Читать книгу American Captain - Эдисон Маршалл - Страница 25

Table of Contents

Sophia and Harvey took up the goat path while I slung my haversack. When I looked again at them, they were walking side by side on the crest of the cliff—a fine-looking couple, surely, their tallness and easy stride taking the eye.

Before going to my quarters, I visited the Valletta waterfront, and my eyes could not help leaping from ship to ship throughout the teeming harbor, in search of one I could recognize two miles at sea in one flash of lightning, and whose every spar I knew. She had not come in. No news of her had reached me by the pinnaces from Gibraltar. What did I want of her anyway, for she would not loiter here—a night’s shore leave for the land-sick crew likely her only detainment—and I needed more time than that to settle my affairs.

To answer truly, I wanted her Yankee deck beneath my feet before they took me through the door of Sir Godwine’s palace. The essence of the New England oak would stouten my knees. I wished to see the faces that I need never search for hidden malice or veiled mockery. I needed their rough hands clasping mine or whacking my back. If I could have all that, I could settle my affairs before daybreak.

The clothes I had bought from Mate Tyler needed only laying out and putting on. By virtue of New England thrift and the habits learned on a tidy ship, I had kept them spotless and well-brushed, and their silver buttons bright. At no great outlay I bought a new stock and a linen shirt with lace cuffs. When I had dressed, I would not be ashamed to sit down at the table with Captain Phillips, Captain Starbuck, or Captain John Paul Jones if he were still alive; and that settled it. In due course I rode in a carrozza to Notabile, through a gate in a high wall guarded by sentries, and up to the arched door under stone towers. I found the iron knocker in the gloom and an ancient liveried servant admitted me to a dim hall.

“Your name and titles, please, Your Honor,” he murmured in my ear.

“Homer Whitman, second officer of the United States ship Vindictive.”

He tottered forward and repeated the words to a burly fellow standing near a wide, high, intricately carved door. He too wore wig and livery, but these could not conceal a positive personality. Seeing better now, I knew the cut of his jib. Unless he was an old man-of-war’s man, probably a petty officer handy with the lash, I missed my guess. He opened the door wide and called in a queer mixture of salty and Cockney.

“ ’Omer Wittman, second orcifer of the Unity States Indicative.”

I felt grateful for my small interior smile. It lightened my load a little as I walked into the room. I could call it a room—in fact I did not know what else to call it—although it must have been the main chamber of an ancient palace of the Knights of Malta. White marble lined the high walls, the floor and domed ceiling were mosaics of animals and birds and trees in rich color, the chimney piece was rose-colored marble with blue veins, reaching to the ceiling. Above the pillared mantle, griffins as big as wolves supported a huge sculptured square, surrounded by nymphs standing or lying down, and bearing heraldic devices. The doors were intricately carved black wood fastened with chains, the windows had many small leaded panes. The chairs were massively carved, not as cold-looking as the room, but too thronelike for comfort. The tables and cabinets had beautiful inlay of ivory and shell. A chandelier of a hundred candles, each in a crystal holder, gave forth clear but not brilliant light.

At first I got only an impression of all this, to grasp in detail later. Seen far more sharply, briefly arresting my attention, was the central feature of the splendid room—a stately teakwood table bearing a glass case that contained the most perfectly wrought ship model I had ever seen. It was about four feet long and in exact proportions, and its building must have taken a year’s labor by a superb artisan. It was a sloop of war with all her canvas spread.

The main search of my mind was toward the four people seated at the far end of the room. One of them I knew well. She had not changed by being in this setting or by wearing a low-cut silvery dress and a necklace of pearls and a pearl wreath in her hair. She looked straight at me and smiled a smile I loved. One other I had seen before—Harvey Alford, Captain Sir Godwine’s aide. He wore a brocaded waistcoat, pearl-buttoned coat, breeches of dark red plush, blue hose, and decorated slippers.

