"If there is, you'll have to find it for yourself."
"It's none of my business, I reckon, but I'll ask you something that is my business. Will you meet me again on the beach?"
"Yes."
"Tomorrow?"
"If you want me to."
"Where we met today or where we turned off?"
"Where we turned off."
"I want to a mighty lot. And I'm sorry about the fish."
"I am, too. And you did find the reason why I can't take him. If Papa knew we had been together on the beach—and his eyes are terribly sharp—he wouldn't forbid me going there again, but it would turn out that I wouldn't go. So good-by unto tomorrow—"
"There's just one thing more," I said.
I took her in my arms and held her close and kissed her beautiful warm mouth again and again. Since we stood in the dense shade of the carob trees, there was little likelihood of being seen. A far greater danger, plain as day, I could only disregard. My ship could never come in unless I spread her canvas and sailed close to the rocks.
Sophia did not resist or answer. When I let her go, her face deeply flushed, she turned without a word and walked away. I gazed after her, hoping she would look back and wave her hand, but she only grew small again, impersonal, unrecognizable, a moving dot of life.
CHAPTER 4
Cave of a Witch
In the end I lugged both fish to the hospital, where they caused great stir. Having told of catching them on a beach far from our meeting place, I could only hope that some finny beauties were biting there, for many of the walking patients and several of the staff planned to set forth at dawn. The two lunkers furnished a feast both in the wardrooms and the common tables.
That night I did a little fishing of another sort in talk with Chaplain Blain. Although the low cunning attributed to Yankees had not come out in me yet, by mentioning Captain Ball, governor of the island, I led him on to name other bigwigs in and about. It turned out that there was only one other. He was Captain Sir Godwine Tarlton, in command of all navy installations. And the chaplain's eyes glassed as he spoke his name.
" 'Sir' means that he's a knight?" I asked.
"Yes."
"But that's not as high as a lord."
"According to precedence, no. A new-made baron sits above Sir Godwine, but it would make him very uncomfortable. I don't mean Sir Godwine—I mean the baron. The old marquisate in North Ireland was lost. Again and again his ancestors have been offered peerages, only to decline. All they'll accept is knighthoods, a different thing entirely."
"Excuse me. I'm not well versed on English nobility and gentry. Why would he accept a knighthood when a knight is below a lord?"
"A knighthood is not hereditary and has little to do with family. In feudal times, knighthoods were often won in battle; it was a personal honor, not a family one. Sir Godwine accepted a knighthood for service against the Colonies; but it's the names Godwine and Tarlton, not the «r—more than that the man himself—that chills the backbone of impostors and upstarts. But of course you don't understand that. No American could."
"I find it mighty interesting."
"He was the only gentleman of England who refused to meet Beau Brummell, who's hand-in-glove with the Prince of Wales. Dukes bow and scrape to him, but Sir Godwine said he did not accept the acquaintance of clerks' sons and shopkeepers' grandsons. It made the prince furious, but what could he do? Sir Godwine has plenty of money. He didn't want any honors that the prince could pay him."
"I'd like to see him. Does he lodge in Valletta?"
"No, in one of the old palaces near Notabile—with his young daughter and his natural son. But his official headquarters are here. And if you see a small man, dandyish in dress, with a cocked hat and powdered hair and always carrying a stick instead of wearing a sword— that's one of the marks of the Tarlton family—you needn't look much farther."
"Will his natural son be able to take his place in society?" I was getting warm now, in the words of the old game.
"I doubt if he'll encounter any difficulty. It's pretty well known that his mother was a countess. The daughter is almost a beauty, I hear, although a bit odd-looking."
"But if she's an heiress—"
"She's not, according to the talk. The Tarlton money goes to Dick. Still, she won't be a drug on the market. There are too many young officers, of good name and prospects, loose on these seas. I hear of one in particular."
I did not ask his name. Maybe I was afraid of showing too much interest. Perhaps I did not want to know.
Despite temptation to put on my best clothes, I went to the rendezvous dressed the same as yesterday—a linen shirt with a fly collar and rolled-up sleeves, kersey trousers slashed off at the knee, and brogue slippers unhurt by wet. At first I was inclined to walk fast, but on thinking this might not be good for my leg, as well as lowering to my self-esteem, I took an easy pace. My haversack contained a flask of Tokay wine instead of Marsala, imported from Hungary and of deeper color and more heady, but hardly more dear.
By the time I arrived, I had convinced myself that Sophia would not come. I took out my silver watch and looked at it. It had been found in my father's pocket, strapped to his belt, and I had thought I could never bear the sight of it until I remembered what a friend it had been to him, serving him almost as well as an Earnshaw chronometer serves a great ship o' the line; then I had felt ashamed of my weakness, had it cleaned and oiled, and kept it by me constantly. Even in gales at sea I had worn it in a bag of oilskin lashed to my pocket. Gazing now into its candid face, as cheerful to instruct a man of the hour of his hanging as a child in the long time ere she must go to bed, I came to a sober conclusion.
I was not going to count time in my affairs with Sophia. I had nothing important to do with it even if I saved it, so I would give the day to her. If she made no use of it, it was still hers. If she never knew of the gift, I would still be glad I had made it. There were plenty of rocks to sit on, sand to doze in, sea to look out upon, sky to gaze into, birds to watch, wool to gather, castles in Spain to build. I was still aglow with the wisdom of the resolve when a little warm hand slipped into mine. From some unseen station behind the rocks, Sophia had stolen upon me, noiseless as an Indian. A thrill of happiness filled my body and being.
She was dressed more gaily than yesterday. Presently I recognized her costume as that worn by Sicilian peasant women, whose husbands and fathers leased vineyards in and about Notabile, and whom I had seen tending vines. She wore her hair in two black braids. In her hand was an almost empty oilskin bag of the expensive kind used by English naval officers to protect precious belongings from salt water.
"Homer, did you bring any lunch?" she asked before I could quit grinning.
"Of course."
"Will you be hungry for it in an hour? Bad news first—I can stay only two hours. I brought something nice to go with it."
I nodded.
"Now here's something much more important. Can you swim? Papa says lots of sailors can't swim."
"I could swim from here to . . ." But I stopped, deciding not to brag.
"Oh, good. I can swim a little—I learned on the moor pools, with an old nurse who could swim like a salmon. We're not going swimming, but we have to go in deep water to get where we're going. And we must start at once."
She led me to the end of the stretch of beach, then up and on rugged cliffs. When we had kept the high ground for about a half a mile, she took me down what looked like a goat path into a cove, surrounded by crags and cliffs except for a cleft, clean-cut, blue with the light of sea and sky, appearing more narrow than it was, but still not forty fathoms broad, by which a ship might enter. The water lay as still as in one of our little lakes in the hollows of the Maine hills in deep summer. Since the cove opened to the south, sheltered from the prevailing northeast winds, I thought it would rarely roughen enough to rock a fishing smack. It was a deeper blue than the darkest sapphire, except on the shoals, where it appeared emerald green.