Half-Past Bedtime Part 20

"Then that's all the more reason," said Captain Jeremy, "why she'll be glad to let you go."

Then he asked the blind painter if he would like to come as well, but he shook his head and said that he would be unable to, though he had several times visited the Gulf of Oranges, and would much have liked to go there once more. But after a little persuasion Marian's mother said that Marian could go if Gwendolen went; and a week later they were climbing on board the schooner as she lay at anchor in Lullington Bay.

That was the first time that Marian had been aboard her, and everything seemed strange to her, smelling so fresh and salt. But of course Gwendolen knew all about the ship, and soon she was busy taking Marian round. She showed her the big hold, dark and empty, in which they would bring back the cases of fruit, and the cook's galley, and the sailors'

bunks, and Captain Jeremy's neat little cabin. And then, just after tea, the anchor was pulled up, and the sails were shaken out, and the wind began to fill them; and presently there were little waves slapping against the bow, and the land was fading into the dusk behind them.

Both of them were sea-sick during the night, and felt rather queer most of the next day. But the day after that they were as hungry as they could be, and were soon on deck talking to the sailors. Most of these were the same sailors that had been to Monkey Island, and so Gwendolen knew them already; and she introduced Marian to them, who very soon felt as if they had been friends of hers all her life. But Lancelot was her favourite, just as he was Gwendolen's, and when he was off duty and smoking his pipe, they would sit on either side of him and listen to his stories as the deck beneath them rose and fell. As for Porto Blanco and the Gulf of Oranges, he had been there more times, he said, than he could remember; and once he had been stranded there for such a long time that he had learned to talk the language as well as any of the inhabitants.

"But it's a queer place," he said, "and they're queer people, sort of half-way between black and white, and the sun's in the bones of them, and half the time they're fighting, and the other half they're snoozing in the shadders." But for the most part, he said, they were kindly people and very indulgent to each other's faults; and the women all went barefooted and smoked cigarettes, and the men sang love-songs together when they weren't quarrelling.

"And up in the hills," said Lancelot, "back of the town, you can see such flowers as you never saw anywhere, and great big oranges hanging off of the trees, and corn-cobs taller than your head. And back of the orange-trees there's great big forests, full of little Injuns with long beards, and nasty yeller snakes, and birds of paradise, and parrots and monkeys and inji-rubber trees," and sometimes he would go on talking till they forgot all about supper-time, and the stars would open above their heads, and far away, perhaps, like a little chain of beads, they would see the port-lights of some great liner.

The wind held so fair that by the end of a month they were nearly four thousand miles from home, and a week later when they came on deck they found the sea dotted with little islands. So lovely were they in their wet colours that they might have been enamelled there during the night, and Marian and Gwendolen almost gasped with joy as the ship slid past them in the early morning. For a long time now the weather had been so hot that awnings had been stretched over the deck; and Marian and Gwendolen wore as little as they could--the thinnest of white jerseys and the shortest of skirts. For nearly three weeks they had worn no shoes or stockings, and their feet and legs were the colour of copper; and for two or three hours in the middle of the day Captain Jeremy had made them go to sleep.

But to-day they were much too excited to stay in their hammocks; and presently, as they hung over the schooner's bow, they could see the horizon beginning to creep closer, and the hill-tops and forests of the mainland. The wind had dropped now, and the sea was like gla.s.s, and sometimes the ship scarcely seemed to move, but early in the afternoon they began to see the roofs of the town and the tower of the cathedral and the white-walled quay. Slowly they drew nearer until they could see the people on the sh.o.r.e or lounging in the other ships at anchor in the harbour; and just before sunset they had come to their moorings and were lying securely against the quay.

Down in the cabin, Captain Jeremy was talking business with two of the fruit-merchants--dark-skinned men in white linen suits, smoking pale-coloured long cigars. But Marian and Gwendolen stayed up on deck, watching the night coming down like a shutter, and the lamps beginning to shine in the crooked streets and behind the windows of the houses.

Now that it was cooler the people were taking the air, and gaily-dressed women sauntered up and down; and in front of a cafe, where there were a lot of little tables, some men were singing and playing guitars. It was all so strange, it was like being in a theatre, and the air was full of spice-scents and the scent of oranges; and it was hard to believe that they were even in the same world with school and Peter Street and Fairbarrow Down.

But next morning it all seemed more real again, and Captain Jeremy took them round the town; and they had lunch with one of the fruit-merchants in a low-walled house built round a courtyard. After lunch they slept in long armchairs, and when they woke up queer sorts of drinks were brought to them; and then it was time to go back to the ship again and watch the cases of fruit being packed in the hold. After a day or two, when they had learned their way about, Captain Jeremy let them go ash.o.r.e alone; and by the end of the week they had explored every corner of the town, and even gone for walks along the country roads. Some of these were broad roads leading to other towns, but most of them became mule-tracks after a mile or two; and they seldom went very far up these because of the heat, which was greater then even the inhabitants had ever known.

