‘Is that so?’ I asked.
‘Yes. Nobel’s, he said. Didn’t you hear him? Subsidised by Government. No more wolframite goes to Germany disguised as explosives.’
‘It is an explosive,’ Colley cut in.
‘Eh?’
‘Tungsten acid, of course. Didn’t you know that? In its crystallised form it’s used for making kranzite, the new German army explosive. Is there any wolframite hereabouts?’
‘Just a little. The ground you’re standing on is mostly tungsten dioxide. Kranzite, eh? And Nobel’s in it. I was right, after all.’
We were all silent for a minute, standing round the bed watching Van Noppen, lying so still and quiet. Gradually the sense of what it all meant was soaking into Cheyne’s brain, for he turned to Voogdt with a question.
‘How will it get into the papers? Can’t we hush it up?’
‘We could, I daresay, but we aren’t going to. I’m going to send a report to the Press Association myself tomorrow—and Reuter’s too. I am a real pressman, I assure you, Cheyne dear, not a driver of a waggon.’
Cheyne looked stunned. ‘You—you’re going to split?’
‘I am.’
‘Then there’s no need for me to wait that fortnight?’ I asked.
‘Not the slightest.’
Mainwaring took one look at me as I turned on Cheyne slowly. ‘What’s the next item of the evening’s entertainment, Austin?’ he asked.
‘A boxing contest, by the look of it. Come back to the door, you others. Bring the lamp, one of you.’
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Cheyne said angrily, as I put my hand on his shoulder.
‘Nothing. Only your room’s dirty and I’m going to dust it out. You’re the duster.’
He put up a good scrap, I’ll say that for him. But I was in that state of rage I could have pulled him to pieces with my hands, and he never stood a chance from the first.
We had a drink all round, and, speaking for myself, I wanted it. Then the others gave brandy to Cheyne and Van Noppen to bring them to whilst I had a wash.
We all felt very fit and cheerful—hilarious even—all except Cheyne and Van Noppen, that is. The other three put Cheyne to bed, and telling Van Noppen to consider himself a prisoner till the morning, they shut him in the cabin of the Luck and Charity and put Sellick on sentry-go at the companion. Van Noppen made no remarks. He was cowed, and went aboard as quietly as a lamb. It was past three o’clock when I went to bed, in the fo’castle, because Van Noppen was imprisoned aft—and then I left the others on deck, sitting and singing choruses to the accompaniment of Sellick’s mandoline.
When I awoke the sun was high enough to send a dusty beam down the fo’castle companion, lighting the grimy place like a lamp. Voogdt was asleep in the adjoining bunk, and Sellick moved about quietly packing up his traps to go. ’Kiah had relieved him on deck, he said, and Mainwaring and Colley were gone back to Terneuzen. When Voogdt turned out he told us we could release Van Noppen, and sent me to the town to hire labourers.
‘Get half a dozen stout men,’ he said. ‘We’ll get one last cargo across and I’ll keep my startling revelations for the English press. Charity begins at home, don’t it?’
Aided by quite a little crowd of men, we got about forty-five tons into our hold before sailing on the evening tide. Cheyne never showed himself all day, and I haven’t seen him since. We left him in bed, in a badly battered condition, sole legatee to the sheds, stock, plant and goodwill of that once flourishing concern The Axel Trading Company.
A quick voyage brought us to Erith, where we found Ward waiting for us, ready to greet us like long-lost brothers. A couple of hours’ talk sufficed to bring his information up to date, and it was agreed between us that Voogdt should announce the wolframite deposits as soon as he pleased. He told us that Miss Brand and Miss Lavington had come to Erith with him, and that we were to join them at dinner that same evening at his hotel. As to the cargo, which a dozen sturdy dockers were slinging out on the quayside whilst we talked, he would sell that at once by wire, without any attempt at concealment, and so conclude our last deal in wolframite.
When I asked Ward how I stood, he told me the syndicate owed me ten thousand pounds, so we called ’Kiah aft, told him he was a gentleman at large with money in the bank, and I made him a present of the Luck and Charity. The fool almost snivelled instead of being grateful, until Ward told him the boat should be done up and turned into a yacht again at his charges, and that he would charter her for three months every year.
