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Hocken and Hunken by A. T. Quiller Couch

A >> A. T. Quiller Couch >> Hocken and Hunken




"I never knew 'em when they weren't," said Captain Cai.

"When d'ye pay off, by the way?"

"Not till Saturday. There's no hurry. When a man drops hook on his
last cruise I allow 'tis his duty to tidy up an' leave all ship-shape;
in justice to hisself, you understand. There's Tregaskis an' the crew,
too,--old shipmates every one--"

The chandler nodded.

"Ay, you're to be envied, Cap'n. There's others--masters of oil-tanks,
f'r instance--as makes their pile faster; some of em' in ways that
needn't be mentioned atween you an' me. But slow an' honest has been
your motto; an' here you be--What's your age? Fifty? Say fifty at the
outside.--Here you be at fifty with a tidy little income and a clean
conscience to sit with in your pew o' Sundays; nothing to do o'
week-days but look after a few steady-goin' investments an' draw your
little dividends."

"That'd be more business than I've a mind for, Rogers," answered Captain
Cai; "at any rate, while you live. I've a-left my affairs to you these
twelve year, an' mean to continue, please God--you knowin' my ways."

The chandler blinked. "That's very han'some o' ye, Cap'n," he said
after a long pause. "But--"

"There's no 'but' about it," interrupted Captain Cai shortly, looking
away and resting his gaze on the _Hannah Hoo_ out in the harbour, where
she lay on the edge of the deep-water channel among a small crowd of
wind-bounders. Her crew had already made some progress in unbending
sails, and her stripped spars shone as gold against the westering
sunlight. "No 'but' about it, Rogers--unless o' course you're
unwillin'."

"What's willin' or unwillin' to a man broken in health as I be?
That's the p'int, Cap'n--here, set opposite to 'ee, staring 'ee in the
face--a hulk, shall we say?--rudder gone, ridin' to a thread o' life--"
"You'll ride to it a many years yet, please God again."

"I take 'e to witness this is not my askin'."

Captain Cai stared. "'Tis my askin', Rogers. I put it as a favour."

"What about your friend? I was thinkin' as maybe _he'd_ take over the
job."

"'Bias?" Captain Cai shook his head. "He've no gift in money matters;
let be that I don't believe in mixin' friendship in business."

Mr Rogers pondered this for some while in silence. Then he struck a
hand-bell beside him, and his summons was answered by a small
short-skirted handmaiden who had waited table.

"Pipe's out, my dear," he announced. "An' while you're about it you may
mix us another glassful apiece."

"Not for me, thank 'ee," said Captain Cai.

"An' not for him, neither," said the girl. She was but a child, yet she
spoke positively, and yet again without disrespect in her manner.
"'Tis poison for 'ee," she added, knocking out the ash from her master's
churchwarden pipe and refilling it from the tobacco-jar. "You know what
the doctor said?"

"Ugh!--a pair o' tyrants, you an' the doctor! Just a thimbleful now--if
the Cap'n here will join me."

"You heard him? He don't want another glass."

Her solemn eyes rested on Captain Cai, and he repeated that he would
take no more grog.

She struck a match and held it to the pipe while the chandler drew a few
puffs. Then she was gone as noiselessly as she had entered.

"That's a question now," observed Captain Cai after a pause.

"What's a question?"

"Servants. I've talked it over with 'Bias, and he allows we should
advertise for a single housekeeper; a staid honest woman to look after
the pair of us--with maybe a trifle of extra help. That gel, for
instance, as waited table--"

"Tabb's child?"

"Is that her name?"

"She was christened Fancy--Fancy Tabb--her parents being a brace o'
fools. Ay, she's a nonesuch, is Tabb's child."

"With a manageable woman to give her orders--What's amiss with ye,
Rogers?"

Captain Cai put the question in some alarm, for the heaving of the
ship-chandler's waistcoat and a strangling noise in his throat together
suggested a sudden gastric disturbance.

But it appeared they were but symptoms of mirth. Mr Rogers lifted his
practicable hand, and with a red bandanna handkerchief wiped the rheum
from his eyes.

