Book 2 - Chapter 9. First Suspicions

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_ BOOK II CHAPTER IX. FIRST SUSPICIONS

It was August, and the weather for weeks had been superb. It was also the week of Troy's annual regatta, and a whole fleet of yachts lay anchored in the little harbour, getting ready their riding lights. Two or three belated ones--like large white moths in the grey offing-- had yet to make the rendezvous, and were creeping towards it with all canvas piled: for the wind--light and variable all day--had now at sunset dropped almost to a flat calm.

"A few pounds to be picked up out yonder," commented Captain Cai, "if the tugs had any enterprise."

Captain 'Bias reached out a hand for the telescope. "That yawl--the big fellow--'d do better to take in her jib-tops'le. The faster it's pullin' her through the water the more it's pullin' her to leeward. She'd set two p'ints nigher with it down."

"The fella can't make up his mind about it, either: keeps it shakin' half the time."

The two friends sat in 'Bias's summerhouse, the scent of their tobacco mingling, while they discoursed, with the fragrance of late roses, nicotianas, lemon verbenas. "Discoursed," did I say? Well, let the word pass: for their talk was discursive enough. But when at intervals one or the other opened his mouth, his utterance, though it took the form of a comment upon men and affairs, was in truth but the breathing of a deep inward content. On the table between them Captain Cai's musical box tinkled the waltz from "Faust."

They had become house-occupiers early in May, and at first with a few bare sticks of furniture a-piece. But by dint of steady attendance at the midsummer auctions they had since done wonders. Captain Cai had acquired, among other things, a refrigerator, a linen-press, and a set of 'The Encyclopaedia Britannica' (edition of 1881); Captain 'Bias a poultry run (in sections) and a framed engraving of "The Waterloo Banquet,"--of which, strange to say, he found himself possessor directly through his indifference to art; for, oppressed by the heat of the saleroom, he had yielded to brief slumber (on his legs) while the pictures were being disposed of, and awaking at the sound of his own name was aware that he had secured this bargain by an untimely and unpremeditated nod.

Such small accidents, however, are a part of the fun of house-furnishing. On the whole our two friends had bought judiciously, and now looking around them, could say that their experiment had hitherto prospered; that, so far, the world was kind.

Especially were they fortunate (thanks to Fancy Tabb) precisely where bachelor householders are apt to miss good fortune--in the matter of domestic service. The boy Palmerston, to be sure, suffered from a trick--acquired (Fancy assured them) under workhouse treatment and eradicable by time and gentle handling--of bursting into tears upon small provocation or none. But Mrs Bowldler was a treasure. Of this there could be no manner of doubt; and in nothing so patently as in relation with the boy Palmerston did the gold in Mrs Bowldler's nature-- the refined gold--reveal itself.

It was suspected that she had once been a kitchen-maid in the West End of London: but a discreet veil hung over this past, and she never lifted it save by whatever of confession might be read into the words, "When we were in residence in Eaton Square,"--with which she preluded all reminiscences (and they were frequent) of the great metropolis. Her true test as a good woman she passed when--although she must have known the truth, being a confirmed innocent gossip--she chose to extend the same veil, or a corner of it, over the antecedents of Palmerston. She said--

"The past is often enveloped. In the best families it is notoriously so. We know what we are, an' may speckilate on what we was; but what we're to be, who can possibly tell? It might give us the creeps."

She said again: "Every man carries a button in his knapsack, by which he may rise sooner or later to higher things. It was said by a Frenchman, and a politer nation you would not find."

Again: "Blood will tell, always supposin' you 'ave it, and will excuse the expression."

Thus did Mrs Bowldler "turn her necessity to glorious gain," colouring and enlarging her sphere of service under the prismatic lens of romance. In her conversation either cottage became a "residence," and its small garden "the grounds," thus:--

"Palmerston, inform Captain Hunken that dinner is served. You will find him in the grounds."

Or, "Where's that boy?" Captain Cai might ask.

"Palmerston, sir? He is at present in the adjacent, cleaning the knives and forks."

