Читать книгу Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - James A. Cooper - Страница 16

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Tunis Latham suffered all the timidity of the average man when he got into the maze of that department store. There is a psychological reason for the haberdashery goods, the line for the mere male, being placed always within sight of a principal exit. The catacombs of Rome would be no more terrifying in prospect for a man than a venture into the farther intricacies of Hoskin & Marl's.

The captain of the Seamew could box the compass with the next seafarer, but he lost all idea of the points on the card before he had been three minutes in the store, and he had to hail a floor-walker to get his bearings.

"Lace counter? Right this way, sir. Yes, sir. Just over there. Our—er—Miss Bostwick will serve you, sir. Forward!"

The wind and sun had heightened Tunis Latham's naturally florid complexion to about as deep a red as can easily be imagined, but he felt the back of his neck and his ears burning as he approached the counter to which he was directed. A girl had detached herself from a group at the farther end, and now came toward him. All that he first saw clearly, however, was a pair of eyes staring at him from behind the counter. They were not violet eyes.

The girl who owned those twinkling, needle-sharp eyes was nothing like that girl he had been thinking of so much since his previous visit to Boston. She was rather small, dressed in the extreme mode in a cheap way, wearing a tawdry gilt chain, several rings, and a wrist watch. There was something about her which reminded Tunis very strongly of the girls of Portygee Town, although she was a pronounced blonde.

Her hair was really her only attractive possession. Those sharp brown eyes did not please Tunis Latham at all. And there was a certain smart boldness in her manner, too, which caused him a distinct feeling of repugnance.

He plunged into his errand with all the boldness that a bashful man usually displays when he finally gets his courage to the sticking point.

"You are Miss Bostwick?" he asked.

"What kind of lace—goodness! Who are you?" asked the girl, her stilted, saleslady manner changing to amazement with surprising suddenness.

"I live at Big Wreck Cove. I guess you've heard of it," said Tunis.

"Big Wreck Cove? Do tell!" Her eyes danced. "You're from down on the Cape, then. I guess you want some lace for your wife. What kind did she send you for?"

Tunis brushed this aside bluntly.

"I don't want any lace," he told her. "I come from your aunt, Mrs. Ira Ball."

"My aunt? Fancy!"

"She has heard about you," went on Tunis. "I guess she thought a heap of your mother. She—she'd like to see you, Mrs. Ball would."

The girl patted her hair into place with a languid hand. Her lips parted in a teasing smile. This "hick" really amused her.

"Just to think! Would she?" she drawled. "Is she in town?"

"Who? Mrs. Ball? I should say not. She's down at Big Wreck Cove, I tell you."

"Oh, really? I thought by the way you spoke she was outside—in her car." She tossed her head with that same tantalizing smile, almost a grimace. "What did you want to tell me?"

Tunis realized that he could not talk to her here, after all. The idle girls at the end of the counter were already whispering, and their smiles were poignant javelins of ridicule. The captain of the Seamew knew that he was far beyond his depth.

"Where can I talk to you?" he asked.

"I get away for my lunch hour in a few minutes. I could talk to you then. But us girls ain't supposed to entertain our friends at the counter." She flashed him another amused and quite comprehending glance.

"I've a message for you from Aunt Prue and the captain. Captain Ira Ball. He's her husband," explained Tunis jerkily.

"Oh, really? Mr. Judson is coming this way." She flirted open a card of cheap lace lying on the counter. "Won't this do, sir?"

"Cat's foot! I don't want any lace," growled the captain of the Seamew.

"And I don't want to lose my job," rejoined the girl sharply.

"Where'll I meet you so we can talk?"

"At twelve forty-five," hissed the girl out of the corner of her mouth, beginning to wind up the lace again. "Back entrance to the store." Then, aloud: "Sorry, sir. We haven't any cheaper quality in that pattern."

He knew she was ridiculing him. He was cognizant, however, of the department head's hard stare and the amused glances of the other saleswomen. He strode out of the store, and on the sidewalk halted to mop his face and neck with a blue-bordered handkerchief.

"She's as sassy as a chipmunk. I declare! What would Cap'n Ira and Aunt Prue do with a girl like her around the house? And the way she's dressed!"

In his mind the idea germinated that he would be doing a far better thing if he did not go around to the employees' door and wait for Ida May Bostwick. What sort of life would she lead the two old people down there on Wreckers' Head? He actually shrank from being a party to such an arrangement.

Not for a moment did he think that Miss Bostwick might not jump at the chance to change her place of residence from a South End lodging house to the Ball homestead overlooking Big Wreck Cove and the sea. He had seen that she was afraid of her boss in the store. The rules there must be very strict. He had noted that everything about the girl, her apparel and her ornaments, was cheap and tawdry. She must be both poor and unhappy. Why should she not jump at the chance of bettering herself?

What would Cap'n Ira say when he caught his first glimpse of that painted and powdered face? How could good Aunt Prue take to her heart the bold, jeering shopgirl, evidently born and bred as far from the old standards of Cape Cod breeding as could be imagined? No matter how fine a girl Sarah Honey was, her daughter was of a cheap city type.

But Tunis Latham did not stand in the position of a judge. He had not been told to use his powers of observation before placing the Balls' offer before Ida May Bostwick. He had no discretion in the matter at all.

So he went around to the street behind Hoskin & Marl's at the required time and spent five or ten minutes backed up against a blank wall under the sharp scrutiny of every girl who hurried out of the big store on her way to lunch. Ida May came, at last.

Tunis Latham in his go-ashore uniform and cap was no unsightly figure. A stern tranquillity of countenance lent him dignity. He attracted a certain respect wherever he went, but, as has been said, there was nothing harsh in his appearance.

