They had come to the outskirts of a straggling village. The lights in the windows gave a welcome suggestion of warmth, for darkness had fallen swiftly during their walk and the chill of the wind had become more biting. There was a smell of salt in the air now, and once or twice Jill had caught the low booming of waves on some distant beach. This was the Atlantic pounding the sandy shore of Fire Island. Brookport itself lay inside, on the lagoon called the Great South Bay.
“This is Brookport,” said Mr Mariner. “That’s Haydock’s grocery store there by the post-office. He charges sixty cents a pound for bacon, and I can get the same bacon by walking into Patchogue for fifty-seven!” He brooded awhile on the greed of man, as exemplified by the pirates of Brookport. “The very same bacon!” he said.
“How far is Patchogue?” asked Jill, feeling that some comment was required of her.
“Four miles,” said Mr Mariner.
They passed through the village, bearing to the right, and found themselves in a road bordered by large gardens in which stood big, dark houses. The spectacle of these stimulated Mr Mariner to something approaching eloquence. He quoted the price paid for each, the price asked, the price offered, the price that had been paid five years ago. The recital carried them on for another mile, in the course of which the houses became smaller and more scattered, and finally, when the country had become bare and desolate again, they turned down a narrow lane and came to a tall, gaunt house standing by itself in a field.
“This is Sandringham,” said Mr Mariner.
“What!” said Jill. “What did you say?”
“Sandringham. Where we live. I got the name from your father. I remember him telling me there was a place called that in England.”
“There is.” Jill’s voice bubbled. “The King lives there.”
“Is that so?” said Mr Mariner. “Well, I bet he doesn’t have the trouble with help that we have here. I have to pay our girl fifty dollars a month, and another twenty for the man who looks after the furnace and chops wood. They’re all robbers. And if you kick they quit on you!”
3.
Jill endured Sandringham for ten days; and, looking back on that period of her life later, she wondered how she did it. The sense of desolation which had gripped her on the station platform increased rather than diminished as she grew accustomed to her surroundings. The east wind died away, and the sun shone fitfully with a suggestion of warmth, but her uncle’s bleakness appeared to be a static quality, independent of weather conditions. Her aunt, a faded woman with a perpetual cold in the head, did nothing to promote cheerfulness. The rest of the household consisted of a gloomy child, “Tibby,” aged eight; a spaniel, probably a few years older, and an intermittent cat, who, when he did put in an appearance, was the life and soul of the party, but whose visits to his home were all too infrequent for Jill. Thomas was a genial animal, whose color-scheme, like a Whistler picture, was an arrangement in black and white. He had green eyes and a purr like a racing automobile. But his social engagements in the neighborhood kept him away much of the time. He was the popular and energetic secretary of the local cats’ debating society. One could hear him at night sometimes reading the minutes in a loud, clear voice; after which the debate was considered formally open.
Each day was the same as the last, almost to the final detail. Sometimes Tibby would be naughty at breakfast, sometimes at lunch; while Rover, the spaniel, a great devotee of the garbage-can, would occasionally be sick at mid-day instead of after the evening meal. But, with these exceptions, there was a uniformity about the course of life in the Mariner household which began to prey on Jill’s nerves as early as the third day.
The picture which Mr Mariner had formed in his mind of Jill as a wealthy young lady with a taste for house property continued as vivid as ever. It was his practice each morning to conduct her about the neighborhood, introducing her to the various houses in which he had sunk most of the money which he had made in business. Mr Mariner’s life centered around Brookport real estate, and the embarrassed Jill was compelled to inspect sitting-rooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and master’s bedrooms till the sound of a key turning in a lock gave her a feeling of nervous exhaustion. Most of her uncle’s houses were converted farmhouses and, as one unfortunate purchaser had remarked, not so darned converted at that. The days she spent at Brookport remained in Jill’s memory as a smell of dampness and chill and closeness.