Volume Three—Chapter One.
After Twelve Years—Back from a Voyage.
“Why, my dear Sir Gordon, I am glad to see you back again. You look brown and hearty, and not a day older.”
“Don’t—don’t shake quite so hard, my dear Bayle. I like it, but it hurts. Little gouty in that hand, you see.”
“Well, I’ll be careful. I am glad you came.”
“That’s right, that’s right. Come down to my club and dine, and we’ll have a long talk; and—er—don’t take any notice of the jokes if you hear any.”
“Jokes?”
“Ye-es. The men have a way there—the old fellows—of calling me ‘Laurel,’ and ‘Yew,’ and the ‘Evergreen.’ You see, I look well and robust for my age.”
“Not a bit, Sir Gordon. You certainly seem younger, though, than ever.”
“So do you, Bayle; so do you. Why, you must be—”
“Forty-two, Sir Gordon. Getting an old man, you see.”
“Forty! Pooh! what’s that, Mr Bayle? Why, sir, I’m—Never mind. I’m not so young as I used to be. And so you think I look well, eh, Bayle?”
“Indeed you do, Sir Gordon; remarkably well.”
“Hah! That confounded Scott! Colonel Scott at the club set it about that I’d been away for two years so as to get myself cut down and have time to sprout up again, I looked so young. Bah, what does it matter? It’s the sea life, Bayle, keeps a man healthy and strong. I wish I could persuade you to come with me on one of my trips.”
“No, no! Keep away with your temptations. Too busy.”
“Nonsense, man! Fellow with your income grinding day after day as you do. But how young you do look! How is Mrs Hallam?”
“Remarkably well. I saw her yesterday.”
“And little Julie?”
“Little!” said Christie Bayle laughing frankly, and justifying Sir Gordon’s remarks about his youthful looks. “Really, I should like to be there when you call. You will be astonished.”
“What, has the child grown?”
“Child? Grown? Why, my dear sir, you will have to be presented to a beautiful young lady of eighteen, wonderfully like her mother in the old days.”
“Indeed! Hah! yes. Old days, Bayle. Yes, old days, indeed. The thought of them makes me feel how time has gone. Look young, eh? Bah! I’m an old fool, Bayle. Deal better if I had been born poor. You should see me when Tom Porter takes me to pieces, and puts me to bed of a night. Why, Bayle, I don’t mind telling you. Always were a good lad, and I liked you. I’m one of the most frightful impositions of my time. Wig, sir; confound it! sham teeth, sir, and they are horribly uncomfortable. Whiskers dyed, sir. The rest all tailor’s work. Feel ashamed of myself sometimes. At others I say to myself that it’s showing a bold front to the enemy. No, sir, not a bit of truth in me anywhere.”
“Except your heart,” said Bayle, smiling.
“Tchut! man, hold your tongue. Now about yourself. Why don’t you get a comfortable rectory somewhere, instead of plodding on in this hole?”
“Because I am more useful here.”
“Nonsense! Get a good West-end lectureship.”
“I prefer the North here.”
“My dear Christie Bayle, you are throwing yourself away. There, I can’t keep it back. Old Doctor Thomson is dead, and if you will come I have sufficient interest with the bishop, providing I bring forward a good man, to get him the living at King’s Castor.”
Christie Bayle shook his head sadly.
“No, Sir Gordon,” he said, with a curious, wistful look coming into his eyes. “That would be too painful—too full of sad memories.”
“Pooh! nonsense, man! You can’t be a curate all your life.”
“Why not? I do not want the payment of a better post in the Church.”
“Of course not; but come, say ‘Yes.’ As to memories, fudge! man, you have your memories everywhere. If you were out in Australia you’d have them, same as I dare say a friend of ours has. Let the past go.”
Bayle shook his head.
“I’m thinking of settling down yonder myself. Getting too old for sea-trips. If you’d come down, that would decide me.”
“No, no. It would never do. I could not leave town.”
“Ah, so you pretend, sir. I’ll be bound that, if you had a good motive, you’d be off anywhere, in spite of what you say.”
“Perhaps. Your motive is not strong enough.”
“What, not your own interest, man?”
“My dear Sir Gordon, no. What interest have I in myself? Why, I have been blessed by Providence with a good income and few wants, and for the past eighteen years I’ve been so busy thinking about other people, that I should feel guilty of a crime if I began to be selfish now.”
“You’re a queer fellow, Bayle, but you may alter your mind. I’ve made up mine that you shall have the old living at King’s Castor. I shan’t marry now, so I don’t want you for that; but, please God I don’t go down in some squall, I should like you to say ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ over the remains of a very selfish old man, for I sometimes think that it can’t be long first now.”
