The Chronicles of Captain Blood cb-2

by Rafael Sabatini

  And so, although they brought back that rich booty from Santa Maria, Blood's part in that transaction was rated as one of his few failures. Not so, however, did he himself account it.

  VII — THE LOVE STORY OF JEREMY PITT

  The love–story of Jeremy Pitt, the young Somerset–shire shipmaster, whose fate had been linked with Peter Blood's since the disastrous night of Sedgemoor, belongs to the later days of Blood's career as a buccaneer, to the great days when he commanded a fleet of five ships and over a thousand men of mixed nationality, held in a discipline to which his skill and good fortune made them willing to submit.

  He had lately returned from a very successful raid upon the Spanish pearling fleet in the Rio de la Hache. He had come back to Tortuga to refit, and this not before it was necessary. There were several other buccaneer vessels in the harbour of Cayona at the time, and the little town was boisterous with their revelry. Its taverns and rum–shops throve, whilst the taverners and the women, white and half–castes, as mixed in origin and nationality as the buccaneers themselves, eased the rovers of a good deal of the plunder of which they had eased the Spaniards, who, again, were seldom better than robbers.

  Usually these were unquiet times for Monsieur d'Ogeron, the agent of the French West India Company and Governor of Tortuga.

  Ogeron himself, as we know, did very well out of the buccaneers in the percentages on their prizes which they very readily paid as harbour dues, and in other ways. But M. d'Ogeron had two daughters, the dark and stately Madeleine and the slight and joyous brunette Lucienne. Now Madeleine, for all her stateliness, had once succumbed to the wooing of a ruffianly buccaneer named Levasseur. To abstract her from this danger her father had shipped her off to France. But Levasseur, getting wind of it in time, had followed, seized the ship that carried her, and the worst might have befallen her but for the timely intervention of Captain Blood, who delivered her, unscathed, from his clutches and restored her, sobered by the experience, to her father.

  Since then M. d'Ogeron had sought to practise discretion in the guests he received in the big white house set in its fragrant garden just above the town.

  Captain Blood, by the service he had rendered the family on that occasion, had come to be regarded almost as a member of it. And since his officers, all of them driven to their trade as a consequence of transportation suffered for a political offence, were men of a different stamp from the ordinary buccaneer, they, too, were well received.

  Now this in itself created a difficulty. If Monsieur d'Ogeron's house was open to the captains who followed Blood, he could not without offence close it to other buccaneer commanders. Therefore he was constrained to tolerate the visits of some whom he neither liked nor trusted, and this despite the protests of a guest from France, the fastidious and delicate Monsieur de Mercceur, who cared little for the company of any of them.

  Monsieur de Mercoeur was the son of one of the governors of the French West India Company, sent by his father on a voyage of instruction to the settlements in which the company was interested. The frigate Cygne, which had brought him a week ago, had been at anchor since in Cayona Bay, and would continue there until the young gentleman should see fit to depart again. From this his social consequence may be inferred. Obviously he was a person whose wishes a colonial governor would do his utmost to respect. But how was he to respect them, for instance, where such a truculent, swaggering fellow as Captain Tondeur of the Reine Margot was concerned? Monsieur d'Ogeron did not quite see how he could forbid him the house, as Monsieur de Mercceur would have desired, not even when it became apparent that the rascal was attracted thither by Mademoiselle Lucienne.

  Another who was yielding to the same attraction was young Jeremy Pitt. But Pitt was a fellow of a very different stamp, and if his courtship of Lucienne occasioned Monsieur d'Ogeron some distress, at least it caused him no such uneasiness as that begotten by Tondeur.

  If ever there was a man designed by nature for a lover, that man was Jeremy Pitt, with his frank, smooth, comely face, his ingenuous blue eyes, his golden locks and his neatly–apparelled, graceful figure. With the vigour of a man he combined the gentleness of a woman. Anything less like a conspirator, which he had been, and a buccaneer, which he was, it would be impossible to conceive. He had, too, ingratiating ways and a gift of almost poetical expression to complete his equipment as the ideal lover.

  His instincts — or it may have been his hopes — and perhaps something in the lady's kindly manner, led him to believe that Lucienne was not indifferent to him; and so one evening, under the fragrant pimento trees in her father's garden, he told her that he loved her, and whilst she was still breathless from the effects of that avowal he kissed her lips.

