was? Surely some one must have noticed her. The other children were
gibbering in their animal innocence. The sailors, their knives half
concealed, grinned at each other or cursed. Otto, his brows knotted,
stood with his eyes fixed on the steamer.
She feared everybody, she hated everybody.
Margaret was whispering something to Edward, and he nodded. Again
panic seized her. What was Margaret telling him? Had she told every
one? Did they all know? Were they all playing with her, deceiving
her by pretending not to know, waiting their own time to burst their
revelation on her and punish her in some quite unimaginably awful way?
_Had_ Margaret told? If she crept up behind Margaret now, and pushed
her in the sea, might she yet be in time?--But even as she thought it,
she seemed to see Margaret rising waist-high out of the waves, telling
the whole story to everybody in a calm, dispassionate voice, and
climbing back on board.
In another flash she saw the fat, comfortable person of her mother,
standing at the door of Ferndale, abusing the cook.
Again her eyes roamed round the sinister reality of the schooner. She
suddenly felt sick to death of it all: tired, beyond words tired.
Why must she be chained for ever to this awful life? Could she never
escape, never get back to the ordinary life little girls lead, with
their papas and mamas and ... birthday cakes?
Otto called her. She went to him obediently: though with a presentiment
that it was to her execution. He turned, and called Margaret too.
She was in a more attentive mood than she had been the other night with
the captain, Heaven knows! But Otto was too preoccupied to notice how
frightened her eyes were.
Jonsen had no easy task on the steamer: but Otto did not greatly relish
his own. He did not know how to begin--and everything depended on his
success.
‘See here,’ he burst out. ‘You’re going to England.’
Emily shot him a quick glance. ‘Yes?’ she said at last: her voice
showing merely a polite interest.
‘The captain has gone onto that steamboat to arrange about it.’
‘Aren’t we staying with you any longer, then?’
‘No,’ said Otto: ‘you’re going home on that steamboat.’
‘Shan’t we see you any more, then?’ Emily pursued.
‘No,’ said Otto: ‘--Well, some day, perhaps.’
‘Are they all going, or only us two?’
‘Why, all of you, of course!’
‘Oh. I didn’t know.’
There was an awkward silence, while Otto wondered how to tackle the
real problem.
‘Had we better go and get ready?’ asked Margaret.
‘Now listen!’ Otto interrupted her. ‘When you get on board, they’ll ask
you all about everything. They’ll want to know how you got here.’
‘Are we to tell them?’
Otto was astonished she took his point so readily.
‘No,’ he said. ‘The captain and me don’t want you to. We want you to
keep it a secret, do you see?’
‘What _are_ we to say, then?’ Emily asked.
‘Tell them ... you were captured by pirates, and then ... they put you
ashore at a little port in Cuba----’
‘--Where the Fat Woman was?’
‘--Yes. And then we came along, and took you on board our schooner,
which was going to America, to save you from the pirates.’
‘I see,’ said Emily.
‘You’ll say that, and keep the ... other a secret?’ Otto asked
anxiously.
Emily gave him her peculiar, gentle stare.
‘Of course!’ she said.
Well, he had done his best: but Otto felt heavy at heart. That little
cherub! He didn’t believe she could keep a secret for ten seconds.
‘Now: do you think you can make the little ones understand?’
‘Oh yes, I’ll tell them,’ said Emily easily. She considered for a
moment: ‘I don’t suppose they remember much anyway. Is that all?’
‘That’s all,’ said Otto: and they walked away.
‘What was he saying?’ Margaret asked. ‘What was it all about?’
‘Oh shut up!’ said Emily rudely. ‘It’s nothing to do with you!’
But inwardly she did not know whether she was on her head or her heels.
Were they really going to let her escape? Weren’t they just tantalising
her, meaning to stop her at the last moment? Were they handing her
over to strangers, who had come to hang her for murder? Was her mother
perhaps on that steamer, come to save her? But she loved Jonsen
and Otto: how could she bear to part with them? The dear, familiar
schooner.... All these thoughts in her head at once! But she dealt
firmly enough with the Liddlies:
‘Come on!’ she said. ‘We’re going on that steamer.’
‘Are _we_ to do the fighting?’ Edward asked, timorously enough.
‘There isn’t going to be any fighting,’ said Emily.
