“A young gentleman to see His Excellency.”
Henry was led into a little room made dark with thick, gray hangings edged with dull gold. There were three dim portraits on the walls, in black frames; two cavaliers in plumed bats, holding their swords horizontally so they looked like stiff, slender tails, and a pretty lady with powdered hair and a silken gown which left her shoulders and half her breasts uncovered.
From some place beyond the curtained doorway there came the thin twanging of a harp slow struck. The servant took Henry’s letter and left him alone.
And he felt very much alone. It was a house of cold, precise hair-splitting. One was aware of a polite contempt even in the pictured faces on the wall. The British arms were embroidered on the curtains of the door, the lion on one side, holding half the shield, and the unicorn, with his half, on the other. When the curtains hung straight the design was complete. In this room, Henry began to fear his uncle.
But all these thoughts of his were shocked from his brain when Sir Edward appeared. It was his father as he remembered him, and yet never his father. Old Robert would never have had a mustache like an eyelash, and nothing in Robert’s life could have made him pinch his lips together until they were as thin as the mustache. These two might have been born alike as beans, but each had created his own mouth.
Robert had spoken truth; this man was his strutting counterpart. But Sir Edward was like an actor, who, though cast in a ridiculous role, yet makes his part seem the correct thing and all others absurd. His purple coat with lace at the neck and wrists, the long rapier, lean as a pencil in a scabbard of gray silk, the gray silk stockings and soft gray shoes with bowed ribbons on them, seemed to Henry the highest type of proper wear. His own good clothing was shabby by comparison.
His uncle had been looking at him steadily, waiting for Henry to speak first.
“I am Henry Morgan, sir—Robert’s son,” he began simply.
“I see you are. There is a resemblance—a faint likeness. And what may I do for you?”
“Why, I—I don’t know. I came to call on you and inform you of my existence.”
“That was kind of you—ah—very kind.”
It was difficult to broach speech into this field of almost sneering courtesy. Henry asked,
“Have you heard any single thing of my parents in the long five years I have been out?”
“Five years! What have you been doing, pray?”
“I was a bond-servant, sir. But of my parents?”
“Your mother is dead.”
“My mother is dead,” Henry repeated in a whisper. He wondered if she had died soon after he had gone. He did not feel very badly about it, and yet the words sounded such tremendous things, such final things. This was the end of something that might never be again. “My mother is dead,” he murmured. “And my father?”
“I have heard that your father does peculiar things in his rose garden. Squire Rhys wrote me of it. He plucks the full flowers and casts them into the air like one amazed. The ground is covered with petals and the neighbors stand about and laugh at him. Robert was never normal; indeed, he was never quite sane, or he might have gone far with James I. I, for one, always thought he would come to some disgrace or other. He revered nothing worthy of reverence. Why must he do this thing in the open, with the people jeering? It brings ridicule on his—ah—relatives.”
“And do you think he is really insane, Uncle?”
“I do not know,” Sir Edward said, and added with a touch of impatience, “I merely quoted Squire Rhys’ letter. My position does not allow me time for vain conjecture—nor much time for idle conversation,” he said pointedly.
The methodic twanging of the harp had ceased, and now the curtain of the door was thrust aside and a slender girl entered the room. It was difficult to see her in this dark place. It was plain she was not beautiful, but rather proudly pretty. She was softly dressed and her face was pale. Even her hair was pale fragile gold. Altogether she seemed a wan, tired echo of Sir Edward.
The girl was startled at seeing Henry there, and he found that he was a little afraid of her in the same manner that he was growing to fear Sir Edward. She looked at Henry as though he were some distasteful food which only the strict rules of courtesy prevented her from pushing away from her place.
“Your cousin Henry,” Sir Edward said shortly; and, “My motherless daughter, Elizabeth.” Then, nervously, as though no good could possibly come of this contact, “Hadn’t you better practice your music a little longer, my dear?”
She dropped a suggestion of a curtsey to Henry, and in a voice like her father’s, greeted him.
“How d’ye do. Yes, sir, I think I had better practice. That last piece is difficult but beautiful.” And she disappeared behind the curtain whence came again the slow, accurate striking of the harp.
Henry gripped his resolve, though he was afraid of this man.
“There is a thing I wish to speak of, sir. I want to go a-buccaneering, Uncle—on the sea, in a great ship with guns. And when I have taken prizes, and a cloud of men gather to my reputation, then I would be capturing a Spanish town for plunder and ransom. I am a good sailor, my uncle. I can navigate in any sea, I think; and I have it in me to plan carefully my campaign. I have read a great lot on the ancient wars. The buccaneers have never been the force I mean to make them. Why, I could form armies and navies of them, my dear uncle. In time I would lead the whole Free Brotherhood of the Coast, and it would be an armed power to reckon with.
“These things I have considered in the long years of my slavery. There is a crying in my heart to do these things. I think the end of all my dreaming is a great name and a great fortune. I know my powers. I am twenty years old; I have had several years at sea; and I have a thousand pounds. The man who helps me now—who goes with me as partner—I will make rich. I am so very sure I can do these things—so very sure.
“I ask you, my uncle, to add to my thousand pounds enough so that I may buy a fitted ship and gather the free, brave spirits about me to do my will. If you will place another thousand pounds in my hands, I swear to make you richer than you are.”
The harp was no longer sounding. At the beginning of the boy’s outburst, Sir Edward had held up his hand as though to stop him, but the words plunged on. And when the harp had been silenced, Sir Edward looked uneasily toward the door. Now he seemed to bring his interest back to Henry.
“I have no money to risk in unsure ventures,” he said sharply. “And I have no more time for talk. The Governor is coming to consult with me in a moment. But I would say that you are a wild, careless boy who is like to come to hanging of your ventures. Your father is like you, only his is a wildness of the mind.
“And I must inform you that there is peace between Spain and England; not very good feeling, it is true, but still, peace. If you go marauding it will be my duty to see you punished, sorry for it though I may be. The Roundheads are no longer in power and those wild things that Cromwell overlooked are carefully watched now. Remember what I say, for I would not like to hang my nephew. Now I must really bid you good day.”
Tears of resentment stood in Henry’s eyes.
“Thank you for coming to see me,” his uncle said. “Good-by.” And he went through the curtained doorway.
In the street, Henry walked moodily along. He saw his cousin a short distance ahead of him, a tall Negro attendant upon her. He continued slowly that she might leave him behind, but the girl lagged on her way.
“Perhaps she wishes to speak with me,” Henry thought, and quickened his steps to come up with her. He saw, incredulously, what the darkened room had hidden. She was only a little girl, not more than fourteen at the most. Elizabeth looked up as he came beside her.
“Do you find interesting things to be doing here in the Indies?” Henry asked.
“As many as one might expect,” she replied. “We have been here a good while, you know.” And touching her slave’s arm with her little parasol, she turned into a crossing street, and left young Henry looking after her.