Читать книгу The Strange Vanguard - Arnold Bennett - Страница 7

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Her snub nose and her grey eyes seemed to challenge him to peril. He wondered fearfully what might happen to his sacred dignity if he was caught, with her, in the act of exploration. Pooh! Such challenges from female to male are always accepted, at whatever risk. They compel the male to rise gloriously above common sense.

Feeling more like a burglar than a knight, Mr. Sutherland followed her through a doorway, across the bottom of which was a thick slab of wood designed to keep out the intruding sea. Of course, as a knight, he ought to have gone first, but she had taken the lead, and he did not quite see how to wrest it from her. Now, they were in a sombre passage, and a beam of light shot slantingly up from below. An open steel gate; a hole in the solid floor; a glinting steel ladder with a thin steel handrail to it! The ladder seemed to extend downwards without end. Harriet lightly and rapidly engaged herself in the rungs of the ladder, and Mr. Sutherland, still rash, followed.

“Mind my fingers!” she warned him, for he was vertically above her on the ladder, and there was only one rung between his brown boots and her ringed hands.

“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Sutherland in alarm, and paused for a moment.

They came to a little landing, and then to another steel ladder, apparently even longer than the first one. Harriet began the second descent. Mr. Sutherland thought of the bottom of the sea.

“Oh, how lovely!” he heard Harriet remark under him, with a voluptuous sigh of appreciation.

“This must be the engine-room,” said Mr. Sutherland, as he joined her on the comparative security of a perforated steel floor.

“If it isn’t the kitchen,” Harriet smiled nicely, yet quizzically.

“Why did I make a banal remark like that? Naturally it’s the engine-room!” thought Mr. Sutherland, disgusted with himself, but somehow happy.

The great engine was fenced in by steel hedges, as if it were an untamed and dangerous leviathan. Wheeled parts of it were slowly revolving, and pistoned parts of it moving slowly up and down and to and fro. It was like an immense cat, playing idly with itself, keeping itself in condition by means of gentle and otherwise quite futile exercise. It made very little noise. There was no escaping steam, no jar of metal against metal, no sensation of active power. Various dials and clocks showed meaningless faces; the polished brass of their forms made bright yellow spots of light in the dusky steeliness of the huge chamber.

Suddenly they both saw something move under the perforated floor beneath them. It became very clear that they had not yet arrived at the bottom of the ship, much less the bottom of the sea. Mr. Sutherland started, and he hoped that Harriet had started also, but as to this he could not be sure. He obscurely descried the shape of a man below the floor—a djinn imprisoned in the very entrails of the Vanguard. This man, who was middle-aged, presently climbed up to a steel gate within a couple of feet of Harriet’s short skirts, unfastened the gate with a click, stepped into the engine-room, and fastened the gate with another click—a click which seemed as final as a decree of fate. He was well-dressed in blue and gold, and wore a peaked blue cap with a white cover over its crown. He politely raised the cap.

“We were just admiring your perfectly heavenly engines,” said Miss Perkins, with an alluring, placatory sweetness of tone.

“Ay, miss!” the man agreed laconically. He did not smile; on the other hand he did not frown. He was evidently a most respectable and superior man, incapable of being surprised, and well accustomed to holding an impartial attitude. He said no more.

“Is this the largest yacht in the world?” asked Mr. Sutherland.

“Nay!” the man answered. “But she’s the largest motor yacht in the world.”

“Ah! She’s a motor yacht,” said Mr. Sutherland. “The Count didn’t tell us that.” He glanced at Harriet as if for confirmation. “Then no stokers, or anything of the kind?”

“No stokers. No coaling. A few greasers.”

“And her speed?”

“Fifteen. Sixteen-and-a-half if I put her to it.”

“You are the engineer, I presume.”

“Chief.”

“I’m sure it’s all very interesting,” said Mr. Sutherland, after failing to think of a more brilliant remark.

The chief then raised his cap again, and suddenly and at surprising speed climbed up the ladder which Count Veruda’s two guests had just descended. He appeared to have no objection to leaving the pair alone with his heavenly wild leviathan.

“What a nice man!” Miss Perkins burst out. “I think he’s adorable ... The far-away look in his blue eyes!”

