“I am here, sir. I am sorry I was not earlier—”
He raised a hand as if by great effort. “No matter—” His voice, though hoarse, still had its remote, courteous tone.
“There is something I must explain to you, Persis.” He stopped between words to draw puffing breaths she felt uneasy hearing. “We are always vain of our strength, unconsidering of our weakness. I—perhaps I have made a mistake in undertaking this, even a grievous error. Yet looking back I cannot see how I might have chosen differently.
“You know that the failure of Rooke and Company seriously compromised those funds which are our support. I might have been able to redeem those losses had not time been my enemy. I am too old, which is a hard thing to admit.”
His straight gaze dared her to make any comment of sympathy.
“Three months ago—” he paused and coughed. Shubal nearly elbowed Persis aside, then that hand raised again to wave the servant away with such vigor that he drew back. “I received a communication of some import. We have, as do all families, our secrets. Doubtless you have never heard of Amos Rooke.” He did not wait for any answer from her.
“During the days of our Revolution, my father had a younger brother, Amos. He sought out strange company, mingling with the young British officers who were on duty in occupied New York. In other words, he declared himself a ‘loyalist.’ When the British army at last evacuated the city, he gathered together quite a sum in funds, some of it stolen from his own countrymen. With this he sailed to the West Indies.
“However, a certain portion of those funds did not come from traitorous dealings with the enemy; rather, they had been entrusted to him by his widowed mother, meant to be the marriage portion of his sister and for her own support in her declining years.
“When he fled New York he left no accounting of these monies. It was my father and later my brother Julian and I who supported my grandmother. We learned that Amos had established himself well in the Bahamas where he built and crewed two wreckers. In time he married a widow and had one son. But that son was lost at sea. Therefore, Amos had no legal heirs. He left his estate when he died to his widow, a woman of prudence and frugality and, as some of the ladies of the islands, also holding shares in wrecking ships. But in addition, she was also a very honest female.
“It was while she was dealing with her husband’s estate that she came upon letters written by my grandmother urging Amos to return her funds; letters which, incidentally, he had never answered. His widow at once wrote to New York and offered to make up the sum in question. At that time I was our representative in London and so out of touch. Julian, my grandmother, and my Aunt Eleanor, all died within two weeks of each other of yellow fever which struck hard that summer. I was summoned home but the letter was delayed in reaching me and it was some months before I found that from Amos’ widow.
“At that time I was engrossed by the company affairs and, since the debt was owed to my grandmother, I thanked Madam Rooke by letter but said that I considered the debt discharged by the deaths of those concerned. I did not think of this again for years.
“However, shortly before the fire which reduced our circumstances so greatly, I received word from an attorney in the islands that Madam Rooke, who had lived to a great age, was lately dead. And her will had left all her extensive property to be equally divided between my grandmother’s kin and certain charities. The sum willed to us amounted to a sizable one.
“Thus I gathered the letters and papers in that case —” He made a slight gesture to the bedside table where lay a small, locked portfolio. “Those prove the validity of our claim.”
His face was near gray though he spoke clearly and with his usual deliberate spacing of words. Now he paused and Shubal pushed past the girl to hold a small glass to his master’s bluish lips. Uncle Augustin sipped, then raised his head slowly once more. His eyes did not dismiss Persis. Rather there was a fierce determination in them which spread to his drawn face.
“You”—shallow gusts of hardly drawn breath punctuated his sentence—”must remember!”
“I will, Uncle Augustin.”
Now his eyes closed and Shubal waved her back without speaking. The servant followed her to the door as if he must make very sure she would go. But his attention was fixed on the man in the bed.
Persis returned to the chamber across the hall. So there had been a real reason for this voyage to the islands, more than just the quest for the health that Uncle Augustin would never find again. She stood by the window which looked down on the wharf.
There were no men busy there now, though boxes and bales remained. Perhaps their warehouse had been filled. A bird with vividly colored wings and a harsh cry swept past, to be lost in the thick green rimming the pool and the canal. Seaward, that smudge Lydia had named a ship was taking on more visible outlines.
But closer there was a craft making its way up the canal. And this was no ship’s boat; rather a narrow, battered looking canoe made of a single huge log hollowed out, in which sat a single paddler. It advanced at a sluggish pace in spite of the efforts of the paddler who headed straight for a small wharf at the foot of the mound on which the house stood. Catching hold of one of the stakes there, the paddler—now obviously a woman— scrambled out, to stand erect, winding a twist of rope around the stake to anchor the strange vessel.
A fringed skirt of tanned hide flapped about her legs and a wide-brimmed hat woven of some reed or frond covered her head, so that Persis, from this higher level, could see nothing of the newcomer’s face. The stranger stooped to pick up a hide-wrapped bundle and, settling this on one bony hip, started to the house, climbing a series of hardly noticeable notches in the hillside to disappear around the side of the outer wall.
The canoe bobbed lazily at the post. Farther out, the ship which had so excited Lydia was entering the anchorage by the reef. Men gathered on the larger wharf, watching it. There was something about their attitude which suggested no good will toward the intruder—even as if they were about to consider defense against an invasion.
Persis remembered tales that the Bahama wreckers and those from the Keys had been, not too long ago either, bitter enemies. And there had been hints of secret battles fought far away enough so that no neutral watchers had witnessed such.
Though the law had now settled boundaries and many of the Bahamians and their families moved to the Keys rather than lose their livelihood, old jealousy and hatred might still smolder under the surface. Certainly what Lydia had said suggested that Captain Leverett held little or no liking for the master of the vessel now coming to anchor in a domain he had made his own.
Persis moved away from the window. Lydia seemed very sure of herself, preparing to give this Captain Ralph Grillon the welcome of an honored guest. But— once more her own single vivid memory of those last moments on board the Arrow when the master of this Key had dumped her into his boat like a bale of goods, made Persis wonder a little at the other girl’s defiance. The impression which remained in her own mind of Captain Leverett was that he was certainly a man to be reckoned with.
So perhaps there were storm clouds of another kind ahead. But that was none of her concern. More important than any arrivals by canoe or ship, arrivals which had nothing to do with her affairs, was Uncle Augustin’s story.
He must feel—her breath caught a little—he must feel very ill. He, who had always been so self-sufficient and the master of his destiny, and of hers too, who had waved aside that earlier offer of repayments—must now face dire necessity to make this trip to claim funds from a stranger. And now to tell her about it. Funds tainted with dishonest dealing. Uncle Augustin was a truly honorable man. Was he entirely ruined then?
A tap on the door interrupted her unpleasant chain of thought. She lifted the latch to find Molly outside, and behind her two of the island men carrying Persis’ trunk between them. Molly waved them in, her round face one determined scowl. After they had set down their burden and were gone, the maid sniffed.