قوهای نقره‌ای

chapter two

The Silver Swans

‘He’s very ill, isn’t he, Doctor Fundoby? And I love him even more then when he’s well.’

I did not see my friend for some weeks. Then, on a rainy Sunday, as I walked past the houseboats, somebody called my name.

‘Doctor Fundoby! Doctor Fundoby!’

I turned round. Thetis was running up the steps from the Nerine.

She ran to me and said, ‘Doctor Fundoby! What shall I do? My octopus has eaten one of his arms.’

I replied, ‘They often do that when people keep them. Even when they feed them very well.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Thanks for telling me that. I feel much better now.’

She turned and went back to her boat. As she reached the deck, I called out to her, ‘Did your sailor ever come back?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, and disappeared into the boat.

A few days later a friend asked me to go and see a play with him. It was called The Unwanted, and it was at Wyndham’s Theatre in London.

‘There’s a young woman in it - Alice Adams,’ my friend said. ‘She’s very good, they say. One day she’ll be a great actress.’

When the play started, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The young actress was Thetis! I remembered, then, that her real name was Alice. So this was her evening job!

It was a sad play. Thetis played a young girl who falls in love with an older man. In the end he leaves her and she kills herself. Thetis played the part with deep feeling and understanding. It seemed to me almost that she was the poor girl. I cried for her at the end of the play.

The next Sunday I visited her on her boat. There was now another glass case in her room. There were two large fish in it. She was sitting in front of the case, watching them. She got up to get the brown bottle. The boat was not moving much, but she gave me some of the medicine and I drank it.

‘My dear,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were? I was at Wyndham’s last week.’

‘I did tell you,’ she said. ‘This is the person that I am here. This is the person that I really want to be.’

‘You played the part very well,’ I said. ‘I cried at the end. How can you put so much feeling into the part night after night? How can you show all that pain and unhappiness if you have never been in love?’

She thought for a minute, then replied, ‘That’s the other side of me. I just do it.’

She saw me looking at the glass case. ‘He gave them to me,’ she said.

‘The sailor,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Where did he get them,’ I asked.

‘From the bottom of the river,’ she answered.

‘Did he? How,’ I asked.

‘He went down and looked for them,’ she replied.

‘Now I remember who Richard Hadley is,’ I thought to myself. ‘Does she know? And will her heart break, like the heart of the girl in the play?’

‘Is he in love with you,’ I asked.

‘He laughs at me and says unkind things,’ she said. ‘Does that mean that he’s in love?’

‘And you,’ I asked. ‘Are you in love with him?’

‘I don’t know,’ she cried. ‘I don’t know! I don’t know! Oh, Doctor Fundoby,

I hate being young!’

She put her head on my shoulder and started to cry. I tried to find the words to make her better.

The next Sunday I went for my usual walk. It was very windy and the river was rough. When I saw the Nerine, she was moving from side to side. Thinking of Thetis, I hurried towards the boat. Her room was small and the glass cases were not safe in bad weather.

I noticed that the blue door was open, so I quickly went down the steps. When I reached the last step, I heard a deep cry from Thetis’s room. I was afraid for her, and I hurried in.

Richard Hadley was lying on the bed. He was very sick. Thetis was sitting on the side of the bed, holding his head in one of her arms.

His skin was a grey colour and his face was pale. At first I thought that he was dying. Then the boat moved suddenly. I understood then why he was like this.

‘Thetis,’ I cried. ‘The medicine! Quickly! Where is it?’

‘Oh-h-h,’ cried the unhappy man. ‘Go away, both of you, and leave me to die alone!’

‘I love him,’ Thetis said, happily holding his poor head in her arms. ‘Oh, now I know that I love him. He’s very ill, isn’t he, Doctor Fundoby? And I love him even more than when he’s well.’

I went to the cupboard where Thetis kept the brown bottle of medicine. It was locked. I looked at Thetis. She looked sad. ‘He refuses to say that he’ll marry me,’ she said. Then she added, looking down at him: ‘I don’t mind being a poor sailor’s wife. When you sail away, I’ll come with you. We can sail round the world together.’

