Nibletts waited.
"He"s goin" to call at my place," continued the other, "and tell Mrs. Church that I"ve been took unwell at the Cauliflower at Mapleden, and want to see her, and he"s to bring her there at once. Arter they"ve started I go in and get to bed, and earthquakes wouldn"t wake me, let alone a knock at the door. D"ye see?"
"What good"s that goin" to do?" enquired the astonished listener.
"Next day," said Barber, in thrilling tones, as he placed his forefinger on the other"s arm, "I refuse to believe her story. Green, here, denies of it too, and sez "e saw her at the gate and asked her to go for a walk with him."
Captain Nibletts fingered his beard. "It don"t seem to be the sort of trick to play on a woman," he expostulated, "an" it"s four miles to Mapleden. What"s she goin" to do?"
"That"s "er lookout," observed Captain Barber, with much composure, "all I know is she won"t wake me. I daresay she"ll come on to your place. Wimmen wot sets their caps at men wot don"t want "em set at "em must put up with the consequences."
"You give me half an hour, sir," said Mr. Green, impressively, "and then you can come on as soon as you like. You"ll find the coast clear by then."
He bit off the end of the cigar presented by Captain Barber, and, thanking him effusively as he struck a match for him, quitted the inn. The two captains waited restlessly for the time specified, and then, finishing their drinks, went outside, and, standing in the light which streamed from the windows and doorway of the Thorn, gazed at the dark road beyond.
"It looks all right," said Barber, shaking hands. "Good-night."
"Good luck," said Nibletts.
The other, not without a little trepidation, walked towards his house, and opening the door, after a little difficulty, stood safely inside. The house was quiet and in darkness, except for the lamp which stood on the parlour-table, and after a moment"s survey he proceeded to shut up for the night.
As a rule he was careless about such matters, but to-night no gaoler saw to his bolts and bars more carefully than he did. He returned to the parlour, having made all secure, and lighting his pipe for a few final whiffs before retiring, winked at himself solemnly in the gla.s.s. Then fearful that the housekeeper might return sooner than was expected, he blew out the lamp and smoked in the dark.
He knocked out his pipe at last, and walked slowly and ponderously upstairs. He grinned again as he pa.s.sed the door of the housekeeper"s room, and then, with a catch in his breath, clutched heavily at the banister as a soft female voice bade him "Good-night."
Captain Barber, surprised beyond all measure, was unable to speak.
"I thought you"d got lost again," said the voice, playfully. "Good-night."
"Good-night," rejoined the other, in hollow tones. "Mrs. Banks stay long?" he enquired, pausing at his door.
"She went just about half an hour before you came in," replied the housekeeper. "Elizabeth went soon after you did, but her mother stopped on. She went very suddenly when she did go, and was very mysterious about it. Not that I want to know her business."
"Mysterious?" faltered the captain.
"Some young man came to the door," continued the innocent woman, "and they were talking in a low voice. I don"t know who it was, because Mrs. Banks let me see quite plainly that she didn"t want me to know. Then she just called out "Goodnight," and went off as fast as you please."
Captain Barber supported himself for a moment by the handle of his door, and then in a dazed way blundered into his room. He was a good-hearted man in a way, and pushing open the little cas.e.m.e.nt he thrust out his head and sighed with genuine feeling as he thought of his poor old friend plodding slowly to Mapleden. Incidentally he felt a little bit sorry for Mr. William Green.
He was awaked next morning after a somewhat restless night by the sounds of an unwonted noise downstairs, and lay in amazement listening to a hum of excited voices below. Knuckles rapped on his door and the voice of Mrs. Church, much agitated, requested him to rise and attire himself.
He was out of bed at that and looking from the window. A small group of children stood in the road outside the house, while Joe and the cook with their arms on the fence were staring hard at his parlour window, occasionally varying the proceedings by a little conversation with the people next door, who were standing in their front garden. In a state of considerable agitation he hurriedly dressed himself and went downstairs.
His sitting-room was full. Mrs. Banks, looking very tired, was sitting in the arm-chair taking smelling-salts at intervals, and staring fiercely at Mr. William Green, who was huddled in a corner smiling sheepishly behind Captain Nibletts and Ben.
