Lifeon theWestmouthbeing too exacting to permit one to count the hours, Robert Lancaster came to the end of his training there with a sudden jerk that almost astonished him. Fifty lads were taken off the books, of whom he found himself to be one; some of them deciding for the merchant service, were despatched to the Home at Limehouse for that purpose; others, qualified in regard to measurement and desires, only waited for the brigantine to arrive for their names to be taken off the Watch Bill, and to resign their numbers to other lads. The old captain, meeting Robert on the upper deck, honoured him with five minutes’ conversation, giving him a word of counsel, and directing him to give the old ship a call whenever the chance to do so offered.
“Don’t forget, my lad, that now your opportunity is coming to show us all that the trouble and money you have cost have been well laid out.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Keep yourself straight; be obedient to your officers, remember that the Navy has a fine, a glorious reputation, which you must help to keep up.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Above all, be a credit to theWestmouth, and see that we have good news of you. That will do.”
“Pardon, sir. Any objection to my having a day in London ’fore I join the—”
“To visit friends?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you please,” said the old captain with his sharp air of courtesy.
See Robert Lancaster clearing his locker down on the lower deck and distributing souvenirs to his colleagues; a part of the inside of a watch to one; a copy of “Kidnapped” to another; several pieces of rare old string to the boy from Poplar, now, under the stress ofWestmouthdiscipline, a contented, optimistic lad. See Robert Lancaster going off in the gig with six shillings tied in his handkerchief, being part of the prize for swimming gained by him at the last competition, and taking train at the small station for Fenchurch Street. See him arriving near the old neighbourhood and walking with a fine, sailor-like roll in his wide trousers and open-necked jacket towards Pimlico Walk, in which thoroughfare, now it seemed tohim more preposterously narrow than ever, children stopped the playing of tipcat to stare at him open-mouthed, and women going into miniature shops arrested themselves in order to ascertain, from feelings of vague curiosity, his destination.
“No one about?” he asked in the doorway of Mrs. Bell’s millinery establishment. The small window was still set out with magnificent feathered hats, but there appeared to be a suggestion of good taste in the arrangement that had in the old days been absent.
“Yes,” said a little girl sitting on a high chair behind the counter, “there’s me.”
“No one else?”
“Who else d’you want?” asked the girl cautiously.
“Isn’t Mrs. Bell about?”
“She’s been bedridden for the last six months, if that’s what you call being about.”
“And Trixie?”
“You mean Miss Bell?”
“Miss Bell, then.”
The girl stepped from the stool, and went to the foot of the stairs.
“Shawp!” she cried. She returned at once to the counter with a manner slightly less defensive. “She sits upstairs and reads to the old gel in the middle of the day, and I’m in charge down ’ere. When she comes down I go up, see? It don’t do to leave the place without someone.”
There was a rustle on the lower stairs.
“Bobbie!” A delighted exclamation.
“’Ullo, Trix,” he said nervously. “How’s the world using you?”
“’Aven’t you grown?”
“You’ve been at that game, too. I s’pose I was about the last person that was in your mind.”
“Yes,” said Trixie Bell, “the very last. Me and mother were just then talking about you upstairs. Isn’t your face brown, too?”
“Yours isn’t brown,” said Robert, with a clumsy attempt at compliment, “but it’s got every other good quality.”
“’Tilderann,” commanded Trixie Bell, insistently, “go upstairs and sit with mother at once, and tell her that Mr. Lancaster has called.” The little girl slid from the high stool again and disappeared reluctantly. “Up the stairs, I said,” remarked Trixie, looking round the corner after her, “I didn’t ask you to wait on the second step listening.”
Miss Bell returned demurely to the inner side of the counter.
“Girls,” she said, with an air of maturity, “want a lot of looking after.”
“Who looks after you?” asked Bobbie, leaning over the counter.
“Oh, I can take care of myself.”
“For one day, at any rate, I’m going to take care of you. Give me a kiss.”
“Bobbie! People can see through the shop window.”
“You won’t give me a kiss?”
“There’s a time,” said the pleasant-faced young woman, with greatpreciseness, “and a place for everything, and this is neither the time nor—”
One advantage of being trained as a British sailor is that you can vault over a counter and jump back again before anyone has time to protest.
“You’ll make me cross,” said Trixie, with great confusion and delight.
“Give it back to me, then,” suggested Robert.
“I fancy I see myself doing that,” said Trixie, ironically.
“I’ve fancied it a lot of times,” remarked Robert. “Now it seems to me we’ve arrived at what you may call reality.”
“Of course,” said Trixie, leaning on the counter and keeping one eye on the window, “it isn’t exactly as though we were strangers, is it? What I mean to say is, we’ve known each other, Bobbie, for a long time, and you’ll be seventeen next birthday—”
“Don’t argue,” said Robert. “Do what I ask you.”
“It’ll ’ave to be a very little one,” said Miss Bell, seriously. And leaned forward.
“Thanks,” said Robert. “That’s what I’ve been looking forward to.”
