A Master Of Craft. William Wymark Jacobs
engaged to her for?” enquired Fraser.
Flower shook his head. “She fell violently in love with me,” he said, mournfully. “She keeps the Blue Posts up at Chelsea. Her father left it to her. She manages her step-mother and her brother and everybody else. I was just a child in her hands. You know my easy-going nature.”
“But you made love to her,” expostulated the mate.
“In a way, I suppose I did,” admitted the other. “I don’t know now whether she could have me up for breach of promise, because when I asked her I did it this way. I said, ‘Will you be Mrs. Robinson?’ What do you think?”
“I should think it would make it harder for you,” said Fraser. “But didn’t you remember Miss Banks while all this was going on?”
“In a way,” said Flower, “yes—in a way. But after a man’s been engaged to a woman nine years, it’s very easy to forget, and every year makes it easier. Besides, I was only a boy when I was engaged to her.”
“Twenty-eight,” said Fraser.
“Anyway, I wasn’t old enough to know my own mind,” said Flower, “and my uncle and old Mrs. Banks made it up between them. They arranged everything, and I can’t afford to offend the old man. If I married Miss Tipping—that’s the Blue Posts girl—he’d leave his money away from me; and if I marry Elizabeth, Miss Tipping’ll have me up for breach of promise—if she finds me.”
“If you’re not very careful,” said Fraser, impressively, “you’ll lose both of ‘em.”
The skipper leaned over the table, and glanced carefully round. “Just what I want to do,” he said, in a low voice. “I’m engaged to another girl.”
“What?” cried the mate, raising his voice. “Three?”
“Three,” repeated the skipper. “Only three,” he added, hastily, as he saw a question trembling on the other’s lips.
“I’m ashamed of you,” said the latter, severely; “you ought to know better.”
“I don’t want any of your preaching, Jack,” said the skipper, briskly; “and, what’s more, I won’t have it. I deserve more pity than blame.”
“You’ll want all you can get,” said Fraser, ominously. “And does the other girl know of any of the others?”
“Of either of the others—no,” corrected Flower. “Of course, none of them know. You don’t think I’m a fool, do you?”
“Who is number three?” enquired the mate suddenly.
“Poppy Tyrell,” replied the other.
“Oh,” said Fraser, trying to speak unconcernedly; “the girl who came here last evening.”
Flower nodded. “She’s the one I’m going to marry,” he said, colouring. “I’d sooner marry her than command a liner. I’ll marry her if I lose every penny I’m going to have, but I’m not going to lose the money if I can help it. I want both.”
The mate baled out his cup with a spoon and put the contents into the saucer.
“I’m a sort of guardian to her,” said Flower. “Her father, Captain Tyrell, died about a year ago, and I promised him I’d look after her and marry her. It’s a sacred promise.”
“Besides, you want to,” said Fraser, by no means in the mood to allow his superior any credit in the matter, “else you wouldn’t do it.”
“You don’t know me, Jack,” said the skipper, more in sorrow than in anger.
“No, I didn’t think you were quite so bad,” said the mate, slowly. “Is—Miss Tyrell—fond of you?”
“Of course she is,” said Flower, indignantly; “they all are, that’s the worst of it. You were never much of a favourite with the sex, Jack, were you?”
Fraser shook his head, and, the saucer being full, spooned the contents slowly back into the cup again.
“Captain Tyrell leave any money?” he enquired.
“Other way about,” replied Flower. “I lent him, altogether, close on a hundred pounds. He was a man of very good position, but he took to drink and lost his ship and his self-respect, and all he left behind was his debts and his daughter.”
“Well, you’re in a tight place,” said Fraser, “and I don’t see how you’re going to get out of it. Miss Tipping’s got a bit of a clue to you now, and if she once discovers you, you’re done. Besides, suppose Miss Tyrell finds anything out?”
“It’s all excitement,” said Flower, cheerfully. “I’ve been in worse scrapes than this and always got out of ‘em. I don’t like a quiet life. I never worry about things, Jack, because I’ve noticed that the things people worry about never happen.”
“Well, if I were you, then,” said the other, emphasizing his point with the spoon, “I should just worry as much as I could about it. I’d get up worrying and I’d go to bed worrying. I’d worry about it in my sleep.”
“I shall come out of it all right,” said Flower. “I rather enjoy it. There’s Gibson would marry Elizabeth like a shot if she’d have him; but, of course, she won’t look at him while I’m above ground. I have thought of getting somebody to tell Elizabeth a lot of lies about me.”
“Why, wouldn’t the truth do?” enquired the mate, artlessly.
The skipper turned a deaf ear. “But she wouldn’t believe a word against me,” he said, with mournful pride, as he rose and went on deck. “She trusts me too much.”
From his knitted brows, as he steered, it was evident, despite his confidence, that this amiable weakness on the part of Miss Banks was causing him some anxiety, a condition which was not lessened by the considerate behaviour of the mate, who, when any fresh complication suggested itself to him, dutifully submitted it to his commander.
“I shall be all right,” said Flower, confidently, as they entered the river the following afternoon and sailed slowly along the narrow channel which wound its sluggish way through an expanse of mud-banks to Seabridge.
The mate, who was suffering from symptoms hitherto unknown to him, made no reply. His gaze wandered idly from the sloping uplands, stretching away into the dim country on the starboard side, to the little church-crowned town ahead, with its out-lying malt houses and neglected, grass-grown quay, A couple of moribund ship’s boats lay rotting in the mud, and the skeleton of a fishing-boat completed the picture. For the first time perhaps in his life, the landscape struck him as dull and dreary.
Two men of soft and restful movements appeared on the quay as they approached, and with the slowness characteristic of the best work, helped to make them fast in front of the red-tiled barn which served as a warehouse. Then Captain Flower, after descending to the cabin to make the brief shore-going toilet necessary for Seabridge society, turned to give a last word to the mate.
“I’m not one to care much what’s said about me, Jack,” he began, by way of preface.
“That’s a good job for you,” said Fraser, slowly.
“Same time let the hands know I wish ‘em to keep their mouths shut,” pursued the skipper; “just tell them it was a girl that you knew, and I don’t want it talked about for fear of getting you into trouble. Keep me out of it; that’s all I ask.”
“If cheek will pull you through,” said Fraser, with a slight display of emotion, “you’ll do. Perhaps I’d better say that Miss Tyrell came to see me, too. How would you like that?”
“Ah, it would be as well,” said Flower, heartily. “I never thought of it.”
He stepped ashore, and at an easy pace walked along the steep road which led to the houses above. The afternoon was merging into evening, and a pleasant stillness was in the air. Menfolk working in their cottage gardens saluted him as he passed, and the occasional whiteness of a face at the back of a window indicated an interest in