Читать книгу Black'erchief Dick - Margery Allingham - Страница 6

Table of Contents

“ANNY.”

“Ay, Hal.”

“Do you love me, lass?”

“Oh! now why will you keep plaguing me, Hal? How many times have I told you so on this same wall? You know I do.”

“Can I kiss you again, then?”

“Ay, Hal.”

There was silence for a minute or so, and the gulls fishing for eels in the soft black mud came in closer to the shingle-strewn strip of beach, taking no notice of the two figures on the sea wall, so still they stood.

“When we get married, lass”—the young voice sounded clearly in the quietness and the gulls flew screaming—“we might keep the Ship ourselves.”

The girl at his side cut him short with a bitter little laugh.

“Ay, Hal,” she said sadly, “when we get married—that’s a tremendous long way off, I’m thinking.”

The boy put his arm round her waist unchecked.

“I don’t know,” he said, and his voice sounded hopeful, “I don’t know, lass. Gilbot’s leaving the place in my hands more than ever, and who knows but what some day he’ll be handing it over to me altogether.”

Anny joined in his laugh and her hand slid up and caressed his broad, scarlet-shirted shoulder.

“Ay, and then I’ll be serving our own rum, and you and Captain Fen de Witt will settle the price yourselves—— Oh, Hal! lad, that’ll be happiness.”

“Why, Anny, girl, ain’t you happy now? Gilbot’s been more than good to both of us. It isn’t every landlord who’d bring up a couple of orphans in his inn and look after them the way he has us.”

The girl pouted her full red lips.

“It isn’t as if we didn’t work for him,” she said.

“Oh, Anny!”—Hal’s honest blue eyes clouded for a moment—“you didn’t serve the liquor till you were fourteen, you know, and he even let me study a bit before I started to help.”

“Ay, may be, but your folk left some money to him, didn’t they?”

“Nay, lass. They died aboard Fen de Witt’s schooner, the Dark Blood, coming down from the North. You know that; I’ve told you so some twenty times.”

“Ay, you have, but I like to hear you praise Gilbot, Hal, your eyes shine so, and you seem almost angry with me—I like you angry, Hal.”

The boy laughed.

“Saucy minion! When we are married you will not wish me angry. Faith, lass, you would not make another Ben Farran of me—surely?”

The girl shuddered.

“Peace, prithee,” she said. “I do not like to hear you jest so. Oh, that he had died with my father.”

“Marry, sweetheart, fie upon thee speaking of thy grandsire so,” Hal laughed merrily.

The girl looked about her uneasily.

“Hush!” she said. “I would not have him hear us.”

The boy’s laugh rang out again and he bent as he kissed her, although her height was unusual in the island, for he was very tall.

“Look, Anny, lass,” he said laughingly. “See how far we are from the Pet,” and he pointed ahead of them to where an old mastless hull lay moored in a little bay about a quarter of a mile from where they stood.

Anny glanced up at him and he stopped to look at her. Although they had lived in the same house since they could remember, he was never tired of gazing at that wonderful face of hers, and praising it till it reddened to the colour of the rough canvas shirt to which he pressed it.

It was plump and oval in shape, white, but delicately touched with a colour in the cheeks, and her hair, of that intense blackness which seems to absorb the light, curled over her low forehead. But her eyes were wonderful. Of a deep sea-green, they caught light and shadow from her surroundings. The girl was certainly a beauty and of no common type.

Hal caught his breath.

“Anny,” he said, his young eyes regarding her solemnly, “you are as beautiful as the sea at five o’clock on a summer’s morning. Look, sweetheart, over there, see—your eyes are as green as that sea, and your hair black as yon breakwater that starts out of it.”

The girl laughed, well pleased, but she looked over at the old hull again quickly.

“Will we go back now?” she asked at last.

The boy looked at her, astonished.

“Go back!” he said. “Why, what for—art not tired, surely?”

The girl shook her head.

“Nay,” she said, “but——” She stopped and looked at the hull again.

Hal followed the direction of her eyes before he spoke again. Then he laughed.

“Why, Anny, you are afraid to pass your grandsire’s boat.”

Then, as she did not speak, he took her little chin in his brown hand and raised her face to his.

“What are you feared of when I am with you, sweetheart?” he asked.

The girl shivered slightly.

“They say,” she began hesitatingly, “that Pet Salt is a witch.”

Hal’s face became grave.

“Ay,” he said, “they do say so, but, Lord,” and he smiled, “they said the same of Nan Swayle.”

