Read the book: «Marjorie», page 3

CHAPTER VI
THE GENTLEMAN IN BLUE

My mother glanced up from her work at me. I knew that her look asked me if I had heard the bell, and if I would not go to the door in answer; and, though I felt lazy, I was not base enough to ignore that appeal. So I lurched up from my chair and swung through the little shop and flung the door wide open, a thought angrily, for I had been deep in my brown study and was stupidly irritated at being jarred from it.

I half expected, so far as I expected anything, to see some familiar neighbour, with the familiar demand for a twist of tape or a case of needles, so that I confess to being not a little surprised and even startled by what my eyes did rest upon. The doorway framed a wholesome picture of a middle-aged comely gentleman.

I see the stranger now in my mind’s eye as I saw him then with my bodily vision – a stoutly made, well set-up man of a trifle above the middle height, in a full-skirted blue coat; a gold-laced hat upon his powder, and a gold-headed cane in his hand. The florid face was friendly, and shrewd too, lined all over its freshness with little lines of experience and wisdom and knowledge of the world, and two honest blue eyes shone straight at me from beneath bold black eyebrows.

It was certainly a most unfamiliar figure in the framework of our shop door, and I stood and stared at it, somewhat unmannerly, for a space of several seconds. After a while, finding that I still barred his way and said nothing, the stranger smiled very good-humouredly; and as he smiled I saw that his teeth were large and white and sound.

‘Well, young sir,’ he said pleasantly, ‘are you Master Raphael Crowninshield?’

I told him that was my name.

‘Then I should like to exchange a word or two with you,’ he said; ‘can we be private within?’

I answered him that there was no one inside but my mother, and I begged him to step into the little parlour.

The stout gentleman nodded. ‘Your mother?’ he said. ‘Very good; I shall be delighted to have the honour of making madam’s acquaintance: bring me to her.’

I led the way across the shop and up the two low steps into the little parlour, where my mother, who had heard every word of this dialogue, had laid aside her sewing, and now rose as the stranger approached and dropped him a curtsey.

‘Be seated, madam, I beg,’ said the stranger. ‘I have a word or two to say to your son hereby, but first’ – here he paused and addressed himself to me – ‘prithee, lad, step to the door a moment and wait till I call for you. Your mother and I have our gossip to get over.’

There was something so commanding in the kindliness of the stranger’s manner and voice that I made no hesitation about obeying him; so I promptly rose and made for the shop, drawing close the door of the parlour behind me.

I stood awhile at the outer door, looking listlessly into the street, and wondering what the blue gentleman could have to say to my mother and to me. Even now I can recall the whole scene distinctly, the windy High Street, with its gleams of broken sunlight on the drying cobbles – for it had rained a little about noon, and the black clouds were only now sailing away towards the west and leaving blue and white sky behind them. I can see again the signs and names of the shops opposite, can even recall noting a girl leaning out of a window and a birdcage in an attic.

When the door of the parlour behind me opened for the blue-coated gentleman I noted that my mother stood with a pale face and her hands folded. He beckoned me to him and clapped his hand on my shoulder, and though he laid it there gentle enough, I felt that it could be as heavy as the paw of a bear.

‘My lad,’ he said, gazing steadily into my face with his china-blue eyes, ‘your good mother and I have been talking over some plans of mine, and I think I have induced her to see the advantage of my proposals. Am I right or am I wrong in assuming you have stowed away in your body a certain longing for the wide world?’

I suppose my eyes brightened before my lips moved, for he cut me short with: ‘There, that’s all right; never waste a word when a wink will do. Now, am I right or am I wrong in supposing that you have a good friend whose name is Lancelot Amber?’

I was determined that I would speak this time, and I almost shouted in my eagerness to say ‘Yes.’

‘That will be a good voice in a hurricane,’ the blue gentleman said approvingly. Then he began again, with the same formula, which I suppose pleased his palate.

‘Am I right or am I wrong in assuming that he has told you of a certain old sea-dog of an uncle of his whose name is Marmaduke Amber?’

I nodded energetically, for after his comment I thought it best to hold my tongue.

