JOAN HARTLEY returned to Salthaven a week after Captain Trimblett’s
departure, and, with a lively sense of her inability to satisfy the
curiosity of her friends, spent most of the time indoors. To evade her
father’s inquiries she adopted other measures, and the day after her
return, finding both her knowledge and imagination inadequate to the
task of satisfying him, she first waxed impatient and then tearful.
Finally she said that she was thoroughly tired of the subject, and
expressed a fervent hope that she might hear no more about it. Any
further particulars would be furnished by Captain Trimblett, upon his
return.
“But when I asked him about it he referred me to you,” said Hartley.
“The whole affair is most incomprehensible.”
“We thought it would be a surprise to you,” agreed Joan.
“It was,” said her father, gloomily. “But if you are satisfied, I
suppose it is all right.”
He returned to the attack next day, but gained _little_ information.
Miss Hartley’s ideas concerning the various marriage ceremonies were of
the vaguest, but by the aid of “Whitaker’s Almanack” she was enabled to
declare that the marriage had taken place by license at a church in the
district where Trimblett was staying. As a help to identification she
added that the church was built of stone, and that the pew-opener had
a cough. Tiresome questions concerning the marriage certificate were
disposed of by leaving it in the captain’s pocket-book. And again she
declared that she was tired of the subject.
“I can’t imagine what your aunt was thinking about,” said her father.
“If you had let me write—”
“She knew nothing about it,” said Joan, hastily; “and if you had written
to her she would have thought that you were finding fault with her for
not looking after me more. It’s done now, and if I’m satisfied and
Captain Trimblett is satisfied, that is all that matters. You didn’t
want me to be an old maid, did you?”
Mr. Hartley gave up the subject in despair, but Miss Willett, who called
a day or two later, displayed far more perseverance. After the usual
congratulations she sat down to discuss the subject at length, and
subjected Joan to a series of questions which the latter had much
difficulty in evading. For a newly married woman, Miss Willett could
only regard her knowledge of matrimony as hazy in the extreme.
“She don’t want to talk about it,” said Mr. Truefitt, the following
evening as he sat side by side with Miss Willett in the little
summer-house overlooking the river. “Perhaps she is repenting it
already.”
“It ought to be a tender memory,” sighed Miss Willett. “I’m sure—”
She broke off and blushed.
“Yes?” said Mr. Truefitt, pinching her arm tenderly.
“Never mind,” breathed Miss Willett. “I mean—I was only going to say
that I don’t think the slightest detail would have escaped _me_. All
she seems to remember is that it took place in a church.”
“It must have been by license, I should think,” said Mr. Truefitt,
scowling thoughtfully. “Ordinary license, I should say. I have been
reading up about them lately. One never knows what may happen.”
Miss Willett started.
“Trimblett has not behaved well,” continued Mr. Truefitt, slowly, “by
no means, but I must say that he has displayed a certain amount of
dash; _he_ didn’t allow anything or anybody to come between him and
matrimony. He just went and did it.”
He passed his arm round Miss Willett’s waist and gazed reflectively
across the river.
“And I suppose we shall go on waiting all our lives,” he said at last.
“We consider other people far too much.”
Miss Willett shook her head. “Mother always keeps to her word,” she
said, with an air of mournful pride. “Once she says anything she keeps
to it. That’s her firmness. She won’t let me marry so long as Mrs.
Chinnery stays here. We must be patient.”
Mr. Truefitt rumpled his hair irritably and for some time sat silent.
Then he leaned forward and, in a voice trembling with excitement,
whispered in the lady’s ear.
“_Peter_!” gasped Miss Willett, and drew back and eyed him in trembling
horror.
“Why not?” said Mr. Truefitt, with an effort to speak stoutly. “It’s our
affair.”
Miss Willett shivered and, withdrawing from his arm, edged away to the
extreme end of the seat and averted her gaze.
“It’s quite easy,” whispered the tempter.
Miss Willett, still looking out at the door, affected not to hear.
“Not a soul would know until afterward,” continued Mr. Truefitt, in an
ardent whisper. “It could all be kept as quiet as possible. I’ll have
the license ready, and you could just slip out for a morning walk and
meet me at the church, and there you are. And it’s ridiculous of two
people of our age to go to such trouble.”
“Mother would never forgive me,” murmured Miss Willett. “Never!”
“She’d come round in time,” said Mr. Truefitt.
“Never!” said Miss Willett. “You don’t know mother’s strength of mind.
But I mustn’t stay and listen to such things. It’s wicked!”
She got up and slipped into the garden, and with Mr. Truefitt in
attendance paced up and down the narrow paths.
“Besides,” she said, after a long silence, “I shouldn’t like to share
housekeeping with your sister. It would only lead to trouble between us,
I am sure.”
Mr. Truefitt came to a halt in the middle of the path, and stood
rumpling his hair again as an aid to thought. Captain Sellers, who was
looking over his fence, waved a cheery salutation.
“Fine evening,” he piped.
The other responded with a brief nod.
“What did you say?” inquired Captain Sellers, who was languishing for a
little conversation.
“Didn’t say anything!” bawled Mr. Truefitt.
“You must speak up if you want me to hear you!” cried the captain. “It’s
one o’ my bad days.”
Truefitt shook his head, and placing himself by the side of Miss Willett
resumed his walk. Three fences away, Captain Sellers kept pace with
them.
“Nothing fresh about Trimblett, I suppose?” he yelled.
Truefitt shook his head again.
“He’s a deep ’un!” cried Sellers—“wonderful deep! How’s the other one?
