AT BAYHAM.
EUSTACE THORBURN went to Bayham, and took up his quarters at the George
Hotel. The Dorsetshire watering-place had once been fashionable; but
its fashion had departed, and an atmosphere of decay pervaded the
grandeurs of that bygone day. Happily, the departure of fashion,
which had never had any hand in the loveliness of the bay and the
broad yellow sands, had robbed the Bayham shore of no grace or charm.
The changing opal waters retained their brightest hues, though only
west-country gentry came to look upon them. The golden sands were
golden still, though the crystal chandeliers and sconces which had once
adorned the assembly-room had been sold by auction, and the room itself
converted into a Baptist chapel.
There had been many changes at the George within the last twenty years.
That once popular establishment had been superseded by a gigantic,
stuccoed railway-hotel--itself a dismal failure--and the last two
proprietors had been insolvent. Eustace Thorburn sought in vain for a
visitors’ book dated ’43. All such books had been sold for waste paper
years ago, and the only creature to be found in the hotel who had
belonged to the same establishment in the year ’43 was a semi-idiotic
ostler. Eustace abandoned all hope of information in this quarter, and
went out into the little seaside town to look for the house in which
his mother’s childhood had been spent.
He found the place easily enough. It was still a circulating-library
and reading-room, and as he lingered before the gaily decorated window,
Eustace Thorburn could fancy that nameless stranger, who dated his
letters from the George, peering between the lithographs and sheets of
music in the hope of seeing Celia Mayfield’s fair young face.
“Why could not an honest man have fallen in love with her?” he asked
himself, savagely. “Why must it needs be a villain who was first to
discover the charm of her innocent beauty?”
He went into the shop. There was a girl sitting behind the counter,
half hidden by a high desk, and busy with some shred of needlework. The
young man pictured his mother sitting in the same spot, and all of a
sudden the face and figure of the girl grew dim and blurred before his
eyes. He was fain to look about him for a few moments, as if seeking
some special object, before he could trust himself to speak. Then he
asked for some stationery, and contrived to occupy the girl for a
considerable time, while he selected what he wanted, and questioned her
about the townsfolk.
“Was there any person of the name of Kimber still living in Bayham?” he
asked. The girl told him that there were several Kimbers: Mr. Kimber,
the plumber, in New Street; Mr. Kimber, the house-agent, at the corner
of the Parade; and Kimber and Willows, the drapers, in High Street.
“The person I wish to find is, or was, a Miss Kimber--Sarah Kimber,”
said Eustace; “and I believe her father was a draper.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the damsel; “then that is the Miss Kimber who married
Mr. Willows. Mr. Willows was head-assistant to old Mr. Kimber, who
died five years ago. He left all his money and his business to Miss
Kimber--being his only daughter, you see, sir; and as soon as she left
off her mourning, she married Mr. Willows. He is a very handsome man,
Mr. Willows, and nearly ten years younger than Miss Kimber that was,
and they do say Mr. and Mrs. Willows do not live happily together.”
Eustace went straight from the library to the establishment of Messrs.
Kimber and Willows. It was a big, glaring shop, with a great deal of
plate-glass and gilding, and a gaudy display of dresses and ribbons,
bonnets and parasols. A smirking young man pounced immediately upon
the stranger, asking what he might please to want; and by him Eustace
was conducted to Mrs. Willows, who sat at a desk at the end of the
shop, in a perfect bower of ribbons and millinery. She was attended
by a bevy of damsels, who were busied in the construction of caps
and bonnets, and whom she addressed with extreme acidity of tone and
manner. She was not a pleasant-looking person; and if old Mr. Kimber’s
money had changed into withered leaves on her inheritance of it, she
could scarcely have seemed to have profited less by the dead man’s
wealth, so pinched and hungry was her aspect.
She favoured Eustace with the nearest approach to a smile of which her
thin lips were capable, but regarded him with evident suspicion when
she heard that he wished for a private interview.
“If you are travelling in the drapery line you needn’t trouble yourself
to show your patterns,” she said, decisively; “we have dealt with
Grossam and Grinder for the last twenty years, and we never take
goods from strangers. There are some new people on the other side of
the way who may wish to deal with you, if you’ll give them long credit
and take their bill for your goods, I dare say; but I don’t recommend
you to trust them. When people come into a town without sixpence of
capital, and try to undersell an old-established house, they have only
themselves to blame if they get into the _Gazette_. However,
_I_ say nothing; it’s no affair of _mine_. The increase of
our business is wearing me to the grave, and I should be the last
to begrudge new people a chance, however unfair _their_ way of
proceeding may be.”
