Long Odds Page 4

  CHAPTER IV

  THE SUMMONS

  The month Ormsgill spent at Las Palmas was a time of some anxiety toMrs. Ratcliffe. He had, as she complained to her brother, no sense ofthe responsibility that devolved upon a man of his means, and wasaddicted to making friends with all kinds of impossible people, grimyEnglish coaling clerks, and the skippers of Spanish schooners, and,what was more objectionable, now and then bringing them to the hotel.He expressed his regret when she pointed out the undesirability ofsuch proceedings, but, for all that, made no very perceptible changein his conduct.

  Major Chillingham as a rule listened gravely, and said very little,for his sister was one who seldom welcomed advice from anybody, andthough not a brilliant man he was by no means a fool. On the lastoccasion he, however, showed a little impatience.

  "Well," he said, "he seems to have got hold of a few first-classpeople, too. There is that Ayutante fellow on the Governor's staff,and the Senhor Figuera, the little, quiet man with the yellow hands,is evidently a person of some consequence in his own country. Youcan't mistake the stamp of authority. After all, it's no doubt justas well he and the girl have gone. Tom seemed on excellent terms withthem."

  Mrs. Ratcliffe looked indignant. "A Portuguese with a powdered face,and no notion of what is fitting!"

  "An uncommonly good-looking one," and the Major grinned. "A woman withbrains enough to get the thing she sets her mind on, too, and I haverather a fancy that she was pleased with Tom. Still, that's not thequestion, and anyway she's back again in Africa. Now, if you'll takeadvice from me you'll keep a light hand on him, and not touch thecurb. If you do he's quite capable of making a bolt of it."

  "That," said the lady, "would be so disgraceful as to beinconceivable--when Ada has waited more than four years for him."

  Her brother's eyes twinkled. "In one way, I suppose she did. Still, ofcourse, Urmston didn't get the Colonial appointment he expected, and,one has to be candid, young Hatherly seemed proof against theblandishments you wasted on him."

  "A marriageable daughter is a heavy responsibility," said Mrs.Ratcliffe with a sigh.

  "No doubt," said the Major. "That is precisely why I recommended thejudicious handling of Tom Ormsgill. If he hasn't quite as much as youwould like, it's enough to keep them comfortably, and in several wayshe's worth the other two put together. The man's straight, and quiet.In fact, I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer him with a few moregentlemanly dissipations. They act as a safety valve occasionally."

  His sister raised her hands in protest, and Chillingham withdrew witha chuckle, but she was rather more gracious to Ormsgill than usualthat day, and during the next one accompanied him with her daughterand one or two acquaintances in a launch he had borrowed to look atthe wreck of a steamer which had gone ashore a night or two earlier.The unfortunate vessel afforded a somewhat impressive spectacle as shelay grinding on the reef with the long yeasty seas washing over her,and the little party spent some time watching her from the launchwhich swung with the steep, green swell.

  It was, however, very hot and dazzling bright, and no protests weremade when Ormsgill, who it seemed knew all about steam launches,leaned forward from the helm and started the engines. The littlepropeller thudded, and they slid away with a long, smooth lurch acrossthe slopes of glittering water that were here and there flecked withfoam, for the beach they skirted lies open to the heave of theAtlantic. The Trade breeze fanned their faces pleasantly, and AdaRatcliffe sat almost contented for the time being at Ormsgill's side.It was refreshing that hot day, to listen to the swish of slidingbrine, and there was a certain exhilaration in the swift smoothmotion, while she realized that the man she was to marry appeared togreater advantage than he did as a rule in the drawing room of the bighotel.

  He was never awkward, or ill at ease, but she had noticed--andresented--the air of aloofness he sometimes wore when he listened toher companions' pointless badinage and vapid conversation. Now as hesat with a lean brown hand on the tiller controlling the littlehissing craft he seemed curiously at home. There was also, asgenerally happened when he was occupied, a suggestion of reservedforce in his face and attitude. He was, she realized, a man one couldhave confidence in when there were difficult things to be done. Thishowever, brought her presently a vague dissatisfaction, for she feltthere were certain aspects of his character which had never beenrevealed to her, and she was faintly conscious of the antagonism toand shrinking from what one cannot quite understand which is notinfrequently a characteristic of people with imperfectly developedminds.

