‘I don’t think you do, really,’ he said gently.
‘But Peter, I do!’ she cried.
He moved a little way along the fender towards her, and took her hand in his, turning it over between his own. ‘There really isn’t very much to say,’ he said. ‘I love you – you must know that, I think – and I want you to be my wife. I wanted to ask you that four years ago, but it wasn’t possible then. I had to wait.’
‘You came on a walking tour,’ said the girl, ‘and you thought I wouldn’t see through it.’
‘No,’ said Dennison. ‘You haven’t got that quite right. I knew you’d see through it. It didn’t matter with you, you see – you were about the only person I wasn’t afraid of. It was simply a means of getting in touch with you again. As luck would have it, I happened to meet you on my first day out. I expected to have to hang about the country for a long time.’
‘After four years,’ said the girl unevenly. ‘Oh, Peter!’
‘I used to go to your aunt at Falmouth every six months or so,’ he said, ‘and pay my respects, and usually I’d get a little news of you.’ He smiled. ‘I used to go down there specially sometimes. And when I was at your aunt’s house I could imagine you there again, like it was while my leg was getting well. It’s a pity we couldn’t have had that time again. I didn’t want to tell you this in your own house, and only after two week-ends like this. I’m sorry. I didn’t see any other way of doing it, and time is rather short. I’m going out to China in September, you see. I want you to come with me.’
‘To China?’ said the girl.
‘Yes,’ said Dennison. ‘The screw out there puts me in rather a different position. I start as a junior partner, you know.’
There was a long silence. Dennison, watching the girl closely in the firelight, suddenly realised his answer. He knew it quite well. For a moment he sat wondering dully what form it would take, bewildered by his own conviction. Finally the girl broke the silence; her voice was unexpectedly steady.
‘Peter dear,’ she said quietly. ‘I can’t. I’m most frightfully sorry – a lot for you, and a little bit for myself. It wouldn’t work that way. It isn’t you – it’s China.’
She paused, and continued, ‘Don’t think it’s because of you. It’s not. I’ve tried to put you out of it, because the thing that really settles it is China. I couldn’t live the rest of my life in China.’ She paused, tremulous. ‘It sounds such a rotten thing to say, in answer to you when you tell me that you love me. When I was a girl I used to think that love was everything worthwhile. But you can’t get away from your everyday life. And, Peter dear, I can’t change. If it were only for a short time it wouldn’t be so bad. One could look forward to coming home, and Daddy could get on quite well for a year or two by himself. I couldn’t leave him by himself for always. But I don’t want to put the blame on Daddy. Even if he weren’t there – I couldn’t come, Peter.’
‘I know,’ said Dennison absently. “It’s – it’s a great break.’
The girl leaned forward and laid her hand upon his knee. ‘Oh, Peter dear,’ she said tremulously – ‘I am so frightfully sorry.’ Her eyes were full of tears.
Dennison rose to his feet. ‘Why, no,’ he said gently. ‘Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry about, you know. These things happen – they just happen like anything else, and one can’t help them. Like a thunderstorm. And one isn’t sorry for that.’
And that was all they said.
Before Dennison left to catch the train back to London the next morning, Antony waylaid him in the corridor.
‘I say,’ the boy murmured confidentially, beckoning Dennison towards his bedroom, ‘I’ve got the etching. I think she’s forgotten about it now.’
‘Oh,’ said Dennison. ‘That was awfully good of you.’
Antony produced it from a drawer, wrapped in tissue paper. He handed it to Dennison.
Dennison took it, but did not remove the wrapping. He glanced down at it. ‘I don’t think I’d better have this,’ he said slowly. ‘It isn’t fair. It was different before.’ He handed it back to Antony.
‘It was different before?’ said Antony keenly.
Dennison nodded.
Antony looked fixedly at him. ‘Isn’t there any chance of it being different again?’ he asked.
Dennison smiled oddly. ‘Not much,’ he said.
‘I’m most awfully sorry,’ said the boy simply.
