actor. The way him and his wife--or lady--are buzzing around, you'd
think they was the undertakers. Maybe they are. _He_ won't resist. He
knows how well resistance would suit you--oh, not yourself, no more'n
us, but--the crowd; men like them three that's locked up and must be
turned loose first thing. He knows if he lifts a finger, or so much as
gives anybody any of his lip--and maybe anyhow--he'll be took ashore and
lost in the woods, first time we stop to bury some more Dutch; say
daybreak."
"Ah, but we mustn't let that happen, either."
"Oh, no! we mustn't let that happen, either."
"Well"--the senator put on a bustling frown--"I'll see Hugh. I wish--I
wonder if that Californian has----"
"Put up his shutters? No, he's on the roof. Why?"
"He might help wake up the right men, as you say."
One of the pair, without rising, tapped the senator caressingly.
"You--let--California--sweat. Trust in Providence. The right men'll get
woke up somehow, beginning with the general. That right?... All gay, but
don't you take no California in yourn to-night."
"No? Very well. But--I wonder if you gentlemen really recognize the
seriousness of this affair."
"Look a-here, senator, you go up-stairs and save Mr. Innocence from
running his boat into this mistake." The sleek pair rose, evidently to
begin their part.
The senator rummaged his mind for a word that would give him creditable
exit but had to hurry off without it. Turning, the two exchanged a calm
gaze and one luxurious puff, which meant that the "old sucker's" use of
them would suit them exactly. They rummaged for no words; had no more
need for words than two leopards.
Before falling to work they glanced out over the flood. This was
Horseshoe Cut-off. Kangaroo Point was just astern in the west. Yonder
ahead, under the old moon, came Friar's Point. In these hundred miles
between Napoleon and Helena they were meeting one by one the Saturday
evening boats out of Saint Louis. Now one came round the upper bend,
four days from Cincinnati. They knew her; the Courteneys' fine old
_Marchioness_. The young _Votaress_ swept by her saluting and saluted
like the belle of a ball, a flying vision of luxury, innocence, and joy.
XLVIII
"CALIFORNIA"
Under the benign stars, as we have said, Hugh hastened from Basile to
his father.
Those were the same heavenly lights with which only two nights earlier
he and that father had so tranquilly--and the dead boy's sister so
airily--communed. With a hand yet on the door that he was leaving, and
while his distress for what had befallen in this room brought a
foreboding of what might impend in the other, he felt the chiding of
that celestial benignity and was dimly made to see its illimitable span
and the smallness of magnifying the things we call trouble.
All the more, then, a melting heart for the tearful mother and sister,
to whom no word of this could be said; but a stout heart, stouter than
he knew where to find, for whatever was yet in store. Also a preoccupied
good-by to sweet companionship. Nay, a mind too preoccupied for any
good-by to any companionship for the remainder of this voyage, if not
forever. It was humiliating to have even so much thought of such a kind
at such a time; yet suppress it as he might, he could not wholly stifle
it, even at his father's door.
Three hours later the senator, coming up in search of him, gradually
discovered the presence of more people than he was looking for or cared
even to find awake--being who they were. At the top of the steps he told
the watchman sleeplessness had driven him up here for fresh air. It is
but human to explain to a watchman.
But how was the captain? And how was the commodore?
The commodore was doing well enough, but the captain--the watchman shook
his head with the wisdom of a doctor.
The seeker after fresh air, eager to move on, yet loath to imply that
the air about a watchman was stale, said, with a glance at the stars,
that here was quiet.
But the watchman begged to differ. Never by starlight had he seen so
busy a hurricane-deck. Just now there was a lull but it was the first in
three hours. Preparations here, preparations there, for the dead, for
the living, the sick, the well; such a going and coming of cabin-boys,
of chambermaids, of the immigrant they called Marburg, the Hayles' old
black woman, the texas tender, the mud clerk, the actor and his wife,
her servant girl----
"And others," prompted the senator. "What doing?"
A hundred things. The actor's wife had got Miss Hayle into funeral black
from her own stage "warrobe," and the young man Marburg had brought up,
for Madame Hayle, one of his deceased mother's mourning gowns, "a
prodigious fine one." It did not fit but the actor's wife and her maid
were altering it while they kept watch where Basile lay and while Madame
Hayle resumed her cares on the lower deck.
And who was caring for the commodore?
Second clerk and mud clerk answered his few needs.