“Now, you must give up all this nonsense,” declared Trixie, with a sage air, and glancing at herself in the panel looking-glass, “and behave. Will you come upstairs and see mother?”
“I thought p’raps you and me might go out this afternoon for a bit of a outing. I’ve got to rejoin my ship this evening, and I shan’t have many chances of seeing you when I’m down at Plymouth.”
“There’s something in that,” admitted Trixie. “I’ll see if I can get a lady friend of mine from Pitfield Street to look in for a few hours.” She raised her voice and called at the foot of the stairs. “’Tilderann! Come down this minute.”
The girl obeyed, remarking in a grumbling undertone that the place was a perfect treadmill, and that for her part she envied the folk in Pentonville; she went to the doorway and reproved two infants outside for breathing on the glass, in good, well-chosen, and effective terms.
“Don’t put your arm round my waist, Bobbie,” whispered Trixie as they went up the dim, narrow staircase. “Besides, there’s a buckle on my belt. Mother, ’ere’s a gentleman come to call on you.”
Mrs. Bell, raising her head from the white pillow, gave a chuckle of recognition. Robert, with his cap off, made his way round the bedstead, which seemed nearly to fill the room, but not quite, and shook hands with the large invalid.
“My poor old ’ead,” she remarked, jovially, “gets in such a fluster, sometimes, that I can’t remember nothing, and when the gel said Mr. Lancaster was in the shop it took me minutes to think who she meant. D’you think Trixie’s growed?”
“Growed up and growed ’andsome,” said Robert. Mrs. Bell gave a sigh of content, closing her eyes for a moment. “And how are you, ma’am? On the mend, I ’ope.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Bell, opening her eyes and speaking loudly, “I’ve got nothing to complain of.” She lowered her voice, and added confidentially, so that Trixie should not hear, “May pop off at any moment.”
Trixie having explained the proposal that Robert had made, suggested that she should go round now to engage the services of the millinery friend in Pitfield Street. Her mother agreed cheerfully.
“Of course,” said the old lady in a very loud tone, “I’ve been used to a active life, and naturally enough it goes somewhat against the grain for me to be kep’ in one room for monce and monce. Otherwise I feel as well—” Trixie went out of the room, closing the door, and Mrs. Bell stopped and winked solemnly. “It’d never do to let her know the truth,” she whispered. “I always like to pretend before her I’m getting better. It’s a rare game sometimes the dodges I ’ave to get up to so that she shouldn’t know how bad I am.”
“Trixie isn’t a bad sort,” remarked Robert.
“She’s my daughter,” said Mrs. Bell.
Before that excellent young lady returned poor Mrs. Bell and Robert had a long, confidential talk. The cheerful old lady regretted that her time had arrived before Trixie had become a grown woman, but this regret was tempered by confidence in her daughter, and by a promise which had been given by Miss Threepenny to come and live with Trixie when all was over. There breathed pride in the statement that her doctor from New North Road could find no English name for her illness, and had been compelled to fall back on the Latin tongue to give it title; Mrs. Bell’s old head trembled with gratification as she told Robert of this.
“D’you mind ’olding my ’and, Bobbie?” she asked, interrupting herself. “I feel so much more contented somehow when someone’s ’olding me ’and. Thanks! As I was telling you—”
The doctor had some time since recommended that she should be taken away to the seaside, a procedure which might prolong her life for a few months, but the old lady congratulated herself upon having had the shrewdness to reply that Hoxton was as good a place to die in as any other, and that she had not been saving money all her life in order to spend it foolishly on herself at the end. The good soul seemed quite happy; everybody, she said, was very kind to her, and Trixie, who in former days had been somewhat masterful towards her, now waited on her “hand and foot.” Mrs. Bell declared that she only wished everybody could be looked after at the end of all as effectively. Trixie, returning with her substitute, came upstairs in a hat which Robert, on being appealed to for an opinion, declared looked like ten thousand a year, and they said good-bye to Mrs. Bell, Trixie promising to send up ’Tilderann and to return herself at the earliest possible hour.
“Don’t ’urry,” said the old lady. “And, Bobbie! Come back one moment. Trixie, you go down.” Robert obeyed. “I shan’t be seeing you again,” said the old lady brightly. “If so be as I should meet your poor mother, I shall tell her what a fine lad you’ve growed to.” Robert bent and kissed the large white face. “Be good, won’t you,” she whispered brokenly, “to her?”
“You can make yourself quite sure about that, ma’am,” said Robert.
Before going west on this sunny afternoon, the young lady insisted that Robert should accompany her for a short tour through certain streets in Hoxton, where her lady acquaintances resided, which same young womentold each other afterwards that they had not realized what the word pride really meant until seeing Trixie with her young man. They looked at Ely Place from the dwarf posts at the Kingsland Road end, where towzled-hair, half-dressed, grubby babies played games with mud and swore at one another, but the two agreed that they had no desire to go through the Place. One more girl acquaintance in a Hoxton street shop in whose sight Robert had to be paraded, and then the two young people, walking down into Old Street, took a tram for Bloomsbury.
