The After House
by Mary Roberts Rinehart
CHAPTER I
I PLAN A VOYAGE
By the bequest of an elder brother, I was left enough money to see
me through a small college in Ohio, and to secure me four years in
a medical school in the East. Why I chose medicine I hardly know.
Possibly the career of a surgeon attracted the adventurous element
in me. Perhaps, coming of a family of doctors, I merely followed
the line of least resistance. It may be, indirectly but inevitably,
that I might be on the yacht Ella on that terrible night of August
12, more than a year ago.
I got through somehow. I played quarterback on the football team,
and made some money coaching. In summer I did whatever came to
hand, from chartering a sail-boat at a summer resort and taking
passengers, at so much a head, to checking up cucumbers in Indiana
for a Western pickle house.
I was practically alone. Commencement left me with a diploma, a
new dress-suit, an out-of-date medical library, a box of surgical
instruments of the same date as the books, and an incipient case
of typhoid fever.
I was twenty-four, six feet tall, and forty inches around the chest.
Also, I had lived clean, and worked and played hard. I got over the
fever finally, pretty much all bone and appetite; but - alive.
Thanks to the college, my hospital care had cost nothing. It was a
good thing: I had just seven dollars in the world.
The yacht Ella lay in the river not far from my hospital windows.
She was not a yacht when I first saw her, nor at any time,
technically, unless I use the word in the broad sense of a
pleasure-boat. She was a two-master, and, when I saw her first,
as dirty and disreputable as are most coasting-vessels. Her
rejuvenation was the history of my convalescence. On the day she
stood forth in her first coat of white paint, I exchanged my
dressing-gown for clothing that, however loosely it hung, was still
clothing. Her new sails marked my promotion to beefsteak, her brass
rails and awnings my first independent excursion up and down the
corridor outside my door, and, incidentally, my return to a collar
and tie.
The river shipping appealed to me, to my imagination, clean washed
by my illness and ready as a child's for new impressions: liners
gliding down to the bay and the open sea; shrewish, scolding tugs;
dirty but picturesque tramps. My enthusiasm amused the nurses,
whose ideas of adventure consisted of little jaunts of exploration
into the abdominal cavity, and whose aseptic minds revolted at the
sight of dirty sails.
One day I pointed out to one of them an old schooner, red and
brown, with patched canvas spread, moving swiftly down the river
before a stiff breeze.
"Look at her!" I exclaimed. "There goes adventure, mystery,
romance! I should like to be sailing on her."
"You would have to boil the drinking-water," she replied dryly. "And
the ship is probably swarming with rats."
"Rats," I affirmed, "add to the local color. Ships are their native
habitat. Only sinking ships don't have them."
But her answer was to retort that rats carried bubonic plague, and
to exit, carrying the sugar-bowl. I was ravenous, as are all
convalescent typhoids, and one of the ways in which I eked out my
still slender diet was by robbing the sugar-bowl at meals.
That day, I think it was, the deck furniture was put out on the
Ella - numbers of white wicker chairs and tables, with bright
cushions to match the awnings. I had a pair of ancient opera-glasses,
as obsolete as my amputating knives, and, like them, a part of my
heritage. By that time I felt a proprietary interest in the Ella,
and through my glasses, carefully focused with a pair of scissors,
watched the arrangement of the deck furnishings. A girl was
directing the men. I judged, from the poise with which she carried
herself, that she was attractive - and knew it. How beautiful she
was, and how well she knew it, I was to find out before long.
McWhirter to the contrary, she had nothing to do with my decision
to sign as a sailor on the Ella.
One of the bright spots of that long hot summer was McWhirter. We
had graduated together in June, and in October he was to enter a
hospital in Buffalo as a resident. But he was as indigent as I,
and from June to October is four months.
"Four months," he said to me. "Even at two meals a day, boy, that's
something over two hundred and forty. And I can eat four times a
day, without a struggle! Wouldn't you think one of these
overworked-for-the-good-of-humanity dubs would take a vacation and
give me a chance to hold down his practice?"
Nothing of the sort developing, McWhirter went into a drug-store,
and managed to pull through the summer with unimpaired cheerfulness,
confiding to me that he secured his luncheons free at the soda
counter. He came frequently to see me, bringing always a pocketful
of chewing gum, which he assured me was excellent to allay the
gnawings of hunger, and later, as my condition warranted it, small
bags of gum-drops and other pharmacy confections.
