GONE
"Looker here, girl!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira sternly. Putting his hand
upon Ida May's shoulder, he forced her down into her chair again.
His own eyes gleamed angrily, and his countenance expressed his
wrath. "What was you told on coming here? Didn't you promise to keep
a taut line on all that foolishness? I won't stand for it. No,
Prudence!" he exclaimed, as his wife tried to interfere. "I won't
stand for it. She must either keep away from that business, or I'll
put her right out of the house. Leastways, it being night, I'll send
her to her room."
"Do you think you can boss me like that?" cried Ida May hotly, so
angry herself that she forgot her fear of him. "I'm not your slave,
nor your hired help, like that creature." She pointed scornfully at
Sheila. "And you'll just listen to something I've got to say. If you
don't, I'll go out to-morrow and tell everybody in this hick town.
I'll hire a hall to tell 'em in!"
"Won't--won't you be good, deary?" begged Prudence, before her
husband could make any rejoinder to this defiance. "You know you
promised Elder Minnett you would be if we let you come here."
"I don't want to stay here. I've seen enough of this place and you
all! And I would be ashamed to stay any longer than I can help with
folks that take in such a girl as she is."
Again Ida May's little claw indicated Sheila, who stared,
speechless, helpless, at least for the time being. The harassed girl
could fight for herself no longer. She knew that she was on the
verge of betrayal. She could not stem the tide of Ida May's venom.
The latter must make the revelation which had threatened ever since
she had come to Wreckers' Head. There was no way of longer
smothering the truth. It would come out!
"Look here," Cap'n Ira said, his curiosity finally aroused, "the
elder says you ain't crazy! But it looks to me--"
"I'm not crazy, I can tell you," snapped Ida May, taking him up
short. "But I guess you and Aunt Prue must be. Why, you don't even
know the name of this girl you took in instead of me--in my rightful
place. But I can tell you who she is--and what she's done. I
remember her now. I knew I'd seen her before--the hussy!"
"Belay that!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira.
But he said it faintly. He was looking at the other girl now, and
something in her expression and in her attitude made him lose
confidence. His voice died in his throat. Ida May Bostwick had the
upper hand at last--and she kept it.
"Look at her," she exulted, the green lights in her brown eyes
glinting like the sparkling eyes of a serpent. "Look at her. She
knows that I know. She's come down here and fooled you all, but she
can't fool you any longer. And that Tunis Latham! Why, it can't be
possible he knew what she was from the first!"
"See here," said Cap'n Ira shakily. "What do you mean? What are you
getting at--or trying to? If you got anything to say about Ida May,
get it out and be over with it."
"Oh, Ira! Don't! Stop her!" wailed Prudence.
Like the old man, Prudence finally realized that there was something
wrong--something very wrong, indeed--with the girl they had known
for months as Ida May and whom they had learned to love so dearly.
Nobody looking at Sheila could doubt this for a moment. Her tortured
expression of countenance, the wild light in her eyes, her trembling
lips, advertised to the beholders that the last bastion of her
fortress was taken, that the wall was breached and into that breach
now marched the triumphant phrases of the real Ida May's bitter,
gloating speech.
"Look at her!" repeated the latter. "She can't deny it now. She
knows I know her and what she is. Why, Aunt Prue--and you, Captain
Ball--have been fooled nice, I must say. And that Tunis Latham!
Well, he can't be much!"
"Don't--don't say anything against Tunis!"
It was not a voice at all like the usual mellow tones of Sheila
Macklin which uttered those faint words. Hoarse, strained,
uncertain, there was yet a note of command in the phrase which had
its influence on the wildly excited Ida May.
"I'll say what I've got to say about _you_, miss!" she exclaimed
with exultation. "And you--nor they--shan't stop me. You're the girl
that was arrested in the store for stealing. It must have been
two--why, it must have been more than three years ago. I hadn't
worked there but a little while. No wonder I didn't remember you at
first."
Cap'n Ira vented a groan and caught at his wife's hand. She was
sobbing frantically. She still murmured her plea for the captain to
stop the awful revelation Ida May was bent on making. But the latter
gave no heed and the captain himself was speechless.
"And I can't remember her name even now," went on Ida May, flashing
a look at the Balls. Their pitiful appearance made no impression
upon her. "But that don't matter. I guess they've got your record at
Hoskin & Marl's. You worked there all right; sure you worked there,
in the jewelry section. You stole something. I saw the store
detective, Miss Hopwell, take you up to the manager's office. I
never heard what they did to you, but they did a plenty, I bet."
She turned confidently again to the horrified captain and his wife.
"Just see how she looks. She don't deny it. How she managed to work
that Tunis Latham into bringing her down here, I don't know. She
pulled the wool over his eyes all right.
