He had provided himself with a new servant, as easily as he had provided himself with a new abode. A foreign waiter at the hotel—a gray-haired Frenchman of the old school, reputed to be the most ill-tempered servant in the house—had felt the genial influence of Amelius with the receptive readiness of his race. Here was a young Englishman, who spoke to him as easily and pleasantly as if he was speaking to a friend—who heard him relate his little grievances, and never took advantage of that circumstance to turn him into ridicule—who said kindly, “I hope you don’t mind my calling you by your nickname,” when he ventured to explain that his Christian name was “Theophile,” and that his English fellow servants had facetiously altered and shortened it to “Toff,” to suit their insular convenience. “For the first time, sir,” he had hastened to add, “I feel it an honour to be Toff, whenyouspeak to me.” Asking everybody whom he met if they could recommend a servant to him, Amelius had put the question, when Toff came in one morning with the hot water. The old Frenchman made a low bow, expressive of devotion. “I know of but one man, sir, whom I can safely recommend,” he answered—“take me.” Amelius was delighted; he had only one objection to make. “I don’t want to keep two servants,” he said, while Toff was helping him on with his dressing-gown. “Why should you keep two servants, sir?” the Frenchman inquired. Amelius answered, “I can’t ask you to make the beds.” “Why not?” said Toff—and made the bed, then and there, in five minutes. He ran out of the room, and came back with one of the chambermaid’s brooms. “Judge for yourself, sir—can I sweep a carpet?” He placed a chair for Amelius. “Permit me to save you the trouble of shaving yourself. Are you satisfied? Very good. I am equally capable of cutting your hair, and attending to your corns (if you suffer, sir, from that inconvenience). Will you allow me to propose something which you have not had yet for your breakfast?” In half an hour more, he brought in the new dish. “Oeufs a la Tripe. An elementary specimen, sir, of what I can do for you as a cook. Be pleased to taste it.” Amelius ate it all up on the spot; and Toff applied the moral, with the neatest choice of language. “Thank you, sir, for a gratifying expression of approval. One more specimen of my poor capabilities, and I have done. It is barely possible—God forbid!—that you may fall ill. Honour me by reading that document.” He handed a written paper to Amelius, dated some years since in Paris, and signed in an English name. “I testify with gratitude and pleasure that Theophile Leblond has nursed me through a long illness, with an intelligence and devotion which I cannot too highly praise.” “May you never employ me, sir, in that capacity,” said Toff. “I have only to add that I am not so old as I look, and that my political opinions have changed, in later life, from red-republican to moderate-liberal. I also confess, if necessary, that I still have an ardent admiration for the fair sex.” He laid his hand on his heart, and waited to be engaged.
So the household at the cottage was modestly limited to Amelius and Toff.
Rufus remained for another week in London, to watch the new experiment. He had made careful inquiries into the Frenchman’s character, and had found that the complaints of his temper really amounted to this—that “he gave himself the airs of a gentleman, and didn’t understand a joke.” On the question of honesty and sobriety, the testimony of the proprietor of the hotel left Rufus nothing to desire. Greatly to his surprise, Amelius showed no disposition to grow weary of his quiet life, or to take refuge in perilous amusements from the sober society of his books. He was regular in his inquiries at Mr. Farnaby’s house; he took long walks by himself; he never mentioned Sally’s name; he lost his interest in going to the theatre, and he never appeared in the smoking-room of the club. Some men, observing the remarkable change which had passed over his excitable temperament, would have hailed it as a good sign for the future. The New Englander looked below the surface, and was not so easily deceived. “My bright boy’s soul is discouraged and cast down,” was the conclusion that he drew. “There’s darkness in him where there once was light; and, what’s worse than all, he caves in, and keeps it to himself.” After vainly trying to induce Amelius to open his heart, Rufus at last went to Paris, with a mind that was ill at ease.
On the day of the American’s departure, the march of events was resumed; and the unnaturally quiet life of Amelius began to be disturbed again.
Making his customary inquiries in the forenoon at Mr. Farnaby’s door, he found the household in a state of agitation. A second council of physicians had been held, in consequence of the appearance of some alarming symptoms in the case of the patient. On this occasion, the medical men told him plainly that he would sacrifice his life to his obstinacy, if he persisted in remaining in London and returning to his business. By good fortune, the affairs of the bank had greatly benefited, through the powerful interposition of Mr. Melton. With the improved prospects, Mr. Farnaby (at his niece’s entreaty) submitted to the doctor’s advice. He was to start on the first stage of his journey the next morning; and, at his own earnest desire, Regina was to go with him. “I hate strangers and foreigners; and I don’t like being alone. If you don’t go with me, I shall stay where I am—and die.” So Mr. Farnaby put it to his adopted daughter, in his rasping voice and with his hard frown.
“I am grieved, dear Amelius, to go away from you,” Regina said; “but what can I do? It would have been so nice if you could have gone with us. I did hint something of the sort; but—”
Her downcast face finished the sentence. Amelius felt the bare idea of being Mr. Farnaby’s travelling companion make his blood run cold. And Mr. Farnaby, on his side, reciprocated the sentiment. “I will write constantly, dear,” Regina resumed; “and you will write back, won’t you? Say you love me; and promise to come tomorrow morning, before we go.”
