Part 6

But with Vergie Winters? She still went her solitary way, making her few bonnets, now a little old-fashioned and _démodé_ for all her sedulous reading of the fashion papers. (One can see her, slightly grayed, putting on her spectacles and peering closely at the pages.) And still, as she sat behind the lace curtains at her window, she saw the figure of John Shadwell’s daughter, remote and upright and a little buxom, crossing the street and going down the opposite side; only instead of being led by John Shadwell’s spinster sister she was leading her own children now. And night after night the figure of John Shadwell, no longer an ardent lover but an old man, following the shadows of the alley (less and less furtively as he grew older) to turn the worn key in the lock and sit there all through the evening with Vergie Winters. What did they do? What did they say to each other in those long winter evenings?

And at last, one night, John Shadwell’s wife, peevish and fretful in her tight-closed bedroom smelling of medicines, sent for him at midnight to read to her, only to be told that he had not come in. Again at two o’clock, and again at three--still he had not come in. Even when the gray light filtered through the elms on to the iron dogs and deer, he had not come back. They knew then that he would never return; for he lay dead in Vergie Winters’s narrow, dun-coloured house, behind the lace curtains and the gay bonnets. He had belonged to her always, and in that silent, powerful way of hers she had known it from the beginning. In the end he came to Vergie Winters to die....

It made great trouble and embarrassment, and they were forced to wait until midnight of the following day before they were able to take John Shadwell’s body from the house of Vergie Winters. And when they did take it, it went out of the same door that had opened so many times at the touch of the worn key, and along the shadows of the alley through which he had passed in life so many times. But even then they were not able to keep the affair a secret. The Town came to know it, and so shut out the last glimmer of tolerance for Vergie Winters. It was no longer a half-secret. It was a scandal which cast darkness upon the name of one of the men who had made the Town (as people said with a curious and non-committal tone which might have meant anything at all) “what it was to-day.” The crime was Vergie Winters’s. But she could not have cared very much.... Vergie Winters, sitting there in her terrible solitude behind the lace curtains, while the procession passed her house--first, the band playing “The Dead March from Saul,” and then the cabs containing John Shadwell’s daughter, her husband, and John Shadwell’s grandchildren, and then one by one the cabs carrying the leading citizens.

The next morning she came down the steps as she had always done, in the same clothes, with the same air of abysmal indifference. She had not betrayed him during life, and in death she would give no sign; and she must have known that on that morning every eye she passed was turned upon her with a piercing gaze, “to see how she took it.”

For twenty years longer, Vergie Winters lived in the narrow wooden house, growing poorer and poorer with the passing years. She saw the children of John Shadwell’s adopted daughter grow into men and women and have children of their own. But the scandal had grown stale now, though the legend persisted, and only a few must have remembered hazily that the old woman who sat behind the curtains was a great-grandmother. Until one morning the howling of the cat roused Rinehart, the German cobbler, who broke into the house and found Vergie Winters dead. And when they carried her down the rickety steps on her last journey she went alone, without a band to play “The Dead March from Saul,” and without a procession of carriages to follow her into that far corner of the cemetery (remote from the fine burial ground of the Shadwells) where they laid her to rest.

* * * * *

Yesterday they pulled down Vergie Winters’s house. There is no monument to her memory save the tiny stone at the head of her grave, paid for with the money saved out of what she earned by making bonnets for the gay ladies of the Town. But Vergie Winters is not dead. When one passes the gaping hole where the little house once stood, one thinks of Vergie Winters. When one passes the granite shaft raised to John Shadwell, one thinks of Vergie Winters. When one sees a Shadwell grandchild or a Shadwell great-grandchild, one thinks of Vergie Winters. For now that time has begun a little to soften the Town, the memory of Vergie Winters has been kept fresh and green with a strange aroma of vague, indefinable romance. When the names of those who crossed the street to avoid her narrow house are forgotten, the name of Vergie Winters will live. Why? Who can say? Was it because the Town never knew a woman called upon to show a faith so deep, a sacrifice so great, a devotion so overwhelming?

