MR LAWRENCE REFLECTS
When Mr Lawrence found that nothing he could say, nothing he could
implore, nothing he could entreat his companion to forgive, provoked
Lucy into looking round from the window through which she gazed at the
sea, nor caused her to alter her posture, which curiously suggested
with dramatic art that she was alone, that the man was gone, that
she was engrossed by thoughts of her own, he withdrew. After closing
the door he seemed to hesitate over turning the key, but turned it
nevertheless and pocketed it as before.
The cabin was empty. Mr Pledge was again superintending work forward.
Mr Eagle kept the look-out. This was the ship's first day from home.
The watches had not been set, and it would be "all hands" with the
ship's company until the second dog-watch came round. The vessel swayed
on the heave of the swell with the ponderosity, you would have looked
for in one of her mould. She creaked in every timber. She pitched
rapidly, albeit the blue afternoon hollow was very shallow, but the
sullenness of the sturdy round bows was in her longwise motion. If
Lucy meant to be sea-sick she was neglecting her chance, for here was
movement more fitted to discompose the land-going stomach than the
lofty billow that is swung by the storm. But so far this sweet and
amazing young lady had proved herself as good a sailor as Mr Lawrence
himself.
Whilst he stood in reflection at the cabin table, the steward Paul came
down the steps bearing a tray of refreshments so prettily decorated
as to prove that the ship's cook had been chosen with judgment. The
pyramid of sandwiches might have kindled a light in the dulled eye
of one lying oppressed with nausea. In addition were a plate of cold
tongue, a small plate of brawn, with two or three other delicacies. On
the tray stood a bottle of red wine and a tumbler. Mr Lawrence told
Paul, handing him the key as he gave him the directions, to take the
tray to Miss Acton, place it on the table in perfect silence, and quit
the cabin, making no answer if she spoke to him. When this was done and
the key received by Mr Lawrence, he took a tumbler from a rack out of
the skylight and entered the berth which under the name of "sick-bay"
had been fitted up for his own use. Here he contrived to find a bottle
of brandy, a small caulker of which without water he swallowed.
This interior presented a very inhospitable look; its rough-hewn bunks
might have been intended for the accommodation of prisoners. The
deck was without carpet. Indeed the only colour or warmth which this
melancholy hole presented to the eye or the mind was to be found in
such wearing apparel as swung from hooks, in Mr Lawrence's sea-chest,
in the nautical instruments, in the shelves with their little burden of
tin box, a few books, and so forth.
He sat down upon his chest, folded his arms and sank into thought. Had
he needed a motto for his reflections he might have found one in the
Duke of Gloster's speech:
"Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?"
He had been so transported by his scheme for winning the beautiful
young girl whom he worshipped that his survey of the vast canvas of his
intentions was in reality restricted to but one corner of it, so that
he saw only a little of the whole truth. First, and certainly foremost,
he had counted upon her love for him, which, however carefully the
secret might have been kept by her, was witnessed by him every time
they had met, and flourished as a conviction in him. He had looked for
her forgiveness for the rashness, and, it may be added, the cruelty of
his conspiracy of love, and he never could have believed that in the
sweet image of the girl dwelt such a character as she had exhibited
since, after inveigling her on board into his cabin, he confessed that
the story which had brought her to him was a lie, and with a face
filled with the light of worship for her avowed his intentions.
In some strokes of this character he might have indeed believed that
she was merely acting, but other features had impressed him to such
a degree that, though he was determined--not yet, perhaps--to accept
the suspicion, or the persuasion of his own opinion, he, behind the
darkest curtains of his heart, felt a fear that his stratagem would
force her reason from her brain, that she would go mad when she clearly
understood that the ship was bound to Rio to be feloniously sold there,
when she realised that she had been ruthlessly torn from her father,
from her home, and all that she loved, and that her name must ever
bear the stain, happen what might, of Mr Lawrence's ignoble feat of
abduction.
But as a rule men who act with excessive imprudence are endowed with a
quality of self-complacency which enables them to persuade themselves
that "it's all right," and to this belief they cling until time and
experiment prove that it's all wrong; whereupon their moral being falls
to pieces, they become mean, cheap, and weak, and bewail their folly
under the name of misfortune.
