A High Wind in Jamaica (23 page)

“I slept with an alligator!” Emily was shouting at intervals. “Mother! I've slept with an alligator!”

Margaret stood in the background holding all their parcels. None of her relations had appeared at the station. Mrs. Thornton's eye at last took her in.

“Why, Margaret...” she began vaguely.

Margaret smiled and came forward to kiss her.

“Get out!” cried Emily fiercely, punching her in the chest. “She's
my
mother!”

“Get out!” shouted all the others. “She's
our
mother!”

Margaret fell back again into the shadows: and Mrs. Thornton was too distracted to be as shocked as she would normally have been.

Mr. Thornton, however, was just sane enough to take in the situation. “Come on, Margaret!” he said. “Margaret's
my
pal! Let's go and look for a cab!”

He took the girl's arm, bowing his fine shoulders, and walked off with her up the platform.

They found a cab, and brought it to the scene, and they all got in, Mrs. Thornton just remembering to say “Howd'you-do-good-bye” to Miss Dawson.

Packing themselves inside was difficult. It was in the middle of it all that Mrs. Thornton suddenly exclaimed:

“But where's John?”

The children fell immediately silent.

“Where is he?—Wasn't he on the train with you?”

“No,” said Emily, and went as dumb as the rest.

Mrs. Thornton looked from one of them to another.

“John! Where is John?” she asked the world at large, a faint hint of uneasiness beginning to tinge her voice.

It was then that Miss Dawson showed a puzzled face at the window.

“
John?
” she asked. “Why, who is John?”

III

The children passed the spring at the house their father had taken in Hammersmith Terrace, on the borders of Chiswick: but Captain Jonsen, Otto, and the crew passed it in Newgate.

They were taken there as soon as the gunboat which apprehended them reached the Thames.

The children's bewilderment lasted. London was not what they had expected, but it was even more astounding. From time to time, however, they would realize how this or that did chime in with something they had been told, though not at all with the idea that the telling had conjured up. On these occasions they felt something as Saint Matthew must have felt when, after recounting some trivial incident, he adds: “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet So-and-So.”

“Why look!” exclaimed Edward. “There's only toys in this store!”

“Why, don't you remember...” began Emily.

Yes, their mother had told them, on a visit to their father's general store in St. Anne's, that in London there were stores which not only sold toys but which sold toys only. At that time they hardly knew what toys were. A cousin in England had once sent them out some expensive wax dolls, but even before the box was opened the wax had melted: consequently the only dolls they had were empty bottles, which they clothed with bits of rag. These had another advantage over the wax kind: you could feed them, poking it into the neck. If you put in some water too, in a day or so the food began to digest, visibly. The bottles with square shoulders they called Hebeasties, and the bottles with round shoulders they called She-beasties.

Their other toys were mostly freakish sticks, and different kinds of seeds and berries. No wonder it seemed strange to them to imagine these things in a shop. But the idea engaged them, nevertheless. Down by the bathinghole there were several enormous cotton-trees, which lift themselves on their roots right out of the earth, as on stilts, making a big cage. One of these they dubbed their toy-shop: decorated it up with lacebark, and strings of bright-colored seeds, and their other toys: then they would go inside and take turns to sell them to each other. So now this was the picture the phrase “toy-shop” evoked in them. No wonder the London kind was a surprise to them, seemed a very far-fetched fulfilment of the prophecy.

The houses in Hammersmith are tall, roomy, comfortable houses, though not big or aristocratic, with gardens running right down to the river.

It was a shock to them to find how dirty the river was. The litter-strewn mud when the tide was out somehow offended them much less than the sewery water when it was up. At low tide they would often climb down the wall and scrounge about in the mud for things of value to them happily enough. They stank like polecats when they came up again. Their father was sensible about dirt. He ordered a tub of water to be kept permanently outside the basement door, in which they must wash before entering the house: but none of the other children in the terrace were allowed to play in the mud at all.