  Quivering and troubled she stood before him after that operation. «Monsieur Jeremy…you…you should not…you should not have done that.» In the fading light Mr. Pitt saw that there were tears in her eyes. «If my father knew…»

  Jeremy interrupted her with emphasis.

  «He shall. I mean him to know. He shall know now.» And as Monsieur de Mercoeur and Madeleine were at that moment approaching, Jeremy departed at once in quest of the Governor of Tortuga.

  Monsieur d'Ogeron, that slight, elegant gentleman who had brought with him to the New World the courtliness of the 01d, could scarcely dissemble his distress. Monsieur d'Ogeron had grown wealthy in his governorship and he had ambitions for his motherless daughters, whom he contemplated removing before, very long to France.

  He said so, not crudely or bluntly, but with an infinite delicacy calculated to spare Mr. Pitt's feelings, and he added that she was already promised in marriage.

  Jeremy's face was overspread by blank astonishment.

  «Promised! But she told me nothing of this!» He forgot that he had never really given her such opportunity.

  «It may be that she does not realize. You know how these things are contrived in France.»

  Mr. Pitt began an argument upon the advantages of natural selection, nipped by Monsieur d'Ogeron before he had properly developed it.

  «My dear Mr. Pitt, my friend, consider, I beg, your position in the world. You are a filibuster in — short, an adventurer. I do not use the term offensively. I merely mean that you are a man who lives by adventure. What prospect of security, of domesticity, could you offer a delicately–nurtured girl? If you, yourself, had a daughter, should you gladly give her to such a man?»

  «If she loved him,» said Mr. Pitt.

  «Ah! But what is love, my friend?»

  Although perfectly aware of what it was from his late rapture and present misery, Jeremy found a difficulty in giving expression to his knowledge. Monsieur d'Ogeron smiled benignly upon his hesitation.

  «To a lover, love is sufficient, I know. To a parent, more is necessary so as to quiet his sense of responsibility. You have done me an honour, Monsieur Pitt. I am desolated that I must decline it. It will be better that we do not trouble our mutual esteem by speaking of this again.»

  Now when a young man discovers that a certain woman is necessary to his existence, and when he believes with pardonable egotism that he is equally necessary to hers, he does not abandon the quest at the first obstacle.

  At the moment, however, the matter could be pursued no further because of the interruption afforded by the entrance of the stately Madeleine accompanied by Monsieur de Mercceur. The young Frenchman's eyes and voice sought Lucienne. He had charming eyes and a charming voice, and was altogether a charming person, impeccable as to dress and manners. In build he was almost tall, but so slight and frail that he looked as if a strong wind might blow him over; yet he possessed an assurance of address oddly at variance with his almost valetudinarian air.

  He seemed surprised not to find Lucienne with her father. He desired, he announced, to persuade her to sing again some of those Provençal songs with which last night she had delighted them. His gesture took in the harpsichord standing in a corner of the well–appointed room. Madeleine departed to seek her sister. Mr. Pi
tt rose to take his leave. In his present mood he did not think he could bear to sit and hear Lucienne singing Provençal songs for the delight of Monsieur de Mercoeur.

  He went off with his woes to Captain Blood, whom he found in the great cabin of the Arabella, that splendid red–hulled ship which once had been the Cinco Llagas, but since re–named by Blood after the little lady to whom all his life he remained faithful, as has been elsewhere related.

  The Captain laid down his well–thumbed copy of Horace to lend an ear to the plaint of his young friend and shipmaster. Lounging on the cushioned locker under the sternports, Captain Blood thereafter delivered himself, as sympathetic in manner as he was uncompromising in matter. Monsieur d'Ogeron was entirely right, the Captain opined, when he said that Jeremy's occupation in life did not justify him in taking a wife.

  «And that's only half the reason for abandoning this notion. The other is that Lucienne charming and seductive child though she may be, is a thought too light to promise any peace and security to a husband not always at hand to guard and check her. That fellow Tondeur goes daily to the Governor's house. It hasn't occurred to you, now, to ask yourself what is attracting him? And why does this frail French dandy, Monsieur de Mercoeur, linger in Tortuga? Oh, and there are others I could name who have had, no doubt, your own delectable experience with a lady who's never reluctant to listen to a tale of love.»

