Kitabı oku: «Kit Musgrave's Luck», sayfa 7

CHAPTER II
THE FIRST VOYAGE

To some extent, Kit's first voyage on board Mossamedes was disappointing, and he felt as if he had been cheated. Nothing romantic marked the run; the boat was large, her roll was slow and regular, and while her big engines pushed her north against the Trade-breeze, one could without much balancing walk the deck. On board Campeador one could not. Her sharp plunges sent one staggering about, and one must dodge the spray that swept her like a hailstorm when the white surges burst against her forecastle. The spray and violent motion had some drawbacks, but Kit got a sense of man's struggle with the sea.

On the whole, he thought the Morocco coast dreary. The towns were like the Spanish towns, dazzlingly white on the water-front, but meaner and dirtier. In fact, to walk about the narrow streets in the dark was rash, and Kit was satisfied by his first experiment. The hot, foul-smelling cafes by the harbour had no charm for him, and he lost himself in a network of alleys between straight walls. The alleys were very dark; sometimes an indistinct figure stole past, and sometimes he saw a yellow gleam in a high and narrow window. This was all, and it was a relief to get back to the beach and feel the fresh Trade-breeze.

As a rule, they moored Mossamedes some distance from the beach, and she rode uneasily, rolling on the long swell while her cable jarred against the stem. Boats came off with her cargo of beans, barley and maize, and Kit, watching the dust-clouds roll along the parched coast, wondered where the produce grew. When he asked Yusuf, Wolf's agent, the Jew vaguely indicated the hinterland. He was, he said, a merchant, and the merchants stopped in the towns. The Moors of the back country were strange people, and one left them alone. Notwithstanding this, Yusuf was obviously a good business man, for the quantity of grain he sent on board was large and when Mossamedes weighed anchor, Kit thought Wolf would find her first voyage profitable.

Getting off was not easy. She had swung, and her cable, sweeping the bottom, had fouled the anchor. They hove all on board in a horrible tangle, and for hours the barefooted crew were occupied in dragging the ponderous links about. In the meantime Mossamedes steamed slowly south, with a yellow smear on her port hand that stood for the coast. The shallows run far to sea, and the charts are not remarkably good. Yusuf had sent her to load sheep at the mouth of a wady, but stated that she might wait some days before the animals arrived.

Miguel, the old quartermaster, steered her in. He had long sailed on board a fishing schooner and knew the shoals, for where the African coast-shelf drops to the deep Atlantic, fish are numerous. Fish, lightly salted and dried in the sun, make the Spanish baccalao, and the peons, whose main food it is, are sometimes touched by leprosy. Miguel never wore boots and stockings, although when he went home on feast days he carried raw-hide sandals. Kit rather doubted if he put the sandals on. His clothes were strangely patched, and he could not read, but his manners were the manners of a Spanish grandee. He was something of a mystic and believed in miracles. He told Kit the Moors were cruel and treacherous, but his saint was king of angels, and he was not afraid. The mate was a Catalan Freethinker, and believed in nothing he could not touch and see. Since he wore spectacles, his vision was limited.

When they reached the spot agreed upon, Miguel went to the bridge, and they rigged the deep-sea lead and stopped the ship. Miguel, posed like a Greek statue, stood on top of the pilot-house; his thin clothes wind-pressed against his body, and his white hair blown about his red cap. There were no shore marks, and Don Erminio's reckoning was not always accurate. Across a belt of blue sea one saw a brown and yellow streak. Its outline was vague and broken; only the colour was distinct.

"The Punta!" said Miguel. "The barranco is a league south. A bad place, captain, and the people are without shame."

Kit knew barranco in Castilian and wady in Arabic mean a stony hollow where water sometimes flows. He looked for an anchorage, but saw none. In places, the belt of blue was broken by patches of pale green, and farther on, by glistening white lines. These marked ridges on the coast-shelf and shallow spots where the long rollers broke. The wind was fresh but blew obliquely off the coast.

"How much water?" Don Erminio asked, and when Miguel answered, signed to a man on the forecastle.

"Veremos. We will see," he said.

The lead plunged, the line ran aft, and stopping swung upright at the poop. Two men began to haul and one shouted the depth.

"Half a brazo too much. It is very good," the captain remarked.

Then the screw began to throb and Mossamedes, going half-speed, forged ahead. Sometimes she crossed green belts and sometimes went round patches where the water was yellow and the swell curled as if the Atlantic waves ran up an inclined bottom. Kit thought Miguel did not hesitate; his lined face was imperturbable, and he directed the helmsman with a firm movement of his hand. Yet it was obvious they crept round banks where a ship like Mossamedes would not float. When Miguel nodded and the captain rang his telegraph, all felt some relief.