She had indeed set this high standard of expression in the very act of taking service; when, being asked what wages she demanded, she answered, "If acceptable to you, sir, I would intimate eighteen guineas--and my viands."

"That's two shilling short o' nineteen pound," said Captain Hunken.

"I thank you, sir"--Mrs Bowldler made obeisance--"but I have an attachment to guineas."

She identified herself with her employers by speaking of them in the first person plural: "No, we do not dress for dinner. Our rule is to dine in the middle of the day, as more agreeable to health." [A sigh.] "Sometimes I wish we could persuade ourselves that vegetables look better on the side-table."

Such was Mrs Bowldler: and her housekeeping, no less vigilant than romantic, protected our two friends from a thousand small domestic cares.

"Committee-meeting, to-night?" asked 'Bias.

"Eight o'clock: to settle up details--mark-boats, handicap, and the like. . . . It's a wonder to me," said Cai reflectively, "how this regatta has run on, year after year. With Bussa for secretary, if you can understand such madness."

"They'll be runnin' you for the next Parish Council, sure as fate."

Cai ignored this. "There's the fireworks, too. Nobody chosen yet to superintend 'em, an' who's to do it I don't know, unless I take over that little job in addition."

"I thought the firm always sent a couple o' hands to fix an let 'em off."

"So it does. They arrived a couple of hours ago--both drunk as Chloe."

"Plenty o' time to sleep it off between this an' then," opined 'Bias comfortably.

"But they're still _on_ the drink. Likely as not we shall find 'em to-morrow in Highway lock-up, which is four miles from here. . . . It happened once before," said Cai with a face of gloom, "and Bussa did the whole display by himself."

"Good Lord! How did it go off?"

"He can't remember, except that it _did_ go off. _He_ was drunk, too-- drunk o' purpose: for, as he says very reas'nably, 'twas the only way he could find the courage. The fellow isn' without public spirit, if he'd only apply it the right way. Toy tells me that he, for his part, saw it from his bedroom window--the Town Quay wasn't safe, wi' the rocket-sticks fairly rainin'--an' the show wasn' a bad show, _if you looked at it horizontal_; but the gentry on the yachts derived next to no enjoyment from it, bein' occupied in gettin' up their anchors."

Before 'Bias could comment on this, a footstep--light, yet audible between the tinkling notes of the musical box--drew the gaze of the pair to a small window on the right, outside of which lay the gravelled approach to their bower.

"May I come in?" asked a voice--a woman's--with a pretty hesitation in its note: and Mrs Bosenna stood in the doorway.

"_Please_ keep your seats," she entreated as both arose awkwardly. She added with a mirthful little laugh, "I heard the musical box playing away, and so I took French leave. Now, don't tell me that I'm an intruder! It is only for a few minutes; and--strictly speaking, you know--the lease says I may enter at any reasonable time. Is this a reasonable time?"

They assured her, but still awkwardly, that she was welcome at any time. Captain Cai found her a chair.

"So this," she said, looking around, "is where you sit together and talk disparagingly of our sex. At least, that's what Dinah assures me, though I don't see how she can possibly know."

"Ma'am!" said Cai, "we were talkin', this very moment, o' fireworks: nothing more an' nothing less."

"Well, and you couldn't have been talking of anything more to the point," said Mrs Bosenna; "for, as it happens, it's fireworks that brought me here."

'Bias looked vaguely skyward, while "You don't tell me, ma'am, those fellows are making trouble down in the town?" cried Cai.

"Eh? I don't understand. . . . Oh, no," she laughed when he explained his alarm, "I am afraid my errand is much more selfish. You see, I positively dote on fireworks."

She paused.

"Well," said 'Bias, "that's womanlike."

"Hallo!" said Cai. "How do you know what's womanlike?"

"I am afraid it is womanlike," confessed Mrs Bosenna hastily. "And from Rilla Farm you get no view at all on Regatta night. So I was wondering--if you won't think it dreadfully forward of me--"

"You're welcome to watch 'em from here, ma'am, if that's what you mean," said 'Bias.

"Or from my garden, ma'am, if you prefer it," said Cai.

"Why should she?" asked 'Bias.

