Part 3

He sat alone at breakfast, with the breakfast dishes pushed far away from him; for he had risen late, and had sat late at wine the night before. The thought of food was nauseous to him; he drank small beer thirstily; and damned his wife under his breath for being risen from table, as he would, perhaps, have damned her aloud had she been present. He had been married for some three months and had begun to find the simulation of virtue tedious. His head ached; and he was very angry with his wife. He had married her for her money, and he now found that the money was so tied that her husband had no power over it; but that the trustees of her father’s estate, who viewed him with no favour, had powers which he had not suspected. Much as he had ever hated the law, he had never---- He rose up from his seat with an oath, believing for a wild moment that the marriage might be set aside. She had misled him; she must have known that all he wanted was her money. The marriage had been a secret one. But that belief only lasted for a moment; he was “married and done for,” and here was the lawyer’s letter refusing supplies. He had run through their ready money at cards the night before. All that remained to him was a handful of small change, and a handful of tradesmen’s bills. All through breakfast the bills had been arriving, for the word had spread abroad that the Stukeleys were leaving Salcombe at the end of their third week’s stay. He had been in awkward corners before; but never in the country, and never before had he been involved with a wife. He could not think what to do, for his head ached furiously. He had made too free with the common purse in the certainty of receiving money that morning. “Your obedient servants,” ran the letter. He stamped up and down the room, swearing and biting his nails. He could not return to London without money; nor did he dare to return; for he had many debts, and feared arrest. He wondered whether Olivia had any friends in those parts from whom he or she might borrow money. “It’s time Olivia got broken in,” he thought.

A servant entered with a letter. He took it from her, staring at her with the hard insolence of his class. The girl dropped her eyes, looked confused, and then smiled at him.

“Aha,” he said lightly. He caught her hand and pressed it, still looking into her eyes.

“No,” said the girl hurriedly. “There’s some one coming.”

“You’re my little duckling, aren’t you?” he said softly, catching her round the waist.

“Be quiet,” she answered, frightened. “I’m sure I hear some one coming.”

He listened for a second, maintaining his hold. “Nonsense,” he said. “Nonsense, Amy.”

“My name’s Jessie,” she said pertly.

He bent and kissed her lips; the girl made some show of virtue by calling him a bad man.

“Oh law,” said Jessie, breaking from him hastily. “There’s some one----” She seized two plates upon the table, and made a bustling pretence at clearing away. On learning that it was a false alarm, she looked at him with a sort of slinking grace.

“You’ve made my hair untidy,” she said reproachfully.

He walked up to her, laughing. She backed from him with a grin.

“Jess-ie,” came a cry from without.

“It’s missus,” she said, terrified, going to the door.

“Yes, mum.”

“The man wants an answer for that letter he brought.”

“Yes, mum,” she cried. “In a minute, mum. There’s an answer, sir. What’s the answer, sir?”

Stukeley tore the paper open. A bill fell out.

“Oh damn,” he exclaimed. “Tell him I’ll look in in the morning.”

Jessie carried the message to the bearer; and returned with another.

“Please, sir, the man says he won’t go unless he has his money, sir.”

“Won’t he?” said Stukeley angrily. “I’ll see whether he won’t.”

He picked up his cane and walked out swiftly. The servant listened at the door for the details of the quarrel.

“Hark-ee,” came Stukeley’s voice. “Here’s your bill. D’ye see it? There!”--there came a sound of tearing paper--“Now take that back to your master. Next time you disturb me at breakfast I’ll break your head. Get out of this.”

The haberdasher’s clerk withdrew. The landlady aided his retreat with a few words about not having her guests disturbed.

Stukeley returned to his breakfast-room. Jessie looked at him admiringly.

“Aha, Jessie,” he said. “What nice arms you’ve got. Eh? Haven’t you? Eh? Beautiful arms.” He pinched them, following her about as she backed to avoid him.

“You’ve got a wife,” said Jessie. “What do you want with arms? Don’t! Don’t! You’ll make me scream out.”

Again came the voice of the mistress.

“Jessie! Jessie! Drat the girl.”

The amorous by-play ceased; Jessie went swiftly.

