Behold them, then, upon the greasy deck of a Dutch dogger, in sight of Dover. ‘No violence, Mr Byron, if you please,’ said Captain Cheap.
Jack was scarlet in the face with anger, and he had a belaying-pin in his hand; but he fell back a step at the command. This was proof of a very high degree of self-control, for the Dutch skipper, having promised to carry them from Morlaix to Dover, and having been paid in advance, now had the brazen effrontery to say that wind and tide did not serve – that he was obliged to go on to the Lowlands.
‘He is a false rogue,’ cried Jack, who was never one for concealing his opinions.
‘Let him be, let him be,’ said Captain Cheap, who was too weak and ill to resist. He had never recovered his health, even in the sweet climate of Santiago, and since they had come into northern waters and the winter (it was February now) he had been very poorly.
The skipper blew a scornful whiff from his pipe and shifted the spokes of his wheel: Dover diminished in the distance, and the grey waves of the Channel came slopping aboard with the turn of the tide. Below, in an evil booth that reeked of old bait, Tobias and Mr Hamilton groaned faintly in unison. They had both been quite horribly sick the whole of the way up from Morlaix (which is in Brittany), and the dogger seemed to have been carefully designed to keep them in that condition indefinitely: it was a vessel of shallow draught, as broad as it was long, and it had a great well in the middle, meant for keeping fish alive – a sea-going pudding-basin that lurched, pitched, tossed and rolled every moment of the day and night, and smelt most abominably. ‘Another hour, and it will be over,’ said Mr Hamilton, for Jack had come below to tell them as soon as Dover cliffs had appeared.
‘Another hour can just be borne,’ said Tobias – ‘perhaps.’
Jack walked up and down, in a towering rage: he was a long-suffering, good-tempered creature nearly always, but the Dutchman’s insolent fraud vexed his very soul. Besides, they would have to find their passage from Holland to England now, out of a very thin purse indeed. Dover was gone, and even its cliffs were fading into the haze: a Swedish brig came past, very deep-laden; over towards Dunkirk a hoy beat into the wind with a great deal of fuss. The Channel was full of shipping – there were at least half a dozen other sails, near and far, to be seen from the dogger. Jack stared at them gloomily.
Suddenly his attention was fixed: to windward there was a ship that had just put about. None but a man-of-war on patrol was likely to do that, and Jack, running up the shrouds for a better view, saw that he was right: furthermore, she reminded him more and more strongly of the Squirrel, in which he had served. Five minutes later the varying positions of the dogger and the man-of-war showed him the unmistakable rails of the Squirrel’s head, and with a melodious howl he leapt down on deck. In a moment he had started the dogger’s sheets and let them fly before the amazed Dutchmen could stop him.
Letting fly the sheets is a most emphatic signal: it can mean several things, and the Squirrel, with a natural curiosity, instantly bore down to know which. A boat came bobbing across, and at the hail ‘Dogger ahoy,’ Jack left the safety of the rigging. ‘Dick Penn,’ he called over the side, ‘strike me down if it is not Dick Penn. Will you not take us out of this infernal old tub, and carry us into Dover?’
A very grim lieutenant came aboard, determined to know who this was who made free with his name – this very foreign-looking object who seemed to think that he could make game of the Navy. ‘Why, damn your eyes,’ he cried, with delighted recognition dawning in his countenance; ‘it’s Jack Byron, dressed up as a Don.’
Jack had had the poetical intention of picking up the first handful of English soil and cherishing it, but it was raining steadily when the Squirrel’s cutter landed them, and the earth was all chalky mud, with skim-milk-coloured puddles standing on it, so he was obliged to come ashore like an ordinary Christian. They stood shivering in their thin Spanish clothes while the seamen hoisted up the seven crates of birds, plants, serpents, fishes in spirits, dried bats and skeletons, and the pitiful little bundles of their own possessions. ‘It will have to be a guinea,’ whispered Mr Hamilton urgently.
‘We cannot afford it,’ whispered Captain Cheap.
‘We must,’ hissed Jack.
‘All ashore, sir,’ said the coxswain of the cutter. ‘Thankee kindly, sir,’ said he, pocketing the guinea and looking pleased. ‘Cutter’s crew is much obliged.’