“You pay for yourself,” said Trixie Bell definitely, “I’ll pay for myself.”
“No fear,” protested Robert, “I pay for both to-day. This is my beanfeast.”
“Then I go no further,” declared the young woman. “Agree to that, Bobbie, or down the steps I go.”
“You are obstinate,” said Robert. “I never saw such a one for ’aving her own way.”
“Not much use having anybody else’s way,” she said. “Bloomsbury, one,” she said to the conductor.
The principle thus definitely laid down being adhered to during the afternoon, Robert found himself unable in consequence to assume the air of condescension and patronage that he had promised to wear; indeed, Miss Bell took the entire management of the afternoon into her own hands, with a quaint air of decision which surprised Robert and interested him, so that when at the end of the tram line she said, “Regent’s Park,” it was to Regent’s Park they went; on Robert in his reckless way suggesting a ’bus, she said, “Walk, it’s no distance,” and that was the mode of transport adopted. In Regent’s Park they sat on chairs near to sweet-smelling oval bouquets of flowers, watching the white-sashed nursemaids and the children, and whilst Robert (to Trixie’s content) smoked a large, important cigar, she chattered away about her plans for the future. Trixie revived the old ambition of a milliner’s establishment, with French words in white letters on the window, in some position not too far distant from Pimlico Walk, so that old customers should be preserved, whilst new ones were being caught; Robert watched her admiringly as she sketched this magnificent project, noting the decision of her chin and the flush of interest on her attractive face. The cigar finished, or nearly finished (for Robert was not yet a confirmed smoker), they walked arm-in-arm through the gates to the upper portion of the park, where there were sheep to be looked at, and near to the fountain, small debating societies, that seemed to grow on the grass in the style of mushrooms, and were made up of grubby men, arguing, as it seemed, on every topic of which they were ignorant, with here a reference to John Stuart Mill, and there satire at the expense of Apostles. Near to one of these groups Robert and Trixie stopped.
“As for your so-galled Queen, my goot Anglish friends,” a foreign gentleman with no collar shouted in the centre of the mushroom, “it don’t dake me long times to gif you my obinion about her and all her plooming Gofernment.”
“Now you’re beggin’ the question,” said his opponent. “Let’s keep to the point at issue. If you’ve ever read Plito, you would have been aware that—”
“I’m not dalkin’ about Blato,” said the foreigner, with excited gesture. “I’m dalkin’ about the bresent day and the stupid, foolish idea that you Anglish are a free nation. My obinion of your Queen, my fellow, is simply these. She’s—”
Not quite clear what the foreign gentleman wanted to say, and impossible to hear what he did say, for at that moment a sailor lad edged his way through the crowd, two brown hands seized the neck of his collarless shirt, and at once the two—Robert and the foreign critic—were running away pell-mell to Gloucester Gate, the foreigner forced to go at a good pace despite his struggles, and being thrown eventually well into the roadway outside the park. Robert returned to Trixie a little heated with the run; Trixie’s blue dotted blouse danced with delight and admiration.
“That’ll learn him,” said Robert, darkly.
In the Zoological Gardens they walked through the long house where lions and tigers lodge, and Robert kissed Trixie in full sight of a very sulky old lion, who had a bed-sitting room near to the end, making the lion use an exclamation of annoyance and envy that cannot well be printed. Then they went out into the gardens to see long, thin, ridiculous legs with birds perched riskily atop, and had a long conversation with one of the highly-coloured parrots, who were all talking at once, and seemed, like the debaters outside, to be denouncing somebody, and in similarly raucous voices.
“At tea, Bobbie,” said Trixie, with a touch of her decisive manner, “I want to talk to you.”
“You’ve been doing that the last hour or two,” he said, good temperedly.
“Ah, but I mean seriously,” she said.
At tea on the gravelled space near to the sleepy owls Robert encountered friends whose presence deferred the weighty talk, friends in the person of the angel from Folkestone, now clearly Mrs. Customs Officer, her husband and a large-eyed astonished baby in a white beef-eater hat. The angel came over from her table on recognizing Robert and declared that the news of this meeting would do poor uncle more good than all the embrocation in the world.
“Allow me,” said Robert with importance, “to introduce my”—he coughed—“fiancée.”
Trixie on this introduction assumed a distant manner, and sat alone with a reticent air, while Robert went over to speak to long Mr. Customs, and to dance the amazed infant high into the air. The angel had grown very matronly; the Customs seemed to be well under her control, insomuch that he never commenced a sentence without finding himself instantly arrested and brushed aside by his wife. On Robert rallying the angel on this, the angel laughed good-humouredly, declaring that it was well for one or the other to be master, and prophesying that some day Robert would find this out for himself, whereupon Robert insisted that women must not be too tyrannical, and endeavoured to enlist the Customs on his side in the argument, but the Customs shook his head vaguely (being it seemed with no grievance to complain of), and begged not to be dragged into the discussion.
