THE SUMMONS
The month Ormsgill spent at Las Palmas was a time of some anxiety to
Mrs. Ratcliffe. He had, as she complained to her brother, no sense of
the responsibility that devolved upon a man of his means, and was
addicted to making friends with all kinds of impossible people, grimy
English coaling clerks, and the skippers of Spanish schooners, and,
what was more objectionable, now and then bringing them to the hotel.
He expressed his regret when she pointed out the undesirability of
such proceedings, but, for all that, made no very perceptible change
in his conduct.
Major Chillingham as a rule listened gravely, and said very little,
for his sister was one who seldom welcomed advice from anybody, and
though not a brilliant man he was by no means a fool. On the last
occasion he, however, showed a little impatience.
"Well," he said, "he seems to have got hold of a few first-class
people, too. There is that Ayutante fellow on the Governor's staff,
and the Senhor Figuera, the little, quiet man with the yellow hands,
is evidently a person of some consequence in his own country. You
can't mistake the stamp of authority. After all, it's no doubt just
as well he and the girl have gone. Tom seemed on excellent terms with
them."
Mrs. Ratcliffe looked indignant. "A Portuguese with a powdered face,
and no notion of what is fitting!"
"An uncommonly good-looking one," and the Major grinned. "A woman with
brains enough to get the thing she sets her mind on, too, and I have
rather a fancy that she was pleased with Tom. Still, that's not the
question, and anyway she's back again in Africa. Now, if you'll take
advice from me you'll keep a light hand on him, and not touch the
curb. If you do he's quite capable of making a bolt of it."
"That," said the lady, "would be so disgraceful as to be
inconceivable--when Ada has waited more than four years for him."
Her brother's eyes twinkled. "In one way, I suppose she did. Still, of
course, Urmston didn't get the Colonial appointment he expected, and,
one has to be candid, young Hatherly seemed proof against the
blandishments you wasted on him."
"A marriageable daughter is a heavy responsibility," said Mrs.
Ratcliffe with a sigh.
"No doubt," said the Major. "That is precisely why I recommended the
judicious handling of Tom Ormsgill. If he hasn't quite as much as you
would like, it's enough to keep them comfortably, and in several ways
he's worth the other two put together. The man's straight, and quiet.
In fact, I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer him with a few more
gentlemanly dissipations. They act as a safety valve occasionally."
His sister raised her hands in protest, and Chillingham withdrew with
a chuckle, but she was rather more gracious to Ormsgill than usual
that day, and during the next one accompanied him with her daughter
and one or two acquaintances in a launch he had borrowed to look at
the wreck of a steamer which had gone ashore a night or two earlier.
The unfortunate vessel afforded a somewhat impressive spectacle as she
lay grinding on the reef with the long yeasty seas washing over her,
and the little party spent some time watching her from the launch
which swung with the steep, green swell.
It was, however, very hot and dazzling bright, and no protests were
made when Ormsgill, who it seemed knew all about steam launches,
leaned forward from the helm and started the engines. The little
propeller thudded, and they slid away with a long, smooth lurch across
the slopes of glittering water that were here and there flecked with
foam, for the beach they skirted lies open to the heave of the
Atlantic. The Trade breeze fanned their faces pleasantly, and Ada
Ratcliffe sat almost contented for the time being at Ormsgill's side.
It was refreshing that hot day, to listen to the swish of sliding
brine, and there was a certain exhilaration in the swift smooth
motion, while she realized that the man she was to marry appeared to
greater advantage than he did as a rule in the drawing room of the big
hotel.
He was never awkward, or ill at ease, but she had noticed--and
resented--the air of aloofness he sometimes wore when he listened to
her companions' pointless badinage and vapid conversation. Now as he
sat with a lean brown hand on the tiller controlling the little
hissing craft he seemed curiously at home. There was also, as
generally happened when he was occupied, a suggestion of reserved
force in his face and attitude. He was, she realized, a man one could
have confidence in when there were difficult things to be done. This
however, brought her presently a vague dissatisfaction, for she felt
there were certain aspects of his character which had never been
revealed to her, and she was faintly conscious of the antagonism to
and shrinking from what one cannot quite understand which is not
infrequently a characteristic of people with imperfectly developed
minds.
