The Indian Drum by William MacHarg (classic english novels txt) 📕

Constance retreated into the room as he approached. He did not want her there now, she knew; for that reason—if she yet definitely understood no other—she meant to remain. If he asked her to go, she intended to stay; but he did not ask her. He wished her to go away; in every word which he spoke to her, in every moment of their silent waiting, was his desire to escape her; but he dared not—dared not—go about that directly.

The feeling of that flashed over her to her stupefaction. Henry and she were waiting for word of the fate of Uncle Benny and Alan, and waiting opposed! She was no longer doubting it as she watched him; she was trying to understand. The telephone buzzer under his desk sounded; she drew close as he took up his receiver.

"Manitowoc?" he said. "I want to know what you've heard from the Solwerk.... You hear me? ... The men the Solwerk picked up. You have the names yet?"

"..."

"The Benton?"

"..."

"Oh, I understand! All from the Benton. I see! ... No; never mind their names. How about Number 25? Nothing more heard from them?"

Constance had caught his shoulder while he was speaking and now clung to it. Release—release of strain was going through him; she could feel it, and she heard it in his tones and saw it in his eyes.

"The steamer Number 25 rammed proves to have been the Benton," he told her. "The men are all from her. They had abandoned her in the small boats, and the Solwerk picked them up before the ferry found her."

He was not asking her to congratulate him upon the relief he felt; he had not so far forgotten himself as that. But it was plain to her that he was congratulating himself; it had been fear that he was feeling before—fear, she was beginning to understand, that those on the ferry had been saved. She shrank a little away from him. Benjamin Corvet had not been a friend of Henry's—they had quarreled; Uncle Benny had caused trouble; but nothing which she had understood could explain fear on Henry's part lest Uncle Benny should be found safe. Henry had not welcomed Alan; but now Henry was hoping that Alan was dead. Henry's words to her in the north, after Alan had seen her there, iterated themselves to her: "I told that fellow Conrad not to keep stirring up these matters about Ben Corvet.... Conrad doesn't know what he'll turn up; I don't know either. But it's not going to be anything pleasant...." Only a few minutes ago she had still thought of these words as spoken only for Alan's sake and for Uncle Benny's; now she could not think of them so. This fear of news from the north could not be for their sake; it was for Henry's own. Had all the warnings been for Henry's sake too?

Horror and amazement flowed in upon her with her realization of this in the man she had promised to marry; and he seemed now to appreciate the effect he was producing upon her. He tried obviously to pull himself together; he could not do that fully; yet he managed a manner assertive of his right over her.

"Connie," he cried to her, "Connie!"

She drew back from him as he approached her; she was not yet consciously denying his right. What was controlling him, what might underlie his hope that they were dead, she could not guess; she could not think or reason about that now; what she felt was only overwhelming desire to be away from him where she could think connectedly. For an instant she stared at him, all her body tense; then, as she turned and went out, he followed her, again calling her name. But, seeing the seamen in the larger office, he stopped, and she understood he was not willing to urge himself upon her in their presence.

She crossed the office swiftly; in the corridor she stopped to compose herself before she met her mother. She heard Henry's voice speaking to one of the clerks, and flushed hotly with horror. Could she be certain of anything about him now? Could she be certain even that news which came through these employees of his would not be kept from her or only so much given her as would serve Henry's purpose and enable him to conceal from her the reason for his fear? She pushed the door open.

"I'm willing to go home now, mother, if you wish," she said steadily.

Her mother arose at once. "There is no more news, Constance?"

"No; a schooner has picked up the crew of the ship the ferry rammed; that is all."

She followed her mother, but stopped in the ante-room beside the desk of her father's private secretary.

"You are going to be here all day, Miss Bennet?" she asked.

"Yes, Miss Sherrill."

"Will you please try to see personally all messages which come to Corvet, Sherrill and Spearman, or to Mr. Spearman about the men from Number 25, and telephone them to me yourself?"

"Certainly, Miss Sherrill."

When they had gone down to the street and were in the car, Constance leaned back, closing her eyes; she feared her mother might wish to talk with her. The afternoon papers were already out with news of the loss of the ferry; Mrs. Sherrill stopped the car and bought one, but Constance looked at it only enough to make sure that the reporters had been able to discover nothing more than she already knew; the newspaper reference to Henry was only as to the partner of the great Chicago ship owner, Benjamin Corvet, who might be lost with the ship.

