by Frank Norris
“Well, I can’t just now,” returned the Captain, blowing the smoke from his cigarette through his ears. “There’s a good many reasons; one of ’em is that I’ve just been married.”
Chapter X
Mum — mar — married! gasped Condy, swallowing something in his throat.
Blix rose to her feet.
“Just been MARRIED!” she repeated, a little frightened. “Why — why — why; how DELIGHTFUL!”
“Yes — yes,” mumbled Condy. “How delightful. I congratulate you!”
“Come in — come back to the station,” said the Captain jovially, “and I’ll introduce you to m’ wife. We were married only last Sunday.”
“Why, yes — yes, of course, we’d be delighted,” vociferated the two conspirators a little hysterically.
“She’s a mighty fine little woman,” declared the Captain, as he rolled the door of the boat-house to its place and preceded them up the gravel walk to the station.
“Of course she is,” responded Blix. Behind Captain Jack’s back she fixed Condy with a wide-eyed look, and nudged him fiercely with an elbow to recall him to himself; for Condy’s wits were scattered like a flock of terrified birds, and he was gazing blankly at the Captain’s coat collar with a vacant, maniacal smile.
“For Heaven’s sake, Condy!” she had time to whisper before they arrived in the hallway of the station.
But fortunately they were allowed a minute or so to recover themselves and prepare for what was coming. Captain Jack ushered them into what was either the parlor, office, or sitting-room of the station, and left them with the words:
“Just make yourselves comfortable here, an’ I’ll go fetch the little woman.”
No sooner had he gone than the two turned to each other.
“Well!”
“WELL!”
“We’re in for it now.”
“But we must see it through, Condy; act just as natural as you can, and we’re all right.”
“But supposing SHE recognizes us!”
“Supposing she does — what then. How ARE they to know that we wrote the letters?”
“Sh, Blix, not so loud! They know by now that THEY didn’t.”
“But it seems that it hasn’t made any difference to them; they are married. And besides, they wouldn’t speak about putting ‘personals’ in the paper to us. They would never let anybody know that.”
“Do you suppose they could possibly suspect?”
“I’m sure they couldn’t.”
“Here they come.”
“Keep perfectly calm, and we’re saved.”
“Suppose it isn’t K. D. B., after all?”
But it was, of course, and she recognized them in an instant. She and the Captain — the latter all grins — came in from the direction of the kitchen, K. D. B. wearing a neat blue calico gown and an apron that was really a marvel of cleanliness and starch.
“Kitty!” exclaimed Captain Jack, seized again with an unexplainable mirth, “here’s some young folks come out to see the place an’ I want you to know ‘em. Mr. Rivers, this is m’ wife, Kitty, and — lessee, miss, I don’t rightly remember your name.”
“Bessemer!” exclaimed Condy and Blix in a breath.
“Oh!” exclaimed K. D. B., “you were in the restaurant the night that the Captain and I — I — that is — yes, I’m quite sure I’ve seen you before.” She turned from one to the other, beginning to blush furiously.
“Yes, yes, in Luna’s restaurant, wasn’t it?” said Condy desperately. “It seems to me I do just barely remember.”
“And wasn’t the Captain there?” Blix ventured.
“I forgot my stick, I remember,” continued Condy. “I came back for it; and just as I was going out it seems to me I saw you two at a table near the door.”
He thought it best to allow their “matrimonial objects” to believe he had not seen them before.
“Yes, yes, we were there,” answered K. D. B. tactfully. “We dine there almost every Monday night.”
Blix guessed that K. D. B. would prefer to have the real facts of the situation ignored, and determined she should have the chance to change the conversation if she wished.
“What a delicious supper one has there!” she said.
“Can’t say I like Mexican cooking myself,” answered K. D. B., forgetting that they dined there every Monday night. “Plain United States is good enough for me.”
Suddenly Captain Jack turned abruptly to Condy, exclaiming: “Oh, you was the chap that called the picture of that schooner a barkentine.”
