Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 701», sayfa 4

THE ROMANCE OF A LODGING

IN TWO CHAPTERS. – CHAP. I

'Where to, ma'am?' inquired cabby as he opened the door of his vehicle to a lady and her son who had just arrived by the evening train at Victoria Station.

'I want apartments somewhere in the neighbourhood of Chelsea; drive on until you find them: they are procurable, I suppose?' the lady replied as she took her seat.

'I do hope we may find a lodging,' she remarked to her companion, after they had been driving what appeared to her a very long time. The lad made no reply, being of a phlegmatic temperament, that finds speech an exertion unless distinctly necessary.

The lateness of the hour together with the influx of visitors, owing to the London season being then in full swing, made the search a difficult one; they were about to give up its continuance and go to an hotel, when the cabman good-naturedly proposed making one more attempt, and drove down a fresh street. Stopping at a baker's shop on the way, he invited the assistance of those serving, as it was growing too dark to discern the cards of advertisement.

They directed him to a private house in a street adjoining, but added: 'The chances are they are let; still you might just as well try, as Mrs Griffiths has a yearly lodger who allows her to sublet sometimes; perhaps he is away now.'

'Shall we chance it, ma'am?' inquired the cabman.

'Do; I am so weary. She may be able to give us a corner for the night at least.'

When they reached the house, Mrs Griffiths – late cook in a nobleman's family, who had married the footman – appeared, and in answer to the appeal, asked hesitatingly: 'For how long?'

'We should take them for a week of course,' said the lady.

'I cannot let for so long,' she replied, after a brief calculation; 'but I can accommodate you for a couple of days, if you please; that will give you time to find other rooms.'

'Thank you very much,' said the wearied traveller gratefully, as she followed the landlady into a good-sized room on the right of the entrance-hall, and begged for lights and tea as soon as Mrs Griffiths could make it convenient to send them.

'How very fortunate we are to have found a night's lodging,' she said to the lad, who now joined her. 'I think I see an easy-chair in that corner; what a comfort!' and she sat down to rest, removing some of her heavy wraps as she spoke. 'Now at least we shall have breathing-time to consider what is best to be done after your examinations are over. I can go in search of rooms to-morrow while you are at them. I wish she would hasten with the light and tea; this darkness is oppressive. Where are you, Fred?'

'Here,' he replied, from the opposite side of the room. 'Can I do anything for you? I've seen to the luggage and paid the cabman, and now am quite ready to do justice to some tea.'

They were soon put out of their discomfort by the entrance of the landlady, bearing a handsome lamp which gave a brilliant light.

'I've brought you my gentleman's lamp, ma'am; he is away just now; that is why I have been able to accommodate you; for he's most obliging, and don't mind my letting his rooms – this one and the one inside behind the folding-doors, together with the one I have given the young gentleman up-stairs, which belongs to his man-servant. May I ask what name, ma'am?'

'Mrs Arlington; and the young gentleman is my son.'

Mrs Griffiths glanced at the tall elegant woman in widow's weeds, and thought to herself: 'She looks more fit to be his sister than his mother; and is a sweet-looking lady anyway, whoever she is;' and she was glad she had taken her in and her son, if such he were. And then she bustled out of the room to prepare their meal.

As soon as they were alone, Mrs Arlington gazed around the room indifferently. It was of the usual stamp of lodging-house apartment, furnished according to the taste and means of those who take to letting for a livelihood. A dismal horse-hair suite were the chief articles of furniture, supplemented by others which stood out in contrast against the horse-hair background – a good piano, an harmonium, a bookcase with glass doors filled with a choice selection of the best works, and an easel. On the walls hung several good paintings, one of which was the portrait of a beautiful young girl.

'Some artist must live here, I imagine,' said the lad, as he went from picture to picture examining them, finally stopping before the portrait of the young girl, that hung immediately over the chair in which Mrs Arlington sat.

'I daresay,' she replied weariedly, as though it were a speculation which could not possibly concern her; and too glad of repose to be roused to any sense of curiosity upon the subject.

'Just look at this, mother; it is so pretty.'

'I cannot, Fred; I am too exhausted to turn round. I cannot possibly think of or look at any thing until I have had a cup of tea. – Ah! here it comes. Go and pour it out for me, and never mind the picture. But I forget. I am unfeeling and unnatural to tell you not to mind, for you are just at an age when young girls are beginning to possess a powerful attraction for you; but you must put the pleasing delusions out of your head until you have passed your examination for Sandhurst; that is the move-in-chief towards which all your energies must now be directed. I long to see your poor father's wishes fulfilled; and shall not feel quite contented until you are gazetted into the army; then my trust will have been accomplished. How many years is it now, Fred, since you first became my child?'

