Coastdown.
Rushing through the streets of London, as if he were rushing for his
life, went a gentleman in deep mourning. It was Robert Hunter. Very
soon after we last saw her, he had followed the hearse that conveyed
his wife to her long home in Katterley churchyard.
Putting aside his grief, his regret, his bitter repentance, her death
made every difference to him. Had there been a child, the house and
income would have remained his; being none, it all went from him. Of
his own money but little remained: he had been extravagant during the
brief period when he was Lieutenant Hunter, had spent right and left.
One does not do these things without having to pay for it. Mrs.
Chester, going over to offer a condoling visit, heard this, and spoke
out her opinion with her usual want of reserve. She looked upon him as
a man lost. "No," said he, "I am _saved!_ I shall go to work now."
"Hoping to redeem fortune?" she rejoined. "Yes," he said, "and
something else besides."
Heavily lay the shadow of the past upon Robert Hunter. The drooping
form of his loving and neglected wife, bright with hope once,
mouldering in her grave now, was in his mind always; the years that he
had wasted in frivolity, the money he had recklessly spent. Oh, the
simpleton he was--as he thought now, looking back in his repentance.
When he had become master of a good profession, why did he abandon it
because a little money was left him? To become a gentleman amongst
gentlemen, forsooth; to put away the soiling of his hands; to live a
life of vanity and indolence. Heaven had recompensed him in its own
just way: whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap. His soldiership
was gone; his wife was gone; money, the greater portion of it, was
gone. Nothing left to him but remembrance, and the ever-present,
bitter sense of his folly. He was beginning life anew: he must go back
to the bottom of the tree of his engineering profession, lower than
where he had left off: he would so begin it and take up his work
daily, and untiringly persevere in it, so as--Heaven helping him--to
atone for the past. Not all the past. The wasted years were gone for
ever; the gentle wife, whom he had surely helped to send to the grave,
could not be recalled to earth. Not so much on his wife were his
musings bent as on the career of work lying before him. He had so
grieved for her in the days before and immediately after her death,
that it seemed as though the sorrow had, in a degree, spent itself,
and reaction set in. If his handicraft's best skill, indifference to
privation, unflagging industry, could redeem the past idleness, he
would surely redeem that. Not in a pecuniary point of view, it was not
of that he thought, but in the far graver one of wasted life. His eyes
were opening a little; he saw how offensive on High must be a life of
mere idle indulgence; a waste of that precious time, short at the
best, bestowed upon him to use. This, this was what he had resolved to
atone for: Heaven helping him, he once more aspirated in the sad but
resolute earnestness of his heart.
Making an end of his affairs at Katterley, he came to London,
presented himself at the office of the firm where he was formerly
employed, and said he had come to ask for work. They remembered the
clever, active, industrious young man, and were glad to have him
again. And Robert Hunter--dropping his easy life, just as he dropped
the name he had borne in it--entered on his career of toil and
usefulness.
The spring was growing late when his employers intimated to him that
he was going to be sent to Spain, to superintend some work there.
Anywhere, he answered; he was quite ready, let them send him where
they would.
On this morning that we see him splashing through the mud of London
improvised by the water carts, he was busy making his preparations for
departure, and was on his way to call on Professor Macpherson. He
wanted some information in regard to the locality for which he was
bound, and thought the professor could supply it. The previous night,
sitting alone in his lodgings, he had been surprised, and rather
annoyed, by the appearance of Mrs. Chester. That lady was in town on
her own business, and found him out. Incautiously he let slip that he
was going on the morrow to Dr. Macpherson's. She seized upon the
occasion to make a visit also.
At this very moment Mrs. Chester was en route also. Pushing her way
along, inquiring her road perpetually, getting into all sorts of odd
nooks and turnings, she at length emerged on the more open squares of
Bloomsbury, and there she saw her brother, who had been calling at
places on his way, in front of her.
"You might have waited for me, Robert, I think."
"I did wait twenty minutes. I came on then. My time is not my own, you
know, Penelope."
"Have you seen anything of Lady Ellis since you came to London?"
inquired Mrs. Chester, as they walked on together.
"No, I should not be likely to see her."