The girl gave him an appraising scrutiny as she walked toward him. While covering those few yards she made up her mind about Tunis on several points. One was that she would not lunch this noon at any cafeteria or automat!

"Really," she said, with downcast glance, as the man got into step beside her, "I don't feel that I know you well enough to talk to you at all, Mister—Mister—"

"My name's Tunis Latham. I'm owner and skipper of the schooner Seamew. I live right handy to your uncle and aunt."

"Goodness! You don't mean I've got an uncle and aunt down there on the Cape? I never heard of them."

"They are your great-uncle and great-aunt. Aunt Prue must have been your mother's own aunt."

"So you are my Cousin—er—Tunis?"

His face flamed and he did not look at her.

"That doesn't follow," he said. "Aunt Prue is my aunt only in a manner of speaking. But she is your blood relation."

"Yes? I suppose she's a dear old soul?"

"They are mighty nice folks," Tunis replied stoutly. "As nice as any in all Barnstable County."

"But—er—sort of simple?"

The girl asked it with a perfectly innocent countenance. Tunis flashed her a look that showed comprehension.

"Just about as simple as I am," he said.

"Oh!"

"Where'll we go to eat?" he asked cheerfully, considering that he had the best of it so far.

They came out upon Tremont Street and now started downtown. He desired to get no nearer to that eating house on Scollay Square. At least, not with his present companion.

"There's the Barquette," said Miss Bostwick, with the air of one used daily to the grandeur of such hostelries.

But Tunis had seen her lodgings! However, her airs amused him, and Tunis Latham was no penny-squeezer. He headed straight in for the dining room, where a gloriously appareled negro head waiter appraised him as being "all right," and Ida May got by, without knowing it, upon the captain's substantial appearance.

While the waiter was away, Tunis bluntly put his errand before her. He felt it his duty to make the offer as attractive as possible. But he did not make small the fact that the Balls were old and needed her services.

"Goodness! What do they want me for—a nurse?" she demanded tartly.

The question put Tunis on his mettle. He explained that Cap'n Ira and his wife were comfortably "fixed," as Cape people considered comfort, with a home free and clear of all encumbrances, and investments that yielded a sufficient support. Ida May, as he understood it, would share their home and their means.

"And you want I should go down to that place and live on pollack and potatoes till them folks die, for the sake of just a home?" she demanded, her brown eyes snapping.

"I don't want you to do anything," he pointed out coolly enough. "I am merely repeating their offer. They are your folks."

"And I know all about what it is down there," the girl said quickly. "My mother came from there. She was glad enough to get away, too, I warrant. Why should I give up a good job and the city to live in such a dead-and-alive hole?"

"That is for you to decide," Tunis replied, not without secret relief.

He could not understand her attitude. He remembered that South End lodging house with secret horror. But evidently Ida May Bostwick was wedded to the tawdry conveniences and gayeties of city life. Tunis could not wholly understand why any sane person should assume this attitude; in fact, he suspected a good deal of it was put on. How could a girl, even one as inconsequential and flighty as Ida May evidently was, hold in contempt the offer he had brought her from Cap'n Ira and his wife?

But he had done all that could be expected of him. All, indeed, that he thought wise. Disappointed as the old couple would be by Ida May's refusal, Tunis felt that to urge her to reconsider the matter would not be in the best interests of her elderly relatives. They needed a young companion there on Wreckers' Head, needed one very sorely, but not such a person as Ida May Bostwick.

"Then, that will be your final answer, Miss Bostwick?" he said slowly, as Ida May played with her ice.

"Say! I wouldn't go down to that hole for a million," scoffed the girl. "I guess you wouldn't stand it yourself, only you're off on your ship most of the time."

"I like the Cape," he said briefly.

"Never lived in the city, did you?"

"I never did."

"Then you don't know any better," she told him confidently. "And you don't really look like such a dead one, at that."

"Thank you."

She smiled saucily into his rather grim face. Then she opened her bag and deliberately powdered her nose before rising from the table.

"Thanks for a pleasant hour," she drawled. "You tell Auntie and Uncle Josh to get a girl from the poor farm or somewhere to do their chores and tuck 'em in nights. Me, I don't mean to live out of sight of movie signs and electric lights. I'd like to see myself!"

She was both rude and common. Tunis was glad to get out of the dining room. Ida May attracted altogether too much attention. And she had quite openly eyed his well-lined wallet when he paid the waiter. To a girl like Ida May, all was fish that swam into her net. Crude as she considered him, Tunis Latham was a man with some money. And he evidently knew how to spend it.

"When you're in town I'd be glad to see you any time, Mr. Latham. Or do I say captain?"

She smiled up at the big, broad-shouldered fellow bravely as she trotted along in the skirt that made her hobble like a cripple. The captain of the Seamew did not respond very cordially, and quite overlooked her personal question.

"I don't expect to spend much time in Boston," he said. "Thank you. Then I shall report to Aunt Prue and Cap'n Ira that you will not consider their offer at all?"

"I should say not!" She laughed lightly. "You don't know, I guess, what we girls expect nowadays, if we give up our independence."

"Independence!" snorted Tunis.

"That's what I said," rejoined Ida May tartly. "When the store closes my time's my own. I can do as I please. And I've got nobody to please but myself. Oh, you don't understand at all, Captain Latham!"

He said no more. Nor did he escort her farther than the corner. There he lifted his cap and took her offered hand. Although it was beringed and the nails were stained and polished, Tunis could not help noticing that Ida May's hand was not altogether clean.

"Well, au revoir, captain!" she said lightly. "I hope I see you again."

He bowed silently and watched her depart. The sunshine glinted gloriously upon her fluffy hair.

"Fool's gold," he muttered.