II
After the Mikado’s funeral the Pathshire visited Vladivostok and Nagasaki before returning to Wei-hai-wei. The way of life ran smooth, and seemed to John to run the smoother because for him its direction might so soon be changed. His hope, at first so weak, of a favourable answer from his mother, had fed upon itself, until at last it had become almost a conviction. He had ceased to think of his future as that of a naval officer.
This sense of approaching emancipation and the thoughts of independence by which it was accompanied changed his attitude towards Margaret. His hope had so grown that now once more it included her. From a midshipman, from an officer who throughout his life would be dependent upon the pay of his rank, she was separated by impassable barriers of wealth, influence, and competition. But now, in the light of his new hope, the barriers between him and her seemed no longer impassable. He would at least have the chance to construct ladders of fame and money before it was too late. He would be able, too, to bring those ladders near. The Service etiquette and tradition would bind him no more. Ordith, for instance, would cease to be his superior officer. He would not be borne away to sea, nor would his shore leave be stopped at the moment when he most wanted to see Margaret. Mr. Fane-Herbert, whom it was impossible not to regard as some kind of naval chief with additional advantages of wealth and civilian freedom, could not continue to treat him as a junior officer of no account. The blind alley would open into a clear field. Opportunity would increase.
Or, at any rate, this is how John’s sudden optimism led him to regard his future.
Margaret was one of a small party that came on board to tea with Hartington early in October. It was a Gunroom party, to which Ordith was not invited. Its beginning had been difficult because civilians seem always to require so much space that a warship cannot provide. The chairs, which had been comfortable enough until it was necessary to invite ladies to sit in them, appeared suddenly to be in a shocking state of disrepair. Never had Gunroom china seemed so thick or Gunroom fare, for all the preparations that had been made, so brutally masculine. The corticene, scarred with burnings of cigarette-ends, cried out for rugs to hide it.
The ladies, however, were tactfully blind to these deficiencies. The tea had been a success. At Hartington’s suggestion the party broke up so that the guests might “see over the ship,” he having conveniently forgotten that they had “seen over” it many times before. He himself took charge of Mrs. Fane-Herbert. Margaret was left to John.
Having examined the Upper Deck twelve-pounders in the view of all the world, he took her into the ammunition and cross-passages, where he knew none other would be. The electric lights flared from polished metal and white enamel; the atmosphere was heavy; their lightest footsteps clattered and resounded. But John was oblivious to all this.
“I’ve never seen you in such good spirits,” she said. “Tell me why.”
“Because I am going to leave the Service.”
“Leave it—for good?” She drew in her breath.
“Yes. I’ve never told you. I haven’t had a chance to tell you. My leave was stopped for a time, and I never seemed to be able to get near you. You know why my leave was stopped?”
“Yes. Nick told me.”
Nick! So it had gone thus far. “What did he say?” John asked.
“He said that what you did was a serious offence—technically.”
“Technically?”
“I mean he seemed to sympathize in the circumstances. He told me about Mr. Aggett and the watches you were keeping. He told me everything.”
“And he sympathized?”
“Yes. You needn’t say it like that, John. I believe it was he who persuaded Mr. Aggett to stop your leave instead of taking it further.”
“Did he tell you that too?”
“No; but I read between the lines.”
“Ah!”
“And father said he thought you had been lucky.”
“So Nick told him?”
“I don’t know who told him. Nick may have done. It’s been the talk of the fleet.”
John winced under that.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “We oughtn’t to have talked about it. I’ve made you wretched.”
“No. I don’t care now—now I’m going to get out.”
“When is it to be?”
“I wrote home at the end of August. The mail takes just over a fortnight each way. I might get an answer—to-morrow.”
She said after a moment’s thought: “Oh, I am glad, tremendously glad ... for you.”
The thought of John’s leaving China, of his returning home, troubled her. It brought Ordith and the inevitable decision nearer. Somehow John’s absence—though lately his presence had meant so little to her—would weaken her own defences. Now that he was breaking free of his net, his company and the likeness of his situation to her own as she conceived it had become suddenly more valuable to her. A safeguard, she told herself.... And yet, more than a safeguard.... She looked at him nervously. She wanted him not to go. She would be alone when he had gone.
“You know,” she said, “this—all this life—doesn’t suit me better than you. We’re together in that. And you are escaping.”
“It’s no good without you.”
He had spoken on the instant. There was no going back. He said, before she could interrupt him:
“Margaret, you must listen. One can’t go on alone. I can’t. I don’t believe you can. We are both caught the same way. I’m getting free. You must, too. Oh, you must, Margaret!”
“It’s impossible.”
“Now, yes. But couldn’t we come to an understanding now? And later——”
He was stricken by doubt for the meaning of her word “impossible.” He tried and failed to read her face.
“Or did you mean——”
“You are not out of the Service yet, John,” she said.
He was sure now that she had intended to check him. That reminder of the Service—which she had spoken partly to gain time, partly to drag back her own thoughts to realities—seemed to him a deliberate thrust, well aimed. He was still in the Service, still a snotty—powerless. It became a source of embarrassment that she was beautiful and wore beautiful things. His imagination drew for him a picture of her dressing-table, spread with silver; of her furs; of her soft dresses, orderly and exquisite; of her maid brushing that wonderful hair—and of the vast house in London, with its stone steps for ever in the twilight of a frowning porch, and its stern door, of which the handle was but an ornament not made to turn. In contrast were his barbarous sea-chest and hammock, his own small home tucked away in the country, and his one shilling and ninepence a day.
He had been a fool to think that she—oh, a thousand times a fool!
Feeling that the moment and, above all, her cruel thrust had given him the right to say what for long years—until he was more than a snotty—he might not say again, he flashed out:
“Come what may, Margaret, you’re the best I have on earth.”
And he turned away, leaving her to follow him out of the ammunition passage. She, not knowing how she had wounded him, not realizing how her one word “impossible” had been misinterpreted, moved her lips to speak. His last phrase—a direct statement rather than an exclamation—thrilled her. He had meant every word of it. It was the finest tribute a woman could hear spoken; and he had given it finely—every syllable swift and clear-cut like sharp-edged flames. And yet——
She did not speak. She stood without moving. Already he was a few paces away—the nozzle of a fire-hose glinted between them: and he did not turn round. There would have been no need for speech had he turned. She would have run to him. They would have made great plans, too brave to be impossible.
But he did not turn, and in a moment she began to follow him.