THE HOUSE-BOAT 'TAWNY OWL'
'Mr. Angus, what is an egotist?'
'Don't you know, Miss Meredith?'
'Well, I know in a general sort of way, but not precisely.'
'An egotist is a person who--but why do you want to know?'
'Because just now Mr. Abinger asked me what I was thinking of, and when
I said of nothing he called me an egotist.'
'Ah! that kind of egotist is one whose thoughts are too deep for
utterance.'
It was twilight. Rob stood on the deck of the house-boat _Tawny Owl_,
looking down at Nell, who sat in the stern, her mother beside her, amid
a blaze of Chinese lanterns. Dick lay near them, prone, as he had fallen
from a hammock whose one flaw was that it gave way when any one got into
it. Mr. Meredith, looking out from one of the saloon windows across the
black water that was now streaked with glistening silver, wondered
whether he was enjoying himself, and Mary, in a little blue nautical
jacket with a cap to match, lay back in a camp-chair on deck with a
silent banjo in her hands. Rob was brazening it out in flannels, and had
been at such pains to select colours to suit him that the effect was
atrocious. He had spent several afternoons at Molesey during the three
weeks the _Tawny Owl_ had lain there, but this time he was to remain
overnight at the Island Hotel.
The _Tawny Owl_ was part of the hoop of house-boats that almost girded
Tagg's Island, and lights sailed through the trees, telling of launches
moving to their moorings near the ferry. Now and again there was the
echo of music from a distant house-boat. For a moment the water was
loquacious as dingeys or punts shot past. Canadian canoes, the ghosts
that haunt the Thames by night, lifted their heads out of the river,
gaped, and were gone. An osier-wand dipped into the water under a weight
of swallows, all going to bed together. The boy on the next house-boat
kissed his hand to a broom on board the _Tawny Owl_, taking it for Mrs.
Meredith's servant, and then retired to his kitchen smiling. From the
boat-house across the river came the monotonous tap of a hammer. A
reed-warbler rushed through his song. There was a soft splashing along
the bank.
'There was once a literary character,' Dick murmured, 'who said that to
think of nothing was an impossibility, but he lived before the days of
house-boats. I came here a week ago to do some high thinking, and I
believe I have only managed four thoughts--first, that the cow on the
island is an irate cow; second, that in summer the sun shines brightly;
third, that the trouble of lighting a cigar is almost as great as the
pleasure of smoking it; and fourth, that swans--the fourth thought
referred to swans, but it has slipped my memory.'
He yawned like a man glad to get to the end of his sentence, or sorry
that he had begun it.
'But I thought,' said Mrs. Meredith, 'that the reason you walk round and
round the island by yourself so frequently is because you can think out
articles on it?'
'Yes,' Dick answered, 'the island looks like a capital place to think
on, and I always start off on my round meaning to think hard. After that
all is a blank till I am back at the _Tawny Owl_, when I remember that I
have forgotten to think.'
'Will ought to enjoy this,' remarked Nell.
'That is my brother, Mr. Angus,' Mary said to Rob; 'he is to spend part
of his holidays here.'
'I remember him,' Rob answered, smiling. Mary blushed, however,
remembering that the last time Will and Greybrooke met Rob there had
been a little scene.
'He will enjoy the fishing,' said Dick. 'I have only fished myself three
or four times, and I am confident I hooked a minnow yesterday.'
'I saw a little boy,' Nell said, 'fishing from the island to-day, and
his mother had strapped him to a tree in case he might fall in.'
'When I saw your young brother at Silchester,' Rob said to Mary, 'he had
a schoolmate with him.'
'Ah, yes,' Dick said; 'that was the man who wanted to horsewhip you, you
know.'
'I thought he and Miss Meredith were great friends,' Rob retorted. He
sometimes wondered how much Dick cared for Nell.
'It was only the young gentleman's good-nature,' Abinger explained,
while Nell drew herself up indignantly; 'he found that he had to give up
either Nell or a cricket match, and so Nell was reluctantly dropped.'
'That was not how you spoke,' Nell said to Dick in a low voice, 'when I
told you all about him, poor boy, in your chambers.'
'You promised to be a sister to him, I think,' remarked Abinger. 'Ah,
Nell, it is not a safe plan that. How many brothers have you now?'
Dick held up his hand for Mary's banjo, and, settling himself
comfortably in a corner, twanged and sang, while the lanterns caught
myriads of flies, and the bats came and went.
When Coelebs was a bolder blade,
And ladies fair were coy,
His search was for a wife, he said,
The time I was a boy.
But Coelebs now has slothful grown
(I learn this from her mother),
Instead of making her his own,
He asks to be her brother.
Last night I saw her smooth his brow,
He bent his head and kissed her;
They understand each other now,
She's going to be his sister.
Some say he really does propose,
And means to gain or lose all,
And that the new arrangement goes,
To soften her refusal.
