Algernon Errington came gaily into the dim room bringing with him a gust
of fresh, cold air. His first act was to stir the fire, which sent up a
flickering blaze. The light played upon the tea-table and the two
persons who sat at it; and also, of course, illuminated the new comer's
face and form, which were such as to justify much of his mother's pride
in his appearance. He was of middle height, with a singularly elegant
figure, and finely-shaped hands and feet. His smooth, blooming face was,
perhaps, somewhat too girlish-looking, but there was nothing effeminate
in his bearing. All his movements were springy and elastic. His blue
eyes--less large, but more bright than his mother's--were full of
vivacity, and a smile of mischievous merriment played round his mouth.
"Mr. Diamond!" he exclaimed, as soon as he perceived who was the other
occupant of the room besides his mother.
"You're late," said the tutor, pulling from his waistcoat-pocket a large
silver watch, and examining the clumsy black figures on its face by the
firelight.
"Why," said Algernon, "I had no idea you were here! I thought my mother
had sent word to ask you to put off our reading this evening. You
promised to write a note, mother. Didn't you send it?"
It appeared that Mrs. Errington had not sent a note, had not even
written one, had forgotten all about it. Her mind was so full of other
things! And then when Mr. Diamond appeared, she did not explain at once
that Algernon would probably not come home in time for his lesson,
because she wanted to have a little conversation with Mr. Diamond. And
they began to talk, and the time slipped away: besides, she knew that
Mr. Diamond had nothing to do of an evening, so it was not of much
consequence, was it?
Algernon winced at this speech, and cast a quick, furtive look at his
tutor, who, however, might have been deaf, for any sign he gave of
having heard it. He rose from his chair, and addressing Mrs. Errington,
declared with his usual brevity that, as no work was to be done, he must
forthwith wish her "Good evening."
"Now, no nonsense!" said Mrs. Errington. "You'll do nothing of the kind!
Stay and have a cup of tea with us for once in a way."
"Thank you, no; I never--it is not my habit----"
"Not your habit to be sociable! I know that; and it is a great pity.
What would you be doing at home? Only poring over books until you got a
headache! A little cheerful society would do you all the good in the
world. You were all but dropping asleep just now: and no wonder! I'm
sure, after teaching all day in a close school, full of boys buzzing
like so many blue-bottles, one would feel as stupid as an owl oneself!"
"Perhaps I am peculiarly susceptible to stupefying influences," said Mr.
Diamond, with a rueful shake of the head. And, as he spoke, there played
round his mouth the faint flicker of a smile.
"Now put your hat down, and take your seat!" cried Mrs. Errington,
authoritatively.
"I am very sorry to seem ungrateful, but----"
"I had asked little Rhoda to come up after tea and keep me company,
thinking I should be alone. But you won't mind Rhoda. She knows her
place."
Mr. Diamond paused in the act of buttoning his coat across his breast.
"You are very kind," he murmured.
"There, sit down, and I will undertake to give you a cup of excellent
tea. I hope you know good tea when you get it? There are some people who
couldn't tell my fine Pekoe from sloe-leaves. Algy, bring me the
kettle."
And Mrs. Errington betook herself to the business of making tea. To her
it seemed perfectly natural--almost a matter of course--that Matthew
Diamond should stay, since she was kind enough to press it. But
Algernon, who knew his tutor better, could not refrain from expressing a
little surprise at his yielding.
"Why, mother," said he, as he poured the boiling water into the tea-pot,
"you may consider yourself singled out for high distinction. Mr. Diamond
has consented at your request to stay after having said he would go! I
don't believe there's another lady in Whitford who has been so
honoured."
If Algernon had not been peering through the clouds of steam, to
ascertain whether the tea-pot were full or not, he would have perceived
an unwonted flush mount in Matthew Diamond's face up to the roots of his
hair, and then slowly fade away.
"And how did you find the doctor and all of them?" asked Mrs. Errington
of her son, when they were all seated at the tea-table.