‘What about you?’ he said to me, still sniffing.
‘I’m going to sea again. But I’ll take a holiday every summer and spend it aboard here with Mr Ward.’
‘An’ Mr Vute?’
‘He’ll come, of course.’ It was like promising a child presents to keep it from crying.
‘An’ what be I to do all next weenter?’ he complained.
‘Lay the boat up at Topsham and work on her yourself, you fool.’ I was losing patience with him.
‘How be I to get ’er round there single-’anded?’
‘Oh, dry up!’ I said. ‘I’ll give you a hand round with her, if that’s all. You’ll be Cap’n Pym when you get home, man.’
That comforted him a bit, I think, for he said no more and went on deck to survey his new property.
The feeling of ownership soon bore fruit, for in the afternoon ’Kiah informed me that he had arranged with the skipper of an Erith tug to give him a tow down that night as far as the Medway. The tug was taking a string of barges to Sheerness and ’Kiah’s frugal Devon soul couldn’t resist the temptation of a cheap towage.
‘’Tedn’ no gude stoppin’ about yer, is it?’ he asked, rather shamefacedly.
‘I’m going out to dinner tonight,’ I said. But I shan’t be aboard before midnight, mind.’
He agreed, said that would be plenty of time, and went ashore to do the necessary marketing for us both.
When the evening came, and we were all at dinner together, I felt some sympathy with his grumbling. Never was a pleasanter party, but I couldn’t hide from myself that it meant saying goodbye to the four people I liked better than any folk I had ever met. Our partnership was over. No doubt we should meet again, often and often: most of the talk at table was about such future meetings; but I knew we should never meet quite in the same spirit as before. There would no longer be the common interests: they would find out that I was a rough-mannered sailor, and perhaps I should feel that they, soft-handed and town-sheltered, weren’t my sort either. After dinner came the first farewell, when we all went to see Voogdt off at the station. On the way back I suggested that we should stroll down as far as the Luck and Charity and give our regards to Captain Pym. But Miss Lavington said she was tired, and Ward wouldn’t come either.
In the end Miss Brand and myself set off together, my knees shaking with funk, for I meant asking her to marry me, and didn’t dare set about it. ’Kiah wasn’t aboard, and the fo’castle and cabin were locked, so we could only walk up and down the deck and talk and wait for him. I tried to bring the conversation round to herself, but she headed me off every time, and after a long half-hour said she could wait no longer. I said I’d walk home with her. But her manner became chilly at once.
‘All right,’ she said, not over-graciously, and we went ashore together, she leading the way up the gang-plank.
CHAPTER XXI
OF COLLISIONS AT SEA
CLIMBING the gangway she slipped, just as Voogdt had slipped some months before, but I caught her from behind and swung her to safety. That one moment did it. When we stood together on the wharf-edge I still kept one arm round her, holding her to me.
Her face, close to mine, looked white and frightened against the night. Her big eyes seemed larger and darker than ever, and the smell of her hair—just the sweet, natural smell of her—seemed to choke me. For the life of me I couldn’t speak.
She could, but she spoke low and all her arrogance was gone.
‘Let me go,’ she said; but she never moved, and for all answer I shook my head.
‘You must. Let me go.’
‘I won’t,’ I said huskily, finding my voice. ‘I—I love you.’
‘That’s nonsense.’ The words were determined enough, but the voice was something new to me, weak and doubtful. ‘Let me go. Please.’
She could have shaken my arm off easily enough, for I held her as gently as a little child; but she never tried, and I plucked up courage a bit.
‘I won’t. I want you. You’ve never been out of my mind since that first day—when you slapped my face on Exmouth beach. It was your slap in the face made me knock off drink, and go back to work—and all that. D’you think a man pulls up like that for nothing?’
‘You mustn’t say it. You mustn’t.’
‘Why no? I love you, I tell you. I will say it.’
‘Not to me. O-oh! not to me.’ She almost wailed it: her voice went up in a little shaky whine, and I thought she was going to cry. Out went my other hand, and she was in my arms. I suppose she felt like choking, too: her beating heart lifted her, breast and lips, and in that moment her face was on my shoulder.