McWhirter it was who got me my berth on the Ella. It must have been
about the 20th of July, for the Ella sailed on the 28th. I was
strong enough to leave the hospital, but not yet physically able for
any prolonged exertion. McWhirter, who was short and stout, had been
alternately flirting with the nurse, as she moved in and out
preparing my room for the night, and sizing me up through narrowed
eyes.
"No," he said, evidently following a private line of thought; "you
don't belong behind a counter, Leslie. I'm darned if I think you
belong in the medical profession, either. The British army'd suit
you."
"The - what?"
"You know - Kipling idea - riding horseback, head of a column -
undress uniform - colonel's wife making eyes at you - leading last
hopes and all that."
"The British army with Kipling trimmings being out of the question,
the original issue is still before us. I'll have to work, Mac, and
work like the devil, if I'm to feed myself."
There being no answer to this, McWhirter contented himself with
eyeing me.
"I'm thinking," I said, "of going to Europe. The sea is calling
me, Mac."
"So was the grave a month ago, but it didn't get you. Don't be an ass,
boy. How are you going to sea?"
"Before the mast." This apparently conveying no meaning to McWhirter,
I supplemented - "as a common sailor."
He was indignant at first, offering me his room and a part of his
small salary until I got my strength; then he became dubious; and
finally, so well did I paint my picture of long, idle days on the
ocean, of sweet, cool nights under the stars, with breezes that
purred through the sails, rocking the ship to slumber - finally he
waxed enthusiastic, and was even for giving up the pharmacy at
once and sailing with me.
He had been fitting out the storeroom of a sailing-yacht with drugs,
he informed me, and doing it under the personal direction of the
owner's wife.
"I've made a hit with her," he confided. "Since she's learned I'm
a graduate M.D., she's letting me do the whole thing. I've made up
some lotions to prevent sunburn, and that seasick prescription of
old Larimer's, and she thinks I'm the whole cheese. I'll suggest
you as ships doctor."
"How many men in the crew?"
"Eight, I think, or ten. It's a small boat, and carries a small
crew."
"Then they don't want a ship's doctor. If I go, I'll go as a
sailor," I said firmly. "And I want your word, Mac, not a word
about me, except that I am honest."
"You'll have to wash decks, probably."
"I am filled with a wild longing to wash decks," I asserted, smiling
at his disturbed face. "I should probably also have to polish brass.
There's a great deal of brass on the boat."
"How do you know that?"
When I told him, he was much excited, and, although it was dark and
the Ella consisted of three lights, he insisted on the opera-glasses,
and was persuaded he saw her. Finally he put down the glasses and
came over, to me.
"Perhaps you are right, Leslie," he said soberly. "You don't want
charity, any more than they want a ship's doctor. Wherever you go
and whatever you do, whether you're swabbing decks in your bare feet
or polishing brass railings with an old sock, you're a man."
He was more moved than I had ever seen him, and ate a gum-drop to
cover his embarrassment. Soon after that he took his departure,
and the following day he telephoned to say that, if the sea was
still calling me, he could get a note to the captain recommending
me. I asked him to get the note.
Good old Mac! The sea was calling me, true enough, but only dire
necessity was driving me to ship before the mast - necessity and
perhaps what, for want of a better name, we call destiny. For what
is fate but inevitable law, inevitable consequence.
The stirring of my blood, generations removed from a seafaring
ancestor; my illness, not a cause, but a result; McWhirter, filling
prescriptions behind the glass screen of a pharmacy, and fitting out,
in porcelain jars, the medicine-closet of the Ella; Turner and his
wife, Schwartz, the mulatto Tom, Singleton, and Elsa Lee; all thrown
together, a hodge-podge of characters, motives, passions, and
hereditary tendencies, through an inevitable law working together
toward that terrible night of August 22, when hell seemed loose on
a painted sea.
CHAPTER II
THE PAINTED SHIP
The Ella had been a coasting-vessel, carrying dressed lumber to
South America, and on her return trip bringing a miscellaneous
cargo - hides and wool, sugar from Pernambuco, whatever offered.
The firm of Turner and Sons owned the line of which the Ella was
one of the smallest vessels.
