Chapter 21

A STOLEN EXCURSION

Barbara stopped at the top of James Street and looked down hill to the river. The afternoon was dark and the pavement wet. Thin fog drifted about the tall offices, lights shone in the windows, and she heard steamers' whistles. Down the street, a white plume of steam, streaking the dark-colored fog, marked the tunnel station, and Barbara glanced at a neighboring clock.

She could get a train in a few minutes, but she would be forced to wait at a station on the Cheshire side, and there was not another train for some time. She had bought the things she needed and did not know what to do. One could pass half an hour at a café; but Mrs. Cartwright did not like her to go to a café; alone and Barbara frowned impatiently. Her mother was horribly conventional and Barbara missed the freedom she had enjoyed in Canada. In fact, it was very dull at home; Grace's correct serenity and cold disapproval made one savage; Mortimer's very proper friends were tiresome.

Barbara was restless and dissatisfied. She wanted to play an active part and feel she was alive. Moreover, since she came home she had felt she was being watched, and, so to speak, protected from herself. Her relations had forgiven her Canadian escapade, but they meant to guard against her doing something of the kind again. Perhaps from their point of view, they were justified, but Barbara was not tempted to make a fresh experiment. She had not yet got over the shock; she saw how near her romantic trustfulness had brought her to disaster and thought her faith in men and women had gone. This was perhaps the worst, because she was generous and had frankly trusted people she liked.

Now she imagined the gloomy day had re-acted on her spirits. She was moody and longed for something that would banish the dreariness. Starting down hill for the station, she stopped abruptly a few moments afterwards. Lister was crossing the street, and if she went on they would meet. It was some time since she had seen him and she noted with surprise that he wore a rather soiled blue uniform. His cap, which had a badge in front, was greasy, and he carried an oilskin coat.

He walked quickly, looking straight in front, with his head well up, and Barbara got a hint of purposeful activity. Barbara liked him much, but she had, as a rule, quietly baffled his efforts to know her better. She waited, rather hoping he would pass, until he looked round and advanced to meet her.

"I'm lucky!" he remarked, and his satisfaction was comforting. "It's long since I have seen you."

"You know our house," Barbara rejoined.

"Oh, well," he said with a twinkle, "when I last came, you talked to me for about two minutes and then left me to play billiards with your brother. He was polite, but in Canada we play pool and my game's not very good. I imagined he was bored."

"Mortimer is like that," said Barbara. "But why are you wearing the steamship badge and sailor's clothes?"

Lister laughed. "They're engineer's clothes. I go to sea; that's another reason I didn't come over."

"Ah," said Barbara. "Did my step-father get you a post on board ship?"

"He did not. He told me to look him up at the office, but I didn't go. One would sooner not bother one's friends."

"Canadians are an independent lot," Barbara remarked. "In this country, we use our friends for all they are worth, and we're justified so long as they want to help. If Cartwright said he would help, he meant to do so. But what ship are you on board?"

"_Ardrigh_, cross-channel cattle boat. She's unloading Irish steers, sheep and pigs not far off. Will you come and see her? I don't suppose you've been on board a Noah's ark before."

Barbara did not hesitate. She doubted if Mrs. Cartwright would approve and knew Grace would not, but this was not important. Grace disapproved all she did and the stolen excursion would break the monotony. Then Lister's twinkling smile appealed, and somehow her reserve vanished when she was out of doors with him.

"I'd like to go," she said.

"Then, come along," he urged, and they started for the elevated railway at the bottom of the street.

While the electric cars rolled along the docks Barbara's moodiness went. She could not see much in the fog. Wet warehouse roofs, masts and funnels, and half-seen hulls floating on dull water, loomed up and vanished. Inside the car, lights glimmered on polished wood; the rattling and shaking were somehow cheerful. Barbara felt braced and alert. Lister talked and she laughed. She could not hear all he said, because of the noise, and thought he did not hear her, but she did not mind. She liked his cheerfulness and frank satisfaction. The gloom outside and the blurred lights in the fog gave the excursion a touch of romantic adventure.

They got down at a station by a muddy dock-road. Ponderous lorries with giant horses rolled out of the gloom between stacks of goods; wet cattle were entangled in the press of traffic, and Barbara was relieved when Lister pushed back a sliding door. Then she stopped for a moment, half daunted by the noise and bustle, and looked about.

Big lights hung from the room of the long shed, but did not pierce the gloom that lurked between the piles of cargo. A flock of sheep, moving in a dense woolly mass, came down a gangway; squealing pigs occupied a bay across the piles of goods. The front of the shed was open and in places one saw a faint reflection that looked like water. Opposite Barbara, the gap between the low roof and dock-sill was filled by a deckhouse and a steamer's funnel. Steam blew across the opening farther on, and in the vapor bales and boxes shot up and rattling chains plunged down. Through the roar of the winches she heard coarse shouts and the bellowing of cattle.

Lister took her to a slanting plank that spanned a dark gulf and she saw dim water and then the hollow of a steamer's hold. Men who looked like ghosts moved in the gloom and indistinct cattle came up a railed plank. Barbara could not see where they came from; they plunged out of the dark, their horns glimmering in the beam of the lamps.

After a few moments Lister helped her down on the steamer's bridge-deck. The boat listed away from the wall. Her tall red funnel was inclined sharply, much of her side was above water, and muddy streams poured from the scuppers on the after deck, where men with long boots pulled a hose-pipe about. The boat was horribly dirty, but her lean bows and the length of the iron engine-room casing indicated speed.

