“BLACK BART!” said Jimmy. “Say, now——”
“Well, good mate,” said I, and laid a hand on his curly fair head, “what shall I say?”
“Say nothin’,” he remarked, dropping his voice. “Listen!”
“Yes?”
“We have held a council.”
“Who has?”
“Why, me and Jean Lafitte and the heartless jade. I told her you sent us to her to bid her seek your presence.”
“Jimmy! What on earth do you mean! That’s precisely the last thing I would have done—I haven’t done it. On the contrary——”
“I told her,” he resumed calmly, “that when Black Bart, the pirut, spoke, he spoke to be obeyed. She said, ‘I can’t go,’ and I said, ‘Yougottago.’”
“You, yourself, may now go and tell her that there has been a very bad mistake, Jimmy; and that she need not come.”
“An’ make her cry worse? I ain’t goin’ to do it!”
“Sir! This is mutiny!—But did she cry, Jimmy?”
“Yes. Awful. She said she was homesick. She ain’t. I don’t know what really is the matter. I ast Jean Lafitte, an’ he said maybe you’d know. We thought maybe it was something about yon varlet. Do you know?”
“No, I do not, Jimmy.” I found myself engaged in one of those detestable conversations where one knows the talk ought to end, yet dislikes to end it.
Jimmy stood for some time, much perturbed, looking every way but at me, and at last he blurted out.
“Don’t you just jolly well awfully love the fair captive, yon heartless jade—my Auntie Helen? Don’t you, Black Bart?”
I made no answer, but frowned very much at his presumption.
“—Because, everybody else does. She’s nice. I should think you would.Ido, I know mighty well.”
“She is—she is—she’s a very estimable young woman, Jimmy,” said I, coloring. “I think I may say that without compromising myself.”
“Then why do you hurt her feelings the way you do—when she’s plumb gone on you, the way she is?”
I sprang toward him to clap a hand over his garrulous mouth, but he evaded me, and spoke from behind the bathroom door. “Well, she is! Don’t I hear her sticking up for you all the time—didn’t I hear her an’ Auntie Lucinda havin’ a reg’lar row over it again, ‘I don’t care if hehasn’tgot a cent!’ says she.”
“But yon varlet is rich,” said I.
“She didn’t mean yon varlet—she meant you, I’m pretty sure, Black Bart. An’ she’s been feedin’ Partial all the afternoon—say, he’s the shape of a sausage.”
“She is heartless, Jimmy! Little do you know the ways of a heartless jade—she wants to win away from me the last thing on earth I have—even my dog. That’s all. Now, Jimmy, you must go.”
But he emerged only in part from his shelter. “So Jean Lafitte an’ me, we looked it up in the book; an’ it says where the heartless jade is brought before the pirut chief, ‘How now, fair one!’ says he, an’ he bends on her the piercin’ gaze o’ his iggle eye: ‘how now, wouldst spurn me suit?’ The fair captive she bends her head an’ stands before him unable to encounter his piercin’ gaze, an’ for some moments a deep silence prevails——”
“Jimmy!” I heard a clear voice calling alongthe deck. No answer, and Jimmy raised a hand to command silence of me also.
“Jimme-e-e-e!” It was Helena’s voice, and nearer along the rail. “Here’s the fudges—now where can the little nuisance have gone! Jim!”
“Here I am, Auntie,” replied the little nuisance, as she now approached the door of our cabin; and he brushed past me and started not aft but toward the bows. “An’ thereyouare!” he shouted over his shoulder in cryptic speech, whether to me or to his Auntie Helen I could not say.
She stood now in such position near my door that neither of us could avoid the other without open rudeness. I looked at her gravely and she at me, her eyes wide, her lips silent for a time. Silently also, I swung the cabin door wide and stood back for her to pass.
“You have sent for me?” she said at last, still standing as she was. A faint smile—part in humor, part in timidity, part, it seemed suddenly to me, wistful; and all just a trifle pathetic—stirred her lips.
“‘I sent my soul through the Invisible,’” said I; and stepped within and quite aside for her to pass.
“Jimmy told the biggest lie in all his career,” said I. She would have sprung back.
“—And the greatest truth ever told in all the world. Come in, Helena Emory. Come into my quiet home. Already, as you know, you have come into my heart.”
“I am not used to going into a gentleman’s—quarters,” said she: but her foot was on the shallow stair.
“It is common to three gentlemen of the ship’s company, Helena Emory,” said I, “and we have no better place to receive our friends.”
She now was in the room. I closed the door, and sprung the catch.
“At last,” said I, “you are in my power!” And I bent upon her the piercing gaze of my eagle eye.
SHE stood before me for just a moment undecided. The twilight was coming and the room was dim.
“Auntie will miss me,” said she, “after a time.”
“I have missed you all the time,” was my reply.
“But you sent for me?”