"Oh, the doctor's all right. He only came in for a few minutes after
morning school."
"What did he say to you, Algy?"
"Oh, I don't know: something about not altogether neglecting my studies
now I had left school, whatever path in life I chose. He always says
that sort of thing, you know," answered Algernon carelessly.
"And Mrs. Bodkin?"
"Oh, she's all right, too."
"And Minnie?"
"Oh, she's all--no; she was not quite so well as usual, I think. Mrs.
Bodkin said she had had a bad attack of pain in the night. But Minnie
didn't mention it. She never likes to be condoled with and pitied, you
know. So of course I didn't say anything. It's so unpleasant to have to
keep noticing people's health!"
"Poor thing!" said Mrs. Errington. "What a misfortune for that girl to
be a helpless invalid for the rest of her life!"
"Is her disorder incurable?" asked Mr. Diamond.
"Oh, quite, I believe. Spine, you know. An accident. And they say that
when a child she was such an active creature."
"Her brain is active enough now," observed Mr. Diamond musingly, with
his eyes fixed on the fire. "I don't know a keener, quicker intellect."
"What, Minnie Bodkin?" exclaimed Algernon, pausing in the demolition of
a stout pile of sliced bread and butter. "I should think so! She's as
clever as a man! I mean," he added, reading and answering his tutor's
satirically-raised eyebrows, as rapidly as though he were replying to an
articulate observation, "I mean--of course I know she's a deuced deal
cleverer than lots of men. But I mean that Minnie Bodkin is clever after
a manly fashion. Not a bit Missish. By Jove! I wish I knew as much Greek
as she does!"
"I do not at all approve of blue-stockings in general," said Mrs.
Errington; "but in her case, poor thing, one must make allowances."
"I think she's pretty," announced Algernon, condescendingly.
"She would be if she didn't look so sickly. No complexion," said Mrs.
Errington, intently observing her own florid face, unnaturally
elongated, in the bowl of a spoon.
"Don't you think her pretty, sir?" asked Algernon, turning to Mr.
Diamond.
"A great deal more than pretty."
"You don't go there very often, I think?" said Mrs. Errington
interrogatively.
"No, madam."
"Well, now, you really ought. I know you would be welcome. The doctor
has more than once told me so. And Mrs. Bodkin is so very affable! I'm
sure you need not hesitate about going there."
Algernon jumped up to replenish the tea-pot, with an unnecessary amount
of bustle, and began to rattle out a volley of lively nonsense, with the
view of diverting his mother's attention from the subject of Mr.
Diamond's neglect of the Bodkin family. He dreaded some rejoinder on the
part of the tutor which should offend his mother beyond forgiveness. He
had had experience of some of Matthew Diamond's blunt speeches, of which
Dr. Bodkin himself was supposed to be in some awe. It was clearly no
business of Mrs. Errington's where Mr. Diamond chose to bestow his
visits; neither could she in any degree be aware what reasons he might
have for his conduct. "And the worst of it is, he's quite capable of
telling my mother so, if she goes too far," reflected Algernon. So he
chatted and laughed, as if from overflowing good spirits, until the
peril was past. This young gentleman was so quick and flexible, and had
so buoyant a temperament, that he was reputed more careless and
thoughtless than was altogether the case. His mind moved rapidly, and he
had an instinctive habit of uttering the result of its calculations, in
the most impulsive way imaginable. You could not tell, by observing
Algernon's manner, whether he were giving you his first thought or his
second.
When the meal was over, Mrs. Errington rang to have the table cleared. A
little prim servant-maid, in a coarse, clean apron and bib, appeared at
the sound of the bell, and began to gather the tea-things together.
Algernon sat down at the old harpsichord, and, after playing a few
chords, commenced singing softly in a pleasant tenor voice some
fragments of sentimental ballads in vogue at that day. (Does the reader
ask, "and when was 'that day?'" He must content himself with the
information that it was within a year or two of the year 1830.) Mr.
Diamond walked to the window, and holding aside the blind, stood looking
out at the dark sky.
