To the Ends of the Earth (5 page)

“Come lads,” said I. “The transaction is private to
Captain Anderson and the parson. Let us get out of earshot and under cover.”

We went with a kind of casual haste into the lobby. I was about to dismiss the lads when there came the sound of stumbling footsteps on the deck above our heads, then a clatter from the ladder outside the lobby—which turned at once to a speedier rattle as of iron-shod heels that had slipped out and deposited their wearer at the bottom with a jarring thump! Whatever my distaste for the fellow’s—shall I call it—
extreme unction
, in common humanity I turned to see if he required assistance. But I had taken no more than a step in that direction when the man himself staggered in. He had his shovel hat in one hand and his wig in the other. His parsonical bands were twisted to one side. But what was of all things the most striking was—no, not the expression—but the disorder of his face. My pen falters. Imagine if you can a pale and drawn
countenance
to which nature has afforded no gift beyond the casual assemblage of features; a countenance moreover to which she has given little in the way of flesh but been prodigal of bone. Then open the mouth wide, furnish the hollows under the meagre forehead with staring eyes from which tears were on the point of starting—do all that, I say, and you will still come short of the comic humiliation that for a fleeting moment met me eye to eye! Then the man was fumbling at the door of his hutch, got through it, pulled it to and was scrabbling at the bolt on the other side.

Young Mr Taylor started to laugh again. I took him by the ear and twisted it until his laugh turned into a yelp.

“Allow me to tell you, Mr Taylor,” said I, but quietly as the occasion demanded, “that one gentleman does not rejoice at the misfortune of another in public. You may make your bows and be off, the two of you. We shall take a constitutional again some day, I don’t doubt.”

“Oh lord yes, sir,” said young Tommy, who seemed to think that having his ear twisted half off was a gesture of affection. “Whenever you choose, sir.”

“Yes, sir,” said Willis with his beautiful simplicity. “We have missed a lesson in navigation.”

They retreated down a ladder to what I am told is the Gun Room and suppose to be some sort of noisome pit. The last words I heard from them that day were spoken by Mr Taylor to Mr Willis in tones of high animation—

“Don’t he hate a parson above anything?”

I returned to my cabin, called Wheeler and bade him get off my boots. He responds so readily to the demands I make on him I wonder the other passengers do not make an equal use of his services. Their loss is my gain. Another fellow—Phillips, I think—serves the other side of the lobby as Wheeler serves this one.

“Tell me, Wheeler,” said I as he fitted himself down in the narrow space, “why does Captain Anderson so dislike a parson?”

“A little higher if you please, sir. Thank you, sir. Now the other if you would be so good.”

“Wheeler!”

“I’m sure I can’t say, sir. Does he, sir? Did he say so, sir?”

“I know he does! I heard him as did the rest of the ship!”

“We do not commonly have parsons in the Navy, sir. There are not enough to go round. Or if there are, the reverend gentlemen do not choose the sea. I will give these a brush again, sir. Now the coat?”

“Not only did I hear him but one of the young
gentlemen
confirmed that Captain Anderson has a strong antipathy to the cloth, as did Lieutenant Cumbershum earlier, now I recollect it.”

“Did he, sir? Thank you, sir.”

“Is it not so?”

“I know nothing, Mr Talbot, sir. And now, sir, may I bring you another draught of the paregoric? I believe you found it very settling, sir.”

“No thank you, Wheeler. As you see, I have eluded the demon.”

“It
is
rather strong, sir, as Mr Cumbershum informed you. And of course as he has less left, the purser has to charge more for it. That’s quite natural, sir. I believe there is a gentleman ashore as has wrote a book on it.”

I bade him leave me and lay on my bunk for a while. I cast back in memory—could not remember what day of the voyage it was—took up this book, and it seemed to be the sixth, so I have confused your lordship and myself. I cannot keep pace with the events and shall not try. I have, at a moderate estimate, already written ten thousand words and must limit myself if I am to get our voyage between the luxurious covers of your gift. Can it be that I have evaded the demon opium only to fall victim to the
furor scribendi
 ? But if your lordship do but leaf through the book—

A knock at the door. It is Bates, who serves in the passengers’ saloon.

