? asked Powell gruffly.
Why, these two, sir.
CHAPTER THREEDEVOTED SERVANTSAND THE LIGHT OF A FLARE
Young Powell thought to himself: The men, too, are noticing
it. Indeed, the captains behaviour to his wife and
to his wifes father was noticeable enough. It was as if
they had been a pair of not very congenial passengers. But perhaps
it was not always like that. The captain might have been put out
by something.
When the aggrieved Franklin came on deck Mr. Powell made a remark
to that effect. For his curiosity was aroused.
The mate grumbled Seems to you? . . . Putout? . . .
eh? He buttoned his thick jacket up to the throat, and
only then added a gloomy Aye, likely enough, which discouraged
further conversation. But no encouragement would have induced
the newly-joined second mate to enter the way of confidences.
His was an instinctive prudence. Powell did not know why it was
he had resolved to keep his own counsel as to his colloquy with Mr.
Smith. But his curiosity did not slumber. Some time afterwards,
again at the relief of watches, in the course of a little talk, he mentioned
Mrs. Anthonys father quite casually, and tried to find out from
the mate who he was.
It would take a clever man to find that out, as things are
on board now, Mr. Franklin said, unexpectedly communicative.
The first I saw of him was when she brought him alongside in
a four-wheeler one morning about half-past eleven. The captain
had come on board early, and was down in the cabin that had been fitted
out for him. Did I tell you that if you want the captain for anything
you must stamp on the port side of the deck? Thats so.
This ship is not only unlike what she used to be, but she is like no
other ship, anyhow. Did you ever hear of the captains room
being on the port side? Both of them stern cabins have been fitted
up afresh like a blessed palace. A gang of people from some tip-top
West-End house were fussing here on board with hangings and furniture
for a fortnight, as if the Queen were coming with us. Of course
the starboard cabin is the bedroom one, but the poor captain hangs out
to port on a couch, so that in case we want him on deck at night, Mrs.
Anthony should not be startled. Nervous! Phoo! A woman
who marries a sailor and makes up her mind to come to sea should have
no blamed jumpiness about her, I say. But never mind. Directly
the old cab pointed round the corner of the warehouse I called out to
the captain that his lady was coming aboard. He answered me, but
as I didnt see him coming, I went down the gangway myself to
help her alight. She jumps out excitedly without touching my arm,
or as much as saying thank you or good morning
or anything, turns back to the cab, and then that old joker comes out
slowly. I hadnt noticed him inside. I hadnt
expected to see anybody. It gave me a start. She says: My
fatherMr. Franklin. He was staring at me like an
owl. How do you do, sir? says I. Both of them
looked funny. It was as if something had happened to them on the
way. Neither of them moved, and I stood by waiting. The
captain showed himself on the poop; and I saw him at the side looking
over, and then he disappeared; on the way to meet them on shore, I expected.
But he just went down below again. So, not seeing him, I said:
Let me help you on board, sir. On board!
says he in a silly fashion. On board! Its
not a very good ladder, but its quite firm, says I, as
he seemed to be afraid of it. And he didnt look a broken-down
old man, either. You can see yourself what he is. Straight
as a poker, and life enough in him yet. But he made no move, and
I began to feel foolish. Then she comes forward. Oh!
Thank you, Mr. Franklin. Ill help my father up.
Flabbergasted meto be choked off like this. Pushed in between
him and me without as much as a look my way. So of course I dropped
it. What do you think? I fell back. I would have gone
up on board at once and left them on the quay to come up or stay there
till next week, only they were blocking the way. I couldnt
very well shove them on one side. Devil only knows what was up
between them. There she was, pale as death, talking to him very
fast. He got as red as a turkey-cockdash me if he didnt.
A bad-tempered old bloke, I can tell you. And a bad lot, too.
Never mind. I couldnt hear what she was saying to him,
but she put force enough into it to shake her. It seemedit
seemed, mind!that he didnt want to go on board.
Of course it couldnt have been that. I know better.
Well, she took him by the arm, above the elbow, as if to lead him, or
push him rather. I was standing not quite ten feet off.
Why should I have gone away? I was anxious to get back on board
as soon as they would let me. I didnt want to overhear
her blamed whispering either. But I couldnt stay there
for ever, so I made a move to get past them if I could. And thats
how I heard a few words. It was the old chapsomething nasty
about being under the heel of somebody or other.
Then he says, I dont want this sacrifice.
What it meant I cant tell. It was a quarrelof that
I am certain. She looks over her shoulder, and sees me pretty
close to them. I dont know what she found to say into his
ear, but he gave way suddenly. He looked round at me too, and
they went up together so quickly then that when I got on the quarter-deck
I was only in time to see the inner door of the passage close after
them. Queereh? But if it were only queerness one
wouldnt mind. Some luggage in new trunks came on board
in the afternoon. We undocked at midnight. And may I be
hanged if I know who or what he was or is. I havent been
able to find out. No, I dont know. He may have been
anything. All I know is that once, years ago when I went to see
the Derby with a friend, I saw a pea-and-thimble chap who looked just
like that old mystery father out of a cab.
All this the goggle-eyed mate had said in a resentful and melancholy
voice, with pauses, to the gentle murmur of the sea. It was for
him a bitter sort of pleasure to have a fresh pair of ears, a newcomer,
to whom he could repeat all these matters of grief and suspicion talked
over endlessly by the band of Captain Anthonys faithful subordinates.
It was evidently so refreshing to his worried spirit that it made him
forget the advisability of a little caution with a complete stranger.
But really with Mr. Powell there was no danger. Amused, at first,
at these plaints, he provoked them for fun. Afterwards, turning
them over in his mind, he became impressed, and as the impression grew
stronger with the days his resolution to keep it to himself grew stronger
too.
* * * * *
What made it all the easier to keepI mean the resolutionwas
that Powells sentiment of amused surprise at what struck him
at first as mere absurdity was not unmingled with indignation.
And his years were too few, his position too novel, his reliance on
his own opinion not yet firm enough to allow him to express it with
any effect. And thenwhat would have been the use, anyhowand
where was the necessity?
But this thing, familiar and mysterious at the same time, occupied
his imagination. The solitude of the sea intensifies the thoughts
and the facts of ones experience which seems to lie at the very
centre of the world, as the ship which carries one always remains the
centre figure of the round horizon. He viewed the apoplectic,
goggle-eyed mate and the saturnine, heavy-eyed steward as the victims
of a peculiar and secret form of lunacy which poisoned their lives.
But he did not give them his sympathy on that account. No.
That strange affliction awakened in him a sort of suspicious wonder.
Onceand it was at night again; for the officers of the Ferndale
keeping watch and watch as was customary in those days, had but few
occasions for intercourseonce, I say, the thick Mr. Franklin,
a quaintly bulky figure under the stars, the usual witnesses of his
outpourings, asked him with an abruptness which was not callous, but
in his simple way:
I believe you have no parents living?
Mr. Powell said that he had lost his father and mother at a very
early age.
My mother is still alive, declared Mr. Franklin in
a tone which suggested that he was gratified by the fact. The
old lady is lasting well. Of course shes got to be made
comfortable. A woman must be looked after, and, if it comes to
that, I say, give me a mother. I dare say if she had not lasted
it out so well I might have gone and got married. I dont
know, though. We sailors havent got much time to look about
us to any purpose. Anyhow, as the old lady was there I havent,
I may say, looked at a girl in all my life. Not that I wasnt
partial to female society in my time, he added with a pathetic
intonation, while the whites of his goggle eyes gleamed amorously under
the clear night sky. Very partial, I may say.
Mr. Powell was amused; and as these communications took place only
when the mate was relieved off duty he had no serious objection to them.
The mates presence made the first half-hour and sometimes even
more of his watch on deck pass away. If his senior did not mind
losing some of his rest it was not Mr. Powells affair.
Franklin was a decent fellow. His intention was not to boast of
his filial piety.
Of course I mean respectable female society, he explained.
The other sort is neither here nor there. I blame no mans
conduct, but a well-brought-up young fellow like you knows that theres
precious little fun to be got out of it. He fetched a deep
sigh. I wish Captain Anthonys mother had been a
lasting sort like my old lady. He would have had to look after
her and he would have done it well. Captain Anthony is a proper
man. And it would have saved him from the most foolish
He did not finish the phrase which certainly was turning bitter in
his mouth. Mr. Powell thought to himself: There he goes
again. He laughed a little.
I dont understand why you are so hard on the captain,
Mr. Franklin. I thought you were a great friend of his.
Mr. Franklin exclaimed at this. He was not hard on the captain.
Nothing was further from his thoughts. Friend! Of course
he was a good friend and a faithful servant. He begged Powell
to understand that if Captain Anthony chose to strike a bargain with
Old Nick to-morrow, and Old Nick were good to the captain, he (Franklin)
would find it in his heart to love Old Nick for the captains
sake. That was so. On the other hand, if a saint, an angel
with white wings came along and
He broke off short again as if his own vehemence had frightened him.
Then in his strained pathetic voice (which he had never raised) he observed
that it was no use talking. Anybody could see that the man was
changed.
As to that, said young Powell, it is impossible
for me to judge.
Good Lord! whispered the mate. An educated,
clever young fellow like you with a pair of eyes on him and some sense
too! Is that how a happy man looks? Eh? Young you
may be, but you arent a kid; and I dare you to say Yes!
Mr. Powell did not take up the challenge. He did not know what
to think of the mates view. Still, it seemed as if it had
opened his understanding in a measure. He conceded that the captain
did not look very well.
Not very well, repeated the mate mournfully.
Do you think a man with a face like that can hope to live his
life out? You havent knocked about long in this world yet,
but you are a sailor, you have been in three or four ships, you say.
Well, have you ever seen a shipmaster walking his own deck as if he
did not know what he had underfoot? Have you? Damme
if I dont think that he forgets where he is. Of course
he can be no other than a prime seaman; but its lucky, all the
same, he has me on board. I know by this time what he wants done
without being told. Do you know that I have had no order given
me since we left port? Do you know that he has never once opened
his lips to me unless I spoke to him first? I? His chief
officer; his shipmate for full six years, with whom he had no cross
wordnot once in all that time. Aye. Not a cross look
even. True that when I do make him speak to me, there is his dear
old self, the quick eye, the kind voice. Could hardly be other
to his old Franklin. But whats the good? Eyes, voice,
everythings miles away. And for all that I take good care
never to address him when the poop isnt clear. Yes!
Only we two and nothing but the sea with us. You think it would
be all right; the only chief mate he ever hadMr. Franklin here
and Mr. Franklin therewhen anything went wrong the first word
you would hear about the decks was Franklin!I am
thirteen years older than he isyou would think it would be all
right, wouldnt you? Only we two on this poop on which we
saw each other firsthe a young mastertold me that he thought
I would suit him very wellwe two, and thirty-one days out at
sea, and its no good! Its like talking to a man
standing on shore. I cant get him back. I cant
get at him. I feel sometimes as if I must shake him by the arm:
Wake up! Wake up! You are wanted, sir . . . !
Young Powell recognized the expression of a true sentiment, a thing
so rare in this world where there are so many mutes and so many excellent
reasons even at sea for an articulate man not to give himself away,
that he felt something like respect for this outburst. It was
not loud. The grotesque squat shape, with the knob of the head
as if rammed down between the square shoulders by a blow from a club,
moved vaguely in a circumscribed space limited by the two harness-casks
lashed to the front rail of the poop, without gestures, hands in the
pockets of the jacket, elbows pressed closely to its side; and the voice
without resonance, passed from anger to dismay and back again without
a single louder word in the hurried delivery, interrupted only by slight
gasps for air as if the speaker were being choked by the suppressed
passion of his grief.
Mr. Powell, though moved to a certain extent, was by no means carried
away. And just as he thought that it was all over, the other,
fidgeting in the darkness, was heard again explosive, bewildered but
not very loud in the silence of the ship and the great empty peace of
the sea.
They have done something to him! What is it? What
can it be? Cant you guess? Dont you know?
Good heavens! Young Powell was astounded on discovering
that this was an appeal addressed to him. How on earth
can I know?
You do talk to that white-faced, black-eyed . . . Ive
seen you talking to her more than a dozen times.
Young Powell, his sympathy suddenly chilled, remarked in a disdainful
tone that Mrs. Anthonys eyes were not black.
I wish to God she had never set them on the captain, whatever
colour they are, retorted Franklin. She and that
old chap with the scraped jaws who sits over her and stares down at
her dead-white face with his yellow eyesconfound them!
Perhaps you will tell us that his eyes are not yellow?
Powell, not interested in the colour of Mr. Smiths eyes, made
a vague gesture. Yellow or not yellow, it was all one to him.
The mate murmured to himself. No. He cant
know. No! No more than a baby. It would take an older
head.
I dont even understand what you mean, observed
Mr. Powell coldly.
And even the best head would be puzzled by such devil-work,
the mate continued, muttering. Well, I have heard tell
of women doing for a man in one way or another when they got him fairly
ashore. But to bring their devilry to sea and fasten on such a
man! . . . Its something I cant understand. But
I can watch. Let them look outI say!
His short figure, unable to stoop, without flexibility, could not
express dejection. He was very tired suddenly; he dragged his
feet going off the poop. Before he left it with nearly an hour
of his watch below sacrificed, he addressed himself once more to our
young man who stood abreast of the mizzen rigging in an unreceptive
mood expressed by silence and immobility. He did not regret, he
said, having spoken openly on this very serious matter.
I dont know about its seriousness, sir, was
Mr. Powells frank answer. But if you think you have
been telling me something very new you are mistaken. You cant
keep that matter out of your speeches. Its the sort of
thing Ive been hearing more or less ever since I came on board.
Mr. Powell, speaking truthfully, did not mean to speak offensively.
He had instincts of wisdom; he felt that this was a serious affair,
for it had nothing to do with reason. He did not want to raise
an enemy for himself in the mate. And Mr. Franklin did not take
offence. To Mr. Powells truthful statement he answered
with equal truth and simplicity that it was very likely, very likely.
With a thing like that (next door to witchcraft almost) weighing on
his mind, the wonder was that he could think of anything else.
The poor man must have found in the restlessness of his thoughts the
illusion of being engaged in an active contest with some power of evil;
for his last words as he went lingeringly down the poop ladder expressed
the quaint hope that he would get him, Powell, on our side yet.
Mr. Powelljust imagine a straightforward youngster assailed
in this fashion on the high seasanswered merely by an embarrassed
and uneasy laugh which reflected exactly the state of his innocent soul.
The apoplectic mate, already half-way down, went up again three steps
of the poop ladder. Why, yes. A proper young fellow, the
mate expected, wouldnt stand by and see a man, a good sailor
and his own skipper, in trouble without taking his part against a couple
of shore people whoMr. Powell interrupted him impatiently, asking
what was the trouble?
What is it you are hinting at? he cried with an inexplicable
irritation.
I dont like to think of him all alone down there with
these two, Franklin whispered impressively. Upon
my word I dont. God only knows what may be going on there
. . . Dont laugh . . . It was bad enough last voyage when Mrs.
Brown had a cabin aft; but now its worse. It frightens
me. I cant sleep sometimes for thinking of him all alone
there, shut off from us all.
Mrs. Brown was the stewards wife. You must understand
that shortly after his visit to the Fyne cottage (with all its consequences),
Anthony had got an offer to go to the Western Islands, and bring home
the cargo of some ship which, damaged in a collision or a stranding,
took refuge in St. Michael, and was condemned there. Roderick
Anthony had connections which would put such paying jobs in his way.
So Flora de Barral had but a five months voyage, a mere excursion,
for her first trial of sea-life. And Anthony, dearly trying to
be most attentive, had induced this Mrs. Brown, the wife of his faithful
steward, to come along as maid to his bride. But for some reason
or other this arrangement was not continued. And the mate, tormented
by indefinite alarms and forebodings, regretted it. He regretted
that Jane Brown was no longer on boardas a sort of representative
of Captain Anthonys faithful servants, to watch quietly what
went on in that part of the ship this fatal marriage had closed to their
vigilance. That had been excellent. For she was a dependable
woman.
Powell did not detect any particular excellence in what seemed a
spying employment. But in his simplicity he said that he should
have thought Mrs. Anthony would have been glad anyhow to have another
woman on board. He was thinking of the white-faced girlish personality
which it seemed to him ought to have been cared for. The innocent
young man always looked upon the girl as immature; something of a child
yet.
She! glad! Why it was she who had her fired out.
She didnt want anybody around the cabin. Mrs. Brown is
certain of it. She told her husband so. You ask the steward
and hear what he has to say about it. Thats why I dont
like it. A capable woman who knew her place. But no.
Out she must go. For no fault, mind you. The captain was
ashamed to send her away. But that wife of hisaye the precious
pair of them have got hold of him. I cant speak to him
for a minute on the poop without that thimble-rigging coon coming gliding
up. Ill tell you what. I overheard onceGod
knows I didnt try toonly he forgot I was on the other
side of the skylight with my sextantI overheard himyou
know how he sits hanging over her chair and talking away without properly
opening his mouthyes I caught the word right enough. He
was alluding to the captain as the jailer. The jail
. . . !
Franklin broke off with a profane execration. A silence reigned
for a long time and the slight, very gentle rolling of the ship slipping
before the N.E. trade-wind seemed to be a soothing device for lulling
to sleep the suspicions of men who trust themselves to the sea.
A deep sigh was heard followed by the mates voice asking dismally
if that was the way one would speak of a man to whom one wished well?
No better proof of something wrong was needed. Therefore he hoped,
as he vanished at last, that Mr. Powell would be on their side.
And this time Mr. Powell did not answer this hope with an embarrassed
laugh.
That young officer was more and more surprised at the nature of the
incongruous revelations coming to him in the surroundings and in the
atmosphere of the open sea. It is difficult for us to understand
the extent, the completeness, the comprehensiveness of his inexperience,
for us who didnt go to sea out of a small private school at the
age of fourteen years and nine months. Leaning on his elbow in
the mizzen rigging and so still that the helmsman over there at the
other end of the poop might have (and he probably did) suspect him of
being criminally asleep on duty, he tried to get hold of that
thing by some side which would fit in with his simple notions
of psychology. What the deuce are they worrying about?
he asked himself in a dazed and contemptuous impatience. But all
the same jailer was a funny name to give a man; unkind,
unfriendly, nasty. He was sorry that Mr. Smith was guilty in that
matter because, the truth must be told, he had been to a certain extent
sensible of having been noticed in a quiet manner by the father of Mrs.
Anthony. Youth appreciates that sort of recognition which is the
subtlest form of flattery age can offer. Mr. Smith seized opportunities
to approach him on deck. His remarks were sometimes weird and
enigmatical.
He was doubtless an eccentric old gent. But from that to calling
his son-in-law (whom he never approached on deck) nasty names behind
his back was a long step.
And Mr. Powell marvelled . . .
While he was telling me all this,Marlow changed
his toneI marvelled even more. It was as if misfortune
marked its victims on the forehead for the dislike of the crowd.
I am not thinking here of numbers. Two men may behave like a crowd,
three certainly will when their emotions are engaged. It was as
if the forehead of Flora de Barral were marked. Was the girl born
to be a victim; to be always disliked and crushed as if she were too
fine for this world? Or too lucklesssince that also is
often counted as sin.
Yes, I marvelled more since I knew more of the girl than Mr. Powellif
only her true name; and more of Captain Anthonyif only the fact
that he was the son of a delicate erotic poet of a markedly refined
and autocratic temperament. Yes, I knew their joint stories which
Mr. Powell did not know. The chapter in it he was opening to me,
the sea-chapter, with such new personages as the sentimental and apoplectic
chief-mate and the morose steward, however astounding to him in its
detached condition was much more so to me as a member of a series, following
the chapter outside the Eastern Hotel in which I myself had played my
part. In view of her declarations and my sage remarks it was very
unexpected. She had meant well, and I had certainly meant well
too. Captain Anthonyas far as I could gather from little
Fynehad meant well. As far as such lofty words may be applied
to the obscure personages of this story we were all filled with the
noblest sentiments and intentions. The sea was there to give them
the shelter of its solitude free from the earths petty suggestions.
I could well marvel in myself, as to what had happened.
I hope that if he saw it, Mr. Powell forgave me the smile of which
I was guilty at that moment. The light in the cabin of his little
cutter was dim. And the smile was dim too. Dim and fleeting.
The girls life had presented itself to me as a tragi-comical
adventure, the saddest thing on earth, slipping between frank laughter
and unabashed tears. Yes, the saddest facts and the most common,
and, being common perhaps the most worthy of our unreserved pity.
The purely human reality is capable of lyrism but not of abstraction.
Nothing will serve for its understanding but the evidence of rational
linking up of characters and facts. And beginning with Flora de
Barral, in the light of my memories I was certain that she at least
must have been passive; for that is of necessity the part of women,
this waiting on fate which some of them, and not the most intelligent,
cover up by the vain appearances of agitation. Flora de Barral
was not exceptionally intelligent but she was thoroughly feminine.
She would be passive (and that does not mean inanimate) in the circumstances,
where the mere fact of being a woman was enough to give her an occult
and supreme significance. And she would be enduring which is the
essence of womans visible, tangible power. Of that I was
certain. Had she not endured already? Yet it is so true
that the germ of destruction lies in wait for us mortals, even at the
very source of our strength, that one may die of too much endurance
as well as of too little of it.
Such was my train of thought. And I was mindful also of my
first view of hertoying or perhaps communing in earnest with
the possibilities of a precipice. But I did not ask Mr. Powell
anxiously what had happened to Mrs. Anthony in the end. I let
him go on in his own way feeling that no matter what strange facts he
would have to disclose, I was certain to know much more of them than
he ever did know or could possibly guess . . .
