CHAPTER XIV
ON BOARD THE AQUILA
Tisdale's rooms were very warm that afternoon. It was another of those rare, breezeless days, an aftermath of August rather than the advent of Indian summer, and the sun streamed in at the western windows. His injured hand, his whole feverish body, protested against the heat. The peroxide which he had applied to the hurt at Wenatchee had brought little relief, and that morning the increased pain and swelling had forced him to consult a surgeon, who had probed the wound, cut a little, bandaged it, and announced curtly that it looked like infection.
"But I can't afford to nurse this hand"—Hollis rose from the couch where he had thrown himself when he came in from the doctor's office—"I ought to be using it now." He went over and drew the blinds, but the atmosphere seemed more stifling. He needed air, plenty of it, clean and fresh in God's out-of-doors; it was being penned in these close rooms that raised his temperature. He pulled the shades up again and took a turn across the floor. Then he noticed the crumpled note which, aimed left-handedly, had missed the waste basket earlier, when he opened his mail, and he went over and picked it up. He stood smoothing it on his desk. A perfume, spicy yet suggestive of roses, pervaded the sheet, which was written in a round, firm, masculine hand, under the gilt monogram, M.F. His glance ran through the lines:
"I am writing for my brother, Frederic Morganstein, who is recuperating aboard his yacht, to ask you to join us on a little cruise around Bainbridge Island this afternoon at four o'clock. Ever since his interests have been identified with Alaska, he has hoped to know you personally, and he wishes particularly to meet you now, to thank you for your services in Snoqualmie Pass. In the general confusion after the accident I am afraid none of us remembered to.
"We expect to touch at the Navy Yard and again at Frederic's new villa to see how the work is coming on, but the trip should not take longer than four hours, and we are dining informally on board.
"Do not trouble to answer. If the salt air is a strong enough lure this warm day, you will find the Aquila at Pier Three.
"Very truly yours,
"MARCIA FEVERSHAM.
"Tuesday, September seventh."
"That floating palace ought to stir up some breeze." Tisdale crumpled the invitation again and dropped it deliberately in the waste basket. "And to-morrow I shall be shut up on my eastbound train." He looked at his watch; there was still half an hour to spare before the time of sailing. "After all, why not?"
A little later, when he had hurried into white flannels as expeditiously as possible with his disabled hand, the suggestion crept to his inner consciousness that he might find Mrs. Weatherbee aboard the Aquila. "Well, why not?" he asked himself again. "Why not?" and picked up his hat.
So he came to Pier Number Three and, looking down the gangway as he crossed, saw her standing in the little group awaiting him on the after deck. Morganstein spoke to him and introduced him to the ladies. He did not avoid her look and, under his appraising eyes, he saw the color begin to play in her face. Then her glance fell to his bandaged hand, and an inquiry rushed to her lips. But she checked the words in time and drew slowly aloof to a seat near the rail.
Tisdale took a place near the reclining chair of his host. When she ventured to give him a swift side-glance, his mouth set austerely. But the space between them became electrical. It was as though wireless messages passed continually between them.
"Look back. See how often I tried to tell you! My courage failed. Believe in me. I am not the monster you thought."
And always the one response: "The facts are all against you."
Duwamish Head had dropped from sight; Magnolia Bluff fell far astern, and the Aquila steamed out into the long, broad reach of Puget Sound; but though the tide had turned, there was still no wind. The late sun touched the glassy swells with the changing effect of a prism. The prow of the craft shattered this mirror, and her wake stretched in a ragged and widening crack. But under the awnings Frederic Morganstein's guests found it delightfully cool. Only Jimmie Daniels, huddled on a stool in the glare, outside the lowered curtain that cut him off from the breeze created by the motion of the yacht, felt uncomfortably warm.
The representative of the Press had arrived on board in time to see Tisdale come down the pier and had discreetly availed himself of the secluded place that the financier had previously put to his disposal. He had heard it told at the newspaper office that Tisdale, whose golden statements were to furnish his little scoop, Hollis Tisdale of Alaska and the Geographical Survey, who knew more about the coal situation than any other man, was also the most silent, baffling sphinx on record when it came to an interview.
At the moment the Aquila came into the open, the Japanese boy placed a bowl of punch, with, pleasant clinking of ice, on the wicker table before Mrs. Feversham, who began to serve it. Like Elizabeth's, the emblems on her nautical white costume were embroidered in scarlet, and a red silk handkerchief was knotted loosely on her full, boyish chest. She was not less striking, and indeed she believed this meeting on the deck of the yacht, where formalities were quickly abridged, would appeal to the out-of-doors man and pave the way to a closer acquaintance in Washington. But Tisdale's glance involuntarily moved beyond to the woman seated by the rail. Her head was turned so that he caught the finely chiseled profile, the outward sweep of black lashes, the adorable curve of the oval chin to meet the throat. She too wore the conventional sailor suit, but without color, and this effect of purity, the inscrutable delicacy of her, seemed to set her apart from these dark, materialistic sisters as though she had strayed like a lost vestal into the wrong atmosphere. His brows relaxed. For a moment the censor that had come to hold dominion in his heart was off guard. He felt the magnetism of her personality drawing him once more; he desired to cross the deck to her, drop a word into those deep places he had discovered, and see her emotions stir and overflow. Then suddenly the enthusiasm, for which during that drive through the mountains he had learned to watch, broke in her face. "Look!" she exclaimed softly. "See Rainier!"
