The Lively Lady

by Kenneth Lewis Roberts

  She squealed like a little girl, spilling Pinky from her lap and rising quickly to her knees to get her hands on the shawl. I saw she was younger than I had first thought, because of her hoity-toity air and her fine lady’s dress.

  “There never was anything so lovely! How did you come by it?” She jumped to her feet, letting her cloak fall from her shoulders and pushing off her bonnet with a quick sweep of her hand. She took the shawl from me, whipping it about her so that it bound her tightly, making her beautifully smooth and slender.

  “I got it in Spain.”

  She put her hands on her hips and flung me a look over her shoulder. “Is your sweetheart a fine lady?” I could see from the way she asked the question that she had a slatternly wench in mind. “Do you think she’ll take the pleasure in this shawl that she ought, or will she fold it away in a drawer and be afraid to touch it for fear of soiling it?”

  “How do I know?” I asked. “She suits me, and I’ve learned many things from her; and if she hid it away in a drawer she’d probably get as much pleasure from it as though she wore it at her work.”

  “At what does she work?” the lady inquired, smoothing the shawl over her hips.

  “At anything that comes to hand.” Then because there seemed to be a look of distaste about her small nose, I added quickly that she’d find few folk in New England who did no work, and that most of us worked because we liked to be busy.

  “Oh, la!” the lady cried. “Teach your grandmother to suck eggs! You can’t tell me anything about work, only I was thinking—I was thinking—”

  “It’s a difficult art!” Jeddy Tucker said with his best schoolmaster’s air.

  “I was thinking,” she said, casting a scornful glance at Jeddy, “that your sweetheart might prefer another sort of present: a dress, or—or —or a sum of money. My husband, S’Roth, would pay well for this shawl.”

  That was how she called her husband—S’Roth; and it took me some time to realize it was her English way of saying Sir Arthur.

  “Where is your husband?” I asked.

  Instantly she was all smiles, so I could see she thought I would sell the shawl; nor, indeed, was I sure I wouldn’t.

  “He’s gone into the fields,” she said. “He saw some fine coverts and thought to shoot a few pheasant or woodcock.” She seized the gray woman by the arm and shook her a little. “Give these good men a glass of wine, Annie,” she added; and I knew she wished to keep us near at hand until the shawl was hers.

  “Well,” I said, while the gray woman rummaged for glasses and a bottle in the basket, “he’ll get no pheasant, for we have no pheasant here, only partridges, which are better to eat and shoot than any pheasant; but it may be he’ll find a woodcock, though it’ll be luck if he does.”

  “Are they so hard to get?”

  “No, but they’re queer birds, vanishing like ghosts from where they were an hour before, and never to be seen in their flights, and shutting off their scent when they wish, so dogs can’t smell them.”

  “Lud!” she said, laughing merrily, “you Americans can’t be happy unless you’re drawing the long bowl Shutting off their scent, indeed!”

  “Why, so they do,” I said. “There’s no scent to them when they’re nesting, and none when they’re moulting, though a smart dog can track them by their footsteps.”

  She plumped herself down on her knees before me, wide eyed.

  “What else do they do?” But there was no way of telling whether or not she was making game of me.

  “Well,” I said, when Jeddy and I had taken a glass of port from Annie’s hands, and Jeddy had pledged all of us by raising his glass and saying, “Down the hatch!” as was his custom before drinking, “well, if they find there’s too much passing near their nests, they take their chicks between their knees, one by one, and fly with them to a safer place.”

  “They never do!” she cried.

  “Yes, they do! I’ve seen them.”

  “It’s strange,” she said, “that Sir Arthur has never told me of any such marvelous matters as these.”

  Pinky raised himself from where he had been drowsing with his head on my boot. He made a sound in his throat a little like a pump when it sucks, a malevolent sound to come from so small a dog. I looked around quickly to see what was amiss. Just this side of the young pines that screened us from the road stood a tall man with a fowling piece under his arm. He was a thin, glum-looking man with a pale face. There seemed to be an upward twist to his eyebrows and ears and hair, and a downward twist to his mouth, so that there was a flavor of old Diavolo about him that would have set me to growling like Pinky if I had been given to growling, even if the gentleman had not had a mislikable air of having listened to what we were saying.