“Of course I did. Doesn’t this look as though I had?”
“I don’t quite understand——”
“Shall I call Jimmy to explain? He called you a heartless jade——”
“The little imp! How dare he!”
“—As in fact all of our brotherhood has come to call you: ‘The heartless jade.’”
“I made fudges for him! And the little wretch told me I wasn’t playing the game! What did he mean? Oh, Harry, I wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t wanted to play the game fairly. I’m sorry for what I said.” She spoke now suddenly, impulsively.
“What was it you said?”
“When I said—when I called you—a coward. I didn’t mean it.”
“You said it.”
“But not the way you thought. I only meant, you took an unfair advantage of a girl, running off with her, this way, and giving her no chance to—to get away. But now you do give me a chance—you meant to, all along—and in every way, as I’ve just done telling auntie, you’ve been perfectly fine, perfectly splendid, perfectly bully, too! It has been a hard place for a man, too, but—Harry, dear boy, I’ll have to say it, you’ve been some considerable gentleman through it all! There now!” And she stood, aloof, agitated, very likely flushed, though I could not tell in the dark.
“Thank you, Helena,” I said.
“And as to your being any other sort of a coward—that you had physical fear—that you wouldn’t do a man’s part—why, I never did mean that at all. How could I? And if I had—why, even Auntie Lucinda said your going out after that Chinaman the other night was heroic—even if he couldn’t have cooked a bit!—and you know Auntie Lucinda has always been against you.”
“Yes, and you both called me a coward,because I quit my law office and ran away from misfortune.”
“Yes, we did. And I meant that, too! I say it now to your face, Harry. But maybe I don’t know all about that——”
“Maybe not.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to be unjust, of course, but Idon’tthink a man ought to throw away his life. You’re young. You could start over again, and you ought to have tried. Your father made his own money, and so did my father—why, look at the Sally M. mine, that has given me my own fortune. Do you suppose that grew on a bush to be shaken off? So why couldn’t you go out in the same way and do something in the world—I don’t mean just make money, you know, butdosomething? That’s what a girl likes. And you were able enough. You are young and strong, and you have your education; and I’ve heard my father say, before he died—and other men agreed with him—that you were the best lawyer at our bar, and that you had an extraordinary mind, and a clear sense of justice, and, and——”
“Go on. Did he say that?”
“Yes.”
“But with all my fine qualities of mind and heart,” said I, “I lost all when I lost my money!”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you what I mean—you dropped me because you thought me poor. Well, I don’t blame you. It takes money to live, and you deserved all that the world can give. I don’t blame you. There were other men in the world for you. The trouble with me was that there was no other woman in the world for me. All our trouble—all our many meetings and partings—have come out of those two facts.”
“Did you think that of me?” she asked at length, slowly. I suppose she was pale, but I could not see.
“I certainly did. How could I think anything else?”
“Harry!” she half whispered. “Why, Harry, Harry!”
“Admit that you did!” I exclaimed bitterly, “and let me start from that as a premise. Listen! If you were a man, and loved a woman, and she chucked you when you lost your money, do you think you’d break your neck to make any more success in the world after that? Why should you? Why does a man work? It’s for a home, for the sake of power, and mostly for the sake of the game.”
“Yes.”
“And I could play that game—I can play itnow, and win at it, any time I like. I quit it not because I was afraid of the game—it’s the easiest thing in the world to make money, if that’s all you really want to do. That’s all your father wanted, or mine, and it was easy. I can play that game. But why? Ah! if it were to win a quiet home, the woman I loved, independence, usefulness, contentment,—yes! But when all those stakes were out of the game, Helena, I didn’t care to play it any more. And that was why you thought I ran away. I did run away—from myself, and you.”
She was silent now, and perhaps paler—I could not see.
“—But wherever I have gone, Helena, all over the world, I’ve found those two people there ahead of me, and I couldn’t escape them—myself, and you!”
“Did you think that of me, Harry?” She half whispered once more.
“Yes, I did. And did you think that of me?”
“Yes, I did. But I did not understand.”
“No. Like many a woman, you got cause and effect mixed up: and you never troubled yourself to get it straight. Let me tell you, unless two people can come to each other without compromises and without explanations and without reservations, they would better nevercome at all. I don’t want you cheap, you oughtn’t to want me cheap. So how can it end any way other than the way it has? If it was my loss of fortune that made you chuck me, I oughtn’t ever to give you a second thought, for you wouldn’t be worth it. The fact you did, and that I do, hasn’t anything to do with it at all.”
“No.”
“And if you don’t think me able and disposed to play a man’s part in the world, you oughtn’t to care a copper for me, that is plain, isn’t it?”
“Yes, quite plain.”
“And the fact that you did, and that you do, has nothing to do with it—nothing in the world, has it, Helena?”
