man—any man, you hear?—to make mischief between me and Captain Anthony. But not now. Not now. There’s a change! Not in me though...”
Young Powell rejected with indignation any suggestion of making mischief. “Who do you take me for?” he cried. “Only you had better tell that steward to be careful what he says before me or I’ll spoil his good looks for him for a month and will leave him to explain the why of it to the captain the best way he can.”
This speech established Powell as a champion of Mrs Anthony. Nothing more bearing on the question was ever said before him. He did not care for the steward’s black looks; Franklin, never conversational even at the best of times and avoiding now the only topic near his heart, addressed him only on matters of duty. And for that, too, Powell cared very little. The woes of the apoplectic mate had begun to bore him long before. Yet he felt lonely a bit at times. Therefore the little intercourse with Mrs Anthony either in one dog-watch or the other was something to be looked forward to. The captain did not mind it. That was evident from his manner. One night he inquired (they were then alone on the poop) what they had been talking about that evening? Powell had to confess that it was about the ship. Mrs Anthony had been asking him questions.
“Takes interest—eh?” jerked out the captain moving rapidly up and down the weather-side of the poop.
“Yes, sir. Mrs Anthony seems to get hold wonderfully of what one’s telling her.”
“Sailor’s granddaughter. One of the old school. Old sea-dog of the best kind, I believe,” ejaculated the captain, swinging past his motionless second officer and leaving the words behind him like a trail of sparks succeeded by a perfect conversational darkness, because, for the next two hours till he left the deck, he didn’t open his lips again.
On another occasion ... we mustn’t forget that the ship had crossed the line and was adding up south latitude every day by then—on another occasion, about seven in the evening, Powell on duty, heard his name uttered softly in the companion. The captain was on the stairs, thin-faced, his eyes sunk, on his arm a Shetland wool wrap.
“Mr Powell—here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give this to Mrs Anthony. Evenings are getting chilly.”
And the haggard face sank out of sight. Mrs Anthony was surprised on seeing the shawl.
“The captain wants you to put this on,” explained young Powell, and as she raised herself in her seat he dropped it on her shoulders. She wrapped herself up closely.
“Where was the captain?” she asked.
“He was in the companion. Called me on purpose,” said Powell, and then retreated discreetly, because she looked as though she didn’t want to talk any more that evening. Mr Smith—the old gentleman—was as usual sitting on the skylight near her head, brooding over the long chair but by no means inimical, as far as his unreadable face went, to those conversations of the two youngest people on board. In fact they seemed to give him some pleasure. Now and then he would raise his faded china eyes to the animated face of Mr Powell thoughtfully. When the young sailor was by, the old man became less rigid, and when his daughter, on rare occasions, smiled at some artless tale of Mr Powell, the inexpressive face of Mr Smith reflected dimly that flash of evanescent mirth. For Mr Powell had come now to entertain his captain’s wife with anecdotes from the not very distant past when he was a boy, on board various ships,—funny things do happen on board ship. Flora was quite surprised at times to find herself amused. She was even heard to laugh twice in the course of a month. It was not a loud sound but it was startling enough at the after-end of the
Almost immediately he called his young second officer over to him. This was not done in displeasure. The glance he fastened on Mr Powell conveyed a sort of approving wonder. He engaged him in desultory conversation as if for the only purpose of keeping a man who could provoke such a sound, near his person. Mr Powell felt himself liked. He felt it. Liked by that haggard, restless man who threw at him disconnected phrases to which his answers were, “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” “Oh, certainly,” “I suppose so, sir,”—and might have been clearly anything else for all the other cared.
It was then, Mr Powell told me, that he discovered in himself an already old-established liking for Captain Anthony. He also felt sorry for him without being able to discover the origins of that sympathy of which he had become so suddenly aware.
Meantime Mr Smith, bending forward stiffly as though he had a hinged back, was speaking to his daughter.
She was a child no longer. He wanted to know if she believed in—in hell. In eternal punishment?
His peculiar voice, as if filtered through cotton-wool was inaudible on the other side of the deck. Poor Flora, taken very much unawares, made an inarticulate murmur, shook her head vaguely, and glanced in the direction of the pacing Anthony who was not looking her way. It was no use glancing in that direction. Of young Powell, leaning against the mizzen-mast and facing his captain she could only see the shoulder and part of a blue serge back.
And the unworried, unaccented voice of her father went on tormenting her.
“You see, you must understand. When I came out of jail it was with joy. That is, my soul was fairly torn in two—but anyway to see you happy—I had made up my mind to that. Once I could be sure that you were happy then of course I would have had no reason to care for life—strictly speaking—which is all right for an old man; though naturally—no reason to wish for death either. But this sort of life! What sense, what meaning, what value has it either for you or for me? It’s just sitting down to look at the death, that’s coming, coming. What else is it? I don’t know how you can put up with that. I don’t think you can stand it for long. Some day you will jump overboard.”
Captain Anthony had stopped for a moment staring ahead from the break of the poop, and poor Flora sent at his back a look of despairing appeal which would have moved a heart of stone. But as though she had done nothing he did not stir in the least. She got out of the long chair and went towards the companion. Her father followed carrying a few small objects, a handbag, her handkerchief, a book. They went down together.
It was only then that Captain Anthony turned, looked at the place they had vacated and resumed his tramping, but not his desultory conversation with his second officer. His nervous exasperation had grown so much that now very often he used to lose control of his voice. If he did not watch himself it would suddenly die in his throat. He had to make sure before he ventured on the simplest saying, an order, a remark on the wind, a simple good morning. That’s why his utterance was abrupt, his answers to people startlingly brusque and often not forthcoming at all.
