The card, p.8
The Card, page 8
‘Run along, child,’ said Ruth to Nellie, ‘while uncle and auntie talk to each other for a minute.’
Nellie stared, blushed, and walked forward in confusion. She was startled. And Denry was equally startled. Never before had Ruth so brazenly hinted that lovers must be left alone at intervals. In justice to her, it must be said that she was a mirror for all the proprieties. Denry had even reproached her, in his heart, for not sufficiently showing her desire for his exclusive society. He wondered, now, what was to be the next revelation of her surprising character.
‘I had our bill this morning,’ said Ruth.
She leaned gracefully on the handle of her sunshade, and they both stared at the sea. She was very elegant, with an aristocratic air. The bill, as she mentioned it, seemed a very negligible trifle. Nevertheless, Denry’s heart quaked.
‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Did you pay it?’
‘Yes,’ said she. ‘The landlady wanted the money, she told me. So Nellie gave me her share, and I paid it at once.’
‘Oh!’ said Denry.
There was a silence. Denry felt as though he were defending a castle, or as though he were in a dark room and somebody was calling him, calling him, and he was pretending not to be there and holding his breath.
‘But I’ve hardly enough money left,’ said Ruth. ‘The fact is, Nellie and I spent such a lot yesterday and the day before … You’ve no idea how money goes!’
‘Haven’t I?’ said Denry. But not to her – only to his own heart.
To her he said nothing.
‘I suppose we shall have to go back home,’ she ventured lightly. ‘One can’t run into debt here. They’d claim our luggage.’
‘What a pity!’ said Denry, sadly.
Just those few words – and the interesting part of the interview was over! All that followed counted not in the least. She had meant to induce him to offer to defray the whole of her expenses in Llandudno – no doubt in the form of a loan; and she had failed. She had intended him to repair the disaster caused by her chronic extravagance. And he had only said: ‘What a pity!’
‘Yes, it is!’ she agreed bravely, and with a finer disdain than ever of petty financial troubles. ‘Still, it can’t be helped.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ said Denry.
There was undoubtedly something fine about Ruth. In that moment she had it in her to kill Denry with a bodkin. But she merely smiled. The situation was terribly strained, past all Denry’s previous conceptions of a strained situation; but she deviated with superlative sang-froid into frothy small talk. A proud and unconquerable woman! After all, what were men for, if not to pay?
‘I think I shall go home tonight,’ she said, after the excursion into prattle.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Denry.
He was not coming out of his castle.
At that moment a hand touched his shoulder. It was the hand of Cregeen, the owner of the old lifeboat.
‘Mister,’ said Cregeen, too absorbed in his own welfare to notice Ruth. ‘It’s now or never! Five-and-twenty’ll buy the Fleetwing, if ten’s paid down this mornun.’
And Denry replied boldly:
‘You shall have it in an hour. Where shall you be?’
‘I’ll be in John’s cabin, under the pier,’ said Cregeen, ‘where ye found me this mornun.’
‘Right,’ said Denry.
If Ruth had not been caracoling on her absurdly high horse, she would have had the truth out of Denry in a moment concerning these early morning interviews and mysterious transactions in shipping. But from that height she could not deign to be curious. And so she said naught. Denry had passed the whole morning since breakfast and had uttered no word of preprandial encounters with mariners, though he had talked a lot about his article for the Signal and of how he had risen betimes in order to dispatch it by the first train.
And as Ruth showed no curiosity Denry behaved on the assumption that she felt none. And the situation grew even more strained.
As they walked down the pier towards the beach, at the dinner-hour, Ruth bowed to a dandiacal man who obsequiously saluted her.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Denry, instinctively.
‘It’s a gentleman that I was once engaged to,’ answered Ruth, with cold, brief politeness.
Denry did not like this.
The situation almost creaked under the complicated stresses to which it was subject. The wonder was that it did not fly to pieces long before evening.
