A Master of Craft Part 19

"Ma'am?" said Mrs. Church, in tones of tender reproach; "two hours ago I was Laura. Have you been to the 'Thorn'?"

"What 'Thorn'?" demanded Captain Barber, who had decided to forget as much as possible, as the only safe way.

"The Thorn Inn," said Mrs. Church, impatiently.

"Where is it?" enquired Captain Barber, ingenuously.

Mrs. Church looked at him with deep consideration. "Why, at the end of the cottages, opposite the 'Swan."

"What 'Swan'?" enquired Captain Barber.

"The Swan Inn," said Mrs. Church, restraining her temper, but with difficulty.

"Where is it?" said Uncle Barber, with breezy freshness.

"Opposite the 'Thorn,' at the end of the row," said Mrs. Church, slowly.

"Well, what about it?" enquired Captain Barber.

"Nothing," said Mrs. Church, sharply, and proceeded to set supper.

Captain Barber, hugging himself over his scheme, watched her eagerly, evincing a little bewilderment as she brought on a small, unappetizing rind of cheese, bread, two gla.s.ses, and a jug of water. He checked himself just in time from asking for the cold fowl and bacon left from dinner, and, drawing his chair to the table, eyed the contents closely.

"Only bread and cheese?" he said, somewhat peevishly.

"That's all," said Mrs. Church, smiling; "bread and cheese and kisses."

Captain Barber tapped his forehead. "What did we have for dinner?" he asked, suddenly.

"Sausages," replied Mrs. Church, blandly; "we ate them all."

A piece of Captain Barber's cheese went the wrong way, and he poured himself out some water and drank it hurriedly. "Where's the beer?" he demanded.

"You've got the key of the cask," said the housekeeper.

Captain Barber, whose temper was rising, denied it.

"I gave it to you this morning," said Mrs. Church; "you were going to do something to it, don't you know?"

"I don't remember," said Uncle Barber, surlily.

"Whatever has happened to your memory?" said Mrs. Church, sweetly.

"My memory," said the trickster, slowly, pa.s.sing his hand over his brow; "why, what's the matter with it?"

"It doesn't seem quite so good as it was," said the lady, affectionately. "Never mind, my memory will have to do for both."

There was enough emphasis on this last sentence to send a little chill through the captain's frame.

He said nothing, but keeping his eye on his plate attacked his frugal meal in silence, and soon after-wards went upstairs to bed to think out his position.

If his own memory was defective, Mrs. Church's was certainly redundant. When he came hurrying in to dinner next day she remembered that he had told her he should not be home to that meal. He was ungallant enough to contemplate a raid upon hers; she, with a rare thoughtfulness, had already eaten it. He went to the "Thorn," and had some cold salt beef, and cursed the ingenious Nibletts, now on his way to London, sky-high.

Mrs. Banks came in the next evening with her daughter, and condoled with the housekeeper on the affliction which had already been noised about Seabridge. Mrs. Church, who had accepted her as an ally, but with mental reservations, softly applied a handkerchief to her eyes.

"How are you feeling?" demanded Mrs. Banks, in the voice of one addressing a deaf invalid.

"I'm all right," said Barber, shortly.

"That's his pride," said Mrs. Church, mournfully; "he won't own to it. He can't remember anything. He pretends he doesn't know me."

"Who are you?" asked the sufferer, promptly.

"He'll get the better of it," said Mrs. Banks, kindly, as her quondam foe wiped her eyes again. "If he don't, you'd better marry before October."

To say that Captain Barber p.r.i.c.ked up his ears at this, indicates but feebly his interest in the remark. He held his breath and looked wildly round the room as the two ladies, deftly ignoring him, made their arrangements for his future.

"I don't like to seem to hurry it," said the housekeeper.

"No, of course you don't. If he said October, naturally October it ought to be, in the usual way," remarked the other.

"I never said October," interrupted the trembling mariner.

"There's his memory again," said Mrs. Banks, in a low voice.

"Poor dear," sighed the other.

"We'll look after your interests," said Mrs. Banks, with a benevolent smile. "Don't you remember meeting me by the church the other night and telling me that you were going to marry Mrs. Church in October?"

"No," bawled the affrighted man.

