Blue Voyage: A Novel (8 page)

“Ha!” cried Hay-Lawrence. “Jolly good! Ha! Ha! Jolly good, that.” He grinned the monocle back into his left eye. “Nor cuspidor!”

“It’s very nice sung, but I can’t sing … A doleful hymn tune.”

The half-opened windows opposite, rising, scooped a rapid green evening sky; then slowly, forwardly, swooped again, scooping a nacreous cloud touched with flamingo. The evening would be cold and clear. Stars indistinguishable from mast lights. Seal up the shipboy’s eyes. Imperious surge. One of the poker players began humming the tune of “My Little Gray Home in the West,” then all began singing, furtively, fruitily sentimental. “Ante, boys,” said the glass-eyed gambler evenly in the midst of it. The words dissolved, lowering, into an ululating hum, richly harmonized.
Ho-ome in the We-est
. Faubion. She came out of the West, flamingo-winged, with eyes far apart, somber and absorbent. “Hello, you!” she cried, provocatively brushing past him with saucily jerked shoulders. The opera cape, flamingo-lined, streamed after her, billowing. “
Faubion
!” sang all the evening stars together. “Oh, Faubion!” they sang, strumming their psalteries of gold and chrysolite. Faubion, coming out of the West, unperturbed, darkly walked eastward on the dark waters, Napoleonic, sardonic, ironic, Byronic. And what of Cynthia, sleeping in the east, deep sleep of the undefiled? “
Cynthia
!” trilled the morning stars with diamond voices … And Smith, little gray homunculus, came out of the sunset, paddling furiously in his coracle, dipping now to left and now to right, birdlike nodding his cuckoo head as he paddled in the infinite. “
Faubion
!” he caroled—“
Coo-hoo Faubion! O Faubion
!” The paddled foam burst into trident flames to right and left as he coracled from wave to wave of the abyss. Phosphorescent foam dripped chrysolite from the paddles, from his fingers, from his drooped mustache; phosphor glowed on his arched eyebrows, outlining fierily his seriocomic eyes. “
Coo-hoo Faubion
!” he sang in tiny tenor, while behind him the evening stars drew together, blue cloak to cloak, psaltery against psaltery, their mountain shoulders touching, their eyes earnest and fiery. “Deep Faubion!” they diapasoned. “
Faubion in the lowest
!”…

“Say not spittoon,” murmured Hay-Lawrence, and pushed the queen’s pawn to queen three with three tiny pushes of a clean finger nail. Again orthodox and safe. The queen’s knight undefended—but mobile. Queen Faubion—the black queen; Queen Cynthia,—white as the moon; and King Caligula, corrupt and lecherous monarch, ripe Camembert of kings. “I would that all the Roman people had but one neck.” Was that a castration complex?… Ah—that dream this afternoon during his nap. The asphyxiated baby in the railroad station. Horrible and strange; for as he worked over it (the Schafer method) pressing with merciful palms the small back to induce breathing, regarding the small blue neck and wondering at the parents who had so casually abandoned it on a railway platform, he suddenly noticed that the head was not a head but a——A spasm of disgust … Sleepless Caligula, much troubled by dreams, dreamed nightly that a figure,—a form—a shape—vague and terrifying and representing the ocean—came to him speaking. This was why he had bidden his army to collect sea shells, as trophies of his victory over the sea. Pawn to queen bishop three was the move. His horse, Incitatus, he had intended to make consul. What form to represent the sea? Seaweed-bearded, arms of green water and fingers of foam; coral-branching; eyes wide, hollow, glaucous, where phosphor bubbled slow-winking, blue and lemon-yellow, vitreous, moon-mocking. And the voice? The dithering crack of two boulders smitten together under the sea? The short cruel resonance of submarine bells? The skirling lollop of a wave running vortical into a dripping cavern, weed-hung, wagging anguishedly like a tongue against the horny barnacled palate, and then out again, inarticulately noisy? “
Oo-wash-oo-wallop-are-you-awake-King Buskin?” …
“Attendants! What ho! Attendants—lights!” … Sweating, staring, Caligula started up. Two frightened attendants, with torches, ran in, kneeling. “Is Pyrallis the prostitute there? Sleeping? Wake her and bring her in! Wake also Valerius.” … “My lord?” said Pyrallis … “Ah, Pyrallis, such a nightmare I have had!—you would not believe it. That wave again, with eyes, but no face. What can it signify?” … “Wine for supper, my lord.” … “Ah, Pyrallis—a throat so lovely—to cut when I like! Shall I cut it, to discover the secret of its loveliness? I have told Caesonia that I will vivisect her, so as to find out why I love her” … Pyrallis cringed, frightened, at the look in the goat’s eyes. If she said, “Yes, vivisect her,” might he not—cruel madman and pervert—vivisect herself?… “Let me soothe you, my lord,” said Pyrallis … Black slaves hoisted a canopy of purple. And Valerius, running out to weep in the street—listen, good Romans and you shall hear of the midnight ride of poor Valere!—that mysterious Catullus Valerius rag.

