Deadham Hard Part 35

He pointed away, with his pipestem, to the violet-shadowed mouth of one of the narrow lanes opening between the slop-shops, wine-shops, and cheap eating-houses--their gaudy striped, flounced awnings bellying and straining in the fervid southerly breeze--which lined the further side of the crowded quay.

"As well try to wash some gutter-bred, French trollop, off the streets in behind there, into a white-souled, white-robed heavenly angel," he grumbled on. "All this purifying of the darned old hulk's so much labour lost. Gets the men's monkey up too, putting all this extray work on 'em."

He leaned down again, folding his arms along the top of the bulwarks.

"And, angel or trollop, I find no use for her, nor any other style of woman either, on board this 'ere blasted rusty iron coffin," he said.

Whereat the stewart, a pert-eyed, dapper little c.o.c.kney--amateur of the violin and noted impersonator of popular music-hall comedians--took him up in tones of amiable argument.

"Your stomach's so turned on the subject of females you can't do 'em justice. Gone sour, regularly sour, it is. And I don't hold with you there, Partington, never shall and never do. I'm one as can always find a cosy corner in me manly bosom for the lidies--blame me if I can't, the pore 'elpless little lovey-doveys. After all's said and done Gawd made 'em just as much as 'e made you, Partington, that 'e did."

"And called you in, sonny, to lend 'im an 'and at the job, didn't 'e?

All I can say is you'd both have been better employed putting in your time and talents somewhere else."

After which sally the two smoked in silence, while the s.h.i.+p's dog alternately stretched himself on the hot boards, and started up with a yelp to snap at the cloud of buzzing flies again.

The steward merely bided his time, however, and enquired presently with a nice air of nonchalance:

"Never been married, Partington, 'ave you? I've often known that put a fellow sadly off the s.e.x."

"Never," the other replied, "though I came precious near it once, when I was a youngster and greener--greener even than you with your little lovey-doveys and your manly bosom, William, which is allowing a lot. But my wife as was to 'ave been--met her down Bristol way, gone blind silly on 'er I was--got took with the smallpox the week before the ceremony was pulled off, and give me all she had to spare of the disease with her dying breath. Soft chap as I was then, I held it as a sort of a compliment. Afterwards, when the c.r.a.pe had worn a bit brown, I saw it was jealousy of any other female I might come to cast my eye over as made her act like that."

"A private sore!" William commented. "To tell you gospel truth, Partington, I guessed as much. But you should learn to tike the larger view. Blimey, you should rise above that. To be marked like you are is a misfortune, I don't pretend to the contrary, looking at it along the level so to speak. But beauty's so much dust and ashes, if yer can just boost yerself up to tike the larger view. Think of all that pore dying woman mayn't 'ave saved you from by making yer outward fascinations less staring to the s.e.x? Regular honey-pot to every pa.s.sing petticoat you might 'ave been."

He broke off, springing erect and shading his eyes with one hand to obtain a better view.

"My Sammy--whoever's the skipper a bringing 'ome 'ere with him? Dooks and d.u.c.h.esses and all the blamed airistorkracy?--English too, or I'm a blooming n.i.g.g.e.r.--Tea for a lidy?--I should rather think it.--Partington, I'm off to put meself inside of a clean jacket and make sure the c.o.c.kroaches ain't holding a family sing-song on my best white table-cloth.--Say, that young ole man of ours don't stop 'arf way up the ladder, once 'e starts climbing. Gets to the top rung 'e does stright orf, s'elp me. And tikes 'is ease there, seemingly, as to the manner born. Looks like he does any'ow, the way 'e's behaving of hisself now.--So long, bo'sun," he added jauntily. "I'm called from yer side to descend the companion _ong route_ for higher spheres. Sounds like a contradiction that, but ain't so.--See you again when the docks 'as quitted this fond old floating 'ea.r.s.e of ours and took themselves back to their 'ereditary marble 'alls to roost."

On the other side of the quay, meanwhile, in the brave dancing breeze and the suns.h.i.+ne, Darcy Faircloth stepped down on to the uneven paving just opposite to where the _Forest Queen_ lay. Colonel Carteret followed and stood aside, leaving him to hand Damaris out of the open carriage.

