Salthaven Part 18

"It's no good talking like that," said Hartley, with feeble irritation.

"You're as bad as my poor old grandmother; she always knew everything before it happened-at least, she said so afterward. What I want to know is: how is it to be stopped? He has been round three nights running."

"Your grandmother is dead, I suppose?" said the offended captain, gazing at the river. "Else she might have known what to do."

"I'm sorry," said Hartley, apologetically; "but I am so worried that I hardly know what I'm saying."

"That's all right," said the captain, amiably. He drank some beer and, leaning back on the seat, knitted his brows thoughtfully.

"He admired her from the first," he said, slowly. "I saw that. Does she like him, I wonder?"

"It looks like it," was the reply.

The captain shook his head. "They'd make a fine couple," he said, slowly. "As fine as you'd see anywhere. It's fate again. Perhaps he was meant to admire her; perhaps millions of years ago--"

"Yes, yes, I know," said Hartley, hastily; "but to prevent it."

"Fate can't be prevented," said the captain, who was now on his favourite theme. "Think of the millions of things that had to happen to make it possible for those two young people to meet and cause this trouble. That's what I mean. If only one little thing had been missing, one little circ.u.mstance out of millions, Joan wouldn't have been born; you wouldn't have been born."

Mr. Hartley attempted to speak, but the captain, laying down his pipe, extended an admonitory finger.

"To go back only a little way," he said, solemnly, "your father had the measles, hadn't he?"

"I don't know-I believe so," said Hartley.

"Good," said the captain; "and he pulled through 'em, else you wouldn't have been here. Again, he happened to go up North to see a friend who was taken ill while on a journey, and met your mother there, didn't he?"

Hartley groaned.

"If your father's friend hadn't been taken ill," said the captain, with tremendous solemnity, as he laid his forefinger on his friend's knee, "where would you have been?"

"I don't know," said Hartley, restlessly, "and I don't care."

"n.o.body knows," said the other, shaking his head. "The thing is, as you are here, it seems to me that things couldn't have been otherwise. They were all arranged. When your father went up North in that light-hearted fas.h.i.+on, I don't suppose he thought for a moment that you'd be sitting here to-day worrying over one of the results of his journey."

"Of course he didn't," exclaimed Hartley, impatiently; "how could he?

Look here, Trimblett, when you talk like that I don't know where I am.

If my father hadn't married my mother I suppose he would have married somebody else."

"My idea is that he couldn't," said the captain, obstinately. "If a thing has got to be it will be, and there's no good worrying about it.

Take a simple example. Some time you are going to die of a certain disease-you can only die once-and you're going to be buried in a certain grave-you can only be buried in one grave. Try and think that in front of you there is that one particular disease told off to kill you at a certain date, and in one particular spot of all this earth there is a grave waiting to be dug for you. At present we don't know the date, or the disease, or the grave, but there they are, all waiting for you. That is fate. What is the matter? Where are you going?"

"Home," said Hartley, bitterly, as he paused at the door. "I came round to you for a little help, and you go on in a way that makes my flesh creep. Good-by."

"Wait a bit," said the captain, detaining him. "Wait a bit; let's see what can be done."

He pulled the other back into his seat again and, fetching another bottle of beer from the house to stimulate invention, sat evolving schemes for his friend's relief, the nature of which reflected more credit upon his ingenuity than his wisdom.

"But, after all," he said, as Hartley made a third attempt to depart, "what is the good? The very steps we take to avoid disaster may be the ones to bring it on. While you are round here getting advice from me, Robert Vyner may be availing himself of the opportunity to propose."

Hartley made no reply. He went out and walked' up and down the garden, inspecting it. The captain, who was no gardener, hoped that the expression of his face was due to his opinion of the flowers.

"You must miss Mrs. Chinnery," said Hartley, at last.

"No," said the captain, almost explosively; "not at all. Why should I?"

"It can't be so homelike without her," said Hartley, stooping to pull up a weed or two.

"Just the same," said the other, emphatically. "We have a woman in to do the work, and it doesn't make the slightest difference to me-not the slightest."

"How is Truefitt?" inquired Hartley.

The captain's face darkened. "Peter's all right," he said, slowly. "He's not treated me-quite well," he added, after a little hesitation.

"It's natural he should neglect you a bit, as things are," said his friend.

"Neglect?" said the captain, bitterly. "I wish he would neglect me. He's turning out a perfect busybody, and he's getting as artful as they make 'em. I never would have believed it of Peter. Never."

Hartley waited.

"I met Cap'n Walsh the other night," said Trimblett; "we hadn't seen each other for years, and we went into the Golden Fleece to have a drink. You know what Walsh is when he's ash.o.r.e. And he's a man that won't be beaten. He had had four tries to get a 'c.o.c.ktail' right that he had tasted in New York, and while he was superintending the mixing of the fifth I slipped out. The others were all right as far as I could judge; but that's Walsh all over."

"Well?" said Hartley.

"I came home and found Peter sitting all alone in the dumps," continued the captain. "He has been very down of late, and, what was worse, he had got a bottle of whiskey on the table. That's a fatal thing to begin; and partly to keep him company, but mainly to prevent him drinking more than was good for him, I helped him finish the bottle-there wasn't much in it."

"Well?" said Hartley again, as the captain paused.

"He got talking about his troubles," said the captain, slowly. "You know how things are, and, like a fool, I tried to cheer him up by agreeing with him that Mrs. Chinnery would very likely make things easy for him by marrying again. In fact, so far as I remember, I even helped him to think of the names of one or two likely men. He said she'd make anybody as good a wife as a man could wish."

"So she would," said Hartley, looking at him with sudden interest. "In fact, I have often wondered-"

"He went on talking like that," continued the captain, hastily, "and out of politeness and good feeling I agreed with him. What else could I do?

Then-I didn't take much notice of it because, as I said, he was drinking whiskey-he-he sort of wondered why-why-"

"Why you didn't offer to marry her?" interrupted Hartley.

The captain nodded. "It took my breath away," he said, impressively, "and I lost my presence of mind. Instead of speaking out plain I tried to laugh it off-just to spare his feelings-and said I wasn't worthy of her."

"What did he say?" inquired Hartley, curiously, after another long pause.

"Nothing," replied the captain. "Not a single word. He just gave me a strange look, shook my hand hard, and went off to bed. I've been uneasy in my mind ever since. I hardly slept a wink last night; and Peter behaves as though there is some mysterious secret between us. What would you do?"

Mr. Hartley took his friend's arm and paced thoughtfully up and down the garden.

"Why not marry her?" he said, at last.

"Because I don't want to," said the captain, almost violently.

"You'd be safer at sea, then," said the other.