the portières between the dining room and the living room at beachcrest are carefully drawn. the whole company is assembled, waiting. it is one o'clock, the vitriolic dutch timepiece on the mantel having just snapped out the hungry truth.
the clock, with its quenchless petulance and spite, is lord of the mantel. and what an entourage of vessels! close up against it huddles a bottle of peroxide. then, although disposed in some semblance of neatness and order, one discovers a fish stringer, an old pipe, several empty cigar boxes, heaps of old letters, a book opened and turned down, a number of rumpled handkerchiefs, some camera films, a bottle of red ink. there are two odd candlesticks, without any candles, a metal dish containing a vast miscellany of pins, collar buttons, rubber bands, and who knows what? lo, on the other side of the clock loiter a curious pebble, a laundry list, a box of candy, some loose change and a little paper money, a pocket flash which no longer works, matches in a broken crockery receiver, perfumes, sandpaper, a writing tablet and some yellowing envelopes. and one glimpses, emerging from chaos, the frayed handle of a whisk broom which has seen [pg 160]immeasurably better days. some woven grass baskets, too. anything else? yes, yonder is a box of tacks, and beside it a little pile of the rev. needham's socks, nicely darned. also, strewn here and there, are various rail and steamship timetables, most of which bear the dates of seasons long gone by. an immortal miscellany! oh, and one must not miss that curious creature squatting in a dim corner and peering ever alertly around with his little beady eyes: yes, a sad and much dilapidated teddy bear.
one o'clock!
there is a tendency on the part of every pair of eyes—even those of the rev. needham, or perhaps especially those—to direct from time to time a wholly unconscious glance of hope mingled with mild anxiety toward the tantalizing green portières, beyond which eliza moves about with maddening deliberateness.
one o'clock, snapping like a dry forest twig under the tread of some wild creature. then an angry tick-tock, tick-tock. on and on and on, forever.
out in the kitchen eliza was prodding the kettle of soup. she was dreamily thinking of the porter at the hotel in beulah. would he get over this evening? oh, love is so wonderful! eliza was quite gauche and unlettered; yet love, for her, was a thing which could rouse brilliant orgies of the imagination. love, even for her, was something which transcended all the ineffable promised glories of heaven itself. yes, it was better than the streets of pearl and the[pg 161] gates of amethyst—or was it the gates of pearl and the streets of gold?
when the soup was ready she served it, then thrust asunder the portières. "lunch is served, ma'am," she announced, with a degree of majesty which would simply have terrorized the beulah porter.
they responded promptly—not exactly crowding ahead of each other, but stepping along with irreproachable briskness. appetites beside the sea are like munition factories in wartime.
there was a cheerful rattle of chairs and much scraping of feet under the table. then a solemn silence, while the minister prayed. the rev. needham, of course, sat at the head of the table. mrs. needham sat opposite him at the foot. to the minister's right was miss whitcom, who found herself delightfully sandwiched in between a knight of the church and a knight of the grip. needless to say, the latter was mr. o'donnell, looking his very nicest and smelling of soap like the brushwood boy. next came hilda, who flashed quite dazzling smiles across at her sister, smiles more subdued and shy at mr. barry. there was a flurry of conversation at first, while the paper napkins were being opened up and disposed where they would afford the most protection—not a great deal, it is to be feared, at best. and then—well, then there was almost no talk at all until after the soup. as they say in theatre programs: "the curtain will be lowered one minute to denote a lapse of time."
[pg 162]
miss whitcom and mr. o'donnell had employed quite as little formality in their meeting as the latter had prophesied during the trip up to beulah. she hadn't, as a matter of fact, referred to the wall paper in the throne room of the queen's palace. instead she had remarked: "you know, it's curious. i was just dropping you a note. yes. i wanted, for one thing, to express my regret over the unlikelihood of our seeing each other this trip, since you see i'm going right back. jolly you should have happened along like this—and a postage stamp saved into the bargain!" while he, swallowing his disappointment over the prospect of her immediate return to tahulamaji, had replied in like spirit: "how fortunate—about the stamp, i mean. it has been a long while, hasn't it?"
and now they were sitting side by side at the table, rather monopolizing the conversation—having a beautiful time, yet never quite descending from that characteristic, mutually assumed tone of banter.
"i suppose you're still travelling, mr. o'donnell?"
"still travelling, miss whitcom."
"same firm?"
