Honey Harlot

by Christianna Brand

  All that precious time together—and what had I done with it? Listened like a child consumed with salacious curiosity, to the horrifying history of a woman of the streets—I, the child of a minister, from my busy, pious, innocent home!—and said hardly one word to advance the cause I had come to plead with her. I said to her now, terrified: ‘I must go; but, Mary—have you promised me? You’ll say nothing to the men, you won’t tell them of his downfall—?’

  ‘You speak very slightingly of the conquest of my charms,’ she said, but she was teasing.

  ‘Oh, Mary, don’t laugh! It’s of such deathly importance. Don’t let the men know what happened! And never let him know that you’re aboard. We’ll help you home to New York, Richardson will help me, you shall have all I possess. If nobody knows about—about you, Mary, about you and him—then if anything comes out later as to your having been aboard, no one will believe that he had any knowledge of it, and he’s saved. His name, his great name, his reputation—he could never show his face along the waterfronts again

  ‘What do I care?’ she said. ‘He sails under false colours. He condemns men for so-called sins, which he himself commits.’

  ‘One sin—I think it has been only the once, that time with you.’

  She thought it over. ‘Well—you may be right. Once in a very long while, anyway. He’s been with a harlot before, but maybe only in his youth.’

  ‘But now he’s so highly thought of, he thinks of himself as so high. If others knew—how could he face them? He’s taught them to think of him—he thinks of himself—as a very god of respectability—’

  ‘A respectable god,’ she said, still laughing. ‘Is that his idea of the Almighty Creator?’

  ‘Well, what matter? It’s out of his own guilt that he creates this image, Mary; because he can’t face it, he pretends to himself that he’s not as other men. He knows; but he pretends. It’s like a child, it’s pathetic, and as his wife, I must try to understand, I must protect him from himself, I must support him

  ‘But I need not,’ she said. She looked her contempt. ‘I don’t care for pathetic men.’

  ‘It’s what I beg of you. I ask you, of your goodness—’

  She interrupted again. ‘My goodness? Oh, little Sarah—do you use that word in connection with such as I?’

  ‘You’re kind, Mary; that’s goodness. Be kind to me?’

  ‘But you want me to be kind to him. And I dislike and despise him; I care nothing for his aspirations to a false respectability.’

  ‘Then if you care nothing, why will you persist?’ Now I was aware indeed of the padding feet on the deck above, of the tiny cabin where I hid from my husband, perched on a man’s bed, of pressure and urgency, of fear. ‘Mary, I must go, suppose I were to be found here! Don’t keep me, just tell me, just promise me! After all—if only for an hour you stole him from me, you ruined him in his own eyes—:and indeed in mine. Don’t you owe me—?’

  ‘He’s coming!’ she said sharply. ‘Quick, quick! Yes, all right, I promise you, I swear, he shall be safe. I swear! But quick—go!’

  Too late! As I slid open the door, footsteps came down the companion. I darted back and was closing the door; but it was Richardson. ‘Get back!’ he said. ‘He’s coming.’ He crowded in with me and the door closed on us.

  Feet running down the steps, approaching. A hand beat at the door. ‘Richardson!’

  Richardson called back: ‘Just coming, sir!’

  ‘Then come! Open the door and come out!’

  At the tone of that voice, Richardson swore beneath his breath, ‘Oh, my God!’ He opened the door as little as possible and slid out. My husband said, ‘Why don’t you open it wide?’

  I crushed myself back against the chest; but a hand came and thrust aside the door, and caught me by the arm and I was yanked out into the saloon. My husband was standing there and his face was grey and the dark eyes ablaze and the black beard jutted in a very ecstasy of outrage. I was vaguely aware that Richardson slid-to the cabin door behind us, closing Mary in. I stammered: ‘Mr Richardson was showing me—’