"Clean gone," said Mrs. Church, shaking her head; "it's no use."

"Not a bit," said Mrs. Banks.

"October seems rather early," said Mrs. Church, "especially as he is in mourning for his nephew.

"There's no reason for waiting," said Mrs. Banks, decidedly. "I daresay it's his loneliness that makes him want to hurry it. After all, he ought to know what he wants."

"I never said a word about it," interposed Captain Barber, in a loud voice.

"All right," said Mrs. Banks, indulgently. "What are you going to wear, my dear?" she added, turning to the housekeeper.

Mrs. Church seemed undecided, and Captain Barber, wiping the moisture from his brow, listened as one in a dream to a long discussion on the possibilities of her wardrobe. Thrice he interrupted, and thrice the ladies, suspending their conversation for a moment, eyed him with tender pity before resuming it.

"Me and Frank thought of October," said Elizabeth, speaking for the first time. She looked at Captain Barber, and then at her mother. It was the look of one offering to sell a casting vote.

"October's early," said the old lady, bridling.

Mrs. Church looked up at her, and then modestly looked down again. "Why not a double wedding?" she asked, gently.

Captain Barber's voice was drowned in acclamations. Elizabeth kissed Mrs. Church, and then began to discuss her own wardrobe. The owner of the house, the owner of the very chairs on which they were sitting, endeavoured in vain to stop them on a point of order, and discovered to his mortification that a man without a memory is a man without influence. In twenty minutes it was all settled, and even an approximate date fixed. There was a slight movement on the part of Elizabeth to obtain Captain Barber's opinion upon that, but being reminded by her mother that he would forget all about it in half an hour's time, she settled it without him.

"I'm so sorry about your memory, Captain Barber," said Mrs. Banks, as she prepared to depart. "I can understand what a loss it is. My memory's a very good one. I never forget anything."

"You forget yourself, ma'am," returned her victim, with unconscious ambiguity, and, closing the door behind her, returned to the parlour to try and think of some means of escaping from the position to which the ingenuity of Captain Nibletts, aided by that of Mrs. Banks, had brought him.

CHAPTER XIX.

OPPONENTS of medicine have hit upon a means of cleansing the system by abstaining for a time from food, and drinking a quant.i.ty of fair water. It is stated to clear the eyes and the skin, and to cause a feeling of lightness and buoyancy undreamt of by those who have never tried it. All people, perhaps, are not affected exactly alike, and Captain Flower, while admitting the lightness, would have disdainfully contested any charge of buoyancy. Against this objection it may be said, that he was not a model patient, and had on several occasions wilfully taken steps to remove the feeling of lightness.

It was over a fortnight since his return to London. The few s.h.i.+llings obtained for his watch had disappeared days before; rent was due and the cupboard was empty. The time seemed so long to him, that Poppy and Seabridge and the Foam might have belonged to another period of existence. At the risk of detection he had hung round the Wheelers night after night for a glimpse of the girl for whom he was enduring all these hards.h.i.+ps, but without success. He became a prey to nervousness and, unable to endure the suspense any longer, determined to pay a stealthy visit to Wapping and try and see Fraser.

He chose the night on which in the ordinary state of affairs the schooner should be lying alongside the wharf; and keeping a keen lookout for friends and foes both, made his way to the Minories and down Tower Hill. He had pictured it as teeming with people he knew, and the bare street and closed warehouses, with a chance docker or two slouching slowly along, struck him with an odd sense of disappointment. The place seemed changed. He hurried past the wharf; that too was deserted, and after a loving peep at the spars of his schooner he drifted slowly across the road to the Albion, and, pus.h.i.+ng the door a little way open, peeped cautiously in. The faces were all unfamiliar, and letting the door swing quietly back he walked on until he came to the Town of Yarmouth.

The public bar was full. Tired workers were trying to forget the labours of the day in big draughts of beer, while one of them had thrown off his fatigue sufficiently to show a friend a fancy step of which he was somewhat vain. It was a difficult and intricate step for a crowded bar, and panic-stricken men holding their beer aloft called wildly upon him to stop, while the barman, leaning over the counter, strove to make his voice heard above the din. The dancer's feet subsided into a sulky shuffle, and a tall seaman, removing the tankard which had obscured his face, revealed the honest features of Joe. The sight of him and the row of gla.s.ses and hunches of bread and cheese behind the bar was irresistible. The skipper caught a departing customer by the coat and held him.

