Part 5

“He went acrost the room and came back with something tied up in a handkerchief and put it on Sam’s bed. Sam looked at it a moment and then ’e picked it up and out tumbled eleven pounds, a watch and chain, and a imitation gold cigar-case.

“‘He’s fainted,’ ses Peter Russet.”

Kitchen Company

Practice makes perfect, and when Mrs. Brampton, from her seat by the window, announced the approach of the Captain, Mr. Leonard Scott kissed Miss Brampton in the small hall and made his usual dignified exit to the kitchen. To leave by the side-entrance was the best way of avoiding trouble with a man who was always looking out for it. Mr. Scott bestowed a nod upon the smiling young mistress of the kitchen, and with his hand upon the back-door waited to hear the Captain at the front.

“One o’ these days,” began Clara, who loved to dwell upon the gruesome, “he’ll come----”

She broke off and listened. “He’s coming,” she said, in a thrilling whisper. “He’s coming the back way.”

Mr. Scott started, hesitated, and was lost.

“Fly!” exclaimed Clara, pointing by accident to the ceiling.

The young man scowled at her, and before he had time to alter his expression found himself gazing at the burly form and inflamed visage of Captain Brampton.

“Well?” barked the latter. “What are you doing in my kitchen? Eh? What have you got to say for yourself?”

Mr. Scott coughed and tried to collect his thoughts. In the front room Mrs. Brampton and her daughter eyed each other in silent consternation. Then, in response to a peremptory bellow, Mrs. Brampton rose and made a trembling passage to the kitchen.

“What does this mean?” demanded the Captain in grating accents.

His wife stood looking helplessly from one to the other, and, instead of answering the question, passed it on.

“What does this mean, Clara?” she demanded.

“Eh?” said that astonished maiden. “What does what mean?”

“This,” said the Captain sternly, with a jerk of his head towards Mr. Scott. “Did you invite him here?”

Clara started--but in a lesser degree than Mr. Scott--and looked down modestly at a hole in the hearth-rug. Mrs. Brampton and her daughter gazed at her in hushed expectation.

“I didn’t, not to say, invite him,” replied Clara, “but I can’t help him coming here.”

“_H’m!_ Perhaps you didn’t try,” said the Captain with unexpected mildness. “How long have you known him?”

“Some time, sir,” said Clara vaguely.

“Does he want to marry you?”

Clara looked at her mistress for guidance, but the latter was engaged at the moment in an eye-to-eye duel with the fermenting Mr. Scott. Over the Captain’s face stole an expression of great and unusual benevolence.

“Well, well,” he said slowly. “We’ve all been young once. He’s not much to look at, but he looks clean and respectable. When do you think of getting married?”

“That’s for him to say, sir,” said the modest Clara.

“Well, there’s no hurry,” said the Captain, “no hurry. He can come round once a week for you on your evening out, but no other time, mind.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Clara, who was beginning to enjoy herself. “It’s my evening out to-night, sir. He was going to take me to the pictures.”

A stifled exclamation came from the direction where Mr. Scott was standing, which the Captain chose to interpret as an expression of gratitude. With instructions to Clara to regale her admirer with bread and cheese and one glass of beer, he shepherded his wife and daughter from the kitchen. Humming a light air, Clara began to set the table.

“What the devil did you want to say I was going to take you to the pictures for?” demanded the ungrateful Mr. Scott.

“’Cos I wanted to go,” said his hostess calmly.

Mr. Scott regarded her coldly. “I will walk with you as far as the corner of this road,” he said with an air of finality.

“We’ll go to the best seats and I’ll have a box of chocolates,” said Clara. “Do you like chocolates?”

“No,” said the other sternly.

“Praise be!” said the girl piously. “My other young man----”

Mr. Scott coughed violently.

“All right,” said the girl, “don’t get excited. He’s away on a job for a week or two, else I wouldn’t dare to be seen with you. When the cat’s away the mice will play,” she added.

The young man eyed her in amazement. This was a new Clara. His lips quivered and his eyes watered. He took up his glass of beer and nodded.

“Right-o!” he agreed.

He smoked a cigarette while the girl went upstairs to dress, and a little later, watched by three pairs of eyes from the front window, sailed up the street with her arm-in-arm.

“She’s too good for him,” said the Captain, with decision.

“Much,” assented his daughter, with a smile.

“Tailor’s dummy!” soliloquised the Captain.

