A Master Of Craft

CHAPTER XVIII

The prime result of Mrs. Banks’ nocturnal ramble with Mr. William Green, was a feeling of great bitterness against her old friend, Captain John Barber. Mr. Green, despite her protests, was still a member of the crew of the Foam, and walked about Seabridge in broad daylight, while she crept forth only after sundown, and saw a hidden meaning in every “Fine evening, Mrs. Banks,” which met her. She pointed out to Captain Barber, that his refusal to dismiss Mr. Green was a reflection upon her veracity, and there was a strange light in her eyes and a strange hardening of her mouth, as the old man said that to comply with her request would be to reflect upon the polite seaman’s veracity.

Her discomfiture was not lessened by the unbecoming behaviour of her daughter, who in some subtle manner, managed to convey that her acceptance of her mother’s version of the incident depended upon the way she treated Mr. Frank Gibson. It was a hard matter to a woman of spirit, and a harder thing still, that those of her neighbours who listened to her account of the affair were firmly persuaded that she was setting her cap at Captain Barber.

To clear her character from this imputation, and at the same time to mark her sense of the captain’s treatment of her, Mrs. Banks effected a remarkable change of front, and without giving him the slightest warning, set herself to help along his marriage to Mrs. Church.

She bantered him upon the subject when she met him out, and, disregarding his wrathful embarrassment, accused him in a loud voice of wearing his tie in a love-knot. She also called him a turtledove. The conversation ended here, the turtledove going away crimson with indignation and cooing wickedly.

Humbled by the terrors of his position, the proud shipowner turned more than ever to Captain Nibletts for comfort and sympathy, and it is but due to that little man to say that anything he could have done for his benefactor would have given him the greatest delight. He spent much of his spare time in devising means for his rescue, all of which the old man listened to with impatience and rejected with contumely.

“It’s no good, Nibletts,” he said, as they sat in the subdued light of the cabin one evening.

“Nothing can be done. If anything could be done, I should have thought of it.”

“Yes, that’s what struck me,” said the little skipper, dutifully.

“I’ve won that woman’s ‘art,” said Captain Barber, miserably; “in ‘er anxiety to keep me, the woman’s natur’ has changed. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do to make sure of me.”

“It’s understandable,” said Nibletts.

“It’s understandable,” agreed Captain Barber, “but it’s orkard. Instead o’ being a mild, amiable sort o’ woman, all smiles, the fear o’ losing me has changed ‘er into a determined, jealous woman. She told me herself it was love of me as ‘ad changed her.”

“You ain’t written to her, I suppose?” asked Nibletts, twisting his features into an expression of great cunning.

Captain Barber shook his head. “If you’d think afore speaking, Nibletts,” he said, severely, “you’d know as people don’t write to each other when they’re in the same house.”

The skipper apologised. “What I mean to say is this,” he said, softly. “She hasn’t got your promise in writing, and she’s done all the talking about it. I’m the only one you’ve spoken to about it, I s’pose?”

Captain Barber nodded.

“Well, forget all about it,” said Nibletts, in an excited whisper.

Captain Barber looked at him pityingly.

“What good’ll that do?” he asked.

“Forget the understanding,” continued Nibletts, in a stage whisper, “forget everything; forget Captain Flower’s death, act as you acted just afore he went. People’ll soon see as you’re strange in your manner, and I’ll put the news about as you’ve been so affected by that affair that your memory’s gone.”

“I was thinking of doing that the other day myself,” said Captain Barber, slowly and untruthfully.

“I thought you was, from something you said,” replied Nibletts.

“I think I spoke of it, or I was going to,” said Barber.

“You did say something,” said Nibletts.

“I wonder what would be the best way to begin,” said Barber, regarding him attentively.

Captain Niblett’s nerve failed him at the responsibility.

“It’s your plan, Captain Barber,” he said, impressively, “and nobody can tell a man like you how it should be done. It wants acting, and you’ve got to have a good memory to remember that you haven’t got a memory.”

“Say that agin,” said Captain Barber, breathing thickly.

Captain Nibletts repeated it, and Captain Barber, after clearing his brain with a glass of spirits, bade him a solemn good-night, and proceeded slowly to his home. The door was opened by Mrs. Church, and a hum of voices from the front room indicated company. Captain Barber, hanging his hat on a peg, entered the room to discover Mrs. Banks and daughter, attended by Mr. Gibson.

“Where’s Fred?” he asked, slowly, as he took a seat.

