CHAPTER XVI. BROKEN.
The Powers
Behind the world that make our griefs our gains.
The small town of Somarsh, in Suffolk, consists of one street running up from the so-called harbour. At one end is the railway-station; at the other the harbour and the sea, and that is Somarsh. There are records that in days gone by--in the days of east coast prosperity - there was a Mayor of Somarsh, or Southmarsh, as it was then written. But Ichabod!
All Somarsh was in the street one morning after Fitz had gone to sea again, and those of the women who were not talking loudly were weeping softly. The boats were not in yet, but the weather was fine, and the still, saffron sea was dotted with brown sails. There was nothing wrong with the boats.
No; the trouble was on shore, as it mostly is. It came not from the sea, but from men. It was pinned upon the door of Merton’s Bank in the High Street. Its form was unintelligible, for the wording of the notice was mostly outside the Suffolk vocabulary. There was something written in a clerkly hand about the withdrawal of “financial facilities necessitating a stoppage of payment pending reconstruction.”
But the people in the street were saying that Merton’s was “broke.” The constable said so, and he was a recognised authority on matters pertaining to dry land and the law. The door was locked on the inside, the shutters were up, the blinds down, as if mourning the death of a good East county credit.
“And them a drivin’ behind their two horses,” said one old weather-beaten fisherman, who was suspected of voting on the wrong side at electioneering time.
Some shook their heads, but the word went no farther, for the man who does his business on the great waters has a vast respect for ancient institutions. And Merton’s had been a good bank for many generations.
“P’raps,” said an old woman who had nothing to lose--for the sea had even kept her corpses from her--“p’raps what they say ’bout reconstruction may be all right. But here comes the capt’n.”
The crowd turned like one man and watched the advent of Captain Bontnor.
The old man was dressed in his best pilot cloth suit. He had worn it quite recklessly for the last month, ever since Eve had come to live with him. He had been interrupted in his morning walk - his quarter-deck tramp--forty times the length of his own railing in front of Malabar Cottage. The postman bringing letters for Eve, had told him that there was trouble down in the town, and that he would likely be wanted.
When he saw where the crowd was stationed he caught his breath.
“No,” he said aloud to himself, “no, it can’t be Merton’s.”
And when he joined the townspeople they saw that his sunburnt, rugged face was grey as ashes.
“Mates,” he said, “what is it?”
“Merton’s is broke--Merton’s is broke!” they answered, clearing a way for him to read the notice for himself. In Somarsh Captain Bontnor was considered quite a scholar. As such he might, perhaps, have deciphered the clerkly handwriting in a shorter time than he now required, but on the east coast a reputation is not easily shaken.
They waited for the verdict in silence. After five minutes he turned round and his face gave some of them a shock. His kindly blue eyes had a painfully puzzled, incompetent look, which had often come across them in Barcelona and in London. But in Somarsh only Eve was familiar with it.
“Yes, mates,” he said, falling back into his old seafaring vernacular, forgetful of his best suit, “yes, shipmates, as far as I rightly understand it, the bank’s broken. And--and there’s some of us that’s ruined men.”
He stood for a moment looking straight in front of him--looking very old and not quite fit for life’s battle. Then he moved away.
“I’ll just go and tell my niece,” he said.
They watched him stump away--sturdy, unbroken, upright--still a man.
“It’s a hard end to a hard life,” said the old woman who had suggested hope; and being only human, they fell to discussing the event from the point at which it affected their own lives.
Malabar Cottage stood at the top end of the High Street--almost by itself--looking out over the little green plot of common land, where the coastguard flagpost stands towards the sea. It was a low-roofed, solidly built cottage--once a coastguard station, but superseded in the heyday of east coast smuggling by a larger station further up the hill. There was a little garden in front, which the captain kept himself, growing such old-fashioned flowers as were content with his ignorant handling. The white jasmine ran riot over the portico.
Eve had apparently received a letter of some importance, for she was standing at the gate waiting for him. She ran out hatless to see him on his quarter-deck, and to her surprise found him not. She soon saw him coming, however, and to beguile the time fell to reading her letter a second time, with a little frown, as if the caligraphy gave her trouble.
She did not look up until he was quite close.
“Uncle,” she cried, “what is the matter?”
He gave a smile, which was painfully out of place on his bluff features - it was wan and twisted.
“Nothing, my dearie; nothing.”
He fumbled at the gate, and she had to find the latch for him.
“Just come below--I mean indoors, my dear. I’ve had some news. I dare say it will be all right--but just at first, you understand, it is a little--keen.”
He bustled through the porch, and Eve followed him. She watched him hang up his old straw hat, standing on tiptoe with a grunt, as was his wont.
“I must unship that peg and put it a bit lower,” he said, as he had said a hundred times before.
Then he went into the little dining-room and sat somewhat heavily down, with his two hands resting on his knees. He looked puzzled.
“Truth is, my dear,” he said breathlessly, “I don’t seem to take to this long-shore life. I--I rather think of going back to sea. There’s plenty will give me a ship. And I want you to keep this cottage nice for me, dearie, against my coming home.”
He paused, looking round the room with a poor simulation of interest at the quaint ornaments and curiosities which he had brought home from different parts of the world. He looked at the ceiling and the carpet--anywhere, in fact, except at Eve. Then he pushed his fingers through his thick grey hair, making it stand on end in a ludicrous manner.
“I’ve got all my bits of things collected here--just bits of things--oh, dear!--oh, dear--Eve, my child, I wonder why the Almighty’s gone and done this?”
