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COMMONPLACE,
A Tae or To-pay;
Woaoeorre Kh SrLORITES.
BY
Sion GROSSE TTI,
AUTHOR OF ‘GOBLIN MARKET,’ AND
THE PRINCE’S PROGRESS.’
‘From sea to sea.’
BOSTON :
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1870.
PREFATORY NOTE.
THE earliest of these tales dates back to 1852,
the latest was finished in 1870: a lapse of years
sufficient to account for modifications of fone
and style.
‘Pros and Cons,’ and ‘The Waves of this
Troublesome World,’ were written each with a
special object; which special object will, I hope,
‘be accepted as my apology if the latter tale is
judged too childish.
Not one of the stories is founded on fact.
This might not seem worth stating, had I
not reason to fear that one or two of my
kindest friends have viewed ‘The Lost Titian’
Vi PREFATORY NOTE.
somewhat in the light of an imposture. I
therefore take this opportunity of putting on
record that IJ am not conversant with any
tradition which points to the existence of a
lost picture by that great master with whose
name I have made free.
C. ae
April 1870.
Per LEN TS.
Pace
COMMONPLACE. ‘ 3
THE LOST TITIAN . : : : : ; 145
NICK . : : : : : 167
HERO . : 5 : 4 ; : : 3 183
VANNA’S TWINS. : : : : ; 215
A SAFE INVESTMENT. : ; , 241
PROS AND CONS . : eee ek 257
THE WAVES OF THIS TROUBLESOME WORLD : 271
COMMONPLACE,
COMMONPLACE.
Oren t ERT:
BROMPTON-ON-SEA—any name not in ‘Brad-
shaw’ will do—Brompton-on-Sea in April.
The air keen and sunny; the sea blue and
rippling, not rolling ; everything green, in sight
and out of sight, coming on merrily. Birds
active over straws and fluff; a hardy butterfly
abroad for a change; a second hardy butterfly
dancing through mid-air, in and out, and round
about the first. A row of houses all alike stands
facing the sea—all alike so far as stucco fronts
and symmetrical doors and windows could make
them so: but one house in the monotonous row
was worth looking at, for the sake of more nu-
4 COMMONPLACE.
merous hyacinths and early roses in its slip of
front garden, and on several of its window-sills.
Judging by appearances, and for once judging
rightly, this must be a private residence on an
esplanade full of lodging-houses.
A pretty house inside too, snug in winter,
fresh in summer; now in mid-spring sunny
enough for an open window, and cool enough
for a bright fire in the breakfast-room.
Three ladies sat at the breakfast-table, three
maiden ladies, obviously sisters by strong family
likeness, yet with individual differences strong
also. The eldest, Catherine, Miss Charlmont,
having entered her thirty-third year, had taken
on all occasions to appearing in some sort of
cap. She began the custom at thirty, when also
she gave up dancing, and adopted lace over her
neck and arms in evening dress. Her manner
was formal and kindly, savouring of the pro-
vinces rather than of the capital; but of the
provinces in their towns, not in their old country
seats. Yet she was a well-bred gentlewoman in
all essentials, tall and fair, a handsome member
of a handsome family. She presided over the
COMMONPLACE. 5
tea and coffee, and, despite modern usage, re-
tained a tea-tray.
Opposite her sat Lucy, less striking in fea-
tures and complexion, but with an expression
of quicker sensibility. Rather pretty and very
sweet-looking, not turned thirty as yet, and on
some points treated by Catherine as still a
young thing. She had charge of the loaf and
ham, and, like her elder sister, never indulged
in opening letters till every one at table had
been served.
The third, Jane, free of meat-and-drink re-
sponsibilities, opened letters or turned over the
newspaper as she pleased. She was youngest
by many years, and came near to being very
beautiful. Her profile was almost Grecian, her
eyes were large, and her fair hair grew in wavy
abundance. At first sight she threw Catherine
and Lucy completely into the shade; after-
wards, in spite of their additional years, they
sometimes were preferred, for her face only of
the three could be thought insipid. Pleasure
and displeasure readily showed themselves in
it, but the pleasure would be frivolous and the
6 COMMONPLACE.
displeasure often unreasonable. A man might
fall in love with Jane, but no one could make
a friend of her; Catherine and Lucy were
sure to have friends, however they might lack
lovers.
On the morning when our story commences
the elders were busied with their respective
charges, whilst Jane already sipped her tea and
glanced up and down the Births, Marriages, and
Deaths, in the ‘Times’ Supplement. There she
sat, with one elbow on the table and her long
lashes showing to advantage over downcast eyes.
Dress was with her a matter for deep study, and
her pink-and-white breakfast suit looked as fresh
and blooming as April’s self. Her hair fell
long and loose over her shoulders, in becoming
freedom; and Catherine gazing at her felt a
motherly pride in the pretty creature to whom,
for years, she had performed a mother’s duty ;
and Lucy felt how young and fresh Jane was,
and remembered that she herself was turned
twenty-nine: but if the thought implied regret
it was untinctured by envy.
Jane read aloud: ‘ “ Halberteto silanes aa:
COMMONPLACE, 7
wish I were Jane. And here, positively, are
two more Janes, and not me. “ Catherine ”—
that’s a death. Lucy, I don’t see you anywhere.
Catherine was eighty-nine, and much respected.
“Mrs. Anstruther of a son and heir.” I wonder
if those are the Anstruthers I met in Scotland:
she was very ugly, and short. “ Everilda Stella,”
—how can anybody be Everilda? Then, with
a sudden accession of interest, ‘Why, Lucy,
Everilda Stella has actually married your Mr.
Hartley !’
Lucy started, but no one noticed her. Ca-
therine said, ‘Don’t say “your” Mr. Hartley,
Jane: that is not a proper way of speaking
about a married gentleman to an unmarried
lady. Say “the Mr. Hartley you know,’ or,
“the Mr. Hartley you have met in London.”
Besides, I am acquainted with him also; and
very likely it is a different person. Hartley is
not an uncommon name.’
‘Oh, but it is that Mr. Hartley, sister,’ re-
torted Jane, and she read:
““On Monday the 13th, at the parish-church,
Fenton, by the Rev. James Durham, uncle of
8 ~ COMMONPLACE.
the bride, Alan Hartley, Esq. of the Woodlands,
Gloucestershire, to Everilda Stella, only child and
presumptive heiress of George Durham, Esq. of
ee J
Orpingham Place, in the same county.
CHAPTER: II.
FORTY years before the commencement of this
story, William Charlmont, an Indian army-
surgeon, penniless, except for his pay, had
come unexpectedly into some hundreds a-
year, left him by a maiden great-aunt, who
had seen him but once, and that when he was
five years old, on’ which occasion she boxed
his ears for misspelling ‘elephant.’ His stoicism
under punishment, for he neither roared nor
whined, may have won her heart; at any rate,
from whatever motive, she, years afterwards,
disappointed three nephews and a female first
cousin by leaving every penny she was worth
to him. This moderate accession of fortune
justified him in consulting both health and
inclination by exchanging regimental practice
in India for general practice in England: and
a combination of apparently trifling circum-
IO COMMONPLACE.
stances led him, soon after his return home,
to settle at the then infant watering-place of
Brompton-on-Sea, of which the reputation had
just been made by a royal duke’s visit; and
the tide of fashion was setting to its shore.
The house in which our story opens then
stood alone, and belonged to a clergyman’s
widow. As she possessed, besides, an only
daughter, and but a small life annuity—nothing
more—she sought for a lodger, and was glad
to find one in the new medical practitioner.
The widow, Mrs. Turner, was, and felt herself
to be, no less a gentlewoman when she let
lodgings than when with her husband and child
she had occupied the same house alone; no
less so when after breakfast she donned a
holland apron and helped Martha, the maid, to
make Mr. Charlmont’s bed, than when in old
days she had devoted her mornings to visiting
and relieving her poorer neighbours,
Her daughter, Kate, felt their altered for-
tunes more painfully ; and showed, sometimes
by uncomfortable bashfulness, sometimes by
anxious self-assertion, how much importance
COMMONPLACE. II
she attached to the verdict of Mrs. Grundy.
Her mother’s holland apron was to her a daily
humiliation, and single-handed Martha an irri-
tating shortcoming. She chilled old friends by
declining invitations, because her wardrobe
lacked variety, and shunned new acquaintances
lest they should call at some moment when
herself or her mother might have to answer the
door. A continual aim at false appearances
made her constrained and affected ; and persons
who would never have dwelt upon the fact
that Mrs. Turner let lodgings, were certain to
have it recalled to mind by Miss Turner’s un-
easiness.
But Kate owned a pretty face, adorned by
a pink-and-white complexion, most refreshing
to eyes that had ached under an Indian sun.
At first Mr. Charlmont set her down as merely
affected and silly; then he began to dwell on
the fact that, however silly and affected, she
was indisputably pretty; next he reflected that
reverses of fortune deserve pity and demand
every gentleman’s most courteous consideration.
In himself such consideration at once took the
12 COMMONPLACE,
form of books lent from his library ; of flowers
for the drawing-room, and fruit for dessert.
Kate, to do her justice, was no flirt, and saw
without seeing his attentions; but her more
experienced mother seeing, pondered, and seized,
or made, an opportunity for checking her
lodger’s intimacy. Mr. Charlmont, however,
was not to be rebuffed; opposition made him
earnest, whilst the necessity of expressing his
feelings gave them definiteness: and not many
months later Kate, with the house for her
dowry, became Mrs. William Charlmont, the
obnoxious lodger developed into an attached
and dear husband, and Mrs. Turner retired
on the life annuity to finish her days in inde-
pendence.
A few years passed in hopes and disappoint-
ments. When hope had dwindled to despond-
ency a little girl came—Catherine; after another
few years a second girl, named Lucy in memory
of her grandmother Turner, who had not lived
to see her namesake. Then more years passed
without a baby; and in due course the sisters
were sent to Miss Drum’s school as day-
COMMONPLACE. 13
boarders, their mother having become ailing
and indolent.
Time went on, and the girls grew wiser and
prettier—Catherine very pretty. When she
was nearly twelve years old, Mr. Charlmont
said one evening to his wife, ‘I have made my
will, Kate, and left everything to you in the
first instance, and between the children after
you. And she answered, blushing—she was
still comely, and a blush became her:—‘O
William, but ‘suppose another baby should
come?’ ‘Well, I should make my will over
again, he replied: but he did not guess why
his wife blushed and spoke eagerly; he had
quite given up such hopes.
Mr. Charlmont was fond of boating, and
one day, when the girls were at home for the
Easter holidays, he offered to take them both
for a row; but Catherine had a bad cold, and
as Lucy was not a good sailor, he did not care
to take charge of her without her sister. His
wife never had liked boating. Thus it was
that he went alone. The morning was dull
and chilly; but there was no wind, and the
14 COMMONPLACE.
sea was almost smooth. He took dinner and
fishing tackle in the boat with him, and gave
notice that he should not be at home till the
evening.
No wind, no sun; the day grew duller and
duller, dimmer and dimmer. A _ smoke-like
fog, beginning on land, spread from the cliffs
to the beach, from the beach over the water’s
edge; further and further it spread, beyond
sight ; it might be for miles over the sea. No
wind blew to shift the dense fog which hid
seamarks and landmarks alike. As day waned
towards evening, and darkness deepened, all
the fisher-folk gathered on the beach in pain
and fear for those at sea. They lit a bonfire,
they shouted, they fired off an old gun or two,
such as they could get together, and still they
watched, and feared, and hoped. Now one boat
came in, now another; some guided by the
glare, some by the sound of the firing: at last,
by midnight, every boat had come in safe,
except Mr. Charlmont’s.
As concerned him, that night was only like
all nights and all days afterwards; for neither
COMMONPLACE. 15
man, nor boat, nor waif, nor stray from either,
ever drifted ashore.
Mrs. Charlmont took the news of her hus-
band’s disappearance very quietly indeed. She
did not cry or fret, or propose any measures
for finding him; but she bade Catherine be
sure to have tea ready when he came in. This
she repeated every day, and often in the day;
and would herself sit by a window looking out
towards the sea, smiling and cheerful. If any
one spoke to her she would answer at random,
but quite cheerfully. She rose or went to bed
when her old nurse called her, she ate and
drank when food was set before her; but she
originated nothing, and seemed indifferent to
everything except the one anxiety, that tea
should be ready for her husband on his return.
The holidays over, Lucy went back to Miss
Drum’s, trudging to and fro daily; but Cathe-
rine stayed at home to keep house and sit with
her poor dazed mother.
A few months and the end came. One
night nurse insisted with unusual determination
on the girls going to bed early; but before
16 COMMONPLACE.
daybreak Catherine was roused out of her sleep
to see a new little sister and her dying mother.
Life was almost gone, and with the approach
of death a sort of consciousness had returned.
Mrs. Charlmont looked hard at Catherine, who
was crying bitterly, and taking her hand said
distinctly : ‘Catherine, promise to stay here
ready for your father when he comes on shore
—promise some of you to stay here: don't let
him come on shore and find me gone and no
one—don’t let the body come on shore and
find us all gone and no one—promise me,
Catherine !’
And Catherine promised.
Mr. Charlmont died a wealthy man. He
had enjoyed a large lucrative practice, and had
invested his savings profitably: by his will, and
on their mother’s death, an ample provision re-
mained for his daughters. Strictly speaking, it
remained for Catherine and Lucy: the baby,
Jane, was unavoidably left dependent on her
sisters; but on sisters who, in after-life, never felt
COMMONPLACE. 17
that their own right to their father’s property
was more obvious or more valid than hers.
Mr. Charlmont had appointed but one trustee
for his daughters—Mr. Drum, only brother of
their schoolmistress, a thoroughly honest lawyer,
practising and thriving in Brompton-on-Sea; a
man somewhat younger than himself, who had
speculated adroitly both with him and for him.
On Mrs. Charlmont’s death, Mr. Drum proposed
sending the two elder girls to a fashionable
boarding-school near London, and Jetting nurse,
with a wet-nurse under her, keep house in the
old home with baby: but Catherine set her face
against this plan, urging her promise to her
dying mother as a reason for not going away ;
and so held to her point that Mr. Drum yielded,
and agreed that the girls, who could not bear to
be parted, should continue on the same terms as
before at his sister's school. Miss Drum, an
intimate friend of their mother’s, engaged to
take them into such suitable society as might
offer until Catherine should come of age; and
as she resided within two minutes’ walk of their
house, this presented no difficulty. At twenty-
C
18 COMMONPLACE.
one, under their peculiar circumstances, Catherine
was to be considered old enough to chaperone
her sisters. Nurse, a respectable elderly woman,
was to remain as housekeeper and personal at-
tendant on the children; and a wet-nurse, to be
succeeded by a nursery-girl, with two other
maids, completed the household.
Catherine, though only in her thirteenth year,
already looked grave, staid, and tall enough for
a girl of sixteen, when these arrangements were
entered into. The sense of responsibility waxed
strong within her, and with the motherly position
came something of the motherly instinct of self-
postponement to her children.
19
CHAPTER If
THE last chapter was parenthetical, this takes
up the broken thread of the story.
Breakfast over, and her sisters gone their
several ways, Lucy Charlmont seized the
‘Times’ Supplement and read the Hartley-
Durham paragraph over to herself:—‘On Mon-
day the 13th, at the parish church, Fenton, by
the Rev. James Durham, uncle of the bride, Alan
Hartley, Esq., of the Woodlands, Gloucester-
shire, to Everilda Stella, only child and pre-
sumptive heiress of George Durham, Esq., of
Orpingham Place, in the same county.’
There remained no lurking-place for doubt.
Mr. Hartley,—‘ her’ Mr. Hartley, as Jane dubbed
him,—had married Everilda Stella, a presumptive
heiress. Thus concluded Lucy’s one romance.
Poor Lucy! the romance had been no fault
of hers, perhaps not even a folly: it had arisen
20 COMMONPLACE.
thus. When Miss Charlmont was twenty-one
Lucy was eighteen, and had formally come out
under her sister’s wing; thenceforward going
with her to balls and parties from time to
time, and staying with her at friends’ houses
in town or country. This paying visits had
entailed the necessity of Jane’s having a gover-
ness. Miss Drum had by that time ‘relinquished
tuition, as she herself phrased it, and retired
on a conrfortable competence earned by her
own exertions; therefore, to Miss Drum’s school
Jane could not go. Lucy, when the subject
was started, declared, with affectionate impul-
siveness, that she would not pay visits at all,
or else that she and Catherine might pay them
separately ; but Catherine, who considered her-
self in the place of mother to both her sisters,
and whose standard of justice to both alike was
inflexible, answered, ‘My dear’—when Miss
Charlmont said ‘my dear’ it ended a discussion
—‘My dear, Jane must have a governess. She
shall always be with us in the holidays, and
shall leave the schoolroom for good when she
is eighteen, and old enough to enter society;
COMMONPLACE. 21
but at present I must think of you and your
prospects.’ So Jane had a fashionable gover-
ness; fresh from a titled family, and versed in
accomplishments and the art of dress, whilst
Catherine commenced her duties as chaperone.
Lucy thought that her sister, handsomer than
herself and not much older, might have pros-
pects too, and tried hard to discover chances
for her; but Catherine nursed no such fancies
on her own account. Her promise to her dying
mother, that some one of them should always
be on the spot at Brompton-on-Sea, literally
meant at the moment, she resolved as literally
to fulfil, even whilst she felt that only by one
not fully in her right mind could such a pro-
mise have been exacted. Grave and formal
in manner, dignified in person, and in disposi-
tion reserved, though amiable, she never seemed
to notice, or to return, attentions paid her by
any man of her acquaintance; and if one of
these ever committed himself so far as to hazard
an offer, she kept his secret and her own. |
Lucy, meanwhile, indulged on her own ac-
count the usual hopes and fears of a young
22 COMMONPLACE.
woman. At first all parties and visits were
delightful, one not much less so than another
then a difference made itself felt between them ;
some parties turned out dull, and some visits
tedious. The last year of Lucy’s going every-
where with Catherine, before, that is, she began
dividing engagements with Jane,—for until Lucy
should be turned thirty, self-chaperoning was
an inadmissible enormity in Miss Charlmont’s
eyes, in spite of what she had herself done;
as she said, her own had been an exceptional
case,—in that last year the two sisters had
together spent a month with Dr. Tyke, whose
wife had been before marriage ‘another Lucy
Charlmont, and a favourite cousin of their
father’s : concerning her, tradition even hinted
that, in bygone years, she had refused the
penniless army surgeon.
Be this as it may, at Mrs. Tyke’s house in
London, the sisters spent one certain June, and
then and there Lucy ‘met her fate, as with a
touch of sentiment, bordering on sentimentality,
she recorded in her diary one momentous first
meeting. Alan Hartley was a nephew of Dr.
COMMONPLACE. 23
Tyke’s—handsome, and clever on the surface, if
not deep within. He had just succeeded his
father at the Woodlands, had plenty of money,
no profession, and no hindrance to idling away
any amount of time with any pretty woman who
was pleasant company. Such a woman was
Lucy Charlmont. He harboured no present
thoughts of marriage, but she did; he really
did pay just as much attention to a dozen girls
elsewhere, but she judged by his manner to
herself, and drew from it a false conclusion.
That delightful June came to an end, and he
had not spoken; but two years later occurred a
second visit, as pleasant and as full of misunder-
standing as the first. Meanwhile, she had re-
fused more than one offer. Poor Lucy Charlmont:
her folly, even if it was folly, had not been
very blameable.
The disenchantment came no less painfully
than unexpectedly: and Lucy, ready to cry,
but ashamed of crying for such a cause, thrust
the Supplement out of sight, and sitting down,
forced herself to face the inevitable future.
One thing was certain, she could not meet
24 COMMONPLACE.
Alan—in her thoughts he had long been Alan,
and now it cost her an effort of recollection to
stiffen him back into Mr. Hartley—she must
not meet Mr. Hartley till she could reckon on
seeing him and his wife with friendly compo-
sure. Oh! why—why—why had she all along
misunderstood him, and he never understood
her? Not to meet him, it would be necessary
to decline the invitation from Mrs. Tyke, which
she had looked forward to and longed for
during weeks past, and which, in the impartial
judgment of Miss Charlmont, it was her turn,
not Jane’s, to accept; which, moreover, might
arrive by any post. Jane she knew would be
ready enough to pay a visit out of turn, but
Catherine would want a reason ; and what reason
could she give? On one point, however, she -
was determined, that, with or without her reasons
being accepted as reasonable, go she would not.
Then came the recollection of a cracker she
had pulled with him, and kept in her pocket-
book ever since; and of a card he had left for
her and her sister, or, as she had fondly fancied,
mainly for herself, before the last return from
COMMONPLACE. 25
Mrs. Tyke’s to Brompton-on-Sea. Treasures no
longer to be treasured, despoiled treasures,—
she denied herself the luxury of a sigh, as she
thrust them between the bars of the grate and
watched them burn.
26
CHAPTER IV.
‘Lucy, Jane, said Miss Charlmont, some days
afterwards, addressing her sisters, and holding
up an open letter,—‘ Mrs. Tyke has sent a very
kind invitation, asking me, with one of you, to
stay a month at her house, and to fix the day.
It is your turn, Lucy; so, if you have no ob-
jection, I shall write, naming next Thursday for
our journey to London. Jane, I shall ask Miss
Drum to stay with you during our absence;
I think she will be all the better for a change,
and there is no. person more fit to have the
charge of you. So don’t be dull, dear, till we
come back.’ A
But Jane pouted, and said in a cross tone,
‘Really, sister, you need not settle everything
now for me, as if I were a baby. I don’t want
Miss Drum, who is as old as the hills and as
COMMONPLACE. 27]
solemn. Can’t you write to Mrs. Tyke and
say, that I cannot be left alone here? What
difference could it make in her large house?’
For once Catherine answered her favourite
sister with severity, ‘Jane, you know why it
is impossible for us all to leave home together.
This is the last year you will be called upon
to remain behind, for after Lucy’s next birthday
it is agreed between us that she will take turns
with me in chaperoning you. Do not make
what may be our last excursion together un-
pleasant by your unkindness.’
Still Jane was not silenced. ‘At any rate,
it need not be Miss Drum. I will stay here
alone, or I will have somebody more amusing
than Miss Drum.’
Before Catherine could reply, Lucy with an
effort struck into the dispute. ‘Jane, don't
speak like that to our sister; I should be
ashamed to speak to her so. Still, Catherine,’
she continued, without noticing a muttered
retort from the other, ‘after all, 1 am going to
side with Jane on the main point, and ask
you to take her to Notting Hill, and leave me
28 COMMON PLACE.
at home to keep house with dear old Miss
Drum. This really was my own wish before
Jane spoke, so pray let us not say another
word on the subject.’
But Catherine saw how pale and languid
she looked, and stood firm. ‘No, Lucy, that
would be unreasonable; Jane ought not to have
made any difficulty. You have lost your colour.
lately and your appetite, and need a change more
than either of us. I shall write to Mrs. Tyke,
promising her and the doctor your company
next Thursday; Jane will make up her mind
like a good girl, and I am sure you, my dear,
will oblige me by not withholding your assent.’
For the first time ‘my dear’ did not close
the debate. ‘Catherine,’ said Lucy, earnestly,
whilst, do what she would, tears gathered in
her eyes, ‘I am certain you will not press me
further, when I assure you that I do not feel
equal to paying this visit. I have felt weak
lately,’ she went on hurriedly, ‘and I cannot
tell you how much I long for the quiet of a
month at home rather than in that perpetual
bustle. Merely for my own sake, Jane must go.’
COMMONPLACE. 29
Catherine said no more just then; but later,
alone with Lucy, resumed the subject so far
as to ask whether she continued in the same
mind, and answered her flurried ‘yes’ by no
word of remonstrance, but by an affectionate
kiss. This was all which passed between them ;
neither then nor afterwards did the younger
sister feel certain whether Catherine had or had
not guessed her secret.
Miss Drum was invited to stay with Lucy
in her solitude, and gladly accepted the in-
vitation. Lucy was her favourite, and when
they were together, they petted each other very
tenderly.
Jane, having gained her point, recovered her
good humour, and lost no time in exposing
the deficiencies of her wardrobe. ‘Sister,’ she
said, smiling her prettiest and most coaxing
smile, ‘you can’t think how poor I am, and
how few clothes I’ve got.’ |
Catherine, trying to appear serenely un-
conscious of the drift of this speech, replied,
‘Let us look over your wardrobe, dear, and
we will bring it into order. Lucy will help,
30 COMMONPLACE.
I know, and we can have Miss Smith to work
here too, if necessary.’
‘Oh dear, no!’ cried Janes e* theres no
looking over what does not exist. If it comes
to furbishing up old tags and rags, here I
stay. Why, you’re as rich as Jews, you and
Lucy, and could give me five pounds a-piece
without ever missing it; and not so much of
a gift either, for I’m sure poor papa would
never have left me such a beggar if he had
known about me.’
This argument had been used more than
once before. Catherine looked hurt, Lucy
said, ‘You should remember that you have
exactly the same allowance for dress and pocket-
money that we have ourselves, and we both
make it do.’
‘Of course,’ retorted Jane, with latent spite-
fulness; ‘and when I’m as old and wise as you
two, I may manage as well; but at present it
is different. Besides, if I spend most on dress,
you spend most on books and music, and dress
is a great deal more amusing. And if I
dressed like an old fright, I should like to know
COMMONPLACE. 31
who’d look at me. You don’t want me to
be another old maid, I suppose.’
Lucy flushed up, and tried to keep her tem-
per in silence: her sore point had been touched.
Catherine, accustomed in such cases to protest
first and yield afterwards, but half ashamed
that Lucy’s eye should mark the process from
beginning to end, drew Jane out of the room,
and with scarcely a word more wrote her a
cheque for ten pounds, and dropped the subject
of looking over her wardrobe.
An ‘hour after the sisters had started for
London, Miss Drum arrived to take their place.
Miss Drum was tall in figure, rather slim
and well preserved, with pale complexion, hair,
and eyes, and an unvarying tone of voice.
She was mainly describable by negatives. She
was neither unladylike, nor clever, nor deficient
in education. She was old, but not very infirm;
and neither an altogether obsolete nor a youth-
ful dresser, though with some tendency towards
the former style. Propriety was the most sa-
lient of her attributes, and was just too salient
to be perfect. She was not at all amusing; in
32 COMMONPLACE.
fact, rather tiresome, with an unflagging in-
tention of being agreeable. From her Catherine
acquired a somewhat old-fashioned formality ;
from her, also, high principles, and the instinct
of self-denial. And because unselfishness, itself
a negative, was Miss Drum’s characteristic
virtue, and because her sympathy, however
prosy in expression, was sterling in quality,
therefore Lucy, sore with unavowed heart-sorrow,
could bear her companionship, and run down
to welcome her at the door with affectionate
cordiality.
33
CHAPTER V.
LONDON-BRIDGE STATION, with its whirl of
traffic, seems no bad emblem of London itself:
vast, confused, busy, orderly, more or less dirty;
implying enormous wealth in some quarter or
other ; providing luxuries for the rich, neces-
saries for the poor; thronged by rich and poor
alike, idle and’ industrious, young and old, men
and women:
London-Bridge Station at its cleanest is
soiled by thousands of feet passing to and fro:
on a drizzling day each foot deposits mud in
its passage, takes and gives mud, leaves its
impress in mud; on such a day the Station is
not attractive to persons fresh from the unfailing
cleanliness of sea coast and inland country ; and
on such a day, when, by the late afternoon, the
drizzle had done, and the platform had suffered
D
34 COMMONPLACE.
each its worst,—on such a day Miss Charlmont
and her pretty sister, fresh and fastidious from
sea salt and country sweetness, arrived at the
Station.
Dr. Tyke’s carriage was there to meet the
train. Dr. Tyke’s coachman, footman, and
horses were fat, as befitted a fat master, whose
circumstances and whose temperament might be
defined as fat also; for ease, good-nature, and
fat have an obvious affinity.