"What"s all this?" demanded Captain Barber, in a trembling voice, as his eye met Mr. Green"s.
Several of Mrs. Banks"s relatives began speaking at once, a.s.sisted by some of the neighbours. The substance of their remarks was that a man. whose polite tongue hid the falseness of his heart, had lured Mrs. Banks for a four-mile walk to Mapleden late the preceding night under the pretence that Captain Barber, who was evidently hale and hearty, was lying ill at the Cauliflower. They demanded his immediate dismissal from the ship and his exemplary punishment by the law.
"What "ave you got to say to this?" demanded Captain Barber of the villain, in tones of righteous indignation tempered by fear.
"It isn"t true, sir," said Mr. Green, respectfully. "I didn"t say anything of the kind."
"Wot did you say, then?" enquired Captain Barber, in a voice which the company thought far too mild for the occasion.
"She was standing at the door as I pa.s.sed," said Mr. Green, nervously, "and I asked her to go for a walk with me."
"Lawk-a-mussy me!" screamed the horrified Mrs. Banks.
"We went for a nice little stroll," continued the graceless Mr. Green, "and then I s"pose she found it was later than she thought, and she began to make a fuss."
"Me, at my time o" life?" demanded the indignant Mrs. Banks of the audience.
"You did make a fuss," said Mr. Green.
"O" course I made a fuss when I found out how I had been deceived. You were here when he came, Mrs. Church, weren"t you?"
"I would rather not say anything about it," said the housekeeper, freezingly.
"I insist upon your speaking," said the old lady, getting very red in the face.
"Well, I don"t know much about it," said the housekeeper, looking round appealingly. "I heard you speaking to somebody at the door in a low voice."
"It wasn"t a low voice," interrupted Mrs. Banks, sharply.
"Well, I couldn"t hear what you were saying, and then when you went outside and I asked you whether you were going home you said "yes," didn"t you?"
"Are you sure she said she was going home?" said Mrs. Banks"s brother-in-law, in an awful voice, as the old lady sank back in her chair.
"Yes," said Mrs. Church, with a fine show of reluctance.
There was a dead silence, during which they all heard the smelling-salts drop.
"If this man said Captain Barber was ill at Mapleden, why didn"t you tell me?" continued Mrs. Church, in a mildly aggrieved voice. "I think if anybody ought to have known, it should have been me."
"It"s all a fuss about nothing," said Mr. Green, brazenly. "She stayed out a bit too late, and then wanted to put it all on to me."
A good Samaritan picked up the smelling-salts and held them to the victim"s nose, while her scandalized relatives discussed the situation in hurried whispers. The brother-in-law eyed her with bewildered disapproval, and in the disjointed accents peculiar to surprise was heard to make use of the words "friskiness" and "gallivanting" and "old enough to know better."
Her relatives" remarks, however, caused Mrs. Banks comparatively little pain. Her attention was fully taken up by the housekeeper, in whose satisfied smile she saw a perfect recognition of the reasons for her action of the previous evening. She got up from her chair, and with a stateliness which her brother-in-law thought somewhat misplaced, took her daughter"s arm, and slowly left the room, her departure being the signal for a general breakup. By twos and threes the company drifted slowly up the road in her wake, while Captain Barber, going in the other direction, accompanied Captain Nibletts and party as far as the schooner, in order that he might have the opportunity of saying a few well-chosen words to Mr. Green on the subject of precipitancy.
"If it "adn"t been for me tipping "im the wink, so as to let him know what line "e was to go on when I came down, where should I "ave been?" he demanded of Captain Nibletts.
And that astonished mariner, with a helpless shake of his head, gave it up.
CHAPTER XV.
The Blue Posts, Chelsea, is an old-time public-house pleasantly situated by the river, with an extensive connection amongst gentlemen"s servants, "busmen, and other skilled judges of good beer, the subtle and delicate perfume of which liquor pervades the place from cellar to bas.e.m.e.nt, and has more than once taken the policeman on duty to the back door, under the impression that something wanted looking into.
