Shining Ferry Part 12

"So far as you know, there was nothing in it to cause strong emotion-- nothing to account--?"

"Dear me, no," answered Mr. Benny, staring at him in mild astonishment; "so far as I know, nothing whatever."

After packing Susannah off to her room with a Bible and a smelling-bottle, Mrs. Purchase had set herself to reduce the household to order.

"'Tisn't in nature to think of death," confessed Martha the dairy-girl, "when you'm worrited from pillar to post by a woman in creaky boots."

Above and beside her creaky boots Aunt Hannah had a cheerful, incurable habit of slamming every door she pa.s.sed through. It came, she would explain, of living on s.h.i.+pboard where cabin was divided from cabin either by a simple curtain or by sliding panels. Be this is it may, she kept the house of mourning re-echoing that day "like a labouring s.h.i.+p with a cargo of tinware," to quote Martha again, whose speech derived many forcible idioms from her father, the mate of a coaster.

Nevertheless--and although it appeared to induce a steady breeze through the house, rising to a moderate gale when meals were toward--Aunt Hannah's presence acted like a tonic on all. She presented to Mr. Sam a weather-ruddied cheek, receiving his kiss on what, in so round a face as hers, might pa.s.s for the point of the jaw. In saluting Master Calvin she had perforce to take the offensive, and did so with equal aplomb.

After a rapid survey of some three seconds she picked off his velveteen cap and kissed him accurately in the centre of the forehead.

"I meant to do it on the top of his head," she informed Myra later, "but the ghastly child was smothered in bear's-grease. Lord knows that, as 'twas, I very nearly slipped in my thumb and kissed _that_, as I've heard tell that folks do in the witness-box."

Myra did not understand the allusion; but from the first she divined that her aunt misliked Master Calvin and found that mislike consolatory.

"As for these two," the good lady announced, indicating brother and sister, "I allow to myself they'll be best out of the way till the funeral. I've been through the clothes-press, and put up their night-clothes and a few odd items in a hand-bag. 'Siah will be here at eight-thirty sharp, to take 'em aboard with him. For my part, I reckon to sleep here to-night and look after things till that fool Susannah comes to her senses. And as for you, Peter Benny, you'll stay supper, I hope, for there's supper ready and waiting to be dished--a roast leg of lamb, with green peas. It puts me in mind of Easter Day," she added inconsequently.

"You may remember, Sam, that your poor father always stickled for a roast leg of lamb at Easter. He was a good Christian to that extent, I thank the Lord!"

"And I thank _you_, ma'am," protested Mr. Benny, "but I couldn't touch a morsel--indeed I couldn't, though you offer it so kindly."

"To my knowledge, you've not eaten enough to-day to keep a mouse alive.

Well, if you won't, you won't; but I've been through the garden, and there's a dish of strawberries to take home to your wife."

Mrs. Purchase could not know--good soul--that in removing the two children to s.h.i.+pboard, to spare them the ugly preparations for the funeral, she was connecting their grandfather's death in their minds for ever with the most delightful holiday in life. Yet so it was. Punctually at half-past eight Mr. Purchase appeared and escorted them on board the _Virtuous Lady_; and so, out-tired with their long day, drugged and drowsed by strong salt air and suns.h.i.+ne and the swift homeward drive, they came at nightfall, and as knights and princesses come in fairy tales, to the palace of enchantment.

As they drew close, its walls towered up terribly and overhung them, lightless, forbidding; but far aloft the riding-lamp flamed like a star, and Myra clapped her hands as she reached the deck and peered down into a marvellous doll's-house fitted with couches, muslin blinds, and bra.s.s-locked cupboards that twinkled in the lamplight.

There was a stateroom, too, with a half-drawn red curtain in place of a door, and beyond the curtain a glimpse of two beds, one above the other, with white sheets turned back and ready for the sleepers--at once like and deliciously unlike the beds at home. The children, having unpacked their bag and undressed, knelt down side by side as usual in their white night-rails. But Myra could not pray, although she repeated the words with Clem. Her eyes wandered among marvels. The lower bed (a.s.signed to Clem by reason of his blindness) was not only a bed but a chest of drawers.

