Chance: A Tale in Two Parts, Page 2

  PART ONE, CHAPTER 2.

  THE FYNES AND THE GIRL-FRIEND.

  We were on our feet in the room by then, and Marlow, brown anddeliberate, approached the window where Mr Powell and I had retired.

  "What was the name of your chance again?" he asked.

  Mr Powell stared for a moment.

  "Oh! The _Ferndale_. A Liverpool ship. Composite built."

  "_Ferndale_," repeated Marlow thoughtfully. "_Ferndale_."

  "Know her?"

  "Our friend," I said, "knows something of every ship. He seems to havegone about the seas prying into things considerably."

  Marlow smiled.

  "I've seen her, at least once."

  "The finest sea-boat ever launched," declared Mr Powell sturdily."Without exception."

  "She looked a stout, comfortable ship," assented Marlow. "Uncommonlycomfortable. Not very fast tho'."

  "She was fast enough for any reasonable man--when I was in her," growledMr Powell with his back to us.

  "Any ship is that--for a reasonable man," generalised Marlow in aconciliatory tone. "A sailor isn't a globetrotter."

  "No," muttered Mr Powell.

  "Time's nothing to him," advanced Marlow.

  "I don't suppose it's much," said Mr Powell. "All the same a quickpassage is a feather in a man's cap."

  "True. But that ornament is for the use of the master only. And by theby what was his name?"

  "The master of the _Ferndale_? Anthony. Captain Anthony."

  "Just so. Quite right," approved Marlow thoughtfully. Our newacquaintance looked over his shoulder.

  "What do you mean? Why is it more right than if it had been Brown?"

  "He has known him probably," I explained. "Marlow here appears to knowsomething of every soul that ever went afloat in a sailor's body."

  Mr Powell seemed wonderfully amenable to verbal suggestions for lookingagain out of the window, he muttered:

  "He was a good soul."

  This clearly referred to Captain Anthony of the _Ferndale_. Marlowaddressed his protest to me.

  "I did not know him. I really didn't. He was a good soul. That'snothing very much out of the way--is it? And I didn't even know thatmuch of him. All I knew of him was an accident called Fyne."

  At this Mr Powell who evidently could be rebellious too turned his backsquarely on the window.

  "What on earth do you mean?" he asked. "An--accident--called Fyne," herepeated separating the words with emphasis.

  Marlow was not disconcerted.

  "I don't mean accident in the sense of a mishap. Not in the least.Fyne was a good little man in the Civil Service. By accident I meanthat which happens blindly and without intelligent design. That'sgenerally the way a brother-in-law happens into a man's life."

  Marlow's tone being apologetic and our new acquaintance having againturned to the window I took it upon myself to say:

  "You are justified. There is very little intelligent design in themajority of marriages; but they are none the worse for that.Intelligence leads people astray as far as passion sometimes. I knowyou are not a cynic."

  Marlow smiled his retrospective smile which was kind as though he boreno grudge against people he used to know.

  "Little Fyne's marriage was quite successful. There was no design atall in it. Fyne, you must know, was an enthusiastic pedestrian. Hespent his holidays tramping all over our native land. His tastes weresimple. He put infinite conviction and perseverance into his holidays.At the proper season you would meet in the fields, Fyne, aserious-faced, broad-chested, little man, with a shabby knap-sack on hisback, making for some church steeple. He had a horror of roads. Hewrote once a little book called the `Tramp's Itinerary,' and wasrecognised as an authority on the footpaths of England. So one year, inhis favourite over-the-fields, back-way fashion he entered a prettySurrey village where he met Miss Anthony. Pure accident, you see. Theycame to an understanding, across some stile, most likely. Little Fyneheld very solemn views as to the destiny of women on this earth, thenature of our sublunary love, the obligations of this transient life andso on. He probably disclosed them to his future wife. Miss Anthony'sviews of life were very decided too but in a different way. I don'tknow the story of their wooing. I imagine it was carried onclandestinely and, I am certain, with portentous gravity, at the back ofcopses, behind hedges..."

  "Why was it carried on clandestinely?" I inquired.

  "Because of the lady's father. He was a savage sentimentalist who hadhis own decided views of his paternal prerogatives. He was a terror;but the only evidence of imaginative faculty about Fyne was his pride inhis wife's parentage. It stimulated his ingenuity too. Difficult--isit not?--to introduce one's wife's maiden name into generalconversation. But my simple Fyne made use of Captain Anthony for thatpurpose, or else I would never even have heard of the man. `My wife'ssailor-brother' was the phrase. He trotted out the sailor-brother in apretty wide range of subjects: Indian and colonial affairs, matters oftrade, talk of travels, of seaside holidays and so on. Once I remember`My wife's sailor-brother Captain Anthony' being produced in connectionwith nothing less recondite than a sunset. And little Fyne never failedto add: `The son of Carleon Anthony, the poet--you know.' He used tolower his voice for that statement, and people were impressed orpretended to be."

  The late Carleon Anthony, the poet, sang in his time of the domestic andsocial amenities of our age with a most felicitous versification, hisobject being, in his own words, "to glorify the result of six thousandyears' evolution towards the refinement of thought, manners andfeelings." Why he fixed the term at six thousand years I don't know.His poems read like sentimental novels told in verse of a reallysuperior quality. You felt as if you, were being taken out for adelightful country drive by a charming lady in a pony carriage. But inhis domestic life that same Carleon Anthony showed traces of theprimitive cave-dweller's temperament. He was a massive, implacable manwith a handsome face, arbitrary, and exacting with his dependants, butmarvellously suave in his manner to admiring strangers. Thesecontrasted displays must have been particularly exasperating to hislongsuffering family. After his second wife's death his boy, whom hepersisted by a mere whim in educating at home, ran away in conventionalstyle and, as if disgusted with the amenities of civilisation, threwhimself, figuratively speaking, into the sea. The daughter (the elderof the two children) either from compassion or because women arenaturally more enduring, remained in bondage to the poet for severalyears, till she too seized a chance of escape by throwing herself intothe arms, the muscular arms, of the pedestrian Fyne. This was eithergreat luck or great sagacity. A civil servant is, I should imagine, thelast human being in the world to preserve those traits of thecave-dweller from which she was fleeing. Her father would never consentto see her after the marriage. Such unforgiving selfishness isdifficult to understand unless as a perverse sort of refinement. Therewere also doubts as to Carleon Anthony's complete sanity for someconsiderable time before he died.