"She is staying in London; she came to it direct when she left me. At
least, she was staying here, but in a letter I had from her she said
she thought of going on a visit to Coastdown. Her plans----"
"Excuse me, Penelope, I don't care to hear of Lady Ellis's plans."
"You have grown quite a bear, Robert! That's what work's doing for
you."
He laughed pleasantly. "I think it is hurry that is doing it for me
this morning, I feel as if I had no time for anything. Number fifteen.
Here we are!"
It was a commodious house, this one in Bloomsbury, steps leading up to
the entrance. He sent in his card, "Mr. Robert Hunter," and they were
admitted.
"Lawk a' mercy! Is it you?" exclaimed Mrs. Macpherson, looking first
at the card and then at its owner, as they were shown into a handsome
room, and the professor's lady, in sky-blue silk, and a scarlet
Garibaldi body elaborately braided with black, advanced to receive
them. She did not wear the bird-of-paradise feather, but she wore
something equivalent to it: some people might call it a cap and some a
turban, the front ornament of which, perching on the forehead, was an
artificial bird, with shining wings of green and gold.
Mrs. Macpherson took a hand of each, shaking them heartily. "And so
you have put away your name?" she said.
"Strictly speaking, it never was my name," he answered. "It was my
wife's. I had to assume it with her property, but when the property
left me again, I thought it time to drop the name."
The professor came forward in his threadbare coat, with (it must be
owned) a great stream of some sticky red liquid down the front of it,
for they had fetched him from his experimenting laboratory. But his
smile was bright, his welcome genial. Mrs. Macpherson, whose first
thoughts were always of hospitality, ordered luncheon to be got ready.
Robert Hunter, sitting down between them, quietly told them he had
become a working man again, and where he was going, and what to do.
Mrs. Macpherson heard him with a world of sympathy.
"It's just one o' them crosses in life that come to a many of us,"
remarked she. "Play first and work afterwards! it's out o' the order
of things. But take heart. You've got your youth yet, and you'll grow
reconciled."
"If you only knew how glad I am to be at work again!" he said, a faint
light of earnestness crossing his face. "My years of idleness follow
me as a reproach--as a waste of life."
"But for steady attention to my work and studies, I should never have
been able to contribute my poor mite to further the cause of science,"
said the professor, meekly, speaking it as an encouragement to Robert
Hunter.
"If he hadn't stuck at it late and early--burning the candle at both
ends, as 'twere--he'd not have had his ologies at his fingers' tips,"
pursued Mrs. Macpherson, who often deemed it necessary to explain more
lucidly her husband's meaning.
"And so you are about to migrate to Spain?" said the professor.
"You----"
"He says he's going off to it by rail," interposed Mrs. Macpherson.
"What are the people there? Blacks?"
"No, no, Betsy; they are white, as we are."
"I knew a Spanish man once, professor, and he was olive brown."
"They are dark from the effects of the sun. I thought you alluded to
the race. The radiation of heat there is excessive; and----"
"That is, it's burning hot in the place," corrected Mrs. Macpherson.
"I wish you joy of it, Mr. Hunter. You'll catch it full, a-laying down
of your lines of rail."
"I think you have been in Spain?" observed Mr. Hunter to the doctor.
"I once stayed some months there. What do you say?--that you want some
information that you think I can supply? I hope I can. What is it?
Please to step into my room."
The professor passed out of the door by which he entered, Mr. Hunter
following him. A short passage, and then they were in the square back
room consecrated to the professor and his pursuits. It was not a
museum, it was not a laboratory, it was not a library, or an aviary of
stuffed birds, or an astronomical observatory; but it was something of
all. Specimens of earth, of rock, of flowers, of plants, of weeds, of
antiquarian walls; of animals, birds, fish, insects; books in cases,
owls in cages; and a vast many more odd things too numerous to
mention. Mrs. Macpherson thought it well to follow them.
"Law!" said she to Mrs. Chester, "did living mortal ever see the like
o' the place?"
"What a confused mass of things it is!" was the answer, as Mrs.
Chester's eyes went roving around in curiosity.
