Captivity Part 16

He broke off, staring bitterly away from her, his knees drawn up, his chin resting on them.

"And you told your mother about it--and your father?" she said.

"Yes, every word, and more. Things I wouldn't tell you, because you're a girl, and I've still some respect for girls. Things that happened in Rio and Rosario--some of the women there, the rich women--Lord, they're the devil's own!" He reflected grimly. "I told the Pater a few things--opened his eyes. He's a publisher--Sunday school prizes and that sort of thing. Stacks of money! No imagination. Most people have no imagination. They see things in a detached way. They see them, somehow, as if they're in print or going on on a stage. But not really happening. The Pater simply said I ought to be ashamed of myself--as if I'm not!"

He broke off and tried to light a cigarette with fingers that trembled.

Three, four matches he struck before he got it lighted and puffing. She sat silent, listening to the murmur of voices and the swishing water.

"Why the devil I'm telling you this I can't imagine," he said at last.

"Most girls would have yelled out for help before this."

"I think, you know," she said rather breathless, "I think you're a great idiot! You _ask_ for things, don't you?"

"But what is there for a man to do out there? There's nothing I want to do except medicine, and that's past for ever now. There's nothing to do but get drunk. I've tried, often--got jobs, and all that. But there's no inducement--and I've told you how easy it is not to starve."

"But it's so--so beastly! You might as well be dead--you're not happy."

"That's exactly what I think. That's what I'm going to do. I got ten pounds out of the Mater. She's always ready to give me anything if it happens to be the beginning of the month and she's well off. The Pater solemnly presented me with three pounds--that's ten shillings a week for smokes for the six weeks of the trip. I'll buy bull's-eyes with it, I think. That'd please him. That makes thirteen pounds, and there's ten pounds waiting for me in Sydney. I'll have a d.a.m.ned good bust-up then, and then I'll finish the job for ever."

"Oh, I do think you're mad--raving mad!" she cried, and could say nothing else.

"Of course it's by no means certain I'll have enough courage to kill myself. I rather doubt it! You see, they didn't breed me with courage.

They've given me porridge in my veins instead of blood! They press electric b.u.t.tons for their emotions and keep them down as long as is respectable! They didn't give me grit at all--they gave me convention and respectability. Everything I wanted to do they restrained because so many of the things I wanted to do seemed natural but were not respectable. And in the end they made a first-cla.s.s liar of me." There was a long, terrible silence.

"To-night, for a bit, I'm stripped bare here," he said in a low voice, "letting you see me. To-morrow I'll be a nervous, stammering fool, hiding all I feel, sw.a.n.king like h.e.l.l about my people, myself and everyone I've ever seen, like I was doing to-day when you told me off so beautifully. To-morrow I'll be drunk, and I'll lie to you till all's blue. To-night I'm just honest."

"Why is it that you're honest with me?" she asked him.

"Lord knows! I suppose it's because I'll disintegrate and go over the side in shivers if I can't get something off my chest. You don't seem disgusted with me--Lord, everyone else is! And I'm the loneliest devil on earth."

"I'm glad you told me. Let's be friends, Louis--till we get to Sydney, anyway."

"I never have friends. I lie to them, and they find me out. I borrow money from them and don't pay it back, and then I'm afraid to face them.

I make fools of them in public; I'm irritable with them."

"I'm warned," she said with a laugh. "I'm not afraid of you."

Suddenly he turned round. All the time he had been talking his back had been half turned to her. She saw the crimson end of the cigarette glowing. It was flung overboard. He groped for and found both her hands.

"Look here, this is the maddest thing I've ever done yet--but will you take it on, being friends with me?"

"I want to. I'm lonely, you know. I could have cried to-night, really."

"But--look here. I'm begging, yes begging, this of you. When I lie to you, insult me, will you? You'll know. You've seen me honest to-night, but sometimes a thing gets hold of me and I lie like h.e.l.l! I'll tell you the most amazing, most circ.u.mstantial tales--just as you told me this afternoon--and you'll believe me. But I implore you, don't believe me!

Heaps of people have lent me money because they've believed what I've told them about my wife or my mother or my child dying. Lord, I'm a waster! But if I can find someone who'll be hard with me, I think I might make a stand. Look here, I promised the Mater, as this was my last week at home, and I haven't had a drink since Monday. That's four days to the good. If I promise you there's a faint chance I won't do it. Do you mind?"

"I'll watch you," she said calmly. "And I'll tell you if you tell me lies. But I don't believe you'll do any such thing!"

"Don't you? Do you believe in me?" he cried.

"Why not? I think you're a fearful duffer, but naturally I believe in you," she said calmly.

"I know why I came by this ship! It's a miracle. I believe I'm going to make a stand now, I really do! It's fate, and nothing else. There's an Anchor boat I was to have gone by--via the Cape, you know. She sailed last week, and I couldn't get off in time. I wanted to wait for the next as I've not been to the Cape. But the Pater couldn't put up with me for another week, so out I came! I know why I came! I came to meet you!"

"Do you think so?" she said wonderingly.

"I do! I've never in all my life told the truth about myself before! If you only knew what that means! I'm too nervous as a rule. But don't you notice the difference? Of course you're not trained, so you wouldn't notice as I should. But I'm not even stammering half so much. It's jolly good of you to listen to me--and it's jolly good for me, because I've no reason to try to get at you, or to get my own back on you, as I have with my people all the time."

