CHAPTER II
I would have gladly dispensed with the mournful opportunity of
becoming acquainted by sight with all my fellow-captains at once.
However I found my way to the cemetery. We made a considerable
group of bareheaded men in sombre garments. I noticed that those
of our company most approaching to the now obsolete sea-dog type
were the most moved--perhaps because they had less "manner" than
the new generation. The old sea-dog, away from his natural
element, was a simple and sentimental animal. I noticed one--he
was facing me across the grave--who was dropping tears. They
trickled down his weather-beaten face like drops of rain on an old
rugged wall. I learned afterwards that he was looked upon as the
terror of sailors, a hard man; that he had never had wife or chick
of his own, and that, engaged from his tenderest years in deep-sea
voyages, he knew women and children merely by sight.
Perhaps he was dropping those tears over his lost opportunities,
from sheer envy of paternity and in strange jealousy of a sorrow
which he could never know. Man, and even the sea-man, is a
capricious animal, the creature and the victim of lost
opportunities. But he made me feel ashamed of my callousness. I
had no tears.
I listened with horribly critical detachment to that service I had
had to read myself, once or twice, over childlike men who had died
at sea. The words of hope and defiance, the winged words so
inspiring in the free immensity of water and sky, seemed to fall
wearily into the little grave. What was the use of asking Death
where her sting was, before that small, dark hole in the ground?
And then my thoughts escaped me altogether--away into matters of
life--and no very high matters at that--ships, freights, business.
In the instability of his emotions man resembles deplorably a
monkey. I was disgusted with my thoughts--and I thought: Shall I
be able to get a charter soon? Time's money. . . . Will that
Jacobus really put good business in my way? I must go and see him
in a day or two.
Don't imagine that I pursued these thoughts with any precision.
They pursued me rather: vague, shadowy, restless, shamefaced.
Theirs was a callous, abominable, almost revolting, pertinacity.
And it was the presence of that pertinacious ship-chandler which
had started them. He stood mournfully amongst our little band of
men from the sea, and I was angry at his presence, which,
suggesting his brother the merchant, had caused me to become
outrageous to myself. For indeed I had preserved some decency of
feeling. It was only the mind which--
It was over at last. The poor father--a man of forty with black,
bushy side-whiskers and a pathetic gash on his freshly-shaved chin-
-thanked us all, swallowing his tears. But for some reason, either
because I lingered at the gate of the cemetery being somewhat hazy
as to my way back, or because I was the youngest, or ascribing my
moodiness caused by remorse to some more worthy and appropriate
sentiment, or simply because I was even more of a stranger to him
than the others--he singled me out. Keeping at my side, he renewed
his thanks, which I listened to in a gloomy, conscience-stricken
silence. Suddenly he slipped one hand under my arm and waved the
other after a tall, stout figure walking away by itself down a
street in a flutter of thin, grey garments:
"That's a good fellow--a real good fellow"--he swallowed down a
belated sob--"this Jacobus."
And he told me in a low voice that Jacobus was the first man to
board his ship on arrival, and, learning of their misfortune, had
taken charge of everything, volunteered to attend to all routine
business, carried off the ship's papers on shore, arranged for the
funeral--
"A good fellow. I was knocked over. I had been looking at my wife
for ten days. And helpless. Just you think of that! The dear
little chap died the very day we made the land. How I managed to
take the ship in God alone knows! I couldn't see anything; I
couldn't speak; I couldn't. . . . You've heard, perhaps, that we
lost our mate overboard on the passage? There was no one to do it
for me. And the poor woman nearly crazy down below there all alone
with the . . . By the Lord! It isn't fair."
We walked in silence together. I did not know how to part from
him. On the quay he let go my arm and struck fiercely his fist
into the palm of his other hand.
"By God, it isn't fair!" he cried again. "Don't you ever marry
unless you can chuck the sea first. . . . It isn't fair."
I had no intention to "chuck the sea," and when he left me to go
aboard his ship I felt convinced that I would never marry. While I
was waiting at the steps for Jacobus's boatman, who had gone off
somewhere, the captain of the Hilda joined me, a slender silk
umbrella in his hand and the sharp points of his archaic,
Gladstonian shirt-collar framing a small, clean-shaved, ruddy face.
It was wonderfully fresh for his age, beautifully modelled and lit
up by remarkably clear blue eyes. A lot of white hair, glossy like
spun glass, curled upwards slightly under the brim of his valuable,
ancient, panama hat with a broad black ribbon. In the aspect of
that vivacious, neat, little old man there was something quaintly
angelic and also boyish.
He accosted me, as though he had been in the habit of seeing me
every day of his life from my earliest childhood, with a whimsical
remark on the appearance of a stout negro woman who was sitting
upon a stool near the edge of the quay. Presently he observed
amiably that I had a very pretty little barque.