“Yes; WASN’T that a barkentine?” he answered innocently.
“Barkentine your EYE!” spluttered the Captain. “Why, that was a schooner as plain as a pie plate.”
But ten minutes later the ordeal was over, and Blix and Condy, once more breathing easily, were on their walk again. The Captain and K. D. B. had even accompanied them to the gate of the station, and had strenuously urged them to “come in and see them again the next time they were out that way.”
“Married!” murmured Condy, putting both hands to his head. “We’ve done it, we’ve done it now.”
“Well, what of it?” declared Blix, a little defiantly. “I think it’s all right. You can see the Captain is in love with her, and she with him. No, we’ve nothing to reproach ourselves with.”
“But — but — but so sudden!” whispered Condy, all aghast. “That’s what makes me faint — the suddenness of it.”
“It shows how much they are in love, how — how readily they — adapted themselves to each other. No, it’s all right.”
“They seemed to like us — actually.”
“Well, they had better — if they knew the truth. Without us they never would have met.”
“They both asked us to come out and see them again, did you notice that? Let’s do it, Blix,” Condy suddenly exclaimed; “let’s get to know them!”
“Of course we must. Wouldn’t it be fun to call on them — to get regularly acquainted with them!”
“They might ask us to dinner some time.”
“And think of the stories he could tell you!”
They enthused immediately upon this subject, both talking excitedly at the same time, going over the details of the Captain’s yarns, recalling the incidents to each other.
“Fancy!” exclaimed Condy— “fancy Billy Isham in his pajamas, red and white stripes, reading Shakespeare from that pulpit on board the ship, and the other men guying him! Isn’t that a SCENE for you? Can’t you just SEE it?
“I wonder if the Captain wasn’t making all those things up as he went along. He don’t seem to have any sense of right and wrong at all. He might have been lying, Condy.”
“What difference would that make?”
And so they went along in that fine, clear, Western morning, on the edge of the Continent, both of them young and strong and vigorous, the Pacific under their eyes, the great clean Trades blowing in their faces, the smell of the salt sea coming in long aromatic whiffs to their nostrils. Young and strong and fresh, their imaginations thronging with pictures of vigorous action and adventure, buccaneering, filibustering, and all the swing, the leap, the rush and gallop, the exuberant, strong life of the great, uncharted world of Romance.
And all unknowingly they were a Romance in themselves. Cynicism, old age, and the weariness of all things done had no place in the world in which they walked. They still had their illusions, all the keenness of their sensations, all the vividness of their impressions. The simple things of the world, the great, broad, primal emotions of the race stirred in them. As they swung along, going toward the ocean, their brains were almost as empty of thought or of reflection as those of two fine, clean animals. They were all for the immediate sensation; they did not think — they FELT. The intellect was dormant; they looked at things, they heard things, they smelled the smell of the sea, and of the seaweed, of the fat, rank growth of cresses in the salt marshes; they turned their cheeks to the passing wind, and fi
lled their mouths and breasts with it. Their life was sweet to them; every hour was one glad effervescence. The fact that the ocean was blue was a matter for rejoicing. It was good to be alive on that royal morning. Just to be young was an exhilaration; and everything was young with them — the day was young, the country was young, and the civilization to which they belonged, teeming there upon the green, Western fringe of the continent, was young and heady and tumultuous with the boisterous, red blood of a new race.
Condy even forgot, or rather disdained on such a morning as that, to piece together and rearrange Captain Jack’s yarns into story form. To look at the sea and the green hills, to watch the pink on Blix’s cheek and her yellow hair blowing across her eyes and lips, was better than thinking. Life was better than literature. To live was better than to read; one live human being was better than ten thousand Shakespeares; an act was better than a thought. Why, just to love Blix, to be with her, to see the sweet, clean flush of her cheek, to know that she was there at his side, and to have the touch of her elbow as they walked, was better than the best story, the greatest novel he could ever hope to write. Life was better than literature, and love was the best thing in life. To love Blix and to be near her — what else was worth while? Could he ever think of finding anything in life sweeter and finer than this dear young girl of nineteen?
