Wellfield had only a very short distance to walk before he came to another great cavernous archway, the ‘Abbot’s Gate,’ and the second principal entrance to the Abbey. Great beech-trees clustered around it. It was quite dark and cool and gloomy, but a little door in the great wooden gates stood open, and gave him a curious little oblong glimpse into a sunny courtyard, where everything stood still and hot and quiet, and in which, as he stepped into it, there was not a sign of life. One side of the Abbey building, what was left of it, faced him; the windows looked into this paved court, and appeared to be windows of offices, kitchens, etc. Green tubs, filled with a blaze of scarlet geraniums, made brilliant spots of colour here and there. To the left was a high wall, and a fine old stone archway. He knew the way well. Through that archway he must pass to go round to the front entrance of the house, which was chiefly composed of what had once been the private apartments of the abbots of Wellfield. He glanced up at the top of the archway and saw, on the oblong slab which was let into it, the legend, ‘J. W., 15—.’ It stood for John Wellfield, as he knew; the said John having been the first Wellfield who had taken up his abode in the Abbey, after its demolishment under the glorious dispensation of Henry VIII.
‘My initials!’ murmured Jerome. ‘I wonder this man has not rent out the stone, and inscribed his own instead.’
This was rather a bitter thought, and, with his mind full of it, he passed under the archway, and found himself in a grand old garden —such a garden as those ancient monks knew how to make; and a garden which, since their time, had been lovingly kept up. It was formal—all laid out in oblongs and squares, but it had an indescribable beauty and grace. Great trees took away from the stiffness; brilliant flowers and intensely green grass made it gay. Under the trees to the right were some clumps of tall, fiery-looking gladioli. Straight before the house the ground sloped to the river, beside which was a long grassy walk and avenue, and a little farther to the right, still beside the river, the hoary cloisters. Jerome’s heart was exceeding bitter within him, as he saw and realised all the beauty of the place, which came back to him, after sixteen years, with a familiarity which was startling. The sixteen years were but ‘as yesterday.’ As he stood there, he felt it his—his own; the effort to conceive of it as belonging to some one else was a painful one—one which did not altogether succeed.
‘He sold it!’ he was thinking to himself. ‘Sold it in cold blood. Why, if he had told us the truth, and kept it, he should have been happy; we would have made him happy here, let our poverty have been what it might.’
He walked up the round space of smoothly-rolled gravel before the deep entrance-door, and rang the bell.
Mr. Bolton, he was told, was at home. Jerome sent in his card, and was shown into a room which he well remembered. It had formerly been the library, and appeared to be still used for the same purpose, though greatly changed from its old condition. It was not very vulgar, indeed one might almost have pronounced it not at all vulgar; but all the things were comparatively new, and evidently ‘of the very best.’ But the furniture was well chosen and appropriate; had Mr. Bolton or had his upholsterer chosen it? Jerome wondered, in a parenthesis as he looked around, and felt that the appearance of the room displayed a desire at least, if not a perfectly accomplished one, on the part of those who owned it, to be tasteful—a desire which he felt had resulted in being proper and philistine. He glanced at some books on the table, and at one or two in the book-shelves, and was struck at finding them to be nearly all confined to two classes—voyages and travels, and Italian books, the latter almost all bearing some reference to Dante, or to Dante’s great poem.
‘Odd!’ thought Jerome, and as he thought it, the door was opened, and Mr. Bolton entered.
A man of medium height, and of moderate proportions, with a round, obstinate-looking head, dark complexion, brown eyes, a mouth with a protruding under-lip, and an all-pervading expression of shrewdness, and strong, powerful common-sense. A prejudiced, one-sided man, one would suppose, but a man who required a considerable mental space in which to display his onesidedness and prejudice—a man with great faults, and great virtues, possibly; with a bull-dog expression, betokening tenacity of mind—what this man once grasped, he would not easily let loose again.
Jerome felt the last fact strongly, if he did not understand, as indeed he could not possibly do, the other characteristics. There was nothing handsome about Mr. Bolton; very little to be praised in his manner, no grace in his gestures; but there was a certain rough dignity about him, which was even imposing. He was a commanding spirit, if not an enlightened one.