“What name was it you called me just now?” demanded Trixie, whenhe had returned to her. Robert explained, and Trixie’s young forehead cleared. “That reminds me,” she said, resting one small shoe on the bar of Robert’s chair, “I want to talk sense now.”
“Why?”
“I want you,” she said slowly and carefully, “to promise me—”
“I’ll promise anything you like.”
“To promise me that you’ll give up all idea of being a sailor, and take up some occupation on land.”
Robert shifted his chair and Trixie’s foot slipped to the gravel. He re-tied his lanyard with great particularity, humming a tune. Trixie, fearful of the reply, drew a heart with the ferrule of her parasol on the gravel.
“Not me!” he said decidedly.
The heart on the gravel found itself rubbed out sharply and rendered illegible.
“You think it over, dear,” said Trixie Bell.
“I shan’t think it over,” replied Robert Lancaster sturdily. “It’d be a mean trick to do after all they’ve spent on my training.”
“I don’t see how it would affect them.”
“I’m not going to do it, Trixie.”
“So long as you earn a honest living—”
“Look ’ere,” burst out Robert impetuously, “I can’t argue with girls. My mind’s quite made up, and I’m not going to alter it.”
“That means, then,” said Miss Bell, swallowing something, “that you don’t care for me.”
“It don’t mean anything of the kind,” protested Robert. “It’s a question of duty.”
“You’d easily get a good berth on shore,” she argued, “and earn good money, and then we could see each other pretty of’en. As it is, I may not see you from one year’s end to the other.”
“Absence makes the ’eart grow fonder.”
“Yes,” said the young woman pointedly, “in books.”
“Well,” remarked Robert, after a pause, “now that we’ve cleared up this argument, ’ave some more tea.”
“No, thank you,” said Trixie with reserve. “I think I must be getting along ’ome. Looks as though we shall ’ave a shower presently, I think.”
“Trixie,” he said, trying to take her hand, “don’t be a young silly.”
“After that complimentary remark,” she said rising, “it’s most certainly time for me to be off. To be told in the Zoo above all places in the world that I’m a silly—”
“I didn’t say you was a silly,” urged Robert with great perturbation, “I asked you not to go and be one. Do stop, and let’s be good friends the same like—”
He was following the indignant young woman when the waiter interposed, offering a delicate hint to the effect that his services were usually deemed worthy of reward; by the time Robert had found threepence Trixie had disappeared in the direction of the camels. Other visitors watched the hurried distracted efforts of the scarlet-faced sailor lad on his erratic voyage of discovery with as much interest as though he had been an escaped resident of the Gardens.
A gloomy young man strode down Great Portland Street an hour later, and, losing his way more than once, because he was too much annoyed to speak to policemen, found himself at last in Holborn and eventually in Fetter Lane. On the two middle-aged ladies in the shop saying that Mr. Myddleton West was not in, and had indeed removed, Robert, muttering that this was just like his luck, turned away with a decision to return to Grays some two hours earlier than he had intended. On board theWestmouthone was at any rate free from illogical young women; free also from the irritating risk of taking wrong turnings. A swift hysterical shower of rain started.
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said gruffly.
“My fault,” remarked the man with whom he had come in collision. “I ought not to hold my open umbrella in front of me.”
“Mr. West, I believe, sir.”
“Young Hoxton!”
“That’s me, sir.”
“You look quite a man,” said Myddleton West genially. “Come back to my office, and talk.”
“You look ten years younger, sir, than when I see you last.”
“I am ten years younger,” said West. “On second thoughts we might eat. Do you feel like a good square meal?”
“I’m off me feed just for the present. Had rather a whack in the eye this afternoon.”
“That’s only a prelude to good luck,” said Myddleton West, with new optimism. He seemed to be taking cheerful views of the world; appeared brighter than in the old days, and the lad felt inclined to resent it. “Providence is very fair in a general way.”
Turning into a dim, insignificant passage off Fleet Street, they found a doorway, as if by accident, which led them (also, as it seemed, by a series of misadventures) to a square old-fashioned dining-room of the early Victorian type. Several men were seated at the wooden tables eating; two or three Americans with note-books were being supplied by one of the old waiters with a quantity of new and incorrect information about the old eating-house, enlivened by rare anecdotes of celebrities. In five minutes there was set before West and Robert Lancaster a small mountain made up of admirable strata of pigeons, of oysters, and of steak. Robert began by gazing absently at the dish before him, and thinking about Trixie; the smell of appetizing food changed his thoughts, and he presently set to with admirable appetite.
“My great news can easily be told,” said Myddleton West across the table. “I was married last week.”
“Good business!” remarked Robert. “Who is the lady, sir?”
“There is but one.”
“But I thought she’d decided—”
“They never do that,” remarked West.
“She used to like talking about you, sir, to me when I was in the hospital. I always thought it would ’appen some day.”
