Captivity Part 20

"Well, this is where I'm so puzzled. I'm quite happy, and I always think people are my friends. What I want to know is what is there inside us two that's different?"

He shook his head impatiently.

"It's in my family," he began, and she felt it on the tip of her tongue to tell him it was in hers too, but something stopped her. "And it's a hunger--absolutely an unendurable hunger."

"Were you always frightened of things?" she said, a little wonderingly.

"No--I was always nervy and shy and repressed. But this is a vicious circle, don't you see? A thing is called a vicious circle in medicine when cause and effect are so closely linked that you can't tell which is which. At home I was repressed; that was the fashion in my young days.

The motto was, 'Children are to be seen and not heard.' I dodged visitors always; when I met them by any chance I was always a fool with them, blinking and stammering like anything. When I was first at the hospital among men I was gawky until quite by chance I discovered that whisky made me graceful, stopped the stammering, gave me a surprising flow of eloquence and made me feel a d.a.m.ned fine chap. Naturally I went at it like anything, and of course after each burst was more nervous than ever. It plays havoc with your nerves, you know. And in addition I had a sense of guilt.--Oh, d.a.m.n life!"

"Yes," she said slowly. She understood what a vicious circle was now.

"You drank to stop yourself being nervous. The stuff makes you temporarily happy, and then even more nervous afterwards. So you drink more. Oh, my goodness, how silly!"

"But you don't take into account what a hunger it is, you know," he said in a low voice. "You don't understand that. I don't think there can be such another hunger on earth, even love."

"Oh--" she started to speak, and stopped. She had never thought of love like that, and wanted to tell him so, but that seemed to be side-tracking. So she went on, "Has it occurred to you that it will make you ill, kill you in time?"

"Do you think I've had five years at a hospital without seeing alcoholism?" he said bitterly. "Oh, I know all the diseases--I shall go mad, I expect. My brain's much weaker than my body."

"I suppose you think it's very nice to go mad?" she said, hating herself for the futility of her words, wishing she had books or preachments to hurl at him and convince him.

"Oh, what's it matter?" he said wearily. "Who cares?"

"Have you any idea how horrible it is, Louis?" she asked solemnly, with all the tragedy of the farm behind her words, compelling him to look at her.

"Most diseases are horrible--what about cancer?" he said coolly.

"But people can't help cancer, and they can--at least I think so--help your sort of illness. Louis, I saw the two people I love best on earth dying. One of them died of cancer, the other of drink. I wasn't going to tell you that. But when you said it was in your family I was going to tell you that was no argument. It's been in my family for generations and generations. I suppose it's in everyone's to some extent. It has wiped out all my family. But it certainly is not going to wipe out me. I perhaps should not talk about my family to you, a stranger. Yet somehow I feel that father would not mind my telling you about him, if it can help you from suffering as he did. He cured himself."

"How?" he cried with sudden, breathless hopefulness.

"There, that's the awfulness of it. I don't know. I only know that one day he was drunk, and the next day he was not, and never was again. He said he gave all his burden to G.o.d."

He shook himself impatiently.

"Oh, I can't believe in all that rot!" he said harshly. "I neither trust G.o.d nor myself."

Below deck the mandoline began to tw.a.n.g again, and the soft Italian voice went on with "La Donna E Mobile" interminably.

"Louis, listen to me," she said quietly. "I'm not going to let you die like father died. I'm not going to let your heart get all horrible and thumping so that you can't lie down, and your feet and hands swollen and white and horrible. And I'm not going to have you shut up in an asylum."

"It's good of you to bother," he said humbly, "but I can see it's no good. You can't stop it. I can't myself. You'd get fed up. You'll get fed up with me as it is before we get to Sydney. You'll be jolly glad to get rid of me and be off with the uncle into the backblocks. I insulted and sickened and shamed Violet till she threw me over. And she loved me.

I know very well she did."

"I won't let you be rude to me, Louis. I'm not quite like Violet, perhaps. If people are rude to me I don't get hurt. I just give them a good shaking and forget it. Besides, I couldn't get cross with anyone for being ill, could I? And I'm going to make you get better before we get to Sydney."

He shook his head hopelessly.

"I mean it. I am going to keep worrying you about it till you stop it dead. I'll make it seem a dreadful nuisance to you."

"It may work," he said slowly, impressed by her certainty. "So long as we're on the ship. If you can keep me from the Ole Fred gang. But it'll be all up when we get to Sydney and you leave me."

"Well then, I'll stay in Sydney," she said, making up her mind casually.

"I'll tell uncle I don't want to go and live with him. I'll find some way of staying with you."

"I say, do you mean it?" he cried. "After my rudeness?"

"Of course I mean it. It will be fun! I love a fight!"

"And you mean that you really care about me?"

"Of course I care! I believe I'll die if you don't get better," she said eagerly.

He fumbled in his pockets, lit several matches and put something in her hand.

"Here it is, look. Thirteen pounds, eight and fivepence."

"What's that for?"

"It's all my money. If I have any I'll be magnetized towards the bar. If I haven't, it's much safer. And look here, Marcella, if I come and knock you down with a sledgehammer, don't let me have that money, will you?"

"I won't," she said promptly.

She was thrilled, exhilarated, as they went below after shaking hands solemnly. She was Siegfried, and the dragon had a pock-marked face, and each foot had three claws missing. She thought, as she looked through dream-misted eyes, that the dragon was a very long one, with many legs and many heads. But she had not the faintest doubt that, in the end, he would fall to her trusty sword. And she told Louis so at the door of his cabin as she said good night to him.

Then she turned back to Number 15. She had looked about the deck for Jimmy, but guessing that he had fallen asleep in his own bunk, pushed open the door softly. She was determined that he should not sleep in there with Ole Fred, who was celebrating a great win at poker.

Louis stood at his own door.

"What are you going in there for?" he asked.

"I'm fetching poor little Jimmy. He's terrified of Ole Fred. He calls him the Beast. I think it's disgusting that he and the red-haired man sleep in here with a little boy."

He nodded and smiled at her, but Jimmy was not in the cabin at all. As she came out Ole Fred came along the alley-way. He leered at her but did not speak. She hurried into her own cabin, shut the door and pushed the bolt along instinctively. As she switched on the light she saw a very small amount of exceedingly dirty water in her basin, and Jimmy's neat pile of tiny clothes folded on the floor. He was fast asleep in the lower bunk.

She started to undress in a golden glow of romance, and realized that, as her clothes came off, her armour was going to stay on, waking and sleeping, visible only to herself. Then she thought of a small, trivial thing. She tapped on the part.i.tion.

"Are you hungry?" she called quietly.

"Frightfully."

"Go and talk to Knollys. He's very nice. He'll find something for you."

"N-no. I c-can't," he stammered, frightened immediately.

"Then I shall," she said, and, slipping on her dressing-gown, went along to the saloon. By luck she found Knollys there and he produced bread and cheese and ship's biscuit from the steward's pantry.

"I imagine you are hungry, miss," he said respectfully when she asked him to be sure to give her a lot.