Читать книгу Joan of the Pilchard - Mary Gaunt - Страница 3

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'They that go down to the sea in ships, That do business in great waters. . . .'

'A fine evening, skipper,' said Lieutenant Thomas Quested.

The setting sun shone on all the bravery of his blue and gold, for men wore their uniforms habitually at the end of the eighteenth century, even as they did later in the days of the Great War.

The naval officer would hardly have thought of addressing the skipper of the Reaper, even though she was a fine brig and he was her owner and a man of property besides, but Daniel Reynell had on his arm a very pretty girl in a red cloak. He knew now, to his own dismay, did Thomas Quested, he would do a great deal for Loveday Corthew. And Loveday Corthew was to wed the sailor man at the New Year.

'It's not going to last,' said Reynell looking round. 'There's a body of rain coming up from the south soon. If we get it at the spring tide the town is like to be flooded again.'

A careless speech made in an idle moment!

Years after Daniel Reynell, looking back, remembering that December night, knew it was that prophecy which altered the whole course of his life. It was the gentle thoughtless push which set the overwhelming avalanche in motion.

To many of us in our lives come such moments. It is only afterwards that we recognise them—only when, for weal or for woe, the deed is done, the passing years have set their seal upon it, and it is too late to alter.

'Is the town often flooded?' asked Quested curiously. It was as if a devil were crying, 'Here is your opportunity!' 'It must make a lot of confusion, I should think.'

'It does,' said the skipper of the Reaper.

The wind was coming up in little puffs from the south-west, a warm, wet wind. At the foot of the Peak the white water was showing on the Rocks. There was a mist over the sea, too, the clouds hung low and the sea birds swept down with a piteous wail in their cries.

The pilchard boats, one after the other, were slipping out of the harbour, making long stretches first to the east and then away to the west because of the head wind. Presently he would have to go and do a kindly act; but he hesitated about leaving Loveday Corthew with the navy man, who spoke to him indeed, but whose eyes never left the face of the fair-haired girl beside him.

'But it doesn't often happen,' he went on. 'It wants a high wind from the south, a spring tide and a heavy fall of rain to fill up the stream.'

'It's near the new moon now,' said Quested thoughtfully.

'Friday,' said Reynell, 'but we don't always flood the town with a spring tide. I hope for the housewives' sakes we won't this time. Good evening to you.'

'Good evening.'

Quested saw the roses in Loveday's cheeks deepen as she dropped her laughing hazel eyes before the look in his dark ones. They glowed dangerously though he did not know it. She found it necessary to remind herself she was to wed Daniel Reynell at the New Year, and Lieutenant Quested was nothing at all to her.

He looked back at Chaple Rock. It was the usual thing at Polperro to sit on Chaple Rock and smoke in the evening. He might as well watch the fishing boats. Then he caught sight of a girl leaning over the half-door of the Pilchard, a girl with a mop of hair dark as the raven's wing, deep sad eyes blue as the sea, red lips, teeth like pearls, and skin that had the delicate cream of the magnolia, the makings of a lovely woman, thought the man who knew the world. The fisher folk of Polperro did not recognise the beauty in their midst. It was too uncanny for their simple taste. They only saw in Joan of the Pilchard an alien. They laughed even when she claimed her father's name. Oh they remembered him well enough. He had been wrecked on the cruel Cornish coast, and had taken away with him the daughter of old Tom Olivier, the poorest, most feckless fisherman in the little town.

When she came back thirteen years after, with what, to Polperro, was plenty of money in her pocket, and a tall lanky girl of twelve by her side, Polperro shook its head over her. It did not believe, what Joan knew was the simple truth, that José d'Ath had honestly married the girl and done his very best to make a good husband and father.

The fisher girl had wearied of the gentleman long before he had thoroughly wakened to the awful mistake he had made. When he died she had joyfully and thankfully taken her inheritance and her child—because she was only a girl her father's people had let her go—and gone back to the place of her birth.

The money in her pocket took the sting out of scornful looks. She bought the Pilchard, and married a man who was much more to her taste. Husband and wife were cheerful, if not boisterous, on their own ale by noon; by four o'clock they were stupid.

To Joan had come the bitterness.

She had been torn away from the class to which she belonged, from the comfort and refinement of her Spanish home, and set down in a little low fishermen's tavern. She resented the tavern, resented the coarse stepfather, resented the tone the fisherfolk in their unco righteousness took towards herself, resented her lot with a dumb child's resentment, never fitted into the new environment.

The environment scorned and treated her, the girl who had the blood of proud Spanish nobles in her veins, simply as the drudge of the Pilchard.

She was the drudge. Gradually, as her mother and stepfather gave way to their besetting sin, all the burden of the inn fell on her young shoulders. She took it up and worked, from dawn till dark worked sullenly, hopelessly, with that smouldering bitterness in her heart behind all she did.

