Kitabı oku: «An Isle of Surrey: A Novel», sayfa 9

"O, no! There will be no need for me to go out again. I have all arranged over there. I have an intelligent and energetic agent there. I will remain at home attending to the interests of the company (of which I shall, of course, be chairman), and hunting up markets for my fibre. We shall very likely have to leave this place and live in town, take a good house in Bayswater or Kensington, for we must do a little entertaining. You would not mind changing Richmond for Bayswater or Kensington?"

"Nothing could please me better than to be of any use I can to you; and if my health keeps good, as good as it is now, I could manage the entertaining very well indeed."

"You grow stronger every day. I have not a particle of fear on the score of your health. I dare not have any fear of that, Nellie. You must not even refer to such a thing again. When we have taken that new place I lay you a bunch of roses you will dance at our house-warming, ay, out-dance all the young girls in the place."

She sighed, and took one of his hands in both hers and smiled. She had never dreamed of a lover, but if she had dreamed of one in her latter years he surely would be such a one as this. How sensible and considerate and affectionate he was! If he had been more ardent, more enthusiastic, she might fear his displays were insincere, that although he loved her then, he would tire of her soon after they were married, and, she being so much older than he, take his ardours and transports to the feet of younger and more beautiful goddesses.

But with such as he there could be no such fear. Raptures might please a girl, and be excused in a young man towards a girl, but from any man to her they would be absurd and repulsive. It would be impossible to believe them sincere, and the mere idea that a lover's words and actions were not the outcome of candid feeling would be shocking, destructive of all sympathy and self-respect.

But William, her William, as she now called him, was perfect in all he said and all he did; and of one thing she felt quite sure: that if ever a cloud came between them in their married life, it would arise from some defect in her nature, not in his.

When old Crawford made his will a couple of years before his death he did not wish to place any restraint upon her as to marriage after he had gone, except that she was to keep his name. He had made all his money himself; he had worked hard for it, allowing himself no luxuries and little comfort for the best part of life, and deferring marriage until he was well on in years and had given up active business. He had no child, no relative he knew of in the world. He would have welcomed a son with joy. Nothing would have pleased him more than to think that the name which he had raised up out of poverty into modest affluence would survive and flourish when he was no more.

But a son was denied to him. All hope of an heir was gone. He loved his wife in his own way, and he would not fetter her future with an imposed lifelong widowhood. She was to be left free to wed again if her choice lay that way. She had been a true and tender wife to him, the one source of peaceful happiness in his old age. She should not feel the dead hand of a niggard; she should have all his money, but she should keep his name. His name should not die out wholly even when she ceased to be. He should leave her all the income from his property for her life, or as long as she retained the name he had given her. If she changed that name the name should not die. His money should go to Guy's Hospital, and be known, while that great handmaiden of the sick poor survived, as the Crawford Bequest. When she followed him to the grave the money should go finally to the hospital, and be of bounteous service to the indigent sick and a perpetual living monument to his name.

"Mrs. Crawford," said Mr. Brereton, her lawyer, when he came to draw up the necessary documents in connection with the marriage of the widow and Goddard, "has only a life interest in the estate. It goes to Guy's Hospital upon her death."

"Is it necessary for us to take further into consideration that remote and most melancholy contingency?" asked Goddard.

"No, no," said Mr. Brereton hastily. "But business is business, and I thought it only right to mention the matter to you."

Goddard merely bowed, as though dismissing the horrible thought from amongst them.

Goddard settled upon her ten thousand pounds.

"I did not know you had so much money, William," said she, "but surely it is a waste of law expenses to settle anything on me? In the course of nature, even if I were not ailing, I must go first."

When he told her of the settlement he had made they were alone.

"I haven't the money now, but it will come as a first charge on my general estate when the company is floated. As to my outliving you, we do not know. Who can tell? It is well always to be prepared for the unforeseen, the unforeseeable. And as to which of us shall live the longer, let us speak or think no more of that. Let us tell ourselves that such a consideration belongs to the remote future. Let us devote ourselves to the happy" – he kissed her-"happy present."

