Thrice Armed Part 42

Wasn't it horrible in itself that he should have sunk to that? Then it shouldn't be very hard to imagine him bribing a lounger outside to buy him the whisky, and the carousal afterward with a stranger, a dead-beat and outcast low enough to profit by his evident weakness. Still, he was your father, Jimmy. Then there was the groping for matches and the upsetting of the lamp. Somebody brought Charley, and when he came your father lay with the clothes charred upon his burned limbs, still half-crazed with drink and mad with pain. Must I tell you once more what I saw when Charley brought me? I am willing, if there is nothing else that will rouse you. You have heard it before, but I want to burn it into your brain, so that however hard you try you can't blot out that scene."

Jimmy's face was grim and white, but while he sat very still his comrade rose resolutely.

"Eleanor," he said, "if you attempt to recall another incident of that horrible night I shall carry you by main force out of the room."

The girl turned to him with a little gesture. "Then I suppose I must submit. You have a man's strength and courage in you--or I think you would be afraid to marry me; but one could fancy that Jimmy has none.

The daughter of the man who ruined his father has condescended to be gracious to him. Still, I have a little more to say. She is his daughter, his flesh and blood, Jimmy, and his pitiless, hateful nature is in her. That is the woman you wish to marry. The mere notion of it is horrible. Still, you can't marry her, Jimmy. You must crush her father, and drag him to his ruin. After all, there is a little manhood somewhere in you. You will take the engineer's statement to the underwriters and the police. You must--you have to."

Jimmy stood up slowly, with the veins swollen on his forehead and a gray patch in his cheek. "Eleanor," he said hoa.r.s.ely, "I believe there is a devil in you; but I think you are right in this. Jordan, will you hand me that paper?"

He stood still for at least a minute when his comrade pa.s.sed it to him, and the girl watched him with a little gleam in her eyes. His face was furrowed, and looked worn as well as very hard. There was not a sound in the little room, and the splash of the ripples on the _Shasta_'s plates outside came in through the open ports with a startling distinctness.

Jordan felt that the tension was becoming almost unendurable. Then Jimmy turned slowly toward his sister, and though the pain was still in his face it had curiously changed. There was a look in his blue eyes that sent a thrill of consternation through her. They were very steady, and she knew that she had failed.

"I can't do it. It was not the girl's fault, and she shall not be dragged through the mire," he said. Then he looked at his comrade. "What I am going to do may cost you a good deal of money, and my appointment to the _Shasta_ is, of course, in your hands. I am going straight from here to Merril's house."

"Well," said Jordan simply, "it may cost us both a good deal, but I guess I must face it. If I were fixed as you are, that is just what I should do."

Jimmy said nothing, but he went out swiftly, and Eleanor turned to her companion with a very bitter smile when the door closed behind him.

"Ah!" she said, "has that girl beguiled you too? You had Merril in your hands, and instead of crus.h.i.+ng him you are going to smooth his troubles away."

"No," said Jordan dryly, "I don't quite think Jimmy will do that. In some respects, I understand him better than you do. He wants to save the girl all the sorrow and disgrace he can, but he is going to run her father out of this city. Jimmy's not exactly clever, and it's quite likely he'll mix up things when he meets Merril; but, for all that, I guess he'll carry out just what he means to do. Somehow, he generally does. That's the kind of man he is."

He stopped a moment, and a smile crept into his eyes. "I don't know what the result will be, and it may be the break-up of the _Shasta_ Company; but I can't blame Jimmy."

"Ah!" said Eleanor, "you, the man I counted on, are turning against me as well as my brother."

Then the sustaining purpose seemed to die out of her, and she sank back suddenly in her chair with her face hidden from him. Jordan crossed the little room, and stooping beside her slipped an arm about her.

"My dear," he said, "you can count on me always and in everything but this. It's because of what you are to me that I'm standing by Jimmy."

CHAPTER x.x.xI

MERRIL CAPITULATES

Merril was not in his house when Jimmy reached it, but it appeared that he was expected shortly, and the latter, who resolved to wait for him, was shown into a big artistically furnished room. He sat there at least ten minutes, alone and grim in face, with a growing disquietude, for his surroundings had their effect on him. The house was built of wood, but expense had not been spared, and those who have visited the Western cities know how beautiful a wooden dwelling can be made. Jimmy looked out through the open windows on to a wide veranda framed with a slender colonnade of wooden pillars supporting fretted arches of lace-like delicacy. The floor of the room, which was choicely parquetted in cunningly contrasted wood, also caught his eye, and there were Indian-sewn rugs of furs on it of a kind that he knew was rarely purchased in the north, except on behalf of Russian princes and American railroad kings. The furniture, he fancied by the timber, was Canadian-made, but it had evidently been copied from artistic European models; and though he was far from being a connoisseur in such things, they had all a painful significance to him just then.

They suggested wealth and taste and luxury; and it seemed only fitting that the woman he loved should have such a dwelling, while he realized that it was his hand which must deprive her of all the artistic daintiness to which she had grown accustomed and no doubt valued. He, a steamboat skipper of low degree, had, like blind Samson, laid a brutal grasp upon the pillars of the house, and he could feel the trembling of the beautiful edifice. This would have afforded him a certain grim satisfaction, had it not been for the fact that it was impossible to tell whether the woman he would have spared every pain might not be overwhelmed amid the ruin when he exerted his strength. It must be exerted. In that he could not help himself.