“Who?” said Miss Banks, with a little scream.

“Lawk-a-mussy, bless the man,” said her mother. “I never did.”

“Not come in yet?” asked Barber, looking round with a frightful stare. “The Foam’s up!”

The company exchanged glances of consternation.

“Why, is he alive?” enquired Mrs. Church, sharply.

“Alive!” repeated Captain Barber. “Why shouldn’t he be? He was alive yesterday, wasn’t he?”

There was a dead silence, and then Captain Barber from beneath his shaggy eyebrows observed with delight that Gibson, tapping his forehead significantly, gave a warning glance at the others, while all four sitting in a row watched anxiously for the first signs of acute mania.

“I expect he’s gone round after you, my dear,” said the wily Barber to Miss Banks.

In the circumstances this was certainly cruel, and Gibson coughed confusedly.

“I’ll go and see,” said Miss Banks, hurriedly; “come along, mother.”

The two ladies, followed by Mr. Gibson, shook hands and withdrew hurriedly. Captain Barber, wondering how to greet Mrs. Church after he had let them out, fixed his eyes on the carpet and remained silent.

“Aren’t you well?” enquired the lady, tenderly.

“Well, ma’am?” repeated Uncle Barber, with severity.

“Ma’am?” said Mrs. Church, in tones of tender reproach; “two hours ago I was Laura. Have you been to the ‘Thorn’?”

“What ‘Thorn’?” demanded Captain Barber, who had decided to forget as much as possible, as the only safe way.

“The Thorn Inn,” said Mrs. Church, impatiently.

“Where is it?” enquired Captain Barber, ingenuously.

Mrs. Church looked at him with deep consideration. “Why, at the end of the cottages, opposite the ‘Swan.”

“What ‘Swan’?” enquired Captain Barber.

“The Swan Inn,” said Mrs. Church, restraining her temper, but with difficulty.

“Where is it?” said Uncle Barber, with breezy freshness.

“Opposite the ‘Thorn,’ at the end of the row,” said Mrs. Church, slowly.

“Well, what about it?” enquired Captain Barber.

“Nothing,” said Mrs. Church, sharply, and proceeded to set supper.

Captain Barber, hugging himself over his scheme, watched her eagerly, evincing a little bewilderment as she brought on a small, unappetizing rind of cheese, bread, two glasses, and a jug of water. He checked himself just in time from asking for the cold fowl and bacon left from dinner, and, drawing his chair to the table, eyed the contents closely.

“Only bread and cheese?” he said, somewhat peevishly.

“That’s all,” said Mrs. Church, smiling; “bread and cheese and kisses.”

Captain Barber tapped his forehead. “What did we have for dinner?” he asked, suddenly.

“Sausages,” replied Mrs. Church, blandly; “we ate them all.”

A piece of Captain Barber’s cheese went the wrong way, and he poured himself out some water and drank it hurriedly. “Where’s the beer?” he demanded.

“You’ve got the key of the cask,” said the housekeeper.

Captain Barber, whose temper was rising, denied it.

“I gave it to you this morning,” said Mrs. Church; “you were going to do something to it, don’t you know?”

“I don’t remember,” said Uncle Barber, surlily.

“Whatever has happened to your memory?” said Mrs. Church, sweetly.

“My memory,” said the trickster, slowly, passing his hand over his brow; “why, what’s the matter with it?”

“It doesn’t seem quite so good as it was,” said the lady, affectionately. “Never mind, my memory will have to do for both.”

There was enough emphasis on this last sentence to send a little chill through the captain’s frame.

He said nothing, but keeping his eye on his plate attacked his frugal meal in silence, and soon after-wards went upstairs to bed to think out his position.

If his own memory was defective, Mrs. Church’s was certainly redundant. When he came hurrying in to dinner next day she remembered that he had told her he should not be home to that meal. He was ungallant enough to contemplate a raid upon hers; she, with a rare thoughtfulness, had already eaten it. He went to the “Thorn,” and had some cold salt beef, and cursed the ingenious Nibletts, now on his way to London, sky-high.

Mrs. Banks came in the next evening with her daughter, and condoled with the housekeeper on the affliction which had already been noised about Seabridge. Mrs. Church, who had accepted her as an ally, but with mental reservations, softly applied a handkerchief to her eyes.

“How are you feeling?” demanded Mrs. Banks, in the voice of one addressing a deaf invalid.

