The next morning broke hot and still. The breeze had died down and its
absence was shown in pallid faces, and limp, exhausted attitudes. A few
daring spirits waxed apoplectic over deck sports. Jackey, the
mischievous, roamed from one deck chair to another, teasing, protesting,
whimpering, and ultimately curled up in a corner of the deck, and
falling asleep became instantly converted into a vision of exquisite
childhood, all pink cheeks, golden curls, and rounded limbs. As for
Katrine she felt very tired, very lazy, very thankful that her hair was
curled by nature not by art, very content to lie back in her luxurious
chair and be amused and waited upon by a man who appeared abundantly
satisfied to be so employed. The voyage had turned, so far as she was
concerned, into one long _tete-a-tete_, for Bedford had presented so
impenetrable a front to would-be acquaintances, that he was now left
severely alone to devote himself to her amusement.
Mrs Mannering joked and quizzed, Keith kept sourly afar, the passengers
stared with mounting curiosity, and Katrine, who had lived all her life
beneath the tyranny of "They say," amazed herself by a sudden reckless
indifference. _Let_ them say! Let them stare! Let them laugh!--It
meant nothing to her. These days were her own; not an hour, not a
moment should be wasted though a whole world criticised.--It is a truism
that in the growth of friendship a day at sea is equal to a week on
shore; less than a week had passed since Bedford joined the ship, yet
Katrine acknowledged to herself that they had reached a degree of
intimacy which she at least had never before experienced. There was not
a subject which had engrossed her attention, not a problem which had
baffled, not a hope or a fear, an ambition or a dream, save only those
which concerned Jim Blair, which she had not discussed at length with
this friend of a few days, and each fresh discussion left her more
conscious of help and sympathy, and of profound admiration for his
broad-minded, open-hearted character. Now the high-water mark of
intimacy had been reached when silence could be prolonged without
apology, a vibrant silence broken at length by a remark which but put
into words the point to which the thoughts of each had arrived. Katrine
had at first been amused and delighted at this similarity of thought;
later on she grew afraid.
This morning the great heat was not conducive to conversation. Katrine
held a book on her lap, and from time to time flicked over pages, but
she was too languid even to read; from time to time her eyes met
Bedford's and they smiled a wordless greeting. The morning was not half
over, but already her eyelids drooped heavily; she shut the book, and
composed herself to sleep.
Suddenly, startlingly, the torpid silence was rent in twain. A woman's
voice rose in a shriek--high, frenzied, appalled. As by an echo it was
repeated on every side, until the very air vibrated with the sound. The
serried rows of chairs were emptied, and thrust aside; white-faced,
gasping, the passengers rushed to the rail, and hung over, desperately
scanning the sea. The vibrant cry gained volume; its incoherence took
shape, and became definite words--words among those the most dreaded in
a life on sea...
"_Man overboard_!"
Katrine had leaped with the rest, had rushed to the gunwale to strain
her eyes over the retreating line of foam left by the vessel's progress.
Startled she was, and shocked, but the true realisation of the tragedy
was delayed until the moment when, afar off, clear in the blaze of the
sun, two arms appeared suddenly above the waves, groped into space,
flung themselves widely apart, and disappeared!
The sight of those helpless hands brought a terrible realisation; they
tore at the heart. Every face on board the great vessel was blanched
with horror: women wept and clung; men stood grim and silent, with lips
tightly set.
At the first sounding of the alarm, a life-belt had been tossed into the
sea, attached to a flag, which made a patch of colour to mark the spot
of the disaster. It was horrible to see how far that mark was left
behind, before, with a jar which sent a quiver throughout the ship's
great bulk, the engines reversed, in response to the order from the
bridge. Meantime the fourth officer and his men were clambering with
cat-like agility into the boat suspended over the stern-davits, which
eager hands began to lower, even before the last man had reached his
perch. Another moment, and the crew were bending to their oars, and the
boat was speeding through the water towards that floating patch of red
and blue; but there had been no further waving of hands; the straining
eyes had caught no second glimpse of a dark head.
Katrine, shaking and gasping, felt the touch of a quieting hand on her
arm, and releasing her hold of the gunwale, swayed backward with a sob
of relief. She did not need to look; the strong, quiet touch was
identification enough. She needed him, and he was there. She closed
her eyes, gripping fast to the outstretched arm.
