The Deans lodged at one of the best houses in the Parade—a large, double-fronted place facing the sea, with spacious balcony and open hall door, and porch ornamented with flowers.
The little groom sprang down and ran to the ponies’ heads as his mistress alighted, and after sweeping her rich dress aside, held out her hand for her mother, who got out of the carriage slowly, and in what was meant for a very stately style, her quick beady eyes having shown her that the windows on either side of the front door were wide open, while her sharp ears and her nose had already given her notice that the lodgers were at home—a low buzzing mellow hum with a wild refrain in high notes, announcing that old Mr Linnell was at work with his violoncello to his son’s violin, and a faint penetrating perfume—or smell, according to taste—suggesting that Colonel Mellersh was indulging in a cigar.
Mrs Dean’s daughter was quite as quick in detecting these signs, and, raising her head and half closing her eyes, she swept gracefully into the house, unconscious of the fact that Richard Linnell drew back a little from the window on one side of the door, and that Colonel Mellersh showed his teeth as he lay back in his chair beside a small table, on which was a dealt-out pack of cards.
“I should like to poison that old woman,” said the Colonel, gathering together the cards.
“I wish Mr Barclay had let the first floor to some one else, Richard,” said a low pleasant voice from the back of the room. P-r-r-rm, Pr-um!
The speaker did not say Pr-r-rm, Pr-um! That sound was produced by an up and down draw of the bow across the fourth string of the old violoncello he held between his legs, letting the neck of the instrument with its pegs fall directly after into the hollow of his arm, as he picked up a cake of amber-hued transparent rosin from the edge of a music stand, and began thoughtfully to rub it up and down the horse-hair of the bow.
The speaker’s was a pleasant handsome face of a man approaching sixty; but though his hair was very grey, he was remarkably well-preserved. His well-cut rather effeminate face showed but few lines, and there was just a tinge of colour in his cheeks, such as good port wine might have produced: but in this case it was a consequence of a calm, peaceful, seaside life. He was evidently slight and tall, but bent, and in his blue eyes there was a dreamy look, while a curious twitch came over his face from time to time as if he suffered pain.
“It would have been better, father,” said Richard Linnell, turning over the leaves of a music-book with his violin bow, “but we can’t pick and choose whom one is to sit next in this world.”
“No, no, we can’t, my son.”
“And I don’t think that we ought to trouble ourselves about our neighbours, so long as they behave themselves decorously here.”