by A. J. Cronin
They looked at each other for what seemed to her a long, long time. Stripped of his nondescript clothes, his figure had an unsuspected grace; his shoulders wide and narrowing downwards, his legs both muscular and fine. At last, filled with a curious perplexity, she let her lashes fall.
‘I didn’t think. I didn’t know,’ she said queerly, ‘that you were here.’
‘I didn’t think I should be here myself,’ he answered slowly. ‘But here I am.’
‘And here am I too,’ she said with a little laugh. ‘We’re afloat again on another ship. Isn’t it fun?’
Nothing more banal than the words which she had spoken, yet under the flat surface of these words she felt returning, quivering more urgently within her, that queer unrest which previously had taken her. A sense of something upthrown from the past, of something vital, predestined, stretching towards her from the future. It transformed life, tinting this moment with the colours of her dream, flooding her body with a strange expectant helplessness. Never before had she known this deep and throbbing harmony of emotion, never before had this strange constraint possessed her like a pain. She did not understand, she could not defend herself. Her fingers played nervously with a loose fibre of the matting; she had not the power to look at him.
‘It’s so lovely here,’ she said at last, almost nervously. ‘The sea – the sun – the snow upon that peak. So lovely. It makes me feel I’ve known it always.’ Her voice was low, and sounded dull upon her ears, the fine inflections flattened by the constriction of her throat.
Quite motionless, yet swung by the swaying raft as though he floated between sea and sky in some enchanted medium, he did not answer. With eyes fixed, absorbed by the living beauty of her form, he seemed to contemplate the words within himself. So lovely, she had said. He felt his heart pounding the blood hard into his temples. So lovely! He had never thought of loveliness, nor sought the soft mystery of beauty. His life had been hard, like granite, governed by known laws, inflexible. He had been seeking. Yes, truth alone had been the object of his search. And the motive of his search? It was no ardour to aid humanity. Simply a cold stretching after reason – indifferent and austere. But now, under a blinding light which seemed to burn upon him from afar, something fused within his soul, different, immutable.
‘They call this island Gran Canaria,’ she murmured. ‘Grand Canary! There’s colour and movement in that name. When I think of this voyage I shall say away down into myself. Grand Canary! It has a thrilling sound.’
Her words, acquiring another meaning, reached him dimly through the blinding whiteness of that secret light. And he asked:
‘You leave the ship tomorrow?’
‘Yes, we shall stay at Orotava.’
It had a strange inevitability. She was going. To-night the Aureola would sail, cleave through the warm darkness to a farther island, and in the morning she would be gone.
‘It is quiet at Orotava,’ she went on. ‘A small place and all unspoiled. That above everything is what I like. Mr Carr has arranged everything for us at the hotel – San Jorge. He is my husband’s agent here in the islands.’
‘I see,’ he said; and all the light within him suddenly was quenched. There had been something; and now it was taken back. His lips drew in; calmly he forced himself to look at her.
‘You will have a happy time, I know.’
‘You go on, of course, with the ship?’ she asked, her eyes bright upon him.
‘I go on. And back again.’
A silence fell, forged by their inscrutable thoughts. Suddenly she made that impulsive little movement of her hand, as though capturing an elusive joy.
‘Will you have lunch with us today? Oh, yes, please – please do. At the little cabine place. It is so delicious there. Mr Carr is coming. And I want you to come too.’
There was a painful pleasure in knowing that he must refuse.
‘I’m not alone,’ he answered. ‘Corcoran brought me down here.’ He made a movement towards the outer sea, where, like an old seal sporting amongst the surf, Jimmy’s figure was dimly seen.
‘He must come too,’ she said quickly. ‘You must both come.’
‘He has to go into the town on business.’
‘But you – you haven’t any business?’
Already he had been sufficiently boorish upon the ship; stung by the very memory, his refusal died upon his lips.
‘That’s good,’ she cried happily across his silence. ‘You’re coming. You’re coming to lunch with me.’
