It was a lingering and pleasant walk with many little pauses in it and
much conversation. Lucy was herself the cause of some of them, for it
was quite necessary that here and there Mr. Bertram should be made to
stop, turn round, and look at the view. I will not pretend that those
views were any very great things. Bertram, who had seen all the most
famous scenes of earth, was not much impressed by that point so dear to
the souls of the Wradisbury people, where the church tower came in, or
that other where the glimmer of the pond under the trees, reflecting all
their red and gold, moved the natives to enthusiasm. It was a pretty,
soft, kindly English landscape, like a good and gentle life, very
reposeful and pleasant to see, but not dramatic or exciting. It was
Ralph, though he was to the manner born, who was, or pretended to be,
the most impatient of these tame but agreeable vistas. “It don’t say
much, your landscape, Lucy,” he said. “Bertram’s seen everything there
is to see. A stagnant pool and a church tower are not so grand to him as
to--” Probably he intended to say us, with a little, after all, of the
native’s proud depreciation of a scene which, though homely, appeals to
himself so much; but he stopped, and wound up with “a little ignoramus
like you.”
“I am not so fastidious, I suppose. I think it’s delightful,” said
Bertram. “After all the dissipations of fine scenery, there’s nothing
like a home landscape. I’ve seen the day when we would have given all we
possessed for a glimmer of a church tower, or, still better, a bit of
water. In the desert only to think of that would be a good thing.”
“Oh, in the desert,” said Ralph, with a sort of indulgent acknowledgment
that in some points home did commend itself to the most impartial mind.
But he too stopped and called upon his friend to observe where the
copse spread dark into the sunset sky--the best covert within twenty
miles--about which also Bertram was very civil, and received the
information with great interest. “Plenty of wild duck round the corner
of that hill in the marshy part,” said Ralph. “By Jove! we should have a
heavy bag when we have it all to ourselves.”
“Capital ground, and great luck to be the first,” said Mr. Bertram. He
was certainly a nice man. He seemed to like to linger, to talk of the
sunset, to enjoy himself in the fresh but slightly chill air of the
October evening. Lucy’s observation of him was minute. A little wonder
whether he might be the man--not necessarily _her_ man, but the ideal
man--blew like a quiet little breeze through her youthful spirit. It was
a breeze which, like the actual breeze of the evening, carried dead
leaves with it, the rags of past reputation and visions, for already
Lucy had asked herself this question in respect to one or two other men
who had not turned out exactly as at first they seemed. To be sure,
this one was old--probably forty or so--and therefore was both better
and worse than her previous studies; for at such an age he must of
course have learnt everything that experience could teach, and on the
other hand did not matter much, having attained to antiquity. Still, it
certainly gave a greater interest to the walk that he was here.
“After all,” said Ralph, “you gave us no light, Lucy, as to who this
widow was.”
“You speak as if she were like old Widow Thrapton in the village,” cried
Lucy. “A widow!--she says it’s a term of reproach, as if a woman had
tormented her husband to death.”
“But she is a widow, for you said so--and who is she?” said the
persistent Ralph.
“He is like the little boy in ‘Helen’s Babies,’” said Lucy, turning to
her other companion. “He always wants to see the wheels go round,
whatever one may say.”
“I feel an interest in this mysterious widow, too,” said Bertram, with a
laugh.
It was all from civility to keep Ralph in countenance, she felt sure.
“Who is she?” said that obstinate person.
“I can tell you what she is,” cried Lucy, with indignant warmth. “She
must be older than I am, I suppose, for there’s Tiny, but she doesn’t
look it. She has the most lovely complexion, and eyes like stars, and
brown hair--none of your golden stuff, which always looks artificial
now. Hers might be almost golden if she liked, but she is not one to
show off. And she is the nicest neighbor that ever was--comes up to the
house just when one is dull and wants stirring up, or sends a note or a
book, or to ask for something. She likes to do all sorts of things for
you, and she’s so generous and nice and natural that she likes you to do
things for her, which is so much, much more uncommon! She says, thank
heaven, she is not unselfish; and, though it sounds strange,” said Lucy,
with vehemence, “I know exactly what she means.”
“Not unselfish?” said Ralph. “By George! that’s a new quality. I thought
it was always the right thing to say of a woman that she was unselfish;
but all that doesn’t throw any light upon the lady. Isn’t she
somebody’s sister or cousin or aunt? Had she a father, had she a
mother?--that sort of thing, you know. A woman doesn’t come and settle
herself in a neighborhood without some credentials--nor a man either, so
far as I know.”
“I don’t know what you mean by credentials. She was not introduced to us
by any stupid people, if that is what you mean. We just found her out
for ourselves.”
Ralph gave a little whistle at this, which made Lucy very angry. “When
you go out to Africa or--anywhere,” she cried, “do you take credentials?
