The Indian Drum (1917)/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
MR. SPEARMAN GOES NORTH
THE message, in blurred lettering and upon the flimsy tissue paper of a carbon copy—that message which had brought tension to the offices of Corvet, Sherrill, and Spearman and had called Constance Sherrill and her mother downtown where further information could be more quickly obtained—was handed to Constance by a clerk as soon as she entered her father's office. She reread it; it already had been repeated to her over the telephone.
"4:05 a. m. Frankfort Wireless station has received following message from No. 25: 'We have Benjamin Corvet, of Chicago, aboard.'"
"You've received nothing later than this?" she asked.
"Nothing regarding Mr. Corvet, Miss Sherrill," the clerk replied.
"Or regarding— Have you obtained a passenger list?"
"No passenger list was kept, Miss Sherrill."
"The crew?"
"Yes; we have just got the names of the crew." He took another copied sheet from among the pages and handed it to her, and she looked swiftly down the list of names until she found that of Alan Conrad.
Her eyes filled, blinding her, as she put the paper down, and began to take off her things. She had been clinging determinedly in her thought to the belief that Alan might not have been aboard the ferry. Alan's message, which had sent her father north to meet the ship, had implied plainly that some one whom Alan believed might be Uncle Benny was on Number 25; she had been fighting, these last few hours, against conviction that therefore Alan must be on the ferry too.
She stood by the desk, as the clerk went out, looking through the papers which he had left with her.
"What do they say?" her mother asked.
Constance caught herself together.
"Wireless signals from No. 25," she read aloud, "were plainly made out at shore stations at Ludington, Manitowoc, and Frankfort until about four o'clock, when—"
"That is, until about six hours ago, Constance."
"Yes, mother, when the signals were interrupted. The steamer Richardson, in response to whose signals No. 25 made the change in her course which led to disaster, was in communication until about four o'clock; Frankfort station picked up one message shortly after four, and same message was also recorded by Carferry Manitoulin in southern end of lake; subsequently all efforts to call No. 25 failed of response until 4:35 when a message was picked up at once by Manitowoc, Frankfort, and the Richardson. Information, therefore, regarding the fate of the ferry up to that hour received at this office (Corvet, Sherrill, and Spearman) consists of the following . . ."
Constance stopped reading aloud and looked rapidly down the sheet and then over the next. What she was reading was the carbon of the report prepared that morning and sent, at his rooms, to Henry, who was not yet down. It did not contain therefore the last that was known; and she read only enough of it to be sure of that.
"After 4:10, to repeated signals to Number 25 from Richardson and shore stations—'Are you in danger?' 'Shall we send help?' 'Are you jettisoning cars?' 'What is your position?'—no replies were received. The Richardson continued therefore to signal, 'Report your position and course; we will stand by,' at the same time making full speed toward last position given by Number 25. At 4:35, no other message having been obtained from Number 25 in the meantime, Manitowoc and Frankfort both picked up the following: 'S. O. S. Are taking water fast. S. O. S. Position probably twenty miles west N. Fox. S. O. S.' The S. O. S. has been repeated, but without further information since."
The report made to Henry ended here. Constance picked up the later messages received in response to orders to transmit to Corvet, Sherrill, and Spearman copies of all signals concerning Number 25 which had been received or sent. She sorted out from them those dated after the hour she just had read:
"4:40, Manitowoc is calling No. 25, 'No. 26 is putting north to you. Keep in touch.'
"4:43, No. 26 is calling No. 25, 'What is your position?'
"4:50, the Richardson is calling No. 25, 'We must be approaching you. Are you giving whistle signals?'
"4:53, No. 25 is replying to Richardson, 'Yes; will continue to signal. Do you hear us?'
"4:59, Frankfort is calling No. 25, 'What is your condition?'
"5:04, No. 25 is replying to Frankfort, 'Holding bare headway; stern very low.'
"5:10, No. 26 is calling No. 25, 'Are you throwing off cars?'
"5:14, Petoskey is calling Manitowoc, 'We are receiving S.O.S. What is wrong?' Petoskey has not previously been in communication with shore stations or ships.
"5:17, No. 25 is signalling No. 26, 'Are throwing off cars; have cleared eight; work very difficult. We are sinking.'
