“No, no.” Miss Moorsom’s eyes stared black as night, searching the space before her. Far away the Editor strutted forward, Willie following with his ostentatious manner of carrying his bulky and oppressive carcass which, however, did not remain exactly perpendicular for two seconds together.
“The innocent Arthur . . . Yes. We’ve got him,” the Editor became very business-like. “Yes, this letter has done it.”
He plunged into an inside pocket for it, slapped the scrap of paper with his open palm. “From that old woman. William had it in his pocket since this morning when Miss Moorsom gave it to him to show me. Forgot all about it till an hour ago. Thought it was of no importance. Well, no! Not till it was properly read.”
Renouard and Miss Moorsom emerged from the shadows side by side, a well-matched couple, animated yet statuesque in their calmness and in their pallor. She had let go his wrist. On catching sight of Renouard the Editor exclaimed:
“What — you here!” in a quite shrill voice.
There came a dead pause. All the faces had in them something dismayed and cruel.
“He’s the very man we want,” continued the Editor. “Excuse my excitement. You are the very man, Renouard. Didn’t you tell me that your assistant called himself Walter? Yes? Thought so. But here’s that old woman — the butler’s wife — listen to this. She writes: All I can tell you, Miss, is that my poor husband directed his letters to the name of H. Walter.”
Renouard’s violent but repressed exclamation was lost in a general murmur and shuffle of feet. The Editor made a step forward, bowed with creditable steadiness.
“Miss Moorsom, allow me to congratulate you from the bottom of my heart on the happy — er — issue. . . “
“Wait,” muttered Renouard irresolutely.
The Editor jumped on him in the manner of their old friendship. “Ah, you! You are a fine fellow too. With your solitary ways of life you will end by having no more discrimination than a savage. Fancy living with a gentleman for months and never guessing. A man, I am certain, accomplished, remarkable, out of the common, since he had been distinguished” (he bowed again) “by Miss Moorsom, whom we all admire.”
She turned her back on him.
“I hope to goodness you haven’t been leading him a dog’s life, Geoffrey,” the Editor addressed his friend in a whispered aside.
Renouard seized a chair violently, sat down, and propping his elbow on his knee leaned his head on his hand. Behind him the sister of the professor looked up to heaven and wrung her hands stealthily. Mrs. Dunster’s hands were clasped forcibly under her chin, but she, dear soul, was looking sorrowfully at Willie. The model nephew! In this strange state! So very much flushed! The careful disposition of the thin hairs across Willie’s bald spot was deplorably disarranged, and the spot itself was red and, as it were, steaming.
“What’s the matter, Geoffrey?” The Editor seemed disconcerted by the silent attitudes round him, as though he had expected all these people to shout and dance. “You have him on the island — haven’t you?”
“Oh, yes: I have him there,” said Renouard, without looking up.
“Well, then!” The Editor looked helplessly around as if begging for response of some sort. But the only response that came was very unexpected. Annoyed at being left in the background, and also because very little drink made him nasty, the emotional Willie turned malignant all at once, and in a bibulous tone surprising in a man able to keep his balance so well —
“Aha! But you haven’t got him here — not yet!” he sneered. “No! You haven’t got him yet.”
This outrageous exhibition was to the Editor like the lash to a jaded horse. He positively jumped.
“What of that? What do you mean? We — haven’t — got — him — here. Of course he isn’t here! But Geoffrey’s schooner is here. She can be sent at once to fetch him here. No! Stay! There’s a better plan. Why shouldn’t you all sail over to Malata, professor? Save time! I am sure Miss Moorsom would prefer. . .”
With a gallant flourish of his arm he looked for Miss Moorsom. She had disappeared. He was taken aback somewhat.