And who is to know whether you are what you call yourself? I suppose you
say you’re a Wradisley of Wradisbury. Much the black kings must know
about a little place in Hants!”
“The black kings don’t stand on that sort of thing,” said Ralph, “but
the mother does, or so I supposed.”
“I ought to take the unknown lady’s part,” said Mr. Bertram. “You’ve all
been very kind to me, and I’m not a Bertram of--anywhere in particular.
I have not got a pedigree in my pocket. Perhaps I might have some
difficulty in making out my family tree.”
“Oh, Mr. Bertram!” cried Lucy, in deprecation, as if that were an
impossible thing.
“I might always call myself of the Ellangowan family, to be sure,” he
said, with a laugh.
Now Lucy did not at all know what he meant by the Ellangowan family. She
was not so deeply learned in her Scott as I hope every other girl who
reads this page is, and she was not very quick, and perhaps would not
have caught the meaning if she had been ever so familiar with “Guy
Mannering.” She thought Ellangowan a very pretty name, and laid it up in
her memory, and was pleased to think that Mr. Bertram had thus, as it
were, produced his credentials and named his race. I don’t know whether
Ralph also was of the same opinion. At all events they went on without
further remark on this subject. The village lay just outside the park
gates on the right side of a pretty, triangular bit of common, which
was almost like a bit of the park, with little hollows in it filled with
a wild growth of furze and hawthorn and blackberry, the long brambles
arching over and touching the level grass. There was a pretty bit of
greensward good for cricket and football, and of much consequence in the
village history. The stars had come out in the sky, though it was still
twilight when they emerged from the shadow of the trees to this more
open spot; and there were lights in the cottage windows and in the
larger shadow of the rectory, which showed behind the tall, slim spire
of the church. It was a cheerful little knot of human life and interest
under the trees, Nature, kindly but damp, mantling everything with
greenness up to the very steps of the cottage doors, some of which were
on the road itself without any interval of garden; and little irregular
gleams of light indicating the scarcely visible houses. Lucy, however,
did not lead the way toward the village. She went along the other side
of the common toward a house more important than the cottages, which
stood upon a little elevation, with a grassy bank and a few
moderate-sized trees.
“Oh, she’s in Greenbank, this lady,” said Ralph. “I thought the old
doctor was still there.”
“He died last year, after Charlie died at sea--didn’t you know? He never
held up his head, Raaf, after Charlie died.”
“The more fool he; Charlie drained him of every penny, and was no credit
to him in any way. He should have been sent about his business years
ago. So far as concerned him, I always thought the doctor very weak.”
“Oh, Raaf, he was his only son!”
“What then? You think it’s only that sort of relationship that counts.
The doctor knew as well as any one what a worthless fellow he was.”
“But he never held up his head again,” said Lucy, “after Charlie died.”
“That’s how nature confutes all your philosophy, Wradisley,” said the
other man. “That is the true tragedy of it. Worthy or unworthy, what
does it matter? Affection holds its own.”
“Oh, I’ve no philosophy,” said Ralph, “only common sense. So they sold
the house! and I suppose the poor old doctor’s library and his
curiosities, and everything he cared for? I never liked Carry. She would
have no feeling for what he liked, poor old fellow. Not worth much, that
museum of his--good things and bad things, all pell-mell. Of course she
sold them all?”
“The most of them,” Lucy confessed. “What could she do otherwise, Raaf?
They were of no use to her. She could not keep up the house, and she had
no room for them in her own. Poor Carry, he left her very little; and
her husband has a great struggle, and what could she do?”
“I don’t suppose she wanted to do anything else,” said Ralph, in a surly
tone. “Look here, I sha’n’t go in with you since it’s the doctor’s
house. I had a liking for the old fellow--and Bertram and I are both
smoking. We’ll easy on a bit till the end of the common, and wait for
you coming back.”
“If you prefer it, Raaf,” Lucy said, with a small tone of resignation.
She stood for a moment in the faint twilight and starlight, holding her
head a little on one side with a wistful, coaxing look. “I did wish you
to see her,” she said.
“Oh, I’ll see her some time, I suppose. Come, Bertram; see you’re ready,
Lucy, by the time we get back.”
Lucy still paused a moment as they swung on with the scent of their
cigars sending a little warmth into the damp air. She thought Mr.
