OF AN INTERMITTENT CURRENT AT THE PIER-END, AND OF DOLLY'S FORTITUDE.
HOW FENWICK PUT HIS HEAD IN THE JAWS OF THE FUTURE UNAWARES, AND PROSY
DIDN'T COME. HOW SALLY AND HER STEP SAW PUNCH, AND OF A THIN END OF A
FATAL WEDGE. BUT ROSALIND SAW NO COMING CLOUD
An iron pier, with a sense of lattice structure about it, is not to
our old-fashioned minds nearly so fascinating as the wooden fabric of
our early memories at more than one seaside resort of our boyhood. St.
Sennan was of another school, or had become a convert or pervert, if
a Saint may be judged by his pier. For this was iron or steel all
through, barring the timber flooring whose planks were a quarter of an
inch apart, so that you could kneel down to see the water through if
you were too short to see over the advertisements a sordid spirit of
commercialism had blocked the side-railings with. And if you were
three or four, and there was nobody to hold you up (because they were
carrying baby), you did so kneel, and as like as not got tar on your
knees, and it wouldn't come off. Anyhow, Miss Gwendolen Arkwright did,
on her way to the appointment, and was reproved therefore. On which
she also reproved dolly in identical terms, dolly having had a look
through as well, though, indeed, she can hardly be said to have knelt.
But to console us for the loss of the solid groins and bolted timbers
of our youth, and to make it palatable to us that the great seas
should follow each other for ever almost unopposed--instead of being
broken into floods of drenching foam visitors get wet-through in--this
unsubstantial-looking piece of cage-work expanded as soon as it was
well out in the open channel, and almost provided John Bull with
another "other island." And whereon the pier-company's sordid
commercialism had suggested the construction of a Chinese joss-house,
or Indian bungalow--our description is a random one--that lent itself,
or was lent by the company, at really an almost nominal figure, for
entertainments in the afternoon all through the season. And round this
structure were things desirable by all mankind, and supposed to be
desired by possessors of one penny willing to part with it. For a
penny-in-the-slot you could learn your fate from a Sibyl, and repent
of having spent your penny on it. For another you could scent your
pocket-handkerchief, and be sorry you hadn't kept your penny for
chocolate. For another you could have the chocolate, and wish you
had waited and taken a cigarette. And for another you could take the
cigarette, and realise how ill-assorted are the flavours of chocolate
and the best Virginian tobacco.
But the pennyworth that seemed the worthiest of its penny was, no
doubt, the old-fashioned galvanic battery, which shocked you for
a sixth part of the smallest sum required by literature on first
publication. It had brass handles you took hold of, and brass basins
with unholy water in them that made you curl up, and anybody else
would do so too. And there was a bunch of wires to push in, and
agonize the victim who, from motives not easily understood, laid
himself open to torture. And it certainly said "whizzy-wizzy-wizz."
But Gwenny's description had been wrong in one point. For it was
yourself, the investigator, not the machine, that said "e-e-e-e!"
Now this machine was in charge of a young woman, who was also the
custodian of an invisible lady, who was to be seen for a penny each
person, children half-price. This appeared to be a contradiction in
terms, but public apathy accepted it without cavil. The taking of
this phenomenon's gate-money seemed to be almost a sinecure. Not so
the galvanic battery, which never disappointed any one. It might
disgust, or repel, those who had had no occasion to study this
branch of science, but it always acted up to its professions. Those
investigators who declined to have any more never could go away and
complain that they had not had enough. And no one had ever been
discontented with its baneful results when all the bundle of wires
was put in; indeed, the young person in charge said she had never
known any one to drain this cup of scientific experience to the dregs.
"Halfway in's enough for most," was her report of human endurance.
It was a spirited little machine, though old-fashioned.
Miss Arkwright and her dolly, accompanied, as we have hinted, by
her Nurse Jane and baby, whose violent temper had condemned his
perambulator, and compelled his attendant to carry him--so she
said--were beforehand at the place and hour named. For security
against possible disappointment a fiction was resorted to that dolly
wouldn't cry if her mamma talked seriously to her, and it was pointed
out that Mr. Fenwick was coming, and Mrs. Fenwick was coming, and Miss
Nightingale was coming, and Dr. Vereker was coming--advantage being
taken of an infant's love of vain repetitions. But all these four
events turned on dolly being good and not crying, and the reflex
action of this stipulation produced goodness in dolly's mamma, with
the effect that she didn't roar, as, it seemed, she might otherwise
have done.
