by W. W. Jacobs
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
A RIVERMOUTH ROMANCE
At five o'clock of the morning of the tenth of July, 1860, the frontdoor of a certain house on Anchor Street, in the ancient seaport townof Rivermouth, might have been observed to open with great caution.This door, as the least imaginative reader may easily conjecture,did not open itself. It was opened by Miss Margaret Callaghan, whoimmediately closed it softly behind her, paused for a few seconds withan embarrassed air on the stone step, and then, throwing a furtiveglance up at the second-story windows, passed hastily down the streettoward the river, keeping close to the fences and garden walls on herleft.
There was a ghostlike stealthiness to Miss Margaret's movements, thoughthere was nothing whatever of the ghost about Miss Margaret herself.She was a plump, short person, no longer young, with coal-black hairgrowing low on the forehead, and a round face that would have beennearly meaningless if the features had not been emphasized--italicized,so to speak--by the smallpox. Moreover, the brilliancy of her toiletwould have rendered any ghostly hypothesis untenable. Mrs. Solomon (werefer to the dressiest Mrs. Solomon, whichever one that was) in allher glory was not arrayed like Miss Margaret on that eventful summermorning. She wore a light-green, shot-silk frock, a blazing red shawl,and a yellow crape bonnet profusely decorated with azure, orange andmagenta artificial flowers. In her hand she carried a white parasol.The newly risen sun, ricochetting from the bosom of the river andstriking point-blank on the top-knot of Miss Margaret's gorgeousness,made her an imposing spectacle in the quiet street of that Puritanvillage. But, in spite of the bravery of her apparel, she stoleguiltily along by garden walls and fences until she reached a small,dingy frame house near the wharves, in the darkened doorway of whichshe quenched her burning splendor, if so bold a figure is permissible.
Three-quarters of an hour passed. The sunshine moved slowly up AnchorStreet, fingered noiselessly the well-kept brass knockers on eitherside, and drained the heeltaps of dew which had been left from therevels of the fairies overnight in the cups of the morning-glories.Not a soul was stirring yet in this part of the town, though theRivermouthians are such early birds that not a worm may be said toescape them. By and by one of the brown Holland shades at one ofthe upper windows of the Bilkins Mansion--the house from which MissMargaret had emerged--was drawn up, and old Mr. Bilkins in spiralnightcap looked out on the sunny street. Not a living creature wasto be seen save the dissipated family cat--a very Lovelace of a catthat was not allowed a night-key--who was sitting on the curbstoneopposite, waiting for the hall door to open. Three-quarters of an hour,we repeat, had passed, when Mrs. Margaret O'Rourke, _nee_ Callaghan,issued from the small, dingy house by the river and regained thedoorstep of the Bilkins Mansion in the same stealthy fashion in whichshe had left it.
Not to prolong a mystery that must already oppress the reader,Mr. Bilkins's cook had, after the manner of her kind, stolenout of the premises before the family were up and got herselfmarried--surreptitiously and artfully married--as if matrimony were anindictable offense.
And something of an offense it was in this instance. In the firstplace, Margaret Callaghan had lived nearly twenty years with theBilkins family, and the old people--there were no children now--hadrewarded this long service by taking Margaret into their affections. Itwas a piece of subtle ingratitude for her to marry without admittingthe worthy couple to her confidence.
In the next place, Margaret had married a man some eighteen yearsyounger than herself. That was the young man's lookout, you say. Wehold it was Margaret that was to blame. What does a young blade oftwenty-two know? Not half so much as he thinks he does. His exhaustlessignorance at that age is a discovery which is left for him to make inhis prime.
"Curly gold locks cover foolish brains, Billing and cooing is all your cheer; Sighing and singing of midnight strains, Under Bonnybell's window panes-- Wait till you come to Forty Year!"
In one sense Margaret's husband _had_ come to forty year--she was fortyto a day.
Mrs. Margaret O'Rourke, with the baddish cat following closely ather heels, entered the Bilkins mansion, reached her chamber in theattic without being intercepted, and there laid aside her finery. Twoor three times, while arranging her more humble attire, she pausedto take a look at the marriage certificate, which she had depositedbetween the leaves of her prayer-book, and on each occasion held thatpotent document upside down; for Margaret's literary culture was of theseverest order, and excluded the art of reading.
The breakfast was late that morning. As Mrs. O'Rourke set thecoffee-urn in front of Mrs. Bilkins and flanked Mr. Bilkins with thebroiled mackerel and buttered toast, Mrs. O'Rourke's conscience smoteher. She afterward declared that when she saw the two sitting thereso innocent-like, not dreaming of the _comether_ she had put uponthem, she secretly and unbeknownst let a few tears fall into the creampitcher. Whether or not it was this material expression of Margaret'spenitence that spoiled the coffee does not admit of inquiry; but thecoffee was bad. In fact, the whole breakfast was a comedy of errors.
