The Isle of Retribution/Chapter 5
V
It was a jesting, hilarious crowd that gathered one sunlit morning to watch the departure of the Charon. Rodney Coburn was there, and Rex Nard, various matrons who were members of Mrs. Hardenworth's bridge club, and an outer and inner ring of satellites that gyrated around such social suns as Ned and Lenore. Every one was very happy, and no one seemed to take the expedition seriously. The idea of Ned Cornet, he of the curly brown hair, in the rôle of fur trader in the frozen wastes of the North appealed to his friends as being irresistibly comic. The nearest approach to seriousness was Coburn's envy.
“I'd like to be in your shoes,” he told Ned. “Just think—a chance to take a tundra caribou, a Kodiac bear, and maybe a polar bear and a walrus—all in one swoop! I'll have to hand over my laurels as a big-game hunter when you get back, old boy!”
“Lewis and Clark, Godspeed!” Ted Wynham, known among certain disillusioned newspaper men, as “the court jester”, announced melodramatically from a snubbing block. “In token of our esteem and good wishes, we wish to present you with this magic key to success and happiness.” He held out a small bundle, the size of a jack-knife, carefully wrapped. “You are going North, my children! You, Marco Polo”—he bowed handsomely to Ned—“and you, our lady of the snows,”—addressing Lenore—“and last but not least, the chaperone”—bowing still lower to Mrs. Hardenworth, a big, handsome woman with iron-gray hair and large, even features—“will find full use for the enclosed magic key in the wintry, barbarous, but blessed lands of the North. Gentleman and ladies, you are not venturing into a desert. Indeed, it is a land flowing with milk and honey. And this little watch charm, first aid to all explorers, the friend of all dauntless travelers such as yourselves, explorers' delight, in fact, will come in mighty handy! Accept it, with our compliments!”
He handed the package to Ned, and a great laugh went up when he revealed its contents. It contained a gold-mounted silver cork-screw!
Both Lenore and her mother seemed in a wonderful mood. The ninety-day journey on those far-stretching sunlit waters seemed to promise only happiness for them. Mrs. Harden worth was get ting her sea trip, and under the most pleasant conditions. There would also, it seemed, be certain chances for material advantages, none of which she intended to overlook. In her trunk she had various of her own gowns—some of them slightly worn, it was true; some of them stained and a trifle musty—yet suddenly immensely valuable in her eyes. She had intended to give them to the first charity that would condescend to accept them, but now she didn't even trust her own daughter with them. Somewhere in those lost and desolate islands of the North she intended trading them for silver fox! Ned had chest upon chest of gowns to trade; surely she would get a chance to work in her own. Her daughter looked forward to the same profitable enterprise, and besides, she had the anticipation of three wonderful, happy months' companionship with the man of her choice.
They had dressed according to their idea of the occasion. Lenore wore a beautifully tailored middy suit that was highly appropriate for summer seas, but was nothing like the garb that Esquimo women wear in the fall journeys in the Oomiacs. Mrs. Hardenworth had a smart tailored suit of small black and white check, a small hat and a beautiful gray veil. Both of them carried winter coats, and both were fitted out with binoculars, cameras, and suchlike oceanic paraphernalia. Knutsen, of course, supposed that their really heavy clothes, great mackinaws and slickers and leather-lined woolens, such as are sometimes needed on Bering Sea, were in the trunks he had helped to stow below. In this regard the blond seaman, helmsman and owner of the craft, had made a slight mistake. In a desire for a wealth of silver fox to wear home both trunks had been filled with discarded gowns to the exclusion of almost everything else.
Ned, in a smart yachting costume, had done rather better by himself. He had talked with Coburn in regard to the outfit, and his duffle bag contained most of the essentials for such a journey. And Bess's big, plain bag was packed full of the warmest clothes she possessed.
Bess did not stand among the happy circle of Ned's friends. Her mother and sister had come down to the dock to bid her good-by, and they seemed to be having a very happy little time among themselves. Bess herself was childishly happy in the anticipation of the adventure. Hard would blow the wind that could chill her, and mighty the wilderness power that could break her spirit!
The captain was almost ready to start the launch. McNab, the chief engineer, was testing his engines; Forest, his assistant, stood on the deck; and the negro cook stood grinning at the window of the galley. But presently there was an abrupt cessation of the babble of voices in the group surrounding Ned.
