The Tale of Timber Town

CHAPTER III

She came out of the creeper-covered house into a garden of roses, and stood with her hand on a green garden-seat; herself a rosebud bursting into perfection.

Below her were gravelled walks and terraced flower-beds, cut out of the hill-side on which the quaint, gabled house stood; her fragrant, small domain carefully secreted behind a tall, clipped hedge, over the top of which she could see from where she stood the long sweep of the road which led down to the port of Timber Town.

She was dressed in a plain, blue, cotton blouse and skirt; her not over-tall figure swelling plumply beneath their starched folds. Her hair was of a nondescript brown, beautified by a glint of gold, so that her uncovered head looked bright in the sunlight. Her face was such as may be seen any day in the villages which nestle beneath the Sussex Downs, under whose shadow she was born; her forehead was broad and white; her eyes blue; her cheeks the colour of the blush roses in her garden; her mouth small, with lips coloured pink like a shell on the beach. As she stood, gazing down the road, shading her eyes with her little hand, and displaying the roundness and whiteness of her arm to the inquisitive eyes of nothing more lascivious than the flowers, a girl on horseback drew up at the gate, and called, “Cooee!”

She was tall and brown, dressed in a blue riding-habit, and in her hand she carried a light, silver-mounted whip. She jumped lightly from the saddle, opened the gate, and led her horse up the drive.

The fair girl ran down the path, and met her near the tethering-post which stood under a tall bank.

“Amiria, I am glad to see you!”

“But think of all I have to tell you.” The brown girl’s intonation was deep, and she pronounced every syllable richly. “We don’t have a wreck every day to talk about.”

“Come inside, and have some lunch. You must be famishing after your long ride.”

“Oh, no, I’m not hungry. Taihoa, by-and-by.”

The horse was tied up securely, and the girls, a contrast of blonde and brunette, walked up the garden-path arm-in-arm.

“I have heard such things about you,” said the fair girl.

“But you should see him, my dear,” said the brown. “You would have risked a good deal to save him if you had been there – tall, strong, struggling in the sea, and so helpless.”

“You are brave, Amiria. It’s nonsense to pretend you don’t know it. All the town is talking about you.” The white face looked at the brown, mischievously. “And now that you have got him, my dear, keep him.”

Amiria’s laugh rang through the garden. “There is no hope for me, if you are about, Miss Rose Summerhayes,” she said.

“But wasn’t it perfectly awful? We heard you were drowned yourself.”

“Nonsense! I got wet, but that was all. Of course, if I was weak or a bad swimmer, then there would have been no hope. But I know every rock, every channel, where the sea breaks its force, and where it is strongest. There was no danger.”

“How many men?”

“Twenty-nine; and the one drowned makes thirty.”

“And which is the particular one, your treasure trove? Of course, he will marry you as soon as the water is out of his ears, and make you happy ever afterwards.”

Amiria laughed again. “First, he is handsome; next, he is a rangatira, well-born, as my husband ought to be. I really don’t know his name. Can’t you guess that is what I have come to find out?”

“You goose. You’ve come to unburden yourself. You were just dying to tell me the story.”

They had paused on the verandah, where they sat on a wooden seat in the shade.

“Anyway, the wreck is better for the Maori than a sitting of the Land Court – there! The shore is covered with boxes and bales and all manner of things. There are ready-made clothes for everyone in the pa, boots, tea, tobacco, sugar, everything that the people want – all brought ashore from the wreck and strewn along the beach. The Customs’ Officers get some, but the Maori gets most. I’ve brought you a memento.”

She put her hand into the pocket of her riding-habit, and drew out a little packet. “That is for you – a souvenir of the wreck.”

“Isn’t it rather like stealing, to take what really belongs to other people?”

“Rubbish! Open it, and see for yourself,” said Amiria, smiling.

Rose undid the packet’s covering, and disclosed a black leather-covered case, much the worse for wear.

“It isn’t injured by the water – it was in a tin-lined box,” said the Maori girl. “It opens like a card-case.”

Rose opened the little receptacle, which divided in the middle, and there lay exposed a miniature portrait framed in oxidized silver.

The portrait represented a beautiful woman, yellow-haired, with blue eyes and a bright colour on her cheeks, lips which showed indulgence in every curve, and a snow-white neck around which was clasped a string of red coral beads.

Rose fixed her eyes on the picture.

“Why do you give me this?” she asked. “Who is it?”

Amiria turned the miniature over. On its back was written “Annabel Summerhayes.”

