Kitabı oku: «The Dust of Conflict», sayfa 24

“We’ll be in the steamboat track by sun-up, and there’ll be no wind then,” he said. “Considering that each time you see a trail of smoke you may have to pull two or three miles, it would be kind of sensible to sleep when you can.”

Appleby lay down on the wet floorings with an old sail over him, and for a time felt the swift swing of the little craft, and heard the gurgling swirl of brine, for the breeze she sped before was now breaking the heave into splashing seas. Then he became oblivious to everything save when a little shower of spray blew into his face. At last he fancied that Harper was trying to stir him with his foot, and blinked at him vacantly, until Harper kicked him harder.

“Get up!” he said.

There was a tone in his voice which roused Appleby suddenly, and standing up he stared about him.

“Another gunboat?” he said.

“Look!” said Harper, pointing with his hand. “It can’t do much good, but you may as well get the sail off her.”

Appleby swung round, and saw that the moon was dim and low, though a faint light still shone down upon the white-flecked sea. Then he made out a black smear that moved across it amidst a turmoil of foam and a haze of smoke. It grew larger while he watched it, and there was a red streak of flame from one of the two funnels that took shape rapidly, but he could see no masts or hull, and the speed with which the smoke haze was coming on appeared incredible. Then he sprang forward, and lowered the latine into the boat.

“A big torpedo boat, or a destroyer,” said Harper. “She’ll pass ’bout quarter of a mile off, and we’re going to make nothing by running away from her. It’s just a question whether they see us or not.”

The dim shape had grown clearer while he spoke, and a strip of something black appeared between the smoke cloud and the piled-up froth. Then a slender whip of mast stood out against the sky, and from the crown of the after funnel there poured another gush of flame. The craft was almost level with them now, but it was evident that in another minute or two she would have passed and be fading again, and Appleby felt his heart throb painfully as he watched her. Then the white wash about her seemed to swirl higher, funnels and mast slanted sharply, and the half-seen hull shortened. Appleby looked at Harper, who made a little gesture of resignation.

“Yes,” he said. “They’ve seen us. She’s coming round.”

A moment later a whistle rang out, and while Appleby sat down grim in face the white wave that frothed about the stranger’s hull grew less noticeable. The smoke cloud also sank a little, and in a minute or two more a strip of lean black hull slid smoothly past them. Then he gasped as a voice came down across the waters.

“Boat ahoy? Get your oars out, and pull up alongside,” it said.

They had the balanced sweeps out in a moment, and pulled with a will, while when they reached the craft that lay waiting them an officer stood by an opening in her rail. He spoke to them in Castilian, but Harper laughed, for he had recognized his uniform.

“I’ve no use for that talk,” he said. “Get your ladder over!”

It was done, and in another moment he and Appleby stood on the torpedo boat’s deck, where a couple of officers stared at them.

“Since you’re not Cubans, where were you going in that boat?” said one.

“I guess you’d better take us right along to your commander,” said Harper. “Aren’t you going to shake hands with a countryman, anyway?”

The officer laughed. “I’ll wait,” he said dryly, “until I’ve heard what you have to say. Didn’t you make your boat fast before you left her?”

“No, sir,” said Harper. “We have no more use for her. We’re coming along with you.”

“Well, I guess we can pick her up again if that doesn’t suit our commander,” said the officer.

He led them aft to a little cabin, and left them there until a young officer came in. He sat down on the opposite side of the little table and looked at them.

“You haven’t the appearance of Cubans, in spite of your clothes,” he said. “Now, I’ll ask you for a straight tale. What brought you off the land in a boat of that kind?”

“A wish to get as far away from Cuba by sunrise as we could,” said Appleby.

“What did you want to get out of Cuba for?”

“Is there any special reason why I should tell you?” asked Appleby, who was a trifle nettled.

“It seems to me there is. Anyway, back you go into your boat unless you satisfy me.”

Appleby looked at the man a moment, and was pleasantly impressed, in spite of the abruptness of his manner. He had a quiet bronzed face and steady eyes, while the faint ring of command in his voice did not seem out of keeping with them.

“Then if you will listen for a minute or two I will try to tell you,” he said.

“Quick as you can!”

