CHAPTER XIIICAPTAIN WELFARE KEEPS HIS PROMISE
MY boat did not sail until the following day, and I now felt a degree of mental and bodily lassitude and exhaustion that prevented my having any pleasure in the prospect of my last day in Egypt. I suffered from a profound nostalgia and craved only to be home. I had the feeling that I should never see my experiences in perspective until I saw them from my own study. Much as I dreaded the sight of him, I yet longed to see Jakoub, to have a final reckoning with him, to find out at least his intentions and know the worst; but Jakoub did not appear, and I had not the faintest idea how to find him.
I was very lonely and depressed as I gave notice to the hotel people that I should leave the following morning.
Van Ermengen had kept out of my way since our last interview, but the news of my departure brought him at once to see me.
His manner was grave and courteous as he bade me good morning. “Excuse me,” he said, “but I understand you sail to-morrow?”
“That is so.”
“Have you any instructions about the—ah—the goods in your room?”
“No; I don’t think I have, thank you.”
“They cannot remain here, you know.”
“Of course not.” I fear I was spitefully enjoying his perplexity and deliberately prolonging it.
“But you cannot take them with you.”
“I had not thought of doing so.”
“But what am I to do? I must have the necessary authority to hand them over.”
“You won’t be bothered about it at all, Mr. Van Ermengen.”
“But I will be, I must be! I will not hand over the goods to anybody without authority.”
“You will not be asked to; it is all arranged.”
I turned away, but he came after me and caught my arm.
“But this is my house,” he said, getting more excited; “things like this cannot be arranged without my knowledge.”
“It seems to me that they have been,” I said coldly, shaking off his hand. “‘The goods,’ as you call them, are in the charge of my partner.”
“But he cannot leave them here without consulting me.”
“I suppose not,” I agreed; “I suppose that is why they have taken them away.”
“Taken them away?” he repeated.
I nodded. His look of perplexity changed to one of suspicion, and then suspicious fury.
“But they cannot do this without my knowledge. It is impossible!”
“Well, they have done it. You can go and see for yourself.”
The man began to lose self-control and raised his voice.
“But it is not legal,” he cried shrilly; “it is robbery!”
We were in the entrance hall of the hotel, and there were people standing and sitting about.
“Please don’t make a scene here,” I said. “It cannot do any good, and it is unpleasant.”
He glared at me, but controlled his voice.
“Will you please to come into my office and discuss this matter?”
“I see nothing to discuss.”
“But I demand an explanation. Some of this property is mine,” he blustered. “It was in your charge. If it has been stolen——”
“Come, then,” I said. “I will talk it over.” I saw that if I refused to go with him there certainly would be a scene, with, possibly, disastrous consequences.
He led me into the office where I had heard him talking with Jakoub. There was a sort of sloping counter along the wall under the window with papers and big account books on it, and we both stood by this facing each other. Van Ermengen’s thin, knife-like face was eager and malevolent. It would have frightened me once, I reflected, but I had faced him before and had the better of him. Now I felt a kind of queer pleasure in the idea of conflict with him.
“I will have this cleared up at once,” he began.
“Certainly, that will be best,” I assented.
“I will not be played fast and loose with.”
“Not by me, Mr. Van Ermengen, certainly.”
“Itisby you!” he insisted. “You speak of your partners. They are my partners. But I do not know you. I have no arrangement with you.”
“None at all, except that I am responsible for settling my bill. I think under the circumstances I had better settle it now and change my quarters.”
“It is not of that I speak, and I do not appreciate to be mocked! I tell you I had an interest, a considerable interest, in the goods which you insisted to have in your room. You tell me the goods are gone. Very well, I hold you responsible to me. I will have my money, please, if I do not have the goods. I will not be robbed by any damned sham parson.”
“You shall not,” I said quietly. “I am rather at a loss here in your country, but at home if you wanted to charge me with theft you would only have to call a policeman and give me in charge, as they call it. I happen to know these things because I am a county magistrate, as well as being a perfectly genuine parson.”
“Damn you,” said Van Ermengen, whose temper seemed to have gone; but who was as much impressed by the word “magistrate” as the lower orders still are in England, in spite of the degradation which has overtaken the once respectable Commission of the Peace.
There was a lull in the storm.
“I do not want your police,” he said at length. “I want my money.”
“And I will pay nothing, beyond my hotel bill, except through police or lawyers.”
“How did they get the stuff away?” he asked, his curiosity getting the better of his anger. “Damnation, they must have taken it through the window!”
“I don’t think it matters,” I said indifferently. “You must get any information you want from them. As you say, you and I have no business relations.”
