The Secret Woman (26 page)

“When did you see it?” jeered Johnny.

“I've seen it once…and twice. I have seen it, haven't I, Anna? I saw it when we were up there. You know that time when the Captain was holding your hand and telling you to wait. That was the time. There was a great big ship then. I asked the Captain and he said it was a Yankee Clipper.”

Miss Rundle could scarcely contain her excitement.

I said: “You can't go now. What of your game of tennis? Go and finish that.”

“But…”

“You can describe it to the Captain when you see it. Perhaps he'll show you pictures and you can identify it.”

“He's got lots of pictures up there, hasn't he, Anna?”

I said: “Yes and I daresay he'll show them to you both sometime. But you must remember that he has the ship to look after. So go and finish your game and see them later.”

So we sat on the deck. The ship had sunk below the horizon, and the porpoises were leaping with joy. Rex and Gareth were still intent on the chessboard; Mrs. Malloy and Mrs. Greenall were dozing, and Miss Rundle departed. I knew she was looking for someone to whom she could whisper her latest discovery.

The Captain had held my hand and asked me to wait.

***

It was fortunate, I believed, that we should soon reach Fremantle. The excitement of coming into port always seemed to smother everything else among the passengers. Even Miss Rundle could not be greatly excited about scandal concerning people to whom she would soon say good-bye forever.

I had no doubt that she had spread Edward's revelation, but it no longer seemed as important as it was three or four weeks earlier. Mrs. Malloy was less absorbed by the First Officer; that friendship was dying a natural death. She was fussily preparing everything for her landing at Melbourne. Mr. and Mrs. Greenall were in a state of fervid excitement and asking each other twenty times a day whether the grandchildren were to be brought to Circular Quay to meet them.

“Not the youngest, surely,” she told me repeatedly. “Not at his age surely.”

Chantel and Rex were in each other's company at every possible moment; I was afraid for them. I came upon them once leaning on the rail talking earnestly. I was worried about Chantel. Her indifference was not really natural. Edward and Johnny were the only ones who behaved normally. They would part at Melbourne but in their minds that was, as they would say, ages away. A day in their lives was a long time.

And one morning I awoke and there we were.

***

On the quay people stood welcoming the boat wearing long white gloves and big hats trimmed with flowers and ribbons. Somewhere a band was playing “Rule Britannia.” Redvers had told me that there was a welcome and send-off from Australian ports for ships from England which was “Home” even for those who had never even seen it. On the big passenger ships, of course, people came to meet visitors, but we were essentially cargo. Still we had our welcome and the bands played patriotic tunes.

The children were excited and as I had given them lessons in the history of the countries before we reached them their interest was heightened. They were looking forward to seeing their first kangaroos and koala bears, so Mrs. Blakey and I took them ashore for the few hours we were in port. It was very hot but the boys seemed unaware of this. They kept shrieking their delight; and I must say I was enchanted as we drove along beside the Swan River where the red flowering gum and the yellow wattles made a great splash of color. But our stay was necessarily short and all the time we had to keep our eyes on our watches. During the trip I caught sight of Chantel and Rex riding together in one of the open carriages and I fervently hoped that Miss Rundle would not see them.

Poor Chantel. Soon she would have to say good-bye to Rex. Could she keep up her flippancy, her feigned indifference? I wondered.

And ahead of us—not so far ahead of us—lay our parting with the ship. Soon we should reach Coralle and she and I, with Edward and Monique, would be left behind. Whenever I thought of that a great apprehension came to me. I tried to dismiss it, but it wasn't easy.

I saw Dick Callum when we came aboard. He was coming out of his office, busy as he often was during our stays in port.

“How I wish I could have taken you for a trip ashore,” he said.

“Mrs. Blakey and I took the boys.”

“Pressure of business prevented me…perhaps a little unnaturally.”

“What does that mean?”

“Some in high places might not have wished me to be free.”

“It sounds very mysterious,” I said and left him. I was really rather delighted that the Captain may not have wished me to be in Dick Callum's company.

They were just about to take the gangway up when Chantel and Rex came hurrying on board.

She saw me at the rail and she came to me. Rex did not join us but went past.

“That was a near thing,” I said. “You might have missed the boat.”

“You can trust me never to miss the boat,” she said meaningly.

I looked at her flushed, lovely face. I had to admit that she did not look like a girl on the point of saying good-bye forever to her lover.

***

At Melbourne Mr. Malloy, a tall bronzed man who was making a success of his property some miles out of town, came aboard to collect his family.

There was a change in them all. Johnny looked very sober in his sailor's suit and round sailor's hat with HMS
Success
on it. Mrs. Malloy was dressed in a big straw hat with flowers and ribbons more suited to London than to the outback of Australia; but in her gray coat and skirt and pearl gloves and gray boots, she looked very attractive. Mrs. Blakey also wore her best clothes.

They seemed like strangers, no longer interested in their shipmates, no longer a part of us.

Mr. Malloy carried them off and they invited Edward to go and see them sometime in the vaguely cordial way people do when they know the invitation will never be accepted. Then they were gone, out of our lives forever.

It was going to make a difference to me. Edward would miss his friend, and I would miss Mrs. Blakey's help.

Miss Rundle was at my side. “And where is the First Officer, eh?” she whispered. “Making himself scarce, which is only to be expected.”

Chantel joined us.

“And we shall soon be saying good-bye,” she said blithely, smiling meaningfully at Miss Rundle.

“
Some
of us are going to miss each other.”

“Alas!” sighed Chantel.

“I am sure you and Mr. Crediton must be a little sad at parting.”

“And you too,” said Chantel.

“Miss Rundle,” I said, “is an observer of human nature.”

