Chapter Nineteen.
Ending in Three Notes.
Worthing has by this time pushed itself forward towards the van, but a very short time ago it was a sleepy little place, made up of rows of small houses, or villas planted in gardens, neater, trimmer, and more flowery than you could easily find elsewhere. The turf was fine delicate stuff from the neighbouring downs, in which an intruding daisy or dandelion scarcely dared to show its head; it required a long and patient search to find a morsel of groundsel for a bird; the tiniest gardens were full of trim surprises—you went up mounds and round corners, and came upon little ponds in which lived two gold fish, or found a miniature Alpine settlement in a corner which was almost a labyrinth. It was then chiefly inhabited by middle-aged maiden ladies, kind good people, who were a good deal under bondage to their servants, and their servants’ meals, and every now and then were startled by some terrible discovery of finding a trusted butler or gardener tipsy, as they often were. A good deal of not unkindly gossip was talked, and wafts of a stronger kind floating down from London, with some great family which would come for quiet and retirement, caused little shocks to thrill through the community. The houses were all neatly painted and shuttered, the red brick pavement daintily clean, but even in winter there was a curious languor in the air, so that Ibbetson walking from the station felt an immediate discouragement as to the result of his errand.
George Smith. Why do people not ticket themselves more clearly in the midst of the thronging crowds of life? he was thinking, with a little unreasonable vexation. How many George Smiths might there not be even in this little feminine place? He went down to the post-office, stepping on the brick pavement with the rueful conviction that he should not have done so without first scraping his boots; and inclined to apologise for the prints he left behind him. The very post-office struck him with awe: the letters were in neat little bundles, an old lady in a pink cap looked sternly at him through her spectacles; Ibbetson had a ridiculous feeling that he would be a marked man for the rest of the day.
Smiths. The list very soon became lengthy. Marine Parade, Ambrose Place, Church Street, Broadwater, Seaview Cottage, Belle Vue House, Esplanade—the old lady would have nothing to do with Christian names, or whether men or women dwelt in these homes. “There may be a gentleman among them,” was all she would say, with a cautious regard to her duty of keeping up an imaginary balance in the society of Worthing. Old ladies generally at once succumbed to Jack, but this one proved an exception. As he went out she asked him to be kind enough to shut the door behind him.
At the end of three hours Jack was no nearer his object than when he arrived, and was conscious that he was already regarded in Worthing with the deepest suspicion. He had found it so unpleasant to knock vaguely at doors and inquire what persons of the name of Smith lived within, that he had once or twice put the question to boys or trades-people whom he had seen outside, and the consequence was that rumours began to float about the town, which, having always been as ready to catch rumours as a cobweb is to catch flies, laid hold with great avidity of the idea that a gang of burglars was calling at its innocent houses, with designs upon the plate. Jack could not understand why he should be stared at by little knots of people, even when he tried quite a new quarter, but the consciousness of lively comment which we cannot hear is always embarrassing, and if it half amused it half nettled him, so that he was not sorry to turn into the hotel for luncheon. He took the waiter into his confidence, but that personage was not suggestive. That there were a good many Smiths about in the world, could hardly be said to throw a helpful light; Ibbetson was disinclined to appeal to the police, and the solitary specimen he saw looked as if he had been chosen for size rather than wits. He pulled himself together, resisted a growing inclination to take a nap, and set off once more on his search.
Near a church had sounded promising, but it was not very easy, he found, to get far away from one of the two. Once or twice he fancied he had hold of a clue, and followed it up perseveringly till it came to nothing, as was invariably the case. And at last he found himself very near the close of a short winter’s afternoon, with no name left on his list except one at Broadwater. Jack was not one of those people who have an unlimited store of energy, and he looked with some disgust at the road which lay stretching away before him, flat, muddy, and uninteresting. That chalky country wants the rich colouring of summer to put a little beauty into its life. Then, when the wind ripples across the great corn-fields, and the larks are singing all above, and the clouds throw swift velvety shadows upon the softly swelling downs, and the pink dog roses clamber over the hedges, it is a pleasant pastoral country along which you may wander for hours, and strike upon picturesque old windmills, and quaint little village churches nestling under the downs—but in grey winter, not much charm is left. Ibbetson went doggedly along, neither looking left or right. He began to think of Rome, which, indeed, was never far from his thoughts. Absence from Phillis had shown him more and more how much nearer she had been to him always than he had fancied, but surely a hundred times more now that she was lost. His own folly seemed absolutely inexplicable. As a gloom began to creep over the distance, he pictured her perhaps standing on the Pincio watching the wonders of the sunset, the golden glow, the grave and glorious purple of the domes, lying softly rounded against the sky; the pale stretch of distance which, sweeping onward towards the sea, before it reaches it seems to gain something of its immensity; the pines of Monte Mario, the shadows of the darkening streets. Was she perhaps leaning against the balustrade, over the violet-beds below? And if so, who was with her? Phillis was not a person to gaze carelessly at such a scene; and to gaze at it with another who is conscious of its power, is sometimes the beginning of a life-long sympathy. Afterwards we look back at what has so much impressed us, and our friend is there too, has become a part of it for ever. Jack thought out this point moodily. If it had been Mr Penington instead of Oliver Trent whose misdealings he had been trying to bring to light, it is possible he would have walked more briskly towards the low church tower which he saw before him. As it was, he was haunted by the doubt, should he not go back to Rome? It would be easy enough. Nothing kept him from it except that new energy which seemed to impel him towards work. He was not really ambitious. What had stirred him was a strong feeling that his idle life was unworthy of himself and her—nay, perhaps more of himself than of her. For when a man who believes that he is a responsible being is once roused to face his idleness, it is apt to become a nightmare under which he can no longer remain quiet Ibbetson longed to go, but he knew very well that he must stay.
There is a pretty village green at Broadwater, and old trees cluster round the church. Coming out of the churchyard was the sexton, and to him Jack addressed the question which he had learned to vary, although only for his own satisfaction. The old man looked at him doubtfully.