emphatically, in reference to a recent wedding. "Edna Leighton has
plenty of money of course, and is a stunning girl and all that; but
she's so horribly ambitious that she won't give poor Billy a minute's
peace."
"And Billy is one of the most quiet men alive," put in Jack.
"Ambitious?" queried Katrine. "How? I've known her pretty well, and to
me she always seemed nice. Certainly she's clever."
"So she is clever," Jerry assented; "but of course that'll make it
harder for Billy to stand out against her."
"She naturally would have the instinct to get ahead in the world,"
commented Castleport. "Her mother was a Farquhar."
"Mr. Castleport," remonstrated Mrs. Fairhew, "that remark is too
feminine to be worthy of you."
"Do you regret that I didn't leave it for you to say?" he asked saucily.
"I know you entirely agree with me."
"Her father, Stephen Leighton," Mrs. Fairhew continued, making no answer
but a hardly perceptible smile to his statement, "was a thoroughly
charming man and of very good family. You can't deny that, Mr.
Castleport."
"I haven't any wish to. I'm not trying to run down Edna
Leighton--Rafton, that is."
"I always thought," began Katrine. Then she stopped, with an involuntary
movement of the eyes in the direction of Taberman.
"Oh, I was hit there once," Tab said jovially, "if that's what you mean.
I got over it at a boat race."
They all laughed, and the topic seemed exhausted, when the elder lady
said:--
"We shall have sight of them at Florence, I suppose. They are to be at
the Villa Foscagni for the summer. It belongs to the Raftons."
"When do you expect to get there?" Tab inquired carelessly.
"Florence? In five or six days."
"Five or six days!" cried Jack. "Why, when do you leave here?"
"To-morrow afternoon," answered Katrine in a tone of which the
indifference might have struck Jack as a little overdone had he not been
too perturbed to notice.
"Why--but--" Jack began; "I had no idea"--
"Did you fancy we were here for the summer?" queried Katrine with demure
interest.
The hint of teasing in her tone brought Castleport to himself. Half his
social success lay in the fact that he was not easily disconcerted.
"As Mrs. Fairhew was good enough to tell me her plans," he returned
coolly, "I naturally understood that you were to leave here before long,
but I admit I hadn't thought you would go so soon."
"You see," Mrs. Fairhew explained, "we really must get on. Katrine has
to do museums and things, as I told you. When I was a girl it wouldn't
have been thought respectable for a girl to come out before she'd seen
the Pitti and Uffizzi; but it's all different now."
"What nonsense, Aunt Anne! I don't believe you'd seen the galleries
yourself when you came out."
"Indeed I had. I'll make you read all the finest print in the
guide-books if you are impertinent. We take," she added, turning to
Castleport, "the 3.08 for Genoa."
Jack was by nature quick and resolute; and before Mrs. Fairhew had got
to this remark he had conceived a plan, and resolved to follow it out.
Gravely regarding the thicket of oleanders behind Miss Marchfield, yet
with the tail of his eye on the face of Jerry, which was alternately
lighted and obscured as his cigarette glowed or waned, the captain
remarked coolly:--
"That's a curious coincidence."
"Coincidence?" repeated Mrs. Fairhew questioningly.
"It would seem so," Jack almost drawled. "You said the 3.08, didn't you?
How far do you go? All the way to Genoa?"
"Yes. What is there extraordinary about that?"
"Why, nothing much," returned Jack in a brisker tone, throwing away the
butt of his cigarette; "only--yes--that's the very train I go on
myself. Same destination, too, unless I decide to stop at Bordighera."
There naturally was a sensation at this unexpected announcement. Katrine
drew in her breath audibly; in the very nick of time Jerry caught
himself in the act of saying profanely what he would be; Mrs. Fairhew
closed her fan quickly, but she was too much mistress of herself to give
any indication of her feelings beyond a little quick laugh.
"I had not remembered that you spoke of going," she said.
"No?" Jack said politely.
"But," gasped Jerry, "I say--you know, I say"--
Evidently his feelings were too much for him, and he collapsed. So
sudden a move on the part of Jack was sure to disconcert his
slower-witted comrade, and the captain had fortunately been prepared by
previous experiences for some mental confusion on the part of the mate.
"Yes, Jerry?" he asked.
"Nothing--I--I don't remember what I was going to say," murmured the
bewildered Tab.
