I"ll slip out after dinner in my cloak with the hood to it."
"Jenny Crow!"
"It"s our last chance, it seems. The poor fellow sails at midnight, or tomorrow morning, or to-morrow night, or the next night, or sometime.
So you see he"s not going away without saying good-by to somebody. I couldn"t help telling you, Nelly. It"s nice to share a secret with a friend one can trust, and if he _is_ another woman"s husband--"
Nell had risen to her feet with her face aflame.
"But you mustn"t do it," she cried. "It"s shocking, it"s horrible--common morality is against it."
Jenny looked wondrous grave. "That"s it, you see," she said. "Common morality always _is_ against everything that"s nice and agreeable."
"I"m ashamed of you, Jenny Crow. I am; indeed, I am. I could never have believed it of you; indeed, I couldn"t. And the man you speak of is no better than you are, and all his talk of loving the wife is hypocrisy and deceit; and the poor woman herself should know of it, and come down on you both and shame you--indeed, she should," cried Nelly, and she flounced out of the room in a fury.
Jenny watched her go and thought to herself. "She"ll keep that appointment for me at eight o"clock to-night by the waterfall."
Presently she heard Mrs. Quiggin with a servant of the hotel countermanding the order for the carriage at eleven, and engaging it instead for the extraordinary hour of nine at night. "She intends to keep it," thought Jenny.
"And now," she said, settling herself at the writing-table; "now for the _other_ simpleton."
"Tell D. Q.," she wrote, addressing Lovibond; "that E. Q. goes home by carriage at nine o"clock to-night, and that you have appointed to meet her for a last farewell at eight by the waterfall in the gardens of Castle Mona. Then meet _me_ on the pier at seven-thirty."
CHAPTER VIII.
Lovibond received this message while sitting at breakfast, and he caught the idea of it in an instant. Since the supper of the night before he had been pestered by many misgivings, and troubled by some remorse.
Capt"n Davy was bent on going away. Overwhelmed by a sense of what he took to be his dastardly conduct he was in that worst position of the man who can forgive neither himself nor the person he has injured.
So much had Lovibond done for him by the fine scheme that had brought matters to such a pa.s.s. But having gone so far, Lovibond had found himself at a stand. His next step he could not see. Capt"n Davy must not be allowed to leave the island, but how to keep him from going away was a bewildering difficulty. To tell him the truth was impossible, and to concoct a further fable was beyond Lovibond"s invention. And so it was that when Lovi-bond received the letter from Jenny Crow, he rose to the cue it offered like a drowning man to a life-buoy.
"Jealousy--the very thing!" he thought; and not until he was already in the thick of his enterprise as wizard of that pa.s.sion did he realize that if it was an effectual instrument to his end it was also a cruel one.
He found Capt"n Davy in the midst of the final preparations for their journey. These consisted of the packing of clothes into trunks, bags, sacks, and hampers. On the floor of the sitting-room lay a various a.s.sortment of coats, waistcoats, trowsers, great-coats, billyc.o.c.k hats and sou"-westers, together with countless shirts and collars, scarfs and handkerchiefs. At Davy"s order Willie Quarrie had gathered up the garments in armsful out of drawers and wardrobes, and heaped them at his feet for inspection. This process they were undergoing with a view to the selection of such as were suitable to the climate in which it was intended that they should be worn. The hour was 8.30 a.m., the "Snaefell" was announced to sail for Liverpool at nine.
But, as Lovibond entered the room, a scene of yet more primitive interest was actively proceeding. A waiter of the hotel was strutting across the floor and sputtering out protests against this unseemly use of the sitting-room. The person was the same who the night before had haunted Davy"s elbow with his obsequious "Yes, sirs," "No, sirs," and "Beg pardon, sirs"; but the morning had brought him knowledge of Davy"s penury, and with that wisdom had come impudence if not dignity.
"The ideal!" he cried. "Turnin" a "otel drawrin"-room into a charwoman"s laundry!"
"Make it a rag shop at once," said Davy, as he went on quietly with his work.
"A rag shop it is, and I"ll "ave no more of it," said the waiter loftily. "Who ever "eard of such a thing?"
"No?" said Davy. "Well, well, now! Who"d have thought it? You never did? A rael Liverpool gentleman, eh? A reg"lar aristocrack out of Sawney Pope-street!"
"No, sir, but it"s easy to see where _you_ came from," said the waiter, with withering scorn.
"You say true, boy," said Davy, "but it"s aisier still to see where you are going to. Ever seen the black man on the beach at all? No? Him with the performing birds? You know--jacks and ravens and owls and such like.
Well, he"s been wanting something like you this long time. Wouldn"t trust, but he"d give twopence-halfpenny for you--and drinks all round.
You"d make his fortune as a c.o.c.katoo."
