by Ellen Wood
“Shall I tell you what I hope, Vera?” answered Coralie, in her matter-of-fact, unemotional way. “I hope that Edward Pym will never come here, or to Europe at all, to worry you. Better that the sea should swallow him up en voyage.”
Verena’s beaming face broke into smiles. Her sister’s pleasant suggestion went for nothing, for a great joy lay within her.
“Edward Pym has come, Coral. The ship has arrived in port, and he has written to me. See!”
She took the morning’s letter from the bosom of her dress, and held it open for Coralie to see the date, “London,” and the signature “Edward.” Had the writer signed his name in full, it would have been Edward Dace Pym.
“How did he know we were here?” questioned Coralie, in surprise.
“I wrote to tell him.”
“Did you know where to write to him?”
“I knew he had sailed from Calcutta in the Rose of Delhi; we all knew that; and I wrote to him to the address of the ship’s brokers at Liverpool. The ship has come on to London, it seems, instead of Liverpool, and they must have sent my letter up there.”
“If you don’t take care, Vera, some trouble will come of this. Papa will never hear of Edward Pym. That’s my opinion.”
She was as cool as were the cucumbers growing outside in the garden, under the glass shade. Verena was the opposite — all excitement; though she did her best to hide it. Her fingers were restless; her blushes came and went; the sweet words of the short love-letter were dancing in her heart.
“My darling Vera,
“The ship is in; I am in London with her, and I have your dear letter. How I wish I could run down into Worcestershire! That cannot be just yet: our skipper will take care to be absent himself, I expect, and I must stay: he is a regular Martinet as to duty. You will see me the very hour I can get my liberty. How strange it is you should be at that place — Crabb! I believe a sort of aunt of mine lives there; but I have never seen her.
“Ever your true lover,
“Edward.”
“Who is it — the sort of aunt?” cried Coralie, when Verena had read out the letter; “and what does he mean?”
“Mrs. Letsom, of course. Did you not hear her talking to papa, last night, about her dead sister, who had married Captain Pym?”
“And Edward was the son of Captain Pym’s first wife, papa’s sister. Then, in point of fact, he is not related to Mrs. Letsom at all. Well, it all happened ages ago,” added Coralie, with supreme indifference, “long before our time.”
Just so. Edward Pym, grown to manhood now, and chief-mate of the Rose of Delhi, was the son of that Captain Pym and his first wife. When Captain Pym died, a relative of his, who had no children of his own, took to the child, then only five years old, and brought him up. The boy turned out anything but good, and when he was fourteen he ran away to sea. He found he had to stick to the sea, for his offended relative would do no more for him: except that, some years later, when he died, Edward found that he was down for five hundred pounds in his will. Edward stayed on shore to spend it, and then went to sea again, this time as first officer in an American brig. Chance, or something else, took the vessel to the West India Islands, and at one of them he fell in with Sir Dace Fontaine, who was, in fact, his uncle, but who had never taken the smallest thought for him — hardly remembered he had such a nephew — and made acquaintance with his two cousins. He and Verena fell in love with one another; and, on her side, at any rate, it was not the passing fancy sometimes called by the name, but one likely to last for all time. They often met, the young officer having the run of his uncle’s house whenever he could get ashore; and Edward, who could be as full of tricks and turns as a fox when it suited his convenience to be so, contrived to put himself into hospital when the brig was about to sail, saying he was sick; so he was left behind. The brig fairly off, Mr. Edward Pym grew well again, and looked to have a good time of idleness and love-making. But he reckoned without his host. A chance word, dropped inadvertently, opened the eyes of Sir Dace to the treason around. The first thing he did was to forbid Mr. Edward Pym his house; the second thing was to take passage with his family for America. Never would he allow his youngest and prettiest and best-loved daughter to become the wife of an ill-conducted, penniless ship’s mate; and that man a cousin! The very thought was preposterous! So Edward Pym, thrown upon his beam-ends, joined a vessel bound for Calcutta. Arrived there, he took the post of chief mate on the good ship Rose of Delhi, Captain Tanerton, bound for England.
