Jupiter Lights Part 17

"We couldn't go on; the track is under water somewhere. And perhaps we need not hurry so." She paused. "I suppose you know that Cicely will go only to Paul Tennant," she added. "She refuses to go anywhere else."

"Where the devil is the man?"

"It's a place called Port aux Pins, on Lake Superior. I really think that if we don't take her to him at once, she will leave us and get back to Ferdie, in spite of all we can do."

"If there's no train, we'll take a carriage, we'll drive," declared the judge. "This is the first place he'll come to; we won't wait _here_!"

"There'll be a train this evening; they tell me so at the hotel," Eve answered. Then she waited a moment. "We shall have to stop on the way, Cicely is so exhausted; I suppose we go to Pittsburgh, and then to Cleveland to take the lake steamer; if you should write to Miss Sabrina from here, the answer might meet us at one of those places."

"Of course I shall write. At once."

"No, don't write!" said Eve, grasping his arm suddenly. "Or at least don't let her send any answer until the journey is ended. It's better not to know--not to know!"

"Not to know whether poor Sabrina is safe? Not to know whether that brute is on our track? I can't imagine what you are thinking of; perhaps you will kindly explain?"

"It's only that my head aches. I don't know what I am saying!"

"Yes, you must be overwrought," said the judge. He had been thinking only of Cicely. "You protected my poor little girl, you brought her away; it was a brave act," he said, admiringly.

"It was for Jack, I wanted to save my brother's child. Surely that was right?" Eve's voice, as she said this, broke into a sob.

"They were in danger of their lives, then?" asked the grandfather, in a low tone. "Cicely didn't tell me."

"She did not know, she had fainted. A few minutes more, and I believe he would--We should not have them now."

"But you got the boat off in time."

"But I got the boat off in time," Eve repeated, lethargically.

They had now reached the Battery Park; they entered and sat down on one of the benches; the negro girl played with Jack on the broad walk which overlooks the water. The harbor, with Sumter in the distance, the two rivers flowing down, one on each side of the beautiful city--beautiful still, though desolated by war--made a scene full of loveliness. The judge took off his hat, as if he needed more air.

"You are ill," said Eve, in the same mechanical voice.

"It's only that I cannot believe it even now--what Cicely told me. Why, it is my own darling little grandchild, who has been treated so, who has been beaten--struck to the floor! His strong hand has come down on _her_ shoulder so that you could hear it!--_Cicely_, Eve; my little _Cicely_!"

His old eyes, small and dry, looked at Eve piteously.

She put out her hand and took his in silence.

"She has always been such a delicate little creature, that we never let her have any care or trouble; we even spoke to her gently always, Sabrina and I. For she was so delicate when she was a baby that they thought she couldn't live; she had her bright eyes, even then, and she was so pretty and winning; but they said she must soon follow her mother. We were so glad when she began to grow stronger. But--have we saved her for this?"

"She is away from him now," Eve answered.

"And there was her father--my boy Marmaduke; what would Duke have said?--his baby--his little girl!" He rose and walked to and fro; for the first time his gait was that of a feeble old man.

"They can't know what happens to us here!--or else that they see some way out of it that we do not see," said Eve, pa.s.sionately. "Otherwise, it would be too cruel."

"Duke died when she was only two years old," the judge went on.

"'Father,' he said to me, just at the last, 'I leave you baby.' And this is what I have brought her to!"

"You had nothing to do with it, she married him of her own free will.

And she forgot everything, she forgot my brother very soon."

"I don't know what she forgot, I don't care what she forgot," the old man answered. He sat down on the bench again, and put his hands over his face. He was crying--the slow, hard tears of age.

At sunset they started. The negro chamber-maid, to whom Jack had taken a fancy, went with them as nurse, and twenty shining black faces were at the station to see her off.

"_Good-bye_, Porley; take keer yersef."

"Yere's luck, Porley; doan yer forgot us."

"Step libely, Jonah; Porley's a-lookin' at yer."

"Good-lye, Porley!"

The train moved out.

XII.

