Home > Authors Index > Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch > Hocken and Hunken; A Tale of Troy > This page
Hocken and Hunken; A Tale of Troy, a novel by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
||
Book 1 - Chapter 3. Tabb's Child |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ BOOK I CHAPTER III. TABB'S CHILD "Three hundred pounds a-year . . ." mused Captain Cai between two puffs of tobacco smoke. He repeated the words, rolling them in his mouth, as though they tasted well. "You're pretty sure 'twill come to that?" "Sure," answered Mr Rogers. The pair had dined, and were now promoting digestion with pipes and grog in Mr Rogers' bow-window overlooking the harbour. "You might put your money to an annuity, o' course, an' live like a lord: but I'm reckonin' it in safe ord'nary investments, averagin' (let's say) four per cent. An' that's leavin' out your thirty-odd shares in the _Hannah Hoo_, when she's for sale. Ship-auctions be chancey things in these days, an' private purchasers hard to find." "I never knew 'em when they weren't," said Captain Cai. "When d'ye pay off, by the way?" "Not till Saturday. There's no hurry. When a man drops hook on his last cruise I allow 'tis his duty to tidy up an' leave all ship-shape; in justice to hisself, you understand. There's Tregaskis an' the crew, too,--old shipmates every one--" The chandler nodded. "Ay, you're to be envied, Cap'n. There's others--masters of oil-tanks, f'r instance--as makes their pile faster; some of em' in ways that needn't be mentioned atween you an' me. But slow an' honest has been your motto; an' here you be--What's your age? Fifty? Say fifty at the outside.--Here you be at fifty with a tidy little income and a clean conscience to sit with in your pew o' Sundays; nothing to do o' week-days but look after a few steady-goin' investments an' draw your little dividends." "That'd be more business than I've a mind for, Rogers," answered Captain Cai; "at any rate, while you live. I've a-left my affairs to you these twelve year, an' mean to continue, please God--you knowin' my ways." The chandler blinked. "That's very han'some o' ye, Cap'n," he said after a long pause. "But--" "There's no 'but' about it," interrupted Captain Cai shortly, looking away and resting his gaze on the _Hannah Hoo_ out in the harbour, where she lay on the edge of the deep-water channel among a small crowd of wind-bounders. Her crew had already made some progress in unbending sails, and her stripped spars shone as gold against the westering sunlight. "No 'but' about it, Rogers--unless o' course you're unwillin'." "What's willin' or unwillin' to a man broken in health as I be? That's the p'int, Cap'n--here, set opposite to 'ee, staring 'ee in the face--a hulk, shall we say?--rudder gone, ridin' to a thread o' life--" "You'll ride to it a many years yet, please God again." "I take 'e to witness this is not my askin'." Captain Cai stared. "'Tis my askin', Rogers. I put it as a favour." "What about your friend? I was thinkin' as maybe _he'd_ take over the job." "'Bias?" Captain Cai shook his head. "He've no gift in money matters; let be that I don't believe in mixin' friendship in business." Mr Rogers pondered this for some while in silence. Then he struck a hand-bell beside him, and his summons was answered by a small short-skirted handmaiden who had waited table. "Pipe's out, my dear," he announced. "An' while you're about it you may mix us another glassful apiece." "Not for me, thank 'ee," said Captain Cai. "An' not for him, neither," said the girl. She was but a child, yet she spoke positively, and yet again without disrespect in her manner. "'Tis poison for 'ee," she added, knocking out the ash from her master's churchwarden pipe and refilling it from the tobacco-jar. "You know what the doctor said?" "Ugh!--a pair o' tyrants, you an' the doctor! Just a thimbleful now--if the Cap'n here will join me." "You heard him? He don't want another glass." Her solemn eyes rested on Captain Cai, and he repeated that he would take no more grog. She struck a match and held it to the pipe while the chandler drew a few puffs. Then she was gone as noiselessly as she had entered. "That's a question now," observed Captain Cai after a pause. "What's a question?" "Servants. I've talked it over with 'Bias, and he allows we should advertise for a single housekeeper; a staid honest woman to look after the pair of us--with maybe a trifle of extra help. That gel, for instance, as waited table--" "Tabb's child?" "Is that her name?" "She was christened Fancy--Fancy Tabb--her parents being a brace o' fools. Ay, she's a nonesuch, is Tabb's child." "With a manageable woman to give her orders--What's amiss with ye, Rogers?" Captain Cai put the question in some alarm, for the heaving of the ship-chandler's waistcoat and a strangling noise in his throat together suggested a sudden gastric disturbance. But it appeared they were but symptoms of mirth. Mr Rogers lifted his practicable hand, and with a red bandanna handkerchief wiped the rheum from his eyes. "Ho, dear!