Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  ‘Yes. But in the dark, how do you make her understand?’

  ‘She can generally read what I say by laying her hand on my lips; but besides that, we have the deaf and dumb alphabet, and she can feel my fingers as I make the letters.’

  ‘You have been with her a long time, I suppose,’ Margaret said.

  ‘Since she was three years old.’

  ‘California is a beautiful country, isn’t it?’ asked Margaret after a pause.

  She put the question idly, for she was thinking how hard it must be to teach deaf and dumb children. Miss More’s answer surprised her.

  ‘I have never been there.’

  ‘But, surely, Senator Moon lived in San Francisco,’ Margaret said.

  ‘Yes. But the child was sent to New England when she was three, and never went back again. We have been living in the country near Boston.’

  ‘And the Senator used to pay you a visit now and then, of course, when he was alive. He must have been immensely pleased by the success of your teaching.’

  Though Margaret felt that she was growing more curious about little Ida than she often was about any one, it did not occur to her that the question she now suggested, rather than asked, was an indiscreet one, and she was surprised by her companion’s silence. She had already discovered that Miss More was one of those literally truthful people who never let an inaccurate statement pass their lips, and who will be obstinately silent rather than answer a leading question, quite regardless of the fact that silence is sometimes the most direct answer that can be given. On the present occasion Miss More said nothing and turned her eyes to the sea, leaving Margaret to make any deduction she pleased; but only one suggested itself, namely, that the deceased Senator had taken very little interest in the child of his old age, and had felt no affection for her. Margaret wondered whether he had left her rich, but Miss More’s silence told her that she had already asked too many questions.

  She glanced down the long line of passengers beyond Miss More and Ida. Men, women, and children lay side by side in their chairs, wrapped and propped like a row of stuffed specimens in a museum. They were not interesting, Margaret thought; for those who were awake all looked discontented, and those who were asleep looked either ill or apoplectic. Perhaps half of them were crossing because they were obliged to go to Europe for one reason or another; the other half were going in an aimless way, because they had got into the habit while they were young, or had been told that it was the right thing to do, or because their doctors sent them abroad to get rid of them. The grey light from the waves was reflected on the immaculate and shiny white paint, and shed a cold glare on the commonplace faces and on the plaid rugs, and on the vivid magazines which many of the people were reading, or pretending to read; for most persons only look at the pictures nowadays, and read the advertisements. A steward in a very short jacket was serving perfectly unnecessary cups of weak broth on a big tray, and a great number of the passengers took some, with a vague idea that the Company’s feelings might be hurt if they did not, or else that they would not be getting their money’s worth.

  Between the railing and the feet of the passengers, which stuck out over the foot-rests of their chairs to different lengths according to the height of the possessors, certain energetic people walked ceaselessly up and down the deck, sometimes flattening themselves against the railing to let others who met them pass by, and sometimes, when the ship rolled a little, stumbling against an outstretched foot or two without making any elaborate apology for doing so.

  Margaret only glanced at the familiar sight, but she made a little movement of annoyance almost directly, and took up the book that lay open and face downwards on her knee; she became absorbed in it so suddenly as to convey the impression that she was not really reading at all.

  She had seen Mr. Van Torp and Paul Griggs walking together and coming towards her.

  The millionaire was shorter than his companion and more clumsily made, though not by any means a stout man. Though he did not look like a soldier he had about him the very combative air which belongs to so many modern financiers of the Christian breed. There was the bull-dog jaw, the iron mouth, and the aggressive blue eye of the man who takes and keeps by force rather than by astuteness. Though his face had lines in it and his complexion was far from brilliant he looked scarcely forty years of age, and his short, rough, sandy hair had not yet begun to turn grey.

  He was not ugly, but Margaret had always seen something in his face that repelled her. It was some lack of proportion somewhere, which she could not precisely define; it was something that was out of the common type of faces, but that was disquieting rather than interesting. Instead of wondering what it meant, those who noticed it wished it were not there.

