should like it now, but for the paint. The smell is dreadful."
"Oh, that will soon go off," cried Herbert.
"Yes, I hope so: or I fear it will make me ill."
In going back we took Crabb Ravine, and were at home in no time. They
asked me to stay dinner, and I did so. We had a loin of lamb, and a
raspberry tart, if any one is curious to know. Dr. Lewis had taken
a fancy to me: I don't know why, unless it was that he had liked my
father; and I'm sure I had taken one to them. But the paint did smell
badly, and that's the truth.
In all my days I don't think I ever saw a man so incapable as Dr. Lewis;
so helpless in the common affairs of life. What he would have done
without Anne, I know not. He was just fit to sit down and be led like a
child; to have said to him--Come here, go there; do this, do the other.
Therefore, when he asked me to run in in the morning and see if he
wanted anything, I was not surprised. Anne thought he might be glad of
my shoulder to lean upon when he walked about the garden.
It was past eleven when I arrived there, for I had to do an errand first
of all for the Squire. Anne was kneeling down in the parlour amidst a
lot of small cuttings of plants, which she had brought from France. They
lay on the carpet on pieces of paper. She wore a fresh white cotton
gown, with black spots upon it, and a black bow at the throat; and she
looked nicer than ever.
"Look here, Johnny; I don't know what to do. The labels have all come
off, and I can't tell which is which. I suppose I did not fasten them on
securely. Sit down--if you can find a chair."
The chairs and tables were strewed with books, most of them French, and
other small articles, just unpacked. I did not want a chair, but knelt
down beside her, asking if I could help. She said no, and that she hoped
to be straight by the morrow. The doctor had stepped out, she did not
know where, "to escape the smell of the paint."
I was deep in the pages of one of the books, "Les Contes de Ma Bonne,"
which Anne said was a great favourite of hers, though it was meant for
children; and she had her head, as before, bent over the green sprigs
and labels, when a shadow, passing the open glass doors, glanced in and
halted. I supposed it must be the doctor; but it was Sir Robert Tenby.
Up I started; Anne did the same quietly, and quietly invited him in.
"I walked over to see Dr. Lewis, and to ask whether the house requires
anything else done to it," he explained. "And I had to come early, as I
am leaving the neighbourhood this afternoon."
"Oh, thank you," said Anne, "it is very kind of you to come. Will you
please to sit down, sir?" hastily taking the books off a chair. "Papa is
out, but I think he will not be long."
"Are you satisfied with the house?" he asked.
"Quite so, sir; and I do not think it wants anything done to it at all.
I hope you will not suppose we shall keep it in this state," she added
rather anxiously. "When things are being unpacked, the rooms are sure to
look untidy."
Sir Robert smiled. "You seem very notable, Miss Lewis."
"Oh, I do everything," she answered, smiling back. "There is no one
else."
He had not taken the chair, but went out, saying he should probably meet
Dr. Lewis--leaving a message for him, about the house, in case he did
not.
"He is your great and grand man of the neighbourhood, is he not,
Johnny?" said Anne, as she knelt down on the carpet again.
"Oh, he is grand enough."
"Then don't you think he is, considering that fact, very pleasant and
affable? I'm sure he is as simple and free in manners and speech as we
are."
"Most grand men--if they are truly great--are that. Your upstarts assume
no end of airs."
"I know who will never assume airs, Johnny. He has none in him."
"Who's that?"
"Yourself."
It made me laugh. I had nothing to assume them for.
It was either that afternoon or the following one that Dr. Lewis came up
to the Squire and old Coney as they were talking together in the road.
He told them that he could not possibly stay in the house; he should be
laid up if he did; he must go away until the smell of the paint was
gone. That he was looking ill, both saw; and they believed he did not
complain without cause.
The question was, where could he go? Mr. Coney hospitably offered him
house-room; but the doctor, while thanking him, said the smell might
last a long time, and he should prefer to be independent. He had been
thinking of going with Anne to Worcester for a time. Did they know of
lodgings there?
"Better go to an hotel," said the Squire. "No trouble at an hotel."
"But hotels are not always comfortable. I cannot feel at home in them,"
argued the poor doctor. "And they cost too much besides."
"You might chance to hit upon lodgings where you wouldn't be any more
comfortable, Lewis. And they'd be very dull for you."
"There's Lake's boarding-house," put in old Coney, whilst the doctor was
looking blank and helpless.
"A boarding-house? Ay, that might do, if it's not a noisy one."