For this was the younger man's day; and, as the elder ungrudgingly acknowledged, he played the part of host with a nice sense of taste, his hospitality erring neither in the direction of vulgar lavishness, nor of over-modesty and economy. Breeding tells, is fertile in social intuitions, as Carteret reflected, even when deformed by an ugly bar sinister. During the past hours he had been observant--even above his wont--jealous both for his friend Charles Verity and his dear charge, Damaris, in this peculiar a.s.sociation. The position was a far from easy one, so many slips of sorts possible; but the young merchant sea-captain had carried it off with an excellent simplicity and unconscious grace.--In respect of a conveyance, to begin with, he eschewed hiring a hack, and met his arriving guests, at the station, with the best which the stables of the _Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix_ could produce. Had offered a quiet well-served luncheon at that same stately hostelry moreover, in preference to the more flashy and popular restaurants of the town. Afterwards he had driven them, in the early hours of the afternoon, up to the church of _Notre Dame de la Garde_, which, perched aloft on its eminence, G.o.dspeeds the outward bound and welcomes the homecoming voyager, while commanding so n.o.ble a prospect of port and city, of islands sacred to world-famous romance, and wide horizons of rich country and historic sea.

And now, before parting, Faircloth brought them to his s.h.i.+p. To this private kingdom of his and all it implied--and denied too--of social privilege, social distinction. Implied, further, of administrative and personal power--all it set forth of the somewhat rugged facts of his profession and daily environment. Of this small world he was undisputed autocrat, Grand Cham of this miniature Tartary--of this iron-walled two-thousand-ton empire, the great white Czar.

So far Carteret had lent himself to the extensive day's "outing" in a spirit of very sweet-tempered philosophy. He had been delightful, unfailing in courtesy and tactful address. Now, having a.n.a.lysed his host's character to his own satisfaction, he felt justified in giving himself a holiday from the office of chaperon and watch-dog. He had fulfilled his promise, royally done his duty by Damaris in that quasi-avuncular relation which he had a.s.sumed in place of a closer and--how profoundly more--coveted one; thereby earning temporary release from her somewhat over-moving neighbourhood. Not but what he had been keenly, almost painfully, interested in watching this drama of brother and sister, and gauging the impulses, the currents of action and of emotion which lay behind it. Gauging too the difficulties, even dangers, inherent in it, the glamour and the clouding of shame--whether conventional or real he did not pretend exactly to determine--which so strangely wrapped it about. To use Damaris' favourite word, they were very "beautiful" both in themselves and in their almost mystic affection, these two young creatures. And just on that very account he would be glad to get away from them, to be no longer onlooker, or--to put it vulgarly--gooseberry, fifth wheel to the cart.

He went with them as far as the sh.o.r.eward end of the up-sloping gangway.--A tall grey-clad figure, with an equally tall blue-clad figure on the other side of the young girl's, also tall, biscuit-coloured one,--a dash of pink showing in her burnt-straw hat, pink too at her throat and waist seen between the open fronts of her dust-coat.--But at the gangway he stopped.

"Dear witch," he said, "I have some telegrams I should be glad to send off, and another small matter of business to transact in the town, so here, I will leave you, if you permit, in our friend's safe-keeping"--he smiled upon Faircloth. "At the station, at five-thirty, we meet. _Au revoir_, then."

And, without waiting for any reply, he sauntered away along the sun-flooded quay between piled up bales of merchandize, wine barrels, heaps of sand, heaps too of evilly smelling hides, towering cases and crates. His shadow--clear violet upon the grey of the granite--from his feet onwards, travelled before him as he walked. And this leading by, this following of, his own shadow, casual accident of light and of direction though in all common sense he must account it, troubled the peace of the man with the blue eyes, making him feel wistful, feel past the zenith of his allotted earthly achievement, queerly out of the running, aged and consequently depressed.

Upon Damaris the suddenness of his exit reacted in a sensation of constraint. Carteret had been very exquisite to her throughout this delicate adventure, throughout these hours of restrained yet exalted emotion. Left thus to her own resources she grew anxious, consciously diffident. The, in a sense, abnormal element in her relation to Faircloth darted down on her, so that she could not but remember how slight, after all, was her actual acquaintance with him, how seldom--only thrice in point of fact--had he and she had speech of one another.

Upon Faircloth, Carteret's withdrawal also reacted, though with different effect. For an instant he watched the tall retreating form of this, as he perceived, very perfect gentleman. Then he turned to Damaris, looking her over from head to heel, in keen somewhat possessive fas.h.i.+on. And as, meeting his eyes, bravely if shyly, her colour deepened.

"You are happy?" he affirmed rather than asked.

"As the day is long," she answered him steadily.

