“MUCH HAVE I BORNE SINCE DAWN OF MORN.”
To sit in a tender with her feet on a bag of coal had never up to this
been Nina’s idea of paradise. But now she changed her mind in the
speediest manner possible.
She was in a small puffing craft of sable blackness; her light gown
was in damaging proximity to the lumps of coal, yet she was blissfully
happy. For she was gliding swiftly and surely over the broad, black
bosom of the river toward the bright white light hung up in the masts
of the _Merrimac_.
A few minutes, and she was in the shadow of the huge bulk. Then her
hands and feet nimbly laid hold on the wooden steps, and some one was
helping her to clamber to the deck.
She looked up and saw the quartermaster. She gave him a gay “Good
evening,” that he was too startled to return; then, mentioning her
name, she requested him to pay and dismiss the men on the tender.
She sauntered along the deck to the chart-room. Opening the door, she
found it empty. “Ah! I thought he would be here,” she murmured; “but no
matter--he must be somewhere. It is late, perhaps he is having supper.”
There was a book on navigation lying open on the table, and she
turned over a few pages. What queer language--how clever he must be
to understand it! “Man the spanker brails and weather vang and sheet;
hands by the outhaul, brace in the cross-jack yards, ease away the
outhaul. Brail up, hauling in the lee brails best, so as to spill the
sail as quickly as possible, then haul up the weather brails, pass the
foot gaskets, steady the gaff, crutch the boom, and stow the sail.”
She smiled wearily, closed the book, and descended to the deck. What a
glorious night it was! There was no moon, but there were stars, legions
of them, flashing down on the lesser lights of earth. It was getting
late, yet there was still a murmur of traffic in the two great towns
stretched out on either side of them, although out here on the river it
was very quiet.
A puff of smoke in her face drew her attention to the tender. It was
just putting off, and she watched it for a few minutes. Swiftly,
unerringly, the little black craft glided between the shipping,
avoiding alike the leviathans of the deep and the tiniest cockle-shells
afloat. Then its light was lost among the other myriad lights, and she
turned away, and dived down the first opening she came to.
How quiet the ship was! Only a few sailors in the distance who stared
at her as if she had been a ghost. She almost lost herself in a strange
alley-way that brought her to the now silent engine-room. Emerging from
it, she got into a passage running half the length of the ship, and
that she knew would lead her to the dining-saloon.
Just as her hand was on the door, a roar of laughter saluted her ears.
She opened it a very little and peered cautiously in.
The ship’s officers were seated at an end of one of the long
dining-tables, having their supper and an uncommonly good joke, she
should imagine, judging by their faces. Their knives and forks were
laid down, and they were laughing, not like landsmen, but like sailors
with strong and hearty lungs. Loud, explosive guffaws testified to the
richness of the joke, and Nina wondered what it was. And ’Steban was
as bad as the rest of them, lying back in his chair, his hands on his
sides. She never had seen him laugh in that way before.
“Poor fellow!” she breathed, “I am glad he knows how to enjoy himself.
Far better this than to find him alone sighing for something he cannot
get.”
Then she frowned. Would those men ever stop laughing? Such continued
frivolity was childish and unbecoming in grown men. Now if they were
boys--
“Come now!--none of that, Miss Petticoats,” ejaculated some one behind
her. “The captain don’t allow lady folks about the ship.”
Nina turned and saw Merdyce. Merdyce, so very subservient in the
presence of his master, so very important when in the presence of his
equals. She drew her wrap closer about her and vouchsafed no answer.
“Move out of that, please,” he exclaimed, with a flourish of his arm.
“I want to pass.”
He was carrying a solitary bottle. Nina stood back, and he dashed by
with a farewell injunction to her to take herself off.
As he entered the saloon, Nina thrust her head after him. The
peals of laughter had died away, and Captain Fordyce was his usual
reserved self. He was never familiar for any length of time with his
subordinates. Just now, though no one addressed him, he perceived by
the faces about him that there was some special attraction at the door,
and he, too, glanced in that direction.
The intruding head had been withdrawn, so he turned to Merdyce. “Is
there any one out there?”
“Yes, sir, a young person,” the officious youth explained; “she’s
hanging about the ship.”
Captain Fordyce’s brows contracted. “And she’s been spying at you, sir,
through the door.”
