The Mayor of Troy Part 6

His gaze, travelling over the low parapet of the quay-wall, rested on the quiet harbour, the ships swinging slowly with the tide, the farther sh.o.r.e touched with the sunset glory. Evensong, the close of day, the end of deeds, the twilit pa.s.sing of man--all these the scene, the hour suggested. And yet (the Major poured out a gla.s.s of the green-sealed Madeira) this life was good and desirable.

The Major's garden (as I have said) was a narrow one, in width about half the depth of his house, terminating in the "Terrace" and a narrow quay-door, whence a ladder led down to the water. Alongside this garden ran the rear wall of the Custom House, which ab.u.t.ted over the water, also with a ladder reaching down to the foresh.o.r.e, and not five yards from the Mayor's. On the street side one window of the Custom House raked the Mayor's porch; in the rear another and smaller window overlooked his garden, and this might have been a nuisance had the Collector of Customs, Mr. Pennefather, been a less considerate neighbour. But no one minded Mr. Pennefather, a little, round, self-depreciating official who, before coming to Troy, had served as clerk in the Custom House at Penzance, and so, as you might say, had learnt his business in a capital school: for the good feeling between the Customs officials and the free-traders of Mount's Bay, and the etiquette observed in their encounters, were a by-word throughout the Duchy.

The Major, glancing up as he sipped his Madeira and catching sight of Mr. Pennefather at his window, nodded affably.

"Ah! Good evening, Mr. Collector!"

"Good evening, Major! You'll excuse my seeming rudeness in overlooking you. To tell the truth, I had just closed my books, and the sight of your tulips--"

"A fair show this year--eh?" The Major took pride in his tulips.

"Magnificent! I was wondering how you will manage when the bulbs deteriorate; for, of course, there's no renewing them from Holland, nor any prospect of it while this war lasts."

The Major sipped his wine. "Between ourselves, Mr. Collector, I have heard that forbidden goods find their way into this country somehow.

Eh?"

The Collector laughed. "But the price, Major? That is where it hits us, even in the matter of tulips. War is a terrible business."

"It has been called the sport of kings," answered the Major, crossing his legs with an air of careless greatness, and looking more like the Prince Regent than ever.

"I have sometimes wondered, being of a reflective turn, on the--er-- far-reaching consequences of events which, to the casual eye, might appear insignificant. An infant is born in the remote island of Corsica. Years roll on, and we find our gardens denuded of a bulb, the favourite habitat of which must lie at least eight hundred miles from Corsica as the crow flies. How unlikely was it, sir, that you or I, considering these tulips with what I may perhaps call our finite intelligence--"

"Step around, Mr. Collector, and have a look at them. You can unfold your argument over a gla.s.s of wine, if you will do me that pleasure."

The Major had a high opinion of Mr. Pennefather's conversation; he was accustomed to say that it made you think.

"If you are sure, sir, it will not incommode you?"

"Not in the least. I expect Hansombody will join us presently.

Scipio, bring out the brown sherry."

Now the Major had not invited Dr. Hansombody; yet that he expected him is no less certain than that, while he spoke, Dr. Hansombody was actually lifting the knocker of the front door.

How did this happen? The Major--so used was he to the phenomenon-- accepted it as a matter of course. Hansombody (good soul!) had a wonderful knack of turning up when wanted. But what attracted him?

Was it perchance that magnetic force of will which our Major, and all truly great men, unconsciously exert? No; the explanation was a simpler one, though the Major would have been inexpressibly shocked had he suspected it.

Miss Marty and Dr. Hansombody were mutually enamoured.

They never told their love. To acknowledge it nakedly to one another--nay, even to themselves--had been treason. What?

Could Miss Marty disturb the comfort, could her swain destroy the confidence, could they together forfeit the esteem, of their common hero? In converse they would hymn antiphonally his virtues, his graces of mind and person; even as certain heathen fanatics, wounding themselves in honour of their idol, will drown the pain by loud clashings of cymbals.

They never told their love, and yet, as the old song says:

"But if ne'er so close ye wall him, Do the best that ye may, Blind Love, if so ye call him, He will find out his way."

Miss Marty had found out a way.