The gradual elimination of sailing ships and the substitution of
steamers in the coasting trade, left the Ella, with others, out of
commission. She was still seaworthy, rather fast, as such vessels
go, and steady. Marshall Turner, the oldest son of old Elias Turner,
the founder of the business, bought it in at a nominal sum, with the
intention of using it as a private yacht. And, since it was a
superstition of the house never to change the name of one of its
vessels, the schooner Ella, odorous of fresh lumber or raw rubber,
as the case might be, dingy gray in color, with slovenly decks on
which lines of seamen's clothing were generally hanging to dry,
remained, in her metamorphosis, still the Ella.
Marshall Turner was a wealthy man, but he equipped his new
pleasure-boat very modestly. As few changes as were possible were
made. He increased the size of the forward house, adding quarters
for the captain and the two mates, and thus kept the after house for
himself and his friends. He fumigated the hold and the forecastle -
a precaution that kept all the crew coughing for two days, and drove
them out of the odor of formaldehyde to the deck to sleep. He
installed an electric lighting and refrigerating plant, put a bath
in the forecastle, to the bewilderment of the men, who were inclined
to think it a reflection on their habits, and almost entirely rebuilt,
inside, the old officers' quarters in the after house.
The wheel, replaced by a new one, white and gilt, remained in its
old position behind the after house, the steersman standing on a
raised iron grating above the wash of the deck. Thus from the
chart-room, which had become a sort of lounge and card-room, through
a small barred window it was possible to see the man at the wheel,
who, in his turn, commanded a view of part of the chartroom, but not
of the floor.
The craft was schooner-rigged, carried three lifeboats and a
collapsible raft, and was navigated by a captain, first and second
mates, and a crew of six able-bodied sailors and one gaunt youth
whose sole knowledge of navigation had been gained on an Atlantic
City catboat. Her destination was vague - Panama perhaps, possibly
a South American port, depending on the weather and the whim of the
owner.
I do not recall that I performed the nautical rite of signing
articles. Armed with the note McWhirter had secured for me, and with
what I fondly hoped was the rolling gait of the seafaring man, I
approached the captain - a bearded and florid individual. I had
dressed the part - old trousers, a cap, and a sweater from which I
had removed my college letter, McWhirter, who had supervised my
preparations, and who had accompanied me to the wharf, had suggested
that I omit my morning shave. The result was, as I look back, a lean
and cadaverous six-foot youth, with the hospital pallor still on him,
his chin covered with a day's beard, his hair cropped short, and a
cannibalistic gleam in his eyes. I remember that my wrists, thin
and bony, annoyed me, and that the girl I had seen through the
opera-glasses came on board, and stood off, detached and indifferent,
but with her eyes on me, while the captain read my letter.
When he finished, he held it out to me.
"I've got my crew," he said curtly.
"There isn't - I suppose there's no chance of your needing another
hand?"
"No." He turned away, then glanced back at the letter I was still
holding, rather dazed. "You can leave your name and address with
the mate over there. If anything turns up he'll let you know."
My address! The hospital?
I folded the useless letter and thrust it into my pocket. The
captain had gone forward, and the girl with the cool eyes was leaning
against the rail, watching me.
"You are the man Mr. McWhirter has been looking after, aren't you?"
"Yes." I pulled off my cap, and, recollecting myself - "Yes, miss."
"You are not a sailor?"
"I have had some experience - and I am willing."
"You have been ill, haven't you?"
"Yes - miss."
"Could you polish brass, and things like that?"
"I could try. My arms are strong enough. It is only when I walk - "
But she did not let me finish. She left the rail abruptly, and
disappeared down the companionway into the after house. I waited
uncertainly. The captain saw me still loitering, and scowled. A
procession of men with trunks jostled me; a colored man, evidently a
butler, ordered me out of his way while he carried down into the
cabin, with almost reverent care, a basket of wine.
When the girl returned, she came to me, and stood for a moment,
looking me over with cool, appraising eyes. I had been right about
her appearance: she was charming - or no, hardly charming. She was
too aloof for that. But she was beautiful, an Irish type, with
blue-gray eyes and almost black hair. The tilt of her head was
haughty. Later I came to know that her hauteur was indifference:
but at first I was frankly afraid of her, afraid of her cool,
mocking eyes and the upward thrust of her chin.
