Miss or Mrs.?. Wilkie Collins
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Joseph looked up briskly; his sister had accidentally touched on an old association.
“Talk of falling overboard,” he began, “reminds me of an extraordinary adventure—”
There Launce broke in, making his apologies.
“It shan’t occur again, Miss Lavinia,” he said. “To-morrow morning I’ll oil myself all over, and slip into the water as silently as a seal.”
“Of an extraordinary adventure,” persisted Sir Joseph, “which happened to me many years ago, when I was a young man. Lavinia?”
He stopped, and looked interrogatively at his sister. Miss Graybrooke nodded her head responsively, and settled herself in her chair, as if summoning her attention in anticipation of a coming demand on it. To persons well acquainted with the brother and sister these proceedings were ominous of an impending narrative, protracted to a formidable length. The two always told a story in couples, and always differed with each other about the facts, the sister politely contradicting the brother when it was Sir Joseph’s story, and the brother politely contradicting the sister when it was Miss Lavinia’s story. Separated one from the other, and thus relieved of their own habitual interchange of contradiction, neither of them had ever been known to attempt the relation of the simplest series of events without breaking down.
“It was five years before I knew you, Richard,” proceeded Sir Joseph.
“Six years,” said Miss Graybrooke.
“Excuse me, Lavinia.”
“No, Joseph, I have it down in my diary.”
“Let us waive the point.” (Sir Joseph invariably used this formula as a means of at once conciliating his sister, and getting a fresh start for his story.) “I was cruising off the Mersey in a Liverpool pilot-boat. I had hired the boat in company with a friend of mine, formerly notorious in London society, under the nickname (derived from the peculiar brown color of his whiskers) of ‘Mahogany Dobbs.’”
“The color of his liveries, Joseph, not the color of his whiskers.”
“My dear Lavinia, you are thinking of ‘Sea-green Shaw,’ so called from the extraordinary liveries he adopted for his servants in the year when he was sheriff.”
“I think not, Joseph.”
“I beg your pardon, Lavinia.”
Richard Turlington’s knotty fingers drummed impatiently on the table. He looked toward Natalie. She was idly arranging her little morsels of ham in a pattern on her plate. Launcelot Linzie, still more idly, was looking at the pattern. Seeing what he saw now, Richard solved the problem which had puzzled him on deck. It was simply impossible that Natalie’s fancy could be really taken by such an empty-headed fool as that!
Sir Joseph went on with his story:
“We were some ten or a dozen miles off the mouth of the Mersey—”
“Nautical miles, Joseph.”
“It doesn’t matter, Lavinia.”
“Excuse me, brother, the late great and good Doctor Johnson said accuracy ought always to be studied even in the most trifling things.”
“They were common miles, Lavinia.”
“They were nautical miles, Joseph.”
“Let us waive the point. Mahogany Dobbs and I happened to be below in the cabin, occupied—”
Here Sir Joseph paused (with his amiable smile) to consult his memory. Miss Lavinia waited (with her amiable smile) for the coming opportunity of setting her brother right. At the same moment Natalie laid down her knife and softly touched Launce under the table. When she thus claimed his attention the six pieces of ham were arranged as follows in her plate: Two pieces were placed opposite each other, and four pieces were ranged perpendicularly under them. Launce looked, and twice touched Natalie under the table. Interpreted by the Code agreed on between the two, the signal in the plate meant, “I must see you in private.” And Launce’s double touch answered, “After breakfast.”
Sir Joseph proceeded with his story. Natalie took up her knife again. Another signal coming!
“We were both down in the cabin, occupied in finishing our dinner—”
“Just sitting down to lunch, Joseph.”
“My dear! I ought to know.”
“I only repeat what I heard, brother. The last time you told the story, you and your friend were sitting down to lunch.”
“We won’t particularize, Lavinia. Suppose we say occupied over a meal?”
“If it is of no more importance than that, Joseph, it would be surely better to leave it out altogether.”
“Let us waive the point. Well, we were suddenly alarmed by a shout on deck, ‘Man over-board!’ We both rushed up the cabin stairs, naturally under the impression that one of our crew had fallen into the sea: an impression shared, I ought to add, by the man at the helm, who had given the alarm.”
Sir Joseph paused again. He was approaching one of the great dramatic points in his story, and was naturally anxious to present it as impressively as possible. He considered with himself, with his head a little on one side. Miss Lavinia considered with herself, with her head a little on one side. Natalie laid down her knife again, and again touched Launce under the table. This time there were five pieces of ham ranged longitudinally on the plate, with one piece immediately under them at the center of the line. Interpreted by the Code, this signal indicated two ominous words, “Bad news.” Launce looked significantly at the owner of the yacht (meaning of the look, “Is he at the bottom of it?”). Natalie frowned in reply (meaning of the frown, “Yes, he is”). Launce looked down again into the plate. Natalie instantly pushed all the pieces of ham together in a little heap (meaning of the heap, “No more to say”).
“Well?” said Richard Turlington, turning sharply on Sir Joseph. “Get on with your story. What next?”
Thus far he had not troubled himself to show even a decent pretense of interest in his old friend’s perpetually-interrupted narrative. It was only when Sir Joseph had reached his last sentence—intimating that the man overboard might turn out in course of time not to be a man of the pilot-boat’s crew—it was only then that Turlington sat up in his chair, and showed signs of suddenly feeling a strong interest in the progress of the story.
Sir Joseph went on:
“As soon as we got on deck, we saw the man in the water, astern. Our vessel was hove up in the wind, and the boat was lowered. The master and one of the men took the oars. All told, our crew were seven in number. Two away in the boat, a third at the helm, and, to my amazement, when I looked round, the other four behind me making our number complete. At the same moment Mahogany Dobbs, who was looking through a telescope, called out, ‘Who the devil can he be? The man is floating on a hen-coop, and we have got nothing of the sort on board this pilot-boat.’”
The one person present who happened to notice Richard Turlington’s face when those words were pronounced was Launcelot Linzie. He—and he alone—saw the Levant trader’s swarthy complexion fade slowly to a livid ashen gray; his eyes the while fixing themselves on Sir Joseph Graybrooke with a furtive glare in them like the glare in the eyes of a wild beast. Apparently conscious that Launce was looking at him—though he never turned his head Launce’s way—he laid his elbow on the table, lifted his arm, and so rested his face on his hand, while the story went on, as to screen it effectually from the young surgeon’s view.
“The man was brought on board,” proceeded Sir Joseph, “sure enough, with a hen-coop—on which he had been found floating. The poor wretch was blue with terror and exposure in the water; he fainted when we lifted him on deck. When he came to himself he told us a horrible story. He was a sick and destitute foreign seaman, and he had hidden himself in the hold of