CHAPTER II
He rose with a sudden rebelliousness, put on his hat and coat, and
went out of the house, pursuing his way along the glistening
pavement while eight o'clock was striking from St. Mary's tower, and
the apprentices and shopmen were slamming up the shutters from end
to end of the town. In two minutes only those shops which could
boast of no attendant save the master or the mistress remained with
open eyes. These were ever somewhat less prompt to exclude
customers than the others: for their owners' ears the closing hour
had scarcely the cheerfulness that it possessed for the hired
servants of the rest. Yet the night being dreary the delay was not
for long, and their windows, too, blinked together one by one.
During this time Barnet had proceeded with decided step in a
direction at right angles to the broad main thoroughfare of the
town, by a long street leading due southward. Here, though his
family had no more to do with the flax manufacture, his own name
occasionally greeted him on gates and warehouses, being used
allusively by small rising tradesmen as a recommendation, in such
words as 'Smith, from Barnet & Co.'--'Robinson, late manager at
Barnet's.' The sight led him to reflect upon his father's busy
life, and he questioned if it had not been far happier than his own.
The houses along the road became fewer, and presently open ground
appeared between them on either side, the track on the right hand
rising to a higher level till it merged in a knoll. On the summit a
row of builders' scaffold-poles probed the indistinct sky like
spears, and at their bases could be discerned the lower courses of a
building lately begun. Barnet slackened his pace and stood for a
few moments without leaving the centre of the road, apparently not
much interested in the sight, till suddenly his eye was caught by a
post in the fore part of the ground bearing a white board at the
top. He went to the rails, vaulted over, and walked in far enough
to discern painted upon the board 'Chateau Ringdale.'
A dismal irony seemed to lie in the words, and its effect was to
irritate him. Downe, then, had spoken truly. He stuck his umbrella
into the sod, and seized the post with both hands, as if intending
to loosen and throw it down. Then, like one bewildered by an
opposition which would exist none the less though its manifestations
were removed, he allowed his arms to sink to his side.
'Let it be,' he said to himself. 'I have declared there shall be
peace--if possible.'
Taking up his umbrella he quietly left the enclosure, and went on
his way, still keeping his back to the town. He had advanced with
more decision since passing the new building, and soon a hoarse
murmur rose upon the gloom; it was the sound of the sea. The road
led to the harbour, at a distance of a mile from the town, from
which the trade of the district was fed. After seeing the obnoxious
name-board Barnet had forgotten to open his umbrella, and the rain
tapped smartly on his hat, and occasionally stroked his face as he
went on.
Though the lamps were still continued at the roadside, they stood at
wider intervals than before, and the pavement had given place to
common road. Every time he came to a lamp an increasing shine made
itself visible upon his shoulders, till at last they quite glistened
with wet. The murmur from the shore grew stronger, but it was still
some distance off when he paused before one of the smallest of the
detached houses by the wayside, standing in its own garden, the
latter being divided from the road by a row of wooden palings.
Scrutinizing the spot to ensure that he was not mistaken, he opened
the gate and gently knocked at the cottage door.
When he had patiently waited minutes enough to lead any man in
ordinary cases to knock again, the door was heard to open, though it
was impossible to see by whose hand, there being no light in the
passage. Barnet said at random, 'Does Miss Savile live here?'
A youthful voice assured him that she did live there, and by a
sudden afterthought asked him to come in. It would soon get a
light, it said: but the night being wet, mother had not thought it
worth while to trim the passage lamp.
'Don't trouble yourself to get a light for me,' said Barnet hastily;
'it is not necessary at all. Which is Miss Savile's sitting-room?'
The young person, whose white pinafore could just be discerned,
signified a door in the side of the passage, and Barnet went forward
at the same moment, so that no light should fall upon his face. On
entering the room he closed the door behind him, pausing till he
heard the retreating footsteps of the child.
He found himself in an apartment which was simply and neatly, though
not poorly furnished; everything, from the miniature chiffonnier to
the shining little daguerreotype which formed the central ornament
of the mantelpiece, being in scrupulous order. The picture was
enclosed by a frame of embroidered card-board--evidently the work of
feminine hands--and it was the portrait of a thin faced, elderly
lieutenant in the navy. From behind the lamp on the table a female
form now rose into view, that of a young girl, and a resemblance
between her and the portrait was early discoverable. She had been
so absorbed in some occupation on the other side of the lamp as to
have barely found time to realize her visitor's presence.
