CHAPTER V
SMILING despite herself as she thought over the events of the afternoon, Joan Hartley walked thoughtfully homeward. Indignation at Mr. Vyner’s presumption was mingled with regret that a young man of undeniably good looks and somewhat engaging manners should stoop to deceit. The fact that people are considered innocent until proved guilty did not concern her. With scarcely any hesitation she summed up against him, the only thing that troubled her being what sentence to inflict, and how to inflict it. She wondered what excuse he could make for such behaviour, and then blushed hotly as she thought of the one he would probably advance. Confused at her own thoughts, she quickened her pace, in happy ignorance of the fact that fifty yards behind her Captain Trimblett and her father, who had witnessed with great surprise her leave-taking of Mr. Vyner, were regulating their pace by hers.
“She’s a fine girl,” said the captain, after a silence that had endured long enough to be almost embarrassing. “A fine girl, but—”
He broke off, and completed his sentence by a shake of the head.
“She must have come for me,” said Hartley, “and he happened to be standing there and told her I had gone.”
“No doubt,” said the captain, dryly. “That’s why she went scurrying off as though she had got a train to catch, and he stood there all that time looking after her. And, besides, every time he sees me, in some odd fashion your name crops up.”
“My name?” said the other, in surprise.
“Your name,” repeated the captain, firmly, “Same as Joan’s, ain’t it? The after-part of it, anyway. That’s the attraction. Talk all round you—and I talk all round you, too. Nobody’d dream you’d got a daughter to hear the two of us talk—sometimes. Other times, if I bring her name in, they’d think you’d got nothing else.”
Mr. Hartley glanced at him uneasily. “Perhaps—” he began.
“There’s no ‘perhaps’ about it,” said the masterful captain. “If you’re not very careful there’ll be trouble. You know what Mr. John is—he’s got big ideas, and the youngster is as obstinate as a mule.”
“It’s all very well,” said Hartley, “but how can I be careful? What can I do? Besides, I dare say you are making mountains of mole-heaps; she probably hurried off thinking to catch me up.”
Captain Trimblett gave a little dry cough. “Ask her,” he said, impressively.
“I’m not going to put any such ideas into her head,” said his friend.
“Sound her, then,” said the captain. “This is the way I look at it. We all think he is a very nice fellow, don’t we?”
“He is,” said Hartley, decidedly.
“And we all think she’s a splendid girl, don’t we?” continued the other.
“Something of the sort,” said Hartley, smiling.
“There you are, then,” said the captain, triumphantly. “What is more likely than that they should think the same of each other? Besides, I know what he thinks; I can read him like a book.”
“You can’t read Joan, though,” said the other. “Why, she often puzzles me.”
“I can try,” said the captain. “I haven’t known her all these years for nothing. Now, don’t tell her we saw her. You leave her to me—and listen.”
“Better leave her alone,” said Hartley.
The captain, who was deep in thought, waved the suggestion aside. He walked the remainder of the way in silence, and even after they were in the house was so absorbed in his self-appointed task, and so vague in his replies, that Joan, after offering him the proverbial penny for his thoughts, suggested to her father in a loud whisper that he had got something in mind.
“Thinking of the ships he has lost,” she said, in a still louder whisper.
The captain smiled and shook his head at her.
“Couldn’t lose a ship if I tried,” he said, nudging Hartley to call his attention to what was to follow. “I was saying so to Mr. Robert only yesterday!”
His voice was so deliberate, and his manner so significant, that Miss Hartley looked up in surprise. Then she coloured furiously as she saw both gentlemen eying her with the air of physicians on the lookout for unfavourable symptoms. Anger only deepened her colour, and an unladylike and unfilial yearning to bang their two foolish heads together possessed her. Explanations were impossible, and despite her annoyance she almost smiled as she saw the concern in the eye the captain turned on her father.
“Saying so only yesterday,” repeated the former, “to Mr. Robert.”
“I saw him this afternoon,” said Joan, with forced composure. “I went up to father’s room and found him there. Why didn’t you tell me you had given up your room, father?”
Mr. Hartley pleaded in excuse that he thought he had told her, and was surprised at the vehemence of her denial. With a slightly offended air he pointed out that it was a very small matter after all.
“There is nothing to be annoyed about,” he said. “You went there to see me, and, not finding me there, came down again.”
“Ye-es,” said Joan, thoughtfully.
“Just put her head in at the door and fled,” explained the captain, still watching her closely.
Miss Hartley appeared not to have heard him.
“Came down three stairs at a time,” he continued, with a poor attempt at a chuckle.
“I was there about half an hour waiting for father,” said Joan, eying him very steadily. “I thought that he was in the other office. Is there anything else I can tell you?”
The captain collapsed suddenly, and, turning a red face upon Hartley, appealed to him mutely for succour.
“Me?” he spluttered, feebly. “I—I don’t want to know anything. Your father thought—”
“I didn’t think anything,” said Hartley, with some haste.
The captain eyed him reproachfully. “I thought your father thought—” he began, and, drawing out a large handkerchief, blew his nose violently.
“Yes?” said Joan, still very erect.
“That is all,” said the captain, with an air of dignity.
He brushed some imaginary atoms from his beard, and, finding the girl’s gaze still somewhat embarrassing, sought to relieve the tension.
“I’ve known you since you were five,” he said, with inconsequent pathos.
“I know,” said Joan, smiling, and putting her hand on his broad shoulder. “You’re a dear old stupid; that is all.”
“Always was,” said the relieved captain, “from a child.”
He began, with a cheerful countenance, to narrate anecdotes of his stupidity until, being interrupted by Hartley with one or two choice examples that he had forgotten, he rose and muttered something about seeing the garden. His progress was stayed by a knock at the front door and an intimation from Rosa that he was wanted.
“My bo’sun,” he said, reentering the room with a letter. “Excuse me.”
