Never before had Lucian seen the parlour of an English farmhouse, nor
such a feast as that spread out on the square dinner-table. The parlour
was long and wide and low-roofed, and the ceiling was spanned by beams
of polished oak; a bright fire crackled in the old-fashioned grate, and
a lamp burned on the table; but there were no blinds or curtains drawn
over the latticed windows which overlooked the garden. Lucian’s
observant eyes roved about the room, noting the quaint old pictures on
the walls; the oil paintings of Mr. Trippett’s father and mother; the
framed samplers and the fox’s brush; the silver cups on the sideboard,
and the ancient blunderbuss which hung on the centre beam. It seemed to
him that the parlour was delightfully quaint and picturesque; it smelled
of dried roses and lavender and sweetbriar; there was an old sheep-dog
on the hearth who pushed his muzzle into the boy’s hand, and a
grandfather’s clock in one corner that ticked a solemn welcome to him.
He had never seen such an interior before, and it appealed to his sense
of the artistic.
Lucian’s eyes wandered at last to the table, spread for high tea. That
was as new to him as the old pictures and samplers. A cold ham of
generous proportions figured at one side of the table; a round of cold
roast-beef at the other; the tea-tray filled up one end; opposite it
space was left for something that was yet to come. This something
presently appeared in the shape of a couple of roast fowls and a stand
of boiled eggs, borne in by a strapping maid whose face shone like the
setting sun, and who was sharply marshalled by Mrs. Trippett, carrying a
silver teapot and a dish of hot muffins.
‘Now then, my dear,’ she said, giving a final glance over the table, ‘we
can begin as soon as the gentlemen come, and I lay they won’t be long,
for Mr. Pepperdine’ll be hungry after his journey, and so I’m sure are
you. Come and sit down here and help yourself to an egg--they’re as
fresh as morning dew--every one’s been laid this very day.’
The boy sat down and marvelled at the bountiful provision of Mrs.
Trippett’s tea-table; it seemed to him that there was enough there to
feed a regiment. But when Mr. Trippett and Mr. Pepperdine entered and
fell to, he no longer wondered, for the one had been out in the fields
all day, and the other had been engaged in the unusual task of
travelling, and they were both exceptional trenchermen at any time. Mr.
Trippett joked with the boy as they ate, and made sundry references to
Yorkshire pudding and roast-beef which seemed to afford himself great
satisfaction, and he heaped up his youthful visitor’s plate so
generously that Lucian grew afraid.
‘Cut and come again,’ said Mr. Trippett, with his mouth full and his
jaws working vigorously. ‘Nothing like a good appetite for growing
lads--ah, I was always hungry when I was a boy. Never came amiss to me,
didn’t food, never.’
‘But I’ve never eaten so much before,’ said Lucian, refusing his host’s
pressing entreaty to have another slice off the breast, or a bit of cold
ham. ‘I was hungry, too, or I couldn’t have eaten so much now.’
‘He’ll soon get up an appetite at Simonstower,’ said Mrs. Trippett.
‘You’re higher up than we are, Mr. Pepperdine, and the air’s keener with
you. To be sure, our children have good enough appetites here--you
should see them at meal times!--I’m sure I oft wonder wherever they put
it all.’
‘It’s a provision of nature, ma’am,’ said Mr. Pepperdine. ‘There’s some
wonderful things in Nature.’
‘They’re wanting to see you, my dear,’ said Mrs. Trippett, ignoring her
elder guest’s profound remark and looking at her younger one. ‘I told
them Mr. Pepperdine was going to bring a young gentleman with him. You
shall see them after tea--they’re out in the orchard now--they had their
teas an hour ago, and they’ve gone out to play. There’s two of
them--John and Mary. John’s about your own age, and Mary’s a year
younger.’
‘Can’t I go out to them?’ said Lucian. ‘I will, if you will please to
excuse me.’
‘With pleasure, my dear,’ said Mrs. Trippett. ‘Go by all means, if you’d
like to. Go through the window there--you’ll hear them somewhere about,
and they’ll show you their rabbits and things.’
The boy picked up his hat and went out. Mrs. Trippett followed him with
meditative eyes.
‘He’s not shy, seemingly,’ she said, looking at Mr. Pepperdine.
‘Not he, ma’am. He’s an old-fashioned one, is the lad,’ answered
Lucian’s uncle. ‘He’s the manners of a man in some things. I reckon, you
see, that it’s because he’s never had other children to play with.’
‘He’s a handsome boy,’ sighed the hostess. ‘Like his father as I
remember him. He was a fine-looking man, in a foreign way. But he’s his
mother’s eyes--poor Lucy!’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Pepperdine. ‘He’s Lucy’s eyes, but all the rest of him’s
like his father.’
