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I noted them distinctly, but with perfect indifference. A long time
after, with the same indifference, I looked over my shoulder. Castro had
vanished from the quarter-deck. And I turned my face to the sea again as
a man, feeling himself beaten in a fight with death, might turn his face
to the wall.

I had fought a harder battle with a more cruel foe than death, with
the doubt of myself; an endless contest, in which there is no peace of
victory or of defeat. The open sea was like a blank and unscalable wall
imprisoning the eternal question of conduct. Right or wrong? Generosity
or folly? Conscience or only weak fear before remorse? The magnificent
ritual of sunset went on palpitating with an inaudible rhythm, with slow
and unerring observance, went on to the end, leaving its funeral fires
on the sky and a great shadow upon the sea. Twice I had honourably
stayed my hand. Twice... to this end.

In a moment, I went through all the agonies of suicide, which left me
alive, alas, to burn with the shame of the treasonable thought, and
terrified by the revolt of my soul refusing to leave the world in which
a young girl lived! The vast twilight seemed to take the impress of her
image like wax. What did Seraphina think of me? I knew nothing of her
but her features, and it was enough. Strange, this power of a woman's
face upon a man's heart--this mastery, potent as witchcraft and
mysterious like a miracle. I should have to go and tell her. I did
not suppose she could have understood all of Sebright's argumentation.
Therefore, it was for me to explain to what a pretty pass I had brought
our love.

I was so greatly disinclined to stir that I let Sebright's voice go on
calling my name half a dozen times from the cabin door. At last I faced
about.

"Mr. Kemp! I say, Kemp! Aren't you coming in yet?"

"To say good-by," I said, approaching him.

It had fallen dark already.

"Good-by? No. The carpenter must have a day at least."

Carpenter! What had a carpenter to do in this? However, nothing
mattered--as though I had managed to spoil the whole scheme of creation.

"You didn't think of making a start to-night, did you?" Sebright
wondered. "Where would be the sense of it?"

"Sense," I answered contemptuously. "There is no sense in anything.
There is necessity. Necessity."

He remained silent for a time, peering at me.

"Necessity, to be sure," he said slowly. "And I don't see why you should
be angry at it."

I was thinking that it was easy enough for him to keep cool--the
necessity being mine. He continued to philosophize with what seemed to
me a shocking freedom of mind.

"Must try to put some sense into it. That's what we are here for, I
guess. Anyhow, there's some room for sense in arranging the way a thing
is to be done, be it as hard as it may. And I don't see any sense,
either, in exposing a woman to more hardship than is absolutely
necessary. We have talked it out now, and I can do no more. Do go inside
for a bit. Mrs. Williams is worrying the Senorita, rather, I'm afraid."

I paused a moment to try and regain the command of my faculties. But it
was as if a bombshell had exploded inside my skull, scattering all
my wits to the four winds of heaven. Only the conviction of failure
remained, attended by a profound distress.

I fancy, though, I presented a fairly bold front. The lamp was lit, and
small changes had occurred during my absence. Williams had turned his
bulk sideways to the table. Mrs. Williams had risen from her place,
and was now sitting upright close to Seraphina, holding one little
hand inclosed caressingly between her frail palms, as if she had there
something alive that needed cherishing. And in that position she looked
up at me with a strange air of worn-out youth, cast by a rosy flush
over her forehead and face. Seraphina still leaned her head on her
other hand, and I noted, through the soft shadow of falling hair, the
heightened colour on her cheek and the augmented brilliance of her eye.

"'How I wish she had been an English girl," Mrs. Williams sighed
regretfully, and leaned forward to look into Seraphina's half-averted
face.

"My dear, did you quite, quite understand what I have been saying to
you?"

She waited.

"_Si Senora_," said Seraphina. None of us moved. Then, after a time,
turning to me with sudden animation, "This woman asked me if I believed
in your love," she cried. "She is old. Oh, Juan, can the years change
the heart? your heart?" Her voice dropped. "How am I to know that?" she
went on piteously. "I am young--and we may not live so long. I believe
in mine...."

The corners of her delicate lips drooped; but she mastered her desire
to cry, and steadied her voice which, always rich and full of womanly
charm, took on, when she was deeply moved, an imposing gravity of
timbre.

"But I am a Spaniard, and I believe in my lover's honour; in your--your
English honour, Juan."

