Part 21

“How’s the best way to go about it to keep Tomlin quiet?”

“Knife him.”

“All thought out!” said Billy, admiringly.

“Yes. Here’s a knife. Don’t leave it lying around. If you do I shall swear you stole it from me.”

“I’ll bring it back to you.”

“You’ll do it then?”

“I’ll come to the _Petrel_ in the mornin’ and say a nigger done it.”

“That’s right. Don’t fail me. It’ll go hard with you.”

“I believe you,” said Billy, as the Captain turned away and walked back toward the beach.

Billy, grinning thoughtfully, went up to the house. Through the doorway he could see Tomlin with his elbows on the table, his hands in his hair, sitting amid his troubles. The lantern hanging from a beam made him look like a great grotesque image carved from teak.

Billy climbed over the doorway.

“Billy--” Tomlin said anxiously, ready to ask questions.

Billy did not answer, but started gathering up his few belongings, and making a great show of that.

“Billy, what are you doing?”

No answer, but much rummaging.

“Billy, have you gone crazy?”

“Nope.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m movin’.”

“Moving? What’s the matter?”

“I got _pride_,” said Billy.

“Pride? What on earth is the matter with you?”

Then Billy told him. That is Billy explained how he had landed on the beach and been living on Tomlin’s charity, and he simply couldn’t stand it any more. His pride wouldn’t let him stand it. He was going back in the bush and hunt berries and bugs of his own.

“But Billy--are you crazy? I’ve done nothing for you. I’ve liked you--I want you to stay.”

“Nope. I got _pride_!”

“You idiot!” Tomlin cried, jumping up, his strained nerves at the breaking point.

“Who’s an idiot?”

“You are. All this means nothing to me. I’m glad to share it with you. Anything--everything. I like you--and you--you--”

“--then why don’t you marry her?” Billy cut in.

Tomlin’s face went blank as the palm of his hand.

“What does all that mean to her? She just wants to share it with you. And you got pride. Aw, you just want her to coax and beg.”

“Look here--what are you talking about?” Tomlin demanded.

“See this knife,” said Billy, flourishing the long, cold blade. “Well--” and Billy told him everything.

A few hours later Tomlin was talking like a happy child and trying to shave while Billy sat at the table painfully trying to write a note.

Tomlin knocked over a shelf of pickled lizards.

“Look out!” Billy exclaimed.

“To hell with ’em!” said Tomlin.

“A missionary to--”

“I’ve thought out my letter of resignation,” said Tomlin.

Billy finished his note and put it in his pocket, saying: “I’ll rout out some niggers and you come about fifteen minutes after me. Meantime I got to kill a chicken.”

He slipped out and feeling under the low eaves grabbed a sleepy fowl. Captain Farwell’s knife was soon a very grewsome object.

Just before dawn Billy paddled out to the _Petrel_. He inquired for Lorraine’s cabin and banging on the door slipped her his note with a word or two of explanation, then returned to the deck.

“Mr. Tomlin was murdered by natives last night,” he said to a sailor on watch. “The lady wants me to tell the Captain.”

Billy was shown to the Captain’s cabin and the sailor went to spread the news forward.

“Who’s there?” said the Captain.

“Me,” said Billy. “The niggers killed Tomlin last night!”

“Come in,” said the Captain, excited. Billy came in.

“Shut the door.”

It was shut.

“Lock it.”

Billy fumbled with the lock.

The Captain was in bed, sitting up, nervous.

“He is dead?”

“See this?” said Billy, pulling out the knife.

“Why didn’t you wipe it off?”

“All right,” said Billy as he grabbed the end of the sheet and wiped the blade.

“You fool--the stains--here--”

“Where else should they be? Us murderers has to stick together.”

“Are you trying to implicate me? But I’ve got you--I’ll swear--you’re going to murder me!”

With that the Captain sprang out of bed and began yelling “Murder! Help!”

The door opened and Lorraine stood there, just as Billy had requested. Her hair was tumbled down and she wore a kimono of white silk with blue birds. Her face did not look pleasant, and her eyes were cold and straight, but she said quite calmly:

“Captain Farwell, I have been listening with the door ajar ever since you told Mr. Rand to lock it!”

With that she turned and walked off.

The Captain dropped his jaw, and then himself. He flopped like a sack of flour into a chair and sat there staring at Billy.

