Captains and the Kings

  Chapter 11

  It had not been impulse or the bravado of pride which had made Joseph force his hoarded twenty-dollar goldpiece on Mr. Healey. It had been the instinct of perceptive genius. Shrewdly, Joseph understood Mr. Healey; under all that jocular good-will and Irish sentimentality lay a cunning man who could be ruthless and probably frequently was, a man who could be a jaunty bully but a bully for all that, a man who respected no other man but one who stood toe to toe with him and would not give an inch, a man who would exchange something for something and honored only men who were similar. For a fool or a weakling, or a witless man who did not know his own worth or permitted himself to be cheated, or who stood solely on principle and even then not with strength, Mr. Healey had the most honest contempt. Mr. Healey might praise "gents with scruples" but Joseph suspected that Mr. Healey despised them openheartedly. In giving Mr. Healey that money Joseph had given him silent notice that not only was he prepared to pay his way but that he would not be another Bill, a sycophant or unreservedly devoted follower. He would serve Mr. Healey if it would also serve himself, equal for equal. His loyalty was not for sale, and could not be bought with fair words, promises, affectionate laughter, moneyless generosities and rich hints, and avowals of friendship and facile agreements, or any other lying beguilements of no value which men like Mr. Healey would use to exploit and deceive the unwary and trusting. Joseph's loyalty was for "cash on the counter," as Mr. Healey would say. Joseph also understood that it was not Joseph's angry and forced concern for Haroun that had touched Mr. Healey's sensibilities. Had Joseph been maudlin or entreating and had begged for help, Mr. Healey would not have concerned himself for a moment with him. He would have been only another ragged pauper, a sniveler, to be kicked aside. Yet Joseph also knew that Mr. Healey, when the spirit moved him, as he would call it himself, could be kind provided it did not inconvenience him for an instant, cost him anything of moment, or distract him. His own kindness flattered him, raised a self-esteem already high, and was a personal indulgence such as a stout woman feels in the presence of bon-bons, and then against all sense takes one. It sweetened Mr. Healey's nature for days, and he was pleased with himself. It was not a paradox, Joseph reflected, that he found himself respecting Mr. Healey also for what he was: A strong and exigent man, inexorable in the pursuit of his own interests. Mr. Healey, in behalf of his own affairs, might attempt to inspire trust, but he would never trust the man who took him simply at his word, for that man would be an idiot fit only for the plucking. "Always get it in black and white, with witnesses to the paper," Mr. Healey would say. "That's the only way to do business." On the other hand, if Joseph should tell him-Joseph suspected-that he, Joseph, had borrowed money from Mr. Squibbs and intended as soon as possible to return it, with scrupulous interest, Mr. Healey would approve immediately. One must not become indebted, through open theft or otherwise, to men such as Mr. Squibbs, who was only a small and unimportant scoundrel. He looked about him in the "blue room" to which he had been assigned. He had read about houses like this, and the Tom Hennesseys' houses, in the many books he had read, but he had never been in one before. Yet, from his reading and some stir of aristocratic blood, he recognized and accepted it at once, with one of the few grudging pleasures he had ever known. It was a tall square room, and had obviously not been furnished by Mr. Healey who liked only opulent and obvious luxury. Here was all muted color, restrained and haughty, from the pale blue silk walls to the same blue of the draperies at the window, and to the darker and softer blue of the antique rug. The furnishings were plain and spare and not crowded with expensive furniture as the hall below had been crowded, but the wood gleamed like dark honey and the brass trimmings were delicate but solid. The bed had a blue velvet coverlet, worn but still handsome, and the posts of it were uncarved. There was a rosewood desk here, the desk of a lady, and some fine steel etchings on the walls, and a fireplace of black marble adorned only by two brass candelabra and a black marble clock ticking defiantly against the profanation