_ CHAPTER XI
Meldon was a man who liked to get the full possible measure of enjoyment out of his holidays. He counted the hours of daylight which he spent in bed as wasted, and although always late for breakfast, was generally up and active before any other member of the Major's household. On Monday morning he got out of bed at half-past five and went down to the sea to bathe. He wore nothing except his pyjamas and an old pair of canvas shoes, and so was obliged to go back to his bedroom again after his swim. As he passed Major Kent's door he hammered vigorously on it with his fist. When he thought he had made noise enough to awaken his friend, he turned the handle of the door, put his head into the room, and shouted,--
"Splendid day. Absolutely the best possible; first-rate sailing breeze, and no prospect of rain."
Major Kent growled in reply.
"What's that you say?"
"Confound you, J. J. Get out of that. What's the good of waking me at this hour?"
Meldon opened the door a little wider and stepped into the room.
"I thought you'd like to know about the weather," he said. "It's extremely important for us to secure a really first-rate day. If it turned out that we could do nothing but lollop about half a mile from the shore in a dead calm, poor Simpkins wouldn't have a chance; or if--"
"Go away, J. J."
"And if it were to come on a downpour of rain, his spirits would be so damped that he'd never get himself worked up to the pitch of--"
"I suppose I may as well get up," said the Major despairingly.
"Not the least necessity for that," said Meldon. "You can sleep for another hour and a half at least. It can't be more than half-past six, and allowing time for the most elaborate toilet you can possibly want to make, you needn't get up till eight. I should say myself that you'd sleep much more comfortably now you know that the day is going to be fine. Nothing interferes with slumber more radically than any anxiety of mind."
The weather was all that Meldon said it was; but his satisfaction with it turned out to be ill-founded. It was based on a miscalculation. What seemed to him a desirable sailing breeze was a cause of grave discomfort to half the party.
Simpkins began to give way in less than an hour. He yawned, pulled himself together, and then yawned again. After that he ceased to take any active part in the conversation. Then Miss King began to lose colour. Meldon, who was sitting forward with his legs dangling over the combing of the cockpit, winked at Major Kent. The Major, uncomfortably aware of the feelings of his guests, scowled at Meldon. The nearest island on which it was possible to land was still some way off. He foresaw a period of extreme unpleasantness. Meldon winked again, and mouthed the word "Ilaun More" silently. It was the name of the nearest island, and he meant to suggest to the Major that it would be very desirable to go no further. He might, without giving offence, have said all he wanted to say out loud. Simpkins had reached a stage of his malady in which it was impossible for him to listen intelligently to anything, and Miss King would have rejoiced to hear of a prospect of firm land.
The
Spindrift, which had been thrashing her way into the teeth of the wind, was allowed to go free, and reached swiftly towards Ilaun More. The change of motion completely finished Simpkins, but the period of his extreme misery was short. The yacht rounded up into the wind in a sheltered bay, and Meldon let go the anchor. The boom, swinging rapidly from side to side, swept Simpkins' hat (a stiff-brimmed straw hat) into the sea. He made no effort to save it; but the Major, grabbing the boat-hook, got hold of it just before it floated beyond reach, and drew it, waterlogged and limp, into the boat. Simpkins expressed no gratitude. Meldon hauled the punt alongside, and asked Miss King if she would like to go ashore. She assented with a feeble smile. There was no use consulting Simpkins. His wishes were taken for granted, and he was deposited, with great difficulty, in the bow of the punt. Meldon rowed them ashore. He gave his arm to Miss King and led her up to a dry rock, on which she sat down. He went back to the punt again, straightened out Simpkins, hauled him up, and set him down beside Miss King. Then he rowed back to the
Spindrift in the punt.
"This," said the Major angrily, "is a nice kind of party. You might have had more sense, J. J., than to invite people of that sort out in the
Spindrift."
"You're very unreasonable," said Meldon. "I thought you'd have found the keenest delight in watching the sufferings of Simpkins. If I had an enemy in the world--I'm thankful to say I haven't--but if I had, there's nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see him enduring the agony that Simpkins has just been through. But that's the worst of you. I arrange these little surprises for you, hoping to see your face light up with a smile of gratification, and all I get in return is growls and grumbles."
Major Kent grinned.
"That's better," said Meldon. "I'm glad to see that you're capable of getting some good out of an innocent pleasure, even if you have to wait till somebody points out to you what it is you ought to enjoy."
"Any way, J. J., this will put a stopper on your plan. There'll be no love-making to-day."