‘Were you in time to see his father before he died?’ asked Mr. Trippett,
who was now attacking the cold beef, after having demolished the greater
part of a fowl. ‘You didn’t think you would be when you went off that
morning.’
‘Just in time, just in time,’ answered Mr. Pepperdine. ‘Ay, just in
time. He went very sudden and very peaceful. The boy was very brave and
very old-fashioned about it--he never says anything now, and I don’t
mention it.’
‘It’s best not,’ said Mrs. Trippett. ‘Poor little fellow!--of course,
he’ll not remember his mother at all?’
‘No,’ said Mr. Pepperdine, shaking his head. ‘No, he was only two years
old when his mother died.’
Mr. Trippett changed the subject, and began to talk of London and what
Mr. Pepperdine had seen there. But when the tea-table had been cleared,
and Mrs. Trippett had departed to the kitchen regions to bustle amongst
her maids, and the two farmers were left in the parlour with the spirit
decanters on the table, their tumblers at their elbows and their pipes
in their mouths, the host referred to Mr. Pepperdine’s recent mission
with some curiosity.
‘I never rightly heard the story of this nephew of yours,’ he said. ‘You
see, I hadn’t come to these parts when your sister was married. The
missis says she remembers her, ’cause she used to visit hereabouts in
days past. It were a bit of a romance like, eh?’
Mr. Pepperdine took a pull at his glass and shook his head.
‘Ah!’ said he oracularly. ‘It was. A romance like those you read of in
the story-books. I remember the beginning of it all as well as if it
were yesterday. Lucy--that was the lad’s mother, my youngest sister, you
know, Trippett--was a girl then, and the prettiest in all these parts:
there’s nobody’ll deny that.’
‘I always understood that she was a beauty,’ said Mr. Trippett.
‘And you understood rightly. There wasn’t Lucy’s equal for beauty in all
the county,’ affirmed Mr. Pepperdine. ‘The lad has her eyes--eh, dear,
I’ve heard high and low talk of her eyes. But he’s naught else of
hers--all the rest his father’s--Lucy was fair.’
He paused to apply a glowing coal to the tobacco in his long pipe, and
he puffed out several thick clouds of smoke before he resumed his story.
‘Well, Lucy was nineteen when this Mr. Cyprian Damerel came along. You
can ask your missis what like he was--women are better hands at
describing a man’s looks than a man is. He were a handsome young man,
but foreign in appearance, though you wouldn’t ha’ told it from his
tongue. The boy’ll be like him some day. He came walking through
Simonstower on his way from Scarhaven, and naught would content him but
that he must set up his easel and make a picture of the village. He
found lodgings at old Mother Grant’s, and settled down, and he was one
of that sort that makes themselves at home with everybody in five
minutes. He’d an open face and an open hand; he’d talk to high and low
in just the same way; and he’d a smile for everybody.’
‘And naturally all the lasses fell in love with him,’ suggested Mr.
Trippett, with a hearty laugh. ‘I’ve heard my missis say he’d a way with
him that was taking with the wenches--specially them as were inclined
that way, like.’
‘Undoubtedly he had,’ said Mr. Pepperdine. ‘Undoubtedly he had. But
after he’d seen her, he’d no eyes for any lass but our Lucy. He fell in
love with her and she with him as naturally as a duckling takes to
water. Ah! I don’t think I ever did see two young people quite so badly
smitten as they were. It became evident to everybody in the place. But
he acted like a man all through--oh yes! My mother was alive then, you
know, Trippett,’ Mr. Pepperdine continued, with a sigh. ‘She was a
straight-laced ’un, was my mother, and had no liking for foreigners, and
Damerel had a livelyish time with her when he came to th’ house and
asked her, bold as brass, if he might marry her daughter.’
‘I’ll lay he wo’d; I’ll lay he wo’d,’ chuckled Mr. Trippett.
‘Ay, and so he had,’ continued Mr. Pepperdine. ‘She was very stiff and
stand-off, was our old lady, and she treated him to some remarks about
foreigners and papists, and what not, and gave him to understand that
she’d as soon seen her daughter marry a gipsy as a strolling artist,
’cause you see, being old-fashioned, she’d no idea of what an artist, if
he’s up to his trade, can make. But he was one too many for her, was
Damerel. He listened to all she had to say, and then he offered to give
her references about himself, and he told her who he was, the son of an
Italian gentleman that had come to live in England ’cause of political
reasons, and what he earned, and he made it clear enough that Lucy
wouldn’t want for bread and butter, nor a silk gown neither.’
‘Good reasoning,’ commented Mr. Trippett. ‘Very good reasoning.
Love-making’s all very well, but it’s nowt wi’out a bit o’ money at th’
back on’t.’