It was a blessed relief to Margaret when the meal was ended. Sheretired in a cold perspiration to the penetralia of the kitchen, and itwas remarked by both Mr. and Mrs. Bilkins that those short flights ofvocalism--apropos of the personal charms of one Kate Kearney, who livedon the banks of Killarney--which ordinarily issued from the directionof the scullery, were unheard that forenoon.
The town clock was striking eleven, and the antiquated timepiece onthe staircase (which never spoke but it dropped pearls and crystals,like the fairy in the story) was lisping the hour, when there camethree tremendous knocks at the street door. Mrs. Bilkins, who wasdusting the brass-mounted chronometer in the hall, stood transfixed,with arm uplifted. The admirable old lady had for years been carryingon a guerrilla warfare with itinerant venders of furniture polish,and pain-killer, and crockery cement, and the like. The effrontery ofthe triple knock convinced her the enemy was at her gates--possiblythat dissolute creature with twenty-four sheets of note-paper andtwenty-four envelopes for fifteen cents.
Mrs. Bilkins swept across the hall and opened the door with a jerk.The suddenness of the movement was apparently not anticipated by theperson outside, who, with one arm stretched feebly toward the recedingknocker, tilted gently forward and rested both hands on the thresholdin an attitude which was probably common enough with our ancestors ofthe Simian period, but could never have been considered graceful. By aneffort that testified to the excellent condition of his muscles, theperson instantly righted himself, and stood swaying unsteadily on histoes and heels, and smiling rather vaguely on Mrs. Bilkins.
It was a slightly built but well-knitted young fellow, in the notunpicturesque garb of our marine service. His woolen cap, pitchedforward at an acute angle with his nose, showed the back part of a headthatched with short yellow hair, which had broken into innumerablecurls of painful tightness. On his ruddy cheeks a sparse, sandy beardwas making a timid debut. Add to this a weak, good-natured mouth, apair of devil-may-care blue eyes, and the fact that the man was verydrunk, and you have a pre-Raphaelite portrait--we may as well say atonce--of Mr. Larry O'Rourke of Mullingar, County Westmeath, and late ofthe United States sloop-of-war _Santee_.
The man was a total stranger to Mrs. Bilkins; but the instant shecaught sight of the double white anchors embroidered on the lapels ofhis jacket, she unhesitatingly threw back the door, which with greatpresence of mind she had partly closed.
A drunken sailor standing on the step of the Bilkins mansion was nonovelty. The street, as we have stated, led down to the wharves, andsailors were constantly passing. The house abutted directly on thestreet; the granite doorstep was almost flush with the sidewalk, andthe huge old-fashioned brass knocker--seemingly a brazen hand that hadbeen cut off at the wrist, and nailed against the oak as a warning tomalefactors--extended itself in a kind of grim appeal to everybody. Itseemed to possess strange fascinations for all seafaring folk; and whenthere was a man-of-war in port the rat-tat-tat of that kno
cker wouldfrequently startle the quiet neighborhood long after midnight. Thereappeared to be an occult understanding between it and the blue-jackets.Years ago there was a young Bilkins, one Pendexter Bilkins--a sadlosel, we fear--who ran away to try his fortunes before the mast, andfell overboard in a gale off Hatteras. "Lost at sea," says the chubbymarble slab in the Old South Burying Ground, "_aetat._ 18." Perhaps thatis why no blue-jacket, sober or drunk, was ever repulsed from the doorof the Bilkins mansion.
Of course Mrs. Bilkins had her taste in the matter, and preferred themsober. But as this could not always be, she tempered her wind, so tospeak, to the shorn lamb. The flushed, prematurely old face that nowlooked up at her moved the good lady's pity.
"What do you want?" she asked kindly.
"Me wife."
"There's no wife for you here," said Mrs. Bilkins, somewhat takenaback. "His wife!" she thought; "it's a mother the poor boy needs."
"Me wife," repeated Mr. O'Rourke, "for betther or for worse."
"You had better go away," said Mrs. Bilkins, bridling up, "or it willbe the worse for you."
"To have and to howld," continued Mr. O'Rourke, wanderingretrospectively in the mazes of the marriage service, "to have and tohowld till death--bad luck to him!--takes one or the ither of us."
"You're a blasphemous creature," said Mrs. Bilkins severely.
"Thim's the words his riverince spake this mornin', standin' foreninstus," explained Mr. O'Rourke. "I stood here, see, and me jew'l stoodthere, and the howly chaplain beyont."
And Mr. O'Rourke with a wavering forefinger drew a diagram of theinteresting situation on the doorstep.
"Well," returned Mrs. Bilkins, "if you're a married man, all I have tosay is, there's a pair of fools instead of one. You had better be off;the person you want doesn't live here."
"Bedad, thin, but she does."
"Lives here?"
"Sorra a place else."
"The man's crazy," said Mrs. Bilkins to herself.
While she thought him simply drunk, she was not in the least afraid;but the idea that she was conversing with a madman sent a chill overher. She reached back her hand preparatory to shutting the door, whenMr. O'Rourke, with an agility that might have been expected from hisprevious gymnastics, set one foot on the threshold and frustrated thedesign.