Eustace had been quite unable to stay this torrent of indignation
against the people on the other side of the street; but when Mrs.
Willows paused to take breath, he informed her that he was not a
commercial traveller, and that he had nothing to do with drapery,
either wholesale or retail.
“I very much wish to obtain a few minutes’ conversation with you in
private,” he said, glancing towards the young milliners, who had
honoured him with a furtive scrutiny while Mrs. Willows was not looking
at them, and had returned to their work with an exaggerated appearance
of industry directly they felt her cold gray eyes upon them.
That important personage hesitated. It was rather an agreeable
sensation to have a handsome young man pleading for a private
interview, and she looked towards the other end of the shop, where her
husband was displaying cotton prints to an elderly customer of the
housekeeper class, with the faint hope of awakening in that gentleman’s
breast some twinge of the jealousy which so often racked her own.
“If you will step upstairs to the drawing-room,” she said to Eustace,
“you can explain your business without interruption.”
Eustace followed Mrs. Willows to an apartment on the first floor, an
apartment which was made splendid by a great deal of bead-work, and by
occasional glimpses of a very gaudy Brussels carpet; but the splendour
whereof was somewhat subdued by chaste coverings of brown holland and
crochet-work.
The linendraperess seated herself in one of the holland-covered
arm-chairs, and arranged the rustling folds of her stiff silk dress.
Having settled herself deliberately thus, she sat looking at Eustace
with her hard gray eyes, waiting for him to speak.
And this had been his mother’s friend, this hard, prosperous, vulgar
woman! they had been girls together, and had shared all manner of
simple, girlish pleasures! Eustace looked at the woman sadly, thinking
how wide a difference there must needs have been between the two girls,
and how little real sympathy or womanly tenderness could have ever
softened the heart of Mrs. Willows.
“I have to apologize for this intrusion,” he said, after a pause; “for
the business that brings me to Bayham is a personal matter, which can
have very little interest for you. I am anxious to obtain all possible
information respecting a family of the name of Mayfield, and more
especially Miss Mayfield, the only daughter of a librarian in this
town, who, I am given to understand, was very intimate with you some
four-and-twenty years ago.”
The lady’s mouth, tight and hard at the best of times, tightened and
hardened itself to an abnormal degree as Eustace said this. A pale fire
kindled in the cold, gray eyes, and the stiff shoulders and elbows
adjusted themselves anew with increased stiffness.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Willows, “I knew Celia Mayfield.”
“You and she were friends, I believe?”
“We were _companions_,” replied Mrs. Willows, with spiteful
promptitude. “Even at this distance of time I should blush to own that
Celia Mayfield and I were ever friends.”
The whitey-brown complexion of the draper’s wife seemed incapable of
anything approaching a blush; but Eustace’s face glowed with an angry
crimson as the woman said this.
“May I inquire _why_ you would be ashamed to confess your
friendship for Miss Mayfield?” he asked, his voice tremulous with
suppressed passion. It was so difficult to sit quietly by while a
spiteful woman belied his mother’s name; it was so difficult to refrain
from crying out: “I am her son, and am ready to uphold her as the best
and purest of women!” And to own himself her son, would have been to
betray the sad secret of her hapless life.
“May I ask what reason you have to be ashamed of your girlish
friendship?” he repeated, in steadier tones, when he had waited some
moments for Mrs. Willows’ reply.
“Because Celia Mayfield’s conduct was shameful,” answered the woman;
“though, goodness knows, it’s not much wonder that a girl who had been
spoiled, and petted, and flattered, until she didn’t know whether she
stood on her head or her heels, _did_ turn out badly. Mr. and Mrs.
Mayfield made a fool of their daughter. _I_ was an only daughter,
and an only child, too, for the matter of that; but my father was a
sensible man, and _I_ was never brought up to read novels and
think myself a beauty. I kept house for my poor pa when I was fourteen
years of age; and if there was a halfpenny wrong in my accounts, he
didn’t hesitate to box my ears. And I feel the benefit of it now,”
added Mrs. Willows, triumphantly. “This business would not be what it
is if my father’s property had been left to a frivolous person.”