"It's not noisy at all," cried the Squire. "It's uncommonly well
conducted: sometimes there are not three visitors in the house. You and
Miss Lewis would be comfortable there."
And for Lake's boarding-house Dr. Lewis and Anne took their departure on
the very next day. If they had only foreseen the trouble their stay at
it would lead to!
* * * * *
Lake's boarding-house stood near the cathedral. A roomy house, with
rather shabby furniture in it: but in boarding-houses and lodgings
people don't, as a rule, look for gilded chairs and tables. Some years
before, Mrs. Lake, the wife of a professional man, and a gentlewoman,
was suddenly left a widow with four infant children, boys, and nothing
to keep them upon. What to do she did not know. And it often puzzles me
to think what such poor ladies _do_ do, left in similar straits.
She had her furniture; and that was about all. Friends suggested that
she should take a house in a likely situation, and try for some lady
boarders; or perhaps for some of the college boys, whose homes lay at a
distance. Not to make too long a story of it, it was what she did do.
And she had been in the house ever since, struggling on (for these
houses mostly do entail a struggle), sometimes flourishing in numbers,
sometimes down in the dumps with empty rooms. But she had managed to
bring the children up: the two elder ones were out in the world, the two
younger were still in the college school. Mrs. Lake was a meek little
woman, ever distracted with practical cares, especially as to stews and
gravies: Miss Dinah Lake (her late husband's sister, and a majestic lady
of middle age), who lived with her, chiefly saw to the company.
But now, would any one believe that Dr. Lewis was "that shy," as
their maid, Sally, expressed it--or perhaps you would rather call it
helpless--that he begged the Squire to let me go with him to Lake's.
Otherwise he should be lost, he said; and Anne, accustomed to French
ways and habits, could not be of much use to him in a strange
boarding-house: Johnny knew the house, and would feel at home there.
When Captain Sanker and his wife (if you have not forgotten them) first
came to Worcester, they stayed at Lake's while fixing on a residence,
and that's how we became tolerably well acquainted with the Lakes. This
year that I am now writing about was the one that preceded the accident
to King Sanker, told of earlier in the volume. And, in point of
rotation, this paper ought to have appeared first.
So I went with Dr. Lewis and Anne. It was late in the afternoon when we
reached Worcester, close upon the dinner-hour--which was five o'clock,
and looked upon as quite a fashionable hour in those days. The
dinner-bell had rung, and the company had filed in to dinner when we got
downstairs.
But there was not much company staying in the house. Mrs. Lake did
not appear at dinner, and Miss Dinah Lake took the head of the table.
It happened more often than not that Mrs. Lake was in the kitchen,
superintending the dinner and seeing to the ragouts and sauces;
especially upon the advent of fresh inmates, when the fare would be
unusually liberal. Mrs. Lake often said she was a "born cook;" which was
lucky, as she could not afford to keep first-rate servants.
Miss Dinah sat at the head of the table, in a rustling green gown and
primrose satin cap. Having an income of her own she could afford to
dress. (Mrs. Lake's best gown was black silk, thin and scanty.) Next to
Miss Dinah sat a fair, plump little woman, with round green eyes and a
soft voice: at any rate, a soft way of speaking: who was introduced to
us as Mrs. Captain Podd. She in turn introduced her daughters, Miss Podd
and Miss Fanny Podd: both fair, like their mother, and with the same
sort of round green eyes. A Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell completed the company;
two silent people who seemed to do nothing but eat.
Dr. Lewis sat by Mrs. Captain Podd: and very pleasant and attentive the
doctor found her. He was shy as well as helpless; but she talked to him
freely in her low soft voice and put him altogether at his ease. My
place chanced to be next to Miss Fanny Podd's: and she began at once to
put me at my ease, as her mother was putting the doctor.
"You are a stranger here, at the dinner-table," observed Miss Fanny;
"but we shall be good friends presently. People in this house soon
become sociable."
"I am glad of that."
"I did not quite hear your name. Did you catch mine? Fanny Podd."
"Yes. Thank you. Mine is Ludlow."
"I suppose you never were at Worcester before?"
"Oh, I know Worcester very well indeed. I live in Worcestershire."
"Why!" cried the young lady, neglecting her soup to stare at me, "we
heard you had just come over from living in France. Miss Dinah said
so--that old guy at the head of the table."
"Dr. and Miss Lewis have just come from France. Not I. I know Miss Dinah
Lake very well."
"Do you? Don't go and tell her I called her an old guy. Mamma wants to
keep in with Miss Dinah, or she might be disagreeable. What a stupid
town Worcester is!"
