Captains and The Kings (66 page)

In early January Joseph cabled his son Rory: MEET ME IN LONDON" ON" THE 17TH THIS MONTH. Damn, thought Rory. Has some doctor given him some new hope? No, that is not like the Old Man. It is something else. Pa is one of the kind that doesn't "hope," and I'll give him credit for that. He's too realistic. He said to his wife, Marjorie: "I have to leave you for a while, my love, for my father is asking me to go to him in London." Marjorie said, with spirit, "Take me with you. I'd like to meet your father. Yes, dear, I know. You still have your education to complete and you are Papa's puppet and are afraid to let him know that you are married to a descendant--lateral-- of Paul Revere. It would lower the tone of your family." She added pensively, "I wonder what Daddy would think of all this. I really do." "Maggie, don't be a shrew." Marjorie smiled sweetly. "That is always the crashing answer of a man, isn't it? It's supposed to make a wife grovel." She threw herself into his arms and cried, "Rory, Rory! lust don't stop loving me! Just go to your father and remember I am here, waiting. Rory, I'd die for you. And isn't that something I should be ashamed of? Never mind. Kiss me." "You women demand too much," said Rory, indulgent to her for loving .. him. "We have affairs, and all you can think of is kissing." "And love," said Marjorie. "Didn't St. Paul say that was above faith and hope? Never mind. One of these days you men will learn the truth of that if you don't destroy the world first." "Oh, we are very predatory beasts, like all males," said Rory, and went to London. Rory knew that nothing could be so dank, dark, cold, and miserable as England in winter, so wet and depressing, so foggy and smoky, with every chimney pot thickly and turgidly spewing out black soot and the stench of coal gas, and with a sky hardly lighter. However, he liked sea journeys and the ship was comfortable and luxurious Rory had hounded "old" Charlie Devereaux for first class fare, something which Joseph did not approve of for "profligates." So Rory had a fine stateroom all to himself, his breakfast in bed, and a chair on the sheltered portion of the promenade deck. He had also taken his law books with him, for he had no intention of falling back in his strenuous classes, and some books of poetry and history. Like his father, he read intensively and constantly, something which surprised strangers who did not reconcile "bookishness" with such an easy, amiable and articulate, and above all, such a handsome and vigorous young man who was always ready to engage in any sport and had a reputation as a womanizer. Rory did not usually like books concerning politics, though he liked politics itself, but his father had said with that saturnine smile of his, "No matter. It is more important to learn about the people who control politicians and the events of a nation, and decide its destiny." Rory had already met a few in New York. He kept his opinions to himself. Rory was not a young man who particularly admired modesty and the modest. "Why hide something if you have something superior to show?" he would say. So he had contrived that the captain of the ship knew that he was on board and he was immediately invited to the captain's table, the captain a Scotsman with a bright red beard and mustaches and hair, even to the hair growing out of his ears. He also had pointed blue eyes, like drills, Rory commented to himself, and a big Semitic nose, and his name was MacAfee, and he was gallant to the ladies at his table and brusk with the men. He decided he did not like Rory's sort, brash, smiling too much, too rich, too friendly. However, on the third day out he was not so certain in his dour Scots' mind that Rory was lightheaded, spoiled and a little stupid, and by the fifth day--though his original dislike had not abated--he thought the bucko was in some way in need of watching, "though it's hard to put a finger on it," he confided to his first mate, who was also Scots. "Smiles like a bloody bright sun in the morning, smiles all the time, jests--that he does--and walks like a dancer, but there's some that makes a man's hackles rise." "He's Irish," said the second mate. "That he is," said the captain, scowling, and tugging at his red beard. "And a Papist,, no dont. But we must remember, laddie, that he is a Celt like us, for a' that." He scowled again. "I know all about Iris Dada, and that's a blasted one, but he's a director of this line. A shame it is." Rory hardly liked Captain MacAfee better than the captain liked him, but Rory was not a man who cultivated dislike and grudges and prejudices as a matter of course. It was too time-consuming, when there were more interesting things to notice and enjoy, particularly the company of a vet3" young lady who sat at his left hand and who was accompanied by a strict middle-aged lady with an enormous bosom glittering with jet, a face like a partly domesticated harpy with a suspicious mind and dark