He talks so wild of broken hearts,
Of futures that she'll mar,
He says on Tuesday he departs
For Cork or Zanzibar.
His death he places at her door,
Yet says he won't resent it;
Ah, well, he talked that way before,
And very seldom meant it.
Engagements now are curious things,
'A kind of understandin','
Although they do not run to rings,
They're good to keep your hand in.
No rivals now, Tom, Dick, and Hal,
They all love one another,
For she's a sister to them all,
And every one's her brother.
In former days when men proposed,
And ladies said them No,
The laws that courtesy imposed
Made lovers pack and go.
But now that they may brothers be,
So changed the way of men is,
That, having kissed, the swain and she
Resume their game at tennis.
Ah, Nelly Meredith, you may
Be wiser than your mother,
But she knew what to do when they
Proposed to be her brother.
Of these relations best have none,
They'll only you encumber;
Of wives a man may have but one,
Of sisters any number.
Dick disappeared into the kitchen with Mrs. Meredith to show her how
they make a salad at the Wigwam, and Nell and her father went a-fishing
from a bedroom window. The night was so silent now that Rob and Mary
seemed to have it to themselves. A canoe in a blaze of coloured light
drifted past without a sound. The grass on the bank parted, and
water-rats peeped out. All at once Mary had nothing to say, and Rob
shook on his stool. The moon was out looking at them.
'Oh,' Mary cried, as something dipped suddenly in the water near them.
'It was only a dabchick,' Rob guessed, looking over the rail.
'What is a dabchick?' asked Mary.
Rob did not tell her. She had not the least desire to know.
In the river, on the opposite side from where the _Tawny Owl_ lay, a
stream drowns itself. They had not known of its existence before, but it
was roaring like a lasher to them now. Mary shuddered slightly, turning
her face to the island, and Rob took a great breath as he looked at her.
His hand held her brown sunshade that was ribbed with velvet, the
sunshade with the preposterous handle that Mary held upside down. Other
ladies carried their sunshades so, and Rob resented it. Her back was
toward him, and he sat still, gazing at the loose blue jacket that only
reached her waist. It was such a slender waist that Rob trembled for it.
The trees that hung over the house-boat were black, but the moon made a
fairyland of the sward beyond. Mary could only see the island between
heavy branches, but she looked straight before her until tears dimmed
her eyes. Who would dare to seek the thoughts of a girl at such a
moment? Rob moved nearer her. Her blue cap was tilted back, her chin
rested on the rail. All that was good in him was astir when she turned
and read his face.
'I think I shall go down now,' Mary said, becoming less pale as she
spoke. Rob's eyes followed her as she moved toward the ladder.
'Not yet,' he called after her, and could say no more. It was always so
when they were alone; and he made himself suffer for it afterwards.
Mary stood irresolutely at the top of the ladder. She would not turn
back, but she did not descend. Mr. Meredith was fishing lazily from the
lower deck, and there was a murmur of voices in the saloon. On the road
running parallel to the river traps and men were shadows creeping along
to Hampton. Lights were going out there. Mary looked up the stretch of
water and sighed.
'Was there ever so beautiful a night?' she said.
'Yes,' said Rob, at her elbow, 'once at Dome Castle, the night I saw you
first.'
'I don't remember,' said Mary hastily, but without going down the
ladder.
'I might never have met you,' Rob continued grimly, 'if some man in
Silchester had not murdered his wife.'
Mary started and looked up at him. Until she ceased to look he could not
go on.
'The murder,' he explained, 'was of more importance than Colonel
Abinger's dinner, and so I was sent to the castle. It is rather curious
to trace these things back a step. The woman enraged her husband into
striking her, because she had not prepared his supper. Instead of doing
that she had been gossiping with a neighbour, who would not have had
time for gossip had she not been laid up with a sprained ankle. It came
out in the evidence that this woman had hurt herself by slipping on a
marble, so that I might never have seen you had not two boys, whom
neither of us ever heard of, challenged each other to a game at
marbles.'
'It was stranger that we should meet again in London,' Mary said.
'No,' Rob answered, 'the way we met was strange, but I was expecting
you.'
Mary pondered how she should take this, and then pretended not to hear
it.
'Was it not rather _The Scorn of Scorns_ that made us know each other?'
she asked.
'I knew you after I read it a second time,' he said; 'I have got that
copy of it still.'
'You said you had the card.'
'I have never been able to understand,' Rob answered, 'how I lost that
card. But,' he added sharply, 'how do you know that I lost it?'
Mary glanced up again.
'I hate being asked questions, Mr. Angus,' she said sweetly.
'Do you remember,' Rob went on, 'saying in that book that men were not
to be trusted until they reached their second childhood?'
'I don't know,' Mary replied, laughing, 'that they are to be trusted
even then.'