  II

  SIR ARTHUR RANSOME, I saw at once, would be forever free, where I was concerned, from any demonstration of devotion or affection; for when he joined us, he stooped over and brought out the bottle of port from the basket, held it against the light to see how much was gone, then looked coldly at the glasses Jeddy and I still held. It was in his face that if the giving had lain with him we would have tasted none of his wine.

  It may be his wife was accustomed to finding a gray glumness in him, for she jumped to her feet, caught his arm, and swung herself close to him, looking gaily up into his face. “Look, Arthur!” she said, leaning back so he might see how she was encased in my shawl. “He bought it in Spain for his sweetheart, and I’ve asked him to sell it to us.”

  Sir Arthur examined her, back and front, as he might look at a chair he was minded to buy. “Not a bad shawl,” he admitted. “Have one like it at Ransome Hall. Black though. How much did you pay for it?”

  “Forty dollars,” I told him.

  “Ow! Did you now! That’s rather high for a shawl! I’ll take it off your hands for thirty.”

  “That’s little short of princely!” Jeddy whispered.

  Sir Arthur rounded on him. “Aren’t you getting a bit above yourself, my man?”

  I feared Jeddy would either cackle derisively or fly at the Englishman like a kingbird at an owl; and I knew whatever he did would prove disquieting to Lady Ransome, who had done nothing to deserve disquiet. Therefore I shouted his name, harsh and quick, as I might shout it on shipboard. “Set off up the road!” I said. “I’ve made this trip to keep you company, and I’ll have no more delay.”

  When he looked at me uncertainly, I added that I’d catch up with him in five minutes. At this he made a pretense of pulling his forelock, saying in an obsequious voice, “Yes, sir, Captain, sir!”

  He raised his eyebrows at Sir Arthur and laughed twice, glanced with broad and open admiration at Lady Ransome, and went strutting off through the brush like an impudent little gamecock. I half expected Sir Arthur to rebuke him again for his insulting laughter, but he only peered hard at me, as though he had forgotten Jeddy’s very existence, which no doubt he had.

  “Captain!” he exclaimed. “Surely you can’t be a captain at your age: not of anything large enough to go out of sight of land!”

  It has seemed to me that over-many Englishmen of my acquaintance pride themselves on what they call their frankness, and are seldom moved to be frank concerning the pleasant things that come to their notice, so that their frankness has much the flavor of rudeness. At such frankness Sir Arthur seemed a master.

  “Well,” I said, “it’s true our brig’s no great shakes in size, but she’s a sweet sailer, and minds me as well as my dog Pinky. As for going out of sight of land, I’ve been in no Spanish harbor these two years past without seeing twenty Yankee craft for every Britisher; and eight out of ten of the Yankees were as small as our brig: yes, and smaller, too, though she tons only two hundred and sixteen.”

  “Haw!” Sir Arthur said. “Two hundred and sixteen! One must feel highly important, being captain of such a vessel!”

  “There’s no time aboard our brig to feel important,” I told him. “Many people from Arundel follow the sea, but nobody doe
s it to fatten his feelings.”

  “I see! You mean you do it for money!”

  Now I have small love for folk who go up and down the land squabbling and fighting for no reason except to coddle their own vanity. Yet every word this man spoke seemed somehow to exasperate me; and I would gladly have squabbled with him except that his lady, wrapped tight in my shawl, stood staring thoughtfully at him with one finger on her lower lip, which was as red as though newly wet with French wine.

  “It’s true,” I said, “we must work for our living and, as you imply, have no leisure class like your own, which does nothing except for its own pleasure. This reminds me—I’m taking more leisure than I should; so if the lady’ll return my shawl I’ll be off on my business.”

  At this she clasped her hands before her and hopped a little on her toes, as children hop when teasing their mothers for cookies. “Arthur!” she cried, “you’ll never let him go away without buying the shawl, Arthur!”