‘Will there be another circus?’ asked Laura.
Then she told them they were to change ships again.
When Captain Jonsen came back, mopping the sweat from his polished
forehead with a big cotton handkerchief, he seemed in a terrible hurry.
As for the children, they were so excited they were ready to tumble
into the boat: in such a flurry they nearly tumbled into the sea
instead. _Now_ they knew why they had been washed and combed.
It did not seem at first as if there was going to be any difficulty
about getting them started. But it was Rachel who began the break-away.
‘My babies! My babies!’ she shrieked, and began running all over the
ship, routing out bits of rag, fuzzy rope-ends, paint-pots ... her arms
were soon full.
‘Here, you can’t take all that junk!’ dissuaded Otto.
‘Oh but my darlings, I can’t leave you behind!’ cried Rachel piteously.
Out rushed the cook, just in time to retrieve his ladle--and a
battle-royal began.
Naturally, Jonsen was on tenterhooks to be gone. But it was essential
they should part on good terms.
José was lifting Laura over the side.
‘_Darling_ José!’ she burst out suddenly, and twined her arms tightly
round his neck.
At that Harry and Edward, who were already in the boat, scrambled back
on deck. They had forgotten to say good-bye. And so each child said
good-bye to each pirate, kissing him and lavishing endearments on him.
‘Go on! Go on!’ muttered Jonsen impatiently.
Emily flung herself in his arms, sobbing as if her heart would break.
‘Don’t make me go!’ she begged. ‘Let me stay with you always, always!’
She clung tight to the lapels of his coat, hiding her face in his
chest: ‘Oh, I _don’t_ want to go!’
Jonsen was strangely moved: for a moment, almost toyed with the idea.
But the others were already in the boat.
‘Come on!’ said Otto, ‘or they’ll go without you!’
‘Wait! Wait!’ shrieked Emily, and was over the side and in the boat in
a flash.
Jonsen shook his head confusedly. For this last time, she had him
puzzled.
But now, as they rowed across to the steamer, all the children stood up
in the boat, in danger of tumbling out, and cried:
‘Good-bye! Good-bye!’
‘Adios!’ cried the pirates, waving sentimental hands, and guffawing
secretly to each other.
‘C-c-come and see us in England!’ came Edward’s clear treble.
‘Yes!’ cried Emily. ‘Come and stay with us! All of you!--_Promise_
you’ll come and stay with us!’
‘All right!’ shouted Otto. ‘We’ll come!’
‘Come _soon_!’
‘My babies!’ wailed Rachel. ‘I’ve lost ’most all my babies!’
But now they were alongside the steamer: and soon they were mounting a
rope ladder to her deck.
What a long way up it was! But at last they were all on board.
The little boat returned to the schooner.
The children never once looked after it.
And well might they forget it. For exciting as it had been to go onto a
ship of any kind for the first time, to find themselves on this steamer
was infinitely more so. The luxury of it! The white paint! The doors!
The windows! The stairs! The brass!--A fairy palace, no: but a mundane
wonder of a quite unimagined kind.
But they had little time now to take in the details. All the
passengers, wild with curiosity, were gathered round them in a ring. As
the dirty, dishevelled little mites were handed one by one on board, a
gasp went up. The story of the capture of the _Clorinda_ by as fiendish
a set of buccaneers as any in the past that roamed the same Caribbean
was well known: and how the little innocents on board her had been
taken and tortured to death before the eyes of the impotent captain. To
see now face to face the victims of so foul a murder was for them too a
thrill of the first water.
The tension was first broken by a beautiful young lady in a muslin
dress. She sank on her knees beside little Harry, and folded him in her
delicate arms.
‘The little angel!’ she murmured. ‘You poor little man, what horrors
you have been through! How will you ever forget them?’
As if that were the signal, all the lady passengers fell on the
astonished children and pitied them: while the men, less demonstrative,
stood around with lumps in their throats.
Bewildered at first, it was not long before they rose to the
occasion--as children generally will, when they find themselves the
butt of indiscriminate adoration. Bless you, they were kings and
queens! They were so sleepy they could hardly keep their eyes open: but
they were not going to bed, not they! They had never been treated like
this before. Heaven alone knew how long it would last. Best not waste a
minute of it.
