CHAPTER XVII.

“MUCH HAVE I BORNE SINCE DAWN OF MORN.”

To sit in a tender with her feet on a bag of coal had never up to this been Nina’s idea of paradise. But now she changed her mind in the speediest manner possible.

She was in a small puffing craft of sable blackness; her light gown was in damaging proximity to the lumps of coal, yet she was blissfully happy. For she was gliding swiftly and surely over the broad, black bosom of the river toward the bright white light hung up in the masts of the _Merrimac_.

A few minutes, and she was in the shadow of the huge bulk. Then her hands and feet nimbly laid hold on the wooden steps, and some one was helping her to clamber to the deck.

She looked up and saw the quartermaster. She gave him a gay “Good evening,” that he was too startled to return; then, mentioning her name, she requested him to pay and dismiss the men on the tender.

She sauntered along the deck to the chart-room. Opening the door, she found it empty. “Ah! I thought he would be here,” she murmured; “but no matter--he must be somewhere. It is late, perhaps he is having supper.”

There was a book on navigation lying open on the table, and she turned over a few pages. What queer language--how clever he must be to understand it! “Man the spanker brails and weather vang and sheet; hands by the outhaul, brace in the cross-jack yards, ease away the outhaul. Brail up, hauling in the lee brails best, so as to spill the sail as quickly as possible, then haul up the weather brails, pass the foot gaskets, steady the gaff, crutch the boom, and stow the sail.”

She smiled wearily, closed the book, and descended to the deck. What a glorious night it was! There was no moon, but there were stars, legions of them, flashing down on the lesser lights of earth. It was getting late, yet there was still a murmur of traffic in the two great towns stretched out on either side of them, although out here on the river it was very quiet.

A puff of smoke in her face drew her attention to the tender. It was just putting off, and she watched it for a few minutes. Swiftly, unerringly, the little black craft glided between the shipping, avoiding alike the leviathans of the deep and the tiniest cockle-shells afloat. Then its light was lost among the other myriad lights, and she turned away, and dived down the first opening she came to.

How quiet the ship was! Only a few sailors in the distance who stared at her as if she had been a ghost. She almost lost herself in a strange alley-way that brought her to the now silent engine-room. Emerging from it, she got into a passage running half the length of the ship, and that she knew would lead her to the dining-saloon.

Just as her hand was on the door, a roar of laughter saluted her ears. She opened it a very little and peered cautiously in.

The ship’s officers were seated at an end of one of the long dining-tables, having their supper and an uncommonly good joke, she should imagine, judging by their faces. Their knives and forks were laid down, and they were laughing, not like landsmen, but like sailors with strong and hearty lungs. Loud, explosive guffaws testified to the richness of the joke, and Nina wondered what it was. And ’Steban was as bad as the rest of them, lying back in his chair, his hands on his sides. She never had seen him laugh in that way before.

“Poor fellow!” she breathed, “I am glad he knows how to enjoy himself. Far better this than to find him alone sighing for something he cannot get.”

Then she frowned. Would those men ever stop laughing? Such continued frivolity was childish and unbecoming in grown men. Now if they were boys--

“Come now!--none of that, Miss Petticoats,” ejaculated some one behind her. “The captain don’t allow lady folks about the ship.”

Nina turned and saw Merdyce. Merdyce, so very subservient in the presence of his master, so very important when in the presence of his equals. She drew her wrap closer about her and vouchsafed no answer.

“Move out of that, please,” he exclaimed, with a flourish of his arm. “I want to pass.”

He was carrying a solitary bottle. Nina stood back, and he dashed by with a farewell injunction to her to take herself off.

As he entered the saloon, Nina thrust her head after him. The peals of laughter had died away, and Captain Fordyce was his usual reserved self. He was never familiar for any length of time with his subordinates. Just now, though no one addressed him, he perceived by the faces about him that there was some special attraction at the door, and he, too, glanced in that direction.

The intruding head had been withdrawn, so he turned to Merdyce. “Is there any one out there?”

“Yes, sir, a young person,” the officious youth explained; “she’s hanging about the ship.”

Captain Fordyce’s brows contracted. “And she’s been spying at you, sir, through the door.”

