"You have done more towards beautifying the cottage than I could have
hoped to do," said Mr. Juxon, leaning back in his chair and resting one
hand on Stamboul's great head.
"It was very pretty of itself," answered Mrs. Goddard, "and fortunately
it is not very big, or my things would look lost in it."
"I should not say that--you have so many beautiful things. They seem to
suit the place so well. I am sure you will never think of taking them
away."
"Not if I can help it--I am too glad to be quiet."
"You have travelled a great deal, Mrs. Goddard?" asked the squire.
"No--not exactly that--only a little, after all. I have not been to
Constantinople for instance," she added looking at the hound Mr. Juxon
had brought from the East. "You are indeed a traveller."
"I have travelled all my life," said the squire, indifferently, as though
the subject of his wanderings did not interest him. "From what little I
have seen of Billingsfield I fancy you will find all the quiet you could
wish, here. Really, I realise that at my own gate I must come to you for
information. What sort of man is that excellent rector down there, whom I
met last night?"
The squire's tone became more confidential as he put the question.
"Well--he is not a rector, to begin with," answered Mrs. Goddard with a
smile, "he is the vicar, and he is a most good man, whom I have always
found most kind."
"I can readily fancy that," said Mr. Juxon. "But his wife seems to be of
the severe type."
"No--she struck me so at first, too. I think it is only with strangers.
She is such a motherly sort of woman, you do not know! She only has that
little manner when you first meet her."
"What a strange thing that is!" remarked the squire, looking at Mrs.
Goddard. "The natural belief of English people in each other's depravity
until they have had time to make acquaintance! And is there no one else
here--no doctor--no doctor's wife?"
"Not a soul," answered Mrs. Goddard. "There is a doctor, but the vicarage
suspects him of free thought. He certainly never goes to church. He has
no wife."
"This is the most Arcadian retreat I ever was in. Upon my word, I am a
very lucky man."
"I suppose that it must be a relief when one has travelled so much,"
replied Mrs. Goddard.
"Or suffered very much," added the squire, half unconsciously, looking at
her sad face.
"Yes," she answered. At that moment the door opened and Nellie entered
the room, having successfully grappled with the inkstains. She went
straight to the squire, and held out her hand, blushing a little, but
looking very pretty. Then she saw the huge head of Stamboul who looked up
at her with a ferociously agreeable canine smile, and thwacked the carpet
with his tail as he sat; Nellie started back.
"Oh, what a dog!" she exclaimed. But very soon she was on excellent
terms with him; little Nellie was not timid, and Stamboul, who liked
people who were not afraid of him and was especially fond of children,
did his best to be amusing.
"He is a very good dog," remarked Mr. Juxon. "He once did me a very good
service."
"How was that?"
"I was riding in the Belgrade forest one summer. I was alone with
Stamboul following. A couple of ruffians tried to rob me. Stamboul caught
one of them."
"Did he hurt him very much?"
"I don't know--he killed him before the fellow could scream, and I shot
the other," replied the squire calmly.
"What a horrible story!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard, turning pale. "Come
here, Nellie--don't touch that dreadful dog!"
"Do not be afraid--he is perfectly harmless. Come here Stamboul!" The
huge beast obeyed, wagging his tail, and sat down at his master's feet,
still looking rather wistfully at Nellie who had been playing with him.
"You see," continued Mr. Juxon, "he is as quiet as a lamb--would not hurt
a fly!"
"I think it is dreadful to have such animals about," said Mrs. Goddard in
a low voice, still looking at the dog with horror.
"I am sorry I told you. It may prejudice you against him. I only meant to
explain how faithful he is, that is all. You see a man grows fond of a
creature that has saved his life."
"I suppose so, but it is rather startling to see such an animal so near
to one. I fear I am very nervous."
"By the bye." said the squire with the bold irrelevancy of a man who
wants to turn the subject, "are you fond of flowers?"
"I?" said Mrs. Goddard in surprise. "Yes--very. Why?"
"I thought you would not mind if I had the garden here improved a little.
One might put in a couple of frames. I did not see any flowers about. I
am so fond of them myself, you see, that I always look for them."
"You are very kind," answered Mrs. Goddard. "But I would not have you
take any trouble on my account. We are so comfortable and so fond of the
cottage already--"
"Well, I hope you will grow to like it even better," returned the squire
with a genial smile. "Anything I can do, you know--" he rose as though to
take his leave. "Excuse me, but may I look at that picture? Andrea del
Sarto? Yes, I thought so--wonderful--upon my word, in a cottage in
Billingsfield. Where did you find it?"
