“I am the author,” said I coldly, “of ‘Culled Cowslips,’ but ‘Faded Fig-Leaves’ was an earlier work, which I no longer recognise, and I should be grateful to you if you would be kind enough to deny that I ever imitated Maeterlinck. Possibly,” I added, “he imitates me.”
“Now, do you know,” she said, “I was afraid of you at first? Papa is digging in the salt meadows nearly a mile away.”
It was hard to bear.
“Can you not see,” said I, “that I am wearing a shooting coat?”
“I do see — now; but it is so — so old,” she pleaded.
“It is a shooting coat all the same,” I said bitterly.
She was very quiet, and I saw she was sorry.
“Never mind,” I said magnanimously, “you probably are not familiar with sporting goods. If I knew your name I should ask permission to present myself.”
“Why, I am Daisy Holroyd,” she said.
“What! Jack Holroyd’s little sister?”
“Little!” she cried.
“I didn’t mean that,” said I. “You know that your brother and I were great friends in Paris — —”
“I know,” she said significantly.
“Ahem! Of course,” I said, “Jack and I were inseparable — —”
“Except when shut in separate cells,” said Miss Holroyd coldly.
This unfeeling allusion to the unfortunate termination of a Latin-Quarter celebration hurt me.
“The police,” said I, “were too officious.”
“So Jack says,” replied Miss Holroyd demurely.
We had unconsciously moved on along the sand hills, side by side, as we spoke.
“To think,” I repeated, “that I should meet Jack’s little — —”
“Please,” she said, “you are only three years my senior.”
She opened the sunshade and tipped it over one shoulder. It was white, and had spots and posies on it.
“Jack sends us every new book you write,” she observed. “I do not approve of some things you write.”
“Modern school,” I mumbled.
“That is no excuse,” she said severely; “Anthony Trollope didn’t do it.”
The foam spume from the breakers was drifting across the dunes, and the little tip-up snipe ran along the beach and teetered and whistled and spread their white-barred wings for a low, straight flight across the shingle, only to tip and skeep and sail on again. The salt sea wind whistled and curled through the crested waves, blowing in perfumed puffs across thickets of sweet bay and cedar. As we passed through the crackling juicy-stemmed marsh weed myriads of fiddler crabs raised their fore-claws in warning and backed away, rustling, through the reeds, aggressive, protesting.
“Like millions of pigmy Ajaxes defying the lightning,” I said.
Miss Holroyd laughed.
“Now I never imagined that authors were clever except in print,” she said.
She was a most extraordinary girl.
“I suppose,” she observed after a moment’s silence— “I suppose I am taking you to my father.”
“Delighted!” I mumbled. “H’m! I had the honour of meeting Professor Holroyd in Paris.”
“Yes; he bailed you and Jack out,” said Miss Holroyd serenely.
The silence was too painful to last.
“Captain McPeek is an interesting man,” I said. I spoke more loudly than I intended; I may have been nervous.
“Yes,” said Daisy Holroyd, “but he has a most singular hotel clerk.”
“You mean Mr. Frisby?”
“I do.”
“Yes,” I admitted, “Mr. Frisby is queer. He was once a bill-poster.”
“I know it!” exclaimed Daisy Holroyd, with some heat. “He ruins landscapes when ever he has an opportunity. Do you know that he has a passion for bill-posting? He has; he posts bills for the pure pleasure of it, just as you play golf, or tennis, or billiards.”
“But he’s a hotel clerk now,” I said; “no body employs him to post bills.”
“I know it! He does it all by himself for the pure pleasure of it. Papa has engaged him to come down here for two weeks, and I dread it,” said the girl.
What Professor Holroyd might want of Frisby I had not the faintest notion. I suppose Miss Holroyd noticed the bewilderment in my face, for she laughed, and nodded her head twice.
“Not only Mr. Frisby, but Captain McPeek also,” she said.
“You don’t mean to say that Captain McPeek is going to close his hotel!” I exclaimed.
