Читать книгу The Three Blue Anchors - Ottwell Binns - Страница 4

Table of Contents

The harbour held the better part of a score of fishing boats. By the quay a sailing barge with auxiliary power was unloading coal, the rattle of her winch breaking the quiet with chattering sound. Further out a small rusty steam-yacht was anchored; and not far away was his own motor-boat, little more than a decent-sized launch. The two last, he decided, were the only strange craft in port, and naturally his eyes fastened on the yacht. Had Mammy Venus or Michael of the ear-rings landed from her? Or was her presence in the harbour just a coincidence, and neither of the pair associated with her?

That both had come from her he did not believe. The negress had plainly been startled by the man’s advent—and not pleased. And Michael himself had been a little surprised; or, what seemed more likely, had affected to be so. But the recognition had been mutual, each had given the other a name, and they were clearly old acquaintances yet not exactly friends. The man, as it appeared, had some grievance against the woman, and the negress was in a measure afraid of him. He recalled the fellow’s quotation of Kipling, his odd comment on it; and deduced that in Mammy Venus’ expectation he should have been crab-meat, instead of a lively presence in the bar-parlour of the Three Blue Anchors.

But in heaven’s name, what had the odd pair to do with the quayside tavern of this little fishing port? They were quite alien to it, yet both were obviously interested in it; and the man had given that startlingly handsome girl her name—Seraphina. To be sure he had explained his knowledge of that. He had talked with someone who made a familiar diminutive of that rather fine name, and the girl had instantly understood who that one was. Then she and the wizened Ben had been eavesdropping in the passage, in a way that to say the least was not usual. He remembered the innkeeper’s obvious interest when the negress had rolled into his ken, and his silent disapproval of her as a customer, which the woman had ignored.... That in itself was rather odd. It might be that he had a prejudice against coloured folk using his inn, but that earnest eavesdropping pointed to something more; and the familiar usage of the girl’s name by Michael was further evidence that there was more than met the eye in the presence of that precious pair at the Three Blue Anchors tavern. He recalled the ear-ringed man’s suspicions of himself, and laughed as he thought how he had fanned those suspicions without in the least knowing what they were or to what they related.

“Gave the fellow something to chew on!” he muttered to himself, and a second later was brought up short by the spectacle of a man who was obviously no native.

The man was seated on a stone bollard. He was dressed in dirty dungarees, his otherwise bare feet thrust into a pair of rubber shoes, and he had a battered peaked cap upon his head. He was smoking a long cigar, and staring about him with a curiosity that no one to whom the harbour was familiar would have shown. But it was neither the man’s dress nor his interest in his surroundings which arrested Mr. Donne’s attention. Any unwashed fireman fresh from a stokehold might so have taken the air and indulged himself in a cigar, and there would have been nothing to remark upon the fact. But this man was a mulatto, and in view of his own recent encounter with Mammy Venus, Mr. Donne found that intriguing. Two coloured persons in a little port like this was at least one more than could have been anticipated, and he found himself wondering if there were anything in the conjunction of the two.

Lighting a cigarette he moved slowly forward, and as he drew nearer the bollard caught the mulatto’s roving eyes. Mr. Donne smiled affably.

“Nice day,” he said by way of a conversational opening.

“Warmish!” The other agreed, and looked at the end of his cigar, which, it appeared, had gone out.

Mr. Donne offered his match-box. The other took it, with a grin of thanks, relit the cigar, puffed a cloud of smoke, and absent-mindedly dropped the match-box into his tunic pocket. Then he spat, and in a matter-of-fact voice made an uncalled-for comment:

“Dis is a heluva hole.”

Mr. Donne laughed with mirthful understanding. To a man used to the excitements of great ports, a small Cornish fishing village might well merit the other’s description.

“Small!” he agreed.

“An’ quiet. Might be a dam’ graveyard,” the mulatto commented further in manifest disgust. “Take a glimp round at it. Enough to give a man duh jim-jams an’ make him drop over duh quayside.”

