Kerry (17 page)

And now the others were appearing, in frightened groups, in strange array, but sober, grave, quiet for the most part. A woman fainted when she saw the wall of water as the next wave reared its head above the ship. But for the most part they gathered sanely, quiet enough, some trembling, some crying softly, a man here and there swearing.

Kerry stood within a sheltered nook where McNair had put her and waited. She felt as if her inner self were hidden yet further in a secret place, where God was guarding. She looked around on those piteous huddled figures in the gray dawn of the morning, their faces wan with terror, some too weak and sick to stand up, and found herself longing to tell them of the refuge that she had found. How many of them were ready to go? How many of them were believers? If a few moments or another hour saw them all laid in watery graves would they be “believing dead”? Oh if she just knew how to go to them and tell them to get ready, to accept the finished work of Calvary before it was too late.

She slipped down presently beside a little girl huddled on the deck with her mother, who was too ill to know or care what was going on. Putting her arm around the child, Kerry tried to comfort her, and tell her that she need not be afraid, tried to tell of Jesus, and the peace she had found in believing. It was all so new and her tongue so unused to explaining the things of the spirit, but the little girl looked up and smiled, and drew close to her.

“Will He hear me if I pray?” she whispered, and Kerry bowed her head as the child whispered. “Oh, God make this ship stop rocking and make my mother well, and save us all please, and don’t let there be a fire!”

The little girl crept away to the side of her mother and lay down, and Kerry looked around. Was there another she could tell? She knew that McNair had gone back to bring others to the deck. She knew that it might be only minutes before it would be forever too late, and her heart burned within her.

Close beside her on the other side lay an old woman, wrapped in costly furs, her gray hair straggling around her drawn and frightened face. Kerry crept over to her and leaning down whispered, “Do you know Jesus?” The woman stared at her wildly for a moment and then answered with a moan.

“Oh, I used to! But I’ve been forgetting Him for years. Thank you for reminding me. I’ll try to pray!” The haggard eyes closed, and Kerry could see the pale lips were moving feebly.

Looking up, Kerry saw a weird, grotesque figure with flapping shirttails furtively stealing along toward a lifeboat. No one else seemed to be watching him, and with almost uncanny strength he finally succeeded in swinging himself up and dropping into the lifeboat. Poor self-centered soul! All those helpless women and children around and he thought only of himself ! Kerry found herself wondering if anyone had ever told him of Jesus, the Savior from Self.

Four hours they huddled there on the deck, moment by moment expecting death; while down in the hold the brave crew was working with blistered hands, blinded eyes, and singed faces, risking their lives to save the ship. And Graham McNair worked with the rest.

From time to time as he could be spared, the captain sent him up to the deck with messages, and at last there came a blessed relief when the captain himself, smoky and disheveled, came up to say the worst danger was over. The fire had been definitely quelled, and all precautions taken that it should not break out again. The leak also had been mended, at least temporarily, and all hands were now working to repair other damages that the storm had wrought.

He thanked them for their cooperation, and the quiet way in which most of them had obeyed orders, and he had a word of praise for McNair and a few others of the passengers who had come down and worked shoulder to shoulder with the ship’s crew.

While he talked Kerry happened to be looking toward the lifeboat, and she saw Dawson’s white face lifted above the edge looking down and listening. While the captain still lingered, smiling wearily around on his big family of passengers, Kerry saw Dawson drop stealthily down from the lifeboat, linger behind the rigging for a moment stuffing in his shirttails, and then come boldly down deck in his stocking feet toward the captain.

“Captain,” he said in a voice quite unlike the one in which he had been screaming a few hours before, “what I’d like to ask is, when do we have something to eat? I’ve been across the Atlantic a good many times, and I never had such treatment as this! We’ve all paid good money for our passage and service on the way, and we haven’t had a bite to eat since last night at dinner. It’s nearly time for dinner again.
When do we eat?”

The captain faced Dawson with a grin, for in spite of having tucked in his shirttails, Dawson still presented a grotesque appearance and seemed utterly unaware of it.

