It was going to be a great night for Maeve. Whenever I made one of these rare visits to town, I used the opportunity to call on my publisher. I had written to him a fortnight before telling him to expect me, and in reply he had told me that one of his novelists had written a play, that the “first night” would be the night when I was in London, and the author would feel honoured if I would accept the enclosed two tickets for dress-circle seats.
I had never heard of the author, but both Maeve and I had heard of the grand old lady who was to play the leading part. We had seen her in Manchester, and now we were to see her amid all the pomp and glory of a London first night. Ah, Maeve! No wonder you are smiling!
Maeve and I had dinner alone that night. Dermot and Sheila had disappeared on some errand of their own as soon as we had finished lunch at the Great Western Hotel at Paddington. (We always stayed there, to be ready for the 10.30 in the morning.) They had not returned at dinner-time. Rory and Oliver and Eileen were exhausted by a morning in the train and an afternoon enjoying such conventional delights as a look at Buckingham Palace and a walk in St. James’s Park. Nellie put them to bed, and said she would stay and read in her own room in case any of them called. She tied my white bow for me, and said: “You look very nice, William,” then went in, with her unfailing helpfulness, to see how Maeve was getting on. She brought her into our bedroom when she was ready. I don’t remember what the child was wearing, except that there was a crimson flower in her hair and that her eyes were eager and she seemed anxious that I should find her pleasing. We went down the long, dim, heavily-carpeted corridor side by side, her white gloved hand resting on my arm. She was like a little queen. I noticed as she walked that she was wearing crimson shoes. Her head hardly reached to my shoulder.
We didn’t dine in the hotel. I took her to the Café Royal, and she loved the gilt and red plush as much as I intended her to. But there was nothing of childish excitement and chatter about her. It was difficult to remember that she was only fourteen: she was grave and self-possessed, and I noticed what I had not noticed before: that the shape of her breasts was there to see. She looked the diners over, and said: “You’re the nicest-looking man here, Uncle Bill. I love you in evening clothes. When your hair is all grey you’ll be very distinguished.”
“My God, Maeve!” I said. “You’re looking ahead a long way.”
“Oh, not so far. You’re just beginning—just there.”
She put a finger to the hair over my ears.
“I’m not!”
“You are. Just two or three hairs.”
“Where’s a mirror!”
There was no lack of them, and the one I looked in showed me that she was right. Maeve growing up—Maeve who was not born that night when we met Flynn, that night that seemed so little time ago—Maeve growing up, a young woman with ripening breasts, and I with grey in my head! I hadn’t noticed either of those things before.
Maeve put her hand on mine. “Don’t you like your grey hair?” she asked.
“I hate it.”
“I think it’s lovely. You’ll have quite a lot of it by the time you write my play. It’ll make you look very important, and we’ll come here and have dinner before the first night.”
“Is that another bargain?”
“Yes. And it all depends on you. You’ve got to write the play.”
“I’ll do it. Never fear.”
She looked for a moment crestfallen. “Oh, man!” she said, “I don’t fear so far as your part of it goes. But what about me? Father’s not interested. He’s not interested in anything except Rory and Fenians and all the silly old nonsense that I hate. How’ll I ever be an actress?”
“And you still want to be, very much?”
“Oh, you know, you know!” she cried. “And haven’t you encouraged me and taken me to all the lovely plays and said I must go after the thing I’ve set my heart on?”
I had, indeed.
“Well, come on, now,” I said. “Let’s see another lovely play—or one we hope is going to be lovely, anyway. And I’ll speak to your father and see what we can do about it.”
“You will? Oh, Uncle Bill, you darling!” And she sprang up, put her arms round my neck, and gave me a kiss. I felt as pleased as Punch, too. There were plenty of wenches sitting in the Café Royal, but there wasn’t one whose kiss I would have changed for Maeve’s. The waiter benefited by an extra shilling on his tip.
