"And what about me?" Sally's voice was no longer hard or dry. "D'you want to leave me? Are you tired of me, Toby? I believe you are. Are you?"
"No, I'm not. And I don't want to leave you. But if I went for a sailor I'd make a bit of money, perhaps, and then after a little while I could come back and begin again. It would get over having no reference. They'd say 'Where you been working?' and I'd say 'Been at sea for the last year.' Then they wouldn't know anything but what I told 'em. I wouldn't go long voyages, Sally. Only just short ones. I'd often come home, and we'd have a spree."
Sally's quick brain was at work. She did not want him to go; but if he went, and if she saw him often, in spite of his being away, perhaps it would not be so bad.
"But suppose you got wrecked?" she exclaimed.
"Rot. D'you suppose every ship gets wrecked? Don't be a fool!"
"No. But yours might get wrecked. How am I to know, supposing there's a storm? It won't not get wrecked because you're on it. Would you come home very often? Would you wear sailor clothes? Wonder how you'd look! Oh, I know—you mean a jersey. Would it have letters across your chest? Where d'you have to go?"
Sally was so interested that she was even making up Toby's mind for him. By the time they went in it was decided that he and Jackson were going to sea, and that Sally should be taken down to visit his ship if it happened to be at the Docks or at Tilbury. She had dancing visions of Toby in a navy blue jersey, with "Queen of the Earth" or "La Marguerite" or "Juanita" across it in white letters. She could see his dark hair blown by the wind, and the veins in his wrists standing out as he hauled a rope. It was rather fun! she thought. "My boy's a sailor." She would be able to touch him for luck. Sailors were lucky. She sang to herself a song one of the workgirls knew:
| "Sailors are lads. Sailors are lads. |
| Sailors they make you laugh!" |
Before night she was wholly reconciled to the idea that Toby would go to sea. She soon had a dim perception of the fact that it would do him good to go. It would get him away from the atmosphere of the Works, where there seemed to be a lot of stupid larking and work-dodging. Now that he was dismissed she began to realise all this. She was glad he was away from it. She was glad he was going to sea. It would be a complete change. It would do him good. He had been fiddling about too long at the Works, in his overalls and in the grime and oil and general dodginess of the place. The ship would take him about, and show him the way people did things. It would open his eyes and his brains. Electrically, something self-protective within her added the further message: it would keep him out of the way for a time. Sally breathed deeply. An unreadable smile was upon her lips, and no smile at all was in her eyes. Afar off she scented change; but what manner of change she did not as yet recognise. It was her instinct at work, her instinct for turning life to her own advantage. It was an infallible instinct, like that of birds for a coming storm.