Grand Canary (10 page)

Abruptly Harvey turned away – he could not endure to look at these wretched brutes. One instant – the beauty of the island shore, the sublimity of that mysterious Peak; the next – this sluggish spectacle of morbid life. Restless, queerly agitated, he began to pace up and down with quick nervous steps. He looked at his wrist-watch – quite late, already nine o'clock – demanding of himself impatiently what he should do. He was in port, free of all fatuous restraint, free, too, of that enforced society which had so infuriated him; and with sudden surging recognition came the knowledge that he could land from this hated ship and lose himself again in that oblivion he could invoke at will. He could forget now those torturing visions of the past, those shapes, mingling the living and the dead, which like some feverish nightmare had beset him. His lips drew together; his jaw set. Of course he would go, he had determined it from the first; life held nothing that could alter his decision; yes, he would go deliberately, nothing would prevent him.

And yet he did not go. He went on walking up and down, feeling the sun warm upon his shoulders, feeling almost furtively the presence of that sublime Peak behind him. He had to stop again and turn to look at it. As he stood thus he heard Renton at his elbow:

‘A noble sight, Dr Leith. It is the Pico de Teyde, on Tenerife. And if you will believe me it is a full seventy-three miles to the westward. It dominates these islands. You will see it more plainly at Santa Cruz.' Side by side they gazed at the mountain; then Harvey said slowly:

‘Yes, it is a noble sight.' Then, quickly satirising his own feeling: ‘A vision of paradise!'

‘A paradise that has its drawbacks occasionally,' Renton said crisply. He paused, looked up at the other.

‘There's a nasty little business on the hills back of Santa Cruz. I had the news by wireless yesterday. They have yellow fever there!'

There was a sudden silence.

‘Yellow fever,' repeated Harvey.

‘Yes! The outbreak is in Hermosa – a village just outside Laguna. Fortunately it is confined.'

Again there was silence.

‘You'll keep that information to yourself,' said Renton at length. ‘You are a doctor. That's why I mention it. But I see no reason to set the others worrying unnecessarily.'

‘You haven't told them?'

‘No, sir. I have not. I believe in holding my tongue until there is some cause to speak. I have told you the outbreak is confined.'

‘Yellow fever is difficult to confine,' said Harvey slowly. ‘ It is mosquito borne. And it is a dreadful scourge.'

The captain bristled; above everything he hated contradiction.

‘I hope you are not trying to teach me my job,' he said brusquely. ‘Do you want me to coop my passengers under hatches? Why should I start them panicking? I have told you that I will wait and see. I have all the information from Mr Carr, our agent. And he agrees with my decision.'

‘Information sometimes travels slowly. Epidemics travel fast.'

‘There is no epidemic,' declared Renton crossly. ‘ I'm sorry I spoke of this to you. You are making a mountain of a molehill. They never have epidemics here.'

He stood like a bantam cock, defying further opposition. But Harvey simply answered in an even tone:

‘That's good.'

Renton looked at him testily, but it was impossible to penetrate the mask of that impassive face. Quite ruffled he stood silent for a while, then, with his expression still annoyed, he nodded abruptly and went into the chart-room.

Harvey remained standing at the rail.

Yellow fever! Was there something sinister now in the brightness of the bay, something hard about its colour? It was nothing, absolutely nothing. A sick man sixty miles away, perhaps. An exaggerated intuition for calamity! At any rate, he did not care. Nothing mattered to him now.

He turned, making for his cabin, then all at once he paused. On the lower deck, aft of the gangway, he saw Mary and Mrs Baynham talking to a man who had apparently that moment come on board. The man was youngish, handsome in a florid style, with a red and rather beefy face, a small dry, up-twisted moustache, a thick neck and a muscular figure carefully controlled; he wore a tussore suit, immaculate, well cut, matching the light suede shoes upon his feet and the spotless Panama held in his well-shaped hand. He was laughing, his feet apart, his head thrown back so that a fold of skin bulged slightly over his collar in a fashion which to Harvey seemed odious and gross. Instinctively he detested the man, noting, with a curling lip, the sheen on his sleek hair, the vaguely pompous inclination of his head, the killing glances of his eye, the arrogant complacency which intermingled with the deference of his address.

