“Captain Vanton,” began Mermaid. She paused an instant, then went on: “I am grown up and it is time that you told me my story.”
She saw the hands of the mariner, clasped behind him[184] as he paced away from her, tighten. She knew she must say more to make him address her.
“Captain King——” she began.
The heavy tread was cut short. He was standing in front of her. He was speaking in a throaty voice as if his words had to carry against the force of a powerful gale to reach her.
“Don’t speak that man’s name,” he was saying.
“You must tell me my story,” Mermaid repeated.
He stood there irresolutely, an abject figure of shame, a sea captain unready with an instant decision, an order, a command, a shouted epithet. He hesitated; and when he would have put his helm hard over it was too late.
“My aunt and I are going to San Francisco,” the girl was saying. “In San Francisco they will remember Captain King.”
And now his hands twisted and shook, and again he turned toward her. He muttered: “I will tell you all that matters.”
But he could not begin. He cleared his throat and shook his head. His red and tormented eyes looked her way. She found herself looking directly into them—and then away. She could not read all they held; and she knew she did not want to.
“You find it difficult. Correct me if I go wrong.”
He made a sound that could be taken for assent.
“I was in San Francisco as a very small child,” Mermaid[185] began. “This I know because the ship, from the wreck of which I was saved, sailed from there. But I know it quite as much because Guy has told me about the city and it recalls something to me. For a long time it recalled nothing distinct—only a vague sense of the familiar. I have thought and thought about it, and some time ago there came to me a definite image of something in the past. It was the figure of a man, a sea captain like yourself, coming and going to the house or wherever it was that I had my home. I don’t remember anything about it. I only remember that there was someone in it—it must have been my mother—who had a childish voice.... And she was pretty, too, in a girlish way; at least I suppose she was. I remember no faces; I remember no figures except the single figure of the seaman who came and went; I remember only the childish voice and the sense of prettiness about me. One other thing I do remember and that was seasons of fright. I think they were connected with the coming and going of that seaman. He was, no doubt, the man you have refused to let me name. Very well; it is unnecessary to name him. What I want to know is—did he live with my mother?”
The man in front of her had been standing stock still. Still with his back turned to her he answered, “Yes.”
“He was not my father?”
“No.”
[186]“Who was?”
“John Smiley.”
The girl showed no surprise, only relief. She drew a deep breath, then murmured: “Thank God for that!”
From the motionless figure facing away from her came a question: “You knew?”
“I was certain.”
“How?”
“Both my father and I have seen her.”
“Since—since——?”
“Since her death.”
The standing bulk of Captain Vanton quivered. He reached for the arm of a chair and collapsed in it. He kept his back to his visitor.
“She was drowned at sea?” Mermaid put the question in a shaky voice.
“Aye,” he answered, and the unexpected word had in it a ring of terror.
Suddenly Mermaid found herself sobbing silently in a terrible anguish of thankfulness and wonder and sorrow. The stifled sound of her weeping filled the room. Captain Vanton made no move but sat with his head fallen on his breast, the white sidewhiskers concealing his profile. His breast rose and fell slowly.
The girl got control of herself, and said: “I have what I need to know. The rest does not matter, except as it concerns—Guy.” Her voice trembled again and her eyes filled. “Your own story—that’s your affair.[187] But you have no right to ruin his life because of it—and that’s what you are doing!”
Something of the awful sternness of the patriarch sounded in his reply: “I will save him.”
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