THE PLOT
There was a long minute of utter silence following Tunis Latham's
last words. Then the girl's whisper, tense, yet shaking like a
frightened child's:
"You do not know what you are saying."
"I know exactly what I am saying," he replied.
"They--they would not have me."
"They will welcome you--gladly."
"Never! I am a stranger. They must be told all about me. They could
never welcome Sheila Macklin."
He knew that. He knew it only too well. She was just the sort of
girl to make Cap'n Ira Ball and Prudence happy, to bring to their
latter years the comfort and joy the old couple should have. But the
Puritanism which, after all, ingrained their characters would never
allow the Balls to welcome a girl with the stain Sheila Macklin bore
upon her name. Tunis remembered clearly how scornfully Cap'n Ira
had spoken of the possibility of their taking in a girl from the
poor farm. Pride of family and of name is inbred in their class of
New Englanders.
The old people wanted a girl whom they could love and look upon as
their own. They would welcome nobody else. They had set their minds
and hearts upon Ida May Bostwick. The fact that Ida May failed to
come up to their expectations, that she was perfectly worthless and
inconsequential, did not open the way for another girl to be
substituted for Ida May. Possibly Tunis might be successful in an
attempt to interest the Balls in Sheila Macklin's case. But the girl
did not want charity, not charity as the word is used in its general
and harsher sense.
Should she carry with her wherever she went this name which had been
so smirched--the identity of Sheila Macklin, the ghost of whose past
misfortune might rise to shame her at any time--the girl could never
be happy. Did Tunis Latham succeed in getting the Balls to take
Sheila in and give her a home, this story that so bowed her down
would continually threaten its revelation, like a pirate ship
hovering in the offing!
And there was, too, a deeper reason why he could not introduce
Sheila Macklin to Big Wreck Cove folk. It was no reason he could
give the girl at this time. In some ways the captain of the _Seamew_
was wise enough. He felt that this was no time to put forward his
personal and particular desires. Enough that she had admitted him
to her friendship and had given him her confidence.
She had accepted him in all good faith in a brotherly sense. He
dared not spoil his influence with her by revealing a deeper
interest.
"We may as well look at this thing calmly and sensibly," Tunis said,
answering her statement of what was indubitably a fact. "It is quite
true my old neighbors would not accept you as Sheila Macklin. But
they need you; no other kind of a girl would so suit their need. And
you could not help loving them; nor they you, once they learned to
know you."
"I am sure I should love them," breathed Sheila.
"Then, as you are just the person they want and their home is just
the place you need for shelter, I am going to take you back with
me."
"Oh, Captain Latham! We--we can't do it. My name--somebody will some
time be sure to hear about me, and the dreadful secret will come
out."
"No, it won't," said Tunis doggedly. "There will be no secret, not
such as you mean, to come out."
She gazed upon him in open-eyed surprise, her lips parted, her face
aglow.
"You mean--"
"We'll leave Sheila Macklin sitting on this bench, if you will
agree. She need never be traced from this point. Let her drop out of
the ken of the whole world that knew her. The name can only bring
you harm; it has brought you harm. Through it you are threatened
with trouble, with disaster. Your whole future is menaced through
that name and the stain upon it."
She looked at him still, scarcely breathing. Latham did not realize
the power he held over this girl at the moment. He was to her a
living embodiment of the All Good. Almost any suggestion, no matter
how reckless, he might have made, would have found an echo in her
heart and the will to do it.
To few is vouchsafed that knowledge which makes all clear before the
mental vision. Tunis Latham's perspicacity did not compass this
thing. He did not grasp the psychological moment, as we moderns call
it, and consummate there and then the only reasonable and righteous
plan that it was given him to complete.
The captain of the _Seamew_ was a young man very much in love. He
did not question this fact at all. But in his wildest imaginings he
could never have believed that the girl beside him on this bench
returned his passion, that she would even listen to his
protestations of affection. Not for a long time, at least.
