Kitabı oku: «An Isle of Surrey: A Novel», sayfa 6

Now, in upon this life had come the boy, bringing with him more potent voices from the past than all the verses of all the poets; and, worst of all, bringing with him the face of his disgraced, dead wife!

What should he do? Either madness or death would be a relief, but neither would come. The two things of which men are most afraid are madness and death, and here was he willing to welcome either with all the joy of which his broken heart was still capable.

When that baby was born he had felt no affection for it on its own account. It seemed inexpressibly dear to her, and therefore it was after her the most precious being in all the world to him. Up to that time he knew his wife's heart had not gone out to him in love as his heart had gone out to her. He believed that the child would be the means of winning his beautiful wife's love for him. He had read in books innumerable that wives who had been indifferent towards their husbands in the early days of marriage grew affectionate when children came. For this reason he welcomed with delight the little stranger. This baby would be a more powerful bond between them than the promises made by her at the altar. It would not only reconcile her to the life-long relations upon which they had entered, but endear him to her.

But she broke her vow, broke the bond between them, and in fleeing from his house took with her the child, the creature that was dearer to her than he! Here was food for hopelessness more bitter than despair.

Now, when hope was buried for ever, and she was dead, the child had come back to remind him every hour of the past, to neutralise the cups of Lethe he felt bound to drink, that his life might not be a life of never-ending misery, to torture him with his wife's eyes, which had closed on him for ever three years ago, and which now were closed for ever on all things in death.

What should he do? Would not merciful Providence take his reason away, or stop these useless pulses in his veins?

He threw himself once more in his chair, and covered his face with his hands.

From abroad stole sounds of the awakening world. The heavy lumbering and grating of wagons and carts came from Welford Road, and from the tow-path the dull heavy thuds of clumsy horses' feet.

The man sat an hour in thought, in reverie.

At length Bramwell took down his hands and raised his large eyes, in which there now blazed the fire of intense excitement. "Light!" he cried aloud; "God grant me light!"

He kept his eyes raised. His lips moved, but no words issued from them. An expression of ecstasy was on his face. His cry had not been a cry for light, but a note of gratitude-giving that light had been vouchsafed to him. He was returning thanks.

At length his lips ceased to move, the look of spiritual exaltation left his face, his eyes were gradually lowered, and he rose slowly from his seat.

He stood a minute with his hand on his forehead, and said slowly, "I was thinking of myself only. I have been thinking of myself only all my life. I have, thank God, something else, some one else to think of now! Who am I, or what am I, that I should have expected happiness, complete happiness, bliss? Who am I, or what am I, that I should repine because I suffer? Who am I, or what am I, that I should murmur? My eyes are open at last. My eyes are open, and my heart too. Let me go and look."

He crept noiselessly out of the room to the one in which the boy lay still sleeping.

The chamber was full of the broad full even light of morning in early summer. The window stood open, the noise of the carts and wagons came from Welford Road, and the dull heavy thuds of the clumsy horses' hoofs from the tow-path. The sparrows were twittering and flickering about the cottage on the island. Dull and grimy as the place usually appeared, there was now an air of health and brightness and vigorous life about it which filled and expanded the heart of the recluse.

For years he had felt that he was dead, that his fellowship with man had ceased for ever. His heart was now opened once more.

Who should cast the first stone, the first stone into an open grave, her grave, Kate's grave? His Kate's grave! Not he; O, not he! His young, his beautiful, his darling Kate's grave! His young Kate's grave!

He turned to the bed on which rested the child.

Yes, there lay young Kate, younger than ever he had known her. The beautiful boy! There was her raven hair, there the sweet strange curve of the mouth, there the little hand under the cheek, as Kate used to lie when she slept.

"God give me life and reason for him who is so like what I have lost!" he cried; and circling his arm round the little head, he kissed the sweet strange curve about the little mouth, and burst into tears, the first he had shed for a dozen long years. In his great agony three years ago he had not wept.

The child awoke, smiled, stretched up his little arms, and caught his father round the neck.

"I want to go mother," whimpered the boy when he saw whom he held.

"You cannot go just now, child. But you and I shall go to her one day-in Heaven."

CHAPTER XI.
"CAN I PLAY WITH THAT LITTLE BOY?"

Hetty Layard was not sorry when, upon the morning of Mr. William Crawford's return from the Counters Club, she found a note for her brother Alfred, explaining that he had gone out for an early walk, the weather was so lovely, and that he would not be back until next month, when he hoped to find her and Mr. Layard very well; and thanking her and him for the entertainment afforded him. He, moreover, left her a cheque-one collected the previous day-for a couple of sovereigns, out of which he begged her to take whatever his food had cost and half-a-crown which she was to present from him to Mrs. Grainger.

