SENTIMENTAL BUT TRUE

Mrs. Comber had no idea where it came from. She had been sitting on the green, sloping cliff at Rafiel, a fishing village on the south coast of Cornwall, looking at the sea, and suddenly it came up to her.

‘Came’ is perhaps an inaccurate word—‘rolled’ or ‘tumbled’ would describe more nearly its motion, although even then one conveys no sense of its sudden, abrupt halt, a check so sharp that it seemed as though the dog must, by the force of it, be tumbled backwards.

It had come so suddenly from nowhere that Mrs. Comber of course expected that, in a moment, someone (its master or mistress) would turn the corner and summon it down the hill. But the minutes passed and no one came, and the sun continued to blaze out of burning blue into burning blue, and little Rafiel lay on its back down in the valley behind the hill and simmered, and the dog sat there motionless, frozen into amazement at the vision of Mrs. Comber.

Mrs. Comber knew very little about dogs, but she knew enough to be sure that there was no other dog in the world quite like this one.

He might have been, were he smaller, a Yorkshire terrier, or, were he very, very much larger, a sheepdog. He had, too, a dash of Skye. He was small but remarkably square, so square that he bore a distinct resemblance to the popular conception of a sea-captain. Hair that was turned up at the ends of it into little curls by the wind fell all about him—over his eyes, spreading into an American sharp-­pointed beard under his chin, making his legs like the legs of an Eskimo, waving in frantic agitation all round his stump of a tail. His nose, like a wet black button, and his mouth, with an under-­lip that went back in rather a melancholy curve, were his most certain features, but his eyes, when his hair allowed you to see them, were a beautiful melting brown.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about him was that the second half of his body was quite different from the first half, being broader and thicker, so that he seemed to have been the complete result of two divided dogs—and these two had been rather badly glued together.

He looked at Mrs. Comber and then he laughed. He gave two short, sharp barks and wagged his stump of a tail.

Mrs. Comber was large and highly coloured. Her face was stout and good-­natured; her eyes appealed to you as though they said, ‘I know that I’m silly and stupid and scatter-­brained, but do try to find something to like in me.’

She liked to wear purple or bright green or red; she always looked untidy and a little dusty; she was always in a breathless hurry, hastening to do something that she had forgotten, and so forgetting something that she ought already to have done. She loved to be liked, and therefore seized at any sign of goodwill, but she always made advances too quickly, was flung back, and, with tears, determined that she’d never make advances to anyone again, and then made them again immediately.

Her husband was stupid, conventional, self-opinionated, and an entirely self-­satisfied man, who took his wife for granted, and thought she was lucky to be allowed to serve his wants. He was a master at Moffatt’s, a school not far from Rafiel, and there he had been during twenty years of his life, and would be in all probability for twenty years more. He liked food and golf and bridge and arguments and putting people in their places. He despised his wife in her sentimental moments and disliked her in her careless ones, but on the whole he found her useful.

Mrs. Comber had felt lonely and just a little depressed. Certainly this fine weather was very wonderful, and it was a great deal better—oh, yes! a great deal better—than that miserable wet time that they had had during their first days in Rafiel, but it did mean that her husband disappeared every morning with his golf-­clubs and was no more seen until the evening, when he was too tired to talk.

No one, up at the pension where they were staying, appealed to her except a girl, Miss Salter, who was at the present moment occupied with a young man who was expected very shortly to propose.

So, in spite of her protestations, Mrs. Comber was lonely. Up at the villa she said, ‘I can’t tell you how delightful it is just pottering about by myself all about the little place. One gets to know the villagers so well. They are always so glad to see one, so friendly, it’s quite like home. I’ve never enjoyed myself so much.’

But the honest truth was that Mrs. Comber longed for company. As the wife of a schoolmaster she had during the greater part of the year more than enough of her fellow creatures. One might have supposed that solitude would be pleasant for a little time. So in theory it was. During the heat and battle of term-time, to be alone seemed the most fortunate of destinies. But now in practice—now!

Mrs. Comber looked at the blue sea and the green cliffs and longed for conversation, affection, the positive proof that there was someone in the world—scoundrel or vagabond, it did not matter—who was at that moment desiring her company.

Well, the dog desired it. Of that there could be no possible doubt. His brown eyes, through the tangled hair, gazed at Mrs. Comber with the utmost devotion. Then, his whole body quivering, his lip drew back and he grinned, the most pathetic, urgent, wheedling grin.