Nor had he ever considered marriage as possible in any case when
there was not love on both sides. Although he commiserated Sheila
Macklin's situation most deeply, he could not dream of those depths
of despair into which the girl's heart had sunk before he came upon
the scene of action. He did not understand that she was at that
bitterly desperate point where she would grasp at any means of
rescue which promised respectability.
He almost feared to put before her the proposition he did have in
his mind. In the dusk, even, those violet eyes seemed to look to the
very bottom of his soul. Fortunate for him that its clarity was
visible to the girl at that moment.
He bent closer. His lips almost brushed her ear. He whispered
several swift sentences into it. She listened. Some of that glow of
exaltation drained out of her countenance, but it registered no
disagreement. They sat for some time thereafter, talking, planning,
this desperate young girl and the captain of the _Seamew_.
* * * * *
"What do you know about this?" Orion Latham growled. "The mate
bunkin' in with cooky and the skipper slingin' a hammock in the
fo'c's'le while the whole cabin's to be given up to a girl. A woman
aboard! Never knew no good to come of that on any craft. What is
this schooner, a passenger packet?"
"You was sayin' she was already hoodooed," chuckled Horace Newbegin.
"I cal'late a gal sailing one trip won't materially harm the
_Seamew_ nor her crew."
"Who is she? That's what I want to know," said the supercargo, who
seemed to consider the matter a personal affront.
"Skipper says she's going to live with Cap'n Ira Ball. She's some
kin of his wife's. And they need somebody with 'em, up there in that
lonesome place," said the ancient seaman reflectively. "That's what
the skipper was doin' all day yesterday, lookin' this gal up and
making arrangements for her going back to the _Seamew_. He's gone up
town to get her now. We'll get away come the turn of the tide, if
he's back in time."
The taxicab with Tunis and the girl arrived in season for the tide.
It was quite dark on the dock to which the _Seamew_ was still
moored. The Captain hailed, and two of the hands were sent up for
the trunk. Tunis carried the girl's hand bag.
Every member of the crew was loitering on deck, even Johnny Lark and
Tony, the boy, to get a glimpse of the mysterious passenger. They
saw only a slender, graceful, quick-stepping figure, her face
veiled, her hands neatly gloved. Just how she was dressed and what
she really looked like only daylight would reveal.
Tunis went below with her and remained until the men brought down
the trunk. It was a small trunk and brand-new, as was the bag. Had
one observed, the hat she wore, and even her simple frock, were
likewise just out of the shop. At least the girl who was going with
the _Seamew_ to Big Wreck Cove seemed to have made certain
preparations for a new life.
The captain came out on deck and closed the slide. The commercial
tug was puffing in toward the _Seamew's_ berth.
"Come alive, boys!" said Captain Latham, taking instant command of
the deck. "Cast off those lines! Get that tug hawser inboard, Horry.
Mr. Chapin, will you see that those lines are coiled down properly?
Keep the deck shipshape. Make less work for your watch when we get
under canvas.
"Lay aft here with your men now, Horry. Tail on to those mainsheets.
All together! Get away on her so we can cast loose as soon as
possible from that smoky scuttle butt."
He referred to the tug. He stepped aft to take the wheel himself.
The mainsail was going up smartly. The old boatswain and the
Portygees swung upon the lines with vehemence. There was not more
than a capful of wind; but once let the canvas fill, and the
schooner would get steerageway.
"I'd rather take my chance through the channel under sail than
depend on that tug," the captain added. "Like a puppy dragging
around an old rubber boot. Lively there! Ready to cast off, Mr.
Chapin."
The schooner was freed of the "puffing abomination," the smoke of
which sooted the _Seamew's_ clean sails. The heavy hawser splashed
overboard and the schooner staggered away rather drunkenly at
first, tacking among the larger craft anchored out there in the
harbor.
The wind was not a very helpful one and soon after midnight it fell
almost calm. There were only light airs to urge the _Seamew_ on. Yet
she glided through the starlit murk in a ghostly fashion as though
some monstrous submarine hand forced her seaward.
The water chuckled and gurgled under her bow, flashing in ripples
now and then. There was no phosphorescence, no glitter or sparkle.