“My dear old friend,” said Bayle, shaking his hand warmly, “I pray that the day may be very far distant. When it does come, as it comes to us all, I shall be able to think that the selfishness of which you speak was mere outside show. Gordon Bourne, I seem to be a simple kind of man, but I think I have learned to read men’s hearts.”
The old man’s lip quivered a little, and he tried vainly to speak. Then, giving his stout ebony cane a stamp on the floor, he raised it, and shook it threateningly.
“Confound you, Bayle! I wish you were as poor as Job.”
“Why?”
“So that I might leave you all I’ve got. Perhaps I shall.”
“No, no, don’t do that,” said Bayle seriously, and his frank, handsome face looked troubled; “I have more than I want. But, come, tell me; you have been down to Castor, then?”
“Yes, I was there a week.”
“And how are they all?”
“Older, of course, but things seem about the same. Place like that does not change much.”
“But the people do.”
“Not they. By George! sir, one of the first men I saw as I limped down the street in a pair of confoundedly tight Hessians Hoby made for me—punish my poor corns horribly. What with them and the stiff cravats a gentleman is forced to wear, life is unendurable. Ah! you don’t study appearances at sea. Wish I could wear boots like those, Bayle.”
“You were saying that you saw somebody.”
“Ah, yes; to be sure, I trailed off about my boots. Why, I am getting into—lose leeway, sir. But I remember now. First man I saw was old Gemp, sitting like a figure-head outside his cottage. Regular old mummy; but he seemed to come to life as soon as he heard a step, and turned his eyes towards me, looking as inquisitive as a monkey. Poor old boy—almost paralysed, and has to be lifted in and out. I often wonder what was the use of such men as he.”
Christie Bayle’s broad shoulders gave a twitch, and he looked up in an amused manner.
“Ah, well, what was the use of me, if you like? Doctor looked well; so does the old lady. Said they were up here three months ago, and enjoyed their visit I say, Bayle, you’d better have the living. Mrs Hallam might be disposed to go down to the old home again, eh?”
A quiet, stern look, that made Christie Bayle appear ten years older, and changed him in aspect from one of thirty-five to nearer fifty, came over his face.
“No,” he said, “I am sure Mrs Hallam would never go back to Castor to live.”
“Humph! Well, you know best. I say, Bayle, does she want help? It is such a delicate matter to offer it to her, especially in our relative positions.”
“No, I am sure she does not,” said Bayle quickly; “you would hurt her feelings by the offer.”
Sir Gordon nodded, and sat gazing at one particular flower in the carpet of his host’s simply-furnished room, which he poked and scraped with his stick.
“How was Thickens?”
“Just the same; not altered a bit, unless it is to look more drab. Mrs Thickens—that woman’s an impostor, sir. She has grown younger since she married.”
“Yes, she astonished me,” said Bayle, smiling with satisfaction that his visitor had gone off dangerously painful ground, “plump, pleasant little body.”
“With fat filling up her creases and covering up her holes and corners!” cried Sir Gordon, interrupting. “Confound it all, sir, I could never get the fat to come and fill up my creases and furrows. I saw her standing there, feeding Thickens’s fish, smiling at them, and as happy as the day was long. Deal happier than when she was Miss Heathery. Everybody seems to be happy but me. I never am.”
“See the Trampleasures?” said Bayle.
“Oh, yes, saw them, and heard them, too. Regular ornament to the bank, Trampleasure. People believe in him, though. Talks to them, and asks the farmers in to lunch. If he were not there, they’d think Dixons’ was going. Poor old Dixon, how cut up he was over that Hallam business! It killed him, Bayle.”
“Think so?” said Bayle, with his brow wrinkling.
“Sure of it, sir. It was not the money he cared for; it was the principle of the thing. Dixons’ name had stood so high in the town and neighbourhood. There was a mystery, too, about the matter that was never cleared up.”
“Hadn’t we better change the subject, Sir Gordon?”
“No, sir,” said Bayle’s visitor curtly. “Garrulity is one of the privileges of old age. We old men don’t get many privileges; let me enjoy that. I like to gossip about old times to some one who understands them as you do. If you don’t like to hear me, say so, and I will go.”
“No, no, pray stay, and I’ll go down with you to the club.”
“Hah! That’s right. Well, as I was saying, there was a bit of mystery about that which worried poor old Dixon terribly. We never could make out what the scoundrel had done with the money. He and that other fellow, Crellock, could easily get rid of a good deal; but there was a large sum unaccounted for, I’m sure.”
There was a pause here, and Sir Gordon seemed to be hesitating about saying something that was on his mind.
“You wanted to tell me something,” said Bayle at last.
“Well, yes, I was going to say you see a deal of the widow, don’t you?”