"5:20, No. 25 is calling the Richardson, 'Watch for small boats. Position doubtful because of snow and changes of course; probably due west N. Fox, twenty to thirty miles.'
"5:24, No. 26 is calling No. 25, 'Are you abandoning ship?'
"5:27, No. 25 is replying to No. 26, 'Second boat just getting safely away with passengers; first boat was smashed. Six passengers in second boat, two injured of crew, cabin maid, boy and two men.'
"5:30, Manitowoc and Frankfort are calling No. 25, 'Are you abandoning ship?'
"5:34, No. 25 is replying to Manitowoc, 'Still trying to clear cars; everything is loose below . . .'
"5:40, Frankfort is calling Manitowoc, 'Do you get anything now?'
"5:45, Manitowoc is calling the Richardson, 'Do you get anything? Signals have stopped here.'
"5:48, The Richardson is calling Petoskey, 'We get nothing now. Do you?'
"6:30, Petoskey is calling Manitowoc, 'Signals after becoming indistinct, failed entirely about 5:45, probably by failure of ship's power to supply current. Operator appears to have remained at key. From 5:25 to 5:43 we received disconnected messages, as follows: 'Have cleared another car . . . they are sticking to it down there . . . engine-room crew is also sticking . . . hell on car deck . . . everything smashed . . . they won't give up . . . sinking now . . . we're going . . . good-by . . . stuck to end . . . all they could . . . know that . . . hand it to them . . . have cleared another car . . . sink . . . S. O. . . . Signals then entirely ceased.'"
There was no more than this. Constance let the papers fall back upon the desk and looked to her mother; Mrs. Sherrill loosened her fur collar and sat back, breathing more comfortably. Constance quickly shifted her gaze and, trembling and with head erect, she walked to the window and looked out. The meaning of what she had read was quite clear; her mother was formulating it.
"So they are both lost, Mr. Corvet and his—son," Mrs. Sherrill said quietly.
Constance did not reply, either to refuse or to concur in the conclusion. There was not anything which was meant to be merciless in that conclusion; her mother simply was crediting what probably had occurred. Constance could not in reason refuse to accept it too; yet she was refusing it. She had not realized, until these reports of the wireless messages told her that he was gone, what companionship with Alan had come to mean to her. She had accepted it as always to be existent, somehow—a companionship which might be interrupted often but always to be formed again. It amazed her to find how firm a place he had found in her world of those close to her with whom she must always be intimately concerned.
Her mother arose and came beside her. "May it not be better, Constance, that it has happened this way?"
"Better!" Constance cried. She controlled herself.
It was only what Henry had said to her months ago when Alan had left her in the north in the search which had resulted in the finding of Uncle Benny—"Might it not be better for him not to find out?" Henry, who could hazard more accurately than any one else the nature of that strange secret which Alan now must have "found out," had believed it; her mother, who at least had lived longer in the world than she, also believed it. There came before Constance the vision of Alan's defiance and refusal to accept the stigma suggested in her father's recital to him of his relationship to Mr. Corvet. There came to her sight of him as he had tried to keep her from entering Uncle Benny's house when Luke was there, and then her waiting with him through the long hour and his dismissal of her, his abnegation of their friendship. And at that time his disgrace was indefinite; last night had he learned something worse than he had dreaded?
The words of his telegram took for her more terrible significance for the moment. "Have some one who knew Mr. Corvet well enough to recognize him even if greatly changed meet . . ." Were the broken, incoherent words of the wireless the last that she should hear of him, and of Uncle Benny, after that? "They are sticking to it . . . down there . . . they won't give up . . . sinking . . . they have cleared another car . . . sink . . ." Had it come as the best way for them both?
"The Richardson is searching for boats, mother," Constance returned steadily, "and Number 26 must be there too by now."
Her mother looked to the storm. Outside the window which overlooked the lake from two hundred feet above the street, the sleet-like snow was driving ceaselessly; all over the western basin of the great lakes, as Constance knew—over Huron, over Michigan, and Superior—the storm was established. Its continuance and severity had claimed a front-page column in the morning papers. Duluth that morning had reported temperature of eighteen below zero and fierce snow; at Marquette it was fifteen below; there was driving snow at the Soo, at Mackinac, and at all ports along both shores. She pictured little boats, at the last moment, getting away from the ferry, deep-laden with injured and exhausted men; how long might those men live in open boats in a gale and with cold like that? The little clock upon her father's desk marked ten o'clock; they had been nearly five hours in the boats now, those men.
