Part 8

So, as soon as Eve was out of sight in the greenery, I began again, standing on the bluff where I was, an imprudent thing to do. I laid my book and my card upon the ground, and began to wave my arms gently, stooping now and then to the book to be sure that I had it right, and saying the names of the letters to myself as I waved. For each letter has a name in the signal book. And as I waved, I thought upon Eve's sigh that she had sighed as she turned away, and it seemed almost as if she were sorry that I was not as Ogilvie; but that could not be that she would have me go, for had she not said other? And, without knowing what I was doing, I proclaimed it to the world. "Eve would have me murder," was the sentence I was signalling. "Eve would have me murder on the sea even as Ogilvie." I was even shouting the names of the letters by this. And I looked and there was a big gray motor-boat just without the harbor, and Ogilvie himself standing up on her deck and watching me--and wondering, I had no doubt.

The motor-boat came on swiftly, and Ogilvie watched me as if he thought I had gone daft, while I, out of bravado I fear, signalled again that message about Eve, no better than a lie. And directly opposite my bluff the motor-boat came to a stop, and Ogilvie began to wave his arms, so that any that saw might well think there were two madmen in the harbor. And to my delight, I could read it, and read it easily. It was a brief message, it is true. "What!" said Ogilvie with his waving arms. "Repeat."

I did not repeat, but I sent him another message. "Come up here and I will explain. I am practising. Give me some more."

So he gave me more, and I could read it, although his messages were not simple. It filled my soul with an unreasonable joy, as a boy's when he finds that he has mastered at school some task which he thought that he had not. And we waved our arms at each other, two gone clean crazy, for a long time, and Ogilvie smiled more and more, until at last he laughed.

"Well done," he signalled. "I will be there in half an hour."

And the motor-boat started again, and I turned, smiling, well pleased with myself, and there sat Eve on the bench under the pine, and she was laughing.

"Adam," she said, "come here and sit beside me, and explain. Oh, bring your book." For in my awkwardness I was leaving it there on the grass. "I saw it. I have been watching you."

And I turned meekly as that same boy at school caught in some mischief, and I went and sat beside her, but I did not explain.

"Where is Elizabeth?" I asked.

"Elizabeth," she said, "has gone sailing with Pukkie. You might have known it. Now, what were you doing, and why were you doing it?"

I have found the truth to serve me best, and I would not tell Eve other than the truth in any littlest thing. So I told her all, and showed her the matter all set forth in the book. And she was interested and pleased, and would learn wigwagging herself.

"You must teach me, Adam," she said, "and we will do it together."

And that pleased me mightily, that we do it together. And she clasped my arm in both her hands, and bent forward and looked up into my face. And in her eyes as she looked was even greater tenderness than was wont to be, and that was a marvel; and there was a great joy too.

"Tell me, Adam," she said softly. "Why did you do it? What set you at it?"

"The nature that God gave me," I said, "or conscience, which is the same thing. I do not know. It--it is hard, Eve, to be forty-three when one would be twenty-three--for a reason. As for the signalling," I added, "that is nothing much, save that we be learning it together."

"I know," she said. "A symptom."

I did not know what she meant, whether my conscience or the signalling. But still she was looking up at me with joy in her eyes, and happiness; and she gave a little soft cry and a little happy laugh, and she squeezed my arm between her hands.

"Oh, Adam, Adam!" she cried low. "I love you--you don't know how much. And I don't wish that _I_ was twenty-three. Do you know why?"

I could not guess.

"At twenty-three I was not married," said Eve. "I did not even know you."

What I did then any may guess. No doubt it was imprudent too. And we were once more sitting decorous, and about Eve's lips and in her eyes was that smile of joy and happiness.

"You will see, Adam," she said. "It will all come right."

"What will come right?" asked a voice. "Is anything wrong?"

And we turned, and there was Jack Ogilvie.

"I do not know what Eve meant," I answered him, "unless she referred to my signalling. No doubt that is wrong enough."

He shook his head. "Nothing wrong about that. You do it very well."

Then I asked him for the latest news from the seat of war.