Appleby spoke rapidly, disregarding Harper, who seemed anxious to tell the story too, and the commander nodded.

“Who is the American that employed you?” he said.

“Cyrus P. Harding.”

The commander, who started, cast a swift glance at him, and then rising abruptly signed to a man at the door.

“Tell Lieutenant Stalker he may go ahead, as we were steering, full speed,” he said.

The man went away, and in another moment or two the frail hull quivered until the deck beams rattled above them. Then while the splash of flung-off water swelled into a deep pulsating sound it seemed to leap onward under them, and the commander sat down again, looking at Appleby with a curious little smile in his eyes.

“I haven’t asked your name yet, and scarcely think it’s necessary,” he said. “So far as my duty permits, you can count upon my doing everything I can to meet your wishes, Mr. Appleby.”

Appleby stared at him. “I appreciate your offer, though I don’t quite understand it yet,” he said.

“Well,” said the commander with a pleasant laugh, “my name is Julian Savine, and I have been hoping that I should come across you for a long while. It is quite likely you have heard Miss Harding mention me.”

Appleby felt the blood creep into his face, and recognized that this was the last thing he could have wished for, but he met Savine’s gaze steadily.

“I have,” he said slowly. “I fancy Miss Harding has shown herself a good friend to me.”

Savine stretched out a brown hand. “Well,” he said, “I hope you will also count me in. And now, if you will excuse me, I have something to tell my lieutenant. In the meanwhile I’ll send the steward along.”

He went out, and Harper grinned at Appleby. “That,” he said reflectively, “is the kind of man we raise in my country. He has heard about the night you took her in. The question is how much did Miss Harding know or think fit to tell him?”

“Yes,” said Appleby grimly, “it is just that point which is worrying me.”

The steward brought them in a meal, but it was a little while before Savine appeared again. He opened a box of cigars, and though he said nothing that seemed to indicate that Harper’s company was not altogether necessary the latter rose.

“I guess I’ll go out and see how she’s getting along,” he said.

Then there was a little silence, until Appleby glanced at the commander.

“I have been thinking hard during the last half-hour, and I am now going to tell you exactly what happened on the night I met Miss Harding in Santa Marta,” he said. “I scarcely think you have heard it in quite the same shape before, and I was not sure that it would have been altogether advisable a little while ago.”

“I don’t know that it is necessary. Still, you might go on.”

Appleby told his story with almost brutal frankness, and then looked the commander in the eyes.

“If you have the slightest doubt on any point you may never have such an opportunity of getting rid of it again,” he said.

Savine smiled a little, though there was the faintest tinge of darker color in his bronzed cheek.

“I never had any, and now there is nothing I could do which would quite wipe out the obligation I feel I am under to you,” he said.

He stopped with a curious little gleam in his eyes, and Appleby felt that he had made another friend who would not fail him. Then he turned the conversation, and Savine told him that he was engaged on special service on the Cuban coast when he saw the boat and decided to intercept her in the hope of acquiring information. Hostilities were certain, but he hoped to put his guests on board a steamer he expected to fall in with on the morrow.

XXXIII – VIOLET REGAINS HER LIBERTY

THE light was fading when Violet Wayne lay in a low chair by the fire in Hester Earle’s drawing-room. A bitter wind wailed dolefully outside among the swaying trees, and the room was growing dusky, but now and then a flickering blaze from the hearth forced up the girl’s face out of the shadow. It was, so Hester who sat opposite her fancied, curiously weary, and there was a suggestive listlessness in her attitude. She had, though few of those who met her would have suspected it, been living under a constant strain during the last two or three months, and it was a relief to feel that for the time at least she could relax her efforts to preserve her customary serenity. Hester evidently understood this, for she was a young woman of discernment, and the two were close friends.

“I am glad you have asked the Cochrane girls to stay with you, Violet,” she said. “I think you need stirring up, and though there is not a great deal in Lily Cochrane or her sister, nobody could accuse them of undue quietness. They are coming?”

“I believe so, but Lily seemed uncertain whether she could get away, and was to telegraph us to-night. Still, I almost fancy I would rather be without them. There are times when one scarcely feels equal to entertaining anybody.”