The play wasn’t one of the high spots in our experience, and Maeve and I had done a lot of play-going together by now. But if the play wasn’t much, the occasion was notable. We were wedged into the middle of a bright parterre of silks and feathers, jewels and caressing fans: a parterre from which an expensive perfume was exhaled and a light chatter of conversation floated. Looking sideways, I could see Maeve’s dark head etched against the bulk of a dame whose flesh-creased wrists were all a-clinking and a-glinting with precious metal and stone, as the plumes of her fan slowly undulated before a face that had the staring insolent immobility of a figurehead. I was glad to see that Maeve was not daunted. I knew her well enough to be aware that she was deeply excited by this enclosing phalanx of men and women whose like she had not seen before, by the sparkle of a tiara here and there, by the high pitch of overbred voices, and above all by the expectant sense of the occasion: excited, but not daunted. It was not an easy experience for a provincial child, and I was pleased with her. Only, as the curtain went up, she placed her hand in mine, as she had done that time when first we went to the theatre together. I gave her a reassuring squeeze.
It was a poor play, only redeemed by the acting of the grand old lady whom we had come to see. Maeve applauded her madly when the last curtain fell; and then we were caught up in the press of departure. We had not got far from our seats when a hand tapped me on the shoulder. “Essex! One moment! I want you.” It was Jordan, my publisher. The author of the play, it seemed, was one of my admirers. He knew I was in the theatre and was anxious to meet me. I tried to get out of it, but Jordan insisted. “Come on now. You’re getting a dreadful reputation. You never meet anybody.”
“I don’t want to meet anybody.”
“People are beginning to say you don’t exist.”
“So long as my books do...”
“Come on. Henderson is waiting in Mrs. Bendall’s dressing-room.”
It was a long “Oh!” that burst from Maeve that decided me. “This young woman wants to meet Mrs. Bendall far more than I want to meet Henderson,” I smiled. “So let’s go.”
Maeve pulled her cloak about her and reverently trod for the first time the sordid sacred private ways of a theatre. We went up cold stone steps, and along cold stone passages where gas jets buzzed in wire traps; we passed shirt-sleeved preoccupied men and painted women, and presently Jordan knocked at a door on which was Mrs. Bendall’s name. Then we were inside, in a jam of silks and feathers and broad white shirts, of fans and camellias, and high voices clack-clacking. Men and women were standing about with glasses of champagne in their hands, toasting the play, toasting Henderson, toasting Mrs. Bendall, toasting one another. Mrs. Bendall was sitting in an easy chair, with a little table by her side. She was not drinking champagne. She looked quiet and withdrawn, like a nice old grandmother. Her hair was white and now she had a lace cap upon it and a light lace wrap over her shoulders. “Where is my tea?” she was asking as we came into the room. Jordan introduced me and Maeve. Maeve curtseyed as though to a queen. “You dear child,” said Mrs. Bendall. “You shall pour out my tea.”
The teapot had been placed on the little table, and an attentive swarm of young men and women was waiting to be commanded to pour out. Mrs. Bendall waved them all away. Maeve poured out the tea and handed it to the old lady with a lovely grace. Mrs. Bendall placed the cup on the table, then put her left arm round Maeve’s waist. She drew her close to the chair, took the cup in her right hand and held it to the child’s lips. “Have a sip,” she smiled. Maeve sipped and then Mrs. Bendall drank. “Perhaps I’ll g
et back my youth and beauty by drinking where your lips have been,” she said. “D’you think I shall?”
“Oh, madam!” Maeve cried with sudden passionate honesty. “If only you could!”
The old lady smiled sadly. “You mean that, dear child,” she said. “You know, if I’d asked that of any of these young deceivers”—she waved her white hand round the noisy room—“there’s not one of them but would have said, ‘Ah, you’re the youngest and most beautiful of us all!’ Deceivers! Deceivers! I’m an old woman, and I’m very tired.”
She sat quietly in her chair for a moment, then she said: “Now, you drink where my lips have been, and perhaps some day”—with a beautiful smile—“you’ll be a great actress like Sarah Bendall.”
Maeve took the cup in both hands as if it were a chalice and drank with her eyes closed. “I’ve asked God to do it,” she murmured.
The old woman looked at her with wonder. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I didn’t know it was your wish. But who can tell?” She turned to me. “Take the dear child away. I’m very tired.” And as we were going she called: “Here! Take this,” and tore a rose from a bouquet and placed it in Maeve’s hand.
