Now Olive was not inclined to object to anything that Miss Torrance
might say or do. Her memory for office details was not remarkable, but
her memory of her friend’s thousand queer little kindnesses was
unalterable, ineffaceable.
When she had been left an orphan by the death of her father, the very
first person to arrive at the house was Miss Torrance, her mother’s
cousin; and as soon as Miss Torrance entered the door, she had taken
charge of the bewildered and heartbroken girl. She had brought Olive
home with her, got her into bed, brought up dinner to her herself, and
looked after her in a brisk, matter-of-fact way for a long, weary
fortnight.
There remained, for Olive to remember forever and ever, a Miss Torrance
who got up half a dozen times on bitter winter nights to mix medicines
and heat broth and milk, or even to talk pleasantly to an invalid who
sometimes wept for sorrow and weariness; a Miss Torrance who rose
earlier in the morning to attend to Olive’s breakfast, who rushed back
from the office at lunch time with little delicacies, who hurried home
at five o’clock as brisk, as competent, as unfailingly kind as ever. Her
salary was not a large one, yet she was ready, was glad and willing, to
feed, clothe, and shelter Olive for the rest of her days. She loved the
girl. From the very first moment that Olive had wept on her shoulder she
had loved her in a fierce, generous, tyrannical way of her own.
She had never loved any one before, and sometimes she couldn’t quite
understand why she was so very, very fond of Olive; for the girl had
none of the qualities which Miss Torrance herself possessed, and which
she admired in others. Olive was a slender, quiet young girl, pretty
enough in her gentle way, but not of the type Miss Torrance was wont to
praise. Her brown eyes had a wistful sort of eagerness, and her mouth
was oversensitive. Altogether, there was something dreamy and
unpractical about her.
At the end of the fortnight she had told Miss Torrance that she wanted
to set about earning her own living. The older woman was torn between
her wish to shelter and protect this gentle young creature and her
conviction that every human being should work. Conviction conquered, and
she found a place for Olive in the office of the _Far Afield_ magazine,
of which she was fiction editor. With a severe sort of patience, she
labored over Olive until she had made a pretty fair worker out of her,
but she had no illusions as to the girl’s lack of business ability. She
had begun now to train her for the career of a writer, and she saw more
hope in that.
They were not friends in the office. Miss Torrance would not permit it.
Directly they entered the building, all intimacy was put aside until
five o’clock. They did not even lunch together, because Miss Torrance
considered it a bad precedent. Yet, the morning after the meeting with
that Mr. Martin, Miss Torrance, to save her life, could not help looking
very often through the half open door of her office toward the end of
the outer room where Olive sat.
“Nonsense!” she said impatiently to herself. “She’ll forget him in a
week. She doesn’t know him--doesn’t know anything about him. He wasn’t
at all the type to suit her. A very ordinary, commonplace young man! I’m
glad I discouraged him. He was inclined to be troublesome.”
Olive was quietly working away, as usual.
“If she were--interested in him,” thought Miss Torrance uneasily, “she’d
look different.”
The telephone on her desk rang.
“Miss Torrance speaking!” she said briskly.
“This is Sam Martin,” came the answer. “I wanted to ask you and--and--I
don’t know her last name, but I think I heard you call her Olive--I
wanted to ask you both to lunch.”
A sort of panic seized Miss Torrance. Was she never to be rid of this
young man, never to have Olive all to herself again?
“Olive cannot come,” she answered, in a voice that trembled with anger.
“Then won’t you?” said he. “I’d like very much to talk to you.” She
consented to that, and at twelve o’clock she put on her jaunty little
hat and hurried out of the office, giving Olive a very strained smile as
she passed her.
How much she regretted having consented to see Mr. Martin! She had meant
to crush him utterly, to point out to him how ungentlemanly, how
disgraceful, it was for him to persecute two defenseless women with his
unwelcome attentions; but instead of being offended or ashamed, all he
did was to entreat her for a chance.
“Just give me a fair chance!” he begged. “If you find you don’t like me,
why, there’ll be no harm done. Let me come to see you, or write!”
“No!” said Miss Torrance. “It’s ridiculous. It can’t possibly matter to
you.”
“It does,” he declared.
