CHAPTER VII THE BONDS OF SYMPATHY
The Black Star Line wharf in North River was crowded with cheering men, women, and children. Their fluttering handkerchiefs looked like a sudden flurry of snow. The roar of steam whistles from a hundred harbor craft rose above the din on the wharf. Past the Battery was creeping a sea-stained liner, her great steel prow so crushed and battered that the thousands who watched her wondered how she could have been kept afloat. The news of her coming had been sent by wireless, and a fleet of the company's tugs had hurried to sea to meet her.
The kinfolk and friends of those on board had been kept in a state of panicky alarm, day after day, by the flaring newspaper head-lines which sent the Roanoke to the bottom and raised her again, in hourly "extras."
The band on the promenade deck was lustily playing "home again, home again, from a foreign shore," as the tugs poked their noses against the black side of the ocean cripple and began to nudge her into her berth. David Downes was looking for friends on the wharf, but he scanned the masses of upturned faces in vain, until the bos'n prodded him in the ribs, and said:
"Cast your eye on the end of the pier, boy. I see a red spot. It vas Becket or else there is a fire just broke out. Nobody has as red-headed a head as that crazy feller."
Sure enough, there was Mr. Becket, waving his arms like a wild man; beside him was the tall figure of Captain Bracewell; and between them a slip of a girl was dancing up and down in her efforts to get a clear view of the ship. David's eyes filled as he swung his cap above his head. There were his "dearest folks," as he called them, and he was as rich in welcomes as any of the passengers who were making so much joyful noise along the decks below. Bless them, what news had they? Was Mr. Becket still stranded, and was there any hope of a ship for Captain John? The long voyage of disaster and adventure seemed like a dream. David Downes, able seaman, was come back to his own.
The gangways were lowered, and the passengers streamed ashore, telling their stories at the top of their voices, as they flew into the arms of their friends. David went below to find Mr. Cochran, who had found no joy in this homecoming and deliverance from the sea. He was hanging back to let the crowd pass ashore, and he looked very forlorn and lonely. Gentlemen high in the world of finance, and managers of his great interests had flocked aboard to greet him and to offer their aid and sympathy. But he had begged to be left alone, and, oddly enough, his heavy face lighted for the first time when David found him. They had seen little of each other since the Roanoke resumed her voyage. David had been doing a double trick of duty, and the millionaire was so racked in body and mind that he was seldom on deck. But in their few meetings Mr. Cochran had been almost pathetically friendly of manner, as if he were trying to make amends because of his boy's fondness for the sailor lad. Now when the parting hour came Mr. Cochran seemed genuinely affected. His wonted abruptness of speech had been assumed again, and he carried himself with an air of frowning dignity, but he took one of David's hard hands between both his own as he said:
"He talked a great deal about you, and you must come and see me and talk to me about him. You won't refuse this time, will you? His—his mother will be delighted to see you."
David made haste to reply:
"Of course I will and thank you, sir. And you will send me any news of Arthur as quick as you can, please promise me that."
Mr. Cochran nodded, and David hesitated, as if he had something else on his mind. He was thinking that it might do Mr. Cochran good to know his "dearest folks" in such a time as this, but he dared stay away no longer from the crowded gangway, so he said good-by to the man whose path had so strangely crossed his own again.
Soon there appeared on the landing stage the brilliant beacon of hair which topped the robust Mr. Becket as he skilfully piloted Margaret through the confusion. It was hard work for David to keep from rushing to meet them half-way, but he remembered the discipline expected of an able seaman. Mr. Becket was first to reach him, and he proceeded to thump David's chest and pound his back with the exhortation:
"All sound and fit for duty? The collision didn't stave you in anywheres?"
Margaret was able to greet her "big brother" only by shoving Mr. Becket out of the way with all her might.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, abusing David as if you weren't a bit glad to see him," she cried. "Oh, but we are glad to see you, and are you all right, and are you coming home to supper with us? I don't believe I've slept a wink this week, have I, grandfather?"
