PASSAGE REGATTA.
"'Tis good to wear a bit of colour again," said Mrs Bosenna on Regatta
morning, as she stood before her glass pinning to her bodice a huge bow
of red, white, and blue ribbons. "Black never did become me."
"It becomes ye well enough, mistress, and ye know it," contradicted
Dinah.
"'Tis monotonous, anyway. I can't see why we poor widow-women should be
condemned to wear it for life."
"_You_ bain't," Dinah contradicted again, and added slily, "d'ye wish me
to fetch witnesses?"
Her mistress, tittivating the ribbons, ignored the question.
"I do think we might be allowed to wear colours now and again--say on
Sundays. As it is, I dare say many will be pickin' holes in my
character, even for this little outbreak."
"There's a notion, now! Why, 'tis Queen Victory's Year--and a pretty
business if one widow mayn't pay her respects to another!"
"It do always seem strange to me," Mrs Bosenna mused.
"What?"
"Why, that the Queen should be a widow, same as any one else."
"Low fever," said Dinah. "And I've always heard as the Prince Consort
had a delicate constitution."
"It happened before I was born," said Mrs Bosenna vaguely. "Think o'
that, now! . . . And yet 'twasn't the widowin' I meant so much as the
marryin'. I can't manage to connect it in my mind with folks so
high up in the world as Kings and Queens. 'Tis so intimate."
"You may bet Providence tempers it to 'em somehow," opined Dinah.
"If they didn' have families, what'd become o' English history?"
If any tongues wagged against Mrs Bosenna for wearing the patriotic
colours that day, they were not heard in the holiday crowd at the
Passage Slip when, with nicely calculated unpunctuality, she arrived, at
11.32 (the time appointed having been 11.15), to be conveyed on board
the Committee vessel. (It should be explained here that the aquatic
half of Troy's Passage Regatta is compressed within the forenoon: at
midday Troy dines, and even on holidays observes Greenwich time for
that event. Moreover, the afternoon sports of bicycle racing,
steeplechasing, polo-bending, &c., were preluded in those days--before
an electric-power station worked the haulage on the jetties--by a
procession of huge horses, highly groomed and bedecked with ribbons: and
this procession, starting at 1 P.M., allowed the avid holiday-keeper
small margin for dallying over his meal.)
Mrs Bosenna reached the slip to find Cai waiting below in a four-oared
boat which he had borrowed from the Clerk of the Course. A large red
ensign drooped from a staff and trailed in the water astern: the crew
wore scarlet stocking-caps: bright cushion disposed in the stern-sheet
added a touch of luxury to this pomp and circumstance. It might not
rival the barge of Cleopatra upon Cydnus; but the shore-crowd, under
whose eyes it had been waiting for close upon twenty minutes, voted it
to be a very creditable turn out; and Cai, watch in hand, was at least
as impatient as Mark Antony. Off the Committee Ship, a cable's length
up the river, the penultimate race (ran-dan pulling-boats) was finishing
amid banging of guns and bursts of music from the "Troy Town Band,"
saluting the winner with "See the Conquering Hero Comes," the second
boat with strains consecrated to first and second prize-winners in Troy
harbour since days beyond the span of living memory, even as all races
start to the less classical but none the less immemorial air of "Off She
goes to Wallop the Cat."
The crowd parted and made passage for Mrs Bosenna to descend the
slip-way: for Troy is always polite. Its politeness, however, seldom
takes the form of reticence; and as she descended she drew a double
broadside of neighbourly good-days and congratulations, with audible
comments from the back rows on her personal appearance.
"Mornin', Mrs Bosenna--an' a brave breast-knot you're wearin'!"
"Han'some, id'n-a?"
"Handsome, sure 'nough!"
"Fresh coloured as the day she was wed. . . . Good mornin' ma'am!
Good mornin', Mrs Bosenna--an' a proper Queen o' Sheba you be, all
glorious within."