Constance knew that as soon as anything new was heard, it would be brought to her; yet, with a word to her mother, she went from her father's room and down the corridor into the general office. A hush of expectancy held this larger room; the clerks moved silently and spoke to one another in low voices; she recognized in a little group of men gathered in a corner of the room some officers of Corvet, Sherrill, and Spearman's ships. Others among them, whom she did not know, were plainly seamen too—men who knew "Ben" Corvet and who, on hearing he was on the ferry, had come in to learn what more was known; the business men and clubmen, friends of Corvet's later life, had not heard it yet. There was a restrained, professional attentiveness among these seamen, as of those in the presence of an event which any day might happen to themselves. They were listening to the clerk who had compiled the report, who was telephoning now, and Constance, waiting, listened too to learn what he might be hearing. But he put down the receiver as he saw her.
"Nothing more, Miss Sherrill," he reported. "The Richardson has wirelessed that she reached the reported position of the sinking about half-past six o'clock. She is searching but has found nothing."
"She's keeping on searching, though?"
"Yes; of course."
"It's still snowing there?"
"Yes, Miss Sherrill. We've had a message from your father. He has gone on to Manistique; it's more likely that wreckage or survivors will be brought in there."
The telephone switchboard beside Constance suddenly buzzed, and the operator, plugging in a connection, said: "Yes, sir; at once," and through the partitions of the private office on the other side, a man's heavy tones came to Constance. That was Henry's office and, in timbre, the voice was his, but it was so strange in other characteristics of expression that she waited an instant before saying to the clerk,
"Mr. Spearman has come in?"
The clerk hesitated, but the continuance of the tone from the other side of the partition made reply superfluous. "Yes, Miss Sherrill."
"Did you tell him that mother and I were here?"
The clerk considered again before deciding to reply in the affirmative. There evidently was some trouble with the telephone number which Henry had called; the girl at the switchboard was apologizing in frightened panic, and Henry's voice, loud and abusive, came more plainly through the partition. Constance started to give an instruction to the clerk; then, as the abuse burst out again, she changed her plan and went to Henry's door and rapped. Whether no one else rapped in that way or whether he realized that she might have come into the general office, she did not know; but at once his voice was still. He made no answer and no move to open the door; so, after waiting a moment, she turned the knob and went in.
Henry was seated at his desk, facing her, his big hands before him; one of them held the telephone receiver. He lifted it slowly and put it upon the hook beside the transmitter as he watched her with steady, silent, aggressive scrutiny. His face was flushed a little—not much; his hair was carefully brushed, and there was something about his clean-shaven appearance and the set of his perfectly fitting coat, one which he did not ordinarily wear to business, which seemed studied. He did not rise; only after a moment he recollected that he had not done so and came to his feet. "Good morning, Connie," he said. "Come in. What's the news?"
There was something strained and almost menacing in his voice and in his manner which halted her. She in some way—or her presence at that moment—appeared to be definitely disturbing him. It frightened him, she would have thought, except that the idea was a contradiction. Henry frightened? But if he was not, what emotion now controlled him?
The impulse which had brought her into his office went from her. She had not seen nor heard from Henry directly since before Alan's telegram had come late yesterday afternoon; she had heard from her father only that he had informed Henry; that was all.
"I've no news, Henry," she said. "Have you?" She closed the door behind her before moving closer to him. She had not known what he had been doing, since he had heard of Alan's telegram; but she had supposed that he was in some way coöperating with her father, particularly since word had come of the disaster to the ferry.
"How did you happen to be here, Connie?" he asked.
She made no reply but gazed at him, studying him. The agitation which he was trying to conceal was not entirely consequent to her coming in upon him; it had been ruling him before. It had underlain the loudness and abuse of his words which she had overheard. That was no capricious outburst of temper or irritation; it had come from something which had seized and held him in suspense, in dread—in dread; there was no other way to define her impression to herself. When she had opened the door and come in, he had looked up in dread, as though preparing himself for whatever she might announce. Now that the door shut them in alone, he approached her with arms offered. She stepped back, instinctively avoiding his embrace; and he stopped at once, but he had come quite close to her now.