Her words forced a faint smile to his lips, and at that smile she sprang to her feet, arched her thin arms with a sort of innocent delight, and plunged deeply into the sea. The impetus of her dive made the raft so suddenly recoil he rolled after her, falling upon the back of an advancing wave. Beneath the surface he opened his eyes. Shining through the subaqueous light, her body slipped away from him, glistening as a moonbeam and as white. He rose, filled his lungs with air. He wanted suddenly to pursue that flashing whiteness. But he did not. He swung away and swam with over-arm strokes to the cabine.
In his dressing-box that smelt of resinous pine-wood he put on his clothes slowly. His skin, alive with pricking currents of life, had a pinkish glow. His eyes looked straight ahead, studying remotely the unreality of what they saw.
When Jimmy came in, dripping water from his matted torso, he explained in the same fashion of detachment the invitation he had accepted.
Corcoran, moving a towel with professional skill, shot him one astounded glance; but he said nothing. Crass impulses of thought seemed struggling within his bony skull. At last he said:
‘Faith, yer the proud boy with an invite like that. If I hadn’t heavy business on me hands I’d join ye wid pleasure. But at anny rate I’ll see ye meet the company before I slip me hook.’
Ten minutes later they went into the little restaurant together.
She had used the word delicious to describe it; and somehow the adjective was just. It was small and very clean, the floor of white scrubbed wood, the tables covered by blue checked cloths, the front entirely open to the sea, the sky, and to that distant haunting peak. At the back a long bar curved, capped by a row of bottles – but, strangely, Harvey had no thought for that oblivion he had craved. And, behind the bar a waiter in his shirt-sleeves sat abstractedly upon a high stool curling a little moustache which was like an eyebrow out of place. In the corner stood – quite incongruously – a yellow automatic piano.
At the sight of the instrument Jimmy’s eye kindled knowingly; he immediately went over and with a coin set it gaily spinning into life. A piercing tune rent the air, and, following some intelligent shrugging of his shoulders, Corcoran flung himself into a lively jig. At once the waiter smiled; a languid youth sipping absinthe at the bar smiled; a Spanish family in the corner smiled. They understood; they were appreciative: they, too, knew the meaning of happiness. The music cascaded on. Jimmy’s feet moved with a baffling intricacy and a dazzling speed. The waiter began to beat time with his hands; the fat Spanish mother nodded her head with spirit above her tucked-in napkin; the youth, opening his mouth like an excited hound, broke suddenly into a high tenor accompaniment of the song. Throughout the melody vague wafts of good cooking strayed in from the kitchen beyond, mingling with the smell of garlic and the salty odour of the sea.
At that moment Mary came into the room, followed by Elissa, Dibs, and Carr. There was a curious pause: Jimmy, quite out of breath, for once looked sheepish; the youth turned mute; the waiter slipped off his stool and the music shut up with a sudden sepulchral bang. But Mary laughed.
‘Lovely,’ she cried, clapping her hands. ‘A lovely tune. Put it on again.’
Wilfred Carr did not laugh. Framed in the doorway, he envisaged with supercilious eye the whole inadequate environment and shattered it with his stare. Never before had he visited this atrocious place, and never, clearly, would he return. No gentleman could lunch with dignity in such a den save to gratify the ridiculous whim of a most charming la
dy. His silk-clad figure stiffened as he took in Harvey, standing with hands thrust in the pockets of his ill-made suit, and his companion, the vulgar, battered Irishman. His civility was freezing over the matter of the introductions. He stood aside stiffly as Corcoran made to take his departure.
‘Ye’ll excuse me,’ Jimmy declared, ‘I wouldn’t be after leavin’ you if I didn’t have to go. But, truth to tell, I’ve got a wire and other things besides to settle. Mosth important.’ He inferred tacitly that transactions of the first magnitude were on his hands, and he bowed himself gallantly away.
‘Who is that fellow?’ demanded Carr disdainfully.
‘He is a particular friend of mine,’ Harvey answered directly.
The two looked at each other.
‘Oh, yes,’ Carr drawled, at last removing his eyes. ‘ Naturally.’
They sat down to lunch in an atmosphere suddenly electric.