"My brother-in-law is not here," she said after a moment, "but my
sister is below in the cabin. She will speak to the captain about
you. Where are your things?"
I glanced toward the hospital, where my few worldly possessions,
including my dress clothes, my amputating set, and such of my books
as I had not been able to sell, were awaiting disposition. "Very
near, miss," I said.
"Better bring them at once; we are sailing in the morning." She
turned away as if to avoid my thanks, but stopped and came back.
"We are taking you as a sort of extra man," she explained. "You
will work with the crew, but it is possible that we will need you -
do you know anything about butler's work?"
I hesitated. If I said yes, and then failed -
"I could try."
"I thought, from your appearance, perhaps you had done something of
the sort." Oh, shades of my medical forebears, who had bequeathed
me, along with the library, what I had hoped was a professional
manner! "The butler is a poor sailor. If he fails us, you will
take his place."
She gave a curt little nod of dismissal, and I went down the
gangplank and along the wharf. I had secured what I went for; my
summer was provided for, and I was still seven dollars to the good.
I was exultant, but with my exultation was mixed a curious anger at
McWhirter, that he had advised me not to shave that morning.
My preparation took little time. Such of my wardrobe as was worth
saving, McWhirter took charge of. I sold the remainder of my books,
and in a sailor's outfitting-shop I purchased boots and slickers -
the sailors' oil skins. With my last money I bought a good revolver,
second-hand, and cartridges. I was glad later that I had bought the
revolver, and that I had taken with me the surgical instruments,
antiquated as they were, which, in their mahogany case, had
accompanied my grandfather through the Civil War, and had done, as
he was wont to chuckle, as much damage as a three-pounder. McWhirter
came to the wharf with me, and looked the Ella over with eyes of
proprietorship.
"Pretty snappy-looking boat," he said. "If the nigger gets sick,
give him some of my seasick remedy. And take care of yourself, boy."
He shook hands, his open face flushed with emotion. "Darned shame
to see you going like this. Don't eat too much, and don't fall in
love with any of the women. Good-bye."
He started away, and I turned toward the ship; but a moment later I
heard him calling me. He came back, rather breathless.
"Up in my neighborhood," he panted, "they say Turner is a devil.
Whatever happens, it's not your mix-in. Better - better tuck your
gun under your mattress and forget you've got it. You've got some
disposition yourself."
The Ella sailed the following day at ten o'clock. She carried
nineteen people, of whom five were the Turners and their guests.
The cabin was full of flowers and steamer-baskets.
Thirty-one days later she came into port again, a lifeboat covered
with canvas trailing at her stern.
CHAPTER III
I UNCLENCH MY HANDS
From the first the captain disclaimed responsibility for me. I
was housed in the forecastle, and ate with the men. There, however,
my connection with the crew and the navigation of the ship ended.
Perhaps it was as well, although I resented it at first. I was
weaker than I had thought, and dizzy at the mere thought of going
aloft.
As a matter of fact, I found myself a sort of deck-steward, given
the responsibility of looking after the shuffle-board and other deck
games, the steamer-rugs, the cards, - for they played bridge
steadily, - and answerable to George Williams, the colored butler,
for the various liquors served on deck.
The work was easy, and the situation rather amused me. After an
effort or two to bully me, one of which resulted in my holding him
over the rail until he turned gray with fright, Williams treated me
as an equal, which was gratifying.
The weather was good, the food fair. I had no reason to repent my
bargain. Of the sailing qualities of the Ella there could be no
question. The crew, selected by Captain Richardson from the best
men of the Turner line, knew their business, and, especially after
the Williams incident, made me one of themselves. Barring the odor
of formaldehyde in the forecastle, which drove me to sleeping on
deck for a night or two, everything was going smoothly, at least
on the surface.
Smoothly as far as the crew was concerned. I was not so sure about
the after house.
As I have said, owing to the small size, of the vessel, and the
fact that considerable of the space had been used for baths, there
were, besides the family, only two guests, a Mrs. Johns, a divorcee,
and a Mr. Vail. Mrs. Turner and Miss Lee shared the services of a
maid, Karen Hansen, who, with a stewardess, Henrietta Sloane,
occupied a double cabin. Vail had a small room, as had Turner, with
a bath between which they used in common. Mrs. Turner's room was a
large one, with its own bath, into which Elsa Lee's room also opened.
