If Mr. Renshaw indulged in any further curiosity regarding the interior
of the Pontiac, he did not make his active researches manifest to
Rosey. Nor, in spite of her father's invitation, did he again approach
the galley--a fact which gave her her first vague impression in his
favor. He seemed also to avoid the various advances which Mr. Nott
appeared impelled to make, whenever they met in the passage, but did so
without seemingly avoiding HER, and marked his half contemptuous
indifference to the elder Nott by an increase of respect to the young
girl. She would have liked to ask him something about ships, and was
sure his conversation would have been more interesting than that of old
Captain Bower, to whose cabin he had succeeded, who had once told her a
ship was the "devil's hen-coop." She would have liked also to explain
to him that she was not in the habit of wearing a purple bonnet. But
her thoughts were presently engrossed by an experience which
interrupted the even tenor of her young life.
She had been, as she afterwards remembered, impressed with a nervous
restlessness one afternoon, which made it impossible for her to perform
her ordinary household duties, or even to indulge her favorite
recreation of reading or castle building. She wandered over the ship,
and, impelled by the same vague feeling of unrest, descended to the
lower deck and the forward bulkhead where she had discovered the open
hatch. It had not been again disturbed, nor was there any trace of
further exploration. A little ashamed, she knew not why, of revisiting
the scene of Mr. Renshaw's researches, she was turning back when she
noticed that the door which communicated with de Ferrieres's loft was
partly open. The circumstance was so unusual that she stopped before
it in surprise. There was no sound from within; it was the hour when
its queer occupant was always absent; he must have forgotten to lock
the door or it had been unfastened by other hands. After a moment of
hesitation she pushed it further open and stepped into the room.
By the dim light of two port-holes she could see that the floor was
strewn and piled with the contents of a broken bale of curled horse
hair, of which a few untouched bales still remained against the wall.
A heap of morocco skins, some already cut in the form of chair cushion
covers, and a few cushions unfinished and unstuffed lay in the light of
the ports, and gave the apartment the appearance of a cheap workshop.
A rude instrument for combing the horse hair, awls, buttons, and thread
heaped on a small bench showed that active work had been but recently
interrupted. A cheap earthenware ewer and basin on the floor, and a
pallet made of an open bale of horse hair, on which a ragged quilt and
blanket were flung, indicated that the solitary worker dwelt and slept
beside his work.
The truth flashed upon the young girl's active brain, quickened by
seclusion and fed by solitary books. She read with keen eyes the
miserable secret of her father's strange guest in the poverty-stricken
walls, in the mute evidences of menial handicraft performed in
loneliness and privation, in this piteous adaptation of an accident to
save the conscious shame of premeditated toil. She knew now why he had
stammeringly refused to receive her father's offer to buy back the
goods he had given him; she knew now how hardly gained was the pittance
that paid his rent and supported his childish vanity and grotesque
pride. From a peg in the corner hung the familiar masquerade that hid
his poverty--the pearl-gray trousers, the black frock coat, the tall
shining hat--in hideous contrast to the penury of his surroundings.
But if THEY were here, where was HE, and in what new disguise had he
escaped from his poverty? A vague uneasiness caused her to hesitate
and return to the open door. She had nearly reached it when her eye
fell on the pallet which it partly illuminated. A singular resemblance
in the ragged heap made her draw closer. The faded quilt was a
dressing-gown, and clutching its folds lay a white, wasted hand.
The emigrant childhood of Rose Nott had been more than once shadowed by
scalping knives, and she was acquainted with Death. She went fearlessly
to the couch, and found that the dressing-gown was only an enwrapping
of the emaciated and lifeless body of de Ferrieres. She did not
retreat or call for help, but examined him closely. He was
unconscious, but not pulseless; he had evidently been strong enough to
open the door for air or succor, but had afterward fallen in a fit on
the couch. She flew to her father's locker and the galley fire,
returned, and shut the door behind her, and by the skillful use of hot
water and whisky soon had the satisfaction of seeing a faint color take
the place of the faded rouge in the ghastly cheeks. She was still
chafing his hands when he slowly opened his eyes. With a start, he
made a quick attempt to push aside her hands and rise. But she gently
restrained him.
"Eh--what!" he stammered, throwing his face back from hers with an
effort and trying to turn it to the wall.
"You have been ill," she said quietly. "Drink this."
With his face still turned away he lifted the cup to his chattering
teeth. When he had drained it he threw a trembling glance around the
room and at the door.
"There's no one been here but myself," she said quickly. "I happened
to see the door open as I passed. I didn't think it worth while to
call any one."
