Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  The Lively Peggy — and never had she sat the water more buoyantly, never had her graceful lines done old Budgen’s skill more credit — was still the better part of a league from land. But moment by moment she glided nearer, her courses and topsails set to catch the light breeze, her flags flying gaily at peak and bowsprit. Hearts swelled at the sight. The crowd cheered and cheered again, as she slid on — surely one of the most beautiful of man’s creations, a brig under sail. But it was not so much at her — after a single fond look of appreciation — that the men for the most part gazed. A cable’s length behind her, with the Union flag flying above the tricolour, a brig that looked twice the Peggy’s burden sailed in her wake, and as experienced eyes measured her and gauged her beam, men clapped one another on the back, and swore and stamped their feet in triumph. Here was a proud day for Beremouth! Old salts cursed Ozias in quaint affectionate phrases, and even Budgen seemed for the moment a thing of beauty, a benefactor, the town’s worthy son!

  “She be a hundred and twenty if she be five,” swore an old hand, eyeing the prize with envy. “And out of Nantes by the lines of her! Ay, she be a beauty!”

  “And brandy!” cried another. “I do know by the look of her ! Right stuff, and hogsheads and hogsheads of it. Well done, Ozias, d — n his eyes! He’s the Devon lad’s Ozias!”

  “Dy’e see her splinters!” shouted a third, and seized and shook his neighbour to gain his attention. “D’ye see the white wood? Why, I can see it this far off, you blind fool! They’ve had to fight for her! Please God she ha’n’t cost lives!”

  Again the deep cheering of the men ran along the wall as the Peggy fired a gun, and bowing gracefully to the breeze began to go about, that she might heave to, half a mile from the Cove where was deep water. Ashore were laughing and weeping, both; and above both the deep voices of the bells flung the joyful news across the smiling countryside. Men, satisfied that they could now be seen from the decks, waved their hats, women their kerchiefs, and many, carried away by their enthusiasm, climbed on the giddy eminence of the wall and there danced and shouted, while their wives gripped their coat-tails and prayed them to come down.

  “Good old Ozias! Good old Ozias!” they yelled, thinking to make themselves heard across six furlongs of air and sea.

  No thought of bride and bridegroom now, though doubtless they were somewhere in the throng. And no thought of the Rector save that he would be pleased, for his concern in the venture was known. “Budgen will be drunk to-night,” said one. “And by G — d we’ll all be drunk! Can you spell her name, Joe?”

  The speaker addressed one who had miraculously produced a glass. “Ay, ay, La-la Bel-dam, I read it, whatever it means. Lord, what a lingo! Seems all swearing. But you be right, lad. There’s brandy in her for sure. She’ve the lines of it.”

  The crowd began to break away, the leaders across the churchyard towards the stairs and the path that led to the Cove. The main body followed, hot-foot and eager to meet the first boat that came off and to learn the facts. But here and there among those who ran, might be seen an anxious face and scared eyes, for after all the news might be sad news for some. There might be empty bunks and missing numbers, and presently the sound of weeping in humble dwellings by the quay. There might be those who had gone out who had not returned and who would never again prop themselves in the sunshine against the capstans on the jetty or go out with the fishing boats at dawn. But still — a prize! And a prize meant money to spend and to scatter and to drink, a nest-egg against the coming of winter, shoes for children, finery for girls! It meant a small fortune for some, and leavings for many, and easy times in the little port.

  So, though here and there a woman ran, panting and sick with fear, or an old man covered his mouth with his hand that it might not be seen to twitch, the bells still pealed merrily overhead, and many took up the chorus of “God bless Great George our King!” that the clerk started. Scrambling, running, falling, Beremouth streamed down to the Cove, invaded Budgen’s sheds, thrust Budgen himself from hand to hand, smote him on the back, shouted congratulations in his ears, cursed him drolly, stared with eager eyes to where the Peggy was coming up to her moorings. She dipped her ensign in salute. A boat left her quarter.

  CHAPTER XII

  “AND do you come with me,” Charlotte Bicester urged, as she turned to Augusta.

  But Augusta only raised her eyebrows. “You are ridiculous,” she said. “If you thought before you spoke, Charlotte, you would know that without my father’s permission, I cannot.”

