_ CHAPTER XIV. AFTER SERVICE
"They are good children," said Vashti, as she and the Commandant sat at breakfast together next morning, which was Sunday.
The Commandant did not answer for a moment. He was stirring his tea, in a brown study, nor did he note that Vashti's eyes were resting on him with an amused smile. She supposed these fits of abstraction to be habitual with him, due to living and taking his meals alone; but in fact his thoughts were wrestling with two or three very urgent problems. To begin with, he had plunged yet deeper in debt to Mr. Tregaskis. The total, to be sure, amounted to something under twenty-five shillings; but to a man with just one penny in his pocket this left no choice but between recklessness and panic, and the Commandant's spirits swung from one to the other like a pendulum. Panic asserted itself in the small hours, when he awoke in his bed and wondered what would happen when pay-day came, should it bring no pay with it ... and to a man lying sleepless in the small hours, the worst seems not only possible but likely. Then, as daylight waxed and he awoke again from a short doze, to his surprise he found himself absolutely reckless. As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb! The ordeal lay three days off, and in three days anything might happen; but meanwhile this was certainly happening--a woman accomplished and beautiful had stepped into his life and was changing all the colour of it. He guessed the danger, put purposely averted his thoughts from it and from the certainty of scandal. Archelaus, Treacher, Mrs. Treacher--all three had been sworn to secrecy, and all three could be trusted. These folks read no harm, nothing beyond an amusing mystery, in Vashti's sojourn, and in particular she had made Mrs. Treacher her obedient slave. Yet the secret must come out, and in spite of Archelaus, who had brought his master's boat round and moored her cunningly under the lee of the rocks overhung by the Keg of Butter Battery. There, while the weather held, the Commandant and his guest could slip away without fear of prying eyes and sail off among the islands--as they had sailed off yesterday, Vashti sitting low and covering herself with a spare-sail, until beyond sight of St. Lide's quay and the houses on the slope. To be sure they had to reckon with Mr. Rogers' telescope, or rather to leave it out of account. If Mr. Rogers' telescope should prove indiscreet, Mr. Rogers must be let into the secret, and might be relied on to join the conspiracy.
The Commandant, however, was in no hurry to share his happiness. Since his youth he had made few friends, and in all his life had never known comradeship with a woman. Suddenly, and as a well-spring in the desert, Vashti had come into the dull round of his duty--his purposeless, monotonous duty--to refresh it; nor perhaps were the waters less sweet for the feeling that they were stolen. So he lived in the day, and put off thinking of the inevitable end.
One thing only troubled his happiness. He foresaw that the end, when it came, would mean for him something more serious than parting. He could not have told why, but from the moment when Vashti had turned on him and asked, "For what work do they pay you?" he had known that henceforward his conscience would not sleep until he had made a clean breast to the War Office and resigned his commission. It was not that her question told him anything new; only that he saw himself judged in her eyes, and in their light discovered that his conscience had been tolerating what was really intolerable. Her departure, then, would mean the end of all things; for on the very next day he would send in his papers and face the world alone--the very next day, and not until then. So much respite he gave himself; and this respite, and not the prospect of parting, cast the only shade upon his happiness. For he felt that he held her friendship on a false pretence; that if she knew the truth, she would despise him. That is why the Commandant sat in a brown study.
"They are good children," repeated Vashti, "but like all other children they know nothing of their elders' troubles. I remember that I was nine or ten before ever it occurred to me that my father could have any troubles.... Now from the top of the hill where those three youngsters sat talking their fairy-tales, I looked over Cromwell's Sound and saw their father, Eli Tregarthen, pulling across from Inniscaw. By the very stoop of his shoulders over the paddles I seemed to read that the world had gone wrong with the man, and when he beached his boat and walked up the hill towards Saaron Farm, I felt sure of it. Of course you may laugh and set it down to fancy, for the man was a good three-quarters of a mile away."
The Commandant, however, did not laugh. "I think, very likely, you are right," said he; "and the man had been over to Inniscaw to make a last appeal to the Lord Proprietor."
