"You"re near the limit, Mack," Kit remarked and went off.
He was disturbed, but _Campeador_"s slowness did not account for all.
Before she sailed a letter arrived from his mother, who stated in a postscript that Betty did not look well. The girl felt the cold of an unusually bleak spring and worked too hard. Mrs. Musgrave understood the doctor thought she ought to go South, but Betty, of course, could not.
Kit walked up and down the deck and pondered. Betty had refused him and he had resigned himself to let her go. In fact, he had begun to think he had not really loved her much. Now, however, to know she was ill, hurt.
He wanted to help, but it was impossible.
Then he remembered that Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Jefferson were on board.
Perhaps he ought to see if they were comfortable; besides, to talk to them might banish his moodiness. He found them sitting to lee of the deck-house, and leaned against the rail opposite. Beneath him, in the moving shadow of the ship, the water was a wonderful blue; farther back, the long undulations, touched here and there by white, melted into the shining plain of the Atlantic. In the distance, Teneriffe"s high range was streaked by silver mist, from which projected a glittering cone.
Mrs. Austin held a book and rings sparkled on her hand. Mrs. Austin was fond of rings. Kit knew she was the daughter of a merchant who began his business career by selling sailors cheap tobacco, but he thought her like an old French marquise; a marquise with a salon where plots were made.
Mrs. Jefferson was not like that. She was not fashionable and one felt her gentle calm. Somehow Kit knew the calm was inherited; one could not altogether get it by cultivation. She had quiet eyes, her sympathetic voice moved him. Now and then he was rather afraid of Mrs. Austin; he loved Mrs. Jefferson. He owned it strange he should enjoy the society of ladies like these.
In the meantime, Mrs. Austin studied Kit. Although he was very raw when he arrived, he was, so to speak, toning down. She had taught him something. Mrs. Austin had educated a number of raw young men, but since it looked as if Olivia were interested in his progress, she wondered whether she was rash to meddle with Kit. For one thing, he was rather handsome; he carried himself well, and his figure was good. He was honest, and his frank look had some charm. Then he had begun to choose his clothes properly; Mrs. Austin admitted she had given him some hints.
Now, however, he was obviously disturbed and she had grounds for curiosity. She knew she could persuade him to give her his confidence and she did so with a cleverness Kit did not note. By and by he gave her impulsively his mother"s letter.
"I"m bothered about the thing," he said.
Mrs. Austin pa.s.sed on the letter to Mrs. Jefferson. On the whole, she was conscious of some satisfaction, because she thought Mrs. Musgrave"s use of the postscript significant.
"One doesn"t like to hear one"s relations are ill," she remarked in a sympathetic voice.
For a moment or two Kit hesitated. Mrs. Austin was Olivia"s sister and he had not meant to talk about Betty. Sometimes he did talk when he ought to be quiet.
"Betty is not a relation, but I"m bothered about her being ill," he said and indicated the snowy peak, silver mist and shining Atlantic. "I feel shabby, as if the thing"s not just. You see, I"ve got so much and Betty, who needs all I"ve got more, is shivering in the cold. You don"t know Liverpool when the east winds blow in spring."
"I know other English, and some American, towns in winter," said Mrs.
Jefferson. "When my husband found I could not stand the cold, he brought me back to the Canaries. I think I can sympathise with Betty."
"Not altogether," Kit rejoined. "When you are tired, you can rest; Betty can"t. You have not to go to an office at nine o"clock, knowing that if you"re ill for a week or two you may lose your job. You are not forced to stop until nine o"clock in the evening, without extra pay, when trade is good."
"Are office girls paid nothing extra for extra work?"
"All I know are not," said Kit. "Perhaps five pounds at Christmas, if the house is remarkably prosperous; but I don"t think Betty minded this.
You feel the dreariness most; the poor food you eat in the middle of a crowd; the fight for the tram-cars when it rains, and the long walk through muddy streets when you can"t get on board. I expect a girl hates to sit all day in wet clothes. Besides, it isn"t good. Then Betty"s office is dark, and she writes entries in a book until her eyes ache.
The thing"s, so to speak, hopeless. You feel you"ve got to go on like that for ever----"
He paused and his look was very gentle when he resumed: "Betty bore it cheerfully. She has pluck, but I knew she was tired, and now she"s ill!"
"Was she going to marry you?" Mrs. Austin asked.
"No," said Kit, blushing like a girl. "When I got my post I wanted her to promise she would marry me when I came back, but she refused."
