The Cruise of the Make-Believes

"Why – what's the matter, Mr. Quarle?" asked the girl.

"Bessie Meggison – have you heard about the new lodger?" asked Simon Quarle, holding her hand and speaking very solemnly.

"Yes – of course I've heard about him," replied Bessie wonderingly. "Mrs. Laws told me. What does it matter? – to me it only means so many more stairs to climb so many times a day. You forget that I'm nothing more than a servant here."

"I try not to remember it," said Simon Quarle, gently touching her cheek with one hand with a touch as light as that of a woman. "When you came back here, little woman – hoping to get shelter in the old Arcadia Street on which you had so gladly turned your back once upon a time – you found me – didn't you?"

She nodded quickly. "And you made it all right with Mrs. Laws, so that I might have food and shelter and a very little money in return for my work. Why – I might have starved but for you."

"Not quite so bad as that, perhaps – but still, you were pretty low down," said the man. "The world hasn't treated you well, my dear – but then the world never does treat the timid ones well. You didn't fight hard enough; you hadn't cheek enough. Only I want you to understand, Bessie dear, that you're not the only one that has suffered."

"I know that," she said quickly. "Poor father went through a lot of privations before he found someone to take pity on him; and dear Aubrey must find it hard sometimes to make a living."

"I wasn't thinking about poor father or dear Aubrey," exclaimed Quarle snappishly. "They'll get on all right for themselves. But there is someone else, my child – someone perhaps we have not quite understood."

She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it firmly, and patted it as he went on speaking.

"I know, my dear – I know all about it, and I know what you feel," said Simon Quarle. "Only in this poor strange topsy-turvy world of ours we are all a little like children – wilful and headstrong, and always so sure that we know what is best for us. And the great god Chance happens along one day, and sees that we are in a bit of a muddle, and are spoiling our lives; and shakes us up, and tumbles us about – and perhaps sets us straight again. This one has a gilded toy, and doesn't know how much it's worth; and so the toy is snatched away and given to another; and this one has nothing, and gets perhaps not the gift it craved, but something better yet. What if I told you, Bessie, that the man who played that great game of make-believe with you had touched disaster too, and was as poor as you are?"

"You have heard from him?" she asked quickly.

He nodded slowly. "I have heard from him – and he has been through rather a bad time. The game of make-believe for him is ended; he has come down to the realities. All his money is gone; he's got to work and fight and strive, as every other man must work and fight and strive in this world, if he's to be worthy to be called a man at all. And he wanted to know about you, Bessie."

"Only the old whim – only the old feeling that he's sorry for me. I'm only a little patient drudge again, in the house where he first saw me; and even the poor old garden that I think he laughed at secretly to himself is gone, and blotted out. You mustn't tell him where I am; I don't want him to know."

"Did you love him, Bess?" Simon Quarle stood squarely before her, with his hands clasped behind his back.

She hesitated for a moment, and then looked up at him, with a little touch of colour stealing over her white face, and with a smile in her eyes. "Yes," she said slowly – "I loved him very dearly. If he blundered, he blundered rather finely; and I shall always think of him as I knew him first – someone frank and friendly, coming out of the great world, and liking me a little because I liked him. There – there – don't talk about it; he has his own friends, I suppose, even in his poverty. You said he was poor – didn't you?"

"Yes – very poor. Poor enough, I should think, to live in Arcadia Street in real earnest," said Simon. "Well – I'm sorry if I've touched on anything that has pained you; best forget it. Love's a queer business, and I'm not sure that you're not well out of it. Let the brute starve; it'll do him good."

"Mr. Quarle – you know I didn't mean that at all," faltered Bessie. "You're the unkindest man I've ever met."

"Sorry you think so," said Quarle, turning upon her frowningly. "But you needn't stop and bully me; if you remembered your duties properly you'd know that this new lodger by this time probably requires some attention. Go away and look after him; personally, I'm disappointed in you."

"Oh, no, you're not," she coaxed, putting her arms about his neck. "You always growl at me, I think, when you love me the most."

"Perhaps I do," he snapped, thrusting her away from him. "But go and attend to the new lodger."

She climbed the stairs wearily, thinking a little of what Simon Quarle had said – wondering why it happened that life must be always a grey and profitless thing to some, and not to others. She knocked softly at the door, and heard a shout from within, commanding her to enter; caught her breath for a moment, and passed her hand across her eyes, as though she felt that she might still be dreaming. Then, as the shout was renewed, she opened the door, and went slowly in.

The stars had come out even over Arcadia Street, to help the lamps a little; and still the two sat at the window of that room, looking out into an Arcadia Street that was strangely beautified. So much there was for them to say to each other – so much that had never been said before by any man or woman in all the great world – or so at least they thought. Only once, smiling through her tears, Bessie drew away from him, and looked at him for a moment with the old perplexed frown.

"If you should be cheating me again!" she whispered. "If, instead of this poor room for your home, you should really be rich, and should be trying to steal me out of my poverty by a trick! For the love of God, don't do that again; be fair to me – be just to me!"

"My darling, that particular game of make-believe ended a long time ago," he said – "but a new one begins from to-night. We shall have to work hard, you and I, to keep the wolf from the door; and we shall have to make-believe hard to show that we like it."

"That won't be any make-believe for me, dear," she whispered.

Simon Quarle took it into his head to climb the stairs presently, and after knocking softly in vain, to look in and see them. They came forward a little guiltily, hand in hand, to bear his scrutiny; he shook his head over them whimsically enough.

"Well," he growled to Gilbert – "does she believe you now?"

"I think so," said Gilbert softly.

"Little fool!" said Simon Quarle, touching the girl's cheek with rough tenderness. He turned on his heel and walked out of the room; and his eyes were shining.

THE END