Martin Gurwood was not, however, at Lullington just now. He had induced an old college friend to look after the welfare of his parishioners while he ran up, as he did once or twice in the year, to stay for a fortnight with his mother in Great Walpole-street. John Calverley, who had a strong liking for Martin, a feeling which the vicar cordially reciprocated, was anxious that his step-son should come to them at Christmas; being an old-fashioned soul with a belief in holly and yule logs, and kindly greetings and open-hearted charities, at what he invariably spoke of as that "festive season," and having an intense desire to interpose at such a time a friendly aegis between him and the stony-faced Gorgon, whom it was his lot through life to confront. But Martin Gurwood, regarding the Christmas season in a very different light, urged that at such a time it would be impossible for him to absent himself from his duties, and after his own frigid manner refused to be tempted by the convivial blandishments which John held out to him, or to be scared by the picture of the grim loneliness of the vicarage which his stepfather drew for his edification. So, in the early days of November, when the Lullington farmers were getting well into their hunting, and the London fogs, scarcely long enough to embrace the entire length of Great Walpole-street, blotted out its middle and its lower end, leaving the upper part comparatively bright and airy, Martin Gurwood came to town and took up his abode in Mrs. Calverley's best spare bedroom.
The other spare bedroom in the house was occupied by Madame Pauline Du Tertre, who had for some time been installed there, and had regularly taken up her position as the friend of the family and confidential adviser to the female head of the house. Immediately on gaining her footing within the walls, Pauline had succeeded in establishing herself in the good graces of the self-contained, silent woman, who hitherto had never known what it was to have any one to share her confidences, to listen patiently to her never-ceasing complaints, and to be able and willing to make little suggestions which chimed-in with Mrs. Calverley's thoughts and wishes. Years ago, before her first marriage, Jane Calverley had had a surfeit of toadyism and flattery from her poor relations and dependants, and from the servants, who cringed to and fawned upon the young girl as though they had been southern slaves and she their owner. But in George Gurwood's days, and since her marriage with her second husband, Mrs. Calverley had made no friends, and even those whose interest it was to stand well with her had found it impossible to break through the barriers of icy reserve with which she surrounded herself. They did not approach her in the proper manner perhaps, they did not go to work in the right way. Commonly bred and ill-educated people as they were, they imagined that the direct road to Jane Calverley's favour lay in pitying her and speaking against her husband, with whom she was plainly at strife. As is usual with such people, they overacted their parts; they spoke strongly and bitterly in their denunciation of Mr. Calverley; they were coarse, and their loud-trumpeted compassion for their mistress jarred upon its recipient. Jane Calverley was a proud as well as a hard woman, and her mind revolted against the idea of being openly compassionated by her inferiors; so she kept her confidences rigidly locked in her own breast, and Pauline's was the first hand to press a spring by which the casket was opened.
Before the Frenchwoman had been in the house twenty-four hours, she had learned exactly the relations of its inmates, and as much as has been already set forth in these pages of their family history. She had probed the characters of the husband and the wife, had listened to the mother's eulogies of her saintly son, and had sighed and shaken her head in seeming condolence over the vividly-described shortcomings of Mr. Calverley. Without effusion, and with only the dumb sympathy conveyed by her eloquent eyes and gestures, Pauline managed to lead her new-found friend, now that she comprehended her domestic troubles, and would do her best to aid her in getting rid of them, and in many other ways she made herself useful and agreeable to the cold, friendless woman who was her hostess. She re-arranged the furniture of the dreary drawing-room, lighting it up here and there with such flowers as were procurable, and with evergreens, which she bought herself; she covered the square formal chairs and couches with muslin antimacassars, and gave the room, what it had never hitherto had, the semblance of a woman's presence. She accomplished what everybody had imagined to be an impossibility, an alteration in the style of Mrs. Calverley's costume; she made with her own hands a little elegant cap with soft blond falling from it, which took away from that rigid outline of the chin; and instead of the wisp of black net round her throat, she induced Mrs. Calverley to wear a neat white muslin handkerchief across her chest. The piano, seldom touched, save when Mrs. Calverley, in an extraordinary good temper, would, for her husband's edification, thump and strum away at an overture in Semiramide and other set pieces, which she had learned in her youth, was now regularly brought into use, and in the evening Pauline would seat herself at it, playing long selections from Mendelssohn and Beethoven, or singing religious songs by Mozart, the listening to which made John Calverley supremely happy, and even brought something like moisture into his wife's steely eyes. It is probable that had Mrs. Calverley had any notion that these songs were the composition of a Roman Catholic, and were many of them used in what she was accustomed to speak of as "Popish ceremonies," she would never have been induced even to listen to them; but with unerring judgment Pauline had at once divined this phase in her employer's character, and, while the particular sect to which she belonged was of no importance to herself, had taken care to make Mrs. Calverley understand that Luther had no more devoted adherent.
