Part 32 (1/2)
Buying a great box of chocolates, a basket of peaches and a clockwork train she hurried back to the s.h.i.+p, feeling very wealthy.
It was a dreary day. Great Customs House buildings blotted out any possible view, reminding her very much of the ugliness of Tilbury. The rain drizzled down, warm rain that covered the walls of the cabins in streams of moisture; the sailors loading and unloading cargoes with loud creakings of donkey engines swore in sheer irritation; somewhere on the wharf sheep kept up an incessant and pitiful bleating all the day while sirens shrieked out in the stream. Jimmy was the only happy person on board, loading his train with chocolates and unloading them into his mouth after a tortuous trip along the dining table amongst gla.s.ses, knives and forks. It was the longest day Marcella had ever known; as the swift twilight pa.s.sed, the pa.s.sengers came aboard damp and damped; most of them were grumbling; all looked thoroughly pessimistic about Australia. The schoolmaster was one of the first to come solemnly along the deck under an umbrella. He had avoided Marcella rather pointedly lately, but he came and talked quite affably for a while, didactically contrasting Melbourne with Naples and Colombo.
The _Oriana_ was to sail at eight o'clock; Marcella would not let herself be anxious; she had resolved that she must trust Louis now, and, knowing that he had scarcely any money and no friends, she could not imagine he would get into mischief. But as the last pa.s.sengers came aboard and the first warning bell rang out, she began to grow cold with fear. The rain was pouring now in a sheet of water; she stood on deck in the green white glare of the arc lamps, which only lighted a circ.u.mscribed pool of radiance, and made the surrounding darkness blacker.
The second bell went; she heard the engine-room telegraph ring and the s.h.i.+p began to vibrate to the throb of the engines. She was feeling choked with fear: a thousand apprehensions went through her mind: he had been run over and was dead: he had lost his way: he was ill in hospital, crying out for her.
”Has your friend not come aboard?” asked the schoolmaster at her elbow.
She shook her head. It was impossible to speak.
”I suppose he has mistaken the time of sailing,” said the schoolmaster soothingly.
”Do you think I ought to go ash.o.r.e to look for him?” she cried, articulate at last in her misery, and ready to take advice.
”I think he should be able to take care of himself,” he said carefully.
”Ah, but he isn't. I must go and find him,” she cried wildly. ”What sort of hands will he get into if he's left to himself?”
At that moment the last bell rang, and the boat began to move very slowly away from the wharf--perhaps a minute early. Knollys told Marcella afterwards that he guessed the captain had sailed early on purpose, for just at that moment he saw a group of four people dripping with rain rush on to the slippery boards of the jetty. They were four who had been pretty noticeable as law-breakers during the whole trip--at least, so the captain thought. Marcella gave a cry of hapless disappointment as she saw Louis with Ole Fred, the red-haired man and another. They were laughing wildly, and almost close enough to touch the rails of the s.h.i.+p.
”Jump, Louis,” she cried wildly.
”Some flow's--for you, ole girl!” he cried, grinning loosely. ”Mished bally boat! Catch, ole girl--flow's,” and he threw a great bunch of bedraggled-looking flowers that had very obviously been dropped several times in the greasy mud. They fell helplessly into the water. Marcella could not stop to think of anything sensible. All she could see to do was to jump overboard to him and s.n.a.t.c.h him from the grinning men who were lurching at his side. But as she put her hand on the rail the schoolmaster drew her back.
”Tha.s.s ri! Come on, ole girl! Marsh--Marsh.e.l.la--come an' sleep in--sh-sh-shtreets! Got no money, ole girl. Marsh--Marsh.e.l.la! _Parlez vous Franshay?_ Eh? Ah, _oui, oui_. Marsh-la! I wan' a woman! Beau-ful wi' shoulders--”
”Oh--oh,” she cried, burying her face in her hands in horror.
”I should advise you to go below,” said the schoolmaster's restrained voice.