"What a thing 'tis to have money!" remarked a meditative voice deep in
the throng.
"Eh, Billy, my son, it cures half the ills o' life," responded another.
"'Tis a mysterious thing," hazarded a woman--"a dispensation you may
call it, how black suits some complexions while others can't look at
it."
"An' 'tis your sex's perversity," spoke up a male, "that them it don't
suit be apt to wear it longest"--whereat several laughed, for where
everybody is good-humoured the feeblest witticism will pass.
Mrs Bosenna heard these comments, but acknowledged them only by a
scarcely perceptible heightening of colour. She went down the slip-way
royally, with Dinah in close attendance: and Cai, catching sight of her
and pocketing his watch, snatched up a boat-hook to draw the boat's
quarter alongside the slip, while with his disengaged hand he lifted the
brim of a new and glossy top-hat.
"Am I disgracefully late?" Without waiting for his answer, as he handed
her aboard she exclaimed:
"Oh! and what a crowd of boats! . . . I never felt so nervous in all my
life."
"There's no need," said Cai--who himself, two minutes before, had been
desperately nervous. He seated himself beside her and took the tiller.
"Push her out, port-oars! Ready?--Give way, all! . . . There's no
need," he assured her, sinking his voice; "I never saw ye look a
properer sight. Maybe 'tis the bunch o' ribbon sets 'ee off--'Tis the
first time ye've worn colour to my recollection."
"Dead black never suited me."
"I wouldn' say that. . . . But," added Cai upon a happy thought,
"if that's so, you know where to find excuse to leave off wearin' it."
"Hush!" she commanded. "How can you talk so with all these hundreds of
eyes upon us?"
"I don't care." Cai's voice rose recklessly.
"Oh, hush! or the crew'll hear us?"
"I don't care, I tell you."
"But I do--I care very much. . . . You don't pay me compliments when
we're alone," she protested, changing the subject slightly.
"I mean 'em all the time."
"Well, since compliments are flyin' to-day, that's a fine new hat you're
wearin'. And I like the badge in your buttonhole: red with gold
letters--it gives ye quite a smart appearance. What's the writin' on
it?"
"'President.' 'Tis the only red-and-gold badge in the show.
Smart? I tell 'ee I'm feelin' smart."
It was indeed Cai's day--his hour, rather--of triumph. He had played a
winning stroke, boldly, under the public eye: and a hundred comments of
the sightseers, as he steered through the press of boats to the
Committee Ship, testified to his success. Though he could not hear, he
felt them.
--"Well!"
--"Proper cuttin'-out expedition, as you might call it."
--"And she with a great bunch o' ribbons pinned on her,
that no-one shan't miss the meanin' of it."
--"Well, I always favoured Cap'n Hocken's chance, for my
part. An', come to think, 'tis more fitty 't should
happen so. When all's said an' done, t'other's a foreigner,
as you might say, from the far side o' the Duchy: an' if old
Bosenna's money is to go anywhere, why then, bein' Troy-earned,
let it go to a Troy man."
--"But 'tis a facer for Cap'n Hunken, all the same. Poor chap,
look at 'en."
--"Where? . . . I don't see 'en."
--"Why, forward there, on the Committee Ship: leanin' up against
the bulwarks an' lookin' as if he'd swallowed a dog."
--"There, there! . . . And some plucky of the man to stand up to
it, 'stead of walkin' off an' drownin' hisself. I like a man
as can take a knock-down blow standing up. 'Tis a rare
occurrence in these days."
Mrs Bosenna, too, whose wealth (pleasant enough for the comforts it
procured, pleasanter, perhaps, for an attendant sense of security,
pleasantest of all, it may be, for a further sense of power and
importance, secretly enjoyed) had, as yet, of public acknowledgment
taken little toll beyond the deference of tradesmen when she went
shopping, felt herself of a sudden caught up to an eminence the very
giddiness of which was ecstasy. It is possible that, had Cai claimed
her there and then, before the crowd, she would have yielded with but a
faint protest. You must not think that she lost her head for a moment.