I returned this civil speech by saying readily:
"Not so pretty as the Hilda."
At once the corners of his clear-cut, sensitive mouth dropped
dismally.
"Oh, dear! I can hardly bear to look at her now."
Did I know, he asked anxiously, that he had lost the figurehead of
his ship; a woman in a blue tunic edged with gold, the face perhaps
not so very, very pretty, but her bare white arms beautifully
shaped and extended as if she were swimming? Did I? Who would
have expected such a things . . . After twenty years too!
Nobody could have guessed from his tone that the woman was made of
wood; his trembling voice, his agitated manner gave to his
lamentations a ludicrously scandalous flavour. . . . Disappeared at
night--a clear fine night with just a slight swell--in the gulf of
Bengal. Went off without a splash; no one in the ship could tell
why, how, at what hour--after twenty years last October. . . . Did
I ever hear! . . .
I assured him sympathetically that I had never heard--and he became
very doleful. This meant no good he was sure. There was something
in it which looked like a warning. But when I remarked that surely
another figure of a woman could be procured I found myself being
soundly rated for my levity. The old boy flushed pink under his
clear tan as if I had proposed something improper. One could
replace masts, I was told, or a lost rudder--any working part of a
ship; but where was the use of sticking up a new figurehead? What
satisfaction? How could one care for it? It was easy to see that
I had never been shipmates with a figurehead for over twenty years.
"A new figurehead!" he scolded in unquenchable indignation. "Why!
I've been a widower now for eight-and-twenty years come next May
and I would just as soon think of getting a new wife. You're as
bad as that fellow Jacobus."
I was highly amused.
"What has Jacobus done? Did he want you to marry again, Captain?"
I inquired in a deferential tone. But he was launched now and only
grinned fiercely.
"Procure--indeed! He's the sort of chap to procure you anything
you like for a price. I hadn't been moored here for an hour when
he got on board and at once offered to sell me a figurehead he
happens to have in his yard somewhere. He got Smith, my mate, to
talk to me about it. 'Mr. Smith,' says I, 'don't you know me
better than that? Am I the sort that would pick up with another
man's cast-off figurehead?' And after all these years too! The
way some of you young fellows talk--"
I affected great compunction, and as I stepped into the boat I said
soberly:
"Then I see nothing for it but to fit in a neat fiddlehead--
perhaps. You know, carved scrollwork, nicely gilt."
He became very dejected after his outburst.
"Yes. Scrollwork. Maybe. Jacobus hinted at that too. He's never
at a loss when there's any money to be extracted from a sailorman.
He would make me pay through the nose for that carving. A gilt
fiddlehead did you say--eh? I dare say it would do for you. You
young fellows don't seem to have any feeling for what's proper."
He made a convulsive gesture with his right arm.
"Never mind. Nothing can make much difference. I would just as
soon let the old thing go about the world with a bare cutwater," he
cried sadly. Then as the boat got away from the steps he raised
his voice on the edge of the quay with comical animosity:
"I would! If only to spite that figurehead-procuring bloodsucker.
I am an old bird here and don't you forget it. Come and see me on
board some day!"
I spent my first evening in port quietly in my ship's cuddy; and
glad enough was I to think that the shore life which strikes one as
so pettily complex, discordant, and so full of new faces on first
coming from sea, could be kept off for a few hours longer. I was
however fated to hear the Jacobus note once more before I slept.
Mr. Burns had gone ashore after the evening meal to have, as he
said, "a look round." As it was quite dark when he announced his
intention I didn't ask him what it was he expected to see. Some
time about midnight, while sitting with a book in the saloon, I
heard cautious movements in the lobby and hailed him by name.
Burns came in, stick and hat in hand, incredibly vulgarised by his
smart shore togs, with a jaunty air and an odious twinkle in his
eye. Being asked to sit down he laid his hat and stick on the
table and after we had talked of ship affairs for a little while:
"I've been hearing pretty tales on shore about that ship-chandler
fellow who snatched the job from you so neatly, sir."
I remonstrated with my late patient for his manner of expressing
himself. But he only tossed his head disdainfully. A pretty dodge
indeed: boarding a strange ship with breakfast in two baskets for
all hands and calmly inviting himself to the captain's table!
Never heard of anything so crafty and so impudent in his life.
I found myself defending Jacobus's unusual methods.
"He's the brother of one of the wealthiest merchants in the port."
The mate's eyes fairly snapped green sparks.
"His grand brother hasn't spoken to him for eighteen or twenty
years," he declared triumphantly. "So there!"
"I know all about that," I interrupted loftily.
"Do you sir? H'm!" His mind was still running on the ethics of
commercial competition. "I don't like to see your good nature
taken advantage of. He's bribed that steward of ours with a five-
rupee note to let him come down--or ten for that matter. He don't
care. He will shove that and more into the bill presently."
