Nedra Part 16

"His wife."

Hugh, too dumbfounded to speak, could do no more than doff his cap as she took the arm of the gray lord and softly said to him:

"Good-night, Mr. Ridge."

CHAPTER X

A SHARP ENCOUNTER

The _Tempest Queen_ carried a merry cargo. The young officers, the Americans and rich pleasure seekers from other lands--young and old--made up a happy company. Of all on board, but one was despised and loathed by his fellow-travellers--Lord Huntingford. Not so much for his manner toward them as for his harsh, bitter att.i.tude toward his young wife.

He reprimanded and criticised her openly, very much as he would have spoken to a child, and always undeservedly. She endured patiently, to all appearances, and her cloud of humiliation was swept away by the knowledge that her new friends saw the injustice of his attacks. She did not pose before them as a martyr; but they could see the subdued and angry pride and the checked rebellion, for the mask of submission was thin, even though it was dutiful.

The two young women, unlike as two women could be, became fast friends.

The Englishwoman was refinement, sweetness, even royalty itself; the American, proud, equally refined, aggressive and possessed of a wit, shrewdness and spontaneity of humor that often amazed the less subtle of the two. Tinges of jealousy sometimes shot into Grace's heart when she saw Hugh talking to the new friend, but they disappeared with the recollection of her Ladyship's pure, gentle n.o.bility of character. It is seen rarely by one woman in another.

And Veath? The stalwart, fresh-hearted, lean-faced Indianian was happier than he had dreamed he could be when he drearily went aboard a ship at New York with the shadow of exile upon him. He had won the friendship of all. The brain of the Westerner was as big as his heart, and it had been filled with the things which make men valuable to the world. Men called him the "real American," and women conveyed a world of meaning in the simple, earnest expression--"I like Mr. Veath."

Veath was now unmistakably in love with Grace Vernon. The fact was borne in upon him more and more positively as the sunny days and beautiful nights drew them nearer to the journey's end. Occasionally he lapsed into strange fits of dejection. These came when he stopped to ponder over certain prospects, hopes and the stores of life. At times he cursed the fate which had cast him into the world, big and strong, yet apparently helpless. It had not been his ambition to begin life in the capacity which now presented itself. His hopes had been limitless.

Poverty had made his mind a treasure; but poverty had also kept it buried. He saw before him the long fight for opportunity, position, honor; but he was not the sort to quail. The victory would be glorious when he thought what it might bring to him from Grace Ridge--she who was going to be a missionary. A long, hard fight, indeed, from revenue officer to minister plenipotentiary, but it was ambition's war.

And Hugh? As the days went by, his jealousy of Veath became almost intolerable. He dared not speak to Grace about it, for something told him she was not to be censured. Even in his blind rage he remembered that she was good and true, and was daring all for his sake. In calmer moments he could not blame Veath, who believed the young lady to be sister, and not sweetheart.

In view of his misery, Mr. Ridgeway was growing thin, morose, and subject to long fits of despondency which Grace alone could comprehend.

Both were dissatisfied with the trip. That they could not be together constantly, as they had expected, caused them hours of misery. They were praying for the twenty-third of May to come, praying with all their hearts. Beside whom did Hugh walk during the deck strolls and at Port Said? With his sister? No, indeed; that would have been unnatural. Who was Grace's natural companion? Henry Veath or any one of a dozen attractive young officers. How could it have been otherwise?

She was popular and in constant demand. There were not many young women aboard and certainly but two or three attractive ones. From morning till far in the night she was besieged by men--always men. They ignored Hugh with all the indifference that falls to the lot of a brother. Time after time they actually pounced upon the couple and dragged her away without so much as "By your leave." They danced with her, sang with her, walked with her and openly tried to make love to her, all before the blazing eyes of one Hugh Ridgeway. On more than one occasion he had gone without his dinner because some presumptuous officer unceremoniously usurped his seat at table, grinning amiably when Hugh appeared.

The sweet, dear little moments of privacy that Hugh and Grace obtained, however, were morsels of joy which were now becoming more precious than the fondest dreams of the wedded state to come. They coveted these moments with a greediness that was almost sinful.

On many nights Grace would whisper to Hugh at the dinner table and would creep quietly on deck, meal half finished, where he would join her like a thief. Then they would hide from interruption as long as possible.

One night they enjoyed themselves more unrestrainedly than ever before in their lives. They were walking self-consciously and almost guiltily near the forward end of the deck-house when they saw Veath approaching far behind. Their speed accelerated, and for half an hour they walked like pedestrians in a racing match, always keeping some distance ahead of poor Veath, who finally, like the sly fox, sat down and waited for them to hurry around and come upon him unexpectedly. He, of course, never knew that they were trying to avoid him, nor could he imagine why brother and sister were so flushed, happy and excited when he at last had the pleasure of joining them in their walk. And, strange to say, although they had been wildly happy in this little love chase, they felt that they had mistreated a very good fellow and were saying as much to each other when they almost b.u.mped into him.

Womanly perception told Grace that Veath's regard for her was beginning to a.s.sume a form quite beyond that of ordinary friendship. She intuitively felt that he was beginning to love her. Perhaps he was already in love, and was releasing those helpless little signs which a woman understands, and which a man thinks he conceals impenetrably. The _Queen_ was leaving Port Said and she was leaning on the rail beside the big Indianian.

"Why are you going out to be a missionary?" he suddenly asked. Then he flushed painfully, remembering when too late that he had sworn to Hugh that he would not speak to her of the matter. "I beg your pardon," he hurried on; "I promised--that is, I should not have asked you that question. I forgot, hang my stupidity."