A grim speculation flashed into Harvey's mind. Is he her lover, he thought viciously; and this meeting the beatific purpose of the voyage?

But whose lover? He was staring now with furrowed brow at Mary. Was there an acquiescence in her face, in that quick impulsive movement of her hands? Her white silk dress clung to her, infused with the warmth of her flesh.

Then, as he remained gazing fixedly at the group below, again a voice addressed him. He started and looked round. Behind him stood Susan Tranter and her brother both dressed to go ashore. She repeated her question, calmly, her eyes quite unsmiling upon his.

‘We wondered if you were fixed up for today?'

‘Fixed up?' Detached violently from his mood, he echoed the words almost stupidly, aware of her neat and compact figure, the serious directness of her gaze. Her hands were gloved; her small, straw hat cast a softening shadow upon her square brow.

‘Have you made any plans – that's what I meant – plans to spend the day?'

‘No!'

Her eyes fell – then immediately lifted.

‘Robert and myself have an invitation,' she said steadily. ‘We have American friends at Arucas. They are kindly folks. They have a pleasant villa, well, you'd say it was real pleasant by its name. It is called Bella Vista. Will you come?'

He shook his head slowly.

‘No! I won't come.'

Her eyes could not leave his face.

‘It would be a good thing if you came,' she persisted in a low voice. ‘ The scenery is lovely there. They are Christian people and very kind. You would be made real welcome. You'd be at home there. Isn't that a fact, Robert?'

Tranter, standing with averted head and gaze fixed upon the lower deck, made an unusually gawky gesture of agreement.

‘Why should I come?' said Harvey stiffly. ‘I'm not a Christian I'm not kind. I should hate your dear American friends and they naturally would hate me. The very name Bella Vista fills me with loathing. And lastly, as I told you before, I'm probably going ashore to get drunk.'

Her eyes fell away from him.

‘I beg of you,' she said in an almost inaudible voice, ‘ I beg of you. I've prayed –' She broke off and for a moment stood staring at the deck. At last she raised her head.

‘We'll go then, Robbie,' she declared in an even voice. ‘It's a long drive. We can find a carriage on the quay.'

They descended to the lower deck. Deliberately she took the opposite side from that on which Elissa stood.

‘Say, Susan,' ventured Tranter as they went along, ‘ don't you think we might postpone our visit till the afternoon?'

‘No, I don't think so at all,' she answered, staring straight ahead. ‘We've been asked for lunch.'

‘I know. Sure, I know,' he said awkwardly. ‘ But we don't have to spend the whole day there. I guess the afternoon would have done pretty well enough.'

She stopped and faced him, her recent agitation welling to the surface in another cause.

‘This is the third time this morning you've suggested we stop back from Bella Vista. You know it's important we go there, Robbie.' She asked with trembling lips: ‘What's wrong with you, and what else is there to do?'

‘Now, now, Sue,' he protested quickly, ‘You're not to get upset. But, well – what's the harm if I did think we might have taken the morning to go over to Las Canteras with Mrs Baynham? She asked me to accompany her party to the beach. She said we might all take a swim. It's darned hot. And you know how fond you are of the water. Why, back home you were the bestest swimmer ever.'

She gave a little involuntary gasp.

‘So that's it,' she cried. ‘I might have guessed. And the way you put it over – trying to get me to the beach. You know you always hated to go swimming. You know you never could swim. She asked
us
indeed! Don't you see she's only mocking at you? Oh, Robbie, Robbie dear. What's come of you these last few days? You won't let that woman out of your sight. I tell you she's guying you all the time. Yet you keep running after her like you were crazy.'

Instantly he turned red.

‘You've got it all wrong,' he blurted out. ‘There's nothing – absolutely nothing I'm ashamed of.'

‘She's a bad lot.' These words came quivering from her lips.

‘Susan!'

There was a silence during which she fought for self-control; then, speaking with determination, she said rapidly:

‘I won't stand by and see you made a mock of. I love you too much for that. We'll go to Arucas. We'll go now. And we'll stay there all day.'