"On the contrary," said Meldon, "I expect we've laid the foundation of a deep and enduring affection. There's nothing draws people together more than a common misfortune."
"But you can't expect a woman to take to a man when she sees him in the state Simpkins was in when we were on the reach towards the island."
"Not if she's all right herself," said Meldon; "but when she's in the state Miss King was in she's past noticing anybody's complexion. The only emotion Miss King could possibly have felt, the only emotion of a spiritual kind, was a bitter hatred of you and me; and that, of course, would make her feel a strong affection for Simpkins. On the whole, Major, we may congratulate ourselves on our success so far. Just put the luncheon basket into the punt, will you? They'll be as hungry as wolves in another half-hour. Simpkins is beginning to buck up already. Look at him."
Simpkins was staggering towards his hat, which Meldon had left lying at the place where the punt landed.
"I expect," said the Major, "that he feels as if the sun on the back of his head would upset him again. It must be pretty hot in there where they're sheltered from the wind."
"We'll give him a drop of whisky," said Meldon, "and set him on his feet properly. Get in, Major."
"I'm not at all sure that I'm going ashore. I think I'd be more comfortable where I am. Simpkins is bad enough when he's healthy, but in the condition he's in now I simply couldn't stand him at all. Besides, I don't think Miss King would like us to land. It doesn't seem to me quite fair to go spying on a woman when she's sick. She'd rather be left alone for a while, till she recovers her ordinary colour. I felt very sorry for her on the boat, and if I could have done anything--"
"That sort of sympathy and delicacy of feeling is all very fine, Major; but I tell you plainly that if it leads to your refusing to give the poor girl any lunch she won't appreciate it."
"Couldn't you land the luncheon basket and then come back here?"
"Certainly not. Then
I should get no luncheon. I don't shrink from sacrifice in a good cause, Major, whenever sacrifice is necessary; but I see no point in starving myself merely to satisfy your ridiculous ideas of chivalry."
"Well, then, you go and give them their lunch, and leave me here."
"That's the worst plan you've suggested yet," said Meldon. "If I go without you I shall be a damper on the whole proceedings. A third person on these occasions always finds the greatest difficulty in not being in the way, whereas if you come we can stroll off together after lunch under pretext of searching for lobsters or something of that kind, and leave the happy couple together."
"Happy couple!" said the Major. "They look it."
"Get into the punt at once," said Meldon, "and don't try to be sarcastic. Nothing is less becoming to you. Your proper part in life is that of the sober, well-intentioned, somewhat thick-headed, bachelor uncle. You do that excellently; but the moment you try to be clever you give yourself away piteously."
"Your own part, I suppose, J. J., is that of irresponsible buffoon."
"No; it's not. What I do best is just what I'm doing--arranging things for other people, so that difficulties and unpleasantness disappear, and life looks bright again."
Major Kent had provided an excellent luncheon for the party, and Miss King had revived rapidly since she landed. She allowed herself to be persuaded to drink some weak whisky and water. Afterwards she ate cold chicken with a good appetite. Poor Simpkins was less fortunate. He insisted on wearing his damp hat, and could not be persuaded to eat anything except biscuits. Meldon, who was most anxious to restore him to a condition of vigour, pressed a tomato on him; but the result was unfortunate. After eating half of it, Simpkins turned his back even on the biscuit tin. He refused to smoke after lunch, although the Major and Meldon lit their pipes in an encouraging way quite close to him, and Miss King appeared to find pleasure in a cigarette. The situation was not promising; but Meldon was a man of unquenchable hope. Seizing a moment when Miss King was looking in another direction, he winked violently at Major Kent. The Major was extremely comfortably seated with his back against a rock, and was enjoying himself. The
Spindrift lay secure at her anchor. The sun shone pleasantly. An after luncheon pipe is a particularly enjoyable one, and Miss King was talking in a very charming way, besides looking pretty. The Major was disinclined to move, and although he guessed at the meaning of Meldon's wink, he deliberately ignored it. Meldon winked again. Then he rose to his feet, shook himself, and looked round him.
"I think, Major," he said, "that if we mean to catch any lobsters to-day, we ought to be starting."
The Major grunted.
"Lobsters! Can we catch lobsters here?" said Miss King. "I should like to help. I have never caught a lobster."
"It's not exactly a sport for ladies," said Meldon. "The lobster is an ugly fish to tackle unless you are accustomed to him. Besides, we shall have to take off our shoes and stockings."
"But I only mean to look on. I shouldn't run any risks."