Another man near Harvey’s and my own age I had not seen before, although I never doubted he was Dick Tarlton, Sir Godwine’s bastard son. I had time only to notice the perfect proportions of his small form and his somewhat careless dress and catch a glimpse of his intense, dark face when I became busied with Sir Godwine himself. He had sat in the biggest chair and was the first of the four people to gain his feet. He came toward me, walking a little like an eagle, more—as Sophia had told me—like a phoenix. I could recognize him by that and by his dandyism and his walking stick; still, if I had seen him on the street, I would have felt confused. Sophia had said her father was forty-four. This man looked thirty-four or twenty-four, whichever figure you had heard. There was no age anywhere on him. His skin was perfectly smooth, his small hands white and elegant as any young lady’s, his movements as young as Sophia’s.

“Why, Sophia, ’tis the young American you’ve made so thick with, damn me if it ain’t,” he exclaimed, the hearty words spoken in a queerly rattling voice. “Mr. Whitman, I’m Godwine Tarlton, your happy host.” With that he gave me a graceful bow.

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” I answered in Maine parlance, bowing in return as my ma had taught me.

“And the same to you, Mate, and welcome to Lepanto Palace.”

“It has a famous name, Sir Godwine.”

“Why, blast me, have you heard of that set-to?” he asked in evident surprise as Sophia held her breath. “But wait a bit before you tell me. I’m keeping you from greeting the pretty lass. By God, I’d give her a kiss while about it if I were in your boots. ’Twon’t be the first one, or you can blow me down.”

As I came toward her, she raised her face and breast. Neither of us stinted the caress or prolonged it either, and my arms were about her the while. I looked up to find Dick’s black eyes fixed on my face, his lips curled in a small gray smile as close to evil as any human expression I could remember.

“ ’Twas a good job!” Sir Godwine cried. “Now to finish the formalities—you’ve met my aide, Lieutenant the Honorable Harvey Alford”—he paused while we bowed to each other—“but not my son, Dick.”

“Your humble servant,” Dick mouthed with a fine bow.

“Sophia spoke of you, sir,” I answered, not knowing what else to say.

“Did she indeed! My half sister—on the right side of the blanket, you understand—rarely honors me so. But perhaps an American doesn’t know that expression.”

“Yes, I do.”

“So all you have to do now, Dick, is recite, ‘Thou, Nature, art my goddess’!” Sophia said quietly.

“Perhaps you’re acquainted with that, too,” Dick suggested, his lips smiling, but his eyes cold and intent.

“I read it only recently. It was in one of Shakespeare’s plays, which I’ve made acquaintance with only since coming to Malta. I believe it was the bastard’s speech in King Lear——”

As I spoke, I was comparing the two small-sized men standing on either side of me. Dick’s countenance was sallow; Sir Godwine’s very fair. But the latter was much more delicate, its bones finer molded, the nose more than Roman, so high its bridge.

“Why, sink me, he’s right again,” he cried. “Now all of you sit, for I’ve years on my back, and they call for an easy chair.” Then when he had appointed us our places: “Young Whitman, how did you hear of the battle of Lepanto?”

“Our cap’n told us when we came by the Strait of Messina.”

“Now, dash it all, who do you mean by ‘us’? You and the other mate while you sat at table?”

Perhaps it was his rattling voice that seemed to lend undue emphasis to the question; yet I thought I saw tension in his posture, and his eyes gleamed.

“No, sir, the whole crew. It was on Sunday after prayers. He told how the Christian fleet assembled at Messina and set sail, and the reasons for the battle, and its outcome. I guess he spoke an hour.”

“Is it the custom of Yankee skippers to be schoolmasters for a pack of lubbers? How did the cap’n know of it himself? Why, damn me, it was fought two centuries before John Paul Jones fired his first broadside at his king’s ship.” But Sir Godwine did not speak emphatically now. His voice had dropped very low, the rattle had gone out of it, and its tone was soft.

“Captain Phillips is the most learned man I ever knew.”

“I’m glad to hear it. The Yankees that I knew could do better with account books than with history books.”

