The Edgar Pangborn Megapack

by Edgar Pangborn

  “He will have time for me.” The voice was dry. The man entered the office without knocking, his dour face reminding Reuben of that portrait seen long ago in Grandmother Cory’s parlor: no specific likeness to Grandfather Matthew in the lean sadness of Mr. Simon Eames, except for the tight closing of the gash below the nose, the mouth of a man who expected life to taste bitter and could not allow his expectation to be wrong.

  The wealth of Mr. Eames was all ocean-born; he could have bought out Mr. Kenny twice over. Unfortunately he hated water and was said by the naughty-minded to turn seasick at the touch of a washrag. He might have sat quiet in his countinghouse and let the pounds and shillings come to him; he need not even have turned his pale eyes on the sometimes lively water of the Bay. But human nature is consistent as a lost puppy in a typhoon: whenever one of his ships came in, Mr. Eames invariably gritted his large teeth and had himself rowed out across the demoniac element. He must have this moment returned from such an ordeal. He was quite green. “Mr. Kenny, sir, if you have a moment?”

  “Certainly, Mr. Eames. I saw your Regina was in on the tide this morning. Had she a fair passage?”

  “Middling, they tell me. The Lord maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters. No, I thank you, I never drink,” he said as Mr. Kenny fumbled at a drawer of his desk. Mr. Eames sniffed, glancing in distaste at the bowed head of Captain Jenks, which had not lifted to acknowledge his presence. “I regret, Mr. Kenny, it is my grievous Christian duty to be the bearer of ill news, in the which one must seek to discover the infinite wisdom of Providence, the Dispenser of all mercies.” Reuben sickened with understanding: the ship Regina was in the Virginia trade, and so was Uncle John’s ship Iris; any moment now this pious carrion crow would come to the end of the preliminaries he was enjoying so much, and declare a disaster in plain words. Meanwhile the man was talking, and talking, and had not yet begun, and Daniel Shawn had swung away from the window to thrust his hands in the pockets of his green coat and gaze down at the sad speaker as one might watch a yapping dog. Reuben thought: What’s it to Shawn? Why should he step forward so, where Uncle John must be aware of him, and put on a plain show of anger at the bringer of bad news? “…as in all mischances and vicissitudes it is necessary to submit, Mr. Kenny, even to offer up gracious supplications.…”

  “Mr. Eames,” said John Kenny, and the noise ended. Simon Eames was not accustomed to interruptions; he probably found them ill-bred. He stood patiently, expecting blasphemy. “Mr. Eames, I have not much time, not here at my warehouse this morning and perhaps not in the world. As for God’s providence and disposition of the burdens men bear, may I leave such questions to God himself, rather than have them expounded unto me by men who, I suppose, share my humility as well as my mortality?”

  “John Kenny, you had ever a somewhat naughty spirit.”

  “That may be so. Will you speak your news?”

  Flushed, Mr. Eames drew a few deep breaths. Reuben sickly, inconsequently remembered another face, nothing at all like the face of Mr. Eames, a bronze painted face in a darkly reddened room. He had spat on it. In spite of the observations anyone must make, it had never become fully credible to Reuben that a human creature could find pleasure in the pain of others. His mind acknowledged the evidence, his heart refused it, and he wished weakly that magic could lift him out of this chilly crowded room into some place—the spring woods, for choice—where Mr. Welland would answer questions with mirth and kindness. “Mr. Kenny, your ship Iris, Captain Samuel Foster commanding, put out of Norfolk a fortnight before the departure thence of my ship Regina. I have this intelligence from Captain Bart of the Regina, with whom I was but now speaking. The Iris sailed on the third day of April to be precise, for Barbados, at least that was the destination announced by Captain Foster.”

  “Yes, it was Captain Foster’s intention to make Barbados.”

  “The Regina sailed on the sixteenth day of April, arriving here this morning after a slow passage, having encountered contrary winds as the Lord willed. On her second day out of Norfolk, the seventeenth day of April, the weather being overcast and a dirty sea running, my Captain Bart hath told me, the Regina overtook the longboat of the ship Iris.”