She kissed him affectionately—and, the instant after, checked the responsive outburst of tenderness in Amelius, by that utter want of tact which (in spite of the popular delusion to the contrary) is so much more common in women than in men, “My uncle is so particular about packing his linen,” she said; “nobody can please him but me; I must ask you to let me run upstairs again.”
Amelius went out into the street, with his head down and his lips fast closed. He was not far from Mrs. Payson’s house. “Why shouldn’t I call?” he thought to himself. His conscience added, “And hear some news of Sally.”
There was good news. The girl was brightening mentally and physically—she was in a fair way, if she only remained in the Home, to be “Simple” Sally no longer. Amelius asked if she had got the photograph of the cottage. Mrs. Payson laughed. “Sleeps with it under her pillow, poor child,” she said, “and looks at it fifty times a day.” Thirty years since, with infinitely less experience to guide her, the worthy matron would have followed her instincts, and would have hesitated to tell Amelius quite so much about the photograph. But some of a woman’s finer sensibilities do get blunted with the advance of age and the accumulation of wisdom.
Instead of pursuing the subject of Sally’s progress, Amelius, to Mrs. Payson’s surprise, made a clumsy excuse, and abruptly took his leave.
He felt the need of being alone; he was conscious of a vague distrust of himself, which degraded him in his own estimation. Was he, like characters he had read of in books, the victim of a fatality? The slightest circumstances conspired to heighten his interest in Sally—just at the time when Regina had once more disappointed him. He was as firmly convinced, as if he had been the strictest moralist living, that it was an insult to Regina, and an insult to his own self-respect, to set the lost creature whom he had rescued in any light of comparison with the young lady who was one day to be his wife. And yet, try as he might to drive her out, Sally kept her place in his thoughts. There was, apparently, some innate depravity in him. If a looking-glass had been handed to him at that moment, he would have been ashamed to look himself in the face.
After walking until he was weary, he went to his club.
The porter gave him a letter as he crossed the hall. Mrs. Farnaby had kept her promise, and had written to him. The smoking-room was deserted at that time of day. He opened his letter in solitude, looked at it, crumpled it up impatiently, and put it into his pocket. Not even Mrs. Farnaby could interest him at that critical moment. His own affairs absorbed him. The one idea in his mind, after what he had heard about Sally, was the idea of making a last effort to hasten the date of his marriage before Mr. Farnaby left England. “If I can only feel sure of Regina—”
His thoughts went no further than that. He walked up and down the empty smoking-room, anxious and irritable, dissatisfied with himself, despairing of the future. “I can but try it!” he suddenly decided—and turned at once to the table to write a letter.
Death had been busy with the members of his family in the long interval that had passed since he and his father left England. His nearest surviving relative was his uncle—his father’s younger brother—who occupied a post of high importance in the Foreign Office. To this gentleman he now wrote, announcing his arrival in England, and his anxiety to qualify himself for employment in a Government office. “Be so good as to grant me an interview,” he concluded; “and I hope to satisfy you that I am not unworthy of your kindness, if you will exert your influence in my favour.”
He sent away his letter at once by a private messenger, with instructions to wait for an answer.
It was not without doubt, and even pain, that he had opened communication with a man whose harsh treatment of his father it was impossible for him to forget. What could the son expect? There was but one hope. Time might have inclined the younger brother to make atonement to the memory of the elder, by a favourable reception of his nephew’s request.
His father’s last words of caution, his own boyish promise not to claim kindred with his relations in England, were vividly present to the mind of Amelius, while he waited for the return of the messenger. His one justification was in the motives that animated him. Circumstances, which his father had never anticipated, rendered it an act of duty towards himself to make the trial at least of what his family interest could do for him. There could be no sort of doubt that a man of Mr. Farnaby’s character would yield, if Amelius could announce that he had the promise of an appointment under Government—with the powerful influence of a near relation to accelerate his promotion. He sat, idly drawing lines on the blotting-paper; at one moment regretting that he had sent his letter; at another, comforting himself in the belief that, if his father had been living to advise him, his father would have approved of the course that he had taken.
The messenger returned with these lines of reply:—
“Under any ordinary circumstances, I should have used my influence to help you on in the world. But, when you not only hold the most abominable political opinions, but actually proclaim those opinions in public, I am amazed at your audacity in writing to me. There must be no more communication between us. While you are a Socialist, you are a stranger to me.”
Amelius accepted this new rebuff with ominous composure. He sat quietly smoking in the deserted room, with his uncle’s letter in his hand.
Among the other disastrous results of the lecture, some of the newspapers had briefly reported it. Preoccupied by his anxieties, Amelius had forgotten this when he wrote to his relative. “Just like me!” he thought, as he threw the letter into the fire. His last hopes floated up the chimney, with the tiny puff of smoke from the burnt paper. There was now no other chance of shortening the marriage engagement left to try. He had already applied to the good friend whom he had mentioned to Regina. The answer, kindly written in this case, had not been very encouraging:—
“I have other claims to consider. All that I can do, I will do. Don’t be disheartened—I only ask you to wait.”
Amelius rose to go home—and sat down again. His natural energy seemed to have deserted him—it required an effort to leave the club. He took up the newspapers, and threw them aside, one after another. Not one of the unfortunate writers and reporters could please him on that inauspicious day. It was only while he was lighting his second cigar that he remembered Mrs. Farnaby’s unread letter to him. By this time, he was more than weary of his own affairs. He read the letter.