Marlow paused for quite a long time. He seemed uncertain as
though he had advanced something beyond my grasp. Purposely I
made no sign. You understand? he asked.
Perfectly, I said. You are the expert
in the psychological wilderness. This is like one of those Red-skin
stories where the noble savages carry off a girl and the honest backwoodsman
with his incomparable knowledge follows the track and reads the signs
of her fate in a footprint here, a broken twig there, a trinket dropped
by the way. I have always liked such stories. Go on.
Marlow smiled indulgently at my jesting. It is not exactly
a story for boys, he said. I go on then. The
sign, as you call it, was not very plentiful but very much to the purpose,
and when Mr. Powell heard (at a certain moment I felt bound to tell
him) when he heard that I had known Mrs. Anthony before her marriage,
that, to a certain extent, I was her confidant . . . For you cant
deny that to a certain extent . . . Well let us say that I had a look
in . . . A young girl, you know, is something like a temple. You
pass by and wonder what mysterious rites are going on in there, what
prayers, what visions? The privileged men, the lover, the husband,
who are given the key of the sanctuary do not always know how to use
it. For myself, without claim, without merit, simply by chance
I had been allowed to look through the half-opened door and I had seen
the saddest possible desecration, the withered brightness of youth,
a spirit neither made cringing nor yet dulled but as if bewildered in
quivering hopelessness by gratuitous cruelty; self-confidence destroyed
and, instead, a resigned recklessness, a mournful callousness (and all
this simple, almost naive)before the material and moral
difficulties of the situation. The passive anguish of the luckless!
I asked myself: wasnt that ill-luck exhausted yet? Ill-luck
which is like the hate of invisible powers interpreted, made sensible
and injurious by the actions of men?
Mr. Powell as you may well imagine had opened his eyes at my statement.
But he was full of his recalled experiences on board the Ferndale,
and the strangeness of being mixed up in what went on aboard, simply
because his name was also the name of a shipping-master, kept him in
a state of wonder which made other coincidences, however unlikely, not
so very surprising after all.
This astonishing occurrence was so present to his mind that he always
felt as though he were there under false pretences. And this feeling
was so uncomfortable that it nerved him to break through the awe-inspiring
aloofness of his captain. He wanted to make a clean breast of
it. I imagine that his youth stood in good stead to Mr. Powell.
Oh, yes. Youth is a power. Even Captain Anthony had to take
some notice of it, as if it refreshed him to see something untouched,
unscarred, unhardened by suffering. Or perhaps the very novelty
of that face, on board a ship where he had seen the same faces for years,
attracted his attention.
Whether one day he dropped a word to his new second officer or only
looked at him I dont know; but Mr. Powell seized the opportunity
whatever it was. The captain who had started and stopped in his
everlasting rapid walk smoothed his brow very soon, heard him to the
end and then laughed a little.
Ah! Thats the story. And you felt you must
put me right as to this.
Yes, sir.
It doesnt matter how you came on board, said
Anthony. And then showing that perhaps he was not so utterly absent
from his ship as Franklin supposed: Thats all right.
You seem to be getting on very well with everybody, he said in
his curt hurried tone, as if talking hurt him, and his eyes already
straying over the sea as usual.
Yes, sir.
Powell tells me that looking then at the strong face to which that
haggard expression was returning, he had the impulse, from some confused
friendly feeling, to add: I am very happy on board here, sir.
The quickly returning glance, its steadiness, abashed Mr. Powell
and made him even step back a little. The captain looked as though
he had forgotten the meaning of the word.
Youwhat? Oh yes . . . You . . . of course . .
. Happy. Why not?
This was merely muttered; and next moment Anthony was off on his
headlong tramp his eyes turned to the sea away from his ship.
A sailor indeed looks generally into the great distances, but in
Captain Anthonys case there wasas Powell expressed itsomething
particular, something purposeful like the avoidance of pain or temptation.
It was very marked once one had become aware of it. Before, one
felt only a pronounced strangeness. Not that the captainPowell
was careful to explaindidnt see things as a ship-master
should. The proof of it was that on that very occasion he desired
him suddenly after a period of silent pacing, to have all the staysails
sheets eased off, and he was going on with some other remarks on the
subject of these staysails when Mrs. Anthony followed by her father
emerged from the companion. She established herself in her chair
to leeward of the skylight as usual. Thereupon the captain cut
short whatever he was going to say, and in a little while went down
below.
I asked Mr. Powell whether the captain and his wife never conversed
on deck. He said noor at any rate they never exchanged
more than a couple of words. There was some constraint between
them. For instance, on that very occasion, when Mrs. Anthony came
out they did look at each other; the captains eyes indeed followed
her till she sat down; but he did not speak to her; he did not approach
her; and afterwards left the deck without turning his head her way after
this first silent exchange of glances.
I asked Mr. Powell what did he do then, the captain being out of
the way. I went over and talked to Mrs. Anthony.
I was thinking that it must be very dull for her. She seemed to
be such a stranger to the ship.
The father was there of course?
Always, said Powell. He was always there
sitting on the skylight, as if he were keeping watch over her.
And I think, he added, that he was worrying her.
Not that she showed it in any way. Mrs. Anthony was always very
quiet and always ready to look one straight in the face.
You talked together a lot? I pursued my inquiries.
She mostly let me talk to her, confessed Mr. Powell.
I dont know that she was very much interestedbut
still she let me. She never cut me short.
All the sympathies of Mr. Powell were for Flora Anthony nee
de Barral. She was the only human being younger than himself on
board that ship since the Ferndale carried no boys and was manned
by a full crew of able seamen. Yes! their youth had created a
sort of bond between them. Mr. Powells open countenance
must have appeared to her distinctly pleasing amongst the mature, rough,
crabbed or even inimical faces she saw around her. With the warm
generosity of his age young Powell was on her side, as it were, even
before he knew that there were sides to be taken on board that ship,
and what this taking sides was about. There was a girl.
A nice girl. He asked himself no questions. Flora de Barral
was not so much younger in years than himself; but for some reason,
perhaps by contrast with the accepted idea of a captains wife,
he could not regard her otherwise but as an extremely youthful creature.
At the same time, apart from her exalted position, she exercised over
him the supremacy a womans earlier maturity gives her over a
young man of her own age. As a matter of fact we can see that,
without ever having more than a half an hours consecutive conversation
together, and the distances duly preserved, these two were becoming
friendsunder the eye of the old man, I suppose.
How he first got in touch with his captains wife Powell relates
in this way. It was long before his memorable conversation with
the mate and shortly after getting clear of the channel. It was
gloomy weather; dead head wind, blowing quite half a gale; the Ferndale
under reduced sail was stretching close-hauled across the track of the
homeward bound ships, just moving through the water and no more, since
there was no object in pressing her and the weather looked threatening.
About ten oclock at night he was alone on the poop, in charge,
keeping well aft by the weather rail and staring to windward, when amongst
the white, breaking seas, under the black sky, he made out the lights
of a ship. He watched them for some time. She was running
dead before the wind of course. She will pass jolly closehe
said to himself; and then suddenly he felt a great mistrust of that
approaching ship. Shes heading straight for ushe
thought. It was not his business to get out of the way.
On the contrary. And his uneasiness grew by the recollection of
the forty tons of dynamite in the body of the Ferndale; not the
sort of cargo one thinks of with equanimity in connection with a threatened
collision. He gazed at the two small lights in the dark immensity
filled with the angry noise of the seas. They fascinated him till
their plainness to his sight gave him a conviction that there was danger
there. He knew in his mind what to do in the emergency, but very
properly he felt that he must call the captain out at once.
He crossed the deck in one bound. By the immemorial custom
and usage of the sea the captains room is on the starboard side.
You would just as soon expect your captain to have his nose at the back
of his head as to have his state-room on the port side of the ship.
Powell forgot all about the direction on that point given him by the
chief. He flew over as I said, stamped with his foot and then
putting his face to the cowl of the big ventilator shouted down there:
Please come on deck, sir, in a voice which was not trembling
or scared but which we may call fairly expressive. There could
not be a mistake as to the urgence of the call. But instead of
the expected alert All right! and the sound of a rush
down there, he heard only a faint exclamationthen silence.
Think of his astonishment! He remained there, his ear in the
cowl of the ventilator, his eyes fastened on those menacing sidelights
dancing on the gusts of wind which swept the angry darkness of the sea.
It was as though he had waited an hour but it was something much less
than a minute before he fairly bellowed into the wide tube Captain
Anthony! An agitated What is it? was what
he heard down there in Mrs. Anthonys voice, light rapid footsteps
. . . Why didnt she try to wake him up! I want the
captain, he shouted, then gave it up, making a dash at the companion
where a blue light was kept, resolved to act for himself.
On the way he glanced at the helmsman whose face lighted up by the
binnacle lamps was calm. He said rapidly to him: Stand
by to spin that helm up at the first word. The answer Aye,
aye, sir, was delivered in a steady voice. Then Mr. Powell
after a shout for the watch on deck to lay aft, ran to
the ships side and struck the blue light on the rail.
A sort of nasty little spitting of sparks was all that came.
The light (perhaps affected by damp) had failed to ignite. The
time of all these various acts must be counted in seconds. Powell
confessed to me that at this failure he experienced a paralysis of thought,
of voice, of limbs. The unexpectedness of this misfire positively
overcame his faculties. It was the only thing for which his imagination
was not prepared. It was knocked clean over. When it got
up it was with the suggestion that he must do something at once or there
would be a broadside smash accompanied by the explosion of dynamite,
in which both ships would be blown up and every soul on board of them
would vanish off the earth in an enormous flame and uproar.
He saw the catastrophe happening and at the same moment, before he
could open his mouth or stir a limb to ward off the vision, a voice
very near his ear, the measured voice of Captain Anthony said: Wouldnt
lighteh? Throw it down! Jump for the flare-up.
The spring of activity in Mr. Powell was released with great force.
He jumped. The flare-up was kept inside the companion with a box
of matches ready to hand. Almost before he knew he had moved he
was diving under the companion slide. He got hold of the can in
the dark and tried to strike a light. But he had to press the
flare-holder to his breast with one arm, his fingers were damp and stiff,
his hands trembled a little. One match broke. Another went
out. In its flame he saw the colourless face of Mrs. Anthony a
little below him, standing on the cabin stairs. Her eyes which
were very close to his (he was in a crouching posture on the top step)
seemed to burn darkly in the vanishing light. On deck the captains
voice was heard sudden and unexpectedly sardonic: You had better
look sharp, if you want to be in time.
Let me have the box, said Mrs. Anthony in a hurried
and familiar whisper which sounded amused as if they had been a couple
of children up to some lark behind a wall. He was glad of the
offer which seemed to him very natural, and without ceremony
Here you are. Catch hold.
Their hands touched in the dark and she took the box while he held
the paraffin soaked torch in its iron holder. He thought of warning
her: Look out for yourself. But before he had the
time to finish the sentence the flare blazed up violently between them
and he saw her throw herself back with an arm across her face.
Hallo, he exclaimed; only he could not stop a moment to
ask if she was hurt. He bolted out of the companion straight into
his captain who took the flare from him and held it high above his head.
The fierce flame fluttered like a silk flag, throwing an angry swaying
glare mingled with moving shadows over the poop, lighting up the concave
surfaces of the sails, gleaming on the wet paint of the white rails.
And young Powell turned his eyes to windward with a catch in his breath.
The strange ship, a darker shape in the night, did not seem to be
moving onwards but only to grow more distinct right abeam, staring at
the Ferndale with one green and one red eye which swayed and
tossed as if they belonged to the restless head of some invisible monster
ambushed in the night amongst the waves. A moment, long like eternity,
elapsed, and, suddenly, the monster which seemed to take to itself the
shape of a mountain shut its green eye without as much as a preparatory
wink.
Mr. Powell drew a free breath. All right now,
said Captain Anthony in a quiet undertone. He gave the blazing
flare to Powell and walked aft to watch the passing of that menace of
destruction coming blindly with its parti-coloured stare out of a blind
night on the wings of a sweeping wind. Her very form could be
distinguished now black and elongated amongst the hissing patches of
foam bursting along her path.
As is always the case with a ship running before wind and sea she
did not seem to an onlooker to move very fast; but to be progressing
indolently in long leisurely bounds and pauses in the midst of the overtaking
waves. It was only when actually passing the stern within easy
hail of the Ferndale, that her headlong speed became apparent
to the eye. With the red light shut off and soaring like an immense
shadow on the crest of a wave she was lost to view in one great, forward
swing, melting into the lightless space.
Close shave, said Captain Anthony in an indifferent
voice just raised enough to be heard in the wind. A blind
lot on board that ship. Put out the flare now.
Silently Mr. Powell inverted the holder, smothering the flame in
the can, bringing about by the mere turn of his wrist the fall of darkness
upon the poop. And at the same time vanished out of his minds
eye the vision of another flame enormous and fierce shooting violently
from a white churned patch of the sea, lighting up the very clouds and
carrying upwards in its volcanic rush flying spars, corpses, the fragments
of two destroyed ships. It vanished and there was an immense relief.
He told me he did not know how scared he had been, not generally but
of that very thing his imagination had conjured, till it was all over.
He measured it (for fear is a great tension) by the feeling of slack
weariness which came over him all at once.
He walked to the companion and stooping low to put the flare in its
usual place saw in the darkness the motionless pale oval of Mrs. Anthonys
face. She whispered quietly:
Is anything going to happen? What is it?
Its all over now, he whispered back.
He remained bent low, his head inside the cover staring at that white
ghostly oval. He wondered she had not rushed out on deck.
She had remained quietly there. This was pluck. Wonderful
self-restraint. And it was not stupidity on her part. She
knew there was imminent danger and probably had some notion of its nature.
You stayed here waiting for what would come, he murmured
admiringly.
Wasnt that the best thing to do? she asked.
He didnt know. Perhaps. He confessed he could
not have done it. Not he. His flesh and blood could not
have stood it. He would have felt he must see what was coming.
Then he remembered that the flare might have scorched her face, and
expressed his concern.
A bit. Nothing to hurt. Smell the singed hair?
There was a sort of gaiety in her tone. She might have been
frightened but she certainly was not overcome and suffered from no reaction.
This confirmed and augmented if possible Mr. Powells good opinion
of her as a jolly girl, though it seemed to him positively
monstrous to refer in such terms to ones captains wife.
But she doesnt look it, he thought in extenuation
and was going to say something more to her about the lighting of that
flare when another voice was heard in the companion, saying some indistinct
words. Its tone was contemptuous; it came from below, from the
bottom of the stairs. It was a voice in the cabin. And the
only other voice which could be heard in the main cabin at this time
of the evening was the voice of Mrs. Anthonys father. The
indistinct white oval sank from Mr. Powells sight so swiftly
as to take him by surprise. For a moment he hung at the opening
of the companion and now that her slight form was no longer obstructing
the narrow and winding staircase the voices came up louder but the words
were still indistinct. The old gentleman was excited about something
and Mrs. Anthony was managing him as Powell expressed
it. They moved away from the bottom of the stairs and Powell went
away from the companion. Yet he fancied he had heard the words
Lost to me before he withdrew his head. They had
been uttered by Mr. Smith.
Captain Anthony had not moved away from the taffrail. He remained
in the very position he took up to watch the other ship go by rolling
and swinging all shadowy in the uproar of the following seas.
He stirred not; and Powell keeping near by did not dare speak to him,
so enigmatical in its contemplation of the night did his figure appear
to his young eyes: indistinctand in its immobility staring into
gloom, the prey of some incomprehensible grief, longing or regret.
Why is it that the stillness of a human being is often so impressive,
so suggestive of evilas if our proper fate were a ceaseless agitation?
The stillness of Captain Anthony became almost intolerable to his second
officer. Mr. Powell loitering about the skylight wanted his captain
off the deck now. Why doesnt he go below?
he asked himself impatiently. He ventured a cough.
Whether the effect of the cough or not Captain Anthony spoke.
He did not move the least bit. With his back remaining turned
to the whole length of the ship he asked Mr. Powell with some brusqueness
if the chief mate had neglected to instruct him that the captain was
to be found on the port side.
Yes, sir, said Mr. Powell approaching his back.
The mate told me to stamp on the port side when I wanted you;
but I didnt remember at the moment.
You should remember, the captain uttered with an effort.
Then added mumbling I dont want Mrs. Anthony frightened.
Dont you see? . . .
She wasnt this time, Powell said innocently:
She lighted the flare-up for me, sir.
This time, Captain Anthony exclaimed and turned round.
Mrs. Anthony lighted the flare? Mrs. Anthony! . . .
Powell explained that she was in the companion all the time.
All the time, repeated the captain. It seemed
queer to Powell that instead of going himself to see the captain should
ask him:
Is she there now?
Powell said that she had gone below after the ship had passed clear
of the Ferndale. Captain Anthony made a movement towards
the companion himself, when Powell added the information. Mr.
Smith called to Mrs. Anthony from the saloon, sir. I believe they
are talking there now.
He was surprised to see the captain give up the idea of going below
after all.
He began to walk the poop instead regardless of the cold, of the
damp wind and of the sprays. And yet he had nothing on but his
sleeping suit and slippers. Powell placing himself on the break
of the poop kept a look-out. When after some time he turned his
head to steal a glance at his eccentric captain he could not see his
active and shadowy figure swinging to and fro. The second mate
of the Ferndale walked aft peering about and addressed the seaman
who steered.
Captain gone below?
Yes, sir, said the fellow who with a quid of tobacco
bulging out his left cheek kept his eyes on the compass card.
This minute. He laughed.
Laughed, repeated Powell incredulously. Do
you mean the captain did? You must be mistaken. What would
he want to laugh for?
Dont know, sir.
The elderly sailor displayed a profound indifference towards human
emotions. However, after a longish pause he conceded a few words
more to the second officers weakness. Yes.
He was walking the deck as usual when suddenly he laughed a little and
made for the companion. Thought of something funny all at once.
Something funny! That Mr. Powell could not believe. He
did not ask himself why, at the time. Funny thoughts come to men,
though, in all sorts of situations; they come to all sorts of men.
Nevertheless Mr. Powell was shocked to learn that Captain Anthony had
laughed without visible cause on a certain night. The impression
for some reason was disagreeable. And it was then, while finishing
his watch, with the chilly gusts of wind sweeping at him out of the
darkness where the short sea of the soundings growled spitefully all
round the ship, that it occurred to his unsophisticated mind that perhaps
things are not what they are confidently expected to be; that it was
possible that Captain Anthony was not a happy man . . . In so far you
will perceive he was to a certain extent prepared for the apoplectic
and sensitive Franklins lamentations about his captain.
And though he treated them with a contempt which was in a great measure
sincere, yet he admitted to me that deep down within him an inexplicable
and uneasy suspicion that all was not well in that cabin, so unusually
cut off from the rest of the ship, came into being and grew against
his will.
CHAPTER FOURANTHONY AND FLORA
Marlow emerged out of the shadow of the book-case to get himself
a cigar from a box which stood on a little table by my side. In
the full light of the room I saw in his eyes that slightly mocking expression
with which he habitually covers up his sympathetic impulses of mirth
and pity before the unreasonable complications the idealism of mankind
puts into the simple but poignant problem of conduct on this earth.
He selected and lit the cigar with affected care, then turned upon
me, I had been looking at him silently.
I suppose, he said, the mockery of his eyes giving
a pellucid quality to his tone, that you think its high
time I told you something definite. I mean something about that
psychological cabin mystery of discomfort (for its obvious that
it must be psychological) which affected so profoundly Mr. Franklin
the chief mate, and had even disturbed the serene innocence of Mr. Powell,
the second of the ship Ferndale, commanded by Roderick Anthonythe
son of the poet, you know.
You are going to confess now that you have failed to find
it out, I said in pretended indignation.
It would serve you right if I told you that I have.
But I wont. I havent failed. I own though
that for a time, I was puzzled. However, I have now seen our Powell
many times under the most favourable conditionsand besides I
came upon a most unexpected source of information . . . But never mind
that. The means dont concern you except in so far as they
belong to the story. Ill admit that for some time the old-maiden-lady-like
occupation of putting two and two together failed to procure a coherent
theory. I am speaking now as an investigatora man of deductions.
With what we know of Roderick Anthony and Flora de Barral I could not
deduct an ordinary marital quarrel beautifully matured in less than
a yearcould I? If you ask me what is an ordinary marital
quarrel I will tell you, that it is a difference about nothing; I mean,
these nothings which, as Mr. Powell told us when we first met him, shore
people are so prone to start a row about, and nurse into hatred from
an idle sense of wrong, from perverted ambition, for spectacular reasons
too. There are on earth no actors too humble and obscure not to
have a gallery; that gallery which envenoms the play by stealthy jeers,
counsels of anger, amused comments or words of perfidious compassion.
However, the Anthonys were free from all demoralizing influences.
At sea, you know, there is no gallery. You hear no tormenting
echoes of your own littleness there, where either a great elemental
voice roars defiantly under the sky or else an elemental silence seems
to be part of the infinite stillness of the universe.
Remembering Flora de Barral in the depths of moral misery, and Roderick
Anthony carried away by a gust of tempestuous tenderness, I asked myself,
Is it all forgotten already? What could they have found to estrange
them from each other with this rapidity and this thoroughness so far
from all temptations, in the peace of the sea and in an isolation so
complete that if it had not been the jealous devotion of the sentimental
Franklin stimulating the attention of Powell, there would have been
no record, no evidence of it at all.
