Foul Play Part 8

There was still something about this business Seaton did not quite like; perhaps it was in the haste of the s.h.i.+pments, or in the manner of the mate. At all events, it was too slight and subtle to be communicated to others with any hope of convincing them; and, moreover, Seaton could not but own to himself that he hated Wardlaw, and was, perhaps, no fair judge of his acts, and even of the acts of his servants.

And soon a blow fell that drove the matter out of his head and his heart.

Miss Helen Rolleston called at the office, and, standing within a few feet of him, handed Hardcastle a letter from Arthur Wardlaw, directing that the ladies' cabin on board the _Shannon_ should be placed at her disposal.

Hardcastle bowed low to Beauty and Station, and promised her the best possible accommodation on board the _Shannon,_ bound for England next week.

As she retired, she cast one quiet glance round the office in search of Seaton's beard. But he had reduced its admired luxuriance, and trimmed it to a narrow mercantile point. She did not know his other features from Adam, and little thought that young man, bent double over his paper, was her preserver and _protege;_ still less that he was at this moment cold as ice, and quivering with misery from head to foot, because her own lips had just told him she was going to England in the _Shannon._

Heartbroken, but still loving n.o.bly, Seaton dragged himself down to the harbor, and went slowly on board the _Shannon_ to secure Miss Rolleston every comfort.

Then, sick at heart as he was, he made inquiries into the condition of the vessel which was to be trusted with so precious a freight; and the old boatman who was rowing him, hearing him make these inquiries, told him he himself was always about, and had noticed the _Shannon's_ pumps were going every blessed night.

Seaton carried this intelligence directly to Lloyds' agent; he overhauled the s.h.i.+p, and ordered her into the graving dock for repairs.

Then Seaton, for White & Co., wrote to Miss Rolleston that the _Shannon_ was not seaworthy and could not sail for a month at the least.

The lady simply acknowledged Messrs. White's communication, and Seaton breathed again.

Wardlaw had made Miss Rolleston promise him faithfully to sail that month in his s.h.i.+p, the _Shannon._ Now she was a slave to her word and constant of purpose; so when she found she could not sail in the _Shannon,_ she called again on Messrs. White, and took her pa.s.sage in the _Proserpine._ The essential thing to her mind was to sail when she had promised, and to go in a s.h.i.+p that belonged to her lover.

The _Proserpine_ was to sail in ten days.

Seaton inquired into the state of the _Proserpine._ She was a good, sound vessel, and there was no excuse for detaining her.

Then he wrestled long and hard with the selfish part of his great love.

Instead of turning sullen, he set himself to carry out Helen Rolleston's will. He went on board the _Proserpine_ and chose her the best stern cabin.

General Rolleston had ordered Helen's cabin to be furnished, and the agent had put in the usual things, such as a standing bedstead with drawers beneath, chest of drawers, small table, two chairs, washstand, looking-gla.s.s, and swinging lamp.

But Seaton made several visits to the s.h.i.+p, and effected the following arrangements at his own cost. He provided a neat cocoa-mat for her cabin deck, for comfort and foot-hold. He uns.h.i.+pped the regular six-paned stern windows, and put in single-pane plate gla.s.s; he fitted venetian blinds, and hung two little rose-colored curtains to each of the windows; all so arranged as to be easily removed in case it should be necessary to s.h.i.+p dead-lights in heavy weather. He glazed the door leading to her bath-room and quarter gallery with plate gla.s.s; he provided a light easy-chair, slung and fitted with grommets, to be hung on hooks screwed into the beams in the mids.h.i.+p of the cabin. On this Helen could sit and read, and so become insensible to the motion of the s.h.i.+p. He fitted a small bookcase, with a b.u.t.ton, which could be raised when a book might be wanted; he fixed a strike-bell in her maid's cabin communicating with two strikers in Helen's cabin; he selected books, taking care that the voyages and travels were prosperous ones. No "Seaman's Recorder,"

"Life-boat Journal," or "s.h.i.+pwrecks and Disasters in the British Navy."

Her cabin was the after-cabin on the starboard side, was entered through the cuddy, had a door communicating with the quarter gallery, two stern windows and a dead-eye on deck. The maid's cabin was the port after-cabin; doors opened into cuddy and quarter-gallery. And a fine trouble Miss Rolleston had to get a maid to accompany her; but at last a young woman offered to go with her for high wages, demurely suppressing the fact that she had just married one of the sailors, and would have gladly gone for nothing. Her name was Jane Holt, and her husband's Michael Donovan.

