IN THE ELLESMERE ROAD.
Holdsworth spent the greater part of the evening in writing a letter
to Mr. Sherman. At twelve o’clock next day he was an inmate of Mrs.
Parrot’s house in the Ellesmere Road.
In his walk to the lodgings he had met only strange faces, one or
two of which looked after him, struck, perhaps, by his keen fugitive
glance, his slow pace that stole along the ground, and his depressed
head, as though there were a shame in his heart that made the daylight
painful.
Mrs. Parrot fussed about him for some time, and tired him with an
account of the articles she had purchased for him. Her memory was
slow, and her capacity of reckoning very indifferent; hence it took
her twenty minutes to account for the expenditure of twelve shillings.
Happily, it was her mother’s day for walking in the garden, and
Holdsworth could see the old lady--a mere wisp of a figure, in ancient
black satin reaching to her ankles and clinging to her legs, a nose
like the Duke of Wellington’s, and a chin like Punch’s--hobbling along
a gravel walk, looking with afflicting agitation around her, and
coughing like a rattle, as a signal to her daughter, who, when she had
done with her accounts, hurried out.
The control Holdsworth had kept upon himself, while Mrs. Parrot
remained in the room, he could now put aside; indeed, the suffering
caused him by his pent-up agitation imperatively demanded that the
emotion should have play. Now he would walk hastily to and fro the
room, and then fling himself into a chair, clasping his hands tightly,
and then rise and stand before the window and send glances passionate
and shrinking at the house occupied by the Conways.
Now that he was close to his wife, now that any moment might reveal
her walking past his window with his child, perchance, at her side,
he dreaded lest the unparalleled situation he had forced himself into
would prove too heavily charged with cruel conditions for him to
bear. Never once then, never once afterwards, did the vaguest impulse
possess him to go forth and declare himself and claim her. No! A sense
of honour that was inexorable, since it prohibited the faintest echo
of the soul’s secret passionate yearning to make itself audible, had
decreed his silence and enforced the obedience of inclination.
The only concession granted was the enjoyment of such ghostly and
barren pleasure as his heart could find in the knowledge of the close
neighbourhood of the two who were so dear to him. Oh! bitter waking of
memory, to recall him from the sunny vision of the old times when his
joy was complete, and love a permanent possession to enrich his nature
with all gracious and generous emotions, to thrust him into the gray
and bleak twilight of a loveless and desolate life, which the recovered
power could only embitter by recurrence to the things that were lost!
His eyes wandered ceaselessly and restlessly towards the window. From
time to time people went by with the slow, aimless step of persons
who walk for no other end than exercise. An old gentleman, with a
white moustache and a dark skin, stopped, with another old gentleman,
in high shirt-collars and a tail-coat, opposite Holdsworth’s window,
and argued, with many galvanic flourishes of the arms and grimaces of
the face. There was much political excitement abroad at that time,
owing to the Reform Bill of the Grey Administration, to which the
royal assent had been given; and the dark-skinned old gentleman--whose
age, warmth, and intemperate flourishes were as demonstrative of his
politics as his language--bade his companion take notice that, before
five years were passed, England would be a tenth-rate power, governed
by a mob, with a Jesuit seated on every hearth, a Nuncio preaching at
St. Paul’s, not a Bible to be found in the country, and the gallows
groaning under strings of honest patriots. The old gentleman in the
high shirt-collars, who clearly shared his friend’s opinions, nodded
savagely, asked with his shoulders, “What would you have?” and then
moved on a dozen paces, to be stopped again by the other old gentleman
with prophecies, maybe, more blood-chilling and awful than those he had
already declaimed.
Presently Holdsworth, scarcely conscious of what he was about, left
the window and approached the bookcase. He pulled out a volume,
which proved to be an old copy of Gulliver’s Travels, “adorn’d with
sculptures;” and his eye lighting on that passage in which Gulliver
closes his account of his second voyage,[2] his thoughts trooped off to
his old sea-faring life, the book closed upon his fingers, and he sank
in deep meditation.
[2] “In a little time I and my family and friends came to a right
understanding: but my wife protested ‘I should never go to sea any
more;’ although my evil destiny so ordered, that she had not the power
to hinder me.”
The restoration of his memory was comparatively so recent, that he
had found no leisure to recall those frightful experiences of his
which could not recur without overwhelming him with an unspeakable
horror of the sea. He now understood that it should have been his
duty to call upon the owners of the “Meteor,” and acquaint them with
the circumstances of the wreck of their vessel, and the deaths of the
persons who were in his boat, all whom he clearly remembered. There
were friends, doubtless, both in England and America, who could wish to
receive tidings of the fate of these people, though the long interval
of five years should tell as plain a story as Holdsworth could relate.
He knew not whether the inmates of the other boats had been saved, and
he would have given much to ascertain this; but he understood that any
communication he made to the shipowners would be almost sure to appear
in print, by which his wife would learn that he was alive. “No! let the
world think me dead!” he exclaimed bitterly. He had only to live for
the past now--for that memory which had betrayed him and ruined his
life. His future was bare and barren, and there was nothing in all the
world that could kindle one ray of comfort in his hopeless heart but
the bleak privilege of dwelling near his wife and child.
He restored the book to its place and returned to the window.
In the roadway, a few yards to the right, a little girl was standing,
holding a doll. She was a very little creature, with bright yellow
hair down her back, and she held the doll in motherly fashion on her
arm, and caressed it with her hand.
Her back was towards Holdsworth, whose eyes were rooted upon her.
She turned presently and looked down the road, and Holdsworth saw a
little face upon which God had graven a sign that made the poor father
clutch at the wall to steady himself. For there was his own face in
miniature--the face that Dolly had loved before the sufferings of the
mind, and the anguish of hunger and thirst, had twisted from it all
resemblance it had ever borne to what was manly and beautiful in the
human countenance.