The searching look he gave her turned into an expression of relief,
which, to her infinite uneasiness, again feebly lightened into one of
antiquated gallantry. He drew the dressing-gown around him with an air.
"Ah! it is a goddess, Mademoiselle, that has deigned to enter the cell
where--where--I--amuse myself. It is droll--is it not? I came here to
make--what you call--the experiment of your father's fabric. I make
myself--ha! ha!--like a workman. Ah, bah! the heat, the darkness, the
plebeian motion make my head to go round. I stagger, I faint, I cry
out, I fall. But what of that? The great God hears my cry and sends
me an angel. Voila!"
He attempted an easy gesture of gallantry, but overbalanced himself and
fell sideways on the pallet with a gasp. Yet there was so much genuine
feeling mixed with his grotesque affectation, so much piteous
consciousness of the ineffectiveness of his falsehood, that the young
girl, who had turned away, came back and laid her hand upon his arm.
"You must lie still and try to sleep," she said gently. "I will return
again. Perhaps," she added, "there is some one I can send for?"
He shook his head violently. Then in his old manner added, "After
Mademoiselle--no one."
"I mean--" she hesitated--"have you no friends?"
"Friends,--ah! without doubt." He shrugged his shoulders. "But
Mademoiselle will comprehend--"
"You are better now," said Rosey quickly, "and no one need know
anything if you don't wish it. Try to sleep. You need not lock the
door when I go; I will see that no one comes in."
He flushed faintly and averted his eyes. "It is too droll,
Mademoiselle, is it not?"
"Of course it is," said Rosey, glancing round the miserable room.
"And Mademoiselle is an angel."
He carried her hand to his lips humbly--his first purely unaffected
action. She slipped through the door, and softly closed it behind her.
Reaching the upper deck she was relieved to find her father had not
returned, and her absence had been unnoticed. For she had resolved to
keep de Ferrieres's secret to herself from the moment that she had
unwittingly discovered it, and to do this and still be able to watch
over him without her father's knowledge required some caution. She was
conscious of his strange aversion to the unfortunate man without
understanding the reason, but as she was in the habit of entertaining
his caprices more from affectionate tolerance of his weakness than
reverence of his judgment, she saw no disloyalty to him in withholding
a confidence that might be disloyal to another. "It won't do father
any good to know it," she said to herself, "and if it DID it oughtn't
to," she added with triumphant feminine logic. But the impression made
upon her by the spectacle she had just witnessed was stronger than any
other consideration. The revelation of de Ferrieres's secret poverty
seemed a chapter from a romance of her own weaving; for a moment it
lifted the miserable hero out of the depths of his folly and
selfishness. She forgot the weakness of the man in the strength of his
dramatic surroundings. It partly satisfied a craving she had felt; it
was not exactly the story of the ship, as she had dreamed it, but it
was an episode in her experience of it that broke its monotony. That
she should soon learn, perhaps from de Ferrieres's own lips, the true
reason of his strange seclusion, and that it involved more than
appeared to her now, she never for a moment doubted.
At the end of an hour she again knocked softly at the door, carrying
some light nourishment she had prepared for him. He was asleep, but
she was astounded to find that in the interval he had managed to dress
himself completely in his antiquated finery. It was a momentary shock
to the illusion she had been fostering, but she forgot it in the
pitiable contrast between his haggard face and his pomatumed hair and
beard, the jauntiness of his attire, and the collapse of his invalid
figure. When she had satisfied herself that his sleep was natural, she
busied herself softly in arranging the miserable apartment. With a few
feminine touches she removed the slovenliness of misery, and placed the
loose material and ostentatious evidences of his work on one side.
Finding that he still slept, and knowing the importance of this natural
medication, she placed the refreshment she had brought by his side and
noiselessly quitted the apartment. Hurrying through the gathering
darkness between decks, she once or twice thought she had heard
footsteps, and paused, but encountering no one, attributed the
impression to her over-consciousness. Yet she thought it prudent to go
to the galley first, where she lingered a few moments before returning
to the cabin. On entering she was a little startled at observing a
figure seated at her father's desk, but was relieved at finding it was
Mr. Renshaw.
He rose and put aside the book he had idly picked up. "I am afraid I
am an intentional intruder this time, Miss Nott. But I found no one
here, and I was tempted to look into this ship-shape little snuggery.
You see the temptation got the better of me."
