CHAPTER VI
OF A PRODIGAL’S RETURN
OF course I made sure she must be going to Terneuzen, and did my best to make a quicker voyage in consequence. She’d annoyed me from the very start of our acquaintance; flicked me on the raw of my vanity, as it were, and I wanted a chance to get level with her. But besides that there was something interesting about the girl that occupied my thoughts, and, anyhow, to see her at Terneuzen promised some sort of change from the usual sitting and drinking with Cheyne.
There was very little else to interest one in the life, as things were. The winter coasting trade was a cruel business, and if it hadn’t been that I was saving money fast I think I should have tried to break charter and lay by in some harbour till the spring.
But I was doing very well, and hideously uncomfortable though the cruising was, I still flinched at the memory of the winter before. No more idling on an empty stomach for me, if I could help it So I stuck to it, and ’Kiah backed me up in his stolid way, and we both took it out of Rance whenever he seemed inclined to get slack.
We were for Lymington this voyage, and even ’Kiah seemed ready for a grumble at the way I drove the pair of them. I forget now what we brought back; some fool cargo or another, for certain. Since Cheyne’s outbreak I’d made up my mind that the ostensible trade of the company was only a cloak for some other more profitable business—probably fancy smuggling of some sort, like saccharine, perhaps. I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. Besides, that girl’s face stuck in my mind—a little roundish oval with dark hair and fur all round. It struck me she’d look rather well, seen close at hand, in that get-up. Her big eyes and short lip seemed the right features for a merry sort of winter picture.
It was nearly dark and raining heavens hard when we got off the Isle of Axel, and the office seemed deserted, but I got the dinghy overside and went ashore to report myself. The place was all locked up, so off I went to Terneuzen in search of Cheyne. As I expected he was at the hotel by the locks: ‘Dining with his friends upstairs,’ the landlady said.
‘What friends?’
‘The English friends. The tall man and the two young vroowen.’
‘Ask him if he’ll see me,’ I said, and the landlady departed, and presently called down over the stairs to say I was to come up. I’d had a shave the night before and a pretty good washing with rain and salt water all day, and as for my guernsey and rough serge, they were clean enough, as such clothes go, so up I went.
It gives you a queer feeling, intimate yet strange, to see a girl indoors and without her hat for the first time. They had a private room, only lighted by a fire on the hearth and candles on the table at which they sat. Miss Brand, facing the door, had the shaded candlelight on her face and big eyes as she held her head on one side to peer across the dim room. The man—Ward, as I had guessed—got up and shook hands, and the girls nodded pleasantly and gave me a good-evening. Cheyne sat back lounging in his chair, his legs stuck straight out under the table.
‘Perhaps Captain West would like something to eat?’ Miss Lavington suggested.
‘I should. I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast,’ I confessed.
They cried out at that, and shifted their chairs so that I could sit between Miss Lavington and Ward. The Pamily girl stared at me unwinkingly as soon as I came into the light from the candles on the table.
‘What does Captain West drink as a rule?’ she asked.
‘Whisky, generally, isn’t it, West? But he doesn’t drink much, do you?’
For once I felt friendly towards the bounder.
‘What do you call much?’ the girl asked carelessly.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him drink more than two glasses at a sitting, and weak ones at that.’ He said it as though he intended to sneer at my unmanly habit. If he’d only known I felt like patting him on the back I expect he’d have changed his tune.
The girl said nothing, but went on staring at me curiously, with her head on one side like an inquisitive bird.
‘After a pause: ‘You’re wet,’ she said.
‘Only a drop of rain.’
She pushed back her chair, put her napkin on the table and walked round to me and felt my coat.
‘He’s soaking,’ she announced.
Ward looked on with a smile on his post-office mouth, and Miss Lavington’s eyebrows lifted wearily, yet amused, too, I thought. As for Cheyne, he grunted some sort of protest. I think he said I could go downstairs and get a change. But the girl didn’t take the least notice of any of them.
