Kit Musgrave's Luck

Kit Musgrave's Luck
Harold Bindloss

Bindloss Harold

Kit Musgrave's Luck

PART I

THE WIDE HORIZON

CHAPTER I

KIT'S PLUNGE

The morning was hot, and Kit Musgrave, leaning on the African liner's rail, watched the volcanic rocks of Grand Canary grow out of the silver haze. He was conscious of some disappointment, because on the voyage to Las Palmas he had pictured a romantic white city shining against green palms. Its inhabitants were grave Spaniards, who secluded their wives and daughters in old Moorish houses with shady patios where fountains splashed. Now he saw he had got the picture wrong.

Las Palmas was white, but not at all romantic. A sandy isthmus, swept by rolling clouds of dust, connected the town and the frankly ugly port. The houses round the harbor looked like small brown blocks. Behind them rose the Isleta cinder hill; in front, coal-wharfs and limekilns, hidden now and then by dust, occupied the beach. Moreover, the Spaniards on board the boats about the ship were excited, gesticulating ruffians. Bombay peddlers, short, dark-skinned Portuguese, and Canario dealers in wine, tobacco, and singing birds, pushed up the gangway. All disputed noisily in their eagerness to show their goods to the passengers.

Yet Kit was not altogether disappointed. Somehow the industrial ugliness of the port and the crowd's businesslike activity were soothing. Kit had not known much romantic beauty, but he knew the Lancashire mining villages and the mean streets behind the Liverpool docks. Besides, he was persuaded that commerce, particularly British commerce, had a civilizing, uplifting power.

Seeing he would buy nothing, the peddlers left him alone, and he mused about the adventure on which he had embarked. Things had happened rapidly since he went one morning to Don Arturo's office in Liverpool and joined the crowd in the great man's waiting-room. Don Arturo was not Spanish, but at Grand Canary he was generally given the Castilian title and the Spaniards declared the island would soon be his. He was an English merchant of the new Imperialist school and he gave Kit exactly one and a half minutes. Perhaps he approved the embarrassed lad, for half an hour afterwards Kit had engaged to start for the Canaries and take a sobrecargo's post on board a Spanish steamer. The secretary admitted the pay was small, but argued that since Don Arturo controlled all the business worth controlling in the Canaries and West Africa, the chances for promotion were remarkably good. In short, Kit could sail in two days and was a fool if he did not go.

Kit agreed and signed the contract. He knew some Castilian, which he had studied at evening classes conducted by the Liverpool Y.M.C.A. Since he thought the association's motto, Mens sana in corpore sano, good, he had also trained his muscles at the Y.M.C.A gymnasium. For a city clerk he was healthy and strong.

The two days before he sailed were marked by new and disturbing thrills. Kit was conservative, and sprang from cautious, puritanical stock. His grandfather was a Cumberland sheep farmer, his father kept a shop and had taught Kit the virtues of parsimonious industry. His mother was kind but dull, and had tried not to indulge her son. Although Kit was honest and something of a prig, he had the small clerk's respect for successful business. He was raw and his philosophy was Smiles'. In order to make progress one must help oneself.

Yet he had not altogether escaped the touch of romance, and when he agreed to sail his first duty was to explain things to Betty. She kept the books at a merchant's office, and sometimes they went to a tea-shop and sometimes to a cheap concert. Betty did not go to theaters, but now and then took Kit to church. She was high-church and wore a little silver cross. Betty was thin, pale and quiet, and Kit's mother approved her, although nothing had been said about their marrying. Kit saw that in the meantime marriage was not for him. To marry on pay like his was not fair to the girl. Yet he imagined he loved Betty; anyhow, he liked her much.

When she left the office in the evening they went to a tea-shop. Kit found a quiet corner and helped Betty to cakes. He was embarrassed and his careless talk was forced. Betty studied him and did not say much. Her quietness had some charm, and she was marked by a touch of beauty that might have developed had she enjoyed fresh air, good food, and cheerful society. Women had not then won much reward for their labor, and Betty was generally tired. At length Kit, with awkward haste, told her his plans. Betty drained her cup and gave him a level glance. Kit thought her paler than before, but the electric light was puzzling.

"You are going to the Canaries and perhaps to West Africa! Are you going for good?" she said.

"Why, no!" said Kit. "I expect I'll stop for a year or two. Anyhow, if I make much progress, I'll come back then. You see, I'm forced to go. There's no chance for me in Liverpool; you get old while you wait for the men in front to move up the ladder. If I stop until I'm forty, I might get up a few rounds."

"Is it necessary to get up?" Betty asked.

Kit looked at her with surprise. Sometimes Betty's philosophy was puzzling, and he wondered whether she got it at church. Kit had not heard another clergyman preach like the vicar and thought him privately rather a fool. But Betty seldom argued and they did not jar.

"Of course!" he said. "So long as you can get up honestly, you have got to get up. You can't stop in the pushing crowd at the bottom."

Betty was quiet for a few moments. She looked tired and Kit imagined she knew all he knew about the pressure of the crowd. Then she said, "If only we didn't push! Perhaps there's room enough, and we might make things better."

"Oh, well," said Kit, rather comforted by her calm, but vaguely disappointed because she could philosophise. "Anyhow, although it's hard, I must seize my chance. I shall miss you. You have been much to me; now I've got to go, I begin to see how much. Perhaps it's strange I didn't see before. You don't argue, you belong to my lot, but somehow one feels you're finer than other girls one meets – "

He stopped and Betty gave him a curious smile. "Do you know many girls, Kit?"