His voice and smile were so frank and pleasant, so free from his
previous restraint, yet still respectful, so youthful yet manly, that
Rosey was affected by them even in her preoccupation. Her eyes
brightened and then dropped before his admiring glance. Had she known
that the excitement of the last few hours had brought a wonderful charm
into her pretty face, had aroused the slumbering life of her
half-awakened beauty, she would have been more confused. As it was,
she was only glad that the young man should turn out to be "nice."
Perhaps he might tell her something about ships; perhaps if she had
only known him longer she might, with de Ferrieres's permission, have
shared her confidence with him, and enlisted his sympathy and
assistance. She contented herself with showing this anticipatory
gratitude in her face as she begged him, with the timidity of a maiden
hostess, to resume his seat.
But Mr. Renshaw seemed to talk only to make her talk, and I am forced
to admit that Rosey found this almost as pleasant. It was not long
before he was in possession of her simple history from the day of her
baby emigration to California to the transfer of her childish life to
the old ship, and even of much of the romantic fancies she had woven
into her existence there. Whatever ulterior purpose he had in view, he
listened as attentively as if her artless chronicle was filled with
practical information. Once, when she had paused for breath, he said
gravely, "I must ask you to show me over this wonderful ship some day
that I may see it with your eyes."
"But I think you know it already better than I do," said Rosey with a
smile.
Mr. Renshaw's brow clouded slightly. "Ah," he said, with a touch of
his former restraint; "and why?"
"Well," said Rosey timidly, "I thought you went round and touched
things in a familiar way as if you had handled them before."
The young man raised his eyes to Rosey's and kept them there long
enough to bring back his gentler expression. "Then, because I found
you trying on a very queer bonnet the first day I saw you," he said,
mischievously, "I ought to believe you were in the habit of wearing
one."
In the first flush of mutual admiration young people are apt to find a
laugh quite as significant as a sigh for an expression of sympathetic
communion, and this master-stroke of wit convulsed them both. In the
midst of it Mr. Nott entered the cabin. But the complacency with which
he viewed the evident perfect understanding of the pair was destined to
suffer some abatement. Rosey, suddenly conscious that she was in some
way participating in ridicule of her father through his unhappy gift,
became embarrassed. Mr. Renshaw's restraint returned with the presence
of the old man. In vain, at first, Abner Nott strove with profound
levity to indicate his arch comprehension of the situation, and in
vain, later, becoming alarmed, he endeavored, with cheerful gravity, to
indicate his utter obliviousness of any but a business significance in
their tete-a-tete.
"I oughtn't to hev intruded, Rosey," he said, "when you and the
gentleman were talkin' of contracts, mebbee; but don't mind me. I'm on
the fly, anyhow, Rosey dear, hevin' to see a man round the corner."
But even the attitude of withdrawing did not prevent the exit of
Renshaw to his apartment and of Rosey to the galley. Left alone in the
cabin, Abner Nott felt in the knots and tangles of his beard for a
reason. Glancing down at his prodigious boots which, covered with mud
and gravel, strongly emphasized his agricultural origin, and gave him a
general appearance of standing on his own broad acres, he was struck
with an idea. "It's them boots," he whispered to himself, softly;
"they somehow don't seem 'xactly to trump or follow suit in this yer
cabin; they don't hitch into anythin', but jist slosh round loose, and,
so to speak, play it alone. And them young critters nat'rally feels it
and gets out o' the way." Acting upon this instinct with his usual
precipitate caution, he at once proceeded to the nearest second-hand
shop, and, purchasing a pair of enormous carpet slippers, originally
the property of a gouty sea-captain, reappeared with a strong
suggestion of newly upholstering the cabin. The improvement, however,
was fraught with a portentous circumstance. Mr. Nott's footsteps,
which usually announced his approach all over the ship, became stealthy
and inaudible.
Meantime Miss Rosey had taken advantage of the absence of her father to
visit her patient. To avoid attracting attention she did not take a
light, but groped her way to the lower deck and rapped softly at the
door. It was instantly opened by de Ferrieres. He had apparently
appreciated the few changes she had already made in the room, and had
himself cleared away the pallet from which he had risen to make two low
seats against the wall. Two bits of candle placed on the floor
illuminated the beams above, the dressing-gown was artistically draped
over the solitary chair, and a pile of cushions formed another seat.
With elaborate courtesy he handed Miss Rosey to the chair. He looked
pale and weak, though the gravity of the attack had evidently passed.
Yet he persisted in remaining standing. "If I sit," he explained with
a gesture, "I shall again disgrace myself by sleeping in Mademoiselle's
presence. Yes! I shall sleep--I shall dream--and wake to find her
gone?"