The fresh Trade breeze which blew down out of the harbor from the
black Isleta hill was, however, evidently much less pleasant to the
Spanish peons who toiled at the ponderous sweeps of an empty coal
lighter the launch was rapidly drawing level with. She was floating
high above the flaming swell, and the perspiration dripped from the
men's grimy faces as they labored, two of them at each of the huge
oars. Indeed Ormsgill could see the swollen veins stand out on their
wet foreheads, and the overtaxed muscles swell on their half-covered
chests and naked arms, for the barge was of some forty tons, and it
was very heavy work pulling her against the wind. She had evidently
been to a Spanish steamer lying well out beyond the mole, and there
was, as he noticed, no tug available to tow her back again, while the
sea foamed whitely on a reef close astern of her. It was only by a
strenuous effort that the men were propelling the big clumsy craft
clear of the reef, and there were signs that they could not keep it up
much longer.
He glanced at the little group of daintily attired, soft-handed men
and women on board the launch, to whom the stress of physical labor
was an unknown thing, and then looked back towards the coal-grimed
toilers on the lighter. As yet they worked on stubbornly, with tense
furrowed faces, under a scorching sun, taxing to the uttermost every
muscle in their bodies, but it seemed to him that the lighter was no
further from the reef. He flung an arm up, and hailed them, for he had
acquired a working acquaintance with several Latin languages on the
fever coast.
"You can't clear that point," he said. "Have you no anchor?"
"No, señor," cried one of the peons breathlessly. "The tug should have
come for us, but she is taking the water boat to the English steamer."
Ormsgill turned to his companions. "You won't mind if I pull them in?
They're almost worn out, and it will not detain us more than ten
minutes."
One of the men made a little gesture of concurrence which had a hint
of good-humored toleration in it, but Mrs. Ratcliffe appeared
displeased, and Ada flushed a trifle. One could have fancied she did
not wish the man who belonged to her to display his little
idiosyncrasies before her friends.
"One understands that all Spaniards avoid exertion when they can," she
said. "Perhaps a little hard work wouldn't hurt them very much."
There was a slight change in Ormsgill's expression. "I fancy the men
can do no more."
Then he waved his hand to the peons. "Get your hawser ready."
He was alongside the lighter in another minute, but she rolled wildly
above the launch, big and empty, and the sea broke whitely about her,
for now the men had ceased rowing she was drifting towards the reef.
The hawser was also dripping and smeared with coal dust when Ormsgill,
who seemed to understand such matters, hauled it in, and while the sea
splashed on board the launch, streams of gritty brine ran from it over
everything. Then he stirred the little furnace with an iron bar before
he pulled over the starting lever, and a rush of sparks and thin hot
smoke poured down upon his companions as the little craft went full
speed ahead. Ada, perhaps half-consciously, drew herself a little
farther away from him. There was coal grit on his wet duck jacket, and
he had handled hawser and furnace rubble like one accustomed to them,
in fact as a fireman or a sailor would have done. That was a thing
which did not please her, and she wondered if the others had noticed
it. It became evident that one of them had.
"You did that rather smartly," he said.
Ormsgill's smile was a trifle dry. "I have," he said, "done much the
same thing before professionally."
There was a struggle for the next few minutes. Launch and lighter had
drifted into shoal water while they made the hawser fast, and the
swell had piled itself up and was breaking whitely. The little launch
plunged through it with flame at her funnel and a spray-cloud blowing
from her bows, and as she hauled the big lighter out yard by yard a
little glint crept into Ormsgill's eyes. Ada Ratcliffe almost resented
it, for he had never looked like that at any of the social functions
she had insisted on his taking a part in, but her forbearance was
further taxed when they crept slowly beneath the side of a big white
steam yacht. A little cluster of men and daintily dressed women sat
beneath the awning on her deck, and one or two of them were people her
mother had taken pains to cultivate an acquaintance with.
