The Black Swan (Historical Novel). Rafael Sabatini

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СКАЧАТЬ will carry a man far. In Major Sands the intelligence was absent; but like most men in his case he was not aware of it. If he had not realized his hopes strictly in accordance with the expectations that had sent him overseas, he perceived that he was about to realize them very fully, nevertheless. And however unforeseen the circumstances to which the fact was due, this nowise troubled his perception that the achievement proceeded from his own merit and address. Hence his disdainful attitude towards Fortune. The issue, after all, was a simple one. He had come out to the West Indies in quest of fortune. And in the West Indies he had found it. He had achieved what he came to achieve. Could cause and effect be linked more closely?

      This fortune which he had won, or the winning of which awaited now his pleasure, reclined on a day-bed of cane and carved oak, and was extremely good to look upon. Slim and straight, clean-limbed and moderately tall, Priscilla Harradine displayed an outward grace of body that was but the reflection of an inner grace of mind. The young face under the shadow of the wide-brimmed hat was of a winning loveliness; it was of that delicate tint that went with the deep golden of her hair, and it offered little evidence of long years spent in the blistering climate of Antigua. If there was spirit in her resolute little chin and firmly modelled lips, there was only tenderness and candour in the eyes, wide-set and intelligent and of a colour that was something between the deep blue of the sky and the jade-green of the sea on which they gazed. She wore a high-waisted gown of ivory-coloured silk, and the escalloped edges of her bodice were finely laced with gold. Languidly she waved a fan, fashioned from the vivid green-and-scarlet of parrots' feathers, in the heart of which a little oval mirror had been set.

      Her father, Sir John Harradine, had been actuated by motives similar to those of Major Sands in exiling himself from England to a remote colonial settlement. His fortunes, too, had been at a low ebb; and as much for the sake of his only and motherless child as for his own, he had accepted the position of Captain-General of the Leeward Islands, the offer of which a friend at court had procured for him. Great opportunities of fortune came the way of an alert colonial governor. Sir John had known how to seize them and squeeze them during the six years that his governorship had lasted, and when at last he died--prematurely cut off by a tropical fever--he was in a position to make amends to his daughter for the years of exile she had shared with him, by leaving her mistress of a very substantial fortune and of a very fair estate in his native Kent which a trustworthy agent in England had acquired for him.

      It had been Sir John's wish that she should go home at once to this, and to his sister who would guide her. On his deathbed he protested that too much of her youth already had she wasted in the West Indies through his selfishness. For this he begged her pardon, and so died.

      They had been constant companions and good friends, she and her father. She missed him sorely, and might have missed him more, might have been dejected by his death into a deeper sense of loneliness, but for the ready friendship, attention, and service of Major Sands.

      Bartholomew Sands had acted as the Captain-General's second-in-command. He had lived at Government House with them so long that Miss Priscilla had come to look upon him as one of the family, and was glad enough to lean upon him now. And the Major was even more glad to be leaned cupon. His hopes of succeeding Sir John in the governorship of Antigua were slight. Not that in his view he lacked the ability. He knew that he had ability to spare. But court favour in these matters, he supposed, counted for more than talent or experience; and court favour no doubt would be filling the vacant post with some inept fribble from home.

      The perception of this quickened his further perception that his first duty was to Miss Priscilla. He told her so, and overwhelmed the child by this display of what she accounted an altruistic nobility. For she was under the assumption that his natural place was in her father's vacant seat, an assumption which he was far from wishing to dispel. It might well be so, he opined; but it could matter little when weighed against her possible need of him. She would be going home to England now. The voyage was long, tedious, and fraught with many perils. To him it was as inconceivable as it was intolerable that she should take this voyage unaccompanied and unprotected. Even though he should jeopardize his chances of the succession of the governorship as a consequence of leaving the island at such a time, yet his sense of duty to herself and his regard for her left him no choice. Also, he added, with impressive conviction, it was what her father would have wished.

      Overbearing her gentle objections to this self-sacrifice, he had given himself leave of absence, and had appointed Captain Grey to the lieutenant-governorship until fresh orders should come from Whitehall.

      And so he had shipped himself with her aboard the Centaur, and with her at first had been her black waiting-woman Isabella. Unfortunately, the Negress had suffered so terribly from seasickness that it was impossible to take her across the ocean, and they had been constrained to land her at Barbados, so that henceforth Miss Priscilla must wait upon herself.

      Major Sands had chosen the Centaur for her fine roominess and seaworthy qualities despite the fact that before setting a course for home her master had business to transact farther south in Barbados. If anything, the Major actually welcomed this prolongation of the voyage, and consequently of this close and intimate association with Miss Priscilla. It was in his calculating nature to proceed slowly, to spoil nothing by precipitancy. He realized that his wooing of Sir John Harradine's heiress, which, indeed, had not begun until after Sir John's death had cast her, as it were, upon his hands, must be conducted yet some little way before he could account that he had won her. There were certain disadvantages to be overcome, certain possible prejudices to be broken down. After all, although undoubtedly a very personable man--a fact of which his mirror gave him the most confident assurances--there was an undeniable disparity of age between them. Miss Priscilla was not yet twenty-five, whilst Major Sands had already turned his back on forty, and was growing rather bald under his golden periwig. At first he had clearly perceived that she was but too conscious of his years. She had treated him with an almost filial deference, which had brought him some pain and more dismay. With the close association that had been theirs and the suggestive skill with which he had come to establish a sense of approximate coevality, this attitude in her was being gradually dispelled. He looked now to the voyage to enable him to complete the work so well begun. He would be a dolt, indeed, if he could not contrive that this extremely desirable lady and her equally desirable fortune should be contracted to him before they cast anchor in Plymouth Roads. It was upon this that he had staked his slender chances of succession to the governorship of Antigua. But, as I have said, Major Sands was no gambler. And this was no gambler's throw. He knew himself, his personableness, his charms and his arts, well enough, to be confident of the issue. He had merely exchanged a possibility for a certainty; the certainty of that fortune which he had originally come overseas to seek, and which lay now all but within his grasp.

      This was his settled conviction as he leaned forward in his chair, leaned nearer to tempt her with the Peruvian sweetmeats in the silver box he proffered, procured for her with that touching anticipation of her every possible wish which by now she must have come to remark in him.

      She stirred against the cushion of purple velvet with its gold tassels, which his solicitous hands had fetched from the cabin and placed behind her. She shook her head in refusal, but smiled upon him with a gentleness that was almost tender.

      'You are so watchful of my comfort, Major Sands, that it is almost ungracious to refuse anything you bring. But...' She waved her green-and-scarlet fan.

      He feigned ill-humour, which may not have been entirely feigned. 'If I am to be Major Sands to you to the end of my days, faith, I'll bring you nothing more. I am called Bartholomew, ma'am. Bartholomew.'

      'A fine name,' said she. 'But too fine and long for common everyday use, in such heat as this.'

      His answer to that was almost eager. Disregarding her rallying note, he chose to take her literally 'I have been called Bart upon occasion, by my friends. It's what my mother called me always. I make you free of it, Priscilla.'

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