“You see, Cap,” said Billy, friendly-like, “I’m wanted back in New York as a witness in a bribery case. Not for murder. And seein’ as you don’t want it, I think I’ll keep this knife as a little souvenir.”

The Captain said nothing, so Billy kept the knife and went out, shutting the door.

Down the passageway he came upon Tomlin with his arms around Lorraine, and she was weeping happily.

Billy overheard “--as soon as we can find a minister.”

“But you are one!” she insisted. “And Mr. Rand--isn’t he--”

Tomlin exploded into laughter.

But Billy intervened.

“’Scuse me for interferin’ with the reunion, but if you are lookin’ for a weddin’ ceremony, allow me to offer my services.”

Tomlin looked surprised for it was obvious that Billy was in earnest.

Billy hastened to explain that when he had come over to Guam on the transport the captain had married an officer and a nurse, so it appeared that captains could marry people--though a missionary’s assistant couldn’t!

“That’s right!” said Tomlin.

Lorraine was inclined to object.

“Then we must wait, my dear.”

“We have waited so long!” she said, thereby agreeing to the Captain’s performing the ceremony.

The Captain was still in pajamas and on his chair and showed all the visible symptoms of nervous prostration.

“Captain,” said Billy, cheerfully, “we’d like to have a knot spliced this mornin’ and seein’ as how you are a sailor--”

“Will you be good enough to perform the wedding service?” Tomlin asked, sternly. After all it was his, not Billy’s wedding.

The Captain choked and was badly scared, but at last managed to say that he was “agreeable,” although he didn’t appear to be.

Billy grabbed a pair of sailors for witnesses, the Captain fished out a Bible--and Mr. and Mrs. Roscoe Tomlin marched out blushing and happy to break the news to mother; whereupon the old lady climbed right out of bed, cured.

That afternoon the Captain had a little talk with Mr. and Mrs. Tomlin and said that he would like permission to go ashore and stay there, as relations on board had become somewhat strained. He knew that a boat would be along in two or three days (the detectives had answered that they were coming). It was very irregular--a captain leaving his ship that way--but Tomlin said that all things considered, he thought it would be well.

So the Captain said good-bye to the steward and whispered something that caused the steward to look hard at Billy; then he, the Captain, left, bag and baggage.

That day was spent in getting Tomlin’s bugs and lizards on board and in saying good-bye to the natives.

The next morning with the First Officer on the bridge, the _Petrel_ steamed out and left the Captain sitting on the beach--very glad to have got away without charges being laid up against him.

Mr. and Mrs. Tomlin cornered Billy and asked what on earth they could do for him.

“Yesum,” said Billy. “Just drop that steward over-board.”

Mrs. Tomlin promised that at the first port they reached the steward would be fired and given passage money home.

As the day passed Billy walked the deck and exchanged jokes with the First Officer, who was the new Captain--and glad of it, because he had never liked Farwell anyhow. Then a little trading schooner came over the line, bow on.

Billy knew right away by intuition that she carried the detectives.

When within hailing distance the schooner heaved to and the _Petrel_ slowed down.

A fellow from the bow called out to thank the Captain for having tipped him off as to the crook wanted in New York, and asked if he was still in the nigger village.

The new Captain didn’t quite understand; but Billy grabbed the megaphone and yelled: “Yes--raised a beard--stole papers and clothes from the ship--may try to pass himself off as a Captain or something--clever crook, you know--let ’im explain nothin’ or you won’t get him to New York. Good luck!”

A shout of thanks came over the water as the _Petrel_ started churning ahead.

Billy looked after the little schooner, and taking a deep breath, said gratefully to himself, “The Lord helps them as helps ’emselves! Can you see the D. A. when he gets hold of old Cap. Farwell expectin’ to see little Billy!”

_The Woman’s Home Companion_

ACCORDING TO RUSKIN

BY

HARRIET WELLES

ACCORDING TO RUSKIN[12]

By HARRIET WELLES

During the first few days after the Armistice was signed I seemed, for some strange reason, to wish to sit idly in my room in the London hotel where I was temporarily domiciled.