"Will he be able to swim? Can he keep up long enough?"
"I hope so. The life-belt is there. Even if he is not, men are brought
back to life, you know, after hours of unconsciousness... He is bound
to rise again..."
Katrine shuddered. A moment before she had been exhausted with heat;
now hands and feet were icy cold. For the first time in her life she
was brought face to face with death, and the violent change of scene,
combined with the inability to do anything but stand still and watch,
made a hard test of endurance. She managed to keep quiet, to refrain
from the tears and sobs of the surrounding women, but she clung like a
child to Bedford's arms, and rested her head against his broad shoulder.
For the moment the action was as impersonal as if he had been a stone or
a log; her physical condition necessitated a prop; she clung to the
nearest support out of a natural, unthinking impulse, and just as
naturally, just as simply, he cradled her in his arms.
The suffocating moments crawled by, the while the onlookers held their
breath. The boat had reached the spot marked by the red flag, was
drifting slowly round and round, the men's faces bent low over the
water, but there came no sign of the white, waving arms; the dark,
ball-like head.
Katrine gasped a weak enquiry:
"I thought--_three times_? If it is one of the crew, surely he can
swim?"
Bedford made no reply. She raised her head, caught sight of a set face,
and cried again, with a still sharper edge of surprise:
"It is _not_ a sailor! A passenger then? Some one--we know?"
Her thoughts flew swiftly over the familiar forms. A jovial head of a
family, seated at her own table in the saloon; a young husband
assiduously waiting upon a pretty new wife; the handsome pursuer of
steamship flirtations,--one after another their figures rose before her.
These were all young, thoughtless, daring; a moment's recklessness
might have precipitated them to their fate. An hour ago, five minutes
ago, they had been nothing to her, less than nothing, now the mere tie
of humanity rent her heart at the thought of their peril. She lifted
her eyes to the face above her, panting breathless enquiries.
"Tell me! Tell me!"
"My--my dear girl," stammered the man huskily, "My poor girl--" He
passed his arm more firmly round her waist, "Yes! you know him, I did
not mean to tell you yet, but I am afraid you'll have to know! It's
Vernon Keith--"
"No! No!" Katrine fought with outstretched hands, striving to push him
away. She no longer needed to lean; the shock had strung her into
vitality, and a passionate denial of the tragic reversals of life. An
hour ago she had beckoned to Keith as he passed by, and had fed him with
chocolates. He had eaten, smiled, and grimaced, and she had rated him
for his ingratitude. It was impossible that a man could eat chocolates,
and take part in the trivial chit-chat of shipboard, and within sixty
minutes be fighting for his life in those churning waves!
"_It's impossible_!" she cried. "I was talking to him here, an hour
ago. He was well--as well as usual... we talked--he _smiled_! It is
_impossible_ that he can be dead!"
"They may find him yet. It's only a few minutes. Everything is
possible. You can do no good by waiting, dear. Come and sit down!"
But Katrine thrust out her arm, pushing him away once more, shaking her
head. How could she sit down? How think of herself? She leaned her
elbows on the rail, and buried her head in her hands. Her brain was
racing, she was shuddering with suspense, yet through all her misery her
perceptions had grasped one word, and photographed it in lasting
remembrance. "Dear!" Bedford had called her "Dear!"
For a minute there was silence. Then she spoke a few words in so low
and trembling a voice that he had to bend to catch them.
"How? How did he--"
He caught his breath: she heard the sound, and divined that for this man
the worst sting of the tidings lay in the necessity for telling it to
her.
"He ... jumped! There were people about. They saw it. He was walking
about, began to cough, leaned over the rail... Before they grasped what
he was about--"
He stopped short, and Katrine answered with unexpected composure:
"I understand! It overwhelmed him suddenly,--a frenzy of impatience.
He could bear no more. I understand--I think now, I could almost
hope--" She turned suddenly and laid her hand on his arm. The hysteria
of the last minutes had disappeared, she was weak and spent, and
breathlessly subdued. "Take me away, please, where I can't see!"
Bedford half led, half carried. Katrine found herself extended on a
long chair drawn for'ard, to a spot where the bridge cut off all view of
what was happening astern. She was cold, and he was rubbing her hands;
his touch had a magnetic warmth, to which she surrendered with a vague
content. The hands which she had noticed and admired had a beauty of
touch, as well as line. She watched their movements with a mechanical
interest. For the moment there appeared nothing strange in the fact
that this comparative stranger was performing so intimate a task. She
needed comfort, and he gave it; that was the simple, natural fact.
