The Girl on the Boat
painful degree I have excited his pity and terror; and, though that is
what Aristotle says one ought to do, I feel that a little respite would
not be out of order. The reader can stand having his emotions tortured
up to a certain point; after that he wants to take it easy for a bit.
It is with pleasure, therefore, that I turn now to depict a quiet,
peaceful scene in domestic life. It won’t last long—three minutes,
perhaps, by a good stop-watch—but that is not my fault. My task is to
record facts as they happened.
The morning sunlight fell pleasantly on the garden of Windles, turning
it into the green and amber Paradise which Nature had intended it to
be. A number of the local birds sang melodiously in the undergrowth at
the end of the lawn, while others, more energetic, hopped about the
grass in quest of worms. Bees, mercifully ignorant that, after they had
worked themselves to the bone gathering honey, the proceeds of their
labour would be collared and consumed by idle humans, buzzed
industriously to and fro and dived head foremost into flowers. Winged
insects danced sarabands in the sunshine. In a deck-chair under the
cedar-tree Billie Bennett, with a sketching-block on her knee, was
engaged in drawing a picture of the ruined castle. Beside her, curled
up in a ball, lay her Pekinese dog, Pinky-Boodles. Beside Pinky-Boodles
slept Smith, the bulldog. In the distant stable-yard, unseen but
audible, a boy in shirt-sleeves was washing the car and singing as much
as a treacherous memory would permit of a popular sentimental ballad.
You may think that was all. You may suppose that nothing could be added
to deepen the atmosphere of peace and content. Not so. At this moment,
Mr. Bennett emerged from the French windows of the drawing-room, clad
in white flannels and buckskin shoes, supplying just the finishing
touch that was needed.
Mr. Bennett crossed the lawn, and sat down beside his daughter. Smith,
the bulldog, raising a sleepy head, breathed heavily; but Mr. Bennett
did not quail. Since their last unfortunate meeting, relations of
distant, but solid, friendship had come to exist between pursuer and
pursued. Sceptical at first, Mr. Bennett had at length allowed himself
to be persuaded of the mildness of the animal’s nature and the
essential purity of his motives; and now it was only when they
encountered each other unexpectedly round sharp corners that he ever
betrayed the slightest alarm. So now, while Smith slept on the grass,
Mr. Bennett reclined in the chair. It was the nearest thing modern
civilisation has seen to the lion lying down with the lamb.
“Sketching?” said Mr. Bennett.
“Yes,” said Billie, for there were no secrets between this girl and her
father. At least, not many. She occasionally omitted to tell him some
such trifle as that she had met Samuel Marlowe on the previous morning
in a leafy lane, and intended to meet him again this afternoon, but
apart from that her mind was an open book.
“It’s a great morning,” said Mr. Bennett.
“So peaceful,” said Billie.
“The eggs you get in the country in England,” said Mr. Bennett,
suddenly striking a lyrical note, “are extraordinary. I had three for
breakfast this morning which defied competition, simply defied
competition. They were large and brown, and as fresh as new-mown hay!”
He mused for a while in a sort of ecstasy.
“And the hams!” he went on. “The ham I had for breakfast was what I
call ham! I don’t know when I’ve had ham like that. I suppose it’s
something they feed the pigs on!” he concluded, in soft meditation. And
he gave a little sigh. Life was very beautiful.
Silence fell, broken only by the snoring of Smith. Billie was thinking
of Sam, and of what Sam had said to her in the lane yesterday; of his
clean-cut face, and the look in his eyes—so vastly superior to any look
that ever came into the eyes of Bream Mortimer. She was telling herself
that her relations with Sam were an idyll; for, being young and
romantic, she enjoyed this freshet of surreptitious meetings which had
come to enliven the stream of her life. It was pleasant to go warily
into deep lanes where forbidden love lurked. She cast a swift
side-glance at her father—the unconscious ogre in her fairy-story. What
would he say if he knew? But Mr. Bennett did not know, and consequently
continued to meditate peacefully on ham.
They had sat like this for perhaps a minute—two happy mortals lulled by
the gentle beauty of the day—when from the window of the drawing-room
there stepped out a white-capped maid. And one may just as well say at
once—and have done with it—that this is the point where the quiet,
peaceful scene in domestic life terminates with a jerk, and pity and
terror resume work at the old stand.
The maid—her name, not that it matters, was Susan, and she was engaged
to be married, though the point is of no importance, to the second
assistant at Green’s Grocery Stores in Windlehurst—approached Mr.
Bennett.
“Please, sir, a gentleman to see you.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Bennett, torn from a dream of large pink slices edged
with bread-crumbed fat.
“A gentleman to see you, sir. In the drawing-room. He says you are
expecting him.”
“Of course, yes. To be sure.”
Mr. Bennett heaved himself out of the deck-chair. Beyond the French
windows he could see an indistinct form in a grey suit, and remembered
that this was the morning on which Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s clerk—who was
taking those Schultz and Bowen papers for him to America—had written
that he would call. To-day was Friday; no doubt the man was sailing
from Southampton to-morrow.
He crossed the lawn, entered the drawing-room, and found Mr. Jno.
Peters with an expression on his ill-favoured face, which looked like
one of consternation, of uneasiness, even of alarm.
“Morning, Mr. Peters,” said Mr. Bennett. “Very good of you to run down.
Take a seat, and I’ll just go through the few notes I have made about
the matter.”