He broke the seal, and turned to Hartley with a short laugh. “Peter Truefitt,” he said, “wants me to meet him at nine o’clock and go home together, pretending that he has been here with me. Peter is improving.”
“But he can’t go on like this forever,” said his scandalized friend.
“He’s all right,” said the captain, with a satisfied wink. “I’m looking after him. I’m stage-manager. I’ll see——”
His voice faltered, and then died away as he caught Miss Hartley’s eye and noticed the air of artless astonishment with which she was regarding him.
“Always was from a child,” she quoted.
The captain ignored her.
“I’ll just give Walters a note,” he said, turning to Hartley with some dignity. “You don’t mind his waiting?”
He turned to a small writing-table, and with an air of preoccupation, assumed for Miss Hartley’s benefit, began to try a pen on his thumb-nail. Hartley, going to the door, sent the boatswain off to the kitchen for a glass of ale.
“Or perhaps you prefer tea?” he added, thoughtfully.
“Ale will do, sir,” said Mr. Walters, humbly.
He walked to the kitchen, and, pushing the door open softly, went in. Rosa Jelks, who was sitting down reading, put aside her book and smiled welcome.
“Sit down,” she said, patronizingly; “sit down.”
“I was going to,” said Mr. Walters. “I’m to ’ave a glass of ale.”
“Say ‘please,’” said Rosa, shaking her yellow locks at him, and rising to take a glass from the dresser.
She walked into the scullery humming a tune, and the pleasant sound of beer falling into a glass fell on the boatswain’s ears. He stroked his small black moustache and smiled.
“Would you like me to take a sip at the glass first?” inquired Rosa, coming back carefully with a brimming glass, “just to give it a flavour?”
Mr. Walters stared at her in honest amazement. After a moment he remarked gruffly that the flavour of the ale itself was good enough for him. Rosa’s eyes sparkled.
“Just a sip,” she pleaded.
“Go on, then,” said Mr. Walters, grudgingly.
“Chin, chin!” said Rosa.
The boatswain’s face relaxed. Then it hardened suddenly and a dazed look crept into his eyes as Rosa, drinking about two-thirds of the ale, handed him the remainder.
“That’s for your impudence,” she said, sharply. “I don’t like beer.”
Mr. Walters, still dazed, finished the beer without a word and placed the glass on the table. A faint sigh escaped him, but that was all.
“Bear!” said Rosa, making a face at him.
She looked at his strong, lean face and powerful figure approvingly, but the bereaved boatswain took no notice.
“Bear!” said Rosa again.
She patted her hair into place, and, in adjusting a hair-pin, permitted a long, thick tress to escape to her shoulder. She uttered a little squeal of dismay.
“False, ain’t it?” inquired Mr. Walters, regarding her antics with some amazement.
“False!” exclaimed Rosa. “Certainly not. Here! Tug!”
She presented her shoulder to the boatswain, and he, nothing loath, gave a tug, animated by the loss of two-thirds of a glass of beer. The next instant a loud slap rang through the kitchen.
“And I’d do it again for two pins,” said the outraged damsel, as she regarded him with watering eyes. “Brute!”
She turned away, and, pink with annoyance, proceeded to arrange her hair in a small cracked glass that hung by the mantel-piece.
“I ’ad a cousin once,” said Mr. Walters, thoughtfully, “that used to let her ’air down and sit on it. Tall gal, too, she was.”
“So can I,” snapped Rosa, rolling the tress up on her finger, holding it in place, and transfixing it with a hair-pin.
“H’m” said the boatswain.
“What d’ye mean by ‘H’m’?” demanded Rosa, sharply. “Do you mean to say I can’t?”
“You might if you cut it off first,” conceded Mr. Walters.
“Cut it off?” said Rosa, scornfully. “Here! Look here!”
She dragged out her hair-pins and with a toss of her head sent the coarse yellow locks flying. Then, straightening them slightly, she pulled out a chair and confronted him triumphantly. And at that moment the front-room bell rang.
“That’s for you,” said Mr. Walters, pointedly.
Rosa, who was already back at the glass, working with feverish haste, made no reply. The bell rang again, and a third time, Rosa finally answering it in a coiffure that looked like a hastily constructed bird’s nest.
“There’s your letter,” she said, returning with a face still flushed. “Take it and go.”
“Thankee,” said the boatswain. “Was they very frightened?”
“Take it and go,” repeated Rosa, with cold dignity. “Your young woman might be expecting you; pity to keep her waiting.”
“I ain’t got a young woman,” said Mr. Walters, slowly.
“You surprise me!” said Rosa, with false astonishment.
“I never would ’ave one,” said the boatswain, rising, and placing the letter in his breast-pocket. “I’ve got along all right for thirty years without ’em, and I ain’t going to begin now.”
“You must have broke a lot of hearts with disappointment,” said Rosa.
“I never could see anything in young wimmen,” said the boatswain, musingly. “Silly things, most of ’em. Always thinking about their looks; especially them as haven’t got none.”
He took up the empty glass and toyed with it thoughtfully.
“It’s no good waiting,” said Rosa; “you won’t get no more beer; not if you stay here all night.”
“So long!” said the boatswain, still playing with the glass. “So long! I know one or two that’ll ’ave a fit pretty near when I tell ’em about you sitting on your ’air.”
He put up his left arm instinctively, but Miss Jelks by a supreme effort maintained her calmness. Her eyes and colour were beyond her control, but her voice remained steady.
“So long!” she said, quietly. She took the glass from him and smiled. “If you like to wait a moment, I’ll get you a little drop more,” she said, graciously.
“Here’s luck!” said Mr. Walters, as she returned with the glass. He drank it slowly and then, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, stood regarding her critically.
“Well, so long!” he said again, and, before the astonished maiden could resist, placed a huge arm about her neck and kissed her.
