“Hmm! Across the water!” said Aunt Pat, sitting up eagerly. “Open it quick, Sherry. It might be interesting!”
Chapter 20
If Carter McArthur had been told on the first day out from New York that before the end of the voyage he would be almost reconciled to his fate as husband of a penniless bride, he would have been astonished. But it was nevertheless true.
Arla Prentiss had always been a clever girl, and Arla McArthur driven by necessity became almost brilliant in managing her difficult affairs. She had taken the material at hand and used it. Even Hurley Kirkwood and the two old high school classmates became assets in the affair. Before the voyage was over, she had even won out with the man Sheldon and used him to her own ends.
How they came to be seated at a table in a pleasant but obscure corner of the dining room with Hurley Kirkwood, Helen and Bob Shannon, and a very deaf old man who paid no attention to any of them, was never known to Carter McArthur. He was very angry when he discovered it, and put Arla through the third degree, but in the end he saw it was a good thing. There was nobody at the table they needed to be nervous about. The three old acquaintances had never heard of Sherrill Cameron and her gorgeous wedding at which she was not the bride, and would be very unlikely to hear now, at least before the voyage was over. Moreover, they were good company, and there was a certain pleasant intimacy that it could not be denied relieved the strain under which both Arla and Carter had been. There was no danger of some embarrassing question coming up.
Carter grew quite genial and like his old youthful self in their company, accepted the stale jokes about his fondness for Arla with the same complacency that he used to do in the old days when they first began to go together, and actually treated Arla with a degree of his former devotion. If he realized that Hurley Kirkwood was sending home daily bulletins of the honeymoon to a devoted group of fellow citizens, it only filled him with a vague satisfaction. It comforted his self-esteem to feel that his hometown still honored him even though Sherrill Cameron had found out that he was a scoundrel.
Besides all this there was a certain amount of protection in having one’s own private little clique. It was almost as good as if Arla had been willing to stay in her stateroom and pretend to be seasick.
Then one evening, near the end of the voyage, Carter, coming out on deck to seek Arla where she usually sat, found her walking the deck arm in arm with the great financier, conversing with him vivaciously and seeming to be entirely at her ease.
She was wearing the loveliest of Sherrill Cameron’s evening dresses, the orchid chiffon, and with the moonlight gleaming on her gold hair, she looked like a dream. Evidently the financier thought she did also, for he was bending graciously to her and smiling.
Carter withdrew to a distance and watched them from afar, his eyes narrowing, his admiration growing for his lovely wife. Either she was going to be his utter undoing, or else somehow she had managed to wrap Sheldon around her little finger.
They had it out that night in the stateroom, very late, in a brief session. Carter poured abuses upon her, to which she listened absently, and then laughed.
“Oh, Carter, excuse me,” she said condescendingly. “All that excitement is so unnecessary. You see, Mr. Sheldon thinks I am Sherrill Cameron. He told me how much he had always admired my lovely hair and eyes, and said my aunt Miss Catherwood was a marvelous old lady!”
It was some minutes before Carter recovered from the shock of that and asked for details, but before they were finished he actually came to telling Arla that she was a wonderful woman, and that he loved her beyond anything on earth.
“If I had only realized how really clever you are, Arla, I would never have looked at Sherrill Cameron!” he said, and Arla drew a sharp breath and wished he had not said that. Wished that somehow she might get back her illusions about him. Sherrill Cameron had been right, of course. One could not be happy with a man who had been torn from his pedestal. And yet, wasn’t there some way to put him back there? To keep him from doing the things that made her despise him?
Several times after that Arla walked and talked with the great man, and Carter’s temper was improving daily.
It was about three hours before they were expecting to land.
Arla had scribbled a letter to her aunt Tilly in her hometown telling briefly of her hasty marriage, because she knew that Hurley would spread the news widely, and her aunt would be hurt if she did not receive some personal word. She had just returned from posting it and found Carter pulling out the suitcases from under the bed. He stacked them up in two piles, the ones that were to be left with the shipping company for the return voyage, and the ones they were to take to the hotel with them. His own suitcase was on the top of one of the piles.
Suddenly he remembered some letters he had written which he wished to post on shipboard. He rushed out, slamming the stateroom door behind him, and an avalanche of suitcases careened over to the floor. The top one burst open—perhaps it had not been securely latched—and some of the contents flowed out upon the floor.
Arla sprang forward to pick up the things before Carter’s return. She had begun to realize that that was to be her perpetual attitude, always being ready to smooth the way before her husband if she wished to live peaceably with him. That was his wedding suit lying sprawled upon the floor. It would not be a wise note to introduce just at this stage, a reminder of that awful wedding.
Arla stooped and picked it up, and as she lifted it, she felt something slip out from between the loosened folds—or was it out of a pocket, the trouser pocket perhaps?—and slither along the floor.
She looked down quickly. Was it money? No, something bright and sparkling with green lights in it! Something gorgeous and beautiful lying there on the floor before her startled eyes!
