THE OTHER GENTLEMAN
Miss Cavendish sat in a large easy chair pouring over a volume of
Wordsworth. Her fine profile was outlined against the green of growing
plants in the window and the long lines of her graceful figure were
distinctly picturesque in the pose she had taken. Gabriella was at the
table, her pen flying across her sheet of writing paper. It was raining
dismally, but Sidney had gone to the post-office. Presently a gentle
voice at the open door said: “I beg your pardon, miss, but the other
gentleman thought he would like a suet pudding to-day. Would you ladies
care to ’ave one, too?”
“It sounds rather comfortable on this wet cool day,” said Gabriella
in response to Miss Cavendish’s questioning look. “If the ‘other
gentleman’ thinks it is the thing, why shouldn’t we have it?”
“Very well, we’ll have suet pudding, Mrs. Graves,” said Miss Cavendish
returning to her book.
“The other gentleman” was a mystery. He was the only other lodger in
the house, and had been seen but on two occasions: once Gabriella had
encountered him upon the stairs; once Sidney had met him as he was
coming in the front door. Miss Cavendish had never seen him and neither
of the three knew his name. Mrs. Graves never referred to him except as
“the other gentleman,” to the great amusement of the girls. That he was
a scholarly person engrossed in his books was about the only thing they
had learned about him. He always managed to leave the house after his
fellow lodgers had gone out, and came in before they did, not a very
difficult thing to do since they spent most of their time out-of-doors,
for Grasmere afforded an endless variety of delightful walks, rendered
the more interesting by their association with the Wordsworths.
“Isn’t she a dear?” said Gabriella when Mrs. Graves had softly closed
the door. “I’d like to take ’er ’ome with me. Isn’t it perfectly lovely
the way she always says ‘the other gentleman?’”
“I am quite curious to see that individual,” remarked Miss Cavendish.
“What does he look like, Gabriella?”
“Oh, he’s rather nondescript, neither old nor young; not very tall, not
very short; wears glasses, stoops a little; has a good, kind face I
think, but hasn’t a particle of curiosity, as I well realize. He wears
a disreputable old rain-streaked overcoat and a cap. To my mind he
looks as if he needed a wife.”
Miss Cavendish laughed. “I fancy he is some old Oxford professor, who
has no thought above dry-as-dust books and parchments.”
“He looks it,” returned Gabriella. “I’m afraid it is going to be too
wet for that climb up Helm Crag, although the clouds are breaking a
little over Silver How, but, even if it does clear, it will be slippy
for climbing.”
“Perhaps it will not be too wet for Loughrigg Terrace, or at all events
for Rydal Water by the lower road.”
“Radical Reform you mean. I do like Dr. Arnold’s facetious names for
the three roads. Yes, we might go to Rydal even in the rain. Rydal
Water is lovely under any circumstances; it is even just a little bit
lovelier than Grasmere, though I acknowledge it grudgingly.”
By noon the sun was shining. “In the woodsy roads we may find it damp,”
said Miss Cavendish, “though I, for one, shall not be afraid to try
the Borrowdale road, turning off before you come to the place where
we climb Helm Crag. There is a little white farmhouse somewhere along
there where we may be able to get tea.”
They took their way through the pretty green village with its scattered
houses surrounded by gardens, past the old church and up the Easedale
road over which “the lion and the lamb” and “the ancient woman beside
her rifted cell” keep watch from the heights of Helm Crag. Verdant
pastures stretched to their right, and through these the babbling
little Easedale beck chattered “over stony ways in little sharps and
trebles,” while beyond the hills arose in purple and orange splendor,
for the bracken had already turned to a gorgeous yellow and showed
in patches upon the mountain-side. Once in a while, from some rocky
platform above them, the plaintive bleat of a mountain sheep came to
their ears. The wild birds flew around the lonely heights with strange
cries. The rain had washed everything clean, but the excellent road
showed little effect of the showers except that there was no dust.
Miss Cavendish carried a small red book which she had bought the day
before. Once in a while she referred to it, and when they sat down upon
one of the benches provided for the wayfarer, she would read snatches
aloud.
Their walk finally brought them to the white cottage set in a garden
where masses of late blossoms showed freshly fair after the rain. They
were ushered into a low raftered room which delighted Gabriella’s
artistic soul, and here they were served fragrant tea with thick cream,
thin slices of bread and butter, home-made jam and plum cake.
