CHAPTER XXVII
CAP'N IRA SPEAKS OUT
Wrung as Sheila's heart had been by the expression of the old woman's utter confidence in her and by Cap'n Ira's warm words of approbation spoken before the elder, it was nevertheless for Tunis Latham's sake that she had abetted the minister's desire and had agreed that the real Ida May Bostwick should come to the Ball house on Wreckers' Head.
By extracting a promise from Ida May that she would talk to nobody for the present—especially about the connection of the captain of the Seamew with Ida May's affairs—Sheila believed she had entered a wedge which might open the way for the young man to escape from a situation which threatened both his reputation and his peace of mind.
To save Tunis! She was fairly obsessed by that thought. Her vow before the picture of Tunis' mother in the Seamew's cabin must be in Sheila's view to the very end. She had a sufficient share of that vision of the Celt to be deeply impressed by a promise made as that had been made—though in secret. It was a sacred pledge.
It was no easy matter for any of the Ball household to consider the coming of Ida May with serenity. Prudence, at heart, shrank from the claimant on her hospitality almost as much as Sheila did. If Cap'n Ira hid his perturbation better than the others, he nevertheless hobbled about with a very solemn countenance.
"I swan!" he muttered within Sheila's hearing. "It's most like there was a corpse in the house. This ain't no way to live. I do wish Elder Minnett could have minded his own business and let well enough alone. Let the girl talk, and other folks, too. Trying to stop gossip is like trying to put your finger on a drop of quicksilver. There won't be no good come o' that girl being here. That's as sure as sure."
The elder's car came wheezing up the hill again about the middle of the forenoon. He did not alight himself, but Ida May needed the presence of nobody to lend her assurance. She hopped out of the car with her bag and flaunted her cheap finery through the gate and in at the front door.
Her reception at this end of the house marked the unmistakable fact that Prudence and Cap'n Ira received her as a stranger rather than in a confidential way.
"Well, Aunt Prue! For you are my aunt whatever you may say," was Ida May's prologue. "And you are my uncle," she added, her greenish-brown eyes flashing a glance at the grimly observant captain. "I must say it's pretty shabby treatment I've got from you so far. But I don't blame you—not at all. I blame that girl and Tunis Latham."
"Avast there!" put in Cap'n Ira so sternly and with so threatening a tone of voice and visage that even Ida May was silenced. "We've let you come here, my girl, because Elder Minnett asked us to; and not at all because our opinion of you is changed. Far from it. You're here on sufferance and you'd best be civil spoken while you remain. Ain't that the ticket, Prudence?"
His wife nodded, in full accord with his statement of the situation, although she could not bear to look so sternly on any person as Cap'n Ira now looked at Ida May.
"Well! I like that!" sniffed the girl, tossing her head, but she actually shrank from the captain.
"Furthermore, as regards Tunis Latham, you was to say nothing about him outside of this house if you was let come here. And I warn you, we don't care to hear nothing in his disfavor in this house."
"Oh! I can see he's a favorite with you," muttered Ida May.
"Then trim your sails according," admonished the old man. "In addition, you mentioned the young woman we already got here in a way we don't like none too well. I want to impress on your mind that it was only through her saying she was agreeable to your coming here that we agreed to the elder's request and let you come."
"She did, eh?" cried Ida May, flouncing in her chair. "Well, I don't thank her."
"No. I cal'late you ain't of a thanking disposition," said Cap'n Ira. "But you like enough won't drop your bread butter-side down. That's all."
Ida May, startled by his speech, stared with less impudence at the old man. For his part, the captain watched her pretty closely, and he had met and judged too many people in his day not to form gradually, as the hours passed, a decided opinion regarding Ida May.
Nor did he cling to his first impression—the one made in haste and some vexation, when she had first tried to thrust herself into the Ball household and demanded the place filled by Sheila Macklin. This girl certainly was not insane. But with all her apparent smartness, Cap'n Ira easily saw that she was not intelligent—that she had scarcely ordinary understanding. Beside the newcomer's shallow nature and even more shallow endowments, Sheila seemed to be from a different world.
"I swan!" whispered Cap'n Ira to Prudence some time later. "The difference between them two girls! They ain't to be spoke of in the same county, I declare. Look at that one, Prudence," he said, with a side glance at the newcomer. "Ain't she a sight with them thin and flashy clothes?"
"I can't see anything about her that looks like any of the Honeys, let alone Sarah."
"Huh! No. Only that her hair's sorter red," returned Cap'n Ira, "like Sarah's was."
The visitor proved her position in the household by sitting idly in a rocking-chair looking over some pictures which were on the table or staring out of the window. She offered to do nothing for Prudence. But, of course, Ida May was not very domestic. Living in a furnished room and working behind the counter in a department store does not develop the domestic virtues to any appreciable degree.
She did not see Sheila until dinner was on the table and she was called to the meal with Cap'n Ira and the old woman. The stiff, little bow with which Ida May favored the girl in possession was returned by the latter quite as formally.
Sheila had regained complete control of voice and face now. Although she did not actually address Ida May, her manner was such that there was no restraint put upon the company. It was the newcomer's manner, if anything, that curtailed the usual friendly intercourse at the Ball table.