Ever since I had left my home in America, the days in war-time England had been so full, so tensely crowded, that each seemed crammed with events--events, occurring somehow in an eternal twilight that will always recur to me with the memory of the unbearable, shadowy premonition of an approaching night; the sight of troops marching across the city under faint stars, dim against the afterglow; laden lorries lumbering, convoy wagons creaking, through the dusk; constantly returning ambulances, with their endless gleanings, seeming to leave a perceptible shadow long after they had passed. Even the pot of parrot tulip bulbs, purchased to brighten my window sill, finally blossomed, and contributed to my illusion of twilight by producing wan, colorless flowers.

And then the Armistice was signed, and I awakened from my doze to find it bright morning with dazzling sunshine! Small wonder that most of us drew a long breath and, blinking uncertainly, hesitated....

But, after a few days, old ties reasserted themselves. I had been too busy, too harassed, before, to look up old friends; now, I sat down and wrote the one for whom, during a year in the Orient where her husband and mine each held an official position, I had grown to have a very deep admiration and affection. “It will be pleasant to see a real English family in their own home, during the first days of peace,” I planned, remembering my friend, her pleasant husband, and their three sons and one pretty daughter.

Before her answering letter, urging me to make them a long visit, came, my plans were suddenly changed, my sailing date hastened. I was able to arrange for only one afternoon with her in the cathedral town where she lived, near London.

The only books on sale at the railroad station book stall were war literature, for which, now that the nightmare was so recently over, I had a deep repugnance, so I dug out from a pile of miscellaneous books a cheap paper-covered volume of Ruskin’s essays, and settled myself to improve my mind, while the toy train moved leisurely on its punctual way.

My friend waved to me from a wicker pony cart as I alighted from the train at her station. She bridged the years which stretched between our last meeting, half a world away, and the present, by the friendliness of her greeting, the sincere warmth of her welcome. “There wasn’t anyone to hold this fractious beast, or I wouldn’t be sitting here,” she apologized as she kissed me.

“He looks peaceful enough,” I commented, taking the seat beside my hostess.

“_She_ isn’t! Since our horses were commandeered, and we were allowed only eight gallons of petrol a month for the motor, we’ve had to depend on this pony. She’s put on a lot of side since she realized that she was a war-worker,” volunteered my friend as the pony shied heraldically at a baby carriage. “She’s seen that perambulator--or others like it--every day for the last fifteen years, and never noticed until now.”

The pony, suddenly bored by her own antics, slowed down to a jog trot; we rounded a grove of trees, and came upon a typical English village dominated by a gray cathedral. “How quaint--how peaceful!” I exclaimed with unfeigned enthusiasm.

“Yes, it is a dear old place,” she agreed, and hesitated: “I suppose that, in a way, it’s peaceful, too, if you can overlook the sorrow or suffering in every house. Our older men will have to stay in harness and bear the burdens much longer than heretofore; the middle generation is wiped out. We must wait for the lads who are children now. There isn’t one young man left, in this village, who isn’t lame or blind,” she said, and indicated with her whip a cottage doorway. On the step a blond boy leaned idly against a post. Something in his lack of cognizance of us made me look more closely. “Blind, deaf from ‘shellshock,’ and his right arm gone,” my friend explained.

I mentally searched for a pleasanter subject. “You haven’t told me of your family--your husband, Daphne, the boys? I was so excited at seeing you that I waited to ask,” I said.

We were passing the green cloister of the cathedral. Above us towered the gray pile with its buttresses, gargoyles and columns; from an unseen belfry a deep-toned bell sounded the hour, a silvery chime supplemented the old canticle: “He ... watching over Israel ... slumbers not ... nor sleeps.”

My friend listened intently. “Sometimes, when bad news arrived, or the severely wounded came home, I’ve wondered. I’ve questioned,” she said. I knew that she referred to the message of the bells.

“You needn’t question any more. Now, you know!” I comforted.

“Yes,” she agreed, “now I know--it had to be. All English mothers are sure of that.”

There was in her tone quiet and sincere earnestness that any comment seemed superfluous and impertinent, so in silence we drove on down the long road and passed through a stone gateway and up a curving avenue to the most perfect Georgian house that I have ever seen. She smiled at my enthusiastic admiration.

“I used to get so homesick for it, in China,” she volunteered; “my great-great-grandfather built it on the ruins of an older place of ours which had burned.”

