"Not so bad, you were saying, as...?" Thus Rosalind, to divert the conversation from the child.
"Oh dear! What _was_ I saying? That child! What plagues the little things are!" The lady closes her eyes for two seconds behind a horizontal gloved hand, a seclusion to recollect in; then continues: "Oh yes, when it"s a shopman. I dare say you"ve heard of that very painful case--daughter of a well-known Greek Pr...."
But the speaker has tact enough to see her mistake from the simultaneous loud speech it provokes. Every one seems to have something vociferous to say, and all speak at once. Sally"s contribution is a suggestion that before dolly is put to the torture we shall go into the downstairs place and see the gentleman who"s fishing catch a big grey mullet. It is adopted. Rosalind only remains upstairs, and takes the opportunity to communicate the Julius Bradshaw epic to Gwenny"s mamma, who will now be more careful than ever about the sort of people you pick up at the seaside and drop. She puts these words by in her mind, for Gwenny"s papa, later on.
The gentleman who is to be seen catching the big grey mullet hadn"t caught it, so far--not when the party arrived on the strange middle-deck of the pier the water reaches at high tide, and persuades occasional molluscs to grow on the floor of, with promises of a bath next month. The green reflected light from the endless rise and fall of the waves Gwenny could see (without getting down) through the floor-gaps, seemed to be urging the fisher-gentleman to give it up, and pointing out that the grey mullet was down here, and didn"t mean to be caught. But he paid no attention, and only went on doing all the things that fishers do. He ascribed the fishes" reluctance to bite to the sort of sky, and not to common-sense on their part. He tried the other side instead. He lost his worm, and blamed him for going off the hook--which he would have done himself, and he knew it! He believed, honestly, that a fish of fabulous dimensions had thought seriously of biting, and would have bitten, only you got in the light, or made a noise.
But there was no noise to speak of, really, except the clunk-clunk of one or two moored rowboats down below, and the sh-r-r-r-r-p (if that spells it) of their corrugated plank-sides, as they dipped and dripped alternately. They were close to the bottom flight of stairs, whose lowest step was left forlorn in the air, and had to be jumped off when a real spring-tide came that knew its business.
Gwenny"s remark, "Ze man is fissin"," seemed to point to an incubation of an idea, familiar to maturer life, that fishing is more truly a state than an action. But the addendum--that he didn"t ca.s.s any fiss--betrayed her inexperience. Maturity does not call attention to ill-success; or, if it does, it lays it at the door of the fish.
"What a jolly header one could have from here! No railings or anything. No--ducky! I won"t put you down to look over the edge.
That"s not a thing for little girls to do."
"You"d never get up again, Sarah. You"d have to swim ash.o.r.e."
"One could swim round the steps, Jeremiah--at least, according to the tide. It"s slack water now."
"I wish, Mr. Fenwick--(so does Julius)--that you would make that girl reasonable. She"ll drown herself before she"s done."
"I know she will, Mrs. Paganini. Sure and certain! n.o.body can stop her. But Vereker"s going to bring her to."
"Where _is_ the doctor, Tish? Didn"t he say he was coming?" This was Bradshaw. He usually says things to his wife, and leaves publication to her.
"Of course he said he was coming. I wonder if anything"s the matter?"
"Oh, no! It"s his ma! The Goody"s put an embargo on him, and kept him at home. Poor Prosy!" Sally is vexed, too. But observe!--she knows perfectly well that nothing but the Goody would have kept Prosy from his appointment.
No one in particular, but every one more or less, supposes that now we must go back for dolly to be galvanised, Tishy rather reluctantly, for she does not share her husband"s indifference about what the detestable one above says on the subject of shopmen; Miss Arkwright greedily, being reminded of a higher object in life than mere grey mullet catching. She, however, ascribes her avidity to dolly, calling on public credulity to believe that the latter has spoken to that effect.
The arrangement of dolly in connexion with the two bra.s.s handles offers difficulties, but a felicitous solution is discovered, for not only will dolly remain in contact with both if her arms are thrust inside them, but insomuch as her sleeves are stiff and expansive, and require a perceptible pull to withdraw them, will remain suspended in mid-air without further support, to enjoy the rapture or endure the torture of the current, as may prove to be the case. From this arises an advantage--namely, that her mamma will be able to give her attention to the regulator, and shift the wire bundle in and out, with a due regard to dolly"s powers of endurance.
What little things the lives of the folk in this story have turned on! Now, suppose Gwenny had never been allowed to take charge of that regulator! However, this is antic.i.p.ation.
When dolly had endured unmoved the worst that science could inflict, nothing would satisfy Miss Gwenny but that every one else should take hold in a circle, as on a previous occasion, and that she should retain control of the regulator. The experiment was tried as proposed, all present joining in it except Mrs. Arkwright, who excused herself owing to the trouble of taking her gloves off. Including nurse, there were six persons. However, as nurse couldn"t abide it, almost before it had begun to say whizzy-wizzy-wizz, this number was reduced to five.
"Keep your eye on the kid, my dear," said Fenwick, addressing the presiding young lady in his easy-going way; "don"t let her put it on all at once. Are you ready, Sarah? You ready, Mrs. Paganini? All right--fire away!"
The young lady in charge kept a careful hand near Miss Gwenny"s, who was instructed or guided to increase the current gradually. Her att.i.tude was docile and misleading.
"Go on--a little more--yes, a little more.... No, that"s enough!...
Oh, what nonsense! that"s nothing!... Oh, Sally, do let _go_!... Oh, Tishy, what a goose you are! That"s nothing.... E-ow! It"s horrible.
