Cinderella in the South Part 21

I said nothing. He did not like my silence much, I gathered. He was not so very cordial afterwards. He was a man with many grievances Carraway.

When we were drawing close to Madeira, two nights before, on the Sunday, Carraway touched the subject again.

The parson had preached incidentally on the advisability of being white--white all round. I thought he played to his gallery a bit, in what he said.

'An excellent sermon,' said Carraway. 'Did you hear how he got at that josser with the Kaffir wife? That parson's a white man.'

I said nothing.

'What G.o.d hath divided let no man unite,' said Carraway, improving the occasion. 'I don't uphold Kaffirs. The white man must always be top dog,' etc., etc.

Carraway grew greasily fluent on rather well-worn lines. I smoked my pipe and made no comment. By-and-bye he tired of his monologue.

He gave me no further confidences till the night after we left Madeira.

Then he came to me suddenly about eleven o'clock as I stood on the well-deck, smoking a pipe before turning in.

'Come and have a walk,' he said, in a breathless sort of way.

We climbed some steps and paced the upper deck towards the wheel-house. There were few electric lights burning now. After a turn or two he drew up under one of them, and looked round to see whether anyone listened.

'Don't give me away for G.o.d's sake,' he said. He held up a hand towards the light pathetically. 'It's showing,' he said. 'G.o.d knows why. G.o.d knows what I've done to bring it.'

I said nothing, but looked at him and considered him carefully.

He certainly did not seem to be drunk.

Then I examined the hand he gave me.

'I don't see anything particular,' I said. 'What's wrong?'

'Good Lord! The nails.'

But the nails looked to me pink and healthy.

'Tell me,' I said, 'What you think's wrong.'

Yet he could not tell me that night. He tried to tell me. He was just like a little boy in most awful trepidation, trying to confess some big transgression. He gasped and spluttered, but he never got it out that night. I couldn't make head nor tail of what he said. After he was gone to bed it is true I put two and two together and guessed something. But I was fairly puzzled at the time.

'You're a bit upset to-night,' I said. 'You're not quite yourself, it's the sea I suppose, or something. Come to bed and get a good night.' His teeth chattered as he came down the ladder. I got him down to his cabin.

'Thanks!' he said. 'Good night! I may come all right in the morning. Anyhow I'll have a bath and try.'

He said it so naively that I could not help laughing.

'Yes, have a sea-water-bath, a jolly good idea,' I said. 'You'll have to be up early. There's only one and there's a run on it before breakfast. Goodnight!'

I saw him again in the morning outside the bathroom. He came out in his pink-and-white pyjamas; the pink was aggressive and fought with the tint of his moustache. He looked very blue and wretched.

'Well,' I asked, 'Have you slept it off whatever it was?'

'No,' he said, 'let me tell you about it.' He began to gasp and splutter.

Just then another postulant came up, making for the bath-room door.

'Afterwards!' I said, 'After breakfast.' And I vanished into the bath-room. It was probably Carraway, I thought, that had left a little collection of soaps in that bath-room. He had brought a bucket of fresh water with him apparently to give them a fair trial. There was yellow soap, a pumice stone, and carbolic soap, and scented soap. 'I'll keep them for him,' I thought. 'Somebody may jump them if I leave them here. I wonder why in the world he's so distrait.' I had my suspicions as to the reason, and I laughed softly to myself.

After breakfast he invited me back to the bathroom; there was no run on it then.

'It's quiet,' he said. Then after many gasps and splutters he enlightened me. His nails were turning color, he told me.

'Anyone would think I had Kaffir blood in me,' he said.

Also his skin was giving him grave cause for solicitude. I did not resist the temptation to take him rather seriously. I administered philosophic consolation. I reminded him of Dumas and other serviceable colored people. I rather enjoyed his misery; poetic justice seemed to me to need some satisfaction. He, the negrophobe, who was so ultra-keen on drawing the line was now enjoying imaginative experiences on the far side of it.

'It seems then,' I remarked, 'That you are now a person of color.'

He nearly fainted. He did not swear. He seemed to have lost all his old truculence. He began to whimper like a child.

'After all, I never shared your prejudices.' I said. 'Cheer up, old man, I won't drop you like a hot potato even if you have a touch of the tar brush.'

He cried as if his heart would break. I saw I had gone too far.

If was like dancing on a trodden worm.

'Carraway,' I said, 'It's a pure delusion. Your nails are all right, and so's your skin. You're dreaming, man. You've got nerves or indigestion, or something. It's something inside you that's wrong. There's nothing outside for anyone to see.'

His eyes gleamed. He shook my hand feebly. Then he held up his own hand to the light.

'It's there,' he said wearily, after a while. 'You want to be kind, but you can't make black white. That's what I've always said. It's the Will of G.o.d, and there's nothing to gain by fighting it. Black will be black, and white will be white till crack of doom.'

I told him sternly that I was going to fetch the doctor to him.

He sprang at me and gripped my arm.

'I trusted you,' he said. 'I needn't have told you. You promised.'

So I had like a simpleton.

'Only give me two days,' he said, 'then I'll go to the doctor myself, if nothing works in all that time.'

So I said I would respect my promise loyally for those two days.

'I only told you,' he said, 'because my head was splitting with keeping it in. It's awful to me. I thought you were a negrophile and wouldn't think so much of it as other fellows. But for G.o.d's sake don't give me away to them. There's lots of things to try yet. By the way, ask that parson to pray for one afflicted and distressed in mind, body, and estate.'

He did try many sorts of things, poor fellow. He was in and out of that bath-room a good share of both days. He also tried drugs and patent medicines. I saw his cabin littered with them. He would sneak into meals those two days when people had almost finished, and gobble his food furtively.

I caught him once or twice smoking his pipe in the bath-room or the bath-room pa.s.sage. He would not venture amid the crowd on deck. Only when many of the pa.s.sengers were in bed would he come up with me, and take my arm and walk up and down. That was on the Wednesday night.

Wednesday night came, then Thursday morning. Thursday forenoon was long, and Thursday afternoon longer.

At last the sun was low, and I began to count the hours to the time when I might consult the doctor.