‘Why—you love me, too,’ I said, almost scared with the sudden surprise of it.
‘Do I? I don’t know. This love—this awful love!’ She began to cry in real earnest, her face quivering against my cheek.
‘Awful, is it?’ I laughed, for my heart was singing in me, and the world only a little ball underfoot that spun to the time of its beating.
‘Of course it’s awful. There seems no escape. Haven’t I—haven’t I seen the hateful thing everywhere? In the laboratory, watched through the microscope the rushing together of tiniest live atoms—shameless little beasts! Haven’t I seen how all the scheme of life was tangled up with it, from the highest to the lowest, till even I was almost afraid. Afraid, I tell you! Blown pollen in the moving grasses; bees in the flowers—cell seeking cell everywhere—all telling the same thing—’
She was crying hysterically now—crying as a trapped animal cries—her face contorted, her eyes running over and her dear nose wet and red. Clumsily I tried to kiss it.
‘Dear,’ I said. ‘Dear, what is it? I don’t understand—’
‘Of c-course you don’t. You dear silly, how could you? … But I’m an educated woman, and I looked the thing in the face—and defied it. In all the crowded world, mad about this love business, I saw it was thinkers who were wanted—detached men and women, working for good … I’d be one of them. That was to be my life—to show how a free woman should live. I wouldn’t love: I swore I wouldn’t … There’s so much to be done for women, and they themselves won’t do it. They’ll never do it. They can’t. They swear to devote themselves to the cause, and—and then a man lays hands on them, and where are their vows? No cause is anything to them any more. A man holds them and kisses them, and all’s over. To have babies and hang up their washing in the backyard, that’s the outside of their ambitions ever after. But I—I’d be different … O-oh, the shame of it! Here am I, crying on a man’s shoulder like any housemaid … And I wouldn’t be anywhere else for worlds!
‘It seems a lot of fuss to make about nothing,’ I said at length, smoothing her shoulder with my hand. I spoke gently, thinking to comfort her, but she was up again in a moment, struggling in my arms.
‘O-oh!’ Again she wriggled her face closer against mine. ‘Isn’t it wonderful? And, oh! I am ashamed of myself—to give in like this. And won’t I make you pay for it, just?’
‘Make me pay for what?’ I was startled at her vicious tone.
‘For pulling me aside from the straight path. For giving other women—poor dears, what do they know about it?—the chance to sneer at me as a deserter … But it shan’t be for long. When this marriage business is over, back I go to the lecture platform.’
‘I’m afraid it won’t run to that, little girl,’ I said. ‘You can’t keep house for a poor man and run about the country lecturing as well.’
‘Poor? What do you call poor?’
‘Well, I’ve nothing but this money we’ve cleared since you took us into partnership. It’ll bring in a few hundred a year—a good useful sum I grant, but not enough to live on, idling. I must get some work as well—’
‘A few hundreds!’ she burst out, and laughed. ‘Why, you dear stupid, I’m rich. I’ve got thousands of pounds!’
If she’d slapped me in the face again, as at our first meeting, she couldn’t have startled me more. ‘Good Lord!’ I said; and again, ‘Good Lord! Where on earth did you get that from?’
‘From the same place as you got your few hundreds, of course. I was the biggest shareholder. Nance was only my trustee. And you never knew? We used to wonder whether you did, when you talked as though she and Leonard owned the show.’
‘Of course I never knew,’ I said. ‘I thought you were her paid companion, and she’d given you a share or two out of kindness … And you’re rich. And after marriage, you want to go lecturing … That won’t do, Pam’ly dear.’
‘What won’t do? What d’you mean?’
‘I mean I won’t marry you on those terms. You rich and independent, and scorning housekeeping! That won’t do for me. I love you dearly—love the sight of you and the sound of your voice, but I marry no woman on such terms.’
‘What terms do you object to?’ Again she struggled to be free. This time I released her and we stood trying to peer at each other in the darkness.
