Chance: A Tale in Two Parts

Chance: A Tale in Two Parts Page 12

by Joseph Conrad

  PART TWO, CHAPTER 5.

  THE GREAT DE BARRAL.

  Renovated certainly the saloon of the _Ferndale_ was to receive the"strange woman." The mellowness of its old-fashioned, tarnisheddecoration was gone. And Anthony looking round saw the glitter, thegleams, the colour of new things, untried, unused, very bright--toobright. The workmen had gone only last night; and the last piece ofwork they did was the hanging of the heavy curtains which looped midwaythe length of the saloon--divided it in two if released, cutting off theafter-end with its companion-way leading direct on the poop, from theforepart with its outlet on the deck; making a privacy within a privacy,as though Captain Anthony could not place obstacles enough between hisnew happiness and the men who shared his life at sea. He inspected thatarrangement with an approving eye then made a particular visitation ofthe whole, ending by opening a door which led into a large state-roommade of two knocked into one. It was very well furnished and had,instead of the usual bed-place of such cabins, an elaborate swinging cotof 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, andstepped back into the saloon closing the door gently. Then anotherthought occurred to him obvious under the circumstances but strangelyenough presenting itself for the first time. "Jove! Won't he get ashock," thought Roderick Anthony.

  He went hastily on deck. "Mr Franklin, Mr Franklin."

  The mate was not very far. "Oh! Here you are. Miss ... MrsAnthony'll be coming on board presently. Just give me a call when yousee the cab."

  Then, without noticing the gloominess of the mate's countenance he wentin again. Not a friendly word, not a professional remark, or a smalljoke, not as much as a simple and inane "fine day." Nothing. Justturned about and went in.

  We know that, when the moment came, he thought better of it and decidedto meet Flora's father in that privacy of the main cabin which he hadbeen so careful to arrange. Why Anthony appeared to shrink from thecontact, he who was sufficiently self-confident not only to face but toabsolutely create a situation almost insane in its audacious generosity,is difficult to explain. Perhaps when he came on the poop for a glancehe found that man so different outwardly from what he expected that hedecided to meet him for the first time out of everybody's sight.Possibly the general secrecy of his relation to the girl might haveinfluenced him. Truly he may well have been dismayed. That man'scoming brought him face to face with the necessity to speak and act alie; to appear what he was not and what he could never be, unless,unless--

  In short, we'll say if you like that for various reasons, all having todo with the delicate rectitude of his nature, Roderick Anthony (a man ofwhom his chief mate used to say: he doesn't know what fear is) wasfrightened. There is a Nemesis which overtakes generosity too, like allthe other imprudences of men who dare to be lawless and proud...

  "Why do you say this?" I inquired, for Marlow had stopped abruptly andkept silent in the shadow of the bookcase.

  "I say this because that man whom chance had thrown in Flora's way wasboth: lawless and proud. Whether he knew anything about it or not itdoes not matter. Very likely not. One may fling a glove in the face ofnature and in the face of one's 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. It's a transgression allthe same and has got to be paid for in the usual way. But never mindthat. I paused because, like Anthony, I find a difficulty, a sort ofdread in coming to grips with old de Barral."

  You remember I had a glimpse of him once. He was not an imposingpersonality: tall, thin, straight, stiff, faded, moving with short stepsand with a gliding motion, speaking in an even low voice. When the seawas rough he wasn't much seen on deck--at least not walking. He caughthold of things then and dragged himself along as far as the afterskylight where he would sit for hours. Our, then young, friend offeredonce to assist him and this service was the first beginning of a sort offriendship. He clung hard to one--Powell says, with no figurativeintention. Powell was always on the lookout to assist, and to assistmainly Mrs Anthony, because he clung so jolly hard to her that Powellwas afraid of her being dragged down notwithstanding that she very soonbecame very sure-footed in all sorts of weather. And Powell was theonly one ready to assist at hand because Anthony (by that time) seemedto be afraid to come near them; the unforgiving Franklin always lookedwrathfully the other way; the boatswain, if up there, acted likewise butsheepishly; and any hands that happened to be on the poop (a feelingspreads mysteriously all over a ship) shunned him as though he had beenthe devil.

  We know how he arrived on board. For my part I know so little ofprisons that I haven't the faintest notion how one leaves them. Itseems as abominable an operation as the other, the shutting up with itsmental suggestions of bang, snap, crash and the empty silence outside--where an instant before you were--you _were_--and now no longer are.Perfectly devilish. And the release! I don't know which is worse. Howdo they do it? Pull the string, door flies open, man flies through: Outyou 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 don't know. That's how I see it. One has a notion of a maiming,crippling process; of the individual coming back damaged in some subtleway. I admit it is a fantastic hallucination, but I can't help it. Ofcourse I know that the proceedings of the best machine-made humanity areemployed with judicious care and so on. I am absurd, no doubt, butstill... Oh yes it's idiotic. When I pass one of these places ... didyou notice that there is something infernal about the aspect of everyindividual stone or brick of them, something malicious as if matter wereenjoying its revenge of the contemptuous spirit of man. Did you notice?You didn't? Eh? Well I am perhaps a little mad on that point. When Ipass one of these places I must avert my eyes. I couldn't have gone tomeet de Barral. I should have shrunk from the ordeal. You'll noticethat it looks as if Anthony (a brave man indubitably) had shirked ittoo. Little Fyne's flight of fancy picturing three people in the fatalfour-wheeler--you remember?--went wide of the truth. There were onlytwo people in the four-wheeler. Flora did not shrink. Women can standanything. The dear creatures have no imagination when it comes to solidfacts of life. In sentimental regions--I won't say. It's another thingaltogether. There they shrink from or rush to embrace ghosts of theirown creation just the same as any fool-man would.

  "No. I suppose the girl Flora went on that errand reasonably. Andthen, why! This was the moment for which she had lived. It was heronly point of contact with existence. Oh yes. She had been assisted bythe Fynes. And kindly. Certainly. Kindly. But that's not enough.There is a kind way of assisting our fellow-creatures which is enough tobreak their hearts while it saves their outer envelope. How cold, howinfernally cold she must have felt--unless when she was made to burnwith indignation or shame. Man, we know, cannot live by bread alone buthang me if I don't believe that some women could live by love alone. Ifthere be a flame in human beings fed by varied ingredients earthly andspiritual which tinge it in different hues, then I seem to see thecolour of theirs. It is azure ... What the devil are you laughingat..."

  Marlow jumped up and strode out of the shadow as if lifted byindignation but there was the flicker of a smile on his lips. "You sayI don't know women. Maybe. It's just as well not to come too close tothe shrine. But I have a clear notion of _woman_. In all of them,termagant, flirt, crank, washerwoman, blue-stocking, outcast and even inthe ordinary fool of the ordinary commerce there is something left, ifonly 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 don't mean to say that Flora de Barral was one of the sort that couldlive by love alone. In fact she had managed to live without. Butstill, in the distrust of herself and of others she looked for love, anykind of love, as women will. And that confounded jail was the only spotwhere she could see it--for she had no reason to
distrust her father."

  She was there in good time. I see her gazing across the road at thesewalls which are, properly speaking, awful. You do indeed seem to feelalong 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 implacableslowness. 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 hewas exactly as she remembered him. Perhaps a little smaller. Otherwiseunchanged. You come out in the same clothes, you know. I can't tellwhether he was looking for her. No doubt he was. Whether he recognisedher? Very likely. She crossed the road and at once there wasreproduced at a distance of years, as if by some mocking witchcraft, thesight so familiar on the Parade at Brighton of the financier de Barralwalking with his only daughter. One comes out of prison in the sameclothes one wore on the day of condemnation, no matter how long one hasbeen put away there. Oh, they last! They last! But there is somethingwhich is preserved by prison life even better than one's discardedclothing. It is the force, the vividness of one's sentiments. Amonastery will do that too; but in the unholy claustration of a jail youare thrown back wholly upon yourself--for God and Faith are not there.The people outside disperse their affections, you hoard yours, you nursethem into intensity. What they let slip, what they forget in themovement and changes of free life, you hold on to, amplify, exaggerateinto a rank growth of memories. They can look with a smile at thetroubles and pains of the past; but you can't. Old pains keep ongnawing at your heart, old desires, old deceptions, old dreams,assailing you in the dead stillness of your present where nothing movesexcept the irrecoverable minutes of your life.