"It was my husband's," said Mrs. Goddard.
"Ah--ah, yes," said the squire in a subdued tone. "I beg your pardon," he
added, as people often do, unconsciously, when they fancy they have
accidentally roused in another a painful train of thought. Then he turned
to go. "We dine at half-past seven, you know, so as to be early for Miss
Nellie," he said, as he went out.
Mrs. Goddard was glad he was gone, though she felt that he was not
unsympathetic. The story of the dog had frightened her, and her own
mention of her husband had made her nervous and sad. More than ever she
felt that fear of being in a false position, which had assailed her when
she had first met the squire on the previous evening. He had at once
opened relations with her in a way which showed that he intended to be
intimate; he had offered to improve her cottage, had insisted upon making
frames in her garden, had asked her to dinner with the Ambroses and had
established the right to talk to her whenever he got a chance. He
interested her, too, which was worse. His passing references to his
travels and to his adventures, of which he spoke with the indifference
of a man accustomed to danger, his unassuming manner, his frank
ways--everything about him awakened her interest. She had supposed that
in two years the very faculty of being interested by a man would be
dulled if not destroyed; she found to her annoyance that though she had
seen Mr. Juxon only twice she could not put him out of her thoughts. She
was, moreover, a nervous, almost morbid, woman, and the natural result of
trying to forget his existence was that she could think of nothing else.
How much better it would be, she thought, if he knew her story from the
first. He might then be as friendly as he pleased; there would be no
danger in it, to him or to her. She almost determined to go at once and
ask the vicar's advice. But by the time she had nearly made up her mind
it was the hour for luncheon, and little Nellie's appetite was exigent.
By the time lunch was over her determination had changed. She had
reflected that the vicar would think her morbid, that, with his usual
good sense, he would say there was no necessity for telling the squire
anything; indeed, that to do so would be undignified. If the squire were
indeed going to lead the life of a recluse as he proposed doing, he was
not really a man to cause her any apprehension. If he had travelled about
the world for forty years, without having his heart disturbed by any of
the women he must have met in that time, he was certainly not the kind of
man, when once he had determined to settle in his home, to fall in love
with the first pretty woman he met. It was absurd; there was no
likelihood of it; it was her own miserable vanity, she told herself,
which made the thing seem probable, and she would not think any more
about it. She, a woman thirty-one years of age, with a daughter who ere
long would be growing up to womanhood! To be afraid of a mere stranger
like Mr. Juxon--afraid lest he should fall in love with her! Could
anything be more ridiculous? Her duty was to live quietly as she had
lived before, to take no more notice of the squire than was necessary in
order to be civil, and so all would be well.
And so it seemed for a long time. The squire improved the garden of the
cottage and Mrs. Goddard and Nellie, with the Ambroses, dined at the
Hall, which at first seemed an exceedingly dreary and dismal place, but
which, as they returned thither again and again, grew more and more
luxurious, till the transformation was complete. Mr. Juxon brought all
manner of things to the house; vans upon vans arrived, laden with boxes
of books and pictures and oriental carpets and rare objects which the
squire had collected in his many years of travel, and which he appeared
to have stored in London until he had at last inherited the Hall. The
longer the Ambroses and Mrs. Goddard knew him, the more singularly
impressed they were with his reticence concerning himself. He appeared to
have been everywhere, to have seen everything, and he had certainly
brought back a vast collection of more or less valuable objects from his
travels, besides the large library he had accumulated and which contained
many rare and curious editions of ancient books. He was evidently a man
of very good education, and a much better scholar than he was willing to
allow. The vicar delighted in his society and when the two found
themselves together in the great room which Mr. Juxon had lined with
well-filled shelves, they remained for hours absorbed in literary and
scholastic talk. But whenever the vicar approached the subject of the
squire's past life, the latter became vague and gave ambiguous answers to
any direct questions addressed to him. He evidently disliked talking of
himself, though he would talk about anything else that occurred to him
with a fluency which Mrs. Ambrose declared was the only un-English thing
about him. The consequence was that the vicar became more and more
interested in his new acquaintance, and though the squire was so frank
and honest a man that it was impossible to suspect him of any doubtful
action in the past, Mr. Ambrose suspected that he had a secret. Indeed
after hearing the story Mrs. Goddard had confided to his ears, nothing
would have surprised the vicar. After finding that so good, so upright
and so honourable a woman as the fair tenant of the cottage could be put
into such a singularly painful position as that in which she now found
herself, it was not hard to imagine that this singular person who had
inherited the Hall might also have some weighty reason for loving the
solitude of Billingsfield.