"Do me a favour, old man," he said, heartily.

"Wot d'ye want?" asked the other, suspiciously.

"Tell that tall chap in there that a friend of his is waiting outside," said Flower, pointing to Joe.

He walked off a little way as the man re-entered the bar. A second or two later, the carman came out alone.

"'E ses come inside 'e ses if you want to see 'im."

"I can't," said Flower.

"Why not?" asked the other, as a horrible suspicion dawned upon him. "Strewth, you ain't a teetotaler, are you?"

"No," replied the skipper, "but I can't go in."

"Well 'e won't come out," said the other; "'e seems to be a short-tempered sort o' man."

"I must see him," said the skipper, pondering. Then a happy thought struck him, and he smiled at his cleverness. "Tell him a little flower wants to see him," he said, briskly.

"A little wot?" demanded the carman, blankly.

"A little flower," repeated the other.

"Where is she?" enquired the carman, casting his eyes about him.

"You just say that," said the skipper, hurriedly. "You shall have a pint if you do. He'll understand."

It was unfortunate for the other that the skipper had set too high an estimation on Joe's intelligence, for the information being imparted to him in the audible tones of confidence, he first gave his mug to Mr. William Green to hold, and then knocked the amba.s.sador down. The loud laugh consequent on the delivery of the message ceased abruptly, and in the midst of a terrific hubbub Joe and his victim, together with two or three innocent persons loudly complaining that they hadn't finished their beer, were swept into the street.

"He'll be all right in a minute, mate," said a bystander to Joe, anxiously; "don't run away."

"'Tain't so likely," said Joe, scornfully.

"Wot did you 'it me for?" demanded the victim, turning a deaf ear to two or three strangers who were cuddling him affectionately and pointing out, in alluring whispers, numberless weak points in Joe's fleshly armour.

"I'll 'it you agin if you come into a pub making a fool of me afore people," replied the sensitive seaman, blus.h.i.+ng hotly with the recollection of the message.

"He told me to," said the carman, pointing to Flower, who was lurking in the background.

The tall seaman turned fiercely and strode up to him, and then, to the scandal of the bystanders and the dismay of Mr. William Green, gave a loud yell and fled full speed up the road. Flower followed in hot pursuit, and owing, perhaps, to the feeling of lightness before mentioned, ran him down nearly a mile farther on, Mr. Green coming in a good second.

"Keep orf," panted the seaman, backing into a doorway. "Keep--it--orf!"

"Don't be a fool, Joe," said the skipper.

"Keep orf," repeated the trembling seaman.

His fear was so great that Mr. Green, who had regarded him as a tower of strength and courage, and had wormed himself into the tall seaman's good graces by his open admiration of these qualities, stood appalled at his idol's sudden lack of spirit.

"Don't be a fool, Joe," said the skipper, sharply; "can't you see it's me?"

"I thought you was drownded," said the trembling seaman, still regarding him suspiciously. "I thought you was a ghost."

"Feel that," said Flower, and gave him a blow in the ribs which almost made him regret that his first impression was not the correct one.

"I'm satisfied, sir," he said, hastily.

"I was picked up and carried off to Riga: but for certain reasons I needn't go into, I want my being alive kept a dead secret. You mustn't breathe a word to anybody, d'ye understand? Not a word."

"Aye, aye, sir," said Joe; "you hear that, Will-yum?"

"Who the devil's this?" demanded the skipper, who had not bargained for another confidant.

"It's the new 'and, sir," said Joe. "I'll be answerable for 'im."

Flower eyed the pair restlessly, but Mr. Green a.s.sured him with a courtly bow that Mr. Smith's a.s.surances might be relied upon. "He hoped he was a gentleman," he said, feelingly.

"Some of us thought--I thought," said Joe, with a glance at the skipper, "that the mate shoved you overboard."

"You always were a fool," commented the skipper.

"Yes, sir," said Joe, dutifully, and as they moved slowly back along the road gave him the latest information about Seabridge and the Foam.