Hocken and Hunken

Chapter 15

PALMERSTON'S GENIUS.

"You're welcome as blossom, my dear," said Mrs Bowldler to Fancy Tabb, who had dropped in, as she put it, for a look around. The child was allowed a couple of hours off duty in the afternoon to take a walk and blow away the cobwebs of the Chandler's gloomy house: her poor shop-drudge of a father having found courage to wring this concession from Mr Rogers for her health's sake. "You're welcome as blossom, but you must work for your welcome. Come and help me to cut bread-and-butter. . . . Palmerston! You bring the kettle and pour a little water into the teapots, just to get 'em heated."

"Company, is it?" asked Fancy, laying aside her cloak.

"Company?" Mrs Bowldler sniffed. "We've had enough of company to last us this side of the grave. Ho, I trust the name of company will not be breathed in my hearing for some time to come!"

"What is it, then?"

"Freaks, I hope; maggots, as my poor dear tender mother used to say; and all casting double work on the establishment. We must dine separate, all of a sudden; and now we must have our tea served separate; and from dinner to tea-time sitting in writing, the pair of us, till I wonder it haven't brought on a rush of blood to our poor heads."

"Writing?" echoed Fancy. She desisted from spreading the butter and eyed Mrs Bowldler doubtfully, pursing up her lips. "I don't like the look of that. What are they writing, do you suppose?"

"It don't become me to guess," answered Mrs Bowldler. "Belike they're making their wills and leaving one another the whole of their property."

"I hope not. They'd make a dreadful mess of it without a lawyer to help."

"They're making a dreadful mess on the tablecloth--or, as I should say, on the tablecloths, respectively, as the case may be. Blots. There's one or two you couldn't cover with a threepenny bit. Captain Hunken especially; and it cost four-and-ninepence only last July, which makes the heart bleed."

"They haven't quarrelled, have they?" asked Fancy.

"Quarrelled? No, of course they haven't quarrelled. What put such a thing into your head, child?"

"I don't know. . . . But I don't like this writin'; it's unnatural. And they're livin' apart, you say?"

"They didn't even breakfast together. But that was an accident, Captain Hunken having walked out early and taken the parrot."

"Funny thing to take for a walk."

"Which," explained Mrs Bowldler with a glance at Palmerston, "I had to lodge a complaint with Captain Hocken yesterday relative to its conversation, and he must have spoken about it; for Captain Hunken went out at eight o'clock taking the bird with him, cage and all, and when he came back they were minus."

Fancy pondered. "What did the parrot say?" she asked.

"You mustn't ask, my dear. I couldn't tell it to anything less than a married woman."

"That's a pity; because I wanted to know, quick. I suppose, now, you haven't a notion what he did with the bird?"

"Not a notion."

"I thought not. Well, I have. He's been an' gone an' given it away to Mrs Bosenna, up at Rilla."

Mrs Bowldler turned pale and gripped the edge of the table.

"I'll bet you any money," Fancy nodded slowly.

"Ho! catch me ere I faint!" panted Mrs Bowldler.

"Why, what's the matter? She's a married woman, or has been."

"If only you'd heard--"

"Yes, it's a pity," agreed Fancy, and turned about. "Pam!"

"Yes, Miss," answered Palmerston.

"Call me 'Fancy.'"

"Yes, Miss Fancy."

She stamped her small foot. "There's no 'Miss' about it. How stupid you are--when you see I'm in a hurry, too! Call me 'Fancy.'"

"Y-yes--Fancy," stammered Palmerston, blushing furiously, shutting his eyes and dropping his voice to a whisper.

"That's better. . . . What does it feel like? Pleasant?"

"V-very pleasant, miss--Fancy, I mean. It--it'll come in time," pleaded Palmerston, still red to the eyes.

"That's right, again. Because I want you to marry me, Pammy dear."

"Well! the owdacious!" exclaimed Mrs Bowldler in a kind of hysterical titter, snatching at her bodice somewhere over the region of her heart. Fancy paid no heed to her.

"Only we must make a runaway match of it," she went on, "for there's no time to lose, it seems."

For answer Palmerston burst into a flood of tears.

