Grand Canary (14 page)

‘Do go away,' begged Elissa languidly. ‘ Please do. I'm quite exhausted. You're too intense. Portrait of early Christian girl being thrown to the lions. It's absolute agony.'

‘It's no good being flippant,' said Susan hoarsely; she was choking – her breathing stifled her. ‘ You've got to promise me now – now.'

All at once the languid air fell from Elissa like a garment; slowly she raised her head and fixed on Susan a stare of insolent contempt.

‘You're such a damned little fool that now you begin to annoy me. Can't you holy women ever let things and people alone? You want everybody to be like you. It's such colossal egoism. And you're possessive! Have you patented him – your little Robert – as a second edition of the Saviour? Oh, I don't mind if you have. I don't mind who you convert. But why the devil should you mind who I sleep with?'

‘You can't –' gasped Susan. ‘You can't talk like that. It's terrible.'

Elissa gave a short laugh; then suddenly she stood up.

‘Most amusing – this talk,' she said with patronising rudeness. ‘But I think we've had enough of it. I'm going down.' And with her rug trailing from her arm she brushed past, gracefully, to the companion.

Susan stood motionless, her knees trembling, her whole body torn – burning. Within her, something seemed to shrink and fall weakly into an empty darkness. But at least she had spoken. Yes, she had spoken. The thought comforted her. She lifted her face to the dazzling sky whose glorious radiance poured forth, it seemed in glittering chains from the very throne of God.

God! Yes, there was God. It was all right – everything. She could pray. Strength flowed into her, and, with her head upraised to that majestic sky, her lips moved without sound in a passionate appeal.

Suddenly, as though under some cathedral dome a kyrie had been rung, a quiet bell tinkled thrice. And that gentle impassive thrilling woke within the ship. There came a splash of ropes, a creaking of fenders, a few shrill cries falling backwards, fading into nothingness. A breeze awoke mysteriously in the placid air. The ship quickened. Again the
Aureola
was under way.

Dinner was over: a silent, uncomfortable meal, crossed by many currents of emotion, overhung by the strange imminence of departure. The captain, adept usually in rolling conversation round, had talked little. Something was on his mind, perhaps the thought that he was losing a passenger for whom he had a sincere regard; perhaps a deeper thought than that. His eye had fallen frequently on Mary and he had asked:

‘You spend all your time in Orotava – at the hotel?' At her affirmative he had hesitated – an indecision unusual in such a man, then said: ‘It is a trim little place. Clean – right by itself. A perfect health resort. And the wind is always off the sea.'

And that was all.

Now Harvey stood on the upper deck, glad after the heat of the saloon of the night's tranquillity. The effervescence of the sunset had dissolved and sunk, blazing, into the waters of the sea. And, as with a sigh of consummation, it was again serene and clear: a calm, white night, lucent with the fluid beauty of pale moonshine. Swung low behind the latticed rigging, the moon, not yet full-formed, held that faintly flawed loveliness – like a maiden trembling upon maturity. The stars, too, were timid in the high translucent heaven. On the ship's port quarter, fading, yet brighter than the stars, the lights of Las Palmas pricked the sky's clear rim with tiny glittering points.

Without haste the
Aureola
slid onward at a bare five knots, lolling a little in her gait, as if conscious that her passage was brief and the need to anchor before dawn remote. The clucking water played about her sides and stern; the sound rose up like bubbles, breaking with quiet echoes and a gleam of silver.

Leaning over the forward rail, Harvey let his gaze sink into the warm oblivion beyond: sea, earth, and sky united and at peace. But in his heart there was no peace.

Suddenly a step came behind him, a hand was laid upon his shoulder. He did not move; without turning his head, he said, in a tone constrained strangely by his melancholy:

‘Well, Jimmy, did you get your business done?'

‘Sure an' I got it done,' cried Corcoran; in the universal stillness his voice resounded with a cheerful magnitude. ‘And sent me wire to Santa Cruz an' all. When old Bob gets it he'll be dancin' wid delight. I tell ye I'm all set for the big-time business.'

‘You've been very mysterious, Jimmy,' said Harvey absently, ‘about this business of yours.'

‘Aha!' cried Jimmy. ‘There's time and place for talkin', isn't there? And no man ever made a fortune by openin' his mouth a mile.' He broke off, gazing surreptitiously at Harvey's dark, severe profile; then with a sly show of confidence he declared: ‘But yer a friend of me own, aren't ye? I don't mind tellin' ye what I'm afther.'