At this there was a general pricking up of ears, and a faint glimmer of a smile illumined all faces but Captain Fordyce’s.

“Send her away,” he said, shortly.

Merdyce swung open the door, but Nina was an adept at dodging, and, by no means averse to playing a trick, glided by him and brought herself to a standstill some distance from the table. Between the dirty fringes dangling over her forehead, she contemplated herself in the mirror set in the wall behind her husband’s back.

What a guy she was,--enveloped from head to foot in a soiled linen carriage wrap. And yet the garment was a costly one, for not until she had placed three sovereigns in the hand of the cab-driver who conveyed her to the dock was she allowed to become possessor of it. He knew--the grasping fellow--that she could not go out on the river in an evening dress.

If she were in her usual spirits, and possessed of her usual propensity for seeking amusement at unlawful times and from unlawful sources, she would be in a convulsion of delight at the scene before her. Her husband could not see her face, nor her figure; and, thanks to the wrap, she could carry on an uninterrupted scrutiny of him.

He did not know her--how delicious! He sat back, joining in the universal stare (for the men had all stopped eating, and those who had had their backs toward her had twisted around on their seats), unutterably disgusted with the young person who had presumed to “spy” at him.

His keen eyes could not pierce the coarse, soiled fabric that enwrapped her, yet she saw he had fully made up his mind that inside it was not a lady, but a creature entirely vulgar and depraved.

He asked a leading question. “Who are you?”

She drew the fringes of the wrap across her mouth, and said, almost unintelligibly, “A poor girl!”

“What do you want?”

“Some money to buy bread,” she uttered, thickly, but with appealing sweetness.

“Bread!” and he snorted like a righteously indignant war-horse.

“I am a poor orphan,” continued Nina, “and I have six little brothers and four little sisters in bed for want of clothes. Can’t you give me something?”

“Be off!” and he contemptuously turned to his plate.

“Please come with me, good sir,” she murmured, in her plaintive beggar’s whine, and she stretched out a pleading hand.

At the same time there was apparent in her manner, even under the linen shroudings, a sauciness and assurance that claimed further attention from the master of ceremonies.

He threw up his head at this imp-like creature who was teasing him, and gave a backward nod toward the watchful Merdyce. There was a visible tendency on the part of his officers to laugh. It was time the place was cleared.

Merdyce thought that his hand was just about to alight on the stranger’s shoulder; but he was mistaken, for she had slipped aside, and was shaking a jingling wrist toward his master. There was nothing on it but a bangle, a brass one, probably; but it was evidently some token, for the man at the table recognised it at once, and, without a glance at the ridiculously bewildered faces of his fellows, sprang to his feet, and, throwing an arm around her, swept her from the room.

Merdyce stood with his mouth open, and as the door swung together Nina heard the first murmur of a sound that she knew would develop into an immoderate burst of laughter, rivalling, if not eclipsing their former effort in that line.

“Don’t mind them, darling, they have not an idea who you are,” whispered her husband, joyously, in her ear.

Then he opened the door of one of the small rooms along the passage. This had been Miss Marsden’s apartment. The last time Nina was in it picturesque confusion reigned triumphant from ceiling to floor. Dresses, shoes, rugs, books, bottles, hats, and cloaks lay cheek by jowl; and Miss Marsden herself, large-eyed and cheerful, reclined in the midst. Now they could see the pattern of the carpet. The whole room was as neat as wax, and the berth wherein Miss Marsden was wont to lounge was made up as neatly as if never again intended for the use of mortal man or woman.

The curtains of the berth were drawn up from the floor, and folded neatly over the white pillow. “It looks as if some one had died here,” she said, with a nervous shudder; “come away, ’Steban, we can talk in some other place.”

“You look done out,” he said, in an explanatory way. “I thought you would like to get into the first place available.”

“No,” she said, clinging to his hand, and drawing him down the passage and toward the companionway. “I feel better now. In such close proximity to your fists, I could look the whole world in the face,--I am afraid of nobody, no, not I.”

He did not speak, but his face was flushed and full of a curious expectancy, and he was gnawing his moustache in an occasional restless fashion that he had.