"There now!" Mrs Bowldler of a sudden became serious. "You might have known he's too soft to be teased. . . . Oh, be quiet, do, Palmerston! Think of your namesake!"

A bell jangled overhead.

"Captain Hocken's bell!--and the child's face all blubbered, which he hates to see, while as for Captain Hunken--there! it that isn't his bell going too in the adjoining! Palmerston, pull yourself together and be a man."

"I c-can't, missus," sobbed Palmerston. "He--he said yesterday as he'd g-give me the sack the next time he saw my eyes red."

"Well, I must take 'em their tea myself, I suppose," said Mrs Bowldler, who had a kind heart. "No, Palmerston, your eyes are not fit. But you see how I'm situated?" she appealed to Fancy.

"Do you usually let them ring for tea?" Fancy asked.

"No, child. There must be something wrong with them both, or else with my clock," answered Mrs Bowldler with a glance up at the timepiece. "But twenty-five past four, I take you to witness! and I keep it five minutes fast on principle."

"There is something wrong," Fancy assured her. "If you'll take my advice, you'll go in and look injured."

"I couldn't keep 'em waiting, though injured I will look," promised Mrs Bowldler, catching up one of the two tea-trays. "Palmerston had better withdraw into the grounds and control himself. I will igsplain that I have sent him on an errand connected with the establishment."

She bustled forth. Fancy closed the door after her; then turned and addressed Palmerston.

"Dry your eyes, you silly boy," she commanded. Palmerston obeyed and stood blinking at her--alternately at her and at his handkerchief which he held tightly crumpled into a pad; whereupon she demanded, somewhat cruelly:

"Now, what have you to say for yourself?" He was endeavouring to answer when Mrs Bowldler came running in and caught up the other tea-tray.

"Which it appears," she panted, "he is in a hurry to catch the post; and I hope the Lord will forgive me for saying that Palmerston had just this instant returned and would go with it. But he has it done up in an envelope, and says boys are not to be trusted. When I was a girl in my teens," pursued Mrs Bowldler, luckily discovering that the second teapot had no water in it, and hastening to the kettle, "we learnt out of a Child's Compendium about a so-called ancient god of the name of Mercury, whence the stuff they put into barometers to go up for fine weather. He had wings on his boots, or was supposed to: which it would be a convenience in these days, with Palmerston's unfortunate habits. For goodness' sake, child," she addressed Fancy, "take him out somewhere, that I mayn't perjure myself twice in one day!"

She vanished.

"Now, what have you to say for yourself?" Fancy turned again upon Palmerston and repeated her question.

"That's what's the matter with me, Miss--Fancy, I mean," confessed he, after a painful struggle with his emotions. "I never had nothing to say for myself, not in this world: and--and--" he plucked up courage-- "you got no business to play with me the way you did just now!" he blurted.

"Who said I was a-playin' with you?" Fancy demanded; but Palmerston did not heed.

"And right a-top of your sayin' as writin' was unnatural!" he continued.

She stared at him. "What has that to do with it? . . . Besides, whatever you're drivin' at, I didn' mean as all writin' was unnatural. I got to do enough of it for Mr Rogers, the Lord knows! But for them two, as have spent the best part of their lives navigatin' ships, it do seem--well, we'll call it unmanly somehow."

"That makes it all the worse," growled Palmerston, sticking both hands in his pockets and forcing himself to meet her stare, against which he nodded sullenly. "A man has to lift himself somehow--when he wants something, very bad."

"What is it you want?" asked Fancy.

"You know what it is, right enough." He glowered at her hardily, being desperate now and beyond shame.

"Do 'I?" But she blenched, meeting his eyes as be continued to nod.

"Yes, you do," persisted he. "I wants to marry ye, one of these days; and you can't round on me, either, for outin' with it; for 'twas your own suggestion."

"Oh, you silly boy!" Fancy reproved him, while conscious of a highly delicious thrill and an equally delicious fear. ("O, youth, youth! and the wonder of first love!") She cast about for escape, and forced a laugh. "Do you know, you're the very first as has ever proposed to me."

"I was thinkin' as much," said the unflattering Palmerston. "Come to that, you was the first as ever offered marriage to me."

