Captain Adam (10 page)

"There are laws against murder in London, Captain."

"I'll do it fair. I'll call him out."

She started to laugh, but she sobered when she saw how much he meant it. She leaned even closer, dropped her voice, touched his arm.

"You must not even think of it. What's done is done. You know what they say—Tou can't unscramble scrambled eggs.' You couldn't win me 62

anything back, Captain, though it's a thought full of sweetness. Look at it that way. And besides, Jervis is an experienced swordsman. He's fenced all his life. While you—oh, it isn't your fault, I'm not saying that!—but probably you have never had a real sword in your hand."

"I'll learn," Adam muttered. "I'll take lessons."

They leapt into their acquaintanceship with an avidity that astonished both, as if they had been waiting years to get at one another. There was no reconnoitering, such as might have been expected; nor did either sniff the air, test the wind. They just sat down beside one another and talked —and talked.

He told her about his mother, "the Duchess," and how the townspeople had disliked her and still made fun of her memor}\

"I asked you, a while back, if you was homesick. Now, the good Lord help us, I'm asking myself the same question." He waggled his hands. "How can a vian that's never had a ho-ine he homesick? But I am."

One night he mentioned bundling, and she, piqued, asked for details. Adam had assumed that she didn't bundle, but he was amazed to learn that she had never even heard of the practice.

"It's mostly a matter of saving tallow. Firewood, too. It's for poor folks —but then, we're most all poor folks in Newport."

"But in the summer—"

"Summer's the worst. Ain't much sparking then. Days're so long. Sunup to sundown folks work—men, women, kids. That don't leave much time to sleep. Bundling's for winter. They sit up in front of the fire a while, and then the old folks say good night, and pretty soon the girl she gets up and says she's going to bed, too, and he gives her a little time, the young man that's sparking her, and then he blows out the candle and goes and gets in with her. But he gives her a little time first."

"To let her hair down? To get undressed?"

"Wouldn't know about her hair. I guess that's depending on how she feels. But she don't get undressed. I told you that. And neither does he. They just get under the blankets the way they are."

"Shoes, too?"

"Well, I wouldn't know. I reckon if they're finical they might take their shoes off. Can't see's it makes much difference."

"It might to the servant who has to wash the sheets."

"Don't have sheets."

"The blankets then."

"That'd be the girl herself anyway. If she don't squawk, no reason why anybody else should."

"And how long does he stay? All night?"

"If she lets him and he wants to."

"If she lets him what?"

"Lets him stay all night. But most likely he gets out around midnight. Depending on how far away he lives. If it's eight-ten miles, and he's got to walk, and get to work at sunup, he leaves earlier."

"That's real love!"

"Well, sometimes it is and sometimes it ain't."

"How does the swain keep his hands to himself?"

"He don't. But all the same, he's got to be careful where he puts 'em. Lots of girls tie their skirt and petticoat down at the bottom, over their shoes."

" 'Tis said love laughs at locksmiths."

"Course, she knows how to hold him off. She won't let him get in with her again, he don't behave."

"But what do they do, then?"

"Oh, hug and kiss. All like that."

"And what if it gets too much for both of them?"

"Well, likely enough, it begins to work up to that, the mother or father will call out and tell 'em to stop."

"From the next room, you mean?"

"If they're in the next room."

"If they're—"

"Might be in the same room, of course. We don't have so many rooms in our houses as an English earl, ma'am. Tarnation, they might even be in the same hedl Lots of times they are."

He could feel her scan his face then, and he knew what she was thinking. She feared she was being gulled. Of all matters not pertaining to fashionable London she was singularly ignorant; and being young, and alone, a woman, she hesitated. Indeed Lady Maisie often, even in the course of these little chats on the afterdeck, seemed tense as though to repel laughter—or to counterattack with it. The folks she was brought up among, the way Adam figured it, must have been forever trying to find some excuse for jeering at other folks. She did not have to worry about that with him, as she was learning. It could be that here was one reason she liked so much to talk with him. For she did like it. He knew that.

"I, uh, I don't want to sound libidinous. Captain."