"I want me wife," he said sternly.
Unfortunately, Mr. Bilkins had gone uptown, and there was no one in thehouse except Margaret, whose pluck was not to be depended on. The casewas urgent. With the energy of despair Mrs. Bilkins suddenly placedthe toe of her boot against Mr. O'Rourke's invading foot and pushed itaway. The effect of this attack was to cause Mr. O'Rourke to describe acomplete circle on one leg, and then sit down heavily on the threshold.The lady retreated to the hat-stand, and rested her hand mechanicallyon the handle of a blue cotton umbrella. Mr. O'Rourke partly turned hishead and smiled upon her with conscious superiority. At this juncture athird actor appeared on the scene, evidently a friend of Mr. O'Rourke,for he addressed that gentleman as a "spalpeen," and told him to gohome.
"Divil an inch," replied the spalpeen; but he got himself off thethreshold and resumed his position on the step.
"It's only Larry, mum," said the man, touching his forelock politely;"as dacent a lad as ever lived, when he's not in liquor; an' I've knownhim to be sober for days togither," he added, reflectively. "He don'tmane a ha'p'orth o' harum, but jist now he's not quite in his rightmoind."
"I should think not," said Mrs. Bilkins, turning from the speaker toMr. O'Rourke, who had seated himself gravely on the scraper and wasweeping. "Hasn't the man any friends?"
"Too many of 'em, mum, an' it's along wid dhrinkin' toasts wid 'em thatLarry got throwed. The punch that spalpeen has dhrunk this day wouldamaze ye. He give us the slip awhiles ago, bad cess to him, an' comeup here. Didn't I tell ye, Larry, not to be afther ringin' at the owlegintleman's knocker? Ain't ye got no sinse at all?"
"Misther Donnehugh," responded Mr. O'Rourke with great dignity, "ye'redhrunk again."
Mr. Donnehugh, who had not taken more than thirteen ladles of rumpunch, disdained to reply directly.
"He's a dacent lad enough"--this to Mrs. Bilkins--"but his head iswake. Whin he's had two sups o' whisky he belaves he's dhrunk abar'lful. A gill o' wather out of a jimmy-john'd fuddle him, mum."
"Isn't there anybody to look after him?"
"No, mum; he's an orphan. His father and mother live in the owldcounthry, an' a fine, hale owld couple they are."
"Hasn't he any family in the town?"
"Sure, mum, he has a family; wasn't he married this blessed mornin'?"
"He said so."
"Indade, thin, he was--the pore divil!"
"And the--the person?" inquired Mrs. Bilkins.
"Is it the wife, ye mane?"
"Yes, the wife; where is she?"
"Well, thin, mum," said Mr. Donnehugh, "it's yerself can answer that."
"I?" exclaimed Mrs. Bilkins. "Good heavens! this man's as crazy as theother!"
"Begorra, if anybody's crazy, it's Larry, for it's Larry has marriedMargaret."
"What Margaret?" cried Mrs. Bilkins.
"Margaret Callaghan, sure."
"_Our_ Margaret? Do you mean to say that OUR Margaret has marriedthat--that good-for-nothing, inebriated wretch?"
"It's a civil tongue the owld lady has, anyway," remarked Mr. O'Rourkecritically, from the scraper.
Mrs. Bilkin's voice during the latter part of the colloquy had beenpitched in a high key; it rung through the hall and penetrated to thekitchen, where Margaret was wiping the breakfast things. She pausedwith a half-dried saucer in her hand, and listened. In a moment moreshe stood, with bloodless face and limp figure, leaning against thebanister behind Mrs. Bilkins.
"Is it there ye are, me jew'l!" cried Mr. O'Rourke, discovering her.
Mrs. Bilkins wheeled upon Margaret.
"Margaret Callaghan, _is_ that thing your husband?"
"Ye--yes, mum," faltered Mrs. O'Rourke, with a woful lack of spirit.
"Then take it away!" cried Mrs. Bilkins.
Margaret, with a slight flush on either cheek, glided past Mrs.Bilkins, and the heavy oak door closed with a bang, as the gates ofParadise must have closed of old upon Adam and Eve.
"Come!" said Margaret, taking Mr. O'Rourke by the hand; and the twowandered forth upon their wedding journey down Anchor Street, withall the world before them where to choose. They chose to halt at thesmall, shabby tenement-house by the river, through the doorway ofwhich the bridal pair disappeared with a reeling, eccentric gait; forMr. O'Rourke's intoxication seemed to have run down his elbow, andcommunicated itself to Margaret.
O Hymen! who burnest precious gums and scented woods in thy torch atthe melting of aristocratic hearts, with what a pitiful penny-dip thouhast lighted up our little back-street romance.--_Majorie Daw, andOther Stories._
* * * * *
The story is told of a famous Boston lawyer, that one day, after havinga slight discussion with the Judge, he deliberately turned his backupon that personage and started to walk off.
"Are you trying, sir, to show your contempt for the Court?" asked thejudge, sternly.
"No, sir," was the reply; "I am trying to conceal it."