Judith went in, and the two young men waited outside. In something less than half a minute Lisle showed signs of impatience. He inspected the grocer's stock of goods through the window, and extended his examination to a toyshop beyond, where he seemed particularly interested in a small and curly lamb which stood in a pasture of green paint and possessed an underground squeak or baa. Finally, he returned to Thorne. "You like waiting, don't you?" he said.
"I don't mind it."
"And I do: that's just the difference. Is there a stationer's handy?"
"At the end of the street, the first turning to the left."
"I want some music-paper: I can get it before Judith has done ordering in her supplies if I go at once."
"Go, then: you can't miss it. I'll wait here for Miss Lisle, and we'll come and meet you if you are not back."
When Judith came out she looked round in some surprise: "What has become of Bertie, Mr. Thorne?"
"Gone to the bookseller's," said Percival: "shall we walk on and meet him?"
They went together down the gray, slushy street. The wayfarers seemed unusually coarse and jostling that evening, Percival thought, the pavement peculiarly miry, the flaring gaslights very cruel to the unloveliness of the scene.
"Mr. Thorne," Judith began, "I am glad of this opportunity. We haven't met many times before to-day."
"Twice," said Percival.
She looked at him, a faint light of surprise in her eyes. "Ah! twice," she repeated. "But you know Bertie well. You used often to come at one time, when I was away?"
"Oh yes, I saw a good deal of Bertie," he replied, remembering how he had taken a fancy to the boy.
"And he used to talk to me about you. I don't feel as if we were quite strangers, Mr. Thorne."
"Indeed, I hope not," said Percival, eluding a baker's boy and reappearing at her side.
"I've another reason for the feeling, too, besides Bertie's talk," she went on. "Once, six or seven years ago, I saw your father. He came in one evening, about some business I think, and I still remember the very tone in which he talked of you. I was only a school-girl then, but I could not help understanding something of what you were to him."
"He was too good to me," said Percival, and his heart was very full. Those bygone days with his father, which had drifted so far into the past, seemed suddenly brought near by Judith's words, and he felt the warmth of the old tenderness once more.
"So I was very glad to find you here," she said. "For Bertie's sake, not for yours. I am so grieved that you should have been so unfortunate!" She looked up at him with eyes which questioned and wondered and doubted all at once.
But a small girl, staring at the shop-windows, drove a perambulator straight at Percival's legs. With a laugh he stepped into the roadway to escape the peril, and came back: "Don't grieve about me, Miss Lisle. It couldn't be helped, and I have no right to complain." These were his spoken words: his unspoken thought was that it served him right for being such a fool as to trust her father. "It's worse for you, I think, and harder," he went on; "and if you are so brave—"
"It's for Bertie if I am," she said quickly: "it is very hard on him. We have spoilt him, I'm afraid, and now he will feel it so terribly. For people cannot be the same to us: how should they, Mr. Thorne? Some of our friends have been very good—no one could be kinder than Miss Crawford—but it is a dreadful change for Bertie. And I have been afraid of what he would do if he went where he had no companions. A sister is so helpless! So I was very thankful when your letter came. But I am sorry for you, Mr. Thorne. He told me just now—"
"But, as that can't be helped," said Percival, "be glad for my sake too. I have been very lonely."
She looked up at him and smiled. "He insisted on going to Bellevue street the first thing this morning," she said. "I[page 180] don't think any other lodgings would have suited him."
"But they are not good enough for you."
"Oh yes, they are, and near Standon Square, too: I shall only have seven or eight minutes' walk to my work. I should not have liked—Oh, here he is!—Bertie, this is cool of you, deserting me in this fashion!"
"Why, of course you were all right with Thorne, and he asked me to let him help me in any way he could. I like to take a man at his word."
"By all means take me at mine," said Percival.
"Help you?" said Judith to her brother. "Am I such a terrible burden, then?"
"No," Thorne exclaimed. "Bertie is a clever fellow: he lets me share his privileges first, that I mayn't back out of sharing any troubles later."
"Are you going to save him trouble by making his pretty speeches for him, too?" Judith inquired with a smile. "You are indeed a friend in need."
They had turned back, and were walking toward Bellevue street. As they went into No. 13 they encountered Miss Bryant in the passage. She glanced loftily at Miss Lisle as she swept by, but she turned and fixed a look of reproachful tenderness on Percival Thorne. He knew that he was guiltless in the matter, and yet in Judith's presence he felt guilty and humiliated beneath Lydia's ostentatiously mournful gaze. The idea that she would probably be jealous of Miss Lisle flashed into his mind, to his utter disgust and dismay. He turned into his own room and flung himself into a chair, only to find, a few minutes later, that he was staring blankly at Lydia's blue vase. But for the Lisles, he might almost have been driven from Bellevue street by its mere presence on the table. It was beginning to haunt him: it mingled in his dreams, and he had drawn its hideous shape absently on the edge of his blotting-paper. Let him be where he might, it lay, a light-blue burden, on his mind. It was not the vase only, but he felt that it implied Lydia herself, curl, turquoise earrings, smile and all, and on the evening of his meeting with Judith Lisle the thought was doubly hateful.
Thus, as the days lengthened, and the winter, bitter though it was, began to give faint promise of sunlight to come, Percival entered on his new life and felt the gladness of returning spring. At the beginning of winter our glances are backward: we are like spendthrifts who have wasted all in days of bygone splendor. We sit, pinched and poverty-stricken, by our little light of fire and candle, remembering how the whole land was full of warmth and golden gladness in our lavish prime. But our feelings change as the days grow clear and keen and long. This very year has yet to wear its crown of blossom. Its inheritance is to come, and all is fresh and wonderful. We would not ask the bygone summer for one day more, for we have the beauty of promise, instead of that beauty of long triumph which is heavy and over-ripe, and with March at hand we cannot desire September.
