The weeks crept on; and Paul Wilton, from being merely an object of
interest and pity, gradually became the greatest mystery in the
neighbourhood. Such a reputation was entirely unsought on his part,
although, had he been aware of it, the probability is that it would
not have been wholly unpleasing to him. For it had been his pose
through life to mystify people,--not by deliberately assuming to be
what he was not, but by strenuously avoiding any appearance of what he
was; and his indifference, which was what people first noticed in him,
was entirely feigned for the purpose of concealing that his real
attitude towards life was a critical one. It was not unreasonable that
a man of this calibre, suddenly placed in a quiet country parish,
should end in making some sort of a sensation there. Miss Esther from
the beginning had suffered much, and silently; but a man who had a
father in Crockford and a mother in Debrett, was to be forgiven a
good deal, and she felt compelled to overlook even the ash of his
cigarettes, and his French novels, when she found them both on the
chaste counterpane of the best spare-room bed. But there were others
in Ivingdon who, not having much of a pedigree themselves, were
inclined to undervalue the importance of one; and some of these, the
doctor, for instance, and Peter Bunce the churchwarden, came to the
Rector for enlightenment.
"Eh, but he doan't give hisself away much, do he, now?" said the
churchwarden, jerking his thumb in the direction of the lame man, who
had just swung himself past the window on his crutches. "He be proper
close, I reckon, eh?"
"He is a very intelligent young man," said the Rector vaguely. "He has
quite an appreciation of Oriental china."
It was Sunday afternoon, and the Rector was dispensing whiskey and
cigars to his guests, with a prodigality that might have been
attributed to Miss Esther's absence at the Sunday school. There was an
ease, too, about their manners and their conversation, which was to be
traced to the same cause.
"I suppose he's beastly clever, and all that, isn't he?" asked Ted
morosely. He was sitting on the window ledge, a convenient position
which allowed him to shout occasional answers to the questions that
came from Katharine on the other side of the lawn. Just then, however,
she was joined by Paul; and Ted knew instinctively that he would have
no more questions to answer after that.
"It is difficult to say what he is," observed the doctor. "You can't
get him to talk; at least, not much. Generally, when I've done all the
professional business, he relapses into total silence, and I just have
to go; but sometimes he is inclined to be chatty, and then he makes a
delightful companion. But the odd thing is, that I know no more about
the man himself at the end of a conversation than I did at the
beginning. A barrister, did you say he was? That accounts for the
judicial manner, then; but the question is, what is there behind it
all?"
No one seemed to have an answer ready to the doctor's question; but
Peter Bunce took a long pull at the whiskey, and brushed the cigar ash
from his capacious waistcoat, and attacked the subject with fresh
vigour.
"There ain't no finding out anything about no one, without you take a
bit o' trouble," he remarked wisely. "Mayhap Mr. Austen, yonder,
might know a something more than us folk. Hasn't he got never a
father, now? There's a won'erful lot to be gathered from knowing of a
man's father, there is. Like enough he's one o' they London folk, as
daren't speak aloud for fear of its getting into the newspapers.
London folk is mighty well watched, so I've heard; there's never a
moment's peace or safety in London, some say. Mayhap Mr. Wilton's
father is a London gen'leman, now!"
"His father?" said the Rector, with sudden enthusiasm. "His father was
something short of a genius, sir! He is the best authority we have on
the numismatics of his neighbourhood. Have you never heard of Wilton's
'Copper Tokens'?"
"Guess we have, sir, pretty often," laughed Ted.
The Rector looked pathetic, and handed him another cigar, with an
apprehension that arose from the distant clang of the garden gate.
"They all laugh at me," he said in a cheery tone that evoked no one's
pity. "I'm an old fool; oh, yes, we know all about that. But if you
had read Wilton's 'Copper Tokens,' you wouldn't want to know who this
man's father was. Let me see,--what did I do with my Crockford?"
"I expect you thought it was a hymn-book and carted it up to church
this morning," said Ted, in a tone of forced merriment. He still had
one eye on the lawn, and what he saw there did not raise his spirits.
"Died at the age of fifty-eight, when his son was a lad of eighteen,
he tells me," continued the Rector. "That was the same date that the
fifth edition of the 'Copper Tokens' was issued, some ten or fifteen
years ago now. Bless me, how time flies when we're not growing any
younger!"