She soon returned, bringing a visitor, a coarse fair-haired man, with a face not unlike a horse’s face, but without the beauty. His cheeks were rather puffy; his eyelids drooped down over his eyes, so that he gave one the impression of extreme short sight, or of some eye-disease. He peered out under his eyelids. One felt that the house so lit was a dark, narrow, mean little thieves’ house.

“Mr. Haly to see you, sir,” said Jessie.

Mr. Haly entered, to find his friend Stukeley retiring through the other door. He turned back in the doorway on hearing the name.

“Oh, it’s you, Monty,” he said. “What brings you to Salcombe?”

“You took me for a dun,” said Mr. Haly, with a jocular whine peculiar to him. “You took me for a dun. I’ll sit down, if this pretty charmer here”--he ogled Jenny, with a look which would have made a wanton chaste--“will give me a chair. Thank you, my dear.” He sat down; Jessie left the room.

“I’ve come down with young Killigrew,” he said. “He offered to pay my expenses. So I thought I’d look you up, to see how married bliss looks. Hey, Tom? How’s the wife? Hey, Tom? How’s Cupid’s dove? Hey? I suppose she’s making little clothes already? Hey?”

He laughed pursily; helped himself, unbidden, to the beer, cut himself a snack from his friend’s untasted breakfast, buttered it thickly, and began to eat. His friendships were selfish always. “Give nothing, but take all you can get,” would have been his motto, had he had sufficient intellect to think it out. It had helped him in the world; but his greed, never sated, had perhaps helped him less than his power of flattering those who were richer, but no more intelligent than himself. Stukeley ignored his friend’s questions, not because he objected to them, but because he expected something more from Mr. Haly.

“There was another reason why I called,” said Haly, after a pause. “I travelled down from town with old Bent, your landlord that was.”

“With old Bent?” said Stukeley, becoming more attentive.

“Yes,” continued Haly. “He’d heard you were in Salcombe. I believe he wants to see you.”

“Damn it. He does,” said Stukeley.

“Well,” said Haly, “then I hope it’s not a large sum. But still, now you’re married to an heiress, you lucky dog, why, you can laugh at old Bent, I should think.”

“Yes,” said Stukeley quietly. “What time is old Bent coming here?”

Haly shrugged his shoulders. “We’re not in town now,” he said. “He might come any time.”

Stukeley offered his friend some more beer.

“By the way, Tom,” said Haly, “I don’t want to rob you, but could you lend me a fiver, just to go on with?”

“I’m sorry, Monty,” said his friend; “I never lend money.”

“Oh, come, Tom,” said Haly. “Don’t be a swine, man. I’d lend it to you fast enough. I’d not see a friend in want.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” said Tom. “But I never lend money.”

“Damn it,” said Haly, lowering his voice to a whining reproachful tone. “Well, I wouldn’t be a mean swine. Lord, man! I gave you the office about Bent. You might have a little gratitude. What’s a fiver to you? Don’t be a swine, man. I wouldn’t refuse you, I know.”

Stukeley stared insolently at Haly’s blinking eyes. He seemed to relish the man’s disappointment.

“No! Can’t be done, Monty,” he said. “Have some more buttered toast, instead--with sugar on it.”

Haly had already eaten plenteously of this dainty; he was not to be comforted with flagons.

“You are a swine,” he said angrily. “Now you’re married, I suppose you’re going back on your pals. You dirty swine. My God! I wouldn’t be mean like that. Well, keep your fiver. But old Bent shall hear something. Yes, and my new wife shall hear something. My wife Olivia, Olivia.”

Stukeley watched his friend with careless tolerance, ringing the bell meanwhile, with a hand stretched idly behind him. He laughed lightly, bidding Haly to be of good cheer. When Jessie came, in answer to the bell, he bade his friend good morning, and bowed him out. Haly disappeared, cursing.

When he had gone, Stukeley wondered if he had done wisely in choking off Haly so soon. He had made up his mind, during the months of his honeymoon, to break with his old circle; for his wife’s friends were rich and powerful, and his own friends, being men about town, had never been more to him than flash companions. Besides, he realized that a man like Haly was hardly likely to bring him credit with his new acquaintances. And anyhow his headache made him devilish, and he had had pleasure in seeing the horse-face flush, and the little mean eyes blink with anger. He did not set much store by the man’s threats. If old Bent had come to Salcombe after him, he would see his victim, whether Haly helped or refused to help. He did not rightly know what he could say to old Bent, and his head was throbbing and in pain; he could not think. Jessie returned to clear away; but even Jessie would not comfort him, for missus was in the next room and could hear every word.