I can see her still, an old woman of eighty, hobbling painfully down the rickety steps of her house, with that curious, proud look upon her worn old face, and in the sharp old eyes another look which said, “Vergie Winters was right! John Shadwell belonged to her, from the very beginning!”

JUKES

BY BILL ADAMS

From _Adventure_

A boarding master’s boat was alongside by the fore rigging. The boarding master and his crimp were bringing off the crew; helping the drunken sailors over the bulwarks, and shoving or dragging them into the forecastle.

Alf Jukes came over the bulwarks last. He came without assistance. He was drunk, as were all his fellows, but his drunkenness took a turn different from theirs. As he jumped to the deck he saw the ship’s mate by the mainmast.

His attitude revengeful and defiant, Alf Jukes strode up to the mate. He stood face to face with him and cursed him.

The mate paid no attention at all to Alf Jukes. He had heard the same thing, had seen the same thing, too many times from such men as Jukes. He looked at Jukes as unconcernedly as if he looked at a coil of rope or a barrel of tallow.

As the mate turned disinterestedly away, Jukes addressed himself to the ship. Scornfully scanning her from boom to taffrail, from deck to mastheads, from yardarm to yardarm, he cursed her. As if exasperated by her silence, as if maddened by her dignity, he raised his voice higher and higher. Like the mate, the ship paid no heed to him. The wind in her rigging whispered of clean things.

Alf Jukes lifted his eyes to the serene and cloudless sky. Craning his neck, seeming to tiptoe a little, hands clenched and arms upraised, he shouted curses. No answer came from the sky.

Jukes ceased his cursing and walked to the forecastle, in which his comrades were now gathered. Having put the last senseless seaman aboard, having collected from the skipper the price prearranged for them, having pocketed a month’s advance pay for each one of them, the boarding master with his crimp was already well on the way ashore. The tug was alongside the ship. The ship’s mate leaned on the bulwark and talked with the tugboat men.

Presently the skipper appeared and spoke to the mate, who walked forward and called the sailors from the forecastle.

Alf Jukes came last from the forecastle. Like all his comrades, he reeked of cheap and abominable liquor, but, unlike them, he walked erect and steadily, a fierce remonstrance in his step and bearing. They staggered, cursed, or grumbled listlessly. Some were tall, some short; some wide, some narrow; some bearded, others not. They were of many nations. Some wore dungarees, others shoddy cloth; one, a pair of trousers made of ship’s canvas; his upper body covered by a threadbare oilskin jacket. Some wore old cloth caps; one, a battered sun-downer; another a dented derby.

Jukes towered above his comrades. His curly brown head and bony feet were bare. His worn dungaree shirt was unbuttoned. His neatly patched dungaree trousers were gathered by a broad brass-buckled belt. His forearms, hands, and throat were rugged. His breast showed white through his unbuttoned shirt. It looked cold, like marble.

Alone of all the crew, Jukes did not look besotted. The stamp of the sea was on him as on them. But the shore had stamped him less. He scowled toward the shore as he followed his comrades from the forecastle.

Impelled almost as much by instinct as by the brief command of the mate, the crew ascended to the forecastle head, took the windlass bars from their rack and set them in their places. As they leaned their weight upon them some grunted like pigs. Some laughed stupidly. Jukes alone was silent.

The ship lifted a little to the tide beneath her. A flag at her peak fluttered. A wisp of smoke passed over her as the tugboat steamed ahead.

The crew stamped slowly round and round the windlass, heaving the anchor in. The cable clanked at the hawse pipe. Tide and cable spoke of clean and windy things.

The reek of liquor grew fainter. The wind came fresher. The mate said--

“Someone sing!”

One of the sailors began to sing a forecastle song, a chantey, a ballad with a wailing chorus. His voice, at first spiteful, sneering, and contemptuous, the voices of the others, also at first spiteful, sneering, and contemptuous, became presently attuned to the sounds of wind and tide and cable. They no longer cursed, or grunted like pigs. The stamp of the shore was falling from them.

