FACES IN WATER.
"Eh? Wants to get up, does he?"
Dr. Hansombody during the last year or two had gradually withdrawn
himself from professional cares, relinquishing them to his young and
energetic assistant, Mr. Olver. Magisterial and other public
business claimed more and more of the time he more and more
grudgingly spared from domestic felicity and the business of
rearranging his entomological cabinet. He had found himself, early
in his third term of mayoral office, the father of a bouncing boy.
A silver cradle, the gift of the borough, decorated his sideboard.
As for the moths and butterflies, he designed to bequeath them, under
the title of "The Hansombody Collection," to the town. They would
find a last resting-place in the Hymen Museum, and so his name would
go down to posterity linked with that of his distinguished friend.
This was the first visit he had paid to the stranger's bedside; and
even now he had only stepped in, at his assistant's request, from the
next room, where for half an hour he had been engaged with Cai
Tamblyn in choosing a position for the first case of butterflies.
"Wants to get up, does he?" asked the Doctor absently, after a
perfunctory look at the patient. "Restless, eh?" He still carried in
his hand the two-foot rule with which he had been taking
measurements. "You've tried a change of diet?"
"I fancy," Mr. Olver suggested, "he is worried by the number of
visitors--ladies especially."
"Georgiana Pescod has been worrying?"
The patient lifted his right hand from the bed and spread out all its
fingers; lifted his left, and spread out three more.
"What? Eight visits?"
"And that's not the worst of it," put in the Nurse, Mrs. Snell,
sympathetically, smoothing the coverlet. "First and last there's
been forty-two in these six days. It can't be for his looks, as I
tell en; and his name bein' Solomon won't account for the whole of
it."
"I sometimes think," said the Doctor pensively and with entire
gravity, turning to his assistant, "we shall have to diminish the
numbers of the Visiting Committee. My dear friend Hymen planned it,
in years gone by, on a war footing; and even so I remember suggesting
to him at the time that the scale was somewhat--er--grandiose.
But it was characteristic of him, and we have clung to it for that
reason, in a spirit perhaps _too_ piously conservative. Forty-two
ladies! My good fellow"--he turned to the patient--"I really think--
if your leg is equal to it--a short stroll in the fresh air may be
permitted. Pray do not think we desire to hurry your cure.
Even setting aside the dictates of charity, and our natural
tenderness towards one who, as I understand, has bled for our common
country, we owe you something"--the Major's fingers plucked nervously
at the bed-clothes--"some reparation," the Doctor went on, "for
the--er--character of your reception. In short, I hope, on your
complete recovery, to find you some steady employment, such as too
many of our returning heroes are at this moment seeking in vain.
In the meanwhile our town has some lions which may amuse your
convalescence--a figurative term, meaning objects of interest."
Once or twice, in the course of his first stroll, the Major's eyes
came near to brimming with tears. The town itself had suffered
surprisingly little change. The Collector--he seemed scarcely a day
older--stood as of old at the head of the Custom House stairs, and
surveyed the world benignly with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his
waistcoat. Before the Major's own doorway the myrtles were in bloom,
and a few China roses on the well-trimmed standards. By the Broad
Ship as of old his nostrils caught the odours of tar and hemp with a
whiff of smoke from a schooner's galley (the _Ranting Blade_, with
her figure-head repainted, but otherwise much the same as ever).
Miss Jex, the postmistress, still peered over her blind. She studied
the Major's wooden leg with interest. He, on his part, seemed to
detect that the down on her upper lip had sensibly lightened in
colour. _En revanche_, from the corner of his eye, as he passed the
open door, he saw that the portrait over the counter (supposed of
yore to represent the Prince Regent) wore a frame of black ribbon.
The black, alas! was rusty.
The manners of the children had not improved. Half a dozen urchins,
running into him here by the corner of the post-office on their way
from school, fell back in a ring and began to call "Boney!"
derisively. He escaped from them into the churchyard, and passing up
between the graves, rested for a while, panting in the cool of the
porch.
The door stood ajar. Pushing it open, he stepped within and paused
again, half terrified by the unfamiliar _tap-tap_ of his wooden leg
on the pavement. The sunshine lay in soft panels of light across the
floor, and ran in sharper lines along the tops of the pews, worn to a
polish by generations of hands that had opened and shut their doors.
Aloft, where the rays filtered through the clerestory windows, their
innumerable motes swam like gold-dust held in solution.
The Major found his own pew, dropped into the familiar seat, and
strove to collect his thoughts. A week ago, on his way from
Plymouth, it had seemed the easiest thing in the world to reveal
himself and step back into his own. The only question had been how
to select the most impressive moment.
