THE POSTMAN'S HAIL.
What had formerly been the dwelling of the foreman of Boland's Ait
consisted of four rooms, all on the ground floor. It stood at the
southern extremity of the islet, the end windows looking south, in the
direction of Camberwell. There were three of these windows: one in
what had been the kitchen, now used by Bramwell as a sitting-room,
dining-room and study; another in what had been the sitting-room, now
empty; and one in what had been and was a bedroom. The present study
and the room now unfurnished ran right through the cottage, were
oblong, and comparatively large. The room used as a bedroom was small,
being only half the depth of the cottage and the same width as the
study and empty room, and only half the length. The other half of the
length was occupied by what had been a bedroom, now used by Bramwell
as a kitchen.
There was no passage in the house. The door from the study opened
directly upon an open space lying between the cottage and the old
sawmill. Out of the study a door opened into the unfurnished room, and
from that one door opened into the kitchen, another into the bedroom.
Thus the two larger rooms ran side by side from north to south, and
the two smaller, each being half the size of one of the larger, lay at
the western end.
Up to this time Bramwell had spent nearly all his waking hours in the
study. Now and then he went into the yard, and there, concealed from
observation, walked up and down for exercise. Once in a month,
perhaps, he left the islet to buy something he needed. Otherwise he
lived in the study from month's end to month's end, retiring to the
bedroom to rest, when sleep overcame him, far in the night.
This was the last day of May. The sun had risen in a cloudless sky,
and shone out of a heaven of nameless blue from dawn to dusk.
When Bramwell entered the cottage with his boy in his arms it was
getting late in the afternoon. The Layards did not breakfast early,
and Hetty and the boy had dinner at three o'clock. It was to assist at
that indispensable function that Freddie had been recalled from the
timber-yard. Bramwell had not thought of dinner until Mrs. Grainger
had summoned Freddie to his. Then the father was seized with sudden
panic at his own forgetfulness, and the possible peril to his son's
life. He knew from books that young children should eat more
frequently than grown-up people; but whether a child of his son's age
should be fed every hour, or every two hours, or every half-hour, or
every four, he could not decide. In the kitchen was an oil-stove which
he had taught himself to manage. Mrs. Treleaven left everything ready
for dinner on a small tray. All he had to do was to light his stove
and wait half-an-hour, and dinner would be ready for him and the
child. A tray stood on the kitchen table, and on the tray all things
necessary for the meal, saving such as were awaiting the genial
offices of the stove.
Mrs. Treleaven never carried that tray to the study. She had orders
not to do so, lest she might reduce the papers on the table to
irretrievable confusion.
There was the half-hour to wait, and Bramwell, having ascertained by
inquiry that the boy was in no immediate danger of death from hunger,
cast about him to find something to do which would fill up the time
and interest Frank, who was hot and tired after his harassing labours
in the yard.
"It is fine to-day," he thought, "but it will not be fine every day,
all the year round. On the wet days, and in the winter, where are
Frank and Freddie to play? In this room, of course." He went into the
empty one next his own. "Here they will be under cover, and will not
interfere with my work. I can look in on them now and then, and in
case they want me I shall be near at hand."
"Frank," said he aloud to the child, "I shall make this room into a
play-room for you."
"What's a play-room?" asked the boy. He had had no experience of any
kind of life but that spent in poor lodgings.
"Where you and little Freddie can play if the weather is wet or cold."
"And may we bring in our steamboat?" asked the boy anxiously.
"We shall see about that. You would like a ball to play with in this
room and in the yard?"
"O, yes! I have a ball at home."
"Frank, my boy, this is your home. You are to live here now. You are
not going back."
"But I want my ball, and I want mother."
"You shall have a ball; but your mother is gone away for ever."
"Will the ball be all red and blue?" His own had been dull white,
unrelieved by colour.
"I think so," said the father gravely, and grateful for the suggestion
contained in the boy's words. He had forgotten that splendid balls
such as are never used in fives, or tennis, or cricket, or racket
could be got in the toy-shops.
The boy was satisfied.
Then Bramwell took a brush and began sweeping the empty room with
great vigour and determination, chatting all the while to the boy
about the wonderful adventures encountered by Frank and Freddie that
day in their many journeys by sea and land.
By the time the room was swept the dinner was ready, and Bramwell, who
had learned to wait upon himself, carried in the tray, cleared away
half the table of papers, spread the folded-up cloth, and the two sat
down.
Moment by moment the father was waking up to a sense of his new
position. He felt already a great change in the conditions of his
life. He was no longer free to read and muse all day long, eating his
solitary meals when he pleased. He must now adopt some sort of
regularity in his management. The hours of breakfast, dinner, and tea
should be fixed; and it would be advisable to tell Mrs. Treleaven to
bring all things necessary and advantageous for children Mrs.
Treleaven had a large family, and would know what was proper to be
done.