“I’m ordered out to some God-forsaken place in Siberia,” said Myddleton West. “They are making a new railway, and there’s a lot of excitement, I believe. Miss Margaret was good enough to insist upon marrying me, before I went. When I come back my wife willgive up her nursing business and we are going to settle down and enjoy life.”
“Good deal to be said for the old fashions,” said Robert wisely. “Independence is all very well, but I don’t like to see it carried too far. Not with the ladies at any rate,” he added.
“Tell me all about yourself,” urged Myddleton West. “My wife will be anxious to hear. My wife,” West seemed proud to repeat these two words, “was always interested in you.”
Robert felt distinctly better when he had come out into Fleet Street and had said a respectful good-bye to Myddleton West; this partly because of the excellent meal and partly because of the friendly chat. The shower had finished and he walked East. Not until he had nearly reached Fenchurch Street, with only five minutes to wait for his train, did he remember that he had a high important grievance which careful attention would, as he knew, nurture into lasting remorse. He went slowly up the stairs of the station, and thinking with a desolate sigh of women in general and of Miss Beatrice Bell in particular. At the top of the staircase he caught sight (his look being downcast) of Miss Threepenny.
“Well, you’re a nice young gentleman,” said the little woman, satirically, “I don’t think. Fancy coming to London and not waiting to see me. This,” added the mite, with a twinkle in her bright bead-like eyes, “is what you call constancy, I s’pose.”
“There’s no such thing as constancy,” growled Robert. “Not in this world, at any rate.”
“Shows what you know about it,” declared the little woman. “Come over ’ere; I’ve a friend I want to interduce you to.”
“I’ve only got five minutes before my train goes.”
“Five minutes is ample. Come along.”
To the side of the bookstall Miss Threepenny convoyed Robert; once in harbour there bade him on no account to stir, and puffing off like a busy little tug to the waiting-room, returned immediately with that trim yacht Trixie Bell in tow, whom she also brought to anchor at the side of the bookstall.
“I’ll go and see what platform your train starts from,” then cried the little tug.
“Bobbie,” said the well-appointed yacht, penitently, to the man-of-war, “I’m—I’m so sorry if I went and made myself look like a stupid this afternoon.”
“Trixie,” said the man-of-war, coming dangerously close to the side of the neat craft, “if anybody’s to blame, it’s me. Only—”
“We shall quarrel again, dear,” said Trixie Bell, sedately, “if you talk like that. You’re quite right in what you’ve made up your mind to do, and I respect you all the more for it, and if you’re away ten seconds, or if you’re away ten years, I shall always be the same and—”
The man-of-war saluted with so much promptitude that a newspaper boy in the bookstall, safe in ambush behind an illustrated journal, made ventriloquial comment. Miss Threepenny hurried up.
“Now run, Bobbie,” said the tiny woman, breathlessly. “You’ll just catch it, and—good luck to you!”
He caught the train as it moved out of the station and jumped into athird-class compartment. When he had regained his breath he leaned his bare head delightedly out of the window to enjoy the cool air that had come after the shower.
“Upon my word,” he said, to Stepney Station, with some astonishment, “I begin to think that I don’t half understand women.”
From this remark it will be seen that Robert Lancaster, formerly child of the State, and shortly to enter the service of his great parent, was now no longer very young. Wherefore it is here that one may prepare to take leave of him.
Thenew shop which bore the name of Miss Beatrice Bell stood so far up the Kingsland Road, beyond the canal, that you might have said it was in Dalston, and none would have dared offer contradiction. A happy situation, in that the shop found itself able to at once keep touch with the superior classes of Hoxton and with the middle classes of Dalston; a distinction being made in the two windows, so that Hoxton lady clients on entering turned instinctively to the left counter, whilst those from Dalston turned to the right. Beatrice Bell, grown to a tall, self-possessed young woman, still in slight mourning for her mother, had the nightly companionship of little Miss Threepenny, and assistance by day from the perky ’Tilderann, whose enthusiasm for the business was equalled by her intolerance of anything likely to interfere with achievement of these ends; her mistress’s habit of buying evening newspapers whenever the placards shouted anything about the Delar expedition, of making customers wait while she read the telegraphic accounts nervously, constituted a weakness that made ’Tilderann groan. But for these occasional lapses Beatrice Bell had become a shrewd, business-like woman, not only reaching the high standard set by her assistant, but sometimes exceeding it, and extorting from that young woman gracious compliment. It was indeed worth watching to see and hear Miss Bell deal with some lady of Hoxton who having ideas of her own in regard to a new hat, insisted upon explaining them in detail. The young proprietress of the establishment would listen with perfect calm whilst the client described the kind of hat which represented her heart’s desire; when she had finished, Miss Bell would say icily, “I quite understand what you mean, but,” here a slight shrug of the shoulders, “they are no longer worn.” Upon which the lady customer could only ejaculate a confused and abashed “Ho!” and request that something that was being worn should be taken from the window and exhibited to her.
