"I've known Johnny Deutra ever since he came from the Islands, Deolda,"
my aunt said, sternly. "He'll mean it when he falls in love."
"I know it," said Deolda, with a little breathless catch in her voice.
"He's only a kid. He's barely twenty," my aunt went on, inexorably.
"He's got to help his mother. He's not got enough to marry; any girl who
married him would have to live with the old folks. Look where you're
going, Deolda."
There was silence, and I heard their footsteps going to their rooms.
The next day Deolda went to walk, and back she came, old Conboy driving
her in his motor. Old Conboy was rich; he had one of the first motors on
the Cape, when cars were still a wonder. After that Deolda went off in
Conboy's motor as soon as her dishes were done and after supper there
would be handsome Johnny Deutra. We were profoundly shocked. You may be
sure village tongues were already busy after a few days of these goings
on.
"Deolda," my aunt said, sternly, "what are you going out with that old
Conboy for?"
"I'm going to marry him," Deolda answered.
"You're _what_?"
"Going to marry him," Deolda repeated in her cool, truthful way that
always took my breath.
"Has he asked you?" my aunt inquired, sarcastically.
"No, but he will," said Deolda. She looked out under her long, slanting
eyes that looked as if they had little red flames dancing in the depths
of them.
"But you love Johnny," my aunt went on.
She nodded three times with the gesture of a little girl.
"Do you know what you're headed for, Deolda?" said my aunt. "Do you know
what you're doing when you talk about marrying old Conboy and loving
that handsome, no-account kid, Johnny?"
We were all three sitting on the bulkheads after supper. It was one of
those soft nights with great lazy yellow clouds with pink edges sailing
down over the rim of the sea, fleet after fleet of them. I was terribly
interested in it all, but horribly shocked, and from my vantage of
fifteen years I said.
"Deolda, I think you ought to marry Johnny."
"Fiddledeedee!" said my aunt. "If she had sense she wouldn't marry
either one of 'em--one's too old, one's too young."
"She ought to marry Johnny and make a man of him," I persisted, for it
seemed ridiculous to me to call Johnny Deutra a boy when he was twenty
and handsome as a picture in a book.
My prim words touched some sore place in Deolda. She gave a brief
gesture with her hands and pushed the idea from her.
"I can't," she said, "I can't do it over again. Oh, I can't--I can't.
I'm afraid of emptiness--empty purses, empty bellies. The last words my
mother spoke were to me. She said, '_Deolda, fear nothing but
emptiness--empty bellies, empty hearts._' She left me something, too."
She went into the house and came back with the saffron shawl, its long
fringe trailing on the floor, its red flowers venomous and lovely in the
evening light.
"You've seen my mother," she said, "but you've seen her a poor old
woman. She had everything in the world once. She gave it up for love.
I've seen what love comes to. I've seen my mother with her hands callous
with work and her temper sharp as a razor edge nagging my father, and my
father cursing out us children. She had a whole city in love with her
and she gave up everything to run away with my father. He was jealous
and wanted her for himself. He got her to marry him. Then he lost his
arm and they were poor and her voice went. I've seen where love goes. If
I married Johnny I'd go and live at Deutra's and I'd have kids, and old
Ma Deutra would hate me and scream at me just like my mother used to. It
would be going back, right back in the trap I've just come out of."
What she said gave me an entirely new vision of life and love. "They
were married and lived happy ever afterward" was what I had read in
books. Now I saw all at once the other side of the medal. It was my
first contact, too, with a nature strong enough to attempt to subdue
life to will. I had seen only the subservient ones who had accepted
life.
Deolda was a fierce and passionate reaction against destiny. It's a
queer thing, when you think of it, for a girl to be brought up face to
face with the wreck of a tragic passion, to grow up in the house with
love's ashes and to see what were lovers turned into an old hag and a
cantankerous, one-armed man nagging each other.
My aunt made one more argument. "What makes you get married to any of
'em, Deolda?"
Now Deolda looked at her with a queer look; then she gave a queer laugh
like a short bark.
"I can't stay here forever. I'm not going back to the mill."