“The climate?” said the Major, in a pause during which the poker players arranged and examined their cards. “Delightful. Hot in the middle of the day, but you retire for a nap … There! those are the stone stairs I told you about. Look at the size of them. Each step two feet high. It’s a humorous custom there to take ladies to see them. You let the lady go first, and if you loiter a step or two below—
he he
! That’s Mrs. Grant, wife of one of the officials. A jolly good sport.
She
didn’t give a damn—and didn’t wear any petticoat either!… I stayed behind, admiring the view …” He laughed at the Welsh Rarebit with scarlet forehead; his face, flushed with invitation, moving jerkily upward and downward. The Welsh Rarebit, holding the photograph in one hand, regarded the invitation snakily; with an air of stupid appraisal. Then she squeezed his wrist.

“Naughty man!” she crooned.

“Well, boys,” sang the glass-eyed poker player. “I think I’ll have a look at this. There’s fifty, and I’ll raise it ten. It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”

Hay-Lawrence brooded downward with cheeks sunk upon fists. Thought was moving in his brain. Like a train in a dark subway. A red spark coming nearer through the darkness, gliding round curves. Other thoughts too, going in other directions—he was listening to the voices in the room, listening to the half-excluded sound of sea, the thrum of the engines which vibrated his English body. What else? A brass telescope at Cowes; three pairs of white flannels; four pairs of white shoes; tea on the lawn with Lady Daphne Twinkleplume (slightly literary) followed by a week on his little shoot in Wales. At home, his neurotic wife, Gladys, sitting by the fire, looking out of the darkening window on which long bright gashes of rain began to glisten, looking into the gloom of a London dusk, then again sitting by the fire, shivering. Tea at five. Vivien had sailed from Cartagena. He had sailed from Rio. He had sailed (a postcard said) from Panama. He was sailing (a cable said) from New York. The maid was taking Ching (the Pekingese) for a walk round Sloane Square and perhaps as far as Harrods. She ought to have known it would rain. “Vivien, tell me, why is it you go away so much? Why are you always going away to sea? leaving me alone?” “Are we going to discuss that again?” “I can’t stand it, Vivien—I can’t stand it … and all my friends saying——” “Let them talk. Tell them it’s doctor’s orders. Always tell them that. It’s doctor’s orders that I should go to sea, and go to sea alone. Would you like me to go mad?”

Knight to queen’s rook four, the black horse taken firmly by the ears.

“This is the part of the game where I always go wrong,” said Hay-Lawrence.

Exchange the bishop for the knight? No. Concentrate on the center—then the queen’s pawn forward. Bishop back, out of reach, to bishop two.