The ship passed swiftly from the harbour heads. The tugboat let go her towline. Some of the men went aloft, to loose sail. Talking in low voices, others waited by sheet and halyard; ready to hoist when the mate’s order came. Jukes stood apart, detached, solitary, brooding. He looked like a bear lately released from an unclean cage, and still uncertain of its freedom.

The mate called--

“Hoist away, main tops’l!”

The men grasped the halyards and lay back, setting their weight upon them. Straining to raise the heavy sail, they failed. They tried, and failed again.

“You there! Lend a hand here!” called the mate to Jukes.

The men waited while Jukes slowly approached. As he laid hold on the rope he seemed to shake himself. He drew a long deep breath. He reached up, higher and higher. His great chest expanded.

The mate called--

“All together, now!--_Lay back!_”

The tackle rattled noisily through its three-fold blocks. The sail slid, threshing and filling, to its masthead.

“Bully boy!” said the mate.

A sailor repeated--

“Bully boy!”

Jukes remained silent, sombre, brow-beclouded. While sail on sail was spread, the crew all hauling to his leadership, he took no notice of anyone or anything. He paid no heed at all to their admiring comments.

The shore line faded astern. The day passed. The sun sank. Night fell.

The sailors sat in the forecastle.

“’Ow long was you ashore?” asked one.

“Three days. How long was you?” came the reply.

“I come in the same day as you, then. I been three days ashore.”

“We was five months at sea,” said the other, “three days in port, an’ I don’t know nothin’ about ’em.”

The dozen sailors discussed their stays in port. Not one of them had been ashore over five days. Each had accepted a drink from the boarding master’s bottle. Between then and now no one of them knew aught of what had taken place.

“We was two hundred days on the passage out,” said one. “We was posted missin’. Four days in port, an’ back to sea agin!”

They were from half a dozen different ships.

“How long was you ashore?” asked one, turning to Jukes. Jukes seemed not to hear him.

“He don’t know,” laughed one.

“We don’t none of us know much, or we’d not be here,” another grumbled.

“After this v’yage I quits the sea,” another asserted.

“Me, too,” another.

“Yuss!--You will!” chuckled a third.

“I’ll do wot I please,” retorted the other.

“Same as you always ’ave! Me, too,” another said. “Haw, haw, haw!”

Turning to Jukes the last speaker asked--

“Wot will you do w’en she gits in, ol’ matey?”

Jukes rose and left the forecastle. For a long time he sat motionless on the bulwark, his head bowed, his great hands upon his knees, his figure dim against the starry sky. When eight bells struck and his comrades started aft to answer to the muster roll he crossed the deck and reëntered the forecastle. His step seemed to falter as he neared the dingy lamp. Looking about him to make sure that he was all alone, he drew from a pocket a small oilskin package; untied and took from it a faded kerchief--an old bandanna. Loosening the knots, he drew from its crumpled folds an envelope. The envelope, drab and dirty like the kerchief that protected it, bore the mark of a distant port, and of a yet more distant date.

A picture but little larger than a postage stamp fell to the table and lay face up. The letter, dog-eared and torn from much handling, was like the picture--commonplace, yet smiling and hopeful. As Jukes looked hungrily at the picture his face grew haggard. His lips moved as he read the old letter over.

Startled by a shout from the quarterdeck, Jukes thrust letter and picture back within the bandanna, folded the oilskin about them, and hurried out to answer to his name.

* * * * *

A month was gone. Barefooted, bare of arm, Jukes walked from the wheel. The sunset glowed in his weathered face. The sails above him shone. Below him shone the sea. He gave the course to the mate and went to join his fellows on the hatch.

“A fine man that, Mister,” said the skipper to the mate.

“’Ow would you like to ’ave a little place ashore?” asked one sailor of another on the hatch.

“I ain’t goin’ to sea no more after this passage,” answered the other.

Jukes lighted his pipe and sat among them. The sea was blue-black; the sky blue-black above. Whispering from horizon to horizon the sea crests murmured of clean, free, windy things.