Miss Layard uttered a little sigh of relief when she put down the note. Every one knows that men are a nuisance about a house, especially men who have no fixed or regular business hours of absence. Men are very well in their own way, which means to the housewife when they are not in her way. A man who is six, eight or ten hours away from home every day, and goes to church twice on Sunday and takes a good long walk between the two services, may not only be tolerated, but enjoyed. But a man who does not get up until ten o'clock and keeps crawling or dashing about the house all day long is an unmitigated and crushing evil. It does not matter whether he wears heavy boots or affects the costume of a sybaritic sloven, and wanders about like a florid and venerable midday ghost in dressing-gown and slippers.

A woman's house is not her own as long as there is a man in it. While enduring the presence of male impertinence she cannot do exactly as she likes. There is at least one room she may not turn topsy-turvy, if the fit takes her. There is no freedom, no liberty. If the man remain quietly in one room, there is the unpleasant feeling that he must be either dead or hungry. A man has very little business to be in the house during day-time unless he is either dead or hungry. If the man does not confine himself to one room he is quite certain to go stumbling over sweeping-brushes and dust-pans in passages where he has no more right to be than a woman behind the counter of a bank or on the magisterial bench. From, say, the o'clock in the morning till four in the afternoon you really can't have too little of a man about a house. Very practical housekeepers prefer not to see their male folk between nine and seven. Undoubtedly, strong-minded women believe that two meals a day and the right to sleep under his own roof of nights is as much as may with advantage to comfort be allowed to man.

But Hetty Layard was not strong-minded at all. She was not over tender-hearted either, though she was as tenderhearted as becomes a young girl of healthy body and mind, one not sicklied over with the pale cast of sentimentalism. She was as bright and cheerful as spring; but all the same, she was not sorry when she found her lodger had fled, and that they were to have the place to themselves for a month.

That day Hetty was to enjoy the invaluable service of Mrs. Grainger from breakfast to tea-time. From that day until Mr. Crawford's next visit Mrs. Grainger was to come only for a couple of hours in the forenoon every day to do the rough work. Mrs. Grainger was childless, and could be spared from her own hearth between breakfast and supper, as her husband took his dinner with him to the works, and had supper and tea together.

"So the unfortunate man has succeeded in getting out of your clutches," said Alfred Layard at his late breakfast, when Hetty told him the news.

"Yes; but he left something behind him. Look." She handed her brother the cheque. "I am to take the price of all he has had out of this, and give half-a-crown to Mrs. Grainger."

Alfred Layard shook his head very gravely. "Hetty, I had, I confess to you, some doubts of this man's sanity; I have no longer any doubt. The man is mad!"

"Considering that we are obliged to find attendance, I think he has been very generous to Mrs. Grainger."

"As mad as a hatter," said the brother sadly.

"If, Alfred, I tell you how much to take out of this, will you send him the change, or is the change to remain over until next time?"

"The miserable man is as mad as a March hare."

"See! This is all I spent for him-twelve and threepence, and that includes a lot of things that will keep till he comes again."

"To think of this poor man trusting a harpy, a lodging-house keeper, with untold gold! O, the pity of it!"

"There are candles and lamp-oil, and tea and soap, and sugar, and other things that will keep, Alfred. You can explain this when you are sending him the change. I suppose it will be best to send him the change. You have his Richmond address?"

"Freddie," said the father, addressing his flaxen-haired, blue-eyed little son at the other side of the table, "when you grow up and are a great big man, don't lodge with your Aunt Hetty. She'd fleece you, my boy. She'd starve you, and she wouldn't leave you a rag to cover you." He shook a warning finger at the boy.

"I shall live always with Aunt Hetty," said the boy stoutly, "and I want more bread-and-butter, please."

"See, my poor child, she is already practising. If she only had her way, she would reduce you to a skeleton in a week."

"Alfred, I wish you'd be sensible for a minute. This is business. I really don't know what to do, and you ought to tell me. Will you look at this list, and see if it is properly made out?" she said pouting. She had a pretty way of affecting to pout and then laughing at the idea of her being in a bad humour.

Her brother took the slip of paper and glanced at it very gravely.

"May I ask," said he, putting down the slip on the breakfast cloth, "whether this man has had his boots polished here?"

"Of course he had; twice-three times I think."

"And had he free and unimpeded use of condiments, such as salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard?"

"Yes. You don't think he could eat without salt, do you?"

"Perhaps-perhaps he even had PICKLES?"

"I think he had some pickles."

"Then, Hetty" – he rose, and, buttoning up his coat, made signs of leaving-"I am going to find an auctioneer to sell up the furniture. We are ruined."

"Ah, Alfred, like a good fellow, help me!" she pleaded, coming to him and putting her hand on his arm. "What do you mean by asking all these silly questions about blacking and vinegar?"