‘Well, there were no doubt about Damerel’s making money,’ said Mr.
Pepperdine, ‘and we’d soon good proof o’ that; for as soon as he’d
finished his picture of the village he sold it to th’ Earl for five
hundred pound, and it hangs i’ the dining-room at th’ castle to this
day. I saw it the last time I paid my rent there. Mistress Jones, th’
housekeeper, let me have a look at it. And of course, seeing that the
young man was able to support a wife, th’ old lady had to give way, and
they were married. Fifteen year ago that is,’ concluded Mr. Pepperdine
with a shake of the head. ‘Dear-a-me! it seems only like yesterday since
that day--they made the handsomest bride and bridegroom I ever saw.’
‘She died soon, didn’t she?’ inquired Mr. Trippett.
‘Lived a matter of four years after the marriage,’ answered Mr.
Pepperdine. ‘She wasn’t a strong woman, wasn’t poor Lucy--there was
something wrong with her lungs, and after the boy came she seemed to
wear away. He did all that a man could, did her husband--took her off to
the south of Europe. Eh, dear, the letters that Keziah and Judith used
to have from her, describing the places she saw--they read fair
beautiful! But it were no good--she died at Rome, poor lass, when the
boy was two years old.’
‘Poor thing!’ said Mr. Trippett. ‘And had all that she wanted,
seemingly.’
‘Everything,’ said Mr. Pepperdine. ‘Her life was short but sweet, as you
may say.’
‘And now he’s gone an’ all,’ said Mr. Trippett.
Mr. Pepperdine nodded.
‘Ay,’ he said, ‘he’s gone an’ all. I don’t think he ever rightly got
over his wife’s death--anyway, he led a very restless life ever after,
first one place and then another, never settling anywhere. Sometimes it
was Italy, sometimes Paris, sometimes London--he’s seen something, has
that boy. Ay, he’s dead, is poor Damerel.’
‘Leave owt behind him like?’ asked Mr. Trippett sententiously.
Mr. Pepperdine polished the end of his nose.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’ll be a nice little nest-egg for the boy when
all’s settled up, I dare say. He wasn’t a saving sort of man, I should
think, but dear-a-me, he must ha’ made a lot of money in his time--and
spent it, too.’
‘Easy come and easy go,’ said Mr. Trippett. ‘I’ve heard that’s the way
with that sort. Will this lad take after his father, then?’
‘Nay,’ said Mr. Pepperdine, ‘I don’t think he will. He can’t draw a
line--doesn’t seem to have it in him. Curious thing that, but it is so.
No--he’s all for reading. I never saw such a lad for books. He’s got a
great chest full o’ books at the station yonder--wouldn’t leave London
without them.’
‘Happen turn out a parson or a lawyer,’ suggested Mr. Trippett.
‘Nay,’ said Mr. Pepperdine. ‘It’s my impression he’ll turn out a poet,
or something o’ that sort. They tell me there’s a good living to be made
out o’ that nowadays.’
Mr. Trippett lifted the kettle on to the brightest part of the fire,
mixed himself another glass of grog, and pushed the decanter towards his
friend.
‘There were only a poorish market at Oakbro’ t’other day,’ he said.
‘Very low prices, and none so much stuff there, nayther.’
Mr. Pepperdine followed his host’s example with respect to the grog,
and meditated upon the market news. They plunged into a discussion upon
prices. Mrs. Trippett entered the room, took up a basket of stockings,
planted herself in her easy-chair, and began to look for holes in toes
and heels. The two farmers talked; the grandfather’s clock ticked; the
fire crackled; the whole atmosphere was peaceful and homelike. At last
the talk of prices and produce was interrupted by the entrance of the
stout serving-maid.
‘If you please’m, there’s Jim Wood from the station with two trunks for
Mr. Pepperdine, and he says is he to put ’em in Mr. Pepperdine’s trap?’
she said, gazing at her mistress.
‘Tell him to put them in the shed,’ said Mr. Pepperdine. ‘I’ll put ’em
in the trap myself. And here, my lass, give him this for his trouble,’
he added, diving into his pocket and producing a shilling.
‘And give him a pint o’ beer and something to eat,’ said Mr. Trippett.
‘Give him some cold beef and pickles, Mary,’ said Mrs. Trippett.
Mary responded ‘Yes, sir--Yes’m,’ and closed the door. Mr. Pepperdine,
gazing at the clock with an air of surprise, remarked that he had no
idea it was so late, and he must be departing.
‘Nowt o’ th’ sort!’ said Mr. Trippett. ‘You’re all right for another
hour--help yourself, my lad.’
‘The little boy’s all right,’ said Mrs. Trippett softly. ‘He’s soon made
friends with John and Mary--they were as thick as thieves when I left
them just now.’