"Fondo!" the captain shouted and the anchor leaped from the forecastle.

The splash was drowned by the roar of running cable that presently stopped with a jar. She brought up, swung to the wind, and there was a strange quietness on board.

"We are arrived," said Don Erminio. "If Miguel's saint does not guard him until the sheep come, I do not think we will get to sea again. In the meantime, we will catch fish and make baccalao for my señora."

In the morning they launched a boat and rowed to the coast. The point was low and stony, and farther along the hammered beach a shallow hollow ran down to the sand. In the background one saw a sandy waste dotted by thick-stalked euphorbia. One could land by jumping overboard into the surf while the others held off the boat, and Don Erminio shot a partridge and got some bait. Then they went back to the steamer, and for three days Kit and the captain fished.

Shoals surrounded the basin where Mossamedes rode two miles from land. From her deck it looked as if she were at sea, for the banks that sheltered her were only marked by lines of foam. Although she rolled, the motion was not violent, and Kit got a sense of space and freedom. He liked the lonely anchorage better than a noisy port. In the morning they hoisted the boat's lugsail, and following the edge of the sands, stopped where fish were numerous. A disturbed swell crossed the shoals, and spray blew about. Sometimes when the boat sank in the trough they could not see the ship, but the fresh breeze tempered the heat and drove along a thin haze that softened the light. Kit caught strange, deep-bodied fish with square heads, and was content.

One day, however, the breeze backed North and the boat could not leave the ship. It blew hard, and big, hollow-fronted seas rolled along the coast. In the distance, their ragged crests cut the sky, and the horizon was indented like the edge of a saw. In the foreground they crashed upon the shoals, and all about Mossamedes one saw spouting foam. Brown dust-clouds tossed behind the yellow streak that marked the coast, and the sky was darkened as if by smoke. Macallister was ready to start his engines, but the lead-line that crossed the steamer's rail ran straight down. Although she plunged, her anchor held.

Kit, sitting behind the deckhouse, smoked and mused. He saw that since he arrived at Las Palmas he had taken greedily all his new life offered; sports he could not enjoy before, the society of cultivated people, fresh excitements and emotional thrills. Now, however, a reaction had begun; he must pause and try to see where he was going.

To begin with, he thought he had not neglected his duties. It looked as if Don Ramon at the office approved him, and if they got the sheep on board, Wolf ought to be satisfied. Mossamedes carried a paying cargo, and Kit had kept the cost of shipment low. He was making good, and now he had been given some responsibility, found he could, without much effort, carry his load. In a sense, however, this was not important; he really meant to think about Olivia. Olivia had carried him away and after a half-hearted struggle he had let himself go. She had beauty, pluck, and a cultivation higher than his. Sometimes she was gracious, and when they jarred he thought she found the jars amusing. She laughed at him afterwards and he did not mind. He would sooner she laughed than let him alone. He could not think about her without a disturbing thrill.

Yet the thing was ridiculous! Olivia was rich and extravagant, but he was poor; and not like Austin, who had married her sister. But suppose he somehow made his mark? If Don Arturo, for example, gave him a good post? Kit lighted a fresh cigarette and frowned, for he began to see his doubts would not be banished then. After all, he was not Olivia's sort. He understood half-consciously that for him her charm was mainly physical, and he had tried to resist. He had an inherited distrust for all that appealed to his senses. With Olivia he would get excitement, shocks and thrills. He would live at high tension, and she would take him far; but his vein was sober, and perhaps he would not want to go. Yet he was flesh and blood, and her beauty called.

The others left him alone, and when a cloud of spray, sweeping over the deck-house, drove him aft, he looked for another quiet spot. The sea was getting worse, and spindrift blew across the turmoil like a fog. Mossamedes rolled until her scuppers dipped, and when she swung to the savage gusts the jar of her cable pierced the rumble of the sea. The water in her bilges splashed, and a ragged plume of smoke, blown flat from her funnel, indicated that Macallister kept keen watch. For all that, the anchor held, and Kit, sheltering behind the after wheel-house, thought about Betty.

