CHAPTER XI
I DON'T know how to put it—just exactly—what I've got to say, nor what to put first," he began. "There appears to be so much, but after last night, as I turned it over in my mind, it seemed pretty clear there was only one honorable thing for a man to say to any one he honored, as I do you. Of course I may be all wrong. I've been away from these parts so many years, there may be new ways and customs now, but I've got to say what seems honorable to me to say, and run the risk of making a mistake, haven't I, miss?"
"Of course," Reba murmured.
"I thought at first," he went on, "that first night, I mean, you might be one of the workers there—secretaries or something—one of those fine charity ladies. At least I did until you said you'd let me take you out somewhere. Even then I wasn't quite sure that you weren't just taking pity on me, until—until—you know, miss," he said to her, in a low confidential voice. "Oh, I want you to feel sure," he told her earnestly, "that when anybody so—so—so—anybody like you—through some miracle of heaven lets me see her so often, and lets me—lets me—I'm not a chap who has a girl in every port. I'm not just passing the time with you," he broke off. "I know I ought to have told you my honorable feelings, and laid bare my history to you, before I went so far as I did last night. I was ashamed afterwards. You had a right to know more about me. I took advantage of your ignorance."
He stopped abruptly, put on his cap, and thrust his hands down deep into his loose coat pockets. Reba sat very still in the dark corner, not knowing what to say.
"I killed somebody once," he brought out at last in a low tone.
"Oh!" gasped Reba, and caught her breath.
"Don't be afraid. I wouldn't hurt you."
"I'm not afraid," she told him. "I'm not the least bit afraid."
"I killed my own mother," he added. And after a pause, "No one in all the world knows that but me—and now you—now you," he repeated.
"And I don't believe it!" said Reba.
"I guess you'll have to, miss," he smiled wearily in the dark. "I'm going to tell you all about it.
"I was brought up in a little place, way up in the corner of Maine, right near the border of Canada," he went on. "I was fifteen when I saw it last. That was when I ran away to sea. It was a poor little town—just a few little houses, and one small store, and no railroad nearer than twelve miles. We—me and my mother and my stepfather—lived six miles away from the store—on a kind of rocky clearing on the edge of some woods, in an old weather-beaten sort of shack, with tar paper nailed all over one side of it, to keep out the wind.
"It wasn't much of a place for a woman like my mother to live. She'd been used to things nice. She was a school-teacher once—my mother was. She was a small, delicate little thing. I wish I had a picture of my mother. There was something about her eyes and forehead, just here," he tapped his brow, "that was full of knowing, and it didn't matter how hard she worked, how rough her hands got, nor how drawn and thin and worn-out she was with being sick, and having babies one after another, that died when they were born, she never lost that fine look about her eyes.
"My stepfather hated me," he continued. "He liked trapping and hunting and killing things in the woods, and I didn't. He hated anything to do with a farm, and mother and me used to have to tend the cow; and it was us too, who hoed the potatoes usually, or chopped the kindling. He was cross and glum by nature, but worse when he'd been drinking. It was when he'd been drinking that he used to whip me sometimes, when my mother wasn't around. He used a strap—a thin little cutting strap. It hurt. It used to make me holler. Fact was, he'd keep at it till I did holler. But I think the things my mother had to bear from that beast of a man, when he was drunk, were worse than my floggings. I can't think of it now, without getting mad all over again."
He stopped—for so long, in fact, that Reba had to remind him gently. He seemed to drag himself back to the narrative with an effort.
"I always wanted an education," he took up. "I didn't care about anything, when I was a kid, but things in books—seems though. My mother knew how I felt, and did all she could to help me. Lots of times she'd do the chores around the place herself, so's I could have the time to study. When I got through with the district school I began going to an academy twenty miles from our place. I used to walk across to the railroad four miles from our farm—if you could call it a farm—every morning, and get a train that went right near the academy. The engineer used to let me ride for nothing. And at night I'd come back with him, and walk home again—four miles, in time to milk and do a few chores. I took literature at the academy," he told her with pride, "and French and Latin. I know a little Latin now!
"My mother and me used to talk just hours about when I'd go to college. You see there was a camp near us—a city-folks' camp, on a lake where there was good fishing. It was quite a stylish camp—all fixed up with cute little log-cabins, and one main dining-room. They needed their towels and sheets washed during the summer-time over at the camp, and my mother did a lot of 'em for them. The money she got for it she kept hidden in an old broken bean-jug under the shed. It was my college money. When my stepfather wasn't around we used to take it out and count it. There was most a hundred dollars in it when my mother died. She didn't know she was going to die—my mother didn't. I didn't mean to kill her. But I meant to kill somebody!
"You see, my father got worse, miss. The drink got hold of him worse. He used to guide some of the men up at the camp sometimes. He'd keep straight on a job all right, but it got so he was just never sober when he was home, loafing, with mother and me. It got so I couldn't bear seeing my mother suffer—and so—I'll tell you how it happened.