"same firm."
it had been the same firm almost as far back as memory went. it always would be the same firm. there was little of change and perhaps nothing at all of adventure in this destiny. but there was a rather substantial balance in the bank, which, after all, is a kind of adventure, too.
[pg 163]
"babbit & babbit," she mused.
"members of the o. a. of c."
"true. i'm afraid i'd forgotten the letters at the end."
he nibbled at his celery. "and you, miss whitcom?"
"still mostly travelling, mr. o'donnell."
"same firm?"
"oh, dear no! there the interesting parallel must cease. one has to be progressive, you know. one must keep abreast of the times." she gave her brother-in-law a dreadful, broad wink. "what was i doing last?"
o'donnell grinned. "i believe—wasn't it piloting tourists through europe?"
"do you mean to tell me it's been as long as that since i've seen you?"
"as i recollect it—something of the sort."
"yes, yes. so it was. but that was before the war. you knew, of course, that i'd gone to tahulamaji."
"you answered several of my letters," he reminded her sweetly.
"ah, of course i did. and you should have felt highly flattered, for i may say i made no point of keeping up any sort of correspondence at all down there."
"i should say not!" put in mrs. needham, laughing.
"oh, yes. i was flattered—flattered even if they[pg 164] were only postcards. but i haven't yet got it straight what you were doing in tahulamaji. was it the same sort of thing there?"
"what! piloting tourists?" she had a hearty laugh. her brother-in-law started a little. one of marjory's hearty laughs was always like an unexpected slap on the back.
"you mean there aren't any sights to show?" asked o'donnell meekly. "i don't even know where tahulamaji is, and i haven't the faintest idea what it's like."
"oh," she laughed, "there are plenty of sights. it's ever so much better than europe!"
"then why not pilot?"
"there aren't any tourists."
"not any at all?"
"none, at least, who require piloting. you see, we haven't been sufficiently exploited yet. for some reason we've escaped so far, though i expect any day to hear that we've been discovered. those who come are bent on plain, stern business. most of them get away again the next day. those who don't get off the next day, or at most the day after that, you may depend upon it have come to stay—like me."
"so you are quite determined to go back again."
"quite. why not?"
they gazed quietly at each other a moment, while the minister began dispensing dried-beef-in-cream-on-toast—a special beachcrest dish; french-fried potatoes. mrs. needham watched with quaking heart[pg 165] until it was patent there would be enough to go round. then she began pouring the tea.
there was always, at any rate, plenty of tea. but miss whitcom nearly occasioned a panic by asking for lemon. the rest took cream, if for no better reason than that it was right there on the table. the demand had been, like everything miss whitcom did, unpremeditated, and was immediately withdrawn. she tossed her head and laughed. wasn't it absurd to ask for lemon in the wilderness? but anna needham rose to the occasion. it was a crisis.
she tinkled the bell in a breathless yet resolute way; she so wanted to impress her sister as being a competent housekeeper. it amounted almost to a passion. perhaps living so long with alfred had rather tended to weaken belief in her own abilities.
eliza was gone a good while. but she triumphantly returned with the lemon. mr. o'donnell looked at miss whitcom's tea a little wistfully. he had already taken cream. possibly he preferred lemon too. but it requires real genius to ask for what one doesn't see before one in this law-of-least-resistance world.
this slight tension removed, the rev. needham resumed a quiet conversation with barry about the affairs in the west. everything, it seemed, was going finely. it began to look as though they might all grow positively rich off the desert! and it was owing to barry—entirely to him. well, barry was a fine young man—so completely satisfactory. if the [pg 166]needhams had had a son, alfred would have wished him to be like barry. sure, patient, untiring, generous—generous to a fault, yet with such solid faculties for business! and now, here he was, about to step right into the family. it was too good to be true. yes, much too good. the rev. needham swelled with pride and beamed with affection. he beamed on barry, and never noted how his daughter sat there beside this paragon, eating little, talking almost not at all....
hilda was another member of the party who talked little. her deportment, however, was quite different. her cheeks were highly coloured, and her eyes sparkled. aunt marjie, who seemed somehow never too engrossed in anything to give good heed to everything else, looked curiously from hilda to louise, to barry, from barry on to her brother-in-law. then she looked at hilda again, recalling leslie, and smiled. she looked at louise again, also, then at barry, and her expression grew more serious. she looked at louise a third time, still with leslie in the back of her mind, and thought of the forgotten stove burners....
why was it, she asked herself, that men had to make such baffling differences in women's lives?
