The Sailor Part 63

It was the first time that note had been on the lips of Athena. The sound of it was more than music, it was sorcery.

"You must have had a wonderful life. And I suppose in some ways..."

The beautiful voice sank until it could not be heard, and then rose a little. "In some ways, it must have been ... rather terrible."

He did not speak nor did he look at her. But had he been a strong man armed, he would have fled that magician-haunted garden. He would have left her then, he would never have looked on her again.

"... Rather terrible." In an odd crescendo those words fell again from the lips of Athena. "Edward thinks so. But it's an impertinence, isn't it? Except that some lives are the property of others ... of the race. You are not offended?"

"No," he said. And then feeling that it might have the sound of yes, he gathered defiantly all that remained of his will. "My life has not been at all like what you and Mr. Ambrose think. It has been just h.e.l.l."

"That is exactly what we imagined it had been," said Athena, with divine simplicity. "And perhaps that is why"--her eyes were strangely magnetic--"Edward and I have willed it that your life to come..."

A surge of wild blood suddenly darkened the wonderful lamp of Aladdin in the right-hand corner of his brain.

"... shall be crowned with more than thorns."

She seemed almost to s.h.i.+ver.

"I beg your pardon," she said, suddenly applying the curb of a powerful will. "It is impertinence. But there is always something about this old garden which seems to carry one beyond oneself. It was wrong to come."

"Don't say that...." The Sailor hardly knew that he was speaking. "We are running a risk ... but ... but it's worth it. Let us sit on that seat a minute. Shall we?"

"Yes, and wait for Silvia." She was using the curb with a force that was almost brutal, as many a Pridmore and many a Colthurst had used it before her.

The Sailor was shattered. But new strength had come to Athena. All the jealous, inherited forces of her being had rallied to the call of her distress.

"By the way." It was not Athena who was speaking now, but Miss Pridmore, whose local habitation was Queen Street, Mayfair. "I nearly forgot to tell you"--it was a clear note of gaiety--"a great event has happened. You shall have one guess."

There was not so much as half a guess in the sailorman.

"There's news of Klond.y.k.e. My mother had a letter from him this morning. It's his first word for nearly a year. He sent a postcard from Queenstown to say he will be home tomorrow, and that I must clean out of his own particular bedroom. Whenever he turns up and wherever he comes from, I have always to do that at a moment's notice."

"Where's he been this time?" asked the Sailor.

"Round the whole wide world, I believe."

"Working his pa.s.sage?"

"Very likely. As soon as he arrives, you will have to come and see him. We are going to keep you as a surprise. Your meeting will be great fun, and you are to promise that Silvia and I will be allowed to see it. And you are to behave as if you were aboard the brigantine _Excelsior_--it will always be the brigantine _Excelsior_ to me--and greet him in good round terms of the sea. Now promise, please ... and, of course, no one will mind if you swear. It will hardly be as bad as Uncle George in a temper."

XIV

"Here you are." It was the gay voice of the returning Silvia. "So sorry I've been so long. But I've had to hunt for you. One might have known you would choose the coolest and quietest spot in the whole garden."

As the sailorman was handing them into the car, Silvia said:

"By the way, have you remembered to tell Mr. Harper about Klond.y.k.e?"

"Yes, I have," said Mary.

"It will be priceless to see you and Klond.y.k.e meet," said Silvia. "We shall not say a word about you. You are to be kept a secret. You have just got to come and be sprung on him, and then you've got to tell him to stand by and go about like the sailormen in Stevenson."

Henry Harper tried very hard to laugh. It was so clearly expected of him. But he failed rather lamentably.

"I don't suppose he'll remember me," was all he could say. "It's years and years since we met. I was only half-grown and half-baked in those days."

"Of course, he'll remember you," said Silvia, "if you really sailed round the world together before the mast. But you _will_ let us hear you talk? And it must be pure brigantine _Excelsior_, mustn't it, Mary?"

