CHAPTER IX
DICKORY SETS FORTH
MR FELIX DELAPAINE, merchant and planter of Spanish Town, the capital of Jamaica, occupied a commodious house in the suburbs of the town, twelve miles up the river from Kingston, the seaport, which establishment was somewhat remarkable from the fact that there were no women in the family. Madam Delaplaine had been dead for several years, and as her husband's fortune had steadily thriven, he now found himself possessor of a home in which he could be as independent and as comfortable as if he had been the president and sole member of a club.
Being of a genial disposition and disposed to look most favourably upon his possessions and surrounding conditions, Mr. Delaplaine had come to be of the opinion that his lot in life was one in which improvement was not to be expected and scarcely to be desired. He had been perfectly happy with his wife, and had no desire to marry another, who could not possibly equal her; and, having no children, he continually thanked his happy stars that he was free from the troubles and anxieties which were so often brought upon fathers by their sons and their daughters.
Into this quiet and self-satisfied life came, one morning, a great surprise in the shape of a beautiful young woman, who entered his office in Spanish Town, and who stated to him that she was the daughter of his only sister, and that she had come to live with him. There was an elderly dame and a young man in company with the beautiful visitor, but Mr. Delaplaine took no note of them. With his niece's hands in his own, gazing into the face so like that young face in whose company he had grown from childhood to manhood, Mr. Delaplaine saw in a flash, that since the death of his wife until that moment he had never had the least reason to be content with the world or to be satisfied with his lot. This was his sister's child come to live with him!
When Mr. Delaplaine sufficiently recovered his ordinary good sense to understand that there were other things in this world besides the lovely niece who had so suddenly appeared before him, he remembered that she had a father, and many questions were asked and answered; and he was told who Dame Charter was, and why her son came with her. Then the uncle and the niece walked into the garden, and there talked of Major Bonnet. Little did Kate know upon this subject, and nothing could her uncle tell her; but in many and tender words she was assured that this was her home as long as she chose to live in it, and that it was the most fortunate thing in the world that Dame Charter had come with her and could stay with her. Had this not been so, where could he have found such a guardian angel, such a chaperon, for this tender niece? As for the young man, it was such rare good luck that he had been able to accompany the two ladies and give them his protection. He was just the person, Mr. Delaplaine believed, who would be invaluable to him either on the plantation or in his counting-house. In any case, here was their home; and here, too, was the home of his brother-in-law, Bonnet, whenever he chose to give up his strange fancy for the sea. It was not now to be thought of that Kate or her father, or either one of them, should go back to Barbadoes to live with the impossible Madam Bonnet.
If her father's vessel were in the harbour and he were here with them, or even if she had had good tidings from him, Kate Bonnet would have been a very happy girl, for her present abode was vastly different from any home she had ever known. Her uncle's house on the highlands beyond the town lay in a region of cooler breezes and more bracing air than that of Barbadoes. Books and music and the general air of refinement recalled her early life with her mother, and with the exception of the anxiety about her father, there were no clouds in the bright blue skies of Kate Bonnet. But this anxiety was a cloud, and it was spreading.
When the Amanda moved away from the side of the pirate vessel Revenge she hoisted all sail, and got away over the sea as fast as the prevailing wind could take her. When she passed the bar below Bridgetown and came to anchor, Captain Marchand immediately lowered a boat and was rowed up the river to the recent residence of Major Stede Bonnet, and there he delivered two letters—one to the wife of that gentleman, and the other for his daughter. Then the captain rowed back and went into the town, where he annoyed and nearly distracted the citizens by giving them the most cautious and expurgated account of the considerate and friendly manner in which the Amanda had been relieved of her cargo by his old friend and fellow-vestryman, Major Bonnet.
Captain Marchand had been greatly impressed by the many things which Ben Greenway had said about his master's present most astounding freak, and hoping in his heart that repentance and a suitable reparation might soon give this hitherto estimable man an opportunity to return to his former place in society, he said as little as he could against the name and fame of this once respected fellow-citizen. When he communicated with the English owners of his now departed cargo, he would know what to say to them, but here, safe in harbour with his vessel and his passengers, he preferred to wait for a time before entirely blackening the character of the man who had allowed him to come here. Like the faithful Ben Greenway, he did not yet believe in Stede Bonnet's piracy.
Madam Bonnet read her letter and did not like it. In fact, she thought it shameful. Then she opened and read the letter to her step-daughter. This she did not like either, and she put it away in a drawer; she would have nothing to do with the transmission of such an epistle as this. Most abominable when contrasted with the scurrilous screed he had written to her.
