The After House - Mary Roberts Rinehart (new books to read .TXT) 📗
- Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
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The craft was schooner-rigged, carried three lifeboats and a collapsible raft, and was navigated by a captain, first and second mates, and a crew of six able-bodied sailors and one gaunt youth whose sole knowledge of navigation had been gained on an Atlantic City catboat. Her destination was vague - Panama perhaps, possibly a South American port, depending on the weather and the whim of the owner.
I do not recall that I performed the nautical rite of signing articles. Armed with the note McWhirter had secured for me, and with what I fondly hoped was the rolling gait of the seafaring man, I approached the captain - a bearded and florid individual. I had dressed the part - old trousers, a cap, and a sweater from which I had removed my college letter, McWhirter, who had supervised my preparations, and who had accompanied me to the wharf, had suggested that I omit my morning shave. The result was, as I look back, a lean and cadaverous six-foot youth, with the hospital pallor still on him, his chin covered with a day’s beard, his hair cropped short, and a cannibalistic gleam in his eyes. I remember that my wrists, thin and bony, annoyed me, and that the girl I had seen through the opera-glasses came on board, and stood off, detached and indifferent, but with her eyes on me, while the captain read my letter.
When he finished, he held it out to me.
“I’ve got my crew,” he said curtly.
“There is n’t - I suppose there’s no chance of your needing another hand?”
“No.” He turned away, then glanced back at the letter I was still holding, rather dazed. “You can leave your name and address with the mate over there. If anything turns up he’ll let you know.”
My address! The hospital?
I folded the useless letter and thrust it into my pocket. The captain had gone forward, and the girl with the cool eyes was leaning against the rail, watching me.
“You are the man Mr. McWhirter has been looking after, are n’t you?”
“Yes.” I pulled off my cap, and, recollecting myself - “Yes, miss.”
“You are not a sailor?”
“I have had some experience - and I am willing.”
“You have been ill, have n’t you?”
“Yes - miss.”
“Could you polish brass, and things like that?”
“I could try. My arms are strong enough. It is only when I walk -”
But she did not let me finish. She left the rail abruptly, and disappeared down the companionway into the after house. I waited uncertainly. The captain saw me still loitering, and scowled. A procession of men with trunks jostled me; a colored man, evidently a butler, ordered me out of his way while he carried down into the cabin, with almost reverent care, a basket of wine.
When the girl returned, she came to me, and stood for a moment, looking me over with cool, appraising eyes. I had been right about her appearance: she was charming - or no, hardly charming. She was too aloof for that. But she was beautiful, an Irish type, with blue-gray eyes and almost black hair. The tilt of her head was haughty. Later I came to know that her hauteur was indifference: but at first I was frankly afraid of her, afraid of her cool, mocking eyes and the upward thrust of her chin.
“My brother-in-law is not here,” she said after a moment, “but my sister is below in the cabin. She will speak to the captain about you. Where are your things?”
I glanced toward the hospital, where my few worldly possessions, including my dress clothes, my amputating set, and such of my books as I had not been able to sell, were awaiting disposition. “Very near, miss,” I said.
“Better bring them at once; we are sailing in the morning.” She turned away as if to avoid my thanks, but stopped and came back.
“We are taking you as a sort of extra man,” she explained. “You will work with the crew, but it is possible that we will need you - do you know anything about butler’s work?”
I hesitated. If I said yes, and then failed -
“I could try.”
“I thought, from your appearance, perhaps you had done something of the sort.” Oh, shades of my medical forebears, who had bequeathed me, along with the library, what I had hoped was a professional manner! “The butler is a poor sailor. If he fails us, you will take his place.”
She gave a curt little nod of dismissal, and I went down the gangplank and along the wharf. I had secured what I went for; my summer was provided for, and I was still seven dollars to the good. I was exultant, but with my exultation was mixed a curious anger at McWhirter, that he had advised me not to shave that morning.
My preparation took little time. Such of my wardrobe as was worth saving, McWhirter took charge of. I sold the remainder of my books, and in a sailor’s outfitting-shop I purchased boots and slickers - the sailors’ oil skins. With my last money I bought a good revolver, second-hand, and cartridges. I was glad later that I had bought the revolver, and that I had taken with me the surgical instruments, antiquated as they were, which, in their mahogany case, had accompanied my grandfather through the Civil War, and had done, as he was wont to chuckle, as much damage as a three-pounder. McWhirter came to the wharf with me, and looked the Ella over with eyes of proprietorship.
“Pretty snappy-looking boat,” he said. “If the nigger gets sick, give him some of my seasick remedy. And take care of yourself, boy.” He shook hands, his open face flushed with emotion. “Darned shame to see you going like this. Don’t eat too much, and don’t fall in love with any of the women. Good-bye.”
He started away, and I turned toward the ship; but a moment later I heard him calling me. He came back, rather breathless.
“Up in my neighborhood,” he panted, “they say Turner is a devil. Whatever happens, it’s not your mix-in. Better - better tuck your gun under your mattress and forget you’ve got it. You’ve got some disposition yourself.”
The Ella sailed the following day at ten o’clock. She carried nineteen people, of whom five were the Turners and their guests. The cabin was full of flowers and steamer-baskets.
Thirty-one days later she came into port again, a lifeboat covered with canvas trailing at her stern.
From the first the captain disclaimed responsibility for me. I was housed in the forecastle, and ate with the men. There, however, my connection with the crew and the navigation of the ship ended. Perhaps it was as well, although I resented it at first. I was weaker than I had thought, and dizzy at the mere thought of going aloft.
As a matter of fact, I found myself a sort of deck-steward, given the responsibility of looking after the shuffle-board and other deck games, the steamer-rugs, the cards, - for they played bridge steadily, - and answerable to George Williams, the colored butler, for the various liquors served on deck.
The work was easy, and the situation rather amused me. After an effort or two to bully me, one of which resulted in my holding him over the rail 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 my bargain. Of the sailing qualities of the Ella there could be no question. The crew, selected by Captain Richardson from the best men of the Turner line, knew their business, and, especially after the Williams incident, made me one of themselves. Barring the odor of formaldehyde in the forecastle, which drove me to sleeping on deck for a 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 the after house.
As I have said, owing to the small size, of the vessel, and the fact that considerable of the space had been used for baths, there were, besides the family, only two guests, a Mrs. Johns, a divorcee, and a Mr. Vail. Mrs. Turner and Miss Lee shared the services of a maid, Karen Hansen, who, with a stewardess, Henrietta Sloane, occupied a double cabin. Vail had a small room, as had Turner, with a bath between 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. Johns had a room and bath. Roughly, and not drawn to scale, the living quarters of the family were arranged like the diagram in chapter XIX.
I have said that things were not going smoothly in the after house. I felt it rather than, saw it. The women rose late - except Miss Lee, who was frequently about when I washed the deck. They chatted and laughed together, read, played bridge when the men were so inclined, and now and then, when their attention was drawn to it, looked at the sea. They were always exquisitely and carefully dressed, and I looked at them as I would at any other masterpieces of creative art, with nothing of 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, and with strong, pale blue eyes, congested from hard drinking; Vail, shorter by three inches, dark, good-looking, with that dusky flush under the skin which shows good red blood, and as temperate as Turner was dissipated.
Vail was strong, too. After I had held Williams over the rail I turned to find him looking on, amused. And when the frightened darky had taken himself, muttering threats, to the galley, Vail came over to me and 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; just getting 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 my fingers. 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 a highball 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 corrected myself. “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 was chalking the deck for shuffle-board, he joined me again, dropping his voice, for the women had come up by that time and were breakfasting on the 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 in the 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 left overboard. And,
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