Shining Ferry - Arthur Quiller-Couch

"To my knowledge, you've not eaten enough to-day to keep a mouse alive. Well, if you won't, you won't; but I've been through the garden, and there's a dish of strawberries to take home to your wife."

Mrs. Purchase could not know—good soul—that in removing the two children to shipboard, to spare them the ugly preparations for the funeral, she was connecting their grandfather's death in their minds for ever with the most delightful holiday in life. Yet so it was. Punctually at half-past eight Mr. Purchase appeared and escorted them on board the Virtuous Lady; and so, out-tired with their long day, drugged and drowsed by strong salt air and sunshine and the swift homeward drive, they came at nightfall, and as knights and princesses come in fairy tales, to the palace of enchantment. As they drew close, its walls towered up terribly and overhung them, lightless, forbidding; but far aloft the riding-lamp flamed like a star, and Myra clapped her hands as she reached the deck and peered down into a marvellous doll's-house fitted with couches, muslin blinds, and brass-locked cupboards that twinkled in the lamplight. There was a stateroom, too, with a half-drawn red curtain in place of a door, and beyond the curtain a glimpse of two beds, one above the other, with white sheets turned back and ready for the sleepers—at once like and deliciously unlike the beds at home. The children, having unpacked their bag and undressed, knelt down side by side as usual in their white night-rails. But Myra could not pray, although she repeated the words with Clem. Her eyes wandered among marvels. The lower bed (assigned to Clem by reason of his blindness) was not only a bed but a chest of drawers.

"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child;
Pity my simplicity."—

Her fingers felt and tried the brass handles. Yes, a real chest of drawers! And the washstand folded up in a box, and in place of a chair was a rack with netting in which to lay their garments for the night! "God bless dear Clem, and grandfather."—What was she saying? Their grandfather was dead, and praying for dead people was wicked. Susannah had once caught her praying for her mother, and had told her that it was wicked, with a decisiveness that closed all argument. None the less she had prayed for her mother since then—once or twice, perhaps half a dozen times—though slily and in a terror of being punished tor it and sent to hell. "And Susannah, and Martha, and Elizabeth Jane,"—this was the housemaid—"and Peter Benny, and Jim Tregay, and all kind friends and relations,"—including Uncle Sam and that odious boy of his? Well, they might go down in the list; but she wouldn't pretend to like them.

"Ready, my dears?" asked Uncle Purchase from outside. "Sing out when you're in bed, and I'll come and dowse the lights."

He did so, and stood for a moment hesitating, scarcely visible in the faint radiance cast through the doorway by the lamp in his own cabin. Maybe the proper thing would be to give them a kiss apiece? He could not be sure, being a childless man. He ended by saying good-night so gruffly that Myra fancied he must be in a bad temper.

"Clem!" she whispered, after lying still for a while, staring into darkness. "Clem!"

But Clem was already sound asleep.

She sighed and turned on her pillow. She had wanted to discuss with him a thought that vexed her. Did folks love one another when they grew up? And, if so, how did they manage it, seeing that so few grownups had anything lovable about them? Clem and she, of course, would go on loving each other always; but that was different. When one grown-up person died, were the others really sorry? No one seemed sorry for her grandfather—no one—except, perhaps, Peter Benny….