It was not long before they ceased even to be surprised, became
convinced that it was all their right and due. They were very important
people--quite unique.
Only Emily stood apart, shy, answering questions uncomfortably. She did
not seem to be able to throw herself into her importance with the same
zest as the others.
Even the passengers’ children joined in the fuss and admiration:
perhaps realising the opportunity which the excitement gave of
avoiding their own bed-time. They began to bring (probably not without
suggestion) their toys, as offerings to these new gods: and vied with
each other in their generosity.
A shy little boy of about her own age, with brown eyes and a nice
smile, his long hair brushed smooth as silk, his clothes neat and
sweet-smelling, sidled up to Rachel.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked him.
‘Harold.’
She told him hers.
‘How much do you weigh?’ he asked her.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You look rather heavy. May I see if I can lift you?’
‘Yes.’
He clasped his arms round her stomach from behind, leant back, and
staggered a few paces with her. Then he set her down, the friendship
cemented.
Emily stood apart; and for some reason every one unconsciously
respected her reserve. But suddenly something seemed to snap in her
heart. She flung herself face-downwards on the deck--not crying, but
kicking convulsively. It was a huge great stewardess who picked her
up and carried her, still quivering from head to foot, down to a neat,
clean cabin. There, soothing and talking to her without ceasing, she
undressed her, and washed her with warm water, and put her to bed.
Emily’s head felt different to any way it had ever felt before: hardly
as if it were her own. It sang, and went round like a wheel, without so
much as with your leave or by your leave. But her body, on the other
hand, was more than usually sensitive, absorbing the tender, smooth
coolness of the sheets, the softness of the mattress, as a thirsty
horse sucks up water. Her limbs drank in comfort at every pore: it
seemed as if she could never be sated with it. She felt physical peace
soaking slowly through to her marrow: and when at last it got there,
her head became more quiet and orderly too.
All this while she had hardly heard what was said to her: only a
refrain that ran through it all made any impression, ‘_Those wicked men
... men ... nothing but men ... those cruel men._...’
Men! It was perfectly true that for months and months she had seen
nothing but men. To be at last back among other women was heavenly.
When the kind stewardess bent over her to kiss her, she caught tight
hold of her, and buried her face in the warm, soft, yielding flesh, as
if to sink herself in it. Lord! How unlike the firm, muscular bodies of
Jonsen and Otto!
When the stewardess stood up again, Emily feasted her eyes on her, eyes
grown large and warm and mysterious. The woman’s enormous, swelling
bosom fascinated her. Forlornly, she began to pinch her own thin little
chest. Was it conceivable she would herself ever grow breasts like
that--beautiful, mountainous breasts, that had to be cased in a sort of
cornucopia? Or even firm little apples, like Margaret’s?
Thank God she had not been born a boy! She was overtaken with a sudden
revulsion against the whole sex of them. From the tips of her fingers
to the tips of her toes she felt female: one with that exasperating,
idiotic secret communion: initiate of the γυναικεῖον.
Suddenly Emily reached up and caught the stewardess by the head,
pulling it down to her close: began whispering earnestly in her ear.
On the woman’s face the first look of incredulity changed to utter
stupefaction, from stupefaction to determination.
‘My eye!’ she said at last. ‘The cheek of the rascals! The impudence!’
Without another word she slipped out of the cabin. And you may imagine
that the steamer captain, when he heard the trick that had been played
upon him, was as astonished as she.
For a few moments after she had gone Emily lay staring at nothing, a
very curious expression on her face indeed. Then, all of a sudden, she
dropped asleep, breathing sweetly and easily.
But she only slept for about ten minutes: and when she woke the cabin
door was open, and in it stood Rachel and her little boy friend.
‘What do you want?’ said Emily forbiddingly.
‘Harold has brought his alligator,’ said Rachel.
Harold stepped forward, and laid the little creature on Emily’s
coverlet. It was very small: only about six inches long: a yearling:
but an exact miniature of its adult self, with the snub nose and round
Socratic forehead that distinguish it from the crocodile. It moved
jerkily, like a clockwork toy. Harold picked it up by the tail: it
spread its paws in the air, and jerked from side to side, more like
clockwork than ever. Then he set it down again, and it stood there, its
tongueless mouth wide open and its harmless teeth looking like grains
of sand-paper, alternately barking and hissing. Harold let it snap at
his finger--it was plainly hungry in the warmth down there. It darted
its head so fast you could hardly see it move: but its bite was still
so weak as to be painless, even to a child.
