The two ladies received Mr. Hardy’s information with something akin to
consternation, the idea of the autocrat of Equator Lodge as a stowaway
on board the ship of his ancient enemy proving too serious for ordinary
comment. Mrs. Kingdom’s usual expressions of surprise, “Well, I never
did!” and “Good gracious alive!” died on her lips, and she sat gazing
helpless and round-eyed at her niece.
“I wonder what he said,” she gasped, at last.
Miss Nugent, who was trying to imagine her father in his new _rôle_
aboard the _Conqueror_, paid no heed. It was not a pleasant idea, and
her eyes flashed with temper as she thought of it. Sooner or later the
whole affair would be public property.
“I had an idea all along that he wasn’t in London,” murmured Mrs.
Kingdom. “Fancy that Nathan Smith standing in Sam’s room telling us
falsehoods like that! He never even blushed.”
“But you said that you kept picturing father walking about the streets
of London, wrestling with his pride and trying to make up his mind to
come home again,” said her niece, maliciously.
Mrs. Kingdom fidgeted, but before she could think of a satisfactory
reply Bella came to the door and asked to speak to her for a moment.
Profiting by her absence, Mr. Hardy leaned towards Miss Nugent, and
in a low voice expressed his sorrow at the mishap to her father and
his firm conviction that everything that could be thought of for that
unfortunate mariner’s comfort would be done. “Our fathers will probably
come back good friends,” he concluded. “There is nothing would give me
more pleasure than that, and I think that we had better begin and set
them a good example.”
“It is no good setting an example to people who are hundreds of miles
away,” said the matter-of-fact Miss Nugent. “Besides, if they have made
friends, they don’t want an example set them.”
“But in that case they have set us an example which we ought to
follow,” urged Hardy.
Miss Nugent raised her eyes to his. “Why do you wish to be on friendly
terms?” she asked, with disconcerting composure.
“I should like to know your father,” returned Hardy, with perfect
gravity; “and Mrs. Kingdom—and you.”
He eyed her steadily as he spoke, and Miss Nugent, despite her utmost
efforts, realized with some indignation that a faint tinge of colour
was creeping into her cheeks. She remembered his covert challenge at
their last interview at Mr. Wilks’s, and the necessity of reading this
persistent young man a stern lesson came to her with all the force of a
public duty.
[Illustration: “’Why do you wish to be on friendly terms?’ she asked.”]
“Why?” she inquired, softly, as she lowered her eyes and assumed a
pensive expression.
“I admire him, for one thing, as a fine seaman,” said Hardy.
“Yes,” said Miss Nugent, “and—”
“And I’ve always had a great liking for Mrs. Kingdom,” he continued;
“she was very good-natured to me when I was a very small boy, I
remember. She is very kind and amiable.”
The baffled Miss Nugent stole a glance at him. “And—” she said again,
very softly.
“And very motherly,” said Hardy, without moving a muscle.
Miss Nugent pondered and stole another glance at him. The expression
of his face was ingenuous, not to say simple. She resolved to risk it.
So far he had always won in their brief encounters, and monotony was
always distasteful to her, especially monotony of that kind.
“And what about me?” she said, with a friendly smile.
“You,” said Hardy, with a gravity of voice belied by the amusement in
his eye; “you are the daughter of the fine seaman and the niece of the
good-natured and motherly Mrs. Kingdom.”
Miss Nugent looked down again hastily, and all the shrew within her
clamoured for vengeance. It was the same masterful Jem Hardy that
had forced his way into their seat at church as a boy. If he went on
in this way he would become unbearable; she resolved, at the cost of
much personal inconvenience, to give him a much-needed fall. But she
realized quite clearly that it would be a matter of time.
“Of course, you and Jack are already good friends?” she said, softly.
“Very,” assented Hardy. “Such good friends that I have been devoting a
lot of time lately to considering ways and means of getting him out of
the snares of the Kybirds.”
“I should have thought that that was his affair,” said Miss Nugent,
haughtily.
“Mine, too,” said Hardy. “I don’t want him to marry Miss Kybird.”
For the first time since the engagement Miss Nugent almost approved of
it. “Why not let him know your wishes?” she said, gently. “Surely that
would be sufficient.”
“But you don’t want them to marry?” said Hardy, ignoring the remark.
“I don’t want my brother to do anything shabby,” replied the girl; “but
I shouldn’t be sorry, of course, if they did not.”
“Very good,” said Hardy. “Armed with your consent I shall leave no
stone unturned. Nugent was let in for this, and I am going to get him
out if I can. All’s fair in love and war. You don’t mind _my_ doing
anything shabby?”
