The Unspeakable Gentleman/Chapter 16
XVI
And so it was over, over almost before I could grasp what had happened.
The light that Brutus was holding showed me the white walls of the cabin, with charts nailed upon them. A table was secured to the deck, with two chairs beside it. These, two lockers and a berth made up the cabin's entire furnishings. But I hardly took the time to look about me, for the sight of my father gave me a start of consternation. His blue coat, wringing wet with sea water, and still stamped with splashes of mud, was half ripped from his shoulders. A piece of lace dangled like a dirty ribbon from his neck. The powder in his hair was clotted in little streaks of white. His face was like a piece of yellow parchment. His left arm hung limp by his side, and in his right hand he still clutched an empty pistol. He tossed it carelessly to the floor, and gripped the back of the nearest chair, staring straight at Mademoiselle, who was standing opposite, his cloak still about her. Slowly he inclined his head, and when he looked up he was smiling.
"You are quite all right, my lady?" he asked anxiously. "I am sorry you have been startled. Believe me, I did not realize this little surprise would be waiting for us. It was careless of me not to have thought, very careless, Help her to a chair, Henry."
"Will you always be polite?" she cried, with a little catch in her voice. "Will you never think of yourself? You are wounded, Captain. And what are you staring at?" she cried, turning to me. "Come here, sir, and help me with his coat."
My father sank into a chair, and his pale lips relaxed.
"Pray do not concern yourself," he replied gravely. "I think of myself, Mademoiselle, of myself always, and now I am very fortunate, but the blue from my coat is running on your dress. Brutus will see to me, Mademoiselle. He is quite used to it. The rum, Brutus. You will,find it in the starboard locker."
But it was Mademoiselle who found the bottle and poured him a glass. He drank it quickly.
"Again, if you please," he said, and a shade of color returned to his cheeks. "The water was uncommonly cold tonight. How much better the sea would be, if the Lord had mixed in a dash of spirits. There is a coat in the locker, Brutus, and you may find some splints and a piece of twine. I fear my arm is broken."
Mademoiselle had taken Brutus' knife and was cutting away his sleeve, half soaked with blood. He sighed and smiled a little sadly.
"So Sims hit me after all," he said. "It must be age. I was not so clumsy once. The bandages, Brutus."
He watched us with a mild interest, and then his mind turned to other matters, and he seemed regardless of the pain we caused him.
"My son," he said, turning to me, "you made a statement a while ago which interested me strangely. I was preoccupied, and perhaps I did not hear you aright, but it seemed you said I should know what had become of your mother's money. What am I to understand by that?"
"You are hurt, sir," I replied. "Why go go into a painful matter now? We have kept it quiet long enough. Only three people knew that it happened, and one of them is dead. Let us forget it, father. I am willing if you are."
My father raised his eyebrows, and it seemed to me that pain had made his face look older, and not even the smile on his lips concealed little lines of suffering.
"And what are we to forget?" he asked.
"Surely you know," I said.
"No," said my father, "I do not. Out with it—what are we to forget?"
Was he still acting? Was it ever possible to understand him? Perhaps even now he was turning the situation into a jest, and smiling to himself as he watched me. And yet somehow I had ceased to hate him.
"Do you mean," I asked "that you never took it?"
Slowly my father's body straightened in his chair, and his lips, drawn tight together, seemed to repress an exclamation.
"So he told you that," he said. "He told you that I made off with her fortune? Gad! but he was clever, very, very clever."
He paused, and refilled his glass, and held it steadily before him. His voice, when he spoke, was gentle, and, like his face, strung taut with pain.
"No wonder she never sent me word," he murmured.
"Do you mean," I asked, "that you never took it?"
For a second he did not reply—only looked thoughtfully before him, as if he saw something that we would never see.
"Why go into a painful matter now?" said my father at length. "Brutus, call in Mr. Aiken."
