'I suppose you are not above your work, Mr. Clay?'
'I am not above anything in the world that is right, sir. I have come to seek work.'
He was engaged forthwith. His duties at present were to lie partly in the counting-house, partly in overlooking the men; and the salary offered was twenty-five pounds per quarter.
'I can rise above that in time, I suppose,' remarked Austin, 'if I give satisfaction?'
Mr. Hunter smiled. 'Ay, you can rise above that, if you choose. But when you get on, you'll be doing, I expect, as some of the rest do.'
'What is that, sir?'
'Leaving us, to set up for yourself. Numbers have done so as soon as they have become valuable. I do not speak of the men, you understand, but of those who have been with us in a higher capacity. A few of the men, though, have done the same; some have risen into influence.'
'How can they do that without capital?' inquired Austin. 'It must take money, and a good deal of it, to set up for themselves.'
'Not so much as you may think. They begin in a small way—take piece-work, and work early and late,often fourteen and fifteen hours a day, husbanding their earnings, and getting a capital together by slow but sure degrees. Many of our most important firms have so risen, and owe their present positions to sheer hard work, patience, and energy.'
'It was the way in which Mr. Thornimett first rose,' observed Austin. 'He was once a journeyman at fourteen shillings a week.Hegot together money by working over hours.'
'Ay, there's nothing like it for the industrious man,' said Mr. Hunter.
Preliminaries were settled, advice given to him where he might find lodgings, and Austin departed, having accepted an invitation to dine at six at Mr. Henry Hunter's.
And all through having performed an unpremeditated but almost necessary act of bravery.
Turning to the right after quitting the business premises of the Messrs. Hunter, you came to an open, handsome part, where the square in which those gentlemen dwelt was situated, with other desirable squares, crescents, and houses. But, if you turned to the left instead of to the right, you very speedily found yourself in the midst of a dense locality, not so agreeable to the eye or to the senses.
And yet some parts of this were not much to be complained of, unless you instituted a comparison between them and those open places; but in this world all things are estimated by comparison. Take Daffodil's Delight, for example. 'Daffodil's Delight! what's that?' cries the puzzled reader, uncertain whether it may be a fine picture or something to eat. Daffodil's Delight was nothing more than a tolerably long street, or lane, or double row of houses—wide enough for a street, dirty enough for a lane, the buildings irregular, not always contiguous, small gardens before some, and a few trees scattered here and there. When the locality was mostly fields, and the buildings on them were scanty, a person of the name of Daffodil ran up a few tenements. He found that they let well, and he ran up more, and more, and more, until there was a long, long line of them, and he growing rich. He called the place Daffodil's Delight—which we may suppose expressed his own complacent satisfaction at his success—and Daffodil's Delight it had continued, down to the present day. The houses were of various sizes, and of fancy appearance; some large, some small; some rising up like a narrow tower, some but a storey high; some were all windows, some seemed to have none; some you could only gain by ascending steps; to others you pitched down as into a cellar; some lay back, with gardens before their doors, while others projected pretty nearly on to the street gutter. Nothing in the way of houses could be more irregular, and what Mr. Daffodil's motive could have been in erecting such cannot be conjectured—unless he formed an idea that hewould make a venture to suit various tastes and diverse pockets.
Nearly at the beginning of this locality, in its best part, before the road became narrow, there stood a detached white house; one of only six rooms, but superior in appearance, and well kept; indeed, it looked more like a gentleman's cottage residence than a working man's. Verandah blinds were outside the windows, and green wire fancy stands held geraniums and other plants on the stone copings, against their lower panes, obviating the necessity for inside blinds. In this house lived Peter Quale. He had begun life carrying hods of mortar for masons, and covering up bricks with straw—a half-starved urchin, his feet as naked as his head, and his body pretty nearly the same. But he was steady, industrious, and persevering—just one of those men thatwork onfor decent position, and acquire it. From two shillings per week to four, from four to six, from six to twelve—such had been Peter Quale's beginnings. At twelve shillings he remained for some time stationary, and then his advance was rapid. Now, he was one of the superior artisans of the Messrs. Hunters' yard; was, in fact, in a post of trust, and his wages had grown in proportion. Daffodil's Delight said that Quale's earnings could not be less than 150l.per annum. A steady, sensible, honest, but somewhat obstinate man, well-read, and intelligent; for Peter, while he advanced his circumstances, had not neglected his mind. He had cultivated that far more than he had his speech or his manner; a homely tone and grammar, better known toDaffodil's Delight than to polite ears, Peter favoured still.
In the afternoon of Whit Monday, the day spoken of already, Peter sat in the parlour of his house, a pipe in his mouth, and a book in his hand. He looked about midway between forty and fifty, had a round bald head, surmounted just now by a paper cap, a fair complexion, grey whiskers, and a well-marked forehead, especially where lie the perceptive faculties. His eyes were deeply sunk in his head, and he was by nature a silent man. In the kitchen behind, 'washing up' after dinner, was his helpmate, Mrs. Quale. Although so well to do, and having generally a lodger, she kept no servant—'wouldn't be bothered with 'em,' she said—but did her own work; a person coming in once a week to clean.
A rattling commotion in the street caused Peter Quale to look up from his book. A large pleasure-van was rumbling down it, drawing up at the next door to his.
'Nancy!' called out he to his wife.
'Well?' came forth the answer, in a brisk, bustling voice, from the depths of the kitchen.
'The Shucks, and that lot, be actually going off now?'
The news appeared to excite the curiosity of Mrs. Quale, and she came hastily in; a dark-eyed, rosy-cheeked little woman, with black curls. She wore a neat white cap, a fresh-looking plum-coloured striped gown of some thin woollen material, and a black apron; a coarse apron being pinned round her. Mrs. Qualewas an inveterate busybody, knew every incident that took place in Daffodil's Delight, and possessed a free-and-easy tongue; but she was a kindly woman withal, and very popular. She put her head outside the window above the geraniums, to reconnoitre.
'Oh, they be going, sure enough! Well, they are fools! That's just like Slippery Sam! By to-morrow they won't have a threepenny piece to bless themselves with. But, if they must have went, they might have started earlier in the day. There's the Whites! And—why!—there's the Dunns! The van won't hold 'em all. As for the Dunns, they'll have to pinch for a month after it. She has got on a dandy new bonnet with pink ribbons. Aren't some folks idiots, Peter?'
Peter rejoined, with a sort of a grunt, that it wasn't no business of his, and applied himself again to his pipe and book. Mrs. Quale made everybody's business hers, especially their failings and shortcomings; and she unpinned the coarse apron, flung it aside, and flew off to the next house.
It was inhabited by two families, the Shucks and the Baxendales. Samuel Shuck, usually called Slippery Sam, was an idle, oily-tongued chap, always slipping from work—hence the nickname—and spending at the 'Bricklayers' Arms' what ought to have been spent upon his wife and children. John Baxendale was a quiet, reserved man, living respectably with his wife and daughter, but not saving. It was singular how improvident most of them were. Daffodil's Delight was chiefly inhabited by the workmen of the Messrs. Hunter;they seemed to love to congregate there as in a nest. Some of the houses were crowded with them, a family on a floor—even in a room; others rented a house to themselves, and lived in comfort.
