Book 3 - Chapter 23. Passage Regatta

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_ BOOK III CHAPTER XXIII. 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!" _

Read next: Book 3: Chapter 24. Fancy Brings News

Read previous: Book 3: Chapter 22. The Last Challenge

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