The Honorable Percival by Alice Hegan Rice

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III

CONVALESCENCE

During the monotonous days that followed, the Honorable Percival
Hascombe discovered that the satisfaction of being exclusive is usually
tempered by the discomfort of being bored. So lofty and forbidding had
been his manner that no one had ventured to intrude even a casual good
morning. A bachelor under thirty, with a competence of such dimensions
that it had entailed incompetency, and a doting family that danced
attendance upon his every whim, he was figuratively as well as literally
at sea in this new environment. At times he faltered in his stern
determination not to allow any one to become acquainted with him. It was
only the fear that any leniency might result in undue liberty on the
part of some aggressive American that caused him to preserve his deep
seclusion.

Bored, blase, blighted, he had one more affliction to endure. The young
person had gotten hopelessly on his nerves; in fact, she was the most
disturbing object on the horizon. She played shuffle-board in front of
his chair when he wanted to read; she practised new dance-steps with
the first officer when he wanted to sleep; she caused him to lift his
unwilling eyes a dozen times an hour by her endless circuits of the
deck. She was on terms of friendship with everybody on board except
himself, including the second class and steerage. There seemed no end to
her activities, no limit to her enthusiasm. The more she attracted his
unwilling attention, the more persistently he ignored her.

As the time passed and danger of intrusion lessened, his ennui
increased. One dull, humid day, when the whole world resembled a
dripping sponge, Percival reached the limit of his endurance. The canvas
was down, and nothing could be seen but long vistas of slippery decks,
with barefooted Chinese sailors everlastingly mopping and slopping about
in the wet. He had counted the five hundred and fiftieth raindrop that
clung to the red life-belt at the rail when he saw the young Scotchman
next him look at his watch.

"What time do you make it?" asked Percival, and his voice sounded almost
strange to him.

"Eleven," said the man, getting to his feet; "aboot time for the fun to
begin in the bathing-tank."

Ordinarily Percival would have allowed the conversation to end there,
but he felt now that he would be risking his sanity if he sat there any
longer counting raindrops.

"What's taking place?" he asked listlessly.

"The usual morning diversion: the captain's daughter is teaching a
couple of bairns to swim."

"Surely they won't go in on a beastly day like this!"

"I'll be bound they do. Shall we go find out?"

Forward a number of people were already hanging over the rail, highly
diverted at what was taking place in the big canvas tank on the deck
below. Percival, looking down, beheld the young person standing on
the lower rung of a ladder, coaxing a small boy to jump from the
platform above. Now, on several occasions in the past Percival had met
Disillusion face to face in a bathing-suit. A certain attenuated memory
of the faithless Hortense made him wince even yet. But the round and
graceful figure poised in dancing impatience on the ladder-rung defied
criticism. Much as he disapproved of the public exhibition, he could not
check a breath of admiration.

The small boy shivering on the platform vibrated between courage and
fear; then, urged by the shouts from above, and lured by that sparkling
face and those outstretched arms below, he leaped. Shrieks of laughter
followed as his fat little body spanked the water, and was quickly
righted and deposited, gasping, but victorious, on a life-buoy. Then the
small girl must dive, and after that all three must splash and jump and
float and swim like a trio of mad young porpoises.

The Honorable Percival was a good swimmer himself, and his interest
kindled as he watched the perfect ease with which the young person
handled herself in the narrow confines of the tank. While he deplored
the wretched taste of the proceeding, he had to admit that she carried
it off with admirable lack of self-consciousness. She swam as she did
everything else, with impetuous joy, and seemed as unaware of the
admiring glances of the spectators as the children themselves.

"Did ye see her the other day when she climbed to the crow's-nest?"
asked the Scotchman, with enthusiasm.

"No," said Percival, curtly.

"The wind was blowing at a bittie, but she went up the rigging like a
sailor. I doubt if the lass would be afraid of the de'il himself."

"Probably jolly well used to all this sort of thing," said Percival,
wearily.

"Indeed, no; this is her first sea-voyage. She never saw a ship before."

"I thought you said she was the captain's daughter."

"So she is; but he's had her out on a Western ranch since she was a bit
of a lass. Quite a romance!"

"Really?"

"Yes. Her mother was a play-actress. Ran off with an English nobleman.
Left the captain and the lassie in the lurch, and died before she
reached England. I had the story from the purser."

"Where's the girl going now?"