“Not in the least,” replied Miss Nugent, promptly.
The reappearance of Mrs. Kingdom at this moment saved Mr. Hardy the
necessity of a reply.
Conversation reverted to the missing captain, and Hardy and Mrs.
Kingdom together drew such a picture of the two captains fraternizing
that Miss Nugent felt that the millennium itself could have no
surprises for her.
“He has improved very much,” said Mrs. Kingdom, after the door had
closed behind their visitor; “so thoughtful.”
“He’s thoughtful enough,” agreed her niece.
“He is what I call extremely considerate,” pursued the elder lady,
“but I’m afraid he is weak; anybody could turn him round their little
finger.”
“I believe they could,” said Miss Nugent, gazing at her with
admiration, “if he wanted to be turned.”
The ice thus broken, Mr. Hardy spent the following day or two in
devising plausible reasons for another visit. He found one in the
person of Mr. Wilks, who, having been unsuccessful in finding his
beloved master at a small tavern down by the London docks, had returned
to Sunwich, by no means benefited by his change of air, to learn the
terrible truth as to his disappearance from Hardy.
“I wish they’d Shanghaid me instead,” he said to that sympathetic
listener, “or Mrs. Silk.”
“Eh?” said the other, staring.
“Wot’ll be the end of it I don’t know,” said Mr. Wilks, laying a
hand, which still trembled, on the other’s knee. “It’s got about that
she saved my life by ’er careful nussing, and the way she shakes ’er
’ead at me for risking my valuable life, as she calls it, going up to
London, gives me the shivers.”
“Nonsense,” said Hardy; “she can’t marry you against your will. Just be
distantly civil to her.”
“’Ow can you be distantly civil when she lives just opposite?” inquired
the steward, querulously. “She sent Teddy over at ten o’clock last
night to rub my chest with a bottle o’ liniment, and it’s no good me
saying I’m all right when she’s been spending eighteen-pence o’ good
money over the stuff.”
“She can’t marry you unless you ask her,” said the comforter.
Mr. Wilks shook his head. “People in the alley are beginning to talk,”
he said, dolefully. “Just as I came in this afternoon old George Lee
screwed up one eye at two or three women wot was gossiping near, and
when I asked ’im wot ’e’d got to wink about he said that a bit o’
wedding-cake ’ad blowed in his eye as I passed. It sent them silly
creeturs into fits a’most.”
“They’ll soon get tired of it,” said Hardy.
Mr. Wilks, still gloomy, ventured to doubt it, but cheered up and
became almost bright when his visitor announced his intention of trying
to smooth over matters for him at Equator Lodge. He became quite
voluble in his defence, and attached much importance to the fact that
he had nursed Miss Nugent when she was in long clothes and had taught
her to whistle like an angel at the age of five.
[Illustration: “He said that a bit o’ wedding-cake ’ad blowed in his
eye.”]
“I’ve felt being cut adrift by her more than anything,” he said,
brokenly. “Nine-an’-twenty years I sailed with the cap’n and served ’im
faithful, and this is my reward.”
Hardy pleaded his case next day. Miss Nugent was alone when he called,
and, moved by the vivid picture he drew of the old man’s loneliness,
accorded her full forgiveness, and decided to pay him a visit at once.
The fact that Hardy had not been in the house five minutes she appeared
to have overlooked.
“I’ll go upstairs and put my hat and jacket on and go now,” she said,
brightly.
“That’s very kind of you,” said Hardy. His voice expressed admiring
gratitude; but he made no sign of leaving his seat.
“You don’t mind?” said Miss Nugent, pausing in front of him and
slightly extending her hand.
“Not in the least,” was the reply; “but I want to see Wilks myself.
Perhaps you’ll let me walk down with you?”
The request was so unexpected that the girl had no refusal ready. She
hesitated and was lost. Finally, she expressed a fear that she might
keep him waiting too long while she got ready—a fear which he politely
declined to consider.
“Well, we’ll see,” said the marvelling Miss Nugent to herself as she
went slowly upstairs. “He’s got impudence enough for forty.”
She commenced her preparations for seeing Mr. Wilks by wrapping a shawl
round her shoulders and reclining in an easy-chair with a novel. It
was a good story, but the room was very cold, and even the pleasure
of snubbing an intrusive young man did not make amends for the lack
of warmth. She read and shivered for an hour, and then with chilled
fingers lit the gas and proceeded to array herself for the journey.
Her temper was not improved by seeing Mr. Hardy sitting in the dark
over a good fire when she got downstairs.
