The Lively Lady

by Kenneth Lewis Roberts

  “A commission from President Madison, sir, to Captain Richard Nason of the private armed brig Lively Lady.”

  What answer he made I cannot say, for at that moment one of the cabin doors swung open.

  I stared and stared at what I saw; for beyond the open door, swaying to the uneasy motion of the ship, stood a slender girl, a girl in a green silk dress, her pretty arms bare to the elbow, and her hair, tight braided around her head, the color of a copper bolt chafed bright by rubbing. As for her face, it was the same as that on the miniature I had carried in the pocket of my shirt, for fear of losing it, ever since the distant day when I sailed from Portland in the Neutrality to carry foodstuffs to the English in Spain.

  Just then it did not seem to me so necessary to shorten this war.

  XVII

  IF EVER I saw a man in a rage so powerful that he was on the verge of being poisoned by it, it was Sir Arthur Ransome when he learned he must leave his comfortable West Indiaman and go aboard a crowded brig not half the size of the vessel he was leaving. I was in a hurry to man out the Pembroke and send her on her way to Nantes, for I had learned she had been driven from a convoy by the gale of the day before; and there was no knowing when a fast frigate might come prowling down in search of this fine fat chicken that had straggled from the flock.

  But say what I would to Sir Arthur, I could not hurry him in his preparations. He stood by his berth, quite helpless, asking his wife in his whiny voice where he had put this and where he had put that. He would pick up a thing and stare at it helplessly: then hand it to her to hold, looking like a baulky horse; and with each passing moment he seemed more and more impatient with her, though she had only tried to help him.

  At length I asked her if she was ready to go. She said at once, without looking at me—and indeed, she had not looked at me at all except when she opened the door of her small cabin—that she was. At that, unwilling to endanger our crew or our prize by further delay, I called to Jeddy to send down Gideon Lassel and Seth Tarbox. When they came, I told them to enter Sir Arthur’s cabin, take every movable thing except Sir Arthur, and dump the whole in a blanket. This they did, regardless of Sir Arthur’s angry protests. Then Gideon threw the loaded blanket over his shoulder, and Seth took Sir Arthur by the back of the coat and pushed him on deck. I sent Lady Ransome after them and followed her out myself; and as we went we could hear Sir Arthur expostulating with Seth, telling him to take his hands away.

  They tumbled him into the boat and jumped in after him; whereupon Jeddy and I handed down Lady Ransome, and I gave Cephas Cluff his final orders: to head for Nantes and sell the Pembroke to the Latours for one hundred francs, so she might lie safe at her French quay, and be readily repurchased when all danger of seizure was past. Also I wrote the Latours, giving Cephas authority to draw on them for funds and live aboard the Pembroke, keeping her neat and ready for sea, until I should come for her.

  No sooner had I gone over the side than the Pembroke slipped off to the eastward, toward Nantes.

  Raging as Sir Arthur was, he was silent in the boat—not, I felt, from good sense, but because it was a part of his scheme of life to show no feeling publicly before menials; and it was as a menial, I knew, that he regarded me. At all events, he sat stiffly on the thwart beside Lady Ransome, staring over my head at nothing. I was glad of this for two reasons, one being that if he had opened his mouth, the boat crew, being in high spirits over the taking of the Pembroke, would have mocked him in some dreadful way, since nothing seemed to strike them as being as laughable as the speech of an Englishman; and the other being that it kept his eyes from encountering the figurehead of the Lively Lady as we came down on her lee bow, although he was a dull man about some things and might not have seen it even though he looked directly at it.

  I could have wished, even, that Lady Ransome had been less curious about her destination; but as luck would have it she cast a glance over her shoulder at the brig when we were less than ten paces from her dolphin striker; and as a result she looked squarely at the figure Rowlandson Drown and I had fashioned and painted with such care in the harbor of La Rochelle—at the copper-colored hair, the brilliant red lips, the bare pink arms and the shimmering green dress with the look of being whipped back by the wind into the duller green of the cutwater.

  With lips a little parted, she stared and stared; and I, watching her, had the singular impression that only a few days had passed since I first saw her sitting in a field near Saco, with my little dog Pinky on his haunches before her; but I had no heart to dwell over-long on this strange feeling, for when she turned from the figurehead, her eyes met mine in a glance so level that it appeared almost to have something of enmity in it.