Mr. Sutherland was rather astonished at this verdict. He had not even noticed that the man’s eyes were blue, and in the lined, grim features he had seen naught worthy to be called nice. Still, he was pleased, because the man who had thus taken Harriet’s fancy was certainly older than himself, and certainly not more handsome. Hence his own middle-age and lack of physical witchery could be no bar to her approval. And he desired her approval more than anything.

At this juncture, Septimius became aware of two matters. The first, was that in his tweed travelling suit he felt far more at home and at ease here than he had felt either in the hotel lounge or in the yacht’s dining-saloon. And the second, which was somehow exquisitely contradictory of the first, was that Harriet’s evening frock made a better showing in the engine-room than in environments of the character for which it had been designed. The frail white and pale green thing, with the olive-coloured fringed shawl over it, had an extraordinary piquancy amid the stern, sinister, formidable steeliness now surrounding her: which piquancy excited Mr. Sutherland.

Important changes were occurring within Mr. Sutherland—changes perhaps as important as can occur within anybody. Miss Perkins had full, luscious lips, and eyes sparkling with romantic vitality. She had a good figure. She had a rich, low voice. She was rather tall. Her hands and feet were small, her ankles and wrists thin. She had perhaps other fascinating qualities which Mr. Sutherland could not determine. But beyond all such there was something else—something which Mr. Sutherland could not define: namely, the totality of Miss Perkins. It was not this or that item in a catalogue of charms which was working the changes in Mr. Sutherland’s heart; it was the whole Miss Perkins herself who was the cause of them, and the result would no doubt have been the same if her eyes, voice, lips, feet, hands, ankles, wrists, had been quite otherwise than they were.

Mr. Sutherland knew by unshakable conviction that on earth no other woman existed to compare with Miss Perkins. She possessed a unique gift. She was romance itself. Mr. Sutherland wanted to work for her, to shower presents upon her, to make her smile and laugh, to protect her from the possibility of mishap, pain, discomfort, all unhappiness. He had little hope of being able to do so. He was so humbled by her that he could discern in himself no quality capable of pleasing her. He had the sense to understand that the changes occurring in his prim, sedate, unromantic, married, fatherly soul were terrible. But he gloried in their terribleness, while fearing it. He felt that he had just begun to live, and that, until that moment, he had never lived. He sympathized with, admired, and comprehended men who had ruined their careers for the sake of a woman—men such as General Boulanger and Charles Stewart Parnell, whom, hitherto, he had frigidly despised as weakling voluptuaries.

Yes, in one of his minds Mr. Sutherland was alarmed, and in another he was gloriously ecstatic. And the entire business was astounding in the highest degree, and most probably nothing comparable to it had ever come to pass in any floating engine-room before.

The engine continued lazily to revolve and slide its parts, as if dozing.

“And how come you to know about the organizing of big dinners?” Septimius inquired, with an effort towards archness.

“Oh!” answered Harriet vaguely. “Mother ... The old days.”

The single word ‘mother’ reassured Mr. Sutherland. (Not that he would have admitted that on any point he needed reassurance concerning Harriet Perkins!) She came, then, of good family, family used to lavish hospitalities, solid family. They talked about organization, a subject which seemed to interest Harriet as much as it interested Septimius. Septimius always talked very well on this his favourite subject, and Harriet listened admirably and stimulatingly. They talked for ages and æons. Gone from Mr. Sutherland’s mind was all thought of exploring the mysteries of the yacht! Gone also, apparently, from Harriet’s mind! Mr. Sutherland saw that, despite her energy and initiative and independence, she was one of those delightful, acquiescent women ... He had shown a wish to discuss organization, and she had charmingly concurred.

The middle-aged man, with the face that had so appealed to Harriet Perkins, came scurrying violently down the steel ladder from above, and he was followed by another and younger officer at similar speed. They both stood by. Two greasers also appeared. Mr. Sutherland and Miss Perkins, their talk thus brought to a sudden halt, both had the feeling that the moment was big with great events. They were not mistaken. A bell rang out loudly and imperatively within a yard or so of their ears. A steel arrow moved by itself on an indicator, and pointed to words which said “Stand by,” though the officers were already standing by. The younger officer sprang towards a lever.

“Shall we go back to the deck?” Miss Perkins gently suggested.

“I think we ought to,” he answered, with an outward calm at least equalling her own.