‘Very good. Now, am I right or am I wrong in supposing that you feel pretty sure at this moment that you are looking upon that same old sea-dog, Marmaduke Amber?’

This time I smiled in good earnest at his fantastic fashion of self-introduction, observing which the blue gentleman swayed me backwards and forwards several times with his right hand, and I felt that if I had been an oak of the forest he would have swayed me just as easily, while he said with a kind of approbative chuckle: ‘That’s right – a very good lad; that’s right – a very smart lad.’ Then he suddenly lifted his hand, and I, unprepared for the removal of my prop, staggered against the counter, while he put another question.

‘And what do you think Marmaduke Amber wants with you?’

I shook my head, and said I could not guess.

‘Why, to make a man of you, to be sure,’ the gentleman answered. ‘You are spoiling here in this hen-coop. Now, Lancelot loves you like a brother, and I love Lancelot like a father, and I am quite prepared to take you to my heart for Lancelot’s sake, for he is scarce likely to be deceived in you. You must know that I am going to embark upon a certain enterprise – of which more hereafter. Now, the long and the short of it is that Lancelot is coming with me, and he wants to know, and I want to know, if you will come too?’

‘If I would come too!’

My heart seemed to stand still for joy at the very thought. Why, here was the chance I was longing for, dreaming of, day and night; here was a great ship waiting to carry me on that wrinkled highway of my boyish ambition; here was the change from the little life of a little town into the great perils and brave existence of the sea; here was a good-bye to love and sorrow, and the putting on of manhood and manly purposes!

Would I not come! My lips trembled with delight and my speech faltered, and then I glanced at my mother. She was very pale and sad, and at the sight my joy turned to sorrow. She saw the change on my face, and she said, very quietly and resolutely: ‘I have given my consent, my dear son, to your going hence. Perhaps it is for the best.’

‘Mother,’ I said, turning towards her with a choking voice, ‘indeed – indeed it is for the best. I should only mope here and fret, and come to no good, and give you no pride in me at all. I must go away; it will not be for long; and when I come back I shall have forgotten my follies and learnt wisdom.’ Lord, how easy we think it in our youth to learn wisdom! ‘And you will be proud to see me, and love me better than ever, for I shall deserve it better.’

Then my mother wrung her hands together and sighed, and tried to speak, but she could not; and she turned away from us and moved further back into the room. I made a step forward, but the stranger caught me by the shoulder, and swinging me round, guided me to the door; and at the door we stood in silence together for some seconds, staring out into the street.

‘Have patience, lad,’ he whispered into my ear; ‘it is a good woman’s weakness, and it will pass soon. She knows and I know that it is best for you to go.’

I could say nothing, for my heart was too full with the joy of going and with grief for my mother’s grief. But I felt in my soul that I must go, or else I should never come to any good in this world, which, after all, would break my mother’s heart more surely and sadly.

Presently we heard her voice, a little trembling, call on Mr. Amber by his name, and we went slowly back together. Already, as I stood by that stalwart gentleman and timed my step to his stride, I began to feel as if I had known him all my life, and had loved him as we love some dear kin.

I do not know how I can quite express what I then felt, and felt ever after, in his company – a kind of exultation, such as martial music stirs in any manly bosom, or as we draw in from the breath of some brave ballad. It would be impossible, surely, to feel aught but courageous in such cheerful, valiant, self-reliant fellowship.

CHAPTER VII
CAPTAIN MARMADUKE’S PLAN

Seated in the back parlour, with his chair tilted slightly back, Captain Marmaduke Amber set forth his scheme to us – perhaps I should say to me, for my mother had heard it all, or most of it, already, and paid, I fancy, but little heed to its repetition. For all the attention I paid, I gained, I fear me, but a very vague idea of Captain Marmaduke’s purpose. I was far too excited to think of anything clearly beyond the fact that I was actually going a-travelling, and that the jovial gentleman with the ruddy face and the china-blue eyes was my good angel. Still, I gathered that Captain Amber would be a colonist – a gentleman-adventurer; after a new fashion, and not for his own ends.