"No."

"And I know this ain't maidenly. But—d'ye mind telling me if it ever happens that the mother and father are asleep, and that cord around the feet, the one that holds the skirt down, breaks?"

"It's been known to. But not so often as you might think."

This was night, which was just as well. The moon hadn't come up 64

yet. They sat close together on the bench Adam had constructed under the awning, backs to the taffrail, and spoke in whispers, so that the man at the tiller couldn't hear: it was John Bond. The day had been a scorcher, and the deck still glowed, throwing up heat like something made of metal.

"Then what do they do?"

"Well, just what you'd expect."

"Yes?"

"And then they wait and see if she's going to have a baby, and if she is, they get married."

"Always?"

"Pretty near. If they don't get married before she has the baby, they do right afterward. And the way folks figure, it's no sin."

"Provided they get married, you mean?"

"Oh, sure. They got to do that."

She studied this a moment, her head down, staring at the tar that still bubbled, if sluggishly, in the deck seams.

"Have you ever—bundled?"

It caught him off guard, though there's no reason why it should have. He gulped. He gave a short laugh.

"Me? Who'd want me?"

She said almost coldly: "I'm sure I don't know why not?" And it came to him that she didn't believe him.

"No money," he said, trying to make it sound light. "No property. I'll have it some day, but not yet."

"Lord ha' mercy! Must you shove your accounting books ahead of you, to prove you're solvent, every time you climb into bed with a wench?"

He came near to snapping at her then. He felt like shouting that it was all very well for her—that could talk about losing fifty thousand pounds—to make light of the need for money. Why, there wasn't as much as fifty thousand pounds in cash and property, he didn't reckon, in the whole Colony of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations. And she could just mislay it, and yet-But he didn't snap. He swallowed furtively, and even produced a laugh.

"Well, anyway. I never did bundle," he said.

"You certainly seem to know a might about it."

"We talk about it, back there. All sorts of folks. It ain't thought any sin or shame, not any more'n the way you and I're talking now."

"No," softer. "No, I see nothing wrong with the way we're talking now."

"Neither'n I do, ma'am."

He did not make any mention of Deborah Selden, not any more than he did of Elnathan Evans. Matter of fact, he scarcely thought of them these days.

Adam did not do all the talking. For long spells, for hours, she would run on about London. He had a heap of curiosity about London, and prodded her with questions; but he had to admit that though he listened to her carefully he couldn't make a great deal of sense out of what she said. She made more mention of people than of places, and she supposed, it'd seem, that he knew them well or at least had always heard of them. She caught herself up, apologetically, sometimes; and she would under-breathe of "Archie" that he was the Marquis of This, or of "Polly" that she was the Countess of That, rattling on self-consciously afterward as if she feared that he might think her condescending.

She seemed to know some pretty exalted folks, but she never mentioned the Earl of Tillinghast. Neither did he.

Though he tried, he did not truly learn much about the fifty thousand pounds. It, or property of about that value, had been left to her by her father, the late Earl of Ellison. She had no brother, no sister. The title, together with the seat, were held now by a cousin she didn't like—and who didn't like her. This cousin and certain others, a handful of dishonest lawyers, too, had somehow held back or grabbed the entire sum. "My fortune," she sometimes called it—glibly, immediately, too, as though it were a snuffbox or some similar small article, something that, having been misplaced, might at any moment be found again.

Adam pondered this, as he pondered many matters in those days and nights of trying to get up through the Windward Passage; but he noticed little else, so that late in the afternoon of the ninth day out of Jamaica when he saw the delegation coming aft to talk with him, he was rocked on his heels and not ready.

As soon as he saw them he knew what the trouble was.

UNot only was there no manner of quarterdeck or poop, but the traditional "boundary line" of the mainmast was not respected aboard Goodwill to Men. Anyone who wanted to go aft for any reason at all, even if it was only to stretch his legs, was free to do so. Because their quarters were back there—or until recently had been—and also because the after end of the deck was the best place from which to give orders, it was thought of as primarily the domain of Captain Long, Mate Forbes, and to a lesser extent the bosun, Jethro Gardner. 66

However, there was usually a seaman at the tiller, and like as not he'd have another hand perched on the taffrail nearby in order to carry on a gam with him. This wasn't sacred, this territory.