"I wonder," mused Vashti, "if he is the sort of man to tell his wife?"
The Commandant pondered this and shook his head, meaning that he found it hard to answer. "I know very little of Tregarthen. In manner, though polite enough, he always struck me as reserved to the last degree."
"Men of that manner are often the frankest with their wives," said Vashti; "though again, if you ask me how I know it, I must answer that I can't tell you." She sat for a moment, her brows puckered with thought; then, leaning forward, rested her elbows on the table, while with eyes fixed seriously upon him she checked off the pros and cons on her fingers. "On the one hand Eli Tregarthen, being a reserved man, and brought up on Saaron, probably loves the island after a fashion that Ruth understands very dimly if at all. I love my sister----"
The Commandant nodded.
"--But all the same I know where she is weak as well as where she is strong. She never had that feeling for the Islands which helps me to guess how her husband feels about Saaron. I can't explain it"--here Vashti opened her palms and lowered them till her arms from the elbows rested flat upon the table. "Perhaps I can't make you, who were not born here, understand why it would be grief to me to think of being buried in any other earth. But I expect that Eli Tregarthen feels it, and feels that, if they uproot him from Saaron, his life will from that moment become a different thing, in which he has not learnt--perhaps never will learn--to take much interest. It's queer that, with just this difference between us, Ruth should have been the one to stay behind and I the one to go. But fate is queer.... Ruth is like her namesake in the Bible; home for her is the roof covering those she loves, and would be though she changed the Islands for the other end of the world. Therefore," said Vashti, sagely, "if she feels for her husband's trouble at all, it would be not as for a trouble that afflicted them both equally; she would be sorry for him as she would be if he were hurt or diseased. And you know that silent men, like Tregarthen, when they are struck by disease, will sometimes hide it from their wives to the last possible moment--will tell no one, but least of all their wives."
"Yes, that is true," the Commandant agreed.
"On the other hand"--here Vashti resumed her checking--"Ruth has a wonderful gift of coaxing people to confide in her even those things they very much doubt her understanding. She used to get me to tell my woes for the mere consolation of feeling her cheek against mine. She had a wonderful knack, too, of obliging me to be open with her, without ever asking it; and unless those children's faces and talk misled me quite, they were formed in a house where the parents keep no secrets from one another.... You can always tell."
This was news to the Commandant; and he admitted that, as an old bachelor, he had never observed it.
"Always!" insisted Vashti, nodding. "They spoke of their father quite as if he were one of themselves; which is not only rare, and not only proves that Eli Tregarthen is a good man, but persuades me that, being in trouble, he has told his wife."
"You are reasoning beyond my depths," said the Commandant. "But it all sounds admirably wise, and I grant it. What next?"
"Why, if Eli has told her, she will be in trouble to-day and I must go to her."
"To Saaron? This morning?"
"To Saaron, certainly; but not this morning, if you are engaged."
"To tell the truth I had meant to go to church; that is, if you can spare me."
Simple man that he was, he had meant--having a load to lift presently off his conscience--to receive and be confirmed by the Sacrament. "Ye that do truly and earnestly repent"--the words had been in his ears at the moment when he took his resolve. Hopeless though the prospect might be, he steadfastly intended to lead a new life.
"My friend," said Vashti. "I am contrite enough already for the amount of your time I have wasted. We will put off our voyage until the evening."
He smiled wryly, remembering how she had asked, "For what work do they pay you?"
But Vashti having decided upon an evening expedition, would not listen to his offer to sacrifice his church-going; and so to church he went, and confirmed himself, and remained to take the Sacrament on his new resolution.
Now whether or not he would have remained could he have divined what was happening on Garrison Hill I have no wish--as it would be indecent--to inquire.
But let us go back to Miss Gabriel.