"Perhaps you do not know many people in it."
"We don't know any one. We had been staying last in a garrison town.
That was pleasant: so many nice officers about. You could not go to the
window but there'd be some in sight. Here nobody seems to pass but a
crew of staid old parsons."
"We are near the cathedral; that's why you see so many parsons. Are you
going to remain long in Worcester?"
"That's just as the fancy takes mamma. We have been here already six or
seven weeks."
"Have you no settled home?"
Miss Fanny Podd pursed up her lips and shook her head. "We like change
best. A settled home would be wretchedly dull. Ours was given up when
papa died."
Thus she entertained me to the end of dinner. We all left the table
together--wine was not in fashion at Lake's. Those who wanted any had
to provide it for themselves: but the present company seemed to be
satisfied with the home-brewed ale. Mrs. Captain Podd put her arm
playfully into that of Dr. Lewis, and said she would show him the way to
the drawing-room.
And so it went on all the evening: she making herself agreeable to
the doctor: Miss Podd to Anne; Fanny to me. Of course it was highly
good-natured of them. Mrs. Podd discovered that the doctor liked
backgammon; and she looked for a moment as cross as a wasp on finding
there was no board in the house.
"Quite an omission, my dear Miss Dinah," she said, smoothing away the
frown with a sweet smile. "I thought a backgammon-board was as necessary
to a house as chairs and tables."
"Mrs. Lake had a board once," said Miss Dinah; "but the boys got
possession of it, and somehow it was broken. We have chess--and
cribbage."
"Would you like a hand at cribbage, my dear sir?" asked Mrs. Podd of the
doctor.
"Don't play it, ma'am," said he.
"Ah"--with a little sigh. "Julia, love, would you mind singing one of
your quiet songs? Or a duet. Fanny, sweetest, try a quiet duet with your
sister. Go to the piano."
If they called the duet quiet, I wondered what they called noisy. You
might have heard it over at the cathedral. Their playing and singing was
of the style known as "showy." Some people admire it: but it is a good
thing ear-drums are not easily cracked.
The next day Mrs. Podd made the house a present of a backgammon-board:
and in the evening she and Dr. Lewis sat down to play. Our number had
decreased, for Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell had left; and Mrs. Lake dined with
us, taking the foot of the table. Miss Dinah always, I found, kept the
head.
"She is so much better calculated to preside than I am," whispered
meek Mrs. Lake to me later in the evening; as, happening to pass the
kitchen-door after dinner, I saw her in there, making the coffee. "What
should I do without Dinah!"
"But need you come out to make the coffee, Mrs. Lake?"
"My dear, when I leave it to the servants, it is not drinkable. I am
rather sorry Mrs. Podd makes a point of having coffee in an evening. Our
general rule is to give only tea."
"I wouldn't give in to Mrs. Podd."
"Well, dear, we like to be accommodating when we can. Being my cousin,
she orders things more freely than our ladies usually do. Dinah calls
her exacting; but----"
"Is Mrs. Podd your cousin?" I interrupted, in surprise.
"My first cousin. Did you not know it? Her mother and my mother were
sisters."
"The girls don't call you 'aunt.'"
"They do sometimes when we are alone. I suppose they think I am beneath
them--keeping a boarding-house."
I had not much liked the Podds at first: as the days went on I liked
them less. They were not sincere: I was quite sure of it; Mrs. Podd
especially. But the manner in which she had taken Dr. Lewis under her
wing was marvellous. He began to think he could not move without her: he
was as one who has found a sheet-anchor. She took trouble of all kinds
from him: her chief aim seemed to be to make his life pass pleasantly.
She would order a carriage and take him for a drive in it; she'd parade
the High Street on his arm; she sat with him in the Green within the
enclosure, though Miss Dinah told her one day she had not the right of
entrance to it; she walked him off to inspect the monuments in the
cathedral, and talked with him in the cloisters of the old days when
Cromwell stabled his horses there. After dinner they would play
backgammon till bed-time. And with it all, she was so gay and sweet and
gentle, that Dr. Lewis thought she must be a very angel come out of
heaven.
"Johnny, I don't like her," said Anne to me one day. "She seems to take
papa completely out of my hands. She makes him feel quite independent of
me."
"You like her as well as I do, Anne."
"This morning I found him in the drawing-room; alone, for a wonder: he
was gazing up in his abstracted way, as if wanting to discover what the
pinnacles of the cathedral were made of, which appear to be so close,
you know, from the windows of that room. 'Papa, you are lonely,' I said.