She stopped and stared. What was it? Where had she seen that rarely wrought chain before and those wonderful green stones? Emeralds! They were Sherrill Cameron’s emeralds. The necklace she had worn the night of the wedding! The necklace that everybody in the room had been talking about and admiring!
For an instant Arla stood there almost paralyzed, facing the possibilities of how that necklace got into her husband’s pocket. Over her face the whole gamut of emotions played in quick succession. Astonishment, horror, disgust, scorn, fear, and then a great determination.
Frantically she dropped the garments she held and grasped the glittering necklace, cradled it in her hand for an instant, caught the gorgeous lights in the beautiful gems. Was Carter planning to sell these rare jewels to get the fortune that was to have come from the alliance that her coming to the Catherwood house that night had foiled? Was that what he had meant, that he had found a way to get the rest of the money he needed to save his business schemes?
And was he excusing himself by saying that the jewels were a part of the wedding presents and therefore he had a right to take them? She knew that Carter was capable of such quibbling. Her heart sank. Was she also to have a thief as well as a trifler for a husband?
Outside the door she could hear footsteps coming along the passageway. He might return at any moment! A great panic came upon her. He should not be a thief! She would foil that as well as his attempt to marry the other girl!
Her first impulse was to hurl those stones from the porthole and destroy the evidence against him, but as she swayed to take a step in that direction, she realized what she was doing. Those were Sherrill Cameron’s jewels. Hurling them into the sea would not make Carter any less a thief, even if no one ever found it out. And Sherrill Cameron had been wonderful to her, generous in the extreme. She could not do that to her, throw her costly jewels in the sea! That other girl had already suffered greatly through herself; she should not also lose her property. No, the only possible way to undo the wrong that Carter had done was to return them to their owner. Somehow she must return them and yet shield Carter! Shield him from going to the penitentiary!
Hastily she wrapped the jewels in a clean handkerchief, tied the corners
securely, and hid it in her own suitcase beneath the lingerie. Then she hurried back to pick up Carter’s things. If she could only restore them to their place before he returned!
She schooled herself to go carefully, folding each garment without a wrinkle, laying everything smoothly back in its place. It seemed to her that it was hours before that suitcase was fastened and back on the top of the pile where he had left it.
Then she went to her own suitcase and began frantically hunting through it among the various contents for a suitable container for the jewels. If she could only get them in the mail before it closed! She glanced at her wristwatch. There was a little over half an hour. She must not fail to get them in. She must get them wrapped in time! He should not be allowed to be a thief! He might have done many crooked things in business, doubtless had; she could not help the past, but insofar as she was able, he should not be allowed to steal a lady’s jewels! She never could endure life with that over her, that she had helped him to take the necklace of the girl who had given him up to her. It was too low and contemptible! He wouldn’t be thinking himself of doing it if he weren’t so utterly frantic about money! He had been decently brought up, just as decently as she was. He wasn’t naturally a crook. She must protect him against his worst self.
And she must protect the necklace from her own weakness, too, she realized. If he should discover she had it, should look at her with his beautiful eyes, kiss her the way he did last night, ask her to surrender it, could she resist? She doubted her own strength. She must put that necklace where neither he nor she could ever get it again.
She found in the suitcase a little leather case containing lovely crystal bottles of perfume and lotions. She took out the bottles and packed the jewels carefully, swiftly, among soft folds of Sherrill’s own fine handkerchiefs. Then she scribbled a hasty note.
You must have dropped this when you were packing. I found it in the suitcase. I hope it has not caused you any anxiety.
Arla McArthur
With the leather case wrapped in a bit of silk lingerie and then in paper, she went hurriedly out and procured a mailing carton from the stewardess, addressed her package at a desk, and was not satisfied until it was safe in the keeping of the ship’s mail service.
When she went back, Carter was directing the steward about the baggage. She was silent and abstracted, putting a few last things in her suitcase. The baggage was all going up on deck at once. The whole ship was in a state of getting ready to land.
Carter, too, seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. Just before they left their stateroom, he remarked briskly that they would go directly to the hotel and he would leave her there for the morning. He had some business to be transacted that must be attended to the first thing. Then he would be free to go about with her if all went well.
All during the slow process of arrival and landing and on the way to the hotel, Arla was thinking what to do when her husband should discover his loss. Now that she was safe on land and the package in the return mail was presumably safe on its way to America, she felt more sure of herself.
Nevertheless, when they arrived and were at last left alone in their room, even before Carter began fumbling with the latch of his suitcase, she found she was trembling. She could hardly take off her hat; she was afraid Carter would see that she was shaking.
She busied herself hanging up their garments, putting away her hat, washing her hands. Anything not to seem to be noticing Carter, who was frantically flinging his things about on chairs, on the bed, the floor, anywhere, and finally turning his suitcase upside down and shaking out its corners.
“I’ve lost something!” he said when she came out from the closet, where she had been arranging her dresses on hangers, and found him standing amid confusion.
“It’s something very important,” he said, beginning again to pick up things and fling them about, to feel in pockets, poke into the fittings of his bag.
“Can I help you?” asked Arla, trying to steady her voice.