Mr. Donne obliged by looking round. That done he laughed.

“Not exciting,” he owned, then thoughtfully indicated the one bright spot in the landscape. “But there’s a public-house along the quay there.”

The mulatto looked in the direction of the inn with thirsty eyes, and marking the glance, Mr. Donne said tentatively. “Might do worse than stroll so far. The tap’s worth it.”

The other’s dog-like eyes quickened a little, then he spoke hopefully.

“Say, boss, was yuh askin’ me to hev a drink?”

“I wasn’t,” Mr. Donne laughed. “But I will with pleasure. I hate imbibing alone.”

The mulatto lifted himself from the bollard. “I guess yuh sure are duh friend in need.” He turned towards the tavern and then became still and asked a question. “Yuh jest come from down there?”

Mr. Donne nodded, and the other sought further information.

“See anythin’ of a coloured lady arrayed like duh Queen of Sheba?”

“There certainly is a coloured lady drinking rum in the bar-parlour,” Mr. Donne owned, grinning at the mulatto’s description.

Disappointment clouded the other’s dog-like eyes. Slowly he turned and sank back on the bollard.

“Guess I won’t take that drink, after all, boss. No offence meant!”

The man offered no explanation of his change of mind, and Donne needed none. Whether she stood in the category of friend or enemy he could not guess, but to the mulatto it seemed that the negress was a little formidable, and either the fellow had orders not to follow her, or he was afraid of an encounter with that massive lady.

“Please yourself. No offence taken. Another time maybe I’ll have the pleasure.”

“Dat depends on how long the ole gal lies in dis one-hoss port.”

Mr. Donne did not mistake the reference. It was not Mammy Venus of whom the mulatto spoke. The man’s eyes were fixed on the rusty-looking yacht, and unquestionably the allusion was to it. But that did not make the relation between the man and the negress any clearer; for, as he reflected, the ear-ringed man who had surprised Mammy Venus might very well be the owner of that craft and the mulatto his servant. He made an attempt to draw the man out.

“Handy little craft, I should say.”

“Was!” answered the mulatto frankly.

“Well, ships like men have their day. You the owner?”

“Me!” The mulatto stared at him. “Gawd Almighty, do I look like duh owner of a craft like dat?”

“Oh,” answered Mr. Donne lightly. “You never can tell. I’ve known a millionaire who was taken for a rag-and-bone man, and who looked the part. But if you’re not the owner, I suppose it must be Mammy Venus——”

“Lor’, yuh know dat lady?”

“Had a drink with her just now down at the Three Blue Anchors——”

The mulatto lifted himself from the bollard with a suddenness that was startling, and his canine eyes stared at Donne in unconcealed astonishment.

“What did yuh say was duh name of dat tavern, sah?”

“The Three Blue Anchors! Proprietor, Ben Bonito, good accommodation for man and beast, and beer worth drinking.... But, I say, what’s got you, man? You look as if you’d just shaken hands with a ghost.”

The mulatto grinned and then chuckled. “Oh, dat Mammy Venus! She sure is duh wonder of duh age.... Duh Three Blue Anchors! An’ she never say a word!”

His chuckle became a laugh, and watching him, Mr. Donne decided that the laugh was friendly and that here was a henchman of the negress. That was informing, but his curiosity was still unsatisfied, and he continued his investigations.

“Name of the inn seems to strike you,” he said quickly. “It’s a new one to me; but I guess you’ve heard it before. Wonder if you’d mind telling me where?”

His manner may have been a shade too curious, the look on his face a little too eager. Whether it was so or not, or whether the mulatto was aware of an indiscretion on his own part, it is not to be guessed, but a jibing grin came on the man’s ugly face.

“I sure tell yuh somethin’, sah!” he said.

“Yes?”

“Go tuh hell!”