A man came along the bridge-deck, and Barbara thought the gold bands on his cap indicated the captain. He stopped and when he glanced at Lister she blushed, for there was a hint of sympathetic understanding in her smile.

"We won't want you until high-water," he said and went off.

Barbara hoped Lister had not seen her blush and thought he had not. He took her down some iron steps and to a door in a dark passage.

"Our mess-room," he said. "I expect it's the quietest spot on board the ship."

He pushed the door open and stopped. The small room was bright with electric light and a young man and woman sat opposite each other at the table. The man's uniform was stained by oil; the girl was pretty and fashionably dressed, but Barbara knew her clothes were cheap. She stood at the door, hesitating, and the man gave Lister a smile like the captain's.

"I didn't expect you yet, but come in," he said. "The tea's not cold, and Mike has made some doughnuts."

"Mr. Robertson, my chief," Lister said to Barbara, and the man presented Lister to his companion, and put a machine in a box on the floor. "Now there's room; I was pulling out the indicator diagrams," he added. "Won't you take off your coat, Miss Hyslop, and try Mike's doughnuts?"

The little room was hot, and when Barbara hung up her furs she noted the other girl's appraising glance. Miss Grant poured some black tea from a big cracked pot and pushed across a tin of condensed milk and a plate of greasy buns. When Barbara picked one up and looked at it doubtfully Robertson opened a drawer.

"We pull ours in two, but I expect you'd like a knife," he said.

He found a knife, which he rubbed on the table-cloth. "I used the thing on the indicator, the contraption in the box, but I think it's clean enough."

Barbara ate her doughnut and drank the bitter tea. Miss Grant looked friendly and she liked the engineer. They were frank, human people, and she thought them kind. Robertson began to talk about carpets, gas-stoves and pans, and Miss Grant told Barbara what the articles cost. They had been buying furniture and Robertson stated they were to be married soon.

"I reckon you haven't got so far yet," he said to Lister, and when Barbara saw Miss Grant touch him she blushed. It was ridiculous, but the blood came to her skin, and then, noting Lister's embarrassment, she began to laugh.

"Jim _will_ talk like that!" Miss Grant remarked.

"Oh, well," said Robertson, "I expect it's rather soon. Mr. Lister hasn't joined us long, and you don't begin at the top." He turned to Barbara with an encouraging smile. "All the same, he knows his job and has got one move up. Perhaps if he sticks to it, for a year or two--"

Miss Grant stopped him and asked Barbara's views about curtains. She had some patterns, and while they contrasted the material and the prices the door opened and a greasy, red-haired fellow gave the group a benevolent grin.

"Was thim doughnuts all right?" he inquired.

"I've had better, but you've made some worse, Mike," Robertson replied.

"Yez said _tea for two_. If ye'd told me it was a party, I'd have been afther stealing the captain's Cork butter. A cook cannot do his best whin the shore-steward sends him engine-grease. Annyhow, whin ye're young an' romantic, what's it mather what ye ate?"

He went off and Robertson began to talk about _Ardrigh_. He was naïvely proud of the boat and his engines, and narrated hard runs in bad weather to land the livestock in time for important markets. Sometimes the hollow channel-seas that buried the plunging forecastle filled the decks and icy cataracts came down the stokehold gratings. Sometimes the cattle pens broke and mangled bullocks rolled about in the water and wreckage.

Robertson had a talent for narrative and Barbara felt something of the terror and lure of the sea. She liked the _Ardrigh's_ rather grimy crew, their cheerfulness and rude good-humor. They did useful things, big things now and then; they were strong, warm-blooded fellows, not polished loafers like Mortimer's friends. Then she approved Miss Grant's frank pride in her lover. There was something primitive about these people. They were, so to speak, human, and not ashamed of their humanity. Lister was somehow like them; she wondered whether this had attracted her. Perhaps she was attracted, but the attraction must not be indulged.

By and by Miss Grant resumed her talk about curtains, and when they had agreed about the material that ought to wear best Barbara looked at her watch. Miss Grant gave her her hand and Robertson declared she must come back when the boat was in port again. Lister took her down the gangway and was quiet until they reached the station. Then he smiled apologetically.

"You played up well. I didn't know Robertson was on board, but he's a very good sort. So's the girl, I think."

Barbara laughed. "I didn't play up; I liked the people. The excursion was delightful; I've enjoyed it all."

Lister saw she was sincere and thrilled. He had begun to think he ought not to have suggested the adventure, but he was not sorry now; Barbara was not bothered by ridiculous conventions. She talked gayly while the cars rolled along beside the warehouse walls, but when they got down at the station she stopped in the middle of a sentence. Cartwright had alighted from the next car and was a yard or two in front. Lister knew his fur coat and rather dragging walk. If he and Barbara went on, they would confront Cartwright when he turned to go down the steps.

Barbara gave him a twinkling glance and remarked that he knitted his brows but did not hesitate. In the few moments since her step-father left the train she had seen three or four plans for avoiding him. Lister obviously had not, and on the whole she approved his honesty. He advanced and touched Cartwright.

"I didn't know you were on board our train, sir."

Cartwright looked at him rather hard and Barbara waited. Although she had been caught enjoying a stolen excursion, she was not afraid of her step-father, but she was curious.

"I was in front," said Cartwright dryly. "Barbara has picked a rather dreary day for a run to the north docks. I understood she was going to the shops."

"Miss Hyslop met me near the station and I persuaded her to come and see my ship."

"Then you have got a ship?" said Cartwright. "If you are not on duty, come to the office in the morning and tell me about the boat. In the meantime, I'll put Barbara on the tunnel train."

He went off with the girl, but Barbara turned her head and Lister saw her smile.