  “Then go to him and get it!”

  “Impossible, my dear. Sir Albery must see that it is.”

  The three, abandoned by the ebb of the crowd, stood in the angle of the churchyard wall that overlooked the Cove. They could see, below them, the Peggy and her capture, and hear the rattle of the anchor-chain of the latter as it slid through the hawse-hole. The murmur of the people in the Cove rose to them through the sunlit air, and overhead the bells rocked joyously. But for the last three minutes their thoughts had turned to another and, to them, a graver matter.

  If Wyke, silent and reserved, had an opinion, he had no mind to give it. But Charlotte, who had forgotten in her enthusiasm his interest in the matter, persisted. “Well, I shall go,” she declared.

  “Then I think you have neither sense nor delicacy,”

  I Augusta retorted. “But I do not believe that you mean it. Depend upon it, if you do, you will hear of it from your mother.”

  “That is between my mother and me,” Charlotte replied with spirit. “After all, my dear, here they are, and here I suppose they will stay. At any rate

  I know nothing to the contrary. And is no one to go near them? Peggy has — has not behaved well,” she admitted, remembering too late Sir Albery’s position, while her rising colour betrayed her embarrassment. “But she has not run away with a man without marrying him. She has married without her father’s consent, and married beneath her. And I don’t say that — that she is not to be blamed,” she added, feeling Sir Albery’s eyes upon her. “I admit it. But that is not my affair. I have no doubt that she has been to see you, Augusta?”

  “I did not see her.”

  “Well, I think you ought to! Of course I think you ought to! When you meet her in the street do you mean to pass her by? Are you going to ignore your own sister?”

  “I shall obey my father,” Augusta replied, confident that Sir Albery must agree with her. “He feels my sister’s desertion so deeply, that if I, too, am to disobey him, and to take sides against him — No, I cannot and I will not,” Augusta repeated with energy. “I am not heartless, though you may think me so, Charlotte. But my first duty is to my father. My sister has been guilty of most cruel conduct. She left us without a word of warning, or one reason given. She has preferred to us, and to her duty, a man of bad name and disgraceful character. You cannot deny it, and how can you expect my father to overlook it? Or that I should side with her against him, and add a fresh blow to one that has wounded him so deeply?”

  “I think that Miss Portnal is right,” Wyke agreed. “Her position is difficult.” He thought that the Bicester girl might have spared him this.

  “Well,” Charlotte admitted, “there is something in that. Until your father relents I allow you cannot. But if I were in your place I’d see that he relented pretty quickly, my dear. I should not rest an hour until I had persuaded him.”

  Augusta shrugged her shoulders. “You talk like a child,” she said. “Time may do much. But I know my father, and that to argue with him now, would only make things worse.”

  Wyke nodded. “I think Miss Portnal is right,” he said. He was suffering though he did not show it, and he was vexed with Charlotte for putting him on the rack: it was thoughtless, it was obtuse of the girl. And Charlotte knew this, and could have bitten out her tongue for her folly. But Augusta never failed to rub her the wrong way, and even now, though she knew that she ought to drop the matter, she could not. “Well, at any rate,” she said, “
I am free to take my own course, and I shall. I shall go and see them now.”

  “If you take my advice you will do nothing of the kind,” Augusta rejoined, thinking what a fool Charlotte was making of herself. “In my opinion you will be far from welcome. They will only think that you come out of curiosity, and every moment that you spend with Peggy will be a moment of humiliation to her. If her eyes are not already open to her folly I am much mistaken; and I know this at least, my dear, that if I had done what she has done, my one desire would be to hide myself.”

  But Charlotte was obstinate. “Well,” she said, “we shall see. I think I know her better than you do, though she is your sister.”

  Augusta turned to Sir Albery: “I won’t ask you to come in to-day,” she said. Her tone implied that she, at any rate, had some tact and delicacy.

  “No,” he said. “I fear that there may be bad news for some.” He indicated the crowd below by a gesture. “I may be of use.”

  After another word or two they parted. Augusta turned towards the rectory, Wyke took the road to the town, while Charlotte made for the path that descended to the Cove.