  “The—longboat,” said Captain Jenks, and got laboriously to his feet, massive arms swinging, quite helpless.

  Mr. Eames ignored him. “Three men were in it, Mr. Kenny, rather two men and a boy, the boy’s name being Bartram Wilks, of Dedham, a lad of about sixteen years.…”

  “I remember him. Will you continue?”

  “All three were wounded and famished, the Lord having seen fit to visit them with the vials of his wrath. The boy Wilks and one of the men were brought aboard. The other man—the sea running high and as God disposeth—burst his head against the strakes and sank immediate. The man brought aboard perished later, having overeaten though suffering from pistol wounds, but the boy Wilks lived two days.”

  His gaze not once abandoning Mr. Eames, Daniel Shawn had taken from his pocket a bright copper coin and was rubbing his broad thumb across it, turning it deftly to rub the other side, an action evidently so habitual it needed no guidance of his eyes. A farthing, Reuben thought, but not colonial. When for a moment the thumb and forefinger held the coin motionless by the finely milled rim, Reuben could make out a robed figure kneeling by a floating crown, and the legend FLOREAT REX. The pale eyes of Simon Eames were caught by the brightness and he let the silence drag. Shawn asked of no one in particular: “Had Mr. Dyckman wife and children?”

  “Eh?” Mr. Kenny turned to him, startled. “He had, sir. A wife and two little girls survive him.”

  “Oh, hanging’s too gentle,” said Shawn, rubbing the coin, his eyelids lowered on a blueness like that of two bright mirrors turned to a blue sky. “Is there a blacker thing than murder in the Decalogue? Isn’t it the destroying of the one thing we know we possess? Forgive me, sir—I should not be talking, belike I should not be here in your time of trouble, but I—sir, I feel it. I can’t explain—steady as she goes, can I not! for didn’t I see a friend murdered in a knife brawl on the brig Terschelling, and for nothing, a thing done in the time it’d take you to breathe twice, the time it took me, sir, to run from companionway to la’board rail and no chance, no chance to aid him at all, and then his blood blackening in the deck seams hour by hour, the way no holystone would ever rub it out?” Mr. Shawn seemed blankly startled to discover the farthing in his fingers, and put it away. “Mr. Kenny, they’re saying about the docks that the poor soul was yet living when he was found. Could he not speak at all, to damn the man who’d done the thing?”

  “Little enough,” said Mr. Kenny slowly. “Little enough, Mr. Shawn.… Will you continue, Mr. Eames?”

  “Ha? Oh.… I believe I was about to say, Wilks lived two days, and then died of an infection of his wounds, cutlass wounds, though Captain Bart tended the boy in his own cabin, bled him, did whatever he might, but—having lived long enough on this wretched earth to give Captain Bart the tidings and to prepare his soul for its going unto the Father of all mercies, the boy died, being a lad of decent conversation evidently raised in fear of the Lord, for Captain Bart saith he did make a most touching confession of faith, indeed exemplary, and may have been of the elect, we may hope.…”

  “Will you continue?”

  “Why, as it was told by Wilks, your ship Iris was set upon by a fast sloop which came out of the starboard quarter at dawn on the eighth day of April, the Iris being then at about latitude thirty, having made very little southing because of scant and fitful winds, also a sudden leak near the water line—but Captain Foster, it seems, preferred to beat out the passage to Barbados with extra toil at the pumps rather than put back to Norfolk, the Lord having so moved his heart to his own sad destruction.”

  “What?” said Jenks. “What? What did you say?”

