William couldn't be expected to appreciate the difficulties of his brother's position: all the former's experience had been got when, with James Saltonstone and a party of Salem merchants, he ventured to the lighthouse at the entrance of the harbor, had a cold collation, and returned with the pilot or in the Custom House sloop. These occasions of huzzas and salutes and speeches were supplemented with a hasty inspection, now and then, of a vessel lying still at the wharf with sails harbor furled. William guessed little of the long effort through which a ship won from the first of those moments to the last. He was solely concerned with the returns of the cargo.
However, Rhoda was right, and this mooning wouldn't bring Gerrit into port. He turned to the bookcase, where a squat bottle of Medford rum rested beside a tumbler; after a drink he lighted a cheroot and smoking vigorously, with hands clasped behind him, paced back and forth in an undeviating line between the door to the hall and a dark polished secretary he had bought in London.
While he was walking Camilla came into the room and sedately took a seat on one of the formal chairs against the wall. "I guess you think that's the deck of a ship," she said conversationally. He regarded her with a faint threatening glint of humor. Camilla's dignity was stupendous; particularly now, when, he observed, her skirts stood out in a thoroughly grown manner. He liked Laurel best of William's children; she had, in spite of her confusion in regard to outports, a surprising grasp upon many of the details of life on shipboard, and a largeness of manner and expression entertaining in a little girl. Sidsall was the most ingratiating—she had Gerrit's direct kindling gaze; Janet showed no individuality yet beyond an entire willingness to conform to outward circumstance while pursuing deeply secret speculations within. But Camilla impressed the entire family by the rigidity of her correctness in personal and social niceties. At times, he felt, she would be a nuisance but for the firm hand of her mother and his own contribution to their well-being by an occasional sly sally.
"It might be that," he admitted; "if it weren't for the facts that it's a house and library, and I'm an old man, and you're not at all like the second mate."
"I should hope not," she replied decidedly. "A second mate isn't anything, and I am a—a young lady anyhow."
"You'll soon be out at dances."
"I go to parties now; that is, mother let me stay at the Coggswells' on
Thursday until the men came at nine for sangaree. And I'm at all the
Ballad Soirées."
He made a gesture of pretended surprise and admiration. "I don't suppose they ever have a good chantey with the stuff they play?" he queried. "Dear me, no. Mr. Dempster sings The Indian's Lament, and The May Queen: that's a cantata and it's in three parts."
Jeremy began to hum, and in a moment was intoning in a loud monotonous voice, sweeping a hand up and down:
"To my hero, Bangedero, Singing hey for a gay Hash girl."