They hastened up the steel ladders; Miss Perkins again took the lead. But now the steel gate, which had been open when they went down, was shut, and also it was fastened. Mr. Sutherland shook it, and Miss Perkins shook it; and they both tried hard to manipulate the bolt; but the gate was obstinate.

“Caught!” exclaimed Mr. Sutherland, but soundlessly—in his heart. Nevertheless his faith in Harriet Perkins was not a bit diminished. They heard, far below, the renewed summons of the autocratic bell. Then there was some enlivening change in the character of the sound of the engine, and a moment later the whole ship began to throb and shake in earnest. Then a deck-hand appeared in the darkness of the corridor. He produced a key of some sort and unfastened the gate, and Mr. Sutherland and Miss Perkins had the freedom of the corridor. They emerged excitedly, like a couple of children, on to the main-deck. They saw, over the rail, a huge form rising on ropes out of the water. It was the starboard launch. It vanished above their heads, being swung in on to the boat-deck. Through the windows of a deck-house they saw the port launch similarly treated.

“The others have all gone back,” said Septimius.

“Looks like it,” said Harriet. “See the bedroom windows lighted in the hotel.”

And in fact many windows were now gleaming in the façade of the Splendide across the water.

“We’re left behind,” said Septimius.

Harriet shrugged her shoulders.

“Why do I make these idiotic remarks?” Septimius asked himself. “Obviously we’re left behind.”

“We ought to have been warned,” said Septimius.

“Oh!” murmured Harriet. “In the confusion ... Two launches ... The people in one launch would think we were in the other.”

“Quite! But those engineer fellows might have told us.”

“None of their business,” said Harriet.

“Still—But she’s moving!” cried Septimius.

“I do believe she is,” Harriet agreed.

“But we must have heard the anchor chains. We couldn’t possibly not have heard them,” Septimius protested.

“Perhaps she wasn’t anchored at all,” said Harriet. “Perhaps she was only moored to one of those buoy things that you see in harbours. Then she’d only have to slip a rope hawser or whatever they call it, and off she’d go.”

Septimius, silent and corrected, remembered with shame the superiority of his tone in giving marine explanations to the old lady in the dining-saloon.

“But this is simply awful!” observed Harriet, though her tone seemed to be saying that it was the greatest lark conceivable.

“It is!” Septimius concurred. “We must get the yacht stopped instantly, and be put ashore—somehow.” But in his tone there was no apparent eagerness for such a course of action.

Nevertheless, he led the way aft along the deck, Harriet following. A door stood ajar, showing the faintly lit interior of a cabin. Septimius paused—he knew not why—at—the doorway and looked within. Harriet glanced over his shoulder. Lying on the floor of the cabin were a flat American trunk, a suitcase and a rug, which so remarkably resembled Septimius’s trunk, suitcase and rug that he was moved to examine them. They were indeed his trunk and suitcase, duly labelled in his own City hand for London via Rome, Paris and Calais; and the rug was his rug. The presence of those three articles in the dim, rich cabin appeared absolutely magical to Septimius; but the magic of it was most sinister, and it illustrated the instability and insecurity of Society far more affrightingly than the strike at the Hotel Splendide. Mr. Sutherland saw that he must maintain his nerve, and he did maintain it. He said no word, and Harriet said no word either. But then Harriet, not being acquainted with the aspect of Septimius’s luggage, perhaps had not his reasons for amazement.

“Somebody else can organize too!” thought Septimius generously.

The strange thing was that he was not furious with resentment against the mysterious and unspeakable Count Veruda. For the Count’s machinations, whatever their aim, had at any rate secured to him for a time the enchanting society of Miss Perkins. This detail presented itself to Septimius as more important than anything else.

Returning to the rail, Septimius and Harriet saw very clearly the whitening wake of the yacht under the Neapolitan moon. The Vanguard was unquestionably gathering speed. She must be making for either Capri or the open Mediterranean. The notion of bringing to a standstill the mighty and resistless movement of the great vessel became preposterous to Septimius, and he gave it up. Besides, none of the crew seemed to be about. All the navigation was being conducted from the unseen boat-deck over head.

“Miss Perkins, please!” called a respectful voice from somewhere: not the voice of Count Veruda.

Harriet started, and then without a word to Septimius walked off and disappeared round the after end of the deck-houses. Mr. Sutherland was alone.