  Most of the above I elicited from Marlow, for all I knew of CarleonAnthony was his unexciting but fascinating verse. Marlow assured methat the Fyne marriage was perfectly successful and even happy, in anearnest, unplayful fashion, being blessed besides by three healthy,active, self-reliant children, all girls. They were all pedestrianstoo. Even the youngest would wander away for miles if not restrained.Mrs Fyne had a ruddy out-of-doors complexion and wore blouses with astarched front like a man's shirt, a stand-up collar and a long necktie.Marlow had made their acquaintance one summer in the country, wherethey were accustomed to take a cottage for the holidays...

  At this point we were interrupted by Mr Powell who declared that hemust leave us. The tide was on the turn, he announced coming away fromthe window abruptly. He wanted to be on board his cutter before sheswung and of course he would sleep on board. Never slept away from thecutter while on a cruise. He was gone in a moment, unceremoniously, butgiving us no offence and leaving behind an impression as thou
gh we hadknown him for a long time. The ingenuous way he had told us of hisstart in life had something to do with putting him on that footing withus. I gave no thought to seeing him again. Marlow expressed aconfident hope of coming across him before long.

  "He cruises about the mouth of the river all the summer. He will beeasy to find any week-end," he remarked ringing the bell so that wemight settle up with the waiter.

  Later on I asked Marlow why he wished to cultivate this chanceacquaintance. He confessed apologetically that it was the commonestsort of curiosity. I flatter myself that I understand all sorts ofcuriosity. Curiosity about daily facts, about daily things, about dailymen. It is the most respectable faculty of the human mind--in fact Icannot conceive the uses of an incurious mind. It would be like achamber perpetually locked up. But in this particular case Mr Powellseemed to have given us already a complete insight into his personalitysuch as it was; a personality capable of perception and with a feelingfor the vagaries of fate, but essentially simple in itself.

  Marlow agreed with me so far. He explained however that his curiositywas not excited by Mr Powell exclusively. It originated a good wayfurther back in the fact of his accidental acquaintance with the Fynes,in the country. This chance meeting with a man who had sailed withCaptain Anthony had revived it. It had revived it to some purpose, tosuch purpose that to me too was given the knowledge of its origin and ofits nature. It was given to me in several stages, at intervals whichare not indicated here. On this first occasion I remarked to Marlowwith some surprise:

  "But, if I remember rightly you said you didn't know Captain Anthony."

  "No. I never saw the man. It's years ago now, but I seem to hearsolemn little Fyne's deep voice announcing the approaching visit of hiswife's brother `the son of the poet, you know.' He had just arrived inLondon from a long voyage, and, directly his occupations permitted, wascoming down to stay with his relatives for a few weeks. No doubt we twoshould find many things to talk about by ourselves in reference to ourcommon calling, added little Fyne portentously in his grave undertones,as if the Mercantile Marine were a secret society.

  "You must understand that I cultivated the Fynes only in the country, intheir holiday time. This was the third year. Of their existence intown I knew no more than may be inferred from analogy. I played chesswith Fyne in the late afternoon, and sometimes came over to the cottageearly enough to have tea with the whole family at a big round table.They sat about it, an unsmiling, sunburnt company of very few wordsindeed. Even the children were silent and as if contemptuous of eachother and of their elders. Fyne muttered sometimes deep down in hischest some insignificant remark. Mrs Fyne smiled mechanically (she hadsplendid teeth) while distributing tea and bread and butter. Asomething which was not coldness, nor yet indifference, but a sort ofpeculiar self-possession gave her the appearance of a very trustworthy,very capable and excellent governess; as if Fyne were a widower and thechildren not her own but only entrusted to her calm, efficient,unemotional care. One expected her to address Fyne as Mr When shecalled him John it surprised one like a shocking familiarity. Theatmosphere of that holiday was--if I may put it so--brightly dull.Healthy faces, fair complexions, clear eyes, and never a frank smile inthe whole lot, unless perhaps from a girl-friend.

  "The girl-friend problem exercised me greatly. How and where the Fynesgot all these pretty creatures to come and stay with them I can'timagine. I had at first the wild suspicion that they were obtained toamuse Fyne. But I soon discovered that he could hardly tell one fromthe other, though obviously their presence met with his solemn approval.These girls in fact came for Mrs Fyne. They treated her with admiringdeference. She answered to some need of theirs. They sat at her feet.They were like disciples. It was very curious. Of Fyne they took butscanty notice. As to myself I was made to feel that I did not exist.

  "After tea we would sit down to chess and then Fyne's everlastinggravity became faintly tinged by an attenuated gleam of something inwardwhich resembled sly satisfaction. Of the divine frivolity of laughterhe was only capable over a chessboard. Certain positions of the gamestruck him as humorous, which nothing else on earth could do..."

  "He used to beat you," I asserted with confidence.

  "Yes. He used to beat me," Marlow owned up hastily.

  So he and Fyne played two games after tea. The children romped togetheroutside, gravely, unplayfully, as one would expect from Fyne's children,and Mrs Fyne would be gone to the bottom of the garden with thegirl-friend of the week. She always walked off directly after tea withher arm round the girl-friend's waist. Marlow said that there was onlyone girl-friend with whom he had conversed at all. It had happenedquite unexpectedly, long after he had given up all hope of getting intotouch with these reserved girl-friends.