He met her resolution with an elevation of his dignity. Knowing himself to be in the right, bitterly disappointed at her refusal to go to Las Canteras, he answered nevertheless, in a calm and lofty tone:

‘Very well, then. Let's go. But I tell you plain I'm goin' to speak with Mrs Baynham when we return.' Turning, he walked off the gangplank with his head in the air.

Suppressing a sigh, her face troubled and unhappy, Susan slowly followed him.

Harvey did not see them go. He was in his cabin, eating moodily the fruit which Trout had brought up for breakfast. Telde oranges, thin-skinned and delicious, and custard apples fresh that morning from the market – a luscious meal. But he thought with introspective bitterness of his recent scene with Susan. He had not meant to take that tone; her intention at least was good; her quality – a downright honesty. Angry with himself, he stood up and began to dress. He had been hurt by life; and so, like a snarling dog, he wished to hurt back in retaliation, to strike at life with indeterminate, unreasonable savagery. Moreover, he must wound first lest he himself be wounded once again. It was the reflex of a stricken soul but he saw it only as a symptom of his own malignity.

He sighed and turned from the mirror. His face, no longer pallid, was hardened by a stain of brown; his hand, with which he had just shaved, no longer trembled; his eye was clear again. His body was recovering quickly, but in his heart there ranged a scathing self-contempt. He despised himself.

A knock sounded on the cabin door, and, lifting his head, Harvey paused. He had imagined himself alone, of all the passengers, upon the ship – left to that solitude he had so insistently demanded.

‘Come in,' he cried.

The door flew boisterously open. Jimmy Corcoran entered, his chest inflated, filled by the glory of the morning. A new check cap lay backwards on his head, and round his neck a tie of blazing emerald. Harvey stared at him, then slowly demanded:

‘Since when have you taken to knocking?'

‘I thought you might be in your dishabille,' said Jimmy, grinning largely.

‘And would that have upset you?'

‘Troth and 'twouldn't. Not by the weight of one shavin'. But it might have upset you. Yer such a cranky divil.'

Harvey turned and began to brush his hair with firm strokes.

‘Why don't you hate the sight of me?' he asked in an odd voice. ‘I seem hardly to have been, well, polite to you since we came on this charming trip.'

‘Polite be damned,' answered Jimmy with gusto. ‘ Sure, I don't fancy things too polite. Kid gloves wasn't never in my line. I like a fella to call me a fool to me face and clout me matey on the back like that.' And hitting Harvey a terrific slap upon the shoulders by way of illustration he elbowed himself forward to the mirror where he ogled himself, straightened his atrocious tie, smoothed his plastered lock and blew a kiss to his image in the glass. Then he began to sing:

‘Archie, Archie, he's in town again,
The idol of the ladies and the invy of the men.'

‘You seem fond of yourself this morning.'
‘Sure I'm fond of meself. And why not in a manner of speakin'.

I'm the only man that ever hit Smiler Burge right over the ropes. And I'd do it again next St Patrick's Day for love. Don't ye know I'm the finest man that ever came out of Clontarf? Me ould mother told me so. The heart of a lion and the beauty of a faun as Playto says. And this mornin' I'm feeling that good I wouldn't call the Pope me brother.' He went off again:

‘He's a lady killer
Sweeter than vaniller;
When they meet him
Sure, they want to eat him.'

Then, heaving round, he said:

‘We're all set for the beach. You and me's goin' ashore this mornin'.' Harvey contemplated him.

‘So we're going, Jimmy, are we?'

‘Sure an' we're goin'.' He emphasised the certainty by smacking his fist into his palm. ‘We're goin' to the Canteras Bay. I've just been talkin' to the captain. It's the gilt on the gingerbread all right. There's bathin' there and a little resstrong where ye can grub. I'm telling ye there's a strand of yellow sand would drive ye crazy with delight.'

The spectacle of himself being driven crazy with delight by a beach of yellow sand drew a shadowy smile to Harvey's face. But strangely he said:

‘All right! We'll go then, Jimmy.'

Corcoran grinned all over his battered face.

‘Be the holy – if ye'd said no, I'd have slaughtered ye. I've got important business to tend to in the afternoon. Private and personal ye'll understand, But all this mornin' ye belong to me.'