Tish Marches On (18 page)

“It proved to me conclusively,” she has since said, “that liquor first attacks and destroys the higher attributes. Those creatures had no repressions. None!”

But in the end the policeman rose and moved off, although unsteadily, and she was free to consider a method of escape.

By leaning over the coping she was able to tap on Hannah’s window with the end of the rod, and having thus engaged her attention, to instruct her to place a folded card table on the top platform of the fire escape, and on that a ladder. This done, and Hannah steadying the ladder, Tish made her descent without difficulty; although she had failed to count on the policeman, who saw her at the last moment and fired a shot at her, fortunately without result.

The rest of the night she spent in packing, and thus it happened that we left for the South a day or so earlier than expected, and without seeing Charlie Sands again. True, we telephoned him at the last moment and he managed to get to the train. But it was already moving, and although he shouted something at us and pointed at the train, we could not hear him.

“I dare say he has left some candy with the conductor,” Aggie said. “Candy or fruit. Something nice.”

But it was nothing pleasant that Charlie Sands had left, as we were to learn later on.

Just before the train pulled out, a large stout man had got on, in a very bad humor. He was shouting that he had engaged a drawing room, and was going to have it. But he did not secure it, and breathing heavily, he sat down across from us and glared at everybody in the car. He had a seven-foot fishing rod with him, in a canvas cover, and I really believe that our misfortunes began when, on her way to get a drink of water, Tish happened to trip over the end of it.

He was in a rage at once.

“Why don’t you watch your feet, madam?” he shouted.

“Why don’t you keep that telegraph pole out of the aisle?” said Tish urbanely. “Or hang it out the window and put a flag on it?”

Well, he could not hope to cope with our dear Tish’s satiric humor, so he merely uncovered the rod and examined it carefully, and after that he rubbed it with a clean silk handkerchief. As Tish observed, if it had been a baby he could not have handled it more tenderly.

During that first two hours he had quarreled with the porter and the conductor, and glared at Tish in the intervals. And when he had fought with his waiter in the dining car he seemed to feel better, and he came back and unlocked a tin box, divided into compartments. He took out a number of long shiny objects with hooks on, and began to polish those. He tested the points on the hooks, and one he even filed with a small file. And when that was done he took a reel out of a velvet-lined box and oiled and polished it.

I must admit that we were interested, and I had hoped that we might later on enter in conversation with him. But he was placed at our table in the dining car that night, and Aggie, who was sitting in a draft, happened to sneeze and so upset a cup of hot coffee in his lap.

“Good heavens, woman!” he yelled, leaping to his feet. “If you’ve got to sneeze, why don’t you do it in private?”

“If you’ve got to howl at everybody,” Aggie retorted, “why dod’t you do that id private? If I had your dispositiod, I’d have sobebody operate od it.”

He merely gave us all a long and bitter look and left the dining car. Nor did we see him for some hours that evening, as he had retired to the smoking compartment and remained there. Indeed, it was not until we were all safely in bed that he reappeared, and then a most unfortunate contretemps occurred.

Aggie, who sees badly anyhow, made a mistake that is entirely natural when the berths are made up in a car, and all look alike. She got into the berth opposite me instead of the next one, and had barely crawled under the coverings and put out the light when the Unknown came down the aisle, sat down on her, and was about to remove his shoes, when she rallied sufficiently to protest.

“Get off of me, you wretch!” she said loudly. “How dare you?”

Well, he leaped into the aisle, and really I have never heard a man carry on so. He was no gentleman—I will say that to my dying day, no matter what Charlie Sands may think—for he made our poor Aggie, clad only in her nightdress, move into her own berth, and when he found her menthol inhaler on the window sill he simply flung it out into the aisle.

But all this was nothing to what followed.

I had been asleep for some time, and so had Tish, as I could hear from that heavy breathing which is characteristic of her when completely relaxed, when I heard tense voices in the aisle, punctuated by agitated sneezing.

“How did I know your watch wath there?” Aggie was lisping. “Let go my hand! I tell you—”

“You’ll tell a policeman at the next stop!”