"The captain is fetching her the round trip to Hong-Kong, to break off
some love-affair at home, I believe. But if she's as canny as she's
bonny, I'll wager she'll outwit him before they have done."

Percival, who at first had remained in the back row of the spectators,
during this recital moved to the front, and now as he looked down he
suddenly encountered the laughing glance of the person under discussion.
She was lazily watching him from where she floated in the water, with
her loosened hair circling in a dark cloud about her head. The
expression on her face gave him instant cause for alarm.

Since that first day when she had spoken to him, he had studiously
avoided meeting her eye, and had even come to congratulate himself on
having removed from her mind the suspicion of a former encounter. But
there was that in the glance that now met and held his that dispelled
any such hope. It indicated all too clearly that she had not been
deceived, and that she was treating the matter with unbecoming levity.

Percival returned haughtily to his steamer-chair, but not to count
raindrops. He had food for new and most irritating reflections. The
girl's refusal to take his cue and ignore the very mild flirtation that
had occurred on the car-platform placed him in a situation at once
awkward and embarrassing. He rather prided himself on never taking
advantage of any tribute of admiration that might be tendered him by the
less experienced of her sex. On more than one occasion in the past he
had heroically extinguished the tender flames that his own charms had
kindled in susceptible bosoms. He had come to share the belief of his
mother that he possessed a rare degree of chivalry in protecting women
against himself.

But this impossible child of Nature either did not know the rules of
the game, or chose to ignore them. He would be forced to continue this
distasteful partnership memory, or else dissolve it with a casual
reference to the episode, which would dispose of it for good and all.
He had about decided upon the latter course when Fate forestalled him.

On his way down to luncheon he encountered Miss Boynton coming up the
companionway. Her hair, still damp, was hanging about her shoulders, and
she carried a bundle of bath-towels under her arm. Both stood politely
aside, then both started forward, meeting midway.

[Illustration: Her hair, still damp, was hanging about her shoulders,
and she carried a bundle of bath-towels under her arm.]

"I--I--beg your pardon," said Percival.

"What for?" she asked.

"For--for not recognizing you the other day." It was not in the least
what he had meant to say, but it was said, and he must go on as best he
could. "Not expecting to see you, you know, and all that."

She stood shaking her hair in the breeze and smiling. While she
evidently bore no resentment, she was not helping him out in his
apology.

"One sees so many faces in traveling," he went on lamely, "and all so
much alike."

"I'd have known your face anywhere," she said.

He took a step downward, but she did not move. Instead she leaned
nonchalantly against the wall and began braiding her hair.

"I know your name, too," she said, with a look half daring and half
quizzical. "I looked you up on the passenger-list."

"But how did you know--"

"Oh, it was easy to spot you. You were the only man on board who would
fit 'The Honorable Percival Hascombe and Valet.'"

Percival found her scoffing tone intolerable. He descended two more
steps, but she stopped him with a request.

"If you don't mind," she said, flinging the finished braid over her
shoulder, "I wish you'd write your grand name on my Panama hat sometime;
it's going to be a souvenir of the trip."

With an unintelligible answer, he made his escape. His worst fears were
realized: he had given an inch; she had taken an ell. The crack in the
shell of his privacy was widening alarmingly and peeping through, he
shuddered at what he saw.

IV

COUNTER-CURRENTS

Day after day the steamship _Saluria_ sailed the most amiable of
seas. So clear was the atmosphere at times that a glimpse could be had
of the planet Venus disporting herself in the heavens at high noon. Life
on shipboard became permeated with that spirit of fellowship which is
apt to make itself felt the moment the restraints of convention are
lifted. Even the Honorable Percival succumbed in a measure to the
insidious charm of the long, lazy days that were punctuated only by the
ship's bells.

He was still an apparently indifferent spectator of all that was going
on, but the fact that he _was_ a spectator showed that he was
relaxing the rigid rules he had laid down for himself. The only person
who addressed him during the day was Bobby Boynton, who gave him a free
and easy greeting when they met in the morning, and then seemed to
forget his existence. His fear that she would follow up the conversation
begun in the companionway was apparently groundless, for she seemed
ridiculously engrossed in other things.

Among the half-dozen young people on board who were perpetually
organizing tournaments, dances, card-parties, and concerts, she was the
most indefatigable. Not being responsible to any one for her actions,
and possessing a creative imagination, she indulged in escapades that
provided the older people with their chief topic of conversation. Her
sternest critics, however, smiled as they shook their heads.