Suddenly Condy came to himself with an abrupt start. What was this he was thinking — what was this he was telling himself? Love Blix! He loved Blix! Why, of COURSE he loved her — loved her so, that with the thought of it there came a great, sudden clutch at the heart and a strange sense of tenderness, so vague and yet so great that it eluded speech and all expression. Love her! Of course he loved her! He had, all unknowing, loved her even before this wonderful morning: had loved her that day at the lake, and that never-to-be-forgotten, delicious afternoon in the Chinese restaurant; all those long, quiet evenings spent in the window of the little dining-room, looking down upon the darkening city, he had loved her. Why, all his days for the last few months had been full of the love of her.
How else had he been so happy? how else did it come about that little by little he was withdrawing from the society and influence of his artificial world, as represented by such men as Sargeant? how else was he slowly loosening the grip of the one evil and vicious habit that had clutched him so long? how else was his ambition stirring? how else was his hitherto aimless enthusiasm hardening to energy and determination? She had not always so influenced him. In the days when they had just known each other, and met each other in the weekly course of their formal life, it had not been so, even though they pretended a certain amount of affection. He remembered the evening when Blix had brought those days to an abrupt end, and how at the moment he had told himself that after all he had never known the real Blix. Since then, in the charming, unconventional life they had led, everything had been changed. He had come to know her for what she was, to know her genuine goodness, her sincerity, her contempt of affectations, her comradeship, her calm, fine strength and unbroken good nature; and day by day, here a little and there a little, his love for her had grown so quietly, so evenly, that he had never known it, until now, behold! it was suddenly come to flower, full and strong — a flower whose fragrance had suddenly filled all his life and all his world with its sweetness.
Half an hour after leaving the lifeboat station, Condy and Blix reached the old, red-brick fort, deserted, abandoned, and rime-incrusted, at the entrance of the Golden Gate. They turned its angle, and there rolled the Pacific, a blue floor of shifting water, stretching out there forever and forever over the curve of the earth, over the shoulder of the world, with never a sail in view and never a break from horizon to horizon.
They followed down the shore, sometimes upon the old and broken flume that runs along the seaward face of the hills that rise from the beach, or sometimes upon the beach itself, stepping from bowlder to bowlder, or holding along at the edge of the water upon reaches of white, hard sand.
The beach was solitary; not a soul was in sight. Close at hand, to landward, great hills, bare and green, shut off the sky; and here and there the land came tumbling down into the sea in great, jagged, craggy rocks, knee-deep in swirling foam, and all black with wet. The air was full of the prolonged thunder of the surf, and at intervals sea-birds passed overhead with an occasional piping cry. Wreckage was tumbled about here and there; and innumerable cocoanut shards, huge, brown cups of fuzzy bark, lay underfoot and in the crevices of the rocks. They found a jellyfish — a pulpy translucent mass; and once even caught a sight of a seal in the hollow of a breaker, with sleek and shining head, his barbels bristling, and heard his hoarse croaking bark as he hunted the off-shore fish.
Blix refused to allow Condy to help her in the least. She was quite as active and strong as he, and clambered from rock to rock and over the shattered scantling of the flume with the vigor and agility of a young boy. She muddied her shoes to the very tops scratched her hands, tore her skirt, and even twisted her ankle; but her little eyes were never so bright, nor was the pink flush of her cheeks ever more adorable. And she was never done talking — a veritable chatterbox. She saw everything and talked about everything she saw, quite indifferent as to whether or no Condy listened. Now it was a queer bit of seaweed, now it was a group of gulls clamoring over a dead fish, now a purple starfish, now a breaker of unusual size. Her splendid vitality carried her away. She was excited, alive to her very finger-tips, vibrant to the least sensation, quivering to the least impression.
“Let’s get up here and sit down somewhere,” said Condy, at length.
