CHAPTER XVI
"ANNIE LAURIE"
"Five hundred shillings? Thank you! Do I hear five hundred and fifty? Remember, gentlemen, that any accident—"
The voyage was nearing its end.
The easy, careless comradeships and intimacies of the sea were drawing to their close. Fearful to lose the new friendships, so hard upon their finding, the little groups all about the decks were drawing closer together, better to share the glory of the soft, autumn ocean breezes which followed the great vessel and lulled it gently from stern to stem. And the old friends, whose accepted comradeship antedated even the sailing of the ship that long, wonderful, incomprehensible week before, gathered together, too, and seemed to face the ending of the fleeting familiarities of the sea with almost as much dismay as those who were never to see each other again.
The soft, silver shimmer of the early harvest moon above them recalled with added appreciation of the final hours that the voyage and the vacation were ending together; so the whole ship's company lingered the more longingly over that last evening on the open sea, as the great ship bore them on swiftly, steadily, to America.
Towards nine, even the few more cautious women who were packing up well in advance, and those who were already making out their customs declarations, or writing their "bread and butter" letters to their hosts in England, came on deck at last. And in the smoking-room the men were closing out the selling of their pool upon the last day's run of the ship before she would stand off Sandy Hook to await the pilot.
"Five hundred shillings? Thank you! Do I hear five hundred and fifty? Remember, gentlemen, that any accident, however trivial, will require a slow-down and give this last pool to low field—without suggesting any of the major occurrences which will make the purchaser of this excellent chance the winner of thousands of shillings.
"Remember, also, that with the winning of this pool goes the privilege of the last trial against Mr. Manling!" the voice of the amateur auctioneer of the last auction-pool floated out, mingled with laughter.
"Come, gentlemen, this is the last of the voyage! Do I now hear six hundred shillings for low field, or one hundred and fifty dollars? One hundred and fifty, did you say, sir? Dollars? Thank you. Do I now hear six hundred and fifty shillings? Do I hear six hundred and fifty? No? Going—once!" the bang of the hammer became audible. "Going—twice! Three times! The low field sold to Mr. Mardock for six hundred shillings.
"And now, gentlemen, as there will be no pool sold to-morrow, since we will be off New York the morning after, I sell positively the last chance for any one to win a pool upon this crossing, and—if Scotland Yard does its duty—the last chance any one shall ever have to encounter Mr. Manling!
"I now offer you the best chance of all—high field! We have sold single numbers only up to four hundred and forty miles, and anything the ship runs above that, gives all to high field. You all know that the captain is trying to make record time, that the coal is the best Wales can furnish, and that the sea is smooth, and the engines running without a hitch. It is really certain that high field will win, as it has—"
Young Preston followed the fresh bidding mechanically as he and Miss Varris seated themselves upon the deck without. He had bought one of the earliest numbers offered, and had broken from the smoke and closeness and chatter within for the glory of the clear evening and—the wonderful friend he would find upon the deck.
"Eight hundred shillings!" floated out.
"They are bidding it a good deal higher than usual to-night, aren't they?" the girl broke her companion's abstraction as he sat moodily silent after their first few words.
"Yes; as this is the last, they will probably put up over five thousand shillings. There was almost that much won to-day."
"And to be stolen to-night?"
Preston shivered. "I suppose so. He's got away with all of them so far, hasn't he? But let's not talk about it. It's not pleasant."
The girl watched him, smiling.
"Do you know," she ventured finally, "sometimes now if you don't quite make me believe you are doing it, you do make me fear that you believe you are doing it."
"Sometimes, Miss Varris," Preston admitted morosely, "if it were not for you, and if it did not involve my having harmed you, I think I would believe it. You believe some one else is doing it; but you yourself confess you haven't an idea how he does it—if I really am not he. I don't mean how he does the robberies. Those are comprehensible enough, if he is unsuspected. But how has he consecutively made me have his height, build, complexion, eyes, hair, clothes, and cut, and—and even the articles he stole? I tell you I am positively ready to believe that I'm a Dr. Jekyll with a Mr. Hyde whom you don't know. How you believe in me still," he turned about with wondering admiration, "is beyond me!"
"Oh, I!" the girl began teasing. "I—"
"Twelve hundred shillings—once! Twice! For the last time, gentlemen, I give you option upon this most certain chance in the best and last pool of the voyage. Twelve hundred shillings—three times! Sold! High field sold to Mr. Dunneston for twelve hundred shillings! Thank you. May you win the pool to-morrow, sir, and at last keep it from Mr. Manling!"
"Listen!" the girl interrupted herself. "Mr. Dunneston has bought high field—which always wins. What does that mean?"
"Old Dunneston's bought it?" Preston started up gladly. "Well, I hope he'll win with it and at last have his go with Mr. Manling. It has almost broken his heart that he hasn't had a chance with the pool against me—Manling, I mean, of course, Manling," he corrected quickly. "There I have gone, you see," he smiled. "When the whole shipboard impresses it upon me momentarily that I am Manling, really it is impossible for me not to fall in with them now and then."
