Fair Harbor Part 59

Kent ignored the coat. He did not seem to realize that his companion was holding it. "Yes," he stammered, eagerly. "I think if I went to her in that way it would be all right again. I was hasty and--and silly maybe, but perhaps I had some excuse. And, Cap'n Kendrick, I'm sure she does--er--like me, you know. I'm sure of it.... But now--" as reality came once more cras.h.i.+ng through his dream, "I--I---- Oh, think of me now! I may be put in prison. And then.... Oh, but Cap'n Kendrick, that's why I came to you. I knew you'd stand by me, I knew you would. I treated you d.a.m.nably, but--but you know, it was on account of her, really. I knew you'd understand that. You won't hold a grudge against me? You really will help me? If you don't----"

Kendrick seized his arm. "Shut up, George," he commanded brusquely.

"Shut up. I'll get you out of this, I promise it."

"You will? You promise?"

"Yes. That is, I'll see that you don't go to jail. If we can't get the eight hundred of your sister's from these brokers I'll get it somehow--even if I have to borrow it."

"Oh, Great Scott, that's great! That's wonderful. I can hardly believe it. I'll make it up to you somehow, you know. You're the best man I ever knew. And--and--if she and I--that is, when she and I are--are as we used to be--well, then I shall tell her and she'll be as grateful as I am, I know she will."

"All right, George, all right. Run along. The rain's easin' up a little, so now's your time. Don't forget to write to those brokers.... Good night."

"Good night, Cap'n. I shall tell your sister how good you've been to me.

She told me to come to you. Of course she doesn't know why I came, but----"

"No, and she mustn't know. Don't you tell her or anybody else. Don't you do it."

"I--why, I won't if you say so, of course. Good night."

Kendrick closed the door. Then he came back to his seat before the stove. When Judah returned home he found that his lodger had gone to the spare stateroom, but he could hear his footsteps moving back and forth.

"Ahoy, there, Cap'n Sears!" hailed Judah. "What you doin', up and pacin'

decks this time of night? It's pretty nigh eight bells, didn't you know it?"

The pacing ceased. "Why, no, is it?" replied the captain's voice. "Guess I'd better be turnin' in, hadn't I? How's the weather outside?"

"Fairin' off fast. Rain stopped and it's clear as a bell over to the west'ard. Clear day and a fair wind to-morrer, I cal'late."

Kendrick made no further comment and Judah prepared for bed, singing as he did so. He sang, not a chantey this time, but portions of a revival hymn which he had recently heard and which, because of its nautical nature, had stuck in his memory. The chorus commanded some one or other to

"Pull for the sh.o.r.e, sailor, Pull for the sh.o.r.e.

Leave that poor old stranded wreck And pull for the sh.o.r.e."

Mr. Cahoon sang the chorus over and over. Then he ventured to tackle one of the verses.

"Light in the darkness, sailor, Day is at hand."

"Judah!" This from the spare stateroom.

"Aye, aye, Cap'n Sears."

"Better save the rest of that till the day gets here, hadn't you?"

"Eh? Oh, all right, Cap'n. Just goin' to douse the glim this minute.

Good night."

Three days after this interview in the Minot kitchen George Kent again came to call. He came after dark, of course, and his visit was brief. He had received from the New York brokers a detailed statement of his and Phillips' joint account. The statement bore out what he had already told Sears. Four hundred shares of Central Midland Common had been purchased at 40. Against this the partners deposited sixteen hundred dollars.

Later they had deposited another sixteen hundred. The New York firm were as confident as ever that the stock was perfectly good and the speculation a good one. They advised waiting and, if possible, buying more at the present low figure.

All this was of little help. The only information of any possible value was that concerning the bonds which Egbert had contributed as his share of the margin. Those, according to the brokers, were two City of Boston 4-1/2s, of one thousand dollars each, numbered A610,312 and A610,313.

Kent would have stayed and talked for hours if Kendrick had permitted.

He was as nervous as ever, even more so, because the days were pa.s.sing and the time drawing near when his brother-in-law would demand settlement. The captain comforted him as well as he could, bade him write his sister or her husband that he would remit early in the following week, and sent him home again more hopeful, but still very anxious.

"I don't see how I'm going to get the money, Cap'n Kendrick," he kept repeating. "I don't see how all this helps us a bit. I don't see----"

Kendrick interrupted at last.