“I find the people who have my happiness at their mercy both dilatory and greedy.” (Mrs. Farnaby wrote); “but the little that I can persuade them to tell me is very favourable to my hopes. I am still, to my annoyance, only in personal communication with the hateful old woman. The young man either sends messages, or writes to me through the post. By this latter means he has accurately described, not only in which of my child’s feet the fault exists, but the exact position which it occupies. Here, you will agree with me, is positive evidence that he is speaking the truth, whoever he is.
“But for this reassuring circumstance, I should feel inclined to be suspicious of some things—of the obstinate manner, for instance, in which the young man keeps himself concealed; also, of his privately warning me not to trust the woman who is his own messenger, and not to tell her on any account of the information which his letters convey to me. I feel that I ought to be cautious with him on the question of money—and yet, in my eagerness to see my darling, I am ready to give him all that he asks for. In this uncertain state of mind, I am restrained, strangely enough, by the old woman herself. She warns me that he is the sort of man, if he once gets the money, to spare himself the trouble of earning it. It is the one hold I have over him (she says)—so I control the burning impatience that consumes me as well as I can.
“No! I must not attempt to describe my own state of mind. When I tell you that I am actually afraid of dying before I can give my sweet love the first kiss, you will understand and pity me. When night comes, I feel sometimes half mad.
“I send you my present address, in the hope that you will write and cheer me a little. I must not ask you to come and see me yet. I am not fit for it—and, besides, I am under a promise, in the present state of the negotiations, to shut the door on my friends. It is easy enough to do that; I have no friend, Amelius, but you.
“Try to feel compassionately towards me, my kind-hearted boy. For so many long years, my heart has had nothing to feed on but the one hope that is now being realized at last. No sympathy between my husband and me (on the contrary, a horrid unacknowledged enmity, which has always kept us apart); my father and mother, in their time both wretched about my marriage, and with good reason; my only sister dying in poverty—what a life for a childless woman! don’t let us dwell on it any longer.
“Goodbye for the present, Amelius. I beg you will not think I am always wretched. When I want to be happy, I look to the coming time.”
This melancholy letter added to the depression that weighed on the spirits of Amelius. It inspired him with vague fears for Mrs. Farnaby. In her own interests, he would have felt himself tempted to consult Rufus (without mentioning names), if the American had been in London. As things were, he put the letter back in his pocket with a sigh. Even Mrs. Farnaby, in her sad moments, had a consoling prospect to contemplate. “Everybody but me!” Amelius thought.
His reflections were interrupted by the appearance of an idle young member of the club, with whom he was acquainted. The new-comer remarked that he looked out of spirits, and suggested that they should dine together and amuse themselves somewhere in the evening. Amelius accepted the proposal: any man who offered him a refuge from himself was a friend to him on that day. Departing from his temperate habits, he deliberately drank more than usual. The wine excited him for the time, and then left him more depressed than ever; and the amusements of the evening produced the same result. He returned to his cottage so completely disheartened, that he regretted the day when he had left Tadmor.
But he kept his appointment, the next morning, to take leave of Regina.
The carriage was at the door, with a luggage-laden cab waiting behind it. Mr. Farnaby’s ill-temper vented itself in predictions that they would be too late to catch the train. His harsh voice, alternating with Regina’s meek remonstrances, reached the ears of Amelius from the breakfast-room. “I’m not going to wait for the gentleman-Socialist,” Mr. Farnaby announced, with his hardest sarcasm of tone. “Dear uncle, we have a quarter of an hour to spare!” “We have nothing of the sort; we want all that time to register the luggage.” The servant’s voice was heard next. “Mr. Goldenheart, miss.” Mr. Farnaby instantly stepped into the hall. “Goodbye!” he called to Amelius, through the open door of the dining-room—and passed straight on to the carriage. “I shan’t wait, Regina!” he shouted, from the doorstep. “Let him go by himself!” said Amelius indignantly, as Regina hurried into the room. “Oh, hush, hush, dear! Suppose he heard you? No week shall pass without my writing to you; promise you will write back, Amelius. One more kiss! Oh, my dear!” The servant interposed, keeping discreetly out of sight. “I beg your pardon, miss, my master wishes to know whether you are going with him or not.” Regina waited to hear no more. She gave her lover a farewell look to remember her by, and ran out.
That innate depravity which Amelius had lately discovered in his own nature, let the forbidden thoughts loose in him again as he watched the departing carriage from the door. “If poor little Sally had been in her place—!” He made an effort of virtuous resolution, and stopped there. “What a blackguard a man may be,” he penitently reflected, “without suspecting it himself!”
He descended the house-steps. The discreet servant wished him good morning, with a certain cheery respect—the man was delighted to have seen the last of his hard master for some months to come. Amelius stopped and turned round, smiling grimly. He was in such a reckless humour, that he was even ready to divert his mind by astonishing a footman. “Richard,” he said, “are you engaged to be married?” Richard stared in blank surprise at the strange question—and modestly admitted that he was engaged to marry the housemaid next door. “Soon?” asked Amelius, swinging his stick. “As soon as I have saved a little more money, sir.” “Damn the money!” cried Amelius—and struck his stick on the pavement, and walked away with a last look at the house as if he hated the sight of it. Richard watched the departing young gentleman, and shook his head ominously as he shut the door.