"_He_ says it isn't. He has the face to tell me everything is in its
place, and he could find it in the dark. The great beast there with
its round eyes, is a owl that some of 'em caught and killed when they
went out moralizing into Herefordshire."
"Not moralizing, Betsy. One of the excursions of the Geological
Society----"
"It's all the same," interrupted Mrs. Macpherson; and the professor
meekly turned to Mr. Hunter and continued an explanation he was giving
him, a sort of earthenware pipe in his hand. The ladies drew near.
"You perceive, Mr. Hunter, there is a small aperture for the passing
in of the atmospheric air?"
"That is, there's a hole where the wind goes out," explained the
professor's wife.
"By these means, taking the precautions I have previously shown you,
the pressure on the valve may be increased to almost any given extent!
As a natural consequence----"
"Oh, bother consequences!" cried Mrs. Macpherson; "I'm sure young
Robert Hunter don't care to waste his time with that rubbish, when
there's cold beef and pickled salmon waiting."
"Just two minutes, Betsy, and Mr. Hunter shall be with you. Perhaps
you and Mrs. Chester will oblige us by going on."
"Not if I know it," said the lady, resolutely. "I've had experience of
your 'two minutes' before today, prefessor, and seen 'em swell into
two mortal hours. Come! finish what you've got to say to him, and
we'll all go together."
Dr. Macpherson continued his explanations in a low voice, possibly to
avoid more interruptions. Five minutes or so, and they moved from the
table, the doctor still talking in answer to a question.
"Not yet. I grieve to say we have not any certain clue to it, and
opinions are much divided among us. It needs these checks to remind us
of our finite nature, Mr. Hunter. So far shalt thou go, but no
farther. That is a law of the Divine Creator, and we cannot break it."
Robert Hunter smiled. "The strangest thing of all is to hear one of
you learned men acknowledge as much. The philosopher's stone;
perpetual motion; the advancing and receding tides--do you not live in
expectation of making the secret of these marvels yours?"
Professor Macpherson shook his head. "If we were permitted: but we
never shall be. _If_. That word has been the arresting point of man in
the past ages, as it will be in the future. Archimedes said he could
move the world, you know, if he had but an outward spot to rest the
fulcrum of his lever on."
"It's a lucky thing for us that Archimy didn't," was the comment of
Mrs. Macpherson. "It wouldn't be pleasant to be swayed about
promiscous, the earth tossing like a ship at sea."
Robert Hunter declined the luncheon; he had many things to do still,
and his time in England was growing very short; so he said adieu to
them both then, and to his sister.
"Now remember, Robert Hunter," said Mrs. Macpherson, taking both his
hands, "when you visit England temporay, and want a friendly bed to
put yourself into, come to us. Me and the prefessor took to you when
we first saw you at Guild. You remember that night," she added,
turning to Mrs. Chester: "we come up in a carriage and pair; I wore my
orange brocade and my bird-o'-paradise; and there was a Lady Somebody
there, one o' those folks that put on airs and graces; which isn't
pretty in a my lady, any more than it is in a missis. You took our
fancies, Mr. Hunter--though it does seem odd to be calling you that,
and not Lake--and we'll look upon it as a favour if you'll come to us
sometimes. The prefessor knows we shall, but he's never cute at
compliments. He was born without gumption."
The professor's lingering shake of the hand, the welcoming look in his
kindly eyes, said at least as much as his wife's words; and Robert
Hunter went forth, knowing that they wished to be his friends.
So they sat down to their luncheon and he departed; and the same night
went forth on his travels.
Coastdown lay low in the light of the morning sun. The skies were
clear, the rippling sea was gay with its fishing boats. Spring had
been very late that year, but this was a day warm and bright. The
birds were singing, the lambs were sporting in the fields, the hedges
were bursting into buds of green.
Swinging through the gate of the Red Court Farm, having been making a
call there to fetch a newspaper, came Captain Copp: a sailor with a
wooden leg, a pea jacket, and a black glazed hat. Captain Copp had
been a merchant captain of the better class, as his father was before
him. After his misfortune--the loss of his leg in an encounter with
pirates--he gave up the sea, and settled at Coastdown on his small but
sufficient income.
