Читать книгу Golden Ballast - Henry De Vere Stacpoole - Страница 6

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At nine o’clock next morning, borrowing Bone’s old dinghy, Mr. Sebright pushed off for the Baltrum. The Pool was brimming with the flood, mud banks and sand spits were hidden and the wind from the north-of-east promised a fine day, but it was cold.

Out here on the water the supreme deadness of a small yachting center before the opening of the season struck the heart and mind more sharply and freshly than from on shore. Sebright passed the house boat, dead and deserted, with the little choppy waves smacking her planking, and a natty little yawl labeled the Sunflower showed him her stern and dropped behind, while now on the breeze from the east-center shoal came the tonk-tonk-tonk of the Black Jack bell buoy and the creak of gulls from the Long Spit that is never covered even by the springs.

Then the Baltrum in all her beauty showed close as he glanced over his shoulder.

She had leaped on him all of a sudden, the blisters of her paint, the desolation of her decks, the head of a disused tar brush sticking up close to the bowsprit, and clothes of some sort drying on her after rail.

From the galley stovepipe a thin wreath of smoke struggled against the breeze. That was the only sign of life on board of her; that and the clothes drying on the rail.

He rowed along the starboard side, rounded the anchor chain and then let the dinghy drift a bit while he sat contemplating old Captain Dennis’ refuge against rheumatism.

She didn’t look it. In some curious way the nip in the air and the creaking of the gulls and the tonk-tonk of the bell buoy all seemed part of her—and the cold blue of the wind-swept Pool and a sudden sense of desolation caused by the passing of a cloud across the face of the sun. The Pool had gone grey and the distant spire of Hildersditch, still sun touched, seemed to call him back to the land.

“Go to Mersea or Britlin’sea,” said the spire. “This place is God-forsaken and so’s she. She’s beastly. Besides, what’s the good of owning? Much better hire; a boat’s worse than a wife to keep.” It was talking sometimes like Bone and sometimes like Captain Salt, and the dinghy was drifting.

Another moment and he could have taken to the sculls again and made for shore, when up from the fo’c’s’le hatch of the Baltrum came a man.

A big old man who rose slowly as seals rise on ice floes, straightened himself, looked into the north-of-east from where the wind was coming, and then noted the stranger and the dinghy.

Dicky, recognizing that this must be the redoubtable Larry, took up the sculls again, stopped the drift of the dinghy and with a stroke or two brought her nearer the Baltrum.

Bell buoy, gulls, and the nip in the wind were forgotten for the moment at the sight of the heavy and unfriendly figure standing now with hands resting on the starboard rail and eyes fixed on the dinghy.

“Hallo,” cried Dicky.

“What are you wantin’?” replied Larry.

“This the Baltrum?”

“What are you wantin’ with the Baltrum? Mind me paint an’ keep your distance—what are you wantin’ with the Baltrum?”

The vague antagonism that had been forming in the mind of Mr. Sebright suddenly took shape.

“I’m thinking of buying her,” said he, urged not by design but the devil. “Have you any objections?”

“Thinkin’ of buyin’ her,” said Larry. “Buyin’ this ould cockroach trap—and what you want to buy her for?”

Dicky checked in his reply. Another figure had come on deck, from the saloon hatch this time. It swept the washing off the after rail, threw it down the hatch and then came to the side.

Oh, what a pretty girl! The last skirt of the cloud swept away from the face of the sun as she looked over, the light falling on her weather-worn old pilot jacket with one brass button missing, her nut-brown hair and the hand that grasped the rail.

“She’s not for sale,” said Miss Dennis, who had evidently overheard the whole conversation. “She’s not fit to be sold and she belongs to the government.”

“She’s droppin’ to bits,” cut in Larry, “and not more than held up be the anchor chain. Sure it’s takin’ our lives in our hands we are stayin’ on board of her at all.”

Dicky laughed and then, suddenly, Miss Dennis—trying to frown—laughed; even Larry unbent. As if by magic the whole situation changed.

“We don’t want to sell her,” said Miss Dennis, “and that’s the truth.”

“I know,” said Dicky, “and I’m not particularly keen on buying her. But the bother is some one will, because Captain Salt told me she was going to be auctioned.”