"He's already promised."

In the Sailor's opinion, this was not strictly true; at least he had no recollection of having gone so far as to make a promise. He could hardly have been such a fool. Mary, in her enthusiasm, was taking a little too much for granted.

"I beg your pardon," he said, desperately, "but I don't remember having said so."

"Oh, but you did, surely, as we sat under the tree."

"No hedging now," said Silvia, with merry severity. "It will be splendid. And the Prince wants to be in at it."

"I don't think we can have Otto," said Mary.

"But I've promised him, my dear. It's all arranged. Mr. Harper is to come to dinner. And not a word is to be said to Klond.y.k.e."

"I dare say Mr. Harper won't want to come to dinner?" Mary looked quizzically across at the sailorman through the dim light of a car interior pa.s.sing under a Hammersmith archway. "One dinner per annum with the _famille_ Pridmore will be quite enough for him, I expect."

"That cuts off his retreat, anyway," said Silvia. "And I think, as the Prince is going to be there, it will only be fair to have Edward Ambrose. Of course, Mr. Harper, you fully realize what you have to do.

To begin with, you enter with a nautical roll, give the slack of your trousers a hitch, and as soon as you see Klond.y.k.e, who, I dare say, will be smoking a foul pipe and reading the _Pink Un_, you will strike your hand on your knee and shout at the top of your voice, 'What ho, my hearty!'"

"How absurd you are!" said Mary, with a rather wry smile. She had just caught the look on the Sailor's face.

"Well, my dear, that's the program, as the Prince and I have arranged it."

Henry Harper was literally forced into a promise to dine in Queen Street on an appointed day in order to meet Klond.y.k.e. There was really no escape. It would have been an act of sheer ungraciousness to have held out. Besides, when all was said, the Sailor wanted very much to see his hero.

Nevertheless, grave searchings of heart awaited him now. His sane moments told him--alas! those in which he could look dispa.s.sionately upon his predicament seemed to be few--that a wide gulf was fixed between these people and himself. In all essentials they were as wide asunder as the poles. Their place in the scheme of things was fixed, they moved in a definite orbit, while at the best of it he was a mere adventurer, a waif of the streets whom Klond.y.k.e had first taught to read and write.

The fact itself was nothing to be ashamed of, he knew that. It was no fault of his that life had never given him a chance. But a new and growing sensitiveness had come upon him, which somehow made that knowledge hard to bear. He did not wish to convey an impression of being other than he was, but he knew it would be difficult to meet Klond.y.k.e now.

This, however, was weakness, and he determined to lay it aside. Such feelings were unworthy of Klond.y.k.e and of himself. The price to be paid might be heavy--he somehow knew that far more was at stake than he dared think--but let the cost be what it might, he must not be afraid to meet his friend.

All too soon, the evening came when he was due at Queen Street. He arrayed himself with a care almost cynical in his new and well cut clothes, brushed his hair very thoroughly, and took great pains over the set of his tie. Then giving himself doggedly to a task from which there was no escape, he managed to arrive in Queen Street on the stroke of the hour of eight.

An atmosphere of veiled amus.e.m.e.nt seemed to envelop him as soon as he entered the drawing-room, but the hero was not there. The Sailor was informed by Silvia in a gay aside that Klond.y.k.e always made a practice of being absolutely last in any boiled-s.h.i.+rted a.s.sembly. The Prince, however, was on the hearthrug, wearing his usual air of calm proprietors.h.i.+p, and with an expression of countenance even more quizzical than usual. Edward Ambrose was also there, looking a trifle perplexed and a little anxious. Lady Pridmore in white satin and really beautiful black lace had that air of regal composure she was never without, but Mary and Silvia were consumed with frank amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Klond.y.k.e is still struggling," said Silvia, "but he won't be long."

It was easy to see that the hero and his boiled s.h.i.+rt were a standing jest in the family circle. He was really a figure of legend.