Beatrice Bell, her hands clasped behind her, taking the air at the doorway of her shop, and bowing to acquaintances in the swift crowd of young women hurrying northward to their tea, glanced up and down the busy road with its sailing trams and jerking ’buses. The hour was seven; the sky still light with a juvenile moon that seemed, with the impatience of youth, to have come out too early. Dashing young blades of shopkeepers also taking the air at their doorways, caught sight of the white-speckled blouse, and bowed to her, and noting with pain her distant acknowledgment, declared to each other that Miss Bell would stand aninfinitely better chance of getting married were she less reserved in manner, a drawback which had already cheated her of more than one invitation to Epping Forest on early-closing day. “For,” said Mr. Libbis, the tobacconist, to his friend at the second-hand shop, “she may be as ’aughty as she likes, but after all, mind you, she’s only a girl.”
Opposite, a boy pasted on the boards outside the newspaper shop a new placard: “Brave conduct at Delar.” She ran across the road to buy a copy of the newspaper; before she returned a customer came to the Hoxton side of the shop demanding something stylish at one-and-eleven. ’Tilderann fenced with her pending the return of her mistress.
“It occurred to me, looking in the glass,” said the woman confidentially, “that I wanted smartenin’ up. It may be only me fancy, but it struck me I was beginning to look old. What d’you think?”
“Depends what you call old,” replied ’Tilderann. “Sure you can’t run to more than one-and-eleven?”
“Eight year ago, or a trifle more,” said the woman, reminiscently, “I was as light-’earted a young woman as you’d ’ave found in all ’Oxton, if you’d searched for a month. I was really the rarest one for making jokes that you ever ’eard of before my ’usband, Bat Miller, had to go away.”
“Emigrated?” asked ’Tilderann, glancing between the hats and bonnets for her mistress.
“He were away,” said Mrs. Miller, evasively, “for a matter of four or five year. And when I went to meet him, believe me or not, he was as stand-offish in his manner as he could he.”
“That’s like ’em,” said ’Tilderann. “These bonnets at four-and-three are all the go just now.”
“Quite ’igh and mighty if you please,” went on Mrs. Miller aggrievedly. “And I firmly believe that if I hadn’t had on my best mantle he’d have gone off again, goodness knows where. As it was, I persuaded him to settle down, and we’ve got on as well as can be expected; only that now and again, when we have a few words, he says something very satirical about the old days in Ely Place.”
“Here she is!” said ’Tilderann. “Come on, Miss! ’Ere’s a customer been waiting for howers.”
“Sorry,” remarked Beatrice Bell, panting. Her pretty face was crimson with excitement; she hugged a pink halfpenny journal to her breast.
“Something at about one-and-eleven, Miss,” said Mrs. Miller respectfully. “Not too quiet and not too loud, and something that’ll suit my features.”
Miss Bell, trembling oddly, went up the wooden steps and brought down a box containing black hats.
“Anything special, Miss, in the evening paper?” asked Mrs. Bat Miller ingratiatingly.
“Yes,” said Beatrice, panting.
“I of’en ’ave a look at the playcards,” said Mrs. Miller; “they give me about as much information as I want. Are these the newest shape in this box?”
“Look at the corner of the box,” said Miss Bell, endeavouring to regain her usual composure. “That’ll tell you, ‘Chapeaux de Paris.’”
“Sounds all right,” agreed Mrs. Miller. “I was saying to your young lady here that I’ve been making up my mind to take more trouble about me personal appearance. Otherwise, it’s likely enough Miller’ll be getting tired of me again, and then there’ll be more trouble. How would you advise me to have this trimmed, Miss, if it isn’t troubling you too much?”
Beatrice Bell gave advice in a hurried way as though pressed with more urgent affairs, and anxious to see her customer depart. Mrs. Miller did go, after reciting some more of her personal history; when she had gone Miss Bell took the evening paper from her waistbelt and sat down behind the counter. She had scarcely done so when the bell of the door rang and a tall young woman came in, dressed in a tailor-made costume, which caused ’Tilderann to gasp with admiration.
“Will you,” she said pleasantly to that amazed girl, “give the driver this half-crown and tell him not to wait?” She turned brightly to the young proprietress. “You are Miss Bell, are you not? My name is Mrs. Myddleton West.”
“One moment,” said Miss Bell trembling, “till the girl comes back, and we’ll go into the shop parlour.”
“You have read the evening paper I see.”
“I’ve got it certainly, ma’am,” replied the agitated young woman, “but as to reading it, why my eyes get so full the moment I begin that I can’t get on with it very fast.”
“I have a letter from my dear husband,” said Mrs. Myddleton West proudly, “from my dear husband giving fuller particulars.”
“And you’ve come straight here?”
’Tilderann returning, flushed with victory because she had compounded with the cabman for two shillings and two pence, and therefore able to refund the sum of fourpence, was commanded to look after the shop, and Miss Bell conducted her visitor into the small room at the back. ’Tilderann, noting with regret that the door closed carefully, found compensation in serving across the counter imaginary bonnets to imaginary wives of society millionaires at the price of fifty guineas per bonnet.