Betty was his sort. She understood him, although he did not always understand her. She did not ask much and would not urge one far; Betty's plan was to brighten the spot she occupied. Kit had doubted its wisdom, but he began to see it had some advantages. Yet if Betty did not urge, now he thought about it, he had felt her gently lead and had known her way was better than his. He did not see all she saw, but sometimes he was dull. Betty was calm and kind and did not think about herself. She had, however, refused him, and he had let her go. All the same, he was glad he could help her, and if his mother had used some tact —

The swinging stern lifted, and the iron deck throbbed. The foam was torn in a frothy patch; Kit saw the screw spin, and the throbbing stopped. Macallister had turned his engines to satisfy himself they were ready to start. On the surface he was careless and irresponsible, but when the strain came one could trust old Mack.

On the whole, the break in his disturbing thoughts was a relief to Kit. His philosophy was rude, and he did not understand that he was moved by two antagonistic forces. One was altogether of the flesh; the other was not. He did, however, see that his business on board Mossamedes was with her cargo, and he began to speculate about the sheep. If the animals did not arrive soon, they ought not to stop. The anchorage was dangerous, and Mossamedes was the company's boat. He got up and went off to talk to Don Erminio.

In the night the wind veered to the north-east and got lighter, and soon after daybreak a streak of smoke blew along the beach. Juan, the mate, hove out a thirty-foot cargo launch, and Kit went down the rope with Miguel, the interpreter, and some sailors. A flock of sheep occupied the wady and five or six men, mounted on tall camels, moved the animals to the beach. The shepherds were big men, but their bodies and for the most part their dark faces, were covered by blue and white cloth. Kit's job, however, was to count the flock and see all were got on board. He let the interpreter talk and helped Miguel.

They dropped an anchor and the boat rode in the shallow surf a few yards from the beach. When a large roller ran in they hauled her off and waited; and then, letting her drift back, jumped over and picked up as many sheep as possible before another roller broke. The work was exhausting and sometimes men and sheep washed about in the surf. When they pulled off, the boat held much water and now and then the sea-tops splashed on board. Alongside Mossamedes, the sheep were thrown into a tub, swung out by a derrick when for a few moments she stopped rolling. The tub went up and came down empty, but after the most part of the flock was on board one plunged out through the gangway and the others followed. Don Erminio stormed, and Miguel with stolid patience steered the heavy launch in chase of the animals.

She went back and brought off a number of loads, but when the last was on board Kit's muscles were sore, and his burned skin smarted with salt. He had, however, got all the flock, and when he went below to bathe in fresh water the screw began to throb. Miguel climbed to the top of the pilot-house and Mossamedes steamed out slowly between the shoals.

CHAPTER III
KIT'S SURPRISE

Soon after his arrival at Las Palmas, Kit started for Jefferson's office. He had passed an hour with Wolf, who declared himself altogether satisfied about the voyage and gave Kit some compliments. Kit's mood was cheerful; his employer's frank praise was encouraging, and he felt he was making good. Besides, Wolf would not want him again until next day and, if he were lucky, he might find Olivia at home. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and as a rule Mrs. Austin's visitors did not arrive before the evening. On the voyage he had begun to see his haunting Mrs. Austin's veranda was rash, but as he got nearer Las Palmas his good resolutions melted.

Nevertheless he must first see Jefferson. When they steamed along the Morocco coast they met the Cayman. She hove to and signalled, the steamer's engines stopped, and a message was shouted through a megaphone. Since Kit was keen to get to Mrs. Austin's to carry the message was rather a bore, but he admitted that Jefferson ought to know what his captain wanted.

In Spanish towns a merchant's office generally occupies the ground floor of his house, and Kit liked Jefferson's. The narrow street was very hot, and the reflections from the white walls hurt his eyes. To enter the tunnel, guarded by a fine iron gate, and cross the shady patio was a relief. In the middle, a little fountain splashed, the walls were lemon-yellow and a splendid purple bougainvillea trailed about the pillars that carried a balcony. The dark spaces behind the posts looked like cloisters. In front big heliotrope bushes occupied green tubs.

As he crossed the patio Kit met Jefferson going to the gate.

"Hallo!" said Jefferson. "Got back all right? Sorry I can't stop. I've fixed it to meet a customer at the Metropole."

Kit told him about their meeting the Cayman and pulled out a folded paper. "I made a note – "

"Thanks! I must order the truck the captain wants," said Jefferson, who did not take the paper. "The port doctor allowed you had loaded up the boat and brought a good flock of sheep. What did you trade for them?"

"We landed no goods; I imagined the sheep would be paid for afterwards. Looks as if Wolf had an agreement with somebody in the interior."

"It's not usual. Nobody trusts us like that," Jefferson remarked in a thoughtful voice. "You carried an interpreter. Did you talk to the Berbers?"

"Not at all," said Kit. "You see – "

He stopped. Jefferson was his friend, but after all he was to some extent his employer's antagonist. The other noted his pause.

