Captain Adam

by Chidsey, Donald Barr, 1902-1981

  "You shouldn't have done a thing like that for me," she cried again and again. "I'm not worth it, Adam! You shouldn't have done it for me!"

  Well, he hadn't done it for her, except maybe indirectly; and later on, in the comparative privacy of Tarpaulin Hall, he tried to explain this. He had done it for her, yes; but he'd also done it for himself, for the two of them, and fw Jeth Gardner and Resolved Forbes and the others, and last but by no means least for the Goodwill to Men. It had not been a grudge fight, a matter of jealousy. It had been done, it had had to be

  "5

  done, in order to get his standing straightened out. Sniggered over, he could do nothing toward escape. Admired, he might be able to do much.

  He had tried to explain to Maisie that when he went to England, soon, he would certainly seek out, among others—he did not mention his father the Earl of Tillinghast, who was high on his list of those-to-be-seen—her seducer. Sir Jervis Johnston. He had sworn that, and he'd do it. That would be personal: it would be directly and entirely for love of her. But this affair on Cay Cucaracha—

  She'd have none of the explanation. His intent to call out Jervis Johnston she had never appeared to take seriously anyway, but she was impressed, and deeply touched, by the fact that Adam had killed Major Kellsen. That was immediate, undeniable. It was not part of a dream seated in the future: and Lady Maisie could understand it. His protests were swept aside as evidence of his too great modesty. She cried repeatedly that he shouldn't have done it for her. She insisted upon fussing over him.

  So he let her. If a woman is bound and determined to believe something, he reasoned, it was better to agree. After all, it was pleasant. It was ridiculous in one sense, true—Maisie demanding that he lie still while she fetched him this and fetched him that, and washed him, and anxiously brought him things to eat and drink, quite as though he was near death, whereas he hadn't a scratch on him and wasn't even tired, not having had to row either way—but in the long run it soothed, it flattered. Besides, the attitude reassured Adam. Feeling sneaky, feeling disloyal, he had from time to time recently caught himself wondering if maybe the tropical sunshine had brought out in Maisie a certain crassness he had not previously supposed was there. She was not, or not always, the same girl he had known on the schooner. It was not just that her unconcealed and even exuberant enjoyment of their intimacy somewhat shocked Adam Long, who had more than once caught himself blushing, too, at her habit of exposing her body; it was also, and perhaps even more, the way she looked and acted in public—a note of shrillness had crept into her voice, a touch of tautness at the corners of her mouth. He loved her, and thoughts like this were a torture for him to bear. But now he felt better about it. Now he knew beyond doubt that she loved him. It wasn't only a matter of words: it was a lot more than that. It wasn't just the way she had thrown herself into his arms, down there on the beach. It was a feeling he had when he was with her. She had been stirred, a condition she couldn't have concealed if she'd wanted to. Through all her fussing, silly as some of it was, this truth stuck out. She loved him.

  So he lay back and enjoyed it. A man doesn't get tfrat kind of attention every day, and there was no reason why he shouldn't have a good time.

  As far as his physical condition was concerned, he was able to prove ii6

  to her beyond all doubt that it was excellent; and this, too, he enjoyed, though it was disconcerting to have that crowd surging and stewing outside, scarcely beyond reach, sometimes even causing the walls of Tarpaulin Hall to sway, and never quiet. But you can get used to anything, he learned.

  Once in the night he woke up and lay for a time staring at a ceiling he couldn't see and thinking, unexpectedly, of Major Kellsen.

  Kellsen was dead and you shouldn't think of him any more, Adam knew. Nobody else here did. He heard the sounds of the camp, where there was no respect for the clock and where a most prodigious celebration was going on. Those men and women out there, by no means unaided by rum, had worked themselves into a frenzy of admiration for him, Adam Long—admiration that almost approached, sacrilegiously, adoration. The fight on Cucaracha was the first part of the process of being built into a legend; and Adam was its hero. Liked before, now, by tarnation, he was fairly revered. This threw him ofiF, for it was not at all what he had sought; and he wasn't sure that popularity was a good thing to have on Providence Island in the Bahamas this year of Our Lord 1702.