Mrs. Johns had a room and bath. Roughly, and not drawn to scale,
the living quarters of the family were arranged like the diagram in
chapter XIX.
I have said that things were not going smoothly in the after house.
I felt it rather than, saw it. The women rose late - except Miss Lee,
who was frequently about when I washed the deck. They chatted and
laughed together, read, played bridge when the men were so inclined,
and now and then, when their attention was drawn to it, looked at the
sea. They were always exquisitely and carefully dressed, and I looked
at them as I would at any other masterpieces of creative art, with
nothing of covetousness in my admiration.
The men were violently opposed types Turner, tall, heavy-shouldered,
morose by habit, with a prominent nose and rapidly thinning hair, and
with strong, pale blue eyes, congested from hard drinking; Vail,
shorter by three inches, dark, good-looking, with that dusky flush
under the skin which shows good red blood, and as temperate as Turner
was dissipated.
Vail was strong, too. After I had held Williams over the rail I
turned to find him looking on, amused. And when the frightened darky
had taken himself, muttering threats, to the galley, Vail came over
to me and ran his hand down my arm.
"Where did you get it?" he asked.
"Oh, I've always had some muscle," I said. "I'm in bad shape now;
just getting over fever."
"Fever, eh? I thought it was jail. Look here."
He threw out his biceps for me to feel. It was a ball of iron under
my fingers. The man was as strong as an ox. He smiled at my
surprise, and, after looking to see that no one was in sight, offered
to mix me a highball from a decanter and siphon on a table.
I refused.
It was his turn to be surprised.
"I gave it up when I was in train - in the hospital," I corrected
myself. "I find I don't miss it."
He eyed me with some curiosity over his glass, and, sauntering away,
left me to my work of folding rugs. But when I had finished, and
was chalking the deck for shuffle-board, he joined me again, dropping
his voice, for the women had come up by that time and were
breakfasting on the lee side of the after house.
"Have you any idea, Leslie, how much whiskey there is on board?"
"Williams has considerable, I believe. I don't think there is any
in the forward house. The captain is a teetotaler."
"I see. When these decanters go back, Williams takes charge of them?"
"Yes. He locks them away."
He dropped his voice still lower.
"Empty them, Leslie," he said. "Do you understand? Throw what is
left overboard. And, if you get a chance at Williams's key, pitch
a dozen or two quarts overboard."
"And be put in irons!"
"Not necessarily. I think you understand me. I don't trust Williams.
In a week we could have this boat fairly dry."
"There is a great deal of wine."
He scowled. "Damn Williams, anyhow! His instructions were - but
never mind about that. Get rid of the whiskey."
Turner coming up the companionway at that moment, Vail left me. I
had understood him perfectly. It was common talk in the forecastle
that Turner was drinking hard, and that, in fact, the cruise had
been arranged by his family in the hope that, away from his clubs;
he would alter his habits - a fallacy, of course. Taken away from
his customary daily round, given idle days on a summer sea, and
aided by Williams, the butler, he was drinking his head off.
Early as it was, he was somewhat the worse for it that morning.
He made directly for me. It was the first time he had noticed me,
although it was the third day out. He stood in front of me, his
red eyes flaming, and, although I am a tall man, he had an inch
perhaps the advantage of me.
"What's this about Williams?" he demanded furiously. "What do
you mean by a thing like that?"
"He was bullying me. I didn't intend to drop him."
The ship was rolling gently; he made a pass at me with a magazine
he carried, and almost lost his balance. The women had risen,
and were watching from the corner of the after house. I caught him
and steadied him until he could clutch a chair.
"You try any tricks like that again, and you'll go overboard," he
stormed. "Who are you, anyhow? Not one of our men?"
I saw the quick look between Vail and Mrs. Turner, and saw her come
forward. Mrs. Johns followed her, smiling.
"Marsh!" Mrs. Turner protested. "I told you about him - the man
who had been ill."
"Oh, another of your friends!" he sneered, and looked from me to
Vail with his ugly smile.
Vail went rather pale and threw up his head quickly. The next
moment Mrs. Johns had saved the situation with an irrelevant remark,
and the incident was over. They were playing bridge, not without
dispute, but at least without insult. But I had hard a glimpse
beneath the surface of that luxurious cruise, one of many such in
the next few days.
