Читать книгу American Captain - Эдисон Маршалл - Страница 26

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When we sat again, Sophia slipped her hand into mine.

“I’m going to leave the room as soon as we’ve had dessert,” she told me in a low voice. “You must stay until Papa walks out—or is carried out.”

“I see no sign of the latter.”

“It doesn’t happen very often. Now listen closely. He’s got something to tell you—something he thinks important. I don’t know what it is—something about America that will involve you. Whatever it is, play it as you have the rest.”

“How soon can I see you again?”

“Maybe tonight in the salon. If not, come in a carriage about seven tomorrow night. There’s a carnival near Rabat that we can watch.”

“Have you a passport?”

“Of course——”

“Will you keep it with you? We might want to go further than Rabat—maybe across to Gozo, or even to Syracuse, where there’s an American consul.”

“Elope?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have it with me, but—change the subject.”

“Can’t you stay to hear what your father has to say?”

“I wish I could.”

“Can I say, ‘Sir, Sophia said you had some news for me’?”

“Why not? Of course you can. This isn’t exactly a love feast, and remember, an American goes after what he wants.”

For the moment Sir Godwine was in earnest conversation with Harvey. Before I could break into it, Dick rose.

“I’ve a toast to offer, too,” he said, his face darkly flushed. “To one who is with us no more, but whose gallant spirit inspires us yet. Our Eliza.”

There followed a brief period of intense silence and complete stillness. It was charged with suspense I could share but not understand. Sophia stiffened in her chair. I caught a fleeting expression on Sir Godwine’s face that was perhaps beautiful, perhaps sublime, but whose effect on me was frightening, although I could not possibly have told why. His love for his first ship was more than human, Sophia had told me. Perhaps his look was godlike.

“I don’t know that we should do this, Dick, at this time,” he replied after a thoughtful purse of his lips and in calm, level tones. “Remember that at Our Eliza’s first and greatest triumph—twenty years ago next Christmas Day—a fine American ship and crew went to the bottom. Still, our American guest knows that it was war—and I can assure him both vessels did themselves proud!”

He rose slowly. “Yes, we’ll drink to the soul of Our Eliza! May she sail the seas of the hereafter as gallantly as she sailed our sea!”

I stood with the rest. I thought of offering a toast to the Yankee vessel who had engaged her and met defeat and death, only to decide against it. Afterward, Sir Godwine sat in reverie, the champagne in his glass casting a pale golden gleam on his white hand. When he emerged from it, I spoke.

“Sir Godwine, Sophia said you had news of America for me.”

“Why, so I have! The minx had no business telling you until I gave her leave—but young ladies make their own rules, it seems, and feel free to break all others. But the tail of the cat is out of the bag, so I’ll bring forth the body. The long and short of it is, your country’s gone to war.”

I answered with great care.

“With France—or again with England?”

Not that I harbored any real doubt. Most long-headed Americans believed that another war with England was in the stars. I could understand better now the talk and events of tonight’s dinner—my feeling of something in the air, of emotions held in tight rein, and of words carefully chosen. The enmity and danger I had felt seemed of a different character than my affair with Sophia should create. All this was explainable by our two countries being at war.

But Sir Godwine had been struck speechless, as by great surprise.

“Sink me, but you’re a cool one!” he broke forth at last. “With France, or again with England, say you, not turning a hair. Harvey, here’s a Yankee as bluff as they come!”

“Bluff?” Dick asked quietly.

“I mean plain-spoken. No, sir, Homer, ’tis with neither one. On the fourteenth of May last, the Pasha of Tripoli cut down the flagstaff of the American consulate and declared war. Your consul there, by name of Cathcart, set out for home. My advices are there’s no doubt the Yankees will meet the challenge—that they committed themselves to it when they refused the Pasha’s demands—and will send a naval squadron to these waters to protect their shipping. If it ain’t already on the way, ’twill soon be.”

“Sir, I’m not surprised. I’ve heard talk of the Pasha’s insolence and our exhausted patience for a good while.”

“Then why didn’t you guess Tripoli straight off?”

“You said, sir, we were at war. We wouldn’t call it war, to be teaching a pirate king to stay clear of a Yankee ship.”

He stared at me as might a sleepwalker. I thought that his bellyful of wine had finally washed up upon his brain. But he recovered with a little tremor and turned to Dick.

“Did you hear that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Harvey, you’d better listen to it, too, for our future’s sake. Maybe all Europe had better stop their fooling and take notice. Homer, my lad, you’ll have to forgive me for my old-fashioned ways. It seems just yesterday that what you call ‘United States’ were some English colonies, ruled by royal governors, a region where our yeomanry could buy cheap land. They rebelled against the king—France took their side—and we bitched the business right and left. Still, I can hardly believe you’ve got ahead this fast. After all, the king of Tripoli, pirate nest though it be, is still a king. But there’s the new century, the New World. And Homer, you’re as fine a representative as I’d want to meet. By heaven, I’m glad you came tonight! You were just the man to set me straight. A real, life-size, full-blooded young Yankee——”

He stopped, because Sophia had stood up. Truly she seemed to spring up, and her eyes were haunted and her mouth was drawn.

“Yes, daughter,” he said in an indulgent tone.

“We’ve finished dessert, and with your permission, I’ll withdraw.”

“I fear I’ve bored you by reciting what you already know.”

“You never bore anyone, but may I go?”

“Yes—yes—you may.”

He rose and gave her a stately bow. We others were on our feet, but she would not look at Harvey and Dick, and it seemed she could not look at me. When Millen had bowed her through the door, he, too, went out.

“Now we can settle down to a good old-fashioned sailor’s brandy bout,” Sir Godwine remarked, “unless the company has other notions.”