“Ah! H’m. Yes. . . . Why not. A pleasure cruise, delightful ship, delightful season, delightful errand, del . . . No! There are no objections. Geoffrey, I understand, has indulged in a bungalow three sizes too large for him. He can put you all up. It will be a pleasure for him. It will be the greatest privilege. Any man would be proud of being an agent of this happy reunion. I am proud of the little part I’ve played. He will consider it the greatest honour. Geoff, my boy, you had better be stirring to-morrow bright and early about the preparations for the trip. It would be criminal to lose a single day.”
He was as flushed as Willie, the excitement keeping up the effect of the festive dinner. For a time Renouard, silent, as if he had not heard a word of all that babble, did not stir. But when he got up it was to advance towards the Editor and give him such a hearty slap on the back that the plump little man reeled in his tracks and looked quite frightened for a moment.
“You are a heaven-born discoverer and a first-rate manager. . . He’s right. It’s the only way. You can’t resist the claim of sentiment, and you must even risk the voyage to Malata. . . “ Renouard’s voice sank. “A lonely spot,” he added, and fell into thought under all these eyes converging on him in the sudden silence. His slow glance passed over all the faces in succession, remaining arrested on Professor Moorsom, stony eyed, a smouldering cigar in his fingers, and with his sister standing by his side.
“I shall be infinitely gratified if you consent to come. But, of course, you will. We shall sail to-morrow evening then. And now let me leave you to your happiness.”
He bowed, very grave, pointed suddenly his finger at Willie who was swaying about with a sleepy frown. . . . “Look at him. He’s overcome with happiness. You had better put him to bed . . . “ and disappeared while every head on the terrace was turned to Willie with varied expressions.
Renouard ran through the house. Avoiding the carriage road he fled down the steep short cut to the shore, where his gig was waiting. At his loud shout the sleeping Kanakas jumped up. He leaped in. “Shove off. Give way!” and the gig darted through the water. “Give way! Give way!” She flew past the wool-clippers sleeping at their anchors each with the open unwinking eye of the lamp in the rigging; she flew past the flagship of the Pacific squadron, a great mass all dark and silent, heavy with the slumbers of five hundred men, and where the invisible sentries heard his urgent “Give way! Give way!” in the night. The Kanakas, panting, rose off the thwarts at every stroke. Nothing could be fast enough for him! And he ran up the side of his schooner shaking the ladder noisily with his rush.
On deck he stumbled and stood still.
Wherefore this haste? To what end, since he knew well before he started that he had a pursuer from whom there was no escape.
As his foot touched the deck his will, his purpose he had been hurrying to save, died out within. It had been nothing less than getting the schooner under-way, letting her vanish silently in the night from amongst these sleeping ships. And now he was certain he could not do it. It was impossible! And he reflected that whether he lived or died such an act would lay him under a dark suspicion from which he shrank. No, there was nothing to be done.
He went down into the cabin and, before even unbuttoning his overcoat, took out of the drawer the letter addressed to his assistant; that letter which he had found in the pigeon-hole labelled “Malata” in young Dunster’s outer office, where it had been waiting for three months some occasion for being forwarded. From the moment of dropping it in the drawer he had utterly forgotten its existence — till now, when the man’s name had come out so clamorously. He glanced at the common envelope, noted the shaky and laborious handwriting: H. Walter, Esqre. Undoubtedly the very last letter the old butler had posted before his illness, and in answer clearly to one from “Master Arthur” instructing him to address in the future: “Care of Messrs. W. Dunster and Co.” Renouard made
as if to open the envelope, but paused, and, instead, tore the letter deliberately in two, in four, in eight. With his hand full of pieces of paper he returned on deck and scattered them overboard on the dark water, in which they vanished instantly.
He did it slowly, without hesitation or remorse. H. Walter, Esqre, in Malata. The innocent Arthur — What was his name? The man sought for by that woman who as she went by seemed to draw all the passion of the earth to her, without effort, not deigning to notice, naturally, as other women breathed the air. But Renouard was no longer jealous of her very existence. Whatever its meaning it was not for that man he had picked up casually on obscure impulse, to get rid of the tiresome expostulations of a so-called friend; a man of whom he really knew nothing — and now a dead man. In Malata. Oh, yes! He was there secure enough, untroubled in his grave. In Malata. To bury him was the last service Renouard had rendered to his assistant before leaving the island on this trip to town.