  I think Sir Arthur would have resumed his arguing as soon as we set foot on deck, had I not sent him, with his wife and Captain Parker, to my cabin until the brig was squared away toward the south on the lookout for the Chasseur, and until the wounded first mate was comfortably stowed in one of the side berths off the gun room. I had the feeling that I had done something wrong, nor was this feeling lessened when I went into my cabin and met the accusing gaze of Sir Arthur and Captain Parker and saw how Lady Ransome refused to look at me and stared at nothing from the stern windows.

  “Well,” I said. “I regret this had to happen to persons I know, but war’s hard on friendships.”

  Sir Arthur whinnied, a short, angry whinny. “Friendship!” he exclaimed.

  “Oh, well,” I said, feeling sorry for them, “it’s hard on everything, and since we must live on this craft for some time, I’d like you to know I don’t relish making prisoners of people who have been in our house and eaten our food.”

  With that I went to logging them, and so discovered from Captain Parker that Sir Arthur was on his way to Jamaica, where he had been threatened with the loss of vast sugar lands through litigation. It came into my head, when I learned this, to ask Lady Ransome whether Annie had come safely to England in the brig in which I had placed her and the Sandersons; but when I looked up at her I thought I saw apprehension in her eye and so said nothing.

  “Just what do you mean, may I ask,” Sir Arthur said, when I had put away the log book, “by saying we must live on this craft for some time?”

  “Why,” I said, “I mean just that! I can’t set you adrift in an open boat, and I think you’ll agree that the water’s a trifle cold for swimming.”

  Sir Arthur stared at me along his nose, an unpleasant look such as he might have given to a servant. “I warn you,” he said, “that you’ll be held to blame for any harm that comes to my wife or myself or any of our property, and that you’ll be treated like any other pirate when you’re taken, as you must be.”

  “Well,” I said, “no harm’s going to come to any of you if I can help it, so make your mind easy on that point. And since you bring up the matter of blame, I’d like to ask your captain what was in his head when he allowed this lady to remain in the cabin and refused to strike his colors to me.”

  Captain Parker moved uncomfortably in his chair but made no answer.

  “Captain Parker is an experienced navigator, in whom we have the utmost confidence,” Sir Arthur said. To me his voice sounded finicky and unpleasant.

  “In that case,” I told him, “I can only remind you that if my brig hadn’t been faster than anything Captain Parker had ever seen, I’d have been justified in raking you through your cabin windows, which is something I don’t like to think of.”

  They stared at me without speaking.

  “There’s another thing,” I said, as calmly as I could. “It seems to me it’s a little singular to choose this time to travel, even in a convoy and with a captain in whom you repose confidence.”

  “Oh, indeed,” Sir Arthur said. “Indeed! Words fail me to express my gratitude for your interest in my personal affairs! It would doubtless mean nothing to you to know that a fair part—a very fair part— of the island of Jamaica is at stake in our lawsuit.”

  My answer was both g
ruff and awkward. “I don’t see,” I said, “why you should bring a lady along.”

  “Don’t you?” Sir Arthur asked quickly, his face the color of fresh putty. “That’s truly unfortunate!”

  Lady Ransome bent her head over her clasped hands and spoke for the first time, her voice so low and husky I could scarce hear it. “A lady that has to be watched,” she whispered, “would need to be brought along.”

  Sir Arthur turned on her. “Hold your tongue!” he said quietly. “Is this any place to discuss our private affairs?”

  Into Lady Ransome’s eyes came a foggy, wavery look that set me off on another tack, talking more loudly than I might otherwise have spoken. “Now, here!” I said, “if you’ll give me your paroles to do nothing that can damage or hinder this brig or its people, I’ll try to land you in a safe port.”

  There was venom in Sir Arthur’s glance. “And what if I don’t choose to give my parole?”

  “Well, sir,” I said, “if you won’t give it, I’ll have to demand it. The -lady must be put ashore.”

  At that Captain Parker gave his parole, as did Sir Arthur, and I sent for Tommy Bickford to help make them as comfortable as was possible in our cramped quarters.