"But the day's not been overlong, by chance, has it?"

"Not half long enough."

"All's well, then, still." He pressed her--"You aren't weary of me yet?"

Damaris rea.s.suringly shook her head.

Nevertheless she was very sensible of change in the tenor of their intercourse, sensible of a just perceptible hardness in his bearing and aspect. For some cause, the nature of which she failed to divine though she registered the fact of its existence, he no longer had complete faith in her, was no longer wholly at one with her in sympathy and in belief.

He needed wooing, handling. And had she the knowledge and the art successfully to handle this sun-browned, golden-bearded, rather magnificent young master mariner--out here in the open too, the shout of the great port in her ears, the dazzle of the water and the push of the warm wind upon her face?

"Ah, why waste precious time in putting questions to which you surely already know the answer?" with a touch of reproach she took him up. "Show me rather where you live--where you eat and sleep, where you walk up and down, walk quarter-deck, when you are far away there out at sea."

"Does all that really interest you?"

Damaris' lips quivered the least bit.

"Why have you turned perverse and doubting? Isn't it because they interest me, above and beyond anything, beautifully interest me, that I am here?--It would have been very easy to stay away, if I hadn't wanted--as I do want--to be able to fancy you from morning until night, to know where you sit, know just what you first see when in the grey of the morning you first wake."

Faircloth continued to look at her; but his expression softened, gaining a certain spirituality.

"I have questioned more than once to-day whether I had not been foolhardy in letting you come here--whether distance wasn't safest, and the hunger of absence sweeter than the full meal of your presence for--for both of us, things being between us as they actually are. What if the bubble burst?--I have had scares--hideous scares--lest you should be disappointed in me."

"Or you in me?" Damaris said.

"No. Only your being disappointed in me could disappoint me in you--and hardly that, because you'd have prejudice, facts even, natural and obvious enough ones, upon your side. Faircloth's Inn on Marychurch Haven and your Indian palace, as basis to two children's memories and outlook, are too widely divergent, when one comes to think of it. When listening to you and Colonel Carteret talking at luncheon I caught very plain sight of that. Not that he talked of set purpose to read me a wholesome lesson in humility--never in life. He's not that sort. But the lesson went home all the more directly for that very reason.--Patience one little minute,"

he quickly admonished her as she essayed to speak--"patience. You ask, with those dear wonderful eyes of yours, what I'm driving at.--This, beloved one--you see the waiting carriage over there. Hadn't we best get into it, turn the horses' heads citywards again, and drink our tea, you and I, on the way up to the station somewhere very much else than on board this rough-and-tumble rather foul-breathed cargo boat?--I'm so beastly afraid you may be disgusted and shocked by the interval between what you're accustomed to and what I am. To let you down"--

Faircloth's handsome face worked. Whereat Damaris' diffidence took to itself wings and flew away. Her heart grew light.

"Let me down?" she said. "You can't let me down. Oh! really, really you're a little slow of comprehension. We are in this--in everything that has happened since I first knew who you are, and everything which is going to happen from now onwards--in it together. What joins us goes miles, miles deeper and wider than any petty surface things. Must I tell you how much I care? Can't you feel it for yourself?"

And she stepped before him on to the upward sloping gangway plank.

CHAPTER XI

WHEREIN DAMARIS MEETS HERSELF UNDER A NOVEL ASPECT

Damaris threw back the bedclothes, her eyes still dim with slumber, and gathered herself into a sitting position, clasping her knees with both hands. She had a vague impression that something very pleasant awaited her attention; but, in the soft confusion of first awakening, could not remember exactly what it was.

To induce clearer consciousness she instinctively parted the mosquito curtains, slipped her feet down over the side of the bed; and, a little crouched together and fumbly--baby-fas.h.i.+on--being still under the comfortable empire of sleep, crossed the room and set back the inward opening cas.e.m.e.nts of the south window. Thereupon the outdoor freshness, fluttering her hair and the lace and nain-sook of her nightdress, brought her, on the instant, into full possession of her wandering wits.

She remembered the nature of that charmingly pleasant something; yet paused, before yielding it attention, held captive by the spectacle of returning day.

It was early. The disc of the sun still below the horizon. But shafts of light, striking up from it, patterned the underside of a vast dapple of fleecy cloud--heliotrope upon the back-cloth of blue ether--with fringes and bosses of scarlet flame. Against this, occupying the foreground, the pine trees, which sheltered the terrace, showed up a deep greenish purple bordering upon black.