the seaside institution to which bobbie, with an attention that could not have been exceeded if he had been paying money recklessly to everybody around him, found himself conveyed, exactly fitted his desires. the cool, calm order of the place, the quiet service of serene women attendants in their dark gowns and white aprons, the well-chosen table, the pure white linen in spotless bedrooms—all these things, that might have irritated the boy had he been perfectly well, were, in his convalescent state, precisely what he required. the days had become warmer, and it was possible to spend a good deal of time on the wooden balconies of the swiss-like building. from these balconies he could look away across the green waters, with their patches of dark purple; could watch the channel steamer puffing its way across, presently to enter the harbour below. the harbour itself never ceased to delight him. there it was that steamers rested in a dignified manner when off duty, submitting themselves to an energetic washing of decks and rubbing of brasswork; near them, brown-sailed fishing vessels for ever going out to sea or coming back from sea, manned by limited crews, who shouted in the dialect of the kentish coast, and whose aim in life it appeared to be not so much to do work themselves as to tell others to do it. the scent of the sea came up to the balconies, and most of the boys in varying stages of repair who inhaled it, declared their intention, once they had regained possession of that health which for the moment eluded them, of becoming admirals in her majesty’s navy. bobbie lancaster on this subject said nothing, which was his way when engaged in making up his mind.
stages marked the progress of improvement. one of the earliest came on permission being granted to walk about the green-grassed lawn around the home, with its summer-houses, where, over the fence in the evenings, you could observe sons of mariners wooing, with economic speech, daughters of other mariners, and kissing them, under the impression that no one but a martello tower looked on.
here bobbie himself fell in love.
a breezy curate attached to the church close by, for ever flying in and out of the home with no hat, and an appearance of having another engagement of a highly urgent character for which he was a little late, hurried in one day to look round the sitting-room where the guests played dominoes, and found bobbie well enough to go out; so well, indeed, that he had arranged to go down the long road towards the white cliffs in company with an adult patient, who, being in ordinary times a stoker on p. 83a london bridge and greenwich steamboat, posed as authority on all matters concerning the navy, and arbitrator in disputes concerning that branch of the service. breezy curate, in less than no time at all, found other work for the naval authority, gained the necessary permission from the lady superintendent, and was away with bobbie, walking so fast that he had to run back now and then in the manner of a frisky terrier, in order that bobbie should keep up with him. ere the boy had time or breath to ask questions they arrived at the door of a round squat martello tower (called by elderly acquaintances billy pitt’s mansion), where he was lugged in and introduced to the coastguardsman who lived there; introduced also to coastguardsman’s immense niece, who appeared to bobbie, panting on a chair, like a very large angel, only better dressed and much better looking, and who, it appeared, came in daily to make tidy her uncle’s tower. breezy curate, before hastening off for a fly along the cliffs, made the boy a friend of coastguard and coastguard’s niece, and promised to call back for him in an hour.
“reckon you’ve been ’avin’ games, young man, ain’t you?” said coastguard sternly. “what made you fall down and step on yerself in that manner for, eh?”
bobbie explained. when he described the fire in margaret ward, the large angel, making tea and toasting bread that filled the small room with most appetizing odours, looked up.
“bravo,” said the young woman. “come here and i’ll give ye a kiss for that.”
bobbie hesitated.
“go on, lad,” counselled her uncle; “there’s them that wouldn’t want to be asked twice to do that, jigger me if they would.”
“uncle!” said the large angel reprovingly. “do give over.”
bobbie considered it proof of the young woman’s angelic nature that, seeing he did not stir, she came to him, toasting-fork in hand, gave him a hug and then went back to her work at the fire. coastguard, enormously amused at this, slapped his knee, saying that seeing kisses were cheap, jigger him if he wouldn’t have one, and a kiss he therefore took, and the three sat down to tea in great good-humour. by an effort, bobbie determined to retain the correct behaviour that he had learnt in the cottage homes and at margaret ward; coastguard, delighted with the boy’s respectful manner, declared that an earl could not comport himself better. from this, coastguard passed, by easy transition, to a review of the royal family of his country, a review that became a glowing eulogy. the angel, too, preparing to cut cake, expressed so much affection for the younger members of the family, portraits of whom were on the walls of the little room of the martello tower, that the boy found himself impressed, and convinced by views in regard to royalty that were novel to him.
“old lady,” declared coastguard, blowing at his tea, “will have the best. she don’t mind what she pays for her navy, but she will ’ave it good.”
“i see what you mean,” said bobbie.
“do you like the outside or the inside?” asked the angel at the cake.
“both, miss,” said bobbie.