The captain from the first had treated her very much as he treated the
other passengers. The parental role was not a familiar one, and he
shirked it. The only time that he rose to a sense of duty was when he
found her in the writing-room, her head bent over a desk. Then rumor
said authority was bruskly asserted, letters were confiscated, and tears
flowed instead of ink.

About the time the Honorable Percival was congratulating himself on
having put her in her proper place, and having kept her there, his
confidence received a shock. Coming on deck one day, he found her again
seated in his steamer-chair. This time she made no pretense of rising,
but obligingly made a place for him on the foot-rest. The invitation was
loftily declined.

"I've been waiting a coon's age for you," she said, with an audacious
upward glance. "I wanted to tell you that I've put you on the program
for a song at the concert to-morrow night."

"Quite impossible; I shouldn't think of such a thing for a moment,"
he began; then curiosity got the better of his annoyance. "But if I may
ask, how on earth did you know that I sang?"

Bobby's eyes danced, and her submerged dimple came to the surface.

"I didn't," she said; "but they dared me to ask you, and I wouldn't take
a dare, would you?"

"I am afraid I don't quite follow you," said Percival.

"Well, you see," explained Bobby, "they dared me to ask you, and I didn't
mind, because I was dead sure you sang. A person ought to be able to do
anything with a voice like yours."

Percival stroked his small mustache meditatively.

"As a matter of fact, you know," he said in a tone from which the chill
had vanished, "I suppose an English voice is rather conspicuous among
Americans, isn't it?"

"Yours is," said Bobby; "that is, what I've heard of it."

And then she was gone like a flash, leaving the Honorable Percival to
cogitate upon the extraordinary manners of American girls, and a certain
cleverness they at times displayed. Lady Hortense Vevay, for instance,
had had four uninterrupted weeks in which to discover anything unusual
in his voice, and he must confess she had been rather stupid about it.
But why had that impossible young American ruined a pretty compliment by
her parting shot? Did she feel that she had any claim upon him? Did she
expect him to pay her any attention? Preposterous!

The first break in the lazy routine of the voyage came when the dim
outline of the Hawaiian Islands gradually took definite shape in the
form of old Diamond Head which loomed strangely out of the water.
Sea-gulls came out to meet the steamer, circling on white wings against
the blue, and the air grew soft and fragrant with the odors of flowers
and tropical fruits.

As the _Saluria_ slowly swung into the harbor and dropped anchor,
the promenade-deck was full of lively, chattering people, all arrayed in
white, and all eager for the first glimpse of the strange land. Dozens
of naked native boys were swimming about the steamer, causing general
merriment by their dexterity in diving for coins. One saucy brown imp
who had just come up with a silver piece in his mouth, caught sight
of the Englishman in the crowd above, and with a shrewdness born of
experience called out: "Hi there, English Johnny! Me no 'Merican boy;
me Johnny Bull boy. Me no want dime; want shilling! Here you are!
Aw right!"

The invitation met no response. The Honorable Percival greeted with calm
disdain the laugh that followed it. He was not in the least interested
in impertinent young Hawaiians. A matter of much greater importance
occupied his attention. He had just been informed by the purser that,
owing to the crowded condition of the steamer, he would be compelled to
share his stateroom with another passenger during the remainder of the
voyage. This catastrophe darkened even the tropical sun. He was
indignant with the company in San Francisco that had failed to explain
this contingency; he was angry with the purser for not being able to
change the disagreeable order of things; but most of all he was furious
with the unknown stranger, whom in the blackness of his mood he pictured
as either a fat German or a chattering American.

So perturbed was he over this circumstance that he could not refrain
from venting his ill humor on somebody, and his valet being unavailable
at the time, he took it out upon himself.

"No, I am not going ashore," he said somewhat curtly to Bobby Boynton,
who had organized a party with sufficient diversions to last two days
instead of one.

"You'd better come along," said Bobby. "We are going to shoot up the
town of Honolulu."

"I don't know that I should particularly care for that," said Percival,
coldly.

She looked at him with frank curiosity.

"Say, why don't you ever let yourself have a good time?" she asked.
"Everybody else is going except the captain. He's got the gout. Says
he's carrying his grandfather's cocktails around in his starboard toe."