  De Barral was out and, for a time speechless, being led away almostbefore he had taken possession of the free world, by his daughter.Flora controlled herself well. They walked along quickly for somedistance. The cab had been left round the corner--round several cornersfor all I know. He was flustered, out of breath, when she helped him inand followed herself. Inside that rolling box, turning towards thatrecovered presence with her heart too full for words she felt the desireof tears she had managed to keep down abandon her suddenly, herhalf-mournful, half-triumphant exultation subside, every fibre of herbody, relaxed in tenderness, go stiff in the close look she took at hisface. He _was_ different. There was something. Yes, there wassomething between them, something hard and impalpable, the ghost ofthese 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. Hereturned 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 releasedeach other and presently the cab was rolling along at a jog-trot to thedocks with those two people as far apart as they could get from eachother, in opposite corners.

  After a silence given up to mutual examination he uttered his firstcoherent sentence outside the walls of the prison.

  "What has done for me was envy. Envy. There was a lot of them justbursting 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 resentfulthat the child had turned into a young woman without waiting for him tocome 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 athrill. She recognised its pointless gentleness always the same nomatter what he had to say. And she remembered that he never had much tosay 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 droppeda gentle word now and then.

  Moved by these recollections waking up within her, she explained to himthat within the last year she had read and studied the report of thetrial.

  "I went through the files of several papers, papa."

  He looked at her suspiciously. The reports were probably veryincomplete. No doubt the reporters had garbled his evidence. They weredetermined to give him no chance either in court or before the publicopinion. 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 talkingabout that awful time? It is so far away now." She shuddered slightlyat the thought of all the horrible years which had passed over her younghead; never guessing that for him the time was but yesterday. He foldedhis 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? That's what they wereafter mainly. Somebody has got it. Parfitts and Co. grabbed it--eh?Or was it that fellow Warner..."

  "I--I don't know," she said quite scared by the twitching of his lips.

  "Don't know!" he exclaimed softly. Hadn't her cousin told her? Oh yes.She had left them--of course. Why did she? It was his first questionabout herself but she did not answer it. She did not want to talk ofthese horrors. They were impossible to describe. She perceived thoughthat he had not expected an answer, because she heard him muttering tohimself that: "There was half a million's worth of work done andmaterial accumulated there."

  "You mustn't think of these things, papa," she said firmly. And heasked her with that invariable gentleness, in which she seemed now todetect some rather ugly shades, what else had he to think about?Another year or two, if they had only left him alone, he and everybodyelse would have been all right, rolling in money; and she, his daughter,could have married anybody--anybody. A lord.

  All this was to him like yesterday, a long yesterday a yesterday goneover innumerable times, analysed meditated upon for years. It had avividness and force for that old man of which his daughter who had notbeen shut out of the world could have no idea. She was to him the onlyliving figure out of that past, and it was perhaps in perfect good faiththat he added, coldly, inexpressive and thin-lipped: "I lived only foryou, I may say. I suppose you understand that. There were only you andme."

  Moved by this declaration, wondering that it did not warm her heartmore, she murmured a few endearing words while the uppermost thought inher mind was that she must tell him now of the situation. She hadexpected to be questioned anxiously about herself--and while she desiredit she shrank from the answers she would have to make. But her fatherseemed strangely, unnaturally incurious. It looked as if there would beno questions. Still this was an opening. This seemed to be the timefor her to begin. And she began. She began by saying that she hadalways 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 cabwindow at the street. How little he was changed after all. It was theunmovable expression, the faded stare she used to see on the esplanadewhenever walking by his side hand in hand she raised her eyes to hisface--while she chattered, chattered. It was the same stiff, silentfigure which at a word from her would turn rigidly into a shop and buyher anything it occurred to her that she would like to have. Flora deBarral's voice faltered. He bent on her that well-remembered glance inwhich she had never read anything as a child, except the consciousnessof her existence. And that was enough for a child who had never knowndemonstrative affection. But she had lived a life so starved of allfeeling that this was no longer enough for her. What was the good oftelling him the story of all these miseries now past and gone, of allthose bewildering difficulties and humiliations? What she _must_ tellhim was difficult enough to say. She approached it by remarkingcheerfully:

  "You haven't even asked me where I am taking you."

  He started like a somnambulist awakened suddenly, and there was now somemeaning in his stare; a sort of alarmed speculation. He opened hismouth slowly. Fl
ora struck in with forced gaiety. "You would neverguess."

  He waited, still more startled and suspicious. "Guess! Why don't youtell me?"

  He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward towards her. She got hold ofone of his hands. "You _must know_ first..." She paused, made aneffort: "I am married, papa."

  For a moment they kept perfectly still in that cab rolling on at asteady jog-trot through a narrow city street full of bustle. Whatevershe expected she did not expect to feel his hand snatched away from hergrasp as if from a burn or a contamination. De Barral fresh from thestagnant torment of the prison (where nothing happens) had not expectedthat sort of news. It seemed to stick in his throat. In strangled lowtones he cried out, "You--married? You, Flora! When? Married! Whatfor? Who to? Married?"

  His eyes which were blue like hers, only faded, without depth, seemed tostart 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 andnearly invisible in the depths of the armchair, "the only time I saw himhe had given me the impression of absolute rigidity, as though he hadswallowed a poker. But it seems that he could collapse. I can hardlypicture this to myself. I understand that he did collapse to a certainextent in his corner of the cab. The unexpected had crumpled him up.She regarded him perplexed, pitying, a little disillusioned, and noddedat him gravely: Yes. Married. What she did not like was to see himsmile in a manner far from encouraging to the devotion of a daughter.There was something unintentionally savage in it. Old de Barral couldnot quite command his muscles, as yet. But he had recovered command ofhis gentle voice.

  "You were just saying that in this wide world there we were, only youand I, to stick to each other."

  She was dimly aware of the scathing intention lurking in these soft lowtones, in these words which appealed to her poignantly. She defendedherself. Never, never for a single moment had she ceased to think ofhim. Neither did he cease to think of her, he said, with as muchsinister emphasis as he was capable of.

  "But, papa," she cried, "I haven't been shut up like you." She didn'tmind speaking of it because he was innocent. He hadn't been understood.It was a misfortune of the most cruel kind but no more disgraceful thanan 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 horridworld, that very world which had used you so badly."

  "And you couldn't go about in it without finding somebody to fall inlove with?" he said. A jealous rage affected his brain like the fumesof wine, rising from some secret depths of his being so long deprived ofall emotions. The hollows at the corners of his lips became morepronounced in the puffy roundness of his cheeks. Images, visions,obsess with particular force, men withdrawn from the sights and soundsof active life. "And I did nothing but think of you!" he exclaimedunder his breath, contemptuously. "Think of you! You haunted me, Itell you."

  Flora said to herself that there was a being who loved her. "Then wehave 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 andirremediable desertion. "Some day I shall tell you... No. I don'tthink I can ever tell you. There was a time when I was mad. But what'sthe good? It's all over now. We shall forget all this. There shall benothing to remind us."

  De Barral moved his shoulders.

  "I should think you were mad to tie yourself to ... How long is itsince 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. Hewanted to know why she had said nothing of it in any of her letters; inher last letter. She said:

  "It was after."

  "So recently!" he wondered. "Couldn't you wait at least till I cameout? You could have told me; asked me; consulted me! Let me see--"

  She shook her head negatively. And he was appalled. He thought tohimself: Who can he be? Some miserable, silly youth without a penny.Or perhaps some scoundrel? Without making any expressive movement hewrung his loosely-clasped hands till the joints cracked. He looked ather. She was pretty. Some low scoundrel who will cast her off. Someplausible vagabond... "You couldn't wait--eh?"

  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 virtuousanger, but meeting the absolute candour of her raised glance threwhimself back into his corner again.

  "So tremendously in love with each other--was that it? Couldn't let afather have his daughter all to himself even for a day after--after sucha separation. And you know I never had anyone, I had no friends. Whatdid I want with those people one meets in the City. The best of themare ready to cut your throat. Yes! Business men, gentlemen, any sortof men and women--out of spite, or to get something. Oh yes, they cantalk fair enough if they think there's something to be got out ofyou..." His voice was a mere breath yet every word came to Flora asdistinctly as if charged with all the moving power of passion.--"Mygirl, I looked at them making up to me and I would say to myself: Whatdo I care for all that! I am a business man. I am the great Mr deBarral (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 andI have never had anybody."

  A true emotion had unsealed his lips but the words that came out of themwere no louder than the murmur of a light wind. It died away.

  "That's just it," said Flora de Barral under her breath. Withoutremoving his eyes from her he took off his hat. It was a tall hat. Thehat of the trial. The hat of the thumb-nail sketches in the illustratedpapers. One comes out in the same clothes, but seclusion counts! It iswell-known that lurid visions haunt secluded men, monks, hermits--thenwhy not prisoners? De Barral the convict took off the silk hat of thefinancier de Barral and deposited it on the front seat of the cab. Thenhe blew out his cheeks. He was red in the face.

