Olivia’s momentary embarrassment was at once removed by the kindness of
Mr. Brander’s greeting.
“Yes, Mr. Brander is a clergyman. I hope you have no prejudice against
the cloth,” he said, holding out his hand with a welcoming smile. “It’s
not a proper clerical garment, I confess,” he went on, as Olivia’s
glance fell instinctively upon the old shooting coat he now wore; “but
I flatter myself the collar saves it.”
And he pointed to his orthodox round collar.
“I am not sure of that,” said the young girl, smiling in answer. “For
instance, if I had known this afternoon that you were a clergyman,
I should have felt much more at ease about accepting your very kind
services.”
“Should you? Well, then, you are at ease about it now. Come in, and
tell me if there is anything more I can do for you.”
Olivia followed him into the most charmingly luxurious study she
had ever seen. Everything in it was comfortable and handsome, in the
best modern taste. The doors, mantelpiece, and panelling were of
carved light oak, the furniture of the same, upholstered in dark-green
morocco. There were _portieres_ and curtains of dark tapestry,
harmonizing with the carpet. The books, which filled four large and
handsome bookcases, looked to the connoisseur too dainty to be touched
by common fingers. Evidences of a woman’s presiding eye and hand
were there too, Olivia fancied, in a certain graceful draping of the
curtains, which seemed to her to betray neither the upholsterer nor the
housemaid; in a tall bouquet of dried bulrushes and corn which stood in
one corner; and in a small conservatory, full of dark palms and ferns,
into which one of the windows opened. Everything was well chosen,
everything harmonized with everything else, except the shabbily dressed
figure in the centre, with his lean, dark, worn face, and hungry black
eyes, and the tattered volume he held in his hand. Mr. Brander read the
thought that flashed through his guest’s mind, and asked--
“Now, what is your first impression of this room?”
“It is very, very pretty,” said Olivia.
“Well, and what else?”
“Some one else had more to do with the arrangement of it than you.”
Olivia had never before felt so perfectly at ease with a stranger--so
able to speak her passing thoughts out frankly and freely.
“Right; quite right. And now let me hear what sort of a guess you can
make as to the person who had the arrangement of it.”
“It was a lady. Perhaps a lady who has had some art-school training;
but one who can think for herself a little too. Not an every-day sort
of lady, and yet not eccentric. One whom you would like to know, but
whom you might be a little afraid of.”
By the interest and pleasure with which Mr. Brander followed her as
she proceeded slowly and cautiously with her conjectures, Olivia
felt sure that she was describing his wife, and also that she was
getting near the truth. But then a look of pain came into his dark
face, which set her wondering whether they had had a severe quarrel,
whether there was some serious estrangement between them, or whether
the trouble from which he was evidently suffering was caused merely by
the absence of the woman of his heart. This singular clergyman, with
his unconventional dress and manners, his worn face, and his great
kindness, was so different from any of the stiff curates and unctuous
vicars she had ever met, that he and his surroundings awoke in her the
liveliest interest, even apart from the mysterious warning of Sarah
Wall, and the surly insolence shown towards him by Farmer Oldshaw.
After a short pause, he said--
“Right in every particular. Now we will see if you can find the lady.”
On the mantelpiece was a collection of photographs, most of them of
more or less beautiful women, all handsomely framed. Mr. Brander
invited Olivia to come up and inspect them. With another slight feeling
of surprise, which she would have found it hard to account for, she
stepped on to the soft fur hearthrug and made a careful review of the
whole gallery. But here she was quite at a loss.
“I must lose my character for divination,” she said at last, shaking
her head as she stepped back. “I don’t see any face that I could point
out with any certainty.”
“Try.”
She chose one. Mr. Brander shook his head.
“Wrong,” he said. “You have disappointed me. What made you choose that
one? Give me the nearest approach you can to a reason.”
“It looks a good, kind, sensible face.”
“It belongs to a good, kind, sensible woman--a Miss Williams--a
striking contrast to the rest of her family,” he added as a comment to
himself. “But she is not the lady who chose the fittings of this room.
What do you say to this one?”
It was Olivia’s turn to be disappointed, and her face showed her
surprise. The photograph was that of a woman who was very handsome,
and there your reflections concerning her portrait ended. Mr. Brander
laughed.
“Say what you think of it quite frankly. I shan’t be offended,” he said.
