The Ghost Ship

  A Tragedy In Little

  I

  Jack, the postmaster's little son, stood in the bow-window of theparlour and watched his mother watering the nasturtiums in the frontgarden. A certain intensity of purpose was expressed by the manner inwhich she handled the water-pot. For though it was a fine afternoonthe carrier's man had called over the hedge to say that there wouldbe a thunderstorm during the night, and every one knew that he nevermade a mistake about the weather. Nevertheless, Jack's mother wateredthe plants as if he had not spoken, for it seemed to her that thismeteorological gift smacked a little of sorcery and black magic; butin spite of herself she felt sure that there would be a thunderstormand that her labour was therefore vain, save perhaps as a protestagainst idle superstition. It was in the same spirit that she carriedan umbrella on the brightest summer day.

  Jack had been sent indoors because he would get his legs in the wayof the watering-pot in order to cool them, so now he had to becontent to look on, with his nose pressed so tightly against thepane that from outside it looked like the base of a sea-anemonegrowing in a glass tank. He could no longer hear the glad chuckleof the watering-pot when the water ran out, but, on the other hand,he could write his name on the window with his tongue, which hecould not have done if he had been in the garden. Also he had somesweets in his pocket, bought with a halfpenny stolen from his ownmoney-box, and as the window did not taste very nice he slipped oneinto his mouth and sucked it with enjoyment. He did not like beingin the parlour, because he had to sit there with his best clothes onevery Sunday afternoon and read the parish magazine to his sleepyparents. But the front window was lovely, like a picture, and,indeed, he thought that his mother, with the flowers all about herand the red sky overhead, was like a lady on one of the beautifulcalendars that the grocer gave away at Christmas. He finished hissweet and started another; he always meant to suck them rightthrough to make them last longer, but when the sweet was halffinished he invariably crunched it up. His father had done the samething as a boy.

  The room behind him was getting dark, but outside the sky seemed tobe growing lighter, and mother still stooped from bed to bed, movingplacidly, like a cow. Sometimes she put the watering-pot down on thegravel path, and bent to uproot a microscopic weed or to pull thehead off a dead flower. Sometimes she went to the well to get somemore water, and then Jack was sorry that he had been shut indoors,for he liked letting the pail down with a run and hearing it bumpagainst the brick sides. Once he tapped upon the window forpermission to come out, but mother shook her head vigorously withoutturning round; and yet his stockings were hardly wet at all.

  Suddenly mother straightened herself, and Jack looked up and saw hisfather leaning over the gate. He seemed to be making grimaces, andJack made haste to laugh aloud in the empty room, because he knewthat he was good at seeing his father's jokes. Indeed it was a funnything that father should come home early from work and make faces atmother from the road. Mother, too, was willing to join in the fun,for she knelt down among the wet flowers, and as her head droopedlower and lower it looked, for one ecstatic moment, as though shewere going to turn head over heels. But she lay quite still on theground, and father came half-way through the gate, and then turnedand ran off down the hill towards the station. Jack stood in thewindow, clapping his hands and laughing; it was a strange game, butnot much harder to understand than most of the amusements of thegrown-up people.

  And then as nothing happened, as mother did not move and father didnot come back, Jack grew frightened. The garden was queer and theroom was full of darkness, so he beat on the window to change thegame. Then, since mother did not shake her head, he ran out into thegarden, smiling carefully in case he was being silly. First he wentto the gate, but father was quite small far down the road, so heturned back and pulled the sleeve of his mother's dress, to wake her.After a dreadful while mother got up off the ground with her skirtall covered with wet earth. Jack tried to brush it off with his handsand made a mess of it, but she did not seem to notice, looking acrossthe garden with such a desolate face, that when he saw it he burstinto tears. For once mother let him cry himself out without seekingto comfort him; when he sniffed dolefully, his nostrils were full ofthe scent of crushed marigolds. He could not help watching her handsthrough his tears; it seemed as though they were playing together atcat's-cradle; they were not still for a moment. But it was her facethat at once frightened and interested him. One minute it lookedsmooth and white as if she was very cross, and the next minute it wasgathered up in little folds as if she was going to sneeze. Deep downin him something chuckled, and he jumped for fear that the cross partof her had heard it. At intervals during the evening, while motherwas getting him his supper, this chuckle returned to him, betweenunnoticed fits of crying. Once she stood holding a plate in themiddle of the room for quite five minutes, and he found it hard tocontrol his mirth. If father had been there they would have had goodfun together, teasing mother, but by himself he was not sure of hisground. And father did not come back, and mother did not seem to hearhis questions.

