Francis Sullivan - The Harbor of Doubt

Men who had heard the crash of glass when the window went out rushed forward and dragged man and boy to safety.

A quarter of an hour later, his head and neck bandaged with sweet-oil, Code made his way weakly to where Nellie sat among her belongings cradling in her arms the boy whom the doctor had just brought back to consciousness.

“He’s all right, is he?” asked Schofield.

She smiled up at him through her tears.

“Yes, the doctor says it was just too much smoke. Oh, Code, how can I thank you for this? And you are hurt! Is it bad? Can’t I do anything?”

She struggled to her feet, solicitude written on her face, for the moment even forgetting little Bige, who had begun to howl.

“No,” said Schofield, “you can’t do anything. It isn’t much. I’m only glad I succeeded. Don’t think anything about it.”

“Father and mother will never forget this, and I’m sure will do what they can to make it right with you.”

He looked at her as though she had struck him. Never in his life had she used that tone. Before the mute query of his eyes she turned her head away.

“What do you mean–by that?” he faltered, hardly knowing what he said.

“Nothing, Code, only–only–” She could not finish.

“What has happened, Nellie?” he began, and then halted, his gaze riveted upon her hand. A single diamond glittered from the dirt and grime that soiled her finger.

“That?” he gasped, stunned by a feeling of misery and helplessness.

“Nat and I are engaged,” she said in a low voice without answering his question. “Just since last night.”

There was nothing more to be said. The banal wishes for happiness would not rise to his lips. He looked at her intently for a moment, saw her eyes again drop, and walked away. He was suddenly tired and wanted to go home and rest. The reaction of his nervous and physical strain had set in.

The hundred yards to his own gateway was a triumphal procession, but he scarcely realized it. Somehow he answered the acclamations that were heaped upon him. He smiled, but he did not know how.

At the gate some one was waiting for him. At first he thought it was his mother, but he suddenly saw that it was Elsa Mallaby. He told himself that she must have come down to the village to watch the fire, and wondered why she was in that particular place.

“Code,” she cried, her face flushed with glad pride, “you were splendid! That was the bravest thing I ever heard of in my life. I knew you would do it!”

He smiled mechanically, thanked her, and passed on while she gazed after him, hurt and struck silent by the cold misery in his face.

“I wonder,” she said to herself slowly, “whether something besides what I told him has happened to him to-night?”

It was almost one o’clock in the morning when Code went into the parlor of his mother’s cottage and sank down upon the ancient plush sofa. His eyes ached, and the back of his head and neck, where the fire had singed him, were throbbing painfully.

There was apparently no one at home.

Even little Josie, the orphan that helped his mother, seemed to have been drawn out into the road by the excitement of the night, and the house, except for a single lamp burning on the table, was in darkness.

He thought of going up-stairs to bed, but remembered that his mother was not in, and decided he would rest a little while and then go out and find her. Suddenly it seemed very luxurious and grateful to be able to stretch at full length after so much labor, and within a few minutes this sense of luxury had become a pleasant oblivion.

Voices and a bright light woke him up. Dazed and alarmed, he struggled to a sitting posture, but a gently firm hand pushed him down again and he heard his mother’s voice.

“Lay down again, Code,” she said. “You must be pretty well beat out with all you’ve done to-night. We’ve just got some friends for the night. Poor boy, let me see your burns!”

Schofield, who had guided schooners for years through the gales and shoals of the Bay of Fundy without a qualm, became red and ashamed at his mother’s babying. Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he sat up again determinedly and made an effort to greet the company who, he knew, had come into the room with his mother.

Across the room, near the old melodeon, sat Nellie Tanner, holding little Bige and smiling wanly at him. The other two children leaned against her, asleep on either side.

“Don’t get up, Code,” she said. “You’ve earned your rest more than any man in Freekirk Head to-night. I’m afraid, though, we’re going to make more trouble for you. Ma Schofield wouldn’t let me go anywhere else but here till the Rosan gets back from St. John’s.

“Oh, I hate to think of their coming! They’ll sail around Flag Point and look for the kiddies waving in front of the house. And they won’t even see any house; but, thanks to you, Code, they’ll see the kiddies.”

He knew by the tense, strained tone of her voice that she was very near the breaking-point, and his whole being yearned to comfort her and try to make her happy.

Cursing himself for a lazy dolt, he sprang up and walked over toward her.

“Now, you just let me handle this, Nellie,” he said, “and we’ll soon have Tommie and Mary and Bige all curled up on that sofa like three kittens.”

With a sigh of ineffable relief she resigned the dead weight in her weary arms to him, and he, stepping softly, and holding him gently as a woman, soon had the boy more comfortable than he had been for hours. Mary and Tommie followed, and then Nellie, free of her responsibility at last, bent forward, put her elbows on her knees, and wept.

Code, racked and embarrassed, looked around for his mother, but that mainstay was nowhere in sight. He thought of whistling, so as to appear unconscious of her tears, but concluded that would be merely rude. To take up a paper or book and read it in the face of a woman’s weeping appeared hideous, although for the first time in many months, he felt irresistibly drawn to the ancient and dusty volumes in the glass-doored bookcase.

He compromised by turning his back on the affecting sight, thrusting his hands in his pockets, and studying the remarkably straight line formed by the abrupt junction of the wall and the ceiling.

“Do you mind if I cry, C–Code?” sobbed the girl, apparently realizing their position for the first time.

“No! Go right ahead!” he cried as heartily as though some one had asked for a match. He was intensely happy that the matter was settled between them. Now the harder she cried the more he liked it, for they understood one another. So she cried and he walked softly about, his hands in his pockets and his lips puckered for the whistle that he did not dare permit himself.

Ma Schofield interrupted this near-domestic scene by her arrival, carrying a tray, on which were several glasses covered with a film of frost and out of which appeared little green forests. Code ceased to think about whistling.

“Oh, Ma Schofield, what have you done?” cried Nellie, her tears for the moment forgetting to flow as her widening eyes took in the delights of the frosted glasses and piles of cake behind them.

“Done?” queried ma. “I haven’t done anything but what my conscience tells me ought to be done. If yours cal’lates to disturb you some you can go right on up to your room, lamb, for you must be dead with lugging them children around.”

Nellie’s tears disappeared not to return. She shook her head.

“No, ma,” she said; “my conscience is just like them children–sleeping so hard it would take Gabriel’s trumpet to wake ’em up. It’s more tired than I am.”

“All right,” said ma, with finality; “we will now proceed to refresh ourselves.”