Rose turned slightly pale as she read the name, and her breath caught in her throat. “This must be my mother,” she said quietly. “When she died, I was too young to remember her.”

Both girls looked at the portrait; the brown face close to the fair, the black hair touching the brown.

“She must have been very good,” said Amiria, “ – look how kind she is.”

Rose was silent.

“Isn’t that a nice memento of the wreck,” continued the Maori girl. “But anyhow you would have received it, for the Collector of Customs has the packing-case in which it was found. However, I thought you would like to get it as soon as possible.”

“How kind you are,” said Rose, as she kissed Amiria. “This is the only picture of my mother I have seen. I never knew what she was like. This is a perfect revelation to me.”

The tears were in her voice as well as in her eyes, and her lip trembled. Softly one brown hand stole into her white one, and another brown hand stole round her waist, and she felt Amiria’s warm lips on her cheek. The two girls had been playmates as children, they had been at school together, and had always shared each other’s confidences, but this matter of Annabel Summerhayes was one which her father had forbidden Rose to mention; and around the memory of her mother there had grown a mystery which the girl was unable to fathom.

“Now that this has occurred, there is no harm in disobeying my father,” she said. “He told me never to speak of my mother to him or anyone else, but when you give me her picture, it would be stupid to keep silence. She looks good, doesn’t she, Amiria? I think she was good, but my father destroyed everything belonging to her: he even took the trouble to change my name from Annabel to Rose – that was after we arrived here and I was three years old. I do not possess a single thing that was hers except this picture; and even that I must hide, for fear my father should destroy it. Come, we will go in.”

They passed along the shady verandah, and entered the house. Its rooms were dark and cool, and prettily if humbly furnished. Rose took Amiria along a winding passage, up a somewhat narrow flight of stairs, and into a bedroom which was in one of the many gables of the wooden house. The Maori girl took off her hat and gloves, and Rose, drawing a bunch of keys from her pocket, opened a work-box which stood on the dressing-table, and in it she hid the miniature of her mother. Then she turned, and confronted Amiria.

The dark girl’s black hair, loosened by riding, had escaped from its fastenings, and now fell rippling down her back.

“It’s a great trouble,” she said. “Nothing will hold it – it is like wire. The pins drop out, and down it all comes.”

Rose was combing and brushing the glossy, black tresses. “I’ll try my hand,” said she. “The secret is plenty of pins; you don’t use enough of them. Pins, I expect, are scarce in the pa.” She had fastened up one long coil, and was holding another in place with her white fingers, when a gruff voice roared through the house: —

“Rosebud, my gal! Rosebud, I say! What’s taken the child?”

Whilst the two girls had been in the bedroom, three figures had come into sight round the bend of the beach-road. They walked slowly, with heavy steps and swaying gait, after the manner of sailor-men. As they ascended the winding pathway leading to the house, they argued loudly.

“Jes’ so, Cap’n Summerhayes,” said the short, thick-set man, with a blanket wrapped round him in lieu of a coat, to the big burly man on his left, “I stood off and on, West-Nor’-West and East-Sou’-East, waiting for the gale to wear down and let me get into your tuppeny little port. Now you are pilot, I reckon. What would you ha’ done?”

“What would I ha’ done, Sartoris?” asked the bulky man gruffly. “Why, damme, I’d ha’ beat behind Guardian Point, and took shelter.”

“In the dark?”

“In the dark, I tell you.”

“Then most likely, Pilot, you’d ha’ run The Witch on the Three Sisters’ reefs, or Frenchman’s Island. I stood off an’ on, back’ard an’ forrard.”

“An’ shot yourself on to the rocks.”

The third man said nothing. He was looking at the Pilot’s house and the flowers while the two captains paused to argue, and fidgeted with the blanket he wore over his shoulders.

“Well, come in, come in,” said the Pilot. “We’ll finish the argyment over a glass an’ a snack.” And then it was that he had roared for his daughter, who, leaving Amiria to finish her toilet, tripped downstairs to meet her father.

“Why, Rosebud, my gal, I’ve been calling this half-hour,” exclaimed the gruff old Pilot. “An’ here’s two gentlemen I’ve brought you, two shipwrecked sailors – Cap’n Sartoris, of The Mersey Witch, and Mr. Scarlett.” His voice sounded like the rattling of nails in a keg, and his manner was as rough as his voice.

Each blanketed man stepped awkwardly forward and shook hands with the girl, first the captain, and then the tall, uncomfortable-looking, younger man, who turned the colour indicated by his name.