Ida May possessed some powers of observation. She would have said herself that she was able to "put two and two together." The way the meal had been cooked, the way it was served, and the work entailed in doing both these things, were matters not overlooked by the visitor.
She knew that Prudence had given neither thought nor attention to getting the dinner. The girl the Balls had received in Ida May's name and supposed identity had done it all herself. It seemed to be expected of her!
She saw, before the day was over, that Sheila was a very busy person indeed. That she not only did the housework, but that she waited upon Prudence and Cap'n Ira "hand and foot." She did it with such unconcern that the new girl could be sure these tasks were quite what was expected of her.
"Why," exclaimed Ida May to herself, "she's just hired help! Is that what they wanted me for when they sent Tunis Latham up to Boston after me? I'd like to see myself!"
She had foreseen something of this kind when she had refused so unconditionally to come down here to the Cape. And her observation of the house and its furnishings, as well as the appearance of the old couple, had confirmed her suspicion that her belief in the Balls "being pretty well fixed" was groundless.
After her interview with Elder Minnett, although she had refrained from detailing her story and her spiteful comments about Sheila and Tunis Latham to the Paulings, she had not ceased to question Zebedee and his mother about the financial condition of the Balls.
She had learned that a couple of thousand dollars would probably buy all the real property the old people owned on Wreckers' Head. There was a certain invested sum which secured them a fair living. Beyond that, the Big Wreck Cove people knew of no wealth belonging to either Cap'n Ira or Prudence.
Ida May already considered that she had come down here to the Cape on a fool's errand. She would like to make herself solid, however, with the old folks so as to benefit when they were dead and gone, if that were possible. But to make herself a kitchen drudge for them? She would like to see herself!
There was a phase of the situation which held Ida May to the course she had set sail upon, and one which would hold her to it to the bitter end. Her spitefulness and determination to be revenged upon this unknown girl who had usurped the place originally offered her by the Balls, and who had stolen her name as well, was quite sufficient to cause a person of Ida May Bostwick's character to fight for her rights.
She would be revenged on Tunis, too. Or, at least, she would make him, as well as the other girl, suffer for the slight he had put upon her.
Had she not preened her feathers and strutted her very best on the occasion when he interviewed her at Hoskin & Marl's and taken her out to lunch? And to no end at all! He had been quite unimpressed by Ida May's airs and graces.
Yet he would take up with this other girl—a mere nobody. Worse than a nobody, of course. She must be both a bad and a cunning woman to have done what it was plain she had done. She had wound Tunis Latham around her finger, and had hoodwinked the old people in the bargain!
Ida May saw the other girl waiting on Prudence and Cap'n Ira; she observed her tenderness toward them and their delight in her ministrations; and these things which she regarded with her green-glinting eyes made her taste the bitterness of wormwood. She hated Sheila more and more as the day wore on; and she scorned the old people both for what she considered this niggardliness and for their simplicity, as well, in being fooled by this other girl.
For, of course, to Ida May's mind, Sheila's kindness and the love shown for the Balls on her part was all put on. It could not be otherwise. Ida May Bostwick could not, in the first place, imagine any sane girl "falling for the two old hicks."
Prudence could seldom show herself other than kindly toward any person whether she exactly approved of that person or not. So she chatted cheerfully at Ida May, if not with her. She was quite as insistent as Cap'n Ira, however, in keeping away from the vexing question of the identity of the two girls.
Right at the first the question had been raised: where should the visitor be put to sleep? Ida May was prepared to object strenuously if any slight was put upon her, such as being given some little, tucked-up attic room away from the rest of the family. Had she dared, she would have demanded the use of the room the false Ida May occupied; only she was not sure, after seeing the position Sheila seemed to hold in the household, that she cared to be put to sleep in the room of the "hired help."
But Sheila herself settled that question.
"The guest room is ready. Aunt Prue," she said to Prudence. "I cleaned it this week and the little stove is set up in there if it should grow cold overnight. All the bed needs is aired sheets. I'll get them out of the press."
So Prudence took Ida May to the guest chamber, which was beyond the parlor. A black-walnut set, which had been the height of magnificence when Cap'n Ira and Prudence were married, filled the shade-drawn room with shadows. There was an ingrain carpet on the floor of a green groundwork with pale-yellow flowers on it, of a genus known to no botanist. The tidies on the chair backs were so stiff with starch that it would be a punishment to lay one's head against them.
On a little marble-topped table between the windows was something made of shells and seaweed in a glass-topped case. It looked to Ida May like a dead baby in a coffin.
"Of all the junk!" she muttered to herself when Prudence left her to arrange the contents of her bag as she chose. "And that girl likes it here! Well, I'll show her who's who and what's what!
"I'd like to know where I ever saw her face before? I bet it was somewhere she'd no business to be—just as she has sneaked in here where she doesn't belong. The nasty, hateful thing!
"If Bessie Dole or Mayme Leary could only see this dump!" she added, looking over the room again. "Anyhow, I've made 'em give me the best they've got. I'll show 'em how to treat a real relation that comes to see 'em."