"The whole shipboard," the girl rebuked.
"Did I say that?" Preston returned hotly. "I meant only—only all the others. Only all the others!" he repeated. "You—" he checked himself quickly. "I know I mustn't try to tell you how I—I feel about the wonderful—the incredible way you have accepted me through all this queer business. I know I can't tell you that now. But I tell you, when this awful crossing is over, and I have had a chance to set myself right before every one and with you, I am going to you then and tell you—well, a good many things!" he threatened wildly.
The men, pouring out of the smoking-room, were passing in twos and threes and finding their places in the unoccupied chairs scattered between the women on the deck. Many of them grouped themselves at the stern rail near where the band was playing, but the larger number arranged themselves along the side sea-rails and under the deck cabins opposite.
As they settled about in couples, there seemed to come over all the mighty and complete establishment of the calm, night sea. Above, the moon still shone in a clear, bright ball which, as its rays broke and bounded up again from the fluid floor below, glinted again and gleamed from the water in a thousand shining fragments.
Preston and the girl had drawn back a little out of the soft, silver light, and lay back, silently, hidden in the deep shadow of one of the great lifeboats hung over the deck in the davits. From their darkness all the rest of the ship and the other people, even those who almost touched their feet as they passed, suddenly seemed infinitely separated and put far away.
And young Preston, after wrestling a moment with the renunciation he had just spoken, felt his determination slipping from him as he turned again to the girl.
"This awful trip?" she mocked lightly.
He caught his breath.
"You know I didn't mean that. You know—"
"Listen!" she checked him.
"It's only the band again, and—'God Save the King!'" he interpreted, as he listened.
"Yes; but some of the English are singing. See them standing down there with caps off! Then they will play the 'Star Spangled Banner,' which, I am ashamed to say, most of us Americans can't sing. But they will play it anyway! And then it will be all over."
"You mean that you must go in then? Oh, can't you wait just a little longer?" He hesitated anxiously for an argument. "There is a little Scotch girl down in the steerage with one of the sweetest natural voices I have ever heard. She has been singing to us the last few nights after you have gone down, and you have been missing it. Can't you stay and hear her to-night?"
The girl thought a moment.
"If the other women stay," she consented at last.
The band had stopped, and the band-men were putting up their instruments; but the word seemed to have travelled along the deck, for no one got up except the few who, for the better hearing, moved down nearer the rail over the steerage.
"Listen!" Preston said. "They are clapping for her now. The other night some of them—more Americans than English, I am afraid—threw down money and she wouldn't sing. She is not that sort. You will understand when you hear her."
The clapping ceased suddenly, and in the silence which fell at once over all the deck a pure, sweet tone rose clear and full through the warm night air.
"It's so clear it sounds like a flute!" Miss Varris whispered, amazed.
Preston smiled. "No, it is her voice," he said, "but there is a flute—her father with his flute—accompanying her. I couldn't make it out myself at first, for they keep together on the same notes for a moment, but pretty soon the flute will drop and you will make out the words."
"Maxwellton's braes are bonnie,
Where early fa's the dew,
And 't was there that—"
The flute had dropped, as Preston had said, into the lower notes of an accompaniment, and the words came out clearly.
"Oh, it's 'Annie Laurie'!" the girl exclaimed softly, as she sank back. "Oh, it's 'Annie Laurie'! I never heard it sung so—by a very little girl out of the dark—before!"
"Listen! Here is the second verse!"
"Her brow is like the snaw-drift,
Her throat is like the swan;
Her face it is the fairest,
That e'er the sun shone on.
And dark blue is her e'e—"
All along the deck the listeners seemed to catch breath and hold it in deep suspense till the voice began again. Then, as if in wonder and in awe of the spell which it cast, the little pure-throated tone came still more softly over the people on the deck and seemed to touch their tense figures with a strange gentleness which relieved their strain and relaxed them as they listened. Head after head bent forward and those side by side turned to each other unconsciously.
"Like dew on th' gowan lying,
'Is th' fa' o' her fairy feet,
And like winds in summer sighing,
Her voice is low and sweet—"
It had come once again with a catch of the breath, very softly and sweetly, and—as the wonderful, simple little love-song has always—very personally and directly to each one who listened.
"...and she's a' the world to me—"
The flute had stopped entirely, and in the last pure, gentle burst of the wonderful little tone all the tiny girl's power and uncomprehending passion sent it up full and clear again and alone.
"...and she's a' the world to me—"
And in their very deep shadow and in their far—oh, very far—seclusion under the lifeboat's side, Preston discovered that he had turned to the girl beside him, and she had turned to him.
As they both recognized it, the blood mounted hot in him and beat even to his fingertips. High and clear above them the little girl's voice rang upon the last words. The eyes looking into his closed and then opened to his again.