* * * * *

An old stableman hobbled up to take the reins. We went in past an elderly parlor maid who had opened the door, and I instantly succumbed to the perfection of the sunshiny hall, with its floor of black and white marble, and the square, paneled rooms opening off on either side of it.

“We’ve had tea in the garden every afternoon, it has been such a beautiful, open autumn. But perhaps you’d prefer having it in the house?” suggested my friend.

“I’d much rather have it in the garden,” I agreed, reluctantly detaching my attention from the Adam mantelpiece and turning to examine the carved corners of the old wall panels. The rooms were veritable museums of rare and beautiful furnishings; they showed a finished perfection of detail, from the wax candles in the crystal chandeliers to the faded needle-point upholstering on the Chippendale chair seats.

“Just think of the generations of discriminating people whose taste is represented in your home! Didn’t any of them ever make mistakes and buy black walnut horrors?” I cried, and added, “What a magnificent heritage to hand down, unspoiled, to your children!”

She did not answer. I turned and found her staring down at the sturdy carving on a superb oak bench. “My great-great-great-great-grandfather’s favorite seat,” she explained, rousing herself. “He sailed with Drake ... and was a firm believer in the unalterable greatness of England, and England’s future ... as I am a believer in it!” She paused. “But sometimes I wonder ... what will become of our household gods....”

“_Become of them?_” I cried. She interrupted me.

“Must you really go back to London this afternoon?” she asked, and at my reluctant affirmative continued, “I’ve ordered tea early for that reason. Shall we go out into the garden?... Ah, Daphne!”

I turned to greet the daughter of the house as she came down the stairs, and drew a deep breath of pleasure. She had been a pretty girl, but now she was even lovelier, and while the contrast between her soft dress and lace hat and her mother’s severely plain attire was striking, I felt thankful that, in war-weary England, Beauty was encouraged.

“Daphne--and grown up!” I greeted her.

She smiled. “Were you at my wedding?” she asked.

“Why, no! I didn’t even know that you had been married,” I commented. Her mother interposed: “We hadn’t time to look up addresses or have invitations engraved. George’s leave was so short.”

Daphne was not listening; now, she interrupted, “Tea--so soon? In the garden?” And without waiting for an answer glanced at the shabby volume still clasped in my hand. “Book? Any pictures?” she asked. I smiled. “You haven’t grown up at all!” I told her, and added, “Ruskin’s essays--without illustrations!”

* * * * *

The parlor maid appeared in the doorway. “Tea is served,” she announced. We followed her to the garden entrance. “Everything here is so _quiet_!” I said as we went through the gate. “Oh!” I cried, “this is as perfect as the house!” and gazed entranced at the long vistas of box-lined paths, the grouped battalions of clipped yews, and the massed planting of cosmos, chrysanthemums, and flaming dahlias.

My friend smiled. “You should see it in August when the white lilies make a mist of blossoms along the walls, and forget-me-nots are reflected in the pool,” she said.

“And the poppies!” cried Daphne.

Almost sharply her mother denied: “Not poppies. Daphne. Never again poppies! I’ve given orders for the poppies to be weeded out as fast as they come up.”

She gave careful attention to the making of the tea. “Not such good tea as we had in the Orient,” she apologized.

We spoke of our winter in Hong-Kong and the visiting dignitaries. “Wonder what has become of the Austrian duchess who wore the silver dress and huge diamonds at the dinner at Government House?” or, “Did you ever hear again of Mrs. Carson, who ran away with that young German? I was told that they are living in Tasmania,” or, “How did the Llewellyn marriage turn out? You remember we didn’t think it would be a success?” And recalled the terrible typhoon which had come up so suddenly that hundreds of unprepared, helpless sampans and junks were swept into the port of lost ships. “I’ll never forget the abject terror of some of those Chinese sailors who, as the junks swept by, were chanting their appeal to the sea-god,” I said.

She agreed soberly, remembering the tragic day. “I like to think of that incongruous Scotch regiment with the bagpipes, marching gayly along the walks bordered with tall blossoming poinsettias that flamed against the brown banks,” she supplemented. We relived a summer in the mountains of Japan, and laughed over the memories of various mishaps when we had tried, unavailingly, to “hustle the East.” “I’ve never been able to look a hard-boiled egg in the eye since we patronized those Chuzenji tea houses,” I said; “if all the embryo chickens I devoured were suddenly to appear--”

“Heaven forbid!” agreed my friend. We laughed together.