To chronicle the small events which occurred in that Arcadian parish,
would be to overstep the bounds of permissible tediousness. In such
places all events move slowly and take long to develop to their results.
The passions which in our own quickly moving world spring up, flourish,
wither and are cut down in a month require, when they are not stimulated
by the fertilising heat of artificial surroundings, a longer period for
their growth; and when that growth is attained they are likely to be
stronger and more deeply rooted. It is not true that the study of them is
less interesting, nor that they have less importance in themselves. The
difficulty of narrative is greater when they are to be described, for it
is necessary to carry the imagination in a short time over a long period,
to show how from small incidents great results follow, and to show also
how the very limited and trivial nature of the surroundings may cause
important things to be overlooked. Amidst such influences acquaintance is
soon made between the few persons so thrown together, but each is apt to
regard such new acquaintance merely as bearing upon his or her own
particular interests. It is surprising to see how people will live side
by side in solitude, even in danger, in distant settlements, in the
mining districts of the West, in up-country stations in India, on board
ship, even, for months and years, without knowing anything of each
other's previous history; whereas in the crowded centres of civilisation
and society the first questions are "Where does he come from?" "What are
his antecedents?" "What has he done in the world?" And unless a man can
answer such inquiries to the general satisfaction he is likely to be
heavily handicapped in the social race. But in more primitive situations
men are ruled by more primitive feelings of mutual respect; it is
considered that a man should not be pressed to speak of things he shows
no desire to discuss and that, provided he does not interfere with his
neighbour's wellbeing, his past life is nobody's business. One may feel
curiosity concerning him, but under no circumstances is one justified in
asking questions.
For these reasons, although Mr. Juxon's arrival and instalment in the
Hall were regarded with satisfaction by the little circle at
Billingsfield, while he himself was at once received into intimacy and
treated with cordial friendliness, he nevertheless represented in the
minds of all an unsolved enigma. And to the squire the existence of one
of the circle was at least as problematical as his own life could seem to
any of them. The more he saw of Mrs. Goddard, the more he wondered at her
and speculated about her and the less he dared to ask her any questions.
But he understood from Mr. Ambrose's manner, that the vicar at least was
in possession of her secret, and he inferred from what he was able to
judge about the vicar's character that the latter was not a man to extend
his friendship to any one who did not deserve it. Whatever Mrs. Goddard's
story was, he felt sure that her troubles had not been caused by her own
misconduct. She was in every respect what he called a good woman. Of
course, too, she was a widow; the way in which she spoke of her husband
implied that, on those rare occasions when she spoke of him at all.
Charles James Juxon was a gentleman, whatever course of life he had
followed before settling in the country, and he did not feel that he
should be justified in asking questions about Mrs. Goddard of the vicar.
Besides, as time went on and he found his own interest in her increasing,
he began to nourish the hope that he might one day hear her story from
her own lips. In his simplicity it did not strike him that he himself had
grown to be an object of interest to her.
Somehow, during the summer and autumn of that year, Mrs. Goddard
contracted a habit of watching the park gate from the window of the
cottage, particularly at certain hours of the day. It was only a habit,
but it seemed to amuse her. She used to sit in the small bay window with
her books, reading to herself or teaching Nellie, and it was quite
natural that from time to time she should look out across the road. But
it rarely happened, when she was installed in that particular place, that
Mr. Juxon failed to appear at the gate, with his dog Stamboul, his green
stockings, his stick and the inevitable rose in his coat. Moreover he
generally crossed the road and, if he did not enter the cottage and spend
a quarter of an hour in conversation, he at least spoke to Mrs. Goddard
through the open window. It was remarkable, too, that as time went on
what at first had seemed the result of chance, recurred with such
invariable regularity as to betray the existence of a fixed rule. Nellie,
too, who was an observant child, had ceased asking questions but watched
her mother with her great violet eyes in a way that made Mrs. Goddard
nervous. Nellie liked the squire very much but though she asked her
mother very often at first whether she, too, was fond of that nice Mr.