She had in her mind at the moment a scene in her new novel into which lobster fishing, as practised in the west of Ireland, might be introduced with great effect. The idea that there was some risk about the sport added to its value for her purpose. She foresaw the possibility of vividly picturesque descriptions of bare-limbed, sun-tanned muscular folk plunging among weedy rocks, or spattered with yellow spume, staggering shorewards under a load of captured lobsters. But Meldon was most unsympathetic.
"Besides," he said, "the chief haunt of the lobsters is at the other side of the island, quite a long way off."
"I should like the walk," said Miss King, "and I'm sure there's a charming view."
"It's very rough," said Meldon, "and you'd get your feet wet."
He nudged the Major as he spoke. It did not seem fair that the making of all the excuses should be left to him.
"I really believe," said Miss King, "that you don't want me to go with you, Mr. Meldon. It's most unkind of you. I'm beginning to think that you don't like me. You said something quite rude to me the other day, and I don't believe half you're saying to me now.--It's not dangerous to catch lobsters, is it, Major Kent?"
The Major felt Meldon's eye on him. He was also aware that Miss King was looking at him appealingly.
"No," he said; "at least, not very; not if you're careful about the way you take hold of them."
"And I shouldn't get my feet wet, should I? not very wet?"
"No," said the Major, "or you might, of course. There's a sort of pool at the other side of the island, and if you walked through it--; but then you could go round it."
"There now," said Miss King. "I knew you were only making excuses, Mr. Meldon."
"I was," said Meldon. "I may as well own up to it that I was. My real reason for not wishing you to come with us--"
He edged over to where Simpkins was sitting, and kicked him sharply in the ribs. It was, after all, Simpkins' business to make some effort to retain Miss King.
"My real reason," he said, "though I didn't like to mention it before, is that there's a dead sheep on the other side of the island, just above the lobster bed. It's a good deal decayed, and the sea-gulls have been picking at it."
Miss King shuddered.
"Is there a dead sheep, Major Kent?" she asked.
"I don't know," said the Major. "I haven't been on this island for years; and I don't believe you have either, J. J."
"Dr. O'Donoghue told me about it yesterday," said Meldon. "He said it was a most disgusting sight. I don't think you'd like it, Miss King. I don't like telling you about it. I'm sure a glance at it would upset you again--after this morning, you know."
Miss King was evidently annoyed by this allusion to her sea sickness, but she was not inclined to give up her walk.
"Couldn't we go somewhere else for lobsters," she said; "somewhere a good way off from the dead sheep?"
"No," said Meldon decisively. "We shouldn't catch any if we did. All the lobsters, as you can easily understand, will have collected near the dead sheep. It's a great find for them, you know, as well as for the sea-gulls."
"In any case," said Miss King, who felt that she could not with decency press her company on Meldon any more, "I'd rather stay where I am. I don't think I care for crossing the island after all."
Meldon kicked Simpkins again. Then he took Major Kent by the arm, dragged him to his feet, and set off at a rapid pace across the island.
"J. J.," said the Major, "these plans of yours are all very well, and of course I'm not going to interfere with them, but I don't see any necessity for being actually rude to Miss King. She strikes me as being a very nice girl."
"I am disappointed in Miss King," said Meldon. "I thought better of her before. She's not what I call womanly, and I hate these unsexed females."
"What do you mean? I suppose you think she had no right to try and force herself on us, but I thought--"
"I'm not complaining of that in the least," said Meldon. "That was quite natural, and not at all what I call unwomanly. In fact, most women would have acted just as she did in that respect. What I was thinking of was those famous lines of Sir Walter Scott's. You recollect the ones I mean, I suppose?"
"No; I don't."
"'Oh woman,'" said Meldon, "'in our hours of ease'--that's now, Major, so far as we're concerned--'uncertain, coy, and hard to please.' That's what Miss King ought to have been, but wasn't. Nobody can say she was coy about the lobsters. 'When pain and anguish wring the brow.' That's the position in which Simpkins finds himself. 'A ministering angel thou.' That's what Miss King should be if she's what I call a true woman, a womanly woman. But she evidently isn't. She hasn't the maternal instinct at all strongly developed. If she had, her heart would bleed for a helpless, unprotected creature like Simpkins, whose brow is being wrung with the most pitiable anguish."
"Do you mean to say," said the Major, "that you think she ought to take a pleasure in holding that beast Simpkins' head?"
"That, though you put it coarsely, is exactly what I do mean. Any true woman would. Sir Walter Scott distinctly says so."
"Considering what you believe about her--I mean all that about her and Mrs. Lorimer being the same person, and her wanting to kill Simpkins--I don't see how you can expect her to be what you call womanly."