* * * * *
Miss Gabriel, all the previous day, had been suffering from a sense of defeat, and at the hands of an enemy she had fallen into the habit of despising. A woman (or a man, for that matter) of Miss Gabriel's temper sees the world peopled with antagonists, and (perhaps fortunately for her _amour propre_) cannot see that her occasional victor is not only quite indifferent to his victory but has very possibly succeeded on the mere strength of not caring two pins about it, or even on the mere strength of not knowing that there was any fight going on. Such insouciance would have galled Miss Gabriel past endurance had it not, mercifully, lain outside her range of apprehension. As it was, she felt that the Commandant had taken her easily, at a disadvantage, and routed her--horse, foot, artillery, baggage.
And at the moment she had collapsed without a struggle. There lay the sting. She had meekly thrown up her hand, though it held one exceedingly strong trump. That woman in furs and diamonds.... Why had she not insisted on the existence of her own eyes and held her ground, demanding whence that woman came and what she did on Garrison Hill at such an hour?
The longer Miss Gabriel thought of it--and she thought of it all the next day--the more firmly she refused to believe herself the victim of an hallucination. She lived frugally; her nerves and digestion were alike in excellent order; in all her life she had never suffered from faintness, and but once or twice from a headache. The keenness of her eyesight was notorious, and she had a healthy contempt for anyone who believed in ghosts.... Moreover, Charlotte Pope, though inclined now to hedge about it, had undoubtedly seen the apparition.
"I wish, Elizabeth, you could find something else to talk about," pleaded Mrs. Pope, with a shiver. "You and I know everyone on the Islands and there's no one in the least like--like what we saw; while as for her jewels, they must have cost hundreds, if they were real."
"Ha!" exclaimed Miss Gabriel, with a decided sniff.
"I don't mean 'real' in that sense, Elizabeth; and I put it to you, Where could she have come from?"
Miss Gabriel could not answer this, nor did she try. "Then you _did_ see her?" she was content to say.
"I--I thought I did."
"And I, Charlotte, am positive you did. Have you told your husband about it?"
"Not yet."
"Don't, then. Between ourselves, my dear Charlotte, an idea has occurred to me, and I fancy that if Major Vigoureux thinks he can delude me with his painted hussies he will find himself mistaken!"
More, for the moment, Miss Gabriel would not disclose. But it is to be feared that her design occupied her thoughts in church next morning to the detriment of her spiritual benefit. The good folk of Garland Town had--and still have--a pleasant custom of lingering outside the church porch for a few minutes after service to exchange greetings and a little mild gossip with their neighbours; and to Mr. and Mrs. Pope, thus lingering, Miss Gabriel attached herself with an air that meant business.
"Fine morning," said Miss Gabriel.
"The weather," assented Mr. Pope, clearing his throat, "is quite remarkable for the time of year. As I was observing to Mrs. Fossell, a moment ago, we might be in August month. Whether we attribute it or not to the influence of the Gulf Stream, in the matter of temperature we are wonderfully favoured."
"Quite so," said Miss Gabriel; "and I was about to propose our taking advantage of it for a short stroll on Garrison Hill, to whet our appetite." She heard Mrs. Pope gasp and went on hardily, "You and I, Mr. Pope, can remember the time when all the rank and fashion of Garland Town trooped up regularly after divine service to Garrison Hill. 'Church parade,' we used to call it."
"Indeed yes, Miss Gabriel--and with the Garrison band playing before us. Those were brave old days; and now I daresay that except for a stray pair of lovers no one promenades on Garrison Hill from year's end to year's end."
"It shocked me, the other night, to discover how completely I had forgotten it."
"You had indeed, ha-ha!" laughed Mr. Pope, with a roguish glance at his wife.
Miss Gabriel, too, glanced at her, and even more expressively. "Admire my boldness," it seemed to say, "and oblige me by imitating it as well as you can." Mrs. Pope began to tremble in her shoes.
"Oh, it was ridiculous! And I have a fancy to go over the ground again and prove to you, and to ourselves, how ridiculous it was. Shall we?"
"With pleasure." Mr. Pope bowed and offered his arm. In Garland Town, if you walked with two ladies it was _de rigueur_ to offer an arm to each.
