The Tale of Timber Town Part 3

"Isn't it rather like stealing, to take what really belongs to other people?"

"Rubbish! Open it, and see for yourself," said Amiria, smiling.

Rose undid the packet's covering, and disclosed a black leather-covered case, much the worse for wear.

"It isn't injured by the water--it was in a tin-lined box," said the Maori girl. "It opens like a card-case."

Rose opened the little receptacle, which divided in the middle, and there lay exposed a miniature portrait framed in oxidized silver.

The portrait represented a beautiful woman, yellow-haired, with blue eyes and a bright colour on her cheeks, lips which showed indulgence in every curve, and a snow-white neck around which was clasped a string of red coral beads.

Rose fixed her eyes on the picture.

"Why do you give me this?" she asked. "Who is it?"

Amiria turned the miniature over. On its back was written "Annabel Summerhayes."

Rose turned slightly pale as she read the name, and her breath caught in her throat. "This must be my mother," she said quietly. "When she died, I was too young to remember her."

Both girls looked at the portrait; the brown face close to the fair, the black hair touching the brown.

"She must have been very good," said Amiria, "----look how kind she is."

Rose was silent.

"Isn't that a nice memento of the wreck," continued the Maori girl. "But anyhow you would have received it, for the Collector of Customs has the packing-case in which it was found. However, I thought you would like to get it as soon as possible."

"How kind you are," said Rose, as she kissed Amiria. "This is the only picture of my mother I have seen. I never knew what she was like. This is a perfect revelation to me."

The tears were in her voice as well as in her eyes, and her lip trembled. Softly one brown hand stole into her white one, and another brown hand stole round her waist, and she felt Amiria's warm lips on her cheek. The two girls had been playmates as children, they had been at school together, and had always shared each other's confidences, but this matter of Annabel Summerhayes was one which her father had forbidden Rose to mention; and around the memory of her mother there had grown a mystery which the girl was unable to fathom.

"Now that this has occurred, there is no harm in disobeying my father,"

she said. "He told me never to speak of my mother to him or anyone else, but when you give me her picture, it would be stupid to keep silence.

She looks good, doesn't she, Amiria? I think she was good, but my father destroyed everything belonging to her: he even took the trouble to change my name from Annabel to Rose--that was after we arrived here and I was three years old. I do not possess a single thing that was hers except this picture; and even that I must hide, for fear my father should destroy it. Come, we will go in."

They pa.s.sed along the shady verandah, and entered the house. Its rooms were dark and cool, and prettily if humbly furnished. Rose took Amiria along a winding pa.s.sage, up a somewhat narrow flight of stairs, and into a bedroom which was in one of the many gables of the wooden house. The Maori girl took off her hat and gloves, and Rose, drawing a bunch of keys from her pocket, opened a work-box which stood on the dressing-table, and in it she hid the miniature of her mother. Then she turned, and confronted Amiria.

The dark girl's black hair, loosened by riding, had escaped from its fastenings, and now fell rippling down her back.

"It's a great trouble," she said. "Nothing will hold it--it is like wire. The pins drop out, and down it all comes."

Rose was combing and brushing the glossy, black tresses. "I'll try _my_ hand," said she. "The secret is plenty of pins; you don't use enough of them. Pins, I expect, are scarce in the _pa_." She had fastened up one long coil, and was holding another in place with her white fingers, when a gruff voice roared through the house:--

"Rosebud, my gal! Rosebud, I say! What's taken the child?"

Whilst the two girls had been in the bedroom, three figures had come into sight round the bend of the beach-road. They walked slowly, with heavy steps and swaying gait, after the manner of sailor-men. As they ascended the winding pathway leading to the house, they argued loudly.

"Jes' so, Cap'n Summerhayes," said the short, thick-set man, with a blanket wrapped round him in lieu of a coat, to the big burly man on his left, "I stood off and on, West-Nor'-West and East-Sou'-East, waiting for the gale to wear down and let me get into your tuppeny little port.

Now _you_ are pilot, I reckon. What would _you_ ha' done?"

"What would I ha' done, Sartoris?" asked the bulky man gruffly. "Why, damme, I'd ha' beat behind Guardian Point, and took shelter."

"In the dark?"

"In the dark, I tell you."

"Then most likely, Pilot, you'd ha' run _The Witch_ on the Three Sisters' reefs, or Frenchman's Island. I stood off an' on, back'ard an'

forrard."

"An' shot yourself on to the rocks."

The third man said nothing. He was looking at the Pilot's house and the flowers while the two captains paused to argue, and fidgeted with the blanket he wore over his shoulders.

"Well, come in, come in," said the Pilot. "We'll finish the argyment over a gla.s.s an' a snack." And then it was that he had roared for his daughter, who, leaving Amiria to finish her toilet, tripped downstairs to meet her father.

"Why, Rosebud, my gal, I've been calling this half-hour," exclaimed the gruff old Pilot. "An' here's two gentlemen I've brought you, two shipwrecked sailors--Cap'n Sartoris, of _The Mersey Witch_, and Mr.

Scarlett." His voice sounded like the rattling of nails in a keg, and his manner was as rough as his voice.

Each blanketed man stepped awkwardly forward and shook hands with the girl, first the captain, and then the tall, uncomfortable-looking, younger man, who turned the colour indicated by his name.

"What they want is a rig-out," rumbled the Pilot of Timber Town; "some coats, Rosebud; some shirts, and a good feed." The grizzled old mariner's face broke into a grim smile. "I'm Cap'n Summerhayes, an't I?

I'm Pilot o' this port, an't I?--an' Harbour Master, in a manner o'

speaking? Very good, my gal. In all those capacities--regardless that I'm your dad--I tell you to make these gen'lemen comfortable, as if they were at home; for you never know, Rosebud, when you may be entertaining a husband unawares. You never know." And, chuckling, the old fellow led the shipwrecked men into his bedroom.

When they had been provided with suits belonging to the Pilot, they were shown into the parlour, where they sat with their host upon oak chairs round a battered, polished table, with no cloth upon it.

Captain Sartoris was a moderately good-looking man, if a trifle weather-beaten, but dressed in the Pilot's clothes he was in danger of being lost and smothered; and Scarlett bore himself like one who laboured under a load of misery almost too great to be borne, but he had wisely rejected the voluminous coat proffered by his benefactor, and appeared in waistcoat and trousers which gave him the appearance of a growing boy dressed in his father's cast-off apparel.

Such was the guise of the shipwrecked men as they sat hiding as much of themselves as possible under the Pilot's table, whilst Rose Summerhayes bustled about the room. She took gla.s.ses from the sideboard and a decanter from a dumb-waiter which stood against the wall, and placed them on the table.

"And Rosebud, my gal," said the Pilot, "as it's quite two hours to dinner, we'll have a morsel of bread and cheese."

The French window stood open, and from the garden was blown the scent of flowers.

Rose brought the bread and cheese, and stood with her hands folded upon her snowy ap.r.o.n, alert to supply any further wants of the guests.

"And whose horse is that on the drive?" asked the Pilot.

"Amiria's," replied his daughter.

"Good: that's a gal after my heart. I'm glad she's come."

"Take a chair, miss," said Captain Sartoris from the depths of the vast garments that enc.u.mbered him.

"Thank you," replied Rose, "but I've the dinner to cook."

"Most domestic, I'm sure," continued Sartoris, trying hard to say the correct thing. "Most right an' proper. Personally, I like to see young ladies attend to home dooties."