The Cricket Part 38

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The motor boat from the _Empress_ was at the pier when the three Bryces made their appearance on the day of the departure. They were taken out to the yacht at once, where Mr. Abercrombie Brendon was already ensconced. He was a pompous, red-faced little man, with a great deal of stomach and a great deal of manner. He was in high good humour with the weather and the world in general. He greeted Isabelle by singing, a line from a light opera success of his younger days--

"Isabella, Isabella, the love-e-ly queen of Spain."

"Silly a.s.s!" said she to herself, and she went to lean over the rail and watch for the coming of the others. They arrived shortly and she took inventory. First Mrs. Abercrombie Brendon ascended the steps. She was a big, arrogant, impressive woman whom Isabelle immediately named "Hecuba." She was followed by a lovely, blonde creature, with deep-blue eyes and a short upper lip.

Isabelle fixed her attention upon the last comer, who certainly was an attention-fixing young man. He was extremely handsome. Here was the one and only hope of this party, so far as she was concerned.

There was a great clatter of greetings.

"Come here, Isabelle, and make your manners," ordered her mother. She obeyed, reluctantly.

"So glad to have a young thing with us, my dear," boomed Mrs. Brendon in her big voice. "Althea, this is Isabelle Bryce. Miss Morton, Isabelle."

The lovely vision smiled faintly and nodded.

"This is Mr. Jerry Paxton," Mrs. Brendon continued.

Isabelle shot a glance at him, but he failed to get it.

"How do you do?" he said, absently, turning to help Althea adjust her veil.

There followed the ceremony of apportioning the staterooms, getting into deck hats, and the other preliminaries, while the boat was steaming down the harbour. Isabelle stayed on deck and made friends with the captain and the sailors. It was fun to watch them padding about so swiftly, coiling ropes, and doing their tasks so featly.

The first few days were clear and beautiful. They spent the time on deck. Isabelle appraised the situation the first day out. Mrs. Brendon intended that the handsome Paxton man should be permanently annexed to the blonde beauty, who entirely concurred in the idea. The Paxton man was not yet entirely won over to the plan; therefore, he was restless and on his guard. Max flirted with old Brendon, and Wally was at loose ends. He occasionally donated his society to his daughter.

"I'll make a bet with you, Wally, that Madame Hecuba Brendon won't put it through."

"Put what through?"

"Marry Jerry Paxton to the lady with the short lip."

Wally laughed.

"You don't miss anything, do you?"

"I do not."

"You're too young to notice such things."

"Lord! but parents are a bore!" quoth Isabelle at that.

For the most part she kept out of their way those first days. Max noticed it, and warned Wally that she was probably cooking up some mischief to explode on them.

It would have surprised them could they have peeped into the girl's mind. She liked being alone, being still. There had been considerable strain to keeping up a reputation as a school terror. It had meant being constantly on the alert for an opportunity to misbehave; it meant thinking up plots, living up to an exacting standard of wickedness. The reaction had come with these idle days and she enjoyed it.

Then, too, she loved the vastness of the sea and the sky, between which they made their way. She sat for hours watching white gulls that followed in their wake. She wondered if they were not the souls of the departed, and she conceived one friendly one, which flew quite near them for days, to be the soul of Mrs. Benjamin. Sometimes when she was sure that no one was near she stood in the stern and called out to it.

"Dear Mrs. Benjamin, I know you're there. Don't leave me, will you? I love so to watch you circling up there. Is it nice in Heaven?"

She pondered about death a good deal, and about heaven. She had not been able to bear such thoughts since Mrs. Benjamin died, so bitter had been her grief. But there was soothing in the silent vastness, and she came to think of heaven as a sublimated Hill Top with Mrs. Benjamin still teaching the young.

She watched Jerry and Althea pacing the deck together. She noted the way she looked at him--the half-playful wholly tender way she appropriated him. It led the girl to ponder upon love also. Here were two beautiful people who, according to all the rules of play and story, should be making love every minute, in this paradise. Why did the beautiful young man hesitate?

[Ill.u.s.tration: _She watched Jerry and Althea pacing the deck together.

. . . It led the girl to ponder upon love also_]

She decided to interview Althea and see what sort of creature she might be. It was not so simple, because Althea was barely aware of Isabelle's existence, also she was never without Jerry at her side, if either she or Mrs. Brendon could manage it. But there came a chance, when she was alone on deck, and Isabelle hastily took the vacated seat beside her.

Althea glanced at her, faintly surprised.

"Are you having a good time on this cruise?" Isabelle opened fire.

"Oh, yes--very. Aren't you?"

"Not especially. But then I haven't any handsome young man to play with."

Althea frowned and made her first mistake.

"You're quite too young for any such ideas," she said.

"I'm out of the cradle, you know!"--hotly. "I'm old enough to know that I could handle a handsome young man better than you do, for all your age."

"I think you're extremely impertinent!"

"You ought to make a friend of me. I can tell you a thing or two. For one thing, he's too sure of you."

Althea rose, white with fury.

"I shall certainly report this impudence to your mother," she said, haughtily, moving away. But Isabelle fired the last shot.

"Oh, Max will agree with me. You ought to watch her. She's got some technique herself."

After that encounter Althea looked over and through Isabelle, as if she were thin air. It amused the girl immensely, and in her wise head she made a fair judgment of Miss Morton's mind and disposition. She decided that she was entirely unworthy of the G.o.d-like Jerry, and she was glad he hesitated.

She began to watch him with increased interest. She made romances about him, with herself as heroine. She played scenes in which she outwitted the haughty beauty, and fled with the hero. She began to pity Jerry. He was the unwilling victim of Althea and Mrs. Brendon. How could she, Isabelle Bryce, rescue him from their clutches?

In the process of her dreaming she wrecked the yacht, Jerry saved her, and as soon as they reached sh.o.r.e they were married. In one version, Althea, seeing that he loved Isabelle, threw herself overboard and perished. There were many stories, but they always had one ending--Isabelle won and wed the handsome young man.

One windy morning when the other "stuffies" (as she called them to herself) were playing bridge inside, Isabelle squatted on deck, her chin on her knees, watching the big breakers, listening to the scream of the petrels, and as usual building air castles about herself and Jerry, when lo! her hero came striding down the deck and all at once he stopped before her.

"h.e.l.lo! Aren't you afraid you'll blow overboard?" he inquired.

"No, I'm not. You've waked up, have you?"

"Have I been asleep?"