Chapter Twenty Three.
Mr Hallett at Home.
Punctual to the appointed time, I rang the topmost of four bells on the doorpost of one of the old-fashioned red-brick houses in Great Ormond Street, and a few minutes after it was opened by Mr Hallett, whose face lit up as he offered me his hand.
“That’s right, Antony!” he exclaimed; “now we’ll go upstairs and see the ladies, and then you and I will have a walk till dinner-time.”
I followed him up the well-worn, uncarpeted stairs to the second floor, where he introduced me to his mother, a stern, pale, careworn-looking woman in a widow’s cap, half sitting, half reclining in a large easy-chair.
“How do you do?” she said, wearily, as she gazed at me through her half-closed eyes. “You are Stephen’s friend. I am glad to see you; but you are very young,” she added in an ill-used tone.
“Not a very serious failing, mother dear,” said Mr Hallett cheerfully.
“No,” said Mrs Hallett, “no. I am sorry we have not a better place to receive him in.”
“Tut—tut, dear,” said Mr Hallett. “Antony Grace comes to see us, not our rooms or our furniture.”
I had already glanced round the large, old-fashioned room, which was shabbily furnished, but scrupulously clean, while everything was in good taste, and I hastened to say something about how glad I was to come.
“Yes,” said Mrs Hallett wearily; “it is very polite and nice of you to say so, but it is not the home I expected for my old age.”
“My mother is—”
“You always used to call me mamma, Stephen,” said Mrs Hallett, with the tears in her eyes.
“Did I love you any more tenderly then, dear?” he said, bending over her and kissing her wrinkled forehead with reverent affection, and then placing his lips upon her hand.
“No, Stephen, no,” she cried, bursting into a fit of sobbing; “but—but we might cling to some of our old respectability, even if you will persist in being a workman and lowering our family by wearing aprons like a common man.”
“There, there, dear, don’t fret,” he said cheerfully. “You are in pain this morning. I am going for a walk with Antony Grace, and we’ll bring you back a bunch of flowers.”
“No, no, don’t—pray don’t, Stephen,” said Mrs Hallett querulously; “you cannot afford it, and it only puts me in mind of happier days, when we had our own garden, and I was so fond of my conservatory. You remember the camellias?”
“Yes, yes, dear,” he said, passing his arm round her; “and some day you shall have your conservatory again.”
“Never, Stephen—never, while you are so obstinate.”
“Come, come, dear,” he said, kissing her again; “let me put your pillow a little more easy, and we won’t talk of the past; it cannot interest Antony Grace. Where has Linny hidden herself?”
“I suppose she is seeing after the cooking,” said Mrs Hallett querulously. “We have no servants now, Mr Grace.”
“No, Antony,” said Mr Hallett, laughing; and I could not help contrasting the man I saw before me—so bright, airy, and tender in his ways—with the stern, rather grim-looking workman of the office. “No servants; I clean my own boots and help with the cooking, too. It is inconvenient, for my dear mother here is a great invalid.”
“Helpless for seventeen years, Mr Grace,” said the poor woman, looking at me piteously. “We used to have a carriage, but we have none now. Stephen is very kind to me, only he will be so thoughtless; and he is so wanting in ambition, clever as he is.”
“There, dear, we won’t talk about that now,” said Mr Hallett. “Come Antony; my sister will not show herself, so we’ll find her blooming in flour, or carving potato rings, or handling a truncheon bigger than that of your friend Mr Revitts as she makes the paste. Oh, here she is!”
A door opened as he spoke, and I quite started as a bright, pretty girl entered, and came forward smiling pleasantly to shake hands. She seemed to bring sunshine into the room, and, damped as I was by Mrs Hallett’s reception and the prospect of a dull, cheerless day, the coming of Miss Hallett seemed quite to change the state of affairs.
“I am very glad to see you,” she said, showing her little white teeth. “Stephen has so often talked about you, and said he would bring you home.”
“Ah, me, yes, home!” sighed Mrs Hallett, glancing round the shabby apartment.