One man leaned upon her rail and looked down with a little smile.
"Have you been going into the coal business, Fernside?" he said.
"Considering the figure they charged Desmond it ought to be a
profitable one."
The man in the launch he addressed laughed, and Ormsgill towed the
lighter on until at last he cast the tow rope off, and a very grimy
peon stood upon her deck. He took off his big, shapeless hat, and as
he swung, cut in black against the dazzling sea, there was in his
poise a lithe gracefulness and a certain elaborate courtesy.
"Señor," he said, "our thanks are yours, and everything else that
belongs to us. May the saints watch over you, and send you a friend if
ever your task is too heavy and the breakers are close beneath your
lee."
Ormsgill took off his hat gravely, as equal to equal, but he smiled a
little as the launch swept on.
"Well," he said, "after all, I may need one some day."
They were back in the hotel in another half-hour, and Mrs. Ratcliffe
took him to task as they sat on the shady veranda. Ormsgill lay back
in his big Madeira chair, with half-closed eyes, and listened
dutifully. He felt he could afford it, for the few minutes of tense
uncertainty when he had hauled the lighter out of the grasp of the
breakers had been curiously pleasant to him.
"There was, of course, no harm in the thing itself," she said at last.
"No," said Ormsgill with an air of deep reflection, "I almost think
that to save a fellow creature who is badly worn out an effort he is
scarcely fit to make isn't really very wrong. Still, the men were
certainly very dirty--I suppose that is the point?"
The lady, who looked very stiff and formal in the black she persisted
in wearing, favored him with a searching glance, but there was only
grave inquiry in his steady eyes.
"The point is that things which may be commendable in themselves are
not always--appropriate," she said.
"Expedient--isn't it?" suggested Ormsgill languidly.
"Expedient," said Mrs. Ratcliffe with a little flush in her face.
"In this world one has to be guided by circumstances, and must
endeavor to fit oneself to that station in life to which one has
been--appointed."
"I suppose so," said Ormsgill. "The trouble is that I really don't
know what particular station I have been appointed to. I was thrown
out of the Colonial service, you see, and afterwards drove a steam
launch for a very dissolute mahogany trader. Then I floated the same
kind of trees down another river with the niggers, and followed a few
other somewhat unusual occupations. In fact, I've been in so many
stations that it's almost bewildering."
His companion got away from the point. She did not like having the
fact that he had been, as he expressed it, thrown out of the Colonial
service forced upon her recollection.
"One has, at least, to consider one's friends," she said. "We are on
rather good terms with two or three of the people who came out with
Mr. Desmond, whom I have not met yet, in the _Palestrina_. In fact,
Ada is a little anxious that you should make their acquaintance. You
will probably come across them in England."
"Well," said Ormsgill cheerfully, "I really don't think Dick Desmond
would mind if I took up coal heaving as an amusement. He isn't a
particularly conventional man himself."
"You know him?"
"Oh, yes. I know him tolerably well."
"Then didn't you consider it your duty to go off and call upon him?"
"I suppose it was," said Ormsgill meditatively. "Still, as a rule, I
rather like my friends to call on me. I've no doubt that Dick will do
it presently. He only arrived here yesterday, as you know. The people
he brought out came on from Teneriffe, I think. Somebody told me the
_Palestrina_ lay a week there with something wrong with her engines."
Mrs. Ratcliffe smiled approvingly at last. "Yes," she said, "in one
way the course you mention is usually preferable. It places one on a
surer footing."
Then she discussed other subjects, and supplied him with a good deal
of excellent advice to which he listened patiently, though he was
sensible of a certain weariness and there was a little dry smile in
his eyes when she went away. As it happened, Desmond, who owned the
_Palestrina_, came ashore that evening and was received by Mrs.