They both remained standing for a few seconds without speaking. The
face that confronted Barnet had a beautiful outline; the
Raffaelesque oval of its contour was remarkable for an English
countenance, and that countenance housed in a remote country-road to
an unheard-of harbour. But her features did not do justice to this
splendid beginning: Nature had recollected that she was not in
Italy; and the young lady's lineaments, though not so inconsistent
as to make her plain, would have been accepted rather as pleasing
than as correct. The preoccupied expression which, like images on
the retina, remained with her for a moment after the state that
caused it had ceased, now changed into a reserved, half-proud, and
slightly indignant look, in which the blood diffused itself quickly
across her cheek, and additional brightness broke the shade of her
rather heavy eyes.
'I know I have no business here,' he said, answering the look. 'But
I had a great wish to see you, and inquire how you were. You can
give your hand to me, seeing how often I have held it in past days?'
'I would rather forget than remember all that, Mr. Barnet,' she
answered, as she coldly complied with the request. 'When I think of
the circumstances of our last meeting, I can hardly consider it kind
of you to allude to such a thing as our past--or, indeed, to come
here at all.'
'There was no harm in it surely? I don't trouble you often, Lucy.'
'I have not had the honour of a visit from you for a very long time,
certainly, and I did not expect it now,' she said, with the same
stiffness in her air. 'I hope Mrs. Barnet is very well?'
'Yes, yes!' he impatiently returned. 'At least I suppose so--though
I only speak from inference!'
'But she is your wife, sir,' said the young girl tremulously.
The unwonted tones of a man's voice in that feminine chamber had
startled a canary that was roosting in its cage by the window; the
bird awoke hastily, and fluttered against the bars. She went and
stilled it by laying her face against the cage and murmuring a
coaxing sound. It might partly have been done to still herself.
'I didn't come to talk of Mrs. Barnet,' he pursued; 'I came to talk
of you, of yourself alone; to inquire how you are getting on since
your great loss.' And he turned towards the portrait of her father.
'I am getting on fairly well, thank you.'
The force of her utterance was scarcely borne out by her look; but
Barnet courteously reproached himself for not having guessed a thing
so natural; and to dissipate all embarrassment, added, as he bent
over the table, 'What were you doing when I came?--painting flowers,
and by candlelight?'
'O no,' she said, 'not painting them--only sketching the outlines.
I do that at night to save time--I have to get three dozen done by
the end of the month.'
Barnet looked as if he regretted it deeply. 'You will wear your
poor eyes out,' he said, with more sentiment than he had hitherto
shown. 'You ought not to do it. There was a time when I should
have said you must not. Well--I almost wish I had never seen light
with my own eyes when I think of that!'
'Is this a time or place for recalling such matters?' she asked,
with dignity. 'You used to have a gentlemanly respect for me, and
for yourself. Don't speak any more as you have spoken, and don't
come again. I cannot think that this visit is serious, or was
closely considered by you.'
'Considered: well, I came to see you as an old and good friend--not
to mince matters, to visit a woman I loved. Don't be angry! I
could not help doing it, so many things brought you into my mind . .
. This evening I fell in with an acquaintance, and when I saw how
happy he was with his wife and family welcoming him home, though
with only one-tenth of my income and chances, and thought what might
have been in my case, it fairly broke down my discretion, and off I
came here. Now I am here I feel that I am wrong to some extent.
But the feeling that I should like to see you, and talk of those we
used to know in common, was very strong.'
'Before that can be the case a little more time must pass,' said
Miss Savile quietly; 'a time long enough for me to regard with some
calmness what at present I remember far too impatiently--though it
may be you almost forget it. Indeed you must have forgotten it long
before you acted as you did.' Her voice grew stronger and more
vivacious as she added: 'But I am doing my best to forget it too,
and I know I shall succeed from the progress I have made already!'
She had remained standing till now, when she turned and sat down,
facing half away from him.
Barnet watched her moodily. 'Yes, it is only what I deserve,' he
said. 'Ambition pricked me on--no, it was not ambition, it was
wrongheadedness! Had I but reflected . . . ' He broke out
vehemently: 'But always remember this, Lucy: if you had written to
me only one little line after that misunderstanding, I declare I
should have come back to you. That ruined me!' he slowly walked as
far as the little room would allow him to go, and remained with his
eyes on the skirting.
'But, Mr. Barnet, how could I write to you? There was no opening
for my doing so.'
'Then there ought to have been,' said Barnet, turning. 'That was my
fault!'
