The Coming of Bill

by P. G. Wodehouse

  Chapter I

  Empty-handed

  The steamship _Santa Barbara_, of the United Fruit Line, movedslowly through the glittering water of the bay on her way to dock. Outat quarantine earlier in the morning there had been a mist, throughwhich passing ships loomed up vague and shapeless; but now the sun haddispersed it and a perfect May morning welcomed the _SantaBarbara_ home.

  Kirk leaned on the rail, looking with dull eyes on the city he had lefta year before. Only a year! It seemed ten. As he stood there he felt anold man.

  A drummer, a cheery soul who had come aboard at Porto Rico, saunteredup, beaming with well-being and good-fellowship.

  "Looks pretty good, sir," said he.

  Kirk did not answer. He had not heard.

  "Some burg," ventured the drummer.

  Again encountering silence, he turned away, hurt. This churlishattitude on the part of one returning to God's country on one of God'sown mornings surprised and wounded him.

  To him all was right with the world. He had breakfasted well; he wassmoking a good cigar; and he was strong in the knowledge that he haddone well by the firm this trip and that bouquets were due to be handedto him in the office on lower Broadway. He was annoyed with Kirk forhaving cast even a tiny cloud upon his contentment.

  He communicated his feelings to the third officer, who happened to comeon deck at that moment.

  "Say, who _is_ that guy?" he asked complainingly. "The big son ofa gun leaning on the rail. Seems like he'd got a hangover this morning.Is he deaf and dumb or just plain grouchy?"

  The third officer eyed Kirk's back with sympathy.

  "I shouldn't worry him, Freddie," he said. "I guess if you had been upagainst it like him you'd be shy on the small talk. That's a fellowcalled Winfield. They carried him on board at Colon. He was about allin. Got fever in Colombia, inland at the mines, and nearly died. Hispal did die. Ever met Hank Jardine?"

  "Long, thin man?"

  The other nodded.

  "One of the best. He made two trips with us."

  "And he's dead?"

  "Died of fever away back in the interior, where there's nothing muchelse except mosquitoes. He and Winfield went in there after gold."

  "Did they get any?" asked the drummer, interested.

  The third officer spat disgustedly over the rail.

  "You ask Winfield. Or, rather, don't, because I guess it's not his petsubject. He told me all about it when he was getting better. There wasgold there, all right, in chunks. It only needed to be dug for. Andsomebody else did the digging. Of all the skin games! It made me prettyhot under the collar, and it wasn't _me_ that was stung.

  "Out there you can't buy land if you're a foreigner; you have to leaseit from the natives. Poor old Hank leased his bit, all right, and whenhe'd got to his claim he found somebody else working on it. It seemedthere had been a flaw in his agreement and the owners had let it overhis head to these other guys, who had slipped them more than what Hankhad done."

  "What did he do?"

  "He couldn't do anything. They were the right side of the law, or whatthey call law out there. There was nothing to do except beat it backagain three hundred miles to the coast. That's where they got the feverwhich finished Hank. So you can understand," concluded the thirdofficer, "that Mr. Winfield isn't in what you can call a sunny mood. IfI were you, I'd go and talk to someone else, if conversation's what youneed."

  Kirk stood motionless at the rail, thinking. It was not what was pastthat occupied his thoughts, as the third officer had supposed; it wasthe future.

  The forlorn hope had failed; he was limping back to Ruth wounded andbroken. He had sent her a wireless message. She would be at the dock tomeet him. How could he face her? Fate had been against him, it wastrue, but he was in no mood to make excuses for himself. He had failed.That was the beginning and the end of it. He had set out to bring backwealth and comfort to her, and he was returning empty-handed.

  That was what the immediate future held, the meeting with Ruth. Andafter? His imagination was not equal to the task of considering that.He had failed as an artist. There was no future for him there. He mustfind some other work. But he was fit for no other work. He had notraining. What could he do in a city where keenness of competition is atradition? It would be as if an unarmed man should attack a fortress.

  The thought of the years he had wasted was very bitter. Looking back,he could see how fate had tricked him into throwing away his onetalent. He had had promise. With hard work he could have become anartist, a professional--a man whose work was worth money in the openmarket. He had never had it in him to be a great artist, but he had hadthe facility which goes to make a good worker of the second class. Hehad it still. Given the time for hard study, it was still in him totake his proper place among painters.

  But time for study was out of his reach now. He must set to work atonce, without a day's delay, on something which would bring himimmediate money. The reflection brought his mind back abruptly to thepractical consideration of the future.