“none of your ne’er-do-wells for her,” went on coastguard. “none of your thieving—”
p. 84“you’ve dropped your knife on the floor, little boy,” said the angel. “that’s a sign you’re not careful.”
“‘none of your bad characters, none of your criminals for my navy,’ she ses, ‘if you please.’ and jigger me,” said coastguard explosively, “jigger me if the old lady ain’t right.”
“you ought to call her ‘her majesty,’ uncle. you’d look silly if she happened to be listening.”
“go’ bless my soul,” said coastguard with enthusiasm, “she wouldn’t mind it from me. she knows my way of talking.”
“and,” stammered bobbie, “is it—is it true then that you can’t get into the navy if you’ve done anything wrong?”
“devil a bit,” answered coastguard. “old lady’d think it was a piece of impudence to try it on. looey, my gell, whilst i’m havin’ my pipe jest give us a toon on the old harmonium.”
the large niece, seated at the harmonium, seemed, to the thoughtful bobbie, more like an angel than ever; the music she produced helped to distract his troubled thoughts. presently, however, the angel found a moody and sankey book and, having propped it on the ledge before her, picked out on the keys as with her foot she moved the pedals, a hymn that gave the boy memories. the coastguard rolled his head to the rhythm; now and again taking his pipe from his mouth to growl a note or two and thus give his niece encouragement.
“dare to be a daniel,
dare to stand alone,
dare to—”
bobbie sat forward in his chair, his eyes fixed on the broad bending back of the young lady at the harmonium, and thought of ely place. what a long way off ely place seemed now; bat miller, and mrs. bat miller, and the fright; all these were misty figures that for years had visited his memory infrequently. bat miller’s time would be up in a year or two. bobbie shivered to think what he should do were bat miller’s face to appear suddenly at the window. for a few moments he dared not glance at the window, fearful that this impossible event might happen; when at the end of the hymn he nerved himself to look in that direction he felt almost surprised to find no face peering in.
“gi’ us,” said the coastguard cheerfully, “gi’ us ‘old the fort.’ that’s the one i’m gone on. there’s a swing about ‘old the fort.’”
it seemed to the boy that already he had lived two lives; that the first had been broken off short on the day he turned out of worship street police court. he could not help feeling a vague admiration for that first boy because the first boy had been a fine young dare-devil, never trammelled by rules of behaviour; at the same time it was as well, perhaps, that the first boy had ceased to live, for he was not the kind of lad bobbie could have introduced to the angel.
“and now,” said the coastguard, “jigger my eyes if i mustn’t on with my jacket and find my spy-glass and see what’s going on outside. where’s that young curate got to, i wonder?”
the coastguard went presently, after telling bobbie that he might call again at the martello tower, and that if he behaved he should one day go p. 85out to the coastguard station and see, by aid of the telescope, the coast of france. bobbie, alone with the angel, and allowed to seat himself at the end of the harmonium, behaved with a preciseness and a decorum that in any other lad would have been held by bobbie as good justification for punching that boy’s head. the angel’s right hand remaining on the higher keys for a space in order to give full effect to a final chord, he bent and kissed it. the scent of brown windsor soap ever afterwards reminded him of this first essay in affection.
“what ye up to?” demanded the angel.
“only kissin’ your ’and,” said bobbie confusedly.
“we don’t kiss hands down in these parts,” said the large young lady. “that ain’t kentish fashion.”
“i like you,” remarked the boy shyly.
“my goodness!” said the angel with affectation of much concern, “this won’t do. i mustn’t be catched alone with a young man what says things like that. i’d better be seeing about taking you back to the home, i reckon.”
the curate not returning (having, as it proved, flown away to a neighbouring parish and forgotten all about the boy), this course had to be adopted, and the two walked back along the road on the edge of the white cliffs—bobbie in a state of proud ecstasy, which reached its highest point, when a boy, in passing them, called out to him, “why doan’ you marry the girl?” the angel herself spoke of the amount that the starting of a household cost; of the relative advantages of a house with folding doors but no bay windows, compared with a house having bay windows, but no folding doors; all in a manner that seemed to the boy, strutting by her side, highly encouraging, and, under the circumstances, as much as on such brief acquaintance a man could reasonably expect. at the home, any trouble that might have arisen by reason of the boy’s extended absence was removed by the fact that the angel had once been a highly-esteemed servant at the institution; the lady superintendent met them without a frown. the large young lady found herself lugged into the kitchen by two of the white-aproned maids for a chat, and when presently she looked in to say good night, at the reading-room where bobbie was finishing a sea story, she kissed him, to the great envy of the other convalescent young students.
“serve us all alike, miss,” begged a lad with crutches.