For a moment they were both silent, sitting at the table in the very
good restaurant, and not eating the very good lunch the young man had
ordered.
“Look here, Miss Torrance!” he went on. “I’ve got to tell you. I’d been
in to stay overnight with Robertson, and in the morning I
saw--her--going out. The moment I saw her, I--look here, Miss Torrance,
you’ll have to believe me--the moment I saw her--she’s so--I--I can’t
tell you; but she’s so--sweet!”
Miss Torrance could not endure this. She could not endure the sound of
his earnest, entreating voice, his pathetically inadequate words, or the
sight of his unhappy, honest young face. She did not know whether she
was contemptuous and angry, or even more unhappy than he was; but she
did know very positively that she wanted to get away, wanted to end
this.
“You don’t know Olive,” she said coldly; “and I do. I tell you frankly,
Mr. Martin, that I shall do all I can to protect her from--” She
stopped. “She’s all I have in the world!” her heart cried. “I won’t let
her go. I won’t let her see you! Because, if she does see you--you
confident, good-looking, detestable creature!--how can she help loving
you and forgetting me, and how shall I live without her?”
“But I’m--I give you my word I’m--respectable!” said he, in despair.
“I’ll tell you all about myself. I’ll get people to write you letters
about me. I--”
“I don’t doubt you, Mr. Martin,” said Miss Torrance, with a chilly
smile; “but that’s not the point. You’ll pardon me, but I see no
advantage to Olive in making the acquaintance of a man whom she might
never see again. A sailor’s life--”
“Oh, but look here! If she would marry me--”
“Marry you?” cried Miss Torrance. “What preposterous nonsense is this,
when you haven’t spoken half a dozen words to each other?”
“I can’t help it,” said he, terribly downcast, but resolute. “That’s the
way it is with me; and if she even seemed to--to be beginning to like
me, I’d give up the sea.”
Miss Torrance smiled--not a trustful smile.
“I mean it!” said he. “I have to make this trip, but when I come back,
I’ll stay. I promised, long ago, that if ever I met a girl I wanted to
marry, I’d swallow the anchor.”
“Indeed!” said Miss Torrance.
Like all innocent persons who wish to be convincing, Mr. Martin added
details.
“The best friend I ever had made me promise that,” he went on. “He’d had
a hard lesson when he tried to mix the two--falling in love and going to
sea, I mean. He lost his ticket and his girl both.”
“Indeed!” said Miss Torrance again. “Very interesting, I’m sure!” The
poor young man believed that she meant that.
“Yes,” he said, “it is an interesting story. This chap--I’ll call him
Smith, if you don’t mind, because naturally he wouldn’t like to be
named. It happened some time ago--eighteen or twenty years ago, and this
chap was third officer on a cargo steamer running between London and
Antwerp. Well, one trip he met a girl in London, and he--well, you know,
he liked her, and she seemed to like him. He told her when he’d be
likely to dock again, and she said that that was her birthday, and that
she wanted him to come to a little dance she was having. Well, of
course, he got her a present. He pretty well broke himself to get her
something he thought she’d like, and I suppose he thought about her a
good deal. A fellow would, you know, at night, on watch, you know, and
so on. Well, they got in the morning of the very day he’d said--docked
at Tilbury--and then the old man told him he needn’t expect to get
ashore this trip. The first was married and lived in London, and the
second was signing off, so Smith would have to stay on board. Of course
he couldn’t say anything, but it hit him pretty hard. Look here, Miss
Torrance, does this bore you?”
“No,” said Miss Torrance, who was interested in spite of herself.
“Well, then, as soon as the others had cleared out, Smith stepped ashore
and telephoned to her. She began to tell him how glad she was, and how
she’d been hoping he’d be able to come to her dance, and he had to tell
her he couldn’t come. She asked him”--Martin grinned--“she asked him if
he couldn’t tell the captain it was her birthday, and then she asked him
if he couldn’t get some one to do his work for him. You know, girls
never understand responsibility; but they’re--there’s something sweet
about--”
“Oh, nonsense!” said Miss Torrance sharply.
