Thrice Armed Part 34

"If you had sat down and tried to think of every reef and shoal, and what would become of the _Shasta_ if she struck them, would you ever have reached your destination when the fog shut down?"

"No," said Jimmy; "I should in all probability have turned her round, and steamed south again."

Nellie Austerly laughed. "Instead of that you went on--and got there--as they say in this country. That, as I think you will recognize, is the point of it all."

"I also got ash.o.r.e."

"In spite of the lead. It wasn't much service, Jimmy. It really seems that one is just as safe when going full-speed ahead. Besides, you got off again, and brought the _Shasta_ back undamaged. Well, perhaps it may occur to you by and by that there must always be a little uncertainty, and in the meanwhile I dare say you won't mind giving me your arm. I must go in, and these steps seem to be getting steeper lately."

Jimmy gravely held out his arm, and when he handed her one of the shawls as they reached the veranda, she smiled at him again.

"Now you are released, and I see Anthea is all alone," she said.

She disappeared into the house, and Jimmy's heart beat a good deal faster than usual when he went down the stairway. Though he did not know what he would say to her, he had been longing all evening for a word or two with Anthea, and now the desire was almost overwhelming. He had, of course, seen the drift of Nellie Austerly's observations, and it scarcely seemed likely that she would have offered him the veiled encouragement unless she had had some ground for believing that it was warranted. He also remembered what he had twice seen in Anthea's face; but he was a steamboat skipper with no means worth mentioning, and she the daughter of a man who was in one sense responsible for his father's death. That was certainly not her fault, but Jimmy felt that even if she would listen to him, of which he was far from certain, he could not expose her to her father's ill-will and the scornful pity of her friends. Still, Nellie Austerly's words had had their effect, and he strode straight across the lawn, with the same curious little thrill running through him of which he had been sensible when he drove the _Shasta_ full-speed into the fog.

Anthea stood waiting for him beneath the dark firs, very much as she had done when he had last seen her, with a smile in her eyes.

"I suppose it is Nellie's fault, but I was commencing to wonder whether you wished to avoid me," she said.

Jimmy stood silent a moment, trying to impose a due restraint upon himself, until she lifted her eyes and looked at him. Then he knew the attempt was useless, and abandoned it.

"The fault was not exactly mine," he said, with a faint hoa.r.s.eness in his voice. "For one thing, how could I know that you would be pleased to see me?"

"Still," said Anthea quietly, "I really think you did. Were your other reasons for staying away more convincing?"

Then Jimmy flung prudence to the winds. The fog of which he had declared himself afraid was thicker than ever, but that fact had suddenly ceased to trouble him. Again he felt, as he had done when he crouched in the _Sorata_'s c.o.c.kpit one wild morning, that he and Anthea Merril were merely man and woman, and that she was the one he wanted for his wife.

That was sufficient, for the time being, to drive out every other consideration; but he answered her quietly.

"A little while ago I believed they were, but I can't quite think that now," he said. "Something seems to have happened in the meanwhile--and they don't appear to count."

They had as if by mutual consent turned and followed a path that led into the scented shadow of the firs, but when a great columnar trunk hid them from the house Jimmy stopped again.

"Yes," he said, "after that morning when we watched the big combers from the _Sorata_'s c.o.c.kpit, I think I should have known you were glad to see the _Shasta_ back; but the trouble was that I dared not let myself be sure of it. There were, as you said, reasons for that. I suppose I should be strong enough to recognize and yield to them still, but--while you may blame me afterward for not doing so--I can't."

He moved a pace forward, and laid a hand on her shoulder, holding her back from him, unresisting, while he looked down at her. "Since I carried you through the creek that evening up in the bush I have thought of nothing, longed for nothing, but you. It has been one long effort to hold the folly in check; but it has suddenly grown too hard for me--I can't keep it up. Now, at least, you know."

He let his hand drop to his side, and stood still with his eyes fixed on her. Anthea looked up at him with a smile.

"Ah!" she said, "I knew it all long ago. Was it very hard, Jimmy--and are you sure it was necessary?"

The blood surged to the man's forehead, but there was trouble as well as exultation in his face, for his senses were coming back, and it seemed to him that he must somehow muster wisdom to choose for both of them.

"My dear," he said a trifle hoa.r.s.ely, "I think it was. I am a struggling steamboat skipper, and you a lady of station in this Province. That was a sufficient reason, as things go."

"If you had been the director of a steams.h.i.+p company, and I a girl without a dollar, would that have influenced you?"

"It would have made it easier. I should have claimed you on board the _Sorata_. Lord"--and Jimmy made a little forceful gesture--"how I wish you were!"