“Mr Summers’s compliments to Mr Talbot and will Mr Talbot take a glass of wine with him in the saloon?”

“Mr Summers?”

“The first lieutenant, sir.”

“He is second in command to the captain, is he not? Tell Mr Summers I shall be happy to wait on him in ten minutes’ time.”

It is not the captain, of course—but the next best thing. Come! We are beginning to move in society!

I
think
it is the seventh—or the fifth—or the eighth
perhaps
—let “X” do its algebraic duty and represent the unknown quantity. Time has the habit of standing still so that as I write in the evening or night when sleep is hard to come by, my candle shortens imperceptibly as
stalactites
and stalagmites form in a grotto. Then all at once, time, this indefinable commodity, is in short supply and a sheaf of hours has fled I know not whither!

Where was I? Ah yes! Well then—

I proceeded to the passenger saloon to keep my
rendezvous
with the first lieutenant only to find that his
invitation
had been extended to every passenger in this part of the vessel and was no more than a kind of short
preliminary
to dinner! I have found out since, that they have heard such gatherings are customary in packets and
company
ships and indeed, wherever ladies and gentlemen take a sea voyage. The lieutenants have concluded to do the same in this vessel, to offset, I suspect, the
peremptory
and unmannerly prohibitions the captain has
displayed
in his “Orders regarding the Behaviour of the Ladies and Gentlemen who have been afforded”—​
afforded
, mark you, not
taken
—“Passage.”

Properly announced, then, as the door was held open, I stepped into a scene of animation that resembled more than anything else what you might find in the parlour or dining room of a coaching inn. All that distinguished the present gathering from such a
job lot
was the blue horizon a little tilted and visible above the crowded heads through the panes of the great stern window. The announcement of my name caused a silence for a moment or two and I
peered at an array of pallid faces before me without being able to distinguish much between them. Then a
well-built
young man in uniform and two or three years my senior came forward. He introduced himself as Summers and declared I must meet Lieutenant Deverel. I did so, and thought him to be the most gentlemanlike officer I had yet found in the ship. He is slimmer than Summers, has chestnut hair and sidewhiskers but is cleanshaven about the chin and lips like all these fellows. We made an affable exchange of it and both determined, I don’t doubt, to see more of each other. However, Summers said I must now meet the ladies and led me to the only one I could see. She was seated to the starboard side of the saloon on a sort of bench; and though surrounded or attended by some gentlemen was a severe-looking lady of uncertain years whose bonnet was designed as a covering for the head and as a genuine privacy for the face within it rather than as an ambush to excite the curiosity of the observer. I thought she had a Quakerish air about her, for her dress was grey. She sat, her hands folded in her lap, and talked directly up to the tall young army officer who smiled down at her. We waited on the conclusion of her present speech.

“—have always taught them such games. It is a harmless amusement for very young gentlemen and a knowledge of the various rules at least appropriate in the education of a young lady. A young lady with no gift for music may entertain her
parti
in that way as well as another might with the harp or other instrument.”

The young officer beamed and drew his chin back to his collar.

“I am happy to hear you say so, ma’am. But I have seen cards played in some queer places, I can tell you!”

“As to that, sir, of course I have no knowledge. But surely games are not altered in themselves by the nature
of the place in which they are played? I speak of it as I must, knowing no more of the games than as they are played in the houses of gentlefolk. But I would expect some knowledge of—let us say—whist, as necessary to a young lady, always provided—” and here I believe there must have been a change of expression on the invisible face, since a curiously ironic inflection entered the voice—“always provided she has the wit to lose prettily.”

The tall young officer crowed in the way these fellows suppose to be
laughing
and Mr Summers took the
opportunity
of presenting me to the lady, Miss Granham. I declared I had overheard part of the conversation and felt inferior in not having a wide and deep knowledge of the games they spoke of. Miss Granham now turned her face on me and though I saw she could not be Mr Taylor’s “regular snorter” her features were severely pleasant enough when lighted with the social smile. I praised the innocent hours of enjoyment afforded by cards and hoped that at some time in our long voyage I should have the benefit of Miss Granham’s instruction.