“You do that again, if you dare!” she gasped, indignantly, as she broke loose and confronted him. “The idea!”
“I don’t want to do it agin,” said the boatswain. “I’ve ’ad a glass of ale, and you’ve ’ad a kiss. Now we’re quits.”
He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand again and walked off with the air of a man who has just discharged an obligation. He went out the back way, and Rosa, to whom this sort of man was an absolutely new experience, stood gazing after him dumbly. Recovering herself, she followed him to the gate, and, with a countenance on which amazement still lingered, stood watching his tall figure up the road.
CHAPTER VI
“WORK!” said Mr. Robert Vyner, severely, as he reclined in a deck-chair on the poop of the Indian Chief and surveyed his surroundings through half-closed eyes. “Work! It’s no good sitting here idling while the world’s work awaits my attention.”
Captain Trimblett, who was in a similar posture a yard away, assented. He also added that there was “nothing like it.”
“There’s no play without work,” continued Mr. Vyner, in a spirit of self-admonition.
The captain assented again. “You said something about work half an hour ago,” he remarked.
“And I meant it,” said Mr. Vyner; “only in unconscious imitation I dozed off. What I really want is for somebody to take my legs, somebody else my shoulders, and waft me gently ashore.”
“I had a cook o’ mine put ashore like that once,” said Captain Trimblett, in a reminiscent voice; “only I don’t know that I would have called it ‘wafting,’ and, so far as my memory goes, he didn’t either. He had a lot to say about it, too.”
Mr. Vyner, with a noisy yawn, struggled out of his chair and stood adjusting his collar and waistcoat.
“If I couldn’t be a chrysalis,” he said, slowly, as he looked down at the recumbent figure of the captain, “do you know what I would like to be?”
“I’ve had a very hard day’s work,” said the other, defensively, as he struggled into a sitting posture—“very hard. And I was awake half the night with the toothache.”
“That isn’t an answer to my question,” said Mr. Vyner, gently. “But never mind; try and get a little sleep now; try and check that feverish desire for work, which is slowly, very, very slowly, wearing you to skin and bone. Think how grieved the firm would be if the toothache carried you off one night. Why not go below and turn in now? It’s nearly five o’clock.”
“Couldn’t sleep if I did,” replied the captain, gravely. “Besides, I’ve got somebody coming aboard to have tea with me this afternoon.”
“All right, I’m going,” said Robert, reassuringly. “Nobody I know, I suppose?”
“No,” said the captain. “Not exactly,” he added, with a desire of being strictly accurate.
Mr. Vyner became thoughtful. The captain’s reticence, coupled with the fact that he had made two or three attempts to get rid of him that afternoon, was suspicious. He wondered whether Joan Hartley was the expected guest; the captain’s unwillingness to talk whenever her name came up having by no means escaped him. And once or twice the captain had, with unmistakable meaning, dropped hints as to the progress made by Mr. Saunders in horticulture and other pursuits. At the idea of this elderly mariner indulging in matrimonial schemes with which he had no sympathy, he became possessed with a spirit of vindictive emulation.
“It seems like a riddle; you’ve excited my curiosity,” he said, as he threw himself back in the chair again and looked at the gulls wheeling lazily overhead. “Let me see whether I can guess—I’ll go as soon as I have.”
“’Tisn’t worth guessing,” said Captain Trimblett, with a touch of brusqueness.
“Don’t make it too easy,” pleaded Mr. Vyner. “Guess number one: a lady?”
The captain grunted.
“A widow,” continued Mr. Vyner, in the slow, rapt tones of a clairvoyant. “The widow!”
“What do you mean by the widow?” demanded the aroused captain.
“The one you are always talking about,” replied Mr. Vyner, winking at the sky.
“Me!” said the captain, purpling. “I don’t talk about her. You don’t hear me talk about her. I’m not always talking about anybody. I might just have mentioned her name when talking about Truefitt’s troubles; that’s all.”
“That’s what I meant,” said Robert Vyner, with an air of mild surprise.
“Well, it’s not her,” said the captain, shortly.
“Somebody I know, but not exactly,” mused Robert. “Somebody I know, but—Let me think.”
He closed his eyes in an effort of memory, and kept them shut so long that the captain, anxious to get him away before his visitor’s arrival, indulged in a loud and painful fit of coughing. Mr. Vyner’s eyes remained closed.
“Any more guesses?” inquired the captain, loudly.
Mr. Vyner slept on. Gulls mewed overhead; a rattle of cranes sounded from the quays, and a conversation—mostly in hoarse roars—took place between the boatswain in the bows and an elderly man ashore, but he remained undisturbed. Then he sprang up so suddenly that he nearly knocked his chair over, and the captain, turning his head after him in amaze, saw Joan Hartley standing at the edge of the quay.
Before he could interfere Mr. Vyner, holding her hand with anxious solicitude, was helping her aboard. Poised for a moment on the side of the ship, she sprang lightly to the deck, and the young man, relinquishing her hand with some reluctance, followed her slowly toward the captain.
Ten minutes later, by far the calmest of the three, he sat at tea in the small but comfortable saloon. How he got there Captain Trimblett could not exactly remember. Mr. Vyner had murmured something about a slight headache, due in his opinion to the want of a cup of tea, and, even while talking about going home to get it, had in an abstracted fashion drifted down the companion-way.
“I feel better already,” he remarked, as he passed his cup up to Miss Hartley to be refilled. “It’s wonderful what a cup of tea will do.”
“It has its uses,” said the captain, darkly.
He took another cup himself and sat silent and watchful, listening to the conversation of his guests. A slight appearance of reserve on Miss Hartley’s part, assumed to remind Mr. Vyner of his bad behaviour on the occasion of their last meeting, was dispelled almost immediately. Modesty, tinged with respectful admiration, was in every glance and every note of his voice. When she discovered that a man who had asked for his tea without sugar had drunk without remark a cup containing three lumps, she became thoughtful.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, in concern.