Assembled inside Sam Shuck's front room, which was a kitchen and not a parlour, and to which the house door opened, were as many people as it could well hold, all in their holiday attire. Abel White, his wife and family; Jim Dunn, and his; Patrick Ryan and the childer (Pat's wife was dead); and John Baxendale and his daughter, besides others; the whole host of little Shucks, and half-a-dozen outside stragglers. Mrs. Quale might well wonder how all the lot could be stuffed into the pleasure-van. She darted into their midst.
'You never mean to say you be a-going off, like simpletons, at this time o' day?' quoth she.
'Yes, we be,' answered Sam Shuck, a lanky, serpent sort of man in frame, with a prominent black eye, a turned-up nose, and, as has been said, an oily tongue. 'What have you got to say again it, Mrs. Quale? Come!'
'Say!' said that lady, undauntedly, but in a tone of reason rather than rebuke, 'I say you may just as well fling your money in the gutter as to go off to Epping at three o'clock in the afternoon. Why didn't you start in the morning? If I hired a pleasure-van I'd have my money's worth out of it.'
'It's just this here,' said Sam. 'It was ordered to be here as St. Paul's great bell was a striking break o' day, but the wheels wasn't greased; and they have been allthis time a greasing 'em with the best fresh butter at eighteen-pence a pound, had up from Devonshire on purpose.'
'You hold your tongue, Sam,' reprimanded Mrs. Quale. 'You have been a greasing your throat pretty strong, I see, with an extra pot or two; you'll be in for it as usual before the day's out. How is it you are going now?' she added, turning to the women.
'It's just the worst managed thing as I ever had to do with,' volubly spoke up Jim Dunn's wife, Hannah. 'And it's all the fault o' the men: as everything as goes wrong always is. There was a quarrel yesterday over it, and nothing was settled, and this morning when we met they began a jawing again. Some would go, and some wouldn't; some 'ud have a van to the Forest, and some 'ud take a omnibus ride to the Zoological Gardens, and see the beasts, and finish up at the play; some 'ud sit at home, and smoke, and drink, and wouldn't go nowhere; and most of the men got off to the "Bricklayers' Arms" and stuck there; and afore the difference was settled in favour of the van and the Forest, twelve o'clock struck, and then there was dinner to be had, and us to put ourselves to rights and the van to be seen after. And there it is, now three o'clock's gone.'
'It'll be just a ride out, and a ride in,' cried Mrs. Quale; 'you won't have much time to stop. Money must be plentiful with you, a fooling it away like that. I thought some of you had better sense.'
'We spoke against it, father and I,' said quiet Mary Baxendale, in Mrs. Quale's ear; 'but as we had givenour word to join in it and share in the expense, we didn't like to go from it again. Mother doesn't feel strong to-day, so she's stopping at home.'
'It does seem stupid to start at this late hour,' spoke up a comely woman, mild in speech, Robert Darby's wife. 'Better to have put it off till to-morrow, and taken another day's holiday, as I told my master. But when it was decided to go, we didn't say nay, for I couldn't bear to disappoint the children.'
The children were already being lifted into the van. Sundry baskets and bundles, containing provisions for tea, and stone bottles of porter for the men, were being lifted in also. Then the general company got in; Daffodil's Delight, those not bound on the expedition, assembling to witness the ceremony, and Peter casting an eye at it from his parlour. After much packing, and stowing, and laughing, and jesting, and the gentlemen declaring the ladies must sit upon their laps three deep, the van and its four horses moved off, and went lumbering down Daffodil's Delight.
Mrs. Quale, after watching the last of it, was turning into her own gate, when she heard a tapping at the window of the tenement on theotherside of her house. Upon looking round, it was thrown open, and a portly matron, dressed almost well enough for a lady, put out her head. She was the wife of George Stevens, a very well-to-do workman, and most respectable man.
'Are they going off to the Forest at this hour, that lot?'
'Ay,' returned Mrs. Quale; 'was ever such nonsense known? I'd have made a day of it, if I had went.They'll get home at midnight, I expect, fit to stand on their heads. Some of the men have had a'most as much as is good for them now.'
'I say,' continued Mrs. Stevens, 'George says, will you and your master come in for an hour or two this evening, and eat a bit of supper with us? We shall have a nice dish o' beefsteaks and onions, or some relishing thing of that sort, and the Cheeks are coming.'
'Thank ye,' said Mrs. Quale. 'I'll ask Peter. But don't go and get anything hot.'
'I must,' was the answer. 'We had a shoulder of lamb yesterday, and we finished it up to-day for dinner, with a salad; so there's nothing cold in the house, and I'm forced to cook a bit of something. I say, don't make it late; come at six. George—he's off somewhere, but he'll be in.'
Mrs. Quale nodded acquiescence, and went indoors. Her husband was reading and smoking still.
'I'd have put it off till ten at night, and went then!' ironically cried she, in allusion to the departed pleasure-party. 'A bickering and contending they have been over it, Hannah Dunn says; couldn't come to an agreement what they'd do, or what they wouldn't do! Did you ever see such a load! Them poor horses 'll have enough of it, if the others don't. I say, the Stevenses want us to go in there to supper to-night. Beefsteaks and onions.'
Peter's head was bent attentively over a map in his book, and it continued so bent for a minute or two. Then he raised it. 'Who's to be there?'
'The Cheeks,' she said. 'I'll make haste and put the kettle on, and we'll have our tea as soon as it boils. She says don't go in later than six.'
Pinning on the coarse apron, Mrs. Quale passed into the kitchen to her work. From the above slight sketch, it may be gathered that Daffodil's Delight was, take it for all in all, in tolerably comfortable circumstances. But for the wasteful mode of living generally pervading it; the improvidence both of husbands and wives; the spending where they need not have spent, and in things they would have been better without—it would have been inverycomfortable circumstances: for, as is well known, no class of operatives earn better wages than those connected with the building trade.
'Is this Peter Quale's?'
The question proceeded from a stranger, who had entered the house passage, and thence the parlour, after knocking at its door. Peter raised his eyes, and beheld a tall, young, very gentleman-like man, in grey travelling clothes and a crape band on his black hat. Of courteous manners also, for he lifted his hat as he spoke, though Peter was only a workman and had a paper cap on his head.
'I am Peter Quale,' said Peter, without moving.
Perhaps you may have already guessed that it was Austin Clay. He stepped forward with a frank smile. 'I am sent here,' he said, 'by the Messrs. Hunter. They desired me to inquire for Peter Quale.'
Peter was not wont to put himself out of the way for strangers: had a Duke Royal vouchsafed him a visit, Iquestion if Peter would have been more than barely civil; but he knew his place with respect to his employers, and what was due to them—none better; and he rose up at their name, and took off his paper cap, and laid his pipe inside the fender, and spoke a word of apology to the gentleman before him.