“And you considered Miss Mayfield a frivolous person?”
“Frivolous to a degree that makes me wonder I could ever waste my time
in her company.”
“Will you do me the favour to tell me all you know of the circumstances
under which Miss Mayfield left her home?” said Eustace. “I can assure
you that my motive for making these inquiries is no idle or unworthy
one. You will be doing me a great service if you will give me what
information you can in relation to this subject.”
“If you put it in that manner, I will tell you all I know,” answered
Mrs. Willows, “though it is not a pleasant subject--especially to me,
who might have suffered by Celia Mayfield’s conduct. Goodness knows
what people might have said of _me_ if my pa’s position in Bayham
hadn’t been what it was.”
There was a pause, during which the woman rearranged her silk dress,
and then she began her friend’s story with a stony face, and extreme
deliberation of manner.
“I suppose you are aware that Celia Mayfield ran away from her home
with a gentleman called Hardwick, or at least calling himself Hardwick,
who was staying at the George Hotel when he became acquainted with
her, and who it was easy to see was very much above her in station.
Indeed, how she could ever bring herself to think that he would marry
her, would be a mystery to me if I did not know how her vanity had
been fostered and her looks praised by people who ought to have known
better. She did think so; and when I warned her of the danger her
imprudent conduct might lead her into, she persuaded me to think
the same. ‘Very well, Celia,’ I said; ‘you know best; but it isn’t
often that a gentleman whose pa is in parliament marries the daughter
of a stationer.’ He had let it slip that his father was a member of
parliament, and he had let many things slip which proved that he
belonged to rich people and to high people.”
“He was a young man, I believe?”
“Five-and-twenty at most, and very handsome.”
As Mrs. Willows pronounced these words, her gaze became suddenly fixed,
and she sat staring at her visitor with an expression of extreme
astonishment.
“Perhaps you are related to him?” she said, interrogatively.
“I never saw him in my life. But why do you ask the question?”
“Because you are like him. I didn’t notice the resemblance until just
now; for it’s so long since I saw him that I’d almost forgotten what he
was like. But as I spoke to you his face came back to me. Yes, you are
very like him. And you are really not related?”
“I tell you again, Mrs. Willows, that I never saw this man in my life.
It is the Mayfield family in which I am interested. Pray go on with
your story.”
The beating of his heart quickened as he spoke. He had discovered
something at least from this woman. It was something to know that he
resembled the nameless father who had abandoned him.
“The likeness between us is a birthright of which he could not rob me,”
thought the young man; “or he would have deprived me of that, as well
as of the rest.”
“I believe the gentleman had written a book,” resumed Mrs. Willows:
“a story, or a novel, or something of that kind. Celia went on about
it in her childish way. It was the most beautiful story that ever
was written, and so on, she said. My poor pa forbade me reading
novels, and I had to give my solemn promise that no book from the
circulating-library should ever enter this house, before he would
allow me to walk out with Celia Mayfield. When she began to read the
book, she didn’t know anything about the author; but while she was
reading it, he happened to go into the shop, and she went on about
the story to him as she had gone on about it to me; and I suppose his
vanity was flattered by her childish talk, for there never was such a
childish creature about books and flowers and birds. He told her that
he had written the book; and then he wrote to her, first a note, which
was delivered by his servant, who hung about the library until he got
the opportunity of giving it to Celia unknown to any one; and then
letters, which were addressed to the post-office: and she showed me the
letters. I said, ‘Celia, these are not letters which a prudent young
woman ought to receive.’ But it was no use talking to her. The first
letter that was sent to the post-office lay there nearly a fortnight
before she went to fetch it; and all that time she went on about it
to me when we were out walking; for he had told her he should write,
and address his letter to the post-office. Should she fetch it, or
shouldn’t she? I said, ‘If you take my advice, Celia, you will have
nothing to do with it. People who mean honourably don’t send their
letters to post-offices.’ But one evening, when we were coming home
from a walk, we passed through the street where the office is; and she
let go my arm all of a sudden, ran into the shop, and came out with a
letter in her hand. As soon as we turned the corner into a bye-lane,
where there was nobody about, she kissed the letter, and went on like a
mad thing, and then she read it to me; and she was as proud and happy
as if a king had written to her.”
“God help her, poor innocent soul!” murmured Eustace, tenderly.
