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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11477 ***
+
+DEEP WATERS
+
+By W.W. JACOBS
+
+
+
+FAMILY CARES
+
+Mr. Jernshaw, who was taking the opportunity of a lull in business to
+weigh out pound packets of sugar, knocked his hands together and stood
+waiting for the order of the tall bronzed man who had just entered the
+shop--a well-built man of about forty--who was regarding him with blue
+eyes set in quizzical wrinkles.
+
+"What, Harry!" exclaimed Mr. Jernshaw, in response to the wrinkles.
+"Harry Barrett!"
+
+"That's me," said the other, extending his hand.  "The rolling stone come
+home covered with moss."
+
+Mr. Jernshaw, somewhat excited, shook hands, and led the way into the
+little parlour behind the shop.
+
+"Fifteen years," said Mr. Barrett, sinking into a chair, "and the old
+place hasn't altered a bit."
+
+"Smithson told me he had let that house in Webb Street to a Barrett,"
+said the grocer, regarding him, "but I never thought of you.  I suppose
+you've done well, then?"
+
+Mr. Barrett nodded.  "Can't grumble," he said modestly.  "I've got enough
+to live on.  Melbourne's all right, but I thought I'd come home for the
+evening of my life."
+
+"Evening!" repeated his friend.  "Forty-three," said Mr. Barrett,
+gravely.  "I'm getting on."
+
+"You haven't changed much," said the grocer, passing his hand through his
+spare grey whiskers.  "Wait till you have a wife and seven youngsters.
+Why, boots alone----"
+
+Mr. Barrett uttered a groan intended for sympathy.  "Perhaps you could
+help me with the furnishing," he said, slowly.  "I've never had a place
+of my own before, and I don't know much about it."
+
+"Anything I can do," said his friend.  "Better not get much yet; you
+might marry, and my taste mightn't be hers."
+
+Mr. Barrett laughed.  "I'm not marrying," he said, with conviction.
+
+"Seen anything of Miss Prentice yet?" inquired Mr. Jernshaw.
+
+"No," said the other, with a slight flush.  "Why?"
+
+"She's still single," said the grocer.
+
+"What of it?"  demanded Mr. Barrett, with warmth.  "What of it?"
+
+"Nothing," said Mr. Jernshaw, slowly.  "Nothing; only I----"
+
+"Well?"  said the other, as he paused.
+
+"I--there was an idea that you went to Australia to--to better your
+condition," murmured the grocer.  "That--that you were not in a position
+to marry--that----"
+
+"Boy and girl nonsense," said Mr. Barrett, sharply.  "Why, it's fifteen
+years ago.  I don't suppose I should know her if I saw her.  Is her
+mother alive?"
+
+"Rather!" said Mr. Jernshaw, with emphasis.  "Louisa is something like
+what her mother was when you went away."
+
+Mr. Barrett shivered.
+
+"But you'll see for yourself," continued the other.  "You'll have to go
+and see them.  They'll wonder you haven't been before."
+
+"Let 'em wonder," said the embarrassed Mr. Barrett.  "I shall go and see
+all my old friends in their turn; casual-like.  You might let 'em hear
+that I've been to see you before seeing them, and then, if they're
+thinking any nonsense, it'll be a hint.  I'm stopping in town while the
+house is being decorated; next time I come down I'll call and see
+somebody else."
+
+"That'll be another hint," assented Mr. Jernshaw.  "Not that hints are
+much good to Mrs. Prentice."
+
+"We'll see," said Mr. Barrett.
+
+In accordance with his plan his return to his native town was heralded by
+a few short visits at respectable intervals.  A sort of human butterfly,
+he streaked rapidly across one or two streets, alighted for half an hour
+to resume an old friendship, and then disappeared again.  Having given at
+least half-a-dozen hints of this kind, he made a final return to Ramsbury
+and entered into occupation of his new house.
+
+"It does you credit, Jernshaw," he said, gratefully.  "I should have made
+a rare mess of it without your help."
+
+"It looks very nice," admitted his friend.  "Too nice."
+
+"That's all nonsense," said the owner, irritably.
