Thankful's Inheritance

CHAPTER III

Emily said—well, the first thing she said was, “Oh, Aunt Thankful!” Then she added that she couldn't believe it.

“It's so,” declared Mrs. Barnes, “whether we believe it or not. When you come to think it over there's nothin' so wonderful about it, after all. I had a sneakin' suspicion when I was sittin' here by you, after you'd gone to sleep. What I saw afterwards made me almost sure. I—Hum! I guess likely that'll keep till we get to the hotel, if we ever do get there. Perhaps Mr.—Mr.—”

“Bangs is my name, ma'am,” said the big man with the lantern. “Obed Bangs.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bangs. Or it's 'Cap'n Bangs,' ain't it?”

“They generally call me Cap'n, ma'am, though I ain't been doin' any active seafarin' for some time.”

“I thought as much. Down here on Cape Cod, and givin' orders the way I heard you afore you come into this room, 'twas nine chances to one you was a cap'n, or you had been one. Bangs—Bangs—Obed Bangs? Why, that name sounds kind of familiar. Seems as if—Cap'n Bangs, you didn't use to know Eben Barnes of Provincetown, did you?”

“Eben Barnes? Cap'n Eben of the White Foam, lost off Cape Hatteras in a gale?”

“Yes, that's the one. I thought I heard him speak of you. He was my husband.”

Captain Obed Bangs uttered an exclamation. Then he stepped forward and seized Mrs. Barnes' hand. The lady's hand was not a very small one but the Captain's was so large that, as Thankful remarked afterward, it might have shaken hers twice at the same time.

“Eben Barnes' wife!” exclaimed Captain Obed. “Why, Eben and I was messmates on I don't know how many v'yages! Well, well, well, ma'am, I'm real glad to see you.”

“You ain't so glad as we are to see you—and your friend,” observed Thankful, drily. “Is he a captain, too?”

He didn't look like one, certainly. He had removed his sou'wester, uncovering a round head, with reddish-gray hair surrounding a bald spot at the crown. He had a double chin and a smile which was apologetic but ingratiating. He seemed less frightened than when he first entered the room, but still glanced about him with evident apprehension.

“No—no, ma'am,” he stammered, in answer to the question. “No, ma'am, I—I—my name's Parker. I—I ain't a cap'n; no, ma'am.”

“Kenelm ain't been promoted yet,” observed Captain Obed gravely. “He's waitin' until he get's old enough to go to sea. Ain't that it, Kenelm?”

Kenelm smiled and shifted his sou'wester from his right hand to his left.

“I—I cal'late so,” he answered.

“Well, it don't make any difference,” declared Thankful. “My cousin and I are just as glad to see him as if he was an admiral. We've been waitin' so long to see any human bein' that we'd begun to think they was all drowned. But you haven't met my cousin yet. Her name's Howes.”

Emily, who had stood by, patient but chilly, during the introductions and reminiscences, shook hands with Captain Bangs and Mr. Parker. Both gentlemen said they were pleased to meet her; no, Captain Obed said that—Kenelm said that he was “glad to be acquaintanced.”

“I don't know as we hadn't ought to beg your pardon for creepin' in on you this way,” said the captain. “We thought the house was empty. We didn't know you was visitin' your—your property.”

“Well, so far as that goes, neither did we. I don't wonder you expected to find burglars or tramps or whatever you did expect. We've had an awful time this night, ain't we, Emily?”

“We certainly have,” declared Miss Howes, with emphasis.

“Yes, you see—”

She gave a brief history of the cruise and wreck of the depot-wagon. Also of their burglarious entry of the house.

“And now, Cap'n,” she said, in conclusion, “if you could think up any way of our gettin' to that hotel, we'd be ever so much obliged. . . . Hello! There's that driver, I do believe! And about time, I should say!”

From without came the sound of wheels and the voice of Winnie S., hailing his missing passengers.

“Hi! Hi-i! Where be ye?”

“He'll wear his lungs out, screamin' that way,” snapped Thankful. “Can't he see the light, for goodness sakes?”

Captain Obed answered. “He couldn't see nothin' unless 'twas hung on the end of his nose,” he said. “That boy's eyes and brains ain't connected. Here, Kenelm,” turning to Mr. Parker, “you go out and tell Win to shut down on his fog whistle; he's wastin' steam. Tell him the women-folks are in here. Look alive, now!”