When dinner was over, he gave Frank the run of the house, carried the
tray back to the kitchen, and sat down in his chair to think.
Yes, he should have to work now in earnest. He would no longer dawdle
away his time in fancying he was preparing for the beginning. He would
begin at once. He should add to his income by his pen. When he had
more money than he needed years ago, he had always told himself that
he would write a book--books. Now, perhaps, he could hardly spare time
for so long an undertaking as a book. He should write articles,
essays, poems, perhaps; anything to which he could turn his hand, and
which would bring in money.
The change of name he had adopted two years ago would be convenient.
He had then used it to obliterate his identity; he should now use it
to establish a new identity. He had no practical experience of writing
for magazines or newspapers, but he believed many men made good
incomes by the pen of an occasional contributor. Of course, he could
take no permanent appointment, even if one offered, for it would
separate him from his boy.
The afternoon glided into evening. Philip Ray had been at the island
every night of late. He was coming again this evening.
Between the news of Ainsworth and the arrival of the boy he could not
keep away. He was strangely excited and wild. Philip was the best
fellow in the world, but very excitable--much too excitable. No doubt
he would quiet down in time.
If it should chance Philip met a good, quiet, sensible girl, it would
be well for him to marry. The sense of responsibility would steady
him. He was one of those men to whom cares would be an advantage. Not
cares, of course, in the sense of troubles. Heaven keep Philip from
all such miseries! but it would do Philip good to be obliged to share
his confidences and his thoughts with a prudent woman whom he loved,
and upon whose disinterested solicitude for his welfare he could rely.
"Yes; it would be well for Philip, dear, good, unselfish Philip, to
marry, even if he and his wife had to pinch and scrape on his small
income."
Some one was drawing the stage across the canal. Here was Philip
himself.
"I was just thinking of you, Philip," said Bramwell. "I want you to do
something for me."
The other looked at him in blank astonishment. This was the first
admission for two years made by Bramwell that anything could be done
for him.
"What is it?"
He was almost afraid to speak lest he should make the other draw back.
He would have done anything on earth for Frank--anything on earth
except forgive John Ainsworth, otherwise William Goddard, otherwise
William Crawford.
The _aliases_ of Mrs. Crawford's husband were known to neither of
these men. These two _aliases_ were unknown as _aliases_ to any one in
the world.
"You need not be afraid. It is not anything very dreadful or very
difficult."
"If it were impossible and infamous, I'd do it for you, Frank."
"Fortunately it is neither. To-day that little boy came to play with
Frank again, and his aunt asked me to go over to-night and chat for an
hour with her brother. In a moment of thoughtlessness and confusion I
promised to go. Of course I can't, and I want you to walk round and
apologise, and explain matters to the aunt and father of Freddie. You
see, I would not like to seem rude or inconsiderate. I don't know what
I should do if they withdrew their leave from the coming over of their
boy."
"But why won't you go?" asked Philip eagerly. "It would do you all the
good in the world."
"My dear Philip, I am astonished at you. Out of this place I have not
gone into a house for two years."
"So much the more reason why you should go. I suppose you do not
intend living the same life now as during those two years?"
"No. I intend making a great change in my manner of life. But I can't
do it all at once, you know."
"But surely there is nothing so terrible in spending an hour with a
neighbour. That would seem to me the very way of all others in which
you might break the ice most easily. Do go."
"I can't, for two reasons."
"When a man says he has two reasons, one of them is always insincere.
He advances it merely as a blind. The likelihood is that both those he
gives are insincere, and that he keeps back the real one. What are
your two reasons for not going?" Ray did not say this in bitterness,
but in supposed joy. It delighted him beyond measure to see how alert
and bright Bramwell's mind had become already after only a few days'
contact with the boy. In his inmost heart he had come to believe that
his brother-in-law's emancipation from the Cimmerian gloom in which he
had dwelt was at hand, and would be complete.
"Which reason would you like to have: my real or invented one? Or
would you like both, in order that you may select?" asked Bramwell,
with a look of faint amusement.
"Both," said Ray.
"In the first place, Frank can't be left alone."
"I'll stay here and see that he is all right; so that needn't keep you
here. Number two?"
"Look at me; am I in visiting trim? and I have no better coat."
"You don't mean to say that _you_ care what kind of a coat you wear.
This is grossly absurd--pure imposture. It does not weigh the
millionth of a grain in my mind. _You_ care about your coat?"
"But they may. How can I tell that they are not accustomed to the
finest cloth and the latest fashion?"
"And live in that ramshackle old house down that blind alley? O, yes!
I am sure they are fearfully stuck-up people. Does the aunt take in
washing or make up ladies' own materials? Ladies who look after their
brothers' children generally wear blue spectacles or make up ladies'
own materials, when they live in a place like Crawford's House."
"Besides, Philip, I'd rather not leave the child behind me. I feel I
could not rest there a moment. I should be certain something had
happened to him."
