BROTHER AND SISTER
After lunch, Jane, pleading sleepiness, crawled into the port bunk in
the saloon and drew the tan curtains. People are apt to respect a
feigned desire for sleep far more than a genuine desire for thoughtful
solitude and she wanted to think over the events of the morning.
She believed that she owed it to Jack to tell him of her engagement to
Breck and yet she felt a strange hesitancy, for as much as she adored
her brother, she knew that he would neither understand nor approve of
her marrying the quixotic deck hand. The fact that he was a
Breckenridge would not alter the case in the least for her brother.
Jack was one of those steady, easy-going young men with a kind but
peculiarly unsocial outlook. Jane knew that he would have a slight
feeling of contempt for a man who had offered himself in marriage to a
girl whom he could neither support in the fabled “manner she was
accustomed to” nor yet offer a stable income to her.
He would look on the Hurricane Island project as the wildest of wild
ideas. The nomadic life she would probably share with Breck would have
no appeal to the ease-loving young Kentuckian. His dream of perfect
happiness was their lovely old home with Ellen as its mistress and
long evenings spent together by the open fire. Jane realized that her
brother was a typical “country gentleman” of the last century with a
few modern touches in the way of slang. Nor did the differences in
their character make her devotion to him any less, but it did make her
rather dread the interview she had planned to have with him just
before it was time for Frederick Gray to make his appearance. Of her
father’s attitude in the matter, she had no fear. He was of the
opinion that whatever his children did was right. Aunt Min was
radically opposed to any new idea, but when the novelty of a situation
had worn off she softened.
“It may be up-hill work but Breck and I are strong enough to see it
through,” Jane decided. “The worst part will be talking to Jack. I
will never convince him of the fact that I had even more to do with it
than Breck did.”
“Jane has been asleep long enough. I’m going down and make her go
swimming in this icy water with me.”
Frances left the others on deck and went down into the saloon. She
jerked back the curtains to find Jane with her knees drawn up under
her chin, her hands clasped around her ankles.
“What a graceful position to sleep in, Jane. I do hope you had a good
nap.”
“As long as I am caught, I will admit that I withdrew into this shell
to solve the problems of the universe, which being successfully
solved, I want very much to go swimming,” Jane said, undoubling and
emerging from her retreat.
Frances looked at her friend rather quizzically. “But it’s so unlike
our Plain Jane to have problems. Is there anything that I can do? I
mean in the way of solving? I’m rather eager to try that new position
in thinking.”
“It was a very trying experience for me--that thinking--but, having
come to the world-shaking conclusion that the only thing to do in a
case like this is to do what you think is right, especially when what
you think is right is what you want to do, I am not going to worry any
more,” said Jane, catching the bathing suit Frances flung at her.
“What a wise but completely unintelligible Jane it is! But I suppose
I must just abide my time and, finally, the secret will be revealed to
your humble and admiring slave. Ah, well, I can wait if I have to. But
let me say that I have suspected it ever since the night you asked me
if I knew whether Breck had his slicker on or not,” said Frances
solemnly.
“What in the world are you talking about?”
“Don’t you remember that night at Plymouth, when you went up in the
graveyard by yourself, and when you came back I said you looked like
you had had one million adventures? Well, when we returned to the boat
it started raining, don’t you remember? And Mr. Wing and Breck went up
on deck to see something about that interminable old anchor. I was
just about asleep and you woke me up asking me if I knew whether Breck
had a raincoat or not. ‘There is something strange about this,’ sez I
to meself, sez I, and I have been a quiet but interested observer ever
since.”
“You are a darling, Frances, and the world lost a great detective when
we Camp Fire Girls made such a good friend,” and Jane gave her hand an
affectionate little pat.
“Tell me all about it when you feel like it,” and, with Jane’s
promise to do so soon, they went up on deck.
“You lazy ones put on your bathing suits and let’s take the tender and
go over and see Tim’s boat. We can swim from the beach. I feel like
the water won’t be so cold where it’s shallower,” Frances suggested.
The others, having heard Jane’s glowing account of the “Sabrina,”
readily agreed. Soon they were off, leaving Breck, Mr. Wing and Tim to
make Frederick Gray feel at home if he should come before the others
got back, though, as Jane said, Fred had enough poise to carry off
almost any situation.
There was a stretch of sandy beach, flanked by gray boulders, near the
“Sabrina’s” anchorage, and after inspecting Tim’s beautiful little
boat they all went ashore.
