Роберт Фиш - Rough Diamond

Solly had grown increasingly pale as Barney had gone on. Barney, rightly considering his question rhetorical, went on.

“If that’s what you want, just say so, and by the time we dock in London I promise you that Reef shares will have fallen to a point where I can picture some of your stockholders waiting for you at the Thameside pier with tar and feathers.” Solly was staring at him as if he were hypnotized. Barney shook his head sadly. “Solly, you were stupid. You were also greedy, as well as vicious. You bit the hand that fed you, a hand that was of your own flesh and blood yet, of your own family. You cheated the people who made you what you are. What kind of a person are you? Do you think I would forgive a person like you, or forget what you did, for the control of ten companies like Reef? You are going to pay your debt to Barnato Investment, to Barnato Brothers, to the Isaacs family, to me personally, and to everything you have disgraced, to the last penny; and if you think being my sister’s son is going to make the slightest difference, you are living in loony heaven!” He finished his drink, signed the chit on the table, and came to his feet. “And now, if you’ll pardon me, I have better things to do with my time than explaining the facts of business ethics to someone like you.”

Barney nodded pleasantly in the general direction of the bartender and walked calmly from the saloon. Solly sat and stared at his drink for several seconds and then finished it with shaking hands. He rose and left the saloon rather unsteadily, and climbed down the companionway, making his way to his cabin. He closed the door behind him and automatically reached for the whiskey bottle, pouring himself a large drink.

He sat down on his berth, sipping the whiskey, thinking furiously. One thing was certain: Barney had to be made to change his mind before the ship docked, before, in fact, the ship made port anywhere that had a telegraph, in case the miserable little runt changed his mind and cabled Harry the facts, starting a raid on Reef at once. Damn, damn, damn! Why had that damnable uncle of his ever discovered the truth about Reef? Why couldn’t he at least have waited to discover the truth until Barnato Investment was completely finished? Then he might not have been strong enough to raid Reef successfully and would only have gotten his fingers burned in trying. Or — a sudden hopeful thought came to Solly — or maybe Barney wasn’t strong enough to raid Reef successfully right now! But it was an extremely dangerous hope, and Solly knew it. He was certainly in no position to test that wild possibility, certainly not before Barney could act.

No. There was only one solution to the problem. Barney had to be stopped, somehow, before the ship docked anywhere. That was the tragic fact…

“No!” Fay said. She was sitting at her dressing table in her chemise, putting on her makeup. Barney, standing behind her and trying to tie his white tie, could not keep his eyes from straying to her décolletage and then to the beauty of her face in the mirror, with the result that the ends of the tie kept coming out uneven.

“Yes,” Barney said pleasantly, and finally concentrated on the tie, managing at last to make a reasonable bow out of it.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“My darling,” Fay said, turning on the small bench and looking up at him imploringly. “Do you want to embarrass Leah Primrose and myself in front of all those people?” She turned back to the mirror, applying lip rouge. “I still say no.”

“Yes,” Barney said, and bent to kiss the top of her head.

“But does it have to be Mathias in The Bells again?”

“I’m a bit old for Romeo and Juliet,” Barney said logically, smiling at Fay’s image in the mirror, “especially Juliet. And I’m just getting to the proper age for Mathias. Besides, it won’t be ‘again’ for the crowd on the Scott . They never heard it before.” He struck a pose and went into Cockney. “It’ll lay ’em in th’ bloomin’ aisles! Knock ’em orf their bloomin’ chairs! Get ’em singin’ ’God Syve ’Er Bloomin’ Majesty’!”

“Get them singing ‘What’ll We Do with a Drunken Sailor,’” Fay said with a grin. “‘Toss Him in a Longboat Till He’s Sober.’ Just don’t expect me to rescue you.”

“My darling,” Barney said reasonably, “tonight is just the first of the two ship’s concerts. When we have the second, the night before we dock in London, I promised the captain some Shakespeare. I was thinking of doing something from The Tempest .”

Fay stared. “The Tempest? At a ship’s concert?”

“Sure. We’ll be in the channel and it’ll be appropriate. Gets pretty rough there at times.” Barney laughed; he was feeling good. “I was just joking, darling. I’ll probably do somethin’ from ’Amlet. ‘T’ be er not t’ be, that’s th’ stumper what gravels me—’”

“You are mad,” Fay said complacently, and came to her feet to put on her dress.

“I’ll go up on deck and have a cigar while you finish getting ready,” Barney said, and leaned forward to kiss her cheek, respecting the job she had just done on her cosmetics. “You are beautiful.”

“And you are mad,” Fay said, and leaned forward to kiss him again, this time on the lips, disregarding her makeup, holding him tightly. She looked at herself in the mirror. “Now see what you’ve done! I’ll have to do it all over again—”

“All me bloomin’ fault,” Barney acknowledged airily, and let himself from the room, wiping the lip rouge away with a handkerchief, smiling proudly. It was going to be quite an evening, and he knew he was going to enjoy doing Mathias, whether the crowd liked it or not. But he was sure they would like it. Of course, it was some time since he had done it, although he had done it once for Leah Primrose on her fourth birthday, and she seemed to have enjoyed it, crowing and clapping, although admittedly she had been both a prejudiced and a captive audience. He laughed at the memory and went up on deck, taking a cigar from his pocket case and lighting it in the passageway before making his way to the windier deck.

Yes, yes, I have crossed the fields! Here is the old bridge, and there below, the frozen rivulet! How the dogs howl at Daniel’s farm — how they howl! And old Finck’s forge, how brightly it glows upon the hillock!

It all came back to him as he spoke the words softly under his breath. He remembered the first time he had recited those words for Fay on the trail, with Andries and old Gustave Bees sitting and watching him curiously, the oxen grazing quietly, paying no attention, the campfire fading, and Fay laughing at his atrocious accent. Barney paused in the shadow of a lifeboat. The moon was a knife thrust through the curdled clouds; the light it imposed came and went as the heavy clouds scudded before the growing wind. The lifeboat stirred and creaked slightly on its overhead lowering davits as the wind, increasing in strength, took the smoke from Barney’s cigar, sending it swirling into the darkness.

Kill a man — kill a man! You will not do that, Mathias — you will not do that! Heaven forbids it! Barney began to pace the darkened, deserted deck beneath the creaking lifeboats above; his voice had unconsciously risen, dramatic, intense. You are a fool! Listen, you will be rich, your wife and child will want for nothing! The Jew came; so much the worse — so much the worse. He ought not to have come! You will pay all you owe; you will no more be in debt—

There was a movement in the shadow of the deck-mounted davit, the sound of a foot scraping. A hoarse voice, unidentifiable, came in a harsh whisper. “You’ll pay, all right…”