The Hand of God stood on the highest point in all the borough, and Mr
Westray's apartments were in the third story. From the window of his
sitting-room he could look out over the houses on to Cullerne Flat, the
great tract of salt-meadows that separated the town from the sea. In
the foreground was a broad expanse of red-tiled roofs; in the middle
distance Saint Sepulchre's Church, with its tower and soaring ridges,
stood out so enormous that it seemed as if every house in the place
could have been packed within its walls; in the background was the blue
sea.
In summer the purple haze hangs over the mouth of the estuary, and
through the shimmer of the heat off the marsh, can be seen the silver
windings of the Cull as it makes its way out to sea, and snow-white
flocks of geese, and here and there the gleaming sail of a
pleasure-boat. But in autumn, as Westray saw it for the first time, the
rank grass is of a deeper green, and the face of the salt-meadows is
seamed with irregular clay-brown channels, which at high-tide show out
like crows'-feet on an ancient countenance, but at the ebb dwindle to
little gullies with greasy-looking banks and a dribble of iridescent
water in the bottom. It is in the autumn that the moles heap up
meanders of miniature barrows, built of the softest brown loam; and in
the turbaries the turf-cutters pile larger and darker stacks of peat.
Once upon a time there was another feature in the view, for there could
have been seen the masts and yards of many stately ships, of timber
vessels in the Baltic trade, of tea-clippers, and Indiamen, and emigrant
ships, and now and then the raking spars of a privateer owned by
Cullerne adventurers. All these had long since sailed for their last
port, and of ships nothing more imposing met the eye than the mast of
Dr Ennefer's centre-board laid up for the winter in a backwater. Yet
the scene was striking enough, and those who knew best said that nowhere
in the town was there so fine an outlook as from the upper windows of
the Hand of God.
Many had looked out from those windows upon that scene: the skipper's
wife as her eyes followed her husband's barque warping down the river
for the voyage from which he never came back; honeymoon couples who
broke the posting journey from the West at Cullerne, and sat hand in
hand in summer twilight, gazing seaward till the white mists rose over
the meadows and Venus hung brightening in the violet sky; old Captain
Frobisher, who raised the Cullerne Yeomanry, and watched with his
spy-glass for the French vanguard to appear; and, lastly, Martin
Joliffe, as he sat dying day by day in his easy-chair, and scheming how
he would spend the money when he should come into the inheritance of all
the Blandamers.
Westray had finished breakfast, and stood for a time at the open window.
The morning was soft and fine, and there was that brilliant clearness
in the air that so often follows heavy autumn rain. His full enjoyment
of the scene was, however, marred by an obstruction which impeded free
access to the window. It was a case of ferns, which seemed to be formed
of an aquarium turned upside down, and supported by a plain wooden
table. Westray took a dislike to the dank-looking plants, and to the
moisture beaded on the glass inside, and made up his mind that the ferns
must be banished. He would ask Miss Joliffe if she could take them
away, and this determination prompted him to consider whether there were
any other articles of furniture with which it would be advisable to
dispense.
He made a mental inventory of his surroundings. There were several
pieces of good mahogany furniture, including some open-backed chairs,
and a glass-fronted book-case, which were survivals from the yeoman's
equipment at Wydcombe Farm. They had been put up for auction with the
rest of Michael Joliffe's effects, but Cullerne taste considered them
old-fashioned, and no bidders were found for them. Many things, on the
other hand, such as bead mats, and wool-work mats, and fluff mats, a
case of wax fruit, a basket of shell flowers, chairs with worsted-work
backs, sofa-cushions with worsted-work fronts, two cheap vases full of
pampas-grass, and two candlesticks with dangling prisms, grated sadly on
Westray's taste, which he had long since been convinced was of all
tastes the most impeccable. There were a few pictures on the walls--a
coloured representation of young Martin Joliffe in Black Forest costume,
a faded photograph of a boating crew, and another of a group in front of
some ruins, which was taken when the Carisbury Field Club made an
expedition to Wydcombe Abbey. Besides these, there were conventional
copies in oils of a shipwreck, and an avalanche, and a painting of
still-life representing a bowl full of flowers.
This last picture weighed on Westray's mind by reason of its size, its
faulty drawing, and vulgar, flashy colours. It hung full in front of
him while he sat at breakfast, and though its details amused him for the
time, he felt it would become an eyesore if he should continue to occupy
the room. In it was represented the polished top of a mahogany table on
which stood a blue and white china bowl filled with impossible flowers.
The bowl occupied one side of the picture, and the other side was given
up to a meaningless expanse of table-top. The artist had perceived, but
apparently too late, the bad balance of the composition, and had
endeavoured to redress this by a few more flowers thrown loose upon the
table. Towards these flowers a bulbous green caterpillar was wriggling,
at the very edge of the table, and of the picture.