With the dignity of a supreme confidence she extended her hand. It was
one of the culminating moments of our love. For love is like a journey
in mountainous country, up through the clouds, and down into the shadows
to an unknown destination. It was a moment rapt and full of feeling, in
which we seemed to dwell together high up and alone--till she withdrew
her hand from my lips, and I found myself back in the cabin, as if
precipitated from a lofty place.

Nobody was looking at us. Mrs. Williams sat with downcast eyelids, with
her hands reposing on her lap: her husband gazed discreetly at a gold
moulding on the deck-beam; and the upward cast of his eyes invested
his red face with an air of singularly imbecile ecstasy. And there was
Castro, too, whom I had not seen till then, though I must have brushed
against him on entering. He had stood by the door a mute, and, as it
were, a voluntarily unmasked conspirator with the black round of the
hat lying in front of his feet. He, alone, looked at us. He looked from
Seraphina to me--from me to Seraphina. He looked unutterable things,
rolling his crow-footed eyes in pious horror and glowering in turns.
When Seraphina addressed him, he hastened to incline his head with his
usual deference for the daughter of the Riegos.

She said, "There are things that concern this _caballero_, and that you
can never understand. Your fidelity is proved. It has sunk deep here....
It shall give you a contented old age--on the word of Seraphina Riego."

He looked down at his feet with gloomy submission.

"There is a proverb about an enamoured woman," he muttered to himself,
loud enough for me to overhear. Then, stooping deliberately to pick up
his hat, he flourished it with a great sweep lower than his knees. His
dumpy black back flitted out of the cabin; and almost directly we heard
the sharp click of his flint and blade outside the door.




CHAPTER SIX

How often the activity of our life is the least real part of it! Life,
looked upon as a whole, presents itself to my fancy as a pursuit with
open arms of a winged and magnificent dream, hovering just over our
heads and casting its glory upon our hopes. It is in this simple vision,
which is one and enduring, and not in the changing facts, that we must
look for meaning and for truth. The three quiet days we spent together
on board the _Lion_ remain to me memorable and full of import, eventless
and containing the very quintessence of existence. We shared the
sunshine, always together, very close, turning hand in hand to the sea,
whose unstained blueness continued under our feet the blue above our
heads, as though we had been snatched up into the sky. The insignificant
words we exchanged seemed informed by a sustaining certitude and an
admirable gravity, as though there had been some quality of unerring
wisdom in the blind love of man and woman. From the inexhaustible
treasure of her feelings she drew words, glances, gestures that appeased
every uneasiness of my heart. In some brief moment of illumination whose
advent my man's eyes had utterly missed, she had learned all at once
everything there was to know. She knew. She no longer needed to survey
my actions, my words, my thoughts; but she accorded me the sincere
flattery of spell-bound attention, and it was made intoxicating by her
smile. In those short days of a pause, when, like a swimmer turning on
his back, we lived in the trustful confidence of the sustaining depths,
instead of struggling with the agitation of the surface--in these days
we had the time to look at each other profoundly; and I saw her smile
come back again a little changed, more meaning and a little less
mirthful, as if her lips had been made stiff by sorrow. But she was
young; and youth, the time of softness, of tenderness, of enthusiasm,
and of pity, presents a surface as hard as marble to the finality of
death.

Breathing side by side, drinking in the sunshine, and talking of
ourselves not at all, but casting the sense of our love like a
magnificent garment over the wide significance of a world already
conquered, we could not help being made aware of the currents of
excitement and sympathy that converged upon our essential isolation from
the life of the ship. It was the excitement of the adventure brewing for
our drinking according to Sebright's recipe. People approached us--spoke
to us. We attended to them as if called down from an elevation; we
were aware of the kind tone; and, remaining indistinct, they retreated,
leaving us free to regain the heights of the lovers' paradise--a region
of tender whispers and intense silences. Suddenly there would be a
short, throaty laugh behind our backs, and Williams would begin, "I
say, Kemp; do you call to mind so-and-so?" Invariably some planter or
merchant in Jamaica. I never could.

Williams would grunt, "No? I wonder how you passed your time away these
two years or more. The place isn't that big." His purpose was to cheer
me up by some gossip, if only he could find a common acquaintance to
talk over. I believe he thought me a queer fish. He told me once that
everybody he knew in Jamaica had that precise opinion of me. Then with a
chuckle and muttering, "Warrants--assault--Top--nambo--ha, ha!" he would
leave us to ourselves, and continue his waddle up and down the poop.
He wore loose silk trousers, and the round legs inside moved like a
contrivance made out of two gate-posts.