I must confess at once that it was Flora de Barral whom I suspected.
In this world as at present organized women are the suspected half of
the population. There are good reasons for that. These reasons
are so discoverable with a little reflection that it is not worth my
while to set them out for you. I will only mention this: that
the part falling to womens share being all influence
has an air of occult and mysterious action, something not altogether
trustworthy like all natural forces which, for us, work in the dark
because of our imperfect comprehension.
If women were not a force of nature, blind in its strength and capricious
in its power, they would not be mistrusted. As it is one cant
help it. You will say that this force having been in the person
of Flora de Barral captured by Anthony . . . Why yes. He had dealt
with her masterfully. But man has captured electricity too.
It lights him on his way, it warms his home, it will even cook his dinner
for himvery much like a woman. But what sort of conquest
would you call it? He knows nothing of it. He has got to
be mighty careful what he is about with his captive. And the greater
the demand he makes on it in the exultation of his pride the more likely
it is to turn on him and burn him to a cinder . . .
A far-fetched enough parallel, I observed coldly to
Marlow. He had returned to the arm-chair in the shadow of the
bookcase. But accepting the meaning you have in your mind
it reduces itself to the knowledge of how to use it. And if you
mean that this ravenous Anthony
Ravenous is good, interrupted Marlow. He
was a-hungering and a-thirsting for femininity to enter his life in
a way no mere feminist could have the slightest conception of.
I reckon that this accounts for much of Fynes disgust with him.
Good little Fyne. You have no idea what infernal mischief he had
worked during his call at the hotel. But then who could have suspected
Anthony of being a heroic creature. There are several kinds of
heroism and one of them at least is idiotic. It is the one which
wears the aspect of sublime delicacy. It is apparently the one
of which the son of the delicate poet was capable.
He certainly resembled his father, who, by the way, wore out two
women without any satisfaction to himself, because they did not come
up to his supra-refined standard of the delicacy which is so perceptible
in his verses. Thats your poet. He demands too much
from others. The inarticulate son had set up a standard for himself
with that need for embodying in his conduct the dreams, the passion,
the impulses the poet puts into arrangements of verses, which are dearer
to him than his own selfand may make his own self appear sublime
in the eyes of other people, and even in his own eyes.
Did Anthony wish to appear sublime in his own eyes? I should
not like to make that charge; though indeed there are other, less noble,
ambitions at which the world does not dare to smile. But I dont
think so; I do not even think that there was in what he did a conscious
and lofty confidence in himself, a particularly pronounced sense of
power which leads men so often into impossible or equivocal situations.
Looked at abstractedly (the way in which truth is often seen in its
real shape) his life had been a life of solitude and silenceand
desire.
Chance had thrown that girl in his way; and if we may smile at his
violent conquest of Flora de Barral we must admit also that this eager
appropriation was truly the act of a man of solitude and desire; a man
also, who, unless a complete imbecile, must have been a man of long
and ardent reveries wherein the faculty of sincere passion matures slowly
in the unexplored recesses of the heart. And I know also that
a passion, dominating or tyrannical, invading the whole man and subjugating
all his faculties to its own unique end, may conduct him whom it spurs
and drives, into all sorts of adventures, to the brink of unfathomable
dangers, to the limits of folly, and madness, and death.
To the man then of a silence made only more impressive by the inarticulate
thunders and mutters of the great seas, an utter stranger to the clatter
of tongues, there comes the muscular little Fyne, the most marked representative
of that mankind whose voice is so strange to him, the husband of his
sister, a personality standing out from the misty and remote multitude.
He comes and throws at him more talk than he had ever heard boomed out
in an hour, and certainly touching the deepest things Anthony had ever
discovered in himself, and flings words like unfair whose
very sound is abhorrent to him. Unfair! Undue advantage!
He! Unfair to that girl? Cruel to her!
No scorn could stand against the impression of such charges advanced
with heat and conviction. They shook him. They were yet
vibrating in the air of that stuffy hotel-room, terrific, disturbing,
impossible to get rid of, when the door opened and Flora de Barral entered.
He did not even notice that she was late. He was sitting on
a sofa plunged in gloom. Was it true? Having himself always
said exactly what he meant he imagined that people (unless they were
liars, which of course his brother-in-law could not be) never said more
than they meant. The deep chest voice of little Fyne was still
in his ear. He knows, Anthony said to himself.
He thought he had better go away and never see her again. But
she stood there before him accusing and appealing. How could he
abandon her? That was out of the question. She had no one.
Or rather she had someone. That father. Anthony was willing
to take him at her valuation. This father may have been the victim
of the most atrocious injustice. But what could a man coming out
of jail do? An old man too. And thenwhat sort of
man? What would become of them both? Anthony shuddered slightly
and the faint smile with which Flora had entered the room faded on her
lips. She was used to his impetuous tenderness. She was
no longer afraid of it. But she had never seen him look like this
before, and she suspected at once some new cruelty of life. He
got up with his usual ardour but as if sobered by a momentous resolve
and said:
No. I cant let you out of my sight. I have
seen you. You have told me your story. You are honest.
You have never told me you loved me.
She waited, saying to herself that he had never given her time, that
he had never asked her! And that, in truth, she did not know!
I am inclined to believe that she did not. As abundance of
experience is not precisely her lot in life, a woman is seldom an expert
in matters of sentiment. It is the man who can and generally does
see himself pretty well inside and out. Womens
self-possession is an outward thing; inwardly they flutter, perhaps
because they are, or they feel themselves to be, engaged. All
this speaking generally. In Flora de Barrals particular
case ever since Anthony had suddenly broken his way into her hopeless
and cruel existence she lived like a person liberated from a condemned
cell by a natural cataclysm, a tempest, an earthquake; not absolutely
terrified, because nothing can be worse than the eve of execution, but
stunned, bewilderedabandoning herself passively. She did
not want to make a sound, to move a limb. She hadnt the
strength. What was the good? And deep down, almost unconsciously
she was seduced by the feeling of being supported by this violence.
A sensation she had never experienced before in her life.
She felt as if this whirlwind were calming down somehow! As
if this feeling of support, which was tempting her to close her eyes
deliciously and let herself be carried on and on into the unknown undefiled
by vile experiences, were less certain, had wavered threateningly.
She tried to read something in his face, in that energetic kindly face
to which she had become accustomed so soon. But she was not yet
capable of understanding its expression. Scared, discouraged on
the threshold of adolescence, plunged in moral misery of the bitterest
kind, she had not learned to readnot that sort of language.
If Anthonys love had been as egoistic as love generally is,
it would have been greater than the egoism of his vanityor of
his generosity, if you likeand all this could not have happened.
He would not have hit upon that renunciation at which one does not know
whether to grin or shudder. It is true too that then his love
would not have fastened itself upon the unhappy daughter of de Barral.
But it was a love born of that rare pity which is not akin to contempt
because rooted in an overwhelmingly strong capacity for tendernessthe
tenderness of the fiery kindthe tenderness of silent solitary
men, the voluntary, passionate outcasts of their kind. At the
time I am forced to think that his vanity must have been enormous.
What big eyes she has, he said to himself amazed.
No wonder. She was staring at him with all the might of her soul
awakening slowly from a poisoned sleep, in which it could only quiver
with pain but could neither expand nor move. He plunged into them
breathless and tense, deep, deep, like a mad sailor taking a desperate
dive from the masthead into the blue unfathomable sea so many men have
execrated and loved at the same time. And his vanity was immense.
It had been touched to the quick by that muscular little feminist, Fyne.
I! I! Take advantage of her helplessness. I!
Unfair to that creaturethat wisp of mist, that white shadow homeless
in an ugly dirty world. I could blow her away with a breath,
he was saying to himself with horror. Never!
All the supremely refined delicacy of tenderness, expressed in so many
fine lines of verse by Carleon Anthony, grew to the size of a passion
filling with inward sobs the big frame of the man who had never in his
life read a single one of those famous sonnets singing of the most highly
civilized, chivalrous love, of those sonnets which . . . You know theres
a volume of them. My edition has the portrait of the author at
thirty, and when I showed it to Mr. Powell the other day he exclaimed:
Wonderful! One would think this the portrait of Captain
Anthony himself if . . . I wanted to know what that if
was. But Powell could not say. There was somethinga
difference. No doubt there wasin fineness perhaps.
The father, fastidious, cerebral, morbidly shrinking from all contacts,
could only sing in harmonious numbers of what the son felt with a dumb
and reckless sincerity.
* * * * *
Possessed by most strong mens touching illusion as to the
frailness of women and their spiritual fragility, it seemed to Anthony
that he would be destroying, breaking something very precious inside
that being. In fact nothing less than partly murdering her.
This seems a very extreme effect to flow from Fynes words.
But Anthony, unaccustomed to the chatter of the firm earth, never stayed
to ask himself what value these words could have in Fynes mouth.
And indeed the mere dark sound of them was utterly abhorrent to his
native rectitude, sea-salted, hardened in the winds of wide horizons,
open as the day.
He wished to blurt out his indignation but she regarded him with
an expectant air which checked him. His visible discomfort made
her uneasy. He could only repeat Oh yes. You are
perfectly honest. You might have, but I dare say you are right.
At any rate you have never said anything to me which you didnt
mean.
Never, she whispered after a pause.
He seemed distracted, choking with an emotion she could not understand
because it resembled embarrassment, a state of mind inconceivable in
that man.
She wondered what it was she had said; remembering that in very truth
she had hardly spoken to him except when giving him the bare outline
of her story which he seemed to have hardly had the patience to hear,
waving it perpetually aside with exclamations of horror and anger, with
fiercely sombre mutters Enough! Enough! and with
alarming starts from a forced stillness, as though he meant to rush
out at once and take vengeance on somebody. She was saying to
herself that he caught her words in the air, never letting her finish
her thought. Honest. Honest. Yes certainly she had
been that. Her letter to Mrs. Fyne had been prompted by honesty.
But she reflected sadly that she had never known what to say to him.
That perhaps she had nothing to say.
But youll find out that I can be honest too,
he burst out in a menacing tone, she had learned to appreciate with
an amused thrill.
She waited for what was coming. But he hung in the wind.
He looked round the room with disgust as if he could see traces on the
walls of all the casual tenants that had ever passed through it.
People had quarrelled in that room; they had been ill in it, there had
been misery in that room, wickedness, crime perhapsdeath most
likely. This was not a fit place. He snatched up his hat.
He had made up his mind. The shipthe ship he had known
ever since she came off the stocks, his homeher shelterthe
uncontaminated, honest ship, was the place.
Let us go on board. Well talk there, he
said. And you will have to listen to me. For whatever
happens, no matter what they say, I cannot let you go.
You cant say that (misgivings or no misgivings) she could
have done anything else but go on board. It was the appointed
business of that morning. During the drive he was silent.
Anthony was the last man to condemn conventionally any human being,
to scorn and despise even deserved misfortune. He was ready to
take old de Barralthe convicton his daughters valuation
without the slightest reserve. But love like his, though it may
drive one into risky folly by the proud consciousness of its own strength,
has a sagacity of its own. And now, as if lifted up into a higher
and serene region by its purpose of renunciation, it gave him leisure
to reflect for the first time in these last few days. He said
to himself: I dont know that man. She does not know
him either. She was barely sixteen when they locked him up.
She was a child. What will he say? What will he do?
No, he concluded, I cannot leave her behind with that man who would
come into the world as if out of a grave.
They went on board in silence, and it was after showing her round
and when they had returned to the saloon that he assailed her in his
fiery, masterful fashion. At first she did not understand.
Then when she understood that he was giving her her liberty she went
stiff all over, her hand resting on the edge of the table, her face
set like a carving of white marble. It was all over. It
was as that abominable governess had said. She was insignificant,
contemptible. Nobody could love her. Humiliation clung to
her like a cold shroudnever to be shaken off, unwarmed by this
madness of generosity.
Yes. Here. Your home. I cant give
it to you and go away, but it is big enough for us two. You need
not be afraid. If you say so I shall not even look at you.
Remember that grey head of which you have been thinking night and day.
Where is it going to rest? Where else if not here, where nothing
evil can touch it. Dont you understand that I wont
let you buy shelter from me at the cost of your very soul. I wont.
You are too much part of me. I have found myself since I came
upon you and I would rather sell my own soul to the devil than let you
go out of my keeping. But I must have the right.
He went away brusquely to shut the door leading on deck and came
back the whole length of the cabin repeating:
I must have the legal right. Are you ashamed of letting
people think you are my wife?
He opened his arms as if to clasp her to his breast but mastered
the impulse and shook his clenched hands at her, repeating: I
must have the right if only for your fathers sake. I must
have the right. Where would you take him? To that infernal
cardboard box-maker. I dont know what keeps me from hunting
him up in his virtuous home and bashing his head in. I cant
bear the thought. Listen to me, Flora! Do you hear what
I am saying to you? You are not so proud that you cant
understand that I as a man have my pride too?
He saw a tear glide down her white cheek from under each lowered
eyelid. Then, abruptly, she walked out of the cabin. He
stood for a moment, concentrated, reckoning his own strength, interrogating
his heart, before he followed her hastily. Already she had reached
the wharf.
At the sound of his pursuing footsteps her strength failed her.
Where could she escape from this? From this new perfidy of life
taking upon itself the form of magnanimity. His very voice was
changed. The sustaining whirlwind had let her down, to stumble
on again, weakened by the fresh stab, bereft of moral support which
is wanted in life more than all the charities of material help.
She had never had it. Never. Not from the Fynes. But
where to go? Oh yes, this docka placid sheet of water close
at hand. But there was that old man with whom she had walked hand
in hand on the parade by the sea. She seemed to see him coming
to meet her, pitiful, a little greyer, with an appealing look and an
extended, tremulous arm. It was for her now to take the hand of
that wronged man more helpless than a child. But where could she
lead him? Where? And what was she to say to him? What
words of cheer, of courage and of hope? There were none.
Heaven and earth were mute, unconcerned at their meeting. But
this other man was coming up behind her. He was very close now.
His fiery person seemed to radiate heat, a tingling vibration into the
atmosphere. She was exhausted, careless, afraid to stumble, ready
to fall. She fancied she could hear his breathing. A wave
of languid warmth overtook her, she seemed to lose touch with the ground
under her feet; and when she felt him slip his hand under her arm she
made no attempt to disengage herself from that grasp which closed upon
her limb, insinuating and firm.
He conducted her through the dangers of the quayside. Her sight
was dim. A moving truck was like a mountain gliding by.
Men passed by as if in a mist; and the buildings, the sheds, the unexpected
open spaces, the ships, had strange, distorted, dangerous shapes.
She said to herself that it was good not to be bothered with what all
these things meant in the scheme of creation (if indeed anything had
a meaning), or were just piled-up matter without any sense. She
felt how she had always been unrelated to this world. She was
hanging on to it merely by that one arm grasped firmly just above the
elbow. It was a captivity. So be it. Till they got
out into the street and saw the hansom waiting outside the gates Anthony
spoke only once, beginning brusquely but in a much gentler tone than
she had ever heard from his lips.
Of course I ought to have known that you could not care for
a man like me, a stranger. Silence gives consent. Yes?
Eh? I dont want any of that sort of consent. And
unless some day you find you can speak . . . No! No! I shall
never ask you. For all the sign I will give you you may go to
your grave with sealed lips. But what I have said you must do!
He bent his head over her with tender care. At the same time
she felt her arm pressed and shaken inconspicuously, but in an undeniable
manner. You must do it. A little shake that
no passer-by could notice; and this was going on in a deserted part
of the dock. It must be done. You are listening to
meeh? or would you go again to my sister?
His ironic tone, perhaps from want of use, had an awful grating ferocity.
Would you go to her? he pursued in the same strange
voice. Your best friend! And say nicelyI am
sorry. Would you? No! You couldnt. There
are things that even you, poor dear lost girl, couldnt stand.
Eh? Die rather. Thats it. Of course.
Or can you be thinking of taking your father to that infernal cousins
house. No! Dont speak. I cant bear to
think of it. I would follow you there and smash the door!
The catch in his voice astonished her by its resemblance to a sob.
It frightened her too. The thought that came to her head was:
He mustnt. He was putting her into the hansom.
Oh! He mustnt, he mustnt. She
was still more frightened by the discovery that he was shaking all over.
Bewildered, shrinking into the far off corner, avoiding his eyes, she
yet saw the quivering of his mouth and made a wild attempt at a smile,
which broke the rigidity of her lips and set her teeth chattering suddenly.
I am not coming with you, he was saying. Ill
tell the man . . . I cant. Better not. What is it?
Are you cold? Come! What is it? Only to go to a confounded
stuffy room, a hole of an office. Not a quarter of an hour.
Ill come for youin ten days. Dont think of
it too much. Think of no man, woman or child of all that silly
crowd cumbering the ground. Dont think of me either.
Think of yourself. Ha! Nothing will be able to touch you
thenat last. Say nothing. Dont move.
Ill have everything arranged; and as long as you dont
hate the sight of meand you donttheres nothing
to be frightened about. One of their silly offices with a couple
of ink-slingers of no consequence; poor, scribbling devils.
The hansom drove away with Flora de Barral inside, without movement,
without thought, only too glad to rest, to be alone and still moving
away without effort, in solitude and silence.
Anthony roamed the streets for hours without being able to remember
in the evening where he had beenin the manner of a happy and
exulting lover. But nobody could have thought so from his face,
which bore no signs of blissful anticipation. Exulting indeed
he was but it was a special sort of exultation which seemed to take
him by the throat like an enemy.
Anthonys last words to Flora referred to the registry office
where they were married ten days later. During that time Anthony
saw no one or anything, though he went about restlessly, here and there,
amongst men and things. This special state is peculiar to common
lovers, who are known to have no eyes for anything except for the contemplation,
actual or inward, of one human form which for them contains the soul
of the whole world in all its beauty, perfection, variety and infinity.
It must be extremely pleasant. But felicity was denied to Roderick
Anthonys contemplation. He was not a common sort of lover;
and he was punished for it as if Nature (which it is said abhors a vacuum)
were so very conventional as to abhor every sort of exceptional conduct.
Roderick Anthony had begun already to suffer. That is why perhaps
he was so industrious in going about amongst his fellowmen who would
have been surprised and humiliated, had they known how little solidity
and even existence they had in his eyes. But they could not suspect
anything so queer. They saw nothing extraordinary in him during
that fortnight. The proof of this is that they were willing to
transact business with him. Obviously they were; since it is then
that the offer of chartering his ship for the special purpose of proceeding
to the Western Islands was put in his way by a firm of shipbrokers who
had no doubt of his sanity.
He probably looked sane enough for all the practical purposes of
commercial life. But I am not so certain that he really was quite
sane at that time.
However, he jumped at the offer. Providence itself was offering
him this opportunity to accustom the girl to sea-life by a comparatively
short trip. This was the time when everything that happened, everything
he heard, casual words, unrelated phrases, seemed a provocation or an
encouragement, confirmed him in his resolution. And indeed to
be busy with material affairs is the best preservative against reflection,
fears, doubtsall these things which stand in the way of achievement.
I suppose a fellow proposing to cut his throat would experience a sort
of relief while occupied in stropping his razor carefully.
And Anthony was extremely careful in preparing for himself and for
the luckless Flora, an impossible existence. He went about it
with no more tremors than if he had been stuffed with rags or made of
iron instead of flesh and blood. An existence, mind you, which,
on shore, in the thick of mankind, of varied interests, of distractions,
of infinite opportunities to preserve your distance from each other,
is hardly conceivable; but on board ship, at sea, en tete-a-tete
for days and weeks and months together, could mean nothing but mental
torture, an exquisite absurdity of torment. He was a simple soul.
His hopelessly masculine ingenuousness is displayed in a touching way
by his care to procure some woman to attend on Flora. The condition
of guaranteed perfect respectability gave him moments of anxious thought.
When he remembered suddenly his stewards wife he must have exclaimed
eureka with particular exultation. One does not like to
call Anthony an ass. But really to put any woman within scenting
distance of such a secret and suppose that she would not track it out!
No woman, however simple, could be as ingenuous as that. I
dont know how Flora de Barral qualified him in her thoughts when
he told her of having done this amongst other things intended to make
her comfortable. I should think that, for all her simplicity,
she must have been appalled. He stood before her on the appointed
day outwardly calmer than she had ever seen him before. And this
very calmness, that scrupulous attitude which he felt bound in honour
to assume then and for ever, unless she would condescend to make a sign
at some future time, added to the heaviness of her heart innocent of
the most pardonable guile.
The night before she had slept better than she had done for the past
ten nights. Both youth and weariness will assert themselves in
the end against the tyranny of nerve-racking stress. She had slept
but she woke up with her eyes full of tears. There were no traces
of them when she met him in the shabby little parlour downstairs.
She had swallowed them up. She was not going to let him see.
She felt bound in honour to accept the situation for ever and ever unless
. . . Ah, unless . . . She dissembled all her sentiments but it was
not duplicity on her part. All she wanted was to get at the truth;
to see what would come of it.
She beat him at his own honourable game and the thoroughness of her
serenity disconcerted Anthony a bit. It was he who stammered when
it came to talking. The suppressed fierceness of his character
carried him on after the first word or two masterfully enough.
But it was as if they both had taken a bite of the same bitter fruit.
He was thinking with mournful regret not unmixed with surprise: That
fellow Fyne has been telling me the truth. She does not care for
me a bit. It humiliated him and also increased his compassion
for the girl who in this darkness of life, buffeted and despairing,
had fallen into the grip of his stronger will, abandoning herself to
his arms as on a night of shipwreck. Flora on her side with partial
insight (for women are never blind with the complete masculine blindness)
looked on him with some pity; and she felt pity for herself too.
