To-morrow | Page 6

To Bessie Carvil he would state more explicitly: "Not till our Harry
comes home to-morrow." And she had heard this formula of hope so
often that it only awakened the vaguest pity in her heart for that hopeful
old man.
Everything was put off in that way, and every- thing was being
prepared likewise for to-morrow. There was a boxful of packets of
various flower- seeds to choose from, for the front garden. "He will
doubtless let you have your say about that, my dear," Captain Hagberd
intimated to her across the railing.
Miss Bessie's head remained bowed over her work. She had heard all
this so many times. But now and then she would rise, lay down her
sewing, and come slowly to the fence. There was a charm in these
gentle ravings. He was determined that his son should not go away
again for the want of a home all ready for him. He had been filling the
other cottage with all sorts of furniture. She im- agined it all new, fresh
with varnish, piled up as in a warehouse. There would be tables
wrapped up in sacking; rolls of carpets thick and vertical like fragments
of columns, the gleam of white mar- ble tops in the dimness of the
drawn blinds. Cap- tain Hagberd always described his purchases to her,
carefully, as to a person having a legitimate interest in them. The
overgrown yard of his cot- tage could be laid over with concrete . . .
after to-morrow.
"We may just as well do away with the fence. You could have your
drying-line out, quite clear of your flowers." He winked, and she would
blush faintly.
This madness that had entered her life through the kind impulses of her
heart had reasonable de- tails. What if some day his son returned? But
she could not even be quite sure that he ever had a son; and if he
existed anywhere he had been too long away. When Captain Hagberd
got excited in his talk she would steady him by a pretence of belief,

laughing a little to salve her conscience.
Only once she had tried pityingly to throw some doubt on that hope
doomed to disappointment, but the effect of her attempt had scared her
very much. All at once over that man's face there came an ex- pression
of horror and incredulity, as though he had seen a crack open out in the
firmament.
"You--you--you don't think he's drowned!"
For a moment he seemed to her ready to go out of his mind, for in his
ordinary state she thought him more sane than people gave him credit
for. On that occasion the violence of the emotion was followed by a
most paternal and complacent re- covery.
"Don't alarm yourself, my dear," he said a lit- tle cunningly: "the sea
can't keep him. He does not belong to it. None of us Hagberds ever did
belong to it. Look at me; I didn't get drowned. Moreover, he isn't a
sailor at all; and if he is not a sailor he's bound to come back. There's
nothing to prevent him coming back. . . ."
His eyes began to wander.
"To-morrow."
She never tried again, for fear the man should go out of his mind on the
spot. He depended on her. She seemed the only sensible person in the
town; and he would congratulate himself frankly before her face on
having secured such a level- headed wife for his son. The rest of the
town, he confided to her once, in a fit of temper, was certainly queer.
The way they looked at you--the way they talked to you! He had never
got on with any one in the place. Didn't like the people. He would not
have left his own country if it had not been clear that his son had taken
a fancy to Colebrook.
She humoured him in silence, listening patiently by the fence;
crocheting with downcast eyes. Blushes came with difficulty on her
dead-white complexion, under the negligently twisted opu- lence of

mahogany-coloured hair. Her father was frankly carroty.
She had a full figure; a tired, unrefreshed face. When Captain Hagberd
vaunted the necessity and propriety of a home and the delights of one's
own fireside, she smiled a little, with her lips only. Her home delights
had been confined to the nursing of her father during the ten best years
of her life.
A bestial roaring coming out of an upstairs win- dow would interrupt
their talk. She would begin at once to roll up her crochet-work or fold
her sew- ing, without the slightest sign of haste. Mean- while the howls
and roars of her name would go on, making the fishermen strolling
upon the sea-wall on the other side of