The meeting was painful, for Millicent Hallam and Sir Gordon had never
stood face to face since that day when he had himself opened the door
for her on the occasion of her appeal to him on her husband's behalf.
"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Sir Gordon. "I did not know this."
"It is a surprise, too, for me," said Mrs Hallam, as she coloured
slightly, and then turned pale; but in a moment or two she was calm and
composed--a handsome, grave-looking lady, with unlined face, but with
silvery streaks running through her abundant hair.
"You--you should have told me, Bayle," said Sir Gordon testily.
"And spoilt my surprise," said Bayle.
"I am very, very glad to see you, Sir Gordon," said Mrs Hallam in a
grave, sweet way, once more thoroughly mistress of her emotions.
"Julie, my dear, you hardly recollect our visitor?"
"Yes, oh yes!" said a tall, graceful girl, coming forward to place her
hand in Sir Gordon's. "I seem to see you back as if through a mist;
but--oh, yes, I remember!" She hesitated, and blushed, and laughed.
"You one day--you brought me a great doll."
Sir Gordon had taken both her hands, letting fall hat and stick. He
tried to speak, but the words would not come. His lip quivered, his
face twitched, and Julia felt his hands tremble, as she looked at him
with naive wonder, unable to comprehend his emotion.
He raised her hand as if to press it to his lips, but let it fall, and,
drawing her towards him, kissed her tenderly on the brow, ending by
retaining her hand in both of his.
"An old man's kiss, my child," he said, gazing at her wistfully. "You
remind me so of one I loved--twenty years ago, my dear, and before you
were born." He looked round from one to the other, as if apologising
for his emotion. "My dear Bayle," he said at last, recovering himself,
and speaking with chivalrous courtesy, "I am in your debt for
introducing me to our young friend. Mrs Hallam, you will let me come
and see you?"
Millicent hesitated, and there was a curious, haughty, defiant look in
her eyes as she gazed at her visitor, as if at bay.
"I am sure Mrs Hallam will be glad to see a very dear old friend of
mine," said Bayle quietly; and as he spoke Mrs Hallam glanced at him.
Her eyes softened, and she held out her hand to her visitor.
"Always glad to see you," she said.
Sir Gordon smiled and looked pleased, as he glanced round the pretty,
simply-furnished room, with tokens of the busy hands that adorned it on
every side. Here was Julia's drawing, there her embroidery; they were
her flowers in the window; the bird that twittered so sweetly from its
cage hung on the shutter, and the piano, were hers too. There was only
one jarring note in the whole interior, and that was the portrait in
oils of the handsome man, in the most prominent place in the room--a
picture that at one corner was a little blistered, as if by fire, and
whose eyes seemed to be watching the visitor wherever he turned.
There were many painful memories revived during that visit, but on the
whole it was pleasant, and with the agony of the past softened by time,
Millicent Hallam found herself speaking half reproachfully to Sir Gordon
for not visiting her during all these years.
"Don't blame me," he said in reply; "I have always felt that there was a
wish implied on your part that our acquaintance should cease, as being
too painful for both."
"Perhaps it was," she said, with a sigh; "and I am to blame."
"Let us share it, if there be any blame," said Sir Gordon, smiling, "and
amend our ways. You must remember, though, that I have always kept up
my friendship with the doctor whenever I have been at home, and I have
always heard of your well-beings or--"
"Oh, yes!" said Mrs Hallam hastily, as if to check any allusion to
assistance. "When I recovered from my serious illness I was anxious to
leave Castor. I thought perhaps that my child's education--in London--
and Mr Bayle was very kind in helping me."
"He is a good friend," said Sir Gordon gravely.
"Friend!" cried Mrs Hallam, with her face full of animation, "he has
been to me a brother. When I was in utter distress at that terrible
time, he extricated my poor husband's money affairs from the miserable
tangle in which they were left, and by a wise management of the little
remainder so invested it that there was a sufficiency for Julia and me
to live on in this simple manner."
"He did all this for you," said Sir Gordon dryly.
"Yes, and would have placed his purse at my disposal, but that he saw
how painful such an offer would have been."
"Of course," said Sir Gordon, "most painful."
"I often fear that I did wrong in allowing him to leave Castor; but he
has done so much good here that I tell myself all was for the best."
And so the conversation rippled on, Julia sometimes being drawn in, and
now and then Bayle throwing in a word; but on the whole simply looking
on, an interested spectator, who was appealed to now and then as if he
had been the brother of one, the uncle of the other.
At last Sir Gordon rose to go, taking quite a lingering farewell of
Julia, at whom he gazed again in the same wistful manner.
"Good-bye," he said, smiling tenderly at her, while holding her little
hand in his. "I shall come again--soon--yes, soon; but not to bring you
a doll."
There was a jingle of a tiny bell as they closed the door, and the
hard-faced woman had to squeeze by the visitors to get to the door, the
passage was so small.