'Pray do not mention it; do not disturb yourself,' said Austin, kindly. 'My name is Clay. I have just entered into an engagement with the Messrs. Hunter, and am now in search of lodgings as conveniently near their yard as may be. Mr. Henry Hunter said he thought you had rooms which might suit me: hence my intrusion.'
'Well, sir, I don't know,' returned Peter, rather dubiously. He was one of those who are apt to grow bewildered with any sudden proposition; requiring time, as may be said, to take it in, before he could digest it.
'You are from the country, sir, maybe?'
'I am from the country. I arrived in London but an hour ago, and my portmanteau is yet at the station. I wish to settle where I shall lodge, before I go to get it. Have you rooms to let?'
'Here, Nancy, come in!' cried Peter to his wife. 'The rooms are in readiness to be shown, aren't they?'
Mrs. Quale required no second call. Hearing a strange voice, and gifted in a remarkable degree with what we are taught to look upon as her sex's failing—curiosity—she had already discarded again the apron, and made her appearance in time to receive the question.
'Ready and waiting,' answered she. 'And twobetter rooms for their size you won't find, sir, search London through,' she said, volubly, turning to Austin. 'They are on the first floor—a nice sitting-room, and a bedchamber behind it. The furniture is good, and clean, and handsome; for, when we were buying of it, we didn't spare a few pounds, knowing such would keep good to the end. Would you please step up, sir, and take a look at them?'
Austin acquiesced, motioning to her to lead the way. She dropped a curtsey as she passed him, as if in apology for taking it. He followed, and Peter brought up the rear, a dim notion penetrating Peter's brain that the attention was due from him to one sent by the Messrs. Hunter.
Two good rooms, as she had said; small, but well fitted up. 'You'd be sure to be comfortable, sir,' cried Mrs. Quale to Austin. 'IfIcan't make lodgers comfortable, I don't know who can. Our last gentleman came to us three years ago, and left but a month since. He was a barrister's clerk, but he didn't get well paid, and he lodged in this part for cheapness.'
'The rooms would suit me, so far as I can judge,' said Austin, looking round; 'suit me very well indeed, if we can agree upon terms. My pocket is but a shallow one at present,' he laughed.
'I would makethemeasy enough for any gentleman sent by the masters,' struck in Peter. 'Did you say your name was Clay, sir?'
'Clay,' assented Austin.
Mrs. Quale wheeled round at this, and took a free,full view of the gentleman from head to foot. 'Clay? Clay?' she repeated to herself. 'And thereisa likeness, if ever I saw one! Sir,' she hastily inquired, 'do you come from the neighbourhood of Ketterford?'
'I come from Ketterford itself,' replied he.
'Ah, but you were not born right in the town. I think you must be Austin Clay, sir; the orphan son of Mr. Clay and his wife—Miss Austin that used to be. They lived at the Nash farm. Sir, I have had you upon my lap scores of times when you were a little one.'
'Why——who are you?' exclaimed Austin.
'You can't have forgot old Mr. Austin, the great-uncle, sir? though you were only seven years old when he died. I was Ann Best, cook to the old gentleman, and I heard all the ins and outs of the marriage of your father and mother. The match pleased neither family, and so they just took the Nash farm for themselves, to be independent and get along without being beholden for help to anybody. Many a fruit puff have I made for you, Master Austin; many a currant cake: how things come round in this world! Do take our rooms, sir—it will seem like serving my old master over again.'
'I will take them willingly, and be glad to fall into such good hands. You will not require references now?'
Mrs. Quale laughed. Peter grunted resentfully. References from anybody sent by the Messrs. Hunter! 'I would say eight shillings a week, sir,' said Peter, looking at his wife. 'Pay as you like; monthly, or quarterly, or any way.'
'That's less than I expected,' said Austin, in his candour. 'Mr. Henry Hunter thought they would be about ten shillings.'
Peter was candid also. 'There's the neighbourhood to be took into consideration, sir, which is not a good one, and we can only let according to it. In some parts—and not far off, neither—you'd pay eighteen or twenty shillings for such rooms as these; in Daffodil's Delight it is different, though this is the best quarter of it. The last gentleman paid us nine. If eight will suit you, sir, it will suit us.'
So the bargain was struck; and Austin Clay went back to the station for his luggage. Mrs. Quale, busy as a bee, ran in to tell her next-door neighbour that she could not be one of the beef-steak-and-onion eaters that night, though Peter might, for she should have her hands full with their new lodger. 'The nicest, handsomest young fellow,' she wound up with; 'one it will be a pleasure to wait on.'
'Take care what you be at, if he's a stranger,' cried cautious Mrs. Stevens. 'There's no trusting those country folks: they run away sometimes. It looks odd, don't it, to come after lodgings one minute, and enter upon 'em the next?'
'Very odd,' assented Mrs. Quale, with a laugh. 'Why, it was Mr. Henry Hunter sent him round here; and he has got a post in their house.'
'What sort of one?' asked Mrs. Stevens, sceptical still.
'Who knows? Something superior to the best of usworkpeople, you may be sure. He belongs to gentlefolks,' concluded Mrs. Quale. 'I knew him as a baby. It was in his mother's family I lived before I married. He's as like his mother as two peas, and a handsome woman was Mrs. Clay. Good-bye: I'm going to get the sheets on to his bed now.'
Mrs. Quale, however, found that she was, after all, able to assist at the supper; for, when Austin came back, it was only to dress himself and go out, in pursuance of the invitation he had accepted to dine at Mr. Henry Hunter's. With all his haste it had struck six some minutes when he got there.
Mrs. Henry Hunter, a very pretty and very talkative woman, welcomed him with both hands, and told her children to do the same, for it was 'the gentleman who saved papa.' There was no ceremony; he was received quiteen famille; no other guest was present, and three or four of the children dined at table. He appeared to find favour with them all. He talked on business matters with Mr. Henry Hunter; on lighter topics with his wife; he pointed out some errors in Mary Hunter's drawings, which she somewhat ostentatiously exhibited to him, and showed her how to rectify them. He entered into the school life of the two young boys, from their classics to their scrapes; and nursed a pretty little lady of five, who insisted on appropriating his knee—bearing himself throughout all with the modest reticence—the refinement of the innate gentleman. Mrs. Henry Hunter was charmed with him.
'How do you think you shall like your quarters?'she asked. 'Mr. Hunter told me he recommended you to Peter Quale's.'
'Very well. At least they will do. Mrs. Quale, it appears, is an old friend of mine.'
'An old friend! Of yours!'
'She claims me as one, and says she has nursed me many a time when I was a child. I had quite forgotten her, and all about her, though I now remember her name. She was formerly a servant in my mother's family, near Ketterford.'
Thus Austin Clay had succeeded without delay or difficulty in obtaining employment, and was, moreover, received on a footing of equality in the house of Mr. Henry Hunter. We shall see how he gets on.
