For Jacinta Part 8

Austin put himself to some trouble in endeavouring to make Macallister understand what he thought of him, when they had gone, but the engineer only grinned.

"Well," he said, "I'll forgive ye. If I had looked like ye do with two ladies watching me, I might have been a bit short in temper myself, but come away to your room. The _Andalusia_'s boat came across a while ago, and there's business waiting ye."

Austin went with him, but stopped a moment when he approached his room.

The door was open, as usual, and a stranger, in grey tourist tweed, upon whom Englishman and clergyman was stamped unmistakably, sat inside the room. Austin felt that he knew who the man must be.

"Does he know Miss Gascoyne is on board?" he asked.

"No," said Macallister. "The boat came round under our quarter, and we landed him through the lower gangway. He said he'd stay here and wait for ye. He's no sociable, anyway. I've offered him cigars and anisow, besides some of my special whisky, but he did not seem willing to talk to me."

Austin fancied he could understand it. Macallister, who had discarded his jacket, was very grimy, and his unb.u.t.toned uniform vest failed to conceal the grease stains on his shirt. Then he remembered that his own jacket was torn to rags, and he was very wet; but Macallister raised his voice:

"Here's Mr. Austin, sir," he said.

The clergyman, who said nothing, gazed at him, and Austin, who realised that his appearance was against him, understood his astonishment. He also fancied that the stranger was one with whom appearances usually counted a good deal.

"If you will wait a minute or two while I change my clothes, I will be at your service, sir," he said. "As you may observe, I have been in the sea."

"Swum off to the steamer," said Macallister, with a wicked smile. "It saves washing. He comes off yon way now and then."

Austin said nothing, but stepped into the room, and, gathering up an armful of clothing, departed, leaving a pool of water behind him. The clergyman, it was evident, did not know what to make of either of them.

A few minutes later Austin, who came back and closed the door, sat down opposite him.

"My name is Gascoyne," said the stranger, handing him an open note.

"Mr. Brown of Las Palmas, who gave me this introduction, a.s.sured me that I could speak to you confidentially, and that you would be able to tell me where my daughter and Mrs. Hatherly are staying."

Austin glanced at him with misgivings. He was a little man, with pale blue eyes, and hair just streaked with grey. His face was white and fleshy, without animation or any suggestion of ability in it, but there had been something in the tone which seemed to indicate that he had, at least, been accustomed to petty authority. Austin at once set him down as a man of essentially conventional views, who was deferred to in some remote English parish; in fact, just the man he would have expected Muriel Gascoyne's father to be; that is, before she had revealed her inner self. It was a type he was by no means fond of, and he was quite aware that circ.u.mstances were scarcely likely to prepossess a man of that description in his favour. Still, Austin was a friend of Jefferson's, and meant to do what he could for him.

"I know where Miss Gascoyne is, but you suggested that you had something to ask me, and I shall be busy by and by," he said.

Gascoyne appeared anxious, but evidently very uncertain whether it would be advisable to take him into his confidence.

"I understand that you are a friend of Mr. Jefferson's?" he said.

"I am. I may add that I am glad to admit it, and I almost fancy I know what you mean to ask me."

Gascoyne, who appeared grateful for this lead, looked at him steadily.

"Perhaps I had better be quite frank. Indeed, Mr. Brown, who informed me that you could tell more about Jefferson than any one in the islands, recommended it," he said. "I am, Mr. Austin, a clergyman who has never been outside his own country before, and I think it is advisable that I should tell you this, because there may be points upon which our views will not coincide. It was not easy for me to get away now, but the future of my motherless daughter is a matter of the greatest concern to me, and I understand that Mr. Jefferson is in Africa. I want you to tell me candidly--as a gentleman--what kind of man he is."

Austin felt a little better disposed towards Gascoyne after this. His anxiety concerning his daughter was evident, and he had, at least, not adopted quite the att.i.tude Austin had expected. But as Austin was not by any means brilliant himself, he felt the difficulty of making Gascoyne understand the character of such a man as Jefferson, while his task was complicated by the fact that he recognised his responsibility to both of them. Gascoyne had put him on his honour, and he could not paint Jefferson as he was not. In the meanwhile he greatly wished to think.

"I wonder if I might offer you a gla.s.s of wine, sir, or perhaps you smoke?" he said.

"No, thanks," said Gascoyne, with uncompromising decision. "I am aware that many of my brethren indulge in these luxuries. I do not."

"Well," said Austin, "if you will tell me what you have already heard about Jefferson it might make the way a little plainer."

"I have been told that he is an American seafarer, it seems of the usual careless type. Seafarers are, perhaps, liable to special temptations, and it is generally understood that the lives most of them lead are not altogether----"

Austin smiled a little when Gascoyne stopped abruptly. "I'm afraid that must be admitted, sir. I can, however, a.s.sure you that Jefferson is an abstemious man--Americans are, as a rule, you see--and, though there are occasions when his conversation might not commend itself to you, he has had an excellent education. Since we are to be perfectly candid, has it ever occurred to you that it was scarcely likely a dissolute sailor would meet with Miss Gascoyne's approbation?"

Gascoyne flushed a trifle. "It did not--though, of course, it should have. Still, he told her that he was mate of the _Sachem_, which was a painful shock to me. I, of course, remember the revolting story."