of usurpers. Joseph drew a deep breath then let it out slowly. The room seemed to know him, as he knew it. Then he saw that there was a bookcase in the far corner and he went to it at once. A lady may once have occupied this room, a banished or dead lady, but her taste in literature had been sophisticated, and all the books in the case were classics bound in blue and gold leather. For a moment, Joseph, handling them, even forgot the room and even where he was. Among many others he saw Goethe, Burke, Adam Smith, and the Aeneid, various Greek dramas, the earlier Emerson, Manzoni, Aristotle's Ethics, Washington Irving, Two Years Before the Mast, the Odyssey, and Spinoza. He hungered for them with a deeper hunger than the voracity of the body. He touched them as a lover touches a woman. There was a timid knock on the door and he answered it and saw the little maid there, Liza, with a copper can steaming with hot water, and fresh towels. He had forgotten her existence, and the existence of everyone else in the house, and so stared blankly at her for a few moments. "Hot water, sir, and towels," she whispered. "The gong will sound in a few minutes." He had not eaten since early last evening, and suddenly he was conscious of hunger. He stood aside and the girl came in and poured hot water into the china bowl on the commode and put the towels neatly beside it. She pointed to the commode, and blushed. Then she ran from the room. He wondered why she had blushed, and so opened the bottom compartment of the commode and saw the chamber pot there. He laughed aloud, for there had been no chamber pots in his room at the house of Mrs. Marhall, such luxuries being reserved for more affluent boarders than himself. He took off his grimy shirt and bathed, and used the highly scented soap and the soft warm towels. He had but one clean shirt in reserve so he opened his cardboard box and put the shirt on and fastened it with a button. He had no cravat. He brushed down his worn coat and wrinkled pantaloons, then took out his steel comb and ran it briskly through his thick russet hair. He was still shaving but twice a week, and as he had shaved last Friday and this was Monday there was a soft faint stubble of reddish hair on his pale young cheeks and chin. Though he had scrubbed his long slender hands with their finely shaped fingers there was still grime under his nails which could not be removed. A brass gong hit vigorously below startled him. But he had read of such in novels and was not confused. He went downstairs. Mr. Healey, jauntier and more pleased with himself than ever-due to the occasions Joseph had given him to be kind-was waiting in the long hall dressed in fresh pantaloons of a Tartan any Scotsman might have admired, a deep red silk waistcoat and a long pale-gray coat. His white cravat was pinned with a diamond horseshoe. Beside him stood the demure Miss Emmy with her mischief-brimming eyes and her sparkling smile. He said, "Though you've not asked nor seemingly cared, boyo, I've had the doctor for your Harry Zeff. The lad's in a bad way, that he is. Blood poisoning and such. But, he'll live, with good care. Miss Emmy will see to that, and Miz Murray and the maids, and my Bill, when I can spare him." He chuckled. "I paid the doctor out of that money piece you gave me. That's what you wanted, didn't you?" "Yes. Thank you," said Joseph, without much interest. Haroun was out of his hands. He hoped the matter would remain that way. "You like your room, eh?" ' "Very much." Joseph looked at him blandly. "The other people furnished it, didn't they?" "Well, yes," said Mr. Healey, with superiority. "Not so fine as the rooms I done over, myself, but adequate, boyo, adequate, for a lad your age. Comfortable. Now we'll go into the dining room." Mr. Healey had furnished the dining room with stupendously large pieces of furniture of ornate and expensive taste. The mahogany sideboard covered one wall almost entirely, and was loaded with glistening silver of an elaborate pattern. The china closet was filled with gilt cups and saucers and other objects not so easily identified, and the round and pedestaled table was enormous and wore a stiffly ironed white linen cloth with napkins folded in a lily design. There were crystal goblets and gold- bordered plates and heavy silverware and an epergne and a bowl of roses also, and the chairs were of black leather with studs of bright brass. The old rug was scarlet, overlaid with a pattern of flowe