As she leaned over the half door this December day she looked the ill-tempered slave she was. Her feet were bare; her short winsey skirt of a dark dull red was dirty and torn, the jacket open at the round young throat was not set off by a kerchief. The deep sea-blue eyes watched the young couple go down the street, then they wandered to the young man in uniform who was also watching.

He did not look in silence. He cursed aloud.

Why, she wondered idly, should Lieutenant Quested swear. If she, Joan, had cursed——But she was inarticulate. Reynell was the light of her eyes and the desire of her heart.

She was under no delusion with regard to him. Joan always saw things clearly. He had chucked her under the chin, turned her face up to his, said she had eyes like the sea on a summer's day and kissed her. Once even, when the Reaper had come back from France, he had brought her an orange scarf which he said would set off her dark hair. It didn't suit her. She knew it, but that scarf was her greatest treasure, folded away as too precious to wear save on great occasions that never came into her poor starved, drab life.

Daniel Reynell never looked at her now. He was going to marry Loveday Corthew, whom he had known ever since she was a baby, and whom he had courted ever since she had blossomed into the belle of the district round. Joan's sorrow was beyond all tears, a dull aching, hopelessness that could never be put into words.

Lieutenant Quested was vehement in the language he used. He was a fine-looking fellow, not as tall or as handsome or as broad shouldered as Daniel Reynell; but then the fisherman's jersey could not compare with the blue and gold of the navy, and his powdered hair made his eyes look dark.

He saw Joan looking at him and sombrely crossed the street.

'What's offended you, my maid?' he asked, seeing his own chagrin reflected on her face. He put his hand on her shoulder.

'Naught,' said Joan sullenly, 'an' a'll thank 'ee to keep hands to 'eeself.'

Joan's Spanish was that of a lady. Her English that of the fisher class to which she belonged.

'He's a pretty lad, eh, Joan?' the King's man went on, though it was of the maid he was thinking. Because he could do nothing, there was some easement to be got out of talking to this girl whom he thought could not understand his feelings.

There Lieutenant Quested made a mistake. The maid of the inn read him through and through.

'She's a winsome maid,' he went on.

Joan said nothing. The matter did not seem to call for remark.

'He ought to be in his Majesty's navy.'

'Her's skipper and owner of Reaper in harbour there. Her's not for Navy,' said Joan. 'Her hath a permit.'

'And the pretty maid? What about her?'

'Her'll wed she at New Year,' said Joan as if every word were wrung from her. She noticed that the other flinched. The New Year was so close.

'He'd make a good King's man, wouldn't he, Joan?' said Quested again, because having plunged into the conversation he was not minded to leave it just as the words he hated had been said.

'Her hath a permit,' said Joan again.

'Oh her hath a hermit, hath her?' mimicked Quested, showing Joan the fault in her own speech, 'but if her were serving the King her couldn't marry that other pretty maid, eh my wench, what think you of that?' and he scorned himself for saying it, scorned himself for so nearly putting his desire into words.

Joan raised to him a pair of blue eyes into which something flashed that let a light into his own soul.

He turned away silent and sullen as Joan herself.

If Daniel Reynell, who had a permit, were serving in his Majesty's Navy he could not wed Loveday Corthew on New Year's Day, and if Loveday were not wed on New Year's Day who knew but that—and Lieutenant Quested cursed again. Why did he think of Loveday Corthew? Suppose she were free to wed him—suppose he could win her—suppose he married her. That would end his career in the Navy. And he did not want to leave the Navy. He was quite sure of that.

But Loveday had bonny curling hair, she had dancing hazel eyes, and laughing lips. She would stick in a man's mind. Did she love Daniel Reynell? Did she know what love meant? He was sure she did not. He was sure, too, that the only man who could teach her properly was not Daniel Reynell, but the man who was vowing to himself he would think of her no more.

He would not take Daniel Reynell. He meant to have Polperro men though. Men the King's ships must have. He had a very special order for four, and what better men than these capable Cornish fishermen? By fair means or foul he intended to have them. That hint about the spring tide was well worth considering.

To do him all justice, Thomas Quested firmly believed it was a step up in the social scale to join the Navy. Since they were not willing, of course, it must be managed. The men who resisted most were content enough before the year was out. There was plenty of excitement, plenty of prize money. Ordinarily I am afraid he would not have hesitated one moment to disregard even a permit. Now the fact of Reynell's permit only troubled him because he stood in the position of a rival, and it was his instinct to give him fair play. If Loveday Corthew really loved him best—he was the last man—the very last man. But did she love him best?

