PART TWO, CHAPTER 2.
YOUNG POWELL SEES AND HEARS.
"You remember," went on Marlow, "how I feared that Mr Powell's want ofexperience would stand in his way of appreciating the unusual. Theunusual I had in my mind was something of a very subtle sort: theunusual in marital relations. I may well have doubted the capacity of ayoung man too much concerned with the creditable performance of hisprofessional duties to observe what in the nature of things is noteasily observable in itself, and still less so under the specialcircumstances. In the majority of ships a second officer has not manypoints of contact with the captain's wife. He sits at the same tablewith her at meals, generally speaking; he may now and then be addressedmore or less kindly on insignificant matters, and have the opportunityto show her some small attentions on deck. And that is all. Under suchconditions, signs can be seen only by a sharp and practised eye. I amalluding now to troubles which are subtle often to the extent of notbeing understood by the very hearts they devastate or uplift.
"Yes, Mr Powell, whom the chance of his name had thrown upon thefloating stage of that tragi-comedy would have been perfectly uselessfor my purpose if the unusual of an obvious kind had not aroused hisattention from the first.
"We know how he joined that ship so suddenly offered to his anxiousdesire to make a real start in his profession. He had come on boardbreathless with the hurried winding up of his shore affairs, accompaniedby two horrible nightbirds, escorted by a dock policeman on the make,received by an asthmatic shadow of a ship-keeper, warned not to make anoise in the darkness of the passage because the captain and his wifewere already on board. That in itself was already somewhat unusual.Captains and their wives do not, as a rule, join a moment sooner than isnecessary. They prefer to spend the last moments with their friends andrelations. A ship in one of London's older docks with theirrestrictions as to lights and so on is not the place for a happyevening. Still, as the tide served at six in the morning, one couldunderstand them coming on board the evening before.
"Just then young Powell felt as if anybody ought to be glad enough to bequit of the shore. 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 stoodin the way of the quiet satisfaction with which he thought that now allthe 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 fora long succession of days. A most soothing certitude. He enjoyed it inthe dark, stretched out in his bunk with his new blankets pulled overhim. Some clock ashore beyond the dock-gates struck two. And then heheard nothing more, because he went off into a light sleep from which hewoke up with a start. He had not taken his clothes off, it was hardlyworth while. He jumped up and went on deck.
"The morning was clear, colourless, grey overhead; the dock like a sheetof darkling glass crowded with upside-down reflections of warehouses, ofhulls and masts of silent ships. Rare figures moved here and there onthe distant quays. A knot of men stood alongside with clothes-bags andwooden chests at their feet. Others were coming down the lane betweentall, blind walls, surrounding a hand-cart loaded with more bags andboxes. It was the crew of the _Ferndale_. They began to come on board.He scanned their faces as they passed forward filling the roomy deckwith the shuffle of their footsteps and the murmur of voices, like theawakening to life of a world about to be launched into space."
Far away down the clear glassy stretch in the middle of the long dockMr Powell watched the tugs coming in quietly through the open gates. Asubdued firm voice behind him interrupted this contemplation. It wasFranklin, the thick chief mate, who was addressing him with a watchfulappraising stare of his prominent black eyes: "You'd better take acouple of these chaps with you and look out for her aft. We are goingto cast off."
"Yes, sir," Powell said with proper alacrity; but for a moment theyremained looking at each other fixedly. Something like a faint smilealtered the set of the chief mate's lips just before he moved offforward with his brisk step.
Mr Powell, getting up on the poop, touched his cap to Captain Anthony,who was there alone. He tells me that it was only then that he saw hiscaptain for the first time. The day before, in the shipping office,what with the bad light and his excitement at this berth obtained as ifby a brusque and unscrupulous miracle, did not count. He had thenseemed to him much older and heavier. He was surprised at the lithefigure, broad of shoulder, narrow at the hips, the fire of the deep-seteyes, the springiness of the walk. The captain gave him a steady stare,nodded slightly, and went on pacing the poop with an air of not beingaware of what was going on, his head rigid, his movements rapid.
