The Unspeakable Gentleman

by John P. Marquand

  II

  I rode through town that afternoon, and it was not entirely because timehung heavily on my hands. We were proud of our town. The houses were aselegant and substantial as any you could find. Our streets were broadand even. Our walks were paved with brick. There was not a finer tavernthan ours to the north of Boston, or better dressed men frequenting it.Men said in those days that we would be a great seaport; that the worldwould look more and more to that northern Massachusetts river mouth.They had spoken thus of many other harbor towns in the centuries thatmen have gone down to the sea. I think they have been wrong almost asoften as they had predicted. The ships have ceased to sail over the bar.No one heeds the rotting planking of the wharves. The clang of hammersand the sailors' songs have gone, and trade and gain and venture havegone with them.

  Strange, as I recall that afternoon. They were building a new L to thetavern. Tradespeople were busy about their shops. Coaches newly painted,and drawn by well-matched horses, rolled by me. Gentlemen in bright newcoats, servants in new family livery, sailors from the docks, clerks fromthe counting houses, all gave the street a busy air--lent it a pleasantassurance of affluence.

  I was mistaken when I thought I could ride by as a stranger might. Itseemed to me that there was no one too busy to stop and look, to turn andwhisper a word to someone else. They had learned already that I was myfather's son. I could feel a hot flame of anger burning my cheeks, theold, stinging passion of resentment I had felt so often when my father'sname was mentioned. They knew me. Their looks alone told that, but nevera nod, or smile of greeting, marked my return.

  Though I had never spoken to them, I knew them all--the Penfields, fatherand son, tall and lean with bony faces and sandy hair and eyebrows, andrestless, pale blue eyes--Squire Land, small and ascetic, his lipsconstantly puckered as though he had tasted something unpleasant. CaptainProctor, stouter than when I had seen him last, with the benign goodnature that comes of settled affairs and good living. Over them and overthe town, those eight years had passed with a light hand.

  But it was not our town I had come to visit. I found Ned Aiken, as I knewI should, with the _Eclipse_ in harbor. He was seated on his door step bythe river road, as though he had always been planted in that very place.I remember expecting he would be glad to see me. Instead, he took hispipe from his mouth, and gazed at me steadily, like some steer stoppedfrom grazing. Then he placed his pipe on the stone step, and rose slowlyto his feet, squat and burly, his little eyes glinting below his greasy,unbraided hair, his jaw protruding and ominous. Slowly he loosened thedirty red handkerchief he kept swathed about his throat, and raised astubby hand to push the hair from his heavy forehead. Then his facerelaxed into a grim smile, and he seated himself on the step again.

  "You've changed since last I saw you," he said; "changed remarkable, youhave. Why, right now I thought you might be someone else."

  Had Brutus also been laboring under the same delusion?

  I told him I was glad we were still on speaking terms, and seatedmyself beside him. He studied me for a while in silence, leisurelypuffing at his pipe.

  "You mistook me for someone?" I asked finally.

  "Yes," said Mr. Aiken, and slapped his pipe against the palm of his hand."You've been shootin' up, you have, since I set eyes on you."

  He paused, seemingly struck by a genial inspiration.

  "Yes, shootin' up." Still looking at me he gave way to a hoarse chuckle.

  "Why, boy, we've all been doing some shootin'--you, your dad, and metoo--since we seen you last," and he was taken by a paroxysm ofsilent mirth.

  "Now that's what I call wit!" he gasped complacently, and then herepeated in joyous encore:

  "You shootin'--me shootin'--he shootin'."

  "You weren't shooting at anybody?" I asked with casual innocence.

  "And why shouldn't we be, I want to know?" he demanded, but his tongueshowed no sign of slipping. His glance had resumed its old stolidwatchfulness, which caused me to remain tactfully silent.

  "But we wasn't shootin' at anybody," Mr. Aiken concluded, more genially."Not at anybody, just at selected folks."

  He stopped to glance serenely about him, and somehow the dusty road, theriver, the trees and the soft sunlight seemed to make him strangelyconfiding. His harsh voice lowered in gentle patronage.

  "Would you like to know who those folks were?" he asked finally.

  I must have been too eager in giving my assent, for Mr. Aiken smiledbroadly and nodded his head with complacent satisfaction.

  "I thought you would admire to," said Mr. Aiken; "like as not you'd givea tooth to know, now wouldn't you? Never do know a tooth is useful tillyou lose it. Now look at me--I've had as many as six stove out off an'on, and now--But you wanted to know who it was we shot at, didn't you? Soyou did, boy, so you did. Well, I'll tell you, so I will. Yes, so help meif I don't tell you, boy." And his voice trailed off in a low chuckle.

  "It was folks like you," he concluded crisply; "folks who didn't mindtheir own business."

  Gleefully he repeated the sentence. Its ringing cadence and the trend ofhis whole discourse gave him evident pleasure, and even caused him tocontinue further with his rebuke.