Supper time came and passed no more cheerfully than had the midday meal. The society of the old people was anything but enlivening for Ida May. In desperation she began to talk, and out of sheer perverseness she lighted upon the subject of the establishment of Hoskin & Marl.
Now Prudence found this topic of interest, for since Annabel Coffin—she who was a Buttle—had dilated upon those great marts of trade in Boston, the old woman had been vastly curious. Sheila had never cared to talk of her experiences as saleswoman behind the counter.
"They tell me they sell most everything you could name in those stores," Prudence said reflectively. "Heaps of dry goods, I suppose. Let me see, what did you sell, my dear?"
"I'm in the laces," said Ida May. "But Hoskin & Marl sell lots besides dry goods."
"Oh, yes! Annabel did say something about automobiles and—and plasters; didn't she, Ira?"
"Goodness knows," rejoined her husband with a groan. "Annabel Coffin said so much the last time she was here that my head buzzes now when I think of her."
"Now, you hesh!" said Prudence. "Never can interest a man in such things. So you sold laces, did you, my dear? Oh, Ida May!" she exclaimed suddenly to Sheila, sitting on the other side of the table. "Ida May, what did you say you sold in that store? You worked for Hoskin & Marl, didn't you?"
"Ye-es. I—I was in the silverware and jewelry department," stammered Sheila, the question coming so unexpectedly that she could not exercise consideration before making answer.
"Now, is that so?" cried Prudence. "That must have been nice. To handle all them pretty things. But lace is pretty, too," she added, turning quickly to the guest again. "I expect you find it so."
The old woman was startled into silence by the expression she saw upon Ida May's face. The latter was glaring across the table at Sheila. No other word could so express the intense and malevolent look in those greenish-brown eyes and on that sharp countenance.
Sheila's gaze was enthralled as well by Ida May's sudden emotion. She half rose from her chair. But her strength left her limbs again, and she fell back into the seat.
"What's the matter, Ida May?" demanded Cap'n Ira, in wonder and alarm.
The real Ida May sprang up with a shriek. She shook her hand at Sheila and for a moment could not articulate. Then she said:
"I know her now! I knew I'd seen that creature before and I thought I'd remember what and who she is. And she dares come down here and sneak her way into honest people's houses! The gall of her!"
CHAPTER XXVIII
GONE
"Looker here, girl!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira sternly. Putting his hand upon Ida May's shoulder, he forced her down into her chair again. His own eyes gleamed angrily, and his countenance expressed his wrath. "What was you told on coming here? Didn't you promise to keep a taut line on all that foolishness? I won't stand for it. No, Prudence!" he exclaimed, as his wife tried to interfere. "I won't stand for it. She must either keep away from that business, or I'll put her right out of the house. Leastways, it being night, I'll send her to her room."
"Do you think you can boss me like that?" cried Ida May hotly, so angry herself that she forgot her fear of him. "I'm not your slave, nor your hired help, like that creature." She pointed scornfully at Sheila. "And you'll just listen to something I've got to say. If you don't, I'll go out to-morrow and tell everybody in this hick town. I'll hire a hall to tell 'em in!"
"Won't—won't you be good, deary?" begged Prudence, before her husband could make any rejoinder to this defiance. "You know you promised Elder Minnett you would be if we let you come here."
"I don't want to stay here. I've seen enough of this place and you all! And I would be ashamed to stay any longer than I can help with folks that take in such a girl as she is."
Again Ida May's little claw indicated Sheila, who stared, speechless, helpless, at least for the time being. The harassed girl could fight for herself no longer. She knew that she was on the verge of betrayal. She could not stem the tide of Ida May's venom. The latter must make the revelation which had threatened ever since she had come to Wreckers' Head. There was no way of longer smothering the truth. It would come out!
"Look here," Cap'n Ira said, his curiosity finally aroused, "the elder says you ain't crazy! But it looks to me—"
"I'm not crazy, I can tell you," snapped Ida May, taking him up short. "But I guess you and Aunt Prue must be. Why, you don't even know the name of this girl you took in instead of me—in my rightful place. But I can tell you who she is—and what she's done. I remember her now. I knew I'd seen her before—the hussy!"
"Belay that!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira.
But he said it faintly. He was looking at the other girl now, and something in her expression and in her attitude made him lose confidence. His voice died in his throat. Ida May Bostwick had the upper hand at last—and she kept it.
"Look at her," she exulted, the green lights in her brown eyes glinting like the sparkling eyes of a serpent. "Look at her. She knows that I know. She's come down here and fooled you all, but she can't fool you any longer. And that Tunis Latham! Why, it can't be possible he knew what she was from the first!"
"See here," said Cap'n Ira shakily. "What do you mean? What are you getting at—or trying to? If you got anything to say about Ida May, get it out and be over with it."
"Oh, Ira! Don't! Stop her!" wailed Prudence.
Like the old man, Prudence finally realized that there was something wrong—something very wrong, indeed—with the girl they had known for months as Ida May and whom they had learned to love so dearly.
