Part 25 (1/2)
The boy tucked the bill away. ”I'm wise! I'm wise!” He winked at Jan and left the room.
Jan turned to her. ”I'll have a few things sent up in the morning.”
She was standing straight and motionless in the middle of the room.
”You're good,” she said, but without looking at him.
”And--oh, my mother! I most forgot her. She lives in Port Rock.
To-morrow night I'll put you aboard the boat for Port Rock. And I won't be able to see you till then.”
”Not till to-morrow night?”
”I has to be at the dry dock early in the morning or they can't start work. Good-night.” He was holding his hat very stiffly in one hand. The other hand he extended to her.
”Good-night,” the woman said, and took his hand and clung to it.
Suddenly she lifted it to her lips and sobbed.
A woman crying and kissing his hand, and all done so suddenly he couldn't stop it--Jan was shocked at himself. ”Sh-h!” said Jan. ”Sh-h!
You mustn't.”
”I will. You're the first man ever came to the house who didn't look at me as if I was a streetwalker. And he tried his best to make me one. And I fought him--and fought him; but not a soul to help me. And a woman can't hold out forever. I'd 'a' killed myself, but I was afraid to die that way. I was beginning to weaken when you came. And if you had been the wrong kind of a man--”
”Sh-h! Don't say things like that.”
”But it's so. And you helped me to get over it. Before I was married I used to dream of a man like you. But what chance had I in the dance-halls along the water-front and my people dead? And he was a dance-hall hero, the kind girls used to write notes to. I was never as bad as that--believe me I wasn't,--but I married him just the same--at seventeen, and what does a girl know of life at seventeen? And him!
Almost on my wedding-day he began to abuse me.”
”No, no!”
”It's true. And when you told me you'd take me to your mother--that was the first message I'd got in five years from a man except what was meant for my harm. But a good mother--I'll tell her so she'll understand.”
”She'll understand without you telling her. She's brought up a dozen of us and has grand-children--lots of 'em. Sunday morning you'll be in my mother's house in Port Rock.”
She stooped to kiss his hand again.
”Here! Here--you mustn't!”
”I will--I will! And there! And there! And now good-night.”
”Good-night,” mumbled Jan. He hurried out of the room and all but fell over the bell-boy in the hall. ”What you hanging round for?” Jan almost hissed. ”Go below.”
The bell-boy hurried downstairs and ”Say, but that's a new kind of an elopement for this shack!” he exploded to the clerk, and repeated what he had heard.
The clerk took a look at the register and read: ”'Mrs. H.G. Goles, City.' Now I didn't notice that before. 'Mrs. Goles' he registered, and not himself. Goles? I wonder if that's Hen's woman? Well, if it is he'll get his good and plenty before Hen's done with him.”
”Yes, and the police'll get Hen. And, say, that Swede ain't such a gink when yuh get a second look at him.”
”I don't know. I didn't get a second look at him; but the way he pulled out that wad--I charged him four bucks for a dollar-'n'-a-half room.