Free The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R. A. Dick Page B

And there again this question of time comes into it, and a great deal more that, as I told you before, I couldn’t begin to attempt to put into earthly language, because there are no words for it.”
    “You said just now that only the unhappy do return,” said Lucy. “Are you then so unhappy?”
    “Not unhappy so much as angry,” the captain admitted. “I always did consider that suicide in the general case was about the most cowardly end any man could have, and I resented and continue to resent that I should be branded as a coward, and I also resent the fact that that fellow in South America should have what I intended for honest sea captains, and I am also a pig-headed idiot and very little advanced in after-life, though I may sound so to you.”
    “I must say you don’t sound unhappy,” Lucy said, “nor morbid, nor supernatural. I don’t feel a bit shivery when you visit me.”
    “Well, you soon will,” said the captain, “if you don’t hop into bed. There’s a sea-mist blowing up—I’d sooner sail a ship through a nor’easter than a fog in the Channel,” he went on as Lucy obediently turned away from the open window. “There’s haunting for you—ghosts of ships wailing their sirens, and you driving your own into nothingness, as if you’d gone over the edge of the world. Tuck yourself up now, like a good girl, and I’ll tell you about the time a steamer rammed us in a fog off The Nore, when I was an apprentice in sail.”
    “How can I tuck myself up when I’m not undressed yet?” said Lucy.
    “Well, go ahead and undress,” said the captain, “it won’t worry me.”
    “I was thinking of myself,” said Lucy stiffly. “Will you please go away?”
    “There’s no need for my going,” replied the captain, “clothes or the lack of them mean nothing to me.” There was a chuckle, followed by a long silence. Lucy tentatively removed her dress.
    “You’ve pretty shoulders,” said the captain dispassionately, “and a damn fine figure.”
    “Oh, dear!” said Lucy, seizing her dressing-gown from its hook and holding it in front of her. “Are you still there? I thought you’d gone.”
    “You wear the wrong sort of clothes,” the captain went on imperturbably, “and far too many of them. No one would ever guess you were a miniature Venus de Milo in all that upholstery you drape over yourself—there’s no need to blush though pink cheeks become you.”
    “You’re hateful,” said Lucy, putting her hands up to her burning face and thereby dropping the dressing-gown. She picked it up quickly and put it round her.
    “Go away, you horrible man, go away,” she ordered.
    “Now, now, Lucia, control,” said the captain soothingly, “there’s no need to fly into a tantrum. Bodies as bodies mean damn little to me as I’ve told you before. All this nonsense about nudity is blasted rot anyway.”
    “Will you go?” Lucy said, her temper rising.
    “Dammit, no!” said the captain, “but I’ll turn what you would call my back.”
    There was another silence. Lucy turned off the light and finished her undressing. She put on her old-fashioned nightdress, with its frilled collar and cuffs, and she stood looking out at the stars and the bright path of moonlight stretchedacross the dark water, till it seemed to her that she became part of something much greater than herself, in which there was no room for false pride, nor false modesty, nor false imaginings.
    “Good night,” she said gently, “I’m sorry I was cross.”
    “Oh, Lucia,” the captain said softly, “you are so little and so lovely. How I would have liked to have taken you to Norway and shown you the fiords in the midnight sun, and to China—what you’ve missed, Lucia, by being born too late to travel the Seven Seas with me! And what I’ve missed, too.”

III
    Summer sailed its magnificent way into autumn and autumn into the shelter of winter’s harbouring, and life went on in growth and peace at Gull Cottage.
    The