Marcella felt very small, very helpless. She had a sudden vision of a man dying in an agony of poisoning while she stood frantic in a doctor's laboratory, antidotes all round her, but no knowledge in her brain of which drug to use. And all the time his agony went on, and death drew nearer. She had not the least idea in the world what to do for Louis Fame. He frightened her, he disgusted her, he made her feel hungrily anxious to help, he made her feel responsible and yet helpless, but at the same time it mattered and challenged her that he had appealed to her at all. She thought of her father, and remembered with a pang that she knew nothing about him except superficially. She thought of his books, but nothing in them seemed helpful. She thought of the Bible, of her poetry, her legends. They were a blur, a mist. Nothing in them held out a hand to hail her. There seemed nothing that she could do.

"Oh," she cried pa.s.sionately, "I'm such a fool. If only I was clever! If only I knew what to do."

Before she had finished speaking came a flash of insight, and she went on, in the same breath, "But there's one thing that occurs to me. You think about yourself far too much. Old Wullie--I'll tell you about him some day--used to say that if we were quiet and didn't fuss about ourselves too much G.o.d would walk along our lives and help us to kill beasts--like whisky--"

"G.o.d? Oh, I'm fed up with G.o.d! I've had too much of that all my life at home," he said dully.

She had no answer for that, but as she bade him good night at the top of the companion-way she saw herself in armour. Her vague dreams of John the Baptist, of Siegfried and of Britomart suddenly crystallized, and she saw herself, very self-consciously, the Deliverer who would save Louis Fame. It did not occur to her to wonder if he were worth saving.

He was imprisoned in the first windmill she had encountered on her Don Quixote quest--and so he was to be rescued.

CHAPTER VII

She wakened to a world of blue and silver next morning; the sunlight seemed to come from the sea with a cold, hard glitter; there was a keenness in the air, a sharp tang of sea-salt with an underlying suggestion of something that was pleasantly reminiscent of Dr. Angus's surgery. The sailors were sluicing the deck with great hoses, and sprinkling it with little watering-cans of disinfectant. Up on the fo'c'sle her deck-chair was side by side with another on which "L. F."

was stencilled; after breakfast she went there with a book, expecting Louis to follow her. Presently Jimmy discovered her, bringing three other children with him, and they sat with shining eyes while she told them fairy-tales.

When they drew into Plymouth Harbour the fo'c'sle was cleared, and Marcella watched a few people going ash.o.r.e. Not very many went: they had not been at sea long enough to welcome a change on land, and the _Oriana_ only stayed two hours to take on mails and pa.s.sengers.

All that day she did not see Louis. Once or twice she heard him in his cabin, speaking to the man who shared it with him; not once did he put in an appearance at meals, and even at the melancholy hour of twilight he hid himself somewhere. She began to feel a little neglected.

It was easy to make friends: there were so many children to act as introducers. It was interesting to watch people forming little cliques; the pock-marked man had now a collection of eight; they went ash.o.r.e at Plymouth and came back again talking excitedly, with little s.n.a.t.c.hes of song. Mr. Peters and Mrs. Hetherington, the bright-haired little widow, were inseparable; one of the farm lads had forsaken Ole Fred already for a shy, red-cheeked emigrant girl, who giggled a good deal in corners with him; they sat for long hours, as the trip went on, saying nothing, staring out vacantly to sea, and occasionally holding each other's hands. At tea-time Marcella saw Louis come to the door of the saloon, look round with a frown, become very red in the face as he saw several people look at him casually, and beat a hasty retreat. She had a long talk with the thin girl during the evening, learning that she had been under-housemaid in a girls' school; she asked Marcella her name, volunteering the information that she was Phyllis Mayes, only her friends called her Diddy; she seemed to have got over much of her grief at parting with her sister. After a while she explained, blushing and giggling, that one of the cook's a.s.sistants had made friends with her the previous night and given her two meringues.

"A friend of mine who came out as a stewardess told me the best thing you could do was to make friends with the cooks or the butchers--because there's all sorts of little t.i.t-bits they can get for you. Young Bill--him that gave me the meringues--has got a mate called Winkle. I'll give you an intro., if you like. He's quite a toff. He's been a waiter."

Marcella made some excuse, but when Phyllis--or Diddy--went away to her appointment with Bill she sat for a long time thinking. She was already feeling disillusioned.

At nine o'clock she decided to go below. In the shadow of the steps leading to the upper deck Mr. Peters and Mrs. Hetherington were sitting very close together. A little bright tray was at their feet, and a big bottle with a cap and scarf of gold foil stood sentinel over two gla.s.ses of such an exquisite shape that Marcella stared hard at them as she pa.s.sed, saying "Good night." Mr. Peters was smiling with filmy, vacuous eyes. The little lady was flushed and vivid-looking. They both nodded beamingly at her. At the other side of the steps, in the bright light of the electric lamp was a small bundle, between two scarlet fire buckets.

It was Jimmy.

His hands were very dirty, his neck and back looked uncomfortably twisted. She touched him gently and he wakened with a start.

"Jimmy, what's to do? You ought to be in bed," she said.

"I'm waiting for dad," he explained, blinking and stretching. "My, it does make your neck stiff."

"Come with me, and I'll put you in bed."