'Ten.'

'Yes; you were a little fellow when I first took you in hand as your governess, and you learnt to love me so well that your father asked me to be your mother.'

'Was that why you married him?' inquired the lad, as he brought her a cup of tea. 'Didn't you care for him for his own sake? You always seemed to.'

'Yes, since you could observe; but not at first, Fred – not at first. I had no heart for any one or anything just at that time but mayhap for a little child like yourself, who was motherless and needed tenderness. It was just such an uncared-for flower which alone could have saved me then, for I had gone through a bitter sorrow, born of my own caprice and foolishness; and through it I lost what could never be mine again. I must have died of despair, had I not set myself the task of working out my wrong-doing in atonement, if not to the person – that was impossible – at least to some one of God's creatures who might need me; and it was at that very time I took up the paper containing your father's advertisement for a governess. It served me for a suggestion and a field wherein I might find that for which I sought. I had never been a governess; but I determined to become one, notwithstanding the opposition of my family, who could not comprehend, and strongly disapproved of my taking such a step; but I carried my point through our doctor telling my mother she was wrong to oppose me, as my mind needed distraction after all I had gone through; and that my choice, so far from being reproved, ought rather to be commended, since I had preferred it to the injurious remedy of a round of amusements, so invariably prescribed for distraught spirits; which need instead the healthy medicine of some reasonable duty to restore them to their former mental composure. Thus I became free to answer your poor father's advertisement, and was accepted by him for the post, oddly enough. And that is how I became your mother, Fred. I have tried to fulfil my trust; perhaps that has atoned.'

'Atoned for what?'

'Ah, never mind! I was only a young girl then, vain and imperious, because I found I possessed a most dangerous power – the power of making whom I would love me – a precious gift, which I did not know how to value rightly until – But never mind. I hate recalling by-gones. Life is such a perpetual stumbling up hill with most of us, it is no use retarding our journey by useless retrospection; so when I am inclined to indulge in vain regrets, I always think of that heart-stirring line of the poet's, "Act, act in the living present;" and therefore, Fred, please to cut me another slice of bread and butter and give me another cup of tea, my child;' and she laughed at the application she had given to her words, which was commonplace enough to destroy all their poetry.

The way in which the boy watched and waited on her, and the look of quiet amusement and interest on his face as she spoke, shewed how thoroughly she had won his heart, and was indeed his mother, sister, friend, all in one. Yes; whatever might have been the fault of her girlhood, her subsequent years had fully atoned for it; she had used her gifts rightly in the case of her step-son, and his father, who had died about a year ago, blessing her for her unwearied devotion, and the happiness she had given him, leaving her the undisputed guardianship of his only child.

As soon as their meal was concluded she went into the adjoining room, divided by folding-doors from the one in which they had been sitting. It bore no traces of a previous occupant like the other, save for a few perfectly executed pictures which hung above the mantel-piece. She had her travelling bag in her hand as she entered, which she was about to deposit upon a table, when her eye caught sight of one of the pictures, and the bag fell to the ground as she started forward to examine the pencil-sketch.

'Impossible!' she exclaimed; and she gazed around the room helplessly, to see if she could by any means find aught therein that would throw a light upon the mystery before her; but all was void: tables, chairs, wardrobe, and dressing appliances were what met her gaze; while, like one fascinated, she continued standing before the sketch as if spell-bound.

'Are you coming soon?' inquired Fred, knocking, who, notwithstanding his disinclination to free converse, could never bear her long out of his sight when they were together.

'I will be with you in a moment,' she returned, recalling herself with no slight effort.

'What is the matter?' he exclaimed as soon as she joined him. 'You look as white as a ghost; you are over-tired, I suspect: had you not better get to sleep as soon as you can?' he inquired with concern, as he noticed that she was suffering from an amount of nervous exhaustion that alarmed him.

'It is nothing,' she returned: 'the journey was fatiguing;' and then her eye stole round the room with suppressed interest.

'Is that the pretty girl you wanted me to admire, Fred, just now when I was too hungry to oblige you?'

'Yes. Is she not a picture? What I should call a "stunner!"'

'When shall I ever knock the school-boy out of you, Fred?' she cried, laughing. 'You are a long way off from that refined phraseology I am labouring to inculcate. But you are right in this case. It is a beautiful picture, of what I should call a detestable character. She is, as you remark, a "stunner." There is not the least soul in her face; nothing but proud self-consciousness, as if she were saying: "I am a beauty, and I know it." Poor thing! she is to be pitied, if that is a true picture, and it looks as if it were.'

'How is she to be pitied? I don't see that at all.'

