Chapter Five.
How Billy Conducts the Business—How Captain Bream Overcomes the Sisters, and how Jessie Seaward Sees Mystery in Everything
“I wonder,” said Billy to himself on reaching the street as he looked down at the legs of his trousers, “I wonder if they’re any shorter. Yes, they don’t seem to be quite so far down on the shoes as when I left Yarmouth. I must have grow’d an inch or two since I came up to Lun’on!”
Under this gratifying impression the fisher-boy drew himself up to his full height, his little chest swelling with new sensations, and his whole body rolling along with a nautical swagger that drew on him the admiration of some, the contempt of others, and caused several street boys to ask “if his mother knowed ’e was hout,” and other insolent questions.
But Billy cared for none of these things. The provincial boy was quite equal to the occasion, though his return “chaff” smacked much of salt water.
Arrived at the poverty-stricken street in which the Misses Seaward dwelt, Billy mounted the narrow staircase and knocked at the door. It was opened by Liffie Lee, who had remained on that day to accomplish some extra work.
“Is your missis at home, my dear?”
“There ain’t no missis here, an’ I ain’t your dear,” was the prompt reply.
Billy was taken aback. He had not anticipated so ready and caustic a response, in one so small and child-like.
“Come now—no offence meant,” he said, “but you’re not a-goin’ to deny that the Miss Seawards does live here.”
“I ain’t a-goin’ to deny nothink,” replied Liffie, a little softened by the boy’s apologetic tone, “only when I’m expected to give a civil answer, I expects a civil question.”
“That’s all fair an’ aboveboard. Now, will you tell the Miss Seawards I wants to see ’em, on a matter of business—of importance.”
Another minute and Billy stood in the presence of the ladies he wished to see. Prepared beforehand to like them, his affections were at once fixed for ever by the first glimpse of their kindly faces.
With a matter-of-fact gravity, that greatly amused the sisters—though they carefully concealed their feelings—little Billy stated his business, and, in so doing, threw his auditors into a flutter of hope and gratitude, surprise and perplexity.
“But what is the name of the house that sends you?” asked Miss Jessie.
“That I am not allowed for to tell,” said the boy-of-business, firmly.
“A mercantile house in the city, I suppose,” said Kate.
“What sort o’ house it may be is more than a sea-farin’ man like me knows, an’ of course it’s in the city. You wouldn’t expect a business-house to be in the country, would you? all I know is that they want mitts made—hundreds of ’em—no end o’ mitts—an’ they hain’t got hands enough to make ’em, so they sent me to ask if you’ll undertake to help in the work, or if they’re to git some one else to do it. Now, will you, or will you not? that’s the pint.”
“Of course we shall be only too happy,” answered Jessie, “though the application is strange. How did you come to know that we were in want of—that is, who sent you to us?”
“The house sent me, as I said afore, Miss.”
“Yes, but how did the house come to know of our existence, and how is it that a house of any sort should send a sailor-boy as its messenger?”
“How the house came to know of you is more than I can say. They don’t tell me all the outs-an’-ins of their affairs, you know. As to a house sendin’ a sailor-boy as its messenger—did you ever hear of the great house of Messrs Hewett and Company, what supplies Billin’sgate with fish?”
“I’m not sure—well, yes, I think I have heard of that house,” said Kate, “though we are not in the way of hearing much about the commercial houses of London.”
“Well,” continued Billy, “that house sends hundreds of fisher-boys as messengers. It sends ’em to the deep-sea with a message to the fish, an the message is—‘come out o’ the water you skulkin’ critters, an’ be sent up to Billin’sgate to be sold an’ eaten!’ The fish don’t come willin’ly, I’m bound for to say that, but we make ’em come all the same, willin’ or not, for we’ve wonderful powers o’ persuasion. So you see, houses do send fisher-boys as messengers sometimes; now, what am I to say to the partikler house as sends me? will you go in for mitts? you may take comforters if you prefer it, or helmets.”
“What do you mean by helmets, my boy?”
“Worsted ones, of course. Things made to kiver up a man’s head and neck and come down to his shoulders, with a hole in front just big enough to let his eyes, nose, and cheek-bones come through. With a sou’-wester on top, and a comforter round the neck, they’re not so bad in a stiff nor’-wester in Janoowairy. Now’s your chance, ladies, now, or niver!”