All the stage-coach places, inside and out, were bespoken for the next many days, so they hired horses and rode as far as Canterbury by nightfall. In the morning it was decided that Captain Cheap, who had been scarcely able to sit on his horse by the end often miles, could not go on in that way, but would have to take a post-chaise. ‘I knew we could not afford that guinea,’ said the captain despondently. ‘We cannot run to a post-chaise – I am sure of it.’
Now followed the paying of their bill for the night and a very minute and anxious calculating of distance, cost and available capital. Their common purse would stretch to a post-chaise for Captain Cheap and Mr Hamilton, and what was left, exactly as if it had been worked out by a somewhat parsimonious guardian angel, was precisely the amount needed for horse-hire for Jack and Tobias as far as the Borough – that is to say, as far as the southern suburbs of London. Angelic nature, however, does not require material sustenance, and the angel had overlooked this point: there was horse-hire, but not the price of a halfpenny bun on the road.
‘It don’t signify,’ said Jack. ‘We have put up with rather worse than one day’s fast, I believe. You don’t mind it, Toby?’
‘No,’ said Toby, ‘I don’t mind it. But I wish I could feel sure that the carrier would take due care of my unborn whale: he seemed a man of gross and earthy understanding.’
Outside the inn the post-chaise set off, and the hirelings were brought round.
‘French dog of a Turk,’ shouted an ill-conditioned boy, as they mounted.
‘I did not like their ugly foreign faces,’ said the mistress of the Pelican, counting her spoons and looking after them. ‘They might have murdered us all in our beds.’
It is true that by daylight, in an English country town, they presented a curious appearance: fashions differed very much from nation to nation, and the Spaniards at that time wore breeches and coats of an inordinate length; but even if they had not, the poncho that clothed Tobias would have attracted a great deal of attention.
‘The little ugly wicked one is a native,’ said the waiter.
‘He is not,’ said the ill-conditioned boy. ‘He is a Popish priest,’ and with this he threw a turnip. It struck the horse, the horse moved, and thus they left Canterbury, followed by the hooting of its inhabitants.
‘You know, Toby,’ said Jack, reining in at Harbledown, ‘I promised I should make your fortune if you came to sea with me.’
‘Yes,’ said Tobias, ‘and I am very sensible of your kindness in doing so, Jack. My molluscs, to say nothing of my annelids, are beyond anything …’
‘Yes, but I meant in money,’ said Jack, ‘and I do heartily wish that I had made a better piece of work of it. Because, do you see, if I had, we should not be afraid of that damned turnpike ahead.’ He pointed down the road to a little neat box, where at that moment a horseman was paying his toll to the keeper. The guardian angel had slipped again: he had brought them up through Patagonia; but Patagonia had no turnpikes. ‘There is no help for it,’ said Jack. ‘We shall have to ride through them all.’
This they did, sometimes by low cunning – walking up as if to stop and then suddenly spurring away – but more often by thundering along straight through, in spite of pressing appeals to stop and pay. Sometimes they had to get round by going through the fields, and twice they had to leap the barrier – a chancy thing to do on an unknown horse. It was exciting at first, but rather unpleasant in the long run, and at the last two pikes, Deptford and New Cross, whose keepers were often plagued by Cockneys and had therefore grown unnaturally alert, they were very nearly taken. But at len
gth it was over, and they rode through the crowded streets of the Borough to the George with thankful (though very hungry) hearts, and there they left their horses. Now they were within that area of civilisation that was served by hackney-coaches, and Jack hailed one. He told the man to drive to Marlborough Street, and leant back with immense relief on the musty leather-cushioned seat. ‘Lard, Toby,’ he said, ‘how surprised they will be.’
They rumbled over London Bridge into the City; the mist swirled up from the river and blurred the lights. They crawled along past the brilliant shops of Cheapside among a hundred other coaches, and Tobias, coming out of a deep meditation, said, ‘I am very happy to tell you, Jack, that I have a satisfactory theory at last – a comprehensive theory – an irrefragable theory.’
‘I am glad you are so pleased,’ said Jack. ‘What is it a theory about?’