Day after day, through the still air, the great sun emptied itself into the town; and the streets cracked, and the barometer fell, and Captain Jeremy looked anxiously at the weather; and it was upon the hottest day of all--the day before they were leaving--that Gwendolen suddenly gripped Marian's arm.

It was early in the morning, before the sun was at its steepest, and they had wandered past the cathedral into the outskirts of the town, where a little track between two high garden walls had tempted them to explore it. It had led them into a sort of garden, untidy and deserted, and on the other side of this there stood a house--a yellow-walled house with latticed windows and violet shadows under its broken roof. Beside the front door stood a crooked pot, and the front door itself was a cave of darkness, and up in the right-hand corner, under the roof, was a little window standing open. Gwendolen found herself shaking all over.

"Why, it's the very house," she said, "of the sorrowful picture."

And so it was, and as they stood looking up at it, it seemed more sorrowful to Gwendolen than ever. For there was the little window almost beseeching her in actual words to go and comfort it; and she even had a feeling that for all these years it had been crying in vain to her across half the world. But there was the front door too, dark with anger, and before they could move a man came out of it. He was a big man with a fat face, and he stood blinking for a moment in the sunshine; and then they saw him frown as he caught sight of them; and he shouted words at them that they didn't understand.

But it was evident that he wanted them to go away, and they saw him touch a knife that he wore in his belt; and so they ran back again up the little track, and there in the street they met Lancelot. He was grinning as usual, and he looked so big and strong that they could almost have hugged him on the spot; but his face grew serious when they told him what had happened, and he stroked his chin and became thoughtful.

"Well, it's a good thing," he said, "that you come away. In this here town you have to be careful. But I'll have a turn round and see if I can find anything out about this here house and the feller as lives in it."

Then he mopped his face and looked at the sky and told them to go back again to the ship; and a couple of hours later he came aboard and beckoned them to talk to him while he smoked his pipe. Everything was ready now for the ship to sail next morning, and most of the other sailors were asleep, and Captain Jeremy had gone to lunch again with the fruit-merchant in the town.

"Well, this here feller," said Lancelot, "seems a queer sort of cove, with a bad name, and he lives all alone; and his wife ran away from him six years ago, taking their only little girl along with her. But there's some folks believe that he went after her and killed her--anyway, she was found dead in the forest--but what happened to Pepita, who was three years old at the time, n.o.body knows, for she's never been seen."

Then he smoked his pipe for a minute. "But I tell you what," he said.

"He's pretty sure to be asleep just now. And if you like I'll go and have a look at the house, and see what there is to it, and come and tell you."

"But I must come too," said Gwendolen. "I really must."

"And so must I," said Marian. "We must both come," and after a while they persuaded him to take them, and they set off again through the town. It was now so hot that it seemed as if the very earth must begin to melt and crumble away; and when they came to the house there were no signs of life--there was only that little window, dark and aching. For a moment they stood listening at the front door, and then they cautiously stepped inside; and there, in a lower room, asleep on the floor, they saw the big man with the fat face. Then they stole upstairs until they came to the little room under the roof to which the window belonged; and then, as they pushed the door open, the tears sprang to their eyes, and Lancelot swore a great oath.

For there they saw, tied to a staple in the wall, a little girl of about nine years old, ragged and scarred, with timid dark eyes and cheeks like a flower that has never seen the sun. Tied across her mouth was a dirty cloth, and when she first saw them she shrank away; but as Gwendolen went up to her with outstretched arms, her eyes widened in sheer astonishment. Then Lancelot stooped and cut the rope that bound her, and pulled away the cloth that was gagging her mouth; and then he jumped round just as the little girl's father came stumbling fiercely into the room.

Gwendolen heard him shouting something and using the word Pepita; and as she clasped the little girl in her arms she knew why it was that all these years the sorrowful picture seemed to have been calling to her. It was because the little girl's pain and longing for freedom had somehow stolen into the painter's brush. Then she saw Lancelot's fist shoot out like a bullet, and Pepita's father tumble to the floor; and then Lancelot shouted to them to hurry away, and picking up Pepita, he ran down the stairs. In less than a minute they were in the little track between the high garden walls; and in a few seconds more they were out in the street, and then a most strange and awful thing happened. For Marian stopped short and pointed with her finger.

"Why, what's the matter," she cried, "with the cathedral tower?"

They all stared at it, and saw it rock to and fro; and then Lancelot swung round toward the open country.

"Run for your lives," he said, and then, as they followed him, they felt the ground beneath them rise and fall. Then they heard a crash, and people shouting, and then all was still again, and they stopped running. Lancelot wiped his forehead.