My trunk was there. It contained guarantees of my respectability.
“Oh, no; his wife will keep it open,” replied the girl. “Look! you can see papa now. He’s digging.”
“Where?” I blurted out.
I remembered Professor Holroyd as a prim, spectacled gentleman, with close-cut, snowy beard and a clerical allure. The man I saw digging wore green goggles, a jersey, a battered sou’wester, and hip-boots of rubber. He was delving in the muck of the salt meadow, his face streaming with perspiration, his boots and jersey splashed with unpleasant-looking mud. He glanced up as we approached, shading his eyes with a sunburnt hand.
“Papa, dear,” said Miss Holroyd, “here is Jack’s friend, whom you bailed out of Mazas.”
The introduction was startling. I turned crimson with mortification. The professor was very decent about it; he called me by name at once.
When he said this he looked at his spade. It was clear that he considered me a nuisance and wished to go on with his digging.
“I suppose,” he said, “you are still writing?”
“A little,” I replied, trying not to speak sarcastically. My output had rivaled that of “The Duchess” — in quantity, I mean.
“I seldom read — fiction,” he said, looking restlessly at the hole in the ground.
Miss Holroyd came to my rescue.
“That was a charming story you wrote last,” she said. “Papa should read it — you should, papa; it’s all about a fossil.”
We both looked narrowly at Miss Holroyd. Her smile was guileless.
“Fossils!” repeated the professor. “Do you care for fossils?”
“Very much,” said I.
Now I am not perfectly sure what my object was in lying. I looked at Daisy Holroyd’s dark-fringed eyes. They were very grave.
“Fossils,” said I, “are my hobby.”
I think Miss Holroyd winced a little at this. I did not care. I went on:
“I have seldom had the opportunity to study the subject, but, as a boy, I collected flint arrow-heads — —”
“Flint arrow-heads!” said the professor coldly.
“Yes; they were the nearest things to fossils obtainable,” I replied, marvelling at my own mendacity.
The professor looked into the hole. I also looked. I could see nothing in it. “He’s digging for fossils,” thought I to myself.
“Perhaps,” said the professor cautiously, “you might wish to aid me in a little research — that is to say, if you have an inclination for fossils.” The double-entendre was not lost upon me.
“I have read all your books so eagerly,” said I, “that to join you, to be of service to you in any research, however difficult and trying, would be an honour and a privilege that I never dared to hope for.”
“That,” thought I to myself, “will do its own work.”
But the professor was still suspicious. How could he help it, when he remembered Jack’s escapades, in which my name was always blended! Doubtless he was satisfied that my influence on Jack was evil. The contrary was the case, too.
“Fossils,” he said, worrying the edges of the excavation with his spade, “fossils are not things to be lightly considered.”
“No, indeed!” I protested.
“Fossils are the most interesting as well as puzzling things in the world,” said he.
“They are!” I cried enthusiastically.
“But I am not looking for fossils,” observed the professor mildly.
This was a facer. I looked at Daisy Holroyd. She bit her lip and fixed her eyes on the sea. Her eyes were wonderful eyes.
“Did you think I was digging for fossils in a salt meadow?” queried the professor. “You can have read very little about the subject. I am digging for something quite different.”
I was silent. I knew that my face was a trifle flushed. I longed to say, “Well, what the devil are you digging for?” but I only stared into the hole as though hypnotized.
“Captain McPeek and Frisby ought to be here,” he said, looking first at Daisy and then across the meadows.
I ached to ask him why he had subpœnaed Captain McPeek and Frisby.
“They are coming,” said Daisy, shading her eyes. “Do you see the speck on the meadows?”
“It may be a mud hen,” said the professor.
“Miss Holroyd is right,” I said. “A wagon and team and two men are coming from the north. There is a dog beside the wagon — it’s that miserable yellow dog of Frisby’s.”
“Good gracious!” cried the professor, “you don’t mean to tell me that you see all that at such a distance?”
“Why not?”I said.