Nina exhibited not the slightest desire to gratify his curiosity. They were on deck now, and she stopped before a door bearing the inscription, “Captain’s Room,” on a brass plate.

“May I go in?” she asked.

“Certainly,” and he followed her.

It was the most cheerful apartment on the ship. The walls were panelled with some dark, shining wood; the furniture, though all of the heavy order, was handsome and elaborate. There were books and papers, but only one picture. It hung in a recess over the bed, and Nina went up and examined it. She knew that her husband possessed a picture taken of her in her childish days, but was far from guessing that it hung here.

“You always let this room to the highest bidder, don’t you?” she asked, as she seated herself in a large American rocking-chair.

“Not exactly,” he replied, “but I usually give it up.”

“And the money you get from it falls to you?”

“Yes,--perquisites,” he said, lightly.

“For me,” she went on, twisting around the gold bangle on her wrist, “you go about the ocean sleeping on a shelf--”

“Or in a hammock,” he interrupted, with a smile.

“In order that I may be clothed in fine raiment.”

“I don’t know about the fineness of it,” he said, critically surveying the coarse wrap still hanging about her shoulders.

She threw it far from her; then, pointing to the photograph behind her, said: “Do you always leave it there?”

“No; when a stranger takes possession I move it.”

“So you remember me when I was like that?” she said, getting up, and gazing again at the round-cheeked, diminutive baby head staring at her from the wall.

“Yes.”

“An ugly child, that,” she said, “two great eyes sunk in fat cheeks.”

“Yes, you were not very handsome--”

She turned, and eyed him severely.

“Then,” he added, with deliberation and emphasis. At the same time he invaded the rocking-chair, where she had again seated herself. “Nina, you have come to stay?”

“No, indeed,” she said, giving him her hand in a tired fashion; “this is but a call. I wanted to put in the time this evening, and to tell you that I don’t wish to go back to the Forrests. They have disagreeable neighbours. You must either send me to a hotel or let me go to London.”

He smiled peculiarly and calmly, and took possession of both her hands with the emphatic words: “I want to hear from my wife what has happened to send her to me in such haste that she had not time to dress herself suitably for the street.”

“I got a most horrible fright,” she said, wriggling her head uneasily from his shoulder, where he was trying to persuade it to lie, and where she did not wish it to remain. “A madman came and told me he was my father.”

“A madman!” he repeated, in a puzzled, almost startled tone.

“Yes,” and she related the manner of her escape: “I got a cab on the Prince’s Road and it took me all the way to the landing-stage. Then I got a tender,--I couldn’t help spending so much money. I was so frightened and I wanted to get to you,” she said, winding up with a sob.

It recalled him to himself. A kiss that, under the circumstance, she thought it best to endure was imprinted on her forehead. “You did perfectly right, my impulsive darling. It is Lady Forrest who is to blame. I requested her never to leave you alone.”

“Why shouldn’t she leave me alone?” said Nina, sharply.

He did not reply; and, motioning him to a chair, she perched herself on his knee,--an honour that he accepted with uneasy delight, when he found it accompanied by the taking of his head between her two hands, and the inexorable scrutiny of his face by two brilliant eyes.

“’Steban,” she said, sweetly and sadly, “in some respects you are not a very nice man.”

He felt relieved, but she went on: “I mean to say that you are not easy to get on with on account of your dreadful temper, but”--and here she brought his face as close to hers as their two noses would allow--“with all your faults I know that you would not tell me a lie on a serious subject.”

He began to feel uneasy again, and his uneasiness increased when she broke down and hid her face on his shoulder. “Oh, ’Steban,--I say that man was mad, but he was not mad. He is my father really, truly, isn’t he? Tell me.”

There was a long silence. Captain Fordyce gently stroked the back of her head, but made no effort to utter a word.

“Is he my father?” asked Nina, suddenly lifting her face.

He did not reply.

“Will you tell me?” and her voice was almost fierce.

“How can I tell?” he muttered at last. “I did not see him.”

She pushed him away from her, and sprang to her feet. “Is my father a good man?”

“A good man,” he repeated, restlessly. “What is a good man?”

“You know what I mean,” she said, harshly. “Is he like you?”

