Chance

"They might have escaped him involuntarily," observed Marlow. "However, a plain fact settles it. They went off together to see the ship."

"Do you conclude from this that nothing whatever was said?" I inquired.

"I should have liked to see the first meeting of their glances upstairs there," mused Marlow. "And perhaps nothing was said. But no man comes out of such a "wrangle" (as Fyne called it) without showing some traces of it. And you may be sure that a girl so bruised all over would feel the slightest touch of anything resembling coldness. She was mistrustful; she could not be otherwise; for the energy of evil is so much more forcible than the energy of good that she could not help looking still upon her abominable governess as an authority. How could one have expected her to throw off the unholy prestige of that long domination? She could not help believing what she had been told; that she was in some mysterious way odious and unlovable. It was cruelly true--_to her_. The oracle of so many years had spoken finally. Only other people did not find her out at once.--I would not go so far as to say she believed it altogether. That would be hardly possible. But then haven"t the most flattered, the most conceited of us their moments of doubt? Haven"t they? Well, I don"t know. There may be lucky beings in this world unable to believe any evil of themselves. For my own part I"ll tell you that once, many years ago now, it came to my knowledge that a fellow I had been mixed up with in a certain transaction--a clever fellow whom I really despised--was going around telling people that I was a consummate hypocrite. He could know nothing of it. It suited his humour to say so. I had given him no ground for that particular calumny. Yet to this day there are moments when it comes into my mind, and involuntarily I ask myself, "What if it were true?"

It"s absurd, but it has on one or two occasions nearly affected my conduct. And yet I was not an impressionable ignorant young girl. I had taken the exact measure of the fellow"s utter worthlessness long before. He had never been for me a person of prestige and power, like that awful governess to Flora de Barral. See the might of suggestion?

We live at the mercy of a malevolent word. A sound, a mere disturbance of the air, sinks into our very soul sometimes. Flora de Barral had been more astounded than convinced by the first impetuosity of Roderick Anthony. She let herself be carried along by a mysterious force which her person had called into being, as her father had been carried away out of his depth by the unexpected power of successful advertising.

"They went on board that morning. The _Ferndale_ had just come to her loading berth. The only living creature on board was the ship-keeper-- whether the same who, had been described to us by Mr Powell, or another, I don"t know. Possibly some other man. He, looking over the side, saw, in his own words, "the captain come sailing round the corner of the nearest cargo-shed, in company with a girl." He lowered the accommodation ladder down on to the jetty..."

"How do you know all this?" I interrupted.

Marlow interjected an impatient:

"You shall see by and by... Flora went up first, got down on deck and stood stock-still till the captain took her by the arm and led her aft.

The ship-keeper let them into the saloon. He had the keys of all the cabins, and stumped in after them. The captain ordered him to open all the doors, every blessed door; state-rooms, pa.s.sages, pantry, fore-cabin--and then sent him away.

"The _Ferndale_ had magnificent accommodation. At the end of a pa.s.sage leading from the quarter-deck there was a long saloon, its sumptuosity slightly tarnished perhaps, but having a grand air of roominess and comfort. The harbour carpets were down, the swinging lamps hung, and everything in its place, even to the silver on the sideboard. Two large stern-cabins opened out of it, one on each side of the rudder casing.

These two cabins communicated through a small bathroom between them, and one was fitted up as the captain"s state-room. The other was vacant, and furnished with armchairs and a round table, more like a room on sh.o.r.e, except for the long curved settee following the shape of the ship"s stern. In a dim inclined mirror, Flora caught sight down to the waist of a pale-faced girl in a white straw hat trimmed with roses, distant, shadowy, as if immersed in water, and was surprised to recognise herself in those surroundings. They seemed to her arbitrary, bizarre, strange. Captain Anthony moved on, and she followed him. He showed her the other cabins. He talked all the time loudly in a voice she seemed to have known extremely well for a long time; and yet, she reflected, she had not heard it often in her life. What he was saying she did not quite follow. He was speaking of comparatively indifferent things in a rather moody tone, but she felt it round her like a caress.

And when he stopped she could hear, alarming in the sudden silence, the precipitated beating of her heart."