On the contrary during her triumphal convoy she saw everything with
remarkable distinctness. She knew well enough that some scores of
women, all around, were envying her, yet admiring in spite of their
envy. Without hearing them, she could almost tell what comments were
uttered in boat after boat as she passed. But what mattered their envy,
so long as they admired? Nay, what mattered their envy, so long as they
envied? The tonic north wind, the sunshine, the sparkle of the water,
the gay lines of bunting flickering from stem to stern of the Committee
Ship, the invigorating blare of the Troy Town Band, now throwing its
soul into "Champagne Charlie," the propulsion of the oars that seemed to
snatch her and sweep her forward past wondering faces to high destiny--
all these were wings, and lifted her spirit with them. She began to
under stand what it must feel like to be a Queen, or (at least) a Prime
Minister's wife.
"Ea-sy all! In oars! . . . Bow, stand by to check her!"
Cai called his orders clearly, sharply, in the tone of a master of men.
A score of boats hampered approach to the accommodation ladder; but
those that had occupants were obediently thrust wide to make way, and
easily as in a barge of state Mrs Bosenna was brought alongside.
A dozen hands checked the way of the boat, now abruptly. Other hands
were stretched to help her up the ladder, which she ascended with
smiling and graceful agility. On the deck, at the head of it, stood the
Hon. Secretary, with the silver cup ready, nursed in the crook of his
arm. It was a handsome cup, and it flashed in the sunlight. The Hon.
Secretary doffed his yachting cap. A dozen men close behind him doffed
their caps at the signal. They were the successful competitors of the
dinghy race, mixed up with committee-men: they had come to receive their
prizes. The competing boats, their sails lowered, had been brought
alongside, and lay tethered, trailing off from the ship's quarter,
rubbing shoulders in a huddle.
Cai, mounting to the deck close behind Dinah, who had followed her
mistress, was met by the Hon. Secretary with the announcement that
everything had been ready these ten minutes.
Almost before she could catch her breath, Mrs Bosenna found the cup
thrust into her hands; the band in the fore part of the vessel ceased--
or, to speak more accurately, smothered--"Champagne Charlie"; the group
before her fell back to form a semicircle and urged forward the abashed
first-prize winner, who stood rubbing one ankle against another and
awkwardly touching his forelock, while a silence fell, broken only by
voices from the boats around calling "Order! Or-der for the speech!"
Mrs Bosenna, recognising the champion in spite of his blushes, collected
her courage, smiled, and said--
"Why, 'tis Walter Sobey!"
"Servant, ma'am!" Mr Sobey touched his forelock again and grinned, as
who should add, "You and me, ma'am, meets in strange places."
"Well, I never! . . . How things do turn out!" It crossed Mrs Bosenna's
mind that on the last occasion of her addressing a word to Walter Sobey
he had been employed by her to cart manure for her roses: and across
this recollection floated a sense of money wasted--for to what service
could Walter Sobey, inhabitant of a three-roomed cottage, put a
two-handled loving-cup embossed in silver?
There was no time, however, for hesitation. . . . With the most gracious
of smiles she took the cup in both hands, and presented it to the
champion.
"'Tis good, anyhow, to feel it goes to a neighbour: and--and if the
worst comes to the worst, Walter, you can always take it back to the
shop and change it for something useful."
"Thank 'ee, ma'am," said Mr Sobey, taking the cup respectfully.
He backed a pace or two, gazed around, and caught the eye of the Hon.
Secretary. "There's a money prize, too, attached to it--ain't there?"
he was heard to ask. "Leastways, 'twas so said 'pon the bills."
Mr Sobey was proud of his victory; the prouder because he had built the
winning boat with his own hands. (Very luckily for him, at the last
moment Captain Hocken had judged it beneath the dignity of a Regatta
President to compete; and Captain Hunken, missing his rival at the
starting-line, had likewise withdrawn from the contest.)