Kenelm looked alive, but not much more than that.

“All right, Cap'n,” he stammered. “A—a—all right. What—what—shall I say—what shall I—had I better—”

“Thunderation! Do you need a chart and compass? Stay where you are. I'll say it myself.”

He strode to the window, threw it open, and shouted in a voice which had been trained to carry above worse gales than the present one:

“Ahoy! Ahoy! Win! Fetch her around aft here. Lay alongside the kitchen door! D'you hear? Ahoy! Win! d'you hear?”

Silence. Then, after a moment, came the reply. “Yup, I hear ye. Be right there.”

The captain turned from the window.

“Took some time for him to let us know he heard, didn't it,” he observed. “Cal'late he had to say 'Judas priest' four or five times afore he answered. If you cut all the 'Judas priests' out of that boy's talk he'd be next door to tongue-tied.”

Thankful turned to her relative.

“There, Emily,” she said, with a sigh of relief. “I guess likely we'll make the hotel this tack. I begun to think we never would.”

Captain Bangs shook his head.

“You won't go to no hotel this night,” he said, decidedly. “It's a long ways off and pretty poor harbor after you make it. You'll come right along with me and Kenelm to his sister's house. It's only a little ways and Hannah's got a spare room and she'll be glad to have you. I'm boardin' there myself just now. Yes, you will,” he added. “Of course you will. Suppose I'm goin' to let relations of Eben Barnes put up at the East Wellmouth tavern? By the everlastin', I guess not! I wouldn't send a—a Democrat there. Come right along! Don't say another word.”

Both of the ladies said other words, a good many of them, but they might as well have been orders to the wind to stop blowing. Captain Obed Bangs was, evidently, a person accustomed to having his own way. Even as they were still protesting their new acquaintance led them to the kitchen door, where Winnie S. and a companion, a long-legged person who answered to the name of “Jabez,” were waiting on the front seat of a vehicle attached to a dripping and dejected horse. To the rear of this vehicle “General Jackson” was tethered by a halter. Winnie S. was loaded to the guards with exclamatory explanations.

“Judas priest!” he exclaimed, as the captain assisted Mrs. Barnes and Emily into the carriage. “If I ain't glad to see you folks! When I got back here and there wa'n't a sign of you nowheres, I was took some off my pins, I tell ye. Didn't know what to do. I says to Jabez, I says—”

Captain Obed interrupted. “Never mind what you said to Jabez, Win,” he said. “Why didn't you get back sooner? That's what we want to know.”

Winnie S. was righteously indignant. “Sooner!” he repeated. “Judas priest! I tell ye right now I'm lucky to get back at all. Took me pretty nigh an hour to get to the village. Such travelin' I never see. Tried to save time by takin' the short cut acrost the meadow, and there ain't no meadow no more. It's three foot under water. You never see such a tide. So back I had to frog it and when I got far as Jabe's house all hands had turned in. I had to pretty nigh bust the door down 'fore I could wake anybody up. Then Jabe he had to get dressed and we had to harness up and—hey? Did you say anything, ma'am?”

The question was addressed to Mrs. Barnes, who had been vainly trying to ask one on her own account.

“I say have you got our valises?” asked Thankful. “Last I saw of them they was in that other wagon, the one that broke down.”

The driver slapped his knee. “Judas priest!” he cried. “I forgot all about them satchels. Here, Jabe,” handing the reins to his companion. “You take the hellum while I run back and fetch 'em.”

He was back in a few moments with the missing satchels. Then Jabez, who was evidently not given to wasting words, drawled: “Did you get the mail? That's in there, too, ain't it?”

“Judas priest! So 'tis. Why didn't you remind me of it afore? Set there like—like a wooden figurehead and let me run my legs off—”

His complaints died away in the distance. At last, with the mail bag under the seat, the caravan moved on. It was still raining, but not so hard, and the wind blew less fiercely. They jogged and rocked and splashed onward. Suddenly Winnie S. uttered another shout.

“The lantern!” he cried. “Where's that lantern I lent ye?”

“It's there in the house,” said Thankful. “It burned itself out and I forgot it. Mercy on us! You're not goin' back after that, I hope.”