“I’m all right,” said Barber, shortly.

“That’s his pride,” said Mrs. Church, mournfully; “he won’t own to it. He can’t remember anything. He pretends he doesn’t know me.”

“Who are you?” asked the sufferer, promptly.

“He’ll get the better of it,” said Mrs. Banks, kindly, as her quondam foe wiped her eyes again. “If he don’t, you’d better marry before October.”

To say that Captain Barber pricked up his ears at this, indicates but feebly his interest in the remark. He held his breath and looked wildly round the room as the two ladies, deftly ignoring him, made their arrangements for his future.

“I don’t like to seem to hurry it,” said the housekeeper.

“No, of course you don’t. If he said October, naturally October it ought to be, in the usual way,” remarked the other.

“I never said October,” interrupted the trembling mariner.

“There’s his memory again,” said Mrs. Banks, in a low voice.

“Poor dear,” sighed the other.

“We’ll look after your interests,” said Mrs. Banks, with a benevolent smile. “Don’t you remember meeting me by the church the other night and telling me that you were going to marry Mrs. Church in October?”

“No,” bawled the affrighted man.

“Clean gone,” said Mrs. Church, shaking her head; “it’s no use.”

“Not a bit,” said Mrs. Banks.

“October seems rather early,” said Mrs. Church, “especially as he is in mourning for his nephew.

“There’s no reason for waiting,” said Mrs. Banks, decidedly. “I daresay it’s his loneliness that makes him want to hurry it. After all, he ought to know what he wants.”

“I never said a word about it,” interposed Captain Barber, in a loud voice.

“All right,” said Mrs. Banks, indulgently. “What are you going to wear, my dear?” she added, turning to the housekeeper.

Mrs. Church seemed undecided, and Captain Barber, wiping the moisture from his brow, listened as one in a dream to a long discussion on the possibilities of her wardrobe. Thrice he interrupted, and thrice the ladies, suspending their conversation for a moment, eyed him with tender pity before resuming it.

“Me and Frank thought of October,” said Elizabeth, speaking for the first time. She looked at Captain Barber, and then at her mother. It was the look of one offering to sell a casting vote.

“October’s early,” said the old lady, bridling.

Mrs. Church looked up at her, and then modestly looked down again. “Why not a double wedding?” she asked, gently.

Captain Barber’s voice was drowned in acclamations. Elizabeth kissed Mrs. Church, and then began to discuss her own wardrobe. The owner of the house, the owner of the very chairs on which they were sitting, endeavoured in vain to stop them on a point of order, and discovered to his mortification that a man without a memory is a man without influence. In twenty minutes it was all settled, and even an approximate date fixed. There was a slight movement on the part of Elizabeth to obtain Captain Barber’s opinion upon that, but being reminded by her mother that he would forget all about it in half an hour’s time, she settled it without him.

“I’m so sorry about your memory, Captain Barber,” said Mrs. Banks, as she prepared to depart. “I can understand what a loss it is. My memory’s a very good one. I never forget anything.”

“You forget yourself, ma’am,” returned her victim, with unconscious ambiguity, and, closing the door behind her, returned to the parlour to try and think of some means of escaping from the position to which the ingenuity of Captain Nibletts, aided by that of Mrs. Banks, had brought him.

CHAPTER XIX

OPPONENTS of medicine have hit upon a means of cleansing the system by abstaining for a time from food, and drinking a quantity of fair water. It is stated to clear the eyes and the skin, and to cause a feeling of lightness and buoyancy undreamt of by those who have never tried it. All people, perhaps, are not affected exactly alike, and Captain Flower, while admitting the lightness, would have disdainfully contested any charge of buoyancy. Against this objection it may be said, that he was not a model patient, and had on several occasions wilfully taken steps to remove the feeling of lightness.

It was over a fortnight since his return to London. The few shillings obtained for his watch had disappeared days before; rent was due and the cupboard was empty. The time seemed so long to him, that Poppy and Seabridge and the Foam might have belonged to another period of existence. At the risk of detection he had hung round the Wheelers night after night for a glimpse of the girl for whom he was enduring all these hardships, but without success. He became a prey to nervousness and, unable to endure the suspense any longer, determined to pay a stealthy visit to Wapping and try and see Fraser.