It was a rejection, a casting out; nothing new to her. But she
who supposed all her sensibility dead by this time, discovered in herself
a resentment of this ultimate betrayal. She had no resignation
for this one. With a sort of mental sullenness she said to herself:
Well, I am here. I am here without any nonsense.
It is not my fault that I am a mere worthless object of pity.
And these things which she could tell herself with a clear conscience
served her better than the passionate obstinacy of purpose could serve
Roderick Anthony. She was much more sure of herself than he was.
Such are the advantages of mere rectitude over the most exalted generosity.
And so they went out to get married, the people of the house where
she lodged having no suspicion of anything of the sort. They were
only excited at a gentleman friend (a very fine man too)
calling on Miss Smith for the first time since she had come to live
in the house. When she returned, for she did come back alone,
there were allusions made to that outing. She had to take her
meals with these rather vulgar people. The woman of the house,
a scraggy, genteel person, tried even to provoke confidences.
Floras white face with the deep blue eyes did not strike their
hearts as it did the heart of Captain Anthony, as the very face of the
suffering world. Her pained reserve had no power to awe them into
decency.
Well, she returned aloneas in fact might have been expected.
After leaving the Registry Office Flora de Barral and Roderick Anthony
had gone for a walk in a park. It must have been an East-End park
but I am not sure. Anyway thats what they did. It
was a sunny day. He said to her: Everything I have in the
world belongs to you. I have seen to that without troubling my
brother-in-law. They have no call to interfere.
She walked with her hand resting lightly on his arm. He had
offered it to her on coming out of the Registry Office, and she had
accepted it silently. Her head drooped, she seemed to be turning
matters over in her mind. She said, alluding to the Fynes: They
have been very good to me. At that he exclaimed:
They have never understood you. Well, not properly.
My sister is not a bad woman, but . . .
Flora didnt protest; asking herself whether he imagined that
he himself understood her so much better. Anthony dismissing his
family out of his thoughts went on: Yes. Everything is
yours. I have kept nothing back. As to the piece of paper
we have just got from that miserable quill-driver if it wasnt
for the law, I wouldnt mind if you tore it up here, now, on this
spot. But dont you do it. Unless you should some
day feel that
He choked, unexpectedly. She, reflective, hesitated a moment
then making up her mind bravely.
Neither am I keeping anything back from you.
She had said it! But he in his blind generosity assumed that
she was alluding to her deplorable history and hastened to mutter:
Of course! Of course! Say no more. I have
been lying awake thinking of it all no end of times.
He made a movement with his other arm as if restraining himself from
shaking an indignant fist at the universe; and she never even attempted
to look at him. His voice sounded strangely, incredibly lifeless
in comparison with these tempestuous accents that in the broad fields,
in the dark garden had seemed to shake the very earth under her weary
and hopeless feet.
She regretted them. Hearing the sigh which escaped her Anthony
instead of shaking his fist at the universe began to pat her hand resting
on his arm and then desisted, suddenly, as though he had burnt himself.
Then after a silence:
You will have to go by yourself to-morrow. I . . . No,
I think I mustnt come. Better not. What you two will
have to say to each other
She interrupted him quickly:
Father is an innocent man. He was cruelly wronged.
Yes. Thats why, Anthony insisted earnestly.
And you are the only human being that can make it up to him.
You alone must reconcile him with the world if anything can. But
of course you shall. Youll have to find words. Oh
youll know. And then the sight of you, alone, would soothe
Hes the gentlest of men, she interrupted again.
Anthony shook his head. It would take no end of generosity,
no end of gentleness to forgive such a dead set. For my part I
would have liked better to have been killed and done with at once.
It could not have been worse for youand I suppose it was of you
that he was thinking most while those infernal lawyers were badgering
him in court. Of you. And now I think of it perhaps the
sight of you may bring it all back to him. All these years, all
these yearsand you his child left alone in the world. I
would have gone crazy. For even if he had done wrong
But he hasnt, insisted Flora de Barral with
a quite unexpected fierceness. You mustnt even suppose
it. Havent you read the accounts of the trial?
I am not supposing anything, Anthony defended himself.
He just remembered hearing of the trial. He assured her that he
was away from England, the second voyage of the Ferndale.
He was crossing the Pacific from Australia at the time and didnt
see any papers for weeks and weeks. He interrupted himself to
suggest:
You had better tell him at once that you are happy.
He had stammered a little, and Flora de Barral uttered a deliberate
and concise Yes.
A short silence ensued. She withdrew her hand from his arm.
They stopped. Anthony looked as if a totally unexpected catastrophe
had happened.
Ah, he said. You mind . . .
No! I think I had better, she murmured.
I dare say. I dare say. Bring him along straight
on board to-morrow. Stop nowhere.
She had a movement of vague gratitude, a momentary feeling of peace
which she referred to the man before her. She looked up at Anthony.
His face was sombre. He was miles away and muttered as if to himself:
Where could he want to stop though?
Theres not a single being on earth that I would want
to look at his dear face now, to whom I would willingly take him,
she said extending her hand frankly and with a slight break in her voice,
but youRoderick.
He took that hand, felt it very small and delicate in his broad palm.
Thats right. Thats right, he said
with a conscious and hasty heartiness and, as if suddenly ashamed of
the sound of his voice, turned half round and absolutely walked away
from the motionless girl. He even resisted the temptation to look
back till it was too late. The gravel path lay empty to the very
gate of the park. She was gonevanished. He had an
impression that he had missed some sort of chance. He felt sad.
That excited sense of his own conduct which had kept him up for the
last ten days buoyed him no more. He had succeeded!
He strolled on aimlessly a prey to gentle melancholy. He walked
and walked. There were but few people about in this breathing
space of a poor neighbourhood. Under certain conditions of life
there is precious little time left for mere breathing. But still
a few here and there were indulging in that luxury; yet few as they
were Captain Anthony, though the least exclusive of men, resented their
presence. Solitude had been his best friend. He wanted some
place where he could sit down and be alone. And in his need his
thoughts turned to the sea which had given him so much of that congenial
solitude. There, if always with his ship (but that was an integral
part of him) he could always be as solitary as he chose. Yes.
Get out to sea!
The night of the town with its strings of lights, rigid, and crossed
like a net of flames, thrown over the sombre immensity of walls, closed
round him, with its artificial brilliance overhung by an emphatic blackness,
its unnatural animation of a restless, overdriven humanity. His
thoughts which somehow were inclined to pity every passing figure, every
single person glimpsed under a street lamp, fixed themselves at last
upon a figure which certainly could not have been seen under the lamps
on that particular night. A figure unknown to him. A figure
shut up within high unscaleable walls of stone or bricks till next morning
. . . The figure of Flora de Barrals father. De Barral
the financierthe convict.
There is something in that word with its suggestions of guilt and
retribution which arrests the thought. We feel ourselves in the
presence of the power of organized societya thing mysterious
in itself and still more mysterious in its effect. Whether guilty
or innocent, it was as if old de Barral had been down to the Nether
Regions. Impossible to imagine what he would bring out from there
to the light of this world of uncondemned men. What would he think?
What would he have to say? And what was one to say to him?
Anthony, a little awed, as one is by a range of feelings stretching
beyond ones grasp, comforted himself by the thought that probably
the old fellow would have little to say. He wouldnt want
to talk about it. No man would. It must have been a real
hell to him.
And then Anthony, at the end of the day in which he had gone through
a marriage ceremony with Flora de Barral, ceased to think of Floras
father except, as in some sort, the captive of his triumph. He
turned to the mental contemplation of the white, delicate and appealing
face with great blue eyes which he had seen weep and wonder and look
profoundly at him, sometimes with incredulity, sometimes with doubt
and pain, but always irresistible in the power to find their way right
into his breast, to stir there a deep response which was something more
than lovehe said to himself,as men understand it.
More? Or was it only something other? Yes. It was
something other. More or less. Something as incredible as
the fulfilment of an amazing and startling dream in which he could take
the world in his armsall the suffering worldnot to possess
its pathetic fairness but to console and cherish its sorrow.
Anthony walked slowly to the ship and that night slept without dreams.
CHAPTER FIVETHE GREAT DE BARRAL
Renovated certainly the saloon of the Ferndale was to receive
the strange woman. The mellowness of its old-fashioned,
tarnished decoration was gone. And Anthony looking round saw the
glitter, the gleams, the colour of new things, untried, unused, very
brighttoo bright. The workmen had gone only last night;
and the last piece of work they did was the hanging of the heavy curtains
which looped midway the length of the saloondivided it in two
if released, cutting off the after end with its companion-way leading
direct on the poop, from the forepart with its outlet on the deck; making
a privacy within a privacy, as though Captain Anthony could not place
obstacles enough between his new happiness and the men who shared his
life at sea. He inspected that arrangement with an approving eye
then made a particular visitation of the whole, ending by opening a
door which led into a large state-room made of two knocked into one.
It was very well furnished and had, instead of the usual bedplace of
such cabins, an elaborate swinging cot of the latest pattern.
Anthony tilted it a little by way of trial. The old man
will be very comfortable in here, he said to himself, and stepped
back into the saloon closing the door gently. Then another thought
occurred to him obvious under the circumstances but strangely enough
presenting itself for the first time. Jove! Wont
he get a shock, thought Roderick Anthony.
He went hastily on deck. Mr. Franklin, Mr. Franklin.
The mate was not very far. Oh! Here you are.
Miss . . . Mrs. Anthonyll be coming on board presently.
Just give me a call when you see the cab.
Then, without noticing the gloominess of the mates countenance
he went in again. Not a friendly word, not a professional remark,
or a small joke, not as much as a simple and inane fine day.
Nothing. Just turned about and went in.
We know that, when the moment came, he thought better of it and decided
to meet Floras father in that privacy of the main cabin which
he had been so careful to arrange. Why Anthony appeared to shrink
from the contact, he who was sufficiently self-confident not only to
face but to absolutely create a situation almost insane in its audacious
generosity, is difficult to explain. Perhaps when he came on the
poop for a glance he found that man so different outwardly from what
he expected that he decided to meet him for the first time out of everybodys
sight. Possibly the general secrecy of his relation to the girl
might have influenced him. Truly he may well have been dismayed.
That mans coming brought him face to face with the necessity
to speak and act a lie; to appear what he was not and what he could
never be, unless, unless
In short, well say if you like that for various reasons, all
having to do with the delicate rectitude of his nature, Roderick Anthony
(a man of whom his chief mate used to say: he doesnt know what
fear is) was frightened. There is a Nemesis which overtakes generosity
too, like all the other imprudences of men who dare to be lawless and
proud . . .
Why do you say this? I inquired, for Marlow had stopped
abruptly and kept silent in the shadow of the bookcase.
I say this because that man whom chance had thrown in Floras
way was both: lawless and proud. Whether he knew anything about
it or not it does not matter. Very likely not. One may fling
a glove in the face of nature and in the face of ones own moral
endurance quite innocently, with a simplicity which wears the aspect
of perfectly Satanic conceit. However, as I have said it does
not matter. Its a transgression all the same and has got
to be paid for in the usual way. But never mind that. I
paused because, like Anthony, I find a difficulty, a sort of dread in
coming to grips with old de Barral.
You remember I had a glimpse of him once. He was not an imposing
personality: tall, thin, straight, stiff, faded, moving with short steps
and with a gliding motion, speaking in an even low voice. When
the sea was rough he wasnt much seen on deckat least not
walking. He caught hold of things then and dragged himself along
as far as the after skylight where he would sit for hours. Our,
then young, friend offered once to assist him and this service was the
first beginning of a sort of friendship. He clung hard to onePowell
says, with no figurative intention. Powell was always on the lookout
to assist, and to assist mainly Mrs. Anthony, because he clung so jolly
hard to her that Powell was afraid of her being dragged down notwithstanding
that she very soon became very sure-footed in all sorts of weather.
And Powell was the only one ready to assist at hand because Anthony
(by that time) seemed to be afraid to come near them; the unforgiving
Franklin always looked wrathfully the other way; the boatswain, if up
there, acted likewise but sheepishly; and any hands that happened to
be on the poop (a feeling spreads mysteriously all over a ship) shunned
him as though he had been the devil.
We know how he arrived on board. For my part I know so little
of prisons that I havent the faintest notion how one leaves them.
It seems as abominable an operation as the other, the shutting up with
its mental suggestions of bang, snap, crash and the empty silence outsidewhere
an instant before you wereyou wereand now no longer
are. Perfectly devilish. And the release! I dont
know which is worse. How do they do it? Pull the string,
door flies open, man flies through: Out you go! Adios!
And in the space where a second before you were not, in the silent space
there is a figure going away, limping. Why limping? I dont
know. Thats how I see it. One has a notion of a maiming,
crippling process; of the individual coming back damaged in some subtle
way. I admit it is a fantastic hallucination, but I cant
help it. Of course I know that the proceedings of the best machine-made
humanity are employed with judicious care and so on. I am absurd,
no doubt, but still . . . Oh yes its idiotic. When I pass
one of these places . . . did you notice that there is something infernal
about the aspect of every individual stone or brick of them, something
malicious as if matter were enjoying its revenge of the contemptuous
spirit of man. Did you notice? You didnt? Eh?
Well I am perhaps a little mad on that point. When I pass one
of these places I must avert my eyes. I couldnt have gone
to meet de Barral. I should have shrunk from the ordeal.
Youll notice that it looks as if Anthony (a brave man indubitably)
had shirked it too. Little Fynes flight of fancy picturing
three people in the fatal four wheeleryou remember?went
wide of the truth. There were only two people in the four wheeler.
Flora did not shrink. Women can stand anything. The dear
creatures have no imagination when it comes to solid facts of life.
In sentimental regionsI wont say. Its another
thing altogether. There they shrink from or rush to embrace ghosts
of their own creation just the same as any fool-man would.
No. I suppose the girl Flora went on that errand reasonably.
And then, why! This was the moment for which she had lived.
It was her only point of contact with existence. Oh yes.
She had been assisted by the Fynes. And kindly. Certainly.
Kindly. But thats not enough. There is a kind way
of assisting our fellow-creatures which is enough to break their hearts
while it saves their outer envelope. How cold, how infernally
cold she must have feltunless when she was made to burn with
indignation or shame. Man, we know, cannot live by bread alone
but hang me if I dont believe that some women could live by love
alone. If there be a flame in human beings fed by varied ingredients
earthly and spiritual which tinge it in different hues, then I seem
to see the colour of theirs. It is azure . . . What the devil
are you laughing at . . .
Marlow jumped up and strode out of the shadow as if lifted by indignation
but there was the flicker of a smile on his lips. You say
I dont know women. Maybe. Its just as well
not to come too close to the shrine. But I have a clear notion
of woman. In all of them, termagant, flirt, crank, washerwoman,
blue-stocking, outcast and even in the ordinary fool of the ordinary
commerce there is something left, if only a spark. And when there
is a spark there can always be a flame . . .
He went back into the shadow and sat down again.
I dont mean to say that Flora de Barral was one of
the sort that could live by love alone. In fact she had managed
to live without. But still, in the distrust of herself and of
others she looked for love, any kind of love, as women will. And
that confounded jail was the only spot where she could see itfor
she had no reason to distrust her father.
She was there in good time. I see her gazing across the road
at these walls which are, properly speaking, awful. You do indeed
seem to feel along the very lines and angles of the unholy bulk, the
fall of time, drop by drop, hour by hour, leaf by leaf, with a gentle
and implacable slowness. And a voiceless melancholy comes over
one, invading, overpowering like a dream, penetrating and mortal like
poison.
When de Barral came out she experienced a sort of shock to see that
he was exactly as she remembered him. Perhaps a little smaller.
Otherwise unchanged. You come out in the same clothes, you know.
I cant tell whether he was looking for her. No doubt he
was. Whether he recognized her? Very likely. She crossed
the road and at once there was reproduced at a distance of years, as
if by some mocking witchcraft, the sight so familiar on the Parade at
Brighton of the financier de Barral walking with his only daughter.
One comes out of prison in the same clothes one wore on the day of condemnation,
no matter how long one has been put away there. Oh, they last!
They last! But there is something which is preserved by prison
life even better than ones discarded clothing. It is the
force, the vividness of ones sentiments. A monastery will
do that too; but in the unholy claustration of a jail you are thrown
back wholly upon yourselffor God and Faith are not there.
The people outside disperse their affections, you hoard yours, you nurse
them into intensity. What they let slip, what they forget in the
movement and changes of free life, you hold on to, amplify, exaggerate
into a rank growth of memories. They can look with a smile at
the troubles and pains of the past; but you cant. Old pains
keep on gnawing at your heart, old desires, old deceptions, old dreams,
assailing you in the dead stillness of your present where nothing moves
except the irrecoverable minutes of your life.
De Barral was out and, for a time speechless, being led away almost
before he had taken possession of the free world, by his daughter.
Flora controlled herself well. They walked along quickly for some
distance. The cab had been left round the cornerround several
corners for all I know. He was flustered, out of breath, when
she helped him in and followed herself. Inside that rolling box,
turning towards that recovered presence with her heart too full for
words she felt the desire of tears she had managed to keep down abandon
her suddenly, her half-mournful, half-triumphant exultation subside,
every fibre of her body, relaxed in tenderness, go stiff in the close
look she took at his face. He was different. There
was something. Yes, there was something between them, something
hard and impalpable, the ghost of these high walls.
How old he was, how unlike!
She shook off this impression, amazed and frightened by it of course.
And remorseful too. Naturally. She threw her arms round
his neck. He returned that hug awkwardly, as if not in perfect
control of his arms, with a fumbling and uncertain pressure. She
hid her face on his breast. It was as though she were pressing
it against a stone. They released each other and presently the
cab was rolling along at a jog-trot to the docks with those two people
as far apart as they could get from each other, in opposite corners.
After a silence given up to mutual examination he uttered his first
coherent sentence outside the walls of the prison.
What has done for me was envy. Envy. There was
a lot of them just bursting with it every time they looked my way.
I was doing too well. So they went to the Public Prosecutor
She said hastily Yes! Yes! I know, and
he glared as if resentful that the child had turned into a young woman
without waiting for him to come out. What do you know about
it? he asked. You were too young. His
speech was soft. The old voice, the old voice! It gave her
a thrill. She recognized its pointless gentleness always the same
no matter what he had to say. And she remembered that he never
had much to say when he came down to see her. It was she who chattered,
chattered, on their walks, while stiff and with a rigidly-carried head,
he dropped a gentle word now and then.
Moved by these recollections waking up within her, she explained
to him that within the last year she had read and studied the report
of the trial.
I went through the files of several papers, papa.
He looked at her suspiciously. The reports were probably very
incomplete. No doubt the reporters had garbled his evidence.
They were determined to give him no chance either in court or before
the public opinion. It was a conspiracy . . . My counsel
was a fool too, he added. Did you notice?
A perfect fool.
She laid her hand on his arm soothingly. Is it worth
while talking about that awful time? It is so far away now.
She shuddered slightly at the thought of all the horrible years which
had passed over her young head; never guessing that for him the time
was but yesterday. He folded his arms on his breast, leaned back
in his corner and bowed his head. But in a little while he made
her jump by asking suddenly:
Who has got hold of the Lone Valley Railway? Thats
what they were after mainly. Somebody has got it. Parfitts
and Co. grabbed iteh? Or was it that fellow Warner . .
.
II dont know, she said quite scared by
the twitching of his lips.
Dont know! he exclaimed softly. Hadnt
her cousin told her? Oh yes. She had left themof
course. Why did she? It was his first question about herself
but she did not answer it. She did not want to talk of these horrors.
They were impossible to describe. She perceived though that he
had not expected an answer, because she heard him muttering to himself
that: There was half a millions worth of work done and
material accumulated there.
You mustnt think of these things, papa, she
said firmly. And he asked her with that invariable gentleness,
in which she seemed now to detect some rather ugly shades, what else
had he to think about? Another year or two, if they had only left
him alone, he and everybody else would have been all right, rolling
in money; and she, his daughter, could have married anybodyanybody.
A lord.
All this was to him like yesterday, a long yesterday, a yesterday
gone over innumerable times, analysed, meditated upon for years.
It had a vividness and force for that old man of which his daughter
who had not been shut out of the world could have no idea. She
was to him the only living figure out of that past, and it was perhaps
in perfect good faith that he added, coldly, inexpressive and thin-lipped:
I lived only for you, I may say. I suppose you understand
that. There were only you and me.
Moved by this declaration, wondering that it did not warm her heart
more, she murmured a few endearing words while the uppermost thought
in her mind was that she must tell him now of the situation. She
had expected to be questioned anxiously about herselfand while
she desired it she shrank from the answers she would have to make.
But her father seemed strangely, unnaturally incurious. It looked
as if there would be no questions. Still this was an opening.
This seemed to be the time for her to begin. And she began.
She began by saying that she had always felt like that. There
were two of them, to live for each other. And if he only knew
what she had gone through!
Ensconced in his corner, with his arms folded, he stared out of the
cab window at the street. How little he was changed after all.
It was the unmovable expression, the faded stare she used to see on
the esplanade whenever walking by his side hand in hand she raised her
eyes to his facewhile she chattered, chattered. It was
the same stiff, silent figure which at a word from her would turn rigidly
into a shop and buy her anything it occurred to her that she would like
to have. Flora de Barrals voice faltered. He bent
on her that well-remembered glance in which she had never read anything
as a child, except the consciousness of her existence. And that
was enough for a child who had never known demonstrative affection.