Chapter Four
Dennison reached London early in the afternoon. Lanard was spending the week-end in Hampshire, and would not be back till late. Dennison drove to his rooms, left his bag, and went to his club. Here he had tea and wrote one or two letters – not because they had to be written, but because it was easier to write them than to sit still. Finally he dined – injudiciously.
Restless, he walked back to his rooms about ten. Lanard was back.
‘Matrimony at a considerable discount,’ said Dennison, and went to bed without further explanation.
Lanard found this worrying. His was the nature that magnifies disaster; he worried still further when Dennison appeared to breakfast next morning in pyjamas and a dressing-gown.
‘What about the daily bread?’ he said.
Dennison consigned his office to a future existence for that day, and added a rider embracing the next day and the next. His next query gave his companion a clue.
‘Did you leave any food on the Irene?’
Lanard considered. ‘Two tins of milk, one of bully, about half a pound of coffee, and a little tea. And half a pot of strawberry jam.’
‘Marmalade?’
‘Ate it.’
Dennison left his breakfast, opened a cupboard, and grovelled in it. He emerged presently, dragging after him a green-stained and battered patent log.
‘I wanted that at Easter,’ said Lanard. ‘If I’d known it was there, I’d have taken it.’ He paused. ‘Going for long?’
‘A week,’ said Dennison. ‘Where’s its line? I brought it up to have it seen to, you know.’
‘Line’s in the sail store,’ said Lanard. ‘Saw it when I went to get the light warp for the kedge.’
Dennison continued with his breakfast in a moody silence.
‘Pilot’s Guide?’ he said suddenly.
‘On board. And the chart “Weymouth to Owers”.’
‘Where’s “Dodman to Portland”?’
His friend gazed at him keenly. ‘You can’t get across the West Bay and back in a week,’ he said.
Dennison flared suddenly into a temper. ‘Damn it,’ he said. ‘I’ll go where I bloody well like. Where’s the chart?’
‘In the cupboard, I think,’ said Lanard gently. He hesitated a moment. ‘If you care to wait a day, I’ll come with you tomorrow.’
Dennison got up and went into his bedroom. ‘No, thanks,’ he said wearily. ‘There’d be black murder on the high seas.’
‘Right you are,’ said Lanard. ‘Get a new frying-pan if you think of it – it’s practically done for. And some prickers for the Primus. Back in a week?’
‘Week or ten days,’ said Dennison.
Lanard finished his breakfast and departed for his office. Dennison dressed slowly in his sea-going clothes, and packed a bag. For a moment he stood looking round the sitting-room, as if in search of anything that he might have left behind.
‘I didn’t think it would be like this,’ he said aloud.
He turned, picked up his bag, and left the house. He caught a morning train at Waterloo and travelled to Southampton, lunched at a restaurant near the Bar, and caught a bus to Hamble early in the afternoon.
He carried his bag down through the village to the hard, left it there, and went in search of the venerable proprietor of the yard. He found him by the water’s edge supervising the finishing touches to a small cutter, brilliant with new paint.
‘I’m taking the Irene for a week,’ said Dennison.
The old man turned and regarded him, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of hi
s overalls. ‘Aye,’ he said slowly. ‘Puttin’ out with the last of the ebb, sir? She’s no but half an hour to run.’
Dennison glanced down the river; the long green banks of mud and the tall perches bore evidence to his statement. ‘She’ll run over the flood with the engine,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to get some stuff aboard.’
‘You’ll be staying by the Island?’ said the old man.
Dennison shook his head. ‘Try and get down west,’ he said.
The old man glanced up and regarded the flying south-westerly scud. ‘Rain to come,’ he said. ‘I must get my painting covered. We don’t seem to have had no nice weather for drying yet, not as we ought.’ He turned to Dennison. ‘You’ll not do much good this evening,’ he said. ‘Rain to come, and the tide foul in the channel till after nine.’
‘Drop under Calshot for the night,’ said Dennison.
They turned and walked up the beach to the sail store. ‘Did you hear of Mrs Fleming?’ said the old man, ‘what kept the baker’s shop in the village, died sudden last month.’