  Before him, as he stood there, the ragged battlements of New Yorkseemed to frown down on him with a cold cruelty that paralysed hismind. He had seen them a hundred times before. They should have beenfamiliar and friendly. But this morning they were strange and sinister.The skyline which daunts the emigrant as he comes up the bay to his newhome struck fear into Kirk's heart.

  He turned away and began to walk up and down the deck.

  He felt tired and lonely. For the first time he realized just what itmeant to him that he should never see Hank again. It had been hard,almost impossible, till now to force his mind to face that fact. He hadwinced away from it. But now it would not be avoided. It fell upon himlike a shadow.

  Hank had filled a place of his own in Kirk's life. Theirs had been oneof those smooth friendships which absence cannot harm. Often they hadnot seen each other for months at a time. Indeed, now that he thoughtof it, Hank was generally away; and he could not remember that they hadever exchanged letters. Yet even so there had been a bond between themwhich had never broken. And now Hank had dropped out.

  Kirk began to think about death. As with most men of his temperament,it was a subject on which his mind had seldom dwelt, never for anylength of time. His parents had died when he was too young tounderstand; and circumstances had shielded him from the shadow of thegreat mystery. Birth he understood; it had forced itself into thescheme of his life; but death till now had been a stranger to him.

  The realization of it affected him oddly. In a sense, he found itstimulating; not stimulating as birth had been, but more subtly. Hecould recall vividly the thrill that had come to him with the birth ofhis son. For days he had walked as one in a trance. The world hadseemed unreal, like an opium-smoker's dream. There had been magiceverywhere.

  But death had exactly the opposite effect. It made everything curiouslyreal--himself most of all. He had the sensation, as he thought of Hank,of knowing himself for the first time. Somehow he felt strengthened,braced for the fight, as a soldier might who sees his comrade fall athis side.

  There was something almost vindictive in the feeling that came to him.It was too vague to be analysed, but it filled him with a desire tofight, gave him a sense of determination of which he had never beforebeen conscious. It toughened him, and made the old, easy-going KirkWinfield seem a stranger at whom he could look with detachment and acertain contempt.

  As he walked back along the deck the battlements of the city met hisgaze once more. But now they seemed less formidable.

  In the leisurely fashion of the home-coming ship the _SantaBarbara_ slid into her dock. The gangplank was thrust out. Kirkwalked ashore.

  For a moment he thought that Ruth had not come to meet him. Then hisheart leaped madly. He had seen her.

  * * * * *

  There are worse spots in the world than the sheds of the New Yorkcustoms, but few more desolate; yet to Kirk just then the shadowyvastness seemed a sunlit garden. A flame of happiness blazed up
in hismind, blotting out in an instant the forebodings which had lurked therelike evil creatures in a dark vault. The future, with its explanationsand plans, could take care of itself. Ruth was a thing of the present.

  He put his arms round her and held her. The friendly drummer, whochanced to be near, observed them with interest and a good deal ofpleasure. The third officer's story had temporarily destroyed hisfeeling that all was right with the world, and his sympathetic heartwelcomed this evidence that life held compensations even for men whohad been swindled out of valuable gold-mines.

  "I guess he's not feeling so worse, after all," he mused, and went onhis way with an easy mind to be fawned upon by his grateful firm.

  Ruth was holding Kirk at arm's length, her eyes full of tears at thesight.

  "You poor boy, how thin you are!"

  "I had fever. It's an awful place for fever out there."

  "Kirk!"

  "Oh, I'm all right now. The voyage set me up. They made a great fussover me on board."

  Ruth's hand was clinging to his arm. He squeezed it against his side.It was wonderful to him, this sense of being together again after thesecenturies of absence. It drove from his mind the thought of all theexplanations which sooner or later he had got to make. Whatever mightcome after, he would keep this moment in his memory golden anduntarnished.

  "Don't you worry about me," he said. "Now that I've found you again I'mfeeling better than I ever did in my life. You wait till you see mesparring with Steve to-morrow. By the way, how is Steve?"

  "Splendid."

  "And Bill?"

  Ruth drew herself up haughtily.

  "You dare to ask about your son after Steve? How clumsy that sounds! Imean you dare to put Steve before your son. I believe you've only justrealized that you have a son."

  "I've only just realized there's anybody or anything in the worldexcept my wife."

  "Well, after that I suppose I've got to forgive you. Since you haveasked after Bill at last, I may tell you that he's very well indeed."