Down upon the black rocks far below, the gulls, like flakes of snow, hovered and wheeled, rose and fell. The sea broke into crisp patterns along the shore; its lazy murmur mingled with the hum of bees behind her, among the honeysuckle.

Round the point the Rafiel fishing-­boats, with their orange sails, stole as though bent on some secret, nefarious business.

Mrs. Comber, who was emotional and completely at the mercy of fine weather and a coloured world, felt that her heart was full. She drew the dog towards her.

II

Seven o’clock struck suddenly down in the valley, and Mrs. Comber ceased her conversation with the dog and pulled herself together.

Meanwhile, she had told the dog everything. She had explained to him that apparently hopeless paradox that, although one was longing for peace and quiet, yet nevertheless one hated solitude. She explained to him all the disadvantages of having to do with schools most of one’s life, and at the same time gave him to understand that she was not complaining, and that many poor people had much worse times, and that most of her troubles came from the difficulties of her own temperament, from her impetuosity and clumsiness and bad memory for detail.

The dog understood every word of it.

He had a way of sitting with one of his back legs stretched out in a straight line from his body, so that he seemed more certainly than ever to be compounded of two different dogs. His brown eyes gazed sadly out to sea, but every now and again he bent forward and licked her hand. She had now no sense, when she had finished her impetuous disclosures, of shame because she had been too garrulous, too intimate, too confiding. The dog could have listened to a great deal more.

He followed closely at her side as she walked down the hill. She had still, at the back of her brain, a confused sense that his master would suddenly appear round the corner. She would be very sorry when he was taken away from her.

He ran on in front of her, ran back, jumped upon her, showed himself in every way delighted at the afternoon’s events. When he ran, he ran like a rabbit with his stump of a tail in the air, his head down, his ears flapping, and his legs scattering.

The evening scents stole out upon the air. The little square harbour was starred and crossed with reflected lights—blue and brown and grey. The crooked streets flung voices from one corner to another and one evening star came out.

Mrs. Comber climbed the opposite hill up to Sea View Villa, and still the dog was with her.

At one of the little cottages she stopped for a moment to speak to Mr. Tregatta, known in the village by the title of ‘Captain.’ Captain Tregatta, although he was sixty-­two, looked not a day more than forty. He was short and square, with the compact, buttoned look that years in the navy give a man. He had retired now and received a small pension weekly.

He lived for two things—his son and music—and he had talked a good deal to Mrs. Comber about both of these things. His son was in a hosier’s in Bristol, and he had not, during the last five years, found time to come and pay his father a visit, and had quite plainly expressed his wish that his father should not come and visit him. So his father had waited, and now, as Mrs. Comber knew, the son was at last coming home.

‘To-­morrer,’ said the captain, as he gave Mrs. Comber good evening, ‘to-­morrer the lad’s comin’, bless ’is ’eart. “Inconvenient, dad, though it is,” ’e writes to me, “I wouldn’t disappoint ’ee”—no, nor ’e wouldn’t, bless ’ee.’

‘I’m sure I’m very glad,’ said Mrs. Comber, a little doubtfully, wondering whether the reality of this reluctant son from a Bristol hosier’s would be quite so glorious as the anticipation. She liked the little captain better than anyone in Rafiel. He had a mild blue eye, a most sentimental heart, and he was lonely.

‘That’s a nice little dawg,’ eyeing Mrs. Comber’s shaggy admirer, who was sitting now with his leg out and his lip in.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Comber eagerly. ‘I don’t know whom it belongs to. It just came along and attached itself to me. Dogs are so confiding, aren’t they? And, really, it’s a nice little creature. Yes—well, if you hear of anyone who’s lost one, Captain Tregatta. Good-­night.’

She climbed the hill and did hope, as she went, that the son would not turn out too dreadfully disappointing—five years in a hosier’s shop could make such a difference.

It was then, as the hideous front of Sea View Villa shone horribly before her, that she first seriously confronted the question of the dog. He, she could perceive, had no question at all as to what she would do with him, and his confidence alone would have made it difficult for her to dismiss him.

But she knew, assuredly, without any question of his attitude to her, that she could not leave him. It might be only for to-­night. Probably in the morning someone would come and claim him. But to-­night she must keep him.

Then, as she drew nearer Sea View Villa, she knew that she would need all her courage. Had she been of the type that perpetually accuses Fate she would have taken this moment as only another instance of the way that she was for ever driven into the ludicrous. Other human beings passed through life gathering what they desired, achieving their aims, always, to the end, preserving their dignity. But she——

Years ago, when she had first married Freddie Comber, she had told herself that, whatever happened, for his sake as well as her own, she must henceforth never be absurd.

