“Mr Talbot! A poor helpless young person such as I—”
“Come! You are about as helpless as Alcyone! I have no doubt your path is strewn with more conquests than Sir Henry’s. You have added me to the list.”
“I am not so hardhearted. I will release you. Nor—”
“Nor what then?”
“Peace has been declared, sir. Let us share it.”
“You will not be so cruel as to let me go!”
“The wind will do so. Oh, how I fear a recurrence of that dreadful motion! Believe me, sir, mal de mer is so disgusting and so infinitely lowering that a young person ceases even to care how unbecoming her situation is!”
“We may prevail on them yet.”
“Orders are terrible things, sir. Even when I was utterly prostrated Sir Henry would not roll up a single one of our sails to ease the motion, for all Lady Somerset begged him. You see the close limits of that power you credited me with.”
“Had you begged him yourself—”
“I was then a miserable object, hoping only for death. Though come to think of it when we heard we were being drawn inexorably towards your vessel and did not know if you was an enemy or a friend, I found the imminent prospect of the death I had longed for quite, quite terrifying!”
“Dare I whisper, Miss Chumley? I put a brave face on things—but so did I myself!”
We laughed together.
“I honour you for the admission, sir, and will not betray you!”
“Was Lady Somerset not disconcerted too?”
Miss Chumley leaned her dark ringlets close to me and spoke behind her fan.
“Only becomingly so, Mr Talbot. I believe she was in hope she was about to meet a Corsair!”
I laughed aloud.
“And then to find what sailors call ‘our miserable load of rotten timber’ sitting there with her ports agape and mostly toothless!”
“Mr Talbot!”
“Well after all! But we are determined, are we not? I may take your hand for as many and perhaps rather more than the number of dances thought proper?”
“If I am seized by the wrist, Mr Talbot, what can I do but submit? The fault will be yours.”
“I will be brazen.”
There was a pause. It was then that I made my one desperate attempt to deepen this airy conversation towards something of more worth. But even as I drew a breath to make my outrageous confessions—ma’am, I have been struck by a thunderbolt—I saw how fixed Lady Somerset’s smile had become. Captain Anderson rose to his feet. With a positive collapse of the heart I understood that our visit was—must—be over. I cannot tell now how I got from that enchanted palace, went to my hutch, immediately thinking and with a lump in my throat—how comical!—of who was speaking to her at that very moment and—but what am I about? I am no poet, whose job I now see is to ease men over these moments. “The World Well Lost” or “All for Love”! Such indeed was my sudden and overwhelming passion. I had a sharp feeling of panic at the thought of my appearance, felt my head where there was indeed a disagreeable hardness of clotted blood lying among the hairs of my scalp so that my only thought was how thoroughly this “young person” must have been disgusted. She was all politeness and—but I was clean-shaven, still clean-shaven, and my clothing was—oh, poor fool, poor Edmund, what a fall, no, what a climb—no, not either, but what a translation was there! I felt I should suffer, did suffer already, yet would not have changed places with any other man in the world unless perhaps there might be some man, some other man—Alcyone was full of them! Oh, God!
And I had not discovered Anderson’s attitude to duelling!
(8)
Thus it was. A fire burned the exhaustion out of me and supplied with its unseen flames a temporary resource of strength which kept me, though fallen on my bunk with—but my store of language had not been assembled for what I now felt had befallen me, a man of such superior intellects, of common sense! Oh, I was, I am, fallen so deeply and generously in love! It was excitement but it was fear too—fear of treading in a new world for which my character was by no means suited or adequate, a chancy, gambler’s world—she bound for India, I for the Antipodes—my career—that advantageous alliance with—
Edmund Talbot lay fully clothed on his bunk, desiring nothing so much, able to think of nothing so much, burning for nothing so much as a parson’s penniless daughter!
At length I remembered and called for Wheeler, louder and louder till he came.
“Devil take it, man, you stink of rum!”
“Just spliced the main brace, sir. And I was owed some sippers.”
“Captain Anderson—”
“Sir Henry persuaded him, sir. A real gentleman Sir Henry is.”
“Very well. I require all my gear taken across and put in the cabin Mr Colley used.”
“I can’t do that, sir!”
“What do you mean ‘can’t do it’?”
“I haven’t an order, sir!”
“I am giving you an order.”
“Captain Anderson—”
“I have just been with him. He raised no objection, so you need not.”
Wheeler began to grumble but I cut him off.
“Come to think of it you can lay out my evening clothes here before you do anything else.”
Knee-breeches, pumps, stockings, tails—the man needed little guidance and it was soon done. I changed my clothes, then went across to Colley’s cabin. What was stranger than I had imagined was to find myself in a cabin on the starboard side of the vessel—the right-hand side looking forward towards the sharp end! It was a mirror image of the one I had just vacated and to be there after all these weeks was like suddenly finding oneself left-handed! There was much noise from forrard and indeed noise of one sort or another from most parts of the vessel. Where I was at the back end of the ship there was noise too, from some of the cabins, voices raised and laughter. There had been, there still was what I was told later was called ship-visiting. The penalties for a similar activity on the part of the people were severe, for the same activity if carried out by them was known as “breaking ship”. But we had had such an exchange of passengers and two sets of junior officers from wardroom to wardroom and gunroom to gunroom the air of this end of the ship was far livelier than it had been in Sir Henry’s stateroom.
