The After House Read online

  CHAPTER III

  I UNCLENCH MY HANDS

  From the first the captain disclaimed responsibility for me. I washoused in the forecastle, and ate with the men. There, however, myconnection with the crew and the navigation of the ship ended. Perhapsit was as well, although I resented it at first. I was weaker than Ihad thought, and dizzy at the mere thought of going aloft.

  As a matter of fact, I found myself a sort of deck-steward, given theresponsibility of looking after the shuffle-board and other deck games,the steamer-rugs, the cards,--for they played bridge steadily,--andanswerable to George Williams, the colored butler, for the variousliquors served on deck.

  The work was easy, and the situation rather amused me. After an effortor two to bully me, one of which resulted in my holding him over therail until he turned gray with fright, Williams treated me as an equal,which was gratifying.

  The weather was good, the food fair. I had no reason to repent mybargain. Of the sailing qualities of the Ella there could be noquestion. The crew, selected by Captain Richardson from the best menof the Turner line, knew their business, and, especially after theWilliams incident, made me one of themselves. Barring the odor offormaldehyde in the forecastle, which drove me to sleeping on deck fora night or two, everything was going smoothly, at least on the surface.

  Smoothly as far as the crew was concerned. I was not so sure about theafter house.

  As I have said, owing to the small size, of the vessel, and the factthat considerable of the space had been used for baths, there were,besides the family, only two guests, a Mrs. Johns, a divorcee, and aMr. Vail. Mrs. Turner and Miss Lee shared the services of a maid,Karen Hansen, who, with a stewardess, Henrietta Sloane, occupied adouble cabin. Vail had a small room, as had Turner, with a bathbetween which they used in common. Mrs. Turner's room was a large one,with its own bath, into which Elsa Lee's room also opened. Mrs. Johnshad a room and bath. Roughly, and not drawn to scale, the livingquarters of the family were arranged like the diagram in chapter XIX.

  I have said that things were not going smoothly in the after house. Ifelt it rather than, saw it. The women rose late--except Miss Lee, whowas frequently about when I washed the deck. They chatted and laughedtogether, read, played bridge when the men were so inclined, and nowand then, when their attention was drawn to it, looked at the sea.They were always exquisitely and carefully dressed, and I looked atthem as I would at any other masterpieces of creative art, with nothingof covetousness in my admiration.

  The men were violently opposed types. Turner, tall, heavy-shouldered,morose by habit, with a prominent nose and rapidly thinning hair, andwith strong, pale blue eyes, congested from hard drinking; Vail,shorter by three inches, dark, good-looking, with that dusky flushunder the skin which shows good red blood, and as temperate as Turnerwas dissipated.

  Vail was strong, too. After I had held Williams over the rail I turnedto find him looking on, amused. And when the frightened darky hadtaken himself, muttering threats, to the galley, Vail came over to meand ran his hand down my arm.

  "Where did you get it?" he asked.

  "Oh, I've always had some muscle," I said. "I'm in bad shape now; justgetting over fever."

  "Fever, eh? I thought it was jail. Look here."

  He threw out his biceps for me to feel. It was a ball of iron under myfingers. The man was as strong as an ox. He smiled at my surprise,and, after looking to see that no one was in sight, offered to mix me ahighball from a decanter and siphon on a table.

  I refused.

  It was his turn to be surprised.

  "I gave it up when I was in train--in the hospital," I correctedmyself. "I find I don't miss it."

  He eyed me with some curiosity over his glass, and, sauntering away,left me to my work of folding rugs. But when I had finished, and waschalking the deck for shuffle-board, he joined me again, dropping hisvoice, for the women had come up by that time and were breakfasting onthe lee side of the after house.

  "Have you any idea, Leslie, how much whiskey there is on board?"

  "Williams has considerable, I believe. I don't think there is any inthe forward house. The captain is a teetotaler."

  "I see. When these decanters go back, Williams takes charge of them?"

  "Yes. He locks them away."