The result of Westray's meditations was that the fern-case and the
flower-picture stood entirely condemned. He would approach Miss Joliffe
at the earliest opportunity about their removal. He anticipated little
trouble in modifying by degrees many other smaller details, but previous
experience in lodgings had taught him that the removal of pictures is
sometimes a difficult and delicate problem.
He opened his rolls of plans, and selecting those which he required,
prepared to start for the church, where he had to arrange with the
builder for the erection of scaffolding. He wished to order dinner
before he left, and pulled a broad worsted-work bell-pull to summon his
landlady. For some little time he had been aware of the sound of a
fiddle, and as he listened, waiting for the bell to be answered, the
intermittance and reiteration of the music convinced him that the
organist was giving a violin lesson. His first summons remained
unanswered, and when a second attempt met with no better success, he
gave several testy pulls in quick succession. This time he heard the
music cease, and made no doubt that his indignant ringing had attracted
the notice of the musicians, and that the organist had gone to tell Miss
Joliffe that she was wanted.
He was ruffled by such want of attention, and when there came at last a
knock at his door, was quite prepared to expostulate with his landlady
on her remissness. As she entered the room, he began, without turning
from his drawings:
"Never knock, please, when you answer the bell; but I do wish you--"
Here he broke off, for on looking up he found he was speaking, not to
the elder Miss Joliffe, but to her niece Anastasia. The girl was
graceful, as he had seen the evening before, and again he noticed the
peculiar fineness of her waving brown hair. His annoyance had
instantaneously vanished, and he experienced to the full the
embarrassment natural to a sensitive mind on finding a servant's role
played by a lady, for that Anastasia Joliffe was a lady he had no doubt
at all. Instead of blaming her, he seemed to be himself in fault for
having somehow brought about an anomalous position.
She stood with downcast eyes, but his chiding tone had brought a slight
flush to her cheeks, and this flush began a discomfiture for Westray,
that was turned into a rout when she spoke.
"I am very sorry, I am afraid I have kept you waiting. I did not hear
your bell at first, because I was busy in another part of the house, and
then I thought my aunt had answered it. I did not know she was out."
It was a low, sweet voice, with more of weariness in it than of
humility. If he chose to blame her, she was ready to take the blame;
but it was Westray who now stammered some incoherent apologies. Would
she kindly tell Miss Joliffe that he would be in for dinner at one
o'clock, and that he was quite indifferent as to what was provided for
him. The girl showed some relief at his blundering courtesy, and it was
not till she had left the room that Westray recollected that he had
heard that Cullerne was celebrated for its red mullet; he had meant to
order red mullet for dinner. Now that he was mortifying the flesh by
drinking only water, he was proportionately particular to please his
appetite in eating. Yet he was not sorry that he had forgotten the
fish; it would surely have been a bathos to discuss the properties and
application of red mullet with a young lady who found herself in so
tragically lowly a position.
After Westray had set out for the church, Anastasia Joliffe went back to
Mr Sharnall's room, for it was she who had been playing the violin.
The organist sat at the piano, drumming chords in an impatient and
irritated way.
"Well," he said, without looking at her as she came in--"well, what does
my lord want with my lady? What has he made you run up to the top of
the house for now? I wish I could wring his neck for him. Here we are
out of breath, as usual, and our hands shaking; we shan't be able to
play even as well as we did before, and that isn't saying much. Why,"
he cried, as he looked at her, "you're as red as a turkey-cock. I
believe he's been making love to you."
"Mr Sharnall," she retorted quickly, "if you say those things I will
never come to your room again. I hate you when you speak like that, and
fancy you are not yourself."
She took her violin, and putting it under her arm, plucked arpeggi
sharply.
"There," he said, "don't take all I say so seriously; it is only because
I am out of health and out of temper. Forgive me, child; I know well
enough that there'll be no lovemaking with you till the right man comes,
and I hope he never will come, Anastasia--I hope he never will."
She did not accept or refuse his excuses, but tuned a string that had
gone down.
"Good heavens!" he said, as she walked to the music-stand to play;
"can't you hear the A's as flat as a pancake?"
She tightened the string again without speaking, and began the movement
in which they had been interrupted. But her thoughts were not with the
music, and mistake followed mistake.
"What _are_ you doing?" said the organist. "You're worse than you were
when we began five years ago. It's mere waste of time for you to go on,
and for me, too."
Then he saw that she was crying in the bitterness of vexation, and swung
round on his music-stool without getting up.
"Anstice, I didn't mean it, dear. I didn't mean to be such a brute.
You are getting on well--well; and as for wasting my time, why, I
haven't got anything to do, nor anyone to teach except you, and you know
I would slave all day and all night, too, if I could give you any
pleasure by it. Don't cry. Why are you crying?"
She laid the violin on the table, and sitting down in that rush-bottomed
chair in which Westray had sat the night before, put her head between
her hands and burst into tears.
