CHAPTER III
THE GASTON DE PARIS
Old Ponting was right in all his particulars, except one. The owner ofthe _Gaston de Paris_ was not a king, only a prince.
Prince Selm, a gentleman like his Highness of Monaco with a passion forthe deep sea and its exploration. The Holy Roman Empire had given hisgreat grandfather the title of prince, and estates in Thuringia gave himmoney enough to do what he pleased, an unfortunate marriage gave him adistaste for High Civilization, and his scientific bent and passion forthe sea--inherited with a strain of old Norse blood--did the rest.
He had chosen well. Cards, women and wine, pleasure and the glitteringthings of life, all these betray one, but the sea, though she may kill,never leaves a man broken, never destroys his soul.
But Eugene Henry William of Selm for all this sea passion might haveremained a landsman, for the simple reason that he was one of thosethorough souls for whom Life and an Object are synonymous terms. Inother words he would never have made a yachtsman, a creature shiftingfrom Keil to Cowes and Cowes to Naples according to season, a cupgatherer and club-house haunter.
But Exploration gave him the incentive and the Musee Oceanographique ofMonaco his inspiration, limitless wealth supplied the means.
The _Gaston de Paris_ built by Viguard of Toulon was an ocean goingsteam yacht of twelve hundred and fifty tons with engines by Conturierof Nantes and everything of the latest from Conturier's twin-actioncentrifugal bilge pumps to the last thing in sea valves. She wasreckoned by those who knew her the finest sea-going yacht in the worldand she was certainly the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Lafiette, Viguard's chiefdesigner. Lafiette was more than a designer, he was a creator, the seawas in his blood giving him that touch of genius or madness, thatsomething eccentric which made him at times cast rules and formulaeaside.
The decks of the _Gaston de Paris_ ran flush, with little encumbrancesave a deck-house forward given over to electrical and deep seainstruments.
Forward of the engine room and right to the bulkheads of the fo'c'sleran a lower deck reached by a hatch aft of the instrument room. Herewere stowed the dredges and buoys and all the gear belonging to them,trawl nets and deep sea traps, cable and spare rope and sounding-wire,harpoons and grancs and a hundred odds and ends, all in order and spickand span as the gear of a warship.
Aft of the engine-room the yacht was a little palace. Prince Selm wouldlabour like any of his crew over a net coming in or in an emergency, buthe ate off silver and slept between sheets of exceedingly fine linen.Though a sailor, almost one might say a fisherman, he was alwaysMonsieur le Prince and though his hobby lay in the depths of the sea hisintellect did not lie there too. Politics, Literature and Art travelledwith him as mind companions, whilst in the flesh he often managed tobring off with him on his "outlandish expeditions" more or less pleasantpeople from the great world where Civilisation sits in cities, feedingArt and Philosophy, Science and Literature with the hearts and souls ofmen.
The main saloon of the _Gaston de Paris_ fought in all its detailsagainst the idea of shipboard life, the gilt and scrolls of the yachtdecorator, the mirrors, and all the rest of his abominations were not tobe found here, panels by Chardin painted for Madame de Pompadouroccupied the walls, the main lamp, a flying dragon by Benvenuto Cellini,clutching in its claws a globe of fire, had, for satellites, four torchbearers of bronze by Claus, a library, writing and smoking room,combined, opened from the main saloon, and there was a boudoir decoratedin purple and pearl with flower pictures by Lactropius unfaded despitetheir date of 1685.
Nothing could be stranger to the mind than the contrast between thefo'c'sle of the _Albatross_ and the after cabins of the _Gaston_,nothing, except, maybe, the contrast between a garret in Montmartre orStepney and a drawing-room in the Avenue du Trocadero or Mayfair.