Amelius went straight back to the cottage, with the one desperate purpose of reverting to the old plan, and burying himself in his books. Surveying his well-filled shelves with an impatience unworthy of a scholar, Hume’s “History of England” unhappily caught his eye. He took down the first volume. In less than half an hour he discovered that Hume could do nothing for him. Wisely inspired, he turned to the truer history next, which men call fiction. The writings of the one supreme genius, who soars above all other novelists as Shakespeare soars above all other dramatists—the writings of Walter Scott—had their place of honour in his library. The collection of the Waverley Novels at Tadmor had not been complete. Enviable Amelius had still to readRob Roy.He opened the book. For the rest of the day he was in love with Diana Vernon; and when he looked out once or twice at the garden to rest his eyes, he saw “Andrew Fairservice” busy over the flowerbeds.
He closed the last page of the noble story as Toff came in to lay the cloth for dinner.
The master at table and the servant behind his chair were accustomed to gossip pleasantly during meals. Amelius did his best to carry on the talk as usual. But he was no longer in the delightful world of illusion which Scott had opened to him. The hard realities of his own everyday life had gathered round him again. Observing him with unobtrusive attention, the Frenchman soon perceived the absence of the easy humour and the excellent appetite which distinguished his young master at other times.
“May I venture to make a remark, sir?” Toff inquired, after a long pause in the conversation.
“Certainly.”
“And may I take the liberty of expressing my sentiments freely?”
“Of course you may.”
“Dear sir, you have a pretty little simple dinner to-day,” Toff began. “Forgive me for praising myself, I am influenced by the natural pride of having cooked the dinner. For soup, you have Croute au pot; for meat, you have Tourne-dos a la sauce poivrade; for pudding, you have Pommes au beurre. All so nice—and you hardly eat anything, and your amiable conversation falls into a melancholy silence which fills me with regret. Is it you who are to blame for this? No, sir! it is the life you lead. I call it the life of a monk; I call it the life of a hermit—I say boldly it is the life of all others which is most unsympathetic to a young man like you. Pardon the warmth of my expressions; I am eager to make my language the language of utmost delicacy. May I quote a little song? It is in an old, old, old French piece, long since forgotten, called ‘Les Maris Garcons’. There are two lines in that song (I have often heard my good father sing them) which I will venture to apply to your case; ‘Amour, delicatesse, et gaite; D’un bon Francais c’est la devise!’ Sir, you have naturally delicatesse and gaite—but the last has, for some days, been under a cloud. What is wanted to remove that cloud? L’Amour! Love, as you say in English. Where is the charming woman, who is the only ornament wanting to this sweet cottage? Why is she still invisible? Remedy that unhappy oversight, sir. You are here in a suburban Paradise. I consult my long experience; and I implore you to invite Eve.—Ha! you smile; your lost gaiety returns, and you feel it as I do. Might I propose another glass of claret, and the reappearance on the table of the Tourne-dos a la poivrade?”
It was impossible to be melancholy in this man’s company. Amelius sanctioned the return of the Tourne-dos, and tried the other glass of claret. “My good friend,” he said, with something like a return of his old easy way, “you talk about charming women, and your long experience. Let’s hear what your experience has been.”
For the first time Toff began to look a little confused.
“You have honoured me, sir, by calling me your good friend,” he said. “After that, I am sure you will not send me away if I own the truth. No! My heart tells me I shall not appeal to your indulgence in vain. Dear sir, in the holidays which you kindly give me, I provide competent persons to take care of the house in my absence, don’t I? One person, if you remember, was a most handsome engaging young man. He is, if you please, my son by my first wife—now an angel in heaven. Another person, who took care of the house, on the next occasion, was a little black-eyed boy; a miracle of discretion for his age. He is my son by my second wife—now another angel in heaven. Forgive me, I have not done yet. Some few days since, you thought you heard an infant crying downstairs. Like a miserable wretch, I lied; I declared it was the infant in the next house. Ah, sir, it was my own cherubim baby by my third wife—an angel close by in the Edgeware Road, established in a small milliner shop, which will expand to great things by-and-by. The intervals between my marriages are not worthy of your notice. Fugitive caprices, sir—fugitive caprices! To sum it all up (as you say in England), it is not in me to resist the enchanting sex. If my third angel dies, I shall tear my hair—but I shall none the less take a fourth.”
“Take a dozen if you like,” said Amelius. “Why should you have kept all this from my knowledge?”
Toff hung his head. “I think it was one of my foreign mistakes,” he pleaded. “The servants’ advertisements in your English newspapers frighten me. How does the most meritorious manservant announce himself when he wants the best possible place? He says he is ‘without encumbrances.’ Gracious heaven, what a dreadful word to describe the poor pretty harmless children! I was afraid, sir, you might have some English objection tomy‘encumbrances.’ A young man, a boy, and a cherubim-baby; not to speak of the sacred memories of two women, and the charming occasional society of a third; all inextricably enveloped in the life of one amorous-meritorious French person—surely there was reason for hesitation here? No matter; I bless my stars I know better now, and I withdraw myself from further notice. Permit me to recall your attention to the Roquefort cheese, and a mouthful of potato-salad to correct the richness of him.”