The romantic little waiter had surpassed himself – not every day, you see, did English milords visit the cabine; and the little contessa who had ordered the luncheon was so beautiful – bella, molte bella. So the stiff coarse napkins had taken stupendous shapes; a tiny bunch of dew-drenched violets lay upon each plate; the small black olives were delicious; the omelette, made with pimentos, as had been demanded, was risen high as El Telde himself. And now they were at the ensalada.
‘I must,’ declared Mary. ‘I simply must have some garlic to my salad.’
Carr made a movement of horror which he turned hastily into a cough.
‘Of course, of course.’ Twisting round, he spoke loudly to the waiter in bad but arrogant Spanish.
‘You know,’ he said, bending towards her confidentially, ‘ you should really have let me arrange your day, Mary.’ The name came easily from his tongue. ‘ Lunch at the club. Better – well, rather better than here. Then on to golf. We’re rather pleased with our course.’
‘But I didn’t come here to play golf.’
‘Ah, well, you must let me manage things for you at Orotava,’ he declared intimately. ‘Business takes me to Santa Cruz in a couple of days – just across the island. I’ll certainly look over.’ His manner, concentrated killingly upon her, inferred subtly that she must necessarily be impressed by his interest and devastated by his charm. That exactly was Wilfred Carr. So many women had told him that he had charm, he knew infallibly that no woman could resist him.
Perhaps he was charming; he had all the qualities. He danced splendidly, played golf well and tennis brilliantly; he rode, had boxed for his college, was sound at bridge and perfectly at home in any boudoir. He was only a country parson’s son. But he had been educated expensively so that everything was in his manner and nothing in his head. Yet he had the instinct of self-advancement. At home he had cultivated people, the right people; he had cultivated Michael Fielding; and now, with a soft billet, an easy life, and adequate popularity in the limited society of the islands, he often told himself he had nothing to complain of.
He had met Mary Fielding quite often in England; quite often from a distance he had gracefully admired her. And now she was here, a young and very lovely figure – not quite comprehensible to be sure, inviting a man to lunch at such a ghastly little pub. She had always had that reputation – simplicity and all that, don’t you know; rather odd perhaps; some ass had once named her Alice in Wonderland, but – well – in spite of that, or because of it, a most entrancing little creature. Again he bent forward, with a blandishing gesture of his beautiful hands.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘If you put yourself in my hands I can promise you an amusing time. You must have found it dull on the little banana boat.’
She looked at him curiously, as a child might contemplate a crab.
‘Not so very dull, thank you.’ He laughed easily.
‘Well, you must cheer up now. I’ll be quite miserable unless you promise. You know, most folks think we’ve a primitive society here. Nothing of the sort. We have every amenity. It’s the most charmingly delightful spot you could imagine.’ He had all the fulsome adjectives of the colonist who, adopting a country and therein succeeding, now sees that country as the reflex of himself; and he added glowingly, with an eye towards effect upon his hostess, ‘ Perfect Utopia. Everybody has a good time here – and why not?’ He became quite lyrical. ‘Man and beast – they all enjoy themselves frightfully.’
Harvey, sitting with a set face, felt a cold wave of antagonism sweep over him; for some reason he felt desperately and unreasonably infuriated. Deliberately he turned towards Carr.
‘I saw some mules this morning on the quay. Not exactly healthy. They didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves frightfully.’ Carr sat upright in his chair. He frowned.
‘The mules are all right,’ he said shortly. ‘ No one takes any notice of them.’
‘And the mosquitoes,’ said Harvey, whisking at an insect that buzzed about his plate, ‘no one takes any notice of them either, I suppose.’
Carr’s frown deepened.
‘No,’ he sneered, ‘no one but old ladies and milk-and-water tourists.’
‘Good,’ said Harvey evenly. ‘Even the mosquitoes enjoy themselves. And no one is a whit the worse for it. No fever. Nothing. It’s delightful.’
A slow look of understanding crept into Carr’s face; he gave a short derisive laugh.
‘So that’s it. You’ve been listening to the scare. I might have guessed as much.’
Dibdin laid down his fork with an air of perplexity.
