Hocken and Hunken Part 20

"Not at all," said Captain Cai vaguely, as she paused with elaborate humility.

"For aught that I know, sir, Mrs Bosenna may be a d.u.c.h.ess fresh dropped from heaven. I _have_ heard it mentioned in a casual way that she came from Holsworthy in Devon, and (unless my memory deceives me, sir) nothing relative to d.u.c.h.esses was dropped--or not at the time, at least.

But I pa.s.s no remarks on Mrs Bosenna. If she chose to marry an old man with her eyes open, it's not for me to cast it up, beyond saying that some folks know on which side their bread's b.u.t.tered. _I_ never dragged in Mrs Bosenna. You will do me that justice, I hope?"

"Then who the d.i.c.kens is it you're talkin' about?"

"Which to mention any names, sir, it is not my desire; and the best of us can't help how we was born nor in what position. But farm service is farm service, call it what you please; and if a party as shall be nameless starts sitting down with her betters, perhaps you will tell me when and where we are going to end? That, sir, is the very question I put to Captain Hunken; and with all respect, sir, 'dammit' doesn't meet the case."

"Perhaps not," agreed Captain Cai, but not with entire conviction.

"It was all the answer Captain Hunken gave me, sir. 'Dammit,' he says, 'Mrs Bowldler, go and lay supper as I tell you, and we'll talk later.'"

"Supper? Where?"

"In the summer-house, sir: which it's not for me to talk about taking freaks into your head, and the spiders about, or the size o' them at this time o' the year. Captain Hunken and the lady and the other party are at present in your portion of the grounds, hoping that you'll join them in time for the fireworks; which it all depends if you like mixed company. And afterwards the guests"--Mrs Bowldler threw withering scorn into the word--"the guests is to adjourn to Captain Hunken's summer-house or what not, there to partake of supper. And if I'm asked to wait, sir," she concluded, "I must beg to give notice on the grounds that I'm only flesh and blood."

"O--oh!" said Captain Cai reflectively. It occurred to him that 'Bias had hit on a compromise with some tact. For the moment he was not thinking of Mrs Bowldler, and did not grasp the full meaning of her ultimatum.

She repeated it.

"Tut--tut," said he. "Who wants you to wait table against your will?

The boy'll do well enough."

"Which," said Mrs Bowldler, "I have took the opportunity of sounding Palmerston, and he offers no objection."

"Very well, then."

Mrs Bowldler was visibly relieved. She heaved a sigh and fired a parting shot.

"I can only trust," she said, "if Palmerston waits as he'll catch up with no low tricks. Boys are so receptive!"

Cai descended to his garden, and at the foot of it found a trio of dark figures by the low fence of the edge of the cliff--'Bias and Mrs Bosenna in talk together, Dinah standing a little apart. "But that," thought he, "is only her place, as I've just been hearing." He had a just mind and was slow to suspect. Even now he could not a.s.similate the poison of Mr Philp's story. Everybody knew Mr Philp and his propensities.

As Mr Toy the barber was wont to say, "Philp don't mean any harm: he just makes mischief like a bee makes honey."

So Cai said, "Cheer-o, 'Bias!"--his usual greeting--hoped he saw Mrs Bosenna well, and fell in on the other side of her by the breast-rail.

The sky by this time was almost pitch dark, with a star or two shining between somewhat heavy ma.s.ses of clouds. He begged Mrs Bosenna to be sure that she was comfortably anch.o.r.ed, as he put it. The rail was stout and secure; she might lean her weight against it without fear.

He went on to apologise for his late arrival. The Committee Ship had been at sixes and sevens all day.

"n.o.body could have guessed it, from the sh.o.r.e," said Mrs Bosenna graciously, and appealed to 'Bias. "Coming through the town I heard it on all hands."

"Not so bad," agreed 'Bias, and this, from him, was real praise.

"'Not a hitch from first to last--the most successful Regatta we've had for years.' Those were the very expressions that reached me."

"We'll do better next time," Cai a.s.sured her, swallowing down the flattery. "Believe it or not, I had trouble enough to keep things straight; and being one to fret when they're not ship-shape--"

"_I_ know!" murmured Mrs Bosenna sympathetically. "You could not bear to come away until you'd seen everything through. Well, as it happens, there are people in Troy who recognise this; and it does me good to hear you talk about 'next time.' Though, to be sure, one can't count next time on such perfect weather."

"There'll be rain in half an hour or less," grunted 'Bias.

"Oh, not before the fireworks, surely?" she exclaimed in pretty dismay.

"Do say, now, Captain Hocken!"