little eye "like a snake's," the jovial Rory remarked to himself. Rory learned almost at once that the interesting young girl was Miss Claudia Worthington, and that she was the daughter of the Ambassador from the United States of America to the Court of Her Majesty, Queen Victoria--the Court of St. James's. She had had a bad "chill" in the winter and had just recovered, but was not returning to her finishing school in New York, where she was in her last term, but was going to "Papa and Mama" in London "for the summer, and journeys to Devon and Paris." Miss Lucy Kirby, the formidable harpy, was her chaperone and had been her governess, and was also her personal attendant. It was Miss Kirby's opinion that Miss Claudia was a "chatterbox," and at that it was very ill-bred of her to take to a stranger even if he sat next to father at the captain's table, and that the stranger was no doubt a scoundrel --to judge from his somewhat flamboyant clothing, his unreserved and "too familiar manners," and his way of laughing very heartily and showing all his big white teeth. He was entirely too facile, too cheerful, to be a gentleman. Even when Miss Kirby heard who he was she had tossed her head forbiddingly. Rory did not rise in her estimation. It was not hard in America to acquire vast fortunes--if one had no scruples, and Joseph Armagh, it was usually hinted in some unfriendly newspapers, was not distinguished for scruples and "bought and sold politicians like horses at a horse fair." The fact that her employer, the Honorable Stephen Worthington, was not distinguished for scruples, either, but--the New York Times had openly declared--had "bought" his ambassadorship, did not lessen him in Miss Kirby's regard. After all, he had a Position. Besides, he paid her generously and his wife was a lady. It came to Miss Kirby eventually that the ambassador knew Joseph Armagh very well, indeed, and met him frequently in Washington, though when at home in his mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York he had a way of talking about Mr. Armagh which implied good-tempered contempt and more than a little fear. Miss Kirby, who was no idiot, had learned that the contempt was assumed in order to hide the more baleful emotion, and so she had come to the conclusion that Mr. Armagh was a monster and should be ridden out of the country on a rail, after being thoroughly tarred and feathered. And this was his son who sat so at ease and rallied Miss Claudia mirthfully, and teased her! It was hardly to be borne. Claudia was only sixteen, but a knowledgeable and sophisticated sixteen, for she knew the value of position and money. Rory thought her affected at first, or even not very well-bred, for there was a certain exaggeration of gentility and ceremony about her. She wore gloves at all times, and took them off only at the table, to reveal hands which were not at all elegant or even pretty, and had large knuckles and hard angles. But Rory saw almost at once that she was not conscious of the imperfections of her hands, and that she wore gloves all the time as the mark of a lady who also had a Position. She was a tall girl with a body too slight for beauty but with hips that needed no padding to exceed normal expansion and be in high hourglass style, and Rory suspected that her legs would be heavy in proportion also. He also suspected that the young bosom had been assisted with certain artifices which gave it more importance for a girl of sixteen, and therefore nubile, and with a very slender waist which he was certain a man could embrace with two hands without trouble. He liked thin waists in girls, though he knew this was often obtained only at the cost of painful whalebone and tight laces. Rory adored pretty women. Even his passionate love for Marjorie, his wife, had not dimmed his appreciation of the other sex, nor would he have rejected overtures of an amatory nature from any delectable female. He knew his own nature well, but did not feel that he was being false to Marjorie. He loved Marjorie and he would never love anyone else, he told himself, and in a curious way this was quite true. Yet a little frolicking with a charmer of a bent like his own would not harm his devotion to Marjorie, and would certainly not diminish his joy in her. He had never had any real intention of remaining totally faithful to Marjorie--though this decision was, for the first few months, not in his conscious thoughts. His first impression of Claudia Worthington was that she was not in the least pretty or enticing, but "foreign" in appearance, and he was not sure that he liked "foreignness" in women. She had an angular face with broad cheekbones and deep hollows under them, a straight somewhat arrogant nose, a very broad pink mouth, and tilted eyes which made him think of them as "Oriental." They were of an unusual color, dark greenish brown. Her eyebrows were abnormally thick and black and almost met at the bridge of her nose, and were tilted also. She had a strong and