"Gaud bless 'em," added McNab with a sardonic twist looking at the two women glaring at each other. "What would we do without them?" The crisis might have continued but just then Vincent dashed in late shaking the rain off his curls.
"Well! Elisha, I told ye it would rain," said Mrs. Jorham.
"Aye, ye're a clever barometer, I'll give ye that," said the captain.
"Vera sansitive to dampness in any form," muttered McNab to Faith. But Faith was proposing the return toast.
"I propose something we can all drink to," she said smiling at Mrs. Jorham, "and I with as much hope as any of you, perhaps more, who knows? 'The future.' "
"But not without faith," amended Mr. Bonnyfeather who could not avoid the obvious.
Mrs. Jorham hesitated. She had been trapped.
"Come on, Jane," said Captain Elisha appreciating the housekeeper's finesse.
"I'm a temperance woman," she snapped.
"Madame," said Mr. Bonnyfeather, "allow me. A very light wine, a remedy for the climate, never intoxicating, in small doses. The custom of the country." He bowed, his eyes twinkling, and from a decanter filled Mrs. Jorham's glass with a fiery burgundy. He stood waiting.
Mrs. Jorham arose with a stiff yet coy reluctance. She hesitated but finally clinked her glass against Mr. Bonnyfeather's as if she had already been seduced and nothing could be done about it.
"The future," she murmured, her cheeks tingling at her inconceivable abandon. Then she swallowed the burgundy with a gulp.
"The auld deil," whispered McNab to Anthony.
She sat down slowly. Her hands remained spread out on the table as if placed on a faintly pleasant electric contact.
"Well, darn my mother's socks!" said the captain.
Everybody laughed and broke out talking at once. The ice had been broken.
Anthony glanced at Mr. Bonnyfeather. He was sitting with a look of great satisfaction at the success of his ruse. As for Mrs. Jorham there was no doubt that she was wrapt in a deep spiritual experience. The end of her nose was slowly beginning to glow,
Vincent was as full of news and as merry as ever. "Have you heard the new song the gamins are singing? It throws the French out of step when they pass." He broke out with his full tenor.
"lo cledevo di veder fla pochino, Che se n'andasser via questi blicconi: Dia Saglata! ne vien ogni tantino Quasi, quasi dilei, Dio mi peldoni! O che anche Clisto polta il palticcino, O che i Soplani son tanti minchioni!"
The happy, careless voice transported Anthony again to the molten hours they had wasted delightfully together along the Corso. In the gay mocking lilt was concentrated the life of the streets of Livorno. How he loved it all. Now that he was going, how homesick for it he was already. Could it, could it be possible that so much happiness, and dear sorrow, could pass? "The future?" What was it? Let them always sit listening about a table like this. The voice ceased. The silence seemed unbearable.
"Sing again, Vincent, sing again. The song we sang that morning together, do you remember?"
Vincent burst out with it. Anthony joined in. On the surge of his own notes he recovered himself. His voice rang out clearly. He could blend it with Vincent's beautifully. For another moment he was gayly happy. But this time with a new poignance.
He looked at Mr. Bonnyfeather. With the music and the words he poured out his boundless gratitude and at the end reached over and filled his glass to the old man. They all understood and drank with a shout. The table rose. Captain Jorham grunting.
The bright red flush appeared on the merchant's cheek bones. He was much moved. The young voices had gone home. He rose slowly and held out his glass with an air that the world had already forgotten.
"Anthony, my dear boy, God bless you."
They drank it silently. Anthony caught Faith's eye. He was aware that behind her serious expression she was amused at all this. A minute ago he could almost have forgiven her. But not now, not ever. It would be war between them to the last. Poor Toussaint! He wished Faith would make up her mind to leave Leghorn. They were sitting down now. He would have to reply.
Heavens, what was that strange noise?
Captain Jorham had also been moved by the occasion, and his potations, to the point of song. His face glowed like a bonfire. A husky roar proceeded from his chest.
"Yankee skipper comin' down the river
Yankee skipper, HO . . ."
He had forgotten the rest of the words. He hummed the tune, rumbling like a cart going downhill. Then a look of inspiration came into his eyes. He had remembered the last line just in time.
"Yankee skipper comin' down the river."
He ended triumphantly, gurgling. Then he filled his glass till it spilled and slopped over as he raised it.
"To the v'y'ge-!"
The success of the toast was disturbed by a sound as of dry sticks crackling. It proceeded from Mrs. Jorham. Mr. Bonnyfeather was about to pat her on the back when it became evident that she was laughing.
"Why, Jane," said her husband, "ye ain't gorn off that way since ye was a Putnam."
"Ain't I?" she spat back. "How do ye know?"
For some reason, perhaps because a small bright bead seemed about to leave the fiery tip of Mrs. Jorham's nose but miraculously did not, they all laughed. She joined in heartily. A whole brush-fire seemed to be alight, crackling and snapping. Suddenly in the middle of it a hen was disturbed and went off cackling. Wine is a marvellous playfellow. They all lay back and roared. McNab nearly split his tight waistcoat. At this he suddenly looked serious and they went off again. Captain Jorham was still standing like a nonplussed colossus with his glass poised questioningly. He glanced at his buttons uneasily. They were all right.
"Whar's the joke?" he rumbled.
Then they all wondered. Something, something that nobody could quite remember now had been so funny. Anthony still wheezed but it was purely physical. His stomach seemed to have collapsed with the joke. A cold voice stilled them all.
"Elisha, be ye fixin' to go to Havaner?" demanded Mrs. Jorham. She seemed to have accused him of a crime. They all looked at him. How would he defend himself? He put his glass down defiantly.
"I be," he said.
"Then," said she, "who's goin' to do the navigatin' ? That's what I want to know."
She looked at them all appealingly.
"The last time we come over we started for London. Do ye know where we fetched up at? Lisbon!" she shouted. "Lisbon!"
"Woman," he said sitting down heavily, "I forbid ye."
She had touched him to the quick. For the past two years something terribly wrong had overtaken the navigation of Captain Elisha Jorham. He could not fathom it. Secretly he had taken to coasting from port to port picking up what he called "cargoes of notions." He had turned many a lucky penny. But the cargoes of the Wampanoag had become as eccentric as her course when she took to the high seas. He had hoped to conceal his difficulties. Only Mr. Bonnyfeather's exceptional offer of an hour before had finally screwed his resolution to the point of heading for deep blue water again. That Lisbon landfall had shaken him terribly, and now his wife had betrayed him.
He sat looking crushed, shaking his head at her.
"Ye've taken the bread out of yer own mouth," he muttered, "I know the way back."
"I'm sure you do, captain," said Mr. Bonnyfeather, "besides Mr. Adverse here is by now an excellent navigator in theory. All he needs is some actual practice. You and he can work your reckoning together. You can give him his final polish in the art. Just what he needs."
Captain Jorham looked much mollified and relieved.
"When do you plan to get under way?" continued the merchant.
"Thar's a strong land breeze usually picks up about dawn on these coasts," said the captain in his own element again. "If Mr. Adverse can come aboard at about two bells we'll leave first thing in the morn-in'. Better not delay and risk trouble with the authorities."