She turned to Cai, and then--

"Oh--oh!" she cried as, far away up the harbour, the signal rocket shot hissing aloft and exploded with a tremendous detonation. The roar of it filled their ears; but Cai scarcely heeded the roar. It reverberated from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, and the winding creeks took it up, to re-echo it; but Cai did not hear the echoes.

For (it was no fancy!) a small hand had clutched at his arm out of the darkness and was clinging to it, trembling, for protection. . . . Yes, it trembled there yet! . . . He put a hand over it, to rea.s.sure it and at the same time to detain it.

He could not see her face. The rocket was of the kind known as "fog detonator," and scattered no light with its explosion. He greatly desired to know whether her gaze was turned towards him or up at the dark sky, and this he could not tell. But the hand lay under cover of his arm, and, as moments went by was not withdrawn. . . .

Half a minute pa.s.sed thus, and then (oh, drat the fireworks after all!) a salvo of rockets climbed the sky--luminous ones, this time. As they shot up with a _wroo--oo--sh!_ the hand was s.n.a.t.c.hed away, gently, swiftly. . . .

They burst in b.a.l.l.s of fire--blue, green, yellow, crimson. They lit up the garden so vividly that each separate leaf on the laurustinus bushes cast its own sharp shadow. "O--oh!" breathed Mrs Bosenna, but now on a very different note, and as though her whole spirit drank deep, quenching a celestial desire. Cai, stealing a look, saw her profile irradiated, her gaze uplifted to the zenith.

The fiery shower died out, was extinct. Across the party hedge the boy Palmerston was heard inquiring if that was the way the angels behaved in heaven.

"Moderately so," responded the polite, high-pitched voice of Mrs Bowldler (who never could resist fireworks). "Moderately so, but without the accompanyin' igsplosion. That is, so far as we are permitted to guess. . . . And highly creditable to _them_," it wound up, with sudden asperity, "considering the things they sometimes have to look down on!"

"I'd _love_," aspired the romantic boy, "to go up--an' up--an' up, just like that, an' then bust--bust in red and yellow blazes."

"You will, one o' these days; that is, if you behave yourself. We have that a.s.surance within us."

"I wouldn' mind the dyin' out," ingeminated Palmerston, "so's I could have one jolly good bust."

"In the land of marrow an' fatness we shall be doing of it permanent,"

Mrs Bowldler a.s.sured him for his comfort. "That's to say if we ever get there. But you just wait till they let off the set pieces. There's one of Queen Victoria, you can see the very eyelids. Sixty years Queen of England, come next June: with _G.o.d Bless Her_ underneath in squibs like Belshazzar's Feast. And He _will_, too, from what I know of 'im."

As it turned out, at the distance from which our company viewed them, these set pieces laid some tax on the imagination. They were duly applauded to be sure; and when Mrs Bosenna exclaimed "How lovely!" and 'Bias allowed "Not so bad," their tribute scarcely differed, albeit paid in different coin. The rockets, however, won the highest commendation, and a blaze of coloured fires on the surrounding hills ran the rockets a close second.

Towards the close of the display a few drops of rain began to fall from the overcharged clouds: large premonitory drops, protesting against this disturbance of the upper air.

"That's the fine-alley!" announced 'Bias, as another detonator banged aloft, while a volcano of "fiery serpents" hissed and screamed behind it. "Let's run for shelter!"

He offered his arm. Cai did the same. But Mrs Bosenna--she had not clung to any one this time--very nimbly slipped between them and took Dinah for protector. She was in the gayest of moods, as they all scrambled up the wet steps to the roadway, and so down other flights of wet steps under the pattering rain to the shelter of 'Bias's summer-house.

"Just in time!" she panted, shaking the drops from her cloak. "And I can't remember whenever I've enjoyed myself so much. But--" as she looked about her and over the table--"what a feast!"

It was a n.o.ble feast. If Cai had been busy all day, no less had 'Bias been busy. There were lobsters; there were chickens, with a boiled ham; there was a cold sirloin of beef, for grosser tastes; there were jellies, tartlets, a trifle, a cherry pie. There was beer in a nine-gallon jar, and cider in another. There were bottles of fizzy lemonade, with a dash of which Mrs Bosenna insisted on diluting her cider. Her mirth was infectious as they feasted, while the rain, now descending in a torrent, drummed on the summer-house roof.

"How on earth we're ever to get home, Dinah, I'm sure I don't know!

And what's more, I don't seem to care, just yet."

Captain Cai and Captain 'Bias protested in unison that, when the time came, they would escort her home against all perils.

"You can trust me, ma'am, I hope?" blurted 'Bias.