The Lady and the Pirate by Emerson Hough (best new books to read txt) 📕

than time to persuade my two lieutenants to modify this purpose, and partially to disarm themselves, before the two groups were mingling, with much chattering and laughing and gay saluting.

Edouard, hat in hand, was on deck before our fenders touched the wharf, laughing and grasping my hands and looking up at my flag.

“I knew you were coming,” said he. “Fact is, all the country’s been looking for you. Davidson just got in a couple of hours ago—and you know his lady is an old friend of Mrs. Manning’s. And——”

He was shaking the hands of Mrs. Daniver and Helena almost before I could present them. Auntie Lucinda bestowed upon him the gaze of a solemn and somewhat tear-stained visage (though I saw distinct approval on her face as she caught sight of the great mansion house among the giant oaks, and witnessed the sophisticatedness of the group on the landing, and the easy courtesy of Edouard himself).

“By Jove! old man!” the latter found time to say to me, “I congratulate you—she’s away beyond her pictures.” He did not mean Mrs. Daniver; and he never had seen Helena before. I could only press his hand and attempt no comment as to the congratulations, for part of that was a matter which yet rested in a sealed envelope in my pocket; and at best it must be three or four days.... But then, with a great flash of arrested intelligence, it was borne in upon me that perhaps, after all, it was not so much a question of the tardy United States mails! Because yon varlet, fat and saucy, and well content with life, already, by some means and for some reason, had outrun the mails. He was here, and we had met. It need not be four days before I could learn my fate.... I reached into my pocket and looked at my sealed orders. No matter what Davidson’s letter held, here was Davidson himself.

“Oh, I say, there, you Harry, confound you!” roared Davidson to me in his great voice above the heads of everybody. “I say, what did I tell you?”

Now I had not the slightest idea what Davidson had told me, nor what he meant by waving a paper over his head. “They’ve signed Dingleheimer for next year! Now what do you think of that? World’s championship, and good old Dingleheimer for next year—I guess that’s pretty poor for them little old Giants, what?” And he smiled like one devoid of all care as well as of all reason.

I myself smiled just a moment later—after I had greeted the Manning ladies, had seen Helena step up and kiss Sally Byington fervently, directly on the cheek, whose too keen coloring I once had heard her decry; had slapped Edouard joyously on the shoulders and pointed to my pirate flag and gloomy black-visaged crew—I say I also smiled suddenly when I felt a hand touch me on the shoulder.

’Polyte, the pilot, stood, cap in hand, and asked me to one side.

“Pardon, Monsieur,” said he, “but those gentilhommes—those fat one—ees eet she’ll was Monsieur Davelson who’ll H’I’ll got letter on heem from those lighthouse, heem?”

“Why, yes, ’Polyte—the letter you said would take four days to get to New Orleans.”

’Polyte smiled sheepishly. “He’ll wouldn’t took four days now, Monsieur! H’I’ll got it h’all those letter here. H’I’ll change the coat on the lighthouse, maybe, h’an H’I’ll got the coat of Guillaume witt’ h’all those letter in her, yass?” And he now handed me the entire packet of letters, which I had supposed left far behind us on the previous day!

I took the letters from him, and handed all of them but one to Edouard’s old body servant to put in the office mail. The remaining one I held in the same hand with its mate: and I motioned Davidson aside to a spot under a live oak as the other began now slowly to move toward the path from the landing up the hill.

“This is for you,” said I, handing him his letter; and told him how it came to him thus.

“It’s from Helena—dear old girl, isn’t she a trump, after all!” he said, tearing open the letter and glancing at it.

“She is a dear girl, Mr. Davidson,” said I, stiffly, “yes.”

“Why, of course—yes, of course I’d have done it, if I’d got this before I left the city,” said he, “but how can I now?”—holding the letter open in his hand.

“Do you mean to tell me,” I began, but choked in anger mixed with uncertainty. What was it she had asked of him, offered to him? And was not Helena’s wish a command.

“Yes, I mean to tell you or any one else, I’d do a favor to a lady if I could; but——”

“What favor, Mr. Davidson?” I demanded icily.

“Well, why ‘Mr. Davidson’? Ain’t I your pal, in spite of all the muss you made of my plans? Why, I’m damned if I’ll pay you the charter money at all, after the way you’ve acted, and all——”

“Mr. Davidson, damn the charter money!”

“That’s what I say! What’s charter money among friends? All right, if you can forgive half the charter fee, I’ll forgive the other half, and——”

“What was in the letter from her?”

“It’s none of your business, Harry—but still, I don’t mind saying that Miss Emory wrote me and said that if I was still—oh! I say!” he roared, turning suddenly and poking a finger into my ribs, “if you haven’t got on one of my waistcoats!”

“The one with pink stripes,” said I still icily, “and deuced bad ones they all are. And these clothes I borrowed from my China boy. But then——”

“I see, you must have come in a hurry, eh?”

“Yes. But come now, old man, what’s in that letter? I’ve got one of my own here, done in the same hand, hers. I am under sealed orders—until I shall have met you, which is now. So I suppose some sort of explanation is due on both sides. We might as well have it all out here, before we join the house party, so as to avoid any awkwardness.”

“Oh, nothing in my letter to amount to anything,” he replied. “Miss Emory only wanted to know if I’d please have her trunks shipped out here from New Orleans—only that; and she asked me please to bring her a box of marshmallows, as hers were all gone. She’s polite, always, dear old Helena—she says, here, ‘So pleasant is our journey in every way, and so kind have you gentlemen been, and so thoughtful in providing every luxury, that I can not think of a single thing I could ask for except some more marshmallows. Jimmy, the young imp, my nephew, you know, has found mine, though I hid them under both cushions in the stateroom.’”

I had my hat off, and was wiping my forehead. A sudden burst of glory seemed to me to envelope all the world. If there had been duplicity anywhere, I did not care.

“I suppose Jimmy is the one with two guns and a Jap sword, eh?” asked Davidson.

“No, the other one, God bless him! Is that all there was in the letter, Cal?”

“Yes. What’s in yours? What’s the game—button, button, who’s got the girl? And can’t you open your letter now?”

“Yes,” said I, and did so. It contained just two words (Helena afterward said she had not time to write more while Auntie Lucinda might be in from the other stateroom).[A]

“Well, what’s it say, dash you!” demanded Cal Davidson. “Play fair now—I told, and so must you!”

“I’m damned if I do, Cal!” said I, and put it in my pocket. But I shook hands with him most warmly, none the less....