The captain's womenkind--as he was in the habit of calling the inmates
of his house--consisted of his wife and a maid servant. The former was
meek, yielding, gentle as those gentle lambs in the field; the latter,
Sarah Ford, worth her weight in gold for honest capability, liked to
manage the captain and the world on occasions. There were encounters
between them. He was apt to call her a she-pirate and other
affectionate names. She openly avowed her disbelief in his marvellous
reminiscences, especially one that was a standing story with him
concerning a sea-serpent that he saw with his own eyes in the Pacific
Ocean. He had also seen a mermaid. Like many another sailor, the
captain was a simple-minded man in land affairs, only great at sea and
its surroundings; with implicit faith in all its marvels.
On occasions the captain's mother honoured him with a visit; a
resolute, well-to-do lady, who used to voyage with her husband, and
had now settled in Liverpool. When she came she ruled the house and
the captain, for she thought him (forty, now) and his wife little
better than children yet. In solid sense, if you believed herself,
nobody could approach her.
Captain Copp came forth from his call at the Red Court Farm, letting
the gate swing behind him, and stumped along quickly, his stout stick
and his wooden leg keeping time on the ground. The captain's face was
beaming with satisfaction, for he had contrived to lay hold of young
Cyril Thornycroft, and recount to him (for the fiftieth time) the
whole story of the sea-serpent from beginning to end. He was a short,
wiry man, with the broad round shoulders of a sailor. The road
branched off before him two ways, like an old-fashioned fork; the way
on the right led direct to the village and the common beach; the way
on the left to his home.
The captain halted. Sociably inclined, he was rather fond of taking
himself to the Mermaid; that noted-public house where the sailors and
the coastguard men congregated to watch the omnibus come in from
Jutpoint. It must be getting near to the time of its arrival,
half-past eleven, and the captain's leg moved a step forward in the
direction; on the other hand, he wanted to say a word to that
she-serpent Sarah (with whom he had enjoyed an encounter before coming
out) about the dinner. The striking of the clock decided him, and he
bore on for home, past the churchyard. Crossing part of the heath, he
came to the houses, red brick, detached, cheerful, his own being the
third. At the window of the first sat an old lady. Captain Copp went
through the little gate and put his face without ceremony against the
pane, close to Mrs. Connaught's.
"How's the master this morning?" he called out through the glass.
She answered by drawing aside and pointing to the fire. An asthmatical
old gentleman, just recovering from a fit of the gout, sat there in a
white cotton nightcap and dressing-gown made of yellow flannel.
"He's come down for the first time, Captain Copp. He looks brave this
morning," was Mrs. Connaught's answer.
"Glad to see ye, comrade; I'll come in later," cried the captain
through the window, flourishing his stick in token of congratulation.
And old Mr. Connaught, who had not heard a word, nodded the tassel of
the white cap by way of answer.
In the parlour at home, when Captain Copp entered it, sat his wife at
work, a faded lady with a thin and fair face. Taking out the newspaper
he had brought, he began to open it.
"Did you see the justice, Sam?" asked his wife in her gentle, loving
tones.
"No, he was out. I only saw Cyril. There'll be a fine row when he
comes home. Mary Anne has run away."
Mrs. Copp dropped her work. "Run away! oh, Sam! Run away from where?"
"From where?--why, from school," said the choleric captain, who was
just as hot as his wife was calm. "She came bursting in upon them this
morning at breakfast, having run home all the eight miles. And she
says she won't go back."
Mrs. Samuel Copp, who had never in her life presumed to take a walk
without express permission given for it, lifted her hands in dismay.
"I feared she would never stay at school; I feared she would not."
"Old Connaught is downstairs today, Amy," observed the captain to her
after a long interval of silence, as he turned his paper.
"I am glad of that. He suffers sadly, poor man."
"Well, he's getting old, you see; and he's one that has coddled
himself all his life, which doesn't answer. I say! who's this?"
A vision of something bright had flashed in at the little garden gate,
on its way to the door. Mrs. Copp started up, saying that it was Mary
Anne Thornycroft.
"Not a bit of it," said the captain. "Mary Anne Thornycroft would come
right in and not stand knocking at the door like a simpleton."