His eyes, travelling along the wall on his right, encountered an
unfamiliar monument among the many familiar ones; an oval slab of
black marble enclosed in a gilt wreath and inscribed with gilt
lettering. He leaned forward, peering closer, blinking against the
sunlight that poured through the window.
SACRED
TO THE MEMORY OF
SOLOMON HYMEN, ESQUIRE
SEVEN TIMES MAYOR OF THIS BOROUGH
AND
MAJOR COMMANDING THE TROY VOLUNTEER ARTILLERY
UNFORTUNATELY AND UNTIMELY
SLAIN IN ACTION
OFF THE COAST OF FRANCE NEAR BOULOGNE
ON MAY 15TH, MDCCIV.
THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY SUBSCRIPTION
AMONG HIS SORROWING FRIENDS AND FELLOW CITIZENS
OF THE BOROUGH HE, LIVING, ADORNED WITH HIS WISDOM
AND DYING, ENDOWED WITH HIS WEALTH
AS WITH HIS EXAMPLE.
FORTIBUS ET COELUM PATRIA
He spelled out the inscription slowly, and, turning at the sound of a
footstep in the porch, was aware of a tall figure in the doorway--his
own faithful Scipio.
Least of all was Scipio changed. Ten years apparently had not even
tarnished his livery. It shone in its accustomed scarlet and green
and gold in the rays which, falling through the windows of the south
aisle, lit up his white teeth and his habitual gentle grin.
"Mistah will be studyin' de board--berry fine board. Not so fine
board in Cornwall, dey tell me."
The Major turned his face, avoiding recognition.
"No, not dat; dat's modern trash," went on Scipio, affably, following
his gaze. "Good man, all same, Massa Hymen; lef plenty money.
One hundred fifty pound. Lef Cai Tamblyn fifty. Every person say
remarkable difference. But doan' you look at _him_; he's modern
trash. Massa Hymen lef' me _one_ hundred fifty pound. Dat all go to
board up yonder, you see; 'Scipio Johnson, Esquire, of this Parish'
in red letters an' gilt twirls. I doan' mind tellin' you. De hull
parish an' Lawyer Chinn has it drafted--Vicar he promises me it shall
go in--'Scipio Johnson, Esquire, _of_ this Parish,' an' twiddles
round de capital letters. Man, I served Mas' Hymen han' an' foot,
wet an' dry, an' look like he las' anudder twenty year."
"You mean to say that I--that you, I mean--"
"Dat's so," put in Scipio, nodding cheerfully, while the
stained-glass windows flung flecks of red and blue on his honest
ebony features. "An' Cai Tamblyn all de while no better'n a fool.
'_Him_,' he'd sneer, not playin' up, but pullin' his cross face.
Dat's a lesson if ebber dere was one. Cai Tamblyn left with fifty,
an' me with three time fifty. 'To my faithful servant, Scipio
Johnson. . . .' And so Miss Marty, when it came to choose, took me
on--Scipio Johnson, Esquire, of this Parish--and Cai Tamblyn no more
than 'Mister,' nor ebber a hope of it."
The Major found himself in the churchyard, staring at a headstone.
He did not remember the stone, yet it seemed by no means a new one.
Weather-stains ran down the lettering and lichen spotted it.
He read the name. It was the name of a man whom he had left hale and
young--a promising corporal.
He made his way back slowly to the hospital, leaning heavily on his
stick. Strange shrill noises brought him to a halt on the threshold.
They came from the back of the house.
At the sound of his wooden leg in the brick passage, Cai Tamblyn
thrust his head out from the kitchen doorway.
"You come in," said he. "Please the Lord, the worst is over; but I
had to tell her."
"Her?" echoed the Major in bewilderment. "Who?"
"Why, you see, fixed up as we were here--the woman with six empty
beds to nurse, and me on 'tother side with a roomful o' momentoes,
an' no end to it but the grave--there seemed no way out but
matterimony. What with my fifty an' her little savin's we might ha'
managed it, too, comfertable enough. But when along comes you an'
upsets the apple-cart, w'y, in justice, the woman had to be told.
Which it took her like a slap in the wind, an' I'm surprised the way
she'd set her heart on it. But never you mind; she's sensible enough
when she comes round."
"Cai," said the Major, solemnly, "I thought we had agreed that no one
was to be told?"
"So we did, sir," answered Mr. Tamblyn, setting his jaw. "But, come
to think it over, 'twasn't fair to the woman. Not bein' a married
man yourself, sir, or as good as such--"
"Excuse me," said the Major, lifting a hand. "I quite well
understand. But suppose that I have not come back after all!"