At this there was a general pricking up of ears, and a faint glimmer of
a smile illumined all faces but Captain Fordyce’s.
“Send her away,” he said, shortly.
Merdyce swung open the door, but Nina was an adept at dodging, and, by
no means averse to playing a trick, glided by him and brought herself
to a standstill some distance from the table. Between the dirty fringes
dangling over her forehead, she contemplated herself in the mirror set
in the wall behind her husband’s back.
What a guy she was,--enveloped from head to foot in a soiled linen
carriage wrap. And yet the garment was a costly one, for not until she
had placed three sovereigns in the hand of the cab-driver who conveyed
her to the dock was she allowed to become possessor of it. He knew--the
grasping fellow--that she could not go out on the river in an evening
dress.
If she were in her usual spirits, and possessed of her usual propensity
for seeking amusement at unlawful times and from unlawful sources,
she would be in a convulsion of delight at the scene before her. Her
husband could not see her face, nor her figure; and, thanks to the
wrap, she could carry on an uninterrupted scrutiny of him.
He did not know her--how delicious! He sat back, joining in the
universal stare (for the men had all stopped eating, and those who
had had their backs toward her had twisted around on their seats),
unutterably disgusted with the young person who had presumed to “spy”
at him.
His keen eyes could not pierce the coarse, soiled fabric that enwrapped
her, yet she saw he had fully made up his mind that inside it was not a
lady, but a creature entirely vulgar and depraved.
He asked a leading question. “Who are you?”
She drew the fringes of the wrap across her mouth, and said, almost
unintelligibly, “A poor girl!”
“What do you want?”
“Some money to buy bread,” she uttered, thickly, but with appealing
sweetness.
“Bread!” and he snorted like a righteously indignant war-horse.
“I am a poor orphan,” continued Nina, “and I have six little brothers
and four little sisters in bed for want of clothes. Can’t you give me
something?”
“Be off!” and he contemptuously turned to his plate.
“Please come with me, good sir,” she murmured, in her plaintive
beggar’s whine, and she stretched out a pleading hand.
At the same time there was apparent in her manner, even under the linen
shroudings, a sauciness and assurance that claimed further attention
from the master of ceremonies.
He threw up his head at this imp-like creature who was teasing him, and
gave a backward nod toward the watchful Merdyce. There was a visible
tendency on the part of his officers to laugh. It was time the place
was cleared.
Merdyce thought that his hand was just about to alight on the
stranger’s shoulder; but he was mistaken, for she had slipped aside,
and was shaking a jingling wrist toward his master. There was nothing
on it but a bangle, a brass one, probably; but it was evidently some
token, for the man at the table recognised it at once, and, without a
glance at the ridiculously bewildered faces of his fellows, sprang to
his feet, and, throwing an arm around her, swept her from the room.
Merdyce stood with his mouth open, and as the door swung together Nina
heard the first murmur of a sound that she knew would develop into an
immoderate burst of laughter, rivalling, if not eclipsing their former
effort in that line.
“Don’t mind them, darling, they have not an idea who you are,”
whispered her husband, joyously, in her ear.
Then he opened the door of one of the small rooms along the passage.
This had been Miss Marsden’s apartment. The last time Nina was in
it picturesque confusion reigned triumphant from ceiling to floor.
Dresses, shoes, rugs, books, bottles, hats, and cloaks lay cheek by
jowl; and Miss Marsden herself, large-eyed and cheerful, reclined in
the midst. Now they could see the pattern of the carpet. The whole room
was as neat as wax, and the berth wherein Miss Marsden was wont to
lounge was made up as neatly as if never again intended for the use of
mortal man or woman.
The curtains of the berth were drawn up from the floor, and folded
neatly over the white pillow. “It looks as if some one had died here,”
she said, with a nervous shudder; “come away, ’Steban, we can talk in
some other place.”
“You look done out,” he said, in an explanatory way. “I thought you
would like to get into the first place available.”
“No,” she said, clinging to his hand, and drawing him down the passage
and toward the companionway. “I feel better now. In such close
proximity to your fists, I could look the whole world in the face,--I
am afraid of nobody, no, not I.”
He did not speak, but his face was flushed and full of a curious
expectancy, and he was gnawing his moustache in an occasional restless
fashion that he had.
