Part 10

Elizabeth laughed and went below, and Captain Fergus began again his walking to and fro. Presently Elizabeth came up and spoke to him, and the course was changed, and in an hour we had sighted a steamer making for us.

It was the Rattlesnake; and the two vessels lay quiet on that rolling sea while our tender went over with a package of papers, and came back with Bobby. And the Rattlesnake turned about and we soon lost her in the haze, and we turned about and headed for home.

Bobby was not talkative on the way back. Indeed, Bobby has not been himself for some weeks; not the Bobby that I knew of old. I cannot fix the date at which the change occurred, but it was some date that had to do with Elizabeth. Every date has to do with Elizabeth, so far as he is concerned. And though he spoke to her when he came over the side--spoke gravely, I suppose he thought--it seemed more like petulance to me--he said no word more to her, but sat in his chair and gazed moodily out over the water. And Elizabeth sat in her chair, and she gazed at Bobby under lowered lids, and she smiled her smile of suppressed amusement. And presently, her thoughts being unguarded, she raised her lids a little, so that I saw all the lights of the sea playing in her eyes, that were yet regarding Bobby, and there came into them a tender light that was more than all the light on sea and sky. And she glanced at me, and she saw that I had seen, and she flushed slowly, and got up and went below.

"Bobby," I said, "are you not ashamed of yourself?"

He started. "Ashamed of myself?" he answered, looking at the companionway down which Elizabeth had disappeared. "No doubt I should be. I do things enough to be ashamed of. But why?"

"You have not seemed to notice the honor that has befallen my family. My son is made ensign or lieutenant commander or something, and you have not remarked the event. I am afraid that you have hurt his feelings."

Bobby laughed as though he was relieved.

"So he is--ensign or something, as you say. And I did not observe it. I ask his pardon, Adam, and yours." And he called to Pukkie, who was following Captain Fergus about like a pet dog; and Pukkie came, and Bobby felicitated him upon his promotion. And Pukkie smiled until I feared lest his face crack.

"It is a trifle large," Bobby remarked, referring to the uniform, "but he will grow to it."

"It is not so much too large as it was," I said. "You should have seen him swell--like a toad-grunter."

"Daddy," protested the aggrieved Pukkie, "I'm not like a toad-grunter."

The toad-grunter is a much despised fish.

"No, Puk," said Bobby, "you're not. I think your father should apologize."

"I apologize, Pukkie," I said hastily, for I would not wound my son. "You are not. And, Bobby, can't you find any? Is that why you are out of sorts?"

"Find any what?" asked Bobby, puzzled. "Any toad-grunters? I hope not. Who wants to find 'em? You speak in riddles, Adam."

"It was submarines I meant."

Bobby smiled seraphically. "Your traps, Adam, are no good. But I'm going to find some submarines pretty soon. Pret--ty soon, you mark my words."

"Words marked. But what do you mean?"

"What I say. Now, Puk, what do you say to a walk about the deck? Or would you rather follow your captain?"

And Bobby strolled off with Pukkie. They went up forward, where the Arcadia was shouldering aside the great seas. We had the wind on the quarter, and there was no longer the sound of spray like rolling musketry. And presently Elizabeth looked out of the companionway, and seeing me alone, she came and sat in the chair next to mine, and she put out her hand.

"Adam," she said with a pretty flush.

"Elizabeth," I answered, with no flush, but I watched hers flaming.

"Adam, don't you tell," she said, looking shyly at me. Elizabeth is not given to shy looks, but to honest ones, eye to eye. "Promise me that you will never tell. Give me your hand on it."

I took her hand. It was a pretty hand and soft enough, with tapering fingers, but it was not such a pretty hand as Eve's.

"Elizabeth," I said to her, "I do not know anything to tell--anything that would be of interest. But--but you do not mind if I tell Eve, do you? And," I finished lamely enough, "I hope it--it will."

She laughed and sighed, and gave my hand a squeeze.

"Thank you," she said. "But Eve knows, I think."

Captain Fergus was standing by the rail, sniffing the wind and gazing out at the waters, and at the little swirls of foam that raced by, and at the bank of fog that chased us in. He was happy. I almost envied him. He had done his part, and he was doing it.

"Will you walk?" I asked Elizabeth. And we got up and walked, saying nothing.

The afternoon passed, and the wind died. As we drew near to the lighthouse that stands like a sentinel on its rock just within the entrance to the bay, the sun was far down in the west, the breeze was but the gentlest breath, and the surface of the water moved in slow, oily undulations. I stood with Elizabeth close beside the rail, and we gazed at the water that was red and gold.