  "And then what happens?" he began again in his contained voice. "Here Iam, overthrown, broken by envy, malice and all uncharitableness. I comeout--and what do I find? I find that my girl Flora has gone and marriedsome man or other, perhaps a fool, how do I know; or perhaps--anyway notgood enough."

  "Stop, papa."

  "A silly love affair as likely as not," he continued monotonously, histhin lips writhing between the ill-omened sunk corners. "And a verysuspicious thing it is too, on the part of a loving daughter."

  She tried to interrupt him but he went on till she actually clapped herhand on his mouth. He rolled his eyes a bit but when she took her handaway he remained silent.

  "Wait. I must tell you... And first of all, papa, understand this, foreverything's in that: he is the most generous man in the world. Heis..."

  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 foranybody. I could no longer bear to think of you. It was then that hecame. Only then. At that time when--when I was going to give up."

  She gazed into his faded blue eyes as if yearning to be understood, tobe given encouragement, peace--a word of sympathy. He declared withoutanimation:

  "I would like to break his neck."

  She had the mental exclamation of the overburdened. "Oh my God!" andwatched him with frightened eyes. But he did not appear insane or inany other way formidable. This comforted her. The silence lasted forsome little time. Then suddenly he asked:

  "What's your name then?"

  For a moment in the profound trouble of the task before her she did notunderstand 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 inthe corner of the cab.

  "Anthony. What is he? Where di
d he spring from?"

  "Papa, it was in the country, on a road--"

  He groaned, "On a road," and closed his eyes.

  "It's 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 live--nothing can ever come between us."

  "You are infatuated with the fellow," he remarked, without opening hiseyes. And she said: "I believe in him," in a low voice. "You and Imust believe in him."

  "Who the devil is he?"

  "He's the brother of the lady--you know Mrs Fyne, she knew mother--whowas so kind to me. I was staying in the country, in a cottage, with Mrand Mrs Fyne. It was there that we met. He came on a visit. Henoticed me. I--well--we are married now."

  She was thankful that his eyes were shut. It made it easier to talk ofthe future she had arranged, which now was an unalterable thing. Shedid not enter on the path of confidences. That was impossible. Shefelt he would not understand her. She felt also that he suffered. Nowand then a great anxiety gripped her heart with a mysterious sense ofguilt--as though she had betrayed him into the hands of an enemy. Withhis eyes shut he had an air of weary and pious meditation. She was alittle afraid of it. Next moment a great pity for him filled her heart.And in the background there was remorse. His face twitched now andthen just perceptibly. He managed to keep his eyelids down till heheard that the `husband' was a sailor and that he, the father, was beingtaken straight on board ship ready to sail away from this abominableworld of treacheries, and scorns and envies and lies, away, away overthe blue sea, the sure, the inaccessible, the uncontaminated andspacious refuge for wounded souls.

  Something like that. Not the very words perhaps but such was thegeneral sense of her overwhelming argument--the argument of refuge.

  I don't think she gave a thought to material conditions. But as part ofthat argument set forth breathlessly, as if she were afraid that if shestopped for a moment she could never go on again, she mentioned thatgenerosity of a stormy type, which had come to her from the sea, hadcaught her up on the brink of unmentionable failure, had whirled heraway in its first ardent gust and could be trusted now, implicitlytrusted, to carry them both, side by side, into absolute safety.

  She believed it, she affirmed it. He understood thoroughly at last, andat once the interior of that cab, of an aspect so pacific in the eyes ofthe people on the pavements, became the scene of a great agitation. Thegenerosity of Roderick Anthony--the son of the poet--affected theex-financier de Barral in a manner which must have brought home to Florade Barral the extreme arduousness of the business of being a woman.Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consistsprincipally of dealings with men. This man--the man inside the cab--cast off his stiff placidity and behaved like an animal. I don't meanit in an offensive sense. What he did was to give way to an instinctivepanic. Like some wild creature scared by the first touch of a netfalling on its back, old de Barral began to struggle, lank and angular,against the empty air--as much of it as there was in the cab--withstaring eyes and gasping mouth from which his daughter shrank as far asshe could in the confined space.

  "Stop the cab. Stop him I tell you. Let me get out!" were thestrangled exclamations she heard. Why? What for? To do what? Hewould hear nothing. She cried to him "Papa! Papa! What do you want todo?" And all she got from him was: "Stop. I must get out. I want tothink. I must get out to think."

  It was a mercy that he didn't attempt to open the door at once. He onlystuck his head and shoulders out of the window crying to the cabman.She saw the consequences, the cab stopping, a crowd collecting around araving old gentleman.--In this terrible business of being a woman sofull 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 pulledback--being astonished at the ease with which she managed to make himdrop into his seat again. She kept him there resolutely with one handpressed against his breast, and leaning across him, she, in her turn puther head and shoulders out of the window. By then the cab had drawn upto the curbstone and was stopped. "No! I've changed my mind. Go onplease where you were told first. To the docks."

  She wondered at the steadiness of her own voice. She heard a grunt fromthe driver and the cab began to roll again. Only then she sank into herplace keeping a watchful eye on her companion. He was hardly anythingmore by this time. Except for her childhood's impressions he was just--a man. Almost a stranger. How was one to deal with him? And there wasthe other too. Also almost a stranger. The trade of being a woman wasvery difficult. Too difficult. Flora closed her eyes saying toherself: "If I think too much about it I shall go mad." And thenopening them she asked her father if the prospect of living always withhis daughter and being taken care of by her affection away from theworld, which had no honour to give to his grey hairs, was such an awfulprospect.

  "Tell me, is it so bad as that?"

  She put that question sadly, without bitterness. The famous--ornotorious--de Barral had lost his rigidity now. He was bent. Nothingmore deplorably futile than a bent poker. He said nothing. She addedgently, suppressing an uneasy remorseful sigh:

  "And it might have been worse. You might have found no one, no one inall this town, no one in all the world, not even me! Poor papa!"

  She made a conscience-stricken movement towards him thinking: "Oh! I amhorrible, I am horrible." And old de Barral, scared, tired, bewilderedby the extraordinary shocks of his liberation, swayed over and actuallyleaned his head on her shoulder, as if sorrowing over his regainedfreedom.

  The movement by itself was touching. Flora supporting him lightlyimagined that he was crying; and at the thought that had she smashed ina quarry that shoulder, together with some other of her bones, this greyand pitiful head would have had nowhere to rest, she too gave way totears. They flowed quietly, easing her overstrained nerves. Suddenlyhe 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 coldon her cheek. But their work was done. She had found courage,resolution, as women do, in a good cry. With his hand covering theupper part of his face whether to conceal his eyes or to shut out anunbearable sight, he was stiffening up in his corner to his usualpoker-like consistency. She regarded him in silence. His thinobstinate lips moved. He uttered the name of the cousin--the man, youremember, who did not approve of the Fynes, and whom rightly or wronglylittle Fyne suspected of interested motives, in view of de Barral havingpossibly put away some plunder, somewhere before the smash.

  I may just as well tell you at once that I don't know anything more ofhim. But de Barral was of the opinion, speaking in his low voice fromunder his hand, that this relation would have been only too glad to havesecured his guidance.

  "Of course I could not come forward in my own name, or person. But theadvice of a man of my experience is as good as a fortune to anybodywishing to venture into finance. The same sort of thing can be doneagain."

  He shuffled his feet a little, let fall his hand; and turning carefullytoward his daughter his puffy round cheeks, his round chin resting onhis 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. There's nodifficulty. And here you go and..."

  He turned his face away. "After all I am still de Barral, _the_ deBarral. Didn't you remember that?"

  "Papa," said Flora; "listen. It's you who must remember that there isno longer a de Barral..." He looked at her sideways anxiously. "Thereis Mr Smith, whom no harm, no trouble, no wicked lies of evil peoplecan ever touch."

  "Mr Smith," he breathed out slowly. "Where does he belong to? There'snot even a Miss Smith."

  "There is your Flora."

  "My Flora!
You went and--I can't bear to think of it. It's horrible."

  "Yes. It was horrible enough at times," she said with feeling, becausesomehow, obscurely, what this man said appealed to her as if it were herown thought clothed in an enigmatic emotion. "I think with shamesometimes 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 hatto her father. "Here, papa. And please be good. I suppose you loveme. If you don't, then I wonder who--"

  He put the hat on, and stiffened hard in his corner, kept a sidelongglance on his girl. "Try to be nice for my sake. Think of the years Ihave been waiting for you. I do indeed want support--and peace. Alittle peace."