Presently he raised his eyes to hers with an enquiring glance, and she
made a pitiful attempt at a smile.
"I was his only friend on board. Was I--kind enough? Do you think if I
had been kinder--?"
"You were an angel!" he assured her warmly, "and, humanly speaking,
nothing could have helped! His brain was diseased. It was not
deliberate intent, one is sure of that--just the impulse of a tortured
animal, to end it all, and be at peace."
Katrine nodded.
"He told me that at best it was only a question of months. We are well
and strong. We can't judge!" Katrine caught her breath on that last
word, her brain pierced by the memory of that death in life which
threatened her companion's life. "At least," she continued in a lower
note, "you _can_! You have been tried, but you are stronger, more
patient..."
Bedford's face set; he turned aside, not answering, and they sat in
silence during an interminable hour of waiting.
Nothing could be seen of the rescue party, but the sounds from the ship,
above all, the _lack_ of sound, told its own tale. There came no quick,
acclaiming cry, no ringing cheer; only at last the dull splash of the
oars, and the creak of the ropes as the returning boat was hoisted to
the davits.
Bedford roused himself, crept silently away, and returning five minutes
later seated himself as silently on the floor by Katrine's side. She
did not turn her head, nor question him by so much as a glance, but when
once more the ship shivered beneath the throbs of the engine, and the
waters raced back from the prow, the tears streamed down her face.
"I'm... _not_ sorry I... I didn't want him to be brought back to more
suffering and--shame! But it seems cruel to go on as if nothing had
happened,--nothing mattered! The only comfort is that for him, it must
have been--_quick_... He was so weak. He rose only once. Say it was
quick!"
"Very quick!" Bedford assured her. Not for his life would he have
hinted at the awful explanation of that solitary rising, which was now
generally accepted on board. He prayed that no one would enlighten her
ignorance. Once again he stole away, and returned in a few minutes,
carrying a cup of tea. Life must go on for the living, though death
hovers at hand, and already the saloon was filled with a pallid crowd,
who seemed to find unusual refreshment in the postponed meal. A cup of
tea, a rest, a bath, then the passengers would dress for dinner, and
brushing aside the cloud, declare that, poor beggar! he had not much to
lose. By the morrow the incident would be discreetly banned...
Katrine drank her tea, grateful for it like the rest, her face white and
disfigured by tears. During that long hour of silent waiting she had
looked into life with a terrifying insight. So one could suffer at the
fate of a stranger! How would it be for the _one_ individuality which
made the world? She shrank at the thought, telling herself, as the
untried are pitifully wont to do, that such a possibility was beyond
endurance, and therefore could not be; knowing full well in her heart
that a time must surely come when she in her turn must feel the rack...
Vernon Keith had been the acquaintance of a week; for a week to come she
would look involuntarily for the gaunt form; another week, and in the
glamour of new surroundings his image would fade into obscurity; in a
few months his very name might be forgotten. What she was suffering now
was but shock and regret, impersonal, pitiful regret, but, if it had
been another man--_this_ man, for example, with the brown face, and the
grey eyes, who now sat at her feet--?
Katrine sat up hurriedly, and pushed the hair from her brow. The hand
which held the cup was shaking so violently that Bedford heard, and took
it from her, to place upon the deck.
"Don't you think you could lie down, and get a rest? Shall I bring Mrs
Mannering? You ought to be perfectly quiet and away from the crowd--"
Katrine looked at him vaguely as though only half understanding the
purport of his words.
"Perhaps. Yes. Later on. There was something I wanted to say..." She
was silent for a moment, and then added with the simple inconsequence of
a child, "I'm engaged, you know! Not definitely, but virtually.
Engaged to be married to--a good man! You are good too. I wanted you
to know."
Bedford twisted the teaspoon in his fingers, laid it down at a new
angle, lifted it again. His face was hidden, but Katrine saw the brown
neck flame darkly red against the flannel coat. When he spoke, however,
it was the most calm and level of voices.
"However good he may be, Miss Beverley, he is not good enough for you."
A few minutes later he rose, and walked quietly away in search of Mrs
Mannering.