The knocking was very load and decisive, such as, one is apt to fancy
in a simple country place, must herald the approach of a visitor of
consequence. Sarah appeared showing in the stranger.
"Lady Ellis, ma'am," she said to her mistress.
A dress of rich black silk, a handsome India shawl, a girlish straw
bonnet, with a great deal of bright mauve ribbon about it, a white
veil, and delicate lavender gloves. My lady had got up herself well
for her journey; stylish, but not too fine to travel. She had
discarded her mourning, but it was convenient to wear her black silks.
The captain and his wife rose.
Yes, it was Lady Ellis. But she had mistaken the direction given her,
and had come to Captain Copp's instead of Mrs. Connaught's. When the
explanation came, the gallant captain offered to take her in.
"Old Connaught is better today," observed he, volunteering the
information. "He's downstairs in a nightcap and flannel gown."
Another minute, and Lady Ellis had the opportunity of making
acquaintance with the articles of attire mentioned, and the old
gentleman they adorned. Captain Copp, with his nautical disregard to
ceremony, went into his neighbour's house as usual, without knocking,
opened the sitting-room door, and sent the visitor in. Mrs. Connaught
was not there, and he went to the kitchen in search of her. They were
primitive-mannered, these worthy people of Coastdown, entering each
others' kitchens or parlours at will.
Mr. Connaught, very excessively taken aback at the unexpected
apparition, did nothing but look up with a stolid stare, as unable
mentally to comprehend what the lady did there, and who she might be,
as he was physically to rise and receive her. Lady Ellis lost her
ready suavity for a moment, struck out of it by the curious old figure
before her.
Mrs. Connaught was preparing some dainty little dish for her husband;
sick people have fancies, and he liked her cooking better than the
cook's. She heard the wooden leg coming along the passage.
"Here!" said the captain, "some lady wants you. Came by the omnibus
from Jutpoint, I gather; got a white figure-head."
He stumped out the back way as he spoke, and Mrs. Connaught entered
the parlour. When Lady Ellis was a girl of fifteen, twenty years
before, and she an unmarried woman getting on for forty, they had seen
a good deal of each other. Not having met since, each had some little
difficulty in making the recognition of the other; but it dawned at
last.
"I could not stay any longer from coming to see you," said Lady Ellis.
"You seem to be the only link left of my early home and my dear
parents. Forgive me for intruding on you today; had I waited longer I
might not have been able to come at all."
She sat down and untied her bonnet, and laid hold of Mrs. Connaught's
hand and kept it, letting fall some tears. Old Connaught stared more
than ever; Mrs. Connaught, not a demonstrative woman, but simple and
kindly, answered in kind.
"How long it seems ago! And you must have grown grand since then, Lady
Ellis! But I never knew your people very much, you know."
"Ah, you forget! _I_ grand!"--she went on, with a cheery laugh; "you
will soon see how different I am from that. I came home to find nearly
all those I cared for dead; you only are left, and I thought I must
come down and find you out. Dear Mrs. Connaught, dear old friend, the
longing for it got irrepressible."
Lady Ellis, it may be remembered, had pencilled down Mrs. Connaught's
address at Mrs. Chester's, as supplied by Mr. Thornycroft. It might
prove useful, she thought, on some future occasion. And the occasion
had come.
The world, as she thought, had not dealt bountifully with her; quite
the opposite. Not to mince the matter, she had to scheme to live, just
as much as Mrs. Chester had, only in a different way. She liked good
clothes, she liked ease and good living. Never, save for those few
short days of her Indian marriage, had she known what it was to be
free from care. Her father had liked play better than work; he and her
mother, both, had a propensity to live beyond their income, to get
into society that was above them, for they were not altogether
gentlepeople. Extravagance, struggles, debts, pinching; all sorts of
contrivances and care, outside show, meanness at home--such had been
the experience of Angeline Finch, until some lucky chance took her to
India as companion to a lady, and a still luckier introduced her to
Sir George Ellis, an old man in his dotage. Two years of her reign as
my lady--two blessed years; show, ease, life. Looking back upon them
now, they seemed like a very haven. But Sir George died; it came to an
end; and she home to Europe again, where she found herself a little
embarrassed how to get along in the world.