He stopped a moment, and his voice was a trifle strained when he went on again. "I left England, Mr. Austin, within three days of getting my daughter's letter, and have ever since been in a state of distressing uncertainty. Mr. Jefferson is in Africa--I cannot even write him. I do not know where my duty lies."

Had the man's intense anxiety been less evident, Austin would have been almost amused. The Reverend Gascoyne appeared to believe that his affairs were of paramount importance to everybody, as, perhaps, they were in the little rural parish he came from; but there was something in his somewhat egotistical simplicity that appealed to the younger man.

"One has to face unpleasant facts now and then, sir," he said. "There are times when homicide is warranted at sea, and man's primitive pa.s.sions are very apt to show themselves naked in the face of imminent peril. It is in one respect unfortunate that you have probably never seen anything of the kind, but one could not expect too much from a man whose comrade's head had just been shorn open by a drink-frenzied mutineer. Can you imagine the little handful of officers, driven aft away from the boats while the ship settled under them, standing still to be cut down with adze and axe? You must remember, too, that they were seafarers and Americans who had few of the advantages you and your friends enjoy in England."

He could not help the last piece of irony, but Gascoyne, who did not seem to notice it, groaned.

"To think of a man who appears to hold my daughter's confidence being concerned in such an affair at all is horribly unpleasant to me."

"I have no doubt it was almost as distressing to Jefferson at the time.

Still, as you have probably never gone in fear of your life for weeks together, you may not be capable of understanding what he felt, and we had perhaps better get on a little further."

Gascoyne seemed to pull himself together. "Mr. Jefferson has, I understand, no means beyond a certain legacy. It is not, after all, a large one."

"If he is alive in six months I feel almost sure he will have twice as much, which would mean an income of close upon 600 a year from sound English stock, and that, one would fancy, would not be considered abject poverty in a good many English rural parishes."

Gascoyne sighed. "That is true--it is certainly true. You said--if he were alive?"

"As he is now on his way to one of the most deadly belts of swamp and jungle in Western Africa, I think I was warranted. Knowing him as I do, it is, I fancy, certain that if he does not come back with 16,000 in six months he will be dead."

"Ah," said Gascoyne, with what was suspiciously like a sigh of relief.

"One understands that it is a particularly unhealthy climate. Still, when one considers that all is arranged for the best----"

Austin, who could not help it, smiled sardonically, though he felt he had an almost hopeless task. It appeared impossible that Gascoyne should ever understand the character of a man like Jefferson. But he meant to do what he could.

"It is naturally easier to believe that when circ.u.mstances coincide with our wishes, sir," he said. "Now, I do not exactly charge you with wishing Jefferson dead, though your face shows that you would not be sorry. I am, of course, another careless seafarer, a friend of his, and I can understand that what you have seen of me has not prepossessed you in my favour. Still, if I can, I am going to show you Jefferson as he is. To begin with, he believes, as you do, that Miss Gascoyne is far above him--and in this he is altogether wrong. Miss Gascoyne is doubtless a good woman, but Jefferson is that harder thing to be, a good man. His point of view is not yours, it is, perhaps, a wider one; but he has, what concerns you most directly now, a vague, reverential respect for all that is best in womanhood, which, I think, is sufficient to place Miss Gascoyne under a heavy responsibility."

He stopped a moment, looking steadily at Gascoyne, who appeared blankly astonished.

"Because it was evident to him that a woman of Miss Gascoyne's conventional upbringing must suffer if brought into contact with the unpleasant realities of the outside world, he has staked his life willingly--not recklessly--on the winning of enough to place her beyond the reach of adversity. He realised that it was, at least, even chances he never came back from Africa; but it seemed to him better that she should be proud of him dead than have to pity him and herself living. I know this, because he told me he would never drag the woman who loved him down. He fell in love with her without reflection, instinctively--or, perhaps, because it was arranged so--I do not understand these things. As surely--conventionalities don't always count--she fell in love with him, and then he had to grapple with the position. Your daughter could not live, as some women do, unshocked and cheerfully among rude and primitive peoples whose morality is not your morality, in the wilder regions of the earth. It was also evident that she could not live sumptuously in England on the interest of 8,000. You see what he made of it. If he died, Miss Gascoyne would be free. If he lived, she could avoid all that would be unpleasant. Isn't that sufficient? Could there be anything base or mean in a nature capable of devotion of that description?"

Gascoyne sat silent almost a minute. Then he said very quietly: "I have to thank you, Mr. Austin--the more so because I admit I was a little prejudiced against you. Perhaps men living as I do acquire too narrow a view. I am glad you told me. And now where is my daughter and Mrs.

Hatherly?"

"Wait another minute! Jefferson is, as you will recognise, a man of exceptional courage, but he is also a man of excellent education, and, so far as that goes, of attractive presence; such a one, in fact, as I think a girl of Miss Gascoyne's station is by no means certain to come across again in England. Now, if I have said anything to offend you, it has not been with that object, and you will excuse it. Your daughter and Mrs. Hatherly are on board this ship. It seemed better that you should hear me out before I told you."

"Ah," said Gascoyne. "Well, I think you were right, and again I am much obliged to you. Will you take me to Mrs. Hatherly?"

Austin did so, and coming back flung himself down on the settee in Macallister's room.

"Give me a drink--a long one. I don't know that I ever talked so much at once in my life, and I only hope I didn't make a consummate a.s.s of myself," he said.

"It's no that difficult," said Macallister, reflectively, as he took out a syphon and a bottle of wine. "Ye made excuses for yourself and Jefferson?"