+
+"All right," said Mr. Jernshaw.  "I don't know the sex, then, that's all.
+If you think that you're going to keep a nice house like this all to
+yourself, you're mistaken.  It's a home; and where there's a home a woman
+comes in, somehow."
+
+Mr. Barrett grunted his disbelief.
+
+"I give you four days," said Mr. Jernshaw.
+
+As a matter of fact, Mrs. Prentice and her daughter came on the fifth.
+Mr. Barrett, who was in an easy-chair, wooing slumber with a handkerchief
+over his head, heard their voices at the front door and the cordial
+invitation of his housekeeper.  They entered the room as he sat hastily
+smoothing his rumpled hair.
+
+"Good afternoon," he said, shaking hands.
+
+Mrs. Prentice returned the greeting in a level voice, and, accepting a
+chair, gazed around the room.
+
+"Nice weather," said Mr. Barrett.
+
+"Very," said Mrs. Prentice.
+
+"It's--it's quite a pleasure to see you again," said Mr. Barrett.
+
+"We thought we should have seen you before," said Mrs. Prentice, "but
+I told Louisa that no doubt you were busy, and wanted to surprise her.
+I like the carpet; don't you, Louisa?"
+
+Miss Prentice said she did.
+
+"The room is nice and airy," said Mrs. Prentice, "but it's a pity you
+didn't come to me before deciding.  I could have told you of a better
+house for the same money."
+
+"I'm very well satisfied with this," said Mr. Barrett.  "It's all I
+want."
+
+"It's well enough," conceded Mrs. Prentice, amiably.  "And how have you
+been all these years?"
+
+Mr. Barrett, with some haste, replied that his health and spirits had
+been excellent.
+
+"You look well," said Mrs. Prentice.  "Neither of you seem to have
+changed much," she added, looking from him to her daughter.  "And I think
+you did quite well not to write.  I think it was much the best."
+
+Mr. Barrett sought for a question: a natural, artless question, that
+would neutralize the hideous suggestion conveyed by this remark, but it
+eluded him.  He sat and gazed in growing fear at Mrs. Prentice.
+
+"I--I couldn't write," he said at last, in desperation; "my wife----"
+
+"Your what?" exclaimed Mrs. Prentice, loudly.
+
+"Wife," said Mr. Barrett, suddenly calm now that he had taken the plunge.
+"She wouldn't have liked it."
+
+Mrs. Prentice tried to control her voice.  I never heard you were
+married!" she gasped.  "Why isn't she here?"
+
+"We couldn't agree," said the veracious Mr. Barrett.  "She was very
+difficult; so I left the children with her and----"
+
+"Chil----" said Mrs. Prentice, and paused, unable to complete the word.
+
+"Five," said Mr. Barrett, in tones of resignation.  "It was rather a
+wrench, parting with them, especially the baby.  He got his first tooth
+the day I left."
+
+The information fell on deaf ears.  Mrs. Prentice, for once in her life
+thoroughly at a loss, sat trying to collect her scattered faculties.  She
+had come out prepared for a hard job, but not an impossible one.  All
+things considered, she took her defeat with admirable composure.
+
+"I have no doubt it is much the best thing for the children to remain
+with their mother," she said, rising.
+
+"Much the best," agreed Mr. Barrett.  "Whatever she is like," continued
+the old lady.  "Are you ready, Louisa?"
+
+Mr. Barrett followed them to the door, and then, returning to the room,
+watched, with glad eyes, their progress up the street.
+
+"Wonder whether she'll keep it to herself?" he muttered.
+
+His doubts were set at rest next day.  All Ramsbury knew by then of his
+matrimonial complications, and seemed anxious to talk about them;
+complications which tended to increase until Mr. Barrett wrote out a list
+of his children's names and ages and learnt it off by heart.
+
+Relieved of the attentions of the Prentice family, he walked the streets
+a free man; and it was counted to him for righteousness that he never
+said a hard word about his wife.  She had her faults, he said, but they
+were many thousand miles away, and he preferred to forget them.  And he
+added, with some truth, that he owed her a good deal.
