Aliens Part 30

"Yes," I said. "As well as a bachelor can, I think I appreciate your point. You mean that since you can't foresee these minor affairs and since you may leave home before the clouds roll by...."

"That's just it! Imagine a man like Frank living next door say, a man who has known Rosa, as I told you ... See?"

As we stepped upon the ferry I noticed that his features were sharp and bore the impress of a quite unusual secret care, I felt guiltily that we had been unwise to tell so much to the painter-cousin. Who could tell what it might not lead to, even after so long an interval, with so incalculable a man as this brother?

With the bellow of the whistle Mr. Carville's face cleared and a.s.sumed its wonted placidity. The deck trembled as the screw began to revolve, and imperceptibly we moved out towards Governor's Island. It was just here, I think, as we began our little six-mile journey to St. George, that a sudden illumination came to me. I understood Mr. Carville's reason for waiting instead of explaining his impression of New York. He gave me credit, apparently, for the ability to find it out for myself.

The vessel was going swiftly now over the shining waters of New York Bay. To the left lay the low and sombre buildings of Governor's Island; to the right the prison-like pile of Ellis Island showed red in the sunlight. On either side the sh.o.r.es fell away from us, leaving Bartholdi's statue, for a brief moment, the dominant note in the scene.

Quickly we hurried by, and Black Tom, with his fringe of cranes and stacks, his dark panoply of low-lying smoke, was revealed. Before us uprose the wooded heights of Staten Island, and far down the Narrows a glimpse of the blue Atlantic. A couple of tramp steamers, one with much red paint on her bows, were coming up past us, and I noticed the Red Ensign was flying from the p.o.o.p. With large gestures Mr. Carville's arm swept the horizon, indicating the salient points. Almost before I was aware of it we were entering the ferry station and he was calling my attention to the chimneys and buildings on the Communipaw sh.o.r.e.

"Now," said he, as we emerged upon the street, "your road lies down the coast, but if you have an hour to spare, you might come over and look at the ship. We'll take the trolley to New Brighton and ferry across from there. But of course----"

"With pleasure," I said hastily. It occurred to me that I could do worse than visit Mr. Carville's ship. We boarded a trolley-car.

"You see," said Mr. Carville, "I'm interested in Staten Island. In a way it's very English. About a year ago I bought a lot up at Richmond Bridge. The house will be ready in the spring and we'll move in. I've had a fancy for a long while to have a home of my own. We did think of buying in your part, but it's rather a long way for me, besides being dear."

"You'll be leaving Van Diemen's Avenue?" I said. He nodded.

"Sure. The wife's not very anxious to stay out there. She's funny in some ways. Thinks there's a prejudice against her."

"I a.s.sure you----" I began.

"Oh, I don't mean you, sir. She means in the stores. She's heard things.... Women are quick to take offence. She has her own way of living and it's a good way. We shouldn't like to feel we weren't wanted.

And you know, in your parts, there's a good deal of gentility creeping in. I was reading the local paper last night.... Mrs. This and Mrs. That entertaining to bridge, and so on! Humph!"

The car jingled and swayed round the corners, keeping close to the sh.o.r.e, and pulled up with a jerk at New Brighton. Across the narrow belt of water I could see the sterns of many ships.

"Here we are," said Mr. Carville. "The launch starts down there."

A stiff breeze was blowing and we were occupied with our hats until we reached the Communipaw side. Mr. Carville muttered a warning about no smoking "... five hundred dollars fine ... necessary, you see," and I saw his corn-cob no more until we reached his room.

"There she is," he remarked, indicating two very red funnels projecting above a roof. "That's the _Raritan_."