"Well," he said, "we are forbidden to tell the news, although there isn't any. But if you were to go to Newport you would see a big British cruiser lying there. And if you had your glass with you you could read her name." He gave her name, but I have forgotten it. "It is supposed to be a secret, and has not been in the papers, but everybody at Newport knows it. They can't help it. The officers go about very swagger and very stiff, carrying little canes. You may see me carrying a little cane one of these days, but I have not yet arrived at that dignity--or folly, whichever you call it."

I smiled. "Did you never carry a little cane in college?"

"Oh, sometimes, for the sake of doing it, because I had a right to. But this is real."

"When you come back from England, or France, or wherever you are going, perhaps you will carry a cane." He seemed startled, but only for a moment.

"What makes you think I am going over?"

"Bobby told us--in confidence. When?"

He seemed relieved. "If Bobby told you that lets me out. I was afraid I might have dropped it somehow. I don't know when, but soon, I think."

"Jack," said Eve suddenly--it was the first time I had heard her call Ogilvie Jack--"Jack, we will have a clambake for a farewell. I hope they will give you some days' notice of your going."

"Thank you," he returned, smiling. "It is more likely to be hours' notice. But I will come to your clambake if I can."

"And can you bring," Eve asked, "your yeogirl? I invite her, and ask you to deliver the invitation."

He laughed suddenly. "My yeogirl--did you hear she was a joke? She is a real girl, but I don't know her, and I couldn't bring her over here,--or anywhere. No, I'm afraid you will have to get somebody else to deliver the invitation. How would Mr. Wales do?--or Bobby?"

"Jimmy has a wife, my cousin."

"Yes, I know. But Bobby--he hasn't any."

"Poor Bobby would be in greater trouble than ever. Besides, he wouldn't do it. Bobby has developed a nasty temper lately. I wanted the yeogirl for you, and if you don't want her--I am sorry Olivia has gone."

"Olivia would never do for me," he said, shaking his head. "I guess I shall have to devote myself to the clams--or to Elizabeth."

"You might do worse, young man," I said severely.

"I might," he assented. "In fact I have done worse."

I did not know whether he referred to the clams or to Elizabeth; but it was true in either case. And he said nothing more, and thereupon a silence fell, which is no misfortune and no embarrassment when the people are suited to it. I had been seeing Pukkie's yacht for some time, and she had just disappeared behind Old Goodwin's pier. And she had three people in her, when I supposed she carried only Elizabeth and Pukkie. I mentioned it to Eve, who was as much surprised as I; and we watched the pier and the shore.

And presently we saw coming along the shore, where the little waves were breaking, three figures. The figures were those of Elizabeth and Pukkie--of those two I was certain--and the third looked like Bobby. I had to look several times before I was sure of him. He was walking beside Elizabeth, and his attitude betokened a strange mixture of devotion and distaste. As I looked again I saw that Elizabeth and Pukkie had been recently wet--very wet--and they were not yet dry. Bobby was not wet. The inference was obvious: Elizabeth and Pukkie had been overboard, and Bobby had not. But where had Bobby come from? Eve and I hurried down the steep path, and met them at its foot.

Elizabeth raised her eyes to me, and I saw two deep pools under a summer sun, and all manner of colors played over them, concealing the depths. Then for an instant the lights were quenched that concealed the depths, and her eyes became as two dark wells with yet a sort of light illumining the darkness, and there I saw content, but not satisfaction--if those two can be reconciled. It was for but an instant, and then the lights came back, and her eyes danced, and she laughed at me.

"Are you wondering," she asked, "what has happened to us, and what Bobby Leverett is doing here?"

"It is easy to guess," I answered, "that you and Pukkie have been overboard, although why you should go in swimming in all your clothes is another matter. But I must confess to some wonder about that matter standing fidgeting there." And I pointed an accusing finger at Bobby.

Bobby was ill at ease, and struggling between the constraint that was upon him and a wish to tell his tale.

"Well, you see, Adam," he began, "I--we were cruising--"

"Who," I asked, interrupting, "is 'we'?"