Only Ted Wynham's voice was left, trailing on at the high pitch he invariably used in trying to make himself heard in a noisy crowd. It sounded oddly loud, now that the laughter had ceased. Ted paused in the middle of a word, startled by the silence, and a secret sense of vague embarrassment swept all his listeners. A tall man was pushing through the crowd, politely asking right of way, his black eyes peering under silver brows. For some inexplicable reason the sound of frolic died before his penetrating gaze.
But the groups caught themselves at once. They must not show fear of this stalwart, aged man with his prophet's eyes. They spoke to him, wishing him good day, and he returned their bows with faultless courtesy. An instant later he stood before his son.
“Mother couldn't get down,” Godfrey Cornet said simply. “She sent her love and good wishes. A good trip, Ned—but not too good a trip.”
“Why not—too good a trip?”
“A little snow, a little cold—maybe a charging Kodiac bear—fine medicine for the spirit, Ned. Good luck!”
He gave his hand, then turned to extend good wishes to Mrs. Hardenworth and Lenore. He seemed to have a queer, hesitant manner when he addressed the latter, as if he had planned to give some further, more personal message, but now was reconsidering it. Then the little group about him suddenly saw his face grow vivid.
“Where's Miss Gilbert?”
The group looked from one to another. As always, they were paying the keenest attention to his every word; but they could not remember hearing this name before. “Miss Gilbert?” his son echoed blankly. “Oh, you mean the seamstress”
“Of course—the other member of your party.”
“She's right there, talking to her mother.”
A battery of eyes was suddenly turned on the girl. Seemingly she had been merely part of the landscape before, unnoticed except by such clandestine gaze as Ted Wynham bent upon her; but in an instant, because Godfrey Cornet had known her name, she became a personage of at least some small measure of importance. Without knowing why she did it, Mrs. Hardenworth drew herself up to her full height.
Cornet walked courteously to the girl's side and extended his hand. “Good luck to you, and a pleasant journey,” he said, smiling down on her. “And, Miss Gilbert, I wonder if I could give you a charge”
“I'll do my best—anything you ask”
“I want you to look after my son Ned. He's never been away from the comforts of civilization before—and if a button came off, he'd never know how to put it on. Don't let him come to grief, Miss Gilbert. I'm wholly serious—I know what the North is. Don't let him take too great a risk. Watch out for his health. There's nothing in this world like a woman's care.”
There was no ring of laughter behind him. No one liked to take the chance that he was jesting, and no one could get away from the uncomfortable feeling that he might be in earnest. Bess's reply was entirely grave.
“I'll remember all you told me,” she told him simply.
“Thank you—and a pleasant voyage.”
Even now the adventurers were getting aboard. Mrs. Hardenworth was handing her bag to Knutsen—she had mistaken him for a cabin boy—with instructions to carry it carefully and put it in her stateroom; Lenore was bidding a joyous farewell to some of her more intimate friends. The engine roared, the water churned beneath the propeller, the pilot called some order in a strident voice. The boat moved easily from the dock.
Swiftly it sped out into the Sound. A great shout was raised from the dock, hands waved, farewell words blew over the sunlit waters. But there was one of the four seafarers on the deck who seemed neither to hear nor to see. He stood silent, a profundity of thought upon him never experienced before.
He was wondering at the reality of the clamor on the shore. How many were there in the farewell party who after a few weeks would even remember his existence? If the blond man at the wheel were in reality Charon, piloting him to some fabled underworld from which he could never return, how quickly he would be forgotten, how soon they would fail to speak his name! He felt peculiarly depressed, inwardly baffled, deeply perplexed.
Were all his associations this same fraud? Was there nothing real or genuine in all the fabric of his life? As he stood erect, gazing out over the shimmering waters, Lenore suddenly gazed at him in amazement.
For the moment there was a striking resemblance to his father about his lips and in the unfathomable blackness of his eyes. Her own reaction was a violent start, a swift feeling of apprehension that she could not analyze or explain. Her instincts were sure and true: she must not let this side of him gain the ascendancy. Her very being seemed to depend on that.
But swiftly she called him from his preoccupation. She had something to show him, she said,—a parting gift that Ted Wynham had left in her stateroom. It was a dark bottle of a famous whisky, and it would suffice their needs, he had said, until they should reach Vancouver.