“I need a bit of air,” Dick said. “Will you come with me, Harvey?”

“If Sir Godwine and Mr. Whitman can do the honors alone,” Harvey answered, his tongue a little thick. Then with a sly wink at Dick, they went out together.

I did not care about that. I had more important business on my mind.

“Sir Godwine, I’d like a glass of brandy, but mainly I wish to make a request.”

“Then come into my cubby. I’ve brandy there, and ’baccy and pipes, too, if you’ve a taste that way.”

We climbed steep stone steps where it seemed likely his drinks would hit him. I did not believe it, though, and was not really surprised when he ran up them like a boy. He led me into an eight-sided room that might once have been the top of a battlement, now walled in and furnished like the captain’s cabin on a man-of-war. The chairs, chests, and charting table were of massively carved teakwood; the broad-based cone-shaped decanters, of heavy graven crystal, would not tip over in a heavy sea; a drunken man could fall down without knocking anything down, so well secured was all gear. I admired especially a telescope, two feet long and light as a spyglass, with magnifying power of some fifty diameters. I wondered if it had been used on Sophia and me.

“I’d hazard that your request concerns my daughter,” Sir Godwine remarked in a pleasant tone when we were comfortably seated.

“Aye, sir, it does. I wish your permission to pay court to her.”

“Now that’s a different thing than asking her hand in marriage, yet it could come to the same thing. Suppose I granted your request and then you and she should take a notion to marry, could I refuse you, when I’d given you a clear field? Still, it’s a proper request, when you’re of a different nationality and station.”

“I’m ignorant, sir, in matters of station. But I wish to court Sophia at her home, and in the open, without your forbiddance.”

“I’ll instruct you somewhat. In practice, only young men whom we call eligible pay court to an English girl of Sophia’s station—being her escort at balls, riding with her, and such as that. They’ll not ask her father’s consent to pay her such attentions, but if one of ’em shows unfit, he’ll get the chuck; and should she get thick with one, so it looks serious, her father will either let it go on or try to stop it. If he lets it go on, the young feller need have little fear of being refused when he seeks his consent to marriage.”

“Aye, sir.”

“I take it Sophia wants your attentions, or you wouldn’t pay ’em.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Has she promised to marry you if I’d let her, or even if I wouldn’t?”

I did not feel obliged to answer that question, but I did so, thinking it would be in my favor.

“No, sir.”

“Wouldn’t I be doing wrong to you both to consent to your courting her, when I could never consent to your marrying her? And the reason why—to put it in a nutshell—both of you would rue the day.”

“Sir, I dispute what you say last. I think our chance of happiness would be first rate.”

“You’d intend to take her to America?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Out of all you’ve seen tonight, to a little house in some American seaport? For mark you, she has the merest pittance of her own.”

“To Bath, on the Kennebec River, where I was born. It would be a small house to start with, but get better as I get on. As for what I saw tonight, Sophia wouldn’t miss it as might most young ladies, if I judge aright. In America even the poor sit down to tables laden with meat and game, and as an officer of a good ship, on my way to be a captain, I’d not count myself poor.”

“Would you count yourself rich on ten—fifteen—maybe twenty pounds a month?”

“Ten pounds is close to fifty dollars. I’d make thirty dollars to start with, plus my rations. Still I’d be in middle circumstances; and in place of luxury, Sophia could have adventure.”

It seemed to me that he blanched a little as from sharp pain; and as he reached for his glass of brandy, he knocked it over. I offered him my cotton kerchief to wipe it up, but instead he used his own, heavy silk with a lace frill, on which a coat of arms had been embroidered. As he mopped, he smiled. It was such a smile as I never knew, making mock of God it seemed to me, and the sweat came out on me in cold beads, for at last I had seen evil.

“I’ll go back to my original question,” he said softly. “If I let you pay court to her, when on no account would I consent to your marrying her, wouldn’t I do you wrong?”

“Nay, sir. You’d do wrong to refuse me, when there’s no mark against me, and her knowing the truth about me, and still wanting my attentions.”

“Then I’d do wrong to myself. I’d be flying in the face of what’s best for her, according to my greater experience and knowledge. Still, it would go hard with me to shut my doors to you, for the reasons you gave, and you a ship’s officer of a nation with whom the king made peace. And it would go harder yet to lock her in room, she being of marriageable age and proud.”

“Then what do you say, Sir Godwine?”

“Will you give me your promise to take her or leave her when the Vindictive sets sail from Malta?”

“I’ll sail with my ship when she leaves here, if that’s what you mean, whether or not Sophia will go with me.”

“I’ll not forbid you—although it’s against my wishes and advice—to pay court to her the short time you’re here.”

While I sat dumb, hardly able to believe my ears, he filled his glass and drained it. The respite allowed me to catch my breath.

“I thank you kindly.”

“You’ve no news of the vessel, I dare say?”

“No, sir.”

“Captain Ball gave me some today. Our frigates convoyed her through the Strait two weeks ago. Some days past she was at Palermo, unloading Danish butter, and was due to sail on last night’s tide. If this weather holds, she ought to make it in sometime tomorrow.”

Battening down my heart, I looked into Sir Godwine’s face confronting mine. There should be a gleam of mirth, however sardonic, in his pale eyes. I could even expect a trace of a smile, triumphant but human, such as a winner should give a loser in fellowship’s sake. But the blue around the diamond-bright black points was like blue sky in December, and his mouth was slightly pursed, showing the perfect molding of his lips, as his thoughts flew far.

He had dismissed me from his attention. He had not denied my existence—he would not bother to tell the lie—but he had become oblivious to it. But I had another night in Malta. I remembered with a rush of joy, a sense of power, and I would not be surprised to hear from him again.