The shadow of the tall lighthouse was thrown high on the sails, and passed slowly aft. The red sun was sitting on a distant hill bearded with cedars. The little oily waves were splotched with vermilion and blue and purple and gold, and the gold dazzled our eyes.

Not a ripple marked our passage. I gazed at the red sun, and he gazed back at me; and his red disc was half down behind the hill, and I could see it sink. And the sun sank behind the hill and had winked his last, and a broad smooch of red lay upon the western horizon. We watched the red fade to orange, then to saffron and to green, while two little saffron clouds with edges of flame floated high above, and the fog crept in stealthily below. And I heard Elizabeth sigh, and I looked down and she looked up.

"If you find this sad," I said, "and as if it were the end of all things, turn about. The sight will fill your soul with peace."

So we turned about. And the sky toward the east was of a lovely soft, warm pearl-gray, and the water the same pearl-gray with tints of rose and of a light blue here and there. The distance was veiled in an impalpable haze, and water and sky merged into a soft grayish blur toward the horizon, as if smeared with a dry brush. The water, gray with its rose tints and its blue, seemed to dimple softly, like a baby smiling as it sank to sleep. It soothed my soul; it was the very breath of peace.

I heard another sigh beside me, and I turned, and there was Bobby.

"Submarines in that!" he said, and smiled.

We began to turn slowly, and were come to our anchorage, and there was Old Goodwin's great steamer not far away, and Old Goodwin himself, with Eve, on his landing, waiting for us.

As we were about to go ashore, Captain Fergus spoke to me.

"About that man of yours," he said. "Tell him to go to Newport, and to put himself in their hands over there. It is the best thing he can do."

And I thanked him, and said I would tell my man. And we were walking from the landing, Old Goodwin and I and Eve--Bobby had to walk with Elizabeth, with Pukkie between them, for there was none other thing that he could do, but they said nothing that I could hear.

"I am going to take Cecily over to Newport to-morrow," Old Goodwin observed. "She has not seen Tom for five days. Don't you want to come along, Adam?"

XI

There must have been a conspiracy against my happiness--or for it, perhaps; but Eve seemed only mildly interested. So I made some excuse to her--I do not like to make excuses to Eve--and I went to Newport with Old Goodwin and Cecily. Eve could not go. She did not say why.

Cecily kept us late in Newport, trying to get a glimpse of Tom. We had got a glimpse of him, dressed in a sailor suit and driving some admiral or other in a big gray car, but he would not look at us, and that did not satisfy Cecily. But she was not discouraged, and we left her to the pursuit of her quarry, and we went about our business, that took some time. Then, after a long search, we found Cecily talking to Tom beside his car. That admiral of his did not appear for hours, and Cecily would not leave until he did, so we left them alone together on the curbstone, and we waited around the next corner. We did not get home until nearly eight, and Old Goodwin took us to his house for dinner, and there were Eve and Elizabeth and Bobby.

It was a good dinner, as was fitting for Old Goodwin's house, and when it was over we all wandered out upon the piazza where stands the telescope, and from which we could see out upon the bay. This part of the piazza is like another room, with many rugs upon the floor, and tables and comfortable chairs; and it is lighted at night--dimly, to be sure, and but so much as lets one see easily where he is going, if he is going, and descry the faces of the others sitting there. But that is for those who are gone blind in the dark. I am not blind in the dark, but I can see well enough if I am but out of doors, where there is always light enough to see where one is going. It is only lights that blind me. I do not like lights out of doors. Besides, on this night there was a reddish moon hanging rather low in the southeast, with wisps of fog driving under it. I have forgotten my astronomy,--thank heaven!--which would tell me why the moon sometimes pursues her course high overhead and sometimes low toward the horizon. The moon is no friend of mine anyway, and I care not at all where she goes, or whether her course is from west to east or north to south, or whether she shine at all. But on this night she shone bravely for the time, and there would have been light enough with no other.

So we sat there for some time in silence, feeling pleasant and satisfied because we had just dined well, and Old Goodwin smoked his cigar, and Bobby and I smoked our pipes. And I was becoming less and less pleasant and satisfied with those lights above me, and Bobby was getting restless, being seized with curious alternations of restless nervousness and pleasant satisfaction. Eve seemed to be satisfied enough, and Elizabeth sat motionless, her hands in her lap, and a half-smile on her lips. I could not see her eyes, but she seemed to be watching.