She waited for a response, but none came.

"It's going to be awfully stupid here with everybody gone," she
persisted. "Why won't you come?"

She was dressed in a short white serge and the Panama hat, which as yet
was innocent of autographs. It was astonishing what a difference the
absence of conflicting colors made in her appearance.

For a moment Percival's decision wavered before those pleading tones,
but the next he caught sight of Mrs. Weston and Elise evidently watching
with amused interest the result of Bobby's bold move.

"Another dare, as I think you call it?" he asked. "You'll have to excuse
me, Miss Boynton. Sight-seeing is quite out of my line."

He watched the gay party board the launch, Mrs. Weston, the two girls,
and the college boys whose raucous voices and offhand manners had grated
upon him ever since leaving San Francisco. As the small boat got away
from the steamer, one white-clad figure separated itself suddenly from
the rest, and waved a friendly hand to him. He started, then, lifting
his cap stiffly, moved away from the rail. The little minx was pretty;
in fact, he acknowledged for the first time that she was distractingly
pretty. But she was also presuming, and presumption was a thing he would
permit in no one.

For the next few hours Percival found life not worth living. He sat
on the hot deck in solitary state, gloved in white chamois, with a
newspaper over his white-clad knees, engaged in the forlorn hope of
trying to keep clean while the ship was coaling. Finding this an
impossibility, he took refuge in the deserted-writing-room, where all
the port-holes were closed and the air as dead as that of an Egyptian
tomb.

Satirical letters home were Percival's chief diversion. In them he
expressed his unqualified disapproval of the Western Hemisphere. The
assurance that they would be read by an adoring group of feminine
relatives gave wing to an imagination that was not wont to soar. Today,
however, inspiration was lacking. On opening the drawer of the first
desk he came to, he found a letter half begun which had evidently been
thrust there suddenly and forgotten. Across the top of the page was
written:

"My darling H-----"

Percival closed the drawer hurriedly. The conjunction of the letter H
with that particular adjective started echoes. He circled the room in
search of a desk not haunted by epistolatory ghosts.

"Particularly asinine brand of pen!" he exclaimed in disgust. "Must have
been used for a corkscrew!"

Corkscrews changed the current of his thought into a more pleasant
channel. But even the mild consolation thus suggested was denied him.
The smoking-room was closed. He wandered disconsolately to his
state-room and, flinging himself on the narrow sofa, stared at the
ceiling. Every fiber of his being shrieked for England and for the
revivifying warmth of adulation.

His mind dwelt longingly upon Hascombe Hall and the acres of parkland,
moorland, and farmland that were its inheritance. Then he thought
bitterly upon that paragon of perfection who had caused his banishment.
How completely she would have filled the role of mistress of that noble
hall! He pictured her in irreproachable toilets, pouring tea in the east
drawing-room, and receiving her guests with the exact shade of warmth
that their social positions demanded.

As he recalled her manner of cool distinction and her polished,
impersonal phrases, another feminine figure dared to flit between him
and this lady of manifold merit. No sooner would he indignantly banish
her image than she would come dancing back, a gay little figure, with
too much color in her checks and too much daring in her eyes.

"Why don't you let yourself have a good time?" she had asked, and the
question repeated itself now with maddening insistence. Was he, who had
always had everything, now missing something--something that other
people had?

When two bells sounded he reluctantly went below for lunch. The prospect
of a tete-a-tete with the captain was anything but pleasant. He
understood about half that the officer said, and with that half he
usually disagreed. His first remark was unfortunate:

"All this dirt means more washing down of the decks, I suppose. Beastly
racket it makes. Is there any earthly reason why it should always be
done at dawn?"

"Most one-sidedly," said the captain; "it gives the sailors a chance to
see the sunrise."

There was a short silence, then Percival asked:

"What's the name of that young South American who went ashore with your
daughter?"

"South American?" repeated the captain. "I pass."

"The blatant youth who sits at your left."

"Oh, you mean Vaughn. He's no South American. He hails from Virginia."

"Thought he said he was a Southerner. May I trouble you for the
mustard?"

"Did the Daughter of the Revolution go along?" asked the captain.

"Beg pardon?"

"Mrs. Weston. She's a D.A.R. She has told me so five times; that's how
I know."

"Really, why was she chosen to be the Daughter of the Regiment?"