"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child; Pity my simplicity."--

Her fingers felt and tried the bra.s.s handles. Yes, a real chest of drawers! And the washstand folded up in a box, and in place of a chair was a rack with netting in which to lay their garments for the night!

"G.o.d bless dear Clem, and grandfather."--What was she saying?

Their grandfather was dead, and praying for dead people was wicked.

Susannah had once caught her praying for her mother, and had told her that it was wicked, with a decisiveness that closed all argument. None the less she had prayed for her mother since then--once or twice, perhaps half a dozen times--though slily and in a terror of being punished tor it and sent to h.e.l.l. "And Susannah, and Martha, and Elizabeth Jane,"--this was the housemaid--"and Peter Benny, and Jim Tregay, and all kind friends and relations,"--including Uncle Sam and that odious boy of his? Well, they might go down in the list; but she wouldn't pretend to like them.

"Ready, my dears?" asked Uncle Purchase from outside. "Sing out when you're in bed, and I'll come and dowse the lights."

He did so, and stood for a moment hesitating, scarcely visible in the faint radiance cast through the doorway by the lamp in his own cabin.

Maybe the proper thing would be to give them a kiss apiece? He could not be sure, being a childless man. He ended by saying good-night so gruffly that Myra fancied he must be in a bad temper.

"Clem!" she whispered, after lying still for a while, staring into darkness. "Clem!"

But Clem was already sound asleep.

She sighed and turned on her pillow. She had wanted to discuss with him a thought that vexed her. Did folks love one another when they grew up?

And, if so, how did they manage it, seeing that so few grownups had anything lovable about them? Clem and she, of course, would go on loving each other always; but that was different. When one grown-up person died, were the others really sorry? No one seemed sorry for her grandfather--no one--except, perhaps, Peter Benny. . . .

For two days the children lived an enchanted life, interrupted only by a visit to Miss de Gruchy, the dressmaker across the water, and by a miserable two hours in which they were supposed to entertain their Cousin Calvin, who had been sent to play with them. The boy--he was about a year older than Myra--greeted them with an air of high importance.

"I've seen the corp!" he announced in an ogreish whisper.

Myra had the sense to guess that if she gave any sign of horror he would only show off the more and tease her. She met him, therefore, on his own ground.

"Well, you needn't think _we_ want to, because we don't!"

"Oh, they'll show it to you before they screw it down. But I saw it first!"

For the next forty-eight hours this awful possibility darkened her delight. For it _was_ a possibility. Grown people did such monstrous unaccountable things, there was no saying what they might not be up to next. And here, for once, was an ordeal Clem could not share with her.

He was blind. Alone, if it must be, she must endure it.

She did not feel safe until the coffin had been actually packed in the hea.r.s.e and the long procession started. To her dismay, they had parted her from Clem. He rode in the first coach beside Aunt Hannah and _vis-a-vis_ with her Uncle Samuel and Cousin Calvin; she in the second with Mr. Purchase, Peter Benny, and Mr. Tulse the lawyer, a large-headed, pallid man, with a strong, clean-shaven face and an air of having attended so many funerals that he paid this one no particular attention.

His careless gentility obviously impressed Mr. Purchase, who mopped his forehead at half-minute intervals and as frequently remarked that the day was hot even for the time of year. Mr. Benny was solicitous to know if Mr. Tulse preferred the window up or down. Mr. Tulse preferred it down, and took snuff in such profusion that by and by Myra could not distinguish the floating particles from the dust which entered from the roadway, stirred up by the feet of the crowd backing to let the carriages pa.s.s.