The mulatto laughed as he gave this offensive direction. But he had given it to the wrong person. Mr. Jack Donne was not the man to suffer such impertinence, least of all from a coloured man. A second later the laughter was stopped by a blow which knocked the mulatto staggering towards the edge of the quay. There was neither chain nor rail to save him and he toppled over the edge into the water, the tide, luckily, being at flood. Mr. Donne himself walked to the edge and looked over. He was in time to see the mulatto’s black head bob up above the level of the water, and as their gaze met Mr. Donne laughed.

“Teach you to be civil to your betters, I hope, little nigger boy.”

The mulatto spat forth a mouthful of salt water, spat again as the wave made by his own submersion recoiling from the harbour wall filled his mouth anew, and then marking the steps a dozen yards away, struck out in that direction. Mr. Donne, having vindicated the honour of the white race, walked away whistling a cheerful air. But before he reached the end of the little quay his whistle died, and his brows puckered in a frown of thoughtfulness. He was deeply puzzled and much intrigued by the encounters of the last half-hour, and he had the baffled feeling of one who stands at the edge of mysteries without being able to solve them.

“I’d give a pound——” he muttered to himself, and turned to look back at the inn.

Mammy Venus was just emerging, and, even at the distance she was, to Mr. Donne’s eyes she had the demeanour of an angry hen. He wondered if the ear-ringed mariner whose appearance had so put her out of countenance had further ruffled her into a passion. A second later he had the luck to find confirmation of his suspicion. The unfortunate mulatto, emerging from his involuntary bath, lifted his dripping head above the level of the quay. Mammy Venus saw him and checked her rolling progress to speak to him. Donne was too far off to hear the words; but he saw the man point in his own direction and the negress turn to look at him. Then she turned again, stooped, and cuffed the mulatto with such violence that for the second time he was knocked into the harbour.

“Temper!” laughed Mr. Donne to himself. “Michael must have stamped upon her corns.”

He walked on, reached the end of the quay and found himself confronted by a sharply-ascending street, which led to the hill behind the port. Needing exercise, he faced the ascent and presently, seated on a rock at the crest of the hill, he looked down on the town and the harbour. Of the latter he had almost a bird’s-eye view, and he noted a dinghy that appeared to be making for the rusty yacht. A splash of rainbow colour in the dinghy’s stern seat informed him that Mammy Venus was the passenger, and he had no doubt that the mulatto was the oarsman, though he was too far off to discern the man’s features. He watched the pair climb the accommodation ladder of the yacht and disappear below, then sat there in the sunshine wondering again what was the explanation of the various odd encounters which he had witnessed and which, as he was sure, had their connecting link in the old inn.

The problem was an intriguing one, but he failed to find any solution whatever, and presently his meditations were broken into by a sound of footsteps. He looked round. An old man, plainly of the fisherman class, and as plainly beyond work, was shuffling towards him. The man as he approached gave him a friendly good day; and Mr. Donne, with a remembrance of the gossiping proclivities of retired seafarers, was altogether cordial.

“ ’Afternoon!” he said. “Fine view you have up here, for sure.”

“Be middlin’ good,” agreed the ancient, “for them as aren’t used to it ... But boy an’ man I’ve looked on it for up seventy year, an’ that be a goodish time for one view.”

“So long!” Mr. Donne expressed surprise. “I wouldn’t have given you as many birthdays by ten or a dozen.”

“Zeventy-zix, I be,” laughed the old man, “an’ though the view be the same more or less, in them years I’ve zeed a goodish few changes.”

“I’ll wager you have, Gaffer,” answered Mr. Donne. “You’ll have seen men come and go——”

“Mostly go,” wheezed the other. “Bain’t many that do come here.... Parson, who be cracked about ancient things, d’say that in two hunnerd years there haven’t been more nor four new family names writ in the parish register.”

“That’s a record for a place of this size, I should say.”

“Likely enough,” agreed the gossip. “But folk hereabout don’t travel much. Two ov them families came from the next parish, number three was from Zennor Churchtown, an’ only the Bonitos was rale furriners—not Cornish, I mean.”