Emily did not play in the mud either: it was only the little ones.

Mr. Thornton was generally at a theater till the small hours; and when he came home used to sit and write, and then he would go out, about dawn, to the post. The children were often awake in time to hear him going to bed. He drank whisky while he worked, and that helped him to sleep all the morning (they had to be quiet too). But he got up for luncheon, and then he often had battles with their mother about the food. She would try to make him eat it.

All that spring they were an object of wonder to their acquaintances, as they had been on the steamer; and also an object of pity. In the wide world they had become almost national figures: but it was easier to hide this from them then than it would be nowadays. But people—friends—would often come and tell them about the pirates: what wicked men they were, and how cruelly they had maltreated them. Children would generally ask to see Emily's scar. They were especially sorry for Rachel and Laura, who, as being the youngest, must have suffered most. These people used also to tell them about John's heroism, and that he had died for his country just the same as if he had grown up and become a real soldier: that he had shown himself a true English gentleman, like the knights of old were and the martyrs. They were to grow up to be very proud of John, who though still a child had dared to defy these villains and die rather than allow anything to happen to his sisters.

The glorious deeds which Edward would occasionally confess to were still received with an admiration hardly at all tempered with incredulity. He had the intuition, by now, to make them always done in defiance of Jonsen and his crew, not, as formerly, in alliance with or superseding them.

The children listened to all they were told: and according to their ages believed it. Having as yet little sense of contradiction, they blended it quite easily in their minds with their own memories; or sometimes it even cast their memories out. Who were they, children, to know better what had happened to them than grown-ups?

Mrs. Thornton was a feeling, but an essentially Christian woman. The death of John was a blow to her from which she would never recover, as indeed the death of all of them had once been. But she taught the children in saying their prayers to thank God for John's noble end and let it always be an example to them: and then she taught them to ask God to forgive the pirates for all their cruelty to them. She explained to them that God could only do this when they had been properly punished on earth. The only one who could not understand this at all was Laura—she was, after all, rather young. She used the same form of words as the others, yet contrived to imagine that she was praying to the pirates, not for them; so that it gradually came about that whenever God was mentioned in her hearing the face she imagined for Him was Captain Jonsen's.

Once more a phase of their lives was receding into the past, and crystallizing into myth.

Emily was too old to say her prayers aloud, so no one could know whether she put in the same phrase as the others about the pirates or not. No one, in point of fact, knew much what Emily was thinking about anything, at that time.

IV

One day a cab came for the whole family, and they drove together right into London. The cab took them into the Temple: and then they had to walk through twisting passages and up some stairs.

It was a day of full spring, and the large room into which they were ushered faced south. The windows were tall and heavily draped with curtains. After the gloomy stairs it seemed all sunshine and warmth. There was a big fire blazing, and the furniture was massive and comfortable, the dark carpet so thick it clung to their shoes.

A young man was standing in front of the fire when they came in. He was very correctly, indeed beautifully dressed: and he was very handsome as well, like a prince. He smiled at them all pleasantly, and came forward and talked like an old friend. The suspicious eyes of the Liddlies soon accepted him as such. He gave their parents cake and wine: and then he insisted on the children being allowed a sip too, with some cake, which was very kind of him. The taste of the wine recalled to all of them that blowy night in Jamaica: they had had none since.

Soon some more people arrived. They were Margaret and Harry, with a small, yellow, fanatical-looking aunt. The two lots of children had not seen each other for a long time: so they only said Hallo to each other very perfunctorily. Mr. Mathias, their host, was just as kind to the new arrivals.

Every one was at great pains to make the visit appear a casual one; but the children all knew more or less that it was nothing of the sort, that something was presently going to happen. However, they could play-act too. Rachel climbed onto Mr. Mathias's knee. They all gathered round the fire, Emily sitting bolt upright on a foot-stool, Edward and Laura side by side in a capacious arm-chair.