“I see nothing,” he insisted.
“You will see that I’m right, presently,” I laughed.
The professor removed his blue goggles and rubbed them, glancing obliquely at me.
“Haven’t you heard what extraordinary eyesight duck shooters have?” said his daughter, looking back at her father. “Jack says that they can tell exactly what kind of a duck is flying before most people could see anything at all in the sky.”
“It’s true,” I said; “it comes to anybody, I fancy, who has had practice.”
The professor regarded me with a new interest. There was inspiration in his eyes. He turned toward the ocean. For a long time he stared at the tossing waves on the beach, then he looked far out to where the horizon met the sea.
“Are there any ducks out there?” he asked at last.
“Yes,” said I, scanning the sea, “there are.”
He produced a pair of binoculars from his coat-tail pocket, adjusted them, and raised them to his eyes.
“H’m! What sort of ducks?”
I looked more carefully, holding both hands over my forehead.
“Surf ducks — scoters and widgeon. There is one bufflehead among them — no, two; the rest are coots,” I replied.
“This,” cried the professor, “is most astonishing. I have good eyes, but I can’t see a blessed thing without these binoculars!”
“It’s not extraordinary,” said I; “the surf ducks and coots any novice might recognise; the widgeon and buffleheads I should not have been able to name unless they had risen from the water. It is easy to tell any duck when it is flying, even though it looks no bigger than a black pin-point.”
But the professor insisted that it was marvellous, and he said that I might render him invaluable service if I would consent to come and camp at Pine Inlet for a few weeks.
I looked at his daughter, but she turned her back — not exactly in disdain either. Her back was beautifully moulded. Her gown fitted also.
Camp out here?” I repeated, pretending to be unpleasantly surprised.
“I do not think he would care to,” said Miss Holroyd without turning.
I had not expected that.
“Above all things,” said I, in a clear, pleasant voice, “I like to camp out.”
She said nothing.
“It is not exactly camping,” said the professor. “Come, you shall see our conservatory. Daisy, come, dear! you must put on a heavier frock; it is getting toward sundown.”
At that moment, over a near dune, two horses heads appeared, followed by two human heads, then a wagon, then a yellow dog.
I turned triumphantly to the professor.
“You are the very man I want,” he muttered; “the very man — the very man.”
I looked at Daisy Holroyd. She returned my glance with a defiant little smile.
“Waal,” said Captain McPeek, driving up, “here we be! Git out, Frisby.”
Frisby, fat, nervous, and sentimental, hopped out of the cart.
“Come!” said the professor, impatiently moving across the dunes. I walked with Daisy Holroyd. McPeek and Frisby followed. The yellow dog walked by himself.
II.
The sun was dipping into the sea as we trudged across the meadows toward a high dome-shaped dune covered with cedars and thickets of sweet bay. I saw no sign of habitation among the sand hills. Far as the eye could reach, nothing broke the gray line of sea and sky save the squat dunes crowned with stunted cedars.
Then, as we rounded the base of the dune, we almost walked into the door of a house. My amazement amused Miss Holroyd, and I noticed also a touch of malice in her pretty eyes. But she said nothing, following her father into the house, with the slightest possible gesture to me. Was it invitation, or was it menace?
The house was merely a light wooden frame, covered with some waterproof stuff that looked like a mixture of rubber and tar. Over this — in fact, over the whole roof — was pitched an awning of heavy sail-cloth. I noticed that the house was anchored to the sand by chains, already rusted red. But this one-storied house was not the only building nestling in the south shelter of the big dune. A hundred feet away stood another structure — long, low, also built of wood. It had rows on rows of round port holes on every side. The ports were fitted with heavy glass, hinged to swing open if necessary. A single big double door occupied the front.
Behind this long, low building was still another, a mere shed. Smoke rose from the sheet-iron chimney. There was somebody moving about inside the open door.
As I stood gaping at this mushroom hamlet the professor appeared at the door and asked me to enter. I stepped in at once.
