Fair Harbor Part 69

His breakfast appet.i.te was poor. Judah, aghast at the sight of his untouched plate, demanded to know if he was sick. The answer to the question was illuminating.

"No," snapped the captain, "I'm not sick.... Yes, I am, too. I'm sick to death of this town and this place and this landlubber's job. Judah, are you goin' to spend the rest of your days playin' hired boy for Ogden Minot? Or are you comin' to sea again with me? Because to sea is where I'm goin'--and mighty quick."

Judah's mouth opened. "Hoppin' Henry!" he gasped. "Why, Cap'n Sears----"

"You don't _like_ this job, do you? Hadn't you rather have your own galley on board a decent ship? Are you a sea-man--or a washwoman? Don't you want to ship with me again?"

"_Want_ to! Cap'n Sears, you know I'd rather go to sea along with you than--than be King of Rooshy. But you ain't fit to go to sea yet."

"Shut up! Don't you dare say that again. And stand by to pack your sea chest when I give the order.... No, I don't want to argue. I won't argue. Clear out!"

Mr. Cahoon, bewildered but obedient, cleared out. Not long afterward he drove away on the seat of the truck wagon to haul the Bangs wood, the task postponed from the previous day. Kendrick, left alone, lit a pipe and resumed his pacing up and down. Later on he took pen, ink and paper and seated himself at the table to write some letters to shipping merchants whose vessels he had commanded in the old days, the happy days before he gave up seafaring to become a poor imitation of a business man on sh.o.r.e.

He composed these letters with care. Two were completed and the third was under way, when some one knocked at the other door. He laid down his pen impatiently. He did not want to be interrupted. If the visitor was Kent he did not feel like listening to more thanks. If it was Esther Tidditt she could unload her cargo of gossip at some other port.

But the caller was neither George nor Esther. It was Elizabeth who entered the kitchen in answer to his command to "Come in." He rose to greet her. She looked pale--yes, and tired, but she smiled faintly as she bade him good morning.

"Cap'n Kendrick," she said, "are you very busy? I suppose you are, but--but if you are not too busy I should like to talk with you for a few minutes. May I?"

He nodded. "Of course," he said. "My business can wait a little longer; it has waited a good while, this particular business has. Sit down."

She took the rocker. He sat at the other side of the table, waiting for her to speak. It came to him, the thought that, the last time she had visited that kitchen, she had left it vowing never to speak to him again. Well, at least that was over; she no longer believed him a spy, and all the rest of it. There was, or should be, some comfort for him in knowing that.

Suddenly, just as she had done on the platform of the lawyer's office at Orham, she put out her hand.

"Don't!" she pleaded.

He started, confusedly. "Don't?" he stammered. "What?"

"Don't think of--of what you were thinking. If you knew--oh, Cap'n Kendrick, if you could only realize how wicked I feel. Even when I said those dreadful things to you I didn't mean them. And now---- Oh, _please_ forget them, if you can."

He drew a long breath. "I never saw any one like you," he declared. "How did you know what I was thinkin'? ... Of course I wasn't thinkin' it, but----"

She interrupted. "Of course you were, you mean," she said, with a faint smile. "It isn't hard to know what you think. You don't hide your thoughts very well, Cap'n Kendrick. They aren't the kind one needs to hide."

He stared at her in guilty amazement. "Good land!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, involuntarily. "Don't talk that way. What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that your thoughts are always straightforward and--well, honest, like yourself.... But we mustn't waste time. I don't know when we shall have another opportunity to be together like this, and there are some things I must say to you. Cap'n Kendrick, you know--you have heard the news?"

"News?... Oh, you mean about Elvira's inheritin' all that money?"

"That, of course. But that wasn't the news I meant. I mean about her eloping with--with that man."

Troubled even as Sears was at the sight of her evident distress, he could not but feel a thrill of satisfaction at the tone in which she referred to "that man." He nodded.

"I've heard it," he said. "I guess likely I was about the first Bayporter that did hear it. When did you hear?"

"A little while ago. He wrote--he wrote my mother a letter. It was at the post office this morning."

"He did? He _didn't_! The low-lived scamp!"