  The fresh Trade breeze which blew down out of the harbor from theblack Isleta hill was, however, evidently much less pleasant to theSpanish peons who toiled at the ponderous sweeps of an empty coallighter the launch was rapidly drawing level with. She was floatinghigh above the flaming swell, and the perspiration dripped from themen's grimy faces as they labored, two of them at each of the hugeoars. Indeed Ormsgill could see the swollen veins stand out on theirwet foreheads, and the overtaxed muscles swell on their half-coveredchests and naked arms, for the barge was of some forty tons, and itwas very heavy work pulling her against the wind. She had evidentlybeen to a Spanish steamer lying well out beyond the mole, and therewas, as he noticed, no tug available to tow her back again, while thesea foamed whitely on a reef close astern of her. It was only by astrenuous effort that the men were propelling the big clumsy craftclear of the reef, and there were signs that they could not keep it upmuch longer.

  He glanced at the little group of daintily attired, soft-handed menand women on board the launch, to whom the stress of physical laborwas an unknown thing, and then looked back towards the coal-grimedtoilers on the lighter. As yet they worked on stubbornly, with tensefurrowed faces, under a scorching sun, taxing to the uttermost everymuscle in their bodies, but it seemed to him that the lighter was nofurther from the reef. He flung an arm up, and hailed them, for he hadacquired a working acquaintance with several Latin languages on thefever coast.

  "You can't clear that point," he said. "Have you no anchor?"

  "No, senor," cried one of the peons breathlessly. "The tug should havecome for us, but she is taking the water boat to the English steamer."

  Ormsgill turned to his companions. "You won't mind if I pull them in?They're almost worn out, and it will not detain us more than tenminutes."

  One of the men made a little gesture of concurrence which had a hintof good-humored toleration in it, but Mrs. Ratcliffe appeareddispleased, and Ada flushed a trifle. One could have fancied she didnot wish the man who belonged to her to display his littleidiosyncrasies before her friends.

  "One understands that all Spaniards avoid exertion when they can," shesaid. "Perhaps a little hard work wouldn't hurt them very much."

  There was a slight change in Ormsgill's expression. "I fancy the mencan do no more."

  Then he waved his hand to the peons. "Get your hawser ready."

  He was alongside the lighter in another minute, but she rolled wildlyabove the launch, big and empty, and the sea broke whitely about her,for now the men had ceased rowing she was drifting towards the reef.The hawser was also dripping and smeared with coal dust when Ormsgill,who seemed to understand such matters, hauled it in, and while the seasplashed on board the launch, streams of gritty brine ran from it overeverything. Then he stirred the little furnace with an iron bar beforehe pulled over the starting lever, and a rush of sparks and thin hotsmoke poured down upon his companions as the little craft went fullspeed ahead. Ada, perhaps half-consciously, drew herself a littlefarther away from him. There was coal grit on his wet duck jacket, andhe had handled hawser and furnace rubble like one accustomed to them,in fact as a fireman or a sailor would have done. That was a thingwhich did not please her, and she wondered if the others had noticedit. It became evident that one of them had.

  "You did that rather smartly," he said.

  Ormsgill's smile was a trifle dry. "I have," he said, "done much thesame thing before professionally."

  There was a struggle for the
next few minutes. Launch and lighter haddrifted into shoal water while they made the hawser fast, and theswell had piled itself up and was breaking whitely. The little launchplunged through it with flame at her funnel and a spray-cloud blowingfrom her bows, and as she hauled the big lighter out yard by yard alittle glint crept into Ormsgill's eyes. Ada Ratcliffe almost resentedit, for he had never looked like that at any of the social functionsshe had insisted on his taking a part in, but her forbearance wasfurther taxed when they crept slowly beneath the side of a big whitesteam yacht. A little cluster of men and daintily dressed women satbeneath the awning on her deck, and one or two of them were people hermother had taken pains to cultivate an acquaintance with.

