daughter after a long period of brooding:
“A will is nothing. One tears it up. One makes another.” Then after reflecting for a minute he added unemotionally:
“One tells lies about it.”
Flora, patient, steeled against every hurt and every disgust to the point of wondering at herself, said: “You push your dislike of—of—Roderick too far, papa. You have no regard for me. You hurt me.”
He, as ever inexpressive to the point of terrifying her sometimes by the contrast of his placidity and his words, turned away from her a pair of faded eyes.
“I wonder how far
Flora made no answer. She judged it simpler, kinder and certainly safer to let him talk himself out. This, Mr Smith, being naturally taciturn, never took very long to do. And we must not imagine that this sort of thing went on all the time. She had a few good days in that cottage. The absence of Anthony was a relief and his visits were pleasurable. She was quieter. He was quieter too. She was almost sorry when the time to join the ship arrived. It was a moment of anguish, of excitement; they arrived at the dock in the evening and Flora after “making her father comfortable” according to established usage lingered in the state-room long enough to notice that he was surprised. She caught his pale eyes observing her quite stonily. Then she went out after a cheery good-night.
Contrary to her hopes she found Anthony yet in the saloon. Sitting in his armchair at the head of the table he was picking up some business papers which he put hastily in his breast-pocket and got up. He asked her if her day, travelling up to town and then doing some shopping, had tired her. She shook her head. Then he wanted to know in a half-jocular way how she felt about going away, and for a long voyage this time.
“Does it matter how I feel?” she asked in a tone that cast a gloom over his face. He answered with repressed violence which she did not expect:
“No, it does not matter, because I cannot go without you. I’ve told you... You know it. You don’t think I could.”
“I assure you I haven’t the slightest wish to evade my obligations,” she said steadily. “Even if I could. Even if I dared, even if I had to die for it!”
He looked thunderstruck. They stood facing each other at the end of the saloon. Anthony stuttered. “Oh no. You won’t die. You don’t mean it. You have taken kindly to the sea.”
She laughed, but she felt angry.
“No, I don’t mean it. I tell you I don’t mean to evade my obligations. I shall live on ... feeling a little crushed, nevertheless.”
“Crushed!” he repeated. “What’s crushing you?”
“Your magnanimity,” she said sharply. But her voice was softened after a time. “Yet I don’t know. There is a perfection in it—do you understand me, Roderick?—which makes it almost possible to bear.”
He sighed, looked away, and remarked that it was time to put out the lamp in the saloon. The permission was only till ten o’clock.
“But you needn’t mind that so much in your cabin. Just see that the curtains of the ports are drawn close and that’s all. The steward might have forgotten to do it. He lighted your reading lamp in there before he went ashore for a last evening with his wife. I don’t know if it was wise to get rid of Mrs Brown. You will have to look after yourself, Flora.”
He was quite anxious; but Flora as a matter of fact congratulated herself on the absence of Mrs Brown. No sooner had she closed the door of her state-room than she murmured fervently, “Yes! Thank goodness, she is gone.” There would be no gentle knock, followed by her appearance with her equivocal stare and the intolerable: “Can I do anything for you, ma’am?” which poor Flora had learned to fear and hate more than any voice or any words on board that ship—her only refuge from the world which had no use for her for her imperfections and for her troubles.
Mrs Brown had been very much vexed at her dismissal. The Browns were a childless couple and the arrangement had suited them perfectly. Their resentment was very bitter. Mrs Brown had to remain ashore alone with her rage, but the steward was nursing his on board. Poor Flora had no greater enemy, the aggrieved mate had no greater sympathiser. And Mrs Brown, with a woman’s quick power of observation and inference (the putting of two and two together) had come to a certain conclusion which she had imparted to her husband before leaving the ship. The morose steward permitted himself once to make an allusion to it in Powell’s hearing. It was in the officers’ mess-room at the end of a meal while he lingered after putting a fruit pie on the table. He and the chief mate started a dialogue about the alarming change in the captain, the sallow steward looking down with a sinister frown, Franklin rolling upwards his eyes, sentimental in a red face. Young Powell had heard a lot of that sort of thing by that time. It was growing monotonous; it had always sounded to him a little absurd. He struck in impatiently with the remark that such lamentations over a man merely because he had taken a wife seemed to him like lunacy.
Franklin muttered, “Depends on what the wife is up to.” The steward leaning against the bulkhead near the door glowered at Powell, that newcomer, that ignoramus, that stranger without right or privileges. He snarled:
“Wife! Call her a wife, do you?”
“What the devil do you mean by this?” exclaimed young Powell.
“I know what I know. My old woman has not been six months on board for nothing. You had better ask her when we get back.”
And meeting sullenly the withering stare of Mr Powell the steward retreated backwards.
Our young friend turned at once upon the mate. “And you let that confounded bottle-washer talk like this before you, Mr Franklin. Well, I am astonished.”
“Oh, it isn’t what you think. It isn’t what you think.” Mr Franklin looked more apoplectic than ever. “If it comes to that I