"Oh, well, I reckon Wolf knows his job, but I'd watch out for those fellows. They're a pretty hard crowd. Anyhow, I must get along. Do you mind giving my English clerk the note?"

He smiled as if something amused him, and went off, and Kit crossed the flags. At the arch that opened on Jefferson's office, he stopped abruptly and wondered whether his imagination had cheated him.

A few yards off Betty sat in front of a writing-table. Her head was bent; Kit saw her face in profile against the coloured wall and noted the clean, flowing line. After a moment or two she looked up and Kit's heart beat. His advance was impetuous, and when she gave him her hand he pulled himself up with an effort. When he last saw Betty in the shabby street at Liverpool, he had kissed her. It was strange and disturbing, but he had come near to kissing her again. Betty, however, was very calm and her hand was cool and steady.

"Why Kit! You looked startled!" she said.

"I'm very much surprised," he admitted. "You see, I thought you were at Liverpool."

"At Liverpool? Then you didn't think I'd gone for a holiday to the South Coast?"

Kit was embarrassed. It looked as if his mother had not used much tact, but Betty's smile was gentle.

"Sometimes you're rather nice, Kit, but all the same you ought to see I couldn't go."

"We won't talk about it," Kit replied. "When I came in you didn't look at all – surprised."

Betty gave him a calm glance, but he thought she had noted his hesitation. Surprised was not altogether what he had meant.

"I was not," she said. "I knew you were on board a ship that had just arrived. Then I heard you talking to Mr. Jefferson."

He pulled up a chair and studied her while she neatly folded some documents. Betty was thin, but if she had been ill, she was obviously getting better. A faint colour had come to her skin, and her eyes were bright. At Liverpool she had worn very plain, dark clothes, because they were economical; now her dress was white and she had pretty grey shoes. In fact, Betty was prettier than he had thought. Perhaps her escape from monotonous labour and the dark Liverpool office accounted for much, but she was not the tired girl he had known.

Kit looked about the room. There was not much furniture, and all was made of Canary pine that polishes a soft brown. The wall was yellow, and blue curtains hung across the arch; Kit knew they were needed to keep out the morning sun. A rug was on the floor, and it was like the curtains, the dull blue one saw in Morocco. Betty had fastened a spray of heliotrope in her white dress.

"Do you like my room?" she asked.

"It's just right. The strange thing is, I hadn't noticed this before; I don't think – Jefferson bothered about his office. Anyhow the room was his."

"Now it's mine. Mrs. Jefferson gave me the rug. I think it came from Africa. She said you were a friend of hers. Isn't she nice?"

"She is a very good sort," Kit agreed. "I'm glad you have got an office like this; the dark stuffy hole at Liverpool wasn't fit for you. I haven't asked if you're getting better, because I can see. Somehow you are another girl."

Betty said nothing, but rather thought Kit another man. He looked stronger and his skin was brown. Then something about his voice and carriage indicated quiet confidence. At Liverpool when Kit was resolute he was, so to speak, aggressive, as if he wanted others to remark his firmness. Now his glance was calm, his nervous jerkiness had gone. All the same, she thought he had not got fresh qualities but developed those he had. Betty knew Kit.

"But where do you live?" he resumed. "In a Spanish town it's awkward – "

"I live with Mrs. Jefferson. Before I came we agreed on this. She's very nice and takes me about; sometimes for a drive to the mountains and sometimes in the sailing boat. When I remember my other post, I feel as if I'd got out of prison."

Kit was satisfied. To know Betty was happy was much; she deserved the best. Then she gave him a thoughtful glance.

"It's strange you didn't know I was coming. Mr. Jefferson wrote to me a month since."

"Jefferson wrote?"

"Of course. He stated he wanted somebody to answer his English letters and undertake general office work, and he understood from you I might take the post."

"I certainly did not tell Jefferson anything like this," said Kit. "I gave Mrs. Austin my mother's letter, in which she said you were ill and must leave the office. But Mrs. Jefferson was with Mrs. Austin, and perhaps they talked about it afterwards."

"Then, giving me the post was Mrs. Austin's plan?" Betty remarked and Kit thought her voice was rather hard.

"I expect it was," he agreed. "Mrs. Austin does things like that. I imagine she persuaded Wolf to send me on board Mossamedes."

Betty studied him. She did not think he saw the light he had given her. Sometimes Kit was dull.

"Don't you like Mrs. Austin?" he asked.