He was absurd. They all were that before our sweet reasonableness. But
this atmosphere, full of interest and good will, was good to breathe.
The very steward--the same who had been hiding in the lazarette during
the fight--a hunted creature, displaying the most insignificant anatomy
ever inhabited by a quailing spirit, devoted himself to the manufacture
of strange cakes, which at tea-time he would deposit smoking hot in
front of Seraphina's place. After each such exploit, he appeared amazed
at his audacity in taking so much upon himself. The carpenter took more
than a day, tinkering at an old ship's boat. He was a Shetlander--a
sort of shaggy hyperborean giant with a forbidding face, an appraising,
contemplative manner, and many nails in his mouth. At last the time came
when he, too, approached our oblivion from behind, with a large hammer
in his hand; but instead of braining us with one sweep of his mighty
arm, he remarked simply in uncouth accents, "There now; I am thinking
she will do well for what ye want her. I can do no more for ye."

We turned round, arm-in-arm, to look at the boat. There she was, lying
careened on the deck, with patched sides, in a belt of chips, shavings,
and sawdust; a few pensive sailors stood about, gazing down at her with
serious eyes. Sebright, bent double, circled slowly on a prowl of minute
inspection. Suddenly straightening himself up, he pronounced a curt
"She'll do"; and, without looking at us at all, went off busily with his
rapid stride.

A light sigh floated down upon our heads. Williams and his wife appeared
on the poop above us like an allegorical couple of repletion and
starvation, conceived in a fantastic vein on a balcony. A cigar
smouldered in his stumpy red fingers. She had slipped a hand under his
arm, as she would always do the moment they came near each other. She
never looked more wasted and old-maidish than when thus affirming her
wifely rights. But her eyes were motherly.

"Ah, my dears!" (She usually addressed Seraphina as "miss," and myself
as "young sir.") "Ah, my dears! It seems so heartless to be sending you
off in such a small boat, even for your own good."

"Never fear, Mary. Repaired. Carry six comfortably," reassured Williams
in a tremendous mutter, like a bull.

"But why can't you give them one of the others, Owen? That big one
there?"

"Nonsense, Mary. Never see boat again. Wouldn't grudge it. Only Sebright
is quite right. Didn't you hear what Sebright said? Very sensible. Ask
Sebright. He will explain to you again."

It was Sebright, with his asperity and his tact, with fits of
brusqueness subdued by an almost affectionate contempt, who conducted
all their affairs, as I have seen a trustworthy and experienced old
nurse rule the infinite perplexities of a room full of children.
His clear-sightedness and mental grip seemed independent of age and
experience, like the ability of genius. He had an imaginative eye for
detail, and, starting from a mere hint, would go scheming onwards with
astonishing precision. His plan, to which we were committed--committed
helplessly and without resistance--was based upon the necessity of our
leaving the ship.

He had developed it to me that evening, in the cabin, directly Castro
had gone out. He had already got Williams and his wife to share his view
of our situation. He began by laying it down that in every desperate
position there was a loophole for escape. Like other great men, he was
conscious of his ability, and was inclined to theorize at large for a
while. You had to accept the situation, go with it in a measure, and as
you had walked into trouble with your eyes shut, you had only to
continue with your eyes open. Time was the only thing that could defeat
one. If you had no time, he admitted, you were at a dead wall. In this
case he judged there would be time, because O'Brien, warned already,
would sit tight for a few days, being sure to get hold of us directly
the _Lion_ came into port. It was only if the _Lion_ failed to turn up
within a reasonable term in Havana, that he would take fright, and take
measures to hunt her up at sea. But I might rest assured that the _Lion_
was going to Havana as fast as the winds would allow her.

What was, then, the situation? he continued, looking at me piercingly
above Williams' cropped head. I had run away for dear life from Cuba
(taking with me what was best in it, to be sure, he interjected, with
a faint smile towards Seraphina). I had no money, no friends (except my
friends in this cabin, he was good enough to say); warrants out against
me in Jamaica; no means to get to England; no safety in the ship. It was
no use shirking that little fact. We must leave the _Lion_. This was a
hopeless enough position. But it was hopeless only because it was
not looked upon in the right way. We assumed that we had to leave her
forever, while the whole secret of the trick was in this, that we need
only leave her for a time. After O'Brien's myrmidons had gone through
her, and had been hooted away empty-handed, she became again, if not
absolutely safe, then at least possible--the only possible refuge
for us--the only decent means of reaching England together, where, he
understood, our trouble would cease. Williams nodded approval heavily.

