Conrad Aiken - Blue Voyage

To have collided with the Irish girl would have been simple and agreeable; but in the very act of willing it he also inhibited the length of his stride over the brass sill.

“Oh!” she said, smiling.

“I’m so sorry!” said Demarest, drawing back. He regarded her with friendly inquisition.

Lowering her soft flushed face, she passed him, close against the white wooden paneling, the smile gently dying. Innocent gray eyes: not without humor and boldness. My wild Oirish Rose. When I look into your eyes — Then I think of Irish skies … Anita’s favorite song — he used to sing it in the shower bath. Sure as you’re born, top of the morn …! “ Come — come — come —” said her slippers on the red carpet, as she turned away to the right. “ No — too — shy, — ” his own feet whispered, stammering and inarticulate, as he turned away to the left.

The cloud of smoke in the smoking room was dense and turbulent. The poker game had been resumed, bottles and glasses assisting. The glass-eyed gambler sang loudly: “ Some girls live in the country — and some girls live in town — but MY girl can’t keep her reputation up, ’cause she can’t keep her petticoat down — By! God! she! is! — a lulu — yes, b’God, a lulu — a lulu is that little girrrrrrrl of mine …” All the players broke loudly into the chorus, “By! God! she! is — a lulu,” to the grave delight of Malvolio.

“There you are,” said Smith. “Come on. I’ve got an idea.”

“What?”

“Wait, I’ll tell you outside.” The brown eyes were solemnly mischievous. “Somebody might hear us.”

The night had become cloudly, and a cold wind came in damp gusts from the northwest. A drop or two of rain — or was it spray? No — it was rain. The deck was nearly deserted. Patches of white light fell over the polished planks and tarred seams. A feeling of storm. At the forward end of the covered deck, beyond the first-class barrier, two sailors were moving to and fro under a ceiling light, stretching a canvas screen.

“Well,” said Demarest, “what’s this brainwave?”

“Why shouldn’t we sneak up to the first-class deck — the upper one — and have a good walk? Eh? I don’t know about you, but I’d like some exercise … Down here you can’t get started before you have to turn around.”

“No sooner said than done.”

“The question is — how do we go? Straight up the companionway? with the light shining on it? Sort of public … The only other way is to go through the barrier, and then up a companion way further forward … It has the advantage of being darker.”

“With so few people aboard, I don’t believe they’ll give a damn anyway. Let’s go straight up … They can’t do any more than kick us out. We’ll do a dignified retreat, with profuse apologies … When I was on the Empress of Ireland, in the steerage, I used to go up and drink beef tea with the first-class passengers every morning: and tea every afternoon.”

“It’s easy if the ship’s crowded.”

“Come on! there’s nobody looking.”

Smith climbed the iron stairs warily and softly, and swung the iron gate at the top. It squeaked and clanked.

“Nobody in sight,” he said, sotto voce: “not a soul … This is something like! A crime not to allow us up here — yes, sir, it’s a crime. Absolutely wasted.”

The long white deck, exquisitely sloping and curved, stretched away through alternating light and shadow. High as a cliff. Yes! This was something like. One felt at once like a first-class passenger, and subtly changed one’s bearing. If they met Purington — well, so much the better. They would be under his protection. Purington meeting Smith — ha, ha! One could see his discomfort — one look at Smith’s tweed hat (absurdly big for him) would be enough, and all of Purington’s heavy snobbishness would begin creakily operating. It would be rather a joke. They turned the forward corner, walking through a crescendo of wind. Sparks blew from Smith’s cigar. Ooo — wash — oo — wallop , went the waves against the unseen bow; the ship lifted slightly, he careened against Smith’s arm, — and then drew back in the deep shadow at the corner to let three women pass. Confound. It wouldn’t be so comfortable, this being inspected twice on each circuit of the deck.

“Yes, sir — this is something like. This is what you come to sea for … Now, if we only had those little girls — but no. No. They’d give the show away. Nothing first-class about them! Ha, ha!”

“I suppose you’d let me walk with Faubion?”

“Not much, I wouldn’t! She’s the little girl for me … I dropped a hint to her tonight. Sort of risky, I guess, but I got the feeling that I couldn’t help it … Hm.”