The ship-keeper dodged about the quarter-deck, out of hearing, and trying to keep out of sight. At the same time, taking advantage of the open doors with skill and prudence, he could see the captain and "that girl" the captain had brought aboard. The captain was showing her round very thoroughly. Through the whole length of the pa.s.sage, far away aft in the perspective of the saloon the ship-keeper had interesting glimpses of them as they went in and out of the various cabins, crossing from side to side, remaining invisible for a time in one or another of the state-rooms, and then reappearing again in the distance. The girl, always following the captain, had her sunshade in her hands. Mostly she would hang her head, but now and then she would look up. They had a lot to say to each other, and seemed to forget they weren"t alone in the ship. He saw the captain put his hand on her shoulder, and was preparing himself with a certain zest for what might follow, when the "old man" seemed to recollect himself, and came striding down all the length of the saloon. At this move the ship-keeper promptly dodged out of sight, as you may believe, and heard the captain slam the inner door of the pa.s.sage. After that disappointment the ship-keeper waited resentfully for them to clear out of the ship. It happened much sooner than he had expected. The girl walked out on deck first. As before she did not look round. She didn"t look at anything; and she seemed to be in such a hurry to get ash.o.r.e that she made for the gangway and started down the ladder without waiting for the captain.

What struck the ship-keeper most was the absent, unseeing expression of the captain, striding after the girl. He pa.s.sed him, the ship-keeper, without notice, without an order, without so much as a look. The captain had never done so before. Always had a nod and a pleasant word for a man. From this slight the ship-keeper drew a conclusion unfavourable to the strange girl. He gave them time to get down on the wharf before crossing the deck to steal one more look at the pair over the rail. The captain took hold of the girl"s arm just before a couple of railway trucks drawn by a horse came rolling along and hid them from the ship-keeper"s sight for good.

Next day, when the chief mate joined the ship, he told him the tale of the visit, and expressed himself about the girl "who had got hold of the captain" disparagingly. She didn"t look healthy, he explained. "Shabby clothes, too," he added spitefully.

The mate was very much interested. He had been with Anthony for several years, and had won for himself in the course of many long voyages, a footing of familiarity, which was to be expected with a man of Anthony"s character. But in that slowly-grown intimacy of the sea, which in its duration and solitude had its unguarded moments, no words had pa.s.sed, even of the most casual, to prepare him for the vision of his captain a.s.sociated with any kind of girl. His impression had been that women did not exist for Captain Anthony. Exhibiting himself with a girl! A girl! What did he want with a girl? Bringing her on board and showing her round the cabin! That was really a little bit too much. Captain Anthony ought to have known better.

Franklin (the chief mate"s name was Franklin) felt disappointed; almost disillusioned. Silly thing to do! Here was a confounded old ship-keeper set talking. He snubbed the ship-keeper, and tried to think of that insignificant bit of foolishness no more; for it diminished Captain Anthony in his eyes of a jealously devoted subordinate.

Franklin was over forty; his mother was still alive. She stood in the forefront of all women for him, just as Captain Anthony stood in the forefront of all men. We may suppose that these groups were not very large. He had gone to sea at a very early age. The feeling which caused these two people to partly eclipse the rest of mankind were of course not similar; though in time he had acquired the conviction that he was "taking care" of them both. The "old lady" of course had to be looked after as long as she lived. In regard to Captain Anthony, he used to say that: why should he leave him? It wasn"t likely that he would come across a better sailor or a better man or a more comfortable ship. As to trying to better himself in the way of promotion, commands were not the sort of thing one picked up in the streets, and when it came to that, Captain Anthony was as likely to give him a lift on occasion as anyone in the world.

From Mr Powell"s description Franklin was a short, thick black-haired man, bald on the top. His head sunk between the shoulders, his staring prominent eyes and a florid colour, gave him a rather apoplectic appearance. In repose, his congested face had a humorously melancholy expression.

The ship-keeper having given him up all the keys and having been chased forward with the admonition to mind his own business and not to chatter about what did not concern him, Mr Franklin went under the p.o.o.p. He opened one door after another; and, in the saloon, in the captain"s state-room and everywhere, he stared anxiously as if expecting to see on the bulkheads, on the deck, in the air, something unusual--sign, mark, emanation, shadow--he hardly knew what--some subtle change wrought by the pa.s.sage of a girl. But there was nothing. He entered the unoccupied stern-cabin and spent some time there uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the two stern ports. In the absence of all material evidences his uneasiness was pa.s.sing away. With a last glance round he came out and found himself in the presence of his captain advancing from the other end of the saloon.

