‘Thanks. Change, please. I can’t see very well — will you count it into my hand?’
‘If they all took their passages like that instead of talking about their trunks, life would be worth something,’ said the clerk to his neighbour, who was trying to explain to a harassed mother of many that condensed milk is just as good for babes at sea as daily dairy. Being nineteen and unmarried, he spoke with conviction.
‘We are now,’ quoth Dick, as they returned to the studio, patting the place where his money-belt covered ticket and money, ‘beyond the reach of man, or devil, or woman — which is much more important. I’ve had three little affairs to carry through before Thursday, but I needn’t ask you to help, Bess. Come here on Thursday morning at nine. We’ll breakfast, and you shall take me down to Galleons Station.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Going away, of course. What should I stay for?’
‘But you can’t look after yourself?’
‘I can do anything. I didn’t realise it before, but I can. I’ve done a great deal already. Resolution shall be treated to one kiss if Bessie doesn’t object.’ Strangely enough, Bessie objected and Dick laughed. ‘I suppose you’re right. Well, come at nine the day after to-morrow and you’ll get your money.’
‘Shall I sure?’
‘I don’t bilk, and you won’t know whether I do or not unless you come.
Oh, but it’s long and long to wait! Good-bye, Bessie, — send Beeton here as you go out.’
The housekeeper came.
‘What are all the fittings of my rooms worth?’ said Dick, imperiously.
‘‘Tisn’t for me to say, sir. Some things is very pretty and some is wore out dreadful.’
‘I’m insured for two hundred and seventy.’
‘Insurance policies is no criterion, though I don’t say — — ’
‘Oh, damn your longwindedness! You’ve made your pickings out of me and the other tenants. Why, you talked of retiring and buying a public-house the other day. Give a straight answer to a straight question.’
‘Fifty,’ said Mr. Beeton, without a moment’s hesitation.
‘Double it; or I’ll break up half my sticks and burn the rest.’
He felt his way to a bookstand that supported a pile of sketch-books, and wrenched out one of the mahogany pillars.
‘That’s sinful, sir,’ said the housekeeper, alarmed.
‘It’s my own. One hundred or — — ’
‘One hundred it is. It’ll cost me three and six to get that there pilaster mended.’
‘I thought so. What an out and out swindler you must have been to spring that price at once!’
‘I hope I’ve done nothing to dissatisfy any of the tenants, least of all you, sir.’
‘Never mind that. Get me the money to-morrow, and see that all my clothes are packed in the little brown bullock-trunk. I’m going.’
‘But the quarter’s notice?’
‘I’ll pay forfeit. Look after the packing and leave me alone.’
Mr. Beeton discussed this new departure with his wife, who decided that Bessie was at the bottom of it all. Her husband took a more charitable view.
‘It’s very sudden — but then he was always sudden in his ways. Listen to him now!’
There was a sound of chanting from Dick’s room.
‘We’ll never come back any more, boys,
We’ll never come back no more;
We’ll go to the deuce on any excuse,
And never come back no more!
Oh say we’re afloat or ashore, boys,
Oh say we’re afloat or ashore;
But we’ll never come back any more, boys,
We’ll never come back no more!’
‘Mr. Beeton! Mr. Beeton! Where the deuce is my pistol?’
‘Quick, he’s going to shoot himself — ’avin’ gone mad!’ said Mrs. Beeton.
Mr. Beeton addressed Dick soothingly, but it was some time before the latter, threshing up and down his bedroom, could realise the intention of the promises to ‘find everything to-morrow, sir.’
‘Oh, you copper-nosed old fool — you impotent Academician!’ he shouted at last. ‘Do you suppose I want to shoot myself? Take the pistol in your silly shaking hand then. If you touch it, it will go off, because it’s loaded.
It’s among my campaign-kit somewhere — in the parcel at the bottom of the trunk.’
Long ago Dick had carefully possessed himself of a forty-pound weight field-equipment constructed by the knowledge of his own experience. It was this put-away treasure that he was trying to find and rehandle. Mr.
