Whether one day he dropped a word to his new second officer or only looked at him I don't know; but Mr. Powell seized the opportunity whatever it was. The captain who had started and stopped in his everlasting rapid walk smoothed his brow very soon, heard him to the end and then laughed a little.
"Ah! That's the story. And you felt you must put me right as to this.""Yes, sir."
"It doesn't matter how you came on board," said Anthony. And then showing that perhaps he was not so utterly absent from his ship as Franklin supposed: "That's all right. You seem to be getting on very well with everybody," he said in his curt hurried tone, as if talking hurt him, and his eyes already straying over the sea as usual.
"Yes, sir."
Powell tells me that looking then at the strong face to which that haggard expression was returning, he had the impulse, from some confused friendly feeling, to add: "I am very happy on board here, sir."The quickly returning glance, its steadiness, abashed Mr. Powell and made him even step back a little. The captain looked as though he had forgotten the meaning of the word.
"You--what? Oh yes . . . You . . . of course . . . Happy. Why not?"This was merely muttered; and next moment Anthony was off on his headlong tramp his eyes turned to the sea away from his ship.
A sailor indeed looks generally into the great distances, but in Captain Anthony's case there was--as Powell expressed it--something particular, something purposeful like the avoidance of pain or temptation. It was very marked once one had become aware of it.
Before, one felt only a pronounced strangeness. Not that the captain--Powell was careful to explain--didn't see things as a ship-master should. The proof of it was that on that very occasion he desired him suddenly after a period of silent pacing, to have all the staysails sheets eased off, and he was going on with some other remarks on the subject of these staysails when Mrs. Anthony followed by her father emerged from the companion. She established herself in her chair to leeward of the skylight as usual. Thereupon the captain cut short whatever he was going to say, and in a little while went down below.
I asked Mr. Powell whether the captain and his wife never conversed on deck. He said no--or at any rate they never exchanged more than a couple of words. There was some constraint between them. For instance, on that very occasion, when Mrs. Anthony came out they did look at each other; the captain's eyes indeed followed her till she sat down; but he did not speak to her; he did not approach her; and afterwards left the deck without turning his head her way after this first silent exchange of glances.
I asked Mr. Powell what did he do then, the captain being out of the way. "I went over and talked to Mrs. Anthony. I was thinking that it must be very dull for her. She seemed to be such a stranger to the ship.""The father was there of course?"
"Always," said Powell. "He was always there sitting on the skylight, as if he were keeping watch over her. And I think," he added, "that he was worrying her. Not that she showed it in any way. Mrs. Anthony was always very quiet and always ready to look one straight in the face.""You talked together a lot?" I pursued my inquiries. "She mostly let me talk to her," confessed Mr. Powell. "I don't know that she was very much interested--but still she let me. She never cut me short."All the sympathies of Mr. Powell were for Flora Anthony nee de Barral. She was the only human being younger than himself on board that ship since the Ferndale carried no boys and was manned by a full crew of able seamen. Yes! their youth had created a sort of bond between them. Mr. Powell's open countenance must have appeared to her distinctly pleasing amongst the mature, rough, crabbed or even inimical faces she saw around her. With the warm generosity of his age young Powell was on her side, as it were, even before he knew that there were sides to be taken on board that ship, and what this taking sides was about. There was a girl. A nice girl. He asked himself no questions. Flora de Barral was not so much younger in years than himself; but for some reason, perhaps by contrast with the accepted idea of a captain's wife, he could not regard her otherwise but as an extremely youthful creature. At the same time, apart from her exalted position, she exercised over him the supremacy a woman's earlier maturity gives her over a young man of her own age. As a matter of fact we can see that, without ever having more than a half an hour's consecutive conversation together, and the distances duly preserved, these two were becoming friends--under the eye of the old man, I suppose.
