CRAWFORD'S HOUSE.
Crawford Street, into which the stranger and his uncouth conductor had
turned, was a narrow, dingy, neglected blind lane. The end of it was
formed of a brick wall, moss-grown and ragged. On the right hand side
were gates and doors of idle wharves, whose rears abutted on the bay;
on the left, a long low unbroken wall separating the roadway from a
desolate waste, where rubbish might be shot, according to a
dilapidated and half-illegible notice-board; but on the plot were only
two small mounds of that dreary material, crowned with a few battered
rusty iron and tin utensils of undeterminable use.
In the street, which was a couple of hundred yards long, stood the
only dwelling. Opposite the door Red Jim drew up, and, pointing, said,
"That's Crawford's House. I belong to this neighourhood. I'm called
after the place. My name is James Ford. I'm called after the place,
same as a lord is called after a place. They found me twenty-nine
years ago on the tow-path. Nobody wanted me much then or since. Maybe
you're the new Mr. Crawford, and, like me, called after the place
too?" He spoke in a tone of curiosity.
At the question, his companion started, looking at Red Jim out of a
pair of keen, quick, furtive eyes. "I told you I would pay you for
showing me the place. Here's sixpence. If you want any information of
me, you'll have to pay me for it. If you really care to know my name,
I'll tell it to you for that sixpence." The stranger laughed a short
sharp laugh, handed Red Jim the coin, and kept his hand outstretched
as if to take it back.
Jim turned on his heel, and slunk away muttering.
The stranger knocked with his fist on the door, from which the knocker
was missing. The panels had originally been painted a grass-green, now
faded down to the sober hue of the sea.
The door was opened by a tall slender girl, whose golden-brown hair
was flying in wild confusion over her white forehead and red cheeks,
and across her blue eyes, in which, as in the hair, flashed a glint of
gold. She smiled and laughed apologetically, and thrust her floating
hair back from her face with both her hands.
"Miss Layard?" said the stranger, raising his hat and bowing. He
thought, "What beauty, what health, what spirits, what grace, what
youth, what deliciousness!"
"Yes," she answered, stepping back for him to enter. "Mr. Crawford?"
she asked in her turn.
"My name is Crawford," he said going in. "I--I was not quite prepared
to find you what you are, Miss Layard--I mean so--so young. When your
brother spoke to me of his sister, I fancied he meant some one much
older than himself."
She smiled, and laughed again as she led him into the front room, now
in a state of chaotic confusion.
"We did not expect you till later. My brother has not come home yet.
We have only moved in to-day, and we are, O! in such dreadful
confusion."
On the centre of the floor was spread a square of very old threadbare
carpet, leaving a frame of worn old boards around it. In the centre of
the carpet stood a small dining-table. Nothing else in the room was
in its place. The half-dozen poor chairs, the chiffonnier, the one
easy-chair, the couch, were all higgledy-piggledy. The furniture was
of the cheapest kind, made to catch the inexperienced eye. Although
evidently not old, it was showing signs of decrepitude. It had once,
no doubt, looked bright and pleasant enough, but now the spring seats
of the chairs were bulged, and the green plush expanse of the couch
rose and fell like miniature grazing-land of rolling hillocks.
The young girl placed a seat for her visitor, and took one herself
with another of those bright cheerful laughs which were delicious
music, and seemed to make light and perfume in the darkening cheerless
room.
"My brother told me you were not likely to be here until ten; but your
rooms are all ready, if you wish to see them."
She leant back in her chair and clasped her hands in her lap, a
picture of beautiful, joyous girlhood.
He regarded her with undisguised admiration. She returned his looks
with smiling, unruffled tranquillity.
"So," he said in a low voice, as though he did not wish the noise of
his own words to distract his sense of seeing, concentrated on her
face and lithe graceful figure, "you got my rooms ready, while you
left your own in chaos?"
"You are too soon," she answered, nodding her head playfully. "If you
had not come until ten, we should have had this room in order. As you
see, it was well we arranged the other rooms first. Would you like to
see them?"
"Not just now. I am quite content here for the present," he said, with
a gallant gesture towards her.
"I don't think my brother will be very long. In fact, when you knocked
I felt quite sure it was Alfred. O! here he is. Pardon me," she cried,
springing up, and hurrying to the door.
In a few minutes Alfred Layard was shaking hands with the other man,
saying pleasantly and easily, "I do not know, Mr. Crawford, whether it
is I ought to welcome you, or you ought to welcome me. You are at once
my landlord and my tenant."
"And you, on your side, necessarily are my landlord and my tenant
also. Let us welcome one another, and hope we may be good friends."
With a wave of his hand he included the girl in this proposal.
