They seemed like strangers, no longer interested in their shipmates, no longer a part of us.
Mr. Malloy carried them off and they invited Edward to go and see them sometime in the vaguely cordial way people do when they know the invitation will never be accepted. Then they were gone, out of our lives forever.
It was going to make a difference to me. Edward would miss his friend, and I would miss Mrs. Blakey’s help.
Miss Rundle was at my side. “And where is the First Officer, eh?” she whispered. “Making himself scarce, which is only to be expected.”
Chantel joined us.
“And we shall soon be saying good-bye,” she said blithely, smiling meaningfully at Miss Rundle.
“Some of us are going to miss each other.”
“Alas!” sighed Chantel.
“I am sure you and Mr. Crediton must be a little sad at parting.”
“And you too,” said Chantel.
“Miss Rundle,” I said, “is an observer of human nature.”
“Let’s hope she finds herself in company as rewarding as this which is now so sadly breaking up.” Miss Rundle looked startled and Chantel went on: “We must not forget that we are merely ‘ships that pass in the night.’ Finish it for me, Anna.”
“And speak each other in passing;
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness.”
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Chantel. “And so true. ‘Ships that pass in the night.’ And then…go on and on…never seeing each other again. It’s fascinating.”
Miss Rundle sniffed. She was not enjoying the conversation. She said that Mrs. Greenall was waiting for her in her cabin.
She left us standing there.
I said to Chantel: “The next port of call will be Sydney itself.”
“Yes, and then Coralle.”
“Chantel, how are you going to like it?”
“I’d have to be clairvoyant to answer that question.”
“I mean parting with Rex Crediton at Sydney. It’s no use your pretending. Yours is a special friendship.”
“Who’s pretending?”
“If you’re in love with him, if he’s in love with you, what’s to prevent your marrying?”
“You ask that question as though you know the answer.”
“I do,” I said. “Nothing. That’s unless he is so weak that he’s afraid of his mother.”
“Dear Anna,” she said, “I believe you are very fond of your undeserving friend. But don’t worry about her. She’ll be all right. She always has been. She always will be. Didn’t I tell you I never miss the boat.”
She was confident.
They must have an agreement of some sort, I thought.
***
Perhaps we were all growing reckless. I saw little of Chantel. It might have been that Monique wanted to give her as much time as possible with Rex before they parted. Perhaps she took a sly interest in their romance. They seemed to have struck up a close friendship with the Glennings. Or perhaps this was just to provide chaperones. In any case the four of them were often together.
The night before we were due to arrive at Sydney I met Redvers on the deserted boat deck. It was a warm night and the breeze which was ever present during the day often dropped at night.
To be alone with him was something for which I longed yet feared.
“Anna,” he said as he came toward me. I was leaning on the rail looking down into the dark water and I turned and faced him.
“Here we are on this ship,” he said, “and I scarcely ever see you.”
“It won’t be long now before I leave the ship.”
“Has it been a good journey?”
“I have never known anything like it. I shall never forget it.”
“Nor I.”
“You have had so many voyages.”
“Only one with you on board.”
“Where shall you go after you leave us on Coralle?”
“I shall be carrying cargoes for two months or so and then I shall call back at the Island before the journey home.”
“So…we shall meet again.”
“Yes,” he said. “We usually put into the Island for a couple of nights. I have been thinking…”
“Yes.”
“Wondering,” he went on, “what you will make of the Island.”
“I don’t quite know what to expect. I’ve no doubt that the island of my imagination is quite different from the reality.”
“It’s half cultivated, half savage. That’s what makes it so strange. Civilization exists rather…uneasily. I have been thinking a great deal about your staying there.”
“My staying there?”
“Monique must stay. It is necessary for her health. And Edward should of course stay with his mother. But I wonder about you, and Nurse Loman of course. I think when I return you may well ask to be taken home.”
“Would there be cabins for us on your ship?”
“I shall see that it is possible.”
“That is comforting,” I said. “Very comforting.”
“So we may have another voyage together?”
I shivered.
“You’re cold?”
“Who could be cold on a night like this.”
“Then it was a shiver of apprehension. Anna, why are you afraid?”
“I don’t know if I should call my feeling fear.”
“I should not speak to you like this, should I? But should we pretend to be what we are not, to deny the truth?”
“Perhaps it would be better to.”
“Could it be right at any time to deny the truth?”
“In some circumstances I am sure it is.”
“Well,” he said, “I shall not be governed by such ethics. Anna, you remember that night when I came to the Queen’s House?”
“I remember it well.”
“Something happened then. That house…I’ve never forgotten it. The clocks ticking, the furniture all over the place, and we were there at that table with those candles burning in the sticks.”
“Very valuable sticks. Eighteenth-century Chinese.”
