Honey Harlot

by Christianna Brand

  A ship is a restless, moving, sounding thing, rocking, swaying, dipping, with everything aboard her having a life of its own: the hanging oil lamps swinging, small articles sliding this way and that with the motion of the vessel, the water sloshing in the brass-bound firebuckets, and over all the rattle of the sails in the breeze, the ceaseless creak and groan of rope straining against wood; and, eternally, the slap and hiss of the sea against the curved hull cutting its way through the waves. My husband’s watch hung on its chain on the white painted wall at the head of the bed; as I kneel here on my prie-Dieu before the carved crucifix, I seem still to hear its loud ticking in my ears, as I heard it through those long, long sleepless nights: ticking away the little time left for me to pray his soul back out of the limbo of his present penance into the eternal light. Be merciful, oh God!—for his sins arose from those passions which You implanted in his body, against which even his fear and respect for his Maker proved at last too frail… Can You hold him responsible, most merciful Lord?—for sins committed when surely his mind was no longer the sane mind of the man who had loved and feared You all his life. For truly in his heart and soul, until his mind betrayed him, my husband, Benjamin Briggs, was a Godfearing man…

  Lying sleepless there through the long nights with the log of his body lying beside me, asleep or waking I cared not—should I not have known? In all that small, enclosed world of sound and movement, should I not have recognised that not every sound, not every movement was part of the ceaseless sound and movement of a speeding ship? But we came at last into a calm—and then I knew.

  It was very strange, that sudden calm at sea. All at once—quietness. All at once—stillness. All sails spread but no straining and bellying out before the’ thrusting wind, the rigging slack and uncomplaining, the whole ship steady and motionless; and stretching limitless the glassy green of the sea, no white spray now, only a gently undulating movement as though beneath the stretched surface, a myriad dolphins heaved with their rounded backs and never broke through. The crew were set to scrubbing and polishing, the decks were white again with their lines of dark caulking, the brass shone like gold. We had been now seventeen days at sea and come two thousand miles and much of the time had been fairly rough going; so that, though no sailor likes a calm, especially when he has a journey to complete with a cargo to deliver—there was perhaps a feeling of respite, a period for ‘catching up’ on work to bring the ship into the sort of order Captain Briggs required of her. We had perhaps eight hundred miles more to sail; and he may have looked forward to bringing her in as ship-shape as she had been when she sailed—yet another high mark against the name of a master famed for his care for his ships.

  And in Honey Mary there reigned also, in these latter days, a sort of calm. Should I not have known?

  For on that night—the night of November 23rd—is it sixty?—seventy?—years ago—I heard a creaking and a movement that was not part of the natural sounds of a moving ship. And I knew then. My husband, alert to every smallest detail that might affect his vessel, stirred in his sleep, forced himself to wakefulness, raised himself on his elbow and said: ‘What was that?’

  ‘I heard nothing,’ I said, lying.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘I’ve been wide awake. There’s been nothing. Not a sound.’

  He rose, nevertheless, went to the cabin door, listened intently. Sick to the depths of my heart I prayed, ‘Let them keep quiet!’ He left the doorway, I heard his feet pad across the saloon, he must have gone up the companion and slid aside the door. His voice called out, low, to the man idling at the wheel: ‘Is all well?’

  ‘Ay, ay, sir. Not a breath of wind.’

  An English voice; it must have been Richardson on the watch. Something in my heart was glad. My husband returned. He got back into the bed—he slept on the outer side of the broad bunk, and said: ‘It was part of my dream.’ He dreamed a lot in those days, tossing and moaning in his sleep. But now we lay in silence, only the watch tick-ticking above our heads.

  I slept at last: was startled awake by a violent oath, my husband leapt out of the bunk and, in his nightshirt, rushed across and flung back the cabin door. I scrambled out and followed him. The door of the chief mate’s cabin where Mary slept was half closed; and the second mate, Gilling, who was standing at the foot of the companion-way up out of the saloon, turned back.