The dinner was over at last. Amelius was alone again.
It was a still evening. Not a breath of wind stirred among the trees in the garden; no vehicles passed along the by-road in which the cottage stood. Now and then, Toff was audible downstairs, singing French songs in a high cracked voice, while he washed the plates and dishes, and set everything in order for the night. Amelius looked at his bookshelves—and felt that, afterRob Roy,there was no more reading for him that evening. The slow minutes followed one another wearily; the deadly depression of the earlier hours of the day was stealthily fastening its hold on him again. How might he best resist it? His healthy out-of-door habits at Tadmor suggested the only remedy that he could think of. Be his troubles what they might, his one simple method of resisting them, at all other times, was his simple method now. He went out for a walk.
For two hours he rambled about the great north-western suburb of London. Perhaps he felt the heavy oppressive weather, or perhaps his good dinner had not agreed with him. Any way, he was so thoroughly worn out, that he was obliged to return to the cottage in a cab.
Toff opened the door—but not with his customary alacrity. Amelius was too completely fatigued to notice any trifling circumstance. Otherwise, he would certainly have perceived something odd in the old Frenchman’s withered face. He looked at his master, as he relieved him of his hat and coat, with the strangest expression of interest and anxiety; modified by a certain sardonic sense of amusement underlying the more serious emotions. “A nasty dull evening,” Amelius said wearily. And Toff, always eager to talk at other times, only answered, “Yes, sir”—and retreated at once to the kitchen regions.
The fire was bright; the curtains were drawn; the reading-lamp, with its ample green shade, was on the table—a more comfortable room no man could have found to receive him after a long walk. Reclining at his ease in his chair, Amelius thought of ringing for some restorative brandy-and-water. While he was thinking, he fell asleep; and, while he slept, he dreamed.
Was it a dream?
He certainly saw the library—not fantastically transformed, but just like what the room really was. So far, he might have been wide awake, looking at the familiar objects round him. But, after a while, an event happened which set the laws of reality at defiance. Simple Sally, miles away in the Home, made her appearance in the library, nevertheless. He saw the drawn curtains over the window parted from behind; he saw the girl step out from them, and stop, looking at him timidly. She was clothed in the plain dress that he had bought for her; and she looked more charming in it than ever. The beauty of health claimed kindred now, in her pretty face, with the beauty of youth: the wan cheeks had begun to fill out, and the pale lips were delicately suffused with their natural rosy red. Little by little her first fears seemed to subside. She smiled, and softly crossed the room, and stood at his side. After looking at him with a rapt expression of tenderness and delight, she laid her hands on the arm of the chair, and said, in the quaintly quiet way which he remembered so well, “I want to kiss you.” She bent over him, and kissed him with the innocent freedom of a child. Then she raised herself again, and looked backwards and forwards between Amelius and the lamp. “The firelight is the best,” she said. Darkness fell over the room as she spoke; he saw her no more; he heard her no more. A blank interval followed; there flowed over him the oblivion of perfect sleep. His next conscious sensation was a feeling of cold—he shivered, and woke.
The impression of the dream was in his mind at the moment of waking. He started as he raised himself in the chair. Was he dreaming still? No; he was certainly awake. And, as certainly, the room was dark!
He looked and looked. It was not to be denied, or explained away. There was the fire burning low, and leaving the room chilly—and there, just visible on the table, in the flicker of the dying flame, was the extinguished lamp!
He mended the fire, and put his hand on the bell to ring for Toff, and thought better of it. What need had he of the lamplight? He was too weary for reading; he preferred going to sleep again, and dreaming again of Sally. Where was the harm in dreaming of the poor little soul, so far away from him? The happiest part of his life now was the part of it that was passed in sleep.
As the fresh coals began to kindle feebly, he looked again at the lamp. It was odd, to say the least of it, that the light should have accidentally gone out, exactly at the right time to realize the fanciful extinction of it in his dream. How was it there was no smell of a burnt-out lamp? He was too lazy, or too tired, to pursue the question. Let the mystery remain a mystery—and let him rest in peace! He settled himself fretfully in his chair. What a fool he was to bother his head about a lamp, instead of closing his eyes and going to sleep again!
The room began to recover its pleasant temperature. He shifted the cushion in the chair, so that it supported his head in perfect comfort, and composed himself to rest. But the capricious influences of sleep had deserted him: he tried one position after another, and all in vain. It was a mere mockery even to shut his eyes. He resigned himself to circumstances, and stretched out his legs, and looked at the companionable fire.
Of late he had thought more frequently than usual of his past days in the Community. His mind went back again now to that bygone time. The clock on the mantelpiece struck nine. They were all at supper, at Tadmor—talking over the events of the day. He saw himself again at the long wooden table, with shy little Mellicent in the chair next to him, and his favourite dog at his feet waiting to be fed. Where was Mellicent now? It was a sad letter that she had written to him, with the strange fixed idea that he was to return to her one day. There was something very winning and lovable about the poor creature who had lived such a hard life at home, and had suffered so keenly. It was a comfort to think that she would go back to the Community. What happier destiny could she hope for? Would she take care of his dog for him when she went back? They had all promised to be kind to his pet animals in his absence; but the dog was fond of Mellicent; he would be happier with Mellicent than with the rest of them. And his little tame fawn, and his birds—how were they doing? He had not even written to inquire after them; he had been cruelly forgetful of those harmless dumb loving friends. In his present solitude, in his dreary doubts of the future, what would he not give to feel the dog nestling in his bosom, and the fawn’s little rough tongue licking his hand! His heart ached as he thought of it: a choking hysterical sensation oppressed his breathing. He tried to rise, and ring for lights, and rouse his manhood to endure and resist. It was not to be done. Where was his courage? where was the cheerfulness which had never failed him at other time? He sank back in the chair, and hid his face in his hands for shame at his own weakness, and burst out crying.