Franklin, at once, looked for the girl. She wasn"t to be seen. The captain came up quickly. "Oh! you are here, Mr Franklin." And the mate said, "I was giving a little air to the place, sir." Then the captain, his hat pulled down over his eyes, laid his stick on the table and asked in his kind way: "How did you find your mother, Franklin?"--"The old lady"s first-rate, sir, thank you." And then they had nothing to say to each other. It was a strange and disturbing feeling for Franklin. He, just back from leave, the ship just come to her loading berth, the captain just come on board, and apparently nothing to say! The several questions he had been anxious to ask as to various things which had to be done had slipped out of his mind. He, too, felt as though he had nothing to say.

The captain, picking up his stick off the table, marched into his state-room and shut the door after him. Franklin remained still for a moment and then started slowly to go on deck. But before he had time to reach the other end of the saloon he heard himself called by name. He turned round. The captain was staring from the doorway of his state-room. Franklin said, "Yes, sir." But the captain, silent, leaned a little forward grasping the door handle. So he, Franklin, walked aft keeping his eyes on him. When he had come up quite close he said again, "Yes, sir?" interrogatively. Still silence. The mate didn"t like to be stared at in that manner, a manner quite new in his captain, with a defiant and self-conscious stare, like a man who feels ill and dares you to notice it. Franklin gazed at his captain, felt that there was something wrong, and in his simplicity voiced his feelings by asking point-blank:

"What"s wrong, sir?"

The captain gave a slight start, and the character of his stare changed to a sort of sinister surprise. Franklin grew very uncomfortable, but the captain asked negligently:

"What makes you think that there"s something wrong?"

"I can"t say exactly. You don"t look quite yourself, sir," Franklin owned up.

"You seem to have a confoundedly piercing eye," said the captain in such an aggressive tone that Franklin was moved to defend himself.

"We have been together now over six years, sir, so I suppose I know you a bit by this time. I could see there was something wrong directly you came on board."

"Mr Franklin," said the captain, "we have been more than six years together, it is true, but I didn"t know you for a reader of faces. You are not a correct reader though. It"s very far from being wrong. You understand? As far from being wrong as it can very well be. It ought to teach you not to make rash surmises. You should leave that to the sh.o.r.e people. They are great hands at spying out something wrong. I dare say they know what they have made of the world. A dam" poor job of it and that"s plain. It"s a confoundedly ugly place, Mr Franklin. You don"t know anything of it? Well--no, we sailors don"t. Only now and then one of us runs against something cruel or underhand, enough to make your hair stand on end. And when you do see a piece of their wickedness you find that to set it right is not so easy as it looks... Oh! I called you back to tell you that there will be a lot of workmen, joiners and all that, sent down on board first thing to-morrow morning to start making alterations in the cabin. You will see to it that they don"t loaf. There isn"t much time."

Franklin was impressed by this unexpected lecture upon the wickedness of the solid world surrounded by the salt, uncorruptible waters on which he and his captain had dwelt all their lives in happy innocence. What he could not understand was why it should have been delivered, and what connection it could have with such a matter as the alterations to be carried out in the cabin. The work did not seem to him to be called for in such a hurry. What was the use of altering anything? It was a very good accommodation, s.p.a.cious, well-distributed, on a rather old-fashioned plan, and with its decorations somewhat tarnished. But a dab of varnish, a touch of gilding here and there, was all that was necessary. As to comfort, it could not be improved by any alterations.

He resented the notion of change; but he said dutifully that he would keep his eye on the workmen if the captain would only let him know what was the nature of the work he had ordered to be done.

"You"ll find a note of it on this table. I"ll leave it for you as I go ash.o.r.e," said Captain Anthony hastily. Franklin thought there was no more to hear, and made a movement to leave the saloon. But the captain continued after a slight pause, "You will be surprised, no doubt, when you look at it. There"ll be a good many alterations. It"s on account of a lady coming with us. I am going to get married, Mr Franklin!"

PART TWO, CHAPTER 2.

YOUNG POWELL SEES AND HEARS.

"You remember," went on Marlow, "how I feared that Mr Powell"s want of experience would stand in his way of appreciating the unusual. The unusual I had in my mind was something of a very subtle sort: the unusual in marital relations. I may well have doubted the capacity of a young man too much concerned with the creditable performance of his professional duties to observe what in the nature of things is not easily observable in itself, and still less so under the special circ.u.mstances. In the majority of ships a second officer has not many points of contact with the captain"s wife. He sits at the same table with her at meals, generally speaking; he may now and then be addressed more or less kindly on insignificant matters, and have the opportunity to show her some small attentions on deck. And that is all. Under such conditions, signs can be seen only by a sharp and practised eye. I am alluding now to troubles which are subtle often to the extent of not being understood by the very hearts they devastate or uplift.