Dinner was served on board the _Gaston de Paris_ at seven, and to-nightthe Prince and his four guests, seated beneath the flying dragon ofCellini and enjoying their soup, held converse together light-heartedlyand with a spirit that had been somewhat lacking of late. Every seavoyage has its periods of depression due to monotony; they had notsighted a ship for over ten days, and this evening the glimpse of the_Albatross_ revealed through the break in the weather had in somecurious way shattered the sense of isolation and broken the monotony.The four guests of the Prince were: Madame la Comtesse de Warens, an oldlady with a passion for travel, a free thinker, whose mother was afriend of Voltaire in her youth and whose father had been a member ofthe Jacobin club; she was eighty-four years of age, declared herselfindestructible by time, and her one last ambition to be a burial at sea.She was also a Socialistic-Anarchist, possessed an income of some fortythousand pounds a year derived from speculations of her late husbandconducted during the war with Germany in 1870, yet was never known togive a sou to charity; her hands were all but the hands of a skeletonand covered with jewels, she smoked cigarettes incessantly. She was oneof those old women whose energy seems to increase with age, tireless asa gnat she was always the last in bed and the first on deck, thoughlying in her bunk half the night reading French novels of which she hada trunkful and smoking her eternal cigarettes.
Beside her sat her niece, Cleo de Bromsart, English on the mother's sideand educated in England, a girl of twenty, unmarried, dark-haired,fragile and beautiful as a dream. She was one of the old nobility,without dilution, yet strangely enough with money, for the Bromsarts,without marrying into trade, had adapted themselves to the new times socleverly that Eugene de Bromsart the last of his race had retired fromlife leaving his only daughter and the last of her race wealthy, even bythe standard of wealth set in Paris. She was a sportswoman and, despiteher lack of frailty, had led an outdoor life and possessed a nerve ofsteel.
Madame de Warens had brought the girl up after she left school, hadlaboured over her and found her labour in vain. Cleo had no leaningstowards the People and the opinions of her aunt seemed to her a sort ofdisreputable madness bred on hypocrisy. Cleo looked on the lower classesjust as she looked on animals, beings with rights of their own butbelonging to an entirely different order of creation, and one thingcertainly could be said for her--she was honest in her outlook on life.
Beside her sat Doctor Epinard, the ship's doctor, a serious young manwho spoke little, and the fifth at table was Lagross, the sea painter,who had come for the sake of his health and to absorb the colours of theocean. The vision of the _Albatross_ with towering canvas breasting theblue-green seas in an atmosphere of sunset and storm was with him stillas he sat listening to the chatter of the others and occasionallyjoining in. He intended to paint that picture.
It had come to him as a surprise. They had been playing cards when aquarter-master called them on deck saying that the weather had moderatedand that there was a ship in sight, and there, away across the tumblingseas, the _Albatross_ had struck his vision, remote, storm surrounded,and sunlit, almost a vision of the past in these days of mechanism.
"Now tell me, Prince," Madame de Warens was saying, "how long do youpropose staying at this Kerguelen Land of yours?"
"Not more than a week," replied the Prince. "I want to take somesoundings off the Smoky Islands and I shall put in for a day on themainland where you can go ashore if you like, but I shan't stay herelong. It is like putting one's head into a wolf's mouth."
"How is that?"
"Weather. You saw that sudden squall we passed through this evening, orrather you heard it, no doubt, well that's the sort of thing Kerguelenbrews."
"Suppose," said the astute old lady, "it brewed one of those things,only much worse, and we were blown ashore?"
"Impossible."
"Why?"
"Our engines can fight anything."
"Are there any natives in this place?"
"Only penguins and rabbits."
"Tell me," said Lagross, "that three-master we saw just now, would shebe making for Kerguelen?"
"Oh, no, she must be out of her course and beating up north. She's not awhaler, and ships like that would k
eep north of the Crozets. Probablyshe was driven down by that big storm we had a week ago. We wouldn't bewhere we are only that I took those soundings south of Marion Island."
"And, after Kerguelen, what land shall we see next?" asked the old lady.
"New Amsterdam, madame," replied the Prince, "and after that the SundaIslands and beautiful Java with its sun and palm trees."
Mademoiselle de Bromsart shivered slightly. She had been silent up tothis, and she spoke now with eyes fixed far away as if viewing thepicture of Java with its palms and sapphire skies.
"Could we not go there now?" asked she.
"In what way?" asked the Prince.
"Turn the ship round and leave this place behind," she replied.
"But why?"
"I don't know," said she, "perhaps it is what you say about Kerguelen,or perhaps it was the sight of that big ship all alone out there, but Ifeel--" she stopped short.
"Yes--"
"That ship frightened me."