In the middle of every one talking there was a pause, and Mr. Thornton, turning to Emily, said, “Why don't you tell Mr. Mathias about your adventures?”

“Oh yes!” said Mr. Mathias, “do tell me all about it. Let me see, you're...”

“Emily,” whispered Mr. Thornton.

“Age?”

“Ten.”

Mr. Mathias reached for a piece of clean paper and a pen.

“What adventures?” asked Emily clearly.

“Well,” said Mr. Mathias, “you started for England on a sailing-ship, didn't you? The
Clorinda
?”

“Yes. She was a barque.”

“And then what happened?”

She paused before answering.

“There was a monkey,” she said judicially.

“A monkey?”

“And a lot of turtles,” put in Rachel.

“Tell him about the pirates,” prompted Mrs. Thornton. Mr. Mathias frowned at her slightly: “Let her tell it in her own words, please.”

“Oh yes,” said Emily dully, “we were captured by pirates, of course.”

Both Edward and Laura had sat up at the word, stiff as spokes.

“Weren't you with them too, Miss Fernandez?” Mr. Mathias asked.

Miss Fernandez! Every one turned to see who he could mean. He was looking at Margaret.

“Me?” she said suddenly, as if waking up.

“Yes, you! Go on!” said her aunt.

“Say yes,” prompted Edward. “You were with us, weren't you?”

“Yes,” said Margaret, smiling.

“Then why couldn't you say so?” hectored Edward.

Mr. Mathias silently noted this curious treatment of the eldest: and Mrs. Thornton told Edward he mustn't speak like that.

“Tell us what you remember about the capture, will you?” he asked, still of Margaret.

“The what?”

“Of how the pirates captured the
Clorinda
.”

She looked round nervously and laughed, but said nothing.

“The monkey was in the rigging, so they just came on the ship,” Rachel volunteered.

“Did they—er—fight with the sailors? Did you see them hit anybody? Or threaten anybody?”

“Yes!” cried Edward, and jumped up from his chair, his eyes wide and inspired. “
Bing! Bang! Bong!
” he declared, thumping the seat at each word; then sat down again.

“They didn't,” said Emily. “Don't be silly, Edward.”

“Bing, bang, bong,” he repeated, with less conviction.

“
Bung!
” contributed Harry to his support, from under the arm of the fanatical aunt.

“Bim-bam, bim-bam,” sing-songed Laura, suddenly waking up and starting a tattoo of her own.

“Shut up!” cried Mr. Thornton. “Did you, or did you not, any of you, see them hit anybody?”

“Cut off their heads!” cried Edward. “And throw them in the sea!—Far, far...” his eyes became dreamy and sad.

“They didn't hit anybody,” said Emily. “There wasn't any one to hit.”

“Then where were all the sailors?” asked Mr. Mathias.

“They were all up the rigging,” said Emily.

“I see,” said Mr. Mathias. “Er—didn't you say the monkey was in the rigging?”

“He broke his neck,” said Rachel. She wrinkled up her nose disgustedly: “He was drunk.”

“His tail was rotted,” explained Harry.

“Well,” said Mr. Mathias, “when they came on board, what did they do?”

There was a general silence.

“Come, come! What did they do?—What did they do, Miss Fernandez?”

“I don't know.”

“Emily?”

“
I
don't know.”

He sat back in despair: “But you saw them!”

“No we didn't,” said Emily, “we went in the deckhouse.”

“And stayed there?”

“We couldn't open the door.”

“
Bang-bang-bang!
” Laura suddenly rapped out.

“Shut up!”

“And then, when they let you out?”

“We went on the schooner.”

“Were you frightened?”

“What of?”

“Well: them.”

“Who?”

“The pirates.”

“Why should we?”

“They didn't do anything to frighten you?”

“To
frighten
us?”

“Coo! José did belch!” Edward interjected merrily, and began giving an imitation. Mrs. Thornton chid him.