Mr Lawrence having meditated awhile, rose from his chest, unclasped his
arms, and whistling softly the familiar air of "Wapping Old Stairs,"
quitted his naked, forlorn, inhospitable berth.
As he advanced towards the companion steps the hatch was darkened by
the figure of Mr Eagle, who, on catching sight of the Captain, cried:
"A sail broad on the larboard bow, sir!"
Mr Lawrence rushed back to his cabin, whence he took from a shelf a
telescope of uncommon power for those times, the gift of no less a
man than Captain Acton after intelligence had been brought to him of
a particular heroic piece of behaviour on the part of Mr Lawrence.
With this telescope he sprang on to the deck, and levelling it at the
sea over the lee bow, viewed in the lenses the picture of a large
man-of-war with two white bands broken by gun-ports. She was far away,
yet not so distant but that a hand's breadth of her black side could
be seen shivering in mirage betwixt the lower white band and the
wool-white tremble of water running aft. All the men of the _Minorca_
were on deck at work here and there. They looked at Mr Lawrence as with
levelled telescope he stood on the quarterdeck viewing the distant
battleship. They all belonged to Old Harbour Town; all had heard of
him, and a few knew him by sight. They were members of a group of
inhabitants who felt that the presence amongst them of a man whose
sea story though brief was brilliant did them and Old Harbour Town
honour, and they regarded him as he stood with the glass at his eye, as
though they should say, "Yon's a man-o'-war, and she may be a Johnny;
but there's the Jack who will know what to do with her." And, may be,
some of those who thus reflected cast their eyes upon the figure of
Mr Eagle, who stood near enough to the Captain to enable the sight to
master the details of a very striking contrast.
"Hoist the ensign!" exclaimed Mr Lawrence.
Mr Eagle, breaking into a run, sent aloft at the peak of the barque the
meteor flag of Old England.
"British!" said Mr Lawrence in a moment, as though speaking to
himself, "as I thought," holding the man-o'-war in view in his
telescope, and marking the slow soaring of the British flag to the
gaff-end of the two-decker.
The Captain's exclamation had been overheard, and the gaze of the
Merchant seamen of the _Minorca_ was fixed upon the figure of one of
those fabrics which could never light up with their cloud of sail the
confines of the sea or the nearer fields of water, without exciting
a thrill of interest or causing the heart to leap up in momentary
transport of patriotic pride. She was under fore and mizzen jury
topmasts. With the main all was well, and the spars lifted their canvas
to the moon-like royal without hint of wreck or suggestion of wound.
Either she had been in action and had come away crippled, or had been
in trouble on a lee-shore or amongst rocks. And still she painted a
stately and a swelling picture upon the blue sky past her. The sun was
westering; his yellow light flung upon the distant canvas the delicate
sheen of fine silk. From the hand's breadth of black side under the
lower white band, the stately roll to leeward flashed lightning-sparks
from the wet, and, as she slightly pitched, the upheaval of her bows
exhibited at the fore-foot the snow-like crumbling of foam. She passed
in grandeur and in tranquillity.
All the hearts aboard the _Minorca_, British as they were, must wish
that that gallant show might not fall in with something superior to
herself in weight of broadside and perfect in equipment aloft. Though
every man felt that the sequel of such a rencountre must be the
inevitable one: that is the sailing of the jury-rigged two-decker in
company with a powerful prize both bound, let us suppose, for the sweet
and lovely waters of Plymouth Haven.
Mr Eagle approached Mr Lawrence, who turned upon him suddenly.
"The sails of that ship," cried the Captain, "must have been in sight
some time before you reported her. When I came on deck she was hull up.
Is this your idea of keeping a look-out?"
"I reported her as soon as I saw her, sir."
"Wasn't she reported from the masthead?"
"Yes, sir, and then I saw her and reported her to you."
"And this is the way that a look-out is to be kept aboard this ship,"
said Mr Lawrence with a biting insolence of scorn, and that sort of
pity which enrages more than kicks or execrations. "If you don't
hold to the instructions you receive from me, sir, you'll soon find
yourself eating black bread in a French dungeon with straw from a sty
for a bed."