‘Tombs,’ said Tobias, recognising the place where he had been hunted down by the press-gang and pointing it out with mild approval. ‘Those tombs that we found are my terminus a quo, and I conclude that the whole of the country south of the Chonos islands is the Indians’ Holy Land. They go there for religious motives, as it were on pilgrimage: this explains their presence in such barren, unpleasant regions, and their displeasure at seeing strangers – they may have thought us unclean spirits. There were several different tribes, but although they were so savage they did not fight. They did not kill us – they did not steal from us. All this points in the same direction – a peculiarly extensive local sanctity. And the fact that they carry their dead thither to bury them confirms it. Besides, those bloody ceremonies at which they howled all night and gashed themselves with oyster-shells were certainly religious.’
‘A pretty rum religion,’ said Jack.
‘Not more so than burning people at the stake,’ said Tobias, who still felt rather strongly upon this point. ‘And we read in Strabo …’
‘Marlborough Street,’ called out the driver, pulling up.
‘Ha, ha,’ cried Jack, bounding out. He darted up the steps, and gave a great thundering double knock on the door. He was smiling to the widest extent of his face.
Slowly his smile grew less. He knocked again, and looked up at the windows: they were all shuttered, lightless, blind. He went round to the mews at the back, but there was no answer. The coachyard door was locked and barred.
‘Drive to Little Windmill Street,’ said Jack to the coachman, who was now growing anxious about his fare. But Mrs Fuller’s house was no longer there; a new street had been driven through it, and everything was strange.
Jack was dog-tired, very hungry and cold; he felt that he could scarcely grapple with the situation, and for a moment or two his spirits were as low as can be imagined; but while he stood musing his eyes rested upon a shop-front that said William Boden Linen-Draper, or to be more exact, William Linen-Draper Boden, the linen-draper part being in the middle, in different letters. Suddenly the familiarity of the name and the shop pierced into his mind: the family always shopped there – Boden made his shirts.
‘Wait a moment,’ he said, and crossed the street. The coachman, convinced that he was going to be bilked, followed him closely into the shop, breathing on his neck. ‘Mrs Boden,’ said Jack, to a well-remembered face, ‘how glad I am to see you.’
‘Dear me,’ said Mrs Boden placidly, without a moment’s hesitation, ‘how you have grown, Mr John. A fourteen neck by now, I do believe.’ Nothing that Jack had heard – not all the English in the streets, nor the well-known London din – had made him feel so much at home; and this simple observation also wonderfully strengthened his faith in the stability of the universe. A moment before it had appeared to be toppling from its base.
‘I have just come from abroad,’ he said, by way of explaining his growth. ‘And the house is shut up. Pray be so good as to pay the coachman, Mrs Boden – I have no money with me.’
‘Why, of course the house is shut up,’ said Mrs Boden wonderingly, as she gave the man his money, ‘and has been, ever since Miss Isabella married my lord Carlisle. Such a wedding, Mr John: thirty-seven yards of Mechlin lace and forty-three of right Valenciennes, counting the bridesmaids. And then the lawn, cambric and baptiste – is this gentleman with you, sir?’ she cried, breaking off at the sight of Tobias, who, having been put out of the coach, had wandered in out of the drizzle, looking not unlike a walking umbrella in his poncho – a lowered umbrella.
‘Yes, yes. Where are they now, Mrs Boden?’
‘Why, in Soho Square, of course. Her ladyship is giving a rout tonight.’
‘Toby,’ said Jack, steering him out of the shop, ‘it is an astonishing thing, but the girls all seem to have grown up – married – most extraordinary. But then it was always understood that Carlisle should marry into the family. I don’t object to him as an in-law. We must go to Soho Square, and find them there.’
Tobias stopped, very pale. ‘He has married Georgiana?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Jack, ‘Isabella. Isn’t it funny? Cousin Frances wanted him to marry Georgiana – always said he was going to – but he has married Isabella instead. But it’s all one, you know – it’s all in the family.’
‘Well,’ said Tobias, who did not seem to think it was all one at all; and after a pause he exclaimed, ‘Isabella! How I shall delight in seeing her. Do you think Georgiana will be there too?’
Jack, observing that all the girls might be at Medenham, as far as he was concerned, so long as supper was to be had at his brother-in-law’s house, guided Tobias along Oxford Street and down Soho Street. ‘Not that they are not dear girls,’ he explained, ‘and very near to my heart: but supper, do you see, is a great deal nearer, just at present.’