“But I will have my money,” he spluttered. “You will not leave Alexandria till I get it.”
This made me uneasy, because I did not know what the man might do, or could do. But I felt it was essential not to betray any uneasiness.
“I shall certainly sail to-morrow,” I said, “and I do not consider it worth my while to change my quarters. If you attempt to interfere with me in any way, I shall simply report you to a friend of mine as an importer of hashish——”
“For God’s sake, hush!” he exclaimed. “Do not shout that word.”
“I have nothing to fear,” I assured him. “I do not mind who hears me say it. When I came here I did not know what the vile stuff was. By a coincidence I learned all about it, and I determined to stop your vile trade. I have acted accordingly. You may believe that or not; it does not matter what you believe. I made my friends remove your poison and theirs—it was not mine. It will never be sold. I shall see it destroyed. If you are wronged you can take what action you please. But I warn you, Mr. Van Ermengen, you will not get a penny out of me except by process of law. Now, if I am incommoded in any way while I remain here, I know what to do. I have nothing more to say, and I shall be glad if you will have my bill ready for me in good time in the morning.”
“You will hear more of this,” said Van Ermengen as I left his office. I thought it was rather a feeble remark, but I feared greatly that Ishouldhear more of it, and that Jakoub would be the medium through which I should hear.
It was a relief when Brogden rang me up and asked me to spend the afternoon and dine with him at the Yacht Club. I forgot all my troubles while I held the tiller of his two-and-a-half rater.
Although we spent the afternoon and eveningtogether, there was no more said about the hashish business. I understood that he must be at a loss and would avoid reference to it, and I had no longer any reason to question him.
Brogden saw me off at the dock the next morning.
I greatly dislike being “seen off,” but after all his kindness I could not tell him so. Thus it was that I, who had so strangely and unintentionally stumbled into Egypt, left the land of sunshine and mystery like any respectable and most commonplace traveller.
The low line of yellow sandhills we had been so long approaching a few days ago soon sank below the horizon as the great steamer rushed seawards, and in spite of the sorrow that had come upon me there, I felt a certain sadness at seeing the land fade from sight. I felt that there in these few days I had had more of a man’s part in the world than in all the other days of my life. I knew that what I had done there would offend many consciences more conventional than mine. A legal phrase cropped up in my mind, and I believed that I had “compounded a misdemeanour.” I had certainly sailed “close to the wind.” But I believed that I had saved my brother from irretrievable disaster. I had done what I could to break up a nefarious conspiracy, and though I now saw things that might have been better done, I looked my conscience in the face and was not ashamed.
That evening just at sunset I saw a sail ahead of us. It looked small and insignificant in the distance, but a great hope came over me that it might be theAstarte. As we overhauled her she altered her course so that we should pass closer to her, and I saw the leg-o’-mutton sails, the longhigh bows and the bowsprit with its head-sails “like a skein of geese.” I found myself close to one of the ship’s officers as I leaned on the taffrail watching her.
“What the devil is that idiot doing?” he said; “she looks as if she wanted to cross our bows. There’ll be some swearing on the bridge if she makes us alter course!”
“She won’t,” I remarked. The officer looked at me with surprise and some amusement. I suppose it did seem quaint in a clerical passenger to assume a knowledge of nautical matters. But in a minute or two the helmsman let her away again, and put her back on a course nearly parallel to our own. The officer glanced at me as though there were something uncanny about me. At the same moment I saw a string of flags mount to her peak. The officer got his glass on her.
“I beg your pardon. Can you tell me what that signal is?”
“Yes; it’s ‘All well.’ I wonder who the deuce they think they’re speaking, or what they’re playing at, anyhow. She’s one of those little Levantine fruit boats. But she looks cleaner than most of them.”
A great weight was taken off my mind, for I knew that Captain Welfare was safe, and they had taken this chance of telling me so, no doubt guessing I would find someone to read the signal.
We were rapidly overhauling theAstarte, and I saw that our converging courses would soon bring us within a few cables’ length of each other.
Already through my glasses I could recognise Edmund at the wheel, and Captain Welfare holding by the shrouds, directing the movements of some of the crew for’ard.
I raised my white helmet at arm’s length above my head, but it was doubtful whether they saw the signal; for already I was surrounded by a group of curious passengers, all waving handkerchiefs in obedience to that strange instinct which creates a sense of excited fellowship between strangers who meet and pass each other in ships or railway trains.
However, my movement was immediately followed by a wave of Captain Welfare’s hand, and something splashed into the sea and sank in theAstarte’swake.
The splash was repeated, and I could see that the crew were heaving overboard the precious, hateful cargo.