“Perhaps after dinner,” said Jessie.

Something in the girl’s coyness stirred his lust. He caught hold of her, shutting the door with his disengaged hand.

“You are a naughty man,” said Jessie reprovingly.

He drew her head back and kissed her lips and throat. Something in the girl amused him and excited him. He was conscious of a sudden anger against Olivia. She needed some devil of wantonness, he thought. She never moved him as this tavern trollop moved him.

“Do you love me?” said Jessie.

“Yes,” he said passionately.

“I seen you look at me,” said Jessie.

It had been love at first sight. While they kissed, Olivia’s voice sounded clearly in the passage. “I’ll see him in the breakfast-room, with Mr. Stukeley.”

“Oh law!” said Jessie, wrenching herself free. “Go inside, Mr. Stukeley. Don’t let’s be seen together.”

“Bent already,” said Stukeley, slipping into the inner room.

He went so quickly that Jessie’s question, “Is my hair tidy?” was unanswered. As Jessie dabbed at her hair before the mirror, Olivia entered. She thought that Jessie’s heightened colour and nervous manner were signs that she was ashamed of being caught at a glass. She smiled at the girl, who smiled back at her as she hurried to remove her tray. Had Olivia looked at Jessie as she left the room with the table-cloth, the trollop’s gaze of confident contempt would have puzzled her; she might, perhaps, have found it disquieting.

She had only been married a few weeks; and she loved her husband so dearly that to speak of him to any one, to an inn-servant, for example, seemed sacrilegious to her. She felt this very strongly at this moment, though she longed to ask Jessie where her husband might be found. She felt some slight displeasure at her husband’s absence, for he had never before left her for so long. This breakfast had been the first meal eaten apart since the day of their marriage. When Jessie had left the room, she looked at her image in the mirror, straightening the laces at her throat and smoothing the heavy hair, one of her chief beauties. She loved her husband. All other men were mere creatures to her--creatures with no splendour of circling memory, creatures of dust. But the announcement that Captain Margaret was even then without, waiting to be admitted, was somehow affecting. She felt touched, perhaps a little piqued. He had loved her, still loved her, she felt. She had never much cared for him, though she had found a sort of dreadful pleasure in the contemplation of her power over him. At the moment, she felt a little pity for him, and then a little pity for herself. Now that she was married, she thought, she would be unattractive to him; her power would be gone; and as that was the first time the thought had come to her, it made her almost sad, as though she were parting with a beautiful memory, with a part of her youth, with a part of her youthful beauty. Her look into the glass was anxious. She was eager to look her best, to make the most of her pale beauty; for (like less intelligent women) she believed that it was her beauty which most appealed to him. As a matter of fact it was the refinement of her voice which swayed him, her low voice, full of music, full of intensity, of which each note told of an inner grace, of some beauty of mind unattainable by men, but sometimes worshipped by them. She was not a clever talker. Her power lay in sympathy, in creating talk in others, for when she was of a company it was as though music were being played; the talk showed fine feeling; at least, the talkers went away delighted. She had a little beauty. Her eyes were beautiful; her hair was beautiful; but beautiful beyond all physical beauty was the beauty of her earnest voice, so unspeakably refined and pure, coming holy from the inner shrine.

She had not waited a minute, before Captain Margaret entered. She had expected to see him troubled, and to hear the ring of emotion in his voice as he greeted her. She had half expected to be surprised by some rush of frantic passion. But he entered smiling, greeting her with a laugh. She felt at once, from his manner, from his obvious dislike for her hand, which he scarcely touched and then dropped, an implied shrinking from her husband. It gave her firmness. He looked at her eyes a moment, wondering with what love they had looked at Stukeley during the night-watches. The thought came to him that she was a beautiful soiled thing, to be pitied and tenderly reproved. The image of Stukeley cast too dark a shadow for any brighter thought of her. When she began to speak she had him bound and helpless.

“Well, Olivia,” he said gaily, “I’m glad I came in time to catch you.”