“Isn’t it all perfectly delicious?” exclaimed Gabriella. “I’d like to
transport the whole place to America; those lovely old beams darkened
by time, this quaint table, that row of shining brass candlesticks and
the little maid herself. Fancy making such a discovery at home. Who
could drop into a casual farmhouse and be served all this so daintily,
so exquisitely, and pay only sixpence for it?”
“Gabriella, it is well that you are soon going home or you would become
an Anglomaniac,” declared Miss Cavendish.
“I am afraid I should.”
“Yes, I notice that you vaunt your country less than you did in Paris,”
said Sidney, “though seriously, this tea is remarkably good with the
fresh cream.”
“So is the bread and butter.”
“So is the plum cake, and also, so are our appetites,” this last from
Gabriella who helped herself to a second slice of cake.
They left the low-ceiled cottage, refreshed, and passed out between
rows of scarlet and gold blossoms, then took the road again. Half
way home they saw some one coming toward them, the visor of his cap
pulled down over his eyes, and his attention riveted on the book he was
striving to read as he stumbled along. “It’s ‘the other gentleman,’”
whispered Gabriella, nudging Miss Cavendish. The man passed on, but as
Gabriella turned to speak to her companion she saw that she was deadly
pale, and that she had dropped down upon a rock beside the way. “Gem
dear, are you ill? Have you sprained your ankle? What is the matter?”
asked the girl in alarm.
“It is John Price,” answered Miss Cavendish faintly.
Gabriella looked back to where Sidney was gathering a few late wild
flowers. The man’s figure was disappearing around a bend in the road.
Gabriella sat down by her friend’s side and put her arm around her.
“Oh, Gem,” she whispered, “did it mean anything to you after all these
years?”
“It was a surprise; that was all,” returned Miss Cavendish, regaining
her composure and rising to her feet. She walked on and Gabriella
waited for Sidney, the two overtaking Miss Cavendish a little further
ahead. She smiled as she saw them approaching. “I had a scare, Sidney.
Did Gabriella tell you that I saw a ghost?” she said lightly. “I think
now that perhaps I was mistaken. Ten years may make a great difference
in one’s looks and I may have forgotten. It does not seem possible that
I should meet one whom I once knew so well in this quiet little corner
of the world. Resemblances are sometimes startling and I am convinced
that I was mistaken. Come, shall we go over Butterlip How and across by
the Swan inn? It will take us home by another way.”
They continued their walk, crossing Goody Bridge and turning aside
before they reached the town. But when they came again to the highroad
they met “the other gentleman” a second time face to face. This
time the book was in his pocket. He looked up. The expression of
indifference upon his face grew into one of surprise, then to one of
pleasure. He sprang forward and held out his hand. “Isabel Cavendish!
Isabel, it can’t be you,” he exclaimed.
“It is I, John,” she answered simply.
“And these are?” he turned to the girls.
“My two goddaughters who are travelling with me.” She presented them.
The girls meekly fell behind while the older two walked on.
“Isn’t it a coincidence?” said Gabriella. “Do you suppose anything will
happen, Sid?”
“What could happen?”
“The same thing that might come about if you were not to see your
girlhood’s lover for ten years and were to meet him just here.”
“Dear me.”
“I confess to feeling absurdly jealous. I am in a rage,” declared
Gabriella. “Oh, you old blundering nose-in-a-book, she is far too good
for the likes of you. I hope your suet pudding will choke you.” She
shook her fist at the back of Mr. Price’s weather-stained coat.
“There’s no getting away from him, you see,” said Sidney, “for he
lives just across the hallway and can’t stay at home on account of the
weather.”
“If he has any sort of consideration for us he will move right away.”
This Mr. Price did not do, but from this time on he was no longer “the
other gentleman” to them, for his books were neglected, his old coat
was disdained. He appeared in a bran-new mackintosh on rainy days, and
on sunny ones in as correct a costume as even Gabriella’s fastidious
eyes could approve. He climbed the hills with them to little Easedale
tarn where they had tea in a tiny lonely hut. He had them for a drive
to Ambleside, a sail on Lake Windermere. He helped them uphill and
followed them down dale for the week longer that they remained under
Mrs. Graves’s roof, and while the girls grew to like him better and
better “the light that never was on land or sea” added a new beauty to
the face of Isabel Cavendish.
“And I suppose,” said Gabriella ruefully to her godmother, “you will be
wearing that lace bertha before long.”