"Bobby," said Elizabeth quietly, "you'd better let me tell it first. Puk and I," she continued, addressing Eve and me, "were sailing along too calmly, and he wanted to put up the gafftopsail. So he got it out, and ran with it, and he caught his foot in some of the superfluous ropes and blocks, and went overboard--topsail and all. I was afraid he might be tangled in the sail, so I let all the halliards go on the run, and I went after him. I got him, and saved the sail, and there was a boat from the Rattlesnake, with Bobby. He helped us on board again, and insisted upon coming with us."

Bobby again opened his mouth to speak.

"One moment, Bobby," I said. "Tell me, Elizabeth, did the Rattlesnake spring so suddenly?"

She smiled and glanced at Bobby. "Oh, we had seen her before. That was why Puk was wanting the topsail. He wanted to see if we could beat her."

"Oh," said I, and I looked at Bobby, who squirmed as a caterpillar on a stick.

"We happened to be near," he said. He spoke calmly enough, but I saw that he was very uncomfortable. "I thought I ought to come, for Pukkie was very wet, and I wanted to be sure he was all right. Miss Radnor had rather a nasty time getting him clear of that sail."

"Bobby!" said Elizabeth warningly. And suddenly she smiled as if she was much amused at something, perhaps at Bobby.

"Bobby," said Eve softly, "it was very good of you. Did Elizabeth save Pukkie's life?"

"I'm not sure," Bobby answered slowly, "that Pukkie's life was in danger, but I'm not sure that it was not."

Eve clasped Pukkie to her, wet as he was. I would have done the same.

"Bobby," Eve said again, looking up at him, "was there no one else that was very wet? I'm ashamed of you." She had spoken low.

"Er--you see," Bobby answered wriggling, "I knew very well that Eliz--Miss Radnor would be all right. She is--er--very competent."

And Elizabeth laughed at him and dropped a curtsey. "Thank you," she said.

Bobby was struggling with his desire to smile and with his dignity.

"I've got to get back somehow," he said. "Hello, there's Ogilvie." Ogilvie had been standing in plain sight at the top of the bluff. "He can take me--that is, if you can spare him." He beckoned to him, and Ogilvie came down. "You'll have to take me out, Jack."

Ogilvie grinned and saluted, and they started off together. But they had gone only a few steps when Bobby turned.

"I almost forgot to say good-bye."

He smiled unhappily, and was turning back, but Elizabeth ran to him and held out her hand.

"You can be on your dignity if you like, Bobby," she whispered, not so low but that I heard it, "but I'm not going to be. Good-bye, and thank you."

And Bobby had taken the hand that she held out. He held it for a long time, but said nothing that I could hear, but only looked. And he relinquished her hand--actually flung it from him--and strode away after Ogilvie. And Elizabeth came back to us quietly, but her eyes shone and she was smiling.

"Now," she said, "Puk and I will get on some dry clothes. You may as well rub him, Eve."

It must have been a narrower escape than Elizabeth would admit. As we ascended the steep path, I thought upon the manner of journey that would have been if there had been no escape at all. Pukkie, my dearly beloved son! And I reached forward and hugged him, and for the rest of the way my arm lay along his shoulders.

That night we heard firing from the fort, perhaps a dozen shots. We hear that firing every few nights. Eve and I looked out--we were just going to bed--and saw the flashes against the sky above the trees, and heard the sound as if cannon balls were being dropped on the floor over our heads. Eve wondered what it was, and I told her it was probably some tug trying to go in or out of the harbor to the east of us at a forbidden time.

"Oh," she said, relieved, "I thought that it might be submarines--or fireworks."

IX

It was on a Saturday morning about the middle of July, and it had been foggy; and I had watched the fog retreating stealthily, withdrawing one long vaporous arm and then another, slinking back like a wraith before the sun, as if trying to get away unperceived. There was no writhing and twisting in the anguish of defeat and dissolution, no jets and shreds vanishing into the hot air above. But the ways of the fog over the sea are a mystery, and I am not yet at the end of them.

