He walked home to Raphael Street. The house was dead, except for a
pale light in his own room. At the top of the bare, creaking stairs he
fumbled a moment for the handle of his door, and the regular sound of
two distinct snores descended from an upper storey. He closed the door
softly, locked it, and glanced round the room with some eagerness. The
smell of the expiring lamp compelled him to unlatch both windows. He
extinguished the lamp, and after lighting a couple of candles on the
mantelpiece drew a chair to the fireplace and sat down to munch an
apple. The thought occurred to him: "This is my home--for how long?"
And then:
"Why the dickens didn't I say something to that girl?"
Between the candles on the mantelpiece was a photograph of his sister,
which he had placed there before going out. He looked at it with a half
smile, and murmured audibly several times:
"Why the dickens didn't I say something to that girl, with her _chéri_?"
The woman of the photograph seemed to be between thirty and forty years
of age. She was fair, with a mild, serious face, and much wavy hair.
The forehead was broad and smooth and white, the cheek-bones prominent,
and the mouth somewhat large. The eyes were a very light grey; they
met the gaze of the spectator with a curious timid defiance, as if to
say, "I am weak, but I can at least fight till I fall." Underneath the
eyes--the portrait was the work of an amateur, and consequently had not
been robbed of all texture by retouching--a few crowsfeet could be seen.
As far back as Richard's memory went, he and Mary had lived together
and alone in the small Red House which lay half a mile out of Bursley,
towards Turnhill, on the Manchester road. At one time it had been
rurally situated, creeping plants had clothed its red walls, and the
bare patch behind it had been a garden; but the gradual development
of a coal-producing district had covered the fields with smooth,
mountainous heaps of grey refuse, and stunted or killed every tree
in the neighbourhood. The house was undermined, and in spite of iron
clamps had lost most of its rectangles, while the rent had dropped to
fifteen pounds a year.
Mary was very much older than her brother, and she had always appeared
to him exactly the mature woman of the photograph. Of his parents he
knew nothing except what Mary had told him, which was little and vague,
for she watchfully kept the subject at a distance.
She had supported herself and Richard in comfort by a medley of
vocations, teaching the piano, collecting rents, and practising the
art of millinery. They had few friends. The social circles of Bursley
were centred in its churches and chapels; and though Mary attended
the Wesleyan sanctuary with some regularity, she took small interest
in prayer-meetings, class-meetings, bazaars, and all the other minor
religious activities, thus neglecting opportunities for intercourse
which might have proved agreeable. She had sent Richard to the
Sunday-school; but when, at the age of fourteen, he protested that
Sunday-school was "awful rot," she answered calmly, "Don't go, then;"
and from that day his place in class was empty. Soon afterwards the
boy cautiously insinuated that chapel belonged to the same category as
Sunday-school, but the hint failed of its effect.
The ladies of the town called sometimes, generally upon business, and
took afternoon tea. Once the vicar's wife, who wished to obtain musical
tuition for her three youngest daughters at a nominal fee, came in and
found Richard at a book on the hearthrug.
"Ah!" said she. "Just like his father, is he not, Miss Larch?" Mary
made no reply.
The house was full of books. Richard knew them all well by sight, but
until he was sixteen he read only a select handful of volumes which had
stood the test of years. Often he idly speculated as to the contents of
some of the others,--"Horatii Opera," for instance: had that anything
to do with theatres?--yet for some curious reason, which when he grew
older he sought for in vain, he never troubled himself to look into
them. Mary read a good deal, chiefly books and magazines fetched for
her by Richard from the Free Library.
When he was about seventeen, a change came. He was aware dimly, and as
if by instinct, that his sister's life in the early days had not been
without its romance. Certainly there was something hidden between her
and William Vernon, the science master at the Institute, for they were
invariably at great pains to avoid each other. He sometimes wondered
whether Mr. Vernon was connected in any way with the melancholy which
was never, even in her brightest moments, wholly absent from Mary's
demeanour. One Sunday night--Richard had been keeping house--Mary,
coming in late from chapel, threw his arms round his neck as he opened
the door, and, dragging down his face to hers, kissed him hysterically
again and again.
"Dicky, Dick," she whispered, laughing and crying at the same time,
"something's happened. I'm almost an old woman, but something's
happened!"
"I know," said Richard, retreating hurriedly from her embrace. "You're
going to marry Mr. Vernon."
"But how could you tell?"
"Oh! I just guessed."
"You don't mind, Dick, do you?"
"I! Mind!" Afraid lest his feelings should appear too plainly, he asked
abruptly for supper.
Mary gave up her various callings, the wedding took place, and William
Vernon came to live with them. It was then that Richard began to read
more widely, and to form a definite project of going to London.
He could not fail to respect and like William. The life of the married
pair seemed to him idyllic; the tender, furtive manifestations
of affection which were constantly passing between Mary and her
sedate, middle-aged husband touched him deeply, and at the thought
of the fifteen irretrievable years during which some ridiculous
misunderstanding had separated this loving couple, his eyes were
not quite as dry as a youth could wish. But with it all he was
uncomfortable. He felt himself an intruder upon holy privacies; if
at meal-times husband and wife clasped hands round the corner of
the table, he looked at his plate; if they smiled happily upon no
discoverable provocation, he pretended not to notice the fact. They
did not need him. Their hearts were full of kindness for every living
thing, but unconsciously they stood aloof. He was driven in upon
himself, and spent much of his time either in solitary walking or
hidden in an apartment called the study.
He ordered magazines whose very names Mr. Holt, the principal
bookseller in Bursley, was unfamiliar with, and after the magazines
came books of verse and novels enclosed in covers of mystic design, and
printed in a style which Mr. Holt, though secretly impressed, set down
as eccentric. Mr. Holt's shop performed the functions of a club for
the dignitaries of the town; and since he took care that this esoteric
literature was well displayed on the counter until called for, the
young man's fame as _a great reader_ soon spread, and Richard began to
see that he was regarded as a curiosity of which Bursley need not be
ashamed. His self-esteem, already fostered into lustiness by a number
of facile school successes, became more marked, although he was wise
enough to keep a great deal of it to himself.
One evening, after Mary and her husband had been talking quietly some
while, Richard came into the sitting-room.
"I don't want any supper," he said, "I'm going for a bit of a walk."
"Shall we tell him?" Mary asked, smiling, after he had left the room.
"Please yourself," said William, also smiling.
"He talks a great deal about going to London. I hope he won't go
till--after April; I think it would upset me."
"You need not trouble, I think, my dear," William answered. "He talks
about it, but he isn't gone yet."
Mr. Vernon was not quite pleased with Richard. He had obtained for
him--being connected with the best people in the town--a position as
shorthand and general clerk in a solicitor's office, and had learnt
privately that though the youth was smart enough, he was scarcely
making that progress which might have been expected. He lacked
"application." William attributed this shortcoming to the excessive
reading of verse and obscure novels.
April came, and, as Mr. Vernon had foretold, Richard still remained
in Bursley. But the older man was now too deeply absorbed in another
matter to interest himself at all in Richard's movements,--a matter in
which Richard himself exhibited a shy concern. Hour followed anxious
hour, and at last was heard the faint, fretful cry of a child in the
night. Then stillness. All that Richard ever saw was a coffin, and in
it a dead child at a dead woman's feet.
Fifteen months later he was in London.