“Yes,” she answered, “we were just going. We have been---- And how did you come here?” She found it harder to talk to him than she had expected.

“I came here in my ship,” he answered. “I wanted to see you, to wish you, to hope--to wish you all happiness. Before I leave England.”

She smiled.

“Thank you very much,” she said. “Are you leaving England for long?”

“It may be a long time. If all goes well, it will be a very long time.”

“I had not heard that you were going abroad. To what part are you going? Italy again?”

“No. I’m going to Darien.” It seemed to him to be almost tragical that she really did not know where Darien lay. “The Spanish Main,” he added.

“Ah, yes,” she said.

He covered her retreat by saying that he was going to Virginia first. She looked at him with quickened interest.

“Going in your ship,” she said. “That sounds very grand. Is she in Salcombe here? Which is she among all those schooners?”

“That one,” he answered, pointing through the window. “The ship with the flag.”

“And you’re leaving England at once?”

“Yes. This afternoon’s tide.”

“But what are you going to do when you get there?”

“Oh, don’t let’s talk about that,” he answered. “Tell me about yourself, and your plans. What are you going to do, now you’re leaving Salcombe? Will you go home to Flaxley?”

“No,” she answered, colouring slightly. “Uncle Nestor was rather rude to Tom, to my husband.”

The captain bit his lip, and gazed out absently over the sea. He had heard why Uncle Nestor had been rude. The knowledge made him doubtful of Olivia’s future happiness.

“So I suppose you’ll go back to town,” he answered, “and settle down. What do married people do, when they settle down?”

“Oh,” she said, “I’ve great schemes for Tom. He’s going to stand for Parliament. But I want to know what you’re going to do in Darien. What is your scheme?”

“Just to help the Indians,” he answered. “The Spaniards have robbed them and ill-treated them, and I thought that if some Englishmen settled on the Isthmus, and opened up a trade with them. For you see, we could trade with both Jamaica and Virginia. And if we opened up a trade there, we could check the Spanish power there, making the Indians our allies.”

“And what would you trade for, or with? It sounds very romantic.”

“The country is very rich in gold. Gold is found in all the rivers. But of course the gold is not to be our aim. I want, really, to found an English colony; or a colony of workers, at any rate. The Spanish colony is just a press, which squeezes the land. Now the land ought, in a sense, to squeeze the colonists. It ought to bring out all their virtues. That is what I want. The country will have to be cleared. And then we shall plant cacao, or whatever the land is fit for, and---- The scheme is thought out, in detail. I’m confident; but I won’t talk about it.”

“And the Indians will be your allies?” repeated Olivia; “and the Spaniards will probably fight you?”

“Yes,” he answered. “And you will be in a townhouse in London, going to the play, or dancing at a ball, in grey silk.”

“Blue, or grey.”

“And you will give sprigs of verbena to those who see over your garden in the country.”

“And when will you come for some?”

“Ah! I shan’t see that garden again, for a long, long time.”

“We’re going to plant all sorts of things, when we get home. You must send some roots from Darien.”

“I should like to do that. We have been such--such friends.”

“In the old days.”

“Yes,” he said, rising. “Now I must be off.”

“Oh, but you ought not to go yet.”

“I only just came ashore to see you.”

“Oh, you must stay to see my husband. He wants to see you. He’ll be so disappointed if you don’t stay to see him.”

“You must make my apologies. Good-bye, Olivia.”

She held out her hand without emotion of any kind. She would have shaken hands with any other acquaintance with just so little feeling. Margaret wondered what it was that would get within her guard. He took her hand. He tried hard to say no more, but failed, being sorely tempted.

“God bless you,” he said. “I hope you will be very, very happy. God bless you, dear. I wonder if I shall hear of you ever. Or see you again.”

“If you want to, you will,” she said simply, glad that it had gone no further.

“Yes, I shall see you again,” he said.

“Of course you will,” she answered. “I hope your colony will be a success.”

Something in her voice made the conventional words beautiful. Captain Stukeley, on the other side of the door, hearing that quality in his wife’s voice, wished that the keyhole were bigger. With an effort, Captain Margaret rewarded that moving tone.

“When I come back,” he said, “I hope that I shall get to know your husband. Make my apologies to him.”

