All such things touch secret strings
For heavy hearts to bear.
"And you don't seem to care."
Agatha smiled a little inward smile of triumph.
"Don't I?" she answered, with a sidelong glance beneath her lashes.
Luke stared straight in front of him with set lips. He looked a
dangerous man to trifle with, and what woman can keep her hands out of
such danger as this?
They were walking backwards and forwards on the broad promenade deck of
the Croonah, and the Croonah was gliding through the grey waters of the
Atlantic. To their left lay the coast of Portugal smiling in the
sunshine. To their right the orb of day himself, lowering cloudless to
the horizon. Ahead, bleak and lonely, lay the dread Burlings. The
maligned Bay of Biscay lay behind, and already a large number of the
passengers had plucked up spirit to leave the cabin stairs, crawling on
deck to lie supine in long chairs and talk hopefully of calmer days to
come.
Agatha had proved herself to be a good sailor. She walked beside Luke
FitzHenry with her usual dainty firmness of step and confidence of
carriage. Luke himself--in uniform--looked sternly in earnest.
They had been talking of Gibraltar, where the Croonah was to touch the
next morning, and Luke had just told Agatha that he could not go ashore
with her and Mrs. Ingham-Baker.
"Don't I?" the girl reiterated with a little sigh.
"Well, it does not sound like it."
"The truth is," said Agatha, "that I have an inward conviction that it
would only be more trouble than it is worth."
"What would be more trouble than it is worth?"
"Going ashore."
"Then you will not go?" he asked eagerly.
"I think not," she answered, with demure downcast eyes.
And Luke FitzHenry was the happiest man on board the Croonah. There
was no mistaking her meaning. Luke, who knew himself to be a
pessimist--a man who persistently looked for ill-fortune--felt that her
meaning could not well be other than that she preferred remaining on
board because he could not go ashore.
The dinner bell rang out over the quiet decks, and, with a familiar
little nod, Agatha turned away from her companion.
The next morning saw the Croonah speeding past Trafalgar's heights.
There was a whistling breeze from the west; and over the mountains of
Tarifa and the far gloomy fastness of Ceuta hung clouds and squalls.
The sea, lashed to white flecks, raced through the straits, and every
now and then a sharp shower darkened the face of the waters. There was
something forbidding and mysterious in the scene, something dark and
foreboding over the coast-line of Africa. All eyes were fixed on the
Rock, now slowly appearing from behind the hills that hide Algeciras.
Luke was on duty on the bridge, motionless at his post. It was a
simple matter to these mariners to make for the anchorage of Gibraltar,
and Luke was thinking of Agatha. He was recalling a thousand little
incidents which came back with a sudden warm thrill into his heart, the
chilled, stern heart of a disappointed man. He was recollecting words
that she had said, silences which she had kept, glances which she had
given him. And all told him the same thing. All went to the core of
his passionate, self-consuming heart.
The bay now lay before him, dotted here and there by close-reefed
sails. A few steamers lay at anchor, and, beyond the old Mole, black
coal hulks peacefully stripped of rigging. Suddenly Luke lifted the
lid of the small box affixed to the rail in front of him and sought his
glasses. For some seconds he looked through the binoculars fixedly in
the direction of the Mole. Then he moved towards the captain.
"That is the Kittiwake," he said.
"Thought it looked like her!" replied the captain, intent on his own
affairs.
Luke went back to his post. The Kittiwake! And he was not glad. It
was that that puzzled him. He was not glad. He was going to see Fitz
after many years, and twins are different from other brothers. They
usually see more of each other all through life. They are necessary to
each other. Fitz and Luke had always corresponded as regularly as
their roaming lives allowed. But for three years they had never met.
Luke stood with beating heart, his eyes fixed on the trim
rakish-looking little gunboat lying at anchor immediately off the Mole.
He was suddenly breathless. His light oil-skins oppressed him. There
was a vague feeling within him that he had only begun to live within
the last two weeks--all before that had been merely existence. And now
he was living too quickly, without time to define his feelings. But the
sensations were real enough. It does not take long to acquire a
feeling.