“Well, brother, suppose you go down in the kitchen and help the cook get up a meal? How about it? We’ve been fighting fire in the kitchen for the last ten hours, and the cook and all the helpers have had to help fight. Would you rather burn alive, man, or get good and hungry? However, I believe there’s plenty of bread down there. Suppose you run down, and get an armful of buns and pass ’em around. How about it?”

A roar went around the deck, which grew and rippled away into mirth. The strain was broken. The tensity of hours was relaxed. The tired frightened people laughed. They laughed and laughed, and suddenly Dawson realized that they were laughing at him, and with a ghastly look of hate he turned and hurried away.

The laugh had done more than all words to reassure the frightened people, and little by little they began to get back to normal life again, and to notice their own appearance. They crept away to their rooms, and in an unexpectedly short time hot soup and bread and coffee were served to everybody, and all took courage.

S
ometime in the night the wind changed, and the terrible waves grew calmer. When morning broke the clouds were lifting, and those who ventured out reported that the storm was over.

Kerry and McNair were among the first to go on deck.

They stood in a sheltered spot watching the majesty of the waves with their backs against a wall, and Kerry’s hand firmly tucked under the young man’s arm. Years of friendship seemed to be knit up between them, as they marveled over their great escape.

One by one as the sea grew calmer, the passengers crept out on deck and back to their streamer chairs. By noon most of the chairs were filled. The sun had come out, and people were sitting in the sunshine and beginning to smile again. It was rumored that if all went well they would reach New York the next day. Word had come by radio of disaster and storm all over that part of the sea. They realized that theirs had been a real escape.

The last to crawl out on deck, immaculate as to attire, sour as to expression, belligerent as to attitude, and pea-green as to color, especially around his mouth, was Henry Dawson, PhD.

There was no gratitude there. He had a personal grudge against the captain for the storm, for all the physical and mental pangs he had suffered, and the indignities he had endured. He was neither a good sailor nor a good sport. He argued that a ship ought to be prepared for emergencies, and there was no excuse whatever for a ship getting as far out of its course as this ship was, even in a storm. Such delay was inexcusable.

Kerry kept out of his way as much as possible, but whenever she lifted her eyes in his direction she seemed to feel his baleful glance upon her. There was something sinister about it that gave her an inward shudder. It was as if whenever he looked at her he was plotting something against her. That was silly of course. She must stop thinking about it. But how glad she would be when she was safely landed in New York and had that manuscript in the hands of the publisher!

That evening, that last evening on board, Dawson suddenly changed his tactics. He fairly haunted the steps of Kerry and McNair. He smirked and smiled and made himself as affable to both of them as was in his naturally grumpy power to do.

Several times they shook him off on one pretext or another, only to find him appearing at another point as soon as they came on deck. He brought magazines to show them, he appeared on the scene with confectionery for Kerry, he even went so far as to attempt to carry her wooly bag for her, but she gripped it fiercely and declined his offer.

Finally he brought a steamer chair and settled down beside them, next to Kerry, much to her dismay. Whenever McNair talked to her, he would cut in.

“Where are you going to be in New York, Miss Kavanaugh?” he asked. “I’d like to take you out occasionally while I’m there. See a good show or dine at a roof garden, take in a few night clubs and that sort of thing, you know.”

“Thank you,” said Kerry, “I expect to be very busy while I’m there. I shall not have time to go out at all I’m afraid. My stay is a little uncertain, and I shall have every minute full.”

“Oh, well, you have to eat, you know, and we can plan to take dinner wherever it will be convenient for you. All work and no play make the proverbial Jack a dull boy, you know.”

“Well, I’m afraid it will have to be dullness for me this time,” said Kerry firmly but cheerfully.

“Well, where are you going to be located?” he asked pointblank. “We surely can make some sort of a date after you find out what your engagements are to be.”

“I’m not at all sure,” evaded Kerry. “It depends on a number of things.”

