Teresa rode out of Gwithian in a black temper. Three days before, in
another fit of temper, she had packed the house-girl from Bosula, bag
and baggage, and she was finding it difficult to get another. For two
days she had been canvassing the farms in vain, and now Gwithian had
proved a blank draw. She could not herself cook, and the Bosula
household was living on cold odds and ends, a diet which set the men
grumbling and filled her with disgust. She pined for the good times when
Martha was alive and three smoking meals came up daily as a matter of
course.
Despite the fact that she offered the best wages in the neighborhood,
the girls would not look at her—saucy jades! Had she inquired she would
have learnt that, as a mistress, she was reported too free with her
tongue and fists.
Gwithian fruitless, there was nothing for it but to try Mousehole.
Teresa twisted her big horse about and set off forthwith for the fishing
village in the hopes of picking up some crabber’s wench who could handle
a basting pan—it was still early in the morning. A cook she must get by
hook or crook; Ortho was growling a great deal at his meals—her
precious Ortho!
She was uneasy about her precious Ortho; his courtship of the Penaluna
girl was not progressing favorably. He had not mentioned the affair, but
to his doting mother all was plain as daylight. She knew perfectly well
where he spent his evenings, and she knew as well as if he had told her
that he was making no headway. Men successful in love do not flare like
tinder at any tiny mishap, sigh and brood apart in corners, come
stumbling to bed at night damning the door latches for not springing to
meet their hands, the stairs for tripping them up; do not publicly, and
apropos of nothing, curse all women—meaning one particular woman. Oh,
no, Ortho was beating up against a head wind.
Teresa was furious with the Penaluna hussy for presuming to withstand
her son. She had looked higher for Ortho than a mere farmer’s daughter;
but, since the farmer’s daughter did not instantly succumb, Teresa was
determined Ortho should have her—the haughty baggage!
After all Simeon owned the adjacent property and was undeniably well to
do. The girl had looks of a sort (though the widow, being enormous
herself, did not generally admire big women) and was reported a good
housewife; that would solve the domestic difficulty. But the main thing
was that Ortho wanted the chit, therefore he should have her.
Wondering how quickest this could be contrived, she turned a corner of
the lane and came upon the girl in question walking into Gwithian, a
basket on her arm, her blue cloak blowing in the wind.
Teresa jerked her horse up, growling, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Mary replied and walked past.
Teresa scowled after her and shouted, “Hold fast a minute!”
Mary turned about. “Well?”
“What whimsy tricks are you serving my boy Ortho?” said Teresa, who was
nothing if not to the point.
Mary’s eyebrows rose. “What do ’e mean, ‘whimsy tricks’? I do serve en a
fitty supper nigh every evening of his life and listen to his tales till
. . .”
“Oh, you know what I mean well enough,” Teresa roared. “Are ’e goin’ to
have him? That’s what I want to know.”
“Have who?”
“My son.”
“Which son?” The two women faced each other for a moment, the black eyes
wide with surprise, the brown sparkling with amusement; then Mary
dropped a quick curtsey and disappeared round the corner.
Teresa sat still for some minutes glaring after her, mouth sagging with
astonishment. Then she cursed sharply; then she laughed aloud; then,
catching her horse a vicious smack with the rein, she rode on. The
feather-headed fool preferred Eli to Ortho! Preferred that slow-brained
hunk of brawn and solemnity to Ortho, the handsome, the brilliant, the
daring, the sum of manly virtues! It was too funny, too utterly
ridiculous! Eli, the clod, preferred to Ortho, the diamond! The girl was
raving mad, raving! Eli had visited Roswarva a good deal at one time,
but not since Ortho’s return. Teresa hoped the girl was aware that Ortho
was absolute owner of Bosula and that Eli had not a penny to his
name—now. If she were not, Teresa determined she should not long go in
ignorance.
At any rate, it could only be a question of time. Mary might still have
some friendly feeling for Eli, but once she really began to know Ortho
she would forget all about that. Half the women in the country would
give their heads to get the romantic squire of Bosula; they went sighing
after him in troops at fairs and public occasions. Yet something in the
Penaluna girl’s firm jaw and steady brown eyes told Teresa that she was
not easily swayed hither and thither. She wished she could get Eli out
of the way for a bit.
She rode over the hill and down the steep lane into Mousehole, and there
found an unwonted stir afoot.
The village was full of seamen armed with bludgeons and cutlasses,
running up and down the narrow alleys in small parties, kicking the
doors in and searching the houses.
The fisherwomen hung out of their windows and flung jeers and slops at
them.
“Press gang,” Teresa was informed. They had landed from a frigate
anchored just round the corner in Gwavas Lake and had so far caught one
sound man, one epileptic and the village idiot, who was vastly pleased
at having some one take notice of him at last.
A boy line fishing off Tavis Vov had seen the gang rowing in, given the
alarm, and by the time the sailors arrived all the men were a quarter of
a mile inland. Very amusing, eh? Teresa agreed that it was indeed most
humorous, and added her shrewd taunts to those of the fishwives.