After all he was not glad. His attention was required for a few
moments to carry out an order, and he returned to his thought. He did
not, however, think it out. He only knew that if Agatha had not been
on board the Croonah he would have been breathlessly impatient to see
his brother. Therefore he did not want Agatha and Fitz to meet. And
yet Fitz was quite different from other men. There was no harm in
Fitz, and surely he could be trusted to see Agatha for a few hours
without falling in love with her, without making Agatha love him.
Yet--Fitz had always succeeded where he, Luke, had failed. Fitz had
always the good things of life. It was all luck. It had been luck
from the very beginning. Another order required the second officer's
full mind and attention. There were a thousand matters to be attended
to, for the Croonah was enormous, unwieldy.
In the execution of his duties Luke began presently to forget himself.
He did not attempt to define his thoughts. He did not even reflect
that he knew so little of his brother that this meeting could not
possibly cause him this sudden uneasiness, this foreboding care, from
THAT side of the question. He did not fear for Fitz to meet Agatha, he
really dreaded Agatha seeing Fitz.
The Croonah moved into her anchorage with that gentle strength which in
a large steamer seems to indicate that she is thinking about it and
doing it all herself. For in these days there is no shouting, no call
of boatswain's whistle; and the ordinary observer hardly notices the
quiet deus ex machina, the man on the bridge.
Hardly had the anchor splashed home with a rattle of cable that
vibrated through the ship, when a small white boat shot out from behind
the smart Kittiwake, impelled by the short and regular beat of ten
oars. There was a man seated in the stern enveloped in a large black
boat cloak--for Gibraltar harbour is choppy when the westerly breezes
blow--a man who looked the Croonah up and down with a curious searching
eye. The boat shot alongside the vast steamer--the bowman neatly
catching a rope that was thrown to him--and the officer clambered up
the swaying gangway.
He pushed his way gently through the passengers, the cloak flying
partially open as he did so and displaying Her Majesty's uniform. He
treated all these people with that patient tolerance which belongs to
the mariner when dealing with landsmen. They were so many sheep penned
up in a conveyance. Well-dressed sheep, he admitted tacitly by the
withdrawal of his dripping cloak from their contact, but he treated
them in the bulk, failing to notice one more than another. He utterly
failed to observe Agatha Ingham-Baker, dainty and fresh in blue serge
and a pert sailor hat. She knew him at once, and his want of
observation was set down in her mind against him. She did not want him
to recognise her. Not at all. She merely wanted him to look at her,
and then to look again--to throw a passing crumb of admiration to her
greedy vanity, which lived on such daily food.
Fitz, intent on his errand, pushed his way towards the steps leading up
through the awning to the bridge. He seemed to know by some sailor
instinct where to find it. He paused at the foot of the iron steps to
give an order to the man who followed at his heel, and the attitude was
Luke's. The onlookers saw at a glance who this must be. The
resemblance was startling. There was merely Luke FitzHenry over again,
somewhat fairer, a little taller, but the same man.
The captain gave a sudden bluff laugh when Fitz emerged on the little
spidery bridge far above the deck.
"No doubt who you are, sir," he said, holding out his hand.
Then he stepped aside, and the two brothers met. They said nothing,
merely shaking hands, and Luke's eyes involuntarily went to the smart,
simple uniform half hidden by the cloak. Fitz saw the glance and drew
his cloak hastily round him. It was unfortunate.
And this was their meeting after three years.
"By George!" exclaimed Fitz, after a momentary pause, "she IS a fine
ship!"
Luke rested his hands on the white painted rail--almost a caress to the
great steamer--and followed the direction of his brother's glance,
"Yes," he admitted slowly, "yes, she is a good boat."
And then his deep eyes wandered involuntarily towards the tiny
Kittiwake--smart, man-of-war-like at her anchorage--and a sudden sharp
sigh broke from his lips. He had not got over it yet. He never would.
"So you have got away," he went on, "from Mahon at last?"
"Yes," answered Fitz.
"I should think you have had enough of Minorca to last you the rest of
your life," said Luke, looking abruptly down at the quarrelling boatmen
and the tangle of tossing craft beneath them.