“Let's hope she finds herself in company as rewarding as this which is now so sadly breaking up.” Miss Rundle looked startled and Chantel went on: “We must not forget that we are merely ‘ships that pass in the night.' Finish it for me, Anna.”

“And speak each other in passing;

Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness.”

“Beautiful, isn't it?” said Chantel. “And so true. ‘Ships that pass in the night.' And then…go on and on…never seeing each other again. It's fascinating.”

Miss Rundle sniffed. She was not enjoying the conversation. She said that Mrs. Greenall was waiting for her in her cabin.

She left us standing there.

I said to Chantel: “The next port of call will be Sydney itself.”

“Yes, and then Coralle.”

“Chantel, how are you going to like it?”

“I'd have to be clairvoyant to answer that question.”

“I mean parting with Rex Crediton at Sydney. It's no use your pretending. Yours is a special friendship.”

“Who's pretending?”

“If you're in love with him, if he's in love with you, what's to prevent your marrying?”

“You ask that question as though you know the answer.”

“I do,” I said. “Nothing. That's unless he is so weak that he's afraid of his mother.”

“Dear Anna,” she said, “I believe you are very fond of your undeserving friend. But don't worry about her. She'll be all right. She always has been. She always will be. Didn't I tell you I never miss the boat.”

She was confident.

They must have an agreement of some sort, I thought.

***

Perhaps we were all growing reckless. I saw little of Chantel. It might have been that Monique wanted to give her as much time as possible with Rex before they parted. Perhaps she took a sly interest in their romance. They seemed to have struck up a close friendship with the Glennings. Or perhaps this was just to provide chaperones. In any case the four of them were often together.

The night before we were due to arrive at Sydney I met Redvers on the deserted boat deck. It was a warm night and the breeze which was ever present during the day often dropped at night.

To be alone with him was something for which I longed yet feared.

“Anna,” he said as he came toward me. I was leaning on the rail looking down into the dark water and I turned and faced him.

“Here we are on this ship,” he said, “and I scarcely ever see you.”

“It won't be long now before I leave the ship.”

“Has it been a good journey?”

“I have never known anything like it. I shall never forget it.”

“Nor I.”

“You have had so many voyages.”

“Only one with you on board.”

“Where shall you go after you leave us on Coralle?”

“I shall be carrying cargoes for two months or so and then I shall call back at the Island before the journey home.”

“So…we shall meet again.”

“Yes,” he said. “We usually put into the Island for a couple of nights. I have been thinking…”

“Yes.”

“Wondering,” he went on, “what you will make of the Island.”

“I don't quite know what to expect. I've no doubt that the island of my imagination is quite different from the reality.”

“It's half cultivated, half savage. That's what makes it so strange. Civilization exists rather…uneasily. I have been thinking a great deal about your staying there.”

“My staying there?”

“Monique must stay. It is necessary for her health. And Edward should of course stay with his mother. But I wonder about you, and Nurse Loman of course. I think when I return you may well ask to be taken home.”

“Would there be cabins for us on your ship?”

“I shall see that it is possible.”

“That is comforting,” I said. “Very comforting.”

“So we may have another voyage together?”

I shivered.

“You're cold?”

“Who could be cold on a night like this.”

“Then it was a shiver of apprehension. Anna, why are you afraid?”

“I don't know if I should call my feeling fear.”

“I should not speak to you like this, should I? But should we pretend to be what we are not, to deny the truth?”

“Perhaps it would be better to.”

“Could it be right at any time to deny the truth?”

“In some circumstances I am sure it is.”

“Well,” he said, “I shall not be governed by such ethics. Anna, you remember that night when I came to the Queen's House?”

“I remember it well.”

“Something happened then. That house…I've never forgotten it. The clocks ticking, the furniture all over the place, and we were there at that table with those candles burning in the sticks.”

“Very valuable sticks. Eighteenth-century Chinese.”

“We seemed isolated, just the two of us, and that girl flitting back and forth waiting on us. It was like being alone in the world and nothing else being of any importance. Did you feel it? I know you did. I couldn't have felt it so intensely if you had not.”

“Yes,” I said, “for me too it was a memorable evening.”

“Anything else that had happened before seemed of no significance.”

“You mean your marriage?”

“
Nothing
else seemed of any significance. There were just the two of us, and those clocks ticking away, they seemed to do something with time. Does that sound stupid? I had never been so happy in my life. So elated and yet contented, excited and yet serene.”

“That was before the disaster of
The
Secret
Woman
.”

“But I was already married and that was a greater disaster. Oh yes I shall speak frankly to you. I make no excuses for myself. I just want you to understand. The Island fascinated me when I first saw it, fascinated me as it now repels me. When you see it, perhaps you'll understand. And Monique, she was so much a part of the Island. I was entertained there by her mother. It's a queer place, Anna. I shall be uneasy thinking of you there.”

“Chantel will be with me.”

“I'm glad of that. I don't think I should allow you to be there alone.”

“Is it so terrifying?”

“You will find it strange, difficult to understand perhaps.”

“And you can leave Edward there happily.”

“Edward will be all right. He is after all one of them.”

“Tell me about them.”

“You will see for yourself. Her mother and the old nurse, and the servants. Perhaps it is my imagination. I was fascinated at first and I thought Monique beautiful. I should have got away. I should have known, but of course I didn't until it was too late. And then marriage became a necessity and after that I was committed.”

“You left Monique on the island and sailed away?”

“It was a similar trip to this one. And when I came out again that was with
The
Secret
Woman
. And then next time when I called at the Island I brought Monique back to England. And now…I shall leave
you
there.”

He was silent for a while and then he went on: “I wonder what will happen this time.”