"Yes, Mr Powell, whom the chance of his name had thrown upon the floating stage of that tragi-comedy would have been perfectly useless for my purpose if the unusual of an obvious kind had not aroused his attention from the first.

"We know how he joined that ship so suddenly offered to his anxious desire to make a real start in his profession. He had come on board breathless with the hurried winding up of his sh.o.r.e affairs, accompanied by two horrible nightbirds, escorted by a dock policeman on the make, received by an asthmatic shadow of a ship-keeper, warned not to make a noise in the darkness of the pa.s.sage because the captain and his wife were already on board. That in itself was already somewhat unusual.

Captains and their wives do not, as a rule, join a moment sooner than is necessary. They prefer to spend the last moments with their friends and relations. A ship in one of London"s older docks with their restrictions as to lights and so on is not the place for a happy evening. Still, as the tide served at six in the morning, one could understand them coming on board the evening before.

"Just then young Powell felt as if anybody ought to be glad enough to be quit of the sh.o.r.e. We know he was an orphan from a very early age, without brothers or sisters--no near relations of any kind, I believe, except that aunt who had quarrelled with his father. No affection stood in the way of the quiet satisfaction with which he thought that now all the worries were over, that there was nothing before him but duties, that he knew what he would have to do as soon as the dawn broke and for a long succession of days. A most soothing cert.i.tude. He enjoyed it in the dark, stretched out in his bunk with his new blankets pulled over him. Some clock ash.o.r.e beyond the dock-gates struck two. And then he heard nothing more, because he went off into a light sleep from which he woke up with a start. He had not taken his clothes off, it was hardly worth while. He jumped up and went on deck.

"The morning was clear, colourless, grey overhead; the dock like a sheet of darkling gla.s.s crowded with upside-down reflections of warehouses, of hulls and masts of silent ships. Rare figures moved here and there on the distant quays. A knot of men stood alongside with clothes-bags and wooden chests at their feet. Others were coming down the lane between tall, blind walls, surrounding a hand-cart loaded with more bags and boxes. It was the crew of the _Ferndale_. They began to come on board.

He scanned their faces as they pa.s.sed forward filling the roomy deck with the shuffle of their footsteps and the murmur of voices, like the awakening to life of a world about to be launched into s.p.a.ce."

Far away down the clear gla.s.sy stretch in the middle of the long dock Mr Powell watched the tugs coming in quietly through the open gates. A subdued firm voice behind him interrupted this contemplation. It was Franklin, the thick chief mate, who was addressing him with a watchful appraising stare of his prominent black eyes: "You"d better take a couple of these chaps with you and look out for her aft. We are going to cast off."

"Yes, sir," Powell said with proper alacrity; but for a moment they remained looking at each other fixedly. Something like a faint smile altered the set of the chief mate"s lips just before he moved off forward with his brisk step.

Mr Powell, getting up on the p.o.o.p, touched his cap to Captain Anthony, who was there alone. He tells me that it was only then that he saw his captain for the first time. The day before, in the shipping office, what with the bad light and his excitement at this berth obtained as if by a brusque and unscrupulous miracle, did not count. He had then seemed to him much older and heavier. He was surprised at the lithe figure, broad of shoulder, narrow at the hips, the fire of the deep-set eyes, the springiness of the walk. The captain gave him a steady stare, nodded slightly, and went on pacing the p.o.o.p with an air of not being aware of what was going on, his head rigid, his movements rapid.

Powell stole several glances at him with a curiosity very natural under the circ.u.mstances. He wore a short grey jacket and a grey cap. In the light of the dawn, growing more limpid rather than brighter, Powell noticed the slightly sunken cheeks under the trimmed beard, the perpendicular fold on the forehead, something hard and set about the mouth.

