THE CLAW OF THE SEA-PUSS
With the closing of the doors the murmur of the crowd, the dull glare
of the gray sky, and the thrash of the wind were shut out. The only
light in the House of Refuge now came from the two small windows, one
above the form of the suffering man and the other behind the dead body
of Archie. Jane's head was close to the boy's chest, her sobs coming
from between her hands, held before her face. The shock of Archie's
death had robbed her of all her strength. Lucy knelt beside her, her
shoulder resting against a pile of cordage. Every now and then she
would steal a furtive glance around the room--at the boat, at the
rafters overhead, at the stove with its pile of kindling--and a slight
shudder would pass through her. She had forgotten nothing of the past,
nor of the room in which she crouched. Every scar and stain stood out
as clear and naked as those on some long-buried wreck dug from shifting
sands by a change of tide.
A few feet away the doctor was stripping the wet clothes from the
rescued man and piling the dry coats over him to warm him back to life.
His emergency bag, handed in by Polhemus through the crack of the
closed doors, had been opened, a bottle selected, and some spoonfuls of
brandy forced down the sufferer's throat. He saw that the sea-water had
not harmed him; it was the cordwood and wreckage that had crushed the
breath out of him. In confirmation he pointed to a thin streak of blood
oozing from one ear. The captain nodded, and continued chafing the
man's hands--working with the skill of a surfman over the water-soaked
body. Once he remarked in a half-whisper--so low that Jane could not
hear him:
"I ain't sure yet, doctor. I thought it was Bart when I grabbed him
fust; but he looks kind o' different from what I expected to see him.
If it's him he'll know me when he comes to. I ain't changed so much
maybe. I'll rub his feet now," and he kept on with his work of
resuscitation.
Lucy's straining ears had caught the captain's words of doubt, but they
gave her no hope. She had recognized at the first glance the man of all
others in the world she feared most. His small ears, the way the hair
grew on the temples, the bend of the neck and slope from the chin to
the throat. No--she had no misgivings. These features had been part of
her life--had been constantly before her since the hour Jane had told
her of Bart's expected return. Her time had come; nothing could save
her. He would regain consciousness, just as the captain had said, and
would open those awful hollow eyes and would look at her, and then that
dreadful mouth, with its thin, ashen lips, would speak to her, and she
could deny nothing. Trusting to her luck--something which had never
failed her--she had continued in her determination to keep everything
from Max. Now it would all come as a shock to him, and when he asked
her if it was true she could only bow her head.
She dared not look at Archie--she could not. All her injustice to him
and to Jane; her abandonment of him when a baby; her neglect of him
since, her selfish life of pleasure; her triumph over Max--all came
into review, one picture after another, like the unrolling of a chart.
Even while her hand was on Jane's shoulder, and while comforting words
fell from her lips, her mind and eyes were fixed on the face of the man
whom the doctor was slowly bringing back to life.
Not that her sympathy was withheld from Archie and Jane. It was her
terror that dominated her--a terror that froze her blood and clogged
her veins and dulled every sensibility and emotion. She was like one
lowered into a grave beside a corpse upon which every moment the earth
would fall, entombing the living with the dead.
The man groaned and turned his head, as if in pain. A convulsive
movement of the lips and face followed, and then the eyes partly opened.
Lucy clutched at the coil of rope, staggered to her feet, and braced
herself for the shock. He would rise now, and begin staring about, and
then he would recognize her. The captain knew what was coming; he was
even now planning in his mind the details of the horrible plot of which
Jane had told her!
Captain Holt stooped closer and peered under the half-closed lids.
"Brown eyes," she heard him mutter to himself, "just 's the Swede told
me." She knew their color; they had looked into her own too often.
Doctor John felt about with his hand and drew a small package of
letters from inside the man's shirt. They were tied with a string and
soaked with salt water. This he handed to the captain.
The captain pulled them apart and examined them carefully.
"It's him," he said with a start, "it's Bart! It's all plain now.
Here's my letter," and he held it up. "See the printing at the
top--'Life-Saving Service'? And here's some more--they're all stuck
together. Wait! here's one--fine writing." Then his voice dropped so
that only the doctor could hear: "Ain't that signed 'Lucy'?
Yes--'Lucy'--and it's an old one."
The doctor waved the letters away and again laid his hand on the
sufferer's chest, keeping it close to his heart. The captain bent
nearer. Jane, who, crazed with grief, had been caressing Archie's cold
cheeks, lifted her head as if aware of the approach of some crisis, and
turned to where the doctor knelt beside the rescued man. Lucy leaned
forward with straining eyes and ears.
The stillness of death fell upon the small room. Outside could be heard
the pound and thrash of the surf and the moan of the gale; no human
voice--men and women were talking in whispers. One soul had gone to God
and another life hung by a thread.