"Ho, dear!--you'll excuse me, Cap'n; but 'with a manageable woman,' you
said? I'd pity her startin' to manage the like of Fancy Tabb."

"Why, what's wrong wi' the child?"

"Nothin'--let be I can't keep a grown woman in the house unless she's a
half-wit. I have to get 'em from Tregarrick, out o' the Home for the
Feeble-Minded. But it don't work so badly. They're cheap, you
understand; an' Fancy teaches 'em to cook. If they don't show no
promise after a fortni't's trial, she sends 'em back. I hope," added
the chandler, perceiving Captain Cai to frown, "you're not feelin' no
afterthoughts about that leg o' mutton. Maybe I ought to have warned
'ee that 'twas cooked by a person of weak intellect."

"Don't mention it," said Captain Cai politely. "What the eye don't see
the heart don't grieve, as they say; an' the jint was boiled to a turn.
. . . I was only wonderin' how you picked up such a maid!"

The chandler struck again upon the small hand-bell. "I got her from a
bad debt."

"Seems an odd way--" began Captain Cai, after pondering for a moment,
but broke off, for the hand-maiden stood already on the threshold.

"Fancy Tabb," commanded the chandler, "step fore, here, into the
light."

The child obeyed.

"You see this gentleman?"

"Yes, master." Her eyes, as she turned them upon Captain Cai, were frank
enough, or frank as eyes could be that guarded a soul behind glooms of
reserve. They were straight, at any rate, and unflinching, and very
serious.

"You know his business?"

"I think so, master. . . . Has he come to sign the lease? I'll fetch it
from your desk, if you'll give me the keys."

"Bide a bit, missy," said Captain Cai. "That'd be buying a pig in a
poke, when I ha'n't even seen the house yet--not," he added, with a
glance at Mr Rogers, "that I make any doubt of its suiting.
But business is business."

The child turned to her master, as much as to ask, "What, then, is your
need of me?"

"Cap'n Hocken wants a servant," said Mr Rogers, answering the look.

She appeared to ponder this. "Before seein' the house?" she asked,
after a moment or two.

"She had us there, Rogers!" chuckled Captain Cai; but the child was
perfectly serious.

"You would like me to show you the house? Master has the key."

"That's an idea, now!" He was still amused.

"When?"

"This moment--that's to say, if your master'll spare you?" He glanced
at Mr Rogers, who nodded.

"Couldn't do better," he agreed. "You've a good two hours afore dusk,
an' she's a proper dictionary on taps an' drainage."

"Please you to come along, sir." The child waited respectfully while
Captain Cai arose, picked up his hat, and bade his host "So long!"
He followed her downstairs.

Their way to the street lay through the shop, and by the rearward door
of it she paused to reach down her hat and small jacket. The shop was
long, dark, intricate; its main window overshadowed by the bulk of the
Town Hall, across the narrow alley-way; its end window, which gave on
the Quay, blocked high with cheeses, biscuit-tins, boxes of soap, and
dried Newfoundland cod. Into this gloom the child flung her voice, and
Captain Cai was aware of the upper half of a man's body dimly
silhouetted there against the panes.

"Daddy, I'm going out."

"Yes, dear," answered the man's voice dully. "For an hour, very likely.
This gentleman wants to see his new house, and I'm to show it to him."

"Yes, dear."

"You'll be careful, won't you now? Mrs M--fus'll be coming round,
certain, for half-a-pound of bacon; And that P--fus girl for candles, if
not for sugar. You've to serve neither, mind, until you see their
money."

"Yes, dear. What excuse shall I make?" The man's voice was weary but
patient. The tone of it set a chord humming faintly somewhere in
Captain Cai's memory: but his mind worked slowly and (as he would have
put it) wanted sea-room, to come about.

They had taken but a few steps, however, when in the narrow street,
known as Dolphin Row, he pulled up with all sail shaking.

"That there party as we passed in the shop--"

"He's my father," said the child quickly.