  "There you have it," said Mr. Aiken, "the Captain's own words, b'Gad.'Mr. Aiken', he says, 'I fancy we may meet a number of people whoseaffairs will not stop them interfering with our own. If you see any,' hesays, 'shoot them, Mr. Aiken'."

  He had lapsed into a good-natured, reminiscent mood, and, as he fixed hisgaze on the trees across the road, he was prompted to enlarge stillfurther on the episode. He seemed to have forgotten I was there as hecontinued.

  "I wish it had been on deck," he remarked, "instead of a place withdamned gold chairs and gold on the ceiling, and cloth on the walls, andvelvets such as respectable folks use for dress and not for ornament, andcandles in gold sticks, and the floor like a sheet of ice.

  "Hell," said Mr. Aiken. "I'd sooner slip on blood than on a floor likethat. Yes, so I would. I wonder why those frog eaters don't make theirhouses snug and decent instead of big as a church. Now, though I'm not amoral man, yet I call it immoral, damned if I don't, to live in a houselike that."

  "Yet somehow pleasant," I ventured politely, "surely you have found thatthe beauty of most immoral things. They all seem to be pleasant. Am I notright, Mr. Aiken?"

  He looked at me sharply, shrugged his shoulders, and denied me thepleasure of an answer.

  "Not that I meant to puzzle you," I added hastily, "but you have sailedso long with my father, that I considered you in a position to know. Nowin France--"

  Mr. Aiken dropped his pipe.

  "Who said anything about France?" he demanded.

  "And did you not?" I asked, beginning to enjoy my visit. "Surely you werespeaking just now about a chateau, the scene of some pleasant adventure.Pray don't let me interrupt you."

  A bead of perspiration rolled down Mr. Aiken's brow, and he tightened hishandkerchief about his throat, as though to stifle further conversation.He sat silent for a minute while his mind seemed to wander off into amaze of dim recollections, and his eyes half-closed, the better to seethe pictures that drifted through his memory.

  "What am I here ashore and sober for," he asked finally, "so I won'ttalk, that's why, and I won't talk, so there's the end of it. It's justthat I have to have my little joke, that's all, or I wouldn't have saidanything about the chato or the Captain either.

  "Though, if I do say it," he added in final justification, "there ain'tmany seafaring men who have a chance to sail along of a man like him."

  "And how does that happen?" I asked.

  "Because there ain't any more like him to sail with."

  He sat watching me, and the gap between us seemed to widen. He seemed tobe looking at me from some great distance, from the end of the road whereyears and experience had led him, full of thoughts he could neverexpress, even if the desire impelled him.

  "No, not any," said Mr. Aiken.

  The dusk was beginning to gather when I
rode home, the heavy purple duskof autumn, full of the crisp smell of dead leaves and the low hangingwood smoke from the chimneys.

  My father was reading Voltaire beside a briskly burning fire. Closinghis book on his forefinger, he waved me to a chair beside him.

  "My son," he said, "they mix better than you think, Voltaire andgunpowder. Have you not found it so?"

  "I fear," I replied, "that my experience has been too limited. Give metime, sir, I have only been twice to sea. Next time I shall remember totake Voltaire with me."

  "Do," he advised courteously; "you will find it will help with theprivateers--tide you over every little unpleasantness. Ah yes, it isadvice worth following. I learned it long ago--a little difference ofopinion--and the pages of the great philosopher--"

  He raised his arm and glanced at it critically.

  "Words well placed--is it not wonderful, their steadying effect--thedeadly accuracy which their logic seems to impart to the hand and eye? Aman can be dangerous indeed with twenty pages of Voltaire behind him."

  He took a pinch of snuff, and leaned forward to tap me gently on theknee, his expression coldly genial.

  "I have read all the works of Voltaire, Henry, read them many times."

  Unbidden, a picture of him came before me in a room with gilt chairs andcandelabra whose glass pendants sparkled in the mild yellow light--with asmell of powder mingling strangely with the scent of flowers.

  "But why," he concluded, "should I be more explicit than Mr. Aiken? Tofear nothing, say nothing. It is a maxim followed by so many politicians.Strange that it still stays valuable. Strange--"

  And he waved his hand in a negligent gesture of deprecation.

  "Why, indeed, be more explicit," I rejoined. "Your sudden interest isquite enough to leave me overcome, sir, when, after years of neglect, yousee to it I ride out safely of an afternoon."

  He tapped his snuff box thoughtfully.

  "Coincidence again, Henry, that is all. How was I to know you would beoutside Ned Aiken's house while I was within?"

  "And how should I know that paternal care would prompt you to remainwithin while I was without?"

  For a second it seemed to me that my father was going to laugh--for afraction of a second something like astonishment seemed to takepossession of him. Then Brutus appeared in the doorway.

  "My son," he said, as I followed him to supper, "I must compliment you.Positively you improve upon acquaintance."