All the same, when he saw the whole crew coming toward him, Adam knew that it was a deputation, not a coincidence. There was a purpose-fulness about the party that couldn't be mistaken. They might have been marching to music.

They were all there except Resolved Forbes, who had just been relieved by his skipper and had no doubt turned in.

Had they picked a time when the mate was asleep? Or was that chance?

They all nodded, and the Rellison boy touched his cap.

Adam didn't say anything.

How in Tofhet could I've missed this? he was asking himself. It must have been making up for days—and m,e bunking there!

Abel Rellison went to the tiller, as he was in duty-bound to do at this hour; but it was plain from the way he had walked aft vidth them and the way he faced them now, that he was part of it.

Jeth Gardner was not part of it, though he was there. He stayed a bit to one side. He was troubled, and kept watching Adam, to whom it was clear that the bosun, though sympathizing with the men, still thought of himself as an officer and was not going to have any part of any remonstrance.

Carl Peterson and Eb Waters were there. They had been released after only a couple of days in irons. They were not obliged to work, though they could work if they felt like it. They were not drawing any pay now.

John Bond was there, shuffling from foot to foot, striving to look grim, actually unsure of himself, side-watching Seth Selden for a cue.

Seth was the ringleader. That was obvious. Seth ordinarily went out of his way to be informal with the skipper, taking advantage of his age and of the fact that he owned a lay in the schooner. But today he was angry. He cleared his throat.

"Cap'n, we want to speak to you."

Adam nodded. He glanced toward the scuttle. It was open a trifle. It'd have to be. There was no port in that cabin, and if the slide was fully closed for long in weather like this, Maisie'd stifle down there. Unless she was asleep now she could not help overhearing everything.

"Captain, we demand that you put back for Jamaica and discharge our passenger."

"Oh, you do, eh?"

"We do."

"You demand it?"

"Yes, sir."

"I am the master ot this vessel," said Adam.

Me should be seething. Instead he felt only sorrow—sorrow for the end of those talks here on the afterdeck. They had been such a comfort! Why was it that they had to cease? He looked around him, nodding thoughtfully, studying their faces; and he saw clearly that, come what may, he and Lady Maisie would never again be permitted the childish delight in one another's company they had known these past nine days. That's exactly what it had been, too—childish. It was innocent. He wondered whether these men, his hands, thought it was anything else. The Seth Selden who faced him had, again, a bobbing Adam's apple, an out-jutting chin that suggested a pumphandle: this was the meetinghouse Seth Selden, not the scamp off soundings. Acid was in his eyes; flint clipped along the edges of his voice.

Adam hooked his thumbs into the top of his breeches. His feet were spread—though the truth is. Goodwill barely moved, having found a dead spot in the air just off the eastern tip of Cuba.

"When I need advice," Adam added, "I'll ask for it."

Nobody moved. Indeed, even the schooner, which had been shushing along languidly enough, as though striving to listen to this talk, slid to an utter, soundless stop; and the canvas, no longer spottily filling and falling, hung lank entirely.

Seth Selden took a step toward the skipper. Adam did not double his fist. With one blow he could have knocked Deborah's uncle clear into the sea; but he forbore.

Truth is, he admired Seth Selden in just that moment. Seth made him think of the screeching prophets of the Book, the men who were always scolding folks. Those men could not have been very pleasant company; you wouldn't want to pull up a stool and have a gam with any of them; but they possessed magnificence—Amos, Ezekial, Habakkuk Jeremiah, all the rest.

"That woman"—and a bony forefinger went toward the hatch slide as though Seth were hurling a javelin—"/xas you bewitched!"

Adam swallowed, holding himself. His chin rested on his chest. He did not look down at the deck, for that might have seemed cowhearted, but neither did he look directly at Seth Selden, afraid that a sight of the man's quivering face would cause rage to leap uncontrollably within him.