But she had lived a life so starved of all feeling that this was no
longer enough for her. What was the good of telling him the story
of all these miseries now past and gone, of all those bewildering difficulties
and humiliations? What she must tell him was difficult enough
to say. She approached it by remarking cheerfully:
You havent even asked me where I am taking you.
He started like a somnambulist awakened suddenly, and there was now
some meaning in his stare; a sort of alarmed speculation. He opened
his mouth slowly. Flora struck in with forced gaiety. You
would never, guess.
He waited, still more startled and suspicious. Guess!
Why dont you tell me?
He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward towards her. She got
hold of one of his hands. You must know first . . .
She paused, made an effort: I am married, papa.
For a moment they kept perfectly still in that cab rolling on at
a steady jog-trot through a narrow city street full of bustle.
Whatever she expected she did not expect to feel his hand snatched away
from her grasp as if from a burn or a contamination. De Barral
fresh from the stagnant torment of the prison (where nothing happens)
had not expected that sort of news. It seemed to stick in his
throat. In strangled low tones he cried out, Youmarried?
You, Flora! When? Married! What for? Who to?
Married!
His eyes which were blue like hers, only faded, without depth, seemed
to start out of their orbits. He did really look as if he were
choking. He even put his hand to his collar . . .
* * * * *
You know, continued Marlow out of the shadow of the
bookcase and nearly invisible in the depths of the arm-chair, the
only time I saw him he had given me the impression of absolute rigidity,
as though he had swallowed a poker. But it seems that he could
collapse. I can hardly picture this to myself. I understand
that he did collapse to a certain extent in his corner of the cab.
The unexpected had crumpled him up. She regarded him perplexed,
pitying, a little disillusioned, and nodded at him gravely: Yes.
Married. What she did not like was to see him smile in a manner
far from encouraging to the devotion of a daughter. There was
something unintentionally savage in it. Old de Barral could not
quite command his muscles, as yet. But he had recovered command
of his gentle voice.
You were just saying that in this wide world there we were,
only you and I, to stick to each other.
She was dimly aware of the scathing intention lurking in these soft
low tones, in these words which appealed to her poignantly. She
defended herself. Never, never for a single moment had she ceased
to think of him. Neither did he cease to think of her, he said,
with as much sinister emphasis as he was capable of.
But, papa, she cried, I havent been shut
up like you. She didnt mind speaking of it because
he was innocent. He hadnt been understood. It was
a misfortune of the most cruel kind but no more disgraceful than an
illness, a maiming accident or some other visitation of blind fate.
I wish I had been too. But I was alone out in the world,
the horrid world, that very world which had used you so badly.
And you couldnt go about in it without finding somebody
to fall in love with? he said. A jealous rage affected
his brain like the fumes of wine, rising from some secret depths of
his being so long deprived of all emotions. The hollows at the
corners of his lips became more pronounced in the puffy roundness of
his cheeks. Images, visions, obsess with particular force, men
withdrawn from the sights and sounds of active life. And
I did nothing but think of you! he exclaimed under his breath,
contemptuously. Think of you! You haunted me, I tell
you.
Flora said to herself that there was a being who loved her.
Then we have been haunting each other, she declared with
a pang of remorse. For indeed he had haunted her nearly out of
the world, into a final and irremediable desertion. Some
day I shall tell you . . . No. I dont think I can ever
tell you. There was a time when I was mad. But whats
the good? Its all over now. We shall forget all this.
There shall be nothing to remind us.
De Barral moved his shoulders.
I should think you were mad to tie yourself to . . . How long
is it since you are married?
She answered Not long that being the only answer she
dared to make. Everything was so different from what she imagined
it would be. He wanted to know why she had said nothing of it
in any of her letters; in her last letter. She said:
It was after.
So recently! he wondered. Couldnt
you wait at least till I came out? You could have told me; asked
me; consulted me! Let me see
She shook her head negatively. And he was appalled. He
thought to himself: Who can he be? Some miserable, silly youth
without a penny. Or perhaps some scoundrel? Without making
any expressive movement he wrung his loosely-clasped hands till the
joints cracked. He looked at her. She was pretty.
Some low scoundrel who will cast her off. Some plausible vagabond
. . . You couldnt waiteh?
Again she made a slight negative sign.
Why not? What was the hurry? She cast down
her eyes. It had to be. Yes. It was sudden,
but it had to be.
He leaned towards her, his mouth open, his eyes wild with virtuous
anger, but meeting the absolute candour of her raised glance threw himself
back into his corner again.
So tremendously in love with each otherwas that it?
Couldnt let a father have his daughter all to himself even for
a day afterafter such a separation. And you know I never
had anyone, I had no friends. What did I want with those people
one meets in the City. The best of them are ready to cut your
throat. Yes! Business men, gentlemen, any sort of men and
womenout of spite, or to get something. Oh yes, they can
talk fair enough if they think theres something to be got out
of you . . . His voice was a mere breath yet every word
came to Flora as distinctly as if charged with all the moving power
of passion . . . My girl, I looked at them making up to me and
I would say to myself: What do I care for all that! I am a business
man. I am the great Mr. de Barral (yes, yes, some of them twisted
their mouths at it, but I was the great Mr. de Barral) and I
have my little girl. I wanted nobody and I have never had anybody.
A true emotion had unsealed his lips but the words that came out
of them were no louder than the murmur of a light wind. It died
away.
Thats just it, said Flora de Barral under her
breath. Without removing his eyes from her he took off his hat.
It was a tall hat. The hat of the trial. The hat of the
thumb-nail sketches in the illustrated papers. One comes out in
the same clothes, but seclusion counts! It is well known that
lurid visions haunt secluded men, monks, hermitsthen why not
prisoners? De Barral the convict took off the silk hat of the
financier de Barral and deposited it on the front seat of the cab.
Then he blew out his cheeks. He was red in the face.
And then what happens? he began again in his contained
voice. Here I am, overthrown, broken by envy, malice and
all uncharitableness. I come outand what do I find?
I find that my girl Flora has gone and married some man or other, perhaps
a fool, how do I know; or perhapsanyway not good enough.
Stop, papa.
A silly love affair as likely as not, he continued
monotonously, his thin lips writhing between the ill-omened sunk corners.
And a very suspicious thing it is too, on the part of a loving
daughter.
She tried to interrupt him but he went on till she actually clapped
her hand on his mouth. He rolled his eyes a bit but when she took
her hand away he remained silent.
Wait. I must tell you . . . And first of all,
papa, understand this, for everythings in that: he is the most
generous man in the world. He is . . .
De Barral very still in his corner uttered with an effort You
are in love with him.
Papa! He came to me. I was thinking of you.
I had no eyes for anybody. I could no longer bear to think of
you. It was then that he came. Only then. At that
time whenwhen I was going to give up.
She gazed into his faded blue eyes as if yearning to be understood,
to be given encouragement, peacea word of sympathy. He
declared without animation I would like to break his neck.
She had the mental exclamation of the overburdened.
Oh my God! and watched him with frightened eyes.
But he did not appear insane or in any other way formidable. This
comforted her. The silence lasted for some little time.
Then suddenly he asked:
Whats your name then?
For a moment in the profound trouble of the task before her she did
not understand what the question meant. Then, her face faintly
flushing, she whispered: Anthony.
Her father, a red spot on each cheek, leaned his head back wearily
in the corner of the cab.
Anthony. What is he? Where did he spring from?
Papa, it was in the country, on a road
He groaned, On a road, and closed his eyes.
Its too long to explain to you now. We shall
have lots of time. There are things I could not tell you now.
But some day. Some day. For now nothing can part us.
Nothing. We are safe as long as we livenothing can ever
come between us.
You are infatuated with the fellow, he remarked, without
opening his eyes. And she said: I believe in him,
in a low voice. You and I must believe in him.
Who the devil is he?
Hes the brother of the ladyyou know Mrs. Fyne,
she knew motherwho was so kind to me. I was staying in
the country, in a cottage, with Mr. and Mrs. Fyne. It was there
that we met. He came on a visit. He noticed me. Iwellwe
are married now.
She was thankful that his eyes were shut. It made it easier
to talk of the future she had arranged, which now was an unalterable
thing. She did not enter on the path of confidences. That
was impossible. She felt he would not understand her. She
felt also that he suffered. Now and then a great anxiety gripped
her heart with a mysterious sense of guiltas though she had betrayed
him into the hands of an enemy. With his eyes shut he had an air
of weary and pious meditation. She was a little afraid of it.
Next moment a great pity for him filled her heart. And in the
background there was remorse. His face twitched now and then just
perceptibly. He managed to keep his eyelids down till he heard
that the husband was a sailor and that he, the father,
was being taken straight on board ship ready to sail away from this
abominable world of treacheries, and scorns and envies and lies, away,
away over the blue sea, the sure, the inaccessible, the uncontaminated
and spacious refuge for wounded souls.
Something like that. Not the very words perhaps but such was
the general sense of her overwhelming argumentthe argument of
refuge.
I dont think she gave a thought to material conditions.
But as part of that argument set forth breathlessly, as if she were
afraid that if she stopped for a moment she could never go on again,
she mentioned that generosity of a stormy type, which had come to her
from the sea, had caught her up on the brink of unmentionable failure,
had whirled her away in its first ardent gust and could be trusted now,
implicitly trusted, to carry them both, side by side, into absolute
safety.
She believed it, she affirmed it. He understood thoroughly
at last, and at once the interior of that cab, of an aspect so pacific
in the eyes of the people on the pavements, became the scene of a great
agitation. The generosity of Roderick Anthonythe son of
the poetaffected the ex-financier de Barral in a manner which
must have brought home to Flora de Barral the extreme arduousness of
the business of being a woman. Being a woman is a terribly difficult
trade since it consists principally of dealings with men. This
manthe man inside the cabcast oft his stiff placidity
and behaved like an animal. I dont mean it in an offensive
sense. What he did was to give way to an instinctive panic.
Like some wild creature scared by the first touch of a net falling on
its back, old de Barral began to struggle, lank and angular, against
the empty airas much of it as there was in the cabwith
staring eyes and gasping mouth from which his daughter shrank as far
as she could in the confined space.
Stop the cab. Stop him I tell you. Let me get
out! were the strangled exclamations she heard. Why?
What for? To do what? He would hear nothing. She cried
to him Papa! Papa! What do you want to do?
And all she got from him was: Stop. I must get out.
I want to think. I must get out to think.
It was a mercy that he didnt attempt to open the door at once.
He only stuck his head and shoulders out of the window crying to the
cabman. She saw the consequences, the cab stopping, a crowd collecting
around a raving old gentleman . . . In this terrible business of being
a woman so full of fine shades, of delicate perplexities (and very small
rewards) you can never know what rough work you may have to do, at any
moment. Without hesitation Flora seized her father round the body
and pulled backbeing astonished at the ease with which she managed
to make him drop into his seat again. She kept him there resolutely
with one hand pressed against his breast, and leaning across him, she,
in her turn put her head and shoulders out of the window. By then
the cab had drawn up to the curbstone and was stopped. No!
Ive changed my mind. Go on please where you were told first.
To the docks.
She wondered at the steadiness of her own voice. She heard
a grunt from the driver and the cab began to roll again. Only
then she sank into her place keeping a watchful eye on her companion.
He was hardly anything more by this time. Except for her childhoods
impressions he was justa man. Almost a stranger.
How was one to deal with him? And there was the other too.
Also almost a stranger. The trade of being a woman was very difficult.
Too difficult. Flora closed her eyes saying to herself: If
I think too much about it I shall go mad. And then opening
them she asked her father if the prospect of living always with his
daughter and being taken care of by her affection away from the world,
which had no honour to give to his grey hairs, was such an awful prospect.
Tell me, is it so bad as that?
She put that question sadly, without bitterness. The famousor
notoriousde Barral had lost his rigidity now. He was bent.
Nothing more deplorably futile than a bent poker. He said nothing.
She added gently, suppressing an uneasy remorseful sigh:
And it might have been worse. You might have found no
one, no one in all this town, no one in all the world, not even me!
Poor papa!
She made a conscience-stricken movement towards him thinking: Oh!
I am horrible, I am horrible. And old de Barral, scared,
tired, bewildered by the extraordinary shocks of his liberation, swayed
over and actually leaned his head on her shoulder, as if sorrowing over
his regained freedom.
The movement by itself was touching. Flora supporting him lightly
imagined that he was crying; and at the thought that had she smashed
in a quarry that shoulder, together with some other of her bones, this
grey and pitiful head would have had nowhere to rest, she too gave way
to tears. They flowed quietly, easing her overstrained nerves.
Suddenly he pushed her away from him so that her head struck the side
of the cab, pushing himself away too from her as if something had stung
him.
All the warmth went out of her emotion. The very last tears
turned cold on her cheek. But their work was done. She had
found courage, resolution, as women do, in a good cry. With his
hand covering the upper part of his face whether to conceal his eyes
or to shut out an unbearable sight, he was stiffening up in his corner
to his usual poker-like consistency. She regarded him in silence.
His thin obstinate lips moved. He uttered the name of the cousinthe
man, you remember, who did not approve of the Fynes, and whom rightly
or wrongly little Fyne suspected of interested motives, in view of de
Barral having possibly put away some plunder, somewhere before the smash.
I may just as well tell you at once that I dont know anything
more of him. But de Barral was of the opinion, speaking in his
low voice from under his hand, that this relation would have been only
too glad to have secured his guidance.
Of course I could not come forward in my own name, or person.
But the advice of a man of my experience is as good as a fortune to
anybody wishing to venture into finance. The same sort of thing
can be done again.
He shuffled his feet a little, let fall his hand; and turning carefully
toward his daughter his puffy round cheeks, his round chin resting on
his collar, he bent on her the faded, resentful gaze of his pale eyes,
which were wet.
The start is really only a matter of judicious advertising.
Theres no difficulty. And here you go and . . .
He turned his face away. After all I am still de Barral,
the de Barral. Didnt you remember that?
Papa, said Flora; listen. Its you
who must remember that there is no longer a de Barral . . .
He looked at her sideways anxiously. There is Mr. Smith,
whom no harm, no trouble, no wicked lies of evil people can ever touch.
Mr. Smith, he breathed out slowly. Where
does he belong to? Theres not even a Miss Smith.
There is your Flora.
My Flora! You went and . . . I cant bear to think
of it. Its horrible.
Yes. It was horrible enough at times, she said
with feeling, because somehow, obscurely, what this man said appealed
to her as if it were her own thought clothed in an enigmatic emotion.
I think with shame sometimes how I . . . No not yet. I
shall not tell you. At least not now.
The cab turned into the gateway of the dock. Flora handed the
tall hat to her father. Here, papa. And please be
good. I suppose you love me. If you dont, then I
wonder who
He put the hat on, and stiffened hard in his corner, kept a sidelong
glance on his girl. Try to be nice for my sake. Think
of the years I have been waiting for you. I do indeed want supportand
peace. A little peace.
She clasped his arm suddenly with both hands pressing with all her
might as if to crush the resistance she felt in him. I
could not have peace if I did not have you with me. I wont
let you go. Not after all I went through. I wont.
The nervous force of her grip frightened him a little. She laughed
suddenly. Its absurd. Its as if I were
asking you for a sacrifice. What am I afraid of? Where could
you go? I mean now, to-day, to-night? You cant tell
me. Have you thought of it? Well I have been thinking of
it for the last year. Longer. I nearly went mad trying to
find out. I believe I was mad for a time or else I should never
have thought . . .
* * * * *
This was as near as she came to a confession, remarked
Marlow in a changed tone. The confession I mean of that
walk to the top of the quarry which she reproached herself with so bitterly.
And he made of it what his fancy suggested. It could not possibly
be a just notion. The cab stopped alongside the ship and they
got out in the manner described by the sensitive Franklin. I dont
know if they suspected each others sanity at the end of that
drive. But that is possible. We all seem a little mad to
each other; an excellent arrangement for the bulk of humanity which
finds in it an easy motive of forgiveness. Flora crossed the quarter-deck
with a rapidity born of apprehension. It had grown unbearable.
She wanted this business over. She was thankful on looking back
to see he was following her. If he bolts away, she
thought, then I shall know that I am of no account indeed!
That no one loves me, that words and actions and protestations and everything
in the world is falseand I shall jump into the dock. That
at least wont lie.
Well I dont know. If it had come to that she would have
been most likely fished out, what with her natural want of luck and
the good many people on the quay and on board. And just where
the Ferndale was moored there hung on a wall (I know the berth)
a coil of line, a pole, and a life-buoy kept there on purpose to save
people who tumble into the dock. Its not so easy to get
away from lifes betrayals as she thought. However it did
not come to that. He followed her with his quick gliding walk.
Mr. Smith! The liberated convict de Barral passed off the solid
earth for the last time, vanished for ever, and there was Mr. Smith
added to that world of waters which harbours so many queer fishes.
An old gentleman in a silk hat, darting wary glances. He followed,
because mere existence has its claims which are obeyed mechanically.
I have no doubt he presented a respectable figure. Father-in-law.
Nothing more respectable. But he carried in his heart the confused
pain of dismay and affection, of involuntary repulsion and pity.
Very much like his daughter. Only in addition he felt a furious
jealousy of the man he was going to see.
A residue of egoism remains in every affectioneven paternal.
And this man in the seclusion of his prison had thought himself into
such a sense of ownership of that single human being he had to think
about, as may well be inconceivable to us who have not had to serve
a long (and wickedly unjust) sentence of penal servitude. She
was positively the only thing, the one point where his thoughts found
a resting-place, for years. She was the only outlet for his imagination.
He had not much of that faculty to be sure, but there was in it the
force of concentration. He felt outraged, and perhaps it was an
absurdity on his part, but I venture to suggest rather in degree than
in kind. I have a notion that no usual, normal father is pleased
at parting with his daughter. No. Not even when he rationally
appreciates Jane being taken off his hands or perhaps
is able to exult at an excellent match. At bottom, quite deep
down, down in the dark (in some cases only by digging), there is to
be found a certain repugnance . . . With mothers of course it
is different. Women are more loyal, not to each other, but to
their common femininity which they behold triumphant with a secret and
proud satisfaction.
The circumstances of that match added to Mr. Smiths indignation.
And if he followed his daughter into that ships cabin it was
as if into a house of disgrace and only because he was still bewildered
by the suddenness of the thing. His will, so long lying fallow,
was overborne by her determination and by a vague fear of that regained
liberty.
You will be glad to hear that Anthony, though he did shirk the welcome
on the quay, behaved admirably, with the simplicity of a man who has
no small meannesses and makes no mean reservations. His eyes did
not flinch and his tongue did not falter. He was, I have it on
the best authority, admirable in his earnestness, in his sincerity and
also in his restraint. He was perfect. Nevertheless the
vital force of his unknown individuality addressing him so familiarly
was enough to fluster Mr. Smith. Flora saw her father trembling
in all his exiguous length, though he held himself stiffer than ever
if that was possible. He muttered a little and at last managed
to utter, not loud of course but very distinctly: I am here under
protest, the corners of his mouth sunk disparagingly, his eyes
stony. I am here under protest. I have been locked
up by a conspiracy. I
He raised his hands to his foreheadhis silk hat was on the
table rim upwards; he had put it there with a despairing gesture as
he came inhe raised his hands to his forehead. It
seems to me unfair. I He broke off again.
Anthony looked at Flora who stood by the side of her father.
Well, sir, you will soon get used to me. Surely you
and she must have had enough of shore-people and their confounded half-and-half
ways to last you both for a life-time. A particularly merciful
lot they are too. You ask Flora. I am alluding to my own
sister, her best friend, and not a bad woman either as they go.
The captain of the Ferndale checked himself. Lucky
thing I was there to step in. I want you to make yourself at home,
and before long
The faded stare of the Great de Barral silenced Anthony by its inexpressive
fixity. He signalled with his eyes to Flora towards the door of
the state-room fitted specially to receive Mr. Smith, the free man.
She seized the free mans hat off the table and took him caressingly
under the arm. Yes! This is home, come and see your
room, papa!
Anthony himself threw open the door and Flora took care to shut it
carefully behind herself and her father. See, she
began but desisted because it was clear that he would look at none of
the contrivances for his comfort. She herself had hardly seen
them before. He was looking only at the new carpet and she waited
till he should raise his eyes.
He didnt do that but spoke in his usual voice. So
this is your husband, that . . . And I locked up!
Papa, whats the good of harping on that, she
remonstrated no louder. He is kind.
And you went and . . . married him so that he should be kind
to me. Is that it? How did you know that I wanted anybody
to be kind to me?
How strange you are! she said thoughtfully.
Its hard for a man who has gone through what I have
gone through to feel like other people. Has that occurred to you?
. . . He looked up at last . . . Mrs. Anthony,
I cant bear the sight of the fellow. She met his
eyes without flinching and he added, You want to go to him now.
His mild automatic manner seemed the effect of tremendous self-restraintand
yet she remembered him always like that. She felt cold all over.
Why, of course, I must go to him, she said with a slight
start.
He gnashed his teeth at her and she went out.
Anthony had not moved from the spot. One of his hands was resting
on the table. She went up to him, stopped, then deliberately moved
still closer. Thank you, Roderick.
You neednt thank me, he murmured. Its
I who . . .
No, perhaps I neednt. You do what you like.
But you are doing it well.
He sighed then hardly above a whisper because they were near the
state-room door, Upset, eh?
She made no sign, no sound of any kind. The thorough falseness
of the position weighed on them both. But he was the braver of
the two. I dare say. At first. Did you think
of telling him you were happy?
He never asked me, she smiled faintly at him.