He lurched into the cabin a half a minute later. His sea cloak was gone. His shirt, none too white the previous afternoon, was torn and scraped as though it had scrubbed the deck, and he had transferred his red handkerchief from his neck to his head, so that his tangled hair waved around it like some wild halo. His heavy hands, bruised and scarred, were working restlessly at his sides. He glanced at my father bandaged arm, and his jaw thrust forward.
"I warned 'em, captain," he cried hoarsely. "By heaven, I warned 'em. 'Damn you,' I says, 'hell will break loose when the captain climbs aboard,' and it did, so help me. There was fifteen of 'em and now there's six, and the crew has 'em in the forecastle now, beating 'em, sir! And now, by thunder, we'll sling 'em overboard!"
"That would be a pity," said my father. "Let them sail with us. I shall make it more unpleasant than drowning. Which way are we heading, Ned?"
"Due east by south," said Mr. Aiken, "and we're ready to show heels to anything. I can drop a reef off now if you want it."
"Good," said my father. "Put on all the sail she will carry."
Mr. Aiken grinned.
"I thought you'd want to be moving," he said.
"Quite right," said my father, "and put about at once and head back up the river."
Mr. Aiken whistled softly.
Well, I'll be damned!" he muttered.
"I shall want ten men with me when I land," my father continued. "I've done my best to keep the crew out of my private affairs, but now it seems impossible."
"They'd all like to go," said Mr. Aiken. "They've been hoping for excitement all day, sir."
"Ten will be quite enough," said my father.
"What is it you are saying?" Mademoiselle asked sharply.
"Quite nothing," he replied, "except that we are going back."
His arm must have given him a twinge, for his face had grown very white.
"Surely you have done enough," she said, and her voice became a soft entreaty. "Here we are on board your ship. If I told you I was not entirely sorry, would you not go on? If I told you, captain, I did not care about the paper?"
My father waved his hand in graceful denial.
"Not go back? Ah, Mademoiselle," he added in grave rebuke, "can it be possible after all, in spite of all this—let us say regrettable melodrama—you are forgetting I am the villain of this piece, and not a very pleasant one? Even if I wished, my lady, my sense of hospitality would forbid it. My brother-in-law is waiting for me under my roof tonight, and I could not leave him alone. He would be disappointed, I feel sure, and so would I. I have had a strenuous evening. I need recreation now. Load the pistols, Brutus."
And he fell silent again, his eyes on the blank wall before him, his fingers playing with his glass.
The Sea Tern had need to be a fast ship, and she lived up to requirements. The easterly wind sent her lightly before it, cutting sheer and quick through the roughened sea. With his arm in a sling of white linen, my father sat motionless, apparently passive and regardless of the flight of time. It was only when we veered in the wind and orders were shouted from forward that he looked about him.
"Your arm, Brutus," he said.
On deck the crew was at work about the long boat, and over the port rail, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, I could see our house, with a light burning in the window, flickering through the waving branches of the elms that half hid it. Nearer lay our wharf, a black, silent shadow. My father watched without a word. The anchor chain growled out a sharp complaint, and the anchor splashed into the tide.
"Mr. Aiken," said my father, "give orders to get under way in half an hour. When we land, the men will wait at the wharf, and be ready to enter the house when you call them. You shall come with me, my son. I can still show you something amusing and instructive."
"And I?" Mademoiselle demanded. "Shall you leave me here?"
He seemed to hesitate for a moment.
"Earlier in the evening, Mademoiselle," he replied, "I had given orders for my sloop to carry you to New Orleans. Your boxes will be taken from the house, and you will be taken on board from here. May you have a pleasant journey, and may your friends be well when you arrive."
"You mean it is good-by?" she asked, and her voice had a sound that reminded me of tears. "You mean we shall not meet again?"
He bowed low over her hand.
"Mademoiselle will be relieved to know we shall not," said my father gravely. "Let me hope you may always have more pleasant company."
