Later I realized how good this voyage was for me. It took me completely away from those wretched months when I had first waited anxiously for news of my father and then staggered under the terrible blow when it came.
The pattern of life on board was breakfast in the saloon, the long mornings, luncheon at twelve, the slow afternoons, dinner at four for which passengers put on their more elaborate clothes and during which the band played light music, and then strolling about the decks until tea at seven.
We went ashore at Gibraltar and spent a pleasant morning there. It was wonderful to ride in a carriage with Stirling and see the sights of the place: the shops, the apes, and the rock itself.
“Sometimes,” I said, “I wish this trip could go on for ever.”
Stirling grimaced.
“Suppose we missed the ship,” I suggested.
“Suppose we built a ship of our own and went on sailing round the world wherever the fancy took us.”
“What crazy things you think of!” He was derisive. How different from my father who would have gone on with the wild, impossible story of how we built our ship and the exotic places we sailed to.
“I remember him,” he said.
“He would talk in the most fantastic way, pretending that what he knew was impossible would happen..”
“It was a lovely way to live.”
“It was crazy. What sense is there in pretending something will happen when you know it won’t?”
I would not allow any criticism of my father.
“It made life gay and exciting,” I protested.
“It was false. I think it’s a waste of time to pretend you believe in the impossible.”
“You are very matter-of-fact and … Dull?” I was silent and he urged: “Come on. Tell the truth.”
“I like to think wonderful things can happen.”
“Even when you know they can’t?”
“Who says they can’t?”
“Like coming ashore for a few hours and building a ship and sailing off round the world without a navigator, a captain or a pilot, taking no account of harbour dues and navigation. You’ll have to grow up, Nora, when you’re in Australia,” I was annoyed, seeing in this an attack on my father.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have come.”
“It’s too early to comment on that.”
If you’re going to think I’m childish . “
We certainly shall if you indulge in childish fantasy as—’ “As my father did. Did you think him childish?”
“We thought him not very practical. His end showed that, didn’t it? If he had handed over the gold he would be alive today. What sense is there in deluding yourself into thinking that you can hold something and giving your life to prove you’re wrong? “
I was hurt and angry and yet not able to discuss my father logically.
I grew silent and was angry with Stirling for spoiling a perfect day.
But this was typical of my relationship with him. He made no concessions to polite conversation; he stated what he believed and nothing would make him diverge from it.
I knew that what he said was right but I could not bear that my father should be subjected to censure.
Although at times I disliked his overbearance, when he showed—as he often did—that he was taking care of me, I felt a warm, comfortable emotion.
The weather had grown warm and I loved the tropical evenings. After the seven o’clock meal he would sit on deck and talk. Those were the occasions to which I most looked forward, even more than the sunlit days when we would walk up and down the deck or lean over the rail and he would point out a frolicking porpoise or a flying fish.
One evening as we sat on deck looking out into the warm darkness of the tropical waters I said to Stirling.
“What if Lynx doesn’t like me?”
“He’d still look after you. He’s given his word ” He sounds difficult to please. “
Stirling nodded. This was true. Lynx might be all-powerful but he was not always benevolent.
“He sounds like one of the Roman gods whom people were always placating.”
Stirling grinned at the comparison.
“People do try to please him naturally,” he said.
“And if they don’t?”
“He lets them know.”
“Sometimes I think I should have done better to stay at Danesworth House.”
“You’ll have to learn to be truthful if you want to please Lynx.”
“I’m not sure that I want to. I should hate to be his meek little slave.”
“You wait and see. You’ll want to please him. Everybody does.”
“You’re brutally frank about my father. Why shouldn’t I be about yours?”
“You should always say what’s in your mind, of course.”
“Well, I think your Lynx sounds like a conceited, power-crazy megalomaniac.”
“Let’s consider that. He has a high opinion of himself—he shares that with everyone else. He likes to be in command and there is no one like him. So, slightly modified, your description might not be completely inaccurate.”
“Tell me more about him.”
So he talked of his father as we sat there and I made many pictures in my mind of this powerful man who had so impressed my father that he had left me in his care.
“He was sent out of England as a prisoner thirty-five years ago,” said Stirling.
“It had its effect on him. He’s going back one day … when he’s ready.”
“When will he be ready?”
“He told me once that he will know when the time comes.”
“He does talk to you sometimes like an ordinary human being then?”
Stirling smiled.
“I believe you have made up your mind to dislike him.
That is very unwise. Yes, he is human, very human. “
“And I’ve been thinking of him as a god!”
“He’s like that too.”
“Half-god, half-man,” I mocked because I remembered how Stirling had talked of my father, and I knew that he compared the two of them; and as, in Stirling’s opinion no one on earth could shine beside his father, mine suffered miserably in the comparison.
“Yes,” he went on, “Lynx is human. He’s a man … a real man, but much grander in every way than other men.”
“You tell me so much of your father. What of your mother? Does she subscribe to the general view of your father’s greatness?”
“My mother is dead. She died when I was born.” His face had darkened almost imperceptibly with some emotion.
“I’m sorry. I know you have a sister because she was coming to meet me. Have you any other sisters and brothers?”
“There are only two of us. Adelaide, my sister, is eight years older than I am.”
I wondered about Adelaide. I asked questions, but a very colourless picture emerged. He only glowed when he talked of Lynx. I thought of my own mother who had ‘gone away’.
“What of your mother?” I asked.
“Did she go out as a prisoner, too?”
“No. My father was sent to work for hers. Imagine the Lynx being sent to work for anyone!”
“Well, he was a prisoner then, not the great Lynx he is today.” I reminded him.
“He was always a proud man. I suppose my grandfather realized that.”
“Your grandfather?”
“The man my father was sent to work for. Very soon my father had married his daughter—my mother.”
“That was clever of him,” I said ironically.
“It happened,” he replied laconically, unsure, I believed, whether to applaud his father’s cleverness or deny his calculation.
“So he married out of bondage, one might say.”