Salthaven. William Wymark Jacobs

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СКАЧАТЬ nodding at him. "Good-night."

      He went off to bed with a suddenness that was almost disconcerting. Thus deserted, Mr. Truefitt finished his whiskey and water and, his head full of plans for the betterment of everybody connected with him, blew out the lamp and went upstairs.

      Owing possibly to his efforts in this direction Captain Trimblett and Mrs. Chinnery scarcely saw him until Friday afternoon, when he drove up in a fly, and, after handing out Miss Willett with great tenderness, proceeded with almost equal care to assist her mother. The latter, a fragile little old lady, was at once conducted to a chair and, having been comfortably seated was introduced to Mrs. Chinnery.

      "It's a long way," she said, as her daughter divested her of her bonnet and shawl, "but Cissie would insist on my coming, and I suppose, after all, it's only right I should."

      "Of course, mother," said Miss Willett, hurriedly.

      "Right is right," continued the old lady, "after all is said and done. And I'm sure Mr. Truefitt has been to ours often enough."

      Mr. Truefitt coughed, and the captain—a loyal friend—assisted him.

      "Night after night," said the old lady, during a brief interval.

      Mr. Truefitt, still coughing slightly, began to place chairs at a table on which, as the captain presently-proved to his own dissatisfaction, there was not even; room for a pair of elbows. At the last moment the seating arrangements had to be altered owing to a leg of the table which got in the way of Mrs. Willett's. The captain, in his anxiety to be of service, lowered a leaf of the table too far, and an avalanche of food descended to the floor.

      "It don't matter," said Mrs. Chinnery, in a voice that belied her words. "Captain Trimblett is always doing something like that. The last time we had visitors he—"

      "Kept on eating the cake after she had shaken her head at me," interrupted the captain, who was busy picking up the provisions.

      "Nothing of the kind," cried Mrs. Chinnery, who was in no mood for frivolity. "I shouldn't think of doing such a thing," she added, turning to Mrs. Willett, as the lady allowed herself to be placed in a more convenient position. "It's all Captain Trimblett's nonsense."

      Mrs. Willett listened politely, "It is annoying, though," she remarked.

      "He might eat all the cake in the house for what I care," said Mrs. Chinnery, turning very red, and raising her voice a little.

      "As a matter of fact I don't like cake," said the captain, who was becoming uncomfortable.

      "Perhaps it was something else," said the excellent Mrs. Willett, with the air of one assisting to unravel a mystery.

      Mrs. Chinnery, who was pouring out tea, glared at her in silence. She also spared a glance for Captain Trimblett, which made that gentleman seriously uneasy. With an idea of turning the conversation into safer and more agreeable channels, he called the old lady's attention to a pencil drawing of a ruined castle which adorned the opposite wall. Mrs. Willett's first remark was that it had no roof.

      "It's a ruin," said the captain; "done by Mrs. Chinnery."

      The faded blue eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles inspected it carefully. "Done when she was a child—of course?" said Mrs. Willett.

      "Eighteen," said Mrs. Chinnery, in a deep voice.

      "I'm no judge of such things," said the old lady, shaking her head. "I only know what I like; but I dare say it's very clever."

      She turned to help herself from a plate that the captain was offering her, and, finding that it contained cake, said that she would prefer bread and butter.

      "Not that I don't like cake," she said. "As a rule I am rather partial to it."

      "Well, have some now," said the unfortunate captain, trying to avoid Mrs. Chinnery's eye.

      "Bread and butter, please," said Mrs. Willett, with quiet decision.

      The captain passed it, and after a hopeless glance at Mr. Truefitt and Miss Willett, who were deep in the enjoyment of each other's society, returned to the subject of art.

      "If I could draw like that, ma'am," he said, with a jerk of his head toward the ruined castle, "I should give up the sea."

      Mrs. Willett inspected it again, even going to the length of taking off her glasses and polishing them, with a view to doing perfect justice to the subject. "Would you really?" she said, when she had finished.

      The captain made no reply. He sat appalled at the way in which the old lady was using him to pay off some of the debt that she fancied was due to Mrs. Chinnery.

      "You must see some of my daughter's pictures," she said, turning to him. "Fruit and birds mostly, in oil colours. But then, of course, she had good masters. There's one picture—let me see!"

      She sat considering, and began to reel off the items on her fingers as she enumerated them. "There's a plate of oranges, with a knife and fork, a glass, a bottle, two and a half walnuts and bits of shell, three-quarters of an apple, a pipe, a cigar, a bunch of grapes, and a green parrot looking at it all with his head on one side."

      "And very natural of him, too," murmured Mrs. Chinnery.

      "It's coming here," interposed Mr. Truefitt, suddenly. "It belongs to Mrs. Willett, but she has given it to us. I wonder which will be the best place for it?"

      The old lady looked round the room. "It will have to hang there," she said, pointing to the "Eruption of Vesuvius," "where that beehive is."

      "Bee—!" exclaimed the startled captain. He bent toward her and explained.

      "Oh, well, it don't matter," said the old lady. "I thought it was a beehive—it looks like one; and I can't see what's written under it from here. But that's where Cecilia's picture must go."

      She made one or two other suggestions with regard to the rearrangement of the pictures, and then, having put her hand to the plough, proceeded to refurnish the room. And for her own private purposes she affected to think that Mr. Truefitt's taste was responsible for the window-curtains.

      "Mother has got wonderful taste," said Miss Willett, looking round. "All over Salthaven her taste has become a—a—"

      "Byword," suggested Mrs. Chinnery.

      "Proverb," said Miss Willett. "Are you feeling too warm, mother?" she asked, eying the old lady with sudden concern.

      "A little," said Mrs. Willett. "I suppose it's being used to big rooms. I always was one for plenty of space. It doesn't matter—don't trouble."

      "It's no trouble," said Captain Trimblett, who was struggling with the window. "How is that?" he inquired, opening it a little at the top and returning to his seat.

      "There is a draught down the back of my neck," said Mrs. Willett; "but don't trouble about me if the others like it. If I get a stiff neck Cecilia can rub it for me when I get home with a little oil of camphor."

      "Yes, mother," said Miss Willett.

      "I once had a stiff neck for three weeks," said Mrs. Willett.

      The captain rose again and, with a compassionate glance at Mr. Truefitt, closed the window.

      "One can't have everything in this world," said СКАЧАТЬ