‘Should the hood be up or down?’ The
rain had ceased, and Miss Charlmont, who
always described London as stifling, answered,
‘Up... Jane, leaning back with an elegant ease,
which nature had given and art perfected, felt
secretly ashamed of Catherine, who sat bolt
upright, according to her wont, and would no
more have lolled in an open carriage than on
the high-backed, scant-seated chair of her school-
days. | |
The City looked’ at once dingy and glaring ;
dingy with unconsumed smoke, and glaring
here and there with early-lighted gas. When
Waterloo Bridge had been crossed matters
COMMONPLACE. 35
brightened somewhat, and Oxford Street showed
not amiss. Along the Edgware Road dirt and
dinginess re-asserted their sway ; but when the
carriage finally turned into Notting Hill, and
drove amongst the Crescents, Roads, and Gar-
dens of that cleanly suburb, a winding-up
shower, brisk and brief, not drizzly, cleared the
way for the sun, and finished off the afternoon
with a rainbow. |
Dr. Tyke’s abode was named Appletrees
House, though the orchard whence the name
was derived had disappeared before the memory
of the oldest inhabitant. The carriage drew up,
the door swung open: down the staircase came
flying a little, slim woman, with outstretched
hands and words of welcome; auburn-haired,
though she had outlived the last of the fifties,
and cheerful, though the want of children had not
ceased to be felt as a hopeless disappointment :
a pale-complexioned, high-voiced, little woman,
all that remained of that fair cousin Lucy of
bygone years and William Charlmont.
Behind her, and more deliberately, descended
her husband, elastic of step, rotund of figure,
36 COMMONPLACE.
bright-eyed, rosy, white-headed, not altogether
unlike a robin redbreast that had been caught
in the snow. Mrs. Tyke had a habit of running
on with long-winded, perfectly harmless common-
places; but notwithstanding her garrulity, she
never uttered an ill-natured word or a false one.
Dr. Tyke, burdened with an insatiable love of
fun, and a ready, if not a witty, wit, was addicted
to venting jokes, repartees, and so-called anec-
dotes; the last not always unimpeachably
authentic.
Such were the hosts. The house was large
and light, with a laboratory for the Doctor, who
dabbled: in chemistry, and an aviary for his wife,
who doted on pets. The walls of the sitting-
rooms were hung with engravings, not with
family portraits, real or sham: in fact, no sham
was admitted within ‘doors, unless imaginary
anecdotes and quotations must be stigmatized
as shams; and as to these, when taxed with
invention, the Doctor would only reply by his
favourite Italian phrase: ‘Se zon 2 vero & ben
trovato.’
COMMONPLACE. 37
‘Jane, said Mrs. Tyke, as the three ladies
sat over a late breakfast, the Doctor having
already retreated to the laboratory and his
newspaper :—‘ Jane, I think you have made a
~ conquest.’ |
Jane looked down in silence, with a conscious
simper. Catherine spoke rather anxiously:
‘Indeed, Cousin Lucy, I have noticed what you
allude to, and I have spoken to Jane about not
encouraging Mr. Durham. He is not at all a
man she can really like, and she ought to be
most careful not to let herself be misunderstood.
Jane, you ought indeed.’
But Jane struck merrily in: ‘Mr. Durham is
old enough and—ahem !—handsome enough to
take care of himself, sister. And, besides,’ with
a touch of mimicry, which recalled his pompous
manner, ‘Orpingham Place, my dear madam,
Orpingham Place is a very fine place, a very
fine place indeed. Our pineapples can really
hardly be got rid of, and our prize pigs can’t
see out of their eyes; they can’t indeed, my
dear young lady, though it’s not pretty talk
for a pretty young lady to listen to.—Very
38 COMMONPLACE.
well, if the pines and the pigs are smitten, why
shouldn’t I marry the pigs and the pines ?’
‘Why not?’ cried Mrs. Tyke with a laugh ;
but Miss Charlmont, looking disturbed, rejoined :
‘Why not, certainly, if you like Mr. Durham;
but do you like Mr. Durham? And, whether
or not, you ought not to laugh at him,’
Jane pouted: ‘Really one would think I
was a child still! As to Mr. Durham, when he
knows his own mind and speaks, you may be
quite sure I shall know my own mind and give
him his answer.— Orpingham Place, my dear
Miss Catherine, the finest place in the county ;
the finest place in three counties, whatever my
friend the Duke may say. A charming neigh-
bourhood, Miss Catherine; her Grace the Duchess,
the most affable woman you can imagine, and my
lady the Marchioness, a fine woman—a very >
fine woman. But they can’t raise such pines as
my pines; they can’t do it, you know; they
haven’t the means, you know.— Come now,
sister, don’t look cross; when I’m Mrs. Durham
you shall have your slice off the pigs and the
pines.’
39
Cree LER VI.
EVERILDA STELLA, poor Lucy’s unconscious
rival, had married out of the schoolroom. Pretty
she was not, but with much piquancy of face
and manner, and a talent for private theatricals.
These advantages, gilded, perhaps, by her re-
putation as presumptive heiress, attracted to
her a suitor, to whose twenty years’ seniority
she felt no objection. Mr. Hartley wooed and
won her in the brief space of an Easter holiday ;
and bore her, nothing loth, to London, to
enjoy the gaieties of the season. Somewhat
to the bridegroom’s annoyance, Mr. Durham
accompanied the newly-married couple to town,
and shared their pretty house at Kensington.
Alan Hartley, a favourite nephew of Dr.
Tyke, had, as we know, been very intimate
40 COMMONPLACE.
at his house in old days. Now he was proud
to present his little wife of sixteen to his uncle
and aunt, though somewhat mortified at having
also to introduce his father-in-law, whose pom-
pous manners, and habit of dragging titled
personages into his discourse, put him to the
blush. Alan had dropped Everilda, and called
his wife simply Stella; her father dubbed her —
Pug; Everilda she was named, in accordance
with the taste of her peerage-studious mother.
This lady was accustomed to describe herself
as of a north-country family—a Leigh of the
Leazes ; which conveyed an old-manorial notion
to persons unacquainted with Newcastle-on-
Tyne. But this by the way: Mrs. Durham had
died before the opening of our tale.
At their first visit they were shown into the
drawing-room by a smiling maid-servant, and
requested to wait, as Dr. and Mrs. Tyke were
expected home every moment. Stella looked
very winning in her smart hat and feather and
jaunty jacket, and Alan would have abandoned |
himself to all the genial glow of a bridegroom,
but for Mr. Durham’s behaviour. That gentle-
COMMONPLACE. AI
man began by placing his hat on the floor
between his feet, and flicking his boots with
a crimson silk pocket-handkerchief. This done,
he commenced a survey of the apartment, ac-
companied by an apt running comment,—
‘Hem, no pictures—cheap engravings; a four-
and-sixpenny Brussels carpet ;'a smallish mirror,
wants regilding. Pug, my pet, that’s a neat
antimacassar: see if you can’t carry off the
stitch in your eye. A piano—a harp; fiddle-
stick !’
When Dr. and Mrs. Tyke entered, they
found the Hartleys looking uncomfortable, and
Mr. Durham red and pompous after his wont;
also, in opening the door, they caught the
sound of ‘fiddlestick!’ All these symptoms,
with the tact of kindness, they ignored. The
bride was kissed, the father-in-law taken for
granted, and Alan welcomed as if no one in
the room had looked guilty.
‘Come to lunch and take a hunch,’ said
the Doctor, offering his arm to Stella. ‘Mother
Bunch is rhyme, but not reason; you shall
munch and I will scrunch—that’s both. “Ah!
42 COMMONPLACE.
you may well look surprised,” as the foreign
ambassador admitted when the ancient Britons
noticed that he had no tail. But you won't
mind when you know us better; I’m no worse
than a barrel-organ.’
Yet with all Dr. Tyke’s endeavour to be
funny, and this time it cost him an effort,
and with all his wife’s facile commonplaces,
two of the guests seemed ill at ease. Alan
felt, as it were with every nerve, the impression
his father-in-law must produce, while Stella,
less sensitive for herself, was out of countenance
for her husband’s sake. Mr. Durham, indeed,
was pompous and unabashed as ever; but
whilst he answered commonplace remarks by
remarks no less commonplace, he appeared to
be, as in fact he was, occupied in scrutinizing,
and mentally valuing, the plate and china.
‘Charming weather, said Mrs. Tyke, wit
an air of intelligent originality.
‘Yes, ma’am; fine weather, indeed; billing
and cooing weather; ha! ha!’ with a glance
across the table. ‘Now I dare say your young
ladies know what to do in this weather.’
COMMONPLACE. 43
“We have no children, and Mrs. Tyke .
whispered, lest her husband should hear. Then,
after a pause, ‘I dare say Orpingham Place was
just coming into beauty when you left.’
, Mr. Durham thrust his thumbs into his
waistcoat-pockets, and leaned back for conver-
sation. ‘Well, I don’t know what to say to
that,—I don’t indeed; I don’t know which the
season is when Orpingham Place is of in
beauty. Its conservatories were quite a local
lion last winter—quite a local lion, as my
friend the Duke remarked to me; and he
said he must bring the Duchess over to see
them, and he did bring her Grace over; and
I gave them a luncheon in the largest con-
servatory, such as I don’t suppose they sit down
to every day. For the nobility have blood, if
you please, and the literary beggars are wel-
come to all the brains they ’ve got’ (the Doctor
smiled, Alan winced visibly); ‘but you’ll find
it’s us city men who’ve got backbone, and
backbone’s the best to wear, as I observed to
the Duke that very day when I gave him
such a glass of port as he hasn’t got in his
44 COMMONPLACE.
cellar. I said it to him, just as T say it to
you, ma’am, and he didn’t contradict me; in
fact, you know, he couldn't.’
After this it might have been difficult to
start conversation afresh, when, happily, Jane
entered, late for luncheon, and with an apology »
for her sister, who was detained elsewhere. She
went through the necessary introductions, and
took her seat between Dr. Tyke and Mr,
Durham, thus commanding an advantageous
view of the bride, whom she mentally set
down as nothing particular in any way.
Alan had never met Jane before. He asked
her after Miss Charlmont and Lucy, after Lucy
especially, who was ‘a very charming old friend’
of his, as he explained to Stella. For some
minutes Mr. Durham sat silent, much im-
pressed by Jane’s beauty and grace; this gave
people breathing-time for the recovery of ease
and good humour; and it was not till Dr. Tyke
had uttered three successive jokes, and every one,
except Mr. Durham, had laughed at them, that
the master of Orpingham Place could think of
any remark worthy of his attractive neighbour ;
COMMONPLACE. 46
and then, with much originality, he too ob-
served,—‘ Charming weather, Miss Jane.’
And Jane answered with a smile; for was
not this the widower of Orpingham Place?
That Mr. Durham’s conversation on sub-
sequent occasions gained in range of subject,
‘is clear from Jane’s quotations in the last
chapter. And that Mr. Durham was alive to
Jane’s fascinations appeared pretty evident, as
he not only called frequently at Appletrees
House, but made up parties, to which Dr. and
Mrs. Tyke, and the Miss Charlmonts, were in-
variably asked.
46
CHAPTER VII.
GAIETY in London, sadness by the sea.
Lucy did her very best to entertain Miss
Drum with the cheerfulness of former visits ;
in none of which had she shown herself more
considerate of the old lady’s tastes than now.
She made breakfast half-an-hour earlier than
usual; she culled for her interesting scraps from
the newspaper; she gave her an arm up and
down the Esplanade: on sunny days; she re-
claimed the most unpromising strayed stitches
in her knitting; she sang her old-fashioned
favourite ballads for an hour or so before tea-
time, and after tea till bed-time played energeti-
cally at backgammon: yet Miss Drum was
sensible of a change. All Lucy’s efforts could
not make her cheeks rosy and plump, and her
laugh spontaneous; could not make her step
elastic or her eyes bright.
COMMONPLACE. 47
It is easy to ridicule a woman nearly thirty
years old for fancying herself beloved without a
word said, and suffering deeply under disappoint-
ment: yet Lucy Charlmont was no contemptible
person. However at one time deluded, she had
never let a hint of her false hopes reach Mr.
Hartley’s observation; and however now dis-
appointed, she fought bravely against a betrayal
of her plight. Alone in her own room she
might suffer visibly and keenly, but with any
eye upon her she would not give way. Some-
times it felt as if the next moment the strain
on her nerves might wax unendurable; but such
a next moment never came, and she endured
still. Only, who is there strong enough, day
after day, to strain strength to the utmost, and
yet give no sign?
‘My dear, said Miss Drum, contemplating
Lucy over her spectacles and across the back-
gammon-board one evening when the eyes
looked more sunken than ever, and the whole
face more haggard, ‘I am sure you do not take
exercise enough. You really must do more
than give me an arm on the Esplanade; all
48 COMMONPLACE.
your bloom is gone, and you are much too thin.
Promise me that you will take at least one long
walk in the day whenever the weather is not
unfavourable.’
Lucy stroked her old friend’s hand fondly:
‘I will take walks when my sisters are at
home again; but I have not you here al-
ways.’
Miss Drum insisted: ‘Do not say so, my
dear, or I shall feel bound to go home again;
and that I should not like at all, as we both
know. Pray oblige me by promising.’
Thus urged, Lucy promised, and in secret
rejoiced that for at least an hour or two of
the day she should thenceforward be alone,
relieved from the scrutiny of those dim, affec-
tionate eyes. And truly she needed some
relief. By day she could forbid her thoughts to
shape themselves, even mentally, into words,
although no effort could banish the vague, dull
sorrow which was all that might now remain
to her of remembrance. But by night, when
sleep paralysed self-restraint, then her dreams
were haunted by distorted spectres of the past;
COMMONPLACE. 49
never alluring or endearing—for this she was
thankful—but sometimes monstrous, and always
impossible to escape from. Night after night
she would awake from such dreams, struggling
and sobbing, with less and less conscious strength
to resume daily warfare.
Soon she allowed no weather to keep her
indoors at the hour for walking, and Miss Drum,
who was a hardy disciple of the old school,
encouraged her activity. She always sought
the sea, not the smooth, civilised esplanade, but
the rough, irreclaimable shingle ;—to stray to
and fro till the last moment of her freedom ;
to and fro, to and fro, at once listless and un-
resting, with wide, absent eyes fixed on the
monotonous waves, which they did not see.
Gradually a morbid fancy grew upon her that
one day she should behold her father’s body
washed ashore, and that she should know the
face: from a waking fancy, this began to haunt
her dreams with images unutterably loathsome.
Then she walked no more on the shingle, but
took to wandering along green lanes and country
roads.
E
50 COMMONPLACE.
But no one struggling persistently against
weakness fails to overcome: also, however pro-
saic the statement may sound, air and exercise
will take effect on persons of sound constitution.
Something of Lucy’s lost colour showed itself, by
fits and starts at first, next steadily ; her appetite
came back, however vexed she might feel at its
return; at last fatigue brought sounder sleep, and
the hollow eyes grew less sunken. This refresh-
ing sleep was the turning-point in her case ; it
supplied strength for the day, whilst each day
in its turn brought with it fewer and fewer
demands upon her strength. Seven weeks after
Miss Drum exacted the promise, Lucy, though
graver of aspect, and at heart sadder than before
Alan Hartley’s wedding, had recovered in a
measure her look of health and her interest in
the details of daily life. She no longer greatly
dreaded meeting her sisters when at length
their much-prolonged absence should terminate ;
and in spite of some nervousness in the antici-
pation, felt confident that even a sight of Mr.
and Mrs. Hartley would not upset the outward
composure of her decorum.
COMMONPLACE. 51
Miss Drum triumphed in the success of her
prescription, and brought forward parallel in-
stances within her own experience. ‘That is
right,’ she would say, ‘my dear; take another
slice of the mutton where it is not overdone.
There is nothing like exercise for giving an
appetite, only the mutton should not be over-
done. You cannot remember Sarah Smith, who
was with me before your dear mother entrusted
you to my care; but I assure you three doctors
had given her over as a confirmed invalid when
I prescribed for her ;’ and the old lady laughed
gently at her own wit. ‘I made her take a
walk every day, let the weather be what it
might; and gave her nice, juicy mutton to eat,
with a change to beef, or a chicken, now and
then for variety; and very soon you would not
have known her for the same girl ; and Dr. Grey
remarked, in his funny way, that I ought to be
an M.D. myself. Or, again: ‘Lucy, my dear,
you recollect my French assistant, Mademoiselle
Leclerc, what a fine, strong young woman she
was when you knew her. Now when she first
Re COMMONPLACE.
came to me she was pale and peaking, afraid
of wet feet or an open window; afraid of this,
that, and the other, always tired, and with no
appetite except for sweets. Mutton and exer-
cise made her what you remember; and before
she went home to France to marry an old
admirer, she thanked me with tears in her eyes
for having made her love mutton. She said
“love” when she should have said “like ;” but
I was too proud and pleased to correct her
English then, I only answered, “Ah, dear
Mademoiselle, always love your husband and
love your mutton.’
Lucy had a sweet, plaintive voice, to which
her own secret sorrow now added a certain
simple pathos; and when in the twilight she
sang ‘Alice Grey,’ or ‘She wore a wreath of
roses, or some other old favourite, good Miss
Drum would sit and listen till the tears gathered
behind her spectacles. Were tears in the singer’s
eyes also? She thought now with more tender-
ness than ever before of the suitors she had
rejected in her hopeful, happy youth, especially
COMMONPLACE. 53
of a certain Mr. Tresham, who had wished her
all happiness as he turned to leave her in his
dignified regret. She had always had a great
liking for Mr. Tresham, and now she could feel
for him.
54
CHAPTER VIII.
ON the 28th of June, four letters came to Lucy
by the first delivery :—
Jb.
My dear Lucy,
Pray do not think me thoughtless if I
once more ask whether you will sanction an
extension of our holiday. Mrs. Tyke presses
us to remain with her through July, and Dr.
Tyke is no less urgent. When I hinted that
their hospitality had already been trespassed
upon, the Doctor quoted Hone (as he said: I
doubt if it is there) :—
‘In July
No good-bye ;
In August
Part we must.’
COMMONPLACE. 55
I then suggested that you may be feeling
moped at home, and in want of change; but, of
course, the Doctor had still an answer ready :—
Tell Lucy from me, that if she takes you away
I shall take it very ill, as the homceopath said
when his learned brother substituted cocoa-nibs
for champagne. And all the time Cousin Lucy
was begging us to stay, and Jane was looking
at me so earnestly: in short, dear Lucy, if ‘No’
must be said, pray will you say it; for I have
been well-nigh talked over.
And, indeed, we must make allowances for
Jane, if she seems a little selfish ; for, to let you
into a secret, I believe she means to accept
Mr. Durham if he makes her the offer we all are
expecting from him. At first I was much dis-
pleased at her giving him any encouragement,
for it appeared to me impossible that she could
view his attentions with serious approbation :
but I have since become convinced that she
knows her own mind, and is not trifling with
him. How it is possible for her to contemplate
union with one so unrefined and ostentatious I
cannot conceive, but I have no power to restrain
56 - COMMONPLACE.
her ; and when I endeavoured to exert my in-
fluence against him, she told me in the plainest
terms that she preferred luxury with Mr. Durham
to dependence without him. Oh, Lucy, Lucy!
have we ever given her cause to resent her po-
sition so bitterly? Were she my own child, I
do not think I could love. her more or care for
her more anxiously: but she has never under-
stood me, never done me justice. I speak of
myself only, not of you also, because I shall
never marry, and all I have has been held simply
in trust for her: with you it is, and ought to be,
different.
But you must not suffer for Jane’s wilfulness.
If you are weary of our absence I really must
leave her under Cousin Lucy’s care—for she
positively declines to accompany me home at
present—and return to every-day duties. I am
sick enough of pleasuring, I do assure you, as it
is; though, were Mr. Durham a different man,
I should only rejoice, as you may suppose.
Well, as to news, there is not much worth
transmitting. Jane has been to the Opera three
, times, and tothe English play once. Mr. Durham
COMMONPLACE. Ae
sends the boxes, and Dr. and Mrs. Tyke never
tire of the theatre. The last time they went to
the Opera they brought home with them to
supper Mr. Tresham, whom you may recollect
our meeting here more than once, and who has
lately returned to England from the East.
Through some misunderstanding he expected
to see you instead of me, and looked out of
countenance for a moment: then he asked after
you, and begged me to remember him to you
when I wrote. He appeared much interested in
hearing our home news, and concerned when I
mentioned that you have seemed less strong
lately. Pray send compliments for him when
next you write, in case we should see him
again.
Mr. Hartley I always liked, and now I like
his wife also: she is an engaging little thing,
and gets us all to call her Stella. You, I am
sure, will be fond of her when you know her.
How I wish her father resembled her! She is
as simple and as merry as a bird, and witnesses
Mr. Durham’s attentions to Jane with perfect
equanimity. As to Mr. Hartley, he seems as
58 COMMONPLACE.
much amused as if the bulk of his wife’s enor-
mous fortune were not at stake; yet any
one must see the other man is in earnest.
Stella is reckoned a clever actress, and private
theatricals of some sort are impending. I say
‘of some sort,’ because Jane, who is indisputably
the beauty of our circle, would prefer zableaux
vivants ; and I know not which will carry her
point.
My love to Miss Drum. Don’t think me
selfish for proposing to remain longer away
from you; but, indeed, I am being drawn in
two opposite directions by two dear sisters, of
whom I only wish that one had as much good
sense and good taste as the other.
Your affectionate sister,
CATHERINE CHARLMONT.
IT.
My dear Lucy,
I know Catherine is writing, and will
make the worst of everything, just as if I
was cut out to be an old maid.
COMMONPLACE. 59
Surely at my age one may know one’s
own mind; and, though I’m not going to say
before I am asked whether I like Mr. Durham,
we are all very well aware, my dear Lucy,
that I like money and comforts. It’s one
thing for Catherine and you, who have enough
and to spare, to split hairs as to likes and dis-
likes; but it’s quite another for me who have
not a penny of my own, thanks to poor dear
papa’s blindness. Now do be a dear, and tell
sister she is welcome to stay this one month
more; for, to confess the truth, if I remain
here alone I may find myself at my wit’s end
for a pound or two one of these days. Dress
is so dear, and I had rather never go out
again than be seen a dowdy; and if we are
to have tableaux I shall want all sorts of
things. I don’t hold at all with charades and
such nonsense, in which people are supposed
to be witty; give me a piece in which one’s
arms are of some use; but of course, Stella,
who has no more arm than a pump-handle,
votes for theatricals.
The Hartleys are coming to-day, and, of
60 COMMONPLACE.
course, Mr. Durham, to take us after luncheon
to the Crystal Palace. There is a grand con-
cert coming off, and a flower-show, which would
all be yawny enough but for the toilettes. I
dare say I shall see something to set me raving ;
just as last time I was at the Botanic Gardens,
I pointed out the loveliest suit of Brussels
lace over white silk; but I might as well ask
Catherine for wings to fly with. :
Good-bye, my dear Lucy. Don’t be cross
this once, and when I have a house of my
own, I’ll do you a good turn.
Your affectionate sister,
JANE.
P.S. I enclose Mr. Durham’s photograph,
which he fished and fished to make me ask
for, so at last I begged it to gratify the poor
man. Don’t you see all Orpingham Place in
his speaking countenance?
COMMONPLACE. 61
ITT.
My dearest Lucy,
You owe me a kindness to balance my
disappointment at missing your visit. So please
let Catherine know that she and Jane may
give us a month more. Dr. Tyke wishes it
no less than I do, and Mr. Durham perhaps
more than either of us; but a word to the
wise.
Your affectionate cousin,
Lucy C. TYKE:
P.S. The Doctor wont send regards, because
he means to write to you himself.
*
IV.
Dear Lucy,
If you agree with the snail, you find
your house just the size for one ; and lest bestial
example should possess less force than human,
I further remind you of what Realmah the
62 COMMONPLACE.
Great affirms,—‘I met two blockheads, but the
one sage kept himself to himself’ All which
sets forth to you the charms of solitude, which,
as you are such a proper young lady, is, of
course, the only anybody you can be in love
with, and of whose society I am bent on afford-
ing you prolonged enjoyment.
This can be effected, if your sisters stay
here another month, and indeed you must not
say us nay; for on your ‘yes’ hangs a tale
which your ‘no’ may for ever forbid to wag.
Miss Catherine looks glummish, but Jenny is
all sparkle and roses, like this same month of
June; and never is shé more sparkling or rosier
than when the master of Orpingham Place hails
her with that ever fresh remark, ‘Fine day,
Miss Jane.’ Don’t nip the summer crops of
Orpingham Place in the bud, or, rather, don’t
retard them by unseasonable frost; for I can’t
fancy my friend will be put off with anything
less than a distinct ‘no; and when it comes
to that, I think Miss Jane, in her trepidation,
will say ‘yes. And if you are a good girl,
and let the little one play out her play, when
COMMONPLACE. 63
she has come into the sugar and spice and all
that’s nice, you shall come to Notting Hill
this very next May, and while the sun shines
make your hay.
Your venerable cousin’s husband
(by which I merely mean),
Your cousin’s venerable husband,
FRANCIS TYKE, M.D.
N.B. I append M.D. to remind you of
my professional status, and so quell you by
the weight of my advice.
Lucy examined the photograph of Mr.
Durham with a double curiosity, for he was
Mr. Hartley’s father-in-law as well as Jane’s
presumptive suitor. She looked, and saw a
face not badly featured, but vulgar in expression ;
Befeute- not amiss, but ill at. ease in) its
studied attitude and superfine clothes. As-
suredly it was not George Durham, but the
64 COMMONPLACE.
master of Orpingham Place who possessed at-
tractions for Jane; and Lucy felt, for a sister
who could be thus attracted, the sting of a
humiliation such as her own baseless hopes
had never cost her.
Each of her correspondents was answered
with judicious variation in the turn of the
sentences. To Jane she wrote dryly, return-
ing Mr. Durham’s portrait wrapped in a. ten-
pound note; an arrangement which, in her
eyes, showed a symbolic appropriateness, lost
for the moment on her sister. Catherine she
answered far more affectionately, begging her
on no account to curtail a visit which might
be of importance to Jane’s prospects; and on
the flap of the envelope, she added compli-
ments to Mr. Tresham.
65
CHAPTER: IX.
Mr. TRESHAM had loved Lucy Charlmont
sincerely, and until she refused him had
entertained a good hope of success. Even at
the moment of refusal she avowed the liking
for him which all through their acquaintance
had been obvious; and then, and not till then,
it dawned upon him that her indifference
towards himself had its root in preference for
another. But he was far too honourable a
man either to betray or to aim at verifying his
suspicion; and though he continued to visit at
Dr. Tyke’s, where Alan Hartley was so often to
be seen idling away time under the comfortable
conviction that he was doing no harm to him-
self or to any one else, it was neither at once,
nor of set purpose, that Arthur Tresham pene-
trated Lucy’s secret. Alan and himself had been
F
66 COMMONPLACE.
College friends ; he understood him thoroughly ;
his ready good-nature, which seemed to make
every one a principal person in his regard ;
his open hand that liked spending; his want
of deep or definite purpose; his unconcern
as to possible consequences. Then Lucy,—in
whom Mr. Tresham had been on one point
wofully mistaken,—she was so composed and
so cordial to all her friends; there was about
her such womanly sweetness, such unpretentious,
dignified reserve towards all: her face would
light up so brightly when he, or any other,
spoke what interested her, not seldom, certainly,
when fe spoke:—even after a sort of clue
had come into his hands, it was some time
before he felt sure of any difference between
her manner to Alan and to others. When
the conviction forced itself upon him, he grieved
more for her than for himself; he knew his
friend too intimately to mistake his pleasure
in being amused for any anxiety to make
himself beloved; he knew about Alan much
that Lucy did not and could not guess, and
from the beginning inferred the end.
COMMONPLACE. ° 67
In the middle of that London season
Catherine and Lucy returned to Brompton-on-
Sea; and before August had started the main
stream of tourists from England to the con-
tinent, Mr. Tresham packed up his knapsack,
and, staff in hand, set off on a solitary ex-
pedition, of undetermined length, to the East.
He was neither a rich nor a poor man; had
been called to the bar, but without pursuing
his profession, and was not tied to any given
spot; he went away to recruit his spirits,
and, having recovered them, stayed on out of
sheer enjoyment. Yet, when one morning his
eye lighted on the Hartley-Durham marriage
in the ‘Times’ Supplement, home feeling stirred
within him; and he who, twenty-four hours
earlier, knew not whether he might not end
his days beside the blue Bosphorus, on the
evening of that same day had started west-
ward.
He felt curious, he would not own to him-
self that he felt specially interested, to know
Powetuey faced; and he» felt: curious; ine a
minor degree, to inspect her successful rival.
68 COMMONPLACE.
With himself Lucy had not yet had a rival;
not yet, perhaps she might one day, he re-
peated to himself, only it had not happened
yet. And then the sweet, dignified face rose
before him kind and cheerful; cheerful still
in his memory, though he guessed that now
it must look saddened. He had never yet
seen it with a settled expression of sadness,
and he knew not how to picture it so.