“Good-bye again,” she said.

Her voice seemed to come from her whole nature. All that her lover could remember afterwards was the timbre of the voice; he had no memory of her face. Her eyes he remembered, and her heavy antique ear-rings. “Eyes, ear-rings, and a voice,” he repeated, walking down to the jetty. He wondered what she was. “What is she? What is she? Oh Lord, what is she?” He could not answer it. She was beautiful. Most beautiful. Beautiful enough to drive him mad. Her beauty was not a bodily accident; but a quality of soul, the quality of her nature, her soul made visible. But what was she? She had talked commonly, conventionally. She had said no wise thing, no moving thing. Never once had she revealed herself; she was only kind, fond of flowers, fond of music, a lover of little children. But oh, she was beyond all beauty, that dark, graceful lady with the antique ear-rings. It was her voice. Any conventional, common word her voice made beautiful. He wondered if she were, after all, divine; for if she were not divine, how came it that her voice had that effect, that power? He felt that human beings were all manifestations of a divine purpose. Perhaps that lovely woman was an idea, an idea of refinement, of delicate, exquisite, right grace, clothed in fitting flesh, walking the world with heavenly intention. But if that were so, how the devil came Stukeley there, that was the puzzle? The blood came into that pale face sometimes; and oh, the way she turned, the way she looked, the way of that voice, so thrilling, so infinitely beautiful. Ah well; he had played and lost, and there was his ship with her flag flying; he was bound down and away

Along the coast of New Barbary.

But he had loved her, he had seen her, he had been filled with her beauty as a cup with wine. He would carry her memory into the waste places of the world. Perhaps in the new Athens, over yonder, among the magnolia bloom, and the smell of logwood blossom, he would make her memory immortal in some poem, some tragedy, something to be chanted by many voices, amid the burning of precious gums, and the hush of the theatre. On the way, he stopped, thinking of her personal tastes. He, too, would have those tastes. Little things for which she cared should come with him to the Main. He gave the merchant the impression that he was dealing with one melancholy mad.

Drums sounded in the street, for troops were marching west, to a rousing quick-step. They marched well, with their heads held firm in their stocks. The sergeants strutted by them, handling their halberds. Captain Margaret paused to watch them, just as a sailor will stop to watch a ship. “They are like the world,” he thought. “The men drop out, but the regiment remains. It still follows the rags on the broomstick, and a fool commands it, and a halberd drills it, and women and children think it a marvellous fine thing. Well, so be it. I’ve bought my discharge.” The fifes and drums passed out of hearing. “They’ll never come back,” he said to himself. “Perhaps twenty years hence I shall meet one of those men, and be friends with him. Why not now? And why should I see that regiment now? What does it mean? It is a symbol. All events are symbols. What does it mean? What is it a symbol of? Why should that regiment pass to-day, now, after I’ve bidden my love good-bye? And what ought I to learn from it? What message has it for me?” He was convinced that it had a message. He stood still, looking down the road, vacant as a British statue.

He woke up with a start, remembering that he had to buy some materials for the practice of one of his amusing handicrafts. A little gold, some silver, and a few stones of small value, together with glass beads, were all that he needed. He was planning to make jewels for the Indian princesses. “Beads is what they goes for,” so Cammock had said. He bought large stores of beads. He also bought materials for a jewel for Olivia, thinking, as he examined the gems, of the letter he would send with the gift. “It will be written under palm-thatch,” he thought, “in the rains.” He was able to plan the jewel in all its detail. People stared at him with curiosity. He was speaking aloud as he walked. “Nothing matters very much to me,” he said. “I know the meaning of life. Life and death are the same to me.” So saying he arrived upon the jetty, and hailed his boat, which lay at a little distance, her oarsmen playing dice in the stern-sheets. His purchases were stowed between the thwarts, a few grocer’s boxes made an obelisk in the bows. As they shoved off, there came a flash of fire from the side of the _Broken Heart_. White smoke-rings floated up and away, over her topgallant-masts. Grey smoke clung and drifted along the sea. The roar of the cannon made the Salcombe windows rattle. The boat’s crew grinned. Being boatmen, they had escaped the gun-drill. They knew what all hands were getting from the stalwart Cammock.