“I merely reathed under your pillow—”

“I know damned well you did. And if that isn’t my watch in your hand, what is it?”

And then Aggie rose in her dignity and anger.

“I’ll tell you what it ith,” she said furiously. “It’th my teeth. I lefth them there, and if they feel the way I do I justh wonder they didn’t bite you.”

Happily our dear Tish slept through all this, and except that Aggie sneezed steadily until almost morning, the rest of the night was peaceful enough.

The next day was comparatively quiet. Only one unpleasantness marred the day. The Monster, as Aggie had named him, spent his time again in the men’s compartment at the end of the car, and also rose late, as the porter was trying to get the coffee stains out of his trousers.

This unpleasantness arose out of a natural interest on Tish’s part in the tin box.

“He is evidently an experienced fisherman,” she said, “and a selfish one. In that box he has various sorts of devices for game fish, but even while polishing them he holds the cloth so we cannot see them. That is not the attitude of a true sportsman, and I resent it.”

“Let it alone, Tish,” I begged her. “It’s locked anyhow, and that man is dangerous.”

But she was already feeling for a wire hairpin and ordering Aggie to stand on watch outside the men’s room, and to notify her if the Monster gave signs of leaving it. It was simply bad luck that Aggie chose the wrong end of the car, and stood for one hour and twenty minutes outside the women’s lavatory. But she did so, and when the Monster returned Tish had a number of objects from the box in her lap and was carefully examining his reel. She unluckily dropped it when she saw him, and it rolled under a seat.

Well, I thought he was going to have apoplexy. He swore dreadfully, and got down on his knees to hunt the thing. He continued to use the most profane language, and when Tish rose in indignation and the rest of the stuff went on the floor, he simply groaned out loud.

When he had gathered up all the stuff he stood in the aisle and gazed at us, and I must say he looked haggard.

“Would it appeal to your better natures, ladies,” he asked, “if I tell you that my doctor has ordered me on a vacation, and that he has specifically mentioned quiet and peace? Peace at meals and plenty of sleep? Because if it does not, I shall be obliged to leave the train.”

“A series of unfortunate incidents,” Tish replied, “has given you an unfair opinion of us. But you may rest assured that from now on we shall see that you are undisturbed.”

He looked almost pleasant at that and sat down, after bowing. But unluckily one of the hooked arrangements had been overlooked in the corner of the seat, and the way he carried on was something terrible. I believe the porter was obliged to cut out the hook, but at least he did not again reappear in the car. The porter came to us later on, grinning, and said he was in the men’s room and intended to remain there.

“You ladies certainly did make that genleman suffah,” he said, with admiration. “An’ you certainly did ruin that pair o’ pants foh him. Seems he set considerable store by them. Yes, ma’am, he’s certainly suffahed.”

I believe the Monster, as we now referred to him, slept somewhere else that night, for we did not see him again. And as by this time we had reached the Southland, our dear Tish relaxed and showed signs of pleasure.

“Observe these islands, Lizzie, scattered along this tropic coast. What bliss to be on one, to have time to think, to commune with the soul. To bathe in the sea, to lie on the sand and receive the actinic rays of the sun, to shake a tree and bring down the necessary food. Lizzie, have you ever thought how little it requires to sustain life?”

“It would take more than you have mentioned to sustain me,” I said. “I like a good broiled chop myself now and then. And if you mean those coconuts, how would you propose to get them down?”

But she only eyed me dreamily.

“They train monkeys to do that,” she said. “You send one up and then throw stones at him. When he is sufficiently angered he throws down the nuts. I believe the natives grow quite expert at catching them.”

“Well, I can’t eat coconut,” I said. “It gives me indigestion.”

That closed the discussion, although I was to recall it later with a certain bitterness.

I
T WAS A SHOCK
to all of us, I think, to find the Monster on the hotel boat, going over to our island; and the way he glared at us was downright wicked. He cheered up, however, when another stout red-faced man on the boat went up to him and struck him heavily on the back.