While he sat there with a hard, set face, she came in, dressed, as he realized, in harmony with her surroundings. Her gracious patrician quietness and her rich attire troubled him, and he felt, in spite of all Eleanor had said, that it would be a vast relief if he could abandon altogether the purpose that had brought him there, though to do so would, it was evident, set the girl further apart from him than ever, since her father's station naturally stood as a barrier between them.

Still, he remembered what he owed the men who had sent him on board the _Shasta_--Jordan, Forster, old Leeson, and two or three more; he could not turn against them now.

Anthea stood still just inside the door, looking at him half-expectant, but with something that was suggestive of apprehension in her manner, and Jimmy felt the hot blood creep into his face when he moved quietly forward and kissed her. In view of what he had to do, it would, he felt, have been more natural if she had shrunk from him in place of submitting to his caress. She appeared to recognize the constraint that was upon him, for she turned away and sat down a little distance from him.

"Jimmy," she said, "I'm glad to see you back. I have been lonely without you--and a little uneasy. Indeed, though I don't know exactly why, I am anxious now."

Then she looked at him steadily. "It is the first time you have been here. Something unusual must have brought you. Jimmy, is it war?"

The man made a deprecatory gesture. "I'm afraid it is," he said. "I don't think there can be any compromise."

"Ah!" said the girl, with a start, "you don't look like a man who has come to offer terms."

Jimmy was still standing, and he leaned somewhat heavily on the back of a chair. "I have to do something that I shrink from, but it must be done. If there were no other reason, I daren't go back on the men who have confidence in me; that is--not altogether, though in a way--I am now betraying them. Anthea, you will not let this thing stand between us?"

"No;" and the girl's voice was steady, though a trifle strained. "At least, not always. Still, I have felt that some day I should have to choose whom I should hold to--my father or you. It is very hard to face that question, Jimmy."

"Yes," said Jimmy gravely; "I am afraid you must choose to-night. You know how much I want you, but I have sense enough to recognize that I may bring trouble on both of us if I urge you to do what you might afterward regret."

Anthea said nothing for almost a minute, and because of the restraint he had laid upon himself Jimmy understood the cost of her quietness. It seemed necessary that both should hold themselves in hand. Then she turned to him again.

"You are quite sure there can be no compromise?"

"It is for many reasons out of the question. In fact, I think the decisive battle will be fought to-night. I have strained every point to make it easier for you, or I should not have come at all, and it is very likely that my comrades will discard me when they hear what I have done.

I am willing to face their anger, but, to some extent, at least, I must keep my bargain with them."

He moved a pace or two, and stood close by her chair looking down at her. "If you understood everything, you would not blame me."

Anthea glanced at him a moment, and he fancied that a s.h.i.+ver ran through her. "I do not blame you now, though it is all a little horrible. I cannot plead with you, and if I did I see that you would not listen. You must do what you feel you have to."

Neither of them spoke for a while, though Jimmy felt the tension was almost unendurable. It was evident that the girl felt it too, for he could see the signs of strain in her face. So intent were they that neither heard the door open, and Jimmy turned with a little start when the sound of a footstep reached them. Merril was standing not far away, little, portly, and immaculately dressed, regarding them with an inscrutable face.

"I understand you wish to see me, Mr. Wheelock," he said. "Anthea, you will no doubt allow us a few minutes."

The girl rose and moved toward the door, but before she went out she turned for a moment and glanced at Jimmy. Then it closed softly, and he saw that Merril was regarding him with a sardonic smile.

"I heard that you had made my daughter's acquaintance, but I was not aware that it had gone as far as I have some grounds for supposing now,"

he said.

"That," said Jimmy quietly, "is a subject I may mention by and by. In the meanwhile I have something to say that concerns you at least as closely. As it has a bearing on the other question, we might discuss it first."

"I am at your service for ten minutes;" and Merril pointed to a chair.

Jimmy sat down, but said nothing for a few moments. Apart from the trouble that he must bring upon Anthea, he felt that it was a big and difficult thing he had undertaken. He was a steamboat skipper, and the man in front of him one skilled in every art of commercial trickery whose ability was recognized in that city. Still, he felt curiously steady and sure of himself, for Jimmy, like other simple-minded men, as a rule appeared to advantage when forced suddenly to face a crisis. He felt, in fact, much as he had done when he stood grimly resolute on the _Shasta_'s bridge while the _Adelaide_, sheering wildly, dragged her toward the spouting surf. Then he turned to Merril.

"I called on you once before to make a request," he said.

"And your errand is much the same now, though one could fancy that you feel you have something to back it?" his companion suggested dryly.

"No," said Jimmy, "I have nothing to ask you for this time. Instead, I am simply going to mention certain facts, and leave you to act on the information in the only way open to you; that is, to get out of Vancouver as soon as possible. I am giving you the opportunity in order to save Miss Merril the pain of seeing you prosecuted. You are in our hands now."

Merril scarcely moved a muscle. "You are prepared to make that a.s.surance good?"

"I am;" and Jimmy's voice had a little ring in it. "If you will give me your attention I'll try to do it. You have no news of the _Adelaide_ yet, and, to commence with, you will have to face the fact that she is not on the rocks. She was just ready to steam south with a derangement of her high-pressure engine when I last saw her."

Though his companion's face was almost expressionless, Jimmy fancied that this shot had reached its mark, and he proceeded to relate what had happened since he fell in with the _Adelaide_. He did it with some skill, for this was a subject with which he was at home, and he made the feelings of her skipper and second engineer perfectly clear. Then, though he had not mentioned Robertson's confession, he sat still, wondering at Merril's composure.