Juxon, the answers she received were not encouraging. How was it
possible, Mrs. Goddard asked, to speak of liking anybody one had known so
short a time? And as Nellie was quite unable to answer such an inquiry,
she desisted from her questions and applied herself to the method of
personal observation. But here, too, she was met by a hopeless
difficulty. The squire and her mother never seemed to have any secrets,
as Nellie would have expressed it. They met daily, and daily exchanged
very much the same remarks concerning the weather, the garden, the
vicar's last sermon. When they talked about anything else, they spoke of
books, of which the squire lent Mrs. Goddard a great number. But this was
a subject which did not interest Nellie very much; she was not by any
means a prodigy in the way of learning, and though she was now nearly
eleven years old was only just beginning to read the Waverley novels. On
one occasion she remarked to her mother that she did not believe a word
of them and did not think they were a bit like real life, but the
momentary fit of scepticism soon passed and Nellie read on contentedly,
not omitting however to watch her mother in order to find out, as her
small mind expressed it, "whether mamma really liked that nice Mr.
Juxon." Events were slowly preparing themselves which would help her to
come to a satisfactory conclusion upon that matter.
Mr. Juxon himself was in a very uncertain state of mind. After knowing
Mrs. Goddard for six months, and having acquired the habit of seeing her
almost every day, he found to his surprise that she formed a necessary
part of his existence. It need not have surprised him, for in spite of
that lady's surmise with regard to his early life, he was in reality a
man of generous and susceptible temperament. He recognised in the
charming tenant of the cottage many qualities which he liked, and he
could not deny that she was exceedingly pretty. Being a strong man he was
particularly attracted by the pathetic expression of her face, the
perpetual sadness that was visible there when she was not momentarily
interested or amused. Had he suspected her paleness and air of secret
suffering to be the result of any physical infirmity, she would not have
interested him so much. But Mrs. Goddard's lithe figure and easy grace of
activity belied all idea of weakness. It was undoubtedly some hidden
suffering of mind which lent that sadness to her voice and features, and
which so deeply roused the sympathies of the squire. At the end of six
months Mr. Juxon was very much interested in Mrs. Goddard, but despite
all his efforts to be agreeable he seemed to have made no progress
whatever in the direction of banishing her cares. To tell the truth, it
did not enter his mind that he was in love with her. She was his tenant;
she was evidently very unhappy about something; it was therefore
undeniably his duty as a landlord and as a gentleman to make life
easy for her.
He wondered what the matter could be. At first he had been inclined to
think that she was poor and was depressed by poverty. But though she
lived very simply, she never seemed to be in difficulties. Five hundred
pounds a year go a long way in the village of Billingsfield. It was
certainly not want of money which made her unhappy. The interest of the
sum represented by the pictures hung in her little sitting-room, not to
mention the other objects of value she possessed, would have been alone
sufficient to afford her a living. The squire himself would have given
her a high price for these things, but in six months she never in the
most distant manner suggested that she wished to part with them. The idea
then naturally suggested itself to Mr. Juxon's mind that she was still
mourning for her husband, and that she would probably continue to mourn
for him until some one, himself for instance, succeeded in consoling her
for so great a loss.
The conclusion startled the squire. That was not precisely the part he
contemplated playing, nor the species of consolation he proposed to
offer. Mrs. Goddard was indeed a charming woman, and the squire liked
charming women and delighted in their society. But Mr. Juxon was a
bachelor of more than forty years standing, and he had never regarded
marriage as a thing of itself, for himself, desirable. He immediately
thrust the idea from his mind with a mental "_vade retro Satanas_!" and
determined that things were very agreeable in their present state, and
might go on for ever; that if Mrs. Goddard was unhappy that did not
prevent her from talking very pleasantly whenever he saw her, which was
nearly every day, and that her griefs were emphatically none of his
business. Before very long however Mr. Juxon discovered that though it
was a very simple thing to make such a determination it was a very
different thing to keep it. Mrs. Goddard interested him too much. When he
was with her he was perpetually longing to talk about herself instead of
about the weather and the garden and the books, and once or twice he was
very nearly betrayed into talking about himself, a circumstance so
extraordinary that Mr. Juxon imagined he must be either ill or going mad,
and thought seriously of sending for the doctor. He controlled the
impulse, however, and temporarily recovered; but strange to say from that
time forward the conversation languished when he found himself alone with
Mrs. Goddard, and it seemed very hard to maintain their joint interest in
the weather, the garden and the books at the proper standard of
intensity. They had grown intimate, and familiarity had begun to breed a
contempt of those petty subjects upon which their intimacy had been
founded. It is not clear why this should be so, but it is true,
nevertheless, and many a couple before Charles Juxon and Mary Goddard had
found it out. As the interest of two people in each other increases their
interest in things, as things, diminishes in like ratio, and they are
very certain ultimately to reach that point described by the Frenchman's
maxim--"a man should never talk to a woman except of herself or himself."