But the captain----?
Ah, that was another matter. The actor was with him.
Mr. Gilmore; um-hmm. A step or so forward of the captain's room, as the
senator moved toward the bell, two male figures seated on the edge of
the skylight roof spoke his name in a mild greeting, and, looking
closely, he found them to be Watson's cub and the Kentuckian whom the
pair down on the boiler deck had just called "California."
The senator expressed surprise that these two were not abed, where he
himself ought to be but--sleeplessness had driven him up here for fresh
air.
"Well, here the fresh air is," said California. "Senator, we've just
been wishing we could see you."
"Ah!" said the senator, grateful yet wary. "I'll just take a turn or two
up forward and be right back."
"But--hold on, senator; just one question."
The three stood. "Now, this first question ain't it; this is just the
cut and deal. Hayle's twins have offered to fight Hugh Courteney--any
way open to gentlemen, as they say--haven't they?"
"Oh--night before last, I--believe so."
"Ancient history, yes; but it's a standing invitation and they've called
him names: poltroon, coward----"
"Well, really, Mr. So-and-so, while we can't justify the names, nor the
invitation, we can't wonder at the givers."
"Why--I can. I think they're pretty tol'able wonderful. But so's he--to
let 'em do it. Now, this ain't the question, either, but--why does he
allow it? It ain't for lack of pluck, senator. I know a coward's
earmarks and he ain't got 'em. It ain't for religion; less'n two hours
out of Orleans he'd offered them twins, I'm told, to take 'em down to
the freight deck and dish up the brace of 'em at one fell scoop. And no
more is it because his people won't let him alone to do his own way.
He's about the let-alone-dest fellow I ever see, for his age, if he is
any particular age. No, sir, I've studied out what it's for."
"Hmm. But what's your question? What's _it_ about?"
"Why, it's about this--and your friend the general. For I'll tell you,
senator, why Mr. Hugh don't fight. It's for--can I tell you in
confidence, strict, air-tight?"
"Certainly, strict, air-tight."
"Well, then, it's for love. He's in love with their sister. Now,
_that's_ something I _don't_ wonder at. I am, too. So are a lot of us."
He smiled at the cub, who frowned away. "Now, by natural fitness, he's
got ground for hope. I ain't got a square inch. She ain't on my claim.
Next week my face'll be to the setting sun. So what do I do but go to
him--this was before her young brother died--which I almost loved the
brother too--and s'I, 'Mr. Courteney, I've saw the sun go down and moon
come up on this thing three times running, and every time and all
between I've stood it, seeing you stand it. And I've studied it. And I
see your fix. But most of us don't; so somebody's got to indorse you.
Now, being a Kentuckian, not blue-grass but next door, I feel like doing
it. You've _got_ to play two hands and you _can't_ play but one. Well,
I'll play the one you can't. I'll fight them twins.'"
"Well, of all--and he accepted?"
"Now, you know he didn't. He said it would be absolutely impossible. But
he said it the funniest way--! It made me see the size of him for the
first time. And, senator, he's life-size. But I reckon you knowed that
before I did. He took me by the button-hole, just as I'm holding you
now, and talked to me as majestic as a father sending his boy off to
school, and at the very same time and in the very same words as sweet as
a girl sending her soldier to war."
"And he convinced you?"
"No, we was interrupted and couldn't talk it out. Well, I can't go back
to him and resume, no more'n a wildcat bank. For one thing, I wouldn't
take him from her."
"You don't mean they're together now?"
"Now, no, but by spells, yes. Bound to happen--so many of us so willing.
I'd try to talk the thing out with this young man and Mr. Watson, but
they all feel alike. Reckon it does 'em credit, but--well--I'd like to
talk it out with you and the general. I think we can dispense with the
boat's consent. Don't you?"
"Oh, Lord, man, what have I got to do with that?"
"Hold your horses, senator. I look at it this way: If the twins hadn't
been too busy pecking at Mr. Hugh I'm just the sort o' man they'd 'a'
pecked at, and hence I have a good moral right to waive their not doing
it and take the will for the deed."
"Nonsense, my good friend; good joke, nothing
more."
"Hold on; there's this anyhow: If Mr. Hugh _could_ accept their
invitation maybe he'd take me for his second; and what does second mean
if it don't mean that if, after all, something should force him to drop
out I could drop in?"
