Fifty Candles (Expanded Edition). Earl Derr Biggers

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СКАЧАТЬ on his yellow face, his eyes closed—but wide awake. I think he was afraid of me. He had reason to be.

      Anyhow, I was rid of his slimy presence now, there in that dim pier shed. It was one thing to be thankful for. And already the memory of what he had done to me was fading—for I had suffered a later and deeper wound. In the midst of the trouble with Drew, I had met the most wonderful girl in the world, and only a moment before, on the deck of the China boat, I had said good-bye to her forever.

      I left the pier shed and stepped to the sidewalk outside. The air was heavy and wet with fog, the walk damp and slippery; water dripped down from telegraph wires overhead. I saw the blurred lights of the city, heard its ceaseless grumble, the clang of street-cars, the clatter of wheels on cobblestones. Weird mysterious figures slipped by me; strange faces peered into mine and were gone. This was the Embarcadero, the old Barbary Coast famed round the world. Somewhere there, lost in the fog, were its dance-halls, where rovers of the broad Pacific had, in the vanished past, made merry after a sodden fashion. I stood, straining to see.

      “Want a taxi, mister?” asked a dim figure at my side.

      “If you can find one,” I answered. “Things seem a bit thick.”

      “It’s the tule-fog,” he told me. “Drifts down every year about this time from the tule-fields between here and Sacramento. Never knew one to stick around so late in the day before. Yes, sir—this is sure unusual.”

      In reply to my query he told me that the tule was a sort of bulrush. And little Moses amid his bulrushes could have felt no more lost than I did at that moment.

      “See what you can dig up,” I ordered.

      “You just wait here,” he said. “It’ll take time. Don’t go away.”

      Again I stood alone amid the strange shadow-shapes that came and went. Somewhere, behind that fog-curtain, the business of the town went on as usual. I made a neat pile of my luggage close to a telegraph pole and sat down to wait. My mind went back to the deck of the boat I had left, to Mary Will Tellfair, that wonderful girl.

      And she was wonderful—in courage and in charm. I had met her three weeks before in Shanghai; and it was her dark hour, as it was mine. For Mary Will had come five thousand miles to marry Jack Paige, her sweetheart from a sleepy southern town. She had not seen him for six years, but there had been many letters, and life at home was dull. Then, too, she had been very fond of him once, I judge. So there had been parties, and jokes, and tears, and Mary Will had sailed for Shanghai and her wedding.

      It has happened to other girls, no doubt. Young Paige met her boat. He was very drunk, and there was in his face evidence of a fall to depths unspeakable. Poor Mary Will saw at the first frightened look that the boy she had known and loved was gone forever. Many of the other girls—helpless, without money, alone—marry the men and make the best of it. Not Mary Will. Helpless, without money, alone, she was still brave enough to hold her head high and refuse.

      Henry Drew had heard of her plight and, whatever his motive, had done a kind act for once. He engaged Mary, Will as companion for his wife, and on the boat coming over the girl and Mrs. Drew had occupied a cabin with a frail little missionary woman. For husbands and wives were ruthlessly torn apart, that each stateroom might have its full quota of three. As I sat there with the fog dripping down upon me I pictured again our good-bye on the deck, where we had been lined up to await the port doctor and be frisked, as a frivolous ship’s officer put it, for symptoms of yellow fever. By chance—more or less—I was waiting beside Mary Will.

      “Too bad you can’t see the harbor,” said Mary Will. “Only six weeks ago I sailed away, and the sun was on it. It’s beautiful. But this silly old fog—”

      “Never mind the fog,” I told her. “Please listen to me. What are you going to do? Where are you going? Home?”

      “Home!” A bitter look came into her clear blue eyes. “I can’t go home.”

      “Why not?”

      “Don’t you understand? There were showers—showers for the bride-to-be. And I kissed everybody good-bye and hurried away to be married. Can I go back husbandless?”

      “You don’t have to. I told you last night—”

      “I know. In the moonlight, with the band on the boat deck playing a waltz. You said you loved me—”

      “And I do.”

      She shook her head.

      “You pity me. And it seems like love to you. But pity—pity isn’t love.”

      Confound the girl! This was her story, and she seemed determined to stick to it.

      “Ah, yes,” said I scornfully. “What pearls of wisdom fall from youthful lips.”

      “You’ll discover how very wise I was in time.”

      “Perhaps. But you haven’t answered my question. What are you going to do? You can’t stay on with the Drews—that little rotter—”

      “I know. He hasn’t been nice to you. But he has been nice to me—very.”

      “No man could help but be. And it hasn’t done that young wife of his any harm to have a companion like you for a change. But it’s not a job I care to see held by the girl I mean to marry.”

      “If you mean me—I shan’t go on being a companion. Mr. Drew has promised to find me a position in San Francisco. They say it’s a charming city.”

      “I don’t like to see you mixed up with Drew and his kind,” I protested. “I’ll not leave San Francisco until you do.”

      “Then you’re going to settle down here. How nice!”

      I could have slapped her. She was that sort of stubborn delightful child, and loving her was often that sort of emotion. The port doctor had reached her now in his passage down the line, and he stared firmly into her eyes, hunting symptoms. As he stared his hard face softened into a rather happy smile. I could have told him that looking into Mary Will’s eyes had always that effect.

      “You’re all right,” he laughed, then turned and glared at me as though he dared me to make public his lapse into a human being. He went on down the line. After him came Parker, the ship’s doctor, with a wink at me, as much as to say: “Red tape. What a bore!”

      The foghorn was making a frightful din, and the scene was all confusion, impatience. It was no moment for what I was about to say. But I was desperate; this was my last chance.

      “Turn round, Mary Will.” I swung her about and pointed off into the fog. “Over there—don’t you see?”

      “See what?” she gasped.

      “How I love you,” I said in her ear, triumphing over the foghorn and the curiosity of the woman just beyond her: “With all my heart and soul, my dear. I’m an engineer—not up on sentimental stuff—can’t talk it—just feel it. Give me a chance to prove how much I care. Don’t you think that in time—”

      She shook her head.

      “What is it? Are you still fond of that other boy—the poor fellow in Shanghai?”

      “No,” СКАЧАТЬ