A dock on the Cuyahoga River, at Cleveland. The high bows of a propeller loomed up far above them; a wooden bridge, with hand-rails of rope, extended from a square opening in its side to the place where they were standing--the judge, bewildered by the deafening noise of the letting-off of steam and by the hustling of the deck-hands who ran to and fro putting on freight; little Jack, round-eyed with wonder, surveying the scene from his nurse's arms; Cicely, listless, unhearing; and Eve, with the same pale-cheeked self-control and the same devoted attention to Cicely which had marked her manner through all their rapid journey across the broad country from Charleston to Washington, from Washington to Pittsburgh, from Pittsburgh to Cleveland.

"I think we cross here," she said; "by this bridge." She herself went first. The bridge ascended sharply; little slats of wood were nailed across its planks in order to make the surface less slippery. The yellow river, greasy with petroleum from the refineries higher up the stream, heaved a little from the constant pa.s.sing of other craft; this heaving made the bridge unsteady, and Eve was obliged to help the nurse when she crossed with Jack, and then to lead Cicely, and to give a hand to the judge, who came last.

"You are never dizzy," said the judge.

"No, I am never dizzy," Eve answered, as though she were saying the phrase over to herself as a warning.

She led the way up a steep staircase to the cabin above. This was a long narrow saloon, decked with tables each covered with a red cloth, whereon stood, in white vases representing a hand grasping a cornucopia, formal bouquets, composed princ.i.p.ally of peonies and the foliage of asparagus.

Narrow doors, ornamented with gilding, formed a panelling on each side; between the doors small stiff sofas of red velvet were attached by iron clamps to the floor, which was covered with a brilliant carpet; above each sofa, under the low ceiling, was a narrow grating. Women and a few men sat here and there on the sofas; they looked at the new pa.s.sengers apathetically. Lawless children chased one another up and down the narrow s.p.a.ces between the sofas and the tables, forcing each person who was seated to draw in his or her legs with lightning rapidity as they pa.s.sed; babies with candy, babies with cookies, babies with apples, crawled and tottered about on the velvet carpet, and drew themselves up by the legs of the tables, leaving sticky marks on the mahogany surfaces, and generally ending by striking their heads against the top, sitting down suddenly and breaking into a howl. Eve led the way to the deck; she brought forward chairs, and they seated themselves. A regularly repeated and deafening clash came from the regions below; the deck-hands were bringing steel rails from a warehouse on the dock, and adding them one by one to the pile already on board by the simple method of throwing them upon it. After the little party had sat there for fifteen minutes, Eve said, "It is--it is insupportable!"

"You feel it because you have not slept. You haven't slept at all since we started," said Cicely, mentioning the fact, but without evident interest in it.

"Yes I have," responded Eve, quickly.

There came another tremendous clash. Eve visibly trembled; her cheeks seemed to grow more wan, the line between her eyes deepened.

"This noise must be stopped!" said the old planter, authoritatively. He got up and went to the side.

"_They_ won't stop," said Cicely.

Eve sat still, the tips of the fingers of each of her hands pressed hard into the palm, and bits of her inner cheek held tightly between her teeth. At last the rails were all on board and the gangways hauled in; the propeller moved slowly away from her dock, a row of loungers, with upturned faces, watching her departure, and visibly envying the captain, who called out orders loudly from the upper deck--orders which were needed; for the river was crowded with craft of all kinds, and many manoeuvres were necessary before the long steamer could turn herself and reach the open lake. She pa.s.sed out at last between two piers, down which boys ran as fast as they could, racing with the engine to see which should reach the end first. At last they were away, and the noises ceased; there was only the regular throb of the machinery, the sound of the water churned by the screw. The sun was setting; Eve looked at the receding sh.o.r.es--the spires of Cleveland on the bluffs which rise from the Cuyahoga, the ma.s.s of roofs extending to the east and the west, bounded on the latter side by the pine-clad cliffs of Rocky River. After the splendid flaming sunset, the lake grew suddenly dark; it looked as vast and dusky as the ocean. Cicely sprang up. "I know I shall never come back across all this water!--I know I never, never shall!"

"Yes, you will, little girl," answered her grandfather, fondly.

"I don't mind. But I can't stay here and think! They must be doing something in there--all those people we saw in the cabin; I am going in to see." She went within, and Eve followed her; the nurse carried Jack after his mother. But the judge remained where he was; he sat with one hand laid over the other on the top of his cane. He looked at the dark lake; his feeling was, "What is to become of us?"