A Son of the Sea by John Arthur Barry — Read

Shortly after his encounter with the "push," Torre received letters from both Edie and his uncle, dated from Funchal. The latter wrote in a querulous strain, complaining of Torre's leaving his ship; and the waste of so much money, and hinting plainly that there was no hope of pecuniary help to come. In fact Mrs Bovey's hand was visible throughout the letter, and emphatically so in the postscript in her own writing which ran: "You have disgraced yourself and us too. We want nothing more to do with you, and both Mr Bovey and myself and son hope we may never set eyes on you again. And you may trust me to see that you never get another penny from us." (Which considering that Torre's outfit and indenture money were strictly his own, was, to say the least, a cool way of stating matters.) Then she went on to say, "I always knew—and Mr Bovey is now forced to quite agree with me—that you would never do any good for yourself in the world. Disobedient, wilful, quarrelsome boys, never thrive. All your life you will be, in spite of the generous start Mr Bovey gave you, a scapegrace and a wanderer, and to that fate we leave you."

In her letter Edie said that Mr Bovey had now fallen so completely under the control of his wife as to be even more of a mere cypher than ever. His health, too, was not much improved; and there had been some talk of their going on to either the Cape or Australia in search of the drier atmosphere that his disease required. She said little about herself, or her stepmother and her son. But Torre could, reading between the lines, see that the girl's life must be well nigh intolerable. "Laban," she wrote, "does nothing but lounge about and smoke and drink and gamble. He has made the acquaintance of a Spanish Count who has his yacht here—at least he says it is his—but it seems to me to be owned by several "noblemen" of different nationalities who make themselves at home with us, and win the money that Laban gets from his mother who is very much impressed by the long titles of these people, and seems unable to see their personal uncleanliness and most disagreeable habits. Our house is called the Casa San Marino and, as I write, there are three Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian grandees (I really am not sure what they are) drinking brandy, and smoking cigars, and winning the foolish fellow's money whilst poor dear papa dozes, regardless of everything, in his chair, and Mrs Bovey smirks and looks on with pride. Of course I may be mistaken, but I cannot take these men at their own value, nor the dirty little steamer that lies close under our windows as a pleasure yacht. One of the men, Don Sebastian del Ojos de Corrientes, has invited us all, as some poor return for our hospitality, to visit his estates in Uruguay; and I verily believe he will persuade Mrs Bovey to go. Oh, how I do hate that greasy, unclean creature! I think, dear, you did quite right to run away from the Andromeda and the miserable menial work they put you to. I haven't forgotten how, when we said goodbye to you, you were all over lampblack and oil. I must smuggle this letter to the post as I am forbidden to write. Mrs Bovey read papa's letter to you, and told him beforehand what to say. But, oh! Torre, I should like to see you. Perhaps if we come to Australia we may yet meet."