Whether she had lost sight of her European acquaintances during her
stay in India, or whether she had originally not possessed many,
certain it was they seemed scarce now.
The vision, coming and going almost like a flash of lightning, of Mr.
Thornycroft and his daughter, the gentleman's evident admiration of
her, the tales she heard (perhaps exaggerated) of the style of living
and the wealth at the Red Court, had set her mind a-longing. She
thought often how desirable would be a visit there: what might it not
lead to? The determination to effect it grew into a settled hope. It
might almost have been called a prevision, as you will find from what
came of it. Of all the ills that can possibly befal this life, Lady
Ellis, perhaps from the circumstances of her early experience,
regarded poverty as the most fatal. She had grown to dread it awfully.
After that short interval of ease and luxury, the thought of having to
relapse back to contrivances, debts, duns, difficulties, turned her
sick. Ah, what a difference it is!--what a wide gap between!--a
shoulder of mutton for dinner one day, cold the next, hashed the
third, beer limited, a gown turned and turned again, shabby at the
best; and a good dinner of three courses and wines, and the toilette
of Madame Elise!
And so, Lady Ellis, working out her own plans, had come swooping down
today on Coastdown and Mrs. Connaught.
She went up to Mr. Connaught and took his hand; she looked admiringly
at him, as if a yellow flannel gown and cotton nightcap were the most
charming articles of attire that fashion could produce; she expressed
her sorrow for his ailments with a gentle voice. Certainly she did her
best to win his heart and his wife's, and went three-parts of the way
towards doing it.
Meanwhile things were in a commotion at the Red Court Farm. On the
departure of Miss Derode at Christmas the justice had put his daughter
to school, an eligible place eight miles only away. She had gone
rebelliously; stayed rebelliously; and now finished up by running home
again.
As the justice found when he got home. Mary Anne flatly refused to go
back. She refused altogether to leave home.
Mr. Thornycroft, privately not knowing in the least what to do with
his self-willed daughter, sat in his magisterial chair, the young lady
carpeted before him. All he could say, and he said a great deal, did
not move her in the least; back to school she would not go. It seemed
that she had resumed at once old habits; had fed her birds, sang her
songs to the grand piano, danced gleefully in and out amid the
servants, and finally put on a most charming silk dress of delicate
colour, that she would never have been permitted to wear at school,
and was too good to have been taken there.
"I shall drive you back in an hour, Mary Anne."
"I will not go, papa."
"What's that, girl? Do you mean to tell me to my face you will not go
when I say you shall? That's something new."
"Of course if you make me get into the carriage and drive me there
yourself, I cannot help it; but I should ran away again tomorrow."
"It is enough disgrace to you to have run away once."
Mary Anne stood, half in contrition, half in defiance. Nearly
seventeen now, tall and fair, very handsome, she scarcely looked one
to be coerced to this step. Her clear blue eyes met those of her
father; the very self-same eyes as his, the self-same will in them.
"As to disgrace, papa, I did nothing more than come straight home. It
was the same thing as a morning walk, and I have often gone out for
_that_."
"What do you suppose is to become of you?" questioned Mr. Thornycroft,
the conviction seating itself within him that she would not be forced
from home again. He ran away from school himself, and his father had
never been able to get him back to it. Mary Anne had inherited his
self-will.
"I can learn at home. Oh, papa, I will be very good and obedient if
you let me stay."
"You are too old now to be at home alone. And you would not obey
mademoiselle, you know."
"If you had wanted to place me at school, you should have done it when
I was young, papa. I am too old to be sent there now, for the first
time."
Inwardly the justice acknowledged the truth of this. He began thinking
that he must keep her, and engage some strict governess. But he did
not want to do this; he objected to having governesses at the Red
Court Farm.
"You don't believe me perhaps, papa. Indeed, I will be good and
obedient; but you must not send me away!"
He supposed it must be so. He did not see his way clearly out of the
dilemma; she had been indulged always, she must be indulged still.
Some signs of relenting in the blue eyes--handsome still as his
daughter's--Mary Anne saw it, and flew into his arms with a shower of
tears.