Powell stole several glances at him with a curiosity very natural underthe circumstances. He wore a short grey jacket and a grey cap. In thelight of the dawn, growing more limpid rather than brighter, Powellnoticed the slightly sunken cheeks under the trimmed beard, theperpendicular fold on the forehead, something hard and set about themouth.
It was too early yet for the work to have begun in the dock. The watergleamed placidly, no movement anywhere in the long straight lines of thequays, no one about to be seen except the few dock hands busy alongsidethe _Ferndale_, knowing their work, mostly silent or exchanging a fewwords in low tones as if they, too, had been aware of that lady `whomustn't be disturbed.' The _Ferndale_ was the only ship to leave thattide. The others seemed still asleep, without a sound, and only hereand there a figure, coming up on the forecastle, leaned on the rail towatch the proceedings idly. Without trouble and fuss and almost withouta sound was the _Ferndale_ leaving the land, as if stealing away. Eventhe tugs, now with their engines stopped, were approaching her without aripple, the burly-looking paddle-boat sheering forward, while the other,a screw, smaller and of slender shape, made for her quarter so gentlythat she did not divide the smooth water, but seemed to glide on itssurface as if on a sheet of plate-glass, a man in her bow, the master atthe wheel visible only from the waist upwards above the white screen ofthe bridge, both of them so still-eyed as to fascinate young Powell intocurious self-forgetfulness and immobility. He was steeped, sunk in thegeneral quietness, remembering the statement `she's a lady that mustn'tbe disturbed,' and repeating to himself idly: `No. She won't bedisturbed. She won't be disturbed.' Then the first loud words of thatmorning breaking that strange hush of departure with a sharp hail: `Lookout for that line there,' made him start. The line whizzed past hishead, one of the sailors aft caught it, and there was an end to thefascination, to the quietness of spirit which had stolen on him at thevery moment of departure. From that moment till two hours afterwards,when the ship was brought up in one of the lower reaches of the Thamesoff an apparently uninhabited shore, near some sort of inlet wherenothing but two anchored barges flying a red flag could be seen, Powellwas too busy to think of the lady `that mustn't be disturbed,' or of hiscaptain--or of anything else unconnected with his immediate duties. Infact, he had no occasion to go on the poop, or even look that way much;but while the ship was about to anchor, casting his eyes in thatdirection, he received an absurd impression that his captain (he was upthere, of course) was sitting on both sides of the aftermost skylight atonce. He was too occupied to reflect on this curious delusion, thisphenomenon of seeing double as though he had had a drop too much. Heonly smiled at himself.
As often happens after a grey daybreak the sun had risen in a warm andglorious splendour above the smooth immense gleam of the enlargedestuary. Wisps of mist floated like trails of luminous dust, and in thedazzling reflections of water and vapour, the shores had the murkysemi-transparent darkness of shadows cast mysteriously from below.Powell, who had sailed out of London all his young seaman's life, toldme that it was then, in a moment of entranced vision an hour or so aftersunrise, that the river was revealed to him for all time, like a fairface often seen before, which is suddenly perceived to be the expressionof an inner and unsuspected beauty, of that something unique and
onlyits own which rouses a passion of wonder and fidelity and anunappeasable memory of its charm. The hull of the _Ferndale_, swunghead to the eastward, caught the light, her tall spars and riggingsteeped in a bath of red-gold, from the water-line full of glitter tothe 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 MrFranklin, the chief mate, with his head sunk between his shoulders, andmelancholy eyes. "Let the men have their breakfast, bo'sun," he wenton, "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 speakto, since yesterday afternoon when he rushed off to pick up a secondmate somewhere. How did he get you?"
Young Powell, a little shy notwithstanding the friendly disposition ofthe other, answered him smilingly, aware somehow that there wassomething marked in this inquisitiveness, natural, after all--somethinganxious. His name was Powell, and he was put in the way of this berthby Mr Powell, the Shipping Master. He blushed.