"And you're Tabb's child. . . . You don't tell me that was Lijah Tabb,
as used to be master o' the _Uncle an' Aunt?_"

"I don't tell you anything," said the child, and added, "he's a
different man altogether."

"That's curious now." Captain Cai walked on a pace or two and halted
again. "But you're Tabb's child," he insisted. "And, by the trick of
his voice, if that wasn't Lijah--"

"His name _is_ Elijah."

"Eh?" queried Captain Cai, rubbing his ear. "But I heard tell," he went
on in a puzzled way, searching his memory, "as Lijah Tabb an' Rogers had
quarrelled desp'rate an' burnt the papers, so to speak."

"'Twas worse than that." She did not answer his look, but kept her eyes
fixed ahead.

"Yet here I find the man keepin' shop for Rogers: and as for you--if
you're his daughter--"

"I'm in service with Mr Rogers," said Fancy, who as if in a moment had
recovered her composure. "If you want to know why, sir, and won't chat
about it, I don't mind tellin' you."

"You make me curious, little maid: that I'll own."

"'Tis simple enough, too," said she. "He's had a stroke, an' he's goin
to hell."

"Eh? . . . I don't see--"

"He's goin' to hell," she repeated with a nod as over a matter that
admitted no dispute.

"Well, but dang it all!" protested Captain Cai after a pause,
"we'll allow as he's goin' there, for the sake of argyment. Is that why
you're tendin' on him so careful?"

"You mustn't think," answered the child, "that I'm doin' it out o' pity
altogether. There's something terrible fascinatin' about a man in that
position."



CHAPTER IV.


VOICES IN THE TWILIGHT.

"I don't see anything immodest in it," said Mrs Bosenna looking up.
She was on her knees and had just finished pressing the earth about the
roots of a small rose-bush. "The house is mine, and naturally I am
curious to know something about my tenant."

Dinah, her middle-aged maid, who had been holding the bush upright and
steady, answered this challenge with a short sniff. "He don't seem over
curious, for his part, about _you_." She, too, glanced upward and
toward the house, the upper storey alone of which, from where they
stood, was visible above the spikes of a green palisade. A roadway
divided the house from the garden, which descended to the harbour-cliff
in a series of tiny terraces. "They've been pokin' around indoors this
hour and more."

"You don't suppose he caught sight of us?"

"Maybe not; but Tabb's child did. That girl 've a-got eyes like
niddles. If he don't come down to pay his respects, you may bet 'tis
because he don't want to." Dinah, being vexed, spoke viciously.
Her speech implied that her mistress's conduct had been not only
indelicate but clumsy.

"You are a horrid woman," Mrs Bosenna accused her; "and I can't think
what put such nasty-minded thoughts into your head."

"No more can I, unless you suggested 'em," Dinah retorted.

"You were willing enough to come, when--when--"

"When you proposed it," Dinah relentlessly concluded the sentence.
"Of course. Why not?"

"And you were excited enough--you can't deny it"--her mistress insisted,
"when you brought the news this morning, that his ship had arrived.
But now, and only because you happen to be put out--"

"Who said I was put out?"

"As if I couldn't tell by your tone! Now, just because you happen to be
put out, I'm indelicate all of a sudden."

"I never said so," Dinah protested sullenly.

"_Said_ so?" Mrs Bosenna, rising, faced her with withering scorn.
"I hope you've a better sense of your position than to _say_ such a
thing. Oh, you content yourself with hinting! . . . But who owns this
house and garden, I should like to know?"

Dinah, though remorseful, showed fight yet. "Then why couldn' ye take
the bull by the horns an' march in by the front door?"

"Why? Because you agreed with me that to plant a two or three roses for
him would be a nice attention! . . . You can't start planting roses in
the dusk, at the end of an afternoon call; and, as it is, we've only
just finished before twilight."

Dinah was minded to retort that, as it was, the planting had taken a
long time. But she contented herself with glancing again at the house
and saying evasively that the new tenant appeared to take more interest
in fixtures than in flowers.

"I own," sighed Mrs Bosenna, "I thought he'd have been eager to take
stock of the garden before it grew dark. Such a beautiful garden, as it
is, in a small way!"

