Captain Caution

by Kenneth Roberts

  "Thank you, ma'am," Marvin said. "I wouldn't want to trouble

  you'd

  "But it is no troublel Come; you tell me, and I shall see whether I have guessed correctly why your visit is important. Then I help you with the duke."

  Marvin coughed. "I think, ma'am no offence meant that it would be better if I told Talleyrand himself. It's he that must help me."

  She smiled faintly. "You are cautious, and it is no great fault to be cautious at the proper time. I think it would make a difference, perhaps, if I say to you that I am a member of the duke's household. It is possible you consider me a servant."

  "No, nol" Marvin said. "I can see you're a great lady! But a lady can't ah, that is to say, if I can't convince the duke, how can a lady convince him for me?"

  The black-haired girl opened her eyes wide. "How? You do not seriously ask me howl Surely you do not think there is any wise man but knows he can do better at anything at all by taking the advice of a womanl Surely you know that any wise woman can persuade a man into doing whatever she desires!"

  "That's no doubt true," Marvin admitted, "but it's my belief that for every wise woman there are fifty foolish ones who consider themselves wise."

  He shot a quick glance at her, and found her smiling more broadly.

  "And I am one of the fifty?" she asked.

  "How can I tell, ma'am? You know it's important I should see Talleyrand, and still you keep me from him. Is that wisdom, ma'am?"

  She shrugged, opened the door in the angle of the wall and preceded Marvin into a small vestibule, where she dropped her long brown cloak on a table. Marvin saw then that her yellow dress had next to no sleeves, and that, on one side, the skirt was slashed as high as the knee, almost as though a small staysail had been cut from it.

  She arranged her hair, looking up at him from beneath her elbow.

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  "It may be," she said, "that the King of Spain is with him also the one who was stolen by " She wagged her head, frowned severely, thrust one hand into the front of her gown and the other behind her back, and puffed out her cheeks, so that she had a look of Bonaparte about her. "If he is there," she added sedately, "do not be disturbed by him. He is not much of a king."

  She opened another door on the far side of the vestibule and went quickly into a circular chamber so large that for a moment it seemed to Marvin an empty blur of enormous pale carpets and gilded furniture heavily garnished with lions' heads. Out of the blur came a vast hooded fireplace, and windows opening onto an ancient and heavy cloister. Near the fireplace was a table at which sat a man with a face like parchment, his chin propped so high by a thick collar that he had an air of disliking the odor of the place. Yet his features were so placid as to seem lifeless, and his eyes peered out of the blank whiteness of his face like black paper pasted behind the eyeholes of a mask. In a reclining chair on the opposite side of the fireplace lay a swarthy, sulky-seeming young man, rubbing a finger moodily over the strings of a guitar.

  The black-haired girl curtsied quickly to the gentleman at the desk. "Uncle Maurice," she said, "I have found this young man from America with something important to say to you: something so important that he cannot tell it to any woman only to M. de Talleyrand himself so I think it must be the most important thing that ever was known."

  xxv

  1ALLEYRAND rose from his desk, smiling with an exquisite gentleness, but he did not move forward to greet his guest; and Marvin noticed that one of the shoes the great man wore was misshapen, as if the foot within it were crippled. The voice was rich and of a silken suavity:

  "From Americal I find this a great honor that a gentleman from your fine young country should come here to Valencay to see me a great honor, and a surprise as well. Sit, please, and tell me who has sent you, and how do you learn I am hereP It is almost never I come, and it is only four days since my niece and I set out to escape the turmoil of the Rue St. Florentin."

  Marvin, uncomfortably erect in a small, hard chair, glanced from the smiling, mask-like face of Talleyrand to the black-haired girl, who had gone with the sulky man to stand beside a roulette wheel at a long window through which appeared the broad expanse of park, a dark belt of forest beyond, and, most distant of all, the little town of Valencay, its white roofs and Gothic church spire glistening in the afternoon sun.