'Well, I don't know anything about that; but as there had been
nothing said by me which required any explanation by letter, I did
not send one. Everything was so indefinite, and feeling your
position to be so much wealthier than mine, I fancied I might have
mistaken your meaning. And when I heard of the other lady--a woman
of whose family even you might be proud--I thought how foolish I had
been, and said nothing.'
'Then I suppose it was destiny--accident--I don't know what, that
separated us, dear Lucy. Anyhow you were the woman I ought to have
made my wife--and I let you slip, like the foolish man that I was!'
'O, Mr. Barnet,' she said, almost in tears, 'don't revive the
subject to me; I am the wrong one to console you--think, sir,--you
should not be here--it would be so bad for me if it were known!'
'It would--it would, indeed,' he said hastily. 'I am not right in
doing this, and I won't do it again.'
'It is a very common folly of human nature, you know, to think the
course you did NOT adopt must have been the best,' she continued,
with gentle solicitude, as she followed him to the door of the room.
'And you don't know that I should have accepted you, even if you had
asked me to be your wife.' At this his eye met hers, and she
dropped her gaze. She knew that her voice belied her. There was a
silence till she looked up to add, in a voice of soothing
playfulness, 'My family was so much poorer than yours, even before I
lost my dear father, that--perhaps your companions would have made
it unpleasant for us on account of my deficiencies.'
'Your disposition would soon have won them round,' said Barnet.
She archly expostulated: 'Now, never mind my disposition; try to
make it up with your wife! Those are my commands to you. And now
you are to leave me at once.'
'I will. I must make the best of it all, I suppose,' he replied,
more cheerfully than he had as yet spoken. 'But I shall never again
meet with such a dear girl as you!' And he suddenly opened the
door, and left her alone. When his glance again fell on the lamps
that were sparsely ranged along the dreary level road, his eyes were
in a state which showed straw-like motes of light radiating from
each flame into the surrounding air.
On the other side of the way Barnet observed a man under an
umbrella, walking parallel with himself. Presently this man left
the footway, and gradually converged on Barnet's course. The latter
then saw that it was Charlson, a surgeon of the town, who owed him
money. Charlson was a man not without ability; yet he did not
prosper. Sundry circumstances stood in his way as a medical
practitioner: he was needy; he was not a coddle; he gossiped with
men instead of with women; he had married a stranger instead of one
of the town young ladies; and he was given to conversational
buffoonery. Moreover, his look was quite erroneous. Those only
proper features in the family doctor, the quiet eye, and the thin
straight passionless lips which never curl in public either for
laughter or for scorn, were not his; he had a full-curved mouth, and
a bold black eye that made timid people nervous. His companions
were what in old times would have been called boon companions--an
expression which, though of irreproachable root, suggests
fraternization carried to the point of unscrupulousness. All this
was against him in the little town of his adoption.
Charlson had been in difficulties, and to oblige him Barnet had put
his name to a bill; and, as he had expected, was called upon to meet
it when it fell due. It had been only a matter of fifty pounds,
which Barnet could well afford to lose, and he bore no ill-will to
the thriftless surgeon on account of it. But Charlson had a little
too much brazen indifferentism in his composition to be altogether a
desirable acquaintance.
'I hope to be able to make that little bill-business right with you
in the course of three weeks, Mr. Barnet,' said Charlson with hail-
fellow friendliness.
Barnet replied good-naturedly that there was no hurry.
This particular three weeks had moved on in advance of Charlson's
present with the precision of a shadow for some considerable time.
'I've had a dream,' Charlson continued. Barnet knew from his tone
that the surgeon was going to begin his characteristic nonsense, and
did not encourage him. 'I've had a dream,' repeated Charlson, who
required no encouragement. 'I dreamed that a gentleman, who has
been very kind to me, married a haughty lady in haste, before he had
quite forgotten a nice little girl he knew before, and that one wet
evening, like the present, as I was walking up the harbour-road, I
saw him come out of that dear little girl's present abode.'
Barnet glanced towards the speaker. The rays from a neighbouring
lamp struck through the drizzle under Charlson's umbrella, so as
just to illumine his face against the shade behind, and show that
his eye was turned up under the outer corner of its lid, whence it
leered with impish jocoseness as he thrust his tongue into his
cheek.
'Come,' said Barnet gravely, 'we'll have no more of that.'
'No, no--of course not,' Charlson hastily answered, seeing that his
humour had carried him too far, as it had done many times before.
He was profuse in his apologies, but Barnet did not reply. Of one
thing he was certain--that scandal was a plant of quick root, and
that he was bound to obey Lucy's injunction for Lucy's own sake.