  ‘I know what Mr Richardson was showing you,’ said my husband, ‘and not for the first time. Filthy slut!—do you think I haven’t watched you, hanging about with the men, lusting after them? And you!’ He swung round upon Richardson. ‘You, at least, I thought I could trust, I allowed you to speak with her… Bitch!’ he cried out, almost screaming at me. ‘Dirty little country-bred bitch, tumbled by every farm-dog for miles around, I dare say, before they foisted you on to me, thankful to get you off their hands. You with your airs and graces of piety, pretending ignorance! Do you think I don’t know how you struggle to conceal your lascivious passions when I—come to you, do you think I haven’t known you all along for what you are? And now, not five days out to sea and you’re sidling and ogling at my men, offering your ditch-draggled charms…!’ And he said in a sort of terrible, hissed aside: ‘And you said that I disgusted you!’ and lifted his hand and slapped it across my face so that my head jerked back, and slapped it again and would have again had not the first mate caught hold of his arm. ‘Don’t touch her!’ he cried out. ‘She’s innocent as a child! Don’t you dare lay your hands on her!’

  My husband flung aside his hand, caught me by the wrist, flung me towards the door of the main cabin. Richardson said, white-faced, ‘If once more you lay your hand on her—!’

  ‘I’ll lay more than a hand on you,’ my husband yelled back at him. ‘I’ll have you in irons for the rest of the trip, I’ll have you in court at the end of it, fornicating with your captain’s wife—’

  ‘I never touched the girl. We never did more than exchange civil conversation.’

  My husband jerked his thumb back at me as I cowered against the door. ‘And closed yourself in your cabin with her to do so. All this time, while I’ve been at the wheel—’

  ‘I’ve been up on deck, sir. You must have seen me.’

  ‘Do I watch my men like a hawk lest they make themselves familiar with my wife?’

  ‘It seems that you do sir,’ said Richardson, furiously. ‘But let you watch every hour of every day for the rest of your life, you’ll find no fault in her, unless your mind is sick. And if you think she’s guilty with me or any man in this ship, then your mind is sick. Poor, innocent child with a heart like a flower—’

  ‘Be silent!’ my husband screamed out again and swung round upon him in his turn. ‘You shall be taken into charge and stay under duress until we reach land. Stay here until I return, or it’ll be that much the worse for you.’ And he flung back the door to his cabin and mine and took me by the shoulder to thrust me inside. ‘I’ll deal with you when I’ve dealt with her,’ he said.

  And the door of Richardson’s cabin opened; and Honey Mary stepped out.

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE SMALL, CRAMPED SALOON was lighted from above, the winter sunshine filtering through the glass roof raised above the level of the deck. It gleamed down on her hair, so that it seemed like an aureole of gold, all tumbled about her head. She was magnificent: standing there in all her beauty, in the dress of emerald green, chin uplifted, looking back at him with scorn in her eyes. ‘Well, my fine Captain—like all bullies you take it out on the weak and helpless: cheap, crawling coward that you are!’

  He was too thunderstruck with amazement at seeing her there, even to hear her. With amazement—and with a dawning terror of what her presence could mean to him, he stammered out: ‘What is she doing here? What’s this woman doing here?’

  Mischievous, laughing, she looked back into his face. ‘Why, what should I be doing?’ she said,‘—but coming after my own true love,’ and she went to him and caught him by the shoulders before he had time to stagger back away from her, pressing her body up close against his. ‘Will you not love me again, my Captain, as you did before?’

  He thrust her aside. ‘Take your hands off me! Don’t you lay your hands on me—’

  ‘Ah, but you laid your hands on me, my fine love,’
she cried. ‘Didn’t you? And after such a night of loving—how could I not come back for more?’ She gestured to me where I cowered at the door of my cabin. ‘So now leave this innocent in peace, you have a worthier playmate aboard for those ugly games of yours!’

  And again it was as though time were suspended; as though the ship existed not at all nor the limitless seas on which she sailed, as if all space and all time, all sight and all sound were confined to the storm that raged within these narrow walls, the leaden darkness thrust through with white flashes of lightning, the silence split with great crashes of thunder dying away into silence again. For how long that silence endured, I could not tell. My husband said, and his voice had been brought by a huge effort of will to normality, ‘Get hold of her. Keep her from me.’ And as Richardson caught her by the arm, and stood between them: ‘What has been going on?’

  ‘She smuggled herself aboard, sir. No one knew of it.’

  ‘The crew knew nothing?’

  ‘They knew nothing,’ said Mary. ‘Why should they? I didn’t come after them.’

