‘You might ask her,’ he said rudely. ‘I don’t like scandal even when it is text-flavoured.’
She stared at him, her eyes confused, her look altered suddenly to dismay.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a low voice. ‘ Yes, I shouldn’t have said that. Reckon I’m sorry.’
Then eight bells slowly chimed and at once the bugle sounded lightly for tea – Trout had the faculty of varying his note to suit the dignity of the meal. And at that moment Mary Fielding awoke. Susan, her workbag packed and in her hand, had risen to her feet. Her face was now composed and she addressed Leith quietly:
‘If you’re coming down now I’ll be glad to pour you some tea. It’s strong, the ship tea. Gets black if you let it stand.’
With head turned sideways against his chair and all his morbid agony returned, he pretended not to hear. He wished no tea, black tea, curdled with that milk of human kindness which welled from her warm eyes. His face was still averted as after a moment’s pause she moved silently away.
And now he waited, with curious unrest, the departure of the other; waiting chafingly till she too should go to pour that black and bitter tea.
But she did not go. Instead, Trout appeared upon the deck bearing a tray set pleasantly with the ship’s pink rose-sprigged china. New scones were on the tray and thin-sliced lemon and a silver box graved with a deep-cut crest.
Then she spoke, as though addressing the ambient air.
‘I always have tea on deck when it’s like this. The sun … it makes everything taste so good. Now will you or won’t you have tea up here? Say no if you like.’ Her voice was light and charming – it made him feel surly, ill-looking and coarse. Urgently he desired to rise and walk away, to make a violent gesture of negation with his arm, but, before he could do either, the cursed Trout was back, placing another cup upon the tray almost with reverence, and tiptoeing away as though he had received a sacrament.
‘I like Sea-Trout,’ she announced mildly a moment later. ‘He’s married to the stewardess. They have six children, all on shore. Think what fun if they could all come together on a cruise. I must ask Michael to let me do it some day.’
He had a disturbing vision of the Aureola sailing strange seas, manned by the steward’s six children; then he became aware that whilst she spoke she was holding out to him a cup of tea. He took it mechanically, observing gloomily that in his fingers was still a tremor which made the thin spoon chatter upon the saucer.
She read his thoughts.
‘My hand shakes most frightfully too, at times,’ she said. ‘When I pour out at Buckden. We have the most stately tea-parties sometimes. Michael adores them. I go all sick inside.’
He was silent. She baffled him. He looked at her thin fingers: blue-threaded beneath the smooth white skin; at the loose, gold circlet, somehow grotesque, a wedding ring upon a child’s small hand and he saw that slender-wristed hand holding a massive Georgian teapot, trembling faintly from its weight.
‘You don’t know,’ she went on, ‘how lovely it is to get away from things. You feel yourself getting more and more crushed up, like your nose was pressed against a window-pane. Then you think, “I must, oh, I must get away – away from everyone.” Have you never wanted that?’
Instinctively he fell back upon his satire.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘ But often without success.’
She smiled at him guilelessly with her eyes.
‘You’re quite right. I say things stupidly. Can’t express what I mean. I’m not too competent. But this sun’ – she sighed – ‘ all lovely in my eyes. Have some more tea. It’s Twining’s. Can you taste orange in it?’
‘No,’ he said shortly, ‘I can’t. I’m not used to expensive tea. And I’ve been drunk for the last three weeks. At the moment my palate is rather blunted.’
She took no notice of his rudeness, but lay back holding her face to the radiance mingling upon the sea and sky.
‘Don’t you ever feel happy,’ she asked dreamily, ‘Without knowing why? Just without any reason?’
‘There is no reason,’ he answered morosely. ‘Happiness is an unreasonable state. Examine it and it disappears.’
‘You don’t want to examine it,’ she murmured; looking at him directly, she went on with perfect simplicity, ‘ I’m happy now at this moment. I must tell you. I know; yet I can’t actually explain why.’ She spoke more slowly and very seriously like one groping beneath the surface for words. ‘It’s so puzzling. The moment I saw you I had the feeling that I knew you, that I had met you, that you would understand. Like a memory – deep down, a long way off. Don’t you know the feeling? You might get it on a calm very quiet and sunny evening – something coming back to you. You want to sit perfectly still, not moving a finger, listening. But it’s all very odd, mixed. I can’t explain. But it’s there, oh, it’s there.’