  One day he saw a woman walking about on the edge of a high quarry, whichrose a sheer hundred feet, at least, from the road winding up the hillout of which it had been excavated. He shouted warningly to her frombelow where he happened to be passing. She was really in considerabledanger. At the sound of his voice she started back and retreated out ofhis sight amongst some young Scotch firs growing near the very brink ofthe precipice.

  "I sat down on a bank of grass," Marlow went on. "She had given me aturn. The hem of her skirt seemed to float over that awful sheer drop,she was so close to the edge. An absurd thing to do. A perfectly madtrick--for no conceivable object! I was reflecting on the foolhardinessof the average girl and remembering some other instances of the kind,when she came into view walking down the steep curve of the road. Shehad Mrs Fyne's walking-stick and was escorted by the Fyne dog. Herdead-white face struck me with astonishment, so that I forgot to raisemy hat. I just sat and stared. The dog, a vivacious and amiable animalwhich for some inscrutable reason had bestowed his friendship on myunworthy self, rushed up the bank demonstratively and insinuated himselfunder my arm.

  "The girl-friend (it was one of them) went past some way as though shehad not seen me, then stopped and called the dog to her several times;but he only nestled closer to my side, and when I tried to push him awaydeveloped that remarkable power of internal resistance by which a dogmakes himself practically immovable by anything short of a lack. Shelooked over her shoulder and her arched eyebrows frowned above herblanched face. It was almost a scowl. Then the expression changed.She looked unhappy. `Come here!' she cried once more in an angry anddistressed tone. I took off my hat at last, but the dog hanging out histongue with that cheerfully imbecile expression some dogs know so wellhow to put on when it suits their purpose, pretended to be deaf."

  She cried from the distance desperately.

  "Perhaps you will take him to the cottage then. I can't wait."

  "I won't be responsible for that dog," I protested getting down the bankand advancing towards her. She looked very hurt, apparently by thedesertion of the dog. "But: if you let me walk with you he will followus all right," I suggested.

  She moved on without answering me. The dog launched himself suddenlyfull speed down the road receding from us in a small cloud of dust. Itvanished in the distance, and presently we came up with him lying on thegrass. He panted in the shade of the hedge with shining eyes butpretended not to see us. We had not exchanged a word so far. The girlby my side gave him a scornful glance in passing.

  "He offered to come with me," she remarked bitterly.

  "And then abandoned you!" I sympathised. "It looks very unchivalrous.But that's merely his want of tact. I believe he meant to protestagainst your reckless proceedings. What made you come so near the edgeof that quarry? The earth might have given way. Haven't you noticed asmashed fir tree at the bottom? Tumbled over only the other morningafter a night's rain."

  "I don't see why I shouldn't be as reckless as I please."

  I was nettled by her brusque manner of asserting her folly, and I toldher that neither did I as far as that went, in a tone which almostsuggested that she was welcome to break her neck for all I cared. Thisw
as considerably more than I meant, but I don't like rude girls. I hadbeen introduced to her only the day before--at the round tea-table--andshe had barely acknowledged the introduction. I had not caught her namebut I had noticed her fine, arched eyebrows which, so the physiognomistssay, are a sign of courage.

  I examined her appearance quietly. Her hair was nearly black, her eyesblue, deeply shaded by long dark eyelashes. She had a little colournow. She looked straight before her; the corner of her lip on my sidedrooped a little; her chin was fine, somewhat pointed. I went on to saythat some regard for others should stand in the way of one's playingwith danger. I urged playfully the distress of the poor Fynes in caseof accident, if nothing else. I told her that she did not know thebucolic mind. Had she given occasion for a coroner's inquest theverdict would have been suicide, with the implication of unhappy love.They would never be able to understand that she had taken the trouble toclimb over two post-and-rail fences only for the fun of being reckless.Indeed even as I talked chaffingly I was greatly struck myself by thefact.

  She retorted that once one was dead what horrid people thought of onedid not matter. It was said with infinite contempt; but something likea suppressed quaver in the voice made me look at her again. I perceivedthen that her thick eyelashes were wet. This surprising discoverysilenced me as you may guess. She looked unhappy. And--I don't knowhow to say it--well--it suited her. The clouded brow, the pained mouth,the vague fixed glance! A victim. And this characteristic aspect madeher attractive; an individual touch--you know.

  The dog had run on ahead and now gazed at us by the side of the Fyne'sgarden-gate in a tense attitude and wagging his stumpy tail very, veryslowly, with an air of concentrated attention. The girl-friend of theFynes bolted violently through the aforesaid gate and into the cottageleaving me on the road--astounded.

  A couple of hours afterwards I returned to the cottage for chess asusual. I saw neither the girl nor Mrs Fyne then. We had our two gamesand on parting I warned Fyne that I was called to town on business andmight be away for some time. He regretted it very much. Hisbrother-in-law was expected next day but he didn't know whether he was achess-player. Captain Anthony ("the son of the poet--you know") was ofa retiring disposition, shy with strangers, unused to society and verymuch devoted to his calling, Fyne explained. All the time they had beenmarried he could be induced only once before to come and stay, with themfor a few days. He had had a rather unhappy boyhood; and it made him asilent man. But no doubt, concluded Fyne, as if dealing portentouslywith a mystery, we two sailors should find much to say to one another.

  This point was never settled. I was detained in town from week to weektill it seemed hardly worth while to go back. But as I had kept on myrooms in the farmhouse I concluded to go down again for a few days.