  My husband yelled out his name in a violent command; and the door of the cabin opened wide and Mary stood there, with her bright hair tumbled back over her shoulders and her wicked, mischievous, half-horrified, half-triumphant face. And she was naked.

  My mind was numbed with terror, what time passed I could not tell; as I stood there in the doorway, words thundered between the two men, my husband black with outrage, the mate in a sort of defiant bravado: I see only in my mind’s eye that ivory figure standing there with her head flung back and all the golden hair curling about her splendid shoulders—laughing. He cried to her to close the door upon her shame, I know; cursed at the man Gilling, vilifying him as a foul, Godless lecher—and she called back to him that he had seen her thus before, had he not? and made no objection then—and Gilling laughed also then and said that he’d done no more than the Master had before him, as now it seemed… And the time passed, or no time passed, I couldn’t say; but there was a sort of blackness, a faintness, and then suddenly my husband was standing towering over me. ‘You knew of this! You’ve known of it all along! When I asked you if you heard the sounds of his creeping to her bed, you answered—no…’ And because the man stood defiant, I suppose, and because the woman stood naked and he dared not approach her, all his fear and wrath turned themselves upon me, crouching there helpless, clinging to the edge of the doorway, trembling, shuddering, a pitiful, guilty thing. ‘Did you not know of it?’ he yelled at me, standing over me there. ‘Did you not hear him come to her? Did you not lie to me…?’ I could not answer him: and for a second time he lifted his hand to me.

  She came out of her cabin. She had flung about her body the cashmere shawl as some sort of cover for her nakedness. Gilling had started forward but she came up to us first. She caught at the upraised arm, pressing her body against him so that in shame he could not force his arm down against her slighter strength as he might otherwise have done. ‘You thing of filth!’ she said to him. ‘You craven creature, choosing the small and defenceless to wreak your vengeance on! Well—you’ve done for yourself now!’ And she stood away from him, triumphant. ‘I swore I’d make no trouble for you—while you left this poor girl unharmed. That no longer holds good. So, Master Briggs, look out for yourself! For you shall pay—and pay—and pay!’ She turned and left us. ‘Go back to your bed, Sarah,’ she said, turning at the cabin door, ‘lie down and try to rest yourself, poor little thing! He’ll not interfere with you.’ And to Gilling: ‘Get back up on deck. Tell the men, tell them anything you like. He took me, back in New York, rolled with me like an animal on the floor of my room and me as naked as I stand before you now! Captain Morehouse bet with me and I won. Tell all the men; no promises of mine hold good any more. From now on, Honey Mary is free of this ship; and he’ll pay and pay

  Even now I crept forward. I said to her, imploring: ‘Mary! Have mercy! What harm has he done to you?’

  ‘He is a craven creature,’ she said. ‘He makes me sick.’ She went back into the cabin and slammed-to the door.

  I crept back into my own cabin, huddled on the bed, crouched there in my decent long flannel nightgown with its high neck, edged with a little frill of its own flannel, scallop-edged, feather-stitched on, with its full sleeves gathered at the wrist. No man but my husband had seen me in my nightgown before and he only as I scampered across the room, wriggled out of my wrapper, then hastily crawled into bed lest I appear indecent in his eyes… (Indecent! When you think of what was to come!) And now… He came into the room. He stood there, his face grey against the creeping of the dawn through the glass above his head: his eyes black as coals and his black, jutting beard
. He said: ‘Did you see her stand there?—naked. Did you see her stand there with her body naked, unashamed?’ And he fell to his knees at the small central table and put his head in his hands and cried out aloud: ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’ I didn’t know whether he cried out or whether he prayed. And if he prayed—what it was that he prayed for? I didn’t know whether he prayed because once he had held that naked body in his arms; or, in the depths of his soul, that he might do so again. I think he did not know himself what prayer he prayed.