"The friends of Miss Riego would be glad to know she had made the
passage under the care of a respectable married lady," Sebright
explained, in that imperturbable manner of his, which reflected
faintly all his inner moods--whether of recklessness, of jocularity
or anxiety--and often his underlying scorn. His gravity grew perfectly
portentous. "Mrs. Williams," he continued, "was, of course, very anxious
to do her part creditably. As it happened, the _Lion_ was chartered for
London this voyage; and notwithstanding her natural desire to rejoin, as
soon as possible, her home and her aged uncle in Bristol, she intended
to go with the young lady in a hackney coach to the very door."

I had previously told them that the lately appointed Spanish ambassador
in London was a relation of the Riegos, and personally acquainted with
Seraphina, who, nearly two years before, had been on a short visit to
Spain, and had lived for some months with his family _in_ Madrid, I
believe. No trouble or difficulty was to be apprehended as to proper
recognition, or in the mattei of rights and inheritance, and so on. The
ambassador would make that his own affair. And for the rest I trusted
the decision of her character and the strength of her affection. I was
not afraid she would let any one talk her out of an engagement, the
dying wish of her nearest kinsman, sealed, as it were, with the blood of
her father. This matter of temporary absence from the _Lion_, however,
seemed to present an insuperable difficulty. We could not, obviously, be
left for days floating in an open boat outside Havana harbour, waiting
till the ship came out to pick us up. Sebright himself admitted that at
first he did not see how it could be contrived. He didn't see at all.
He thought and thought. It was enough to sicken one of every sort of
thinking. Then, suddenly, the few words Castro had let drop about the
sugar estate and the relay of mules came into his head--providentially,
as Mrs. Williams would say. He fancied that the primitive and grandiose
manner for a gentleman to keep a relay of mules--any amount of mules--in
case he should want to send a letter or two, caused the circumstance to
stick in his mind. At once he had "our little _hidalgo_" in, and put him
through an examination.

"He turned fairly sulky, and tried constantly to break out against you,
till Dona Seraphina here gave him a good talking to," Sebright said.

Otherwise it was most satisfactory. The place was accessible from the
sea through a narrow inlet, opening into a small, perfectly sheltered
basin at the back of the sand-dunes. The little river watering the
estate emptied itself into that basin. One could land from a boat there,
he understood, as if in a dock--and it was the very devil if I and Miss
Riego could not lie hidden for a few days on her own property, the more
so that, as it came out in the course of the discussion, while I had
"rushed out to look at the sunset," that the manager, or whatever they
called him--the fellow in charge--was the husband of Dona Seraphina's
old nurse-woman. Of course, it behoved us to make as little fuss as
possible--try to reach the house along by-paths early in the morning,
when all the slaves would be out at work in the fields. Castro, who
professed to know the locality very well indeed, would be of use.
Meantime, the _Lion_ would make her way to Havana, as if nothing was the
matter. No doubt all sorts of confounded _alguazils_ and custom-house
hounds would be ready to swarm on board in full cry. They would be made
very welcome. Any strangers on board? Certainly not. Why should there
be?... Rio Medio? What about Rio Medio? Hadn't been within miles and
miles of Rio Medio; tried this trip to beat up well clear of the coast.
Search the ship? With pleasure--every nook and cranny. He didn't suppose
they would have the cheek to talk of the pirates; but if they did
venture--what then? Pirates? That's very serious and dishonourable to
the power of Spain. Personally, had seen nothing of pirates. Thought
they had all been captured and hanged quite lately. Rumours of
the _Lion_ having been attacked obviously untrue. Some other ship,
perhaps.... That was the line to take. If it didn't convince them, it
would puzzle them altogether. Of course, Captain Williams, in his great
regard for me, had abandoned the intention of making an affair of state
of the outrage committed on his ship. He would not lodge any complaint
in Havana--nothing at all. The old women of the Admiralty wouldn't be
made to sit up this time. No report would be sent to the admiral either.
Only, if the ship were interfered with, and bothered under any pretence
whatever, once they had been given every facility to have one good
look everywhere, the admiral would be asked to stop it. And the Spanish
authorities would have not a leg to stand on either, for this simple
reason, that they could not very well own to the sources of their
information. Meantime, all hands on board the _Lion_ had to be taken
into confidence; that could not be avoided. He, Sebright, answered for
their discretion while sober, anyhow; and he promised me that no leave
or money would be given in Havana, for fear they should get on a spree,
and let out something in the grogshops on shore. We all knew what a
sailor-man was after a glass or two. So that was settled. Now, as to our
rejoining the _Lion_. This, of necessity, must be left to me. Counting
from the time we parted from her to land on the coast, the _Lion_ would
remain in Havana sixteen days; and if we did not turn up in that time,
and the cargo was all on board by then, Captain Williams would try to
remain in harbour on one pretence or another a few days longer. But
sixteen days should be ample, and it was even better not to hurry up too
much. To arrive on the fifteenth day would be the safest proceeding in a
way, but for the cutting of the thing too fine, perhaps. With all these
mules at our disposal, Sebright didn't see why we should not make our
way by land, pass through the town at night, or in the earliest morning,
and go straight on board the _Lion_--perhaps use some sort of disguise.
He couldn't say. He was out of it there. Blackened faces or something.
Anyway, we would be looked out for on board night and day.

