He rose with a sudden rebelliousness, put on his hat and coat, and went
out of the house, pursuing his way along the glistening pavement while
eight o’clock was striking from St. Mary’s tower, and the apprentices
and shopmen were slamming up the shutters from end to end of the town.
In two minutes only those shops which could boast of no attendant save
the master or the mistress remained with open eyes. These were ever
somewhat less prompt to exclude customers than the others: for their
owners’ ears the closing hour had scarcely the cheerfulness that it
possessed for the hired servants of the rest. Yet the night being
dreary the delay was not for long, and their windows, too, blinked
together one by one.
During this time Barnet had proceeded with decided step in a direction
at right angles to the broad main thoroughfare of the town, by a long
street leading due southward. Here, though his family had no more to do
with the flax manufacture, his own name occasionally greeted him on
gates and warehouses, being used allusively by small rising tradesmen
as a recommendation, in such words as ‘Smith, from Barnet &
Co.’—‘Robinson, late manager at Barnet’s.’ The sight led him to reflect
upon his father’s busy life, and he questioned if it had not been far
happier than his own.
The houses along the road became fewer, and presently open ground
appeared between them on either side, the track on the right hand
rising to a higher level till it merged in a knoll. On the summit a row
of builders’ scaffold-poles probed the indistinct sky like spears, and
at their bases could be discerned the lower courses of a building
lately begun. Barnet slackened his pace and stood for a few moments
without leaving the centre of the road, apparently not much interested
in the sight, till suddenly his eye was caught by a post in the fore
part of the ground bearing a white board at the top. He went to the
rails, vaulted over, and walked in far enough to discern painted upon
the board ‘Château Ringdale.’
A dismal irony seemed to lie in the words, and its effect was to
irritate him. Downe, then, had spoken truly. He stuck his umbrella into
the sod, and seized the post with both hands, as if intending to loosen
and throw it down. Then, like one bewildered by an opposition which
would exist none the less though its manifestations were removed, he
allowed his arms to sink to his side.
‘Let it be,’ he said to himself. ‘I have declared there shall be
peace—if possible.’
Taking up his umbrella he quietly left the enclosure, and went on his
way, still keeping his back to the town. He had advanced with more
decision since passing the new building, and soon a hoarse murmur rose
upon the gloom; it was the sound of the sea. The road led to the
harbour, at a distance of a mile from the town, from which the trade of
the district was fed. After seeing the obnoxious name-board Barnet had
forgotten to open his umbrella, and the rain tapped smartly on his hat,
and occasionally stroked his face as he went on.
Though the lamps were still continued at the roadside, they stood at
wider intervals than before, and the pavement had given place to common
road. Every time he came to a lamp an increasing shine made itself
visible upon his shoulders, till at last they quite glistened with wet.
The murmur from the shore grew stronger, but it was still some distance
off when he paused before one of the smallest of the detached houses by
the wayside, standing in its own garden, the latter being divided from
the road by a row of wooden palings. Scrutinizing the spot to ensure
that he was not mistaken, he opened the gate and gently knocked at the
cottage door.
When he had patiently waited minutes enough to lead any man in ordinary
cases to knock again, the door was heard to open, though it was
impossible to see by whose hand, there being no light in the passage.
Barnet said at random, ‘Does Miss Savile live here?’
A youthful voice assured him that she did live there, and by a sudden
afterthought asked him to come in. It would soon get a light, it said:
but the night being wet, mother had not thought it worth while to trim
the passage lamp.
‘Don’t trouble yourself to get a light for me,’ said Barnet hastily;
‘it is not necessary at all. Which is Miss Savile’s sitting-room?’
The young person, whose white pinafore could just be discerned,
signified a door in the side of the passage, and Barnet went forward at
the same moment, so that no light should fall upon his face. On
entering the room he closed the door behind him, pausing till he heard
the retreating footsteps of the child.
He found himself in an apartment which was simply and neatly, though
not poorly furnished; everything, from the miniature chiffonnier to the
shining little daguerreotype which formed the central ornament of the
mantelpiece, being in scrupulous order. The picture was enclosed by a
frame of embroidered card-board—evidently the work of feminine
hands—and it was the portrait of a thin faced, elderly lieutenant in
the navy. From behind the lamp on the table a female form now rose into
view, that of a young girl, and a resemblance between her and the
portrait was early discoverable. She had been so absorbed in some
occupation on the other side of the lamp as to have barely found time
to realize her visitor’s presence.
They both remained standing for a few seconds without speaking. The
face that confronted Barnet had a beautiful outline; the Raffaelesque
oval of its contour was remarkable for an English countenance, and that
countenance housed in a remote country-road to an unheard-of harbour.