“Well, here,” exulted Dawson eagerly, taking out a pencil and a card from his pocket, “let me suggest then. I know a wonderful stopping place, very reasonable in price and convenient to downtown. I’ve stopped there sometimes myself, and the food is excellent. They have a very nice little orchestra—”

“Thank you,” said Kerry coldly and let the card lie on her lap where he had dropped it.

“Let’s take a turn on the deck, Miss Kavanaugh,” said McNair suddenly. “I’m chilly, aren’t you?”

Kerry rose with relief, and the address dropped to the floor, but Dawson hurried to restore it to her.

She took the paper with reluctant hand, and when they had walked near the railing she lifted her hand as if to drop it over the side in the darkness.

“Don’t be so rash with that!” said McNair, holding back her arm, “Dawson is coming on behind again, and besides, I’m not so sure but it might be as well to keep tabs on that bird. If he thinks you are going there he might turn up and have a rendezvous himself, and we might need to trace him. Suppose you let me keep that paper.”

Kerry obediently handed it over to him.

“I’m sure the only use I could possibly have for it would be to keep as far away from that quarter as possible,” laughed Kerry.

“Come this way, quick,” said McNair. “I believe that fox is following us again. We’ll double-cross him this time, anyway.”

And then when they succeeded in losing Dawson again he said, “By the way, if I should ask that same impertinent question that our friend the PhD asked would you freeze me, too?”

“Oh, no,” said Kerry, laughing, feeling a choking sensation of tears behind her laughter, for she realized all too keenly that this was the last night of the voyage. “Oh, no! I would tell you the truth. I haven’t the slightest idea where I’m going. I don’t know any place to go. I haven’t been in New York since I was seven years old. There was an old friend of father’s, a lawyer, if he is even still living. Then of course there is the publisher—I could ask him where was a respectable place.”

His hand tightened a little on her arm as it rested in his.

“Who is your publisher?”
Kerry told him.

“Well, wouldn’t it be better for your business to have an address you could give them when you first arrived?”

“I suppose it would,” said Kerry humbly. “I really hadn’t thought much about it. It seemed so unimportant until I got the manuscript safely placed and out of my hands.”

“Of course,” said McNair. “But you see it is important to me. I hope to be in town for a couple of weeks before I move on to other appointments. Not that I would suggest shows or night clubs as a recreation, but I would like to take you to hear one or two good concerts, and perhaps to a meeting or two if any of the great speakers I know are in town just now. But perhaps you wouldn’t have time for such things either.”

Kerry’s eyes shone.

“I’m afraid,” she said demurely, “I’m afraid I would have time for almost anything of that sort, even if I
hadn’t
the time.”

“Well, then, might I humbly suggest a place where I am sure you would find comfort?”

“That would be most kind,” said Kerry, “but—I’ll have to tell you the truth. It would have to be a very cheap place indeed. I haven’t got much money, and I can’t take time to look for a job until I get this manuscript safely out of my hands. I may have to do a little more work on it. My father suggested certain things to the publisher, and if they want any changes there might be a few more days’ work before I would be free.”

“I see,” said McNair. “Well, the place I would suggest would be about as cheap as anything decent you could get in the city I think. It is a little old-fashioned house, in a very unfashionable street, and the little old lady who lives there stays because she loves her old house, though the neighborhood has changed and is mostly commercial all around her. It would not however be far out of the region of your publisher.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful!” said Kerry with a great relief. “I am so sick of hotels. And to be somewhere that I could trust people would be next to heaven for me. I am frightened at the idea of a new city, although I ought not to be for I have knocked around the world a great deal in my short life.”

“Well, you can trust old Martha Scott. She used to be a servant for my mother before she was married, one of real gentlewoman type of old-fashioned servants. She came over from Scotland in her youth, and went out to service, and when she came to my mother she had been having hard experiences. But she adored Mother, and seemed to think she had found the nearest spot to heaven that could be had. She will gladly do anything in the world for you when she knows I sent you there. She makes a kind of little idol out of our family, the reflected glory from my mother I fancy.”