Lot & Company

by Will Levington Comfort

Over all was the cloud of canvas and rigging, which Bellair had studied from the land, and which had forced him to a fine respect for the ruffian sailor-men who could move directly in such an arcanum, and command its service. Bellair had not found such labour on shore, having lost his respect for the many who did not learn even the commonest work.... There was a deep-sea smell about her, a solution of tar and dried fruit, paint and steaming coppers from the galley.

The very age of the Jade was a charm to him. Only her spine and ribs and plates were of steel—the rest a priceless woodwork that had come into its real beauty under the endlessly wearing hands of man. There seemed a grain and maturity to the inner parts, as if the strain and roughing of the seas had brought out the real enduring heart of the excellent fabric. The rose-wood side-board of his upper berth, for instance, placed for the full light from the port to fall upon it, was worth the price of the passage—sixteen inches wide, a full inch and one-half thick, worn to a soft lustre as if the human hands had hallowed it, and giving back to the touch the same answer from the years that a vine brings to stone-work and the bouquet to wine.... The Jade had known good care and answered. Floors, even of the cabins, were hollowed from much stoning; the hinges held and ferried their burdens in silence, and the old locks moved with soft contented clicks, the wards running in new oil.

A city man who had long dreamed of a country garden; or indeed, Bellair was a city man who had long dreamed of a full-rigged ship to fulfil in part the romance of his soul. The Jade had a dear inner life for him, satisfied him with her lines, her breathing, settling and repose. A fine hunger began to animate the length and breadth of the man.

There was a half hour of straight, clear thinking, of the kind that plumbs the outlook with the in, and mainly comes unawares. Bessie Brealt, of course, appeared and passed, in all the hardness of her life and the pity of it, but the days that had elapsed since the parting had not changed his unique desire to help her; nor did he lie to himself that he wanted her, too, as a man wants a woman. He loved her in a way, against his will. Possibly the kiss had fixed that. In the solution of the running thoughts, and without subtlety of mingling, was the face on deck, the dark, extraordinary face of Stackhouse.

They were a full day at sea, before Bellair was called to sit down before the great cane chair. There was a warm land wind; November already forgotten. The Jade had gathered up her skirts and was swinging along with a low music of her own. Stackhouse waddled back to his chair from the land-rail, a remarkable mass of crumpled silks, the canes marked in the general effusion of dampness along his back and legs, the silks caught up behind by a system of wrinkles and imprints, and one hitched pantaloon revealing the familiar muff of fur above the selvage of his fallen sock. Now Stackhouse was preparing to enter. Bellair was caught in the tension. The process, while prodigious, was not without its delicate parts. One hand was irrevocably occupied with a long-stemmed China pipe, a warm creamy vase, already admired by Bellair. Breath came in puffs and pantings of fragrant tobacco, but there were gurglings and strange stoppages of air that complained from deeper passages.

Creaking began at the corners; and a wallowing as if from the father of all boars. Now the centre of the chair caught the strain in full and whipped forth its remonstrance. One after another the legs gripped the deck, each with a whimper of its own; and the air was filled with sharp singing tension which infected the nerves of the watcher. Suddenly the torso seemed to let go of itself; and from the canes of the huge central hollow came a scream in unison. By miracle the whole found itself once more and the breathing of Stackhouse subsided to a whine.

“We are entering the latitude of rum,” said he. “Whoever you are, young man, drink the drink of nature, and you will brosper.”

The west was just a shore-line, the dusk rising like a tide. The hand of the owner pressed the silks variously about his chest, and at last located a loose match. Nerves were sparsely scattered in these thick, heavy-fleshed fingers. He had to stop all talk and memory to direct his feeling. The match at length emerged from his palm, and slithered over the fine canes of the arm. It was damp. Stackhouse rubbed the sulphur delicately in the hair at his temple and tried again. Fire leaped to the tip, and poured out from the great hand which pressed it to the pipe and mothered it from the wind. From the gurgling passages, smoke now poured as the sweetness in Sampson’s riddle.

Rum had come. The Japanese woman served them. The youth of her face chilled Bellair; the littleness of her, all the tints and delicacy of a miniature in her whitened face. Bright-hued silk, a placid smile, the skuffing of her wooden sandals and the clock-work intricacy of the coils of her black hair—these were but decorations of the tragedy which came home to the American where he was still tender.... But why should he burn tissue? She seemed happy. He knew that the Japanese women require very little to make them happy; but that little was denied this maiden. An hour a day to giggle with her girl-friends behind a lattice, and she might have borne twenty-three hours of hell with calmness and cheer, not counterfeit like this.

“You have no true drink of the soil in Ameriga,” said Stackhouse. “You do not make beer nor wine, so you make no music. The only drink and the only music that come from the States of Ameriga, are from the nigger-folk who do not belong there. They make music and corn whiskey. The rest is boison to the soul.”