It was too early yet for the work to have begun in the dock. The water gleamed placidly, no movement anywhere in the long straight lines of the quays, no one about to be seen except the few dock hands busy alongside the _Ferndale_, knowing their work, mostly silent or exchanging a few words in low tones as if they, too, had been aware of that lady "who mustn"t be disturbed." The _Ferndale_ was the only ship to leave that tide. The others seemed still asleep, without a sound, and only here and there a figure, coming up on the forecastle, leaned on the rail to watch the proceedings idly. Without trouble and fuss and almost without a sound was the _Ferndale_ leaving the land, as if stealing away. Even the tugs, now with their engines stopped, were approaching her without a ripple, the burly-looking paddle-boat sheering forward, while the other, a screw, smaller and of slender shape, made for her quarter so gently that she did not divide the smooth water, but seemed to glide on its surface as if on a sheet of plate-gla.s.s, a man in her bow, the master at the wheel visible only from the waist upwards above the white screen of the bridge, both of them so still-eyed as to fascinate young Powell into curious self-forgetfulness and immobility. He was steeped, sunk in the general quietness, remembering the statement "she"s a lady that mustn"t be disturbed," and repeating to himself idly: "No. She won"t be disturbed. She won"t be disturbed." Then the first loud words of that morning breaking that strange hush of departure with a sharp hail: "Look out for that line there," made him start. The line whizzed past his head, one of the sailors aft caught it, and there was an end to the fascination, to the quietness of spirit which had stolen on him at the very moment of departure. From that moment till two hours afterwards, when the ship was brought up in one of the lower reaches of the Thames off an apparently uninhabited sh.o.r.e, near some sort of inlet where nothing but two anch.o.r.ed barges flying a red flag could be seen, Powell was too busy to think of the lady "that mustn"t be disturbed," or of his captain--or of anything else unconnected with his immediate duties. In fact, he had no occasion to go on the p.o.o.p, or even look that way much; but while the ship was about to anchor, casting his eyes in that direction, he received an absurd impression that his captain (he was up there, of course) was sitting on both sides of the aftermost skylight at once. He was too occupied to reflect on this curious delusion, this phenomenon of seeing double as though he had had a drop too much. He only smiled at himself.

As often happens after a grey daybreak the sun had risen in a warm and glorious splendour above the smooth immense gleam of the enlarged estuary. Wisps of mist floated like trails of luminous dust, and in the dazzling reflections of water and vapour, the sh.o.r.es had the murky semi-transparent darkness of shadows cast mysteriously from below.

Powell, who had sailed out of London all his young seaman"s life, told me that it was then, in a moment of entranced vision an hour or so after sunrise, that the river was revealed to him for all time, like a fair face often seen before, which is suddenly perceived to be the expression of an inner and unsuspected beauty, of that something unique and only its own which rouses a pa.s.sion of wonder and fidelity and an unappeasable memory of its charm. The hull of the _Ferndale_, swung head to the eastward, caught the light, her tall spars and rigging steeped in a bath of red-gold, from the water-line full of glitter to the trucks slight and gleaming against the delicate expanse of the blue.

"Time we had a mouthful to eat," said a voice at his side. It was Mr Franklin, the chief mate, with his head sunk between his shoulders, and melancholy eyes. "Let the men have their breakfast, bo"sun," he went on, "and have the fire out in the galley in half an hour at the latest, so that we can call these barges of explosives alongside. Come along, young man. I don"t know your name. Haven"t seen the captain, to speak to, since yesterday afternoon when he rushed off to pick up a second mate somewhere. How did he get you?"

Young Powell, a little shy notwithstanding the friendly disposition of the other, answered him smilingly, aware somehow that there was something marked in this inquisitiveness, natural, after all--something anxious. His name was Powell, and he was put in the way of this berth by Mr Powell, the Shipping Master. He blushed.

"Ah, I see. Well, you have been smart in getting ready. The ship-keeper, before he went away, told me you joined at one o"clock. I didn"t sleep on board last night. Not I. There was a time when I never cared to leave this ship for more than a couple of hours in the evening, even while in London, but now, since--"

He checked himself with a roll of his prominent eyes towards that youngster, that stranger. Meantime, he was leading the way across the quarter-deck under the p.o.o.p into the long pa.s.sage with the door of the saloon at the far end. It was shut. But Mr Franklin did not go so far. After pa.s.sing the pantry he opened suddenly a door on the left of the pa.s.sage, to Powell"s great surprise.

"Our mess-room," he said, entering a small cabin painted white, bare, lighted from part of the foremost skylight, and furnished only with a table and two settees with movable backs. "That surprises you? Well, it isn"t usual. And it wasn"t so in this ship either, before. It"s only since--"