It was, indeed, a kind of Utopia which Captain Amber dreamt of founding in a far corner of the world, beneath the Southern Cross. The Captain had taken it into his gallant head that the old world was growing too small and its ways too evil for its people, and that much might be done in the way of the regeneration of human society under softer surroundings and beneath purer skies. His hope, his belief, was that if a colony of earnest human beings were to be founded, established upon true principles of justice and of virtue, it might set an example which would spread and spread until at last it should regenerate the earth.

It was a noble scheme indeed, prompted by a kindly and honourable nature, and I must say that it sounded very well as the periods swelled from Captain Amber’s lips. For Captain Amber was a scholar and a gentleman as well as a man of action, and he spoke and wrote with a certain florid grace that suited him well, and that impressed me at the time very profoundly. It seemed to me that Captain Amber was not merely one of the noblest of men – which indeed he was, as I was to learn often and often afterwards – but also one of the wisest, and that his scheme of colonisation was the scheme of a statesman and a philosopher.

How precisely the thing was to be done, and why Captain Marmaduke seemed so confident of finding a new Garden of Eden or Earthly Paradise at the other end of the world, I did not rightly comprehend then; nor, indeed, have I striven much to comprehend since. But I gathered this much – that Captain Marmaduke had retired from the service to carry out his fancy; that he had bought land of the Dutch in the Indies; that he had plenty of money at his command; and that the enterprise was all at his charges. One thing was quite certain – Captain Marmaduke had got a ship, and a good one too, now riding at anchor in Sendennis harbour; and in Sendennis Captain Marmaduke only meant to stay long enough to get together a few more folk to complete his company and his colony. I was to come along, not as a colonist, unless I chose, but as a kind of companion to Lancelot, to learn all the tricks of the sailor’s trade, and to return when Captain Marmaduke, having fairly established his colony, set out on his return voyage.

For it seemed that if I had forgotten, or seemed to have forgotten, Lancelot, he had not forgotten me, but had carried me in his thoughts through all the months that had grown to years since last we met. Thus, when Captain Amber first began to carry out his dream of a colony, Lancelot begged him to give me a share in the adventure. For Lancelot remembered well my hunger and thirst for travel, and had sworn to help me to my heart’s desire. And it seemed to him that in this enterprise of his uncle’s lurked my chance of seeing a little of the world.

Captain Amber, who loved Lancelot better than any being in the world save one, promised that if I were willing, and seemed a lad of spirit, I should go along with Lancelot and himself to help build the colony at the butt end of the world. As the ship was to sail from Sendennis – that being Captain Amber’s native place – he promised Lancelot that he would seek me out, and see if I pleased him, and if the plan pleased me. And I, on fire with the thought of getting away from Sendennis and feeling the width of the world – all I wanted to know was how soon we might be starting.

‘A fortnight is our longest delay,’ the Captain said; ‘we sail sooner if we can. Report yourself to me to-morrow morning between eleven and noon. You will find me at the Noble Rose. You know where that is, I suppose?’

Now, as the Noble Rose was the first inn in Sendennis, and one that the town was proud of, I naturally knew of its whereabouts, though I was not so well acquainted with it as with a certain other and more ill-favoured hostelry that shall be nameless. The Noble Rose was in favour with the country gentry and the gentlemen of the Chisholm Hunt, and it would scarcely have welcomed a tradesman’s son within its walls as readily as the rapscallion Skull and Spectacles did. But I felt that I should be welcomed anywhere as the friend of Captain Marmaduke Amber, for as a friend I already began to regard him. So I assured him that I would duly present myself to him at the Noble Rose on the morrow, between eleven of the clock and noon.

‘That’s right, lad,’ he said; and then, turning to my mother, he took her worn hand in his strong one, and, to my surprise and pleasure, kissed it with a reverential courtesy, as if she had been a Court lady.

As Captain Marmaduke turned to go I caught at his hand.

‘Where is Lancelot?’ I asked; ‘is he here in Sendennis?’ For in the midst of all the joy and wonder of this sea business my heart was on fire to see that face again.

Captain Marmaduke laughed.