"There you're wrong, Major; quite wrong, as usual. There's no reason in the world why a woman shouldn't be womanly just because she happens to hold rather advanced opinions on some ethical subjects. As a matter of fact, it came out in the trial that Mrs. Lorimer was devotedly attentive to her husband, her last husband, during his illness. She watched him day and night, and wouldn't allow any one else to bring him his medicine. I naturally thought she'd display the same spirit with regard to Simpkins. I hope she will after they're married; but I'm disappointed in her just at present."
"What are you going to do about the lobsters, J. J.?" said the Major, dropping the subject of Miss King's character. "You know very well that there are none on the island, and after all you said about their swarming about in a lobster bed, Miss King will naturally expect us to bring her back a few."
"No, she won't. Not when she knows that they've been feeding on the disgusting and half-decayed dead sheep. She'd hate to see one."
"What made you think of saying there was a dead sheep, J. J.?"
"I had to think of something," said Meldon, "or else she'd have come with us. You contradicted every word I said, and gave the show away, although you knew very well the extreme importance of giving Simpkins his chance."
"I don't think he looked much like taking it when we left."
"No, he didn't. A more helpless, incompetent idiot than Simpkins I never came across. He won't do a single thing to help himself. I suppose he expects me to-- I'll tell you what it is, Major; I had some regard for Simpkins before to-day, but I'm beginning to agree with you and Doyle about him now."
"Then perhaps you'll stop trying to get him to marry Miss King."
"No, I won't. My coming round to your way of thinking is all the more reason for marrying him. As long as I had any regard for him I felt it was rather a pity to have him killed, and I was only doing it to please you. Now that I see he really doesn't deserve to live I can go on with a perfectly clear conscience."
"Any way," said the Major, "I don't believe that he'll do much love-making to-day."
"Don't be too sure of that. If Miss King is behaving now as she ought to be; if she has taken that wet hat off his head and stopped it wringing his brow; if, as I confidently expect, she is showing herself a ministering angel, we shall most likely find them sitting in a most affectionate attitude when we get back."
Miss King did not do her duty. When Meldon and Major Kent returned, lobsterless, after half an hour's absence, they found Mr. Simpkins sitting on a stone by himself with the wet hat still on his head. Miss King was a long way off, stumbling about among the stones at the water's edge. She may, perhaps, have been trying to catch lobsters.
The voyage home was most unpleasant for every one except Meldon. The wind had risen slightly since morning, and the motion of the yacht in running before it was very trying. Mr. Simpkins collapsed at once and was dragged by Meldon into the cabin, where he lay in speechless misery. Miss King held out bravely for some time, and then gave way suddenly. Major Kent, watching her, was very unhappy, and did not dare to smoke lest he should make her worse. He attempted at one time to wrap her in an oilskin coat, thinking that additional warmth might be good for her; but the smell of the garment brought on a violent spasm, and he was obliged to take it away from her shoulders.
In the evening, after Miss King and Mr. Simpkins had been sent home on a car, Meldon reviewed the day's proceedings.
"As a pleasure party," he said, "it wasn't exactly a success; but then we didn't go out for pleasure. Considered as a step in advance towards the marriage of Miss King and the death of Simpkins, it hasn't turned out all we hoped. Still I think something is accomplished. Miss King must, I think, have felt some pity for Simpkins when she saw me dragging him into the cabin by his leg, and we all know that pity is akin to--"
"If she thinks of him in that sort of way," said the Major, "she won't kill him."
"I've told you before," said Meldon--"in fact, I'm tired telling you--that she hasn't got to kill him until after she's married him. You don't surely want her to be guilty of one of those cold-blooded, loveless marriages which are the curse of modern society and end in the divorce court. She ought to have some feeling of affection for him before she marries him, and I think it is probably aroused in her now. No woman could possibly see a man treated as I treated Simpkins this afternoon without feeling a little sorry for him. I bumped his head in the most frightful manner when I was dragging him down. No; I think it's all right now as far as Miss King is concerned. I'll go in and see Simpkins to-morrow and spur him on a bit. I'll tell him--"
"Some lie or other--" said the Major.
"Only for his own good," said Meldon. "I saw quite plainly on Sunday that he wanted to marry Miss King, and whatever I say to-morrow will be calculated to help and encourage him. You can't call that kind of thing telling lies. It's exactly the same in principle as why a good doctor tries to cheer up a patient by saying that he'll be perfectly well in the inside of a week after a trifling operation. Everybody admits that that's perfectly right, and nobody but a fool would call it a lie." _