"Frightened you," cried Madame de Warens, "why, Cleo, what is the matterwith you to-night? You who are never frightened. I'm not easilyfrightened, but I admit I almost said my prayers in that storm, and you,you were doing embroidery."
"Oh, I am not frightened of storms or things in the ordinary way," saidthe girl half laughing. "Physical things have no power over me, an uglyface can frighten me more than the threat of a blow. It is a question ofpsychology. That ship produced on my mind a feeling as though I had seendesolation itself, and something worse."
"Something worse!" cried Madame de Warens, "what can be worse thandesolation?"
"I don't know," said Cleo, "It also made me feel that I wanted to be faraway from it and from here. Then, Monsieur le Prince, with his story ofdesolate Kerguelen, completed the feeling. It is strong upon me now."
"You do not wish to go to Kerguelen then?" said the Prince smiling as hehelped himself to the entree that was being passed round.
"Oh, monsieur, it is not a question of my wishes at all," replied thegirl.
"But, excuse me," replied the owner of the _Gaston de Paris_, "it isentirely a question of your wishes. We are not a cargo boat, CaptainLepine is on the bridge, he has only to go into his chart house, set hiscourse for New Amsterdam, and a turn of the wheel will put our stern tothe south." He touched an electric bell push, attached to the table, ashe spoke.
"And your soundings?" asked she.
"They can wait for some other time or some other man, sea depths arepretty constant."
A quarter-master appeared at the saloon door, came forward and saluted.
"Ask Captain Lepine to come aft," said the Prince. "I wish to speak tohim."
"Wait," said Mademoiselle Bromsart. Then to her host. "No. I will nothave the course altered for me. I am quite clear upon that point. What Isaid was foolish and it would pain me more than I can tell to have itacted upon. I really mean what I say."
He looked at her for a moment and seemed to glimpse something of theiron will that lay at the heart of her beauty and fragility.
"That will do," said he to the quarter-master. "You need not give mymessage."
Madame de Warens laughed. "That is what it is to be young," said she,"if an old woman like me had spoken of changing our course I doubt ifyour quarter-master would have been called, Monsieur. But I have no fadsand fancies, thank heaven, I leave all that to the young women ofto-day."
"Pardon me, madame," said Doctor Epinard speaking for almost the firsttime, "but in impressions produced by objects upon the mind there is noroom for the term fancy. I speak of course of the normal mind free ofdisease. Furthermore, we talk of objects as things of secondaryimportance and the mind as everything. Now I am firmly convinced thatthe mind of man, so far from being a thing apart from the objects thatform its environment, is, in fact, nothing else but a mirror or focusupon which objects register their impressions and that all the thinkingin the world is done not really by the mind but by the objects that formour thoughts and the reasons, utterly divorced from what we call humanreason, that connect together the objects that form our environment."
"Is this a theory of your own, Epinard?" asked the Prince.
"It is, monsieur, and it may be bad or good but I adhere to it."
"You mean to say that man is composed entirely of environment, past andpresent?"
"Yes, monsieur, you have caught my meaning exactly. Past and present.Man is nothing more than a concretion formed from emanations of all theobjects whose emanations have impinged upon living tissue since, at thebeginning of the world, living tissue was formed. He is the sunset hesaw a million years ago, the water he swam in when he was a fish, theknight in armour he fought with when he was an ancestor, or rather he isa concretion of the light, touch and sound vibrations from these and amillion other things. I have written the matter fully out in a thesis,which I hope to publish some day."
"Well, you may put my name down for a dozen copies," said the Prince,"for certainly the theory is less mad than some of the theories I havecome across explaining the origin of mind."
"But what has all that to do with the ship?" asked Madame de Warens.
"Simply, madame, that the ship which one looked at as a structure ofcanvas and wood, once seen by Mademoiselle de Bromsart, has become partof her mind, just as it has become part of yours and mine, a logical anddefinite part of our minds; now, mark me, there was also the sunset andthe storm clouds, those objects also became part of the mind ofMademoiselle de Bromsart, and the reasons interlying between all theseobjects produced in her a definite and painful impression. They were, infact, all thinking something which she interpreted."
"It seemed to me," said the girl, "that I saw Loneliness itself, and forthe first time, and I felt just now that it was following me. It was toescape from that absurd phantom that I suggested to Monsieur le Princethat we should alter our course."