Not that it seemed shabby any longer to me, for Linny, in her tight, well-fitting, plain holland dress, white collar and cuffs, and with her long golden-brown, naturally curling hair, seemed to me to radiate brightness all around. For she certainly was very pretty, and her large, well-shaded eyes seemed to flash with animation as she spoke.
“Antony Grace and I are going for a walk, Linny, and we shall come back hungry as hunters. Don’t make any mistake in the cooking.”
She nodded and laughed, and her fair curls glistened in the light, while Mrs Hallett sighed again; and it struck me that she was about to say something in disparagement of the dinner, but she did not speak.
“Come along then, Antony,” said Mr Hallett; and, after kissing the invalid, he led the way down stairs, and we strolled off towards Regent’s Park.
As we left the house, the shadow seemed to come down again over Mr Hallett’s face, and from that time I noticed that he seemed to lead a double life—one in which he was bright and merry, almost playful, before his mother and sister; the other, a life of stern, fixed purpose, in which his soul was bent upon some pursuit.
He shook off his gloom, though, directly, and we had a good walk, during which he strove hard to make himself a pleasant companion, chatted to me of myself, hoped that I made use of my spare time, and read or studied in some way, promising to help me with my Latin if I would go on.
“It wants an effort, Antony,” he said; “especially after a hard day’s work at the office.”
“Yes,” I said, with a sigh; “I do feel tired of reading when I get back.”
“Never mind,” he said; “make an effort and do something. It is only the first start. You’ll soon grow interested in what you are doing; and recollect this, my boy, learning is a treasure that no one can take away.”
“Yes, my father used to say so, Mr Hallett,” I said thoughtfully, as I glanced sidewise at my companion’s face as we lay on the turf close by the water.
“What an imitation of the country this is, Antony!” he said, with a sigh. “I love the country. I could live there always.”
“Yes, I don’t like London, Mr Hallett,” I said; “but—but do you study anything in your spare hours?”
He turned round upon me sharply, and his eyes seemed to look me through and through.
“Did my mother say anything to you?” he exclaimed. “Oh no! of course not—you were not alone. Yes, Antony, I do study something—a great deal—in my spare hours.”
“Oh yes, of course. I know you do, Mr Hallett,” I cried. “I’ve seen you take out your pocket-book and draw and make calculations.”
He looked at me again in a curious, suspicious way that set me wondering, and then, jumping up:
“Come, Antony,” he cried, with a forced laugh, “it is time we were off. Linny will be wanting to go to church, and we shall be punished if we are late for dinner.”
He chatted merrily all the way back, and I had no opportunity of asking him what he studied. Dinner was waiting, and a very pleasant simple meal it was, only that Mrs Hallett would sprinkle everything with tears. I noticed that really, as well as metaphorically, she dropped a few into her glass of beer, a few more into the gravy, of which she had the best share, soaked her bread with others, and still had a few left to drop into her portion of red-currant and raspberry tart. Nothing was nice, poor woman—nothing was comfortable; and while Linny took her complaints with a pettish indifference, Mr Hallett left his place from time to time, to attend to her at her little table in front of her easy-chair, waiting upon her with the tenderness of a woman, smoothing back her hair, and more than once kissing her on the forehead before resuming his place.
“No, Stephen,” she said, several times; “I have no appetite—nothing tempts me now.”
He bent over and whispered to her, evidently in a tender, endearing way, but her tears only flowed the faster, and she shook her head despondently.
“Cheese, Stephen?” she said in her peevish way, towards the end of the repast. “You know my digestion is such that it will not bear cheese. At least,” she said, “you would have known it if you had had ambition enough to follow your father’s profession.”
“Ah! I ought to have known better, dear,” he said, smiling pleasantly; “but doctors starve in London, mother. There are too many as it is.”
“Yes, of course, of course,” said the poor woman tearfully; “my advice is worthless, I suppose.”
“No, no, dear, it is not,” said Mr Hallett, getting up and laying his hand upon that of the invalid. “Come, let me take your plate. We’ll have the things away directly, and I’ll read to you till tea-time, if Antony won’t mind.”
