A Master Of Craft. William Wymark Jacobs
caused her to lean forward, her lips parted and her eyes beaming with anticipation.
“I do hope the others have got good seats,” she said, softly, as the overture finished; “that’s everything, isn’t it?”
“I hope so,” said Fraser.
He leaned forward, excitedly. Not because the curtain was rising, but because he had just caught sight of a figure standing up in the centre of the pit-stalls. He had just time to call his companion’s attention to it when the figure, in deference to the threats and entreaties of the people behind, sat down and was lost in the crowd.
“They have got good seats,” said Miss Tyrell. “I’m so glad. What a beautiful scene.”
The mate, stifling his misgivings, gave himself up to the enjoyment of the situation, which included answering the breathless whispers of his neighbour when she missed a sentence, and helping her to discover the identity of the characters from the programme as they appeared.
“I should like it all over again,” said Miss Tyrell, sitting back in her seat, as the curtain fell on the first act.
Fraser agreed with her. He was closely watching the pit-stalls. In the general movement on the part of the audience which followed the lowering of the curtain, the master of the Foam was the first on his feet.
“I’ll go down and send him up,” said Fraser, rising.
Miss Tyrell demurred, and revealed an unsuspected timidity of character. “I don’t like being left here all alone,” she remarked. “Wait till they see us.”
She spoke in the plural, for Miss Wheeler, who found the skipper exceedingly bad company, had also risen, and was scrutinising the house with a gaze hardly less eager than his own. A suggestion of the mate that he should wave his handkerchief was promptly negatived by Miss Tyrell, on the ground that it would not be the correct thing to do in the upper-circle, and they were still undiscovered when the curtain went up for the second act, and strong and willing hands from behind thrust the skipper back into his seat.
“I expect you’ll catch it,” said Miss Tyrell, softly, as the performance came to an end; “we’d better go down and wait for them outside. I never enjoyed a piece so much.”
The mate rose and mingled with the crowd, conscious of a little occasional clutch at his sleeve whenever other people threatened to come between them. Outside the crowd dispersed slowly, and it was some minutes before they discovered a small but compact knot of two waiting for them.
“Where the—” began Flower.
“I hope you enjoyed the performance, Captain Flower,” said Miss Tyrell, drawing herself up with some dignity. “I didn’t know that I was supposed to look out for myself all the evening. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Fraser I should have been all alone.”
She looked hard at Miss Wheeler as she spoke, and the couple from the pit-stalls reddened with indignation at being so misunderstood.
“I’m sure I didn’t want him,” said Miss Wheeler, hastily. “Two or three times I thought there would have been a fight with the people behind.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Miss Tyrell, composedly. “Well, it’s no good standing here. We’d better get home.”
She walked off with the mate, leaving the couple behind, who realised that appearances were against them, to follow at their leisure. Conversation was mostly on her side, the mate being too much occupied with his defence to make any very long or very coherent replies.
They reached Liston Street at last, and separated at the door, Miss Tyrell shaking hands with the skipper in a way which conveyed in the fullest possible manner her opinion of his behaviour that evening. A bright smile and a genial hand-shake were reserved for the mate.
“And now,” said the incensed skipper, breathing deeply as the door closed and they walked up Liston Street, “what the deuce do you mean by it?”
“Mean by what?” demanded the mate, who, after much thought, had decided to take a leaf out of Miss Tyrell’s book.
“Mean by leaving me in another part of the house with that Wheeler girl while you and my intended went off together?” growled Flower ferociously.
“Well, I could only think you wanted it,” said Fraser, in a firm voice.
“What?” demanded the other, hardly able to believe his ears
“I thought you wanted Miss Wheeler for number four,” said the mate, calmly. “You know what a chap you are, cap’n.”
His companion stopped and regarded him in speechless amaze, then realising a vocabulary to which Miss Wheeler had acted as a safety-valve all the evening, he turned up a side street and stamped his way back to the Foam alone.
CHAPTER V
THE same day that Flower and his friends visited the theatre, Captain Barber gave a small and select tea-party. The astonished Mrs. Banks had returned home with her daughter the day before to find the air full of rumours about Captain Barber and his new housekeeper. They had been watched for hours at a time from upper back windows of houses in the same row, and the professional opinion of the entire female element was that Mrs. Church could land her fish at any time she thought fit.
“Old fools are the worst of fools,” said Mrs. Banks, tersely, as she tied her bonnet strings; “the idea of Captain Barber thinking of marrying at his time of life.”
“Why shouldn’t he?” enquired her daughter.
“Why because he’s promised to leave his property to Fred and you, of course,” snapped the old lady; “if he marries that hussy it’s precious little you and Fred will get.”
“I expect it’s mostly talk,” said her daughter calmly, as she closed the street door behind her indignant parent. “People used to talk about you and old Mr. Wilders, and there was nothing in it. He only used to come for a glass of your ale.”
This reference to an admirer who had consumed several barrels of the liquor in question without losing his head, put the finishing touch to the elder lady’s wrath, and she walked the rest of the way in ominous silence.
Captain Barber received them in the elaborate velvet smoking-cap with the gold tassel which had evoked such strong encomiums from Mrs. Church, and in a few well-chosen words—carefully rehearsed that afternoon—presented his housekeeper.
“Will you come up to my room and take your things off?” enquired Mrs. Church, returning the old lady’s hostile stare with interest.
“I’ll take mine off down here, if Captain Barber doesn’t mind,” said the latter, subsiding into a chair with a gasp. “Him and me’s very old friends.”
She unfastened the strings of her bonnet, and, taking off that article of attire, placed it in her lap while she unfastened her shawl. She then held both out to Mrs. Church, briefly exhorting her to be careful.
“Oh, what a lovely bonnet,” said that lady, in false ecstasy. “What a perfect beauty! I’ve never seen anything like it before. Never!”
Captain Barber, smiling at the politeness of his housekeeper, was alarmed and perplexed at the generous colour which suddenly filled the old lady’s cheeks.
“Mrs. Banks made it herself,” he said, “she’s very clever at that sort of thing.”
“There, do you know I guessed as much,” said Mrs. Church, beaming; “directly I saw it, I said to myself: ‘That was never made by a milliner. There’s too much taste in the way the flowers are arranged.’”
Mrs. Banks looked at her daughter, in a mute appeal for help.
“I’ll take yours up, too, shall I?” said the amiable housekeeper, as Mrs. Banks, with an air of defying criticism, drew a cap from a paper-bag and put it on.
“I’ll take mine myself, please,” said Miss Banks, with coldness.
“Oh, well, you may as well take them all then,” said Mrs. Church, putting the