“He is certainly not like me,” he replied, with a grim and feeble attempt at pleasantry.

She repulsed his sympathetic hand, and flung herself across the room.

“Nina,” he called after her, in a voice vibrating with compassion, “come back.”

She turned a deaf ear to him, and kneeling on a seat by the window stared out into the night. She saw nothing. The outside world was as black and confused as her own thoughts. She remained mute, unthinking almost, until a slight and reminiscent sound stirred even her sluggish mind.

She remembered the soft and not unpleasing tones of that voice, and she turned around. The door had opened softly and closed again; and, standing with his back against it, was the man with the quiet, sneering face. He was smiling stealthily at her husband,--her husband who had forgotten her, and who stood with a white, still anger on his brow, a contemptuous hatred in his eyes. These two men were enemies. Nina saw it in the careless malice of the one, and the smothered anger of the other; and, crawling painfully across the room, she stood between them.

The newcomer straightened himself and looked over her shoulder. “You are outwitted, Fordyce, otherwise you never would have afforded me the sight of my daughter. Thank Heaven I had the thought of sending you the false report of my death.”

“I have never believed a word that came out of your lying mouth,” said Captain Fordyce, disdainfully. “Come, now, what do you want? You must take yourself away from here.”

“What do I want?” inquired the stranger. “I want my daughter, of course. I hear you ill-use her and have the cold shoulder turned toward you. I suppose she ran back to you because women are fools enough to like those who ill-treat them. I hope she will come to London with her loving father,” and with a flattering change of manner he appealed to Nina.

She dropped her eyes to her wedding ring and slowly turned it round and round on her finger. She was not angry with this man any more. He was certainly her father: and dear Mr. Israel Danvers was fading, fading into obscurity. And her husband hated her father. There could be no mutual agreement, no settlement of difficulties between them. Neither could there be any question of her duty.

“Go on, plead your case,” said Captain Fordyce, addressing his caller in a voice of concentrated passion, “and make haste to get out of this.”

The man by the door smiled in an evil way, and again addressed his daughter. “Will you go with me, Bertha?”

She did not recoil at the strange name, but, lifting her eyes, fixed him with a firm and steady gaze.

“Go with him,” said Captain Fordyce, in an ironical voice. “Go with the honourable, kind-hearted gentleman.”

There was an ominous silence in the room. Everything seemed hushed and breathless, waiting for the girl’s answer.

“I cannot go with you,” she said, clearly; “because I am married to this man.”

“Marriage,” said her parent, derisively, “what is it?--a few jabbered words--and you will never be happy with that bully. You had better take the night express for London with me.”

The girl’s face suddenly became cold, hard, and unsympathetic. Then it softened, and gave traces of an inward and severe mental struggle; and she spoke swiftly and surely. “You are my father, certainly, but it is better to speak the truth. I have never known you. If I was taken from you by that man,” and she hurriedly indicated her husband, “he had some good reason for it. I see that our aims and motives in life are different. I do not think we could help each other. I am sorry, deeply sorry, but I think you had better go away. I--” She stamped her foot in abrupt anger with herself, but she had lost self-control. The usual flood-gates of passion were open, and wildly and excitedly exclaiming, “Oh, please go away,--please go away!” she threw herself into the big rocking-chair and hid her face against its back.

Captain Fordyce opened the door, and spoke in a low voice to the man as he passed him: “Years ago you abused and tortured the gentle creature who had been kind to me. Do you think I would be such a fool--such a base, senseless fool--as to allow a second victim to fall into your hands?”

The quiet man looked ugly, shrugged his shoulders, and pretended to suppress a yawn. Then he gazed coldly into the livid face confronting him.

“Have you got a sovereign about you? I was in such haste to pursue my fleeing daughter that I left my purse behind me.”

“Here are five pounds for you,” said the other, scornfully, “now get out.”

“I suppose that old warrant for child-stealing might possibly give you some trouble with your employers if I were to bring it up,” continued the stranger, insinuatingly.

“Not a particle. Here’s your boat. Quartermaster, give this man a hand over the side; and tell a boy to be ready in five minutes to go ashore with a note to Prince’s Road.”