VI
The pride of the principal actors being now engaged, each person was compelled to carry out the intentions which he had expressed either in words or tacitly. Denry’s silence had announced more efficiently than any words that he would under no inducement emerge from his castle. Ruth had stated plainly that there was nothing for it but to go home at once, that very night. Hence she arranged to go home, and hence Denry refrained from interfering with her arrangements. Ruth was lugubrious under a mask of gaiety; Nellie was lugubrious under no mask whatever. Nellie was merely the puppet of these betrothed players, her elders. She admired Ruth and she admired Denry, and between them they were spoiling the little thing’s holiday for their own adult purposes. Nellie knew that dreadful occurrences were in the air – occurrences compared to which the storm at sea was a storm in a tea-cup. She knew partly because Ruth had been so queerly polite, and partly because they had come separately to St Asaph’s Road and had not spent the entire afternoon together.
So quickly do great events loom up and happen that at six o’clock they had had tea and were on their way afoot to the station. The odd man of No. 26 St Asaph’s Road had preceded them with the luggage. All the rest of Llandudno was joyously strolling home to its half-past-six high tea – grand people to whom weekly bills were as dust and who were in a position to stop in Llandudno for ever and ever, if they chose! And Ruth and Nellie were conscious of the shame which always afflicts those whom necessity forces to the railway station of a pleasure resort in the middle of the season. They saw omnibuses loaded with luggage and jolly souls were actually coming, whose holiday had not yet properly commenced. And this spectacle added to their humiliation and their disgust. They genuinely felt that they belonged to the lower orders.
Ruth, for the sake of effect, joked on the most solemn subjects. She even referred with giggling laughter to the fact that she had borrowed from Nellie in order to discharge her liabilities for the final twenty-four hours at the boarding-house. Giggling laughter being contagious, as they were walking side by side close together, they all laughed. And each one secretly thought how ridiculous was such behaviour, and how it failed to reach the standard of true worldliness.
Then, nearer the station, some sprightly caprice prompted Denry to raise his hat to two young women who were crossing the road in front of them. Neither of the two young women responded to the homage.
‘Who are they?’ asked Ruth, and the words were out of her mouth before she could remind herself that curiosity was beneath her.
‘It’s a young lady I was once engaged to,’ said Denry.
‘Which one?’ asked the ninny, Nellie, astounded.
‘I forget,’ said Denry.
He considered this to be one of his greatest retorts – not to Nellie, but to Ruth. Nellie naturally did not appreciate its loveliness. But Ruth did. There was no facet of that retort that escaped Ruth’s critical notice.
At length they arrived at the station, quite a quarter of an hour before the train was due, and half-an-hour before it came in.
Denry tipped the odd man for the transport of the luggage.
‘Sure it’s all there?’ he asked the girls, embracing both of them in his gaze.
‘Yes,’ said Ruth, ‘but where’s yours?’
‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I’m not going tonight. I’ve got some business to attend to here. I thought you understood. I expect you’ll be all right, you two together.’
After a moment, Ruth said brightly: ‘Oh yes! I was quite forgetting about your business.’ Which was completely untrue, since she knew nothing of his business, and he had assuredly not informed her that he would not return with them.
But Ruth was being very brave, haughty, and queenlike, and for this the precise truth must sometimes be abandoned. The most precious thing in the world to Ruth was her dignity – and who can blame her? She meant to keep it at no matter what costs.
In a few minutes the bookstall on the platform attracted them as inevitably as a prone horse attracts a crowd. Other people were near the bookstall, and as these people were obviously leaving Llandudno, Ruth and Nellie felt a certain solace. The social outlook seemed brighter for them. Denry bought one or two penny papers, and then the newsboy began to paste up the contents poster of the Staffordshire Signal, which had just arrived. And on this poster, very prominent, were the words: ‘The Great Storm in North Wales. Special Descriptive Report.’ Denry snatched up one of the green papers and opened it, and on the first column of the news-page saw his wondrous description, including the word ‘Rembrandtesque’. ‘Graphic Account by a Bursley Gentleman of the Scene at Llandudno,’ said the sub-title. And the article was introduced by the phrase: ‘We are indebted to Mr E. H. Machin, a prominent figure in Bursley,’ etc.
