Beaumont Buildings is scarcely the place one would choose in which to
spend a summer's day; for, though they reach unto the heavens, they are,
like most of their kind, somewhat stuffy, the dust of the great city in
all their nooks and corners, and the noise of the crowded life
penetrates even to the topmost flat.
The agent, a man of fine imagination and unlimited descriptive powers,
states that Beaumont Buildings is "situated in a fashionable locality";
but though Fashion may dwell close at hand, and its carriages sometimes
roll luxuriously through the street in which the Buildings tower, the
street is a grimy and rather squalid one, in which most of the houses are
shops--shops of the cheap and useful kind which cater for the poor.
There is always a noise and a blare in Beaumont Street. The butcher not
only displays his joints and "block ornaments" outside his shop, but
proclaims their excellence in stentorian tones; and the grocer and
fruiterer and fishmonger compete with the costermongers, who stand
yelling beside their barrows from early morn to late and gaslit night.
The smells of Beaumont Street are innumerable, and like unto the sea
shells for variety; and the scent of oranges, the pungent odor of fried
fish, from the shop down the side street, and that vague smell familiar
to all who dwell in the heart of London, rise and enter the open
windows.
On the pavement and in the roadway, among the cabs and tradesmen's
carts, the children play and yell and screech; and at night the song of
the intoxicated as he rolls homeward, or is conveyed to the nearest cell
by the guardian of the peace he is breaking, flits across the dreams of
those in the Buildings who are so unfortunate as to sleep lightly; and
they are many.
And yet in a small room of a small flat on the fourth floor of this
Babel of noise and unrest sat Nell.
Eighteen months had passed since she made her sacrifice and left Wolfer
House. The black dress in which she looked so slight, and against which
the ivory pallor of her face was accentuated, was worn as mourning for
Mrs. Lorton; for that estimable lady had genteelly faded away, and Nell
and Dick were alone in this transitory world.
The sun was pouring through the open window, and Nell had dragged her
chair into the angle of the wall just out of the reach of the hot beams,
but still near the window, in the hope of catching something of the
smoke-laden air which away out in the country must be blowing so fresh
and sweetly.
As she bent over the coat which she was mending for Dick, she was
thinking of one place over which that same air was at that moment
wafting the scent of the sea and the flowers--Shorne Mills; and, as she
raised her eyes and glanced at the triangular patch of sky which was
framed by the roofs of the opposite houses, she could see the picture
she loved quite distinctly, and almost hear--notwithstanding the
intermezzo banged out by the piano organ in the street below--the songs
and whistling of the fishermen, and the flap of the sails against the
masts. Let the noise in and outside the Buildings be as great as it
might, she could always lose herself in memories of Shorne Mills; and if
sorrow's crown of sorrow be the remembering of happier days, such
remembrance is not without its consolation.
When Dick and she had come to the Buildings, two months ago, Nell felt
as if she should never get used to the crowded place and its
multitudinous discomforts; but time had rendered life, even amid such
surroundings, tolerable; and there were moments in which some phase of
the human comedy always being played around her brought the smile to her
pale face.
Presently she glanced at the tiny clock on the mantelshelf, and, laying
the coat aside, put the kettle on the fire, and got ready for tea; for
Dick would soon be home from the great engineering works on the other
side of the water, and he liked his tea "to meet him on the stairs."
As she was cutting the bread for the toast there came a knock at the
door, and in answer to her "Come in!" the door was opened halfway, and a
head appeared around it.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Lorton. Lorton not in? I thought I heard his
step," said a man's voice, but one almost as soft as a woman's.
Nell scarcely looked up from her task; the tenants of Beaumont Buildings
are sociable, and their visits to one another were not limited to the
fashionable hours. For instance, the borrowing and returning of a
saucepan or a sewing machine, or some lump sugar, went on all day, and
sometimes late into the night; and the borrower or lender often granted
or accepted a loan without stopping the occupation which he or she
happened to be engaged in at the entrance of the other party.
"Not yet. It is scarcely his time, Mr. Falconer. Is it anything I can
do?"
The young man came in slowly and with a certain timidity, and stood by
the mantelshelf, looking down at her as she knelt and toasted the bread.
He was very thin--painfully so--and very pale. There were shadows round
his large, dark eyes--the eyes of a man who dreams--and his black hair,
worn rather long, swept away from a forehead as white as a woman's, but
with two deep lines between the eyes which told the story of pain
suffered patiently and in silence.