"But I didn't! I mean," urged Fancy, "it was only in joke."

"Joke or not," said Palmerston, "you can't deny it." Suddenly weakening, he let slip his advantage. "But I wouldn' wish to marry one that despised me," he declared. "I had enough o' bein' despised--in the Workhouse."

"I never said I despised you, Pammy," Fancy protested.

"Yes, you did; or in so many words--'Unmanly,' you said."

"But that was about writing." She opened her eyes wide. "You don't mean to tell me that's the trouble? . . . What have you been writing?"

"A book," owned Palmerston with gloom. "A man must try to raise himself somehow."

"Of course he must. What sort of book?"

"It's--it's only a story."

"Why," she reassured him, "I heard of a man the other day who wrote a story and made A Thousand Pounds. It was quite unexpected, and surprised even his friends."

"It must be the same man Mrs Bowldler told me about. His name was Walter Scott, and he called it 'Waverley' without signing his name to it, because he was a Sheriff; and there was another man that wrote a book called 'Picnic' by Boss, and made pounds. So I've called mine 'Pickerley,' by way of drawing attention,--but, of course, if you think there's no chance, I suppose there isn't," wound up Palmerston, with a sudden access of despondency.

"Oh, Palmerston," exclaimed Fancy, clasping her hands, "if it should only turn out that you're a genius!"

"It would be a bit of all right," he agreed, his cheerfulness reviving.

"I have heard somewhere," she mused, "or perhaps I read it on the newspaper, that men of genius make the very worst husbands, and a woman must be out of her senses to marry one."

Again Palmerston's face fell. "I mayn't be one after all," he protested, but not very hopefully.

"Oh yes, I am sure you are! And, what's more, if you make a hit, as they say, I don't know but I might overlook it and take the risk. You see, I'm accustomed to living with Mr Rogers, who is bound to go to hell and that might turn out to be a sort of practice."

The boy stood silent, rubbing his head. He wanted time to think this out. Such an altered face do our ambitions present to most of us as they draw closer, nearer to our grasp!

Suddenly Fancy clapped her hands. "Why, of course!" she cried. "I always had an idea, somewhere inside o' me, that I'd be a lady one of these days--very important and covered all over with di'monds, so that all the other women would envy me. You know that feelin'?"

"No-o," confessed Palmerston.

"You would if you were a woman. But, contrariwise, what I like almost better is keepin' shop--postin' up ledgers, makin' out bills, to account rendered, second application, which doubtless has escaped your notice, and all that sort of thing. I saw a shop in Plymouth once with young women by the dozen sittin' at desks, and when they pulled a string little balls came rollin' towards them over on their heads like the stars in heaven, all full of cash; and they'd open one o' these balls and hand you out your change just as calm and scornful as if they were angels and you the dirt beneath their feet. You can't think how I longed to be one o' them and behave like that. But the two things didn't seem to go together."

"What two things?"

"Why, sittin' at a desk like that and sittin' on a sofa and sayin' 'How d'e do, my dear? It's so good of you to call in this dreadful weather, especially as you have to hire. . . .' But now," said Fancy, clasping her hands, "I see my way: that is, if you're really a genius. You shall write your books and I'll sell them. 'Mr and Mrs Palmerston Burt, Author and--what's the word?--pub--publicans--no, publisher; Author and Publisher.' It's quite the highest class of business: and if any one tried to patronise me I could always explain that I just did it to help, you bein' a child in matters of business. Geniuses are mostly like that."

"Are they?"

"Yes, that's another of their drawbacks. And," continued Fancy, "you'd be a celebrity of course, which means that we should be in the magazines, with pictures--A Corner of the Library, and The Rose-garden, looking West, and Mrs Palmerston Burt is not above playing with the Baby, and you with your favourite dog--for we'd have both, by that time. Oh, Pammy, where is the book?"

"Upstairs, mostly, but I got a couple o' chapters upon me--" Palmerston tapped his breast-pocket--"If you really mean as you'd like--" He hesitated, his colour changing from red to white. Here, on the point of proving it, the poor boy feared his fate too much.