She seemed about to speak again, but she did not. Instead, she turned silently away and left him, and a second later I saw her disappear in the shadow of the main-mast.
"Ah," said my father," there is a woman for you. My son, in the side pocket of my coat you will find a snuff box. Would you kindly open it for me and permit me to take a pinch? And you, perhaps? No? It is a pleasant sedative."
He took a step nearer the rail, and the men about the long boat stiffened to attention.
"Get them into the boat, Mr. Aiken," he said. "You and I will sit in the stern, my son. Your arm, Brutus, so."
"Stand by to lower away," directed Mr. Aiken in a harsh undertone; and the blocks creaked and we were in the river.
The oars had been muffled, so that we moved to the wharf in silence.
"Land the men, and tell them to wait," said my father. "You shall come with us, Mr. Aiken, and you, my son, and you, Brutus."
We walked silently up the path, with Brutus and my father in the lead. Once he paused and listened, and then proceeded forward.
"I believe," said my father, "he is quite alone. Ha!"
He had stopped dead, and Brutus had leapt forward, crashing into a dense thicket of overgrown bushes.
"Put up your pistol, Ned," said my father. "Brutus has him."
There was a moment's silence, followed by a faint cry.
"Bring him here, Brutus," said my father. The bushes cracked again, and Brutus was back.
"Now who the devil may you be?" inquired my father, striding towards the figure that Brutus was holding, and then he paused, and in the dark I fancied he was reaching for his coat lapel.
"Lunacy, thy name is woman," said my father softly. "Will they never stay where they are placed?"
It was Mademoiselle whom Brutus had thrust before him.
"I came in the boat," she stammered brokenly, "I"
"You wanted to see the end, my lady?" my father inquired. "Surely you should have known better, but it is too late now. You are going to be present at a harrowing scene, which I hoped to save you. Mr. Aiken, help the lady over the path."
And we proceeded to the house together. A minute later we made our way over the rough, unkempt grass which once marked our brick terrace. Brutus opened the door and we were in the dark hall, lighted by a square of candle light from the morning room. He paused again and listened, and then strode across the threshold. A blaze was burning high in the morning fireplace, and six candles were lighted on the center table, and seated before it, examining my father's papers, were my Uncle Jason and Mr. Lawton.
"Ha!" cried Mr. Lawton, springing to his feet and eyeing my father intently. "So you are here, Shelton, and every card in the deck."
He paused to nod and rub his hands.
"Yes, b'gad! There's the girl and there's the boy and there's the nigger. It was Sims' idea your getting on the boat. He's bright as a trap, Jason. I told you he was."
My father sighed a little sadly.
"He was indeed," he admitted.
My uncle surveyed him with his broadest smile, and his eyes twinkled with a malign amusement, that was not wholly pleasant.
"So here you are, George, he cried in a voice that seemed to shake with excitement. "God help you, but I won't or your son either, no, or the lady."
"Indeed?" inquired my father. "Pray go on, Jason. I had forgotten you were diverting, or is it one of your latest virtues."
A slight crease appeared between my uncle's eyes, and his face became a trifle redder.
"So you still are jovial," he said. "I admire you for it, George. Yes, I admire you, because of course you know what is going to happen to you, George, and to your son also. Perhaps you will wipe away that smirk of yours when a French firing squad backs you against a wall."
My father adjusted the bandage on his arm, and smiled, but his eyes had become bright and glassy.
"So you have quite decided to send me to France, Jason?" he inquired pleasantly. "Of course, I suspected it from the first. I knew you hated me, and naturally my son. I knew you never felt the same after our little falling out, when I found you forging—what am I saying?—reading the letter I sent to Mr. Aiken. Gad! but your face was pasty then, you sly dog"
He paused and took a step toward him. He was a different man when he continued. It seemed as though some resistance in him was breaking down, as though the years of repression were falling away. A hot, dull red had come into his cheeks, and burned there like a fever. His whole body trembled, shaken by some emotion which I could not fathom. His voice grew sharp and discordant, his words hot and triumphant.