Day after day passed on, and Kate Bonnet arose each morning feeling less happy than on the day before. But at last a letter came, brought by a French vessel which had touched at Barbadoes. This letter was to Kate from Martin Newcombe. It was a love-letter, a very earnest, ardent love-letter, but it did not make the young girl happy, for it told her very little about her father. The heart of the lover was so tender that he would say nothing to his lady which might give her needless pain. He had heard what Captain Marchand had told and he had not understood it, and could only half believe it. Kate must know far more about all this painful business than he did, for her father's letter would tell her all he wished her to know. Therefore, why should he discuss that most distressing and perplexing subject, which he knew so little about and which she knew all about. So he merely touched upon Major Bonnet and his vessel, and hoped that she might soon write to him and tell him what she cared for him to know, what she cared for him to tell to the people of Bridgetown, and what she wished to repose confidentially to his honour. But whatever she chose to say to him or not to say to him, he would have her remember that his heart belonged to her, and ever would belong, no matter what might happen or what might be said for good or for bad, on the sea or the land, by friends or enemies.
This was a rarely good love-letter, but it plunged Kate into the deepest woe, and Dickory saw this first of all. He had brought the letter, and for the second time he saw tears in her eyes. The absence of news of Major Bonnet was soon known to the rest of the family, and then there were other tears. It was perfectly plain, even to Dame Charter, that things had been said in Bridgetown which Mr. Newcombe had not cared to write.
"No, Dame Charter," said Kate, "I cannot talk to you about it. My uncle has already spoken words of comfort, but neither you nor he know more than I do, and I must now think a little for myself, if I can."
So saying, she walked out into the grounds to a spot at a little distance where Dickory stood, reflectively gazing out over the landscape.
"Dickory," said the girl, "my mind is filled with horrible doubts. I have heard of the talk in Bridgetown before we left, and now here is this letter from Mr. Newcombe from which I cannot fail to see that there must have been other talk that he considerately refrains from telling me."
"He should not have written such a letter," exclaimed Dickory hotly; "he might have known it would have set you to suspecting things."
"You don't know what you are talking about, you foolish boy," said she; "it is a very proper letter about things you don't understand."
She stepped a little closer to him as if she feared some one might hear her. "Dickory," said she, "he did not put that thing into my mind; it was there already. That was a dreadful ship, Dickory, and it was filled with dreadful men. If he had not intended to go with them he would not have put himself into their power, and if he had not intended to be long away he would not have planned to leave me here with my uncle."
"You ought not to think such a thing as that for one minute," cried Dickory. "I would not think so about my mother, no matter what happened!"
She smiled slightly as she answered. "I would my father were a mother, and then I need not think such things. But, Dickory, if he had but written to me! And in all this time he might have written, knowing how I must feel."
Dickory stood silent, his bosom heaving. Suddenly he turned sharply towards her. "Of course he has written," said he, "but how could his letter come to you? We know not where he has sailed, and besides, who could have told him you had already gone to your uncle? But the people at Bridgetown must know things. I believe that he has written there."
"Why do you believe that?" she asked eagerly, with one hand on his arm.
"I think it," said Dickory, his cheeks a little ruddier in their brownness, "because there is more known there than Master Newcombe chose to put into his letter. If he has not written, how should they know more?"
She now looked straight into his eyes, and as he returned the gaze he could see in her pupils his head and his straw hat, with the clear sky beyond.
"Dickory," she said, "if he wrote to anybody he also wrote to me, and that letter is still there."
"That is what I believe," said he, "and I have been believing it."
"Then why didn't you say so to me, you wretched boy?" cried Kate. "You ought to have known how that would have comforted me. If I could only think he has surely written, my heart would bound, no matter what his letter told; but to be utterly dropped, that I cannot bear."
"You have not been dropped," he exclaimed, "and you shall know it. Kate, I am going——"
"Nay, nay," she exclaimed, "you must not call me that!"
"But you call me Dickory," he said.
"True, but you are so much younger."
"Younger!" he exclaimed in a tone of contempt, not for the speaker but for the word she had spoken. "Eleven months!"
She laughed a little laugh; her nature was so full of it that even now she could not keep it back.
"You must have been making careful computation," she said, "but it does not matter; you must not call me Kate, and I shall keep on calling you Dickory; I could not help it. Now, where is it you were about to say you were going?"
"If you think me old enough," said he, "I am going to Barbadoes in the King and Queen. She sails to-morrow. I shall find out about everything, and I shall get your letter, then I shall come back and bring it to you."