“When did he tell you that?” asked the girl anxiously.

“Last night.”

Miss Dennis brooded for a moment on this news.

“He said something to me a long time ago about auctioning her,” said she, “but I thought he’d forgot it—said something about auctioning her in London at some place in the city where they sell old stores and things.”

“An’ how’n the divil would they take her to London,” cut in Larry, “unless they put her on wheels?”

Dicky explained that this would not be necessary, and gloom fell on the company—for a moment. Then the spirit of hospitality intervened and seized Miss Dennis.

“Well, come on board, now you’re here and look at her,” said she. “Larry will see to the boat.” She dropped the little ladder and he came on board, standing for a moment to look around him before going below.

The deck of the Baltrum ran flush fore and aft and had none of the distressful appearance of the hull seen from the dinghy. Once on her, the Baltrum’s homely and sterling qualities made themselves felt even by the half-trained mind of Mr. Sebright.

Ships have personalities, just like men, and you never can gauge the personality of any craft till you get on her deck. The Baltrum said to you, “I mayn’t be lovely, but I’m honest. I’m not ashamed of my beam, neither, nor of my age, nor of the fact that maybe I’m some Dutchman’s idea of a yacht. Dutchmen have a lot of sense. You try me in a heavy sea and then try that little wedge-faced Sunflower back there, and you’ll learn that paint isn’t character—that wench!—Lord, wouldn’t I like to see her off Terschelling in the winter—just once!”

Down below she spoke even louder, assisted by the voice of Miss Dennis, who seemed quite to have forgotten her rôle of deprecator.

Aft of the main saloon was a little cabin used by the girl; there was plenty of head room and none of the fixings had been removed; telltale compass, lamps, furniture and bunk bedding all remained, also the crockery ware in a tiny pantry and the pots and pans in the microscopic galley.

“She’s comfortable, isn’t she?” said the girl, as they returned to the main cabin, where she produced cigarettes. “She’s thirty tons and you could go round the world in her—not that there’s any chance of us doing that. My only wish is to be let alone and not be turned out. I’m not thinking of myself, but Larry. He’s been in the family twelve years, ever since father left the navy, and what’s to become of him if we leave here I don’t know, for I’ve only a hundred and ten pounds a year and that wouldn’t keep us both ashore. You see, father’s pension died with him,” went on Miss Dennis, “and the money we got from the Sheila—that’s our old boat—all went in debts and things, and I’m sure I don’t know what we’d have done only for Captain Salt. He let us come here—maybe you know about—”

“Yes, he told me,” replied the other, shocked by the disastrous financial conditions so innocently revealed to him, and not knowing exactly what to say.

“He told you about the two dead men they found here?” asked she.

“Yes, he told me.”

Miss Dennis sighed and looked across the cabin at a patch of blue sky revealed by a porthole; her gaze seemed fixed a thousand miles away.

“Many a person wouldn’t have touched the boat after that,” said she, “but father didn’t mind. He didn’t think it was unlucky, it was the other way about; he said she was a lucky boat, he said if we stuck to her we’d be sure to have great luck and when he was dying,” she finished, with a quiver in her voice, “he seemed to see things he couldn’t tell of, but it was all as if he saw something bright and grand, and his last words were, ‘Sink her at her moorings before you let them turn you off.’”

A slight heave from the outer sea and the last of the flood was answered by the tinkle of a lamp swinging on its gimbals and a faint creak from the timbers as the Baltrum moved and settled again. Through the open skylight came the far-away voice of the bell buoy.

“That’s why I don’t want to leave her,” she went on; “that and not knowing what to do with Larry if I went to live on shore. Besides, I’m fond of her. She’s good. I don’t know if you understand what I mean; it’s like houses. There are some houses I wouldn’t live in for earths—they’re bad, I don’t know why, but I just know it. It’s the same with boats. The Sheila was bad, we never had any luck with her.”

“I know what you mean,” said he. “I’ve been in houses that have given me the shivers. I haven’t had the same experience with boats, don’t know enough of them, but I like this old hooker. She’s homy, somehow, and you shan’t leave her, not if I can help it.”