There was something so ludicrous in the manly tone and decided manner of the smooth-faced little creature before them, that the sisters burst into a hearty fit of laughter.
“Forgive us, dear boy, but the idea of our being asked in this sudden way to make innumerable mitts and comforters and worsted helmets seems so odd that we can’t help laughing. What is your name? That is not a secret, I hope?”
“By no means. My name is Billy Bright. If you’re very partikler, you may call me Willum.”
“I prefer Billy,” said Kate. “Now, Billy, it is near our dinner hour. Will you stay and dine with us? If you do, you’ll meet such a nice man—such a big man too—and somewhat in your own line of life; a sea-captain. We expect him every—”
“No, thank ’ee, Miss,” interrupted the boy, rising abruptly. “I sees more than enough o’ big sea-captings when I’m afloat. Besides, I’ve got more business on hand, so I’ll bid ’ee good-day.”
Pulling his forelock he left the room.
“The ladies has undertook some work for me, my dear,” said Billy to Liffie Lee, as he stood at the door buttoning up his little coat, “so p’raps I may see you again.”
“It won’t break my ’art if you don’t,” replied Liffie; “no, nor yet yours.”
“Speak for yourself, young ’ooman. You don’t know nothing about my ’art.”
As he spoke, a heavy foot was heard at the bottom of the stair.
“That’s our lodger,” said Liffie; “no foot but his can bang the stair or make it creak like that.”
“Well, I’m off,” cried Billy, descending two steps at a time.
Half-way down he encountered what seemed to him a giant with a chest on his shoulder. It was the darkest part of the stair where they met.
“Look out ahead! Hard a starboard!” growled Captain Bream, who seemed to be heavily weighted.
“Ay, ay, sir!” cried Billy, as he brushed past, bounded into the street, and swaggered away.
“What boy was that, Liffie?” asked the captain, letting down the chest he carried with a shock that caused the frail tenement to quiver from cellar to roof-tree.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“He must be a sailor-boy, from his answer,” rejoined the captain. “Open the door o’ my cabin, lass, and I’ll carry it right in. It’s somewhat heavy.”
He lifted the chest, which was within an eighth of an inch of being too large to pass through the little door-way, and put it in a corner, after which he entered the parlour, and sat down in a solid wooden chair which he had supplied to the establishment for his own special use.
“You see,” he had said, on the day when he introduced it, “I’ve come to grief so often in the matter of chairs that I’ve become chary as to how I use ’em. If all the chairs that I’ve had go crash under me was put together they’d furnish a good-sized house. Look before you leap is a well-known proverb, but look before you sit down has become a more familiar experience to me through life. It’s an awkward thing bein’ so heavy, and I hope you’ll never know what it is, ladies.”
Judging from their appearance just then there did not seem much prospect of that!
“Now,” continued the captain, rubbing his hands and looking benignantly at Jessie, “I have settled the matter at last; fairly said good-bye to old Ocean, an’ fixed to cast anchor for good on the land.”
“Have you indeed, captain?” said Jessie, “I should fancy that you must feel rather sorry to bid farewell to so old a friend.”
“That’s true, Miss Seaward. An old and good friend the sea has been to me, thank God. But I’m gettin’ too old myself to be much of a friend to it, so I’ve fixed to say good-bye. And the question is, Am I to stop on here, or am I to look out for another lodgin’? You see I’ve been a good many weeks with you now, an’ you’ve had a fair taste of me, so to speak. I know I’m a rough sort o’ fish for the like o’ you to have to do with, and, like some o’ the hermit crabs, rather too big for my shell, so if you find me awkward or uncomfortable don’t hesitate to say so. I won’t be surprised, though I confess I should be sorry to leave you.”
“Well, Captain Bream,” said Kate, who was generally the speaker when delicate, difficult or unpleasant subjects had to be dealt with, “since you have been so candid with us we will be equally candid with you. When you first came to us, I confess that we were much alarmed; you seemed—so very big,” (the captain tried to shrink a little—without success—and smiled in a deprecating manner), “and our rooms and furniture seemed so very small and delicate, so to speak; and then your voice was so fearfully deep and gruff,” (the captain cleared his throat softly—in B natural of the bass clef—and smiled again), “that we were almost frightened to receive you; but, now that we have had experience of you, we are quite willing that you should continue with us—on one condition, however.”