Ratcliffe very graciously. The two men had also a good deal to say to
each other, and the meeting was not without its results to both of
them.
It was late the following afternoon when a little yellow-funneled
mail-boat with poop and forecastle painted white steamed into the
harbor with awnings spread, and an hour or two later a waiter handed
Ormsgill a letter. His face grew intent as he read it, and the curious
little glint that Ada Ratcliffe had noticed when he towed the coal
lighter clear of the surf crept back into his eyes. It was also
significant that, although she and her mother were sitting near him on
the veranda, he appeared oblivious of them when he rose and stepped
back through an open window into the hotel. Five minutes later they
saw him stride through the garden and down the long white road.
"I think he is going to the little mole," said Ada. "I don't know why
he does so, but when anything seems to ruffle him he generally goes
there."
Then she flashed a quick questioning glance at her mother. "That
letter was from Africa. I saw the stamp on it."
Mrs. Ratcliffe shook her head. "I don't think there is any reason why
you should disturb yourself," she said. "After all, one has to excuse
a good deal in the case of men who live in the tropics, and though the
ways Tom has evidently acquired there now and then jar on me I venture
to believe he will grow out of them and become a credit to you with
judicious management. It would, perhaps, be wiser not to mention that
letter, my dear."
Ada said nothing, though she was a trifle uneasy. She had seen the
sudden intentness of Ormsgill's face, and was far from sure that he
would submit to management of any kind. Nobody acquainted with her
considered her a clever woman, but, after all, her intelligence was
keener than her mother's.
In the meanwhile Ormsgill sat down on the steps of the little mole. It
was pleasantly cool there, and he had already found the rush and
rumble of frothing brine tranquilizing, though he was scarcely
conscious of it as he took out the letter and read it again. It was
from the missionary Nares.
"Father Tiebout has just come in very shaky with fever," he read. "It
appears that Herrero, who will not let her go, has gone back towards
the interior with the woman Lamartine gave him, and has been
systematically ill-using her. There is another matter to mention.
Soon after you went Domingo seized the opportunity of raiding
Lamartine's station, and took all the boys away while we were
arranging to send them home as you asked us to do. It will, in view of
the feeling against us, be difficult or impossible to bring the thing
home to him, but I understand from Father Tiebout that you engaged the
boys for Lamartine and pledged your word to send them home when the
time agreed upon expired. Father Tiebout merely asked me to tell you.
He said that if you recognized any responsibility in the matter you
would not shrink from it."
Ormsgill crumpled up the letter and sat very still, gazing into the
dimness that was creeping up from Africa across the sea. The message
was terse, and though the writing was that of Nares he saw the wisdom
of Father Tiebout in it. Nares when he was moved spoke at length and
plainly, but the little priest had a way of making other folks do what
he wanted, as it were, of their own accord, and without his prompting
them.
It grew rapidly darker, but Ormsgill did not notice it. The deep
rumble of the surf was in his ears, and the restlessness of the sea
crept in on him. He had heard that thunderous booming on sweltering
African beaches, and had watched the filmy spray-cloud float far
inland athwart the dingy mangroves, and a curious gravity crept into
his eyes as he gazed at the Eastern haze beyond which lay the shadowy
land. Life was intense and primitive there, and his sojourn in the big
hotel had left him with a growing weariness. Then there was the debt
he owed Lamartine, and the promise he had made, and he wondered
vaguely what Ada Ratcliffe would say when he told her he was going
back again. She would protest, but, for all that, he fancied she would
not feel his absence very much, though there were times when her
manner to him had been characterized by a certain tenderness. As he
thought of it he sighed.
By and by a boat from the white steam yacht slid up to the foot of the
steps, and a man who ascended them started when he came upon Ormsgill.
He was tall and long-limbed, and his voice rang pleasantly.
"What in the name of wonder are you doing here alone?" he asked.