His hands were long and thin--the hands of a musician--and the one on
which his chin rested as he leaned against the mantelshelf trembled
slightly. He had been practicing for three hours. He wore an old, a very
old black velvet jacket, and trousers bulgy at the knees and frayed at
the edges; but both were well brushed, and his shirt and collar were
scrupulously clean, though, like the trousers, they; showed signs of
wear.
He occupied a room just above the Lortons' flat, and the sound of his
piano and violin had entered so fully into Nell's daily life that she
was sometimes conscious of a feeling of uneasiness when it ceased, and
often caught herself waiting for it to begin again.
"Is it anything I can do?" she asked again, as he remained silent and
lost in watching her.
"Oh, no!" he said. "I wanted him to help me lift the piano to another
part of the room. The sun comes right on to it now, and it's hot. I
tried by myself, but----" He stopped, as if he were ashamed of his
weakness. "You've no idea how heavy a piano can make itself, especially
on a hot day."
"He will be in directly, and delighted to help you. Meanwhile, help me
make the toast, and stop to tea with us."
"I'll help you with the toast," he said. "But I've had my tea, thanks."
It was a falsehood, for he had run out of tea two days before; but he
was proud as well as poor, which is a mistake.
"Oh, well, you can pretend to drink another cup," said Nell lightly; for
she knew that the truth was not in his statement.
He stuck a slice of bread on a toasting fork, but did not kneel down
before the fire for a moment or two.
"Your room faces the same way as mine," he said. "But it always seems
cooler." His dark eyes wandered round meditatively. Small as the room
was, it had that air of neatness which indicates the presence of a lady.
The tea cloth was white, the few ornaments and pictures--brought from
The Cottage--the small bookcase and wicker-work basket gave a touch of
refinement, which was wholly wanting in his own sparsely furnished and
always untidy den. "Coming in here is like--like coming into another
world. I feel sometimes as if I should like to suggest that you should
charge sixpence for admission. It would be worth that sum to most of the
people in the Buildings, as a lesson in the use and beauty of soap and
water and a duster."
Nell smiled.
"I think it is wonderful that they keep their rooms as clean as they do,
seeing that every time one opens the windows the blacks pour in----"
"Like Zulus into a zareba--if that's what they call it. Yes; no denizen
of the Buildings would feel strange in Africa, for, whatever the
weather may be, the blacks are always with us. Should you say that this
is done on this side?"
He held up the slice on the toasting fork for her inspection.
"Beautifully! Turn it, please."
"I hope to Heaven I shan't drop it! There you are! I knew I should."
"Well, you can keep that one for yourself," said Nell, laughing.
He listened to the laugh, with his head a little on one side.
"I like to hear that," he said, almost to himself, "though, sometimes, I
wonder how you can do it--you, who must always be longing for the fresh
air--for the country."
Nell winced.
"What is the use of longing for that which one cannot have?" she said
lightly, but checking a sigh.
He looked at her quickly, strangely, and a faint dash of color rose to
his pale face.
"That's true philosophy, at any rate," he said, in a low voice; "but,
all the same, one can't help longing sometimes."
As he spoke, he stole a glance at the beautiful face; and, in looking,
forgot the toast, which promptly showed its resentment of his neglect by
"catching," and filling the apartment with the smell of scorched bread.
"I think that's burning," said Nell.
"And I'm sure of it," he said penitently. "If ever you are in doubt as
to the statement that man is a useless animal, set me to some simple
task, Miss Lorton, and I'll prove it beyond question. Never mind, it's
my slice, and charcoal is extremely wholesome."
"There's another; and do be careful! And how are you getting on?"
He jerked his head toward the sitting room above, where the piano was.
"The cantata? Slowly, slowly," he said thoughtfully. "Sometimes it goes,
like a two-year-old; at others it drags and creeps along, and more often
it stops altogether. You haven't heard it lately; perhaps that's the
reason I'm sticking. I notice that I always get on better and faster
after you--and Lorton--have been up to mark progress. Perhaps you'll
come up this evening? It's cruel to ask you, I know, for you must hate
the sound of my piano and fiddle, just as much as I hate the sound of
Mrs. Jones spanking Tommy, or the whizzing of the sewing machine of that
poor girl in the next room. And you must hear them, too--you, who have
been so used to the quiet of the country, the music of the sea, and the
humming of bees! Yes, it is harder for you, Miss Lorton, than for any of
the rest of us; and I often stop in the middle of the cantata and think
how you must suffer."