"One day—one awful hot day in July, when my mother was washing, and I was turning the heavy wringer for her, she sort of swayed, and fell over in a heap. And when she came to, I was sitting on the floor and had her kind of half up in my arms. She wasn't much larger than you, miss—and even at fifteen I was a pretty big fellow. When she came to I said to her, 'Is there going to be another dead baby, mother?' You see, I knew from experience—her fainting that way.
"She looked up at me, like a deer I saw die once, after my father had shot him, and she nodded, and big tears came out of her eyes.
"'I wish he was dead! Oh, I wish Joe was dead!' my mother said to me in a whisper (Joe was my stepfather), and began to cry right against me—here." He touched his shoulder.
"I'll never forget it. She was like a little helpless child. My stepfather was snoring up in the loft, at that moment, and I wished he was dead, too! He was killing her, miss. She was a frail little thing. Oh, so weak and frail—like a hepatica, the kind that grow in the woods up there—no color hardly at all.
"From that moment I began to think of ways of killing my stepfather. At first I just kind of played with the idea, the way you imagine holding up trains and things. But each time he came home drunk, and talked rough to my sick mother, and made her march around and mind him, as if she was a dog, and cry nights, my thoughts got down to real business. The scheme I hit on finally came all in a flash one Sunday morning when my stepfather was out in the shed cleaning his guns and rifles. He loved fire-arms, and was as tender with them as a woman with a baby. He'd kind of pat and stroke them, and call them his beauties. I was never allowed to touch any of my stepfather's fire-arms. They were kept in one corner of the kitchen. Once, when I'd been sweeping up, I'd moved them, and I was whipped for it. My mother couldn't touch them either. They were like something sacred.
"My stepfather never kept anything loaded, except just his revolver. It was a rule with him. He could absolutely rely on the certainty that those guns of his were unloaded, when they were standing in their corner in the kitchen. The Sunday morning I got my inspiration I saw my stepfather pull the trigger of his Springfield with the muzzle pointed right at his chest.
"'What if it had been loaded!' I thought. It stuck in my mind. 'What if it had been loaded!'
"Well, miss, I loaded that Springfield—'twas his favorite then—I loaded it late one Saturday night. He usually cleaned his guns Sunday mornings. I crawled out of my warm cot, and lit a candle, and loaded the thing! I couldn't sleep after it, I was so frightened.
"He went fishing Sunday morning instead of cleaning his guns, and I had to hang around all day, with that murder of mine hidden away inside that slender steel shaft over in the corner there. When he got home, he flung me a big catch of bass and sent me out to the shed with a lantern to clean them. It was a dark, drizzly evening, raining, I remember. When I came into the kitchen with my job done, my stepfather had got all his rags, and pieces of chamois, and oil, and polish, and things, spread out on the eating-table, and the kerosene lamp to see by. My heart was right in my mouth—felt like. There was the Springfield; I spied it in the corner, waiting for him.
"My mother was lying down up in the loft. She was always lying down those days when she got the chance. She'd been lying down up there most all day. I was glad she wasn't around. I went into the pantry, quietly as I could, with my plate of fish, and stood, staring out through a crack. My stepfather was whistling to himself, hardly conscious I'd come in, I guess. It was tense, I can tell you, when he picked up his rifle, ran his practiced eye over it, brushed its smooth shaft with two fingers, and then glanced at the trigger. He had the rifle hugged up to him close, and was whistling softly when he pulled that trigger; but the muzzle was not pointed towards any part of my stepfather. It was pointed towards the steep flight of stairs that went up the loft. The shot went off with a terrible report, and my stepfather let go the thing as if he had been struck, and swore, and let it drop to the floor with a crash. I came out of the closet. I had no idea what had happened till I looked over to the stairs where my stepfather was staring. Then I saw! Then I saw, miss!
"She was struck in the side as she came down the stairs. She was in her stocking-feet, and my stepfather didn't hear her, you see. It wasn't his murder. I guess she died right off. Anyway, she wasn't able to say good-by to me, nor smile, nor anything like that." He paused. "My mother looked very pretty when the undertaker finished with her," he went on finally. "There was a kind of peaceful expression. She looked as if she wasn't feeling sick a bit any more. And when I held her hand I felt as if she wasn't sorry about what had happened.
"But they were black days for me after my mother was buried—what with the inquest and everything. I was scared—scared like any guilty boy who's afraid he's going to be caught and locked up. I don't believe I've much what you call 'front.' I was scared to death I'd be found out. I swore readily enough that the shooting was accidental on my stepfather's part. It was, of course, and he got off scot-free, as I suppose he had a right. But he wouldn't let up nagging me about how his rifle got loaded. He flogged and flogged me one night, to make me say I'd been fooling with it, but I wouldn't give in. No, sir. I preferred to lie, and be whipped to death, than imprisoned for life for murder. 'Twasn't long before my stepfather caught on to how it frightened me to be accused of having loaded that gun (though it never crossed his mind what my motive was, I guess)—and he used to threaten he'd tell the sheriff who was really responsible for my mother's death, if I didn't do this or that thing to please him.