“Hello, old-timer,” he shouted. “Going to get your diamond button this time?”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Bet you a hundred dollars I beat you to it.”

“Hell, I hate to work so hard for a hundred dollars. Make it worthwhile and I’ll go you.”

It was then that Tish made the remark which so impressed both Aggie and myself. “Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.”

It is not necessary to relate the details of our arrival and of settling into our cottage. These are unimportant, although while we were registering we all observed that the Monster drew the manager aside and spoke to him at length, while gazing at us. We unpacked, and Aggie put on her foulard while Tish and I wore our black silks to dinner. The Monster was at a table with the other red-faced man, and between them was a very pretty girl who looked sulky and had nothing much to say.

That was our first view of Lily.

After the meal we inspected the tarpon room, and I must say that the size of the stuffed fish rather worried me. Also there were photographs of the fish fighting, and they looked dangerous in the extreme. Aggie turned a little pale, especially as there were other photographs of alligators, sharks, devilfish, and even of an octopus or two.

The girl wandered in about that time and lit a cigarette, and Tish addressed her.

“I perceive that the king of fish is the main pursuit of this resort,” she said.

“I’ll say it is,” said the girl rather shortly.

“It must indeed be a royal sport.”

“It’s not a sport; it’s a mania,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve got in your head; what you’ve got on a hook is all that counts.”

And with that she turned and went out again.

Aggie and I knitted that evening, while Tish saw to the boat. The Monster was playing poker, and the girl wandered about until he was settled and then with a tall good-looking man disappeared outside. Aggie watched them go, for the blighting of her own early romance—she was at one time engaged to a Mr. Wiggins, who was in the roofing business, and slipped on a rainy day—has left her with a soft spot for all lovers.

“It is an ideal spot for affairs of the heart, Lizzie,” she said. “Yet those two are not happy.”

“Maybe he didn’t get a fish today,” I said sharply. For all the conversation I could hear was about fish and fishing.

But Aggie is strongly intuitive, and later events were to prove her right. If the time was to come when we wished that we had never seen Lily, there was nothing to warn us then or for several days to come.

For a day or so nothing happened. We had packed our case of provisions and bottled water in the boat, as the tarpon were not yet in, and were making preliminary excursions to study the channels and passes. Our bathing suits, skirts, and large sun hats made these excursions comfortable. Also it was during these more or less idle hours that we practiced our life belt drill. The belts were laid in a row in the boat; on Tish’s count of “one” we stooped, “two,” we picked them up, and at “three” we adjusted them.

As it developed, this drill was to save our poor Aggie’s life later on.

But Aggie was growing increasingly nervous. One day we returned to find a large shark lying on the pier, and she could hardly be induced to pass it.

“They eat people, Tish!” she cried.

“Only when driven by extreme hunger, Aggie,” Tish told her patiently.

“How do you know when they’re hungry?” she demanded “I don’t suppose they go around pointing down their throats.”

Tish’s enthusiasm was unabated, however, and she continued to prepare for the day when the tarpon would come in from the cool depths of the Gulf. She had purchased a length of rope, and it was to be my duty, once the fish had struck, to lash her to her chair, which in turn was screwed to the deck of the boat. At the same time Aggie was to fill and hold ready a pail of water, in case the reel became heated and began to smoke.

We saw little of the Monster, although now and then we could hear him shouting at the waitress in the dining room. It appeared that by that time he and the other red-faced man had wagered a thousand dollars on a diamond-button fish, and they spent most of the time scouting around outside the passes looking for tarpon. They were out day and night, and all the hotel people could talk about was the bet between them.

And then, on a day when the wind prohibited fishing, we had a brief talk with Lily.

We had taken our knitting to the beach, and I remember that the sand was covered with small fiddler crabs, all running sideways and very annoying, and that Aggie immediately returned to our cottage and brought back an insect spray which was intended for mosquitoes. By thoroughly spraying a portion of the sand we cleared a place on which to sit, and hardly had Tish lain down with her face to the sun than we all heard a sound of muffled sobbing.