In one of Seaton's visits to the _Proserpine_ he detected the mate and the captain talking together and looking at him with unfriendly eyes--scowling at him would hardly be too strong a word.

However, he was in no state of mind to care much how two animals in blue jackets received his acts of self-martyrdom. He was there to do the last kind offices of despairing love for the angel that had crossed his dark path and illumined it for a moment, to leave it now forever.

At last the fatal evening came; her last in Sydney.

Then Seaton's fort.i.tude, sustained no longer by the feverish stimulus of doing kindly acts for her, began to give way, and he desponded deeply.

At nine in the evening he crept upon General Rolleston's lawn, where he had first seen her. He sat down in sullen despair upon the very spot.

Then he came nearer the house. There was a lamp in the dining-room; he looked in and saw her.

She was seated at her father's knee, looking up at him fondly; her hand was in his; the tears were in their eyes; she had no mother; he no son; they loved one another devotedly. This, their tender gesture, and their sad silence, spoke volumes to any one that had known sorrow. Poor Seaton sat down on the dewy gra.s.s outside and wept because she was weeping.

Her father sent her to bed early. Seaton watched, as he had often done before, till her light went out; and then he flung himself on the wet gra.s.s and stared at the sky in utter misery.

The mind is often clearest in the middle of the night; and all of a sudden he saw, as if written on the sky, that she was going to England expressly to marry Arthur Wardlaw.

At this revelation he started up, stung with hate as well as love, and his tortured mind rebelled furiously. He repeated his vow that this should never be; and soon a scheme came into his head to prevent it; but it was a project so wild and dangerous that, even as his heated brain hatched it, his cooler judgment said, "Fly, madman, fly! or this love will _destroy_ you!"

He listened to the voice of reason, and in another minute he was out of the premises. He fluttered to his lodgings.

When he got there he could not go in; he turned and fluttered about the streets, not knowing or caring whither; his mind was in a whirl; and, what with his bodily fever and his boiling heart, pa.s.sion began to overpower reason, that had held out so gallantly till now. He found himself at the harbor, staring with wild and bloodshot eyes at the _Proserpine,_ he who, an hour ago, had seen that he had but one thing to do--to try and forget young Wardlaw's bride. He groaned aloud, and ran wildly back into the town. He hurried up and down one narrow street, raging inwardly, like some wild beast in its den.

By-and-by his mood changed, and he hung round a lamp-post and fell to moaning and lamenting his hard fate and hers.

A policeman came up, took him for a maudlin drunkard, and half-advised, half-admonished, him to go home.

At that he gave a sort of fierce, despairing snarl and ran into the next street to be alone.

In this street he found a shop open and lighted, though it was but five o'clock in the morning. It was a barber's whose customers were working people. HAIRCUTTING, SIXPENCE. EASY SHAVING, THREEPENCE. HOT COFFEE, FOURPENCE THE CUP. Seaton's eye fell upon this shop. He looked at it fixedly a moment from the opposite side of the way and then hurried on.

He turned suddenly and came back. He crossed the road and entered the shop. The barber was leaning over the stove, removing a can of boiling water from the fire to the hob. He turned at the sound of Seaton's step and revealed an ugly countenance, rendered sinister by a squint.

Seaton dropped into a chair and said, "I want my beard taken off."

The man looked at him, if it could be called looking at him, and said dryly, "Oh, do ye? How much am I to have for that job?"

"You know your own charge."

"Of course I do. Threepence a chin."

"Very well. Be quick then."

"Stop a bit. That is my charge to working folk. I must have something more off you."

"Very well, man, I'll pay you double."

"My price to you is ten s.h.i.+llings."

"Why, what is that for?" asked Seaton in some alarm; he thought, in his confusion, the man must have read his heart.

"I'll tell ye why," said the squinting barber. "No, I won't. I'll show ye." He brought a small mirror and suddenly clapped it before Seaton's eyes. Seaton started at his own image; wild, ghastly, and the eyes so bloodshot. The barber chuckled. This start was an extorted compliment to his own sagacity. "Now wasn't I right?" said he; "did I ought to take the beard off such a mug as that--for less than ten s.h.i.+llings?"

"I see," groaned Seaton; "you think I have committed some crime. One man sees me weeping with misery; he calls me a drunkard; another sees me pale with the anguish of my breaking heart; he calls me a felon. May G.o.d's curse light on him and you, and all mankind!"

"All right," said the squinting barber, apathetically; "my price is ten bob, whether or no."

Seaton felt in his pockets. "I have not got the money about me," said he.

"Oh, I'm not particular; leave your watch."

Seaton handed the squinting vampire his watch without another word and let his head fall upon his breast.