Then my aunt surprised me by throwing her arms around Deolda and kissing
her and calling her "my poor lamb," while Deolda leaned up against my
aunt as if she were her own little girl and snuggled up in a way that
would break your heart.
One afternoon soon after old Conboy brought Deolda home before tea time,
and as she jumped out:
"Oh, all right!" he called after her. "Have your own way; I'll marry you
if you want me to!"
She made him pay for this. "You see," she said to my aunt, "I told you I
was going to marry him."
"Well, then come out motoring tonight when you've got your dishes done,"
called old Conboy.
"I'm going to the breakwater with Johnny Deutra tonight," said Deolda,
in that awful truthful way of hers.
"You see what you get," said my aunt, "if you marry that girl."
"I'll get worse not marrying her," said Conboy. "I may die any minute;
I've a high blood pressure, and maybe a stroke will carry me off any
day. But I've never wanted anything in many years as I want to hold
Deolda in my arms."
"Shame on you!" cried my aunt. "An old man like you!"
So things went on. Johnny kept right on coming. My aunt would fume about
it, but she did nothing. We were all under Deolda's enchantment. As for
me, I adored her; she had a look that always disarmed me. She would sit
brooding with a look I had come to know as the "Deolda look." Tears
would come to her eyes and slide down her face.
"Deolda," I would plead, "what are you crying about?"
"Life," she answered.
But I knew that she was crying because Johnny Deutra was only a boy.
Then she would change into a mood of wild gayety, whip the shawl around
her, and dance for me, looking a thousand times more beautiful than
anyone I had ever seen. And then she would shove me out of the room,
leaving me feeling as though I had witnessed some strange rite at once
beautiful and unholy.
She'd sit mocking Conboy, but he'd only smile. She'd go off with her
other love and my aunt powerless to stop her. As for Johnny Deutra, he
was so in love that all he saw was Deolda. I don't believe he ever
thought that she was in earnest about old Conboy.
So things stood when one day Capt. Mark Hammar came driving up with
Conboy to take Deolda out. Mark was his real name, but Nick was what
they called him, after the "Old Nick," for he was a devil if there ever
was one, a big, rollicking devil--that is, outwardly. But gossips said
no crueller man ever drove a crew for the third summer into the Northern
Seas. I didn't like the way he looked at Deolda from the first, with his
narrowed eyes and his smiling mouth. My aunt didn't like the way she
signaled back to him. We watched them go, my aunt saying
"No good'll come of that!" And no good did.
All three of them came back excited and laughing. Old Conboy, tall as
Mark Hammar, wide-shouldered, shambling like a bear, but a fine figure
of an old fellow for all that; Mark Hammar, heavy and splendid in his
sinister fashion; and between them Deolda with her big, red mouth and
her sallow skin and her eyes burning as they did when she was excited.
"I'm saying to Deolda here," said Captain Hammar, coming up to my aunt,
"that I'll make a better runnin' mate than Conboy." He drew her up to
him. There was something alike about them; the same devil flamed out of
the eyes of both of them. Their glances met like forked lightning. "I've
got a lot more money than him, too," said Hammar, jerking his thumb
toward Conboy. He roused the devil in Deolda.
"You may have more money," said she, "but you'll live longer! And I want
to be a rich widow!"
"Stop your joking," my aunt said, sharply. "It don't sound nice."
"Joking?" says Captain Hammar, letting his big head lunge forward. "I
ain't joking; I'm goin' to marry that girl."
My aunt said no more while they were there. She sat like a ramrod in her
chair. That was one of the worst things about Deolda. We cover our
bodies decently with clothes, and we ought to cover up our thoughts
decently with words. But Deolda had no shame, and people with her
didn't, either. They'd say just what they were thinking about.
After they left Deolda came to Aunt Josephine and put her arms around
her like a good, sweet child.
"What's the matter, Auntie?" she asked.
"You--that's what. I can't stand it to hear you go on."
Deolda looked at her with a sort of wonder. "We were only saying out
loud what every girl's thinking about when she marries a man of
forty-five, or when she marries a man who's sixty-five. It's a
trade--the world's like that."
"Let me tell you one thing," said my aunt. "You can't fool with Capt.
Mark Hammar. It means that you give up your other sweetheart."