"I like Mrs. Jefferson better," Betty replied. She stopped and noting that Kit was puzzled, resumed: "She is kind. So is Mr. Jefferson. When he comes into his office he throws away his cigar. He asks me – Won't I write a note for him and count up the bills. He doesn't think because I'm paid it doesn't matter how he talks. But why did you give Mrs. Austin your mother's letter?"

"Now I think about it, I don't altogether know. She's sympathetic and I was bothered because you were ill. I imagine she saw I was bothered."

"Were you bothered very much?"

"Of course," said Kit. "You were breaking down, and must stop at Liverpool in the rain and cold; I had the sea and sun. Sometimes I was savage because I couldn't help."

"Then you didn't think Mrs. Austin might persuade her husband to give me a post at Las Palmas?"

"I did not. I gave her the letter, that's all. Mrs. Austin likes helping people, and Austin and Jefferson wanted an English clerk. I expect this accounts for their engaging you."

Betty doubted. For one thing, she had met Olivia and two or three young men from the coaling wharfs, who had tried to amuse her by humorous gossip about the English people at Las Palmas. Then Mrs. Austin had sent Kit on board Wolf's steamer, which made longer voyages than the correillo, and had persuaded Jefferson to engage her for his clerk. Betty thought Mrs. Austin's object was plain, but wondered much what Kit had said to her. Since she could not find out, she began to talk about Liverpool, and Kit presently narrated his adventures on the African coast.

Nobody disturbed them and the shady room was cool. The smell of heliotrope floated in; one heard the fountain splash and the languid rumble of the surf. Betty leaned back in her revolving chair and Kit lighted a cigarette.

Jefferson was occupied for some time at the Metropole, but when he crossed the patio he slackened speed in front of the arch. He was a sober merchant, but it was not very long since he was a romantic sailor, and the picture that met his glance had some charm. His pretty clerk rested her cheek in her hollowed hand; her pose was unconsciously graceful, and she studied Kit with thoughtful eyes. Kit talked and his face wore a strangely satisfied smile; Jefferson imagined he did not know his cigarette had gone out. His thin figure was athletic, he looked keen and virile. Jefferson approved them both. They had not his wife's and Austin's cultivation, but they were honest, red-blooded people. In fact, they were good stuff.

For all that he was puzzled; he had not thought Musgrave a philanderer. Besides his office was not a drawing-room and he advanced rather noisily. Kit pulled out his watch and got up with a start, but Betty did not plunge into her proper occupation. Betty was generally marked by an attractive calm; then she knew her employer.

"I expect you gave Miss Jordan the note about the stores for Cayman?" Jefferson said to Kit.

Kit took out the paper. "Sorry, but I did not. I must get on board. Perhaps I ought to have gone before."

"You can go now. Come back for supper, if you like," Jefferson replied with a twinkle and put down some documents. "If you can give me a few minutes, Miss Jordan – "

When Betty got to work at her typewriter he went to Mrs. Jefferson's drawing-room.

"I have asked young Musgrave to supper and reckon he'll come," he said.

"Don't you know if he is coming?" Mrs. Jefferson rejoined.

"He didn't state his plans. I imagine he was rattled when I fired him out. It had probably dawned on him he'd been loafing about my office most part of the afternoon."

"You knew he was a friend of Miss Jordan's," Mrs. Jefferson remarked.

"I knew Jacinta Austin was pretty smart, but it begins to look as if she was smarter than I thought."

Mrs. Jefferson smiled. "Oh, well, you have got a good clerk and Kit has got a post he likes."

"But what about Olivia?"

"I don't think you need be disturbed about Olivia," said Mrs. Jefferson, dryly. "Anyhow, you mustn't meddle. Your touch is not light."

"That is so," Jefferson agreed. "Jacinta's touch is surely light; she can pull three or four wires at once, without your knowing how she's occupied. For all that, I've a notion she'll some time snarl the wires in a nasty tangle. Can't you give her a hint she's got to leave my clerk and Kit alone?"

"I doubt. The thing is puzzling. You see, Betty refused Kit," Mrs. Jefferson remarked in a thoughtful voice. "However, I think two of the leading actors in the comedy know what they want. The others do not."

"It rather looks as if three didn't know."

"I think my calculation's accurate. However, I see no useful part for us. Ours is to look on and smile when the play's amusing."

"If Jacinta hurts Miss Jordan, I won't smile," Jefferson rejoined. "I'm fond of the girl, because in a way she's like you."

"Sometimes you're very nice," said Mrs. Jefferson, and went off to talk to the Spanish cook in the kitchen that had, when Jefferson got the house, adjoined the stable.