DORA FLETCHER ANSWERS "NO"
A week had passed, and Calamity, now convalescent, was able once more to
resume command. As, however, Smith was still unable to discharge his
customary duties, the Captain appointed Miss Fletcher temporary mate.
"Since you are now an officer," he said with that grim smile of his,
"you had better take your meals in the cabin with me."
The girl's eyes lit up with pleasure for a moment, then the light died
out of them and her lips hardened.
"Thank you all the same, but I should prefer to have my meals in my own
cabin as before," she answered.
"Please yourself," answered Calamity carelessly.
After this, although their relationship remained superficially much the
same as it had always been, the Captain taciturn and abrupt, the girl
quiet and self-possessed, there was a subtle change in the attitude of
each towards the other. Calamity had come to rely on the girl, and now
accepted at her hands many little services which tended towards his
greater comfort, services which he would have rejected with curt
imperiousness less than a fortnight ago.
One day he sent for McPhulach, and in due course the engineer appeared,
clad as usual, in soiled dungarees, and clasping a piece of oily
cotton-waste in his hand.
"Ye're wishfu' tae see me, sir?" he inquired.
"Yes; sit down."
The engineer perched himself on the cabin skylight, and began
mechanically to rub the brass rails with his cotton-waste.
"Would you care to go to England after this trip, McPhulach?" asked the
Captain abruptly.
McPhulach ceased rubbing the brass rails, and stared at Calamity in
astonishment.
"Tae England?" he repeated.
"Yes. I may want you in connection with that document you signed, and
quite possibly I shall be able to give you a good shore job."
"It a' depends," answered the engineer thoughtfully. "Ye see, skeeper, I
hae sairtain financial obleegations in that country which I canna
dischairge. An' meybe there are ane or twa leddies who'd mak' it no
verra pleasant for me gin they were tae ken I was back."
"H'm; I should have thought that a man of your resource and experience
could have overcome that difficulty."
McPhulach considered for a little time, and the cloud on his brow
lifted.
"I ken brawly wha' tae dae, sir!" he exclaimed. "Gin ye'll ca' me Jones
and give oot that I'm a Welshman, there's no a body who'd recognise me."
Something like a chuckle escaped the Captain, but he answered in a
perfectly grave voice.
"If you think that device will overcome your difficulties, I have no
objection to calling you Jones and informing all whom it may concern
that you're a Welshman."
"Frae Pontypreed."
"From Pontypridd, if you like. That sounds Welsh enough."
"Then I'll sign on wi' ye, sir."
"Right, then that's settled," answered Calamity, and McPhulach, preening
himself upon his astuteness, returned to the engine-room.
That evening, when Miss Fletcher came on the bridge to relieve the
Captain, he seemed inclined to linger.
"By the twenty-seventh," he said, "we ought to be in Singapore."
"In Singapore," murmured the girl, and nodded as if in answer to some
unspoken thought.
"Yes. Have you finally decided what to do?"
"I shall see the British Consul, lay before him my father's papers, and
ask him to advance me sufficient money to----"
"There's no need to ask him that," interrupted Calamity. "I could let
you have whatever you wanted, even if there wasn't----"
"Still, if you don't mind, I should prefer to borrow it from the
Consul," she broke in without looking at him.
"As you please. Then I take it that you have made up your mind to go to
California?"
"Yes; I will take your advice and try fruit-farming."
"H'm," grunted Calamity.
"You told me it was the best--in fact, the only thing I could do," she
said with a faint touch of sarcasm in her voice.
"Yes--yes, I suppose I did."
"The profession I know best and which I love best--that of the sea--I
cannot follow, being a woman. You pointed that out yourself."
"It is self-evident!"
Calamity turned away as if to leave the bridge, hesitated on the top
step of the companion-ladder, and then came back again. Seemingly he did
so only to glance at the compass, but, having done this, he came up to
the bridge-rail and leant over it.
"You are a strange young woman," he said abruptly.
"Am I?"
He lapsed into silence again and Dora Fletcher, looking at him
surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye, marvelled exceedingly.
Once more this extraordinary man was revealing himself to her in a new
light. Usually so self-confident and determined in manner and speech, he
exhibited a curious hesitancy this evening that puzzled the girl. He was
like a man who wished to say something yet, for some reason or other,
feared to say it. This so impressed her that she grew uneasy, and,
moving a little farther away from him, leant against the starboard rail
and gazed fixedly across the darkening waters.
Presently the Captain straightened his back, walked to the port rail,
and, after standing there a moment or two, crossed to where the girl was
standing. He did not speak, and, although her back was towards him, she
knew that he was very close. Involuntarily she clutched the rail tightly
as if to support herself, her heart began to beat faster and her breath
came in little catches. And yet, she told herself, there was no reason
for this; it made her angry, angry with herself for being unreasonably
agitated, and angry with him for being the cause of it. He remained
standing close behind her, saying nothing, till at last she could bear
it no longer.
"Won't you miss your watch below, sir?" she asked.
"That is my affair," he answered in his old curt way, and she felt a
sense of relief at the familiar tone.
He remained where he was, however, regarding her intently and with an
expression that would have startled the girl had she seen it. There was
every excuse for that look on the Captain's face, for she made as comely
a picture as any man might wish to gaze upon, with her slim, supple
figure and the great braid of red-brown hair coiled round her shapely
head. Masculine as she was in her fearlessness, her strength, and her
power of command, she was withal intensely feminine, possessing besides
all the lure of blossoming womanhood.
All this Calamity recognised clearly enough now, if he had never done so
before. He was very far from being a sentimentalist, but, as he stood so
near to her, the memory of that day when she had frankly avowed her love
for him came back with poignant vividness. He knew now that he had been
a blind fool and a brutal fool as well. The greatest treasure that life
can give had been his for the taking, and he had spurned it. But now he
had awakened to a sense of what he had lost.
Such were the thoughts which passed through Calamity's mind as he
lingered irresolutely on the bridge. It was an altogether new sensation
to him, this self-condemnation and timid hesitancy. For the first time
in his life, perhaps, Calamity was afraid. It was, if nothing else, a
chastening experience.
As for Dora Fletcher, her whole being was in a tumult of warring
emotions. Instinctively she felt something of what was passing through
the Captain's mind. She could not but guess that this sudden and
remarkable change in his manner was due to herself, that it meant the
beginning of a new relationship between them--at least, so far as he was
concerned. Already their relations had passed through several different
phases: first she had been a mere nonentity in his eyes; then an
individual to be tolerated, a nurse later on, then a trusted and
efficient officer, and finally--finally, she supposed, a memory ever
growing more indistinct as the years passed.
Just as his near presence was becoming intolerable to the girl because
of the complex emotions it occasioned, he moved away and strolled
towards the other end of the bridge. She wished fervently that he would
go below, for while he remained near her she was in a fever of
apprehension.
Presently, however, he turned again and walked slowly back to where she
was standing on the lee side of the bridge.
"Miss Fletcher," he said abruptly.
"Yes, sir," she answered, turning and facing him.
"Will you marry me?"
It had come at last, the inevitable climax she had felt approaching ever
since his recovery from that illness. For a moment she was conscious of
a thrill of exquisite joy, and her carefully nursed resolution wavered.
Then, remembering the communication Smith had made to her, she pulled
herself together.
"No," she answered in a low voice.
The Captain turned on his heel and walked in a leisurely manner to the
other end of the bridge, where he lingered for a moment. Then he came
back, glanced at the compass, and turned towards the girl.
"Keep her west by north," he said, and slowly descended the
companion-ladder.