"Not one, Hetty, not one of the items I have named is charged in the bill, and I am a pauper, pauperised by your gross carelessness, by the shamefully lax way in which you have kept my books. What do you think would become of the great corporation I serve if our accounts were kept in so criminally neglectful a manner? Why, the Welford Gas Company would be in liquidation in a month! Suppose we treated ammonia lightly; suppose we gave all our coke to the Mission to the Blacks for distribution among the negroes; suppose we made a present of our tar to the Royal Academicians to make aniline colours for pictures to be seen only by night; suppose we gave all our gas to aeronauts who wanted to stare the unfortunate man in the moon out of countenance; suppose we supplied all our customers with dry meters, Hetty; suppose, I say, we supplied all our customers with dry meters, where should we be? Where on earth should we be?"

"Perhaps not on earth at all, Alfred, but gone up to heaven with the aeronauts. Do be sensible for a moment. I want you to tell me if we are to keep the change until next time or send it after him?"

"Have you given that half a-crown to Mrs. Grainger?"

"Yes."

"O, you prodigal simpleton! What need was there to give it? Why did you not keep it and buy a furbelow? No doubt you were afraid that when this man came back he would find out all about it. Nonsense! Why, we could dismiss Mrs. Grainger, and if she came loafing about the place, nothing in the world could be easier than to push her into the canal. I like her husband, and it would please me to do him a good turn."

There was a knock at the door, and the charwoman put in her head.

"Come in, Mrs. Grainger. What is it?" said Hetty, going towards the door.

Mrs. Grainger, in her lilac cotton dress and large apron, advanced a step into the room. Her sleeves were rolled up above the elbows of her red thick arms. She was a stout, fair-faced woman of fifty. She had not a single good feature in her face. But her expression was wholly honest and not unkindly.

Layard could not help looking from her to Hetty and contrasting the joyous youth and grace, the fresh colour and golden-brown hair of the girl, and the dull, dead, unintelligent drab appearance of the woman.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Layard," said the charwoman, "but you were talking to me yesterday and the day before about the poor lonely gentleman that lives on Boland's Ait."

"Yes. Well, what about him? Have you found out anything fresh?" said Hetty with interest.

"Only that he isn't alone any longer."

"You don't mean to say he has got married and has just brought his wife home," said Layard, affecting intense astonishment and incredulity.

"No, sir," said the woman, somewhat abashed by his manner. "Not a wife, sir, but a child; a little boy about the size of Master Freddie there."

"Bless my soul, wonders will never cease! But I say, Hetty, I must be off. If the Cham of Tartary and the great sea-serpent came to live on that island, and had asked me to swim across and have tiffin and blubber with them, I couldn't go now. I must be off to the works. Hetty, we'll resume the consideration of the cruet-stand when I come back this evening. Let all those matters stand till then. The delay will give us an opportunity of charging interest for the money in hand."

He hastened from the room, and in a minute was out of the house and hastening up Crawford Street, with the long streamers of his beard blowing over his shoulders.

"Where did you see the child from, Mrs. Grainger?" asked Hetty, when her brother disappeared up the street. "From Mr. Crawford's room?"

"No, miss; you can't see into the timber-yard on the island from Mr. Crawford's room on account of the wall. But you can see over the wall from your own room, miss; and 'twas from your own room I saw the child. And he was carrying on, too, with that child, miss," said the woman, coming further into the room, and busying herself about clearing away the breakfast-things.

She was not exactly idle or lazy; but no living woman would rather scrub and scour than chat, particularly when paid by time and not by piece.

"What do you mean by 'carrying on?' What was he doing?"

"Well, he was kissing, and cuddling, and hugging the child, more like a mother with her baby than a man with a child. The boy is quite as big as little Master Freddie, there, and the poor gentleman seemed to be pretending the great boy couldn't walk without help, for he led him by the hand up and down the yard, and when he did let go of him for a moment he kept his hand over the little chap's head, like to be ready to catch hold of him if he was falling or stumbled. A great big boy, as big as Master Freddie there; it's plain to be seen he's not used to children," said Mrs. Grainger scornfully; for, although she had no children of her own, she was sympathetic and cordial with little ones, and often looked after a neighbour's roomful of babies while the mother went out marketing or took the washing, or mangling, or sewing home.

"Perhaps it is his own child," said Hetty, as she helped to put the breakfast-things on the tray.

"His own child? Of course it isn't. How could it be? Why, if it was his own child he'd be used to it. He'd know better than to go on with such foolery as guiding it with his hand along a level yard. He doesn't know anything about children, no more than the ground they are walking on."

"Perhaps he is afraid it might fall into the water. I'll wash up the breakfast things myself, Mrs. Grainger."

"Very well, miss. Afraid it might fall into the water! Why, the child couldn't. They're in the timber-yard, and there's a wall all around it, and neither of the gates is open."

