Part 18 (1/2)
”Excuse me--I don't quite understand--”
”At sea,” explained the squire. ”There is no luxury like being below when the decks are wet and there is heavy weather about.”
”I should think so,” said Mrs. G.o.ddard. ”Have you been at sea much, Mr.
Juxon?”
”Thirty years,” returned the squire laconically. Mrs. G.o.ddard looked at him in astonishment.
”You don't mean to say you have been a sailor all your life?”
”Does that surprise you? I have been a sailor since I was twelve years old. But I got very tired of it. It is a hard life.”
”Were you in the navy, Mr. Juxon?” asked Mrs. G.o.ddard eagerly, feeling that she was at last upon the track of some information in regard to his past life.
”Yes--I was in the navy,” answered the squire, slowly. ”And then I was at college, and then in the navy again. At last I entered the merchant service and commanded my own s.h.i.+ps for nearly twenty years.”
”How very extraordinary! Why then, you must have been everywhere.”
”Very nearly. But I would much rather be in Billingsfield.”
”You never told me,” said Mrs. G.o.ddard almost reproachfully. ”What a change it must have been for you, from the sea to the life of a country gentleman!”
”It is what I always wanted.”
”But you do not seem at all like the sea captains one hears about--”
”Well, perhaps not,” replied the squire thoughtfully. ”There are a great many different cla.s.ses of sea captains. I always had a taste for books. A man can read a great deal on a long voyage. I have sometimes been at sea for more than two years at a time. Besides, I had a fairly good education and--well, I suppose it was because I was a gentleman to begin with and was more than ten years in the Royal Navy. All that makes a great difference. Have you ever made a long voyage, Mrs. G.o.ddard?”
”I have crossed the channel,” said she. ”But I wish you would tell me something more about your life.”
”Oh no--it is very dull, all that. You always make me talk about myself,”
said the squire in a tone of protestation.
”It is very interesting.”
”But--could we not vary the conversation by talking about you a little?”
suggested Mr. Juxon.
”Oh no! Please--” exclaimed Mrs. G.o.ddard rather nervously. She grew pale and busied herself again with the tea. ”Do tell me more about your voyages. I suppose that was the way you collected so many beautiful things, was it not?”
”Yes, I suppose so,” answered the squire, looking at her curiously. ”In fact of course it was. I was a great deal in China and South America and India, and in all sorts of places where one picks up things.”
”And in Turkey, too, where you got Stamboul?”
”Yes. He was so wet that I left him outside to day. Did not want to spoil your carpet.”
The squire had a way of turning the subject when he seemed upon the point of talking about himself which was very annoying to Mrs. G.o.ddard. But she had not entirely recovered her equanimity and for the moment had lost control of the squire. Besides she had a headache that day.
”Stamboul does not get the benefit of the contrast we were talking about at first,” she remarked, in order to say something.