Not that he interfered particularly. But he was always hanging round her deck-chair, urging her to partner him in the games, and, when she refused, sitting down beside her with his dumb, stonelike obstinacy and a rather martyrized expression.
Anna would not play in the games. Not so much because she disliked the games themselves — certainly they were inane and boring enough, but then the whole shipboard life was such a madness of inanity that the lesser, incidental imbecilities were excusable — but because she could not endure the determinedly jovial attitude which everyone adopted towards the skittle contests and the quoits and the deck-tennis and deck-everything-else. ‘Let’s get up a cheery party.’ ‘Let’s collect a cheery crowd.’ There was something about the very sound of the word ‘cheery’ that set her teeth on edge with repulsion. All this fizz of jovialness left her cold. She was somewhat contemptuous, somewhat dazed in the society of all these jolly good fellows who treated her to their peculiar mixture of gallantry and effrontery and mock-deference — all overlying, in some way, a fundamental slight. Presumably the slight was unconscious and unintended; but it was there, none the less. A kind of masculine all-highest condescension to which the other women played up disgustingly. The flighty feminine dove-cote always seemed to be in a flutter of coquettish excitement over some fine gentleman. It was the sort of atmosphere which one expects to meet in mid-Victorian fiction. But it had a central nullity particularly its own. Underneath the superficial cheeriness and the little flirtatious excitements was a sort of flatness, an emptiness. As though at any moment the whole system might collapse into a black abyss of vacancy.
Anna found it all rather depressing. However, she sat calmly in her chair, and watched the slow, hot passage of the hours, and felt uneasy and dubious. A horrible empty feeling she had. And lonely, as if the universe were tumbling down in a watery swirl, and she alone stood solid on her solitary peak. The horizon was like a ruled line, clean-cut and rigid, cutting the world in two. The upper half, the sky, pale ultramarine; the lower, the watery half, cobalt, or sometimes prussian-blue with streaks of purple in it. The empty, empty world of water and blueness! In her eye came an ache like nausea, craving so keenly the relief of solidity. She wanted so much to find something to catch hold of. But what was there?
The days went by, and they were at Colombo — the voyage was ending. She came up on deck one morning, very early, and saw the land, a tremulous, rosy scarf floating on the blue rippling water, but pearly, pearly, a very precious and diaphanous thing, lucent and phantasmal. She remembered that Ceylon was called the pearl-drop of India. And there it was, the pearl, before her eyes.
Many passengers were leaving the boat, Findlay among them. Matthew and Anna went ashore with him. They had arranged to make an expedition together, a sort of farewell party. They would drive to Mount Lavinia, dine and stay the night. It was not necessary to return to the ship till the following day.
Anna was very excited. It was dry land, solidity at last. She was in the East, in the great continent of ancient Asia, with the hot earth underfoot. And really, in the blue and glittery atmosphere, in the reckless, transparent flood of sunshine, in the hot dazzle of buildings, and palm trees bursting up, there was something different, something romantic. And the fantastic figures of the men going about, so womanish with their coloured skirts and their long black hair turned up in a bun or swathed round a tortoiseshell comb — altogether womanlike until you saw their smallish, metallic faces which had a curious small-scale maleness of their own, a sort of masculinity in minature. Like men dressed up as women in a pantomime they were, after you had seen their male faces. Anna was exhilarated.
In the afternoon they motored into the country, in a whirl of dust and palms and scarlet and vivid green, and chickens scattering at the sides of the roads — all rather gaudy and unconvincing, like a pantomime. There was even a glimpse of elephants solemnly trundling. Then, in the evening, a hotel by the sea, gardens, people bathing, and palm trees darkly leaning over the pale sand.
Anna was very aware of Findlay. But what did she feel about him? She looked at him to find out. He smiled at her. And the blood stirred in her veins. This was her response, but what did it mean? She was on the alert for him, she wanted to make contact.
But she could not speak to him. There was no opportunity. The presence of Matthew and of the other people was like a wall of rock round her. She hated them. In a fury of intolerance her grey eyes looked out at them. But she gave no sign. She sat quietly, concealed and secret behind her smiling face. So the whole evening passed without any trace of intimacy. Findlay and Anna were like affable, shipboard acquaintances taking leave of each other. Matthew sat near Anna and refilled her glass. And as she drank she began to grow angry. A sort of shame was at the root of her anger, her heart was cold. She looked at Findlay with a smiling, cold face which he seemed not to see. Then, laughing, saying that they must go and look at the moon, he led the way out of doors.
Anna went with him into the garden. The night was brilliant, the moonlight burned and glittered. The moon seemed smaller, more distinct, much more dazzling and intense than the English moon. It was like a small round hole in the sky through which the white fire of brightness poured in a concentrated beam. The air was quite warm.
The warm night air was on Anna’s face, not stirring, but lying softly upon her, like a flower. It was an alien, soft air, heavy with the suggestion of unknown things. And she was alone with Findlay. Out in the mysterious, nocturnal garden he walked beside her.
‘Shall we go down to the sea?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ came his airy voice.
And smiling, he took her hand. A sharp tremor went over her.
‘Which is the way?’ she said.
‘Here,’ he answered.
He walked holding her hand in the moonlight, she saw his face strangely blanched and masklike, and yet beautiful. It was the beautiful curve of his mouth which so enthralled her.
They went in silence, wading through the pale brightness. The moonlight was like a fluid, a magic, silvery element, buoyant and wonderful.
They came to the shore, a ghostly silver waste, with grey wraiths of palm trees writhing and bending. The sea moved with mysterious massiveness, shadowed and brightly flashing, the mysterious, slow waves of the Indian Ocean rolled in, slowly, heavily, without spray, and flattened themselves with a dull, muted crash. It was all mysterious and unfamiliar; rather oppressive, the heavily swinging ocean, in the flare of dead white light.
She stood on the sand, on the unstable, treacherous body of the sand, and watched the slow rhythm of the unfurling waves. Her heart was cold like the sea. And yet an emotional excitement burned hotly in her veins, because of Findlay, and because of the wine she had drunk.
‘I don’t like it,’ she said, in an unfamiliar tone. ‘It’s a dead sea.’
He gave an odd, half-mocking jerk of his head, and began to laugh. She could not hear his laughter in the noise of the waves, but she saw his face laughing at her boldly, carelessly, mischievously, like the satyr he resembled. She had an impulse to abandon herself — to him? — to what? She was not certain.
‘Rex?’ she said to him.
‘Well?’ he answered.
The impudent smile showed on his face, he took hold of her hands. She felt the warm, firm swell of his chest. For the moment she was open to him. If he should take her at this moment she would yield. She waited for him: let him do as he wished. She leaned towards him in the moonlight, she felt his hands holding hers.