He made a step to the ship's side, and the mate without answer slunk
away to leeward.
About this time the breeze began to freshen. The horizon slightly
thickened with some windy change in the atmosphere and with the shadow
of the evening. The _Minorca_ under all plain sail heeled into the
white smother of spume alongside, and as she sprang crushed the surge
with her round weather-bow till the bright brine sometimes leapt like a
fountain athwart the forecastle. Mr Lawrence watched her behaviour with
attention, and often sent a look at the creaming road of wake which was
so brilliant and long that, as the shadow deepened, the tail of it was
lost to view.
In the second dog-watch the crew were mustered aft and divided into
watches. It was tolerably certain that down to this moment no hint had
found its way amongst them that their course would presently be for any
other port in the world than Kingston.
Mr Lawrence supped alone as he had dined alone, and, as he intended,
to breakfast alone. At sea the last meal which in the old forecastle
days consisted of black tea and ship's biscuit was invariably called
supper. At six o'clock Mr Lawrence sat down to the last meal of the
day. A tray for the inmate of the Captain's cabin was prepared. It was
furnished with tea and milk (for the ship was but one day out, and
though she wanted a cow she could not need at least a day's supply of
milk), bread and butter, slices of ham and biscuits. When the steward
came from the cabin Mr Lawrence said: "Did the young lady speak?"
"No, sir."
"What is she doing?"
"She is pulling feathers and other stuff out of her bed which she has
drawed from its place on to the deck, and she is sitting alongside of
it a-fluffing of the feathers over the cabin floor."
"Did she look at you when you entered?"
"She didn't seem as if she even saw me, your honour."
"Has she eaten anything, can you tell me?"
"When I fetched her tray last time, sir, I noticed that some sandwiches
and tongue was gone, and there was a little red wine in the bottom of
the tumbler, as though she had drunk some and left a drop."
"She has ripped up her mattress and is throwing the inside of it round
about her!" Mr Lawrence frowned, pursed his lip, and stared upon the
deck with a strange admixture of gloom and anger.
In truth there had come into his mind the remembrance of a person who
had fallen mad, and amongst the earliest indications of his insanity
was his tendency to tear up everything that would yield to the power of
his fingers, including his clothes.
"By-and-by," said he, "go in and clear the mess up. Take no notice of
her, nor heed her if she speaks. Then fetch the mattress from the upper
bunk in my cabin and place it on her bedstead."
He finished his supper in a very gloomy mood. His character has been
imperfectly drawn if it leaves upon the reader the impression that he
was no more than a gallant, handsome, hectoring scoundrel, a drunkard,
a liar, and a gambler. He was more than this, and better than this. In
him was a very great deal of honest, sturdy, British human nature, and
amongst those who saw the white skin of his character peeping through
the rags and tatters of his morals was the young lady whom he had
locked up in his cabin. Was he driving, had he driven her mad? This
was an awful thought to him, a figure, a presentment on the canvas of
his scheme which his utmost imagination never could have painted. He
was passionately fond of her. In truth he was risking his neck to
win her. His inmost sensibility as a man and as a gentleman was in
perpetual posture of recoil over the reflection that his hand it was
that had made this gently-nurtured, beautiful, adorable girl a prisoner
in a little ship that was rolling to a port in which she was to be
fraudulently sold. He thought of her in the lovely drawing-room of Old
Harbour House: the soft illumination of wax lights; the sweet incense
of flowers; the piano whose keys were accompanied by her own melodious
warblings; her little dog; all the comforts and luxuries which wealth
could provide her with; all that a tender-hearted and loving father
could endow his only child whom he loved with. And then he thought of
her torn from all this pleasantness and sweetness and elegance, so
robed that in a short period she must become beggarly to the eye; after
her father's hospitable and plentiful table, fed with the poor fare of
a common little ship.