He chose the night on which in the ordinary state of affairs the schooner should be lying alongside the wharf; and keeping a keen lookout for friends and foes both, made his way to the Minories and down Tower Hill. He had pictured it as teeming with people he knew, and the bare street and closed warehouses, with a chance docker or two slouching slowly along, struck him with an odd sense of disappointment. The place seemed changed. He hurried past the wharf; that too was deserted, and after a loving peep at the spars of his schooner he drifted slowly across the road to the Albion, and, pushing the door a little way open, peeped cautiously in. The faces were all unfamiliar, and letting the door swing quietly back he walked on until he came to the Town of Yarmouth.

The public bar was full. Tired workers were trying to forget the labours of the day in big draughts of beer, while one of them had thrown off his fatigue sufficiently to show a friend a fancy step of which he was somewhat vain. It was a difficult and intricate step for a crowded bar, and panic-stricken men holding their beer aloft called wildly upon him to stop, while the barman, leaning over the counter, strove to make his voice heard above the din. The dancer’s feet subsided into a sulky shuffle, and a tall seaman, removing the tankard which had obscured his face, revealed the honest features of Joe. The sight of him and the row of glasses and hunches of bread and cheese behind the bar was irresistible. The skipper caught a departing customer by the coat and held him.

“Do me a favour, old man,” he said, heartily.

“Wot d’ye want?” asked the other, suspiciously.

“Tell that tall chap in there that a friend of his is waiting outside,” said Flower, pointing to Joe.

He walked off a little way as the man re-entered the bar. A second or two later, the carman came out alone.

“‘E ses come inside ‘e ses if you want to see ‘im.”

“I can’t,” said Flower.

“Why not?” asked the other, as a horrible suspicion dawned upon him. “Strewth, you ain’t a teetotaler, are you?”

“No,” replied the skipper, “but I can’t go in.”

“Well ‘e won’t come out,” said the other; “‘e seems to be a short-tempered sort o’ man.”

“I must see him,” said the skipper, pondering. Then a happy thought struck him, and he smiled at his cleverness. “Tell him a little flower wants to see him,” he said, briskly.

“A little wot?” demanded the carman, blankly.

“A little flower,” repeated the other.

“Where is she?” enquired the carman, casting his eyes about him.

“You just say that,” said the skipper, hurriedly. “You shall have a pint if you do. He’ll understand.”

It was unfortunate for the other that the skipper had set too high an estimation on Joe’s intelligence, for the information being imparted to him in the audible tones of confidence, he first gave his mug to Mr. William Green to hold, and then knocked the ambassador down. The loud laugh consequent on the delivery of the message ceased abruptly, and in the midst of a terrific hubbub Joe and his victim, together with two or three innocent persons loudly complaining that they hadn’t finished their beer, were swept into the street.

“He’ll be all right in a minute, mate,” said a bystander to Joe, anxiously; “don’t run away.”

“‘Tain’t so likely,” said Joe, scornfully.

“Wot did you ‘it me for?” demanded the victim, turning a deaf ear to two or three strangers who were cuddling him affectionately and pointing out, in alluring whispers, numberless weak points in Joe’s fleshly armour.

“I’ll ‘it you agin if you come into a pub making a fool of me afore people,” replied the sensitive seaman, blushing hotly with the recollection of the message.

“He told me to,” said the carman, pointing to Flower, who was lurking in the background.

The tall seaman turned fiercely and strode up to him, and then, to the scandal of the bystanders and the dismay of Mr. William Green, gave a loud yell and fled full speed up the road. Flower followed in hot pursuit, and owing, perhaps, to the feeling of lightness before mentioned, ran him down nearly a mile farther on, Mr. Green coming in a good second.

“Keep orf,” panted the seaman, backing into a doorway. “Keep—it—orf!”

“Don’t be a fool, Joe,” said the skipper.

“Keep orf,” repeated the trembling seaman.

His fear was so great that Mr. Green, who had regarded him as a tower of strength and courage, and had wormed himself into the tall seaman’s good graces by his open admiration of these qualities, stood appalled at his idol’s sudden lack of spirit.

“Don’t be a fool, Joe,” said the skipper, sharply; “can’t you see it’s me?”

“I thought you was drownded,” said the trembling seaman, still regarding him suspiciously. “I thought you was a ghost.”

“Feel that,” said Flower, and gave him a blow in the ribs which almost made him regret that his first impression was not the correct one.

“I’m satisfied, sir,” he said, hastily.

“I was picked up and carried off to Riga: but for certain reasons I needn’t go into, I want my being alive kept a dead secret. You mustn’t breathe a word to anybody, d’ye understand? Not a word.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said Joe; “you hear that, Will-yum?”