Later on, however, we had learned from Castro that the estate possessed
a sailing craft of about twenty tons, which made frequent trips to
Havana. These sugar _droghers_ belonging to the plantations (every
estate on the coast had one or more) went in and out of the harbour
without being taken much notice of. Sometimes the battery at the water's
edge on the north side or a custom-house guard would hail them, but
not often--and even then only to ask the name, where from, and for the
number of sugar-hogsheads on board. "By heavens! That's the very thing!"
rejoiced Sebright. And it was agreed that this would be our best way.
We should time our arrival for early morning, or else at dusk. The craft
that brought us in should be made, by a piece of unskillful management,
to fall aboard the _Lion_, and remain alongside long enough to give us
time to sneak in through an open deck-port.

The whole occurrence must be so contrived as to wear the appearance of
a pure accident to the onlookers, should there be any. Shouting and
an exchange of abuse on both parts should sound very true. Then the
_drogher_, getting herself clear, would proceed innocently to the
custom-house steps, where all such coasters had to report themselves on
arrival. "Never fear. We shall put in some loud and scandalous cursing,"
Sebright assured me. "The boys will greatly enjoy that part, I dare
say."

Remained to consider the purpose of the schooner that had come out of
Rio Medio to hang on our skirts. It was doubtful whether it was in our
power to shake her off. Sebright was full of admiration for her sailing
qualities, coupled with infinite contempt for the "lubberly gang on
board."

"If I had the handling of her, now," he said, "I would take my position
as near as I liked, and stick there. It seems almost as if she would do
it of herself, if those imbeciles would only let her have her own way. I
never yet saw a Spaniard, good or bad, that was anything of a sailor. As
it is, we may maintain a distance that would make it difficult for them
to see what we are about. And if not, then--why, you must take your
leave of us at night."

He didn't know that, but for the dismalness of such a departure, it were
not just as well. Who could tell what eyes might be watching on shore?

"You know I never pretended my plan was quite safe. But have you got
another?"

I made no answer, because I had no other, and could not think of one.
Incredible as it may appear, not only my heart, but my mind, also,
in the awakened comprehension of my love, refused to grapple with
difficulties. My thoughts raced ahead of ships and pursuing men, into
a dream of cloudless felicity without end. And I don't think Sebright
expected any suggestion from me. This took place during one of our busy
talks--only he and I--alone in his cabin. He had been washing his hands,
making ready for tea.

"Do you know," he said, turning full on me, and wiping his fingers
carefully with a coarse towel--"do you know, I shouldn't wonder if that
schooner were not keeping watch on us, in suspicion of just some such
move on our part. 'Tis extraordinary how clever the greatest fool may
show himself sometimes. Only, with their lubberly Spanish seamanship,
they would expect us, probably, to make a whole ceremony of your
landing: ship hove to for hours close in shore, a boat going off to land
and returning, and all such pother. 'We are sure to see their little
show,' they think to themselves. Eh? What? Whereas we shall keep well
clear of the land when the time comes, and drop you in the dark without
as much check on our way as there is in the wink of an eye. Hey?...
Mind, Mr. Kemp, you take the boat out of sight up that little river, in
case they should have a fancy, as they go along after us, to peep into
that inlet. As I have said it wouldn't do to trust too much in any
fool's folly."

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