For some time after he had closed his knife and fork he sat at table
shading and supporting his forehead with his hand, his elbow resting,
and deep thought was in his attitude. To one who knew his story he
submitted a picture for memory to cherish. Night was near, though not
yet come, but its shadow was upon the ship, and three or four stars
like little balls of quicksilver ran to and fro athwart the gleaming
black panes of the skylight glass. The hum of a steady breeze in the
stout shrouds, in the cat-harpings, in the drumming hollow of many
sails sounded like the strains of an organ muffled to the ear by the
walls of the church that holds it. The low thunder of the surge washing
past the ship was as constant as its accompaniment of the concert
of creakings, jarrings, shocks in bulkhead, rudder-post and strong
fastenings.
Mr Lawrence started suddenly, stood up, looked round him, and viewed
steadfastly for a space Lucy's cabin door. Then muttering to himself,
"To-morrow--to-morrow!" he made his way towards the deck.
He had half mounted the cabin ladder when he was brought to a stand by
a sound of voices, of men speaking hard by the companion-way.
"What beats all my goin' a-fishing," said Mr Thomas Pledge in a voice
which, in spite of its being subdued, and in spite of the noises of
the wind aloft, and of waters washing along the bends yearning and
seething, was distinctly audible to Mr Lawrence as he stood in the
shelter of the companion-way, "is this: this 'ere ship belongs to
Captain Acton. His purchase of her was square and above-board. Why
should he go behind his own back, in a manner of speaking, and put a
man that was an officer in the Royal Navy in charge to carry her to a
port, and sell her by stealth, as though she was a piece of plunder,
and the officer in charge ordered to 'and her over to a fence, which,
John, as of course you know, is the vulgar name for a man as receives
stolen goods? Why is the crew kept in ignorance of Captain Acton's
intention? There's no 'arm in a man a-selling of his own property. But
I says there is a good deal of 'arm in a man deceiving of sailors for
making them an offer to do something which he don't rightfully explain,
and which they'd decline to undertake if they'd been told the nature of
it."
"In all what you say I agree with you, Tom," answered Mr Eagle, "and I
should have thought that Captain Acton was the last man on this earth
to have behaved himself in such a way. For my part I have always found
him so straightforward that the needle ain't truer to the Pole than he
is to his rightful and honourable meaning."
"Ay," said Pledge, "but don't you forget that the needle swings, and
leaves the Polar mark points off."
"But he swings back again," said Mr Eagle, "and is true as God's law
allows him to be in every atom of steel that goes to the making of
him. Have you talked at all forrards about this here matter?"
"Not yet," was the reply.
"Well," said Mr Eagle, "I'm for leaving these 'ere coils on the pin
until the time comes for chucking the fakes down and lettin' go, by
which I mean I'm for waitin' until the Capt'n calls the 'ands aft and
reads to 'em the sealed orders he told me about. It'll be time enough
to speak up when we know what Captain Acton's instructions to him are."
"You may be right," said Pledge, "but I should oncommonly like to larn
what old Jim is a-going to say to this 'ere traverse." Meaning by old
Jim the oldest hand forward, and one who had served Captain Acton ever
since that retired Naval officer had commenced ship-owning.
At this point Mr Lawrence, who judged that as much had been said as was
likely to interest him, put his foot over the coaming and passed on to
the deck, walking, without heeding the presence of the two men, to the
binnacle stand. He inspected the compass, and then looked along the
deck. Only one figure was now visible, and he had started to stump the
planks in the true deep-sea look-out fashion.
It was, of course, as Mr Lawrence had foreseen. Eagle had betrayed Mr
Lawrence's confidence, and Pledge manifestly was thirsty to carry
the report into the forecastle. As this was a part of Mr Lawrence's
programme his mind made no other comment upon it than that he was
pleased to discover that honest John Eagle, as Captain Acton held
him, was a rogue who could not keep a secret although imparted by so
exalted a personage as the commander of a ship, and that in breaking
his promise the sour, shallow-minded mate was doing exactly what Mr
Lawrence wished.
The night came down in a heavy shadow that was not lightened by its
burden of stars. The foam of the sea looked as spectral as the faint
astral splashes in the velvet deeps on high through which sailed many
visionary shapes of cloud. A little time before it fell dark, and when
the soft, moist crimson of the sun that was set yet lurked in the
west, the steward Paul went aft with lanterns for the cabins occupied
by the Captain, the mate, and Miss Lucy Acton. The great cabin, or
living-room, was already lighted by two lanterns which swung from hooks
on either side the skylight fore-and-aft. The lanterns Paul bore were
small, of iron frames fitted with glass, and in them was consumed a
mesh which was fed with oil.