"Well, 'tis a yard or two nearer, for one thing."

"Anything else?"

"Yes: the other summer-house fronts a bit more up the harbour; t'wards the fireworks, that's to say."

"You ought to know: _you_ chose it. . . . But anyway I asked her first."

"Thank you--thank you both!" interposed Mrs Bosenna, leaving the question open. "And may I bring Dinah too? She's almost as silly about fireworks as I am, poor woman! and life on a farm _can_ be dull." She sighed, and added, "Besides, 'twould be more proper. We mustn't set people talking--eh, Captain Hocken?" She appealed to him with a laugh.

"Cai won't be here," announced 'Bias heavily.

"Who said so?" demanded Cai.

"'Said so yourself, not twenty minutes ago. . . . 'Said you didn' know how the fireworks was ever goin' off without you, or words to that effect. I didn' make no comment at the time. All I say now is, if Mrs Bosenna comes here to see fireworks, she'll expect 'em to go off: an' I leave it at that."

"They'll go off, all right," said Cai cheerfully, putting a curb on his temper. [But what ailed 'Bias to-night?] "I'll get a small Sub-committee appointed this very evening. But about takin' a hand myself, I've changed my mind."

"Indeed, Captain Hocken, I hope you'll not desert the party," said Mrs Bosenna prettily, and laughed again. "Do you know that, having made so bold I've a mind to make bolder yet, and pretend I am entertaining _you_ to-morrow. It's the only chance you give me, you two."

She said this with her eyes on 'Bias, who started as if stung and glanced first at her, then at Cai. But Cai observed nothing, being occupied at the moment in winding up the musical box, which had run down.

Mrs Bosenna smiled a demure smile. She had discovered what she had come to learn; and having discovered it, she presently took her leave, with a promise to be punctual on the morrow.

When she was gone the pair sat for some time in silence. _Tink, tink-tink-a-tink, tink_, went the musical box on the table. . . . At length Cai stood up.

"Time to be gettin' along to Committee," he said, and stepped to the doorway; but there he turned and faced about. "'Bias--"

"Eh?"

"You don't really think as I chose th' other summer-house because it had a better view?"

"_Has_ it a better view?" asked 'Bias.

"For fireworks, it seems," said Cai sadly. "But I reckoned--though I hate to talk about it--as this one looked straighter out to sea an' by consequence 'd please ye better. That's why. . . . You're welcome to change gardens to-morrow."

"Mrs Bosenna's comin' to-morrow," grunted 'Bias, and then, after a second's pause, swore under his breath, yet audibly.

"What's the matter with ye, 'Bias?"

"I don't know. . . . Maybe 'tis that box o' tunes gets on my temper. No, don't take it away. I didn' mean it like that, an' the music used to be pretty enough, first-along."

"We'll give it a spell," said Cai, stooping and switching off the tune. "I'm not musical myself; I'd as lief hear thunder, most days. But the thing was well meant."

"Ay, an' no doubt we'll pick up a taste for it again--indoors of an evenin', when the winter comes 'round."

"Tell ye what," suggested Cai. "To-morrow, I'll take it off to John Peter and ask him to put a brass plate on the lid, with an inscription. He's clever at such things, an' terrible dilatory. . . . An' to-night Mrs Bowldler can have it in the kitchen. She dotes on it--'_I dreamt that I dwelt_' in particular."

"Which," said Mrs Bowldler to Palmerston later on, as they sat drinking in that ditty, one on either side of the kitchen table, "it can't sing, but the words is that I dreamt I dwelt in Marble Halls with Princes and Peers by my si-i-ide--just like that. Princes!" She leaned back in the cheap chair and closed her eyes. "It goes through me to this day. I used to sing it frequent in my 'teens, along with another popular favourite which was quite at the other end of the social scale, but artless--'My Mother said that I never should Play with the gypsies in the wood. If I did, She would say, Tum tiddle, tum tiddle, tum-ti-tay' --my memory is not what it was." Mrs Bowldler wiped her eyes.

"And did you?" asked Palmerston. "Tell me what happened."