“Who the devil’s this?” demanded the skipper, who had not bargained for another confidant.

“It’s the new ‘and, sir,” said Joe. “I’ll be answerable for ‘im.”

Flower eyed the pair restlessly, but Mr. Green assured him with a courtly bow that Mr. Smith’s assurances might be relied upon. “He hoped he was a gentleman,” he said, feelingly.

“Some of us thought—I thought,” said Joe, with a glance at the skipper, “that the mate shoved you overboard.”

“You always were a fool,” commented the skipper.

“Yes, sir,” said Joe, dutifully, and as they moved slowly back along the road gave him the latest information about Seabridge and the Foam.

“The Swallow’s just come up in the tier,” he concluded; “and if you want to see Mr. Fraser, I’ll go and see if he’s aboard.”

The skipper agreed, and after exacting renewed assurances of secrecy from both men, waited impatiently in the private bar of the Waterman’s Arms while they put off from the stairs and boarded the steamer.

In twenty minutes, during which time the penniless skipper affected not to notice the restless glances of the landlord, they returned with Fraser, and a hearty meeting took place between the two men. The famished skipper was provided with meat and drink, while the two A. B.’s whetted their thirst in the adjourning bar.

“You’ve had a rough time,” said Fraser, as the skipper concluded a dramatic recital of his adventures.

Flower smiled broadly. “I’ve come out of it right side uppermost,” he said, taking a hearty pull at his tankard; “the worst part was losing my money. Still, it’s all in the day’s work. Joe tells me that Elizabeth is walking out with Gibson, so you see it has all happened as I bargained for.”

“I’ve heard so,” said Fraser.

“It’s rather soon after my death,” said Flower, thoughtfully; “she’s been driven into it by her mother, I expect. How is Poppy?”

Fraser told him.

“I couldn’t wish her in better hands, Jack,” said the other, heartily, when he had finished; “one of these days when she knows everything—at least, as much as I shall tell her—she’ll be as grateful to you as what I am.”

“You’ve come back just in time,” said Fraser, slowly; “another week, and you’d have lost her.”

“Lost her?” repeated Flower, staring.

“She’s going to New Zealand,” replied the other; “she’s got some relations there. She met an old friend of her father’s the other day, Captain Martin, master of the Golden Cloud, and he has offered her a passage. They sail on Saturday from the Albert Dock.”

Flower pushed the tankard from him, and regarded him in consternation.

“She mustn’t go,” he said, decisively.

Fraser shrugged his shoulders. “I tried to persuade her not to, but it was no use. She said there was nothing to stay in England for; she’s quite alone, and there is nobody to miss her.”

“Poor girl,” said Flower, softly, and sat crumbling his bread and gazing reflectively at a soda-water advertisement on the wall. He sat so long in this attitude that his companion also turned and studied it.

“She mustn’t go,” said Flower, at length. “I’ll go down and see her to-morrow night. You go first and break the news to her, and I’ll follow on. Do it gently, Jack. It’s quite safe; there’s nobody she can talk to now; she’s left the Wheelers, and I’m simply longing to see her. You don’t know what it is to be in love, Jack.”

“What am I to tell her?” enquired the other, hastily.

“Tell her I was saved,” was the reply. “I’ll do the rest. By Jove, I’ve got it.”

He banged the table so hard that his plate jumped and the glasses in the bar rattled in protest.

“Anything wrong with the grub?” enquired the landlord, severely.

Flower, who was all excitement, shook his head.

“Because if there is,” continued the landlord, “I’d sooner you spoke of it than smash the table; never mind about hurting my feelings.”

He wiped down the counter to show that Flower’s heated glances had no effect upon him, withdrawing reluctantly to serve an impatient customer.

“I’ll go down to-morrow morning to the Golden Cloud and try and ship before the mast,” said Flower, excitably; “get married out in New Zealand, and then come home when things are settled. What do you think of that, my boy? How does that strike you?”

“How will it strike Cap’n Barber?” asked Fraser, as soon as he had recovered sufficiently to speak.

Flower’s eyes twinkled. “It’s quite easy to get wrecked and picked up once or twice,” he said, cheerfully. “I’ll have my story pat by the time I get home, even to the names of the craft I was cast away in. And I can say I heard of Elizabeth’s marriage from somebody I met in New Zealand. I’ll manage all right.”