Miss Gwendolen was, however, _that_ impatient that no dramatic
subterfuge, however skilfully engineered, could be relied upon to
last. Fortunately, a young lady she recognised, and a gentleman
whom she did not personally know, but had seen on the beach, became
interested in baby, who took no notice of them, and hiccupped. But,
then, his eyes were too beady to have any human expression; perhaps
it was more this than a contempt for vapid compliment that made him
seem unsympathetic. The young lady, however, congratulated him on his
_personnel_ and on the variety of his attainments; and this interested
Miss Gwendolen, who continued not to roar, and presently volunteered
a statement on her own account.
"My mummar zis a-comin', and Miss Ninedale zis a-comin', and Miss
Ninedale's mummar zis a-comin', and...." But Nurse Jane interposed,
on the ground that the lady knew already who was coming. She had no
reason for supposing this; but a general atmosphere of omniscience
among grown-up classes is morally desirable. It was, however, limited
to Clause 1. Miss Gwenny went on to the consideration of Clause 2
without taking a division.
"To see dolly danvalised for a penny. My mummar says--see--sall--div
me a penny...."
"To galvanise dolly? How nice that will be!--Isn't she a dear little
thing, Paggy?--And we're just in time to see it. Now, that _is_ nice!"
Observe Lætitia's family name for her husband, born of Cattley's.
"Isn't that them coming, Tish?" Yes, it is. They are conscientiously
negotiating the turnstile at the pier-entrance, where one gets a
ticket that lets you on all day, and you lose it. Conscientiously,
because the pier-company often left its side-gate open, and relied
on public spirit to acquiesce in its turnstile without dispute.
But Bradshaw has the misfortune to fall in Nurse's good opinion. For
he asks who the important-looking party is, and is called to order.
"Sh-sh-iii-sh, love! Do take care! Gwenny's mamma--Mrs. Chesterfield
Arkwright. They've a house at Boxley Heath--friends of the Hugh
Jameses--those very high-flying people." This is not _à pleine voix_,
and a well-disciplined Nurse knows better than to hear it.
Miss Gwenny and dolly consent to accompany the lady and gentleman to
meet the party, the former undertaking to point out her mamma. "I sail
sow you wiss," she says; and then gives descriptive particulars of
the conduct of the galvanic battery, and forecasts its effect on dolly.
"There's that dear little pet," says Sally; and resumes the operation
of spoiling the little pet on the spot. She isn't sorry to tally the
pet (whose phonetics we employ) "dest wunced round the p on her
soulders, only zis wunced." She is a little silent, is Sally, and
preoccupied--perhaps won't object to a romp to divert her thoughts.
Because she is afraid poor Prosy is in the tentacles of the Octopus.
She evidently is not in love with him; if she were she would be
feeling piqued at his not being in time to the appointment, not
fidgeting about his losing the fun. She made some parade, at any rate,
of her misgivings that poor Dr. Conrad had got hooked by his Goody,
and would be late. If she _was_ piqued she concealed it. Whichever
it was, she found it congenial to "tally" Miss Arkwright on her
"soulders" twiced round the pier-end before the party arrived within
range of the battery. They meanwhile--that is to say, Rosalind and her
husband, Lætitia and hers, with Sally and Gwenny's mamma--lingered
slowly along the pier listening to the experiences of the latter, of
men, women, and things among the right sort of people.
"You really never know, and one cannot be too careful. So much turns
on the sort of people you let your daughter get mixed up with. I'm
sure Mrs. Fenwick will agree with me that Mrs. Hugh James was right.
You see, I've known her from a child, and a more unworldly creature
never breathed. But she asked me, and I could only say what I did:
'Take the child at once to Paris and Ems and Wiesbaden--anywhere for
a change. Even a tradesman is better than a professional man. In that
case there may be money. But nowadays none of the professions pay.