"Oh," laughed the senator, freeing his buttonhole by gentle force and
edging away, "very well; but the twins! They're out! Look at _their_
fix; _they_ can't fight now."
"Senator, just so. But the general, all along he's sort o' been their
second; indorsed for 'em same's I'd like to for Mr. Hugh. He'd be their
second now if they could fight--as we know they'd be glad to. So, why
ain't he honor bound to take their place if I take Mr. Hugh's? This
young gentleman'll act for me--won't you?--yes, and the senator can act
for the general. Then, senator, the first time we can get ashore we can
settle the whole thing without involving Mr. Hugh and without ever
letting the ladies know--or the crowd either--that it ain't just our own
affair. I can easily give the general cause, you know."
"My friend," said the cunning senator, who knew his ruling sin was
tardiness and that he was tardy now, "I don't say anything could be
fairer--in its right time. If you'll go to bed and to sleep----"
"Senator, delays are dangerous. I might get the cholera. The general
might get it. Or some other trouble might crop up and sort o' separate
us."
Ah! It flashed into the senator's mind that California, though meaning
all he said, had in full view the Gilmore-Harriet affair and that this
was a move in that, a move to checkmate. His countermove had to be
prompt; some one was coming up the nearest steps. "My dear sir, there
_is_ another trouble; serious, imminent, and almost sure to involve our
friend Hugh in a vital mistake--Why, general, I thought you, at least,
was asleep."
"Sss-enator, I was. I mmm-erely had not und-ressed. Have you fff-ound
that young man?"
"Not yet, general. Let's go see him together. I want to see you, too,
for just a moment, if these gentlemen will excuse me that long."
"Mr. Hugh's with the first clerk, yonder by the bell," said the gold
hunter. "We'll wait here, eh?"
The general wanted to reply, but "I wish you would," responded the
senator and hurried him away.
XLIX
KANGAROO POINT
Aboard the _Votaress_ was a gentle, retiring lady, large and fair, whom
both Hugh and Ramsey had liked from the first, yet whose acquaintance
they had made very slowly and quite separately. She was a parson's wife,
who had never seen a play, a game of cards, or a ball, danced a dance,
read a novel, tasted wine, or worn a jewel. She had four handsome,
decorous, well-freckled children, two boys, two girls.
At table, until the married pairs of Vicksburg, Yazoo, and Milliken's
Bend had gone ashore, she had not sat with the foremost dozen, although
she and the bishop spoke often together and were always "sister" and
"brother." Her near neighbors at the board had been the Carthaginians
and Napoleonites, and it was through them that she had met the Gilmores.
To Ramsey and Hugh she had been made known by her children, one boy and
girl having fallen wildly in love with the young lady's red curls, and
the other two with Hugh and his frown.
The Gilmores' hearts she had won largely by the way in which her talks
with them revealed the sweet charities of a soul unwarped by the
tyrannous prohibitions under which she had been "born and raised" and to
which she was still loyal; and she had crowned the conquest by a gentle,
inflexible refusal to "brother" John the Baptist. In their lively minds
she reawakened the age-old issue between artist and pietist. Said the
amused Gilmore:
"Humiliate me? Not in the least. She only humbles me; she's such a
beautiful example of----"
"Yes, but, goodness, don't say it here!" said his wife. "Harriet" and
the exhorter were already trouble enough.
Nevertheless, "What lovely types of character," insisted Gilmore, "come
often, _so_ often, from ugly types of faith!"
The wife flinched and looked about but he persisted: "So much better, my
love--this is only my humble tribute to her--so _much_ better is
religion, even her religion, without the liberal arts than the liberal
arts without religion. Faith is the foundation, they are the upper
works."
"Dear, you should have been a preacher!"
"No, I'd always be preaching that one sermon. If I didn't tell it to
you, I'd have to tell it to her, or make you tell her."
Mrs. Gilmore had not told her, but between the two women, across the
gulf between them, there had grown such a commerce of silent esteem that
neither Hugh nor Ramsey knew which one's modest liberalism to admire
most. To Ramsey it was nothing against the matron that she was not
nursing the immigrant sick. Only Madame Hayle was allowed to do that,
and the parson's wife, being quite without madame's art of doing as she
pleased, had had to submit conscience and compassions to the captain's
forbiddal, repeated by the commodore and Hugh. But after the play she
had insisted, "strict orders or none, and whether her children were four
or forty-four," on entering the service of the busy Gilmores, "no matter
how," and was now, with old Joy, in the pilot-house, a most timely
successor to the actor's wife in the social care of Ramsey.
