“Look at Edward!” said Emily to Margaret in a pause. “It’s perfectly sickening!”
It was. The very first mug rendered the fat señora even more motherly. Edward by now was fascinated, was in her power completely. He sat and gazed up in her little black eyes, his own large brown ones glazed with sentiment. He avoided her mustache, it is true: but on her cheek he was returning her kisses earnestly. All this, of course, without the possibility of their exchanging a single word — pure instinct. “With a fork drive Nature out…” one would gladly have taken a fork to Nature, on that occasion.
Meanwhile, on the rest of the crowd the liquor was having exactly the effect the mate had foreseen. Instead of stimulating them, it dissolved completely whatever vestiges of attention they were still giving to the sale. He stepped down from the platform — gave it all up in despair. For they had now broken up into little groups, which discussed and argued their own affairs as if they were in a café. He in his turn went on board, and shut himself in his cabin — Captain Jonsen could deal with the mess he had made himself!
But alas! No worse host than Jonsen was ever born: he was utterly incapable of either understanding or controlling a crowd. All he could think of doing was plying them with more.
For the children the spectacle was an absorbing one. The whole nature of these people, as they drank, seemed to be changing: under their very eyes something seemed to be breaking up, like ice melting. Remember that to them this was a pantomime: no word spoken to explain, and so the eyes exercised a peculiar clearness.
It was rather as if the whole crowd had been immersed in water, and something dissolved out of them while the general structure yet remained. The tone of their voices changed, and they began to talk much slower, to move more slowly and elaborately. The expression of their faces became more candid, and yet more mask-like: hiding less, there was also less to hide. Two men even began to fight: but they fought so incompetently it was like a fight in a poetic play. Conversation, which before had a beginning and an end, now grew shapeless and interminable, and the women laughed a lot.
One old gentleman in most respectable clothes settled himself on the dirty ground at full length, with his head in the shade of the throned lady, spread a handkerchief over his face, and went to sleep: three other middle-aged men, holding each other with one hand to establish contact and using the other for emphasis, kept up a continuous clacking talk, that faltered intolerably though never quite stopping — like a very old engine.
A dog ran in and out among them all wagging its tail, but no one kicked it. Presently it found the old gentleman who was asleep on the ground, and began licking his ear excitedly: it had never had such a chance before.
The old lady also had fallen asleep, a little crookedly— she might even have slipped off her chair if her negro had not buttressed her up. Edward got off her, and went and joined the other children rather shamefacedly: but they would not speak to him.
Jonsen looked round him perplexedly. Why had Otto abandoned the sale, now the crowd were all primed and ready? Probably he had some good reason, though. He was an incomprehensible man, that mate: but clever.
The truth is that Captain Jonsen was himself a man with a very weak head for liquor, and so he very seldom touched it, and knew little of the subtler aspects of its effects.
He paced up and down the dusty wharf at his usual slow shuffle, his head sunk forward in wretchedness, occasionally wringing his hands in the naturalest way, and even whimpering. When the priest came up to him confidentially and offered him a price for all that remained unsold he simply shook his head and continued his shuffle.
There was something a little nightmare-like in the whole scene which riveted the children’s attention, and was very near the border of frightening them. It was with something of a struggle that at last Margaret said “Let’s go on the ship.” So they all went on board: and feeling a little unprotected even there, descended into the hold, which was the safest place because they had already slept in it. They sat down on the kelson without doing or saying much, still with a vague apprehension, till boredom at last eliminated it.
“Oh I wish I had brought my paint-box!” said Emily, with a sigh fetched right up from her boots.
II
That night, after they had all gone to bed, they saw in a half-asleep state a lantern bobbing up and down in the open hatch. It was held by José, the little monkeyfied one (they had already decided he was the nicest of the crew). He was grinning winningly, and beckoning to them.ﾠ
Emily was too sleepy to move, and so were Laura and Racheclass="underline" so leaving them to lie, the others — Margaret, Edward, and John — scrambled on deck.
It was mysteriously quiet. Not a sign of the crew, but for José. In the bright starlight the town looked unnormally beautifuclass="underline" there was music coming from one of the big houses up by the church. José conducted them ashore and up to this house: tiptoed up to the jalousies and signed to them to follow him.
As the light struck his face it became transfigured, so affected was he by the opulence within.
The children craned up to the level of the windows and peered in too, oblivious of the mosquitoes making havoc of their necks.
It was a very grand sight. This was the house of the Chief Magistrate: and he was giving a dinner in honor of Captain Jonsen and his mate. There he sat at the head of the table, in uniform; very stiff, yet his little beard even stiffer than himself. His was the kind of dignity that grows from reserve and stillness, from freezing every minute like game which scents the hunter: while in total contrast to him there sat his wife (the important señora who had made so much of Edward), far more impressive than her husband, but doing it not by dignity but by that calculated abandon and vulgarity which transcends dignity. Indeed, her flinging about got the greater part of its effect from the very formality of her setting.
When the children arrived at the window she must even have been discussing the size of her own belly: for she suddenly seized the shy hand of the mate, and made him, willy-nilly, feel it, as if to clench an argument.
As for her husband, he did not seem to see her: nor did the servants: she was such a very great lady.
But it was not her, it was the meal which raped José’s attention. It was certainly an impressive one. Together on the table were tomato soup, mountain mullet, crayfish, a huge red-snapper, land-crabs, rice and fried chicken, a young turkey, a small joint of goat-mutton, a wild duck, beef steak, fried pork, a dish of wild pigeons, sweet potatoes, yuca, wine, and guavas and cream.
It was a meal which would take a long time.
Captain Jonsen and the lady appeared to be on excellent terms: he pressing some project on her, and she, without the least loss of amiability, putting it on one side. What they were talking about, of course, the children could not hear. As a matter of fact, it was themselves. Captain Jonsen was trying to get the lady to discuss the disposal of his impromptu nursery: the most reasonable solution being plainly to leave them at Santa Lucia, more or less in her charge. But she was adept at eluding the importunate. It was not till the banquet was over that he realized he had failed to make any arrangement whatever.
But long before this, before the dinner was ended and the dance began, the children were tired of the peepshow. So José tiptoed away with them, down to the back streets by the dock. Presently they came to a mysterious door at the bottom of a staircase, with a negro standing as if on guard. But he made no effort to stop them, and, José leading them, they climbed several flights to a large upper room.
The air was one you could hardly push through. The place was crowded with negroes, and a few rather smudgy whites: among whom they recognized most of the rest of the crew of the schooner. At the far end was the most primitive stage you ever saw: there was a cradle on it, and a large star swung on the end of a piece of string. There was to be a nativity-play — rather early in the season. While the Chief Magistrate entertained the pirate captain and mate, the priest had got this up in honor of the pirate crew.