"When this—this voyage is over—" the song had come to an end, but no one about either moved or spoke—"and when I have made it right for me to do it," Preston continued, "I am coming to you, as I said; I am coming to you, and I shall tell you—no, not many things—but just one! I can't say the words to you till then, but I know I shall always think of them as belonging with this moment—this moment with you beside me here in the shadow of this boat and with a little girl singing up to us from the deck below."
"Do you think," Preston just caught the words, "that you—that you must make it right for you to say—what you want—to me?"
About them no one had stirred, and in their place in the shadow they seemed even further from all the rest and more infinitely apart.
"Do you mean, Ethel," he whispered fearfully, "do you mean, Ethel," her name on his lips made him very bold, "that you, too, would rather think and remember that I first said 'I love you!' here, at this moment? Oh, I mean—I mean," he cried, "can it be right for me to tell you now that—I love you—I love you!"
"Oh, so much better now," the girl's soft breath bore the words back to him.
"Better, Ethel?" he cried, incredulous. "Do you mean you can love me, too, as—as you have trusted me all this time without—without—"
"Without waiting for some one else to make me sure it is safe to love—you?" the full little lips finished for him.
"Oh, please don't laugh at me now in—in just the old way again, Ethel—oh, Ethel!" he pleaded. "I know that I am dull and stupid with you! But please—oh, don't mock me now and laugh in—in even your dear, fine, friendly old way again! For I love you—I love you!"
But the girl laughed softly, just as he had begged her not to do; but in spite of her trying to return to that old way, there was something else in her tone which had never been there before, and which was as strange to her as to the man who heard it,—something which she could not have constrained if she had tried. So that when she tried to remove her fingers from his hot grasp, he only crushed them closer and drew her nearer to him till she lay against his arm, suddenly so strong, and she ceased to try to draw back and was still.
He bent down to her, and for the first fraction of an instant his lips touched hers. But then the people about the deck commenced to rise and pass by them. The girl drew away a little, but still lay very close.
"Oh, I can't tell you," she shivered delightfully, "how much more fun it was at first and how—how much finer it came to be afterwards—to believe in you against every one, everything, when I was so—so sure I knew you! And I can't begin to show you," she was whispering on, when:
"Mr. Preston! Oh, hello, Mr. Manling!" a rough voice suddenly interrupted and made them straighten up angrily. A coarse, lumbering figure stopped in front of them, and the man was staring insolently down directly into their shadow.
"Oh, pardon, Mr. Manling," the man grated, in drunken courtesy. "I was told I would find you here, but wasn't told you were with your—your lady!"
Preston had jumped to his feet.
"Well?" he demanded.
"Oh, I was only going to say," the other cringed now, "that I won the pool to-day, as you probably know. My cabin is number 141, and I'm ready for a visit from you—any time!"
Preston laughed, not pleasantly.
"I hope to accommodate you with a—visit!" he replied grimly, "as soon as I can return Miss Varris to the ladies!"
The girl arose and watched her companion strangely as the other man moved away. She had never seen him aroused like this before; but she said nothing as he took her down the deck and, almost impatiently, left her at the head of her companionway.
She found herself wondering at him more than a little as she gained her cabin; and, "One forty-one," she mused, as she opened her door. "Why, that is the cabin just beyond this!"
She noticed that it was lighted and that the man who had spoken to them on the deck was already lumbering about within. And even as she opened her own door he came out and went down the passage away from her, without either coat or waistcoat.
The girl noted that he seemed even more under the influence of liquor than he had on deck the moment before. She shut her own door securely and had started arranging her things, when she heard another step pass her door, from the direction in which she herself had come, and enter the next cabin. Something about it made her re-open her door and turn out her light.
She saw then that the light in the little passage had been turned out also and that the door beyond, leading direct to the deck, was open. And as she watched the dark passage the man who had followed her and gone into the cabin beyond came out again and glanced down the short corridor in both directions.
He came opposite her darkened door and something stopped him. The man who had passed down the passage to the deck door without coat or vest returned quickly and flung himself into his cabin. "Thief!" his thick voice bawled. "Thief!" I left it here just a second ago and he got it! Thief!"
Running steps sounded immediately from the deck and from the corridor end of the passage; and with a quick start Miss Varris recognized the man who had stopped before her door and now was caught there. The steps flew nearer, and with a sudden impulse, almost before she herself knew that she did it, she threw her door wide open and caught him in.
The running steps passed and scattered rapidly away.
"You!" the girl cried in a wild, incredulous whisper, as she shot on her light again. "You! So it was you all the time! It was you!"
Preston, as he read the hopeless accusation in her face, drew away quietly.
"And five minutes after—!" She rubbed her white lips pitilessly with her handkerchief. "And five minutes after—!"
He turned out the light as she opened her door, and went out silently into the empty passage.
The girl bolted the door fast and threw herself, wide-eyed and tearless, upon the bed.