Harold Bindloss - For Jacinta

There were, he admitted, a good many compensations in the life he led. The warmth and colour of the South appealed to him, and, though they are not particularly numerous, there are men like him who retain a somewhat chastened affection for the sea they earn their bread upon. It is true that he earned very little more than that on board the Estremedura , and he had once had his aspirations like other men, as well as a prospect of realising them; but when financial disaster overtook the family firm nobody seemed anxious to secure the services of a young man without specialised training, who had artistic and somewhat expensive tastes, which was, perhaps, not altogether astonishing. That was how Austin eventually came on board the Estremedura , and stayed there, though there were odd hours when he took himself to task for doing so. Still, he did not exactly know where he could go if he left her, and the indifference of the Latins was already infecting him. Men in Spain believe that the future is quite able to take care of itself.

By and by, however, a slim, white-clad figure appeared in the entrance to the saloon companion, and he moved in that direction with evident alacrity. As one result of being the Estremedura 's sobrecargo, he was acquainted with everybody of importance in the archipelago, and among them all there was nobody who figured more prominently than Miss Jacinta Brown. She was English on both sides, though she had lived in those islands most of her twenty-five years, and understood the Spaniards, probably better than they understood themselves, for they are rather an impulsive than an introspective people. She also understood her countrymen, and ruled over them, as well as Spanish artillery officers and Commandantes. It was not very evident how she did it, for there were a good many Spanish women, at least, almost as pretty, and of much better birth than she, and she apparently received no great assistance from her father, for Pancho Brown was a merchant of an unusually solid and unimaginative description. The wives of the English visitors, however, did not, as a rule, like Jacinta. They said she was forward, and it was a pity she had no mother; but when any of them received an invitation from her it was immediately proclaimed all over the hotel.

She smiled at Austin graciously, and allowed him to place her a deck chair beneath a big lifeboat, where it was out of the wind, after which he procured himself another, and sat down and looked at her. Jacinta did not seem to mind it, and most men would probably have found it difficult to keep their eyes off her. She was little, shapely, and very dainty, though she could, as Austin knew, on occasion be essentially dignified. She had brown hair and eyes, with a little scintillating gleam in them, and her face was slightly tinted with the warm Andalusian olive, though there was only English blood in her. She was dressed in white, as usual, with a simplicity that suggested perfect taste, while, as he watched her, Austin wondered again exactly where her compelling attractiveness lay. He had met women with more delicate complexions, finer features, softer voices, and more imposing carriage; that is, women who possessed one or two of these advantages, but he had not as yet met any one to be compared to Jacinta, as he expressed it, in the aggregate. Then it seemed that she read his thoughts, which was, as he had noticed, a habit of hers.

"Yes, the dress is a new one. I am rather pleased with it, too," she said.

Austin laughed. "If I hadn't had the pleasure of making your acquaintance some time ago, you would have astonished me. As it is – "

"Never mind," said Jacinta. "After all, there is no great credit in telling people of your kind what they are thinking, though I can't help it now and then. You were wondering what anybody saw in me."

Now Austin was too wise to fancy for a moment that Jacinta was fishing for compliments. She knew her own value too well to appreciate them unless they were particularly artistic, and he surmised that she had merely desired to amuse herself by his embarrassment.

"If I was, it was very unwise of me," he said. "You are Jacinta – and one has to be content with that. You can't be analysed."

"And you?"

"I am the Estremedura 's sobrecargo, which is, perhaps, a significant admission."

Jacinta nodded comprehension. "I think it is," she said. "Still, since you considered yourself warranted in approving of my dress, what are you doing in that jacket on a mail run?"

"As usual, there is a reason. When I was across at Arucas my comrades laid hands upon my garments, and disposed of them at a bargain. They had naturally squandered the money by the time I came back. I am now longing for a few words with the man who, I understand, is coming down to purchase some more at an equally alarming sacrifice."

Jacinta laughed, but she also looked at him with a little gleam in her eyes. "Don't you think it's rather a pity you – are – the Estremedura 's sobrecargo?"

"Well," said Austin, reflectively, "I won't pretend to misunderstand you, but the trouble is that I don't quite see what else I could be. I cannot dig, and I'm not sure that it would be very pleasant to go round borrowing odd dollars from my friends, even if they were disposed to lend them to me, which is scarcely probable. Most of them would, naturally, tell me to look at them, and see what I might have been if I'd had their diligence and probity. Besides, I have time to paint little pictures which rash tourists buy occasionally, and the life one leads here has its compensations."

The Estremedura 's whistle hooted just then, and as Jacinta looked round a lordly four-masted ship, carrying everything to her royals, swept up out of the night. She was driving down the trade-breeze a good twelve knots an hour, and the foam flew up in cascades as her bows went down, swirled in a broad, snowy smother along the slender streak of rushing hull. Above it four tapered spires of sailcloth swung back against the moonlight at every stately roll, and she showed as an exquisite cameo cut in ebony on a ground of silver and blue. Still, it was not the colour that formed the strength of that picture, but the suggestion of effort and irresistible force that was stamped on it. She drove by majestically, showing a breadth of wet plates that flashed in a leeward roll, and Jacinta's eyes rested on the bent figure high on the lifted poop grappling with her wheel.

"Ah!" she said. "I suppose it's sometimes brutal, but that is man's work, isn't it?"

Austin laughed again, though there was a faint warmth in his cheek. "Of course, I see the inference," he said. "Still, it really isn't necessary for everybody to hold a big vessel's wheel, and I would a good deal sooner you said something nice to me. Nobody likes to be told the truth about themselves, you know, and I understand now why folks threw big stones at the goat-skinned prophets long ago."

"Well," said Jacinta, "we will talk of somebody else. I wonder if you know that Jefferson has been left a fortune, or, at least, part of one?"

"I didn't. Still, I'm glad to hear it. I like the man. In fact, he's the straightest one I've come across in his occupation, which, by the way, is, perhaps, somewhat of an admission, considering that he's an American."

"I like most Americans. For one thing, they're usually in earnest."

"And you like Spaniards, who certainly aren't."

"We will waive the question. It's rather a coincidence that Jefferson should have fallen in love about the same time."

"Do I know the lady, who is, presumably, in earnest, too? I don't like women who have a purpose openly, though that does not apply to you. You have usually a good many, but nobody knows anything about them until you have accomplished them."

Jacinta ignored the compliment. "I don't think you know her, but she is a friend of mine. I went to school with her for two years in England."