  She clasped his arm suddenly with both hands pressing with all her mightas if to crush the resistance she felt in him. "I could not have peaceif I did not have you with me. I won't let you go. Not after all Iwent through. I won't." The nervous force of her grip frightened him alittle. She laughed suddenly. "It's absurd. It's as if I were askingyou for a sacrifice. What am I afraid of? Where could you go? I meannow, to-day, to-night? You can't tell me. Have you thought of it?Well I have been thinking of it for the last year. Longer. I nearlywent mad trying to find out. I believe I was mad for a time or else Ishould never have thought..."

  "This was as near as she came to a confession," remarked Marlow in achanged tone. "The confession I mean of that walk to the top of thequarry which she reproached herself with so bitterly. And he made of itwhat his fancy suggested. It could not possibly be a just notion. Thecab stopped alongside the ship and they got out in the manner describedby the sensitive Franklin. I don't know if they suspected each other'ssanity at the end of that drive. But that is possible. We all seem alittle mad to each other; an excellent arrangement for the bulk ofhumanity which finds in it an easy motive of forgiveness. Flora crossedthe quarter-deck with a rapidity born of apprehension. It had grownunbearable. She wanted this business over. She was thankful on lookingback 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 lovesme, that words and actions and protestations and everything in the worldis false--and I shall jump into the dock. _That_ at least won't lie.'"

  Well I don't know. If it had come to that she would have been mostlikely fished out, what with her natural want of luck and the good manypeople on the quay and on board. And just where the _Ferndale_ wasmoored 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 thedock. It's not so easy to get away from life's betrayals as shethought. However it did not come to that. He followed her with hisquick gliding walk. Mr Smith! The liberated convict de Barral passedoff the solid earth for the last time, vanished for ever, and there wasMr Smith added to that world of waters which harbours so many queerfishes. An old gentleman in a silk hat, darting wary glances. Hefollowed, because mere existence has its claims which are obeyedmechanically. I have no doubt he presented a respectable figure.Father-in-law. Nothing more respectable. But he carried in his heartthe confused pain of dismay and affection, of involuntary repulsion andpity. Very much like his daughter. Only in addition he felt a furiousjealousy of the man he was going to see.

  A residue of egoism remains in every affection--even paternal. And thisman in the seclusion of his prison had thought himself into such a senseof ownership of that single human being he had to think about, as maywell be inconceivable to us who have not had to serve a long (andwickedly unjust) sentence of penal servitude. She was positively theonly thing, the one point where his thoughts found a resting-place, foryears. She was the only outlet for his imagination. He had not much ofthat 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 Iventure to suggest rather in degree than in kind. I have a notion thatno 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, quitedeep down, down in the dark (in some cases only by digging), there is tobe found a certain repugnance... With mothers of course it isdifferent. Women are more loyal, not to each other, but to their commonfemininity which they behold triumphant with a secret and proudsatisfaction.

  The circumstances of that match added to Mr Smith's indignation. Andif he followed his daughter into that ship's cabin it was as if into ahouse of disgrace and only because he was still bewildered by thesuddenness of the thing. His will, so long lying fallow, was overborneby her determination and by a vague fear of that regained liberty.

  You will be glad to hear that Anthony, though he did shirk the welcomeon the quay, behaved admirably, with the simplicity of a man who has nosmall meannesses and makes no mean reservations. His eyes did notflinch and his tongue did not falter. He was, I have it on the bestauthority, admirable in his earnestness, in his sincerity and also inhis restraint. He was perfect. Nevertheless the vital force of hisunknown individuality addressing him so familiarly was enough to flusterMr Smith. Flora saw her father trembling in all his exiguous length,though he held himself stiffer than ever if that was possible. Hemuttered a little and at last managed to utter, not loud of course butvery distinctly: "I am here under protest," the corners of his mouthsunk disparagingly, his eyes stony. "I am here under protest. I havebeen locked up by a conspiracy. I--"

  He raised his hands to his forehead--his silk hat was on the table rimupwards; he had put it there with a despairing gesture as he came in--heraised his hands to his forehead. "It seems to me unfair. I--" Hebroke off again. Anthony looked at Flora who stood by the side of herfather.

  "Well, sir, you will soon get used to me. Surely you and she must havehad enough of shore people and their confounded half-and-half ways tolast you both for a lifetime. A particularly merciful lot they are too.You ask Flora. I am alluding to my own sister, her best friend, andnot a bad woman either as they go."

  The captain of the _Ferndale_ checked himself. "Lucky thing I was thereto step in. I want you to make yourself at home, and before long--"

  The faded stare of the Great de Barral silenced Anthony by itsinexpressive fixity. He signalled with his eyes to Flora towards thedoor of the state-room fitted specially to receive Mr Smith, the freeman. She seized the free man's hat off the table and took himcaressingly 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 itcarefully behind herself and her father.

  "See," she began but desisted because it was clear that he would look atnone of the contrivances for his comfort.

  She herself had hardly seen them before. He was looking only at the newcarpet and she waited till he should raise his eyes.

  He didn't do that but spoke in his usual voice. "So this is yourhusband, that ... And I locked up!"

  "Papa, what's 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. Isthat it? How did you know that I wanted anybody to be kind to me?"

  "How strange you are!" she said thoughtfully.

  "It's hard for a man who has gone through what I have gone through tofeel like other people. Has that occurred to you?..." He looked up atlast... "Mrs Anthony, I can't bear the sight of the fellow." She methis eyes without flinching and he added, "You want to go to him now."His mild automatic manner seemed the effect of tremendousself-restraint--and yet she remembered him always like that. She feltcold 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 onthe table. She went up to him, stopped, then deliberately moved stillcloser. "Thank you, Roderick."

  "You needn't thank me," he murmu
red. "It's I who..."

  "No, perhaps I needn't. You do what you like. But you are doing itwell."

  He sighed then hardly above a whisper because they were near thestate-room door, "Upset, eh?"

  She made no sign, no sound of any kind. The thorough falseness of theposition weighed on them both. But he was the braver of the two. "Idare say. At first. Did you think of telling him you were happy?"

  "He never asked me," she smiled faintly at him. She was disappointed byhis quietness. "I did not say more than I was absolutely obliged tosay--of myself." She was beginning to be irritated with this man alittle. "I told him I had been very lucky," she said suddenlydespondent, missing Anthony's masterful manner, that something arbitraryand tender which, after the first scare, she had accustomed herself tolook forward to with pleasurable apprehension. He was contemplating herrather 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 anot very satisfactory business call. "Perhaps it would be just as wellif we went ashore. Time yet."

  He gave her a glimpse of his unconstrained self in the low vehement "Youdare!" which sprang to his lips and out of them with a most menacinginflexion.

  "You dare ... What's the matter now?"

  These last words were shot out not at her but at some target behind herback. Looking over her shoulder she saw the bald head with blackbunches of hair of the congested and devoted Franklin (he had his cap inhis hand) gazing sentimentally from the saloon doorway with his lobstereyes. He was heard from the distance in a tone of injured innocencereporting that the berthing master was alongside and that he wanted tomove the ship into the basin before the crew came on board.

  His captain growled "Well, let him," and waved away the ulcerated andpathetic soul behind these prominent eyes which lingered on theoffensive woman while the mate backed out slowly. Anthony turned toFlora.

  "You could not have meant it. You are as straight as they make them."

  "I am trying to be."

  "Then don't joke in that way. Think of what would become of--me."

  "Oh yes. I forgot. No, I didn't mean it. It wasn't a joke. It wasforgetfulness. You wouldn't have been wronged. I couldn't have gone.I--I am too tired."

  He saw she was swaying where she stood and restrained himself violentlyfrom taking her into his arms, his frame trembling with fear as thoughhe had been tempted to an act of unparalleled treachery. He steppedaside and lowering his eyes pointed to the door of the stern-cabin. Itwas only after she passed by him that he looked up and thus he did notsee the angry glance she gave him before she moved on. He looked afterher. She tottered slightly just before reaching the door and flung itto behind her nervously.

  Anthony--he had felt this crash as if the door had been slammed insidehis very breast--stood for a moment without moving and then shouted forMrs Brown. This was the steward's wife, his lucky inspiration to makeFlora comfortable. "Mrs Brown! Mrs Brown!" At last she appearedfrom somewhere. "Mrs Anthony has come on board. Just gone into thecabin. Hadn't you better see if you can be of any assistance?"

  "Yes, sir."

  And again he was alone with the situation he had created in thehardihood and inexperience of his heart. He thought he had better go ondeck. In fact he ought to have been there before. At any rate it wouldbe the usual thing for him to be on deck. But a sound of muttering andof faint thuds somewhere near by arrested his attention. They proceededfrom Mr Smith's room, he perceived. It was very extraordinary. "He'stalking to himself," he thought. "He seems to be thumping the bulkheadwith his fists--or his head."