“’Ow would you like to ’ave a little place ashore?” asked the last speaker of Jukes.

Jukes turned and faced the man. His eyes shining and eager, he drew the oilskin package from his pocket. They gathered round him as he opened it. They passed the picture from hand to hand.

“I wisht as I was ’im,” muttered one and another.

They looked at him enviously, seated serene and confident among them.

* * * * *

Another month was gone.

A canopy of cloud hung low over the mastheads. It was without break, or rift, uniform from horizon to horizon. It was of that cold gray that presages snow. Because it was uniform it seemed to be without motion. Beneath it the cañon hollows of the sea were black. From horizon to horizon white sea cataracts roared.

Every two hours a sailor peered from the forecastle. Watching his opportunity, leaving those behind him to close the door, he sprang to the deck. Now running a few steps, now desperately clinging to the wire-tight life line, now leaping high into the rigging to escape the raging sea, he battled a slow way to the wheel; whence the helmsman whom he relieved made an equally precarious passage to the forecastle.

It was midday when Alf Jukes opened the forecastle door. Unlike the others, he did not hesitate, or pause to scrutinize the chances of the deck. Though in the past two days no man aboard had slept, there was no sign of weariness about him. As he opened the door he looked with a casual but comprehensive glance to the gale-whipped and snow-laden sky. Then, stepping to the waist-deep smother of the forward deck, he turned and deliberately banged the door behind him. Head unbowed, gaze straightforward, light hands upon the rigid life line, he strode surefooted through the tempest’s rage. When an insweeping sea completely submerged him, the mate, who was watching from by the helmsman’s side, made for the chart room and bellowed to the skipper. Jukes’s head and shoulders reappeared as the skipper leaped out to the poop deck.

The groan of the ship’s hull, the creak and outcry of a hundred straining blocks, the clack of chains and parrals, were inaudible. Had the three masts simultaneously splintered and gone over the side, not a sound would have been heard.

The skipper and mate looked amusedly into each other’s faces. Alf Jukes’s shoulders, his gripping hands, his arms, the every motion of his entirely reckless body, appeared as the limbs and motions of a gambolling schoolboy. By the toss of his chin, by the shake of his head, by the partings and closings of his stubble-surrounded lips, the universe might observe that Jukes, on his way to relieve the wheel, was singing.

Pointing to the helmsman, the skipper yelled an order into the mate’s ear. The mate nodded. Waylaying the man, the mate dragged him into the chart room. So ordered by mate and skipper, the exhausted helmsman sought shelter in the chart house instead of attempting to reach the forecastle.

When sailors looked from the forecastle door to see what was become of Jukes, or of the man whom he had gone to relieve, it was to see the mate gesticulating to them to go back; voicelessly ordering them to remain where they were.

Afternoon passed, and no man ventured to the wheel’s relief.

Toward dusk the wind fell, its uproar ending abruptly--as if a multitude of yelling maniacs had leaped from a precipice edge to instant extinguishment. The crests of the sea died down. The horizons widened. For a little while gray ocean rolled under gray sky.

Snow fell. The horizons were blotted out.

Skipper and mate descended to the saloon. Jerking the door of the steward’s pantry open, the skipper shouted for the steward. A trapdoor in the pantry deck opened slowly, and the steward, who had laid hidden below, arose. His teeth chattered. For a moment he looked dazedly up at the skipper; then, realizing that the storm was over, that the ship still floated, and that it was long since he had served a meal, passed out to the deck and made haste to the cook’s galley.

“We’ll set sail when the moon rises,” said the skipper to the mate.

Skipper, mate, steward, cook, and sailors buried their noses in pannikins of steaming coffee. Ravenously devouring hash made of pork scraps mixed with pulverized sea biscuit, they forgot the fury of the recent storm, forgot that it was snowing--forgot Alf Jukes.

The ship rolled easily. Blocks whined. Sails flapped. A pleasant odour of tobacco smoke arose in cabin, galley, and forecastle.