A faint smell of petroleum was in the air as we threaded our way among the blue-ended barrels and lengths of oily hose. In one way this ship of Mr. Carville's was novel to me. There was about her decks no noise of cranes lifting cargo, no open hatchways, no whiffs of steam or screaming of pulley-blocks, with huge bales of merchandise swinging in mid-air. As we ascended the accommodation ladder I saw nothing save a young man with thick gauntlets standing guard over an iron wheel valve in a big pipe that ran along the deck. A stout, iron-grey man in uniform was leaning against the sky-light on the p.o.o.p-deck as we came past the funnels. With a slight bashfulness Mr. Carville turned, and making a vague introductory gesture, p.r.o.nounced our names. I caught the words "Chief Officer" and "come to have a look round!" There was a little further parley, in which the "Old Man," "stores," and "The Second" bore some part. I did not pay much attention to the conversation, to tell the truth. I was looking northward across New York Bay and comprehending the significance of Mr. Carville's parallel between Manhattan and the City of the Lagoons. For a moment I forgot that I was standing on the deck of a ship. From my lacustrine vantage the whole of the wide harbour lay in view, the more distant edge of Long Island forming an irregular and dusky line betwixt the blue waters and the bluer sky. In the middle distance stood the statue of Liberty, islanded in the incoming tide-way, while away beyond, rising in superb splendour from a pearly haze, the innumerable towers of Manhattan floated and gleamed before my eyes.

Irresistibly there came to me a memory of Turner's Venetian masterpieces, and I knew that even that great magician would have seized upon the scene before me with avidity, would have delighted in the fairy-like threads of the bridges, the poetic groupings of the vast buildings, and the innumerable fenestrations of the _campanili_. One by one half-forgotten fragments of Byron came back to me as I looked out across the wide lagoon. I thought of Venice "throned on her hundred Isles," of him who said,

"I loved her from my boyhood; she to me Was as a fairy city of the heart, Rising like water-columns from the sea, Of joy the sojourn and of wealth the mart."

One by one, moreover, there came before me still more convincing evidence that this casual a.n.a.logy had in it a deeper significance, that here the Queen of the Adriatic was indeed resuscitated and the Venetian Republic born to a sublimer destiny. Surely the same indomitable spirit, the same high courage, that had reared that wondrous city out of the sea, was here before me, piling story upon story, pinnacle beyond pinnacle, till our old-world hearts sickened and our unaccustomed brains grew dizzy at the sight.

For a time--I know not how long--I stood with my hand on the rail, looking out upon that vision from the Kills. I heard Mr. Carville's voice behind me, and I turned.

"What do you think, sir?" he said, and waved his hand.

"You are right," I replied in a low tone. "You are certainly right. As for your _San Giorgio_," I smiled, "I'm afraid, Mr. Carville, you are a cleverer man than I thought you!"

"Come down and have a smoke," he said. "I've some letters to see to."

We descended the companion-way and crossed a large cabin with berths all round. Mr. Carville selected a Yale key from his bunch and opened his door. A young man in a soiled serge suit came out of the next room with some letters.

"Ah!" said Mr. Carville, hanging up his Derby hat. "How's things, mister?" and he took the letters.

The young man addressed as mister made several incoherent remarks of a technical nature, and with a glance in my direction withdrew.

"Sit down," said Mr. Carville, shutting the door. "You'll excuse me for a minute?"

I sat down on a red plush settee while my host settled into a wicker easy chair by a small desk. The room by our computation would be small, yet I perceived that Mr. Carville had within reach of his hand almost every convenience of civilization. At his elbow were a telephone and a speaking tube; just above him an electric fan. Electric lights were placed all over the room. His bed lay below the port-holes and a wash-basin of polished mahogany was folded up beside the bed. On the table were cigars and whisky. And between the bed and the wardrobe, on four shelves, were ranged some two hundred volumes; even for a landsman a respectable library.

He sat for some moments reading his letters with patient attention, pinching his lower lip between thumb and finger. My estimate of him had undergone several changes since leaving the Battery; since leaving deck, even. I felt somehow that this quiet, sedate person was no longer apologetic in his att.i.tude towards me. Here he was master, and a subtle alteration of his demeanour indicated this to me. He sat there, as I watched him, solid and secure by inalienable right of succession, a son of that stern, imaginative adventurer, his father; a son, moreover, of that sea which he served from year to year. I looked up at the photograph of his wife which he had mentioned, a photograph set in silver. The soft shadows of the platinotype suited Mrs. Carville.

Evidently this had been taken about the time of her marriage; the fine modelling of her face and the poise of her head were instinct with youth. In her eyes I fancied something of the mild expression with which she accompanied her remark, "He is a good man." On either side of the silver frame were small pictures of the boys.

Mr. Carville put the two letters in a wire clip and offered me a cigar.