  He dropped his voice still lower.

  "Empty them, Leslie," he said. "Do you understand? Throw what is leftoverboard. And, if you get a chance at Williams's key, pitch a dozenor two quarts overboard."

  "And be put in irons!"

  "Not necessarily. I think you understand me. I don't trust Williams.In a week we could have this boat fairly dry."

  "There is a great deal of wine."

  He scowled. "Damn Williams, anyhow! His instructions were--but nevermind about that. Get rid of the whiskey."

  Turner coming up the companionway at that moment, Vail left me. I hadunderstood him perfectly. It was common talk in the forecastle thatTurner was drinking hard, and that, in fact, the cruise had beenarranged by his family in the hope that, away from his clubs; he wouldalter his habits--a fallacy, of course. Taken away from his customarydaily round, given idle days on a summer sea, and aided by Williams,the butler, he was drinking his head off.

  Early as it was, he was somewhat the worse for it that morning. He madedirectly for me. It was the first time he had noticed me, although itwas the third day out. He stood in front of me, his red eyes flaming,and, although I am a tall man, he had an inch perhaps the advantage ofme.

  "What's this about Williams?" he demanded furiously. "What do you meanby a thing like that?"

  "He was bullying me. I didn't intend to drop him."

  The ship was rolling gently; he made a pass at me with a magazine hecarried, and almost lost his balance. The women had risen, and werewatching from the corner of the after house. I caught him and steadiedhim until he could clutch a chair.

  "You try any tricks like that again, and you'll go overboard," hestormed. "Who are you, anyhow? Not one of our men?"

  I saw the quick look between Vail and Mrs. Turner, and saw her comeforward. Mrs. Johns followed her, smiling.

  "Marsh!" Mrs. Turner protested. "I told you about him--the man who hadbeen ill."

  "Oh, another of your friends!" he sneered, and looked from me to Vailwith his ugly smile.

  Vail went rather pale and threw up his head quickly. The next momentMrs. Johns had saved the situation with an irrelevant remark, and theincident was over. They were playing bridge, not without dispute, butat least without insult. But I had hard a glimpse beneath the surfaceof that luxurious cruise, one of many such in the next few days.

  That was on Monday, the third day out. Up to that time Miss Lee hadnot noticed me, except once, when she found me scrubbing the deck, tocomment on a corner that she thought might be cleaner, and another timein the evening, when she and Vail sat in chairs until late, when shehad sent me below for a wrap. She looked past me rather than at me,gave me her orders quietly but briefly, and did not even take thetrouble to ignore me. And yet, once or twice, I had found her eyesfixed on me with a cool, half-amused expression, as if she foundsomething in my struggles to carry trays as if I had been accustomed tothem, or to handle a mop as a mop should be handled and not like ahockey stick--something infinitely entertaining and not a little absurd.

  But that morning, after they had settled to bridge, she followed me tothe rail, out of earshot I straightened and took off my cap, and shestood looking at me, unsmiling.

  "Unclench your hands!" she said.

  "I beg your pardon!" I straightened out my fingers, conscious for thefirst time of my clenched fists, and even opened and closed them onceor twice to prove their relaxation.

  "That's better. Now--won't you try to remember that I am responsiblefor your being here, and be careful?"

  "Then take me away from here and put me with the crew. I am strongernow. Ask the captain to give me a man's work. This--this is ahousemaid's occupation."r />
  "We prefer to have you here," she said coldly; and then, evidentlyrepenting her manner: "We need a man here, Leslie. Better stay. Areyou comfortable in the forecastle?"

  "Yes, Miss Lee."

  "And the food is all right?"

  "The cook says I am eating two men's rations."

  She turned to leave, smiling. It was the first time she had throwneven a fleeting smile my way, and it went to my head.

  "And Williams? I am to submit to his insolence?"

  She stopped and turned, and the smile faded.

  "The next time," she said, "you are to drop him!"