Nobody looking at Sheila could doubt this for a moment. Her tortured expression of countenance, the wild light in her eyes, her trembling lips, advertised to the beholders that the last bastion of her fortress was taken, that the wall was breached and into that breach now marched the triumphant phrases of the real Ida May's bitter, gloating speech.
"Look at her!" repeated the latter. "She can't deny it now. She knows I know her and what she is. Why, Aunt Prue—and you, Captain Ball—have been fooled nice, I must say. And that Tunis Latham! Well, he can't be much!"
"Don't—don't say anything against Tunis!"
It was not a voice at all like the usual mellow tones of Sheila Macklin which uttered those faint words. Hoarse, strained, uncertain, there was yet a note of command in the phrase which had its influence on the wildly excited Ida May.
"I'll say what I've got to say about you, miss!" she exclaimed with exultation. "And you—nor they—shan't stop me. You're the girl that was arrested in the store for stealing. It must have been two—why, it must have been more than three years ago. I hadn't worked there but a little while. No wonder I didn't remember you at first."
Cap'n Ira vented a groan and caught at his wife's hand. She was sobbing frantically. She still murmured her plea for the captain to stop the awful revelation Ida May was bent on making. But the latter gave no heed and the captain himself was speechless.
"And I can't remember her name even now," went on Ida May, flashing a look at the Balls. Their pitiful appearance made no impression upon her. "But that don't matter. I guess they've got your record at Hoskin & Marl's. You worked there all right; sure you worked there, in the jewelry section. You stole something. I saw the store detective, Miss Hopwell, take you up to the manager's office. I never heard what they did to you, but they did a plenty, I bet."
She turned confidently again to the horrified captain and his wife.
"Just see how she looks. She don't deny it. How she managed to work that Tunis Latham into bringing her down here, I don't know. She pulled the wool over his eyes all right.
"Why, she's a thief! She was arrested! I guess you can see now that I'm not crazy—far from it. She won't dare say again that she is Ida May Bostwick. I—guess—not!"
The malevolent exultation of the girl was fearful to behold. But neither Cap'n Ira nor Prudence now looked at Ida May. Leaning against her husband, the tears coursing over her withered cheeks, Prudence joined Cap'n Ira in gazing at the other girl.
She rose slowly to her feet. Something like strength came back to her; even into her voice, as Sheila again spoke. Nor did she look at Ida May, but fixed her feverish gaze upon the two old people.
"What—what she says is true—as far as I am concerned. But—but Tunis did not know. It is not his fault. I was desperate. I heard what he said to—to Miss Bostwick. I chanced to overhear it. I was desperate; I hated the city. I was willing to take a chance for the sake of getting among people who would be kind to me—who were good."
"Bah!" exclaimed Ida May raucously. "You're not fit to go among good people!"
Sheila did not heed her. She spoke slowly—haltingly, but what she said held the old people silent.
"Tunis is not to blame. I told him this—this girl"—she pointed to Ida May, but did not look at her—"was not the right Miss Bostwick. I said that I was the girl he wanted to see. I made him think so. I tricked him. Don't listen to her!" she added wildly, as the enraged Ida May would have interposed. "Tunis thought she had talked to him just for a joke. I made him believe that. I—I would have done anything then to get away from the city and to come down here. Perhaps he was at fault because he did not take more time to find out about me—to be sure I was the right girl. But he cannot be blamed for anything else. I tell you, it was all my fault."
"I don't believe it!" snapped Ida May.
But Cap'n Ira put her aside with his hand, and there was returned firmness in his voice.
"Is this the truth? Are you what she says you are?" he asked.
"Oh, don't, Ira!" gasped his sobbing wife. "She—"
"We've got to learn the straight of it," said the old man sternly. "If we've been bamboozled, we've got to know it. Now's the time for her to speak."
Sheila was still gazing at him. She nodded, indicating that his question was already answered.
"You—you mean to say you stole—like she says?"
"I was arrested in Hoskin & Marl's. They accused me of stealing. Yes."
She said no more. She turned, when he did not speak again, and walked slowly to the stairway door. She opened it and went up, closing the door behind her.
It was Ida May who moved first when she was gone. She jumped up once more and started for the stairway.
"I'll tell her what's what!" she ejaculated. "The gall of her to come here and say she was me and get my rightful place! I'll put her out with my own hands!"
Somehow—it would be hard to say just how—Cap'n Ira was before her, ere she could arrive at the stairway door.
"Avast!" he said throatily. "Don't take too much upon yourself, young woman. You don't quite own these premises—yet."
"You ain't going to stand for her stayin' here any longer, are you?" demanded the amazed Ida May.
"Whether or not she stays here is more my business and Prudence's business than it is yours," said the old man. "But there's one thing sure, and you may as well l'arn it first as last: you're not to speak to her nor do anything else to annoy her. Understand?"
"You—you—"
"Heed what I tell ye!" said Cap'n Ira, grim-lipped and with flashing eyes. "You interfere with that girl in any way and it won't be her I'll put out o' the house. I'll put you out—night though it is—and you'll march yourself down to the port and to the Widder Pauling's alone. Understand me?"