"Certainly," agreed the Hon. Secretary. "Two guineas. Hi, there, aft!
Where's Mr Willett?"
Other voices carried back the call, and presently the Treasurer, Mr
Willett--a pursey little man with enormous side-whiskers,--came hurrying
forward from the after-companion, where he had been engaged in hearing a
protest from an excited disputant--a competitor in the 16-foot class--
who had in fact come in last, even on his handicap, but with a clear
notion in his own mind, and an array of arguments to convince others,
that he was entitled to the prize. Such misunderstandings were frequent
enough at Passage Regatta, and mainly because .Mr Willett, whom nobody
cared to cashier--he had been Treasurer for so many years,--had as a
rule imbibed so much beer in the course of the forenoon that any one
argument appeared to him as cogent as any other. He seemed, in fact, to
delight in hearing a case from every point of view; and by consequence
it could be securely predicted of any given race in Passage Regatta that
"You had never lost till you'd won."
Now, on Cai's secret recommendation the Committee had engaged the boy
Palmerston--who was quick at sums--to stand by Mr Willett during the
forenoon and count out the cash for him. The Treasurer (it was argued)
would be suspicious of help from a grown man; whereas he could order a
boy about, and even cuff his head on emergency. So Palmerston, seated
by the after-companion, had spent a great part of the morning in
listening to disputes, and counting out money as soon as the disputes
were settled. Nor was objection taken--as it might have been at more
genteel fixtures--to a part of the prize being produced from
Palmerston's mouth, in which he had a knack of storing petty cash, for
convenience of access--and for safety too, to-day, since he had
discovered a hole in one of his pockets.
Mr Willett then, rising and cutting short an altercation between two
late competitors in the 16-foot race, came hurrying forward with
Palmerston, ever loyal, in his wake. For the boy, without blaming
anyone, anxious only to fulfil a responsibility that weighed on him, was
aware that Mr Willett--whether considered as a man or as a treasurer--
had taken in overmuch beer, and might need support in either capacity or
in both.
But while Mr Willett advanced, in a series of hasty plunges,--as though
the Committee vessel were ploughing the deep with all sail set,--voices
around Mrs Bosenna had already begun to call for a speech; and the cry
was quickly taken up from the many boats overside, now gathered in a
close throng.
"A speech! a speech!"
Mrs Bosenna laughed, and turned about prettily.
"I did not bargain for any speech," she protested. "I--in fact I never
made a speech in my life. If--if Captain Hocken would say a few
words--"
"Ay, Cap'n," exhorted a voice, "speak up for her, like a man now!
Seems to us she've given you the right."
There was a general laugh, and it brought a heightened flush to Mrs
Bosenna's cheek. Cai, not noting it, cleared his throat and doffed his
tall hat. "Here, hold this," said he, catching sight of Palmerston, and
cleared his throat again.
"Friends and naybours," said he, and this opening evoked loud applause.
As it died down, he continued, "Friends and naybours, this here has been
a most successful regatta. _Of_ which, as a fitting conclusion, the
Brave has received his reward at the hands of the Fair."
"Lord! he means hisself!" interrupted a giggling voice from one of the
boats.
This interruption called forth a storm of applause. Oars were rattled
on rowlocks and feet began stamping on bottom boards.
"By the Brave," continued Cai, pitching his voice higher, "I mean, of
course, our respected fellow-citizen, Mr Walter Sobey, whose handling of
his frail craft--"
("Hear! Hear!")
"--Whose handling of his frail craft to-day was of a natur' to surprise
and delight all beholders."
At this point Mr Willett, the Treasurer, who had for some seconds been
staring at the speaker with glazed uncertain eye, interrupted in a voice
thick with liquor--
"The question is, Who wants me?"
"Nobody, you d--d old fool!" snapped the Hon. Secretary. "Can't you see
Cap'n Hocken is makin' a speech?"