“Bonitos?” Mr. Donne’s voice was mildly curious, but his eyes were keen. “Is that the family down at the inn?”

“Iss! ’Twas the one who came who built the place up a hunnerd an’ seventy years back, an’ gave it the name.... Seafaring man, he was, an’ a dark character by all accounts.”

“In what way?” asked Mr. Donne, his interest visibly quickening.

“Well, there’s tales ov his havin’ been a slaver—an’ worse; an’ ’tis sure he made a violent end.”

“How?”

“Handful ov seafaring men came along one day in a brig and landin’, they sat drinkin’ in Bonito’s house. There was a row come night, an’ next morning sure enough Bonito was found with his hands tied behind him, hanging from the bar of his inn sign; an’ the brig was gone. There’s a gentleman over to Lamorna who’ve put it all down in print with other strange happenings down here in the Duchy—for anybody to read as may want.”

“Um! ... Is there anything more about the Bonitos?”

“No; but there might be. They’m a queer lot; an’ tales might be writ if one was gifted with the trick.”

“What sort of tales?”

“Queer ones! ’Tis said that there’m no less than five Bonitos gone away to sea, an’ only one come back.”

“May have been lost. Following the sea was a dangerous calling in the old days.”

The old gossip nodded agreement, and rumbled on: “I mind the one who came back. He’m buried up in the churchyard. I was just landed from the fishing an’ saw him come tappin’ along the quay, a blind man, with death in his face.... Nobody knew how he’d been blinded, but there was a white scar across his forehead an’ it may have been that. He was back no more than a month, an’ then his light went out.... That be forty-six years come Candlemas.” He paused and then nodded his head in the direction of the port. “Ben down at the inn be his son.”

“Nothing against him, I hope?”

“Nought but a queerness in the head sometimes, an’ that he’m a silent man. An’ a landlord who don’t talk isn’t natural.”

“Queer in the head? How?” prompted Mr. Donne.

“Be always poring over an old drawin’ that be as like the picture on that sign of his as two peas—three blue anchors whirling like a broken wheel.... Be hung in the kitchen—framed; an’ ’tis said that never a night goes but when the inn be shut he d’take it down from its hook an’ stare at it like a man possessed.”

Mr. Donne was interested by this piece of gossip.

“That’s odd!” he said.

“Mortal odd,” agreed the old man. “But ’tis a saying that every man be cracked somewhere. An’ that wold picture is Ben’s particular chink, I reckon.”

His listener offered no comment on this judgment, but harked back a little.

“That Bonito who came back blinded, was it known where he had been?”

“Somewhere furrin was all that was known. An’ he hadn’t been up to churchyard a week when a strapping nigger man came here axing after him. Played hell’s delight down to the inn when they told him that wold Ben was dead and buried; an’ wouldn’t believe it. He made to stick young Ben as he was then with a seaman’s knife, an’ was sent to gaol for twelve months by the judge at Bodmin Assizes, an’ from that day to this Ben haven’t been able to thole the sight of a coloured man.”

So that was the explanation of Mr. Bonito’s askance looks at Mammy Venus, and possibly of his eavesdropping. That experience of his early manhood had soured him against all coloured folk. But, he thought, it did not explain other things—the negress’s interest in the inn sign, the mulatto’s chuckling surprise when he had learned the name of the inn, or the ear-ringed stranger’s attitude both to Mammy Venus and the girl Seraphina. And that picture, a replica of the inn sign, over which Bonito pored every night after closing time—there was something curious about that! He groped for any possible connection between these things, but the illuminating flash of thought which might have linked them into a coherent whole did not come, and after a moment he became aware that the old man was speaking again. He caught only the end of the utterance.

“—— a blackamoor in this port for donkey’s years.”

He guessed at the words that he had missed and answered tersely:

“There’s one now—a woman—in that yacht down there. Also a half-caste.”