  Anthony's eyes grew big with wonder while he listened to these noises.He became so attentive that he did not notice Mrs Brown till sheactually stopped before him for a moment to say:

  "Mrs Anthony doesn't want any assistance, sir."

  This was you understand the voyage before Mr Powell--young Powellthen--joined the _Ferndale_; chance having arranged that he should gethis start in life in that particular ship of all the ships then in theport of London. The most unrestful ship that ever sailed out of anyport on earth. I am not alluding to her sea-going qualities. MrPowell tells me she was as steady as a church. I mean unrestful in thesense, for instance in which this planet of ours is unrestful--a matterof an uneasy atmosphere disturbed by passions, jealousies, loves, hatesand the troubles of transcendental good intentions, which, thoughethically valuable, I have no doubt cause often more unhappiness thanthe plots of the most evil tendency. For those who refuse to believe inchance he, I mean Mr Powell, must have been obviously predestined toadd his native ingenuousness to the sum of all the others carried by thehonest ship _Ferndale_. He was too ingenuous. Everybody on board was,exception being made of Mr Smith who, however, was simple enough in hisway, with that terrible simplicity of the fixed idea, for which there isalso another name men pronounce with dread and aversion. His fixed ideawas to save his girl from the man who had possessed himself of her (Iuse these words on purpose because the image they suggest was clearly inMr Smith's mind), possessed himself unfairly of her while he, thefather, was locked up.

  "I won't rest till I have got you away from that man," he would murmurto her after long periods of contemplation. We know from Powell how heused to sit on the skylight near the long deck-chair on which Flora wasreclining, gazing into her face from above with an air of guardianshipand investigation at the same time.

  It is almost impossible to say if he ever had considered the eventrationally. The avatar of de Barral into Mr Smith had not beeneffected without a shock--that much one must recognise. It may be thatit drove all practical considerations out of his mind, making room forawful and precise visions which nothing could dislodge afterwards. Andit might have been the tenacity, the unintelligent tenacity, of the manwho had persisted in throwing millions of other people's thrift into theLone Valley Railway, the Labrador Docks, the Spotted Leopard CopperMine, and other grotesque speculations exposed during the famous deBarral trial, amongst murmurs of astonishment mingled with bursts oflaughter. For it is in the Courts of Law that Comedy finds its lastrefuge in our deadly serious world. As to tears and lamentations, thesewere not heard in the august precincts of comedy, because they wereindulged in privately in several thousand homes, where, with a finedramatic effect, hunger had taken the place of Thrift.

  But there was one at least who did not laugh in court. That person wasthe accused. The notorious de Barral did not laugh because he wasindignant. He was impervious to words, to facts, to inferences. Itwould have been impossible to make him see his guilt or his folly--either by evidence or argument--if anybody had tried to argue.

  Neither did his daughter Flora try to argue with him. The cruelty ofher position was so great, its complications so thorny, if I may expressmyself so, that a passive attitude was yet her best refuge--as it hadbeen before her of so many women.

  For that sort of inertia in woman is always enigmatic and thereforemenacing. It makes one pause. A woman may be a fool, a sleepy fool, anagitated fool, a too awfully noxious fool, and she may even be simplystupid. But she is never dense. She's never made of wood through andthrough as some men are. There is in woman always, somewhere, a spring.Whatever men don't know about women (and it may be a lot or it may bevery little) men and even fathers do know that much. And that is why somany men are afraid of them.

  Mr Smith I believe was afraid of his daughter's quietness though ofcourse he interpreted it in his own way.

  He would, as Mr Powell depicts, sit on the skylight and bend over thereclining girl, wondering what there was behind the lost gaze under thedarkened eyelids in the still eyes. He would look and look and then hewould say, whisper rather, it didn't take much for his voice to drop toa mere breath--he would declare, transferring his faded stare to thehorizon, that he would never rest till he had "got her away from thatman."

  "You don't know what you are saying, papa."

  She would try not to show her weariness, t
he nervous strain of these twomen's antagonism around her person which was the cause of her languidattitudes. 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 couldn't sit still anywhere.He had tried shutting himself up in his cabin; but that was no good. Hewould jump up to rush on deck and tramp, tramp up and down that pooptill he felt ready to drop, without being able to wear down theagitation of his soul, generous indeed, but weighted by its envelope ofblood and muscle and bone; handicapped by the brain creating preciseimages and everlastingly speculating, speculating--looking out forsigns, watching for symptoms.

  And Mr Smith with a slight backward jerk of his small head at thefootsteps on the other side of the skylight would insist in his awful,hopelessly gentle voice that he knew very well what he was saying.Hadn't 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 hergone--for it amounts to this. Sold. Because you've sold yourself; youknow you have."

  With his round unmoved face, a lot of fine white hair waving in thewind-eddies of the spanker, his glance levelled over the sea he seemedto be addressing the universe across her reclining form. She wouldprotest 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 nottalking about it that tormented him. It was thinking of it. And to sitand look at it was worse for him than it possibly could have been forher to go and give herself up, bad as that must have been.

  "For of course you suffered. Don't tell me you didn't? 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 withher father, the only human being that really cared for her, absolutely,evidently, completely--to the end. There was in him no pity, nogenerosity, nothing whatever of these fine things--it was for _her_, forher very own self such as it was, that this human being cared. Thiscertitude would have made her put up with worse torments. For, ofcourse, she too was being tormented. She felt also helpless, as if thewhole enterprise had been too much for her. This is the sort ofconviction 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. Theywished good morning to each other, they sat down together to meals--andI 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 herfather, at least what looked like duplicity, when she remembered hispersistent, insistent whispers on deck. However her father was ataciturn person as far back as she could remember him best--on theParade. It was she who chattered, never troubling herself to discoverwhether he was pleased or displeased. And now she couldn't fathom histhoughts. Neither did she chatter to him. Anthony with a forcedfriendly smile as if frozen to his lips seemed only too thankful at notbeing made to speak. Mr Smith sometimes forgot himself while studyinghis hand so long that Flora had to recall him to himself by a murmured"Papa--your lead." Then he apologised by a faint as if inwardejaculation "Beg your pardon, Captain." Naturally she addressed Anthonyas Roderick and he addressed her as Flora. This was all the acting thatwas necessary to judge from the wincing twitch of the old man's mouth atevery uttered "Flora." On hearing the rare "Rodericks" he had sometimesa scornful grimace as faint and faded and colourless as his whole stiffpersonality.

  He would be the first to retire. He was not infirm. With him too thelife on board ship seemed to agree; but from a sense of duty, ofaffection, or to placate his hidden fury, his daughter alwaysaccompanied him to his state-room "to make him comfortable." Shelighted his lamp, helped him into his dressing-gown or got him a bookfrom a bookcase fitted in there--but this last rarely, because Mr Smithused to declare "I am no reader" with something like pride in his lowtones. Very often after kissing her good-night on the forehead he wouldtreat her to some such fretful remark: "It's like being in jail--'pon myword. 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. Onewould think you hate me."

  "It isn't you I hate," he went on monotonously breathing at her. "No,it isn't you. But if I saw that you loved that man I think I could hateyou too."

  That word struck straight at her heart. "You wouldn't be the firstthen," she muttered bitterly. But he was busy with his fixed idea anduttered an awfully equable "But you don't! 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 thetable with the scattered cards, glasses, water-jug, bottles and so on.He took no more opportunities to be alone with her than was absolutelynecessary for the edification of Mrs Brown. Excellent, faithful woman;the wife of his still more excellent and faithful steward. And Florawished all these excellent people, devoted to Anthony, she wished themall further; and especially the nice, pleasant-spoken Mrs Brown withher beady, mobile eyes and her "Yes certainly, ma'am," which seemed toher to have a mocking sound. And so this short trip--to the WesternIslands only--came to an end. It was so short that when young Powelljoined the _Ferndale_ by a memorable stroke of chance, no more thanseven months had elapsed since the--let us say the liberation of theconvict de Barral and his avatar into Mr Smith.

  For the time the ship was loading in London Anthony took a cottage neara little country station in Essex, to house Mr Smith and Mr Smith'sdaughter. It was altogether his idea. How far it was necessary for MrSmith to seek rural retreat I don't know. Perhaps to some extent it wasa judicious arrangement. There were some obligations incumbent on theliberated de Barral (in connection with reporting himself to the policeI imagine) which Mr Smith was not anxious to perform. De Barral had tovanish; the theory was that de Barral had vanished, and it had to beupheld. Poor Flora liked the country, even if the spot had nothing moreto recommend it than its retired character.