If Mr. Juxon was not in love with Mary Goddard he was at least rapidly
approaching a very dangerous state; for he saw her every day and could
not let one day go by without seeing her, and moreover he grew silent in
her company, to a degree which embarrassed her and made him feel himself
more stupid than he had ever dreamed possible; so that he would sometimes
stay too long, in the hope of finding something to say, and sometimes he
would leave her abruptly and go and shut himself up with his books, and
busy himself with his catalogues and his bindings and the arrangement of
his rare editions. One day at last, he felt that he had behaved so very
absurdly that he was ashamed of himself, and suddenly disappeared for
nearly a week. When he returned he said he had been to town to attend a
great sale of books, which was perfectly true; he did not add that the
learned expert he employed in London could have done the business for him
just as well. But the trip had done him no good, for he grew more silent
than ever, and Mrs. Goddard even thought his brown face looked a shade
paler; but that might have been the effect of the winter weather.
Ordinary sunburn she reflected, as she looked at her own white skin in
the mirror, will generally wear off in six months, though freckles will
not.
If Mr. Juxon was not in love, it would be very hard to say what Mary
Goddard felt. It was not true that time was effacing the memory of the
great sorrow she had suffered. It was there still, that memory, keen and
sharp as ever; it would never go away again so long as she lived. But she
had been soothed by the quiet life in Billingsfield; the evidences of the
past had been removed far from her, she had found in the Reverend
Augustin Ambrose one of those rare and manly natures who can keep a
secret for ever without ever referring to its existence even with the
person who has confided it. For a few days she had hesitated whether to
ask the vicar's advice about Mr. Juxon or not. She had thought it her
duty to allow Mr. Ambrose to tell the squire whatever he thought fit of
her own story. But she had changed her mind, and the squire had remained
in ignorance. It was best so, she thought; for now, after more than six
months, Mr. Juxon had taken the position of a friend towards her, and, as
she thought, showed no disposition whatever to overstep the boundaries of
friendship. The regularity of his visits and the sameness of the
conversation seemed of themselves a guarantee of his simple goodwill. It
did not strike her as possible that if he were going to fall in love with
her at all, that catastrophe should be postponed beyond six months from
their first acquaintance. Nor did it seem extraordinary to her that she
should actually look forward to those visits, and take pleasure in that
monotonous intercourse. Her life was very quiet; it was natural that she
should take whatever diversion came in her way, and should even be
thankful for it. Mr. Juxon was an honest gentleman, a scholar and a man
who had seen the world. If what he said was not always very original it
was always very true, a merit not always conceded to the highest
originality. He spoke intelligently; he told her the news; he lent her
the newest books and reviews, and offered her his opinions upon them,
with the regularity of a daily paper. In such a place, where
communications with the outer world seemed as difficult as at the
antipodes, and where the remainder of society was limited to the
household of the vicarage, what wonder was it if she found Mr. Juxon an
agreeable companion, and believed the companionship harmless?
But far down in the involutions of her feminine consciousness there was
present a perpetual curiosity in regard to the squire, a curiosity she
never expected to satisfy, but was wholly unable to repress. Under the
influence of this feeling she made remarks from time to time of an
apparently harmless nature, but which in the squire promoted that strange
inclination to talk about himself, which he had lately observed and which
caused him so much alarm. He said to himself that he had nothing to be
concealed, and that if any one had asked him direct questions concerning
his past he would have answered them boldly enough. But he knew himself
to be so singularly averse to dwelling on his own affairs that he
wondered why he should now be impelled to break through so good a rule.
Indeed he had not the insight to perceive that Mrs. Goddard lost no
opportunity of leading him to the subject of his various adventures, and,
if he had suspected it, he would have been very much surprised.
Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose were far from guessing what an intimacy had sprung
up between the two. Both the cottage and the Hall lay at a considerable
distance from the vicarage, and though Mrs. Ambrose occasionally went to
see Mrs. Goddard at irregular hours in the morning and afternoon, it was
remarkable that the squire never called when she was there. Once Mrs.
Ambrose arrived during one of his visits, but thought it natural enough
that Mr. Juxon should drop in to see his tenant. Indeed when she called
the two were talking about the garden--as usual.