Lying on Exmouth beach the day after the dinghy had gone, not the least sore thought I had was that I’d spent money to which he had as much right as myself. I groaned aloud as I tried to get to sleep again, and as the sun rose and warmed my aching bones I fell into a uneasy doze that brought some short forgetfulness.
CONCERNING A STROKE OF GOOD LUCK AND AN ACT OF CHARITY
WITH the sun warming me, I must have slept for over an hour; but, lying face downwards as I was, even my dreams weren’t pleasant. I thought I had fallen overboard from the Luck and Charity, and rising half drowned under her stern called to ’Kiah for a rope. He was steering, but, instead of throwing me the mainsheet, he reached over a long arm, caught me by the side and pushed me under again. Drowning, I gulped salt water, and woke with a jerk, to find a girl standing over me prodding me in the side with her toe. Stupid with sleep, I rolled over and sat up, blinking to stare at her.
The sun, just over her head, dazzled my eyes so that I couldn’t clearly see her face; but from her get-up I judged her to be the usual type of summer visitor to the town. A big straw hat, a light blouse and dark skirt, and a bathing towel in one hand; but with the towel she held her shoes and stockings, and I saw that the foot that she had stirred me with was bare.
I asked her what she wanted, sulkily enough.
‘We want to go across the river.’ She pointed to the yellow sand-hills on the Warren side.
‘Well?’ I said.
‘There doesn’t seem to be a ferryman here. Don’t you want to earn a sixpence?’ Her tone was not conciliatory.
I looked down the beach. A man and woman stood by the waterside, but the boatmen had gone—to breakfast, I supposed. For a moment I was minded to tell her she must wait till they came back, but the thought of ’Kiah came into my mind. I owed it to him to make up what I could for the money I’d spent overnight.
‘I don’t expect my boat’s smart enough for you,’ I said, scrambling to my feet.
‘I didn’t expect anything lavish,’ she snapped; and at her tone I looked down over my clothes and passed a hand over my head and face. I didn’t look prosperous. One boot was broken at the toe, and my serge coat and trousers were stained with every shade of filth, from dry mud to tar, by the winter’s ’longshoring. I wore one of ’Kiah’s jerseys, Luck and Charity in dirty white letters across the breast. Bare headed, my hair was full of sand, and there was a fortnight’s growth on my cheeks. My razor, an elaborate safety fakement, had been sold early in the winter to get ’Kiah an oilskin jacket, and though I considered I had a right to shave with his, it was a right not often exercised. He’d inherited the thing from a grandfather who’d been in the army, and I didn’t share his high opinion of it. But in bright sunlight, with this girl staring at me, I wished I’d done so more recently.
The boat was in a state to match its owner. It couldn’t have had a coat of paint for two years, and to make matters worse the beach children had been playing in it and left it half full of pebbles, seaweed and sand. With the girl looking on, I started to clean out some of the rubbish, and the man and woman strolled along the water’s edge to join us. Feeling ashamed of myself and my shabby craft, I kept my head down and went on with my work till the man spoke.
‘An old boat?’ he said, civilly enough.
For an answer I mumbled some sort of assent.
‘Is she tight?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I only bought her yesterday. She’ll take us that far without sinking, I suppose.’
He said no more and we pushed off. The filthy tub leaked like a basket, of course, and the water was level with the bottom boards before we reached the Warren. I saw what was going to happen when we started, and rowed my hardest to get across before their feet were wet, but facing them I had time to look them over and see what sort of people my first customers were. The other woman was a beauty—a real beauty, of the big, placid type. She said very little on the way across, just trailing one hand in the cool water now and again, and listening to the talk of the others. The man struck me favourably. He was tall and gaunt, with a bit of a stoop in the shoulders. His clean-shaven face was sallow and he wore spectacles, which gave him the air of a student of sorts. His big square mouth was immovable as the slot in a post office, save for an occasional movement at the corners that seemed to hint at a laugh suppressed. A man you took to at sight: straight as a line, you could see he was.
The girl who had waked me was of a different class from the other two. Now that I could see her more plainly I saw that she had a likeable little face enough, but you couldn’t call her a beauty anyhow. Big eyes and short upper lip were her best features; her nose was a snub, and she was well freckled, and wore her hair in a club sort of short pigtail. Her dress was shabbier than the other woman’s, and I took her for a paid companion, or rather a poor relation, which would account for their tolerating her impudence. She was full of life, chattering nonsense the whole way across.
I’ve learnt since that that young woman’s manners do occasionally cause embarrassment in well-bred circles. Blood will out: her grandmother was a mill hand, and the grand-daughter’s thrown back to the original type. She’s told me since that ‘Guttersnipe’ was one of her school nicknames, and like most school names it’s deadly appropriate. She’s got the busy wits and the quick tongue of the gutter, combined with the haste in action and the discerning eye for essentials that lifted her forefathers out of it.
The Warren beach was steep, and when they got out of the boat they had to scramble up a high slope of sand. The girls reached the level beach at the top and were out of sight at once; the man lingered to pay me. He hadn’t anything less than a shilling, and I couldn’t change it.
‘Take the shilling and call it square,’ he said, blinking at me through his spectacles.
‘The fare’s twopence a head. I don’t take charity,’ I said rudely.
‘No need to be rude, my man,’ said he. ‘Either you can trust me or you can take the shilling and bring me the change later. Here’s my card. I’m staying at the Royal.’
‘I don’t know when I shall be ashore again,’ I told him. ‘When are you going back to Exmouth?’
‘In about an hour, I expect. The ladies are going to bathe.’
‘Then I’ll wait till you come back and put you across again,’ I said. ‘That’ll make up the shilling’s worth.’
He nodded and scrambled up the beach after his womenfolk. No sooner was he out of sight than the younger girl’s head appeared against the sky and came slipping and sliding down over the steep bank of sand again. When she reached me she was breathing fast as though with running.
‘How old are you?’ she jerked out.
‘Twenty-eight.’
‘You were drunk last night, weren’t you?’
‘I was.’
‘You fool!’ she said.
Words can’t tell the scorn in her voice. It brought me up all standing, as though she’d slapped me in the face. Literally I couldn’t answer her; before I’d thought of a word she’d scrambled up over the slope again and was gone, leaving me staring after her like a baby.
When I got my wits about me I don’t know when I was in such a rage. The cheek of the little slut!
One thing I would do. I’d show her I was independent, at all events. Somebody else could row them back and spend my sixpence. I got into the boat again and pushed off to where the Luck and Charity lay at anchor.
It’s