“No.” She must have been very pale, though I could not tell.
“Therefore, as logic shows us, my dear, and because we never did get our premises straight, and so never will get our conclusions straight, either—we don’t belong together and never can come together, can we?”
“No.” I could barely hear her whisper.
“No. And that is why, just before you came, I was trying to pull myself together and to advance as best an unhappy devil may, uponChaos and the Dark! And that’s all I see ahead, Helena, without you—Chaos and the Dark.”
“It was all you saw that night, in the little boat,” she said after a time. “Yet you went?”
“Oh, yes, but that was different.”
“Is this all, Harry?” she said, and moved toward the door.
“Yes, my dear; it is all—but all the rest.”
Her color must have risen, for I saw dimly that she raised both her hands to her bosom, her throat. Thus the heartless jade stood, her head drooped, unable to meet the piercing gaze of my eagle eye.
There came a faint scratching at the door, a little whimpering whine.
“It is Partial, my dog, come after you,” said I bitterly. “He knows you are here. He never has done that way for me. He loves you.”
“He knowsyouare here, and he loves you,” said she. “That is why things come and scratch at doors where ruffians live.”
I flung open the door. “Partial,” said I, “come in; and choose between us.”
As to the first part of my speech, the invitation to enter, Partial obeyed with a rush; as to the second, the admonition, he apparently could not obey at all. In his poor dumb bruteaffliction, lack of human speech, he stood, after saluting us both, alternately and equally, hesitant between us, wagging, whining and gazing, knowing full well somewhat was wrong between us, grieving over us, beseeching us—but certainly not choosing between us.
“Give him time,” said I hoarsely. “He loves you more, and is merely polite to me.”
“Give him time,” said she bitterly. “He loves you more, and you don’t deserve it.”
But Partial would not choose.
“He wants usboth, Helena!” said I at last. “He has wiped out logic, premises, conclusions, cause and effect, horse, cart and all! He wants usboth! He wants a quiet home and independence, Helena, and usefulness, and contentment. Ah, my God!”
She reached down and put a hand on his head, but he only looked from one to the other of us, unhappy.
“Don’t you love me, Helena?” I asked quietly, after a time. “For the sake of my dog, can you not love me?”
She continued stroking the head of the agonized Partial.... And until, somewhat inarticulately, I had choked or spoken, and had caught her dark hair against my cheek and kissed her hair and stammered in her ear, andturned her face and kissed her eyes and her cheek and her lips many, many times, Partial held his peace and issued no decision.... At least, I did not hear him....
She was sobbing now, her head on my shoulder, as we sat on the locker seat, and Partial’s head was on the cushion beside us, and he was silent and overjoyed, and tranquilly happy—seeing perhaps, that a quiet home would in the event be his, and that he was going to live happy ever after. And after I drew Helena’s head closer to my face, I kissed her hair.
“Do you love me, Helena?” I asked. “Only the truth now, in God’s name!”
“You know I do,” she said, and I felt her arms about my neck.
“Have you, always?”
“I think so, yes. It seems always.”
“We have been cruel to each other.”
“Yes, are cruel now.”
“How now?”
“You make me say I love you, and yet——”
“You will marry me—right away, soon, Helena—as I am, poor, ragged, without a cent, only myself?”
“Not here,” she smiled.
“At Edouard Manning’s, at once, as soon as we get in?”
“It is duress! I am in the power of a ruffian band! Is it fair? Are you sure I know my mind?”
“I am sure only that I know my own! Tell me, what was in that note I carried, addressed to yon varlet Davidson?”
“Sealed orders!”
“And how does that affect me, Helena. Tell me—I know you love me, and you know that all the rest is small, to that; but as to that wedding part of it, Helena—what do you say?”
She hesitated for an instant. “You want me to—come—to come with honor, as you do?”
“Yes. I’ll take any risk that means with you.”
“Will you take sealed orders, too?”
“Yes.”
“Turn on the lights.”
I reached the switch, and an instant later a dozen high candle-power bulbs flooded the suite with light. With a little cry of dismay Helena sprang away, and stood at my shaving-glass, arranging her hair. Now and then she turned her face just enough to smile at me a little, her eyes dark, languid, heavy lidded, a faint shadow of blue beneath. And now and then her breast heaved, as though it were a sea late troubled by a storm gone by.
“What will auntie say?” she sighed at last.
“What will you say?” I replied.
“Oh, brute, you shall not know! I must have some manner of revenge against a ruffian who has taken advantage of me while I was in his power!”
“Ah, heartless jade!”
“—So you shall wait until we are ashore. I will give you sealed orders——”
“When?”
“Now. And you shall open them at your friend’s house—as soon as we are all settled and straightened after leaving the boat—as soon as——”
“It looks as though it were as soon as you please, not when I please.”