  “Why—he was lost, Mr. Jenks, with
the others. On the eighth of April the weather was fair, the sea moderate. The sloop ran up a French flag and may have been a privateer. The boy Wilks, however, said that the men who boarded the Iris appeared to be plain pirates, and their general conduct of the affair would so indicate. Yet they allowed Wilks and four others, all wounded and of no mind to go on the account, to take the longboat, so to make the continental shore if they might or the Bermudas—thus carrying out the plain intent of Providence that the intelligence should come to us for a warning and a judgment. They could not row with much effect, yet the Lord sent them a southwesterly, early for the season, and by his infinite mercy they did cross the course of the Regina as I have said, after nine days afloat with a trifle of water and biscuit, during which time two of the men died of their wounds, having accomplished their part in God’s purpose.”

  “Sam Foster,” Jenks said. “Sam was a sailor of King William’s time. How did he die, Mr. Eames? Will you tell me how he died?”

  “It would appear he placed the Iris in posture to resist as best he might, but was overwhelmed. A shot at close quarters swept away the mainmast. The pirates grappled, swarmed aboard superior in numbers and weapons. They were stripping the ship of all they wished to carry aboard the sloop, when the longboat was put overside. Wilks and the others saw her burned to the water, the sloop bearing off south by southeast.”

  Daniel Shawn grunted. “They will have been from the Bahamas, Mr. Kenny—wolves, sir, wolves, and with the flags of a dozen nations in the locker to suit the occasion.”

  “Eh? Yes, I suppose. Mr. Eames, did any go alive on the sloop?”

  At least, Reuben observed, the old man was letting him keep a hand on his arm, seemed even to welcome it, and must know that Ben was on his other side. John Kenny was not predictable, his manner tending to put love in its place—an acquaintance respected, possibly feared a little, and not permitted any too forward liberties.

  “The boy Wilks thought not, Mr. Kenny, but was not certain. One of the cutlass blows had destroyed his right eye.”

  Captain Jenks panted: “Mr. Eames—I asked you—be there any word how Sam Foster died?”

  “With a seaman’s fortitude apparently, although not, alas, in a state of grace. He was struck down soon after the enemy boarded. Wilks saw him lying in his blood and cursing them, but did not see the moment of his death, whether he then turned his thought to the Lord.”

  “Well, Mr. Eames,” said John Kenny, “you have accomplished your errand, and I thank you for the trouble you have taken to bring me word. I beg you also, commend me to your good Captain Bart. I will speak with him when I may.”

  * * * *

  “I keep thinking in what sorry fashion I came home on this road last night.”

  “Forget that, Ben.”

  “I can’t, quite. I feel as though I’d given him another burden when already he hath too much to bear—well, you did say, didn’t you, that he wasn’t too troubled about my—my—”

  “Wasn’t at all. Would you have everyone perfect, devil any lapse from virtue, and yourself a saint in ivory?”

  “Oh, I know.… I swear I ought not to be going to Harvard. You must go, but damn it, I’m no scholar. Uncle John himself wishes me to go into trade with him some day. I say, if I do, it ought to be now.”

  “I disagree.”

  “Ay, you too.… Ru, a few weeks ago Uncle John told me—only in passing, because then it was nothing to trouble him—that he had debts waiting on the profit the ship Iris was to have brought him. Most of the debt is from the building of Artemis, and her maiden voyage won’t have fetched enough to satisfy it. It could happen, Ru, the creditors will be on top of him like a pack of wolves.”

  “I—didn’t know that.”

  “You do now. Look: wouldn’t it be unwise to send Artemis to be gone for months on the Barbados triangle, when she’s all he owns—she and the little sloop Hebe at Newport that can’t give much account of herself?”

  “What would you have him do?”

  “I think Artemis should make short voyages—should take that salt cod, for instance, maybe no further than New York, back at once for more, until the debt is cleared. I suppose the harshest of ’em would give him that much time. And then I think that when the debt is cleared, he ought to get a few more little fast vessels like Hebe for the coastal trade, for heaven knows that’s the bread and butter of this colony, and let the long ventures wait a few years.”

  “Then tell him so, Ben.”

