“Don’t go on deck,” said Olivia. “Don’t go on deck, Tom dear. The sun’s so strong.”
“But you’ll want to hear about Jamestown from Cammock.”
“No, Tom dear. I don’t. I want you. I want you to rest and get well.”
“I’d like. I must just see Cammock.”
“But what makes you so eager to see Captain Cammock, Tom?”
“Stukeley looks on the captain as a sort of a show,” said Margaret quickly. “The captain has just been talking with strangers. Wouldn’t you like to see a man who’d really seen a new face, Olivia; and heard a new voice?”
Olivia smiled.
“I don’t think Tom’s strong enough for excitements,” she said.
“No,” said Margaret, leaving the cabin. “But I don’t think there’s much wrong. I think he’ll soon be all right, Olivia. Make him lie down and rest. I must just see the captain.” He went on deck hurriedly, holding his breath till he was in the fresh air. “Poison,” he said to himself. “Poison. What a life. What squalor. That woman going to have a child. And Stukeley, pah. Drinking and smoking there, waiting to be dragged to gaol. She doesn’t see it. One would think he must shock every fibre of her nature. And he doesn’t. He gives her love, I suppose. That was the only thing she wanted. And now that beast is her standard.” In the pure air he blamed himself for thinking ill of her. “After all,” he thought, “Stukeley isn’t a beast to her. She, with her much finer sense, sees something in him. Something that is all the world to her. Something beautiful. She may even be happy with him. She may be.” He thought pitifully of women and angrily of men. It was all wrong, he thought. Men and women could never understand each other, except in rare moments, in love, when the light in each heart burned clearly. Women were hidden; they were driven to covert, poor trembling fawns. They were like the nymphs hidden in the reeds by the river. They took care that men should see only the reeds. He had never really seen Olivia; he was not sure if he knew her yet; he couldn’t say what it was that he loved. He did not care; he was not going to ask. She was beautiful; her beauty moved him to the bone; beauty was in all of her, in the whole woman, the whole nature, body and spirit, in the ways of body and spirit. She was going to have a child; Stukeley’s child; red-cheeked, curly; a little boy-beast, the bully of his school. Ah, but the child would be hers, too. She would bring it up to be like her. He would have that refinement of voice, that lovely, merry, almost timid manner, her eyes, her grace, her shyness. Captain Cammock, who had been watching him for a full thirty seconds, half amused, half sad, that his passion had so strong a hold still, even in a moment of anxiety, now tapped him on the shoulder.
“Ah, captain.”