Modesty and Mr. Vyner—never boon companions—parted company.
“I thought you had given me the wrong cup,” he said, simply.
The explanation seemed to Captain Trimblett quite inadequate. He sat turning it over in his mind, and even the rising colour in Miss Hartley’s cheek did not serve to enlighten him. But he was glad to notice that she was becoming reserved again. Mr. Vyner noticed it, too, and, raging inwardly against a tongue which was always striving after his undoing, began with a chastened air to criticise the architecture of the new chapel in Porter Street. Architecture being a subject of which the captain knew nothing, he discussed it at great length, somewhat pleased to find that both his listeners were giving him their undivided attention.
He was glad to notice, when they went up on deck again, that his guests had but little to say to each other, and, with a view to keeping them apart as much as possible, made no attempt to detain her when Joan rose and said that she must be going. She shook hands and then turned to Mr. Vyner.
“Oh, I must be going, too,” said that gentleman.
He helped her ashore and, with a wave of his hand to Captain Trimblett, set off by her side. At the bridge, where their ways homeward diverged, Joan half stopped, but Mr. Vyner, gazing straight ahead, kept on.
“Fine chap, Captain Trimblett,” he said, suddenly.
“He is the kindest man I know,” said Joan, warmly.
Mr. Vyner sang his praises for three hundred yards, secretly conscious that his companion was thinking of ways and means of getting rid of him. The window of a confectioner’s shop at last furnished the necessary excuse.
“I have got a little shopping to do,” she said, diving in suddenly. “Good-by.”
The “good-by” was so faint that it was apparent to her as she stood in the shop and gave a modest order for chocolates that he had not heard it. She bit her lip, and after a glance at the figure outside, added to her order a large one for buns. She came out of the shop with a bag overflowing with them.
“Let me,” said Mr. Vyner, hastily.
Miss Hartley handed them over at once, and, walking by his side, strove hard to repress malicious smiles. She walked slowly and gave appraising glances at shop windows, pausing finally at a greengrocer’s to purchase some bananas. Mr. Vyner, with the buns held in the hollow of his arm, watched her anxiously, and his face fell as she agreed with the greengrocer as to the pity of spoiling a noble bunch he was displaying. Insufficiently draped in a brown-paper bag, it took Mr. Vyner’s other arm.
“You are quite useful,” said Miss Hartley, with a bright smile.
Mr. Vyner returned the smile, and in bowing to an acquaintance nearly lost a bun. He saved it by sheer sleight of hand, and noting that his companion was still intent on the shops, wondered darkly what further burdens were in store for him. He tried to quicken the pace, but Miss Hartley was not to be hurried.
“I must go in here, I think,” she said, stopping in front of a draper’s. “I sha’n’t be long.”
Mr. Vyner took his stand by the window with his back to the passers-by, and waited. At the expiration of ten minutes he peeped in at the door, and saw Miss Hartley at the extreme end of the shop thoughtfully fingering bales of cloth. He sighed, and, catching sight of a small boy regarding him, had a sudden inspiration.
“Here! Would you like some buns, old chap?” he cried.
The child’s eyes glistened.
“Take ’em,” said Mr. Vyner, thankfully. “Don’t drop ’em.”
He handed them over and stood smiling benevolently as the small boy, with both arms clasped round the bag, went off hugging it to his bosom. Another urchin, who had been regarding the transaction with speechless envy, caught his eye. He beckoned him to him and, with a few kind words and a fatherly admonition not to make himself ill, presented him with the bananas. Then he drew a deep breath, and, assuming an expression of gravity befitting the occasion, braced himself for the inevitable encounter.
Five minutes later Miss Hartley, bearing a large and badly-tied parcel, came smiling out to him. The smile faded suddenly, and she stood regarding him in consternation.
“Why—!” she began. “Where—?”
Mr. Vyner eyed her carefully. “I gave ’em away,” he said, slowly. “Two poor, hungry little chaps stood looking at me. I am awfully fond of children, and before I knew what I was doing—”
“I’ve no doubt,” said Joan, bitterly, as she realized her defeat. “I’ve no doubt.”
Mr. Vyner leaned toward the parcel. “Allow me,” he murmured, politely.
“Thank you, I’ll carry it myself,” said Joan, sharply.
Her taste for shopping had evaporated, and clutching her parcel she walked rapidly homeward. An occasional glance at her companion did not quite satisfy her that he was keeping his sense of humour under proper control. There was a twitching of his lips which might, she felt, in a little time become contagious. She averted her head.
“That’s all right,” said Mr. Vyner, with a sigh of relief. “I was half afraid that I had offended you.”
CHAPTER VII
TO the great relief of Mr. Truefitt’s imagination, his sister suddenly ceased from all comment upon the irregularity of his hours. Unprepared, by the suddenness of the change, he recited mechanically, for the first day or two, the reasons he had invented for his lateness, but their reception was of so chilling a nature that his voice was scarcely audible at the finish. Indeed, when he came home one evening with a perfectly true story of a seaman stabbed down by the harbour, Mrs. Chinnery yawned three times during the narration, and Captain Trimblett shook his head at him.
“True or not,” said the latter, after Mrs. Chinnery had left the room, “it doesn’t matter. It isn’t worth while explaining when explanations are not asked for.”
“Do you think she knows?” inquired Mr. Truefitt, with bated voice.
“She knows something,” replied the captain. “I believe she knows all about it, else she wouldn’t keep so quiet. Why not tell her straight out? Tell her when she comes in, and get it over. She’s got to know some day.”
“Poor Susan!” said Mr. Truefitt, with feeling. “I’m afraid she’ll feel it. It’s not nice to have to leave home to make room for somebody else. And she won’t stay in it with another woman, I’m certain.”
