CAPTAIN TRIMBLETT was back again in his old quarters, and already so
much improved in health that he was able to repel with considerable
vigor the many inquirers who were anxious to be put in possession of the
real facts concerning his pretended marriage. It was a subject on which
the captain was dumb, but in some mysterious fashion it came to be
understood that it was a device on the part of a self-sacrificing and
chivalrous ship-master to save Miss Hartley from the attentions of a
determined admirer she had met in London. It was the version
sanctioned—if not invented—by Mr. Robert Vyner.
It was a source of some little protestation of spirit to Miss Jelks
that the captain had been brought home by his faithful boatswain.
Conduct based on an idea of two years’ absence had to be suddenly and
entirely altered. She had had a glimpse of them both on the day of
their arrival, but the fact that Mr. Walters was with his superior
officer, and that she was with Mr. Filer, prevented her from greeting
him. In the wrath of his dismissal Mr. Filer met him more than half-way.
“Somebody ’ad to look arter ’im,” said Mr. Walters, referring to the
captain, as he sat in Rosa’s kitchen the following evening, “and he
always ’ad a liking for me. Besides which I wanted to get ’ome and see
you.”
“You have got it bad,” said Rosa with a gratified titter.
“Look arter you, I ought to ha’ said,” retorted Mr. Walters, glowering
at her, “and from wot I hear from Bassett, it’s about time I did.”
“Ho!” said Miss Jelks, taking a deep breath. “Ho, really!”
“I had it out of ’im this morning,” continued Mr. Walters, eying her
sternly; “I waited for ’im as he come out of his ’ouse. He didn’t want
to tell me at first, but when he found as ’ow he’d be late for the
office if he didn’t, he thought better of it.”
Miss Jelks leaned back in her chair with a ladylike sneer upon her
expressive features.
“I’ll Bassett him,” she said slowly.
“And I’ll Filer _him_,” said Mr. Walters, not to be outdone in the
coining of verbs.
“It’s a pity he don’t say them things to my face,” said Rosa, “I’d soon
let him know.”
“He’s going to,” said the boatswain readily. “I told ’im we’d meet him
on Sunday arternoon by Kegg’s boat-house. Then we’ll see wot you’ve got
to say for yourself. Shut that door. D’ye want to freeze me!”
“I’ll shut it when you’re gone,” said Rosa calmly. “Make haste, else I
shall catch cold. I’ll go with you on Sunday afternoon—just so as you
can beg my pardon—and after that I don’t want anything more to do with
you. You’d try the temper of a saint, you would.”
Mr. Walters looked round the warm and comfortable kitchen, and his face
fell. “I ain’t going to judge you till I’ve heard both sides,” he said
slowly, and then seeing no signs of relenting in Rosa’s face, passed out
into the black night.
He walked down to the rendezvous on Sunday afternoon with a well-dressed
icicle. Miss Jelks only spoke to him once, and that was when he trod on
her dress. A nipping wind stirred the surface of the river, and the
place was deserted except for the small figure of Bassett sheltering
under the lee of the boat-house. He came to meet them and raising a new
bowler hat stood regarding Miss Jelks with an expression in which
compassion and judicial severity were pretty evenly combined.
“Tell me, afore her, wot you told me the other day,” said Mr. Walters,
plunging at once into business.
“I would rather not,” said Bassett, adjusting his spectacles and looking
from one to the other, “but in pursuance of my promise, I have no
alternative.”
“Fire away,” commanded the boatswain.
Bassett coughed, and then in a thin but firm voice complied. The list of
Miss Jelks’s misdeeds was a long one, and the day was cold, but he did
not miss a single item. Miss Jelks, eying him with some concern as he
proceeded, began to think he must have eyes at the back of his head. The
boatswain, whose colour was deepening as he listened, regarded her with
a lurid eye.
“And you believe it all,” said Rosa, turning to him with a pitying smile
as Bassett concluded his tale. “Why don’t he go on; he ain’t finished
yet.”
“Wot!” said Mr. Walters with energy.
“He ain’t told you about making love to me yet,” said Rosa.
“I didn’t,” said the youth. “I shouldn’t think of doing such a thing. It
was all a mistake of yours.”
Miss Jelks uttered a cruel laugh. “Ask him whether he followed me like a
pet dog,” she said turning to the astonished boatswain. “Ask him if he
didn’t say he loved the ground my feet trod on. Ask him if he wanted to
take me to Marsham Fair and cried because I wouldn’t go.”
“Eh?” gasped the boatswain, staring at the bewildered Bassett.
“Ask him if he didn’t go down on his knees to me in Pringle’s Lane one
day—a muddy day—and ask me to be his,” continued the unscrupulous Rosa.
“Ask him if he didn’t say I was throwing myself away on a wooden-headed
boatswain with bandy legs.”
“Bandy wot?” ejaculated the choking Mr. Walters, as he bestowed an
involuntary glower at the limbs in question.
“I can assure you I never said so,” said Bassett, earnestly. “I never
noticed before that they were bandy. And I never—”
An enormous fist held just beneath his nose stopped him in mad career.
“If you was only three foot taller and six or seven stone ’eavier,” said
the palpitating boatswain, “I should know wot to do with you.”
“I assure you—” began Bassett.
“If you say another word,” declared Mr. Walters, in grating accents,
“I’ll take you by the scruff of your little neck and drop you in the
river. And if you tell any more lies about my young woman to a living
soul I’ll tear you limb from limb, and box your ears arterwards.”