"That's to be seen," said Deolda in her dark, sultry way. Then she said,
as if she was talking to herself: "Life--with him--would be interesting.
He thinks he could crush me like a fly.--He can't, though--" And then
all of a sudden she burst into tears and threw herself in my aunt's lap,
sobbing: "Oh, oh! Why's life like this? Why isn't my Johnny grown up?
Why--don't he--take me away--from them all?"
After that Captain Hammar kept coming to the house. He showed well
enough he was serious.
"That black devil's hypnotized her," my aunt put it.
Deolda seemed to have some awful kinship to Mark Hammar, and Johnny
Deutra, who never paid much attention to old Conboy, paid attention to
him. Black looks passed between them, and I would catch "Nick" Hammar's
eyes resting on Johnny with a smiling venom that struck fear into me.
Johnny Deutra seldom came daytimes, but he came in late one afternoon
and sat there looking moodily at Deolda, who flung past him with the air
she had when she wore the saffron shawl. I could almost see its long
fringes trailing behind her as she stood before him, one hand on her
tilted hip, her head on one side.
It was a queer sort of day, a day with storm in the air, a day when all
our nerves got on edge, when the possibility of danger whips the blood.
I had an uncomfortable sense of knowing that I ought to leave Deolda and
Johnny and that Johnny was waiting for me to go to talk. And yet I was
fascinated, as little girls are; and just as I was about to leave the
room I ran into old Conboy hurrying in, his reddish hair standing on
end.
"Well, Deolda," said he, "Captain Hammar's gone down the Cape all of a
sudden. He told me to tell you good-by for him. Deolda, for God's sake,
marry me before he comes back! He'll kill you, that's what he'll do.
It's not for my sake I'm asking you--it's for your sake!"
She looked at him with her big black eyes. "I believe you mean that,
Conboy. I believe I'll do it. But I'll be fair and square with you as
you are with me. You'd better let me be; you know what I'm like. I won't
make you happy; I never pretended I would. And as for him killing me,
how do you know, Conboy, I mightn't lose my temper first?"
"He'll break you," said Conboy. "God! but he's a man without pity! Don't
you know how he drives his men? Don't you know the stories about his
first wife? He's put some of his magic on you. You're nothing but a poor
little lamb, Deolda, playing with a wolf, for all your spirit. There's
nothing he'd stop at. Nothing," he repeated, staring at Johnny. "I
wouldn't give a cent for that Johnny Deutra's life until I'm married to
you, Deolda. I've seen the way Mark Hammar looks at him--you have, too.
I tell you, Mark Hammar don't value the life of any man who stands in
his way!" And the way the old man spoke lifted the hair on my head.
Then all of us were quiet, for there stood Captain Hammar himself.
"Why, Mark, I thought you'd gone down the Cape!" said Conboy.
"I lost the train," he answered.
"Well, what about that vessel you was going to buy in Gloucester?"
"I got to sail over," said Captain Hammar.
Conboy glanced out of the window. The bay was ringed around with heavy
clouds; weather was making. Storm signals were flying up on Town Hill,
and down the harbor a fleet of scared vessels were making for port.
"You can't go out in that, Mark," says Conboy.
"I've got the money," says Mark Hammar, "and I'm going to go. If I don't
get down there that crazy Portygee'll have sold that vessel to some one
else. It ain't every day you can buy a vessel like that for the price.
He let me know about it first, but he won't wait long, and he's got to
have the cash in his hands. He's up to some crooked work or he wouldn't
'a' sent the boy down with the letter; he'd 'a' sent it by post, or
telegraphed even. He's let me know about it first, but he won't wait. It
was getting the money strapped up that made me late. I had to wait for
the old cashier to get back from his dinner."
"You and your money'll be in the bottom of the bay, that's where you'll
be," said Conboy.
"If I'd taken in sail for every little bit o' wind I'd encountered in my
life," said Mark Hammar, "I'd not be where I am now. So I just thought
I'd come and run in on Deolda before I left, seeing as I'm going to
marry her when I get back."