'Would you like to walk out?--or what would you like to do?' 'My dear,
Mrs. Podd will see to it all,' he answered; 'don't trouble yourself; I
am waiting for her.' It is just as though he had no more need of me."
Anne Lewis turned away to hide her wet eyelashes. For my part, I thought
the sooner Mrs. Captain Podd betook herself from Lake's boarding-house,
the better. It was too much of a good thing.
That same afternoon I heard some conversation not meant for me. Behind
the house was a square patch of ground called a garden, containing a few
trees and some sweet herbs. I was sitting on the bench there, underneath
the high, old-fashioned dining-room windows, thinking how hot the sun
was, wishing for something to do, and wondering when Dr. Lewis meant
to send me home. He and Mrs. Podd were out together; Anne was in the
kitchen, teaching Mrs. Lake some mysteries of French cookery. Miss Dinah
sat in the dining-room, in her spectacles, darning table-cloths.
"Oh, have you come in!" I suddenly heard her say, as the door opened.
And it was Mrs. Podd's voice that answered.
"The sun is so very hot: poor dear Dr. Lewis felt quite ill. He has gone
up to his room for half-an-hour to sit quietly in the shade. Where are
my girls?"
"I'm sure I don't know," replied Miss Dinah: and it struck me that her
tone of voice was rather crusty. "Mrs. Podd, I must again ask you when
you will let me have some money?"
"As soon as I can," said Mrs. Podd: who seemed by the sound, to have
thrown herself upon a chair, and to be fanning her face with a rustling
newspaper.
"But you have said that for some weeks. When is the 'soon' to be?"
"You know I have been disappointed in my remittances. It is really too
hot for talking."
"I know that you say you have. But we cannot go on without some money.
The expenses of this house are heavy: how are they to be kept up if our
guests don't pay us? Indeed you must let me have part of your account,
if not all."
"My dear sweet creature, the house is not yours," returned Mrs. Podd, in
her most honeyed accents.
"I manage it," said Miss Dinah, "and am responsible for getting in the
accounts. You know that our custom is to be paid weekly."
"Exactly, dear Miss Dinah. But I am sure that my cousin, Emma Lake,
would not wish to inconvenience me. I am indebted to her; not to you;
and I will pay her as soon as I can. My good creature, how _can_ you sit
stewing over that plain sewing this sultry afternoon?"
"I am obliged to," responded Miss Dinah. "We have not money to spend on
new linen: trouble enough, it is, I can assure you, to keep the old
decent."
"I should get somebody to help me. That young woman, Miss Lewis, might
do it: she seems to have been used to all kinds of work."
"I wish you would shut that door: you have left it open," retorted Miss
Dinah: "I don't like sitting in a draught, though it is hot. And I must
beg of you to understand, Mrs. Podd, that we really cannot continue to
keep you and your daughters here unless you can manage to give us a
little money."
By the shutting of the door and the silence that ensued, it was apparent
that Mrs. Podd had departed, leaving Miss Dinah to her table-cloths.
But now, this had surprised me. For, to hear Mrs. Captain Podd and her
daughters talk, and to see the way in which they dressed, one could not
have supposed they were ever at a fault for ready-cash.
At the end of ten days I went home. Dr. Lewis no longer wanted me: he
had Mrs. Podd. And I think it must have been about ten days after that,
that we heard the doctor and Anne were returning. The paint smelt still,
but not so badly as before.
They did not come alone. Mrs. Podd and her two daughters accompanied
them to spend the day. Mrs. Podd was in a ravishing new toilette; and I
hoped Lake's boarding-house had been paid.
Mrs. Podd went into raptures over Maythorn Bank, paint and all. It was
the sweetest little place she had ever been in, she said, and some
trifling, judicious care would convert it into a paradise.
I know who had the present care; and that was Anne. They got over about
twelve o'clock; and as soon as she had seen the ladies' things off, and
they were comfortably installed in the best parlour, its glass doors
standing open to the fragrant flower-beds, she put on a big apron in the
kitchen and helped Sally with the dinner.
"Need you do it, Anne?" I said, running in, having seen her crumbling
bread as I passed the window.
"Yes, I must, Johnny. Papa bade me have a nice dinner served to-day: and
Sally is inexperienced, you know: she knows nothing about the little
dishes he likes. To tell you the truth," added Anne, glancing meaningly
into my eyes for a moment, "I would rather be cooking here than talking
with them there."
"Are you sorry to leave Worcester?"