She did not know what love meant! And if her wedding day had not been fixed——Not for a moment did he think any ill of Loveday Corthew. She was dear and sweet and good, but she had seen nothing of the world. She had known the master of the Reaper all her life. He was backed by the approval of her father, an excellent match. It was a family affair. But she would never love Daniel Reynell, whereas she was his born mate. He had known it from the moment he had looked into her winsome face. This man stood in the way. It was bitter—bitter.

If he had only known it Loveday's thoughts were straying in much the same direction though she had not realized it herself. Her trousseau was ready, even the cake was baked, and she knew she had been the happiest girl in the world when Daniel Reynell had asked her. It was a triumph that had echoed along the coast, had reached Looe, and even, it was whispered, was talked about in Plymouth itself. No wonder she had been pleased and proud.

Was she fickle for thinking now what might have been?

Loveday considered a fickle woman something mean and despicable. She ought not to think of Lieutenant Quested who had come longing too late. In fact, of course, she did not think about him.

But she shivered in spite of herself, and her lover would have drawn her closer. She held back gently. She was in no mood for lovemaking.

'Not here—in the street,' she said. She was so wise—so kind, but Reynell was repelled. Did not this girl he loved and longed for, take things a little too calmly? Would she ever waken and respond to his passion? Just for a moment it flashed through his mind that she never had. She had always been the dear little girl, the dearest little girl in the world ever since he had known her. Of course things would be different when they were married.

'I rather mistrust a King's man in a fishing town,' he said, tearing his thoughts away from his doubts and fears.

'Why?' she asked. 'He will not harm you. He is Parson Trevenick's friend.'

'Parson's friend or not,' said Reynell a little savagely, 'when a navy man comes poking round he generally wants recruits, and when he wants recruits he's not over particular how he gets them.'

'Oh but Lieutenant Quested,' began Loveday. She felt she could explain easily enough why Lieutenant Quested lingered in Polperro. She hardly thought he was thinking of recruits. Then she stopped. The explanation might not please her lover.

Perhaps it was lucky that a fisher boy running up interrupted them at that moment.

'Cap'en Toms sent I along, Skipper. Hers already.'

Reynell caught the girl's arm and held it so tightly he hurt her.

'I must go,' he said, 'I promised old Cap'en Toms to go out with him to-night. There aren't likely to be many more nights when he can go out. His son has a catarrh and he can't cast the net alone. You will not let Lieutenant Quested walk back with you, will you?'

'But, Dan,' she protested, 'how can I help it if you are not there. And,' she added with spirit, 'if he offers to carry my fish 'tis only courtesy on his part.'

'I'll not go with Toms,' said Reynell jealously.

'Fie on you,' she laughed, 'and we to wed on New Year's Day! What sort of life shall I have with a man who is jealous of a shadow! If you can't trust him, can't you trust me?'

She looked at him smiling roguishly. How winsome she was! Of course he ought to trust her he thought miserably. She was right too about the kiss. The place was too public for such kisses as he wanted.

She stood a moment watching his stalwart figure clad in fisherman's jersey and high sea boots as he strode away reluctantly to the little quay where the fishing boats lay.

His handsome face was tanned with sun and wind; those blue eyes that looked so straight into hers were honest and true; his fair hair curled in tight little rings all over his uncovered head. Of course, she loved him, this great stalwart man, was he not the man of her childish dreams?

Because she was so sure that she loved him she felt she might allow herself a little latitude. To reward herself for her own good intentions, she smiled at Lieutenant Quested when he joined her.

Looking back Daniel Reynell saw them both at the fish scales and cursed the good nature that had pledged him to a night at sea.

Lieutenant Quested not only helped her buy mackerel but carried it for her all the way to Raphiel Farm a good half hour's walk away.

By way of keeping his thoughts from straying to another man's promised bride, Lieutenant Quested talked of Polperro, and gained a great deal of information that was likely to be useful to him. By the time he had reached the farm he knew all about the behaviour of the fisherfolk when the town was flooded. That, he told himself, was so strictly business, that when the farmer invited him to stay to supper, he allowed himself to be persuaded.

By the end of the evening the farmer had supplied him with a great deal more information.

So Lieutenant Quested spent an evening that was not only pleasant to himself but was likely to be profitable to his King.

As for Loveday she was well content. She saw her father's pride in her—felt it was deserved. Was she not going to wed the handsomest, most sought-after man along all the Cornish coast, and here was the King's officer looking at her with—well she was a good girl. But even a good girl could not fail to know he was looking at her with eyes of desire. She was flattered.

She went to bed deliriously happy. Quested had wakened in her that which Reynell had failed to stir. She had known nothing of a woman's passion and longing. It was Thomas Quested who was teaching her, not her affianced lover.

As yet it was only intoxicating, not disquieting.

She fell asleep at last happy, and without a thought of fear for the future.