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Page 13
Wellington forthwith developed an inordinate jealousy of Jane Coop.
Jane Coop was maid, adviser and buffer to the girl whom she loved more
than anyone on earth.
Born on the Squire's lands, she had developed a positive genius for
mothering delicate lambs and calves and sickly chicks, so that when a
crisis had arrived almost immediately after the birth of Damaris, the
Squire had bundled the highly-certificated nurse into a motor and sent
her packing back to London, and called upon Jane Coop to rise to the
occasion.
She had risen.
Bonny and plump, she had taken the weakly little bit of humanity, also
the situation, into her strong, capable hands; treated the mother and
babe just as she would have treated a couple of delicate lambs, and
pulled them both through.
From that day forth she had dominated the house, tyrannised over the
Squire and his lady, defied each and every governess who had shown
signs of undue strictness, and found her reward for her devotion in the
love of the child who teased her to death and--in the long run--obeyed
her.
She had shown herself a positive sheep-dog on board the boat. She had
rounded up her white lamb and yapped upon the heels of those who dared
approach with too great familiarity; had bristled and shown her teeth
upon every possible occasion, until those who would fain have led the
girl into new and verdant pastures had fled at the sheep-dog's
approach, leaving them both to enjoy the novelty of everything, each
after her own kind.
Damaris revelled in it all: the seagulls; the lighthouses; the ships
that passed in the day and night; and the tail-end of a storm they hit
up in the Bay, whilst Jane Coop invented new verses to the Litany as
she tried, in her cabin, to solve the problem of two into one, and
Wellington, somewhere under the water-line, daily gave a fine imitation
of hell-bound to a circle of admiring seamen.
To his last hour at sea Captain X will forever retain the memory of
what it cost him in strength of will to maintain his dignity, when,
standing straight and exceedingly beautiful, with one hand full of
lists, the huge bulldog at her feet, with a black bow under his left
ear, and an assembly of the greatest sufferers before her, Damaris, two
days before arriving at Port Said, solemnly read out the items and the
shop price of each article chewed, damaged or totally destroyed during
the voyage by the dog.
"Shoes, boots, pants, edges of trousers; two pipes, one pouch, six
packets of gaspers; one entire tray of crockery; one air-cushion
dropped in fright by stewardess; one coil of rope, one life-buoy, one
tin can dented, one man's ankles slightly bruised; one bare patch to
ship's cat's back. . . ." And so on and so forth; whilst murmurs arose
from the sufferers, who chorused that "they didn't want no
compensation, only too pleased to part with their bits, as long . . ."
etc., etc.
"I do not think the fault was all on one side, Miss Hethencourt,"
summed up the Captain, speaking in guttural consonant and flattened
vowel from suppressed emotion. "The--er--the plaintiff must have
approached the dog as he was chained and------"
"A bulldog," broke in Damaris, "is a magnet to the best in every human
being. They simply could not help themselves; they were drawn within
reach of his teeth; they----"
"I cannot quite------" interrupted the captain. "Yes?"
Chips, the carpenter, showed signs of bursting with information
withheld.
"Beggin' your pardon for interruption, sir, but what; the lady says is
true; we just couldn't keep away. I saw the Chink--beg pardon, sir, I
mean Ling-a-Ling the laundryman, burning joss-sticks in front of
'im,"--pointing of stub finger towards shameless dog--"one night when
the dawg was asleep. Jus' worship, please, sir, on all parts. And
Mrs. Pudge what didn't oughter 'ave been down in our quarters, dropped
the air cushion, sir, 'cause she missed in stays------"
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