SELF-CHAPERONED
"Gone! Gone where?"
"Don't talk so loud. She got off at Detour, and is going back to
Mackinac on the down boat this afternoon."
"Why, how could she have got off at Detour?" he asked incredulously. "We
saw every living soul that left the boat. There was only one woman."
"And that one was Margaret--the one in the blue calico."
"Well, I'll be--jiggered!" he said, most inelegantly. "We are two babes
in the woods, aren't we? I hope Smeltzer will be as dead easy. And, by
Jove! I think he was for I saw him standing right by that gangway as she
went off!"
"_Don't_ talk so loud!"
They went then up into the bow beyond the chance of being overheard, and
he asked breathlessly, "Where is Philip? and why did she leave him?"
"Leave him? Why, she wouldn't leave Philip any more than she would leave
an arm. He went with her."
"Do you mean to tell me," he said severely, "that Philip too walked off
before our very eyes and we didn't know it? I suppose he went as the
dog?"
"Do you remember what was in that last wheelbarrow?"
"No. Wait! let me think. Was that the one with the clothes-basket in it
that the stewardess helped the man off with? She said it was her table
linen."
"Well, for a man that can guess at the number of passengers and their
destination as you can--making your cigars off of innocent, trusting,
unsophisticated damsels, you certainly are at times most astonishingly
dull."
"Do you mean to say that Philip was--"
"Why, of course, tied down snugly under the blue check apron."
"Well, by George, he was game! And that stewardess! I hope she will get
her reward in heaven."
"She's getting a part of it on earth. When Margaret found that the woman
wouldn't take money for her help she took off her watch and gave it to
her, telling her that she must wear it because it was hers, and Miss
Brannigan is now shut up in a stateroom, pinning and unpinning in a most
ecstatic state of mind, and saying, probably as she was when I left her,
'And sure, mem, what will Michael Callahan think of me now wid me gould
watch and pin?'"
"Did she leave a letter or anything?"
"Yes, just a note for me. Most of it was taken up with telling me how
sorry she was to leave me in such a position, but how she couldn't help
it--that it was her one chance and she must take it--that Norah would
tell me all the details--and that I would know by the time the letter
reached me whether it had failed. Mercy! if she only gets off with him
she needn't think of me! Anyway, it isn't as if I were left by myself.
Of course grandma will be uneasy about me--she is so afraid of
water--but she will be glad I am with you. I know that because I heard
her tell Margaret one day that she knew you were a man that could be
trusted."
"_You bet I am!_" thought Harcourt, looking down into the innocent
girlish face. Aloud he said, "What do you think we'd better do?"
The aspect of the case that troubled Margaret had already appealed to
him.
"Why, there isn't anything we can do but go on, is there?"
"Nothing that I can see--unless I put you in another basket and chuck
you off at Sailor's Encampment. That's the only stop between Detour and
the Soo.... Say!"
"What?"
"Oh, nothing." It was not worth while to alarm her, but a startling
thought had struck him. Suppose Smeltzer, finding out that she had
escaped him, should get off at Sailor's Encampment, wait for the down
boat, and be on it waiting for her when she took it at Detour.... Then
he felt sure that the quick wit that had thought of a way of escape in
the first place would have thought of that. The stewardess was
acquainted with the time schedule if he was not. Still, the fear haunted
him until they had left Sailor's Encampment behind them, and looking
down he saw Smeltzer below at the gangway. It was funny the way Smeltzer
hugged the gangway when they made a landing.
After that he gave himself up to a boyish enjoyment of the trip. They
were there without a chaperon, it was true, but it was through no fault
of either one,--and it was all right. The trouble almost always was with
the gossip that such things gave rise to, not in the things themselves,
and here there was nobody to gossip. Still he had it on his mind, and
said to Bess just before getting into Sault Sainte Marie, "You haven't
any acquaintances here that you could spend the night with?"
"Not a soul."
"Would you like for me to look you up a quiet boarding house?"
"Why, no, I think not--just for one night. We start down early in the
morning, don't we?"
"Yes."
After a pause during which he did some thinking, he said again:
"Perhaps I'd better take you to the Iroquois and go down myself to the
house just below. I forget the name."
"Why, no," she said, surprised. "I'd rather go where you go. I don't
think grandma would want me to be at a hotel alone."
He gave it up then.
When they reached the dock Smeltzer was the first man to step ashore. He
took his station beside the gangway. He had watched it from the time
they had left Mackinac and he was not going to be cheated out of his
reward now. There was an exultant look in his eye, it seemed to
Harcourt, as from the upper deck he watched the man.
"You'd better go on ahead," he said to Bess, "and among the first. I
will catch up with you. No, I don't know that he associates me at all
with your party, and I don't even know that he would recognize you as
belonging to it, but it is just as well to be on the safe side."