"Well," said Madame de Warens, "your will has conquered the Phantom. Letus talk of something more cheerful."
"Listen!" said Mademoiselle de Bromsart. "It seems to me that theengines are going slower."
"You have a quick ear, mademoiselle," said the Prince, "they undoubtedlyare. The Captain has reduced speed. Kerguelen is before us, or ratheron our starboard bow, and daybreak will, no doubt, give us a view of it.We do not want to be too close to it in the dark hours, that is whyspeed has been reduced."
Coffee was served at table and presently, amidst the fumes of cigarettesmoke, the conversation turned to politics, the works of Anatole France,and other absorbing subjects. One might have fancied oneself in Parisbut for the vibrations of the propeller, the heave of the sea, and thehundred little noises that mark the passage of a ship under way.
Later Mademoiselle de Bromsart found herself in the smoking-room alonewith her host, Madame de Warens having retired to her state-room and theothers gone on deck.
The girl was doing some embroidery work which she had fetched from hercabin and the Prince was glancing at the pages of the Revue des DeuxMondes. Presently he laid the book down.
"I was in earnest," said he.
"How?" she asked, glancing up from her work.
"When I proposed altering the course. Nothing would please me more thanto spoil a plan of my own to please you."
"It is good of you to say that," she replied, "all the same I am glad Idid not spoil your plan, not so much for your sake as my own."
"How?"
"I would rather die than run away from danger."
"So you feared danger?"
"No, I did not fear it, but I felt it. I felt a premonition of danger. Idid not say so at dinner. I did not want to alarm the others."
He looked at her curiously for a moment, contrasting her fragility andbeauty with the something unbendable that was her spirit, her soul--callit what you will.
"Well," said he, "your slightest wish is my law. I have been going tospeak to you for the last few days. I will say what I want to say now.It is only four words. Will you marry me?"
She looked up at
him, meeting his eyes full and straight.
"No," said she, "it is impossible."
"Why?"
"I have a very great regard for you--but--"
"You do not love me?"
She said nothing, going on with her work calmly as though theconversation was about some ordinary topic.
"I don't see why you should," he went on, "but look around you--how manypeople marry for love now-a-days--and those who do, are they any thehappier? I have seen a very great deal of the world and I know for afact that happiness in marriage has little to do with what the poetscall love and everything to do with companionship. If a man and womanare good companions then they are happy together, if not they aremiserable, no matter how much they may love one another at the start."
"Have you seen much of the world?" she raised her eyes again as sheasked the question. "Have you seen anything really of the world? I donot mean to be rude, but this world of ours, this world of society thatholds us all, is there anything real about it, since nearly everythingin it is a sham? Look at the lives we lead, look at Paris and London andBerlin. Why the very language of society is framed to say things we donot mean."
"It is civilization. How else would you have it?"
"I don't know," she replied, "but I do know it is not life. It isdishonesty. You say that the only happy married people are those thatare good companions, that love does not count in the long run, and youare right, perhaps, as far as what you call the World is concerned. Ionly repeat that the thing you call the World is not the real world, forlove is real, and love is not merely a question of good companionship.It is an immortal bond between two spirits and death cannot break it."
"You speak as though you were very certain of a thing which, of allthings, is most hidden from us."
"I speak by instinct."
"Well," said the Prince, "perhaps you are right. We have left behind usthe simplicity of the old world, we have become artificial, our life isa sham--but what would you have and how are we to alter it? We are alllike passengers in a train travelling to heaven knows where; the seatsare well cushioned and the dining-car leaves nothing to be desired, butI admit the atmosphere is stuffy and the long journey has developed allsorts of unpleasant traits among the passengers--well, what would youdo? We cannot get out."
"I suppose not," said she.
He rose up and stood for a moment turning over some magazines lying onthe table. He had received his answer and he knew instinctively that itwas useless to pursue the business further.
Then after a few more words he went on deck. The wind had fallen to asteady blow but the sky was still overcast and the atmosphere was heavyand clammy and not consistent. It was as though the low lying cloudsdipped here and there to touch the sea. Every now and then the _Gastonde Paris_ would run into a wreath of fog and pass through it into theclear darkness of the night beyond.