“Well, I dunno. That lantern belongs to the old man—dad, I mean—and he sets a lot of store by it. If I've lost that lantern on him, let alone leavin' his depot-wagon all stove up, he'll give me—”

“Never mind what he'll give you,” broke in Captain Bangs. “You keep on your course or I'LL give you somethin'. Don't you say another word till we get abreast of Hannah Parker's.”

“Humph! We're there now. I thought these folks was goin' to our hotel.”

“Take my advice and don't think so much. You'll open a seam in your head and founder, first thing you know. Here we are! And here's Hannah! Hannah, Kenelm and I've brought you a couple of lodgers. Now, ma'am, if you'll stand by. Kenelm, open that hatch.”

Mr. Parker opened the hatch—the door of the carriage—and the captain assisted the passengers to alight. Emily caught a glimpse of the white front of a little house and of a tall, angular woman standing in the doorway holding a lamp. Then she and Mrs. Barnes were propelled by the strong arms of their pilot through that doorway and into a little sitting-room, bright and warm and cheery.

“There!” declared Captain Obed. “That cruise is over. Kenelm! Where is Kenelm? Oh, there you are! You tell that Winnie S. to trot along. We'll settle for passage tomorrow mornin'. Now, ma'am,” turning to Thankful, “you and your relation want to make yourselves as comf'table as you can. This is Miss Parker, Kenelm's sister. Hannah, this is Mrs. Barnes, Eben Barnes' widow. You've heard me speak of him. And this is Miss Howes. I cal'late they're hungry and I know they're wet. Seems's if dry clothes and supper might be the next items on the manifest.”

Miss Parker rose to the occasion. She flew about preparing the “items.” Thankful and Emily were shown to the spare room, hot water and towels were provided, the valise was brought in. When the ladies again made their appearance in the sitting-room, they were arrayed in dry, warm garments, partly their own and partly supplied from the wardrobe of their hostess. As to the fit of these latter, Mrs. Barnes expressed her opinion when she said:

“Don't look at me, Emily. I feel like a barrel squeezed into an umbrella cover. This dress is long enough, land knows, but that's about all you can say of it. However, I suppose we hadn't ought to—to look a gift dress in the waistband.”

Supper was ready in the dining-room and thither they were piloted by Kenelm, whose hair, what there was of it, was elaborately “slicked down,” and whose celluloid collar had evidently received a scrubbing. In the dining-room they found Captain Bangs awaiting them. Miss Parker made her appearance bearing a steaming teapot. Hannah, now that they had an opportunity to inspect her, was seen to be as tall and sharp-featured as her brother was short and round. She was at least fifteen years older than he, but she moved much more briskly. Also she treated Kenelm as she might have treated a child, an only child who needed constant suppression.

“Please to be seated, everybody,” she said. “Cap'n Obed, you take your reg'lar place. Mrs. Barnes, if you'll be so kind as to set here, and Miss Howes next to you. Kenelm, you set side of me. Set down, don't stand there fidgetin'. WHAT did you put on that necktie for? I told you to put on the red one.”

Kenelm fingered his tie. “I—I cal'late I must have forgot, Hannah,” he stammered. “I never noticed. This one's all right, ain't it?”

“All right! It'll have to be. You can't change it now. But, for goodness sakes, look out it stays on. The elastic's all worn loose and it's li'ble to drop into your tea or anywheres else. Now,” with a sudden change from a family to a “company” manner, “may I assist you to a piece of the cold ham, Miss Howes? I trust you are feelin' quite restored to yourself again?”

Emily's answer being in the affirmative, their hostess continued:

“I'm so sorry to be obliged to set nothin' but cold ham and toast and tea before you,” she said. “If I had known you was comin' I should have prepared somethin' more fittin'. After such an experience as you must have been through this night to set down to ham and toast! I—I declare I feel real debilitated and ashamed to offer 'em to you.”

Thankful answered.

“Don't say a word, Miss Parker,” she said, heartily. “We're the ones that ought to be ashamed. Landin' on you this way in the middle of the night. You're awfully good to take us in at all. My cousin and I were on our way to the hotel, but Cap'n Bangs wouldn't hear of it. He's responsible for our comin' here.”

Miss Parker nodded.