With a warning shake of the head at the gasping Bassett he turned to
Miss Jelks, but that injured lady, with her head at an alarming angle,
was already moving away. Even when he reached her side she seemed
unaware of his existence, and it was not until the afternoon was well
advanced that she deigned to take the slightest notice of his abject
apologies.
“It’s being at sea and away from you that does it,” he said humbly.
“And a nasty jealous temper,” added Miss Jelks.
“I’m going to try for a shore-berth,” said her admirer. “I spoke to Mr.
Vyner—the young one—about it yesterday, and he’s going to see wot he can
do for me. If I get that I shall be a different man.”
“He’d do anything for Miss Joan,” said the mollified Rosa thoughtfully,
“and if you behave yourself and conquer your wicked jealous nature I
might put in a word for you with her myself.”
Mr. Walters thanked her warmly and with a natural anxiety regarding his
future prospects, paid frequent visits to learn what progress she was
making. He haunted the kitchen with the persistency of a blackbeetle,
and became such a nuisance at last that Miss Hartley espoused his cause
almost with enthusiasm.
“He is very much attached to Rosa, but he takes up a lot of her time,”
she said to Robert Vyner as they were on their way one evening to
Tranquil Vale to pay a visit to Captain Trimblett.
“I’ll get him something for Rosa’s sake,” said Robert, softly. “I shall
never forget that she invited me to breakfast when her mistress would
have let me go empty away. Do you remember?”
“I remember wondering whether you were going to stay all day,” said
Joan.
“It never occurred to me,” said Mr. Vyner in tones of regret. “I’m
afraid you must have thought me very neglectful.”
They walked on happily through the dark, cold night until the lighted
windows of Tranquil Vale showed softly in the blackness. There was a
light in the front room of No. 5, and the sound of somebody moving
hurriedly about followed immediately upon Mr. Vyner’s knock. Then the
door opened and Captain Trimblett stood before them.
“Come in,” he said heartily. “Come in, I’m all alone this evening.”
He closed the door behind them, and, while Mr. Vyner stood gazing
moodily at the mound on the table which appeared to have been hastily
covered up with a rather soiled towel, placed a couple of easy chairs by
the fire. Mr. Vyner, with his eyes still on the table, took his seat
slowly, and then transferring his regards to Captain Trimblett, asked
him in a stern vein what he was smiling at Joan for.
“She smiled at me first,” said the captain.
Mr. Vyner shook his head at both of them, and at an offer of a glass of
beer looked so undecided that the captain, after an uneasy glance at the
table, which did not escape Mr. Vyner, went to the kitchen to procure
some.
“I wonder,” said Robert musingly, as he turned to the table, “I wonder
if it would be bad manners to—”
“Yes,” said Joan, promptly.
Mr. Vyner sighed and tried to peer under a corner of the towel. “I can
see a saucer,” he announced, excitedly.
Miss Hartley rose and pointing with a rigid fore-finger at her own
chair, changed places with him.
“You want to see yourself,” declared Mr. Vyner.
Miss Hartley scorned to reply.
“Let’s share the guilt,” continued the other. “You shut your eyes and
raise the corner of the towel, and I’ll do the ’peeping’.”
The return of the unconscious captain with the beer rendered a reply
unnecessary.
“We half thought you would be at number nine,” he said as the captain
poured him out a glass.
“I’m keeping house this evening,” said the captain, “or else I should
have been.”
“It’s nice for you to have your children near you,” said Joan, softly.
Captain Trimblett assented. “And it’s nice to be able to give up the
sea,” he said with a grateful glance at Vyner. “I’m getting old, and
that last bout of malaria hasn’t made me any younger.”
“The youngsters seem to get on all right with Mrs. Chinnery,” said
Robert, eying him closely.
“Splendidly,” said the Captain. “I should never have thought that she
would have been so good with children. She half worships them.”
“Not all of them,” said Mr. Vyner.
“All of ’em,” said the captain.
“Twins, as well?” said Mr. Vyner, raising his voice.
“She likes them best of all,” was the reply.
Mr. Vyner rose slowly from his chair. “She is a woman in a million,” he
said impressively. “I wonder why—”
“They’re very good girls,” said the captain hastily. “Old Sellers thinks
there is nobody like them.”
“I expect you’ll be making a home for them soon,” said Robert,
thoughtfully; “although it will be rather hard on Mrs. Chinnery to part
with them. Won’t it?”
“We are all in the hands of fate,” said the captain gazing suddenly at
his tumbler. “Fate rules all things from the cradle to the grave.”
He poured himself out a little more beer and lapsing into a reminiscent
mood cited various instances in his own career, in confirmation. It was
an interesting subject, but time was passing and Mr. Vyner, after a
regretful allusion to the fact, announced that they must be going. Joan
rose, and Captain Trimblett, rising at the same moment, knocked over
his beer and in a moment of forgetfulness snatched the towel from the
table to wipe it up. The act revealed an electro-plated salad-bowl of
noble proportions, a saucer of whitening and some pieces of rag.
“Halloa!” said Robert, looking from the bowl to the captain’s ruddy
face. “What’s this?”
“I was just giving it a clean up,” murmured the captain.
“What is it,” said the other.
“It’s a present,” said Captain Trimblett with a faint note of defiance
in his voice. “A present from a dear old friend of mine—Captain Walsh.”
He accompanied his visitors to the door and after a cordial farewell
stood looking after them until their voices died away in the darkness.
Then he came back into the room and, whistling cheerfully, took up a
piece of rag and resumed his interrupted task.
THE END