And since then, beyond her agency, without any action on her part, she was driven again and again into ridiculous situations. She was always being driven into them. Things that others could achieve without danger were, for her, beset with difficulties. Always the laughing audience, always that amused anticipation ‘that Mrs. Comber would put her foot into it.’

Well, for herself, she might perhaps endure it, but Freddie did hate it so. He hated it, and he showed her that he hated it.

Now, once again, when an ordinary person could arrive with perfect security at a pension with a strange dog, Mrs. Comber knew that, for herself, it would be a position of danger and insecurity. Freddie liked dogs—of his own discovering—but he would hate this one. The others, with the exception of Miss Salter, would see in it ‘another of Mrs. Comber’s funny ways.’ Mrs. Pentaglos, the head of Sea View Villa, would be kind and polite, but she would disapprove.

For an instant Mrs. Comber hesitated. Then, remembering that long exchange of intimacies on the cliff, she marched boldly forward.

III

She had hoped that, on this one occasion, Fortune would favour her, would permit her to creep round at the back with the dog and put him in the outhouse, then gradually, at her own time, she might explain to them his presence. But no. How like Fortune’s treatment of her! There, to her horror, she saw them all, taking their last glimpse at a magnificent sunset, sitting in the little green strip of garden.

She could not escape them. Freddie, just returned from golf, was standing, in radiant glow from the sunset, enormous, important, in the fullest of plus fours.

She heard him say, ‘You can take my opinion for what it is worth, Mrs. Cronnel. I don’t pretend to be one of these brainy fellows.’

She’d heard him say that so often before. Mrs. Cronnel, always fat and yellow, but now under the sunset positively golden, was filling a large easy-­chair and was looking up into Freddie Comber’s face with rapt attention. Miss Bride and Miss Salter, two young ladies who were rivals for the hand of Mr. Salmon, the only bachelor resident at Sea View Villa, were saying bitter things to one another in a sprightly and amiable manner.

All these people turned at the sound of Mrs. Comber’s feet upon the gravel and saw her, flushed, untidy, agitated, with a strange dog at her side. Mrs. Cronnel, who for obvious reasons hated Mrs. Comber, cried, with a shrill scream, ‘Oh! a dog!’

Other­wise there was silence.

Mrs. Comber, laughing nervously, came forward.

‘Oh! I didn’t know you’d all be here; that is, I might have guessed that you’d all be looking at the sunset—so natural—but here you all are. Yes, I’ve found a dog, such a dear little thing, and it would come all the way with me, although I did try to send it back. I did really. But you know what dogs are, Mrs. Cronnel.’ (Mrs. Cronnel, who detested dogs, obviously, from her expression, declined to have any knowledge of them whatever.) ‘I hadn’t the heart, I hadn’t really. Isn’t he jolly? A Yorkshire, I think, only he’s rather large. He’s so hairy I think I shall call him Rags.’

Mrs. Comber paused.

Mrs. Cronnel said, with a cruel little smile, ‘Rather a common­place name for a dog, Mrs. Comber.’

Mrs. Comber laughed nervously. ‘Oh, do you think so? Perhaps it is.’

Then there was a long pause. The dog looked at them all and understood at once that he was not likely to be very popular there. But he had, in all probability, been received doubtfully before on other occasions. He was brave; he smiled at them all, wagged his tail, went into the middle of them, pretended to see an enemy, growled; rolled on his back, finally sat up, and, with one ear back, lifted his blackberry nose towards Mr. Comber with the most amiable of interrogations.

Freddie Comber looked at him, then across at his wife. ‘What a cur!’ he snapped, and vanished.

Mrs. Comber slowly coloured, and a little smile, intended for bravery, but too struggling and fugitive for success, came and passed.

They all saw it, and even in Mrs. Cronnel’s dry heart there was sympathy. Miss Salter fell on her knees before the dog.

‘You darling! You really are! Oh, Mrs. Comber, how splendid of you to find him! I know Mrs. Pentaglos won’t mind. He can be kept in the stable. And he looks as good as gold. I know he’s adorable.’

To all the women, as they stood there with the dusk coming up about them, there came the thought that men were beasts, that women must band together, that no woman in the world could ever be as cruel as Mr. Comber had been. For the moment they came together—Miss Bride and Miss Salter, Mrs. Comber and Mrs. Cronnel.