Mr Lawrence was in the act of passing from the cabin steps to his
berth when Paul, who had received the key from him, came out of the
interior tenanted by Lucy. He looked pale in the lantern light, ugly,
and grotesque, and his face wore an expression as though he had been
terrified.
"Have you hung up the light in Miss Acton's cabin?" said Mr Lawrence.
"Yes, sir."
"What is she doing?"
"She was lying on the mattress I took in."
"Did she speak?"
"No, sir. At least not at once."
"Has she ripped up the mattress?"
"I didn't see she 'ad, your honour."
"What next?"
"As I turned after 'anging the lantern up I found her stannin' behind
me with a knife in her hand; one of the knives I took in the tray,
and didn't miss when I cleared away. She says to me, speakin' through
her teeth like as though she was tryin' to talk whilst holding on to
something with her mouth, and in the strangest, thinnest voice I ever
heard in all my life, like when you're trying to file down the head of
a nail, 'What do you want here, you loathsome creature? You come fresh
from your forest. Go back before I kill you!' And she flourished the
knife which glittered in her 'and as though it was a-fire, on which I
ran out, sir."
It would have been difficult to tell what was in Mr Lawrence's mind
as he stood viewing Paul for some moments in silence, after that
arched-legged hunchback had ceased. He said in a voice without a
tremor, in tones as steady and collected as those in which he would ask
a man how he was or bid him good-morning: "Have you ever met with mad
people?"
"Yes, sir."
"What proof have they given you that they were mad?"
"A-tearin' up of their clothes and a-goin' about without shame. He was
a man called Micky Cruppin, sir. Another 'ud stop at every pool to wash
his feet. I knowed a man who wouldn't attend sarvice 'cos he said that
the devil always came in, and took a seat beside him. There was old
Mother Compton, who'd spit at a dog if he barked at her, who used to
do her washin' on the Sabbath, sayin' that she was too good to go to
church, and that the parson ought to be 'anged for having committed a
forgery where he last lived. And this she'd say of a new parson just as
she would of t'other who had gone afore him."
"Do you think Miss Acton mad?" said Mr Lawrence, speaking with an
effort, but determined to have an independent opinion and willing to
believe that the wretch who stood humped, pallid, and terrified before
him might be able to distinguish clearly what was obscured by his own
prejudices, wishes, and dread.
"Yes, sir, I do," was the answer, swiftly delivered, as is the
characteristic of conviction.
Without further speech Mr Lawrence passed into his cabin.
Till midnight he was frequently up and down. The mate in charge
rounding upon his heel would see the figure of the Captain, who might
not have long before gone below, rising and falling against the stars
as he stood grasping a back-stay, watching the darkling ship as she
crushed the phantom lights of the deep out of the black coil of surge
with its trembling lading of stars of the sea-glow, and ever and anon
sending the eye of a man, who has been used to looking out for ships of
the enemy, around the gloom of the horizon. But the mate of the watch
did not know that Mr Lawrence varied this routine of vigilance by often
standing in his own cabin with his ear pressed to the bulkhead that
separated Lucy's berth from his, with the idea of catching any noises
that might be made within.
Shortly after midnight he softly turned the key in Lucy's door and
looked in, and deeming that she lay asleep he passed in, closing the
door behind him, that the roll of the ship might not slam the door and
awaken the sleeper. The light was dim, but sufficiently clear for eyes
that had come out of the gloom or darkness. A mattress lay upon the
deck close against the bedstead, which was emptied of its furniture,
and upon this mattress was stretched the figure of Lucy Acton. She
was fully dressed as in the day, save that she had removed her
jockey-shaped hat. The bolster from the bedstead supported her head.
Some of her dark hair had become disengaged and lay loosely about her
cheek, giving the purity of marble to her brow in that light, and her
sleep was so deep that she lay as though dead. On the deck close beside
her grasp was a common table knife.
