Affinities and Other Stories Part 2

"Go on!" I said coldly. "I shall stay here until Ferd finds it. Go on, all of you! You can send a man back with the boat, I dare say."

They did it! I never was more astounded in my life; but they all piled in except Ferd and me, and made for the sh.o.r.e as fast as they could.

They said it was all well enough for me, with Day out of town; but the rest of them never had any luck and they had to get that car.

"They're terribly nervous, all at once!" I said. "If that car goes without me, Ferd, I shall jump into the river!"

It was moonlight, but not very bright. I sat on the dock and Ferd fished for the gold bag. He brought up an empty bottle, two tin cans and an old shoe.

"Look here, Fan," he said finally, "I'll buy you a new bag. I'll do anything--only let's get out of this."

"Try once more."

"I'll get neuralgia," he said. "I have to be awfully careful, f.a.n.n.y. Ida has to watch me like a hawk."

"I should imagine so," I replied coldly.

"I mean about the neuralgia."

"Humph! Day never has anything the matter with him--that's one thing.

Try again, Ferd."

He stooped again, and this time he got it. He straightened up with it in his hand. The car was still on the bank and a boat was putting out from the sh.o.r.e. All seemed to be well.

"They'll bribe the motorman to wait," said Ferd. "I told Riley to. So you see, little girl, everything's all right. Here's the bag and there's the boat. Do you like me a little bit again?"

I felt rather queer, alone there on the island with him; and the only thing that occurred to me was to keep him down.

"I'll like you well enough when we get back to civilization," I said shortly.

"You're not like yourself, f.a.n.n.y. You aren't a bit kind to me."

"Being nice to you with everybody round is one thing. This is another.

I'm scared, Ferd."

"Not of me!" he said, getting hold of one of my hands. He looked horrid in the moonlight, with his collar in a crease and his coat stuck to him.

He looked awfully thin, too, and his hair was in straggles over his face. "Fan, the boat's coming and I never see you alone. Do say you care a little bit!"

Well, I had to play the game. I am not a quitter. I had let him get up the party and spend a lot of money, and I had pretended for months to be interested in him. What was I to do? You may say what you like--a lot of married women get into things they never meant to simply because they are kind-hearted and hate to be called quitters.

"I've always cared a little," I said, trying not to look at him. "Ferd, you're dripping! Don't touch me!"

"Lady-love!" cried Ferd, very close to my ear; and then: "Good gracious, Fan! Where's the boat?"

It had absolutely disappeared! Ferd stood up on the shaky dock and peered over the water.

"He's gone to the other island," he said after a moment. "They'll tell him he's wrong, but--time's pa.s.sing!"

He did not start the lady-love business again, and we sat side by side on the dock, with the river, damp and smelly, underfoot. It was very silent, save for the far-away yells of the puddlers on the next island and the drip-drip from Ferd's trouser-ends to the water below.

Somehow the snap was gone out of the whole thing. I hated it, being alone with him there, and his looking so mussy, and my vanity case soaking from the river. I hated the puddlers' picnic; there was nothing I didn't hate. And the boatman did not come. Even Ferd began to get anxious.

"The infernal fool!" he said. "He's probably joined the picnic, and----h.e.l.lo, there!" he called, with his hands to his mouth.

I think they heard us on the bank, for we could hear the trolley bell very faintly. And, immediately after, the car moved off! I had the most awful feeling. We sat on the boards watching it getting smaller and smaller down the river, and neither of us said anything. It had been our one tie, as you may say, to respectability and home--and it had deserted us. After a minute Ferd got up on his feet.

"It's the puddlers, after all!" he said. "We'll have to hail them and get them to send that a.s.s of a boatman. Wouldn't you think that Emerson Riley would have had sense enough to wait and see that we got over safely?"

I fairly clutched at his arm.

"You'll do nothing of the sort," I said. "They'll know you if they're from your mill, and they'll know I am not Ida! It will be in the papers!"

Ferd looked sulky.

"What am I to do, then?" he demanded. "Swim to the bank?"

"Couldn't you swim to the other island and steal one of their boats?"

He did not want to. I could see that; but what else was there to do?

"It's a good way off," he said. "It won't help things any for me to be drowned, you know."

"It would be better than a scandal, wouldn't it?"

He threw up his hands.

"Oh, if that's the way you feel----"

"That isn't half the way I feel!"

He went off at that in a fury, leaving me alone on the little dock in a state of frenzy. I kept thinking of Day's getting home sooner than he expected and finding me gone, and calling up the police; and my wandering in about daylight with my slippers worn through. I made up a story--if the worst happened--about having had an attack of loss of memory, coming to myself seven miles from town and walking in.

There was no sign of Ferd. The puddlers' picnic was noisier than ever; they had brought a phonograph, too, and were dancing.

When I had waited for what seemed half the night I got frightened about Ferd. He had said it was a good way to go; and if he was drowned--and Ida really fond of him, and welcome to him so far as I was concerned--it was all up with me. Day would loathe the very sight of me. I knew that.

The gra.s.s looked snaky in the moonlight and I felt I was taking my life in my hands; but, somehow or other, with my hair pulled down by branches, and ankle-deep in mud every now and then, I got to the place where the two islands faced each other, end to end. There was not a sign of Ferd.

I just sank down on the ground and hoped for death. There was no way out. Jane and the others would think we had the boat and could hire a machine or something to get to the city, and they would not give us another thought. Even if I hailed the puddlers and told them, they would never believe my story. And, of course, there was poor Ferd in the river mud--sure to float in and spoil any story I could make up about loss of memory.

It was when I had reached that point that pandemonium broke loose on the other island. I could hear shouting--men and women together--and, in a pause, the frantic splas.h.i.+ng of oars. The next moment a boat appeared round the corner of the island, with Ferd rowing like mad, and a perfect pandemonium from the sh.o.r.e. He had stolen their boat and they had found it out. I was almost crazy. I waded out to my knees and called to him; and he saw me. There was no other boat after him yet, but some one was yelling to follow him.

Ferd was rather steadied by the excitement, I think. He reached over and dragged me in without a word, and the next instant we were pulling for the sh.o.r.e in the moonlight, with the entire puddlers' picnic on their bank, calling awful things to us.

That was not all, though. One of the men had got into their other boat and was coming after us. He could row, too. I implored Ferd to hurry--hurry. And I kept turning round to see whether he was gaining.

That was how I discovered why they were so wrought up. There were two dozen quart bottles of champagne in the stern of that boat! We were carrying off the picnic! I told Ferd. "Throw it overboard!" he said.

"It'll lighten the boat."

So I did, basket after basket; and, whether it lightened the boat or not, we drew ahead. Ferd rowed like a demon. In the moonlight his face was white and set, with the queerest expression.