rs, and the walls were of yellow silk. Mr. Healey looked at it with pride, believing that it all had evoked Joseph's humble awe, but Joseph was not awed. He had never been in a dining room of the gentry, but instinctively he knew this was grossly vulgar. He also knew that Mr. Healey was "shanty" Irish, and not the "lace curtain" Irish of his mother's family. Puffed with importance, Mr. Healey gallantly seated Miss Emmy on his left and indicated Joseph's chair on his right, he taking the huge armchair at the head of the table. Mr. Healey was not without sensitivity, himself. Without consciously knowing or understanding it, he had felt that Joseph was of superior lineage. Had anyone suggested this he would have hooted loudly, but the impression was there, a little galling, however. There were three tall windows on one wall and a luminous green light from the trees and the gardens filtered into the room very softly even through lace of a tortuous pattern. It was, as Mr. Healey frequently mentioned, real Venetian lace. He pointed it out without modesty to Joseph, who looked at it with indifference. Joseph said, "Are your houses in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia as fine as this, Mr. Healey?" If his tone was ironic Mr. Healey did not discern it. He beamed happily. "Well, now, sir, not quite," he said. "I live in hotels in them cities. More handy. I don't throw my money away. I like to move around, quick like, and houses hamper a man. I come here to rest, and do business in Titusville. Besides, I don't think Miss Emmy would like Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, would you, love?" "Fie!" said Miss Emmy, coquettishly slapping the back of Mr. Healey's fat hand. "You never showed me, sir." Mr. Healey colored with self-satisfaction. "Never intend to, either, love. I know cities too well. Too distracting for the young." Two little maids, one of them Liza, came in with silver and porcelain dishes of food, and immediately Joseph was ravenous. He had never smelled such delicious odors in all his life as those steaming from the vessels. Mr. Healey filled a small glass with whiskey for himself, then filled one for Joseph. "Real good bourbon," he said. Joseph was never to develop a taste for "spirits" or even for wine, but he lifted the delicate crystal glass and sipped at it. It made his stomach revolt. But he had disciplined himself for too many years to permit a mere stomach to dictate his actions. He drank the whiskey and carefully refrained from even a grimace or a cough, and drank a little water. Mr. Healey watched him cunningly. A cool customer, this one. A hardheaded young cockerel. He'd never give anything away, and a man like this was a man Mr. Healey needed urgently. A vast silver tureen was set before Mr. Healey, and with dramatic and operatic gestures he ladled soup out into fragile soup plates. With a flourish, he served Miss Emmy first, to be rewarded by a simper and a bridling. He next served Joseph, and then himself, while the two childish maids hovered anxiously. Mr. Healey covertly watched his guest but Joseph had had thirteen years of his mother's training and so did not furiously fall on the food as Mr. Healey had hoped he would. Joseph ate the thin soup, which was excellently flavored, and he recognized thyme though he had not tasted it for years. Miss Emmy ate with that excessive daintiness which only reformed whores can display, her little finger thrust out stiffly from her hand, and she preened with that gentility found exclusively among prostitutes. She, too, watched Joseph but with a different sort of interest, one of which Mr. Healey would not have approved. "Miz Murray is one fine cook," said Mr. Healey, with an expansive air. "Pay her six dollars a week, a fortune, but she's worth it." There was roast lamb with dressing (and Joseph was acutely reminded, and with pain, of his mother's kitchen) and roast potatoes, turnips, parsnips, and cabbage. The whiskey had made him lightheaded. He could smell peat fires, damp plaster, rich grass and lilacs in the rain, and earth voluptuously carnal beyond any ground in America. The coffee cups, with their faint festoons of little rosebuds and green leaves, were of the same pattern and vintage of his mother's china, and all at once his chest was filled with the swelling of misery and sorrow. "Don't like your dinner, maybe?" asked Mr. Healey, freshly pleased. But Joseph raised his eyes and Mr. Healey, taken aback, saw the deep