Percival's new life was cold and stern as the February weather, but it had its flitting gleams of grace and beauty in brief words or passing looks exchanged with Judith Lisle. He was no lover, to pine for more than Fate vouchsafed. It seemed to him that the knowledge that he might see her was almost enough; and it was well it should be so, for he met her very seldom. She went regularly to Standon Square, and came home late and tired. She had one half-holiday in the week, but Miss Crawford had recommended her to a lady whose eldest girl was dull and backward at her music, and she spent a great part of that afternoon in teaching Janie Barton. Bertie was indignant: "Why should you, who have an ear and a soul for music, be tortured by such an incapable as that? Let them find some one else to teach her."
"And some one else to take the money! Besides, Mrs. Barton is so kind—"
Bertie, who was lying on three chairs in front of the fire, sat up directly and looked resigned: "That's it! now for it! No one is so good as Mrs. Barton, except Miss Crawford; and no one is anything like Miss Crawford, except Mrs. Barton. Oh, I know! And old Clifton is the first and best of men. And so you lavish your gratitude on them—Judith, why are all our benefactors such awful guys?—while they ought to be thanking their stars they've got us!"
"Nonsense, Bertie!"
"'Tisn't nonsense. Aren't you better than I am? And old Clifton is very lucky to get such an organist. I think he is thankful, but I wish he wouldn't show it by asking me to tea again."
"Don't complain of Mr. Clifton," said Judith. "You are very fortunate, if you only knew it."
"Am I? Then suppose you go to tea with him if you are so fond of him. I rather think I shall have a severe cold coming on next Tuesday."
Judith said no more, being tolerably sure that when Tuesday came Bertie would go. But she was not quite happy about him. She lived as if she idolized the spoilt boy, but the blindness which makes idolatry joyful was denied to her. So that, though he was her first thought every day of her life, the thought was an anxious one. She was very grateful to Miss Crawford for having given him a chance, so young and untried as he was, but she could only hope that Bertie would not repay her kindness by some thoughtless neglect. At present all had gone well: there could be no question about his abilities, Miss Crawford was satisfied, and the young master got on capitally with his pupils. Neither was Judith happy when he was with Mr. Clifton. Bertie came home to mimic the clergyman with boyish recklessness, and she feared that the same kind of thing went on with some of the choir behind Mr. Clifton's back. ("Behind his back?" Bertie said one day. "Under his nose, if you like: it would be all one to Clifton.") He frightened her with his carelessness in money-matters and his scarcely concealed contempt for the means by which he lived. "Thank Heaven! this hasn't got to last for ever," he said once when she remonstrated.
"Don't reckon on anything else," she pleaded. "I know what you are thinking of. Oh, Bertie, I don't like you to count on that."
He threw back his head, and laughed: "Well, if that fails, wait and see what I can do for myself."
He looked so bright and daring as he spoke that she could hardly help sharing his confidence. "Ah! the opera!" she said. "But, Bertie, you must work."
"The opera—Yes, of course I will work," Bertie answered. "Now you mention it, it strikes me I may as well have a pipe and think about it a bit. No time like the present, is there?" So Bertie had his pipe and a little quiet meditation. There was a lingering smile on his face as if something had amused him. He always felt particularly virtuous when he smoked his pipe, because it was so much more economical than the cigars of his prosperous days. "A penny saved is a penny gained." Bertie felt as if he must be gradually making his fortune as he leant back and watched the smoke curl upward.
And yet, with it all, how could Judith complain? He was the very life of the house as he ran up and down stairs, filling the dingy passages with melodious singing. He had a bright word for every one. The grimy little maid-servant would have died for him at a moment's notice. Bertie was always sweet-tempered: in very truth, there was not a touch of bitterness in his nature. And he was so fond of Judith, so proud of her, so thoroughly convinced of her goodness, so sure that he should do great things for her some day! What could she say against him?
Percival, too, was fascinated. His room smelt of Bertie's tobacco and was littered with blotted manuscripts. He went so regularly to hear Bertie play that Mr. Clifton noticed the olive-skinned, foreign-looking young man, and thought of asking him to join the Guild of St. Sylvester and take a class in the[page 182] Sunday-school. Yet Percival also had doubts about the young organist's future. He knew that letters came now and then from New York which saddened Judith and brightened Bertie. If Mr. Lisle prospered in America and summoned his son to share his success, would he have strength to cling to poverty and honor in England? There were times when Percival doubted it. There were times, too, when he doubted whether the boy's musical promise would ever ripen to worthy fruit, though he was angry with himself for his doubts. "If he triumphs, it will be her doing," he thought. Little as he saw of Judith, they were yet becoming friends. You may meet a man every day, and if you only talk to him about the weather and the leading articles in the Times, you may die of old age before you reach friendship. But these two talked of more than the weather. Once, emboldened by her remembrance of old days, he spoke of his father. He hardly noticed at the time that Judith took keen note of something he said of the old squire's utter separation from his son. "I was more Percival than Thorne till I was twenty," said he.
"And are you not more Percival than Thorne still?"
He liked to hear her say "Percival" even thus. "Perhaps," he said. "But it is strange how I've learned to care about Brackenhill—or, rather, it wasn't learning, it came by instinct—and now no place on earth seems like home to me except that old house."
Judith, fair and clear-eyed, leaned against the window and looked out into the twilight. After a pause she spoke: "You are fortunate, Mr. Thorne. You can look back happily to your life with your father."
The intention of her speech was evident: so was a weariness which he had sometimes suspected in her voice. He answered her: "And you cannot?"
"No," she said. "I was wondering just now how many people had reason to hate the name of Lisle."
Percival was not unconscious of the humorous side of such a remark when addressed to himself. But Judith looked at him almost as if she would surprise his thought.
"Don't dwell on such things," he said. "Men in your father's position speculate, and perhaps hardly know how deeply they are involved, till nothing but a lucky chance will save them, and it seems impossible to do anything but go on. At last the end comes, and it is very terrible. But you can't mend it."
"No," said Judith, "I can't."
"Then don't take up a useless burden when you need all your strength. You were not to blame in any way."