Mr. Drum—or Mr. Gawkins Drum, as he
scrupulously called himself, on account of a
certain Mr. Drum, who lived somewhere and
went nowhere, and was held by all outsiders
to be in his dotage— Miss Drum’s brother,
Mr. Gawkins Drum, had for several years stood
as a gay young bachelor of sixty. Not that,
strictly speaking, any man (or, alas! any
woman) can settle down at sixty and there
remain; but at the last of a long series of
avowed birthday parties, Mr. Drum had drunk
his own health as being sixty that very day;
COMMONPLACE. 69
this was now some years ago, and still, in
neighbourly parlance, Mr. Drum was no more
than sixty. At sixty-something-indefinite Gaw-
kins brought home a bride, who confessed to
sixty; and all Brompton-on-Sea indulged in a
laugh at their expense, till it oozed out that the
kindly old couple had gone through all the
hopes and disappointments of a many years’
engagement, begun at a reasonable age for
such matters, and now terminated only because
the bedridden brother, to whom the bride had
devoted herself during an ordinary lifetime,
had at last ended his days in peace. “Mr.
and Mrs. Gawkins Drum forestalled their neigh-
bours’ laugh by their own, and soon the
laugh against them died out, and every one
accepted their house as amongst the pleasantest
resorts in Brompton-on-Sea.
Miss Drum, however, felt less leniently to-
wards her brother and sister-in-law, and de-
liberately regarded them from a shocked point
of view. The wedding took place at Richmond,
where the bride resided; and the honeymoon
came to an end whilst Lucy entertained her
70 COMMONPLACE.’
old friend, during that long visit at Notting
Hill, which promised to colour all Jane’s
future.
‘My dear,’ said Miss Drum to her deferential
listener; ‘My dear, Sarah,—and Lucy felt that
that offending Sarah could only be the bride,—
‘Sarah shall not suffer for Gawkins’ folly and
her own. I will not fail to visit her in her
new home, and to notice her on all proper
occasions, but I cannot save her from being
ridiculous. I did not wait till I was sixty
to make up my mind against wedlock, though
perhaps’—and the old lady bridled—‘I also
may have endured the preference of some in-
fatuated man. Lucy, my dear, take an old
woman’s advice: marry, if you mean to marry,
before you are sixty, or else’ “remain? dike
myself; otherwise, you make yourself simply
ridiculous.’
And Lucy, smiling, assured her that she
would either marry before sixty or not at all;
and added, with some earnestness, that she
did not think she should ever marry. To
which Miss Drum answered with stateliness:
COMMONPLACE. 71
‘Very well; do one thing or do the other, only
do not become ridiculous.’
Yet the old lady softened that evening,
when she found herself, as it were, within the
radius of the contemned bride. Despite her
sixty years, and in truth she looked less than
her age, Mrs. Gawkins Drum was a personable
little woman, with plump red cheeks, gentle eyes,
and hair of which the soft brown was threaded,
but not overpowered, by grey. There was no
affectation of youthfulness in her gown, which
was of slate-coloured silk; nor in her cap,
which came well on her head; nor in her
manner to her guests, which was cordial; nor
in her manner to her husband, which was
affectionate, with the undemonstrative affection-
ateness that might now have been appropriate |
had they married forty years earlier.
Her kiss of welcome was returned frostily
by Miss Drum, warmly by Lucy. Mr. Drum
at first looked a little sheepish under his sister’s
severe salutation. Soon all were seated at tea.
‘Do you take cream and sugar?’ asked
the bride, looking at her new sister.
72 COMMONPLACE.
‘No sugar, I thank you, was the formal
reply. ‘And it will be better, Sarah, that
you should call me Elizabeth. Though I am
an old woman your years do not render it
unsuitable, and I wish to be sisterly.’
‘Thank you, dear Elizabeth,’ answered Mrs.
Gawkins, cheerily; ‘I hope, indeed, we shall
be sisterly. It would be sad times with me
if I found I had brought coldness into my
new home.’ |
But Miss Drum would not thaw yet. ‘Yes,
I have always maintained, and I maintain
still, that there must be faults on both sides
if a marriage, if any marriage whatever, in-
troduces dissension into a family circle. And
I will do my part, Sarah.’ .
‘Yes, indeed; but Sarah knew not what
more to Say.
Mr. Drum struck in,—‘Lucy, my dear’—
she had been .a little girl, perched sion.
knee when her father asked him years before
to be trustee,—‘Lucy, my dear, you’re not
in full bloom. Look at my old lady, and
guess: what’s a recipe for roses ?’
COMMONPLACE. 73
‘For shame, Gawkins!’ cried both old
ladies; one with a smile, the other with a
frown.
Still, as the evening wore on, Miss Drum
slowly thawed. Having, as it were once for
all, placed her hosts in the position of culprits
at the moral bar, having sat in judgment on
them, and convicted them in the ears of all
men (represented by Lucy), she admitted them
to mercy, and dismissed them with a qualified
pardon. What most softened her towards the
offending couple’ was their unequivocal pro-
fession of rheumatism. When she unbendingly
declined to remain seated at the supper-table
one minute beyond half-past ten, she alleged
rheumatism as her impelling motive; and Gaw-
kins and Sarah immediately proclaimed their
own rheumatic experience and sympathies. As
Miss Drum observed to Lucy on their way
home, ‘Old people don’t confess to rheumatism
if they wish to appear young.’
Thus the feud subsided, though Miss Drum
to the end of her life occasionally spoke of
her sister-in-law as ‘that poor silly thing,’ and
74 COMMONPLACE.
of her brother as of one who should have
known better.
Whilst, on her side, Mrs. Gawkins Drum
remarked to her husband, ‘What a very old-
looking woman that Miss Charlmont is, if
she’s not thirty, as you say. I never saw
such an old, faded-looking woman of her age.’
75
CHADTER X,
PARTIES ran high at Kensington and Notting
Hill. Stella stood up for charades, Jane for
tableaux. Mr. Hartley naturally sided with
his wife, Miss Charlmont held back from vol-
unteering any opinion, Mrs. Tyke voted for
the last speaker, Dr. Tyke ridiculed each al-
ternative ; at last Mr. Durham ingeniously threw
his weight into both scales, and won for both
parties a partial triumph. ‘Why not, asked
he,—‘ why not let Pug speak, and Miss Jane
be silent ?’
This pacific suggestion once adopted, Dr.
Tyke proposed that a charade word should
be fixed upon, and performed by speech or
spectacle, as might suit the rival stars; for
instance, Love-apple.
But who was to be Love?
76 COMMONPLACE.
Everybody agreed in rejecting little boys;
and Jane, when directly appealed to, refused
to represent the Mother of love and laughter ;
‘for,’ as she truly observed, ‘that would not be
Love, after all” Mr. Durham, looking laboriously
gallant, aimed at saying something neat and
pointed; he failed, yet Jane beamed a smile
upon his failure. Then Dr. Tyke proposed a
plaster Cupid; this, after some disputing, was
adopted, with vague accessories of processional
Greek girls, to be definitely worked out after-
wards. For ‘Apple’ Alan suggested Paris
and the rival goddesses, volunteering himself
as Paris: Jane should be Venus, and Catherine
would make a capital Juno. Jane accepted
her own part as a matter of course, but
doubted about her sister. ‘Yes,’ put in Miss
Charlmont, decisively, ‘I will be Juno, or any-
thing else which will help us forward a little.’
So that was settled; but who should be
Minerva? Stella declined to figure as the
patroness of wisdom, and Jane drily observed,
that they ought all to be tall, or all to be
short, in her idea. At last a handsome, not
COMMONPLACE. Tf
too handsome, friend, Lady Everett, was thought
of to take the part. The last scene Dr. Tyke
protested he should settle himself with Stella,
and not be worried any more about it. So
those two went into committee together, and
Alan edged in ere long for consultation; finally,
Miss Charlmont was appealed to, and the
matter was arranged amongst them without
being divulged to the rest.
But all was peace and plenty, smiles and
wax-candles, at Kensington, when at last the
evening came for the performance. Mrs. Hart-
ley’s drawing-rooms being much more spacious
than Mrs. Tyke’s, had been chosen for con-
venience, and about two hundred guests as-
sembled to hear Stella declaim and see Jane
attitudinize, as either faction expressed it. Good-
natured Mrs. Tyke played the hostess, whilst
Mrs. Hartley remained occult in the green-
room. Dr. Tyke was manager and prompter.
Mr. Durham, vice Paris- Hartley, welcomed
people in a cordial, fussy manner, apologising
for the smallness of London rooms, and re-
eretfully alluding to the vast scale of Orpingham
78 COMMONPLACE.
Place, ‘where a man can be civil to his friends
without treading on their toes or their tails—
ha! ha!’
But there is a limit to all things, even
fussiness has an end. At last every one
worth waiting for had arrived, been received,
been refreshed. Orpingham Place died out
of the conversation. People exchanged common-
places, and took their seats; having taken
their seats they exchanged more common-
places. ‘What’s the word ?’—‘ It’s such a bore
guessing: I never guess anything.‘ People
ought to tell the word beforehand.’—‘ What a
horrible man! Is that Mr. Hartley ?}—‘No,
old Durham ; backbone Durham.’—‘ Why back-
bone ?’—‘ Don’t know; hear him called so.’—
‘Isn't there a Beauty somewhere ?’—‘ Don't
know; there’s the Beast,—and the hackneyed
joke received the tribute of a hackneyed laugh.
The manager’s bell rang, the curtain drew up.
A plaster cast of Cupid, with fillet, bow,
and quiver, on an upholstery pedestal, stood
revealed. Music, commencing behind the scenes,
approached; a file of English-Grecian maidens,
COMMONPLACE. 79
singing and carrying garlands, passed across
the stage towards a pasteboard temple, pre-
sumably their desired goal, although they glanced
at their audience, and seemed very independent
of Cupid on his pedestal. There were only
six young ladies; but they moved slowly, with
a tolerable space interposed between each and
each, thus producing a _ processional effect.
They sang, in time and in tune, words by
Dr. Tyke; music (not in harmony, but in uni-
son, to ensure correct execution) by Arthur
Tresham :—
‘Love hath a name of Death:
He gives a breath
And takes away.
Lo we, beneath his sway,
Grow like a flower ;
To bloom an hour,
To droop a day,
And fade away.’
The first Anglo-Greek had been chosen
for her straight nose, the last for her elegant
foot; the intermediate four, possessing good
voices, bore the burden of the singing. They
80 COMMONPLACE.
all moved and sang with self-complacent ease,
but without much dramatic sentiment, except
the plainest of the six, who assumed an air
of languishment.
Some one suggested ‘cupid-ditty,’ but with-
out universal acceptance. Some one else, on
no obvious grounds, hazarded ‘Bore, Wild
Boar: a remark which stung Dr. Tyke, as
playwright, into retorting, ‘Boreas,’
The second scene was dumb show. Alan
Hartley as Paris, looking very handsome in a
tunic and sandals, and flanked by the largest-
sized, woolly toy lambs, sat, apple in hand,
awaiting the rival goddesses. A flourish of
trumpets announced the entrance of Miss Charl-
mont, a stately crowned Juno, robed in amber-
coloured cashmere, and leading in a leash a
peacock, with train displayed, and ingeniously
mounted on noiseless wheels. She swept
grandly in, and held out one arm, with a studied
gesture, for the apple; which, doubtless, would
have been handed to her then and there, had
not warning notes on a harp ushered in Lady
Everett: a modest, sensible-looking Minerva,
COMMONPLACE. SI
robed and stockinged in blue, with a funny
Athenian owl perched on her shoulder, and
a becoming helmet on her head. Paris hesi-
tated visibly, and seemed debating whether or
not to split the apple and the difference to-
gether, when a hubbub, as of birds singing,
chirping, calling, cleverly imitated by Dr. Tyke
and Stella on water-whistles, heralded the ap-
proach of Venus. In she came, beautiful Jane
Charlmont, with a steady, gliding step, her
eyes kindling with victory, both her small
hands outstretched for the apple so indisputably
hers, her lips parted in a triumphant smile.
Her long, white robe flowed classically to the
floor; two doves, seeming to nestle in her
hair, billed and almost cooed; but her face
eclipsed all beside it; and when Paris, on
one knee, deposited the apple within her slim,
white fingers, Juno forgot to look indignant
and Minerva scornful.
After this the final scene fell dead and flat.
In vain did Stella whisk about as the most
coquettish of market-girls of an undefined epoch
and country, balancing a fruit~basket on her
G
82 COMMONPLACE.
head, and crying, ‘Grapes, melons, peaches,
love-apples,’ with the most natural inflections.
In vain did Arthur Tresham beat down the
price of peaches, and Alan Hartley bid for
love-apples:—Jane had attained one of her
objects, and eclipsed her little friend for that
evening.
The corps dramatique was to sit down to
supper in costume; a point arranged ostensibly
for convenience, secretly it may be for vanity’s
sake: only Stella laid her fruit-basket aside,
and Miss Charlmont released her peacock.
Lady Everett continued to wear the helmet,
which did not conceal her magnificent black
hair (she had been a Miss Moss before marriage,
Clara Lyon Moss), and Jane retained her pair
of doves.
But during the winding up of the charade,
more of moment had occurred off the stage than
upon it. Jane, her part over, left the other
performers to their own devices, and quietly
made her way into a conservatory which opened
out of the room devoted for that evening to
cloaks and hoods. If she expected to be fol-
COMMONPLACE. 83
lowed she was not disappointed. = -Janesinter=
rupted him: ‘Pray give me your arm, Mr.
Durham ;’ she rose: ‘let us go back to the
company. I don’t know what you are talking
about, unless you mean to be rude and very
unkind :’ the voice broke, the large, clear eyes
84. COMMONPLACE.
softened to tears; she drew back as he drew
nearer. Then Mr. Durham, ill-bred, but neither
scheming nor cold-hearted, pompous and fussy,
but a not ungenerous man for all that,—then
Mr. Durham spoke: ‘Don’t draw back from me,
Miss Jane, but take my arm for once to lead
you back to the company, and take my hand
for good. For I love and admire you, Miss
Jane; and if you will take an oldish man for
your husband, you shall never want for money
or for pleasure while my name is good in the
City.’
Thus in one evening Jane Charlmont attained
both her objects.
Supper was a very gay meal, as brilliant as
lights, glass, and plate could make it. People
were pleased with the night’s entertainment,
with themselves, and with each other. Mr.
Durham, with an obtrusive air of festivity, sat
down beside Jane, and begged his neighbours
not to inconvenience themselves, as they did
not mind squeezing. Jane coloured, but judged
it too early to frown. Mr. Durham, being some-
COMMONPLACE. 85
what old-fashioned, proposed healths: the fair
actresses were toasted, the Anglo-Greeks in a
bevy, the distinguished stars one by one. Mr.
Tresham returned thanks for the processional
six; Dr. Tyke for Miss Charlmont, Sir James
Everett and Mr. Hartley for their respective
wives.
Then Jane’s health was drunk: who would
rise to return thanks? Mr. Durham rose:
‘Hem—haw—’ said he: ‘haw—hem—ladies
and gentlemen, allow me to return thanks for
the Venus of the evening—I mean for the Venus
altogether, whose health you have done me the
honour to drink’—knowing smiles circled round
the table. ‘Done us, I should say: not that I
unsay what I said; quite the contrary, and I’m
not ashamed to have said it. I will only say
one word more in thanking you for the honour
you have done her and all of us: the cham-
pagne corks pop, and suggest popping ; but after
popping mum ’s the word. Ladies and gentle-_
men, my very good friends, I drink your very
good health.’
And the master of Orpingham Place sat down.
86
CHAPTER XI.
Lucy received the news of Jane’s engagement
with genuine vexation, and then grew vexed
with herself for feeling vexed. Conscience took
alarm, and pronounced that envy and pride had
a share in her vexation. Self retorted: It is
not envy to see that Jane is mercenary, nor
pride to dislike vulgarity. Conscience insisted :
-It is envy to be annoyed by Jane’s getting
married before you, and it is pride to brand
Mr. Durham as vulgar, and then taboo him
as beyond the pale. Self pleaded: No one
likes growing old and being made to feel it;
and who would not deprecate a connection who
will put one out of countenance at every turn ?
But Conscience secured the last word: If you
were younger than Jane, you would make more
allowances for her; and if Mr. Durham were
COMMONPLACE. 87
engaged to any one except your sister, you
would think it fair not to condemn him as
destitute of every virtue because he is under-
bred.
Thus did Conscience get the better of Self.
And Lucy gulped down dignity and disappoint-
ment together when, in reply to Miss Drum’s,
‘My dear, I hope your sisters are well, and
enjoying their little gaieties,’ she said, cheer-
fully : ‘Now, really, you should give me some-
thing for such wonderful news: Jane is engaged
to be married.’
There was nothing Miss Drum relished more
than a wedding ‘ between persons suited to each
other, and not ridiculous on the score of age
and appearance, as she would herself pointedly
have defined it. Now Jane was obviously young
enough and pretty enough to become a bride;
so Miss Drum was delighted, and full of interest
and of inquiries, which Lucy found it rather
difficult to answer satisfactorily.
‘And who is the favoured gentleman, my
dear ?’
‘Mr. Durham, of Orpingham Place, in Glou-
88 COMMONPLACE.
cestershire. Very rich it seems, and a widower.
His only daughter, Lucy hurried on with an
imperceptible effort, ‘married that Mr. Hartley
Catherine and I used to meet so often at Notting
/ Hill. She was thought to be a great heiress;
but I suppose this will make some difference.’
‘Then he is rather old for Jane ?’
‘He is not yet fifty it seems, though of course
that is full old. By what he says, Orpingham
Place must be a very fine country-seat; and
Jane appears cut out for wealth and pleasure,
she has such a power of enjoying herself;’ and
Lucy paused.
Miss Drum, dropping the point of age, re-
sumed: ‘Now what Durham will this be, my
dear? I used to know a Sir Marcus Durham—
a gay, hunting Baronet. He was of a north-
country family; but this may be a branch of
the same stock. He married an Earl’s daughter,
Lady Mary; and she used to take precedence,
let who would be in the room, which was not
thought to be in very good taste when the
dowager Lady Durham was present. Still an
Earl’s daughter ought to understand good breed-
COMMONPLACE. 89
ing, and that was how she acted ; I do not wish
to express any opinion. Perhaps Mr. Durham
may have a. chance of the Baronetcy, for Sir
Marcus left no children, but was succeeded by
a bachelor brother; and then Jane will be “my
lady” some day.’
eo, feplied) Lucy; ‘I don't think’ that
likely. Mr. Durham is enormously wealthy, by
what I hear; but not of a county family. He
made his fortune in the City.’
Miss Drum persisted: ‘The cadets of even
noble families have made money by commerce
over and over again. It is no disgrace to make
a fortune; and I see no reason why Mr. Durham
should not be a baronet some day. Many a
City man has been as fine a gentleman as any
idler at court. Very likely Mr. Durham is an
elegant man of talent, and well connected; if
so, a fortune is no drawback, and the question
of age may be left to the lady’s decision.’
Lucy said no more: only she foresaw and
shrank from that approaching day of undeceiving
which should bring Mr. Durham to Brompton-
on-Sea.
go COMMONPLACE.
Once set off on the subject of family, there
was no stopping Miss Drum, who, having had
no proveable great-grandfather, was sensitive on
the score of pedigree.
‘You might not suppose it now, Lucy, but
it is well known that our family name of Drum,
though less euphonious than that of Durham,
is in fact the same. I made the observation
once to Sir Marcus, and he laughed with plea-
sure, and often afterwards addressed me as
cousin. Lady Mary did not like the suggestion ;
but no one’s fancies can alter a fact:’ and the
old lady looked stately, and as if the Drum-
Durham theory had been adopted and em-
blazoned by the College of Heralds; whereas,
in truth, no one besides herself, not even the
easy-tempered Gawkins, held it.
Meanwhile, all went merrily and smoothly
at Notting Hill. As Jane had said, she was
old enough to know her own mind, and appar-
ently she knew it. When Mr. Durham presented
her with a set of fine diamonds, she dropped
naturally into calling him George; and when
COMMONPLACE. OI
he pressed her to name the day, she answered,
with an assumption of girlishness, that he must
talk over all those dreadful things with Catherine.
To Miss Charlmont he had already opened
his mind on the subject of settlements: Jane
should have everything handsome and ample,
but Pug must not lose her fortune either. This
Catherine, deeming it right and reasonable,
undertook to explain to Jane. Jane sulked a
little to her sister, but displayed only a smiling
aspect to her lover, feeling in her secret heart
that her own nest was being particularly well
feathered: for not only were Mr. Durham’s new
marriage settlements most liberal, in spite of
Stella’s prospective twenty thousand pounds on
coming of age, and twenty thousand at her
father’s demise; but Catherine, of her own
accord, provided that at her death all her share
of their father’s property should descend to
Jane, for her own separate use, and at her own
absolute disposal. The younger sister, indeed,
observed with safe generosity: ‘Suppose you
should marry, too, some day?’ But Catherine,
grateful for any gleam of unselfishness in her
92 _ COMMONPLACE.
favourite sister, answered warmly and decisively :
‘I never meant to marry, and I always meant-
what fortune I had to be yours at last: only,
dear, do not again think hardly of our poor
father’s oversight.’
Mr. Durham was urgent to have the wedding-
day fixed, and Jane reluctant merely and barely
for form’s sake. A day in August was named,
and the honeymoon pre-devoted to Paris and
Switzerland. Then Miss Charlmont pronounced
it time to return home; and was resolute that
the wedding should take place at Brompton-
on-Sea, not at Notting Hill as the hospitable
Tykes proposed.
Jane was now nothing loth to quit town ;
Mr. Durham unwilling to lose her, yet willing as
recognising the step for an unavoidable pre-
liminary. Nevertheless, he felt hurt at Jane’s
indifference to the short separation; whilst Jane,
in her turn, felt worried at his expecting any
show of sentiment from her, though, having once
fathomed his feelings, she kept the worry to
herself and produced the sentiment. He looked
genuinely concerned when they parted at London-
COMMONPLACE. 93
Bridge Station ; but Jane never in her life had
experienced a greater relief than now, when the
starting train left him behind on the platform.
A few more days, and it would be too late to
leave him behind: but she consoled herself by
reflecting that without him she might despair
of ever seeing Paris; Switzerland was secondary
in her eyes.
Miss Drum had often set as a copy, ‘ Manners
make the Man,’ and explained to her deferential
pupils how in that particular phrase ‘ Man’ in-
cludes ‘Woman. Catherine in later life reflected
that ‘Morals make the Man’ (including Woman)
conveys a not inferior truth. Jane might have
modified the sentence a trifle further, in employ-
ing it as an M copy, and have written, ‘Money
makes the Man.’
94
CHAPTERGATE
Lucy welcomed her sisters home, after an
absence of unprecedented duration, with warm-
hearted pleasure, but Jane went far to ex-
tinguish the feeling.
In the heyday of her blooming youth and
satisfaction, she was not likely to acquire any
tender tact lacking at other times; and an
elder sister, mentally set down in her catalogue
of old maids, was fair game.
‘Why, Lucy,’ she cried, as they sat together
the first evening, herself the only idler of the
three, ‘you look as old as George, and about
as lively: Miss Drum must be catching.’
‘Do leave Miss Drum alone,’ Lucy an-
swered, speaking hastily from a double annoy-
ance. ‘And if,—she forced a laugh,—‘surely
if my looks recall George to your mind they
ought to please you.’
COMMONPLACE. 95
But Jane was incorrigible. ‘My dear, George
is Orpingham Place, and Orpingham Place is
George ; but your looks suggest some distinction
between the two. Only think, he expected
me to grow dismal at leaving him _ behind,
and I did positively see his red pockethandker-
chief fluttering in the breeze as we screamed
out of the station. And he actually flattered
himself I should not go out much till the
wedding is over; catch me staying at home
if I can help it! By-the-bye, did you mean a
joke by wrapping his photograph up in the ten-
pound note? it struck me afterwards as really
neat in its way.’
ow lane! @ put in Catherine, and more
she might have added in reproof; but at that
instant the door opened, and Mr. Ballantyne
was announced.
Mr. Ballantyne was a solicitor, related to
Mrs. Gawkins Drum, and taken into partner-
ship by that lady’s husband shortly before
their marriage. Judging by looks, Mr. Bal-
lantyne might have been own nephew to Miss
Drum rather than to her sister-in-law, so neutral
96 COMMONPLACE.
was he in aspect and manner; if ever any
one liked him at first sight, it was because
there was nothing on the surface to stir a
contrary feeling; and if any one volunteered
a confidence to him, it was justified by his
habitual taciturnity, which suggested a me-
chanical aptitude at keeping a secret; yet,
however appearances were against him, he was
a shrewd man of business, and not deficient
in determination of character.
He arrived by appointment to show Miss
Charlmont the draft of her settlement on her
sister, and take, if need be, further instructions.
She was one to see with her own eyes rather
than merely to hear with her own ears, and,
therefore, retired with the papers to the so-
litude of her own room, leaving her sisters
to entertain the visitor.
Thus left, Mr. Ballantyne took a respectful
look at Jane, whose good luck in securing the
master of Orpingham Place he considered rare
indeed. - Looking ‘at her ‘he “arrived ate.
conclusion that Mr. Durham also had _ been
lucky. Jane just glanced at Mr. Ballantyne,
COMMONPLACE. 97
mentally appraising him as a nonentity; but
in that glance she saw his admiration; ad-
miration always propitiated her, and she deigned
to be gracious.
Various maiden ladies in Brompton-on-Sea
would have been gracious to Mr. Ballantyne
from a different motive. Though still a youngish
man he was a widower, already in easy cir-
cumstances, and with a prospect of growing
rich. His regard for his late wife’s memory
was most decorous, but not such as to keep
him inconsolable; and his only child, Frank,
being no more than five years old and healthy,
need scarcely be viewed as a domestic draw-
back ; indeed, certain spinsters treated’ the
boy with a somewhat demonstrative affection,
but these ladies were obviously not in their
teens.
Mr. Ballantyne meanwhile, though mildly
courteous to all, had not singled out any one for
avowed preference. Possibly he liked Miss Edith
Sims, a doctor’s daughter, a bold equestrian,
a first-rate croquet player; she hoped so sin-
cerely, for she had unbecoming carroty hair
H
98 COMMONPLACE.
and freckles ; possibly he liked Lucy Charlmont,
but she had never given the chance a thought.
Of Miss Charlmont, whom he had seen twice,
and both times exclusively on business, he
stood in perceptible awe. ;
Catherine, finding nothing to object to in
the draft, returned it to Mr. Ballantyne with
her full assent. Then tea was brought in,
and Mr. Ballantyne was asked to stay. His
aptitude for carrying cups and plates, recog-
nised and admired in other circles, here re-
mained in abeyance; Miss Charlmont adhering
to the old fashion of people sitting round the
tea-table at tea no less formally than round
the dining-table at dinner.
A plan for a picnic having been set on
foot by the Gawkins Drums, Lucy had been
invited, and had accepted before Jane’s en-
gagement was announced. So now Mr. Bal-
lantyne mentioned the picnic, taking for granted
that Lucy would join, and empowered by the
projectors to ask her sisters also; Jane brightened
at the proposal, being secretly charmed at a
prospect of appearing amongst her familiar
COMMONPLACE. 99
associates as mistress elect of Orpingham Place ;
but Catherine demurred,—
‘Thank you, Mr. Ballantyne; I will call
myself and thank Mrs. Drum, but Mr. Durham
might object, and I will stay at home with
my sister. No doubt we shall find future
opportunities of all meeting.’
‘Dear me!’ cried Jane; ‘Mr. Durham isn’t
Bluebeard; or, if he is, I had better get a
little fun first. My compliments, please, and
I shall be too glad to come.’
‘Oh, Jane!’ remonstrated Miss Charlmont ;
but it was a hopeless remonstrance. Jane, once
bent on amusement, was not to be deterred
by doubtful questions of propriety; and the
elder sister, mortified, but more anxious for
the offender’s credit than for her own dignity,
changed her mind perforce, and, with a sigh,
accepted the invitation. If Jane was deter-
mined to go, she had better go under a middle-
aged sister’s eye; but the party promised
to be a large one, including various strange
gentlemen, and Catherine honestly judged it
objectionable.
100 COMMONPLACE.
Jane, however, was overflowing with glee,
and questioned Mr. Ballantyne energetically as
to who were coming. When he was gone
she held forth to her sisters,—
‘That hideous Edith Sims, of course she
will ride over on Brunette, to show her figure
and her bridle hand. I shall wear pink, and
sit next her to bring out her freckles. I’ve
not forgotten her telling people I had no
fortune. Don’t you see she’s trying to hook
Mr. Ballantyne? you heard him say she has
been consulting him about something or other.