Then an idea sprang to her head. She went into the tavern and drank a
pot of ale while thinking it over. When the smallest detail was complete
she set out to find the officer in command.
She found him without difficulty—an elderly and dejected midshipman
leaning over the slip rails, spitting into the murky waters of the
harbor, and invited him very civilly to take a nip of brandy with her.
The officer accepted without question. A nip of brandy was a nip of
brandy, and his stomach was out of order, consequent on his having
supped off rancid pork the night before. Teresa led him to a private
room in the tavern, ordered the drinks and, when they arrived, locked
the door.
“Look ’e, captain,” said she, “do ’e want to make a couple of guineas?”
The midshipman’s dull glance leapt to meet hers, agleam with sudden
interest, as Teresa surmised it would. She knew the type—forty years
old, without influence or hope of promotion, disillusioned, shabby,
hanging body and soul together on thirty shillings a month; there was
little this creature would not do for two pounds down.
“What is it?” he snapped.
“I’ll give you two pounds and a good sound man—if you’ll fetch en.”
The midshipman shook his tarred hat. “Not inland; I won’t go inland.”
Press gangs were not safe inland in Cornwall and he was not selling his
life for forty shillings; it was a dirty life; but he still had some
small affection for it.
“Who said it was inland? To a small little cove just this side of Monks
Cove; you’ll know it by the waterfall that do come down over cliff
there. T’eddn more’n a two-mile pull from here, just round the point.”
“Is the man there?”
“Not yet, but I’ll have en there by dusk. Do you pull your boat up on
the little beach and step inside the old tinner’s adit—kind of little
cave on the east side—and wait there till he comes. He’s a mighty
strong man, I warn ’e, a notable wrestler in these parts, so be
careful.”
“I’ll take four of my best and sand-bag him from behind,” said the
midshipman, who was an expert in these matters. “Stiffens ’em, but don’t
kill. Two pound ain’t enough, though.”
“It’s all you’ll get,” said Teresa.
“Four pound or nothing,” said the midshipman firmly.
They compromised at three pounds and Teresa paid cash on the spot.
Ortho, the free-handed, kept her in plenty of money—so different from
Eli.
The midshipman walked out of the front door, Teresa slipped out of the
back and rode away. She had little fear the midshipman would fail her;
he had her money, to be sure, but he would also get a bounty on Eli and
partly save his face with his captain. He would be there right enough.
She continued her search for a cook in Paul and rode home slowly to gain
time, turned her horse, as usual, all standing, into the stable, and
then went to look for her younger son.
She was not long in finding him; a noise of hammering disclosed his
whereabouts.
She approached in a flutter of well-simulated excitement.
“Here you, Eli, Eli!” she called.
“What is it?” he asked, never pausing in his work.
“I’ve just come round by the cliffs from Mousehole; there’s a good
ship’s boat washed up in Zawn-a-Bal. Get you round there quick and take
her into Monks Cove; she’m worth five pounds if she’m worth a penny.”
Eli looked up. “Hey! . . . What sort of boat?”
“Gig, I think; she’m lying on the sand by the side of the adit.”
Eli whistled. “Gig—eh! All right, I’ll get down there soon’s I’ve
finished this.”
Teresa stamped her foot. “Some o’ they Mousehole or Cove men’ll find her
if you don’t stir yourself.”
Eli nodded. “All right, all right, I’m going. I’m not for throwing away
a good boat any more’n you are. Just let me finish this gate. I shan’t
be a minute.”
Teresa turned away. He would go—and there was over an hour to spare—he
would go fast enough, go blindly to his fate. She turned up the valley
with a feeling that she would like to be as far from the dark scene of
action as possible. But it would not do Eli any harm, she told herself;
he was not being murdered; he was going to serve in the Navy for a
little while as tens of thousands of men were doing. Every sailor was
not killed, only a small percentage. No harm would come to him; good,
rather. He would see the world and enlarge his mind. In reality she was
doing him a service.
Nevertheless her nerves were jumping uncomfortably. Eli was her own
flesh and blood after all, John’s son. What would John, in heaven, say
to all this? She had grasped the marvelous opportunity of getting rid of
Eli without thinking of the consequences; she was an opportunist by
blood and training, could not help herself.
Well, it was done now; there was no going back—and it would clear the
way for Ortho.
Yet she could not rid herself of a vision of the evil midshipman
crouching in the adit with his four manhandlers and sand-bags waiting,
waiting, and Eli striding towards them through the dusk, whistling, all
unconscious. She began to blubber softly, but she did not go home; she
waddled on up the valley, sniffling, blundering into trees, blinking the
tears back, talking to herself, telling John, in heaven, that it was all
for the best. She would not go back to Bosula till after dark, till it
was all over.
* * * * *
Eli strapped the blankets on more firmly, kicked the straw up round the
horse’s belly, picked up the oil bottle and stood back.
“Think he’ll do now,” he said.
Bohenna nodded. “’Es, but ’twas a mercy I catched you in time, gived me
a fair fright when I found en.”