The next day we left the luggage at Truro to be sent by road to Heronwater. We continued our journey to Falmouth where Sawle was waiting with the Maeve and a dinghy in tow. The two maids, Nellie and Eileen got into the dinghy. The rest of us got aboard the motor-boat.
“Bags I steer!” Oliver shouted.
“No—bags I”—from Rory.
“All right.” Oliver moved away from the tiller.
I had noticed a lot of that during the train journey. Oliver was being very kind to Rory, very self-effacing. Usually, he wanted to be the hero, the leader; but Rory’s “loyalty” in the affair of Miss Bussell seemed to have made an impression on his mind. He did not even shout orders to Rory, as he was accustomed to do. That would not have been easy, anyway, with Sam Sawle sitting there in his neat navy-blue, with a white peaked cap, making suggestions in his gentle voice, that seemed to end every sentence with a caressing “midear.” Sam was never known to “sir” or “madam” anyone. All the children, and Sheila and Nellie as often as not, were “midears” to Sam. Dermot and I were Mr. O’Riorden and Mr. Essex.
It was when we were half-way along the expanse of the Carrick Roads, flat as a pond and iridescent as a mackerel’s back under the evening sun, that he said: “We’ve got a neighbour this time, Mr. Essex.”
That was another thing about Sam Sawle: he was a part of every· thing he was associated with—not an outsider. Heronwater was “our house,” the boats were “our boats,” and “I think we ought to be thinning a bit of our woods,” he would say. And now there was “our neighbour.”
“Bought an old hulk, he have, and shored her up bang opposite our quay,” Sam continued. “A regular crazy old zany. You never saw the like. I haven’t been near ’e yet. I don’t like the looks of ’e. He’s about the deck all day as lively as a cricket. I must say he keeps her looking as pretty as paint. Jezebel, he calls her, and they say he calls himself Captain Judas.”
“Sounds lively—Captain Judas of the Jezebel,” I said; and I didn’t like it. A neighbour was the last thing I wanted, and I hoped that Captain Judas would be as temporary as he was unwelcome.
We saw him as we turned into our reach of the river. The sun was still catching the trees high up over Heronwater, but the river was now in shadow. The shadow was deepest on the side where the Jezebel lay close in to the bank, herself a deeper shadow, for she was tarred dully all over. On the water side she was propped up with stout wooden posts, and all the masts had been taken out of her. We could see Captain Judas leaning over the bulwarks. There was little to be made out but black-clothed shoulders and a venerable head: white hair flowing down to the shoulders and a white beard flowing down to the chest. He remained immobile but appeared to be watching us intently. Only when the Maeve’s nose was turned in towards the quay did he let out a screech in a high childish voice: “Heronwater, ahoy!”
He tore a white handkerchief out of his pocket and waved it excitedly. The children were fascinated by his antics, and Rory could not be restrained from hailing: “Jezebel, ahoy!”
That worked like magic. Captain Judas threw open a port in his bulwarks, and, as sprightly as a cat, ran down a rope ladder to a dinghy that was fastened to the hulk’s side. He leapt aboard and began sculling across at a great pace.
Nellie looked as though she were disliking the encounter. “You’d better go up to the house,” I said, “and take the children with you.”
Eileen fell in at her side readily enough, and with the two maids and Sheila set off up the path. Dermot and I, with the two boys and Maeve, awaited the coming of Captain Judas.
He handled his boat with great skill, weaving in and out of our little flotilla, and coming neatly alongside the steps of the quay. He shipped oars smartly and came ashore, bringing a painter with him. Not till he had tied his boat with a swift secure knot did he turn towards us.
He was a man of middle height. His shoulders were immense, but the arms that swung from them seemed disproportionately short and were finished off with small white hands. His feet, in spotless white canvas shoes, were small, too, and he had a light feline tread. The head was worthy of the shoulders, big and well-formed. We saw now that the long white hair that fell from cranium and chin was combed out finely and shone like silk. But you didn’t get the full sense of Captain Judas till you looked him in the eyes. They were extraordinarily disturbing, looking out from the root of a thin-bridged nose whose nostrils had an outward flare, for one of those eyes seemed stone-dead, with that bluey-white opacity that you often see in the eye of a Welsh collie, and the other was sparkling with a light that to me at any rate did not seem sane.