All at once, when the servant opened the door to go out, there came up
from the lower part of the house the sound of singing; slow, long-drawn,
rather tuneless singing of a few voices, male and female.
"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Errington, "Oh dear me,
Sarah, how is this?"
Algernon made a comical face of disgust, and put his hands to his ears.
"It be as Mr. Powell's ha' come back, mum," said Sarah, with much
gravity.
"Really! Really!" said Mrs. Errington, in the tone of one protesting
against an utterly unjustifiable offence.
"Come back! Where has he been?" asked Algernon, carelessly.
"On 'is rounds, please, sir."
"I do wish Mr. Powell would choose some other time for his
performances!" cried Mrs. Errington, when the servant had left the room.
"Now Thursday--on Thursday, for instance, we are going to a whist party,
at the Bodkins', and then he might squall out his psalms, and shout,
and rave, without annoying anybody."
"He'd only annoy the neighbours," said Algernon, "and that wouldn't
matter!"
He was smiling with a sort of contemptuous amusement, and touching
random notes here and there on the harpsichord with one finger.
"There will be no getting Rhoda upstairs to-night," said Mrs. Errington.
"Poor little thing! she's in for a whole evening of psalm-singing."
Algernon rose from the instrument with a clouded brow. His face wore the
petulant look of a spoiled child, whose will has been unexpectedly
crossed.
"Deuce take Mr. Powell, and all Welsh Methodists like him!" said he.
"My dear Algy! No, no; I cannot approve of that, though Mr. Powell is a
Dissenter. Besides, such language in my presence is not respectful."
"Beg pardon, ma'am," said Algernon, laughing. And with the laughter, the
cloud cleared from his brow. Clouds never rested there long.
"Will you have a game of cribbage with me, Mr. Diamond? This naughty boy
will scarcely ever play with me. Or, if you prefer it, dummy whist----?"
"No whist for me," interposed Algernon, decisively. "It is such a
botheration. And I play so atrociously that it would be cruel to ask
Mr. Diamond to sit down with me."
With that he returned to the harpsichord, and began singing softly to
himself in snatches.
"Cribbage then?" said Mrs. Errington in her mellow, measured tones.
Mr. Diamond let fall the blind from his hand so roughly that the wooden
roller rattled against the wainscot, and advanced to the table where
Mrs. Errington was already setting forth the cards and cribbage-board.
He sat down without a word, cut the cards as she directed, shuffled,
dealt, and played in a moody sort of silent manner; which, however, did
not affect Mrs. Errington's nerves at all.
Meanwhile, there went on beneath Algernon's love-songs and the few
utterances of the players which the game necessitated, a kind of
accompanying "bourdon" of voices from downstairs. Sometimes one single
voice would rise in passionate tones, almost as if in wrath. Then came
singing again, which, softened by distance, had a wild, wailing
character of ineffable melancholy. Algernon paused in his fitful playing
and singing, as though unwilling to be in dissonance with those
long-drawn sounds. Mrs. Errington calmly continued to exclaim, "Fifteen
six," and "two for his heels," without regard to anything but her game.
When the rubber was at an end, Mr. Diamond rose to take his leave.
He lingered a little in doing so. He lingered in taking up his hat, and
in buttoning his coat across his breast.
"Have you not anything warmer to put on?" said Mrs. Errington. "Dear me,
it is very wrong to go out of this snug room into the air--and the wind
has got up, too!--with no more wrap than you have been sitting in, here
by the fire! Algy, lend him your great-coat."
"Thank you, no. Good night," said the tutor, and walked off without
further ceremony.
He still lingered, however, in descending the stairs; and yet more in
passing the door of a parlour, whence came a murmur of voices. Finally,
he let himself out at the street-door, and encountering a bleak gust of
wind, set off down the silent street at a round pace.
"What a fool you are, Matthew!" was his mental ejaculation, as he strode
along with his head bent down, and his gloveless hands plunged deep into
his pockets.