I had gone over to Old Goodwin's to take my daughter, and I had left her with one of the army of starched and stiff imitations of men in buttons who haunt the house. They guard every door, so that a man cannot so much as turn a handle for himself; and one is to be found in each passage, and at every turn. They might be wooden images from a Noah's Ark, endowed with movement, but not with life. There are not so many of them as there were some years ago. They are none of Old Goodwin's doing, and Mrs. Goodwin has somewhat lost her fancy for them; and some of them, Old Goodwin told me, have enlisted. Fancy! Those men in buff uniform and many buttons enlisting! But they will be well used to wearing a uniform, and they will be well used to doing without question what they are told to do, and to keeping their faces like masks. They will make good soldiers I have no doubt, and they may be in France at this moment.

The buttons who admitted us was not so very starched and stiff, and he seemed to have been endowed with life as well as movement, and to have become actually a human being. For he smiled when he saw my daughter, and spoke pleasantly to her, so that I was persuaded that he was even glad to see her. And she, having thrown him some pleasantry, and a smile with it, dashed past him through the great hall and vanished. And he, still smiling, closed the door upon me, and I went in search of Old Goodwin, who deals not in uniforms and buttons.

I found him on that part of his piazza where stands the great telescope on its massive tripod. Before him there lay his ocean steamer at anchor, and he gazed at her steadily--but not through the telescope.

He turned his head as I came, and gave me his quiet smile of peace.

"Good-morning, Adam," he said. "I was just wishing that you would come."

Old Goodwin with his quiet smile--even in his clammer's clothes and his old stained rubber boots--is yet Goodwin the Rich. It is a marvel.

"Good-morning," I said. "And here I am to do with what you will--for the space of some hours."

"It may take some hours," he returned, "and it may be done in less."

I did not in the least know what he was talking about, but I was to find out. He was silent for some while.

"Any news lately?" he asked then.

"War news, I suppose you mean," I said, "and submarines. Nothing that you have not seen; a submarine in Hampton Roads about a week ago. But that report was in all the papers. No doubt Jimmy has given you later news."

"I believe that all boats were sent out from Newport in a hurry last Sunday. I have heard nothing since. I wonder," he continued, smiling, "if whales have not something to do with these reports--or sharks. I hear that there has been a great slaughter of whales in the North Sea in the last three years."

"Whales have no periscopes."

"They may yet develop them in self-defence if this keeps on long enough. But I would not cast doubt. You see my boat out there. What do you think of the color?"

She was all gray, and has been so for some time.

"Why, it is a good color if you like it. She looks like a lump of lead. I cannot see why the navy does not paint its ships some lighter shade, with streaks of greens and blues and purples and some white here and there. Those are the colors that the water shows, although the water is of a different color in every different light. But I would be willing to guarantee that I could do better than that--much better."

He looked at me thoughtfully. "That is worth thinking of, Adam. I am sure you could do better. You couldn't do much worse if the idea is concealment." He chuckled. "You know the water and its colors. How would you like to do it?"

"Why, I don't know," I said slowly. "I have never thought of it. The fact is," I blurted out, and choked upon my words. Why should I confess to Old Goodwin what I had been unwilling to confess to myself? But the impulse was too strong. "The fact is," I began again more quietly, "I am not satisfied. I cannot be content to till the ground--which any Western Islander could do as well or better--and to moon upon my bluff when every one I know is doing more. Could you?"

He smiled and shook his head. "I could not in your place. But come out to my boat with me. I want to show you the changes I have made."

So we went in his tender which was lying at his landing with her men in her, that had been waiting for us. And on the way out he asked me casually and seemingly without interest, how I liked steamers; and he had his gaze fixed upon his great vessel as though he had an affection for her.

"They are good for getting somewhere quickly," I answered him, "if you mean such as yours. For the rest, one might as well be in some great modern hotel on an island in the midst of the sea. There is no more pleasure in them. Now tell me, is there?"

He laughed a hearty laugh. "I can well imagine, Adam, the pleasure you would have in being in a great hotel, whether it was in the midst of the sea or in the midst of the city, but I have had some pleasure in that boat. I have some regard for her."