Hester nodded sympathetically. “Of course, but it is in just such cases the effort is most likely to prove beneficial,” she said. “Have you had any word from Tony since he left?”

“Two or three lines written in pencil from Havana. He was going into the country to find Mr. Appleby.”

Hester gazed thoughtfully at the fire for awhile, and then suddenly fixed her eyes upon her companion’s face.

“We have been friends since the time we wore short frocks, and that implies a good deal,” she said. “Now, it is a little more difficult to deceive me than the rest – and I have been concerned about you lately. I wonder if I dare ask you if you have quite forgiven Tony?”

“I don’t know”; and Violet’s voice was a trifle strained. “I feel that I should – but it is difficult, and I can’t convince myself. It may be a little easier by and by.”

Hester made a little sympathetic gesture, though she was almost astonished, for it was seldom that Violet Wayne revealed her feelings.

“Still, we understood that you would marry him when he came back,” she said.

Her companion sat still for almost a minute, while the flickering firelight showed the pain in her face. Ever since the shock of Nettie Harding’s disclosure had passed she had grappled with the question Hester had suggested, and striven to reconcile herself to the answer. Tony had been suddenly revealed to her as he was, and the love she had once cherished had not survived her belief in him, but there was in her a depth of almost maternal tenderness and compassion which few suspected, and the man’s feebleness appealed to it. She knew how he clung to her, and that if she cast him off he would inevitably sink. There was a trace of contempt in her compassion as she realized it, and yet she had been fond of him, and he had many lovable qualities. She had also made him a promise, and his ring was still upon her hand, while she reflected with a tinge of bitterness that it is not wise to expect too much, and that men of stainless character were doubtless singularly scarce. The joy of life had vanished, but she felt that Tony’s fate was in her hands, and the duty, at least, remained.

“Yes,” she said very slowly. “If he still wishes it when he comes back.”

Hester nodded gravely. “I think you are right,” she said. “Tony will wipe the blunder out when he has you to prompt him, but I think he would go to pieces if you sent him away. Of course, it is not everybody who would feel it – but it is – a responsibility. You can, you see, make whatever you wish of him.”

“One would esteem a man with the qualities which make that easy?” said Violet, with a little weary smile.

“They might occasionally prove convenient in one’s husband,” said Hester, with a faint twinkle in her eyes.

Her companion seemed to shiver. “I wonder what Tony is doing now,” she said. “It is, at least, hot and bright in Cuba, and if I had only known when he was coming back we would have gone away to the Riviera.” Then she straightened herself a little. “Isn’t it time your father arrived?”

Hester smiled, and wondered if Violet was already sorry that she had unbent so far.

“He should be here at any minute unless the train is late,” she said, and, feeling that her companion would prefer it, plunged into a discussion of Northrop affairs.

While she made the most of each triviality there was a rattle of wheels outside, and Mr. Earle came in. He shook hands with Violet, and stood a moment or two by the fire.

“I had expected to find your mother here,” he said.

“It was a bitter afternoon, and I persuaded her to stay at home.”

The man took a pink envelope out of his pocket, and handed it her.

“I passed the post-office lad walking his bicycle over a very soft piece of road, and pulled up to ask if he had anything for me,” he said. “When I found he had only a telegram for your mother I offered to bring it on, and he seemed quite willing to let me. The vicar hasn’t turned up yet, Hester?”

“No,” said Hester. “I am expecting him.”

Earle went out, and Hester proceeded with the account of a recent dance which she had been engaged in when he came in, while Violet turned over the telegram.

“It will be from Lily Cochrane to tell us she is coming, and I think I’ll open it,” she said.

Hester nodded. “Ada Whittingham in green – there are people who really have no sense of fitness,” she said. “The effect was positively startling.”

Violet tore open the envelope, and gasped, while the words she read grew blurred before her eyes. For a moment or two she could scarcely grasp their meaning, and sat staring at the message, and trying vainly to read it again. The branch of a trailer rose rapped upon the window as it swayed in the moaning wind, and Hester ran on.

“Lottie had out her diamonds, the whole of them – somewhat defective taste considering the character of the affair. Mrs. Pechereau was there with Muriel in a black gown I’ve seen already – one would never fancy she was that girl’s mother.”