"Almost as pasty as when you challenged me to produce those damned bales of fur. Do you remember, Jason? The party here at this house—the music, the flowers? Oh, they were all there! And of course I had put the shavings on my boat. You could prove it, and you could too, Lawton, do you remember? And you could swear to it, and you could swear I had cheated you before, that I had stolen your card money. Oh, you caught me. You brought the wolf to bay and drew the sword of justice!"
Mr. Lawton half started from his seat.
"Be still, Shelton," he snapped, "or I'll have them gag you."
My father clenched his fist, drew a deep breath, and his voice lost its strident note.
"Ah, Lawton, Lawton," he said. "Will you always be impetuous? Will you never be subtle, but always crude, always the true rough diamond with the keen edge? No, you won't gag me, Lawton.
"And so you will send me to France, Jason, and my son too, criminals to justice. It is thoughtful of you to think of Justice, but tell me, Jason. Is it I you hate, or my wife's money that you love? Tell me, Jason, I have often wondered."
My uncle's face also became a flaming red; the veins stood out on his temples. He tried to speak, but his words choked him.
"Sims," shouted Mr. Lawton. "Sims! Take him out! Take him away!"
My father raised his eyes to the ceiling and sighed.
"Ah Lawton," he said. "Is it possible that you did not know it? Can it be that you do not understand? Poor Sims is dead, Lawton, a brave man, but not of good physique. The evening was quite too much for him. Do not take it so hard, man! We all must die, you among the rest. You should have known me better, Lawton. You should have known I would not allow myself to be taken prisoner."
"What!" shouted Mr. Lawton. "What the devil are you then?"
The scene appeared to move my father, for he sighed again, and paused, the better to enjoy it.
"Only a poor man," he said, "only a poor chattel of the Lord's, a poor frail jug that has gone too often to the well. A poor man of a blackened reputation, who has been set upon by spies of France, and threatened in his own house, but who has managed to escape—" and his voice became sharp and hard.
"Take Mr. Lawton's pistol, Ned."
There fell a moment's silence in the room while my father, a little in advance of the rest of us, stared fixedly into my uncle's eyes.
"Set upon by spies," he said, "persecuted and driven. It has set me thinking, Jason. As I walked back here tonight, I still was thinking, and can you imagine what was on my mind? It was you, Jason, you and Lawton. And as I thought of you, my mind fell, as it naturally would, on holy things, and a piece of the Scripture came back to me. Think of it, Jason, a piece of the Holy Writ. Would you care to hear it?"
My father paused to adjust a wrinkle in his coat, and then his voice became solemn and sonorous, and he spoke the words with metrical precision.
"'To everything'," said my father, "there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born and a time to die'."
He paused long enough to nod from one to the other.
"'A time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted'."
He raised his eyes to the ceiling again, and placed the tips of his fingers together.
"And 'a time to kill'," he concluded gently. His words died softly away in the quiet room.
"I have often thought of that passage," he continued. "Many and many a night I have repeated it to myself, under stars and under roof, and sometimes I have prayed, Jason. Oh yes, we all pray sometimes. Sometimes I have prayed for the time to come."
The red had gone out of my uncle's face, and Mr. Lawton was sitting rigid in his chair, his eyes glued on the slender figure before him.
"And now," said my father, in a tone that was as near to the pious as I ever heard him utter, "now it is here, and I thank thee, Lord."
"Good God!" gasped Mr. Lawton, in a voice that rose only a little above a whisper. "Do you mean to murder us?"
My father still stood motionless, but when he spoke again his voice had relapsed to its old genial courtesy.
"What a word for gentlemen to use!" he exclaimed in polite rebuke. "Murder you? Of course not, Lawton. I am simply about to propose a game. That is all, an exciting little game. Only one of us will die. Clear the large table of the papers, Ned, Toss them on the floor."