For the next month or two Master Hardy’s existence was brightened by
the efforts of an elderly steward who made no secret of his intentions
of putting an end to it. Mr. Wilks at first placed great reliance
on the saw that “it is the early bird that catches the worm,” but
lost faith in it when he found that it made no provision for cases
in which the worm leaning from its bedroom window addressed spirited
remonstrances to the bird on the subject of its personal appearance.
To the anxious inquiries of Miss Nugent, Mr. Wilks replied that he
was biding his time. Every delay, he hinted, made it worse for Master
Hardy when the day of retribution should dawn, and although she pleaded
earnestly for a little on account he was unable to meet her wishes.
Before that day came, however, Captain Nugent heard of the proceedings,
and after a painful interview with the steward, during which the
latter’s failings by no means escaped attention, confined him to the
house.
An excellent reason for absenting himself from school was thus denied
to Master Hardy; but it has been well said that when one door closes
another opens, and to his great satisfaction the old servant, who
had been in poor health for some time, suddenly took to her bed and
required his undivided attention.
[Illustration: “Mr. Wilks replied that he was biding his time.”]
He treated her at first with patent medicines purchased at the
chemist’s, a doctor being regarded by both of them as a piece of
unnecessary extravagance; but in spite of four infallible remedies
she got steadily worse. Then a doctor was called in, and by the time
Captain Hardy returned home she had made a partial recovery, but was
clearly incapable of further work. She left in a cab to accept a home
with a niece, leaving the captain confronted with a problem which he
had seen growing for some time past.
“I can’t make up my mind what to do with you,” he observed, regarding
his son.
“I’m very comfortable,” was the reply.
“You’re too comfortable,” said his father. “You’re running wild. It’s
just as well poor old Martha has gone; it has brought things to a head.”
“We could have somebody else,” suggested his son.
The captain shook his head. “I’ll give up the house and send you to
London to your Aunt Mary,” he said, slowly; “she doesn’t know you, and
once I’m at sea and the house given up, she won’t be able to send you
back.”
Master Hardy, who was much averse to leaving Sunwich and had heard
accounts of the lady in question which referred principally to her
strength of mind, made tender inquiries concerning his father’s comfort
while ashore.
“I’ll take rooms,” was the reply, “and I shall spend as much time as I
can with you in London. You want looking after, my son; I’ve heard all
about you.”
His son, without inquiring as to the nature of the information, denied
it at once upon principle; he also alluded darkly to his education, and
shook his head over the effects of a change at such a critical period
of his existence.
“And you talk too much for your age,” was his father’s comment when he
had finished. “A year or two with your aunt ought to make a nice boy of
you; there’s plenty of room for improvement.”
He put his plans in hand at once, and a week before he sailed again had
disposed of the house. Some of the furniture he kept for himself; but
the bulk of it went to his sister as conscience-money.
Master Hardy, in very low spirits, watched it taken away. Big men in
hob-nailed boots ran noisily up the bare stairs, and came down slowly,
steering large pieces of furniture through narrow passages, and using
much vain repetition when they found their hands acting as fenders.
The wardrobe, a piece of furniture which had been built for larger
premises, was a particularly hard nut to crack, but they succeeded at
last—in three places.
A few of his intimates came down to see the last of him, and Miss
Nugent, who in some feminine fashion regarded the move as a triumph
for her family, passed by several times. It might have been chance, it
might have been design, but the boy could not help noticing that when
the piano, the wardrobe, and other fine pieces were being placed in
the van, she was at the other end of the road, a position from which
such curios as a broken washstand or a two-legged chair never failed to
entice her.
[Illustration: “A particularly hard nut.”]
It was over at last. The second van had disappeared, and nothing
was left but a litter of straw and paper. The front door stood open
and revealed desolation. Miss Nugent came to the gate and stared in
superciliously.
“I’m glad you’re going,” she said, frankly.
Master Hardy scarcely noticed her. One of his friends who concealed
strong business instincts beneath a sentimental exterior had suggested
souvenirs and given him a spectacle-glass said to have belonged to
Henry VIII., and he was busy searching his pockets for an adequate
return. Then Captain Hardy came up, and first going over the empty
house, came out and bade his son accompany him to the station. A minute
or two later and they were out of sight; the sentimentalist stood on
the curb gloating over a newly acquired penknife, and Miss Nugent,
after being strongly reproved by him for curiosity, paced slowly home
with her head in the air.
Sunwich made no stir over the departure of one of its youthful
citizens. Indeed, it lacked not those who would have cheerfully parted
with two or three hundred more. The boy was quite chilled by the
tameness of his exit, and for years afterwards the desolate appearance
of the platform as the train steamed out occurred to him with an odd
sense of discomfort. In all Sunwich there was only one person who
grieved over his departure, and he, after keeping his memory green for
two years, wrote off fivepence as a bad debt and dismissed him from his
thoughts.
Two months after the _Conqueror_ had sailed again Captain Nugent
obtained command of a steamer sailing between London and the Chinese
ports. From the gratified lips of Mr. Wilks, Sunwich heard of this
new craft, the particular glory of which appeared to be the luxurious
appointments of the steward’s quarters. Language indeed failed Mr.