  It was late, deep dusk, when I got out at our little country station.My eyes fell on the unmistakable broad back and the muscular legs incycling stockings of little Fyne. He passed along the carriages rapidlytowards the rear of the train, which presently pulled out and left himsolitary at the end of the rustic platform. When he came back to whereI waited I perceived that he was much perturbed, so perturbed as toforget the convention of the usual greetings. He only exclaimed Oh! onrecognising me, and stopped irresolute. When I asked him if he had beenexpecting somebody by that train he didn't seem to know. He stammereddisconnectedly. I looked hard at him. To all appearances he wasperfectly sober; moreover to suspect Fyne of a lapse from theproprieties high or low, great or small, was absurd. He was also a tooserious and deliberate person to go mad suddenly. But as he seemed tohave forgotten that he had a tongue in his head I concluded I wouldleave him to his mystery. To my surprise he followed me out of thestation and kept by my side, though I did not encourage him. I did nothowever repulse his attempts at conversation. He was no longerexpecting me, he said. He had given me up. The weather had beenuniformly fine--and so on. I gathered also that the son of the poet hadcurtailed his stay somewhat and gone back to his ship the day before.

  That information touched me but little. Believing in heredity inmoderation I knew well how sea-life fashions a man outwardly and stampshis soul with the mark of a certain prosaic fitness--because a sailor isnot an adventurer. I expressed no regret at missing Captain Anthony andwe proceeded in silence till, on approaching the holiday cottage, Fynesuddenly and unexpectedly broke it by the hurried declaration that hewould go on with me a little farther.

  "Go with you to your door," he mumbled and started forward to the littlegate where the shadowy figure of Mrs Fyne hovered, clearly on thelookout for him. She was alone. The children must have been already inbed and I saw no attending girl-friend shadow near her vague butunmistakable form, half-lost in the obscurity of the little garden.

  I heard Fyne exclaim "Nothing" and then Mrs Fyne's well-trained,responsible voice uttered the words, "It's what I have said," withincisive equanimity. By that time I had passed on, raising my hat.Almost at once Fyne caught me up and slowed down to my strolling gaitwhich must have been infinitely irksome to his high pedestrianfaculties. I am sure that all his muscular person must have sufferedfrom awful physical boredom; but he did not attempt to charm it away byconversation. He preserved a portentous and dreary silence. And I wasbored too. Suddenly I perceived the menace of even worse boredom. Yes!He was so silent because he had something to tell me.

  I became extremely frightened. But man, reckless animal, is so madethat in him curiosity, the paltriest curiosity, will overcome allterrors, every disgust, and even despair itself. To my laconicinvitation to come in for a drink he answered by a deep, gravelyaccented: "Thanks, I will" as though it were a response in church. Hisface as seen in the lamplight gave me no clue to the character of theimpending communication; as indeed from the nature of things it couldn'tdo, its normal expression being already that of the utmost possibleseriousness. It was perfect and immovable; and for a certainty if hehad something excruciatingly funny to tell me it would be all the same.

  He gazed at me earnestly and delivered himself of some weighty remarkson Mrs Fyne's desire to befriend, counsel, and guide young girls of allsorts on the path of life. It was a voluntary mission. He approved hiswife's action and also her views and principles in general.

  All this with a solemn countenance and in deep measured tones. Yetsomehow I got an irresistible conviction that he was exasperated bysomething in particular. In the unworthy hope of being amused by themisfortunes of a fellow-creature I asked him point-blank what was wrongnow.

  What was wrong was that a girl-friend was missing. She had been missingprecisely since six o'clock that morning. The woman who did the work ofthe cottage saw her going out at that hour, for a walk. The pedestrianFyne's ideas of a walk were extensive, but the girl did not turn up forlunch, nor yet for tea, nor yet for dinner. She had not turned up byfootpath, road or rail. He had been reluctant to make inquiries. Itwould have set all the village talking. The Fynes had expected her toreappear every moment, till the shades of the night and the silence ofslumber had stolen gradually over the wide and peaceful rural landscapecommanded by the cottage.

  After telling me that much Fyne sat helpless in unconclusive agony.Going to bed was out of the question--neither could any steps be takenjust then. What to do with himself he did not know!

  I asked him if this was the same young lady I saw a day or two before Iwent to town? He really could not remember. Was she a girl with darkhair and blue eyes? I asked further. He really couldn't tell whatcolour her eyes were. He was very unobservant except as to thepeculiarities of footpaths, on which he was an authority.

  I thought with amazement and some admiration that Mrs Fyne's youngdisciples were to her husband's gravity no more than evanescent shadows.However, with but little hesitation Fyne ventured to affirm that--yes,her hair was of some dark shade.

  "We had a good deal to do with that girl first and last," he explainedsolemnly; then getting up as if moved by a spring he snatched his cap
off the table. "She may be back in the cottage," he cried in his bassvoice. I followed him out on the road.

  It was one of those dewy, clear, starry nights, oppressing our spirit,crushing our pride, by the brilliant evidence of the awful loneliness,of the hopeless obscure insignificance of our globe lost in the splendidrevelation of a glittering, soulless universe. I hate such skies.Daylight is friendly to man toiling under a sun which warms his heart;and cloudy soft nights are more kindly to our littleness. I nearly ranback again to my lighted parlour; Fyne fussing in a knicker-bocker suitbefore the hosts of heaven, on a shadowy earth, about a transient,phantom-like girl, seemed too ridiculous to associate with. On theother hand there was something fascinating in the very absurdity. Hecut along in his best pedestrian style and I found myself let in for aspell of severe exercise at eleven o'clock at night.

  In the distance over the fields and trees smudging and blotching thevast obscurity, one lighted window of the cottage with the blind up waslike a bright beacon kept alight to guide the lost wanderer. Inside, atthe table bearing the lamp, we saw Mrs Fyne sitting with folded armsand not a hair of her head out of place. She looked exactly like agoverness who had put the children to bed; and her manner to me was justthe neutral manner of a governess. To her husband, too, for thatmatter.

