Rumple's Discovery
Day after day of unbroken fine weather followed. There was the halt of
twelve hours at Cape Town, and the seven earnestly desired to be allowed
to go ashore. But the captain refused to allow them off the vessel, as
they had been placed in his charge by Mr. Runciman, and so they had to
content themselves with gazing at Table Mountain from the deck of the
ship, or rather at the tablecloth, as the brooding cloud was called,
which hid the mountain from their view.
The shipping in the bay, and the distant glimpses of the town, gave them
plenty to look at, however; and although the little boys and Rumple were
in a state of simmering rebellion against the dictates of the kindly but
rather autocratic commander, Rupert and Nealie were so well amused that
they had no room for grumbling, while Sylvia had taken to drawing as a
pastime, and spent the hours in making an ambitious sketch of the scene.
It was a little out in drawing, naturally as she had had no lessons, and
it was difficult to determine whether the ships were sailing up Table
Mountain, or the houses taking short voyages across the bay; but she was
so thoroughly happy and satisfied with her performance that it would
have been almost cruel to have found any fault with it; and, as Rupert
said, there was the fun of finding out whether any particular object
stood for a ship, a warehouse, or a clump of trees, the fun being
increased when the artist herself was not sure on the subject.
When they were a week out from Cape Town the weather changed and became
wet and stormy. The rolling was dreadful, and great was the groaning and
the lamentation when they were not allowed on deck for three whole days
in succession.
The fourth day broke without wind, although the sea was still very
rough. But, having gained permission to go on deck, the three younger
boys were out, steadying themselves by anything which came handy, and
vastly enjoying the fun of seeing other people lurching about in all
sorts of funny antics, all involuntary ones of course.
Then suddenly something happened which might easily have been a tragedy.
Rumple and Billykins were rounding the curve of one of the lower decks,
when a heavy sea struck the vessel as she pitched nose first down into a
deep valley of foam, and a stout old lady, who had been rashly trying
to ascend the stairs to the upper deck, was hit by the shower of spray
and knocked off the stairs. She must have fallen with great violence,
and would probably have been very badly hurt, had it not been for
Rumple, who ran in to her, as if she had been an extra big cricket ball
which he was trying to catch. Of course she descended upon him with an
awful smash, and nearly knocked the wind out of him, and equally of
course they both rolled over together, and were drenched by the showers
of spray. But he had broken her fall, and although she was badly shaken
there were no limbs broken, as there must have been had she fallen with
full force on to the slippery boards. A steward who was passing ran to
pick up the old lady, while a passenger sorted Rumple out from under the
old lady's skirts, and, draining some of the water out of him, held him
up so that the air might revive him.
Meanwhile Billykins, who had been a horrified spectator of his brother's
rash heroism, and had remained speechless until Rumple was picked up,
burst into the very noisiest crying of which he was capable, and,
standing with his legs very wide apart and his mouth as far open as it
would go, howled his very loudest, the sound of his woe speedily
bringing a crowd to see what was the matter.
"I don't think that he is very much the worse for his fall, only a
little bit dazed by having the old lady come flop down upon him; but if
he had not been there to break her fall, it is quite likely that she
would have broken her neck," said the gentleman who had picked Rumple
up, as he handed him over to the care of Nealie.
"Poor, poor boy, how frightened he must have been when she fell upon
him!" cried Nealie, who thought that the whole affair was an accident,
and had no idea of Rumple's bravery.
Then Billykins promptly stopped howling to explain, which he did in
jerks, being rather breathless from his vocal efforts.
"Rumple saw her fall, and rushed in to save her. It was just splendid
heroism--the sort that gets the Victoria Cross; but so dreadful hopeless
you see, because she was so big, and she came down flop on the top of
him, and he was just--just extinguished, you know, like the candle flame
when we used to put the tin extinguishers on them when we lived at
Beechleigh."
"I'll be all right in a minute, only my wind is gone," gasped Rumple,
who looked rather flattened, and was not at all pleased to find himself
momentarily famous.
The old lady's daughter, a thin, angular person with a long nose, rushed
up at this juncture, and, seizing upon Rumple, hugged and kissed him in
the presence of everyone, declaring that she would always love him for
having saved her dear mother's life in such a noble fashion.