“Is this Robert Lancaster?” asked Mrs. West in her pleasant way. She took up a photograph of a brown-faced sailor lad, clean shaven, with a humorous mouth and bare neck.
“That’s my Bobbie,” said Beatrice Bell with pride. “Won’t you take the easy chair, ma’am? It’s been quite a lovely summer, hasn’t it? I suppose we shall soon have autumn upon us if we’re not careful, and—Oh,” she cried, interrupting herself. “What is the use of me pretending to be calm when I’m all of a tremble!”
“Now you must sit down,” this with a kindly authoritativeness, “sit down here close to me, and I am going to read to you the letter from my husband, which arrived only this evening.”
“From Delar?” asked the girl, seating herself obediently on a hassock.
“From Delar.”
“How could you let your husband go away, ma’am?”
“I don’t think I can,” said Mrs. West, “again.” She found the letter and took the thin sheets carefully from the envelope. “But I felt that I ought not to be selfish all through my life.”
“Weren’t you the sister who looked after Bobbie in the hospital, ma’am?” Mrs. West nodded and smoothed out the sheets of note paper.“I wasn’t quite sure whether Mr. West wouldn’t go and marry some one else, considering—I s’pose I’ve no business to say so—but considering the way you kept putting him off.”
“I took care,” said Mrs. Myddleton West quickly, “that he should not do anything so absurd. Shall I begin the letter?”
“If you please, ma’am,” said Beatrice Bell, looking up respectfully. Mrs. Myddleton West commenced.
“My dearest, ever dearest,” she stopped. “I don’t think I need trouble you with the first page at all,” she said with some confusion.
“I know what you mean, ma’am. Start where he begins to speak of Bobbie.”
It appeared that Bobbie came in about the middle of the second sheet. The war correspondent out at Delar had intuitively written on one side of the paper only, and Trixie Bell noted this deplorable want of economy, but West’s small handwriting managed to convey a good long letter.
“You remember our young friend Bobbie Lancaster. The lad, now a sailor attached to H.M.S.Pompous, is on the launch where I am writing, and he did this afternoon an act of quiet bravery which ought, I think, to make his country feel that the trouble it took to make a man of him was not wasted. I am sending an account of the incident to my journal by the post which takes this letter to you, but you will care to have fuller particulars. How I wish that the mail were also taking me to the arms—”
“That,” said Mrs. West, “is, of course, merely by the way.”
“Skip a few lines,” suggested Trixie, her chin resting upon her hands, “but don’t leave out more than you’re obliged.”
The trail of the story was re-discovered.
“But touching Lancaster! We left H.M.S.Pompousand steamed up a broad smelly river, bordered by mangrove trees with long weeping branches, and approached the town of Delar. Delar is nothing like a town, but a mere collection of whitewashed huts around a large circular hut, where that genial person, the king of Delar, has hitherto lived. It was in this central hut that he caused to be massacred the Englishmen who, at his request, came some months since to confer with him on the subject of trade; our expedition is, as you know, intended to prove to him that such tactics are not only unbusinesslike, but positively rude. This lesson will be taught him by our marines when they land to-morrow, and I have little doubt but that they will do it effectively. I was talking to the Intelligence Officer when Lancaster came up hurriedly, and, saluting, said that the Admiral wished to see the other officer at once. The Intelligence man hurried below, and Lancaster and I had two minutes’ chat. He has grown a fine strong fellow, with honesty in both eyes, and muscular arms tattooed with the word ‘Trix.’”
“The dear boy!” burst out Miss Bell.
“We talked of the old days, and he said that he only cared to think of Hoxton now because his sweetheart lived there.”
“You might read that part again, ma’am.”
“He talked of the old days, and he said that he only cared to think of Hoxton now because his sweetheart lived there.”
The girl gasped.
“Fancy his talking about me,” she said delightedly, “all that distance off. Go on, ma’am.”
“Whilst we were talking, commotion began on shore. Men were running up and down; boats were launched, the Intelligence Officer and the Admiral, escorted by four marines and four sailors, prepared to leave. Some whistling and giving of orders; the steamer slowed and stopped. The Admiral, I may tell you, is a big-bearded fellow, daring, and very popular with the officers and the men, but on board thePompous, just before we left, there had been general agreement that he had done a risky and almost a foolhardy thing in agreeing to a palaver with some of the king’s supporters. The officers knew that his idea was to punish the king and the king only; whereas the officers desired to punish everybody. If you had seen the mutilated body of an English gentleman bound upon what is called a crucifixion tree near the king’s hut, I think, dear, you would have agreed with the officers.