  He had some tomatoes and rice-pudding for his supper, and as motherleft him to help himself to brown sugar he enjoyed it very much,carefully leaving the skin of the rice-pudding to the last, becausethat was the part he liked best. After supper he sat nodding at theopen window, looking out over the plum-trees to the sky beyond, wherethe black clouds were putting out the stars one by one. The gardensmelt stuffy, but it was nice to be allowed to sit up when you feltreally sleepy. On the whole he felt that it had been a pleasant,exciting sort of day, though once or twice mother had frightened himby looking so strange. There had been other mysterious days in hislife, however; perhaps he was going to have another little deadsister. Presently he discovered that it was delightful to shut youreyes and nod your head and pretend that you were going to sleep; itwas like being in a swing that went up and up and never came downagain. It was like being in a rowing-boat on the river after asteamer had gone by. It was like lying in a cradle under a lamplitceiling, a cradle that rocked gently to and fro while mother sangfar-away songs.

  He was still a baby when he woke up, and he slipped off his chairand staggered blindly across the room to his mother, with hisknuckles in his eyes like a little, little boy. He climbed into herlap and settled himself down with a grunt of contentment. There wasa mutter of thunder in his ears, and he felt great warm drops ofrain falling on his face. And into his dreams he carried the dimconsciousness that the thunderstorm had begun.

  II

  The next morning at breakfast-time father had not come back, andmother said a lot of things that made Jack feel very uncomfortable.She herself had taught him that any one who said bad things abouthis father was wicked, but now it seemed that she was trying to tellhim something about father that was not nice. She spoke so slowlythat he hardly understood a word she said, though he gathered thatfather had stolen something, and would be put in prison if he wascaught. With a guilty pang he remembered his own dealings with hismoney-box, and he determined to throw away the rest of the sweetswhen, nobody was looking. Then mother made the astounding statementthat he was not to go to school that day, but his sudden joy waschecked a little when she said he was not to go out at all, exceptinto the back garden. It seemed to Jack that he must be ill, butwhen he made this suggestion to mother, she gave up her explanationswith a sigh. Afterwards she kept on saying aloud, "I must think, Imust think!" She said it so often that Jack started keeping count onhis fingers.

  The day went slowly enough, for the garden was wet after thethunderstorm, and mother would not play any games. Just beforetea-time two gentlemen called and talked to mother in theparlour, and after a while they sent for Jack to answer somequestions about father, though mother was there all the time.They seemed nice gentlemen, but mother did not ask them to stopto tea, as Jack expected. He thought that perhaps she was sorrythat she had not done so, for she was very sad all tea-time, andlet him spread his own bread and jam. Wh
en tea was over thingswere very dull, and at last Jack started crying because therewas nothing else to do. Presently he heard a little noise andfound that mother was crying as well. This seemed to him soextraordinary that he stopped crying to watch her; the tears randown her cheeks very quickly, and she kept on wiping them awaywith her handkerchief, but if she held her handkerchief to hereyes perhaps they would not be able to come out at all. Itoccurred to him that possibly she was sorry she had said, wickedthings about father, and to comfort her, for it made him feelfidgety to see her cry, he whispered to her that he would nottell. But she stared at him hopelessly through her red eyelids,and he felt that he had not said the right thing. She called himher poor boy, and yet it appeared that he was not ill. It wasall very mysterious and uncomfortable, and it would be a goodthing when father came back and everything went on as before,even though he had to go back to school.

  Later on the woman from the mill came in to sit with mother. Shebrought Jack some sweets, but instead of playing with him she burstinto tears. She made more noise when she cried than mother; in facthe was afraid that in a minute he would have to laugh at hersnortings, so he went into the parlour and sat there in the dark,eating his sweets, and knitting his brow over the complexities oflife. He could see five stars, and there was a light behind the redcurtain of the front bedroom at Arber's farm. It was about twelvetimes as large as a star, and a much prettier colour. By nearlyclosing his eyes he could see everything double, so that there wereten stars and two red lights; he was trying to make everything cometreble when the gate clicked and he saw his father's shadow. He wasdelighted with this happy end to a tiresome day, and as he ranthrough the passage he called out to mother to say that father wasback. Mother did not answer, but he heard a bit of noise in thekitchen as he opened the front door.

  He said "Good evening" in the grown-up voice that father encouraged,but father slipped in and shut the door without saying a word. Everynight when he came back from the post-office he brought Jack thegummed edgings off the sheets of stamps, and Jack held out his handfor them as a matter of course. Automatically father felt in hisovercoat pocket and pulled out a great handful. "Take care of them,they're the last you'll get," he said; but when Jack asked why, hisfather looked at him with the same hopeless expression that he hadfound in his mother's eyes a short while before. Jack felt a littlecross that every one should be so stupid.

