Lady Good-for-Nothing: A Man's Portrait of a Woman Read online

  Chapter VII.

  A SABBATH-BREAKER.

  Now, in his twenty-eighth year, Oliver Vyell, handsome of face, standingsix feet two inches in his stockings, well built and of ironconstitution, might fairly be called a sensual man, but not fairly asensualist. The distinction lay in his manliness. He was a man, everyinch of him.

  He enjoyed hard riding even more than hard gaming, and far more thanhard drinking; courted fatigue as a form of bodily indulgence; wouldtramp from twenty to thirty miles in any weather on a chance of sport;loved the bite of the wind, the shock of cold water; and was a boldswimmer in a generation that shunned the exercise.

  He awoke next morning to find the sun shining in on his window after aboisterous night. He looked at his watch and rang a small bell thatstood on the table by his bed. Within ten seconds Manasseh appeared,and was commanded first to draw up the blind and then, though the hourwas early, to bring shaving-water with all speed.

  While the negro went on his errand Captain Vyell arose, slipped on hisdressing-gown, and strolled to the window. It looked upon the ocean,over a clean stretch of beach that ran north-west, starting from thepier-head of the harbour and fringing the town's outskirt. Half a dozenhouses formed this outskirt or suburb--decent weather-boarded housesstanding in their own gardens along a curved cliff overlooking thebeach. The beach was of hardest sand, and just beneath the Collector'swindow so level that it served for a second bowling-green, orten-pin-alley. Thus it ran out for some twenty rods and then shelvedabruptly. Captain Vyell, who had an eye for such phenomena, judged thatthis bank had formed itself quite recently, since the building of thepier.

  A heavy sea was running, and evidently with a strong undertow. WhenManasseh returned with the hot water, Captain Vyell announced that hewould bathe before taking his chocolate.

  "Yo' Hon'ah will bathe befor' shaving?"

  "You d----d fool, did you ever know me do _any_thing before shaving?"

  Manasseh chose a razor, stropped it, and worked the shaving soap into alather.

  "Beggin' yo' Hon'ah's pardon," said he, "it bein' de Lawd's Day, an'these Port Nassau people dam' ig'orant--"

  "Hand me the _peignoir_," commanded his master sharply.

  He sat, and was shaved. Then, having sponged his chin, he orderedManasseh to lay out his bathing-dress, retire, find a back way to thebeach and, having opened all doors, attend him below. He indued himselfin his bathing-dress very deliberately, standing up for a minute starknaked in the sunshine flooding through the open window--a splendidfigure, foretasting battle with the surf.

  Then, having drawn on his bathing-dress and thrust his feet intosand-shoes, he cast his dressing-gown again over him and went down thestairs at a run. The doors stood open, and on the beach the negroawaited him in the right attitude of "attention." To him he tossed hiswrap and shoes, and ran down to the beach as might swift-footed Achilleshave run to be clasped by the Sea-Goddess his mother.

  Through the shallow wavelets he ran, stepping high and delicatelysplashing merry drops against the morning sunlight, leaped over one ortwo that would have "tilled" him to the knee (to use an old boyishphrase learnt at Carwithiel where he had learnt to swim), and came tothe shelf beyond which the first tall comber boomed towards him, morethan head high, hissing along its ridge. There, as it overarched him,he launched his body forward and shot through the transparent green,emerging beyond the white smother with a thrill and a laugh of sheerphysical delight. Thrice he repeated this,--

  "Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave, Who, being look'd on, ducks as quickly in. . ."

  passed the fourth wave, gained deep water, and thrust out to sea with asteady breast-stroke, his eyes all the while on the great embracingflood which, stretch as it might from here to Europe, for the moment hecommanded.

  Manasseh watched him from the beach. From the cliff above twoscandalised householders calling to one another across their gardens'boundary pointed seaward and summoned their families to the windows tonote the reprobate swimmer and a Sabbath profaned.

  The eyes of a long-shore population are ever on the sea from which comestheir livelihood, and nothing on the sea escapes them long.The Collector's head by this time was but a speck bobbing on the waves,but ere he turned back for shore maybe two hundred of Port Nassau'spopulation were watching, from various points. The Port Nassauers,whatever their individual frailties, were sternly religious--nine-tenthsof them from conviction or habit, the rest in self-defence--andSabbatarians to a man. The sight of that heathen slave, Manasseh,waiting on the beach with a bath-gown over his arm, incensed them tofury. Growls were uttered, here and there, that if the authorities knewtheir business this law-breaker--for Sabbath-breaking was an indictableoffence--should be seized on landing, haled naked to justice, andclapped in the town stocks; but fortunately this indignation had noconcert and found, for the moment, no leader.

  The Collector, having swum out more than half a mile, turned and spedback, using a sharp side-stroke now with a curving arm that cleft theridges like the fin of a fish. His feet touched earth, and he ran upthrough the pursuing breakers--a fleet-footed Achilles again, glitteringfrom the bath. Manasseh hurried down to throw his mantle over thegodlike man.