"It is not such a bad place as all that," replied Fitz. "I--I rather
like it."
There was a little pause, and quite suddenly Luke said--
"The Ingham-Bakers are on board."
It would almost seem that these twin minds followed each other into the
same train of thought. Fitz frowned with an air of reflectiveness.
"The Ingham-Bakers," he said. "Who are they?"
Luke gave a little laugh which almost expressed a sudden relief.
"Don't you remember?" he said. "She is a friend of Mrs. Harrington's,
and--and there is Agatha, her daughter."
"I remember--stout. Not the daughter, the old woman, I mean. Oh--yes.
Where are they going?"
"To Malta."
It was perfectly obvious, even to Luke, that the Ingham-Bakers'
immediate or projective destination was a matter of the utmost
indifference to Fitz, who was more interested in the Croonah than in
her passengers.
They were both conscious of an indefinite feeling of disappointment.
This meeting after years of absence was not as it should be. Something
seemed to stand between them--a shadow, a myth, a tiny distinction.
Luke, with characteristic pessimism, saw it first--felt its chill,
intangible presence before his less subtle-minded brother. Then Fitz
saw it, and, as was his habit, he went at it unhesitatingly
"Gad!" he explained, "I am glad to see you, old chap. Long time, isn't
it, since we saw each other? You must come back with me, and have
lunch or something. The men will be awfully glad to make your
acquaintance. You can look over the ship, though she is not much to
look at, you know! Not up to this. She is a fine ship, Luke! What
can she steam?"
"She can do her twenty," answered the second officer of the Croonah,
indifferently.
"Yes, she looks it. Well, can you get away now?"
Luke shook his head.
"No," he answered almost ungraciously, "I can't leave the ship."
"What! Not to come and look over the Kittiwake?" Fitz's face fell
visibly. He did not seem to be able to realise that any one should be
equal to relinquishing without a murmur the opportunity of looking over
the Kittiwake.
"No, I am afraid not. We have our discipline too, you know. Besides,
we are rather like railway guards. We must keep up to time. We shall
be under way by two o'clock."
Fitz pressed the point no further. He had been brought up to
discipline since childhood--moreover, he was rather clever in a simple
way, and he had found out that it would be no pleasure but a pain to
Luke to board a ship flying the white ensign.
"Can I stay on board to lunch with you?" he asked easily. "Goodness
only knows when we shall run against each other again. It was the
merest chance. We only got in last night. I was just going ashore to
report when we saw the old Croonah come pounding in. That"--he paused
and drew his cloak closer--"is why I am in my war-paint! We are going
straight home."
"Stay by all means," said Luke.
Fitz nodded.
"I suppose," he added as an afterthought, "that I ought to pay my
respects to Mrs. Ingham-Baker?"
Luke's face cleared suddenly. Fitz had evidently forgotten about
Agatha.
"I will ask them to lunch with us in my cabin," he said.
And presently they left the bridge.
In due course Fitz was presented to the Ingham-Bakers, and Agatha was
very gracious. Fitz looked at her a good deal. Simply because she
made him. She directed all her conversation and eke her bright eyes in
his direction. He listened, and when necessary he laughed a jolly
resounding laugh. How could she tell that he was drawing comparisons
all the while? It is the simple-minded men who puzzle women most.
Whenever Luke's face clouded she swept away the gathering gloom with
some small familiar attention--some reference to him in her
conversation with Fitz which somehow brought him nearer and set Fitz
further off.
Suddenly, on hearing that Fitz hoped to be in England within a week,
Mrs. Ingham-Baker fell heavily into conversation.
"I am afraid," she said, "that you will find our dear Mrs. Harrington
more difficult to get on with than ever. In fact--he, he!--I almost
feel inclined to advise you not to try. But I suppose you will not be
much in London?"
Fitz looked at her with clear, keen blue eyes.
"I expect to be there some time," he answered. "I hope to stay with
Mrs. Harrington."
Mrs. Ingham-Baker glanced at Agatha, and returned somewhat hastily to
her galantine of veal.
Agatha was drumming on the table with her fingers.