“I don’t know what you call _innocence_,” exclaimed the matron,
with severity; “but if you consider _that_ the conduct of a
prudent young woman, I do not. The end of the story proved that I was
right. Celia and I had been in the habit of walking on the sands in a
sheltered place beyond the bay, where there was very little company,
and where two young women could walk together without being followed
or stared at. We walked there almost every evening when it was fine,
and the gentleman at the George used to meet us there, and talk to
Celia. I told her that I disapproved of these meetings; but she had a
way of talking people over, and she talked me over, and made me believe
what she believed. If the gentleman really wanted to marry her, there
could be no harm in her meeting him in the company of a young female
friend. Things went on like this for some time, and then, when the
summer season was quite over, the gentleman went away. Celia fretted a
great deal; but she told me he was coming back in the winter to see her
father and to explain everything, and there’d be an end to all secresy.
I said, ‘Celia, don’t build upon his coming back. It’s not my wish to
make you unhappy; but, if you take _my_ advice, you’ll forget all
about him.’”
“But he did return?”
“I suppose he did, though I never saw him after the summer. I gave
Celia Mayfield good advice, and she wasn’t pleased to hear it. We had
some words upon the subject; and as my pa’s position was very superior
to Mr. Mayfield’s, it was not likely I should suffer myself to be put
upon by his daughter. When Celia wanted to make friends with me, I
declined; and from that time we never spoke. I sat under Mr. Slowcome,
at the Baptist chapel in Walham Lane, and Celia Mayfield attended the
parish-church; so we didn’t often meet. When we did meet, Celia used
to look at me in her childish way, as if she wanted to be friends; but
I made a point of looking straight before me. I heard nothing more of
the Mayfields until one morning in the winter, when a young person came
into our shop and told me that Celia had run away from home.”
“Was the manner of her leaving generally known?”
“It was not. The Mayfields kept things very close. There was a great
deal of talk, as you may suppose, and people had their opinions; but
nothing was ever known for certain; and from that time to this I have
never set eyes on Celia Mayfield.”
“And you never will,” said Eustace, solemnly. “She is dead.”
Mrs. Willows murmured an expression of surprise. Her hard, grim face
softened a little, and when she spoke again, her tone was less severe.
“I am sorry to hear that,” she said. “I never expected to meet Celia
Mayfield again; but I am sorry to hear that she is dead.”
Even for this hard nature the sanctity of the grave had some softening
influence. The linendraper’s wife could afford to think a little more
indulgently of the spoiled and petted beauty whose loveliness had
been so bitter to her, now that she knew her rival had passed into
those shadowy regions where earthly charms count for so little. Some
faint touch of tenderness, some memory of her own youth--when Bayham
was gayer and more pleasant, and even the sands and the sea had
seemed brighter to her than now--came back to the grim, purse-proud
tradeswoman, and one solitary tear glittered in her stern, gray eye.
She brushed it away quickly, ashamed of the human emotion.
“You can tell me nothing more respecting the man who lured your friend
from her home?”
“Nothing. Celia told me that the name by which we knew him was an
assumed one, but she never told me his real name. I don’t believe that
even she knew it. She told me that he was very grand and very rich; and
it was easy for any one to discover from his conversation that he was a
gentleman, and had travelled half over the world.”
“Do you remember the title of the book that he had written?”
Mrs. Willows shook her head.
“In one or more volumes?”
“In one volume. I have seen it in Celia’s hand. Mr. Hardwick gave her a
copy of it, bound in green morocco.”
“Had Miss Mayfield any other friend than yourself?” Eustace asked,
after a brief pause. “Was there any one else in whom she would have
been likely to confide?”
“No one else. Society in Bayham is very limited. Mr. Mayfield was so
wrapped up in his daughter, and had such high ideas, on account of
being the son of a clergyman, that he scarcely thought any one good
enough to associate with her. I was Celia’s only female friend.”
“I hope you will think more tenderly of her in future,” said Eustace,
gently; “she is now beyond all human praise or blame, and the turf
will lie none the less lightly above her grave, let the world judge
her never so harshly. But I, who knew her and loved her, would like to
think that the companion of her youth remembered her kindly.”
A second solitary tear bedewed the eye of Mrs. Willows.
