Felixstowe carefully concluded the enfolding of Jacob's outstretched
form in an enormous rug, placed a tumbler of soda water and some dry
biscuits within easy reach of him, and stepped back to inspect his
handiwork.
"A bit drawn about the gills, old top," he remarked sympathetically.
"How are you feeling now?"
"Better," Jacob murmured weakly. "And kindly remember that I am your
employer, and don't call me 'old top.'"
"Sorry," was the cheerful reply. "One has to drop into this sort of
thing by degrees. I've a kind of naturally affectionate disposition,
you know, when I'm with a pal."
"Get your typewriter and practise," Jacob directed. "I'll try and give
you a letter."
"So to the daily toil," the young man chanted, as he turned away.
"I've got the little beauty in the saloon."
Jacob groaned and closed his eyes, for the motion of the steamer, two
days out of Liverpool for New York, still awoke revolutionary symptoms
in his interior. Presently Felixstowe returned, carrying a small
typewriter. He arranged himself in the adjoining chair, drew up his
knees, took out the typewriter from its case, and, with his pipe in
the corner of his mouth, sat waiting.
"Ready," he announced.
"Oh, damn!" Jacob groaned. "Write a letter to yourself."
"I'll write a line to you," the young man suggested soothingly.
He attacked his task very much as a child trying to spell out "The
Bluebells of Scotland" on a piano with one finger. In a few minutes,
with an air of pride, he drew out the sheet and passed it to his
companion. Jacob stretched out a feeble hand and read listlessly.
Dear Mr. Pratt,
I believe that a couple of dry Martini cocktails would do
us both good.
Faithfully yours,
Felixstowe.
Sec. (Very sec!)
A weak smile parted Jacob's lips and he grunted assent. Felixstowe
exchanged cabalistic signs with the deck steward, and in due course
the latter appeared with a couple of glasses filled with frosted
amber liquid. Jacob hesitated for a moment doubtfully.
"Try mental suggestion," the young man advised, looking lovingly at
his glass. "Put it where the cat can't get it and say to yourself,
'This is going to do me good.' Cheerio!"
Two empty glasses were replaced upon the tray. Jacob raised himself a
little in his chair.
"I believe I feel better already," he announced.
"Won't know yourself in an hour's time," his companion assured him. "I
shall give you a pint of champagne and a sandwich at twelve o'clock,
and you'll be taking me on at shuffleboard after lunch. Hullo, another
wireless!"
"Read it for me," Jacob directed.
The young man tore open the envelope and read out the message:
Brother's condition unchanged. Your presence urgently
needed. Will meet New York. Morse, Secretary.
"Poor old Sam!" Jacob murmured.
"He'll pull through, if he's got your constitution," Felixstowe
observed cheerfully. "I've never seen you under the weather yet."
"That's because I take care of myself," Jacob said a little severely.
"Great Caesar's ghost! Hi!"
The young secretary was sitting bolt upright in his chair. A man and
a woman, passing along the deck, turned in surprise at the challenge.
The surprise speedily became amazement, and the amazement universal.
"Sybil Bultiwell!" Jacob gasped, forgetting all about his seasickness.
"Maurice Penhaven!" Felixstowe exclaimed. "What in the name of thunder
are you two doing here together?"
Sybil, being a woman, was the first to recover herself. She laughed
softly.
"We do seem to come across one another in strange places and under
strange conditions, don't we?" she said to Jacob. "This, perhaps, is
the strangest of all. I am on my honeymoon."
"Married?" Jacob gasped, throwing off his rugs and sitting upright.
"But I was going to--you were--oh, damn!"
She made a little grimace and drew him to one side.
"I can guess what is in your mind, Mr. Pratt," she said, "and I want
to have a perfectly clear understanding with you. Tell me now, did I
ever give you the slightest encouragement? Did I ever give you the
faintest reason to hope that I should ever, under any circumstances,
be willing to marry you?"
"I can't say that you did," Jacob admitted sadly, gripping at the rail
against which they were standing. "I never left off hoping, though."
"Now that I have become unexpectedly a very happy woman," Sybil went
on, with a new softness in her tone, "I will confess that I was
perhaps unreasonable so far as regards your treatment of my father."
"Thank God for that, anyhow!" Jacob muttered.
"There were times," Sybil went on reflectively, "when I very nearly
admired you."
"For example?"
"When you opened the door of the house in Russell Square for me and
calmly took back your notes which I had been to fetch. That was one
time, at any rate. But I never had the slightest feeling of affection
for you, or the slightest intention of marrying you, however long you
waited. Now I am going to tell you something else, if I may."
"Go on, please," Jacob begged, in a melancholy tone.
"I do not think that you have ever been really in love with me. You
are rather a sentimental person, and you were in love with a girl in a
white gown who walked with you in a rose garden one wonderful evening,
and was very kind to you simply to atone for other people's rudeness.
It wasn't you I was being kind to at all. It was simply a sensitive
guest who had been a little hurt."
"I see," he sighed.
"I had no idea," she went on reflectively, "that you were likely to
misunderstand. It was one of my father's weaknesses that he sometimes
forgot himself and did not sufficiently consider people's feelings.
He was rude to you that night, and I was ashamed and did my best to
atone. I had no idea that you were going to take it all so seriously.
But I want you, Mr. Pratt," she went on earnestly, "to remember this.
It was no real person with whom you walked in the garden that night.