Were there space, it might be well to trace Austin Clay's progress step by step—his advancements and his drawbacks—his smooth-sailing and his difficulties; for, that his course was not free from difficulties and drawbacks you may be very sure. I do not know whose is. If any had thought he was to be represented as perfection, they were mistaken. Yet he managed to hold on his way without moral damage, for he was high-principled in every sense of the word. But there isneither time nor space to give to these particulars that regard himself alone.
Austin Clay sat one day in a small room of the office, making corrections in a certain plan, which had been roughly sketched. It was a hot day for the beginning of autumn, some three or four months having elapsed since his installation at Hunter and Hunter's. The office boy came in to interrupt him.
'Please, sir, here's a lady outside, asking if she can see young Mr. Clay.'
'A lady!' repeated Austin, in some wonder. 'Who is it?'
'I think she's from the country, sir,' said the sharp boy. 'She have got a big nosegay in her hand and a brown reticule.'
'Does she wear widow's weeds?' questioned Austin hastily, an idea flashing over him that Mrs. Thornimett might have come up to town.
'Weeds?' replied the boy, staring, as if at a loss to know what 'weeds' might mean. 'She have got a white veil on, sir.'
'Oh,' said Austin. 'Well, ask her to come in. But I don't know any lady that can want me. Or who has any business to come here if she does,' he added to himself.
The lady came in: a very tall one. She wore a dark silk dress, a shepherd's plaid shawl, a straw bonnet, and a white veil. The reticule spoken of by the boy was in her hand; but the nosegay she laid down on a bench just outside the door. Austin rose to receive her.
'You are doubtless surprised to see me, Austin Clay. But, as I was coming to London on business—I always do at this season of the year—I got your address from Mrs. Thornimett, having a question to put to you.'
Without ceremony, without invitation, she sat herself down on a chair. More by her voice than her features—for she kept her veil before her face—did Austin recognise her. It was Miss Gwinn. He recognised her with dismay. Mr. Henry Hunter was about the premises, liable to come in at any moment, and then might occur a repetition of that violent scene to which he had been a witness. Often and often had his mind recurred to the affair; it perplexed him beyond measure. Was Mr. Henry Hunter the stranger to her he asserted himself to be, or was he not? 'What shall I do with her?' thought Austin.
'Will you shut the door?' she said, in a peremptory, short tone, for the boy had left it open.
'I beg your pardon, Miss Gwinn,' interrupted Austin, necessity giving him courage. 'Though glad to see you myself, I am at the present hour so busy that it is next to impossible for me to give you my attention. If you will name any place where I can wait upon you after business hours, this, or any other evening, I shall be happy to meet you.'
Miss Gwinn ranged her eyes round the room, looking possibly, for confirmation of his words. 'You are not so busy as to be unable to spare a minute to me. You were but looking over a plan.'
'It is a plan that is being waited for.' Which wastrue. 'And you must forgive me for reminding you—I do it in all courtesy—that my time and this room do not belong to me, but to my employers.'
'Boy! what is your motive for seeking to get rid of me?' she asked, abruptly. 'That you have one, I can see.'
Austin was upon thorns. He had not taken a seat. He stood near the door, pencil in hand, hoping it would induce her to move. At that moment footsteps were heard, and the office-door was pushed wide open.
It was Mr. Hunter. He stopped on the threshold, seeing a lady, an unusual sight there, and came to the conclusion that it must be some stranger for Mr. Clay. Her features, shaded by the thick white veil, were indistinct, and Mr. Hunter but glanced at her. Miss Gwinn on the contrary looked full at him, as she did at most people, and bent her head as a slight mark of courtesy. He responded by lifting his hat, and went out again.
'One of the principals, I suppose?' she remarked.
'Yes,' he replied, feeling thankful that it was not Mr. Henry. 'I believe he wants me, Miss Gwinn.'
'I am not going to keep you from him. The question I wish to put to you will be answered in a sentence. Austin Clay, have you, since——'
'Allow me one single instant first, then,' interrupted Austin, resigning himself to his fate, 'just to speak a word of explanation to Mr. Hunter.'
He stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. Standing at the outer door, close by, opento the yard, was Mr. Hunter. Austin, in his haste and earnestness, grasped his arm.
'Find Mr. Henry, sir,' he whispered. 'Wherever he may be, let him keep there—out of sight—until she—this person—has gone. It is Miss Gwinn.'
'Who? What do you say?' cried Mr. Hunter, staring at Austin.
'It is that Miss Gwinn. The woman who set upon Mr. Henry in that strange manner. She——'
Miss Gwinn opened the door at this juncture, and looked out upon them. Mr. Hunter walked briskly away in search of his brother. Austin turned back again.
She closed the door when he was inside the room, keeping her hand upon it. She did not sit down, but stood facing Austin, whom she held before her with the other hand.
'Have you, since you came to London, seen aught of my enemy?—that man whom you saved from his death in the gravel pits? Boy! answer me truthfully.'
He remained silent, scarcely seeing what his course ought to be; or whether in such a case a lie of denial might not be justifiable. But the hesitation spoiled that, for she read it arightly.
'No need of your affirmative,' she said. 'I see you have met him. Where is he to be found?'
There was only one course for him now; and he took it, in all straightforward openness.
'It is true I have seen that gentleman, Miss Gwinn, but I can tell you nothing about him.'
She looked fixedly at him. 'That you cannot, or that you will not? Which?'
'That I will not. Forgive the seeming incivility of the avowal, but I consider that I ought not to comply with your request—that I should be doing wrong?'
'Explain. What do you mean by "wrong?"'
'In the first place, I believe you were mistaken with regard to the gentleman: I do not think he was the one for whom you took him. In the second place, even if he be the one, I cannot make it my business to bring you into contact with him, and so give rise—as it probably would—to further violence.'
There was a pause. She threw up her veil and looked fixedly at him, struggling for composure, her lips compressed, her face working.
'You know who he is, and where he lives,' she jerked forth.
'I acknowledge that.'
'How dare you take part against me?' she cried, in agitation.
'I do not take part against you, Miss Gwinn,' he replied, wishing some friendly balloon would come and whirl her away; for Mr. Hunter might not find his brother to give the warning. 'I do not take his part more than I take yours, only in so far as that I decline to tell you who and where he is. Had he the same ill-feeling towards you, and wished to know where you might be found, I would not tell him.'
'Austin Clay, youshalltell me.'
He drew himself up to his full height, speaking in allthe quiet consciousness of resolution. 'Never of my own free will. And I think, Miss Gwinn, there are no means by which you can compel me.'
'Perhaps the law might?' She spoke dreamily, not in answer to him, but in commune with herself, as if debating the question. 'Fare you well for the present, young man; but I have not done with you.'
To his intense satisfaction she turned out of the office, catching up the flowers as she went. Austin attended her to the outer gate. She strode straight on, not deigning to cast a glance to the busy yard, with its sheds, its timber, its implements of work, and its artisans, all scattered about it.