‘Get up and go over by the fire,’ she ordered. ‘Take your plate with you. Take off your coat. Here.’ She put it on the back of a chair before the blaze, and then stood over me with a stiff glass of whisky and water. ‘Drink that,’ she ordered.
No good resisting. There really wasn’t much sense in sending me to the fire, for I was wet rather than cold, having walked fast. But she had a whirlwind way of her own it was useless to try and resist. Besides, thinking of her as the poor relation, I judged she didn’t get many chances of bossing people about. So I drank the spirits, and very strong and good they were, and then sat obediently before the fire, steaming as I ate, with the rain from my hair running down inside the collar of my guernsey.
In a minute she noticed that too and brought me her table-napkin to wipe my head and face on.
‘Rather have a towel?’ she asked.
‘This’ll do, thanks’; and I rubbed my hair dry and went on eating till the plate was empty. She refilled it, waiting on me, going to and from the table, the others handing her whatever she wanted; and whilst I ate she stood and held my glass.
The Pamily girl took my plate as I rose.
‘You’ll have another glass of spirits before you go?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Yes; you must. And then go aboard and get into dry clothes as quickly as you can.’ She filled another glass at the table and gave it to me as I stood before the fire.
‘I can’t tell what it was made me break out as I did—the warmth and food after a day’s hunger and cold had as much to do with it as anything, perhaps; or maybe it was drinking strong spirits after some days of abstinence. Whatever the cause, it suddenly dawned upon me what awfully decent people they were. Anybody else would have sent their employee downstairs to get dry and presentable before they talked to him, as Cheyne had wanted to do; but Ward and Miss Lavington had only aided their little spitfire of a companion to make me comfortable where I was. It came over me with a shock that I was really making my living by helping to rob them, and on the impulse spoke out the truth for once.
‘Look here,’ I said. ‘I—I think you ought to know how things stand. He’ll never tell you,’ and I nodded towards Cheyne. ‘This business here is all sham, you know. Your money’s being dribbled away gradually in these rotten voyages. The charter I made with you, Mr Ward; I as good as swindled you. I never thought you’d pay me the sum I asked. Why, it’s twice the current rate of freights. And the cargoes aren’t what they ought to be—I could carry twice as much as I do. Here, this last voyage: I go to Lymington in ballast—two shillings a ton allowance on it—and come back with thirty tons of unsaleable rubbish. What goods can you expect to get at a village in the New Forest? And I’ve taken out ballast before now, and been paid freights back here on road metal—for mending a path nobody uses. You’ll never make money that way. You’re paying us to waste your capital for you. You—Miss Lavington and Mr Ward, I mean—you’re being robbed daily. It’s only common honesty to tell you so.’
For a few moments not one of them answered or moved. They might have been wax figures rather than men and women. Then Ward lit a cigar—and did it jerkily, I thought, just as a wax figure would move—blew out the match carefully and put it on his plate.
‘What makes you think that?’ he said very quietly.
‘A hundred things. The rate you’re paying me—light cargoes—the waste and want of economy everywhere. I’ve brought potatoes here
—a quid a ton freight, from Dorset—and found Sas van Gent exporting them to Germany when I arrived. That’s business isn’t it?’
Ward looked at Cheyne, who nodded and then turned to me.
‘That’ll do,’ he said. I naturally expected he would rage, but he spoke quietly enough. ‘You’ve proved yourself a zealous servant, and now you can get aboard. We’ll sack you in due form tomorrow.’
‘As you like. My charter lasts till June, but I’m ready to break it if Mr Ward wishes. I’ve seen you rob him long enough’; and I shuffled on my wet, warm coat and ran back to the boat as fast as I could. I didn’t want to be laid up with a chill just as I must look out for a new job.
But it was to be a night of surprises. I got into my cabin and lit the lamp, and just as it was flaming up somebody coughed softly in Voogdt’s old bunk. I pretended not to hear, changed into a dry shirt and trousers, and then pulled back the curtain suddenly.
‘Come out of it, whoever you are,’ I said.