  CHAPTER XI

  A COWARD ALWAYS WAS her charge against him; but he was perhaps not wholly a coward then. For when at last he rose from his knees, his mind had been made up to a course of action which I think had nothing in it of cowardice. ‘Sarah,’ he said, ‘I shall dress now and then wait in the saloon for you. Dress yourself as quickly as you can; and then come to me there.’ (To think that husband and wife should undress and dress together in the same room—even at such a time, unimaginable!) I did as he bade me. When I came to the saloon, some breakfast had been placed upon the table. No one else was there. He ate steadily while I tried to choke down some crumb to sustain me for the day of dread ahead of me; we drank our mugs of bitter coffee; the ship made no movement, whatever storms raged within the hearts of men, in the boundless vasts of nature all about us, no breeze stirred. When he had done he wiped his lips and beard carefully, looked me over critically, took me by the wrist and led me up to the deck. Goodschaad was at the wheel. My husband went up and took over from him. He said: ‘Summon the men. Wake up any that are sleeping; muster the whole crew before me here.’

  Richardson, the first mate, came before the rest. He ran up the two or three steps that led to the poop deck. He said: ‘I’m sorry there should be this trouble. It’s been none of my making, sir. I stand by your orders.’

  ‘You were here,’ my husband said to him. ‘You saw the man go down to the saloon.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Richardson. ‘I saw nothing. The wheel moves not a fraction, there’s no need to do more than keep an eye on it. I moved away many times. I didn’t see him go.’

  Now the men began to appear, the four Germans, Martens, Goodschaad and the brothers Lorenzen, the cook, eyes agoggle, and, slouching along behind them, insolent and triumphant, the second mate, Gilling. My husband said to Richardson: ‘Go down and stand with them.’ I had stood by wretchedly, against the rail, silent; now he took me again by the wrist and moved forward the few paces that were all the space between the wheel and the rail of the poop deck. His eye glanced automatically about the ship to see that in the windless calm all attention might for the next few minutes safely be diverted from her. His hand holding my wrist in his tight grip was steady. He said: ‘I have something to say to you.’

  ‘Ve haf hert,’ said Boz Lorenzen, grinning behind his hand.

  My husband ignored him. He said: ‘It has been made known to you now what relations I have had—upon one occasion, ashore in New York—with the whore, Mary Sellers, whom you smuggled aboard this ship, I knowing nothing of it. What you’ve been told is true—or I’ll tell you precisely the truth, in case in the details you have been misled. You all know my reputation: I have tried to live my life as a man who hopes for salvation. But—I am a man. The woman came with false tears and a false story. My wife, in her ignorance, took pity on her. She promised repentance but later she let it be seen by us that for her very bread—or so we understood it—she was driven back to her evil ways. Ask my wife if it was not she who begged me to go to the woman and try to help her once more.’

  So this was why I had been brought here; held here by my wrist as though in a handcuff. I said: ‘Yes. I told him to go.’

  And she stood there, Honey Mary, leaning casually against the edge of the open companion-way door. ‘Trust Adam,’ she said as once she had said before, ‘to put the blame on Eve!’

  There was a snigger among the men: they turned to look at her as she lounged there, in her scarlet dress with its scrolls of bold white braid, the front unbuttoned so that the blue white of the lace-frilled bodice showed against the creamy skin, and the swell of her bosom beneath it; and nestling in her bosom the gleam of the gold cross.