There had been some desultory talk, and the lights had become too much for me, and I had wandered out with Eve into a sort of balcony that had no lights. And we sat--closer together than we could have sat if the balcony had been lighted--and Eve's hand came searching for mine that was already searching for hers, and we clasped our fingers close, and we looked out at the waters of the bay that sparkled dimly, and at the tapering band of moonlight that widened to a broad circle under the moon, and at the riding lights of the Arcadia and of Old Goodwin's great steamer,--a great dark shape. Fog hung about. It would be in presently.

"Tell me, Adam," said Eve softly. "What did you see at Newport?"

"Tom," I answered. "He's a sight in his sailor suit."

She laughed. "Of course; but nothing to what you would be. We're very fond of Tom, aren't we, and of Cecily? What else?"

"The beach and the town and the cliffs and the training station and the new barracks and many vessels at anchor."

"Exasperating!" And she shook me. "Didn't you go into the War College?"

"We did. Your father seems to know many there."

"Adam," said Eve, "aren't you going to tell me?"

She bent forward and looked up into my eyes, and I looked down into hers. I kissed her.

"I will tell you, Eve. Never fear. When you look at me like that, I would tell anything. I tell you everything sooner or later."

"I like it sooner."

"I have some fear that you will not like it."

"If you have done it, Adam, I shall like it. If I do not like it, you will never know it. Tell me. You did not go to view the country. I know that well enough."

"Well," I began, and stopped, somewhat troubled. Scraps of talk had drifted out to us, now and then, from that room we had left, and by turning we could get a glimpse of one or another, sitting in the dim yellow light.

Bobby had just said something, and then there fell a sudden silence--absolute silence. It was the silence that stopped me, and I cast back over my unconscious recollection to see if I knew what he had said. And the things that had happened in there in the last minute took gradual shape in my mind, as things sometimes do that are heard with the ear but not consciously noted. Old Goodwin had asked Bobby some question, I know not what, and Bobby had answered him in a dull, dead sort of voice. I recalled the voice because it was strange for Bobby to use it; but he had done many strange things. What had he said in that dull, indifferent voice that sounded as if all that he cared for were destroyed utterly? I had it, and so did Eve. It had not taken a half a minute. He had announced that he was to go to England and join a destroyer.

No one had spoken in that half-minute, and I peeked through at Elizabeth. She was sitting as she had been for some time, the same half-smile upon her lips, her hands in her lap; but I saw that her hands were clasped together and every muscle tense.

"Rather sudden news, Bobby," said Cecily at last. "You don't seem as glad as I should have supposed you would be."

"Oh, yes," Bobby answered, "I'm glad enough. I've had enough of chasing phantoms. There are no submarines over here. I have some reason to believe that it is different over there. There is nothing, I think," he added rather bitterly, "to keep me over here--no reason why I should not be glad to go."

Again that silence fell. I saw Elizabeth's hands twisting slightly, clasped in her lap.

"What vessel do you join?" Cecily asked. "And when do you go?"

"I don't know the vessel," he said, "and I'm sorry that I am not permitted to tell you when I go. But it will be soon. There are troops going to France. I suppose I should not tell that, but I trust there are no spies here." And he laughed shortly.

Elizabeth had said nothing, nor made any movement, but she had sat as motionless as a statue--if one had not observed her hands. Now she rose slowly, as if weary with sitting still, and she wandered slowly from one thing to another, and seemed not to find comfort in any; and she was come near the door, and passed out, and we heard her light step going slowly along the piazza behind us and down some steps in the distance. Then I turned back, and I looked out at the moonlight on the quiet water, and at the great dark shape with its anchor light and a light or two more shining through some portholes, and her decks white under the moon.

I turned to Eve, for I would have spoken; but she laid her finger on my lips, and she pressed my arm, and would not let me lean forward. And I heard a faint rustling, but very faint, and I saw the tops of a great clump of bushes move in order, as if some creature--some person--moved along behind them; and there was not wind enough to stir them. Those bushes were very near to us, almost in front of us. And the movement of the bushes stopped, and everything was still, and the veiled moon shone down, making gray and ghostly everything that its half-light shone upon, and casting black shadows.

Bobby had become uneasy, and he had risen and was wandering slowly about, as Elizabeth had done; and at last he was come to the door, and he bolted through it, and we heard his light footsteps running along the piazza behind us. Bobby was a runner when he was in college, and he ran with no noise. And he took the steps at a leap, and I heard a faint chuckle from Old Goodwin.