+
+For a few months he had no reason to alter his opinion.  Thanks to his
+presence of mind, the Prentice family had no terrors for him.  Heart-
+whole and fancy free, he led the easy life of a man of leisure, a
+condition of things suddenly upset by the arrival of Miss Grace Lindsay
+to take up a post at the elementary school.  Mr. Barrett succumbed almost
+at once, and, after a few encounters in the street and meetings at mutual
+friends', went to unbosom him-self to Mr. Jernshaw.
+
+"What has she got to do with you?" demanded that gentleman.
+
+"I--I'm rather struck with her," said Mr. Barrett.
+
+"Struck with her?" repeated his friend, sharply.  "I'm surprised at you.
+You've no business to think of such things."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Mr. Barrett, in tones that were sharper still.
+
+"Why not?" repeated the other.  "Have you forgotten your wife and
+children?"
+
+Mr. Barrett, who, to do him justice, had forgotten, fell back in his
+chair and sat gazing at him, open-mouthed.
+
+"You're in a false position--in a way," said Mr. Jernshaw, sternly.
+
+"False is no name for it," said Mr. Barrett, huskily.  "What am I to do?"
+
+"Do?" repeated the other, staring at him.  "Nothing!  Unless, perhaps,
+you send for your wife and children.  I suppose, in any case, you would
+have to have the little ones if anything happened to her?"
+
+Mr. Barrett grinned ruefully.
+
+"Think it over," said Mr. Jernshaw.  "I will," said the other, heartily.
+
+He walked home deep in thought.  He was a kindly man, and he spent some
+time thinking out the easiest death for Mrs. Barrett.  He decided at last
+upon heart-disease, and a fort-night later all Ramsbury knew of the
+letter from Australia conveying the mournful intelligence.  It was
+generally agreed that the mourning and the general behaviour of the
+widower left nothing to be desired.
+
+"She's at peace at last," he said, solemnly, to Jernshaw.
+
+"I believe you killed her," said his friend.  Mr. Barrett started
+violently.
+
+"I mean your leaving broke her heart," explained the other.
+
+Mr. Barrett breathed easily again.
+
+"It's your duty to look after the children," said Jernshaw, firmly.  "And
+I'm not the only one that thinks so."
+
+"They are with their grandfather and grand-mother," said Mr. Barrett.
+
+Mr. Jernshaw sniffed.
+
+"And four uncles and five aunts," added Mr. Barrett, triumphantly.
+
+"Think how they would brighten up your house," said Mr. Jernshaw.
+
+His friend shook his head.  "It wouldn't be fair to their grandmother,"
+he said, decidedly.  "Besides, Australia wants population."
+
+He found to his annoyance that Mr. Jernshaw's statement that he was not
+alone in his views was correct.  Public opinion seemed to expect the
+arrival of the children, and one citizen even went so far as to recommend
+a girl he knew, as nurse.
+
+Ramsbury understood at last that his decision was final, and, observing
+his attentions to the new schoolmistress, flattered itself that it had
+discovered the reason.  It is possible that Miss Lindsay shared their
+views, but if so she made no sign, and on the many occasions on which she
+met Mr. Barrett on her way to and from school greeted him with frank
+cordiality.  Even when he referred to his loneliness, which he did
+frequently, she made no comment.
+
+He went into half-mourning at the end of two months, and a month later
+bore no outward signs of his loss.  Added to that his step was springy
+and his manner youthful.  Miss Lindsay was twenty-eight, and he persuaded
+himself that, sexes considered, there was no disparity worth mentioning.
+
+He was only restrained from proposing by a question of etiquette.  Even a
+shilling book on the science failed to state the interval that should
+elapse between the death of one wife and the negotiations for another.
+It preferred instead to give minute instructions with regard to the
+eating of asparagus.  In this dilemma he consulted Jernshaw.
+
+"Don't know, I'm sure," said that gentle-man; "besides, it doesn't
+matter."
+
+"Doesn't matter?"  repeated Mr. Barrett.  "Why not?"
+
+"Because I think Tillett is paying her attentions," was the reply.  "He's
+ten years younger than you are, and a bachelor.  A girl would naturally
+prefer him to a middle-aged widower with five children."