“No! No one can help me!” he said, flinging a housecoat across to the bed. “I can’t find—Oh, it’s here somewhere, of course! It couldn’t have gotten away!” He seemed to be talking more to himself than to her. He seemed almost to have forgotten her existence.
“Oh, to think I had to be forced into such a situation!” he groaned at last, flinging himself down in a chair and covering his face with his hands. “Was ever any man tormented as I have been?”
Arla came over and stood beside his chair, laying an icy hand on his bowed head. She was shaking from head to foot, but she tried to make her voice calm.
“I’d like to help you, Carter!”
“Well, you can’t help me!” he said flinging rudely away from her. “It’s all your fault anyway that I’m in such a situation. You put me here—how could you help me? It’s too late! If you had wanted to help me, you’d have done what I told you sooner, and then everything would have come right. No, you can’t help me. You don’t even know what it is I’m hunting for, and if you did you wouldn’t understand!”
Arla stood still for a minute, and then she went and sat down across from him.
“Listen, Carter!” she said in a cold, clear voice. “I understand perfectly what you are looking for and what you meant to do. You are looking for Sherrill Cameron’s emeralds, and you won’t find them because they are on their way back to her!”
He sat like one stunned for an instant, and she thought he had not understood her. Then suddenly he sprang to his feet and glared at her. His hair was awry, his face was distraught, and his eyes glittered like a madman’s. For an instant she thought he was going to strike her. He looked as if he might even have killed her for that minute, if he had had the means at hand. He was beside himself.
“You—! You—! You dared!” he screamed and poured out upon her a stream of curses that made her shudder with their cruelty.
But she must not cry. She must not show that she was afraid of him. This was the time she had to be strong. She had saved him from the penitentiary, and now she must make him understand what danger he was in. Her courage rose to the necessity.
“Yes,” she said steadily, “I dared! For your sake I dared!”
“For my sake!” he sneered. “You say you did it for my sake?”
“Yes, I did it for your sake. Remember you tried to marry another woman once for my sake. Well, I didn’t do a thing like that, but I took away the knife that would have cut your throat. You didn’t know what you were doing, perhaps; you had been through so much. But afterward you would have realized and been ashamed. And I didn’t intend to have a common thief for a husband!”
“Thief?” he cried furiously. “I had a perfect right after all that had been done to me. An underhanded—!”
“Stop!” said Arla coldly. “You are not the one to talk about anything underhanded. And you would not have found your argument would have stood before a court of law.”
“It would never have come to a court of law. They wouldn’t dream who had them. Besides, I had arranged to sell them at once!”
“You poor fool,” said Arla. “Didn’t you know that that necklace was registered? Those stones were well-known stones. I heard them talking about it at the reception. You couldn’t have got away with it even if I hadn’t interfered. You would have been in the penitentiary before three months were passed.”
The man was white to the lips now and sank back in his chair groaning. It was a piteous sight! Tears filled Arla’s eyes in spite of her resolution.
Then he suddenly raised his head and glared at her again with his bloodshot eyes.
“And I suppose you don’t think they’ll trace your package and come after me to every country in Europe?” he snarled, terror in his face.
“No,” said Arla coolly, “I wrote a note inside the box and told her she must have dropped the necklace into the suitcase when she was packing.”
He was still, staring at her, the strained muscles of his face gradually relaxing. Then he dropp
ed his head into his hands again and groaned aloud, groan after groan until Arla felt she could not stand another one.
At last he spoke again.
“Everything is lost!” he moaned. “I might as well be in the penitentiary. I can’t meet my obligations! I can’t ever get on my feet again! I am disgraced before the world!”
“Listen, Carter!” said Arla in a tone that demanded attention. “You are only disgraced if you have done something wrong. I saved you from doing one wrong thing. I’m glad I could. I never could respect you again if you had done that! But it’s undone now. The necklace is on its way back, and no harm will come to you but losing your business. I’m glad you’re losing that. I hate it! It is what made you forget your love for me and go after another woman. Oh, she may be a great deal more attractive than I am, and all that, but you belonged to me. By all that had gone before, you were mine and I was yours. You knew that! By your own confession these past few days, you know it now. Now stop acting like a baby and be a man! How do you think I feel having a husband like you?”
“What can I do?” he groaned.
“Sit up and stop acting like a madman,” said his wife, turning away to hide the sorrow and contempt in her eyes. “If you’ll get calm and listen, I’ll tell you what you can do, and I’ll stand by and help you! What you should do is take the next boat back and hand over your business to your creditors. Then let’s go home and start anew. You can do it, and I can help you. Won’t you listen to reason, Carter, and let us be honest, respectable people as our parents were?”
Carter, slumped in his chair, made no reply for a long, long time. Arla sat tense, every nerve strained, waiting. She knew that her words had been like blows to him. She felt weak and helpless now that she had spoken. It was like waiting to see whether someone beloved was going to die or live.
But at last he lifted his head and looked at her. She was shocked at his face. It had grown old and haggard in that short time. He had the terrible baffled look of one who had walked the heights and been flung to the depths. She had never seen him before with his self-confidence stripped from him utterly.