The clouds lifted. The snow ceased. A wan light illumined deck and rigging.

“Loose them upper tops’ls!” bawled the mate.

Some of the sailors climbed aloft to cast the gaskets off. Others gathered at the halyards, ready to hoist away. Snow, disturbed by the feet of the climbers, fell on the heads and shoulders of those below. Flapping their arms, shaking their fists, the men on deck swore at the climbers, who, envying them the comparative comfort of the deck, replied with gibes and curses.

A man aloft called--

“All ready on the main!”

The mate said--

“Hoist away!”

The men lay back, straining on the stiff swollen rope. The sail refused to move.

“W’ere’s Alf?” asked one of the sailors.

“Jukes!” called the mate, “Jukes!”

They looked aloft, seeking Jukes.

“’Ee ain’t aloft,” said one.

“He’s at the wheel,” said the mate, remembering. “One o’ you men relieve Jukes.”

“I forgot ’im,” said one.

“Me, too,” another.

Alf Jukes came forward from the wheel. Snow was thick on his sou’wester, and on his shoulders. Snow was frozen on his sleeves and oilskin trousers. His hands, his lips, were blue.

“Lend a hand here, Jukes,” said the mate.

Jukes strode to the halyards and reached up. His great chest expanded as he reached higher and higher.

“All together--_now!_” said the mate.

Jukes laid his weight upon the halyards. The sheaves rattled. The yard began to rise.

“Bully boy!” said the mate. A sailor grunted, “Bully boy!”

Their feet tramping soundlessly in the deep snow, the men ran the topsail to its masthead.

“All ready on the fore,” called a man from aloft.

“Go eat,” said the mate to Jukes, his accents crisp and clear in the stillness.

Preceding the others, Jukes walked to the fore topsail halyards as if he had not heard.

When sail was set there was neither coffee nor hash left. The cook’s skilly pots and hash kids were washed, and hung on the taut wire above his stove. Jukes munched sea biscuit, and took a drink of cold water.

“That fellow Jukes is a good man, Mister,” said the skipper to the mate.

“Jukey ain’t afeard o’ naught,” said a sailor, “I wish as I was ’im.”

Night passed.

* * * * *

A bright sun shone on the ship at anchor. Sails were furled, ropes coiled. From the fore bulwarks, the sailors watched a boat rowed by two men approaching.

Jukes sat alone upon the forecastle head. Gazing shoreward, he saw masts and spars, steeples and roofs. Chimneys smoked. Windows glinted. Beyond the town he saw low hills, with treetops blowing. His eyes were hungry.

Noticing the approaching boat, Jukes rose to his feet. His teeth clenched, a scowl on his face, he paced to and fro. He looked like a bear come too close to the dwellings of men--suspicious, undetermined, afraid of the world and of himself.

Hands extended, eyes a-twinkle, faces beaming, a sailor’s boarding master and his crimp climbed aboard.

“Did ye have a good voyage, boys? W’ere are ye from? You’re come to a good port this time!”

The boarding master entered the forecastle. Seating himself, looking amicably up to the expectant and childish faces of the sailors, he drew a bottle from his pocket.

“The best, boys! I’d never offer ye any but the best.”

One of them grasped the bottle.

“Don’t swaller it all!” cried one of the sailors.

“’Old ’is arm!” another.

“’S’all right, boys. There’s plenty more,” grinned the boarding master.

The crimp came from the boat, bottles in his pockets.

The forecastle reeked of cheap and abominable liquor. Presently one of the sailors asked--

“W’ere’s Jukey?”

The crimp left the forecastle, to seek the missing man.

“The boys wants you,” said he, discovering Alf Jukes alone upon the forecastle head. He took a bottle from his pocket and held it out to Jukes.

Uttering a low coughing grunt, Jukes struck savagely at the crimp. The bottle fell, and broke upon the deck. Cursing Jukes, the crimp beat a hasty retreat.

With a half pannikin of unspilled liquor in it, the lower half of the bottle remained upright against the windlass.