  "Why," he said, "nobody sent me. I came because - " He broke off and stared at the brilliant bindings of the books that encircled the room, and at the painted nymphs rioting on the ceiling. "It's a mistake, of courser We had a brig, the Talleprand, named for a Frenchman who came to Arundel and was taken by my father to buy land from General Knox, years ago. I thought it was you; but surely it was never you who needed to buy lands in Mainel"

  As if to himself and almost as an afterthought, he added: "And owed my father eleven dollars. It's not likely!"

  Talleyrand lowered himself to a chair beside Marvin and looked intently into his eyes. "Eleven dollars?" he asked politely. "I have no recollection of - " He paused. "It is true, certainly; for no one would spuriously imagine the peculiar sum of eleven dollars; but it is strange that I Perhaps you remember your father telling the circumstances of those eleven dollars?"

  "It was a wager," Marvin said. "You wagered that a certain Cap

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  Huff could eat no more than twenty-four ears of corn. He ate thirtyfive, my father said, and so you lost eleven dollars."

  Talleyrand nodded. "It is the truth! I remember ill After he had eaten the corn, he wished your father to wager me that he could also eat two pies of squashes. It all comes backl Dear mel Dear met And you say I did not pay this wager?"

  "My father said it was because of the buttered rum," Marvin said. "You went away early the next morning; and my father said any man might be forgetful in the early morning, especially after being free with the buttered rum. He said, always, it was worth more to him to be able to say Talleyrand owed him eleven dollars than to say Talleyrand had paid him eleven dollars."

  "It was wisely said," Talleyrand agreed. "I hope your father is well? He found excellent land for me excellent land and so it was possible for me to live, selling a little here and a little there. Yes, yes, I remember; fools and wise men in America, they bought land at any price, anywhere! Tell me, your father is happy and successful?"

  "He lost the Tallegraml, but now he owns another. When I go back, I shall take her out."

  "You mean you will be captain of the ship?"

  Marvin nodded. "Yes, and that's why I've come here."

  "But of coursel" Talleyrand exclaimed. "It is important that you return to Americal I understand your eagerness, and I tell you that it can be arranged easily. You may be perfectly sure it shall be done."

  "That's not it," Marvin said. He cleared his throat. "There's not time to go home. That is, the vessel I'd have if I went to America isn't the kind I want, and I want one now. I can do twice the harm to England if I can take out a vessel from France."

  "Twice the harm?" Talleyrand asked. "I do not understand. If you sailed from America you would be more likely to discover unprotected British vessels, eh?"

  "No, sirl" Marvin said. "It's in their home waters that they lack protection. You waste no time hunting 'em, for they're always to be found; and if you're cautious, you can surprise 'em where they least expect it."

  "Now I see," Talleyrand said. "What you desire is a fighting vessell You may depend upon it, I will assist you to this willingly. How much shall you wish to pay for this vessel?"

  "No," Marvin said, "it's not only a vessel. There's another thing." Embarrassed, he glanced at the black-haired girl, to find her staring thoughtfully at him over the shoulder of her sulky companion. "If

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  I take out a private vessel from France, I'll need a commission, and it must be got from the American Minister from Mr. Barlow in Paris. It's not only to get the vessel that I need your help, but to get the commission as well."

&n
bsp; Talleyrand smiled almost sleepily. "But my interference is unnecessary, sir. You are how shall I say? you are perhaps overcareful in all this. Why do you not, my friend, go straight to Mr. Barlow and tell him what you wish? He is a gentleman and a poet, a trifle pompous and overcredulous,perhaps, but not at all a stickler for form. You will find him sympathetic, I am sure."

  Haltingly, and with a kind of desperation, Marvin attempted to explain: "I wouldn't have come here if I could have seen any other means of getting what I needed. I must have someone to vouch for me to Mr. Barlow. I have no papers they were taken from me by the British. I thought you might - "

  "But even without papers," Talleyrand interrupted, "there were other seamen from your ship who can vouch for you other officers? Were you the captain of the ship?"

  "No, sir," Marvin said. "No, sir."

  "Then who was the captain and where is he?" Talleyrand persisted.