Captain Welfare was keeping his promise.
I watched the process, fascinated at first, infinitely thankful to feel that the load of iniquity which had so burdened my spirit was thus at last cast into the sea and theAstartepurged of sin. But very soon I was recalled to uneasiness.
The curiosity of the silly passengers around me was excited by the process, and I still scented danger in every trivial circumstance connected with the nefarious trade.
“Whatever are they doing?” was the question I heard repeated all around me.
The ship’s officer beside me came unexpectedly to my relief.
“Chucking bad rations overboard,” he replied to one of the more eager questioners.
“Those Levantine schooners,” he added, in an oracular tone, as he turned round from the taffrail to explain to his audience. “Those Levantine schooners always load up with condemned bully and other blown tins to feed their dago crew on. Sometimes they drive it too far, and the stuff getsinto such a condition that nobody can live aboard with it. Then it has got to be jettisoned. That is what they are doing. Those fellows drew across to us because they were frightened of a mutiny while they chucked the stuff away.”
He closed his telescope with a snap and looked round impressively, receiving the homage which landsmen pay to the omniscience of the officers responsible for their lives.
Thus was one minor wrinkle of anxiety smoothed away for me.
TheAstartefell rapidly astern, and the setting sun turned her white sails to bronze. In spite of all that had happened I longed to be back aboard her.
“I hope,” Edmund had said, “that you will always keep a warm place in your heart for her.” I found I had, and that it would hurt me as much as him when she was sold.
My blunder about “scrap price” had been prophetic.
When I thought of the little familiar cabin of theAstarte, all the pomp of the saloons and state-rooms on the steamer seemed to me but vanity and vulgarity.
I was back in my vicarage. In my absence the tremulous passion of spring had passed into the suave splendour of early June. I grudged having missed the pageant of April and May, for at my age one begins to count the number of springs one can still hope to see. I had rather dreaded my arrival and the necessity of explaining things, but it was made much easier for me than I had dared to hope.
Travellers are often disappointed by the lack of interest in their experiences which they findamong those they left at home. The fact that they have temporarily enlarged the orbit of their little swirl on this planet gives them a new sense of their own importance. They are apt to look upon events that have happened at home as trivial, merely because they happened at home and not in some other latitude. Until they settle down again, they think of the people around them as absurdly interested in very minor matters. They forget that in them too distance had once annihilated interest, and will do so again.
As always happens on such occasions, Bates and Mrs. Rattray were much more eager to impart information than to receive it, and for once the returned adventurer was sincerely thankful for this perfectly natural attitude of mind.
Mrs. Rattray had deemed the occasion of sufficient importance to emerge from her own precincts and welcome me in the hall.
“We were glad to get your wire, sir,” she said as Bates took my coat and brought my scanty luggage in.
“I was afraid you would be very uneasy,” I said, feeling like a guilty schoolboy. “But I simply hadn’t a chance to send word, and I could not resist going on.”
“No, sir. It would have been a pity as long as you were enjoying it. We didn’t worry the first fortnight. But then we did expect to hear. I would have been very anxious, only the weather kept so fine I felt you couldn’t come to any harm, only for them wild men on the ship, sir. Bates didn’t like the looks of them at all.”
“Oh, they were really most harmless fellows.”
“How did you leave Mr. Edmund, sir?” asked Bates.
“Quite well, thank you. He is on his way home, but it will be a few weeks before he gets back. Where is Mr. Snape?”
“He is away for the day, sir. He told me to apologise to you, and tell you he had made an appointment with his Lordship. He thought it better not to put it off.”
“Quite right. There’s no trouble, I hope?”
“Well, sir,” Mrs. Rattray explained, “they will be very glad to see you again in the parish. Oh no, not trouble exactly, but they don’t seem to hold with some of his ways, I don’t know why. I’m sure a quieter gentleman in the house I never knew.”
The highest praise Mrs. Rattray ever gave to one of my sex was to describe him as “quiet.” She seemed to suspect all men of a tendency to sudden outbursts of noise.
“Some of them don’t like his ritualistic ways, sir,” said Bates. “There were none of the regular sidesmen collecting last Sunday, and there has been trouble because he asked Miss Reynolds to be secretary of his new communicants’ guild. She’s only been a year in the parish, and they did not like the idea of a guild, anyhow.”
“All right, Bates. No doubt Mr. Snape will tell me all about it. Now I must go and see the pigeons till lunch is ready. Then I’ll have a walk round the village.”