'Believe me,' he said, holding out his hand as a peace-offering, 'I am not willingly discourteous. I wish I could see my way clear to help you.'
She did not take the hand; she walked away without another word or look, and Austin went back again. Mr. Hunter advanced to meet him from the upper end of the yard, and went with him into the small room.
'What was all that, Clay? I scarcely understood.'
'I daresay not, sir, for I had no time to be explanatory. It seems she—Miss Gwinn—has come to town on business. She procured my address from Mrs. Thornimett, and came here to ask of me if I had seen anything of her enemy—meaning Mr. Henry Hunter. I feared lest he should be coming in; I could only beg of you to find Mr. Henry, and warn him not. That is all, sir.'
Mr. Hunter stood with his back to Austin, softly whistling—his habit when in deep thought. 'Whatcan be her motive for wanting to find him?' he presently said.
'She speaks of revenge. Of course I do not know for what: I cannot give a guess. There's no doubt she is mistaken in the person, when she accuses Mr. Henry Hunter.'
'Well,' returned Mr. Hunter, 'I said nothing to my brother, for I did not understand what there was to say. It will be better not to tell him now; the woman is gone, and the subject does not appear to be a pleasant one. Do you hear?'
'Very well, sir.'
'I think I understood, when the affair was spoken of some time ago, that she does not know him as Mr. Hunter?'
'Of course she does not,' said Austin. 'She would have been here after him before now if she did. She came this morning to see me, not suspecting she might meet him.'
'Ah! Better keep the visit close,' cried Mr. Hunter, as he walked away.
Now, it had occurred to Austin that it would be better to do just the opposite thing.Heshould have told Mr. Henry Hunter, and left that gentleman to seek out Miss Gwinn, or not, as he might choose. A sudden meeting between them in the office, in the hearing of the yard, and with the lady in excitement, was not desirable; but that Mr. Henry Hunter should clear himself, now that she was following him up, and convince her it was not he who was the suspected party,was, Austin thought, needful—that is, if he could do it. However, he could only obey Mr. Hunter's suggestions.
Austin resumed his occupation. His brain and fingers were busy over the plan, when he saw a gig drive into the yard. It contained the great engineer, Sir Michael Wilson. Mr. Henry Hunter came down the yard to meet him; they shook hands, and entered the private room together. In a few minutes Mr. Henry came to Austin.
'Are you particularly engaged, Clay?'
'Only with this plan, sir. It is wanted as soon as I can get it done.'
'You can leave it for a quarter of an hour. I wish you to go round to Dr. Bevary. I was to have been at his house now—half-past eleven—to accompany him on a visit to a sick friend. Tell him that Sir Michael has come, and I have to go out with him, therefore it is impossible for me to keep my engagement. I am very sorry, tell Bevary: these things always happen crossly. Go right into his consulting-room, Clay; never mind patients; or else he will be chafing at my delay, and grumble the ceiling off.'
Austin departed. Dr. Bevary occupied a good house in the main street, to the left of the yard, to gain which he had to pass the turning to Daffodil's Delight. Had Dr. Bevary lived to the right of the yard, his practice might have been more exclusive; but doctors cannot always choose their localities, circumstances more frequently doing that for them. He had a large connexion, and was often pressed for time.
Down went Austin, and gained the house. Just inside the open door, before which a close carriage was standing, was the doctor's servant.
'Dr. Bevary is engaged, sir, with a lady patient,' said the man. 'He is very particularly engaged for the moment, but I don't think he'll be long.'
'I'll wait,' said Austin, not deeming it well strictly to follow Mr. Henry Hunter's directions; and he turned, without ceremony, to the little box of a study on the left of the hall.
'Not there, sir,' interposed the man hastily, and he showed him into the drawing-room on the right; Dr. Bevary and his patient being in the consulting-room.
Ten minutes of impatience to Austin. What could any lady mean by keeping him so long, in his own house? Then they came forth. The lady, a very red and portly one, rather old, was pushed into her carriage by the help of her footman, Austin watching the process from the window. The carriage then drove off.
The doctor did not come in. Austin concluded the servant must have forgotten to tell him he was there. He crossed the hall to the little study, the doctor's private room, knocked and entered.
'I am not to care for patients,' called out he gaily, believing the doctor was alone; 'Mr. Henry Hunter says so.' But to his surprise, a patient was sitting there—at least, a lady; sitting, nose and knees together, with Dr. Bevary, and talking hurriedly and earnestly, as if they had the whole weight of the nation's affairs on their shoulders.
It was Miss Gwinn. The flowers had apparently found their home, for they were in a vase on the table. Austin took it all in at a glance.
'So it is you, is it, Austin Clay?' she exclaimed. 'I was acquainting Dr. Bevary with your refusal to give me that man's address, and asking his opinion whether the law could compel you. Have you come after me to say you have thought better of it?'
Austin was decidedly taken aback. It might have been his fancy, but he thought he saw a look of caution go out to him from Dr. Bevary's eyes.
'Was your visit to this lady, Mr. Clay?'
'No, sir, it was to you. Sir Michael Wilson has come down on business, and Mr. Henry Hunter will not be able to keep his appointment with you. He desired me to say that he was sorry, but that it was no fault of his.'
Dr. Bevary nodded. 'Tell him I was about to send round to say that I could not keep mine with him so it's all right. Another day will——'
A sharp cry. A cry of passion, of rage, almost of terror. It came from Miss Gwinn; and the doctor, breaking off his sentence, turned to her in amazement.
It was well he did so; it was well he caught her hands. Another moment, and she would have dashed them through the window, and perhaps herself also. Driving by, in the gig, were Sir Michael Wilson and Mr. Henry Hunter. It was at the latter she gazed, at him she pointed.
'Do you see him? Do you see him?' she panted to the doctor. 'That's the man; not the one driving;the other—the one sitting this way. Oh, Dr. Bevary, will you believe me now? I told you I met him at Ketterford; and there he is again! Let me go!'
She was strong almost as a wild animal, wrestling with the doctor to get from him. He made a motion to Austin to keep the door, and there ensued a sharp struggle. Dr. Bevary got her into an arm-chair at last, and stood before her, holding her hands, at first in silence. Then he spoke calmly, soothingly, as he would to a child.
'My dear lady, what will become of you if you give way to these fits of violence? But for me, I really believe you would have been through the window. A pretty affair of spikes that would be! I should have had you laid up in my house for a month, covered over with sticking-plaster.'
'If you had not stopped me I might have caught that gig,' was her passionate rejoinder.
'Caught that gig! A gig going at the rate of ten miles an hour, if it was going one! By the time you had got down the steps of my door it would have been out of sight. How people can drive at that random rate in London streets,Ican't think.'
'Howcan I find him? How can I find him?'
Her tone was quite a wail of anguish. However they might deprecate her mistaken violence, it was impossible but that both her hearers should feel compassion for her. She laid her hand on the doctor's arm.
'Will you not help me to find him, Dr. Bevary? Did you note him?'