  One man leaned upon her rail and looked down with a little smile."Have you been going into the coal business, Fernside?" he said."Considering the figure they charged Desmond it ought to be aprofitable one."

  The man in the launch he addressed laughed, and Ormsgill towed thelighter on until at last he cast the tow rope off, and a very grimypeon stood upon her deck. He took off his big, shapeless hat, and ashe swung, cut in black against the dazzling sea, there was in hispoise a lithe gracefulness and a certain elaborate courtesy.

  "Senor," he said, "our thanks are yours, and everything else thatbelongs to us. May the saints watch over you, and send you a friend ifever your task is too heavy and the breakers are close beneath yourlee."

  Ormsgill took off his hat gravely, as equal to equal, but he smiled alittle as the launch swept on.

  "Well," he said, "after all, I may need one some day."

  They were back in the hotel in another half-hour, and Mrs. Ratcliffetook him to task as they sat on the shady veranda. Ormsgill lay backin his big Madeira chair, with half-closed eyes, and listeneddutifully. He felt he could afford it, for the few minutes of tenseuncertainty when he had hauled the lighter out of the grasp of thebreakers had been curiously pleasant to him.

  "There was, of course, no harm in the thing itself," she said at last.

  "No," said Ormsgill with an air of deep reflection, "I almost thinkthat to save a fellow creature who is badly worn out an effort he isscarcely fit to make isn't really very wrong. Still, the men werecertainly very dirty--I suppose that is the point?"

  The lady, who looked very stiff and formal in the black she persistedin wearing, favored him with a searching glance, but there was onlygrave inquiry in his steady eyes.

  "The point is that things which may be commendable in themselves arenot always--appropriate," she said.

  "Expedient--isn't it?" suggested Ormsgill languidly.

  "Expedient," said Mrs. Ratcliffe with a little flush in her face."In this world one has to be guided by circumstances, and mustendeavor to fit oneself to that station in life to which one hasbeen--appointed."

  "I suppose so," said Ormsgill. "The trouble is that I really don'tknow what particular station I have been appointed to. I was thrownout of the Colonial service, you see, and afterwards drove a steamlaunch for a very dissolute mahogany trader. Then I floated the samekind of trees down another river with the niggers, and followed a fewother somewhat unusual occupations. In fact, I've been in so manystations that it's almost bewildering."

  His companion got away from the point. She did not like having thefact that he had been, as he expressed it, thrown out of the Colonialservice forced upon her recollection.

  "One has, at least, to consider one's friends," she said. "We are onrather good terms with two or three of the people who came out withMr. Desmond, whom I have not met yet, in the _Palestrina_. In fact,Ada is a little anxious that you should make their acquaintance. Youwill probably come across them in England."

  "Well," said Ormsgill cheerfully, "I really don't think Dick Desmondwould mind if I took up coal heaving as an amusement. He isn't aparticularly conventional man himself."

  "You know him?"

  "Oh, yes. I know him tolerably well."

  "Then didn't you consider it your duty to go off and call upon him?"

  "I suppose it was," said Ormsgill meditatively. "Still, as a rule, Irather like my friends to call on me. I've no doubt that Dick will doit presently. He only arrived here yesterday, as you know. The peoplehe brought out came on from Teneriffe, I think. Somebody told me the_Palestrina_ lay a week there with something wrong with her engines."

  Mrs. Ratcliffe smiled approvingly at last. "Yes," she said, "in oneway the course you mention is usually preferable. It places one on asurer footing."