The huddled figure under the blankets stuck up a pale, startled face, half laughing, and it was Voogdt himself.
‘Good Lord! Austin!’ I cried. ‘How did you come aboard?’
‘Hush,’ he said in a whisper. ‘Don’t shout so you bullock! Swam aboard—me the consumptive invalid. Man, I’m nigh dead with the cold. Where on earth have you been till now? On the bend?’
‘After a fashion. I’ve just got myself the sack.’
‘Tell us all about that later on. For the present light the stove and get me something hot—quick.’ He got behind the curtains again his teeth chattering audibly.
I guessed Rance might have some spirits, so went forward and woke him. As I expected, he had managed to get a bottle of Schiedam aboard by some mysterious drunkard’s means, and I took it aft, lit the stove, and made Voogdt a rank brew, disguising the taste with a double allowance of sugar. He drank it greedily, demanded more, and got under the blankets again. After three glasses he declared that I’d saved his life.
‘Can you talk now?’ I asked.
‘Yes. But you first. Tell us all about getting the sack.’
I told him the whole story without interruption, but when I’d done he announced that his tale could wait.
‘First thing to be done is to hide me. Ward’ll be aboard in the morning and neither he nor Cheyne must know I’m here, whatever happens. Next thing is for you to apologise to Ward, and offer to stand to the charter. He’ll accept, I fancy; but if he’s nasty, insist as your right on working it out to the end of the twelve months. Understand that. At whatever cost you’ve got to stick to the firm like—like a bug to a blanket. But I must be hidden till you touch at your next port. Then I rejoin.’
‘Well, that’s good hearing, anyhow. Where’ve you been all this time? South, for your health?’
‘No, north. And I haven’t been there for my health either, since you use the most apposite form of words. All the same, I’ve precious little to show for my journeying. And that’s enough for now. Warmth—blessed warmth! I was nearly frozen stiff when you came, James. And now for sleep. Let me know where I’m to hide when I wake.’
He turned his face to the wall and was snoring before I got to bed, though I turned in immediately.
He was up before me, too. When I woke in the dim light of the winter morning his bunk was empty. I whipped out of mine quickly, and just missed breaking a leg, for he’d pulled up a trap-door in the floor which gave into a three-cornered hole we called the after-peak. In the summer we used to store milk and bottled beer there for coolness, but it was only about two feet high, and I shouldn’t have thought he could have got into it. However, there he was, lying on his back, and pushing the rubbish it contained back into the less accessible corners.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
He didn’t hear me, so I stirred him with my foot until he squirmed his face under the hole, and then asked again.
‘Making a nest,’ he said, and grinned. ‘There’s nowhere else I can go without being seen.’
‘But you can’t stay down there till we fetch another port.’
‘I don’t intend to try. I’m going to live in the cabin here and dodge below when anybody comes aboard.’
He put a spare mattress and blankets down the hole and soon had a chance of trying its capabilities, for, as he had prophesied, Ward came aboard the moment we touched the wharf.
I tackled him at once. ‘I want to apologise for my behaviour last night, Mr Ward.’
He took it very quietly. ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘We accept your apology. Miss Lavington and myself were not disposed to make any bother about it. You’re a bit over-zealous, perhaps; and—you will please consider this as an order from your employers—we wish you to avoid further friction with Mr Cheyne. We are perfectly satisfied with his management, and have no complaints to make about the way in which the business is conducted. I may say we are perfectly satisfied with your work as well.’
‘As long as you’re pleased—’ I began lamely.
‘We are pleased, I assure you. The—er—the conditions of our markets are not a thing you can be expected to understand. Very likely you thought you were opening our eyes to shortcomings last night, but I can assure you that all the company’s transactions pass under my own eye. Light cargoes, for instance: there’s this shallow river as a standing excuse for them. And there are other points you’re not able to consider—the size of our customers’ orders, and so on. I quite understand that it must seem queer to you, this small class of trade of ours done at the very door of a great market like Antwerp, but you know the old saying that where big businesses can live, small ones can do with the crumbs they let fall.’