  Kellsen had sought popularity and achieved a certain measure of it, and who thought of Kellsen now? Kellsen was the only man Adam Long had ever killed, but he felt no squeamishness about this. He was not proud of himself, but he wasn't ashamed of himself either. It had been a job of work, and he'd done it. He'd had his reasons. The results flummoxed him—all this clamor and praise—but he still thought that he'd done what he should have done, and if he'd had to do it over again he would do it the same way.

  But Kellsen—didn't anybody think of him? Kellsen only a few hours ago had been a man of some magnificence. Something between a pouter pigeon and a peacock perhaps, but a man all the same, with a man s heart, a man's feelings. He, too, had risked everything. The only difference between him and Adam was that he had lost, Adam had won. And because Kellsen had lost he was forgotten. So far as Adam knew, nobody had even taken the trouble to go back to the middle of Cockroach Key and view the body, much less bury it. And when they landed on the beach here, Adam had spotted one pirate wearing that high full flamboyant periwig of Kellsen's, while three or four others wore coats that had belonged to the dead man. So early! It did seem indecent. They had a curious outlook on the matter of property here at Providence. Any man would snick his knife out in a dispute about sixpence; but that was cash, and different. The same man would gladly give you, or at least sell you for a song, weapons, articles of clothing, pieces of furniture, which indeed constituted something close to communal property. Kellsen's ward-

  robe, in other words, had become the possession of the men who got there first. But it did seem, all the same, as though they might have waited a little while.

  Adam had despised Major Kellsen until he killed him. Now he was not at all sure that he didn't feel sorry for the man.

  Maisie moaned a little in her sleep, and he looked at her, his heart going all jelly. He could be a hero outside: he was humble here. Loveliness like that, his to touch and take, lying beside him, was a heap of responsibility. Here was an angel! He swallowed, and that was hard to do. Yet when she moaned again stirring a mite, and gave a small sad sigh in her sleep, so that he saw the silk coverlet rise and fall over the outlines of her breast, he knew that he was going to wake her up. And sure enough, pretty soon he did.

  It came early, along with the dawn, a sudden sharp rapping on the door. Adam sat up, sucking in his breath.

  Maisie was awake, and she watched him. She, too, was frightened.

  Sternly: "Yes?"

  "Message from Captain van Bramm."

  "That's what I was afraid of," whispered Adam.

  For in camp the talk was all Long, Long, Long, the redoubtable skipper from Newport, the captain who had skewered—what was his name? This was not at all what Adam sought. He was willing to accept popularity if it meant power—in the right place. But he wanted no part in the politics of this pirates' nest, a settlement that was a stench under the nostrils of civilization and was tolerated temporarily only because the Dutch and English and French and Spanish navies were too busy with their war to stamp it out. He owed more than that, and much more, to Maisie. He owed it to Horace Treadway, whose passage payment he had accepted; and to the burghers of Newport, whose schooner he commanded. Yes, and by thunderation, he owed it to himself! He simply couldn't afford to be an idol.

  It was not too be supposed that Everard van Bramm, hearing all these hysterical shouts of praise, and doubtless many lower, more serious, but equally fervent whispers as well—for the man heard everything—would permit such a state of affairs to continue. But what would van Bramm do? Adam had seen the man only once, and
then briefly, for van Bramm seldom came out into the open air. In those moments Adam had sized him up as a man not easily sized up. Would van Bramm, who himself ii8

  cared nothing for praise, though he did care for power, make Adam an offer—suggest, say, that Adam go on being the man on the pedestal while he, van Bramm, manipulated the machine? Or would van Bramm simply strike? If he struck, there would be no warning. That much Adam was sure of.

  These men at the door right now might be ready to rush him when he opened it, knock him down, beat him to death, or perhaps hack him with their cutlasses.

  Adam got out his sheath knife. Each man from the Goodwill had been permitted to retain this weapon, or tool, presumably because the pirates took its existence for granted and would no more have thought of taking it from a prisoner than they would have thought of pulling his teeth or tearing out his fingernails.