He recounted the details of the fatality till they reached the sail store, where he hailed a small boy and directed him to see to the launch of the Irene’s dinghy. Dennison fetched his bag, loaded up the little boat with tackle from the store, and rowed out to the yacht.
He opened the hatch and descended into the little saloon. Overhead the dark clouds massed up for rain; the interior of the vessel was damp and smelt unbearably of bilge and the stale fumes of paraffin from the motor under the cockpit. Dennison cast his bag down philosophically upon a settee and opened the skylight. Then he investigated the food that remained mouldering in damp cupboards, collected the cans for the paraffin and methylated spirit, lowered them into the dinghy, and set off again for the shore.
He landed at the hard and walked up the village to the baker’s shop. The baker himself came out of the back premises instead of the florid lady to whom Dennison had been accustomed.
‘Afternoon,’ he said. ‘Two dozen buns and four small loaves, please.’
‘Afternoon, Mr Dennison,’ said the man. He wrapped the bread in brown paper and wiped his hands upon his apron. ‘ ’Tis some weeks since we saw you,’ he said mechanically.
‘Some time,’ said Dennison. He paused, and added gently, ‘I was most awfully sorry to hear about your loss.’
The remark broke down some barrier of reserve; the baker leaned upon his counter and broke into a flood of simple lamentation. Dennison let him run on. ‘And I tell you what I’ve been doing,’ he said. ‘I’ve been gettin’ together all the snapshots we took of me and ’er and the kiddies, and binding them up into a little book’ – he indicated the size – ‘just like that. My sister Em’ly what lives with me now said I didn’t ought to do it, an’ I ought to think of other things. But I don’t see that – do you? I didn’t want to let it all go … and I wanted them photygraphs.’
Dennison nodded. ‘You want to make the most of what you’ve got,’ he said. ‘One doesn’t get so very much.’
He returned on board with a heavy heart, spread a bun with marmalade and ate it in lieu of tea, and made his bed of blankets. For a time he busied himself setting things in order in the saloon, then he went and stood in the hatchway and took a long look at the weather. It was threatening. He decided not to make sail but to run down to Calshot under the engine and anchor for the night. Under sail it would be a dead beat out against the tide. The rising flood lapped mournfully along the sides of the vessel.
He made the dinghy fast astern, started his engine, slipped his mooring, and stood away down the river, cold and dispirited. Vessel after vessel, perch after perch, passed him with maddening slowness; the thick brown water churned into a loathsome foam at the edge of the mud-flats. Slowly he drew up to the red cage buoy at the mouth of the river, and headed across the water to Calshot. By the time he arrived, it had begun to rain in a misty, undecided fashion; he brought up and dropped anchor in about two fathoms under the lee of the mud-flats, not very far from the castle and the air station. There was nothing to do on deck; he remained in the cockpit till the vessel had found her position and was riding quietly to her anchor; then he went below and trimmed the riding light.
He spent an hour working in his little vessel, an hour of occupation and comparative happiness that carried him on till after dark. He trimmed every lamp in the ship, filled the tanks of the engine, cleaned the Primus stove, set his riding light on the forestay, pumped out the vessel, unpacked his bag and arranged his clothes in the tiny cupboards, put the patent log in a safe place with a bottle of rum and another one of turpentine to keep it company. Then he laid his supper very elaborately, and supped off cocoa, bully beef, and a boiled egg, topping up with bread and jam. He scraped the mildew off the top of the jam and deposited it in the slop-bucket; he was particular about what he ate.
After supper he washed up his plates, emptied the slop-pail over the side, and saw that his riding light was burning properly. Then he went below and tidied up the little forecastle. And then there was nothing else to be done.
