Harold Bindloss - Kit Musgrave's Luck

The morning was hot, and Kit Musgrave, leaning on the African liner's rail, watched the volcanic rocks of Grand Canary grow out of the silver haze. He was conscious of some disappointment, because on the voyage to Las Palmas he had pictured a romantic white city shining against green palms. Its inhabitants were grave Spaniards, who secluded their wives and daughters in old Moorish houses with shady patios where fountains splashed. Now he saw he had got the picture wrong.

Las Palmas was white, but not at all romantic. A sandy isthmus, swept by rolling clouds of dust, connected the town and the frankly ugly port. The houses round the harbor looked like small brown blocks. Behind them rose the Isleta cinder hill; in front, coal-wharfs and limekilns, hidden now and then by dust, occupied the beach. Moreover, the Spaniards on board the boats about the ship were excited, gesticulating ruffians. Bombay peddlers, short, dark-skinned Portuguese, and Canario dealers in wine, tobacco, and singing birds, pushed up the gangway. All disputed noisily in their eagerness to show their goods to the passengers.

Yet Kit was not altogether disappointed. Somehow the industrial ugliness of the port and the crowd's businesslike activity were soothing. Kit had not known much romantic beauty, but he knew the Lancashire mining villages and the mean streets behind the Liverpool docks. Besides, he was persuaded that commerce, particularly British commerce, had a civilizing, uplifting power.

Seeing he would buy nothing, the peddlers left him alone, and he mused about the adventure on which he had embarked. Things had happened rapidly since he went one morning to Don Arturo's office in Liverpool and joined the crowd in the great man's waiting-room. Don Arturo was not Spanish, but at Grand Canary he was generally given the Castilian title and the Spaniards declared the island would soon be his. He was an English merchant of the new Imperialist school and he gave Kit exactly one and a half minutes. Perhaps he approved the embarrassed lad, for half an hour afterwards Kit had engaged to start for the Canaries and take a sobrecargo 's post on board a Spanish steamer. The secretary admitted the pay was small, but argued that since Don Arturo controlled all the business worth controlling in the Canaries and West Africa, the chances for promotion were remarkably good. In short, Kit could sail in two days and was a fool if he did not go.

Kit agreed and signed the contract. He knew some Castilian, which he had studied at evening classes conducted by the Liverpool Y.M.C.A. Since he thought the association's motto, Mens sana in corpore sano , good, he had also trained his muscles at the Y.M.C.A gymnasium. For a city clerk he was healthy and strong.

The two days before he sailed were marked by new and disturbing thrills. Kit was conservative, and sprang from cautious, puritanical stock. His grandfather was a Cumberland sheep farmer, his father kept a shop and had taught Kit the virtues of parsimonious industry. His mother was kind but dull, and had tried not to indulge her son. Although Kit was honest and something of a prig, he had the small clerk's respect for successful business. He was raw and his philosophy was Smiles'. In order to make progress one must help oneself.

Yet he had not altogether escaped the touch of romance, and when he agreed to sail his first duty was to explain things to Betty. She kept the books at a merchant's office, and sometimes they went to a tea-shop and sometimes to a cheap concert. Betty did not go to theaters, but now and then took Kit to church. She was high-church and wore a little silver cross. Betty was thin, pale and quiet, and Kit's mother approved her, although nothing had been said about their marrying. Kit saw that in the meantime marriage was not for him. To marry on pay like his was not fair to the girl. Yet he imagined he loved Betty; anyhow, he liked her much.

When she left the office in the evening they went to a tea-shop. Kit found a quiet corner and helped Betty to cakes. He was embarrassed and his careless talk was forced. Betty studied him and did not say much. Her quietness had some charm, and she was marked by a touch of beauty that might have developed had she enjoyed fresh air, good food, and cheerful society. Women had not then won much reward for their labor, and Betty was generally tired. At length Kit, with awkward haste, told her his plans. Betty drained her cup and gave him a level glance. Kit thought her paler than before, but the electric light was puzzling.

"You are going to the Canaries and perhaps to West Africa! Are you going for good?" she said.

"Why, no!" said Kit. "I expect I'll stop for a year or two. Anyhow, if I make much progress, I'll come back then. You see, I'm forced to go. There's no chance for me in Liverpool; you get old while you wait for the men in front to move up the ladder. If I stop until I'm forty, I might get up a few rounds."

"Is it necessary to get up?" Betty asked.

Kit looked at her with surprise. Sometimes Betty's philosophy was puzzling, and he wondered whether she got it at church. Kit had not heard another clergyman preach like the vicar and thought him privately rather a fool. But Betty seldom argued and they did not jar.

"Of course!" he said. "So long as you can get up honestly, you have got to get up. You can't stop in the pushing crowd at the bottom."

Betty was quiet for a few moments. She looked tired and Kit imagined she knew all he knew about the pressure of the crowd. Then she said, "If only we didn't push! Perhaps there's room enough, and we might make things better."

"Oh, well," said Kit, rather comforted by her calm, but vaguely disappointed because she could philosophise. "Anyhow, although it's hard, I must seize my chance. I shall miss you. You have been much to me; now I've got to go, I begin to see how much. Perhaps it's strange I didn't see before. You don't argue, you belong to my lot, but somehow one feels you're finer than other girls one meets – "

He stopped and Betty gave him a curious smile. "Do you know many girls, Kit?"

"I don't," he admitted. "I haven't bothered about girls; I haven't had time. They expect you to tell them they're pretty, to send them things, to josh and make them laugh, and now and then to quarrel about nothing. Rather a bore when you'd sooner be quiet; but you're not like that. We have been pals, and now I wish you were going out with me."

"There's not much use in wishing."

"That is so," Kit agreed and hesitated for a moment or two while his face got red. "You couldn't go now, but I'm coming back. Suppose I get on and my pay is good? Will you marry me when I go out again?"

Betty gave him a long, level glance. For all that, he thought her hand shook when she moved her cup and his heart beat.

"No," she said quietly. "Anyhow, I won't promise. Perhaps, if you do come back, we'll talk about it, but you mustn't feel you're bound to ask."

Kit got a jolt. That Betty liked him was obvious, and the girls he knew were keen for a lover. Betty, of course, was not like them, but she was human. In a sense, however, her refusal was justified. Perhaps he was a dull fellow; a girl by whom he was once attracted declared he was as gloomy as a funeral. Then, with his rather shabby clothes and small pay, he was certainly not worth bothering about. For all that, Betty's refusal strengthened his resolve.

She was firm, but he got a hint of strain. The thrill of his adventure had gone and he was sorry for Betty. He knew how she lived; the dreary shabby street she left in the morning for her nine hours' work, the pinching to make her pay go round. All was dull and monotonous for her, but he was going to a land of wine and sun. He could not move her, and she left him, puzzled and unhappy, in the street.