“We must make up for lost time, dearie. He has waited for me for ten
long years,” returned Miss Cavendish quietly. And Gabriella, who was
experiencing some of the pangs of “hope deferred,” threw her arms
around her friend and hugged her close.
“But as I am never going to marry,” she said, “all my plans are nipped
in the bud. I was going to have it that you and mamma and I would live
together for the rest of our days in some sweet little countrylike
place which we could make as English as possible.”
“It is what we shall do, Rella, and you shall spend weeks with me.”
“Not when there is a horrid man who will carry you off for dry
discussions about things I can’t possibly understand. If he were
a business man one could hope not to see too much of him, but a
professor, and of Greek at that. No, Gem, much as I love you I cannot
feel happy at the prospect.” Then seeing that Miss Cavendish looked a
trifle hurt she called herself a beast and declared that John Price was
the very nicest man in the world and that she had but one objection
to him, and that was that he had superseded her small self in Miss
Cavendish’s affections, a statement which Miss Cavendish denied, saying
that each had a select and distinct place, after which Gabriella went
to talk with Sidney about their bridesmaid frocks.
Mr. Price would need to take an earlier sailing than the others, as his
college demanded his presence by the first of October, so the three
lingered a few days longer in the sweet vale of Grasmere to take a
last cup of tea at the white cottage, to walk once more over Loughrigg
Terrace, to make one more round of Grasmere lake and Rydal Water. Then,
one October morning, when the mists were rolling down from Helm Crag
and Silver How, they bade adieu to the spot where they had all been
very happy, and where had come to Isabella Cavendish the crowning joy
of her journey.
“You have had heartache all these years and now you are perfectly
happy,” said Gabriella wistfully, “but I am putting the ocean between
me and my hope.”
“So I thought I had done, and I have not had heartache all these years,
dear child. My life has been very full, and you, sweetheart, have
helped to fill it. Will you stay over, Gabriella? It is not too late.
Miss Bailey said that if you should change your mind at the last moment
you had but to let her know.”
But Gabriella shook her head. “I couldn’t disappoint my mother, and it
is too late anyhow.”
Yet there was a glad look in the eyes of all three as they turned
their faces toward Liverpool. Soon the ocean would no longer roll
between those whom they had left behind, and who so ardently longed
to see them. Only Miss Cavendish looked back as one who is not saying
a long farewell. “We shall come over again next year,” she murmured,
and Gabriella knew that the pronoun did not include her. She gazed
wistfully out the window as lake and mountain and green pastures faded
from their sight, and the lovely lake district gave place to chimneyed
factories and smoky towns on the way to Liverpool.
Another day saw them on the deck of a huge ocean steamer. They idly
watched till the last trunk was on board, till the hoarse whistle
announced the fact that the hour for departure had come, then they
turned away and went to look for steamer letters. In consequence of
this they were too late to see a young man rush up the gangway at the
very last moment. In one hand he carried a suit case and in the other
a great bunch of roses. He was barely in time; another minute and the
great paddle wheels began to turn. They were off.
Gabriella in her stateroom, with a little catch at her heart, was
reading Miss Bailey’s farewell letter. “We are looking every day for
Mr. Morgan,” she wrote. “He has been to some out-of-the-way place in
Germany, but is coming back to England, and you, too, my dear, will
some day come back to us, I am sure.”
There was a tap at the door of the adjoining room and presently
Gabriella looked up to see Sidney holding out a bunch of
saffron-colored roses and a letter. “The steward just brought these,”
she said. “Oh, Rella, they remind me of Italy. Who could have sent
them?”
Gabriella buried her hot face in the cool fragrant flowers, and then
she took the letter. She gave a half startled look at Sidney before she
read: “I have just learned from my dear old friends that you are to
sail to-morrow. I have learned other things, too, which give me courage
to try to reach Liverpool in time for your steamer. If I may cross
the ocean and ask your mother for the dearest girl in the world, will
you wear one of these roses down to dinner? But if my presence will
trouble you, and you would rather that we should not meet, do not wear
the rose, and I will leave the steamer at Queenstown.”
The notes of the bugle call for dinner sounded along the corridor.
Gabriella drew from the roses in her lap one perfect bud, which she
pinned to her gown. Then she turned and held out a hand to each of her
two comrades. “Come,” she said. “He is here, and I, too, shall come
back some day.”
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.