obstinate chin with a dimple. Her neck was not sweet and tender, as a girl's should be, but had a tint of sallowness in it, and visible cords. Her hair was chestnut brown, thick and shining as the hide of a well-kept animal, coarse and heavy and plentiful, and so needed no "rats" or switches to make it rise impressively high in the new pompadour over her somewhat low dark forehead, and the two long curls that fell from it over her shoulders were "real" also. She dressed with instinctive taste, and not with that tendency of young girls to elaborate on current fashion. Her dresses were rich but decorous, her belts broad but restrained, her shoes daintily narrow, her coats marvelously cut, her jewels becoming to a girl that age. She wore little gold buttons in her ears and almost always just a short string of finely matched pearls, and a pearl ring on her finger surrounded with opals. For diversion, for flirtatious episodes no matter how innocent, Rory preferred blatant women as did his father, but for an entirely different reason. Joseph's preference rose from a desire to regard a woman as only an object for necessary and immediate pleasure, and then to forget her, allowing her no part in his life, and not even a memory. But Rory liked blatant women because they were usually full of fun, health, zest, and common sense, and never "clung" to a man demanding more than he was prepared to give. Rory decided at once that Claudia was not a blatant girl, and right after that that she was not pretty in a way he liked, and that she had a manner of opening her eyes very wide that might have been engaging in a lovelier girl but was only just a hard stare in Claudia, and not an attractive one at that, and, with the heavy brows above them too low over them they gave her a rather scowling look even when the lips below them were smiling. She is a sullen piece, Rory had thought the first day, and had decided to ignore her. Then, at dinner, he was startled. It was not that she wore anything unusual. The mauve silk gown with its pearl-beaded bodice decorated with a jeweled watch was stylish enough and enhanced her figure. It was something rise. He found he could hardly look away from this unpretty girl, with the pouting pink under lip and the very unprovocative profile. Just when he had decided that she was quite ordinary in appearance, he found himself thinking, Why, she is exotic, captivating, unusual! The next instant she was only a schoolgirl on holiday again, chattering about something inconsequential in her rather light and immature voice, a voice quite infantile. She had a mannerism of hurrying too fast in her speech so that her words ran together, then catching her breath in a rush. Sometimes her voice was inaudible, though her lips continued to move rapidly. It was this quality of hers--to appear commonplace at one moment then inordinately esoteric the next--without a feature changing--which was entrancing. She used no overt arts to attract, no learned coquettishness. Rory had heard of charm, and he thought Marjorie exquisite, but now he saw that there was an irresistible attribute that was really charm in its full meaning and had nothing whatsoever to do with beauty or any endearing possession of the owner, or any grace of character or anything that can be learned and successfully imitated. At these moments Claudia's very deficiencies of conventional beauty only enhanced that magnetism so that the observer was left feverishly wondering what it was about her that was so striking, so fascinating, so able to hold the eye that one could not turn away. Her expression, her eyes, her smile, her manner? It was none of these. It was something intrinsic and explicit, and if the girl knew that she had it she seemed unaware. But Rory soon saw that the captain and two other gentlemen at the table were as caught by this indefinable but powerful thing as he was, and that they were as fascinated as he and doubtless as bewildered. It was not simply a sexual thing in itself, nor did it imply sexuality. It was only there, as fearful a weapon as any woman could possess, and enchanting. It was mysterious, even when the person possessing it was not in the least mysterious. In the days that followed Rory tried to fathom the secret of bonafide charm, but it was not to be known, nor analyzed. The girl's character was not impressive for depth, intellect or kindness or sympathy or perceptiveness. It was, in fact, somewhat shallow, without flair or passion or subtlety. But there was in it, too a hardness, a perverse decisiveness, a self-absorbed egotism, which should've been repellent. There was a hint of greed and exigency in it also. Yet, Rory would think, what is it she has? When she turned that charm upon him--consciously or unconsciously--she appeared the most adorable creature in the world, desirable above all other women, and he felt giddy. Now he could understand the masculine fools who gave up thrones, honor, family, tradition, obligations, and pride for