Johnny Deutra undid his long length from the chair. He was a tall, heavy
boy, making up in looks for what he lacked in head. He came and stood
over Mark Hammar. He said:
"I've had enough of this. I've had just enough of you two hanging around
Deolda. She's my woman--I'm going to marry Deolda myself. Nobody else is
going to touch her; so just as soon as you two want to clear out you
can."
There was silence so that you could hear a pin drop. And then the wind
that had been making hit the house like the blow of a fist and went
screaming down the road. Deolda didn't see or hear; she was just looking
at Johnny. He went to her.
"Don't you listen to 'em, Deolda. I'll make money for you; I'll make
more than any of 'em. It's right you should want it. Tell 'em that
you're going to marry me, Deolda. Clear 'em out."
That was where he made his mistake. _He_ should have cleared them out.
Now Captain Hammar spoke:
"You're quite a little man, ain't you, Johnny? Here's where you got a
chance to prove it. You can make a hundred dollars tonight by taking the
_Anita_ across to Gloucester with me. We'll start right off."
Everyone was quiet. Then old Conboy cried out:
"Don't go, Mark. Don't go! Why, it's _murder_ to tempt that boy out
there."
At the word "murder" Deolda drew her breath in and clapped her hand over
her mouth, her eyes staring at Johnny Deutra. "Nick" Hammar pretended he
hadn't noticed. He sat smiling at Johnny.
"We-ll," he drawled. "How about it, Johnny? Goin'?"
Johnny had been studying, his eyes on the floor.
"I'll go with you," he said.
Then again for a half minute nobody spoke. Captain Hammar glared,
letting us see what was in his dark mind. Old Conboy shrunk into himself
and Deolda sat with her wild eyes going from one to the other, but not
moving. We were all thinking of what old Conboy had said just before
Captain Hammar had flung open the door. A sudden impulse seized me; I
wanted to cry out: "Don't go, Johnny. He'll shove you overboard." For I
knew that was what was in "Nick" Hammar's mind as well as if he had told
me. A terrible excitement went through me. I wanted to fling myself at
"Nick" Hammar and beat him with my fists and say, "He sha'n't go--he
sha'n't, he sha'n't!" But I sat there unable to move or speak. Then
suddenly into the frozen silence came the voice of "Nick" Hammar. This
is what he said in his easy and tranquil way:
"Well, I'm goin' along. Are you coming, Conboy?" He spoke as though
nothing had happened. "I'll meet you down at the wharf, Johnny, in a
half hour. I'll leave you to say good-by to Deolda." They went out, the
wind blowing the door shut behind them.
Deolda got up and so did Johnny. They stood facing each other in the
queer yellow light of the coming storm. They didn't notice my aunt or
me.
"_You going?_" asked Deolda.
They looked into each other's eyes, and he answered so I could barely
hear:
"Sure."
"_You know what he's thinking about?_" said Deolda.
Again Johnny waited before he answered in a voice hardly above a
whisper:
"I can guess."
Deolda went up slowly to him and put one of her long hands on each of
his shoulders. She looked deep into his eyes. She didn't speak; she just
looked. And he looked back, as though trying to find out what she had in
her heart, and as he looked a little flicker of horror went over his
face. Then he smiled a slow smile, as though he had understood something
and consented to it--and it was a queer smile to see on the face of a
young fellow. It was as if the youth of Johnny Deutra had passed away
forever. Then Deolda said to him:
"Good for you, Johnny Deutra!" and put out her hand, and he laid his in
hers and they shook on it, though no word had passed between them. And
all this time my aunt and I sat motionless on the haircloth sofa next to
the wall. And I tell you as I watched them my blood ran cold, though I
didn't understand what it was about. But later I understood well enough.
There never was so long an evening. The squall blew over and a heavy
blow set in. I could hear the pounding of the waves on the outside
shore. Deolda sat outside the circle of the lamp in a horrible tense
quiet. My aunt tried to make talk, and made a failure of it. It was
awful to hear the clatter of her voice trying to sound natural in the
face of the whistle of the storm, and out wallowing in it the gasoline
dory with its freight of hatred. I hated to go to bed, for my room gave
on the sea, and it seemed as if the night and the tragedy which I had
glimpsed would come peering in at me with ghastly eyes.