“Harry, it is my revenge for the indignities you have heaped on me. Do you think a girl will submit to that meekly—to be browbeaten, abused, endangered as I have been! No, sir—sealed orders or none. I have only owned I loved you. So many girls have been mistaken about things when—when the moon, or a desert island or—or something has bewitched them. But I haven’t said I would marry you, have I, ever?”
“No. I don’t care about that so much as the other; but I care a very, very great deal about it,too. You, too, are cruel. You are a heartless jade.”
“And you have been a cruel and ruthless pirate.”
“Tell me now!”
“No.” And she evaded me, and gained the door. “I must go. Oh, it’s all a ruin now—Auntie’ll be furious. And what shall I say?”
“Give her sealed orders, and my love! And when do I get mine?”
“In five minutes.”
She was gone.... And after some moments, rapt as I was at her late presence, which still seemed to fill the room like the fragrance, like the fragrance of her hair which still lingered in my senses, I looked about, sighing for that she was gone. Then I noted that our friend Partial had gone with her. “Fie! Partial, after all, you loved her more!” I said to myself.
But in a few moments I heard a faint sound at my door. I opened. There stood Partial in the dusk, gravely wagging his tail, looking at me without moving his head. And I saw that he held daintily in his mouth a dainty note, addressed to me in the same handwriting as that on the note I had sent out from the heartless jade to yon varlet. And it was sealed, andmarked with instructions for its opening.... “When You Two Varlets Meet.” No more.
“Peterson,” said I, advancing to the forward deck, where I found him smoking, “I’ve been getting up some correspondence, since we’ll be ashore by to-morrow noon——”
“—I don’t know as to that, Mr. Harry.”
“Well, I know about it. So, tell Williams that, even if he has to work all night, we must be moving as soon as it’s light enough to see. I’ve got a very important message——”
“By wireless, Mr. Harry?” chuckled the old man.
“Yes, by wireless,” (and I looked at Partial, who wagged his tail and smiled). “So I must get into Manning Island the first possible moment to-morrow. And Peterson, as we’ve had so good a run this trip, with no accident or misfortune of any kind, I don’t know but I may make it a month or two extra pay—double—for you and Williams, and even John. And as to Willy, please don’t fire him, Peterson, for his deserting the ship’s cook the other night. In fact, I’m very glad, on the whole, he did. Give him double pay for doing it, Peterson!”
“Ain’t this the wonderful age!” remarked Peterson to a star which was rising over the misty marsh. “Especial, now, that wireless!”
I only patted Partial on the head, and we smiled pleasantly and understandingly at each other. Of course, Peterson could not know what we knew.
BEFORE the white sea mists had rolled away I was on deck, and had summoned a general conference of my crew.
“’Polyte,” I demanded of our pilot, “how long before your partner will be at the lighthouse, below, there?”
“’Ow long?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, maybe thees day sometam.”
“And how long before he’ll start back with the mail?”
“’Ow long?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, maybe thees same day sometam.”
“And how long will it take him to get back to some post-office with those letters?”
“’Ow long?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, maybe those nex’ day sometam.”
“And then how long to the big railroad to New Orleans?”
“’Ow long?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, maybe those nex’ day too h’also sometam, heem.”
“Then it will be three days, four days, before a letter could get from the lighthouse to New Orleans?”
“’Ow long?”
“Three or four days?”
“Oui, maybe so.”
“And how long will it take us to get in to the plantation of Monsieur Edouard, above, there?”
“’Ow long?”
“Yes.”
“H’I’ll could not said, Monsieur. Maybe three four day—’sais pas.”
“Holy Mackinaw!” I remarked,sotto voce.
“Pardon?” remarked ’Polyte respectfully. “Le Machinaw—que-est-que-ce-que-est, ca?”
“It is my patron saint, ’Polyte,” I explained, and he crossed himself for his mistake.
“Suppose those h’engine he’ll h’ron, we’ll get in four five h’our h’all right, on Monsieur Edouard, yass,” he added. “H’I’ll know those channel lak some books.”
By now Williams—who, judging by certain rappings, hammerings and clankings heard through the cabin walls back and above the engine-rooms, had been at work much of thenight—had reported, and much to my pleasure had said he thought we could make it in at least to the Manning dock before further repairs would be needed. To prove which, he went down and “turned her over a time or two,” as he expressed it. Whereupon I gave orders to break out the anchor, and knowing that any Cajun market hunter and shrimp fisher like ’Polyte can travel in any mist or fog before sunup by some instinct of his own, I took a chance and began to feel our way out to the mouth of the Manning channel before the morning mists were gone; so that we were at breakfast by the time the wide and gently rippling bay broke clear below us, and by magic, we saw the oak-crowned heights of the island dead ahead.