At the time William Crawford, lately William Goddard, returned from his first visit to Welford they had been about three months married, and Mrs. Crawford's old affliction had gradually been stealing back upon her.

CHAPTER XVI.
AT PLAY

When Francis Bramwell, on the morning Crawford left Welford for Richmond, found himself with little Freddie in his arms inside the gate of the timber-yard he set the child down, and having closed the gate, fetched little Frank out of the cottage.

The two children ran to one another. If they had been girls they would have kissed; being boys, they had things too weighty on their minds to allow of wasting time over such a frivolous and useless thing as kissing.

"Come into the van," cried Frank, leading the way at a trot to the old wheelless barrow.

"It's not a van, but a boat," said Freddie, as they scrambled into it.

"It's a van," said the host, who was dark and small, and wiry; while the other was tall and fair, and rounded. "Look at the horse," pointing between the shafts or handles at nothing.

"But a boat has a horse, too," cried Freddie, "and this is a boat. Look at the smoke coming up the funnel!" He held his arm erect to do duty as a funnel.

"It's a van and a boat together," said Frank, trying to compromise matters in any way so that they might get on, and not keep vegetating there all day.

"But if it's a van," said Freddie, lowering the funnel, "it will sink in the water, and we shall get drowned in the canal; and I'm not allowed to get drowned. Aunt Hetty says I mustn't, and Mrs. Grainger says I can't, for it is only dead dogs that get drowned in the canal." Freddie knew more about boats and the canal than he did about vans. They had lived near the canal before coming to their new house.

Frank, on the other hand, knew very little of boats or canals. "Well, let us play it's an elephant," suggested he, making a second attempt to arrange matters and get to work. Time was being wasted in a barren academic dispute, and time was precious.

"But you can't get into an elephant."

"Well, a whale." He was desperate, and drew on his memory of a Scripture story-book with coloured plates.

"What's a whale?" Freddie's library did not contain that book.

"A great big fish, with a roar as big as a steamboat whistle." Frank was combining imagination and experience of a voyage across the Atlantic.

"Hurrah!" cried Freddie wildly. "It's a steamboat; and I'm the man that whistles," and he uttered a shrill scream.

"We're off!" shouted the other boy, frantically seizing his cap and waving it like mad. The fact that you ought to shriek, and shriek frequently, when playing at steamboat, and that there was no satisfactory precedent for shrieking when you were in a whale's inside, overcame Frank completely, and he at once handselled his new craft with a shriek of overwhelming vigour and piercing force.

Bramwell leaned against a wall at the further end of the yard, and watched the children at play. He had no fear or concern for their safety. No danger could befall them here; the walls were high, and he had seen that the doors were firm and secure. He was experiencing the birth of a new life. Every word and shout and cry of his boy seemed to put fresh strength and motive into his body and brain.

A week ago he had had absolutely nothing to live for.

Now he was gradually recovering the zest of life. He felt that he had not only to eat and breathe, but to work and plan as well. He had regarded that islet as a graveyard, and that cottage as a tomb. The islet had now become the playground of his child, and the cottage the home and sanctuary of his boy.

A week ago he had had nothing to think of but his miserable and wrecked self. Now he had nothing to think of but his young and innocent and beautiful son. Himself and his own wretched life had died and been buried, and from the ashes of his dead self had risen the child full of youth and health and vital comeliness.

A week ago he had felt old beyond the mortal span of man, and worn beyond the thought of struggle, almost beyond the power of endurance. Now he felt less old than his years, with dexterity and strength for the defence of his child, an irresistible athlete.