"When a man has passed his whole life at sea--"

"True," her mistress agreed. "Yet how it must enlarge the mind!
So different from farming!"

"It must be ekally dependent on the weather," Dinah opined. "At least.
More so, takin' one thing with another. Oh, decidedly. It stands to
reason."

"I'm romantic perhaps," confessed Mrs Bosenna; "but I can never think of
any ship's captain as being quite an ordinary man. The dangers he must
go through--and the foreign countries he visits--and up night after
night in all weathers, staring into the darkness in an oilskin suit!"

"'Tisn' the sort o' man I should ever choose for a husband, if I wanted
one," maintained Dinah.

"Who was talking of husbands, you silly woman?"

"I don't see how else the men-folk consarn us, mistress."

"You're coarse, Dinah."

"I'm practical, anyway. If they choose to toss up an' down 'pon the sea
they're welcome, for me. But, for my part, when I lay me down at night,
I like to be sure o' gettin' up in the same position next mornin'; and
I'd to feel the same about a husband, supposin' I cared for the man."

"I often think," mused Mrs Bosenna, "that we're not half grateful enough
to sailors, considering the risks they run and the things they bring us
home: tea and coffee, raisins, currants, with all kinds of spices and
cordial drinks."

"Oranges an' lemons, say the bells o' St Clemen's. Oranges--"

"I wasn't thinking of this Captain Hocken in particular," interrupted
the widow hastily. "Take a Christmas pudding, for instance. Flour and
suet, and there's an end if you depend on the farmer; just an ordinary
dumpling. Whereas the sailor brings the figs, the currants, the candied
peel, the chopped almonds, the brandy--all the ingredients that make it
Christmassy."

"And then the farmer takes an' eats it. Aw, believe me, mistress,
Stay-at-home fares best in this world!"

"I don't know, Dinah," sighed Mrs Bosenna. "Haven't you ever in your
life wished for a pair o' wings?"

"To wear in my hat? Why, o' course I have."

"No, no; I mean, for the wings of a dove, to fly away and be--well, not
at rest exactly--"

"No, I haven't, mistress. But 'tis the way with you discontented rich
folks. Like Hocken's ducks, all of 'ee--never happy unless you be where
you baint. . . . I wonder if that Hocken was any relation--S-sh! now!
Talk of the devil!"


Captain Cai and Fancy had spent a good hour-and-a-half in overhauling
the two cottages. Their accommodation was narrow enough, but Captain
Cai, after half a lifetime on shipboard, found them little short of
palatial. The child could scarcely drag him away from the tiny
bath-rooms with their hot and cold water taps.

"Lord," said he, gazing down into the newly painted bath in No.1.
"To think of 'Bias in the likes o' this!"

"You may, if you care to," said Fancy.

"'Tis a knack of mine," he apologised. "We'll suppose him safely out of
it, an' what happens next? Why, he'll step across to the linen-cupboard
here, wi' the hot pipes behind it, an' there's a clean shirt dried an'
warmed to his skin. He gets into that--the day bein' Sunday, as we'll
suppose--an' finishes his dressin', danderin' forth an' back from one
room to t'other; breakfast gettin' ready downstairs an' no hurry for
it--all his time his own, clean away to sundown. Up above the lower
window-sash here with the Prodigal Son in stained glass, and very
thoughtful of the architect, too--"

"It isn't stained glass," the child corrected; "it's what they call a
transparency."

"I hope you're mistaken. . . . I must try it from the outside before I
let 'Bias undress here. As I was sayin', through the upper pane he'll
see his cabbages comin' on at the back; an' in the front, under his
window, there's the bread-cart--"

"But you said 'twas Sunday."

"So I did. . . . Well, there's the milk-cart anyway, an' a boy janglin'
the cans. You can't think how pretty these shore-noises be to a
sailor-man. An' down in the town the church bell goin' for early
Communion, but he'll attend mornin' service later on. An', across the
road, there's the garden, full o' flowers, an' smellin'--an' a blessed
sense as he can pick an' choose an' take his time with it all."
Captain Cai had wandered to the front window. He let fall these last
words slowly, in a kind of reverie, as he gazed out on the garden over
which the twilight was fast gathering.