She called Miss Bennet as soon as she reached home; but nothing more had been received. Toward three o'clock, Miss Bennet called her, but only to report that the office had heard again from Mr. Sherrill. He had wired that he was going on from Manistique and would cross the Straits from St. Ignace; messages from him were to be addressed to Petoskey. He had given no suggestion that he had news; and there was no other report except that vessels were still continuing the search for survivors, because the Indian Drum, which had been beating, was beating "short," causing the superstitious to be certain that, though some of the men from Number 25 were lost, some yet survived.

Constance thrilled as she heard that. She did not believe in the Drum; at least she had never thought she had really believed in it; she had only stirred to the idea of its being true. But if the Drum was beating, she was glad it was beating short. It was serving, at least, to keep the lake men more alert. She wondered what part the report of the Drum might have played in her father's movements. None, probably; for he, of course, did not believe in the Drum. His move was plainly dictated by the fact that, with the western gale, drift from the ferry would be toward the eastern shore.

A little later, as Constance stood at the window, gazing out at the snow upon the lake, she drew back suddenly out of sight from the street, as she saw Henry's roadster appear out of the storm and stop before the house.

She had been apprehensively certain that he would come to her some time during the day; he had been too fully aware of the effect he made upon her not to attempt to remove that effect as soon as he could. As he got out of the car, shaking the snowflakes from his great fur coat and from his cap, looking up at the house before he came in and not knowing that he was observed, she saw something very like triumph in his manner. Her pulses stopped, then raced, at that; triumph for him! That meant, if he brought news, it was good news for him; it must be then, bad news for her.

She waited in the room where she was. She heard him in the hall, taking off his coat and speaking to the servant, and he appeared then at the door. The strain he was under had not lessened, she could see; or rather, if she could trust her feeling at sight of him, it had lessened only slightly, and at the same time his power to resist it had been lessening too. His hands and even his body shook; but his head was thrust forward, and he stared at her aggressively, and, plainly, he had determined in advance to act toward her as though their relationship had not been disturbed.

"I thought you'd want to know, Connie," he said, "so I came straight out. The Richardson's picked up one of the boats from the ferry."

"Uncle Benny and Alan Conrad were not in it," she returned; the triumph she had seen in him had told her that.

"No; it was the first boat put off by the ferry, with the passengers and cabin maid and some injured men of the crew."

"Were they—alive?" her voice hushed tensely.

"Yes; that is, they were able to revive them all; but it didn't seem possible to the Richardson's officers that any one could be revived who had been exposed much longer than that; so the Richardson's given up the search, and some of the other ships that were searching have given up too, and gone on their course."

"When did you hear that, Henry? I was just speaking with the office."

"A few minutes ago; a news wire got it before any one else; it didn't come through the office."

"I see; how many were in the boat?"

"Twelve, Connie."

"Then all the vessels up there won't give up yet!"

"Why not?"

"I was just talking with Miss Bennet, Henry; she's heard again from the other end of the lake. The people up there say the Drum is beating, but it's beating short still!"

"Short!"

She saw Henry stiffen. "Yes," she said swiftly. "They say the Drum began sounding last night, and that at first it sounded for only two lives; it's kept on beating, but still is beating only for four. There were thirty-nine on the ferry—seven passengers and thirty-two crew. Twelve have been saved now; so until the Drum raises the beats to twenty-seven there is still a chance that some one will be saved."

Henry made no answer; his hands fumbled purposelessly with the lapels of his coat, and his bloodshot eyes wandered uncertainly. Constance watched him with wonder at the effect of what she had told. When she had asked him once about the Drum, he had professed the same scepticism which she had; but he had not held it; at least he was not holding it now. The news of the Drum had shaken him from his triumph over Alan and Uncle Benny and over her. It had shaken him so that, though he remained with her some minutes more, he seemed to have forgotten the purpose of reconciliation with her which had brought him to the house. When a telephone call took her out of the room, she returned to find him gone to the dining-room; she heard a decanter clink there against a glass. He did not return to her again, but she heard him go. The entrance door closed after him, and the sound of his starting motor came. Then alarm, stronger even than that she had felt during the morning, rushed upon her.

She dined, or made a pretence of dining, with her mother at seven. Her mother's voice went on and on about trifles, and Constance did not try to pay attention. Her thought was following Henry with ever sharpening apprehension. She called the office in mid-evening; it would be open, she knew, for messages regarding Uncle Benny and Alan would be expected there. A clerk answered; no other news had been received; she then asked Henry's whereabouts.

"Mr. Spearman went north late this afternoon, Miss Sherrill," the clerk informed her.

"North? Where?"

"We are to communicate with him