He had not begun to plan for the future yet, but plans seemed easy when he should will to consider them. His spirit was in a tumult of delight and anticipation. He did not care to define his thoughts, and he could not express them in words. He had been raised from a vault to a hilltop; and the magnificence and splendour of the prospect overcame him with joy. He sat upon his pinnacle, satisfied with the sense of enlargement and air. He knew that what he contemplated was made up of details, but he had no eye for detail now. It would be time enough to examine later. The vast flat horizon and the boundless blue above his head, and the intoxicating lightness and purity of the atmosphere, were all that he took heed of now.

A week ago the present had been a dull, dark, straight, unsheltered road, leading nowhere, with no spot of interest, no resting-place, no change of light. His thoughts had been an agony to him. The present then weighed him down like a cope of lead. To-day he dallied in a land of gardens and vineyards, and arbours and fountains, and streams and lakes, and statues and temples, where the air was heavy with perfumes and rich with the waverings of melodious song. Through this land he would wander for a while, healing his tired eyes with the sight of the trees and the flowers and the temples, soothing his weary travel-worn feet with the delicious coolness of the water of the streams, and drinking in through his hungry ears the voices of the birds and the tones of the harpists and the words of the unseen singers in the green alleys and marble fanes.

He had eschewed poetry as an art; he was enjoying it now as a gift.

At last he awoke from his reverie, shook himself, and went up to the old barrow, in which the children were still playing with unabated vigour.

"Well," he said, "where is the steamboat going now?"

"'Tisn't a steamboat now," said Freddie, who was the more ready and free of speech; "it's a gas-house, and I'm charging the retorts. Frank never saw them charging the retorts, but I did often with my father."

"Then Frank shall go one day and see."

"I'll take him," said Freddie, "I know Mr. Grainger and nearly all the men. When they draw the retorts they throw water on the coke, and then such steam! Aunt Hetty won't let me throw water on the fire. If she did, I could make as good steam as the men, and then we'd have plenty of gas. Shouldn't we?"

"Plenty, indeed. It seems to me your Aunt Hetty is very good to you."

"Sometimes," said the boy cautiously. "But she won't let me make gas. Mrs. Grainger let me throw some water on the fire last night before I went to bed."

"And did you get any gas?"

"Lots, only it all went up the chimney and about the kitchen; and there are no pipes for it in our new house. There were in the old house. If you haven't pipes there's no use in making gas, for it gets wet and won't burn. Have you pipes?"

"No."

"If you had pipes I'd make some for you. They make tar at the works, too."

"Indeed!"

"I can make tar."

"Can you? And how do you make tar, Freddie?"

"With water, and blacklead and soap. Only Aunt Hetty won't let me. I'll show Frank how to make tar."

"I'd be very much obliged to you if you would."

"I can make lots of things, and I'll show Frank how to make all of them. Have you got a cat?"

"I'm sorry to say we have not. Perhaps you could make one for us?"

"Make a cat! No; I couldn't. Nobody could make a cat."

"Why not?"

"Because they scrape you awfully. We had a cat in the other house, and we took it to this house and it ran away, and Mrs. Grainger says it will never come back. And it needn't have run away, because when I grow big I am going to fish in the canal and catch fish for it. Cats like fish."

"And can you make fish?"

"I never tried. The water in our house is clean water, and no use for making fish. You can only make fish out of canal water."

"O, I see."

"Have you a canary?"

"No."

"We had; but Jack, that was our cat's name, ate the canary's head off, and then he couldn't fly, although his wings were all right. Jack never ate his wings. I think Jack is gone back to eat the wings."

"He must have been a wicked cat to eat the poor bird!"

"No, he wasn't wicked, for he was all black except his nose, and that was white; and Mrs. Grainger says a black cat isn't wicked when he has a white nose."

"And did you cry when Jack went away?"

"No, I didn't; but I often cried when we had him, for he used to scrape me when I wanted to make a horse or him to tow my Noah's ark."

"And did you ever get him to tow it?"

