I had only just come back to England when Mrs. McPhee invited me to dinner at three o'clock in the afternoon, and the notepaper was almost bridal in its scented creaminess. When I reached the house I saw that there were new curtains in the window that must have cost forty–five shillings a pair; and as Mrs. McPhee drew me into the little marble–papered hall, she looked at me keenly, and cried:
"Have ye not heard? What d' ye think o' the hatrack?"
Now, that hat–rack was oak–thirty shillings, at least. McPhee came down–stairs with a sober foot—he steps as lightly as a cat, for all his weight, when he is at sea—and shook hands in a new and awful manner—a parody of old Holdock's style when he says good–bye to his skippers. I perceived at once that a legacy had come to him, but I held my peace, though Mrs. McPhee begged me every thirty seconds to eat a great deal and say nothing. It was rather a mad sort of meal, because McPhee and his wife took hold of hands like little children (they always do after voyages), and nodded and winked and choked and gurgled, and hardly ate a mouthful.
A female servant came in and waited; though Mrs. McPhee had told me time and again that she would thank no one to do her housework while she had her health. But this was a servant with a cap, and I saw Mrs. McPhee swell and swell under her garance–coloured gown. There is no small free–board to Janet McPhee, nor is garance any subdued tint; and with all this unexplained pride and glory in the air I felt like watching fireworks without knowing the festival. When the maid had removed the cloth she brought a pineapple that would have cost half a guinea at that season (only McPhee has his own way of getting such things), and a Canton china bowl of dried lichis, and a glass plate of preserved ginger, and a small jar of sacred and Imperial chow–chow that perfumed the room. McPhee gets it from a Dutchman in Java, and I think he doctors it with liqueurs. But the crown of the feast was some Madeira of the kind you can only come by if you know the wine and the man. A little maize–wrapped fig of clotted Madeira cigars went with the wine, and the rest was a pale blue smoky silence; Janet, in her splendour, smiling on us two, and patting McPhee's hand.
"We'll drink," said McPhee, slowly, rubbing his chin, "to the eternal damnation o' Holdock, Steiner & Chase."
Of course I answered "Amen," though I had made seven pound ten shillings out of the firm. McPhee's enemies were mine, and I was drinking his Madeira.
"Ye've heard nothing?" said Janet. "Not a word, not a whisper?"
"Not a word, nor a whisper. On my word, I have not."
"Tell him, Mac," said she; and that is another proof of Janet's goodness and wifely love. A smaller woman would have babbled first, but Janet is five feet nine in her stockings.
"We're rich," said McPhee. I shook hands all round.
"We're damned rich," he added. I shook hands all round a second time.
"I'll go to sea no more—unless—there's no sayin'—a private yacht, maybe—wi' a small an' handy auxiliary."
"It's not enough for that," said Janet. "We're fair rich—well–to–do, but no more. A new gown for church, and one for the theatre. We'll have it made west."
"How much is it?" I asked.
"Twenty–five thousand pounds." I drew a long breath. "An' I've been earnin' twenty–five an' twenty pound a month!"
The last words came away with a roar, as though the wide world was conspiring to beat him down.
"All this time I'm waiting," I said. "I know nothing since last September. Was it left you?"
They laughed aloud together. "It was left," said McPhee, choking. "Ou, ay, it was left. That's vara good. Of course it was left. Janet, d' ye note that? It was left. Now if you'd put that in your pamphlet it would have been vara jocose. It was left." He slapped his thigh and roared till the wine quivered in the decanter.
The Scotch are a great people, but they are apt to hang over a joke too long, particularly when no one can see the point but themselves.
"When I rewrite my pamphlet I'll put it in, McPhee. Only I must know something more first."
McPhee thought for the length of half a cigar, while Janet caught my eye and led it round the room to one new thing after another—the new vine–pattern carpet, the new chiming rustic clock between the models of the Colombo outrigger–boats, the new inlaid sideboard with a purple cut–glass flower–stand, the fender of gilt and brass, and last, the new black–and–gold piano.
"In October o' last year the Board sacked me," began McPhee. "In October o' last year the Breslau came in for winter overhaul. She'd been runnin' eight months—two hunder an' forty days—an' I was three days makin' up my indents, when she went to dry–dock. All told, mark you, it was this side o' three hunder pound—to be preceese, two hunder an' eighty–six pound four shillings. There's not another man could ha' nursed the Breslau for eight months to that tune. Never again—never again! They may send their boats to the bottom, for aught I care."
"There's no need," said Janet, softly. "We're done wi' Holdock, Steiner & Chase."
"It's irritatin', Janet, it's just irritatin'. I ha' been justified from first to last, as the world knows, but—but I canna forgie 'em. Ay, wisdom is justified o' her children; an' any other man than me wad ha' made the indent eight hunder. Hay was our skipper—ye'll have met him. They shifted him to the Torgau, an' bade me wait for the Breslau under young Bannister. Ye'll obsairve there'd been a new election on the Board. I heard the shares were sellin' hither an' yon, an' the major part of the Board was new to me. The old Board would ne'er ha' done it. They trusted me. But the new Board were all for reorganisation. Young Steiner—Steiner's son—the Jew, was at the bottom of it, an' they did not think it worth their while to send me word. The first I knew—an' I was Chief Engineer—was the notice of the line's winter sailin's, and the Breslau timed for sixteen days between port an' port! Sixteen days, man! She's a good boat, but eighteen is her summer time, mark you. Sixteen was sheer flytin', kitin' nonsense, an' so I told young Bannister.
"We've got to make it,' he said. 'Ye should not ha' sent in a three hunder pound indent.'
"Do they look for their boats to be run on air?' I said. 'The Board's daft.'
"'E'en tell 'em so,' he says. 'I'm a married man, an' my fourth's on the ways now, she says.'"
"A boy—wi' red hair," Janet put in. Her own hair is the splendid red–gold that goes with a creamy complexion.
"My word, I was an angry man that day! Forbye I was fond o' the old Breslau, I looked for a little consideration from the Board after twenty years' service. There was Board–meetin' on Wednesday, an' I slept overnight in the engine–room, takin' figures to support my case. Well, I put it fair and square before them all. 'Gentlemen,' I said, 'I've run the Breslau eight seasons, an' I believe there's no fault to find wi' my wark. But if ye haud to this'—I waggled the advertisement at 'em—'this that I've never heard of it till I read it at breakfast, I do assure you on my professional reputation, she can never do it. That is to say, she can for a while, but at a risk no thinkin' man would run.'