That was on Monday, the third day out. Up to that time Miss Lee
had not noticed me, except once, when she found me scrubbing the
deck, to comment on a corner that she thought might be cleaner, and
another time in the evening, when she and Vail sat in chairs until
late, when she had sent me below for a wrap. She looked past me
rather than at me, gave me her orders quietly but briefly, and did
not even take the trouble to ignore me. And yet, once or twice, I
had found her eyes fixed on me with a cool, half-amused expression,
as if she found something in my struggles to carry trays as if I
had been accustomed to them, or to handle a mop as a mop should be
handled and not like a hockey stick - something infinitely
entertaining and not a little absurd.
But that morning, after they had settled to bridge, she followed
me to the rail, out of earshot I straightened and took off my cap,
and she stood looking at me, unsmiling.
"Unclench your hands!" she said.
"I beg your pardon!" I straightened out my fingers, conscious for
the first time of my clenched fists, and even opened and closed
them once or twice to prove their relaxation.
"That's better. Now - won't you try to remember that I am
responsible for your being here, and be careful?"
"Then take me away from here and put me with the crew. I am stronger
now. Ask the captain to give me a man's work. This - this is a
housemaid's occupation."
"We prefer to have you here," she said coldly; and then, evidently
repenting her manner: "We need a man here, Leslie. Better stay.
Are you comfortable in the forecastle?"
"Yes, Miss Lee."
"And the food is all right?"
"The cook says I am eating two men's rations."
She turned to leave, smiling. It was the first time she had thrown
even a fleeting smile my way, and it went to my head.
"And Williams? I am to submit to his insolence?"
She stopped and turned, and the smile faded.
"The next time," she said, "you are to drop him!"
But during the remainder of the day she neither spoke to me nor
looked, as far as I could tell, in my direction. She flirted openly
with Vail, rather, I thought, to the discomfort of Mrs. Johns, who
had appropriated him to herself - sang to him in the cabin, and in
the long hour before dinner, when the others were dressing, walked
the deck with him, talking earnestly. They looked well together,
and I believe he was in love with her. Poor Vail!
Turner had gone below, grimly good-humored, to dress for dinner; and
I went aft to chat, as I often did, with the steersman. On this
occasion it happened to be Charlie Jones. Jones was not his name,
so far as I know. It was some inordinately long and different
German inheritance, and so, with the facility of the average crew,
he had been called Jones. He was a benevolent little man, highly
religious, and something of a philosopher. And because I could
understand German, and even essay it in a limited way, he was fond
of me.
"Seta du dick," he said, and moved over so that I could sit on the
grating on which he stood. "The sky is fine to-night. Wunderschon!"
"It always looks good to me," I observed, filling my pipe and
passing my tobacco-bag to him. "I may have my doubts now and then
on land, Charlie; but here, between the sky and the sea, I'm a
believer, right enough."
"'In the beginning He created the heaven and the earth,'" said
Charlie reverently.
We were silent for a time. The ship rolled easily; now and then
she dipped her bowsprit with a soft swish of spray; a school of
dolphins played astern, and the last of the land birds that had
followed us out flew in circles around the masts.
"Sometimes," said Charlie Jones, "I think the Good Man should have
left it the way it was after the flood just sky and water. What's
the land, anyhow? Noise and confusion, wickedness and crime,
robbing the widow and the orphan, eat or be et."
"Well," I argued, "the sea's that way. What are those fish out
there flying for, but to get out of the way of bigger fish?"
Charlie Jones surveyed me over his pipe.
"True enough, youngster," he said; "but the Lord's given 'em wings
to fly with. He ain't been so careful with the widow and the orphan."
This statement being incontrovertible, I let the argument lapse,
and sat quiet, luxuriating in the warmth, in the fresh breeze, in
the feeling of bodily well-being that came with my returning strength.
I got up and stretched, and my eyes fell on the small window of the
chart-room.
The door into the main cabin beyond was open. It was dark with the
summer twilight, except for the four rose-shaded candles on the table,
now laid for dinner. A curious effect it had - the white cloth and
gleaming pink an island of cheer in a twilight sea; and to and from
this rosy island, making short excursions, advancing, retreating,
disappearing at times, the oval white ship that was Williams's shirt
bosom.