"I am wet through, Nealie; help me to get into dry clothes," panted
Rumple, struggling to escape from this unexpected and wholly unwelcome
embrace.
Nealie rose to the occasion, and swept him off to their own quarters,
where Rupert met them and undertook the task of getting him rubbed down
and into dry clothes as quickly as possible, while Nealie went back to
the deck for news of the old lady.
Everyone was full of praises of Rumple's action in breaking the old
lady's fall; but Nealie was secretly uneasy as to whether he had
received more damage from the impact than had at first appeared. So,
when she had been assured that Mrs. Barrow, who apparently weighed about
fourteen stone, was only shaken, and not otherwise hurt, she hurried
back again to satisfy herself that Rumple was sound in wind and limb.
She found Rupert hanging the wet garments up to drain, and was talking
to him about Rumple, when the door of the boys' cabin was pushed open
and they heard Rumple calling to them in a tone of such dismay that a
sudden cold shiver went all over Nealie, making her turn white to the
lips.
"Something is wrong; come along, Nealie," said Rupert curtly, and he
turned to limp toward the door of the cabin, which stood ajar.
But Nealie passed him with a fleet tread, and, pushing open the door,
stood on the threshold transfixed with surprise. It was not clear to her
what she expected to see, her one thought being that Rumple must
certainly have been much more hurt than they had imagined.
What she did see was Rumple sitting on the lower berth partly dressed,
and holding a letter in his hand, a letter which had a stamp upon it
which had not been through a post office, but that even at the first
glance struck her as having a familiar look, a something she had seen
before.
"Rumple, what is it? What is the matter, laddie?" she asked in the very
tenderest tone of which she was capable; for there was that in his face
which warned her the trouble was one of magnitude.
"I don't expect that you will any of you ever be able to forgive me, and
I haven't a word to say in excuse, and however I came to be such a goat
I can't think," he replied in a shaken tone as he held the envelope out
for her to take.
But even now she did not understand, and only stared at it in a stupid
fashion, then read the address aloud in a bewildered tone:
"Dr. Plumstead,
"Hammerville,
"Clayton,
"New South Wales,
"Australia."
"What letter is it?" asked Rupert in a shocked voice. He was standing
close to Nealie now, and looking to the full as amazed as she did
herself.
"It is the letter that Mr. Runciman wrote to tell Father that we were to
be sent out to him," replied Rumple in a hollow tone. "Don't you
remember that we asked to be allowed to post it ourselves, just because
we were so afraid that he would forget to write it unless we waited
until it was done? And now it is just the same as if it had never been
written at all."
Twice, three times, Nealie tried to speak, but no sound came, and she
plumped down upon the berth beside Rumple with a shocked bewilderment
upon her face which was dreadful to see.
"Don't look like that, Nealie; buck up, old lady, we'll find a way out
of the muddle somehow," said Rupert, slapping her on the back, with a
harsh laugh that had a weird sound; it was so far removed from
merriment.
But Nealie only shook her head, as much as to say that it was quite
beyond her power to do anything in the way of bucking up just then, and
they were all three staring at each other in dismayed silence, when
there came a rush of feet outside, and the door was flung open by Don,
who was followed by Sylvia and Ducky, while Billykins, still snorting
heavily, brought up the rear.
"Billykins told us how brave Rumple had been in saving the life of that
fat old woman----" began Sylvia, then stopped suddenly, scared by the
look on the faces of the three; then she asked in a hushed tone: "Oh,
whatever can be the matter! Is Rumple very badly hurt?"
"I am not hurt at all, except in my feelings," replied Rumple, who was
nursing his old jacket, as if it were a troublesome infant which he had
to put to sleep.
"Was she horrid to you? And after you had saved her life, fourteen stone
of it?" demanded Sylvia, with a stormy note in her tone.
"It is not the woman at all," here Rumple waved the old jacket with a
tragic air. "The fault lies with me, and you had all better know about
it at once, and if you decide to disown me for the future, I can't
complain, for I deserve to be sent to Coventry for evermore."
