The Lady of the Aroostook. William Dean Howells

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ we won't wait,” and with but little change of tone asked a blessing; for Captain Jenness in his way was a religious man.

      There was a sixth plate laid, but the captain made no further mention of the person who was not out yet till shortly after the coffee was poured, when the absentee appeared, hastily closing his state-room door behind him, and then waiting on foot, with a half-impudent, half-intimidated air, while Captain Jenness, with a sort of elaborate repressiveness, presented him as Mr. Hicks. He was a short and slight young man, with a small sandy mustache curling tightly in over his lip, floating reddish-blue eyes, and a deep dimple in his weak, slightly retreating chin. He had an air at once amiable and baddish, with an expression, curiously blended, of monkey-like humor and spaniel-like apprehensiveness. He did not look well, and till he had swallowed two cups of coffee his hand shook. The captain watched him furtively from under his bushy eyebrows, and was evidently troubled and preoccupied, addressing a word now and then to Mr. Watterson, who, by virtue of what was apparently the ship's discipline, spoke only when he was spoken to, and then answered with prompt acquiescence. Dunham and Staniford exchanged not so much a glance as a consciousness in regard to him, which seemed to recognize and class him. They talked to each other, and sometimes to the captain. Once they spoke to Lydia. Mr. Dunham, for example, said, “Miss—ah—Blood, don't you think we are uncommonly fortunate in having such lovely weather for a start-off?”

      “I don't know,” said Lydia.

      Mr. Dunham arrested himself in the use of his fork. “I beg your pardon?” he smiled.

      It seemed to be a question, and after a moment's doubt Lydia answered, “I didn't know it was strange to have fine weather at the start.”

      “Oh, but I can assure you it is,” said Dunham, with a certain lady-like sweetness of manner which he had. “According to precedent, we ought to be all deathly seasick.”

      “Not at this time of year,” said Captain Jenness.

      “Not at this time of year,” repeated Mr. Watterson, as if the remark were an order to the crew.

      Dunham referred the matter with a look to his friend, who refused to take part in it, and then he let it drop. But presently Staniford himself attempted the civility of some conversation with Lydia. He asked her gravely, and somewhat severely, if she had suffered much from the heat of the day before.

      “Yes,” said Lydia, “it was very hot.”

      “I'm told it was the hottest day of the summer, so far,” continued Staniford, with the same severity.

      “I want to know!” cried Lydia.

      The young man did not say anything more.

      As Dunham lit his cigar at Staniford's on deck, the former said significantly, “What a very American thing!”

      “What a bore!” answered the other.

      Dunham had never been abroad, as one might imagine from his calling Lydia's presence a very American thing, but he had always consorted with people who had lived in Europe; he read the Revue des Deux Mondes habitually, and the London weekly newspapers, and this gave him the foreign stand-point from which he was fond of viewing his native world. “It's incredible,” he added. “Who in the world can she be?”

      “Oh, I don't know,” returned Staniford, with a cold disgust. “I should object to the society of such a young person for a month or six weeks under the most favorable circumstances, and with frequent respites; but to be imprisoned on the same ship with her, and to have her on one's mind and in one's way the whole time, is more than I bargained for. Captain Jenness should have told us; though I suppose he thought that if she could stand it, we might. There's that point of view. But it takes all ease and comfort out of the prospect. Here comes that blackguard.” Staniford turned his back towards Mr. Hicks, who was approaching, but Dunham could not quite do this, though he waited for the other to speak first.

      “Will you—would you oblige me with a light?” Mr. Hicks asked, taking a cigar from his case.

      “Certainly,” said Dunham, with the comradery of the smoker.

      Mr. Hicks seemed to gather courage from his cigar. “You didn't expect to find a lady passenger on board, did you?” His poor disagreeable little face was lit up with unpleasant enjoyment of the anomaly. Dunham hesitated for an answer.

      “One never can know what one's fellow passengers are going to be,” said Staniford, turning about, and looking not at Mr. Hicks's face, but his feet, with an effect of being, upon the whole, disappointed not to find them cloven. He added, to put the man down rather than from an exact belief in his own suggestion, “She's probably some relation of the captain's.”

      “Why, that's the joke of it,” said Hicks, fluttered with his superior knowledge. “I've been pumping the cabin-boy, and he says the captain never saw her till yesterday. She's an up-country school-marm, and she came down here with her grandfather yesterday. She's going out to meet friends of hers in Venice.” The little man pulled at his cigar, and coughed and chuckled, and waited confidently for the impression.

      “Dunham,” said Staniford, “did I hand you that sketch-block of mine to put in your bag, when we were packing last night?”

      “Yes, I've got it.”

      “I'm glad of that. Did you see Murray yesterday?”

      “No; he was at Cambridge.”

      “I thought he was to have met you at Parker's.” The conversation no longer included Mr. Hicks or the subject he had introduced; after a moment's hesitation, he walked away to another part of the ship. As soon as he was beyond ear-shot, Staniford again spoke: “Dunham, this girl is plainly one of those cases of supernatural innocence, on the part of herself and her friends, which, as you suggested, wouldn't occur among any other people in the world but ours.”

      “You're a good fellow, Staniford!” cried Dunham.

      “Not at all. I call myself simply a human being, with the elemental instincts of a gentleman, as far as concerns this matter. The girl has been placed in a position which could be made very painful to her. It seems to me it's our part to prevent it from being so. I doubt if she finds it at all anomalous, and if we choose she need never do so till after we've parted with her. I fancy we can preserve her unconsciousness intact.”

      “Staniford, this is like you,” said his friend, with glistening eyes. “I had some wild notion of the kind myself, but I'm so glad you spoke of it first.”

      “Well, never mind,” responded Staniford. “We must make her feel that there is nothing irregular or uncommon in her being here as she is. I don't know how the matter's to be managed, exactly; it must be a negative benevolence for the most part; but it can be done. The first thing is to cow that nuisance yonder. Pumping the cabin-boy! The little sot! Look here, Dunham; it's such a satisfaction to me to think of putting that fellow under foot that I'll leave you all the credit of saving the young lady's feelings. I should like to begin stamping on him at once.”

      “I think you have made a beginning already. I confess I wish you hadn't such heavy nails in your boots!”

      “Oh, they'll do him good, confound him!” said Staniford.

      “I should have liked it better if her name hadn't been Blood,” remarked Dunham, presently.

СКАЧАТЬ