It was no real person the recollection of whom you have chosen to keep
in your heart all this time, and with whom you have fancied yourself
in love. It was just a creature of your own fancy. You are such a
kind-hearted person really, and you ought to be happy. Can't you
untwine all those sentimental fancies of yours and find some really
nice, human girl with whom to bedeck them? There are so many women in
the world, Jacob Pratt, who would like to have you for a husband,
apart from your money."
"If it weren't for the money--" Jacob began sadly.
She interrupted him with a little peal of laughter.
"Faithless!" she exclaimed. "I can see that you have some one in your
mind already. Don't think too much about your wealth. I am a very
ordinary sort of girl, you know, and it didn't make any difference to
me. Maurice hasn't as many hundreds a year as you have thousands, but
I am quite content. Your money may make marriage more possible with a
girl who has been extravagantly brought up, but that needn't prevent
her really caring for you. So please cheer up, Mr. Jacob Pratt, and
let us all be friends."
They turned back towards the others. The explanation between Lord
Felixstowe and his sister's quondam fiance had been delayed by the
intervention of the Captain, who had paused on his daily promenade to
say a few words. Felixstowe was just then, however, undertaking his
obvious duty.
"Seems to me, young fellow," he said, addressing Penhaven, "that a few
words of explanation are due between us two."
"You needn't come the heavy brother," the latter replied. "Your sister
and I broke our engagement mutually, some time ago. I can assure you,
and she will tell you the same, that her feelings towards me have
changed far more completely even than mine towards her."
"Well, I'm jiggered!" Lord Felixstowe exclaimed.
"Where did you and Captain Penhaven meet?" Jacob asked miserably.
"I used to go in, as you know, and play Lady Mary's accompaniments,"
Sybil explained. "Captain Penhaven was often there and used to take me
home sometimes. From my own observation," she went on, "I can confirm
what Maurice has just said about the relations between Lady Mary and
himself. For some reason or other she became absolutely indifferent to
him about that time."
"So, according to you two, nobody's got a grievance," Felixstowe
observed. "If my new employer's satisfied--well, I suppose that's an
end of it."
"Your what?" Sybil demanded.
The young man waved his hand genially towards Jacob.
"He's taken me on as secretary," he announced. "First job, trip out to
America to visit sick brother and look after business complications.
We've dealt with weighty affairs already this morning."
"What's become of your Mr. Dauncey, then?" Sybil enquired.
"I have made him secretary of the Cropstone Wood Estates Company,"
Jacob told her. "He has my affairs to look after as well while I am
away."
A sound familiar to the nautical ears of Lord Felixstowe reached them
from the bows of the ship.
"Sun's over the yardarm," he announced. "How are you feeling now,
old--Mr. Pratt?"
"You order," Jacob replied.
It was a moderately cheerful little party who drank the health of the
bride and bridegroom. Afterwards, however, Jacob passed a day of
curiously tangled sensations. The summons to New York had been too
peremptory for him to delay even an hour, but he had sent a note to
Miss Bultiwell at the address in Belgrave Square, asking for a few
minutes' interview before he left. Naturally he had received no
answer. Now he was face to face with absolute and accomplished
failure in one of the fixed purposes of his life. He was an obstinate
person, used to success,--so used to it, in fact, that the present
situation left him dazed. His first determination, when success had
smiled upon him, had been to marry Sybil Bultiwell. He had never
flinched from that purpose. He had even, in his heart, considered
himself engaged. Any thoughts which might have come to him of any
other woman he had pushed away as a species of infidelity. And now
there wasn't any Sybil Bultiwell. She was married and out of his
reach. He felt that the proper thing for him to do was to go down to
his cabin and nurse his broken heart; instead of which he drank
champagne for dinner, found a few kindred spirits who liked a mild
game of poker, and went to bed whistling at two o'clock in the
morning. His young companion, who had won a fiver and was in a most
beatific state, came and sat on his bunk whilst he undressed.
"Jacob, my well-beloved," he said, "you are taking this little setback
like a hero."
"What setback?" Jacob asked.
"Little affair of Miss Bultiwell," Felixstowe replied, gazing
admiringly at Jacob's well-suspended silk socks. "Mary told me all
about it."
Jacob sighed heavily.
"Nasty knock for me," he admitted, with a curiously unconvincing note
of gloom in his tone.
"And Mary, poor old girl, is in the same boat," Felixstowe went on
reflectively. "Still, she never cared much for Maurice ... led him an
awful dance, the last few months. And you were head over heels in love
with Miss Bultiwell, weren't you?"
"I adored her," Jacob declared, taking a long gulp of the whisky and
soda which he had brought in for a nightcap. "Worshipped her," he
added, finishing it with much satisfaction.
Felixstowe sighed sympathetically.
"Rotten luck for you, having 'em on board, honeymooning," he observed.
"Never mind, keep a stiff upper lip, old thing. Let me know if I can
butt in any time on the right side. You'll perhaps stay in your
stateroom to-morrow?"
"Not I!" was the hasty reply. "I shall face it out."
"Hero!" his companion murmured. "Don't you brood over this thing,
Jacob. Close your eyes and try and count sheep, or something of that
sort. Call me in if you get very melancholy during the night, and I'll
read to you."
"You needn't worry," Jacob assured him. "I have an iron will. And
don't be so long in the bath to-morrow morning."
"Tap three times on the door," the young man enjoined, "and I will
remember that it is my master's voice."