“I’ll get Ortho to speak to mother,” Eli said. “’Tisn’t her fault the
horse isn’t dead. Here, take this bottle in with you.”
Bohenna departed.
Eli piled up some more straw and cleared the manger out. A shadow fell
across the litter.
“Might mix a small mash for him,” he said without looking round.
“Mash for who?” a voice inquired. Eli turned about and saw not Bohenna
but Simeon Penaluna dressed in his best.
“Been to market,” Simeon explained; “looked in on the way back. What
have you got here?”
“Horse down with colic. Mother turned him loose into the stable, corn
bin was open, he ate his fill and then had a good drink at the trough.
I’ve had a proper job with him.”
“All right now, eddn ’a?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Simeon shuffled his expansive feet. “Don’t see much of you up to
Roswarva these days.”
“No.”
More shufflings. “We do brearly miss ’e.”
“That so?”
Simeon cleared his throat. “My maid asked ’e to supper some three months
back . . . well, if you don’t come up soon it’ll be getting cold like.”
There was an uncomfortable pause; then Eli looked up steadily. “I want
you to understand, Sim, that things aren’t the same with me as they were
now Ortho’s come home. My father died too sudden; he didn’t leave a
thing to me. I’m nothing but a beggar now. Ortho . . .”
The gaunt slab of hair and wrinkles that was Simeon’s face split into a
smile.
“Here, for gracious sake, don’t speak upon Ortho; he’s pretty nigh
talked me deaf and dumb night after night of how he was a king in
Barbary and what not and so forth . . . clunk, clunk, clunk! In the
Lord’s name do you come up and let’s have a little sociable silence for
a change.”
“Do you mean it?” Eli gasped.
“Mean it,” said Simeon, laying a hairy paw on his shoulder. “Did you
ever hear me or my maid say a word we didn’t mean—son?”
Eli rushed across the yard and into the house to fetch his best coat.
Teresa was standing in front of the fire, hands outstretched, shivering
despite the blaze.
She reeled when her son went bounding past her, reeled as though she had
seen a ghost.
“Eli! My God, Eli!” she cried. “What—how—where you been?”
“In the stable physicking your horse,” he said, climbing the stairs. “I
sent Ortho after that boat.”
He did not hear the crash his mother made as she fell; he was in too
much of a hurry.
* * * * *
Ortho climbed the forward ladder and came out on the upper deck. The
ship was thrashing along under all plain sail, braced sharp up.
The sky was covered with torn fleeces of cloud, but blue patches gleamed
through the rents, and the ship leapt forward lit by a beam of sunshine,
white pinioned, a clean bone in her teeth. A rain storm had just passed
over, drenching her, and every rope and spar was outlined with
glittering beads; the wet deck shone like a plaque of silver. Cheerily
sang the wind in the shrouds, the weather leeches quivered, the reef
points pattered impatient fingers, and under Ortho’s feet the frigate
trembled like an eager horse reaching for its bit.
“She’s snorting the water from her nostrils, all right,” he said
approvingly. “Step on, lady.”
So he was aboardship again. How he had come there he didn’t know. He
remembered nothing after reaching Zawn-a-Bal Cove and trying to push
that boat off. His head gave an uncomfortable throb. Ah, that was it! He
had been knocked on the head—press gang.
Well, he had lost that damned girl, he supposed. No matter, there were
plenty more, and being married to one rather hampered you with the
others. Life on the farm would have been unutterably dull really. He was
not yet thirty; a year or two more roving would do no harm. His head
gave another throb and he put his hand to his brow.
A man polishing the ship’s bell noted the gesture and laughed. “Feelin’
sick, me bold farmer? How d’you think you’ll like the sea?”
“Farmer!” Ortho snarled. “Hell’s bells, I was upper yard man of the
_Elijah Impey_, pick of the Indies fleet!”
“Was you, begod?” said the polisher, a note of respect in his voice.
“Aye, that I was. Say, mate, what packet is this?”
“_Triton_, frigate, Captain Charles Mulholland.”
“Good bully?”
“The best.”
“She seems to handle pretty kind,” said Ortho, glancing aloft.
“Kind!” said the man, with enthusiasm. “She’ll eat out of your hand,
she’ll talk to you.”
“Aha! . . . Know where we’re bound?”
“West Indies, I’ve heard.”
“West Indies!” Ortho had a picture of peacock islands basking in coral
seas, of odorous green jungles, fruit-laden, festooned with ropes of
flowers; of gaudy painted parrots preening themselves among the tree
ferns; of black girls, heroically molded, flashing their white teeth at
him. . . .
West Indies! He drew a deep breath. Well, at all events, that was
something new.
FINIS
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been corrected or
standardised.
Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained.
Inconsistency in accents has been corrected or standardised.
When nested quoting was encountered, nested double quotes were changed
to single quotes.
Space between paragraphs varied greatly. The thought-breaks which have
been inserted attempt to agree with the larger paragraph spacing, but it
is quite possible that this was simply the methodology used by the
typesetter, and that there should be no thought-breaks.