Myra had never seen, never dreamed of, such a crowd. It lined both sides of the road almost to the church gate--and from Hall to the church was a good mile and a half; lines of freemasons with their ap.r.o.ns, lines of foresters in green sashes, lines of coastguards, of fishermen in blue jerseys crossed with the black-and-white mourning ribbons of the local Benevolent Club; here and there groups of staring children, some holding tightly by their mothers' hands; here and there a belated gig, quartering to give way or falling back to take up its place in the rear of the line.

The sun beat down on the roof of the coach drawing a powerful odour of camphor from its cus.h.i.+ons. For years after the scent of camphor recalled all the moving pageant and the figure of Mr. Tulse seated in face of her and abstractedly taking snuff. But at the time, and until they drew up at the churchyard gate, she was wondering why the s.h.i.+ps in the harbour had dressed themselves in gay bunting. The flags were all half-masted, of course; but she had not observed this, nor, if she had, would she have known the meaning of it.

In the great family pew she found herself by Clem's side, listening to the lesson, of which a few words and sentences somehow remained in her memory; and again, as they trooped out, Clem's hand was in hers. But to the ceremony she paid little attention. The grave had been dug hard by the south-east corner of the churchyard, close by a hedge of thorn, on the farther side of which the ground fell steeply to a narrow coombe.

The bright sun, sinking behind the battlements of the church tower, flung their shadow so that a part cut across the parson's dazzling surplice, while a part fell and continued the pattern on the hillside across the valley. And while the parson recited high over the tower a lark sang.

Someone asked her if she wished to look down on the coffin in its bed.

She shrank away, fearing for the moment that the trick of which she had stood in dread for two days was to be played on her now at the last.

But the mysterious doings of her elders were not yet at an end, for no sooner had they reached home again than she and Clem were hustled into the parlour, to find Mr. Tulse seated at the head of the long table with a paper in his hand, and Mr. Samuel in a chair by the empty fireplace with Cousin Calvin beside him. Aunt Hannah disposed herself between the two children with her back to a window, and Uncle Purchase, having closed the door with extraordinary caution, dropped upon the edge of a chair and sat as if ready to jump up at call and expel any intruder.

Mr. Tulse glanced around with that quiet, well-bred air of his which seemed to take everything for granted. Having satisfied himself that all were a.s.sembled, he cleared his throat and began to read. His manner and intonation suggested family prayers; and Myra, not doubting that this must be some kind of postscript to the burial service for the private consolation of the family, let her mind wander. The word 'testament' in the first sentence seemed to make this certain, and the sentence or two that followed had a polysyllabic vagueness which by habit she connected with the offices of religion. The strained look on Aunt Hannah's face drew her attention away from Mr. Tulse and his recital. Her ear had been caught, too, by a low whining sound in the next room. By and by she heard him speak her own name--hers and Clem's together--and glanced around nervously. She had a particular dislike of being prayed for by name.

It made her blush and gave her a curious sinking sensation in the pit of the stomach. Her eyes, as it happened, came to rest on her Uncle Samuel's, who withdrew his gaze at once and stared into the fireplace.

A moment later Mr. Tulse brought his reading to an end. There was a pause, broken by someone's pus.h.i.+ng hack a chair. She gazed around inquiringly, thinking that this perhaps might be a signal for all to kneel.

Her aunt had risen, and stood for a moment with twitching face, challenging a look from Mr. Samuel, who continued to stare at the shavings in the fireplace.

Whatever Mrs. Purchase had on her lips to say to him, she controlled herself. But she turned upon Myra and Clem, and her eyes filled.

"My poor dears!" she said, stretching out both hands. "My poor, poor dears!"

Myra thought it pa.s.sing strange that, if she and Clem were to be pitied for losing their grandfather, Aunt Hannah should have waited till now.

She paid, however, little heed to this, but ran past her aunt's outstretched arms to the door of the counting-house. Within, on the rug beside the empty chair, weak with voluntary starvation, lay stretched the little greyhound, and whined for her master.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER VIII.