“Our beauty, some of us,” rang in the curate’s ears once more, and like a flash came the recollection of the meeting he had witnessed in the street. His mind was in a whirl with thoughts that he could not analyse; while as his eyes met those of Lucy, the girl stood with face aflame, trembling before him—looks that might have meant indignation or shame, as, with the smile still upon his lip, but so altered, the curate turned to go; but he stopped for a moment at the door, where out of sight of Mrs Hardon, he could again confront the shrinking girl with a long inquiring gaze; but trembling, agitated, with lips void of utterance, though parted as if to speak, Lucy stood back, her eyes now cast down, and, when she raised them once again, he was gone.
Then, with the colour slowly fading, to leave her face ashy pale, Lucy stood with outstretched hands, gazing at the closed door. Something seemed rising in her throat which she tried to force back, and it was only by an effort that she kept from crying out, as, falling upon her knees by a chair, she buried her face in her hands, choking down the sobs, lest her mother should hear; though she, poor woman, slowly turned her face to the wall, ignorant of her child’s suffering, and slept.
And now again came ringing down the sweet clear trill of Jean’s lark, till, worn out with the impetuosity of her grief, the poor girl raised her head, smoothed back her dark hair, and half-sitting, half-kneeling, listened to the strain.
The song ceased as suddenly as it had commenced, and the void was filled by a long, loud whistling; when, with lips set firm, and angry countenance, Lucy rose and stepped lightly across the room to her sewing-machine by the open window, where, raising her eyes, she could see Mr Jarker, pipe in hand, presenting himself once more as a half-length study, as he whistled and cheered on his flight of pigeons, which sailed round and round, till the whirring and flapping of their wings brought up early days of her childhood, and Lucy seemed to gaze upon some half-forgotten woodland scene in the country, with ring-necked stockdoves crowding on a bending branch after their return from flight.
But no such visions floated before the mind’s eye of Mr Jarker, for his pipe was out; so, ceasing his whistle, he proceeded to ignite a match upon the blackened pipe-bowl, screening the tiny flame between his hands till the tobacco was in a glow—all the while in happy oblivion of a pair of indignant flashing eyes that rested upon him till their brightness was once more dimmed by tears. Heedless, too, was Mr Jarker of the strange sardonic leer directed at him from the attic-window opposite his own, where ma mère, with her dim grey eyes, glanced at him from time to time as she busily knitted, or stabbed her ball of worsted; for Mr Jarker was evidently interested in what was taking place beneath him, as he glanced through his trap from time to time. And now once more, with rapid beat, rose the “click, click, click,” of Lucy’s sewing-machine, as, flashing in and out of the fine material the needle laid in its chain-like stitches; but Lucy Grey’s finely-stitched lines were far from even that afternoon.
Volume Two—Chapter Seven.
With Mrs Jarker.
Always at the call of the poor of his district, the Reverend Arthur Sterne sighed as, slowly descending towards the court, he tried to drive away the words that seemed to ring in his ears; but in vain, for the next moment he was muttering them once more; and the thought came upon him that, for many months past, he had been gazing at the Hardon family through a pleasant medium—a softening mist, glowing with bright colours, but now swept away by one rude blast, so that he looked upon this scene of life in all its rugged truthfulness. He told himself that the mist had once opened to afford him a glimpse, while again and again he smiled at the folly which had led him to expect romance in a London court. The pleasant outlines and softened distance, toned down by the light mists, were gone now, and he gazed upon nothing but the cold, bare reality. It was strange; but he did not ask himself whether the bitter blast might not have brought with it some murky, distorted cloud, whose shade had been cast athwart the picture upon which, he now woke to the fact, he had dearly loved to gaze; and still muttering to himself, he slowly went down step by step.