"Really," observed Mrs. Fairhew, "it hadn't occurred to me that you
could or would leave the yacht. What becomes of her?"
"Oh, you don't doubt Jerry, do you? He's going to take her in charge."
Once determined upon his plan, Jack felt it best to carry matters off
with a high hand. He did not in the least care whether Mrs. Fairhew and
Katrine suspected that his resolution to go on by land had been taken on
the spot or not; but he liked to play the game well, and to put a good
face on things. He spoke as though his mind had been made up long
before, although all the time his brain was working with furious energy,
as he tried to shape the scheme thoroughly and to foresee all possible
contingencies. To give over to Jerry the care of the President's yacht
was a bold stroke, but he said to himself that he was confident his
friend was entirely competent to manage her for the comparatively short
run to Naples; and his thought nimbly disposed of objection after
objection as they rose in his mind.
Rapid as had been his decision, it was less wild than it might seem; and
by the time he spoke again Jack had all the details pretty well
mastered.
"Do you leave the Merle here?" inquired Mrs. Fairhew.
Katrine, Jack noted, had said nothing, but he had heard that quick,
indrawn breath, and he did not believe that her silence arose from
indifference.
"Oh, no; Jerry's going to take her to Naples," was Castleport's cool
reply.
It was to Tab's credit that at this astounding piece of intelligence he
did not make a violent demonstration; but he was not unaccustomed to the
rapidity with which Jack came to a decision, and he had before been
trained in accepting what his captain said. Now he only dropped his
cigarette, and on picking it up put the lighted end between his lips,
spluttered and smothered a profane comment, and hurled the offending
butt as far as he could.
"Have another?" asked Jack, unruffled, as he pushed his case across the
little table by which they were sitting.
"Thank you, no!" replied Tab with quite unnecessary emphasis.
"You've no need to touch your lips with fire, Mr. Taberman," Mrs.
Fairhew observed, opening and closing her fan in a way which she had
when amused; "you have been sufficiently eloquent in compliments ever
since you arrived. May we hope, then," she went on, turning to
Castleport, "for the pleasure of your company on the journey?"
"If you and Miss Marchfield do not object, I shall be delighted."
"It will be a great pleasure to me. Of course I can't speak for
Katrine."
Jack turned to look at Katrine. On her face the soft light of a Japanese
lantern fell between a couple of trees, but she at once moved so that
the shadows hid her expression.
"Nothing could please me more, Aunt Anne, than that you should be
pleased," she responded.
"Then you had better bring Mr. Taberman and your luggage ashore, and
come to luncheon to-morrow," the aunt said, rising. "In that way we can
take our time and be comfortable. Does that suit your plans, Mr.
Castleport?"
Jack detected the suspicion of mirth in her voice, but he felt that if
she had disapproved she would not only have shown no amusement but that
she was clever enough to have thwarted his scheme.
"I don't want to abuse your hospitality," he said.
"Oh, we shall make you useful as an escort, and get enough service out
of you on the journey to pay that," spoke Katrine, with the air of
feeling that she had been too noticeably silent.
"We're only too delighted to come, of course," Jerry said with boyish
enthusiasm. "Anybody'd be glad of a chance to lunch with you, Mrs.
Fairhew."
"Your compliments are rather direct, Mr. Taberman," that lady answered
with a laugh. "We'll say 1.30, then. That will give us plenty of time. I
hate to be hurried; it is so undignified."
As Mrs. Fairhew had risen the others were of course on their feet, and
as Jack stood aside for Katrine to pass him, the elder lady took his
arm. By this she detained him an instant, until her niece and Jerry were
a few yards away. When they approached the door of the hotel and it was
light enough for him to see her clearly, she dropped his arm; and as he
turned his face toward her at the movement, she regarded him through her
lorgnette with a look quizzical though kindly.
"You are a clever boy," she said after a little, and with a peculiar
faint stress on the adjective. "Do you want to marry my niece?"
Jack of course recognized that the question would never have been asked
had there been any doubt of the answer, and even in the confusion of the
moment he had a dim perception that Mrs. Fairhew was, with kindly whim,
helping him to ask her sanction to his wooing. He felt his cheeks grow
hot, but he faced his inquisitor frankly, and he spoke with a manner
which though instinctively subdued was full of energy and feeling.
