So that Mr Voss, the German, listening with the others to that talk of soil, flag, and Illustrious Queen, in music of speech at least, for he had taken refuge in his own foreignness as a protection from sense of words, was looking rightly sardonic. He was compelled to shift his gaze from the faces of men, and to cast it out into space. Any other attitude would have been hypocritical, but, on the other hand, no one else present was justified in aspiring to that infinite blue.
When Colonel Featherstonhaugh’s speech had unwound, right down to the last inch of buckram, and the Queen had been saved, in song and with loyal hats, and the pink, young Lieutenant, whose name was Charlie Tatham, Tom Radclyffe remembered, had become entangled in an important personage with his sword, Mr Voss roused himself, and in his usual, stiff, reluctant manner, presented to His Excellency’s envoy Mr Palfreyman and Frank Le Mesurier, who were at his side, Mr Bonner, and other supporters of the expedition — or rather, some of these last more or less presented themselves, as they were in the habit of dining with, and on several occasions had even got drunk with, the Colonel.
Then a horse neighed, dropped its fragrant dung, and life was resumed.
As the spectators were circulating again, making every effort to whirl the leader of the expedition out of one another’s grasp, Mr Bonner realized that he had finally lost control of his plaything, and began to sulk. It seemed to him that nobody had paid sufficient tribute to his initial generosity, without which the present function would not have been taking place.
‘Well, Bonner,’ said the Colonel, in whose vicinity he was left standing, and who now saw fit to extend some measure of informal joviality to the Colonials amongst whom his lot was temporarily cast, ‘there is little for ordinary mortals like you and me to do. It is up to the Almighty and the wind.’
‘Oh, the wind,’ exclaimed Mr Bonner, looking gloomily at the sky, ‘the wind suits itself when it comes to filling canvas. We shall be kept here mumbling the same words till tomorrow at dark. That is the wind all over.’
The Colonel, who had no intention of remaining five minutes beyond official necessity, smiled his conception of a jolly smile.
‘Then it is up to the Almighty, eh, Bonner?’
And he summoned his Lieutenant to summon their vehicle, that he might abandon the whole damn rout, and dispatch his dinner. His duty done, his long legs folded up, the door of the landau closed, the Colonel looked about him from under his eyebrows with the superiority of his class and rank. Not even the Almighty would have denied that.
Then he was driven away, and almost everybody, certainly Mr Bonner, was glad.
Feeling suddenly released from any further obligation whatsoever, the latter was determined to punish someone, and resolved to do it in this manner.
‘Our presence here is superfluous,’ he decided, ‘now that we have paid our respects. So let us take it that we may slip away.’
‘Oh, papa!’ Belle cried.
‘I will ride round by the store. Palethorpe is an excellent fellow, but will depend to his dying day on someone else’s judgement.’
‘But Papa, the ship,’ pleaded Belle, who was again a little girl, ‘we shall not see her sail!’
Mr Bonner did not say: Damn the ship.
‘You, Mr Radclyffe, will escort the ladies home, where Mrs Bonner will have been expecting them this little while.’
The Lieutenant, who was still in a position where he must appear exemplary, answered:
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then, at least,’ protested Belle, ‘let us shake hands with Mr Voss, who is our friend, whether we like him particularly or not. Papa, surely you agree that this would be only right? Laura?’
But Laura said:
‘If Uncle will shake hands, I feel nothing further will be necessary.’
‘How peculiar everybody is,’ Belle remarked.
She was only just beginning to suspect rooms that she might not enter.
‘I wish I was free,’ she paused, and pointed, ‘like that black woman. I would stay and wait for the wind. I would wait all night if need be. And watch the ship out.’
‘Does it mean so much to you?’ asked Tom Radclyffe, who was bored by Belle for the first time, and realized that similar occasions would occur.
‘Nothing,’ she cried.
‘You are exciting yourself, Belle,’ said her father, who did not consider that his daughter or his niece needed to be understood.
‘It is not what the ship means to me,’ said Belle.
It was that she had been made drunk by life, and the mysterious wine that spilled from the souls of those she loved, but whom, perhaps, she would never know.
‘I do not care for the ship,’ she persisted, ‘or anyone in her. Do you, Laura?’
Laura Trevelyan was looking down.
From this jagged situation the party was saved by Voss himself, who came up and said to Mr Bonner with a spontaneous thoughtfulness which was unexpected:
‘I regret that my departure must be causing you so much inconvenience, but I have not learnt yet to influence the wind.’
Mr Bonner, who had begun to wonder what he could influence, and whether even his daughter was giving him the slip, laughed, and said:
‘We were on the point of disappearing. You would not have noticed it in these circumstances.’
The German squeezed Mr Bonner’s hand, which made the latter sorrier for his situation. The way people treated him.
‘I will remember your kindness,’ Voss said.
He could have become fond of this mediocre man.
I will not give him the opportunity, Mr Bonner thought, on sensing it.
‘If you should find yourself in need of anything,’ he hastened to say, ‘you will inform us.’
His mind snatched at packing-needles.
Belle was happier now that the departure was taking a more personal shape.
‘You may send me a black’s spear,’ she called, and laughed, ‘with blood on it.’
Her lips were young and red. Her own blood raced. Her thoughts moved in pictures.
‘Indeed, I shall remember this,’ the important explorer called back, and laughed too.
‘Good-bye, Tom,’ he continued, grasping the Lieutenant, who had bent down from his horse, and offered his hand with rather aggressive manliness to preclude all possible sentiment; one never knew with foreigners.
‘Good-bye, old Voss,’ Tom Radclyffe said. ‘We shall plan some suitable debauchery against your return. In five years’ time.’
He was forced to shout the last words, because his big horse had begun to plunge and strain, as the horses of Tom Radclyffe did, whenever their master took the centre of the stage.
‘In five years’ time,’ his strong teeth flashed.
Foam was flying.
‘With a beard over my arm,’ laughed Voss, matching his friend’s animal spirits with a less convincing abandon of his own.
All this was spoken as he was touching other hands. The fingers of Belle Bonner slid through his. The hands of women, even of the younger ones, he took as a matter of course, but always as an afterthought.
‘Tom! Do, please, take care!’ Belle Bonner begged. ‘That horrible horse!’
One woman screamed, whose cheek was lashed by horsehair — she felt it in her mouth, a coarse, stinging dustiness. Her bonnet had become disarranged.
While everybody was apologizing, and Voss was smiling and watching, still rather pleased with that scene of horseplay in which he had acted a minor but agreeably unexpected part, he was reaching up and taking Miss Trevelyan’s hand, which the glove made quite impersonal. Fascinated by the movement and colour, the turmoil and laughter, the confusion of the good woman who had bit upon the horse’s nasty tail, he did contrive to shake hands, if only after a fashion.
As soon as a decent interval had elapsed, Laura withdrew her hand. If Voss did not notice, it was because he was absorbed.