"I have been getting ready to leave home all afternoon, Mrs. Jorham. I can assure you there was not much levity in that, and I was not idle."
Mrs. Jorham looked somewhat mollified but nevertheless shook her head doubtfully. "Mere earthly consarns are not sufficient. You should cast your eyes above." Anthony looked surprised. "Unless you have devoted some time during the day to prayer you may consider it wasted, you know." She laid her umbrella across her knees and folded her hands in her lap.
Embarked thus on the pursuit of her favourite quarry, the soul, she began to feel more congenial. In the semi-darkness her outline lost much of its rigidity. She cuddled the umbrella. It no longer seemed likely that she might open it in the twilight and flit off on the wings of a bat. There might even be shelter under it for two. Anthony wondered about the captain.
"Whenever I'm fixin' to make a v'y'ge," snapped Mrs. Jorham, "I go in for extensive prayer. V'y'ges are solemn things. Ye can never tell. I pack my duds in the mornin', all but the scriptures, and I usually goes to the ta-own churchyards in the arternoon and takes the good book along.for reference. There's nothing like a few chice epitaphs and a little solemn scripture to put you in a frame of mind fit to go to sea. It makes your petitions gin-uine, the kind that goes straight through to the marcy seat. I tell ye I know it. Have ye any clever graveyards here?" she inquired suggestively.
"Several," said Anthony, "but most of the clever epitaphs are in Latin."
"That's the way in heathen parts," she went on. "I am glad to tell that it's dyin' out at home. I must say Latin's Greek to me, although I was a Putnam."
"Do the Putnams speak Latin like the Jesuits?" asked Anthony. He wondered if they were tonsured, too,
"Nope, they don't need it to git along in Bosting, and most of my family round Nuburyport went in for rum and ile. But all of 'em got fine epitaphs. Granite stones, too. Not a soapstone in the lot. No, siree." The lady paused triumphantly.
"Ye ever been to my pa-arts?"
Anthony shook his head regretfully.
"Well, sir, there's a fine parcel o' ta-owns in New England. A feast for Christian eyes with white churches and neat houses. The snow comes regular and kills off the roaches. We don't have critters except what comes in ships from Jamaiky and other foreign pa-arts. But the best thing about the ta-owns is the clever graveyards. I've seen a sight of 'em all up and da-own the cyoast. But they Southern planters sleeps too proud o' their own private plots! You'd think Gabriel was goln' to call ra-ound and give some souls a separate toot. No, sir, there'll be just one long, common blast, and them that sleeps late'll fry. One o' the slickest churchyards I ever see was at Bridgewater, Mass. I spent a hull week there. Visitin'! I got them inscriptions pat. Some of 'em was poetry. Here's one: 'Here lies buried Mrs. Martha Alden, the wife of Mr. Eleazer Alden, who died 6 January, 1769, aged 69 years.' " Mrs. Jorham broke into song.
"The resurrection day will come, And Christ's strong voice will burst the tume; The sleeping dead, we trust, will rise With joy and pleasure in her eyes. And ever shine among the wise.
A-men."
The nasal tune twanged its way about the mouldering frescoes. It seemed to curl up among the clouds that had once been rosy with a false dawn but were now like rolling billows of blue and grey smoke through which the chariots of the gods plunged in a growing twilight.
"It'll do the heathens good," said Mrs. Jorham rolling her eyes aloft and askance. "And that naked man rolling his barrel in hell. Well, I cala-late their clothes would singe off, but it don't seem right. I wouldn't allow even the damned to expose themselves."
Anthony sat silent in sheer amazement. The woman was evidently having a good time. He remembered having read about persons like this in Mr. Bonnyfeather's Protestant books. There was, for instance, "The female Saint of Wimbledon." What was it, that phrase the old author used, a classical scholar, he was, oh, yes, "That chaste Diana of endangered souls,"—something, something, rolls—
"The heat of pious ardour lit her face As through the wood of error roared the chase, Acteon-like the heretic was torn While scornfully she wound her Christian horn.''
And so on ad infinitum.
O lord! he wished Vincent would come. He could hear the snatch of harmony at Signora Bovino's ringing out now as if his mind were defending itself automatically. Undoubtedly he was being chased.
"In memory of Capt. Seth Alden— The corpse in silent darkness lies Our friend is gone, the captain dies . . .''
"Thar she spa-outs, and thar she bla-ows," roared the voice of Captain Elisha who emerged just then from the corridor with Mr. Bonnyfeather. They had clinched their bargain over a bottle of rum, at least the captain had, and he was not what might be termed his better self.
"Has that old cachalot been spa-outin' dirges to ye, young man? I'm sorry for ye, plum sorry!" He clapped Anthony on the back. "A little sea-vility, a little sea-vility is what you Putnams need to larn, Jane. I allers said so. I'm the man to larn yer. The idear. I kin smell them tumes right through the tartle soup."
"Ee-lisha, ye've been drinkin'," said his wife sniffing something else than turtle soup.
"I hev. And what's more I'm goin' right on for the rest of the evenin' and ye can belay yer temperance drip and wo-lasses." He looked approvingly at the table. 'Thilly, is that potage perfected?"
"Itair,suh!"
The captain made a gesture which in its generous expansiveness included the more remote members of the solar system. "Come on," said he, and led Mr. Bonnyfeather by the arm to his own table.
"Mr. Adverse," said Mrs. Jorham in a voice now so subdued that Anthony felt sorry for her, "don't forget what I have been tellin' ye. Do a graveyard or two, before . . ."
"Belay them sepelchrees, Jane," called her husband.
But Anthony promised and saw that he had made a friend. Slipping her arm in his they advanced to the table.
"Madame," said Mr. Bonnyfeather escaping, "you will also permit me to do some of the honours." He seated her on his right. AH the gentlemen now took their chairs, and with this display of manners Mrs. Jorham was obviously touched. She permitted herself a dab at her eyes.
"Ye make me feel at home," she said to Mr. Bonnyfeather.
"I regard that," said he, "as a touching compliment."
Mrs. Jorham began to rally and to remember who she had once been. "I do miss the fixin's sometimes," she sighed running her eye over the glass and silver and fingering the table-cloth. "And land's sake the napkins! We do live like Injuns on the Wampanoag! I often says to Elisha, says I..." but the captain was looking at her. "Anyway it's nice to be settin' with gentlemen and a respectable female again!"
"I'll say it is," slipped in the captain, also looking with approval at Faith.
Suddenly an electric thrill ran through him. He had seen Faith flutter her eye at him. There could be no doubt of it. It hadn't happened to him for years.
"Woman," said he, tossing off a glass of wine to her with a loud smack, "it's a tarnation wonder someone didn't marry ye years ago. Years ago! I say." He banged his fist on the table so that the soup jumped.
Mrs, Jorham's eyes narrowed. The landscape did not seem so respectable as she had thought a moment before.
"There's some things a woman can wait too long to change her mind about," she said dryly. Faith's throat rippled. There was an awkward pause. Toussaint jumped into the breach gallantly.
"Madame, I can assure you it has not been for lack of opportunities, or want of a philosopher to persuade mademoiselle that she remains a... er, single. Monsieur," said he catching Mr. Bonnyfeather's eye, "may I be the first to propose a toast— To the Ladies."