"Oh," she said between her sobs in a strange and uncontrolled
voice--"oh, I am so miserable--_everything_ is so miserable. There are
father's debts not paid, not even the undertaker's bill paid for his
funeral, and no money for anything, and poor Aunt Euphemia working
herself to death. And now she says she will have to sell the little
things we have in the house, and then when there is a chance of a decent
lodger, a quiet, gentlemanly man, you go and abuse him, and say these
rude things to me, because he rings the bell. How does he know aunt is
out? how does he know she won't let me answer the bell when she's in?
Of course, he thinks we have a servant, and then _you_ make me so sad.
I couldn't sleep last night, because I knew you were drinking. I heard
you when we went to bed playing trashy things that you hate except when
you are not yourself. It makes me ill to think that you have been with
us all these years, and been so kind to me, and now are come to this.
Oh, do not do it! Surely we all are wretched enough, without your
adding this to our wretchedness."
He got up from the stool and took her hand.
"Don't, Anstice--don't! I broke myself of it before, and I will break
myself again. It was a woman drove me to it then, and sent me down the
hill, and now I didn't know there was a living soul would care whether
old Sharnall drank himself to death or not. If I could only think there
was someone who cared; if I could only think you cared."
"Of course I care"--and as she felt his hand tighten she drew her own
lightly away--"of course we care--poor aunt and I--or she would care, if
she knew, only she is so good she doesn't guess. I hate to see those
horrid glasses taken in after your supper. It used to be so different,
and I loved to hear the `Pastoral' and `Les Adieux' going when the house
was still."
It is sad when man's unhappiness veils from him the smiling face of
nature. The promise of the early morning was maintained. The sky was
of a translucent blue, broken with islands and continents of clouds,
dazzling white like cotton-wool. A soft, warm breeze blew from the
west, the birds sang merrily in every garden bush, and Cullerne was a
town of gardens, where men could sit each under his own vine and
fig-tree. The bees issued forth from their hives, and hummed with
cheery droning chorus in the ivy-berries that covered the wall-tops with
deep purple. The old vanes on the corner pinnacles of Saint Sepulchre's
tower shone as if they had been regilt. Great flocks of plovers flew
wheeling over Cullerne marsh, and flashed with a blinking silver gleam
as they changed their course suddenly. Even through the open window of
the organist's room fell a shaft of golden sunlight that lit up the
peonies of the faded, threadbare carpet.
But inside beat two poor human hearts, one unhappy and one hopeless, and
saw nothing of the gold vanes, or the purple ivy-berries, or the
plovers, or the sunlight, and heard nothing of the birds or the bees.
"Yes, I will give it up," said the organist, though not quite so
enthusiastically as before; and as he moved closer to Anastasia Joliffe,
she got up and left the room, laughing as she went out.
"I must get the potatoes peeled, or you will have none for dinner."
Mr Westray, being afflicted neither with poverty nor age, but having a
good digestion and entire confidence both in himself and in his
prospects, could fully enjoy the beauty of the day. He walked this
morning as a child of the light, forsaking the devious back-ways through
which the organist had led him on the previous night, and choosing the
main streets on his road to the church. He received this time a
different impression of the town. The heavy rain had washed the
pavements and roadway, and as he entered the Market Square he was struck
with the cheerfulness of the prospect, and with the air of quiet
prosperity which pervaded the place.
On two sides of the square the houses overhung the pavement, and formed
an arcade supported on squat pillars of wood. Here were situated some
of the best "establishments," as their owners delighted to call them.
Custance, the grocer; Rose and Storey, the drapers, who occupied the
fronts of no less than three houses, and had besides a "department"
round the corner "exclusively devoted to tailoring"; Lucy, the
bookseller, who printed the _Cullerne Examiner_, and had published
several of Canon Parkyn's sermons, as well as a tractate by Dr Ennefer
on the means adopted in Cullerne for the suppression of cholera during
the recent outbreak; Calvin, the saddler; Miss Adcutt, of the toy-shop;
and Prior, the chemist, who was also postmaster. In the middle of the
third side stood the Blandamer Arms, with a long front of buff, low
green blinds, and window-sashes grained to imitate oak. At the edge of
the pavement before the inn were some stone mounting steps, and by them
stood a tall white pole, on which swung the green and silver of the
nebuly coat itself. On either side of the Blandamer Arms clustered a
few more modern shops, which, possessing no arcade, had to be content
with awnings of brown stuff with red stripes. One of these places of
business was occupied by Mr Joliffe, the pork-butcher. He greeted
Westray through the open window.
"Good-morning. About your work betimes, I see," pointing to the roll of
drawings which the architect carried under his arm. "It is a great
privilege, this restoration to which you are called," and here he
shifted a chop into a more attractive position on the show-board--"and I
trust blessing will attend your efforts. I often manage to snatch a few
minutes from the whirl of business about mid-day myself, and seek a
little quiet meditation in the church. If you are there then, I shall
be glad to give you any help in my power. Meanwhile, we must both be
busy with our own duties."
He began to turn the handle of a sausage-machine, and Westray was glad
to be quit of his pious words, and still more of his insufferable
patronage.