“They do pretty well with ships, Sir Godwine, and with guns.”

I couldn’t have kept from saying it short of a broken jaw, but I said it as quietly as I could.

“Damned if you don’t speak truth, and you’re a man of spirit!” He turned to the others. “ ’Twas the answer I deserved, and he gave it to me. They do well with ships and with guns, says he, and who can gainsay that? Not me, by God! Homer—I’ll call you that, by right of my years—I found it out myself. The hardest fight in my fife was with a Yank. ’Twas my first ship and my first fight——”

“And your first victory,” Harvey broke in.

“Never mind about that. It cost me dear enough. And ’tis no wonder the Yankee people have got ahead, with good shipping and good shooting, and with their noses in history books as well as account books, and in that respect, we should be proud that they’re English stock.”

He turned and looked at Harvey. “Isn’t that so?” he asked.

“You never said a truer word, Sir Godwine!” Harvey answered crisply.

His eyes moved to the hot black eyes of his son.

“How about it, Dick?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“I needn’t put it to you, Sophia, my love. You’ve already made it plain how you admire Americans.”

“Yes, and I wish you’d change the subject.” To my surprise, she had little color and her eyes looked haunted.

“Why, ’tis one of the leading subjects of the world, or you can sink me. Homer, I’d like to meet your Captain Phillips, and for the time being let it go at that. And there’s that blasted Millen.”

The burly butler stood in a different door than before, announcing dinner. No one moved or spoke until Sir Godwine got gravely to his feet, and I could not help but marvel how all eyes, including mine, were fixed on him. All of us waited on his words by some unknown compulsion.

“I’ll lead the way with my blasted stick,” he pronounced. “Homer, if you’ll follow with Sophia, Harvey and Dick will fetch up the rear.”

The stick was a fine Malacca that he sometimes toyed with or whipped about, but never leaned on. I noticed now that he walked like an Indian, his feet in a straight line, and at a slow pace; still, that could not explain the effect of regalness that everyone felt. I could imagine him on the quarter-deck of a great English man-of-war. The wintry rattle in his voice would terrify every man aboard. The officers reporting to him would turn pale.

Why? I wished to heaven I knew. I could pick him up and heave him to his death against the stone wall—if I would. No one ever would, no matter what he did.

Sophia slipped her hand under my arm. Her ear was close; the others were out of easy hearing.

“Sophia, I’m going to ask his consent to marry you.”

“You’d better get mine first.” She giggled at that, a childish giggle that comforted my heart.

“Then I’ll ask his consent to pay court to you.”

“He won’t grant it. He’ll give you the nicest refusal you ever heard. So why expose yourself——”

“He doesn’t think I’ll do it. He’s invited me here to give me the chance, but he’s sure I won’t take it. Tell me you’re with me in it. Say you love me.”

“I love you, Homer—and want you to pay court to me—but it’s not any use.”

We were walking through a dimly lighted hall. It led to an immense dining room with another wall-high fireplace, walls of plaster marvelously worked, and a frescoed ceiling whose central figures were a goddess of some sort with a pitcher in her hand, a bearded Greek with a short sword, and a crouching leopard. The table in the candlelight surpassed all my imaginings. I had not known that even kings and queens sat down to such boards—the covers of lace showing the rosewood and satinwood beneath, the shimmering crystal of glasses of many shapes and kinds, the white antique silver, and the ivory-colored china.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” I remarked to Sir Godwine.

Watching his face so closely—as we all must—it seemed that he did not like my saying that, that it was not on his program. I could not even guess why it was not. In the brief silence, Harvey spoke.

“Not even in Boston?”

The words were addressed to me, but his eyes moved instantly to Sir Godwine’s.

“He hasn’t mentioned Boston, Harvey,” Sophia said clearly. “Why do you?”