--you'll excuse me, Cap'n; but 'with a manageable woman,' you said? I'd pity her startin' to manage the like of Fancy Tabb." "Why, what's wrong wi' the child?" "Nothin'--let be I can't keep a grown woman in the house unless she's a half-wit. I have to get 'em from Tregarrick, out o' the Home for the Feeble-Minded. But it don't work so badly. They're cheap, you understand; an' Fancy teaches 'em to cook. If they don't show no promise after a fortni't's trial, she sends 'em back. I hope," added the chandler, perceiving Captain Cai to frown, "you're not feelin' no afterthoughts about that leg o' mutton. Maybe I ought to have warned 'ee that 'twas cooked by a person of weak intellect." "Don't mention it," said Captain Cai politely. "What the eye don't see the heart don't grieve, as they say; an' the jint was boiled to a turn. . . . I was only wonderin' how you picked up such a maid!" The chandler struck again upon the small hand-bell. "I got her from a bad debt." "Seems an odd way--" began Captain Cai, after pondering for a moment, but broke off, for the hand-maiden stood already on the threshold. "Fancy Tabb," commanded the chandler, "step fore, here, into the light." The child obeyed. "You see this gentleman?" "Yes, master." Her eyes, as she turned them upon Captain Cai, were frank enough, or frank as eyes could be that guarded a soul behind glooms of reserve. They were straight, at any rate, and unflinching, and very serious. "You know his business?" "I think so, master. . . . Has he come to sign the lease? I'll fetch it from your desk, if you'll give me the keys." "Bide a bit, missy," said Captain Cai. "That'd be buying a pig in a poke, when I ha'n't even seen the house yet--not," he added, with a glance at Mr Rogers, "that I make any doubt of its suiting. But business is business." The child turned to her master, as much as to ask, "What, then, is your need of me?" "Cap'n Hocken wants a servant," said Mr Rogers, answering the look. She appeared to ponder this. "Before seein' the house?" she asked, after a moment or two. "She had us there, Rogers!" chuckled Captain Cai; but the child was perfectly serious. "You would like me to show you the house? Master has the key." "That's an idea, now!" He was still amused. "When?" "This moment--that's to say, if your master'll spare you?" He glanced at Mr Rogers, who nodded. "Couldn't do better," he agreed. "You've a good two hours afore dusk, an' she's a proper dictionary on taps an' drainage." "Please you to come along, sir." The child waited respectfully while Captain Cai arose, picked up his hat, and bade his host "So long!" He followed her downstairs. Their way to the street lay through the shop, and by the rearward door of it she paused to reach down her hat and small jacket. The shop was long, dark, intricate; its main window overshadowed by the bulk of the Town Hall, across the narrow alley-way; its end window, which gave on the Quay, blocked high with cheeses, biscuit-tins, boxes of soap, and dried Newfoundland cod. Into this gloom the child flung her voice, and Captain Cai was aware of the upper half of a man's body dimly silhouetted there against the panes. "Daddy, I'm going out." "Yes, dear," answered the man's voice dully. "For an hour, very likely. This gentleman wants to see his new house, and I'm to show it to him." "Yes, dear." "You'll be careful, won't you now? Mrs M--fus'll be coming round, certain, for half-a-pound of bacon; And that P--fus girl for candles, if not for sugar. You've to serve neither, mind, until you see their money." "Yes, dear. What excuse shall I make?" The man's voice was weary but patient. The tone of it set a chord humming faintly somewhere in Captain Cai's memory: but his mind worked slowly and (as he would have put it) wanted sea-room, to come about. They had taken but a few steps, however, when in the narrow street, known as Dolphin Row, he pulled up with all sail shaking. "That there party as we passed in the shop--" "He's my father," said the child quickly. "And you're Tabb's child. . . . You don't tell me that was Lijah Tabb, as used to be master o' the _Uncle an' Aunt?_" "I don't tell you anything," said the child, and added, "he's a different man altogether." "That's curious now." Captain Cai walked on a pace or two and halted again. "But you're Tabb's child," he insisted. "And, by the trick of his voice, if that wasn't Lijah--" "His name _is_ Elijah." "Eh?" queried Captain Cai, rubbing his ear. "But I heard tell," he went on in a puzzled way, searching his memory, "as Lijah Tabb an' Rogers had quarrelled desp'rate an' burnt the papers, so to speak." "'Twas worse than that." She did not answer his look, but kept her eyes fixed ahead. "Yet here I find the man keepin' shop for Rogers: and as for you--if you're his daughter--" "I'm in service with Mr Rogers," said Fancy, who as if in a moment had recovered her composure. "If you want to know why, sir, and won't chat about it, I don't mind tellin' you." "You make me curious, little maid: that I'll own." "'Tis simple enough, too," said she. "He's had a stroke, an' he's goin to hell." "Eh? . . . I don't see--" "He's goin' to hell," she repeated with a nod as over a matter that admitted no dispute. "Well, but dang it all!" protested Captain Cai after a pause, "we'll allow as he's goin' there, for the sake of argyment. Is that why you're tendin' on him so careful?" "You mustn't think," answered the child, "that I'm doin' it out o' pity altogether. There's something terrible fascinatin' about a man in that position." _ |
||