"What did I tell you a moment ago about men with two reasons? You see
I was right. It wasn't because you won't leave Frank alone, since my
offer obviates that, and it wasn't because you aren't clothed in
purple and fine linen. Your real reason for not going is a woman's
reason--you won't go, because you won't go."
"Well, let it stand at that, if you will."
"But really, Frank, you must change all this."
"I engage to reform, but you do not expect a revolution. You will call
and apologise for me, Philip? I can't go, and I don't want to seem
ungracious to them. You need only say that when I promised to see them
this afternoon I completely forgot that there would be no one here
with the boy. Of course, I could not have foreseen your offer to stay
with him."
Ray muttered and growled, but on the whole was well satisfied.
Bramwell had not been at any time since he came to the islet so lively
as this evening. If he progressed at this rate he would soon be as
well as ever--ay, better than ever.
He said he would take the message round to Crawford's House.
As he was leaving the room Bramwell said gravely:
"Don't be unkind to little Freddie's aunt, even if she does make up
ladies' own materials and wear glasses. All people have not their fate
in their own hands."
"Pooh!" cried Ray scornfully, as he disappeared.
Bramwell got up and began pacing the room. Of old he used to sit and
brood over the past, when he could no longer busy himself with his
papers and books. This evening he walked up and down and thought of
the future.
"Now that I recall the girl to my mind, Miss Layard is very beautiful.
I do wish Philip would get married. That would get all this murderous
vengeance out of his head. A single man may be willing to risk his own
neck to avenge a wrong; but a man with a wife whom he loved would
think twice before handing himself over to the hangman, and leaving
the woman he loved desolate.
"I do hope he will fall in love with this girl. I know his present
contempt for the sex, and I know the source from which that contempt
springs. But all women are not alike. I have known only my mother and
my sister and another, and out of the three, two are the salt of the
earth and the glory of Heaven. A good woman is life's best gift, and
there are a thousand good women for the one bad. It was my misfortune
to--But let me not think of that.
"I know Philip would scout the idea of falling in love and marrying.
Two facts now keep him from any chance of love or marriage. First, his
revulsion from the whole sex because of the fault of one; and, second,
because he does not meet any young girl who might convert him to
particular exemption from his general scorn.
"And yet, although I have had little opportunity of judging, for I saw
this girl only twice, perhaps she is not exactly the kind of wife that
would be best for him. She is bright and gay, and beautiful enough, in
all conscience. What a brilliant picture she made at that window! I
seem to see her now more distinctly than I did at the time. There is
such a thing as the collodion of the eye. And now that I think of the
day, of the time she brought down the little fellow to the brink of
the bay and handed him to me, how charming she looked! There was such
colour in her face and hair, and such light in her eyes, and her voice
is so clear and sympathetic! Ah, there are many, many, many good women
in the world who are beautiful, supremely beautiful also, and she, I
am sure, is one of them!
"But I fancy the wife for Philip ought to be more sedate. He is too
excitable, and this Miss Layard is bright and quick. His excitement
almost invariably takes a gloomy turn; hers, I should fancy, a gay
direction. They would be fire and tow to one another. He ought to
marry a woman of calm and sober mind, and she a man of sad and
melancholy disposition like----"
He did not finish the sentence, even in his mind. He had almost said
"like me."
"No, I don't think she would be the wife for him. But there! How
calmly and solemnly I am disposing of the fate of two people! I had
better do that thing which our race are so noted for doing well--mind
my own business."
His meditations were broken in upon by a voice hailing the island from
the tow-path.
"Boland's Ait, ahoy!" sang the voice.
Bramwell rose and left the cottage by the door from the study. Abroad
it was growing dark. "Philip has been gone a long time," he thought.
"But this cannot be he, for he knows how to come over."
In the dusk he saw a man on the opposite side of the canal, with a
canvas bag thrown over his shoulder. The man wore a peaked cap, and
was in uniform.
"A newspaper for you, Mr. Bramwell," sang out the man.
Bramwell, in great surprise, hastened to the floating stage, and,
seizing the chain, pulled the stage athwart the water.
He took the newspaper from the postman's hand. It was too dark to read
the superscription.
He hastened back to the study, where the lamp was burning.
He examined the cover in the light of the lamp.
He could not recognise the writing. He had never seen it before.
He broke the cover and spread the paper out before him. It was a copy
of the _Daily Telegraph_, dated that day.
On the front page a place was marked. It was in the column devoted to
births, marriages, and deaths. The mark was against an item among the
deaths.
With a shudder and a sick feeling of sinking, he read:
"On the 28th inst., at her residence, London, Kate, wife of Francis
Mellor (_née_ Ray), late of Greenfield, near Beechley, Sussex."
He raised his head slowly from the table, threw himself into a chair,
and burst into a passion of tears and sobs.