Wilks in describing it, and, pressed for details, he could only murmur
disjointedly of satin-wood, polished brass, and crimson velvet.
Jack Nugent hailed his father’s departure with joy. They had seen a
great deal of each other during the latter’s prolonged stay ashore,
and neither had risen in the other’s estimation in consequence. He
became enthusiastic over the sea as a profession for fathers, and
gave himself some airs over acquaintances less fortunately placed. In
the first flush of liberty he took to staying away from school, the
education thus lost being only partially atoned for by a grown-up style
of composition engendered by dictating excuses to the easy-going Mrs.
Kingdom.
At seventeen he learnt, somewhat to his surprise, that his education
was finished. His father provided the information and, simply as a
matter of form, consulted him as to his views for the future. It was an
important thing to decide upon at short notice, but he was equal to it,
and, having suggested gold-digging as the only profession he cared for,
was promptly provided by the incensed captain with a stool in the local
bank.
[Illustration: “A stool in the local bank.”]
He occupied it for three weeks, a period of time which coincided to a
day with his father’s leave ashore. He left behind him his initials
cut deeply in the lid of his desk, a miscellaneous collection of cheap
fiction, and a few experiments in book-keeping which the manager
ultimately solved with red ink and a ruler.
A slight uneasiness as to the wisdom of his proceedings occurred to him
just before his father’s return, but he comforted himself and Kate with
the undeniable truth that after all the captain couldn’t eat him. He
was afraid, however, that the latter would be displeased, and, with a
constitutional objection to unpleasantness, he contrived to be out when
he returned, leaving to Mrs. Kingdom the task of breaking the news.
The captain’s reply was brief and to the point. He asked his son
whether he would like to go to sea, and upon receiving a decided answer
in the negative, at once took steps to send him there. In two days he
had procured him an outfit, and within a week Jack Nugent, greatly to
his own surprise, was on the way to Melbourne as apprentice on the
barque Silver Stream.
He liked it even less than the bank. The monotony of the sea was
appalling to a youth of his tastes, and the fact that the skipper,
a man who never spoke except to find fault, was almost loquacious
with him failed to afford him any satisfaction. He liked the mates no
better than the skipper, and having said as much one day to the second
officer, had no reason afterwards to modify his opinions. He lived a
life apart, and except for the cook, another martyr to fault-finding,
had no society.
In these uncongenial circumstances the new apprentice worked for four
months as he had never believed it possible he could work. He was
annoyed both at the extent and the variety of his tasks, the work of
an A.B. being gratuitously included in his curriculum. The end of the
voyage found him desperate, and after a hasty consultation with the
cook they deserted together and went up-country.
Letters, dealing mainly with the ideas and adventures of the cook,
reached Sunwich at irregular intervals, and were eagerly perused by
Mrs. Kingdom and Kate, but the captain forbade all mention of him. Then
they ceased altogether, and after a year or two of unbroken silence
Mrs. Kingdom asserted herself, and a photograph in her possession, the
only one extant, exposing the missing Jack in petticoats and sash,
suddenly appeared on the drawing-room mantelpiece.
The captain stared, but made no comment. Disappointed in his son,
he turned for consolation to his daughter, noting with some concern
the unaccountable changes which that young lady underwent during his
absences. He noticed a difference after every voyage. He left behind
him on one occasion a nice trim little girl, and returned to find a
creature all legs and arms. He returned again and found the arms less
obnoxious and the legs hidden by a long skirt; and as he complained in
secret astonishment to his sister, she had developed a motherly manner
in her dealings with him which was almost unbearable.
“She’ll grow out of it soon,” said Mrs. Kingdom; “you wait and see.”
The captain growled and waited, and found his sister’s prognostications
partly fulfilled. The exuberance of Miss Nugent’s manner was certainly
modified by time, but she developed instead a quiet, unassuming habit
of authority which he liked as little.
“She gets made such a fuss of, it’s no wonder,” said Mrs. Kingdom, with
a satisfied smile. “I never heard of a girl getting as much attention
as she does; it’s a wonder her head isn’t turned.”
“Eh!” said the startled captain; “she’d better not let me see anything
of it.”
“Just so,” said Mrs. Kingdom.
The captain dwelt on these words and kept his eyes open, and, owing
to his daughter’s benevolent efforts on his behalf, had them fully
occupied. He went to sea firmly convinced that she would do something
foolish in the matrimonial line, the glowing terms in which he had
overheard her describing the charms of the new postman to Mrs. Kingdom
filling him with the direst forebodings.
It was his last voyage. An unexpected windfall from an almost forgotten
uncle and his own investments had placed him in a position of modest
comfort, and just before Miss Nugent reached her twentieth birthday
he resolved to spend his declining days ashore and give her those
advantages of parental attention from which she had been so long
debarred.
Mr. Wilks, to the inconsolable grief of his ship-mates, left with him.
He had been for nearly a couple of years in receipt of an annuity
purchased for him under the will of his mother, and his defection left
a gap never to be filled among comrades who had for some time regarded
him in the light of an improved drinking fountain.