  Margaret was sure she could distinguish his heavy step from Griggs’s when he was near her, but she would not look up from her book till he stopped and spoke to her.

  ‘Good-morning, Madame Cordova; how are you this morning?’ he inquired, holding out his hand. ‘You didn’t expect to see me on board, did you?’

  His tone was hard and business-like, but he lifted his yachting cap politely as he held out his hand. Margaret hesitated a moment before taking it, and when she moved her own he was already holding his out to Miss More.

  ‘Good-morning, Miss More; how are you this morning?’

  Miss More leaned forward and put down one foot as if she would have risen in the presence of the great man, but he pushed her back by her hand which he held, and proceeded to shake hands with the little girl.

  ‘Good-morning, Miss Ida; how are you this morning?’

  Margaret felt sure that if he had shaken hands with a hundred people he would have repeated the same words to each without any variation. She looked at Griggs imploringly, and glanced at his vacant chair on her right side. He did not answer by sitting down, because the action would have been too like deliberately telling Mr. Van Torp to go away, but he began to fold up the chair as if he were going to take it away, and then he seemed to find that there was something wrong with one of its joints, and altogether it gave him a good deal of trouble, and made it quite impossible for the great man to get any nearer to Margaret.

  Little Ida had taken Mr. Van Torp’s proffered hand, and had watched his hard lips when he spoke. She answered quite clearly and rather slowly, in the somewhat monotonous voice of those born deaf who have learned to speak.

  ‘I’m very well, thank you, Mr. Van Torp. I hope you are quite well.’

  Margaret heard, and saw the child’s face, and at once decided that, if the little girl knew of her own relationship to Ida Bamberger, she was certainly ignorant of the fact that her half-sister had been engaged to Mr. Van Torp, when she had died so suddenly less than a week ago. Little Ida’s manner strengthened the impression in Margaret’s mind that the millionaire was having her educated by Miss More. Yet it seemed impossible that the rich old Senator should not have left her well provided.

  ‘I see you’ve made friends with Madame Cordova,’ said Mr. Van Torp. ‘I’m very glad, for she’s quite an old friend of mine too.’

  Margaret made a slight movement, but said nothing. Miss More saw her annoyance and intervened by speaking to the financier.

  ‘We began to fear that we might not see you at all on the voyage,’ she said, in a tone of some concern. ‘I hope you have not been suffering again.’

  Margaret wondered whether she meant to ask if he had been sea-sick; what she said sounded like an inquiry about some more or less frequent indisposition, though Mr. Van Torp looked as strong as a ploughman.

  In answer to the question he glanced sharply at Miss More, and shook his head.

  ‘I’ve been too busy to come on deck,’ he said, rather curtly, and he turned to Margaret again.

  ‘Will you take a little walk with me, Madame Cordova?’ he asked.

  Not having any valid excuse for refusing, Margaret smiled, for the first time since she had seen him on deck.

  ‘I’m so comfortable!’ she
answered. ‘Don’t make me get out of my rug!’

  ‘If you’ll take a little walk with me, I’ll give you a pretty present,’ said Mr. Van Torp playfully.

  Margaret thought it best to laugh and shake her head at this singular offer. Little Ida had been watching them both.

  ‘You’d better go with him,’ said the child gravely. ‘He makes lovely presents.’

  ‘Does he?’ Margaret laughed again.

  ‘“A fortress that parleys, or a woman who listens, is lost,’” put in Griggs, quoting an old French proverb.

  ‘Then I won’t listen,’ Margaret said.

  Mr. Van Torp planted himself more firmly on his sturdy legs, for the ship was rolling a little.

  ‘I’ll give you a book, Madame Cordova,’ he said.

  His habit of constantly repeating the name of the person with whom he was talking irritated her extremely. She was not smiling when she answered.

  ‘Thank you. I have more books than I can possibly read.’

  ‘Yes. But you have not the one I will give you, and it happens to be the only one you want.’

  ‘But I don’t want any book at all! I don’t want to read!’