"Only once, and then he towed it only a little bit. And then he jumped out of the window with it, and we could not find my Noah's ark ever again. And father said he must have eaten the Noah's ark as well as the canary, and that was how he got his nails!"

"But he scraped you before he ate your ark?"

"Yes, but there was a toy-shop near our other house, and Jack would steal anything. I told Mrs. Grainger, and she said that she once knew a toy-shop cat, and the toy-shop people gave it away, and it wouldn't eat anything but monkeys on sticks and hairy lambs, and the people had to choke it, as they were too poor to get it its proper food."

"Mrs. Grainger seems to be a very remarkable person."

"She isn't; she's Mr. Grainger's wife. Grainger has no clothes on him when he's at the works, and Mrs. Grainger has a wart on her forehead. Mrs. Grainger told me the reason Mr. Grainger doesn't wear any clothes, or hardly any, when he's at the works is because he's so proud of his skin; he doesn't wear suspenders, but keeps his trousers up with a belt when he's not at the works. But at home, you would think he's an African black; but Mrs. Grainger says he isn't. Father gives Mrs. Grainger his old boots-"

"That is very good of your father."

"When they're worn out."

"Well, is the retort charged?"

All this time the boy was working hard at filling an imaginary scoop with coal, and pouring the coal from it into imaginary retorts. Frank was sitting on the edge of the barrow watching him intently.

"O, yes. They're all charged now."

"Well, I must leave you for a little while. You will be good boys when I am away. Take care of yourselves."

"O, yes!"

"And, Freddie, you will teach Frank to be a good boy?"

"Oh, yes, I'll teach him that, too! But I must have a book."

"Must have a book? You don't mean to say you know how to read?"

"No, but the way to be a good boy is to sit down on a chair at a table and look at pictures in a book. I hate books. Frank, it's Noah's ark now and we're the beasts."

The man moved away, and entered the cottage. He felt elated to an extraordinary degree.

For more than two years he had been dwelling alone with blighting memories. Yesterday and to-day he was experiencing sensations. Something was now entering his life. Formerly everything had been going out, going out from a life already empty.

That day he had been confused and put out by so simple a thing as that girl's invitation to spend an hour in a house not a hundred yards from his own. It was the first invitation of the kind he had received since his voluntary exile from the world. The world had been dead to him. He had almost forgotten there was such a state of existence as that in which ordinary people live. All his own experience seemed no more real than the memory of a dream, out of which the light and colour were fading slowly but surely.

The invitation to Crawford's House had for him made the fading half-forgotten world spring out of its dim retirement into light before his eyes. It suddenly forced upon his mind the fact that there were bright and happy people still moving about in the streets and fields. She, for instance, the girl who had spoken to him, was bright and seemed happy; very bright and very happy, now that he recalled her face and words and manner.

There were thousands in the world as bright and happy as she. Thousands, nay, millions.

Were there millions in the world as bright and happy as she? Hardly; for she was as bright a being as he had ever met in his life. No doubt he thought this because hers was the first sunny face of woman he had seen for a long time. For a time, that looking back now seemed immemorial: he had been dwelling in the gloomy caverns of Pluto; the voice of his boy called him forth from the hideous bowels of the earth, and, lo! no sooner did he emerge from darkness than the first being he saw was this Hebe.

But stay! What was this she had said to him? He had been confused and dull-headed at the time. She had confused him by asking him to do her a favour. Of late he had not been asked by any one to grant a favour. He had lost all intercourse with gracious ways.

O, yes! he remembered now. She had invited him to go over and spend an hour with her brother. And what folly! he had promised. He must have been stupid when he told her he would go. Why, if he went, who would mind Frank? The child could not be left in the cottage by himself.

In due time, Mrs. Grainger, whose services had been engaged for that day, called for young Freddie. Bramwell bore the boy along the stage and placed him gently in that good woman's arms. While crossing the bay he left Frank in the timber-yard; but when he came back he took his own son in his arms and carried him into the cottage.

CHAPTER XVII.
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."