"Thank you. Here's the watch."
"Keep it, sir. I trust you. Your word's good enough for Marcus Solomon, and there ain't many I can say as much for."
Returning to the battered Jasper, which now had been hauled up to a point where she rested on the bottom, held almost upright by the bow and stem lines attached to the pier, Scott called all hands and signed them off. To each he gave without comment an equal share of the fifty dollars. Gamblers who had lost, they accepted the money gratefully. Soon the ship was empty of even the wounded.
With his few possessions in a sea bag, Scott made his way to Meeting Street and through it to the home of Captain Rousseau, which was little less pretentious than that of Philip Peary. Mrs. Rousseau, small, quiet and almost as wizened as her husband led him to the wounded man's bedroom. There Rousseau sat in an armchair, carving a dolphin on the head of a stout hickory walking stick.
"I figured you'd be by to see me, my boy," Rousseau said by way of greeting. "I'm glad to see you again. I'm sorry an unlucky voyage was capped for you by loss of your wife. She was a lovely little lady."
"That she was, sir," Scott responded, feeling his loneliness keenly. "You know that I have a son?"
"Aye. Phil Peary told me. He's pretty cut-up about his daughter. Thought more of her than of his boy."
"I know. I think he blames me."
"Maybe it's natural for him to do so now, especially since he never approved of the marriage. But it'll pass—I think. I don't reckon he said anything to you about the venture."
Scott shook his head. "He didn't say much of anything."
Rousseau nodded, his eyes fixed on what he was doing. "The doctor says my seafaring days are over. I guess they are for quite awhile, anyway. I'm not as young as I was. Did you think I wouldn't pull through?"
"I didn't know, sir."
Rousseau laid aside stick and knife and charged a clay pipe with yellow tobacco. Scott struck fire for him with flint and steel. The captain accepted a light from glowing tow, then blew smoke upward. "It was a hard-luck voyage, Scott. But a man can't be lucky every time."
"No, I suppose he can't."
"Phil Peary finally got around to talking about our losses when he came to see me. He's made money and kept a lot of it. He always did have a head for money; had it when we were cabin boys together years ago."
"He's been to sea? I didn't know that."
"Just one long voyage to China. We've been friends ever since. The point is, though, that I've never kept much of what I made. About all I've got left in the world is this house. And my wife's got a few hundred acres of wild land; we never did get around to clearing it, and it isn't worth much as it stands."
Scott managed a wry smile. "At that, you're ahead of me. I've got a son to support."
"Do you have any money at all, boy?" Rousseau asked kindly.
"Fifty dollars I borrowed from Solomon, the moneylender. I've got to find employment soon. I'm not going to leave my son with the Pearys indefinitely. It was bad enough that Rowena had to stay there."
Rousseau blew a smoke ring and stuck the short stem of his pipe through it. "You've got a problem, son. Why don't you move in with us until you can get a ship?"
"Thanks. But what about my boy?"
"Let your in-laws keep him awhile longer. I can tell you that they're fond of him."
"Too fond of him," Scott said dryly. "They want to keep him."
"And you don't want them to?"
"That's right, I don't. You know, though, I can't honestly say I feel toward the boy as a father should—or, at least, as a father's supposed to. Maybe I'm just not used to the idea. But I intend to provide for him. He's not going to depend on his grandparents for bread and shelter."
"Well, let him stay awhile longer with Phil and his wife. You can't do for him while he's so little."
"I don't want to be beholden to the Pearys. And I don't want him to be."
"He won't be and neither will you.... Now, listen. Just this morning John Lloyd—he and Phil and I were partners in the Jasper, you know—dropped by to see me. John's like me—an optimist. And he's got as much money as Phil, I reckon. Enough, anyway. Well, he's got a scheme for going into the pepper trade. He's going to try to sell Phil on it."
"What about you?"
"I'm sold. I'm a gambler and, from what John said, I'm willing to gamble this house and my wife's land in an effort to recoup and even make a profit."
Scott frowned. "I don't exactly follow you, sir. You just said you couldn't go to sea again."
"No, but you can. You're qualified to be a shipmaster."
"But I don't know anything about the pepper trade. Hell, I don't even know where the stuff comes from. China?"
Rousseau smiled. "From an island called Sumatra. It seems that about the only American ships that've ever touched there were Salem vessels. John figures they'll be going back, now that the war's over, but he doesn't figure they should hog all the trade. He figures we can make at least one very profitable voyage, if we get there early enough."
"Ahead of the Salem ships, you mean?"
"Aye."
Scott was intensely interested. "You're willing to risk everything you have left on such a venture?"
"If it works out, yes. Why not? Only first, Phil's got to be sold ... on the venture and you as captain."
Scott rubbed his chin. "That may not work out. . . the part about me, I mean. You've got an idea how Mr. Peary feels about me."
Rousseau pressed a horny thumb on the glowing coal of tobacco in his pipe. "Phil liked you well enough before you married his daughter. And he knows you're a good ship's officer. In a few days I'll know more about this notion of John's. He's expecting some fellow to call on him .. . man who's been in the pepper trade and even been to the Pepper Coast. Meanwhile you stay here with us, and put in some time getting acquainted with your boy. I'm told that all babies look like the devil at first; but they change. How'd the boy look to you?"
"I didn't really get a good look at him," Scott confessed. "I could have, but I just didn't seem to care at the time."
6
DURING the first week of February, while fretfully awaiting news from Rousseau, Scott became acquainted with his son, who still was at the Peary home. In that period of inactive days and lonely, restless nights the baby, whom at first he had regarded with indifference, took a round turn and two half hitches on his affections. The ambition which Rowena had sparked in him was set aglow again.
"Little man," Scott said aloud one day when the nurse had stepped out of the room, "things are going to be all right for you someday . . . better than ever they were for me. You're going to have all the things I wanted for your mama. You can lay to that."
Mrs. Peary, who had entered the room unobserved and heard it all, startled him by speaking at his shoulder. "You're not going to take him away from us, are you?"
Scott met her eyes. "In time, yes."
"But how can you give him the care he needs?"
"The plain truth, ma'am, is that I can't as yet. So I'm beholden to you for what you've done and what you're still doing. But he's my son and my responsibility."
"You resent his being here, don't you?"
He nodded. "Some. I don't like being beholden to you. And the other day you said he was all you had left of Rowena. Well, he's all I've got of her, too."
His mother-in-law's narrow shoulders drooped suddenly and her glacial eyes misted. "You aren't beholden to us for keeping him. We want him. We could give him so much, Mr. Peary and I."
Scott felt a twinge of pity for her. He spoke tentatively. "Ma'am . . ."