IT IS A STRANGE IDEA.
The immediate result of the strange proceedings of the night was that
Miss May asked me, before we had finished breakfast, whether I cared
much about remaining in St. Pierre. She approached the subject with some
timidity, saying she did not like to have me make any change in my
programme on her account, but added that she would be very glad if I
could, without too much sacrifice, go back to the Pretoria and make the
break in my journey at some other point.
"Why, my dear girl," I answered, immediately, "if you don't wish to stay
here I shall never dream of asking you to do so. Pack up whatever things
you have taken from your trunks and we will return to the steamer."
She was gratified and showed it so in every line of her expressive face
that I was more than repaid for my decision.
"You are quite willing?" she said, interrogatively.
"Entirely. Where would you suggest that we stop, Barbados? That is the
next port where there is a fairly good hotel."
After a little discussion we settled upon Barbados and began the labor
of packing. I sent a boy off to the steamer with a request to the purser
to give me a berth in some other stateroom than the one I previously
had, and to reserve Miss May's room for her. I did not mean to get in
with Wesson again if I could help it. That afternoon we spent at the
market, which is the most interesting I have ever seen, until the time
came to go on board.
"As we may have to tell a falsehood to some inquisitive person," I said,
when we were in the rowboat, "let us tell the same one. Fear of yellow
fever quarantine is what led us to change our mind about remaining in
Martinique; you understand?"
"Yes," said Marjorie, dreamily. "We were to lie to outsiders, if
necessary, and always tell the truth to each other."
"Are you doing that as faithfully as you promised?" I asked.
"What do you mean?" she asked, with a violent start.
"Nothing that should induce you to tip the boat over, as you just came
near doing," I replied. "I merely asked a question."
"You must believe I am deceiving you in some way, or you would not use
that expression," she said, eyeing me narrowly.
"I have a great deal more confidence in you than you have in me," was my
answer.
"You can say this--knowing where I passed last night!" she said,
reproachfully.
"Oh, I don't mean that sort of confidence," I remarked. "I mean the
confidence that would make you promise to spend every night as long as
you live under the same guardianship."
A little sigh came from the lips of my companion, which had whitened
suddenly; the kind of sigh that might mean almost anything. The boatmen
were too busy to listen to us, even had they understood a word of
English, which they did not.
"Marjorie," I whispered, for I could not resist the desire to hear her
say it, "don't you care for me, just a little bit?"
"Please!" was the only word she vouchsafed, and I heeded the request.
We came to the steamer's side, meeting many astonished gazes. I gave the
requisite directions to the porters who came down the ladder for the
baggage. The purser had assigned me another room, as requested, which
was something. Wesson lifted his hat and said "Good-afternoon," when we
met, but that was all. If he guessed that I had managed to avoid rooming
with him by a set plan he made no remark.
The purser of the Pretoria is young, handsome and obliging. His father,
a custom-house officer from Canada, was making a tour on the boat and
struck me as a fine type. I learned that another of his sons was a
member of the Dominion Parliament.
Capt. McKenzie came up to say he was glad I was going to be on his ship
a little longer, which was agreeable, to say the least. I had noticed
the Captain before, though I did not get well acquainted with him. He
was the sort of man one likes to meet, straightforward, intelligent,
understanding his business thoroughly. He knows how to treat the ladies
among his passengers equally well, too, instead of devoting all his time
to a favored group, like so many sea captains. This in itself is enough
to make him a marked man in my memory.
The only place we had to call before reaching the island of Barbados was
at St. Lucia, where there was little to interest us on shore, but where
I was glad to see a troop-ship just arrived from Africa, with a cargo of
wives (more or less) of black troops that were serving near Sierra
Leone, each one accompanied by a parrot and monkey, beside several small
children. The British government had taken them from the West Indies to
Africa with their lords (I mean the women) and was now returning them a
little in advance of their dusky partners. I asked half a dozen at
random if they had ever been legally married and the reply in every case
was "No, suh," delivered with a certain pride. The West Indian negro has
not yet added matrimony to his list of virtues.
Early on the morning of the day our vessel anchored off Greytown, which
is the capital of Barbados, I found on deck Mr. "Eddie" Armstrong,
manager of the Marine Hotel, ready to answer questions in relation to
that hostelry. "Eddie" told me that he had just the sort of rooms I
required for myself and "Miss Carney," and put me under obligations by
refraining from cheap insinuations, which nine men out of ten in his
position would have made. Later he saw us through the custom-house with
expedition and sent us in a carriage to the Marine, which is two miles
from the centre, in a breezy and roomy location, just enough removed
from the noise of the sea waves.
