The Tides of Barnegat Part 12

"I must tell you first. You wouldn't understand unless--"

"You won't? That's what you mean--you mean you WON'T! d.a.m.n ye!" The captain raised his clenched fist, quivered for an instant as if struggling against something beyond his control, dropped it slowly to his side and whirling suddenly, strode back up the beach.

Bart staggered back against the planking, threw out his hand to keep from falling, and watched his father's uncertain, stumbling figure until he was swallowed up in the gloom. The words rang in his ears like a knell. The realization of his position and what it meant, and might mean, rushed over him. For an instant he leaned heavily against the planking until he had caught his breath. Then, with quivering lips and shaking legs, he walked slowly back into the house, shutting the big door behind him.

"Boys," he said with a forced smile, "who do you think's been outside?

My father! Somebody told him, and he's just been giving me h.e.l.l for playing cards on Sunday."

CHAPTER VII

THE EYES OF AN OLD PORTRAIT

Before another Sunday night had arrived Warehold village was alive with two important pieces of news.

The first was the disappearance of Bart Holt.

Captain Nat, so the story ran, had caught him carousing in the House of Refuge on Sunday night with some of his boon companions, and after a stormy interview in which the boy pleaded for forgiveness, had driven him out into the night. Bart had left town the next morning at daylight and had s.h.i.+pped as a common sailor on board a British bark bound for Brazil. No one had seen him go--not even his companions of the night before.

The second announcement was more startling.

The Cobden girls were going to Paris. Lucy Cobden had developed an extraordinary talent for music during her short stay in Trenton with her friend Maria Collins, and Miss Jane, with her customary unselfishness and devotion to her younger sister, had decided to go with her. They might be gone two years or five--it depended on Lucy's success. Martha would remain at Yardley and take care of the old home.

Bart's banishment coming first served as a target for the fire of the gossip some days before Jane's decision had reached the ears of the villagers.

"I always knew he would come to no good end," Miss Gossaway called out to a pa.s.ser-by from her eyrie; "and there's more like him if their fathers would look after 'em. Guess sea's the best place for him."

Billy Tatham, the stage-driver, did not altogether agree with the extremist.

"You hearn tell, I s'pose, of how Captain Nat handled his boy t'other night, didn't ye?" he remarked to the pa.s.senger next to him on the front seat. "It might be the way they did things 'board the Black Ball Line, but 'tain't human and decent, an' I told Cap'n Nat so to-day.

Shut his door in his face an' told him he'd kill him if he tried to come in, and all because he ketched him playin' cards on Sunday down on the beach. Bart warn't no worse than the others he run with, but ye can't tell what these old sea-dogs will do when they git riled. I guess it was the rum more'n the cards. Them fellers used to drink a power o'

rum in that shanty. I've seen 'em staggerin' home many a Monday mornin'

when I got down early to open up for my team. It's the rum that riled the cap'n, I guess. He wouldn't stand it aboard s.h.i.+p and used to put his men in irons, I've hearn tell, when they come aboard drunk. What gits me is that the cap'n didn't know them fellers met there every night they could git away, week-days as well as Sundays. Everybody 'round here knew it 'cept him and the light-keeper, and he's so durned lazy he never once dropped on to 'em. He'd git bounced if the Gov'ment found out he was lettin' a gang run the House o' Refuge whenever they felt like it. Fogarty, the fisherman's, got the key, or oughter have it, but the light-keeper's responsible, so I hearn tell. Git-up, Billy," and the talk drifted into other channels.

The incident was soon forgotten. One young man more or less did not make much difference in Warehold. As to Captain Nat, he was known to be a scrupulously honest, exact man who knew no law outside of his duty.

He probably did it for the boy's good, although everybody agreed that he could have accomplished his purpose in some more merciful way.

The other sensation--the departure of the two Cobden girls, and their possible prolonged stay abroad--did not subside so easily. Not only did the neighbors look upon the Manor House as the show-place of the village, but the girls themselves were greatly beloved, Jane being especially idolized from Warehold to Barnegat and the sea. To lose Jane's presence among them was a positive calamity entailing a sorrow that most of her neighbors could not bring themselves to face. No one could take her place.

Pastor Dellenbaugh, when he heard the news, sank into his study chair and threw up his hands as if to ward off some blow.

"Miss Jane going abroad!" he cried; "and you say n.o.body knows when she will come back! I can't realize it! We might as well close the school; no one else in the village can keep it together."

The Cromartins and the others all expressed similar opinions, the younger ladies' sorrow being aggravated when they realized that with Lucy away there would be no one to lead in their merrymakings.