"Why, she's a thief! She was arrested! I guess you can see now that
I'm not crazy--far from it. She won't dare say again that she is Ida
May Bostwick. I--guess--not!"
The malevolent exultation of the girl was fearful to behold. But
neither Cap'n Ira nor Prudence now looked at Ida May. Leaning
against her husband, the tears coursing over her withered cheeks,
Prudence joined Cap'n Ira in gazing at the other girl.
She rose slowly to her feet. Something like strength came back to
her; even into her voice, as Sheila again spoke. Nor did she look at
Ida May, but fixed her feverish gaze upon the two old people.
"What--what she says is true--as far as I am concerned. But--but
Tunis did not know. It is not his fault. I was desperate. I heard
what he said to--to Miss Bostwick. I chanced to overhear it. I was
desperate; I hated the city. I was willing to take a chance for the
sake of getting among people who would be kind to me--who were
good."
"Bah!" exclaimed Ida May raucously. "You're not fit to go among good
people!"
Sheila did not heed her. She spoke slowly--haltingly, but what she
said held the old people silent.
"Tunis is not to blame. I told him this--this girl"--she pointed to
Ida May, but did not look at her--"was not the right Miss Bostwick.
I said that I was the girl he wanted to see. I made him think so. I
tricked him. Don't listen to her!" she added wildly, as the enraged
Ida May would have interposed. "Tunis thought she had talked to him
just for a joke. I made him believe that. I--I would have done
anything then to get away from the city and to come down here.
Perhaps he was at fault because he did not take more time to find
out about me--to be sure I was the right girl. But he cannot be
blamed for anything else. I tell you, it was all my fault."
"I don't believe it!" snapped Ida May.
But Cap'n Ira put her aside with his hand, and there was returned
firmness in his voice.
"Is this the truth? Are you what she says you are?" he asked.
"Oh, don't, Ira!" gasped his sobbing wife. "She--"
"We've got to learn the straight of it," said the old man sternly.
"If we've been bamboozled, we've got to know it. Now's the time for
her to speak."
Sheila was still gazing at him. She nodded, indicating that his
question was already answered.
"You--you mean to say you stole--like she says?"
"I was arrested in Hoskin & Marl's. They accused me of stealing.
Yes."
She said no more. She turned, when he did not speak again, and
walked slowly to the stairway door. She opened it and went up,
closing the door behind her.
It was Ida May who moved first when she was gone. She jumped up once
more and started for the stairway.
"I'll tell her what's what!" she ejaculated. "The gall of her to
come here and say she was me and get my rightful place! I'll put her
out with my own hands!"
Somehow--it would be hard to say just how--Cap'n Ira was before her,
ere she could arrive at the stairway door.
"Avast!" he said throatily. "Don't take too much upon yourself,
young woman. You don't quite own these premises--yet."
"You ain't going to stand for her stayin' here any longer, are you?"
demanded the amazed Ida May.
"Whether or not she stays here is more my business and Prudence's
business than it is yours," said the old man. "But there's one thing
sure, and you may as well l'arn it first as last: you're not to
speak to her nor do anything else to annoy her. Understand?"
"You--you--"
"Heed what I tell ye!" said Cap'n Ira, grim-lipped and with flashing
eyes. "You interfere with that girl in any way and it won't be her
I'll put out o' the house. I'll put you out--night though it is--and
you'll march yourself down to the port and to the Widder Pauling's
alone. Understand me?"
There was silence again in the kitchen, save for Prudence's pitiful
sobbing.
* * * * *
In Tunis Latham's mind as he came up from the port four days later
was visioned no part of the tragedy which had occurred at the Ball
homestead during his absence on this last voyage to Boston. He had
suffered trouble enough during the trip even to dull the smart of
Sheila's renunciation of him before he had left the Head. Indeed, he
could scarcely realize even now that she had meant what she
said--that she could mean it!
So brief had been their dream of love--only since that recent Sunday
when they walked the beaches about the foot of Wreckers' Head--that
it seemed to the captain of the _Seamew_ it could not be so soon
over. If Sheila really and truly loved him, how could anything part
them?
When he considered her wild manner and her trenchant words when last
he had seen her, however, his heart sank. He had gained during the
few months of their acquaintance a pretty accurate idea of how firm
she could be--how unwavering in face of any difficulty. He realized
that her obstinacy, when her mind was once settled on a course of
action, was not easily overcome. She had declared that they could
not be lovers any longer; that the situation which had arisen
through the appearance of the real Ida May upon Wreckers' Head had
made her decision necessary; and she had refused to consider any
other outcome of this dreadful affair.