He saw her run the gauntlet unchallenged. Smeltzer was looking for a
woman and a child. He had spent the last few minutes before the boat
stopped in studying a picture he had in his possession. One after
another passed out, but no woman and child. Harcourt could have jumped
up and down with delight to see Smeltzer's look of anticipated triumph
merge slowly into anxiety and then to mystified chagrin. Nothing but a
realization that it might be an awkward position for him prevented his
staying to witness the detective's interview with the captain. That one
was impending was evident from the man's face. The last passenger to
leave the boat was Harcourt.
"Hello, Smeltzer! You here? You didn't get off to Chicago."
"No," said Smeltzer curtly, starting back across the gangway. Harcourt
hurried on after Bess. They had walked but a little way when she said,
in great perturbation, "Oh, I've left my umbrella. Can't we go back for
it?"
They had reached the boat and he was stepping aboard, when he was
arrested by the sound of Smeltzer's voice in altercation with the
captain and the stewardess as they stood at the head of the gangway.
"Then she's on this boat," they heard him say.
"Did any woman get off at Detour?" asked the captain.
"Yis, sor. The wash-lady."
"Was there any child?"
"None that I seen."
"What was in that clothes-basket?" demanded Smeltzer, with sudden
suspicion.
"Not a thing but me table-linen, sor, and that's the Lord's truth ef I
was to die fur it!" said the woman whose heart it would "rej'ice to lie
to a vilyan like that."
"Come on," said Harcourt, drawing Bess back, "we'd better get out of
this. You and I can't compete with _her_. We are not in her class! I'll
buy you an umbrella if you need it."
Of course they stopped at the locks the first thing. Everybody does. It
was while they were standing there that he said in a low voice, "Look
over to the other side. That's Smeltzer, rushing post-haste for the
station--and the train has just gone."
"Oh, has it?"
"Yes. And there isn't another till morning. I have just enquired. That
will give her twelve or fifteen hours the start."
"She can't get off the island to-night, can she?"
"No, but she won't lose much time in the morning, I'll wager."
It is a most fascinating occupation--watching the locks at the "Soo."
There is always the temptation to stay for one more performance,--and
they come thick and fast on this famous ship canal. They stayed till the
throes of hunger sent them across the park to the hotel. She stood
beside him as he registered, but when he caught her eye and laughed
afterwards she did not respond very heartily.
"Being on the water has made me awfully sleepy," she said at the dinner
table. "I think I shall write a letter to grandma and go to bed."
"You will get there as soon as the letter will."
"No. If it goes down in the morning it will get there by noon. That will
be some help."
"It is moonlight," he pleaded. "Let's go over to the locks for an hour
or so."
"No, I'm sleepy. I'm going to bed."
It was easy to see that he had in some way offended her.
He went out alone after she had gone to her room and walked up and down
the sidewalk between the park and the locks. The place was most
beautiful by moonlight, but he was not thinking much about its beauty or
its wonders. His mind was dwelling on the strangeness of their position,
on Bess's sweet childish womanliness, but most of all on Margaret and
what she would do next. How glad he would be if he were only able to
dispel the shadow that had fallen upon her.
The next morning as they stood beside the locks where they had agreed to
stay until the boat went, Bess asked abruptly,
"Why did you write our names on the hotel register 'John Harcourt and
sister?' I didn't like that very well, because--it seemed as if I--as if
we--had done something you were ashamed of." Her lips were in a pretty
childish pout.
He placed his hand on his heart with a gesture of exaggerated sentiment.
"I did that because I wanted to make sure of your bearing my name at
least once in your life. You know you told me the other day you intended
to be an old maid, so this was the only way."
"Silly!" she said, blushing and looking away.
When they got back to Mackinac that night Bess found a room bearing
evidence of hasty packing and a letter from her grandmother.
* * * * *
"My dear child," it said, "I am going to leave you for a little while.
Margaret needs me now far more than you do, and I cannot be with both.
Of course you got her letter and know what she did and why. When she
came in last night you could have knocked me down with a feather. I
certainly hope the Lord will reward that girl according to her
works--and Smeltzer too. Of course we will have to go away at once. We
shall be starting somewhere within an hour--where I do not know. We will
go where the Lord directs, and stop when he tells us to. As soon as I
know anything further I will let you know it. In the meantime you must
stay just where you are until you hear. Have everything packed and ready
to go at a moment's notice, though I think I shall write instead of
telegraphing.
"Say good-by to Mr. Harcourt for me and tell him I sincerely hope that
we may meet again some time. Ask him to go over to Mackinaw City with
you when I write for you to come, and see about your trunks. By the way,
we leave ours for you to bring. It would be easier to track us if we had
to check."
* * * * *
"Look here," said Harcourt, when he had got this far in the letter--she
had brought it directly down to him, and they were reading it in the
parlor--"do you suppose she expects to shake me like this?"