“Ah! but that’s a lie,” said the girl hotly.

Hal laughed.

“Ay,” he said, “and maybe so is the tale of Pet Salt. Anyway, thy grandsire seems to thrive beneath her care, be she witch or no. Fie, Anny, for shame,” he added, “you would not haste back yet. Master French will not thank us if we get in so soon, stopping his love-talk with Mistress Sue.”

Anny wrapped her shawl a little closer about her head and shoulders, and slipped her arm through the boy’s, and they walked on for a while without speaking.

About three hundred yards from the old hull Anny stopped.

“Look!” she said, “he’s on deck.”

Hal looked in the direction in which she pointed and saw the stubby figure of old Ben Farran, a long telescope to his eye, leaning against the remnant of what had once been a neat deck-house. Lumber of different kinds—mostly empty rum kegs—lay strewn all round him, while from the shattered stump of the main-mast to the painted ear of the fearsome green-and-red dragon, which served as a figurehead, was stretched a clothes-line, on which a few rags leaped and fought in the cold breeze.

Hal studied him critically for a few moments.

“He’s not so deep in liquor as usual,” he said at last.

“Oh! poor Pet Salt!” exclaimed the girl involuntarily. “I wonder where she is?”

“Stowed away safely under hatches, I reckon,” said Hal, with a laugh.

“You should not jest, Hal. I have not known him able to stand so these three months. I fear he may have kilt her. He would if she could beg him no more rum.”

“Oh! what a soft heart it is,” said the boy gently. “How long ago was it that thou shivered when I spoke her name, and now you fear for her. Shall we go back?”

The girl hesitated for a moment, then she said: “Nay, she may have need of help, poor soul. Come with me, Hal.”

“Come with thee, lass! Think you I’d let you go alone—thy grandsire sobered?” His voice rose in indignation as he put his arm about her shoulders protectingly.

They came within twenty yards of the boat before the swaying figure on the deck became aware of them. Then, however, to their extreme surprise he hailed them affably and called to Hal.

“Hey, you boy there, be your eyes good?”

“Ay, none so bad, sir.”

“Ah, I doubt it. Come up here, will ’ee, and see if you can make out this craft.” Then, his eyes falling on the girl, “Is it that slut Anny you have with you?”

“’Tis Anny Farren, sir,” she said, speaking for herself.

“Ah! you run down to Pet Salt, girl, she may need thee.”

Anny climbed up the rope ladder which dangled over the side, and Hal after her.

“Is Pet Salt sick, Grandsire?” she ventured timidly.

Anny had been a serving-maid at the Ship Tavern some three years and her acquaintance with profane language was not limited, but she quailed visibly and the red blood mounted from her throat to the ebony curls on her forehead before the stream of abuse levelled at the head of the unfortunate woman in the hold. She fled down the hatchway, and Hal stood looking after her, undecided whether to follow his love and protect her from the aged witch below deck, or to remain and attempt to pacify the wrathful man by the deck-house.

Ben decided for him.

“Here you are,” he said fiercely, “take this telescope. Now”—as Hal took it from the old man’s unsteady fingers—“what do you see?”

The young Norseman, his yellow hair curling over his ears and one dark blue eye screwed to the rim, swept the glass to and fro once or twice, then he held it still.

“She’s a brig,” he said at last.

“Ah!” assented the old man.

Hal looked again. “Light’s very bad,” he remarked.

“I could ha’ told you that—here, give me the thing.” Ben regained possession of the glass and, unable to hold it steady, broke into another flood of profane language, cursing the woman, Pet Salt, again and again.

“She has vexed thee, sir?”

The young man put the question timidly.

“The ronyon burnt my rum-cup,” Ben Farran gulped with rage. “Oh, lad! the defiling of good, Heaven-sent rum with burnt eggs and honey!”

He spat on the deck at the thought of it.

The boy grinned, but he said nothing.

Once again the old man handed him the telescope.

“Now look! Be she Captain Fen de Witt’s Dark Blood?”

Hal began to understand the old drunkard’s interest in the brig. If this was the Dark Blood, the whole of the east end of the Island would run rum for a night or so, and, as he guessed, Ben’s stock was getting low.

“Nay,” he said at last, “’tis not she. Why, Master Farran, Captain Fen de Witt, isn’t expected for a week or more.”

The old man mumbled curses for a while before he spoke.

“Ah! but who be she?” he said, pointing out to the horizon.

“Why,” said the boy in some surprise, “’tis someone making for the West.”

The old man seized the glass.