"Then I ask your pardon," I said, "for the answer that I gave. I should have said other. But what I meant was clear enough. A sailing vessel is a living thing, and each has ways of her own. You feel her response to each movement of the wheel or each change of sail or trim of sheet, and that response is sometimes willing and sometimes unwilling. She is like a woman, responding instantly and gladly to a man who persuades her with sympathy and understanding, and doing her best; while to a man without true understanding of her she is reluctant and contrary and stubborn. I have no experience in vessels of size, but you can ask Captain Fergus."

He laughed again. "Fergus is of the same opinion," he said. "But what I meant to ask was whether you have experience of steamers."

I shook my head.

"Too bad," he said, and sighed. "A steamer is a living thing too, I think, but less like a woman; going straight where she is going like a man; more straightforward. I like a steamer well enough. But Fergus agrees with you. And Fergus has to go in a steamer, and it almost breaks his heart. He is to command her." And he waved at the huge hull towering above us, for we were at the gangway.

I was following after him up the steps.

"And is Captain Fergus in the navy?" I asked.

"In the Reserve. He has been since the beginning. They were only waiting for a ship."

"And the Arcadia?"

He turned and smiled. "She is enrolled too, but it is a secret. I don't know why a secret."

So that explained her activities. There might be other secrets; and I thought of Elizabeth and Bobby. Elizabeth could be trusted to keep a secret well, and Bobby knew it. And Elizabeth had been away much of the time for two weeks or more, always going in the Arcadia wherever she went, but usually home for the night. By "home" I mean our house. I thought she was but a guest of Mrs. Fergus, but there might be some other explanation. It did not matter. Elizabeth was Elizabeth, and Eve rejoiced to see her face with its crown of beaver-colored hair, and her calm and smiling eyes. I have not yet decided what is the color of her eyes, but they suit Eve.

And I looked up, and I saw the Arcadia just stretching her sails as a man will stretch his arms and legs in preparation for the using of them. She had been there all night. And I saw that noble yacht of Pukkie's casting off from the stage in the little harbor of Old Goodwin's, and Pukkie and Elizabeth in her. And Pukkie saw me--he had been waiting to catch my eye--and they both waved to me as the boat caught the wind and stood out of the harbor. She was tiny, that yacht of Pukkie's, but she was complete; as complete as the Arcadia. Indeed, she was not unlike her, save that one was a schooner and the other a sloop. To see that boat of Pukkie's out upon the water with no other near enough to compare them, you might think she was of any size, even a big boat--until you saw the two huddled in the cockpit or one of them stretched upon the deck, almost covering it.

"See," I said to Old Goodwin, "there goes Pukkie."

He stood at the head of the gangway, and he smiled a happy smile.

"I see. He will go near all the lobster buoys, and the fish traps, and the rocks uncovered by the tide, and pretend that they are submarines. He has told me. And he pretends that the Yankee is a vessel that has been sunk by a submarine. What it is to be a boy!"

"And what are we but boys?" I said. "We pretend that there are submarines in all the waters from Montauk to Chatham, and we go about looking for them. It is much more satisfactory to have something that you can see, as Pukkie has,--and just as useful, so long as we must pretend. Submarines! They well-nigh turn me sick."

He laughed. "They turn many sick."

"Sick at heart," I said, "looking for what is not. We might request--through the proper diplomatic channels--that Germany send some over, one for each district."

He laughed again. "It would relieve the monotony, and put spirit into our men. Imagine Fergus if there were any. He is a war-horse."

And he led the way, waving some officer aside, and took me through the boat and showed me everything. He had made changes. I should not have known it for the same boat. The staterooms, that had been palatial, had been divided, but were large in their new state; and new quarters had been provided for the crew, who would be twice as many men as he had ever carried; and she had been strengthened for the mountings of the guns. Many other changes had been made, but it was these that he lingered over. They had been some months in making the changes, and he had carried a small army of mechanics about with him.

He had been showing me the officers' quarters for the third time, and at last he turned away.

"I am given to understand," he observed, "that any recommendations I may make will receive due consideration. Fergus is made a commander, but there are vacancies."