"Then don't think of it again," said Nell cheerfully, "for, indeed,
there is no cause to pity me. At first----" She stopped, and her brows
knit with the memory of the first few weeks of Beaumont Buildings.
"Well, at first it was rather--trying; but after a while one gets
used----"
"Used to the infernal--I beg your pardon--the incessant bangings on a
piano, and the wailings of Tommy Jones. But you wouldn't complain even
if you still suffered as keenly as you did when you first came. I know.
Sometimes I feel that I would give ten years of my life if I could hear
you say 'Good-by, Mr. Falconer; we are going!' though God knows
I--we--should all miss you badly enough."
There came a knock at the door--a soft, dull knock, followed by a rattle
of the handle--and a mite of a boy stood in the opening, inhaling the
scent of the tea and toast, and gazing wide-eyed at the two occupants of
the room.
"Please, mother ses will 'oo lend her free lumps o' sugar, Miss 'Orton;
'cos she've run out."
"Of course I will! And come in, Tommy!" said Nell. "There you are!"
She wrapped half the contents of the sugar basin in a piece of paper and
gave it him; then, seeing his eyes fixed wistfully on the pile of
buttered toast, she took a couple of slices, arranged them in sandwich
fashion, butter side inward, and put them into his chubby and grimy
fist. "There you are. And, Tommy, you'll be a good boy, and won't eat
any of the sugar, will you?"
"No; I'll be dood, Miss 'Orton. I'll promise I'll be dood."
"Then there's one lump all to yourself!" she said, sticking it into the
other fist. "Open the door for him, Mr. Falconer; and don't watch him up
the stairs; he'll keep his promise," she added, in a low voice, as she
searched for a comparatively clean spot on Tommy's face on which to kiss
him.
"Go on--you lucky young beggar!" said Falconer, under his breath, and
eying Tommy enviously.
"If you've any pity to waste, spend it on the children," said Nell, with
a sigh. "Oh, what would I give to be a fairy, just for one day, and
whisk them off to the seaside, into the open fields, anywhere out of
Beaumont Buildings. Sometimes, when I see the women drive by in their
carriages, with a lap dog on their knees or stuck up beside them, it
makes me feel wicked! I want to stick my head out of the window and
call put: 'Come up here and fetch some of the children for a drive; I'll
take care of the dog while you're gone!' Dick's late!" she broke off;
"we'd better begin. Help me wheel the table down to the window."
He attempted to do it by himself, but the color rose to his face and his
breath came fast, and Nell insisted on bearing a hand.
"That's better!" she said cheerfully, and ignoring the signs of his
weakness. "You can reach the toast----"
He stood by the window, looking down absently and regaining his breath
which the effort, slight as it was, had tried.
"There's a brougham stopped at the door," he said. "Doctor, I suppose.
No, it's a lady--a fashionable lady. Perhaps she's come to take one of
the children for a drive?"
Nell looked out and uttered an exclamation.
"I--I know her," she said, with some agitation. "I'm afraid she's coming
here--to see me!"
He moved to the door at once.
"Oh, but stay! Why do you run away?" she exclaimed.
He glanced at his seedy coat with a grave shyness.
"I'll come back if you're mistaken," he said. "Your swell visitor would
be rather astonished at my appearance; and I'm afraid there isn't time
to get my frock coat out of pawn."
"Don't go!" begged Nell; but he shook his head and left her; and as she
heard his step going slowly up the stone stairs, she glanced at the tea,
and thought pitifully of the meal he was losing; then she stood by the
table and waited, trying to steady the beating of her heart, to assure
herself that she had been mistaken; but presently some one knocked, and,
opening the door, she saw Lady Wolfer standing before her.
Lady Wolfer drew the slight figure to her and kissed her again and
again.
"You wicked girl!" she said, gazing at her with tender reproach. "Aren't
you going to let me come in? Why do you stand and look at me with those
grave eyes of yours, as if you were sorry to see me? Oh, my dear, my
dear!"
"Yes, come in," said Nell, with something like the sigh of resignation.
Lady Wolfer still held her by the arm, and turned her face to the light.
There had been a dash of color in it a moment ago, but it had faded, and
Lady Wolfer's eyes filled with tears as she noticed the thinness and
pallor of the face.
"Nell, Nell! it is wicked of you! I only knew it last night, when we
came back. I thought you were at Shorne Mills still! You wrote from
there--you said nothing about coming to London."
"That was more than two months ago," said Nell, with a grave smile.
"And--and I said nothing because I knew that you--that Lord
Wolfer--would want to--to help us. And there was no need--is none."