“Good-evening, sir,” I said. “So I have a neighbour now.” I tried to sound more cordial than I felt.
“Good-evening, good-evening,” he said in his high cracked voice, running his eye swiftly over our huddled rank. “Judas, my name. Captain Judas of the Jezebel. Introduce me.”
“My name’s Essex, and this is my son Oliver. This is my friend Dermot O’Riorden and his son Rory and his daughter Maeve. Sam Sawle here I expect you’ve met already.”
Judas ignored the introduction to Sawle, but bowed stiffly to the rest of us as I mentioned the names. He was silent for a moment, then said with a grin that was not at all humorous: “Good thing there’s a river between us. I hate people—hate ’em like hell. Every Tom, Dick and Harry. Every Moll, Doll and Poll. Every Sue, Prue and—what rhymes with Prue?”
“Well,” I said, humouring the madman, “Lou, roughly.”
“Thank you. Lou will do. Every Sue, Prue and Lou. Hate ’em. I didn’t come over here to strike up acquaintance. Oh, no! Never get that idea into your heads. Don’t flatter yourselves. I came to see what you looked like. That’s all.”
“Thank you,” I said, and Dermot added: “Well, we’ll be going. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Captain Judas.”
“Oh, it has, has it?” he demanded. “Wait! Don’t be too sure. Take it as a working hypothesis that I hate you all. That’s where you always start with Captain Judas. Perhaps I’ll change my views. Perhaps I won’t. That’s up to you. And d’you know why I hate you!”
He lowered his voice and crept nearer on his light feet. “Send those children away,” he said. “They mustn’t know.”
“Go along, Rory—Oliver. Cut up to the house,” I said. They went reluctantly, casting wondering looks behind at the prophetic face of Captain Judas. But Maeve lingered, her eyes round at the strange encounter.
“I hate you,” Captain Judas hissed, “because you believe it. You’ve never inquired into the facts. Nobody ever does. You all believe it just because it’s been handed down from generation to generation. But it’s a lie! It’s a lie, I tell you,” he shouted in a rising voice. “I did not betray my Master!”
With that he rushed to the quay steps, unfaste
ned his boat and in a moment was rowing like mad towards the now almost invisible hulk of the Jezebel. We stood there in uneasy silence, listening to the splash of his oars and the creak of his rowlocks, watching the white bob of his hair dancing over the darkening water. We watched him clamber aboard, and saw an orange square come to light in the side of the hulk. Then we slowly climbed the hill to Heronwater, and when we came to the grassy look-out I leaned on the stone balustrade and was annoyed to see that Judas’s light was visible on what it had always pleased me to consider the uninhabited river.
For a wonder, I didn’t sleep well; or perhaps it was no wonder at all. Thoughts of Captain Judas chased in and out of my mind, and I would no sooner fall towards sleep than I would start up from the thought that his one sound eye was boring through me like a gimlet. At six o’clock I got out of bed and put on a dressing-gown, intending to take a plunge in the river, and then to row in the dinghy till I was warmed up for an early breakfast.
To my surprise, Captain Judas was already astir. He was out on the river in his little boat, trailing a line behind him. “Damn the man!” I thought. “He’s going to give us no peace. He’s stolen our solitude.”
I plunged into the water and swam out. I was within six yards of his dinghy, but he did not speak. He did not so much as glance at me. I swam back, dried myself and put on some clothes. Then I got into my own boat. I passed very near to him again, and politeness constrained me to say: “Good-morning. Fishing?”
There was a pocket-knife on the thwart. He took it up and sliced through his line, allowing all the tackle to drift astern. “Fishing?” he said. “No, sir! You don’t catch me fishing. That skunk Simon was a fisherman. And the truth is not known about that man yet. But some day it will be. It’s my belief that he did it. Or Andrew his brother. One or other of them.”
I rested on my oars. Our dinghies rocked side by side on the silent river, smoking with morning mists. Captain Judas looked over his shoulder, searched the wooded banks right and left. Then he spoke in a low confidential voice: “There’s not a soul in sight. I’d like to show you the evidence. Come aboard.”
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