"With all this time on your hands, I reckon you won't be takin' a look
round the garden?" hazarded Fancy.

"Certainly. Why not?"

"Well, 'tis drawin' in dusk. But there! I wouldn' disappoint Mrs
Bosenna, if I was you."

"Eh?"

"She's been down in the garden this hour and more, waitin' for you to
take her by surprise."

"Oh--come now, I say!"

Fancy nodded her head. "I don't know as I blame her," she said
judicially. "She's curious to know what you look like, that's all; or
else she's curious for you to know what she looks like. Anyway, she's
down there, if you've a mind to be polite."

Seeing that he hesitated, the child led the way. Captain Cai followed
her in something of a tremor. Across the road they went and through the
garden-gate; and the sound of their footsteps on the flagged pathway
gave Mrs Bosenna warning. By the time they reached the second terrace
she was down on her knees again, packing the soil about the rose-bush,
which Dinah obediently held upright for her.

"Losh, here's visitors!" exclaimed Dinah.

Mrs Bosenna turned with the prettiest start of surprise, and sprang to
her feet. If there was a suspicion--a shade--of overacting, the
twilight concealed it. She had a charming figure, very supple and
maidenly: she bought her corsets in London. The kneeling posture and
the swift rise from it were alike noticeably graceful, even in the dusk.

"Visitors?" she echoed. "And me in this state to receive 'em, earthed
up to the wrists!" She plucked off her gardening-gloves, handed them to
Dinah, and stooped to snatch up one of a pair of white cuffs--badges of
her widowhood--that she had laid aside on the turf before starting to
work. While slipping it over her wrist she found time to glance up at
Captain Cai, who fumbled confusedly with the rim of his tall hat.

"Excuse me, madam--no wish to intrude. We'll take ourselves off this
minute, eh?" He turned to the child, who, however, did not budge.

"Please, don't go. You are--?"

"Caius Hocken, ma'am--of the _Hannah Hoo_--at your service."

"Dear me, what a very pleasant surprise!" (Oh, Mrs Bosenna!) She held
out a hand. "I am glad to make your acquaintance, Captain Hocken."

"I hope I see you well, ma'am?" Captain Cai took the hand and dropped it
nervously.

"Quite well, I thank God. . . . They told me your ship had arrived, sir;
but I could not count--could I?--on your coming to inspect the house so
soon."

"If I've been over hasty, ma'am--"

"Not at all," she interrupted. "There now! I put things so clumsily at
times! I meant to excuse _myself_; for, you see, the house has been
yours since Lady-day--that's to say, if you sign the lease,--and
Lady-day's more than a week past. So 'tis _I_ that am the intruder.
. . .But passing the garden yesterday, I'd a notion that half a dozen
dwarf roses would improve it, without your knowledge. You're not
offended, I hope, now that you've caught me? I dote on roses, for my
part."

"I--I take it very kindly, ma'am."

"'Tis a funny time o' the year to be plantin' roses, isn't it?" asked
Fancy.

"Eh?" In the dusk Mrs Bosenna treated her to a disapproving stare.
"Is that Elijah Tabb's child? . . . You've grown such a lot lately, I
hardly recognised you."

"I noticed that," said the child with composure, "though I didn't guess
the reason. But 'tis a funny time to be plantin' roses, all the same."

"And pray, child, what do you know about roses?"

"Nothing," answered Fancy, "'cept that 'tis a funny time to be plantin'
'em."

"When you grow a little older," said Mrs Bosenna icily, "you'll know
that anything can be done with roses in these days--with proper
precautions. Why"--she turned to Captain Cai--"I've planted out roses
in July month--in pots, of course. You break the pots in the October
following. But there must be precautions."

"Meanin' manure?"

"Cow," interposed Dinah tersely, "it's the best. Pig comes next, for
various reasons."