+
+"In Australia," the other reminded him.
+
+"Man for man, bachelor for bachelor," said Mr. Jernshaw, regarding him,
+"she might prefer you; as things are--"
+
+"I shall ask her," said Mr. Barrett, doggedly.  "I was going to wait a
+bit longer, but if there's any chance of her wrecking her prospects for
+life by marrying that tailor's dummy it's my duty to risk it--for her
+sake.  I've seen him talking to her twice myself, but I never thought
+he'd dream of such a thing."
+
+Apprehension and indignation kept him awake half the night, but when he
+arose next morning it was with the firm resolve to put his fortune to the
+test that day.  At four o'clock he changed his neck-tie for the third
+time, and at ten past sallied out in the direction of the school.  He met
+Miss Lindsay just coming out, and, after a well-deserved compliment to
+the weather, turned and walked with her.
+
+"I was hoping to meet you," he said, slowly.
+
+"Yes?" said the girl.
+
+"I--I have been feeling rather lonely to-day," he continued.
+
+"You often do," said Miss Lindsay, guardedly.
+
+"It gets worse and worse," said Mr. Barrett, sadly.
+
+"I think I know what is the matter with you," said the girl, in a soft
+voice; "you have got nothing to do all day, and you live alone, except
+for your housekeeper."
+
+Mr. Barrett assented with some eagerness, and stole a hopeful glance at
+her.
+
+"You--you miss something," continued Miss.  Lindsay, in a faltering
+voice.
+
+"I do," said Mr. Barrett, with ardour.
+
+"You miss"--the girl made an effort--"you miss the footsteps and voices
+of your little children."
+
+Mr. Barrett stopped suddenly in the street, and then, with a jerk, went
+blindly on.
+
+"I've never spoken of it before because it's your business, not mine,"
+continued the girl.  I wouldn't have spoken now, but when you referred to
+your loneliness I thought perhaps you didn't realize the cause of it."
+
+Mr. Barrett walked on in silent misery.
+
+"Poor little motherless things!" said Miss Lindsay, softly.  "Motherless
+and--fatherless."
+
+"Better for them," said Mr. Barrett, finding his voice at last.
+
+"It almost looks like it," said Miss Lindsay, with a sigh.
+
+Mr. Barrett tried to think clearly, but the circumstances were hardly
+favourable.  "Suppose," he said, speaking very slowly, "suppose I wanted
+to get married?"
+
+Miss Lindsay started.  "What, again?" she said, with an air of surprise.
+
+"How could I ask a girl to come and take over five children?"
+
+"No woman that was worth having would let little children be sacrificed
+for her sake," said Miss Lindsay, decidedly.
+
+"Do you think anybody would marry me with five children?" demanded Mr.
+Barrett.
+
+"She might," said the girl, edging away from him a little.  "It depends
+on the woman."
+
+"Would--you, for instance?"  said Mr. Barrett, desperately.
+
+Miss Lindsay shrank still farther away.  "I don't know; it would depend
+upon circumstances," she murmured.
+
+"I will write and send for them," said Mr. Barrett, significantly.
+
+Miss Lindsay made no reply.  They had arrived at her gate by this time,
+and, with a hurried handshake, she disappeared indoors.
+
+Mr. Barrett, somewhat troubled in mind, went home to tea.
+
+He resolved, after a little natural hesitation, to drown the children,
+and reproached himself bitterly for not having disposed of them at the
+same time as their mother.  Now he would have to go through another
+period of mourning and the consequent delay in pressing his suit.
+Moreover, he would have to allow a decent interval between his
+conversation with Miss Lindsay and their untimely end.
+
+The news of the catastrophe arrived two or three days before the return
+of the girl from her summer holidays.  She learnt it in the first half-
+hour from her landlady, and sat in a dazed condition listening to a
+description of the grief-stricken father and the sympathy extended to him
+by his fellow-citizens.  It appeared that nothing had passed his lips for
+two days.
+
+[Illustration: SHE LEARNT THE NEWS IN THE FIRST HALF-HOER FROM HER
+LANDLADY.]