All was well in my pigeon-loft, and the young birds were promising. It was a peaceful little world. I sighed as I thought what a pity it was that Christians could not make more allowance for each other’s fads. Most of us are so terribly anxious to close all avenues to the Kingdom of Heaven except our own crooked little path.
Among my parishioners in the afternoon I found that I had to protect poor Snape from a widespread suspicion of his being a secret emissary of the Vatican. The other mistake he had made was to start only three of his “organisations.” There was thus much jealousy about the filling of official positions in connection with them. I saw at once that in a community as small as ours the only sane method would be to start sufficient “organisations” simultaneously to provide secretaryships and treasurerships for the whole of the adult Church population. I decided to do this, unless the existing ones first died a natural death. I hoped they would for so far they did not seem to have made people behave better, but had been the source of a good deal of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.
However, all this turmoil saved me from enquiries about my own recent movements. They were much too preoccupied to take any interest in these, though they were, I believe, unfeignedly thankful to see me back among them. I decided to preach to them about Charity. I would tell them that though nobody knew exactly what St. Paul meant by “Charity,” for all his list of attributes, yet we all knew exactly what was meant by “uncharitableness,” and that the main thing was to avoid the latter.
On getting home I wrote to the bishop. I apologised, unnecessarily I knew, for my prolonged absence. I told him frankly it was impossible to explain this in a letter, but that I had many surprising and painful things to tell him, and was in great need of his counsel. I besought him to give me an opportunity of talking to him as soon as he could spare an hour or two, and added asin duty bound, that it was not in connection with the affairs of the parish that I wished to trouble him, but that my distresses were entirely personal.
His reply was delayed a day owing to his departure for London, but I will quote a part of it here. “I could give you a brief interview immediately on my return, but I feel sure from the tone of your letter that you have matters to discuss that demand more than this. If you could have me for a night next week we could talk things over as of old. It would be a great pleasure and rest to me too. For the time is a terribly harassing one. I think it is not at all generally known how fearfully anxious the European situation is becoming. There are many forces at work that appear to be intent on war, and I feel that Satan may be unchained among us almost any day. Do not, however, speak of this at present, and if you wish to see me earlier do not hesitate to come over to the Palace any day after to-morrow.
“Poor Snape was over the day you wrote, and told me of his troubles with your flock. I am arranging other, and I hope more suitable, duty for him. Dare I ask you to keep him with you for a few days? I know he has to consider expense, as he has got into debt, among other troubles, purely through financing some of his own attempts at ‘organisation.’ To paraphrase the Book of Common Prayer: ‘He has left unpaid those bills he ought to have paid, and paid those bills he ought not to have paid, and there is no sense in him.’
“You will no doubt have perceived that he is one of those excellent, earnest idiots that are so hard to keep out of mischief. But he is a lovable soul too, and capable of great good if I could onlyfind the right sphere for him. I know you will not mind helping me to help him.”
The bishop’s letter made me feel that, after all, I did know what St. Paul had meant by “Charity.” It was the spirit that could see the worst in a man and believe the best of him, the love that could recognise folly and succour it without contempt.
After having mingled so much with what was base, and paltry, and mean, the thought of seeing the bishop again was to me like mountain air to one who had dwelt in a dungeon.
Snape returned in time for dinner, and after a few perfunctory enquiries about my “trip,” as he called it, he told me of his interview with the bishop.
“I could see at once,” he said, “that his Lordship was put out. He had a very worried look. Somebody must have told him about the attitude of the people here.”
“Perhaps he has something else to worry about besides this parish.”
“Oh no! He seemed full of it, of the parish, I mean. He spoke of nothing else all the time I was with him.”
“And did he make any suggestions?”
“He was most kind, most kind; and very interested, but——”
“Yes?”
“I don’t at all wish to be misunderstood, or to seem in any way wanting in respect for his Lordship, but I cannot honestly say that he was very helpful.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No, I really would not call his advice helpful. He seems to share your view that scientific organisation in parochial affairs is not universally applicable.”
“Good heavens! I never said that!”
“Not perhaps in those words, but that is how I have formulated what I understood you to say.”
“My dear fellow, I couldn’t have thought of anything half so brainy. I was only afraid that those sort of things wouldn’t work very well in this particular parish. As a matter of fact, they don’t seem to be taking very kindly to them, do they?”
“They need educating,” said Snape, quite complacently. “At the start there is bound to be friction. And, as you know, friction always generates heat!”
He evidently felt that he had said a neat thing, and laughed in the manner of a pious man making an innocent concession to frivolity. I felt as if he were beginning to hypnotise me.
“What we should do,” he continued with a bland air of superior wisdom, “is just as in mechanics—to find the co-efficient of friction, that’s what we want—the co-efficient of friction.”