'Because you can't see yet, Fred, from your brief study of her face, that a girl like that may learn to feel at some time or another; and when she does, the lesson is generally such a painful one that few have the courage to rise above it. The artist who drew her was in no lenient mood; he could detect nothing in her but the stern facts which possibly made him suffer,' she added in an undertone, accompanied by a long-drawn sigh. – 'I wish we had a book to read; try the bookcase; it may be unlocked.'

He did as she bade him; and shook his head negatively as he went first to the bookcase and then to the piano.

'"The gentleman," as our landlady calls him, is a cautious man evidently,' said Mrs Arlington. 'Well, we must not find fault with him, for his amiability towards his landlady has secured us a night's repose. I wonder if he is the artist of these pictures? I am ashamed of my curiosity, but I have a wish to know. Could you be diplomatic, Fred, and find out for me?'

'Why not ask the landlady straight out?'

'I dislike to appear so inquisitive, as it is of no moment to us who he is.'

'I don't know that. If he is an artist, he would no doubt be much obliged to us for asking. Act on that presumption. You admire the pictures, and may possibly wish to order some, or to sit for your portrait.'

'How magnificent you are, Fred! We look a likely pair – don't we? – to order pictures or sit for portraits! A hundred guineas or so are nothing to us; are they, my poor boy? Rein in your fancy. I am afraid of you in this respect, when you are once fairly launched on your own resources, as I cannot always be at your elbow, to control your lavish ideas, and our means are not large.'

'Well, I was only suggesting, you know, a ready mode of solving your difficulty about finding out who is the artist of these pictures,' said the boy as he wished her good-night.

As soon as he was gone, Mrs Arlington went cautiously round the room making a minute survey of every article, with a look of intense interest in her face, as though she were searching for a clue she could not find. Every vase on the mantel-piece she subjected to a close scrutiny, to see if possibly a card or old envelope lay concealed therein. But everything was dumb, and refused to bear the least witness as to the name or calling of the previous occupant. Quite foiled, she sat down and fell into a profound reverie, which continued until the landlady knocked at the door, and entered to inquire if there was anything more she wanted, and when she would like her breakfast in the morning.

'Thank you; nothing more to-night; and breakfast at nine. By the way, have you any other lodgers in the house?'

'Yes, ma'am; the first floors are taken by a lady and gentleman for a month, leastways so they told me when they came; but the lady has got a maid who is that vexing I can't abear her; and I would be glad to give them notice to go if I could be sure of another party for the same time; but you see, ma'am, we who live by letting can't afford to have our rooms empty.'

'You cannot let me have these rooms, you say, beyond a couple of days?'

'No, ma'am. Mr Meredith – the gentleman – takes them by the year on the condition that they are always to be ready for him when he writes; and only this afternoon he sent me a letter to say he would be here on Wednesday.'

'Mr Meredith, did you say, was his name? An artist, I suppose? if I may judge by the pictures and the easel.'

'Dear, no, ma'am!' exclaimed the landlady, as if a discreditable imputation had been cast upon the character of her lodger by the question. 'He's got no call to earn his living, not he! He's got a place in the country, which he has let for I don't know how many years, and he keeps himself free to come and go as he likes. Such a fine noble-looking gentleman as he is! He took these rooms of me some eight years back, when I first married and set up housekeeping, because he said he liked the quiet of the place; and he keeps them by the year; but he lets me take in lodgers when he is away, so long as I don't bring children into the rooms. He has been here for a whole year at a spell; and then again he is off, and maybe we won't see him for months at a time. He is a most excellent lodger as ever was; and his man a nice civil, handy fellow, with none of them airs and graces as these minxes of girls give themselves; but then, "Like master, like man," say I, and I've always found it so.'

'And your first floors, you tell me, you would be glad to re-let, were you sure of another tenant?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'Very well then; as I have no maid likely to disturb you, I will take them for a month certain, if I can have them on Wednesday morning; and I will further pay you the week's rent you will have to forfeit by giving the present lodgers notice to quit summarily; but remember I only take them on this one condition. It is now Monday night, and I must move in on Wednesday morning.'

'I'll manage it for you, ma'am, even if I get a summons for it.'

'You shall be no loser in any case; I will pay all expenses;' and she drew out her purse to deposit a week's rent in advance.

'Never mind it, ma'am; you look a lady as one may trust, and I'll see that you are in the rooms on Wednesday morning. I can easily put the blame on Mr Meredith, if they become very unpleasant, by saying he takes the rooms by the year; they are not to know whether he may not want the first floors this time.'

Mutually satisfied with their bargain, landlady and lodger parted for the night. On the face of the latter could be discerned a compression of the lips, which bespoke a sudden resolve she was bent upon carrying out, even though it failed in the end to prove successful.