"No," she said again, "I hope not. But it is hard to be so helpless. I do not even know their names. I can only feel as if I ought to be more gentle and more patient with every one, since any one may be—"
"Ah, Miss Lisle," said Percival, "you will pay some of the debts unawares in something better than coin."
She shook her head, but when she looked up at him there was a half smile on her lips. As she moved away Percival thought of Sissy's old talk about heroic women—"Jael, and Judith, and Charlotte Corday." He felt that this girl would have gone to her death with quiet dignity had there been need. Godfrey Hammond had called her a plain likeness of her brother, but Percival had seen at the first glance that her face was worth infinitely more than Bertie's, even in his boyish promise; and an artist would have turned from the brother to the sister, justifying Percival.
It was well for Percival that Judith's friendly smile and occasional greeting made bright moments in his life, since he had no more of Lydia's attentions. Poor grimy little Emma waited on him wearily, and always neglected him if the Lisles wanted her. She had apparently laid in an immense stock of goods, for she never went shopping now, but stayed at home and let his fire go out, and was late and slovenly with his meals. There was no great dishonesty, but his tea-caddy was no longer guarded and provisions ceased to be mysteriously preserved. Miss Bryant seldom met him on the stairs, and when she did she flounced[page 183] past him in lofty scorn. Her slighted love had turned to gall. She was bitter in her very desire to convince herself that she had never thought of Mr. Thorne. She neglected to send up his letters; she would not lift a finger to help in getting his dinner ready; and if Emma happened to be out of the way she would let his bell ring and take no notice. Yet she would have been very true to him, in her own fashion, if he would have had it so: she would have taken him for better, for worse—would have slaved for him and fought for him, and never suffered any one else to find fault with him in any way whatever. But he had not chosen that it should be so, and Lydia had reclaimed her heart and her pocket edition of the Language of Flowers, and now watched Percival and Miss Lisle with spiteful curiosity.
"I shall be late at Standon Square this evening: Miss Crawford wants me," said Judith one morning to her brother.
"I'll come and meet you," was his prompt reply. "What time? Don't let that old woman work you into an early grave."
"There's no fear of that. I'm strong, and it won't hurt me. Suppose you come at half-past nine: you must have your tea by yourself, I'm afraid."
"That's all right," he answered cheerfully.
"'That's all right?' What do you mean by that, sir?"
"I mean that I don't at all mind when you don't come back to tea. I think I rather prefer it. There, Miss Lisle!"
"You rude boy!" She felt herself quite justified in boxing his ears.
"Oh, I say, hold hard! Mind my violets!" he exclaimed.
"Your violets? Oh, how sweet they are!" And bending forward, Judith smelt them daintily. "Where did you get them, Bertie?"
"Ah! where?" And Bertie stood before the glass and surveyed himself. The cheap lodging-house mirror cast a greenish shade over his features, but the little bouquet in his buttonhole came out very well. "Where did I get them? I didn't buy them, if you mean that. They were given to me."
"Who gave them to you?"
"And then women say it isn't fair to call them curious!" Bertie put his head on one side, dropped his eyelids, looked out of the corners of his eyes, and smiled, fingering an imaginary curl.
"Not that nasty Miss Bryant? She didn't!"
"She did, though."
"The wretch! Then you sha'n't wear them one moment more." Bertie eluded her attack, and stood laughing on the other side of the table. "Oh, Bertie!" suddenly growing very plaintive, "why did you let me smell the nasty things?"
"They are very nice," said Lisle, looking down at the poor little violets. "Oh, we are great friends, Lydia and I. I shall have buttered toast for tea to-night."
"Buttered toast? What do you mean?"
"Why, it's a curious thing, but Emma—isn't her name Emma?—always has to work like a slave when you go out. I don't know why there should be so much more to do: you don't help her to clean the kettles or the steps in the general way, do you? It's a mystery. Anyhow, Lydia has to see after my tea, and then I have buttered toast or muffins and rashers of bacon. Lydia's attentions are just a trifle greasy perhaps, now I come to think of it. But she toasts muffins very well, does that young woman, and makes very good tea too."
"Bertie! I thought you made tea for yourself when I was away."
"Oh! did you? Not I: why should I? I had some of Mrs. Bryant's raspberry jam one night: that wasn't bad for a change. And once I had some prawns."
"Oh, Bertie! How could you?"
"Bless you, my child!" said Bertie, "how serious you look! Where's the harm? Do you think I shall make myself ill? By the way, I wonder if Lydia ever made buttered toast for Thorne? I suspect she did, and that he turned up his nose at it: she always holds her head so uncommonly high if his name is mentioned."
"Do throw those violets on the fire," said Judith.
"Indeed, I shall do nothing of the kind. I'm coming to Standon Square to give my lessons this morning, with my violets. See if I don't."
The name of Standon Square startled Judith into looking at the time. "I must be off," she said. "Don't be late for the lessons, and oh, Bertie, don't be foolish!"
"All right," he answered gayly. Judith ran down stairs. At the door she encountered Lydia and eyed her with lofty disapproval. It did not seem to trouble Miss Bryant much. She knew Miss Lisle disliked her, and took it as an inevitable fact, if not an indirect compliment to her conquering charms. So she smiled and wished Judith good-morning. But she had a sweeter smile for Bertie when, a little later, carefully dressed, radiant, handsome, with her violets in his coat, he too went on his way to Standon Square.
If Judith had been in Bellevue street when he came back, she might have noticed that the little bouquet was gone. Had it dropped out by accident? Or had Bertie merely defended his violets for fun, and thrown them away as soon as her back was turned? Or what had happened to them? There was no one to inquire.
Young Lisle strolled into Percival's room, and found him just come in and waiting for his dinner. "I'm going to practise at St. Sylvester's this afternoon," said the young fellow. "What do you say to a walk as soon as you get away?"
Percival assented, and began to move some of the books and papers which were strewn on the table. Lisle sat on the end of the horsehair sofa and watched him. "I can't think how you can endure that blue thing and those awful flowers continually before your eyes," he said at last.