And their connexions are most undesirable.'"
"Now _I_ should call that a brig." Thus Bradshaw, pursuing the great
controversy. But Fenwick knows better, or thinks he does. She's a
brigantine, and there are sprits'ls on both masts, and only one square
sail on the foremast. He may be right, for anything we know. Anyhow,
her sheets are white in the sun, as she tacks down channel against the
west or south-west wind, which has freshened. And she is a glorious
sight as she comes in quite close to the pier-head, and goes into
stays--(is that right?)--and her great sails flap and swing, and a
person to whom caution is unknown, and who cares for nothing in heaven
or earth, sits unconcerned on a string underneath her bowsprit, and
gets wet through every time she plunges, doing something nautical in
connexion with her foresail overhead. And then she leans over in the
breeze, and the white sheets catch it full--so near you can hear the
boom click as it swings, and the rattle of the cordage as it runs
through the blocks--and then she gets her way on her, and shoots off
through a diamond-drench of broken seas, and we who can borrow the
coastguard's telescope can know that she is the Mary of Penzance, but
are none the wiser. And a man stripped to the waist, who is washing
radishes on the poop, continues washing radishes unmoved, and ignores
all things else.
"As far as the young man himself goes, I believe there is nothing to
be said. But the mother is quite unpresentable, perfectly impossible.
And the eldest sister is married to a Dissenting clergyman--a very
worthy man, no doubt, but not exactly. And the girls are loud, etc.,
etc., etc." Miss Arkwright's mamma ripples on, even as persons of
condition ripple; and Tishy, whose views in this direction have
undergone expansion, manages to forget how she has done the same
herself--not long ago, neither!--and decides that the woman is
detestable.
Not so her daughter, who, with Sally as guardian and dolly as ward,
is awaiting the arrival of the party at the galvanic battery. She is
yearning for the great event; not for a promised land of jerks and
spasms for herself, but for her putative offspring. She encourages
the latter, telling her not to be pitened and kye. Dolly doesn't seem
apprehensive--shows great self-command, in fact.
But this detestable mother of a lovable daughter and an untempting
granddaughter is destined to become still more detestable in the eyes
of the Julius Bradshaws before she exhausts her topic. For as the
party draws near to the scene of scientific recreation--and progress
is slow, as she is deliberate as well as detestable; and, of course,
is the pace-maker--she climbs up to a higher platform, as it were,
for the contemplation of a lower deep. She assumes, for purposes of
temporary handling of the subject, the air of one too far removed to
know more about its details than the seismograph at Greenwich knows
about the earthquake in the Andes. A dim contemplation of a thing
afar--to be forgotten on the spot, after record made.
"Luckily, it's not so bad in this case as--(Gwenny, you're tiring
Miss Nightingale. Come down!)--not so bad in this case as--(no, my
dear! you _must_ wait for dolly to be galvanised. Come down at once,
and don't make conditions.)"
"But I love having her dearly--do let me keep her!" from Sally.
And from the human creature on her shoulders, "Miss Ninedale says
'_No!_'"
"Not so bad, you were saying, as...?" Thus Rosalind, to divert the
conversation from the child.
"Oh dear! What _was_ I saying? That child! What plagues the little
things are!" The lady closes her eyes for two seconds behind a
horizontal gloved hand, a seclusion to recollect in; then continues:
"Oh yes, when it's a shopman. I dare say you've heard of that very
painful case--daughter of a well-known Greek Pr...."
But the speaker has tact enough to see her mistake from the
simultaneous loud speech it provokes. Every one seems to have
something vociferous to say, and all speak at once. Sally's
contribution is a suggestion that before dolly is put to the torture
we shall go into the downstairs place and see the gentleman who's
fishing catch a big grey mullet. It is adopted. Rosalind only remains
upstairs, and takes the opportunity to communicate the Julius Bradshaw
epic to Gwenny's mamma, who will now be more careful than ever about
the sort of people you pick up at the seaside and drop. She puts
these words by in her mind, for Gwenny's papa, later on.