"Agreed!" cried Layard cheerfully, as he again shook the short plump
hand of the elder man.
"You see," said Crawford, explaining the matter with a humorous toss
of the head and a chuckle, "your brother is my tenant, since he has
taken this house, and I am his tenant, since I have taken two rooms in
this house. I have just been saying to Miss Layard," turning from the
sister to the brother, "that when you spoke to me of your sister who
looked after your little boy, I imagined she must be much older than
you."
"Instead of which you find her a whole ten years younger," said
Layard, putting his arm round the girl's slim waist lightly and
affectionately; "and yet, although she is only a child, she is as wise
with her little motherless nephew as if she were Methuselah's sister."
The girl blushed and escaped from her brother's arm.
"You would think," she said, "that there was some credit in taking
care of Freddie. Why, he's big enough and good enough to take care of
himself, and me into the bargain. I asked Mr. Crawford, Alfred, if he
would like to look at his rooms, but he seemed to wish to see you."
"And I am here at last," said Layard. "Well, shall we go and look at
them now? You observe the confusion we are in here. We cannot, I fear,
offer you even a cup of tea to drink to our better acquaintance."
Crawford rose, and the three left the room and began ascending the
narrow massive and firm old stairs.
To look at brother and sister, no one would fancy they were related.
He was tall and lank, with dark swarthy face, deep-sunken small grey
eyes, not remarkable for their light, dark brown hair, and snub nose.
The most remarkable feature of his face was his beard--dark dull brown
which looked almost dun, and hung down from each side of his chin in
two enormous thin streamers. His face in repose was the embodiment of
invincible melancholy; but by some unascertainable means it was able
to light up under the influence of humour, or affection, or joy, in a
way all the more enchanting because so wholly unexpected.
Alfred Layard was thirty years of age, and had been a widower two
years, his young wife dying a twelve-month after the birth of her only
child Freddie, now three.
William Crawford was a man of very different mould; thick-set,
good-looking, with bold brown eyes, clean-shaven face, close thick
hair which curled all over a massive head, full lips that had few
movements, and handsome well cut forehead too hollow for beauty in the
upper central region. The face was singularly immobile, but it had a
look of energy and resolution about it that caught the eye and held
the attention, and ended in arousing something between curiosity and
fear in the beholder. Plainly, a man with a will of his own, and
plenty of energy to carry that will out. In all his movements, even
those of courtesy, there was a suggestion of irrepressible vigour. His
age was about five or six and thirty.
It was an odd procession. In front, the gay fair girl with azure eyes,
golden-brown hair, and lithe form, ascending with elastic step. Behind
her, the thick-set, firm, resolute figure of the elder man, with dark,
impassive, immobile features, bold dark eyes, and firm lips, moving as
though prepared to meet opposition and ready to overcome it. Last, the
tall, lank angular form of the young widower, with plain, almost ugly,
face, deep-set eyes, snub nose, dull complexion, and long melancholy
dun beard, flowing like a widow's streamers in two thin scarves behind
him. Here were three faces, one of which was always alight, a second
which could never light, and a third usually dull and dead, but which
could light at will.
"This is the sitting-room," said Hetty, standing at the threshold.
"You said you would prefer having the back room furnished as the
sitting-room, Alfred told me."
"Yes, certainly, the back for the sitting-room," said Crawford, as
they entered. He looked round sharply with somewhat the same
surprising quickness of glance which had greeted Red Jim's question at
the door. It conveyed the idea of a man at once curious and on his
guard.
His survey seemed to satisfy him, for he ceased to occupy himself with
the room, and said, turning to the brother and sister, with a short
laugh, "This, as you know, is my first visit to Crawford Street. I had
no notion what kind of a place it was; and when I am here, two or
three days in the month, and a week additional each quarter, I should
like to be quiet and much to myself. I don't, of course, my dear Mr.
Layard, mean with regard to your sister and you," he bowed, "but the
people all round. They are not a very nice class of people, are they?"
with a shrug of his shoulders at people who were not very nice.
"There are no people at all near us," answered Layard cheerfully. "No
one else lives in the street, and we have the canal, or rather the
Bay, at the back."
"Capital! capital!" cried Crawford in a spiritless voice, though he
rubbed his hands as if enjoying himself immensely. "You, saving for
the presence of Miss Layard and your little boy, whose acquaintance,
by the way, I have not yet made, are a kind of Robinson Crusoe here."
"O!" cried Hetty, running to the window and pointing out, "the real
Robinson Crusoe is here."