‘Then let’s be comfortable,’ said the host. ‘Dang my buttons, there’s
nowt like comfort by your own fireside. And how were London town
looking, then, Mr. Pepperdine?--mucky as ever, I expect.’
Mr. Pepperdine, with a replenished glass and a newly charged pipe,
plunged into a description of what he had seen in London. The time
slipped away--the old clock struck nine at last, and suddenly reminded
him that he had six miles to drive and that his sisters would be
expecting his arrival with the boy.
‘Time flies fast in good company,’ he remarked as he rose with evident
reluctance. ‘I always enjoy an evening by your hospitable fireside, Mrs.
Trippett, ma’am.’
‘You’re in a great hurry to leave it, anyhow,’ said Mr. Trippett, with a
broad grin. ‘Sit ye down again, man--you’ll be home in half an hour with
that mare o’ yours, and it’s only nine o’clock, and ten to one th’ owd
clock’s wrong.’
‘Ay, but my watch isn’t,’ answered Mr. Pepperdine. ‘Nay, we must
go--Keziah and Judith’ll be on the look-out for us, and they’ll want to
see the boy.’
‘Ay, I expect they will,’ said Mr. Trippett. ‘Well, if you must you
must--take another glass and light a cigar.’
Mr. Pepperdine refused neither of these aids to comfort, and lingered a
few minutes longer. But at last they all went out into the great
kitchen, Mrs. Trippett leading the way with words of regret at her
guest’s departure. She paused upon the threshold and turned to the two
men with a gesture which commanded silence.
The farmhouse kitchen, quaint and picturesque with its old oak
furniture, its flitches of bacon and great hams hanging from the
ceiling, its bunches of dried herbs and strings of onions depending from
hooks in the corners, its wide fireplace and general warmth and
cheeriness, formed the background of a group which roused some sense of
the artistic in Mrs. Trippett’s usually matter-of-fact intellect. On the
long settle which stretched on one side of the hearth sat four
shock-headed ploughboys, leaning shoulder to shoulder; in an easy-chair
opposite sat the red-cheeked maid-servant; close to her, on a low stool,
sat a little girl with Mrs. Trippett’s features and eyes, whose sunny
hair fell in wavy masses over her shoulders; behind her, hands in
pockets, sturdy and strong, stood a miniature edition of Mr. Trippett,
even to the sandy hair, the breeches, and the gaiters; in the centre of
the floor, at a round table on which stood a great oil lamp, sat the
porter, busy with a round of beef, a foaming tankard of ale, and a
crusty loaf. Of these eight human beings a similar peculiarity was
evident. Each one sat with mouth more or less open--the ploughboys’
mouths in particular had revolved themselves into round O’s, while the
porter, struck as it were in the very act of forking a large lump of
beef into a cavernous mouth, looked like a man who has suddenly become
paralysed and cannot move. The maid-servant’s eyes were wider than her
mouth; the little girl shrank against the maid’s apron as if afraid--it
was only the sturdy boy in the rear who showed some symptoms of a faint
smile. And the object upon which all eyes were fixed was Lucian, who
stood on the hearth, his back to the fire, his face glowing in the
lamplight, winding up in a low and thrilling voice the last passages of
what appeared to be a particularly blood-curdling narrative.
Mr. Trippett poked Mr. Pepperdine in the ribs.
‘Seems to ha’ fixed ’em,’ he whispered. ‘Gow--the lad’s gotten the gift
o’ the gab!--he talks like a book.’
‘H’sh,’ commanded Mrs. Trippett.
‘And so the body hung on the gibbet,’ Lucian was saying, ‘through all
that winter, and the rain, and the hail, and the snow fell upon it, and
when the spring came again there remained nothing but the bones of the
brigand, and they were bleached as white as the eternal snows; and
Giacomo came and took them down and buried them in the little cemetery
under the cypress-trees; but the chain still dangles from the gibbet,
and you may hear it rattle as you pass that way as it used to rattle
when Luigi’s bones hung swaying in the wind.’
The spell was broken; the porter sighed deeply, and conveyed the
interrupted forkful to his mouth; the ploughboys drew deep breaths, and
looked as if they had arisen from a deep sleep; the little girl,
catching sight of her mother, ran to her with a cry of ‘Is it true? Is
it true?’ and Mr. Trippett brought everybody back to real life by loud
calls for Mr. Pepperdine’s horse and trap. Then followed the putting on
of overcoats and wraps, and the bestowal of a glass of ginger-wine upon
Lucian by Mr. Trippett, in order that the cold might be kept out, and
then good-nights and Godspeeds, and he was in the dogcart at Mr.
Pepperdine’s side, and the mare, very fresh, was speeding over the six
miles of highway which separated Mr. Trippett’s stable from her own.