Thence on, within the walls of the deep dredged channel, all we had to do was to go sufficiently slow and follow the curves carefully, so that the heavy waves of our boat, larger than any intended for that channel, might not too much endanger the mud walls, or threaten wreckage to the frail stagings leading to the cabins of the half-aquatic trappers and fishers who dwell here in the marshes.
So, at last, after many windings and doublings, we came in at the rear of the timberedslopes, and could see the mansion houses and the offices of the stately old plantation, where dwelt my friend, Edouard Manning, who knew nothing of my coming.
After custom, I signaled loud and often with the boat’s whistle, so that the men might come to the landing for us; and, in order that Edouard himself might be warned, I gave orders to my hardy mates to make proper nautical salute of honor.
“Cast loose the stern-chaser, Jean Lafitte,” said I: “and do you and L’Olonnois load and fire her often as you like until we land; or until you burst her.”
Gleefully they obeyed, and soon the roar of our deck gun echoed formidably along the slopes, as had no gun since the salt-seeking Union navy, in the Civil War, had pounded at the gates of Edouard’s father: and until scores of coots and rail chattered in excited chorus for answer, and long clouds of wild ducks arose and circled over the marsh. Again and again, my bold mates loaded and fired: and now, turning back by chance from my own place at the wheel, I saw that they had assumed full character, and each with a red kerchief bound about his brow, was armed with, I dare not say how many, pistols, dirks, swordsand cutlasses thrust through his belt or otherwise suspended on his person.
I saw now the two ladies, their fingers in their ears, also on deck, protesting at this cannonading at their cabin door; and so I raised my hat to a very radiant and radiantly appareled Helena, for the first time that day; and heard the answer of L’Olonnois to the dour protest of Auntie Lucinda.
“We follow Black Bart the Avenger, an’ let any seek to stop us at their per-rul! Jean, run up the flag, while I load her up again.”
And Jean having once more hoisted the skull and cross-bones at our masthead, and assumed a specially savage scowl as he stood with folded arms on our bow deck, we made what a mild imagination might have called rather an impressive entry as we swept into the Manning landing.
I was not surprised to see Edouard himself there, and his wife, and some thirty odd dogs and as many blacks, waiting for us at the wharf. Nor was I surprised to see that all seemed somewhat to marvel at our manner of advent, though I knew that Edouard, through his field-glasses, had recognized both my boat and myself long before we made the last curve and came gently in to the wharf where the grinning darkies could catch our line.
What did surprise me—and perhaps for a time I may have shown surprise—was to see, in all this gay throng, two forms not usual on the Manning landing. One was the elegantly garbed and rather stunning figure of Sally Byington; and the other the robust, full-bodied, gorgeously arrayed form of my old friend, Cal Davidson! How or why they came there I could not for the moment guess.
“’Tis he—yon varlet!” I heard a stern voice hiss at my ear. “Beshrew me, but it shall go hard with him! I’m loading her up with marbles now!” But I had no more than time to persuade my two lieutenants to modify this purpose, and partially to disarm themselves, before the two groups were mingling, with much chattering and laughing and gay saluting.
Edouard, hat in hand, was on deck before our fenders touched the wharf, laughing and grasping my hands and looking up at my flag.
“I knew you were coming,” said he. “Fact is, all the country’s been looking for you. Davidson just got in a couple of hours ago—and you know his lady is an old friend of Mrs. Manning’s. And——”
He was shaking the hands of Mrs. Daniver and Helena almost before I could present them. Auntie Lucinda bestowed upon him the gazeof a solemn and somewhat tear-stained visage (though I saw distinct approval on her face as she caught sight of the great mansion house among the giant oaks, and witnessed the sophisticatedness of the group on the landing, and the easy courtesy of Edouard himself).
“By Jove! old man!” the latter found time to say to me, “I congratulate you—she’s away beyond her pictures.” He did not mean Mrs. Daniver; and he never had seen Helena before. I could only press his hand and attempt no comment as to the congratulations, for part of that was a matter which yet rested in a sealed envelope in my pocket; and at best it must be three or four days.... But then, with a great flash of arrested intelligence, it was borne in upon me that perhaps, after all, it was not so much a question of the tardy United States mails! Because yon varlet, fat and saucy, and well content with life, already, by some means and for some reason, had outrun the mails. He was here, and we had met. It need not be four days before I could learn my fate.... I reached into my pocket and looked at my sealed orders. No matter what Davidson’s letter held, here was Davidson himself.
“Oh, I say, there, you Harry, confound you!” roared Davidson to me in his greatvoice above the heads of everybody. “I say, what did I tell you?”
Now I had not the slightest idea what Davidson had told me, nor what he meant by waving a paper over his head. “They’ve signed Dingleheimer for next year! Now what do you think of that? World’s championship, and good old Dingleheimer for next year—I guess that’s pretty poor for them little old Giants, what?” And he smiled like one devoid of all care as well as of all reason.