He pressed his hands to his eyes and gazed again, then ran to the
bell-rope and pulled it. But when he had done this he wished it undone.
For would not his agitation excite Mrs. Parrot’s suspicions? What was
there in a stranger’s child that should so interest him?
He bit his lip and controlled himself with desperate will; and, when
Mrs. Parrot opened the door, he said to her in a steady voice and with
a forced smile:
“I am sorry to trouble you. I am very fond of little children. Pray can
you tell me who that child is, there?”
Mrs. Parrot drew to the window, evidently finding nothing odd in the
question, and said:
“Why, that’s little Nelly Holdsworth, Mrs. Conway’s daughter.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Holdsworth.
“She _is_ a dear!” continued Mrs. Parrot. “I am very fond of that
child, Mr. Hampden. She’s the only child i’ the road I allow to come
into my garden, for children are so wilful, there’s no tellin’ what
they’ll do the moment your eyes are off ’em. See what a little lady
she looks, and how prettily she holds her doll! She’s waiting for her
mamma, I suppose.”
Mrs. Parrot rapped with her nails on the window. The child looked
round, and Holdsworth shrank away. Mrs. Parrot beckoned. Holdsworth
would have stopped her, but could find no words.
“She’s coming, Mr. Hampden. I’ll bring her to you, sir, if you’ll wait
a moment.”
And out she went.
In a few seconds she returned, leading by the hand the child, who hung
back when she caught sight of the white-faced, bearded man.
“There, Mr. Hampden, this is my pretty young friend, little Nelly!”
exclaimed Mrs. Parrot, stooping to give the child a kiss. “Go and shake
hands with the gentleman, my dear, and show him your nice doll. I’ll
tell you when I see your mamma.”
“Come, dear, come to me,” said Holdsworth in a low voice.
The child approached him slowly, stopping now and again, and looking
shyly at Mrs. Parrot.
“Tut! tut!” exclaimed that lady. “What are you afraid of, Miss Nelly?
Go and shake hands with the gentleman, like a little lady.”
Holdsworth put out his hand; the child advanced a step nearer; he fell
upon one knee and drew her to him.
For some moments he could not speak; he could only look at her--look
with eyes of all-devouring love absorbing all the sweetness of that
young face, feeling a pang of exquisite joy, but shivering quickly as
his fingers locked themselves upon her tiny hand.
He longed to press the little creature to his heart, to fasten his lips
upon her mouth, to weep over her.
“Tell me your name, little one!”
“Nelly,” replied the child, keeping at arm’s length from him, and
staring into his face.
“Nelly what?”
“Nelly Ho’dwor’t.”
His own name, thus lisped by her, thrilled through him; he caught his
breath, and said:
“May I kiss you?”
She put up her mouth, and he kissed her.
“How pretty your hair is!” he murmured, in a voice of exquisite
tenderness, which made Mrs. Parrot turn suddenly and look at him. He
met her glance with a smile, and said:
“I am very fond of children. Will this little girl come and see me here
sometimes?”
“Ay, that she will, sir. Won’t you, Nelly?”
“Det.”
“How old are you, Nelly?”
“Four.”
“Who gave you that doll?”
“Mamma.”
“You will bring dolly to see me, and we will have tea, all three of us.
What have I got here? A bright shilling! That will buy dolly a parasol!”
No words can describe the tone his voice took as he spoke.
“What do you say to the gentleman for this beautiful present?” cried
Mrs. Parrot.
“Tanks,” said the child, putting the doll on the floor to examine the
money with both hands.
“Oh, here comes your mamma!” said Mrs. Parrot. “Make your reverence to
the gentleman ... there’s a dear; pick up dolly ... that’s right.”
She took Nelly’s hand and ran with her out of the room.
The mother, standing at her gate on the other side of the road, looking
up and down the road, caught sight of Mrs. Parrot and the child, and
crossed over to them.
They remained opposite Holdsworth’s window talking, while he, shrinking
against the wall, peered at them through the muslin curtain.
The five years which had passed since he had seen his wife had worked
but a very little change in her. There was more womanly fulness in
her form; and this was about all those five years had done for her.
Her face was still as youthful as when Holdsworth had last looked on
it, her eyes still possessed their deep and delicate tint, the hair
its richness and lustre, the mouth its sweetness, the whole face that
almost infantine expression, conveyed by soft shadowy lines and the
archness of the pencilled eyebrows, which made it beautiful in repose,
more beautiful yet in sorrow. But, young and fair as she seemed, there
was a deep-rooted care in her face which, without qualifying its
freshness, yet mingled in her smile, and lived in her eyes, and fixed
a wistful look on her, such as would be seen in one who lingers long,
long waiting for the summons to depart which no day brings. Her dress
was shabby, her gloves old; but her beauty made even her faded apparel,
cut after the unbecoming fashion then in vogue, picturesque. She wore a
white crape handkerchief over her bare shoulders, and a bonnet-shaped
hat, ornamented with a dark feather, which, drooping over her back,
imparted a peculiar vividness to the light, sheeny gold of her hair.
Strained as his ears were, Holdsworth could not hear her voice, though
Mrs. Parrot’s kindly cackle was audible enough. It was manifest that
they exchanged mere commonplace civilities; and presently Mrs. Parrot
dropped a courtesy, and the mother and child walked slowly away.
Holdsworth watched them with just such a look in his eyes as had been
in them when, racked with torture in the open boat, he had cast glances
full of passionate despair round the horizon for the ship that was to
rescue him. He saw the little girl hold up her shilling, whereupon the
mother stopped and looked back, then continued her walk and passed out
of sight.