"He wanted to make a drudge out of me, miss. He wanted me to cook, and clean, and wash for him, after my mother died, and do the chores and tend the cow, and work the garden; and when September came, and I told him, one time, my school would begin in a week, he laughed and sneered, and said there was to be no more of that funny business. He even stole the money my mother had saved for my college education. He'd known about it all the time, it seems, and when I tried to argue with him that it was mine he sent me for the little narrow leather strap. My mother was in her grave, and could not offer any more her soft body to ward off floggings from mine. My stepfather flung that piece of information to me once, in language less pretty, miss. Oh, I was miserable—frightened and miserable—like a cur that's gotten kicked and kicked, and all the spirit knocked out of him.
"My stepfather said how I was his property till I was twenty-one, and I was to do as he wanted, and no squawking about it either. I was only fifteen. I didn't dare ask anybody, who might know, whether or not a boy of my age did belong to his stepfather like that. I was afraid I'd get some one suspicious about the murder I planned. I was afraid of my own shadow those days.
"Well, finally, in November, my stepfather suddenly went off guiding on a week's hunting trip. It was the first job he'd had since my mother died, and I saw my chance. With a week's start, I might get to some of those seaport places on the coast of Maine, and get out of the country somehow or other. I made up my mind to try anyhow. I had that much spirit left.
"Six days later, I slipped down over the edge of a big, black slimy dock at low tide, one evening, hung in space a second or two, then dropped softly four feet, onto the deck of what proved to be a big five-masted creature, a mysterious animal to me then, slipping slowly out to sea—out to safety," he added with a deep sigh, as if of relief.
"Is that all?" asked Reba in a small voice, after a long pause.
"I'm over the worst part," he assured her. "The rest I've got to say needn't scare you. I've never been back to Maine," he resumed. "I've followed the sea ever since—steady for eight years now, round about the Pacific mostly—South Sea trading schooner for the last five years. The sea isn't what you'd call a refining life, like the city; nor educating, like college, but a fellow can keep clean and decent on it, if he's a mind; and as for me—I've no fancy nor never had for mixing up in the mire of every foreign port I touched, like some chaps. I preferred just to stick close to my boat. Of course I've had my knocks, and got my scars, and they aren't pretty, but they're all on the outside. You've a right to know that. Oh, I want you to feel certain," he broke out earnestly, "that even though I am capable of murder—I want you to feel certain, Miss Rebecca Jerome," he spoke her name reverently, "that you and my mother are the only women in my life."
His voice trembled a little, and he leaned and scooped up a bit of gravel in his hand, as if to cover up by the casual act the fervor of his feelings. He sifted it from palm to palm as he proceeded.
"When the 'Louise' struck Boston two months or so ago," he went on, explanatory, "I knew she'd be laid up a long spell for repairs. We had a bad time coming north after we'd rounded the Cape. So I decided to put up here in a kind of gentleman's place. I always did like clean white sheets," he put in. "Poor as our shack was up there on the edge of the woods, and mean as my mother felt, she saw to it I always had my clean sheet and pillow-case every Saturday night, 'well as the city-folks up at the Camp. Well, I'd often heard of these Young Men's Christian Clubs. They're all over. There's one in Shanghai. I thought it would be a good clean place to stop at here, so that was how I happened to see the notice of the entertainment from the Ladies' Alliance, where you and me met. I kind of wanted to meet some nice American young ladies. There used to be some nice girls at the academy, though I never dared to more than look at them. I was kind of hungry I guess, miss, that night you got my number—to know somebody like you, and I've been getting kind of hungrier since, I'm afraid. That's why I took such a liberty last night, before you knew anything about me. I hope you'll excuse it. I hope you'll understand too," he hurried on, "that when I offer myself to you, it isn't with any notion I'm worthy of such as you. It's just to prove my high and honorable feelings. You've only to kick me into the gutter," he laughed, or tried to, "but—if you'll be so good as not to do it to-night, please—not to be unkind to-night."
"I don't want to be unkind to you—ever," said Reba, earnestly.
"Oh, miss," he burst forth, "if I could but think you were wishing me well, back here! I'm off next week—not on the 'Louise.' I'm part owner now on a freighter—an old bark, but tight and sea-worthy—the 'Ellen T. Robinson.' She's going to ply between ports in the South Pacific, where I'm familiar; and we've got a cargo for her at last, so we won't have to run her in ballast round Cape Horn. I've put all I've got into the 'Ellen T. Robinson.' She may bring me big money. If she does—if she should—oh, miss," he tossed the gravel in his hand far off into some grass, and rubbed his palms together hard. "I'll be back here in three years," he told Reba. "Perhaps I'll be back rich. I'd be more worthy of you then. Perhaps too I can make myself finer—somehow—read more, study nights—and" He stopped abruptly. His voice was trembling again. "I get sort of carried away sometimes, I'm afraid," he apologized.