I almost laughed at her words. Thetis had no idea about a sailor’s life. And she had no idea who Richard Hadley was.

The unhappy, weak man cried out: ‘All right, all right, I’ll marry you! I’ll do anything, if you’ll just go away. Please leave me to die.’

I was beginning to feel very ill myself, so I cried, ‘Thetis! You cold-hearted girl! Give me the key now. How can you leave him to suffer? How can you do this to the man that you love?’

She untied a piece of blue cloth from around her neck. The key was on it.

She looked at the floor as she gave it to me. I knew that she was sorry now.

As I opened the cupboard, I heard her say, quietly, ‘He’s sailed on every ocean and sea in all sorts of weather.’

I took some of the medicine, then I gave some to the great ocean scientist - Richard Hadley, Lord Struve.

Thetis looked at me. ‘Will you come to our wedding, Doctor Fundoby,’ she asked.

I was still feeling sick, and I was not happy with her. So I replied, ‘If he marries you after this suffering, he’s crazy.’

Lord Struve probably suddenly felt better, because he sat up. He said, ‘I’m glad that you said that, Doctor Fundoby. Promises don’t mean anything when they are made in ill-health.’

‘But you wanted to come on to the Nerine in this weather,’ she said, sadly. The colour was returning to his face. I came for a good reason. I love you, and I wanted to tell you that,’ he said.

‘So why didn’t you tell me,’ Thetis asked, simply.

For a minute he did not know what to say. Then he said, suddenly, ‘Because I felt ill. Now listen, Thetis. If you’re going to marry me, you must know two things. You must know who I am. You must know what I do.’

‘They don’t matter,’ Thetis replied. ‘I love you.’

I was feeling better, so I said, ‘And your acting?’

Lord Struve looked at me in surprise. ‘Whose acting,’ he asked.

‘This is Alice Adams,’ I cried. ‘She’s been in the play The Unwanted at Wyndham’s for the last two years.’

He looked at her. ‘This child,’ he said. ‘She is a child, isn’t she?’

Thetis moved her head in a silent yes.’

But I said: ‘She’s England’s best young actress and she’s twenty-one.’

He stood up. ‘Yes,’ he cried. ‘I remember reading something a long time ago. I’ve just come back from the Galapagos,’ he continued. ‘I haven’t heard anything about England for nearly two years.’

Thetis jumped up and ran to him. ‘Oh, please take me there,’ she said, in an excited voice. ‘All my life I’ve wanted to go to the Galapagos. Can sailors take their wives with them when they go?’

Lord Struve cried, ‘I’m not a sailor, Thetis! I’m a-‘ He stopped.

He found it difficult to say: ‘I’m a lord.’ He started again. ‘I’m a kind of ocean scientist. I do a lot of my work under water. But your acting-‘

Before he could finish, Thetis said: ‘It doesn’t matter. I never wanted to be an actress. I only do it for the money. I can buy octopuses, and live on the Nerine. Do you know what a good octopus costs?’

Lord Struve held both her arms.

‘Thetis, can you be serious for a minute? Do you really mean that you’ll give all that away for me?’

‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘More than anything in the world, I would like to walk with you on the bottom of the ocean near the Galapagos, because–’

She stopped for a minute, thinking. ‘Because I’m sure that I love you. Doctor Fundoby showed me that.’

For another minute Lord Struve held her two arms, while he looked up with a very happy look on his face. He seemed unable to believe what he was hearing.

And so the song of ‘The Silver Swans’ came true. Thetis, the water-child, married her lord of the sea - Richard Hadley.

I still walk along by the River Thames, but I don’t enjoy the walk as much as before.

Lord Struve, his wife and her octopus have gone away to a beautiful island in the Pacific Ocean. There they work together with the wonderful undersea plants and animals around them.

A family have bought the Nerine and they have painted her a dark brown colour. They have changed the name to the Nelson, after one of the greatest British sailors - Sir Horatio Nelson. I pass her every Sunday and a washing line goes from the back of the boat to the front. It is filled with washing - the clothes of small children.

And I think, as I go past, ‘Do they have strong stomachs like Thetis? Or did she give them the name of that wonderful medicine in the brown bottle?’