'So far as to see that there were two persons in the gig, and that they were men, not women. Do you feel sure it was the man you speak of? It is so easy to be mistaken in a person who is being whirled along swiftly.'
'Mistaken!' she returned, in a strangely significant tone. 'Dr. Bevary, I am sure it was he. I have not kept him in my mind for years, to mistake him now. Austin Clay,' she fiercely added, turning round upon Austin, 'youspeak; speak the truth; I saw you look after them. Was it, or was it not, the man whom I met at Ketterford?'
'I believe it was,' was Austin's answer. 'Nevertheless, Miss Gwinn, I do not believe him to be the enemy you spoke of—the one who worked you ill. He denies it just as solemnly as you assert it; and I am sure he is a truthful man.'
'And that I am a liar?'
'No. That you believe what you assert is only too apparent. I think it a case, on your side, of mistaken identity.'
Happening to raise his eyes, Austin caught those of Dr. Bevary fixed upon him with a keen, troubled, earnest gaze. It asked, as plainly as a gaze could ask, 'Doyou believe so? or is the falsehood onhisside?'
'Will you disclose to Dr. Bevary the name of that man, if you will not to me?'
Again the gentlemen's eyes met, and this time an unmistakeable warning of caution gleamed forth from Dr. Bevary's. Austin could only obey it.
'I must decline to speak of him in any way, MissGwinn,' said he; 'you had my reasons before. Dr. Bevary, I have given you the message I was charged with. I must wish you both good day.'
Austin walked back, full of thought, his belief somewhat wavering. 'It is very strange,' he reflected. 'Could a woman, could any one be so positive as she is, unless thoroughly sure? Whatisthe mystery, I wonder? That it was no sentimental affair between them, or rubbish of that sort, is patent by the difference of their ages; she looks pretty nearly old enough to be his mother. Mr. Henry Hunter's is a remarkable face—one that would alter little in a score of years.'
The bell was ringing twelve as he approached the yard, and the workmen were pouring out of it, on their way home to dinner. Plentiful tables awaited them; little care was on their minds; flourishing was every branch of the building trade then. Peter Quale came up to Austin.
'Sam Shuck have just been up here, sir, a-eating humble pie, and praying to be took on again. But the masters be both absent; and Mr. Mills, he said he didn't choose, in a thing like this, to act on his own responsibility, for he heard Mr. Hunter say Shuck shouldn't again be employed.'
'I would not take him on,' replied Austin, 'if it rested with me; an idle, skulking, deceitful vagabond, drunk and incapable at one time, striving to spread discontent among the men at another. He has been on the loose for a fortnight now. But it is not my affair, Quale; Mr. Mills is manager.'
The yard, between twelve and one, was pretty nearly deserted. The gentleman, spoken of as Mr. Mills, and Austin, usually remained; the principals would sometimes be there, and an odd man or two. The timekeeper lived in the yard. Austin rather liked that hour; it was quiet. He was applying to his plan with a zest, when another interruption came, in the shape of Dr. Bevary. Austin began to think he might as well put the drawing away altogether.
'Anybody in the offices, Mr. Clay, except you?' asked the doctor.
'Not indoors. Mills is about somewhere.'
Down sat the doctor, and fixed his keen eyes upon Austin. 'What took place here this morning with Miss Gwinn?'
'No harm, sir,' replied Austin, briefly explaining. 'As it happened, Mr. Henry kept away. Mr. Hunter came in and saw her; but that was all.'
'What is your opinion?' abruptly asked the doctor. 'Come, give it freely. You have your share of judgment, and of discretion too, or I should not ask it. Is she mistaken, or is Henry Hunter false?'
Austin did not immediately reply. Dr. Bevary mistook the cause of his silence.
'Don't hesitate, Clay. You know I am trustworthy; and it is not I who would stir to harm a Hunter. If I seek to come to the bottom of this affair, it is that I may do what I can to repair damage; to avert some of the fruits of wrong-doing.'
'If I hesitated, Dr. Bevary, it was that I am really ata loss what answer to give. When Mr. Henry Hunter denies that he knows the woman, or that he ever has known her, he appears to me to speak open truth. On the other hand, these recognitions of Miss Gwinn's, and her persistency, are, to say the least of them, suspicious and singular. Until within an hour I had full trust in Mr. Henry Hunter; now I do not know what to think. She seemed to recognise him in the gig so surely.'
'He does not appear'—Dr. Bevary appeared to be speaking to himself, and his head was bent—'like one who carries about with him some dark secret.'
'Mr. Henry Hunter? None less. Never a man whose outside gave indications of a clearer conscience. But, Dr. Bevary, if her enemy be Mr. Henry Hunter, how is it she does not know him by name?'
'Ay, there's another point. She evidently attaches no importance to the name of Hunter.'
'What was the name of—of the enemy she talks of?' asked Austin. 'We must call him "enemy" for want of a better name. Do you know it, doctor?'
'No. Can't get it out of her. Never could get it out of her. I asked her again to-day, but she evaded the question.'
'Mr. Hunter thought it would be better to keep her visit this morning a secret from his brother, as they had not met. I, on the contrary, should have told him of it.'
'No,' hastily interposed Dr. Bevary, putting up his hand with an alarmed, warning gesture. 'The only way is, to keep her and Henry Hunter apart.'
'I wonder,' mused Austin, 'what brings her to town?'
The doctor threw his penetrating gaze into Austin's eyes. 'Have you no idea what it is?'
'None, sir. She seemed to intimate that she came every year.'
'Good. Don't try to form any, my young friend. It would not be a pleasant secret, even for you to hold!'
He rose as he spoke, nodded, and went out, leaving Austin Clay in a state of puzzled bewilderment. It was not lessened when, an hour later, Austin encountered Dr. Bevary's close carriage, driving rapidly along the street, the doctor seated inside it, and Miss Gwinn beside him.
I think it has been mentioned that the house next door to the Quales', detached from it however, was inhabited by two families: the lower part by Mr. Samuel Shuck, his wife, and children; the upper and best part by the Baxendales. No two sets of people could be more dissimilar; the one being as respectable as the other was disreputable. John Baxendale's wife was an invalid; she had been so, on and off, for a long while. There was an only daughter, and she and her mother held themselves very much aloof from the general society of Daffodil's Delight.
On the morning following the day spoken of in the last chapter as distinguished by the advent of MissGwinn in London, Mrs. Baxendale found herself considerably worse than usual. Mr. Rice, the apothecary, who was the general attendant in Daffodil's Delight, and lived at its corner, had given her medicine, and told her to 'eat well and get up her strength.' But, somehow, the strength and the appetite did not come; on the contrary, she got weaker and weaker. She was in very bad spirits this morning, was quite unable to get up, and cried for some time in silence.
'Mother, dear,' said Mary Baxendale, going into her room, 'you'll have the doctor gone out, I fear.'
'Oh, Mary! I cannot get up—I cannot go,' was the answer, delivered with a burst of sobbing sorrow. 'I shall never rise from my bed again.'
