Chapter XVI On the River
It is not easy to describe grandpapa’s indignation when I detailed the result of my interview with Susan Marks. I told him all about the young man to whom she had been talking, and he recognised the youth as one Tomkins. He had already quarrelled with Susan about him.
“But why, dear grandfather,” I asked, “did you give this wretched woman your real name?”
“It was a safe thing to do,” he answered. “All the old fusses have blown over. Besides, I should have had to give it when I married her. I meant most honourably by the jade, and this is the result. They’re all alike, confusion take ’em. That’s the last. I’ve done with women now. They don’t interest me as they used to do. I shall go on amusing myself with the cats for another six months or so, till I’m a few years younger, but I’m blest if I ever take ’em seriously again. They’re not worth it—excepting you. You’re a good old daisy, Martha, and I’m much obliged to you.”
Two days afterwards he gave Miss Marks a bit of his mind, and had it out with Tomkins, down among the firework apparatus. It appears that he punched Tomkins on the head, and then kicked him when he was down, and finally dropped him into one of the fountains.
“After that,” said grandfather, as he gleefully narrated the circumstances to me, “I made tracks and hid among those great stone pre-adamite beasts at the bottom of the grounds. I squirmed down alongside of an ichthyosaurus or some such brute, and sat tight there until dark. Then I dodged out with the crowd. But they’ll want me to-day, so I guess we must be toddling.”
We talked the matter out, and he decided to go and rent lodgings somewhere near the river. He was now twenty-two, by the New Scheme, and his old love for athletics had returned.
“No more tomfoolery for me,” said grandfather. “I’ve passed the silly stage now. I shall take up rowing again and join a cricket club, and lead a quiet, wholesome life. As the end approaches so rapidly, I begin to lose interest in worldly affairs. Let us go to the river, and I will row you about, over the peaceful waters, under the trees, among the swans. If I find I have kept any of my old form with the sculls, I shall very likely enter for the ‘Diamonds’ at Henley. It would be a record for a man of nearly one hundred and eight to win ’em. But I doubt how I should shape in these gimcrack, new-fangled wager-boats.”
I encouraged his simple, boyish ambition, and we took our way to Twickenham. Grandpapa, finding himself better and happier for the peaceful life, actually thought once more of reformation. It was summer time, and a sort of holy calm would settle on my beloved grandfather, as he paddled me about the river and drew up sometimes in the cool shadows of overhanging trees.
He was a handsome boy of one-and-twenty now. His face grew tanned by the sun. He wore a picturesque green and yellow “blazer,” with a blue handkerchief round his waist and a big sunflower embroidered on his grey felt hat. He began to get quite simple in speech, and his interest revolved about the river races and the cricket field. He seemed to forget the past, and I often prayed that the past would forget him. But grandpapa had sown the wind and the whirlwind was beginning to spring up. Time did not fly as quickly with the world as it seemed to do with us. The young fellow with his simple athletic interests and ambitions, training quietly for the Diamond Sculls, was not destined to escape the fruits of those many indiscretions committed in his maturer years; and it is hardly the least of my griefs and regrets that, in a measure, I was the cause of keeping grandpapa’s name before the world, and before divers more or less malicious women, who refused to forget his past relationships with them. I thought that by the quiet waters of the Thames, hidden in snug but comfortable lodgings at Twickenham, we should have escaped notice; but I soon found my mistake, for the river is a highway, a pleasure ground (so to speak) whereon all meet. Representatives of every London suburb pass and repass; respectable and questionable rub shoulders in every lock, exchange repartees at every bend, drift side by side in every backwater.
We were out one day after lunch, and I, steering carelessly, nearly ran into a boatload of ladies and gentlemen. Grandpapa reprimanded me, and apologised to the other party. Then somebody said:
“Positively it is—it is Miss Dolphin.”
The speaker was Mrs. Bangley-Brown. She insisted on stopping and asking after grandpapa; and the old man, like a fool, forgetting the altered conditions, answered:
“I’m all right. Glad to see you again. Jove! how well the gals look. And you as blooming as a four-year-old. D——d if I don’t think you’re going backwards too!”
Mrs. Bangley-Brown glared at the youth, and grandpapa, with wonderful readiness, explained himself.
“Awfully sorry. Thought you must know me. My pals call me ‘grandfather,’ ’cause I’m a bit old-fashioned. No offence meant, none taken I hope.”
She turned from him with disgust, and the two girls in the boat and some young men looked at my escort and tittered.
“Where is your grandfather?” said Mrs. Bangley-Brown to me, leaning over the edge of the boat and whispering. “I have been wanting his address for five years. Perhaps you can favour me with it. There is something fatal about the name, I think. I have heard it often of late, associated in every case with some broken-hearted woman.”
“He treated you badly, I know,” I answered, also under my breath. “It was a bitter grief to me at the time. But things are better as they are. He would not have made you happy.”
“Probably not,” she answered bitterly, “but he might have made me comfortable. And it is not too late. We need not discuss his conduct. I know what an English jury would think of it. Give me his address, if you please.”
“Don’t do anything of the sort, Martha,” said grandpapa, in a great state of excitement. He had overheard Mrs. Bangley-Brown’s last remark, and now turned to her.
“I’m only a youngster,” he began craftily, “but I know the rights of that story. I heard it from the old man, and it don’t do you any credit. You’re an awful designing woman, and ought to know better. I daresay you’ve been after a dozen old fogeys since that.”
“You little horror!” screamed Mrs. Bangley-Brown, “if I could get to you I’d box your ears.”
She rose and made the boat shake, and her daughters implored her to sit down, or they would all be in the river.
“Yes, you’re a bad old lady—a regular old fossil-hunter, and no mistake,” said grandpapa, shaking his head at her. “Shocking example for the gals!” Then he began to row away.
“Follow them! Don’t lose sight of them!” cried the angry woman; but grandpapa was a fine oar and had a light load. He simply laughed at their efforts to keep pace with him, and fired off all sorts of jokes at the pursuers. Finally he spurted when near the “rollers,” had our boat over them in a twinkling, and setting to work, bustled me up to Kingston with extraordinary celerity. After dark we paddled quietly home again.
“It is a warning to me,” said grandpapa. “In future if we meet old friends, I am your young nephew from Oxford; and your grandfather, should they ask after him, has been dead for some years. I wish that was true.”