Charlie Jones, bending to the right and raised to my own height by
the grating on which he stood, looked over my shoulder. Dinner was
about to be served. The women had come out. The table-lamps threw
their rosy glow over white necks and uncovered arms, and revealed,
higher in the shadows, the faces of the men, smug, clean-shaven,
assured, rather heavy.
I had been the guest of honor on a steam-yacht a year or two before,
after a game. There had been pink lights on the table, I remembered,
and the place-cards at dinner the first night out had been
caricatures of me in fighting trim. There had been a girl, too.
For the three days of that week-end cruise I had been mad about her;
before that first dinner, when I had known her two hours, I had
kissed her hand and told her I loved her!
Vail and Miss Lee had left the others and come into the chart-room.
As Charlie Jones and I looked, he bent over and kissed her hand.
The sun had gone down. My pipe was empty, and from the galley,
forward, came the odor of the forecastle supper. Charlie was
coughing, a racking paroxysm that shook his wiry body. He leaned
over and caught my shoulder as I was moving away.
"New paint and new canvas don't make a new ship," he said, choking
back the cough. "She's still the old Ella, the she-devil of the
Turner line. Pink lights below, and not a rat in the hold! They
left her before we sailed, boy. Every rope was crawling with 'em."
"The very rats
Instinctively had left it,"
I quoted. But Charlie, clutching the wheel, was coughing again,
and cursing breathlessly as he coughed.
CHAPTER IV
I RECEIVE A WARNING
The odor of formaldehyde in the forecastle having abated, permission
for the crew to sleep on deck had been withdrawn. But the weather
as we turned south had grown insufferably hot. The reek of the
forecastle sickened me - the odor of fresh paint, hardly dry, of
musty clothing and sweaty bodies.
I asked Singleton, the first mate, for permission to sleep on deck,
and was refused. I went down, obediently enough, to be driven back
with nausea. And so, watching my chance, I waited until the first
mate, on watch, disappeared into the forward cabin to eat the night
lunch always prepared by the cook and left there. Then, with a
blanket and pillow, I crawled into the starboard lifeboat, and
settled myself for the night. The lookout saw me, but gave no sign.
It was not a bad berth. As the ship listed, the stars seemed to
sway above me, and my last recollection was of the Great Dipper,
performing dignified gyrations in the sky.
I was aroused by one of the two lookouts, a young fellow named
Burns. He was standing below, rapping on the side of the boat
with his knuckles. I sat up and peered over at him, and was
conscious for the first time that the weather had changed. A fine
rain was falling; my hair and shirt were wet.
"Something doing in the chart-room," he said cautiously. "Thought
you might not want to miss it."
He was in his bare feet, as was I. Together we hurried to the
after house. The steersman, in oilskins, was at his post, but was
peering through the barred window into the chart-room, which was
brilliantly lighted. He stepped aside somewhat to let us look in.
The loud and furious voices which had guided us had quieted, but
the situation had not relaxed.
Singleton, the first mate, and Turner were sitting at a table
littered with bottles and glasses, and standing over them, white
with fury, was Captain Richardson. In the doorway to the main cabin,
dressed in pajamas and a bathrobe, Vail was watching the scene.
"I told you last night, Mr. Turner," the captain said, banging the
table with his fist, "I won't have you interfering with my officers,
or with my ship. That man's on duty, and he's drunk."
"Your ship!" Turner sneered thickly. "It's my ship, and I - I
discharge you."
He got to his feet, holding to the table. "Mr. Singleton - hic -
from now on you're captain. Captain Singleton! How - how d'ye
like it?"
Mr. Vail came forward, the only cool one of the four.
"Don't be a fool, Marsh," he protested. "Come to bed. The captain's
right."
Turner turned his pale-blue eyes on Vail, and they were as full of
danger as a snake's. "You go to hell!" he said. "Singleton, you're
the captain, d'ye hear? If Rich - if Richardson gets funny, put him
- in irons."
Singleton stood up, with a sort of swagger. He wes less intoxicated
than Turner, but ugly enough. He faced the captain with a leer.
"Sorry, old fellow," he said, "but you heard what Turner said!"
The captain drew a deep breath. Then, without any warning, he leaned
across the table and shot out his clenched fist. It took the mate on
the point of the chin, and he folded up in a heap on the floor.