"You know I do," he said. "You know I'd die the worst of deaths for
her. I--As God's above me," he burst out, breaking off and feeling
himself strangle with his emotion, "I'll win her or die trying! I--I--
Of course I want to marry her! What do you suppose I came to Europe
for?"
Mrs. Fairhew's face softened, for no true woman could have heard the
passion of his voice unmoved; but she laughed at the sudden change with
which he ended.
"I hope you may succeed," she said softly. "I think you will." Then she
took his arm again, and spoke in her ordinary voice: "Come, we must go
in."
"Now, then, Jack, in the name of heaven," demanded Jerry, as soon as he
and the captain were out of hearing of the ladies, "what is this awful
josh of yours about leaving the yacht?"
"I'll tell you when we get aboard," his friend answered. "Don't bother
me now; I'm thinking."
Tab snorted contemptuously, and in silence the pair held on until they
reached the quay. The cutter awaited them, and still in silence they
were pulled out to the Merle. There was not a breath of wind now; the
stars blazed brilliantly above them, and not a cloud-blot was to be
seen. In a stillness broken only by the rhythmical oar-strokes the pair
watched the myriad star-points which dotted the heavens as they had
adorned it centuries before when old Nice was new Nicæa, and some brown
Sicilian pilot may have gazed up at them and made haven by their
faithful guidance.
No sooner were they aboard than Gonzague came to ask if they would have
supper.
"Oh, I don't know," Jack answered, still in a dream from the spell of
Mrs. Fairhew's words.
"Well, I do," put in Jerry. "We'll have some caviare sandwiches,
Gonzague, and a glass of sherry."
The supper was eaten almost in silence, and it was not until Gonzague
had taken away the things and left them with pipes lighted that the
inevitable explanation was reached.
"Now then?" said Tab impatiently.
His face wore a sober expression, full of expectancy, but not without a
hint of annoyance and reproach. Jack blew a large smoke-ring at him, and
laughed to see how in dodging it Jerry kept his solemnity unchanged.
"Well, Tab," he began, "I don't suppose it's necessary to say that the
idea of leaving the yacht never came into my head till I knew Mrs.
Fairhew and Katr--Miss Marchfield were off to-morrow."
"Heave ahead," grumpily retorted Jerry. "Don't mind me. Of course I
shall be delighted to be left alone on the yacht."
"Come, cheer up, old man," Jack exhorted. "Don't be grouchy. I'm awfully
sorry to leave you; but of course it's only for a little while, and we
shall both have compensations. I hope I shall be coming nearer
to--to--well, to something definite, you know; and you'll have the Merle
to do what you jolly well please with."
"That's all very well, of course," Tab responded, his face relaxing a
little; "but what's your game? We've beastly little money, you know; and
this shore cruise of yours is bound to sop up a lot of tin."
"We've money enough to carry us through," Jack declared. "I'll go to
Genoa, of course. I know Italy pretty well, and I can make myself
useful,--sort of 'guide, philosopher, and friend,' and courier all in
one. When they go on to Naples,--well, from something Mrs. Fairhew said
to-night, I think I shan't have any difficulty going on to Naples with
them. A man's a handy article in traveling, you see, especially if he
knows the language."
Jerry regarded the captain as if his slower wits found it somewhat hard
to follow the swift flights of his friend's mind.
"But the Merle?" he objected. "It's bad enough for you to be skylarking
about the world with the President's yacht, but when it comes to turning
it over to me--Why, the old gentleman would throw five hundred fits at
the bare idea."
"Oh, I'll trust you there," Jack said lightly, consciously trying to
make his confidence as flattering as possible. "You can manage, and do
as you please for the next month. Who ever heard of a mate that didn't
jump at the chance of taking command for a while. I'd advise you to
stop, say, at Elba, if you're for doing the sights. Then, if you like,
while you're on the Napoleonic tack, you might run 'round to Ajaccio.
It's an out-of-the-way place, rather, but it's jolly when you get there.
As for Elba, I've never been ashore there, though I've passed it and
know the chap that owns it. I'll give you a letter in case you want to
go ashore."
"But, Jack--Damn it!" broke out Jerry, as if exasperated by the very
feasibility of his friend's sudden change of tactics, "I can't speak a
word of their blessed lingo!"
"Pooh! Your French will carry you about well enough, and if worst comes
to worst, you can fall back on Gonzague. At Naples you'll find them
speaking English all over the lot."