"Well, anyway," said Bess, "I am glad I am not entirely alone."
The letter ended, "May God bless you my child, and keep you safe from
all harm, is the prayer of your devoted grandmother."
There was a yearning note in the closing sentence that was at variance
with the confident tone of the earlier part. In truth, Mrs. Pennybacker
had been torn between loyalty to Margaret and love for Bess.
"Well," said John Harcourt as he handed the letter back to her,--he
really looked more cheerful than Bess felt--"there's nothing to do but
to make the best of a bad situation. Suppose we take a walk up to the
fort in the morning and talk it over."
They had time to talk that and many other things over in the three days
that elapsed before the letter came. Harcourt felt it his duty to amuse
and interest her during what was a trying period of waiting, and was
unremitting in his attentions.
The letter came at last. She read it on the porch and handed it to him.
It had got to the point now where she gave him her full confidence. It
ran:
"South Haven, Mich., Sept.--, 1895.
"Dear Bess:
"At last we are settled, and I embrace the first opportunity to write,
for I fear you have been consumed with anxiety." ("And I have been,"
said Bess when he looked at her out of the tail of his eye, "but I
didn't think it was necessary to cry my eyes out!")
"Well, to begin at the beginning,--we started on the first boat that
left the Island for Mackinaw City,--a very few minutes after my letter
to you was finished, and were soon on the cars headed south. We only
went as far as Petoskey, however, for I remembered that there we could
take the Pere Marquette directly to Chicago, which would save time. We
bought tickets to that point, being uncertain about our plans, and
thinking that we might consider it best to go straight on to Missouri.
But you know I told you we should go where the Lord directed us and stop
when he said so. Well, just before we reached Grand Junction, a little
station where a branch of the Michigan Central crosses the Pere
Marquette, I heard some people behind me talking about South Haven--what
a nice place it was, but how it was almost deserted now. I thought to
myself that a deserted place was about the kind we wanted, so I asked
them some questions about how to get there and found that we were right
at the place where a decision must be made, for we would have to take
the other road at Grand Junction. I went to Margaret and told her it
seemed to me the Lord said stop, and she agreed with me. Then we began
to hustle. If we had had our trunks we never could have done it, for we
had only about three minutes. But when the train stopped at Grand
Junction we stepped off and let it go on to Chicago without us. This was
blind number one. We figured that if that man should try to trace the
two women that bought tickets in Petoskey he would be likely to follow
them to Chicago, and there he would lose the scent.
"South Haven is directly west of Grand Junction, and Kalamazoo, the
other end of this little branch road, is directly east. We bought two
tickets to Kalamazoo, making a good many inquiries of the agent about
the railroad connections there to different points."
("That's funny," said Bess, "if they were going to South Haven."
"Not at all," returned Harcourt, "that was blind number two. Now you
will find that they discarded those tickets and boarded the train for
the west."
"Yes, sir! that's just what they did," she said, looking ahead. "Wasn't
that cute in grandma?")
"Well," the letter proceeded, "having put him on a wrong trail if the
thing were ever inquired into, we went out on the platform and waited
for the west-bound train. There were a lot of people waiting who called
themselves 'Saints' and had been off for some camp-meeting. That made it
easier for us to lose ourselves. The train came along in a little while
and we got on, intimating to the conductor that we hadn't time to
procure tickets, and paying our fare to South Haven."
("Look here," said Harcourt, "this thing is catching. If she keeps on
there'll be another one in Miss Brannigan's class!")
"We are now comfortably established at a boarding house called The
Oakland, where they have a queer little dining-room in the basement and
the best brown bread you ever put in your mouth. We think we shall
settle down here for several weeks. I don't like the idea of going back
to Missouri just now for that man would be sure to follow us there.
(There are some objections to being named Pennybacker instead of Smith.)
I want you to come on immediately." Then followed a page or more of
minute directions as to route, bills, etc.
"I don't know whether I'll have money enough for all that," said Bess,
wrinkling her brow for the first time in her life over the financial
problem.
"I'll lend it to you if you haven't."
"How could I get it back to you?"
"That's so!... I guess I'll have to go down with you and collect it
myself."
"Really?" cried Bess.
"Sure! Your grandmother left you in my care and I'm not going to prove
recreant to a trust at this late day. Besides, I've got three more weeks
to put in somewhere before I can go back to Washington. I guess South
Haven will do as well as anywhere else. Don't you want me to go?"
"Why, yes. I'd love to have you go. I don't know anything about
attending to trunks. I almost know I couldn't manage three."
A postscript to this letter said, "I have written at length about that
Grand Junction business because I thought Mr. Harcourt would feel
interested in hearing about it, and we will not see him again."
"And that's where she's going to fool herself," he said with a grin.