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.
[Illustration: "Mr. Wilks replied that he was biding his time."]
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.
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.
[Illustration: "A particularly hard nut to crack."]
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.
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.