“We seemed isolated, just the two of us, and that girl flitting back and forth waiting on us. It was like being alone in the world and nothing else being of any importance. Did you feel it? I know you did. I couldn’t have felt it so intensely if you had not.”
“Yes,” I said, “for me too it was a memorable evening.”
“Anything else that had happened before seemed of no significance.”
“You mean your marriage?”
“Nothing else seemed of any significance. There were just the two of us, and those clocks ticking away, they seemed to do something with time. Does that sound stupid? I had never been so happy in my life. So elated and yet contented, excited and yet serene.”
“That was before the disaster of The Secret Woman.”
“But I was already married and that was a greater disaster. Oh yes I shall speak frankly to you. I make no excuses for myself. I just want you to understand. The Island fascinated me when I first saw it, fascinated me as it now repels me. When you see it, perhaps you’ll understand. And Monique, she was so much a part of the Island. I was entertained there by her mother. It’s a queer place, Anna. I shall be uneasy thinking of you there.”
“Chantel will be with me.”
“I’m glad of that. I don’t think I should allow you to be there alone.”
“Is it so terrifying?”
“You will find it strange, difficult to understand perhaps.”
“And you can leave Edward there happily.”
“Edward will be all right. He is after all one of them.”
“Tell me about them.”
“You will see for yourself. Her mother and th
e old nurse, and the servants. Perhaps it is my imagination. I was fascinated at first and I thought Monique beautiful. I should have got away. I should have known, but of course I didn’t until it was too late. And then marriage became a necessity and after that I was committed.”
“You left Monique on the island and sailed away?”
“It was a similar trip to this one. And when I came out again that was with The Secret Woman. And then next time when I called at the Island I brought Monique back to England. And now…I shall leave you there.”
He was silent for a while and then he went on: “I wonder what will happen this time.”
“I hope nothing disastrous. But it’s comforting to know that if we want to return you will take us. I shall tell Chantel this.”
“I think she will certainly want to come back. I could see you there, Anna, in certain circumstances, but not Nurse Loman.”
“At least we shall be interested to see the Island.”
“It’s beautiful. Lush foliage, surf breaking on sandy beaches; palm trees swaying slightly in the soft breezes, and the clear sea blue as sapphires and green as emerald lapping the golden sands.”
“And when you get back to England what shall you do?”
“Stay a few days before I set out again.”
“For the same voyage?”
“So much depends on what cargoes we have to carry. One thing I shall do is go to Queen’s House and say ‘I have come on behalf of Miss Brett, the owner, who has asked me to call and see how you are getting on here.’ I shall stand in the garden as I did on that damp autumn night. And I shall stand in the hall and think of that night which changed everything in my life, and changed me too.”
“Did it?”
“Oh yes, it did. Indeed it did. I wanted something different from life after that.”
“What had you wanted before?”
“Adventure! Change! Danger! Excitement! But after that night I grew up. I wanted to be with one person. Before, I had always believed that I would never want to be with one person for more than a limited span. I was seeking perpetual excitement. I needed continual stimulation which only novelty could give. I grew up that night. I knew what life was about. I saw myself living there, in that house. The lawn with a table under a brightly colored sunshade and a woman sitting under it with a china teapot pouring tea into blue china cups. And perhaps a dog lying there—a golden retriever—and children, laughing and playing. I saw it all clearly as something that I wanted and I never had wanted before. I shouldn’t speak of this, should I? But there is something in the air tonight. Here we are sailing close to the Australian coast. Can you see the lights over there? We are very close to land. And it’s summertime and…there is nothing so soothing as tropical nights at sea, because then you believe that anything could happen. But perhaps there are other places, like the garden of the Queen’s House. And sometimes I tell myself that that night there I saw a vision and one day that table with sunshade will be there, and I’ll be there.”
I said: “It can’t be. It was already too late when you came. I don’t think you should be talking in this way and I don’t think I should be listening.”
“But I am and you are.”
“Which shows how wrong we are.”
“We are human,” he said.
“But it’s no good. It’s no use saying what might have been, when something has happened to prevent it.”
“Anna…”
I knew what he meant. It was Wait. It could so easily happen. And these are dangerous thoughts. We were separated and while Monique lived his dream—and mine—could never come true.
I wanted to explain to him that we must not think of this because to think of it was to desire it with a passion that could only be sinful.
I thought I must not be with him alone again. He was a man of deep and urgent needs. I knew that. He had not lived the life of a monk and I feared for him…and myself.
It was too late. I must make this clear to him.
We were in danger of wishing the way was clear for us.
“It’s getting late,” I said. “I must go in.”
He was silent for a few seconds and when he spoke his voice was as calm as my own.