  Now and then Captain Anthony ran down; but as the station was a realwayside one, with no early morning trains up, he could never stay formore than the afternoon. It appeared that he must sleep in town so asto be early on board his ship. The weather was magnificent and wheneverthe captain of the _Ferndale_ was seen on a brilliant afternoon comingdown the road Mr Smith would seize his stick and toddle off for asolitary walk. But whether he would get tired or because it gave himsome satisfaction to see "that man" go away--or for some cunning reasonof his own, he was always back before the hour of Anthony's departure.On approaching the cottage he would see generally "that man" lying onthe grass in the orchard at some distance from his daughter seated in achair brought out of the cottage's living-room. Invariably Mr Smithmade straight for them and as invariably had the feeling that hisapproach was not disturbing a very intimate conversation. He sat withthem, through a silent hour or so, and then it would be time for Anthonyto go. Mr Smith, perhaps from discretion, would casually vanish aminute or so before, and then watch through the diamond panes of anupstairs room "that man" take a lingering look outside the gate at theinvisible 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, butfrequently. It was nothing extraordinary to hear Mr Smith begin gentlywith some observation like this:

  "That man is getting tired of you."

  He would never pronounce Anthony's name. It was always "that man."

  Generally she would remain mute with wide open eyes gazing at nothingbetween the gnarled fruit trees. Once, however, she got up and walkedinto the
cottage. Mr Smith followed her carrying the chair. He bangedit down resolutely and in that smooth inexpressive tone so many earsused to bend eagerly to catch when it came from the Great de Barral hesaid:

  "Let's get away."

  She had the strength of mind not to spin round. On the contrary shewent on to a shabby bit of a mirror on the wall. In the greenish glassher own face looked far off like the livid face of a drowned corpse atthe bottom of a pool. She laughed faintly.

  "I tell you that man's getting--"

  "Papa," she interrupted him. "I have no illusions as to myself. It hashappened to me before but--"

  Her voice failing her suddenly her father struck in with quite anunwonted animation. "Let's make a rush for it, then."

  Having mastered both her fright and her bitterness, she turned round,sat down and allowed her astonishment to be seen. Mr Smith sat downtoo, his knees together and bent at right angles, his thin legs parallelto each other and his hands resting on the arms of the wooden armchair.His hair had grown long, his head was set stiffly, there was somethingfatuously venerable in his aspect.

  "You can't care for him. Don't tell me. I understand your motive. AndI have called you an unfortunate girl. You are that as much as if youhad gone on the streets. Yes. Don't interrupt me, Flora. I waseverlastingly being interrupted at the trial and I can't stand it anymore. I won't be interrupted by my own child. And when I think that itis 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 gottired of evading the question. He had been very much struck anddistressed. Was that the trust she had in him? Was that a proof ofconfidence and love? The very day before! Never given him even half achance. It was as at the trial. They never gave him a chance. Theywould not give him time. And there was his own daughter acting exactlyas his bitterest enemies had done. Not giving him time!

  The monotony of that subdued voice nearly lulled her dismay to sleep.She listened to the unavoidable things he was saying.

  "But what induced that man to marry you? Of course he's a gentleman.One can see that. And that makes it worse. Gentlemen don't understandanything about city affairs--finance. Why!--the people who started thecry after me were a firm of gentlemen. The counsel, the judge--allgentlemen--quite out of it! No notion of ... And then he's a sailortoo. Just a skipper--"

  "My grandfather was nothing else," she interrupted. And he made anangular gesture of impatience.

  "Yes. But what does a silly sailor know of business? Nothing. Noconception. He can have no idea of what it means to be the daughter ofMr de Barral--even after his enemies had smashed him. What on earthinduced him--"

  She made a movement because the level voice was getting on her nerves.And he paused, but only to go on again in the same tone with the remark:

  "Of course you are pretty. And that's why you are lost--like many otherpoor 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 withhis beastly ship. And anyway you can never be happy with him. Look athis face. I want to save you. You see I was not perhaps a very goodhusband to your poor mother. She would have done better to have left melong before she died. I have been thinking it all over. I won't haveyou unhappy."

  He ran his eyes over her with an attention which was surprisinglynoticeable. Then said, "H'm! Yes. Let's clear out before it is toolate. Quietly, you and I."

  She said as if inspired and with that calmness which despair oftengives: "There is no money to go away with, papa."

  He rose up straightening himself as though he were a hinged figure. Shesaid decisively:

  "And of course you wouldn't think of deserting me, papa?"

  "Of course not," sounded his subdued tone. And he left her, glidingaway with his walk which Mr Powell described to me as being as leveland wary as his voice. He walked as if he were carrying a glass full ofwater 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 beleft behind to manage her father alone. And moreover she was toohonest. She would be honest at whatever cost. She would not be thefirst to speak. Never. And the thought came into her head: "I amindeed an unfortunate creature!"

  It was by the merest coincidence that Anthony coming for the afternoontwo days later had a talk with Mr Smith in the orchard. Flora for somereason or other had left them for a moment; and Anthony took thatopportunity 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 tothat I can't say anything. All I want you to know is that I have triedto do the right thing." And then he explained that he had willedeverything he was possessed of to her. "She didn't tell you, Isuppose?"

  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 atleast two years: "I think, sir, that from every point of view it wouldbe best," when Flora came back and the conversation, cut short in thatdirection, languished and died. Later in the evening, after Anthony hadbeen gone for hours, on the point of separating for the night, Mr Smithremarked suddenly to his daughter after a long period of brooding:

  "A will is nothing. One tears it up. One makes another." Then afterreflecting for a minute he added unemotionally:

  "One tells lies about it."

  Flora, patient, steeled against every hurt and every disgust to thepoint of wondering at herself, said: "You push your dislike of--of--Roderick too far, papa. You have no regard for me. You hurt me."

  He, as ever inexpressive to the point of terrifying her sometimes by thecontrast of his placidity and his words, turned away from her a pair offaded eyes.

  "I wonder how far _your_ dislike goes," he began. "His very name sticksin your throat. I've noticed it. It hurts me. What do you think ofthat? You might remember that you are not the only person that's hurtby your folly, by your hastiness, by your recklessness." He broughtback his eyes to her face. "And the very day before they were going tolet me out." His feeble voice failed him altogether, the narrowcompressed lips only trembling for a time before he added with thatextraordinary equanimity of tone, "I call it sinful."

  Flora made no answer. She judged it simpler, kinder and certainly saferto 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 ofthing 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 thetime to join the ship arrived. It was a moment of anguish, ofexcitement; they arrived at the dock in the evening and Flora after"making her father comfortable" according to established usage lingeredin the state-room long enough to notice that he was surprised. Shecaught his pale eyes observing her quite stonily. Then she went outafter a cheery good-night.

  Contrary to her hopes she found Anthony yet in the saloon. Sitting inhis armchair at the head of the table he was picking up some businesspapers which he put hastily in his breast-pocket and got up. He askedher if her day, travelling up to town and then doing some shopping, hadtired her. She shook her head. Then he wanted to know in ahalf-jocular way how she felt about going away, and for a long voyagethis time.

  "Does it matter how I feel?" she asked in a tone that cast a gloom overhis face. He answered with repressed violence which she did not expect:

  "No, it does not matter, because I cannot go without you. I've toldyou... You know it. You don't think I could."

  "I assure you I haven't the slightest wish to evade my obligations," shesaid steadily. "Even if I could. Even if I dared, even if I had to diefor it!"

  He looked thunderstruck. They stood faci
ng each other at the end of thesaloon. Anthony stuttered. "Oh no. You won't die. You don't mean it.You have taken kindly to the sea."

  She laughed, but she felt angry.

  "No, I don't mean it. I tell you I don't mean to evade my obligations.I shall live on ... feeling a little crushed, nevertheless."

  "Crushed!" he repeated. "What's crushing you?"

  "Your magnanimity," she said sharply. But her voice was softened aftera time. "Yet I don't know. There is a perfection in it--do youunderstand me, Roderick?--which makes it almost possible to bear."

  He sighed, looked away, and remarked that it was time to put out thelamp in the saloon. The permission was only till ten o'clock.

  "But you needn't mind that so much in your cabin. Just see that thecurtains of the ports are drawn close and that's all. The steward mighthave forgotten to do it. He lighted your reading lamp in there beforehe went ashore for a last evening with his wife. I don't know if it waswise 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 congratulatedherself on the absence of Mrs Brown. No sooner had she closed the doorof her state-room than she murmured fervently, "Yes! Thank goodness,she is gone." There would be no gentle knock, followed by herappearance with her equivocal stare and the intolerable: "Can I doanything for you, ma'am?" which poor Flora had learned to fear and hatemore than any voice or any words on board that ship--her only refugefrom the world which had no use for her, for her imperfections and forher troubles.