‘Some other time then, Jimmy,' Harvey said quickly. ‘I'm not just in the mood for touching intimacies.'

‘All right, all right,' said Jimmy agreeably; he withdrew his arm, struck an attitude of offence, made with his fists some exaggerated passes into the unresistant air; then, panting a little, he took snuff. ‘See! That's the stuff. All in good time, says you? Right, says I. But you'll come ashore wid me at Santa Cruz and meet the Professor or me name's not Jimmy C.'

A short silence fell, then Jimmy cocked his battered ear.

‘Do you hear him?' he said, his grin slow – invisible yet rich. ‘He's like a cow in a china-shop.'

Abaft the chart-room they heard the quick padding step of Robert Tranter. He was humming – sure sign of his disquiet. When indecision seized the evangelical mind, Tranter would hum; and now, emerging from his thick pursed lips, came the sibilant strains of ‘Swing low, sweet chariot.'

‘Jumpin' Janus Macafferty,' Corcoran went on, ‘but he's a slob of putty, that one. Playto was right when he said that sinse was a thing that could nirer be taught. And the lump of him too an' all, yamblin' about like he was moonsthruck. Faith, his sister's worth six of him.' He yawned, clenching his fists and stretching them luxuriously upwards. Then, with an extremely casual air, he declared: ‘Well, I'm for down below. A little quiet chat, with Mother H. and Hamble. Just a little social talk, ye understand. Nothin' more. S'long. In the meantime, that's to say.'

A phantom smile hovered over Harvey's face – Corcoran's evasions were too absurd! – then quickly faded. He turned to the rail, seeking the solitude of the sea, the massive silence of the night. But a moment later he was again disturbed: Tranter stood at his elbow.

‘Musing, Dr Leith, I see. And a wondrous night it is for communing with the stars. Yes, sir! A little close, perhaps. Kind of humid, don't you think? I must own I'm perspiring.' The sound of breathing came through the effusive heartiness of the voice. ‘The folks ought to be on deck getting the air.'

‘The folks ought to do as they want to do,' said Harvey with gloomy impatience.

Tranter laughed: his ready, emotional laugh which to-night seemed more ready, more emotional – drawing up with a gulp almost upon the edge of hysteria.

‘Ha! Ha! Sure, they ought.' He talked-as if to reassure himself with his own rich overtones. ‘Why, yes. Up to a point, that is to say. I only meant the ladies might find it pleasanter on deck. Now, I wonder where they can have got to.'

Harvey swung away, nauseated by something flabby in the words, something frightened yet persistent.

‘Mrs Baynham went to her cabin immediately after dinner,' he threw back curtly over his shoulder. ‘I heard her say that she was tired and that she was going to turn in at once.' Turning abruptly towards the companion he walked away, dimly conscious of the sudden wave of desolation that flooded the other's face.

Gone, vanished for the night into the inviolable sanctuary of her cabin! – and after she had
promised
– it was a cruel blow for Tranter. The small, limp leather book bulging his breast pocket seemed to press suddenly upon his heart like a weight of lead. Crushed, he stood for a moment with a curiously abject air, then, lowering his head, he began slowly to walk up and down. Now he was not humming.

Below, Harvey paused outside the entrance to the alley-way.

Should he too turn in? He was tired, exhausted by he knew not what. An ugly memory of Tranter's face obsessed him, drawn like a smear across his mind, evoking in him unreasonable anger. This emblem of sickly tenderness exhibited so nakedly – it crystallised his whole belief in the fatuity of love. A biological necessity, an animal reaction thrust on the victim of gross instinct. No more. Thus he had always coldly thought. And yet the repetition of that thought distressed him as with a heavy grief. What had happened? His clear, fine pride recoiled from a mocking inward voice. And there came other voices. Around him the beauty of the night rose up and with a thousand taunting tongues confused his senses. Beauty – which he had never recognised, which lay at the opposite pole from truth, irreconcilable with his belief.

Sadly he walked forward, past the fore-hatch towards the bow. The ship, with unconquerable serenity, moved calmly through the great stillness. He reached the bow. There, though his face showed nothing, his heart opened and turned with a wild throb. Her figure, straight and fragile as a wand, leaped to his sight in a haze of secret joy. Then he was at her side, leaning upon the taffrail, staring into limitless space, silent.