For the space of a moment or two, everybody present was occupied with
a mental calculation. The churchwarden was the first to give up the
attempt, and he returned doggedly to the original topic.
"Age ain't got nothing to do with it," he began, heaving a sigh of
relief as he substituted his pipe for the unusual cigar. "'Cause why?
Some folk's old when they're young, and other folk's young when
they're old; that's where it lays, you see."
Nobody did see; but Ted threw in a vicious comment.
"The Lord only knows how old he is, but he's as played out as they
make them," he said.
The churchwarden smiled, without understanding, and Cyril Austen was
too deep in his Crockford to hear what was passing; but the doctor had
been young himself, not so long ago, and he understood.
"Does he talk about leaving?" he asked in a casual manner, directing
his remark to the boy on the window ledge. "There's nothing to keep
him here now, as far as I can see."
"Don't know anything about him," said Ted, with a studied
indifference. "I should have thought, from the way Kitty speaks of
him, that London couldn't do without him for another moment. What they
all see in him, I don't know. I suppose it's because I'm such a rotten
ass, but he seems just like anybody else to me as far as brains are
concerned. And he can't talk for nuts. But Miss Esther says his family
is all square; and that's enough for the women, I suppose."
The doctor nodded sympathetically, and Ted laughed as if he were a
little ashamed of taking himself so seriously.
"He's going to make himself scarce on Wednesday," he continued, rather
more cordially. "He's got a pal of his coming down on business
to-morrow, and they're going off together. Good thing, too, eh? Don't
know anything about the pal--he's not any great shakes, I expect; but
Wilton swears he knows a lot about coins, and of course that will
fetch the Rector. Fact is, this place is getting too clever for me.
There's Kitty, who rots about poetry and things till it makes you
sick. She never used to; and it's no good her trying to spoof you that
she isn't altered, because she is,--and all for the sake of a chap
like Wilton, who hardly ever opens his mouth! It's so poor, isn't it?"
But here the arrival of Miss Esther postponed any further discussion
of the Rectory guest. The doctor suddenly remembered that he had a
patient to visit, and took an abrupt departure; and the churchwarden
refused a curt invitation to tea, and went hastily after him. Ted
lingered a moment or two, without being noticed at all; and Miss
Esther, having successfully routed her brother's guests, went into the
garden to disturb the conversation on the other side of the lawn.
Some two days later, Paul Wilton and his friend from London were
pacing up and down the narrow strip of gravel path that skirted the
house on the south side. In the absence of Katharine, who had induced
him to prolong the period of helplessness, as he would have wished to
prolong any other pleasurable sensation, Paul had no reason to play
the invalid; and, except for an occasional limp, there was nothing in
his walk to indicate lameness. There was the usual inexplicable smile
on his face, however, as he listened to the bantering conversation of
the man at his side, and occasionally interrupted it with one of his
dry, terse remarks. His companion was a little elderly man, with small
features and a fresh complexion, whose geniality was the result of
temperament rather than of principle, and whose conversation was toned
with a personal refrain that made it naïvely amusing.
"That's a pretty child, by the way," he was saying, with the air of a
connoisseur. Katharine had just left them, and they could hear her
laughing with her father indoors. Paul murmured an assent, and went on
smoking. His companion glanced at him sideways, and smiled gently.
"Very pretty," he repeated, "but ridiculously young. And who is the
charming boy who is so gone on her? She doesn't see it a bit, and he
hasn't the pluck to tell her. I'm quite sorry for that boy; I've been
in his shoes many a time, and I know what it feels like. He's got a
lot to teach her, that's certain, eh? Doesn't interest you, I suppose!
If it had been me, now, chained here with a broken leg and nothing to
do, with an idyllic love story going on under my eyes--ah, well! you
are not made that way, and I am too old, I suppose. Besides, in spite
of her charm, she isn't exactly my style."
"No," said Paul; "she is not your style."
"All the same, she's remarkably pretty, and I'm not too old to admire
a pretty woman," chuckled his companion. "'Pon my word, I'm quite
inclined to envy that boy. Just imagine a veritable woman, still
thinking herself a child, with a delightful boy for her only
companion, and no one to stand between them! I'd have given worlds for
such a chance when I was his age."
"But, you see, you are not his age; so it is no use trying to cut him
out. Besides, you ought to know better, Heaton, at your time of life,"
said Paul, in a jesting manner that was a little strained. Heaton took
his remark rather as a compliment than otherwise.