Percival shrugged his shoulders. He could not explain to Lisle that to request that Lydia's love-token might be removed would have seemed to him to be like going down to her level and rejecting what he preferred to ignore. "What am I to do?" he said. "I believe they think it very beautiful, and I fancy the flowers are home-made. People have different ideas of art, but shall I therefore wound Miss Bryant's feelings?"
"Heaven forbid!" said Bertie. "Did Lydia Bryant make those flowers? How interesting!" He pulled the vase toward him for a closer inspection. There was a crash, and light-blue fragments strewed the floor, Percival, piling his books on the side-table, looked round with an exclamation.
"Hullo!" said Lisle, "I've done it! Here's a pretty piece of work! And you so fond of it, too!" He was picking up the flowers as he spoke.—"Here, Emma," as the girl opened the door, "I've upset Mr. Thorne's flower-vase. Tell Miss Bryant it was my doing, and I'm afraid it won't mend. Better take up the pieces carefully, though, on the chance." This was thoughtful of Bertie, as the bits were remarkably small. "And here are the flowers—all right, I think. Have you got everything?" He held the door open while she went out with her load, and then he came back rubbing his hands: "Well, are you grateful? You'll never see that again."
Percival surveyed him with a grave smile. "I'm grateful," he said. "But I'd rather you didn't treat all the things which offend my eye in the same way."
Bertie glanced round at the furniture, cheap, mean and shabby: "You think I should have too much smashing to do?"
"I fear it might end in my sitting cross-legged on the floor," said Thorne. "And my successor might cavil at Mrs. Bryant's idea of furnished lodgings."
"Well, I know I've done you a good turn to-day," Bertie rejoined: "my conscience approves of my conduct." And he went off whistling.
Percival, on his way out, met Lydia on the landing. "Miss Bryant, have you a moment to spare?" he said as she went rustling past.
She stopped ungraciously.
"The flower-vase on my table is broken. If you can tell me what it cost I will pay for it."
"Mr. Lisle broke it, didn't he? Emma said—"
"No matter," said Thorne: "it was done in my room. It is no concern of Mr. Lisle's. Can you tell me?"
Lydia hesitated. Should she let him pay for it? Some faint touch of refinement told her that she should not take money for what she had meant as a love-gift. She looked up and met the utter indifference of his eyes as he stood, purse in hand, before her. She was ashamed of the remembrance that she had tried to attract his attention, and burned to deny it. "Well, then, it was three-and-six," she said.
Percival put the money in her hand. She eyed it discontentedly.
"That's right, isn't it?" he asked in some surprise.
The touch of the coins recalled to her the pleasure with which she had spent her own three-and-sixpence to brighten his room, and she half repented. "Oh, it's right enough," she said. "But I don't know why you should pay for it. Things will get knocked over—"
"I beg your pardon: of course I ought to pay for it," he replied, drawing himself up. He spoke the more decidedly that he knew how it was broken. "But, Miss Bryant, it will not be necessary to replace it. I don't think anything of the kind would be very safe in the middle of my table." And with a bow he went on his way.
Lydia stood where he had left her, fingering his half-crown and shilling with an uneasy sense that there was something very mean about the transaction. Now that she had taken his money she disliked him much more, but, as she had taken it, she went away and bought herself a pair of grass-green gloves. From that time forward she always openly declared that she despised Mr. Thorne.
That evening, when they came back from their walk, Lisle asked his companion to lend him a couple of sovereigns. "You shall have them back to-morrow," he said airily. Percival assented as a matter of course. He hardly thought about it at all, and if he had he would have supposed that there was something to be paid in Miss Lisle's absence. He had still something left of the small fortune with which he had started. It was very little, but he could manage Bertie's two sovereigns with that and the money he had laid aside for Mrs. Bryant's weekly bill.
Percival Thorne, always exact in his accounts, supposed that a time was fixed for the repayment of the loan. He did not understand that his debtor was one of those people who when they say "I will pay you to-morrow," merely mean "I will not pay you to-day."
Percival had announced the fact of the Lisles' presence in Bellevue street to Sissy in a carefully careless sentence. Sissy read it, and shivered sadly. Then she answered in a peculiarly bright and cheerful letter. "I'm not fit for him," she thought as she wrote it. "I don't understand him, and I'm always afraid. Even when he loved me best I felt as if he loved some dream-girl and took me for her in his dream, and would be angry with me when he woke. Miss Lisle would not be afraid. It is the least I can do for Percival, not to stand in the way of his happiness—the least I can do, and oh, how much the hardest!" So she gave Thorne to understand that she was getting on remarkably well.
It was not altogether false. She had fallen from a dizzy height, but she had found something of rest and security in the valley below. And as prisoners cut off from all the larger interests of their lives pet the plants and creatures which chance to lighten their captivity, so did Sissy begin to take pleasure in little gayeties for which she had not cared in old days. She could sleep now at night without apprehension, and she woke refreshed. There was a great blank in her existence where the thunderbolt fell, but the cloud which hung so blackly overhead was gone. The lonely life was sad, but it held nothing quite so dreadful as the[page 186] fear that a day might come when Percival and his wife would know that they stood on different levels—that she could not see with his eyes nor understand his thoughts—when he would look at her with sorrowful patience, and she would die slowly of his terrible kindness. The lonely life was sad, but, after all, Sissy Langton would not be twenty-one till April.
Percival read her letter, and asked Godfrey Hammond how she really was. "Tell me the truth," he said: "you know all is over between us. She writes cheerfully. Is she better than she was last year?"
Hammond replied that Sissy was certainly better. "She has begun to go out again, and Fordborough gossip says that there is something between her and young Hardwicke. He is a good fellow, and I fancy the old man will leave him very well off. But she might do better, and there are two people, at any rate, who do not think anything will come of it—myself and young Hardwicke."
Percival hoped not, indeed.