“What they want is a rig-out,” rumbled the Pilot of Timber Town; “some coats, Rosebud; some shirts, and a good feed.” The grizzled old mariner’s face broke into a grim smile. “I’m Cap’n Summerhayes, an’t I? I’m Pilot o’ this port, an’t I? – an’ Harbour Master, in a manner o’ speaking? Very good, my gal. In all those capacities – regardless that I’m your dad – I tell you to make these gen’lemen comfortable, as if they were at home; for you never know, Rosebud, when you may be entertaining a husband unawares. You never know.” And, chuckling, the old fellow led the shipwrecked men into his bedroom.

When they had been provided with suits belonging to the Pilot, they were shown into the parlour, where they sat with their host upon oak chairs round a battered, polished table, with no cloth upon it.

Captain Sartoris was a moderately good-looking man, if a trifle weather-beaten, but dressed in the Pilot’s clothes he was in danger of being lost and smothered; and Scarlett bore himself like one who laboured under a load of misery almost too great to be borne, but he had wisely rejected the voluminous coat proffered by his benefactor, and appeared in waistcoat and trousers which gave him the appearance of a growing boy dressed in his father’s cast-off apparel.

Such was the guise of the shipwrecked men as they sat hiding as much of themselves as possible under the Pilot’s table, whilst Rose Summerhayes bustled about the room. She took glasses from the sideboard and a decanter from a dumb-waiter which stood against the wall, and placed them on the table.

“And Rosebud, my gal,” said the Pilot, “as it’s quite two hours to dinner, we’ll have a morsel of bread and cheese.”

The French window stood open, and from the garden was blown the scent of flowers.

Rose brought the bread and cheese, and stood with her hands folded upon her snowy apron, alert to supply any further wants of the guests.

“And whose horse is that on the drive?” asked the Pilot.

“Amiria’s,” replied his daughter.

“Good: that’s a gal after my heart. I’m glad she’s come.”

“Take a chair, miss,” said Captain Sartoris from the depths of the vast garments that encumbered him.

“Thank you,” replied Rose, “but I’ve the dinner to cook.”

“Most domestic, I’m sure,” continued Sartoris, trying hard to say the correct thing. “Most right an’ proper. Personally, I like to see young ladies attend to home dooties.”

Rose laughed. “Which is to say the comfort of you men.”

“My gal,” said her father sternly, “we have all we want. Me an’ these gen’lemen will be quite happy till dinner-time.”

Rose stooped to pick up the boots which her father had discarded for a pair of carpet-slippers, and rustled out of the room.

“Gen’lemen,” said the Pilot of Timber Town, “we’ll drink to better luck next time.”

The three men carefully filled their glasses, emptied them in solemn silence, and put them almost simultaneously with a rattle on the polished table.

“Ah!” exclaimed the Pilot, after a long-drawn breath. “Four over proof. Soft as milk, an’t it? Goes down like oil, don’t it?”

“Most superior tipple,” replied the skipper, “but you had your losses in The Witch, same as me and the owners. I had aboard six cases of the finest port as ever you tasted, sent out for you by your brother; senior partner of the firm, Mr. Scarlett. ‘Cap’n Sartoris,’ he says, ‘I wish you good luck and a prosperous voyage, but take care o’ that port wine for my brother. There’s dukes couldn’t buy it.’ ‘No, sir,’ I says to him, ‘but shipowners an’ dukes are different. Shipowners usually get the pick of a cargo.’ He laughed, an’ I laughed: which we wouldn’t ha’ done had we known The Witch was going to be piled up on this confounded coast.”

The Pilot had risen to his feet. His face was crimson with excitement, and his brow dark with passion.

“Cap’n Sartoris!” he exclaimed, as he brought his fist with a bang upon the table, so that the decanter and tumblers rattled, “every sea-faring man hates to see a good ship wrecked, whoever the owner may be. None’s more sorry than me to see the bones of your ship piled on that reef. But when you talk about bringing me a present o’ wine from my brother, you make my blood boil. To Hell with him and all his ships!” With another bang upon the table, he paced up and down, breathing deeply, and trembling with passion still unvented.

Sartoris and Scarlett looked with astonishment at the suddenly infuriated man.

“As for his cursed port wine,” continued the Pilot, “let him keep it. I wouldn’t drink it.”

“In which case,” said the skipper, “if I’d ha’ got into port, I’d ha’ been most happy to have drank it myself.”

“I’d have lent you a hand, Captain,” said Scarlett.