“It is a beautiful face,” she answered.
“Well, what else?”
“Nothing else,” said Olivia in desperation. “Mrs. Brander may have
every great quality that ever adorned a woman; but her face, like
nearly all very beautiful ones, I think, is just beautiful and nothing
else.”
“Don’t you see any feeling, imagination, passion?”
“No--o, indeed I can’t.”
“Well, that’s all right, because she hasn’t any.”
Olivia listened rather awkwardly, for Mr. Brander had unconsciously let
a little feeling, a little bitterness sound in the tones of his own
voice.
“Do you see great common sense, shrewdness, and a splendid faculty for
perceiving where the greatest advantage lies to her and hers?”
His tone was still a little bitter, but it was good-humored and playful
also.
“Oh no!” said Olivia.
“Well, then, you should see those qualities, for they are all there.”
“And may I know who this is?” asked Miss Denison, to turn the
conversation from a point where she had no more to say.
She was looking at the companion frame to that which contained the
lady’s portrait. It held the picture of a strikingly handsome man,
not far off middle age, plump, good-humored, and prosperous-looking,
dressed in correct clerical costume, with a beautiful child seated on
his knee.
“That is my brother.”
“Your brother!”
All the rules of courtesy could not avail to hide her surprise then.
A greater contrast could not be imagined than that between this worn,
haggard, ascetic-looking, shabby man, with his unconventional dress
and manner, and the neat, smiling, comfortable-looking gentleman, who
seemed to beam from his morocco frame on a world where tithe wars were
not. Then a light flashed upon Olivia, and she gave Mr. Brander a smile
of triumphant shrewdness.
“Now I understand it all,” she said, eagerly. “This room is your
brother’s, and this lady is not your wife, but his.”
Mr. Brander laughed rather sadly.
“You think they all ‘match’ with him better than they would with me.”
Olivia grew very red, and in some confusion tried to explain away this
too obvious conclusion. But Mr. Brander stopped her.
“You are quite, quite right,” he said, kindly. “You would be blind if
you couldn’t see it. My sister-in-law saw it, twelve years ago, when
she was wise enough to reject me and to take my brother.”
“There, now you see why Mrs. Meridith Brander is destitute of feeling,
imagination, and passion, and resplendent only in the less lovable
qualities,” he went on mocking at himself good-humoredly. “If she had
only chosen me, I should have a very different tale to tell, you may be
sure.”
Olivia was silent. The strange contrast between the two brothers filled
her with pity for the one who had been kind to her, and with a sort of
unreasonable antagonism towards the unknown one to whom fortune had
been so much more generous.
“It seems very hard on you,” she said, glancing at him rather shyly.
But even as she spoke a violent change came over his face which
chilled and repelled her, and brought back to her mind with sudden and
startling vividness the vague warning of the old woman. A flush of
fierce and vindictive anger, a short, sharp struggle with himself, and
then Mr. Brander was subdued and kind and courteous as ever. But this
peep at the nature underneath had made an impression upon Olivia which
she could not readily forget; it destroyed the ease she had felt with
him, and woke a distrust which his instant return to his old kindly
manner failed to remove.
“It is very good of you to think so,” he said, with a courteous smile.
“At one time I admit it seemed hard to me too. But I’ve been forced to
confess long ago that I could not have occupied the position he fills
either with credit to myself or satisfaction to anybody else. While
as for poor Evelyn, if she had had the misfortune to take me with my
bad temper and my inevitable hatred of order, instead of being still
handsome, amiable, and young, she would be a haggard old woman.”
Remembering, as she did, the bitterness which he had previously shown
in speaking of his sister-in-law, and the fierce animosity which had
blazed out of his black eyes a moment ago in recalling the contrast
between his brother and himself, Olivia could not help feeling that
there was a little hypocrisy in this ultra-modest speech, and she made
some civil answer in a tone which showed constraint in comparison with
her previous warm-hearted and simple frankness. Mr. Brander looked
scrutinizingly at her face, and reading the change in its expression,
hastened to open another and less dangerous subject.
“And here I have been gossiping about my own idle affairs all this
time, without once asking you what you came to see me about, and what I
can do for you.”
“I brought a letter of introduction to Mrs. Brander,” said Olivia
producing it. “The wife of one of the curates at Streatham, where I
live, or at least where I have been living,” she added, correcting
herself, “knew Mrs. Brander some years ago. And she thought, as I was
coming here all by myself, it would be pleasanter for me to know some
one.”