To some men imprisonment in such a place would have been little short of ecstasy. In the heat of summer they would have sat in the cool cellar amid barrels of honest beer; in winter, they would have led the conversation cosily seated around the taproom fire. For exercise, profitable employment at the beer-engine in the bar; for intellectual exercise, the study of practical chemistry in the cellar.
To Captain Fred Flower none of these things appealed. He had visited the cellar certainly--in search of subterranean exits; he had sat in the tap-room--close to the open window; but his rabid desire to get away from the place and never see it again could not have been surpa.s.sed by the most bitter teetotaler that ever breathed.
His greatest trouble was with Porson, whose limpet-like qualities were a source of never-failing concern to the unfortunate mariner. Did he ascend to the drawing-room and gaze yearningly from the windows at the broad stream of Father Thames and the craft dropping down on the ebb-tide to the sea, Uncle Porson, sallow of face and unclean of collar, was there to talk beery romance of the ocean. Did he retire to the small yard at the rear of the premises and gaze from the back door at the pa.s.sing life of a Chelsea by-street, Uncle Porson was looking over his shoulder, pointing out milkmen with histories, and cabmen with a past.
The second week of his stay was drawing to a close before he fully realised the horror of his position. His foot, which had been giving him considerable trouble, was getting much better, though it was by no means well enough to give him a chance in a foot-race with Mr. Porson or Charles, and as the family at the Blue Posts realised the improvement, the attentions of his personal attendants were redoubled. The key of his bed-room door was turned every night after he had retired, a discovery he had made the first night after carefully dressing for flight and spending an hour over the composition of a farewell note to Miss Tipping. There was no chance of reaching the roof from his bed-room window, and the pavement below offered him his choice between a wedding and a funeral.
And amid all this the fiction was maintained of preserving him from his lawless foes and his own inconvenient devotion to duty. A struggle for escape was not to be thought of, as the full measure of his deceitfulness would transpire in the event of failure, and the wedding drew nearer day by day, while his active brain was still casting about in vain for any means of escape.
"Next Tuesday," said Mrs. Tipping to her stepdaughter, as they sat in the much decorated drawing-room one afternoon, "you"ll be Mrs. Robinson."
Miss Tipping, who was sitting next to the skipper, looked at him languishingly, and put her head on his shoulder.
"I can hardly believe it," she said, coyly.
Flower, who was in the same predicament, patted her head tenderly, as being easier than replying.
"And I must say," said Mrs. Tipping, regarding the pair, "I"m a plain woman, and I speak my mind, that if it was me, I should want to know more about him first."
"I"m quite satisfied, mar," said Miss Tipping, without raising her head.
"There"s your relations to be satisfied, Matilda," said Uncle Porson, in an important voice.
Miss Tipping raised her head and favoured the interrupter with a baleful stare, whereupon Mr. Porson, scratching his neck feebly, glanced at Mrs. Tipping for support.
"Our relations needn"t come to see us," said his niece, at length. "He"s marrying me, not my relations."
"He"s making me his uncle, at any rate," said Mr. Porson, with a sudden access of dignity.
"You don"t mind, Fred, do you?" asked Miss Tipping, anxiously.
"I"d put up with more than that for your sake," said Flower. "I needn"t tell people."
"That"s all very fine," said Mrs. Tipping, taking up the cudgels for the speechless and glaring victim of these pleasantries, "but there"s no mystery about your uncle; everybody knows him. He doesn"t disappear just as he is going to get married, and be brought back in a cab months afterwards. He isn"t full of secrets he mustn"t tell people who ought to know."
"Never kep" a secret in my life," agreed Uncle Porson, whose head was buzzing under this unaccustomed praise.
"I know quite eno"ugh about Fred," said Miss Tipping, tenderly; "when I want your opinion, mar, I"ll ask you for it."
Mrs. Tipping"s reply was interrupted by the entrance of a young man from the jeweller"s with four brooches for Flower to present to the bridesmaids. Mrs. Tipping had chosen them, and it did not take the hapless skipper long to arrive at the conclusion that she was far fonder of bridesmaids than he was. His stock of money was beginning to dwindle, and the purchase of a second wedding suit within a month was beginning to tell even upon his soaring spirits.