Bearing up? I ain’t seen her about the last day or two. I believe that
was all a dodge of Trimblett’s to put us off the scent. It made a fool
of me.”
Mr. Truefitt, with a nervous glance at the open windows of his house,
turned and walked hastily down the garden again.
“He quite deceived me,” continued Captain Sellers, following—“quite.
What did you say?”
“Nothing,” bawled Mr. Truefitt, with sudden ferocity.
“Eh!” yelled the captain, leaning over the fence with his hand to his
ear.
“Nothing!”
“Eh?” said the captain, anxiously. “Speak up! What?”
“Oh, go to—Jericho!” muttered Mr. Truefitt, and, taking Miss Willett by
the arm, disappeared into the summer-house again. “Where were we when
that old idiot interrupted us?” he inquired, tenderly.
Miss Willett told him, and, nestling within his encircling arm, listened
with as forbidding an expression as she could command to further
arguments on the subject of secret marriages.
“It’s no use,” she said at last “I mustn’t listen. It’s wicked. I am
surprised at you, Peter. You must never speak to me on the subject
again.”
She put her head on his shoulder, and Mr. Truefitt, getting a better
grip with his arm, drew her toward him.
“Think it over,” he whispered, and bent and kissed her.
“Never,” was the reply.
Mr. Truefitt kissed her again, and was about to repeat the performance
when she started up with a faint scream, and, pushing him away, darted
from the summer-house and fled up the garden. Mr. Truefitt, red with
wrath, stood his ground and stared ferociously at the shrunken figure of
Captain Sellers standing behind the little gate in the fence that gave
on to the foreshore. The captain, with a cheery smile, lifted the latch
and entered the garden.
“I picked a little bunch o’ flowers for Miss Willett,” he said,
advancing and placing them on the table.
“Who told you to come into my garden?” shouted the angry Mr. Truefitt.
“Yes, all of ’em,” said Captain Sellers, taking up the bunch and looking
at them. “Smell!”
He thrust the bunch into the other’s face, and withdrawing it plunged
his own face into it with rapturous sniffs. Mr. Truefitt, his nose
decorated with pollen ravished from a huge lily, eyed him murderously.
“Get out of my garden,” he said, with an imperious wave of his hand.
“I can’t hear what you say,” said the captain, following the direction
of the other’s hand and stepping outside. “Sometimes I think my deafness
gets worse. It’s a great deprivation.”
“Is it?” said Mr. Truefitt. He made a funnel of both hands and bent to
the old man’s willing ear.
“You’re an artful, interfering, prying, inquisitive old busybody,” he
bellowed. “Can you hear that?”
“Say it again,” said the captain, his old eyes snapping.
Mr. Truefitt complied.
“I didn’t quite catch the last word,” said the captain.
“_Busybody_!” yelled Mr. Truefitt. “_Busybody_! _B—u—s——_”
“I heard,” said Captain Sellers, with sudden and alarming dignity. “Take
your coat off.”
“Get out of my garden,” responded Mr. Truefitt, briefly.
“Take your coat off,” repeated Captain Sellers, sternly. He removed his
own after a little trouble, and rolling back his shirt sleeves stood
regarding with some pride a pair of yellow, skinny old arms. Then he
clenched his fists, and, with an agility astonishing in a man of his
years, indulged in a series of galvanic little hops in front of the
astounded Peter Truefitt.
“Put your hands up!” he screamed. “Put ’em up, you tailor’s dummy! Put
’em up, you Dutchman!”
“Go out of my garden,” repeated the marvelling Mr. Truefitt. “Go home
and have some gruel and go to bed!”
Captain Sellers paid no heed. Still performing marvellous things with
his feet, he ducked his head over one shoulder, feinted with his left at
Mr. Truefitt’s face, and struck with his right somewhere near the centre
of his opponent’s waistcoat. Mr. Truefitt, still gazing at him
open-mouthed, retreated backward, and, just as the captain’s
parchment-like fist struck him a second time, tripped over a water-can
that had been left in the path and fell heavily on his back in a
flower-bed.
“Time!” cried Captain Sellers, breathlessly, and pulled out a big silver
watch to consult, as Miss Willett came hurrying down the garden,
followed by Mrs. Chinnery.
“Peter!” wailed Miss Willett, going on her knees and raising his head.
“Oh, Peter!”
“Has he hurt you?” inquired Mrs. Chinnery, stooping.
“No; I’m a bit shaken,” said Mr. Truefitt, crossly. “I fell over that
bla—blessed water-can. Take that old marionette away. I’m afraid to
touch him for fear he’ll fall to pieces.”
“Time!” panted Captain Sellers, stowing his watch away and resuming his
prancing. “Come on! Lively with it!”
Miss Willett uttered a faint scream and thrust her hand out.
“Lor’ bless the man!” cried Mrs. Chinnery, regarding the old gentleman’s
antics with much amazement “Go away! Go away at once!”
“Time!” cried Captain Sellers.
She stepped forward, and her attitude was so threatening that Captain
Sellers hesitated. Then he turned, and, picking up his coat, began to
struggle into it.
“I hope it will be a lesson to him,” he said, glaring at Mr. Truefitt,
who had risen by this time and was feeling his back. “You see what comes
of insulting an old sea-dog.”
He turned and made his way to the gate, refusing with a wave of his hand
Mrs. Chinnery’s offer to help him down the three steps leading to the
shore. With head erect and a springy step he gained his own garden, and
even made a pretence of attending to a flower or two before sitting
down. Then the deck-chair claimed him, and he lay, a limp bundle of
aching old bones, until his housekeeper came down the garden to see what
had happened to him.