‘If he were in Sendennis at this hour he would be here, I make no doubt. He is in London, looking after one or two matters which methought he could manage better than I could. But he will be here in good time, and it is time for me to be off. Remember, my lad, to-morrow,’ and with a bow for my mother and a bear’s grip for me he passed outside the shop, leaving my mother and me staring at each other in great amazement. But for all my amazement the main thought in my mind was of a certain picture of a girl’s face that lay, shrined in a cedar-wood box, hidden away in my room upstairs. And so it happened that though my lips were busy with the name of Lancelot my brain was busy with the name of Marjorie.

CHAPTER VIII
THE COMPANY AT THE NOBLE ROSE

The next morning I was up betimes; indeed, I do not think that I slept very much that night, and such sleep as I did have was of a disturbed sort, peopled with wild sea-dreams of all kinds. In my impatience it seemed to me as if the time would never come for me to keep my appointment with Captain Marmaduke; but then, as ever, the hands of the clock went round their appointed circle, and at half-past eleven I was at my destination. The Noble Rose stood in the market square. It was a fine place enough, or seemed so to my eyes then, with its pillared portal and its great bow-windows at each side, where the gentlemen of quality loved to sit of fine evenings drinking their ale or their brandy, and watching the world go by.

In the left-hand window as I came up I saw that the Captain was sitting, and as I came up he saw me and beckoned me to come inside.

With a beating heart I entered the inn hall, and was making for the Captain’s room when a servant barred my way.

‘Now then, where are you posting to?’ he asked, with an insolent good-humour. ‘This is a private room, and holds private company.’

‘I know that,’ I answered, ‘but it holds a friend of mine, whom I want to see and who wants to see me.’

The man laughed rudely. ‘Very likely,’ he said, ‘that the company in the Dolphin are friends of yours,’ and then, as I was still pressing forward, he put out his hand as if to stay me.

This angered me; and taking the knave by the collar, I swung him aside so briskly that he went staggering across the hall and brought up ruefully humped against a settle. Before he could come at me again the door of the Dolphin opened, and Captain Marmaduke appeared upon the threshold. He looked in some astonishment from the rogue scowling on the settle to me flushed with anger.

‘Heyday, lad,’ he said, ‘are you having a bout of fisticuffs to keep your hand in?’

‘This fellow,’ I said, ‘tried to hinder me from entering yonder room, and I did but push him aside out of my path.’

‘Hum!’ said Captain Marmaduke, ‘’twas a lusty push, and cleared your course, certainly. Well, well, I like you the better, lad, for not being lightly balked in your business.’ And therewith he led me into the Dolphin.

There was a sea-coal fire in the grate, for the day was raw and the glow welcome. Beside the fire an elderly gentleman sat in an arm-chair. He had a black silk skull-cap on his head, and his face was wrinkled and his eyes were bright, and his face, now turned upon me, showed harsh. I knew of course that he was Lancelot’s other uncle, he who would never suffer that I should set foot within his gates. Indeed, his face in many points resembled that of his brother – as much as an ugly face can resemble a fair one. There was a likeness in the forehead and there was a likeness in the eyes, which were something of the same china-blue colour, though of a lighter shade, and with only cold unkindness there instead of the genial kindness of the Captain’s.

A man stood on the other side of the open fireplace, a man of about forty-five, of something over the middle height and marvellously well-built. He was clad in what, though it was not distinctly a seaman’s habit, yet suggested the ways of the sea, and there was a kind of foppishness about his rig which set me wondering, for I was used to a slovenly squalor or a slovenly bravery in the sailors I knew most of. He was a handsome fellow, with dark curling hair and dark eyes, and a dark skin that seemed Italian.

I have heard men say that there is no art to read the mind’s complexion in the face. These fellows pretend that your villain is often smooth-faced as well as smooth-tongued, and pleases the eye to the benefit of his mischievous ends. Whereas, on the other hand, many an honest fellow is damned for a scoundrel because with the nature of an angel he has the mask of a fiend. In which two fancies I have no belief. A rogue is a rogue all the world over, and flies his flag in his face for those who can read the bunting. He may flatter the light eye or the cold eye, but the warm gaze will find some lurking line by the lip, some wryness of feature, some twist of the devil’s fingers in his face, to betray him. And as for an honest man looking like a rogue, the thing is impossible. I have seen no small matter of marvels in my time – even, as I think, the great sea serpent himself, though this is not the time and place to record it – but I have never seen the marvel of a good man with a bad man’s face, and it was my first and last impression that the face of Cornelys Jensen was the face of a rogue.