There was silence again in the kitchen, save for Prudence's pitiful sobbing.
In Tunis Latham's mind as he came up from the port four days later was visioned no part of the tragedy which had occurred at the Ball homestead during his absence on this last voyage to Boston. He had suffered trouble enough during the trip even to dull the smart of Sheila's renunciation of him before he had left the Head. Indeed, he could scarcely realize even now that she had meant what she said—that she could mean it!
So brief had been their dream of love—only since that recent Sunday when they walked the beaches about the foot of Wreckers' Head—that it seemed to the captain of the Seamew it could not be so soon over. If Sheila really and truly loved him, how could anything part them?
When he considered her wild manner and her trenchant words when last he had seen her, however, his heart sank. He had gained during the few months of their acquaintance a pretty accurate idea of how firm she could be—how unwavering in face of any difficulty. He realized that her obstinacy, when her mind was once settled on a course of action, was not easily overcome. She had declared that they could not be lovers any longer; that the situation which had arisen through the appearance of the real Ida May upon Wreckers' Head had made her decision necessary; and she had refused to consider any other outcome of this dreadful affair.
In his business there was much which would have disturbed Tunis in any event. The negro cook had deserted the Seamew the moment after she touched the Boston wharf. Although the other hands had remained by the schooner until she had just now dropped anchor in the cove below, he was not at all sure that they would sail with him for another voyage.
Why these new men should be more troubled by the silly tattle of the hoodoo than even the Portygees had been was a problem Tunis could not solve. And seamen were so scarce just then in Boston that he had been obliged to risk another voyage without engaging strangers to man the Seamew. Besides, being a true Cape Codder, he disliked hiring other than Cape men to work the schooner.
For one thing he could be grateful. Orion Latham had taken his chest ashore this very day. And Zebedee Pauling had offered himself in Orion's place on the wharf as Tunis had just now come ashore.
He had been glad to take on Zeb in place of his cousin. And from young Pauling he had learned at least one piece of news connected with affairs on Wreckers' Head. Zeb told him that the girl he had brought to the Pauling house had talked with Elder Minnett and that the elder had later taken her up to the Ball house, where she had remained.
There was not much gossip about the matter it seemed. Nobody seemed to know who the young woman was; nor did Zeb know what was going on at the Ball homestead. It was with this slight information only that Tunis now approached the old place. He saw Cap'n Ira hobbling into the barn, but he saw nobody else about.
The day was gray, and a chill wind crept over the brown earth, rustling the dead stalks of the weeds and curling little spirals of dust in the road which rose no more than a foot or two, then fell again, despairingly. In any event the young shipmaster must have felt the oppression of the day and the lingering season. His spirits fell lower, and he came to the Ball place with such a feeling of depression that he hesitated about turning in at the gate at all.
As Cap'n Ira did not at once come out of the barn, the younger man made his way there instead of going first to the kitchen door. He shrank from meeting the real Ida May again. At any rate, he wanted first to get the lay of the land from the old man.
He looked into the dim interior of the place and for a moment did not see Cap'n Ira at all. The ghostly face of the Queen of Sheba appeared at the opening over her manger. Tunis was about to call when he saw the old man straining upon the lower rungs of the ladder to reach the loft to pitch down a bunch of fodder. Queenie whinnied softly.
"Hello, Cap'n Ira!" Tunis hailed. "What are you doing that for?" He hastened to cross the barn floor to his aid. "Where's Ida May that she lets you do this?"
"Ida May?" The old man repeated the name with such disgust that Tunis was all but stunned and stopped to eye Cap'n Ira amazedly. "D'ye think she'd take a step to save me a dozen? Or lift them lily-white hands of hers to keep Prudence from doing all the work she has to do? I swan!"
"What do you mean?" demanded Tunis. "You sound mighty funny, Cap'n Ira. Hasn't Ida May been doing all and sundry for you for months? Is she sick?"
"I—I don't mean that gal," quavered Cap'n Ira. "I mean the real Ida May."
He half tumbled off the ladder into Tunis Latham's arms. He clung to the young man tightly, and, although it was dark in the barn, Tunis could have sworn that there were tears on the old man's cheeks.
"Don't you know we've got the right Ida May with us at last—Prudence's niece that has come here to visit for a while and play lady? Yes, you was fooled; we was bamboozled. That—that other gal, Tunis, is a real bad one, I ain't no doubt. She pulled the wool over your eyes and made a monkey of most everybody, it seems. She—"
"Who are you talking about?" cried Tunis, in his alarm almost shaking the old man.
"I'm telling you the girl you brought down here, thinking she was Ida May Bostwick, turned out to be somebody else. I don't know who. Anyway, she ain't no relation of Prudence or me. I ain't blaming you none, boy; she told us we musn't blame you, for you didn't know the truth about her, either."
"Cap'n Ira, where is she?" demanded the younger man hoarsely.
"She ain't here. She's gone. She left four nights ago—after Ida May had remembered what she'd done in that big store in Boston. Oh, she admitted it—"
"You mean to tell me she's gone? That you don't know where she is?" almost shouted Tunis.