The stars in their courses seemed to be helping Miss Gabriel's design. Her one anticipated difficulty--for she sought an interview with Mrs. Treacher, to pump her in the presence and hearing of the Lord Proprietor's agent--had been a possible interruption by the Commandant. To her glee she had noted that the Commandant kept his seat after service. For another thirty minutes at least the coast would be clear.
She had never a doubt of bribing Mrs. Treacher--or, to put it more delicately, of inducing her to talk. Mrs. Treacher's manner had been brusque the night before last; but Miss Gabriel's own manner was brusque, whether to friend or to foe, and nice shades of address escaped her. Mrs. Treacher was certainly poor, and with a poverty to which a shilling meant a great deal. And Miss Gabriel had a shilling ready in her pocket, as well as half-a-crown as a heroic resource in case of unlooked-for obstinacy. But the shilling would almost certainly suffice. Had not the donative antimacassar already established a claim upon the Treachers' gratitude?
Again, the stars in their courses seemed to be fighting for Miss Gabriel's design. For as the two ladies climbed the hill on Mr. Pope's arm, and when they were almost abreast of the barrack door, who should appear at the garden gate, on the opposite side of the road, but Mrs. Treacher herself? Catching sight of the visitors she halted in startled fashion, with her hand on the hasp of the gate.
"So few ever walk this way in these times," said Miss Gabriel, "I declare we have frightened the poor woman. Mrs. Treacher!"--she lifted her voice as she advanced.
"Ma'am."
"Mrs. Pope and I have been feeling not a little ashamed of ourselves that at the time we did not--er--recognise your--your kindness to us the other evening."
"Night, to be accyrate," said Mrs. Treacher, still interposing her ample body between them and the entrance to the garden. "Didn't you?"
"You put yourself to some inconvenience on our account," pursued Miss Gabriel; "and--and if you won't mind accepting--" Miss Gabriel held out the smaller coin by way of finishing the sentence.
"What's that for?" asked Mrs. Treacher.
"The circumstances were so unusual, and in a way--ha, ha!--so amusing----"
"Oh!" Mrs. Treacher interrupted. "Unusual, was they? I'm glad to hear it."
"Why, of course, they were unusual," Miss Gabriel persisted, albeit a trifle dashed; "and indeed so incredibly absurd that we have brought Mr. Pope to hear your account of them; for, I assure you, he'll hardly believe us."
Mrs. Treacher looked at Mr. Pope solemnly for the space of about ten seconds, and then as solemnly at the ladies.
"_What_ won't he believe?"
"Why"--Miss Gabriel plucked up her courage--"there was so much that afterwards, when we came to compare notes, neither of us could explain--as, for instance, who was the strange lady that walked into the room and was evidently surprised to see us, as we were naturally surprised to see her-----"
Mrs. Treacher turned slowly again to Mr. Pope, whose face (since this was the first he had heard of any strange lady) expressed no small astonishment.
"Poor man!" she murmured, sympathetically, "did they really go so far as all that?"
"I assure you--" began Mrs. Pope stammering.
"Oh, go your ways and take 'em home!" cut in Mrs. Treacher. "I'm a friend to my sex in most matters; but to come askin' me to back up such a tale as that, and for a shillin'!" She turned her palm over and let the coin drop on the soil at her feet.
But here unhappily, at the height of Mrs. Treacher's indignation, a sneeze sounded from a bush across the patch of garden; and the eyes of her visitors, attracted by the sound, rested on an object which Mrs. Treacher, by interposition of her shoulders, had been doing her best to hide--a scarecrow standing unashamed in the midst of the garrison potato patch--a scarecrow in a flaunting waistcoat of scarlet, green, and yellow!
"My antimacassar!" gasped Miss Gabriel.
"The Lord Pro--" Mr. Pope checked the exclamation midway. "You will excuse me, ma'am. I was referring to the lower part of the figure."
"Was ever such ingratitude?"
"It is worse, ma'am--ten times worse. You may call it sacrilege." _