It was like a miracle. Do what he would, Denry could not stop his face from glowing.
With false calm he gave the paper to Ruth. Her calmness in receiving it upset him.
‘We’ll read it in the train,’ she said primly, and started to talk about something else. And she became most agreeable and companionable.
Mixed up with papers and sixpenny novels on the bookstall were a number of souvenirs of Llandudno – paper-knives, pens, paper-weights, watch-cases, pen-cases, all in light wood or glass, and ornamented with coloured views of Llandudno, and also the word ‘Llandudno’ in large German capitals, so that mistakes might not arise. Ruth remembered that she had even intended to buy a crystal paper-weight with a view of the Great Orme at the bottom. The bookstall clerk had several crystal paper-weights with views of the pier, the Hotel Majestic, the Esplanade, the Happy Valley, but none with a view of the Great Orme. He had also paper-knives and watch-cases with a view of the Great Orme. But Ruth wanted a combination of paper-weight and Great Orme, and nothing else would satisfy her. She was like that. The clerk admitted that such a combination existed, but he was sold ‘out of it’.
‘Couldn’t you get one and send it to me?’ said Ruth.
And Denry saw anew that she was incurable.
‘Oh yes, miss,’ said the clerk. ‘Certainly, miss. Tomorrow at latest.’ And he pulled out a book. ‘What name?’
Ruth looked at Denry, as women do look on such occasions.
‘Rothschild,’ said Denry.
It may seem perhaps strange that that single word ended their engagement. But it did. She could not tolerate a rebuke. She walked away, flushing. The bookstall clerk received no order. Several persons in the vicinity dimly perceived that a domestic scene had occurred, in a flash, under their noses, on a platform of a railway station. Nellie was speedily aware that something very serious had happened, for the train took them off without Ruth speaking a syllable to Denry, though Denry raised his hat and was almost effusive.
The next afternoon Denry received by post a ring in a box. ‘I will not submit to insult,’ ran the brief letter.
‘I only said “Rothschild”!’ Denry murmured to himself. ‘Can’t a fellow say “Rothschild”?’
But secretly he was proud of himself.
5
The Mercantile Marine
I
The decisive scene, henceforward historic, occurred in the shanty known as ‘John’s cabin’ – John being the unacknowledged leader of the long-shore population under the tail of Llandudno pier. The cabin, festooned with cordage, was lighted by an oil-lamp of a primitive model, and round the orange case on which the lamp was balanced sat Denry, Cregeen, the owner of the lifeboat, and John himself (to give, as it were, a semi-official character to whatever was afoot).
‘Well, here you are,’ said Denry, and handed to Cregeen a piece of paper.
‘What’s this, I’m asking ye?’ said Cregeen, taking the paper in his large fingers and peering at it as though it had been a papyrus.
But he knew quite well what it was. It was a cheque for twenty-five pounds. What he did not know was that, with the ten pounds paid in cash earlier in the day, it represented a very large part indeed of such of Denry’s savings as had survived his engagement to Ruth Earp. Cregeen took a pen as though it had been a match-end and wrote a receipt. Then, after finding a stamp in a pocket of his waistcoat under his jersey, he put it in his mouth and lost it there for a long time. Finally Denry got the receipt, certifying that he was the owner of the lifeboat formerly known as Llandudno, but momentarily without a name, together with all her gear and sails.
‘Are ye going to live in her?’ the rather curt John inquired.
‘Not in her. On her,’ said Denry.
And he went out on to the sand and shingle, leaving John and Cregeen to complete the sale to Cregeen of the Fleetwing, a small cutter specially designed to take twelve persons forth for ‘a pleasant sail in the bay’. If Cregeen had not had a fancy for the Fleetwing and a perfect lack of the money to buy her, Denry might never have been able to induce him to sell the lifeboat.
Under another portion of the pier Denry met a sailor with a long white beard, the aged Simeon, who had been one of the crew that rescued the Hjalmar, but whom his colleagues appeared to regard rather as an ornament than a motive force.