“My sister-in-law would have helped you in a hundred ways,” said Mr.
Brander, regretfully. “She is a very energetic woman, and loves to have
some active work to do for anybody, if there is a little occasion to
show fight over it. And there is in your case; for that unmannerly old
ruffian, John Oldshaw, who made himself so offensive just now at the
inn, wanted to have the farm your father has taken, and will annoy you
all in every way he can for spite, if I’m not mistaken.”
“If he does, I shall get papa to complain to Lord Stannington,” said
Miss Denison, with a resolute expression about her mouth.
“Well, we must hope there won’t be any need to do so. Perhaps your
father is a better farmer than John Oldshaw, and will be able to make
him sing small.”
“Oh, I’m afraid not,” said she, shaking her head dolefully; “papa has
never been a farmer before. He’s been a banker, but he never did much
banking, I think; and the other partners bought him out of the bank a
little while ago, and he did nothing at all for a little while. But we
are not rich enough to live like that, so he thought he should like to
try farming, especially as my step-mother had been ordered to live in
the country.”
Mr. Brander looked grave. He could not help thinking that things looked
very black for his pretty visitor. A weak and idle father, an invalid
step-mother, such were the fancy portraits he instantly drew of the
pair, setting up as amateurs in a business which even experience,
industry, and capacity can scarcely nowadays make remunerative! What
would become of the bright girl in these circumstances?
“How came they to send you down here all by yourself?” he asked, after
a pause.
“My step-mother--you know I told you I had a step-mother,” she
interpolated, with mischievous meaning--“has delicate health; that is
to say, her health is too delicate for her ever to do anything she
doesn’t wish to do, and she did not wish to come down to an empty
house, to have all the worry and trouble of filling it. So I offered to
do it. Home has been rather tiresome lately, and I thought it would be
fun, and besides that I really wanted to be useful, and to make things
as comfortable as I could for poor papa. But I did think she would see
that the furniture was sent in time.”
“Yes, that’s an awkward business, certainly. We must consider what is
best to be done. And while I’m thinking it over, you’ll have a glass of
wine and a biscuit, won’t you?” said he, as he touched the bell.
Olivia did not refuse. She thought her best chance of a happy issue
out of her difficulties lay in trusting to the clergyman, whose
persistent kindness was fast effacing the unpleasant impression of a
few minutes before. She even asked him ingenuously whether he thought
she ought to stay any longer away from the bare house where she had
left poor little Lucy alone with the mice. Mr. Brander quieted her
conscience as, in obedience to his order, the maid servant brought in
wine and cake, with which he proceeded to serve the hungry girl.
“I shall let you go in two minutes now,” he said. “And we won’t let
Lucy starve either.”
The servant was still waiting.
“What is it, Hester?”
“Young Mr. Williams has called, sir. He wishes to speak to you for a
minute. I believe he has a message.”
Mr. Brander’s face clouded.
“Where is he? I’ll go out and speak to him,” he said, shortly.
But the words were scarcely out of his mouth when a voice, speaking in
coarse and familiar tones, was heard outside the door, heralding the
approach of the new comer.
“It’s all right; it’s only me. Suppose I can come in, eh?”
And, without waiting for permission, a young man elbowed his way past
the servant, and entered the room.
The word which applied best to Mr. Frederick Williams, including his
face, voice, dress, and manner, was “cub.” He was short and sandy; he
had an expression of mingled dulness and cunning, in which dulness
predominated; his dress, his vocabulary, and a certain roll in his
walk smacked of the stable; and the only conspicuous quality he showed
to balance these disadvantages was a certain coarse good humor which
never failed him. He was even destitute of that very common grace in
young men of his type--an unsurmountable shyness in the presence of
women of refinement. On catching sight of Olivia, seated by the fire,
eating cake with unmistakable enjoyment, his eyes opened wide with
astonishment and boorish admiration, which gave place the next moment
to an expression of intense shyness as, with a loud cough, he affected
to retreat to the door.
“Oh, I beg pardon, Mr. Brander; I didn’t mean to interrupt such a
pleasant _tete-a-tete_, I’m sure.”
But he had no intention of going, and Mr. Brander asked him rather
curtly what he came for.