"Is that one of the tales you have heard ashore?" I asked.
He assured me that his own sense could tell him that much. No;
what he had heard on shore was that no respectable person in the
whole town would come near Jacobus. He lived in a large old-
fashioned house in one of the quiet streets with a big garden.
After telling me this Burns put on a mysterious air. "He keeps a
girl shut up there who, they say--"
"I suppose you've heard all this gossip in some eminently
respectable place?" I snapped at him in a most sarcastic tone.
The shaft told, because Mr. Burns, like many other disagreeable
people, was very sensitive himself. He remained as if
thunderstruck, with his mouth open for some further communication,
but I did not give him the chance. "And, anyhow, what the deuce do
I care?" I added, retiring into my room.
And this was a natural thing to say. Yet somehow I was not
indifferent. I admit it is absurd to be concerned with the morals
of one's ship-chandler, if ever so well connected; but his
personality had stamped itself upon my first day in harbour, in the
way you know.
After this initial exploit Jacobus showed himself anything but
intrusive. He was out in a boat early every morning going round
the ships he served, and occasionally remaining on board one of
them for breakfast with the captain.
As I discovered that this practice was generally accepted, I just
nodded to him familiarly when one morning, on coming out of my
room, I found him in the cabin. Glancing over the table I saw that
his place was already laid. He stood awaiting my appearance, very
bulky and placid, holding a beautiful bunch of flowers in his thick
hand. He offered them to my notice with a faint, sleepy smile.
From his own garden; had a very fine old garden; picked them
himself that morning before going out to business; thought I would
like. . . . He turned away. "Steward, can you oblige me with some
water in a large jar, please."
I assured him jocularly, as I took my place at the table, that he
made me feel as if I were a pretty girl, and that he mustn't be
surprised if I blushed. But he was busy arranging his floral
tribute at the sideboard. "Stand it before the Captain's plate,
steward, please." He made this request in his usual undertone.
The offering was so pointed that I could do no less than to raise
it to my nose, and as he sat down noiselessly he breathed out the
opinion that a few flowers improved notably the appearance of a
ship's saloon. He wondered why I did not have a shelf fitted all
round the skylight for flowers in pots to take with me to sea. He
had a skilled workman able to fit up shelves in a day, and he could
procure me two or three dozen good plants--
The tips of his thick, round fingers rested composedly on the edge
of the table on each side of his cup of coffee. His face remained
immovable. Mr. Burns was smiling maliciously to himself. I
declared that I hadn't the slightest intention of turning my
skylight into a conservatory only to keep the cabin-table in a
perpetual mess of mould and dead vegetable matter.
"Rear most beautiful flowers," he insisted with an upward glance.
"It's no trouble really."
"Oh, yes, it is. Lots of trouble," I contradicted. "And in the
end some fool leaves the skylight open in a fresh breeze, a flick
of salt water gets at them and the whole lot is dead in a week."
Mr. Burns snorted a contemptuous approval. Jacobus gave up the
subject passively. After a time he unglued his thick lips to ask
me if I had seen his brother yet. I was very curt in my answer.
"No, not yet."
"A very different person," he remarked dreamily and got up. His
movements were particularly noiseless. "Well--thank you, Captain.
If anything is not to your liking please mention it to your
steward. I suppose you will be giving a dinner to the office-
clerks presently."
"What for?" I cried with some warmth. "If I were a steady trader
to the port I could understand it. But a complete stranger! . . .
I may not turn up again here for years. I don't see why! . . . Do
you mean to say it is customary?"
"It will be expected from a man like you," he breathed out
placidly. "Eight of the principal clerks, the manager, that's
nine, you three gentlemen, that's twelve. It needn't be very
expensive. If you tell your steward to give me a day's notice--"
"It will be expected of me! Why should it be expected of me? Is
it because I look particularly soft--or what?
His immobility struck me as dignified suddenly, his imperturbable
quality as dangerous. "There's plenty of time to think about
that," I concluded weakly with a gesture that tried to wave him
away. But before he departed he took time to mention regretfully
that he had not yet had the pleasure of seeing me at his "store" to
sample those cigars. He had a parcel of six thousand to dispose
of, very cheap.
"I think it would be worth your while to secure some," he added
with a fat, melancholy smile and left the cabin.
Mr. Burns struck his fist on the table excitedly.
"Did you ever see such impudence! He's made up his mind to get
something out of you one way or another, sir."
At once feeling inclined to defend Jacobus, I observed
philosophically that all this was business, I supposed. But my
absurd mate, muttering broken disjointed sentences, such as: "I
cannot bear! . . . Mark my words! . . ." and so on, flung out of
the cabin. If I hadn't nursed him through that deadly fever I
wouldn't have suffered such manners for a single day.