‘It’s all right,’ said Denry.
And Simeon, in silence, nodded his head slowly several times.
‘I shall give you thirty shillings for the week,’ said Denry.
And that venerable head oscillated again in the moon-lit gloom and rocked gradually to a standstill.
Presently the head said, in shrill, slow tones:
‘I’ve seen three o’ them Norwegian chaps. Two of ’em can no more speak English than a babe unborn; no, nor understand what ye say to ’em, though I fair bawled in their ear-holes.’
‘So much the better,’ said Denry.
‘I showed ’em that sovereign,’ said the bearded head, wagging again.
‘Well,’ said Denry, ‘you won’t forget. Six o’clock tomorrow morning.’
‘Ye’d better say five,’ the head suggested. ‘Quieter like.’
‘Five, then,’ Denry agreed.
And he departed to St Asaph’s Road burdened with a tremendous thought.
The thought was:
‘I’ve gone and done it this time!’
Now that the transaction was accomplished and could not be undone, he admitted to himself that he had never been more mad. He could scarely comprehend what had led him to do that which he had done. But he obscurely imagined that his caprice for the possession of sea-going craft must somehow be the result of his singular adventure with the pantechnicon in the canal at Bursley.
He was so preoccupied with material interests as to be capable of forgetting, for a quarter of an hour at a stretch, that in all essential respects his life was wrecked, and that he had nothing to hope for save hollow worldly success. He knew that Ruth would return the ring. He could almost see the postman holding the little cardboard cube which would contain the rendered ring. He had loved, and loved tragically. (That was how he put it – in his unspoken thoughts; but the truth was merely that he had loved something too expensive.) Now the dream was done. And a man of disillusion walked along the Parade towards St Asaph’s Road among revellers, a man with a past, a man who had probed women, a man who had nothing to learn about the sex. And amid all the tragedy of his heart, and all his apprehensions concerning hollow, worldly success, little thoughts of absurd unimportance kept running about like clockwork mice in his head. Such as that it would be a bit of a bore to have to tell people at Bursley that his engagement, which truly had thrilled the town, was broken off. Humiliating, that! And, after all, Ruth was a glittering gem among women. Was there another girl in Bursley so smart, so effective, so truly ornate?
Then he comforted himself with the reflection: ‘I’m certainly the only man that ever ended an engagement by just saying “Rothschild!”’ This was probably true. But it did not help him to sleep.
II
The next morning at 5.20 the youthful sun was shining on the choppy water of the Irish Sea, just off the Little Orme, to the west of Llandudno Bay. Oscillating on the uneasy waves was Denry’s lifeboat, manned by the nodding bearded head, three ordinary British longshoremen, a Norwegian who could speak English of two syllables, and two other Norwegians who by a strange neglect of education could speak nothing but Norwegian.
Close under the headland, near a morsel of beach, lay the remains of the Hjalmar in an attitude of repose. It was as if the Hjalmar, after a long struggle, had lain down like a cab-horse and said to the tempest: ‘Do what you like now!’
‘Yes,’ the venerable head was piping. ‘Us can come out comfortable in twenty minutes, unless the tide be setting east strong. And, as for getting back, it’ll be the same, other way round, if ye understand me.’
There could be no question that Simeon had come out comfortable. But he was the coxswain. The rowers seemed to be perspiringly aware that the boat was vast and beamy.
‘Shall we row up to it?’ Simeon inquired, pointing to the wreck.
Then a pale face appeared above the gunwale, and an expiring, imploring voice said: ‘No. We’ll go back.’ Whereupon the pale face vanished again.
Denry had never before been outside the bay. In the navigation of pantechnicons on the squall-swept basins of canals he might have been a great master, but he was unfitted for the open sea. At that moment he would have been almost ready to give the lifeboat and all that he owned for the privilege of returning to land by train. The inward journey was so long that Denry lost hope of ever touching his native island again. And then there was a bump. And he disembarked, with hope burning up again cheerfully in his bosom. And it was a quarter to six.