  But during the remainder of the day she neither spoke to me nor looked,as far as I could tell, in my direction. She flirted openly with Vail,rather, I thought, to the discomfort of Mrs. Johns, who hadappropriated him to herself--sang to him in the cabin, and in the longhour before dinner, when the others were dressing, walked the deck withhim, talking earnestly. They looked well together, and I believe hewas in love with her. Poor Vail!

  Turner had gone below, grimly good-humored, to dress for dinner; and Iwent aft to chat, as I often did, with the steersman. On this occasionit happened to be Charlie Jones. Jones was not his name, so far as Iknow. It was some inordinately long and different German inheritance,and so, with the facility of the average crew, he had been calledJones. He was a benevolent little man, highly religious, and somethingof a philosopher. And because I could understand German, and evenessay it in a limited way, he was fond of me.

  "Seta du dick," he said, and moved over so that I could sit on thegrating on which he stood. "The sky is fine to-night. Wunderschon!"

  "It always looks good to me," I observed, filling my pipe and passingmy tobacco-bag to him. "I may have my doubts now and then on land,Charlie; but here, between the sky and the sea, I'm a believer, rightenough."

  "'In the beginning He created the heaven and the earth,'" said Charliereverently.

  We were silent for a time. The ship rolled easily; now and then shedipped her bowsprit with a soft swish of spray; a school of dolphinsplayed astern, and the last of the land birds that had followed us outflew in circles around the masts.

  "Sometimes," said Charlie Jones, "I think the Good Man should have leftit the way it was after the flood just sky and water. What's the land,anyhow? Noise and confusion, wickedness and crime, robbing the widowand the orphan, eat or be et."

  "Well," I argued, "the sea's that way. What are those fish out thereflying for, but to get out of the way of bigger fish?"

  Charlie Jones surveyed me over his pipe.

  "True enough, youngster," he said; "but the Lord's given 'em wings tofly with. He ain't been so careful with the widow and the orphan."

  This statement being incontrovertible, I let the argument lapse, andsat quiet, luxuriating in the warmth, in the fresh breeze, in thefeeling of bodily well-being that came with my returning strength. Igot up and stretched, and my eyes fell on the small window of thechart-room.

  The door into the main cabin beyond was open. It was dark with thesummer twilight, except for the four rose-shaded candles on the table,now laid for dinner. A curious effect it had--the white cloth andgleaming pink an island of cheer in a twilight sea; and to and fromthis rosy island, making short excursions, advancing, retreating,disappearing at times, the oval white ship that was Williams's shirtbosom.

  Charlie Jones, bending to the right and raised to my own height by thegrating on which he stood, looked over my shoulder. Dinner was aboutto be served. The women had come out. The table-lamps threw theirrosy glow over white necks and uncovered arms, and revealed, higher inthe shadows, the faces of the men, smug, clean-shaven, assured, ratherheavy.

  I had been the guest of honor on a steam-yacht a year or two before,after a game. There had been pink lights on the table, I remembered,and the place-cards at dinner the first night out had been caricaturesof me in fighting trim. There had been a girl, too. For the three daysof that week-end cruise I had been mad about her; before that firstdinner, when I had known her two hours, I had kissed her hand and toldher I loved her!

  Vail and Miss Lee had left the others and come into the chart-room. AsCharlie Jones and I looked, he bent over and kissed her hand.

  The sun had gone down. My pipe was empty, and from the galley,forward, came the odor of the forecastle supper. Charlie was coughing,a racking paroxysm that shook his wiry body. He leaned over and caughtmy shoulder as I was moving away.

  "New paint and new canvas don't make a new ship," he said, choking backthe cough. "She's still the old Ella, the she-devil of the Turnerline. Pink lights below, and not a rat in the hold! They left herbefore we sailed, boy. Every rope was crawling with 'em."

  "The very rats Instinctively had left it,"

  I quoted. But Charlie, clutching the wheel, was coughing again, andcursing breathlessly as he coughed.