“And that is?” asked the captain anxiously.
“That you pay us a lower rent.”
“A—a higher rent you mean, I suppose?”
“No; I mean a lower.”
Captain Bream’s benign visage became grave and elongated.
“You see, captain,” continued Kate, flushing a little, “when you first came, we tried—excuse me—to get rid of you, to shake you off, and we almost doubled the rent of our little room, hoping that—”
“Quite right, quite right,” interrupted the captain, “and according to strict justice, for ain’t I almost double the size of or’nary men, an’ don’t I give more than double the trouble?”
“Not so,” returned Kate, firmly, “you don’t give half the trouble that other men do.”
“Excuse me, Miss Kate,” said the captain with a twinkle in his grey eye, “you told me I was your first lodger, so how can you know how much trouble other men would give?”
“No matter,” persisted Kate, a little confused, “you don’t give half the trouble that other lodgers would have given if we had had them.”
“Ah! h’m—well,” returned the captain softly, in the profoundest possible bass, “looking at the matter in that light, perhaps you are not far wrong. But, go on.”
“Well, I have only to add,” continued Kate, “that you have been so kind to us, and so considerate, and have given us so little—so very little trouble, that it will give us both great pleasure to have you continue to lodge with us if you agree to the reduction of the rent.”
“Very well,” said Captain Bream, pulling out an immense gold chronometer—the gift, in days gone by, of a band of highly grateful and appreciative passengers. “I’ve got business in the city an hour hence. We shall have dinner first. Two hours afterwards I will return with a cab and take away my boxes. That will give you plenty of time to make out your little bill and—”
“What do you mean, captain?” interrupted Kate, in much surprise.
“I mean, dear ladies, that you and I entered into an agreement to rent your little cabin for so much. Now it has been my rule in life to stick to agreements, and I mean to stick to this one or throw up my situation. Besides, I’m not goin’ to submit to have the half of my rent cut off. I can’t stand it. Like old Shylock, I mean to stick to the letter of the bond. Now, is it ‘to be, or not to be?’ as Hamlet said to the ass.”
“I was not aware that Hamlet said that to an ass,” remarked Jessie, with a little laugh.
“Oh yes! he did,” returned the captain quite confidently; “he said it to himself, you know, an’ that was the same thing. But what about the agreement?”
“Well, since you are so determined, I suppose we must give in,” said Kate.
“We can’t resist you, captain,” said Jessie, “but there is one thing that we must positively insist on, namely, that you come and sit in this room of an evening. I suppose you read or write a great deal, for we see your light burning very late sometimes, and as you have no fire you must often feel very cold.”
“Cold!” shouted the captain, with a laugh that caused the very window-frames to vibrate. “My dear ladies, I’m never cold. Got so used to it, I suppose, that it has no power over me. Why, when a man o’ my size gets heated right through, it takes three or four hours to cool him even a little. Besides, if it do come a very sharp frost, I’ve got a bear-skin coat that our ship-carpenter made for me one voyage in the arctic regions. It is hot enough inside almost to cook you. Did I ever show it you? I’ll fetch it.”
Captain Bream rose with such energy that he unintentionally spurned his chair—his own solid peculiar chair—and caused it to pirouette on one leg before tumbling backward with a crash. Next minute he returned enveloped from head to foot in what might be termed a white-bear ulster, with an enormous hood at the back of his neck.
Accustomed as the sisters were to their lodger’s bulk, they were not prepared for the marvellous increase caused by the monstrous hairy garment.
“It would puzzle the cold to get at me through this, wouldn’t it?” said its owner, surveying it with complacency. “It was my own invention too—at least the carpenter and I concocted it between us.
“The sleeves are closed up at the ends, you see, and a thumb attached to each, so as to make sleeves and mittens all of a piece, with a slit near the wrists to let you shove your hands out when you want to use them naked, an’ a flap to cover the slit and keep the wind out when you don’t want to shove out your hands. Then the hood, you see, is large and easy, so that it can be pulled well for’ard—so—and this broad band behind it unbuttons and comes round in front of the face and buttons, so—to keep all snug when you lay down to sleep.”