"Easy, boy! Remember I got some feeling yet in them arms you was squeezing. It ain't our fault she went. She left us in the night—stole out with just a bundle of clothes and things. Left, Prudence says, every enduring thing she'd got since she come here—that we give her."
Tunis groaned.
"Yes, she's gone. And she's left that other dratted girl in her place. I swan, Tunis, I'd just as leave have the figgerhead of the old Susan Gatskill sittin' by our kitchen stove as to have that useless critter about. She ain't no good to Prudence and me—not at all!"
CHAPTER XXIX
ON THE TRAIL
There was but a single idea in Sheila Macklin's mind when she left those three people in the kitchen and mounted to her room. Indeed, there was scarcely left to the sadly distracted girl another sane thought.
She must leave the house before she could be further questioned. She hoped that she had said enough to exonerate Tunis. If she said more, it might be to raise some doubt in the minds of Cap'n Ira and Prudence as to Tunis' ignorance of her true reputation. She must escape any cross-examination—on that or any other topic.
She believed that the captain of the Seamew possessed sufficient caution to keep secret the particulars of their first meeting until he had heard from the old people the few false details she had left in their minds. She had done all she could to make Tunis' reputation secure in the eyes of those who must know any particulars of his connection with her. She had kept her vow to the dead woman whom the young shipmaster had, throughout his life, so revered—his mother.
She did not light her bedroom lamp until she knew by the sounds from below that the family had retired for the night. Then, stepping softly, she went over her small possessions and made a bundle of those which she had brought with her when she came from Boston. The articles of apparel purchased with money given her by the Balls she left in the closet or in the bureau drawers.
This done, she did not lie down on the bed, but sat by the north window staring out into the starlit dark. There was no lamp to watch in the window of Latham's Folly to-night. Tunis was far away. Had she been prepared for this unexpected catastrophe, she would have been far, far away from Wreckers' Head before Tunis returned.
As it chanced, she possessed very little money—scarcely more than enough to take her to Paulmouth. There she would be no better off than she was at Big Wreck Cove. Sheila was not, in truth, quite accountable for her actions at this time. To get away from the Ball house was her only really clear thought. What followed must fall as fate directed.
At the first faint gleam of dawn in the sky, and as the distant stars paled and disappeared, the girl crept down the stairs with her bundle, her shoes in her hand, and went out by the kitchen door. She heard only the deep breathing of the old captain from across the sitting room and now and then the sobbing breath of Prudence, like the breathing of a hurt child that has fallen asleep in pain and half wakes to a realization of it.
As she turned to close the outer door softly behind her, the girl's heart throbbed in response to the old woman's sorrow. While she sat on the bench to lace her shoes the cat, old Tabby, came rubbing and purring about her skirts. Muffled, as though from a great distance, a rooster vented a questioning crow as though he doubted that it was yet time to announce the birth of another day.
She went to the barn to feed Queenie for the last time. That outraged old creature displayed her surprised countenance at the opening above her manger and blew sonorously through her nostrils. Perhaps the gray mare remembered how she had been aroused at a similar hour once before, and by Cap'n Ira himself. That experience must have been keen in the Queen of Sheba's memory if she had any memory at all.
But the troubled girl gave the mare less attention than usual, throwing down some fodder and pouring a measure of corn into the manger. The mare turned to that with appetite. Corn came not amiss to Queenie, no matter at what hour it was vouchsafed her. Her sound old teeth did not stop crunching the kernels as Sheila went out of the barn.
From the shed she secured an ax and a spade, as well as a basket. In spite of her condition of mind she knew exactly what she wanted to do—and she did it. Had she thought out her intention for months she could have gone about the matter no more directly and practically. Yet, had one stopped Sheila and asked her what she was about—exactly what her intentions were—the query would have found her unprepared with an answer.
Both her physical and mental condition precluded Sheila from going far from the Ball homestead. What she had been through during these past few days had drained out of her physical vigor as well as all intellectual freshness.
When Cap'n Ira Ball had led the feebly protesting Queen of Sheba across these empty fields to her intended sacrifice, the two had made no more dreary picture against the dim dawn than did Sheila now. She carried the bundle she had made slung over one shoulder by a length of rope. The spade, ax, and basket balanced her figure on the other side; she bent forward as she walked and, from a distance, Prudence herself would have looked no older or more decrepit than did the girl now leaving the Ball premises.
She did not follow the same course that the captain and Queenie had followed on that memorable occasion, but took a path that led to a cart track to the beach behind John-Ed Williams' house. Nobody was astir anywhere on Wreckers' Head but herself.
In an hour she arrived at the objective point toward which she had been headed from the first. Why and how she had thought of this refuge it would be hard to tell. Least of all could Sheila have explained her reason for coming here. It was in her mind, it was away from all other human habitations, and she did not think anybody would have the right to drive her from it.
The cabin formerly occupied by Hosea Westcott was well above the tide, was, or could be made, perfectly dry, was roughly, if not comfortably furnished, and offered the girl a shelter in which she thought she would be safe.