"No need!" Lady Wolfer looked round the room, listened for a moment to
the strains of the piano mingling with the squeals of the children in
the house, the yells of those playing in the street, and scented the
various odors floating in at the window. "No need! Oh, Nell! isn't it
wicked to be so stubborn and so proud? And we knew nothing! We thought
that you had enough----"
"So we have," said Nell. "They have been very good to Dick at the works,
and he is earning wages, and there--there was some money left--a
little--but enough."
"Only enough to permit you to live here! In this prison! Nell, you must
let me take you away----"
Nell shook her head, smiling still, but with that "stubborn" expression
in her eyes which the other woman remembered.
"And leave Dick!" she said. "No, no! Don't say another word! Call us
proud and stiff-necked, if you like--we're not, really--but neither Dick
nor I could take anything from any one while we have enough of our own.
If we could--if ever we 'run short,' and are in danger of starvation,
then----But that won't happen. You don't know how clever Dick is, and
how much they think of him at the works! He'll be in directly, with his
hands and face all smutty, and famishing for his tea----" She laughed as
she fetched another cup. "And you've come just in time. Sit down and
leave off staring at me so reproachfully, and tell me all the news."
"No," said Lady Wolfer. "You tell me; yes, tell me all about it, Nell."
Nell smiled as she poured out the tea--the smile which bravely checks
the sigh.
"There is not much to tell," she said. "When I got home--to Shorne
Mills"--should she never be able to speak the words without a pang?--"I
found mamma unwell, very unwell. She was quite changed----"
"That is why she sent for you, of course," said Lady Wolfer. "Nell, why
did you go without seeing me, without saying good-by?"
"I had to leave at once," said Nell timidly, and fighting with her
rising color.
"That day! I shall never forget it," said Lady Wolfer softly, and
looking straight before her. "Yes, I have something to tell you, dear.
But go on."
"Mamma was ill; but I was not frightened--not at first. She was always
an invalid, you know, and I thought that she would get better. But she
did not; she got weaker every day, and----" The tears came to her eyes,
and she turned away to the fire for a moment. "Molly and I nursed her.
Molly was our servant, and like a friend indeed, and the parting with
her----She did not suffer much, and she was so patient, so changed. She
was like a child at last; she could not bear me to leave her. I used to
think that she--she was not very fond of me; but--but all that was
changed before she died, and she grew to like me as much as she liked
Dick. He had always been her favorite. To the last she did not think she
was going to die, and--and--the evening before she went we"--she
laughed, the laugh so near akin to tears--"we cut out a paper pattern
for a new dress for her--one of your patterns."
"My poor Nell!" murmured Lady Wolfer.
"Then she died; and the Bardsleys offered Dick a situation--it was very
kind and unusual, Dick says, and he cannot quite understand it even
now--and, of course, we had to come to London----"
She stopped, and Lady Wolfer looked round and out of the window.
"No; we had to live in London, to be near the works, you know. We are
very comfortable and happy."
"My poor Nell!"
"Oh, but don't pity us," said Nell, smiling. "You don't know how jolly
we are, and how full of amusement our life is. We even go to the theater
sometimes, and sometimes Dick brings a friend home to tea; and there are
friends here in the Buildings--one has just left me. And Dick is going
to be a great man, and rich and famous. Oh, there is not a doubt about
it. Though Beaumont Buildings are pretty large, we have several castles
in the air quite as big. And now tell me--about yourself," she broke off
suddenly, and with a touch of embarrassment. "You are looking very well;
yes, and younger; and your hair is long; and what a swell you are!"
"Am I?" said Lady Wolfer, in a low voice, and smiling softly. "I am
glad. Nell, while you have been in such trouble--my poor, dear Nell!--I
have been so happy. How can I tell you? I feel so ashamed." Her face
grew crimson, and she looked down as if smitten with shame; then she
raised her eyes. "It began--my happiness, I mean--the day you left us.
Do you remember the night before, and--and the wild, wicked words I
spoke to you?"
Nell nodded slightly, and bent over the tea things.
"I was mad that night--reckless and desperate. I--I thought that my
husband didn't care for me."
Nell shook her head.
"Yes; you said I was wrong--that it was all a mistake. How did you know,
dear? But I did not believe you; and I--I thought--God forgive me!--that
I owed it to the man who did love me--that other. Nell, I cannot bear to
speak his name now--now that all is altered! I thought that I was bound
to go away with him! He had asked me--implored me more than once. I knew
that he would ask me again, and soon, and--and I should have yielded!"