“What is this nonsense I hear, about your wanting to leave the sea, John?”
The question, put in the Rector of Timberdale’s repellent, chilly tone, more intensified when anything displeased him, brought only a smile to the pleasant face of his brother. Ever hopeful, sunny-tempered Jack, had reached the Rectory the previous night to make a short visit. They sat in the cheerful, bow-windowed room, the sun shining on Jack, as some days before it had shone on Grace; the Rector in his easy-chair at the fire.
“Well, I suppose it is only what you say, Herbert — nonsense,” answered Jack, who was playing with the little dog, Dash. “I should like to leave the sea well enough, but I don’t see my way clear to do it at present.”
“Why should you like to leave it?”
“Alice is anxious that I should. She cannot always sail with me now; and there are the little ones to be seen to, you know, Herbert. Her mother is of course — well, very kind, and all that,” went on Jack, after an imperceptible pause, “but Alice would prefer to train her children herself; and, to do that, she must remain permanently on shore. It would not be a pleasant life for us, Herbert, she on shore and I at sea.”
“Do you ever think of duty, John?”
“Of duty? In what way?”
“When a man has deliberately chosen his calling in life, and spent his first years in it, it is his duty to continue in that calling, and to make the best of it.”
“I suppose it is, in a general way,” said Jack, all smiles and good-humour. “But — if I could get a living on shore, Herbert, I don’t see but what my duty would lie in doing it as much as it now lies at sea.”
“You may not see it, John. Chopping and changing often brings a man to poverty.”
“Oh, I’d take care, I hope, not to come to poverty. Down, Dash! Had I a farm of two or three hundred acres, I could make it answer well, if any man could. You know what a good farmer I was as a boy, Herbert — in practical knowledge, I mean — and how I loved it. I like the sea very well, but I love farming. It was my born vocation.”
“I wish you’d not talk at random!” cried Herbert, fretfully. “Born vocation! You might just as well say you were born to be a mountebank! And where would you get the money to stock a farm of two or three hundred acres? You have put none by, I expect. You never could keep your pence in your pocket when a lad: they were thrown away right and left.”
“That’s true,” laughed Jack. “Other lads used to borrow them. True also that I have not put money by, Herbert. I have not been able to.”
“Of course you have not! It wouldn’t be you if you had.”
“No, Dash, there’s not a bit more; you’ve had it all,” cried Jack to the dog. But he, ever generous-natured, did not tell his brother why he had not been able to put by: that the calls made upon him by his wife’s mother — Aunt Dean, as they still styled her — were so heavy and so perpetual. She wanted a great deal for herself, and she presented vast claims for the expenses of Jack’s two little children, and for the maintenance of her daughter when Alice stayed on shore. Alice whispered to Jack she believed her mother was making a private purse for herself. Good-natured Jack thought it very likely, but he did not stop the supplies. Just as Aunt Dean had been a perpetual drain upon her brother, Jacob Lewis, during his lifetime, so she now drained Jack.
“Then, with no means at command, what utter folly it is for you to think of leaving the sea?” resumed the parson.
“So it is, Herbert,” acquiesced Jack. “I assure yo
u I don’t think of it.”
“Alice does.”
“Ay, poor girl, because she wishes it.”
“Do you see any chance of leaving it?”
“Not a bit,” readily acknowledged Jack.
“Then where’s the use of talking about it — of harping upon it?”
“None in the world,” said Jack.
“Then we’ll drop the subject, if you please,” pursued Herbert, forgetting, perhaps, that it was he who introduced it.
“Jump then, Dash! Jump, good little Dash!”
“What a worry you make with that dog, John! Attend to me. I want to know why you came to London instead of to Liverpool.”
“She was laid on for London this time,” answered Jack.
“Laid on!” ejaculated Herbert, who knew as much about sailor’s phrases as he did of Hebrew.
Jack laughed. “The agents in Calcutta chartered the ship for London, freights for that port being higher than for Liverpool. The Rose of Delhi is a free ship.”