  ‘Yes, you do, Madame Cordova. You want to read this one, and it’s the only copy on board, and if you’ll take a little walk with me I’ll give it to you.’

  As he spoke he very slowly drew a new book from the depths of the wide pocket in his overcoat, but only far enough to show Margaret the first words of the title, and he kept his aggressive blue eyes fixed on her face. A faint blush came into her cheeks at once and he let the volume slip back. Griggs, being on his other side, had not seen it, and it meant nothing to Miss More. To the latter’s surprise Margaret pushed her heavy rug from her knees and let her feet slip from the chair to the ground. Her eyes met Griggs’s as she rose, and seeing that his look asked her whether he was to carry out her previous instructions and walk beside her, she shook her head.

  ‘Nine times out of ten, proverbs are true,’ he said in a tone of amusement.

  Mr. Van Torp’s hard face expressed no triumph when Margaret stood beside him, ready to walk. She had yielded, as he had been sure she would; he turned from the other passengers to go round to the weather side of the ship, and she went with him submissively. Just at the point where the wind and the fine spray would have met them if they had gone on, he stopped in the lee of a big ventilator. There was no one in sight of them now.

  ‘Excuse me for making you get up,’ he said. ‘I wanted to see you alone for a moment.’

  Margaret said nothing in answer to this apology, and she met his fixed eyes coldly.

  ‘You were with Miss Bamberger when she died,’ he said.

  Margaret bent her head gravely in assent. His face was as expressionless as a stone.

  ‘I thought she might have mentioned me before she died,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Yes,’ Margaret answered after a moment’s pause; ‘she did.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She told me that it was a secret, but that I was to tell you what she said, if I thought it best.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me?’

  It was impossible to guess whether he was controlling any emotion or not; but if the men with whom he had done business where large sums were involved had seen him now and had heard his voice, they would have recognised the tone and the expression.

  ‘She said, “he did it,”’ Margaret answered slowly, after a moment’s thought.

  ‘Was that all she said?’

  ‘That was all. A moment later she was dead. Before she said it, she told me it was a secret, and she made me promise solemnly never to tell any one but you.’

  ‘It’s not much of a secret, is it?’ As he spoke, Mr. Van Torp turned his eyes from Margaret’s at last and looked at the grey sea beyond the ventilator.

  ‘Such as it is, I have told it to you because she wished me to,’ answered Margaret. ‘But I shall never tell any one else. It will be all the easier to be silent, as I have not the least idea what she meant.’

  ‘She meant our engagement,’ said Mr. Van Torp in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘We had broken it off that afternoon. She meant that it was I who did it, and so it was. Perhaps she did not like to think that when she was dead people might call her heartless and say she had thrown me over; and no one would ever know the truth except me, unless I chose to tell — me and her father.’

  ‘Then you were not to be married after all!’ Margaret showed her surprise.

  ‘No. I had broken it off. We were going to let it be known the next day.’

  ‘On the very eve of the wedding!’

  ‘Yes.’ Mr. Van Torp fixed his eyes on Margaret’s again. ‘On the very eve of the wedding,’ he said, repeating her words.

  He spoke very slowly and without emphasis, but with the greatest possible distinctness. Margaret had once been taken to see a motor-car manufactory and she remembered a machine that clipped bits off the end of an iron bar, inch by inch, smoothly and deliberately. Mr. Van Torp’s lips made her think of that; they seemed to cut the hard words one by one, in lengths.

  ‘Poor girl!’ she sighed, and looked away.

  The man’s face did not change, and if his next words echoed the sympathy she expressed his tone did not.

  ‘I was a good deal cut up myself,’ he observed coolly. ‘Here’s your book, Madame Cordova.’

  ‘No,’ Margaret answered with a little burst of indignation, ‘I don’t want it. I won’t take it from you!’

  ‘What’s the matter now?’ asked Mr. Van Torp without the least change of manner. ‘It’s your friend Mr. Lushington’s latest, you know, and it won’t be out for ten days. I thought you would like to see it, so I got an advance copy before it was published.’