“Wonderful!” exclaimed the sisters as the captain stood before them like a great pillar of white fur, with nothing of him visible save the eyes and feet.
“But that’s not all,” continued the ancient mariner, turning his back to the sisters. “You see that great flap hooked up behind?”
“Yes,” answered Jessie and Kate in the same breath.
“Well, then, notice what I do.”
He sat down on the floor, and unhooking the flap, drew it round in front, where he re-hooked it to another row of eyes in such a manner that it completely covered his feet and lower limbs.
“There, you see, I’m in a regular fur-bag now, all ready for a night in the snow.”
By way of illustration he extended himself on the floor at full-length, and, by reason of that length being so great, and the room so narrow, his feet went into the window-recess while his head lay near the door.
All ignorant of this illustration of arctic life going on, Liffie Lee, intent on dinner purposes, opened the door and drove it violently against the captain’s head.
“Avast there!” he shouted, rising promptly. “Come in, lass. Come in—no damage done.”
“Oh! sir,” exclaimed the horrified Liffie, “I ax your parding.”
“Don’t put yourself about my girl. I’m used to collisions, and it’s not in the power o’ your small carcass to do me damage.”
Disrobing himself as he spoke, the lodger retired to his cabin to lay aside his curious garment, and Liffie, assisted by Kate, took advantage of his absence to spread their little board.
“I never saw such a man,” said Kate in a low voice as she bustled about.
“Saw!” exclaimed Jessie under her breath, “I never even conceived of such a man. He is so violent in his actions that I constantly feel as if I should be run over and killed. It feels like living in the same house with a runaway mail coach. How fortunate that his spirit is so gentle and kind!”
A tremendous crash at that moment caused Jessie to stop with a gasp.
“Hallo! fetch a swab—a dish-clout or somethin’, Liffie,” came thundering from the captain’s room. “Don’t be alarmed, ladies, it’s only the wash-hand basin. Knocked it over in hangin’ up the coat. Nothin’ smashed. It’s a tin basin, you know. Look alive, lass, else the water’ll git down below, for the caulkin’ of these planks ain’t much to boast of, an’ you’ll have the green-grocer up in a towering rage!”
A few minutes later this curious trio sat down to dinner, and the captain, according to a custom established from the commencement of his sojourn, asked a blessing on the meat in few words, but with a deeply reverent manner, his great hands being clasped before him, and with his eyes shut like a little child.
“Well now, before beginning,” he said, looking up, “let me understand; is this matter of the lodging and rent settled?”
“Yes, it is settled,” answered Jessie. “We’ve got used to you, captain, and should be very, very sorry to lose you.”
“Come, that’s all right. Let’s shake hands on it over the leg of mutton.”
He extended his long arm over the small table, and spread out his enormous palm in front of Jessie Seaward. With an amused laugh she laid her little hand in it—to grasp it was out of the question—and the mighty palm closed for a moment with an affectionate squeeze. The same ceremony having been gone through with Kate, he proceeded to carve.
And what a difference between the dinners that once graced—perhaps we should say disgraced—that board, and those that smoked upon it now! Then, tea and toast, with sometimes an egg, and occasionally a bit of bacon, were the light viands; now, beef, mutton, peas, greens, potatoes, and other things, constituted the heavy fare.
The sisters had already begun to get stronger on it. The captain would have got stronger, no doubt, had that been possible.
And what a satisfactory thing it was to watch Captain Bream at his meals! There was something grand—absolutely majestic—in his action. Being a profoundly modest and unselfish man it was not possible to associate the idea of gluttony with him, though he possessed the digestion of an ostrich, and the appetite of a shark. There was nothing hurried, or eager, or careless, in his mode of eating. His motions were rather slow than otherwise; his proceedings deliberate. He would even at times check a tempting morsel on its way to his mouth that he might more thoroughly understand and appreciate something that Jessie or Kate chanced to be telling him. Yet with all that, he compelled you, while looking at him, to whisper to yourself—“how he does shovel it in!”