The schooner moved on as through a tideless sea. Now and then a
clutter of spars or a suit of listless sails loomed up in the dark.
But even if the other craft likewise was tacking seaward, the
_Seamew_ passed it and dropped it behind.
Tunis paced the deck--Horry was at the wheel--and quite approved of
the feat his schooner was performing.
"If she can sail like this on only a breath of wind, what can she do
in a gale?" he said buoyantly in the old man's hearing.
"That's all right. She sails pretty. But I don't like that tug to
sta'bo'd," growled Horry. "It 'minds me too much of the _Marlin B._"
Captain Latham gave no heed.
The sun stretched red beams from the horizon and took the _Seamew_,
all dressed out at sunrise in her full suit of canvas, in his arms.
She danced as lightly over the whitecaps that had sprung up with the
breeze at dawn as though she had not a ton of ballast in her hold.
Yet she was pretty well down to her Plimsoll mark.
The girl's first glimpse through the cabin window at sea and sky was
a heartening one. If she had sought repose with doubt, uncertainty,
and some fear weighing upon her spirit, this beautiful morning was
one to revive her courage. She was fully dressed and prepared to go
on deck when Tunis tapped at the slide.
"Miss Bostwick," he called, "any time you are ready the boy will
come in and lay the table for breakfast."
She ran to the companionway, pushed back the door, and appeared
smiling in the frame of the doorway.
"Good morning, captain!"
Her cheerfulness was infectious. All night Tunis Latham, even while
lying in his hammock in the forecastle, had been ruminating in
anything but a cheerful mood. Determined as he was to carry his plan
through, and confident as he was of its being a good one and
eminently practical, he had been considering many chances which at
first blush had not appeared to him.
With his first look into her smiling countenance all those anxieties
seemed dissipated. He met her smile with one which transfigured his
own handsome face.
"May I come out on deck, captain?"
"We shall be honored by your company up here, Miss Bostwick."
She even made him a little face in secret for the formality of his
address, as she flashed past him. There was a dancing light in her
eye he had not seen before--at least, not in the openness of day.
There was something daring about her that was a revelation. He knew
at once that he need not fear her attitude when they reached the
point where she must carry on her part without his aid. She
displayed an innocent boldness that must dissipate suspicion in the
mind of the keenest critic.
Tunis introduced Mason Chapin to her, who quite evidently liked the
girl at once. Orion Latham lounged aft to meet her, his pale eyes
betraying surprise as well as admiration.
"Hi golly!" said the supercargo. "I guess you come honest by the
Honey side of your family tree, Miss Bostwick, though you don't
favor them much in looks."
"'Rion is given to flattery," said the captain dryly.
Horace Newbegin touched his forelock. He had been a naval man in his
prime and knew what was expected when a lady trod the deck. The
Portygees were all widely asmile. Indeed, the entire company of the
_Seamew_ was cheered by the girl's presence.
At breakfast time, which was served by Tony to the guest and the
mate as well as Captain Latham, her sweet laughter floated out of
the cabin and caught the attention of everybody on deck. Horry
grinned wryly upon Orion.
"How 'bout this schooner being hoodooed?" he rumbled in his deep
bass. "Lemme tell you, boy, I'd sail to ary end o' the world with
that gal for mascot. This won't be no Jonah ship while she's
aboard."
"Hi golly! Tunis Latham has all the luck," whined Orion. "Taking her
down to live with Cap'n Ball and Prudence! Huh! She won't live with
'em long."
"Why not?" demanded the old salt.
"Can't you see what he's up to?" sneered Orion. "Aunt 'Cretia will
be takin' a back seat 'fore long. 'Latham's Folly' will be getting a
new mistress."
"Latham's Folly" was a name Medway Latham's big brown house behind
Wreckers' Head had gained soon after it was built. Such a huge house
for so limited a family had suggested the term to the sharp-tongued
Cape Codders.
Horry Newbegin turned the idea and his quid over several times, then
commented:
"Well, the skipper wouldn't be doing so bad at that!"