Like many men ready enough for arduous enterprises Renouard was inclined to evade the small complications of existence. This trait of his character was composed of a little indolence, some disdain, and a shrinking from contests with certain forms of vulgarity — like a man who would face a lion and go out of his way to avoid a toad. His intercourse with the meddlesome journalist was that merely outward intimacy without sympathy some young men get drawn into easily. It had amused him rather to keep that “friend” in the dark about the fate of his assistant. Renouard had never needed other company than his own, for there was in him something of the sensitiveness of a dreamer who is easily jarred. He had said to himself that the all-knowing one would only preach again about the evils of solitude and worry his head off in favour of some forlornly useless protégé of his. Also the inquisitiveness of the Editor had irritated him and had closed his lips in sheer disgust.
And now he contemplated the noose of consequences drawing tight around him.
It was the memory of that diplomatic reticence which on the terrace had stiffled his first cry which would have told them all that the man sought for was not to be met on earth any more. He shrank from the absurdity of hearing the all-knowing one, and not very sober at that, turning on him with righteous reproaches —
“You never told me. You gave me to understand that your assistant was alive, and now you say he’s dead. Which is it? Were you lying then or are you lying now?” No! the thought of such a scene was not to be borne. He had sat down appalled, thinking: “What shall I do now?”
His courage had oozed out of him. Speaking the truth meant the Moorsoms going away at once — while it seemed to him that he would give the last shred of his rectitude to secure a day more of her company. He sat on — silent. Slowly, from confused sensations, from his talk with the professor, the manner of the girl herself, the intoxicating familiarity of her sudden hand-clasp, there had come to him a half glimmer of hope. The other man was dead. Then! . . . Madness, of course — but he could not give it up. He had listened to that confounded busybody arranging everything — while all these people stood around assenting, under the spell of that dead romance. He had listened scornful and silent. The glimmers of hope, of opportunity, passed before his eyes. He had only to sit still and say nothing. That and no more. And what was truth to him in the face of that great passion which had flung him prostrate in spirit at her adored feet!
And now it was done! Fatality had willed it! With the eyes of a mortal struck by the maddening thunderbolt of the gods, Renouard looked up to the sky, an immense black pall dusted over with gold, on which great shudders seemed to pass from the breath of life affirming its sway.
CHAPTER VIII
At last, one morning, in a clear spot of a glassy horizon charged with heraldic masses of black vapours, the island grew out from the sea, showing here and there its naked members of basaltic rock through the rents of heavy foliage. Later, in the great spilling of all the riches of sunset, Malata stood out green and rosy before turning into a violet shadow in the autumnal light of the expiring day. Then came the night. In the faint airs the schooner crept on past a sturdy squat headland, and it was pitch dark when her headsails ran down, she turned short on her heel, and her anchor bit into the sandy bottom on the edge of the outer reef; for it was too dangerous then to attempt entering the little bay full of shoals. After the last solemn flutter of the mainsail the murmuring voices of the Moorsom party lingered, very frail, in the black stillness.
They were sitting aft, on chairs, and nobody made a move. Early in the day, when it had become evident that the wind was failing, Renouard, basing his advice on the shortcomings of his bachelor establishment, had urged on the ladies the advisability of not going ashore in the middle of the night. Now he approached them in a constrained manner (it was astonishing the constraint that had reigned between him and his guests all through the passage) and renewed his arguments. No one ashore would dream of his bringing any visitors with him. Nobody would even think of coming off. There was only one old canoe on the plantation. And landing in the schooner’s boats would be awkward in the dark. There was the risk of getting aground on some shallow patches. It would be best to spend the rest of the night on board.
There was really no opposition. The professor smoking a pipe, and very comfortable in an ulster buttoned over his tropical clothes, was the first to speak from his long chair.