Beeton whipped the revolver out of its place on the top of the package, and Dick drove his hand among the khaki coat and breeches, the blue cloth leg-bands, and the heavy flannel shirts doubled over a pair of swan-neck spurs. Under these and the water-bottle lay a sketch-book and a pigskin case of stationery.
‘These we don’t want; you can have them, Mr. Beeton. Everything else I’ll keep. Pack ‘em on the top right-hand side of my trunk. When you’ve done that come into the studio with your wife. I want you both. Wait a minute; get me a pen and a sheet of notepaper.’
It is not an easy thing to write when you cannot see, and Dick had particular reasons for wishing that his work should be clear. So he began, following his right hand with his left: ‘“The badness of this writing is because I am blind and cannot see my pen.” H’mph! — even a lawyer can’t mistake that. It must be signed, I suppose, but it needn’t be witnessed. Now an inch lower — why did I never learn to use a type-writer? — ”This is the last will and testament of me, Richard Heldar. I am in sound bodily and mental health, and there is no previous will to revoke.” — That’s all right. Damn the pen! Whereabouts on the paper was I? — ”I leave everything that I possess in the world, including four thousand pounds, and two thousand seven hundred and twenty eight pounds held for me” — oh, I can’t get this straight.’ He tore off half the sheet and began again with the caution about the handwriting. Then: ‘I leave all the money I possess in the world to’ — here followed Maisie’s name, and the names of the two banks that held the money.
‘It mayn’t be quite regular, but no one has a shadow of a right to dispute it, and I’ve given Maisie’s address. Come in, Mr. Beeton. This is my signature; I want you and your wife to witness it. Thanks. To-morrow you must take me to the landlord and I’ll pay forfeit for leaving without notice, and I’ll lodge this paper with him in case anything happens while I’m away. Now we’re going to light up the studio stove. Stay with me, and give me my papers as I want ‘em.’
No one knows until he has tried how fine a blaze a year’s accumulation of bills, letters, and dockets can make. Dick stuffed into the stove every document in the studio — saving only three unopened letters; destroyed sketch-books, rough note-books, new and half-finished canvases alike.
‘What a lot of rubbish a tenant gets about him if he stays long enough in one place, to be sure,’ said Mr. Beeton, at last.
‘He does. Is there anything more left?’ Dick felt round the walls.
‘Not a thing, and the stove’s nigh red-hot.’
‘Excellent, and you’ve lost about a thousand pounds’ worth of sketches.
Ho! ho! Quite a thousand pounds’ worth, if I can remember what I used to be.’
‘Yes, sir,’ politely. Mr. Beeton was quite sure that Dick had gone mad, otherwise he would have never parted with his excellent furniture for a song. The canvas things took up storage room and were much better out of the way.
There remained only to leave the little will in safe hands: that could not be accomplished to to-morrow. Dick groped about the floor picking up the last pieces of paper, assured himself again and again that there remained no written word or sign of his past life in drawer or desk, and sat down before the stove till the fire died out and the contracting iron cracked in the silence of the night.
CHAPTER XV
With a heart of furious fancies,
&nbs
p; Whereof I am commander;
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
With a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney —
Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end,
Methinks it is no journey.
— Tom a’ Bedlam’s Song.
‘GOOD-BYE, Bess; I promised you fifty. Here’s a hundred — all that I got for my furniture from Beeton. That will keep you in pretty frocks for some time. You’ve been a good little girl, all things considered, but you’ve given me and Torpenhow a fair amount of trouble.’
‘Give Mr. Torpenhow my love if you see him, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will, dear. Now take me up the gang-plank and into the cabin. Once aboard the lugger and the maid is — and I am free, I mean.’
‘Who’ll look after you on this ship?’
‘The head-steward, if there’s any use in money. The doctor when we come to Port Said, if I know anything of P. and O. doctors. After that, the Lord will provide, as He used to do.’