She was disappointed by his quietness. I did not say more
than I was absolutely obliged to sayof myself. She
was beginning to be irritated with this man a little. I
told him I had been very lucky, she said suddenly despondent,
missing Anthonys masterful manner, that something arbitrary and
tender which, after the first scare, she had accustomed herself to look
forward to with pleasurable apprehension. He was contemplating
her rather blankly. She had not taken off her outdoor things,
hat, gloves. She was like a caller. And she had a movement
suggesting the end of a not very satisfactory business call. Perhaps
it would be just as well if we went ashore. Time yet.
He gave her a glimpse of his unconstrained self in the low vehement
You dare! which sprang to his lips and out of them with
a most menacing inflexion.
You dare . . . Whats the matter now?
These last words were shot out not at her but at some target behind
her back. Looking over her shoulder she saw the bald head with
black bunches of hair of the congested and devoted Franklin (he had
his cap in his hand) gazing sentimentally from the saloon doorway with
his lobster eyes. He was heard from the distance in a tone of
injured innocence reporting that the berthing master was alongside and
that he wanted to move the ship into the basin before the crew came
on board.
His captain growled Well, let him, and waved away the
ulcerated and pathetic soul behind these prominent eyes which lingered
on the offensive woman while the mate backed out slowly. Anthony
turned to Flora.
You could not have meant it. You are as straight as
they make them.
I am trying to be.
Then dont joke in that way. Think of what would
become ofme.
Oh yes. I forgot. No, I didnt mean it.
It wasnt a joke. It was forgetfulness. You wouldnt
have been wronged. I couldnt have gone. II
am too tired.
He saw she was swaying where she stood and restrained himself violently
from taking her into his arms, his frame trembling with fear as though
he had been tempted to an act of unparalleled treachery. He stepped
aside and lowering his eyes pointed to the door of the stern-cabin.
It was only after she passed by him that he looked up and thus he did
not see the angry glance she gave him before she moved on. He
looked after her. She tottered slightly just before reaching the
door and flung it to behind her nervously.
Anthonyhe had felt this crash as if the door had been slammed
inside his very breaststood for a moment without moving and then
shouted for Mrs. Brown. This was the stewards wife, his
lucky inspiration to make Flora comfortable. Mrs. Brown!
Mrs. Brown! At last she appeared from somewhere.
Mrs. Anthony has come on board. Just gone into the cabin.
Hadnt you better see if you can be of any assistance?
Yes, sir.
And again he was alone with the situation he had created in the hardihood
and inexperience of his heart. He thought he had better go on
deck. In fact he ought to have been there before. At any
rate it would be the usual thing for him to be on deck. But a
sound of muttering and of faint thuds somewhere near by arrested his
attention. They proceeded from Mr. Smiths room, he perceived.
It was very extraordinary. Hes talking to himself,
he thought. He seems to be thumping the bulkhead with his
fistsor his head.
Anthonys eyes grew big with wonder while he listened to these
noises. He became so attentive that he did not notice Mrs. Brown
till she actually stopped before him for a moment to say:
Mrs. Anthony doesnt want any assistance, sir.
* * * * *
This was you understand the voyage before Mr. Powellyoung
Powell thenjoined the Ferndale; chance having arranged
that he should get his start in life in that particular ship of all
the ships then in the port of London. The most unrestful ship
that ever sailed out of any port on earth. I am not alluding to
her sea-going qualities. Mr. Powell tells me she was as steady
as a church. I mean unrestful in the sense, for instance in which
this planet of ours is unrestfula matter of an uneasy atmosphere
disturbed by passions, jealousies, loves, hates and the troubles of
transcendental good intentions, which, though ethically valuable, I
have no doubt cause often more unhappiness than the plots of the most
evil tendency. For those who refuse to believe in chance he, I
mean Mr. Powell, must have been obviously predestined to add his native
ingenuousness to the sum of all the others carried by the honest ship
Ferndale. He was too ingenuous. Everybody on board
was, exception being made of Mr. Smith who, however, was simple enough
in his way, with that terrible simplicity of the fixed idea, for which
there is also another name men pronounce with dread and aversion.
His fixed idea was to save his girl from the man who had possessed himself
of her (I use these words on purpose because the image they suggest
was clearly in Mr. Smiths mind), possessed himself unfairly of
her while he, the father, was locked up.
I wont rest till I have got you away from that man,
he would murmur to her after long periods of contemplation. We
know from Powell how he used to sit on the skylight near the long deck-chair
on which Flora was reclining, gazing into her face from above with an
air of guardianship and investigation at the same time.
It is almost impossible to say if he ever had considered the event
rationally. The avatar of de Barral into Mr. Smith had not been
effected without a shockthat much one must recognize. It
may be that it drove all practical considerations out of his mind, making
room for awful and precise visions which nothing could dislodge afterwards.
And it might have been the tenacity, the unintelligent tenacity,
of the man who had persisted in throwing millions of other peoples
thrift into the Lone Valley Railway, the Labrador Docks, the Spotted
Leopard Copper Mine, and other grotesque speculations exposed during
the famous de Barral trial, amongst murmurs of astonishment mingled
with bursts of laughter. For it is in the Courts of Law that Comedy
finds its last refuge in our deadly serious world. As to tears
and lamentations, these were not heard in the august precincts of comedy,
because they were indulged in privately in several thousand homes, where,
with a fine dramatic effect, hunger had taken the place of Thrift.
But there was one at least who did not laugh in court. That
person was the accused. The notorious de Barral did not laugh
because he was indignant. He was impervious to words, to facts,
to inferences. It would have been impossible to make him see his
guilt or his follyeither by evidence or argumentif anybody
had tried to argue.
Neither did his daughter Flora try to argue with him. The cruelty
of her position was so great, its complications so thorny, if I may
express myself so, that a passive attitude was yet her best refugeas
it had been before her of so many women.
For that sort of inertia in woman is always enigmatic and therefore
menacing. It makes one pause. A woman may be a fool, a sleepy
fool, an agitated fool, a too awfully noxious fool, and she may even
be simply stupid. But she is never dense. Shes never
made of wood through and through as some men are. There is in
woman always, somewhere, a spring. Whatever men dont know
about women (and it may be a lot or it may be very little) men and even
fathers do know that much. And that is why so many men are afraid
of them.
Mr. Smith I believe was afraid of his daughters quietness
though of course he interpreted it in his own way.
He would, as Mr. Powell depicts, sit on the skylight and bend over
the reclining girl, wondering what there was behind the lost gaze under
the darkened eyelids in the still eyes. He would look and look
and then he would say, whisper rather, it didnt take much for
his voice to drop to a mere breathhe would declare, transferring
his faded stare to the horizon, that he would never rest till he had
got her away from that man.
You dont know what you are saying, papa.
She would try not to show her weariness, the nervous strain of these
two mens antagonism around her person which was the cause of
her languid attitudes. For as a matter of fact the sea agreed
with her.
As likely as not Anthony would be walking on the other side of the
deck. The strain was making him restless. He couldnt
sit still anywhere. He had tried shutting himself up in his cabin;
but that was no good. He would jump up to rush on deck and tramp,
tramp up and down that poop till he felt ready to drop, without being
able to wear down the agitation of his soul, generous indeed, but weighted
by its envelope of blood and muscle and bone; handicapped by the brain
creating precise images and everlastingly speculating, speculatinglooking
out for signs, watching for symptoms.
And Mr. Smith with a slight backward jerk of his small head at the
footsteps on the other side of the skylight would insist in his awful,
hopelessly gentle voice that he knew very well what he was saying.
Hadnt she given herself to that man while he was locked up.
Helpless, in jail, with no one to think of, nothing to look
forward to, but my daughter. And then when they let me out at
last I find her gonefor it amounts to this. Sold.
Because youve sold yourself; you know you have.
With his round unmoved face, a lot of fine white hair waving in the
wind-eddies of the spanker, his glance levelled over the sea he seemed
to be addressing the universe across her reclining form. She would
protest sometimes.
I wish you would not talk like this, papa. You are only
tormenting me, and tormenting yourself.
Yes, I am tormented enough, he admitted meaningly.
But it was not talking about it that tormented him. It was thinking
of it. And to sit and look at it was worse for him than it possibly
could have been for her to go and give herself up, bad as that must
have been.
For of course you suffered. Dont tell me you
didnt? You must have.
She had renounced very soon all attempts at protests. It was
useless. It might have made things worse; and she did not want
to quarrel with her father, the only human being that really cared for
her, absolutely, evidently, completelyto the end. There
was in him no pity, no generosity, nothing whatever of these fine thingsit
was for her, for her very own self such as it was, that this human being
cared. This certitude would have made her put up with worse torments.
For, of course, she too was being tormented. She felt also helpless,
as if the whole enterprise had been too much for her. This is
the sort of conviction which makes for quietude. She was becoming
a fatalist.
What must have been rather appalling were the necessities of daily
life, the intercourse of current trifles. That naturally had to
go on. They wished good morning to each other, they sat down together
to mealsand I believe there would be a game of cards now and
then in the evening, especially at first. What frightened her
most was the duplicity of her father, at least what looked like duplicity,
when she remembered his persistent, insistent whispers on deck.
However her father was a taciturn person as far back as she could remember
him beston the Parade. It was she who chattered, never
troubling herself to discover whether he was pleased or displeased.
And now she couldnt fathom his thoughts. Neither did she
chatter to him. Anthony with a forced friendly smile as if frozen
to his lips seemed only too thankful at not being made to speak.
Mr. Smith sometimes forgot himself while studying his hand so long that
Flora had to recall him to himself by a murmured Papayour
lead. Then he apologized by a faint as if inward ejaculation
Beg your pardon, Captain. Naturally she addressed
Anthony as Roderick and he addressed her as Flora. This was all
the acting that was necessary to judge from the wincing twitch of the
old mans mouth at every uttered Flora. On
hearing the rare Rodericks he had sometimes a scornful
grimace as faint and faded and colourless as his whole stiff personality.
He would be the first to retire. He was not infirm. With
him too the life on board ship seemed to agree; but from a sense of
duty, of affection, or to placate his hidden fury, his daughter always
accompanied him to his state-room to make him comfortable.
She lighted his lamp, helped him into his dressing-gown or got him a
book from a bookcase fitted in therebut this last rarely, because
Mr. Smith used to declare I am no reader with something
like pride in his low tones. Very often after kissing her good-night
on the forehead he would treat her to some such fretful remark: Its
like being in jailpon my word. I suppose that man
is out there waiting for you. Head jailer! Ough!
She would smile vaguely; murmur a conciliatory How absurd.
But once, out of patience, she said quite sharply Leave off.
It hurts me. One would think you hate me.
It isnt you I hate, he went on monotonously
breathing at her. No, it isnt you. But if
I saw that you loved that man I think I could hate you too.
That word struck straight at her heart. You wouldnt
be the first then, she muttered bitterly. But he was busy
with his fixed idea and uttered an awfully equable But you dont!
Unfortunate girl!
She looked at him steadily for a time then said Good-night,
papa.
As a matter of fact Anthony very seldom waited for her alone at the
table with the scattered cards, glasses, water-jug, bottles and soon.
He took no more opportunities to be alone with her than was absolutely
necessary for the edification of Mrs. Brown. Excellent, faithful
woman; the wife of his still more excellent and faithful steward.
And Flora wished all these excellent people, devoted to Anthony, she
wished them all further; and especially the nice, pleasant-spoken Mrs.
Brown with her beady, mobile eyes and her Yes certainly, maam,
which seemed to her to have a mocking sound. And so this short
tripto the Western Islands onlycame to an end. It
was so short that when young Powell joined the Ferndale by a
memorable stroke of chance, no more than seven months had elapsed since
thelet us say the liberation of the convict de Barral and his
avatar into Mr. Smith.
* * * * *
For the time the ship was loading in London Anthony took a cottage
near a little country station in Essex, to house Mr. Smith and Mr. Smiths
daughter. It was altogether his idea. How far it was necessary
for Mr. Smith to seek rural retreat I dont know. Perhaps
to some extent it was a judicious arrangement. There were some
obligations incumbent on the liberated de Barral (in connection with
reporting himself to the police I imagine) which Mr. Smith was not anxious
to perform. De Barral had to vanish; the theory was that de Barral
had vanished, and it had to be upheld. Poor Flora liked the country,
even if the spot had nothing more to recommend it than its retired character.
Now and then Captain Anthony ran down; but as the station was a real
wayside one, with no early morning trains up, he could never stay for
more than the afternoon. It appeared that he must sleep in town
so as to be early on board his ship. The weather was magnificent
and whenever the captain of the Ferndale was seen on a brilliant
afternoon coming down the road Mr. Smith would seize his stick and toddle
off for a solitary walk. But whether he would get tired or because
it gave him some satisfaction to see that man go awayor
for some cunning reason of his own, he was always back before the hour
of Anthonys departure. On approaching the cottage he would
see generally that man lying on the grass in the orchard
at some distance from his daughter seated in a chair brought out of
the cottages living room. Invariably Mr. Smith made straight
for them and as invariably had the feeling that his approach was not
disturbing a very intimate conversation. He sat with them, through
a silent hour or so, and then it would be time for Anthony to go.
Mr. Smith, perhaps from discretion, would casually vanish a minute or
so before, and then watch through the diamond panes of an upstairs room
that man take a lingering look outside the gate at the
invisible Flora, lift his hat, like a caller, and go off down the road.
Then only Mr. Smith would join his daughter again.
These were the bad moments for her. Not always, of course,
but frequently. It was nothing extraordinary to hear Mr. Smith
begin gently with some observation like this:
That man is getting tired of you.
He would never pronounce Anthonys name. It was always
that man.
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:
Lets 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 mans 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. Lets 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 cant care for him. Dont 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. Dont interrupt me, Flora. I was everlastingly
being interrupted at the trial and I cant stand it any more.
I wont 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 hes
a gentleman. One can see that. And that makes it worse.
Gentlemen dont understand anything about city affairsfinance.
Why!the people who started the cry after me were a firm of gentlemen.
The counsel, the judgeall gentlemenquite out of it!
No notion of . . . And then hes 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 Barraleven 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 thats why you are
lostlike 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 wont have you unhappy.
He ran his eyes over her with an attention which was surprisingly
noticeable. Then said, Hm! Yes. Lets
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 wouldnt 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 cant 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 didnt 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 ofofRoderick
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. Ive noticed
it. It hurts me. What do you think of that? You might
remember that you are not the only person thats 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.
Ive told you . . . You know it. You dont think I
could.
I assure you I havent 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 wont die. You dont mean it. You have taken
kindly to the sea.
She laughed, but she felt angry.
No, I dont mean it. I tell you I dont
mean to evade my obligations. I shall live on . . . feeling a
little crushed, nevertheless.
Crushed! he repeated. Whats crushing
you?
Your magnanimity, she said sharply. But her voice
was softened after a time. Yet I dont know.
There is a perfection in itdo 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 oclock.
But you neednt mind that so much in your cabin.
Just see that the curtains of the ports are drawn close and thats
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 dont 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, maam? which poor Flora
had learned to fear and hate more than any voice or any words on board
that shipher 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 womans 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 Powells 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 isnt what you think. It isnt what
you think. Mr. Franklin looked more apoplectic than ever.
If it comes to that I could astonish you. But its
no use. I myself can hardly . . . You couldnt understand.
I hope you wont try to make mischief. There was a time,
young fellow, when I would have dared any manany man, you hear?to
make mischief between me and Captain Anthony. But not now.
Not now. Theres 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
Ill 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 stewards 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 interesteh? 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 ones telling her.
Sailors 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 didnt
open his lips again.
On another occasion . . . we mustnt 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. Powellhere.
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 didnt want to talk any more that evening. Mr. Smiththe
old gentlemanwas 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 captains 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
inin 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 twobut
anyway to see you happyI 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 lifestrictly speakingwhich 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? Its just sitting
down to look at the death, thats coming, coming. What else
is it? I dont know how you can put up with that.
I dont 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. Thats 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 foolbut
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 Anthonys delicacy, she
said to herself that he didnt care. He probably
was beginning at bottom to detest herlike the governess, like
the maiden lady, like the German woman, like Mrs. Fyne, like Mr. Fyneonly
he was extraordinary, he was generous. At the same time she had
moments of irritation. He was violent, headstrongperhaps
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 Armidas 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 ones life up by its imperceptible
action, dropping minute after minute on ones 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 wouldnt. 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. Powells uninformed
candour. He often favoured thus the second officer. His
talk alluded somewhat enigmatically and often without visible connection
to Mr. Powells 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 ships
company could not possibly matter to the captains wife and to
Mr. Smithher 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.
Its not so bad as that, laughed Mr. Powell,
feeling uncomfortable, because his mind did not accommodate itself easily
to exaggeration of statement. He isnt a bad chap
really, he added, very conscious of Mr. Franklins offensive
manner of which instances were not far to seek. Hes
such a fool as to be jealous. He has been with the captain for
years. Its 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. Wouldnt let anybody come near him
if they could help it. Ive never seen anything like it.
And the second mate, I believe, was like that too.
Well, he isnt here, luckily. There would have
been one more enemy, said Mr. Smith. Theres
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.
Theres you, and theres the . . .
Mr. Smith interrupted him.
Nobodys 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! Thats the fellow
that was thrown overboard by some sailors. It seems to me its
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 wasnt thinking of Jonah. I was
thinking of this passage which seems so quick to you. But only
think what it is to me? It isnt a life, going about the
sea like this. And, for instance, if one were to fall ill, there
isnt a doctor to find out whats the matter with one.
Its worrying. It makes me anxious at times.
Is Mrs. Anthony not feeling well? asked Powell.
But Mr. Smiths remark was not meant for Mrs. Anthony. She
was well. He himself was well. It was the captains
health that did not seem quite satisfactory. Had Mr. Powell noticed
his appearance?
Mr. Powell didnt know enough of the captain to judge.
He couldnt 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! Dont you alarm
yourself, sir. Ive 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 enemywith one of the enemies
at leasthad 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 Ive been ever since six oclock.
Didnt want to interrupt the pleasant conversation. If you
like to put in half of your watch below jawing with a dear friend, thats
not my affair. Funny taste though.
He isnt a bad chap, said the impartial Powell.
The mate snorted angrily, tapping the deck with his foot; then: Isnt
he? Well, give him my love when you come together again for another
nice long yarn.
I say, Mr. Franklin, I wonder the captain dont 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.
Id welcome it, Mr. Powell. Id rejoice. And
dam me I would talk back too till I roused him. Hes
a shadow of himself. He walks about his ship like a ghost.
Hes fading away right before our eyes. But of course you
dont see. You dont care a hang. Why should
you?
Mr. Powell did not wait for more. He went down on the main
deck. Without taking the mates 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 wasnt three feet from him.
And what did he do? Did he shout, or jump, or even look aloft
to see if the yard wasnt coming down too about our ears in a
dozen pieces? Its a marvel it didnt. No, he
just stopped shortno wonder; he must have felt the wind of that
iron gin-block on his facelooked down at it, there, lying close
to his footand went on again. I believe he didnt
even blink. It isnt natural. The man is stupefied.
He sighed ridiculously and Mr. Powell had suppressed a grin, when
the mate added as if he couldnt contain himself:
He will be taking to drink next. Mark my words.
Thats the next thing.
Mr. Powell was disgusted.
You are so fond of the captain and yet you dont seem
to care what you say about him. I havent been with him
for seven years, but I know he isnt the sort of man that takes
to drink. And thenwhy the devil should he?
Why the devil, you ask. Devileh? Well,
no man is safe from the deviland thats 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 myselfyes, 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 hadnt 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 shes
married. She dont 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 saythis ship is my nearest relation and she isnt
likely to turn against me. And I suppose you are the man Ive
known the longest in the world. Thats how he used
to speak to me. Can I turn my back on him? He has turned
his back on his ship; thats what it has come to. He has
no one now but his old Franklin. But whats a fellow to
do to put things back as they were and should be. Should beI
say!
His starting eyes had a terrible fixity. Mr. Powells
irresistible thought, he resembles a boiled lobster in distress,
was followed by annoyance. Good Lord, he said, you
dont 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 impressivebecause 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 wouldnt. You are all right. Only you dont
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 rightwasnt
it? Never a hint to me. I go off on leave and when I come
back, there it isall over, settled! Not a word beforehand.
No warning. If only: What do you think of it, Franklin?or
anything of the sort. And thats a man who hardly ever did
anything without asking my advice. Why! He couldnt
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, doesnt
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 thats
why he dared not speak right out. Talking about workmen, alterations,
cabins . . . Phoo! . . . instead of a straightforwardWish
me joy, Mr. Franklin! Yes, that was the way to let me know.
God only knows what they areperhaps she isnt his daughter
any more than she is . . . She doesnt resemble that old fellow.
Not a bit. Not a bit. Its 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 casein case of . . . I dont 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 mates 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 couldnt 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. Powells mind rested on it still when
he came up at eight oclock 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.
Everythings set, Mr. Powell.
All right, sir.
The other lingered, his sentimental eyes gleamed silvery in the shadowy
face. A quiet night before us. I dont know
that there are any special orders. A settled, quiet night.
I dare say you wont 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. Jailereh?
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.
* * * * *
Franklins 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 ones
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 couldnt 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
Powells 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
talkand 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
thats 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 cometo 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 ones 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, its 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 wordsher
father. Presently he observed that the sheen of the two deck dead-lights
of Mr. Smiths 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 couldnt 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 wasclearly. 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 skylightthe
lighted skylight of the most private part of the saloon, consecrated
to the exclusiveness of Captain Anthonys 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 gearthe spanker foot-outhaul,
it wasI 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 dont 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 dont know where they got them; I think the people who fitted
up new bookcases in the captains room had left some spare panes.