"Ah, I see. Well, you have been smart in getting ready. Theship-keeper, before he went away, told me you joined at one o'clock. Ididn't sleep on board last night. Not I. There was a time when I nevercared 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 thatyoungster, that stranger. Meantime, he was leading the way across thequarter-deck under the poop into the long passage with the door of thesaloon at the far end. It was shut. But Mr Franklin did not go sofar. After passing the pantry he opened suddenly a door on the left ofthe passage, 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 atable 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'sonly since--"
He checked himself again. "Yes. Here we shall feed, you and I, facingeach other for the next twelve months or more--God knows how much more!The bo'sun keeps the deck at meal-times in fine-weather."
He talked not exactly wheezing, but like a man whose breath is somewhatshort, and the spirit (young Powell could not help thinking) embitteredby some mysterious grievance.
There was enough of the unusual there to be recognised even by Powell'sinexperience. The officers kept out of the cabin against the custom ofthe service, and then this sort of accent in the mate's talk. Franklindid not seem to expect conversational ease from the new second mate. Hemade several remarks about the old, deploring the accident. Awkward.Very awkward this thing to happen on the very eve of sailing.
"Collar-bone and arm broken," he sighed. "Sad, very sad. Did younotice if the captain was at all affected? Eh? Must have been."
Before this congested face, these globular eyes turned yearningly uponhim, young Powell (one must keep in mind he was but a youngster then)who could not remember any signs of visible grief, confessed with anembarrassed laugh that, owing to the suddenness of this lucky chancecoming to him, he was not in a condition to notice the state of otherpeople.
"I was so pleased to get a ship at last," he murmured, furtherdisconcerted by the sort of pent-up gravity in Mr Franklin's aspect.
"One man's food another man's poison," the mate remarked. "That holdstrue beyond mere victuals. I suppose it didn't occur to you that it wasa dam' poor way for a good man to be knocked out."
Mr Powell admitted openly that he had not thought of that. He wasready to admit that it was very reprehensible of him. But Franklin hadno intention apparently, to moralise. He did not fall silent either.His further remarks were to the effect that there had been a time whenCaptain Anthony would have showed more than enough concern for the leastthing happening to one of his officers. Yes, there had been a time!
"And mind," he went on, laying down suddenly a half-consumed piece ofbread and butter and raising his voice, "poor Mathews was the second manthe longest on board. I was the first. He joined a month later--aboutthe same time as the steward by a few days. The bo'sun and thecarpenter came the voyage after. Steady men. Still here. No good manneed ever have thought of leaving the _Ferndale_ unless he were a fool.Some good men are fools. Don't know when they are well off. I mean thebest of good men; men that you would do anything for. They go on foryears, then all of a sudden--"
Our young friend listened to the mate with a queer sense of discomfortgrowing on him. For it was as though Mr Franklin were thinking aloud,and putting him into the delicate position of an unwilling eavesdropper.But there was in the mess-room another listener. It was the steward,who had come in carrying a tin coffee-pot with a long handle, and stoodquietly by: a man with a middle-aged, sallow face, long features, heavyeyelids, a soldierly grey moustache. His body encased in a short blackjacket with narrow sleeves, his long legs in very tight trousers, madeup an agile, youthful, slender figure. He moved forward suddenly, andinterrupted the mate's monologue.
"More coffee, Mr Franklin? Nice fresh lot. Piping hot. I am going togive breakfast to the saloon directly, and the cook is raking his fireout. Now's your chance."
The mate who, on account of his peculiar build, could not turn his headfreely, twisted his thick trunk slightly, and ran his black eyes in thecorners towards the steward.
"And is the precious pair of them out?" he growled.
The steward, pouring out the coffee into the mate's cup, mutteredmoodily but distinctly: "The lady wasn't when I was laying the table."
Powell's ears were fine enough to detect something hostile in thisreference to the captain's wife. For of what other person could they bespeaking? The steward added with a gloomy sort of fairness: "But shewill be before I bring the dishes in. She never gives that sort oftrouble. That she doesn't."
"No. Not in that way," Mr Franklin agreed, and then both he and thesteward, after glancing at Powell--the stranger to the ship--saidnothing more.