“Here she comes,” said the captain, getting up. “I’ll go out for a little stroll, and when I come back I shall expect to find you’ve made a clean breast of it.”
Mr. Truefitt put out a hand as though to detain him, and then, thinking better of it, nodded at him with an air of great resolution, and puffed furiously at his pipe. Under cover of clouds of smoke he prepared for the encounter.
Closing the door gently behind him, the captain, after a moment’s indecision, drifted down the road. A shower of rain had brought out sweet odours from the hedgerow opposite, and a touch of salt freshened the breeze that blew up the river. Most of the inhabitants of the Vale were in bed, and the wet road was lonely under the stars. He walked as far as a little bridge spanning a brook that ran into the river, and seating himself on the low parapet smoked thoughtfully. His mind went back to his own marriage many years before, and to his children, whom he had placed, on his wife’s death, with a second cousin in London. An unusual feeling of loneliness possessed him. He smoked a second pipe and then, knocking the ashes out on the bridge, walked slowly homeward.
Mr. Truefitt, who was sitting alone, looked up as he entered and smiled vaguely.
“All right?” queried the captain, closing the door and crossing to a chair.
“Right as ninepence,” said Mr. Truefitt. “I’ve been worrying myself all this time for nothing. Judging by her manner, she seemed to think it was the most natural and proper thing in the world.”
“So it is,” said the captain, warmly.
“She talked about it as calmly as though she had a brother married every week,” continued Mr. Truefitt. “I don’t suppose she has quite realized it yet.”
“I don’t know that I have,” said the captain. “This has been the only home I’ve had for the last ten years; and if I feel leaving it, what must it be for her?”
Mr. Truefitt shook his head.
“I’m beginning to feel old,” said the captain, “old and lonely. Changes like this bring it home to one.”
He took out his pouch, and shaking his head solemnly began to fill his pipe again.
“You ought to follow my example,” said Mr. Truefitt, eagerly.
“Too old,” said the captain.
“Nonsense!” said the other. “And the older you get, the lonelier you’ll feel. Mind that!”
“I shall go and live with my boys and girls when I leave the sea,” said the captain.
“They’ll probably be married themselves by that time,” said his comforter.
He rose, and, going to an old corner cupboard, took out a bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses and put them on the table. The captain, helping himself liberally, emptied his glass to Miss Willett.
“She’s coming to tea on Friday, with her mother,” said Mr. Truefitt.
Captain Trimblett took some more whiskey and solemnly toasted Mrs. Willett. He put his glass down, and lighting his pipe, which had gone out, beamed over at his friend.
“Are there any more in the family?” he inquired.
“There’s an uncle,” said Mr. Truefitt, slowly, “and——”
“One at a time,” said the captain, stopping him with one hand raised, while he helped himself to some more whiskey with the other. “The uncle!”
He drank the third glass slowly, and, sinking back in his chair, turned to his friend with a countenance somewhat flushed and wreathed in smiles.
“Who else?” he inquired.
“No more to-night,” said Mr. Truefitt, firmly, as he got up and put the bottle back in the cupboard. He came back slowly, and, resuming his seat, gazed in a meditative fashion at his friend.
“Talking about your loneliness—” he began.
“My loneliness?” repeated the captain, staring at him.
“You were talking about feeling lonely,” Mr. Truefitt reminded him.
“So I was,” said the captain. “So I was. You’re quite right; but it’s all gone now. It’s wonderful what a little whiskey will do.”
“Wonderful what a lot will do,” said Mr. Truefitt, with sudden asperity. “You were talking about your loneliness, and I was advising you to get married.”
“So you were,” said the captain, nodding at him. “Good-night.”
He went off to bed with a suddenness that was almost disconcerting. Thus deserted, Mr. Truefitt finished his whiskey and water and, his head full of plans for the betterment of everybody connected with him, blew out the lamp and went upstairs.
Owing possibly to his efforts in this direction Captain Trimblett and Mrs. Chinnery scarcely saw him until Friday afternoon, when he drove up in a fly, and, after handing out Miss Willett with great tenderness, proceeded with almost equal care to assist her mother. The latter, a fragile little old lady, was at once conducted to a chair and, having been comfortably seated was introduced to Mrs. Chinnery.
“It’s a long way,” she said, as her daughter divested her of her bonnet and shawl, “but Cissie would insist on my coming, and I suppose, after all, it’s only right I should.”
“Of course, mother,” said Miss Willett, hurriedly.
“Right is right,” continued the old lady, “after all is said and done. And I’m sure Mr. Truefitt has been to ours often enough.”
Mr. Truefitt coughed, and the captain—a loyal friend—assisted him.
“Night after night,” said the old lady, during a brief interval.
Mr. Truefitt, still coughing slightly, began to place chairs at a table on which, as the captain presently proved to his own dissatisfaction, there was not even room for a pair of elbows. At the last moment the seating arrangements had to be altered owing to a leg of the table which got in the way of Mrs. Willett’s. The captain, in his anxiety to be of service, lowered a leaf of the table too far, and an avalanche of food descended to the floor.
“It don’t matter,” said Mrs. Chinnery, in a voice that belied her words. “Captain Trimblett is always doing something like that. The last time we had visitors he—”
“Kept on eating the cake after she had shaken her head at me,” interrupted the captain, who was busy picking up the provisions.
“Nothing of the kind,” cried Mrs. Chinnery, who was in no mood for frivolity. “I shouldn’t think of doing such a thing,” she added, turning to Mrs. Willett, as the lady allowed herself to be placed in a more convenient position. “It’s all Captain Trimblett’s nonsense.”
Mrs. Willett listened politely, “It is annoying, though,” she remarked.
“He might eat all the cake in the house for what I care,” said Mrs. Chinnery, turning very red, and raising her voice a little.
“As a matter of fact I don’t like cake,” said the captain, who was becoming uncomfortable.