Nina exhibited not the slightest desire to gratify his curiosity.
They were on deck now, and she stopped before a door bearing the
inscription, “Captain’s Room,” on a brass plate.
“May I go in?” she asked.
“Certainly,” and he followed her.
It was the most cheerful apartment on the ship. The walls were panelled
with some dark, shining wood; the furniture, though all of the heavy
order, was handsome and elaborate. There were books and papers, but
only one picture. It hung in a recess over the bed, and Nina went up
and examined it. She knew that her husband possessed a picture taken of
her in her childish days, but was far from guessing that it hung here.
“You always let this room to the highest bidder, don’t you?” she asked,
as she seated herself in a large American rocking-chair.
“Not exactly,” he replied, “but I usually give it up.”
“And the money you get from it falls to you?”
“Yes,--perquisites,” he said, lightly.
“For me,” she went on, twisting around the gold bangle on her wrist,
“you go about the ocean sleeping on a shelf--”
“Or in a hammock,” he interrupted, with a smile.
“In order that I may be clothed in fine raiment.”
“I don’t know about the fineness of it,” he said, critically surveying
the coarse wrap still hanging about her shoulders.
She threw it far from her; then, pointing to the photograph behind her,
said: “Do you always leave it there?”
“No; when a stranger takes possession I move it.”
“So you remember me when I was like that?” she said, getting up, and
gazing again at the round-cheeked, diminutive baby head staring at her
from the wall.
“Yes.”
“An ugly child, that,” she said, “two great eyes sunk in fat cheeks.”
“Yes, you were not very handsome--”
She turned, and eyed him severely.
“Then,” he added, with deliberation and emphasis. At the same time he
invaded the rocking-chair, where she had again seated herself. “Nina,
you have come to stay?”
“No, indeed,” she said, giving him her hand in a tired fashion;
“this is but a call. I wanted to put in the time this evening, and
to tell you that I don’t wish to go back to the Forrests. They have
disagreeable neighbours. You must either send me to a hotel or let me
go to London.”
He smiled peculiarly and calmly, and took possession of both her hands
with the emphatic words: “I want to hear from my wife what has happened
to send her to me in such haste that she had not time to dress herself
suitably for the street.”
“I got a most horrible fright,” she said, wriggling her head uneasily
from his shoulder, where he was trying to persuade it to lie, and where
she did not wish it to remain. “A madman came and told me he was my
father.”
“A madman!” he repeated, in a puzzled, almost startled tone.
“Yes,” and she related the manner of her escape: “I got a cab on the
Prince’s Road and it took me all the way to the landing-stage. Then
I got a tender,--I couldn’t help spending so much money. I was so
frightened and I wanted to get to you,” she said, winding up with a sob.
It recalled him to himself. A kiss that, under the circumstance, she
thought it best to endure was imprinted on her forehead. “You did
perfectly right, my impulsive darling. It is Lady Forrest who is to
blame. I requested her never to leave you alone.”
“Why shouldn’t she leave me alone?” said Nina, sharply.
He did not reply; and, motioning him to a chair, she perched herself
on his knee,--an honour that he accepted with uneasy delight, when he
found it accompanied by the taking of his head between her two hands,
and the inexorable scrutiny of his face by two brilliant eyes.
“’Steban,” she said, sweetly and sadly, “in some respects you are not a
very nice man.”
He felt relieved, but she went on: “I mean to say that you are not
easy to get on with on account of your dreadful temper, but”--and
here she brought his face as close to hers as their two noses would
allow--“with all your faults I know that you would not tell me a lie on
a serious subject.”
He began to feel uneasy again, and his uneasiness increased when she
broke down and hid her face on his shoulder. “Oh, ’Steban,--I say that
man was mad, but he was not mad. He is my father really, truly, isn’t
he? Tell me.”
There was a long silence. Captain Fordyce gently stroked the back of
her head, but made no effort to utter a word.
“Is he my father?” asked Nina, suddenly lifting her face.
He did not reply.
“Will you tell me?” and her voice was almost fierce.
“How can I tell?” he muttered at last. “I did not see him.”
She pushed him away from her, and sprang to her feet. “Is my father a
good man?”
“A good man,” he repeated, restlessly. “What is a good man?”
“You know what I mean,” she said, harshly. “Is he like you?”