Chips was there the whole afternoon on his knees, messing with putty
and red-lead. It wasnt 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, anddash 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 peoples 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 dont 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. Its 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, its no use making excuses
for whats 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. Ill 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! Heres 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 drunkardwerent
they? He opened the book and held it before his face. If
this was the way he took to drink, then I neednt 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 nightthe
quietest, perhaps the finest, of a prosperous passage. And if
you wonder why I didnt 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 cant come near a book but I must know what it is about.
It was a thickish volume he had there, small close print, double columnsI
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 wasnt holding
it convenientlyI 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 didnt 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 captains 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 dont know what
was the beastly influence except that Mr. Franklins 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 didI am surprised at my low cunningwas
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 mens hate, despair or greedto 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 andwellhis
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. Powells proceedings Ill say
nothing. He found a sort of depraved excitement in watching an
unconscious manand 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 signand we must remember that
he was using his eyes for all they were worthwas 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 cant
be denied that our wits are much more alert when engaged in wrong-doing
(in which one mustnt 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 captains
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 instantlycrash.
I asked him why?
It was the quickest dodge for getting him away from that tray,
he explained. My throat was so dry that I didnt
know if I could shout loud enough. And this was not a case for
shouting, either.
The boatswain, sleepy and disgusted, arriving on the poop, found
the second officer doubled up over the end of the skylight in a pose
which might have been that of severe pain. And his voice was so
changed that the man, though naturally vexed at being turned out, made
no comment on the plea of sudden indisposition which young Powell put
forward.
The rapidity with which the sick man got off the poop must have astonished
the boatswain. But Powell, at the moment he opened the door leading
into the saloon from the quarter-deck, had managed to control his agitation.
He entered swiftly but without noise and found himself in the dark part
of the saloon, the strong sheen of the lamp on the other side of the
curtains visible only above the rod on which they ran. The door
of Mr. Smiths cabin was in that dark part. He passed by
it assuring himself by a quick side glance that it was imperfectly closed.
Yes, he said to me. The old man must have
been watching through the crack. Of that I am certain; but it
was not for me that he was watching and listening. Horrible!
Surely he must have been startled to hear and see somebody he did not
expect. He could not possibly guess why I was coming in, but I
suppose he must have been concerned. Concerned indeed!
He must have been thunderstruck, appalled.
Powells only distinct aim was to remove the suspected tumbler.
He had no other plan, no other intention, no other thought. Do
away with it in some manner. Snatch it up and run out with it.
You know that complete mastery of one fixed idea, not a reasonable
but an emotional mastery, a sort of concentrated exaltation. Under
its empire men rush blindly through fire and water and opposing violence,
and nothing can stop themunless, sometimes, a grain of sand.
For his blind purpose (and clearly the thought of Mrs. Anthony was at
the bottom of it) Mr. Powell had plenty of time. What checked
him at the crucial moment was the familiar, harmless aspect of common
things, the steady light, the open book on the table, the solitude,
the peace, the home-like effect of the place. He held the glass
in his hand; all he had to do was to vanish back beyond the curtains,
flee with it noiselessly into the night on deck, fling it unseen overboard.
A minute or less. And then all that would have happened would
have been the wonder at the utter disappearance of a glass tumbler,
a ridiculous riddle in pantry-affairs beyond the wit of anyone on board
to solve. The grain of sand against which Powell stumbled in his
headlong career was a moment of incredulity as to the truth of his own
conviction because it had failed to affect the safe aspect of familiar
things. He doubted his eyes too. He must have dreamt it
all! I am dreaming now, he said to himself.
And very likely for a few seconds he must have looked like a man in
a trance or profoundly asleep on his feet, and with a glass of brandy-and-water
in his hand.
What woke him up and, at the same time, fixed his feet immovably
to the spot, was a voice asking him what he was doing there in tones
of thunder. Or so it sounded to his ears. Anthony, opening
the door of his stern-cabin had naturally exclaimed. What else
could you expect? And the exclamation must have been fairly loud
if you consider the nature of the sight which met his eye. There,
before him, stood his second officer, a seemingly decent, well-bred
young man, who, being on duty, had left the deck and had sneaked into
the saloon, apparently for the inexpressibly mean purpose of drinking
up what was left of his captains brandy-and-water. There
he was, caught absolutely with the glass in his hand.
But the very monstrosity of appearances silenced Anthony after the
first exclamation; and young Powell felt himself pierced through and
through by the overshadowed glance of his captain. Anthony advanced
quietly. The first impulse of Mr. Powell, when discovered, had
been to dash the glass on the deck. He was in a sort of panic.
But deep down within him his wits were working, and the idea that if
he did that he could prove nothing and that the story he had to tell
was completely incredible, restrained him. The captain came forward
slowly. With his eyes now close to his, Powell, spell-bound, numb
all over, managed to lift one finger to the deck above mumbling the
explanatory words, Boatswain on the poop.
The captain moved his head slightly as much as to say, Thats
all rightand this was all. Powell had no voice,
no strength. The air was unbreathable, thick, sticky, odious,
like hot jelly in which all movements became difficult. He raised
the glass a little with immense difficulty and moved his trammelled
lips sufficiently to form the words:
Doctored.
Anthony glanced at it for an instant, only for an instant, and again
fastened his eyes on the face of his second mate. Powell added
a fervent I believe and put the glass down on the tray.
The captains glance followed the movement and returned sternly
to his face. The young man pointed a finger once more upwards
and squeezed out of his iron-bound throat six consecutive words of further
explanation. Through the skylight. The white pane.
The captain raised his eyebrows very much at this, while young Powell,
ashamed but desperate, nodded insistently several times. He meant
to say that: Yes. Yes. He had done that thing. He
had been spying . . . The captains gaze became thoughtful.
And, now the confession was over, the iron-bound feeling of Powells
throat passed away giving place to a general anxiety which from his
breast seemed to extend to all the limbs and organs of his body.
His legs trembled a little, his vision was confused, his mind became
blankly expectant. But he was alert enough. At a movement
of Anthony he screamed in a strangled whisper.
Dont, sir! Dont touch it.
The captain pushed aside Powells extended arm, took up the
glass and raised it slowly against the lamplight. The liquid,
of very pale amber colour, was clear, and by a glance the captain seemed
to call Powells attention to the fact. Powell tried to
pronounce the word, dissolved but he only thought of it
with great energy which however failed to move his lips. Only
when Anthony had put down the glass and turned to him he recovered such
a complete command of his voice that he could keep it down to a hurried,
forcible whispera whisper that shook him.
Doctored! I swear it! I have seen. Doctored!
I have seen.
Not a feature of the captains face moved. His was a
calm to take ones breath away. It did so to young Powell.
Then for the first time Anthony made himself heard to the point.
You did! . . . Who was it?
And Powell gasped freely at last. A hand, he
whispered fearfully, a hand and the armonly the armlike
that.
He advanced his own, slow, stealthy, tremulous in faithful reproduction,
the tips of two fingers and the thumb pressed together and hovering
above the glass for an instantthen the swift jerk back, after
the deed.
Like that, he repeated growing excited. From
behind this. He grasped the curtain and glaring at the
silent Anthony flung it back disclosing the forepart of the saloon.
There was on one to be seen.
Powell had not expected to see anybody. But,
he said to me, I knew very well there was an ear listening and
an eye glued to the crack of a cabin door. Awful thought.
And that door was in that part of the saloon remaining in the shadow
of the other half of the curtain. I pointed at it and I suppose
that old man inside saw me pointing. The captain had a wonderful
self-command. You couldnt have guessed anything from his
face. Well, it was perhaps more thoughtful than usual. And
indeed this was something to think about. But I couldnt
think steadily. My brain would give a sort of jerk and then go
dead again. I had lost all notion of time, and I might have been
looking at the captain for days and months for all I knew before I heard
him whisper to me fiercely: Not a word! This jerked
me out of that trance I was in and I said No! No!
I didnt mean even you.
I wanted to explain my conduct, my intentions, but I read
in his eyes that he understood me and I was only too glad to leave off.
And there we were looking at each other, dumb, brought up short by the
question What next?
I thought Captain Anthony was a man of iron till I saw him
suddenly fling his head to the right and to the left fiercely, like
a wild animal at bay not knowing which way to break out . . .
* * * * *
Truly, commented Marlow, brought to bay was
not a bad comparison; a better one than Mr. Powell was aware of.
At that moment the appearance of Flora could not but bring the tension
to the breaking point. She came out in all innocence but not without
vague dread. Anthonys exclamation on first seeing Powell
had reached her in her cabin, where, it seems, she was brushing her
hair. She had heard the very words. What are you
doing here? And the unwonted loudness of the voicehis
voicebreaking the habitual stillness of that hour would have
startled a person having much less reason to be constantly apprehensive,
than the captive of Anthonys masterful generosity. She
had no means to guess to whom the question was addressed and it echoed
in her heart, as Anthonys voice always did. Followed complete
silence. She waited, anxious, expectant, till she could stand
the strain no longer, and with the weary mental appeal of the overburdened.
My God! What is it now? she opened the door of her
room and looked into the saloon. Her first glance fell on Powell.
For a moment, seeing only the second officer with Anthony, she felt
relieved and made as if to draw back; but her sharpened perception detected
something suspicious in their attitudes, and she came forward slowly.
I was the first to see Mrs. Anthony, related Powell,
because I was facing aft. The captain, noticing my eyes,
looked quickly over his shoulder and at once put his finger to his lips
to caution me. As if I were likely to let out anything before
her! Mrs. Anthony had on a dressing-gown of some grey stuff with
red facings and a thick red cord round her waist. Her hair was
down. She looked a child; a pale-faced child with big blue eyes
and a red mouth a little open showing a glimmer of white teeth.
The light fell strongly on her as she came up to the end of the table.
A strange child though; she hardly affected one like a child, I remember.
Do you know, exclaimed Mr. Powell, who clearly must have been,
like many seamen, an industrious reader, do you know what she
looked like to me with those big eyes and something appealing in her
whole expression. She looked like a forsaken elf. Captain
Anthony had moved towards her to keep her away from my end of the table,
where the tray was. I had never seen them so near to each other
before, and it made a great contrast. It was wonderful, for, with
his beard cut to a point, his swarthy, sunburnt complexion, thin nose
and his lean head there was something African, something Moorish in
Captain Anthony. His neck was bare; he had taken off his coat
and collar and had drawn on his sleeping jacket in the time that he
had been absent from the saloon. I seem to see him now.
Mrs. Anthony too. She looked from him to meI suppose I
looked guilty or frightenedand from me to him, trying to guess
what there was between us two. Then she burst out with a What
has happened? which seemed addressed to me. I mumbled Nothing!
Nothing, maam, which she very likely did not hear.
You must not think that all this had lasted a long time.
She had taken fright at our behaviour and turned to the captain pitifully.
What is it you are concealing from me? A straight
questioneh? I dont know what answer the captain
would have made. Before he could even raise his eyes to her she
cried out Ah! Heres papa in a sharp tone
of relief, but directly afterwards she looked to me as if she were holding
her breath with apprehension. I was so interested in her that,
how shall I say it, her exclamation made no connection in my brain at
first. I also noticed that she had sidled up a little nearer to
Captain Anthony, before it occurred to me to turn my head. I can
tell you my neck stiffened in the twisted position from the shock of
actually seeing that old man! He had dared! I suppose you
think I ought to have looked upon him as mad. But I couldnt.
It would have been certainly easier. But I could not.
You should have seen him. First of all he was completely dressed
with his very cap still on his head just as when he left me on deck
two hours before, saying in his soft voice: The moment has come
to go to bedwhile he meant to go and do that thing and
hide in his dark cabin, and watch the stuff do its work. A cold
shudder ran down my back. He had his hands in the pockets of his
jacket, his arms were pressed close to his thin, upright body, and he
shuffled across the cabin with his short steps. There was a red
patch on each of his old soft cheeks as if somebody had been pinching
them. He drooped his head a little, and looked with a sort of
underhand expectation at the captain and Mrs. Anthony standing close
together at the other end of the saloon. The calculating horrible
impudence of it! His daughter was there; and I am certain he had
seen the captain putting his finger on his lips to warn me. And
then he had coolly come out! He passed my imagination, I assure
you. After that one shiver his presence killed every faculty in
mewonder, horror, indignation. I felt nothing in particular
just as if he were still the old gentleman who used to talk to me familiarly
every day on deck. Would you believe it?
Mr. Powell challenged my powers of wonder at this internal
phenomenon, went on Marlow after a slight pause. But
even if they had not been fully engaged, together with all my powers
of attention in following the facts of the case, I would not have been
astonished by his statements about himself. Taking into consideration
his youth they were by no means incredible; or, at any rate, they were
the least incredible part of the whole. They were also the least
interesting part. The interest was elsewhere, and there of course
all he could do was to look at the surface. The inwardness of
what was passing before his eyes was hidden from him, who had looked
on, more impenetrably than from me who at a distance of years was listening
to his words. What presently happened at this crisis in Flora
de Barrals fate was beyond his power of comment, seemed in a
sense natural. And his own presence on the scene was so strangely
motived that it was left for me to marvel alone at this young man, a
completely chance-comer, having brought it about on that night.
Each situation created either by folly or wisdom has its psychological
moment. The behaviour of young Powell with its mixture of boyish
impulses combined with instinctive prudence, had not created itI
cant say thatbut had discovered it to the very people
involved. What would have happened if he had made a noise about
his discovery? But he didnt. His head was full of
Mrs. Anthony and he behaved with a discretion beyond his years.
Some nice children often do; and surely it is not from reflection.
They have their own inspirations. Young Powells inspiration
consisted in being enthusiastic about Mrs. Anthony.
Enthusiastic is really good. And he was amongst
them like a child, sensitive, impressionable, plasticbut unable
to find for himself any sort of comment.
I dont know how much mine may be worth; but I believe that
just then the tension of the false situation was at its highest.
Of all the forms offered to us by life it is the one demanding a couple
to realize it fully, which is the most imperative. Pairing off
is the fate of mankind. And if two beings thrown together, mutually
attracted, resist the necessity, fail in understanding and voluntarily
stop short of thethe embrace, in the noblest meaning of the word,
then they are committing a sin against life, the call of which is simple.
Perhaps sacred. And the punishment of it is an invasion of complexity,
a tormenting, forcibly tortuous involution of feelings, the deepest
form of suffering from which indeed something significant may come at
last, which may be criminal or heroic, may be madness or wisdomor
even a straight if despairing decision.
Powell on taking his eyes off the old gentleman noticed Captain Anthony,
swarthy as an African, by the side of Flora whiter than the lilies,
take his handkerchief out and wipe off his forehead the sweat of anguishlike
a man who is overcome. And no wonder, commented
Mr. Powell here. Then the captain said, Hadnt you
better go back to your room. This was to Mrs. Anthony.
He tried to smile at her. Why do you look startled?
This night is like any other night.
Which, Powell again commented to me earnestly, was
a lie . . . No wonder he sweated. You see from this the
value of Powells comments. Mrs. Anthony then said: Why
are you sending me away?
Why! That you should go to sleep. That you should
rest. And Captain Anthony frowned. Then sharply,
You stay here, Mr. Powell. I shall want you presently.
As a matter of fact Powell had not moved. Flora did not mind
his presence. He himself had the feeling of being of no account
to those three people. He was looking at Mrs. Anthony as unabashed
as the proverbial cat looking at a king. Mrs. Anthony glanced
at him. She did not move, gripped by an inexplicable premonition.
She had arrived at the very limit of her endurance as the object of
Anthonys magnanimity; she was the prey of an intuitive dread
of she did not know what mysterious influence; she felt herself being
pushed back into that solitude, that moral loneliness, which had made
all her life intolerable. And then, in that close communion established
again with Anthony, she feltas on that night in the gardenthe
force of his personal fascination. The passive quietness with
which she looked at him gave her the appearance of a person bewitchedor,
say, mesmerically put to sleepbeyond any notion of her surroundings.
After telling Mr. Powell not to go away the captain remained silent.
Suddenly Mrs. Anthony pushed back her loose hair with a decisive gesture
of her arms and moved still nearer to him. Heres
papa up yet, she said, but she did not look towards Mr. Smith.
Why is it? And you? I cant go on like this,
Roderickbetween you two. Dont.
Anthony interrupted her as if something had untied his tongue.
Oh yes. Heres your father. And . . . Why
not. Perhaps it is just as well you came out. Between us
two? Is that it? I wont pretend I dont understand.
I am not blind. But I cant fight any longer for what I
havent got. I dont know what you imagine has happened.
Something has though. Only you neednt be afraid.
No shadow can touch youbecause I give up. I cant
say we had much talk about it, your father and I, but, the long and
the short of it is, that I must learn to live without youwhich
I have told you was impossible. I was speaking the truth.
But I have done fighting, or waiting, or hoping. Yes. You
shall go.
At this point Mr. Powell who (he confessed to me) was listening with
uncomprehending awe, heard behind his back a triumphant chuckling sound.
It gave him the shudders, he said, to mention it now; but at the time,
except for another chill down the spine, it had not the power to destroy
his absorption in the scene before his eyes, and before his ears too,
because just then Captain Anthony raised his voice grimly. Perhaps
he too had heard the chuckle of the old man.
Your father has found an argument which makes me pause, if
it does not convince me. No! I cant answer it.
II dont want to answer it. I simply surrender.
He shall have his way with youand with me. Only,
he added in a gloomy lowered tone which struck Mr. Powell as if a pedal
had been put down, only it shall take a little time. I
have never lied to you. Never. I renounce not only my chance
but my life. In a few days, directly we get into port, the very
moment we do, I, who have said I could never let you go, I shall let
you go.
To the innocent beholder Anthony seemed at this point to become physically
exhausted. My view is that the utter falseness of his, I may say,
aspirations, the vanity of grasping the empty air, had come to him with
an overwhelming force, leaving him disarmed before the others
mad and sinister sincerity. As he had said himself he could not
fight for what he did not possess; he could not face such a thing as
this for the sake of his mere magnanimity. The normal alone can
overcome the abnormal. He could not even reproach that man over
there. I own myself beaten, he said in a firmer
tone. You are free. I let you off since I must.
Powell, the onlooker, affirms that at these incomprehensible words
Mrs. Anthony stiffened into the very image of astonishment, with a frightened
stare and frozen lips. But next minute a cry came out from her
heart, not very loud but of a quality which made not only Captain Anthony
(he was not looking at her), not only him but also the more distant
(and equally unprepared) young man, catch their breath: But I
dont want to be let off, she cried.
She was so still that one asked oneself whether the cry had come
from her. The restless shuffle behind Powells back stopped
short, the intermittent shadowy chuckling ceased too. Young Powell,
glancing round, saw Mr. Smith raise his head with his faded eyes very
still, puckered at the corners, like a man perceiving something coming
at him from a great distance. And Mrs. Anthonys voice reached
Powells ears, entreating and indignant.
You cant cast me off like this, Roderick. I wont
go away from you. I wont
Powell turned about and discovered then that what Mr. Smith was puckering
his eyes at, was the sight of his daughter clinging round Captain Anthonys
necka sight not in itself improper, but which had the power to
move young Powell with a bashfully profound emotion. It was different
from his emotion while spying at the revelations of the skylight, but
in this case too he felt the discomfort, if not the guilt, of an unseen
beholder. Experience was being piled up on his young shoulders.
Mrs. Anthonys hair hung back in a dark mass like the hair of
a drowned woman. She looked as if she would let go and sink to
the floor if the captain were to withhold his sustaining arm.
But the captain obviously had no such intention. Standing firm
and still he gazed with sombre eyes at Mr. Smith. For a time the
low convulsive sobbing of Mr. Smiths daughter was the only sound
to trouble the silence. The strength of Anthonys clasp
pressing Flora to his breast could not be doubted even at that distance,
and suddenly, awakening to his opportunity, he began to partly support
her, partly carry her in the direction of her cabin. His head
was bent over her solicitously, then recollecting himself, with a glance
full of unwonted fire, his voice ringing in a note unknown to Mr. Powell,
he cried to him, Dont you go on deck yet. I want
you to stay down here till I come back. There are some instructions
I want to give you.
And before the young man could answer, Anthony had disappeared in
the stern-cabin, burdened and exulting.
Instructions, commented Mr. Powell. That
was all right. Very likely; but they would be such instructions
as, I thought to myself, no ships officer perhaps had ever been
given before. It made me feel a little sick to think what they
would be dealing with, probably. But there! Everything that
happens on board ship on the high seas has got to be dealt with somehow.
There are no special people to fly to for assistance. And there
I was with that old man left in my charge. When he noticed me
looking at him he started to shuffle again athwart the saloon.
He kept his hands rammed in his pockets, he was as stiff-backed as ever,
only his head hung down. After a bit he says in his gentle soft
tone: Did you see it?
There were in Powells head no special words to fit the horror
of his feelings. So he saidhe had to say something, Good
God! What were you thinking of, Mr. Smith, to try to . . .
And then he left off. He dared not utter the awful word poison.
Mr. Smith stopped his prowl.
Think! What do you know of thinking. I dont
think. There is something in my head that thinks. The thoughts
in men, its like being drunk with liquor orYou cant
stop them. A man who thinks will think anything. No!
But have you seen it. Have you?
I tell you I have! I am certain! said Powell
forcibly. I was looking at you all the time. Youve
done something to the drink in that glass.
Then Powell lost his breath somehow. Mr. Smith looked at him
curiously, with mistrust.