  Adam held this behind him. At the door he looked back. Maisie was watching him wide-eyed, but when he frowned at her and made a motion commanding her to cover her shoulders, she couldn't restrain a giggle. Maisie always found his prudery amusing. But she did cover her shoulders.

  Adam opened the door, stepping back and a little to one side. He did not display the knife.

  There was only one man before the door, though others, idly curious, hovered in the background, for a courier from van Bramm's headquarters always drew a crowd.

  "A message from Captain van Bramm to Captain Long."

  Adam held out his hand.

  Til take it."

  The man was not to be cut short like that. He was tall and gaunt, and the skin of his face, heavily lined, had the cretaceous quality of chalk: you thought, looking at it, that you could have chipped some of it away with your thumbnail. He was very earnest, conscious of the audience.

  "Captain van Bramm's compliments to Captain Long, and he says to come to his house."

  "Now?"

  "Why, of course," cried the courier, off guard for the moment. Adam shook his head. He smiled.

  "I'm sorry. I have an appointment to have breakfast with Mistress Long this morning, and after that I am expected for a rapier lesson by Master Carse. But after that—say, in about two hours from now?—I would be glad to call upon Captain van Bramm. Will you give him my compliments, please, and take this message to him? Thank you."

  And he closed and locked the door.

  Maisie was looking at him. She nodded.

  "Good," she said. "But I still don't like it."

  "I don't either."

  "I'd feel better if I was with you when you go for that fencing lesson."

  "Why don't you come along then?"

  She got up, and started to turn over dresses and skirts.

  "Perhaps I will, but I have nothing to wear."

  It was a triumphant procession, which again Adam hadn't wanted. He would have been followed, and cheered, whenever he went out, after the events of yesterday; but this march might have been interpreted to look as if he intended to create excitement, as though he asked for applause. To be sure, it would have been impossible to go out anywhere at any time in the company of Lady Maisie and not attract attention. This morning she looked superb. She was all done up in yellow and silver, and, under a sunshade yellow as buttercups, her fine brown eyes gleamed, her red-brown hair danced and glittered, as she smiled and nodded right and left, gracious, a queen. Maisie did not personally, physically, fear the pirates; she only feared what they might do to her lover. Maisie did not fear any men. She had learned from experience that all she ever had to do was smile. She smiled today.

  Though Carse of the beautiful hands apparently was unaware of the crowd that trailed Adam and Maisie out to the fencing strips, and showed no self-consciousness during the lesson, as an Adam Long not yet sure of himself did, the master was uncommonly if unobtrusively kind. He gave few instructions, and those in a tone that implied that he was only reminding Adam of them, rather than giving them for the first time. He did not permit Adam to win any of the bouts—that would have been too obvious—but there was none of the harshness that sometimes featured their meetings alone, nor was there any disarming, or seating Adam with a thump on the ground. Afterward the two men shook hands, thanking each other.

  Taking off his plastron, Adam strolled over to the bag of blades. Nervously he whipped a few. All were buttoned.

  "You, uh, you didn't happen to bring a workable sword with you today, did you?" he asked quietly.

  "I didn't happen to, no. I did it purposely. Here. It is conceivable that you might need it. You deserve it anyway."

  There it was, scabbard and all, a somewhat Italian-looking weapon, slightly archaic, but a beauty—silver-hiked, with bell guard, with long fancy quillons. He drew it slowly, thrilling to hear the whisper of the steel. The blade itself was true Toledo, damaskeened with gold in a folageous design near the hilt. A handsome thing, surely; but no toy! He whipped it, smiling. It had perfect balance. The point was stilletto-sharp, and each edge might have been a razor.

  "But, man, this is valuable!"

  "Keep it," Carse said carelessly. "It can serve as a souvenir of our lessons."

  "You talk as if I was leaving."

  "It could be that you are. It could be. In any event, Captain, it might give you confidence to know that you've got steel at your side when you answer van Bramm's summons in a little while."