But this had been enough to rouse his curiosity. Curiosity is naturalto man. Of course it was not a malevolent curiosity which, if notexactly natural, is to be met fairly frequently in men and perhaps morefrequently in women--especially if a woman be in question; and thatwoman under a cloud, in a manner of speaking. For under a cloud Florade Barral was fated to be even at sea. Yes. Even that sort of darknesswhich attends a woman for whom there is no clear place in the world hungover her. Yes. Even at sea!
"And this is the pathos of being a woman. A man can struggle to get aplace for himself or perish. But a woman's part is passive, say whatyou like, and shuffle the facts of the world as you may, hinting at lackof energy, of wisdom, of courage. As a matter of fact, almost all womenhave all that--of their own kind. But they are not made for attack.Wait they must. I am speaking here of women who are really women. Andit's no use talking of opportunities, either. I know that some of themdo talk of it. But not the genuine women. Those know better. Nothingcan beat a true woman for a clear vision of reality; I would say acynical vision if I were not afraid of wounding your chivalrousfeelings--for which, by the by, women are not so grateful as you maythink, to fellows of your kind..."
"Upon my word, Marlow," I cried, "what are you flying out at me for likethis? I wouldn't use an ill-sounding word about women, but what righthave you to imagine that I am looking for gratitude?"
Marlow raised a soothing hand.
"There! There! I take back the ill-sounding word, with the remark,though, that cynicism seems to me a word invented by hypocrites. Butlet that pass. As to women, they know that the clamour foropportunities for them to become something which they cannot be is asreasonable as if mankind at large started asking for opportunities ofwinning immortality in this world, in which death is the very conditionof life. You must understand that I am not talking here of materialexistence. That naturally is implied; but you won't maintain that
awoman who, say, enlisted, for instance (there have been cases) hasconquered her place in the world. She has only got her living in it--which is quite meritorious, but not quite the same thing."
All these reflections which arise from my picking up the thread of Florade Barral's existence did not, I am certain, present themselves to MrPowell--not the Mr Powell we know taking solitary week-end cruises inthe estuary of the Thames (with mysterious dashes into lonely creeks)but to the young Mr Powell, the chance second officer of the ship_Ferndale_, commanded (and for the most part owned) by Roderick Anthony,the son of the poet--you know. A Mr Powell, much slenderer than ourrobust friend is now, with the bloom of innocence not quite rubbed offhis smooth cheeks, and apt not only to be interested but also to besurprised by the experience life was holding in store for him. Thiswould account for his remembering so much of it with considerablevividness. For instance, the impressions attending his first breakfaston board the _Ferndale_, both visual and mental, were as fresh to him asif received yesterday.
"The surprise, it is easy to understand, would arise from the inabilityto interpret aright the signs which experience (a thing mysterious initself) makes to our understanding and emotions. For it is never morethan that. Our experience never gets into our blood and bones. Italways remains outside of us. That's why we look with wonder at thepast. And this persists even when from practice and through growingcallousness of fibre we come to the point when nothing that we meet inthat rapid blinking stumble across a flick of sunshine--which our lifeis--nothing, I say, which we run against surprises us any more. Not atthe time, I mean. If, later on, we recover the faculty with some suchexclamation: `Well! Well! I'll be hanged if I ever...' it is probablybecause this very thing that there should be a past to look back upon,other people's, is very astounding in itself when one has the time, afleeting and immense instant to think of it..."
I was on the point of interrupting Marlow when he stopped of himself,his eyes fixed on vacancy, or--perhaps--(I wouldn't be too hard on him)on a vision. He has the habit, or, say, the fault, of defectivemantelpiece clocks, of suddenly stopping in the very fulness of thetick. If you have ever lived with a clock afflicted with thatperversity, you know how vexing it is--such a stoppage. I was vexedwith Marlow. He was smiling faintly while I waited. He even laughed alittle. And then I said acidly:
"Am I to understand that you have ferreted out something comic in thehistory of Flora de Barral?"
"Comic!" he exclaimed. "No! What makes you say? ... Oh, I laughed--did I? But don't you know that people laugh at absurdities that arevery far from being comic? Didn't you read the latest books aboutlaughter written by philosophers, psychologists? There is a lot ofthem..."