Let’s drive Mr. Ballantyne over in our carriage,
and the baby can perch on the box.’
Lucy said, ‘ Nonsense, Jane; Mr. Ballantyne |
has his own dog-cart, and he is tiresome enough
without keeping him all to ourselves.’
And Catherine added, this time peremp-
torily, ‘My dear, that is not to be thought
of; I could not justify it to Mr. Durham.
Either you will drive over with Lucy and me,
and any other person I may select, or you
must find a carriage for yourself, as I shall
not go to the picnic.’
IOI
CHAPTER XII
THE environs of Brompton-on-Sea were rich in
spots adapted to picnics, and the Gawkins Drums
had chosen the very prettiest of these eligible
spots. Rocky Drumble, a green glen of the
floweriest, but with fragments of rock showing
here and there, possessed an echo point and a
dripping well: it was, moreover, accredited by
popular tradition with a love-legend, and, on
the same authority, with a ghost for moonlight
nights. Rocky Drumble was threaded from
end to end by a stream which nourished water-
cresses ; at one season its banks produced wild
strawberries, at another nuts, sometimes mush-
rooms. All the year round the glen was fre-
quented by song-birds; not seldom a squirrel
~would scamper up a tree, or a rabbit sit upright
on the turf, winking his nose. Rocky Drumble on
102 COMMONPLACE.
a sunny summer-day was a bower of cool shade,
and of a silence heightened, not broken, by
sounds of birds and of water, the stream at hand,
the sea not far off; a bower of sun-chequered
shade, breaths of wind every moment shifting
the shadows, and the sun making its way in,
now here, now there, with an endless, monoto-
nous changeableness.
On such a day the Charlmonts drove to their
rendezvous in Rocky Drumble. The carriage
held four inside; Miss Drum and Catherine
sitting forward, with Lucy and Jane opposite.
On the box beside the driver perched little
Frank Ballantyne, very chatty and merry at
first; but to be taken inside and let fall asleep
when, as was foreseen, he should grow tired.
The child had set his heart on going to the pic-
nic, and good Miss Drum had promised to take
care of him—Miss Drum nominally, Lucy by
secret understanding, for the relief of her old
friend.
Miss Drum wore a drawn silk bonnet, which
had much in common with the awning of a
bathing-machine. Catherine surmounted her
COMMONPLACE. 103
inevitable cap by a broad-brimmed brown straw
hat. Lucy wore a similar hat without any cap
under it, but looked, in fact, the elder of the
two. Jane, who never sacrificed complexion to
fashion, also appeared in a shady hat, dove-
coloured, trimmed with green leaves, under which
she produced a sort of apple-blossom effect, in
a cloud of pink muslin over white, and white
appliquée again over the pink. Catherine had
wished her to dress soberly, but Jane had no
notion of obscuring her beauties. She had bar-
gained with Mr. Durham that he was not to
come down to Brompton-on-Sea till the after-
noon before the wedding; and when he looked
hurt at her urgency, had assumed an air at once
affectionate and reserved, assuring him that this
course seemed to her due to the delicacy of their
mutual relations. Five days were still wanting
to the wedding-day, George was not yet inalien-
ably at her elbow, and no moment could appear
more favourable for enjoyment. Surely if a
skeleton promised to preside at the next ban-
quet, this present feast was all the more to be
relished : for though, according to Jane’s defini-
104 COMMONPLACE.
tion, George was Orpingham Place, she would -
certainly have entered upon Orpingham Place
with added zest had it not entailed George.
Miss Charlmont had delayed starting till the
very last moment, not wishing to make more of
the picnic than could be helped ; and when she
with her party reached the Drumble, they found
their friends already on the spot. The last-
comers were welcomed with a good deal of
friendly bustle, and half-a-dozen gentlemen, in
scarcely more than as many minutes, were pre-
sented to Jane by genial little Mrs. Drum, who
had never seen her before, and was charmed at
first sight. Jane, happily for Catherine’s peace
of mind, assumed an air of dignity in unison
with her distinguished prospects: she was gra-
cious rather than coquettish—gracious to all,
but flattering to none; a change from former
days, when her manner used to savour of coaxing.
Edith Sims had ridden over on Brunette, and
Jane, keeping her word as to sitting next her,
produced the desired effect.
The Charlmonts coming late, every one was
ready for luncheon on their arrival, and no
COMMONPLACE. 105
strolling was permitted before the meal. As to
the luncheon, it included everything usual and
nothing unusual, and most of the company
consuming it displayed fine, healthy appetites.
Great attention was paid to Jane, who was be-
yond all comparison the best-looking woman
present ; whilst two or three individuals made
mistakes between Catherine and Lucy, as to
which was Miss Charlmont.
Poor Lucy! she had seldom felt more heavy-
hearted than now, as she sat talking and laugh-
ing. She felt. herself getting more and more
worn-looking as she talked and laughed on,
getting visibly older and more faded. How she
wished that Frank, who had fallen asleep on a
plaid after stuffing unknown sweets into his
system—how she wished that Frank would
wake and become troublesome, to give her some
occupation less intolerable than ‘grinning and
bearing !’
Luncheon over, the party broke up, splitting
into twos and threes, and scattering themselves
here and there through the Drumble. Miss
Charlmont attaching herself doggedly to Jane,
106 COMMONPLACE.
found herself clambering up and down banks and
stony excrescences in company with a very young
Viscount and his tutor: as she clambered exas-
peration waxed within her at the futility of the
young men’s conversation and the complacency |
of Jane’s rejoinders ; certainly, had any one been
studying Catherine’s face (which nobody was), he
would have beheld an unwonted aspect at a picnic.
Miss Drum, ostentatiously aged because in
company with her brother and his bride, had
chosen before luncheon was well over to wrap
herself up very warmly, and ensconce herself for
an avowed nap inside one of the flys. ‘You
can call me for tea,’ she observed to Lucy ; ‘and
when Frank tires you, you can leave him in the
carriage with me.’ But Frank was Lucy’s one
resource : minding him served as an excuse for
not joining Mr. Drum, who joked, or Mr. Ballan-
tyne, who covertly stared at her, or Edith Sims,
who lingering near Mr. Ballantyne talked of
horses, or any other person whose conversation
was more tedious than silence.
When Frank woke, he recollected that nurse
had told him strawberries grew in the Drumble;
COMMONPLACE. 107
a fact grasped by him without the drawback of
any particular season. Off he started in quest
of strawberries, and Lucy zealously started in
his wake, not deeming it necessary to undeceive
him. The little fellow’ wandered and peered
about diligently awhile after imaginary straw-
berries ; failing these, he suddenly clamoured for
a game at hide-and-seek: he would hide, and
Lucy must not look.
They were now among the main fragments
of rock found in the Drumble, out of sight of
their companions. Lucy had scarcely shut her
eyes as desired, when a shout of delight made
her open them still more quickly, in time to
see Frank scampering, as fast as his short legs
would carry him, after a scampering rabbit. He
was running—she recollected it in an instant—
headlong towards the stream, and was already
some yards from her. She called after him, but
he did not turn, only cried out some unintelli-
gible answer in his babyish treble. Fear lent
her speed ; she bounded after him, clearing huge
stones and brushwood with instinctive accuracy.
She caught at his frock—missed it—caught at
108 COMMONPLACE.
it again—barely grasped it—and fell, throwing
him also down in her fall. She fell on stones
and brambles, bruising and scratching herself
severely: but the child was safe, and she knew
it, before she fainted away, whilst even in fainting
her hand remained tightly clenched on his frock.
Frank’s frightened cries soon brought friends
to their assistance. Lucy, still insensible, was
lifted on to smooth turf, and then sprinkled with
water till she came to herself. In few words, for
she felt giddy and hysterical but was resolute
not to give way, she accounted for the accident,
blaming herself for having carelessly let the child
run into danger. It was impossible for any car-
riage to drive so far along the Drumble, so she
had to take some one’s arm to steady her in
walking to meet the fly. Mr. Ballantyne, as pale
as a sheet, offered his arm ; but she preferred Mr.
Drum’s, and leaned heavily on it for support.
Lucy was soon safe in the fly by Miss Drum’s
side, whose nap was brought to a sudden end,
and who, waking scared and fidgety, was dis-
posed to lay blame on every one impartially,
beginning with herself, and ending, in a tempered
COMMONPLACE. 109
form, with Lucy. The sufferer thus disposed of,
and packed for transmission home, the remaining
picnickers, influenced by Mrs. Drum’s obvious
bias, declined to linger for rustic tea or other
pleasures, and elected then and there to return
to their several destinations. The party mus-
tered round the carriages ready to take their
seats: but where were Catherine and Jane,
Viscount and_ tutor ? Shouting was tried,
whistling was tried, ‘Cooee’ was tried by
amateur Australians for the nonce: all in vain.
At last Dr. Sims stepped into the fly with Lucy,
promising to see her safe home; Miss Drum,
smelling-bottle in hand, sat sternly beside her;
Frank, after undergoing a paternal box on the
ear, was degraded from the coachman’s box to
the back seat, opposite the old lady, who turned
towards him the aspect as of an ogress: and
thus the first carriage started, with Edith rein-
ing in Brunette beside it. The others followed
without much delay, one carriage being left for
the truants; and its driver charged to explain, if
possible without alarming the sisters, what had
happened to cut short the picnic.
IIO
CHAPTER. iM
THE day before the wedding Lucy announced
that she still felt too much bruised and shaken
to make one of the party, either at church or at
- breakfast. . Neither sister contradicted her:
Catherine, because she thought the excuse valid ;
Jane, because Lucy, not having yet lost the
traces of her accident, must have made but a
sorry bridesmaid: and, as Jane truly observed,
there were enough without her, for her defection
still left a bevy of eight bridesmaids in capital
working order. ie
Brompton-on-Sea possessed only one hotel
of any pretensions,—‘ The Duke’s Head,’ so
designated in memory of that solitary Royal
Duke who had once made brief sojourn beneath
its roof. He found it a simple inn, bearing the
name and sign of ‘The Three Mermaids ;’ the
COMMONPLACE. tit
mermaids appearing in paint as young persons,
with yellow hair and combs, and faces of a type
which failed to account for their uninterrupted
self-ogling in hand-mirrors ; tails were shadowily
indicated beneath waves of deepest blue. After
the august visit this signboard was superseded
by one representing the Duke as a gentleman
of inane aspect, pointing towards nothing dis-
coverable; and this work of art, in its turn, gave
place to a simple inscription, ‘The Duke’s Head
Hotel.’
Call it by what name you would, it was as
snug a house of entertainment as rational man
or reasonable beast need desire,.with odd little
rooms opening out of larger rooms and off stair-
cases ; the only trace now visible of the Royal
Duke’s sojourn (beyond the bare inscription of
his title) being Royal Sentries in coloured paste-
board effigy, the size of life, posted on certain
landings and at certain entrances. All the
windowsills bore green boxes of flowering plants,
whence a sweet smell, mostly of mignonette,
made its way within doors. The best apart-
ments looked into a square courtyard, turfed
112 COMMONPLACE.
along three sides, and frequented by pigeons ;
and the pigeon-house, standing in a turfy corner,
was topped by a bright silvered ball.
The landlord of the ‘Duke’s Head, a thin,
tallowy-complexioned man, with a manner which
might also be described as unpleasantly oily or
tallowy, was in a bustle that same day, and all
his household was bustling around him: for not
merely had the ‘Duke’s Head’ undertaken to
furnish the Durham-Charlmont wedding-break-
fast with richness and elegance, but the bride-
groom elect, whom report endowed with a
pocketful of plums, the great Mr. Durham him-
self, with sundry fashionable friends, was coming
down to Brompton-on-Sea by the 5.30 train,
and would put up for one night at the ‘ Duke’s
Head.’ The waiters donned their whitest neck-
cloths, the waitresses their pinkest caps; the
landlady, in crimson gown and gold chain, loomed
like a local Mayor; the landlord shone, as it
were, snuffed and trimmed: never, since the
era of that actual Royal Duke, had the ‘Duke’s
Head’ smiled such a welcome.
Mr. Durham, stepping out of the carriage on
COMMONPLACE. 113
to the railway platform, and followed by Alan
Hartley, Stella, and Arthur Tresham, indulged
hopes that Jane might be there to meet him,
and was disappointed. Not that the matter had
undergone no discussion. Miss Charlmont, that
unavoidable drive home from the picnic with a
young Viscount and a tutor for vwzs-d-vis still
rankling in her mind, had said, ‘ My dear,
there would be no impropriety in our meeting
George at the Station, and he would certainly
be gratified. But Jane had answered, ‘ Dear me,
sister! George will keep, and I’ve not a moment °
to spare; only don’t stay at home for me.’
So no one met Mr. Durham. But when he
presented himself at the private house on the
Esplanade, Jane showed herself all smiling wel-
come, and made him quite happy by her pretty
ways. True, she insisted on his not spending
the evening with her; but she hinted so tenderly
at such restrictions vanishing on the morrow,
and so modestly at remarks people might make
if he did stay, that he was compelled to yield
the point and depart in great admiration of her
reserve, though he could not help recollecting
I
114 COMMONPLACE.
that his first wooing had progressed and pros-
pered without any such amazing proprieties.
But then the mother of Everilda Stella had seen
the light in a second-floor back room at Gates-
head, and had married out of a circle where
polite forms were not in the ascendant ; whereas
Jane Charlmont looked like a Duchess, or an
Angel, or Queen Venus herself, and was alto-
gether a different person. So Mr. Durham,
discomfited, but acquiescent, retreated to the
‘Duke’s Head,’ and there consoled himself with
more turtle-soup and crusty old port jthan
Dr. Tyke would have sanctioned. Unfortunately
Dr. and Mrs. Tyke were not coming down till
the latest train that night from London, so
Mr. Durham gorged unrebuked. He had seen
Lucy, and taken rather a fancy to her, in spite
of her blemished face, and had pressed her to
visit Orpingham Place as soon as ever he and
Jane should have returned from the Continent.
He preferred Lucy to Catherine, with whom he
never felt quite at ease; she was so decided and
self-possessed, and so much better bred than
himself. Not that Backbone Durham admitted
COMMONPLACE. I15
this last point of superiority ; he did not acknow-
ledge, but he winced under it. Lucy on her
side had found him better than his photograph;
and that was something.
After tea she was lying alone on the drawing-
room sofa in the pleasant summer twilight;
alone, because her sisters were busy over Jane’s
matters upstairs; alone with her own thoughts.
She was thinking of very old days, and of days
not so old and much more full of interest. She
tried to think of Jane and her prospects; but
against her will Alan Hartley’s image intruded
itself on her reverie, and she could not banish
it. She knew from Mr. Durham that he had
come down for the wedding; she foresaw that
they must meet, and shrank from the ordeal,
even whilst she wondered how he would behave
and how she herself should behave. Alone,
and in the half darkness, she burned with shame-
faced dread of her own possible weakness, and
mortified self-love wrung tears from her eyes
as she inwardly prayed for help.
The door opened, the maid announced Mr.
and Mrs. Hartley.
116 COMMONPLACE.
Lucy, startled, would have risen to receive
them, but Stella was too quick for her, and
seizing both her hands, pressed her gently
backwards on the sofa. ‘Dear Miss Charl-
mont, you must not make a stranger of me,
and my husband is an old friend. Mayn't
I call you Lucy?’
So this was Alan’s wife, this little, winning
woman, still almost a child; this winning woman,
who had won the only man Lucy ever cared
for. It cost Lucy an effort to answer, and
to make her welcome by her name of Stella.
_ Then Alan came forward and shook hands,
looking cordial and handsome, with that kind
tone of voice and tenderness of manner which
had deceived poor Lucy once, but must never
deceive her again. He began talking of their
pleasant acquaintanceship in days of yore, of
amusements they had shared, of things done
together, and things spoken and not forgotten ;
it required the proof positive of Stella seated
there smiling in her hat and scarlet feather,
and with the wedding-ring on her small hand,
to show even now that Alan only meant friend-
COMMONPLACE, 117
liness, when he might seem to mean so much
more.
Lucy revolted under the fascination of his
manner; feeling angry with herself that he
still could wield power over her fancy, and
anery a little with him for having made him-
self so much to her and no more. She insisted
on leaving the sofa, rang the bell for a second
edition of tea, and sent up the visitors’ names
to her sisters. When they came down she
turned as much shoulder as good breeding
tolerated towards Alan, and devoted all the
attention she could command to Stella. Soon
the two were laughing together over some
feminine little bit of fun; then Lucy brought
out an intricate piece of tatting, which, when
completed, was to find its way to Notting
Hill—the antimacassar of Mr. Durham’s first
visit there being, in fact, her handiwork; and, —
lastly, Lucy, once more for the moment with
pretty pink cheeks and brightened eyes, con-
voyed her new friend upstairs to inspect Jane’s
‘ bridal dress, white satin, under Honiton lace.
When the visit was over, and Lucy safe
118 COMMONPLACE.
in the privacy of her own room, a sigh of
relief escaped her, followed by a sentiment of
deep thankfulness; she had met Alan again,
and he had disappointed her. Yes, the spectre
which had haunted her for weeks past had,
at length, been brought face to face and had
vanished. Perhaps surprise at his marriage
had magnified her apparent disappointment,
perhaps dread of continuing to love another
woman’s husband had imparted a morbid and
unreal sensitiveness to her feelings; be this
as it might, she had now seen Alan again,
and had felt irritated by the very manner
that used to charm. In the revulsion of her
feelings she was almost ready to deem herself
fortunate and Stella pitiable.
She felt excited, exalted, triumphant rather
than happy; a little pained, and, withal, very
glad. Life seemed to glow within her, her
blood to course faster and fuller, her heart to
throb, lightened of a load. Recollections which
she had not dared face alone, Mr. Hartley,
by recalling, had stripped of their dangerous
charm ; had stripped of the tenderness she had
COMMONPLACE. IIg
dreaded, and the sting under which she had
writhed; for he was the same, yet not the
same. Now, for the first time, she suspected
him not indeed of hollowness, but of shallow-
ness.
She threw open her window to the glorious
August moon and stars, and, leaning out, drank
deep of the cool night air. She ceased to
think of persons, of events, of feelings; her
whole heart swelled, and became uplifted with
a thankfulness altogether new to her, profound,
transporting. When at length she slept, it
was with moist eyes and smiling lips.
I20
CHAPTI-ARGAw
THE wedding was over. Jane might have looked
still prettier but for an unmistakable expression
of gratified vanity; Mr. Durham might have
borne himself still more pompously but for a
deep-seated, wordless conviction, that his bride
and her family looked down upon him. Months
of scheming and weeks of fuss had ended in
a marriage, to which the,one party brought
neither refinement nor tact, and the other neither
respect nor affection.
Wedding guests, however, do not assemble
to witness exhibitions of respect or affection,
and may well dispense with tact and refine-
ment when delicacies not in season are pro-
vided; therefore, the party on the Esplanade
waxed gay as befitted the occasion, and ex-
pressed itself in toasts of highly improbable
import.
COMMONPLACE. 12a
The going off was, perhaps, the least suc-
cessful point of the show. Catherine viewed
flinging shoes as superstitious, Jane as vulgar;
therefore no shoes were to be flung. Mr.
Durham might have made head against ‘ super-
stitious, but dared not brave ‘vulgar; so he
kept to himself the fact that he should hardly
feel thoroughly married without a tributary shoe,
and meanly echoed Jane’s scorn. But Stella,
who knew her father’s genuine sentiment, chose
to ignore ‘superstition’ and ‘vulgarity’ alike;
so, at the last moment, she snatched off her
own slipper, and dexterously hurled it over
the carriage, to Jane’s disgust (no love was
lost between the two young ladies), and to
Mr. Durham’s inward satisfaction.
Lucy had not joined the wedding party,
not caring overmuch to see Jane marry the
man who served her as a butt; but she peeped
wistfully at the going off, with forebodings in
her heart, which turned naturally into prayers,
for the ill-matched couple. In the evening,
however, when many of the party had re-
turned to London, the few real friends and
I22 COMMONPLACE.
familiar acquaintances who reassembled as Miss
Charlmont’s guests found Lucy in the drawing-
room, wrapped up in something gauzily be-
coming to indicate that she had been ill, and
looking thin under her wraps.
In Miss Charlmont’s idea a wedding-party
should be at once mirthful and grave, neither
dull nor frivolous. Dancing and cards were
frivolous, conversation might prove dull; games
were all frivolous except chess, which, being
exclusive, favoured general dulness. These
points she had impressed several times on Lucy,
who was suspected of an inopportune hankering
after bagatelle; and who now sat in the snuggest
corner of the sofa, feeling shy, and at a loss
what topic to start that should appear neither
dull nor frivolous.
Dr. Tyke relieved her by turning her em-
barrassment into a fresh channel: what had
she been doing to make herself ‘look like a
turnip-ghost before its candle is lighted ??
‘My dear Lucy!’ cried Mrs. Tyke, loud
enough for everybody to hear her, ‘you really
do look dreadful, as if you were moped to
COMMONPLACE. 124
death. You had much better come with the
Doctor and me to the Lakes. Now I beg
you to say yes, and come.’
Alan heard with good-natured concern;
Arthur Tresham heard as if he heard not.
But the first greeting had been very cordial
between him and Lucy, and he had not seemed
to remark her faded face.
‘Yes, resumed Dr. Tyke. ‘Now that’s
settled. You pack up to-night and start with
us to-morrow, and you shall be doctored with
the cream of drugs for nothing.’
But Lucy said the plan was preposterous,
and she felt old and lazy.
Mrs. Tyke caught her up: ‘Old? my dear
child! and I feeling young to this day !’
And the Doctor added: ‘Why not be pre-
posterous and happy? “ Quel che piace giova,”
as our sunny neighbours say. Besides, your ©
excuses are incredible: “ Not at home,” as the
snail answered to the woodpecker’s rap.’
Lucy laughed, but stood firm; Catherine
protesting that she should please herself. At
last a compromise was struck: Lucy, on her
124 COMMONPLACE.
cousins’ return from their tour, should go to
Notting Hill, and winter there if the change
did her good. ° ‘If. not,” saic@eaieweweari:
‘I shall come home again, to be nursed by
Catherine.’
‘If not,’ said Dr. Tyke, gravely for once,
‘we may think about our all seeing Naples
together.’
Edith Sims, her hair and complexion toned
down by candlelight, sat wishing Mr. Ballantyne
would come and talk to her; and Mr. Ballan-
tyne, unmindful of Edith at the other end of
the room, sat making up his mind. Before the
accident in the Drumble he had thought of Lucy
with a certain distinction, since that accident he
had felt uncomfortably in her debt, and now
he sat reflecting that, once gone for the winter,
she might be gone for good so far as himself
was concerned. She was nice-looking and
amiable; she was tender towards little mother-
less Frank; her fortune stood above rather than
below what he had proposed to himself in a
second wife:—if Edith could have read his
thoughts, she would have smiled less compla-
:
COMMONPLACE. 125
cently when at last he crossed over to talk to
her of Brunette and investments, and when later
still he handed her in to supper. As it was,
candlelight and content became her, and she
looked her best.
Mrs. Gawkins Drum, beaming with good will,
and harmonious in silver-grey moire under old
point lace, contrasted favourably with her angular
sister-in-law, whose strict truthfulness forbade
her looking congratulatory: for now that she
had seen the ‘elegant man of talent’ of her pre-
visions, she could not but think that Jane had
married his money-bags rather than himself:
therefore Miss Drum looked severe, and when
viewed in the light of a wedding guest,
ominous.
Catherine, no less conscientious than her old
friend, took an opposite line, and laboured her
very utmost to hide mortification and mis-
givings, and to show forth that cheerful hospi-
tality which befitted the occasion when con-
templated from an ideal point of view; but ease
was not amongst her natural gifts, and she failed
to acquire it on the spur of an uneasy moment.
126 COMMONPLACE.
Warners make the Man,’ ‘Morals make the
Man,’ kept running obstinately in her head, and
she could not fit Mr. Durham to either sentence.
In all Brompton-on-Sea there was no heavier
heart that night than Catherine Charlmont’s.
CHAPTER XVI.
NOVEMBER had come, the Tykes were settled
at home again, and Lucy Charlmont sat in a
railway-carriage on her way from Brompton-on-
Sea to Notting Hill. Wrapped up in furs, and
with a novel open on her lap, she looked very
snug in her corner; she looked, moreover,
plumper and brighter than at Jane’s wedding-
party. But her expression of unmistakable
amusement was not derived from the novel
lying unread in her lap: it had its source in
recollections of Mr. Ballantyne, who had made
her an offer the day before, and who had ob-
viously been taken aback when she rejected
his suit. All her proneness to bring herself in
in the wrong could not make her fear that she
had even for one moment said or done, looked
or thought, what ought to have misled him:
128 COMMONPLACE.
therefore conscience felt at ease, and the comic
side of his demeanour remained to amuse her,
despite a decorous wish to feel sorry for him.
He had looked so particularly unimpulsive in
the act of proposing, and then had appeared
so much more disconcerted than grieved at her
positive ‘No,’ and had ‘hinted so broadly that
he hoped she would not talk about his offer,
that she could not imagine the matter very
serious to him: and if not to him assuredly to
nobody else. ‘I dare say it will be Edith Sims
at last,’ mused she, and wished them both well.
A year earlier his offer might have been a
matter of mere indifference to her, but not now;
for her birthday was just over, and it was
eratifying to find herself not obsolete even at
thirty. This birthday had loomed before her
threateningly for months past, but now it was
over; and it became a sensible relief to feel
and look at thirty very much as she had felt
and looked at twenty-nine. Her mirror bore
witness to no glaring accession of age having
come upon her in a single night. ‘After all,
she mused, ‘life isn’t over at thirty. Her
COMMONPLACE. 129
thoughts flew before her to Notting Hill; if
they dwelt on any one in especial, it was not
on Alan Hartley.
Not on Alan Hartley, though she foresaw
that they must meet frequently; for he and
Stella were at Kensington again, planning to
stay there over Christmas. Stella she rather
_ liked than disliked; and as she no longer deemed
her lot enviable, to see more of her would
be no grievance. Mr. Tresham also was in
London, and likely to remain there; for since
his return from the East he had taken himself
to task for idleness, and had joined a band of
good men in an effort to visit and relieve the
East-end poor in their squalid homes. His
hobby happened to be emigration, but he did
not ride his hobby rough-shod over his destitute
neighbours. He was in London hard at work,
and by no means faring sumptuously every
day; but glad sometimes to get a mouthful of
pure night air and of something more substan-
tial at Notting Hill. He and Lucy had not
merely renewed acquaintance at the wedding-
party, but had met more than once afterwards
K
130 COMMONPLACE.
during a week’s holiday he gave himself at the
seaside; had met on the beach, or in country
lanes, or down in some of the many drumbles.
They had botanised in company; and one day
had captured a cuttle-fish together, which Lucy
insisted on putting safe back into the sea before
they turned homewards. ‘They. had talked of
what grew at their feet or lay before their eyes;
but neither of them had alluded to those old
days when first they had known and liked each
other, though they obviously liked each other
still.
Lucy, her thoughts running on some one
who was not Alan, would have made a very
pretty picture.
success to-morrow: may it be greater than the
past, and less than the future!’
‘Not so,’ answered Titian, suddenly; ‘not
so: I feel my star culminate.’
He said it gravely, pushing back his seat,
and rising from table. His spirits seemed in
a moment to flag, and he looked pale in the
moonlight. It was as though the blight of the
evil eye had fallen upon him.
Gianni saw his disquiet, and laboured to re-
move it. He took a lute from the floor, and
tuning it, exerted his skill in music. He wrung
from the strings cries of passion, desolate sobs,
a wail as’ of one abandoned, plaintive, most
tender tones as of the solitario passero. The
charm worked: vague uneasiness was melting
into delicious melancholy. He redoubled his
efforts; he drew out tinkling notes joyful as the
feet of dancers; he struck notes like fire, and,
THE LOST TITIAN. I51
uniting his voice to the instrument, sang the
glories of Venice and of Titian. His voice, full,
mellow, exultant, vibrated through the room ;
and, when it ceased, the bravos of his friends
rang out an enthusiastic chorus.
Then, more stirring than the snap of cas-
tanets on dexterous fingers; more fascinating,
more ominous, than a snake’s rattle, sounded
the music of the dice-box.