“I’m afraid I’ve kept you waiting,” she said, crisply.
“Not at all,” said Hardy. “I’ve been very comfortable.”
Miss Nugent repressed a shiver and, crossing to the fire, thoughtlessly
extended her fingers over the blaze.
“I’m afraid you’re cold,” said Hardy.
The girl looked round sharply. His face, or as much of it as she
could see in the firelight, bore a look of honest concern somewhat at
variance with the quality of his voice. If it had not been for the
absurdity of altering her plans on his account she would have postponed
her visit to the steward until another day.
The walk to Fullalove Alley was all too short for Jem Hardy. Miss
Nugent stepped along with the air of a martyr anxious to get to the
stake and have it over, and she answered in monosyllables when her
companion pointed out the beauties of the night.
A bitter east wind blew up the road and set her yearning for the joys
of Mr. Wilks’s best room. “It’s very cold,” she said, shivering.
Hardy assented, and reluctantly quickened his pace to keep step with
hers. Miss Nugent with her chin sunk in a fur boa looked neither to
the right nor the left, and turning briskly into the alley, turned the
handle of Mr. Wilks’s door and walked in, leaving her companion to
follow.
The steward, who was smoking a long pipe over the fire, looked round
in alarm. Then his expression changed, and he rose and stammered out
a welcome. Two minutes later Miss Nugent, enthroned in the best chair
with her toes on the fender, gave her faithful subject a free pardon
and full permission to make hot coffee.
“And don’t you ever try and deceive me again, Sam,” she said, as she
sipped the comforting beverage.
“No, miss,” said the steward, humbly. “I’ve ’ad a lesson. I’ll never
try and Shanghai anybody else agin as long as I live.”
After this virtuous sentiment he sat and smoked placidly, with
occasional curious glances divided between his two visitors. An idle
and ridiculous idea, which occurred to him in connection with them,
was dismissed at once as too preposterous for a sensible steward to
entertain.
“Mrs. Kingdom well?” he inquired.
“Quite well,” said the girl. “If you take me home, Sam, you shall see
her, and be forgiven by her, too.”
“Thankee, miss,” said the gratified steward.
“And what about your foot, Wilks?” said Hardy, somewhat taken aback by
this arrangement.
“Foot, sir?” said the unconscious Mr. Wilks; “wot foot?”
“Why, the bad one,” said Hardy, with a significant glance.
“Ho, that one?” said Mr. Wilks, beating time and waiting further
revelations.
“Do you think you ought to use it much?” inquired Hardy.
Mr. Wilks looked at it, or, to be more exact, looked at both of them,
and smiled weakly. His previous idea recurred to him with renewed
force now, and several things in the young man’s behaviour, hitherto
disregarded, became suddenly charged with significance. Miss Nugent
looked on with an air of cynical interest.
“Better not run any risk,” said Hardy, gravely. “I shall be very
pleased to see Miss Nugent home, if she will allow me.”
“What is the matter with it?” inquired Miss Nugent, looking him full in
the face.
Hardy hesitated. Diplomacy, he told himself, was one thing; lying
another. He passed the question on to the rather badly used Mr. Wilks.
“Matter with it?” repeated that gentleman, glaring at him
reproachfully. “It’s got shootin’ pains right up it. I suppose it was
walking miles and miles every day in London, looking for the cap’n, was
too much for it.”
“Is it too bad for you to take me home, Sam?” inquired Miss Nugent,
softly.
The perturbed Mr. Wilks looked from one to the other. As a sportsman
his sympathies were with Hardy, but his duty lay with the girl.
“I’ll do my best, miss,” he said; and got up and limped, very well
indeed for a first attempt, round the room.
Then Miss Nugent did a thing which was a puzzle to herself for some
time afterwards. Having won the victory she deliberately threw away
the fruits of it, and declining to allow the steward to run any risks,
accepted Hardy’s escort home. Mr. Wilks watched them from the door,
and with his head in a whirl caused by the night’s proceedings mixed
himself a stiff glass of grog to set it right, and drank to the health
of both of them.
The wind had abated somewhat in violence as they walked home, and,
moreover, they had their backs to it. The walk was slower and more
enjoyable in many respects than the walk out. In an unusually soft mood
she replied to his remarks and stole little critical glances up at him.
When they reached the house she stood a little while at the gate gazing
at the starry sky and listening to the crash of the sea on the beach.
[Illustration: “Mr. Wilks drank to the health of both of them.”]
“It is a fine night,” she said, as she shook hands.
“The best I have ever known,” said Hardy. “Good-bye.”