“Widow? What widow? Oh, Mrs Richardson. Poor thing, yes; but how did you know I took an interest in her? Hah! there: you may give me ten pounds for her.”
“Mrs Richardson! Pooh! I mean Mrs Hallam.”
“Widow?”
“Well, yes; what else is she? Husband transported for life. The man is socially dead.”
“You do not know Mrs Hallam,” said Bayle gravely.
“Do you think she believes in him still?”
“With her whole heart. He is to her the injured man, a victim to a legal error, and she lives in the belief which she has taught her child, that some day her martyr’s reputation will be cleared, and that he will take his place among his fellow-men once more.”
“I wish I could think so too, for her sake,” said Sir Gordon, after a pause.
“Amen!”
“But, Bayle, you—you don’t ever think there was any mistake?”
“It is always painful to me to speak of a man whom I never could esteem.”
“But to me, man—to me.”
“For twelve years, Sir Gordon, I have had the face of that loving, trusting woman before me, steadfast in her faith in the husband she loves.”
“Loves?”
“As truly as on the day she took him first to her heart.”
“But do you think that she really still believes him innocent?”
“In her heart of hearts; and so does her child. And I say that this is the one painful part of our intimacy. It has been the cause of coldness and even distant treatment at times.”
“But she seemed to have exonerated you from all credit in his arrest.”
“Oh, yes, long ago. She attributes it to the accident of chance and the treachery of the scoundrel Crellock.”
“Who was only Hallam’s tool.”
“Exactly. But she forgives me, believing me her truest friend.”
“And rightly. The man who fought for her at the time of the—er—well, accident, Bayle, eh?”
“Shall we change the subject?” said Bayle coldly.
“No; I like to talk about poor Mrs Hallam, and I will call and see her soon.”
“But you will be careful,” said Bayle earnestly. “Of course your presence will bring back sad memories. Do not pain her by any allusion to Hallam.”
“I will take care. But look here, Bayle; you did come up here to be near them?”
“Certainly I did. Why, Sir Gordon, that child seemed to be part of my life, and when Mrs Hallam had that long illness the little thing came to me as if I were her father. She had always liked me, and that liking has grown.”
“You educated her?”
“Oh, I don’t know; I suppose so,” said Bayle, looking up with a frank, ingenuous smile. “We have always read together, and painted, and then there was the music of an evening. You must hear her sing!”
“Hah! I should like to, Bayle. Perhaps I shall. Don’t think me impertinent, but you see I am so much away in my yacht. Selfish old fellow, you know; want to live as long as I can, and I think I shall live longer if I go to sea than if I stroll idling about Castor or in London at my club. I’ve asked you a lot of questions. I suppose you have done all the teaching?”
“Oh, dear, no; her mother has had a large share in the child’s education.”
“Humph! when I called her child, I was snubbed.” Bayle laughed. “Well, I’ve grown to think of her as my child, and she looks upon me almost as she might upon her father.”
“Humph!” said Sir Gordon rather gruffly. “I half expected, every time I came back, to find you married, Bayle.”
“Find me married?” said Bayle, laughing. “My dear sir, I am less likely to marry than you. Confirmed old bachelor, and I am very happy—happier than I deserve to be.”
“Don’t cant, Bayle,” cried Sir Gordon peevishly. “I’ve always liked you because you never threw sentiments of that kind at me. Don’t begin now. Well, there, I must trot. You are going to dine with me?”
“Yes; I’ve promised.”
“Ah,” said Sir Gordon, looking at Bayle almost enviously, “you always were quite a boy. What a physique you have! Why, man, you don’t look thirty-five.”
“I’m very sorry.”
“Sorry, man?”
“Well, then, I’m very glad.”
“Bah! There, put on your hat, and come down at once. I hate this part of London.”
“And I have grown to love it. ‘The mind is its own place.’ You know the rest.”
“Oh, yes, I know the rest,” said Sir Gordon gruffly. “Come along. Where can we get a coach?”
“I’ll show you,” said Bayle, taking his arm and leading him through two or three streets, to stop at last in a quiet, new-looking square close by St. John’s Street.
“Well, what’s the matter?” said Sir Gordon testily. “Nothing, I hope; only I must make a call here before I go down with you.”
“For goodness’ sake, make haste, then, man! My boots are torturing me!”
“Come in, then, and sit down,” said Bayle, smiling, as a stern-looking woman opened the door, and curtsied familiarly.
“I must either do that or sit upon the step,” said the old gentleman peevishly; and he followed Bayle into the passage, and then into the parlour, for he seemed quite at home.
Then a change came over Sir Gordon’s face, for Bayle said quietly:
“My dear Mrs Hallam, I have brought an old friend.”