“Oh, my business is of no consequence; it will do any time,” answered
Mr. Williams, still with his light eyes fixed upon Olivia.
“Very likely. But what is it?” asked Mr. Brander, still more shortly.
“Oh, my father wants to see you about something. It’s about the church,
I believe; your church, St. Cuthbert’s. He wants to do something
for it, I fancy; says the condition it’s in is a disgrace to the
neighborhood.”
Again Olivia saw on Mr. Brander’s face a glimpse of fierce anger,
with which, however, she this time heartily sympathized. Feeling very
uncomfortable, she rose and held out her hand to the clergyman. His
face cleared as he took it.
“Now, don’t worry yourself too much about the wretched furniture,”
he said, with his old kindliness. “As you go down the hill, mind you
stop where the roads cross. There’s a wishing-cap hangs on the hedge
just there. If you see it, put it on; if you don’t, make the motion
of putting it on, and at the same time say these words just under
your breath, ‘I wish that within an hour I may be installed very
comfortably!’”
“Thank you,” said Olivia, laughing and returning the pressure of his
hand warmly; “if the wishing-cap could bring that to pass, I should
begin to look with respect on a broomstick.”
Mr. Williams’ face had assumed during these two last speeches an
expression of mingled bewilderment and contempt. As the lady moved
towards the door, he followed without having once taken his eyes off
her.
“Will you be able to find your way?” asked Mr. Brander, as he opened
the study door.
“I’ll go with you; I’ll escort you. Which way are you going?” asked Mr.
Williams, eagerly. “To the Hall, eh? I go past it; don’t I, Brander?”
“I believe so,” said the clergyman, shortly.
“So you see, you’re not putting me to any inconvenience at all,” went
on the young man.
“Oh, I didn’t think of that,” said Miss Denison, with a little laugh
and a pretty turn of the head. “In my part of the world it is never an
inconvenience to see a lady home.”
In the meantime they had all crossed the hall and arrived at the front
door, where Mr. Brander, with a reluctant frown at his male visitor,
again shook hands warmly with Olivia, and told her not to lose heart.
He watched the ill-assorted pair as they went down the lane until they
turned into the high road. Until they reached this point they proceeded
in silence, but as soon as they began to descend the hill, the young
man found voice after his snub.
“You’re deuced sharp on a fellow,” he said then in a conciliatory tone.
“It wasn’t my fault that I turned up when the parson was making sheeps’
eyes at you.”
“If I am to put up with your society until I reach the Hall gates, I
really must ask you to abstain from making offensive remarks,” said
Olivia, icily.
“Offensive! Oh, all right. But I warn you that parson chap is a deal
more likely to be offensive than I am. By Jove!” he continued, after a
freezing pause; “if you weren’t such a pretty girl I’m hanged if I’d go
a step further with you, after your rudeness.”
“In your own choice language, ‘I’m hanged if you shall,’” answered Miss
Denison, with spirit.
Before the astonished young man could recover his speech, the girl
had flown down the hill like an arrow with the wind. He had admired
her before; for this display of spirit he felt that he adored her. At
this point the road made a circuitous bend which could be cut off by
one familiar with the place by crossing the fields. Fred Williams was
through a gap in the hedge in a moment, and on regaining the road he
was a few yards ahead of the still flying lady. Darting out upon her as
she passed, he seized her by the arm; and as the attack was unexpected,
she staggered for a second.
“You’re a splendid runner, but you can’t beat me,” said the young
gentleman, with what was meant to be an alluring mixture of admiration
and manly condescension.
But it had quite a wrong effect upon the lady. Pausing one moment to
recover her breath and her balance, she extricated herself from his
insolent clutch with a sudden athletic movement which flung him reeling
into the hedge, where he lodged amid a great crackling of branches.
“I shall not require your escort further, thank you,” said Miss Denison
then imperturbably to the spluttering swain.
And she walked on again with a perfect and defiant security. She had
not misjudged her effect, for Mr. Williams did not attempt to molest
her again. Just as she reached the farm gates, however, he hurried
after her, and without coming to close quarters, said, maliciously--
“Very well, madam. Don’t be afraid that I shall interfere with you
again. But before you take up with Parson Brander, I’d just ask him, if
I were you, what has become of Nellie Mitchell.”
But Miss Denison walked through the gates without a word.