A month later Hammond wrote that there was no need for Percival to excite himself about Henry Hardwicke. Mrs. Falconer had taken Sissy and Laura to a dance at Latimer's Court, and Sissy's conquests were innumerable. Young Walter Latimer and a Captain Fothergill were the most conspicuous victims. "I believe Latimer rides into Fordborough every day, and the captain, being stationed there, is on the spot. Our St. Cecilia looks more charming than ever, but what she thinks of all this no one knows. Of course Latimer would be the better match, as far as money goes—he is decidedly better-looking, and, I should say, better-tempered—but Fothergill has an air about him which makes his rival look countrified, so I suppose they are tolerably even. Neither is overweighted with brains. What do you think? Young Garnett cannot say a civil word to either of them, and wants to give Sissy a dog. He is not heart-whole either, I take it."
Hammond was trying to probe his correspondent's heart. He flattered himself that he should learn something from Percival, let him answer how he would. But Percival did not answer at all. The fact was, he did not know what to say. It seemed to him that he would give anything to hear that Sissy was happy, and yet—
Nor did Sissy understand herself very well. Her grace and sweetness attracted Latimer and Fothergill, and a certain gentle indifference piqued them. She was not sad, lest sadness should be a reproach to Percival. In truth, she hardly knew what she wished. One day she came into the room and overheard the fag-end of a conversation between Mrs. Middleton and a maiden aunt of Godfrey Hammond's who had come to spend the day. "You know," said the visitor, "I never could like Mr. Percival Thorne as much as—"
Sissy paused on the threshold, and Miss Hammond stopped short. The color mounted to her wintry cheek, and she contrived to find an opportunity to apologize a little later: "I beg your pardon, my dear, for my thoughtless remark just as you came in. I know so little that my opinion was worthless. I really beg your pardon."
"What for?" said Sissy. "For what you said about Percival Thorne? My dear Miss Hammond, people can't be expected to remember that. Why, we agreed that it should be all over and done with at least a hundred years ago." She spoke with hurried bravery.
The old lady looked at her and held out her hands: "My dear, is the time always so long since you parted?"
Sissy put the proffered hands airily aside and scoffed at the idea. They had a crowd of callers that afternoon, but the girl lingered more than once by Miss Hammond's side and paid her delicate little attentions. This perplexed young Garnett very much when he had ascertained from one of the company that the old woman had nothing but an annuity of three hundred a year. He hoped that Sissy Langton wasn't a little queer, but, upon his word, it looked like it.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
On the eastern shore of that stretch of land which forms the extreme south-western point of Wales stands the stony little seaport town of Tenby. It is an old, old town, rich in historical legends, an important place in the twelfth century and down to Queen Elizabeth's reign. Soon after her time it fell into woeful decay, and for years of whose number there is no record Tenby existed as a poor fishing-village and mourned its departed glories. That it would ever again be a place of interest to anybody but people of fishy pursuits was an idea Tenby did not entertain concerning itself; but, lo! in the present century there arose a custom among genteel folk of going down to the sea in bathing-machines. It was discovered that Tenby was a spot favored of Neptune (or whatever god or goddess regulates the matter of surf-bathing), and Tenby was taken down from the shelf, as it were, dusted, mended and set on its legs again. The fashionables smiled on it. Away off in the depths of wild Wales the knowing few set up their select and choice summer abode, and vaunted its being so far away from home; for Tenby was farther from London in those old coaching days than New York is in these days of steamships. Even years after railroads found their way into Wales, Tenby remained remote and was approachable only by coach; but now you can step into your railway-carriage in London and trundle to Tenby without change between your late breakfast and your late dinner.
Probably no seaside watering-place known to the polite world contrasts so strongly with the typical American watering-place as does this Welsh resort. Not at Brighton, not at Biarritz, not at any German spa, will the tourist find so complete a contrast in every respect to Long Branch or Newport. Tenby is almost sui generis. A watering-place without a wooden building in it would of itself be a novelty to an American. Our summer cities consist wholly of wooden buildings, but Tenby, from the point of its ponderous pier, where the waves break as on a rock, to the tip of its church-spire, which the clouds kiss, is every inch of stone. Welshmen will not build even so insignificant a structure as a pig-sty out of boards if there are stones to be had. I have seen stone pig-sties in Glamorganshire with walls a foot thick and six hundred years old. There is not a wooden building in Tenby. The station-buildings are "green" (as the Welsh say of a new house), but they are solid stone.
Alighting from the railway-carriage in which you have come down from London, you are greeted with no clamor of bawling hack-drivers and hotel-omnibus men roaring in stentorian tones the names of their various houses. Three or four quiet serving-men in corduroy small-clothes and natty coats touch their hats to you and look in your face inquiringly. They represent the various hotels in Tenby, and at a gesture of assent from you one of them takes your bags, your wraps, whatever you are burdened with, and conducts you to a somewhat antiquated vehicle which bears you to your chosen inn through some gray stony streets, under an ivy-green archway of the ancient town-wall; and as the vehicle draws up at the inn-door the beauty of Tenby lies spread suddenly before you—the lovely bay, the cliffs, the sands, the ruined castle on the hill, the restless sea beyond. A handsome young person in an elaborate toilet as regards her back hair, but not otherwise impressive in attire, comes to the door of the hotel to meet you, and gently inquires concerning your wishes: that you have come to stay in the house is a presumption which no properly constituted young person in Tenby would venture upon without express warrant in words. Receiving information on this point from you, the probability is that she imparts to you in return the information that the house is[page 188] full. Such, indeed, is the chronic condition of the hotels at Tenby in the season; and unless you have written beforehand and secured accommodations, you are not likely to find them. In the life of a Welsh watering-place hotels do not fill the important place they do in American summer resorts. Nobody lives at an hotel in Tenby. If their stay be longer than a day or two (and very few indeed are they who come to-day and are off to-morrow), visitors inevitably go into lodgings. Such is the custom of the country, and there is no provision for any other, no encouragement to a prolonged stay at an hotel. The result is, that the hotels are in an incessant state of bustle and change: there is a never-intermitting stream of arrivals, who only ask to be made comfortable for a night or two while they are looking for lodgings, and then make way for the next squad. Tenby abounds in lodging-houses, the expenses of which are smaller than hotel expenses, while their comforts are greater, their cares actually less and their good tone unquestionable. The various lodging-house quarters vie with each other in genteel cognomens and aristocratic flavor. The Esplanade is but a row of lodging-houses. The various Terraces, each with a prenomen more graceful than the other, are the same. The windows of Tudor Square and Victoria street, Paragon Place and Glendower Crescent, bloom with invitations to "inquire within." A handsome parlor and bedroom may be had for two pounds a week, and the cost of food and sundries need not exceed two pounds more for two persons moderately fond of good living; which means, at Tenby, the fattest and whitest of fowls, the freshest and daintiest salmon and john dories, the reddest and sweetest of lobsters and prawns. Those who prefer to take a house have every encouragement to do so. A bijou of a furnished cottage, all overrun with vines and flowers, may be had for three pounds a month, the use of plate and linen included. These things are fatal to hotel ambition, for although the hotels are not expensive, from an American point of view, they cannot compete with such figures as these. Hence there is nothing to induce a change in the customs of Tenby, which have prevailed ever since it became a watering-place. Britons do not change their habits without good and valid cause therefor, and no Americans ever come to Tenby, so far as I can learn.
