In the Roar of the Sea. Baring-Gould Sabine
let go her hold on the door, and moved timidly into the hall; but she let the door remain half open that the light and air flowed in.
“And now,” said Captain Coppinger, “here is a key on this table by me. Do you see a small door by the clock-case? Unlock that door with the key.”
“You want something from thence!”
“I want you to unlock the door. There are beautiful and costly things within that you shall see.”
“Thank you; but I would rather look at them some other day, when my aunt is here, and I have more time.”
“Will you refuse me even the pleasure of letting you see what is there?”
“If you particularly desire it, Captain Coppinger, I will peep in – but only peep.”
She took the key from his table, and crossed the hall to the door. The lock was large and clumsy, but she turned the key by putting both hands to it. Then, swinging open the door, she looked inside. The door opened into an apartment crowded with a collection of sundry articles of value: bales of silk from Italy, Genoa laces, Spanish silver-inlaid weapons, Chinese porcelain, bronzes from Japan, gold and silver ornaments, bracelets, brooches, watches, inlaid mother-of-pearl cabinets – an amazing congeries of valuables heaped together.
“Well, now!” shouted Cruel Coppinger. “What say you to the gay things there? Choose – take what you will. I care not for them one rush. What do you most admire, most covet? Put out both hands and take – take all you would have; fill your lap, carry off all you can. It is yours.”
Judith drew hastily back and relocked the door.
“What have you taken?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Take what you will; I give it freely.”
“I cannot take anything, though I thank you, Captain Coppinger, for your kind and generous offer.”
“You will accept nothing?”
She shook her head.
“That is like you. You do it to anger me. As you throw hard words at me – coward, wrecker, robber – and as you dash broken glass, buttons, buckles, in my face, so do you throw back my offers.”
“It is not through ingratitude – ”
“I care not through what it is! You seek to anger, and not to please me. Why will you take nothing? There are beautiful things there to charm a woman.”
“I am not a woman; I am a little girl.”
“Why do you refuse me!”
“For one thing, because I want none of the things there, beautiful and costly though they be.”
“And for the other thing – ?”
“For the other thing – excuse my plain speaking – I do not think they have been honestly got.”
“By heavens!” shouted Coppinger. “There you attack and stab at me again. I like your plainness of speech. You do not spare me. I would not have you false and double like old Dunes.”
“Oh, Captain Coppinger! I give you thanks from the depths of my heart. It is kindly intended, and it is so good and noble of you, I feel that; for I have hurt you and reduced you to the state in which you now are, and yet you offer me the best things in your house – things of priceless value. I acknowledge your goodness; but just because I know I do not deserve this goodness I must decline what you offer.”
“Then come here and give me the key.”
She stepped lightly over the floor to him and handed him the great iron key to his store chamber. As she did so he caught her hand, bowed his dark head, and kissed her fingers.
“Captain Coppinger!” She started back, trembling, and snatched her hand from him.
“What! have I offended you again? Why not? A subject kisses the hand of his queen; and I am a subject, and you – you my queen.”
CHAPTER XI
JESSAMINE
“How are you, old man?”
“Middlin’, thanky’; and how be you, gov’nor?”
“Middlin’ also; and your missus?”
“Only sadly. I fear she’s goin’ slow but sure the way of all flesh.”
“Bless us! ’Tis a trouble and expense them sort o’ things. Now to work, shall we? What do you figure up?”
“And you?”
“Oh, well, I’m not here on reg’lar business. Huntin’ on my own score to-day.”
“Oh, ay! Nice port this.”
“Best the old fellow had in his cellar. I told the executrix I should like the taste of it, and advise thereon.”
The valuers for dilapidations, vulgarly termed dilapidators, were met in the dining-room of the deserted parsonage. Mr. Scantlebray was on one side, Mr. Cargreen on the other. Mr. Scantlebray was on that of the “orphings,” as he termed his clients, and Mr. Cargreen on that of the Rev. Mr. Mules, the recently nominated rector to S. Enodoc.
Mr. Scantlebray was a tall, lean man, with light gray eyes, a red face, and legs and arms that he shook every now and then as though they were encumbrances to his trunk and he was going to shake them off, as a poodle issuing from a bath shakes the water out of his locks. Mr. Cargreen was a bullet-headed man, with a white neckcloth, gray whiskers, a solemn face, and a sort of perpetual “Let-us-pray” expression on his lips and in his eyes – a composing of his interior faculties and abstraction from worldly concerns.
“I am here,” said Mr. Scantlebray, “as adviser and friend – you understand, old man – of the orphings and their haunt.”
“And I,” said Mr. Cargreen, “am ditto to the incoming rector.”
“And what do you get out of this visit!” asked Mr. Scantlebray, who was a frank man.
“Only three guineas as a fee,” said Mr. Cargreen. “And you?”
“Ditto, old man – three guineas. You understand, I am not here as valuer to-day.”
“Nor I – only as adviser.”
“Exactly! Taste this port. ’Taint bad – out of the cellar of the old chap. Told auntie I must have it, to taste and give opinion on.”
“And what are you going to do to-day?”
“I’m going to have one or two little things pulled down, and other little things put to rights.”
“Humph! I’m here to see nothing is pulled down.”
“We won’t quarrel. There’s the conservatory, and the linney in Willa Park.”
“I don’t know,” said Cargreen, shaking his head.
“Now look here, old man,” said Mr. Scantlebray. “You let me tear the linney down, and I’ll let the conservatory stand.”
“The conservatory – ”
“I know; the casement of the best bedroom went through the roof of it. I’ll mend the roof and repaint it. You can try the timber, and find it rotten, and lay on dilapidations enough to cover a new conservatory. Pass the linney; I want to make pickings out of that.”
It may perhaps be well to let the reader understand the exact situation of the two men engaged in sipping port. Directly it was known that a rector had been nominated to S. Enodoc, Mr. Cargreen, a Bodmin valuer, agent, and auctioneer, had written to the happy nominee, Mr. Mules, of Birmingham, inclosing his card in the letter, to state that he was a member of an old-established firm, enjoying the confidence, not to say the esteem of the principal county families in the north of Cornwall, that he was a sincere Churchman, that deploring, as a true son of the Church, the prevalence of Dissent, he felt it his duty to call the attention of the reverend gentleman to certain facts that concerned