There came a knock at the door.
“Entrez!”
It was Summers wearing his accustomed shabby uniform suit and a worried expression.
“Mr Talbot, what is this?”
“Why are you not dressed for the ball, man?”
He brushed my question aside.
“Your change of cabin!”
“Oh that. We may well have Miss Chumley aboard.”
“Edmund! This is impossible!”
“I am a little abroad in my wits, Charles. May we not leave it for a while?”
“You have had some hard knocks, but Colley’s cabin—”
“I could not think of asking Miss Chumley to use a bunk in which the poor devil willed himself to death!”
Summers shook his head. He was not smiling.
“But do you not see—”
“Oh fudge, man! Why are you not dressed for dancing?”
Summers went pink under his tan.
“I shall not attend the ball.”
“Methodist!”
“As I once told you, I have never learned to dance, Mr Talbot,” he said stiffly. “Quadrilles, allemandes, valses have not come in my way. Do you not remember that I was promoted from the lower deck?”
“The sailors dance!”
“Not as you do.”
“Still bitter, Charles?”
“Every now and then. But I have volunteered to keep the watch during the hours of the ball—if it gets under weigh, that is.”
“Fate could not be so brutal as to prevent it.”
“I shall spend the time pacing the quarterdeck and meditating the suddenly changed future before us.”
“The peace. Ch
anged? No, Mr Summers. I have studied history as much as I may. There will be no change. The only thing to be learnt from history is that nobody learns from history!”
“Who said that?”
“I did. Doubtless it has been said by others, will be said again—and with as little effect.”
“You are a cynic.”
“Oh, I? If you only knew, dear Charles—I am excited, and”—the words “in love” trembled on my lips, but some remaining trace of reserve in my character kept me from uttering them—“in a state of slight intoxication owing partly to a small amount of brandy and the fact that I have not slept for several years, I believe!”
“The blows on your head—”
“Self-inflicted wounds.”
“Alcyone carries a surgeon.”
“Not a word, Charles! He would keep me from the ball, a prospect not to be entertained for an instant!”
Summers nodded and withdrew. I could hear from the noises around me that the hour of the “entertainment” had come. I shot my lace cuffs and settled a ruffle that had been sadly crushed in its long stowage. I opened the door of my new hutch and joined the throng which was now making its way from our lobby up the stairs whence we were to watch the entertainment offered us by the people. It was quite extraordinary to see Miss Granham sweep past me in blue and Mrs Brocklebank in green and Miss Zenobia in all the colours of the rainbow! But my amusement at seeing such a festive gathering was nothing to my utter amazement when we issued into the waist! To begin with, dusk had become a night even darker than usual because of the humid mist which still enclosed us. Islanded in this night was a space. Our space, our whole world was now so brilliantly illuminated that instead of being a minute speck in the midst of infinite extents it had enlarged to become the vastest of arenas. The sailors had hung lanterns everywhere, some of them with coloured glasses so that our streets and squares were not only lighter than by day but prismatical. There was much bunting. There were garlands, swags, crowns and sceptres of flowers far too large to be natural. Stir, as it were, into that the brilliance of our ladies, the glitter of uniform and the sawing, blowing and banging of Sir Henry’s band which was now dispensing jollity from some concealed cavern in the front end of our vessel! The ladies and officers of Alcyone had now emerged into their square and were coming in procession up the street that had formerly been a gangway to our larger square at the entrance to which young Mr Taylor, all dressed up, was doing the pretty and far too attentive to the ladies for one of his tender years! Indeed, I had to step forward and detach Miss Chumley from him, as he seemed inclined to detain her. I did so with much firmness, fended off a couple of lieutenants and set her without more ado on Captain Anderson’s left with myself on her other side. If the ship’s people called me “Lord Talbot” in jest I might as well take advantage of my reputation! I did all this with the determination and success which I hope would have attended our own boarding party, had it been put to the test. Lady Somerset was on Anderson’s right.
Sir Henry rose, and the whole assembly, both fore and aft, rose with him. The band struck up and “God Save the King” was rendered with much solemnity. That being concluded, we were about to sit down again when a fellow stood forth and gave us “Rule Britannia” which all echoed lustily and with much joy. Indeed, at the conclusion the huzzahs for His Majesty the King, for the French King, for the Prince Regent, for the Emperor of Russia, then coming nearer home, for Sir Henry and his lady, for Captain Anderson—why God bless my soul, I believe had not Sir Henry said a few well-chosen words of thanks we would have gone on huzzahing all night! However, we were seated at last and the evening entertainment began. A fellow stood forward and gave a loyal address in what he thought was verse—the most one-legged set of couplets ever composed, I swear.