The house was much larger than I had imagined. A straight hallway ran through the centre from east to west. On either side of this hallway were rooms, the doors swinging wide open. I counted three doors on each side; the three on the south appeared to be bedrooms.
The professor ushered me into a room on the north side, where I found Captain McPeek and Frisby sitting at a table, upon which were drawings and sketches of articulated animals and fishes.
“You see, McPeek,” said the professor, “we only wanted one more man, and I think I’ve got him. — Haven’t I?” turning eagerly to me.
“Why, yes,” I said, laughing; “this is delightful. Am I invited to stay here?”
“Your bedroom is the third on the south side; everything is ready. McPeek, you can bring his trunk to-morrow, can’t you?” demanded the professor.
The red-faced captain nodded, and shifted a quid.
“Then it’s all settled,” said the professor, and he drew a sigh of satisfaction. “You see,” he said, turning to me, “I was at my wit’s end to know whom to trust. I never thought of you. Jack’s out in China, and I didn’t dare trust anybody in my own profession. All you care about is writing verses and stories, isn’t it?”
“I like to shoot,” I replied mildly.
“Just the thing!” he cried, beaming at us all in turn. “Now I can see no reason why we should not progress rapidly. McPeek, you and Frisby must get those boxes up here before dark. Dinner will be ready before you have finished unloading. Dick, you will wish to go to your room first.”
My name isn’t Dick, but he spoke so kindly, and beamed upon me in such a fatherly manner, that I let it go. I had occasion to correct him afterward, several times, but he always forgot the next minute. He calls me Dick to this day.
It was dark when Professor Holroyd, his daughter, and I sat down to dinner. The room was the same in which I had noticed the drawings of beast and bird, but the round table had been extended into an oval, and neatly spread with dainty linen and silver.
A fresh-cheeked Swedish girl appeared from a further room, bearing the soup. The professor ladled it out, still beaming.
“Now, this is very delightf
ul! — isn’t it, Daisy?” he said.
“Very,” said Miss Holroyd, with the faintest tinge of irony.
“Very,” I repeated heartily; but I looked at my soup when I said it.
“I suppose,” said the professor, nodding mysteriously at his daughter, “that Dick knows nothing of what we’re about down here?”
“I suppose,” said Miss Holroyd, “that he thinks we are digging for fossils.”
I looked at my plate. She might have spared me that.
“Well, well,” said her father, smiling to himself, “he shall know everything by morning. You’ll be astonished, Dick, my boy.”
“His name isn’t Dick,” corrected Daisy.
The professor said, “Isn’t it?” in an absent-minded way, and relapsed into contemplation of my necktie.
I asked Miss Holroyd a few questions about Jack, and was informed that he had given up law and entered the diplomatic service — as what, I did not dare ask, for I know what our diplomatic service is.
“In China,” said Daisy.
“Choo Choo is the name of the city,” added her father proudly; “it’s the terminus of the new trans-Siberian railway.”
“It’s on the Yellow Kiver,” said Daisy.
“He’s vice-consul,” added the professor triumphantly.
“He’ll make a good one,” I observed. I knew Jack. I pitied his consul.
So we chatted on about my old playmate, until Freda, the red-cheeked maid, brought coffee, and the professor lighted a cigar, with a little bow to his daughter.
“Of course, you don’t smoke,” she said to me, with a glimmer of malice in her eyes.
“He mustn’t,” interposed the professor hastily; “it will make his hand tremble.”
“No, it doesn’t,” said I, laughing; “but my hand will shake if I don’t smoke. Are you going to employ me as a draughtsman?”
“You’ll know to-morrow,” he chuckled, with a mysterious smile at his daughter— “Daisy, give him my best cigars; put the box here on the table. We can’t afford to have his hand tremble.”
Miss Holroyd rose, and crossed the hallway to her father’s room, returning presently with a box of promising-looking cigars.
“I don’t think he knows what is good for him,” she said. “He should smoke only one every day.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1093