We are Americans ourselves, of course, and we are going to do as Americans do—viz. make a very brief stay, and that in an hotel. We obtain accommodations at last through a happy fortune, and presently find ourselves installed in the grandest suite of hotel-apartments at Tenby—a large parlor, handsomely furnished, with a piano, books, objets d'art, etc., and a bedroom off it. At Long Branch, were there such an apartment there—which there is not—twenty dollars a day would be charged for it, without board and without compunction. Here we pay nineteen shillings. There is a magnificent view from our front windows. The hotel stands close to the cliff, with only a narrow street between its doorstep and the edge of the precipice. The night is falling, and the scene is like Fairy Land. We look from our windows straight down upon the sands, a dizzy distance below (but to which it were easy to toss a pebble), and out over the glassy waters, where small craft float silently, with the gray old stone pier and the dark ivy-hung ruin on Castle Hill, the one reflected in the waves, the other outlined against the sky—a lovely picture. Tenby covers the ridge of a long and narrow promontory rising abruptly out of the sea, its stone streets running along the dizzy limestone cliffs. From the highest point eastward—where is presented toward the sea a front of rugged precipices which would not shame a mountain-range—the promontory slopes gradually lower and lower till the streets of the town run stonily down sidewise through an ancient gate and debouch upon the south beach. Then, as if repenting its condescension, the promontory takes a fresh start, and for a brief spurt climbs again, but quickly plunges into the sea. This spurt, however, creates the picturesque hill on which of old stood a powerful Norman fortress, whose ruins we see. Local enterprise[page 189] has now laid out the hill as a public pleasure-ground, with gravelled paths and rustic seats, and glorified it with a really superb statue of the late Prince Albert, who, the Welsh inscription asserts, was Albert Dda, Priod Ein Gorhoffus Frenhines Victoria.
We find upon inquiry that our hotel so far infringes upon primitive Welsh manners as to provide a table-d'hôte dinner at six. This is most welcome news, and we become at once part of the company which sits down to the table d'hôte. There are ten people besides ourselves, and not a commonplace or colorless character among them. My left-hand neighbor is a somewhat slangy young gentleman in a suit of chequered clothes, who carves the meats, being at the head of the table; and my happy propinquity secures me the honor of selection by the young gentleman as the recipient of his observations: a toughish round of beef which he is called upon to carve evokes from him an aside to the effect that it is "rather a dose." The foot of the table is held by an old gentleman in a black stock, with a tuft of wiry hair on the front part of his head, and none whatever on any other part, who carves a fowl, and in asking the diners which part they severally prefer accompanies the question with a brisk sharpening of his knife on his fork, but without making the least noise in doing it. My chequered neighbor having advertised the toughness of the beef, everybody murmurs a purpose of indulging in fowl, at which my neighbor observes aside to me that he is "rather jolly glad," and the butler takes the beef away. The dish next set before him proving a matter of spoons merely, his relief at not being obliged to carve finds vent in a whispered "Hooray!" for my exclusive amusement. One unfortunate individual has accepted a helping of beef, however—a bald-headed man in spectacles, not hitherto unaccustomed to good living, if one might judge by his rounded proportions. It is painful to witness his struggles with the beef, which he maintains with the earnestness of a man who means to conquer or perish in the endeavor. Opposite sits as fair a type of a ripe British beauty of the middle class as I have anywhere seen—with a complexion of snow, a mouth like a red bud and eyes as beautiful and expressive as those of a splendid large wax doll, her hair drawn tensely back and rolled into billowy puffs, with a rose atop. It is sad, in looking on a picture like this—superb in its suggestions of pure rich blood and abounding health—to reflect that such a rose will develop into a red peony in ten years. I do not say the peony will not have her own strong recommendings to the eye: we may not despise a peony, but it is impossible not to regret that a rose should turn into one. There is a very good example of the peony sort near the foot of the table—quite a magnificent creature in her way. Her husband, who sits next her, is a fiercely-bearded man, but has a strange air of being in his wife's custody nevertheless. The lady is apparently forty-five, red to a fault, full in the neck, and with a figure which necessitates a somewhat haughty pose of the head unless one would appear gross and piggish. There is much to admire in this lady, peony though she be. The fiercely-bearded husband is smaller than his wife, and, in spite of her commanding air and his subdued aspect, I have not a doubt he rules her with a rod of iron. Appearances are very deceptive in this direction. I have known so many large ladies married to little men who (the ladies) carried themselves in public like grenadiers or drum-majors, and in private doted on their little lords' shoe-strings! Next the fiercely-bearded husband sits a very pretty girl, whom he finds his entertainment in constantly observing with the air of a connoisseur. She is modesty itself; her eyes are never off her plate; and from the at-ease manner in which he contemplates her it is clear he no more expects her to return his gaze than he expects a torpedo to go off under his chair.