The stakes were high, waxing higher, and
higher ; the tide of fortune set steadily towards
Titian. Giannuccione laughed and _ played,
played and laughed with reckless good-nature,
doubling and redoubling his bets apparently
quite at random. At length, however, he
paused, yawned, laid down the dice. observing
that it would cost him a good six months’ toil
to pay off his losses—a remark which elicited
a peculiar smile of intelligence from his com-
panions—and, lounging back upon the cushions,
fell fast asleep.
Gianni also had been a loser: Gianni the
imperturbable, who won and lost alike with
steady hand and unvarying colour. Rumour
152 THE LOST TITIAN:
stated that one evening he lost, won back, lost
once more, and finally regained his whole pro-
perty unmoved: at last only relinquishing the
game, which fascinated, but could not excite
him, for lack of an adversary.
In like manner he now threw his possessions,
as coolly as if they been another’s, piecemeal
into the gulph. First his money went, then his
collection of choice sketches ; his gondola fol-
lowed, his plate, his jewelry. These gone, for
the first time he laughed.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘amico mio, let us throw
the crowning cast. I stake thereon myself; if
you win, you may sell me to the Moor to-
morrow, with the remnant of my patrimony ;
to wit, one house, containing various articles of
furniture and apparel; yea, if aught else remains
to me, that also do I stake: against these set
you your newborn beauty, and let us throw for
the last time; lest it be said cogged dice are
used in Venice, and I be taunted with the true
proverb,—* Save me from my friends, and I will
take care of my enemies.’
‘So be it, mused Titian, “eGvenweonssa san
THE LOST TITIAN. 153
gain, my friend shall not suffer; if I lose, I can
but buy back my treasure with this night’s
winnings. His whole fortune will stand Gianni
in more stead than my picture; moreover, luck
favours me. Besides, it can only be that my
friend jests, and would try my confidence.’
So argued Titian, heated by success, by
wine and play. But for these, he would freely
have restored his adversary’s fortune, though it
had been multiplied tenfold, and again tenfold,
rather than have risked his life’s labour on the
hazard of the dice.
They threw.
Luck had turned, and Gianni was successful.
Titian, nothing doubting, laughed as he
looked up from the table into his companion’s
face; but no shadow of jesting lingered there.
Their eyes met, and read each other's heart at a
glance.
One, discerned the gnawing envy of a life
satiated : a thousand mortifications, a thousand
inferiorities, compensated in a moment.
The other, read an indignation that even yet
scarcely realised the treachery which kindled
154 THE LOST TITIAN,
it; a noble indignation, that more upbraided
the false friend than the destroyer of a life’s
hope.
It was a nine-days’ wonder in Venice what
had become of Titian’s masterpiece ; who had
spirited it away,—why, when, and where. Some
explained the mystery by hinting that Cle-—
mentina Beneplacida, having gained secret access
to the great master’s studio, had there, by dint
of scissors, avenged her slighted beauty, and
in effigy defaced her nut-brown rival. Others
said that Giannuccione, paying tipsy homage
to his friend’s performance, had marred its yet
moist surface. Others again averred, that in
a moment of impatience, Titian’s own sponge
flung against the canvas, had irremediably
blurred the principal figure. None knew, none
guessed the truth. Wonder fulfilled its little
day, and then, subsiding, was forgotten: having,
it may be, after all, as truly amused Venice
the volatile as any work of art could have
done, though it had robbed sunset of its glow,
its glory, and its fire.
THE LOST TITIAN. 155
But why was the infamy of that night
kept secret?
By Titian, because in blazoning abroad his
companion’s treachery, he would subject him-
self to the pity of those from whom he scarcely
accepted homage; and, in branding Gianni
as a traitor, he would expose himself as a
dupe. .
By Gianni, because had the truth got wind,
his iniquitous prize might have been wrested
from him, and his malice frustrated in the
moment of triumph; not to mention that ven-
geance had a subtler relish when it kept back
a successful rival from the pinnacle of fame,
than when it merely exposed a friend to hu-
miliation. As artists, they might possibly have
been accounted rivals; as astute men of the
world, never.
Giannuccione had not witnessed all the trans-
actions of that night. Thanks to his drunken
sleep, he knew little; and what he guessed,
Titian’s urgency induced him to suppress. It
was, indeed, noticed how, from that time for-
ward, two of the three inseparables appeared
156 THE LOST TITIAN.
in a measure, estranged from the third; yet
all outward observances of courtesy were con-
tinued, and, if embraces had ceased, bows and
doffings never failed.
For weeks, even for months, Gianni restrained
his love for play, and, painting diligently, la-
boured to rebuild his shattered fortune. All
prospered in his hands. His sketches sold
with unprecedented readiness, his epigrams
charmed the noblest dinner-givers, his verses
and piquant little airs won him admission into
the most exclusive circles. Withal, he seemed
to be steadying. His name no more pointed
stories of drunken frolics in the purlieus of
the city, of mad wagers in the meanest com-
pany, of reckless duels with nameless adversaries.
If now he committed follies, they were com-
mitted in the best society; if he sinned, it
was, at any rate, in a patrician casa; and,
though his morals might not yet be flawless, his
taste was unimpeachable. His boon companions
grumbled, yet could not afford to dispense with
him; his warmest friends revived hopes which
long ago had died away into despair. It was
THE LOST TITIAN. 157
the heyday of his life: fortune and Venice
alike courted him; he had but to sun himself
in their smiles, and accept their favours.
So, nothing loth, he did, and for a while
prospered. But, as the extraordinary stimulus
flagged, the extraordinary energy flagged with
it. Leisure returned, and with leisure the al-
lurements of old pursuits. In proportion as
his expenditure increased, his gains lessened;
and, just when all his property, in fact, be-
longed to his creditors, he put the finishing
stroke to his obvious ruin, by staking and
losing at the gambling-table what was no longer
his own.
That night beheld Gianni grave, dignified,
imperturbable, and a beggar. Next day, his
creditors, princely and plebeian, would be upon
him: everything must go; not a scrap, not a
fragment, could be held back. Even Titian’s
masterpiece would be claimed; that prize for
which he had played away his soul, by which,
it may be, he had hoped to acquire a world-
wide fame, when its mighty author should be
silenced for ever in the dust.
158 THE LOST TITIAN.
Yet to-morrow, not to-night, would be the
day of reckoning; to-night, therefore, was his
own. With a cool head he conceived, with a
steady hand he executed, his purpose. Taking
coarse pigments, such as, when he pleased,
might easily be removed, he daubed over those
figures which seemed to live, and that won-
derful background, which not Titian himself
could reproduce; then, on the blank surface,
he painted a dragon, flaming, clawed, prepos-
terous. One day he would recover his dragon,
recover his Titian under the dragon, and the
world should see.
Next morning the crisis came.
After all, Gianni’s effects were worth more
than had been supposed. They included Gian-
nuccione’s Venus whipping Cupid—how obtained,
who knows ?—a curiously wrought cup, by a
Florentine goldsmith, just then rising into notice ;
within the hollow of the foot was engraved
Benvenuto Cellini, surmounted by an outstretched
hand, symbolic of welcome, and quaintly al-
lusive to the name; a dab by Giorgione, a
scribble of the brush by Titian, and two feet
THE LOST TITIAN. I59
square of genuine Tintoret. The creditors
brightened ; there was not enough for honesty,
but there was ample for the production of a
most decorous bankrupt.
His wardrobe was a study of colour; his
trinkets, few but choice, were of priceless good
taste. Moreover, his demeanour was unimpeach-
able and his delinquencies came to light with
the best grace imaginable. Some called him a
defaulter, but all admitted he was a thorough
gentleman.
Foremost in the hostile ranks stood Titian;
Titian, who now, for the first time since that
fatal evening, crossed his rival’s threshold. His
eye searched eagerly among the heap of name-
less canvasses for one unforgotten beauty, who
had occasioned him such sore heartache; but
he sought in vain; only in the forefront sprawled
a dragon, flaming, clawed, preposterous ; grinned,
twinkled, erected his tail, and flouted him.
‘Yes,’ said Gianni, answering his looks, not
words, yet seeming to address the whole circle,
‘Signort miei, these compose all my gallery.
An immortal sketch, by Messer Tiziano’—here
160 THE LOST TITIAN.
a complimentary bow—‘a veritable Giorgione ;
your own work, Messer Robusti, which needs
no comment of mine to fix its value. A
few productions by feebler hands, yet not devoid
of merit. These are all. The most precious
part of my collection was destroyed (I need
not state, accidentally), three days ago by fire.
That dragon, yet moist, was designed for mine
host, Bevilacqua Mangiaruva; but this morning,
I hear, with deep concern, of his sudden demise.’
Here Lupo Vorace of the Ovco decapitato
stepped forward. He,as he explained at length,
was a man of few words (this, doubtless, in
theory); but to make a long story short, so
charmed was he by the scaly monster that
he would change his sign, accept the ownerless
dragon, and thereby wipe out a voluminous
score which stood against his debtor. Gianni,
with courteous thanks, explained that the
dragon, still moist, was unfit for immediate
transport ; that it should remain in the studio
for a short time longer; and that, as soon as
its safety permitted, he would himself convey
it to the inn of his liberal creditor. But on this
THE LOST TITIAN. 161
point Lupo was inflexible. In diffuse but un-
varying terms he claimed instant possession of
Gianni’s masterstroke. He seized it, reared it
face upwards on to his head, and by his exit
broke up the conclave of creditors.
What remains can be briefly told.
_ Titian, his last hope in this direction wrecked,
returned to achieve, indeed, fresh greatnesses :
but not the less returned to the tedium of
straining after an ideal once achieved, but now
lost for ever. Giannuccione, half amused, half
mortified, at the slighting mention made of his
performances, revenged himself in an epigram,
of which the following is a free translation :—
‘Gianni my friend and I both strove to excel,
But, missing better, settled down in well.
Both fail, indeed ; but not alike we fail—
My forte being Venus’ face, and his a dragon’s tail,’
Gianni, in his ruin, took refuge with a former
friend ; and there, treated almost on the footing
of a friend, employed his superabundant leisure
in concocting a dragon superior in all points to
its predecessor ; but, when this was almost com-
M
162 THE LOST TITIAN.
pleted, this which was to ransom his unsuspected
treasure from the clutches of Lupo, the more
relentless clutches of death fastened upon
himself.’ |
His secret died with him.
An oral tradition of a somewhere extant
lost Titian having survived all historical accu-
racy, and so descended to another age, misled
the learned Dr. Landau into purchasing a
spurious work for the Gallery of Lunenberg ;
and even more recently induced Dr. Dreieck
to expend a large sum on a nominal Titian,
which he afterwards bequeathed to the National
Museum of Saxe Eulenstein. The subject of
this latter painting is a Vintage of red grapes,
full of life and vigour, exhibiting marked talent,
but clearly assignable to the commencement of
a later century.
There remains, however, a hope that some
happy accident may yet restore to the world
the masterpiece of one of her most brilliant
sons.
Reader, should you chance to discern over
wayside inn or metropolitan hotel a dragon
THE LOST TITIAN. 163
pendent, or should you find such an effigy amid
the lumber of a broker’s shop, whether it be red,
green, or piebald, demand it importunately, pay
for it liberally, and in the privacy of home scrub
ee at may be that from behind the dragon
will emerge a fair one, fairer than Andromeda,
and that to you will appertain the honour of
yet further exalting Titian’s greatness in the
eyes of a world.
NICK.
IN DGC.K.
THERE dwelt in a small village, not a thousand
miles from Fairyland, a poor man, who had no
family to labour for or friend to assist. When
I call him poor, you must not suppose he was
a homeless wanderer, trusting to charity for a
night’s lodging; on the contrary, his ‘stone
house, with its green verandah and _ flower-
garden, was the prettiest and snuggest in all
the place, the doctor’s only excepted. Neither
was his store of provisions running low: his
farm supplied him with milk, eggs, mutton,
butter, poultry, and cheese in abundance; his
fields with hops and barley for beer, and wheat
for bread ; his orchard with fruit and cider; and
his kitchen-garden with vegetables and whole-
some herbs. He had, moreover, health, an
168 NICK.
appetite to enjoy all these good things, and
strength to walk about his possessions. No, I
call him poor because, with all these, he was
discontented and envious. It was in vain that
his apples were the largest for miles around, if
his neighbour’s vines were the most productive
by a single bunch; it was in vain that his lambs
were fat and thriving, if some one else’s sheep
bore twins: so, instead of enjoying his own
prosperity, and being glad when his neighbours
prospered too, he would sit grumbling and be-
moaning himself as if every other man’s riches
were his poverty. And thus it was that one
day our friend Nick leaned over Giles Hodge’s
gate, counting his cherries.
‘Yes, he muttered, ‘I wish I were sparrows
to eat them up, or a blight to kill your fine trees
altogether.’
The words were scarcely uttered when he
felt a tap on his shoulder, and looking round,
perceived a little rosy woman, no bigger than a
butterfly, who held her tiny fist clenched in a
menacing attitude. She looked scornfully at
him, and said: ‘Now listen, you churl, you!
NICK. 169
henceforward you shall straightway become
everything you wish; only mind, you must re-
main under one form for at least an hour.’ Then
she gave him a slap in the face, which made his
cheek tingle as if a bee had stung him, and dis-
appeared with just so much sound as a dewdrop
makes in falling.
Nick rubbed his cheek in a pet, pulling wry
faces and showing his teeth. He was boiling
over with vexation, but dared not vent it in
words lest some unlucky wish should escape
him. Just then the sun seemed to shine brighter
than ever, the wind blew spicy from the south;
all Giles’s roses looked redder and larger than
before, while his cherries seemed to multiply,
swell, ripen. He could refrain no longer, but,
heedless of the fairy-gift he had just received,
bf
exclaimed, ‘I wish I were sparrows eating
No sooner said than done: in a moment he
found himself a whole flight of hungry birds,
pecking, devouring, and bidding fair to devas-
tate the envied cherry-trees. But honest Giles
was on the watch hard by; for that very morning
it had struck him he must make nets for the
170 NICK.
protection of his fine fruit. Forthwith he ran
home, and speedily returned with a revolver fur-
nished with quite a marvellous array of barrels.
Pop, bang—pop, bang! he made short work of
the sparrows, and soon reduced the enemy to
one crestfallen biped with broken leg and wing,
who limped to hide himself under a holly-bush.
But though the fun was over, the hour was not;
so Nick must needs sit out his allotted time.
Next a pelting shower came down, which soaked
him through his torn, ruffled feathers ; and then,
exactly as the last drops fell and the sun came
out with a beautiful rainbow, a tabby cat pounced
upon him. Giving himself up for lost, he chirped
in desperation, ‘O, I wish I were a dog to worry
you! Instantly—for the hour was just passed
—in the grip of his horrified adversary, he turned
at bay, a savage bull-dog. A shake, a deep
bite, and poor puss was out of her pain. Nick,
with immense satisfaction, tore her fur to bits,
wishing he could in like manner exterminate all
her progeny. At last, glutted with vengeance,
he lay down beside his victim, relaxed his ears
and tail, and fell asleep.
NICK. 171
Now that tabby-cat was the property and
special pet of no less a personage than the doc-
tor’s lady; so when dinner-time came, and not
the cat, a general consternation pervaded the
household. The kitchens were searched, the
cellars, the attics; every apartment was ran-
sacked; even the watch-dog’s kennel was vi-
sited. Next the stable was rummaged, then the
hay-loft ; lastly, the bereaved lady wandered
disconsolately through her own private garden
into the shrubbery, calling ‘Puss, puss,’ and
looking so intently up the trees as not to per-
ceive what lay close before her feet. Thus it
was that, unawares, she stumbled over Nick, and
trod upon his tail.
Up jumped our hero, snarling, biting, and
rushing at her with such blind fury as to miss.
his aim. She ran, he ran. Gathering up his
strength, he took a flying-leap after his victim ;
her foot caught in the spreading root of an oak-
tree, she fell, and he went over her head, clear
over, into a bed of stinging-nettles. Then she
found breath to raise that fatal cry, ‘Mad dog!’
Nick’s blood curdled in his veins; he would
172 NICK.
have slunk away if he could; but already a
stout labouring-man, to whom he had done
many an ill turn in the time of his humanity,
had spied him, and, bludgeon in hand, was pre-
paring to give chase. However, Nick had the
start of him, and used it too; while the lady,
far behind, went on vociferating, ‘Mad dog,
mad dog!’ inciting doctor, servants, and vaga-
bonds to the pursuit. Finally, the whole
village came pouring out to swell the hue and
cry.
The dog kept ahead gallantly, distancing
more and more the asthmatic doctor, fat Giles,
and, in fact, all his pursuers except the bludgeon-
bearing labourer, who was just near enough to
persecute his tail. Nick knew the magic hour
must be almost over, and so kept forming wish
after wish as he ran,—that he were a viper only
to get trodden on, a thorn to run into some
one’s foot, a man-trap in the path, even the
detested bludgeon to miss its aim and break.
This wish crossed his mind at the propitious -
moment ; the bull-dog vanished, and the labourer,
overreaching himself, fell flat on his face, while
NICK. 173
his weapon struck deep into the earth, and
snapped.
A strict search was instituted after the miss-
ing dog, but without success. During two
whole days the village children were exhorted
to keep indoors and beware of dogs; on the
third an inoffensive bull pup was hanged, and
the panic subsided.
Meanwhile the labourer, with his shattered
stick, walked home in silent wonder, pondering
on the mysterious disappearance. But the
puzzle was beyond his solution; so he only
made up his mind not to tell his wife the whole
story till after tea. He found her preparing
for that meal, the bread and cheese set out,
and the kettle singing softly on the fire. ‘Here’s
something to make the kettle boil, mother,’ said
he, thrusting our hero between the bars and
seating himself; ‘for I’m mortal tired and
thirsty.’
Nick crackled and blazed away cheerfully,
throwing out bright sparks, and lighting up
every corner of the little room. He toasted
the cheese to a nicety, made the kettle boil
174 NICK.
without spilling a drop, set the cat purring with
comfort, and illuminated the pots and pans into
splendour. It was provocation enough to be
burned; but to contribute by his misfortune to
the well-being of his tormentors was still more
ageravating. He heard, too, all their remarks
and wonderment about the supposed mad-dog,
and saw the doctor’s lady’s own maid bring the
labourer five shillings as a reward for his exer-
tions. Then followed a discussion as to what
should be purchased with the gift, till at last it
was resolved to have their best window glazed
with real glass. The prospect of their grandeur
put the finishing-stroke to Nick’s indignation.
Sending up a sudden flare, he wished with all his
might that he were fire to burn the cottage.
Forthwith the flame leaped higher than ever
flame leaped before. It played for a moment
about a ham, and smoked it to a nicety; then,
fastening on the woodwork above the chimney-
corner, flashed full into a blaze. The labourer
ran for help, while his wife, a timid woman, with
three small children, overturned two pails of
water on the floor, and set the beer-tap running.
NICK, 175
This done, she hurried, wringing her hands, to
the door, and threw it wide open. The sudden
draught of air did more mischief than all Nick’s
malice, and fanned him into quite a conflagra-
tion. He danced upon the rafters, melted a
pewter-pot and a pat of butter, licked up the
beer, and was just making his way towards the ~
bedroom, when through the thatch and down
the chimney came a rush of water. This ar-
rested his progress for the moment; and before
he could recover himself, a second and a third
discharge from the enemy completed his dis-
comfiture. Reduced ere long to one blue flame,
and entirely surrounded by a wall of wet ashes,
Nick sat and smouldered; while the good-
natured neighbours did their best to remedy the
mishap,—saved a small remnant of beer, assured
the labourer that his landlord was certain to do
the repairs, and observed that the ham would
eat ‘ beautiful.’
Our hero now had leisure for reflection. His
situation precluded all hope of doing further
mischief ; and the disagreeable conviction kept
forcing itself upon his mind that, after all,
176 NICK,
he had caused more injury to himself than to
any of his neighbours. Remembering, too, how
contemptuously the fairy woman had looked
and spoken, he began to wonder how he could
ever have expected to enjoy her gift. Then it
occurred to him, that if he merely studied his
own advantage without trying to annoy other
people, perhaps his persecutor might be pro-
pitiated ; so he fell to thinking over all his ©
acquaintances, their fortunes and misfortunes ;
and, having weighed well their several claims
on his preference, ended by wishing himself
the rich old man who lived in a handsome
house just beyond the turnpike. In this wish
he burned out. -
The last glimmer had scarcely died away,
when Nick found himself in a bed hung round
with faded curtains, and occupying the centre
of a large room. A night-lamp, burning on
the chimney-piece, just enabled him to discern
a few shabby old articles of furniture, a scanty
carpet, and some writing materials on a table.
These objects looked somewhat dreary; but for
his comfort he felt an inward consciousness of a
NICK. 17%
goodly money-chest stowed away under his bed,
and of sundry precious documents hidden in a
secret cupboard in the wall.
So he lay very cosily, and listened to the
clock ticking, the mice squeaking, and the house-
dog barking down below. This was, however,
but a drowsy occupation ; and he soon bore
witness to its somniferous influence by sinking
into a fantastic dream about his money-chest.
First, it was broken open, then shipwrecked,
then burned; lastly, some men in masks, whom
he knew instinctively to be his own servants,
began dragging it away. Nick started up,
clutched hold of something in the dark, found
his last dream true, and the next moment was
stretched on the floor—lifeless, yet not insen-
sible—by a heavy blow from a crowbar.
The men now proceeded to secure their
booty, leaving our hero where he fell. They
carried off the chest, broke open and ransacked
the secret closet, overturned the furniture, to
make sure that no hiding-place of treasure
escaped them, and at length, whispering to-
gether, left the room. Nick felt quite dis-
N
178 NICK.
couraged by his ill success, and now entertained
only one wish—that he were himself again.
Yet even this wish gave him some anxiety ;
for he feared that if the servants returned and
found him in his original shape they might
take him for a spy, and murder him in down-
right earnest. While he lay thus cogitating
two of the men reappeared, bearing a shutter
and some tools. They lifted him up, laid him
on the shutter, and carried him out of the
room, down the back-stairs, through a long
vaulted passage, into the open air. No word
was spoken; but Nick knew they were going
to bury him. |
An utter horror seized him, while, at the
same time, he felt a strange consciousness that
his hair would not stand on end because he
was dead. The men set him down, and began
in silence to dig his grave. It was soon ready
to receive him; they threw the body roughly
in, and cast upon it the first shovelful of earth.
But the moment of deliverance had arrived.
His wish suddenly found vent in a prolonged
unearthly yell. Damp with night dew, pale
NICK. 179
as death, and shivering from head to foot,
he sat bolt upright, with starting, staring eyes
and chattering teeth. The murderers, in mortal
fear, cast down their tools, plunged deep into
a wood hard by, and were never heard of
more.
Under cover of night Nick made the best
of his way home, silent and pondering. Next
morning he gave Giles Hodge a rare tulip-
root, with full directions for rearing it; he
sent the doctor’s wife a Persian cat twice the
size of her lost pet; the labourer’s cottage
was repaired, his window glazed, and his beer-
barrel replaced by unknown agency; and when
a vague rumour reached the village that the
miser was dead, that his ghost had been heard
bemoaning itself, and that all his treasures had
been carried off, our hero was one of the few
persons who did not say, ‘And served him
right, too.’
Finally, Nick was never again heard to
utter a wish.
HERO.)
Pee AMOR PTOSLS, =
HERO.
‘Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us!’
BURNS.
IF you consult the authentic map of Fairy-
land (recently published by Messrs. Moon, Shine,
and Co.) you will notice that the emerald-
green line which indicates its territorial limit,
is washed towards the south by a bold ex-
panse of sea, undotted by either rocks or
islands. To the north-west it touches the
work-a-day world, yet is effectually barricaded
against intruders by an impassable chain of
mountains; which, enriched throughout with
mines of gems and metals, presents on Man-
side a leaden sameness of hue, but on Elf-
side glitters with diamonds and opals as with
184 HERO.
ten thousand fire-flies. The greater portion
of the west frontier is, however, bounded, not
by these mountains, but by an arm of the
sea, which forms a natural barrier between
the two countries; its eastern shore peopled
by good folks and canny neighbours, gay
sprites, graceful fairies, and sportive elves; its
western by a bold tribe of semi-barbarous
fishermen.
Nor was it without reason that the first
settlers selected this fishing-field, and continued
to occupy it, though generation after gener-
ation they lived and died almost isolated. Their
swift, white-sailed boats ever bore the most ~
delicate freights of fish to the markets of
Outerworld—and not of fish only; many a
waif and stray from Fairyland washed ashore
amongst them. Now a fiery carbuncle blazed
upon the sand; now a curiously-wrought ball
of gold or ivory was found imbedded amongst
the pebbles. Sometimes a sunny wave threw
up a_ rose-coloured winged shell or jewelled
starfish ; sometimes a branch of unfading sea-
weed, exquisitely perfumed. But though these
HERO, 185
treasures, when once secured, could be offered
for sale and purchased by all alike, they were
never, in the first instance, discovered except
by children or innocent young maidens; in-
deed, this fact was of such invariable occurrence,
and children were so fortunate in treasure-
finding, that a bluff mariner would often, on
returning home empty-handed from his day’s
toil, despatch his little son or daughter to
a certain sheltered stretch of shingle, which
went by the name of ‘the children’s harvest-
field; hoping by such means to repair his
failure.
Amongst this race of fishermen was none
more courageous, hospitable, and free-spoken
than Peter Grump the widower; amongst their
daughters was none more graceful and pure
than his only child Hero, beautiful, lively,
tender-hearted, and fifteen; the pet of her
father, the pride of her neighbours, and the
true love of Forss, as sturdy .a young fellow
as ever cast a net in. deep water, or rowed
against wind and tide for dear life.
One afternoon Hero, rosy through the splash-
186 HERO.
ing spray and sea-wind, ran home full-handed
from the harvest-field.
‘See here, father!’ she cried, eagerly de-
positing a string of sparkling red beads upon
the table: ‘see, are they not beautiful ?’
Peter Grump examined them carefully, hold-
ing each bead up to the light, and weighing
them in his hand.
‘Beautiful indeed!’ echoed Forss, who un-_
noticed, at least by the elder, had followed Hero
into the cottage. ‘Ah, if I had a sister to find
me fairy treasures, I would take the three
months’ long journey to the best market of
Outerworld, and make my fortune there.’
‘Then you would rather go the three months’
journey into Outerworld than come every even-
ing to my father’s cottage?’ said Hero, shyly.
‘Truly I would go to Outerworld first,
and come to you afterwards,’ her lover an-
swered, with a smile; for he thought how
speedily on his return he would have a tight
house of his own, and a fair young wife, too.
‘Father, said Hero presently, ‘if, instead
of gifts coming now and then to us, I could
HERO. | 187
go to Giftland and grow rich there, would
you fret after me?’
_ * Truly,’ answered honest Peter, ‘if you can
go and be Queen of Fairyland, I will not
keep you back from such eminence; for he
thought, ‘my darling jests; no one ever tra-
versed those mountains or that inland sea, and
how should her little feet cross over?’
But Hero, who could not read their hearts,
said within herself, ‘They do not love me as
I love them. Father should not leave me
to be fifty kings; and I would not leave Forss
to go to Fairyland, much less Outerworld.’
Yet from that day forward’ Hero -was
changed ; their love no longer seemed sufficient
for her; she sought after other love and other
admiration. Once a lily was ample head-dress,
now she would heighten her complexion with
a wreath of gorgeous blossoms; once it was
enough that Peter and Forss should be pleased
with her, now she grudged any man’s notice
to her fellow-maidens. Stung by supposed in-
difference, she suffered disappointment to make
her selfish, Her face, always beautiful, lost
188 | HERO.
its expression of gay sweetness; her temper
became capricious, and instead of cheerful airs
she would sing snatches of plaintive or bitter
songs. Her father looked anxious, her lover
sad; both endeavoured, by the most patient
tenderness, to win her back to her former
self; but a weight lay on their hearts when
they noticed that she no longer brought home
fairy treasures, and remembered that such could
be found only by the innocent.
One evening Hero, sick alike of herself and
of others, slipped unnoticed from the cottage,
and wandered seawards. Though the moon
had not, yet risen, she could see her way
distinctly, for all Fairycoast flashed one blaze
of splendour. A soft wind bore to Hero the
hum of distant instruments and songs, mingled
with ringing laughter; and she thought, full
of curiosity, that some festival must be going
on amongst the little people; perhaps a wed-
ding.
Suddenly the music ceased, the lights danced
up and down, ran to and fro, clambered here
and there, skurried round and round with ir-
HERO. 189
regular precipitate haste, while the laughter
was succeeded by fitful sounds of lamentation
and fear. Hero fancied some precious thing
must have been lost, and that a minute search
was going on. For hours the commotion con-
_tinued, then gradually, spark by spark, the
blaze died out, and all seemed once more quiet ;
yet still the low wail of sorrow was audible.