He lit a pipe, returned to the saloon, and produced a coil of new wire rope that it was his intention to turn into a new pair of bowsprit shrouds. But it was too dark to go up on deck and measure the length, so that all he could do was to splice one end of it round an eye and serve it, and in half an hour he was again at a loss. In desperation he turned to his charts and sailing directions, and spread them out upon the table. He knew them by heart; every light, every buoy, almost to every sounding upon the sheets. Outside the rain had set in in earnest and dripped monotonously on the deck, pouring in tiny cascades from the puckers of the mainsail at each roll of the vessel. Below, everything was damp and clammy to the touch, with all the grim squalor of a small ship at sea. On deck there was little to be seen through the rain; the air station lay dark and deserted. A couple of seaplanes rocked lightly at their buoys a hundred yards away; in the other direction the water lapped steadily along the mud-banks, gradually vanishing with the rising tide. In the fairway an occasional steamer showed a light.
He was quite alone.
Dennison slept badly, was early awake, got up, and was over the side by six o’clock. It was a threatening morning; a stiff breeze from the south-west with scud flying over the sky. The wind blew bitterly upon him as he scrambled on board again; he swore at it in futile rage. It was the worst possible wind for him, dead in his teeth for going west. When the tide began to run against it there would be a short, wetting little sea in the Solent. For a moment he thought of staying in the shelter of the Island, and abandoned the thought immediately in a miserable spasm of temper. He was damned if he’d change his plans.
He dressed and cooked his breakfast. He did not hurry; it would be useless to attempt to beat down the Solent without the tide under him, and the tide would not begin to run till ten o’clock. He breakfasted moodily, washed his plate, and set to work to cook a piece of steak which he would eat cold later in the day. He put the steak with some cold potatoes and half a loaf of bread in a large pudding-basin, and hid it away in a locker in the cockpit. On such a day as this he would have little time for lunch, sailing single-handed. He thought that he would make for Poole if it proved to be a dead beat all the way. If he got a fair slant of wind at the Needles, he would run for Lulworth or Weymouth. Either course would give him ten or twelve hours’ sailing and tire him out. He wanted to be tired.
He got under way about half-past nine with two reefs down, and drew out of the entrance to the Water. From the Castle Point buoy he could lay West Cowes, and crossed the edge of the Brambles in a smother of spray, battened down and huddling in his oilskins. It was his luck to get a wetting at the start. Everything on this infernal day was going to go wrong.
There were few yachts in Cowes; it was too early in the season for many vessels to be afloat. There was one big white yawl in the Roads, of ninety or a hundred tons, with a spoon bow and a long counter. Dennison strained his eyes at her. There were me
n working on her deck, and he thought she was getting under way. He had not got his glasses on deck, and was afraid to leave the helm and open up the vessel to get them in so short a sea. He put her down as either the Laertes or the Clematis, reached in nearly to the beach at West Cowes, and put about on the other tack.
The morning passed wearily away. With the tide under him he made fairly good progress down the Solent in repeated tacks. The big yawl had come out of Cowes and was following him down under her trysail; she had given him three-quarters of an hour start and was drawing up on him steadily. From time to time he turned to look at her, the only other vessel on the waters. She followed him up grandly, carrying her wind well. He was nearly sure she was the Clematis; the Laertes would not have ridden the seas so cleanly. She had been a racing boat.
By one o’clock he was nearly up to Yarmouth. The deck was wet and glistening with the repeated spray; Dennison was cold and out of temper. He peered ahead into the murk and tried to imagine what sort of sea he would find at the Needles. He wanted to get down to Poole if possible; at the same time he was experienced enough to know the futility of trying to beat his way down against a westerly gale. He determined to run out to the Needles and have a look at it. If he could lay a course for Studland he would carry on; otherwise he would put back to Yarmouth for the night.
Near the entrance to Lymington he put about on to the starboard tack.
The big yawl had practically caught him up, and was crossing to meet him from the other side of the Solent. It was evident now that she was the Clematis, owned by a shipping magnate, Sir David Fisher; Dennison wondered vaguely if the owner were on board. She came over from the Island to intercept his course, gently parting the waves with her powerful spoon bow and making nothing of the sea that caused him such discomfort. He watched her admiringly as she drove towards him.
It became evident that she would pass very close across his bows. She approached him on the port tack, only one man visible on deck at the helm. Dennison held on his course; he had the right of way. She would have to bear away a little and pass astern of him; there would be no room for her to cross his bows.