Martha held her peace; she would stay at home, she told Mrs.

Dellenbaugh, and wait for their return and look after the place. Her heart was broken with the loneliness that would come, she moaned, but what was best for her bairn she was willing to bear. It didn't make much difference either way; she wasn't long for this world.

The doctor's mother heard the news with ill-concealed satisfaction.

"A most extraordinary thing has occurred here, my dear," she said to one of her Philadelphia friends who was visiting her--she was too politic to talk openly to the neighbors. "You have, of course, met that Miss Cobden who lives at Yardley--not the pretty one--the plain one.

Well, she is the most quixotic creature in the world. Only a few weeks ago she wanted to become a nurse in the public hospital here, and now she proposes to close her house and go abroad for n.o.body knows how long, simply because her younger sister wants to study music, as if a school-girl couldn't get all the instruction of that kind here that is necessary. Really, I never heard of such a thing."

To Mrs. Benson, a neighbor, she said, behind her hand and in strict confidence: "Miss Cobden is morbidly conscientious over trifles. A fine woman, one of the very finest we have, but a little too strait-laced, and, if I must say it, somewhat commonplace, especially for a woman of her birth and education."

To herself she said: "Never while I live shall Jane Cobden marry my John! She can never help any man's career. She has neither the worldly knowledge, nor the personal presence, nor the money."

Jane gave but one answer to all inquiries--and there were many.

"Yes, I know the move is a sudden one," she would say, "but it is for Lucy's good, and there is no one to go with her but me." No one saw beneath the mask that hid her breaking heart. To them the drawn face and the weary look in her eyes only showed her grief at leaving home and those who loved her: to Mrs. Cavendish it seemed part of Jane's peculiar temperament.

Nor could they watch her in the silence of the night tossing on her bed, or closeted with Martha in her search for the initial steps that had led to this horror. Had the Philadelphia school undermined her own sisterly teachings or had her companions been at fault? Perhaps it was due to the blood of some long-forgotten ancestor, which in the cycle of years had cropped out in this generation, poisoning the fountain of her youth. Bart, she realized, had played the villain and the ingrate, but yet it was also true that Bart, and all his cla.s.s, would have been powerless before a woman of a different temperament. Who, then, had undermined this citadel and given it over to plunder and disgrace? Then with merciless exactness she searched her own heart. Had it been her fault? What safeguard had she herself neglected? Wherein had she been false to her trust and her promise to her dying father? What could she have done to avert it? These ever-haunting, ever-recurring doubts maddened her.

One thing she was determined upon, cost what it might--to protect her sister's name. No daughter of Morton Cobden's should be pointed at in scorn. For generations no stain of dishonor had tarnished the family name. This must be preserved, no matter who suffered. In this she was sustained by Martha, her only confidante.

Doctor John heard the news from Jane's lips before it was known to the villagers. He had come to inquire after Martha.

She met him at the porch entrance, and led him into the drawing-room, without a word of welcome. Then shutting the door, she motioned him to a seat opposite her own on the sofa. The calm, determined way with which this was done--so unusual in one so cordial--startled him. He felt that something of momentous interest, and, judging from Jane's face, of serious import, had happened. He invariably took his cue from her face, and his own spirits always rose or fell as the light in her eyes flashed or dimmed.

"Is there anything the matter?" he asked nervously. "Martha worse?"

"No, not that; Martha is around again--it is about Lucy and me." The voice did not sound like Jane's.

The doctor looked at her intently, but he did not speak. Jane continued, her face now deathly pale, her words coming slowly.

"You advised me some time ago about Lucy's going to Trenton, and I am glad I followed it. You thought it would strengthen her love for us all and teach her to love me the better. It has--so much so that hereafter we will never be separated. I hope now you will also approve of what I have just decided upon. Lucy is going abroad to live, and I am going with her."

As the words fell from her lips her eyes crept up to his face, watching the effect of her statement. It was a cold, almost brutal way of putting it, she knew, but she dared not trust herself with anything less formal.

For a moment he sat perfectly still, the color gone from his cheeks, his eyes fixed on hers, a cold chill benumbing the roots of his hair.

The suddenness of the announcement seemed to have stunned him.

"For how long?" he asked in a halting voice.

"I don't know. Not less than two years; perhaps longer."

"TWO YEARS? Is Lucy ill?"

"No; she wants to study music, and she couldn't go alone."

"Have you made up your mind to this?" he asked, in a more positive tone. His self-control was returning now.

"Yes."

Doctor John rose from his chair, paced the room slowly for a moment, and crossing to the fireplace with his back to Jane, stood under her father's portrait, his elbows on the mantel, his head in his hand.