‘Your freedom,’ I said. ‘This semi-detached notion of marriage. A tolerated stupid husband at home, and a clever wife on lecture tours. That’s no good to me. My wife must be my woman altogether—my partner—the keeper of my home. To carry half the burden—to love and honour and obey, as the Church service says. Love I think you give. Your honour and respect I’ll try to earn. And as for obedience, I’m old-fashioned, Pam’ly dearie, and I’ll have that too.’
‘Never from me!’ she cried.
‘Even from you. I needn’t tell you again how I love you, but I’ll have obedience, or I’ll have nothing.’
‘Nothing it is, then,’ she said, and turned and, stepping lightly and fast, walked away from me along the quay.
For a moment or two I stood still, stupefied; then, thinking she might fall over the quayside, ran along the quay calling her—softly, for fear anybody was about.
I followed her till she reached a better-lighted street and then stopped, watched her out of sight and returned to the boat, wretched. For though she was a little shrew, and though I knew it better than most, I loved her dearly, and I’d hoped for a moment that love would cure her shrewishness. Thoughts of her had been with me always, this long time past, and now I had other memories to add to them—the feel of her breast on mine, of my arms holding her yielding body, and the salt taste of her tears in my mouth. It was a bad hour for me, after I boarded the Luck and Charity again that night. I was glad Voogdt had gone, for I couldn’t have stood questions even from him just then.
There was no light in the fo’castle, so I judged ’Kiah was still ashore, and I was glad of that, too, for though he wouldn’t be likely to come aft and disturb me, it was some small comfort to have the boat to myself. But he had evidently been aboard, for the cabin door awas unlocked, and I went inside, wishing I were dead; and there I sat like a sick beast in a hole, my arms across the table and my head upon them, dull with misery.
Since she wouldn’t promise obedience she didn’t love—that was all I could make of it, and to marry a rich woman on such terms was more than I could do. So I made up my mind that my hopes were over; that I should probably never see my girl again except from the back of some audience she was addressing, and that my love affair was ended where it began, in those ten minutes of caress and quarrel by a port waterside.
Every corner of the old boat held some reminiscence of her. Dozens of times she had sat where I was sitting now; the little cabin had echoed to her chatter over the teacups, or her laughter at V
oogdt’s nonsense. It gave me the blues to sit there all alone, and think of her living out her plans ashore.
I heard ’Kiah come aboard and go into the fo’castle, and half an hour later shouting from the barges told me the tug was in sight. When I got on deck the tide was full, the quayside below the level of gunwale, so I called ’Kiah and cast off the stern warp. Muffled in his greatcoat, he came aft to the wheel, stepping quickly and forgetting to cast off forward. I was too miserable to tell him of it, so went and did it myself, and then threw a line to the last barge, already fast to the tug and commencing to swing away from the quay. Somebody in the barge pulled at the line till the tow-rope was aboard, shouted ‘All right,’ and I went back aft.
‘Call me when they cast off the tow,’ I said to ’Kiah. He grunted and I went below again.
Head on hands I must have dropped off to sleep, and woke perhaps half an hour later with a start. For the moment I thought it was dawn. The cabin was light as day, the hanging lamp burning a smoky yellow, and there was a terrific row going on outside. Men’s voices shouted all round us, and on deck, just overhead, a woman was screeching for help.
I was up there in three jumps, but even if I hadn’t been confused and scared out of my wits it was too late to be of any use. When I went below it was pitch dark, so dark that I could scarcely make out ’Kiah’s figure at the wheel, but now everything stared ghastly white under the converging rays of three great searchlights centred on us. We were alone in a great circle of glaring light. The tow-rope hung loosely over the side, and the tug and barges had disappeared into the blackness. Not a hundred feet away was an armoured cruiser, her bows crowded with men, coming straight down on us, her propellers thrashing furiously astern. Behind her dim as a street lamp seen from a lighted room, was the Nore light, and I saw we had somehow drifted into the navigable channel of the Medway. In that same glance I saw the cruiser was lowering a boat, men tumbling into it anyhow as it slid from the davits. ’Kiah was nowhere to be seen, and in his place, dressed in his cap and overcoat, clinging to the wheel and screaming with terror, was Pamily Brand!
The Mystery of the Mud Flats Page 26