  Late in the afternoon we fell in with the Chasseur again; and when Boyle, standing in his main chains, shouted gaily at me to tell him what I had been doing, I thought it best to lower a boat and go aboard the Chasseur, so my passengers might not hear me spreading their affairs to the world.

  I told Boyle about Sir Arthur and asked him to join me for supper so I wouldn’t feel like a voiceless fool when Sir Arthur became talkative over his wine and favored me with his rudeness. Boyle laughed. “Since when have you been voiceless under such conditions?” he asked.

  Not wishing to tell him it was because I didn’t want to hurt Lady Ransome’s feelings, I contented myself with saying I became voiceless because Ransome persisted in addressing me as though I were a groom or a scullery boy. Boyle nodded thoughtfully. This, he said, should amuse rather than anger me. “His wife,” he said, “has thick ankles, no doubt, and a raw, carroty look, like so many Englishwomen.”

  My reply, perhaps, was overwarm. “Not at all! She’s rather good-looking.”

  “Indeed!” he said, “and what’s the color of her eyes?”

  “They seem to be green, but in reality they’re a sort of smoke color,” I told him; whereupon he turned from me to open his chest of old Madeira. I saw he was smiling, and wondered whether I had made a mistake to admit knowing the color of her eyes.

  I thought many times that evening that if I had sat alone at supper with Sir Arthur and Lady Ransome and Captain Parker we would have been a glum and silent gathering; but men from Baltimore are prattlers, seeming to talk for the pleasure of hearing the sound of their voices, which are soft and slurry, doubtless from living in close proximity to Negroes.

  Boyle had no sooner come into the cabin, with his white teeth, his clear, sallow skin, his gentle politeness and his soft, warm voice, than Captain Parker brightened up, and Sir Arthur took a reef in his chin, so that his nose came down out of the air and left him looking like any normal human being, while Lady Ransome smiled for the first time since I had seen her open the door in the cabin of the Pembroke. Indeed, no woman could have helped smiling if Boyle had bowed over her hand as he bowed over Lady Ransome’s, saying as he did so, “This repays me, ma’am, for being a sailor! We get to thinking there can be nothing in life but lobscouse and dirty weather, and then Heaven sends us—” he straightened suddenly and looked earnestly at her—“and then Heaven sends us a pair of eyes the color of smoke in the swamps of Maryland.”

  He looked around at me, as if to make sure I heard what he said, whereat I flushed as red as the turkey cover on the table.

  “Lud ’a’ mercy!” Lady Ransome cried with an air of unbelief, “you’re never from America, sir, speaking such poetic nonsense to » me.

  “Now your ladyship is paying compliments,” Boyle said, “whereas I was telling the simple truth! Tell me, now, what part of England you think I come from, if I’m never from America, as you say?”

  “Oh, not England!” Lady Ransome exclaimed hastily. “I meant I didn’t know American men spoke—I didn’t know they were in the habit of—”

  Boyle chuckled, and there seemed to me to be little pinpoints of mockery in his eyes. “It’s a large country, Lady Ransome,” he said. “Our products vary widely. Now in the North we have the Province of Maine, where the people never speak for fear of committing themselves to something; but farther to the south we have Maryland, where we’re trained from childhood to fall in love at first sight continuously throughout our lives.”

  “You’re speaking now of the training of maidens and ladies?” she asked, “or do you mean your gentlemen would never fall in love unless trained to? If you mean the latter, your ladies must all be perishing of broken hearts, I take it!”

  Captain Boyle laughed lightly. “No, ma’am; it’s only our own hearts that break, and that without any training.”

  Sir Arthur cleared his throat with what I considered unnecessary loudness. “Are you the captain of a privateer, Captain Boyle?”

  “I have that honor, sir,” Boyle said. “The Chasseur of Baltimore; sixteen long 12’s.”

  “Do you ever find men of standing serving as captains of privateers?” Sir Arthur asked almost genially—due, probably, to the rapidity with which he had tossed off his wine.

