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

He put out his hand and I met it. “Will you shake hands with me, Cal?” said I, “on precisely those same terms about having been an awful fool? It’s you who are the best chap in the world. And I’ll admit it—I was jealous of you!”

He roared at this. “Well,” said he, “as George Cohan says, ‘All’s well that ends well’, and I guess we couldn’t beat this for a championship year, now could we? Now say, about Dingleheimer——”

“Oh, hang Dingleheimer, Cal!” I exclaimed. “What I want to know is, did you ever talk any to Miss Emory about—well, about me, you know?—say anything about my affairs, or anything, you know? I mean while you were there on the boat together.”

“No. She wouldn’t let me. Besides, the truth is, I was so full of Sally all the time, I mostly talked about her. By Jove! that was a measly trick you played us, running off with the boat from under my nose! But I proposed to Sally in Natchez that night, and she came on down to the city the next day by rail—while I ran down in that dirty little scow you left behind. And I never tumbled for days that it was you had run off with the boat—though I found a photo of Helena and your cigarette case in the boat you left. Never tumbled till that story of the taxi driver came out. Then I said, ‘Well, of all things! Wonder if that old stick has really come to life after all!’ And you sure had! What’s in your letter? Say, ain’t a boat the place——”

“But how did you happen to be here?”

“Oh, I’ve known Ed Manning years, in New York, Paris, all around. He asked me to visit him some time. I wired and asked him if I could come out for our honeymoon—you know, Harry, I’m such a d——d romantic son of a gun, and once before I was out here at Ed’s, and those d——d nightingales, catbirds, what d’ye call ’ems——”

“—Mockers.”

“Yes, mockers, they sung so sweet, especial in the evenings, you know—and I’m so d——d romantic—always was thataway—and you know, why, a fellow can be romantic on his honeymoon, can’t he?—he can just cut loose then an’ be as big a d—n fool as he likes then—an’ get away with it, what? Say, can’t he?”

—“Yes.”

—“So that’s why I came.”

—“But—honeymoon? Are you going to be married?”

—“Naw! I ain’t goin’ to be married—I am married! Day before yesterday, in New Orleans. And I don’t believe in dandlin’ an’ foolin’ around about a little thing like that. Ain’t you married yet?”

“No. Impossible. No preacher on Côte Blanche Bay or on our boat. I’ve got Aunt Lucinda Daniver along, to take care of the proprieties. If I should leave it to her, I never would be married.”

“Why?”

“She thinks I’m broke.”

“Yes, too bad about that! I wish I could swap bank rolls with you. Why didn’t you tell her the truth—and Helena, too? Why didn’t you tell ’em it was your own yacht? Why didn’t you tell ’em you’re worth a few millions and don’t have to work?”

“I don’t know—maybe I’m like you, Cal, foolish about nightingales and things. But tell me—you never did tell them anything about that Sally M. mine business, did you?”

“No, I should say not! Didn’t you tell me you didn’t want it to get out? It was bad enough, the way old Dan and your—sainted father handed it to each other over that mine, wasn’t it? I know about it, for I promoted that mine myself, and the name’ll prove that—Sally M. Byington, with the Byington left off! There wasn’t a blasted thing in it then. But when you—like a blame quixotic fool—after she was good for six thousand a month velvet, and ore blocked out to last a thousand years—why, then you fool around in Papa’s records, and think Papa wasn’t on the square with old Dan. So on the quiet you get it all made over, back to old Dan’s daughter; and take a sneak into the hazelbrush when she turns you down! Say, you know what I’d a-done?”

“No.”

—“I’d a-held on to the mine and told the girl how much it was bringin’ in—that’s my system. Then I’d a-got the mine and the girl both, maybe!”

—“Maybe.”

“Well, that’s the system I’d a-played. I wouldn’t a-took to the tall grass, me.”

“On the other hand, I played a system invented by myself and Henri L’Olonnois.”

“I never heard of him. Well, anyhow, you were rich enough to afford to do what you liked. But as to keeping it secret, you can’t do that any longer. Those newspaper fellows are the devil to get hold of things. Since all this stuff came out about you running away with your own boat—I can see now why you did it, and I’m glad you did—why, your whole life history has been printed, including all that restitution business about the Sally M. Fellows came to me and asked me about you, asked if I knew you. Said, yes, I knew you—said you were a romantic chap, and a good business man, too—and the best old scout in the world—what?”

I had arisen, and stood in some doubt. “What’s the matter—let’s go on up to the house. I want to see Sally,” he concluded.

“And I want very much to see Helena,” said I. “Only, it’s going to be rather harder now to meet her—and Mrs. Daniver.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Cal Davidson; “every fellow plays his own system. There’s something in what you say about women having a good poker face so far as tellin’ what they think about a man is concerned—yes. Frinstance, how much did Helena know I knew, or know you knew or thought you knew—well, you get me? But the trouble with you is, you ain’t romantic in your temperament like me.... But if I was you, I wouldn’t be scared to tell Mrs. Daniver I had a dollar and a quarter or so left! It’ll soften the blow some to her, maybe. And as for Helena——”

“And as for Helena, I can look her in the face, and she can me, now. And—will you telephone to New Iberia for a minister—at once—for this evening train? And will you tell Edouard to have his man lay out his best evening clothes for me—tell him I’ll trade him these of my cook’s for them—and a suit of traveling clothes? Because, oh! fellow varlet——” (I paused here; we both did; for a mocker just now broke into an extraordinary burst of song, so sweet, so throbbingly sweet, that we could not help but listen, both of us being lovers)....

“What were you saying, old man?” Cal Davidson asked after a while, musingly, as one awakening.... “Some bird, what?”

... “Because, to-night,” I answered, “I am going to marry my fair captive, yon heartless jade, Helena. I’ve loved her always, rich or poor, and she loves me, rich or poor. And we shall live happy ever after. And may God bless us, and all true lovers!”

“Amen!” I heard some one say; and have often wondered whether it was yon varlet, the mocking-bird, or Cal Davidson himself, who spoke.... I looked around for Partial. He had followed Helena.