Bess found Dick his cabin in the wild turmoil of a ship full of leavetakers and weeping relatives. Then he kissed her, and laid himself down in his bunk until the decks should be clear. He who had taken so long to move about his own darkened rooms well understood the geography of a ship, and the necessity of seeing to his own comforts was as wine to him.
Before the screw began to thrash the ship along the Docks he had been introduced to the head-steward, had royally tipped him, secured a good place at table, opened out his baggage, and settled himself down with joy in the cabin. It was scarcely necessary to feel his way as he moved about, for he knew everything so well. Then God was very kind: a deep sleep of weariness came upon him just as he would have thought of Maisie, and he slept till the steamer had cleared the mouth of the Thames and was lifting to the pulse of the Channel.
The rattle of the engines, the reek of oil and paint, and a very familiar sound in the next cabin roused him to his new inheritance.
‘Oh, it’s good to be alive again!’ He yawned, stretched himself vigorously, and went on deck to be told that they were almost abreast of the lights of Brighton. This is no more open water than Trafalgal Square is a common; the free levels begin at Ushant; but none the less Dick could feel the healing of the sea at work upon him already. A boisterous little cross-swell swung the steamer disrespectfully by the nose; and one wave breaking far aft spattered the quarterdeck and the pile of new deck-chairs. He heard the foam fall with the clash of broken glass, was stung in the face by a cupful, and sniffing luxuriously, felt his way to the smoking-room by the wheel. There a strong b reeze found him, blew his cap off and left him bareheaded in the doorway, and the smoking-room steward, understanding that he was a voyager of experience, said that the weather would be stiff in the chops off the Channel and more than half a gale in the Bay. These things fell as they were foretold, and Dick enjoyed himself to the utmost. It is allowable and even necessary at sea to lay firm hold upon tables, stanchions, and ropes in moving from place to place. On land the man who feels with his hands is patently blind. At sea even a blind man who is not sea-sick can jest with the doctor over the weakness of his fellows. Dick told the doctor many tales — and these are coin of more value than silver if properly handled — smoked with him till unholy hours of the night, and so won his short-lived regard that he promised Dick a few hours of his time when they came to Port Said.
And the sea roared or was still as the winds blew, and the engines sang their song day and night, and the sun grew stronger day by day, and Tom the Lascar barber shaved Dick of a morning under the opened hatch-grating where the cool winds blew, and the awnings were spread and the passengers made merry, and at last they came to Port Said.
‘Take me,’ said Dick, to the doctor, ‘to Madame Binat’s — if you know where that is.’
‘Whew!’ said the doctor, ‘I do. There’s not much to choose between ‘em; but I suppose you’re aware that that’s one of the worst houses in the place. They’ll rob you to begin with, and knife you later.’
‘Not they. Take me there, and I can look after myself.’
So he was brought to Madame Binat’s and filled his nostrils with the well-remembered smell of the East, that runs without a change from the Canal head to Hong-Kong, and his mouth with the villainous Lingua Franca of the Levant. The heat smote him between the shoulder-blades with the buffet of an old friend, his feet slipped on the sand, and his coat-sleeve was warm as new-baked bread when he lifted it to his nose.
Madame Binat smiled with the smile that knows no astonishment when Dick entered the drinking-shop which was one source of her gains. But for a little accident of complete darkness he could hardly realise that he had ever quitted the old life that hummed in his ears. Somebody opened a bottle of peculiarly strong Schiedam. The smell reminded Dick of Monsieur Binat, who, by the way, had spoken of art and degradation.
Binat was dead; Madame said as much when the doctor departed, scandalised, so far as a ship’s doctor can be, at the warmth of Dick’s reception. Dick was delighted at it. ‘They remember me here after a year. They have forgotten me across the water by this time. Madame, I want a long talk with you when you’re at liberty. It is good to be back again.’
In the evening she set an iron-topped cafe-table out on the sands, and Dick and she sat by it, while the house behind them filled with riot, merriment, oaths, and threats. The stars came out and the lights of the shipping in the harbour twinkled by the head of the Canal.
‘Yes. The war is good for trade, my friend; but what dost thou do here? We have not forgotten thee.’