“Mr. Bennett,” exclaimed Jno. Peters. “May—may I speak?”
“What do you mean? Eh? What? Something to say? What is it?”
Mr. Peters cleared his throat awkwardly. He was feeling embarrassed at
the unpleasantness of the duty which he had to perform, but it was a
duty, and he did not intend to shrink from performing it. Ever since,
gazing appreciatively through the drawing-room windows at the charming
scene outside, he had caught sight of the unforgettable form of Billie,
seated in her chair with the sketching-block on her knee, he had
realised that he could not go away in silence, leaving Mr. Bennett
ignorant of what he was up against.
One almost inclines to fancy that there must have been a curse of some
kind on this house of Windles. Certainly everybody who entered it
seemed to leave his peace of mind behind him. Jno. Peters had been
feeling notably happy during his journey in the train from London, and
the subsequent walk from the station. The splendour of the morning had
soothed his nerves, and the faint wind that blew inshore from the sea
spoke to him hearteningly of adventure and romance. There was a jar of
pot-pourri on the drawing-room table, and he had derived considerable
pleasure from sniffing at it. In short, Jno. Peters was in the pink,
without a care in the world, until he had looked out of the window and
seen Billie.
“Mr. Bennett,” he said, “I don’t want to do anybody any harm, and, if
you know all about it, and she suits you, well and good; but I think it
is my duty to inform you that your stenographer is not quite right in
her head. I don’t say she’s dangerous, but she isn’t compos. She
decidedly is _not_ compos, Mr. Bennett!”
Mr. Bennett stared at his well-wisher dumbly for a moment. The thought
crossed his mind that, if ever there was a case of the pot calling the
kettle black, this was it. His opinion of Jno. Peters’ sanity went down
to zero.
“What are you talking about? My stenographer? What stenographer?”
It occurred to Mr. Peters that a man of the other’s wealth and business
connections might well have a troupe of these useful females. He
particularised.
“I mean the young lady out in the garden there, to whom you were
dictating just now. The young lady with the writing-pad on her knee.”
“What! What!” Mr. Bennett spluttered. “Do you know who that is?” he
exclaimed.
“Oh, yes, indeed!” said Jno. Peters. “I have only met her once, when
she came into our office to see Mr. Samuel, but her personality and
appearance stamped themselves so forcibly on my mind, that I know I am
not mistaken. I am sure it is my duty to tell you exactly what happened
when I was left alone with her in the office. We had hardly exchanged a
dozen words, Mr. Bennett, when—”—here Jno. Peters, modest to the core,
turned vividly pink—“when she told me—she told me that I was the only
man she loved!”
Mr. Bennett uttered a loud cry.
“Sweet spirits of nitre! What!”
“Those were her exact words.”
“Five!” ejaculated Mr. Bennett, in a strangled voice. “By the great
horn spoon, number five!”
Mr. Peters could make nothing of this exclamation, and he was deterred
from seeking light by the sudden action of his host, who, bounding from
his seat with a vivacity of which one would not have believed him
capable, charged to the French window and emitted a bellow.
“Wilhelmina!”
Billie looked up from her sketching-block with a start. It seemed to
her that there was a note of anguish, of panic, in that voice. What her
father could have found in the drawing-room to be frightened at, she
did not know; but she dropped her block and hurried to his assistance.
“What is it, father?”
Mr. Bennett had retired within the room when she arrived; and, going in
after him, she perceived at once what had caused his alarm. There
before her, looking more sinister than ever, stood the lunatic Peters;
and there was an ominous bulge in his right coat-pocket which to her
excited senses betrayed the presence of the revolver. What Jno. Peters
was, as a matter of fact, carrying in his right coat-pocket was a bag
of mixed chocolates which he had purchased in Windlehurst. But Billie’s
eyes, though bright, had no X-ray quality. Her simple creed was that,
if Jno. Peters bulged at any point, that bulge must be caused by a
pistol. She screamed, and backed against the wall. Her whole
acquaintance with Jno Peters had been one constant backing against
walls.
“Don’t shoot!” she cried, as Mr. Peters absent-mindedly dipped his hand
into the pocket of his coat. “Oh, please don’t shoot!”
“What the deuce do you mean?” said Mr. Bennett irritably. “Wilhelmina,
this man says that you told him you loved him.”
“Yes, I did, and I do. Really, really, Mr. Peters, I do!”
“Suffering cats!”
Mr. Bennett clutched at the back of his chair.
“But you’ve only met him once,” he added almost pleadingly.
“You don’t understand, father dear,” said Billie desperately. “I’ll
explain the whole thing later, when....”
“Father!” ejaculated Jno. Peters feebly. “Did you say ‘father?’”
“Of course I said ‘father!’”
“This is my daughter, Mr. Peters.”
“My daughter! I mean, your daughter! Are—are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Do you think I don’t know my own daughter?”
“But she called me Mr. Peters!”
“Well, it’s your name, isn’t it?”
“But, if she—if this young lady is your daughter, how did she know my
name?”
The point seemed to strike Mr. Bennett. He turned to Billie.
“That’s true. Tell me, Wilhelmina, when did you and Mr. Peters meet?”
“Why, in—in Sir Mallaby Marlowe’s office, the morning you came there
and found me when I was talking to Sam.”
Mr. Peters uttered a subdued gargling sound. He was finding this scene
oppressive to a not very robust intellect.
“He—Mr. Samuel—told me your name was Miss Milliken,” he said dully.
Billie stared at him.