For to Ramsey, in this first bereavement of her life, sleep was as
abhorrent as if her brother's burial were already at hand. Grief was
good, for grief was love. Sleep was heartlessness. Moreover, in sleep,
only in sleep, there was no growth. Of course, that was not true; only
yesterday and the day before she had grown consciously between evening
and morning, grown wonderfully. But she had forgotten that and in every
fibre of her being felt a frenzy for growth, for getting on, like the
frenzy of a bird left behind by the flock. All the boat's human life,
all its majestic going--led on by the stars--and especially all those by
whose command or guidance it went, made for growth. So, too, did this
dear Mrs. So-and-so, who could so kindly understand how one in deep
sorrow may go on seeing the drollery of things. Grief, love, solace,
growth, she was all of them in one. If she, Ramsey, might neither nurse
the sick with her mother nor watch with Mrs. Gilmore and "Harriet," here
was this dear, fair lady with the tenderest, most enlightening words of
faith and comfort that ever had fallen on her ears; words never too
eager or too many, but always just in time and volume to satisfy grief's
fitful questionings.
For refuge they had tried every quarter of these upper decks; now paced
them, now stood, now sat, and had found each best in its turn; but such
open-air seclusion itself drew notice, made notice more felt, and so the
dusk of the pilot-house had soon been found best of all. It remained so
now--while the great chimneys out forward breathed soothingly, and a
mile astern glimmered the _Westwood_, and a mile ahead glimmered the
_Antelope_, and here among the few occupants of the visitors' bench
there drifted a soft, alluring gossip about each newly turned bend of
the most marvellous of rivers. To nestle back in its larboard corner
while now some one came up and in and now some one slipped down and out,
and while ever the pilot's head and shoulders and the upper spokes of
his vigilant wheel stood outlined against the twinkling sky and rippling
air, was like resting one's head on the _Votaress's_ bosom.
And yet another reason made sleep unthinkable. He who had said, "I need
you," was awake, was on watch. Now that the feud, blessed thought, was
all off, sworn off, and a lingering mistrust of the twins seemed quite
unsisterly, probably that need of her, or illusion of need, had passed.
Well, if so he ought to say so! For here were great cares and dangers
yet. The river was out of all its bounds. Most of those bounds
themselves and the great plantations behind them were under the swirling
deluge. The waters of Scrubgrass Bend, for instance, were crosscutting
over Scrubgrass Towhead in one league-wide sheet, and Islands
Seventy-this-and-that and Islands Sixty-that-and-this were under them to
their tree-tops. These things might be less fearful in fact than in
show, or might be a matter wherein it was only a trifle more imbecile to
think of her helping than in some others. Yet here were officers and
servants of the boat busy out of turn and omitting routine duties
unfortunate to omit and which she might perform if they would but let
her. She noticed the presence of both pilots at once--Watson at the
wheel, Ned on the bench. No wonder, with so awesome a charge; guiding a
boat like this, teeming with human souls and driven pell-mell through
such a war of elemental forces in desert darkness, with never a beacon
light from point to point, from hour to hour; running every chute, with
a chute behind nearly every point or island, and the vast bends looping
on each other like the folds of a python and but little more to be
trusted.
And here was this "Harriet" affair, a care and danger that as yet
smouldered, but at any moment, with or without aid of the twins, might
blaze. No one mentioned it, but you could smell it like smoke. And here
was that supreme care and danger, the plague, with all the earlier
precautions against it dropped, and with its constant triple question:
Who next of the sick? Who next of the well? Who next on either of the
decks below?
Two or three times Hugh came, sat awhile, spoke rarely, and went out.
What a spontaneous new deference every one accorded him and with what a
simple air of habitude he received it, though it seemed to mark him for
bereavement as well as for command! Why did he come? Why did he go?
wondered Ramsey. Not that she would hinder him, coming or going. She
could not guess that one chief object was care of her. She could only
recall how lately they two had stood behind the footlights and sung
their nonsense rhymes, partners in, and justified by, one brave,
merciful purpose. Ought he to let care, danger, and grief, as soon as
they had become acutely hers and his, drive him and her apart and strike
him dumb to her, as dumb as a big ship dropping her on a desert shore
and sailing away? Various subtleties of manner in others on the bench
convinced her that they were thinking of him and her and thinking these
same questions. What right had he to bring that upon her? Once, as he
went out, somebody unwittingly stung her keenly by remarking, to no one
in particular, that it was hard to see what should keep him so busy.