Miss Dennis, whose hands were folded in her lap, turned her face to him like a child in perplexity.

“It’s not you I’m bothering about, but the auction,” said she. “I knew at once after I’d spoken to you only a minute that you’d never buy her over our heads, but if she’s put up for auction some one will buy her and that’s just as bad.”

“A jolly sight worse,” said he, “for if I bought her I wouldn’t turn you out. You see it wouldn’t matter to me, not having my own crew. Larry would be as good as any other man.”

“Better,” said she.

“And we could manage to sail her between us—couldn’t we?”

“Of course we could,” said she, brightening. “I’m as good as a man and we wouldn’t charge anything—you might give Larry something for his work, but I wouldn’t charge you anything, and as I was saying, I’m as good as a man.”

“You’re used to the sea?”

“Twelve years,” said she. “Ever since I was eight, that’s twelve years ago. Father was in the navy, I’ve told you, haven’t I? And after he left it my mother died and he bought the Port Patrick. She was a twenty tonner. He used to sail her with only me and we berthed mostly in Kingstown harbor. Then Larry turned up and we took him along to give him a job and he’s stuck to us ever since.”

“Have you any friends ashore?”

“I’ve some relatives in Ireland,” said she, “but father never got on with them. He said the best thing to do with relatives is to keep clear of them; and they weren’t yacht people. Once you take to our way of living,” concluded Miss Dennis, “you cut yourself off from shore folk of your own class. I don’t know how it is, but it’s so.”

She was speaking the truth.

The small yachtsman, if he is a whole hogger, belongs to a circle more exclusive than any high-art circle. His aims and ambitions are different from those of shore folk, his life is different, his ways are different. The Dennises had spent their summers from the first of the herring to the last of the mackerel in and about Kingstown harbor, fishing off the Mugglins where the great cod feed on their way from Cahore and Mizzen Head to Lambay; fishing in Dublin Bay where the Dover sole run two inches thick and the prawns are twice the length of your thumb; then in the autumn when the last of the mackerel had departed, and before the Atlantic winter reached across the Wicklow Mountains, these happy-go-lucky people would pick up their hook, pay their bills—maybe—and steer for the south, making for Funchal or Teneriffe. Santa Cruz harbor, Teneriffe, was their favorite winter haunt. It is a pleasant little harbor, palm girt, and an ideal winter cruising base, for from here you can run to Palma, that little, colored island forty miles to the west, or drop over to Las Palmas where the great Union Castle liners come in, or potter about Hiero and Gommera, or even hunt for the treasure supposed to be hidden on the Selvagees, those barren islands lying in the turquoise sea between Las Palmas and Madeira.

Can you imagine a cheaper or more pleasant existence?

Yet it had its drawbacks—not that Sheila or her father bothered about them. These drawbacks were mostly social, as we understand the word. Old female relatives living in Kingstown and Black Rock were never done talking of the madness of Captain Dennis in subjecting his daughter to such a life, only fit for a boy, and not even for a boy who wanted to get on in the world. They prophesied that she would never make a decent match, and their prophesies seemed to have a sufficient basis. But the old captain, though destitute of much worldly wisdom, had a certain naïve philosophy of his own which told him that a healthy body is better even than the favourable opinion of maiden aunts, that decent matches often end in disaster and that God would look after Sheila. He was a well-educated man and did not neglect her education; history, geography and the love of Charles Dickens being included in the curriculum that taught her how to knot and splice.

When the war came on the captain, infuriated with the admiralty for not reinstating him in his old position, rheumatism and all, sulked till the sea danger became desperate and then he smuggled himself on board of a mine sweeper; but three months of this work crocked him for good.

She told all this, and the young man in return gave a sketch of his war experiences. Then he rose to go.

“Now look here,” he said, “if you really mean it, I’d like better than anything to take a hand in this business. We could get her ready for sea by May. I’m not bothering about the auction; if it comes off maybe I’d be able to buy her, for I have a little money, but anyhow it would be fun fitting her out and I wouldn’t mind painting her at my own expense. What do you say?”

