THE DESERT ISLAND
The night before the departure of the Baxters for Brighton the
spectacle of a huge pile of packed boxes and the report that the
family were fleeing from the doomed mansion, never to return, had
caused a fresh outbreak of hysterical panic among the remaining
servants. And scarcely was the car out of sight bearing the Baxter
party to the station when a deputation from the servants' hall,
hatted, coated and handbagged and headed by Parker, waited on Mrs.
Merle, as the senior representative of the family, and told her that
they were very sorry, but nothing would induce them to spend another
hour in the house. Only out of consideration for poor Mrs. Baxter
had they remained until her departure.
For the first time in her life Harriet, confronted by an emergency,
totally lost the power of speech. When at length she recovered her
breath and words were ready to flow, she found herself alone; the
deputation had left the room, closing the door quietly behind itself.
Half an hour later the station-master at Ippingford telephoned to say
that two servants who had arrived on the early train from London, on
learning, at the station, the cause of the vacancy they were required
to fill, had taken the first train back to town.
As Harriet put up the receiver, she heard the diminishing hish of
wheels on the damp gravel outside. The sound died away and a sudden
quiet came upon Ipping House, a stillness that smote Harriet's nerves
like the stillness that awakens the passengers on an ocean liner when
the engines stop working in the night. To tell the truth, the
situation was much the same, for with the exception of Anton, the
chauffeur, Hester, the new sewing girl, and Mrs. Pottle at the lodge,
there was not a single servant left at Ipping House.
"What will Horatio say?" thought Harriet.
To Harriet's utter amazement, Horatio, when told what had happened,
remained perfectly calm; he even smiled. She stared at him
open-mouthed.
"Horatio! Have you heard a single word I've been telling you?"
"Yes, my dear."
"Is that all you have to say?" She spoke sharply.
Horatio was removing his galoshes, muddy from a long walk. This
operation had to be performed standing, as the only two chairs in the
room were occupied, one by the agitated Harriet, the other by the
slumbering Martin Luther.
As the curate looked up, clasping one foot in his two hands and
hopping absurdly on the other to keep his balance, he resembled some
fantastic bird of the crane family. At any other time Harriet might
have smiled; now she was too angry. Her white pompadour bristled and
her eyes blinked rapidly as if making ready to leap at him.
"It is incomprehensible," he said at length, after depositing the
galoshes neatly beneath Martin Luther's chair. "It is
incomprehensible, my dear, in this age of aeroplanes and
cinematographs and popular education, that anyone should still
believe in supernatural phenomena."
Only by shutting her lips tightly and gripping the arms of her chair
did Harriet restrain herself from violent interruption. When she
spoke it was an explosion.
"Horatio! are you crazy? Don't you understand? There isn't a
servant in this house. There's no one to cook our luncheon, and, if
there were, there is no one to serve it, no one to do anything, and
you stand there and talk about aeroplanes!"
There was a quiet about Horatio that, exasperating as it was, somehow
disconcerted Harriet. She watched him silently, resentfully, as he
picked up the cushion on which Martin Luther was reposing and
deposited it carefully on the floor without waking the cat. Sleepily
conscious of the proximity of a sympathetic hand, Martin Luther
stretched his paws and extended his neck to be scratched, then curled
up to sleep again without having once opened his eyes.
Seating himself in the cushionless chair, Horatio leaned his head
against its tall straight back. "No one to serve, no one to do
anything." He was echoing Harriet's words; his eyes were resting on
hers, yet his thoughts were far away, fixed on something invisible to
Harriet, a faded picture in a tarnished gilt frame.
A dim, arched room, a group of uncouth, dark-haired men seated
sideways about a long table on which were strangely fashioned
tankards and curious goblets. At the feet of one of these men was
One who kneeled upon the stone floor. His eyes were sorrowful, His
smooth hair fell heavily about his bent shoulders and, above His
bowed head, there wavered a thin pale circle of blue-white light.
And this One who kneeled upon the stone floor was washing the feet of
that other who was seated at the table.
There was a look in her husband's face that carried Harriet's
thoughts far away from the present, back to the first time she had
seen that look and believed that Horatio was different from any other
man, believed that, with her at his side, he was destined to do great
things and to help make the world a wonderful place. And what had he
done? What had she done? Who was to blame for the failure, for the
poverty, for the pitiful dependence? She wondered what was to become
of them. How could they stay on here after the way Cousin Hiram had
talked? To be sure, Cousin Eleanor had been kindness itself. She
had kissed her quite tearfully that morning and hoped she and Horatio
would stay with them as long as they kept the house open. She had
even hinted at their visiting them in New York.