Weary at length of watching, Hero arose;
and was just about to turn homewards, when —
a noisy, vigorous wave leaped ashore, and de-
posited something shining at her feet.
She stooped. What could it be? 7
It was a broad, luminous shell, fitted. up
with pillows and an awning. On the pillows
and under the scented canopy lay fast asleep
a little creature, butterfly-winged and coloured
like a rose-leaf. The fish who should have
piloted her had apparently perished at his
post, some portion of his pulp still cleaving
to the shell’s fluted lip; while unconscious of
her faithful adherent’s fate, rocked by wind
and wave, the Princess Royal of Fairyland
had floated fast asleep to Man-side. Her dis-
190 HERO.
appearance it was which had occasioned such
painful commotion amongst her family and
affectionate lieges; but all their lamentations
failed to rouse her; and not till the motion
of the water ceased did she awake to find
herself, vessel and all, cradled in the hands of
Hero.
During some moments the two stared at
each other in silent amazement; then a sus-
-picion of the truth flashing across her mind,
Princess Fay sat upright on her couch and
spoke,—
‘What gift shall I give you that so I may
return to my home in peace?’
For an instant Hero would have answered,
‘Give me the love of Forss; but pride checked
the words, and she said, ‘Grant me, wherever
I am, to become the supreme object of ad-
miration.’
Princess Fay smiled, ‘As you will,’ said
she; ‘but to effect this you must come with
me to my country.’
Then, whilst Hero looked round for some
road which mortal feet might traverse, Fay
HERO. I9I
uttered a low, bird-like call. A slight froth-
ing ensued, at the water’s edge, close to the
shingle, whilst one by one mild, scaly faces
peered above the surface, and vigorous tails
propelled their owners. Next, three strong
fishes combining themselves into a raft, Hero
seated herself on the centre back, and hold-
ing fast her little captive, launched out upon
the water.
Soon they passed beyond where mortal sailor
had ever navigated, and explored the unknown
sea. Strange forms of seals and porpoises,
marine snails and unicorns contemplated them
with surprise, followed reverentially in their
wake, and watched them safe ashore.
But on Hero their curious ways were lost,
so absorbed was she by ambitious longings.
Even after landing, to her it seemed nothing
that her feet trod on sapphires, and that both
birds and fairies made their nests in the ad-
jacent trees. Blinded, deafened, stultified by
self, she passed unmoved through crystal streets,
between fountains of rainbow, along corridors
carpeted with butterflies’ wings, up a staircase
192 HERO.
formed from a single tusk, into the opal pre-
sence-chamber, even to the foot of the carnelian
dormouse on which sat enthroned Queen Fairy.
Till the Queen said, ‘What gift shall I give
you, that so my child may be free from you
and we at peace?’ .
Then again Hero answered, ‘Grant me,
wherever I am, to become the supreme object
of admiration.’
Thereat a hum and buzz of conflicting
voices ran through the apartment. The im-
mutable statutes of Fairycourt enacted that
no captured fairy could be set free except
at the price named by the captor; from this
necessity not even the blood-royal was exempt,
so that the case was very urgent; on the
other hand, the beauty of Hero, her extreme
youth, and a certain indignant sorrow which
spoke in her every look and tone, had enlisted
such sympathy on her side as made the pigmy
nation loth to endow her with the perilous pre-
eminence she demanded.
‘Clear the court) shrilled the usher of the
golden rod, an alert elf, green like a grasshopper.
HERO. 193
Amid the crowd of non-voters Hero, bearing
her august prisoner, retired from the throne-
room.
When recalled to the assembly an imposing
silence reigned, which was almost instantly
broken by the Queen. ‘ Maiden, she said, ‘it
cannot be but that the dear ransom of my
daughter’s liberty must be paid. I grant you,
wherever you may appear, to become the su-
preme object of admiration. In you every man
shall find his taste satisfied. In you one shall
recognise his ideal of loveliness, another shall
bow before the impersonation of dignity. One
shall be thrilled by your voice, another fascin-
ated by your wit and inimitable grace. He who
prefers colour shall dwell upon your complexion,
hair, eyes; he who worships intellect shall find
in you his superior ; he who is ambitious shall
feel you to be a prize more august than an
empire. I cannot ennoble the taste of those
who look upon you: I can but cause that in you
_all desire shall be gratified. If sometimes you
chafe under a trivial homage, if sometimes you
are admired rather for what you have than for
O
194 HERO.
what you are, accuse your votaries,—accuse, if
you will, yourself, but accuse not me. In con-
sideration, however, of your utter inexperience,
I and my trusty counsellors have agreed for one
year to retain your body here, whilst in spirit
you at will become one with the reigning object
of admiration. If at the end of the year you
return to claim this pre-eminence as your own
proper attribute, it shall then be unconditionally
sranted : if, on the contrary, you then or even
sooner desire to be released from a gift whose
sweetness is alloyed by you know not how
much of bitter shortcoming and disappointment,
return, and you shall at once be relieved of a
burden you cannot yet estimate.’
So Hero quitted the presence, led by spirits
to a pleasance screened off into a perpetual
twilight. Here, on a rippling lake, blossomed
lilies. She lay down among their broad leaves
and cups, cradled by their interlaced stems,
rocked by warm winds on the rocking water ;
she lay till the splash of fountains, and the chirp
of nestlings, and the whisper of spiced breezes,
and the chanted monotone of an innumerable.
HERO. 195
choir, lulled to sleep her soul, lulled to rest her
tumultuous heart, charmed her conscious spirit
into a heavy blazing diamond,—a glory by day,
a lamp by night, and a world’s wonder at all
times.
Let us leave the fair body at rest, and crowned
with lilies, to follow the restless spirit, shrined
in a jewel, and cast ashore on Man-side.
No sooner was this incomparable diamond
picked up and carried home than Hero’s darling
wish was gratified. She outshone every beauty,
._ she eclipsed the most brilliant eyes of the colony.
For a moment the choicest friend was super-
seded, the dearest mistress overlooked. For a
moment—and this outstripped her desire —
Peter Grump forgot his lost daughter and Forss
his lost love. Soon greedy admiration developed
into greedy strife: her spark kindled a con-
flagration. This gem, in itself an unprecedented
fortune, should this gem remain the property of
a defenceless orphan to whom mere chance had
assigned it? From her it was torn in a moment:
then the stronger wrested it from the strong,
blows revenged blows, until, as the last con-
196 HERO.
tender bit the dust in convulsive death, the
victor, feared throughout the settlement for his
brute strength and brutal habits, bore off the
prize toward the best market of Outerworld.
It irked Hero to’ nestle in that polluted
bosom and count the beatings of that sordid
heart ; but when, at the end of the three months’
long journey, she found herself in a guarded
booth, enthroned on a cushion of black velvet,
by day blazing even in the full sunshine, by
night needing no lamp save her own lustre;
when she heard the sums running up from thou-
sands into millions which whole guilds of jewellers,
whole caravans of merchant princes, whole royal
families clubbed their resources to offer for her
purchase, it outweighed all she had undergone
of disgust and tedium. Finally, two empires,
between which a marriage was about to be con-
tracted and a peace ratified, outbid all rivals
and secured the prize.
Princess Lily, the august bride-elect, was
celebrated far and near for courteous manners
and delicate beauty. Her refusal was more
gracious, her reserve more winning, than the
HERO. 197
acquiescence or frankness of another. She might
have been more admired, or even envied, had
she been less loved. If she sang, her hearers
loved her; if she danced, the lookers-on loved
her; thus love forestalled admiration, and happy
in the one she never missed the other.
Only on her wedding-day, for the first time,
she excited envy ; for in her coronet appeared
the inestimable jewel, encircling her sweet face
with a halo of splendour. Hero eclipsed the
bride, dazzled the bridegroom, distracted the
queen-mother, and thrilled the whole assembly. _
Through all the public solemnities of the day
Hero reigned supreme: and when, the state
parade being at length over, Lily unclasped her
gems and laid aside her cumbrous coronet,
Hero was handled with more reverential tender-
ness than her mistress.
The bride leaned over her casket of treasures
and gazed at the inestimable diamond. ‘Is it
not magnificent ?’? whispered she.
‘What?’ said the bridegroom: ‘I was look-
at you.”
So Lily flushed up with delight, and Hero
198 HERO.
experienced a shock. Next the diamond shot
up one ray of dazzling momentary lustre; then
lost its supernatural brilliancy, as Hero quitted
the gem for the heart of Lily.
Etiquette required that the young couple
should for some days remain in strict retire-
ment. Hero now found herself in a secluded
palace, screened by the growth of many centuries.
She was waited on by twenty bridesmaids only
less noble than their princess; she was wor-
shipped by her bridegroom and reflected by a
hundred mirrors. In Lily’s pure heart she
almost found rest: and when the young prince,
at dawn, or lazy noon, or mysterious twilight—
for indeed the process went on every day and
all day—praised his love’s eyes, or hair, or
voice, or movements, Hero thought with proud
eagerness of the moment when, in her own
proper person, she might claim undisputed pre-
eminence.
The prescribed seclusion, however, drew to a
close, and the royal pair must make their en-
trance on public life. Their entrance coincided
with another’s exit.
HERO. 199
Melice Rapta had for three successive seasons
thrilled the world by her voice, and subdued it
by her loveliness. She possessed the demeanour
of an empress, and the winning simplicity of a
child, genius and modesty, tenderness and in-
domitable will. Her early years had passed in
obscurity, subject to neglect, if not unkindness ;
it was only when approaching womanhood
developed and matured her gifts that she met
with wealthy protectors and assumed their
name: for Melice was a foundling.
No sooner, however, did her world-wide
fame place large resources at her command,
than she anxiously sought to trace her unknown
parentage; and, at length, discovered that her
high-born father and plebeian mother—herself
sole fruit of their concealed marriage—were
dead. Once made known to her kindred, she
was eagerly acknowledged by them; but reject-
ing more brilliant offers, she chose to withdraw
into a private sphere, and fix her residence
with a maternal uncle, who, long past the
meridian of life, devoted his energies to bo-
tanical research and culture.
200 HERO.
So, on the same evening, Lily and her hus-
band entered on their public duties, and Melice
took leave for ever of a nation of admirers.
When the prince and princess appeared in
the theatre, the whole house stood up, answering
their smiles and blushes by acclamations of
welcome. They took their places on chairs
of state under an emblazoned canopy, and the
performance commenced.
A moonless night: three transparent ghosts
flit across the scene, bearing in their bosoms
unborn souls. They leave behind tracks of
light from which are generated arums. Day
breaks—Melice enters; she washes her hands
in a fountain, singing to the splash of the
water; she plucks arums, and begins weaving
them into a garland, still singing.
Lily bent forward to whisper something to
her husband ; but he raised his hand, enforcing
‘Hush!’ as through eyes and ears his soul drank
deep of beauty. The young wife leaned back
with good-humoured acquiescence; but Hero?
In another moment Hero was singing in
the unrivalled songstress, charrhing and subduing
HERO. 201
every heart. The play proceeded ; its incidents,
its characters developed. Melice outshone, out-
sang herself; warbling like a bird, thrilling
with entreaty, pouring forth her soul in passion.
Her voice commanded an enthusiastic silence,
her silence drew down thunders of enthusiastic
applause. She acknowledged the honour with
majestic courtesy; then, for the first time,
trembled, changed colour: would have swept
from the presence like a queen, but merely
wept like a woman.
It was her hour of supreme triumph.
Next day she set out for her uncle’s resi-
dence, her own selected home.
Many a long day’s journey separated her
from her mother’s village, and her transit thither
assumed the aspect of a ceremonial progress.
At every town on her route orations and em-
blems awaited her; whilst from the capital
she was quitting, came, pursuing her, messages’
of farewell, congratulation, entreaty. Often an
unknown cavalier rode beside her carriage some
stage of the journey; often a high-born lady
met her on the road, and, taking a last view
202 HERO.
of her countenance, obtained a few more last
words from the most musical mouth in the
world.
At length the goal was reached. The small
cottage, surrounded by its disproportionately
extensive garden, was there; the complex for-
cing-houses, pits, refrigerators, were there ; Uncle
Treeh was there, standing at the open door -
to receive his newly-found relative.
Uncle Treeh was rather old, rather short,
not handsome; with an acute eye, a sensitive
mouth, and spectacles. With his complexion
of sere brown, and his scattered threads of white
hair, he strikingly resembled certain plants of
the cactus tribe, which, in their turn, resemble
withered old men.
All his kind. face brightened with welcome
as he kissed his fair niece; and led her into
his sitting-room. On the table were spread
for her refreshment the choicest products of
his gardens: ponderous pine-apples, hundred-
berried vine clusters, currants large as grapes
and sweet as honey. For a moment his eyes
dwelt on a human countenance with more
HERO. 203
admiration than on a vegetable; for a moment,
on comparing Melice’s complexion with an ole-
ander, he awarded the palm to the former.
But a week afterwards, when Melice, lean-
ing over his shoulder, threatened to read what
he was writing, Treeh looked good-naturedly
conscious, and, abandoning the letter to her
mercy, made his escape into a neighbouring
conservatory.
She read as follows :—
My Friend,—
You will doubtless have learned how -
my solitude has been invaded by my sister’s
long-lost daughter, a peach-coloured damsel,
with commeline eyes, and hair darker than
chestnuts. For one whole evening I suspended
my beloved toils and devoted myself to her:
alas! next day, on revisiting Lime Alley,
house B, pot 37, I found that during my ab-
sence a surreptitious slug had devoured three
shoots of a tea-rose. Thus nipped in the bud,
my cherished nursling seemed to upbraid me
with neglect; and so great was my vexation,
204 HERO.
that, on returning to company, I could scarcely
conceal it. From that hour I resolved that |
no mistaken notions of hospitality should ever
again seduce me from the true aim of my
existence. Nerved by this resolution, I once
more take courage; and now write to inform
you that I am in hourly expectation of be-
holding pierce the soil (loam, drenched with
liquid manure) the first sprout from that un-
named alien seed, which was brought to our
market, three months ago, by a seafaring man
of semi-barbarous aspect. I break off to visit
my hoped-for seedling.
At this moment the door, hastily flung
open, startled Melice, who, looking up, beheld
Treeh, radiant and rejoicing, a flowerpot in
his hand. He hurried up to her, and, setting
his load on the table, sank upon his knees.
“Look P ‘he’ cried,
‘Why, uncle,’ rejoined Melice, when curious
examination revealed to her eyes a minute living
point of green, ‘this marvel quite eclipses me!’
A pang of humiliation shot through Hero,
.
HERO. 208
an instantaneous sharp pang; the next moment
she was burrowing beneath the soil in the
thirsty sucking roots of a plant not one-eighth
of an inch high.
Day by day she grew, watched by an eye
unwearied as that of a lover. The green sheath
expanded fold after fold, till from it emerged
a crumpled leaf, downy and notched. How was
this first-born of an unknown race tended ;
how did fumigations rout its infinitesimal foes,
whilst circles of quicklime barricaded it against
the invasion of snails! It throve vigorously,
adding leaf to leaf and shoot to shoot: at .
length, a minute furry-bud appeared.
Uncle Treeh, the most devoted of foster-
fathers, revelled in ecstasy; yet it seemed to
Hero that his step was becoming feebler, and
his hand more tremulous. One morning he
waited on her as usual, but appeared out of
breath and unsteady: gradually he bent more
and more forward, till, without removing his
eyes from the cherished plant, he sank huddled
on the conservatory floor.
Three hours afterwards hurried steps and
206 HERO.
anxious faces sought the old man. There, on
the accustomed spot, he lay, shrunk together,
cold, dead ; his glazed eyes still riveted on his
favourite nursling.
They carried away the corpse —could Treeh
have spoken he would have begged to lie where
a delicate vine might suck nourishment from his
remains—and buried it a mile away from the
familiar garden; but no one had the heart to
crush him beneath a stone. The earth lay
lightly upon him; and though his bed was
unvisited by one who would have tended it—
for Melice, now a wife, had crossed the sea
to a distant home—generations of unbidden
flowers, planted by winds and birds, blossomed
there.
During one whole week Hero and her peers
dwelt in solitude, uncared for save by a mournful
gardener, who loved and cherished the vegetable
family for their old master’s sake. But on the
eighth day came a change: all things were
furbished.up, and assumed their most festive
aspect; for the new owners were hourly ex-
pected.
HERO. 207
The door opened. A magnificently attired
lady, followed by two children and a secondary
husband, sailed into the narrow passage, casting
down with her robe several flower-pots. She
glanced around with a superior air, and was
about to quit the scene without a word, when
the gardener ventured to remark, ‘Several very
rare plants, madam.’
‘Yes, yes,’ she cried, ‘we knew his eccentric
tastes, poor dear old man!’ and stepped door-
wards.
One more effort: ‘This madam,’ indicating
Hero, ‘is a specimen quite unique.’
‘Really,’ said she; and observed to her
husband as she left the house, ‘ These use-
less buildings must be cleared away. This
will be the exact spot for a ruin: I adore a
ruin |’
A ruin ?—Hero’s spirit died in the slighted
plant. Was it to such taste as this she must
condescend? such admiration as this she must
court? Merely to receive it would be humilia-
tion. A passionate longing for the old lost life,
the old beloved love, seized her; she grew
208 ; IIERO.
tremulous, numbed: ‘Ah,’ she thought, ‘this
is death !’
A hum, a buzz, voices singing and speaking,
the splash of fountains, airy laughter, rustling
wings, the noise of a thousand leaves and flower-
cups in commotion. Sparks dancing in the
twilight, dancing feet, joy and triumph; unseen
hands loosing succous, interlacing stalks from
their roots beneath the water; towing a lily-raft
across the lake, down a tortuous inland creek,
through Fairy-harbour, out into the open sea.
On the lily-raft lay Hero, crowned with
lilies, at rest. A swift tide was running from
Fairycoast to- Man-side: every wave heaving
her to its silver crest bore her homewards; every
wind whistling from the shore urged her home-
wards. Seals and unicorns dived on either
hand, unnoticed. All the tumbling porpoises
in the ocean could not have caught her eye.
At length, the moon-track crossed, she
entered the navigable sea. There all was cold,
tedious, dark; not a vessel in sight, not a living
sound audible. She floated farther: something
HERO. 209
black loomed through the obscurity; could it
be a boat? yes, it was certainly a distant boat;
then she perceived a net lowered into the water ;
then saw two fishermen kindle a fire, and pre-
pare themselves to wait, it might be for hours.
Their forms thrown out against the glare struck
Hero as familiar: that old man, stooping more
than his former wont; that other strong and
active figure, not so broad as in days of yore ;—
Hero’s heart beat painfully : did they remember
yet? did they love yet? was it yet time?
Nearer and nearer she floated, nearer and
nearer. The men were wakeful, restless; they
stirred the embers into a blaze, and sat waiting.
Then softly and sadly arose the sound of a
boat-song :—
PETER GRUMP.
If underneath the water ~
You comb your golden hair
With a golden comb, my daughter,
Oh, would that I were there.
If underneath the wave
You fill a slimy grave,
Would that I, who could not save,
Might share.
RS:
210 HERO.
FORSS.
If my love Hero queens it
In summer Fairyland,
What would I be
But the ring on her hand?
Her cheek when she leans it
Would lean on me :—
Or sweet, bitter-sweet,
The flower that she wore
When we parted, to meet
On the hither shore
Anymore? nevermore.
Something caught Forss’s eye; he tried the
nets, and finding them heavily burdened began
to haul them in, saying, ‘It is a shoal of white
fish ; no, a drift of white seaweed ;—but sud-
denly he cried out: ‘Help, old father! it is a
corpse, as white as snow!’
Peter ran to the nets, and with the younger
man’s aid rapidly drew themin. Hero lay quite
still, while very gently they lifted the body over
the boat-side, whispering one to another: ‘It
is a woman—she is dead!’ They laid her down
where the fire-light shone full upon her face—
her familiar face.
Not a corpse, O Peter Grump: not a corpse,
HERO. 211
O true Forss, staggering as from a death-blow.
The eyes opened, the face dimpled into a happy
smile; with tears, and clinging arms, and cling-
ing kisses, Hero begged forgiveness of her father
and her lover.
I will not tell you of the questions asked
and answered, the return home, the wonder and
_ joy which spread like wildfire through the
colony. Nor how in the moonlight Forss wooed
and won his fair love; nor even how at the
wedding danced a band of strangers, gay and
agile, recognised by none save the bride. I
will merely tell you how in after years, sitting °
by her husband’s fireside, or watching on the
shingle for his return, Hero would speak to her
children of her, own early days. And when
their eyes kindled while she told of the mar-
vellous splendour of Fairyland, she would assure
them, with a convincing smile, that only home
is happy: and when, with flushed cheeks and
quickened breath, they followed the story of her
brief pre-eminence, she would add, that though
admiration seems sweet at first, only love is
sweet first, and last, and always.
&2
VANNA’S TWINS.
ah
VANNA’S TWINS.
THERE I stood on the platform at H , girt
by my three boxes, one carpet-bag, strapful
of shawls and bundle of umbrellas; there I
stood, with a courteous station-master and two
civil porters assuring me that not one lodging ©
was vacant throughout H——. At another
time such an announcement might not have
greatly signified, for London, whence I came,
was less than three hours off; but on this par-
ticular occasion it did matter because I was
weakened by recent illness, the journey down
had shaken me, I was hungry and thirsty
for my tea, and, through fear of catching cold,
I had wrapped up overmuch; so that when
those polite officials stated that they could
216 VANNA’S TWINS.
not point out a lodging for me I felt more
inclined to cry than I hope anybody sus-
pected. One of the porters, noticing how pale
and weak I looked, good-naturedly volunteered
to go to the three best hotels, and see whether
in one of them, I could be housed for the
moment; and though the expensiveness of such
a plan secretly dismayed me, I saw nothing
better than to accept his offer. Meanwhile,
I retreated into the waiting-room wishing him
success ; but wondering, should he not succeed,
what would become of me for the night.
Happily for me, my troubles were not
aggravated by imaginary difficulties. I was
turned forty-five, and looked not a day younger ;
an age at which there is nothing alarming
in finding oneself alone in a strange place,
or compelled to take a night journey by rail.
So I sat on the waiting-room sofa, shut my
eyes to ease, if possible, a racking headache,
and made up my mind that, at the worst,
I could always take the mail-train back to
London.
After all, I had not long to wait. Within
VANNA’S TWINS. 21y
ten minutes of leaving me my porter returned
with the news that, if I did not mind a very
unfashionable, but quite respectable, quarter of
H—, he had just heard of a first floor
vacated half-an-hour before my arrival, and
tency, if) pleased, to receive me. J merely
asked, was it clean? and being assured that
there was not a tidier young woman in all
H—— than ‘Fanny,’ that her husband was
a decent optician and stone-cutter, and that
for cleanliness any of their floors might be
eaten off, I felt only too thankful to step
into a fly, and accompany my boxes to an
abiding place. Before starting, I happened
_to ask the name of my landlord, and was
answered, somewhat vaguely, by my porter,
‘We-cail them: Cole.’
The report of a coming lodger had travelled
before me, and I found Mr. Cole and his
Fanny awaiting me at their shop-door. But
what a Mr. Cole and what a Fanny. He
was a tall, stout foreigner, about thirty years
of age, ready with tucked-up shirt-sleeves and
athletic arms to bear my boxes aloft; she
218 VANNA’S TWINS.
was the comeliest of young matrons, her whole
face one smile, her ears adorned by weighty
gold pendents, and with an obvious twin baby
borne in each arm. Husband and wife alike
addressed me as ‘Meess,’ and displayed teeth
of an enviable regularity and whiteness as they
smiled or spoke. Thus much I saw at a first
glance.
Too tired for curiosity, I toiled up the
narrow staircase after my boxes, washed my
dusty face and hot hands, and stepped into
my little sitting-room, intending to lie down
on the sofa, and wait as patiently as might
be whilst tea, which I had already ordered,
was got ready. A pleasant surprise met me.
I suppose the good-natured porter may have
forewarned Mr. Cole of my weakness and wants ;
be this as it may, there stood the tea ready
brewed, and flanked by pats of butter, small
rolls, a rasher, and three eggs wrapped up
in a clean napkin. After this, my crowning
pleasure for the day was to step into a bed
soft as down could make it, and drop to
sleep between sheets fragrant of lavender.
VANNA’S TWINS. 219
A few days’ convalescence at H—— did
more for me than as many weeks’ convalescence
in London had effected. Soon I strolled about
the beach without numbering the breakwaters,
or along the country roads, taking no count
of the milestones; and went home to meals
as hungry as a school-girl, and slept at nights
like a baby. One of my earliest street-dis-
coveries was that my landlord’s name, as in-
scribed over his window, was not Cole, but
Cola (Nicola) Piccirillo ; and a very brief sojourn
under his roof instructed me that the Fanny
of my friend the porter was called Vanna
(Giovanna) by her husband. They were both
Neapolitans of the ex-kingdom, though not
of the city, of Naples; whenever I asked either
of them after the name of their native place,
they invariably answered me in a tone of
endearment, by what sounded more like ‘Va-
scitammd’ than aught else I know how to
spell; but when my English tongue uttered
‘Vascitammo’ after them, they would shake
their heads and repeat the uncatchable word;
at last it grew to be a standing joke between
220 VANNA’S TWINS.
us that when I became a millionnaire my
courier Cola and my maid Vanna should take
the twins and me to see Vascitammo.
I never thought of changing my lodgings,
though, as time went on, it would have been
easy to do so, and certainly the quarter we
inhabited was not fashionable. A _ laborious,
not an idle, community environed our doors
and furnished customers to the shop: it was
some time before I discovered that Jlamico
Piccirillo held a store for polished stones and
marine curiosities in the bazaar of H——.
He liked to be styled an optician ; but whilst
he sold and repaired spectacles, driving a pros-
perous trade amongst the fishing population
who surrounded us, and supplying them with
cheap telescopes, compasses, and an occasional
magic-lantern, he was not too proud to eke
out his gains by picking up and preparing
marine oddities, pebbles, or weeds. After we
became intimate I more than once rose at three
or four in the morning, as the turn of the tide
dictated; and accompanied him on a ramble of
exploration. He scrambled about slippery,
VANNA’S TWINS. B07
jagged rocks as sure-footed as a wild goat; and
if ever my climbing powers failed at some critical
pass, thought nothing of lifting me over the
difficulty, with that courteous familiarity which,
in an Italian, does not cease to be respectful.
I was rather lucky in spying eligible stones,
which I contributed to his basket; and then,
when we got home, he would point out to
his wife what ‘da Signora’ had found ‘ger
mot due e per li piccine. I understood a
little Italian and they a little English, so we
generally, in spite of the Neapolitan blurring
accent, made out each other’s meaning.
Vanna was one of the prettiest women I
ever saw, if indeed I ought ‘to term merely
pretty a face which, with good features, contained
eyes softer and more lustrous than any others
I remember; their colour I never made out,
but when she lowered the large eyelids, their
long black lashes seemed to throw half her
face into shadow. I don’t know that she
was .clever except. as a housewife, but in this
capacity she excelled, and was a dainty cook
over her shining pots and pans: her husband’s
25>? VANNA’S TWINS.
‘due maccheroni’ often set me hankering, as
I spied them done to a turn and smoking
hot ; though I confess that when Cola brought
home a cuttle-fish and I saw it dished up as
a ‘calamarello’ my English prejudice asserted
itself.
‘Mr. and Mrs. Cole’ were unique in my
small experience of people, but surely the
twins must have remained unique in anybody’s
experience. What other babies were ever so
fat or so merry? To see their creased arms
was enough till one saw their creased legs,
and then their arms grew commonplace. I
never once heard them cry: a clothes-basket
formed their primitive bassinette, and there
they would sprawl, tickling each other and
chuckling. They chuckled at their father,
mother, myself, or any stranger who would
toss them, or poke a finger into their cushions
of fat. They crowed over their own teeth-
ing, and before they could speak seemed to
bandy. intuitive jokes, and chuckled in concert.