Violet closed her fingers tight upon the telegram, for her companion’s prolixity was growing unendurable, and she wanted quietness to realize what had befallen her. The firelight had died away, and, now her senses were rallying, she could not read the message. Then a faint flicker sprang up again, and Hester, glancing round, saw the tension in her face.

“You’re not listening,” she said. “Why, what is the matter? Isn’t Lily coming?”

Violet rose up with a curious slow movement, and her face showed almost as pallid as the white marble of the mantle she leaned against. Then a little quiver ran through her, and the fingers of one hand trembled upon the stone.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Let me be quiet for a moment, Hester!”

Hester rose, and laid a hand restrainingly upon her arm. “Can’t you tell me? What has gone wrong?”

Violet let the telegram fall, and turned a cold, still face towards her.

“Tony is dead,” she said, and sank back, shivering, into her chair.

“Oh,” said Hester, “I am so sorry!”

The words were sincere enough, but just then the conventionality of them appeared incongruous, and when Violet made no answer Hester picked up the telegram and held it near the fire.

“Anthony Palliser killed in action, Santa Marta, Cuba. Particulars personally. Sailing New York Saturday, Bernard Appleby,” she read.

Then for the space of minutes there was silence in the room save for the wail of the bitter wind outside, and Violet lay staring at the fire with vacant eyes. Hester found it becoming unendurable, and touched her companion gently.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” she said.

“No,” said Violet, with a visible effort as she rose. “I think I will go home. You will tell your father and the vicar, Hester. I can get my hat and wraps myself. I don’t wish you to come with me.”

She straightened herself slowly and passed out of the room, while when she entered it again dressed for the drive Mr. Earle laid his hand upon her shoulder.

“You have our sincere sympathy, but I can’t help fancying that it is not altogether hopeless yet,” he said.

The girl looked up at him with incredulity in her eyes. “You must know it is. What do you mean?” she said.

“Well,” said Earle, with a glance at the vicar, who had come in and heard the news, “it is a little difficult to make clear. Still, you see, my dear, that men who do not answer to the roll after a battle now and then turn up again. A blunder may have been made in the confusion, while we do not after all know anything very much to the credit of Mr. Appleby. I would suggest that your mother ask lawyer Craythorne to meet him. Men are apt to believe what they wish to now and then.”

“I don’t in the least understand you.”

Earle appeared disconcerted. “If this distressful news were true Appleby would be the gainer.”

Once more the girl looked up with a chilling serenity that unpleasantly affected him.

“There is no hope left,” she said. “The man who sent the message made absolutely certain or he would never have written it.”

Earle glanced at the vicar, who nodded gravely.

“I wish I had not to admit it, but I feel that Violet is right,” he said. “Would you like me to drive over with you, my dear?”

“No,” said the girl quietly. “I would much sooner be alone.”

She passed out from among them, and Earle turned to the vicar again.

“It does not sound charitable, and I fancy you and Hester know rather more about the affair than I do, but I can’t help believing that Tony could not have done Violet a greater kindness,” he said. “I am, however, a trifle astonished that you seem to participate in the curious belief she evidently has in Appleby. You can’t be well acquainted with him, and he is taking a serious risk in coming here since there is still a warrant out for him.”

The vicar smiled. “I have heard a little about him, and I scarcely think he would let the fact you mention stop him carrying out what he felt was his duty.”

The vicar’s faith was warranted, for while Violet Wayne was driven home that evening with her thoughts in a whirl, and a remorseful tenderness which overlooked the dead man’s shortcomings bringing a mist to her eyes, Appleby sat under the electric lights in a room of a great New York building. He felt the pulsations of a vast activity about him, for the thick doors and maple partitions could not shut out the whir of the elevators, tinkle of telephone bells, murmur of voices, and patter of hasty feet, though his eyes were on the agreement bond he was attaching his name to.

Harding, who sat opposite him, smiled as he laid down the pen.

“Now I guess that’s all fixed up, and I don’t think I’m going to be sorry I took you into the business,” he said. “You’ll draw ’most enough already to live out on the Hudson if it pleases you, and, so far as I can figure, we’ll roll in money once we get the sugar trade going again. You’ll go right back and straighten up when we’ve whipped the Spaniards out of Cuba.”