"Jack Castleport, you're certainly the damnedest man to handle I ever
came across," Jerry said in despairing tones. "A fellow might as well
try to bully-rag a sea-cow as to argue you out of any of your confounded
schemes."
"That's because they're so good," laughed Jack. "You see their profound
wisdom carries me away so completely that objections can't touch me."
Then he stretched his hand across the table corner, and caught hold of
Jerry's. "I'm deuced sorry to give you the slip like this," he said,
"but you know the reason."
The good-natured Tab melted at once. He returned the pressure of his
friend's hand and tried to quote
"But when a woman's in the case,
All other things, you know, give place;"
but made so hopeless a mess of it that he could only break out into one
of his boisterously jovial guffaws.
"Well, by George," he cried, "if she only knew how devoted you are,
Jack, she'd let you wait a dog's age, just to try you."
They spent an hour or so in arranging details, going over charts,
dividing their funds, and so on. Jack gave Tab addresses at Genoa,
Florence, and Rome by which he might be reached, and told him that at
Naples he should go to the Hôtel du Vesuve. On the twentieth of August
Jerry was to inquire for him there. These and other affairs having been
arranged, the pair smoked a final pipe, and turned in.
Jack was very wakeful. He lay thinking of this and of that, restlessly
tossing about in his berth. Just as at last he was dropping off to
sleep, he was aroused by the voice of Jerry, who called softly across
the passage:--
"I say, Jack,--are you awake?"
"Almost," replied Jack; "but I shouldn't have been, if you'd let me
alone."
"I say, Jacko, do you fancy the President came a cropper in that
Tillington smashup?"
"Don't know," Jack answered. "He's pretty shrewd, and Mrs. Fairhew would
have been likely to hear of it, I should think, if he had come seriously
to grief."
"Well, you know, it struck me that perhaps that beastly letter from
Tillington might have been something important, and"--
"Oh, take a liver-pill!" interrupted Jack. "You've got an attack of
_Conscientia Novanglicana_."
"What's that?"
"Forerunner of nervous pros.," replied the captain with a chuckle. "Go
to sleep or you'll get it."
"Well, good-night."
"Good-night, boy."
Silence again reigned, but Jack, once more aroused, threshed about
uneasily until far into the night. Resolutely as he might determine not
to think of the possible consequences of the carrying off of that big
blue letter, he could not prevent doubt from recurring constantly to his
mind, and something not so far removed from remorse mingled with his
thoughts of Katrine and of the delight of traveling in her company. He
was so long awake that on the next afternoon Mrs. Fairhew, when he had
installed her and her niece comfortably in a first-class compartment on
the 3.08 train, and they were beginning to see the olive groves and the
villas slip picturesquely past the windows, noted the shadows beneath
his eyes, and smiled to herself discreetly and unseen.
[Illustration: Decoration]
Chapter Nine
THE DOLDRUMS
For two weeks the Merle had been lying at anchor at Naples. From Nice
she had run first to Elba; thence she had doubled north again and
rounded Corsica; she had touched at Calvi and Ajaccio; and lastly,
running through the Straits of Bonifacio, she had held on
east-southeasterly to her present anchorage off the Castle.
Despite the novel pleasures of command, Taberman felt Jack's absence so
much as at times to be almost unhappy, even at times a little inclined
to be resentful. He was still too boyish not to feel that to leave a
yacht for a girl was the height of madness, if not of idiocy; and while
he was too loyal to Jack to confess this feeling even to himself, it
would at times rise in his mind, especially when he felt more than
usually lonely. On his arrival at any port Jerry experienced to the full
the excitement which even the oldest traveler feels in some degree at
entering a new town. Whenever the port officer appeared in his official
dignity, another sensation was added in the fear of detection and
apprehension. A reaction would set in with the departure of the easily
satisfied official, and Jerry would go mooning about with his hands in
his pockets, whistling some spiritless tune until the time came to get
up anchor and sail anew.