The doctor raised his finger.
The man's face twitched convulsively, the lids opened wider, there came
a short, inward gasp, and the jaw dropped.
"He's dead," said the doctor, and rose to his feet. Then he took his
handkerchief from his pocket and laid it over the dead man's face.
As the words fell from his lips Lucy caught at the wall, and with an
almost hysterical cry of joy threw herself into Jane's arms.
The captain leaned back against the life-boat and for some moments his
eyes were fixed on the body of his dead son.
"I ain't never loved nothin' all my life, doctor," he said, his voice
choking, "that it didn't go that way."
Doctor John made no reply except with his eyes. Silence is ofttimes
more sympathetic than the spoken word. He was putting his remedies back
into his bag so that he might rejoin Jane. The captain continued:
"All I've got is gone now--the wife, Archie, and now Bart. I counted on
these two. Bad day's work, doctor--bad day's work." Then in a firm
tone, "I'll open the doors now and call in the men; we got to git these
two bodies up to the Station, and then we'll get 'em home somehow."
Instantly all Lucy's terror returned. An unaccountable, unreasoning
panic took possession of her. All her past again rose before her. She
feared the captain now more than she had Bart. Crazed over the loss of
his son he would blurt out everything. Max would hear and know--know
about Archie and Bart and all her life!
Springing to her feet, maddened with an undefinable terror, she caught
the captain's hand as he reached out for the fastenings of the door.
"Don't--don't tell them who he is! Promise me you won't tell them
anything! Say it's a stranger! You are not sure it's he--I heard you
say so!"
"Not say it's my own son! Why?" He was entirely unconscious of what was
in her mind.
Jane had risen to her feet at the note of agony in Lucy's voice and had
stepped to her side as if to protect her. The doctor stood listening in
amazement to Lucy's outbreak. He knew her reasons, and was appalled at
her rashness.
"No! Don't--DON'T!" Lucy was looking up into the captain's face now,
all her terror in her eyes.
"Why, I can't see what good that'll do!" For the moment he thought that
the excitement had turned her head. "Isaac Polhemus'll know him," he
continued, "soon's he sets his eyes on him. And even if I was mean
enough to do it, which I ain't, these letters would tell. They've got
to go to the Superintendent 'long with everything else found on bodies.
Your name's on some o' 'em and mine's on some others. We'll git 'em
ag'in, but not till Gov'ment see 'em."
These were the letters which had haunted her!
"Give them to me! They're mine!" she cried, seizing the captain's
fingers and trying to twist the letters from his grasp.
A frown gathered on the captain's brow and his voice had an ugly ring
in it:
"But I tell ye the Superintendent's got to have 'em for a while. That's
regulations, and that's what we carry out. They ain't goin' to be
lost--you'll git 'em ag'in."
"He sha'n't have them, I tell you!" Her voice rang now with something
of her old imperious tone. "Nobody shall have them. They're mine--not
yours--nor his. Give them--"
"And break my oath!" interrupted the captain. For the first time he
realized what her outburst meant and what inspired it.
"What difference does that make in a matter like this? Give them to me.
You dare not keep them," she cried, tightening her fingers in the
effort to wrench the letters from his hand. "Sister--doctor--speak to
him! Make him give them to me--I will have them!"
The captain brushed aside her hand as easily as a child would brush
aside a flower. His lips were tight shut, his eyes flashing.
"You want me to lie to the department?"
"YES!" She was beside herself now with fear and rage. "I don't care who
you lie to! You brute--you coward-- I want them! I will have them!"
Again she made a spring for the letters.
"See here, you she-devil. Look at me!"--the words came in cold, cutting
tones. "You're the only thing livin', or dead, that ever dared ask
Nathaniel Holt to do a thing like that. And you think I'd do it to
oblige ye? You're rotten as punk--that's what ye are! Rotten from yer
keel to yer top-gallant! and allus have been since I knowed ye!"
Jane started forward and faced the now enraged man.
"You must not, captain--you shall not speak to my sister that way!" she
commanded.
The doctor stopped between them: "You forget that she is a woman. I
forbid you to--"
"I will, I tell ye, doctor! It's true, and you know it." The captain's
voice now dominated the room.
"That's no reason why you should abuse her. You're too much of a man to
act as you do."
"It's because I'm a man that I do act this way. She's done nothin' but
bring trouble to this town ever since she landed in it from school nigh
twenty year ago. Druv out that dead boy of mine lyin' there, and made a
tramp of him; throwed Archie off on Miss Jane; lied to the man who
married her, and been livin' a lie ever since. And now she wants me to
break my oath! Damn her--"
The doctor laid his hand over the captain's mouth. "Stop! And I mean
it!" His own calm eyes were flashing now. "This is not the place for
talk of this kind. We are in the presence of death, and--"
The captain caught the doctor's wrist and held it like a vice.