  My husband did not flinch beneath her mocking gaze. He said, ‘I put no blame upon my wife, poor innocent. The blame is upon that woman there, that serpent writhing down the Tree of Life to coil itself about the weakness of a weak and erring man. That I succumbed to her, I acknowledge; I am a man like all of you. Because I try to teach the word of God, that doesn’t make me God—and I’m no less vulnerable than you. I fell. She will tell you vile details of that hour that I spent in her arms—half in heaven, half in the depths of hell. What she tells you may be all true, half true, not true at all—but I confess to the sin, that is all that matters—the serpent tempted me with the forbidden fruit and I did eat. Till now she has blackmailed me with threats; but the weakness of the blackmailer is that when the secret is revealed, then the fangs of the snake are drawn. For the future, she may say what she will. My name will be a byword on the waterfronts of the world—for a little while. Well, I am a man—as a man I fell and as a man I will bear the consequences of that. For yourselves—look upon me with all your eyes and see that I who tried to be strong, was weak; who tried to be Godly, spent an ungodly hour; who tried to be better than other men, was a man. And when you have sneered and sniggered to your fill—be about your business, get back to your work. If in a bad hour I failed to be captain of my soul—not for one moment shall I fail to be Captain of this vessel. And as your Captain, I give you my orders—no one shall have any communication with this woman. She may remain in the cabin she now occupies, food may be put on the table in the saloon and I shall see that she receives it. From now on, she shall be locked in there and in Portugal she shall be put ashore and may do and say what she will: she no longer has any hold over me. So—to your stations: in your duty to your Master and your ship, nothing has changed.’ He let go of my hand, went down from the deck, at the companion-way caught Mary by the wrist and, wordless, forced her down the steps to the saloon, pushed her into the cabin and bolted the door on her. She said not a word; struggled a little in his grasp but was powerless against his man’s strength. But she looked at him, I thought, with a new respect in her eyes: and a new challenge.

  I kept to my cabin all that morning. I knew that he brought down Martens who acted as ship’s carpenter and had a bolt and chain fixed to the outside of the cabin door, so that it would open only enough to pass in the plate of food—she could not now force it further open as she had done before. If she made any fuss or outcry, I heard nothing of it and I think she did not. I refused the midday meal. He brought me a plate to the cabin. ‘You must eat,’ he said. ‘Stay here if you will; but you had no breakfast and you must eat.’

  I was sick, weary, very much afraid; the airlessness was strangely oppressive and, ever intuitive, I had a premonition of some doom to come as yet undreamed of. He was patient and kind. I remembered how once he had seemed to place himself almost upon an equality with God; but, ‘Because I try to teach the word of God,’ he had said to the men, ‘that doesn’t make me God—I am no less vulnerable than you.’ I knew that now that the sin had been confessed and penance done, with more very sure to come, he needed no longer to defend himself with that aura of Godhead, of being something higher than a man. He spoke to me quietly, with no reference to Honey Mary; asked me to play to him a hymn tune or two on the melodeon, was not impatient as I stumbled through. ‘You’ll come to perfection one day,’ he said, ‘and it will be a—tranquillity—to both of us. We must keep our faith steady in our hearts. We must trust in God.’

  If our trust in God is to be dependent upon my playing of a musical instrument, I thought to myself wryly, it will be not very secure. And, made irritable by reaction to the high emotions of that morning, I reverted in my mind to the cause of it all. ‘You forget sometimes that I come from a pastor’s family,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to preach to me of my d
uty to God.’

  He said, very wearily: ‘I’m not preaching to you, Sarah. I daresay I shall preach no more. I shall hardly be thought fit to. Perhaps all I mean is that you must trust in God because you may feel that you can no longer trust in me.’

  ‘It’s not very long,’ I said coldly, ‘since you acted towards me as though you were as God.’

  He said sadly: ‘Well—we both know very well now that that was hardly true.’

  It was strange to know him so subdued and sad and yet my affronted heart could not relent. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Things have not been easy for me in these past weeks. But two months ago, I was a green country girl, from a background of utterly unworldly innocence in adults and children alike. Foolish, vague and ignorant, I was pitchforked without preparation into such a marriage as ours has been. Within a matter of days, I am the boon companion of a whore off the waterfront, and my husband is first God and in the next moment a savage striking me to the ground, and a moment after that, the meekest of the fallen. And what is to follow, God alone knows—and may He have mercy on all of us!’

  ‘If that is a prayer,’ he said, ‘then let us pray!’

  ‘I’ll pray my own prayers,’ I said. ‘I’ll pray for strength to get through such a life as this; and for the life hereafter, I will pray for my soul.’