The sound of a motor below coming round the drive brought Harriet to
her feet. She ran to the window.
"It's Cousin Robert and Kate Clendennin," she exclaimed. "They ought
to have been back hours ago. Robert will make everything all right.
I will speak to him at once about getting servants."
She moved quickly and was already half out of the room when the sound
of Horatio's voice halted her like an electric shock.
"Harriet!"
There was a tone in Horatio's voice that drew Harriet back into the
room as if by physical force.
"What is it, Horatio? You frightened me." She pressed the palm of
her hand against her side.
He was standing before her; and the pinkness had gone out of his
face. He took her hand and led her gently back to the chair.
"Sit down, Harriet." He seated himself in the other chair. "I'm
sorry I frightened you, love, but you must not speak to Robert Baxter
about the servants."
"Why not, Horatio?"
"Because--because----" He looked at her dumbly, his underlip shook
and tears came into his eyes. Harriet began to be really frightened.
What had happened? Why didn't he speak?
"Harriet," he went on at last, "I implore you not to speak to Mr.
Baxter. I beseech you to do nothing in this matter."
"But Horatio!"
"I mean it, Harriet. What has happened in this house to-day is an
answer to my prayer."
"You're going mad, Horatio!" She tried to rise, but he drew her
gently back.
"If you do anything, Harriet, if you do not leave things as they are
now in this house, it will be as if Christ came to the door and you
slammed the door in His face."
He was terribly in earnest, his voice was steady and his blue eyes
met hers calmly; in them shone a light she had loved him for in the
long gone days--a light that rarely visited them now.
"Do you mean," she asked at length, "that you want us to do without
any servants?"
He put his answer in the form of a question.
"Harriet, do you remember the happiest year of our life, when we had
no servant at all except the charwoman who came once a week, when you
made the beds and the bread and washed the dishes and I dried them,
when you were the cook and four housemaids in one and I was the
butler and the footman and the man of all work? I opened the bottle
of wine when we had one; I made the fires, except when the coal bill
was overdue and there weren't any fires to make; I was the boots,
too, and I cleaned the knives and polished our two or three bits of
silver. And, when I'd nothing else to do, I wrote my sermons."
The color came into Harriet's face and her eyes shone at the
recollection.
"You generally composed your sermon on the way to church. How you
used to frighten me, Horatio! I thought every service would be your
last! Do you remember the first time I locked you up on a Saturday
morning to write your sermon?" she added, smiling.
"You can laugh about it now, but it was no laughing matter at the
time," said Horatio. "I made up my mind I would open the Bible at
random and take the first text my eye fell upon--and what a text it
was! 'Can'st thou draw out leviathan with an hook?' Do you
remember?"
"It was the best sermon you ever wrote," said Harriet, warming to the
remembrance, "though perhaps, dear, it was a mistake to dwell on the
impossibility of a whale's swallowing anything larger than a sardine."
"Well, it is true, isn't it?" argued Horatio.
"That's what you told the vicar when he took you to task for it after
the service," laughed Harriet, "and what was it he said?"
Horatio puckered his face into a frown. "He informed me, Harriet,
that it was the business of a curate to preach the Gospel and not to
lecture on natural history."
The curate rose and held out his hand. "Come on, Harriet." He drew
her to him and put his arm round her affectionately. "Let's play
we're back in the old stone cottage at Chale, and you go down into
the larder and see if there's anything for lunch and I'll go into the
dining-room and lay the cloth."
For answer Harriet, conscious of the moisture in her eyes, gave
Horatio a swift sidelong peck which was to a kiss what the shorthand
symbol is to a written word, and, together, they descended the
echoing stairs of the deserted house.
In the meantime Robert Baxter and Kate Clendennin, returning from the
railway station by what the Reverend Horatio Merle might have called
a short cut of about twenty miles, took no account of the flight of
time. Now they raced madly down a narrow lane whose hawthorn hedges
interlaced thickly overhead. Now, as the road passed between
thrush-haunted woods, they went very slowly, sometimes standing still
for minutes at a time to listen to the notes of the wood birds. Once
when a spotted fawn trotted out of the thicket and ambled in front of
the motor, they went at half speed for nearly a mile before the
frightened creature decided to take to the woods again.
In the last four or five days Kate had seen a good deal of Bob, since
her confession to Lionel on the Millbrook links, and she had not
over-estimated her powers. Each day he sought her company more
eagerly, and while at first she had, without appearing to do so,
given him opportunities, now, as far as could be, with a young man
who had to give a part of his time to business in London, his
movements had come to be coincidental with her own.