‘I was over there in England and I went blind.’
‘But there was the glory first. We heard of it here, even here — I and Binat; and thou hast used the head of Yellow ‘Tina — she is still alive — so often and so well that ‘Tina laughed when the papers arrived by the mail-boats. It was always something that we here could recognise in the paintings. And then there was always the glory and the money for thee.’
‘I am not poor — I shall pay you well.’
‘Not to me. Thou hast paid for everything.’ Under her breath, ‘Mon Dieu, to be blind and so young! What horror!’
Dick could not see her face with the pity on it, or his own with the discoloured hair at the temples. He did not feel the need of pity; he was too anxious to get to the front once more, and explained his desire.
‘And where? The Canal is full of the English ships. Sometimes they fire as they used to do when the war was here — ten years ago. Beyond Cairo there is fighting, but how canst thou go there without a correspondent’s passport? And in the desert there is always fighting, but that is impossible also,’ said she.
‘I must go to Suakin.’ He knew, thanks to Alf’s readings, that Torpenhow was at work with the column that was protecting the construction of the Suakin-Berber line. P. and O. steamers do not touch at that port, and, besides, Madame Binat knew everybody whose help or advice was worth anything. They were not respectable folk, but they could cause things to be accomplished, which is much more important when there is work toward.
‘But at Suakin they are always fighting. That desert breeds men always — and always more men. And they are so bold! Why to Suakin?’
‘My friend is there.
‘Thy friend! Chtt! Thy friend is death, then.’
Madame Binat dropped a fat arm on the table-top, filled Dick’s glass anew, and looked at him closely under the stars. There was no need that he should bow his head in assent and say — ’No. He is a man, but — if it should arrive... blamest thou?’
‘I blame?’ she laughed shrilly. ‘Who am I that I should blame any one — except those who try to cheat me over their consommations. But it is very terrible.’
‘I must go to Suakin. Think for me. A great deal has changed within the year, and the men I knew are not here. The Egyptian lighthouse steamer goes down the Canal to Suakin — and the post-boats
— But even then — — ’
‘Do not think any longer. I know, and it is for me to think. Thou shalt go — thou shalt go and see thy friend. Be wise. Sit here until the house is a little quiet — I must attend to my guests — and afterwards go to bed. Thou shalt go, in truth, thou shalt go.’
‘To-morrow?’
‘As soon as may be.’ She was talking as though he were a child.
He sat at the table listening to the voices in the harbour and the streets, and wondering how soon the end would come, till Madame Binat carried him off to bed and ordered him to sleep. The house shouted and sang and danced and revelled, Madame Binat moving through it with one eye on the liquor payments and the girls and the other on Dick’s interests. To this latter end she smiled upon scowling and furtive Turkish officers of fellaheen regiments, and more than kind to camel agents of no nationality whatever.
In the early morning, being then appropriately dressed in a flaming red silk ball-dress, with a front of tarnished gold embroidery and a necklace of plate-glass diamonds, she made chocolate and carried it in to Dick.
‘It is only I, and I am of discreet age, eh? Drink and eat the roll too. Thus in France mothers bring their sons, when those behave wisely, the morning chocolate.’ She sat down on the side of the bed whispering: — ’It is all arranged. Thou wilt go by the lighthouse boat. That is a bribe of ten pounds English. The captain is never paid by the Government. The boat comes to Suakin in four days. There will go with thee George, a Greek muleteer. Another bribe of ten pounds. I will pay; they must not know of thy money. George will go with thee as far as he goes with his mules. Then he comes back to me, for his well-beloved is here, and if I do not receive a telegram from Suakin saying that thou art well, the girl answers for George.’
‘Thank you.’ He reached out sleepily for the cup. ‘You are much too kind, Madame.’
‘If there were anything that I might do I would say, stay here and be wise; but I do not think that would be best for thee.’ She looked at her liquor-stained dress with a sad smile. ‘Nay, thou shalt go, in truth, thou shalt go. It is best so. My boy, it is best so.’
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 21