‘I knew you’d all love him,’ said Mrs. Comber, in an ecstasy.

IV

Freddie Comber was one of those men who say a thing by accident and then afterwards cling to what they have said as though it were the key-­note of their lives. He liked dogs—he had always liked them.

Had Mrs. Cronnel found the dog, or had even his own Mrs. Comber brought it to him at a propitious moment—when he was flushed with success at golf or billiards or argument—he would in all probability have taken the dog to himself, acclaimed it as his own find, petted and indulged it.

But his wife had arrived at a moment when he was explaining the world to sympathetic listeners, she had looked foolish and frightened—the dog had been condemned.

He had called the dog a cur in public, therefore must the dog always be a cur. His wife had been foolish about the dog in the beginning, therefore must she always be considered foolish. The dog was a nuisance, his wife was a fool—so must things remain.

He regarded Rags, therefore, with exceeding disgust, and the secret affection that he felt for him in his heart only spurred him to further obstinate exhibitions of his disgust.

At any rate, the dog must be a wastrel of the very worst description, because nobody came to claim him. It was obvious to any intelligent person that his former owner had desired anxiously to be rid of him. Probably the dog had some horrible disease or infirmity. Probably he had a vicious temper and bit children and horses. Drowning was much the best thing.

‘I know a bit about dogs,’ he would say a hundred times a day, ‘and if ever there was a cur——’

Secretly, in his heart, he admired it. With the other inhabitants of Sea View Villa Rags had instantly won his way.

He was a dog of the most engaging character in the world and of an amazing intuition. He realised, for instance, that what Mrs. Cronnel liked was for people to be deferential to her, to listen and to admire. He therefore lay at her feet and looked up at her golden locks with the burning eyes of a devout adorer. He never practised upon her his humour, of which he had a vast store. She did not understand humour.

He kept his humour for Miss Salter, in whom it lay dormant, waiting for encouragement. Miss Salter had been too anxiously engaged in landing Mr. Salmon to see anything in a very humorous light, but Rags restored to her the funny side of things and was never serious with her for a moment.

To Mrs. Pentaglos he paid the deference that is due to the head of an establishment, to one who may dismiss you in an instant into an outhouse if she so pleases. He was always very staid and respectful to Mrs. Pentaglos.

But it was to Mrs. Comber only that he gave his heart.

The two of them discovered during the weeks that they were together a thousand things that they had in common. They were really very alike in many ways, except that the dog had far more tact, adapted himself much more swiftly to the atmosphere about him. Mrs. Comber herself perceived this. She saw that the dog at Sea View Villa was a very different dog from the dog down in Rafiel. At the villa he was ordinary, amusing on the surface. He did little tricks; he played in an amiable manner on the grass; he allowed himself to be petted by Miss Salter or Mrs. Pentaglos. Down in the narrow little streets of the village he was a dog of importance and also a dog of mysterious perceptions and intuitions.

Mrs. Comber felt that, with the dog at her side, she was more at home among those cobbles, bending roofs, sudden glimpses of blue water, and clustered fishing-­boats than she ever was alone. Rags knew every inhabitant; he selected the good from the bad, the worthy from the unworthy; he was treated with a deference by the other dogs of the place that was remarkable indeed, for the dogs of Rafiel were a wild and savage race.

To Mrs. Comber the effect of it all was astonishing—it was as though the dog were, through all these weeks, explaining the place to her. She felt it—the mysterious, subtle life of it—so poignantly that the knowledge that in another week or two she must be uprooted from it all and go back to her commonplace, workaday Moffatt’s—little boys, mutton underdone, Freddie overdone—seemed to her, through these glorious hours, an incredible disaster.

She couldn’t go back—she couldn’t go back. Then, coming to herself, she laughed. Had she not lived that life for all these past years? Could one always expect holiday?

Then also, perhaps, if the dog had so lightened this place for her he would also lighten Moffatt’s in the same way. She must take him back—she must take him back. Would Freddie allow it? He must allow it. This time she would have her way.

Of all the Rafiel natives Rags liked best Captain Tregatta. The little man had an affection for all animals, but perhaps it was because he represented more truly than any other inhabitant the Rafiel spirit that Rags liked him so much. They had always, when they were together, an air of the most complete understanding. Captain Tregatta did not find it necessary to speak to Rags as he would to an ordinary dog. Words were not needed.

Mrs. Comber, indeed, almost resented a feeling that she had when she was with them both that she was ‘out of it.’

