His landlord greeted him in a more cheerful spirit upon Monday morning than he had evinced on Sunday evening when his after-dinner lethargy was rudely disturbed by a guest whose business-like air and small Gladstone bag did not promise much profit; a visitor who would want a dinner off the joint, most likely, and a half-crown breakfast; a visitor whose libations would be limited to bitter beer and an occasional whisky and soda. Such a guest in a house that was beginning to hibernate was a burden rather than a boon.
This morning, however, the landlord was reconciled to his solitary customer, having told his wife that after all, “little fish are sweet,” and he went blithely to order the dog-cart—his own cart and own man—ostler in the season, coachman or anything you please out of the season—to drive Mr. Dalbrook to Kettisford Vicarage, a nine-mile journey.
It was a pretty, out-of-the-way nook—half hidden in a cleft of the hills—at which Theodore arrived a few minutes after noon; a little, old-fashioned, world-forgotten village, and a sprawling old greystone house, covered with Virginia creeper, passion-flower, and the feathery leafage of the trumpet ash; a long, low house, with heavily thatched roof, projecting over its upper casements; a sleepy-looking old house in a still sleepier garden, so remote and so sheltered that winter had forgotten to come there; and the great yellow roses were still blooming on the wall, fattened by the misty atmosphere of the adjacent lake, glorified by the untainted air. November was half over, yet here the only signs of autumn were the grey sky, and the crimson of the Virginia creeper.
The Vicar of Kettisford was one of those privileged persons who can speak with their enemies at the gate, assured of being backed up in their speech by a family contingent. The Vicarage seemed overflowing with young life, from the very threshold of the hall, where cricket-bats, a tricycle, a row of well-used tennis rackets, a stupendous array of hats, overcoats, and comforters, testified to that quiverful so esteemed in the patriarchal age.
A conscientious performer was pounding at the “Harmonious Blacksmith” upon a wiry piano near at hand, having left the door wide open, with the indecent disregard of other people peculiar to juvenile performers upon all kinds of instruments. From the other side of the hall came the twanging of an equally wiry guitar, upon which girlish fingers began, and for ever recommenced a Spanish melody, which the performer was striving to attain by that agonizing process known among young ladies as “picking up” an air. Mark, gentle reader, what the learned and reverend Haweis has to say upon this art of playing by ear!
From a remoter room came young voices and young laughter; and amidst all these sounds it was hardly surprising that Mr. Dalbrook had to ring three times, and to wait in front of the open hall door for at least ten minutes, before an elderly housemaid responded to his summons and ushered him into the Vicar’s study, the one room in the Vicarage which was ever fit to receive a visitor.
The Vicar was reading a newspaper in front of a comfortable fire. He was an elderly man, of genial and even jovial aspect, and he received Mr. Dalbrook’s apologetic account of himself and his business with perfect good humour.
“You want to see Miss Newton, my dear sir. I am sorry to tell you she left us nearly two years ago—heartily sorry, for Sarah Newton is a very worthy woman, and a jewel of price in a motherless family like mine,” said the Vicar. “I regret that you should have come such a long way to find her when, had you written to me, I could have told you where to look for her in London.”
“Yes, it was a mistake to come so far without making preliminary inquiries—only, as she had not applied to her usual agent for a new situation, I concluded that she was still under your roof.”
“She has not gone into a new situation, Mr. Dalbrook. She was too much valued in this house to wish to change to another employment, although she might have lived more luxuriously and done less work elsewhere. She was a mother to my girls—ay, and to my boys as well—while she was with us; and she only left us when she made up her mind to live an independent life.”