  Mrs Brown had been very much vexed at her dismissal. The Browns were achildless couple and the arrangement had suited them perfectly. Theirresentment was very bitter. Mrs Brown had to remain ashore alone withher rage, but the steward was nursing his on board. Poor Flora had nogreater enemy, the aggrieved mate had no greater sympathiser. And MrsBrown, with a woman's quick power of observation and inference (theputting of two and two together) had come to a certain conclusion whichshe had imparted to her husband before leaving the ship. The morosesteward permitted himself once to make an allusion to it in Powell'shearing. It was in the officers' mess-room at the end of a meal whilehe lingered after putting a fruit pie on the table. He and the chiefmate started a dialogue about the alarming change in the captain, thesallow steward looking down with a sinister frown, Franklin rollingupwards his eyes, sentimental in a red face. Young Powell had heard alot of that sort of thing by that time. It was growing monotonous; ithad always sounded to him a little absurd. He struck in impatientlywith the remark that such lamentations over a man merely because he hadtaken a wife seemed to him like lunacy.

  Franklin muttered, "Depends on what the wife is up to." The stewardleaning against the bulkhead near the door glowered at Powell, thatnewcomer, that ignoramus, that stranger without right or privileges. Hesnarled:

  "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 fornothing. You had better ask her when we get back."

  And meeting sullenly the withering stare of Mr Powell the stewardretreated backwards.

  Our young friend turned at once upon the mate. "And you let thatconfounded bottle-washer talk like this before you, Mr Franklin. Well,I am astonished."

  "Oh, it isn't what you think. It isn't what you think." Mr Franklinlooked more apoplectic than ever. "If it comes to that I _could_astonish you. But it's no use. I myself can hardly ... You couldn'tunderstand. I hope you won't try to make mischief. There was a time,young fellow, when I would have dared any man--any man, you hear?--tomake mischief between me and Captain Anthony. But not now. Not now.There's a change! Not in me though..."

  Young Powell rejected with indignation any suggestion of makingmischief. "Who do you take me for?" he cried. "Only you had bettertell that steward to be careful what he says before me or I'll spoil hisgood looks for him for a month and will leave him to explain the why ofit to the captain the best way he can."

  This speech established Powell as a champion of Mrs Anthony. Nothingmore bearing on the question was ever said before him. He did not carefor the steward's black looks; Franklin, never conversational even atthe best of times and avoiding now the only topic near his heart,addressed him only on matters of duty. And for that, too, Powell caredvery little. The woes of the apoplectic mate had begun to bore him longbefore. Yet he felt lonely a bit at times. Therefore the littleintercourse with Mrs Anthony either in one dog-watch or the other wassomething to be looked forward to. The captain did not mind it. Thatwas evident from his manner. One night he inquired (they were thenalone on the poop) what they had been talking about that evening?Powell had to confess that it was about the ship. Mrs Anthony had beenasking him questions.

  "Takes interest--eh?" jerked out the captain moving rapidly up and downthe weather-side of the poop.

  "Yes, sir. Mrs Anthony seems to get hold wonderfully of what one'stelling her."

  "Sailor's granddaughter. One of the old school. Old sea-dog of thebest kind, I believe," ejaculated the captain, swinging past hismotionless second officer and leaving the words behind him like a trailof sparks succeeded by a perfect conversational darkness, because, forthe next two hours till he left the deck, he didn't open his lips again.

  On another occasion ... we mustn't forget that the ship had crossed theline and was adding up south latitude every day by then--on anotheroccasion, about seven in the evening, Powell on duty, heard his nameuttered softly in the companion. The captain was on the stairs,thin-faced, his eyes sunk, on his arm a Shetland wool wrap.

  "Mr Powell--here."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Give this to Mrs Anthony. Evenings are getting chilly."

  And the haggard face sank out of sight. Mrs Anthony was surprised onseeing the shawl.

  "The captain wants you to put this on," explained young Powell, and asshe raised herself in her seat he dropped it on her shoulders. Shewrapped herself up closely.

  "Where was the captain?" she asked.

  "He was in the companion. Called me on purpose," said Powell, and thenretreated discreetly, because she looked as though she didn't want totalk any more that evening. Mr Smith--the old gentleman--was as usualsitting on the skylight near her head, brooding over the long chair butby no means inimical, as far as his unreadable face went, to thoseconversations of the two youngest people on board. In fact they seemedto give him some pleasure. Now and then he would raise his faded chinaeyes to the animated face of Mr Powell thoughtfully. When the youngsailor was by, the old man became less rigid, and when his daughter, onrare occasions, smiled at some artless tale of Mr Powell, theinexpressive face of Mr Smith reflected dimly that flash of evanescentmirth. For Mr Powell had come now to entertain his captain's wife withanecdotes from the not very distant past when he was a boy, on boardvarious ships,--funny things do happen on board ship. Flora was quitesurprised at times to find herself amused. She was even heard to laughtwice in the course of a month. It was not a loud sound but it wasstartling enough at the after-end of the _Ferndale_ where low tones orsilence were the rule. The second time this happened the captainhimself must have been startled somewhere down below; because he emergedfrom the depths of his unobtrusive existence and began his tramping onthe opposite side of the poop.

  Almost immediately he called his young second officer over to him. Thiswas not done in displeasure. The glance he fastened on Mr Powellconveyed a sort of approving wonder. He engaged him in desultoryconversation as if for the only purpose of keeping a man who couldprovoke such a sound, near his person. Mr Powell felt himself liked.He felt it. Liked by that haggard, restless man who threw at himdisconnected phrases to which his answers were, "Yes, sir", "No, sir,""Oh, certainly", "I suppose so, sir,"--and might have been clearlyanything else for all the other cared.

  It was then, Mr Powell told me, that he discovered in himself analready old-established liking for C
aptain Anthony. He also felt sorryfor him without being able to discover the origins of that sympathy ofwhich he had become so suddenly aware.

  Meantime Mr Smith, bending forward stiffly as though he had a hingedback, was speaking to his daughter.

  She was a child no longer. He wanted to know if she believed in--inhell. In eternal punishment?

  His peculiar voice, as if filtered through cotton-wool was inaudible onthe other side of the deck. Poor Flora, taken very much unawares, madean inarticulate murmur, shook her head vaguely, and glanced in thedirection of the pacing Anthony who was not looking her way. It was nouse glancing in that direction. Of young Powell, leaning against themizzen-mast and facing his captain she could only see the shoulder andpart of a blue serge back.

  And the unworried, unaccented voice of her father went on tormentingher.

  "You see, you must understand. When I came out of jail it was with joy.That is, my soul was fairly torn in two--but anyway to see you happy--Ihad made up my mind to that. Once I could be sure that you were happythen of course I would have had no reason to care for life--strictlyspeaking--which is all right for an old man; though naturally--no reasonto wish for death either. But this sort of life! What sense, whatmeaning, what value has it either for you or for me? It's just sittingdown to look at the death, that's coming, coming. What else is it? Idon't know how you can put up with that. I don't think you can stand itfor long. Some day you will jump overboard."

  Captain Anthony had stopped for a moment staring ahead from the break ofthe poop, and poor Flora sent at his back a look of despairing appealwhich would have moved a heart of stone. But as though she had donenothing he did not stir in the least. She got out of the long chair andwent towards the companion. Her father followed carrying a few smallobjects, a handbag, her handkerchief, a book. They went down together.

  It was only then that Captain Anthony turned, looked at the place theyhad vacated and resumed his tramping, but not his desultory conversationwith his second officer. His nervous exasperation had grown so muchthat now very often he used to lose control of his voice. If he did notwatch himself it would suddenly die in his throat. He had to make surebefore he ventured on the simplest saying, an order, a remark on thewind, a simple good morning. That's why his utterance was abrupt, hisanswers to people startlingly brusque and often not forthcoming at all.

  It happens to the most resolute of men to find himself at grips not onlywith unknown forces, but with a well-known force the real might of whichhe had not understood. Anthony had discovered that he was not the proudmaster but the chafing captive of his generosity. It rose in front ofhim like a wall which his respect for himself forbade him to scale. Hesaid to himself: "Yes, I was a fool--but she has trusted me!" Trusted!A terrible word to any man somewhat exceptional in a world in whichsuccess has never been found in renunciation and good faith. And itmust also be said, in order not to make Anthony more stupidly sublimethan he was, that the behaviour of Flora kept him at a distance. Thegirl was afraid to add to the exasperation of her father. It was herunhappy lot to be made more wretched by the only affection which shecould not suspect. She could not be angry with it, however, and out ofdeference for that exaggerated sentiment she hardly dared to lookotherwise than by stealth at the man whose masterful compassion hadcarried her off. And quite unable to understand the extent of Anthony'sdelicacy, she said to herself that "he didn't care." He probably wasbeginning at bottom to detest her--like the governess, like the maidenlady, like the German woman, like Mrs Fyne, like Mr Fyne--only he wasextraordinary, he was generous. At the same time she had moments ofirritation. He was violent, headstrong--perhaps stupid. Well, he hadhad his way.