“’Tis impossible, with the tide out like this,” he said.

Hal strained his eyes.

“Ay,” he said, “but she’s trying it.”

“But I tell thee, lad,” Ben’s voice rose shrilly, “’tis impossible. Why, down there in the fleet there ain’t no more ’an four feet o’ water when the tide’s like this.”

“Ay,” said Hal. “I know there ain’t, but she’s trying it,” he added stubbornly.

“Why, so she be.” Ben Farran put the glass at last safely to his eye and spoke in amazement. “But she won’t do it,” he added with a certain enjoyment. “She can’t do it. There’s only one man as I’ve heard of who’d try it,” he continued, “and it ain’t likely to be him at this time o’ day.”

“Ah!” said Hal, “and who’s that?”

“Dick Delfazio—him as they call Black’erchief Dick—but it ain’t likely to be him, as I said.”

Hal nodded.

“I’ve heard of him,” he said. “Lands his stuff at the Victory, don’t he?”

The old man grunted.

“I don’t know that,” he said. “All I know is I don’t see any of it. Lord,” he added, as he had another look through the glass, “’tis the Coldlight, though—sithering fool. He’ll lead the Preventative men on the Island after him one o’ these days.”

“He’ll never get down to the fleet with the tide like this, whoever he is,” said the boy, staring out curiously at the white-sailed craft.

“Ah! you’re right there,” said Ben. “Curse the fool, he’ll get her stuck fast in the mud and have to stay all night. Lord!” he added, “when these wars be over there’ll be a deal more care taken in the trade, take my word for it. Why, this ain’t smuggling, it’s free trading.”

But the boy was not listening to him; his eyes were fixed on the Coldlight, now well in view.

“Look!” he said suddenly, “look, she’s turning.”

“Eh? What? Eh? So she is!” ejaculated the old man in a frenzy of excitement. “Do ’ee think she be coming here—eh?”

Hal spoke slowly, his eyes on the brig.

“Ay,” he said, “you’re right, she’s making for East—who did you say she was?”

“The Coldlight—the Coldlight, lad, commanded by the finest man in the trade—oh, my boy, the Island will swim in good Jamaica this night,” and he dropped the telescope, which fell clattering to the boards.

Hal picked it up and turned to give it to the old man, but he was off, tottering to the hatchway. There, kneeling on the deck and poking his head down, he called whiningly, “Pet! Pet! my own, will you come up and hear what I have to tell you? Great—great news, Pet.” Receiving no answer he tried again while the boy stood looking at him.

“Pretty old Pet, queen of my heart, Pet, my Pet, come up.”

Still no answer, save for the patter of raindrops on the boat.

“I’m sorry I beat you, Pet—although I’m damned if I am, the ronyon!” he added to himself. Still all beneath the hatches was silent as the grave.

Swearing softly, the old man crawled over to the ladder and began to descend.

Hal heard him reach the bottom and stumble off.

The boy looked out to sea, where the brig was making slowly for the Eastern Creek. He stood looking at her for a second or two and then sprang round suddenly as though someone had called him.

Where was Anny? In the excitement of watching the brig he had forgotten her. His face flushing with remorse he raced to the hatchway and was just in time to help his sweetheart, pale and frightened, up on to the deck.

“Oh, Hal, how he has beaten her!” she said, as she moved quickly over to the rope ladder and climbed hastily down without once looking behind.

“Could she speak to thee?” he asked as he slid to the ground after her.

“Ay,” she nodded her head fearfully.

“Did she curse thee much?”

“Ay,” she nodded again.

Hal smiled.

“Art afraid?” he enquired tenderly.

Anny looked up at him before she pulled his arm about her waist.

“Nay,” she said, “not while I have thee, Hal.”

He kissed her before he spoke again.

“I suppose Ben was plaguing her to meet the Coldlight and beg a keg?” he said.

Anny nodded again. Then she said quickly: “Come, lad, we must back to the Ship if company be expected.”

“Wouldst rather serve rum to the company than walk to the shore with me, lass?”

The grip round her waist tightened and she laughed.

“If thou wert a wench, Hal, thou wouldst be a jade,” she said. “Come, Master Gilbot will be scuttering this way and that, and Mistress Sue, loath to leave Big French, will have the skin flayed off everyone in the place if we’re not there to help her.”

“Thou’rt a great lass, Anny,” said the boy, smiling. “When we are married there’ll not be an inn in the country to equal ours.”

The girl laughed happily.

“Ay, when we are married, Hal,” she said.