Captain John was meekly waiting for a chance to make his presence known. He clapped his hands on David's shoulders and his honest eyes glowed with pride and affection as he exclaimed:
"We feel quite set up that you belong to us, Davy. Here you go picking up more mariners in distress. We've heard all about it."
"We can talk it all over to-night," said David, shaking hands all round again. "I am on watch now and I mustn't neglect my duty even for you."
His boyish manner was so very serious that Mr. Becket went off into a series of explosive chuckles, from which he was diverted by the appearance of the bos'n who declared in the most threatening voice:
"The red-headed loafer again? I vill protect my whiskers mit my life. Get ashore mit you, you terrible Becket man, or I vill vash you down mit the fire-hose."
Mr. Becket was not in the least alarmed, and after a harmless exchange of blood-thirsty threats, he followed Captain John and Margaret down the gangway.
Later in the day the chief officer told David that as soon as her cargo was discharged, the Roanoke would go to Philadelphia for temporary repairs, which might take a month or more. The captain had left word that David could have a week's shore leave and then rejoin the ship at Philadelphia. The news sounded too good to be true, and as soon as he was relieved from duty, David fairly ran ashore with a canvas bag of clothes under his arm. He made all speed to the tiny flat in which Margaret was keeping house for Captain John. Mr. Becket had been invited for supper, and he was boiling with eagerness to ask David a question which had been disturbing him all day long.
"Did you say anything to Mr. Stanley P. Cochran about vessels? You know what I mean. I didn't say a word to Captain John, for I don't want to get him stirred up with false alarms."
They had met in the outer hall, and Mr. Becket softly closed the door behind him, for his stage-whispers carried far.
"Of course I didn't," responded David, "with his boy adrift and his heart broken clean in two. It was a silly notion of yours to begin with."
"Well, you needn't bite my head off," growled Mr. Becket, as they shouldered their way into the tiny living room. Margaret called blithely from the birdcage of a kitchen.
"Do keep Mr. Becket away from here, Davy. Every time he turns around or takes a long breath, he breaks a dish or upsets something. He ought to live out-doors."
Captain John was beaming a welcome as he hauled David by the collar to a seat on the sofa beside him, and declared:
"You'd be a mate next year if you had chosen sail instead of steam, you strapping big lump of a lad. You are the kind of Yankee sailor they used to breed in my early days at sea. How many years more do you serve in your old machine shop before you get your papers?"
"Three or four," cheerfully replied David. "And even then I won't be fit to be left in charge of the ship for a minute. A fourth officer is mighty small potatoes in my trade."
"I was master of a deep-water ship when I was twenty-one," said Captain John. "Ah, those days are gone. Tell us all about this boy that was lost with the yacht."
"He isn't lost," stoutly returned David. "With good weather they will be picked up. I'm sure of it."
"The sea is very cruel, Davy," murmured the skipper, and his face clouded with sad memories of his boy lost with Margaret's mother. The "little girl" peered anxiously from the kitchen door and tried to shift the topic to happier themes:
"Just think what Davy's been through all in one year, and he lives to tell it, so let's enjoy him while we can. We mustn't even mention the whiskers of Mr. Becket's skipper and his awful tale of woe."
"There's a master wanted in a Jamaica fruiter," observed Mr. Becket. "But my old skipper is trying to do me with the owners. However, they can't keep a good man down, and you will stand by your friends, blow high, blow low, won't you, Davy?"
Supper was on the table and Margaret waited on her hungry crew with pretty anxiety to play well her part in this festal reunion. She consented to sit down with them when it came to serving the apple pie which she herself had made. Mr. Becket demanded Captain John's old-fashioned quadrant with which to measure off the exact number of degrees of pie each was entitled to, and nearly upset the table before this mathematical problem was adjusted. In the midst of the excitement the door-bell buzzed. Mr. Becket sprang to the speaking-tube as if he were in a wheel-house and shouted:
"Below there. What's wanted?"
