her head with some animation, “of giving Fred a little surprise. What do you think he’d do if I said they might marry this autumn?”
“Jump out of his skin with joy,” said Captain Barber, with conviction. “Mrs. Banks, the pleasure you’ve given me this day is more than I can say.”
“And they’ll live with you just the same?” said Mrs. Banks.
“Certainly,” said the Captain.
“They’ll only be a few doors off then,” said Mrs. Banks, “and it’ll be nice for you to have a woman in the house to look after you.”
Captain. Barber nodded softly. “It’s what I’ve been wanting for years,” he said, heartily.
“And that huss—husskeeper,” said Mrs. Banks, correcting herself—“will go?”
“O’ course,” said Captain Barber. “I sha’n’t want no housekeeper with my nevy’s wife in the house. You’ve told Elizabeth, I s’pose?”
“Not yet,” said Mrs. Banks, who as a matter of fact had been influenced by the proceedings of that afternoon to bring to a head a step she had hitherto only vaguely contemplated.
Elizabeth, who came down the garden again, a little later, accompanied by Mrs. Church, received the news stolidly. A feeling of regret, that the attention of the devoted Gibson must now cease, certainly occurred to her, but she never thought of contesting the arrangements made for her, and accepted the situation with a placidity which the more ardent Barber was utterly unable to understand.
“Fred’ll stand on his.’ed with joy,” the unsophisticated mariner declared, with enthusiasm.
“He’ll go singing about the house,” declared Mrs. Church.
Mrs. Banks regarded her unfavourably.
“He’s never said much,” continued Uncle Barber, in an exalted strain; “that ain’t Fred’s way. He takes arter me; he’s one o’ the quiet ones, one o’ the still deep waters what always feels the most. When I tell ‘im his face’ll just light up with joy.”
“It’ll be nice for you, too,” said Mrs. Banks, with a side glance at the housekeeper; “you’ll have somebody to look after you and take an interest in you, and strangers can’t be expected to do that even if they’re nice.”
“We shall have him standing on his head, too,” said Mrs. Church, with a bright smile; “you’re turning everything upside down, Mrs. Banks.”
“There’s things as wants altering,” said the old lady, with emphasis. “There’s few things as I don’t see, ma’am.”
“I hope you’ll live to see a lot more,” said Mrs. Church, piously.
“She’ll live to be ninety,” said Captain Barber, heartily.
“Oh, easily,” said Mrs. Church.
Captain Barber regarding his old friend saw her face suffused with a wrath for which he was utterly unable to account. With a hazy idea that something had passed which he had not heard, he caused a diversion by sending Mrs. Church indoors for a pack of cards, and solemnly celebrated the occasion with a game of whist, at which Mrs. Church, in partnership with Mrs. Banks, either through sheer wilfulness or absence of mind, contrived to lose every game.
CHAPTER VI
As a result of the mate’s ill-behaviour at the theatre, Captain Fred Flower treated him with an air of chilly disdain, ignoring, as far as circumstances would permit, the fact that such a person existed. So far as the social side went the mate made no demur, but it was a different matter when the skipper acted as though he were not present at the breakfast table, and being chary of interfering with the other’s self-imposed vow of silence, he rescued a couple of rashers from his plate and put them on his own. Also, in order to put matters on a more equal footing, he drank three cups of coffee in rapid succession, leaving the skipper to his own reflections and an empty coffee-pot. In this sociable fashion they got through most of the day, the skipper refraining from speech until late in the afternoon, when, both being at work in the hold, the mate let a heavy case fall on his foot.
“I thought you’d get it,” he said, calmly, as Flower paused to take breath; “it wasn’t my fault.”
“Whose was it, then?” roared Flower, who had got his boot off and was trying various tender experiments with his toe to see whether it was broken or not.
“If you hadn’t been holding your head in the air and pretending that I wasn’t here, it wouldn’t have happened,” said Fraser, with some heat.
The skipper turned his back on him, and meeting a look of enquiring solicitude from Joe, applied to him for advice.
“What had I better do with it?” he asked.
“Well, if it was my toe, sir,” said Joe regarding it respectfully, “I should stick it in a basin o’ boiling water and keep it there as long as I could bear it.”
“You’re a fool,” said the skipper, briefly. “What do you think of it, Ben? I don’t think it’s broken.”
The old seaman scratched his head. “Well, if it belonged to me,” he said, slowly, “there’s some ointment down the fo’c’s’le which the cook ‘ad for sore eyes. I should just put some o’ that on. It looks good stuff.”
The skipper, summarising the chief points in Ben’s character, which, owing principally to the poverty of the English language, bore a remarkable likeness to Joe’s and the mate’s, took his sock and boot in his hand, and gaining the deck limped painfully to the cabin.
The foot was so painful after tea that he could hardly bear his slipper on, and he went ashore in his working clothes to the chemist’s, preparatory to fitting himself out for Liston Street. The chemist, leaning over the counter, was inclined to take a serious view of it, and shaking his head with much solemnity, prepared a bottle of medicine, a bottle of lotion and a box of ointment.
“Let me see it again as soon as you’ve finished the medicine,” he said, as he handed the articles over the counter.
Flower promised, and hobbling towards the door turned into the street. Then the amiable air which he had worn in the shop gave way to one of unseemly hauteur as he saw Fraser hurrying towards him.
“Look out,” cried the latter, warningly.
The skipper favoured him with a baleful stare.
“All right,” said the mate, angrily, “go your own way, then. Don’t come to me when you get into trouble, that’s all.”
Flower passed on his way in silence. Then a thought struck him and he stopped suddenly.
“You wish to speak to me?” he asked, stiffly.
“No, I’m damned if I do,” said the mate, sticking his hands into his pockets.
“If you wish to speak to me,” said the other, trying in vain to conceal a trace of anxiety in his voice, “it’s my duty to listen. What were you going to say just now?”
The mate eyed him wrathfully, but as the pathetic figure with its wounded toe and cargo of remedies stood there waiting for him to speak, he suddenly softened.
“Don’t go back, old man,” he said, kindly, “she’s aboard.”
Eighteen pennyworth of mixture, to be taken thrice daily from tablespoons, spilled over the curb, and the skipper, thrusting the other packets mechanically into his pockets, disappeared hurriedly around the corner.
“It’s no use finding fault with me,” said Fraser, quickly, as he stepped along beside him, “so don’t try it. They came down into the cabin before I knew they were aboard, even.”
“They?” repeated the distressed Flower. “Who’s they?”
“The young woman that came before and a stout woman with a little dark moustache and earrings. They’re going to wait until you come back to ask you a few questions about Mr. Robinson. They’ve