But she was irresistibly drawn to look at Louis, to plead with him with her eyes, though her voice refused to work. And at that moment his unsteady foothold on the streaming planks gave way, and he sat down heavily. There were six or eight feet of black water now between the s.h.i.+p and the quay, but Marcella could hear plainly the foolish laughter of the other three as they tried to lift him to his feet. Ole Fred fell beside him, smas.h.i.+ng a bottle as he did so, while several cans of tinned stuff went rolling out of his arms into the water. Louis sat, laughing helplessly until he realized that Marcella's white face was vanis.h.i.+ng and he kissed his hand to her solemnly.
”Goo' ni' ole girl. Going fin' woman. Meet thee at Philippi! Ah, _oui, oui_! Marsh--ella! Look! n.o.blest Rom' of them all! Elements so mixshed--mixshed--can't stan' up, ole girl.”
She heard no more for the laughter of the others who were all sitting heaped together on the slippery boards now. Sick and aching she stood there in the rain, scarcely realizing when the schoolmaster wrapped his raincoat round her; she was wondering whether she would have been happier if she had known he was lying dead in the mortuary, or ill in the hospital instead of sitting, too drunk to move out in the rain on the quay. And suddenly she knew quite well. He had said love was a hunger, and she would understand some day that it was as tigerish a hunger as drink hunger or any other. In that moment of utter disgust and pain and despair she understood that that hunger had come to her though she did not yet comprehend it. It had taken hold of her now--she writhed at the indignity of the thought, but she knew quite well that she actually wanted his presence with her whether he were rude and overbearing, weak and appealing, superior and instructive or drunk and filthy. She simply hungered to have him about her. Always ready to query, to examine motives, she asked herself whether this were not, after all, merely a species of vanity in her that wanted to hold and save this helpless man who, it seemed, could not live for a day without her. And she got no answer to the question--the black water rushed past, chill and pitiless: the rain-swept sky was starless, the streaming decks deserted.
At last she went below, and found it impossible to pa.s.s his cabin door.
Everybody else was there, about the alleyways or in the saloon, safe and happy: only Louis had to bring himself to disaster every time. Opening his cabin door she went in. His things were all thrown about, his shaving tackle on the bunk, his pyjamas on the floor. Taking them up with hands that trembled she noticed that there were no b.u.t.tons on them.
The pathos of this was more than she could bear. On the floor were the two cups in which he had made tea before they reached port that morning.
The teapot they had bought at Gibraltar lay overturned. Quite mechanically she cleaned up the tea-leaves and washed the cups. Then she could bear it no longer and, throwing herself on his bunk, she buried her face in his pillow and sobbed until she was exhausted.
CHAPTER XIII
There were things to be endured the next few days. The purser came along, got Knollys to pack Louis's things and then sealed them. This meant that Marcella was shut away from all a.s.sociation with him; it seemed an unwarrantable interference with what she considered her property. The schoolmaster was surprisingly comforting and kind; he went out of his way to entertain her: Knollys brought unexpected tea in the morning in an attempt to make up for the loss of Louis. A young Scotsman, a sugar planter going out to the Islands, to whom she had talked until the fact that she was ”another man's girl” had put a taboo upon her, insisted that she should, in the cold evenings on deck, wear his fur coat which he had brought rather unnecessarily; Jimmy tried to comfort her with apples. Mrs. Hetherington, whom the end of the voyage had left nervy and cross, said cattish things. She thought Marcella had shown very little tact in throwing herself at Louis; she advised her, with the next man, not to tire him out.
”Oh, you're an idiot,” cried Marcella, her eyes full of tears, and decided that this was an occasion for her father's favourite epithet. ”A double-distilled idiot! How have you managed Mr. Peters except by never leaving him alone for a minute?”
”I am a woman of the world, and understand men,” she said airily. ”I wove a net about him--in ways you would not understand, my child.”