That she had detected faintly the smell of liquor about him was not the whole reason for her drawing back. He was not drunk; he was quite himself so far as any influence of that kind was concerned. Long ago, when he was a young man on the boats, he had drunk a good deal; he had confessed to her once; but he had not done so for years. Since she had known him, he had been among the most careful of her friends; it was for "efficiency" he had said. The drink was simply a part—indeed, only a small part—of the subtle strangeness and peculiarity she marked in him. If he had been drinking now, it was, she knew, no temptation, no capricious return to an old appetite. If not appetite, then it was for the effect—to brace himself. Against what? Against the thing for which he had prepared himself when she came upon him?
As she stared at him, the clerk's voice came to her suddenly over the partition which separated the office from the larger room where the clerk was receiving some message over the telephone. Henry straightened, listened; as the voice stopped, his great, finely shaped head sank between his shoulders; he fumbled in his pocket for a cigar, and his big hands shook as he lighted it, without word of excuse to her. A strange feeling came to her that he felt what he dreaded approaching and was no longer conscious of her presence.
She heard footsteps in the larger room coming toward the office door. Henry was in suspense. A rap came at the door. He whitened and took the cigar from his mouth and wet his lips.
"Come in," he summoned.
One of the office girls entered, bringing a white page of paper with three or four lines of purple typewriting upon it which Constance recognized must be a transcript of a message just received.
She started forward at sight of it, forgetting everything else; but he took the paper as though he did not know she was there. He merely held it until the girl had gone out; even then he stood folding and unfolding it, and his eyes did not drop to the sheet.
The girl had said nothing at all but, having seen her, Constance was athrill; the girl had not been a bearer of bad news, that was sure; she brought some sort of good news! Constance, certain of it, moved nearer to Henry to read what he held. He looked down and read.
"What is it, Henry?"
His muscular reaction, as he read, had drawn the sheet away from her; he recovered himself almost instantly and gave the paper to her; but, in that instant, Constance herself was "prepared." She must have deceived herself the instant before! This bulletin must be something dismaying to what had remained of hope.
"8:35 a.m., Manitowoc, Wis.," she read. "The schooner Anna S. Solwerk has been sighted making for this port. She is not close enough for communication, but two lifeboats, additional to her own, can be plainly made out. It is believed that she must have picked up survivors of No. 25. She carries no wireless, so is unable to report. Tugs are going out to her."
"Two lifeboats!" Constance cried. "That could mean that they all are saved or nearly all; doesn't it, Henry; doesn't it?"
He had read some other significance in it, she thought, or, from his greater understanding of conditions in the storm, he had been able to hold no hope from what had been reported. That was the only way she could explain to herself as he replied to her; that the word meant to him that men were saved and that therefore it was dismaying to him, could not come to her at once. When it came now, it went over her first only in the flash of incredulous question.
"Yes," he said to her. "Yes." And he went out of the room to the outer office. She turned and watched him and then followed to the door. He had gone to the desk of the girl who had brought him the bulletin, and Constance heard his voice, strained and queerly unnatural. "Call Manitowoc on the long distance. Get the harbor master. Get the names of the people that the Solwerk picked up."
He stayed beside the girl while she started the call. "Put them on my wire when you get them," he commanded and turned back to his office. "Keep my wire clear for that."
Constance retreated into the room as he approached. He did not want her there now, she knew; for that reason—if she yet definitely understood no other—she meant to remain. If he asked her to go, she intended to stay; but he did not ask her. He wished her to go away; in every word which he spoke to her, in every moment of their silent waiting, was his desire to escape her; but he dared not—dared not—go about that directly.
The feeling of that flashed over her to her stupefaction. Henry and she were waiting for word of the fate of Uncle Benny and Alan, and waiting opposed! She was no longer doubting it as she watched him; she was trying to understand. The telephone buzzer under his desk sounded; she drew close as he took up his receiver.
"Manitowoc?" he said. "I want to know what you've heard from the Solwerk. . . . You hear me? . . . The men the Solwerk picked up. You have the names yet?"