  Sir Arthur said, “Ow!” again, as if he had forgotten about the shawl. Then he looked at me distantly. “I think the price was forty dollars,” he said. “Of course, that’s high, but I’ll not argue. We’ll take it at that price.”

  “The shawl’s not for sale.”

  “My good man!” Sir Arthur said, “these trading tricks will do you no good, you know!”

  I looked down at my knuckles, at a loss what to say to such a man; but while I still considered the matter I felt Lady Ransome’s hand on my arm. “You wouldn’t keep me from it, would you,” she asked, “when you know how much I want it?”

  I think it must have been Sir Arthur’s talk of trading tricks that put an idea into my head as I looked at her standing straight and slender in the flowered shawl against the brown grass and the blue-green pines.

  “No,” I said, “I can’t sell it to you, because it’s for someone else; but if you’ll stop to see her when you return from where you’re going, she may exchange with you.”

  The lady laughed gaily. “La!” she cried, “I think I’ll have no more chance of getting the shawl from your sweetheart than of getting the moon!”

  “She thinks highly of me,” I said.

  Lady Ransome crowed with delight. “Such modesty!” she cried. “Or a skillful lover from having a sweetheart in every port! How shall I find this maid who’s made you so trustful of her affections? Where does she live and what’s her name?”

  “She’s my mother,” I said. “Her name’s the same as mine, and my name is Nason—Richard Nason.”

  “Oh,” she said. She examined the flowers on the shawl. “It’s beautifully worked,” she added thoughtfully. “The shadings seem almost real.” She whipped it off and handed it to me, turning to Sir Arthur as she did so. “He fives at an inn at the mouth of the river in Arun Del,” she said. She clung to Sir Arthur’s arm. “We could stop there on our way back from the Lygonia Patent.”

  Sir Arthur looked over my head contemptuously and ejaculated, “Tah!” or some word that sounded like it. “You must learn from experience, Emily! Do you really wish to return to Arun Del at the cost to ourselves of a meal of rancid pork, in company as unsavory? Do you know what these taverns are, my dear?”

  “But the young man claims it’s not so at his mother’s inn,” she persisted. “He spoke of some tasty dishes.” She tossed her head at me impatiently. “What were they?”

  “Lobster stew,” I said quickly. “Corned beef hash moist in the middle and browned on both sides. Toasted brown bread spread with fresh butter, and with cream poured over it.”

  “Ow!” Sir Arthur said, rather more weakly than he had yet spoken. “Every traveler reports the inns of New England vile, with a few exceptions—which are viler.”

  Upon this, for a moment, I was near open profanity, but controlled myself by coughing and gave him a mild answer.

  “Sir, you may have listened to the wrong travelers.”

  “I beg pardon?” Sir Arthur returned, looking at me from under drooping lids.

  “Not all travelers say the inns of New England are vile,” I said. “There was a French gentleman, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, who stopped more than once at our inn a few years ago. He was so taken with our chocolate custards that my aunt Cynthy had to teach him how to make them.”

  “Chocolate custards!” Lady Ransome exclaimed, clasping her hands at her throat and staring at me with eyes that seemed to glisten.

  Sir Arthur favored her with a gesture of reproof. “What a pretty picture!” he exclaimed. “The great Talleyrand hovering over an oven in Arun Del!” He laughed an abrupt, unpleasant laugh, looking a little like a horse, and sounding somewhat like one. “You country folk are too credulous! I could tell you I was Talleyrand, and you’d believe me.”

  I thought of saying I would do no such thing, since all America knew Talleyrand to be a gentleman and a diplomat, whereas anyone could see Sir Arthur Ransome was neither; but I busied myself with my mother’s shawl, adjusting it around my waist once more.

  “I’m amazed,” Sir Arthur continued in a thin and reedy voice, “that Talleyrand hasn’t returned from France to Arun Del and brought the French emperor with him, if he found the cookery and the company so diverting! There’d have been a sight for sore eyes, my dear Emily —Boney eating with these fishermen! Highly congenial, I fancy!”