"I dare say there has been a lot of nonsense written about laughter--andtears, too, for that matter," I said impatiently.
"They say," pursued the unabashed Marlow, "that we laugh from a sense ofsuperiority. Therefore, observe, simplicity, honesty, warmth offeeling, delicacy of heart and of conduct, self-confidence, magnanimityare laughed at, because the presence of these traits in a man'scharacter often puts him into difficult, cruel or absurd situations, andmakes us, the majority who are fairly free as a rule from thesepeculiarities, feel pleasantly superior."
"Speak for yourself," I said. "But have you discovered all these finethings in the story; or has Mr Powell discovered them to you in hisartless talk? Have you two been having good healthy laughs together?Come! Are your sides aching yet, Marlow?"
Marlow took no offence at my banter. He was quite serious.
"I should not like to say off-hand how much of that there was," hepursued with amusing caution. "But there was a situation, tense enoughfor the signs of it to give many surprises to Mr Powell--neither ofthem shocking in itself, but with a cumulative effect which made thewhole unforgettable in the detail of its progress. And the firstsurprise came very soon, when the explosives (to which he owed hissudden chance of engagement)--dynamite in cases and blasting powder inbarrels--taken on board, main hatch battened for sea, cook restored tohis functions in the galley, anchor fished and the tug ahead, roundingthe South Foreland, and with the sun sinking clear and red down thepurple vista of the channel, he went on the poop, on duty, it is true,but with time to take the first freer breath in the busy day ofdeparture. The pilot was still on board, who gave him first a silentglance, and then passed an insignificant remark before resuming hislounging to and fro between the steering wheel and the binnacle. Powelltook his station modestly at the break of the poop. He had noticedacross the skylight a head in a grey cap. But when, after a time, hecrossed over to the other side of the deck he discovered that it was notthe captain's head at all. He became aware of grey hairs curling overthe nape of the neck. How could he have made that mistake? But onboard ship away from the land one does not expect to come upon astranger."
Powell walked past the man. A thin, somewhat sunken face, with atightly closed mouth, stared at the distant French coast, vague like asuggestion of solid darkness, lying abeam beyond the evening lightreflected from the level waters, themselves growing more sombre than thesky; a stare, across which Powell had to pass and did pass with a quickside glance, noting its immovable stillness. His passage disturbedthose eyes no more than if he had been as immaterial as a ghost. Andthis failure of his person in producing an impression affected himstrangely. Who could that old man be?
He was so curious that he even ventured to ask the pilot in a low voice.The pilot turned out to be a good-natured specimen of his kind,condescending, sententious. He had been down to his meals in the maincabin, and had something to impart.
"That? Queer fish--eh? Mrs Anthony's father. I've been introduced tohim in the cabin at breakfast time. Name of Smith. Wonder if he hasall his wits about him. They take him about with them, it seems. Don'tlook very happy--eh?"
Then, changing his tone abruptly, he desired Powell to get all hands ondeck and make sail on the ship. "I shall be leaving you in half anhour. You'll have plenty of time to find out all about the old gent,"he added with a thick laugh.
In the secret emotion of giving his first order as a fully responsibleofficer, young Powell forgot the very existence of that old man in amoment. The following days, in the interest of getting in touch withthe ship, with the men in her, with his duties, in the rather anxiousperiod of settling down, his curiosity slumbered; for of course thepilot's few words had not extinguished it.
This settling down was made easy for him by the friendly character ofhis immediate superior--the chief. Powell could not defend himself fromsome sympathy for that thick, bald man, comically shaped, with hiscrimson complexion and something pathetic in the rolling of his verymovable black eyes in an apparently immovable head, who was so tactfullyready to take his competency for granted.
There can be nothing more reassuring to a young man tackling his life'swork for the first time. Mr Powell, his mind at ease about himself,had time to observe the people around with friendly interest. Veryearly in the beginning of the passage, he had discovered with someamusement that the marriage of Captain Anthony was resented by those towhom Powell (conscious of being looked upon as something of an outsider)referred in his mind as `the old lot.'
