Free Grand Canary by A. J. Cronin Page A

happiness you want?’
    â€˜Cannot you see,’ he answered glowingly, ‘ I am happy? Salvation spells happiness, here and hereafter. That’s a cinch – a certainty. If only you could see it! Oh, I wish I could convince you, ma’am.’
    Wrapped unapproachably in her indolence she said:
    â€˜You mean then – you want actually to – to save me?’
    She had a vague derisory impulse to employ another predicate – but she refrained.
    â€˜My mission is to lead people to salvation,’ he cried, and a strange sincerity rang through the florid words. He bent towards her, his eye humid, fervent: ‘Won’t you try, Mrs Baynham? Won’t you try to come to God? You are too fine really to be lost. Come! Come! Oh, let me help you to come!’
    She sat motionless, holding in her body a secret, contemptuous hilarity which suddenly swelled unconquerably. She burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter through which, like the trumpet note of judgement, there came a bugle’s clarion call. It was the signal for luncheon.
    At last she turned to him.
    â€˜I’ve just thought,’ she declared brokenly. ‘You haven’t – you haven’t taken your liver extract.’

Chapter Eight
    Just after seven bells on that same day Harvey Leith came out of his cabin for the first time since the ship had reached blue water. In the alley-way he paused, dazzled by a sunlight which his unaccustomed eyes could not sustain, flooded by a strange pariah sense of isolation. In that merciless light his face betrayed what he had suffered. The ridges of his cheeks were gaunt, but though weakness still assailed him he was better – incomparably better. Trout had shaved him, assisted him to dress in the nondescript grey suit, and now observed him from the cabin doorway with a bland creative pride. The little steward had been assiduous, and Corcoran, too, had come often to the cabin to plague him with companionable philosophy during those last three days.
    He was not ungrateful, yet for all their succour he felt a stranger upon the ship. And so desired it. Supporting himself against the rail he slowly ascended the companion-way to the bridge deck. Upon the port side, wrapped in a rug, sat Mother Hemmingway, her fat, ringed hands like blobs of butter upon her lap, her figure spineless as a bag of dough. Since at this moment she neither smoked nor ate she was doing nothing – she merely sat. But when she saw Leith her beady eyes glistened with their bright, malicious stare.
    â€˜Well, well,’ she cried. ‘If it ain’t the strynger. Sancta Maria, but you don’t ’alf look scuppered. My ’at and parsley, you gives me quite a turn.’
    Harvey gazed downwards at her bulging cheeks so blotched they seemed to ooze blood.
    â€˜Ought I to apologise?’ he asked stiffly.
    â€˜Ah!’ she exclaimed in a friendly tone. ‘I don’t think none the worse on you ’cos you was lushed. Carajo, no, sir. And it’s ’ell when you’re knocked off it pronto. Wot you need is a drop of nigger’s blood – stout and port that is. ’Streuth but it’s lively.’ She winked. ‘Say the word and I’ll do you a turn.’
    â€˜No thanks,’ said Harvey flatly. And he turned to go.
    â€˜â€™Ere, don’t go awye,’ she cried volubly. ‘Sit down and be matey. My tongue’s ’ angin’ out for a parley-vous. With that bleedin’ old snob at the tyble ye can’t get a word in edgewyes. ‘ E’s too stuck up for Gawd Almighty. “Do you ’unt?” says ’e to me to-dye, meanin’ to tyke me down a peg. “ ’Unt,” says I – “I don’t know an ’orse from an ’am-bone but if you try to make gyme of me I’ll ’ unt the bleedin’ ’ide off your back.”’ Indignantly she tossed her earrings; but immediately she smiled.