‘I never heard the saying.’
‘Perhaps not. But it’s true. We—we are even doing fairly well, since you seem anxious for our interests. Er—in fact I had proposed to pay you a fifty-pound bonus at the end of the charter, if you were disposed to renew it. Are you prepared to go on with us?’
‘I’m prepared, fast enough. But how about Ch—Mr Cheyne?’
‘Mr Cheyne will make no objection. We’ll regard that as settled, then. One thing more: whatever you may think of our unbusinesslike methods, don’t talk about them to anybody. To anybody, mind. Already some information about us must have leaked out, and now we’ve competition at our very door—this German firm. So hold your tongue. That’s all.’
Before he went he stood a moment by the hatchway where I was helping Rance at the hand-winch.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but you—you’re an educated man, aren’t you?’
I told him where I’d been at school, and he went ashore. In the afternoon a boy came down from the hotel with a note for me.
‘DEAR CAPTAIN WEST,—Would you care to join us at dinner tonight. Yours faithfully,
‘ANNE LAVINGTON.’
I went below to write an answer and found Voogdt with his body under the floor, and his head up through the trap-door, reading.
‘What’s on?’ he asked.
‘Look out,’ I said. ‘There’s somebody coming.’
It was a lie, but I meant going, and couldn’t stop to argue with him about it then. He popped out of sight like a hermit crab into its shell, pulling-to the trap-door over him, and I sat on it on a camp-stool and wrote my acceptance, laughing to myself.
I was glad I went, for the evening proved thoroughly enjoyable. For one thing it was a godsend to sit at table with decent women once more, and for another Cheyne was savagely annoyed at my being there, though he did his best to conceal it. Miss Lavington made a very good hostess in her sleepy, kindly way; her slow, lazy smile set you at your ease and banished stiffness from the very start. She was certainly a very lovely woman, and Ward was evidently very sweet on her in his reserved way, so that I judged they would be partners before long in a closer concern than the Axel Trading Company if he had his way.
As for Miss Pamela Brand, all I can say about her is that she puzzled me. I misunderstood the sort of gi
rl she was at our first meeting, and I don’t profess to understand her to this day any more than I can understand why spring weather should drench you with cold rain one minute and set you steaming in hot sunshine the next. I’ve read poets who compare a girl to April weather, showers and sunshine: you couldn’t find a seasonable comparison for this one without dragging in every month of the year from sultry August to December ice.
Most of the talk was about business. Meeting as we did, comparative strangers with one common interest, there weren’t many subjects we could all touch on. After making an exhibition of myself the night before, I couldn’t well ask many direct questions; but the Pamily girl wasn’t bound in the same way, and she made me talk about my work no end, till I even got the notion that the candlelights shining in her big eyes took the shape of question marks. What ports had I called at since she came aboard at Dartmouth? How did I like the winter trade? What sort of men did we employ?
I told her of Voogdt and how I picked him up at Exmouth, and she seemed very interested. Then Cheyne cut in:
‘That black-bearded Cockney you had aboard? He was no class, was he?’
‘A better man than you,’ I nearly said; but remembering how Voogdt had played the low Cockney before him, and his present mysterious ways, thought better of it.
‘He was a better-class man than he looked. He’d been on a newspaper before he went on tramp.’
The other three looked not at me but at Cheyne for enlightenment. He made a little shake of his head, as though he were denying something.
‘No class,’ he said. ‘No doubt he managed to impose on the good nature of our friend here, but you can take it from me that if he was on a newspaper it was on some low job—driving a wagon, maybe. I had him ashore and stood him a drink and had a chat with him.’
I confess I felt offended at the cad contradicting me like that to my face. They were all so intent on what he said, and so obviously disregarding me, that just for a moment I felt out of it. However, before I could say anything or show my resentment, the exclusive atmosphere had passed, and Pamela Brand was talking to me of something else as agreeably as you please, and the others were backing her up in making me feel I was one of a family party rather than the stranger I’d felt a minute before.
The Mystery of the Mud Flats Page 8