"Oh, drop your figures of speech, and tell us in plain English what the
trouble is all about!" exclaimed Sylvia impatiently. "Nealie looks as
if she had seen a ghost, and Rupert is glum, so out with it, Rumple, old
boy, and own up like a man."
"I have owned up," he answered gloomily, and again he waved the old
jacket to and fro, then hugged it closely in his arms again. "When I
changed my clothes I thought that I would put this jacket on, though it
is rather tight across the back, and I always hate wearing it for that
reason. I have not put it on since the day we all went down to the
Paddock to ask Mr. Runciman to send us to Australia. We stopped eating
cakes in the housekeeper's room, you remember, and then when he had
written the letter he sent it to us to put in the post as we came home.
It was given to me. I put it in my pocket, and here it is!"
Sylvia gasped as if a whole bucket of water had suddenly been shot over
her from some unexpected quarter, and then she burst into a ringing
laugh, and clapped her hands. "Oh, what a joke! Then I suppose that
Father has not a notion that his family are on the way to make him
happy?"
"That is about it, and whatever we can do to get out of the muddle is
more than I can imagine," said Rupert in a strained tone, while his face
looked pinched and worn from the burden of worry that had suddenly
descended upon him.
"Do?" cried Sylvia. "Why, of course we shall just do as we are doing,
and go straight forward, until we reach Hammerville, when we will walk
in upon dear Father some fine evening, and announce our own arrival.
Nothing could be simpler, and we shall give him the surprise of his
life, bless his heart! There is no need to look so tragic that I can
see."
"But we must tell the captain, and there will be a great fuss. He will
very likely keep us on board ship until Father can reach Sydney to claim
us," said Nealie in a voice of distress.
"We won't tell the captain; he is as meddlesome as an old woman!" cried
Sylvia, who very much resented the commander's kindly meant endeavours
to take care of them.
"He would not let us go ashore at Cape Town, and I did so want to go to
the top of Table Mountain, and see for myself what the tablecloth was
made of," said Don in an aggrieved tone. His ideas of distance were
rather vague, and he had an impression that half an hour's brisk walking
from the docks at Cape Town would have landed him on the top of the
mountain.
"No, we won't tell the captain, we certainly won't," put in Billykins,
with a mutinous look on his chubby face. He had had his own views on the
way in which he had meant to spend the time ashore, and having one
shilling and threepence in his pocket, to spend as he chose, had laid
out a pretty full programme for the occasion.
"We won't tell the captain; I don't like him, because he calls me Goosey
instead of Ducky," pouted the youngest of the family, who had had her
feelings very much hurt on more than one occasion, and was simply
thirsting for revenge upon the disturber of her peace.
"Do you hear? The majority have decided on silence," said Sylvia
triumphantly, as she sat down by the side of Nealie, and slipped her arm
round her sister's waist.
"Oh, I don't know what to do, and it was dreadful of Rumple to forget!"
cried Nealie, and at the reproach in her words Rumple fairly doubled up,
muttering, in a resigned fashion:
"Lay it on, and spare not. There is one comfort about the beastly
business, you cannot blame me more than I blame myself."
"It might have been worse," said Sylvia, who always championed Rumple
through thick and thin. "And of course no one expects quite so much from
a poet as from a more ordinary person. People with teeming ideas are
always rather absent-minded I find; it is one of the penalties of the
artistic temperament. I suffer from it myself, and Rumple is far
cleverer than I am."
"I don't know about that; you have got the colour sense, even though
you don't seem to get the hang of perspective," said Rumple, looking
visibly cheered. "When I begin to sell my poems you shall have the money
to have lessons in art, old girl, for I fancy you are worth developing."
"I hope I am," rejoined Sylvia, tossing her head with a saucy air. "But
I am afraid that the process will be rather delayed if it has to wait
until your poetry brings the money for doing it, for everyone says that
there is no money in poetry. Now, Nealie, darling, do cheer up and be
happy; poor Rumple will have no peace at all while you look like that."
"I will try; but you must give me time. But I am so disappointed, for I
had hoped that Father would be at Sydney to meet us," answered Nealie,
with a sigh.