“Have you ever been married, Captain Meadows?” I asked.
“Not me,” he said, in his quavering voice, with a grin. “I know too much about women for that.”
“That’s what you say,” retorted Mrs Meadows. “If the truth was known I shouldn’t be surprised to hear as how you’d had half-a-dozen black wives in your day.”
“They’re not black in China, Emily, you ought to know better than that, they’re yellow.”
“Perhaps that’s why you’ve got so yellow yourself. When I saw you, I said to myself, why, he’s got jaundice.”
“I said I’d never marry anyone but you, Emily, and I never have.”
He said this not with pathos or resentment, but as a mere statement of fact, as a man might say, I said I’d walk twenty miles and I’ve done it. There was a trace of satisfaction in the speech.
“Well, you might have regretted it if you had,” she answered.
I talked a little with the old man about China.
“There’s not a port in China that I don’t know better than you know your coat pocket. Where a ship can go I’ve been. I could keep you sitting here all day long for six months and not tell you half the things I’ve seen in my day.”
“Well, one thing you’ve not done, George, as far as I can see,” said Mrs Meadows, the mocking but not unkindly smile still in her eyes, “and that’s to make a fortune.”
“I’m not one to save money. Make it and spend it: that’s my motto. But one thing I can say for myself : if I had the chance of going through my life again I’d take it. And there’s not many as’ll say that.”
“No, indeed,” I said.
I looked at him with admiration and respect. he was a toothless, crippled, penniless old man, but he had made a success of life, for he had enjoyed it. When I left him he asked me to come and see him again next day. If I was interested in China he would tell me all the stories 1 wanted to hear.
Next morning I thought I would go and ask if the old man would like to see me. I strolled down the magnificent avenue of elm trees and when I came to the garden saw Mrs Meadows picking flowers. I bade her good morning and she raised herself. She had a huge armful of white flowers. I glanced at the house and saw that the blinds were drawn: I was surprised, for Mrs Meadows liked the sunshine.
“Time enough to live in the dark when you’re buried,” she always said.
“How’s Captain Meadows?” I asked her.
“He always was a harum-scarum fellow,” she answered. “When Lizzie took him in a cup of tea this morning she found he was dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes. Died in his sleep. I was just picking these flowers to put in the room. Well, I’m glad he died in that old house. It always means a lot to them Meadows to do that.”
They had had a good deal of difficulty in persuading him to go to bed. He had talked to them of all the things that had happened to him in his long life. He was happy to be back in his old home. He was proud that he had walked up the drive without assistance, and he boasted that he would live for another twenty years. But fate had been kind: death had written the full stop in the right place.
Mrs Meadows smelt the white flowers that she held in her arms.
“Well, I’m glad he came back,” she said. “After I married Tom Meadows and George went away, the fact is I was never quite sure that I’d married the right one.”
Mr Know-All
I WAS PREPARED to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him. The war had just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean-going liners was heavy. Accommodation was very hard to get and you had to put up with whatever the agents chose to offer you. You could not hope for a cabin to yourself and I was thankful to be given one in which there were only two berths. But when I was told the name of my companion my heart sank. It suggested closed port-holes and the night air rigidly excluded. It was bad enough to share a cabin for fourteen days with anyone (I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama), but I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow-passenger’s name had been Smith or Brown.
When I went on board I found Mr Kelada’s luggage already below. I did not like the look of it; there were too many labels on the suitcases, and the wardrobe trunk was too big. He had unpacked his toilet things, and I observed that he was a patron of the excellent Monsieur Coty; for I saw on the washing-stand his scent, his hair-wash, and his brilliantine. Mr Kelada’s brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been all the better for a scrub. I did not at all like Mr Kelada. I made my way into the smoking-room. I called for a pack of cards and began to play patience. I had scarcely started before a man came up to me and asked me if he was right in thinking my name was so-and-so.
“I am Mr Kelada,” he added, with a smile that showed a row of flashing teeth, and sat down.
“Oh, yes, we’re sharing a cabin, I think.”
“Bit of luck, I call it. You never know who you’re going to be put in with. I was jolly glad when I heard you were English. I’m all for us English sticking together when we’re abroad, if you understand what I mean.”
I blinked.
“Are you English?” I asked, perhaps tactlessly.
“Rather. You don’t think I look an American, do you? British to the backbone, that’s what I am.”
To prove it, Mr Kelada took out of his pocket a passport and airily waved it under my nose.
King George has many strange subjects. Mr Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and dark-skinned, with a fleshy, hooked nose and very large, lustrous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing English and his gestures were exuberant. I felt pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in England.
“What will you have?” he asked me.
I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition was in force and to all appearances the ship was bone-dry. When I am not thirsty I do not know which I dislike more, ginger-ale or lemon-squash. But Mr Kelada flashed an oriental smile at me.
“Whisky and soda or a dry Martini, you have only to say the word.”
From each of his hip-pockets he fished a flask and laid them on the table before me. I chose the Martini, and calling the steward he ordered a tumbler of ice and a couple of glasses.
“A very good cocktail,” I said.
“Well, there are plenty more where that came from, and if you’ve got any friends on board, you tell them you’ve got a pal who’s got all the liquor in the world.”
Mr Kelada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He discussed plays, pictures, and politics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is flourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity. Mr Kelada was familiar. I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help feeling that it is seemly in a total stranger to put mister before my name when he addresses me. Mr Kelada, doubtless to set me at my ease, used no such formality. I did not like Mr Kelada. I had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our conversation had lasted long enough, I went on with my game.
“The three on the four,” said Mr Kelada.
There is nothing more exasperating when you are playing patience than to be told where to put the card you have turned up before you have had a chance to look for yourself.
“It’s coming out, it’s coming out,” he cried. “The ten on the knave.”
With rage and hatred in my heart I finished. Then he seized the pack.