"I don't," he admitted. "I haven't bothered about girls; I haven't had time. They expect you to tell them they're pretty, to send them things, to josh and make them laugh, and now and then to quarrel about nothing. Rather a bore when you'd sooner be quiet; but you're not like that. We have been pals, and now I wish you were going out with me."

"There's not much use in wishing."

"That is so," Kit agreed and hesitated for a moment or two while his face got red. "You couldn't go now, but I'm coming back. Suppose I get on and my pay is good? Will you marry me when I go out again?"

Betty gave him a long, level glance. For all that, he thought her hand shook when she moved her cup and his heart beat.

"No," she said quietly. "Anyhow, I won't promise. Perhaps, if you do come back, we'll talk about it, but you mustn't feel you're bound to ask."

Kit got a jolt. That Betty liked him was obvious, and the girls he knew were keen for a lover. Betty, of course, was not like them, but she was human. In a sense, however, her refusal was justified. Perhaps he was a dull fellow; a girl by whom he was once attracted declared he was as gloomy as a funeral. Then, with his rather shabby clothes and small pay, he was certainly not worth bothering about. For all that, Betty's refusal strengthened his resolve.

She was firm, but he got a hint of strain. The thrill of his adventure had gone and he was sorry for Betty. He knew how she lived; the dreary shabby street she left in the morning for her nine hours' work, the pinching to make her pay go round. All was dull and monotonous for her, but he was going to a land of wine and sun. He could not move her, and she left him, puzzled and unhappy, in the street.

The evening before he sailed they went to a concert, and Betty let him come with her to the door of her lodgings. She opened the door and then looked up the street. Nobody was about and when Kit advanced impulsively, she put her arms round his neck and kissed him. Then she firmly pushed him back.

"Good-bye!" she said, and the door shut.

Kit thought about it while he leaned against the rails on board the African boat. Perhaps it was strange, but he had not kissed Betty before. To hold her in his arms had rather moved him to a curious tenderness than to passion. When he thought about Betty he felt gentle; but he braced himself and forced a smile, for the new governor of an African jail came up with Bones and Blades.

Considine was an old soldier, with a red face and twinkling eyes, who had been long in India, but did not state his rank. Bones and Blades were raw lads from Lancashire going out to a West African factory for the yearly pay of eighty pounds. Their notion of life at the factory was romantically inaccurate.

"The boat stops six hours," Considine remarked. "Long enough to see the town, and they tell me wine is cheap. I'll go ashore with you, Musgrave. Where's my money, Bones?"

"I'll keep t' brass until you come back," Bones rejoined.

Considine was fat and his hair was going white, but he turned with unexpected swiftness and seizing the lad, took his cap.

"No time to get my boots, but your deck-shoes won't go on! Hand out my pocket-book."

Bones gave up the book and went to the gangway with Kit.

"I expect that's your boat. We were pretty good pals on this voyage and I hope we'll meet again. What do you say, Blades?"

"I'd like it," agreed the other and then his friendly grin vanished and his freckled face got grave. "All the same, Africa's a queer country and you can't have adventures without some risk. Well, good luck, Musgrave! I'd better say good-bye!"

Kit gave him his hand and afterwards learned that Blades' dream of romantic adventures was not realized. His job was to count bottles of trade gin, and he and Bones died of fever before they earned their first year's pay.

In the meantime, Considine jumped into the boat. He wore neat white clothes, thin, red slippers, and Bones' cap, which was much too small.

"I ought to have stopped on board," he said with a twinkle. "All the same, when I get to Africa I'll have long enough to play up to my job. At Las Palmas I'm not important. When you want a frolic, go where you're not known."

Kit did not want a frolic. He was thoughtful and rather daunted. All his old landmarks were gone; he was in a new country where people did not use the rules he had known at Liverpool. Besides, he was thinking about Betty. For all that, when the Spanish boatman rowed him across the harbor to a lava mole he roused himself. The patron declared that although the fare was fixed in pesetas English passengers paid with shillings. It was, however, not for nothing Kit sprang from sternly frugal stock. He stated in his best Castilian that the peseta was worth ninepence and he would pay with Spanish money or would not pay at all. The patron's violent arguments did not move him, but when he heard a laugh he looked up.

Two ladies occupied the pavement at the top of the steps. One was little, dressed in white, with fine lace on her fashionable clothes, and looked dignified. The other was young and wore a dress of corn-yellow. Her eyes were brown and luminous, her hair was nearly black, and her rather olive skin had something of a peach's bloom. Her type of beauty was new to Kit, but when he saw she remarked his glance he turned to the gesticulating boatman.

Mrs. Austin was an important lady at Las Palmas, where her husband, and her father, Don Pancho Brown, carried on a merchant business. People said Jacinta Austin ruled both. Olivia, her sister, had not long returned from an English school.

Señor Don Erminio Martinez, captain of a small Spanish mail steamer, engaged the ladies in talk, because Olivia was beautiful and he waited for his boat. Don Erminio was big, brown-skinned and athletic. He wore shabby English clothes and a small English cap, and looked something like a bullfighter. On the whole, he was a trustful, genial ruffian, although the Barcelona anarchists were his political models. He used a little uncouth French and English.

Mrs. Austin noted her sister's glance at the boat. The tall young man was obviously English, and had come to take a post; he was raw and did not wear the tourist's stamp. Mrs. Austin knew men and there was something honest and thoughtful about him that she approved. All the same, she did not want Olivia to approve.

"Book Castilian; I think the accent's Lancashire," the girl remarked. "I wonder where he's going; African shipping office: bananas, or coal?"