“Cap'n Obed is the most hospital soul livin',” she said, grandly. “He done just right. If he'd done anything else Kenelm and I would have felt hurt. I—Look out!” with a sudden snatch at her brother's shirt front. “There goes that tie. Another second and 'twould have been right in your plate.”

Kenelm snapped the loop of the “made” tie over his collar button. “Don't grab at me that way, Hannah,” he protested mildly. “I'm kind of nervous tonight, after what I've been through. 'Twouldn't have done no great harm if I had dropped it. I could pick it up again, couldn't I?”

“You could, but I doubt if you would. You might have ate it, you're so absent-minded. Nervous! YOU nervous! What do you think of me? Mrs. Barnes,” turning to Thankful and once more resuming the “company” manner, “you'll excuse our bein' a little upset. You see, when my brother came home and said he'd seen lights movin' around in the old Barnes' house, he frightened us all pretty near to death. All Cap'n Obed could think of was tramps, or thieves or somethin'. Nothin' would do but he must drag Kenelm right back to see who or what was in there. And I was left alone to imagine all sorts of dreadful things. Tramps I might stand. They belong to this world, anyhow. But in THAT house, at eleven o'clock at night, I—Mrs. Barnes, do you believe in aberrations?”

Thankful was nonplused. “In—in which?” she asked.

“In aberrations, spirits of dead folks comin' alive again?”

For just a moment Mrs. Barnes hesitated. Then she glanced at Emily, who was trying hard not to smile, and answered, with decision: “No, I don't.”

“Well, I don't either, so far as that goes. I never see one myself, and I've never seen anybody that has. But when Kenelm came tearin' in to say he'd seen a light in a house shut up as long as that one has been, and a house that folks—”

Captain Bangs interrupted. He had been regarding Thankful closely and now he changed the subject.

“How did it happen you saw that light, Kenelm?” he asked. “What was you doin' over in that direction a night like this?”

Kenelm hesitated. He seemed to find it difficult to answer.

“Why—why—” he stammered, “I'd been up to the office after the mail. And—and—it was so late comin' that I give it up. I says to Lemuel Ryder, 'Lem,' I says—”

His sister broke in.

“Lem Ryder!” she repeated. “Was he at the post-office?”

“Well—well—” Kenelm's confusion was more marked than ever. “Well—well—” he stammered, “I see him, and I says—”

“You see him! Where did you see him? Kenelm Parker, I don't believe you was at the postoffice at all. You was at the clubroom, that's where you was. At that clubroom, smokin' and playin' cards with that deprivated crowd of loafers and gamblers. Tell me the truth, now, wasn't you?”

Mr. Parker's tie fell off then, but neither he nor his sister noticed it.

“Gamblers!” he snorted. “There ain't no gamblers there. Playin' a hand or two of Californy Jack just for fun ain't gamblin'. I wouldn't gamble, not for a million dollars.”

Captain Obed laughed. “Neither would I,” he observed. “Nor for two cents, with that clubroom gang; 'twould be too much nerve strain collectin' my winnin's. I see now why you come by the Barnes' house, Kenelm. It's the nighest way home from that clubhouse. Well, I'm glad you did. Mrs. Barnes and Miss Howes would have had a long session in the dark if you hadn't. Yes, and a night at Darius Holt's hotel, which would have been a heap worse. So you've been livin' at South Middleboro, Mrs. Barnes, have you? Does Miss Howes live there, too?”

Thankful, very grateful for the change of topic, told of her life since her husband's death, of her long stay with Mrs. Pearson, of Emily's teaching school, and their trip aboard the depot-wagon.

“Well,” exclaimed Miss Parker, when she had finished, “you have been through enough, I should say! A reg'lar story-book adventure, ain't it? Lost in a storm and shut up in an empty house, the one you come purpose to see. It's a mercy you wa'n't either of you hurt, climbin' in that window the way you did. You might have broke your arms or your necks or somethin'. Mr. Alpheus Bassett, down to the Point—a great, strong, fleshy man, weighs close to two hundred and fifty and never sick a day in his life—he was up in the second story of his buildin' walkin' around spry as anybody—all alone, which he shouldn't have been at his age—and he stepped on a fish and away he went. And the next thing we hear he's in bed with his collar-bone. Did you ever hear anything like that in your life, Miss Howes?”