“We shall sail into the harbor tomorrow. You should come up to the bridge for the best view. You must see the entire harbor in one view. I can assure you it is well worthwhile. Monique will be up there if she is well enough and Nurse Loman must come. Edward will want to be there too.”
“Thank you. I’ll enjoy that.”
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night.”
And as I turned away I thought I heard him say “My love.”
Sixteen
It was a glorious morning; the sun beat down on the decks as slowly we sailed into the harbor—grand, impressive, and beautiful beyond my imaginings. The description I had read of it “the finest harbor in the world in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security” was surely true. It was indeed a sight to take the breath away—the many coves and inlets, the magnificent Heads through which we must pass; the trees, the flowers, the birds, and the gloriously blue sea.
Even Edward was silent and I wondered whether he was thinking as I was—for I had taken the opportunity to give him a history lesson—of the arrival of the First Fleet a hundred years ago. It must have looked a little different then. There would have been no houses, no town, only miles of uncultivated land, and beautifully plumaged birds swooping over a dazzling sea.
Chantel stood with us, subdued too by that magnificent spectacle; or was it partly due to the fact that she must now say good-bye to Rex? We did not see Redvers who was of course on duty; there were just the three of us alone up there.
It was two hours later when we had come into Circular Quay; there was the usual bustle. Edward and I went to our cabin, Chantel went to hers. My thoughts were of Chantel. I thought: Now I shall know the true state of her feelings, for surely if she loves him she will not be able to hide it from me.
Monique was a little better. The excitement of arriving at Sydney had done her good. She had dressed and Chantel had told me she was with the Captain. Certain people would come aboard and be entertained here, she believed, and the Captain’s wife, since she was on board, would be expected to do certain honors.
A steward came down and asked that Edward be taken up to the Captain’s cabin.
I took him up and when I arrived and knocked at the door it was opened by Rex.
He smiled at me and said: “Oh, here’s Edward. Thank you, Miss Brett.”
I caught a glimpse of Redvers and an elderly man with a youngish woman—in her mid-twenties, I guessed.
I went back to my cabin. Chantel was there, studying her face in my looking glass.
“Visitors?” she asked.
“An elderly man and a youngish woman.”
“You know who they are, don’t you?”
“I’ve never seen them before.”
“They are Sir Henry and Helena Derringham.”
“Oh.”
“Well, what did you expect. Of course they came aboard to welcome Serene Lady to Sydney. Rex was there I suppose.”
“Yes.”
She was looking at me in the glass; but still she betrayed nothing.
***
We spent two days in Circular Quay. This gave me an opportunity to see Sydney. The Greenalls with Miss Rundle had left; so had the Glennings. It seemed so different without them and the usual routine of days at sea. There was a great deal of the bustle that went with the loading and unloading of cargo. Chantel and I went shopping—she for herself and Monique, I for Edward and myself. We could not talk of what I wanted to in Edward’s company; nor was I sure that Chantel would have talked to me alone. I felt such a deep sympathy for her, the more so because of my own position; then I
felt angry with Rex because their future lay in his hands, and because he was so weak he had come to Sydney to make the proposal to Helena Derringham which he had failed to make in London.
There was one consolation. Surely such a weak man was not worthy of Chantel?
In the afternoon of the second day I sat on the deck with a book. I had been out in the morning and was rather tired. Edward was with his parents. I did not know where Chantel was.
Dick Callum came and sat beside me.
He said: “May I have the pleasure of taking you out to dine tonight?”
I hesitated.
“Oh come, you mustn’t say no. I shall be most hurt if you do.”
His smile was very pleasant and after all what had he done except honor me with his admiration and bear a certain animosity to Redvers, which in the circumstances some people would say was natural.
So I accepted. He could not stay with me now. He was on duty and the purser’s office as I knew was at its busiest when we were in port.
That evening he took me out to Rose Bay. It was a delightful restaurant, each table candlelit with blue and gold candles; there was an orchestra which played romantic music and a violinist who came to our table and played especially for me.
Dick was doing everything possible to please me, and it would have been ungrateful not to appreciate this.
He apologized for his outburst on the previous occasion.
“I admit,” he said, “that I am jealous of the Captain.”
“Then,” I said, “this is the first step to conquering this emotion which…”
“Yes. I know. It hurts me more than it hurts him.”
“Do I sound so tutorial?”
“Charmingly so. And it is true, of course. I suppose it’s a form of admiration. He’s a first-class captain. And that is important. The Captain sets the pattern for the whole of the ship. It’s a pity…” He hesitated and I urged him to go on.
“It’s no good harking back, but it is a pity about The Secret Woman. That sort of thing sticks. There’s not a member of the crew who doesn’t know something about that shady incident, and very likely puts a certain construction on it. At least it makes them fear a man if they don’t respect him.”