"You won't alter me, my boy; you'll find me the same to the end of the
chapter,--so make up your mind to that. I'm not ashamed of it either,
not I! Seriously, though, I'm quite interested in our little love
story yonder. I should like to help that boy. Silly ass! why doesn't
he make a plunge for it? He isn't likely to have a rival."
"Perhaps that is why he doesn't," observed Paul. "But I don't see why
we should trouble ourselves about it."
"That's where you're so cynical," complained Heaton. "These little
affairs always interest me intensely; they bring back my youth to me,
and remind me of my lost happiness. Oh, life! what you once held for
me! And now it is all gone, buried with my two sweet wives, and I am
left alone with no one to care what becomes of me."
His eyes were moist as he finished speaking, and Paul walked along at
his side without offering any consolation. He would have found it
difficult to explain why he had chosen Laurence Heaton for a friend.
It would be more correct to say, perhaps, that Heaton had chosen him,
and that he had lacked the energy or the power to shake him off. It
was generally true that his sentimental egotism bored Paul
excessively, and yet he found something to like in a nature that was
so unlike his own; and he was so secretive himself that the artless
confidences of Heaton, if a little wearisome, at least relieved him of
the necessity of adding to the conversation. Besides this, he was a
man who never willingly sought the friendship of others, and the
obvious preference that the good-natured idler, who was so many years
his elder, had shown for him when they first met at a public dinner,
had secretly flattered him not a little, and their acquaintance had
grown after that as a matter of course.
"All the same," resumed Heaton in his ordinary manner, "an outsider
never can do much in these cases. Perhaps it would be better to leave
them alone; and yet, if the boy were to come to me for the benefit of
my larger experience--"
"Don't you think," interrupted Paul, "that we have talked about a
couple of children as much as we need? It's all very well for an old
reprobate like yourself to spend your time in reviving your lost
youth, but I haven't so much leisure as you have, and I want to hear
about those shares you mentioned in your letter last week."
Heaton laughed good-humouredly.
"You don't realise, my dear fellow, how anything like that always
interests me. But you wait until your time comes; at present you are
too cynical to understand what I mean."
"Or too romantic," suggested Paul.
"Oh, no!" said Heaton. "Romance is only an equivalent for
inexperience; I think you're a cold-hearted beggar who lets the best
things in life go by, but I shouldn't call you inexperienced. You've
got a finished way with women that always appeals to them; women love
a little humbug, if it's well done. I'm too obvious for them, too
simple-minded, and that always frightens them off."
"Does it?" smiled Paul.
"Now, you ought to marry," continued Heaton briskly. "I believe in
marriage, hanged if I don't! and it's been the making of me.
Everything that is good in me I owe to my married life."
"Did it really take two marriages?" murmured Paul. His companion
smiled at the joke against himself, and they stood for a moment in
silence, looking over the lawn that had just acquired its fresh bloom
of green. Katharine's voice came out to them again through the open
window, this time raised in indignant dispute with her aunt.
"She is a curious mixture of hardness and sentiment," said Paul
involuntarily, "and her surroundings have made her a prig; but she
interests me rather."
"Ah," said Heaton, "I quite agree with you. There _is_ a touch of the
prig about her. But can you wonder? She is the only bit of life and
prettiness about the place, and she never meets her equal. They think
a good lot of her, too. And the parson's daughter generally thinks a
good lot of herself."
"She does it rather charmingly," said Paul, in a dispassionate tone,
"and she is fairly well read, and knows how to express herself. For a
woman, she has quite a sense of criticism."
"That's bad," said Heaton decidedly, "very bad. A woman should have no
sense of criticism. That is what makes her a prig. In fact, as I have
often said to you before, a prig is made in three ways. First of all,
she is made by her own people, if she happens to be clever; and
secondly, by the world, if she happens to be successful; and thirdly,
by her lover, if she isn't in love with him. But of course if she _is_
in love with him he may be the cause of her unmaking."
Some one in a light-coloured print frock jumped out of a side window
and disappeared in the direction of the summer-house. The two men
stood and looked after her without being noticed.
"As you say," remarked Heaton blandly, "she does it rather
charmingly."
Paul roused himself with an effort.
"Half-past three," he said, looking at his watch. "Didn't you promise
to go and look at the Rector's coins some time this afternoon?"
And in another five minutes he had joined Katharine in the
summer-house.