"Yes, and no," she answered. "Sorry to leave Mrs. Lake and Miss Dinah,
for I like them both: glad to be at home again and to have papa to
myself. I shall not cry if we never see Mrs. Podd again. Perhaps I
am mistaken: and I'm sure I did not think that the judging of others
uncharitably was one of my faults; but I cannot help thinking that she
has tried to estrange papa from me. I suppose it is her way: she cannot
have any real wish to do it. However, she goes back to-night, and then
it will be over."
"Who is at Lake's now?"
"No one--except the Podds. I am sorry, for I fear they have some
difficulty to make both ends meet."
* * * * *
Was it over! Anne Lewis reckoned without her host.
I was running into Maythorn Bank the next morning, when I saw the
shimmer of Anne's white garden-bonnet and her morning dress amidst the
raspberry-bushes, and turned aside to greet her. She had a basin in her
hand, picking the fruit, and the hot tears were running down her cheeks.
Conceal her distress she could not; any attempt would have been worse
than futile.
"Oh, Johnny, she is going to marry him!" cried she, with an outburst of
sobs.
"Going to marry him!--who? what?" I asked, taking the basin from her
hand: for I declare that the truth did not strike me.
"_She_ is. Mrs. Podd. She is going to marry papa."
For a moment she held her face against the apple-tree. The words
confounded me. More real grief I had never seen. My heart ached for her.
"Don't think me selfish," she said, turning presently, trying to
subdue the sobs, and wiping the tears away. "I hope I am not that: or
undutiful. It is not for myself that I grieve; indeed it is not; but
for him."
I knew that.
"If I could only think it would be for his happiness! But oh, I fear it
will not be. Something seems to tell me that it will not. And if--he
should be--uncomfortable afterwards--miserable afterwards!--I think the
distress would kill me."
"Is it _true_, Anne? How did you hear it?"
"_True!_ Too true, Johnny. At breakfast this morning papa said, 'We
shall be dull to-day without our friends, Anne.' I told him I hoped not,
and that I would go out with him, or read to him, or do anything else he
liked; and I reminded him of his small stock of choice books that he
used to be so fond of. 'Yes, yes, we shall be very dull, you and I alone
in this strange house,' he resumed. 'I have been thinking for some time
we should be, Anne, and so I have asked that dear, kind, lively woman
to come to us for good.' I did not understand him; I did not indeed,
Johnny; and papa went on to explain. 'You must know that I allude to
Mrs. Podd, Anne,' he said. 'When I saw her so charmed with this house
yesterday, and we were talking about my future loneliness in it--and
she lamented it, even with tears--one word led to another, and I felt
encouraged to venture to ask her to share it and be my wife. And so, my
dear, it is all settled; and I trust it will be for the happiness of us
all. She is a most delightful woman, and will make the sunshine of any
home.' I wish I could think it," concluded Anne.
"No; don't take the basin," I said, as she went to do so. "I'll finish
picking the raspberries. What are they for?"
"A pudding. Papa said he should like one."
"Why could not Sally pick them? Country girls are used to the sun."
"Sally is busy. Papa bade her clear out that room where our boxes were
put: we shall want all the rooms now. Oh, Johnny, I wish we had not left
France! Those happy days will never come again."
Was the doctor falling into his dotage? The question crossed my mind.
It might never have occurred to _me_; but one day at Worcester Miss
Dinah had asked it in my hearing. I felt very uncomfortable, could not
think of anything soothing to say to Anne, and went on picking the
raspberries.
"How many do you want? Are these enough?"
"Yes," she answered, looking at them. "I must fill the basin up with
currants."
We were bending over a currant-bush, Anne holding up a branch and I
stripping it, when footsteps on the path close by made us both look up
hastily. There stood Sir Robert Tenby. He stared at the distress on
Anne's face, which was too palpable to be concealed, and asked without
ceremony what was amiss.
It was the last feather that broke the camel's back. These words from a
stranger, and his evident concern, put the finishing touch to Anne's
state. She burst into more bitter tears than she had yet shed.
"Is it any trouble that I can help you out of?" asked Sir Robert, in the
kindest tones, feeling, no doubt, as sorry as he looked. "Oh, my dear
young lady, don't give way like this!"
Touched by his sympathy, her heart seemed to open to him: perhaps she
had need of finding consolation somewhere. Drying her tears, Anne told
her story simply: commenting on it as she had commented to me.
"It is for my father's sake that I grieve, sir; that I fear. I feel sure
Mrs. Podd will not make him really happy."