"_I_ see," answered Mr Willett with drunken deliberation, "and, what's
more, I don't think much of it. . . . Gentlemen over there 'pears t'
agree with me," he added: for from the rear of the group a scornful
laugh had endorsed his criticism.
"Any one can tell what _hasn't_ agreed with you this mornin'," retorted
the Hon. Secretary, still more angrily. "Go home, and--"
But Cai had lifted a hand. "No quarrelling, please!" he commanded, and
resumed, "As I was sayin', ladies and gentlemen--or as I was about to
say--the handlin' of a small boat demands certain gifts or, er,
qualities; and these gifts and, er, qualities bein' the gifts and h'm
qualities what made England such as we see her to-day,--a sea-farin'
nation an' foremost at that,--it follows that we cannot despise them if
we wish her to occupy the same position in the futur'--which to my mind
is education in a nutshell."
Again the scornful laugh echoed from the back of the crowd, and this
time Cai knew the voice. It stung him the more sharply, as in a flash
he recollected that the phrase "education in a nutshell" belonged
properly to a later paragraph, and in his flurry he had dragged it in
prematurely. His audience applauded, but Cai swung about in wrath.
"My remarks," said he, "don't seem to commend themselves to one o' my
hearers. But I'm talkin' now on a subjec' about which I know som'at,--
not about _ploughin'_."
The thrust was admirably delivered,--the more adroitly in that, on the
edge of delivering it, he had paused with a self-depreciatory smile.
Its point was taken up on the instant. The audience on deck sent up a
roar of laughter: and the roar spread and travelled away from the ship
in a widening circle as from boat to boat the shrewd hit was reported.
Distant explosions of mirth were still greeting it, when Cai, finding
voice again, and wisely cutting out his prepared peroration, concluded
as follows:--
"Any way, friends and naybours, I can wind up with something as'll
commend itself to everybody: and that is by wishin' success to Passage
Regatta, and askin' ye to give three cheers for Mrs Bosenna.
Hip--hip--"
"Hoo-ray! hoo-ray! hoo-ray!" The cheers were given with a will and
passed down the river in rolling echoes. But before the last echo died
away--while Mrs Bosenna smiled her acknowledgment--as the band formed up
for "God Save the Queen"--as they lifted their instruments and the
bandmaster tapped the music-stand with his baton,--at the top of his
voice 'Bias delivered his counter-stroke.
"And one more for Peter Benny!"
There was a momentary hush, and then--for Troy's sense of humour is
impartial, and everyone knew from what source Captain Hocken derived his
public eloquence--the air was rent with shout upon shout of merriment.
Even the band caught the contagion. The drummer drew a long applausive
rattle from his side-drum; the trombone player sawing the air with his
instrument, as with a fret-saw, evoked noises not to be described.
In the midst of this general mirth--while Cai stood his ground, red to
the ears, and Mrs Bosenna plucked nervously at the tassel of her
sunshade--'Bias came thrusting forward, shouldering his way through the
press. But 'Bias's face reflected none of the mirth he had awakened.
"I mayn't know much about ploughin', Cai Hocken--" he began.
"Ah? Good day, Captain Hunken!" interposed Mrs Bosenna.
"Good-day to you, ma'am." He raised his hat without answering her
smile. Then, with a gesture that dismissed the tactful interruption,
"I mayn't know much about ploughin', though it sticks in my mind that as
between us the judges handed me the stakes, even at _that_. But at
handlin' a boat--one o' these here dingheys if you will, an' if you care
to make good your words--"
"What _was_ my words?"
"Oh, I beg pardon." 'Bias corrected himself with a snort of contempt.
"'Peter Benny's words,' maybe I should have said: but 'education in a
nutshell' was the expression."
"I'll take you up--when and where you please, and for any money,"
Cai challenged, white to the lips and shaking with rage.
"A five-pound note, if you will."