While he cocked his head to listen, his face began to express the most intense amazement, and his reply was absurdly meek, as he cried:
"Yes, sir. Very good, sir. The dickens it is. Two flights up, and don't break your precious neck on the dark landings, sir."
Turning to the puzzled listeners, Mr. Becket explained in a flurried tone:
"It is Mr. Stanley P. Cochran, no less, and none other. Now what do you think of that?"
Margaret whisked off her apron and began to clear away the dishes, pie and all, but Captain John stopped her with:
"Stay as you are, girlie. Nobody's ashamed of sitting down to a square meal. Mr. Cochran is just a poor, grieving daddy, that's all."
"Oh, maybe he has good news for Davy," cried Margaret. "You run out and meet him, David."
Mr. Cochran entered the door a moment later, with the air of an intruder. He hesitated in the doorway of the crowded little room and fumbled with his hat.
"Plenty of room at the table," said Captain John, rising and holding out his hand. "Becket, you hang yourself out on the fire-escape and make room for Mr. Cochran. Margaret, a plate and another cup of coffee."
"These are my best friends, Mr. Cochran," put in David, presenting them by name. "We have sort of adopted each other all round."
Mr. Cochran sank into a chair, while Margaret timidly asked him:
"Will you have a piece of my apple pie, sir? These sailor men seem to like it."
"It is simply grand," rumbled Mr. Becket from the window.
The visitor looked about him. Something in the homely cheer and affection of this atmosphere seemed to touch his emotions. His eyes were moist and his voice was not quite steady as he thanked Margaret and then said to David:
"You are lucky to have such friends, and they have made no mistake in you. I went down to the ship to find you and the bos'n sent me here. I—I was asked to come, and——"
He hesitated, bit his lip, and waited, as if trying to keep his voice under better control.
"Is there any news?" asked David.
"Not yet. But his mother wants you to come up and see her this evening. She asked me to find you. Of course I came. It seems that our boy took it more to heart than I had any idea of—when I disappointed him about your coming to visit him last year. He told his mother—but he didn't say very much to me. And he has had so few boy friends."
It was pitiful to hear this pleading, remorseful speech from such a man as Stanley P. Cochran had always been. Captain John's kindly face was twitching, while he murmured, as if talking to himself:
"I once had an only son."
"Of course I'll go with you," said David, as he rose from the table. "You will excuse me, won't you, folks?"
There was so much hearty sympathy in their response that Mr. Cochran smiled a little wistfully, as if he wished to stay longer in this simple, genuine circle of friends. They were not awed by his name, they did not cringe before his wealth, and they seemed to have found the secret of contentment, in what, to him, seemed like dire poverty. He could pour out his heart about his boy to people like these, and they would understand.
"I hate to take you away," he said at length. "But his mother will be waiting for us."
"Don't you stay here a minute longer, Davy," urged Margaret. "And be just as cheerful as you can. We are all praying for your son, Mr. Cochran, and we know that he will come back to you."
The millionaire wavered and picked up the cup of coffee with a sheepish air.
"I haven't eaten a bite to-day," said he. "But the smell of things here makes me hungry, I really believe."
"A bit of that chicken salad, and a chop, and a section of our peerless apple pie will make a new man of you," spoke up the half-hidden Mr. Becket, who was feeling more at ease. The guest seemed grateful for this sound advice, and appeared to relish his hasty meal. Before he finished he said, not at all as if he were doing a favor, but as one friend to another:
"Captain Bracewell, I wish you and your charming granddaughter and Mr. Becket and David Downes would do me the pleasure of dining at my house some night this week. Arthur's mother and I find it very lonesome, and it will help to keep her from brooding."
Captain John was too used to being a master among men to be at all agitated by this unexpected invitation, but Margaret fluttered between dining-room and kitchen in much excitement. Mr. Becket was stricken dumb and could only make signals of distress.
"I will answer for us all," returned Captain John. "If it will cheer up you and your wife to see us plain seafaring folks, we will accept, with hearty thanks."