The Major's house, as you have been told, looked down the length of Fore Street; and on the left hand (the harbour side) of Fore Street, at some seventy yards' distance, Dr. Hansombody resided over his dispensary, or, as he preferred to call it, his "Medical Hall."

The house stood aligned with its neighbours but overtopped them by an attic storey; and in the north side of this attic a single window looked up the street to the Major's windows--Miss Marty's among the rest--and was visible from them.

Behind this attic window the Doctor, when released from professional labours, would sit and read, or busy himself in arranging his cases of b.u.t.terflies, of which he had a famous collection; and somehow--I cannot tell you when or how, except that it began in merest innocence--Miss Marty had learnt to signal with her window-blind and the Doctor to reply with his. This evening, for instance, by lowering her blind to the foot of the second pane from the top, Miss Marty had telegraphed,--

"The Major requests you to call and take wine with him."

The Doctor drew his blind down rapidly and as rapidly raised it again. This said, "I come at once," and Miss Marty knew that it added, "On the wings of love!"

A slight agitation of the lower left-hand corner of her blind supplemented the message thus,--

"There will be brown sherry."

"Then will I also call to-morrow," said the Doctor's blind, roguishly, meaning that if the Major indulged in brown sherry (which never agreed with him) this convivial visit would almost certainly be followed by a professional one. Miss Marty, having no signal for the green-sealed Madeira, postponed explanation, and drew her blind midway down the window. The Doctor did the same with his.

This signal and its answer invariably closed their correspondence; but what it meant, what tender message it conveyed, remained an uncommunicated secret. By it Miss Marty--but shall I reveal the arcana of that virgin breast? Let us be content to know that whatever it conveyed was, on her part, womanly; on his, gallant and even dashing.

The Doctor lost no time in fetching his hat and gold-topped cane.

He knew the Major's brown sherry; it had twice made a voyage to the West Indies. He hied him up the street with alacrity.

The Collector, though he had the worse of the start, was not slow.

He also had tasted the Major's brown sherry. He closed his ledgers, locked his desk, caught up his hat, and was closing the Custom House door behind him when, from the top of the Custom House steps, he saw the Major's door open to admit Dr. Hansombody.

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy and pursue in imagination the pleasures of hope, attend to the story of Dr.

Hansombody, Mr. Pennefather, and the brown sherry!

"Dr. Hansombody?" With her own hand Miss Marty opened the door, and her start of surprise was admirably affected. (Ah, Miss Marty!

Who was it rated Lavinia this morning for a verbal fib, until the poor child dropped her head upon the kitchen table and with sobs confessed herself the chief of sinners?) But even as she welcomed the apothecary, her gaze fell past him upon the form of a stranger who, sauntering up the street, had paused at the gate to scan the Major's house-front.

"I ask your pardon." The stranger, a long, lean, lantern-jawed man, raised his hat and addressed her with a strong French accent.

"But does Mr. Hymen inhabit here?"

"Yes, sir; Major Hymen--that is to say the Mayor--lives here."

"Ah! he is also the Maire? So much the better." He drew out a card.

"Will it please you, mademoiselle, to convey this to him?"

Standing on the third step he held up the card. Miss Marty took it and read, "M. Cesar Dupin."

"Of Guernsey," added M. Dupin, rubbing his long unshaven chin while he stole a long look at the Doctor. "It is understood that I come only to lodge a complaint."

"To be sure--to be sure," agreed the Doctor, hurriedly. "A Guernsey merchant," he whispered. . . . "You will convey my excuses to the Major; an unexpected visitor--I quite understand."

He made a motion to retire. At the same moment the Collector, after scanning the stranger from the Custom House porch, himself unseen, unlocked his door again without noise, re-entered his office and delicately drew down the blind of the little window overlooking the Major's garden.

"There is the parlour," Miss Marty made answer in an undertone.

"This gentleman may not detain the Major long." She turned to the stranger. "Your business, sir, is doubtless private?"

"I should prefer."

"Quite so." She raised her voice and called, "Scipio! Scipio!

Ah, there you are! Take this gentleman's card out to the terrace and inform the Major that he desires an interview."