  ‘Be silent!’ he said; and to Richardson: ‘How long have you know of this?’

  ‘From the first day out, sir.’

  ‘And kept it from me?’

  ‘We thought we could put her ashore at the first landfall and pack her back home. We thought it would be best if you knew nothing of it.’ He added, with a sort of warning in his voice: ‘Best for you.’

  ‘As early as that, we could have turned and taken her back.’

  ‘If you’d done that,’ said Mary, ‘they knew what tales I’d have told.’

  He said steadily: ‘She could tell nothing of me that was true,’ but I had known that he could not lie and now his face was not grey but stained with a deep flush over the weathered skin. He amended: ‘She could tell nothing of me that would be believed.’

  ‘There was another there who would have confirmed the truth,’ she said. ‘The Dei Gratia wouldn’t yet have sailed; and Davey Morehouse knows all the truth about me and thee, Captain Briggs.’

  ‘Morehouse?’ he said, too much astonished to silence her.

  ‘You refused his bet—a bottle of whisky that he would touch land before you did. You gave him one of your lectures, preaching prig that you are!—and he was resolved to bring you down from your pulpit. So he made another wager. He wagered me this cross that I’d not seduce you to lie with me before you sailed from New York.’ And she put her hand to the low neck of her gown and fished out the gold cross and dangled it before their eyes. ‘This tells them all whether you lay with me or not.’

  And the darkness was there again and the storm; but now the thunder rumbled on a muted key. He stammered: ‘I went to you… It was to save your soul…’

  It was horrible to see him brought so low. I came a little forward from the doorway where I’d crouched all this time. I said: ‘I asked him to go. I asked my husband to help her. I thought she was lost—’

  ‘If I’m lost,’ said Mary, ‘then so is he.’

  If he could not tell lies for himself, then I’d tell them for him. I said: ‘You say this out of—mischief, Mary. You resent his interference in the lives of—of those who would go with you. You want to do him harm.’ And I pleaded, ‘It amuses you to do him harm, to tell fibs about him. That’s all it is.’

  She turned her head and looked at me with the old, kind look; but she said only, ‘Let him tell them so himself.’

  He could not. His passions might get the better of him, fierce and uncontrolled, but he was a god in his soul, within his soul he was good and feared God, he was integrity personified. He could not tell a lie. He made no more denials, ignored her, quietly took command. ‘She must be kept apart. We must keep her until we touch Portugal, but meanwhile…’ To Richardson he said, ‘She’s been hidden away from me all this time. Where can she be hidden now?’

  ‘I’ve been hiding in the men’s bunks,’ said Mary. ‘Shall I not be hidden now in yours?’ And she looked over towards me, laughing. ‘With Mrs Briggs’ permission; but I think she’s not likely to break her heart if her Captain has another bed-fellow and she sleeps alone.’

  He ignored her still. ‘On the lower deck—’

  She wrenched her arm from Richardson’s grasp and took a step forward. ‘On the lower decks! Where the pigstys are? You just try penning me up on the lower deck, Captain Briggs!—I’ll spread abroad such tales of you if you do, as will make all your life a hell to you for the rest of your days. True or false, what do I care? The truth is bad enough; but just chain me up like a beast where the beasts are kept and I’ll speak such filth of you that the very styes themselves will smell sweeter in the nostrils of sailing men.’ She tore herself again from the mate’s restraining grip and stood foresquare, feet apart, hands on hips, and laughed no longer, and was sweet no longer but a street-woman, strong, vulgar, violent, in a cold black rage. ‘Just you dare to send me down there!’

  He looked almost helplessly at Richardson. Richardson said: ‘She can’t be kept below decks, sir. And where else? There’s only the men’s bunks in the fore deckhouse and five of them sleeping there; and the boy’s bunk in the galley.’ He shrugged. ‘Shall I give her my cabin, sir, and doss down where I may?’

  To have her here! So close! ‘It’s not decent,’ my husband said, ‘with Mrs Briggs so near.’

  ‘Oh, but what would make it decent,’ said Mary, ‘but Mrs Briggs being so near?’ She had returned to her even temper, she gave me one of her tender, kindly looks. ‘Mrs Briggs has nothing to fear from me,’ she said. ‘She has harm enough coming to her from elsewhere.’