Well were they named Felice Maria and Maria
Gioconda. At first sight, they were utterly
VANNA’S TWINS. 222
indistinguishable apart; but experiment proved
that Felice was a trifle heavier than his sister,
and that fingers could go a hair’s-breadth farther
round her fat waist than round his. When I
made their acquaintance their heads were thickly
plaistered with that scurf which apparently an
Italian custom leaves undisturbed; but as this
wore off, curly, black down took its place, and
balanced the large, dark eyes and silky eyebrows
and lashes, which both inherited from their
mother. What we, in our insularity, term the
English love of soap and water was shared
by Vanna, and it was one of my amusements
to see the twins in their tub. Often, if hastily
summoned to serve behind the counter, Vanna
would leave them in the tub to splash about,
and throw each other down and pick each
other up, for a quarter of an hour together; and
if I hinted that this might not be perfectly
safe for them, she invariably assured me that
in her ‘paese’ all the babies toddled about
the shore, and into the sea and out again so
soon as ever they could toddle. ‘4 che male
vt potrebb essere? non vi son coccodrili.’ an
224 VANNA’S TWINS.
argument no less apposite to the tub than
to the sea.
As I possessed a small competence and
no near home-ties, I felt under no constraint
to leave H sooner than suited my humour ;
so, though I had originally intended to remain
there no longer than seven or eight weeks,
month after month slipped away till a whole
year had elapsed, and found me there still.
In a year one becomes thoroughly acquainted
with daily associates, and from being pre-
possessed by their engaging aspect, I had
come to love and respect Piccirillo and his
wife. Both were good Catholics, and evinced
their orthodoxy as well by regularity at mass
and confession as by strict uprightness towards
customers and kindliness towards neighbours.
Once when a fishing-boat was lost at sea,
and its owner, Ned Gough, left well-nigh
penniless, Cola, who was ingenious in preparing
marine oddities, arranged a group of young
skate in their quaint hoods and mantles, and
mounted them ona green board amongst sea-
weed bushes as a party of gipsies; this would
¢
VANNA’S TWINS. 225
have been raffled for, and the proceeds given
to the ruined boatman, had I not taken a
fancy to the group, and purchased it. And
the first time the twins walked out alone was
when they crossed over the road hand in
hand, each holding ‘an orange as a present to
a little sick girl opposite. Both parents watched
them safe over, and I heard one remark to
the other, that ‘ Wossignore’ would bless
them.
It was mid-May when I arrived at H
bd
and about mid-May of the year following I
returned to London. A legal question had
meanwhile arisen touching my small property ;
and this took so long to settle, that during many
and many months I remained in doubt whether
I should continue adequately provided for, or be
reduced to work in some department or other
for my living. The point was ultimately de-
cided in my favour, but not before much vexa-
tion and expense had been incurred on both
sides. At the end of three years from quitting
H—— I made up my mind to return and settle
there for good: no special ties bound me to
Q
226 VANNA’S TWINS.
London, and I knew of no people under whose
roof I would so gladly make my solitary home
as with Piccirillo and his wife ; besides, the twins
were an attraction. As to the optician’s shop
being in an out-of-the-way quarter, that I cared
nothing for, having neither the tastes nor the
income for fashionable society: so, after a pre-
liminary letter or two had passed between us,
I found myself one glowing afternoon in June
standing once again on the H—— platform, not
in the forlorn position I so vividly remembered,
but met by Cola, broader than ever in figure,
and smiling his broadest, who whipped up my
trunks with his own hands on to the fly, and
took his place by the driver.
Vanna came running out to meet me at the
carriage door, seizing and kissing both my
hands; and before I even alighted two sturdy
urchins had been made to kiss ‘la Szgnora’s
hand. Ten minutes more and I was seated at
tea, chatting to Vanna, and renewing acquaint-
ance with my old friends Felice and Gioconda.
This was effected by the presentation to them
of a lump of sugar apiece, for which each again
VANNA’S TWINS. 227
kissed my hand, fortunately before their mouths
had become sticky by suction.
They were the funniest little creatures ima-
ginable, and two of the prettiest. Felice was
still just ahead of Gioconda in bulk, but so
much like her that (as I found afterwards) if
for fun they exchanged hats I got into a com-
plete mental muddle as to which was which,
confused by the discrepant hats and frocks.
There was no paid Roman Catholic school in
H——, but the good nuns of St. L taught
the little boys and girls of their congregation ;
and morning after morning I used to see the
twins start for school hand in hand, with dinner
as well as books in their bags; for St. L
was too far from their home to admit of going
and returning twice in one day. All the neigh-
bours were fond of them; and often before their
destination was reached a hunch of cake from
some good-natured rough hand had found its
way into one or other bag, to be shared in due
course.
At their books they were ‘proprio maravi-
gtliosi, as Vanna phrased it ; whilst Cola, swelling
228 VANNA’S TWINS.
with paternal pride under a veil of humility,
would observe, ‘Von c’é male, né lui née lei? I
believe they really were clever children and
fond of their books: at any rate, one Holy
Innocents’ Day they brought home a prize, a
little story in two volumes, one volume apiece ;
for, as the kind nuns had remarked, they were
like one work in two volumes themselves, and
should have one book between them. That
night they went to bed and fell asleep hand in
hand as usual, but each holding in the other
hand a scarlet-bound volume, so proud were
they. They were but seven years old, and had
never yet slept apart: never yet, and, as it
turned out, never at all.
The Christmas when this happened was one
of the brightest and pleasantest I recollect ;
night after night slight frost visited us, but day
after day it melted away, whilst sea and sky
spread clear and blue in the sunshine. In other
countries much snow had fallen and was still
falling, but snow had not yet reached our
shores.
Christmas, as usual, brought a few bills to
VANNA’S TWINS. 229
me, and likewise to my friends. Of theirs the
heaviest was the doctor’s bill, for the twins had
caught scarlatina in the summer, and had got
well on a variety of pills and draughts. Then
Cola bethought himself of certain money due
to him at a coast-guard station not many miles
from H
pay the doctor; and one Saturday, a day or
two after Twelfth Day, he took the first after-
noon train to E——, this being the nearest
, and which would just suffice to
point on the line to his destination, and went
to look after his debtor, telling Vanna that he
might not be back before the latest train came
into H——. ;
So Vanna took her seat behind the counter,
and looked up the road towards St. L——,
watching for her little ones to come racing home
from school, for school broke up early on
Saturdays. As she sat, she knitted some-
thing warm and useful, for she was never idle,
and hummed in her low, sweet voice the first
words of a Christmas carol. I only know
those first words, so pathetic in their devout
simplicity :—
230 VANNA’S TWINS.
‘Tu scendi dalle stelle, O Re del Cielo,
E vieni in una grotta al freddo al gelo:
O Bambino mio divino
Io Ti voglio sempre amar !
O Dio beato
E quanto Ti costo l’ avermi amato.’
She was thus occupied as I crossed the shop
on my way upstairs, and whilst I paused to say
a word in passing, a young woman, her face
swollen with crying, came up, who, almost with-
out stopping, called out: ‘O Fanny, Fanny, my
three are down with the fever, and I’m running
for the doctor!’ and in speaking she was gone.
Sympathetic tears had gathered in Vanna’s
kind eyes when I looked at her. ‘Won hanno
padre, she said, half apologetically ; and I then
recollected who the young woman was, and that
her children were worse than fatherless. Poor
Maggie Crowe! deserted by a good-for-nothing
husband she worked hard to keep her little ones
out of the workhouse; did charing, took in
needlework, went out nursing when she could
get a job, and now her three children were
‘down with the fever,’ and she had had to leave
VANNA’S TWINS. 231
them alone in her wretched hovel on the east
to fetch
the parish doctor. We soon saw her tearing
cliff to run a mile and more into H
back as she had come, not stopping ‘now to
speak.
I went to my room, and looking into my
charity-purse found that I could afford five
shillings out of it for this poor family, and
settled mentally that I would take them round
next day after church. At the moment I was
feeling tired and disinclined to stir, and I con-
cluded the parish doctor, who bore a character
for kindness, would certainly for that night
supply his patients with necessaries.
Justeatter the clock struck three I heard a
bustle below; the twins had come home and
were talking eagerly to their mother in their
loud, childish voices. I heard Vanna answer
them once or twice; then she spoke continu-
ously, seeming to tell them something, and I
heard both reply, ‘Mamma si. A few minutes
later I was surprised to see them from my
window trotting along the street, but not in
the direction from which they had just come,
eH) VANNA’S TWINS.
and bearing between them a market-basket,
each of them holding it by one handle.
A suspicion of their errand crossed my mind,
and I hurried downstairs to warn Vanna that a
few snowflakes had already fallen and more
hung floating about in the still air. She had
noticed this of herself, but replied that they
knew their way quite well, and it was not far
to go; indeed, she could not feel easy without
sending up a few oranges left from Twelfth Day
for the sick children. Her own had had the
fever, they had promised her to go straight and
return straight without loitering, and though
she looked somewhat anxious, she concluded
bravely : ‘ Vossignore avra cura di loro.’
I went back to my room thoroughly mor-
tified at the rebuke which her alacrity ad-
ministered to my laziness)s ‘How much less
would it not have cost me to set off at once
with my five shillings than it cost poor Vanna
to send her little ones, tired as perhaps they
were, to what, for such short legs, was a con-
siderable distance. From my window, moreover,
I soon could not help perceiving that not
VANNA’S TWINS. 233
only the snow, rare at first, had begun to
fall rapidly and in large flakes, but that the
sky lowered dense and ominous over the east
cliff. I felt sure that there, and thither it
was that the twins were bound, it must already
be snowing heavily.
Four o'clock struck, but Felice and Gio-
conda had not come back. I heard Vanna
closing the shop. In another five minutes she
came up to me dressed in bonnet and shawl,
with a pale face that told its own story of
alarm. Still she would not acknowledge her-
self frightened, but tried to laugh, as she
apologized for leaving me alone in the house,
assured me that no one could possibly be
calling at that hour, and protested that she
would not be out long. If the twins arrived
in her absence she was sure I would kindly
let them sit by my fire till her return; then,
fairly breaking down and crying, she left me,
repeating, ‘Mon son che piccint, poveri piccini,
povert piccint miet.’ eS
A couple of men with lighted lanterns stood
waiting for her in the street; one of them
234 VANNA’S TWINS.
made her take his arm, and I knew by the
voice that it was Ned Gough. MHour after
hour struck, and they did not return.
About seven o’clock I heard a loud knock-
ing; and running down to open the door, for
being left alone in the house I had locked
up and made all safe, I found Piccirillo, who
on account of the snow had hastened home
by an earlier train than he had mentioned,
and was now much amazed at finding the
house closed and no light burning below. When
he understood what had happened he seemed
beside himself with agitation and terror. Fling-
ing up his arms he rushed from the house,
calling out, ‘Vanna, Vanna mia! dove sei?
rispondimi: figlt miter, rispondetemt. Neigh-
bours came about him, offering what comfort
they could think of: but what comfort could
there be? He, too, must set off in the snow
to seek his poor lost babies and their mother ;
and soon he started, lantern and stick in hand,
ejaculating, and making vows as he went.
‘Dio mio, Dio mio, abbi pieta di not.
All through the long night it snowed and
VANNA’S TWINS. 235
snowed: at daybreak it was snowing still.
Soon after daybreak the seekers returned,
cold, silent, haggard; Piccirillo carrying his
wife, who lay insensible in his arms. After
hours of wandering they had met somewhere
out towards the east cliff, and Vanna, at sight
of her husband, had dropped down utterly
spent. She had gone straight to Maggie
Crowe's cottage, and found that the twins had
safely left the oranges there and started home-
wards; Felice tired but manful, poor little
Gioconda trudging wearily along, and clinging
to her brother. Maggie had tried to keep
them at the cottage as it was already snow-
ing heavily, and the little girl had cried and
wanted to stay and warm herself; but her
brother said ‘No; they had promised not to
loiter, his sister would be good and not cry,
he would take care of her; so whilst Maggie
was busy with her own sick children, the
twins had started. Beyond this, not one of
the searching party could trace them; the
small footmarks must have been effaced almost
as soon as imprinted on the snow; and any one
236 VANNA’S TWINS.
of the surface inequalities of that snow-waste,
which now stretched right and left for miles,
might be the mound to cover two such feeble
wayfarers. |
For three days the frost held and our
suspense lasted; then the wind veered from
north round to west, a rapid thaw set in, and
a few hours ended hope and fear alike. The
twins were found huddled together in a chalky
hollow close to the edge of the cliff, and
almost within sight of Maggie’s hovel: Gio-
conda with her head thrust into the market-
basket, Felice with one arm holding the basket
over his sister, and with the other clasping
her close to him. Her fat hands met round
his waist, and clasped between them was a small
silver cross I had given her at Christmas, and
which she had worn round her neck.
- Lovely and pleasant in their lives, in their
death they were not divided; but as they
had always shared one bed, they now shared
one coffin and one grave.
After a while Piccirillo and his wife re-
covered from their passionate grief; but Vanna
VANNA’S TWINS. a
—
drooped more and more as spring came on,
and clothed the small grave with greenness.
They had no other child, and the house was
silent indeed and desolate. Once I heard them
talking to each other of ‘Vascitamméd:? Vanna
said something I did not catch, and then Cola
answered her; ‘S72, Vanna mia, ritorneremo ,
tolea Lddio che 10 perda te ancora,
~So I knew that we should soon have to
part. They came upstairs together to me one
evening, and with real kindliness explained that
all their plans were altered on account of
Vanna’s failing health, and that they must
go home to their own country lest she should
die. Vanna cried and I cried, and poor Cola
fairly cried too. I promised them that the
little grave shall never fall into neglect whilst
I live, and in thanking me they managed
to say through their tears,—‘ Vossignore é buono,
e certo li avra benedetti.’
The business was easily disposed of, for
though small, it was a thriving concern, and
capable of extension. Other affairs did not
take long to settle; and one morning I saw
238 VANNA’S TWINS.
my kind friends off by an early train, on their
road through London to ‘Vascitammd,’ which
now neither the twins nor I shall ever see.
A SAFE INVESTMENT.
A SAFE INVESTMENT.
IT was a pitchy dark night. Not the oldest in-
habitant remembered so black a night, so moon-
less, so utterly starless; and whispering one to
another, men said with a shiver that longer still,
not for a hundred years back—ay, or for a thou-
sand years—ay, or even since the world was—
had such gross darkness covered the land. Yet
those who counted the time protested that
morning must now be at hand, ready to break,
even while East and West were massed in one
common indistinguishable blot of blackness ;
and those who discerned the signs of the times,
those who waited for the morning, looked often
towards one house which could not be hid, for
it was set upon a hill, nor overturned, for it was
R
242 A SAFE INVESTMENT.
founded upon a rock, and from which a light
streamed pure and steady, shaming the flickering
gas-lamps of the town, the dim glare of shops
and private dwellings, and the flaring, smoking
torches of such wayfarers as thought, by com-
passing themselves about with sparks, to find
safety in their transit to and fro.
On this cheerless night a solitary traveller
entered the town by the eastern gate. He rode
a white horse: about both the beast and his
rider there was something foreign, or if not
foreign, at any rate unusual. The man was keen
and military of aspect, and had the air of one
bound on some mission of importance. The
horse seemed to know his road without guidance,
to turn hither or thither by instinct, not to loiter,
yet not to make haste. They passed through
the eastern gate, which was opened wide before
them : without let or hindrance they entered in,
and the horse’s hoofs struck once on the paved
road.
In an instant, at the western outskirts of the
city a flare of red light shot up. Out came
houses into view from the night darkness; to
A SAFE INVESTMENT. 243
right and left they flashed out for a moment:
for a moment you could spy through the win-
dows people sitting at table, reading, working,
dancing, as the case might be: you could note
a bird’s cage hanging here or there, a eat or two
creeping along the gutter, a few foot-passengers
arrested by the unexpected glare looking round
them in all directions for its source, a single
carriage threading its way cautiously along the
dangerous streets: for a moment—then a cry
went up, then there came the crash and crush
of a tremendous explosion, and then darkness
settled once more over its own dominion ; whilst
through the darkness those who could not see
each other’s faces heard each other’s groans,
cries for help, shrieks of terror or of agonizing
pain. All the gas-lamps of the city had gone
out as though at a single whiff, for it was an
explosion of the great central gasworks which
had taken place. And the darkness deepened.
To the south of the city lay the sea. Day
and night its surges were never still nor silent ;
day and night ships heaved on its bosom,
passing in or out of harbour, laden with pas-
244. A SAFE INVESTMENT.
sengers, with gold, silks, provisions, merchandise
of all sorts. On this night, if any one had had
owl’s eyes to peer with, he might have discerned
that the deep boiled like a pot of ointment; he
would have seen in a score, yea, in a hundred
vessels, the sailors at their wits’ end reeling to
and fro, and staggering like drunken men ;
whilst the strong masts snapped like straws,
and the tough, hollow ship-sides stove in as
though they had been of paper—till captains,
crews, and passengers, were fain to cast over-
board freights and treasures, rarities from the
ends of the earth, corn, and wine, and oil—to
cast these overboard, and at length, abandoning
the ship, to flee for their lives in boats, on
planks, on pieces of the vessel, too happy if
with bare life they escaped to land, beggared
but alive. Meanwhile those on the quays could
guess, though they could not see, the ruin, as
wretch after poor wretch struggled to shore ;
but for one who came, a score at least were seen
no more for ever.
In a central quarter of the town stood the
old-established county bank, concerning which
A SAFE INVESTMENT. 245
the townspeople had long boasted that not the
national bank itself was safer. In panic years
it had remained unaffected by the surrounding
pressure ; it had stood firm, and stand it would
whilst the town was atown: so said its directors,
its shareholders, the public voice in unison.
But on this certain night of all nights in the
year, when ship after ship went down with
entire costly cargoes, and scores and hundreds
of hands on board; when the gasworks exploded,
to the obvious utter ruin of the shareholders ;
when a report spread that the treasurer of the
chief railway company had absconded with all
the funds in his hands, a report confirmed
as night wore, and soon established as a fact ;
on this night of all nights, the dismayed citizens
turned in thought to their bank. Every man
beheld an enemy in his neighbour, an enemy
who would forestall others and save himself at
all costs ; and in the panic of accumulated losses
man after man bent his steps towards the bank.
The doors were besieged; with loud cries the
men—and the women too, for many of these
had flocked thither impelled by the instinct of
*
246 A SAFE INVESTMENT.
self-preservation—men and women beset the
doors, demanding instant admittance, and clam-
ouring for their money deposits to be restored
to them then and there. The pressure waxed
irresistible ; the doors yielded; a terrified clerk
or two strove vainly with plausible words to
appease the foremost applicants; then desper-
ately discharged claim after claim in notes,
sovereigns, silver, till the last sixpence—,down
to the last penny—was disbursed. When it
became known that the old-established secure
bank had stopped payment before it had met
a tithe of its liabilities, it was as much as the
clerks could do to escape with whole skins from
the infuriated, disappointed populace.
But more troubles were to come. At the
railway station a telegram had been received
early in the evening intimating that a branch
bank in an adjacent town had been constrained
by sudden pressure to stop payment, though, as
it was hoped, only momentarily. This disastrous
news had been studiously confined to one or
two parties, who hoped to profit by being in
advance of their neighbours; but soon a second
A SAFE INVESTMENT. 247
telegram of like import came in from another
quarter; then a third; and it became impos-
sible any longer to suppress the facts. A ter-
rible commotion ensued on ’Change ; there was
scarcely a house in all the town where ruin, or
at the least reverse, had not entered.
But what, after all, were these partial local
failures? Before the night was over another
telegram arrived, and it transpired that the
main national bank itself had broken.
Then a cry went up through the length and
breadth of the land.
When our wayfarer reached the Exchange it
was crowded by persons of all ranks and ages,
brought together by the bond of a common
disaster. He dismounted, tethered his white
horse to the railings outside, and entering joined
the concourse within, apparently with no further
object than to observe and listen, passing from
group to group, pausing sometimes a longer,
sometimes a shorter period, here or there as
the case might demand. Most of the persons
present—of those at least who were not simply
paralysed and struck dumb by their misfortunes
248 A SAFE INVESTMENT.
—stood disputing in loud, excited tones, as to
the causes and details of the present public
calamities ;—whose carelessness it was which had
occasioned the gas explosion ; how many vessels
and lives, and what value of cargo, had perished
in the storm; some rating the probable loss at
millions and some at tens of millions; what
hope there might still be of a dividend from the
local bank; whether any of the reported failures
had been without fraud; what head the country
could make against the vast smash of the
national bank. But here and there some one
man or woman seemed, in the hubbub of rage
and dismay, to be wrapped in private, personal
erief, alien from the general cares.
One such, a _ half-frantic elderly woman,
huddled in a corner, was tearing her hair and
crying out in broken, half-articulate speech.
The strange traveller approached her, and in a,
voice of great sympathy inquired into the source
of her passionate sorrow. Then, weeping and
gnashing her teeth, she shrieked her answer:
‘My son, my son, he has been cashiered to-day
from his regiment! His commission was all we
A SAFE INVESTMENT. 249
had in the world, and he was all I loved in the
world.’ An old sullen man, accosted by the
.traveller, replied shortly that his strong-box
had been broken open and rifled by thieves, and
that as he was removing a small remnant of
money left to him from his own house to a place
of security, the few precious coins had slipped
through a hole in the bag and been lost. Ano-
ther man, being questioned, seemed to find some
relief in complaint, and answered readily that
he had embarked enormous capital in construct-
ing a reservoir for water, on a scale amply suff-
cient for the supply of the whole town, but that,
at the very moment when he hoped to realise
cent per cent upon his original outlay, a flaw
had been discovered in the main aqueduct, and
it was then perceived, too late, that all the cis-
terns were broken and could hold no water.
Every tale was diverse, yet, in fact, every one
was the same. Each speaker had sunk all that
he had in some plausible investment, the invest-
ment had burst like a bubble, and now one and
all in desperate sorrow could but bewail their
ruin as without remedy. They had no eyes, no
250 A SAFE INVESTMENT.
thought, no sympathy, save each man for him-
self; none stretched a helping hand to his
neighbour, or spoke a word of comfort, or cared
who sank or who swam in this desolation which
had come like a flood.
From such as these it was vain to demand
hospitality. The traveller went out from amongst
them, remounted his horse, and pursued his
way along the darkened, deserted streets, be-
tween rows of tall houses, in which the voice of
mirth and music seemed silenced for ever. Now
at one door, now at another, he knocked to ask
for refreshment, but always without success.
Sometimes no answer was vouchsafed to his
summons ; sometimes he was turned away with
churlish indifference, or even with abuse for
having ventured to disturb the household in its
night of distress.
At last he observed one cottage, which, de-
tached from other residences, stood alone in its
trim garden-plot. In this only, amongst all the
dwellings he had passed, there shone a light.
He dismounted once more, tethered his horse to
the wicket-gate, followed the gravel-path, and
A SAFE INVESTMENT. 251
knocked gently at the house-door. A calm,
cheerful-looking woman opened to him, and
seeing a stranger at that late hour, conceived at
once that he was a wayfarer in quest of repose
and refreshment, and bade him enter and be
welcome. Then, while he sat down by the fire,
she hastened to set before him milk and bread,
meat, wine, and butter. This done, she ran out
and led the horse under an open shed (she had
no stable), and there provided it with clean straw
and fodder. :
Now when the traveller had eaten and drunk
and sat awhile, he began to question her con-
cerning her prosperity and cheerfulness in that
night of ruin; and she, as the others had done,
answered him all that he would know.
‘My money, said she, ‘is not invested as so
many in this town have invested theirs. When
I was yet young, One told me that riches do
certainly make to themselves wings and fly
away; and that gold perisheth, though it be
purified seven times in the fire. Nevertheless
He added that, if I chose, there could with my
gold and silver be made ready for me an ever-
252 A SAFE INVESTMENT.
lasting habitation, to receive me when the pre-
sent fashion shall have passed away; and that
I might lay up for myself treasure where neither
moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves
do not break through and steal. So, when I
was willing, He further informed me by what
means I should send my deposits to that secure
house whereof the Owner will be no man’s debtor.
On the first day of the week I was to go up to
the branch-house upon the hill—you see it, sir,
out to the East yonder; there, where a light
shines to lighten every one that goeth into the
house ; and according as I had been prospered,
I was to drop somewhat into the money-chest
kept there. All such sums would be placed to
my account, and would bear interest. But be-
sides this, I was apprised that the Owner of the
house employs many collectors, who may call
at any moment, often at the most unlikely mo-
ments, for deposits. FFrrom-these I was to take
heed never to turn away my face, but I was to
give to them freely, being well assured that they
would carry all entrusted to them safely to my
account. Thus, sometimes a fatherless child
A SAFE INVESTMENT. 253
calls on me, sometimes a distressed widow ;
sometimes a sick case comes before me; some-
times a stranger, sir, as you have done this very
night, demands my hospitality. And as I know
whom I have trusted, and am persuaded that
He will keep that which I commit to Him, I
gladly spend and am spent, being a succourer of
many, and looking for the recompense of the
reward.’
So when the strange traveller had rested
awhile, his horse also having been refreshed,
he rose before daybreak, mounted, and rode
away. Whence he came and whither he went
I know not, but he rode as one that carries back
tidings to Him that sent him. Also this I know,
that some, being mindful to entertain strangers,
have entertained angels unawares.
rf ae ar
aes
PROS AND CONS.
mi
PROS AND CONS.
‘But, my dear doctor, cried Mrs. Plume, ‘you
never can seriously mean it.’
The scene was the Rectory drawing-room
_ —tea-time; some dozen parishioners drinking
tea with their Rector and his wife. Mrs. Good-
man looked down; her husband, the Rector,
looked up.
‘I really did mean it, said he, courteously ;
‘and, with your permission, I mean it still.
Let us consider the matter calmly, my dear
Mrs. Plume, calmly and fairly; and to start
us fairly I will restate my proposal, which is
that we should all combine to do our best
towards bringing about the abolition of pews
from our parish church.’
258 PROS AND CONS.
‘Then I,’ returned Mrs. Plume, shaking her
head airily, ‘must really restate my protest.
You never seriously can mean it.’
‘Nay, resumed the Rector, ‘ don’t think that
I am unmindful of your feelings on this point;
and he glanced round the circle. ‘If I spoke
hastily I ask your pardon and patience; but
this matter of pews and pew-rents is on my
conscience, and ¢hat I must lighten at all
costs; even, Mr. Sale,—for Mr. Sale frowned
—‘at the cost of my income. However, why
should we conclude ourselves to be at variance
before we have ventilated the matter in hand?
I for one will never take for granted that
any good Christian is against the acknowledg-
ment of our absolute equality before God.’
‘Sir, interposed Mr. Blackman, ‘we are equals,
whatever may be our colour or our country.
But whilst the Zenana counts its victims by
thousands, whilst the Japanese make boast of
their happy despatch, whilst the Bushman,
dwindling “before our face, lives and dies as the
beasts that perish, shall we divert our attention
from such matters of life and death to fix it
PROS AND CONS. 259
on a petty question of appearance? Pardon
me if tears for our benighted brethren blind
me to such a matter as this.’
‘Our benighted brethren,’ said the Rector,
gravely, ‘have my pity, have my prayers,
have my money in some measure. Of your
larger gifts in these several kinds I will not
ask you to divert one throb, or one word,
or one penny in favour of our poor fellow-
parishioners. No, dear friend, help us by your
good example to enlarge our field of chari-
table labour; to stretch full handed towards
remote spots; but not meanwhile to fail in
breaking up our own fallow ground at home.
We all know that if at this moment either
our foreign or our native ragged brother were
to present himself in church, however open
our hearts may be to him, our pew-doors would
infallibly be shut against him, and he would
find himself looked down upon both literally
and figuratively. This, I own to you, were
I he, would discomfit me, and put a stum-
bling-block in my way as a worshipper.’
‘Pooh! pooh!’ broke in Mr. Wood, testily :
260 PROS AND CONS.
‘My dear fellow, I really thought you a wiser
man. What hardship is it for a flunky or
a clodhopper to sit in a seat without a
door ??
‘Ah!’ rejoined the Rector quietly, ‘for a
servant, as you say, or for a mere sower of
our fields, or (why not?) for a carpenter’s son
either? But allow me to name two points
which strike me forcibly,—two very solemn
points ; and Dr. Goodman spoke with solemnity,
and bowed his head. ‘ First, that if our adorable
Lord were now walking this world as once
He walked it, and if He had gone into our
parish church last Sunday, as long ago He
used to frequent the synagogue of Nazareth,
He would certainly not have waited long to
be ushered into a pew, but would, at least
as willingly, have sat down amongst His own
“blessed” poor; and, secondly, that we should
all have left Him to do so unmolested; for
I cannot suppose that His were the gold ring
and goodly apparel which would have challenged
attention.’