+
+"Shocking!"  said Miss Lindsay, briefly.  "Shocking !"
+
+An instinctive feeling that the right and proper thing to do was to nurse
+his grief in solitude kept Mr. Barrett out of her way for nearly a week.
+When she did meet him she received a limp handshake and a greeting in a
+voice from which all hope seemed to have departed.
+
+"I am very sorry," she said, with a sort of measured gentleness.
+
+Mr. Barrett, in his hushed voice, thanked her.
+
+"I am all alone now," he said, pathetically.  "There is nobody now to
+care whether I live or die."
+
+Miss Lindsay did not contradict him.
+
+"How did it happen?" she inquired, after they had gone some distance in
+silence.
+
+"They were out in a sailing-boat," said Mr. Barrett; "the boat capsized
+in a puff of wind, and they were all drowned."
+
+"Who was in charge of them?" inquired the girl, after a decent interval.
+
+"Boatman," replied the other.
+
+"How did you hear?"
+
+"I had a letter from one of my sisters-in-law, Charlotte," said Mr.
+Barrett.  "A most affecting letter.  Poor Charlotte was like a second
+mother to them.  She'll never be the same woman again.  Never!"
+
+"I should like to see the letter," said Miss Lindsay, musingly.
+
+Mr. Barrett suppressed a start.  "I should like to show it to you," he
+said, "but I'm afraid I have destroyed it.  It made me shudder every time
+I looked at it."
+
+"It's a pity," said the girl, dryly.  "I should have liked to see it.
+I've got my own idea about the matter.  Are you sure she was very fond of
+them?"
+
+"She lived only for them," said Mr. Barrett, in a rapt voice.
+
+"Exactly.  I don't believe they are drowned at all," said Miss Lindsay,
+suddenly.  "I believe you have had all this terrible anguish for nothing.
+It's too cruel."
+
+Mr. Barrett stared at her in anxious amazement.
+
+"I see it all now," continued the girl.  "Their Aunt Charlotte was
+devoted to them.  She always had the fear that some day you would return
+and claim them, and to prevent that she invented the story of their
+death."
+
+"Charlotte is the most truthful woman that ever breathed," said the
+distressed Mr. Barrett.
+
+Miss Lindsay shook her head.  "You are like all other honourable,
+truthful people," she said, looking at him gravely.  "You can't imagine
+anybody else telling a falsehood.  I don't believe you could tell one if
+you tried."
+
+Mr. Barrett gazed about him with the despairing look of a drowning
+mariner.
+
+"I'm certain I'm right," continued the girl.  "I can see Charlotte
+exulting in her wickedness.  Why!"
+
+"What's the matter?"  inquired Mr. Barrett, greatly worried.
+
+"I've just thought of it," said Miss Lindsay.  "She's told you that your
+children are drowned, and she has probably told them you are dead.  A
+woman like that would stick at nothing to gain her ends."
+
+"You don't know Charlotte," said Mr. Barrett, feebly.
+
+"I think I do," was the reply.  "However, we'll make sure.  I suppose
+you've got friends in Melbourne?"
+
+"A few," said Mr. Barrett, guardedly.
+
+"Come down to the post-office and cable to one of them."
+
+Mr. Barrett hesitated.  "I'll write," he said, slowly.  "It's an awkward
+thing to cable; and there's no hurry.  I'll write to Jack Adams,
+I think."
+
+"It's no good writing," said Miss Lindsay, firmly.  "You ought to know
+that."
+
+"Why not?" demanded the other.
+
+"Because, you foolish man," said the girl, calmly, "before your letter
+got there, there would be one from Melbourne saying that he had been
+choked by a fish-bone, or died of measles, or something of that sort."
+
+Mr. Barrett, hardly able to believe his ears, stopped short and looked at
+her.  The girl's eyes were moist with mirth and her lips trembling.  He
+put out his hand and took her wrist in a strong grip.
+
+"That's all right," he said, with a great gasp of relief.  "_Phew!_  At
+one time I thought I had lost you."
+
+"By heart-disease, or drowning?"  inquired Miss Lindsay, softly.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Family Cares, by W.W. Jacobs
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11477 ***