  Kirk's eyes glowed.

  "He ought to be a great kid by now."

  "He is."

  "And Mamie? Have you still got her?"

  "I wouldn't lose her for a million."

  "And Whiskers?"

  "I'm afraid Whiskers is gone."

  "Not dead?"

  "No. I gave him away."

  "For Heaven's sake! Why?"

  "Well, dear, the fact is, I've come around to Aunt Lora's way ofthinking."

  "Eh?"

  "About germs."

  Kirk laughed, the first real laugh he had had for a year.

  "That insane fad of hers!"

  Ruth was serious.

  "I have," she said. "We're taking a great deal more care of Bill thanin the old days. I hate to think of the way I used to let him runaround wild then. He might have died."

  "What nonsense! He was simply bursting with health all the time."

  "I had a horrible shock after you left," Ruth went on. "The poor littlefellow was awfully ill with some kind of a fever. The doctor almostgave him up."

  "Good heavens!"

  "Aunt Lora helped me to nurse him, and she made me see how I had beenexposing him to all sorts of risks, and--well, now we guard againstthem."

  There was a silence.

  "I grew to rely on her a great deal, Kirk, when you were away. You knowI always used to before we were married. She's so wonderfully strong.And then when your letters stopped coming----"

  "There aren't any postal arrangements out there in the interior. It wasthe worst part of it--not being able to write to you or hear from you.Heavens, what an exile I've been this last year! Anything may havehappened!"

  "Perhaps something has," said Ruth mysteriously.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Wait and see. Oh, I know one thing that has happened. I've beenlooking at you all this while trying to think what it was. You've growna beard, and it looks perfectly horrid."

  "Sheer laziness. It shall come off this very day. I knew you would hateit."

  "I certainly do. It makes you look so old."

  Kirk's face clouded.

  "I feel old."

  For the first time since he had left the ship the memory of Hank hadcome back to him. The sight of Ruth had driven it away, but now itswept back on him. The golden moment was over. Life with all itstroubles and its explanations and its burdening sense of failure mustbe faced.

  "What's the matter?" asked Ruth, startled by the sudden change.

  "I was thinking of poor old Hank."

  "Where is Mr. Jardine? Didn't he come back with you?"

  "He's dead, dear," said Kirk gently. "He died of fever while we wereworking our way back to the coast."

  "Oh!"

  It was the idea of death that shocked Ruth, not the particularmanifestation of it. Hank had not touched her life. She had begun bydisliking him and ended by feeling for him the tolerant sort ofaffection which she might have bestowed upon a dog or a cat. Hank as aman was nothing to her, and she could not quite keep her indifferenceout of her voice.

  It was only later, when he looked back on this conversation, that Kirkrealized this. At the moment he was unconscious of it, significant asit was of the fact that there were points at which his mind and Ruth'sdid not touch.

  When Ruth spoke again it was to change the subject.

  "Well, Kirk," she said, "have you come back with your trunk crammedwith nuggets? You haven't said a word about the mine yet, and I'm dyingto know."

  He groaned inwardly. The moment he had been dreading had arrived moreswiftly than he had expected. It was time for him to face facts.

  "No," he said shortly.

  Ruth looked at him curiously. She met his eyes and saw the pain inthem, and intuition told her in an instant what Kirk, stumbling throughhis story, could not have told her in an hour. She squeezed his armaffectionately.

  "Don't tell me," she said. "I understand. And it doesn't matter. Itdoesn't matter a bit."

  "Doesn't matter? But----"

  Ruth's eyes were dancing.

  "Kirk, dear, I've something to tell you. Wait till we get outside."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You'll soon see?"

  They went out into the street. Against the kerb a large red automobilewas standing. The chauffeur touched his cap as he saw them. Kirk staredat him dumbly.

  "In you get, dear," said Ruth.

  She met his astonished gaze with a smile of triumph. This was hermoment, the moment for which she had been waiting. The chauffeurstarted the machine.

  "I don't understand. Whose car is this?"

  "Mine. Yours. Ours. Oh, Kirk, darling, I was so afraid that you wouldcome back bulging with a fortune that would make my little one looklike nothing. But you haven't, you haven't, and it's just splendid."She caught his hand and pressed it. "It's simply sweet of you to lookso astonished. I was hoping you would. This car belongs to us, andthere's another just as big besides, and a house, and--oh--everythingyou can think of. Kirk, dear, we've nothing to worry us any longer.We're rich!"