Next morning, while the Church bells were ringing in Regatta Day, Captain Cai tucked the musical box under his arm and called, on his way to the Committee Ship, upon Mr John Peter Nanjulian (commonly "John Peter" for short).

John Peter, an elderly man, dwelt with a yet more elderly sister, in an old roomy house set eminently on the cliff-side above the roofs of the Lower Town, approachable only by a pathway broken by flights of steps, and known by the singular name of On the Wall.

The house had been a family mansion, and still preserved traces of ancient dignity, albeit jostled by cottages which had climbed the slope and encroached nearer and nearer as the Nanjulians under stress of poverty had parted with parcel after parcel of their terraced garden. Of the last generation--five sons and three daughters, not one of whom had married--John Peter and his sister "Miss Susan" were now the only survivors, and lived, each on a small annuity, under the old roof, meeting only at dinner on Sundays, and for the rest of the week dwelling apart in their separate halves of the roomy building, up and down the wide staircase of which they had once raced as children at hide-and-seek with six playmates.

John Peter was eccentric, as all these later Nanjulians had been: a lean, stooping man, with a touch of breeding in his face, a weak mouth, and a chin dotted with tufts of gray hair which looked as if they had been affixed with gum and absent-mindedly. He was reputed to be a great reader, and could quote the poetical works of Pope by the yard. He had some skill with the pencil and the water-colour brush. He understood and could teach the theory of navigation; dabbled in chess problems; and had once constructed an astronomical timepiece. His not-too-clean hands were habitually stained with acids: for he practised etching, too, although his plates invariably went wrong. He had considerable skill in engraving upon brass and copper, and was not above eking out his income by inscribing coffin-plates. But the undertaker was shy of employing him because he could never be hurried.

John Peter received Captain Cai in his workshop--a room ample enough for a studio and lit by a large window that faced north, but darkened by cobwebs, dirty, and incredibly littered with odds and ends of futile apparatus. He put a watchmaker's glass to his eye and peered long into the bowels of the musical box.

"The works are clogged with dust," he announced. "Fairly caked with oil and dirt. No wonder it won't go."

"But it _does_ go," objected Captain Cai.

"You don't tell me! . . . Well, you'd best let me take out the works, any way, and give them a bath of paraffin."

"Is it so serious as all that? . . . What I came about now, was to ask you to make a brass plate for the lid--with an inscription." Captain Cai pulled out a scrap of paper. "Something like this, 'Presented to Caius Hocken, Master of the _Hannah Hoo_, on the Occasion of his Retirement. By his affectionate undersigned': then the names, with maybe a motto or a verse o' poetry if space permits."

"What sort of poetry?"

"Eh? . . . 'Tell ye the truth, I didn' know till this moment that there _were_ different sorts. Well, we'll have the best."

"Why not go to Benny, and get him to fix you up something appropriate?" suggested John Peter. "Old Benny, I mean, that writes the letters for seamen. He's a dab at verses. People go to him regular for the In-Memoriams they put in the newspaper."

"That's an idea, too," said Captain Cai. "I'll consult him to-morrow. But that won't hinder your getting ahead wi' the plate?" he added; for John Peter's ways were notorious.

"How would you like it?" John Peter looked purblindly about him, rubbing his spectacles with a thread-bare coat-tail.

"Well, I don't mind," said Cai with promptitude--"Though 'tis rather early in the morning."

"Old English?"

"Perhaps I don't know it by that name."

"Or there's Plain."

"Not for me, thank ye."

"--Or again, there's Italic; to my mind the best of all. It lends itself to little twiddles and flourishes, according to your taste." Old John Peter led him to the wall and pointed with a dirty finger; and Cai gasped, finding his attention directed to a line of engraved coffin-plates.

"That's Italic," said John Peter, selecting an inscription and tracing over the flourishes with his thumb-nail. "'_William Penwarne, b. 1837--_' that's the year the Queen came to the throne. It's easier to read, you see, than old English, and far easier than what we call Gothic, or Ecclesiastical--which is another variety--though, of course, not so easy as Plain. Here you have Plain--" He indicated an inscription--'_Samuel Bosenna, of Rilla, b. 1830, d. 1895_."