  He held the volume out to her, but she would not even look at it, nor answer him.

  ‘How you hate me! Don’t you, Madame Cordova?’

  Margaret still said nothing. She was considering how she could best get rid of him. If she simply brushed past him and went back to her chair on the lee side, he would follow her and go on talking to her as if nothing had happened; and she knew that in that case she would lose control of herself before Griggs and Miss More.

  ‘Oh, well,’ he went on, ‘if you don’t want the book, I don’t. I can’t read novels myself, and I daresay it’s trash anyhow.’

  Thereupon, with a quick movement of his arm and hand, he sent Mr. Lushington’s latest novel flying over the lee rail, fully thirty feet away, and it dropped out of sight into the grey waves. He had been a good baseball pitcher in his youth.

  Margaret bit her lip and her eyes flashed.

  ‘You are quite the most disgustingly brutal person I ever met,’ she said, no longer able to keep down her anger.

  ‘No,’ he answered calmly. ‘I’m not brutal; I’m only logical. I took a great deal of trouble to get that book for you because I thought it would give you pleasure, and it wasn’t a particularly legal transaction by which I got it either. Since you didn’t want it, I wasn’t going to let anybody else have the satisfaction of reading it before it was published, so I just threw it away because it is safer in the sea than knocking about in my cabin. If you hadn’t seen me throw it overboard you would never have believed that I had. You’re not much given to believing me, anyway. I’ve noticed that. Are you, now?’

  ‘Oh, it was not the book!’

  Margaret turned from him and made a step forward so that she faced the sharp wind. It cut her face and she felt that the little pain was a relief. He came and stood beside her with his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat.

  ‘If you think I’m a brute on account of what I told you about Miss Bamberger,’ he said, ‘that’s not quite fair. I broke off our engagement because I found out that we were going to make each other miserable and we should have had to divorce in six months; and if half the people who are just going to get married would do the same thing there would be a lot more happy women in the world, not to say m
en! That’s all, and she knew it, poor girl, and was just as glad as I was when the thing was done. Now what is there so brutal in that, Madame Cordova?’

  Margaret turned on him almost fiercely.

  ‘Why do you tell me all this?’ she asked. ‘For heaven’s sake let poor Miss Bamberger rest in her grave!’

  ‘Since you ask me why,’ answered Mr. Van Torp, unmoved, ‘I tell you all this because I want you to know more about me than you do. If you did, you’d hate me less. That’s the plain truth. You know very well that there’s nobody like you, and that if I’d judged I had the slightest chance of getting you I would no more have thought of marrying Miss Bamberger than of throwing a million dollars into the sea after that book, or ten million, and that’s a great deal of money.’

  ‘I ought to be flattered,’ said Margaret with scorn, still facing the wind.

  ‘No. I’m not given to flattery, and money means something real to me, because I’ve fought for it, and got it. Your regular young lover will always call you his precious treasure, and I don’t see much difference between a precious treasure and several million dollars. I’m logical, you see. I tell you I’m logical, that’s all.’

  ‘I daresay. I think we have been talking here long enough. Shall we go back?’

  She had got her anger under again. She detested Mr. Van Torp, but she was honest enough to realise that for the present she had resented his saying that Lushington’s book was probably trash, much more than what he had told her of his broken engagement. She turned and came back to the ventilator, meaning to go around to her chair, but he stopped her.

  ‘Don’t go yet, please!’ he said, keeping beside her. ‘Call me a disgusting brute if you like. I sha’n’t mind it, and I daresay it’s true in a kind of way. Business isn’t very refining, you know, and it was the only education I got after I was sixteen. I’m sorry I called that book rubbish, for I’m sure it’s not. I’ve met Mr. Lushington in England several times; he’s very clever, and he’s got a first-rate position. But you see I didn’t like your refusing the book, after I’d taken so much trouble to get it for you. Perhaps if I hadn’t thrown it overboard you’d take it, now that I’ve apologised. Would you?’