In his business there was much which would have disturbed Tunis in
any event. The negro cook had deserted the _Seamew_ the moment after
she touched the Boston wharf. Although the other hands had remained
by the schooner until she had just now dropped anchor in the cove
below, he was not at all sure that they would sail with him for
another voyage.
Why these new men should be more troubled by the silly tattle of the
hoodoo than even the Portygees had been was a problem Tunis could
not solve. And seamen were so scarce just then in Boston that he had
been obliged to risk another voyage without engaging strangers to
man the _Seamew_. Besides, being a true Cape Codder, he disliked
hiring other than Cape men to work the schooner.
For one thing he could be grateful. Orion Latham had taken his chest
ashore this very day. And Zebedee Pauling had offered himself in
Orion's place on the wharf as Tunis had just now come ashore.
He had been glad to take on Zeb in place of his cousin. And from
young Pauling he had learned at least one piece of news connected
with affairs on Wreckers' Head. Zeb told him that the girl he had
brought to the Pauling house had talked with Elder Minnett and that
the elder had later taken her up to the Ball house, where she had
remained.
There was not much gossip about the matter it seemed. Nobody seemed
to know who the young woman was; nor did Zeb know what was going on
at the Ball homestead. It was with this slight information only that
Tunis now approached the old place. He saw Cap'n Ira hobbling into
the barn, but he saw nobody else about.
The day was gray, and a chill wind crept over the brown earth,
rustling the dead stalks of the weeds and curling little spirals of
dust in the road which rose no more than a foot or two, then fell
again, despairingly. In any event the young shipmaster must have
felt the oppression of the day and the lingering season. His spirits
fell lower, and he came to the Ball place with such a feeling of
depression that he hesitated about turning in at the gate at all.
As Cap'n Ira did not at once come out of the barn, the younger man
made his way there instead of going first to the kitchen door. He
shrank from meeting the real Ida May again. At any rate, he wanted
first to get the lay of the land from the old man.
He looked into the dim interior of the place and for a moment did
not see Cap'n Ira at all. The ghostly face of the Queen of Sheba
appeared at the opening over her manger. Tunis was about to call
when he saw the old man straining upon the lower rungs of the ladder
to reach the loft to pitch down a bunch of fodder. Queenie whinnied
softly.
"Hello, Cap'n Ira!" Tunis hailed. "What are you doing that for?" He
hastened to cross the barn floor to his aid. "Where's Ida May that
she lets you do this?"
"Ida May?" The old man repeated the name with such disgust that
Tunis was all but stunned and stopped to eye Cap'n Ira amazedly.
"D'ye think she'd take a step to save me a dozen? Or lift them
lily-white hands of hers to keep Prudence from doing all the work
she has to do? I swan!"
"What do you mean?" demanded Tunis. "You sound mighty funny, Cap'n
Ira. Hasn't Ida May been doing all and sundry for you for months? Is
she sick?"
"I--I don't mean _that_ gal," quavered Cap'n Ira. "I mean the real
Ida May."
He half tumbled off the ladder into Tunis Latham's arms. He clung to
the young man tightly, and, although it was dark in the barn, Tunis
could have sworn that there were tears on the old man's cheeks.
"Don't you know we've got the right Ida May with us at
last--Prudence's niece that has come here to visit for a while and
play lady? Yes, you was fooled; we was bamboozled. That--that other
gal, Tunis, is a real bad one, I ain't no doubt. She pulled the wool
over your eyes and made a monkey of most everybody, it seems. She--"
"Who are you talking about?" cried Tunis, in his alarm almost
shaking the old man.
"I'm telling you the girl you brought down here, thinking she was
Ida May Bostwick, turned out to be somebody else. I don't know who.
Anyway, she ain't no relation of Prudence or me. I ain't blaming you
none, boy; she told us we musn't blame you, for you didn't know the
truth about her, either."
"Cap'n Ira, where is she?" demanded the younger man hoarsely.
"She ain't here. She's gone. She left four nights ago--after Ida May
had remembered what she'd done in that big store in Boston. Oh, she
admitted it--"
"You mean to tell me she's gone? That you don't know where she is?"
almost shouted Tunis.
"Easy, boy! Remember I got some feeling yet in them arms you was
squeezing. It ain't our fault she went. She left us in the
night--stole out with just a bundle of clothes and things. Left,
Prudence says, every enduring thing she'd got since she come
here--that we give her."
Tunis groaned.
"Yes, she's gone. And she's left that other dratted girl in her
place. I swan, Tunis, I'd just as leave have the figgerhead of the
old _Susan Gatskill_ sittin' by our kitchen stove as to have that
useless critter about. She ain't no good to Prudence and me--not at
all!"