“I’m afraid I have scarcely deserved all you have offered me, sir,” said Appleby, whose fingers trembled a little as he took up the document. “Nobody could have anticipated this result when I came across you on board the ‘Aurania.’”

Harding rose, and opening a cupboard took out a bottle and two glasses, which he filled to the brim.

“I’ve no great use for this kind of thing in business hours as a rule, but the occasion warrants it, and I believe only Austrian princes and their ministers drink that wine,” he said. “Well, here’s my partner’s prosperity!”

They touched glasses, and a flush crept to Appleby’s forehead, while there was a little kindly gleam in Harding’s eyes.

“I’m grateful, sir,” said Appleby, and stopped abruptly.

Harding laughed. “Now, don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve no use for speeches, and am going to get my money out of you. This is a business deal, and there’s something else to go into. You have quite fixed to sail in the ‘Cunarder’ on Saturday?”

“Yes. Still, I should not be much more than three weeks away.”

“Well,” said Harding a trifle dryly, “I don’t quite know. I think Nettie told me there was a warrant out for you, and I believe it’s quite difficult to get round the police in your country.”

“I must take my chances. There is a woman in England that Tony Palliser was to have married. He expected me to go.”

Harding looked at him curiously. “Oh, yes,” he said.

“Nettie told me about her. Well, I guess if you feel that way I have got to let you go, and I don’t quite know I’m sorry you have these notions. They’re a kind of warranty, and it wasn’t altogether because you’ve got in you the snap and grit that makes a man who can handle big affairs I made you my partner. Still, time’s getting on, and Nettie is expecting us at Glenwood.”

He summoned two clerks, who attested the agreement, and in another ten minutes they were waiting for the elevator, while late that night Appleby contrived to find Nettie Harding, who had been very gracious to him, alone. She was standing by the marble hearth in the great drawing-room where snapping logs of scented wood diffused a warmth and brightness which would, however, scarcely have kept the frost out but for the big furnace in the basement.

“What happened to-day has your approbation?” he said.

Nettie smiled. “Now, I think that is quite unnecessary when you know it has,” she said.

“Perhaps it is. I can’t help fancying you were not greatly astonished at your father’s decision.”

“Still,” said the girl quietly, “I don’t think I could coax Cyrus P. Harding into making a bad bargain. Besides, if I had a finger in it, is it more than any one would have expected?”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“No?” and Nettie smiled incredulously. “Well, you picked me up one night when I might have gone out over the rail on the ‘Aurania.’”

“I don’t think you could have managed it had you tried.”

Nettie stood silent a moment, and then a little flush crept into her face, as she glanced down at the diamonds on her white wrists, and her long trailing dress. It was, Appleby fancied, of as costly fabric as the looms in Europe could produce.

“Well,” she said with a curious little sparkle in her eyes, “there was another night I met you when I wasn’t got up like this, and you were dressed in rags. Still, I knew that I could trust you. Do you believe that I should have been here, with everything that a woman could wish for, now, if I had not had that confidence?”

Appleby turned his eyes away, for certain fancies which had once or twice troubled him became certainties, and he recognized that the regard the girl had for him alone warranted the almost daring speech.

“I really don’t remember very much about the night in question,” he said. “Nobody in my place could. I was wounded slightly and almost dazed, you see.”

Nettie smiled curiously. “That is, of course, just what one would have expected from you.”

Appleby showed a faint trace of embarrassment. “I have been waiting most of the night to ask you a question,” he said. “What did you say to Tony Palliser and Miss Wayne about me in England?”

“You will never find out – unless she tells you.”

“That is most unlikely.”

Nettie smiled in a curious fashion, and then looked him in the eyes.

“Well,” she said reflectively, “I don’t quite know. You have already got more than you ever expected, Mr. Appleby. Anyway, it is getting late, and you will excuse me now.”

She moved away, and then, turning, stood smiling at him a moment by the door.

“Can’t you tell me what you mean?” said Appleby, moving towards her with a little flush of color in his cheeks.

“You are going to England on Saturday,” said Nettie, and slipped out of the door.