“I’m sure I bear no malice,” she said, in an injured tone. “If Celia
and I were at variance for some months before she left, it was more
her fault than mine, for I gave her the best advice, and gave it with
the best intentions. But I am quite willing to forget all that. Do you
know if the gentleman who called himself Mr. Hardwick really did marry
her? People in Bayham concluded, by her not coming back, that she was
altogether deceived and deluded by his fine promises; and it was said
her father’s heart was broken by her conduct. He died very soon after,
as you may be aware; and his wife did not long survive him.”
“I know very little of your friend’s sad story,” answered Eustace; “but
I know that her life for twenty years was as pure as the life of an
angel--as self-denying as that of a saint.”
There was no more to be said. Eustace thanked Mrs. Willows for her
compliance with his wishes, and took his departure. He went out into
the High Street of Bayham very little wiser than when he had entered
the prosperous emporium of Kimber and Willows. He walked slowly along
the quiet street, and found himself by and by on the outskirts of the
town, strolling onward in an objectless manner, and meditating upon his
mother’s broken story.
When he paused for the first time to look about him he was face to face
with the sea. Behind him a terrace of white houses reflected the full
blaze of the southern sun. Before him lay the bay--a wide expanse of
tawny sand, with pools of sunlit water glimmering here and there.
The tide was low, and the sandy amphitheatre lay open to the foot of
the pedestrian. On one side of the bay rose a tall cliff; on the other
a stretch of sand lay beyond the jutting line of rocks. Eustace crossed
the bay in this direction. He wanted to see the place in which Celia
Mayfield had walked with her false lover, and he knew that this lonely
stretch of sand beyond the rocks must be the spot alluded to in his
father’s letters, and mentioned that day by Mrs. Willows.
It was a fit spot for a lovers’ trysting-place--remote from the voices
of the little town, and yet within the sound of church-bells, which
took a silvery tone as they floated hitherward across the rippling
water. Summer visitors to Bayham rarely penetrated beyond the screen of
rocks which sheltered the bay, and this smooth stretch of sand was not
often invaded by the spades and barrows of noisy children or the feet
of idle damsels. It was an enchanted cove, which might have been sacred
to the sea-nymphs, so seldom did human creatures disturb its poetic
calm.
Here Eustace lingered for some time, still meditating the story of his
mother’s youth, and with strangely intermingled feelings of tenderness
and anger in his heart. How could he ever think of _her_ with
sufficient love and pity? How could he ever think of her destroyer
without considering how he should avenge her wrongs?
“So trusting, so childlike, and deceived so cruelly! What a villain he
must have been! what an unutterable villain!” thought Celia’s son,
as he contemplated the scene of his mother’s love-story. It should
have been such a sweet idyll--a modern fairy tale of rustic beauty and
princely truth and chivalry--and it had been instead so dark a history
of falsehood and shame.
The sun was low in the west when Eustace left that lonely sea-shore. He
had been walking there for hours, indifferent alike to the progress of
time and to the fact that he had eaten nothing since nine o’clock that
morning. And after leaving the sands he did not return immediately to
his hotel, but made his way to the parish churchyard, guided by the old
Norman tower, which stood out in sombre relief against a rosy evening
sky. There was just light enough to serve him in his search amongst
the tombstones; nor was he long finding that which he sought--a tall,
white head-stone, standing near the low wall which bounded the crowded
burial-place. The churchyard stood on rising ground; and the irregular
roofs and chimneys of the town, with here and there a glimpse of
foliage, and the broad purple sea for a background, made no unlovely
picture in the soft evening light.
Eustace knelt upon the grass beside the simple grave, and in that pious
attitude read the inscription on the head-stone:
Sacred to the Memory
OF
EUSTACE THORNBURN MAYFIELD,
YOUNGEST SON OF THE LATE SAMUEL MAYFIELD, CURATE OF
ASHE, IN THIS COUNTY,
Obiit April 3, 1846, ætat. 52;
AND OF
MARY CELIA,
HIS WIDOW, SECOND DAUGHTER OF THE LATE MR. JAMES
HOWDEN, FARMER,
Obiit February 1, 1847, ætat. 49.
This stone is erected by their affectionate children.
“Have I any right to think of them as my grandfather and my
grandmother?” the young man asked himself. “The law would tell me no.
But I take my stand upon a higher law than that made by political
economists, and claim the right to call these my kindred, and to avenge
their injuries.”