“Perhaps it was something else,” said the excellent Mrs. Willett, with the air of one assisting to unravel a mystery.
Mrs. Chinnery, who was pouring out tea, glared at her in silence. She also spared a glance for Captain Trimblett, which made that gentleman seriously uneasy. With an idea of turning the conversation into safer and more agreeable channels, he called the old lady’s attention to a pencil drawing of a ruined castle which adorned the opposite wall. Mrs. Willett’s first remark was that it had no roof.
“It’s a ruin,” said the captain; “done by Mrs. Chinnery.”
The faded blue eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles inspected it carefully. “Done when she was a child—of course?” said Mrs. Willett.
“Eighteen,” said Mrs. Chinnery, in a deep voice.
“I’m no judge of such things,” said the old lady, shaking her head. “I only know what I like; but I dare say it’s very clever.”
She turned to help herself from a plate that the captain was offering her, and, finding that it contained cake, said that she would prefer bread and butter. “Not that I don’t like cake,” she said. “As a rule I am rather partial to it.”
“Well, have some now,” said the unfortunate captain, trying to avoid Mrs. Chinnery’s eye.
“Bread and butter, please,” said Mrs. Willett, with quiet decision.
The captain passed it, and after a hopeless glance at Mr. Truefitt and Miss Willett, who were deep in the enjoyment of each other’s society, returned to the subject of art.
“If I could draw like that, ma’am,” he said, with a jerk of his head toward the ruined castle, “I should give up the sea.”
Mrs. Willett inspected it again, even going to the length of taking off her glasses and polishing them, with a view to doing perfect justice to the subject. “Would you really?” she said, when she had finished.
The captain made no reply. He sat appalled at the way in which the old lady was using him to pay off some of the debt that she fancied was due to Mrs. Chinnery.
“You must see some of my daughter’s pictures,” she said, turning to him. “Fruit and birds mostly, in oil colours. But then, of course, she had good masters. There’s one picture—let me see!”
She sat considering, and began to reel off the items on her fingers as she enumerated them. “There’s a plate of oranges, with a knife and fork, a glass, a bottle, two and a half walnuts and bits of shell, three-quarters of an apple, a pipe, a cigar, a bunch of grapes, and a green parrot looking at it all with his head on one side.”
“And very natural of him, too,” murmured Mrs. Chinnery.
“It’s coming here,” interposed Mr. Truefitt, suddenly. “It belongs to Mrs. Willett, but she has given it to us. I wonder which will be the best place for it?”
The old lady looked round the room. “It will have to hang there,” she said, pointing to the “Eruption of Vesuvius,” “where that beehive is.”
“Bee—!” exclaimed the startled captain. He bent toward her and explained.
“Oh, well, it don’t matter,” said the old lady. “I thought it was a beehive—it looks like one; and I can’t see what’s written under it from here. But that’s where Cecilia’s picture must go.”
She made one or two other suggestions with regard to the rearrangement of the pictures, and then, having put her hand to the plough, proceeded to refurnish the room. And for her own private purposes she affected to think that Mr. Truefitt’s taste was responsible for the window-curtains.
“Mother has got wonderful taste,” said Miss Willett, looking round. “All over Salthaven her taste has become a—a—”
“Byword,” suggested Mrs. Chinnery.
“Proverb,” said Miss Willett. “Are you feeling too warm, mother?” she asked, eying the old lady with sudden concern.
“A little,” said Mrs. Willett. “I suppose it’s being used to big rooms. I always was one for plenty of space. It doesn’t matter—don’t trouble.”
“It’s no trouble,” said Captain Trimblett, who was struggling with the window. “How is that?” he inquired, opening it a little at the top and returning to his seat.
“There is a draught down the back of my neck,” said Mrs. Willett; “but don’t trouble about me if the others like it. If I get a stiff neck Cecilia can rub it for me when I get home with a little oil of camphor.”
“Yes, mother,” said Miss Willett.
“I once had a stiff neck for three weeks,” said Mrs. Willett.
The captain rose again and, with a compassionate glance at Mr. Truefitt, closed the window.
“One can’t have everything in this world,” said the old lady; “it ought to be a very cosey room in winter. You can’t get too far away from the fire, I mean.”
“It has done for us for a good many years now,” said Mrs. Chinnery. “I’ve never heard Peter complain.”
“He’d never complain,” said Mrs. Willett, with a fond smile at her prospective son-in-law. “Why, he wouldn’t know he was uncomfortable unless somebody told him.”
Mrs. Chinnery pushed back her chair with a grating noise, strangely in harmony with her feelings, and, after a moment’s pause to control her voice, suggested that the gentlemen should take the visitors round the garden while she cleared away—a proposal accepted by all but Mrs. Willett.
“I’ll stay here and watch you,” she said.
Captain Trimblett accompanied Mr. Truefitt and Miss Willett into the garden, and after pointing out the missing beauties of a figure-head in the next garden but one, and calling attention to the geraniums next door, left the couple to themselves. Side by side in the little arbour they sat gazing on to the river and conversing in low tones of their future happiness.
For some time the captain idled about the garden, keeping as far away from the arbour as possible, and doing his best to suppress a decayed but lively mariner named Captain Sellers, who lived two doors off. Among other infirmities the latter was nearly stone-deaf, and, after giving up as hopeless the attempt to make him understand that Mr. Truefitt and Miss Willett were not, the captain at last sought shelter in the house.
He found the table clear and a bowl of flowers placed in the exact centre. On opposite sides of the room, each with her hands folded in her lap, and both sitting bolt upright, Mrs. Willett and Mrs. Chinnery confronted each other. With a muttered reference to his ship, the captain took up his stick and fled.
He spent the evening in the billiard-room of the Golden Fleece, and did not return until late. A light in the room upstairs and a shadow on the blind informed him that Mrs. Chinnery had retired. He stepped in quietly, and closed the door behind him. Mr. Truefitt, a picture of woe, was sitting in his usual place at the corner of the stove, and a supper-table, loaded with food, was untouched.