  “Never, sir!” Boyle assured him quickly, “only a lot of scamps like Captain Nason and myself. Some of our privateer captains have been downright notorious.” He rolled up his eyes at the ceiling and went to checking off names on his fingers. “Truxtun, Porter, Biddle, Decatur, Barney, Perry, Murray, Rogers, Cassin, Little, Robinson, Smith, Hopkins . . . terrible low fellows all of them; but they reformed and entered the navy, as I have the greatest fear you already have the displeasure of knowing, sir.”

  He sipped his wine smilingly, and then went on: “Now, let me see: Captain Nason wants to send you to England, and he said something about taking a small brig and turning her into a cartel for you.” He raised his glass toward Lady Ransome and drank the remainder. “It seems to me I wouldn’t advise a cartel. She might be taken by another American before reaching port. As you doubtless know, our government pays a bounty for each prisoner, and you might possibly be taken to America.”

  “But we’re nearly in the English Channel!” Captain Parker protested. “There can’t be Americans in the Channel, my dear sir!”

  Boyle raised his eyebrows at me. “Had you understood the Channel had been cleared of our privateers?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “We’re in it already, and Captain Hailey of the True Blooded Yankee is fond of cruising in the Channel when he isn’t holding towns for ransom in Scotland and Ireland. The Scourge, the Rattlesnake and the Grand Turk are Channel cruisers, and there are seven or eight others standing off and on the coasts of Great Britain, though they may not be in the Channel at the moment.”

  Captain Boyle shook his head sadly at Captain Parker. “I fear, sir, your mind has been less on the war than on other matters—or, possibly you’ve listened to unreliable information.”

  It was Lady Ransome who finally said she was quite sure Captain Boyle’s advice would be worth following, at which Captain Boyle bowed and flashed his white teeth at her. “That’s kind of you, ma’am,” he said, “and I appreciate it. I must tell you, too, that you can have complete confidence in Captain Nason’s judgment, for though he’s young and a great believer in Maine taciturnity and not committing himself to anything, he’s as good a seaman as ever I kept company with.”

  The fiery heat of my face was not cooled by the somewhat discouraging silence that followed these words of Captain Boyle’s; and at length, in desperation, I quickly swallowed a glass of wine and said it seemed to me the best thing to do would be to run to the Channel Islands, which were a littie out of the beaten track, and set our prisoners ashore on one
of them. From here, eventually, I said, they would get passage to England in a government sloop or schooner, and would be safe with English folk meanwhile.

  “There!” Boyle cried. “What did I tell you! A perfect arrangement!”

  The others, however, had nothing to say, but sat and pecked at their supper.

  At length Sir Arthur observed dryly that after Captain Boyle had boasted of the manner in which Americans were making themselves at home in the Channel, it seemed not unnatural to hope his party might be landed in Plymouth harbor.

  Captain Boyle smiled at him as sweetly as a newly wakened babe smiling up into his mother’s face. “Where our privateers go,” he told him softly, “depends a little upon the reward in prospect. When they risk themselves out of kindliness, they must take some account of numbers. You are three, and Captain Nason and I have a hundred men apiece to consider. Those two hundred, Sir Arthur, might be willing to venture their skins for a prize worth the good part of a farm to each of them. But I think they’d mislike Plymouth harbor as the scene of a Christian deed performed without even the prospect of being thanked for it.”

  Lady Ransome raised her eyes to mine for a moment; then dropped them immediately.

  “Ow,” Sir Arthur said at length. “Remarkable, your speaking of thanks, Mr. Boyle! Attacking us without a word of warning when we were harming nobody—that might be defined as somewhat cowardly, mightn’t it? You put it all as a wholly commercial matter, you and your men, as I understood you to say, thinking only of how much money’s to be made out of it. If you’re to do a brave act, there would first have to be a calculation of the pennies to decide how many of them your bravery may be worth.”

  For my part, I could have wrung his neck, so deep was my resentment of his words; but Captain Boyle seemed undisturbed.

  “Yes,” he said, “I’ve heard that before; but as it just chances, I’ve always heard it second hand. Not before has it been said to me directly. I feel a little unfortunate that it’s thus spoken at last by a captive; but since we’re so happy as to have a lady with us, I’ll explain these matters more fully than I would ordinarily do. Thus you may be able, hereafter, to state the case properly.”