“Anyhow, this girl didn’t--or wouldn’t--understand. She said if he
didn’t come that night, he needn’t ever come. She told him he was no
better than a slave--had no spirit, and so on. Well, there he was! It
was a rainy day, and--ever seen Tilbury Docks on a rainy day? I wish I
knew how to give you the--the effect. It’s the most dismal, desolate
place you’d ever want to see. The Alberta was coaling, too, and you know
what that means.
“Except for a steward and some of the crew, there was no one on board
but Smith and the second engineer, and they didn’t hit it off very well.
The cargo was all out of her, and the new lot not coming in till the
next morning. The coaling was nearly done, and there was a train up to
London about four o’clock. Well, if you were making a story out of this,
you’d put in a lot here about a moral struggle. He must have had one,
you know--love and duty,” said Mr. Martin, obviously pleased with his
phrase. “That’s it--a struggle between love and duty, and love
conquered. He must have been very fond of that girl! He went to town on
the four o’clock train. He saw his girl, and she must have been a
remarkably pig-headed, unreasonable young person. She said she’d marry
him if he would give up the sea, but he would have to make up his mind
then and there, or she’d know he didn’t really care for her. So he said
he’d let her know before he sailed.
“The dance broke up pretty late, so Smith went to spend the night with a
friend of his in London, and took the first train back to Tilbury in
the morning. Hadn’t been able to sleep all night, trying to make up his
mind whether he’d give up the sea or the girl. Well, he got back, and on
the dock he meets the marine superintendent of the line--a terrible old
fellow, Captain Leavitt. Poor Smith felt pretty sick when he saw the
captain. Anyhow, he says ‘Good morning, sir,’ and goes on to explain
that he’d just stepped ashore for a bit of breakfast at the hotel.
“‘Ship’s breakfast not good enough for you, eh?’ says old Leavitt.
“‘Oh, yes, sir,’ says Smith. ‘It wasn’t that--’
“‘If you’ve any complaints to make,’ says old Leavitt, with a queer sort
of grin, ‘now’s the time to make ’em, Mr. Smith!’
“Smith said he had none.
“‘Satisfied with the Alberta, eh?’ asks old Leavitt. ‘Everything all
right on board when you stepped ashore for a little breakfast, Mr.
Smith?’
“By this time Smith felt pretty sure that Captain Leavitt knew how long
he’d been away, but he thought he’d better try to see it through. So he
says yes, everything was all right.
“‘Humph!’ says old Leavitt, staring hard at him. ‘Well! So you’re quite
sure everything’s all right on board this morning, eh?’
“‘Oh, yes, sir!’ says Smith.
At that Leavitt takes his arm, and, without another word, stumps along
beside him to the Alberta’s berth. The Alberta wasn’t there!
“‘Sure everything’s all right on board, eh?’ says Captain Leavitt. ‘My
eyes aren’t as good as they were.’
“Poor Smith just stared and stared at the empty slip. He couldn’t say
one word.
“‘She’s gone to the bottom!’ shouts Captain Leavitt. ‘And too bad you
didn’t go there with her, you young liar and blackguard!’”
“Do you find that humorous?” demanded Miss Torrance, with a severe
glance at his laughing face.
“Well, I can’t help it!” said Martin. “No one was hurt, you know. The
trimmers had loaded her down too much on one side, and she simply rolled
over and sank. And when you think of old Leavitt asking him if
everything was all right on board, when he knew all the time, I can’t
help thinking it’s funny!”
Martin stopped, quite overcome with laughter.
“This friend of yours--this Smith--did he consider it funny?”
“Oh, Lord, no! But he’s a serious, high-minded sort of fellow. He
thought it was a disgrace, you know, and he went off and told the girl
that he was disgraced and ruined, and she threw him over. He never got
over it, and that’s why he got me to promise that if ever I--well, you
know, if I got seriously interested in a girl, I’d swallow the anchor. I
think he’s right. It’s not fair to a girl--”
Miss Torrance rose.
“I think, Mr. Martin,” said she, with a frigid little smile, “that if I
were you, I shouldn’t renounce my trade.”
“Profession,” Mr. Martin suggested.
“Occupation,” Miss Torrance compromised. “It is one thing for you to be
seriously interested in a girl, and quite another thing for her to be
seriously interested in you.”
And with that she walked off, leaving her unfortunate young host
standing beside the table, on which remained the last course of that
excellent lunch.