“What … For the love of mud don’t ruin yourself, Father!”

Smith meditated, his cigar in his mouth, his cheeks pursed a little, right forefinger curved round cigar. He stared along the long deck.

“Oh, it wasn’t very much — nothing at all, … It was when she came to get a dress before dinner — I said, ‘You know that song, don’t you?’ ‘No, what song?’ says she. ‘What’s the use of all these things without the girl inside?’ I said. ‘You naughty old thing!’ she said — that’s what she said. ‘You naughty old thing!” … She looked sort of mad, but then she always does, half the time, anyway, so you can’t tell … What do you think?”

“That’s harmless enough — but I’d go slow if I were you.”

“Damn it, life’s too short— my life is! Time I had a little fun.”

“Do we walk right round at the back, where the second-class can see us?”

“Sure, they won’t recognize us — too dark.”

Turning the corner, they again met the three women. Tall women, easily striding, keeping step. Demarest averted his eyes again, shy and conscious. “No,” one of them was saying—“I don’t think—” A cultured voice, and English. The rest of her sentence was blown overboard. Getting back to England and Cynthia. Would he ever see Cynthia again? Would he dare to go and see her? She had never answered his two letters — not a word, not a sign. She had never acknowledged the book. She had thus rebuked him, of course — he had not asked permission to write; and to do so, and particularly to send the book, had been after so slight (!) an acquaintance a callow presumption. A warm wave of shame and misery came over him. That had been exactly characteristic of the state of mind she had induced in him — clumsy adolescence, shyness, awkwardness, misplaced audacities, occasional funks (as when he had allowed her to pay his fare on the bus!) and a mixture of abruptness and preciousness in talk … As for the two letters — again that wave of shame and misery came hotly over him. The letters had been in his very worst vein — the sort of disingenuous, hinting thing, self-conscious and literary, which he always achieved (how revolting) when the occasion was emotionally important. Was it impossible to fall in love without loss of balance? No loss of balance with Eunice or with Mary — but both were of humble birth. Helen Shafter? Well, perhaps, a trace. Yes. But no more than that. That first night in the house by the bay. Helen’s aunt’s house, when Helen’s aunt had been called away, and they had been left alone — had there been, then, a loss of balance such as he had experienced with Cynthia?

“You never can tell, in these cases,” he said. “Never … Once I was spending the weekend with a respectable middle-aged lady and her niece. I’d known them all my life. There was no thought of anything between me and the niece — well, nothing to speak of: a mild intermittent interest, perhaps a little more physical than intellectual. The aunt got a telegram and went away for two nights, leaving us alone. Well, it was extraordinary the way a kind of tension grew between us! We couldn’t talk naturally, we began to look at each other, our voices seemed to change in key — we finally said good night to each other in a panic. That was the first night. The second night was worse. We were seized with a terror lest the conversation should come to an end — we talked frantically, incessantly, and as impersonally as we could. Absolutely nothing personal was said: and yet the personal tension was every second becoming more unbearable. I was aware, of course, that she agitated me — but I couldn’t make out whether she was agitated; and I was determined to avoid a false step, which for various reasons would have been fatal. What really happened was that we were both in that state, but neither wanted to take the responsibility of declaring it: the ghost of respectability, perhaps, but also the fear of rebuff and of making fools of ourselves. So we just sat and talked, and it got later and later, and first one lamp went out, and then the other, and then the fire began to die and the room to get cold. Should I put coal on the fire? It would seem to suggest too coarsely that I took it for granted we were going to continue sitting there in the dark, talking inanely, at one-thirty in the morning. So I didn’t. We sat, finally, for ten minutes in silence, at the end of which she suddenly said, ‘Oh! I feel as if the top of my head would blow off!’ … That seemed, in a way, clear enough! and yet, could I be sure? I thought for a minute, and then I said, ‘Why?’ to which, after a long and desperate pause, she replied, ‘You ought to know, I think.’ So it was she, really, who took the final step … As soon as she had said that, we rose from our chairs as if hypnotized, and moved together … Unfortunately in the dark, I got one foot into the coal scuttle, and our first embrace looked more like a wrestling match — we staggered and fell.”