Miss Byno, at the hotel counter, greeted me with a precise copy of the
smile she had worn three years before, while Mr. Pomeroy, the
proprietor, said he was glad to see me, exactly as if he meant it. Our
apartment consisted of a sitting room and two connecting chambers on the
second floor, which were clean, airy and cosy. It was the nearest to
"house-keeping," as I remarked to Miss May, of any place we had found.
"We must resume our genealogy to-morrow," she said, as she opened the
table and set up the typewriting machine. "We have neglected it
dreadfully."
"No," I answered, for I had been developing a new plan. "I am going to
lay that ponderous history on the shelf for the present and ask you to
aid me in another and more interesting task. The family tree is in such
shape that it can afford to rest awhile and I am sick to death of it."
Then, as the anxious look came into her face--the look that came so
easily when I said anything that lacked explicitness--I continued:
"Don't laugh at me, but I am going to begin, to-morrow, a--novel!"
"A--novel!" she repeated, wonderingly. "Do you write novels?"
"I am going to write one, with your help," I said, decidedly. "It won't
be exactly a novel, either, because it will be based on fact, pretty
nearly all fact--in fact. What would you say to a novel based on the
very trip we are making?"
She was lost in thought for some minutes.
"Are you serious?" she asked, finally.
"Entirely."
"But, do you think it would be interesting--to--any one else?"
"I am sure of it. Of course I shall suppress our real names, but the
rest I mean to put in print precisely as it has occurred. If I am not
mistaken it will make the hit of the summer season."
She was silent again.
"Doesn't an author have to know--before he begins his story--how it will
end?" she asked, after awhile.
"I suppose he does. I certainly know how this one will."
"How?"
"The hero will marry the heroine, make her the happiest woman on earth,
and they will live contentedly ever after."
"Hardly exciting enough, I fear, to suit the popular taste," she
commented. "A story, like a play, should have a 'villain.'"
I laughed and said I would use Wesson for that character. I could, if
necessary, invent some disreputable things and attach them to his
pseudonym.
"And how shall you describe me?" she asked, demurely.
"You will have to wait and see. I shall make one important stipulation.
Your part of this writing will be merely mechanical unless I call for
aid. It is to be my story, not yours."
"It is a strange idea," she said, watching my face. "Really, I think you
had best keep on with your family tree. I am getting quite interested in
the Alexanders and Colins who preceded the Dugalds and the Donalds."
"No, I am determined," was my reply. "We will leave those aged gentlemen
in their graves and begin the true history of the Marjories and the
Dons. There will be time enough for both before you and I end our
partnership."
She responded dutifully at last that she was at my disposal, as far as
the use of her time was concerned. It was agreed that on the very next
morning the novel would be begun.
"And you must not interrupt me, either with approval or disapproval?" I
said. "For whatever is written I alone will be responsible."
"That will be hard, when, as I suppose, you will discuss me more or
less," she said, with a bewitching pout. "How do I know you will not
make me out the most disreputable female that ever lived? But I promise.
In fact, I don't see as there is anything else I can do. I am working
for wages and I might as well offer to alter a business letter as a
story in which I am merely an amanuensis."
"I shall carry our original contract into the novel," I said. "There
will be no falsehood. If I have suspected any person, or repented of my
suspicions--if I have resolved not to fall in love, and afterwards done
so--it will be all there. I shall record what has transpired with the
accuracy of a Kodak, even if, like the sensitive plate, it has to be
taken into a dark room for development."
"Such a story ought to interest two persons at least," she said. "I hope
you intend to send me a copy or let me know where I can buy one."
"Every bookseller in the country will have it," I replied, "and the sale
will be phenomenal. You didn't think I brought you out here just to
throw away money, did you? I expect to make a fortune out of the
portrait I am going to draw."
She laughed lightly and we closed the subject for the time, quite agreed
upon it. Before we went out she surprised me by asking if it would be
convenient to let her have a little money, for I supposed she had the
sixty dollars previously paid her, still in her purse. She had never
expended a penny that I knew of, except the dollar she gave Thorwald.
However, I said she could have any sum she liked; and she asked with
some hesitation, if I could spare as much as a hundred dollars. She
wanted to send it home and would consider it a great accommodation if I
could pay her as far in advance as that would be. She said she would try
not to ask me again for anything until we returned to New York.
