Medbury descended to his room, opened the lid of his desk, and fumbled
about aimlessly with hands that trembled; then, as if he had found what
he had been looking for, he lowered the lid, and, leaning his elbows
upon it, stood looking moodily before him. He told himself that he was
glad it was over; anything was better than the long uncertainty that
had held him bound in chains for years. But no one should know that he
cared, and he glanced at the little hand-glass under his window to see
if his face had changed. It cheered him to note no difference since
morning, and, with boyish affectation, he smiled at his image in the
glass. But suddenly, as if to test his strength, his mind flashed the
image of Hetty before him--her face turned up to him smilingly, as he
had often seen it, her eyes, every feature. With a groan he dropped his
head upon his arms.
He put the mood away from him sternly, and began to debate with himself
whether it would be better to keep on loving her all his days, going to
his grave a sad and lonely man, or gaily to turn to another at once, to
show how little he cared. He came to no decision because he could not
determine which course would hurt her more.
It was his watch below, but he could not sleep, so taking his log-book,
pen, and ink out into the cabin, he sat down at the table, though it
was neither the time nor the place for writing up his log.
Mrs. March was there alone, and, saying that he could not write at his
desk, Medbury opened his book.
He wrote down the date, saw that he had written that of two days
before, so scratched it out, and replaced it with the correct one,
and slowly began to write "Dead calm" in bold letters up and down the
column for winds.
"How long do you suppose this is going to last, Tom?" asked Mrs. March.
Medbury looked up and shook his head.
"There's no telling. Wind's an uncertain thing; nothing more so," he
replied, and dipped his pen into the ink, squared his shoulders, and
made the down stroke of the first letter of a new word with a care for
details that seemed to indicate that he had left the subject of winds
irrevocably behind, and then added, "except women."
Mrs. March had thought the sentence finished, and had taken up her
knitting again. Now she merely nodded.
"It's true," she said impartially. "Most women wouldn't know their own
minds if they were to come upon them in broad daylight. They are like
men in that." She shot an amused glance toward the young man.
"You know them," he said bitterly, ignoring her last sentence, and
secretly disappointed at such ready acquiescence, which indicated, he
feared, a jocular state of mind.
"You mean I don't know them," corrected Mrs. March. "No one does. Do
you suppose I know my own daughter's? No more than she does herself. I
suppose you were thinking of her, weren't you?"
"It's all over," he answered, and laid down his pen, but continued to
make motions across the page with his finger.
Mrs. March showed no surprise, but she ceased knitting, apparently out
of respect for the young man's feelings.
"How do you know?" she asked.
"She just told me so," replied Medbury, glad that he could at last
unburden himself. "She said she sometimes thought she had no heart. She
told me that there were times when she had thought that she might care
for me, but now she knew her own mind. So it's all over."
"Know her own mind! Fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Mrs. March, and proceeded
to knit again. "I guess you've pestered her in some way, and so she
said, 'Now I'll decide.' I suppose you've told her often enough that
you couldn't live without her, and should always feel that way. It's
perfectly natural for a girl to want to see if you can't."
"Then you think it may come out all right, after all?" he asked quickly.
She made a little murmur of dissent.
"I couldn't go so far as to say that. It may be just pretense, and it
may be the plain truth, and it may be she doesn't know. You can't tell.
You've got to wait and see."
"Well," he replied gloomily, "I guess it's all over." He was not going
to be so weak, he told himself, as to begin to hope again.
"I've always thought it would come out right in the end," continued
Mrs. March. "You know I don't feel like Cap'n March. I've always said,
'Let the young folks settle it for themselves'; and I've always liked
you, Tom. But you've always been too humble, and she's been too certain
of you. I kind o' thought, when you took things in your own hands and
came this trip, it was the best thing you could have done. A girl likes
a masterful man."
"She told me it was the worst thing," Medbury replied.
"Then I guess she was afraid of herself," said Mrs. March, with
conviction. "She was afraid she'd have to give in."
Medbury shook his head doubtfully as he said:
"I don't know why she should be afraid, Mrs. March."
"Because a girl's love is a funny thing. There's fear in it, and
pretense, and bashfulness, and coldness, and all the craziest things
under the sun."
He hesitated a moment before speaking, and then said, with boyish
shyness:
"She's known me so long, and known how I felt, sometimes it seems to me
that maybe it's grown tiresome to her. A man like Drew, now, who hasn't
known her long--if he cared--" He hesitated.
"I've thought that, too," said Mrs. March, gently.
The cabin door opened, and they heard Hetty's laugh near. It had the
peculiarly resonant quality of a voice on deck in a calm, heard by one
below. It also sounded happy. Medbury slipped away to his room.
The last words Mrs. March had spoken were in his mind, and he put
his book away in bitterness of spirit. He heard Hetty descend into
the cabin, speak to her mother, and then pass his door, going up the
forward companionway. A sudden wild impulse to be aggressive seized
him, and, leaving his room, he, too, ascended to the deck.
She was standing outside the cabin door, and she turned and smiled as
he drew near.
"I thought it was your watch below," she said pleasantly.
He did not even look at her, but, hurrying to the booby-hatch, threw
open the sliding hood and descended.
"Now I've done it," he said, as he seated himself upon a coiled hawser.
"What a fool I can be when I really put my mind to it!"
But even with this repulse of her he was not satisfied; he wondered why
he had not at least looked at her with scorn, and he thought of several
bitter speeches that would have been better than silence.