In the darkness aft of the bridge nothing could be seen but the palehint of the bridge canvas and a trace of spars and funnels now wiped outwith mist, now visible again against the night.
The Prince leaned on the weather rail and looked over at the tumble andsud of the water lit here and there with the gleam of a port light.
Cleo de Bromsart had fascinated him, grown upon him, compelled him insome mysterious way to ask her to marry him. He had sworn after hisdisastrous first experience never to marry again. He had attempted tobreak his oath. Was he in love with her? He could scarcely answer thatquestion himself. But this he knew, that her refusal of him and thewords she had said were filling his mind with quite new ideas.
Was she right after all in her statement that he who fancied himself aman of the world knew nothing of the world except its shams? Was sheright in her statement that love was a bond between two spirits, a bondunbreakable by death? That old idea was not new to him, he had playedwith it as a toy of the mind constructed for the mind to play with bythe poets.
The new thing was to find this idea in the mind of a young girl and tohear it expressed with such conviction.
After a while he came forward and went up the steps to the bridge.Captain Lepine was in the chart room, the first officer was on thebridge and Bouvalot, an old navy quarter-master, had the wheel.
"We have slowed down," said the Prince.
"Yes, monsieur," replied the first officer, "we are getting close toland. We ought to sight Kerguelen at dawn."
"What do you think of the weather?"
"I don't think the weather will bother us much, monsieur, that blow hadnothing behind it, and were it not for these fog patches I would asknothing better; but then it's Kerguelen--what can one expect!"
"True," said the other, "it's a vile place, by all accounts, as far asweather is concerned."
He tapped at the door of the chart room and entered.
The chart room of the _Gaston de Paris_ was a pleasant change from thedark and damp of the bridge. A couch upholstered in red velvet ran alongone side of it and on the couch with one leg up and a pipe in his mouththe captain was resting himself, a big man of the Southern French navytype, with a beard of burnt-up black that reached nearly to his eyes.
The Prince, telling him not to move, sat down and lit a cigar. Then theyfell into talk.
Lepine was a sailor and nothing else. Had his character been cut out ofcardboard the line of division between the sailor and the rest of theworld could not have been more sharply marked. That was perhaps why thetwo men, though divided by a vast social gulf, were friends, almostchums.
They talked for half an hour or so on all sorts of subjects connectedwith the ship.
"By the way, Lepine," said the Prince suddenly, "It has been the toss upof a sou that we are not now steering a course for New Amsterdam."
"And how is that, monsieur?"
"Well, Mademoiselle de Bromsart proposed to me at dinner that we shouldalter our course, the idea came to her that some misfortune might happento us off Kerguelen and, as you know, I am always anxious to please myguests--well, I called a quarter-master down. I was going to have sentfor you."
"To alter our course?"
"Yes, but Mademoiselle de Bromsart altered her mind. She refused to letme send for you."
"But what gave the young lady that idea?" asked the Captain.
"That big ship we sighted before dinner."
"The three-master?"
"Yes, there was something about it she did not like."
"Monsieur, what an idea--and what was wrong with it?"
"Oh, it was just a fancy. The sea breeds fancies and superstitions, youknow that, Lepine, for I believe you are superstitious yourself."
"Perhaps, monsieur; all sailors are, and I have had experiences. Thereare bad and good ships, just as there are bad and good men, of that I amsure. Perhaps that three-master was a bad ship." Lepine laughed asthough at his own words. "All the same," he went on, "I don't likewarnings, especially off Kerguelen."
They left the chart house and came out on the bridge.
The wind was still steady but the clouds had consolidated and the nightwas pitch black. On the bridge the _Gaston de Paris_ seemed driving intoa solid wall of ebony.
The Prince after a glance into the binnacle was preparing to go down thebridge steps when a cry from the Look-out made him wheel round.Suddenly, and as if evolved by magic from the blackness, the vaguespectre of a vast ship shewed up ahead on the port bow making to crosstheir course. Thundering along under full canvas without lights andseemingly blind, she seemed only a pistol shot away.
Then the owner of the _Gaston de Paris_ did what no owner ought ever todo: seeing Destruction and judging that by a bold stroke it might beout-leaped, he sprang to the engine room telegraph and flung the leverto full speed ahead.