Captivity Part 13

He immediately looked consciously learned.

"Like a baby, you know--it grabs for a thing and can't aim at it. It reaches a few inches the other side of it. It means your brain and body are not on speaking terms."

"Oh, my goodness! Am I like that? Does it matter? How do you know all about it?"

"I learnt it at the hospital."

"Oh, are you a doctor then?"

"No. N-not n-now," he stammered, and began to untie and retie his shoe lace very carefully. "I--I was going to be."

"You must be clever," she said admiringly. "What a lot of things we can talk about!"

"Rather! I'm w-wondering what m-makes you like that!--you know what I mean, without co-ordination. Babies and drunkards and that sort of thing usually are."

"Well, I'm neither of those. But I'll tell you why I think it is. It's because I've lived in the open air, where there was nothing to knock over except trees and stones; or else I've lived in an enormous house where everything was so big you couldn't knock it over if you tried. I'm not used to being among things and people."

"Been in prison?" he said, smiling for the first time.

She entered on a vivid description of Lashnagar. He seemed to think it was a fairy tale, though he listened eagerly enough, and once she saw him actually look directly at her face for an instant.

"Are you going to Sydney?" he asked at length.

"I'm booked through to Sydney, but I'm going to live with an uncle right in the backblocks somewhere, and he may meet me at Melbourne. I've never seen him yet. Where are you going?"

"Sydney."

"To live there?"

"No, die probably," he said, and his face that had been animated suddenly became morose and gloomy, and his hand shook as he lighted a cigarette. Her eyes opened wider.

"Are you ill, then?" she asked gently. "You don't look ill."

"No, I'm not ill. By the way, do you smoke? It didn't occur to me to offer you a cigarette."

She shook her head, watching him with a puzzled frown. She wondered why his hands gave her such a vague sense of discomfort as she watched him light another cigarette. It was not until she was in her bunk that night that she remembered that his nails were bitten and ragged--one finger was bleeding and inflamed.

"No, I'm not ill. I'm sick, though. The Pater says I want stiffening.

This is my third trip in the stiffening process. Like a bally collar in a laundry! Oh, d.a.m.n life! What's he know about it, anyway? Have you got a deck-chair?"

"Yes, but--"

"I'm going to put mine on the fo'c'sle presently. If we don't peg out claims they'll all go, and the fo'c'sle is the best place in the steerage. Where's yours? I'll t-take it there, if you like."

He had begun to stammer in the last sentence, suddenly self-conscious again. She told him where her chair was on deck, and next minute, without another word, he was half-way along the alley-way, leaving the tea-things where they were. Then he turned back and spoke from several yards away.

"I suppose you're wondering what the devil I'm doing in the steerage, aren't you? A chap like me--a medical student! And I'll t-tell you w-why it is! The p-pater's too mean to pay for me to go decently."

He was looking down at his shoes as he spoke. She noticed that the nice brown eyes were quite far apart; the forces that set them so had not meant them to be shifty. His chin was strong, too, but his mouth was loose and much too mobile. It quivered when he had finished speaking.

She reflected that if she had seen him in a train reading, and not speaking to anyone, she would have thought him very nice to look at.

Only his nervousness and his mannerisms made him unpleasant.

"He'd go first cla.s.s himself if he was going to Hades! Steerage is good enough for Louis--as there's no way of letting him run behind like a little dog!" He began to bite his lower lip, and his fingers twisted aimlessly.

"I hadn't thought of the lack of dignity in it," said Marcella calmly.

"I said I'd come steerage, and here I am. I'm sure it's going to be jolly."

"I don't suppose you'd notice, being a farmer's daughter," he said.

"I never notice anything, and I never worry about things. I knew perfectly well aunt couldn't afford to pay more for me, and I'm not such a fool as to pretend she could."

"And I'm to consider myself squashed--abso-bally-lutely pestle and mortared?" he said, turning away flushing and biting his lip.

"Quite. I hate pretenders," she said. The next moment he heard her cabin trunk being pushed noisily inside and the door was banged to.

At five o'clock a steward came along to explain that he had looked for her at lunch-time, but could not find her.

"I've reserved you a place at my table, miss," he said. "You'd better get in early and take it. These emigrants, they push and shove so--and expect the best of everything. And mind you, not a penny to be had out of them--not one penny! It's 'Knollys this' and 'Knollys that' all day--my name being Knollys, miss--you'd think I was a dog."

She went along the alley-way with him. He went on, aggrievedly:

"Simply because they've never had anyone to order about before, and they aren't used to it. But anything you want, let me know, miss, and I'll see you all right."

When she got into the dining saloon she found small wars in progress.

About a hundred and fifty people were trying to sit down in a hundred seats. The stewards looked hara.s.sed as they explained that there was another meal-time half an hour after the first. Knollys was trying, with impa.s.sive dignity, to prove mathematically to an old lady that by waiting until six o'clock for her tea to-day and automatically shifting all her meal-times on half an hour she was losing nothing; and, after all, it would all be the same whether she had her tea at five or six or seven a hundred years hence. But she thought there was some catch in it, for she expressed an intention of seeing the captain, and then, thinking better of it, stood behind an already occupied chair with the air of Horatius holding the bridge.

When at last order was restored and Marcella sat down, she found that she was at a long table, one of three that ran from end to end of the saloon. Ole Fred and his three friends were at the same table, a little higher up. He scowled at her, and the three others made some grinning remarks to him which he seemed to resent. Next to her was a little boy of six or seven, who looked at her gravely. Beside him was a man with greying hair and a very red face, who was talking to a small lady of deceptive age--a very pretty, dark, bright-eyed little lady, charmingly dressed, with hair of shining blackness arranged about her head in dozens of little tight curls. She and the elderly man were talking animatedly. The little boy pulled the man's arm several times gently, and said "Father," but he did not notice.

There were piles of sliced bread at intervals up the table, and saucers containing b.u.t.ter and jam. The stewards came to each person with an enormous pair of pots and, murmuring "tea or coffee?" poured something by sleight-of-hand into the thick, unbreakable cups.

"Father!" murmured the little boy again, pulling his father's sleeve.

The father shook his arm impatiently, as one jerks away an annoying fly.

He went on talking absorbedly. A steward asked if Marcella would have ham or fish.

"Father," said the little boy, with quivering lips.

"What's to do, laddie?" said Marcella.

He stared at her, summed her up and decided.

"I'm thinking, shall I have ham or fish?" he said seriously.

"Which do you like?"

"Fish--only the bones are so worrying."

"I'll see to the bones for you. Have fish because I'm having it, and we can keep each other company," she said. Knollys darted away.

"I'd advise you to make a good tea, miss," said Knollys with a firmly respectful air. "There's nothing until breakfast at eight to-morrow."