Wappin' Wharf Part 7

JOE: You don 't know? How long have you lived here?

BETSY: In this cabin? Three years.

JOE: And where did you live before?

BETSY: In the village--in Clovelly.

JOE: Did your parents live there?

BETSY: Y-e-s. I think so. I don 't know. Old Nancy, they called her--she brought me up. But she died three years ago.

JOE: Who was old Nancy?

BETSY: She did was.h.i.+ng for the sailormen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She did was.h.i.+ng for the sailormen"]

JOE: Was she good to you?

BETSY: Oh yes. I think--I do not know--that she was not my mother.

JOE: And Darlin'?

BETSY: Yes. She has been good to me. And the others, too. I seem to remember someone else. How long have you been a pirate?

JOE: A pirate? Years, it seems, my dear. But I am more used to a soldier's oaths. I have trailed a pike in the Lowland wars. The roar of cannon, and siege and falling walls, are gayer tunes than any ocean tempest. What is this that you remember, Betsy?

BETSY: It is far off. Some one sang to me. It was not Nancy. When Nancy died, Darlin' took me and brought me up. That was three years ago. But last year the Captain and Duke and Patch-Eye came climbing up the rocks. They were sailormen, they said, who had lost a s.h.i.+p. And these cliffs with the sea pounding on the sh.o.r.e comforted them when they were lonely. So they stayed. And Darlin' and I cook for them.

JOE: Do you remember who it was who sang to you?

BETSY: No.

JOE: That song you just sang--where did you learn it?

BETSY: I have always known it. It makes me sad to sing it, for it sets me thinking--thinking of something that I have forgotten. (_She stands at the window above the sea._) Some days I climb high on the cliffs and I look upon the ocean. And I know that there is land beyond--where children play--but I see nothing but a rim of water. And sometimes the wind comes off the sea, and it brings me familiar far-off voices--voices I once knew--voices I once knew--fragments from a life I have forgotten. Why do you ask about my song?

JOE: Because I heard it once myself.

(_Betsy sits beside him at the table._)

BETSY: Where? Perhaps, if you will tell me, it will help me to remember.

JOE: I heard the song once when I was a lad--when I was taken on a visit.

BETSY: Were your parents pirates?

JOE: It was a long journey and all day we b.u.mped upon the road, seeking an outlet from the tangled hills. Night overtook our weary horses and blew out the flaming candles in the west; and shadows were a blanket on the sleeping world. Toward midnight I was roused. We had come to the courtyard of a house--this house where I was taken on a visit.

BETSY: Was it like this, Joe--a cabin on a cliff?

JOE: I remember how the moon peeped around the corner to see who came so late knocking on the door. I remember--I remember--(_He stops abruptly_). Do you remember when you first came to live with Nancy?

BETSY: I dreamed once--you will think me silly--Are there great stone steps somewhere, wider than this room, with marble women standing motionless? And walls with dizzy towers upon them?

JOE: Go on, Betsy.

BETSY: In Clovelly there are naught but cabins pitched upon a hill, and ladders to a loft. And, at the foot of the town, a mole, where boats put in. And I have listened to the songs of the fishermen as they wind their nets. And through the window of the tavern I have heard them singing at their rum. And sometimes I have been afraid. I have stuffed my ears and ran. But the ugly songs have followed me and scared me in the night. The shadows from the moon have reeled across the floor, like a tipsy sailor from the Harbor Light. Joe, are you really a man from the sea?

JOE: Why, Betsy?

BETSY: The sea is never gentle. It never sleeps. I have stood listening at the window on breathless nights, but the ocean always slaps against the rocks. Even in a calm it moves and frets. Is it not said that the ghosts of evil men walk back and forth on the spot where their crimes are done? The ocean, perhaps, for its cruel wreckage, haunts these cliffs. It is doomed through all eternity with a lather of breaking waves to wash these rocks of blood. And the wind whistles to bury the cries of drowning men that plague the memory. Joe--

JOE: Yes, my dear.

BETSY: You are the only one--Patch-Eye, Duke and the Captain--you are the only one who is always gentle. And I have wondered if you could really be a pirate.

JOE: Me? (_Then with sudden change._) Me? Gentle? The devil himself is my softer twin.

BETSY: Don 't! Don 't!

JOE: What do you know of scuttled s.h.i.+ps, and rascals ripped in fight?

Of the last bubbles that grin upon the surface where a dozen men have drowned?

BETSY: Joe! For G.o.d's sake! Don 't!

JOE: Is it gentleness to plunge a dagger in a man and watch for his dying eye to glaze?

BETSY: It is a lie. Tell me it is a lie!

JOE: My dear. (_Gently he touches her hand._)

BETSY: It is a lie.

JOE: We 'll pretend it is a lie.

(_They sit for a moment without speaking._)

BETSY: How long, Joe, have you lived with us?

JOE: Two weeks, Betsy.

BETSY: Two weeks? So short a time. From Monday to Monday and then around again to Monday. It is so brief a s.p.a.ce that a flower would scarcely droop and wither. And yet the day you came seems already long ago. And all the days before are of a different life. It was another Betsy, not myself, who lived in this cabin on a Sunday before a Monday.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "From Monday to Monday, and then around again to Monday"]

JOE: It is so always, Betsy, when friends suddenly come to know each other. All other days sink to unreality like the memory of snow upon a day of August. We wonder how the flowering meadows were once a field of white. Our past selves, Betsy, walk apart from us and, although we know their trick of att.i.tude and the fas.h.i.+on of their clothes, they are not ourselves. For friends.h.i.+p, when it grips the heart, rewinds the fibres of our being. Do you remember, dear, how you ran in fright when you first saw me clambering up these rocks?