"I won't stop. I'll have it out--I've lived all the lies I'm goin' to
live! I told you all this fifteen year ago when I thought Bart was
dead, and you wanted me to keep shut, and I did, and you did, too, and
you ain't never opened your mouth since. That's because you're a
man--all four square sides of ye. You didn't want to hurt Miss Jane,
and no more did I. That's why I passed Archie there in the street;
that's why I turned round and looked after him when I couldn't see
sometimes for the tears in my eyes; and all to save that THING there
that ain't worth savin'! By God, when I think of it I want to tear my
tongue out for keepin' still as long as I have!"
Lucy, who had shrunk back against the wall, now raised her head:
"Coward! Coward!" she muttered.
The captain turned and faced her, his eyes blazing, his rage
uncontrollable:
"Yes, you're a THING, I tell ye!--and I'll say it ag'in. I used to
think it was Bart's fault. Now I know it warn't. It was yours. You
tricked him, damn ye! Do ye hear? Ye tricked him with yer lies and yer
ways. Now they're over--there'll be no more lies--not while I live! I'm
goin' to strip ye to bare poles so's folks 'round here kin see. Git out
of my way--all of ye! Out, I tell ye!"
The doctor had stepped in front of the infuriated man, his back to the
closed door, his open palm upraised.
"I will not, and you shall not!" he cried. "What you are about do to is
ruin--for Lucy, for Jane, and for little Ellen. You cannot--you shall
not put such a stain upon that child. You love her, you--"
"Yes--too well to let that woman touch her ag'in if I kin help it!" The
fury of the merciless sea was in him now--the roar and pound of the
surf in his voice. "She'll be a curse to the child all her days; she'll
go back on her when she's a mind to just as she did on Archie. There
ain't a dog that runs the streets that would 'a' done that. She didn't
keer then, and she don't keer now, with him a-lyin' dead there. She
ain't looked at him once nor shed a tear. It's too late. All hell can't
stop me! Out of my way, I tell ye, doctor, or I'll hurt ye!"
With a wrench he swung back the doors and flung himself into the light.
"Come in, men! Isaac, Green--all of ye--and you over there! I got
something to say, and I don't want ye to miss a word of it! You, too,
Mr. Feilding, and that lady next ye--and everybody else that kin hear!
"That's my son, Barton Holt, lyin' there dead! The one I druv out o'
here nigh twenty year ago. It warn't for playin' cards, but on account
of a woman; and there she stands--Lucy Cobden! That dead boy beside him
is their child--my own grandson, Archie! Out of respect to the best
woman that ever lived, Miss Jane Cobden, I've kep' still. If anybody
ain't satisfied all they got to do is to look over these letters.
That's all!"
Lucy, with a wild, despairing look at Max, had sunk to the floor and
lay cowering beneath the lifeboat, her face hidden in the folds of her
cloak.
Jane had shrunk back behind one of the big folding doors and stood
concealed from the gaze of the astonished crowd, many of whom were
pressing into the entrance. Her head was on the doctor's shoulder, her
fingers had tight hold of his sleeve. Doctor John's arms were about her
frail figure, his lips close to her cheek.
"Don't, dear--don't," he said softly. "You have nothing to reproach
yourself with. Your life has been one long sacrifice."
"Oh, but Archie, John! Think of my boy being gone! Oh, I loved him so,
John!"
"You made a man of him, Jane. All he was he owed to you." He was
holding her to him--comforting her as a father would a child.
"And my poor Lucy," Jane moaned on, "and the awful, awful disgrace!"
Her face was still hidden in his shoulder, her frame shaking with the
agony of her grief, the words coming slowly, as if wrung one by one out
of her breaking heart.
"You did your duty, dear--all of it." His lips were close to her ear.
No one else heard.
"And you knew it all these years, John--and you did not tell me."
"It was your secret, dear; not mine."
"Yes, I know--but I have been so blind--so foolish. I have hurt you so
often, and you have been so true through it all. O John, please--please
forgive me! My heart has been so sore at times--I have suffered so!"
Then, with a quick lifting of her head, as if the thought alarmed her,
she asked in sudden haste:
"And you love me, John, just the same? Say you love me, John!"
He gathered her closer, and his lips touched her cheek:
"I never remember, my darling, when I did not love you. Have you ever
doubted me?"
"No, John, no! Never, never! Kiss me again, my beloved. You are all I
have in the world!"
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Tides of Barnegat, by F. Hopkinson Smith