"This was just before you sailed?" Mrs. Austin remarked thoughtfully.
"Of course. Until Don Arturo sent for me, I knew it might be long before I could support a wife. Betty knew, but she went about with me.
Sometimes we went to small concerts and sometimes, on Sat.u.r.day afternoons, across the river. On the Cheshire side you can get away from the streets. There"s a wood one can reach from a station, and primroses and hyacinths grow in the dead leaves. Betty was happy among the flowers; she loves things like that. She used to watch the thin birch sprays swing across the white trunks. I didn"t know they were birches until she told me, but I sometimes thought her eyes were like the hyacinths. However, I"ve talked a lot and I"m boring you."
"We are not bored," said Mrs. Jefferson, and Mrs. Austin mused.
Kit"s voice was very gentle; it looked as if he had not known pa.s.sion, and Mrs. Austin thought Betty had qualities. One could picture a girl whose life was dreary using all her charm to get a lover; but Betty obviously had not. She had refused Kit, although nothing he had said indicated that she was calculating and ambitious. Well, one sometimes met a girl whose thought was not for herself.
"After all, a _sobrecargo_"s pay on board the _correillo_ is not large,"
she said.
"That is so," Kit agreed. "But one has so much besides; the sea, the sunshine, friends I could not have got at Liverpool. One feels confident; there are better jobs, and perhaps one is not forced to be poor always. Anyhow, Betty didn"t bother about the pay; she can go without things, but when I tried to persuade her she was firm. Well, I think it"s done with, she won"t marry me. All the same, if I could bring her out to rest and get strong in the sun----"
He stopped, with some embarra.s.sment, and resumed: "I have bored you and must get the captain to sign the manifests."
He went off and Mrs. Austin looked at Mrs. Jefferson.
"Well?" she said.
"I like him," said Mrs. Jefferson. "I think I"d like the girl. One feels he drew her better than he knew."
"Yet he"s not her lover."
"He doesn"t know he is her lover, but it"s important that when he thinks about her being ill he"s strongly moved. To know she might get well here but he can"t help, hurts. I"m sorry she can"t come."
"I don"t know that it"s impossible," Mrs. Austin replied.
Mrs. Jefferson gave her a thoughtful glance. Jacinta was generous and often helped people, but Mrs. Jefferson imagined she had an object now.
"You don"t know her and I expect she"s independent."
"For all that, I don"t imagine she would refuse a good post, and a post where the work is light might be got. We"ll talk about it again."
When _Campeador_ arrived at Santa Cruz, Mrs. Austin and Mrs. Jefferson drove across the island to Orotava and Kit went round with the ship.
Orotava is open to the Atlantic and landing is sometimes awkward, but onions were cheap and the company had engaged to load a barque for Cuba.
Kit sent off a quant.i.ty on board the cargo launches and then went to the agent"s office to pay for the goods. In Spanish countries, business is not transacted with much speed and when he started for the harbour it was dark. He wore deck-shoes and thin white clothes, and his pockets bulged with doc.u.ments. At the _marina_ he met Mrs. Austin, Olivia, and Jefferson.
"We came down after dinner to see the surf; it"s rather grand to-night,"
Olivia remarked. "I suppose you are going on board?"
Kit said he was going. He carried the ship"s papers, and she could not sail until he arrived. Then he asked Jefferson: "Have you seen my boat?"
"They ran her up when the sea began to break. I reckon you"ll have some trouble to get off."
This was obvious. At Orotava the surf is not quiet long, and while Kit was engaged at the agent"s the rollers had got high and steep. For a moment or two he looked up the famous horseshoe valley. Mist floated about the shoulders of the giant Peak, but the mist was still, and lights high up on the shadowy slopes did not twinkle. The illumination about the big hotel on the cliff was steady. One got no hint of wind; the night was calm and hot. For all that, the Atlantic was disturbed, and the crash of breakers rolled about the little town. The air throbbed with the measured roar.
Kit looked seawards. Two short moles enclosed a break in the lava rocks, but their ends were lost in phosph.o.r.escent foam, and a white turmoil marked the gap between. Now and then most part of a wall vanished and a yeasty flood ran far up the beach. Kit saw a group of indistinct figures standing about a boat and left the party.
"Can one get a boat off?" Mrs. Austin asked Jefferson.
"It"s risky. Musgrave means to try. The danger spot is where the rollers break on the shallows at the harbour mouth. Beyond that, they"re smooth."
After a few minutes Kit returned and Jefferson said, "Well?"