Mr Lawrence made a step and quickly picked up the knife and drew back
again, conscious that the fixed gaze will often awake a slumberer even
from deep repose. He stood close to the door viewing this picture of
a sleeping girl in a ship's little cabin irradiated by a dim light,
whose motions, with the rolling and the pitching of the ship, filled
the darkling interior with a hundred dancing spectres. His marine
ear would take no heed of the voices of the ship in that cabin, the
groans and murmurs, the low whistlings and rusty strainings. This was
a concert which his seasoned sense of hearing must miss or overlook in
his perception of the picture he viewed.
He gazed at the sleeping figure for two or three minutes and then
left, again locking the door. He entered his own cabin and stretched
his form along the lower bunk; but used as he was to sleep well in an
hour betwixt one scene of slaughter, of belching broadsides, of fierce
and murderous boarding and another scene scarred by the cannon flame,
terrible with its thunder of guns whose muzzles yawned close to the
muzzles of the foe, slumber was not to be his.
Was it possible that Lucy's situation had driven her out of her mind?
Her behaviour throughout the day had been extraordinary. Features of
character had appeared in her in the extravagance of her moods and
humours which he never could have conceived would, though latent and
demanding the summons of insanity to become visible, have formed a part
of her nature. She, the gentle, the sweet, the refined, the tender, the
sympathetic had exhibited even coarseness. Could she be mad, and yet
slumber so soundly? How do the insane sleep?
He contrasted her wretched bed on that cabin floor with her home
bedchamber which he figured--he had never entered it; a room
sweet-scented with the flowers of the creepers at the windows, white
and fair in the apparel of a girl's bower of rest, elegant in its
equipment as were all the rooms of the home of the Actons.
He loved her passionately, even to madness, and must win her. But he
never would have sought to win her at the price of her reason, had he
foreseen the blow his stratagem must deal her. He must turn robber to
rescue himself from a life-term of imprisonment as a debtor, and he
could not steal his friend's ship without stealing his daughter too,
because he knew that his act of piracy would as effectually end all
chance of his possessing her as a wife as though she lay as dead as
Juliet in her tomb.
He was on deck early in the morning. Daybreak had turned ashen the
surface of the sea. The wind was a steady breeze, and the _Minorca_
crowded with every cloth she carried saving her stun-sails, plunged,
and pitched, and frothed, and foamed in prodigious fine style as she
was swept onwards by the wind that was a point abaft the beam. The sun
rose in wet pink splendour on the larboard quarter, and by his light,
which threw out the sea-line like the crystal rim of a tumbler against
the heavens which were full of travelling clouds, Mr Lawrence swept
with his glass the whole brimming circle. There was nothing in sight.
Mr Pledge walked the deck in charge of the watch. When Mr Lawrence
appeared Pledge saluted him in man-o'-war style, but Mr Lawrence's
policy towards Pledge was the same as his policy towards Eagle. He
would not sit at meals with him, or have anything to say to him outside
the necessities of strict discipline and the ship's routine. Pledge saw
pride, haughtiness, and contempt in the handsome face that was turned
to him when Mr Lawrence condescended to ask a few questions about the
ship's rate of going, and the like. But this much the Captain added:
"Did you ever serve in a man-o'-war, sir?"
"Yes, sir," answered Pledge.
"British?"
"American, your honour."
"Well, the Yankee's discipline is taut, though not so taut as ours by
the length of a log-line to a lead-line. You therefore understand the
necessity of obeying orders?"
With some astonishment Thomas Pledge answered: "I do, sir."
"I told Mr Eagle to keep a bright look-out for ships, and he reported
one to me when she was hull up. She might have been a Frenchman, and
if so, we should now be occupying her hold. You will please keep a
bright look-out for ships, sir!" he added, with which he stepped to
the weather-side of the quarterdeck, and Pledge crossed to leeward
thinking to himself: "If he talks to old Jim like this and with that
there face and manner, he'll find out that the discipline of the
British Merchant Service ain't all his Navy ideas would like to see it.
Damn me, on top of his talking to me like this, if I don't 'ave a yarn
with old Jim after breakfast, and blast the consequences," and he sent
a scowl at Mr Lawrence, who was looking to windward.