Mr. Cochran expressed his gratitude, as if they were doing him a kindness, and departed, with David in his wake. As these two rolled up town in the millionaire's automobile, Mr. Cochran observed, after a long silence:
"I like those friends of yours. I wish I could have known them before. Arthur would enjoy them."
It was on the tip of David's tongue to tell him that these were the people whom he had preferred to see on that day a year ago when Mr. Cochran had flown into a rage and cast him off. But this was no time to recall old misunderstandings. All David could do was to wait in patience, and hope that Mr. Cochran might discover what a splendid man Captain John was, and take an interest in him on his own account.
The automobile halted in front of a huge stone mansion in upper Fifth Avenue. It looked more like a castle than a home. The immense tapestry-hung parlors, past which David was led, were silent and cheerless. Captain John's flat was far more cheery and livable than these gloomy apartments, thought David, as he followed his host up the echoing marble staircase to the second story.
Presently they came to a smaller room which looked as if people really lived in it. A slender woman in black rose from a divan to greet them. In her smile there was the timid, tremulous sweetness which had made her boy so attractive to David on first acquaintance. There could have been little in common between her and the hard, domineering father until a great grief bridged the gulf that had grown between them. Even now, she looked at Mr. Cochran with an appealing glance, as if waiting for him to speak. David wanted to pick her up in his strong young arms and comfort her.
"So this is the boy that Arthur said he wished he could be like," were her first words, as she looked up at David's brown face and well-set shoulders. "Why, you are not a boy. You are a man."
"I've grown a lot in the last year, and sea life agrees with me," laughed David, with a blush at her frank admiration.
"That is what the doctors told Mr. Cochran when he planned the trip abroad for Arthur, in the yacht," sighed the mother. "He did not ask me to go, because I am such a wretched sailor, I suppose. I expected to join them later in the south of France."
"It is a good deal better for a man's health when he has to work his way," explained David. "Sitting under a yacht's awning all day isn't a bit like having your regular watches to stand in all weathers. When Arthur comes home you will find him fit as a fiddle. Being adrift for a few days will do him good."
"How awful!" exclaimed Mrs. Cochran, nervously clasping her hands. "Why I have done almost nothing except carry out the doctors' orders for his health since he was a baby."
"That may be partly the trouble, mother," remarked Mr. Cochran. "I'd give half I own to see him looking like this big lad here. I met some of his friends to-night. They are coming up to see you soon. You can't help liking them. They are the kind we used to know down East, ages and ages ago, 'when we were so happy and so poor.'"
"If they are anything like David Downes, I know I shall be fond of them," smiled the mother.
Then she fell to telling David all about Arthur's boyhood, and her fond interest in every detail of her son's affairs found such a ready and warm-hearted listener that Mr. Cochran stole away, and left them sitting side by side on the divan. Little by little David's confidence in Arthur's safety began to reassure the tormented mother. The sailor talked to her of the sea with a knowledge born of his experience and of the bright hopefulness of youth. Quite naturally he drifted into telling her about the wreck of the Pilgrim, to show how there was chance of escape in the most desperate disaster. Her mother's heart was drawn to the picture of Margaret, as David painted it, in words of loving loyalty and admiration.
"You are like a fresh breeze blowing from a big, fine, wholesome world that we seem to have been shut off from," she cried, as she looked at him with affectionate eyes. "I do believe that Arthur will be brought home to us."
They heard a telephone bell ring in another room. The mother's face became white and tense, and she grasped David's hand and held it fast. There might be some tidings. After minutes that seemed like hours Mr. Cochran entered the room with dragging step and bowed shoulders. He spoke very slowly, as if reluctant to repeat the message which had come to him.
"It was a telegram, mother," said he. "One of the Restless boats was picked up at sea—empty. A Cunarder reported it by wireless."
Mrs. Cochran swayed against David, who pulled himself together, and his voice rang out with vibrant conviction:
"It doesn't mean what you think it does. Ten to one some vessel picked them up and cast the boat adrift. And the chances are still even that Arthur was in the other boat. Now is the time to sit tight and hold your nerve."