The touch of soft persuasive fingers suddenly thrilled through him.
His hands were gently drawn away from his face; a familiar voice, sweet and low, said, “Oh, don’t cry!” Dimly through his tears he saw the well-remembered little figure standing between him and the fire. In his unendurable loneliness, he had longed for his dog, he had longed for his fawn. There was the martyred creature from the streets, whom he had rescued from nameless horror, waiting to be his companion, servant, friend! There was the child-victim of cold and hunger, still only feeling her way to womanhood; innocent of all other aspirations, so long as she might fill the place which had once been occupied by the dog and the fawn!
Amelius looked at her with a momentary doubt whether he was waking or sleeping. “Good God!” he cried, “am I dreaming again?”
“No,” she said, simply. “You are awake this time. Let me dry your eyes; I know where you put your handkerchief.” She perched on his knee, and wiped away the tears, and smoothed his hair over his forehead. “I was frightened to show myself till I heard you crying,” she confessed. “Then I thought, ‘Come! he can’t be angry with me now’—and I crept out from behind the curtains there. The old man let me in. I can’t live without seeing you; I’ve tried till I could try no longer. I owned it to the old man when he opened the door. I said, ‘I only want to look at him; won’t you let me in?’ And he says, ‘God bless me, here’s Eve come already!’ I don’t know what he meant—he let me in, that’s all I care about. He’s a funny old foreigner. Send him away; I’m to be your servant now. Why were you crying? I’ve cried often enough about You. No; that can’t be—I can’t expect you to cry aboutme;I can only expect you to scold me. I know I’m a bad girl.”
She cast one doubtful look at him, and hung her head—waiting to be scolded. Amelius lost all control over himself. He took her in his arms and kissed her again and again. “You are a dear good grateful little creature!” he burst out—and suddenly stopped, aware too late of the act of imprudence which he had committed. He put her away from him; he tried to ask severe questions, and to administer merited reproof. Even if he had succeeded, Sally was too happy to listen to him. “It’s all right now,” she cried. “I’m never, never, never to go back to the Home! Oh, I’m so happy! Let’s light the lamp again!”
She found the matchbox on the chimneypiece. In a minute more the room was bright. Amelius sat looking at her, perfectly incapable of deciding what he ought to say or do next. To complete his bewilderment, the voice of the attentive old Frenchman made itself heard through the door, in discreetly confidential tones.
“I have prepared an appetising little supper, sir,” said Toff. “Be pleased to ring when you and the young lady are ready.”
Toff’s interference proved to have its use. The announcement of the little supper—plainly implying Simple Sally’s reception at the cottage—reminded Amelius of his responsibilities. He at once stepped out into the passage, and closed the door behind him.
The old Frenchman was waiting to be reprimanded or thanked, as the case might be, with his head down, his shoulders shrugged up to his ears, and the palms of his hands spread out appealingly on either side of him—a model of mute resignation to circumstances.
“Do you know that you have put me in a very awkward position?” Amelius began.
Toff lifted one of his hands to his heart. “You are aware of my weakness, sir. When that charming little creature presented herself at the door, sinking with fatigue, I could no more resist her than I could take a hop-skip-and-jump over the roof of this cottage. If I have done wrong, take no account of the proud fidelity with which I have served you—tell me to pack up and go; but don’t ask me to assume a position of severity towards that enchanting Miss. It is not in my heart to do it,” said Toff, lifting his eyes with tearful solemnity to an imaginary heaven. “On my sacred word of honour as a Frenchman, I would die rather than do it!”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” Amelius rejoined a little impatiently. “I don’t blame you—but you have got me into a scrape, for all that. If I did my duty, I should send for a cab, and take her back.”
Toff opened his twinkling old eyes in a perfect transport of astonishment. “What!” he cried, “take her back? Without rest, without supper? And you call that duty? How inconceivably ugly does duty look when it assumes an inhospitable aspect towards a woman! Pardon me, sir; I must express my sentiments or I shall burst. You will say perhaps that I have no conception of duty? Pardon me again—my conception of duty ishere!”
He threw open the door of the sitting-room. In spite of his anxiety, Amelius burst out laughing. The Frenchman’s inexhaustible contrivances had transformed the sitting-room into a bedroom for Sally. The sofa had become a snug little white bed; a hairbrush and comb, and a bottle of eau-de-cologne, were on the table; a bath stood near the fire, with cans of hot and cold water, and a railway rug placed under them to save the carpet. “I dare not presume to contradict you, sir,” said Toff, “but there ismyconception of duty! In the kitchen, I have another conception, keeping warm; you can smell it up the stairs. Salmi of partridge, with the littlest possible dash of garlic in the sauce. Oh, sir, let that angel rest and refresh herself! Virtuous severity, believe me, is a most horribly unbecoming virtue at your age!” He spoke quite seriously, with the air of a profound moralist, asserting principles that did equal honour to his head and his heart.