"I think I'm worrying, Dick," said Ormsgill. "The fact is, I'm going
back yonder."
Desmond looked hard at him--but it was already almost dark. "Well," he
said, "we're rather old friends. Would it be too much if I asked you
why?"
"Sit down," said Ormsgill. "I'll try to tell you."
He did so concisely and quietly, and Desmond made a little sign of
comprehension. "Well," he said, "if you feel yourself under an
obligation to that Frenchman I'm not sure it isn't just as binding now
he's dead."
"I was on my beam-ends, without a dollar in my pocket, when he held
out his hand to me. Of course, neither of us know much about these
questions, and, as a matter of fact, it's scarcely likely that
Lamartine did, but he seemed to believe what the padre told him, and
there's no doubt it was a load off his mind when he understood I'd
have the woman set at liberty."
Desmond sat silent for a minute. Then he said, "There are two points
that occur to me. Since you are willing to supply the money, can't the
priest and the missionary arrange the thing?"
"Nares says they can't. After all, they're there on sufferance, and
every official keeps a jealous eye on them. You couldn't expect them
to throw away all they've done for several years, and that's very much
what it would amount to if they were run out of the Colony."
"Then suppose you bought the woman back, and got those boys set free?
From what I've heard about the country somebody else would probably
lay hands on them again. Since the Frenchman has broken them in they'd
be desirable property."
"That's one of the things I'm worrying over," said Ormsgill
reflectively. "I had thought of running them up the coast and turning
them loose in British Nigeria. They'd be reasonably well treated, and
get wages at the factories there. Still, I'd have some trouble in
getting them out of the country, especially as I'm not greatly tempted
to buy the boys. If I was it's quite likely that Domingo, who is not a
friend of mine, wouldn't let me have them. You see, I'd have to get
papers at the port, though there are plenty of lonely beaches where
one could get a surf-boat off. I had a notion of trying to pick up a
schooner at Sierra Leone or Lagos."
Again Desmond said nothing for a few moments. Then he laughed. "Well,"
he said, "there's the _Palestrina_, and when we shake her up she can
do her fourteen knots. You can have her for a shooting expedition at a
pound a month. Now don't raise any--nonsensical objections. I'm about
sick of loafing. The thing would be a relief to me."
"There's your father," said Ormsgill suggestively.
"Just so! There's also the whole estimable family, who have made up
their minds I'm to go into Parliament whether I'm willing or not.
Well, it seems to me that if I'm to have a hand in governing my
country it will be an education to see how they mismanage things in
other ones."
Then the scion of a political family who could talk like a fireman,
and frequently did so, laughed again. "If I get into trouble over it
it will be a big advertisement. Besides, it's two years since I had a
frolic of any kind. Been nursing the constituency, taking a benevolent
interest in everything from women's rights to village cricket clubs,
and I'm coming with you to rake up brimstone now. After all, though
I've had no opportunity of displaying my abilities in that direction
lately, it's one of the few things I really excel in."
Ormsgill was far from sure that this was what he desired, but he knew
his man, and that, for all his apparent inconsequence, he was one who
when the pinch came could be relied upon. Then Desmond's effervescence
usually vanished, and gave place to a cold determined quietness that
had carried him through a good many difficulties. This was fortunate,
since he was addicted to involving himself in them rather frequently.
"Well," said Ormsgill, "I'll be glad to have you, but it's rather a
big thing. I think they're expecting you at the hotel. We'll talk of
it again."
He rose, and as they went back together Desmond said reflectively. "I
suppose you understand that it's scarcely likely your prospective
mother-in-law will be pleased with you?"
"I wasn't aware that you knew her until you came across her here,"
said Ormsgill.
"I didn't. My cousins do. Perhaps you won't mind my saying that they
seem a little sorry for you. From what they have said about Mrs.
Ratcliffe it seems to me that you may have trouble in convincing her
of the disinterestedness of your intentions."
Ormsgill felt that this was very probable, though he said nothing.