Emily drew a deep breath, fascinated.
‘May I have him for the night?’ she asked.
‘All right,’ said Harold: and he and Rachel were summoned away by some
one without.
Emily was translated into Heaven. So this was an alligator! She was
actually going to sleep with an alligator! She had thought that to any
one who had once been in an earthquake nothing really exciting could
happen again: but then, she had not thought of this.
_There was once a girl called Emily, who slept with an alligator...._
In search of greater warmth, the creature high-stepped warily up the
bed towards her face. About six inches away it paused, and they looked
each other in the eye, those two children.
The eye of an alligator is large, protruding, and of a brilliant
yellow, with a slit pupil like a cat’s. A cat’s eye, to the casual
observer, is expressionless: though with attention one can distinguish
in it many changes of emotion. But the eye of an alligator is
infinitely more stony and brilliant--reptilian.
What possible meaning could Emily find in such an eye? Yet she lay
there, and stared, and stared: and the alligator stared too. If there
had been an observer it might have given him a shiver to see them
so--well, eye to eye like that.
Presently the beast opened his mouth and hissed again gently. Emily
lifted a finger and began to rub the corner of his jaw. The hiss
changed to a sound almost like a purr. A thin, filmy lid first covered
his eye from the front backwards, then the outer lid closed up from
below.
Suddenly he opened his eyes again, and snapped on her finger: then
turned and wormed his way into the neck of her night-gown, and crawled
down inside, cool and rough against her skin, till he found a place
to rest. It is surprising that she could stand it as she did, without
flinching.
* * * * *
Alligators are utterly untamable.
iv
From the deck of the schooner, Jonsen and Otto watched the children
climb onto the steamer: watched their boat return, and the steamer get
under way.
So: it had all gone without a hitch. No one had suspected his story--a
story so simple as to be very nearly the truth.
They were gone.
Jonsen could feel the difference at once: and it seemed almost as if
the schooner could. A schooner, after all, is a place for _men_. He
stretched himself, and took a deep breath, feeling that a cloying,
enervating influence was lifted. José was industriously sweeping up
some of Rachel’s abandoned babies. He swept them into the lee-scuppers.
He drew a bucket of water, and dashed it at them over the deck. The
trap swung open--whew, it was gone, all that truck!
‘Batten down that fore-hatch!’ ordered Jonsen.
The men all seemed lighter of heart than they had been for many months:
as if the weight they were relieved of had been enormous. They sang
as they worked, and two friends playfully pummelled each other in
passing--hard. The lean, masculine schooner shivered and plunged in the
freshening evening breeze. A shower of spray for no particular reason
suddenly burst over the bows, swept aft and dashed full in Jonsen’s
face. He shook his head like a wet dog, and grinned.
Rum appeared: and for the first time since the encounter with the Dutch
steamer all the sailors got bestially drunk, and lay about the deck,
and were sick in the scuppers. José was belching like a bassoon.
It was dark by then. The breeze dropped away again. The gaffs clanked
aimlessly in the calm, with the motion of the sea: the empty sails
flapped with reports like cannon, a hearty applause. Jonsen and Otto
themselves remained sober, but they had not the heart to discipline the
crew.
The steamer had long since disappeared into the dark. The foreboding
which had oppressed Jonsen all the night before was gone. No intuition
told him of Emily’s whispering to the stewardess: of the steamer,
shortly after, meeting with a British gunboat: of the long series
of lights flickering between them. The gunboat, even now, was fast
overhauling him: but no premonition disturbed his peace.
He was tired--as tired as a sailor ever lets himself be. The last
twenty-four hours had been hard. He went below as soon as his watch was
over, and climbed into his bunk.
But he did not, at once, sleep. He lay for a while conning over the
step he had taken. It was really very astute. He had returned the
children, undoubtedly safe and sound: Marpole would be altogether
discredited. Even to have landed them at Santa Lucia, his first
intention, could never have closed the _Clorinda_ episode so
completely, since the world at large would not have heard of it: and it
would have been difficult to produce them, should need arise.