Her charm and her beauty were extreme, making him instantly antagonistic – suspicious of her sincerity. Deliberately he set himself against her. He gave a short laugh. He could not comprehend the sudden rushing desire which rose in him to hurt her. All his life he had evaded beauty: obsessed by work as an anchorite by prayer, he had thrown but a passing glance upon a sunset, a budding tree, a woman’s face: he had set himself apart. And now the sight of her young body, her hair enriched by the level sunlight, her lovely vivid face, animated him with a poignant, unaccountable distress which welled up bitterly within his breast.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a cutting tone. ‘ I haven’t the remotest idea what you’re talking about. I am concerned with the facts of life. I am a biologist. I have no time for vague emotions and silly fancies. And I am certain that we have never met.’
A look of strange disappointment flowed into her face.
‘Surely,’ she said suddenly and paused. Then, as though she mustered all her courage she exclaimed quite breathlessly: ‘You don’t know – you wouldn’t know what I meant by the – the House of the Swans? And the garden with the freesia flowers? And the fountain with the old cracked rim where those funny little lizards lie and sleep? Oh, I’m not asking you for any silly reason. I’m just asking you because – because I must.’
For a moment he could not believe that she was serious; but her gaze – so grave and so intent – held him strangely. He shook his head.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I thought,’ she murmured, ‘I thought you might know.’ And as though to give him yet another chance she persisted with eyes that now looked far away: ‘The gates have swans worked upon them as well. You go up the drive, past the little yellow lodge. And there’s an old, stiff tree with smooth, round branches standing in the corner of the courtyard. Surely you know it?’ An almost painful eagerness crept into her voice. ‘Surely you’ve been there too.’
‘No.’
There was a long silence; her breast rose and fell.
‘I thought,’ she said again inarticulately, ‘I just thought you might know.’
He was startled to see that there were tears standing in her eyes, and, despite himself, he asked:
‘Where is this place – the House of the Swans?’
She looked out upon the moving sea.
‘It’s a place I go to sometimes,’ she said very slowly. ‘And sometimes I’ve felt that – that somebody goes with me. But it’s quite plain I’ve been mistaken. I’ve made a fool of myself for nothing. You don’t understand.’
Again he was inexplicably moved; deeply within his soul there was a stirring as from a movement of uncertain wings. He leant a little forward; but before he could speak, a stamp of feet came from beneath. Tea was over, the saloon had disgorged itself and now the others were mounting the companion-way. Tranter’s voice boomed out:
‘There’s room for us here, folks.’ And immediately they all came on the upper deck.
At the sight of Harvey there was a general pause. Dibdin fiddled for his monocle. Elissa stared with her careless curiosity. And Tranter’s eyes kindled. He rubbed his han
ds and beamed.
‘Well, well,’ he gushed. ‘ Glad to see you up, friend. Most glad indeed. Wanted to drop in on you before but Sue here, she wouldn’t stand for it. Say, I surely am happy to see you up and sat there so nice and comfortable.’
‘’E wouldn’t sit by me,’ said Mother Hemmingway with a malicious titter. ‘But ’e’s sat by ’er lydyship all right. That’s wot it is to ’ave blue blood in yer veins.’
Robert’s laugh boomed out again. He advanced and laid a large fraternal arm on Harvey’s shoulder.
‘You’ll count on me from now on, friend. I guess I’m not so anglified and tony as her ladyship here but I’ll sit with you any time you please. Yes, sir. I guess I’d like you to know right now – if there’s anything I can do, anything at all, you may reckon it as done.’ His eyes swivelled for a moment towards Elissa. ‘Believe me, if we can’t help one another in Christian charity …’
Harvey stiffened in his chair. He who had lost everything, to be fronted by this odious windbag. It was intolerable. With nervous violence he rose, conscious suddenly that he was ringed by stares. Only Mary, with her eyes still reaching out upon the sea, seemed not to be looking at him.
