Pelican Pool: A Novel

by Sydney Loch

"Mr. Power it is," he cried out, rolling the upper half of his body, and showing his dirty teeth. "It's Mr. Power come for a look at the show. My eyes haven't got the hang o' the dark yet. Come inside, Mr. Power. I'm glad you found the way here, square and all I am."

With something of a to-do the couple backed from the doorway, and Power went into the room. Two lamps, placed high up, gave the light, which was poor and depressing, and round about the globes beat frantically a great army of insects. Power went into the room, and the close air made him pause. He stopped to blink his eyes at the light. A moment later he looked up, and across the table, busy at some cups in a basin, he saw the girl he had dreamed of half the day.

The wonder of her beauty came over him again with a feeling akin to pain. She was looking him in the face with frank curiosity. He it was who felt embarrassed and first turned away. He laughed at his scruples next moment, and returned her stare for stare. He looked her over slowly to discover her secret. And he succeeded ill. For her loveliness was anchored to no this or that. She stood in the shabby room, a jewel of such price as asked no setting. Her beauty would never stale, having found the secret of the dawn which arrives morning by morning, ready and wonderful, though all else is passing by in the turning of the years. The men, who presently would come to kneel in homage there, would wonder at this glorious body no less the last hour than the first.

Her hair was brown and shining, and heaped up about her head. Her eyes were of a dark colour, of great size, and moment by moment sleepy with dreams or bright with brief fires. Her mouth was heavy with passion and gaoler of a thousand quick moods; her lips were bright, and behind them little teeth gleamed white and charming. Her dress was open at the neck, where her firm throat swept to her bosom. Her arms, bare to the elbows, had taken their brown from the sun, but their shapeliness was a wonder and delight. Her hands were slender and quick as they moved in the water. What age was she? Twenty, it might be.

"Good evening, Mister," she said.

"Good evening," he answered.

Gregory and his wife were hovering at his back. It was "Sit down, Mr. Power," and "Make yerself at home, Mr. Power. I wish we had a better seat for you, Mr. Power; but we haven't been here above two week, and the boss isn't for doing more graft than he need."

"It's that show, as I've told the old gel. It tires a bloke out," said Gregory. The woman answered him with a curl of the lip.

Power sat down on an up-ended box. He could put his elbow on the table, which had been knocked together slap-dash with a few nails. After further to-do Gregory sat at hand with a pipe in his mouth. The women started again on their business. In the pause in matters which came on this sitting down Power felt the staleness of the room. He had time to wonder why he had come. He took a second look at Mrs. Gregory. She showed the ruins of good looks which the climate and hard living had squandered. Her face was full of greed and craft. The man at his side was a mixture of rogue and fool. Power had given up a smoke and a yarn in the cool for this. For he didn't care the crack of a whip for the show. His line was cattle, not copper. Then the girl had brought him here. And to-morrow he was to see the girl he loved. He was a fool for his pains.

He was a fool for his pains, yet he would not have been more content staying away. Something drew him here by roots deep down in him. How her beauty moved him! Here stood a savage child, with her longings crudely waiting on her lips, possessed of a body which was holy. Why was she here, growing up alone and unwatched, to age before her time? It was the law that painted the wings of the butterfly and brought the cripple into the world; the law, jumbled beyond man's following, that caused suns to blaze and worlds to groan in labour that meanest gnat might spin a giddy hour.