* * * * *

Daphne had wandered off. I could see her white figure, misty against the rosy mauve of the cosmos; I wondered if she had lost interested memory of the Japanese holidays she had so much enjoyed. She had not spoken of them or recalled our former friendship and now, oblivious of me, I could hear her happily humming an old song. I felt chilled, grieved, and mystified; Daphne had been very much attached to me during the old days; I had looked eagerly forward to seeing her again, and now she treated me as though I were the most casual acquaintance, I thought; then took myself sharply in hand. “You’re stupid!” I accused mentally. Aloud, I said, “How happy Daphne seems! I suppose that you expect her husband back any time, now?”

My friend set the teapot down; for a second, as she did not answer but sat gazing across the sunshiny garden. I thought that she had not heard. Then she turned and faced me. “No--” she commenced.

Daphne had come up behind me. “Tea?” she asked, and took the cup that her mother had prepared for me, then, sitting down, she asked, “Were you at my wedding?”

“No,” I answered; “tell me about it.”

“Flowers! We had flowers, and there were flags. I had a white dress--” she began, then stopped blankly.

Her mother took up the account. “We made it as pretty as we could,” she said. “Of course, last year, no one had much heart for celebrating except at a wedding! Daphne’s two cousins were the bridesmaids; they carried big loose bunches of moss-roses from this garden--somehow garden flowers seemed more suitable for weddings during those days when home, and all that homes stand for, were the real issue of the war.”

She paused, then went on: “My husband came down from his training camp and gave Daphne away. I’d been working two days a week, for over three years, among the widows and mothers of sailors, at Deptford. Poor bereaved souls! Daphne’s wedding was the first thing that had awakened interest in some of them. They’d grown used to me; then fond of me; then part of my family; and they wanted to see my daughter’s wedding. They filled nearly half of the church--silent women, in their decent black, rightful heirs to the glory of the old flags draped against the pillars and the bronze commemorative tablets set in the walls.”

* * * * *

She seemed for a moment to have forgotten me, then, remembering, went on, “It hadn’t occurred to me until, as I sat in the old church waiting for Daphne’s wedding, that never, since England has had a navy, has there been a time when a son of our family has not served in it.”

“A fine tradition,” I praised, “a glorious promise for the future years!”

There was silence. Across it the bell in the cathedral tower called the hour; the chimes spoke.

My friend waited until the last echo died away, then faced me. “You never saw Hugh, my second son? He had already entered the navy when we went to Hong-Kong.” Her voice was carefully emotionless and clear. “Our place on the navy lists is vacant. Hugh went down in the ‘Invincible’ during the Jutland battle,” she said, then added, “Our boys commence their naval training very early. Hugh was such a wee lad when he said good-by ... and now--” Her voice lowered to a whisper--“Sometimes, in my dreams, I see the horror and confusion of that sinking ship ... the greedy rush of the gray waters--” She regained her composure. “Curious things, dreams?” she inquired conversationally.

I gasped. “My dear! Why didn’t you tell me--instead of letting me blunder on? Are Jeffrey and Wallace too old to begin a naval career? But of course they are,” I floundered on.

Daphne had wandered back to us. “I’ll have some more tea,” she said.

“Three cups, Daphne!” I chided, glad of the interruption.

“You really shouldn’t drink so much strong tea, Daphne,” her mother admonished absently.

To my amazement Daphne struck the table violently with her clenched fist. “Tea!” she demanded. Her mother, without comment, poured it out. “How Daphne has changed--and her mother, too! She used to be so severe with her children about any lack of courtesy,” I thought.

My friend broke the silence. “Do you remember Mrs. Gordon, whose husband was on the ‘Tamar’ at Hong-Kong?”

I nodded.

“Commander Gordon was with the ships that went down off your South American coast,” she said. “For some time we thought that he was lost; but later the news came. He had been rescued. Mrs. Gordon was so splendid through it all! Her happiness has been the one warming thing.... Do you know, I don’t believe that some of our women will really realize the bitterness of their loss until they see other women’s husbands and sons coming home.”

“I’m so glad for Mrs. Gordon,” I said, remembering the tall commander and his gentle, pretty wife.

* * * * *