'I should think,' said Rob, rather anxiously, 'that a woman might as
well marry a man in his first childhood as in his second. Surely the
golden mean----' Rob paused. He was just twenty-seven.
'We should strike the golden mean, you think?' asked Mary demurely. 'But
you see it is of such short duration.'
After that there was such a long pause that Mary could easily have gone
down the ladder had she wanted to do so.
'I am glad that you and Dick are such friends,' she said at last.
'Why?' asked Rob quickly.
'Oh, well,' said Mary.
'He has been the best friend I have ever made,' Rob continued warmly,
'though he says our only point in common is a hatred of rice pudding.'
'He told me,' said Mary, 'that you write on politics in the _Wire_.'
'I do a little now, but I have never met any one yet who admitted that
he had read my articles. Even your brother won't go so far as that.'
'I have read several of them,' said Mary.
'Have you?' Rob exclaimed, like a big boy.
'Yes,' Mary answered severely; 'but I don't agree with them. I am a
Conservative, you know.'
She pursed up her mouth complacently as she spoke, and Rob fell back a
step to prevent his going a step closer. He could hear Mr. Meredith's
line tearing the water. The boy on the next house-boat was baling the
dingey, and whistling a doleful ditty between each canful.
'There will never be such a night again,' Rob said, in a melancholy
voice. Then he waited for Mary to ask why, when he would have told her,
but she did not ask.
'At least, not to me,' he continued, after a pause, 'for I am not likely
to be here again. But there may be many such nights to you.'
Mary was unbuttoning her gloves and then buttoning them again. There is
something uncanny about a woman who has a chance to speak and does not
take it.
'I am glad to hear,' said Rob, 'that my being away will make no
difference to you.'
A light was running along the road to Hampton Court, and Mary watched
it.
'Are you glad?' asked Rob desperately.
'You said I was,' answered Mary, without turning her head. Dick was
thrumming the banjo below. Her hand touched a camp-chair, and Rob put
his over it. He would have liked to stand like that and talk about
things in general now.
'Mary,' said Rob.
The boy ceased to whistle. All nature in that quarter was paralysed,
except the tumble of water across the river. Mary withdrew her hand, but
said nothing. Rob held his breath. He had not even the excuse of having
spoken impulsively, for he had been meditating saying it for weeks.
By and by the world began to move again. The boy whistled. A swallow
tried another twig. A moor-hen splashed in the river. They had thought
it over, and meant to let it pass.
'Are you angry with me?' Rob asked.
Mary nodded her head, but did not speak. Suddenly Rob started.
'You are crying,' he said.
'No, I'm not,' said Mary, looking up now.
There was a strange light in her face that made Rob shake. He was so
near her that his hands touched her jacket. At that moment there was a
sound of feet on the plank that communicated between the _Tawny Owl_ and
the island, and Dick called out--
'You people up there, are you coming once round the island before you
have something to eat?'
Rob muttered a reply that Dick fortunately did not catch, but Mary
answered 'Yes,' and they descended the ladder.
'You had better put a shawl over your shoulders,' said Rob, in rather a
lordly tone.
'No,' Mary answered, thrusting away the shawl he produced from the
saloon; 'a wrap on a night like this would be absurd.'
Something caught in her throat at that moment, and she coughed. Rob
looked at her anxiously.
'You had better,' he said, putting the shawl over her shoulders.
'No,' said Mary, flinging it off.
'Yes,' said Rob, putting it on again.
Mary stamped her foot.
'How dare you, Mr. Angus?' she exclaimed.
Rob's chest heaved.
'You must do as you are told,' he said.
Mary looked at him while he looked at her, but she did not take off the
shawl again, and that was the great moment of Rob's life.
The others had gone on before. Although it was a white night the plank
was dark in shadow, and as she stepped off it she slipped back. Rob's
arm went round her for a moment. They walked round the island together
behind the others, but neither uttered a word. Rob was afraid even to
look at her, so he did not see that Mary looked once or twice at him.
Long after he was supposed to be in the hotel Rob was still walking
round the island, with no one to see him but the cow. All the Chinese
lanterns were out now, but red window-blinds shone warm in several
house-boats, and a terrier barked at his footsteps. The grass was
silver-tipped, as in an enchanted island, and the impatient fairies
might only have been waiting till he was gone. He was wondering if she
was offended. While he paced the island she might be vowing never to
look at him again, but perhaps she was only thinking that he was very
much improved.
At last Rob wandered to the hotel, and reaching his bedroom sat down on
a chair to think it out again by candle-light. He rose and opened the
window. There was a notice over the mantelpiece announcing that smoking
was not allowed in the bedrooms, and having read it thoughtfully he
filled his pipe. A piece of crumpled paper lay beneath the
dressing-table, and he lifted it up to make a spill of it. It was part
of an envelope, and it floated out of Rob's hand as he read the address
in Mary Abinger's handwriting, 'Sir Clement Dowton, Island Hotel.'