But her features did not do justice to this splendid beginning: Nature
had recollected that she was not in Italy; and the young lady’s
lineaments, though not so inconsistent as to make her plain, would have
been accepted rather as pleasing than as correct. The preoccupied
expression which, like images on the retina, remained with her for a
moment after the state that caused it had ceased, now changed into a
reserved, half-proud, and slightly indignant look, in which the blood
diffused itself quickly across her cheek, and additional brightness
broke the shade of her rather heavy eyes.
‘I know I have no business here,’ he said, answering the look. ‘But I
had a great wish to see you, and inquire how you were. You can give
your hand to me, seeing how often I have held it in past days?’
‘I would rather forget than remember all that, Mr. Barnet,’ she
answered, as she coldly complied with the request. ‘When I think of the
circumstances of our last meeting, I can hardly consider it kind of you
to allude to such a thing as our past—or, indeed, to come here at all.’
‘There was no harm in it surely? I don’t trouble you often, Lucy.’
‘I have not had the honour of a visit from you for a very long time,
certainly, and I did not expect it now,’ she said, with the same
stiffness in her air. ‘I hope Mrs. Barnet is very well?’
‘Yes, yes!’ he impatiently returned. ‘At least I suppose so—though I
only speak from inference!’
‘But she is your wife, sir,’ said the young girl tremulously.
The unwonted tones of a man’s voice in that feminine chamber had
startled a canary that was roosting in its cage by the window; the bird
awoke hastily, and fluttered against the bars. She went and stilled it
by laying her face against the cage and murmuring a coaxing sound. It
might partly have been done to still herself.
‘I didn’t come to talk of Mrs. Barnet,’ he pursued; ‘I came to talk of
you, of yourself alone; to inquire how you are getting on since your
great loss.’ And he turned towards the portrait of her father.
‘I am getting on fairly well, thank you.’
The force of her utterance was scarcely borne out by her look; but
Barnet courteously reproached himself for not having guessed a thing so
natural; and to dissipate all embarrassment, added, as he bent over the
table, ‘What were you doing when I came?—painting flowers, and by
candlelight?’
‘O no,’ she said, ‘not painting them—only sketching the outlines. I do
that at night to save time—I have to get three dozen done by the end of
the month.’
Barnet looked as if he regretted it deeply. ‘You will wear your poor
eyes out,’ he said, with more sentiment than he had hitherto shown.
‘You ought not to do it. There was a time when I should have said you
must not. Well—I almost wish I had never seen light with my own eyes
when I think of that!’
‘Is this a time or place for recalling such matters?’ she asked, with
dignity. ‘You used to have a gentlemanly respect for me, and for
yourself. Don’t speak any more as you have spoken, and don’t come
again. I cannot think that this visit is serious, or was closely
considered by you.’
‘Considered: well, I came to see you as an old and good friend—not to
mince matters, to visit a woman I loved. Don’t be angry! I could not
help doing it, so many things brought you into my mind . . . This
evening I fell in with an acquaintance, and when I saw how happy he was
with his wife and family welcoming him home, though with only one-tenth
of my income and chances, and thought what might have been in my case,
it fairly broke down my discretion, and off I came here. Now I am here
I feel that I am wrong to some extent. But the feeling that I should
like to see you, and talk of those we used to know in common, was very
strong.’
‘Before that can be the case a little more time must pass,’ said Miss
Savile quietly; ‘a time long enough for me to regard with some calmness
what at present I remember far too impatiently—though it may be you
almost forget it. Indeed you must have forgotten it long before you
acted as you did.’ Her voice grew stronger and more vivacious as she
added: ‘But I am doing my best to forget it too, and I know I shall
succeed from the progress I have made already!’
She had remained standing till now, when she turned and sat down,
facing half away from him.
Barnet watched her moodily. ‘Yes, it is only what I deserve,’ he said.
‘Ambition pricked me on—no, it was not ambition, it was
wrongheadedness! Had I but reflected . . . ’ He broke out vehemently:
‘But always remember this, Lucy: if you had written to me only one
little line after that misunderstanding, I declare I should have come
back to you. That ruined me!’ he slowly walked as far as the little
room would allow him to go, and remained with his eyes on the skirting.
‘But, Mr. Barnet, how could I write to you? There was no opening for my
doing so.’
‘Then there ought to have been,’ said Barnet, turning. ‘That was my
fault!’
‘Well, I don’t know anything about that; but as there had been nothing
said by me which required any explanation by letter, I did not send
one. Everything was so indefinite, and feeling your position to be so
much wealthier than mine, I fancied I might have mistaken your meaning.