“The part where I invariably go wrong,” murmured Hay-Lawrence lifting his queen’s bishop’s pawn to bishop four. Pawn attack on the queen’s side—not too difficult to dispose of. Hay-Lawrence was human, after all—began shrinking to commensurable proportions. Refinement without taste, intelligence without originality. From either vantage point, one could probably intimidate him; for he was intelligent enough to know his weaknesses and weak enough to be snobbish, to want to make a good impression. Silberstein, for all his vulgarity, had ruffled him and put him at a disadvantage. “Why shouldn’t
I
?” thought Demarest, secretly smiling. “
The Duke of Clarence, my partner
.” Pawn to queen four. Moses Caligula Silberstein. Solomon Caligula. Did Jael: with a nail: pierce the
viscera:
of Sisera? No, his head! He is dead … Caligula in Italian sunset under a purple canopy, on which flashed the eagle: Veronese, crouching in the dark foreground, saw the scene. The wide eye of Veronese saw the royal canopy, saw the black hand that drew the curtain, watched the distance brightening among the hills. The cold, precise, lavish hand of Veronese took possession of these things; but it lacked madness … Again:
King Caligula, setting forth; after a seven days’ meditation; marched his army a parasang north; and in the evening took his station: on a green hilltop peaked and gleaming: in the last slant of Alban sun. Black slaves hoisted a canopy of purple—to hue the vision of the godlike one …
The movement too jaunty altogether—but no matter. Let it go—let it come—let it blossom and die. Why did it blossom, though, out of the massive face, dead white brow, and cruel eyes of Silberstein?…
There, as he slept, he had his vision:
but what was the vision? Elysian, fountain, mountain—threadbare rhymes, but let them serve.
There as he slept he had his vision: candles burned by the sacred fountain; sadly he walked, through a twilight Elysian, and came to the wall of the laureate mountain
. (Why laureate?)
Bathe your heart in the lustral water
(a voice, this was—a voice on the air, out of a grotto, out of a tree)
until like silver it burns and shines
(pleonastic),
and lo from the sky comes heaven’s tall daughter—down from a star—by a stair of vines. Seven ripe peaches, from the walls of heaven—
not six, not eight, but seven. The Pleiades. Mystical seven. The seven moles on Juno’s back. The seven stages in the life of man. The dance of the seven veils. Come seven—come eleven; everything at sixes and sevens. S
EVEN
. The word was extraordinarily beautiful, had a balance analogous to the balanced rhythm of the number itself—seven digits, of which the second was the s and the sixth the
N
. N
EVES
: Eno, owt, eerht, ruof, evif, xis, neves. A less emphatic series, but decidedly more interesting as sound, more varied. Queen to bishop two. Yes. He might have withdrawn the knight, however—to knight two. No—a pawn given up. The king’s knight to queen two, then? That might have been better?…

“Oo, no—certn’y
not
!” cried the Welsh Rarebit with all-embracing archness, loudly and proudly.

“Why not?” The Major leaned forward over clasped fingers. His eyes, without the pince-nez, were beginning to look strained—but he liked his brown eyes to be seen. He had probably been told that their effect was fatal. They twinkled, small, dark and bright, shy yet challenging, attractive in spite of (perhaps partly because of) their boyish vanity.

Peggy lifted her black-and-white striped coat collar against the side of her face as if she were taking the veil. Over this she swerved green eyes at him, upward. Then lowered the long lashes and looked away. An expression of practiced fright—yet perhaps there was some faint survival of genuine feeling in it. The Major, still gazing at her, as she did not reply, gave the little crisp musical giggle (very appealing) with which he was accustomed to fill in awkward pauses; and cast a quick glance over the small room to see if he were being observed. When his eye met Demarest’s, he looked sharply away, preened his mustache briskly with thumb and finger, then leaned, flagrantly confidential, toward the Welsh Rarebit and said something inaudible, gravely. Peggy ululated, lifting her throat. The crumpled handkerchief was pressed against her lamia mouth.

“She drinks blood, that trollop,” said Demarest.

“Who? Oh … Can I look?”

“No. The Major has his eye on us … The Major’s a fast worker, as the saying is.”

As the saying is. He had added this phrase for fear Hay-Lawrence might suppose him to use slang unconsciously—a disgusting cowardice! “Yet I feel, somehow, that the Major will play safe, oh, very, very safe.” Queen’s knight to queen two. “With masks and buttons—a friendly bout, no injuries, and a sweet heartache, not too severe, at farewell.”

“He’s welcome,” muttered Hay-Lawrence, not looking up; unexpectedly severe. Something unconquerable in him after all. He scowled at the chessboard. Knight to queen’s bishop three—retreat, confound him—he must be beaten; beaten thoroughly, but with inexpressive modesty, not to say apathy.

“I wouldn’t touch her with a tent pole,” Hay-Lawrence added. Hay-Lawrence with a tent pole, walked sedately, haughtily. The Welsh Rarebit darted before him, twittering. Spare me, Clarence!… Damn silly … Pawn to queen five:
Now
—move your blasted knight again—move it, damn you! And hurry up.

“Damn it, why don’t they open the bar?” Hay-Lawrence was angry. “Absurd to keep us waiting like this. Steward?” A commanding finger.