“Cheap tailor, too,” murmured the acquiescent Miss Brampton. “Did you notice how baggy his trousers are at the knees?”

The Captain shot a glance at her. Twenty years’ experience of a wife whose only anxiety was to please him was not the best preparation for handling a daughter who, to say the least of it, had other ambitions. He began to fear that she had inherited more of his strength of character--a quality for which some of his friends found another name--than was convenient.

“He’s a softy,” he growled. “He ought to have a year or two at sea. That might make a man of him.”

He got up and went into the garden, leaving mother and daughter to discuss the possibilities of a situation which had found them somewhat unprepared.

“It might have been worse,” said Mrs. Brampton. “If your father had caught him in here----”

“He couldn’t eat him,” said her daughter rebelliously.

“There are worse things than being eaten,” said Mrs. Brampton, with some feeling.

Miss Brampton nodded. “Taking Clara to the pictures, for instance,” she remarked. “Poor Leonard!”

Her mother sniffed. “I dare say he will get over it,” she said dryly. “Unless Clara’s young man gets to hear of it. From what she has told me he is a very hot-tempered young man--and very strong.”

“Pity father didn’t find _him_ in the kitchen,” said the dutiful daughter.

She sat down, and in sympathetic mood tried to share the misery of the absent one at the cinema. A vision of Clara’s hat, perilously near Mr. Scott’s shoulder, mercifully eluded her, but, the window being open to the summer air, she was unable to help hearing the cheerful babble of laughter that heralded their return. It seemed to strike a wrong note; and the couple of noisy kisses which Clara saw fit to bestow upon the back of her hand for the Captain’s benefit were registered on the wrong target.

Mrs. Brampton obtained the explanation from Clara next day, and accepted it without prejudice. Her daughter declined to accept it at all.

“You quite understand that he must not come to see you again?” she said stiffly.

“But he’s got to,” said the staring handmaiden. “The Captain says so. And if he plays fast-and-loose with me I’m to have him up for breach of promise. Lively for me, ain’t it? When I think of Bill and his temper I get goose-flesh all over.”

The ladies eyed each other in silent consternation.

“Your father _knows_,” said the elder at last. “He has done this on purpose.”

“Set a trap for him,” said Clara, nodding. “Looks like it. And I’m the little bit o’ cheese, I suppose?”

Mrs. Brampton stared at her.

“Father forgets that I am nineteen,” said her daughter. “Why shouldn’t I----?”

“I was only fifteen when _I_ started,” murmured Clara, “and not big for my age neither.”

“That will do,” said Mrs. Brampton.

“Yes’m,” said the girl. “Still----”

“Still what?” demanded her mistress.

“I’ve been dragged into it,” said Clara mutinously. “Nobody asked me or troubled about my feelings. I do the best I can, and that’s all the thanks I get for it. Suppose I had told the Captain it was Miss Edith he was after? Where would you have been then?”

“We won’t discuss it,” said Mrs. Brampton with an air of feeble dignity.

She made as stately an exit as the size of the kitchen would allow, and, carefully closing the door of the sitting-room, made a few remarks on Clara’s character, and more on her lack of it.

“It’s no good blaming Clara,” said her daughter. “It’s father’s doing. He wants to make Leonard look like a fool first and scare him away afterwards. He’ll tell all his friends about it.”

“Mr. Hopkins, for one,” said Mrs. Brampton, nodding sagely. “I wonder----”

“I don’t,” said the girl, reddening.

“Your father seems to have taken a great fancy to him,” continued Mrs. Brampton. “Now, does he come here to see your father, or----”

“Or,” said her daughter bitterly. “It’s just like father. I suppose he will want to choose my tooth-powder for me next. But he won’t get any satisfaction out of me--_or_ Leonard. I’ll see to that. As for Mr. Hopkins--_brrh!_”

She beamed, however, on that innocent man when her father brought him in next day to see the garden, and when the wily Captain went indoors for his pipe made no attempt to follow him. It was a pipe that was notorious for the discovery of new and unusual hiding-places, and on this occasion made no attempt to belie its reputation.

Meantime, the delighted Mr. Hopkins, under the skilful management of Miss Brampton, walked with his head in the clouds and his feet on various choice border plants.

“Hadn’t you better walk on the path?” inquired the girl, who had been monopolising three-quarters of it. “It’s more comfortable.”

Mr. Hopkins started. “Good heavens!” he said in an alarmed voice, as he bent down to render first aid to a stock with a broken neck. “Did I do that?”