We took a carriage and went to the Barbados Branch of the Colonial Bank,
where I could draw money on my letter of credit--if I was willing to
wait long enough. I have visited various branches of that Bank in the
Tropics and I will challenge any institution on earth to vie with it in
slowness of waiting upon customers. I stood at least five minutes at the
counter before any of the numerous clerks who sat on high stools
condescended to notice me. Then one did see that I was there, and
whispered to his nearest neighbor in a way that showed he thought it a
rather good joke. Two or three men who seemed of an upper grade of
clerks passed near enough for me to speak to them, but none deigned the
least reply. After this had gone on until it grew rather monotonous I
addressed the entire institution, from president to office boy, with a
request to tell me if I was in a deaf and dumb asylum.
The youngest clerk thereupon made his way slowly--nobody in the
Colonial Bank could move otherwise--to where I stood and mildly inquired
if I wished for anything. I told him that, strange as it might appear, I
did. I said I wanted $350, and I wanted it d--(that is to say, very)
quick. I said I was only going to stay in the island three or four weeks
more and I wanted the money to pay my hotel bill when I left. He did not
seem to grasp the idea exactly, but he did go to the farthest man in the
room and direct his attention to me by pointing, after which he resumed
his seat at his desk.
The Farthest Man, in a way that showed he had a deep grudge against me
for disturbing him, came more slowly than the first one across the room
and asked me if I wanted anything. I threw my letter of credit on the
counter and said what I had already said to the other, adding for
emphasis the name of the deity to my previous observation. The clerk
took the letter and went away with it. For some time he was engaged in
exhibiting the thing to various clerks, all of whom regarded it with
wonder, as if it was a piece of papyrus from some Egyptian tomb. At last
he found a chap who took the letter of credit from him and divided the
next five minutes between reading it with care and looking at me over
his spectacles; having done which the latter clerk came to the counter
where I stood and asked what denominations of money I would like.
I told him, with some warmth (the thermometer stood at 85 in the room)
that I would like part of it in Hardshell Baptist and the rest in
African Methodist Episcopal, or any other old thing, but that I did want
it in a hurry. He might give me a draft that could be used in New York
for $100 of it, and the rest in sovereigns, in case he should decide, on
reflection, to give me anything at all. These remarks he met with a
vacant stare, but took from his desk, when he had again reached it, two
pieces of paper, which he filled with duplicate statements, after the
manner of his kind. Reading these over several times, to make sure he
had committed no error, he took them to another man (apparently a sort
of manager or director) who pretended, as long as he could, not to see
his subordinate or to guess that he wished to attract his attention.
Afraid, I suppose, to speak, the clerk finally coughed mildly behind his
hand, at which the manager glared at him fiercely, and reaching out for
the papers, studied them for a long time. When satisfied (though you
wouldn't have thought it to look at him) he wrote something on each and
the clerk returned to me.
If I should detail the manner in which that fellow tried to evade giving
me my money, now that he had a chance to do so, I fear I would not be
believed. It ended, however, in my being sent to a cashier and getting
what I wanted. Tired and hungry I returned to my carriage and was driven
back to the Marine Hotel with Marjorie.
"Here is your cash, or rather what can be used to get it," I said,
drawing a long breath and handing her the draft. "When you have written
your name on the back it will be good anywhere."
"I don't know how to show my gratitude," she answered, her face
flushing.
"Excuse me. You know very well, but you refuse," I replied. "Now, here
is something for you to think of. All the wicked things you do, the
cruelties you practice, are to be spread before the novel reading public
of America! That ought to soften your hard heart. You know 'All the
world loves a lover,' but there is no proverb to fit a thoroughly
heartless girl."
"I would like you much better if you would not say such things," she
pouted.
"You speak as if you did like me a little, even now," I responded.
"Like you!" she exclaimed. "That's just it. I like you ever and ever so
much. How can I help it, when you are so kind to me? I like you and I
want to continue to like you, Mr. Camran. I wish I could think you would
never learn to dislike me."
As I began an impassioned declaration that the day would never dawn, she
started violently and bit her lips till the teeth marks showed plainly.
In another instant I saw what had caused her mental disturbance; two men
were looking at us from a street car that was trying with some success
to reach the hill by the hotel before we did. Those men were Robert
Edgerly and Horace Wesson.
"Don't let him get you into trouble," she whispered, between her closed
lips. "I heard him threaten you at St. Croix. Oh, how did he get here!"
She referred, of course, to Edgerly.