"We need not go into details," said Mrs Bosenna. "I sent down a
cartload this morning and had it well dug in. Provided you dig it deep
enough, and don't let it touch the young roots--"

"I thank you kindly, ma'am," said Captain Cai, "and so will my friend
'Bias Hunken when he hears of it."

"Ah, my other tenant?--or tenant in prospect, I ought to say. He has
not arrived yet, I understand."

"He's due to-morrow, ma'am, by th' afternoon train."

"You must bring him over to Rilla Farm, to call on me," said Mrs Bosenna
graciously.

Captain Cai rubbed his chin. He was taken at unawares; and not finding
the familiar beard under his fingers, grew strangely helpless. "As for
that, ma'am," he stammered, "I ought to warn you that 'Bias isn' easily
caught."

"God defend me!" answered the widow, who had a free way of speaking at
times. "Who wants to catch him?"

"You don't take my meanin', ma'am, if you'll excuse me," floundered
Captain Cai in a sweat. "I ought to ha' said that 'Bias, though one in
a thousand, is terrible shy with females--or ladies, as I should say."

"He'll be all the more welcome for that," said Mrs Bosenna relentlessly.
"You must certainly bring him, Captain Hocken."

Before he could protest further, she had shaken hands, gathered up
trowel and kneeling-pad, given them into Dinah's keeping, unpinned and
shaken down the skirt of her black gown, and was gone--gone up the
twilit path, her handmaiden following,--gone with a fleeting smile that,
while ignoring Fancy Tabb, left Captain Cai strangely perturbed, so
nicely it struck a balance between understanding and aloofness.

He rubbed his chin, then his ear, then the back of his neck.

"Lord!" he groaned suddenly, "where was my manners?"

"Eh?"

"I never said a word about her affliction."

"What might _that_ be, in your opinion?"

"Her first husband, o' course--or, as I _should_ say, the loss of him.
Shockin' thing to forget. . . . I've almost a mind now to follow her an'
make my excuses."

"Do," said Fancy; "I'd like to hear you start 'pon 'em."

"Well, you can if you will. Come over with me to Rilla to-morrow
forenoon. I'll get leave for you."

"That'd spoil the fun," said Fancy, not one risible muscle twitching;
"but go you'll have to. Mrs Bosenna has left one of her cuffs behind."

She pointed to a white object on the turf. Captain Cai stooped, picked
it up, and held it gingerly in his hand.

"She didn' seem a careless sort, neither," he mused.

"Not altogether," the child agreed with him.


"Dinah," said Mrs Bosenna, halting suddenly as they walked homeward in
the dusk, "I've left one of my cuffs behind!"

"Yes, mistress."

"'Yes, mistress,'" Mrs Bosenna mimicked her. "If 'twas anything
belonging to you, you'd be upset enough."

"I'd have more reason," said Dinah stolidly. "Do 'ee want me to run
back an' fetch it?"

"No--o." Her mistress seemed to hesitate. "'Tisn't worth while; and
ten chances to one somebody will find it."

"That's what I was thinkin'," agreed Dinah.



CHAPTER V.


A TESTIMONIAL.

Captain Cai's sea-chest had been conveyed to the Ship Inn, Trafalgar
Square (so called--as the landlord, Mr Oke, will inform you--after the
famous battle of that name), and there he designed to lodge while his
friend and he furnished their new quarters.

His bed, a four-poster, was luxurious indeed after his old bunk in the
_Hannah Hoo_, and he betook himself to it early. Yet he did not sleep
well. For some while sleep was forbidden by a confusion of voices in
the bar-parlour downstairs; then, after a brief lull, the same voices
started exchanging good-nights in the square without; and finally, when
the rest had dispersed, two belated townsmen lingered in private
conversation, now walking a few paces to and fro on the cobbles, but
ever returning to anchorage under a street lamp beneath his window.
By-and-by the town lamplighter came along, turned off the gas-jet and
wished the two gossips good-night, adding that the weather was
extraordinary for the time of year; but still they lingered.
Captain Cai, worried by the murmur of their voices, climbed out of bed
to close the window. His hand was outstretched to do so when, through
the open sash, he caught a few articulate words--a fragment of a
sentence.

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