The words fell on the daughter with a terrible shock. Her fears in regard to her mother's health had long been excited, but this seemed like a confirmation of a result she had never dared openly to face. She was not a very capable sort of girl—the reverse of what is called strong-minded; but the instinct imparted by all true affection warned her to make light of her mother's words.
'Nay, mother, it's not so bad as that,' she said, checking her tears. 'You'll get up again fast enough. You are feeling low, maybe, this morning.'
'Child, I am too weak to get up—too ill. I don't think I shall ever be about again.'
Mary sat down in a sort of helpless perplexity.
'What is to be done?' she cried.
Mrs. Baxendale asked herself the same question as she lay. Finding herself no better under Mr. Rice'streatment, she had at length determined to do what she ought to have done at first—consult Dr. Bevary.
From half-past eight to ten, three mornings in the week, Dr. Bevary gave advice gratis; and Mrs. Baxendale was on this one to have gone to him—rather a formidable visit, as it seemed to her, and perhaps the very thought of it had helped to make her worse.
'What is to be done?' repeated Mary.
'Could you not wait upon him, child, and describe my symptoms?' suggested the sick woman, after weighing the dilemma in her mind. 'It might do as well. Perhaps he can write for me.'
'Oh, mother, I don't like to go!' exclaimed Mary, in the impulse of the moment.
'But, my dear, what else is to be done?' urged Mrs. Baxendale. 'We can't ask a great gentleman like that to come to me.'
'To be sure—true. Oh, yes, I'll go, mother.'
Mary got herself ready without another word. Mrs. Baxendale, a superior woman for her station in life, had brought up her daughter to be thoroughly dutiful. It had seemed a formidable task to the mother, the going to this physician, this 'great gentleman;' it seemed a far worse to the daughter, and especially the having to explain symptoms and ailments at second-hand. But the great physician was a very pleasant man, and would nod good-humouredly to Mary, when by chance he met her in the street.
'Tell him, with my duty, that I am not equal to coming myself,' said Mrs. Baxendale, when Mary stoodready in her neat straw bonnet and light shawl. 'I ought to have gone weeks ago, and that's the truth. Don't forget to describe the pain in my right side, and the flushings of heat.'
So Mary went on her way, and was admitted to the presence of Dr. Bevary, where she told her tale with awkward timidity.
'Ah! a return of the old weakness that she had years ago,' remarked the doctor. 'I told her she must be careful. Too ill to get up? Why did she not come to me before?'
'I suppose, sir, she did not much like to trouble you,' responded Mary. 'She has been hoping from week to week that Mr. Rice would do her good.'
'Ican't do her good, unless I see her,' cried the doctor. 'I might prescribe just the wrong thing, you know.'
Mary repressed her tears.
'I am afraid, then, she must die, sir. She said this morning she thought she should never get up from her bed again.'
'I'll step round some time to-day and see her,' said Dr. Bevary. 'But now, don't you go chattering that to the whole parish. I should have every sick person in it expecting me, as a right, to call and visit them.'
He laughed pleasantly at Mary as he spoke, and she departed with a glad heart. The visit had been so much less formidable in reality than in anticipation.
As she reached Daffodil's Delight, she did not turn into it, but continued her way to the house of Mrs. Hunter. Mary Baxendale took in plain sewing, andhad some in hand at present from that lady. She inquired for Dobson. Dobson was Mrs. Hunter's own maid, and a very consequential one.
'Not able to get Miss Hunter's night-dresses home on Saturday!' grumbled Dobson, when she appeared and heard what Mary had to say. 'But you must, Mary Baxendale. You promised them, you know.'
'I should not have promised had I known that my mother would have grown worse,' said Mary. 'A sick person requires a deal of waiting on, and there's only me. I'll do what I can to get them home next week, if that will do.'
'I don't know that it will do,' snapped Dobson. 'Miss Florence may be wanting them. A promise is a promise, Mary Baxendale.'
'Yes, it will do, Mary,' cried Florence Hunter, darting forward from some forbidden nook, whence she had heard the colloquy, and following Mary down the steps into the street. A fair sight was that child to look upon, with her white muslin dress, her blue ribbons, her flowing hair, and her sweet countenance, radiant as a summer's morning. 'Mamma is not downstairs yet, or I would ask her—she is ill, too—but I know I do not want them. Never you mind them, and never mind Dobson either, but nurse your mother.'
Dobson drew the young lady back, asking her if such behaviour was not enough to 'scandalize the square;' and Mary Baxendale returned home.
Dr. Bevary paid his visit to Mrs. Baxendale about mid-day. His practised eye saw with certainty what others were only beginning to suspect—that Deathhad marked her. He wrote a prescription, gave some general directions, said he would call again, and told Mrs. Baxendale she would be better out of bed than in it.
Accordingly, after his departure, she got up and went into the front room, which they made their sitting-room. But the exertion caused her to faint; she was certainly on this day much worse than usual. John Baxendale was terribly concerned, and did not go back to his work after dinner. When the bustle was over, and she seemed pretty comfortable again, somebody burst into the room, without knocking or other ceremony. It was one of the Shucks, a young man of eight, in tattered clothes, and a shock head of hair. He came to announce that Mrs. Hunter's maid was asking for Mary, and little Miss Hunter was there, too, and said, might she come up and see Mrs. Baxendale.
Both were requested to walk up. Dobson had brought a gracious message from her mistress (not graciously delivered, though), that the sewing might wait till it was quite convenient to do it; and Florence produced a jar, which she had insisted upon carrying herself, and had thereby split her grey kid gloves, it being too large for her hands.
'It is black-currant jelly, Mrs. Baxendale,' she said, with the prettiest, kindest air, as she freely sat down by the sick woman's side. 'I asked mamma to let me bring some, for I remember when I was ill I only liked black-currant jelly. Mamma is so sorry to hear you are worse, and she will come to see you soon.'
'Bless your little heart, Miss Florence!' exclaimed the invalid. 'The same dear child as ever—thinking of other people and not of yourself.'
'I have no need to think for myself,' said Florence. 'Everything I want is got ready for me. I wish you did not look so ill. I wish you would have my uncle Bevary to see you. He cures everybody.'
'He has been kind enough to come round to-day, Miss,' spoke up John Baxendale, 'and he'll come again, he says. I hope he will be able to do the missis good. As you be a bit better,' he added to his wife, 'I think I'll go back to my work.'
'Ay, do, John. There's no cause for you to stay at home. It was some sort of weakness, I suppose, that came over me.'
John Baxendale touched his hair to Florence, nodded to Dobson, and went downstairs and out. Florence turned to the open window to watch his departure, ever restless, as a healthy child is apt to be.
'There's Uncle Henry!' she suddenly called out.
Mr. Henry Hunter was walking rapidly down Daffodil's Delight. He encountered John Baxendale as the man went out of his gate.
'Not back at work yet, Baxendale?'