Now there was the devil of it. The smile vanished. That word “instruction” had a
denotation
for me and a
connotation
for the lady!

“Yes, Mr Talbot,” said she, and I saw a pink spot appear in either cheek. “As you have discovered, I am a governess.”

Was this my fault? Had I been remiss? Her expectations in life must have been more exalted than their realization and this has rendered her tongue hair-triggered as a duelling pistol. I declare to your lordship that with such people there is nothing to be done and the only attitude to adopt with them is one of silent attention. That is how they are and one cannot detect their quality in advance any more than the poacher can see the gin. You take a step, and bang! goes the blunderbuss, or the teeth of the gin snap
round your ankle. It is easy for those whose rank and
position
in society put them beyond the vexation of such
trivial
social distinctions. But we poor fellows who must work or, should I say operate, among these infinitesimal
gradations
find their detection in advance as difficult as what the papists call “the discernment of spirits”.

But to return. No sooner had I heard the words “I am a governess”, or perhaps even while I was hearing them, I saw that quite unintentionally I had ruffled the lady.

“Why, ma’am,” said I soothingly as Wheeler’s
paregoric
, “yours is indeed the most necessary and genteel profession open to a lady. I cannot tell you what a dear friend Miss Dobson, Old Dobbie as we call her, has been to me and my young brothers. I will swear you are as secure as she in the affectionate friendship of your young ladies and gentlemen!”

Was this not handsome? I lifted the glass that had been put in my hand as if to salute the whole useful race, though really I drank to my own dexterity in avoiding the lanyard of the blunderbuss or the footplate of the gin.

But it would not do.

“If”, said Miss Granham severely, “I am secure in the affectionate friendship of my young ladies and gentlemen it is the only thing I am secure in. A lady who is daughter of a late canon of Exeter Cathedral and who is obliged by her circumstances to take up the offer of employment among a family in the Antipodes may well set the
affectionate
friendship of young ladies and gentlemen at a lower value than you do.”

There was I, trapped and blunderbussed—unjustly, I think, when I remember what an effort I had made to smooth the lady’s feathers. I bowed and was her servant, the army officer, Oldmeadow, drew his chin even further into his neck; and here was Bates with sherry. I gulped
what I held and seized another glass in a way that it must have indicated my discomfiture, for Summers rescued me, saying he wished other people to have the pleasure of
making
my acquaintance. I declared I had not known there were so many of us. A large, florid and corpulent
gentleman
with a port-wine voice declared he would wish to
turn
a group portrait since with the exception of his good lady and his gal we were all present. A sallow young man, a Mr Weekes, who goes I believe to set up school, declared that the
emigrants
would form an admirable background to the composition.

“No, no,” said the large gentleman, “I must not be patronized other than by the nobility and gentry.”

“The emigrants,” said I, happy to have the subject changed. “Why, I would as soon be pictured for posterity arm in arm with a common sailor!”

“You must not have me in your picture, then,” said Summers, laughing loudly. “I was once a ‘common sailor’ as you put it.”

“You, sir? I cannot believe it!”

“Indeed I was.”

“But how—”

Summers looked round with an air of great
cheerfulness
.

“I have performed the naval operation known as ‘
coming
aft through the hawsehole’. I was promoted from the lower deck, or, as you would say, from among the
common
sailors.”

Your lordship can have little idea of my astonishment at his words and my irritation at finding the whole of our small society waiting in silence for my reply. I fancy it was as dextrous as the occasion demanded, though perhaps spoken with a too magisterial aplomb.

“Well, Summers,” I said, “Allow me to congratulate you on imitating to perfection the manners and speech of
a somewhat higher station in life than the one you was born to.”

Summers thanked me with a possibly excessive
gratitude
. Then he addressed the assembly.

“Ladies and gentlemen, pray let us be seated. There must be no ceremony. Let us sit where we choose. There will, I hope, be many such occasions in the long passage before us. Bates, bid them strike up out there.”