The fog was dripping from the railings of the square; thin black mud ran underfoot; in front of Lord Carlisle’s house two flambeaux, in holders either side of the door, threw a warm flaring light into the darkness, very welcoming. A few people loitered to stare up at the lighted windows: there was a sound of music, busy activity, a party in progress.
Jack knocked at the door, which swung wide at once.
‘What do you want?’ said the hall-porter, half-closing it again at the sight of such a strangely clothed, barely reputable pair.
‘Isabella …’ began the one.
‘Georgiana …’ began the other.
‘Bah,’ said the hall-porter, and clapped the portal to.
‘Ha, ha,’ went the little crowd outside.
‘Come,’ said Jack, ‘we must do better than that.’ He knocked again. To the intense delight of the crowd, the door opened with a vindictive suddenness that promised great things. But the instant the door was one foot ajar, Tobias, crouching inhumanly low, darted furiously in with such terrible impetuosity that his head, coming into contact with the porter’s waistcoat, drove every particle of breath from that worthy’s body, and left him gasping on the floor of his unguarded hall. Jack closed the door behind him, and they walked upstairs towards the big double drawing-room.
‘Now, sir,’ cried Lord Carlisle, looking suddenly out of a door at them.
‘Ha, ha, brother,’ cried Jack, immensely tickled by the situation. ‘You don’t recognise me. I wish you joy, however. Where’s Isabella?’
‘Is Georgiana here?’ asked Tobias, fondly taking his lordship’s elbow.
Lord Carlisle glanced down at his stricken porter, and again at the maniacs who had broken in, and he bawled for his footmen. But hardly had he ceased bawling before his bride appeared – a little quicker in the uptake, and a loving sister as well. Instant recognition, laughter, tears, joy, infinite surprise expressed and repeated indefinitely – a proper homecoming at last. In all this family turmoil, that drifted off vaguely to Isabella’s boudoir, Tobias was somehow separated from Jack. He walked composedly into the drawing-room, where the dowager Lady Carlisle was entertaining a large circle of guests. She received him with tranquil complacency (she was a very well-bred woman) and introduced him to a Mrs Hankin, who had an empty chair by her. ‘
The gentleman is a great traveller,’ she said.
‘Indeed, sir?’ cried Mrs Hankin. ‘It is a vastly interesting thing, to travel. Pray sir, was you gone long? Was it an interesting voyage?’
‘Tolerably so, ma’am,’ said Tobias, stealing a piece of sugar from her saucer.
‘The Grand Tour, sir?’ asked his left-hand neighbour. ‘Did you kiss the Pope’s toe? My cousin Gardner kissed the Pope’s toe. Did you pass by Pisa?’
‘No, ma’am – a voyage by sea.’
‘Oh’ – disdainfully – ‘only a voyage by sea. But in a voyage by sea you miss all the charming variety of travel –'tis all one, by sea – a monotonous desert of water – I do not think that I should care for a voyage by sea. Surely, sir, there is no variety, in a voyage by sea, no diversity?’
‘No, ma’am,’ said Tobias, stealing another piece of sugar.
‘The grand object of travelling,’ said a heavy gentleman, ‘is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. Sir,’ said he, turning to Tobias, ‘did you see the shores of the Mediterranean?’
‘But, on the other hand,’ said the lady, ‘travelling by land is prodigiously dangerous. Cousin Gardner lost the wheel of his chariot, by the lynch-pin dropping out near Pisa – that was why I mentioned Pisa, sir; a very dangerous place – and was like to be thrown down, which could never have happened at sea. And in Florence, his pocket was picked.’
‘No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail,’ said the heavy gentleman, in a booming roar, ‘for being in a ship is being in a jail, with a chance of being drowned.’
‘No, sir –’ began Tobias, with equal positiveness, but at that moment Georgiana came into the room, sedulously attended by the Duke of Lothian and Sir James Firebrace. ‘Ha, Georgiana, my dear,’ he cried, starting up and throwing down a little round table and two gilt chairs, ‘there you are at last. How very, very happy I am to see you,’ he said, kissing her heartily. The duke turned red with anger: the knight grew pale with fury. ‘Come,’ he said, taking her by the hand and leading her to a distant sopha, ‘come and sit by me, and let us talk of bats.’
The Unknown Shore Page 32