  “Let me tell you something,” I said. “Talleyrand never came back with the emperor, and that’s the emperor’s loss; but he did something almost as good. When Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, came to America three years after Talleyrand went home, he had been told by Talleyrand to come to our inn. Not only did Louis Philippe do this, but he brought with him his two brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and the Count of Beaujolais.”

  Seeing Sir Arthur again preparing to neigh like a horse, I raised my voice and hurried my speech. “They professed themselves well enough entertained. My mother says my father showed Louis Philippe and his brothers how to shoot an entire covey of partridges out of a tree, one by one, without frightening them away, and won fifteen dollars in so doing. There’s no use saying they were impostors, for when Louis Philippe returned to Sicily he sent my mother ten silver skewers engraved with the royal crest.”

  Sir Arthur drew the fingers of his right hand across his forehead, as if to wipe a horrible vision from his mind. “Sitting!” he exclaimed, staring at me. “You shoot them sitting!” He raised his eyes to the sky with an appearance of helpless despair. “What a country!” he gasped. “What a country!”

  “What gives him this trouble?” I asked Lady Ransome, who had crouched near me to pull Pinky’s ears.

  “The partridges,” she said quickly. “You spoke of shooting them out of a tree, and it’s not sporting to shoot a sitting bird. Everyone knows that.”

  “Oh,” I objected, “there’s some sport to it! It takes a good eye to find a partridge in a tree; and it only ceases to be sport when you hit one without killing it and then try to find it without the help of a dog.”

  “Dear me, dear me,” Sir Arthur said, “they shoot sitting birds!”

  “Well, we don’t—”

  “Tut, tut, young man!” the Englishman cut me off. “I had a grandfather, it happens, who purchased what was called the Lygonia Patent, and I’m on my way now to prove my ownership of all your province; but I think, though I might own it, I’d be pained to live in it if it’s the habit here to shoot sitting birds.”

  “Well, sir,” I said, “I’ve heard people in these parts speak of how your countrymen are forever trying to get away the Lygonia Patent from those who now live on it, and I can tell you you’re wasting your time.”

  Sir Arthur looked at me icily, and turned to his wife. “Pick up this litter,” he said. With that he stalked through the bushes toward his coach.

  Lady Ransome jumped to her feet, knotting her bonnet strings beneath her chin. When I would have helped her with the rugs and luncheon basket, she pushed me away with a hand that looked a little like a child’s, dimpled at the knuc
kles. “You should never be truthful with travelers,” she said, “if you wish them to taste your chocolate custards.”

  I would have been glad to see her in Arundel if she could have come alone; but since I couldn’t tell her this, I whistled to Pinky and set off after Jeddy Tucker, wondering how any woman could endure being the wife of an Englishman.

  III

  IF EVER there was a haven for a retired seafarer, it was our house at the mouth of the Arundel River; for it stood on a twenty-acre oblong of fertile ground, with the river running snug along the easterly end of it, a sheltered creek for its northern boundary, and the ocean and a long beach of hard gray sand bordering the side to the southwest. Within sight of its windows was everything a mariner could wish to occupy his attention. There were cows and hens, and fields of corn, beans, potatoes and pumpkins, large enough to keep our cellar stocked with food during the longest winters. In addition there were ducks, geese, wild pigeons and fish to be had for the taking; and best of all, from a seaman’s viewpoint, there were eight shipyards between our house and the new toll bridge, all busily engaged in turning out the schooners, sloops and brigs that made our town of Arundel the busiest and the wealthiest in the province of Maine, next to Portland. It was the custom of large vessels to load the last of their cargoes while lying out beyond the bar that obstructed the river mouth, and never a day passed but what a brig or a snow or a ship entered the river at high water with a cargo from Spain or Portugal or Denmark or the Indies, or stood off and on, waiting for tide or wind.

  There was a quickened thumping under the shawl that bound my waist when Jeddy Tucker and I came down the path between the tall pines, that evening, and saw our house, low and gray, against the ragged dunes and the darkening seas beyond. I could not blame Pinky for the yapping he set up, nor for the dash he made across the narrow foot bridge and along the path to the house, scuttling into the dusk so rapidly that he might have been the ghost of a dog.