  "A lady was the captain. She thinks she thought it might be that is, I can't let her - "

  The black-haired girl moved to Talleyrand and leaned against his shoulder. "It was what I suspected!" she cried. "He had an air about himl I said to myself, 'This important matter has a woman in it.'"

  "Well," Marvin said slowly, "I'll try to explain. You see, if I should go alone to Mr. Barlow, he'd ask about this lady, just as you have, and it might be he'd have learned *tom her or from someone with her that I'd been responsible for the loss of her ship to the British. Then he'd never issue a commission to me, and I could do nothing for her." He hesitated; then spoke haltingly: "You see she's prejudiced against me I think she's been told that I that I well, I think she was made to hate me."

  The black-haired girl sank to her knees beside Talleyrand's chair. "Oh, the lady hates himl" she cried. "No wonderl Have you perhaps expressed to her your opinions concerning the wisdom of women?"

  Talleyrand dropped an admonitory finger on her shoulder. "Of course," he told her, "you know everything about this affair, after hearing a few words; but I am older and duller, and there are still a few things obscured from me." To Marvin he added, "Now you

  CAPTAIN CAUTION

  begin, so that we may know about this lady you love, but who loves another gentleman who has been prejudicing her against you."

  "That's not sol" Marvin protested. "That's not what I said, and it couldn't be truer She's hasty in her judgments, but she couldn't she'd never "

  "Tell from the beginning," the black-haired girl insisted, leaning comfortably against Talleyrand's knee.

  Before Marvin had finished his tale, the swarthy, sulky-looking Spanish king had ceased to turn his roulette wheel and had gone gloomily from the room, evoking doleful sounds from his guitar; and a servant had come to light the tall candles around the walls. When Marvin had finished, Talleyrand fingered his high stock and stared at the ceiling with expressionless black eyes.

  "It is all quite plain," he said. "Not only must I intercede for you with Mr. Barlow, but if I do what you wish, I must purchase this vessel and intrust it to an untried captain, and all with no certainty for me of receiving any return whatever. Does this seem to you fair? To me it has the air of placing money carefully" he dropped an imaginary atom from his finger tips "in the ocean."

  Marvin sat forward, balanced on the extreme edge of his chair. "No," he said. "You can't lose not unless they sink my ship and kill mel If we have no luck, I'll pay it back after the war, with interest. But we'll I can feel luck when it's close; every seaman that's worth his salt can feel it well have my pendulum! You'll have the use of my pendulum! They'll never catch me while I have my pendulum! You'll have your money back ten times overt"

  Talleyrand waved a white hand languidly. "It means nothing to me, this pendulum. You have thought about it; it exists only in your brain, oh? It seems to me a simple thing; so simple that our great seamen would have discovered it before now if it had value."

  "Yes, it seems so," Marvin admitted, "but they haven't. Not even Nelsonl Nelson said guns at sea aren't any good except at point-blank range, when they can't miss. He was wrong; but he's right, too, as long as guns are fired by guesswork, as they are now. Why, at long range, both the French and the English, all of 'em, fire with the roll of the vessel as she rolls downward or as she rolls upward hoping that one or two shots will be lucky enough to get home. A hit at long range is an accident today, unless a gun is handled by an expert rifleman; yes, and at long range there isn't one gun crew out of a thousand that could hit a mark the size of this chateaus With my pendulum there'll be no guessing about it. Every time I fire a long

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  gun, I'll fire from an even keel, and I could hull this room four times out of five at half-mile range."

  To Marvin it seemed that Talleyrand and his black-haired niece eyed him with as much of disfavor as disbelief. "I don't mean to brag," he told them mildly. "I've always looked for easier ways to do things, and almost always there's an easier way. It appears to me most people make things as hard for themselves as they can."

  "Yes, I think it is so," Talleyrand said, "and I am interested in a part of what you tell me. I am interested to see how you are confident. You speak of England's great fleet as if it were nothing at alll It has destroyed our navy utterly our fine, powerful navy and yet it seems to be in your mind that a few men with a few small fishing boats can strike a blow at England that will be felt."

  "And so they can," Marvin said. "So they can, provided their seamanship is what it should be. All that's necessary is to keep out of range of heavy war craft and sink the slow and clumsy merchantmen."