It was plain that Emily never had. “I—I'm afraid I don't understand,” she faltered. “You say he was in the second story of a building and he stepped on—on a FISH?”

“Yes, just a mackerel 'twas, and not a very big one, they tell me. At first they was afraid 'twas the spine he'd broke, but it turned out to be only the collar-bone, though that's bad enough.”

Captain Obed burst into a laugh. “'Twa'n't the mackerel's collar-bone, Miss Howes,” he explained, “though I presume likely that was broke, too, if Alpheus stepped on it. He was up in the loft of his fish shanty icin' and barrelin' fish to send to Boston, and he fell downstairs. Wonder it didn't kill him.”

Miss Parker nodded. “That's what I say,” she declared. “And Sarah—that's his wife—tells me the doctors are real worried because the fraction ain't ignited yet.”

Thankful coughed and then observed that she should think they would be.

“If you don't mind,” she added, “I think it's high time all hands went to bed. It must be way along into the small hours and if we set here any longer it'll be time for breakfast. You folks must be tired, settin' up this way and I'm sure Emily and I am. If we turn in now we may have a chance to look over that precious property of mine afore we go back to South Middleboro. I don't know, though, as we haven't seen enough of it already. It don't look very promisin' to me.”

The captain rose from the table and, walking to the window, pushed aside the shade.

“It'll look better tomorrow—today, I should say,” he observed. “The storm's about over, and the wind's hauled to the west'ard. We'll have a spell of fair weather now, I guess. That property of yours, Mrs. Barnes, 'll look a lot more promisin' in the sunshine. There's no better view along shore than from the front windows of that house. 'Tain't half bad, that old house ain't. All it needs is fixin' up.”

Good nights—good mornings, for it was after two o'clock—were said and the guests withdrew to their bedroom. Once inside, with the door shut, Thankful and Emily looked at each other and both burst out laughing.

“Oh, dear me!” gasped the former, wiping her eyes. “Maybe it's mean to laugh at folks that's been as kind to us as these Parkers have been, but I never had such a job keepin' a straight face in my life. When she said she was 'debilitated' at havin' to give us ham and toast that was funny enough, but what come afterwards was funnier. The 'fraction' ain't 'ignited' yet and the doctors are worried. I should think they'd be more worried if it had.”

Emily shook her head. “I am glad I didn't have to answer that remark, Auntie,” she said. “I never could have done it without disgracing myself. She is a genuine Mrs. Malaprop, isn't she?”

This was a trifle too deep for Mrs. Barnes, who replied that she didn't know, she having never met the Mrs. What's-her-name to whom her cousin referred. “She's a genuine curiosity, this Parker woman, if that's what you mean, Emily,” she said. “And so's her brother, though a different kind of one. We must get Cap'n Bangs to tell us more about 'em in the mornin'. He thinks that—that heirloom house of mine will look better in the daylight. Well, I hope he's right; it looked hopeless enough tonight, what I could see of it.”

“I like that Captain Bangs,” observed Emily.

“So do I. It seems as if we'd known him for ever so long. And how his salt-water talk does take me back. Seems as if I was hearin' my father and Uncle Abner—yes, and Eben, too—speakin'. And it is so sort of good and natural to be callin' somebody 'Cap'n.' I was brought up amongst cap'ns and I guess I've missed 'em more'n I realized. Now you must go to sleep; you'll need all the sleep you can get, and that won't be much. Good night.”

“Good night,” said Emily, sleepily. A few minutes later she said: “Auntie, what did become of that lantern our driver was so anxious about? The last I saw of it it was on the floor by the sofa where I was lying. But I didn't seem to remember it after the captain and Mr. Parker came.”

Mrs. Barnes' reply was, if not prompt, at least conclusive.

“It's over there somewhere,” she said. “The light went out, but it ain't likely the lantern went with it. Now you go to sleep.”

Miss Howes obeyed. She was asleep very soon thereafter. But Thankful lay awake, thinking and wondering—yes, and dreading. What sort of a place was this she had inherited? She distinctly did not believe in what Hannah Parker had called “aberrations,” but she had heard something—something strange and inexplicable in that little back bedroom. The groans might have been caused by the gale, but no gale spoke English, or spoke at all, for that matter. Who, or what, was it that had said “Oh Lord!” in the darkness and solitude of that bedroom?