"Hush! Don't talk about him. Yes, he wrote her. _Such_ a letter! She showed it to me. So full of hypocrisy, and lies and--oh, can't you imagine what it was?"

Kendrick's right fist tapped the table gently. "I guess likely I can,"

he said, grimly. "Well, some of these days I may run afoul of Egbert again. When I do----" The fist closed a little tighter.

"You won't touch him. Promise me you won't. If you should, I---- Oh, dear! I think I should be afraid to touch your hands afterwards."

Sears smiled. "It might be safer to use my boot," he admitted. "Your mother--how is she?"

"Can't you imagine? I think--I hope it is her pride that is hurt more than anything. For some little time--well, ever since I found out that she was lending him money--I have done my best to make her see what he really is. But before that--oh, there is no use pretending, for you know--she was insane about him. And now, with the shock and the disillusionment and the shame, she is---- Oh, it is dreadful!"

"Do the--er--rest of 'em over there know it yet?"

"No, but they will very soon. And when they do! You know what some of them are, what they will say. We can't stay there, mother and I. We must go away--and we will."

She was crying, and if ever a man yearned for the role of comforter, Sears Kendrick was that man. He tried to say something, but he was afraid to trust his own tongue; it might run away with him. And before his attempt was at all coherent, she went on.

"Don't mind me," she said, hastily wiping her eyes. "I am nervous, and I have been through a bad hour, and--and I am acting foolishly, of course.

I know that this is, in a way, the very best thing that could happen.

This ends it, so far as mother is concerned. Oh, it might have been _so_ much worse! It looked as if it were going to be. Now she _knows_ what he is. I have known it, or been almost sure of it, for a long time. And you must have known it always, from the beginning. That is a part of what I came here for this morning. Please tell me how you knew and--and all about everything."

So he told her, beginning with what Judge Knowles had said concerning Lobelia's husband, and continuing on to the end. She listened intently.

"Yes," she said. "I see. I wish you could have told me at first. I think if I had known exactly how Judge Knowles felt I might not have been so foolish. But I should have known--I should have seen for myself. Of course I should. To think that I ever believed in such a creature, and trusted him, and permitted him to influence me against--against a friend like you. Oh, I must have been crazy!"

Kendrick shook his head. "No craziness about that," he declared. "I've seen some smooth articles in my time, seen 'em afloat and ash.o.r.e, from one end of this world to the other, but of all the slick ones he was the slickest. It's a good thing the judge warned me before Egbert crossed my bows. If he hadn't--well, I don't know; _I_ might have been lendin' him my last dollar, and proud of the chance--you can't tell....

I'm sorry, though," he added, "that he got those bonds of your mother's.

Borrowed 'em of her, you say?"

"Yes. He was going to make better investments for her, I believe he said. But that doesn't make any difference. She has no receipts or anything to show. And of course if she should try to get them again there would be dreadful gossip, all sorts of things said. No, the bonds are gone and ... But how did you know about the bonds, Cap'n Kendrick?"

Sears had momentarily forgotten. He had, during his story of his war with Phillips, carefully avoided mentioning Kent's trouble. He had told of chasing Egbert to Denboro, but the particular reason for the pursuit he had not told. He was taken aback and embarra.s.sed.

"Why--why----" he stammered.

But she answered her own question. "Of course!" she cried. "I know how you knew. George said that--that that man had used some bonds as a part of their stock speculation. I didn't think then of mother's bonds. That is what he did with them. I see."

The captain looked at her. Kent had told her of the C. M. deal. That meant that he had seen her, that already he had gone to her, to confess, to beg her pardon, to ... He sighed. Well, he should be glad, of course.

He must pretend to be very glad.

"So--so you've seen George?" he stammered.

She colored slightly. "Yes," she answered. "He came to see me last evening.... Cap'n Kendrick you should hear him speak of you. You saved him from disgrace--and worse, he says. It was a wonderful thing to do.

But I think you must be in the habit of doing wonderful things for other people."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Nothin' very wonderful about it," he said.

"George is a good boy. He hadn't b.u.mped into any Egberts before, that's all. He'll be on the lookout for 'em now. I'm glad for him--and for you."