Rags did not like young Tregatta from Bristol. He would go nowhere near him. He would neither bark nor smile, wag nor quiver. He would cut him dead.

Mrs. Comber did not like the young man either. He was thin, with lank black hair, watery eyes and a pallid cheek. His ears stood out from his head like wings. He patronised and sneered at his father. He always ‘washed his hands’ as he came towards Mrs. Comber, and obviously found it very difficult to refrain from saying, ‘And what can I do for you today, madam?’

They stood, all four, outside Captain Tregatta’s cottage. Young Tregatta said:

‘Well, it ’as been a fine day, ma’am.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Comber, who was always at her most voluble when she was in company that she disliked. ‘It has—really wonderful; so much colour and sun. I——’

‘My boy’s had a fine outing to-­day, haven’t yer, John? We went and picnicked up along to Durotter, us and the Simpsons and Mrs.——’

‘All right, father,’ the young man interrupted. ‘Stow it. Stupid day, I call it.’

He caught Rags’s eye. Rags was regarding him with a cold and haughty malevolence. He bent down and snapped his fingers­. ‘Goo’ dog—goo’ doggie! Come along then.’

Rags did nothing, but continued to stare. Mrs. Comber wished them good-­night and passed up the hill. How she disliked the young man! The captain had a wistful look; she was sure that the son had been a great disappointment. What a horrid mess towns could make of a man!

V

And now was she horribly driven in upon her climax. Never in all her married life before had she so eagerly desired a request to be granted by Freddie. Never before had she faced the approaching moment of demand with such sinkings of the heart.

They had only another three days before they must return to Moffatt’s, and with every instant of the swiftly vanishing time the spell of Rafiel increased. Could she take Rags back with her to her daily life, then she would seem to be taking with her some of the adorable things that belonged to Rafiel. He would remind her of some of the most precious moments of her life.

But, indeed, of himself now he had contrived to squeeze himself into her heart. Whatever part she might play to herself, God knew that for many years that heart had been empty. But Rags had wanted it and had taken it.

She watched Freddie’s every movement now to give her a clue to his probable answer. Golf had been well with him during these last days; he was in a good temper. Had Mrs. Comber been able to hide her feelings, had she managed to surprise him suddenly with her request, at the last moment, on the eve of departure, she might have won. But she was no diplomatist. She showed him by her fluttering agitation that there was something that she wanted to ask him, and she showed him that she was afraid, already, lest he should refuse.

That determined him at once. He would refuse. These little opportunities of displaying his authority were of great value. Every husband ought to refuse his wife at least once a month. He would certainly refuse.

The moment came. It was the last night but one of their holiday, and Freddie was undoing his collar before the looking-­glass. The head of the stud had allowed itself to be bent and the collar refused to move.

Of course, Mrs. Comber chose this unpropitious moment for her petition. It was odd that she should feel seriously about it, but her throat was quite dry and her heart was beating furiously.

‘Freddie!’

‘Yes? Con—found it!’

‘Freddie!’

‘Well?’

‘I wonder—I’ve been thinking—it’s occurred to me——’

The stud broke, the collar was off, but what was one going to do in the morning? There was no other stud with a large enough head, and on the very day when there would be so much to see to——

‘Hang it! Well?’

‘I’m so sorry, dear. Perhaps I’ll be able to find another. What I was going to say, to ask you, was whether—if you wouldn’t very much mind—whether—he wouldn’t be in the way, really no trouble at all, and it would make such a difference to me—and I think you’d like him after a time; it would be so nice for the boys, too, and there is that kennel——’

‘What are you talking about?’

He had turned and faced her, his cheeks still flushed with the exertion of the stud.

‘Well’—Mrs. Comber’s voice trembled a little—‘it’s only Rags. I thought, if you didn’t dreadfully mind, if I might—if we might—take him back with us to Moffatt’s; it would make such a difference to me. I’ve got to love this place so, you know, and you’ll think it very silly of me, but if I had Rags with me at Moffatt’s—well, I know you’ll think it just like my usual silliness, but I should feel as though I had taken a bit of this place with me.’

Freddie had said no word, only stood there, staring at her, and fingering, absent-­mindedly, his stud. Her allusion to the place had suddenly surprised some curious feeling, right down deep in him, that he too had loved this Rafiel, had had the best of days here, would be immensely sorry to leave it. And this sudden feeling angered him. What was he doing with feelings of that kind?

He was quite ashamed, and resenting his shame, laid the discomfort of it to his wife’s charge, and beyond her to the dog. The dog! The mongrel!