Malvolio, languidly smiling, took four steps; steadying himself
en route
against a chair back.

“Yes, sir.”

“When does the bar open?”

“Seven o’clock. Not till seven on Sunday. Ten minutes yet, sir.”

“What’s yours, Demarest?”

“Mine? Oh—double Scotch.”

“Bring up a double Scotch and a port flip, as soon as you open.”

“Double Scotch and a port flip.”

“Utterly absurd on a ship … Absurd enough on land.” Scowling he lifted the knight, held it a moment in air, choosing a landing place, then deposited it on the queen’s knight’s square. Home again. Black was beginning to be bottled up uncomfortably. Malvolio tapped at the bar window, which was opened an inch.

“A port flip, to come at seven.”

“What’s that to me? I can’t do anything without the keys, can I?”

“The gentleman wants it as soon as you open …”

Seven again—the mystic number. S for seven and Silberstein—Silverstone. Good morning, Silverstone!… Now to break open that queen’s side—a Caesarean operation—Caesarean tactics. Very simple. Pawn to queen’s rook four—that was it—that would do it. Afterward the knight could get through. That is, if Hay-Lawrence, as he expected, moved the knight’s pawn … Those fingers of his, so damnably refined, poised, clustered, above the pawn—like Cynthia’s. Not really like Cynthia’s; but they belonged, somehow, to the same constellation. Cynthia, pondering over the chessboard, frowning, poising her fingers thus—stately, reserved, leaning forward for a moment out of a world so remote from his own, stepping down for a moment from her heavenly treasure house, with a star on her finger, to move the king on the board and then reascend—yes,
heaven’s tall daughter … Seven ripe peaches from the walls of heaven, she holds in her hands. Bright, in her hair, the Pleiades glow: the Fireflies seven, shine above her eyes and her forehead is fair … Angels follow her; gravely, slowly; with silver and vermilion and rainbow wings … One, more luminous—lost in his own light—sits on a cherry tree bough, and sings: Blest be the marriage betwixt earth and heaven
! Cynthia’s fingers moved the knight’s pawn to knight five. Ah! Cynthia—not so skillful as usual! You will be checkmated, Cynthia,—or else you’ll resign … That first game they had had on the
Silurian
—when he had fetched the board from the smoking room. She had received it with delighted surprise—with what a lighting up of her face! “Why, where did you get this? Is it yours?” … And the book. He had been carrying the book under his arm when Billington stopped him and introduced him to her. “I’ve found a chess player for you!” he had cried fatuously. “Miss Battiloro, may I introduce Mr. Demarest? Mr. Demarest has been looking everywhere for a chess player …” Then Billington had disappeared … The astonishment, the incredulity, on finding himself thus introduced to
her,
whom he had been avoiding for three days! He had been excited, frightfully excited. What was it, about her, that had so agitated him from the outset, when he had seen her climb up the gangway, slowly, then turn about on the deck—flinging the brown scarf end over her shoulder—to wait for her companion? The obscure shock had gone through him at once, as he watched her from the deck above—gone through him like a tidal wave of the blood … She, then—he had said to himself—is the one I must escape! I must keep away from her … This had not been difficult; for the simple reason that she had, from the beginning, produced a peculiar change in him: She had made him shy, she had stripped him of his defenses, she had taken ten years from his age and made him again a callow and awkward youth of seventeen. The thought of talking with her simply terrified him. And then, from the blue, the introduction!… And regarding the title of the book, when he had put it down on the deck beside her, she had said—“That’s
lovely,
isn’t it! Don’t you like it?” … The effect of this commonplace remark had been overwhelming. Its nature, the nature of the magic, was dual; for first it was the slender beauty of her voice, which everywhere broke through and into him; and then it was the swift revelation, no less intoxicating, that she had a “mind.”—The two perceptions came upon him together, came like the opening of the sky for a bewilderingly beautiful confusion of music. He was done for; and he knew it instantly … Pawn to rook five … Hay-Lawrence castled, not pausing to think. Now, then—knight to bishop four!
This
would make him think … Six bells from the brass clock on the fluted wall—
tan-tan; tan-tan; tan-tan
. The bar window opened with a bang, the bartender withdrawing a white linen arm. Malvolio stepped nimbly, ingratiatingly, with the tray.