"Well," said Hetty, as the woman left the room carrying the tray, "maybe he is looking after the child for some friend; perhaps the child has only come on a visit to him."

"Look after a child for a friend! Is he the sort of man to look after a child for a friend?" Mrs. Grainger called out from the kitchen. "What friend would ask a man like him to mind a child? I'd as soon ask a railway-engine or a mangle to look after a child of mine, if I had one. Besides, if the child belongs to a friend, what does he mean by kissing and cuddling it?"

"I give it up," said the girl. "I own I can make nothing of it. What do you think, Mrs. Grainger? You know more about this strange man and his strange ways than I do."

"I think," said Mrs. Grainger, in the voice of one uttering an authoritative decision, "the whole thing is a mystery, and I can make nothing of it. But you, miss, go up and look. If you want to see him, he is in the timber-yard. Go to your room, miss, and have a peep. You may be able to make something of it; I can't."

"I will," said the girl; "I shall be down in a few minutes." And she ran out of the sitting-room, upstairs with a light springy step, and the murmured burden of a song on her lips.

She went to the open window of her own room and looked out.

It was close on noon, and the blazing light of early summer filled all the place beneath her. The view had no charms of its own, but the fact that she was above the ground and away from immediate contact with the sordid earth had a purifying effect upon the scene. Then, again, what place is it that can look wholly evil when shone upon by the unclouded sun of fresh May?

In front and to right and left the canal flamed in the sunlight. At the other side of the water lay a sloping bank of lush green grass, beyond that a road, and at the other side of the road a large yard, in which a great number of gipsy-vans, and vans belonging to cheap-Jacks and to men who remove furniture, were packed.

So far, if there was nothing to delight, there was nothing to displease the spectator. In fact, from a scenic point of view the colour was very good, for you had the flaming canal, the dark green of the grassy bank, and the red and yellow and blue caravans of the gipsies and the cheap-Jacks and the people who remove furniture.

Beyond this yard there spread a vast extent of small, mean, ill-kept houses which were not picturesque, and which suggested painful thoughts concerning the squalor and poverty of the people who lived in them.

To the right stretched the tow-path leading to Camberwell, to the left a row of stores, and only a hundred yards off was the empty ice-house. To the right lay Leeham, invisible from where the girl stood, and nearer and visible a row of stores and a stone-yard.

In front of her was Boland's. Ait, and in the old timber-yard of the islet Francis Bramwell walking up and down, holding the hand of a boy of between three and four in his hands, as though the child had walked for the first time within this month of May.

Mrs. Grainger was right. This man, whose face Hetty could not see, for he bent low over the child, was treating the boy as though he were no more than a year or fifteen months old. He was also displaying towards him a degree of affection altogether inconsistent with the supposition that the youngster was merely the son of a friend.

The two were walking up and down the yard, the right hand of the child in the left hand of the man, the right hand of the man at one time resting lightly on the boy's head, at another on the boy's shoulder. The man's whole mind seemed centred on his charge. He never once raised his head to look around. No doubt the thought that he might be observed never occurred to him. For two years he had lived on that island, and never until now arose a chance of any one seeing him when he was in the yard; for the only windows that overlooked it were those of Crawford's House, and that had been unoccupied until three days ago.

Suddenly it occurred to Hetty that she was intruding upon this stranger's privacy. Of course she was free to look out of her own window as long as she liked; but then it was obvious Bramwell thought there was no spectator, or, at all events, he had not bargained in his mind for a spectator.

A faint flush came into her cheek, and she was on the point of drawing back when a loud shrill voice sounded at her side:

"Aunt Hetty, Aunt Hetty, I want to see the little boy!"

The girl started, and then stood motionless, for the recluse below had suddenly looked up, and was gazing in amazement at the girl and child in the window above him.

The man and boy in the yard were both bare-headed. Bramwell raised his open hand above his eyes to shield them from the glare of the sky, that he might see the better.

Hetty drew back a pace, as though she had been discovered in a shameful act. Her colour deepened, but she would not go altogether away from the window. That would be to admit she had been doing something wrong.

"Aunt Hetty," cried Freddie, in the same shrill loud voice, "can I play with that little boy down there? I have no one to play with here."

The upturned face of the man smiled, and the voice of the man said, "Come down, my little fellow, and play with this boy. He is just like yourself-he has no one to play with. You will let him come, please? I will take the utmost care of him."

"I-I'll see," stammered Hetty, quite taken aback.

"You will let him come? O, pray do. My little fellow has no companion but me," said the deep, full, rich pleading voice of the man.

In her confusion Hetty said, "If it's safe. If he can get across."

"O, it's quite safe. I will answer for the child. I'll push across the stage in a moment, and fetch the child. There is plenty of room for them to play here, and absolutely no danger."