Sir Henry Somerset and Captain Anderson
Now that most battles is over and done
With many losses of life and horrible wrecks
We ask leave to come forward, toe the line, and pay our respects.
My immediate feeling was one of pity and embarrassment for the man. However, looking back, I have to admit that Miss Chumley’s quiet but positively schoolgirlish giggle had little of sympathy in it. The man could read and was conning paper. That was the extraordinary thing about him. He was small and wizened. Every now and then his bald head would gleam at us in the light from the lanterns. He had several papers and I began to understand that this address was a corporate effort. He had not thought, or perhaps had not enough paper, or had no previous experience to impress on him the importance of a fair copy! He was forced, therefore, to look from one paper to another, then get at a third which he held upside down and so was compelled to look up at it under his arm and address us in that position. One of his contributors had a stale poetical vocabulary, so at one moment we were in the high style and the French had
. . . ploughed in vain
The foamy billows of the bounding main.
Then in a line or two we were back with
. . . now we have done all these
There is nothing between us and home but the damned Yankees—
I leaned towards her and was about to comment on the embarrassment it all caused me when she whispered behind her fan that she had not heard anything so diverting since the bishop’s address at her confirmation! I was overcome with delight at this evidence of wit in the enchanting creature and was about to confide that she had bound me more firmly than before when I was interrupted by a roar of laughter from the fo’castle—
“What did he say, Miss Chumley?”
“Something about ‘Billy Rogers’. Who is he?”
I was deeply shocked but of course did not allow her to see it.
“He is one of our sailors.”
But no sooner had I turned back to the performance when I heard that
Mr Prettiman and his lady have put up the banns
In order to get a party of little Republicans—
This was sailing near the wind with a vengeance! But I am sorry to say that the laughter of the ship’s people was mixed with a great deal of unlooked-for applause. It did, however, disconcert the social philosopher who looked down and blushed as did, for once in her life, his redoubtable bride to be. I began to understand that this was to be a period of licensed fooling and listened with mild amusement to references to Mr Brocklebank and even contrived to look indifferent (oh, what a roar there was from the fo’castle!) when the man said of the wind that it
Roared loud enough to wake the dead
Or loud as “Lord Talbot” when ’e ’it ’is ’ead.
But all was turned the other side out and a private sun shone on me and on Miss Chumley when she said severely—
“That was most unkind!”
“You are all consideration, my—”
Oh, I could not even use the simple, the gentle familiarity of “my dear” with this smiling girl I had known since God drew out that first rib from Adam!—“Miss Chumley.”
So the address went on. He wound to a peroration which was concerned neither with loyalty nor duty but food! Was there ever anything at all as much like the art of sinking? The main suggestion was that we should now make for a port in South America where we might take in fresh meat and green vegetables. I had not myself noticed any great deficiency in our diet and was about to remark on this to my fair companion when I heard:
We find
That the vittals we have on board caused so much wind
That it is strange the ship is so still and steady
And has not been blowed to Sydney Cove already.
Sir Henry shouted with laughter at this and made some jocular sound in Anderson’s direction. Little Mr Tommy Taylor laughed so much he fell off his seat. To my astonishment this was the end of the address. The man gave a kind of curtsey to us, then made his way back into the crowd of emigrants and sailors who thronged the fo’castle and the stairs up to it. He received much applause from them and there was some chanting of “Fresh food! Fre
sh food!” but it died away. Now the orator’s place on the deck was taken by, of all people, Mrs East! She had evidently recovered if not completely from her miscarriage, at least sufficiently to allow her to walk; but she was painfully thin and there were still the shadows like a wasting disease in her cheeks.
“That is Mrs East.”
“You know her, sir?”
“I know of her. She has been mortally sick. A—she has been near to death, poor creature.”
Mrs East began to sing!
The effect was extraordinary. An absolute stillness descended on the city, there was not a movement, not a sound. She stood, clad in the simplest of dresses, her hands clasped before her; and that stance made her seem childlike—an appearance which was enhanced by her physical emaciation. The song rose from her mouth. She was accompanied by no instrument. Her unaided voice silenced or kept silent a whole crowd of sailors warmed with drink. It was a strange song—strange and simple! I had never heard it before. It was called “Bonnie at Morn” and it was simple as a hedge rose yet it haunts me still—oh, not for her, not for Mrs East, not for anything but itself, I think—as the sounds of the boatswain’s call haunted me after the funeral of poor Colley. I was confused in my head, of course, I had forgotten what it was to sleep—yet like the boatswain’s call it changed everything. It admitted us—it admitted me to halls, caverns, open spaces, new palaces of feeling—how foolish and impossible! Those tears which I had been able to restrain at my introduction to a new life now fell. I could not help it. They were neither tears of sorrow nor of joy. They were tears—and I do not know how this is possible—they were tears of understanding! When the song ended there was still silence, as if people heard some echo and were loath to believe that it had died away. Then there was a kind of grunt that led to prolonged and I am sure heartfelt applause. Miss Chumley shut her fan, allowed it to hang from her little finger by the ring at one end and laid her palms together three times.