“What we want is lubricating oil, I should think.”
“Quite, quite. Oh yes, we must have our lubricating oil too, but at a later stage. We must first find our co-efficient.”
He had a morbid delight in the phrase, a bubble from the forgotten mathematics of his Little-go days that something had set dancing in his brain-pan. I knew it had no meaning in this connection, but like most of us, the man did not want meanings. I saw he would make a great hit at a clerical meeting with his “co-efficient of friction,” and I felt certain he was making a mental note of it for some such purpose.
He surprised me, too, for although he had manifestly made a mess of things in the parish his mannerhad an assurance, and even an assumption, of superiority, very different from the timidity I remembered at first. No doubt that had been merely the result of the shyness which mere unfamiliarity produces in weak natures. It had worn off now, and I liked him even less.
“It seems to me,” I said, rather brutally, “that the friction is mainly about who should be secretaries and so on.”
“That is merely a superficial manifestation of a deeper spiritual unrest, I hope of spiritual hunger,” he assured me. “It will be quite evanescent.”
“It didn’t strike me that there was anything evanescent about Mary Gregson’s temper at not being asked to be secretary before Lizzie Reynolds.”
“Of course,” said Snape with dignity, “if we are to be turned aside by the vulgar jealousies of uneducated young women, we cannot make much progress on the road to spirituality, can we?”
I felt it was impossible to argue with the man, so I propounded my theory of multiplying guilds and brigades and things. But he did not approve of this either.
“No,” he said. “That would be to jump from one extreme to another, which is always a mistake. Just as in the natural world, so in the spiritual, there must be a gradual organic evolution. We must be content with small beginnings.”
“The thin end of the wedge, eh?”
“Oh no, pardon me!”
I chuckled. I had deliberately tried that wretched old phrase on him. And the hackneyed metaphor is so invariably used of something undesirable that I was certain he would shy away from the sound of it.
“Well, I suppose you told the bishop I had given you a free hand in the parish?” I enquired.
“Yes, I had already written to him to that effect very shortly after you left! I regret to say that his Lordship seemed to advocate what I can only describe as a policy oflaissez-faire. That is why I venture to say that his Lordship did not strike me as very helpful.”
If I had had the bishop’s letter when he again used that word I am afraid I should have thrown something at him.
“And what about stopping on here for a bit?”
“Ah, yes. I fear that is now out of the question.”
I manfully repressed a great sigh of relief.
“The fact is, his Lordship wants me very soon elsewhere. In any case, I hope I have started the engine, and it may be that you will find it easier to keep it going in my absence. I understand there will be some ten days’ interval before I am required, but I should not feel justified in remaining here. I suppose I must return to lodgings for the time being.”
There was a wistfulness about him as he said this that made me feel mean in my gladness at getting rid of him.
In spite of himself I feared that the comparative comfort of my house had softened his ascetic fibre a little. There was something fine, too, about his immediate acquiescence in the idea of leaving it as soon as he was no longer on duty.
“Why not stop on as my guest until you are wanted?”
The invitation was an impulse I could not resist.
“You are very kind, Mr. Davoren. I have not been used to very much kindness in my life,” he said simply, “and I thank you very warmly.To be frank, what you suggest would be a very real help and convenience to me just at present. But I hardly like to accept——”
“I consider it settled,” I said.
He went to his room early, and I was glad I had asked him, for I felt my soul was in need of some penance. Afterwards I was especially glad that I had done it before I got the bishop’s letter.
I was at last alone in my familiar study with silence, with my shaded lamp, with the June twilight on the garden outside. I sat down, hoping to find the perspective I had lost. But instead I found only a new foreground; a foreground of Snape and his absurdities, of the passions and excitements of my parishioners. It was only as in a mirage that I caught disconnected visions: of theAstartewith her sails golden in the light of the setting sun, slowly pushing her way along with her cargo of iniquity; of the desert with its hot bright sand and lilac shadows; of the rushing terror of the sand-storm, and the pale back of a camel moving ahead of me in the dark; of the stupendous masonry of the half-buried temple of a dead worship; of a sherbet-seller in the native quarter of the Eastern city, with his flaming red tunic, his clashing brass trays, his huge water vessel and great lump of melting ice; of tall yellow buildings draped with purple flowers; of a great pile of packing-cases, a rope and pulley, and a fearful trepidation in a man’s soul; of Welfare sailing out into the night with the crew who would certainly murder him if they guessed his secret. Through every scene in the panorama stole the sinister face and lithe figure of Jakoub. But amid all this, myself I could not see.