I myself smiled just a moment later—after I had greeted the Manning ladies, had seen Helena step up and kiss Sally Byington fervently, directly on the cheek, whose too keen coloring I once had heard her decry; had slapped Edouard joyously on the shoulders and pointed to my pirate flag and gloomy black-visaged crew—I say I also smiled suddenly when I felt a hand touch me on the shoulder.
’Polyte, the pilot, stood, cap in hand, and asked me to one side.
“Pardon, Monsieur,” said he, “but thosegentilhommes—those fat one—ees eet she’ll was Monsieur Davelson who’ll H’I’ll got letter on heem from those lighthouse, heem?”
“Why, yes, ’Polyte—the letter you said would take four days to get to New Orleans.”
’Polyte smiled sheepishly. “He’ll wouldn’t took four days now, Monsieur! H’I’ll got it h’all those letter here. H’I’ll change the coat on thelighthouse, maybe, h’an H’I’ll got the coat of Guillaume witt’ h’all those letter in her, yass?” And he now handed me the entire packet of letters, which I had supposed left far behind us on the previous day!
I took the letters from him, and handed all of them but one to Edouard’s old body servant to put in the office mail. The remaining one I held in the same hand with its mate: and I motioned Davidson aside to a spot under a live oak as the other began now slowly to move toward the path from the landing up the hill.
“This is for you,” said I, handing him his letter; and told him how it came to him thus.
“It’s from Helena—dear old girl, isn’t she a trump, after all!” he said, tearing open the letter and glancing at it.
“She is a dear girl, Mr. Davidson,” said I, stiffly, “yes.”
“Why, of course—yes, of course I’d have done it, if I’d got this before I left the city,” said he, “but how can I now?”—holding the letter open in his hand.
“Do you mean to tell me,” I began, butchoked in anger mixed with uncertainty. What was it she had asked of him, offered to him? And was not Helena’s wish a command.
“Yes, I mean to tell you or any one else, I’d do a favor to a lady if I could; but——”
“What favor, Mr. Davidson?” I demanded icily.
“Well, why ‘Mr. Davidson’? Ain’t I your pal, in spite of all the muss you made of my plans? Why, I’m damned if I’ll pay you the charter money at all, after the way you’ve acted, and all——”
“Mr. Davidson, damn the charter money!”
“That’s what I say! What’s charter money among friends? All right, if you can forgive half the charter fee, I’ll forgive the other half, and——”
“What was in the letter from her?”
“It’s none of your business, Harry—but still, I don’t mind saying that Miss Emory wrote me and said that if I was still—oh! I say!” he roared, turning suddenly and poking a finger into my ribs, “if you haven’t got on one of my waistcoats!”
“The one with pink stripes,” said I still icily, “and deuced bad ones they all are. And these clothes I borrowed from my China boy. But then——”
“I see, you must have come in a hurry, eh?”
“Yes. But come now, old man, what’s in that letter? I’ve got one of my own here, done in the same hand, hers. I am under sealed orders—until I shall have met you, which is now. So I suppose some sort of explanation is due on both sides. We might as well have it all out here, before we join the house party, so as to avoid any awkwardness.”
“Oh, nothing in my letter to amount to anything,” he replied. “Miss Emory only wanted to know if I’d please have her trunks shipped out here from New Orleans—only that; and she asked me please to bring her a box of marshmallows, as hers were all gone. She’s polite, always, dear old Helena—she says, here, ‘So pleasant is our journey in every way, and so kind have you gentlemen been, and so thoughtful in providing every luxury, that I can not think of a single thing I could ask for except some more marshmallows. Jimmy, the young imp, my nephew, you know, has found mine, though I hid them under both cushions in the stateroom.’”
I had my hat off, and was wiping my forehead. A sudden burst of glory seemed to me to envelope all the world. If there had been duplicity anywhere, I did not care.
“I suppose Jimmy is the one with two guns and a Jap sword, eh?” asked Davidson.
“No, the other one, God bless him! Is that all there was in the letter, Cal?”
“Yes. What’s in yours? What’s the game—button, button, who’s got the girl? And can’t youopenyour letter now?”
“Yes,” said I, and did so. It contained just two words (Helena afterward said she had not time to write more while Auntie Lucinda might be in from the other stateroom).[A]
“Well, what’s it say, dash you!” demanded Cal Davidson. “Play fair now—I told, and so must you!”
“I’m damned if I do, Cal!” said I, and put it in my pocket. But I shook hands with him most warmly, none the less....