  "Of course," Talleyrand admitted, "nothing else is necessary, provided, as you say, their seamanship is superior. When I was in America, I studied the inhabitants of your fishing cantons, and it was clearly to be seen that your fishermen are not to be compared with those of Europe, and that fishing in America is not a means of forming sailors and turning out strong and able seamen. It is a lazy calling in America, except in the case of the whalers of Nantucket."

  "But we don't use fishermen on our merchantmen," Marvin protested. "We use seamen."

  "But your seamen are fishermen first," Talleyrand said placidly. "I have been in your fishing cantons and written papers on the subject for our National Institute."

  Marvin gripped his clenched hands between his knees. "Well," he said slowly, "we have many fishermen. We also have many merchantmen, and we've been forced to sail differently from the English merchantmen. They heave-to at night, most of them send down their royal and topgallant yards and masts, even whereas we crack on. Their ships are half manned with landsmen, because the navy steals their crews. We've had to be better seamen than the English, and so we are. You may depend upon what I tell youl If you help me with this vessel, you'll never lose by it. I'll I'll make my father responsible in case I'm killed. I'll do anything anything "

  Talleyrand, assisted by his black-haired niece, rose to his feet and stared with a faint, blank smile at the top of Marvin's head. "But of course I will help your" he said. "Of courser Now I must thinkI" Again

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  he scrutinised the ceiling on which half-clad nymphs cheerfully encouraged the advances of a disreputable satyr. "When is it you wish this vessel?"

  "At once," Marvin said eagerly. "If I can't get to sea in two weeks, it might be I might not be able - "

  "Now let me see," Talleyrand interrupted. "I think it is best to do thus: Go now to your inn, and you will have word from me about this." The black-haired girl turned from him and went to stand by the window once more, idly turning the roulette wheel. "Yes," Talleyrand continued, "that will be best. There are things to be arranged."

  Marvin hesitated. "If you could give me letters to Mr. Barlow to your bankers I'd walk night and day to get to Paris with them."

  Talleyrand's smile became indulgent. "No, not" he said. "Nothing would be gained. The best thing is to wait patiently at your inn, and soon you will hear from me." He shook Marvin's hand warmly and limped w
ith him to the door. "To have the pleasure of this visit is like a breath from America. Soon very soon we shall have the pleasure again, oh?"

  The outer door opened and closed, and Marvin found himself standing in the angle of the towering wall.

  When, a little later, he entered the main room of Le Roi d,Espagne, Argandeau bounced upward from the table where he sat over a brandy bottle with the inn's proprietress, a large woman with a black mustache.

  "You have got ill" Argandeau exclaimed, looking into Marvin's eyes.

  Marvin nodded. "I have the promise of it. He has promised everything."

  "And it was all promises?" Argandeau persisted. "Surely he gave you the eleven dollars he owed your fatherI"

  Marvin shook his head.

  "Promises!" Argandeau exclaimed. "But I know these promises! Now it will be necessary for one of us to go back to see those two pretty rabbits that were behind the hedge."

  XXVI

  THE note that came to Marvin on the following afternoon was brought by a serving man in a green livery, and at the sight of the man and the letter he bore, Argandeau sighed softly. "Thanks to Godl" he murmured. "The woman who owns this inn has been feeding us for love of me, but when she sees you have a letter at last, it may be she will be content to continue trusting us because of our prospects."

  But the note contained no news of anything so definite as prospects; it did, however, cause Marvin to return anxiously to the spot where he and Argandeau had first come out from the avenue of chestnuts to find themselves confronted by the long grey walls and the squat round towers of Valen,cay.

  As on the preceding day, he stood staring at the enormous mass of masonry and seemed to listen; then, apparently hearing nothing, he turned from the avenue, entered the edge of the chestnut forest and emerged on the leaf-covered grass of the chateau gardens. Even before he had left the shelter of the chestnuts he caught sight of her, swathed in a long grey cloak and sitting on a stone bench against the boxwood hedge; and it seemed to him, as he went toward her, that she eyed him with more indulgence than pleasure.