most exasperating thing he could have done. And then, to crown it all, they had been caught in a storm; and had not only been put in serious danger, which Carmelita did not mind at all, but had been tossed about until they were sore, and drenched with water, and driven into the stuffy little hole that was called a cabin, to choke and swelter and bump about in nauseated misery for two mortal hours, with the spray driving in through the gaping hatches; a dozen of them in all, packed together in there in the ill-smelling darkness. And so it was no wonder that, after a second night of utter misery, Miss Carmelita Billington felt so low in her nerves that she was quite unable to withhold her tears asshe sat alone and thought of what lay behind her and before her.
She had been sitting alone a long time when she heard her mother come up the stairs and enter her own room. Mrs. Billington was as stout as she was good-natured, and her step was not that of a light-weight. An irresistible desire came, to the girl to go to her and pour out her grief, with her head pillowed on that broad and kindly bosom. She started up and hurried into the little parlor that separated her room from her mother’s. As she entered the room at one door, Mr. Jack Hatterly entered through the door opening into the corridor. Then Carmelita lost her breath in wonderment, anger and dismay, for Mr. Jack Hatterly put his arm around her waist, kissed her in a somewhat casual manner, and then the door of her mother’s room opened and her mother appeared; and instead of rebuking such extraordinary conduct, assisted Mr. Hatterly in gently thrusting her into the chamber of the elder lady with the kind of caressing but steering push with which a child is dismissed when grown-ups wish to talk privately.
“Stay in there, my dear, for the present; Mr. Hatterly and I have something to say to each other. I will call you later.”
And before Carmelita fairly knew what had happened to her she found herself on the other side of the door, wondering exactly where insanity had broken out in the Billington family.
It took the astonished Miss Billington a couple of seconds to pull herself together, and then she seized the handle of the door with the full intention of walking indignantly into theparlor and demanding an explanation. But she had hardly got the door open by the merest crack when the discourse of Mr. John Hatterly paralyzed her as thoroughly as had his previous actions.
“My dear Mrs. Billington,” he was saying, in what Carmelita always called his “florid” voice, “I thoroughly understand your position, and I know the nature of the ties that bind Carmelita to her father’s home. Had I known of them earlier, I might have avoided an association that could only have one ending for me. But it is not for myself that I speak now. Perhaps I have been unwise, and even wrong; but what is done is done, and I know now that she loves me as she could love no other man.”
“Good gracious!” said Carmelita to herself, behind the door; “how does he know that?”
“Is it not possible, Mr. Hatterly, that thereis some misunderstanding?” asked Mrs. Billington.
“My dear Mrs. Billington,” said Jack, impressively; “there is no possible misunderstanding. She told me so herself.”
Carmelita opened her eyes and her mouth, and stood as one petrified.
“Well, if I ever—!” was all that she whispered to herself, in the obscurity of her mother’s room. She had addressed just seven words to Jack Hatterly on the fishing trip, and five of these were “Apple pie, if you please;” and the other two, uttered later, were “Not very.”
“But, Mr. Hatterly,” persisted Mrs. Billington, “when did you receive this assurance of my daughter’s feelings? You tell me that you spoke to her on this subject only the night before last, and I am sure she has hardly been out of my sight since.”
“Yesterday,” said Jack, in his calmest and most assured tone; “on the boat, coming home, during the squall.”
Miss Billington(behind the door, aside).—“The shameless wretch! Why, he doesn’t seem even toknowthat he’s lying!”
“But, Mr. Hatterly,” exclaimed Mrs. Billington; “during the squall we were all in the cabin, and you were outside, steering!”
“Certainly,” said Jack.
“Then—excuse me, Mr. Hatterly—but how could my daughter have conveyed any such intelligence to you?”
Miss Billington(as before).—“Whatisthe man going to say now? He must be perfectly crazy!”
Mr. Hatterly was calm and imperturbed.
“My dear Mrs. Billington,” he responded, “you may or may not have observed a small heart-shaped aperture in each door or hatch of the cabin, exactly opposite the steersman’s seat. It was through one of these apertures that your daughter communicated with me. Very appropriate shape, I must say, although their purpose is simply that of ventilation.”
“It was very little ventilation we had in that awful place, Mr. Hatterly!” interjected Mrs. Billington, remembering those hours of horror.
“Very little, indeed, my dear Mrs. Billington,” replied Mr. Hatterly, in an apologetic tone; “and I am afraid your daughter and I, between us, were responsible for some of your discomfort. She had her hand through the port ventilator about half the time.”
Miss Billington(as before).—“I wonder the man isn’t struck dead, sitting there! Ofall the wicked, heartless falsehoods I ever heard—!”
“And may I ask, Mr. Hatterly,” inquired Mrs. Billington, “what my daughter’s hand was doing through the ventilator?”
“Pressing mine, God bless her!” responded Mr. Hatterly, unabashed.
Miss Billington, (as before, but conscious of a sudden, hideous chill).—“Good heavens! the man can’t be lying; he’s simply mistaken.”