  Fyne told her that I was fully informed. Not a muscle of her ruddysmooth handsome face moved. She had schooled herself into that sort ofthing. Having seen two successive wives of the delicate poet chiviedand worried into their graves, she had adopted that cool, detachedmanner to meet her gifted father's outbreaks of selfish temper. It hadnow become a second nature. I suppose she was always like that; even inthe very hour of elopement with Fyne. That transaction when oneremembered it in her presence acquired a quaintly marvellous aspect toone's imagination. But somehow her self-possession matched very welllittle Fyne's invariable solemnity.

  I was rather sorry for him. Wasn't he worried! The agony of solemnity.At the same time I was amused. I didn't take a gloomy view of that"vanishing girl" trick. Somehow I couldn't. But I said nothing. Noneof us said anything. We sat about that big round table as if assembledfor a conference and looked at each other in a sort of fatuousconsternation. I would have ended by laughing outright if I had notbeen saved from that impropriety by poor Fyne becoming preposterous.

  He began with grave anguish to talk of going to the police in themorning, of printing descriptive bills, of setting people to drag theponds for miles around. It was extremely gruesome. I murmuredsomething about communicating with the young lady's relatives. Itseemed to me a very natural suggestion; but Fyne and his wife exchangedsuch a significant glance that I felt as though I had made a tactlessremark.

  But I really wanted to help poor Fyne; and as I could see that, manlike,he suffered from the present inability to act, the passive waiting, Isaid: "Nothing of this can be done till to-morrow. But as you havegiven me an insight into the nature of your thoughts I can tell you whatmay be done at once. We may go and look at the bottom of the old quarrywhich is on the level of the road, about a mile from here."

  The couple made big eyes at this, and then I told them of my meetingwith the girl. You may be surprised but I assure you I had notperceived this aspect of it till that very moment. It was like astartling revelation; the past throwing a sinister light on the future.Fyne opened his mouth gravely and as gravely shut it. Nothing more.Mrs Fyne said, "You had better go," with an air as if herself-possession had been pricked with a pin in some secret place.

  And I--you know how stupid I can be at times--I perceived with dismayfor the first time that by pandering to Fyne's morbid fancies I had letmyself in for some more severe exercise. And wasn't I sorry I spoke!You know how I hate walking--at least on solid, rural earth; for I canwalk a ship's deck a whole foggy night through, if necessary, and thinklittle of it. There is some satisfaction too in playing the vagabond inthe streets of a big town till the sky pales above the ridges of theroofs. I have done that repeatedly for pleasure--of a sort. But totramp the slumbering country-side in the dark is for me a wearisomenightmare of exertion.

  With perfect detachment Mrs Fyne watched me go out after her husband.That woman was flint.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

  "The fresh night had a smell of soil, of turned-up sods like a grave--anassociation particularly odious to a sailor by its idea of confinementand narrowness; yes, even when he has given up the hope of being buriedat sea; about the last hope a sailor gives up consciously after he hasbeen, as it does happen, decoyed by some chance into the toils of theland. A strong grave-like sniff. The ditch by the side of the roadmust have been freshly dug in front of the cottage. Once clear of thegarden Fyne gathered way like a racing cutter. What was a mile to him--or twenty miles? You think he might have gone shrinkingly on such anerrand. But not a bit of it. The force of pedestrian genius I suppose.I raced by his side in a mood of profound self-derision, and infinitelyvexed with that minx. Because dead or alive I thought of her as aminx..."

  I smiled incredulously at Marlow's ferocity; but Marlow pausing with awhimsically retrospective air, never flinched.

  "Yes, yes. Even dead. And now you are shocked. You see, you are sucha chivalrous masculine beggar. But there is enough of the woman in mynature to free my judgment of women from glamorous reticency. And then,why should I upset myself? A woman is not necessarily either a doll oran angel to me. She is a human being, very much like myself. And Ihave come across too many dead souls lying so to speak at the foot ofhigh unscaleable places for a merely possible dead body at the bottom ofa quarry to strike my sincerity dumb."

  The cliff-like face of the quarry looked forbiddingly impressive. Iwill admit that Fyne and I hung back for a moment before we made aplunge off the road into the bushes growing in a broad space at the footof the towering limestone wall. These bushes were heavy with dew.There were also concealed mudholes in there. We crept and tumbled andfelt about with our hands along the ground. We got wet, scratched, andplastered with mire all over our nether garments. Fyne fell suddenlyinto a strange cavity--probably a disused lime-kiln. His voice upliftedin grave distress sounded more than usually rich, solemn and profound.This was the comic relief of an absurdly dramatic situation. Whilehauling him out I permitted myself to laugh aloud at last. Fyne, ofcourse, didn't.

  I need not tell you that we found nothing after a most conscientioussearch. Fyne even pushed his way into a decaying shed half-buried indew-soaked vegetation. He struck matches, several of them too, as if tomake absolutely sure that the vanished girl-friend of his wife was nothiding there. The short flares illuminated his grave, immovablecountenance while I let myself go completely and laughed in peals.

  I asked him if he really and truly supposed that any sane girl would goand hide in that shed; and if so why?

  Disdainful of my mirth he merely muttered his basso-profundothankfulness that we had not found her anywhere about there. Havinggrown extremely sensitive (an effect of irritation) to the tonalities, Imay say, of this affair, I felt that it was only an imperfect, reserved,thankfulness, with one eye still on the possibilities of the severalponds in the neighbourhood. And I remember I snorted, I positivelysnorted, at that poor Fyne.