“Is Linny going out this afternoon?” said Mrs Hallett querulously.
“Yes, mamma, and I shall be late,” said Linny, colouring, apparently with vexation, as she glanced at me, making me feel guilty, and the cause of her disappointment.
“We won’t keep you, Linny,” exclaimed Hallett; “go and get ready. Antony, you will not mind, will you? My sister likes to go to church of an afternoon; it is nicer for her than the evening.”
“Oh no, I won’t mind,” I said eagerly.
“All right, then; be off, Linny. Antony and I will soon clear away the pie—eh, Antony?”
I laughed and coloured at this double entendre, which Mrs Hallett did not comprehend, for as Linny with a grateful look hurried out of the room, the invalid exclaimed fretfully:
“I wish you would say tart, Stephen, my son. If you will persist in working as a mechanic, and wasting your time in fruitless schemes—”
“Hush, mother!” said Mr Hallett, with an uneasy glance at me.
“Yes, my son; but I cannot bear you to forget all our old genteel ways. We may be poor, but we can still be respectable.”
“Yes, yes; of course, dear,” said Mr Hallett nastily, as he saw that his mother was about to shed tears. “Come, Antony, let’s be waiters.”
I jumped up to assist him, just as Linny, looking very rosy and pretty in her bonnet and jacket, hurried out of a side room, and kissing her mother, and nodding to us, hastened downstairs.
“Ah?” said Mrs Hallett, with another sigh, “we ought not to be reduced to that.”
“To what, dear?” said Mr Hallett, as he busily removed the dinner things.
“Letting that young and innocent girl go about the streets alone without a protector, offering herself as a prey to every designing wretch who casts his eyes upon her fresh, fair face.”
“My dear mother,” said Mr Hallett, laughing, “London is not quite such a sink of iniquity as you suppose, and you have tutored Linny too well for there to be any occasion for fear. There, come, lean back and rest till we have done, and then I will read you one of your favourites.”
Mrs Hallett allowed herself to be gently pressed back in her seat, and lay there still complaining that a son of hers should have to stoop, and also ask his visitor to stoop, to such a degrading toil.
“Oh, Antony doesn’t mind, dear,” he said cheerfully. “We do worse things than this at the office—eh, Antony?”
“That we do, Mr Hallett,” I cried, laughing.
“Yes,” said Mrs Hallett, “at the office. Ah, well, I suppose it is of no use to complain.”
She complained all the same, at everything, while Mr Hallett bore it with a most patient manner that set me wondering. He was never once irritable, but took every murmur in a quiet, resigned way, evidently excusing it on the score of his mother’s sufferings.
Then he got out a book to read to her, but it would not do. Then another and another one, supposed to be her favourite authors; but nothing would do but Dodd’s “Thoughts in Prison,” and the reading of this cheerful volume went on till Linny came back, as I noticed, looking hot and flushed, as if she had been hurrying; and she glanced, as I thought, suspiciously at me, her brother not raising his eyes from his reading.
Then followed tea, and a walk with Mr Hallett, and after that supper, when he walked part of the way home with me.
“Good-night, Antony,” he said. “I hope you have not found your visit too gloomy an one to care to come again.”
“Will you ask me again?” I said eagerly.
“To be sure. My poor mother is a little fretful, as you saw; but she has been an invalid now these seventeen years, and she misses some of the comforts of the past. Good-night, my boy.”
“Good-night, Mr Hallett;” and we parted—he to walk slowly away, bent of head and serious, and I to begin thinking of his unwearying patience and devotion to his invalid mother: after which I recalled a great deal about Linny Hallett, and how pretty and petulant she seemed, wondering at the same time that neither mother nor brother took any notice of her flushed and excited look as she came in from church.
“Hullo! got back, then?” said Mr Revitts, rather grumpily, as I entered the room. “Had a pleasant day?”
“Oh yes, Bill, very!” I exclaimed.
“Oh yes! It’s all very fine, though, and it’ll be all Hallett soon. But you have got back in decent time. Well, I’m tired, and I’m off to bed.”
An example I followed directly after.