  «Now devil take your lewdness!» roared out Pitt, with all a lover's unbounded indignation. «By what right do you say such a thing as that?»

  «By the right of sanity and an unclouded vision. Ye'll not be the first to have kissed Mademoiselle Lucienne's lips; and ye'll not be the last neither, not even if ye marry her. She has a beckoning eye, so she has, and it's the uneasy husband I should be at sea if she were my wife. Be thankful ye're not the husband of her father's choice. Lovely things like Lucienne d'Ogeron were created just to trouble the world.»

  Jeremy would listen to no more of this blasphemy. It was like Blood, whom he bitterly denounced as without faith and without ideals, to think so vilely of the sweetest, purest saint in all the world. On that he flung out of the cabin, and left the Captain free to return to his Horace.

  Blood, however, had planted a rankling seed in our young lover's heart. The clear perception of grounds for jealousy is a sword that can slay love at a stroke; but the mere suspicion of their existence is a goad to drive a lover on. Feverishly, then, on the morrow, and utterly oblivious of Monsieur d'Ogeron's rejection of his suit, Mr. Pitt made his way betimes to the white house above the town. It was earlier than his wont, and he came upon the lady of his dreams walking in the garden. With her walked Captain Tondeur, that man of sinister reputation. It was said of him that once he had been a fencing–master in Paris, and that he had taken to the sea so as to escape the justice it was desired to mete out to him by the family of a gentleman he had killed in a duel. He was a man of middle height and deceptive slimness, for he was as tough as whipcord. He dressed with a certain raffish elegance and moved with agile grace. His countenance was undistinguished save for the eyes, which, if small and round and black ere singularly penetrating. They were penetrating Mr. Pitt now with an arrogant stare that seemed to invite him to depart again. The Captain's right arm was about the waist of Mademoiselle Lucienne. It remained there notwithstanding Mr. Pitt's appearance, until presently, after a moments surprised pause, the lady disengaged herself in some embarrassment.

  «It is Monsieur Jeremy!» she cried, and added, quite needlessly, thought Mr. Pitt: «I was not expecting you.»

  Jeremy took the hand she proffered and bore it to his lips, more or less mechanically, whilst mumbling a greeting in his indifferent French. Followed an exchange of commonplaces, and then an awkward pause, at the end of which said Tondeur with a scowl:

  «When a lady tells me that I am unexpected, I understand her to mean that I am inopportune.»

  «No doubt a common experience in your life.» Captain Tondeur smiled. Your practised, duellist is always self–possessed.

  «At least not a subject for pertness. It is not always wise to be pert. The moment's glitter may lead to painful instruction.»

  Lucienne intervened. She was a little breathless. Her eyes were scared.

  «But what is this? What are you saying? You are wrong, Monsieur le Capitaine, to assume Monsieur Jeremy inopportune. Monsieur Jeremy is my friend, and my friends are never inopportune.»

  «Not perhaps to you, Mademoiselle. But to other friends of yours they can be monstrously so.»

  «Again you are mistaken.» Her manner was frigid. «He is no friend of mine to whom other friends of mine are unwelcome in my presence.»

  The Captain bit his lip, and Jeremy took a fragment of comfort, for all that he still hotly remembered that arm about the waist of the woman whose lips he had kissed last night and also Captain Blood's condemnation of her.

  The elements of a very pretty quarrel were shattered by the sudden appearance of Monsieur d'Ogeron and Monsieur de Mercceur. Both were out of breath as if they had been hurrying. They checked, however, and seemed relieved when they saw who was present. It was as if Monsieur d'Ogeron found not quite what he had expected, and relief upon the safety for Lucienne which is believed to reside in numbers. Their advent put an end to acrimony, and perhaps because he was in the humour for little else, Captain Tondeur presently took his leave. A smile of disquieting significance accompanied his parting words to Jeremy.

  «I shall look forward, monsieur, to an early opportunity of continuing our interesting discussion.» Anon, when Jeremy, too, would have departed, Monsieur d'Ogeron detained him. «Remain yet a moment, Monsieur Pitt.»