‘I felt that you would come,' she said at last; she did not look at him. ‘Now I don't feel sad any more.' Her voice was low, almost colourless and utterly devoid of coquetry. ‘It had been so strange today,' she went on, ‘I feel bewildered. And tomorrow I am leaving the ship.'

‘You don't want to go?' he said – and his words held a painful coldness.

‘No. I don't want to leave this little ship. I love it. It is so safe. But I shall go.'

He did not speak.

‘Have you ever felt,' she continued in her odd, remote tone, ‘that you were caught up in something and had simply to go on – like little strings pulling, pulling you forward all the time?'

He fought for a sneer to lay bare the folly of her remark; but no sneer would come.

‘All my life seems to have been like that. This little ship is pulling me forward now; to something – I don't know what. And yet I do know. Vaguely I know without being able to understand.'

‘That is quite unreasonable,' he said, in a low voice.

‘Oh, I know it isn't reasonable. But it's there. You laughed at me before when I told you about my dream. You think I'm silly, perhaps – crazy! But, oh, I can't help myself. Something is haunting me. It keeps hovering about me like a great bird. It won't leave me alone. I've never been to these islands before. And yet I feel dimly that I'm going back. I've never seen your face before and yet – oh, I've told you this before! Think what you like, it is true – true as death. On the raft, today, I felt most wonderfully I knew you better than I know myself.' She ended in a little gasp which floated outwards like a white bird lost and fearful, far away from land.

He forced himself to say:

‘Queer fancies come upon the sea. They have no relation to life. In six weeks you will be back in England. You'll have forgotten everything. And your little strings will be pulling you gaily to smart restaurants, to the opera, to those tea-parties that you spoke about the other day. A most attractive life!'

For the first time she turned her head towards him. Her face, blurred and haunting, had a strange whiteness in which her eyes were darkly mournful.

‘That's just the surface,' she said sadly. ‘ I don't like it, I've never liked it. Never. I'm out of place. Somehow I don't fit in.' A queer note of pain crept into her voice which quickened insensibly. ‘You think I'm not grown up, that I understand nothing of life. But I do, and that's why sometimes I can't bear it, oh, that's why I must get away – away. It's all so futile, full of noise, and rushing about. No one keeps still – parties, and more parties, cocktails, dances, the kinema, dashing here and there – a nonstop life – every blank moment filled with jazz. Elissa's gramophone – she'd die without it. The one idea – how can I enjoy myself? You wouldn't believe it – there isn't even time to think. You feel that I'm a fool, that I've got no sense of proportion, no sense of humour. But I believe that you only get out of life what you put into it. And with the people I know, it's take – take all the time. It's all bright and glittering on top, but inside there's nothing real. And there's no one – no one to understand.' Inarticulately she broke off and turned her wounded face again to the sea.

For a long time he did not speak, then from his rigid body something answered.

‘You are married,' he said in a low tone. ‘You have your husband.'

That melancholy, surrounding her form like a delicate shadow, again enwrapped her voice as, like one repeating a lesson, she said:

‘Michael is very good to me. He is fond of me. And I am very fond of him.'

The conflict within him was insupportable; words broke violently beyond the barrier of his restraint.

‘Then you have no cause to complain. Your husband loves you and you love him.'

Everything retreated; the ship, the sea, the night, all suddenly were still. Her hands pressed together helplessly. She whispered:

‘I hate myself for speaking like this. But you've asked me. I can't– I've never been in love. Never. I've tried – but I can't. It's as though all that was torn from me years and years ago.'

Minutes passed. Neither of them spoke. The ship resumed its steady passage, the sea its gentle swell. The sounding and sighing of the water rose passionately again across the drifting air. Stars fluttered into the limpid sky like eyes uncovered and washed clear. They were standing there together in the darkness. Nothing else mattered. Time and space dissolved. A mysterious intimacy united them. The ship no longer was a ship but some strange celestial element wherein a force, regardless of their separate bodies, bore them onwards swiftly and together. Yes, they were together; bound by some force which reason could not compass. Yet it was there, unintelligible, but real. Out of the past, out of the future, mystical, actual. His heart beat madly. A divine sweetness hovered in the air waiting to infuse his blood. Trembling, he desired to know only that she loved him. No more than that. But he was silent – it seemed a violation of that moment to speak one word. At last a bell struck faintly, far behind them. She sighed.