blue fire hidden behind those auburn lashes, and he became confusedly silent for a few moments. Upstart, above himself, Mr. Healey grumbled inwardly. Pretends, like all this is nothing to him. Know these high-nosed Irish; lords of the manor-they think. Well, we'll take him down a peg, soon. I've taken down better men than this spalpeen who forgets I've took him right out of the gutter. He's right pretty, thought Miss Emmy, and right smart, too. She smiled brilliantly at Mr. Healey and again touched the back of his hand with her coquettish gesture. He eats like a hawg, thought Miss Emmy of her master. Mr. Francis is a real gentleman, and he's got a fine figure, though skinny like a squirrel out in the rain. Don't talk much, though. I wonder what he'd be like- After the heavy dinner had been concluded by a hot apple pie and coffee Mr. Healey gallantly dismissed Miss Emmy and invited Joseph into his "lib'ry to talk business." It was indeed a handsome library and Joseph immediately noticed that the walls were filled with books, and that the leather furniture gleamed softly and the tables glowed. Here was a room, like his upstairs, which soothed his abraded sensitivity, and he resented Air. Healey who sat behind a low long table and proceeded to preside, his cigar smoke blue in the rays of sunlight which came between long blue velvet curtains. "Do all my business here," said Mr. Healey, leaning back in his chair. His rings glittered and so did the trinkets on his watch chain. "Now, then. I don't do business with mysteries. I got to have answers to my questions. You see that, don't you, Joe? I like open things, before I hire a man. So, I'll ask the questions, and I'll take it kindly if you answer them in the spirit they're asked." He was no longer so easily affable. His little dark eyes pointed. His mouth had assumed a tight look, though he smiled. "Yes," said Joseph, and hid his hard amusement. "I got to trust a man," said Mr. Healey, admiringly inspecting the long ash on his cigar. "Can't trust anybody right off the street. I got interests, confidential, and I got to trust. That's understood." "Yes," said Joseph. "Shut-mouthed, and that's what I like," said Mr. Healey. "Never did like a wagging tongue. All right. How old are you, Joe?" "I'll soon be eighteen." Mr. Healey nodded. "Not too old, not too young. Can be trained. All right, Joe, what's your full moniker?" "For the present," said Joseph, "I am Joe Francis." Mr. Healey pursed his lips. "Police looking for you, Joe?" Joseph thought of Mr. Squibbs. "No." "Nobody else?" "No." "What've you been working at?" "Sawmills. Taking care of horses. Driving wagons." "What did your Dada do, on the ould sod?" "He was a farmer, and a millwright." "You mean he grubbed for potatoes, what there was?" Joseph's face stiffened. "I said he was a farmer, and a skilled worker." Mr. Healey waved his hand. "No offense. Where you from, Joe?" "Wheatfield." "How'd you get there?" Joseph could not help himself. "On the train," he said, and smiled his short and taciturn smile. "Getting things out of you, Joe, is like digging with a bowie knife in a coal mine," said Mr. Healey. "Got any reason for not opening up, like?" "Just my nature," said Joseph, and smiled again. "No kin?" Joseph's face became shut. "No," he said. "I am an orphan." "Not married, and running away?" "No." "That's sensible. I'm not married, myself," said Mr. Healey, and chuckled. "Never did believe in it. Here, Joe. Write something on this paper. Anything." Joseph picked up the quill pen with the new steel tip which Mr. Healey had rolled towards him across the burnished table. He considered Mr. Healey, and with growing and amused contempt. Yet, for some reason ven he could not understand, he felt a stab of unfamiliar pit}-. He considered, his ruddy brows drawn together. He wrote: No man is contented until at least one person knows how dangerous he is. He was careful with flourishes and neatness and artistic shadings. Then he pushed what he had written on fine vellum to Mr. Healey, who read it slowly, his fat mouth moving over every syllable. "Right smart sentiment," said Mr. Healey at last, with heartiness. But he glowered a little at Joseph. "Your own sentiments, eh?" "No. Henry Haskins." "That feller," said Mr. Healey, who had never heard of Henry Haskins. "Now, I never wanted any feller to think I was dangerous. It's bad for business. Ain't no place in business for dangerous fellers. Word gets around. Can't be trusted."