pg28948 [156]
"How a prey?"
"They'd come and take everything you'd got."
"Well, they couldn't take much even then. I don't care what they take. I'd rather have a robber who carried me off than a millionaire who gave me everything you can buy."
"That's because you are a romanticist."
"Yes, I am. I want to be romantic. I hate houses that never go away, and people just living in the houses. It's all so stiff and stupid. I hate soldiers, they are stiff and wooden. What do you fight for, really?"
"I would fight for the nation."
"For all that, you aren't the nation. What would you do for yourself?"
"I belong to the nation and must do my duty by the nation."
"But when it didn't need your services in particular—when there is no fighting? What would you do then?"
He was irritated.
"I would do what everybody else does."
"What?"
"Nothing. I would be in readiness for when I was needed."
The answer came in exasperation.
"It seems to me," she answered, "as if you weren't anybody—as if there weren't anybody there, where you are. Are you anybody, really? You seem like nothing to me."
They had walked till they had reached a wharf, just above a lock. There an empty barge, painted with a red and yellow cabin hood, but with a long, coal-black hold, was lying moored. A man, lean and grimy, was sitting on a box against the cabin-side by the door, smoking, and nursing a baby that was wrapped in a drab shawl, and looking into the glow of evening. A woman bustled out, sent a pail dashing into the canal, drew her water, and bustled in again. Children's voices were heard. A thin blue smoke ascended from the cabin chimney, there was a smell of cooking.
Ursula, white as a moth, lingered to look. Skrebensky lingered by her. The man glanced up.
"Good evening," he called, half impudent, half attracted. He had blue eyes which glanced impudently from his grimy face.
"Good evening," said Ursula, delighted. "Isn't it nice now?"
"Ay," said the man, "very nice."
His mouth was red under his ragged, sandy moustache. His teeth were white as he laughed.
"Oh, but—" stammered Ursula, laughing, "it is. Why do you say it as if it weren't?"
"'Appen for them as is childt-nursin' it's none so rosy."
"May I look inside your barge?" asked Ursula.
"There's nobody'll stop you; you come if you like."
The barge lay at the opposite bank, at the wharf. It was the Annabel, belonging to J. Ruth of Loughborough. The man watched Ursula closely from his keen, twinkling eyes. His fair hair was wispy on his grimed forehead. Two dirty children appeared to see who was talking.
Ursula glanced at the great lock gates. They were shut, and the water was sounding, spurting and trickling down in the gloom beyond. On this side the bright water was almost to the top of the gate. She went boldly across, and round to the wharf.
Stooping from the bank, she peeped into the cabin, where was a red glow of fire and the shadowy figure of a woman. She did want to go down.
"You'll mess your frock," said the man, warningly.
"I'll be careful," she answered. "May I come?"
"Ay, come if you like."
She gathered her skirts, lowered her foot to the side of the boat, and leapt down, laughing. Coal-dust flew up.
The woman came to the door. She was plump and sandy-haired, young, with an odd, stubby nose.
"Oh, you will make a mess of yourself," she cried, surprised and laughing with a little wonder.
"I did want to see. Isn't it lovely living on a barge?" asked Ursula.
"I don't live on one altogether," said the woman cheerfully.
"She's got her parlour an' her plush suite in Loughborough," said her husband with just pride.
Ursula peeped into the cabin, where saucepans were boiling and some dishes were on the table. It was very hot. Then she came out again. The man was talking to the baby. It was a blue-eyed, fresh-faced thing with floss of red-gold hair.
"Is it a boy or a girl?" she asked.
"It's a girl—aren't you a girl, eh?" he shouted at the infant, shaking his head. Its little face wrinkled up into the oddest, funniest smile.
"Oh!" cried Ursula.