  A man who has had his way is seldom happy, for generally he finds thatthe way does not lead very far on this earth of desires which can neverbe fully satisfied. Anthony had entered with extreme precipitation theenchanted gardens of Armida saying to himself "At last!" As to Armida,herself, he was not going to offer her any violence. But now he haddiscovered that all the enchantment was in Armida herself, in Armida'ssmiles. This Armida did not smile. She existed, unapproachable, behindthe blank wall of his renunciation. His force, fit for action,experienced the impatience, the indignation, almost the despair of hisvitality arrested, bound, stilled, progressively worn down, fritteredaway by Time; by that force blind and insensible, which seems inert andyet uses one's life up by its imperceptible action, dropping minuteafter minute on one's living heart like drops of water wearing down astone.

  He upbraided himself. What else could he have expected? He had rushedin like a ruffian; he had dragged the poor defenceless thing by the hairof 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 anyother woman. And his proceedings were enough in themselves to makeanyone odious. He must have been bereft of his senses. She mustfatally detest and fear him. Nothing could make up for such brutality.And yet somehow he resented this very attitude which seemed to himcompletely justifiable. Surely he was not too monstrous (morally) to belooked at frankly sometimes. But no! She wouldn't. Well, perhaps,some day... Only he was not going ever to attempt to beg forforgiveness. With the repulsion she felt for his person she wouldcertainly misunderstand the most guarded words, the most carefuladvances. Never! Never!

  It would occur to Anthony at the end of such meditations that death wasnot an unfriendly visitor after all. No wonder then that even youngPowell, his faculties having been put on the alert, began to think thatthere was something unusual about the man who had given him his chancein life. Yes, decidedly, his captain was "strange." There wassomething wrong somewhere, he said to himself, never guessing that hisyoung and candid eyes were in the presence of a passion profound,tyrannical and mortal, discovering its own existence, astounded atfeeling itself helpless and dismayed at finding itself incurable.

  Powell had never before felt this mysterious uneasiness so strongly ason that evening when it had been his good fortune to make Mrs Anthonylaugh a little by his artless prattle. Standing out of the way, he hadwatched his captain walk the weather-side of the poop, he took fullcognizance of his liking for that inexplicably strange man and saw himswerve towards the companion and go down below with sympathetic ifutterly uncomprehending eyes.

  Shortly afterwards, Mr Smith came up alone and manifested a desire fora little conversation. He, too, if not so mysterious as the captain,was not very comprehensible to Mr Powell's uninformed candour. Heoften favoured thus the second officer. His talk alluded somewhatenigmatically and often without visible connection to Mr Powell'sfriendliness towards himself and his daughter. "For I am well awarethat we have no friends on board this ship, my dear young man," he wouldadd, "except yourself. Flora feels that too."

  And Mr Powell, flattered and embarrassed, could but emit a vague murmurof protest. For the statement was true in a sense, though the fact wasin itself insignificant. The feelings of the ship's company could notpossibly matter to the captain's wife and to Mr Smith--her father. Whythe latter should so often allude to it was what surprised our MrPowell. This was by no means the first occasion. More like thetwentieth rather. And in his weak voice, with his monotonousintonation, leaning over the rail and looking at the water the othercontinued this conversation, or rather his remarks, remarks of such amonstrous nature that Mr Powell had no option but to accept them forgruesome jesting.

  "For instance," said Mr Smith, "that mate, Franklin, I believe he wouldjust as soon see us both overboard as not."

  "It's not so bad as that," laughed Mr Powell, feeling uncomfortable,because his mind did not accommodate itself easily to exaggeration ofstatement. "He isn't a bad chap really," he added, very conscious ofMr Franklin's offensive manner of which instances were not far to seek."He's such a fool as to be jealous. He has been with the captain foryears. It's not for me to say, perhaps, but I think the captain hasspoiled all that gang of old servants. They are like a lot of pet olddogs.
Wouldn't let anybody come near him if they could help it. I'venever seen anything like it. And the second mate, I believe, was likethat too."

  "Well, he isn't here, luckily. There would have been one more enemy,"said Mr Smith. "There's enough of them without him. And you beinghere instead of him makes it much more pleasant for my daughter andmyself. One feels there may be a friend in need. For really, for awoman all alone on board ship amongst a lot of unfriendly men..."

  "But Mrs Anthony is not alone," exclaimed Powell. "There's you, andthere's the..."

  Mr Smith interrupted him.

  "Nobody's immortal. And there are times when one feels ashamed to live.Such an evening as this for instance."

  It was a lovely evening; the colours of a splendid sunset had died outand 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 anenormous lantern hidden under the horizon. In order to change theconversation Mr Powell said:

  "Anyway no one can charge you with being a Jonah, Mr Smith. We havehad a magnificent quick passage so far. The captain ought to bepleased. And I suppose you are not sorry either."

  This diversion was not successful. Mr Smith emitted a sort of bitterchuckle and said: "Jonah! That's the fellow that was thrown overboardby some sailors. It seems to me it's very easy at sea to get rid of aperson one does not like. The sea does not give up its dead as theearth does."

  "You forget the whale, sir," said young Powell.

  Mr Smith gave a start. "Eh? What whale? Oh! Jonah. I wasn'tthinking of Jonah. I was thinking of this passage which seems so quickto you. But only think what it is to me? It isn't a life, going aboutthe sea like this. And, for instance, if one were to fall ill, thereisn't a doctor to find out what's the matter with one. It's worrying.It makes me anxious at times."

  "Is Mrs Anthony not feeling well?" asked Powell. But Mr Smith'sremark was not meant for Mrs Anthony. She was well. He himself waswell. It was the captain's health that did not seem quite satisfactory.Had Mr Powell noticed his appearance?

  Mr Powell didn't know enough of the captain to judge. He couldn'ttell. But he observed thoughtfully that Mr Franklin had been sayingthe same thing. And Franklin had known the captain for years. The matewas quite worried about it.

  This intelligence startled Mr Smith considerably. "Does he think he isin danger of dying?" he exclaimed with an animation quite extraordinaryfor him, which horrified Mr Powell.

  "Heavens! Die! No! Don't you alarm yourself, sir. I've never heard aword about danger from Mr Franklin."

  "Well, well," sighed Mr Smith and left the poop for the saloon ratherabruptly.

  As a matter of fact Mr Franklin had been on deck for some considerabletime. He had come to relieve young Powell; but seeing him engaged intalk with the "enemy"--with one of the "enemies" at least--had kept at adistance, which, the poop of the _Ferndale_ being over seventy feetlong, he had no difficulty in doing. Mr Powell saw him at the head ofthe ladder leaning on his elbow, melancholy and silent. "Oh! Here youare, sir."

  "Here I am. Here I've been ever since six o'clock. Didn't want tointerrupt the pleasant conversation. If you like to put in half of yourwatch below jawing with a dear friend, that's not my affair. Funnytaste though."

  "He isn't a bad chap," said the impartial Powell.

  The mate snorted angrily, tapping the deck with his foot; then: "Isn'the? Well, give him my love when you come together again for anothernice long yarn."

  "I say, Mr Franklin, I wonder the captain don't take offence at yourmanners."

  "The captain. I wish to goodness he would start a row with me. Then Ishould know at least I am somebody on board. I'd welcome it, MrPowell. I'd rejoice. And dam' me I would talk back too till I rousedhim. He's a shadow of himself. He walks about his ship like a ghost.He's fading away right before our eyes. But of course you don't see.You don't care a hang. Why should you?"

  Mr Powell did not wait for more. He went down on the main deck.Without taking the mate's jeremiads seriously he put them beside thewords of Mr Smith. He had grown already attached to Captain Anthony.There was something not only attractive but compelling in the man. Onlyit is very difficult for youth to believe in the menace of death. Notin the fact itself, but in its proximity to a breathing, moving,talking, superior human being, showing no sign of disease. And MrPowell thought that this talk was all nonsense. But his curiosity wasawakened. There was something, and at any time some circumstance mightoccur ... No, he would never find out ... There was nothing to findout, most likely. Mr Powell went to his room where he tried to read abook he had already read a good many times. Presently a bell rang forthe officers' supper.

 

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