"Mr. Veath, I am not going out to be a missionary. Nothing was ever farther from my mind," she said, rather excitedly.

"Not going to be a--why, Hugh said you were. There I go, giving him away again."

"Hugh was jesting. I a missionary! How could you have believed him?"

"Are you in earnest?" he cried.

"Of course I am in earnest," she said, trying to look straight in those bright eyes, but failing dismally. Something in his glance dazzled her.

It was then that she knew the truth as well as if his mind were an open book.

"Why are you going to the Philippines?" he persisted.

She gave him a quick, frightened glance and as hastily looked away. The red of confusion rushed to her cheeks, her brow, her neck. What answer could she give?

"We are--are just taking the trip for pleasure," she stammered. "Hugh and I took a sudden notion to go to Manila and--and--well, we are going, that's all."

"You don't mean to say you are making this as a pleasure trip?" he asked, staring at her with a different light in his eyes.

"A mere whim, you know," she hurried on. "Look at those Arabs over there."

"But a pleasure trip of this kind must be awfully expensive, isn't it?"

he insisted.

She hesitated for an instant and then said boldly: "You see, Mr. Veath, Hugh and I are very rich. It may not sound well for me to say it, but we have much more money than we know how to spend. The cost of this voyage is a mere trifle. Please do not think that I am boasting. It is the miserable truth." His face was very pale when she dared to look up at it again, and his gaze was far off at sea.

"And so you are very rich," he mused aloud. "I thought you were quite poor, because missionaries are seldom overburdened with riches, according to tradition, or the gospel, or something like that. This is a pleasure trip!" The bitterness of his tone could not be hidden.

"I am sorry if you have had an idol shattered," she said.

"Something has been shattered," he said, smiling. "I don't know very much about idols," he added. "How long do you expect to remain in Manila?"

"But a very short time," she said simply.

"And I shall have to stay there for years, I suppose," he returned slowly. His eyes came to hers for a second and then went back to the stretch of water like a flash. That brief glance troubled her greatly.

Her heart trembled with pity for the man beside her, even though speculation wrought the emotion.

In her stateroom that night she lay, dry-eyed and wakeful, her inward cry being: "It is a crime to have wounded this innocent man. Why must he be made to suffer?"

She could not tell Hugh of her discovery, for she knew that he would be unreasonable, perhaps do or say something which would make the wound more painful. During the days that followed Veath was as pleasant, as genial, as gallant as before; none but Grace observed the faint change in his manner. She was sure she could distinguish a change, yet at times, when he was gayest, she thrilled with the hope that her belief was the outgrowth of a conceit which she was beginning for the first time to know she possessed. Then came the belief again and the belief was stronger than the doubt. She could not be mistaken.

In the meantime an unexpected complication forced itself upon Hugh Ridgeway. Perforce he had been thrown more or less constantly into the society of that charming creature, Lady Huntingford. Not that the young rakes in uniform were content to pa.s.s her by, but because she plainly preferred the young American. It had not occurred to Mr. Ridgeway that his Lordship might be expected, with reasonable propriety, to unmask a jealous streak in addition to other disagreeable traits. The British subalterns probably knew the temper of the old diplomat's mind, which, in a degree, explains their readiness to forgo the pleasure of a mild flirtation with her Ladyship. Hugh, feeling like a despised pariah, naturally turned to her in his banishment. She was his friend, his one beacon of light in the dark sea of unhappiness.

Others noticed it; but Hugh was blind to the scowl which never left the face of Lord Huntingford in these days. The old n.o.bleman knew full well that his wife loathed and detested him--just as the whole ship knew it; his pride rankled and writhed with the fear that she was finding more than friendship to enjoy in her daily intercourse with the good-looking Mr. Ridge. Gradually it became noticeable that he was watching her every act with spiteful eyes, and more than one observer winked softly at his neighbor, and shook his head with a meaning unmistakable.

The clash came one night in the Red Sea, just before the ship reached Aden. Hugh, reviling himself and the whole world, had been compelled to stand by and see Lieutenant Gilmore, a dashing Irishman, drag the unwilling Miss Ridge off for a waltz. Her protestations had been of no avail; Gilmore was abominable enough to say that she had no right to stow herself away with a stupid old brother when there were so many "real nice chaps on board." And this in Hugh's presence, too! And he could not resent it! Alone and miserable the pariah sent his unspoken, bitter lamentation to the stars as he stood in savage loneliness far aft, listening to the strains of waltz music.

"'Pon my soul! Of all the a.s.sinine idiots, bar none, the enlightened inspirer of this glorious voyage certainly ranks supreme! And I didn't have brains enough to foresee that this would surely happen! Brains?

Faugh! Chump!"

Hugh might have apostrophized himself in this fashion until dawn had not a harsh, rasping voice from out of the semi-darkness broken in on his doleful revery.

"Pardon me, sir, do you play cribbage?"

Hugh turned half about and faced the speaker. He could hardly believe his ears, his eyes. Was it possible that the haughty Lord Huntingford had fixed upon him as the next lamb to be fleeced? Ugly stories concerning the government emissary's continuous winnings, disastrous losses of the young subalterns inveigled into gambling through fear of his official displeasure, were not unknown to Hugh. A civil declination was on his lips; but keenly searching the shrivelled face leering into his own, Hugh saw written there something that compelled consideration, challenged a refusal. Promptly and in affirmative speech he reversed his intention.

Slowly the left hand of Lord Huntingford produced from behind his back an exquisitely carved ebony cribbage-board; and a.s.suming the position of host, indicated with exaggerated courtesy and a wave of his free hand the way to the smoking-room.