But Fancy insisted. They escaped together to Captain Hunken's garden; and there, in the summer-house--by this time almost in twilight--he showed her the precious manuscript. It was written (like many another first effort of genius) on very various scraps of paper, the most of which had previously enwrapped groceries.

"And to think," breathed Fancy, recognising some of Mr Rogers's trade wrappers, "that maybe I've seen dad doin' up those very parcels, and never guessed--well, go on! Read it to me."

"I--I don't read at all well," faltered Palmerston.

She tapped her foot. "I don't care how bad you read so long as you don't keep me waitin' a moment longer."

"This is Chapter Nine. . . . If you like, of course, I could start by tellin' you what the other chapters are about--"

"Please don't talk any more, but read!"

"Oh, very well. The chapter is called 'Ernest makes Another Attempt.' Ernest is what Mrs Bowldler calls the hero, which means that the book is all about him. It begins--"

--I got that out of a paper Mrs Bowldler carries about in her pocket. It is called 'Bow Bells,' and you can depend on it, for it's all about the highest people--

--I got that address, too, out of Mrs Bowldler. She said you couldn' go higher than that. 'Not humanly speakin'' was her words, though I don't quite know what she meant."

"But," objected Fancy, "you might want to start higher, in another book. We can't expect to live all our lives on this one: and there oughtn't to be any come-down."

Palmerston smiled and waved his manuscript with an air of mastery. He had thought of this.

"There's Royalty!"

"O-oh!" Fancy caught her breath. She felt sure now of his genius.

"We must feel our way," said Palmerston; "I believe in flyin' as high as you like so long as you're on safe ground. Of course," he went on, "there is a danger. I don't know who really lives in Grovener Square at Number 20; but they're almost sure not to be called Delauncy, and so there's no real hurt to their feelin's."

"Mrs Bowldler might know."

"You don't understand," explained Palmerston, who seemed, since breaking the ice of his confession, to have grown some inches taller, and altogether more masterful. "She don't know why I put all these questions to her. She sets it down to curiosity: when, all the time, I'm pumpin' her."

"Oh!" Fancy collapsed.

Palmerston resumed:--

"'The second footman ushered him to the boudoir, where already he had lit several lamps, casting a subdued shade of rose colour. The Lady Herm Intrude reclined on a console in an attitude which a moment since had been one of despair, but was now languid to the point of carelessness.'"

"What's a console?" inquired Fancy.

"They have one in all the best drawing-rooms," answered Palmerston. "Mrs Bowldler--"

"Oh, go on!" She was beginning to feel jealous, or almost jealous.

"'She was attired in a gown of old Mechlin, with a deep fall and an indication of orange blossoms, and carried a shower bouquet of cluster roses, the--

"No, I've scratched that out. It said 'the gift of the bridegroom,' and I got it from a fashionable wedding; but it won't do in this place."

'Amid these luxurious surroundings Ernest felt his brain in a whirl. He cast himself on his knees before the recumbent figure on the console which gave no sign of life unless a long-drawn and half-stifled sob, which seemed to strangle its owner, might be so interpreted. "Lady Herm Intrude," he cried in broken accents, "for the second time, I love you."'"

"It's lovely, Palmerston! Lovely!" gasped Fancy. "Why was he loving her for the second time?"

"He was telling her for the second time. He had loved her from the first--it's all in the early chapters. . . . This is the second time he told her: and he has to do it twice more before the end of the book."

'As he waited, scarcely daring to breathe, for some answer, he could almost smell the perfume of the orchids which floated from a neighbouring vase and filled the apartment with its high-class articles of furniture, the product of many lands.'

"Oh, Palmerston! And you that never had an 'ome of your own, since you was nine--not even a Scattered one! However did you manage to think of it all?"

She caught the manuscript from him and peered at it, straining her eyes in the dark.

"If you could fetch a lamp now?" she suggested.

But the boy stepped close and stood beside her, dominant.

"You know how I came to do it," he said. "Yes--I'm glad you like it. I'll fetch a lamp. But--"

As she pored over the manuscript, he bent and suddenly planted a great awkward kiss on the side of her cheek.

Thereupon he fled in quest of the lamp.