'The missis has been taken worse, sir,' was the man's reply. 'She fainted dead off just now, and I declare I didn't know what to think about her. She's all right again, and I am going round.'
At that moment there was heard a tapping at the window panes, and a pretty little head was pushed outbeneath them, nodding and laughing, 'Uncle Henry! How do you do, Uncle Henry?'
Mr. Henry Hunter nodded in reply, and pursued his way, unconscious that the lynx eye of Miss Gwinn was following him, like a hawk watching its prey.
It happened that she had penetrated Daffodil's Delight, hoping to catch Austin Clay at his dinner, which she supposed he might be taking about that hour. She held his address at Peter Quale's from Mrs. Thornimett. Her object was to make a further effort to get from him what he knew of the man she sought to find. Scarcely had she turned into Daffodil's Delight, when she saw Mr. Henry Hunter at a distance. Away she tore after him, and gained upon him considerably. She reached the house of John Baxendale just as he, Baxendale, was re-entering it; for he had forgotten something he must take with him to the yard. Turning her head upon Baxendale for a minute as she passed, Miss Gwinn lost sight of Mr. Henry Hunter.
How had he disappeared? Into the ground? or into a house? or down any obscure passage that might be a short cut between Daffodil's Delight, and some other Delight? or into that cab that was now whirling onwards at such a rate? That he was no longer visible, was certain: and Miss Gwinn was exceeding wroth. She came to the conclusion that he had seen her, and hid himself in the cab, though she had not heard it stop.
But she had seen him spoken to from the window of that house, where the workman had just gone in, and she determined to make inquiries there, and so strodeup the path. In the Shucks' kitchen there were only three or four children, too young to give an answer. Miss Gwinn picked her way through them, over the dirt and grease of the floor, and ascended to the sitting-room above. She stood a minute to take in its view.
John Baxendale was on his knees, hunting among some tools at the bottom of a closet; Mary was meekly exhibiting the progress of the nightgowns to Dobson, who sat in state, sour enough to turn milk into curd; the invalid was lying, pale, in her chair; while the young lady appeared to be assisting at the tool-hunting, on her knees also, and chattering as fast as her tongue could go. All looked up at the apparition of the stranger, who stood there gazing in upon them.
'Can you tell me where a gentleman of the name of Lewis lives?' she began, in an indirect, diplomatic, pleasant sort of way, for she no doubt deemed it well to discard violence for tact. In the humour she was in yesterday, she would have said, sharply and imperiously, 'Tell me the name of that man I saw now pass your gate.'
John Baxendale rose. 'Lewis, ma'am? I don't know anybody of the name.'
A pause. 'It is very unfortunate,' she mildly resumed. 'I am in search of the gentleman, and have not got his address. I believe he belongs to this neighbourhood. Indeed, I am almost sure I saw him talking to you just now at the gate—though my sight is none of the clearest from a distance. The same gentleman to whom that young lady nodded.'
'That was my uncle Henry,' called out the child.
'Who?' cried she, sharply.
'It was Mr. Henry Hunter, ma'am, that was,' spoke up Baxendale.
'Mr. Henry Hunter!' she repeated, as she knit her brow on John Baxendale. 'That gentleman is Mr. Lewis.'
'No, that he is not,' said John Baxendale. 'I ought to know, ma'am; I have worked for him for some years.'
Here the mischief might have ended; there's no telling; but that busy little tongue of all tongues—ah! what work they make!—began clapping again.
'Perhaps you mean my papa? Papa's name is Lewis—James Lewis Hunter. But he is never called Mr. Lewis. He is brother to my uncle Henry.'
A wild flush of crimson flashed over Miss Gwinn's sallow face. Something within her seemed to whisper that her search was over. 'It is possible I mistook the one for the other in the distance,' she observed, all her new diplomacy in full play. 'Are they alike in person?' she continued to John Baxendale.
'Not so much alike now, ma'am. In years gone by they were the very model of one another; but Mr. Hunter has grown stout, and it has greatly altered him. Mr. Henry looks just like what Mr. Hunter used to look.'
'And who are you, did you say?' she asked of Florence with an emphasis that would have been quite wild, but that it was in a degree suppressed. 'You are not Mr. Lewis Hunter's daughter?'
'I am,' said Miss Florence.
'And——you have a mother?'
'Of course I have,' repeated the child.
A pause: the lady looked at John Baxendale. 'Then Mr. Lewis Hunter is a married man?'
'To be sure he is,' said John, 'ever so many years ago. Miss Florence is twelve.'
'Thank you,' said Miss Gwinn abruptly turning away. 'Good morning.'
She went down the stairs at a great rate, and did not stay to pick her steps over the grease of the Shucks' floor.
'What a mistake to make!' was her inward comment, and she laughed as she said it. 'I did not sufficiently allow for the lapse of years. If that younger one had lost his life in the gravel pits, he would have died an innocent man.'
Away to the yard now, as fast as her legs would carry her. In turning in, she ran against Austin Clay.
'I want to speak with Mr. Hunter,' she imperiously said. 'Mr. Lewis Hunter—not the one I saw in the gig.'
'Mr. Hunter is out of town, Miss Gwinn,' was Austin's reply. 'We do not expect him at the yard to-day; he will not be home in time to come to it.'
'Boy! you are deceiving me!'
'Indeed I am not,' he returned. 'Why should I? Mr. Hunter is not in the habit of being denied to applicants. You might have spoken to him yesterday when you saw him, had it pleased you so to do.'
'I never saw him yesterday.'
'Yes, you did, Miss Gwinn. That gentleman who came into the office and bowed to you was Mr. Hunter.'
She stared Austin full in the face, as if unable to believe what he said. 'ThatMr. Hunter?—Lewis Hunter?'
'It was.'
'If so,howhe is altered!' And, throwing up her arms with a strange, wild gesture, she turned and strode out of the yard. The next moment Austin saw her come into it again.
'I want Mr. Lewis Hunter's private address, Austin Clay.'
But Austin was on his guard now. He did not relish the idea of giving anybody's private address to such a person as Miss Gwinn, who might or might not be mad.
She detected his reluctance.
'Keep it from me if you choose, boy,' she said, with a laugh that had a ring of scorn. 'Better for you perhaps to be on the safe side. The first workman I meet will give it me, or a court guide.'
And thus saying, she finally turned away. At any rate for the time being.
Austin Clay resumed his work, and the day passed on to evening. When business was over, he went home to make some alteration in his dress, for he had to go by appointment to Mr. Hunter's, and on these occasions he generally remained with them. It was beginning to grow dusk, and a chillness seemed to be in the air.
The house occupied by Mr. Hunter was one of thebest in the west-central square. Ascending to it by a flight of steps, and passing through a pillared portico, you found yourself in a handsome hall, paved in imitation of mosaic. Two spacious sitting-rooms were on the left: the front one was used as a dining-room, the other opened to a conservatory. On the right of the hall, a broad flight of stairs led to the apartments above, one of which was a fine drawing-room, fitted up with costly elegance.