“you be quiet,” ordered bobbie, “unless you want your head punched.”
“give me ’alf a one,” urged the lad with crutches.
“no fear,” said the angel cheerfully. she nodded her head to bobbie. “he’s my young man.”
“should have thought you’d got better taste, miss.”
“you leave off talking to that lady,” growled bobbie, “or i’ll spoil your features for you.” the large young lady waved her hand and disappeared through the swing doors. “if you ain’t a gentleman, do, for goodness sake, try to ’ide the fact.”
in the few weeks of bobbie’s residence, the coastguard became his very good friend. the boy learned the secrets of flags, listened with an interest that he had never felt at school to the accounts of british victories by sea in the past, absorbing with great appetite the coastguard’s figures illustrating the current state of the navy. in his young heart patriotism was born.
p. 86permitted to see through the telescope the coast of france, he commenced to realize actualities that he had never gained from maps. in the school of the cottage homes the general impression amongst incredulous small boys had been that no such places as foreign countries really existed; that these were fictions invented by adults for the more complete annoyance and trouble of children. now the line of cliffs where on bright days tiny black specks could be seen moving, brought conviction; the boy found that he had much to learn, and something to forget. one sunday afternoon, being allowed to go down to the sleeping harbour, and over the line, and along the quay by the customs house, he met, by happy chance, the angel, in white, with green sunshade, who, it appeared, waited for some one who would be free as soon as the baggage had been cleared; together they watched the channel steamer bustle in and wake up the harbour, saw ropes thrown, gangways fixed, and presently heard the arriving passengers chattering in a language which the angel told him was french.
“ignorant set, ain’t they?” asked bobbie.
“oh, i don’t know,” said the large young lady tolerantly.
“i ’aven’t got much opinion of foreigners,” said the boy. “for one thing, why don’t they learn a decent language like ourn?”
“i s’pose they get on all right without it.”
“do you know any french?”
“a bit,” said the angel modestly.
“tell us some!”
“je vous aime,” said the angel. on bobbie demanding a translation, the large young lady, shading her face with the green parasol, furnished this.
“who learnt it you?” demanded bobbie jealously.
“ah,” said the angel acutely, “that’s tellings.”
it galled him considerably on the last occasion that the breezy young curate took him under his wing to fly away with him along the cliff and look in at the martello tower for a picture of a ship which the coastguard had promised to him, to find the small room almost wholly occupied by a tall bashful young customs officer, with limbs so long that when he sat down his knees came up in a manner which bobbie considered eminently ridiculous. the angel had not arrived, but was expected; when the curate insisted upon bobbie coming away with him, his picture of the ship under his arm, in order that they might skirt the cliffs swallow-like once more, bobbie complied with hesitation, being thus denied the joy of seeing the lady of his heart.
“i’d like to stay ’ere all me bloomin’ lifetime,” said bobbie to the lady superintendent that night.
nevertheless, the next day he had to listen to the voice of reasonableness, to pack up the books that had been given him by the curate, the picture that coastguard had presented, and a marvellous four-bladed knife from the angel, for which he had paid to that young lady the sum of one halfpenny, in order that the knife might not, in its keenness, sever friendship. he said good-bye to the lady superintendent, remembering (just in time) to say, “thank you,” a phrase with which he had become on intimate terms, and walked stolidly down to the station, where a train would take him back to london and the homes. as he looked at the contents of the bookstall (he had begun in those days to feel an appetite p. 87for reading, and a strange craving when not furnished with something in the form of printed words) to him appeared:—
first, the angel! bobbie had felt confident that the large young lady would not allow him to depart without giving him an opportunity of formally declaring his love; he had already decided on the form of his address.
second, the curate! curate flying in through the booking office, skimming restlessly up and down the platform, chatting with porters, chucking babies under the chin, and telling the station-master how a railway ought to be managed.
third, coastguard. jiggering everything at frequent intervals; handing over to bobbie as final gifts a parcel of huge ham sandwiches and a model clockwork steamer.
fourth, as the train signalled from the preceding station, an entirely unnecessary person in the shape of the tall customs officer, rather shy, but taking up, as it seemed to bobbie, the unwarrantable attitude of being a friend of the family, and brushing from the angel’s brown cape a few specks of dust with a calmness for which bobbie, circumstances willing, could have felled him to the platform.
“i say,” said bobbie, leaning out of the carriage window, when he had been helped into the train, “i want to speak to you.”
“me?” asked the customs.
“you?” said bobbie, with infinite scorn. “good ’eavens, no. i mean her.” the angel stepped forward. “i want to ask you something,” he said rather unsteadily.
“i know what it is,” declared the angel gaily. “you want me to remember to send you some of the cake.”