"No, no!" said Nell, going round to her, and putting her arms round her.
"Yes, ah, yes, I should!" said Lady Wolfer. "I had made up my mind. I
was reckless and desperate. That very morning I had decided to go,
whenever he asked me; and that very morning, quite early, while I was
dressing, my husband came to me, and--Nell, you were right, though even
now I cannot guess how you knew."
"Spectators see more of the game, dear," said Nell softly.
"And in a moment everything was changed; and I knew the truth--that he
loved me--had loved me from the first. We had both been blind. But I was
the worst; for I, being a woman, ought to have seen that his coldness
was only the screen which his pride erected between his heart and the
woman whom he thought had only married him for position. We went away
together that day--our real honeymoon. Forgive me, Nell, if--if I almost
forgot you! Happiness makes us selfish, dear! But I did not forget you
for long. And he--Nell, why does he always speak of you as if he owed
you something----"
She broke off, looking at Nell with a puzzled air.
Nell smiled enigmatically, but said nothing.
"Nell, dear, he bade me bring you back with me."
Nell shook her head.
"You will not? But you will come and stay with us; you will bring your
brother? Make your home with us while we are in town, at any rate, dear.
Ah, don't be stubborn, Nell! Somehow, I feel as if--as if I owed my new
happiness to you--that's strange, isn't it? But it is so. And you will
come?"
But Nell was wise in her generation, and remained firm.
"I must stay with Dick," she said. "We are all and all to each other.
But you shall come and see me sometimes, if you will promise to be good,
and not try and persuade me into leaving that sphere in which the Fates
have placed me."
Lady Wolfer sighed.
"You little mule! You always had your own way while you were at Wolfer
House, and I see you haven't changed. But I give you fair warning, Nell,
that one day I shall take you at your weakest, and bear you away from
this--this awful place! It is not fitting that you should be here! Dear,
don't forget that you are a relation of mine!"
"A poor relation," said Nell, laughing softly. "And, like all poor
relations, to be kept at a proper distance. Go now, dear; that coachman
of yours is getting anxious about his horses."
Lady Wolfer pleaded hard, but Nell remained firm.
Her ladyship was welcome to visit at Beaumont Buildings as often as she
chose, but Beaumont Buildings would keep itself to itself; and, at last,
her brougham drove away.
It had scarcely turned the corner before Falconer knocked at the
Lortons' door.
"Gone!" he said.
"Yes, quite gone," said Nell cheerfully, but thoughtfully. "Come and
have your tea; and I'll have another cup."
He sat down at the table. Tea is a serious meal at Beaumont Buildings,
and is eaten at the table, not in chairs scattered over the room. But
Falconer set his cup down at the first sip and pushed his plate away.
"I know the sequel of this comedy," he said.
"What do you mean?" asked Nell, staring at him.
"Enter swell friend. 'Found at last! Ah, leave this abode of poverty and
squalor. Come with me!' and the heroine goeth."
Nell laughed.
"How foolish you are, Mr. Falconer! The heroine--if you mean me--does
not 'goeth,' but remains where she is."
"Do you mean it?" he asked, the color rising to his pale face.
"Yes," she said, with a cheerful nod.
"Then pass the toast," he said. "I breathe again, and tea is possible.
But she wanted you to go? Don't deny it!"
Nell's pale face flushed.
"Yes. She wanted me to go; but I would not. I am going to remain at
Beaumont Buildings," said Nell resolutely.
As she spoke, the door opened, and Dick entered quickly. His face and
hands were smudgy, but his eyes were bright in their rings of smoke and
smut.
"Hallo, Nell; hallo, Falconer!" he cried. "Eaten all the tea? Hope not,
for I'm famishing. Nell, I've got some news for you--wait till I've
cleaned myself."
"No, you don't!" said Falconer, catching him by the arm. "What is it?"
"Oh, not much. Only there's a chance of our leaving these beastly
Buildings. I've got to go down to a place in the country to manage some
water works, and install the electric light."
Falconer's face fell for a moment, then he smiled cheerfully.
"Congratulations, old fellow!" he said. "When do you go?"
"Oh, in about a fortnight. That's what kept me late. Think of it! The
country, Nellakins! Jump for joy, but don't upset the tea things!"
"Where is it, Dick?" she asked, as he went to the door.
"At a place called Anglemere. One of the ancestral halls, don't you
know. 'Historic Castles of England' kind of place."
"Anglemere?" said Nell, wrinkling her brows. "I seem to remember it."