At Naples, however, things went somewhat better with Jerry than at any
of his previous ports. In the first place even Jerry, unæsthetic as he
was, could not escape the magic of the beautiful bay and the
surroundings which opened up before him in the morning light as he
approached the city. He said to himself, half as if in excuse for being
so much pleased by mere scenery, that it looked as it should. It had, as
it were, kept faith with him; and its beauty was to him an honest
fulfillment of its fame. The gray cone of Vesuvius, palpably and
gratifyingly like the pictures, stood at the head of the bay, crowned
with an inky cloud of smoke. Away from it to the south stretched the
cliffs of blue Sorrento and bluer Capri, melting magically into a
background of hills or of the azure sky. On the north of the smoking
cone a stretch of shadow-wrought shore, and then Naples itself, from the
old Spanish fort on the water-front to the Castle of St. Elmo, long and
gray, crowning the summit of the ridge behind, and the stone-pines
silhouetted like palms against the sapphire sky. Naples, with its great
four-square houses of pink, and white, and yellow, heaped, as it were,
one above another; its red-tiled roofs, its terraces tricked out with
vines or fig-trees; Naples, with its church roofs of variegated tiles,
its long quays yellowish gray about the shore--Jerry could well have
believed himself in some enchanted picture city, a city which might
almost be expected to vanish suddenly if one should close the book it
graced.
Behind the Government Mole were lying five Italian battleships, their
big red, white, and green flags floating over their sterns, and
everywhere over the liquid blue of the bay sailed fisher-craft and small
boats, gilded with the morning light.
Scarcely was the Merle's anchor down than the yacht was surrounded by a
gay flotilla of boats, all laden with piles of fruit or vegetables, and
manned by crews as noisy as they were picturesque. Baskets heaped with
figs, great piles of green melons, lemons, citrons, plums, fresh
vegetables of all sorts, were there; and each ware was extolled by the
vendors with vociferous volubility, until the ears of Jerry fairly sang
with the din. From the crowding boats screamed blowsy, dark-eyed women
with brown oval faces and raiment of reds and yellows; boys with Greek
faces and slim bare arms yelled with shrill voices; doddering old men,
sitting in the stern-sheets of skiffs pulled by impish youngsters, waved
impotent hands and moved toothless mouths whose sounds were lost in the
feverish uproar; stalwart market-men, with brown, wrinkled faces and
hairy bosoms exposed, fought their way through the press, disregarding
age, sex, and condition in their effort to be nearest the possible
purchasers on the Merle; all around the yacht the piratical
water-peddlers made a floating Pandemonium, at which the Yankee crew
stared not only in surprise but with some appearance of not unnatural
alarm.
As an opposing bulwark to this flood of southern vivacity, old Gonzague
alone stood as the spokesman of the yacht. Requested by Jerry to make
the vendors "stow their jaw," he laid about him right and left with a
profane volubility which outdid even that of the assailants. The old man
had not spoken Italian for so long that he might well be supposed to
have forgotten it, but the occasion found him splendidly adequate to all
the requirements of the situation. The Neapolitans raved and pleaded,
execrated and lowered their prices, with appeals to the Madonna and all
the saints to witness their honesty and their liberality; but once the
floodgates of Gonzague's Italian were opened, he dealt with them so
eloquently and so roundly, his objurgations were so much more
picturesque and more emphatic than any they could compass, that one by
one they drew away baffled, calling on high Heaven and the blessed
Virgin to protect them when Vesuvius should belch forth a torrent of
fire to overwhelm this blasphemous and impious _vecchiastro_.
Gonzague was perhaps sustained under the volleys of curses which the
defeated bumboat men and women threw back at him, by the admiration with
which he was regarded by the crew of the Merle. They had come to idolize
the old man, and to look upon him with roughly affectionate wonder. The
beauty of the scenes through which they had been passing in the
Mediterranean had of course impressed them very little æsthetically, and
Naples with its matchless bay they saw only with the eyes of Isle au
Haut fishermen. They were, however, never tired of wonders. The
childlike sailor nature is always easily touched by the marvelous, and a
real volcano was something worth seeing. As long as the Merle was in
sight of Vesuvius they would hang over the rail and watch it for hours.
If the smoke ceased they would cluster together and discuss the
probable causes; they would talk of the mountain as if it were a
conscious monster, lying in wait for prey, whose every movement was to
be watched with a view to detecting the sinister design that must lie
behind it. When a great dun cloud would suddenly puff up from the cone,
the men would greet it with deep exclamations half of awe and half of
applause. Continually they beset Gonzague with questions, as if he were
the keeper or the high priest of this fiery monster. They apparently had
complete confidence that Gonzague could explain it all if he would. His
knowledge of the language and such use of it as he made in dispersing
the voluble rabble of vendors were exactly in the line of their
understanding, and they followed his every movement with an admiration
amusingly tinged with something not unlike uncouth reverence.