  She went, but not in a happy mood. She knew that her feelings had run away with her, and she regretted much that she had said. But she had gone too far to retreat, and though she dreaded what her mother would say, she went on. She had heard such unpleasant things of the old Captain, that she was prepared to be shocked by him. He might not be sober, and for his home — well! For the younger man she had taken up the cudgels more than once; to take up the cudgels for the weak was a thing to which Charlotte was prone. But she had never regarded him as an equal, and her sympathy had its spice of condescension. His dismissal from the Navy was bad, and this last escapade, which convicted him of a selfishness that it was hard for one who loved Peggy to forgive, was worse. For Peggy, her youth, her innocence, and her inexperience, all spoke — but all indicted him. His temptation might have been great, but he could not be acquitted of dragging down the girl whom he professed to love. To what a level he had dragged her Charlotte trembled to think — and was now to discover.

  As she turned the last corner, and came in sight of the cottage that Peggy — Peggy, the spoiled, the wilful, the mischievous, who might have reigned at Upper Bere — now called her home, Charlotte’s feet lagged. She took in at a glance its thatched roof and whitewashed walls — in her eyes it was little better than a hovel — and she faltered in her purpose. Then, Charlotte-like, she told herself that the worse the conditions the greater the need of friends, and she determined that she would not be shocked. She went on bravely, she pushed the gate open and tapped at the door.

  Nothing happened. “They are not in,” Charlotte thought, and she came near to hoping that they might not be. “They may be down at the Cove,” she reflected. Still she rapped again. At any rate she would do her part.

  A light step, pattering down bare stairs, dispelled the hope, if hope it was. The door opened, and Peggy-appeared on the threshold. When she saw who it was she blushed — blushed to her very tucker as their eyes met.

  “Oh, Peggy!” Charlotte said, and that was all. The words conveyed a hundred things.

  “You dear!” Peggy replied, and the next instant the two girls were in one another’s arms. “You dear! You dear!” Peggy repeated, hugging her friend. “Then you have not cast me off!”

  “Silly!” Charlotte said, her doubts and her fears forgotten. “Why, I have come to call, and I haven’t lost time, you see. May I come in?”

  “If you are not afraid!” Peggy rejoined, between laughter and tears. “Come in, my dear! Come in! I am quite alone. Charles and his father are at the Cove. Charles thought that he might be of use. But they may be back at any moment.”

  Charlotte tried to look about her as she entered as if she did not look. But she saw and was relieved. Poor, plain, and bare the room was, with its whitewashed walls and brick floor. But it was neither sordid nor ugly, it was clean as a pink, and tidy as sailors cribbed in a tiny space learn to keep a cabin. The knives on the small round table, laid for dinner, were horn-handled, the forks two-pronged, but the coarse cloth was clean and a mug of wild-flowers set off the whole. The Byzantine enamel blended indifferently with the wooden chairs and the shells on the mantelshelf, but it made a spot of colour on the wall, and the sword slung above the fireplace added a note of dignity. Even for the carpenter’s bench in the corner neatness pleaded.

  Relieved, Charlotte hugged Peggy again. “You naughty, naughty girl!”

  “Woman, miss, if you please!” Peggy rejoined, colouring and laughing. Then, “Dear Charlotte! To come and see me, and so soon!”

  “But, oh, Peggy, what a thing you’ve done!”

  Charlotte exclaimed. They were both a little embarrassed now that the first greeting was past. “What a reckless, reckless thing, my dear! And what a talk you have caused!”

  “And I don’t repent it — that!” Peggy cried, snapping her fingers, and then to hide her confusion she hid her face on Charlotte’s shoulder.

  “Well, I know I ought to scold you,” Charlotte replied. “So you must consider yourself scolded, Peggy, but—”

  “But here is my excuse!” And the one thing that the other most dreaded happened. A form darkened the doorway, and Charles Bligh entered, followed by his father The moment was a trying moment for more than one; the old Captain seemed to grow actually smaller at sight of the visitor, while Charlotte was a little out of countenance herself. It was Charles who saved the situation. He stepped forward with an assurance that the girl thought overdone, but then his part was not easy to play. “This is kind of you, Miss Bicester,” he said. “You have come to see Peggy. I think you know my father? We have been down at the Cove. It was a fine piece of luck for us that the brig came in this morning.”