The waiter in fury called downstairs for a.s.sistance, and when two of his fellow servants had arrived in the room they made some poor show of working their will by force. Then Davy paused from his work, scratched the under part of his chin with the nail of his forefinger, and said, "Friends, some of us four is interrupting the play, and they"re wanting us at the pay box to give us back the fare. I"m thinking it"s you"s fellows--what do _you_ say? They"re longing for you downstairs--won"t you go? No? you"ll not though? Then where d"ye keep the slack of your trowsis?"
Saying this Davy rose to his feet, hitched his left hand into the collar of the first waiter, and his right into the depths under his coat tails, and ran him out of the room. Returning for the other two waiters he did much the same by each of them, and then came back with a look of awe, and said--
"My gough! they must have been Manxmen after all--they rowled downstairs as if they"d been all legs together."
Lovibond looked grave. "That"s going too far, Capt"n," he said. "For your own sake it"s risking too much."
"Risking too much?" said Davy. "There"s only three of them."
The first bell rang on the steamer; it was quarter to nine o"clock.
Willie Quarrie looked out at the window. The "Snaefell" was lying by the red pier in the harbor, getting up steam, and sending clouds of smoke over the old "Imperial." Cars were rattling up the quay, pa.s.sengers were making for the gangways, and already the decks, fore and aft, were thronged with people.
"Come along, my lad; look slippy," cried Davy, "only two bells more, and three hampers still to pack. Tumble them in--here goes."
"Capt"n!" said Willie, still looking out.
"What?" said Davy.
"Don"t cross by the ferry, Capt"n."
"Why not?"
"They"re all waiting for you," said Willie, "every dirt of them all is waiting by the steps--there"s Tommy Tubman, and Billy Balla-Slieau, and that wastrel of a churchwarden--yes, and there"s ould Kennish--they"re all there. Deng my b.u.t.tons, all of them. They"re thinking to crow over us, Capt"n. Don"t cross by the ferry. Let me run for a car. Then we"ll slip up by the bridge yonder, and down the quay like a mill race, and up to the gangway like smook, and abooard in a jiffy. That"s it--yes, I"ll be off immadient, and we"ll bate the blackguards anyway."
Willie was seizing his cap to carry out his intention of going for a cab in order that his master might be spared the humiliation of pa.s.sing through the line of false friends who had gathered at the ferry steps to see the last of him; but Davy shouted "Stop," and pointed to the hampers still unpacked.
"I"m broke," said he, "and what matter who knows it? Reminds me, sir,"
said Davy to Lovibond, "of Parson Cowan. The ould man lived up Andreas way, and after sarvice he"d be saying, "Boys let"s put a sight on the Methodees," and they"d be taking a slieu round to the chapel door.
Then as the people came out he"d be offering his snuff-boxes all about.
"William, how do? have a pinch?" "Ah, Robbie, fine evening; take a sneeze?" "Is that you, Tommy? I haven"t another box in my clothes, but if you"ll put your finger and thumb into my waistcoat pocket here, you"ll find some dust." Aw, yes, a reglar up-and-a-down-er, Parson Cowan, as aisy, as aisy, and no pride at all. But he had his wakeness same as a common man, and it was the Plow Inn at Ramsey. One day he was going out of it middling full--not fit to walk the crank anyway--when who should be coming up the street from the court-house but the Bishop!
It was Bishop--Bishop--chut, his name"s gone at me--but no matter, glum as a gur-goyle anyway, and straight as a lamppost--a reglar steeple-up-your-back sort of a chap. Ould Mrs. Beatty saw him, and she lays a hould of Parson Cowan and starts awkisking him back into the house, and through into the parlor where the chiney cups is. "You mustn"t go out yet," the ould woman was whispering. "It"s the Bishop.
And him that sevare--it"s shocking! He"ll surspend you! And think what they"ll be saying! A parson, too! Hush, sir hush! Don"t spake! You"ll be waiting till it"s dark, and then going home with John in the bottom of the cart, and nice clane straw to lie on, and n.o.body knowing nothing."
But the ould man wouldn"t listen. He drew hisself up on the ould woman tremenjous, and studdied hisself agen the door, and "No," says he; "I"m drunk," says he, "G.o.d knows it," says he, "and for what man knows I don"t care a d.a.m.n--_I"ll walk!_" Then away he went down the street past the Bishop, with his hat a-one side, and his hair all through-others, tacking a bit with romps in the fetlock joints, but driving on like mad."--
The second bell rang on the steamer. It was seven minutes to nine, and the last of the luggage was packed. On the floor there still lay a pile of clothing, which was to be left as oil for the wounded joints of the gentlemen who had been flung down stairs. Willie Quarrie bustled about to get the trunks and hampers to the ferry steps. Davy, who had been in his shirt-sleeves, drew on his coat, and Lovibond, who had been waiting twenty torturing minutes for some opportunity to begin, plunged into the business of his visit at last.
"So you"re determined to go, Capt"n?" he said.
"I am," said Davy.
"No message for Mrs. Quiggin? Dare say I could find her at Castle Mona."
"No! Wait--yes--tell her--say I"m--if ever I--Chut! what"s the odds? No, no message."
"Not even good-by, Capt"n?"
"She sent none to me--no."