At this there came the somewhat embarrassing squeak of a fiddle and other instruments from the lobby. I did what I could to ease what might well be called
constraint
.

“Come Summers,” I said, “if we are not to be
portrayed
together, let us take the opportunity and pleasure of seating Miss Granham between us. Pray, ma’am, allow me.”

Was that not to risk another set-down? But I handed Miss Granham to her seat under the great window with more ceremony than I would have shown a peeress of the realm, and there we were. When I exclaimed at the
excellent
quality of the meat Lieutenant Deverel, who had seated himself on my left hand, explained that one of our cows had broken a leg in the late blow so we were taking what we could while it was still there though we should soon be short of milk. Miss Granham was now in
animated
conversation with Mr Summers on her right so Mr Deverel and I conversed for some time on the topic of seamen and their sentimentality over a cow with a broken leg, their ingenuity in all manner of crafts both good and bad, their addiction to liquor, their immorality, their
furious
courage and their devotion, only half-joking, to the ship’s figurehead. We agreed there were few problems in society that would not yield to firm but perceptive
government
. It was so, he said, in a ship. I replied that I had seen the firmness but was yet to be convinced of the
perception
. By now the, shall I say, animation of the whole
party had risen to such a height that nothing could be heard of the music in the lobby. One topic leading to another, Deverel and I rapidly gained a degree of mutual understanding. He opened himself to me. He had wished for a proper ship of the line, not a superannuated
third-rate
with a crew small in number and swept up together in a day or two. What I had taken to be an established body of officers and men had known each other for at most a week or two since she came out of ordinary. It was a great shame and his father might have done better for him. This commission would do his own prospects no good at all let alone that the war was running down and would soon stop like an unwound clock. Deverel’s speech and manner, indeed everything about him, is elegant. He is an ornament to the service.

The saloon was now as noisy as a public place can well be. Something was overset amidst shouts of laughter and some oaths. Already a mousey little pair, Mr and Mrs Pike with the small twin daughters, had scurried away and now at a particularly loud outburst, Miss Granham started to her feet, though pressed to stay both by me and Summers. He declared she must not mind the language of naval officers which became habitual and unconscious among the greater part of them. For my part I thought the ill-
​behaviour
came more from the passengers than the ship’s officers—Good God, said I to myself, if she is like this at the after end, what is she like at the other? Miss Granham had not yet moved from her seat when the door was opened for a lady of a quite different appearance. She appeared young yet richly and frivolously dressed. She came in with such a sweep and flutter that the bonnet fell to the back of her neck, revealing a quantity of golden curls. We rose—or most of us, at least—but with an admirable presence she seated us again at a gesture, went straight to the florid gentleman, leaned over his
shoulder and murmured the following sentence in accents of exquisite, far, far too exquisite, beauty.

“Oh Mr Brocklebank, at last she has contrived to retain a mouthful of consom!”

Mr Brocklebank boomed us an explanation.

“My child, my little Zenobia!”

Miss Zenobia was at once offered a choice of places at the table. Miss Granham declared she was leaving so that her place at it was free if another cushion might be brought. But the young lady, as I must call her, replied with whimsical archness that she had relied on Miss Granham to protect her virtue among so many dangerous gentlemen.

“Stuff and nonsense, ma’am,” said Miss Granham, even more severely than she had addressed your humble servant, “stuff and nonsense! Your virtue is as safe here as anywhere in the vessel!”

“Dear Miss Granham,” cried the lady with a
languishing
air, “I am sure your virtue is safe anywhere!”

This was gross, was it not? Yet I am sorry to say that from at least one part of the saloon there came a shout of laughter, for we had reached that part of dinner where ladies are better out of the way and only such as the latest arrival was proving to be can keep in
countenance
. Deverel, I and Summers were on our feet in a trice but it was the army officer, Oldmeadow, who escorted Miss Granham from our midst. The voice of the
port-wine
gentleman boomed again. “Sit by me, Zenobia, child.”