"Where? I hope he has Man Friday, parrot, and all; walking to the
window, where they stood looking out, the girl, with her round arm,
pointing into the gathering dusk. In the window-place, they were
almost face to face. Instead of instantly following the direction of
Hetty's arm, he followed the direction of his thoughts, and while her
eyes were gazing out of the window, his were fixed upon her face.
"There," she said, upon finding his eyes were not in the direction of
her hand.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I can see no one."
He was now looking out of the window.
"But you can see his island."
"Again I beg your pardon, but I can see no island."
"What you see there is an island. That is not the tow-path right
opposite: that is Boland's Ait."
"Boland's Ait! Yes, I have heard of Boland's Ait. I have nothing to do
with it, I believe?" he turned to Layard.
"I think not."
"O, no!" said the girl laughing; "the whole island is the property of
Mr. Francis Bramwell, a most mysterious man, who is either an
astrologer, or an author, or a pirate, or something wonderful and
romantic."
"Why," cried her brother in amused surprise, "where on earth did you
get this information?"
"From Mrs. Grainger, whom you sent to help me to-day. Mrs. Grainger
knows the history of the whole neighbourhood from the time of Adam."
"The place cannot have existed so long," said Crawford, with another
of his short laughs; "for it shows no sign of having been washed even
as far back as the Flood. Is your Crusoe old or young?"
"Young, I am told, and handsome. I assure you the story is quite
romantic."
"And is there much more of the story of this Man Friday, or whatever
he is?" asked Crawford carelessly, as he moved away from the window
towards the door.
"Well," said she, "that is a good deal to begin with; and then it is
said he has been ruined by some one or other, or something or other,
either betting on horses or buying shares in railways to the moon, and
that he did these foolish things because his wife ran away from him;
and now he lives all alone on his island, and leaves it very seldom,
and never has any visitors, or hardly any, and is supposed to be
writing a book proving that woman is a mistake and ought to be
abolished."
"The brute!" interpolated Crawford, bowing to Hetty, as though in
protest against any one who could say an unkind thing of the sex to
which she belonged.
"Isn't it dreadful?" cried the girl in a tone of comic distress.
She was still standing by the window, one cheek and side of her
golden-brown hair illumined by the fading light, and her blue eyes
dancing with mischievous excitement. "And they say that, much as he
hates women, he hates men more."
"Ah! that is a redeeming feature," said Crawford. "A misanthropist is
intelligible, but a misogynist is a thing beyond reason, and hateful."
"But, Hetty," said Layard, "if the man lives so very much to himself
and does not leave his house, how is all this known?"
"Why, because all the women have not been abolished yet. Do you fancy
there ever was a mystery a woman could not find out? It is the
business of women to fathom mysteries. I'll engage that before we are
a week here I shall know twice as much as I do now of our romantic
neighbour."
"And then," said Crawford, showing signs of flagging interest, and
directing his attention once more to the arrangement of the room,
"perhaps Miss Layard will follow this Crusoe's example, and write a
book against men."
"No, no. I like men."
He turned round and looked fully at her. "And upon my word, Miss
Layard," said he warmly, "I think you would find a vast majority of
men very willing to reciprocate the feeling."
Hetty laughed, and so did her brother.
"As I explained," said Crawford, "I shall want these rooms only once a
month. I shall have to look after the property in this neighbourhood.
I think I shall take a leaf out of our friend Crusoe's book, and keep
very quiet and retired. I care to be known in this neighbourhood as
little as possible. There is property of another kind in town. It,
too, requires my personal supervision. I shall make this place my
head-quarters, and keep what changes of clothes I require here. It is
extremely unlikely I shall have any visitors. By the way, in what
direction does Camberwell lie?" He asked the question with an
elaborate carelessness which did not escape Alfred Layard.
"Up there," said Layard, waving his left hand in a southerly
direction.
Once more Crawford approached the window. This time he leaned out,
resting his hand on the sill.
In front of him lay Boland's Ait, a little island about a hundred
yards long and forty yards wide in the middle, tapering off to a point
at either end. Beyond the head of the island, pointing south, the
tow-path was visible, and beyond the tail of the island the tow-path
again, and further off Welford Bridge, lying north.
Hetty was leaning against the wainscot of the old-fashioned deep
embrasure.
"Does that tow-path lead to Camberwell?" asked Crawford.
"Yes," answered the girl, making a gesture to the left.
"Is it much frequented?" asked he in a voice he tried to make
commonplace, but from which he could not banish the hint of anxiety.
"O, no, very few people go along it."
"But now, I suppose, people sometimes come from that direction,"
waving his left hand, "for a walk?"
"Well," said the girl demurely, "the scenery isn't very attractive;
but there is nothing to prevent people coming, if they pay the toll."
