The Knight - Chapter 2 Young Powell Sees and Hears

"You remember," went on Marlow, "how I feared that Mr. Powell's want of
experience would stand in his way of appreciating the unusual. The
unusual I had in my mind was something of a very subtle sort: the unusual
in marital relations. I may well have doubted the capacity of a young
man too much concerned with the creditable performance of his
professional duties to observe what in the nature of things is not easily
observable in itself, and still less so under the special circumstances.
In the majority of ships a second officer has not many points of contact
with the captain's wife. He sits at the same table with her at meals,
generally speaking; he may now and then be addressed more or less kindly
on insignificant matters, and have the opportunity to show her some small
attentions on deck. And that is all. Under such conditions, signs can
be seen only by a sharp and practised eye. I am alluding now to troubles
which are subtle often to the extent of not being understood by the very
hearts they devastate or uplift.

Yes, Mr. Powell, whom the chance of his name had thrown upon the floating
stage of that tragicomedy would have been perfectly useless for my
purpose if the unusual of an obvious kind had not aroused his attention
from the first.

We know how he joined that ship so suddenly offered to his anxious desire
to make a real start in his profession. He had come on board breathless
with the hurried winding up of his shore affairs, accompanied by two
horrible night-birds, escorted by a dock policeman on the make, received
by an asthmatic shadow of a ship-keeper, warned not to make a noise in
the darkness of the passage because the captain and his wife were already
on board. That in itself was already somewhat unusual. Captains and
their wives do not, as a rule, join a moment sooner than is necessary.
They prefer to spend the last moments with their friends and relations. A
ship in one of London's older docks with their restrictions as to lights
and so on is not the place for a happy evening. Still, as the tide
served at six in the morning, one could understand them coming on board
the evening before.