FOOTNOTE:[A](Those interested may find them later in the text.[B])
[A](Those interested may find them later in the text.[B])
[A](Those interested may find them later in the text.[B])
WE walked on slowly up the hill together, my friend Calvin Davidson and myself, following the parti-colored group now passing out of sight behind the shrubbery. At last we paused and sat down on one of the many seats that invited us. Around us, on the great lawn, were many tropic or half-tropic plants, and the native roses, still abloom. Yonder stood the old bronze sun-dial that I knew so well—I could have read the inscription,I Mark Only Pleasant Hours; and I knew its penciled shadow pointed to a high and glorious noon.... It seemed to me that Heaven had never made a more perfect place or a more perfect day; nor, that I am sure, was ever in the universe a world more beautiful than this, more fit to swing in union with all the harmony of the spheres.... I had fought so long, I had been so unhappy, had doubted so much, had grown so sad, so misanthropic, that I trust I shall be forgiven at this sudden joy I felt at hearing burst on my ears—albeit a chorus of Edouard’smocking-birds hid in the oaks—all the music of the spheres, soul-shaking, a thing of joy and reverence.... So I spoke but little.
“But I say, old man,” began Davidson presently, “it’s all right for a joke, but my word! it was an awfully big one, and an awfully risky one, too,—your stealing your own yacht from me! I didn’t think it of you. You not only broke up my boat party—you see, Sally was going on down with us from Natchez—Miss Emory said she’d be glad to have her come, and of course she and Mrs. Daniver made it proper, all right—I say, you not only busted that all up, but by not sending a fellow the least word of what you were going to do, you got those silly newspapers crazy, from New Orleans to New York—why, you’re famous, that is, notorious! But so is Miss Emory, that’s the worst of it. I don’t just fancy she’ll just fancy some of those pictures, or some of those stories. Least you can do now is to marry Helena and the old girl, too, right off!”
“In part, that is good advice,” said I. “I wish I could wear your clothes, Cal—but I remember now that Edouard and I can wear the same clothes, and have, many a time.”
“But I say, don’t be so hoggish. There’s other people in the world beside you—you’dneverhave thought of making that river cruise, now would you?”
“No.”
“Nor you couldn’t have got Helena aboard the boat if you had, now could you?”
“No.”
“Let alone the old girl, her revered aunt!” He dug another thumb into his own pink striped waistcoat. “She loves you a lot, I am not of the impression!”
“No, I think she rather favored you!” I replied gravely.
“No chance! And I say, isn’t Sally a humdinger? Just the sort for me—something doing every minute. And a fellow can always tell just what she’s thinkin’——”
“I’m not right sure, Cal, whether that’s safe to say of any woman,” said I. “A ship on the sea, or a serpent on a rock has—to use your own quaint manner of speech, my friend—so to speak, nothing on the way of a maid with a man. But go on. I do congratulate you. Do you know, old man, I almost thought, once—a good while ago—that you were just a little—that is—éprisof Helena your own self?”
“Come again? ‘Apree’—what’s that?”
“—Gone on her.”
“Oh, not at all, not at all—not in the least!Why, I can’t see what in the world—oh, well of course, you know, she’sfine; but what I mean is, why—there was Sally, you know. Say, do you know why I wanted to get Sally away on that boat?—I was afraid you’d cut in somewhere, run across her down at Mardi Gras, or something. And I justfigured, once you got a girl on a boat that way, away from all the other fellows, you know, why even a plain chap like me would have a chance, do you see? And I say now, I’ll own it up—I was right downjealousofyou, too! Wasn’t it silly? And I ask your pardon. You’re an awfully good sort, Harry, though you’re so d——d serious—you get too much in earnest, take things too hard, you know. Will you shake hands with me, knowing what a fool I’ve been? I say, you’re the best chap in the world, old man—if only you were a little morehumanonce in a while.”
He put out his hand and I met it. “Will you shake hands with me, Cal?” said I, “on precisely those same terms about having been an awful fool? It’s you who are the best chap in the world. And I’ll admit it—I was jealous of you!”
He roared at this. “Well,” said he, “as George Cohan says, ‘All’s well that ends well’,and I guess we couldn’t beat this for a championship year, now could we? Now say, about Dingleheimer——”
“Oh, hang Dingleheimer, Cal!” I exclaimed. “What I want to know is, did you ever talk any to Miss Emory about—well, about me, you know?—say anything about my affairs, or anything, you know? I mean while you were there on the boat together.”
“No. She wouldn’t let me. Besides, the truth is, I was so full of Sally all the time, I mostly talked abouther. By Jove! that was a measly trick you played us, running off with the boat from under my nose! But I proposed to Sally in Natchez that night, and she came on down to the city the next day by rail—whileIran down in that dirty little scow you left behind. And I never tumbled for days that it wasyouhad run off with the boat—though I found a photo of Helena and your cigarette case in the boat you left. Never tumbled till that story of the taxi driver came out. Then I said, ‘Well, of all things! Wonder if that old stick has really come to life after all!’ And you sure had! What’s inyourletter? Say, ain’t a boat the place——”
“But how did you happen to be here?”