  “I?… Commerce should be building, not gambling, a’n’t that so? Well, I think Uncle John believes that, but is moved to gamble all the same. The great ventures draw his heart—and why not, seeing that in the past he’s won them? Only, now.…”

  “You might as well say it: now he’s old, and in trouble, and the times themselves are changing, so everyone seems to think. Tell him how you see it. I say tell him, little brother.”

  “Can’t you be sensible, Muttonhead?”

  “Sensible—mm-yas. Well, tell him, maybe not that last morsel of your wisdom, but tell him at least about the little companions for Hebe, and short voyages for Artemis.”

  “I’m to instruct a man of seventy, when he won’t even hear to my signing on to learn a bit of seamanship and so be of use to him?”

  “You could tell him anything. You only need speak in a plain voice and never let anyone stop you from smiling in your own peculiar manner. I say this fully understumbling that in this moment I stand to you in loco Gideonis Hibborum.”

  “Oh, God damn it, Ru, whenever I’m dead in earnest you’re laughing on a mountaintop—yes, and when I think something comical you’re a little old man a thousand years old.”

  “Only a thousand? As best I can discover from perusal of ancient records, I was born during the government of Pericles of Athens, circa five hundred years before the birth of Christ. Plutarch doesn’t specifically mention me—that’s the slipshod scholarship of his times for you, obliging a man to read between the lines. It so happens I was not laughing when I urged you to tell that to Uncle John. And now, what was it about yesterday evening at the tavern that you didn’t tell the Constable?”

  “The—Constable—”

  “Yes, Ben, and yes. One-eyed man. Lion Tavern. Some part of that untold was hurting thee. What was it? Note that I stand here in the road, my bare face hung decently in front of my brains, not laughing.”

  “Good God! Was I so—”

  “No one in that room has my eyes and ears.”

  “I see.… Will you undertake not to speak of it to anyone?”

  “Of course, if you charge me so.”

  “I do. It was simply a fleeting impression I had, that while I had turned to see Ball and Dyckman leaving the tavern, Shawn also had done—something or other. Looked back, I thought, where that one-eyed man was sitting, just before he rose and followed them out. Now understand, Ru: I was drank already. It was nothing more than a fancy.”

  “But I know your eyes.”

  “No no! I was drunk, and did not truly see it anyway. Even if true, why should it mean anything? Why should it stick in my mind?”

  “That of course is the question.”

  “Now what do you mean?”

  “What is it in Shawn that should make the thought trouble you?… What in fact do you know about Mr. Shawn?”

  “Why—why, he is a man of pleasant conversation—mostly. Of—of poetic spirit, wouldn’t you say? Possessed of some learning too. He hath read Physiologus.”

  “That is learning? And now again you’re holding something back, but I am no Malachi Derry.”

  “’Deed you’re not, but what are you? Why do you press me so? Like a judge?”

  “Not to judge you, certainly. You’ve seen something in Shawn to disturb you. I wish to know what it was, because—because I’m fri
ghtened, Ben; because what touches thee touches me.…”

  “Something at that—house. He spoke quite cruelly to the women there, poor sluts, as if he hated them, and for no cause. I don’t know—I know you don’t like him, Ru, I can feel it. Let’s not speak of him.”

  “Very well. Let’s go on. Pontifex awaits, I’m sure. Let’s walk on—you know, decently, like Christian worthies debating how best to diddle a neighbor over a line fence and yet remain in a state of grace.”

  “Pagan Athenian!”

  “Of course.”

  “I recall a time, when thou wast—”

  “The boy’s dead. Poor snotnose, he died near Springfield in the Massachusetts, in the reign of Queen Anne. Tell me something, Ben, and don’t be angry—remember how Mother used to call me Puppy?”

  “Of course. And Father called thee Sir Inquiry.”

  “Ha? So he did.…”

  “Why should I be angry?”

  “She called me that, I think, because I am—I am over-demonstrative, heart on my sleeve and can’t help it, Ben, it’s my way, my way. I only meant to ask—does it trouble thee, that I like to put my arm over thy shoulder, sometimes kiss thy cheek? Because—”