"Bosun!"
The man looked at him wonderingly. "Sir?"
"Tell the men I'll try to rake up a little money for them . . . enough for tobacco and a few drinks, anyway. I'll be back as soon as I can."
"Aye, aye, sir." The petty officer hesitated. "Bad news, Mr. Rogers?"
Scott passed a sinewy hand over his face. He felt tight inside; empty and sick from shock and loss. The muscles stood out in his bony cheeks, and he spoke with an effort. "Aye. Just take over for a little while. And if there are any stores left, divide them among the men."
4
WAITING alone in the polished, gloomy elegance of the high-ceilinged living room, Scott was astonished to observe in a long mirror that he appeared quite as ill as he felt. To the strain of the hard trip home, with his best friend fighting for life in the cabin while the ship made water as fast as exhausted men could pump it out, had been added shock and almost unbearable grief; and his eyes now shone feverishly in a thin, drawn face bristling with wiry whiskers. He gave no thought to his unkemptness, though, no longer caring whether or not the Pearys were impressed by his appearance. Rowena's gone, he thought dully; she's gone, and I never really got to know her. All she ever had from me was my love; I never was able to give her anything else, not even a roof of her own.
He tried to sit composedly in a chair, but he could not remain still with so much turmoil inside him. Rising, he began pacing the limited area, nervously awaiting the arrival of some member of the family. He was stirring about agitatedly when he heard a cry that froze him into stillness. He was certain his ears were playing him tricks until he heard the sound again.
It was the thin, wailing cry of a hungry infant, a plaintive demand for food and attention.
"Good God!" he whispered.
Just then his parents-in-law entered the room, both somberly dressed in black. They greeted him without warmth, but with studied politeness. His resentment at the reception was tempered immediately by the sadness stark in their faces. The one thing they all had in common was grief.
Mrs. Peary, a frail woman with the ramrod back of a guardsman and a thin, pale face, said nothing. Her husband, a stoutly built man with the same cold, shrewd, light-blue eyes that distinguished Clay Peary's features, spoke with an effort. "You know, of course?"
Scott wet chapped lips with his tongue. "Aye."
They looked at him without compassion, almost as if he were a thing as inanimate as the furnishings.
"Tell me—about. . ." Scott's voice trailed off into the void of his own loneliness.
The baby wailed again. Mrs. Peary turned her eyes upward and a worried frown softened the rigid mask of her face. Peary bit his lip. "She died of childbed fever five weeks ago today."
Scott's face worked slightly in mute sorrow.
"The child survived her," Peary went on tonelessly. "A boy."
"Christ," Scott said softly, even prayerfully. "Christ."
"She wanted him named for you—Scott." Peary had a hard time getting the name out. "I promised. His name is Scott Rogers, Jr."
In those joyous times of love, those few times so long ago when he and Rowena had sought happiness and fulfillment, Scott had never thought of the possible consequences. It was enough then that his wife wanted him. Now he had a son, but no wife. Men were supposed to want sons. He didn't want a son. He only wanted Rowena.
Mrs. Peary, her features again an expressionless mask, still said nothing. Peary spoke again. "Do you want to see him?"
"My son, you mean?" Scott asked dully.
The senior Peary's voice sharpened a trifle. "Of course. Who else?"
He didn't, really. But he said what he felt Rowena would have wanted him to say. "Aye, sir."
"Then come with me."
Mutely miserable, conscious of their hostility, he followed both the Pearys upstairs. They entered a small room, where a Negro wet nurse suckled a pink and white child. The infant's face had a pearly cast in contrast with the ebony skin of the woman's breast.
Mrs. Peary spoke suddenly, softly, "He's all we have left of our daughter. Will you take him away from us?"
Standing in silent contemplation of the now contented baby, who made slurping, gurgling sounds in his greed, Scott couldn't say anything. He felt nothing toward the child, neither affection nor resentment. When at last he could speak, he didn't answer the question. "I'd like to go outside ... be alone for awhile."
Peary escorted him downstairs, leaving Mrs. Peary with the baby and the nurse. Scott wondered vaguely, without really caring, where Clay was. At the door his father-in-law spoke evenly. "What will you do with—with your son?"
Grief and anger suddenly burst from Scott in harshly spoken words. "How would I know? Depend on it, he won't be a burden to you. Now, damn it, leave me alone for awhile! I can't think now! Why did it have to happen?"
Clay Peary appeared noiselessly, coming up alongside Scott and blinking at him with puffy-lidded, bloodshot eyes. He had heard the vehement outburst, and his voice came wonderingly. "You really did care for her, didn't you, Scott?"
Scott knotted his fists helplessly. "God damn you, you know I did! More—more than I realized, too—until now."
The younger Peary drew his stern-faced father back from the door. To Scott he said in an almost kindly fashion: "Go out and walk around a bit. Clear your head. Then come back."
Scott hurried away. For the first time he almost liked his brother-in-law.
5
IT WAS not in Scott's make-up to weep or beat his breast in hope of gaining sympathy; nor was he inclined to wander aimlessly through the narrow, muddy, pig-and-buzzard-infested streets of the city. Once the initial shock wore off, as soon as he accepted the irrevocable fact that his idyll with Rowena was over and his dreams must be recast, his mind began functioning logically. Within an hour of leaving the Peary house he was in the shop of a Jewish moneylender with whom he had previously done some business. Between the two of them existed mutual respect; and he went directly to the point of his visit.
"Mr. Solomon," he said bluntly, "I want to borrow one hundred dollars. The only security I can offer is a silver watch for which I paid sixteen pounds in Liverpool seven years ago."
Solomon eyed him perplexedly. "I know you, Mr. Rogers. You are a man of honor and sense. On the face of what you've just said, I can only refuse. But tell me more; maybe we can do business."
"All right, I'll tell you. We just brought the privateer Jasper in from a highly unsuccessful venture. There were no profits, so my share is exactly nothing. I have no money and no prospects at the moment. But you will be repaid, with interest at 10 per cent, if I live and keep my health. Just when, though, I can't say."
The moneylender shook his head wonderingly, not negatively. "I am no man to pry, Mr. Rogers, but tell me why you need this money so urgently? Your father-in-law is one of the richest men in South Carolina. Surely he will let you have money without interest."
Scott hesitated momentarily. "Half of it I need to keep myself and my son until I can find employment. The other half—well"—he looked Solomon straight in the eyes, as if daring him to condemn what he was about to say—"the other half I want to divide among the crew of the Jasper. Like me, they'll get nothing from our bootless voyage of more than ten months. What I hope to give them will amount to little enough, God knows—less than two dollars apiece. But a little tobacco and a little grog—maybe an hour or so with a woman—can mean much to men who ship before the mast."
Solomon cocked his head and scratched it. "Mr. Rogers, if you'll excuse my saying so, you're a fool. But it ain't often that such a fool comes into this place with such an idea for foolishment in his head. The money's yours ... at only 8 per cent."