"The Revolution, not the regiment. You remember that little skirmish
that took place in '75?"

Percival considered this thrust beneath his notice. His simmering
antagonism for the captain was nearing the boiling-point.

"I say," he said, "will you kindly arrange for a bit of air to enter
this room? It's ghastly, perfectly ghastly."

"Sure," said the captain, dexterously mixing a salad of alligator pears.
"Ah Foo, open some of those ports and let in the coal-dust. Have some of
this tropical mess?"

"Thanks, no. I'm not specially fit today. Had a beastly night of it.
Fancy having to keep one's umbrella up in the berth to keep the light
from the passage out of one's eyes! I don't believe such a thing could
happen on a British steamer. Can't you manage to give me another
state-room?"

"That's the purser's job; he's the room-clerk," said the captain. "I'm
only the skipper."

Percival glanced quickly at the weather-beaten face, but found no
guiding expression.

"I can't say I found your purser over-civil," he went on. "He insists on
putting another passenger in my state-room. Nothing was said about it in
San Francisco, nothing whatever. I shall report the matter at my first
opportunity."

"I bet you've drawn that Chinese bigwig that's booked from here," said
the captain, grinning.

Percival pushed back his plate. A German or an American had appalled
him, but a Chinaman!

"I say, this is a bit thick, you know. What time does the next launch go
ashore?" he demanded, with, a fierce determination to find the purser
and demand satisfaction.

"About to start now," said the captain, adding, with a twinkle: "Better
think twice about that Chinaman. If he takes the upper berth, his
queue'd come in mighty handy to hang your umbrella on."

Percival dashed up the stairs. He had been seeking an excuse for going
ashore for the last four hours, and now he felt that he had one. It was
of the utmost importance, he assured himself, that he see the purser
without further delay.

V

STRANDED

When a man insists too strenuously upon his rights, the imps of
perversity invariably combine to thwart him. Percival was aware of their
pursuing footsteps from the moment he went ashore and lost his umbrella,
to the hour of his return to the dock, when he found himself face to
face with a situation of baffling perplexity.

No sooner had he stepped from the launch that had started him on his
double quest, which ostensibly had only the purser for its object, than
he was surrounded by a noisy, gesticulating crowd. Insistent requests
that he should buy a string of shells, adopt a chameleon, wear a wreath
of carnations, and take a drive, were proffered in broken English, and
he made his escape by jumping into a motor-car and slamming the door.

"Where to, sir?" asked the gratified chauffeur.

"Take me where everybody goes," directed Percival.

"The Pali? Waikiki? Punch-Bowl? Aquarium?"

"Yes, yes. Go on. You see, as a matter of fact, I'm looking for some
one."

Percival's first impression of Honolulu was that of a futurist sketch,
a streak of green standing for the palm-shaded streets, a streak of
scarlet representing the royal Poinciana, and various impressionistic
dots indicating native Hawaiians. The motor in which he found himself
was very ancient, having evidently traveled from the center to the
circumference of civilization by easy stages. Its age and asthmatic
condition should have made it an object of veneration to the chauffeur,
but such was not the case. Like a belated express, it was driven
through the town and out into the open country. Luxurious villas, jungles
of cacti, Chinese tea-houses, taro patches, banana plantations--all
presented one mad panorama to Percival, who jolted from side to side
on the back seat.

Presently there was a precipitous halt, and the chauffeur indicated that
he was to get out.

"What for?" asked Percival, crossly.

"The Pali," said the chauffeur, impressively. "Eighteen hundred feet
above the level of the sea, where the early inhabitants of Oahu made
their last stand against the enemy."

"I'm quite sure she isn't here," said Percival. Then he caught himself,
and went into a rather elaborate explanation to cover his confusion.
"You see, I'm looking for the purser. The purser of the _Saluria_,
you know. He's put a nasty Chinaman in my state-room, and I've got to
find him before the ship sails."

"Everybody comes first to the Pali," said the man.

Percival glanced skeptically at the great granite cliff that seemed such
an unpromising retreat for pursers, then he stepped out of the motor,
and made his way around the sharp angle of stone wall. As he did so, a
gale struck him that sent his hat careening over the precipice. He gazed
after it in chagrin. The fact that one of the great panoramic views of
the world lay at his feet was quite obliterated by the unhappy knowledge
that an English Bowler had landed in the fork of a distant tree, defying
recovery.

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