“Oh,” responded Herbert. “I thought perhaps she had changed owners.”
“No. But our broker in London is brother to the owners in Liverpool. There are three of them in all. James Freeman is the broker; Charles and Richard are the owners. Rich men they must be!”
“When do you think you shall sail again?”
“It depends upon when they can begin to reload and get the fresh cargo in.”
“That does not take long, I suppose,” remarked Herbert, slightingly.
“She may be loaded in three days if the cargo is ready and waiting. It may be three weeks if the cargo’s not — or more than that.”
“And Alice does not go with you?”
Jack shook his head: something like a cloud passed over his fresh, frank face. “No, not this time.”
We were all glad to see Jack Tanerton again. He had paid Timberdale but one visit, and that a flying one, since he took command of the Rose of Delhi. It was the old Jack Tanerton, frank of face, hearty of manner, flying to all the nooks and corners of the parish with outstretched hands to rich and poor, with kind words and generous help for the sick and sorrowful: just the same, only with a few more years gone over his head. I don’t say but Herbert was also glad to see him; only Herbert never displayed much gladness at anything.
One morning Jack and I chanced to be out together; when, in passing through the green and shady lane, that would be fragrant in summer with wild roses and woodbine, and that skirted Maythorn Bank, we saw some one stooping to peer through the sweetbriar hedge, as if he wanted to see what the house was like, and did not care to look at it openly. He sprang up at sound of our footsteps. It was a slight, handsome young man of five or six-and-twenty, rather under the middle height, with a warm colour, bright dark eyes, and dark whiskers. The gold band on his cap showed that he was a sailor, and he seemed to recognize Jack with a start.
“Good-morning, sir,” he cried, hurriedly.
“Is it you, Mr. Pym? — good-morning,” returned Jack, in a cool tone. “What are you doing down here?”
“The ship’s finished unloading, and is gone into dry dock to be re-coppered, so I’ve got a holiday,” replied the young man: and he walked away with a brisk step, as if not caring to be questioned further.
“Who is he?” I asked, as we went on in the opposite direction.
“My late chief mate: a man named Pym.”
“You spoke as if you did not like him, Jack.”
“Don’t like him at all,” said Jack. “My own chief mate left me in Calcutta, to better himself, as the saying runs; he got command of one of our ships whose master had died out there; Pym presented himself to me, and I engaged him. He gave me some trouble on the homeward voyage; drank, was insolent, and would shirk his duty when he could. Once I had to threaten to put him in irons. I shall never allow him to sail with me again — and he knows it.”
“What is he here for?”
“Don’t know at all,” returned Jack. “He can’t have come after me, I suppose.”
“Has he left the ship?”
“I can’t tell. I told the brokers in London I should wish to have another first officer appointed in Pym’s place. When they asked why, I only said he and I did not hit it off together very well. I don’t care to report ill of the young man; it might damage his prospects; and he may do better with another master than he did with me.”
At that moment Pym overtook us, and accosted Jack: saying something about some bales of “jute,” which, as I gathered, had constituted part of the cargo.
“Have you got your discharge from the ship, Mr. Pym?” asked Jack, after answering his question about the bales of jute.
“No, sir.”
“No!”
“Not yet. I have not applied for it. There’s some talk, I fancy, of making Ferrar chief,” added Pym. “Until then I keep my post.”
The words were not insolent, but the tone had a ring in it that betokened no civility. I thought Pym would have liked to defy Jack had he dared. Jack’s voice, as he answered, was a little haughty — and I had never heard that from Jack in all my life.
“I shall not take Ferrar as chief. What are you talking of, Mr. Pym? Ferrar is not qualified.”
“Ferrar is qualifying himself now; he is about to pass,” retorted Pym. “Good-afternoon, sir.”
Had Pym looked back as he turned off, he would have seen Sir Dace Fontaine, who came, in his slow, lumbering manner, round the corner. Jack, who had been introduced to him, stopped to speak. But not a word could Sir Dace answer, for staring at the retreating figure of Pym.