“By God, you’re right, Sophia! If he has, you can stove me. Homer, to tell you the truth, it’s a rare Yankee who doesn’t mention Boston with his first glass, and ’tis come to be a bit of jest. You see, we’ve a Boston of our own. The name came from Botulph—Saint Botulph in Saxon times; six hundred years ago ’twas a great port next to London, while only two hundred years ago Massachusetts was a wilderness. So we’ve got to stop and think what Boston the Yankees mean.”

“Sir, I wouldn’t think it would take much thought, with our Boston three times as big already.”

“You can lay to that, by heaven!”

“Anyway, there’s nothing like this there. What does the picture on the ceiling represent?”

Not that I doubted that the figures were of Ulysses and the witch Calypso. That would be fitting decoration for a Maltese palace. I had been about to say so, with the idea of scoring again, when a kind of prudence taught in New England warned me not to go too fast.

“Answer him, Harvey.”

“I dare say it’s Oenone of Mount Ida, Paris’s wife, trying to stop him from skipping off with Helen.”

“Right!” And Sir Godwine looked at me more pleasantly than before.

“How did the palace come to be named Lepanto, if you’ll kindly tell me?”

“I will, with pleasure. There was an ancient edifice here under Sicilian rule—the room we just left is part of it. That goes back to the late eleven hundreds, and maybe longer. The Knights of Saint John acquired the island in 1530—by 1565 they were fighting for their lives against the Turk. They turned him back, and six years later Don John, with the Knights’ help, destroyed his fleet. An English Knight of Saint John, Sir Oliver Starkey, took a lively part, and shortly after, he rebuilt and enlarged the old structure, naming it for the sea fight. So I felt happy to be quartered here, in the home of a countryman of no short spell ago.”

As he talked, something giving the effect of beauty came into his face. I heard Sophia, beside me, catch her breath. I noticed, too, that the bluff salty speech he usually employed quite disappeared, as did the wintry rattle from his voice.

He had glanced at Millen as he began. This seadog butler and the footmen, too, froze in their places. As he finished, he gave him a slight nod; and at once the work of serving the dinner went forward. There were at least a dozen dishes of fish, meat, and game—prawns, scallops, eels, roast, quail, and venison pastry—and, it seemed to me, a different wine to go with every one. Before long I took thought of the parade of glasses before me, each kept brimming full. The beverages had delicate taste and fragrance; sailors would swear they were weak as water, but I was not in a mughouse now surrounded by my friends—I had more to lose than a thin wallet slipped out of my pocket by a kittling barmaid—so I had best take care. Thereafter I drank only one pouring of any one wine, by one means or another foiling the diligent footman at my elbow. Thus I fell far behind Sir Godwine and his sallow-skinned son, but ran about even with Harvey, whom I reckoned no more than my match in hardness of head.

Instead of easier, I figured the trial would be harder when all the glasses were whisked away except tall narrow ones for champagne and short barrel-shaped ones for brandy. When the pale-gold sparkling wine glimmered in the candlelight, Sir Godwine rose.

“Homer, you’re not called upon to drink the toast I’m about to propose—unless you care to. It’s to an old man not popular in your native land.” He lifted his glass and his tone changed. “To the king!”

I stood and drained my glass with the rest. We had hardly sat down, the goblets brimming once more, when I rose again.

“No one here is called upon to drink the toast I propose,” I told the company. “To the President of the United States.”

“Wait just a moment.” Sir Godwine was gazing at me with a thoughtful expression. “Perhaps some of this company doesn’t realize that the President is no longer Mr. Adams of Boston but Mr. Jefferson of Virginia. I understand he’s of gentle birth.”

“If you please, that doesn’t enter into the toast.”

“Well-spoke, by God! Let a man stand up for his own—I like to see it. I’ll drink to the President’s good health. I’ll even add a bit—may he lead the American people in the way they should go. All of us on our feet....”

But Sophia had no need of the command. She was already up beside me, standing by me, her pearl wreath setting off the dusk of her hair, the glimmering necklace in contrast with the dark glow of her face and the gray luster of her eyes. She turned to me as she drank with a smile touching and beautiful, as though in pledge and pride and profound communion between us alone.