Amelius went back to the library.
Sally was resting in the easy-chair; her position showed plainly that she was suffering from fatigue. “I have had a long, long walk,” she said; “and I don’t know which aches worst, my back or my feet. I don’t care—I’m quite happy now I’m here.” She nestled herself comfortably in the chair. “Do you mind my looking at you?” she asked. “Oh, it’s so long since I saw you!”
There was a new undertone of tenderness in her voice—innocent tenderness that openly avowed itself. The reviving influences of the life at the Home had done much—and had much yet left to do. Her wasted face and figure were filling out, her cheeks and lips were regaining their lovely natural colour, as Amelius had seen in his dream. But her eyes, in repose, still resumed their vacantly patient look; and her manner, with a perceptible increase of composure and confidence, had not lost its quaint childish charm. Her growth from girl to woman was a growth of fine gradations, guided by the unerring deliberation of Nature and Time.
“Do you think they will follow you here, from the Home?” Amelius asked.
She looked at the clock. “I don’t think so,” she said quietly. “It’s hours since I slipped out by the back door. They have very strict rules about runaway girls—even when their friends bring them back. Ifyousend me back—” she stopped, and looked thoughtfully into the fire.
“What will you do, if I send you back?”
“What one of our girls did, before they took her in at the Home. She jumped into the river. ‘Made a hole in the water’; that’s how she calls it. She’s a big strong girl; and they got her out, and saved her. She says it wasn’t painful, till they brought her to again. I’m little and weak—I don’t think they could bringmeto life, if they tried.”
Amelius made a futile attempt to reason with her. He even got so far as to tell her that she had done very wrong to leave the Home. Sally’s answer set all further expostulation at defiance. Instead of attempting to defend herself, she sighed wearily, and said, “I had no money; I walked all the way here.”
The well-intended remonstrances of Amelius were lost in compassionate surprise. “You poor little soul!” he exclaimed, “it must be seven or eight miles at least!”
“I dare say,” said Sally. “It don’t matter, now I’ve found you.”
“But how did you find me? Who told you where I lived?”
She smiled, and took from her bosom the photograph of the cottage.
“But Mrs. Payson cut off the address!” cried Amelius, bursting out with the truth in the impulse of the moment.
Sally turned over the photograph, and pointed to the back of the card, on which the photographer’s name and address were printed. “Mrs. Payson didn’t think of this,” she said shyly.
“Didyouthink of it?” Amelius asked.
Sally shook her head. “I’m too stupid,” she replied. “The girl who made the hole in the water put me up to it. ‘Have you made up your mind to run away?’ she says. And I said, ‘Yes.’ ‘You go to the man who did the picture,’ she says; ‘he knows where the place is, I’ll be bound.’ I asked my way till I found him. And he did know. And he told me. He was a good sort; he gave me a glass of beer, he said I looked so tired. I said we’d go and have our portraits taken some day—you, and your servant. May I tell the funny old foreigner that he is to go away now I have come to you?” The complete simplicity with which she betrayed her jealousy of Toff made Amelius smile. Sally, watching every change in his face, instantly drew her own conclusion. “Ah!” she said cheerfully, “I’ll keep your room cleaner than he keeps it! I smelt dust on the curtains when I was hiding from you.”
Amelius thought of his dream. “Did you come out while I was asleep?” he asked.
“Yes; I wasn’t frightened of you, when you were asleep. I had a good look at you; and I gave you a kiss.” She made that confession without the slightest sign of confusion; her calm blue eyes looked him straight in the face. “You got restless,” she went on; “and I got frightened again. I put out the lamp. I says to myself, ‘If he does scold me, I can bear it better in the dark.’”
Amelius listened, wondering. Had he seen drowsily what he thought he had dreamed, or was there some mysterious sympathy between Sally and himself? The occult speculations were interrupted by Sally. “May I take off my bonnet, and make myself tidy?” she asked. Some men might have said No. Amelius was not one of them.
The library possessed a door of communication with the sitting-room; the bedchamber occupied by Amelius being on the other side of the cottage. When Sally saw Toff’s reconstructed room, she stood at the door, in speechless admiration of the vision of luxury revealed to her. From time to time Amelius, alone in the library, heard her dabbling in her bath, and humming the artless old English song from which she had taken her name. Once she knocked at the closed door, and made a request through it—“There is scent on the table; may I have some?” And once Toff knocked at the other door, opening into the passage, and asked when “pretty young Miss” would be ready for supper. Events went on in the little household as if Sally had become an integral part of it already. “WhatamI to do?” Amelius asked himself. And Toff, entering at the moment to lay the cloth, answered respectfully, “Hurry the young person, sir, or the salmi will be spoilt.”