“Oh, I’ve known Ed Manning years, in NewYork, Paris, all around. He asked me to visit him some time. I wired and asked him if I could come out for our honeymoon—you know, Harry, I’m such a d——d romantic son of a gun, and once before I was out here at Ed’s, and those d——d nightingales, catbirds, what d’ye call ’ems——”
“—Mockers.”
“Yes, mockers, they sung so sweet, especial in the evenings, you know—and I’m so d——d romantic—alwayswas thataway—and you know, why, a fellowcanbe romantic on his honeymoon, can’t he?—he can just cut loose then an’ be as big a d—n fool as he likes then—an’ get away with it, what? Say, can’t he?”
—“Yes.”
—“So that’s why I came.”
—“But—honeymoon? Are you going to be married?”
—“Naw! I ain’t goin’ to be married—Iammarried! Day before yesterday, in New Orleans. And I don’t believe in dandlin’ an’ foolin’ around about a little thing like that. Ain’t you married yet?”
“No. Impossible. No preacher on Côte Blanche Bay or on our boat. I’ve got Aunt Lucinda Daniver along, to take care of theproprieties. If I should leave it to her, I never would be married.”
“Why?”
“She thinks I’m broke.”
“Yes, too bad about that! I wish I could swap bank rolls with you. Why didn’t you tell her the truth—and Helena, too? Why didn’t you tell ’em it was your own yacht? Why didn’t you tell ’em you’re worth a few millions and don’t have to work?”
“I don’t know—maybe I’m like you, Cal, foolish about nightingales and things. But tell me—you never did tell them anything about that Sally M. mine business, did you?”
“No, I should say not! Didn’t you tell me you didn’t want it to get out? It was bad enough, the way old Dan and your—sainted father handed it to each other over that mine, wasn’t it? I know about it, for I promoted that mine myself, and the name’ll prove that—Sally M. Byington, with the Byington left off! There wasn’t a blasted thing in it then. But when you—like a blame quixotic fool—after she was good for six thousand a month velvet, and ore blocked out to last a thousand years—why, then you fool around in Papa’s records, and think Papa wasn’t on the square with old Dan. So on the quiet you get it all made over,back to old Dan’s daughter; and take a sneak into the hazelbrush when she turns you down! Say, you know whatI’da-done?”
“No.”
—“I’d a-held on to the mine and told the girl how much it was bringin’ in—that’smysystem. Then I’d a-got the mine and the girl both, maybe!”
—“Maybe.”
“Well, that’s the system I’d a-played. I wouldn’t a-took to the tall grass, me.”
“On the other hand, I played a system invented by myself and Henri L’Olonnois.”
“I never heard of him. Well, anyhow, you were rich enough to afford to do what you liked. But as to keeping it secret, you can’t do that any longer. Those newspaper fellows are the devil to get hold of things. Since all this stuff came out about you running away with your own boat—I can see now why you did it, and I’m glad you did—why, your whole life history has been printed, including all that restitution business about the Sally M. Fellows came to me and asked me about you, asked if I knew you. Said, yes, I knew you—said you were a romantic chap, and a good business man, too—and the best old scout in the world—what?”
I had arisen, and stood in some doubt. “What’s the matter—let’s go on up to the house. I want to see Sally,” he concluded.
“And I want very much to see Helena,” said I. “Only, it’s going to be rather harder now to meet her—and Mrs. Daniver.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Cal Davidson; “every fellow plays his own system. There’s something in what you say about women having a good poker face so far as tellin’ what they think about a man is concerned—yes. Frinstance, how much did Helena know I knew, or know you knew or thought you knew—well, you get me? But the trouble with you is, you ain’t romantic in your temperament like me.... But if I was you, I wouldn’t be scared to tell Mrs. Daniver I had a dollar and a quarter or so left! It’ll soften the blow some to her, maybe. And as for Helena——”
“And as for Helena, I can look her in the face, and she can me, now. And—will you telephone to New Iberia for a minister—at once—for this evening train? And will you tell Edouard to have his man lay out his best evening clothes for me—tell him I’ll trade him these of my cook’s for them—and a suit of traveling clothes? Because, oh! fellow varlet——” (I paused here; we both did; for amocker just now broke into an extraordinary burst of song, so sweet, so throbbingly sweet, that we could not help but listen, both of us being lovers)....
“What were you saying, old man?” Cal Davidson asked after a while, musingly, as one awakening.... “Some bird, what?”
... “Because, to-night,” I answered, “I am going to marry my fair captive, yon heartless jade, Helena. I’ve loved her always, rich or poor, and she loves me, rich or poor. And we shall live happy ever after. And may God bless us, and all true lovers!”
“Amen!” I heard some one say; and have often wondered whether it was yon varlet, the mocking-bird, or Cal Davidson himself, who spoke.... I looked around for Partial. He had followed Helena.