Eve was already sitting on the arm of his chair, stroking back his hair with her tender fingers.
“What is it, uncle?” she asked. “Tell me.”
“Merton’s,” he answered. “Merton’s, and them so safe!”
“Is it only money?” cried Eve. “Is that all?”
“Yes,” he answered rather wearily, “that’s all. But it’s money that’s took me fifty-five years to make.”
“And had you it all in Merton’s Bank?”
“Yes, dearie, all.”
“But are you sure they have failed--that there is no mistake?”
“Quite sure. I’ve read it myself pinned on the door, and the shutters up, like a thing you read of in the newspapers. No, it’s right. There’s not often a mistake about bad news.”
Eve bent over him very tenderly and kissed him. He was holding her hand between his, patting it gently with his rough, weather-beaten fingers. He was looking straight in front of him with that painful look of helplessness which had earned him the friendship of Lord Seahampton in Barcelona.
“But,” said the girl at length, “you cannot go to sea again.”
She knew that he would never get a ship, for his seamanship, like all other things that were his, was hopelessly superannuated. He was not fit to be trusted with a ship--no owner would dream of it, no crew would sail under him.
“There’s men,” said the captain humbly, “who learnt their seamanship from me--who sailed under me--p’raps one of them would give me a berth as first mate or even second mate under him--for a shipmate they would do it.”
Captain Bontnor had fallen behind the times even in his sentiments. He did not know that in these days of short voyages, of Seamen’s Unions, and Firemen’s Friendlies and Stokers’ Guilds, a shipmate is no longer a special friend--the tie is broken, as are many other ties, by the advance of education.
Then the old man pulled himself together, and smiled bravely at his niece.
“It is not for myself that I’m worrying,” he said, “but for you. I don’t quite see my way clear yet. It’s sort of sharp and sudden. I cannot get the poor Mertons out of my head--people that have been accustomed to their carriages and all. It’s hard for them! You see, what they say is that their financial facilities have been withdrawn, and I dare say nobody is to blame. It is just what they call the hand of God, in a bill of lading--just the hand of God.”
“Yes, dear,” answered Eve. “And now I am going to serve out a glass of sherry; you want it after your quick walk. That is what you did at sea, you served it out, did you not?”
“He, he! yes, dearie; that is it.”
His rugged hand shook as he drank the wine.
“Only,” he went on, after wiping his moustache vigorously with a red pocket-handkerchief--“only it was rum, dearie--rum, you know, for heavy weather. It puts heart into the men.”
His face suddenly clouded over again.
“And we’ve run into heavy weather, haven’t we? Just the hand of God.”
“Finish the glass,” said Eve, and she stood over him while he drank the wine.
“And now,” she went on, “listen to me. I have had a very important letter, which could hardly have come at a more opportune moment. In fact, I think we may call it also . . . what they say in a bill of lading.”
She opened the letter, as if about to read it aloud, and on glancing through she seemed to change her mind.
“It is from Mrs. Harrington,” she said. “It is a very kind letter.”
She looked at her uncle, whose face had suddenly hardened. He seemed to be schooling himself to hear something unpleasant.
“Ay!” he muttered, “ay! I suppose she’ll get her way now. I suppose I can’t hope to keep you now. She’ll get you--she’ll get you.”
“Then I think you are a very mean old man!” exclaimed Eve. “I don’t believe you are a sailor at all. You are what you call a land-lubber, if you think that I am the sort of person to accept your kindness when you are prosperous, and then - and then when heavy weather comes to go away and leave you.”
The old man smiled rather wanly, and fumbled with the red pocket-handkerchief.
“As it happens, Mrs. Harrington does not ask me to go and stay with her--she asks me--” She paused and laid her hand on his shoulder gently. “She asks me--to accept money.”
Captain Bontnor sat upright.
“Ay-y-y,” he said, “charity.”
“Yes,” said Eve quietly, “charity; and I’m going to accept it.”
Captain Bontnor scratched his head. His manners were not, as has already been stated, remarkable for artificiality or superficial refinement. He screwed up his features as if he were swallowing something nasty.
“Read me the letter,” he said.
Eve opened the missive again, and looked at it.
“She puts it very nicely,” she said. “She asks if you will permit me to accept a dress allowance from a rich woman who does not always spend her money discreetly.”
It must be admitted that Mrs. Harrington’s nice way of putting it lost nothing by its transmission through Eve’s lips.
Thus poor Charity creeps in wherever she can shelter. She is not proud. She does not ask to be accepted for her own sake; though Heaven knows she frequently is. She masquerades in any costume - she accepts the humiliation of any disguise. She is ready to be cast down before swine, or raised high before the eyes of fools. She is used as a tool or a stepping-stone--the humble handmaid of the tuft-hunter and the toady. She is dragged through the mire of the slums to the dwellings of the wealthy and idle. She is hounded up and down the world--the plaything of Fashion, the trap of the unwary, the washerwoman of the unclean who wish to try the paths of virtue--for a change. And she is still Charity, and she lives strong and pure in herself. It has been decreed that we shall ever have the poor beside us, and so long shall we also possess those who live on them.
Charity begetteth charity, and it was for Charity’s sake that Eve Challoner took the bitter bread to herself, and accepted Mrs. Harrington’s offer.
Her own pride lay between her and this woman whom she knew to be capricious, uncertain, lacking the quality of justice. Her duty towards Captain Bontnor lay between her and high Heaven.
So Eve Challoner learnt her first lesson in that school where we all are called to study sooner or later--the school of Adversity; where some of us pass creditably, whilst others are ploughed, and a few--a very few--take honours.