“He is certainly not like me,” he replied, with a grim and feeble
attempt at pleasantry.
She repulsed his sympathetic hand, and flung herself across the room.
“Nina,” he called after her, in a voice vibrating with compassion,
“come back.”
She turned a deaf ear to him, and kneeling on a seat by the window
stared out into the night. She saw nothing. The outside world was as
black and confused as her own thoughts. She remained mute, unthinking
almost, until a slight and reminiscent sound stirred even her sluggish
mind.
She remembered the soft and not unpleasing tones of that voice, and
she turned around. The door had opened softly and closed again; and,
standing with his back against it, was the man with the quiet, sneering
face. He was smiling stealthily at her husband,--her husband who had
forgotten her, and who stood with a white, still anger on his brow, a
contemptuous hatred in his eyes. These two men were enemies. Nina saw
it in the careless malice of the one, and the smothered anger of the
other; and, crawling painfully across the room, she stood between them.
The newcomer straightened himself and looked over her shoulder. “You
are outwitted, Fordyce, otherwise you never would have afforded me the
sight of my daughter. Thank Heaven I had the thought of sending you the
false report of my death.”
“I have never believed a word that came out of your lying mouth,” said
Captain Fordyce, disdainfully. “Come, now, what do you want? You must
take yourself away from here.”
“What do I want?” inquired the stranger. “I want my daughter, of
course. I hear you ill-use her and have the cold shoulder turned toward
you. I suppose she ran back to you because women are fools enough to
like those who ill-treat them. I hope she will come to London with her
loving father,” and with a flattering change of manner he appealed to
Nina.
She dropped her eyes to her wedding ring and slowly turned it round and
round on her finger. She was not angry with this man any more. He was
certainly her father: and dear Mr. Israel Danvers was fading, fading
into obscurity. And her husband hated her father. There could be no
mutual agreement, no settlement of difficulties between them. Neither
could there be any question of her duty.
“Go on, plead your case,” said Captain Fordyce, addressing his caller
in a voice of concentrated passion, “and make haste to get out of this.”
The man by the door smiled in an evil way, and again addressed his
daughter. “Will you go with me, Bertha?”
She did not recoil at the strange name, but, lifting her eyes, fixed
him with a firm and steady gaze.
“Go with him,” said Captain Fordyce, in an ironical voice. “Go with the
honourable, kind-hearted gentleman.”
There was an ominous silence in the room. Everything seemed hushed and
breathless, waiting for the girl’s answer.
“I cannot go with you,” she said, clearly; “because I am married to
this man.”
“Marriage,” said her parent, derisively, “what is it?--a few jabbered
words--and you will never be happy with that bully. You had better take
the night express for London with me.”
The girl’s face suddenly became cold, hard, and unsympathetic. Then it
softened, and gave traces of an inward and severe mental struggle; and
she spoke swiftly and surely. “You are my father, certainly, but it is
better to speak the truth. I have never known you. If I was taken from
you by that man,” and she hurriedly indicated her husband, “he had
some good reason for it. I see that our aims and motives in life are
different. I do not think we could help each other. I am sorry, deeply
sorry, but I think you had better go away. I--” She stamped her foot
in abrupt anger with herself, but she had lost self-control. The usual
flood-gates of passion were open, and wildly and excitedly exclaiming,
“Oh, please go away,--please go away!” she threw herself into the big
rocking-chair and hid her face against its back.
Captain Fordyce opened the door, and spoke in a low voice to the man as
he passed him: “Years ago you abused and tortured the gentle creature
who had been kind to me. Do you think I would be such a fool--such a
base, senseless fool--as to allow a second victim to fall into your
hands?”
The quiet man looked ugly, shrugged his shoulders, and pretended to
suppress a yawn. Then he gazed coldly into the livid face confronting
him.
“Have you got a sovereign about you? I was in such haste to pursue my
fleeing daughter that I left my purse behind me.”
“Here are five pounds for you,” said the other, scornfully, “now get
out.”
“I suppose that old warrant for child-stealing might possibly give you
some trouble with your employers if I were to bring it up,” continued
the stranger, insinuatingly.
“Not a particle. Here’s your boat. Quartermaster, give this man a hand
over the side; and tell a boy to be ready in five minutes to go ashore
with a note to Prince’s Road.”