“I’m sure I’d like it well enough,” replied she, “and I’ll talk it over with Larry, but if they sell her after you’ve painted her what—”

“Oh, I’ll risk that,” said he laughing, “if Salt doesn’t object. He can’t very well, for it’s improving the property and my being a prospective purchaser gives me a standing with him; but there’s one thing I’d like to mention, and that’s terms. I hate talking about money, but it’s this way—if I bought or hired a boat it would cost me a good deal, and I don’t want to save money through your kindness in taking me on. When the cruising season starts I’d expect to pay for the Baltrum just as much as I would for any other boat.”

“But she’s not ours,” said Sheila.

“Oh, yes, she is, as long as Salt gives you permission to use her.”

“Well,” said Sheila, after a moment’s thought, “it’s a new idea to me. It’s like taking paying guests, isn’t it? I’ve got to think it over and talk to Larry—it’s so hard to know what to think. Yes, I suppose it would be right to pay something if you want to—but, I’ll see.”

“Miss Shaila,” came a voice from the skylight, suspiciously near, Dicky thought.

The girl glanced up.

“What is it, Larry?”

“I want to spake to you about the galley stove, Miss Shaila.”

“Well, I’ll be up in a minute,” she replied.

“Come off again to-morrow,” said she, turning to Sebright, “and then I’ll be able to tell you more.” He followed her up the saloon stairs to the deck where Larry was waiting for them, got into the boat and rowed off.

His heart felt curiously light as he made for the shore, the sun was shining, the bell buoy had lost its dreariness of voice, and the future that an hour before had seemed pretty blank showed warm in color and traced with all sorts of unfinished sketches.

He had not found companionship, but he had come in contact with it in the persons of Miss Dennis and Larry. Companionship, the something that helps you to live the everyday life of every day, that shares the little burdens and banishes loneliness and gives existence warmth.

“Miss Shaila,” said Larry, as they watched the dinghy row ashore, “it wasn’t the stove was botherin’ me mind, but that young chap.”

“How was he bothering you?” asked the girl.

“Faith, I dunno, but I was listenin’ to what you said, him and you, and him offerin’ to pay for the boat and you refusin’ it.”

“I wasn’t. I only thought he was offering to pay too much.”

Larry, who had fetched a bucket of water over the side, was preparing to peel some potatoes; he talked as he worked, squatting beside the bucket.

“Faith an’ it’s aisy to say pay too much, but there ain’t so many goin’ about on that same job these days—an’ why shouldn’t he pay too much? Sure, what’s the good of chaps like him unless it’s to make them pay for their footin’.”

“Oh, Larry,” said the girl, “what are you talking about? We aren’t hotel keepers.”

“Him and his fine ways!” went on the other, absolutely deaf to everything but what the spirit of rapine and greed was dinging in his ear. “Belongs to the flyin’ corpse and carries himself as if the deck couldn’t hould him. It’s aisy to see what’s wrong with him; he’s rotten with money—and you pushin’ his hand back when he houlds the gold out!”

Sheila let him talk; the thing that surprised her was the absence of the furious opposition she had expected from him. He knew everything. He had heard the conversation in the cabin and Dick’s proposition, which meant nothing less than that this stranger should join their ménage, and yet he had nothing to say, he who hated strangers as he hated the devil—nothing to her in the way of speech except the suggestion that Dicky should be fleeced.

“Larry,” said she, “stop talking foolishness and tell me, what do you think of him? You know quite well you wouldn’t touch a penny of his money unless you liked him. Do you like him enough to have him on board with us, money or not?”

Larry paused for a moment over the potatoes he was peeling, and drawing the back of his hand across his chin, turned his eyes toward Hildersditch church spire.

“Now you’re axin’ me,” said he, speaking in a far-away voice and as if addressing his remarks to the spire.

Miss Dennis stood for a second watching him as one watches a seer. She knew that he was reviewing Mr. Sebright both as a man and a shipmate and maybe even as a possible husband for herself. She knew Larry and his ways.

“Now you’re axin’ me,” said he, dropping the church spire and taking up the potato, which he finished off and flung in the bucket.

Miss Dennis turned aft, perplexed and just a trifle anxious as to results; for Larry, without uttering the words, had said, “I haven’t made up me mind. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t, but I’ll be tellin’ you more to-morrow.” You had to know Larry a long time before you knew his talk.