"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. Idon'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 Ido 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 sympathizer. 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 Icould astonish you. But it's no use. I myself can hardly . . . You couldn't understand. I hope you won't try to make mischief. There was a time, young fellow, when I would have dared any 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.