_I_ won"t have any more of it." The chorus of exclamations, which you may allot at choice, ended in laughter as the galvanised circle broke up.
"Well, you are a lot of weak-kneed ... conductivities," said Fenwick, feeling for the word. "That was nothing, as Sarah says."
"Look here," suggested Sally. "Me get between you two men, and Gwenny stick it in full up." This was done, and Sally heroically endured the "full up" current, which, as you doubtless are aware, increases in viciousness as it has fewer and fewer victims. But she wasn"t sorry when it was over, for all that.
"You and I could take it full up," said Fenwick to Bradshaw, who a.s.sented. But Paganini evidently didn"t like it when it came to three-quarters. Also, his wife said to him, "You"ll spoil your fingering, Julius."
Fenwick seemed to think them all over-sensitive. "I could stand that by myself," said he, and took both handles.
But just at this moment a strange event happened. Somebody actually applied to see the invisible lady. The eyes of the damsel in charge were for one moment withdrawn from Miss Gwenny, who promptly seized the opportunity to thrust in the regulator "full up."
Fenwick wasn"t going to cry for mercy--not he! But his lips clenched and his eyes glared, and his hands shook. "How can you be such a _goose_, Jeremiah?" said Sally, who was standing close by the battery, opposite to Gwenny. She thrust back the regulator, and put an end to Fenwick"s excruciations.
He said, "What did you do that for, Sarah? I could have stood it for six months."
And Sally replied: "For shame, you wicked story! And after you"d been electrocuted once, too!"
Fenwick burst into a great laugh, and exclaimed, "What on earth are we all torturing ourselves for? Do let"s go and get some tea." And then carried Gwenny on his shoulders to the pier-entrance, where he delivered her to her proprietors, and then they all sauntered teawards, laughing and chatting.
Rosalind thought she had never seen Gerry in such health and spirits. On their way up to the house they pa.s.sed Punch, leaning over the footlights to rejoice in his iniquity. Few persons of healthy sympathies can pa.s.s Punch, and these only under the strongest temptation, such as tea. Rosalind and Laet.i.tia and her husband belonged to the latter cla.s.s, but Fenwick and Sally elected to see the immortal drama to a close. It lasted nearly through the remainder of Fenwick"s cigar, and then they came away, reluctant, and wanting more of the same sort.
It was then that Sally"s stepfather said a rather singular thing to her--a thing she remembered afterwards, though she noticed it but slightly at the time. She had said to him:
"Codling and Short will be quite rich men! What a lot of money you"ve given them, Jeremiah!"
And he had replied: "Don"t they deserve it?"
They had then walked on together up the road, he taking her arm in his hand, as is the way nowadays, but saying nothing. Presently he said, as he threw away the very last end of the cigar:
"It was the first lesson of my early boyhood in retributive injustice.
It"s a poor heart that never rejoices at Punch."
It was the first time Sally had ever heard him speak of his boyhood except as a thing he had forgotten.
Much, so much, of this chapter is made up of matter so trifling. Was it worth recording? The chronicler might plead again as excuse his temptation to linger over the pleasant hours it tells of, the utter freedom of its actors from care, and his reluctance to record their sequel. But a better apology for his prolixity and detail would be found in the wonder felt by those actors when in after-life they looked back and recalled them one by one; and the way each memory linked itself, in a way unsuspected at the time, with an absolutely unantic.i.p.ated future. For even Rosalind, with all her knowledge of the past, had no guess, for all her many misgivings and apprehensions, of the way that things would go. Never had she been freer from a sense of the shadow of a coming cloud than when she looked out from the window while the tea she had just made was mellowing, and saw her husband and daughter coming through the little garden gate, linked together and in the best of spirits.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV
OF THE REV. SAMUEL HERRICK AND A SUNSET. THE WEDGE"S PROGRESS. THE BARON AGAIN, AND THE FLY-WHEEL. HOW FENWICK KNEW HIS NAME RIGHT, AND ROSALIND DIDN"T. HOW SALLY AND HER MEDICAL ADVISER WERE NOT QUITE WET THROUGH. HOW HE HAD MADE HER THE CONFIDANTE OF A LOVE-AFFAIR. OF A GOOD OPENING IN SPECIALISM. MORE PROGRESS OF THE WEDGE. HOW GERRY NEARLY MADE DINNER LATE
It was quite true, as Sally had surmised, that poor Prosy had been entangled in the meshes of his Octopus. But Sally had also recorded her conviction that he would turn up at tea. He did so, with apologies. You see, he hadn"t liked to come away while his mother was asleep, in case she should ask for him when she woke up, and she slept rather longer than usual.
"She may have been trying to do too much lately," said he, with a beautiful faith in some mysterious activities practised by the Goody unseen. Sally cultivated this faith also, to the best of her ability, but she can hardly be said to have embraced it. The way in which she and her mother lent themselves to it was, nevertheless, edifying.
"You mustn"t let her overdo it, doctor," said Rosalind, seriously believing herself truthful. And Sally, encouraged by her evident earnestness, added, "And make her take plenty of nourishment. That"s half the battle."
Whereupon Laet.i.tia, swept, as it were, into the vortex of a creed, found it in her to say, "As long as she doesn"t get low." It was not vigorous, and lacked completion, but it rea.s.sured and enforced. By the time the little performance was done every one in the room believed that Mrs. Vereker did down the stairs, or scoured out saucepans, or at least dusted. Even her son believed, so forcibly was the unanimity.
Perhaps there was a taint of the incredulous in the minds of Fenwick and Bradshaw. But each thought the other was heart-whole, and neither suspected himself of insincerity.