"Now you can see for yourself," said he, "where I live." He laughed.

"I'm one of the few people who haven't got a bad word to say of the Standard Oil Co. They give me more cubic feet of private s.p.a.ce, bigger cabin s.p.a.ce, and better food than any shipowner across the water. They give me any mortal thing for my engines except time to overhaul them.

The newspapers tell me they're a blood-sucking trust battening on the body-politic, and so on. Personally ..." and Mr. Carville drew the stopper from a square bottle, "personally, I find them very decent people to work for."

I sat looking at him for some time as he busied himself with a drawer which contained, he a.s.sured me, an apollinaris. It struck me that though he had gained in certain external trappings of the mind since entering his room, he had ceased to appear to me as a heroic figure. Even the perception which had appreciated the grandeur of New York, the wit which had connected St. George with _San Giorgio Maggiore_, seemed to me incongruous with the present phase of his character. Quite possibly I had been so drilled in hatred of Standard Oil that I unconsciously revolted from the notion that any good could come out of that protean enterprise! And yet, when I reflected, I could not but wonder whether, after all, he, in his quiet efficiency, his sober sense, and his deliberate renunciation of the glory of romance, was not as logical a product of our modern age as the corporation he served.

"You serve both G.o.d and Mammon," I remarked as the soda-water splashed into the gla.s.s. He nodded, smiling.

"Yes," he said, "or rather let us call it rendering unto Caesar. After all, something must bend if you are going to make ends meet. Caesar," he added, lifting up his gla.s.s, "isn't such a bad proposition when you have a family to provide for."

I agreed that this was so and scanned the books on the shelves. They at least were a n.o.ble company, their gold and green and blue broken by the plain yellow paper backs of Italian books. Shakespeare was there and St.

Francis of a.s.sisi; _Fors Clavigera_ in a cabinet edition; Symonds'

_Renaissance_ and Pater in wide-margined dignity. Tucked in corners, too, were books in that quaint pocket edition of the _Bibliotheque Nationale_: _Rabelais_, in five volumes, Beaumarchais' _Memoirs_, Rousseau, Scarron's _Travesty of Virgil_ and that extraordinary work of genius, The _Maxims_ of La Rochefoucauld. As I turned them over I saw on their pages the purple rubber-stamps of some bookseller in Tunis, Bizerta, Tangier, and other places even more obscure. I had a vision of the man making his way, in some perspiration, through the press of Arabs and Moors to the little shop under the arches. I saw him scanning the shelves, the Derby hat pushed back, the vest open, the thumb and finger pinching the lower lip.... I turned to him with a worn copy of _Heine_ in my hand.

"I think," I said, "I must fit out an expedition, to go and dredge the Java Sea for that ma.n.u.script you threw overboard."

"No," he replied, settling in his chair. "It wouldn't be worth it."

"We don't often find a man who could do it," I said.

"That's because they lack balance. The mistake artists and literary people make is, they think that because a thing is priceless, we can't do without it. I think it's a mistake. Someone pays half-a-million dollars for a Turner, say. Well, even if it was burnt up, lost overboard, what of it? It can be done again."

"Do you think so?" I asked. I was glad Mac did not hear this.

"Certainly!" replied Mr. Carville. "Everything's been done, which is a sound argument for supposing it can be done again. There's plenty of men doing much better than they did in olden times. I can't see much sense in the theory that because a picture is old it's a masterpiece, and because it's new it's junk. We ought to take longer views. How do _we_ know what the youngsters are going to do?"

"That indeed is on the knees of the G.o.ds," I said as I put the _Heine_ back on the shelf. I looked at my watch.

"I must be off to Pleasant Plains," I said. "If you are not going out at once, I should like to return in the afternoon; but I must run now."

"I expect we'll be bunkered and out by tea-time," he said, rising.

"Still, some other time.... We're not away very long, month or so...."

He followed me to the gangway and I bade him farewell and _bon-voyage_.

He had donned a double-breasted coat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and a cap with a badge and gold cord on it. The effect on my mind was somewhat disquieting. He seemed to have vanished behind an official mask, a mask whose sympathy with and knowledge of me was inexpressibly remote. I looked back as I crossed over towards the ferry, and saw him in deep conversation with the Chief Officer.