  What really jarred upon me was the rate of his walking. Differences inpolitics, in ethics and even in aesthetics need not arouse angryantagonism. One's opinion may change; one's tastes may alter--in factthey do. One's very conception of virtue is at the mercy of somefelicitous temptation which may be sprung on one any day. All thesethings are perpetually on the swing. But a temperamental difference,temperament being immutable, is the parent of hate. That's whyreligious quarrels are the fiercest of all. My temperament, in matterspertaining to solid land, is the temperament of leisurely movement, ofdeliberate gait. And there was that little Fyne pounding along the roadin a most offensive manner; a man wedded to thick-soled, laced boots;whereas my temperament demands thin
shoes of the lightest kind. Ofcourse there could never have been question of friendship between us;but under the provocation of having to keep up with his pace I began todislike him actively. I begged sarcastically to know whether he couldtell me if we were engaged in a farce or in a tragedy. I wanted toregulate my feelings which, I told him, were in an unbecoming state ofconfusion.

  But Fyne was as impervious to sarcasm as a turtle. He tramped on, andall he did was to ejaculate twice out of his deep chest, vaguely,doubtfully.

  "I am afraid.--I am afraid..."

  This was tragic. The thump of his boots was the only sound in a shadowyworld. I kept by his side with a comparatively ghostly, silent tread.By a strange illusion the road appeared to run up against a lot of lowstars at no very great distance, but as we advanced new stretches ofwhitey-brown ribbon seemed to come up from under the black ground. Iobserved, as we went by, the lamp in my parlour in the farmhouse stillburning. But I did not leave Fyne to run in and put it out. Theimpetus of his pedestrian excellence carried me past in his wake beforeI could make up my mind.

  "Tell me, Fyne," I cried, "you don't think the girl was mad--do you?"

  He answered nothing. Soon the lighted beacon-like window of the cottagecame into view. Then Fyne uttered a solemn: "Certainly not," withprofound assurance. But immediately after he added a "Very highlystrung young person indeed," which unsettled me again. Was it atragedy?

  "Nobody ever got up at six o'clock in the morning to commit suicide," Ideclared crustily. "It's unheard of! This is a farce."

  As a matter of fact it was neither farce nor tragedy.

  Coming up to the cottage we had a view of Mrs Fyne inside still sittingin the strong light at the round table with folded arms. It looked asthough she had not moved her very head by as much as an inch since wewent away. She was amazing in a sort of unsubtle way; crudely amazing--I thought. Why crudely? I don't know. Perhaps because I saw her thenin a crude light. I mean this materially--in the light of an unshadedlamp. Our mental conclusions depend so much on momentary physicalsensations--don't they? If the lamp had been shaded I should perhapshave gone home after expressing politely my concern at the Fynes'unpleasant predicament.

  Losing a girl-friend in that manner is unpleasant. It is alsomysterious. So mysterious that a certain mystery attaches to the peopleto whom such a thing does happen. Moreover I had never reallyunderstood the Fynes; he with his solemnity which extended to the veryeating of bread and butter; she with that air of detachment andresolution in breasting the commonplace current of their unexcitinglife, in which the cutting of bread and butter appeared to me, by a longway, the most dangerous episode. Sometimes I amused myself by supposingthat to their minds this world of ours must be wearing a perfectlyoverwhelming aspect, and that their heads contained respectively awfullyserious and extremely desperate thoughts--and trying to imagine what anexciting time they must be having of it in the inscrutable depths oftheir being. This last was difficult to a volatile person (I am surethat to the Fynes I was a volatile person) and the amusement in itselfwas not very great; but still--in the country--away from all mentalstimulants! ... My efforts had invested them with a sort of amusingprofundity.

  But when Fyne and I got back into the room, then in the searching,domestic, glare of the lamp, inimical to the play of fancy, I saw thesetwo stripped of every vesture it had amused me to put on them for fun.Queer enough they were. Is there a human being that isn't that--more orless secretly? But whatever their secret, it was manifest to me that itwas neither subtle nor profound. They were a good, stupid, earnestcouple and very much bothered. They were that--with the usual unshadedcrudity of average people. There was nothing in them that the lamplightmight not touch without the slightest risk of indiscretion.

  Directly we had entered the room Fyne announced the result by saying"Nothing" in the same tone as at the gate on his return from the railwaystation. And as then Mrs Fyne uttered an incisive "It's what I'vesaid," which might have been the veriest echo of her words in thegarden. We three looked at each other as if on the brink of adisclosure. I don't know whether she was vexed at my presence. Itcould hardly be called intrusion--could it? Little Fyne began it. Ithad to go on. We stood before her, plastered with the same mud (Fynewas a sight!), scratched by the same brambles, conscious of the sameexperience. Yes. Before her. And she looked at us with folded arms,with an extraordinary fulness of assumed responsibility. I addressedher.

  "You don't believe in an accident, Mrs Fyne, do you?"

  She shook her head in curt negation while, caked in mud andinexpressibly serious-faced, Fyne seemed to be backing her up with allthe weight of his solemn presence. Nothing more absurd could beconceived. It was delicious. And I went on in deferential accents: "AmI to understand then that you entertain the theory of suicide?"

  I don't know that I am liable to fits of delirium but by a sudden andalarming aberration while waiting for her answer I became mentally awareof three trained dogs dancing on their hind legs. I don't know why.Perhaps because of the pervading solemnity. There's nothing more solemnon earth than a dance of trained dogs.

  "She has chosen to disappear. That's all."

  In these words Mrs Fyne answered me. The aggressive tone was too muchfor my endurance. In an instant I found myself out of the dance anddown on all-fours so to speak, with liberty to bark and bite.

  "The devil she has," I cried. "Has chosen to... Like this, all atonce, anyhow, regardless... I've had the privilege of meeting thatreckless and brusque young lady and I must say that with her air of anangry victim..."

  "Precisely," Mrs Fyne said very unexpectedly like a steel trap goingoff. I stared at her. How provoking she was! So I went on to finishmy tirade. "She struck me at first sight as the most inconsideratewrongheaded girl that I ever..."