"There"s another thing about Fred I don"t quite like," said Mrs. Tipping, as she sat with the brooches ranged upon her capacious lap; "he"s extravagant. I don"t like a mean man, but one who flings his money away is almost as bad. These "ere brooches are very pretty, and they do him credit, but I can"t say but what something cheaper wouldn"t "ave done as well."
"I thought you liked them," said the indignant Flower.
"I like them well enough," said Mrs. Tipping, solemnly; "there"s nothing to dislike in them. Seems to me they must have cost a lot of money, that"s all--I suppose I may make a remark!"
Flower changed the subject, and turning to Miss Tipping began to speak in a low voice of their new home. Miss Tipping wanted a sort of Eden with bar improvements, and it was rather difficult to find.
They had discussed the matter before, and the wily skipper had almost quarrelled with his bride-elect over the part of the country in which they were to live, Miss Tipping holding out for the east coast, while Flower hotly championed the south. Mrs. Tipping, with some emphasis, had suggested leaving it until after the honeymoon, but a poetic advertis.e.m.e.nt of an inn in Ess.e.x catching her daughter"s eye, it was decided that instant inspection should be made.
They travelled down from Fenchurch Street, accompanied by d.i.c.k and Mrs. Tipping, the skipper, who was painfully on the alert for any chance of escape, making a great fuss of his foot, and confessing to a feeling of unusual indisposition. He sat in one corner of the carriage with his eyes half closed, while Miss Tipping, with her arm affectionately drawn through his, was the unconscious means of preventing a dash for liberty as the train steamed slowly through a station.
The nearest station to the Rose of Ess.e.x was five miles distant, a fact which (owing perhaps to the expensive nature of newspaper charges) did not appear in the advertis.e.m.e.nt.
"It"s a nice little place," said the landlady of the Railway Hotel, as they asked her opinion over lunch; "there"s a little land goes with it. If you want to drive over, I"d better be having something got ready."
Mrs. Tipping, who halved the duties with Flower, she doing the ordering and he the paying, a.s.sented, and in a short time they were bowling rapidly along through narrow country lanes to their destination. The skipper noticed with pleasure the lonely nature of the country, and his heart beat fast as he thought of the chances of success of a little plan of escape.
So far as appearance went, the inn was excellent. Roses cl.u.s.tered round the porch and hung in fragrant bunches from the walls, while three or four st.u.r.dy lime trees in one corner threw a grateful shade over a rustic table and settles. Flower, with a grateful sigh, said that it was the very thing. Even Mrs. Tipping, after a careful inspection, said that they might do worse; d.i.c.k, with an air of professional gravity, devoted most of his attention to the cellar, while the engaged couple walked slowly round the immense garden in the rear exchanging tender whispers.
"We"ll think it over and let you know," said Mrs. Tipping to the landlord.
"There"s been a lot after it," said he slowly, with a glance at his wife.
"And yet it ain"t gone," said the business-like Mrs. Tipping, pleasantly.
"I"m going to take it, mar," said Miss Tipping, firmly.
Mrs. Tipping sighed at her haste, but finding her determined, went down the cellar again, accompanied by d.i.c.k, for a last look round. Captain Flower, leaning heavily on Miss Tipping"s arm, limped slowly to the carriage.
"Tired?" she enquired, tenderly, as he sank back in the cushions.
"Foot"s painful," he said, with a faint smile. "Good gracious!"
"What"s the matter?" asked Miss Tipping, alarmed by his manner.
"I"ve left my pipe in the garden," said Flower, rising, "the one you gave me. I wouldn"t lose it for the world."
"I"ll get it," said Miss Tipping, springing out of the carriage. "Whereabouts did you leave it, do you think?"
"By the bee-hives," said Flower, pale with excitement, as he heard Mrs. Tipping and d.i.c.k coming up from the cellar. "Make haste; somebody might take it."
Miss Tipping darted into the house, and immediately afterwards the Tippings ascended from the cellar, attended by the landlady.
"Driver," said Flower, sharply.
"Sir," said the man, looking round and tenderly rubbing his back.
"Take that to the lady who has just gone in, at once," gabbled Flower; "hurry up."