They left the beach and climbed up the slope of the hills, near a point where a long arm of land thrust out into the sea and shut off the wind; a path was there, and they followed it for a few yards, till they had come to a little amphitheatre surrounded with blackberry bushes.
Here they sat down, Blix settling herself on an old log with a little sigh of contentment, Condy stretching himself out, a new-lighted pipe in his teeth, his head resting on the little handbag he had persistently carried ever since morning. Then Blix fell suddenly silent, and for a long time the two sat there without speaking, absorbed in the enjoyment of looking at the enormous green hills rolling down to the sea, the breakers thundering at the beach, the gashed pinnacles of rock, the vast reach of the Pacific, and the distant prospect of the old fort at the entrance of the Golden Gate.
“We might be a thousand miles away from the city, for all the looks of it, mightn’t we, Condy?” said Blix, after a while. “And I’m that HUNGRY! It must be nearly noon.”
For answer, Condy sat up with profound gravity, and with a great air of nonchalance opened the handbag, and, instead of shoes took out, first, a pint bottle of claret, then “devilish” ham sandwiches in oiled paper, a bottle of stuffed olives, a great bag of salted almonds, two little tumblers, a paper-covered novel, and a mouth organ.
Blix fairly crowed with delight, clasping her hands upon her knees, and rocking to and fro where she sat upon the log.
“Oh, Condy, and you thought of a LUNCH — you said it was shoes — and you remembered I loved stuffed olives, too; and a book to read. What is it— ‘The Seven Seas.’ No, I never WAS so happy. But the mouth organ — what’s that for?”
“To play on. What did you think — think it was a can-opener?”
Blix choked with merriment over his foolery, and Condy added proudly:
“Look there! I made those sandwiches!”
They looked as though he had — great, fat chunks of bread, the crust still on; the “devilish” ham in thick strata between; and, positively, he had BUTTERED the bread. But it was all one with them; they ate as though at a banquet, and Blix even took off her hat and hung it upon one of the nearby bushes. Of course Condy had forgotten a corkscrew. He tried to dig out the cork of the claret bottle with his knife, until he had broken both blades and was about to give up in despair, when Blix, at the end of her patience, took the bottle from him and pushed in the cork w
ith her finger.
“Wine, music, literature, and feasting,” observed Condy. “We’re getting regularly luxurious, just like Sardine-apalus.”
But Condy himself had suddenly entered into an atmosphere of happiness, the like of which he had never known or dreamed of before. He loved Blix — he had just discovered it. He loved her because she was so genuine, so radiantly fresh and strong; loved her because she liked the things that he liked, because they two looked at the world from precisely the same point of view, hating shams and affectations, happy in the things that were simple and honest and natural. He loved her because she liked his books, appreciating the things therein that he appreciated, liking what he liked, disapproving of what he condemned. He loved her because she was nineteen, and because she was so young and unspoiled and was happy just because the ocean was blue and the morning fine. He loved her because she was so pretty, because of the softness of her yellow hair, because of her round, white forehead and pink cheeks, because of her little, dark-brown eyes, with that look in them as if she were just done smiling or just about to smile, one could not say which; loved her because of her good, firm mouth and chin, because of her full neck and its high, tight bands of white satin. And he loved her because her arms were strong and round, and because she wore the great dog-collar around her trim, firm-corseted waist, and because there emanated from her with every movement a barely perceptible, delicious, feminine odor, that was in part perfume, but mostly a subtle, vague aroma, charming beyond words, that came from her mouth, her hair, her neck, her arms, her whole sweet personality. And he loved her because she was herself, because she was Blix, because of that strange, sweet influence that was disengaged from her in those quiet moments when she seemed so close to him, when some unnamed, mysterious sixth sense in him stirred and woke and told him of her goodness, of her clean purity and womanliness; and that certain, vague tenderness in him went out toward her, a tenderness not for her only, but for all the good things of the world; and he felt his nobler side rousing up and the awakening of the desire to be his better self.