The dinner proceeds most decorously. If it were a funeral, indeed, it could hardly be less given to anything approaching hilarity. There is now and then a little conversation, but the gaps are frightful[page 190] —yawning chasms of silence of the sort in which you are moved to wild thoughts of running away, for fear you may suddenly commit some act of horrible impropriety, like whistling in church. In one of these gaps—during which the whole company, having finished the course, is waiting gloomily for the victim of tough beef (who is still struggling) to have done—my chequered neighbor remarks, in an aside which makes every one start as if a pistol had been fired off, "Goodish-sized pause, eh?"
But with the dessert we begin to unbend. We are still exceedingly decorous, but our tongues are loosened a little, and we exchange amiable remarks, under whose genial influence we begin to feel that the worst is over. Unfortunately, however, with the spread of sunshine among us there is the muttering of a storm at our backs: the butler pushes his female assistant aside with deep rumbling growls, and presently explodes with open rage at her stupidity. The diners turn and stare incredulous and amazed. The butler rushes madly from the room. The female assistant, agitated but obstinate, seizes the blanc-mange and the cream and proceeds to serve them. I shall not be believed, I fear, but I am relating simple truth: in her agitation this incredible female spills the cream in a copious shower-bath over me and my chequered neighbor, and excitedly falls to mopping it off us with her napkin, like a pantomime clown. Fortunately, we are in our travelling suits, and come out of this baptism unharmed. The incident nearly suffocates the company, for there is not a soul among them who would not sooner suffer the pangs of dissolution than laugh outright. As for me, I am nearly expiring with the merriment that consumes me and my efforts to prevent indecorous explosion. The young woman, after having wiped me dry, once more presents the cream-jug, this time with both hands, but I can only murmur faintly in my trouble, "Thanks, no—no more cream." This appears to be quite too much for the young person, who throws up her arms in despair and rushes after the butler. What tragic encounter there may have been in the servants' hall I know not. Another servant comes and carries the dinner through.
It is entertainment enough for the first morning of your stay at Tenby just to sit at the windows and observe what is there before you—the street with its passers, the beach with its strange rock-formations, the ocean thickly dotted with fishing-craft. The tide is out, and the huge black block of compact limestone called God's Rock, with its almost perpendicular strata, lies all uncovered in the morning sun—a vast curiosity-shop where children clamber about and search for strange creatures of the sea. In the pools left here and there by the receding tide are found not only crabs and periwinkles in great number, but polyps, sea-anemones, star-fishes, medusæ and the like in almost endless variety. Naturalists—who are but children older grown, with all a child's capacity for being amused by Nature—get rages of enthusiasm on them as they search the crevices of this and other like rocks at Tenby. A floor of hard yellow sand stretches away into the distance, visible for miles, owing to the circular sweep of the beach and the height from which we are looking out, and it is dotted with strollers appearing like black mice moving slowly about. The long stretch of the cliff, from its crescent shape, is clearly seen—sometimes a sheer, bare stone precipice, sometimes a steep slope covered with woods and hanging gardens and zigzag, descending walled paths.
Among those who make up the human panorama of the street under your window are types of character peculiar to Wales. One such is the peddling fisher-woman who strolls by with a basketful of bright pink prawns, which she holds out to you temptingly, looking up. The fisher-women of Tenby wear a costume differing in some respects from that of all other Welsh peasants. Instead of the glossy and expensive "beaver" worn in other parts, the Tenby women sport a tall hat of straw or badly-battered felt. Another favorite with them is a soft black slouch hat like a man's, but with a knot[page 191] of ribbon in front. One of the neatest of the fisher-women is an old girl of fifty or so, who haunts your windows incessantly, and greets you with a quick-dropped courtesy whenever you walk out. She is never seen to stand still, except for the purpose of talking to a customer, but trots incessantly about; and either for this reason, or from her constant journeys to and fro between her home and the town, is given the nickname of Dame Trudge. She usually has on her back a coarse oyster-basket called a "creel," and in her hands another basket containing cooked prawns, lobsters or other temptation to the gourmand. Her dress, though it is midsummer, is warm and snug, particularly about the head and neck, as a protection against the winds of ocean; and her stout legs are encased in jet-black woollen stockings (visible below her short check petticoat), while her feet are shod with huge brogans whose inch-thick soles are heavily plated with iron. She lives ten miles from Tenby, walks to and fro always, and sleeps under her own roof every night, yet you never fail to see her there in the street when you get up in the morning. There are many other oyster-women to be seen at Tenby, but none so trim as good Dame Trudge. Here and hereabout grow the largest, if not the sweetest, oysters in Great Britain, and their cultivation is chiefly the work of the gentler sex. They do not look very gentle—or at least very frail—as you come upon a group of oyster-women in their masculine hats and boots munching their bread and cheese under a wall, but they are a good-natured race, and most respectful to their betters. Anything less suggestive of Billingsgate than the language of these Welsh fisher-women could hardly be, considering their trade.
The tide of passers is setting toward the south sands. Foreigners are almost unrepresented in this throng. There is one Frenchman, who would be recognizable as far off as he could be seen by his contrast to the prevailing British tone. It is a mystery why he should be here instead of at Trouville, Boulogne, Dieppe or Étretat, where the habits of the gay world are all his own. Nobody seems to know him at Tenby. Behind him walks quite as pronounced a type of the Welsh country gentleman—a character not to be mistaken for an Englishman, in spite of the family resemblance. A shrewd simplicity characterizes this face—an open, guileless sharpness, so to speak, peculiarly Welsh. An indifferent judge of human nature might venture to attempt heathen games with this old gentleman, but no astute rogue would think of such a thing. A man of this stamp, however green and rural, is not gullible. This Welsh simplicity of character is very deceptive to the unwary, and many besides Ancient Pistol have eaten leeks against their will because of their ignorance concerning it.