  “Why?” Charlotte asked, somewhat at sea. “Have you an interest in her?”

  He smiled. “In her, no. But in anything that gives Beremouth something to talk about — a great interest!”

  “I see,” Charlotte said — a little awkwardly. “Of course.”

  “It’s a good prize,” he resumed, deftly turning the conversation from themselves. “A really good prize, deep-laden, and brandy mainly. But they will be wise if they shift what are left of the French crew out of her. There will not be one man in five sober in Beremouth to-night, and anything may happen. Never trust a Frenchman, Miss Bicester.”

  “You have had experience?” Charlotte was beginning to feel more at her ease.

  “Well, I suppose we should do the same, given the chance. But I’ve said a word to Budgen, and he will see to it, no doubt.” He turned to Peggy and, with a coolness that took her friend’s breath away, “Perhaps, if you put it very nicely, Peggy,” he said, “Miss Bicester would honour us by being our first guest? It is Sunday” — he looked drolly at Charlotte—” and not a Banyan day, as we sailors say. So we are not afraid to ask you.”

  “Oh, Charlotte, do!” Peggy cried, colouring with pleasure. “Say you will. Please do.”

  It was the last thing that Charlotte had dreamed of doing, and she would have given much to escape, for to comply was to sink into deeper trouble at home. But she had no excuse ready, she felt her cheeks grow hot under the young man’s shrewd eyes, and while she hesitated Peggy’s pleading look prevailed, she took the leap, and was lost. “You are very good,” she said. Slowly she began to take off her gloves.

  “Then it is time that my father and I dished up,” Charles replied, as if this were the most usual thing in the world. “A soldier and a sailor are equal to most jobs, Miss Bicester, but you will see what comes of it. My father takes the potatoes and gravy, and I am answerable for the shoulder of mutton. Peggy—”

  “Lays the table,” Peggy chimed in, as gay as a lark. “And is under-cook — a learner!”

  “But is off duty to-day. Come, father,” Charles laid his hand affectionately on the Captain’s shoulder, “let us show Miss Bicester what two seasoned hands can do.”

&n
bsp; He carried it off so well that when the two girls were left alone Charlotte laughed. She cast aside disguise. “Peggy, Peggy!” she said. “Your young man is too clever for me! But how I shall catch it at home.”

  “But isn’t he a dear?”

  “A clever dear? He is indeed. Too much for me. But I shall beware of him another time. I begin to understand, Peggy.”

  “What, dear? What do you understand?”

  “How he won his wife,” Charlotte said. She let her eyes rove round the room. “Who works at the bench?”

  “Captain Bligh. He makes models of ships, and Charles rigs them. And they sell them at Plymouth, for thirty shillings apiece, the large ones. I am to sew the sails, and read to them while they work. But, oh, my dear,” Peggy continued, her face growing serious, “how am I to get my clothes?”

  “From home?”

  “Yes. You see, Charles went to the Rectory as soon as we returned — he would not let me; he said it was for him to bear the brunt. But they would not see him. Then he let me go. I was dreadfully frightened, but he said it was for us to make it up if we could. But Augusta would not see me, and he will not let me do any more. He says we must leave it to time.” Peggy’s face was grave enough now. “Only you see I have no clothes, and I cannot afford to buy new ones.”

  Charlotte considered. “I think I should write to Augusta and ask her to have them packed and sent to you.”

  “I might do that. I must, I suppose. But” — she put her hand shyly into Charlotte’s—” it is better than you expected, dear, isn’t it?” she pleaded.

  “Ever so much better,” Charlotte answered. “How two men can be so neat and keep everything in its place, I cannot imagine!”

  “It’s habit, they say. But if you knew them, you would understand.” Then, “It’s a dear little place,” she cried, suddenly glowing. “You must not suppose that I think I am to be pitied. I am not.”

  “No,” Charlotte replied gravely, “and I hope you never may be. But — it is early days yet, my dear.”