  "Why should a girl be more considerate than anyone else? More than anyman, for instance?" inquired Mrs Fyne with a still greater assertion ofresponsibility in her bearing.

  Of course I exclaimed at this, not very loudly it is true, but forcibly.Were then the feelings of friends, relations and even of strangers tobe disregarded? I asked Mrs Fyne if she did not think it was a sort ofduty to show elementary consideration not only for the natural feelingsbut even for the prejudices of one's fellow-creatures.

  Her answer knocked me over.

  "Not for a woman."

  Just like that. I confess that I went down flat. And while in thatcollapsed state I learned the true nature of Mrs Fyne's feministdoctrine. It was not political, it was not social. It was aknock-me-down doctrine--a practical individualistic doctrine. You wouldnot thank me for expounding it to you at large. Indeed I think that sheherself did not enlighten me fully. There must have been things not fitfor a man to hear. But shortly, and as far as my bewilderment allowedme to grasp its naive atrociousness, it was something like this: that noconsideration, no delicacy, no tenderness, no scruples should stand inthe way of a woman (who by the mere fact of her sex was the predestinedvictim of conditions created by men's selfish passions, their vices andtheir abominable tyranny) from taking the shortest cut towards securingfor herself the easiest possible existence. She had even the right togo out of existence without considering anyone's feelings or conveniencesince some women's existences were made impossible by the shortsightedbaseness of men.

  I looked at her, sitting before the lamp at one o'clock in the morning,with her mature, smooth-cheeked face of masculine shape robbed of itsfreshness by fatigue; at her eyes dimmed by this senseless vigil. Ilooked also at Fyne; the mud was drying on him; he was obviously tired.The weariness of solemnity. But he preserved an unflinching, endorsing,gravity of expression. Endorsing it all as became a good, convincedhusband.

  "Oh! I see," I said. "No consideration.--Well I hope you like it."

  They amused me beyond the wildest imaginings of which I was capable.After the first shock, you understand, I recovered very quickly. Theorder of the world was safe enough. He was a
civil servant and she hisgood and faithful wife. But when it comes to dealing with human beingsanything, anything may be expected. So even my astonishment did notlast very long. How far she developed and illustrated thatconscienceless and austere doctrine to the girl-friends, who were meretransient shadows to her husband, I could not tell. Any length Isupposed. And he looked on, acquiesced, approved, just for that veryreason--because these pretty girls were but shadows to him. O! Mostvirtuous Fyne! He cast his eyes down. He didn't like it. But I eyedhim with hidden animosity for he had got me to run after him undersomewhat false pretences.

  Mrs Fyne had only smiled at me very expressively, veryself-confidently. "Oh I quite understand that you accept the fullestresponsibility," I said. "I am the only ridiculous person in this--this--I don't know how to call it--performance. However, I've nothingmore to do here, so I'll say good-night--or good morning, for it must bepast one."

  "But before departing, in common decency, I offered to take any wiresthey might write. My lodgings were nearer the post-office than thecottage and I would send them off the first thing in the morning. Isupposed they would wish to communicate, if only as to the disposal ofthe luggage, with the young lady's relatives..."

  Fyne, he looked rather downcast by then, thanked me and declined.

  "There is really no one," he said, very grave.

  "No one," I exclaimed.

  "Practically," said curt Mrs Fyne.

  And my curiosity was aroused again.

  "Ah! I see. An orphan."

  Mrs Fyne looked away weary and sombre, and Fyne said "Yes," impulsivelyand then qualified the affirmative by the quaint statement: "To acertain extent."

  I became conscious of a languid, exhausted embarrassment, bowed to MrsFyne, and went out of the cottage to be confronted outside its door bythe bespangled, cruel revelation of the Immensity of the Universe. Thenight was not sufficiently advanced for the stars to have paled; and theearth seemed to me more profoundly asleep--perhaps because I was alonenow. Not having Fyne with me to set the pace I let myself drift, ratherthan walk, in the direction of the farmhouse. To drift is the onlyreposeful sort of motion (ask any ship if it isn't) and thereforeconsistent with thoughtfulness. And I pondered: How is one an orphan"to a certain extent"?

  No amount of solemnity could make such a statement other than bizarre.What a strange condition to be in. Very likely one of the parents onlywas dead? But no; it couldn't be, since Fyne had said just before that"there was really no one" to communicate with. No one! And thenremembering Mrs Fyne's snappy "Practically" my thoughts fastened uponthat lady as a more tangible object of speculation.

  I wondered--and wondering I doubted--whether she really understoodherself the theory she had propounded to me. Everything may be said--indeed ought to be said--providing we know how to say it. She probablydid not. She was not intelligent enough for that. She had no knowledgeof the world. She had got hold of words as a child might get hold ofsome poisonous pills and play with them for "dear, tiny little marbles."No! The domestic-slave daughter of Carleon Anthony and the little Fyneof the Civil Service (that flower of civilisation) were not intelligentpeople. They were commonplace, earnest, without smiles and withoutguile. But he had his solemnities and she had her reveries, her lurid,violent, crude reveries. And I thought with some sadness that all theserevolts and indignations, all these protests, revulsions of feeling,pangs of suffering and of rage, expressed but the uneasiness of sensualbeings trying for their share in the joys of form, colour, sensations--the only riches of our world of senses. A poet may be a simple beingbut he is bound to be various and full of wiles, ingenious andirritable. I reflected on the variety of ways the ingenuity of the latebard of civilisation would be able to invent for the tormenting of hisdependants. Poets not being generally foresighted in practical affairs,no vision of consequences would restrain him. Yes. The Fynes wereexcellent people, but Mrs Fyne wasn't the daughter of a domestic tyrantfor nothing. There were no limits to her revolt. But they wereexcellent people. It was clear that they must have been extremely goodto that girl whose position in the world seemed somewhat difficult, withher face of a victim, her obvious lack of resignation and the bizarrestatus of orphan "to a certain extent."