". . ."
"The Benton?"
". . ."
"Oh, I understand! All from the Benton. I see! . . . No; never mind their names. How about Number 25? Nothing more heard from them?"
Constance had caught his shoulder while he was speaking and now clung to it. Release—release of strain was going through him; she could feel it, and she heard it in his tones and saw it in his eyes.
"The steamer Number 25 rammed proves to have been the Benton," he told her. "The men are all from her. They had abandoned her in the small boats, and the Solwerk picked them up before the ferry found her."
He was not asking her to congratulate him upon the relief he felt; he had not so far forgotten himself as that. But it was plain to her that he was congratulating himself; it had been fear that he was feeling before—fear, she was beginning to understand, that those on the ferry had been saved. She shrank a little away from him. Benjamin Corvet had not been a friend of Henry's—they had quarreled; Uncle Benny had caused trouble; but nothing which she had understood could explain fear on Henry's part lest Uncle Benny should be found safe. Henry had not welcomed Alan; but now Henry was hoping that Alan was dead. Henry's words to her in the north, after Alan had seen her there, iterated themselves to her: "I told that fellow Conrad not to keep stirring up these matters about Ben Corvet. . . . Conrad doesn't know what he'll turn up; I don't know either. But it's not going to be anything pleasant. . . ." Only a few minutes ago she had still thought of these words as spoken only for Alan's sake and for Uncle Benny's; now she could not think of them so. This fear of news from the north could not be for their sake; it was for Henry's own. Had all the warnings been for Henry's sake too?
Horror and amazement flowed in upon her with her realization of this in the man she had promised to marry; and he seemed now to appreciate the effect he was producing upon her. He tried obviously to pull himself together; he could not do that fully; yet he managed a manner assertive of his right over her.
"Connie," he cried to her, "Connie!"
She drew back from him as he approached her; she was not yet consciously denying his right. What was controlling him, what might underlie his hope that they were dead, she could not guess; she could not think or reason about that now; what she felt was only overwhelming desire to be away from him where she could think connectedly. For an instant she stared at him, all her body tense; then, as she turned and went out, he followed her, again calling her name. But, seeing the seamen in the larger office, he stopped, and she understood he was not willing to urge himself upon her in their presence.
She crossed the office swiftly; in the corridor she stopped to compose herself before she met her mother. She heard Henry's voice speaking to one of the clerks, and flushed hotly with horror. Could she be certain of anything about him now? Could she be certain even that news which came through these employees of his would not be kept from her or only so much given her as would serve Henry's purpose and enable him to conceal from her the reason for his fear? She pushed the door open.
"I'm willing to go home now, mother, if you wish," she said steadily.
Her mother arose at once. "There is no more news, Constance?"
"No; a schooner has picked up the crew of the ship the ferry rammed; that is all."
She followed her mother, but stopped in the ante-room beside the desk of her father's private secretary.
"You are going to be here all day, Miss Bennet?" she asked.
"Yes, Miss Sherrill."
"Will you please try to see personally all messages which come to Corvet, Sherrill and Spearman, or to Mr. Spearman about the men from Number 25, and telephone them to me yourself?"
"Certainly, Miss Sherrill."
When they had gone down to the street and were in the car, Constance leaned back, closing her eyes; she feared her mother might wish to talk with her. The afternoon papers were already out with news of the loss of the ferry; Mrs. Sherrill stopped the car and bought one, but Constance looked at it only enough to make sure that the reporters had been able to discover nothing more than she already knew; the newspaper reference to Henry was only as to the partner of the great Chicago ship owner, Benjamin Corvet, who might be lost with the ship.
She called Miss Bennet as soon as she reached home; but nothing more had been received. Toward three o'clock, Miss Bennet called her, but only to report that the office had heard again from Mr. Sherrill. He had wired that he was going on from Manistique and would cross the Straits from St. Ignace; messages from him were to be addressed to Petoskey. He had given no suggestion that he had news; and there was no other report except that vessels were still continuing the search for survivors, because the Indian Drum, which had been beating, was beating "short," causing the superstitious to be certain that, though some of the men from Number 25 were lost, some yet survived.