  Then she discussed other subjects, and supplied him with a good dealof excellent advice to which he listened patiently, though he wassensible of a certain weariness and there was a little dry smile inhis eyes when she went away. As it happened, Desmond, who owned the_Palestrina_, came ashore that evening and was received by Mrs.Ratcliffe very graciously. The two men had also a good deal to say toeach other, and the meeting was not without its results to both ofthem.

  It was late the following afternoon when a little yellow-funneledmail-boat with poop and forecastle painted white steamed into theharbor with awnings spread, and an hour or two later a waiter handedOrmsgill a letter. His face grew intent as he read it, and the curiouslittle glint that Ada Ratcliffe had noticed when he towed the coallighter clear of the surf crept back into his eyes. It was alsosignificant that, although she and her mother were sitting near him onthe veranda, he appeared oblivious of them when he rose and steppedback through an open window into the hotel. Five minutes later theysaw him stride through the garden and down the long white road.

  "I think he is going to the little mole," said Ada. "I don't know whyhe does so, but when anything seems to ruffle him he generally goesthere."

  Then she flashed a quick questioning glance at her mother. "Thatletter was from Africa. I saw the stamp on it."

  Mrs. Ratcliffe shook her head. "I don't think there is any reason whyyou should disturb yourself," she said. "After all, one has to excusea good deal in the case of men who live in the tropics, and though theways Tom has evidently acquired there now and then jar on me I ventureto believe he will grow out of them and become a credit to you withjudicious management. It would, perhaps, be wiser not to mention thatletter, my dear."

  Ada said nothing, though she was a trifle uneasy. She had seen thesudden intentness of Ormsgill's face, and was far from sure that hewould submit to management of any kind. Nobody acquainted with herconsidered her a clever woman, but, after all, her intelligence waskeener than her mother's.

  In the meanwhile Ormsgill sat down on the steps of the little mole. Itwas pleasantly cool there, and he had already found the rush andrumble of frothing brine tranquilizing, though he was scarcelyconscious of it as he took out the letter and read it again. It wasfrom the missionary Nares.

  "Father Tiebout has just come in very shaky with fever," he read. "Itappears that Herrero, who will not let her go, has gone back towardsthe interior with the woman Lamartine gave him, and has beensystematically ill-using her. There is another matter to mention.Soon after you went Domingo seized the opportunity of raidingLamartine's station, and took all the boys away while we werearranging to send them home as you asked us to do. It will, in view ofthe feeling against us, be difficult or impossible to bring the thinghome to him, but I understand from Father Tiebout that you engaged theboys for Lamartine and pledged your word to send them home when thetime agreed upon expired. Father Tiebout merely asked me to tell you.He said that if you recognized any responsibility in the matter youwould not shrink from it."

  Ormsgill crumpled up the letter and sat very still, gazing into thedimness that was creeping up from Africa across the sea. The messagewas terse, and though the writing was that of Nares he saw the wisdomof Father Tiebout in it. Nares when he was moved spoke at length andplainly, but the little priest had a way of making other folks do whathe wanted, as it were, of their own accord, and without his promptingthem.

  It grew rapidly darker, but Ormsgill did not notice it. The deeprumble of the surf was in his ears, and the restlessness of the seacrept in
on him. He had heard that thunderous booming on swelteringAfrican beaches, and had watched the filmy spray-cloud float farinland athwart the dingy mangroves, and a curious gravity crept intohis eyes as he gazed at the Eastern haze beyond which lay the shadowyland. Life was intense and primitive there, and his sojourn in the bighotel had left him with a growing weariness. Then there was the debthe owed Lamartine, and the promise he had made, and he wonderedvaguely what Ada Ratcliffe would say when he told her he was goingback again. She would protest, but, for all that, he fancied she wouldnot feel his absence very much, though there were times when hermanner to him had been characterized by a certain tenderness. As hethought of it he sighed.

  By and by a boat from the white steam yacht slid up to the foot of thesteps, and a man who ascended them started when he came upon Ormsgill.He was tall and long-limbed, and his voice rang pleasantly.

  "What in the name of wonder are you doing here alone?" he asked.