  Adam, buckling on the sword, looked at him.

  "You know about that?"

  "Everybody on the island knows about it. Excuse me, Captain—"

  Maisie had come over, and she thanked him graciously for helping her husband keep up his rapier work, and gave him a hand to kiss. A moment later she looked curiously at him.

  "Haven't we met before, sir? La, your face is familiar! In London?"

  "Impossible, ma'am. I have never been in London."

  Adam rested his left hand on the hilt of the sword, and felt the point go up behind. That was a good feeling. He had never before worn a sword. He thought that he would always wear one now.

  Resolved Forbes was by his side, speaking low out of a corner of his mouth.

  "It'll be tonight."

  "Good! Does Jeth know?"

  "I'll tell him. But still no boom."

  "We'll use the jury."

  Forbes started to drift away, but hovered.

  "Don't get killed now, Captain, when you call on van Bramm."

  "I won't get killed."

  "It would spoil everything," Resolved Forbes pointed out.

  From his name you would take it that the tyrant of Providence was Dutch, but in appearance he might have been of any nationality; and he spoke, it was reported, every known language, each with an accent. Some there were, even in that ungodly company, who branded the question pointless anyway, saying that Everard van Bramm was not a man at all but a devil.

  To these freebooters the bizarre was a delight, the barbaric a condition to be cultivated. As vain as women, if scarcely as neat, all of them were besmudged, most were lousy as well; and they had a childlike fondness for color. As though to make up for their lack of inward strength. the way their emotions wobbled, the instability of their existence, they favored not only gay apparel but also anything metallic they could lay hands on. That they were overarmed—ludicrously so, it seemed at first-became understandable when their method of taking prizes was learned. A great sudden show" of weapons was a part of this technique. Yet they loaded themselves with cutlery and firearms in camp, too, when there was nobody to intimidate. Each fairly clanked as he moved. Adam Long had seen pirates here with as many as five pistols stuck in their sashes— though it might be that few or none of these would work. They went in, too, and very heavily, for large belt and shoe buckles, flashy cutlass hilts, and all manner of bijouterie—not just ear ornaments but finger rings, gold and silver chains, even in some cases bangles.

  Into this pattern Everard van Bramm fitted perfectly. His was an ugliness that fascinated.

  Though the figure of a spider pers
ists, it is not altogether accurate. A spider has no force, being dependent rather upon guile or venom, or on both. Van Bramm had the guile, the poison as well, and, a chunky silent man, he did give the impression of one who squats in the middle of a web. But he was a person of great bodily strength. He bulged with muscle. He was more than surface; for he had in him, even beyond his horrible appearance, immense reserves of brutality.

  When Adam Long was ushered into his presence, van Bramm was puffing on a long pipe, and the clouds of smoke that blurred his features lent him an additionally diabolical aspect: he might have been some overfed fiend, spikily asmile, who peered up through the smoke from the brimstone while he greeted a freshly damned soul into Hell. In that light the smile, never amiable, seemed rather a leer.

  The man was stripped to the waist, which waist, a large one, was enwrapped in four or five heavy, raw silk sashes of various colors. It was not stuck with daggers and pistols, in the Providence mode: there were no weapons about van Bramm at all. He wore short black flannel pantaloons, very wide, which did lend him a Dutch air. He wore soft slippers, red leather exquisitely tooled, somewhat Moorish in manner. His ankles were bare. The torso was tremendous, but though there was fat, it was not sloppy fat: van Bramm would never have waddled. His head was large—and as bald as an egg. He had so thick a neck that it seemed no neck at all. There were many rings on his fingers, even a ring on one of his thumbs. A plain flat band of gold encircled his left arm just above the biceps. A heavy chain, the links of which were thick gold triangles, hung against a chest as innocent of hair as the head. From his ears were suspended silver crescents set with small diamonds, rubies, emeralds. These quivered as he puffed on his pipe, and the gems, shaken,

  caused a swarm of tiny bright reflections to swing back and forth on the top of each massive, sHghtly oily, satin-muscled shoulder.