But Kate knew that the time had come when she must, to put it baldly,
either take him or leave him. She had told Lionel that she was going
to marry Robert Baxter. That, however, was several days ago. Then
her decision was not irrevocable. Now, as she sat beside Robert
Baxter in the motor, Kate realized that any day, any hour, any moment
it might become irrevocable.
She spoke suddenly. "We'd better be hurrying," she said. "It's
getting late. I'm getting hungry, aren't you?"
On the way home Kate kept him busy with the high speed lever,
declaring that if they weren't back inside of half an hour she would
certainly starve to death. In less than ten minutes Bob had passed
the golf links, and in three minutes more they were whizzing through
the lodge gates.
Kate felt it the moment they entered the house.
"What is it?" she asked, looking round curiously.
"What's what?" said Bob, as he followed her into the hall.
"It's so beastly quiet--there's something wrong. I wonder where
Lionel is," she said.
They passed into the library. Kate pulled a bell, once, twice, and
once again. No one answered.
"Perhaps it didn't ring," suggested Bob.
They tried one in the conservatory, and getting no response, they
descended to the regions of the kitchen to see what was the matter.
With the exception of Martin Luther, fast asleep on a seat by the
range, there was not a living soul to be found anywhere.
Bob took out his cigarette case, and Kate seated herself on the
dresser, with her feet on a chair.
"We're marooned!" she said; the words came out of a violet
smoke-cloud.
"Looks like it," said Bob as he lighted his cigarette from hers.
"I say, can you cook?" asked the voice from the cloud.
"I can make a Welsh rarebit."
"Well, I'll thank you not to." Kate volplaned from her perch on the
dresser. "Let's see what there is. There's sure to be something
cold, and, if there are eggs enough, I'll make an omelette a mile
wide."
There were cold meats of various kinds, also cold boiled potatoes.
These Kate cut up and placed in a frying pan, while Bob made a fire
in the range, and, under Kate's direction, put the plates and dishes
for the omelette and the potatoes in the oven to warm.
When everything was ready, Kate sent Bob upstairs to set the table
and ring the gong for luncheon. As he hurried through the servants'
corridor he met Mrs. Merle.
"Oh, Mr. Baxter!" she cried. "Did you ever see anything like it! I
am just going down to see if I can find anything for lunch."
Bob smiled sweetly as he held the door open and ushered Mrs. Merle
into the kitchen.
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Harriet when she had recovered from the
first shock of surprise at seeing Kate. "If I'd known sooner I might
have been some help. My husband is laying the cloth."
"Splendid!" answered Kate, as if it were the most natural thing in
the world. "Now, Bob, you can help us with the trays."
Bob led the way with a large tray on which were a cold ham and a
platter of sliced cold chicken. Kate carried the omelette and a
"sweet" she had made at the last minute of fried bread and strawberry
jam. Mrs. Merle brought up the rear with the dish of fried potatoes
and a jar of potted shrimps.
Horatio had just finished setting the table when the procession of
three entered the dining room. His back was turned. He was making a
last round, massaging with gentle finger tips the few remaining
wrinkles in the white cloth.
In an instantaneous conspiracy of silence they watched him as he
slowly circumnavigated the snow and crystal continent. Arrived at
the antipodes, Horatio looked up quietly and met the eyes in the
doorway. As they looked at him a change came over his face. He
stood very straight, looking almost tall. It was happening, the
miracle he had prayed for!
"For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to
you."
Perhaps they didn't know it. Perhaps they thought it was all a joke.
But he knew better. It was part of the Great Design, just as the
departure of the frightened servants were part of the same Design.
Here they came, laughing, joking, but all lending a hand, all
serving. Some one was crying: "Hooray for the new butler! Speech!
Speech!" It was Lionel Fitz-Brown. Returning from a ramble on the
moor at the last minute, he had seen what was up, and, not wishing to
be out of it, had dashed into the kitchen garden and returned, the
flushed and joyous bearer of an egregious lettuce on a lordly dish.
All tongues were loosed now as they followed each other into the
dining room and deposited their viands on the table.
There was a sudden hush. All were seated but Harriet and Horatio.
Harriet went quickly to her accustomed place and sat down. Only the
Reverend Horatio Merle remained standing. The curate had always said
grace at Ipping House, sounding forth the stereotyped words with a
certain glib solemnity as if he was repeating a worn out social
formula. Now on his lowered face there was a deep reverence, and his
clasped hands were joined in real supplication.
"For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly
thankful." There was a tremor in his voice, but it held out to the
end.
With still lowered head Horatio moved to the head of the table, and,
standing by the side of Mr. Robert Baxter, lifted the cover from Kate
Clendennin's omelette and placed it on the sideboard.