"Well, now you know," he said, "what an earthquake's like. Lucky it wasn't a worse one."

And there was the cathedral tower still standing on its foundations, but when they looked for Pepita's house it had fallen down like a pack of cards, a fitting grave for Pepita's father. For they heard in the evening that he had been killed; and Pepita afterward told them how he had killed her mother, and how he had kept her for all those years tied to the wall in that dark upper room. As for Captain Jeremy, he was so rejoiced at seeing Marian and Gwendolen safe that he told Lancelot he would have forgiven him if he had brought fifty Pepitas on board.

Lancelot was very pleased about that, because, in his heart of hearts, he knew that he ought never to have let them come with him. But, as he told Gwendolen, all was well that ended well, and he hoped that she would allow him to take care of Pepita.

Gwendolen wasn't quite sure at first, but when they arrived home her aunt and Mrs Robertson thought it a good idea. For Mrs Robertson had made up her mind to marry Lancelot, and Pepita was just the little girl, she said, that she had always wanted.

We're going the way that Drake went, We shall see what Drake's men saw, A coppery curly cobra-snake, And a scarlet-cloaked macaw.

For we're going the way that Drake went, We're taking the jungle trail, And we'll bring you a dark-eyed damsel home, And a c.o.c.k with a golden tail.

THE MOON-BOY'S FRIEND

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Lagoon]

XIII

THE MOON-BOY'S FRIEND

It was about a week after Marian and Gwendolen had arrived home from Porto Blanco that Uncle Joe suddenly asked Cuthbert and Doris to spend a fortnight with him at Redington-on-Sea. It was not the sort of town that Uncle Joe liked, because it was full of big houses and glittering hotels; and most of the people in it wore expensive clothes, and it had a long pier, with a theatre at the end. But he always went there in the first week of August, when Mr Parker took his annual holiday, so that he could visit an old friend of his, who had lodgings on the Marine Parade.

This old friend was called Colonel Stookley, and he had lost both his legs as the result of wounds; and Uncle Joe generally took rooms next door and played chess with him every evening. He had been very brave, but was now rather wheezy, besides having something wrong with his liver; and as he had lost most of his friends he was always glad to see Uncle Joe. Generally Uncle Joe went to see him alone, so that he could be with him most of the day; but this year he thought that Cuthbert needed a change, and he asked Doris, because Marian had just had a voyage. At first they were afraid that they would have to take their best clothes, but Uncle Joe said that he didn't mind. So long as they brushed their teeth every day they could wear what they liked, he said, and they could paddle and swim as much as they pleased.

So they met Uncle Joe at the station at eleven o'clock on the 3rd of August, and a couple of hours later they were having lunch with him in the big dining-car of the express. Through the windows, as they rocked along, trying their best not to spill their soup, they could see the harvesters at work in the fields, and ribbons of flowers as they crashed through the little stations; and a couple of hours after that, where some hills had broken apart, Doris was the first of them to see a st.i.tch of blue; and by half-past four they were talking to the landlady of number 70 Marine Parade.

This was next door to where Colonel Stookley lodged, and the landlady's name was Mrs Bodkin; and she gave Doris a kiss, and said that she was tall for her age and that Cuthbert's cheeks would soon have some roses in them. Then she showed them their bedrooms, which were at the top of the house, looking out to sea over the esplanade; and they found that they could talk to each other out of the windows and watch the people in the gardens below.

These were very trim gardens, like the garden in Bellington Square, separated by railings from the flagged esplanade; and beyond the esplanade there were terraces of pebbles, crumbling into a stretch of hard, wet sand.

As it was tea-time there were not many people about; but by six o'clock there were people everywhere--people in the gardens, listening to the band, and looking sideways at each other's clothes; people on the esplanade, sauntering up and down, and saying how-do-you-do to their friends; people on the pier staring through telescopes, and people on the beach reading magazines, and people on the sands building castles or paddling with their children on the fringe of the sea. The tide was so low that n.o.body was bathing, and weed-capped rocks stood out of the water; and after they had paddled a little Doris suggested that they should go and listen to the pierrots.

This was the hour--just before the children's bedtime, and before the grown-up people went home to dinner--when the pierrots and beach-entertainers were all at their busiest, trying to earn money. Upon a wooden platform, with three chairs and a piano, two men and two girls were singing and dancing; and a hundred yards away from them, on a similar sort of stand, there were three banjo-players with blackened faces. But there were such crowds round each of these platforms that Cuthbert and Doris couldn't get near them; and there was a conjurer, a little farther on, who seemed to be even more popular. They watched him for a minute or two, and saw the people raining pennies on him, but they were too far away to be able to see his tricks; and then they saw a clown, farther along still, turning somersaults on the sand.