Then nothing happened for a long time, and I could feel Eve laughing silently, and I knew that Bobby was ramping about the place, looking for somebody that he found not. It was as bad as chasing submarines. And at last the bushes moved again, and I heard Bobby's voice whispering, "Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Where are you?" And the bushes near us shivered, and there came a gasp, and somebody started to run, but Bobby caught her. I could see nothing, but I could imagine his catching her by both hands, and I could hear. I could not help hearing.

"Oh!" she gasped; and "Oh!" again.

Then he seemed to catch her close.

"Elizabeth!" he whispered. "Elizabeth! I give up. It's unconditional surrender, Elizabeth. I've fought against it, but it's no use. I don't care what you are if you'll only love me."

Elizabeth was between laughter and tears.

"Even if I am a German spy, Bobby?"

"Even if you're a German spy," he whispered fiercely. "But you're not. You couldn't be. You're too honest--and true."

"Honest and true, Bobby," Elizabeth whispered, clinging to him--I guessed. "But you don't know what a woman can do. If I were a German spy, I should be doing just this--to worm your secrets out of you."

There was a silence.

"Do it again," he said, "--German spy!"

She did it again--I guessed.

"I'm only," she whispered, half-crying on his shoulder, "practising wireless on the Arcadia. You knew that, Bobby, didn't you?"

Eve touched my arm, and we began to withdraw soundlessly.

"And, oh, Bobby," Elizabeth went on, "I'm afraid that you--that you may not come back. Those destroyers are--but I'm proud of you, so proud!"

"I'm coming back," said Bobby. "Trust me, if I have you to come back to. I always did have luck, and I've always come back. I do have you, don't I?"

"You seem to," Elizabeth whispered merrily. "And I--"

Then Eve and I were out of that balcony at last, and we went along the piazza as silently as might be, and down the steps. I began to sing softly, "The cloudless sky is now serene," and Eve laughed and checked me.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Adam?"

"No, Eve," I said, "but I rejoice mightily."

"And so do I," she said, "and there is but one thing more needed to make me very happy. And that you shall tell me."

And we wended over the grass that was flecked with moonlight--it was wet too, that grass--and through the greenery that was no more green, but was of a dense blackness, and came out upon the bank above my clam beds, where the sod breaks off to the sand. And there Eve sat her down where the pebbles once shone in the sun, ADAM and EVE.

"I know it is wet," she said, "and I do not care. Now do you finish what you began to tell me--about yourself."

I sat beside her. "It seems trivial now. Indeed, it is no great matter, but I am easier in my mind now that I have done it. I have enrolled in the navy. And that is all, and soon told. And if you do not like it, Eve, I am sorry, but I had to do it."

She laughed, and she gave a glad little cry, and her arms were about my neck.

"That is what I wanted to hear, Adam."

"But I thought that you had pacifist leanings, Eve."

"Every woman has such leanings, especially where the matter concerns those she loves. But I know that you will be happier, and not ashamed, and that is much to me; and I can be proud. I am very happy, but I am afraid too--terribly afraid. I pray that you may not be led into any danger--and if that is wicked I cannot help it."

I kissed the dear lovely face upturned to mine.

"And what did they say?" she whispered. "What will they do with you? You are in the Reserve, aren't you?"

I laughed. "I enrolled in the navy for any duty that they saw fit to assign me to. And the officer smiled, and said that I would be called when I was wanted. I may be a coal-passer, Eve, or I may be a mechanic to clean Tom's car, or I may breathe the pure air of heaven as I sail the raging main."

Eve wrinkled her brow. "But I don't like that, Adam. Don't you know whether you will be afloat or ashore?"

"I was told that I would be of more value ashore. And that I was sorry to hear, for I had rather be afloat, except that we should be parted. And I want to see a German submarine before I die. 'They ain't no sich an animal.'"

And Eve laughed, and we got up and wandered home over the pebbles of the shore. Fog was driving across the face of the moon, so that it was now hidden, now partially revealed. From above the fog we heard the mutter of thunder. Eve squeezed my arm.

"Do you hear the guns, Adam?" she asked. "The gods are warring."

"Never give it a thought, Eve," I said. "What are their wars to us?"

"Well," said Eve, sighing, "but I hope it will be ashore."

And we climbed the steep path, and went in to our candles, to wait for Elizabeth. Elizabeth was like to be long in coming.

THE END

The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS

U. S. A