The Unspeakable Gentleman Part 29

"So Sims. .h.i.t me after all," he said. "It must be age. I was not so clumsy once. The bandages, Brutus."

He watched us with a mild interest, and then his mind turned to other matters, and he seemed regardless of the pain we caused him.

"My son," he said, turning to me, "you made a statement a while ago which interested me strangely. I was preoccupied, and perhaps I did not hear you aright, but it seemed you said I should know what had become of your mother's money. What am I to understand by that?"

"You are hurt, sir," I replied. "Why go into a painful matter now?

We have kept it quiet long enough. Only three people knew that it happened, and one of them is dead. Let us forget it, father. I am willing if you are."

My father raised his eyebrows, and it seemed to me that pain had made his face look older, and not even the smile on his lips concealed little lines of suffering.

"And what are we to forget?" he asked.

"Surely you know," I said.

"No," said my father, "I do not. Out with it--what are we to forget?"

Was he still acting? Was it ever possible to understand him? Perhaps even now he was turning the situation into a jest, and smiling to himself as he watched me. And yet somehow I had ceased to hate him.

"Do you mean," I asked "that you never took it?"

Slowly my father's body straightened in his chair, and his lips, drawn tight together, seemed to repress an exclamation.

"So he told you that," he said. "He told you that I made off with her fortune? Gad! but he was clever, very, very clever."

He paused, and refilled his gla.s.s, and held it steadily before him.

His voice, when he spoke, was gentle, and, like his face, strung taut with pain.

"No wonder she never sent me word," he murmured.

"Do you mean," I asked, "that you never took it?"

For a second he did not reply--only looked thoughtfully before him, as if he saw something that we would never see.

"Why go into a painful matter now?" said my father at length. "Brutus, call in Mr. Aiken."

He lurched into the cabin a half a minute later. His sea cloak was gone.

His s.h.i.+rt, none too white the previous afternoon, was torn and sc.r.a.ped as though it had scrubbed the deck, and he had transferred his red handkerchief from his neck to his head, so that his tangled hair waved around it like some wild halo. His heavy hands, bruised and scarred, were working restlessly at his sides. He glanced at my father's bandaged arm, and his jaw thrust forward.

"I warned 'em, captain," he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "By heaven, I warned 'em.

'd.a.m.n you,' I says, 'h.e.l.l will break loose when the captain climbs aboard,' and it did, so help me. There was fifteen of 'em and now there's six, and the crew has 'em in the forecastle now, beating 'em, sir! And now, by thunder, we'll sling 'em overboard!"

"That would be a pity," said my father. "Let them sail with us. I shall make it more unpleasant than drowning. Which way are we heading, Ned?"

"Due east by south," said Mr. Aiken, "and we're ready to show heels to anything. I can drop a reef off now if you want it."

"Good," said my father. "Put on all the sail she will carry."

Mr. Aiken grinned.

"I thought you'd want to be moving," he said.

"Quite right," said my father, "and put about at once and head back up the river."

Mr. Aiken whistled softly.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned!" he muttered.

"I shall want ten men with me when I land," my father continued. "I've done my best to keep the crew out of my private affairs, but now it seems impossible."

"They'd all like to go," said Mr. Aiken. "They've been hoping for excitement all day, sir."

"Ten will be quite enough," said my father.

"What is it you are saying?" Mademoiselle asked sharply.

"Quite nothing," he replied, "except that we are going back."

His arm must have given him a twinge, for his face had grown very white.

"Surely you have done enough," she said, and her voice became a soft entreaty. "Here we are on board your s.h.i.+p. If I told you I was not entirely sorry, would you not go on? If I told you, captain, I did not care about the paper--?"

My father waved his hand in graceful denial.

"Not go back? Ah, Mademoiselle," he added in grave rebuke, "can it be possible after all, in spite of all this--let us say regrettable melodrama--you are forgetting I am the villain of this piece, and not a very pleasant one? Even if I wished, my lady, my sense of hospitality would forbid it. My brother-in-law is waiting for me under my roof tonight, and I could not leave him alone. He would be disappointed, I feel sure, and so would I. I have had a strenuous evening. I need recreation now. Load the pistols, Brutus."

And he fell silent again, his eyes on the blank wall before him, his fingers playing with his gla.s.s.

The _Sea Tern_ had need to be a fast s.h.i.+p, and she lived up to requirements. The easterly wind sent her lightly before it, cutting sheer and quick through the roughened sea. With his arm in a sling of white linen, my father sat motionless, apparently pa.s.sive and regardless of the flight of time. It was only when we veered in the wind and orders were shouted from forward that he looked about him.

"Your arm, Brutus," he said.

On deck the crew was at work about the long boat, and over the port rail, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, I could see our house, with a light burning in the window, flickering through the waving branches of the elms that half hid it. Nearer lay our wharf, a black, silent shadow. My father watched without a word. The anchor chain growled out a sharp complaint, and the anchor splashed into the tide.

"Mr. Aiken," said my father, "give orders to get under way in half an hour. When we land, the men will wait at the wharf, and be ready to enter the house when you call them. You shall come with me, my son. I can still show you something amusing and instructive."

"And I?" Mademoiselle demanded. "Shall you leave me here?"

He seemed to hesitate for a moment.

"Earlier in the evening, Mademoiselle," he replied, "I had given orders for my sloop to carry you to New Orleans. Your boxes will be taken from the house, and you will be taken on board from here. May you have a pleasant journey, and may your friends be well when you arrive."

"You mean it is good-by?" she asked, and her voice had a sound that reminded me of tears. "You mean we shall not meet again?"

He bowed low over her hand.

"Mademoiselle will be relieved to know we shall not," said my father gravely. "Let me hope you may always have more pleasant company."

She seemed about to speak again, but she did not. Instead, she turned silently away and left him, and a second later I saw her disappear in the shadow of the main-mast.