We join the throng in the street and stroll leisurely down the long incline. The whole town tips that way. A variety of more or less quaint vehicles move about—cabriolets drawn by donkeys and ponies; sedan chairs; a species of easy-chair on wheels, with a wooden apron, and propelled by a boy or a decayed footman in seedy livery with bibulous habits written on his face. Something of a similar sort was seen at the Centennial, yet utterly unlike this, notwithstanding a resemblance in principle. These invalid go-carts are very convenient at Tenby, as they may be trundled everywhere, even on the sands, which are hard and flat. A peculiarity of all the vehicles, even those drawn by two animals, is that they go slower, as a rule, than on-foot people do. Briskly-walking couples and groups of English and Welsh ladies pass us, carrying over their arms bathing-dresses or towels, with the business-like alacrity of movement characteristic of most Britons on their feet. No one saunters except ourselves. All are hastening to the south sands, looking neither to the right nor the left; but for us there are eye-lures in every direction. The town abounds with antiquities calculated to awaken the liveliest interest in a stranger: every street is rich with romantic story; every hill and rock for miles around has its legend, its ruin of castle, abbey or palace, or its[page 192] mysterious cromlech,—all that can most charm the soul of the antiquary; and Shakespeare has honored this corner of Wales beyond others by putting it in one of his tragedies. Considerable portions of the ancient town-wall are standing, with the mural towers and gateways. In the parish church, which we pass, are some most interesting monuments of the early half of the fourteenth century, but the Tenbyites look upon their church as rather a modern structure, as churches go in Wales. They point out the place where John Wesley preached in the street in 1763, when the mayor threatened to read the riot act. There is still a law in Wales against street-preaching, but it is not often enforced, unless the preacher happens to be drunk—an incident not altogether unknown.
The old stone pier abounds with seafaring characters in holiday rig, very picturesque to American eyes. They knuckle their foreheads and remove their pipes as we pass, and by attitudes and gestures which would inform a deaf-mute invite us to take a sail on the bay. They do not audibly offer their services, for the municipal laws forbid them to, but their figureheads are mutely eloquent. Here is one who might be put right on the stage as he stands as the typical jolly Jack Tar of the nautical drama. He wears a red liberty-cap, and a nose which matches it to a shade. His jersey is blue and low in the neck, and his trousers are of that roominess supposed to be necessary for nautical purposes. Other mariners about him are quite as interesting. Occasionally one is seen whose rig is so neat he might have stepped out of a bandbox, but, though he is an ornamental mariner, he is not a Brummagem one. These fellows all know storm and danger and severe toil as common acquaintances. The neatest of them are understood to be residents here, with wives or mothers who strive hard to keep them looking nice in the fashionable season; and in blue flannel shirt with immense broad collar, another broad collar of white turned over that, hat of neat straw or tarpaulin with upturned rim and bright blue ribbon, they form a feature of attractiveness which has no counterpart at American seaside resorts. The rougher mariners, if not so handsome, are still most picturesque: they are chiefly fishermen from the Devonshire coast, who sail over here to take the salmon, mackerel, herrings, turbots, soles, etc. which so abound at Tenby. The spot still bears out, in spite of its modern glories as a watering-place, its ancient renown as a fishing-point, which was so great that the old-time Britons called it Denbych y Piscoed ("the hill by the place of fishes").
On the Castle Hill we find a great company gathered, looking down on the still greater company which is gathered on the yellow sands. Children are climbing and rolling on the soft greensward of the terraces, and adults are sprawling at full length, completely at their ease. Men and women lounge to and fro on the sea-wall promenade, a miniature of the Hyde Park throng at mid-season. Others sit reading or chatting or looking out over the sparkling sea. The grass and crags are dotted with azure and purple flowers, and cushions of pink and white stone-crop abound. Higher up the hill stand the ivied ruins of the Norman castle, and the white memorial monument to Prince Albert, with its sculptured panels bearing the arms of Llewellyn the Great, the red dragon of Cadwalader, the symbolical leek and the motto, Anorchfygol Ddraig Cymru ("The dragon of Wales is invincible"). The air is very cool and bracing on this hill. But the greatest crowd is on the sands and on the rocks of the cliff immediately backing the beach. It is difficult for one who is familiar only with the beach at Long Branch or Cape May to comprehend such a scene as this which I am trying to picture. In the first place, the field is so entirely different from that at home; and in the second place, the bathing population of the town is not broken up into a number of hotel communities and cottage communities, but is all gathered at one spot. It is true some residents on the north cliff bathe on the north sands, but they come to the south sands after[page 193] they have had their dip, to meet le monde. There is room here for le monde too; and the groups not only sprinkle the wide yellow plain, but they are perched about on the face of the cliff in grottos and on jutting crags; they are grouped in the cool shade of rocky caverns at the precipice's base; they are leaning on the battlemented walls that crown its summit. The water is a considerable distance from where the people sit, and minute by minute, as the time passes, it recedes farther and farther, until at last it is a long walk away. The gay hues of red-coated soldiers assist feminine attire in enlivening the scene with color. Children in great numbers are scampering about, and busying themselves, much as they do at home, with toy pails and spades; but if you take notice you will find that their sand-structures differ widely from those of children in America: you may even see a perfect model of a feudal castle grow into shape, with barbacan, gate, moat, drawbridge, towers, bastions, donjon-keep and banqueting-hall complete. A brass band—the members in full uniform of bright colors, with little rimless red-and-gold caps—is playing under the battlemented garden-wall which backs the sands in one place. Listen to the tunes! Heard you ever these peculiar airs before? The "Bells of Aberdovey" jangle their sweet chime over the wind-blown scene. The "March of the Men of Harlech" fills all the air with its stirring scarlet strain. The quaint melody of "Hob y deri dando" moves the feet of youth to restlessness: not that it is a jig, in spite of the jiggy look of the words to English eyes, but because it has been twisted into the service of Terpsichore by a famous band-master in his "Welsh Lancers." "Hob y deri dando" is a love-song: