“Of course you will,” she answered. “I hope your colony will be a success.”
Something in her voice made the conventional words beautiful. Captain Stukeley, on the other side of the door, hearing that quality in his wife’s voice, wished that the keyhole were bigger. With an effort, Captain Margaret rewarded that moving tone.
“When I come back,” he said, “I hope that I shall get to know your husband. Make my apologies to him.”
“Good-bye again,” she said.
Her voice seemed to come from her whole nature. All that her lover could remember afterwards was the timbre of the voice; he had no memory of her face. Her eyes he remembered, and her heavy antique ear-rings. “Eyes, ear-rings, and a voice,” he repeated, walking down to the jetty. He wondered what she was. “What is she? What is she? Oh Lord, what is she?” He could not answer it. She was beautiful. Most beautiful. Beautiful enough to drive him mad. Her beauty was not a bodily accident; but a quality of soul, the quality of her nature, her soul made visible. But what was she? She had talked commonly, conventionally. She had said no wise thing, no moving thing. Never once had she revealed herself; she was only kind, fond of flowers, fond of music, a lover of little children. But oh, she was beyond all beauty, that dark, graceful lady with the antique ear-rings. It was her voice. Any conventional, common word her voice made beautiful. He wondered if she were, after all, divine; for if she were not divine, how came it that her voice had that effect, that power? He felt that human beings were all manifestations of a divine purpose. Perhaps that lovely woman was an idea, an idea of refinement, of delicate, exquisite, right grace, clothed in fitting flesh, walking the world with heavenly intention. But if that were so, how the devil came Stukeley there, that was the puzzle? The blood came into that pale face sometimes; and oh, the way she turned, the way she looked, the way of that voice, so thrilling, so infinitely beautiful. Ah well; he had played and lost, and there was his ship with her flag flying; he was bound down and away
Along the coast of New Barbary.
But he had loved her, he had seen her, he had been filled with her beauty as a cup with wine. He would carry her memory into the waste places of the world. Perhaps in the new Athens, over yonder, among the magnolia bloom, and the smell of logwood blossom, he would make her memory immortal in some poem, some tragedy, something to be chanted by many voices, amid the burning of precious gums, and the hush of the theatre. On the way, he stopped, thinking of her personal tastes. He, too, would have those tastes. Little things for which she cared should come with him to the Main. He gave the merchant the impression that he was dealing with one melancholy mad.
Drums sounded in the street, for troops were marching west, to a rousing quick-step. They marched well, with their heads held firm in their stocks. The sergeants strutted by them, handling their halberds. Captain Margaret paused to watch them, just as a sailor will stop to watch a ship. “They are like the world,” he thought. “The men drop out, but the regiment remains. It still follows the rags on the broomstick, and a fool commands it, and a halberd drills it, and women and children think it a marvellous fine thing. Well, so be it. I’ve bought my discharge.” The fifes and drums passed out of hearing. “They’ll never come back,” he said to himself. “Perhaps twenty years hence I shall meet one of those men, and be friends with him. Why not now? And why should I see that regiment now? What does it mean? It is a symbol. All events are symbols. What does it mean? What is it a symbol of? Why should that regiment pass to-day, now, after I’ve bidden my love good-bye? And what ought I to learn from it? What message has it for me?” He was convinced that it had a message. He stood still, looking down the road, vacant as a British statue.
He woke up with a start, remembering that he had to buy some materials for the practice of one of his amusing handicrafts. A little gold, some silver, and a few stones of small value, together with glass beads, were all that he needed. He was planning to make jewels for the Indian princesses. “Beads is what they goes for,” so Cammock had said. He bought large stores of beads. He also bought materials for a jewel for Olivia, thinking, as he examined the gems, of the letter he would send with the gift. “It will be written under palm-thatch,” he thought, “in the rains.” He was able to plan the jewel in all its detail. People stared at him with curiosity. He was speaking aloud as he walked. “Nothing matters very much to me,” he said. “I know the meaning of life. Life and death are the same to me.” So saying he arrived upon the jetty, and hailed his boat, which lay at a little distance, her oarsmen playing dice in the stern-sheets. His purchases were stowed between the thwarts, a few grocer’s boxes made an obelisk in the bows. As they shoved off, there came a flash of fire from the side of the Broken Heart. White smoke-rings floated up and away, over her topgallant-masts. Grey smoke clung and drifted along the sea. The roar of the cannon made the Salcombe windows rattle. The boat’s crew grinned. Being boatmen, they had escaped the gun-drill. They knew what all hands were getting from the stalwart Cammock.
He stepped quickly up the side, acknowledging Cammock’s salute and the pipe of the boatswain. Perrin met him at the break of the poop. He noticed that Perrin stared rather hard at him. He grinned at Perrin cheerfully.