  "I think I'm worrying, Dick," said Ormsgill. "The fact is, I'm goingback yonder."

  Desmond looked hard at him--but it was already almost dark. "Well," hesaid, "we're rather old friends. Would it be too much if I asked youwhy?"

  "Sit down," said Ormsgill. "I'll try to tell you."

  He did so concisely and quietly, and Desmond made a little sign ofcomprehension. "Well," he said, "if you feel yourself under anobligation to that Frenchman I'm not sure it isn't just as binding nowhe's dead."

  "I was on my beam-ends, without a dollar in my pocket, when he heldout his hand to me. Of course, neither of us know much about thesequestions, and, as a matter of fact, it's scarcely likely thatLamartine did, but he seemed to believe what the padre told him, andthere's no doubt it was a load off his mind when he understood I'dhave the woman set at liberty."

  Desmond sat silent for a minute. Then he said, "There are two pointsthat occur to me. Since you are willing to supply the money, can't thepriest and the missionary arrange the thing?"

  "Nares says they can't. After all, they're there on sufferance, andevery official keeps a jealous eye on them. You couldn't expect themto throw away all they've done for several years, and that's very muchwhat it would amount to if they were run out of the Colony."

  "Then suppose you bought the woman back, and got those boys set free?From what I've heard about the country somebody else would probablylay hands on them again. Since the Frenchman has broken them in they'dbe desirable property."

  "That's one of the things I'm worrying over," said Ormsgillreflectively. "I had thought of running them up the coast and turningthem loose in British Nigeria. They'd be reasonably well treated, andget wages at the factories there. Still, I'd have some trouble ingetting them out of the country, especially as I'm not greatly temptedto buy the boys. If I was it's quite likely that Domingo, who is not afriend of mine, wouldn't let me have them. You see, I'd have to getpapers at the port, though there are plenty of lonely beaches whereone could get a surf-boat off. I had a notion of trying to pick up aschooner at Sierra Leone or Lagos."

  Again Desmond said nothing for a few moments. Then he laughed. "Well,"he said, "there's the _Palestrina_, and when we shake her up she cando her fourteen knots. You can have her for a shooting expedition at apound a month. Now don't raise any--nonsensical objections. I'm aboutsick of loafing. The thing would be a relief to me."

  "There's your father," said Ormsgill suggestively.

  "Just so! There's also the whole estimable family, who have made uptheir minds I'm to go into Parliament whether I'm willing or not.Well, it seems to me that if I'm to have a hand in governing mycountry it will be an education to see how they mismanage things inother ones."

  Then the scion of a political family who could talk like a fireman,and frequently did so, laughed again. "If I get into trouble over itit will be a big advertisement. Besides, it's two years since I had afrolic of any kind. Been nursing the constituency, taking a benevolentinterest in everything from women's rights to village cricket clubs,and I'm coming with you to rake up brimstone now. After all, thoughI've had no opportunity of displaying my abilities in that directionlately, it's one of the few things I really excel in."

  Ormsgill was far from sure that this was what he desired, but he knewhis man, and that, for all his apparent inconsequence, he was one whowhen the pinch came could be relied upon. Then Desmond's effervescenceusually vanished, and gave place to a cold determined quietness thathad carried him through a good many difficulties. This was fortunate,since he was addicted to involving himself in them rather frequently.

  "Well," said Ormsgill, "I'll be glad to have you, but it's rather abig thing. I think they're expecting you at the hotel. We'll talk ofit again."

  He rose, and as they went back together Desmond said reflectively. "Isuppose you understand that it's scarcely likely your prospectivemother-in-law will be pleased with you?"

  "I wasn't aware that you knew her until you came across her here,"said Ormsgill.

  "I didn't. My cousins do. Perhaps you won't mind my saying that theyseem a little sorry for you. From what they have said about Mrs.Ratcliffe it seems to me that you may have trouble in convincing herof the disinterestedness of your intentions."

  Ormsgill felt that this was very probable, though he said nothing.