  ‘You will be locked in,’ said my husband, speaking directly to her for the first time. ‘You will speak to no one. And if the crew know what’s good for them, none will speak to you. I have yet to be convinced that they didn’t bring you aboard, and if they did…’ He left the threat hanging in the air. ‘Go back to your cabin,’ he said to me, and to Richardson: ‘See to it then,’ and he swung about and went away up the companion steps. Richardson said: ‘Come Mary!’ and followed her into his cabin. They left the door open, for fear, I suppose, of the Captain returning and finding them closeted together there. I went into my own cabin but I stood at the door, leaving it open a crack to hear what they said. He said half whispering, ‘Best do what he says or he’ll make trouble for us all.’

  ‘He dare not,’ she said, not whispering at all.

  ‘He will, Mary. There’s nothing you can do against him that’ll save us, if he lays charges against us.’

  ‘But I’ll threaten him—’

  ‘Mary, hush!’ he said. ‘What the ship’s Master may have done with a waterfront woman will make no difference if he brings his crew before a court of law. You’ve had your say now, you’ve had your revenge. God knows what the men will be saying of him, now and when they come ashore. For the rest, keep quiet, do no more; you’ll be snug enough in here, I’ll bring you your things

  I heard my husband’s voice above decks, shouting orders to the men in the rigging, and dared to open my door a little. I besought her: ‘Mary, please! You’ve done enough.’

  ‘Enough to spread his ill fame all over the waterfronts,’ she said, ‘so why stop now, what difference will it make?’

  ‘Rumours will spread. The men will talk, of course. But they’ll be only half believed. If it can’t be denied that the moment he discovered your presence aboard, you were kept close, kept a prisoner, then no one can say that he brought you aboard for himself. That he went with you once… That you seduced him just the once by your wicked ways—he could live with that, Mary. Every man is human, no one can know that better than seamen, betraying their wives in every port across the world. He’ll preach no longer, perhaps, he must admit to failure; but that’s very different from bringing you to sea with him, and with his wife aboard

  ‘You’re a fool about the man,’ she said, resentfully.

  ‘I’m not a fool about my whole future. What future would he have if he co
uldn’t any longer go to sea? And his future is mine.’

  ‘Well, in that God help you, poor little thing!’ she said; and to Richardson, shrugging: ‘Very well. But on one condition. Let him lay one hand on her in unkindness, let him speak one bullying word to her—and I take it all back, I’ll submit no more. On that understanding, I’ll behave like an angel—well, hardly that: you can’t close up a tigress in a cage like this and expect her to do nothing but purr. But I’ll promise, the crew shall know that I’m kept here under duress and in silence. No one shall say that he brought me aboard or wished me here. So, come take your property, Albert, and go and get me mine.’ She pushed him out of the cabin and slammed-to the door. He said to me quietly, ‘Close your cabin door, Ma’am, and stay there, keep out of the way of more trouble,’ and he gave me a glance, half pitying, half conspiratorial and went away. I waited a moment to see whether Mary would open the cabin door but she did not. He hadn’t locked it. She had given her promise. I think that that was enough for both of them.

  CHAPTER IX

  HOW STRANGE IT IS to recall that out of conditions so extraordinary, we should have settled for the next weeks into a sort of routine. When breakfast was over, I would tidy up my cabin and vacate it, so that Mary might be released from her prison and go there, where there were more facilities for her ablutions. I saw to it that tubs of hot water were ready for her and toilet soap and suds; I knew what it must mean to her to keep herself and her clothes as she always did, so scrupulously spick and span. I had feared on the first day to return with my husband and find the place festooned with her intimate under-garments, hung out to dry, but she played no teasing tricks on me; everything disappeared with her, back to her cell and I presume she dealt with it there. And all the time, she left no sign of her having used my premises; no spilt water, no soiled towels, no bowls and basins that had not been emptied all into the one tub, wiped round and the cloths wrung out and hung across the rim to dry. Not my mother nor my sisters, so apt and practical back home in the neat little house in Massachusetts, could have kept all so tidy and clean.