tales of two people 47

tales of two people 47

“Yes?”

 

“Do you think you’ll ever be a bishop really?”

 

“Only when I talk to her,” he said, with a confused yet candid modesty

which I found agreeable.

 

“Go and do homage for your temporalities,” I said.

 

“I say--her mother!” whispered Mr Davenport.

 

“She probably thought the same when she married the vicar.”

 

He smiled. “That’s rather funny!” he cried back to me, as he started off

along the road.

 

“So your son-in-law may think some day, my boy,” said I with a touch of

ill-humour. No matter, he was out of hearing. Besides I was not, I

repeat, really serious about it--not half so serious, I venture to

conjecture, as the vicar’s wife!

 

To her, perhaps, Dr Johnson’s paraphrase may be recommended.

 

 

 

 

THE OPENED DOOR

 

 

“We may float for ten minutes,” said the Second Officer.

 

After a pause the passenger remarked:

 

“I’m glad of it, upon my word I am.”

 

“You’re thankful for small mercies,” was the retort.

 

The passenger did not explain. He could not expect the Second Officer,

or the rest of them, to sympathise with his point of view, or share the

feelings which made him rejoice, not at the respite, but at the doom

itself. Those who were not busy getting the women and children into the

boats, and keeping the ship above water, were cursing the other vessel

for steaming away without offering aid, or clutching in bewildered

terror at anyone who could tell them how the collision had happened and

what hope there was of salvation. The boats were got safely off, laden

to their utmost capacity; lifebuoys were handed round, and, when they

ran short, men tossed up for them, and the losers ransacked the deck for

some makeshift substitute. The passenger took no part in the competition

or the search. He stood with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his

lips, waiting for the ten minutes to wear themselves away. His only

grudge against fate lay in those superfluous ten minutes.

 

Left to himself, he began to think, lighting a cigarette. He had to use

a fusee, which was a pity, especially for his last cigarette, but the

wind blew fiercely. It was strange how much harm a man could do without

being a particularly bad fellow, and what an _impasse_ he could get

himself into. He had drifted on, and things had fallen out so

maliciously that, because of him who hated hurting anybody, women were

weeping and children smirched, and an old man hiding an honoured head in

shame. He had even been required to be grateful to the man he hated most

in the world, because he had not been put in the dock. That stuck in his

throat more than all the rest. He had been ready to pay his shot and go

to gaol--he would rather have done five years than owed the thanks for

escaping them--but in very decency he couldn’t insist on going; the

trial would have killed the old man. So they had concocted a plan--a

chance of a new life, they called it--and shipped him off to the other

side of the world with fifty pounds in his pocket--the gift of that

enemy. At least he could get rid of the money now; and, still smiling,

he dropped his pocket-book over the side into the great heaving waves.

He had always meant it to go there--God forbid he should use it--but he

had hardly hoped to go with it. He would follow it soon now. The door

whose handle he had shrunk from turning had opened of its own accord in

a most marvellously convenient way. To throw oneself overboard is a

cold-blooded impossible sort of proceeding; the old man and the women

would have heard of it, and he really didn’t want to give them any more

pain. But this catastrophe was--from a selfish point of view--incredibly

opportune. Such an exit had the dignity of the inevitable, and left the

“new life” an agreeable hypothesis from which he doubted not that much

comfort would be sucked by those dear, loving, foolish folk at home.

Much “new life” he would have led! But let them think he would. And

hurrah for a collision in deep water!

 

Five minutes gone--and they were deep in the water. The skipper was on

the bridge; the engineers had come up and, together with the crew and

such of the passengers as had not got away in the boats, were standing

ready to jump at the word. Some were praying, some swearing, most

discussing the matter in very much the same tones as they used in

speculating about the weather on deck after dinner; but they all kept

their eyes on the skipper.

 

“I shall just,” said the passenger, peering over the side, “go straight

down. It oughtn’t to take long,” and he shivered a little. It had just

struck him that the process might be very unpleasant, however

satisfactory the result.