More embarrassed by his recovery than when he was lying helplessly
before her, she said hesitatingly that she was glad he was better, and
that she hoped he liked the broth.
"It was manna from heaven, Mademoiselle. See, I have taken it
all--every precious drop. What else could I have done for
Mademoiselle's kindness?"
He showed her the empty bowl. A swift conviction came upon her that
the man had been suffering from want of food. The thought restored her
self-possession even while it brought the tears to her eyes. "I wish
you would let me speak to father--or some one," she said impulsively,
and stopped.
A quick and half insane gleam of terror and suspicion lit up his deep
eyes. "For what, Mademoiselle! For an accident--that is
nothing--absolutely nothing, for I am strong and well now--see!" he
said tremblingly. "Or for a whim--for a folly you may say, that they
will misunderstand. No, Mademoiselle is good, is wise. She will say
to herself, 'I understand, my friend Monsieur de Ferrieres for the
moment has a secret. He would seem poor, he would take the role of
artisan, he would shut himself up in these walls--perhaps I may guess
why, but it is his secret. I think of it no more.'" He caught her
hand in his with a gesture that he would have made one of gallantry,
but that in its tremulous intensity became a piteous supplication.
"I have said nothing, and will say nothing, if you wish it," said Rosey
hastily; "but others may find out how you live here. This is not fit
work for you. You seem to be a--a gentleman. You ought to be a
lawyer, or a doctor, or in a bank," she continued timidly, with a vague
enumeration of the prevailing degrees of local gentility.
He dropped her hand. "Ah! does not Mademoiselle comprehend that it is
BECAUSE I am a gentleman that there is nothing between it and this?
Look!" he continued almost fiercely. "What if I told you it is the
lawyer, it is the doctor, it is the banker that brings me, a gentleman,
to this, eh? Ah, bah! What do I say? This is honest, what I do! But
the lawyer, the banker, the doctor, what are they?" He shrugged his
shoulders, and pacing the apartment with a furtive glance at the half
anxious, half frightened girl, suddenly stopped, dragged a small
portmanteau from behind the heap of bales and opened it. "Look,
Mademoiselle," he said, tremulously lifting a handful of worn and
soiled letters and papers. "Look--these are the tools of your banker,
your lawyer, your doctor. With this the banker will make you poor, the
lawyer will prove you a thief, the doctor will swear you are crazy, eh?
What shall you call the work of a gentleman--this"--he dragged the pile
of cushions forward--"or this?"
To the young girl's observant eyes some of the papers appeared to be of
a legal or official character, and others like bills of lading, with
which she was familiar. Their half-theatrical exhibition reminded her
of some play she had seen; they might be the clue to some story, or the
mere worthless hoardings of a diseased fancy. Whatever they were, de
Ferrieres did not apparently care to explain further; indeed, the next
moment his manner changed to his old absurd extravagance. "But this is
stupid for Mademoiselle to hear. What shall we speak of? Ah, what
SHOULD we speak of in Mademoiselle's presence?"
"But are not these papers valuable?" asked Rosey, partly to draw her
host's thoughts back to their former channel.
"Perhaps." He paused and regarded the young girl fixedly. "Does
Mademoiselle think so?"
"I don't know," said Rosey. "How should I?"
"Ah! if Mademoiselle thought so--if Mademoiselle would deign--" He
stopped again and placed his hand upon his forehead. "It might be so!"
he muttered.
"I must go now," said Rosey, hurriedly, rising with an awkward sense of
constraint. "Father will wonder where I am."
"I shall explain. I will accompany you, Mademoiselle."
"No, no," said Rosey, quickly; "he must not know I have been here!" She
stopped. The honest blush flew to her cheek, and then returned again,
because she had blushed.
De Ferrieres gazed at her with an exalted look. Then drawing himself
to his full height, he said, with an exaggerated and indescribable
gesture, "Go, my child, go. Tell your father that you have been alone
and unprotected in the abode of poverty and suffering, but--that it was
in the presence of Armand de Ferrieres."
He threw open the door with a bow that nearly swept the ground, but did
not again offer to take her hand. At once impressed and embarrassed at
this crowning incongruity, her pretty lip trembled between a smile and
a cry as she said, "Good-night," and slipped away into the darkness.
Erect and grotesque de Ferrieres retained the same attitude until the
sound of her footsteps was lost, when he slowly began to close the
door. But a strong arm arrested it from without, and a large carpeted
foot appeared at the bottom of the narrowing opening. The door
yielded, and Mr. Abner Nott entered the room.