‘You flatter me,’ he said to Tranter in an ominous voice. ‘Really I’m not worthy of your interest.’
‘Not at all, friend, not at all. Why, I reckon …’
‘Shut up,’ Harvey hissed. ‘ Don’t bray at me.’
Tranter’s face, flushed by hot tea and manly sympathy, fell ludicrously.
‘Why,’ he stammered, ‘why – I guess I was only offering my sympathy as a minister of God.’
‘God!’ said Harvey in a low, embittered tone. ‘He must be a queer god to let you rant about him.’ And lowering his head, he brushed past and made for the companion.
Exactly at that moment Renton came out of the chart-room. He gave no attention to the situation before him. On his face was an expression preoccupied, almost perplexed. In his hand he held a marconigram.
Elissa it was … inevitably … who sighted the prospect of news; and in her languid style she exclaimed:
‘You don’t say, captain, that it’s something to relieve the boredom?’
Renton raised his eyes from the flimsy white slip and faced the group.
‘It’s nothing,’ he answered, infusing the words with a certain lightness. ‘Sorry to disappoint you. Nothing at all.’
Harvey waited to hear no more. His feet already were upon the ladder. Descending with feelings curiously lost and unsubstantial, he plunged again into the solitude of his cabin.
Chapter Nine
On Saturday they made Las Palmas – a windless morning landfall. Gliding along the sunrise into a sleeping harbour, sliding past silent ships with masthead lamps still palely winking, the Aureola laid her brine-encrusted hull against the mole.
Three hours later, to the rattle of the fore-hatch winches, Harvey awoke. For the first time in many nights he had slept well, and with limbs relaxed he lay quite still watching the glowing shaft of sunlight irradiate the whiteness of his cabin wall. A strange lightness was in his body, and in his mind a singular incredulity that he should feel so far refreshed. Strange, too, was the solidity of his high berth which lacked that floating unreality of the last few days. And as a distant chime of land bells fell upon his ear, with sudden comprehension he knew the ship to be in port. Stirred by a queer excitement he got up, slipped on his bath-robe, and went on deck.
There the full freshness of the morning fell on him like dew. The sky was blue; the air actinic, rare; the sun, dazzling downwards from the mountains, spangled the sea with glittering scales. Before him lay the bay, edged by a frill of foam, and beyond, the town, climbing in multi-coloured tiers towards the yellow hills. It held warmth and profusion: reds and greens and glaring white all sprawled about in vivid, tropic beauty. And over all, transcending bay and town, triumphant over the nearer jagged summits, rose a distant peak, elusive somehow, and mysterious as a mirage, thrusting its snow-capped cone above a milky ring of clouds, seeming to swing suspended between earth and heaven.
Filled with a strange wonder, Harvey stood staring at the Peak, quite motionless. Lovely as some celestial strain the vision held him, struck him with a sharp and subtle pang. Was it the meaning of the vision or its beauty which so hurt him? Spellbound, he caught his breath; he could not bear to look nor yet to look away.
With a wrench he tore his eyes away, walked to the ship’s side and surveyed the yellow, dusty mole which swarmed now with a sort of languid life. On its sun-baked stones some twenty peons in bare feet and calico trousers were unloading sacks of flour with picturesque indifference. They were in no hurry. They talked, smoked, spat, stood about and laid casual hands upon the sacks as though the last thing desired of them was despatch. One of them with a washed-out ochre shirt kept singing in a high-pitched voice a swaying little tune which rose with irritating sweetness. He listened in spite of himself.
El amor es dulce
Y el que lo desprecia un loco.
Though he knew little Spanish the meaning of the words was clear: Love is sweet and he who scorns it is a fool.
Impatiently, as though he sought an antidote to sweetness, he let his gaze slip down the quay to where some ill-conditioned mules with raw, galled rumps and sad, skeleton ribs hung forward on their shafts, attached to high-wheeled wagons. One coughed suddenly like a human, agitating its coronet of circling flies, collapsing almost from sheer debility. But the driver, crouched upon the box paid no attention: with hands flapped across the reins, a flower stuck behind his ear, he snored contentedly.
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 t
o 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.