“Gone?” inquired the captain, scenting disaster.
“Some time ago,” said Mr. Truefitt. “They wouldn’t stay to supper. I wish you had been here to persuade them.”
“I wish I had,” said the captain, untruthfully.
He gave utterance to a faint sigh in token of sympathy with Mr. Truefitt’s evident distress, and drew a chair to the table. He shook his head, and with marvellous accuracy, considering that his gaze was fastened on a piece of cold beef, helped himself to a wedge of steak-pie. He ate with an appetite, and after pouring out and drinking a glass of ale gazed again at the forlorn figure of Mr. Truefitt.
“Words?” he breathed, in a conspirator’s whisper.
The other shook his head. “No; they were very polite,” he replied, slowly.
The captain nearly emitted a groan. He checked it with two square inches of pie-crust.
“A misunderstanding,” said Mr. Truefitt.
The captain said “Ah!” It was all he could say for the moment.
“A misunderstanding,” said the other. “I misled Mrs. Willett,” he added, in a tense whisper.
“Good heavens!” said the captain.
“She had always understood—from me,” continued Mr. Truefitt, “that when I married Susanna would go. I always thought she would. Anybody who knew Susanna would have thought so. You would—wouldn’t you?”
“In the ordinary way—yes,” said the captain; “but circumstances alter cases.”
“It came out—in conversation,” said the hapless Mr. Truefitt, “that Susanna wouldn’t dream of leaving me. It also came out that Mrs. Willett wouldn’t dream of letting Cecilia marry me till she does. What’s to be done?”
The captain took a slice of beef to assist thought. “You must have patience,” he said, sagely.
“Patience!” said Mr. Truefitt, with unusual heat. “Patience be d—d! I’m fifty-two! And Cecilia’s thirty-nine!”
“Time flies!” said the captain, who could think of nothing else to say.
Mr. Truefitt looked at him almost savagely. Then he sank back in his chair.
“It’s a pity Susanna doesn’t get married again,” he said, slowly. “So far as I can see, that’s the only way out of it. Cecilia said so to me just as she was leaving.”
“Did she?” said the captain. He looked thoughtful, and Mr. Truefitt watched him anxiously. For some time he seemed undecided, and then, with the resolute air of a man throwing appearances to the winds, he drew an uncut tongue toward him and cut off a large slice.
CHAPTER VIII
NEARLY a week had elapsed since Robert Vyner’s failure to give satisfaction as a light porter, and in all that time, despite his utmost efforts, he had failed to set eyes on Joan Hartley. In the hope of a chance encounter he divided his spare time between the narrow, crooked streets of Salthaven and the deck of the Indian Chief, but in vain. In a mysterious and highly unsatisfactory fashion Miss Hartley seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.
In these circumstances he manifested a partiality for the company of Mr. Hartley that was a source of great embarrassment to that gentleman, whose work rapidly accumulated while he sat in his old office discussing a wide range of subjects, on all of which the junior partner seemed equally at home and inclined to air views of the most unorthodox description. He passed from topic to topic with bewildering facility, and one afternoon glided easily and naturally from death duties to insect powder, and from that to maggots in rose-buds, almost before his bewildered listener could take breath. From rose-buds he discoursed on gardening—a hobby to which he professed himself desirous of devoting such few hours as could be spared from his arduous work as a member of the firm.
“I hear that your garden is the talk of Salthaven,” he remarked.
Mr. Hartley, justly surprised, protested warmly.
“That’s what I heard,” said Mr. Vyner, doggedly.
Mr. Hartley admitted that his borders were good. He also gave favourable mention to his roses.
“My favourite flower,” said Mr. Vyner, with enthusiasm.
“I’ll bring you a bunch to-morrow, if you will let me,” said Mr. Hartley, rising and turning toward the door.
The other stopped him with outstretched hand. “No, don’t do that,” he said, earnestly. “I hate cutting flowers. It seems such a—a—desecration.”
Mr. Hartley, quite unprepared for so much feeling on the subject, gazed at him in astonishment.
“I should like to see them, too,” said Robert, musingly, “very much.”
The chief clerk, with a little deprecatory cough, got close to the door as a dim idea that there might be something after all in Captain Trimblett’s warnings occurred to him.
“Yours are mostly standard roses, aren’t they?” said the persevering Robert.
“Mostly,” was the reply.
Mr. Vyner regarded him thoughtfully. “I suppose you don’t care to let people see them for fear they should learn your methods?” he said, at last.
Mr. Hartley, coming away from the door, almost stuttered in his haste to disclaim such ungenerous sentiments. “I am always glad to show them,” he said, emphatically, “and to give any information I can.”
“I should like to see them some time,” murmured Robert.
The other threw caution to the winds. “Any time,” he said, heartily.
Mr. Vyner thanked him warmly, and, having got what he wanted, placed no further obstacles in the way of his withdrawal. He bought a book entitled “Roses and How to Grow Them” the same afternoon and the next evening called to compare his knowledge with Mr. Hartley’s.
Mr. Hartley was out; Miss Hartley was out; but at Rosa’s invitation he went in to await their return. At her further suggestion—due to a habit she had of keeping her ears open and a conversation between her master and Captain Trimblett on the previous evening—he went into the garden to see the flowers.
“The other one’s there,” said Rosa, simply, as she showed him the way.
Mr. Vyner started, but a glance at Rosa satisfied him that there was all to lose and nothing to gain by demanding an explanation which she would be only too ready to furnish. With an air of cold dignity he strolled down the garden.
A young man squatting in a painful attitude at the edge of a flower-bed paused with his trowel in the air and eyed him with mingled consternation and disapproval. After allowing nearly a week to elapse since his last visit, Mr. Saunders, having mustered up sufficient courage to come round for another lesson in horticulture, had discovered to his dismay that both Mr. Hartley and his daughter had engagements elsewhere. That his evening should not be given over to disappointment entirely, however, the former had set him a long and arduous task before taking his departure.