“Most excellent advice.”
Next to him Miss Moorsom assented by a long silence. Then in a voice as of one coming out of a dream —
“And so this is Malata,” she said. “I have often wondered . . .”
A shiver passed through Renouard. She had wondered! What about? Malata was himself. He and Malata were one. And she had wondered! She had . . .
The professor’s sister leaned over towards Renouard. Through all these days at sea the man’s — the found man’s — existence had not been alluded to on board the schooner. That reticence was part of the general constraint lying upon them all. She, herself, certainly had not been exactly elated by this finding — poor Arthur, without money, without prospects. But she felt moved by the sentiment and romance of the situation.
“Isn’t it wonderful,” she whispered out of her white wrap, “to think of poor Arthur sleeping there, so near to our dear lovely Felicia, and not knowing the immense joy in store for him to-morrow.”
There was such artificiality in the wax-flower lady that nothing in this speech touched Renouard. It was but the simple anxiety of his heart that he was voicing when he muttered gloomily —
“No one in the world knows what to-morrow may hold in store.”
The mature lady had a recoil as though he had said something impolite. What a harsh thing to say — instead of finding something nice and appropriate. On board, where she never saw him in evening clothes, Renouard’s resemblance to a duke’s son was not so apparent to her. Nothing but his — ah — bohemianism remained. She rose with a sort of ostentation.
“It’s late — and since we are going to sleep on board to-night . . .” she said. “But it does seem so cruel.”
The professor started up eagerly, knocking the ashes out of his pipe. “Infinitely more sensible, my dear Emma.”
Renouard waited behind Miss Moorsom’s chair.
She got up slowly, moved one step forward, and paused looking at the shore. The blackness of the island blotted out the stars with its vague mass like a low thundercloud brooding over the waters and ready to burst into flame and crashes.
“And so — this is Malata,” she repeated dreamily, moving towards the cabin door. The clear cloak hanging from her shoulders, the ivory face — for the night had put out nothing of her but the gleams of her hair — made her resemble a shining dream-woman uttering words of wistful inquiry. She disappeared without a sign, leaving Renouard penetrated to the very marrow by the sounds that came from her body like a mysterious resonance of an exquisite instrument.
He stood stock still. What was this accidental touch which had evoked the strange accent of her voice?
He dared not answer that question. But he had to answer the question of what was to be done now. Had the moment of confession come? The thought was enough to make one’s blood run cold.
It was as if those people had a premonition of something. In the taciturn days of the passage he had noticed their reserve even amongst themselves. The professor smoked his pipe moodily in retired spots. Renouard had caught Miss Moorsom’s eyes resting on himself more than once, with a peculiar and grave expression. He fancied that she avoided all opportunities of conversation. The maiden lady seemed to nurse a grievance. And now what had he to do?
The lights on the deck had gone out one after the other. The schooner slept.
About an hour after Miss Moorsom had gone below without a sign or a word for him, Renouard got out of his hammock slung in the waist under the midship awning — for he had given up all the accommodation below to his guests. He got out with a sudden swift movement, flung off his sleeping jacket, rolled his pyjamas up his thighs, and stole forward, unseen by the one Kanaka of the anchor-watch. His white torso, naked like a stripped athlete’s, glimmered, ghostly, in the deep shadows of the deck. Unnoticed he got out of the ship over the knight-heads, ran along the back rope, and seizing the dolphin-striker firmly with both hands, lowered himself into the sea without a splash.
He swam away, noiseless like a fish, and then struck boldly for the land, sustained, embraced, by the tepid water. The gentle, voluptuous heave of its breast swung him up and down slightly; sometimes a wavelet murmured in his ears; from time to time, lowering his feet, he felt for the bottom on a shallow patch to rest and correct his direction. He landed at the lower end of the bungalow garden, into the dead stillness of the island. There were no lights. The plantation seemed to sleep, as profoundly as the schooner. On the path a small shell cracked under his naked heel.
Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) Page 622