“Jerusalem! ... Ee don’t say so! Then I reckon Ben Bonito’ll be in a twitter when he has the news.”

Donne did not explain that Bonito had already made the acquaintance of the negress. He was not without a hope that he might learn something more from this gossiping old man, but the hope was thwarted by an unexpected intervention. From somewhere down the hill came the sound of footsteps accompanied by that of a lively whistle. A man who could whistle coming up that hill was sound of heart and lungs and no mean pedestrian. He looked with idle curiosity in the direction of the turn where the ascending traveller must come into view. A second later, when the man Michael came into view, his interest quickened enormously.

He was alone, and as he drew nearer his pale eyes looked at Donne and the gossip seated on the rock, without so much as a flicker of recognition in them. He passed on, still whistling, and the native offered comment.

“Furriner! D’look like a mariner! Maybe he’s with that craft down there, zir.”

“Don’t think so.”

“Um! ... Maybe out of a berth, making vor Falmouth on Shanks’s mare. Be a lean time vor sailormen just now.” The man rose. “Well, I’ll be gettin’ down-along. Must see how Ben d’take the news of the coloured folk that be in port.”

He moved off downhill, and Donne looked round for the one who had passed up the road. The man was nowhere to be seen. He looked more closely, raking the rocks and the gorse, thinking the stranger might have seated himself to take the view, but he could see nothing of him.

“Must have turned aside through the gorse,” he murmured. Slipping from the rock to the turf, he lit another cigarette, and stretching himself luxuriously, gave himself to reflection on the gossip he had heard.

He did not reflect very long. It was very warm on the turf and the monotonous murmur of the sea made for somnolence. His cigarette finished, he threw away the stub, and presently began to nod, and finally slid into a light sleep.

A little time passed before he awoke to the sound of someone whistling. The air was one that he had never heard before, a soft melody, luring and dreamy, but with an insistent, compelling note under its softness that was like a call. Lifting his head, he looked round for the whistler but failed to find him. A moment later, however, for the second time he caught the sound of footsteps coming up the road; and turning towards the crest, he watched for the newcomer, thinking to himself that here was another individual who had breath to whistle whilst climbing a steep hill. A moment later, however, he knew his mistake. The pedestrian came into view—a girl whom he recognised.

“Seraphina!”

He whispered the name in some surprise. Then he suffered a little shock. The girl was not the siffleur. Her scarlet lips were unpursed, a little apart. Her beautiful face had a strained look. Her slumbrous dark eyes, though they faced the sun, were unblinking, and her whole demeanour was that of one oblivious of the common things about her. She reminded Donne of a Spanish girl whom once he had met in the Plaza de Oriente in Madrid sleep-walking in glorious moonlight. He repudiated the suggestion of the remembrance as swiftly as it was made. This was broad afternoon. It was sheer nonsense to imagine that——His thought broke off sharply as the girl unexpectedly halted. For a moment he thought that she had seen him, then he realised the truth. The whistling had ceased and Seraphina was listening, waiting for it to begin anew. Three seconds later the soft compelling air recommenced, and with that tense look still on her face the girl went forward, as a bird might go at the call of its mate. She passed the rock behind which Donne lay, without seeing him, and twenty yards up the road turned aside in the high gorse, and was lost to view. The whistled melody came to an abrupt end half-way through a bar; and not until then did he realise the truth. The siffleur must be the ear-ringed Michael who had come whistling up the hill. He remembered suddenly what the man had said about a meeting on the quayside under the stars which had no ears. But he had not waited for the darkness to fall. Here, on the high hill in the warm solitude of the gorse, with none but the grasshoppers to hear, the assignation was happening. The girl at the call of a stranger had left the inn—possibly in fulfilment of a whispered arrangement. But there was something mortally queer in that whistled call, something more odd still in the girl’s demeanour. He stared across the hill to the gorse sizzling in the hot sunlight. A perplexed look came in his grey eyes. Then he whispered his puzzlement to the world.

“What the devil is the meaning of it all?”