  When they went into the kitchen everybody looked very strange, andJack sat down in the corner and listened for an explanation. As arule the conversation of the grown-up people did not amuse him, buttonight he felt that something had happened, and that if he keptquiet he might find out what it was. He had noticed before that whenthe grown-ups talked they always said the same things over and overagain, and now they were worse than usual. Father said, "It's nogood, I've got to go through it;" the mill-woman said, "Whatever madeyou do it, George?" And mother said, "Nothing will ever happen to meagain!" They all went on saying these things till Jack grew tired oflistening, and started plaiting his stamp-paper into a mat. If youdid it very neatly it was almost as good as an ordinary sheet ofpaper by the time you had finished. By and by, while he was still atwork, the mill-woman brought him his supper on a plate, and raisinghis head he saw that father and mother were sitting close together,looking at each other, and saying nothing at all. He was verydisappointed that although father had come home they had not had anyjokes all the evening, and as they were all so dull he did not verymuch mind being sent to bed when he had finished his supper. When hesaid good-night to father, he noticed that his boots were very muddy,as if he had walked a long way like a common postman. He made a jokeabout this, but they all looked at him as if he had said somethingwrong, so he hurried out of the room, glad to get away from thesepeople whose looks had no reasonable significance, and whose wordshad no discoverable meaning. It had been a bad day, and he hopedmother would let him go back to school the next morning.

  And yet though he took off his clothes and got into bed, the day wasnot quite over. He had only dozed for a few minutes when he wasroused by a noise down below, and slipping out on to the staircase heheard the mill-woman saying good-night in the passage. When she hadgone and the door had banged behind her, he listened still, and heardhis mother crying and his father talking on and on in a strange,hoarse voice. Somehow these incomprehensible sounds made him feellonely, and he would have liked to have gone downstairs and sat onhis mother's lap and blinked drowsily in his father's face, as he haddone often enough before. But he was always shy in the presence ofstrangers, and he felt that he did not know this woman who wept andthis man who did not laugh. His father was his play-friend, thesharer of all his fun; his mother was a quiet woman who sat andsewed, and sometimes told them not to be silly, which was the bestjoke of all. It was not right for people to alter. But the thought ofhis bedroom made him desolate, and at last he plucked up his courage,and crept downstairs on bare feet. Father and mother had gone backinto the kitchen, and he peeped through the crack of the door to seewhat they were doing. Mother was still crying, always crying, but hehad to change his position before he could see father. Then he turnedon his heels and ran upstairs trembling with fear and disgust. Forfather, the man of all the jokes, the man of whom burglars wereafraid and compared with whom all other little boys' fathers were asdirt, was crying like a little girl.

  He jumped into bed and pulled the bedclothes over his face to shutout the ugliness of the world.

  III

  When Jack woke up the next morning he found that the room was full ofsunshine, and that father was standing at the end of the bed. Themoment Jack opened his eyes, he began telling him something in aserious voice, which was alone sufficient to prevent Jack fromunderstanding what he said. Besides, he used a lot of long words, andJack thought that it was silly to use long words before breakfast,when nobody could be expected to remember what they meant. Father'sbody neatly fitted the square of the window, and the sunbeams shonein all round it and made it look splendid; and if Jack had notalready forgotten the unfortunate impression of the night before,this would have enabled him to overcome it. Every now and then fatherstopped to ask him if he understood, and he said he did, hoping tofind out what it was all about later on. It seemed, however, thatfather was not going to the post-office any more, and this causedJack to picture a series of delightfully amusing days. When fatherhad finished talking he appeared to expect Jack to say something, butJack contented himself with trying to look interested, for he knewthat it was always very stupid of little boys not to understandthings they didn't understand. In reality he felt as if he had beenlistening while his father argued aloud with himself, talking up anddown like an earthquake map.

  At breakfast they were still subdued, but afterwards, as the morningwore on, father became livelier and helped Jack to build a hut inthe back garden. They built it of bean-sticks against the wall at theend, and father broke up a packing-case to get planks for the roof.Only mother still had a sad face, and it made Jack angry with her,that she should be such a spoil-fun. After dinner, while Jack wasplaying in the hut, Mr. Simmons, of the police-station, and anothergentleman called to take father for a walk, and Jack went down to thefront to see them off. Jack knew Mr. Simmons very well; he had beento tea with his little boy, but though he thought him a fine sort ofman he could not help feeling proud of his father when he saw themside by side. Mr. Simmons looked as if he were ashamed of himself,while father walked along with square shoulders and a high head as ifhe had just done something splendid. The other gentleman looked likenothing at all beside father.

  When they were out of sight Jack went into the house and found mothercrying in the kitchen. As he felt more tolerant in his after-dinnermood, he tried to cheer her up by telling her how fine father hadlooked beside the other two men. Mother raised her face, all swollenand spoilt with weeping, and gazed at her son in astonishment. "Theyare taking him to prison," she wailed, "and God knows what willbecome of us."

  For a moment Jack f
elt alarmed. Then a thought came to him and hesmiled, like a little boy who has just found a new and delightfulgame. "Never mind, mother," he said, "we'll help him to escape."

  But mother would not stop crying.