What an opportunity for Lady Ellis! She stayed on at Mrs. Connaught's,
and went daily to the Red Court, and read with Mary Anne and saw to
her studies; and was her charming companion and indulgent governess.
Excursions abroad in plenty! Going to Jutpoint in Mr. Thornycroft's
high carriage; sailing to sea in Tomlett's boat; here, there,
everywhere! The young men happened to be away at this period, and Lady
Ellis had the field open.
There were some weeks of it. My lady had made a private arrangement
with Mrs. Connaught, insisting upon paying for herself while she
stayed. The sea air was doing her so much good, she said. The sea air!
My lady would have taken up her permanent abode in old Betts's boat
rather than have removed herself to a distance from that desirable
pile of buildings, the Red Court Farm. Looking at it from her little
chamber window, that is, at its chimneys, and imagining the charming
life underneath, it appeared to her as a very haven of refuge.
And Justice Thornycroft was becoming fascinated. He began to think
there was not such another woman in the world.
Perhaps there was not. Let Harry Thornycroft be assured of one
thing--that when these clever women set their minds to lay hold of a
man, to bend him to their will, in nine cases out of ten they will
carry it out, surrounding circumstances aiding and abetting.
One day when she was dining at the Red Court Farm, she suggested to
Mr. Thornycroft that he should take a dame de compagnie for Mary Anne.
She always appeared to have that young lady's best interest on her
mind and heart and tongue. Mary Anne, accustomed to do what she liked,
went out with the cheese.
"It is the only thing, as you will not have a governess. Believe me,
my dear sir, it is the only thing for that dear child," she urged, her
dark eyes going straight out to the honest blue ones of Harry
Thornycroft.
He made no reply. He was thinking that a dame de compagnie might be
more troublesome at the Red Court than even a governess.
"Mary Anne wants now some one who will train her mind and form her
manners, Mr. Thornycroft. It is essential that it should be done.
Wanting a mother, wanting a stepmother, I see only one alternative--a
gentlewoman, who will be friend, governess, and companion in one. It
is a pity, for her sake, that you did not marry again."
Mr. Thornycroft put out a glass of wine with a sudden movement, and
drank it. Lady Ellis resumed, piteously.
"Ah, forgive me! I know I ought not to be so free; to say these
things. I was but thinking of that dear child. You will forgive me?"
"There's nothing to forgive," said the justice. "I am exceedingly
obliged for the interest you take in her, and for any suggestion you
may make. The consideration is--what to do for the best? I don't see
my way clear."
He sat with his fine head a little bent, the light of the wax
chandelier falling on his fair, and still luxuriant, hair; his blue
eyes went out to the opposite wall, seeing nothing; his fingers played
with the wine glass on the table. Evidently there were considerations
to be regarded of which Lady Ellis knew nothing.
"It has been partly out of love to my daughter that I have never given
her a stepmother," said he, coming out of his reverie. "Second wives
are apt to make the home unhappy for the first children; you often see
it."
She smiled sweetly on him. "Dear Mr. Thornycroft! Make the home
unhappy! Ah, then, yes, perhaps so! Women with a hard selfish nature.
Still I do not see how even _they_ could help loving Mary Anne. She is
so----"
What she was, Mr. Thornycroft lost the pleasure of hearing. Sinnett
the housekeeper came in at this juncture, and said the landlord of the
Mermaid, John Pettipher, had come up, asking to see the justice.
"Tomlett has been quarrelling with him, he says, sir," added Sinnett,
"and he wants to have the law of him."
"Tomlett's a fool!" burst impulsively from the lips of Mr.
Thornycroft. "Show him into the justice room, Sinnett."
He went out with a brief word of apology, and he never came back
again. My lady sat and waited, and looked and hoped, but he did not
return to gladden her with his presence. At length Sinnett came in
with some tea.
"Is Mr. Thornycroft gone out?" she asked.
"Yes, my lady. He went out with John Pettipher."
She almost crushed the fragile cup of Sèvres china in her passionate
fingers. Had Mr. John Pettipher heard the good wishes lavished upon
him that evening, he might have stared considerably.