The gentleman who is to be seen catching the big grey mullet hadn't
caught it, so far--not when the party arrived on the strange
middle-deck of the pier the water reaches at high tide, and persuades
occasional molluscs to grow on the floor of, with promises of a bath
next month. The green reflected light from the endless rise and fall
of the waves Gwenny could see (without getting down) through the
floor-gaps, seemed to be urging the fisher-gentleman to give it up,
and pointing out that the grey mullet was down here, and didn't mean
to be caught. But he paid no attention, and only went on doing all the
things that fishers do. He ascribed the fishes' reluctance to bite to
the sort of sky, and not to common-sense on their part. He tried the
other side instead. He lost his worm, and blamed him for going off the
hook--which he would have done himself, and he knew it! He believed,
honestly, that a fish of fabulous dimensions had thought seriously
of biting, and would have bitten, only you got in the light, or made
a noise.
But there was no noise to speak of, really, except the clunk-clunk of
one or two moored rowboats down below, and the sh-r-r-r-r-p (if that
spells it) of their corrugated plank-sides, as they dipped and dripped
alternately. They were close to the bottom flight of stairs, whose
lowest step was left forlorn in the air, and had to be jumped off when
a real spring-tide came that knew its business.
Gwenny's remark, "Ze man is fissin'," seemed to point to an incubation
of an idea, familiar to maturer life, that fishing is more truly a
state than an action. But the addendum--that he didn't cass any
fiss--betrayed her inexperience. Maturity does not call attention
to ill-success; or, if it does, it lays it at the door of the fish.
"What a jolly header one could have from here! No railings or
anything. No--ducky! I won't put you down to look over the edge.
That's not a thing for little girls to do."
"You'd never get up again, Sarah. You'd have to swim ashore."
"One could swim round the steps, Jeremiah--at least, according to
the tide. It's slack water now."
"I wish, Mr. Fenwick--(so does Julius)--that you would make that
girl reasonable. She'll drown herself before she's done."
"I know she will, Mrs. Paganini. Sure and certain! Nobody can stop
her. But Vereker's going to bring her to."
"Where _is_ the doctor, Tish? Didn't he say he was coming?" This was
Bradshaw. He usually says things to his wife, and leaves publication
to her.
"Of course he said he was coming. I wonder if anything's the matter?"
"Oh, no! It's his ma! The Goody's put an embargo on him, and kept him
at home. Poor Prosy!" Sally is vexed, too. But observe!--she knows
perfectly well that nothing but the Goody would have kept Prosy from
his appointment.
No one in particular, but every one more or less, supposes that now
we must go back for dolly to be galvanised, Tishy rather reluctantly,
for she does not share her husband's indifference about what the
detestable one above says on the subject of shopmen; Miss Arkwright
greedily, being reminded of a higher object in life than mere grey
mullet catching. She, however, ascribes her avidity to dolly, calling
on public credulity to believe that the latter has spoken to that
effect.
The arrangement of dolly in connexion with the two brass handles
offers difficulties, but a felicitous solution is discovered, for not
only will dolly remain in contact with both if her arms are thrust
inside them, but insomuch as her sleeves are stiff and expansive, and
require a perceptible pull to withdraw them, will remain suspended in
mid-air without further support, to enjoy the rapture or endure the
torture of the current, as may prove to be the case. From this
arises an advantage--namely, that her mamma will be able to give her
attention to the regulator, and shift the wire bundle in and out,
with a due regard to dolly's powers of endurance.
What little things the lives of the folk in this story have turned
on! Now, suppose Gwenny had never been allowed to take charge of that
regulator! However, this is anticipation.
When dolly had endured unmoved the worst that science could inflict,
nothing would satisfy Miss Gwenny but that every one else should take
hold in a circle, as on a previous occasion, and that she should
retain control of the regulator. The experiment was tried as proposed,
all present joining in it except Mrs. Arkwright, who excused herself
owing to the trouble of taking her gloves off. Including nurse, there
were six persons. However, as nurse couldn't abide it, almost before
it had begun to say whizzy-wizzy-wizz, this number was reduced to
five.
"Keep your eye on the kid, my dear," said Fenwick, addressing the
presiding young lady in his easy-going way; "don't let her put it
on all at once. Are you ready, Sarah? You ready, Mrs. Paganini? All
right--fire away!"