Anthea smiled at him curiously. "Well," she said, "I may not have very much money, after all--and, if I had, is there any reason why you should be willing to give up more than I would? Does it matter so very much that I may, perhaps, be a little richer than you are?"

The veins showed swollen on the man's forehead, and again he struggled with the impulses that had carried him away, for the discrepancy in wealth was, after all, only a minor obstacle. Anthea, too, clearly realized that, and she roused herself for an effort.

"Jimmy," she said, while he stood silent, "would it hurt you very much if I admitted that you were right, and sent you away? After all, you have scarcely said anything that could make one think you would feel it very keenly."

The man stooped a little, and seized one of her hands. "Dear, you are all I want, and to go would be the hardest thing I ever did; but there is your father's opposition to consider, and, if to stay would bring you trouble, I might compel myself."

"Ah!" said Anthea softly, "the trouble would come if you went away."

Then with a little resolute movement she drew herself away from him, and looked up with a flush in her face and a quickening of her breath, for there was something of moment to be said. "There is a reason you haven't mentioned yet, though your sister did. Does that count for so very much with you?"

"Eleanor!" said Jimmy, while a thrill of anger ran through him. "I might have known she would do this."

He stood quite still for several moments with a hand clenched at his side and his face furrowed, and when he spoke again it was hoa.r.s.ely.

"What did she tell you?" he asked.

"I think she told me all that she knew about your father's ruin, and his death. It was very hard to listen to, Jimmy--but did it really happen that way?"

She stopped a moment, and cast a little glance of appeal at him. "I have tried to think that she must have distorted things. It would have been no more than natural. If I had borne what she has I would have done the same. One could not regard them correctly. Bitterness and grief must influence one's point of view."

The man turned his face from her, and moved away a pace or two as if in pain. Then once more he turned toward her with a compa.s.sionate gesture, for he knew that the blow would be a heavy one to her, and it was almost insufferable that his hand should be the one to deal it.

"Then anything I could say would not be more reliable. My views would as naturally be distorted too."

"Still, I should have an answer. You must realize that, and if it is one that hurts I should sooner it came from you than anybody else."

Jimmy drew in his breath. "Then, while I don't know exactly what Eleanor has said, or whether I can forgive her that cruelty, I think you could believe every word of it."

The color faded from Anthea's face, and she looked at him with a faint horror in her eyes and her lips tight set. She could not doubt him. If there had been no other reason, the pity she saw he had for her was proof enough, and for a moment or two she forgot everything but the grim fact to which Eleanor Wheelock had forced her to listen. She could make no excuses for her father now.

She saw him suddenly as she felt that he was a creature of insatiable greed, cunning, unscrupulous, and without pity, and then she commenced to feel intolerably lonely. It was almost as though he had died, and the longing for the love of the man who stood watching her with grave sympathy in his eyes grew so strong that for the moment she was sensible of nothing else. There was n.o.body but him to whom she could turn. It was, she felt, his part to comfort her; and then she s.h.i.+vered as she remembered that circ.u.mstances had placed that out of the question. The injury her father had done him must, it seemed, always stand between them, and she shrank back a pace from him.

"Ah!" she said, "you must hate me for that, Jimmy."

It was half an a.s.sertion, and, though she had perhaps not consciously intended the latter, half a question, and the man recognized the dismay in it. He strode forward, and seizing both her hands laid them on his shoulders, and drew her to him masterfully. For a moment he used compulsion, and then she clung to him quivering with her head on his breast.

"Dear," he said, "it is not your fault. You had no part in it, and, even had it been so, I think I could not have helped loving you. As it is, there is nothing in this world could make me hate you."

Anthea made him no answer, and Jimmy drew her closer still. He had flung prudence and restraint away. What he had said and done was irrevocable, and he was glad that it was so. At last the girl looked up at him again.

"Jimmy," she said, "if you can thrust into the background all that Eleanor told me, you cannot let money come between us. Besides, I haven't any now. Could I lavish money that had been wrung from your father and other struggling men upon my pleasures--or dare to bring it to you? Can't you understand, dear? I am as poor as you are."

Then she suddenly shook herself free from his grasp, and seemed to s.h.i.+ver. "But you can't forgive him--it will be war between you?"

"Yes," said Jimmy slowly, "I am afraid that must be so. If there were no other reason, I cannot desert the men who befriended me, and your father will do all he can to crush them."

"Ah!" said the girl, "it is going to be very hard. Still, I cannot turn against him; he has, at least, been kind to me. I have never had a wish he has not gratified."