_ There was a pause, broken by Mrs. Plume,
PROS AND CONS. 261
who, turning to her hostess, observed: ‘Ah,’
dear Mrs. Goodman, we know and revere the
zeal of our dear good apostle. But you and
I are old housekeepers, old birds not to be
caught with chaff;’ and she shook a fascinating
finger at her pastor; ‘and we know that the
poor are not nice neighbours; quite infectious,
in fact. They do very well together all in
a clump, but one really couldn't risk sitting
amongst them, on various grounds, you know.’
‘Well,’ resumed the Rector, ‘I plead guilty
to being but a tough man, thick-skinned, and
lacking certain subtler members, entitled nerves.
But what will you? You must make allow-
ances for me, and even put up with me as
I am. With docility, and all the imagination
of which I am master, I throw myself into
your position, and shudder with you at these
repulsively infectious poor. I even seek to
deepen my first impression of horror by ques-
tioning myself in detail, and I dwell on the
word “infectious.” This brings before me
small-pox, typhus fever, and other dreadful
ailments; and I hasten (in spirit) to slam to,
262 PROS AND CONS.
if only I could to bolt and bar, my pew-door.
Safely ensconced within, I peer over my ne-
cessary barrier, and, relieved from the pressure
of instant peril, gaze with pity on the crowd
without, all alike typhus-stricken, all alike re-
dolent of small-pox. A new terror thrills
me. Are ‘all alike’ infectious? or have we
grouped together sound and unsound, sick and
healthy? Ah, you hint, that amount of risk
cannot be helped if they are to come to church
at all. I am corrected, and carrying out the
lesson of my Teacher I echo: That amount
of risk cannot be helped if we are to come
to church at all.’
‘These men! these men!’ cried Mrs. Plume,
gaily. And Miss Crabb observed, from behind
her blue spectacles, ‘Well, I suppose a woman
of my age may allude to anything she pleases;
so I make bold to tell you, Dr. Goodman,
that small-pox may be all nonsense; but that
nobody would like to sit amongst smells, and
cheek-by-jowl with more heads than one in
a bonnet.’
‘Smells,’ rejoined the Rector, ‘I do strongly
PROS AND CONS. 263
object to; including scents, my dear Mrs. Plume;
but that is a matter of taste. The other
detail, which I know not how to express more
pointedly than in the striking words of Miss
Crabb, is yet more to be deprecated: but let
us consider whether pews fairly meet the dif-
ficulty. Fairly? I ask; and then unhesitatingly
answer, No. For all the poor, both clean and
dirty, occupy our free seats together; and
surely to sit next a dirty neighbour is, at the
least, as great a hardship on the cleanly poor as
it would be on the rich, who are so far better
able to have their clothes cleansed, or even, in
case of need, to discard them. If, indeed, all
dirty individuals would have the good feeling to
compact themselves into one body it might be
reassuring to their fellows, but this it were in-
vidious to propose; and besides, we are at
present mooting pews or no pews, not any third
possible—or shall we say impossible ?—alter-
native. I confess to you, he resumed, very
seriously, ‘when I remember the little stress
laid by Christ on clean hands, and the para-
mount importance in His eyes of a clean heart;
264 PROS AND CONS.
when I reflect on the dirt of all kinds which
must have touched Him in the crowds He
taught and healed; when I realise that every
one of my parishioners, poor as well as rich, will
confront me at His judgment-bar, I tremble lest
any should be deterred from coming to Him
because I am too fine a gentlemen to go out
into the highways and hedges, and compel to
come in those actual poor—foul of body, it may
be, as well as of soul—whom yet He has num-
bered to me as my flock.’
Silence ensued—an uncomfortable silence ;
broken by Mrs. Goodman’s nervous proffer of
tea to Mr. Sale, who declined it.
Mr. Home resumed the attack. ‘ Doctor,’
observed he, ‘all other objections to open seats
might perhaps be overruled ; but consider the
sacredness of family affection, and do not ask
us to scatter ourselves forlornly through the
church, here a husband, there a wife; and he
interchanged a smile with Mrs. Home; ‘there,
again, a practical orphan. I for one could not
, possibly say my prayers without my little woman
at my elbow.’ ,
PROS AND CONS. 265
‘Here,’ cried the Rector, ‘I joyfully meet
you halfway. The division of the sexes in dis-
tinct aisles is a question by itself, and one which
I am not now discussing. Only go betimes to
church ’—at this a glance of intelligence passed
round the circle, whilst Mrs. Home coloured,—
‘and I stake my credit that you will hardly
ever fail to find six contiguous seats for your
party.’
Then Mr. Stone spoke up—Mr. Stone, the
warmest man in the parish. He spoke with his
fat hands in his fat pockets.
‘Dr. Goodman, sir,—the courteous Rector
bowed,—‘ my attachment to the Church and
my respect for your cloth must not prevent my
doing my duty by my fellow-parishioners,
whose mouthpiece on the present occasion I
claim to.be. A general movement of relief
accepted him as the lay champion. ‘We ac-
knowledge, sir, and appreciate your zeal amongst
us, but we protest against your innovations.
We have borne with chants, with a surpliced
choir, with daily services, but we will not bear
to see all our rights trampled under foot, and
266 PROS AND CONS.
all our time-hallowed usages set at nought.
The tendency of the day is to level social dis-
tinctions and to elevate unduly the lower orders.
In this parish at least let us combine to keep
up wise barriers between class and class, and to
maintain that fundamental principle practically
bowed to all over our happy England, that what
you can pay for you can purchase. This, sir,
has been our first dissension’—a statement not
quite correct,—‘ let it be our last; and in token
that we are at one again, here is my hand.’
Dr. Goodman grasped the proffered hand,
looking rather pale as he did so.
‘Let this betoken,’ rejoined he, ‘that what-
ever is discarded amongst us, it shall not be
Christian charity. And now it grows late. I
must not selfishly prolong our discussion ; yet,
as your pastor, with a sacred duty to discharge
towards all my flock, suffer me to add one word.
What Mr. Stone has alleged may be the system
of worldly England ; though many a man pro-
fessing far less than we do would repudiate so
monstrous a principle; but as Churchmen we
can have nothing to do with it. God’s gifts
PROS AND CONS. 267
are bought without money and without price:
“‘ Ho, every one,” cries His invitation. I, there-
fore, as His most unworthy ambassador, protest
that in His house I will no longer buy and sell
as in a market. I confess myself in fault that
I have so long tolerated this monstrous abuse;
and I avow that you, my brethren, have this
evening furnished me with the only plausible
argument in favour of pews which has ever been
suggested to me, for it zs hard upon our open-
hearted poor that they should be compelled to
sit by persons who, instead of viewing them as
brethren beloved, despise the poor.’
THE WAVES OF THIS
TROUBLESOME WORLD,
A TALE OF HASTINGS FIFTEEN
YEARS AGO.
a
’
THE WAVES OF THIS
TROUBLESOME WORLD.
PART I.
PERHAPS there is no pleasanter watering-place
in England where to spend the fine summer
months than Hastings, on the Sussex coast.
The old town, nestling in a long, narrow valley,
flanked by the East and West Hills, looks down
upon the sea. At the valley mouth, on the
shingly beach, stands the fish-market, where
boatmen disembark the fruit of daily toil ; where
traffic is briskly plied, and maybe haggling
rages ; where bare-legged children dodge in and
out between the stalls; where now and thena
travelling show—dwarf, giant, or what not—
arrests for brief days its wanderings.
272 THE WAVES OF THIS
Hard by the market, on the beach, stands
the fishermen’s chapel—plain, but comely, with,
near the door, its small chest for offerings. I
know not whether chanted psalms and hymns
rise within its walls; but if they do, the windy
sea must sound an accompaniment exceeding
in solemn. harmony any played upon earthly
organs, to such words as, ‘One deep calleth
another, because of the noise of the water-
pipes: all Thy waves and storms are gone
over me;’ or, ‘They are carned sy ero ee
heaven, and down again to the deep: their soul
melteth away because of the trouble;’ or, ‘ Let
not the waterflood drown me, neither let the
deep swallow me up.’
It is a pretty sight in brilliant holiday
weather to watch the many parties of health
or pleasure-seekers which throng the beach.
Boys and girls picking up shells, pebbles, and
star-fishes, or raising with hands and wooden
spades a sand fortress, encircled by a moat full
of sea-water, and crowned by a twig of seaweed
as a flag; mothers and elder sisters reading or
working beneath shady hats, whilst after bathing
TROUBLESOME WORLD. 273
their long hair dries in the sun and wind. Hard
by rock at their moorings bannered pleasure-
boats, with blue-jerseyed oarsmen or white sails ;
and if the weather is oppressively hot and sunny,
a gaily-coloured canopy is reared on light poles,
for the protection of voyagers. When tide is
high, a plank or a long step suffices ; but at low
water, as the shore is flat, boatmen have fre-
quently to carry children, and even women,
across the broad stretch of wet sands to and
from the vessels.
Very different from such seafarers in sport
are their near neighbours, the seafarers in ear-
nest ; who neither hoist canopies for fair weather,
nor tarry at home for foul; who might say with
the patriarch Jacob, ‘In the day the drought
consumed me, and the frost by night ;’ whose
vigils often see the moon rise and set; who
sometimes buffet with the winds and tug against
the tide for very life.
It is with one of these that my tale has to
do: let us peep into his cottage.
An accident to his boat, only just now, after
hours of diligent labour, repaired, has kept
D
274 THE WAVES OF THIS
Frank Hardiman on shore all day. Within
another hour the tide will be favourable, and
he must put to sea; till then he stays with
his wife and two children, Jane and Henry.
They are seated at tea, discussing the con-
tents of a letter received that afternoon. Let
us look at the faces and listen to the con-
versation.
Frank Hardiman is thirty-one years old, tall,
stout, tanned by the sun, with a deep, jolly voice,
bright eyes, and the merriest of laughs. His
wife, Emma, is slim and rather pretty, dressed
with considerable taste and uncommon neatness;
for before her marriage she was upper nurse in
a gentleman’s family, and, indeed, made acquaint-
ance with her good man when loitering along
the beach after her little charges. Jane is nine
years old, quiet and shy, with a mild expression,
redeemed from insipidity by lines of unusual
firmness about the mouth: when she speaks it
is mostly in a slow, apathetic manner ; but now
and. then a flash of feeling reveals that there
are strength and depth in her character. Harry
has scarcely entered his seventh year, and is a
TROUBLESOME WORLD. 275
miniature likeness of his father, only less sun-
burned.
The letter under discussion ran as follows :—
Dear Brother and Sister,
My husband died ten days ago in the
hope of a blessed resurrection. Moreover God,
Who does all things well, has been pleased to
call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my
son. I am alone indeed now; not in debt,
having just enough in hand to pay my way
till Thursday, and then come down to you.
Will you receive me? We parted in anger, but
perhaps you will forgive me when you know
how much I have lost, and guess with how sore
a longing I desire to lay my bones amongst
my own people. If I do not hear from
you by Thursday, I shall understand that you
cannot forgive: nevertheless remember, in
the next world if not in this, we must meet
again.
Your sorrowful, affectionate sister,
SARAH LANE.
276 THE WAVES OF THIS
‘How can she fancy we’d bear malice after
all her troubles?’ said Frank; ‘and when it
was for her own good, too. Write at once, my
dear, and make her welcome to all we’ve got,
such as it is, and the best of it.’
‘Yes,’ replied Emma, dryly. She was jea-
lously alive to her husband’s fondness for his
sister, and by no means relished the prospect of
her returning to live with them.
‘ How old is Aunt Sarah ?’ inquired Jane.
‘Twenty-five last March ; and five years ago
she was the prettiest girl in Hastings. You
must furbish up your room a bit, Jenny, and
make your aunt as comfortable as you can.
She’s got rather high notions, naturally; but I
guess they must have come down by this time,
poor thing! only don’t let us make her feel
strange coming back to what used to be her
home—and shall be her home again, please
God, if she’ll come and share it. Well, I’m
off, Emma,’ continued Frank, rising and shaking
himself: ‘you ’ll write a kind welcome, I know,
for you’re the scholar; and you needn’t say a
word about me, except that I’m just the same
TROUBLESOME WORLD. a7
as five years ago. Good night.’—‘ Good night.’
So he left the cottage.
Then Jane busied herself with washing the
tea-things and ‘tidying up;’ Harry, at the
imminent risk of his fingers, began hacking a
small bit of wood, to produce what he dubbed
a boat, and Emma sat down to write the letter
of invitation—TI cannot say welcome :—
My dear Sister,
Your letter came to hand this after-
noon, and Frank and I are very sorry for your
troubles ; but if you come here I dare say you
will mind less. Frank says, ‘Come and_ wel-
come, and be as all was five years ago:’ only
ours is but a poor place for such as you, and
you must not mind having Jenny in bed with
you; and you cannot expect me to do nothing
but wait on you, as I have a good handful with
Frank and the children, I tell you plainly.
So next Thursday we shall expect you, and
no more at present from
- Your affectionate sister,
EMMA HARDIMAN.
278 THE WAVES OF THIS
Whilst Emma wrote her letter, Jane, I say,
washed the tea-things. There was brisk tho-
roughness in her manner of washing; no great
handiness, but concentrated energy: she was
evidently conscientious. Next she coaxed Harry
to forego his hacking and be put to bed, showing
tact and good nature with firmness in the trans-
action. Then, returning with her bonnet on her
head and a basket on her arm, she asked her
mother whether she should not take her letter
to the post.
‘Yes,’ answered Emma; ‘and you must
make haste, too, or it won’t be in time. Here’s
a penny for a stamp; and,’ putting a crown-
piece into the little girl’s hand, ‘you must bring
me in some butter, and sugar, and treacle, and a
loaf, and some tea; and call at Mrs, Smith’s
for my bonnet, and get a reel of black cotton
and a paper of needles. And you must run,
too; you’ll have running enough, I reckon,
when madam comes.’
_ Away ran Jane with all her might, reaching
the post-office in much more than time to catch
the evening mail. ‘Well, my little woman, is
TROUBLESOME WORLD. 279
it a love-letter you’re carrying?’ said the post-
master; to which she answered demurely, ‘ No,
sir, please; it’s to my aunt in London. Seeing
he was busy she added no more, but set off on
her next errand. This took her to a various-
smelling shop in one of the back streets, where
she ran glibly through the accustomed list of
articles: ‘Half a pound of butter, a pound of
sugar, two pennyworth of treacle (for Harry),
a quartern loaf,a quarter of a pound of three-
and-fourpenny tea, and two rashers of bacon,’
supplying the last item from her knowledge of
what must be wanted, though her mother had
forgotten to name it. She packed all carefully
in her little basket, counted the change from
her crown-piece, chirped to a poor imprisoned
lark, which could catch not one glimpse of sky
from his nail in the shop, stroked her old friend
the black cat, and started for Mrs. Smith’s smart
establishment in the High Street.
Mrs. Smith, in a false front and staring
flowers, presiding behind her millinery counter,
looked somewhat formidable. Jane preferred
asking the young woman on the other side for
280 THE WAVES OF THIS
the black cotton and needles. These were sup-
plied and paid for; then Mrs. Smith called out
to know if she wanted anything else. ‘ Please,
ma'am,’ began Jane, ‘is mother’s bonnet
‘Oh!’ cried Mrs. Smith, shortly, ‘tell your
mother that her bonnet isn’t done yet, and she
needn’t keep bothering after it; for when it’s
done I’ll send it home, and not before. Good
evening!’ This bonnet was a bone of con-
tention between the two women: it was to be
trimmed in return for certain errands already
executed by Jane; and the milliners hands
being filled just now with more lucrative orders,
great delay ensued in its completion.
When Jane reached home, she found her
mother seated hard at work making a black-
and-white muslin dress with flounces—Emma
loved to be smart on Sunday—for her own wear,
Jane put “away the purchases, handed what
change remained to Mrs. Hardiman, and sat
down to write a’ copy and work an addition sum
for Mrs. Grey, the curate’s wife, who gave her
an hour’s instruction two or three times a-week.
The little girl laboured to do her very best, and
TROUBLESOME WORLD. 281
had just produced a particularly correct capital
B when her mother shook the table. Not a
word said poor Jane, though a great blot was
jerked out of the pen on to the B. She tried
again and again for six lines more, but without
equalling the defaced B; then, that page finished,
turned her mind to the sum. ‘4 and 4 are 8,
)
and I are 9, and 7——’ ‘Jane,’ cried her
mother, ‘there’s nothing for supper; run out
and fetch two rashers.’ ‘I got them, mother,
when I was out, because I knew they were
wanted,’ was the cheerful answer, and reckoning
recommenced. ‘4 and 4 are 8,and I are 9, and
7 are sixt janet “Ves, mother! “ Was
the letter in time?’ ‘Oh, much more than
5]
’
time. 4 and 4——’ ‘I shall never get through
these flounces to-night: put away your books,
child, and help me. I’m sure your schooling
isn’t worth much if it doesn’t teach you to
mind me.’
Jane jumped up, though she could have cried,
laid by her book and slate, and sat down close
to her mother. In another minute two pairs of
hands were hemming as fast as they could henr
282 THE WAVES OF THIS
at the flounces. Why was Emma in such a
hurry to finish making her dress? It could not
be out of regard to her sister-in-law’s feelings, as
she and her daughter were already in black for
the death of an old relation who had left them
a few pounds; neither could it be with an exclu-
sive eye to Sunday, for this was only Tuesday
evening: no, she was bent on receiving poor,
sad Sarah in this fine gown, because she felt
jealous of her good looks, and wanted to out-
shine her in Frank’s eyes.
Jane, who had no idea of this state of things,
asked, ‘What was Uncle Lane?’
‘Don’t call him‘ uncle,” retumed imma,
sharply; ‘he was no kith or kin to us, but a
Methodist fografer [photographer], and but a
poor body at best. I dare say his widow hasn't
a pound that she can call her own, though she
is so ready to invite herself to live with them
who work hard for their bread. However, your
father must please himself. [Thread snaps.]
_ Mrs. Smith’s cotton is mere rubbish; you go to
Widow Wright’s next time, and see if you can’t
get an honest pennorth; do you hear?’
TROUBLESOME WORLD. 283
‘Yes, mother. I shall like to have Aunt
Sarah in my bed: is she like father?’
‘No—yes—I don’t know; don’t bother me.
You'll have enough and to spare of Aunt Sarah,
I can tell you.’
Silence once more, except for the click, click,
of thimble and needle; Jane wondering what
she had said amiss, for her mother was not
usually cross.
At last the flounces were finished. ‘There,
that will do, observed Emma, more compla-
cently, for they looked puffy and well. ‘I
declare it’s supper-time; make haste, child, and
toast the bacon whilst I clear away.’
On Wednesday, Jane having, under her
mother’s direction, scrubbed her own bed-room
floor, added a blue bason and jug to its furniture,
and an extra chair. The window looked into
Frank’s garden, very bright just now with nas-
turtiums; and though it did not command a sea
view, the murmur, or tumult, or roar of the great
deep, could always, except in very still weather,
be distinctly heard from it.
284 THE WAVES OF THIS
The room made ready, let us glance at its
future occupant.
Sarah Lane, now so mournful, had years ago
been not only the prettiest, but almost the
merriest girl in Hastings. True, she was a child
of sorrow to her mother, who died without even
kissing her new-born baby; but, bequeathed to
the guardianship of father and brother, she never
missed a mother’s care. Often might Henry
Hardiman be seen loitering up and down the
parade, or lounging by the sun-dial, holding in
his arms his little girl; or, as she grew older,
putting his finger into her chubby fist to help
her intoddling. Sometimes, in pleasant.weather,
he took her in the boat with him for a row;
sometimes left her on shore under the care of
Frank, who lugged her unweariedly about the
beach, where she served as plaything to her
father’s rugged mates. ? |
When the time arrived for Frank to go out
with his father and share his labours, a change
_ensued for little Sarah. She was sent to a
superior school—for Henry Hardiman drove a
flourishing trade—and only went home on a
«
TROUBLESOME WORLD. 285
Saturday to stay till the Monday; the Hardi-
mans, from father to son, observing Sunday, and
frequenting St. Clement’s Church. Henry and
Frank were not a little proud of their girl as she
walked beside them, rosy and good-humoured,
or, with a pretty childish voice, joined in the
hymns of the congregation ; and before long she,
too, learned to be proud of her sturdy, weather-
beaten father in his Sunday blue coat, and of
her handsome, merry brother, and to give them
back warm love for the life-long love which they
gave her. |
At fifteen, grown tall and womanly, Sarah |
came home to keep her father’s house. Her
school-education included several useful items:
she was quick and clever with her needle, read
with fluency and expression, wrote a clear hand,
was a capital accountant, had a fair knowledge
of geography, history, and spelling, could ex-
press herself well in a letter ; moreover, she knew
a little music and a little dancing, and, thanks
to natural voice and ear, sang sweetly and tune-
ably. Very soon the cottage bore witness to
her good taste. The old-fashioned furniture
286 THE WAVES OF THIS
was rubbed up; a few geraniums and fuchsias
screened the parlour window ; a Virginia creeper,
scarlet-coloured in autumn, clambered up the
outer wall; and carefully tended plants ren-
dered her garden the prettiest in the Tackle
way. She liked and wore bright colours; and
when she watered her window- flowers, or
gathered a nosegay in the garden, or sat among
the Pier Rocks watching for her father’s boat to
come across the intense blue, sunny sea, often
and often passers-by lingered to admire her
noble beauty and untaught grace.
When her skill as a needlewoman became
known, first neighbours, then ladies, engaged her
to work for them. By this means she amassed
a little sum of money, carefully stored amongst
her treasures, but never spent. Sometimes
Henry, coming home, found her sewing and
singing, whilst puss purred at her feet, and the —
kettle sang on the fire. Then he would say,
‘Bless you, Sally; there’s no need for you to
_ wear out your plump bits of fingers. Ain't
Frank and I big enough to work for you?’
And she would answer, ‘Ah, but some day when
TROUBLESOME WORLD. 287
you’re a dear old father, and stay at home in
the chimney-corner, Frank mustn’t have all the
pleasure of working for you, and my earnings
will come in handy, you’ll see.’
Several young men courted her for her fair
face, or clever ways, or kind heart; but to all of
them she answered a civil ‘No,’ till it came to
be said among the fisher-folk that Sarah Hardi-
man must be waiting for a lord. Even John
Archer, a well-to-do, God-fearing young boat-
man, who followed her for many an anxious
month, only at last elicited her gentle, firm ‘ No,’
though her father pitied the poor lad, and Frank ©
spoke warmly in his favour. Soon after Sarah
left school, Frank married and brought home his
Emma; but Sarah continued mistress of the
house, her father’s darling, and very dear to her
brother, which, with her good looks and many
suitors, made Emma sore and jealous. The
two young women were not over cordial together,
though they never spoke of their coolness, and
Frank was long before he even suspected it.
So four years passed.
One Saturday night, as the little family sat
288 THE WAVES OF THIS
round the fire, over which spluttered eggs and
bacon for supper,—as Henry dozed, Frank
netted, Emma worked for her baby, and Sarah
turned the rashers, a noise of quarrelling outside
roused the two men. They started up, but
before they could reach the door a loud crash
was heard of something falling and breaking on
~ the pavement; then three or four voices cried
‘Shame!’ They ran out, and the women were
left alone in some anxiety.
After a few minutes old Hardiman returned.
‘Sally,’ explained he, ‘here’s a poor travelling
showman whose box of things has just been
smashed by big Ben, because he said the sun
would take his likeness. Ben, I reckon, has had
a glass too much. So I think it will be but
Christian-like to take him in for to-night, as he’s
quite a stranger here, and seems a decent body,
if you’ll shake him down a bed, my darling.’
‘Yes, father,’ answered the girl; and just
then Frank and a young man entered, bearing
_ between them the wrecks of a portable photo-
graphic apparatus.
‘Sit down and be kindly welcome, : Sarah
TROUBLESOME WORLD. 289
said, blushing like a rose; she set a chair for
the stranger, and, with practical hospitality,
broke three more eggs, and put three more
rashers into the frying-pan. Then she placed
those already cooked on the table, with cheese,
butter, home-made bread, and strong beer.
At supper the guest warmly thanked his
entertainers, and proceeded to gratify their
curiosity about himself. His name was John
Lane ; both his parents were dead, and, indeed,
he had no near relation in the world. His
business was to take photographs, at sixpence
and upwards ; for this purpose he travelled from
town to town, seldom remaining in one place
for more than a few weeks: ‘Till to-night,’ he
continued, somewhat bitterly, ‘I never met with
an ignorant brute. He then drew from his
pocket a small case containing specimens of his
art, both portraits and landscapes.
Frank looked at them in silent admiration ;
but Sarah observed, pointing to a coloured head,
‘I like that best ; I always want to know what
eyes and hair people have.’ John Lane glanced
up at her: ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘the sun can’t paint
U
290 THE WAVES OF THIS
eyes and hair” ‘Well, Mr. Lane,’ interposed
Emma, ‘I must get you to do Jenny’s portrait.
When will you be able?’ ‘I will come as soon |
as I possibly can,’ he answered, eagerly. So
that evening concluded.
Next morning, while they sat at breakfast,
Sarah said to the guest, ‘Our old church is
worth seeing: I think when you’ve been there
with us, you'll want to take its likeness too.’
But John Lane, flushing crimson, replied, with-
out looking up, ‘I can’t go there, thank you:
I’m what you call a Methodist.’
Certainly John Lane by no means exagge-
rated in his own favour when he told his story.
He might have said that during some years he
had been the sole support of a bedridden mother,
for her sake often denying himself all save bare
necessaries ; that by perseverance and ingenuity
he had attained proficiency in his art; that he
had laid up a sum of money, and was in the
way to add to it. Any one who knew him well
could have related these facts and more. Two
years before this period, about the time of his
TROUBLESOME WORLD. 291
mother’s death, he stopped one Sunday after-
noon to hear an itinerant preacher, who, bare-
headed, Bible in hand, went out—to use his
own phrase—into the highways and hedges, to
compel men to come in. John stopped to kill
time ; but the rough, zealous words pricked his
conscience to the quick: before he went his way
he had resolved to redeem the time. From
that day he was an altered man: he read his
Bible with fervent, persistent prayer, and at
the first opportunity introduced himself to the
preacher whose words had convinced him of sin.
These two men, both honest, both zealous, both
uninstructed, provoked each other to good works;
but, utterly alien from church unity, ignored
many vital doctrines. The elder man, con-
strained by the love of Christ, sailed as a mis-
sionary to India: John Lane then believed that
he was called to fill the gap ; to lift up his voice
like a trumpet, and proclaim the gospel to souls
perishing for lack of knowledge. Therefore he
gave up his fixed quarters in London, and
wandering from town to town, endeavoured to
speak a word in season to persons who came
292 THE WAVES OF THIS
to him in the way of business ; and on Sundays,
after attending one service in the Methodist
chapel, devoted his afternoon to out-of-door
preaching.
This was the man whom what we call
accident, but what is in fact the appointment or
permission of God, brought to the fisherman’s
cottage; to Hardiman and Frank, staunch
churchgoers ; to Emma, not over partial to her
sister-in-law ; to beautiful Sarah, with her winning
ways and disengaged heart.
Of course John Lane deemed himself in
duty bound to bear witness for the truth here as
elsewhere. Hardiman listened to him, but shook
his head when he spoke of the love of the
Establishment having waxed cold, of experience,
and professors. ‘I like practisers,’ said Henry
Hardiman; and trudged to St. Clement’s as
heretofore. Emma went once to the Methodist
| chapel, but was mightily offended when the
preacher, looking, as she declared, full at her
light blue bonnet, observed, ‘It might have
been better for Dives in hell if he had not
dressed so finely.’ Sarah, who would not grieve
TROUBLESOME WORLD. 293
her father, continued a regular attendant at the
old parish church once every Sunday ; but if,
as frequently happened, in her afternoon stroll
she caught sight of John Lane surrounded by a
group of listeners, too often idlers, she was sure
to join his audience and add her sweet voice
to their hymns. Then followed the walk toge-
ther home; the earnest communings by the
way, of God, and Jesus, and heaven, of the
everlasting burnings to be fled from, and the
everlasting prize to be run for.
So these two came to love each other:
Henry only saw that the young man loved his
beautiful daughter.
‘John Lane,’ said he one day, ‘you love
Sarah, and mean well by her; but I tell you
plainly she’s not for such as you. She’s said
“No” to many a man already, and she’ll say
“No” to you when you ask her: for she shall
‘never have my blessing on her marrying a
Methodist, and gadding from place to place
making mischief. Take my advice, my lad,
and keep away from Sarah, and she won't run
after you.’
294. THE WAVES OF THIS
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troubles to any one.
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