My good young man, I dont know what you are talking
about. I ask youhave you seen? Who would have believed
it? with her arms round his neck. When! Oh! Ha!
Ha! You did see! Didnt you? It wasnt
a delusionwas it? Her arms round . . . But I have never
wholly trusted her.
Then I flew out at him, said Mr. Powell. I told him
he was jolly lucky to have fallen upon Captain Anthony. A man
in a million. He started again shuffling to and fro. You
too, he said mournfully, keeping his eyes down. Eh?
Wonderful man? But have you a notion who I am? Listen!
I have been the Great Mr. de Barral. So they printed it in the
papers while they were getting up a conspiracy. And I have been
doing time. And now I am brought low. His voice died
down to a mere breath. Brought low.
He took his hands out of his pocket, dragged the cap down on his
head and stuck them back into his pockets, exactly as if preparing himself
to go out into a great wind. But not so low as to put up
with this disgrace, to see her, fast in this fellows clutches,
without doing something. She wouldnt listen to me.
Frightened? Silly? I had to think of some way to get her
out of this. Did you think she cared for him? No!
Would anybody have thought so? No! She pretended it was
for my sake. She couldnt understand that if I hadnt
been an old man I would have flown at his throat months ago. As
it was I was tempted every time he looked at her. My girl.
Ough! Any man but this. And all the time the wicked little
fool was lying to me. It was their plot, their conspiracy!
These conspiracies are the devil. She has been leading me on,
till she has fairly put my head under the heel of that jailer, of that
scoundrel, of her husband . . . Treachery! Bringing me low.
Lower than herself. In the dirt. Thats what it means.
Doesnt it? Under his heel!
He paused in his restless shuffle and again, seizing his cap with
both hands, dragged it furiously right down on his ears. Powell
had lost himself in listening to these broken ravings, in looking at
that old feverish face when, suddenly, quick as lightning, Mr. Smith
spun round, snatched up the captains glass and with a stifled,
hurried exclamation, Heres luck, tossed the liquor
down his throat.
I know now the meaning of the word Consternation,
went on Mr. Powell. That was exactly my state of mind.
I thought to myself directly: Theres nothing in that drink.
I have been dreaming, I have made the awfulest mistake! . . .
Mr. Smith put the glass down. He stood before Powell unharmed,
quieted down, in a listening attitude, his head inclined on one side,
chewing his thin lips. Suddenly he blinked queerly, grabbed Powells
shoulder and collapsed, subsiding all at once as though he had gone
soft all over, as a piece of silk stuff collapses. Powell seized
his arm instinctively and checked his fall; but as soon as Mr. Smith
was fairly on the floor he jerked himself free and backed away.
Almost as quick he rushed forward again and tried to lift up the body.
But directly he raised his shoulders he knew that the man was dead!
Dead!
He lowered him down gently. He stood over him without fear
or any other feeling, almost indifferent, far away, as it were.
And then he made another start and, if he had not kept Mrs. Anthony
always in his mind, he would have let out a yell for help. He
staggered to her cabin-door, and, as it was, his call for Captain
Anthony burst out of him much too loud; but he made a great effort
of self-control. I am waiting for my orders, sir,
he said outside that door distinctly, in a steady tone.
It was very still in there; still as death. Then he heard a
shuffle of feet and the captains voice All right.
Coming. He leaned his back against the bulkhead as you
see a drunken man sometimes propped up against a wall, half doubled
up. In that attitude the captain found him, when he came out,
pulling the door to after him quickly. At once Anthony let his
eyes run all over the cabin. Powell, without a word, clutched
his forearm, led him round the end of the table and began to justify
himself. I couldnt stop him, he whispered
shakily. He was too quick for me. He drank it up
and fell down. But the captain was not listening.
He was looking down at Mr. Smith, thinking perhaps that it was a mere
chance his own body was not lying there. They did not want to
speak. They made signs to each other with their eyes. The
captain grasped Powells shoulder as if in a vice and glanced
at Mrs. Anthonys cabin door, and it was enough. He knew
that the young man understood him. Rather! Silence!
Silence for ever about this. Their very glances became stealthy.
Powell looked from the body to the door of the dead mans state-room.
The captain nodded and let him go; and then Powell crept over, hooked
the door open and crept back with fearful glances towards Mrs. Anthonys
cabin. They stooped over the corpse. Captain Anthony lifted
up the shoulders.
Mr. Powell shuddered. Ill never forget that interminable
journey across the saloon, step by step, holding our breath. For
part of the way the drawn half of the curtain concealed us from view
had Mrs. Anthony opened her door; but I didnt draw a free breath
till after we laid the body down on the swinging cot. The reflection
of the saloon light left most of the cabin in the shadow. Mr.
Smiths rigid, extended body looked shadowy too, shadowy and alive.
You know he always carried himself as stiff as a poker. We stood
by the cot as though waiting for him to make us a sign that he wanted
to be left alone. The captain threw his arm over my shoulder and
said in my very ear: The stewardll find him in the morning.
I made no answer. It was for him to say. It was
perhaps the best way. Its no use talking about my thoughts.
They were not concerned with myself, nor yet with that old man who terrified
me more now than when he was alive. Him whom I pitied was the
captain. He whispered. I am certain of you, Mr. Powell.
You had better go on deck now. As to me . . . and I saw
him raise his hands to his head as if distracted. But his last
words before we stole out that cabin stick to my mind with the very
tone of his mutterto himself, not to me:
No! No! I am not going to stumble now over that
corpse.
* * *
This is what our Mr. Powell had to tell me, said Marlow,
changing his tone. I was glad to learn that Flora de Barral had
been saved from that sinister shadow at least falling upon her
path.
We sat silent then, my mind running on the end of de Barral, on the
irresistible pressure of imaginary griefs, crushing conscience, scruples,
prudence, under their ever-expanding volume; on the sombre and venomous
irony in the obsession which had mastered that old man.
Well, I said.
The steward found him, Mr. Powell roused himself.
He went in there with a cup of tea at five and of course dropped
it. I was on watch again. He reeled up to me on deck pale
as death. I had been expecting it; and yet I could hardly speak.
Go and tell the captain quietly, I managed to say.
He ran off muttering My God! My God! and Im
hanged if he didnt get hysterical while trying to tell the captain,
and start screaming in the saloon, Fully dressed! Dead!
Fully dressed! Mrs. Anthony ran out of course but she didnt
get hysterical. Franklin, who was there too, told me that she
hid her face on the captains breast and then he went out and
left them there. It was days before Mrs. Anthony was seen on deck.
The first time I spoke to her she gave me her hand and said, My
poor father was quite fond of you, Mr. Powell. She started
wiping her eyes and I fled to the other side of the deck. One
would like to forget all this had ever come near her.
But clearly he could not, because after lighting his pipe he began
musing aloud: Very strong stuff it must have been. I wonder
where he got it. It could hardly be at a common chemist.
Well, he had it from somewherea mere pinch it must have been,
no more.
I have my theory, observed Marlow, which to
a certain extent does away with the added horror of a coldly premeditated
crime. Chance had stepped in there too. It was not Mr. Smith
who obtained the poison. It was the Great de Barral. And
it was not meant for the obscure, magnanimous conqueror of Flora de
Barral; it was meant for the notorious financier whose enterprises had
nothing to do with magnanimity. He had his physician in his days
of greatness. I even seem to remember that the man was called
at the trial on some small point or other. I can imagine that
de Barral went to him when he saw, as he could hardly help seeing, the
possibility of a triumph of envious rivalsa heavy
sentence.
I doubt if for love or even for money, but I think possibly, from
pity that man provided him with what Mr. Powell called strong
stuff. From what Powell saw of the very act I am fairly
certain it must have been contained in a capsule and that he had it
about him on the last day of his trial, perhaps secured by a stitch
in his waistcoat pocket. He didnt use it. Why?
Did he think of his child at the last moment? Was it want of courage?
We cant tell. But he found it in his clothes when he came
out of jail. It had escaped investigation if there was any.
Chance had armed him. And chance alone, the chance of Mr. Powells
life, forced him to turn the abominable weapon against himself.
I imparted my theory to Mr. Powell who accepted it at once as, in
a sense, favourable to the father of Mrs. Anthony. Then he waved
his hand. Dont let us think of it.
I acquiesced and very soon he observed dreamily:
I was with Captain and Mrs. Anthony sailing all over the world
for near on six years. Almost as long as Franklin.
Oh yes! What about Franklin? I asked.
Powell smiled. He left the Ferndale a year or
so afterwards, and I took his place. Captain Anthony recommended
him for a command. You dont think Captain Anthony would
chuck a man aside like an old glove. But of course Mrs. Anthony
did not like him very much. I dont think she ever let out
a whisper against him but Captain Anthony could read her thoughts.
And again Powell seemed to lose himself in the past. I asked,
for suddenly the vision of the Fynes passed through my mind.
Any children?
Powell gave a start. No! No! Never had any
children, and again subsided, puffing at his short briar pipe.
Where are they now? I inquired next as if anxious to
ascertain that all Fynes fears had been misplaced and vain as
our fears often are; that there were no undesirable cousins for his
dear girls, no danger of intrusion on their spotless home. Powell
looked round at me slowly, his pipe smouldering in his hand.
Dont you know? he uttered in a deep voice.
Know what?
That the Ferndale was lost this four years or more.
Sunk. Collision. And Captain Anthony went down with her.
You dont say so! I cried quite affected as if
I had known Captain Anthony personally. Waswas Mrs.
Anthony lost too?
You might as well ask if I was lost, Mr. Powell rejoined
so testily as to surprise me. You see me here,dont
you.
He was quite huffy, but noticing my wondering stare he smoothed his
ruffled plumes. And in a musing tone.
Yes. Good men go out as if there was no use for them
in the world. It seems as if there were things that, as the Turks
say, are written. Or else fate has a try and sometimes misses
its mark. You remember that close shave we had of being run down
at night, I told you of, my first voyage with them. This go it
was just at dawn. A flat calm and a fog thick enough to slice
with a knife. Only there were no explosives on board. I
was on deck and I remember the cursed, murderous thing looming up alongside
and Captain Anthony (we were both on deck) calling out, Good
God! Whats this! Shout for all hands, Powell, to
save themselves. Theres no dynamite on board now.
I am going to get the wife! . . I yelled, all the watch
on deck yelled. Crash!
Mr. Powell gasped at the recollection. It was a Belgian
Green Star liner, the Westland, he went on, commanded
by one of those stop-for-nothing skippers. Flaherty was his name
and I hope he will die without absolution. She cut half through
the old Ferndale and after the blow there was a silence like
death. Next I heard the captain back on deck shouting, Set
your engines slow ahead, and a howl of Yes, yes,
answering him from her forecastle; and then a whole crowd of people
up there began making a row in the fog. They were throwing ropes
down to us in dozens, I must say. I and the captain fastened one
of them under Mrs. Anthonys arms: I remember she had a sort of
dim smile on her face.
Haul up carefully, I shouted to the people on the steamers
deck. Youve got a woman on that line.
The captain saw her landed up there safe. And then we made
a rush round our decks to see no one was left behind. As we got
back the captain says: Here shes gone at last, Powell;
the dear old thing! Run down at sea.
Indeed she is gone, I said. But it might
have been worse. Shin up this rope, sir, for Gods sake.
I will steady it for you.
What are you thinking about, he says angrily.
It isnt my turn. Up with you.
These were the last words he ever spoke on earth I suppose.
I knew he meant to be the last to leave his ship, so I swarmed up as
quick as I could, and those damned lunatics up there grab at me from
above, lug me in, drag me along aft through the row and the riot of
the silliest excitement I ever did see. Somebody hails from the
bridge, Have you got them all on board? and a dozen silly
asses start yelling all together, All saved! All saved,
and then that accursed Irishman on the bridge, with me roaring No!
No! till I thought my head would burst, rings his engines astern.
He rings the engines asternI fighting like mad to make myself
heard! And of course . . .
I saw tears, a shower of them fall down Mr. Powells face.
His voice broke.
The Ferndale went down like a stone and Captain Anthony
went down with her, the finest mans soul that ever left a sailors
body. I raved like a maniac, like a devil, with a lot of fools
crowding round me and asking, Arent you the captain?
I wasnt fit to tie the shoe-strings of the man you
have drowned, I screamed at them . . . Well! Well!
I could see for myself that it was no good lowering a boat. You
couldnt have seen her alongside. No use. And only
think, Marlow, it was I who had to go and tell Mrs. Anthony. They
had taken her down below somewhere, first-class saloon. I had
to go and tell her! That Flaherty, God forgive him, comes to me
as white as a sheet, I think you are the proper person.
God forgive him. I wished to die a hundred times. A lot
of kind ladies, passengers, were chattering excitedly around Mrs. Anthonya
real parrot house. The ships doctor went before me.
He whispers right and left and then there falls a sudden hush.
Yes, I wished myself dead. But Mrs. Anthony was a brick.
Here Mr. Powell fairly burst into tears. No one could
help loving Captain Anthony. I leave you to imagine what he was
to her. Yet before the week was out it was she who was helping
me to pull myself together.
Is Mrs. Anthony in England now? I asked after a while.
He wiped his eyes without any false shame. Oh yes.
He began to look for matches, and while diving for the box under the
table added: And not very far from here either. That little
village up thereyou know.
No! Really! Oh I see!
Mr. Powell smoked austerely, very detached. But I could not
let him off like this. The sly beggar. So this was the secret
of his passion for sailing about the river, the reason of his fondness
for that creek.
And I suppose, I said, that you are still as
enthusiastic as ever. Eh? If I were you I
would just mention my enthusiasm to Mrs. Anthony. Why not?
He caught his falling pipe neatly. But if what the French call
effarement was ever expressed on a human countenance it was on
this occasion, testifying to his modesty, his sensibility and his innocence.
He looked afraid of somebody overhearing my audaciousalmost sacrilegious
hintas if there had not been a mile and a half of lonely marshland
and dykes between us and the nearest human habitation. And then
perhaps he remembered the soothing fact for he allowed a gleam to light
up his eyes, like the reflection of some inward fire tended in the sanctuary
of his heart by a devotion as pure as that of any vestal.
It flashed and went out. He smiled a bashful smile, sighed:
Pah! Foolishness. You ought to know better,
he said, more sad than annoyed. But I forgot that you never
knew Captain Anthony, he added indulgently.
I reminded him that I knew Mrs. Anthony; even before hean
old friend nowhad ever set eyes on her. And as he told
me that Mrs. Anthony had heard of our meetings I wondered whether she
would care to see me. Mr. Powell volunteered no opinion then;
but next time we lay in the creek he said, She will be very pleased.
You had better go to-day.
The afternoon was well advanced before I approached the cottage.
The amenity of a fine day in its decline surrounded me with a beneficent,
a calming influence; I felt it in the silence of the shady lane, in
the pure air, in the blue sky. It is difficult to retain the memory
of the conflicts, miseries, temptations and crimes of mens self-seeking
existence when one is alone with the charming serenity of the unconscious
nature. Breathing the dreamless peace around the picturesque cottage
I was approaching, it seemed to me that it must reign everywhere, over
all the globe of water and land and in the hearts of all the dwellers
on this earth.
Flora came down to the garden gate to meet me, no longer the perversely
tempting, sorrowful, wisp of white mist drifting in the complicated
bad dream of existence. Neither did she look like a forsaken elf.
I stammered out stupidly, Again in the country, Miss . . . Mrs
. . . She was very good, returned the pressure of my hand,
but we were slightly embarrassed. Then we laughed a little.
Then we became grave.
I am no lover of day-breaks. You know how thin, equivocal,
is the light of the dawn. But she was now her true self, she was
like a fine tranquil afternoonand not so very far advanced either.
A woman not much over thirty, with a dazzling complexion and a little
colour, a lot of hair, a smooth brow, a fine chin, and only the eyes
of the Flora of the old days, absolutely unchanged.
In the room into which she led me we found a Miss SomebodyI
didnt catch the name,an unobtrusive, even an indistinct,
middle-aged person in black. A companion. All very proper.
She came and went and even sat down at times in the room, but a little
apart, with some sewing. By the time she had brought in a lighted
lamp I had heard all the details which really matter in this story.
Between me and her who was once Flora de Barral the conversation was
not likely to keep strictly to the weather.
The lamp had a rosy shade; and its glow wreathed her in perpetual
blushes, made her appear wonderfully young as she sat before me in a
deep, high-backed arm-chair. I asked:
Tell me what is it you said in that famous letter which so
upset Mrs. Fyne, and caused little Fyne to interfere in this offensive
manner?
It was simply crude, she said earnestly. I
was feeling reckless and I wrote recklessly. I knew she would
disapprove and I wrote foolishly. It was the echo of her own stupid
talk. I said that I did not love her brother but that I had no
scruples whatever in marrying him.
She paused, hesitating, then with a shy half-laugh:
I really believed I was selling myself, Mr. Marlow.
And I was proud of it. What I suffered afterwards I couldnt
tell you; because I only discovered my love for my poor Roderick through
agonies of rage and humiliation. I came to suspect him of despising
me; but I could not put it to the test because of my father. Oh!
I would not have been too proud. But I had to spare poor papas
feelings. Roderick was perfect, but I felt as though I were on
the rack and not allowed even to cry out. Papas prejudice
against Roderick was my greatest grief. It was distracting.
It frightened me. Oh! I have been miserable! That
night when my poor father died suddenly I am certain they had some sort
of discussion, about me. But I did not want to hold out any longer
against my own heart! I could not.
She stopped short, then impulsively:
Truth will out, Mr. Marlow.
Yes, I said.
She went on musingly.
Sorrow and happiness were mingled at first like darkness and
light. For months I lived in a dusk of feelings. But it
was quiet. It was warm . . .
Again she paused, then going back in her thoughts. No!
There was no harm in that letter. It was simply foolish.
What did I know of life then? Nothing. But Mrs. Fyne ought
to have known better. She wrote a letter to her brother, a little
later. Years afterwards Roderick allowed me to glance at it.
I found in it this sentence: For years I tried to make a friend
of that girl; but I warn you once more that she has the nature of a
heartless adventuress . . . Adventuress! repeated
Flora slowly. So be it. I have had a fine adventure.
It was fine, then, I said interested.
The finest in the world! Only think! I loved and
I was loved, untroubled, at peace, without remorse, without fear.
All the world, all life were transformed for me. And how much
I have seen! How good people were to me! Roderick was so
much liked everywhere. Yes, I have known kindness and safety.
The most familiar things appeared lighted up with a new light, clothed
with a loveliness I had never suspected. The sea itself! . . .
You are a sailor. You have lived your life on it. But do
you know how beautiful it is, how strong, how charming, how friendly,
how mighty . . .
I listened amazed and touched. She was silent only a little
while.
It was too good to last. But nothing can rob me of it
now . . . Dont think that I repine. I am not even
sad now. Yes, I have been happy. But I remember also the
time when I was unhappy beyond endurance, beyond desperation.
Yes. You remember that. And later on, too. There was
a time on board the Ferndale when the only moments of relief
I knew were when I made Mr. Powell talk to me a little on the poop.
You like him?Dont you?
Excellent fellow, I said warmly. You see
him often?
Of course. I hardly know another soul in the world.
I am alone. And he has plenty of time on his hands. His
aunt died a few years ago. Hes doing nothing, I believe.
He is fond of the sea, I remarked. He
loves it.
He seems to have given it up, she murmured.
I wonder why?
She remained silent. Perhaps it is because he loves
something else better, I went on. Come, Mrs. Anthony,
dont let me carry away from here the idea that you are a selfish
person, hugging the memory of your past happiness, like a rich man his
treasure, forgetting the poor at the gate.
I rose to go, for it was getting late. She got up in some agitation
and went out with me into the fragrant darkness of the garden.
She detained my hand for a moment and then in the very voice of the
Flora of old days, with the exact intonation, showing the old mistrust,
the old doubt of herself, the old scar of the blow received in childhood,
pathetic and funny, she murmured, Do you think it possible that
he should care for me?
Just ask him yourself. You are brave.
Oh, I am brave enough, she said with a sigh.
Then do. For if you dont you will be wronging
that patient man cruelly.
I departed leaving her dumb. Next day, seeing Powell making
preparations to go ashore, I asked him to give my regards to Mrs. Anthony.
He promised he would.
Listen, Powell, I said. We got to know
each other by chance?
Oh, quite! he admitted, adjusting his hat.
And the science of life consists in seizing every chance that
presents itself, I pursued. Do you believe that?
Gospel truth, he declared innocently.
Well, dont forget it.
Oh, I! I dont expect now anything to present
itself, he said, jumping ashore.
He didnt turn up at high water. I set my sail and just
as I had cast off from the bank, round the black barn, in the dusk,
two figures appeared and stood silent, indistinct.
Is that you, Powell? I hailed.
And Mrs. Anthony, his voice came impressively through
the silence of the great marsh. I am not sailing to-night.
I have to see Mrs. Anthony home.
Then I must even go alone, I cried.
Floras voice wished me bon voyage in
a most friendly but tremulous tone.
You shall hear from me before long, shouted Powell,
suddenly, just as my boat had cleared the mouth of the creek.
This was yesterday, added Marlow, lolling in the arm-chair
lazily. I havent heard yet; but I expect to hear
any moment . . . What on earth are you grinning at in this sarcastic
manner? I am not afraid of going to church with a friend.
Hang it all, for all my belief in Chance I am not exactly a pagan .
. .
THE END
355 W Olive Avenue, Suite 207, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 | 408-738-8384
| info@improveyourenglish.com
Copyright 2003-2010, Improve Your English. All rights reserved.
|