Constance thrilled as she heard that. She did not believe in the Drum; at least she had never thought she had really believed in it; she had only stirred to the idea of its being true. But if the Drum was beating, she was glad it was beating short. It was serving, at least, to keep the lake men more alert. She wondered what part the report of the Drum might have played in her father's movements. None, probably; for he, of course, did not believe in the Drum. His move was plainly dictated by the fact that, with the western gale, drift from the ferry would be toward the eastern shore.
A little later, as Constance stood at the window, gazing out at the snow upon the lake, she drew back suddenly out of sight from the street, as she saw Henry's roadster appear out of the storm and stop before the house.
She had been apprehensively certain that he would come to her some time during the day; he had been too fully aware of the effect he made upon her not to attempt to remove that effect as soon as he could. As he got out of the car, shaking the snowflakes from his great fur coat and from his cap, looking up at the house before he came in and not knowing that he was observed, she saw something very like triumph in his manner. Her pulses stopped, then raced, at that; triumph for him! That meant, if he brought news, it was good news for him; it must be then, bad news for her.
She waited in the room where she was. She heard him in the hall, taking off his coat and speaking to the servant, and he appeared then at the door. The strain he was under had not lessened, she could see; or rather, if she could trust her feeling at sight of him, it had lessened only slightly, and at the same time his power to resist it had been lessening too. His hands and even his body shook; but his head was thrust forward, and he stared at her aggressively, and, plainly, he had determined in advance to act toward her as though their relationship had not been disturbed.
"I thought you'd want to know, Connie," he said, "so I came straight out. The Richardson's picked up one of the boats from the ferry."
"Uncle Benny and Alan Conrad were not in it," she returned; the triumph she had seen in him had told her that.
"No; it was the first boat put off by the ferry, with the passengers and cabin maid and some injured men of the crew."
"Were they—alive?" her voice hushed tensely.
"Yes; that is, they were able to revive them all; but it didn't seem possible to the Richardson's officers that any one could be revived who had been exposed much longer than that; so the Richardson's given up the search, and some of the other ships that were searching have given up too, and gone on their course."
"When did you hear that, Henry? I was just speaking with the office."
"A few minutes ago; a news wire got it before any one else; it didn't come through the office."
"I see; how many were in the boat?"
"Twelve, Connie."
"Then all the vessels up there won't give up yet!"
"Why not?"
"I was just talking with Miss Bennet, Henry; she's heard again from the other end of the lake. The people up there say the Drum is beating, but it's beating short still!"
"Short!"
She saw Henry stiffen. "Yes," she said swiftly. "They say the Drum began sounding last night, and that at first it sounded for only two lives; it's kept on beating, but still is beating only for four. There were thirty-nine on the ferry—seven passengers and thirty-two crew. Twelve have been saved now; so until the Drum raises the beats to twenty-seven there is still a chance that some one will be saved."
Henry made no answer; his hands fumbled purposelessly with the lapels of his coat, and his bloodshot eyes wandered uncertainly. Constance watched him with wonder at the effect of what she had told. When she had asked him once about the Drum, he had professed the same scepticism which she had; but he had not held it; at least he was not holding it now. The news of the Drum had shaken him from his triumph over Alan and Uncle Benny and over her. It had shaken him so that, though he remained with her some minutes more, he seemed to have forgotten the purpose of reconciliation with her which had brought him to the house. When a telephone call took her out of the room, she returned to find him gone to the dining-room; she heard a decanter clink there against a glass. He did not return to her again, but she heard him go. The entrance door closed after him, and the sound of his starting motor came. Then alarm, stronger even than that she had felt during the morning, rushed upon her.
She dined, or made a pretence of dining, with her mother at seven. Her mother's voice went on and on about trifles, and Constance did not try to pay attention. Her thought was following Henry with ever sharpening apprehension. She called the office in mid-evening; it would be open, she knew, for messages regarding Uncle Benny and Alan would be expected there. A clerk answered; no other news had been received; she then asked Henry's whereabouts.
"Mr. Spearman went north late this afternoon, Miss Sherrill," the clerk informed her.
"North? Where?"
"We are to communicate with him this evening to Grand Rapids; after that, to Petoskey."
Constance could hear her own heart beat. Why had Henry gone, she wondered; not, certainly, to aid the search. Had he gone to—hinder it?