“Don’t let me interrupt you,” said Mr. Vyner, politely, as the other rose and straightened himself. “What are you doing—besides decapitating worms?”
“Putting in these plants,” said Mr. Saunders, resentfully.
Mr. Vyner eyed them with the eye of a connoisseur, and turning one over with his stick shook his head disparagingly. For some time he amused himself by walking up and down the garden inspecting the roses, and then, lighting a cigarette, threw himself at full length on to a garden bench that stood near Mr. Saunders and watched him at work.
“Fascinating pursuit,” he remarked, affably.
Mr. Saunders grunted; Mr. Vyner blew out a thin thread of smoke toward the sky and pondered.
“Fine exercise; I wish I could get fond of it,” he remarked.
“Perhaps you could if you tried,” said the other, without looking round.
“After all,” said Mr. Vyner, thoughtfully; “after all, perhaps it does one just as much good to watch other people at it. My back aches with watching you, and my knees are stiff with cramp. I suppose yours are, too?”
Mr. Saunders made no reply. He went on stolidly with his work until, reaching over too far with the trowel, he lost his balance and pitched forward on to his hands. Somewhat red in the face he righted himself, and knocking the mould off his hands, started once more.
“Try, try, try again,” quoted the admiring onlooker.
“Perhaps you’d like to take a turn,” said Mr. Saunders, looking round and speaking with forced politeness.
Mr. Vyner shook his head, and, helping himself to another cigarette, proffered the case to the worker, and, on that gentleman calling attention to the grimy condition of his hands, stuck one in his mouth and lit it for him. Considerably mollified by these attentions, the amateur gardener resumed his labours with a lighter heart.
Joan Hartley, returning half an hour later, watched them for some time from an upper window, and then, with a vague desire to compel the sprawling figure on the bench to get up and do a little work, came slowly down the garden.
“You are working too hard, Mr. Saunders,” she remarked, after Mr. Vyner had shaken hands and the former had pleaded the condition of his.
“He likes it,” said Mr. Vyner.
“At any rate, it has got to be finished,” said Mr. Saunders.
Miss Hartley looked at them, and then at the work done and the heap of plants still to go in. She stood tapping the ground thoughtfully with her foot.
“I expect that we are only interrupting him by standing here talking to him,” said Robert Vyner, considerately. “No doubt he is wishing us anywhere but here; only he is too polite to say so.”
Ignoring Mr. Saunders’s fervent protestations, he took a tentative step forward, as though inviting Miss Hartley to join him; but she stood firm.
“Will you give me the trowel, please?” she said, with sudden decision.
Before Mr. Saunders could offer any resistance she took it from him, and stooping gracefully prepared to dig. Mr. Vyner interposed with some haste.
“Allow me,” he said.
Miss Hartley placed the trowel in his hands at once, and with her lips curved in a slight smile stood watching his efforts. By almost imperceptible degrees she drew away from him and, attended by the devoted Mr. Saunders, sauntered slowly about the garden. The worker, glaring sideways, watched them as they roamed from flower to flower. The low murmur of their voices floated on the still air, and once or twice he heard Miss Hartley laugh with great distinctness.
Apparently engrossed with his task, Mr. Vyner worked cheerfully for ten minutes. The hand that held the trowel was so far fairly clean, and he was about to use it to take out a cigarette when he paused, and a broad smile spread slowly over his features. He put down the trowel, and, burrowing in the wet earth with both hands, regarded the result with smiling satisfaction. The couple came toward him slowly, and Mr. Saunders smiled in his turn as he saw the state of the other’s hands.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. Vyner, standing up as Miss Hartley came close; “I wish you would do something for me.”
“Yes?” said Joan.
“I want a cigarette.”
The girl looked puzzled. “Yes?” she said again.
Mr. Vyner, grave as a judge, held up his disgraceful hands. “They are in a case in the inside pocket of my coat,” he said, calmly.
Miss Hartley drew back a pace. “Perhaps Mr. Saunders could help you,” she said, hastily.
Mr. Vyner shook his head. “His hands are worse than mine,” he said, mournfully.
He held up his arm so that his coat opened a little more, and Miss Hartley, after a moment’s hesitation, thrust a small hand into his pocket and drew out the case.
“To open it you press the catch,” said Mr. Vyner.
Miss Hartley pressed, and the case flew open. She stood holding it before him, and Mr. Vyner, with a helpless gesture, again exhibited his hands.
“If you would complete your kindness by putting one in my mouth,” he murmured.
For a few moments she stood in a state of dazed indecision; then, slowly extracting a cigarette from the case, she placed it between his lips with a little jab that made it a failure, as a smoke, from the first. Mr. Saunders, who had been watching events with a brooding eye, hastily struck a match and gave him a light, and Mr. Vyner, with an ill-concealed smile, bent down to his work again. He was pleased to notice that though the conversation between the others still proceeded, after a fitful fashion, Miss Hartley laughed no more.
He worked on steadily, and trampled ground and broken plants bore witness to his industry. He was just beginning to feel that he had done enough gardening for that day, when the return of Mr. Hartley brought welcome relief. The astonishment of the latter at finding this new and unlooked-for assistance was at first almost beyond words. When he could speak he thanked him brokenly for his trouble and, depriving him of his tools, took him indoors to wash.
“He means well,” he said, slowly, after Mr. Vyner had at last taken his departure; “he means well, but I am afraid Mr. John wouldn’t like it.”
Miss Hartley flushed. “We didn’t ask him to come,” she said, with spirit.
“No,” said her father, plucking at his beard, and regarding her with a troubled expression. “No; I’m afraid that he is one of those young men that don’t want much asking.”