“I declare to you, Kate,” said Jessie, on one occasion after the captain had left the room, “I saw him take one bite to-day which ought to have choked him, but it didn’t. He stuck his fork into a piece of mutton as big—oh! I’m afraid to say how big; it really seemed to me the size of your hand, and he piled quite a little mound of green peas on it, with a great mass of broken fragments and gravy, and put it all into his mouth at once, though that mouth was already pretty well-filled with the larger half of an enormous potato. I thought he would never get it in, but something you said caused him to laugh at the time, and before the laugh was over the bite had disappeared. Before it was properly swallowed he was helping himself to another slice from the leg of mutton! I declare to you, Kate, that many a time I have dined altogether on less than that one bite!”
Poor Miss Seaward had stated a simple truth in regard to herself, but that truth was founded on want of food, not on want of appetite or capacity for more.
At first it had been arranged that an account-book should be kept, and that the captain should pay for one-third of the food that was consumed in the house, but he had consumed so much, and the sisters so ridiculously little, that he refused to fall in with such an arrangement and insisted on paying for all the food consumed, with the exception of the cup of coffee, cream, and sugar, with which he regaled himself every day after dinner. Of course they had had a battle over this matter also, but the captain had carried the day, as he usually did, for he had marvellous powers of suasion. He had indeed so argued, and talked, and bamboozled the meek sisters—sometimes seriously, oftener jocularly,—that they had almost been brought to the belief that somehow or other their lodger was only doing what was just! After all, they were not so far wrong, for all that they ate of the captain’s provisions amounted to a mere drop in the bucket, while the intellectual food with which they plied their lodger in return, and the wealth of sympathy with which they surrounded him, was far beyond the power of gold to purchase.
“No,” said Captain Bream, sipping his coffee and shaking his head, when Jessie again pressed on him the propriety of sitting in the parlour of an evening, “I can’t do it. The fact is that I’m studying—though you may think I’m rather an oldish student—and I can’t study except when I’m alone.”
“What are you studying?” asked Kate, and then, observing that the captain looked slightly confused, and feeling that she ought not to have put the question, she quickly changed the subject by adding—“for whatever it is, you will be quite free from interruption here. My sister and I often sit for hours without talking, and—”
“No, no, dear Miss Kate. Say no more,” interrupted the captain; “I must stick to my own cabin except at meal-times, and, of course, when we want a bit of a talk together. There is one thing, however, that I would like. I know you have family worship with your little lass. May I join you?”
“Oh! it would give us such pleasure,” exclaimed Kate, eagerly, “if you would come and conduct worship for us.”
The captain protested that he would not do that, but finally gave in, and afterwards acted the part of chaplain in the family.
“By the way,” he said, when about to quit the parlour, “I’ve brought another chest to the house.”
“Yes,” said Kate, “we felt the shock when you put it down.”
“Well, it is a bit heavy. I’ve fairly given up my connection with my last ship, and as the new commander took possession this morning I was obliged to bring away my last box. Now, I don’t want Liffie to move it about when putting things to rights, or to meddle with it in any way. When we want to sweep behind or under it I’ll shift it myself. But, after all, you’re safe not to move it, for the three of you together couldn’t if you were to try ever so much. So, good-day. I’ll be back to tea.”
“Kate,” said Jessie, after he was gone, “I am quite sure that there is some mystery connected with that box.”
“Of course you are,” replied Kate, with a laugh, “you always see mystery in things that you don’t understand! You saw mystery too, didn’t you, in the late sitting up and studies of Captain Bream.”
“Indeed I did, and I am quite sure that there is some mystery about that, too.”
“Just so, and I have no doubt that you observe mystery of some sort,” added Kate, with a humorous glance, “in the order for worsted work that we have just received.”
“Undoubtedly I do,” replied Jessie, with decision. “The whole affair is mysterious—ridiculously so. In truth it seems to me that we are surrounded by mystery.”
“Well, well, sister mine,” said the matter-of-fact Kate, going to a small cupboard and producing an ample work-box that served for both, “whatever mysteries may surround us, it is our business to fulfil our engagements, so we will at once begin our knitting of cuffs and comforters for the fishermen of the North Sea.”