  Such were my thoughts, but in truth I soon ceased to trouble about allthese people. I found that my lamp had gone out leaving behind an awfulsmell. I fled from it up the stairs and went to bed in the dark. Myslumbers--I suppose the one good in pedestrian exercise, confound it, isthat it helps our natural callousness--my slumbers were deep, dreamlessand refreshing.

  My appetite at breakfast was not affected by my ignorance of the facts,motives, events and conclusions. I think that to understand everythingis not good for the intellect. A well-stocked intelligence weakens theimpulse to action; an overstocked one leads gently to idiocy. But MrsFyne's individualist woman-doctrine, naively unscrupulous, flittedthrough my mind. The salad of unprincipled notions she put into thesegirl-friends' heads! Good innocent creature, worthy wife, excellentmother (of the strict governess type), she was as guileless ofconsequences as any determinist philosopher ever was.

  "As to honour--you know--it's a very fine medieval inheritance whichwomen never got hold of. It wasn't theirs. Since it may be laid as ageneral principle that women always get what they want we must supposethey didn't want it. In addition they are devoid of decency. I meanmasculine decency. Cautiousness too is foreign to them--the heavyreasonable cautiousness which is our glory. And if they had it theywould make of it a thing of passion, so that its own mother--I mean themother of cautiousness--wouldn't recognise it. Prudence with them is amatter of thrill like the rest of sublunary contrivances. `Sensation atany cost,' is their secret device. All the virtues are not enough forthem; they want also all the crimes for their own. And why? Because insuch completeness there is power--the kind of thrill they love most..."

  "Do you expect me to agree to all this?" I interrupted.

  "No, it isn't necessary," said Marlow, feeling the check to hiseloquence but with a great effort at amiability. "You need not evenunderstand it. I continue: with such disposition what prevents women--to use the phrase an old boatswain of my acquaintance applieddescriptively to his captain--what prevents them from `coming on deckand playing hell with the ship' generally, is that something in themprecise and mysterious, acting both as restraint and as inspiration;their femininity in short which they think they can get rid of by tryinghard, but can't, and never will. Therefore we may conclude that, forall their enterprises, the world is and remains safe enough. Feeling,in my character of a lover of peace, soothed by that conclusion Iprepared myself to enjoy a fine day."

  And it was a fine day; a delicious day, with the horror of the Infiniteveiled by the splendid tent of blue; a day innocently bright like achild with a washed face, fresh like an innocent young girl, suave inwelcoming one's respects like--like a Roman prelate. I love such days.They are perfection for remaining indoors. And I enjoyed ittemperamentally in a chair, my feet up on the sill of the open window, abook in my hands and the murmured harmonies of wind and sun in my heartmaking an accompaniment to the rhythms of my author. Then looking upfrom the page I saw outside a pair of grey eyes thatched by raggedyellowy-white eyebrows gazing at me solemnly over the toes of myslippers. There was a grave, furrowed brow surmounting that portentousgaze, a brown tweed cap set far back on the perspiring head.

  "Come inside," I cried as heartily as my sinking heart would permit.

  After a short but severe scuffle with his dog at the outer door, Fyneentered. I treated him without ceremony and only waved my hand towardsa chair. Even before he sat down he gasped out:

  "We've heard--midday post."

  Gasped out! The grave, immovable Fyne of the Civil Service, gasped!This was enough, you'll admit, to cause me to put my feet to the groundswiftly. That fellow was always making me do things in subtle discordwith my meditative temperament. No wonder that I had but a qualifiedliking for him.
I said with just a suspicion of jeering tone:

  "Of course. I told you last night on the road that it was a farce wewere engaged in."

  He made the little parlour resound to its foundations with a note ofanger positively sepulchral in its depth of tone. "Farce be hanged!She has bolted with my wife's brother, Captain Anthony." This outburstwas followed by complete subsidence. He faltered miserably as he addedfrom force of habit: "The son of the poet, you know."

  A silence fell. Fyne's several expressions were so many examples ofvaried consistency. This was the discomfiture of solemnity. Myinterest of course was revived.

  "But hold on," I said. "They didn't go together. Is it a suspicion ordoes she actually say that..."

  "She has gone after him," stated Fyne in comminatory tones. "Byprevious arrangement. She confesses that much."

  He added that it was very shocking. I asked him whether he should havepreferred them going off together; and on what ground he based thatpreference. This was sheer fun for me in regard of the fact that Fyne'stoo was a runaway match, which even got into the papers in its time,because the late indignant poet had no discretion and sought to avengethis outrage publicly in some absurd way before a bewigged judge. Thedejected gesture of little Fyne's hand disarmed my mocking mood. But Icould not help expressing my surprise that Mrs Fyne had not detected atonce what was brewing. Women were supposed to have an unerring eye.

  He told me that his wife had been very much engaged in a certain work.I had always wondered how she occupied her time. It was in writing.Like her husband she too published a little book. Much later on I cameupon it. It had nothing to do with pedestrianism. It was a sort ofhand-book for women with grievances (and all women had them), a sort ofcompendious theory and practice of feminine free morality. It made youlaugh at its transparent simplicity. But that authorship was revealedto me much later. I didn't of course ask Fyne what work his wife wasengaged on; but I marvelled to myself at her complete ignorance of theworld, of her own sex and of the other kind of sinners. Yet, wherecould she have got any experience? Her father had kept her strictlycloistered. Marriage with Fyne was certainly a change but only toanother kind of claustration. You may tell me that the ordinary powersof observation ought to have been enough. Why, yes! But, then, as shehad set up for a guide and teacher, there was nothing surprising for mein the discovery that she was blind. That's quite in order. She was aprofoundly innocent person; only it would not have been proper to tellher husband so.