  He took the young man by the arm in a friendly manner and drew him away from Monsieur de Mercceur and Lucienne. They moved up the avenue and entered a tunnel fashioned of over–arching orange trees imported from Europe; a cool place this where the ripe fruit glowed like lamps against the dusky green.

  «I did not like the parting words of Captain Tondeur, nor yet his smile. That is a very dangerous man. You would be wise to beware of him.»

  Jeremy bridled a little. «Do you suppose I fear him?»

  «I suppose you would be prudent to do so. A very dangerous man. A canaille. He comes here too much.»

  «Regarding him as you do, why do you permit it?»

  Monsieur d'Ogeron made a grimace. «Regarding him as I do, I cannot do otherwise.»

  «You are afraid of him?»

  «I confess it. Oh, not for myself, Monsieur Pitt. But there is Lucienne. He pays his court to her.»

  Jeremy quivered with fury. «Could you not forbid him your house?»

  «Of course.» Monsieur d'Ogeron smiled crookedly. «I did something of the kind once before, in the case of Levasseur. You know the story.»

  «Oh, but…Oh, but…» Jeremy encountered a difficulty, but finally surmounted it. «Mademoiselle Madeleine was so misguided as to lend herself to the scheme of Levasseur. You do not dream that Mademoiselle Lucienne —»

  «Why should I not dream it? This Tondeur canaille though he be, is not without attraction, and he has over Levasseur the advantage that he was once a gentleman and can still display the manners of one when it suits him. An inexperienced child like Lucienne is easily allured by your bold, enterprising wooer.»

  Mr. Pitt was a little sick at heart and bewildered. «Yet what good can temporising do? Sooner or later you will have to reject him. And then…What then?»

  «It is what I ask myself,» said Monsieur d'Ogeron almost lugubriously. «Yet an evil that is postponed may ultimately be removed by chance.» And then, suddenly, his manner changed. «Oh, but your pardon, my dear Mr. Pitt. Our talk is taking a turn very far from what I intended. A father's anxiety! I meant to do no more than utter a warning, and I beg that you will heed it.»

  Mr. Pitt thought he understood. What was in Monsieur d'Ogeron's mind was that Tondeur scented a rival in Jeremy and that such a man would take prompt means to eliminate a rival.

  «I am
obliged to you, Monsieur d'Ogeron. I can take care of myself.»

  «I trust so. Sincerely I trust so.» And on that they parted.

  Jeremy went back to dine on board the Arabella, and after dinner, pacing the poop with Blood, he told him what had passed.

  Captain Blood was thoughtful. «There is cause enough to warn you. Though why the Governor should be troubling to do so is just a trifle odd. I'll pay him a visit, so I will. I may be able to help him, though I don't yet see how. Meanwhile, Jerry, if ye're prudent, yell be keeping the ship. Devil a doubt but Tondeur will be looking for you.»

  «And I am to avoid him, am I?» snorted Jeremy.

  «If ye're wise.»

  «If I'm a coward.»

  «Now isn't a live coward better than a dead fool, which is what ye'll be if ye come to grips with Master Tondeur? Ye'll not be forgetting the man's a fencing–master; whilst you…Pshaw! It would be just murder, so it would. And where's the glory of suffering that?»

  Pitt knew it in his heart and yet would not admit the humiliating knowledge. Therefore, neglecting Blood's advice, he went ashore on the morrow, and was sitting with Hagthorpe and Wolverstone in the tavern of the King of France when Tondeur found him.

  It was in the neighbourhood of noon, and the common–room was thronged with buccaneers, a few ordinary seamen from the Cygne, beachcombers and the land–sharks of both sexes who prey upon seafaring men, and particularly upon buccaneers, who are ever prodigal of their broad pieces of eight. The air of the ill–lighted place was heavy with the reek of rum, tobacco, spun–yarn and humanity.

  Tondeur came forward leisurely, his left hand resting on his hilt, exchanging nods and bringing up at last before Jeremy's table.

  «You permit?» quoth he, and without waiting for an answer, he drew up a stool and sat down. «I am fortunate so soon to be able to resume the little discussion that yesterday was interrupted.»