‘Look here, you fellows! I don’t understand. What’s all this you’re talkin’ about?’
Carr made a vigorous gesture of contempt.
‘It’s nothing, absolutely nothing,’ he declared. ‘There’s an odd spot of fever wandering about the islands just now. No one with any gumption pays the least attention. You always find somebody ready to cry wolf amongst the natives. But we don’t go about in a whining funk. Good Lord, no. We wouldn’t be British if we did.’ His tone held a magnificent and patriotic intrepidity.
‘The clean-limbed Englishman speaking,’ said Elissa with a grimace. ‘ But someone really should have told us. From now on I shall regard every mosquito with a sort of palsied horror. I feel myself itching from head to toe already.’
‘We got rather eaten this morning,’ Mary reflected lightly, ‘coming down the mole.’
‘Don’t you worry, Mary,’ Carr answered soothingly; he patted her arm. ‘The whole thing’s perfectly absurd. A spot of fever. Good Lord, it’s nothing. I’ll see you don’t take any risks.’
She moved her arm slightly, her eyes curiously aloof.
‘There’s no such thing as taking risks,’ she said calmly. ‘Things just happen or they don’t. That’s what I believe.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Carr, rather peevishly. ‘But for all that I’ll see you’re all right.’
Harvey was silent; but inwardly he burned. He knew his vague prescience to be absurd – merely the instinct of a scientific mind. But he had once seen yellow fever in a lascar seaman at the Port of London and he never would forget the ghastly ravages of that disease: acute as cholera, deadly as plague. And now to hear this blustering lout proclaim that it was nothing, to see him exploit a flashy, ignorant bravado – it was maddening. Turning his head, he gave Carr a cold, level stare. But before he could speak Mary rose.
‘Let’s have our coffee outside,’ she said. ‘Here on the verandah.’
They got up and went out to the small wooden platform which, facing the south, kept its zinc-topped tables in a shady angle of the cabine. Coffee was brought and handed in silence. The little waiter had a plaintive air, as if he knew the harmony of the day had been disrupted.
‘I’m sleepy,’ Elissa said with half-shut eyes.
No one answered. No one had very much to say. Harvey sat glumly with legs extended and hands stuck deeply in his pockets. Dibs’ mouth hung open as it did when he was bored – privately he thought Carr a poorish fellow, and the luncheon, too, perhaps it had been heavyish f
or his liver!
On Mary’s face was a sad and wondering abstraction: she seemed busy with a secret both baffling and precious. Once she turned to Harvey.
‘On the raft,’ she said rather dreamily, ‘do you remember? I almost feel myself floating there yet.’ And from her eyes, no longer curious and aloof, a strange unknown sweetness came to him.
With coffee-cup in hand, Carr stalked about the verandah, sulking gracefully, pausing only to kick at a lizard which scuttled across the boards. From time to time he stole quick glances at the back of Mary’s neck, which was white and very smooth, touched, too, by a wisp of curling hair. She had treated him uncommonly casually, hanged if she hadn’t! At last he repented. A smile came to his full lips.
He came and drew his chair up to hers. He was prepared for confidences; but, forestalling these confidences, she said remotely:
‘I’d like to get back to the ship.’
He at once bent forward with a rush of effusive protests. It was too early; the Aureola wouldn’t sail before eight; they might cruise round the Puerto – his launch was at the steps – and she must above everything take tea at the club. He had recovered all his charm and was again ready to be on playful terms with life and her.
But Mary rose, her eyes holding that distant look that sometimes came to them. The others might stay, but she really must go.
The others did not wish to stay. The bill was paid; they started out, walking across the narrow isthmus to the Puerto, where, as he had so emphatically stated, his launch lay waiting. But not, this time, for a cruise. With a wounded air he handed her down the steps; the others followed; then the engine started. As the launch chugged across the bay he had a shred of satisfaction. He was sitting next to her, and under the sheer fabric of her dress he felt her side, all warm and soft. He made a gentle movement with his knee. But she looked straight ahead into the distance. Still, he was not displeased. You never could tell. Women. They were queer creatures.