Sir Gordon stared hard, and then placed his large square glass to his
eye.
"To be sure--yes. It's you," he said. "The old maid, Thisbe--"
"Some people can't help being old maids," said that lady tartly, "and
some wants to be, sir."
"I beg your pardon," said Sir Gordon with grave politeness. "You
mistake me. I meant the maid who used to be with Doctor and Mrs
Luttrell in the old times. To be sure, yes, and with Mrs Hallam
afterwards."
"Yes, Sir Gordon."
"So you've kept to your mistress all through--I mean you have stayed."
"Yes, sir, of course I have."
"And been one of the truest and best of friends," said Bayle, smiling.
Thisbe gave herself a jerk and glanced over her shoulder, as though to
see if the way was clear for her escape--should she have to run and
avoid this praise.
"Ah, yes," said Sir Gordon, looking at her still very thoughtfully. "To
be sure," he continued, in quite dreamy tones, "I had almost forgotten.
Tom Porter wants to marry you."
"Then Tom Porter must--"
"Tchut! tchut! tchut! woman; don't talk like that. Make your hay while
the sun shines. Good fellow, Tom. Obstinate, but solid, and careful.
Come, Bayle."
"Ah," he sighed, as they walked slowly down the street.
"Gather your rosebuds while you may,
Old Time is still a-flying.
"You and I have never been rosebud gatherers, Christie Bayle. It will
give us the better opportunity for watching those who are. Bayle, old
friend, we must look out: there must be no handsome, plausible scoundrel
to come and cull that fragrant little bloom--we must not have another
sweet young life wrecked--like hers." He made a backward motion with
his head towards the house they had left.
"Heaven forbid!" cried Bayle anxiously; and his countenance was full of
wonder and dismay.
"You must look out, sir, look out," said Sir Gordon, thumping his cane.
"But she is a mere girl yet."
"Pish! man; tush! man. It is your mere girls who form these fancies.
What have you been about?"
"About?" said Bayle. "About? I don't know. I have thought of such a
thing as my little pupil forming an attachment, but it seemed to be a
thing of the far-distant future."
Sir Gordon shook his head.
"There is nothing then now?"
"Oh, absurd! Why, she is only eighteen!"
"Eighteen!" said Gordon sharply; "and at eighteen girls are only cutting
their teeth and wearing pinafores, eh? Go to: blind mole of a parson!
Why, millions of them lose their hearts long before that. Come, come,
man, wake up! A pretty watchman of that fair sweet tower you are, to
have never so much as thought of the enemy, when already he may be
making his approach." Bayle turned to him, looking half-bewildered, but
the look passed off.
"No," he said firmly; "the enemy is not in sight yet, and you shall not
have cause to speak to me again like, that."
"That's right, Bayle; that's right. Dear, dear," he sighed as they
walked slowly towards the city, "how time does gallop on! It seems just
one step from Millicent Luttrell's girlhood to that of her child. Yes,
yes, yes: these young people increase, and grow so rapidly that they
fill up the world and shoulder us old folk over the edge."
"Unless they have yachts," said Bayle, smiling. "Plenty of room at
sea."
"Ah, to be sure; that reminds me. I have been at sea. Man, man, what
an impostor you are."
"I!" exclaimed Bayle, looking round at his companion in a startled
manner.
"To be sure. Poor lady! She has been confiding to me while you were
chatting with little Julia about the piano."
Bayle gave an angry stamp.
"And your careful management of the remains of her husband's property."
Bayle knit his brow and increased his pace.
"No, no," cried Sir Gordon, snatching at and taking his arm. "No
running away from unpleasant truths, Christie Bayle. You paid the
counsel for Hallam's defence, did you not?"
Bayle nodded shortly, and uttered an angry ejaculation.
"And there was not a shilling left when Hallam was gone?"
No answer.
"Come, come, speak. I am going to have the truth, my friend: priesthood
and deception must not go hand in hand. Now then, did Hallam have any
money?"
"If he had it would have been handed over to Dixons' Bank," said Bayle
sharply. "I should have seen it done."
"Hah! I thought so. Then look here, sir, you have been investing your
money for the benefit of that poor woman and her child."
No answer.
"Christie Bayle: do you love that woman still?"
"Sir Gordon! No; I will not be angry. Yes; as a man might love a dear
sister smitten by affliction; and her child as if she were my own."
"Hah! and you have had invested so much money--your own, for their
benefit. Why have you done this?"
"I thought it was my duty towards the widow and fatherless in their
affliction," said Bayle simply; and Sir Gordon turned and peered round
in the brave, honest face at his side to find it slightly flushed, but
ready to meet his gaze with fearless frankness.
"Ah," sighed Sir Gordon at last, "it was not fair."
"Not fair?" said Bayle wonderingly.
"No, sir. You might have let me do half."