Jane whispered to Jack that she wanted to talk to him for a few
minutes and they went over to one of the sunbaked rocks, while the
rest of the crowd stood ankle deep in the cold water, trying to force
themselves into it.
“I’ll never get into it by degrees,” Frances shivered, as she took
three or four tentative steps. “Come on, Mabel, I believe the water
around that farthest rock will be deep enough to make a shallow
drive.”
Jack looked at Jane with surprise. “What is it?” he asked.
“What do you think of Breck?”
“All this mystery to know what I think of Breck?” Jack was amused.
“Why, I suppose he is all right. Never paid much attention to him.
Seems a bit sullen to me. I don’t reckon I’ve said two words to him
since I have been on board.” Jack’s eyes followed Ellen’s little
figure as it ran bravely out into the chilly water, hesitated a
second, made a rather poor surface dive and began swimming shoreward
with very irregular and splashy strokes.
“It is funny Ellen can’t learn to swim,” Jane said as she, too,
watched her friend’s efforts.
“I think she does remarkably well,” Jack said quickly. “But what made
you ask me what I thought of Breck?”
“I simply wanted to know your opinion of your prospective
brother-in-law.”
For a minute Jack looked at her blankly, then laughed as if what his
sister said was a huge joke.
“I am serious, Jack dear, I intend to marry Breck when we get back to
New York and will write Daddy to that effect tonight,” Jane spoke
calmly but with convincing assurance.
“It is preposterous,” Jack said hotly. “It is ridiculous to discuss
it. Of course, Daddy will forbid it. If you insist, he won’t give you
any money and, of course, you could hardly live on a deck hand’s
salary. Besides, what would a deck hand do for a living in the
winter?”
Jane smiled a little at Jack’s ideas about money. “Daddy won’t say a
word in the first place, and you seem to have forgotten that the money
mother left me would allow me to live very comfortably in the second
place, and Breck isn’t a deck hand in the third place. Didn’t you hear
what he said when he set Tim’s leg?”
“No, I was out in the tender, but anybody that has knocked around can
set a leg.”
“What are your objections to him besides his lack of money?” Jane said
a little contemptuously.
“A Pellew would hardly marry--”
“Oh, Jack dear, don’t say it, please,” Jane interrupted him, “it would
sound so stupid and snobbish. It is only fair to tell you that his
full name is Allen Breckenridge, you know the ones that live in
California, and he went to Harvard and studied medicine. Then he had
a fuss with his father and broke with him. He went with a French
ambulance unit in the war. When he came back, he went on a newspaper
and, this summer, he signed up with Mr. Wing because he wanted time to
write and yet he needed money to live on while doing so. The ‘Boojum’
solved the problem. Jack, don’t you see what a peach he is?”
Jack admitted that Breck’s being a Breckenridge altered things
somewhat. But he remained firm in his belief that the affair was an
impossible one.
“But, Jack dear, you mustn’t change your opinion of him just because
he is from one of those terrible things known as a ‘good family’--as
far as that goes, I think it is a terrible family and they have
behaved abominably to him. I want you to like him because he is a
fine, interesting man,” Jane pleaded. She was constantly given
opportunities to regret that her brother was not as open-minded as she
was.
“Jane, please believe that your happiness is my chief concern. What
you have told me of him seems to me condemning. I see him as an
impulsive, unstable person, inclined to drifting.”
“I know that you think I am an incurable romantic and that I see him
in a sort of glamour. I don’t. I have been with him a lot and we have
had long talks. I love him terribly, but I realize he has the usual
quota of faults. What he needs is a steady hand on the reins and,
Jack, you know my hand is fairly reliable. You respect my judgment of
horses, why won’t you respect my judgment of husbands? Of course, what
you have said, what you will say, can’t affect me in the least, but I
do wish you would wish me happiness and say that you will try to like
Breck,” finished Jane.
Jack sat silent for a while, his head in his cupped hands, finally he
said, “Forgive me. I was a rotter to say what I did about Breck’s
being a deck hand. I will like him and try to make him like me. You
are a great little sister and Breck is a mighty lucky man.”
A victory so far, thought Jane, and decided to spare Jack the
Hurricane Island project till Fred came. “You are rather a darling,
Jack,” she said, “and I think Ellen will be a splendid swimmer soon.
Run along down to her now and help her with that scissors kick.”