Miss Brampton nodded. “Those, too, I think,” she replied, with a wave of her hand. “Don’t you care for flowers?”

Mr. Hopkins, who was fearfully endeavouring to conceal the traces of his crime, made no reply. When the Captain came out they were both speechless, but he was, if anything, the redder of the two.

“These paths are very narrow, father,” remarked the humane Edith.

The Captain made a noise.

“Afraid--crowding--Miss Edith,” panted the offender.

The Captain made another noise. In the present company all the useful words he knew were useless.

“Did you find your pipe, father?” inquired the persevering Miss Brampton.

The Captain was understood to say “Yes.” At the same time he favoured her with a glance which would have made her mother tremble. On Miss Brampton it had a bracing effect.

“Father’s always mislaying his pipe,” she said, with a bright laugh. “I shouldn’t trouble any more about those, if I were you, Mr. Hopkins. You can’t do them any good, and you are standing on an antirrhinum.”

Mr. Hopkins removed his foot hastily, and placing it carefully in the centre of the path offered up another apology. It was received with what the Captain fondly believed to be a smile.

“Accidents will happen,” he said hoarsely.

“In the best-regulated families,” said Miss Brampton, with a satisfied smile.

She paid a touching tribute to the excellence of the victims after the visitor had gone, and sought for some time for an explanation of the tragedy.

“He must have been ‘wool-gathering,’” she declared at length.

“What do you mean by that?” demanded her father.

“Absent-minded,” said Edith. “He seemed like a man walking on air, instead of some of the best stocks in the neighbourhood. Even Clara’s young man would have more sense than that.”

“Clara’s young man won’t go into my garden,” said the Captain. “The kitchen is the place for him.”

He stalked out into the garden, and, digging up hopeless cases with a trowel, sought to revive the less badly injured with a water-can.

It might have been a sign of a forgiving nature, but was more likely due to an obstinate one, that he invited Mr. Hopkins back to the scene of his footwork a day or two later. Missing plants had been replaced by a consignment from the florists, and rolled paths and raked flower-beds testified to the Captain’s industry. Everything was “shipshape and Bristol fashion” as the greatly relieved visitor walked with Miss Brampton in the garden in the cool of the evening. The Captain, after satisfying himself that Mr. Hopkins was walking almost as carefully as a performer on the tight-rope, had disappeared indoors.

The path was narrow, but even when Miss Brampton sent electric thrills through his being by leaning against him, Mr. Hopkins kept to it. The air was soft and the scent of the flowers delightful. Never before had his conversation been so appreciated. The low-voiced laughter of his companion was a tribute to his wit as rare as it was welcome.

“You ought to write plays,” she said thoughtfully, as she planted her foot firmly on a geranium.

“You want influence to get them accepted,” said Mr. Hopkins.

“I should try, if I were you, though,” said the girl, nearly missing another geranium.

Mr. Hopkins purred. Miss Brampton, with downcast eyes, trod down six flowers in succession.

“Dialogue would be your strong point,” mused the girl, continuing her ravages. “Crisp and sparkling.”

She took the other side as they turned at the end of the path, and in a hushed voice called his attention to some beautiful cloud effects. Mr. Hopkins, with his head at an acute angle, murmured his admiration.

“An evening to remember,” he said, very softly.

He brought his gaze slowly to earth and started convulsively.

“Giddy?” inquired the girl, with much solicitude.

Mr. Hopkins shook his head and, speech failing him, pointed with a trembling finger to the prostrate victims of misdirected industry. Miss Brampton stared in her turn.

“Oh, Mr. Hopkins!” she said, in accusing tones.

“I--I haven’t been near them,” stammered the unfortunate.

“They must have done it themselves, then,” said the girl calmly. “Perhaps they were not strong enough to stand the breeze.”

Mr. Hopkins breathed heavily. “I--I really think----” he began.

“Yes?” said Miss Brampton.

“I don’t know what to think,” concluded the other feebly.

His companion gazed wistfully at the wreckage.

“Poor father!” she said softly. “He is so fond of his garden. He seems to know every flower, but, of course, he hasn’t had these long enough to know them.”

Mr. Hopkins groaned and cast a fearful glance at the house.

“It’s his one hobby,” continued the girl. “I have heard him use worse language about cats than anything else, I think. And the doctor says excitement is so bad for him.”