“Does my sight deceive me?” he exclaimed. “Who is that man?”
“His name is Pym,” said Jack. “He has been my first mate on board the Rose of Delhi.”
Sir Dace Fontaine looked blacker than thunder. “What is he doing down here?”
“I was wondering what,” said Jack. “At first I thought he might have come down after me on some errand or other.”
Sir Dace said no more. Remarking that we should meet again in the evening, he went his way, and we went ours.
For that evening the Squire gave a dinner, to which the Fontaines were coming, and old Paul the lawyer, and the Letsoms, and the Ashtons from Timberdale Court. Charles Ashton, the parson, was staying with them: he would come in handy for the grace in place of Herbert Tanerton, who had a real sore throat this time, and must stay at home.
But now it should be explained that, up to this time, none of us had the smallest notion that there was anything between Pym and Verena Fontaine, or that Pym was related to Sir Dace. Had Jack known either the one fact or the other, he might not have said what he did at the Squire’s dinner-table. Not that he said much.
It occurred during a lull. Sir Dace craned his long and ponderous neck over the table towards Jack.
“Captain Tanerton, were you satisfied with that chief mate of yours, Edward Pym? Did he do his duty as a chief mate ought?”
“Not always, Sir Dace,” was Jack’s ready answer. “I was not particularly well satisfied with him.”
“Will he sail with you again when you go out?”
“No. Not if the decision lies with me.”
Sir Dace frowned and drew his neck in again. I fancied he would have been glad to hear that Pym was going out again with Jack — perhaps to be rid of him.
Colonel Letsom spoke up then. “Why do you not like him, Jack?”
“Well, for one thing, I found him deceitful,” spoke out Jack, after hesitating a little, and still without any idea that Pym was known to anybody present.
Verena bent forward to speak then from the end of the table, her face all blushes, her tone resentful.
“Perhaps Mr. Pym might say the same thing of you, Captain Tanerton — that you are deceitful?”
“I!” returned Jack, with his frank smile. “No, I don’t think he could say that. Whatever other faults I may have, I am straightforward and open: too much so, perhaps, on occasion.”
When the
ladies left the table, the Squire despatched me with a message to old Thomas about the claret. In the hall, after delivering it, I came upon Verena Fontaine.
“I am going to run home for my music,” she said to me, as she put her white shawl on her shoulders. “I forgot to bring it.”
“Let me go for you,” I said, taking down my hat.
“No, thank you; I must go myself.”
“With you, then.”
“I wish to go alone,” she returned, in a playful tone, but one that had a decisive ring in it. “Stay where you are, if you please, Mr. Johnny Ludlow.”
She meant it; I saw that; and I put my hat down and went into the drawing-room. Presently somebody missed her; I said she had gone home to fetch her music.
Upon which they all attacked me for letting her go — for not offering to fetch it for her. Tod and Bob Letsom, who had just come into the room, told me I was not more gallant than a rising bear. I laughed, and did not say what had passed. Mary Ann Letsom plunged into one of her interminable sonatas, and the time slipped on.
“Johnny,” whispered the mater to me, “you must go after Verena Fontaine to see what has become of her. You ought not to have allowed her to go out alone.”
Truth to say, I was myself beginning to wonder whether she meant to come back at all. Catching up my hat again, I ran off to Maythorn Bank.
Oh! Pacing slowly the shadiest part of the garden there, was Miss Verena, the white shawl muffled round her. Mr. Pym was pacing with her, his face bent down to a level with hers, his arm passed gingerly round her waist.
“I thought they might be sending after me,” she cried out, quitting Pym as I went in at the gate. “I will go back with you, Mr. Johnny. Edward, I can’t stay another moment,” she called back to him; “you see how it is. Yes, I’ll be walking in the Ravine to-morrow.”
Away she went, with so fleet a step that I had much ado to keep up with her. That was my first enlightenment of the secret treason which was destined to bring forth so terrible an ending.