His wife wanted the dog at Moffatt’s. She was terrified lest he should refuse. He was master. He was a man. No more of this miserable sentiment for him. He would show her.

‘Once for all,’ he said, glowering at her, ‘you can put that out of your mind. I’ve hated the dog from the first; it’s a beastly mongrel, and the sooner it’s drowned the better.’

‘But, Freddie——’

‘Not another word will I utter. I’m a man who means what he says.’

‘Please, just listen. He——’

‘No more. I’ve got to get undressed. You must get rid of the dog.’

She saw that it was final—that, and how much else? For, as he stood there, denying her this simple thing, as he looked at her so angrily, so cruelly, she knew, once and for all, that all her love for him was gone, had been gone indeed for many years past. She would in the future care for him in a protecting, motherly way; she would always be a good wife to him, but no more passion, no more colour, no more poetry.

She turned away and lay by his side that night as though he were suddenly a stranger. In the morning it was almost more than she could bear, the joy that Rags, coming to meet her, flung upon her. He curved round until his tail was nearly in his mouth; he bared his teeth; his stump of a tail, with hair branching out of it on every side until it looked like a Christmas-tree, almost wagged itself from his body. It was very early, before breakfast. Down the hill they went into the little village, all sparkling with morning freshness, the little quay reeking with fish, the cobbles glittering with silver scales.

She turned the corner and came out on to the path that runs above the little harbour. The boats, blue and green, lay in rows and, beyond and above them, the little white cottages stole up the hill into all the misty brightness of a summer morning. A haze was over the sea, so that it came quite suddenly out of nowhere, white and blue, on to the rocks.

The abandon and reality of the beauty of it all came up to Mrs. Comber, but she seemed to have no place in it. The future of her life, how dreary, how purposeless! Not even Rags to comfort her! For the first time since her marriage she rebelled—hotly, fiercely rebelled. Why should she not leave Freddie? Why should she be the only one in the world to do without things? Why need she suffer so? It was the hardest, sharpest, cruellest moment of her life.

Little Captain Tregatta turned the corner. Rags ran forward to meet him, jumped upon him, licked his hand. But Captain Tregatta’s face was sad, his shoulders drooped, he looked old.

‘Good-­marnin’, ma’am.’

‘Good-­morning,’ said Mrs. Comber.

‘Lovely day. Yes, indeed, if you’re in tune for it; but there’s nothing like lovely weather for making you melancholy if you’re out of sorts.’

His distress touched her at once.

‘I’m sorry if something’s the matter,’ she said.

‘Oh! it’s silly. Only my boy. ’E goes back to Bristol to-­day, and ’e’s glad to go. Yes, ’e is—I knaws it. And ’e’ll never come back, I knaws that, too. All this time I’ve been ’appy thinking that ’e cared for me—maybe ’e was a bit busy, but ’e cared all the same—and now I knaws ’e doesn’t—I knaws it; and now all the day will be without somethin’, always. It’s a long time to be waitin’, doing nothing, thinking of nothing.’

Rags, with his back legs before his front ones, sat hunched up, looking at the sea.

As she felt the glory of the morning the idea came to her—it flashed upon her.

‘Captain Tregatta,’ she said hurriedly, ‘I’m going away to-­morrow—I can’t take the dog with me. It wouldn’t do in a school, you know. Would you look after him for me? Keep him here with you so that he’ll be here when I come back next summer. I’ve loved Rafiel so, and I feel that if I knew you were both here together I would feel as though I’d got a link with the place—both of you together here.’

‘I will, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Certainly I will. ’E’ll be ’ere for yer when yer come back to us, as I hope yer will.’ Then, with a little sigh of satisfaction, ‘Yes. That’s of it.’

Mrs. Comber thanked him. She waited, tried to say more, but failed.

They all three looked out to sea. Cries and bells came up to them from the village. Suddenly Mrs. Comber, very red in the face, caught Rags’s body in her arms, gave him one hug, and then thrust him into the captain’s hands.

‘There—take him—take him. You two together will be splendid to think of. Good-­bye—good-­bye. I’m feeling too silly for words. Good-­bye—good-­bye—good-­bye.’

She went, almost running, down into the flashing village, past the fish, the smells, the gossip, the cobbles—up the hill to Sea View Villa.

She did not turn or stay, but in her heart there was that picture of the dog and the man—both of them wanting her to come back.

She had staked her claim in Rafiel after all.