To one who had spent such weary months in a narrow room in a Hanover Street lodging house, going in and out with speech with scarcely any one save the person to whom she paid her weekly dole of rent, there could be no loneliness in a place like this, where the surf soughed continually in one's ear, a hundred feathered forms flashed by in an hour, sails dotted the dimpling sea, and the strand itself was spread thick with many varieties of nature's wonders.
During the summer and early fall, Sheila had become a splendid oarswoman. In a skiff belonging to little John-Ed which was drawn up on the sands not far from the cabin she had paddled out through the narrow neck of the tiny cove's entrance and pulled bravely through the surf and out upon the sea beyond. She had learned more than a bit of sea lore, too, from Cap'n Ira and Tunis. And regarding the edible shellfish to be found along the beaches, she was well informed.
If an old man such as Hosea Westcott, feeble and spent, no doubt, could pick up a living here, why could not she? Sheila did not fear starvation. Indeed, she did not even look forward to such a possibility. She did not fear work of any kind. With every salt breath she drew, strength, like the tide itself, flowed into her body. Although her mind remained in a partially stunned condition, her muscles soon recovered their vigor.
Of course the girl's presence here in the abandoned cabin, her taking up a hermit life on the shore, could not remain unknown to the neighbors on Wreckers' Head for long. Yet at this season of the year the men were all busy elsewhere and the women almost never came down to the beaches. It is a remarkable fact that most longshore women have little interest in the beauties or wonders to be found along the beaches, even in the sea itself. Perhaps this is because the latter is such a hard mistress to their menfolk.
Nevertheless, Sheila could not hide herself away from everybody—not even on that first day. The Balls made no outcry when they found that she had disappeared. And no near-port fishing craft came by. But the smoke from the chimney of the cabin, when she had swept and made comfortable its interior and built a fire of driftwood in the rusty pot stove, attracted at least one sharp eye.
Down the bank, along with a small avalanche of sand and gravel, plunged little John-Ed and his freckled face appeared at the doorway.
"By the great jib boom!" he cried. "What you doing here? Playing castaway?"
"Yes, John-Ed," said Sheila. "That is it exactly. I am a castaway."
He stared at her. She could not take this boy into her confidence. But already little John-Ed was a henchman of hers, in spite of the fact that Sheila often had made him work.
"I am going to stay here for a while," she told him. "But I would rather nobody but you knew about it."
"By the great jib boom!" exploded the boy for a second time. "Not even Cap'n Ira and Aunt Prudence?"
"Not even them," sighed the girl.
"I bet it's because you don't want to stay there while that other girl is visitin' them. Ain't that it? She's a snippy thing!"
"You must not say so to anybody," urged Sheila. "It will not be wrong for you to say nothing about my being here to your father and mother. Do you understand?"
"I can keep a secret, all right," he assured her proudly.
"I believe you can. And do you think you could get off to go down to the store for me this evening?"
"Going down anyway for mom," he assured her.
Sheila had a dollar and a little change besides. She had already planned just what the dollar would buy in the way of necessaries. There were cooking utensils in the cabin sufficient for her modest needs. She gave little John-Ed the dollar and her list and warned him to hide her purchases safely until the next morning and bring them to her on his way to school.
"What you going to eat to-night?" he asked her bluntly.
"I dug some clams at low water and caught a big horseshoe crab."
"Cousin Phineas brought us more squeteague than we can eat. Mom told me to cut one up for the hens. I'll bring it down to you in a little. It's a fresh one."
In spite of her refusal, he did this, and brought along, too, a box of sweet crackers which he had bought and hidden away in his bedroom closet in preparation for some time when he might wake up in the night and feel that he was on the verge of famine.
"Though I never did wake up in the night that I can remember, 'cept that time I had the toothache," he observed.
And in this way Sheila began her hermit life in the fisherman's cabin.
But Sheila was not without a practical design as to her future. In her determination to accept no further aid from the Balls she had crippled her finances. Back in the inland town where she had spent her girlhood, and where Dr. Macklin had served the community so long, there were those who, in disapproving Sheila's venture into the city, at least had a sense of justice. Some of these critical friends whom the young woman had shrunk from appealing to heretofore, still owed for Dr. Macklin's services; and Sheila felt that in this present tragic emergency she must attempt the collection of these old debts.
She wrote letters praying that money might be sent her by express to Paulmouth, but with the orders addressed under cover to "John-Ed Williams, Jr." at the Big Wreck Cove post office. She explained her design to her juvenile confidant and little John-Ed was made immensely proud of such mark of her trust. She could have found no more faithful adherent than the boy, and with him the secret of her dwelling on the lonely shore and in her hermit-like state was safe.
But her presence there could not be hidden for long; of that she was well aware. Little John-Ed, however, told nobody of her whereabouts until the day Tunis Latham came back from Boston and learned that the girl he loved had stolen away from her home in the Ball house.
Coming out of the rear door of the barn, fresh from the interview with the old captain which had so shocked him, Tunis saw a small boy astride the low stone fence that marked the rear boundary of the Ball farm. The captain of the Seamew was in no mood to bandy words with little John-Ed Williams, but the sharp tooth of his troubled thought fastened upon one indubitable fact: if there is anything odd going on in a community, the small boy of that community knows all about it—or, at least, as much about it as it is possible to know.
