"In this disposition was I, when looking out of my window one
day to take the air, I perceived a kind of peasant who looked
at me very attentively."--GIL BLAS.
A SUMMER'S evening in a retired country town has something melancholy in
it. You have the streets of a metropolis without their animated
bustle--you have the stillness of the country without its birds and
flowers. The reader will please to bring before him a quiet street in
the quiet country town of C------, in a quiet evening in quiet June; the
picture is not mirthful--two young dogs are playing in the street, one
old dog is watching by a newly-painted door. A few ladies of middle age
move noiselessly along the pavement, returning home to tea: they wear
white muslin dresses, green spencers a little faded, straw poke bonnets
with green or coffee-coloured gauze veils. By twos and threes they have
disappeared within the thresholds of small neat houses, with little
railings, inclosing little green plots. Threshold, house, railing, and
plot, each as like to the other as are those small commodities called
"nest-tables," which, "even as a broken mirror multiplies," summon to
the bewildered eye countless iterations of one four-legged individual.
Paradise Place was a set of nest houses.
A cow had passed through the streets with a milkwoman behind; two young
and gay shopmen "looking after the gals," had reconnoitred the street,
and vanished in despair. The twilight advanced--but gently; and though
a star or two were up, the air was still clear. At the open window of
one of the tenements in this street sat Alice Darvil. She had been
working (that pretty excuse to women for thinking), and as the thoughts
grew upon her, and the evening waned, the work had fallen upon her knee,
and her hands dropped mechanically on her lap. Her profile was turned
towards the street; but without moving her head or changing her
attitude, her eyes glanced from time to time to her little girl, who
nestled on the ground beside her, tired with play; and wondering,
perhaps, why she was not already in bed, seemed as tranquil as the young
mother herself. And sometimes Alice's eyes filled with tears--and then
she sighed, as if to sigh the tears away. But poor Alice, if she
grieved, hers was now a silent and a patient grief.
The street was deserted of all other passengers, when a man passed along
the pavement on the side opposite to Alice's house. His garb was rude
and homely, between that of a labourer and a farmer; but still there was
an affectation of tawdry show about the bright scarlet handkerchief,
tied, in a sailor or smuggler fashion, round the sinewy throat; the hat
was set jauntily on one side, and, dangling many an inch from the
gaily-striped waistcoat, glittered a watch-chain and seals, which
appeared suspiciously out of character with the rest of his attire. The
passenger was covered with dust; and as the street was in a suburb
communicating with the high-road, and formed one of the entrances into
the town, he had probably, after long day's journey, reached his
evening's destination. The looks of this stranger wore anxious,
restless, and perturbed. In his gait and swagger there was the
recklessness of the professional blackguard; but in his vigilant,
prying, suspicious eyes there was a hang-dog expression of apprehension
and fear. He seemed a man upon whom Crime had set its significant
mark--and who saw a purse with one eye and a gibbet with the other.
Alice did not note the stranger, until she herself had attracted and
centred all his attention. He halted abruptly as he caught a view of
her face--shaded his eyes with his hands as if to gaze more
intently--and at length burst into an exclamation of surprise and
pleasure. At that instant Alice turned, and her gaze met that of the
stranger. The fascination of the basilisk can scarcely more stun and
paralyse its victim than the look of this stranger charmed, with the
appalling glamoury of horror, the eye and soul of Alice Darvil. Her
face became suddenly locked and rigid, her lips as white as marble, her
eyes almost started from their sockets--she pressed her hands
convulsively together, and shuddered--but still she did not move. The
man nodded, and grinned, and then, deliberately crossing the street,
gained the door, and knocked loudly. Still Alice did not stir--her
senses seemed to have forsaken her. Presently the stranger's loud,
rough voice was heard below, in answer to the accents of the solitary
woman-servant whom Alice kept in her employ; and his strong, heavy tread
made the slight staircase creak and tremble. Then Alice rose as by an
instinct, caught her child in her arms, and stood erect and motionless
facing the door. It opened--and the FATHER and DAUGHTER were once more
face to face within the same walls.
"Well, Alley, how are you, my blowen?--glad to see your old dad again,
I'll be sworn. No ceremony, sit down. Ha, ha! snug here--very snug--we
shall live together charmingly. Trade on your own account--eh?
sly!--well, can't desert your poor old father. Let's have something to
eat and drink."
So saying, Darvil threw himself at length upon the neat, prim little
chintz sofa, with the air of a man resolved to make himself perfectly at
home.
Alice gazed, and trembled violently, but still said nothing--the power
of voice had indeed left her.
"Come, why don't you stir your stumps? I suppose I must wait on
myself--fine manners!--But, ho, ho--a bell, by gosh--mighty grand--never
mind--I am used to call for my own wants."
A hearty tug at the frail bell-rope sent a shrill alarum half-way
through the long lath-and-plaster row of Paradise Place, and left the
instrument of the sound in the hand of its creator.
Up came the maid-servant, a formal old woman, most respectable.
"Hark ye, old girl!" said Darvil; "bring up the best you have to
eat--not particular--let there be plenty. And I say--a bottle of
brandy. Come, don't stand there staring like a stuck pig. Budge! Hell
and furies! don't you hear me?"
The servant retreated, as if a pistol had been put to her head, and
Darvil, laughing loud, threw himself again upon the sofa. Alice looked
at him, and, still without saying a word, glided from the room--her
child in her arms. She hurried down-stairs, and in the hall met her
servant. The latter, who was much attached to her mistress, was alarmed
to see her about to leave the house.
"Why, marm, where be you going? Dear heart, you have no bonnet on!
What is the matter? Who is this?"
"Oh!" cried Alice, in agony; "what shall I do?--where shall I fly?" The
door above opened. Alice heard, started, and the next moment was in the
street. She ran on breathlessly, and like one insane. Her mind was,
indeed, for the time, gone; and had a river flowed before her way, she
would have plunged into an escape from a world that seemed too narrow to
hold a father and his child.
But just as she turned the corner of a street that led into the more
public thoroughfares, she felt her arm grasped, and a voice called out
her name in surprised and startled accents.
"Heavens, Mrs. Butler! Alice! What do I see? What is the matter?"
"Oh, sir, save me!--you are a good man--a great man--save me--he is
returned!"
"He! who? Mr. Butler?" said the banker (for that gentleman it was) in a
changed and trembling voice.
"No, no--ah, not he!--I did not say /he/--I said my father--my,
my--ah--look behind--look behind--is he coming?"
"Calm yourself, my dear young friend--no one is near. I will go and
reason with your father. No one shall harm you--I will protect you. Go
back--go back, I will follow--we must not be seen together." And the
tall banker seemed trying to shrink into a nutshell.
"No, no," said Alice, growing yet paler, "I cannot go back."
"Well, then, just follow me to the door--your servant shall get you your
bonnet, and accompany you to my house, where you can wait till I return.
Meanwhile I will see your father, and rid you, I trust, of his
presence."
The banker, who spoke in a very hurried and even impatient voice, waited
for no reply, but took his way to Alice's house. Alice herself did not
follow, but remained in the very place where she was left, till joined
by her servant, who then conducted her to the rich man's residence. . .
But Alice's mind had not recovered its shock, and her thoughts
wandered alarmingly.