Indeed, it had seemed to be a choice of evils: either he must carry
them about always, as a proof that they were alive, or he must land
them and lose control of them. In the first case, their presence would
certainly connect him with the _Clorinda_ piracy of which he might
otherwise go unsuspected: in the second, he might be convicted of their
murder if he could not produce them.
But this wonderful idea of his, now that he had carried it out
successfully, solved both difficulties.
It had been a near thing with that little bitch Margaret, though ...
lucky the second boat had picked her up....
The light from the cabin lamp shone into the bunk, illuminating part of
the wall defaced with Emily’s puerile drawings. As they caught his eye
a frown gathered on his forehead: but as well a sudden twinge affected
his heart. He remembered the way she had lain there, ill and helpless.
He suddenly found himself remembering at least forty things about
her--an overwhelming flood of memories.
The pencil she had used was still among the bedding, and his fingers
happened on it. There were still some white spaces not drawn on.
Jonsen could only draw two things: ships, and naked women. He could
draw any type of ship he liked, down to the least detail--any
particular ship he had sailed in, even. In the same way he could
draw voluptuous, buxom women, also down to the least detail: in any
position, and from any point of view: from the front, from the back,
from the side, from above, from below: his fore-shortening faultless.
But set him to draw any third thing--even a woman with her clothes
on--and he could not have produced a scribble that would have been even
recognisable.
He took the pencil: and before long there began to appear between
Emily’s crude uncertain lines round thighs, rounder bellies, high
swelling bosoms, all somewhat in the manner of Rubens.
At the same time his mind was still occupied with reflections on his
own astuteness. Yes, it had been a near thing with Margaret--it would
have been awkward if, when he returned the party, there had been one
missing.
A recollection descended on his mind like a cold douche, something he
had completely forgotten about till then. His heart sank--as well it
might:
‘Hey!’ he called to Otto on the deck above. ‘What was the name of that
boy who broke his neck at Santa? Jim--Sam--what was he called?’
Otto did not answer, except by a long-drawn-out whistle.
_Chapter 10_
Emily grew quite a lot during the passage to England on the steamer:
suddenly shot up, as children will at that age. But she did it without
any gawkiness: instead, an actual increase of grace. Her legs and
arms, though longer, did not lose any of the nicety of their shape;
and her grave face lost none of its attractiveness by being a fraction
nearer your own. The only drawback was that she used to get pains in
the calves of her legs, now, and sometimes in her back: but those of
course did not show. (They were all provided with clothes by a general
collection, so it did not matter that she grew out of her old ones.)
She was a nice child: and being a little less shy than formerly, was
soon the most popular of all of them. Somehow, no one seemed to care
very much for Margaret: old ladies used to shake their heads over her a
good deal. At least, any one could see that Emily had infinitely more
sense.
You would never have believed that Edward after a few days’ washing and
combing would look such a little gentleman.
After a short while Rachel threw Harold over, to be uninterrupted in
her peculiar habits of parthenogenesis, eased now a little by the many
presents of real dolls. But Harold became soon just as firm friends
with Laura, young though she was.
Most of the steamer children had made friends with the seamen, and
loved to follow them about at their romantic occupations--swabbing
decks, and so on. One day, one of these men actually went a short way
up the rigging (what little there was), leaving a glow of admiration on
the deck below. But all this had no glamour for the Thorntons. Edward
and Harry liked best to peer in at the engines: but what Emily liked
best was to walk up and down the deck with her arm round the waist of
Miss Dawson, the beautiful young lady with the muslin dresses: or stand
behind her while she did little water-colour compositions of toppling
waves with wrecks foundering in them, or mounted dried tropical flowers
in wreaths round photographs of her uncles and aunts. One day Miss
Dawson took her down to her cabin and showed her all her clothes, every
single item--it took hours. It was the opening of a new world to Emily.
The captain sent for Emily, and questioned her: but she added nothing
to that first, crucial burst of confidence to the stewardess. She
seemed struck dumb--with terror, or something: at least, he could get
nothing out of her. So he wisely let her alone. She would probably
tell her story in her own time: to her new friend, perhaps. But this
she did not do. She would not talk about the schooner, or the pirates,
or anything concerning them: what she wanted was to listen, to drink
in all she could learn about England, where they were really going at
last--that wonderfully exotic, romantic place.