Every one responded, but Tisdale started from his chair, and went over and stood beside her. There, southward, through golden haze, with the dark and wooded bluffs of Vashon Island flanking the deep foreground of opal sea, the dome lifted like a phantom peak. "It doesn't seem to belong to our world," she said, and her voice held its soft minor note, "but a vision of some higher, better country."
She turned to give him her rare, grave look, and instantly his eyes telegraphed appreciation. Then he remembered. The swift revulsion came over him. He swung on his heel to go back to his chair, and the unexpected movement brought him in conjunction with the punch tray. The boy righted it dexterously, and she took the offered glass and settled again in her seat. But from his place across the deck, Tisdale noticed a drop had fallen, spreading, above the hem of her white skirt. The red stain held his austere gaze. It became a symbol of blood; on the garment of the vestal the defilement of sacrifice.
She was responsible for Weatherbee's death. He must not forget that. And he saw through her. Now he saw. Had she not known at the beginning he was an out-of-doors man? That he lived his best in the high spaces close to Nature's heart? And so determined to win him in this way? She had meant to win him. Even yet, she could not trust alone to his desire to see David's project through, but threw in the charm of her own personality to swing the balance. Oh, she understood him. At the start she had read him, measured him, sounded him through. That supreme moment, at the crisis of the storm, had she not lent herself to the situation, counting the price? At this thought, the heat surged to his face. He wished in that instant to punish her, break her, but deeper than his anger with her burned a fury against himself. That he should have allowed her to use him, make a fool of him. He who had blamed Weatherbee, censured Foster, for less.
Then Marcia Feversham took advantage of the silence and, at her first statement, Jimmie Daniels sat erect; he forgot his thirst, the discomfort of his position, and opened his notebook on his knee. "I understand your work this season was in the Matanuska coal region, Mr. Tisdale; you must be able to guess a little nearer than the rest of us as to the outcome of the Naval tests. Is it the Copper River Northwestern or the Prince William Development Company that is to have the open door?"
Tisdale's glance moved from the opal sea to the lady's face; the genial lines crinkled faintly at the corners of his eyes. "I believe the Bering and Matanuska coal will prove equally good for steaming purposes," he replied.
Frederic Morganstein grasped the arms of his chair and moved a little, risking a twinge of pain, to look squarely at Tisdale. "You mean the Government may conserve both?" His voice was habitually thick and deliberate, as though the words had difficulty to escape his heavy lips. "That, sir, would lock the shackles on every resource in Alaska. Guess you've seen how construction and development are forced to a standstill, pending the coal decision. Guess you know our few finished miles of railroad, built at immense expense and burdened with an outrageous tax, are operating under imported coal. Placed an order with Japan in the spring for three thousand tons."
"Think of it!" exclaimed Marcia. "Coal from the Orient, the lowest grade, when we should be exporting the best. Think of the handicap, the injustice put upon those pioneer Alaskans who fought tremendous obstacles to open the interior; who paved the way for civilization."
Tisdale's face clouded. "I am thinking of those pioneers, madam, and I believe the Government is going to. Present laws can be easily amended and enforced to fit nearly every situation until better ones are framed. The settler and prospector should have privileges, but at the same time the Government must put some restriction on speculation and monopoly."
Behind the awning Jimmie's pencil was racing down the page, and Morganstein dropped his head back on the pillow; a purplish flush rose in his face.
"The trouble is," Hollis went on evenly, "each senator has been so over-burdened with the bills of his own State that Alaska has been side-tracked. But I know the President's interest is waking; he wants to see the situation intelligently; in fact, he favors a Government-built railroad from the coast to the upper Yukon. And I believe as soon as a selection is made for naval use, some of those old disputed coal claims— some, not all—will be allowed. Or else—Congress must pass a bill to lease Alaska coal lands."
"Lease Alaska coal lands?" Frederic started up again so recklessly he was forced to sink back with a groan. "Do you mean we won't be allowed to mine any coal in Alaska, in that case, except by lease?" And he added, turning his cheek to the pillow, "Oh, damn!"
Tisdale seemed not to have heard the question. His glance moved slowly again over the opal sea and rested on the shining ramparts of the Olympics, off the port bow. "Constance!" he exclaimed mellowly. "The Brothers! Eleanor!" Then he said whimsically: "Thank God they can't set steam-shovels to work there and level those peaks and fill the canyons. Do you know?"—his look returned briefly and the genial lines deepened— "those mountains were my playground when I was a boy. My last hunting trip, the year I finished college, came to an untimely end up there in the gorge of the Dosewallups. You see it? That shaded contour cross-cutting the front of Constance."
Elizabeth, who had opened her workbag, looked up with sudden interest.
"Was there an accident?" she asked. "Something desperate and thrilling?"
"It seemed so to me," he said.
Then Mrs. Weatherbee rose and came over to the port rail. "I see," she said, and shaded her eyes with her hand. "You mean where that gold mist rises between that snow slope and the blue rim of that lower, nearer mountain. And you had camped in that gorge"—her hand dropped; she turned to him expectantly—"with friends, on a hunting trip?"
He paused a moment then answered slowly: "Yes, madam, with one of them.
Sandy, our old camp cook, made a third in the party."