The young lady in charge kept a careful hand near Miss Gwenny's,
who was instructed or guided to increase the current gradually. Her
attitude was docile and misleading.
"Go on--a little more--yes, a little more.... No, that's enough!...
Oh, what nonsense! that's nothing!... Oh, Sally, do let _go_!... Oh,
Tishy, what a goose you are! That's nothing.... E-ow! It's horrible.
_I_ won't have any more of it." The chorus of exclamations, which
you may allot at choice, ended in laughter as the galvanised circle
broke up.
"Well, you are a lot of weak-kneed ... conductivities," said Fenwick,
feeling for the word. "That was nothing, as Sarah says."
"Look here," suggested Sally. "Me get between you two men, and Gwenny
stick it in full up." This was done, and Sally heroically endured the
"full up" current, which, as you doubtless are aware, increases in
viciousness as it has fewer and fewer victims. But she wasn't sorry
when it was over, for all that.
"You and I could take it full up," said Fenwick to Bradshaw, who
assented. But Paganini evidently didn't like it when it came to
three-quarters. Also, his wife said to him, "You'll spoil your
fingering, Julius."
Fenwick seemed to think them all over-sensitive. "I could stand that
by myself," said he, and took both handles.
But just at this moment a strange event happened. Somebody actually
applied to see the invisible lady. The eyes of the damsel in charge
were for one moment withdrawn from Miss Gwenny, who promptly seized
the opportunity to thrust in the regulator "full up."
Fenwick wasn't going to cry for mercy--not he! But his lips clenched
and his eyes glared, and his hands shook. "How can you be such a
_goose_, Jeremiah?" said Sally, who was standing close by the battery,
opposite to Gwenny. She thrust back the regulator, and put an end to
Fenwick's excruciations.
He said, "What did you do that for, Sarah? I could have stood it for
six months."
And Sally replied: "For shame, you wicked story! And after you'd been
electrocuted once, too!"
Fenwick burst into a great laugh, and exclaimed, "What on earth are
we all torturing ourselves for? Do let's go and get some tea." And
then carried Gwenny on his shoulders to the pier-entrance, where
he delivered her to her proprietors, and then they all sauntered
teawards, laughing and chatting.
Rosalind thought she had never seen Gerry in such health and
spirits. On their way up to the house they passed Punch, leaning
over the footlights to rejoice in his iniquity. Few persons of
healthy sympathies can pass Punch, and these only under the strongest
temptation, such as tea. Rosalind and Lætitia and her husband belonged
to the latter class, but Fenwick and Sally elected to see the immortal
drama to a close. It lasted nearly through the remainder of Fenwick's
cigar, and then they came away, reluctant, and wanting more of the
same sort.
It was then that Sally's stepfather said a rather singular thing to
her--a thing she remembered afterwards, though she noticed it but
slightly at the time. She had said to him:
"Codling and Short will be quite rich men! What a lot of money you've
given them, Jeremiah!"
And he had replied: "Don't they deserve it?"
They had then walked on together up the road, he taking her arm in his
hand, as is the way nowadays, but saying nothing. Presently he said,
as he threw away the very last end of the cigar:
"It was the first lesson of my early boyhood in retributive injustice.
It's a poor heart that never rejoices at Punch."
It was the first time Sally had ever heard him speak of his boyhood
except as a thing he had forgotten.
* * * * *
Much, so much, of this chapter is made up of matter so trifling. Was
it worth recording? The chronicler might plead again as excuse his
temptation to linger over the pleasant hours it tells of, the utter
freedom of its actors from care, and his reluctance to record their
sequel. But a better apology for his prolixity and detail would be
found in the wonder felt by those actors when in after-life they
looked back and recalled them one by one; and the way each memory
linked itself, in a way unsuspected at the time, with an absolutely
unanticipated future. For even Rosalind, with all her knowledge of the
past, had no guess, for all her many misgivings and apprehensions, of
the way that things would go. Never had she been freer from a sense
of the shadow of a coming cloud than when she looked out from the
window while the tea she had just made was mellowing, and saw her
husband and daughter coming through the little garden gate, linked
together and in the best of spirits.