And when I heard of the other lady—a woman of whose family even you
might be proud—I thought how foolish I had been, and said nothing.’
‘Then I suppose it was destiny—accident—I don’t know what, that
separated us, dear Lucy. Anyhow you were the woman I ought to have made
my wife—and I let you slip, like the foolish man that I was!’
‘O, Mr. Barnet,’ she said, almost in tears, ‘don’t revive the subject
to me; I am the wrong one to console you—think, sir,—you should not be
here—it would be so bad for me if it were known!’
‘It would—it would, indeed,’ he said hastily. ‘I am not right in doing
this, and I won’t do it again.’
‘It is a very common folly of human nature, you know, to think the
course you did _not_ adopt must have been the best,’ she continued,
with gentle solicitude, as she followed him to the door of the room.
‘And you don’t know that I should have accepted you, even if you had
asked me to be your wife.’ At this his eye met hers, and she dropped
her gaze. She knew that her voice belied her. There was a silence till
she looked up to add, in a voice of soothing playfulness, ‘My family
was so much poorer than yours, even before I lost my dear father,
that—perhaps your companions would have made it unpleasant for us on
account of my deficiencies.’
‘Your disposition would soon have won them round,’ said Barnet.
She archly expostulated: ‘Now, never mind my disposition; try to make
it up with your wife! Those are my commands to you. And now you are to
leave me at once.’
‘I will. I must make the best of it all, I suppose,’ he replied, more
cheerfully than he had as yet spoken. ‘But I shall never again meet
with such a dear girl as you!’ And he suddenly opened the door, and
left her alone. When his glance again fell on the lamps that were
sparsely ranged along the dreary level road, his eyes were in a state
which showed straw-like motes of light radiating from each flame into
the surrounding air.
On the other side of the way Barnet observed a man under an umbrella,
walking parallel with himself. Presently this man left the footway, and
gradually converged on Barnet’s course. The latter then saw that it was
Charlson, a surgeon of the town, who owed him money. Charlson was a man
not without ability; yet he did not prosper. Sundry circumstances stood
in his way as a medical practitioner: he was needy; he was not a
coddle; he gossiped with men instead of with women; he had married a
stranger instead of one of the town young ladies; and he was given to
conversational buffoonery. Moreover, his look was quite erroneous.
Those only proper features in the family doctor, the quiet eye, and the
thin straight passionless lips which never curl in public either for
laughter or for scorn, were not his; he had a full-curved mouth, and a
bold black eye that made timid people nervous. His companions were what
in old times would have been called boon companions—an expression
which, though of irreproachable root, suggests fraternization carried
to the point of unscrupulousness. All this was against him in the
little town of his adoption.
Charlson had been in difficulties, and to oblige him Barnet had put his
name to a bill; and, as he had expected, was called upon to meet it
when it fell due. It had been only a matter of fifty pounds, which
Barnet could well afford to lose, and he bore no ill-will to the
thriftless surgeon on account of it. But Charlson had a little too much
brazen indifferentism in his composition to be altogether a desirable
acquaintance.
‘I hope to be able to make that little bill-business right with you in
the course of three weeks, Mr. Barnet,’ said Charlson with hail-fellow
friendliness.
Barnet replied good-naturedly that there was no hurry.
This particular three weeks had moved on in advance of Charlson’s
present with the precision of a shadow for some considerable time.
‘I’ve had a dream,’ Charlson continued. Barnet knew from his tone that
the surgeon was going to begin his characteristic nonsense, and did not
encourage him. ‘I’ve had a dream,’ repeated Charlson, who required no
encouragement. ‘I dreamed that a gentleman, who has been very kind to
me, married a haughty lady in haste, before he had quite forgotten a
nice little girl he knew before, and that one wet evening, like the
present, as I was walking up the harbour-road, I saw him come out of
that dear little girl’s present abode.’
Barnet glanced towards the speaker. The rays from a neighbouring lamp
struck through the drizzle under Charlson’s umbrella, so as just to
illumine his face against the shade behind, and show that his eye was
turned up under the outer corner of its lid, whence it leered with
impish jocoseness as he thrust his tongue into his cheek.
‘Come,’ said Barnet gravely, ‘we’ll have no more of that.’
‘No, no—of course not,’ Charlson hastily answered, seeing that his
humour had carried him too far, as it had done many times before. He
was profuse in his apologies, but Barnet did not reply. Of one thing he
was certain—that scandal was a plant of quick root, and that he was
bound to obey Lucy’s injunction for Lucy’s own sake.