Tunis could not have walked up to any adult person on Wreckers' Head and asked the question which he put to little John-Ed on the spur of the moment:
"Where is she?"
He did not have to utter Sheila's name. Indeed, he was doubtful by what name it would be wise to call her. But he did not have to be plainer with little John-Ed. He saw in the sly expression of the boy's eyes that he knew whom he meant. But he shook his head.
"You know where she went," was the schooner captain's accusation. "Where is she?"
"I—I can't tell you," stammered the boy. "I promised not."
A promise is a promise, especially to a small boy who scorns to "snitch." Tunis thought a moment.
"Show me," he said, and his voice had in it that tone which made the foremast hands jump to obey when a squall was coming.
The boy got promptly off the wall.
"All right," he said gruffly. "But don't you tell her I showed you, Cap'n Tunis Latham."
"Trust me," agreed the captain of the Seamew, and followed after little John-Ed with such tremendous strides that the latter had to run to keep ahead of him.
Tunis was led to that point on the bluff from which a curl of smoke from the cabin chimney could be seen. He halted almost in horror—stricken to the heart when he understood.
"Alone?" he muttered.
"Yep," was the reply. "She's playing she's a castaway. Nobody but me knows it."
Then, fearing he had said too much, John-Ed ran away.
Tunis descended the bluff by a perilous path—he would not delay to go around by the cart track—and came in plain view of the cabin. The door hinge had been repaired, and the door now swung freely. A strip of cotton cloth had been tacked over the gaping window. There was that neatness about the abandoned cabin which must always be associated in his mind with Sheila Macklin, even had he not seen her sitting pensively upon a driftwood timber by the door.
The ax had been doing good service, for there was a great heap of wood cut into stove lengths. The fragrant odor of something—chowder, perhaps—simmering on the stove, floated through the open door.
It was the coarse sand crunching under his boots which aroused her. She did not start at his approach, but raised her eyes languidly. He wondered if she had expected him. She must have seen the Seamew pass several hours earlier as they headed in toward the channel.
"My God, Sheila!" he exclaimed with bitterness, but without anger. "You can't stay here."
"I must—for a while. No. Don't talk about it, please, Tunis." Her gesture had a finality to it which silenced the objections rising to his lips. "Nothing you can say will change my determination. And you must not come here again."
"What will people say?" he gasped.
The violet eyes blazed suddenly while she surveyed him. This was not the girl he had known before. At least, she was not the same as when he had seen her last. Even at that previous interview her look and manner had not so reminded him of the girl he had sat beside on the bench on Boston Common.
She was alone again. The flower of her nature that had expanded while she lived her all too brief and happy life with the Balls was now withered. She was hopeless again; she had become once more the Sheila Macklin that he had met under such wretched circumstances at that past time. But in spite of her helplessness and her wretchedness, there was something in the girl's expression which convinced Tunis Latham before he again spoke that nothing he could say would in any degree change her determination.
"That confounded girl never should have been allowed to come back to the house up there," he cried almost wildly. "Why did Elder Minnett want to interfere? It was not his business! No one need have known the truth."
"Don't you see, Tunis, that just because it was the truth it was sure to become known? At least, the main points in the whole matter were sure to come out. But if you are careful, if you are wise, nobody need know more of your share in the transaction than I have told already."
"Cap'n Ira asked me if it was true. He told me what you said. Sheila, you ruined your own reputation with the old folks to save me. Girl—"
"Did I have any reputation to lose, Tunis?" she interrupted, yet speaking softly. "I could not save myself. I have tried to save you. Don't be ill-advised; don't be foolish. Say nothing, and it will all blow over—for you."
"You think I'll accept such a sacrifice on your part?" he demanded fiercely.
"I am making no sacrifice. Nothing I can do or say; nothing you can do or say; nothing anybody can do or say; will change my situation. We need not both be ruined in the eyes of the community. Soon I will get away. They will forget me. It will all blow over. You need not suffer."
"What do you think I am?" he cried again. "Am I the sort of a fellow, you think, to shelter myself behind you?"
"Shelter your Aunt Lucretia. Shelter your business prospects. Shelter the good name of your mother's son. You can do me absolutely no good by telling any different story from the one I was forced to tell. Let it be, Tunis."
She said it wearily. She dropped her eyes again, looking away from him. But when he would have stepped nearer and caught her to him, she leaped up and with look and tone warded him away.
"Don't touch me! Be at least so kind, Tunis. Make it no harder for me than you can help."
"You are breaking my heart, Sheila!"
"Mine is already broken," she told him. "And I do not blame you, Tunis. It is the punishment for my own sins. I attempted to escape from my overwhelming troubles in a wrong way. I see it now. I know it to be so. I must go somewhere else and build again—if I may. But never again upon a foundation of trickery and deceit. Oh! Never! Never!"
She stepped around the big block on which she had been sitting, entered the cabin, and closed the door behind her. She left him standing there hopeless, miserable, almost distraught by all the entanglements of this tragedy that had come upon them.