Bertram swayed a little before he joined the other, as if he would have
liked to stay. Undeniably he was more genial than Raaf, more ready to
yield to what she wanted. And usually she was alone in her walks, just a
small woman about the road by herself, so that the feeling of leading
two men about with her was pleasant. She regretted they did not come in
to show Mrs. Nugent how she had been accompanied. She went slowly up the
grassy bank alone, thinking of this. She had wanted so much to show Raaf
to Mrs. Nugent, not, she fancied, that it was at all likely they would
take to each other. Nelly Nugent was so quick, she would see through
him in a moment. She would perceive that there was not, perhaps, a great
deal in him. He was not a reader, nor an artist, nor any of the things
Nelly cared for--only a rough fellow, a sportsman, and rather
commonplace in his mind. He was only Raaf, say what you would. Oh! he
was not the one to talk like that of poor Charlie. If Charlie was only
Charlie, Raaf was nothing but Raaf--only a man who belonged to you, not
one to admire independent of that. But whatever Raaf might do it would
never have made any difference, certainly not to his mother, she did not
suppose to any one, any more than it mattered to the poor old doctor
what Charlie did, seeing he was his father’s Charlie; and that nothing
could change. She went along very slowly, thinking this to herself--not
a very profound thought, but yet it filled her mind. The windows were
already shining with firelight and lamplight, looking very bright. The
drawing-room was not at all a large room. It was under the shade of a
veranda and opened to the ground, which made it a better room for summer
than for winter. Lucy woke up from her thoughts and wondered whether in
the winter that was coming Mrs. Nugent would find it cold.
The two men went on round the common in the soft, damp evening air.
“That’s one of the things one meets with, when one is long away,” said
Raaf, with a voice half confused in his beard and his cigar. “The old
doctor was a landmark; fine old fellow, and knew a lot; never knew one
like him for all the wild creatures--observing their ways, don’t you
know. He’d bring home as much from a walk as you or I would from a
voyage--more, I daresay. I buy a few hideous things, and poor little
Lucy shudders at them” (he was not so slow to notice as they supposed),
“but I haven’t got the head for much, while he--And all spoiled because
of a fool of a boy not worth a thought.”
“But his own, I suppose,” said the other.
“Just that--his own--though why that should make such a difference. Now,
Carry was worth a dozen of Charlie. Oh, I didn’t speak very well of
Carry just now!--true. She married a fellow not worth his salt, when,
perhaps--But there’s no answering for these things. Poor old doctor!
There’s scarcely anybody here except my mother that I couldn’t have
better spared.”
“Let’s hope it’s a good thing for him,” said Bertram, not knowing what
to say.
“I can’t think dying’s better than living,” said Raaf. “Oh, you
mean--that? Well, perhaps; though it’s hard to think of him,” he said,
with a sudden laugh, “in his old shiny coat with his brown gaiters
in--what one calls--a better world. No kind of place suited him as well
as here--he was so used to it. Somehow, though, on a quiet night like
this, there’s a kind of a feeling, oh! I can’t describe it in the least,
as if--I say, you’ve been in many queer places, Bertram, and seen a
lot?”
“That is true.”
“Did you ever see anything that made you--feel any sort of certainty,
don’t you know? There’s these stars, they say they’re all worlds,
globes, like this, and so forth. Who lives in them? That’s what I’ve
always wanted to know.”
“Well, men like us can’t live in them, for one thing, according to what
the astronomers say.”
“Men like us, ah! but then! We’ll not be fellows like us when we’re--the
other thing, don’t you know. There!” said Ralph; “I could have sworn
that was the old man coming along to meet us; cut of his coat, gaiters
and everything.”
“You can’t be well, old fellow, there is nobody.”
“I know that as well as you,” said Ralph, with a nervous laugh. “Do you
think I meant I saw anything? Not such a fool; no, dear old man, I
didn’t see him; I wish I could, just to tell him one or two things about
the beasts which he was keen about. I don’t think that old fellow would
be happy, Bertram, in a fluid, a sort of a place like a star, for
instance, where there were no beasts.”
“There’s no reason to suppose they’re fluid. And for that matter there
may be beasts, as some people think; only I don’t see, if you take in
that, where you are to stop,” said Bertram. “We are drawing it too fine,
Wradisley, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps we are, it’s not my line of country. I wish you had known that
old man. You’re a fellow that makes out things, Bertram. He was quite
comfortable--lots of books, and that museum which wasn’t much of a
museum, but he knew no better. Besides, there were a few good things in
it. And enough of money to keep him all right. And then to think, Lord,
that because of a fool of a fellow who was never out of hot water,
always getting his father into hot water, never at peace, that good old
man should go and break his heart, as they call it, and die.”
“It may be very unreasonable, but it happens from time to time,” Bertram
said.
“By Jove, it is unreasonable! An old man that was really worth coming
back to--and now he’s clean swept away, and some baggage of a woman,
probably no good, in his place, to turn Lucy’s head, and perhaps bring
us all to sixes and sevens, for anything I know.”
“Why should you suppose so? There seems nothing but good in the lady,
except that she is a stranger. So am I a stranger. You might as well
believe that I should bring you to sixes and sevens. You’re not well
to-night, old fellow. You have got too much nonsense in your head.”
“I suppose that’s it--a touch of fever,” said the other. “I’ll take some
quinine when I go home to-night.” And with that wise resolution he drew
up, having come back to the point from which they started, to wait for
his sister at Mrs. Nugent’s door.