"As you please. . . . I haven't five pound here, upon me."
"Nor I, as it happens. But here's a sovereign for earnest."
"Here's another to cover it, anyway. Who'll hold the stakes? . . .
Will you, ma'am?" Cai appealed to Mrs Bosenna.
"Certainly not," she answered, tapping the deck angrily with the ferrule
of her sunshade. "And I wonder how you two can behave so foolish,
before folks."
But for the moment they were past her control.
"Here . . . Pam! Pam will do, eh?"
"Well as another."
"Right. Here Pam, take hold o' this sovereign and keep it careful!"
"Mine too. . . . That makes the wager, eh?"
"For five pounds?"
"Five pounds. Right.
"Boats?"
"I don't care. Our own two, or draw lots for any two here, as you
please."
"But--gentlemen!" interposed the Hon. Secretary.
"Now, don't you start interferin'"--Bias turned on him sullenly.
"Else you might chance to get what you don't like."
"Oh, they're mad!" wailed Mrs Bosenna, and Dinah was heard to murmur,
"You've pushed' em too far, mistress: an' don't say as I didn' warn
you!"
"I--I was only goin' to suggest, gentlemen," urged the Hon. Secretary,
"it bein' already ten minutes past noon, and everybody waitin' for
'God Save the Queen.'"
"Hullo!" hailed a voice alongside, at the foot of the accommodation
table; and Mr Philp's top hat, Mr Philp's deceptively jovial face,
Mr Philp's body clad in mourning weeds, climbed successively into view.
"There, naybours!" he announced. "I'm in the nick of time, after all, it
seems,--though when I heard the church clock strike twelve it sent my
heart into my mouth." He stood and panted.
"Ah! good-day, Mr Philp!" Mrs Bosenna turned, hailing his intervention,
and advanced to shake hands.
"Good-day to you, ma'am. Been enjoy in' yourself, I hope?" said Mr
Philp, somewhat taken aback by the warmth of her greeting.
"A most successful Regatta . . . don't you agree?"
"I might, ma'am," answered Mr Philp solemnly. "I don't doubt it, ma'am.
But as a matter of fact I have just come from a funeral."
"Oh! . . . I--I beg your pardon--I didn't know--"
"There's no call to apologise, ma'am. . . . The deceased was not a
relative. A farm-servant, ma'am--female--at the far end of the parish:
Tuckworthy's farm, to be precise: and the woman, Sarah Jane Collins by
name. Probably you didn't know her. No more did I except by sight: but
a very respectable woman--a case of Bright's disease. In the midst of
life we are in death, and, much as I enjoy Passage Regatta--"
"You have missed it then?"
"The woman had saved money, ma'am. There was a walled grave, by
request." Mr Philp sighed over this remembered consolation. "She could
not help it clashin', poor soul."
"No, indeed!"
"And you may or may not have noticed it, ma'am, but when a man sets duty
before pleasure, often as not he gets rewarded. Comin' back along the
town before the streets filled, I picked up a piece o' news, and hurried
along with it. I reckoned it might be of interest if I could reach here
ahead of 'God Save the Queen.'"
"Gracious! What has happened?" Mrs Bosenna clasped her hands.
Indeed Mr Philp, big with his news and important, had somehow contrived
to overawe everyone on deck.
"The news is," he announced slowly, "that the _Saltypool_ has gone down,
within fifty miles of Philadelphia. Crew saved in the boats.
Cable reached Mr Rogers at eleven o'clock, and"--he paused impressively,
"there and then Rogers had a second stroke. Point o' death, they say."
Above the sympathetic murmur of Mr Philp's audience there broke, on the
instant, a gasping cry--followed by a yet more terrible sound, as of one
in the last agony of strangulation.
All turned, as Palmerston--dashing forward between the music-stands of
the band and scattering them to right and left--flung himself between
Cai and 'Bias at their very feet.
"Masters--masters! I've a-swallowed the stakes!"