“what cake?”
“oh, as if you didn’t know,” said the angel reproachfully. “why, my weddin’ cake, of course. don’t say you haven’t heard that me and him,” indicating the tall customs officer, “are going to be married next month at—. now you’re off. good-bye, dear.”
“be a good lad,” cried coastguard, as the train moved.
“be sure to get out at cannon street,” called the curate, flying along the platform, “and don’t forget to say your prayers at night.”
when, two hours later, the train ran into the london terminus, porters surveyed with critical eye each compartment, and having made hurried selections, staked out their claim by seizing a carriage handle as they trotted along till the train stopped. bobbie, rather ill-tempered on the journey because his affairs of the heart had been so brutally checked, had his head out of the window as the train slowed up.
“any luggage?” asked the porter breathlessly.
bobbie shook his head, and the porter hurried on in search of a more encumbered traveller. bobbie, walking down the crowded platform to the barrier, found the word luggage remaining in his mind. it recalled evenings with bat miller at stations on the other side of the city, followed sometimes by an interesting review of the contents of a portmanteau or a lady’s dressing-case in ely place. around the guard’s van, now disgorging its contents hurriedly and confusedly, passengers stood as though at an auction, and when they saw an article of luggage in tune with their desires, held up a hand, and the article being knocked down to them, they bore it off without further question. in the centre, one of the busy p. 88porters acting as auctioneer held up a bright brown portmanteau with initials painted boldly.
“anybody claim this?” demanded the harried porter. “anybody claim a bag with—. a bundle of rugs, lady? i’ll look after it in ’alf a moment, if you’ll only leave off prodding me in the back with that gamp of yours.”
“i want,” said bobbie’s voice, “a bag marked l. c. e.”
“why,” grumbled the porter, handing it over to bobbie, “’ere ’ave i been the last five minutes trying to find a owner for it? want a cab?”
“no,” said bobbie, “i’ll carry it.”
“it’s a bit lumpy,” remarked the porter warningly.
“i know,” said the boy.
he gave up his ticket at the barrier and lugged the heavy bag across to a departure platform.
it was, as the porter had said, a heavy bag, and anxious as the boy felt to get away with it, he found himself obliged to rest for a moment when he had reached the platform. then he started on again, the heavy portmanteau bumping against his knee. through his alert little head a scheme had already danced; a scheme necessitating an empty compartment to permit of a selection from the articles which the bag contained, and the disposal of the bag itself. this would have the advantage of deferring the awkward duty of returning to the cottage homes that day. a nurse walked by on the platform, with flowing cloak and white bands; bobbie’s mind was recalled to sister margaret. from sister margaret his thoughts went to his other friends. he sat down on the portmanteau; his breath came quickly.
“they’d all look pretty straight,” he said to himself, “if they knew.” he rose slowly, and gripped the stout leather handles of the bag. “’owever, i ain’t going to be copped. there’s plenty that do a thing like this quietly and never so much as—”
he stopped. across the line on the wall a large portrait in an advertisement frame had—a cloud of engine smoke disappearing—come into view. bobbie stared at it.
“the old lady,” he muttered.
the portrait of her majesty the queen of england and great britain looked across at bobbie with, as it seemed to him, a look of surprise, mingled with reproof. a train whistled, a ticket collector shouted, “north kent train to blackheath,” but the boy did not move. when the train had started, and the smoke had cleared away, bobbie found his attention still held by the portrait on the other platform.
“the old lady,” he quoted, under his breath, “will ’ave the best. she don’t mind what she pays for her navy, but she will ’ave it good. none of your criminals for her navy, if you please.”
he started up, his face white and perspiring. lugging the weighty portmanteau back to the arrival barrier, he staggered determinedly through.
“tell you what,” a young officer lad was saying fiercely. “if you porters don’t find that fearful bag of mine i’ll—”
“’scuse me,” interrupted bobbie, placing the portmanteau at the feet of its owner. “my mistake. took it off in the hurry, instead of me own.”
“i’m really most fearfully obliged,” declared the officer lad effusively. p. 89“it has my dress suit, don’t you know, and i should have looked such a fearfully silly fool this evening without it.”
“you’re saved from that now, sir,” said the inspector, pointedly.
“what i mean to say is, i’m so fearfully indebted to you that really—”
“don’t name it,” said bobbie. “glad i brought it back in time.”
“good-bye, old chap,” said the officer lad, shaking hands with the boy. “i’m most fearfully glad to have met you. can’t give you a lift, i suppose, anywhere, can i, what?”
“thanks, fearfully,” said bobbie. “my brougham’s waiting outside for me. ta-ta!”