"D'you know," retorted Ned, "what running a boat is?"
"Why, yes, it's making things spin so smooth you can't see 'em spin,
ain't it?"
"Right. Ever fly a kite? Not with yo' eyes shet, hey? Well, a boat's a
hundred kites. Ain't she, Watsy?"
"Two hundred," said Watson, at the wheel.
"But Mr. Hugh ain't actually running this boat, is he?"
"I ain't said he wuz," replied Ned, and----
"He ain't a-runnin' no other," said Watson.
For an instant Ramsey was all pride for him they exalted; but in the
next instant a wave of resentment went through her as if their vaunting
were his; as if her pride were his own confessed, colossal vanity; as if
the price of his uplift were her belittlement. Never mind, he should
pay! Absurd, absurd; but she was harrowingly tired, lonely, idle,
grief-burdened, and desolate, and absurdity itself was relief. He should
pay, let his paying cost her double. Somehow, in some feminine, minute,
pinhole way, she would deflate him, wing him, bring him down, before he
should soar another round. With old Joy at her feet, in the dusk of her
corner beyond Mrs. So-and-so, the parson's wife; she allowed herself a
poor, bitter-sweet smile.
Each time when Hugh had come back to the bench, room had been hurriedly
made for him next the parson's wife--"stabboard side"--who, speaking for
all, promptly began to interrogate him, her first question always being
as to his father's condition, which did not improve. Making room on the
bench made room in the conversation--decoying pauses hopefully designed
to lure him into saying something, anything, to Ramsey, or her to him;
but always the kind trap had gone unsprung. Two or three times,
obviously, Mrs. So-and-so's inquiries had first been Ramsey's to her; as
when one of them elicited the fact that the next turn would be Horseshoe
Cut-off and Kangaroo Point; and once, at length, after twice failing to
believe the ear she bent to Ramsey's murmur, she said audibly:
"Ask him, dear; ask him yourself."
Every one waited and presently Hugh remarked:
"I'll answer if I can."
"I'd rather," faltered Ramsey, "ask John the Baptist."
The unlucky mention took no evident effect on any one. If that was the
snub she would have to try again.
"I can ask him for you," said Hugh. "He's up, expecting to leave us at
Helena."
"No, thank you," she sighed, "you're too awfully busy. It won't make any
real difference if I never find out."
"Won't sink the boat to ask," drawled Watson; but she remained silent
till Hugh inquired:
"Are you sure I can't tell you?"
"Oh, you can!" came from Ramsey's dark corner. "But--with the whole boat
in your care--we oughtn't to ask you things we don't have to know."
"Lard! belch it out," urged the innocent Ned, taking her in earnest; but
again she was silent.
"Well?" said Hugh.
"Oh, well, are there many--? Oh, it ain't important."
"Why, missy," muttered old Joy, "you's dess natchiully bleeds to ax it
now."
"Yes, dear," said the parson's wife, "let's have it."
"Well--are there many--? Oh, it's not--are there--are there many
kangaroos on Kangaroo Point?"
At any outer edge of civilization a joke may be as hard and practical as
ship's bread, yet pass. Amid the general mirth and while Hugh pulled a
bell cord which made no jingle down in the engine-room and had never
before been observed by Ramsey, his reply was prompt and brief but too
gently solemn for her ear; and when she got Mrs. So-and-so to repeat it
to her it was merely to the effect that, though kangaroos were few on
Kangaroo Point, she ought to see the wealth of horseshoes in Horseshoe
Cut-off.
Oh, kind answer! that excused her frivolity by sharing it. Kind beyond
her utmost merit. She did not say so, but she thought it, sitting dumb,
in sudden tears, and burning with shame for her blindness to the hour's
fearful realities. While Ned stepped to Watson's side to speak
critically of the _Antelope_, now shining on their starboard bow, Hugh,
near the door, dropped a quiet request to the two or three other
occupants of the bench and they followed him out.
"Why do they go?" she asked, fancying them as much appalled at her as
she herself was, and when the sweet lady could not enlighten her the
pilots offered a guess that two had gone to relieve Mrs. Gilmore and her
maid and that Hugh would presently join the first clerk by the bell.