They had the funny, regretful glances, intonations, nods of men who hadseen other, better times. What difference it could have made to thebo'sun, and the carpenter Powell could not very well understand. Yetthese two pulled long faces and even gave hostile glances to the poop.The cook and the steward might have been more directly concerned. Butthe steward used to remark on occasion, `Oh, she gives no extratrouble,' with scrupulous fairness of the most gloomy kind. He wasrather a silent man with a great sense of his personal worth which madehis speeches guarded. The cook, a neat man with fair side whiskers, whohad been only three years in the ship, seemed the least concerned. Hewas even known to have inquired once or twice as to the success of someof his dishes with the captain's wife. This was considered a sort ofdisloyal falling away from the
ruling feeling.
The mate's annoyance was yet the easiest to understand. As he let itout to Powell before the first week of the passage was over: `You can'texpect me to be pleased at being chucked out of the saloon as if Iweren't good enough to sit down to meat with that woman.' But hehastened to add: `Don't you think I'm blaming the captain. He isn't aman to be found fault with. You, Mr Powell, are too young yet tounderstand such matters.'
Some considerable time afterwards, at the end of a conversation of thataggrieved sort, he enlarged a little more by repeating: `Yes! You aretoo young to understand these things. I don't say you haven't plenty ofsense. You are doing very well here. Jolly sight better than Iexpected, though I liked your looks from the first.'
It was in the trade-winds, at night, under a velvety, bespangled sky; agreat multitude of stars watching the shadows of the sea gleamingmysteriously in the wake of the ship; while the leisurely swishing ofthe water to leeward was like a drowsy comment on her progress. MrPowell expressed his satisfaction by a half-bashful laugh. The matemused on: `And of course you haven't known the ship as she used to be.She was more than a home to a man. She was not like any other ship; andCaptain Anthony was not like any other master to sail with. Neither isshe now. But before one never had a care in the world as to her--and asto him, too. No, indeed, there was never anything to worry about.'
Young Powell couldn't see what there was to worry about even then. Theserenity of the peaceful night seemed as vast as all space, and asenduring as eternity itself. It's true the sea is an uncertain element,but no sailor remembers this in the presence of its bewitching power anymore than a lover ever thinks of the proverbial inconstancy of women.And Mr Powell, being young, thought naively that the captain beingmarried, there could be no occasion for anxiety as to his condition. Isuppose that to him life, perhaps not so much his own as that of others,was something still in the nature of a fairy-tale with a `they livedhappy ever after' termination. We are the creatures of our lightliterature much more than is generally suspected in a world which pridesitself on being scientific and practical, and in possession ofincontrovertible theories. Powell felt in that way the more because thecaptain of a ship at sea is a remote, inaccessible creature, somethinglike a prince of a fairy-tale, alone of his kind, depending on nobody,not to be called to account except by powers practically invisible andso distant, that they might well be looked upon as supernatural for allthat the rest of the crew knows of them, as a rule.
"So he did not understand the aggrieved attitude of the mate--or ratherhe understood it obscurely as a result of simple causes which did notseem to him adequate. He would have dismissed all this out of his mindwith a contemptuous: `What the devil do I care?' if the captain's wifeherself had not been so young. To see her the first time had beensomething of a shock to him. He had some preconceived ideas as tocaptain's wives which, while he did not believe the testimony of hiseyes, made him open them very wide. He had stared till the captain'swife noticed it plainly and turned her face away. Captain's wife! Thatgirl covered with rugs in a long chair. Captain's...! He gaspedmentally. It had never occurred to him that a captain's wife could beanything but a woman to be described as stout or thin, as jolly orcrabbed, but always mature, and even, in comparison with his own years,frankly old. But this! It was a sort of moral upset as though he haddiscovered a case of abduction or something as surprising as that. Youunderstand that nothing is more disturbing than the upsetting of apreconceived idea. Each of us arranges the world according to his ownnotion of the fitness of things. To behold a girl where your averagemediocre imagination had placed a comparatively old woman may easilybecome one of the strongest shocks..."
Marlow paused, smiling to himself.