“Not being allowed to go on shore, I give most of the rest as recounted to me by my friend the Intelligence Officer. The Admiral and his escort descended into the boats and were rowed ashore by the natives; Robert Lancaster was one of the bluejackets. At the shore they were received with great courtesy by the king’s chief ministers; the king, as we knew, had scuttled off inland on receiving news of our approach. With exceeding ceremony the Admiral and his escort found themselves conducted to the king’s compound, the while on the launch our Maxim stood ready to rake the town on the least sign of treachery. At each door of the king’s house lay a woman’s dead body. This, it was explained, had been done to prevent the arrival of the English; a precaution on the part of the king that had proved singularly unsuccessful. In the palaver house, a long half-roofed building with a bronze serpent at the entrance, and inside, seats of dry red mud, the Admiral took up position, and through the interpreter addressed the chiefs; Robert Lancaster being, as I am told, one of the men stationed behind the Admiral and his officers. Standing at a rough table the Admiral said that the great White Queen was angry because of the infamous massacre of her children; as a good mother she had determined to avenge their murder. But though the great White Queen was powerful, she was also just, she wished to punish only those responsible. Wherefore the king was to be pursued and captured and dealt with severely, but those of the natives who were friendly would not be hurt, and would, indeed, be under British protection.”
“I am now,” said young Mrs. Myddleton West gravely, “coming to the very serious part of the letter.”
“May I hold your ’and, ma’am?” asked the girl. For answer she found her right hand taken instantly with a quiet matronly manner that gave her confidence.
“As the Admiral spoke and the interpreter repeated each sentence, the ministers listened with attention and with plain signs of agreement. The younger men rose from the red mud seats and pressed forward. They began to speak confusedly; the Admiral held up his hand for order. One of the younger men smashed a square of looking-glass on the floor; at the same moment Robert Lancaster flung himself suddenly on a muscular black youth who had risen from the ground close to the Admiral, unseen by others of the escort. The blade intended for the Admiral’s back caught inthe fleshy part of Lancaster’s arm; a swift struggle ensued between the two before the others realized what was happening. A sharp revolver shot from one of the officers settled the murderous young black; Lancaster sucked at his own wound, spat, stepped calmly back to his place.”
“Now, now!” protested the wife of Myddleton West, breaking off tearfully, “you mustn’t cry, dear.”
“I know,” sobbed Miss Bell.
“The others shared his composure; the Admiral himself never lost self-possession for a moment. He concluded the palaver as though nothing of moment had happened; went out of the house with his escort and down to the shore and re-embarked. Arrived here on the launch, the Admiral sent for Bobbie.
“‘What is your name, my lad?’
“‘Robert Lancaster, sir, of thePompous.’
“‘Are you hurt, much?’
“‘Nothing to brag about, sir.’
“‘Do you know that you saved my life?’
“‘Well, sir,’ said Bobbie with great respect, ‘I’m not sorry to have paid back a bit of what I owe.’
“‘Mr. West,’ remarked the Admiral, turning to me, ‘let the English people know something about this. I will look after the lad, but you, too, can do something.’
“The doctor tells me that the blade was poisoned at the tip—”
Beatrice Bell’s hand tightened her hold, and the white speckled blouse stilled for a moment.
“And that Lancaster’s smartness and resource alone saved the wound from becoming dangerous. Lancaster wants you to call on his sweetheart and tell her all about it, because for a few weeks he will not be able to write. I shall be home, my dearest, in less than a month, and when I see you—”
“That is all about Bobbie,” said Mrs. Myddleton West, stopping. “What do you think of it all, dear?”
“I could no more,” declared Miss Bell, “explain to you what I think, ma’am, than I could fly. I’m too thankful to talk much.” The girl looked wistfully at the sheets of rustling note paper. “You’d think I’d got impudence,” she said hesitatingly, “if I told you, though, what I’ve got in my mind.”
“Tell me!”
“Why, I was just thinkin’ how annoyed you’d be if I was to ask you to give me the part that concerns—that concerns my Bobbie.”
Far from showing annoyance, Mrs. West cheerfully ordered the production of scissors; ’Tilderann being called, responded so promptly that suspicious persons might have guessed she had become tired of serving imaginary customers, and had been trying to listen at the doorway. Having brought the scissors, ’Tilderann was sent back again to look after the shop. Then the two women bent their heads near to each other, and dividing the letter carefully, judiciously, and very lovingly, the shares were allotted.
“My dear,” said Mrs. West rising, “come and see me at the address on this envelope to-morrow evening, and let us talk it all over quietly. Come to dinner.”
“Me?” asked the astonished girl. “Me at dinner in Kensington?”
“I insist upon it.”
“I’m a good talker,” stammered Miss Bell, “in—in an ord’nary way, but just now—I only wish my friend Miss Threepenny was here.”
A call from ’Tilderann.
“But some day me and Bobbie will be able to tell you how much—” She bent her head to her friend’s hand impulsively. Young Mrs. West kissed her on the cheek.
“Lot of use anybody bawling ‘Shop,’” said ’Tilderann at the doorway ironically, “when no one don’t take no notice. Why, you’re crying! Whatever’s the matter, Miss?”
“Matter?” repeated Miss Beatrice Bell with indignation. “Do you think I should cry if there was anything really the matter?”