"O, there _is_ a toll?" he said in a tone of relief, as if the
knowledge of such a barrier between him and Camberwell were a source
of satisfaction to him.
"Yes; a halfpenny on weekdays and a penny on Sundays."
He leaned further out. The frame of the window shook slightly. "We
must have this woodwork fixed," he said a little peevishly. "What
building is this here on your left?--a store of some kind with the
gates off."
"That's the empty ice-house. It belongs to you, I believe."
"Ah! the empty ice-house. So it is. I never saw an ice-house before."
"It is full of water," said the girl, again drawing on the charwoman's
store of local information. "It makes me quite uncomfortable to think
of it."
The man, bending out of the window, shuddered, and shook the
window-frame sharply. "There seems to be a great deal of water about
here, and it doesn't look very ornamental."
"No," said Hetty; "but it's very useful."
Crawford's eyes were still directed to the left, but not at so sharp
an angle as to command a view of the vacant icehouse. He was gazing
across the head of the island at the tow-path.
Suddenly he drew in with a muttered imprecation; the window-frame
shook violently, and a large piece of mortar fell and struck him on
the nape of the neck. He sprang back with a second half-uttered
malediction, and stood bolt upright a pace from the window, but did
not cease to gaze across the head of the island.
Along the tow-path a tall man was advancing rapidly, swinging his arms
in a remarkable manner as he walked.
"No, no, not hurt to speak of," he answered, with a hollow laugh, in
reply to a question of Layard's, still keeping his eyes fixed on the
tow-path visible beyond Boland's Ait. "The mortar has gone down my
back. I shall change my coat and get rid of the mortar. My portmanteau
has come, I perceive. Thank you, I am not hurt. Good evening for the
present," he added, as brother and sister moved towards the door.
Although he did not stir further from the window, they saw he was in
haste they should be gone, so they hurried away, shutting the door
behind them.
When they had disappeared he went back to the window, and muttered
in a hoarse voice: "I could have sworn it was Philip Ray--Philip Ray,
her brother, who registered an oath he would shoot me whenever or
wherever he met me, and he is the man to keep his word. He lives at
Camberwell. It must have been he. If it was he, in a few minutes he
will come out on the tow-path at the other end of the island; in two
minutes--in three minutes at the very outside--he must come round the
tail of the island, and then I can make sure whether it is Philip Ray
or not. He will be only half the distance from me that he was before,
and there will be light enough to make sure."
He waited two, three, four, five minutes--quarter of an hour, but from
behind neither end of the island did the man emerge on the tow-path.
There could be no doubt of this, for from where he stood a long
stretch of the path was visible north and south beyond the island, and
William Crawford's eyes swung from one end of the line to the other as
frequently as the pendulum of a clock.
At length, when half-an-hour had passed, and it was almost dark, he
became restless, excited, and in the end went down-stairs. In the
front room he found Layard on the top of a step-ladder. He said:
"I was looking out of my window, and a man, coming from the northern
end of the tow-path, disappeared behind the island, behind Boland's
Ait. He has not come back and he has not come out at the other end.
Where can he have gone? Is there some way of getting off the tow-path
between the two points?" The speaker's manner was forced into a form
of pleasant wonder; but there were strange white lines, like lines of
fear, about his mouth and the corners of his eyes, "Is there a gate or
way off the tow-path?"
"No. The man _must_ have come off the tow path or gone into the water
and been drowned," said Layard, not noticing anything peculiar in the
other, and answering half-playfully.
"That would be too good," cried Crawford with a start, apparently
taken off his guard.
"Eh?" cried Layard, facing round suddenly. He was in the act of
driving in a brass-headed nail. The fervour in Crawford's tone caught
his ear and made him suspend the blow he was about to deliver.
"Oh, nothing," said the other, with one of his short laughs. "A
bad-natured joke. I meant it would be too much of a joke to think
a man could be drowned in such a simple way. But this man hid
himself behind the island and did not come forth at either end for
half-an-hour, and I thought I'd ask you what you thought, as the
circumstance piqued me. Good-night."
When he found himself in his own room he closed the window, pulled
down the blind, hasped the shutters, and drew the curtains. He looked
round on the simple unpretending furniture suspiciously, and muttered:
"He here--if it were he, and I think it was, appearing and
disappearing in such a way! He cannot have found me out? Curse him,
curse her; ay, curse her! Is not that all over now? She was to blame,
too."
He walked up and down the room for an hour.
"If that was Philip Ray, where did he go to? He seems to have
vanished. Layard knows every foot of this place. It was Philip Ray,
and he did vanish! Could he have seen me and recognised me? or could
he have tracked me, and is he now out on that little quay or wharf
under my window, _waiting_ for me? Ugh!"