"You don't have to see," he declared. "You've left it to me, now let me see if _I_ can see. I told you that, somehow or other, I'd tow you into deep water. Well, give me a chance to get up steam. You write that letter to your brother-in-law and hold him off till the middle of next week. That's all you've got to do. I'll do the rest."

So Kent had to be satisfied with that. He departed, professing over and over again his deathless grat.i.tude. "If you do this, Cap'n Kendrick," he proclaimed, "I never, never will forget it. And when I think how I treated you I can't see why you do it. I never heard of such----"

"Sshh! shhh!" The captain waved him to silence. "I don't know why I am doin' it exactly, George," he said.

"I do. You're doing it for my sake, of course, and----"

"Sshh! I don't know as I am--not altogether. Maybe I'm doin' it to try and justify my own judgment of human nature--mine and Judge Knowles'. If that judgment isn't right then I'm no more use than a child in arms, and I need a guardian as much as--as----"

"As I do, you mean, I suppose. Well, I do need one, I guess. But I don't understand what you mean by your judgment of human nature. Who have you been judging?"

"Never mind. Now go home. Judah's out again and that's a mercy. I don't want him or any one else to know you come here to see me."

George went, satisfied for the time, but Sears Kendrick, left face to face with his own thoughts, knew that he had told the young man but a part of the truth. It was not for Kent's sake alone that he had made the rash promise to get back eight hundred of the sixteen hundred, or another eight hundred to take its place. Neither was it entirely because he hoped to confirm his judgment in the case of Egbert Phillips. The real reason lay deeper than that. Kent had declared that he still loved Elizabeth Berry and that he had reason to think she returned that love.

Perhaps she did; in spite of some things she had said after their quarrel, it was possible--yes, probable that she did. If, by saving her lover from disgrace, he might insure her future and her happiness, then--then--Sears would have made rasher promises still and have undertaken to carry them out.

The brokers' letter helped but little, if any. He entered the names and numbers of the bonds in his memorandum book. Those bonds still perplexed him. He could not explain them, satisfactorily. It might be that Egbert had more left from his wife's estate than Judge Knowles expected him to have or that Bradley was inclined to think he had. Lobelia's will bequeathed to her beloved husband "all stocks, bonds, securities, etc.,"

remaining. But Knowles had more than intimated that none remained. The pictures of the horses and the ladies in Egbert's room at Sarah Macomber's confirmed the captain's belief that the Phillips past had been a hectic one. It seemed queer that, out of the ruin, there should have been preserved at least two thousand dollars in good American--yes, City of Boston--bonds.

In the back of the Kendrick head was a theory--or the ghost of a theory--concerning those bonds. He did not like to believe it, he would not believe it yet, but it was a possibility. Elizabeth had been bequeathed twenty thousand dollars. She and Egbert had been close friends for a time. She had liked him, had trusted him. Of late, so Esther Tidditt said, that friends.h.i.+p had been somewhat strained. Was it possible that.... Humph! Well, Bradley might know. He was Elizabeth's guardian, he would know if her investments had been disturbed.

Then, too, if worst came to the worst and he had to raise the eight hundred, which he had promised Kent, by borrowing it, he could, he thought, arrange to get from Bradley an advance of that amount, or a part of it, against his salary as manager of the Fair Harbor.

So he determined, as the next move, to go to Orham and visit the lawyer.

On Sat.u.r.day morning, therefore, he and the Foam Flake once more journeyed along the wood road to Orham.

CHAPTER XVII

The trip was cold and long and tedious. The oaks and birches were bare of leaves and the lakes and little ponds looked chill and forbidding.

Judah's prophecy of a clear day was only partially fulfilled, for there were great patches of clouds driving before the wind and when those obscured the sun all creation looked dismal enough, especially to Kendrick, who was in the mood where any additional gloom was distinctly superfluous. But the Foam Flake jogged on and at last drew up beside the Bradley office.

Another horse and buggy were standing there and the captain was somewhat surprised to recognize the outfit as one belonging to the Bayport livery man. A gangling youth in the latter's employ was on the buggy seat and he recognized the Foam Flake first and his driver next.

"Why, good mornin', Cap'n," hailed the youth. "You over here, too?"

Sears, performing the purely perfunctory task of hitching the Foam Flake to a post, smiled grimly.