CHAPTER IX
THE TALK IN THE DOLPHIN

Captain Marmaduke presented me to the two men, while his hand still rested on my shoulder.

‘Brother,’ he said, ‘this is Master Ralph Crowninshield, of whom you have often heard from Lancelot.’

‘Aye,’ said the old man, looking at me without any salutation. ‘Aye, I have heard of him from Lancelot.’

Captain Marmaduke now turned towards the other man, who had never taken his eyes off me since I entered the room.

‘Cornelys Jensen, here is Master Ralph Crowninshield, your shipmate that is to be.’

Cornelys Jensen came across the room in a couple of swinging strides and held out his hand to me. Something in his carriage reminded me of certain play-actors who had come to the town once. This man carried himself like a stage king. We clasped hands, and he spoke.

‘Salutation, shipmate.’

Then we unclasped, and he returned to his post by the fireplace with the same exaggeration of action as before.

The old man broke a short silence. ‘Well, Marmaduke, why have you brought this boy here?’

The Captain motioned me to a seat, which I took, and sat back himself in his former place.

‘Because the boy is going with me, and I thought that you might have something to say to him before he went.’

‘Something to say to him?’

The old man repeated the words like a sneer, then he faced on me again and addressed me with an unmoving face.

‘Yes, I have something to say to you. Young man, you are going on a fool’s errand.’

Captain Marmaduke laughed a little at this, but I could see that he was not pleased.

‘Come, brother, don’t say that,’ he said.

‘But I do say it,’ the old gentleman repeated. ‘A fool’s errand it is, and a fool’s errand it will be called; and it shall not be said of Nathaniel Amber that he saw his brother make a fool of himself without telling him his mind.’

‘I can always trust you for that, Nathaniel,’ said the Captain gravely. The old man went on without heeding the interruption.

‘A fool’s errand I call it, and shall always call it. What a plague! can a man find moneys and a tall ship and stout fellows, and set them to no better use than to found a Fool’s Paradise with them at the heel of the world? Ships were made for traffic and shipmen for trade, and not for such whimsies.’

The Captain frowned, but he said nothing, and tapped the toes of his crossed boots with his malacca. But Cornelys Jensen, advancing forward, put in his word.

‘Saving your presence, Master Nathaniel,’ he said, ‘but is not this a most honourable and commendable enterprise? What better thing could a gallant gentleman do than to found such a brotherhood of honest hearts and honest hands as Captain Marmaduke here proposes?’

The frown faded from the Captain’s face, and a pleased flush deepened its warm colour. It is a curious thing that men of his kidney – men with an unerring eye for a good man – have often a poor eye for a rogue. It amazed me to see my Captain so pleased at the praisings of Cornelys Jensen. But I was to find out later that he was the easiest man in the world to deceive.

‘Spoken like a man, Cornelys; spoken like a true man,’ he said.

‘I must ever speak my mind,’ said Cornelys Jensen. ‘I may be a rough sea-fellow, but if I have a thing to say I must needs spit it out, whether it please or pain. And I say roundly here, in your honour’s presence, that I think this to be a noble venture, and that I have never, since first I saw salt water, prepared for any cruise with so much pleasure.’

Which was indeed true, but not as he intended my Captain to take it, and as my Captain did take it.

‘Well,’ grumbled Nathaniel, ‘you are a pair of fools, both of you,’ and as he spoke he glanced from one to the other with those little shrewd eyes of his, looking at my Captain first and then at Cornelys.

Young as I was, and fresh to the reading of the faces of crafty men, I thought that the look in his eyes – for his face changed not at all – was very different when they rested on the brown face of Cornelys Jensen than when they looked on the florid visage of my good patron. He glanced with contempt upon his kinsman, but I did not see contempt in the gaze he fixed upon Cornelys, who returned his gaze with a steady, unabashed stare.