“I can’t understand it,” ventured Mr. Hopkins, with an appealing glance.

“I wonder whether father will?” said the girl. “He is coming out, I think.”

Mr. Hopkins looked around panic-stricken. Then he pulled out his watch.

“Good gracious!” he murmured. “I must be going, I think. No idea so late. Appointment.”

He moved hastily in the direction of the side-gate, and hardly realising the geniality of Miss Brampton’s hand-clasp, disappeared. The girl stood watching until he had turned the corner and then went into the house.

“Where’s Hopkins!” inquired the Captain.

“He has just gone.”

“Gone!” repeated her father. “Why, I asked him to stay to supper. Did you send him off? Eh?”

His daughter shook her head. “He went off in a hurry,” she murmured. “I think he had an idea that perhaps he had offended you.”

“Rubbish!” grunted the Captain, eyeing her suspiciously. “What should he offend me about?”

“Knowing how fond you are of your flowers----” began Miss Brampton.

The Captain uttered a smothered cry and, springing from his chair, dashed into the garden. Cries that were anything but smothered, and words that ought to have been, brought his wife to her daughter’s side. Together they watched the head of the house as, with fists raised to heaven, he danced a strange and frenzied dance down the path.

“He’s wonderfully supple for his age,” said the admiring daughter.

Mrs. Brampton shivered. “I don’t suppose that poor young man will dare to show his face here again,” she said slowly.

“If he does, there will be an accident to the rose trees,” said her daughter, compressing her lips. “I’ve had all I can stand of Mr. Hopkins.”

“And then there’s Mr. Scott,” said her mother plaintively. “Clara says that she thinks her young man has heard something, and if he should happen to meet them one evening----”

“It might be bad for the young man,” said the girl calmly. “Leonard would have a better nose if he didn’t box so much. Look at father!”

Mrs. Brampton looked.

“He--he seems to be examining the foot-marks,” she gasped.

“Time I changed your sensible low-heeled shoes for something more dressy,” said her daughter, disappearing.

She was back before the Captain re-entered the house, and sitting cross-legged, displayed a pair of sharp-toed, high-heeled shoes of blameless aspect, which met his ardent gaze with a polished stare. He turned his back at last and stood gazing blankly out at his cherished garden.

It never occurred to him to accept defeat, and his daughter was therefore more annoyed than surprised to see Mr. Hopkins--a nervous, chastened Mr. Hopkins--back again after a few days. On this occasion, however, the Captain lingered in the garden, and from a deck-chair beneath the window watched his faltering steps.

Conscious of this scrutiny, the visitor babbled incoherences to Miss Brampton, until in self-defence she retreated to the house on the plea of a thorn in her foot.

The sound of Mr. Scott’s voice in the kitchen did not add to her comfort. A glance from her window showed her that her father had taken her place with the visitor and was pointing out to him the merits of the rockery. She stole downstairs and, opening the kitchen-door, peeped in.

“I thought you were going to the cinema,” she said, addressing Mr. Scott coldly.

“Can’t,” was the reply. “Clara’s Bill is outside, and she’s afraid to come.”

“He’s waiting for him,” said Clara breathlessly. “There’ll be murder done--and I shall be the cause of it.”

“Cheer up,” said Mr. Scott. “He’ll only have a week or two in a nice comfortable hospital. You’ll be able to see him on Sunday afternoons and take him grapes.”

“I know who’ll want the grapes,” said Clara miserably. “You don’t know his strength. I don’t believe he knows it himself.”

“Where is he?” demanded Miss Brampton.

“Outside the side-gate, miss,” replied Clara. “Like a cat waiting for a mouse.”

“A mouse!” ejaculated the startled Mr. Scott. “Now look here, Clara----”

“I’ll go and send him away,” said Miss Brampton with decision.

She slipped into the garden and, her father’s back still being towards her, opened the side-gate and looked out. A bullet-headed young man, standing just outside, drew up sharply at her appearance and stood scowling at her.

“Do you want to see Clara?” she inquired.

“I’m waiting,” said Mr. Bill Jones, “waiting for a toff.”

Miss Brampton stood regarding him with a puzzled air. Then she had an inspiration that almost took her breath away.

“Do you mean the gentleman who is in the garden talking to father?” she inquired.

Mr. Jones’s eyes glistened. He licked his lips and stood breathing hard and short. Miss Brampton, with an encouraging smile, pushed the door open.