"Dickory!" she exclaimed, and her eyes glowed.
There was silence for some moments, and then he spoke, for it was necessary for him to say something, although he would have been perfectly content to stand there speechless, so long as her eyes still glowed.
"If I don't go," said he, "it may be long before you hear from him; having written, he will wait for an answer."
She thought of no difficulties, no delays, no dangers. "How happy you have made me, Dickory!" she said. "It is this dreadful ignorance, these fearful doubts of which I ought to be ashamed. But if I get his letter, if I know he has not deserted me!"
"You shall get it," he cried, "and you shall know."
"Dickory," said she, "you said that exactly as you spoke when you told me that if I let myself drop into the darkness, you would be there."
"And you shall find me there now," said he; "always, if you need me, you shall find me there!"
Dame Charter had been standing and watching this interview, her foolish motherly heart filled with the brightest, most unreasonable dreams. And why should she not dream, even if she knew her dreams would never come true? In a few short weeks that Dickory boy had grown to be a man, and what should not be dreamed about a man!
As Kate ran by the open door towards her uncle's apartments, Dame Charter rose up, surprised.
"What have you been saying to her, Dickory?" she exclaimed. "Do you know something we have not heard? Have you been giving her news of her father?"
"No," said the son, who had so lately been a boy, "I have no news to give her, but I am going to get news for her."
She looked at him in amazement; then she exclaimed: "You!"
"Yes," he said, "there is no one else. And besides I would not want any one else to do it. I am going to Bridgetown in the brig which brought us here; it is a little sail, and when I get there I will find out everything. No matter what has happened, it will break her heart to think that her father deserted her without a word. I don't believe he did it, and I shall go and find out."
"But, Dickory," she said, with anxious, upraised face, "how can you get back? Do you know of any vessel that will be sailing this way?"
He laughed.
"Get back? If I go alone, dear mother, you may be sure I shall soon get back. Craft of all kinds sail one way or another, and there are many ways in which I can get back not thought of in ordinary passage. When any kind of a vessel sails from Jamaica, I can get on board of her, whether she takes passengers or not. I can sleep on a bale of goods or on the bare deck; I can work with the crew, if need be. Oh! you need not doubt that I shall speedily come back."
They talked long together, this mother and this son, and it was her golden dreams for him that made her invoke Heaven's blessings upon him and tell him to go. She knew, too, that it was wise for her to tell him to go and to bless him, for it would have been impossible to withstand him, so set was he in his purpose.
"I tell you, Dame Charter," said Mr. Delaplaine an hour later, "this son of yours should be a great credit and pride to you, and he will be, I stake my word upon it."
"He is now," said the good woman quietly.
"I have been pondering in my brain," said he, "what I should do to relieve my niece of this burden of anxiety which is weighing upon her. I could see no way, for letters would be of no use, not knowing where to send them, and it would be dreary, indeed, to sit and wait and sigh and dream bad dreams until chance throws some light upon this grievous business, and here steps up this young fellow and settles the whole matter. When he comes back, Dame Charter, I shall do well for him; I shall put him in my counting-house, for, although doubtless he would fain live his young life in the fields and under the open sky, he will find the counting-house lies on the road to fortune, and good fortune he deserves."
If that loving mother could have composed this speech for Master Delaplaine to make she could not have suited it better to her desires.
When the King and Queen was nearly ready to sail, Dickory Charter, having been detained by Mr. Delaplaine, who wished the young man to travel as one of importance and plentiful resources, hurried to the house to take his final instructions from Mistress Kate Bonnet, in whose service he was now setting forth. It might have been supposed by some that no further instructions were necessary, but how could Dickory know that? He was right. Kate met him before he reached the house.
"I am so glad to see you again before you sail," she said. "One thing was forgotten: You may see my father; his cruise may be over and he may be, even now, preparing for me to come back to Bridgetown. If this be so, urge him rather to come here. I had not thought of your seeing him, Dickory, and I did not write to him, but you will know what to say. You have heard that woman talk of me, and you well know I cannot go back to my old home."
"Oh, I will say all that!" he exclaimed. "It will be the same thing as if you had written him a long letter. And now I must run back, for the boat is ready to take me down the river to the port."
"Dickory," said she, and she put out her hand—he had never held that hand before—"you are so true, Dickory, you are so noble; you are going—" it was in her mind to say "you are going as my knight-errant," but she deemed that unsuitable, and she changed it to—"you are going to do so much for me."
She stopped for a moment, and then she said: "You know I told you you should not call me Kate, being so much younger; but, as you are so much younger, you may kiss me if you like."
"Like!"