She came out from her room, walking delicately on her sore feet—so fresh and charming, that Toff, absorbed in admiration, made a mistake in folding a napkin for the first time in his life. “Champagne, of course, sir?” he said in confidence to Amelius. The salmi of partridge appeared; the inspiriting wine sparkled in the glasses; Toff surpassed himself in all the qualities which made a servant invaluable at a supper table. Sally forgot the Home, forgot the cruel streets, and laughed and chattered as gaily as the happiest girl living. Amelius, expanding in the joyous atmosphere of youth and good spirits, shook off his sense of responsibility, and became once more the delightful companion who won everybody’s love. The effervescent gaiety of the evening was at its climax; the awful forms of duty, propriety, and good sense had been long since laughed out of the room—when Nemesis, goddess of retribution, announced her arrival outside, by a crashing of carriage-wheels and a peremptory ring at the cottage bell.
There was dead silence; Amelius and Sally looked at each other. The experienced Toff at once guessed what had happened. “Is it her father or mother?” he asked of Amelius, a little anxiously. Hearing that she had never even seen her father or mother, he snapped his fingers joyously, and led the way on tiptoe into the hall. “I have my idea,” he whispered. “Let us listen.”
A woman’s voice, high, clear, and resolute, speaking apparently to the coachman, was the next audible sound. “Say I come from Mrs. Payson, and must see Mr. Goldenheart directly.” Sally trembled and turned pale. “The matron!” she said faintly. “Oh, don’t let her in!” Amelius took the terrified girl back to the library. Toff followed them, respectfully asking to be told what a “matron” was. Receiving the necessary explanation, he expressed his contempt for matrons bent on carrying charming persons into captivity, by opening the library door and spitting into the hall. Having relieved his mind in this way, he returned to his master and laid a lank skinny forefinger cunningly along the side of his nose. “I suppose, sir, you don’t want to see this furious woman?” he said. Before it was possible to say anything in reply, another ring at the bell announced that the furious woman wanted to see Amelius. Toff read his master’s wishes in his master’s face. Not even this emergency could find him unprepared: he was as ready to circumvent a matron as to cook a dinner. “The shutters are up, and the curtains are drawn,” he reminded Amelius. “Not a morsel of light is visible outside. Let them ring—we have all gone to bed.” He turned to Sally, grinning with impish enjoyment of his own stratagem. “Ha, Miss! what do you think of that?” There was a third pull at the bell as he spoke. “Ring away, Missess Matrone!” he cried. “We are fast asleep—wake us if you can.” The fourth ring was the last. A sharp crack revealed the breaking of the bellwire, and was followed by the shrill fall of the iron handle on the pavement before the garden gate. The gate, like the palings, was protected at the top from invading cats. “Compose yourself, Miss,” said Toff, “if she tries to get over the gate, she will stick on the spikes.” In another moment, the sound of retiring carriage-wheels announced the defeat of the matron, and settled the serious question of receiving Sally for the night.
She sat silent by the window, when Toff had left the room, holding back the curtains and looking out at the murky sky.
“What are you looking for?” Amelius asked.
“I was looking for the stars.”
Amelius joined her at the window. “There are no stars to be seen tonight.”
She let the curtain fall to again. “I was thinking of night-time at the Home,” she said. “You see, I got on pretty well, in the day, with my reading and writing. I wanted so to improve myself. My mind was troubled with the fear of your despising such an ignorant creature as I am; so I kept on at my lessons. I thought I might surprise you by writing you a pretty letter some day. One of the teachers (she’s gone away ill) was very good to me. I used to talk to her; and, when I said a wrong word, she took me up, and told me the right one. She said you would think better of me when you heard me speak properly—and I do speak better, don’t I? All this was in the day. It was the night that was the hard time to get through—when the other girls were all asleep, and I had nothing to think of but how far away I was from you. I used to get up, and put the counterpane round me, and stand at the window. On fine nights the stars were company to me. There were two stars, near together, that I got to know. Don’t laugh at me—I used to think one of them was you, and one of them me. I wondered whether you would die, or I should die, before I saw you again. And, most always, it was my star that went out first. Lord, how I used to cry! It got into my poor stupid head that I should never see you again. I do believe I ran away because of that. You won’t tell anybody, will you? It was so foolish, I am ashamed of it now. I wanted to see your star and my star tonight. I don’t know why. Oh, I’m so fond of you!” She dropped on her knees, and took his hand, and put it on her head. “It’s burning hot,” she said, “and your kind hand cools it.”
Amelius raised her gently, and led her to the door of her room. “My poor Sally, you are quite worn out. You want rest and sleep. Let us say good night.”
“I will do anything you tell me,” she answered. “If Mrs. Payson comes tomorrow, you won’t let her take me away? Thank you. Goodnight.” She put her hands on his shoulders, with innocent familiarity, and lifted herself to him on tiptoe, and kissed him as a sister might have kissed him.
Long after Sally was asleep in her bed, Amelius sat by the library fire, thinking.
The revival of the crushed feeling and fancy in the girl’s nature, so artlessly revealed in her sad little story of the stars that were “company to her,” not only touched and interested him, but clouded his view of the future with doubts and anxieties which had never troubled him until that moment. The mysterious influences under which the girl’s development was advancing were working morally and physically together. Weeks might pass harmlessly, months might pass harmlessly—but the time must come when the innocent relations between them would be beset by peril. Unable, as yet, fully to realize these truths, Amelius nevertheless felt them vaguely. His face was troubled, as he lit the candle at last to go to his bed. “I don’t see my way as clearly as I could wish,” he reflected. “How will it end?”
How indeed!