Mr. Jones needed no further invitation. With head erect and eyes ablaze he entered the garden and, catching sight of the unconscious Mr. Hopkins, strode rapidly towards him.

“Here! What do you want?” demanded the astonished Captain.

Mr. Jones ignored him, and continuing his progress, thrust his face into that of Mr. Hopkins.

“Take my gal away, will yer?” he shouted. “Take ’er to the pictures, will yer? Take that!”

Mr. Hopkins took it and went down with a cry of anguish. Through a mist of pain he heard the voice of his assailant.

“Get up! Get up, else I’ll jump on yer.”

Mr. Hopkins got up, and the appearance of Mr. Jones was so terrible that he turned and fled, with the other in hot pursuit.

“Stop!” yelled the choking Captain. “Mind the flowers! Mind the fl----”

Mr. Hopkins paid no heed; neither, to do him justice, did Mr. Jones. Firmly convinced that his life was in danger, the former performed miracles of agility, while his opponent pounded doggedly behind. A bad third, owing to his keeping to the path, the Captain followed raving in the rear.

Broken plants lay in the wake of Mr. Hopkins; churned-up earth marked the progress of Mr. Jones as he endeavoured to head him off. And at this juncture Mr. Scott appeared from the kitchen, shedding his coat.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” he shouted.

Mr. Jones pulled up suddenly and favoured him with a menacing glare.

“Look at those flowers,” cried Mr. Scott severely. “You chump-headed, mutton-headed son of a gun!”

Mr. Jones stood irresolute. He looked longingly at Mr. Hopkins taking cover behind the Captain; then with a loud roar he threw himself upon this new arrival.

Mr. Scott side-stepped neatly and smote him heavily on the chin. Mr. Jones, turning in amazement, took three more and, being by this time acclimatised, settled down to a steady mill.

“You’d better go,” said the Captain harshly, to Mr. Hopkins. “This isn’t a sight for you.”

Mr. Hopkins went, somewhat reluctantly. He was a man of peace, but the sight of Mr. Jones’s damages seemed in some way to afford him an odd feeling of satisfaction. The Captain stayed to see fair play--also the only fight with fists he had seen since he left the sea. It was with almost a sigh that he went at length to help Mr. Scott assist his adversary to his feet. The dazed Mr. Jones, with Clara’s arm about his waist, was led indoors and his head placed under the scullery tap. The cooling sounds of running water and the heated comments of Mr. Jones alone broke the silence.

“Well, that’s over,” said Mr. Scott, tenderly dabbing his face with his handkerchief, as Miss Brampton came out. “I’m afraid Clara has jilted me, sir.”

The Captain grunted and eyed him curiously.

“I was going to take her to the cinema, now I suppose I shall have to go alone. Unless----”

“Well?” barked the Captain, waiting.

“Unless Miss Brampton comes with me.”

The Captain stood up and faced him, choking.

“Cinema!” he roared. “Cinema! If you want to do something to pass the evening, you can help her help me help make the garden tidy.”

The Model

I

It was getting too dark to work, and the artist, a cigarette between his lips, was sitting restfully at the open window, lazily scanning through his half-closed lids the languid life of the old Italian city below. As the objects in his studio retired farther and farther into the shadows, he arose, and taking his hat from a peg, passed slowly down the long staircase into the street. The air, which had been almost stifling during the day was now freshening, and he passed from street to street with the aimless enjoyment of the man to whom the mere exercise of his cramped limbs is a luxury.

Standing idly at a lighted corner preparatory to turning back, his gaze fell upon a middle-aged woman of poor appearance who was passing. He started violently, and in an undecided fashion stood gazing after her retreating figure until it disappeared down a small by-street. Then, on a sudden impulse, he threw away his cigarette and started in pursuit.

At first he gained but little on her, and once or twice nearly lost her in the rapidly increasing darkness, but in the end his youth and strength told, and the woman, who had been conscious for some time that her steps were dogged, slackened her pace and walked with her hand pressed to her side, breathing distressfully. In the centre of the old stone bridge which leads from the narrow streets of the town to the open country beyond, he overtook her.

“Pardon, signora,” he said softly.

The woman halted, her hand on the low stone parapet, and confronted him.

“You walk fast,” he continued, smiling.

She murmured an indistinct something, and made as though to go.

“No, I have followed you some distance,” said the artist, “I can’t afford to lose you. Will you let me see your face? I have a reason for the request.”