"Powell remained impressed after all these years by the veryrecollection," he continued in a voice, amused perhaps but not mocking."He said to me only the other day with something like the first awe ofthat discovery lingering in his tone--he said to me: `Why, she seemed soyoung, so girlish, that I looked round for some woman which would be thecaptain's wife, though of course I knew there was no other woman onboard that voyage.' The voyage before, it seems, there had been thesteward's wife to act as maid to Mrs Anthony; but she was not takenthat time for some reason he didn't know. Mrs Anthony...! If ithadn't been the captain's wife he would have referred to her mentally asa kid, he said. I suppose there must be a sort of divinity hedging in acaptain's wife (however incredible) which prevented him applying to herthat contemptuous definition in the secret of his thoughts."
I asked him when this had happened; and he told me that it was threedays after parting from the tug, just outside the channel--to beprecise. A head wind had set in with unpleasant damp weather. He hadcome up to leeward of the poop, still feeling very much of a stranger,and an untried officer, at six in the evening to take his watch. To seeher was quite as unexpected as seeing a vision. When she turned awayher head he recollected himself and dropped his eyes. What he could seethen was only, close to the long chair on which she reclined, a pair oflong, thin legs ending in black cloth boots tucked in close to theskylight-seat. Whence he concluded that the `old gentleman,' who wore agrey cap like the captain's, was sitting by her--his daughter. In hisfirst astonishment he had stopped dead short, with the consequence thatnow he felt very much abashed at having betrayed his surprise. But hecouldn't very well turn tail and bolt off the poop. He had come thereon duty. So, still with downcast eyes, he made his way past them. Onlywhen he got as far as the wheel-grating did he look up. She was hiddenfrom him by the back of her deck-chair; but he had the view of the ownerof the thin, aged legs seated on the skylight, his clean-shaved cheek,his thin compressed mouth with a hollow in each corner, the sparse greylocks escaping from under the tweed cap, and curling slightly on thecollar of the coat. He leaned forward a little over Mrs Anthony, butthey were not talking. Captain Anthony, walking with a springy hurriedgait on the other side of the poop from end to end, gazed straightbefore him. Young Powell might have thought that his captain was notaware of his presence either. However, he knew better, and for thatreason spent a most uncomfortable hour motionless by the compass beforehis captain stopped in his swift pacing and with an almost visibleeffort made some remark to him about the weather in a low voice. BeforePowell, who was startled, could find a word of answer, the captain swungoff again on his endless tramp with a fixed gaze. And till the supperbell rang silence dwelt over that poop like an evil spell. The captainwalked up and down looking straight before him, the helmsman steered,looking upwards at the sails, the old gent on the skylight looked downon his daughter--and Mr Powell confessed to me that he didn't knowwhere to look, feeling as though he had blundered in where he had nobusiness--which was absurd. At last he fastened his eyes on the compasscard, took refuge, in spirit, inside the binnacle. He felt chilled morethan he should have been by the chilly dusk falling on the muddy greensea of the soundings from a smoothly clouded sky. A fitful wind sweptthe cheerless waste, and the ship, hauled up so close as to check herway, seemed to progress by languid fits and starts against the shortseas which swept along her sides with a snarling sound.
Young Powell thought that this was the dreariest evening aspect of thesea he had ever seen. He was glad when the other occupants of the poopleft it at the sound of the bell. The captain first, with a suddenswerve in his walk towards the companion, and not even looking oncetowards his wife and his wife's father. Those two got up and movedtowards the companion, the old gent very erect, his thin locks stirringgently about the nape of his neck, and carrying the rugs over his arm.The girl who was Mrs Anthony went down first. The murky twilight hadsettled in deep shadow on her face. She looked at Mr Powell inpassing. He thought that she was very pale. Cold perhaps. The oldgent stopped a moment, thin and stiff, before the young man, and in avoice which was low but distinct enough, and without any particularaccent--not even of inquiry--he said:
"You are the new second officer, I believe."
Mr
Powell answered in the affirmative, wondering if this were afriendly overture. He had noticed that Mr Smith's eyes had a sort ofinward look as though he had disliked or disdained his surroundings.The captain's wife had disappeared then down the companion stairs. MrSmith said `Ah!' and waited a little longer to put another question inhis incurious voice.