"Good old boy!" muttered Burns, beside me. "Good old boy!"
Turner picked up a bottle from the table, and made the same
incoordinate pass with it at the captain as he had at me the morning
before with his magazine. The captain did not move. He was a big
man, and he folded his arms with their hairy wrists across his chest.
"Mr. Turner," he said, "while we are on the sea I am in command here.
You know that well enough. You are drunk to-night; in the morning
you will be sober; and I want you to remember what I am going to say.
If you interfere again - with - me - or - my officers - I - shall -
put - you - in - irons."
He started for the after companionway, and Burns and I hurried
forward out of his way, Burns to the lookout, I to make the round
of the after house and bring up, safe from detection, by the wheel
again. The mate was in a chair, looking sick and dazed, and Turner
and Vail were confronting each other.
"You know that is a lie," Vail was saying. "She is faithful to you,
as far as I know, although I'm damned if I know why." He turned to
the mate roughly: "Better get out in the air."
Once again I left my window to avoid discovery. The mate, walking
slowly, made his way up the companionway to the rail. The man at
the wheel reported in the forecastle, when he came down at the end
of his watch, that Singleton had seemed dazed, and had stood leaning
against the rail for some time, occasionally cursing to himself;
that the second mate had come on deck, and had sent him to bed; and
that the captain was shut in his cabin with the light going.
There was much discussion of the incident among the crew. Sympathy
was with the captain, and there was a general feeling that the end
had not come. Charlie Jones, reading his Bible on the edge of his
bunk, voiced the general belief.
"Knowin' the Turners, hull and mast," he said, "and having sailed
with Captain Richardson off and on for ten years, the chances is
good of our having a hell of a time. It ain't natural, anyhow,
this voyage with no rats in the hold, and all the insects killed
with this here formaldehyde, and ice-cream sent to the fo'c'sle
on Sundays!"
But at first the thing seemed smoothed over. It is true that the
captain did not speak to the first mate except when compelled to,
and that Turner and the captain ignored each other elaborately.
The cruise went on without event. There was no attempt on Turner's
part to carry out his threat of the night before; nor did he, as
the crew had prophesied, order the Ella into the nearest port. He
kept much to himself, spending whole days below, with Williams
carrying him highballs, always appearing at dinner, however, sodden
of face but immaculately dressed, and eating little or nothing.
A week went by in this fashion, luring us all to security. I was
still lean but fairly strong again. Vail, left to himself or to
the women of the party, took to talking with me now and then. I
thought he was uneasy. More than once he expressed a regret that
he had taken the cruise, laying his discontent to the long inaction.
But the real reason was Turner's jealousy of him, the obsession of
the dipsomaniac. I knew it, and Vail knew that I knew.
On the 8th we encountered bad weather, the first wind of the cruise.
All hands were required for tacking, and I was stationed on the
forecastle-head with one other man. Williams, the butler, succumbed
to the weather, and at five o'clock Miss Lee made her way forward
through the driving rain, and asked me if I could take his place.
"If the captain needs you, we can manage," she said. "We have
Henrietta and Karen, the two maids. But Mr. Turner prefers a man
to serve."
I said that I was probably not so useful that I could not be spared,
and that I would try. Vail's suggestion had come back to me, and
this was my chance to get Williams's keys. Miss Lee having spoken
to the captain, I was relieved from duty, and went aft with her.
What with the plunging of the vessel and the slippery decks, she
almost fell twice, and each time I caught her.
The second time, she wrenched her ankle, and stood for a moment
holding to the rail, while I waited beside her. She wore a heavy
ulster of some rough material, and a small soft hat of the same
material, pulled over her ears. Her soft hair lay wet across her
forehead.
"How are you liking the sea, Leslie?" she said, after she had
tested her ankle and found the damage inconsiderable.
"Very much, Miss Lee."
"Do you intend to remain a - a sailor?"
"I am not a sailor. I am a deck steward, and I am about to become
a butler."
"That was our agreement," she flashed at me.
"Certainly. And to know that I intend to fulfill it to the letter,
I have only to show this."
It had been one of McWhirter's inspirations, on learning how I had
been engaged, the small book called "The Perfect Butler." I took it
from the pocket of my flannel shirt, under my oilskins, and held it
out to her.