 

There was a sudden movement of the deck under him. The skipper seemed to

shout, and, waving his arms, began to run down from the bridge. Then

everybody jumped. The passenger dropped his finished cigarette, kicked

off his deck shoes--a purely instinctive action--and jumped too. “Here

goes!” he said.

 

When he came up again, he found himself swimming strongly. His arms and

legs were not asking his leave about it; they were fighting the water as

they had been taught, and they promised to make a long bout of it. He

had never felt so vigorous. It was great nonsense, prolonging the thing

like this. If he had thought of it, he wouldn’t have jumped so clear,

then he would have been sucked down. He saw heads bobbing here and there

about him; one man shrieked aloud and disappeared. It was--less the

shrieking--just what he wanted to do. But he couldn’t. It was all very

well to want to die, but this strong body of his had a word to say to

that. Its business was to live, and it meant to live if it could. Well,

it had always been a rebellious carcass--that was the cause of a great

deal of the trouble--and it evidently meant to have its own way for this

last time.

 

And it began to infect him. For the life of him, he couldn’t give in

now. It was a fight between him and the water. He might have been a

brute, and a rogue, and all the other pretty names that had come as

sauce to that wretched fifty pounds, but he had never been a coward or

shirked a fight. It was all right--he must be drowned in the end. But he

would keep it up as long as he could; he would see it through; and with

strong strokes he met and mastered and beat down wave after wave,

outlived head after head that sank round him, and saw the old ship

herself go under with a mighty pother.

 

All at once he found himself within reach of a spar. He was getting

tired, though full of fight still, and he clutched at it for all the

world as though he were in love with life. Hallo! There was a boy

clinging to it--one of the ship’s boys, whom he knew well.

 

“Get off!” shrieked the boy. “Get off! It’s mine.”

 

“All right, Johnny, we’ll share it.”

 

“It won’t take us. Get off. It’s not fair. Oh, it’s going under!”

 

It was. The passenger let go, but kept close to it. It wouldn’t bear

Johnny and him, but it would bear Johnny alone; it would also, probably,

bear him alone. And he was getting very tired. Johnny saw his face and,

clinging tight, began to cry. The passenger laid hold again. How jolly

it was to have something under one’s chest! Johnny had had it for a long

while. And what’s a ship’s boy? Besides, it’s every man for himself at

such a time.

 

Johnny’s end ducked and Johnny’s head dipped with it. Johnny came up

whimpering piteously, and swore in childish rage at the intruder. He was

not a pretty boy, and he looked very ugly when he swore.

 

“You’ll drown us both, you----!” he gasped.

 

“It would bear me,” replied the passenger, “and you shouldn’t swear,

Johnny.”

 

Johnny blubbered and swore again.

 

For an instant the passenger, resting as lightly as he could on the

spar, watched Johnny’s face.

 

“You’ve kept afloat some time,” he observed, with an approving air. He

liked pluck in boys--even ugly whimpering boys. His end went under, and

he came up gurgling and spitting. He felt now as if he had no legs at

all.

 

Johnny had stopped swearing, but was blubbering worse than ever.

 

“Damn it,” said the passenger, “haven’t I made enough people do that?”

And he added, “Ta-ta, Johnny,” and let go the spar.

 

His legs were there, after all, and they let him know it. For time

unmeasured he battled for the life he was weary of, and would not let

himself be pushed through the open door. But at last he crossed its

threshold.

 

Johnny was drowned too. But then the passenger had always protested

against his acts being judged by their consequences; and it doesn’t seem

fair to take it against him both ways.

 

 

 

 

LOVE’S LOGIC[1]

 

 

_The Scene is a hall or corridor, lying between two conservatories,

one on the right, the other on the left. Besides plants and other

ornaments, the corridor is furnished with a couch and a small round

table with an arm-chair by it. The time is between eleven and

twelve in the evening._

 

_Mr Marchesson’s back is visible in the doorway leading to the conservatory on the right._