"And did you know the man who was here before you?"
"No," said young Powell, "I didn't know anybody belonging to this shipbefore I joined."
"He was much older than you. Twice your age. Perhaps more. His hairwas iron-grey. Yes. Certainly more."
The low, repressed voice paused, but the old man did not move away. Headded: "Isn't it unusual?"
Mr Powell was surprised not only by being engaged in conversation, butalso by its character. It might have been the suggestion of the worduttered by this old man, but it was distinctly at that moment that hebecame aware of something unusual not only in this encounter butgenerally around him, about everybody, in the atmosphere. The very sea,with short flashes of foam bursting out here and there in the gloomydistances, the unchangeable, safe sea sheltering a man from allpassions, except its own anger, seemed queer to the quick glance hethrew to windward where the already effaced horizon traced no reassuringlimit to the eye. In the expiring, diffused twilight, and before theclouded night dropped its mysterious veil, it was the immensity of spacemade visible--almost palpable. Young Powell felt it. He felt it in thesudden sense of his isolation; the trustworthy, powerful ship of hisfirst acquaintance reduced to a speck, to something almostundistinguishable, the mere support for the soles of his two feet beforethat unexpected old man becoming so suddenly articulate in a darkeninguniverse.
It took him a moment or so to seize the drift of the question. Herepeated slowly: `Unusual... Oh, you mean for an elderly man to be thesecond of a ship. I don't know. There are a good many of us who don'tget on. He didn't get on, I suppose.'
The other, his head bowed a little, had the air of listening with acuteattention.
"And now he has been taken to the hospital," he said.
"I believe so. Yes. I remember Captain Anthony saying so in theshipping office."
"Possibly about to die," went on the old man, in his careful deliberatetone. "And perhaps glad enough to die."
Mr Powell was young enough, to be startled at the suggestion, whichsounded confidential and blood-curdling in the dusk. He said sharplythat it was not very likely, as if defending the absent victim of theaccident from an unkind aspersion. He felt, in fact, indignant. Theother emitted a short stifled laugh of a conciliatory nature. Thesecond bell rang under the poop. He made a movement at the sound, butlingered.
"What I said was not meant seriously," he murmured, with that strangeair of fearing to be overheard. "Not in this case. I know the man."
The occasion, or rather the want of occasion, for this conversation, hadsharpened the perceptions of the unsophisticated second officer of the_Ferndale_. He was alive to the slightest shade of tone, and felt as ifthis "I know the man" should have been followed by a "he was no friendof mine." But after the shortest possible break the old gentlemancontinued to murmur distinctly and evenly:
"Whereas you have never seen him. Nevertheless, when you have gonethrough as many years as I have, you will understand how an eventputting an end to one's existence may not be altogether unwelcome. Ofcourse there are stupid accidents. And even then one needn't be veryangry. What is it to be deprived of life? It's soon done. But whatwould you think of the feelings of a man who should have had his lifestolen from him? Cheated out of it, I say!"
He ceased abruptly, and remained still long enough for the astonishedPowell to stammer out an indistinct: "What do you mean? I don'tunderstand." Then, with a low `Good-night' glided a few steps, and sankthrough the shadow of the companion into the lamplight below which didnot reach higher than the turn of the staircase.
The strange words, the cautious tone, the whole person left a stronguneasiness in the mind of Mr Powell. He started walking the poop ingreat mental confusion. He felt all adrift. This was funny talk and nomistake. And this cautious low tone as though he were watched bysomeone was more than funny. The young second officer hesitated tobreak the established rule of every ship's discipline; but at last couldnot resist the temptation of getting hold of some other human being, andspoke to the man at the wheel.
"Did you hear what this gentleman was saying to me?"
"No, sir," answered the sailor quietly. Then, encouraged by thisevidence of laxity in his officer, made bold to add, "A queer fish,sir." This was tentative, and Mr Powell, busy with his own view, notsaying anything, he ventured further. "They are more like passengers.One sees some queer passengers."
"Who are like passengers?" asked Powell gruffly.
"Why, these two, sir."
Chance: A Tale in Two Parts Page 9