"She is a Huguenot, my dear," said Mrs. Calverley to Martin Gurwood, shortly after his arrival, and before she had presented him to the new inmate of the house; "a Huguenot of ancient family, who lost all their property a long time ago by the revocation of the edict of somebody--Nancy, I think, was the name. You will find her a most amiable person, richly endowed with good gifts, and calculated, should she not suffer from the evil effects of Mr. Calverley's companionship, to prove an inestimable blessing to me."
Martin Gurwood expressed himself well pleased to hear this account of his mother's new-found friend; but, on being presented to Pauline, he scarcely found the description realised. His natural cleverness had been sharpened by his public-school and university education; and, though during the last few years of his life he had been buried in comparative obscurity, he retained sufficient knowledge of the world to perceive that a woman like Madame Du Tertre, bright, clever, to a certain degree accomplished, and possessing immense energy and power of will, would not have relegated herself to such a life as she was then leading without having a strong aim to gain. And what that aim was he was determined to find out.
But, though these were Martin Gurwood's thoughts, he never permitted a trace of them to appear in his manner to Madame Du Tertre, which was scrupulously courteous, if nothing more. Perhaps it was from his mother that he inherited a certain cold propriety of bearing and frigidity of demeanour, which his acquaintances generally complained of. The farmers of Lullington, comparing it with the geniality of their previous pastor, found it insufferable; and his college friends, who had come in contact with him of late years, thought he was a totally changed being from the high-spirited fellow who had been one of the noisiest athletes of his day. Certain it was that he was now pensive and reserved; nay more, that when out of Lullington in company--that is to say, either with any of his former colleagues, or of a few persons who were visitors at the house in Great Walpole-street--he seemed desirous almost of shunning observation, and of studiously keeping in the back-ground, when his mother's pride in him would have made him take a leading part in any conversation that might be going on. Before he had been two days in the house Pauline's quick instinct had detected this peculiarity, and she had mentally noted it among the things which, properly worked, might help her to the elucidation of the plan to which she had devoted her life. She determined on making herself agreeable to this young man, on forcing him into a certain amount of intimacy and companionship; and so skilful were her tactics, that, without absolute rudeness, Martin Gurwood found it impossible entirely to withdraw from her advances.
One night she challenged him to chess, and during the intervals of the game she endeavoured to learn more of him than she had hitherto been able to do in mere desultory conversation in the presence of others.
Mrs. Calverley was hard at work at the Berlin-wool frame, putting the final touches to Jael and Sisera; John Calverley, with the newspaper in his lap, was fast asleep in his easy-chair; and the chess-players were at the far end of the room, with a shaded lamp between them.
They formed a strange contrast this couple: he, with his wavy chestnut hair, his thin red-and-white, clear-cut, whiskerless face, his shifting blue eyes, and his weak irresolute mouth; she, with her olive complexion, her blue-black hair, her steady earnest gaze, her square firm jaw, and the deep orange trimmings of her black silk dress, showing off strangely against her companion's sable-hued clerical dress.
"You are too strong for me, monsieur," said Pauline, at the conclusion of the first game; "but I will not yield you the victory without a farther struggle."