“I see, my dear Mrs. Billington,” said Mr. Hatterly, “that I shall have to be perfectly frank with you. Such passages are not often repeated, especially to a parent; but under the circumstances I think you will admit that I have no other guarantee of my good faith to give you. I have no doubt that if you were to ask your daughter at this minute about her feelings, she would think she ought to sacrifice her affection to the duty that she thinks is laid out for her in a distant life. Did I feel that she could ever have any happiness in following that path, believe me, I should be the last to try to win her from it, no matter what might be my own loneliness and misery. But after what she confided to me in that awful hour of peril, where, in the presence of imminent death, it was impossible for her to conceal or repress the deepest feelings of her heart, I should be doing an injustice to her as well as to myself, and even to you, my dear Mrs. Billington—for I know how sincerely you wish her happiness—if I were to let any false delicacy keep me from telling you what she said to me.” Jack Hatterly could talk when he got going.
Miss Billington, (as before, but hot, not cold).—“Now, I am going to know which one of those girls was talking to him, if I have to stay here all day.”
It was with a quavering voice that Mrs. Billington said:
“Under the circumstances, Mr. Hatterly, I think you might tell me all she said—all—all—”
Here Mrs. Billington drew herself up and spoke with a certain dignity. “I should explain to you, Mr. Hatterly, that during the return trip I was not feeling entirely well, myself, and I probably was not as observant as I should have been under other circumstances.”
Miss Billington, (as before, reflectively).—“Poor Ma! She was so sick that she went to sleep with her head on my feet. I believe it was that Peterson girl who was nearest the port ventilator.”
Mr. Hatterly’s tone was effusively grateful. “I knew that I could rely upon your clear sense, my dear Mrs. Billington,” he said, “as well as upon your kindness of heart. Very well, then; the first thing I knew as I sat there alone, steering, almost blinded by the spray, Carmelita slipped her hand through the ventilator and caught mine in a pressure that went to my heart.”
Miss Billington(as before, but without stopping to reflect).—“If I find out the girl that did that—”
Mr. Hatterly went on with warm gratitude in his voice: “And let me add, my dear Mrs. Billington, that every single time I luffed, thatdear little hand came out and touched mine, to inspire me with strength and confidence.”
Miss Billington(as before, with decision).—“I’ll cut her hand off!”
“And in the lulls of the storm,” Mr. Hatterly continued, “she said to me what nothing but the extremity of the occasion would induce me to repeat, my dear Mrs. Billington; ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘I am yours, I am all yours, and yours forever.’”
Miss Billington(as before, but more so).—“That wasn’t the Peterson girl. That was Mamie Jackson, for I have known of her saying it twice before.”
Mrs. Billington leaned back in her chair, and fanned herself with her handkerchief.
“Oh, Mr. Hatterly!” she cried.
Mr. Hatterly leaned forward and captured one of Mrs. Billington’s hands, while she covered her eyes with the other.
“Call me Jack,” he said.
“I—I’m afraid I shall have to,” sobbed Mrs. Billington.
Miss Billington(as before, grimly).—“Mamie Jackson’s mother won’t; I knowthat!”
“And then,” Mr. Hatterly continued, “she said to me, ‘Jack, I am glad of this fate. I can speak now as I never could have spoken before.’”
Miss Billington(as before, but highly charged with electricity).—“Now I want to know what she did say when she spoke.”
Mr. Hatterly’s clear and fluent voice continued to report the interesting conversation, while Mrs. Billington sobbed softly, and permitted her kind old hand to be fondled.
“‘Jack,’ she said,” Mr. Hatterly went on, “‘life might have separated us, but death unites us.’”
Miss Billington(as before, but with clenched hands and set lips).—“Thatis neither one of those girls. They haven’t got the sand. Whoever it is, that settles it.” She flung open the door and swept into the room.
“Jack,” she said, “if I did talk any such ridiculous, absurd, contemptible, utterly despicable nonsense, I don’tchooseto have it repeated. Mama, dear, you know wecansee a great deal of each other if you can only make Papa come and spend the Summer here by the sea, and we go down to Los Brazos for part of the Winter.”
***
That evening Miss Carmelita Billington asked her Spanish maid if she had dropped the letter addressed to Mr. Hatterly in the letter-box. The Spanish maid went through a pleasing dramatic performance, in which she first assured her mistress that shehad; then became aware of a sudden doubt; hunted through six or eight pockets which were not in her dress, and then produced the crumpled envelope unopened. She begged ten thousand pardons; she cursed herself and the day she was born, and her incapable memory; and expressed a willingness to drown herself, which might have been more terrifying had she ever before displayed any willingness to enter into intimate relations with water.
Miss Billington treated her with unusual indulgence.
“It’s all right, Concha,” she said; “it didn’t matter in the least, only Mr. Hatterly told me that he had never received it, and so I thought I’d ask you.”
Then, as the girl was leaving the room, Carmelita called her back, moved by a sudden impulse.
“Oh, Concha!” she said; “you wanted one of those shell breast-pins, didn’t you Here, take this and buy yourself one!” and she held out a dollar-bill.
When she reached her own room, Concha put the dollar-bill in a gayly-painted little box on top of a new five-dollar bill, and hid them both under her prayer-book.
“Women,” she said, in her simple Spanish way; “women are pigs. The gentleman, he gives me five dollars, only that I put the letter in my pocket; the lady, she gets the gentleman, and she gives me one dollar, and I hasten out of the room that she shall not take it back. Women—women are pigs!”