‘Yes,’ the old man went on, ‘you are a pair of fools, and a fool and his money is a pithy proverb, and true enough of one of you. But it is well sometimes to treat a fool according to his folly, and so, if you are really determined upon this adventure – ’

He paused, and looked again at the Captain and again at Cornelys Jensen.

Cornelys Jensen remained perfectly unmoved. The Captain’s face grew a shade redder.

‘I am,’ he said shortly.

‘Very well, then,’ said the old gentleman; ‘as you are my brother, I must needs humour you. You shall have the moneys you need – ’

‘Now that’s talking,’ interrupted the Captain.

‘Although I know it is a foolhardy thing for me to do.’

‘You get good enough security, it seems to me,’ said the Captain, a thought gruffly.

‘Maybe I do,’ said Nathaniel, ‘and maybe I do not. Maybe I have a fancy for my fine guineas, and do not care to part with them, however good the security may be.’

‘Lord, how you chop and change!’ said the Captain. ‘Act like a plain man, brother. Will you or will you not?’

‘I have said that I will,’ said Nathaniel slowly.

I could see that for some reason it amused him to irritate his brother by his reluctance and by his slow speech. The ancient knave knew it for the surest way to spur him to the enterprise.

‘When can I have the money?’ asked the Captain.

‘Not to-day,’ said Nathaniel slowly, ‘nor yet to-morrow.’

‘Why not to-morrow? It would serve me well to-morrow.’

‘Very well,’ said Nathaniel with a sigh; ‘to-morrow it shall be, though you do jostle me vilely.’

‘Man alive! I want to be off to sea,’ said the Captain.

‘The sooner we are off the better,’ interpolated Jensen; and once again I noted that Nathaniel shot a swift glance at him through his half-closed lids.

‘You are bustling fellows, you that follow the sea life,’ said Nathaniel. ‘Well, it shall be to-morrow, and I will have all the papers made ready and the money in fat bags, and you will have nothing to do but to sign the one and to pocket the other. And now I must be jogging.’

The Captain made no show of staying him. Nathaniel moved towards the door slowly, weighing up upon his crutched stick.

‘Farewell, Marmaduke!’ he said. He took the Captain’s hand, but soon parted with it.

Then he looked at me.

‘Good-day, young fellow,’ he said. ‘Do not forget that I told you you went on a fool’s errand.’

I drew aside to make way for him, and he left the room without a look or a word for Cornelys Jensen. In another minute I saw him through the window hobbling along the street.

He looked malignant enough, but I did not know then how malignant a thing he was. I was ever a weak wretch at figures and business and finance, but it was made plain to me later that Master Nathaniel had so handled Master Marmaduke in this matter of the lending of moneys, that if by any chance anything grave were to happen to Master Marmaduke and to the lad Lancelot and the lass Marjorie all that belonged to Captain Marmaduke would swell the wealth of his brother. And here were Captain Marmaduke and Lancelot and Marjorie all going to sea together and going in company of Cornelys Jensen. And I know now that Master Nathaniel knew Cornelys Jensen very well. But I did not know it then or dream it as I turned from the window and looked at the handsome rascal, who seemed agog to be going.

‘Shall you need me longer, Captain?’ Jensen asked. ‘There is much to do which should be doing.’

‘Nay,’ said the Captain, ‘you are free, for me. I know that there is much to do, and I know that you are the man to do it. But I shall see you in the evening.’

Jensen saluted the Captain, nodded to me, and strode out of the room. Then the Captain sat me down and talked for some twenty minutes of his plan and his hope. If I did not understand much, I felt that I was a fortunate fellow to be in such a glorious enterprise. I wish I had been more mindful of all that he said, but my mind was ever somewhat of a sieve for long speeches, and the dear gentleman spoke at length.

Presently he consulted his watch.

‘The coach should be in soon,’ he said. ‘Let us go forth and await it.’

We went out of the Dolphin together into the hall, and there we came to a halt, for he had thought upon some new point in his undertaking, and he began to hold forth to me upon that.

I can see the whole place now – the dark oak walls, the dark oak stairs, and my Captain’s blue coat and scarlet face making a brave bit of colour in the sombre place. The Noble Rose is gone long since, but that hall lives in my memory for a thing that just then happened.