"Would that be th' old fellow up the valley, as was?--Mrs Bosenna's husband?" asked Cai, somewhat awed.

"That's the man."

"But what's it doing here?"

"'Tis my unfortunate propensity," confessed John Peter with simple frankness. "You see, by the nature of things these plates must be engraved in a hurry--I _quite_ see it from the undertaker's point of view. But, on the other hand, if you're an artist, it isn't always you feel in the mood; you wait for what they call inspiration, and then the undertaker gets annoyed and throws the thing back on your hands." With a pathetic, patient smile John Peter rubbed his spectacles again, and again adjusted them. "Perhaps you'd like Plain, after all?" he suggested. "It usually doesn't take me so long."

"No," decided Cai somewhat hurriedly; "it might remind--I mean, there isn't the same kind of hurry with a musical box."

"It would be much the better for a bath of paraffin," muttered John Peter, prying into the works. But Cai continued to stare at the plate on the wall, and was staring at it when a voice at the door called "Good mornin'!" and Mr Philp entered.

"Ho!" said Mr Philp, "I didn' know as you two were acquainted. And what might _you_ be doin' here, cap'n?"

"A triflin' matter of business, that's all," answered Cai, who chafed under Mr Philp's inquisitiveness; but chafed, like everybody else, in vain.

"Orderin' your breastplate? . . . It's well to be in good time when you're dealin' with John Peter," said Mr Philp with dreadful jocularity. "As I came along the head o' the town," he explained, "I heard that Snell's wife had passed away in the night. A happy release. I dropped in to see if they'd given you the job."

John Peter shook his head.

"And I don't suppose you'll get it, neither," said Mr Philp; "but I wanted to make sure. Push,--that's what you want. That's the only thing nowadays. Push. . . . You're lookin' at John Peter's misfits, I see," he went on, turning to Cai. "Now, _there's_ a man whose place, as you might say, won't go unfilled much longer--hey?" Mr Philp pointed his walking-stick at the name of the late owner of Rilla, and achieved a sort of watery wink.

"I daresay you mean something by that, Mr Philp," said Cai, staring at him, half angry and completely puzzled. "But be dashed if I know what you _do_ mean."

"There now! And I reck'ned as you an' Cap'n Hunken had ne'er a secret you didn't share!"

'"Bias?" asked Cai slowly. "Who was talkin' of 'Bias?"

"It takes 'em that way sometimes," said Mr Philp, wiping a rheumy eye. "An' the longer they puts it off the more you can't never tell which way it will take 'em. O' course, if Cap'n Hunken didn't tell you he'd been visitin' Rilla lately, he must have had his reasons, an' I'm sorry I spoke."

Cai was breathing hard. "Bias? . . . When?"

"The last time I spied him was two days ago . . . in the late afternoon. Now you come to mention it, I'd a notion at the time he wasn't anxious to be seen. For he came over the fields at the back--across the ten-acre field that Mrs Bosenna carried last week--and a very tidy crop, I'm told, though but moderate long in the stalk. . . . Well, there he was comin' across the stubble--at a fine pace, too, with his coat 'pon his arm--when as I guess he spied me down in the road below and stopped short, danderin' about an' pretendin' to poke up weeds with his stick. 'Some new-fashioned farmin',' thought I; 'weedin' stubble, and in August month too! I wonder who taught the Widow that trick'--for I won't be sure I reckernised your friend, not slap-off. But Cap'n Hunken it was: for to make certain I called and had a drink o' cider with Farmer Middlecoat, t'other side of the hill, an' _he'd_ seen your friend frequent these last few weeks. . . . There now, you don't seem pleased about it!--an' yet 'twould be a very good match for him, if it came off."

Cai's head was whirling. He steadied himself to say, "You seem to take a lot of interest, Mr Philp, in other people's affairs."

"Heaps," said Mr Philp. "I couldn' live without it." _

Read next: Book 2: Chapter 10. Regatta Night

Read previous: Book 1: Chapter 8. 'Bias Approves

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