  "Towel me here," was the panting command. And, lo! slipping off hisbathing-dress and standing naked to the sea. Captain Vyell was towelledunder the eyes of Port Nassau, and flesh-brushed until he glowed (it maybe) as healthily as did the cheeks of those who spied on him. On thisquestion the Muse declines to take sides. For certain his naked body,after these ministrations, glowed delicious within the bath-gown as hemounted again to his Olympian chamber. There he allowed Manasseh towash out his locks in fresh water (the Collector had a fine head ofhair, of a waved brown, and detested a wig), to anoint them, and tiethem behind with a fresh black ribbon. This done, he took his clothesone by one as Manasseh handed them, and arrayed himself, humming thewhile an air from Opera, and thus unconsciously committing a secondoffence against the Sabbath.

  He descended to find Dicky already seated at table, awaiting him.Dicky had slept like a top in spite of the strange bed; and awaking soonafter daybreak, had lain cosily listening to the boom of the sea.To him this holiday was a glorious interlude in the regime of MissQuiney. His handsome father did not kiss him, but merely patted him onthe shoulder as he passed to his chair; and to Dick (though he wouldhave liked a kiss) it seemed just the right manly thing to do.

  They talked merrily while Manasseh brought in the breakfast dishes--forMaster Dicky bread-and-milk followed by a simple steak of cod; abewildering succession of chowder, omelet, devilled kidneys, cold ham,game pie, and fruit for the Collector, who professed himself keen-set asa hunter, and washed down the viands with a tankard of cider.He described his bathe, and promised Dicky that he should have his firstswimming lessons next summer. "I must talk about you to your UncleHarry. Craze for the sea? At your age if he saw a puddle of water hemust stick his toes in it. He's cruising just now, off South Carolina,keeping a look-out for guarda-costas. He'll render an account of them,you may be sure. He writes that he may be coming up Boston way any timenow. Oh, I can swim, but for diving you should see your Uncle Harry--off the yard-arm--body taut as a whip--nothing like it in any of the oldGreeks' statues. Plenty of talk about bathing; but diving? No. In theeast, must go south to the Persian Gulf to see diving. The god Hermesdescending on Ogygia--if you could imagine that, you had Uncle Harry--the shoot outwards, the delicate curve to a straight slant, heels risingabove rigid body while you counted, begad! holding your breath.Then the plumb drop, like a gannet's--"

  Dicky listened, glorious vistas opening before him. With the fruitManasseh brought coffee; and still the boy sat entranced while hisfather chatted, glowing with exercise and enjoying a breakfast at everypoint excellent.

  It was in merest thoughtlessness, no doubt, that having arranged forDicky's morning walk, and after smoking a tobacco leaf rolled with anart of which Manasseh possessed the secret, the Collector
so timed hismessage to the stables that his groom brought the horse Bayard around tothe Inn door just as the Sabbath bells began tolling for divine worship.For as a sceptic he was careless rather than militant; ridiculingreligion only in his own set, and when occasion arose, and then withoutfanaticism. For such piety as his mother's he had even a tolerantrespect; and in any event had too much breeding to affront of setpurpose the godly townsfolk of Port Nassau. At the first note of thebells he frowned and blamed himself for not having started earlier.But he had already made appointment by letter to meet the Surveyor andthe Assistant Surveyor at noon on the headland, to measure out anddiscuss the site of the proposed fortification; and he was a punctiliousman in observing engagements.

  It may be asked how, if civil to other men's scruples, he had come tomake such an appointment for the Sabbath. He had answered this and (ashe hoped) with suitable apologies in his letter to the surveyor,Mr. Wapshott: explaining that as His Majesty's business was bringing himto Port Nassau, so it obliged him to be back at Boston by such-and-sucha date. He was personally unacquainted with this Mr. Wapshott, who hadomitted the courtesy of calling upon him at the Bowling Green, and whomby consequence he was inclined to set down as a person of defectivemanners. But Mr. Wapshott was, after all, in the King's service andwould understand its exigencies.

  He mounted therefore and rode up the street. The roadway was deserted;but along the side-walk, sober families, marching by twos and threes,turned their heads at the sound of Bayard's hoofs on the cobbles.The Collector set his face and passed them with a grave look, as of oneabsorbed in affairs of moment. Nevertheless, coming to the whitewashedChurch where the streams of worshippers converged and choking theporchway overflowed upon the street, he added the courtesy of doffinghis hat as he rode by. He did this still with a set face, lookingstraight between Bayard's ears; but with the tail of his eye caught oneglimpse of a little comedy which puzzled and amused him.

  A small rotund, red-gilled man, in bearing and aspect not unlike aturkey-cock, was mounting the steps of the portico. Behind thispersonage sailed an ample lady of middle age, with a bevy of youngerdamsels--his spouse and daughters doubtless. Suddenly--and as if, atsight of the Collector, a whisper passed among them--the middle-agedlady shot out a hand, arrested her husband by the coat-tail and drew himdown a step, while the daughters ranged themselves in semicircle aroundhim, spreading their skirts and together effacing him from view, much asa hen covers her offspring.

  The Collector laughed inwardly as he replaced his hat, and rode onspeculating what this bit of by-play might mean. But it had passed outof his thoughts before he came to the outskirts of the town.