A Life's Secret: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

'That's less than I expected,' said Austin, in his candour. 'Mr. Henry Hunter thought they would be about ten shillings.'

Peter was candid also. 'There's the neighbourhood to be took into consideration, sir, which is not a good one, and we can only let according to it. In some parts—and not far off, neither—you'd pay eighteen or twenty shillings for such rooms as these; in Daffodil's Delight it is different, though this is the best quarter of it. The last gentleman paid us nine. If eight will suit you, sir, it will suit us.'

So the bargain was struck; and Austin Clay went back to the station for his luggage. Mrs. Quale, busy as a bee, ran in to tell her next-door neighbour that she could not be one of the beef-steak-and-onion eaters that night, though Peter might, for she should have her hands full with their new lodger. 'The nicest, handsomest young fellow,' she wound up with; 'one it will be a pleasure to wait on.'

'Take care what you be at, if he's a stranger,' cried cautious Mrs. Stevens. 'There's no trusting those country folks: they run away sometimes. It looks odd, don't it, to come after lodgings one minute, and enter upon 'em the next?'

'Very odd,' assented Mrs. Quale, with a laugh. 'Why, it was Mr. Henry Hunter sent him round here; and he has got a post in their house.'

'What sort of one?' asked Mrs. Stevens, sceptical still.

'Who knows? Something superior to the best of us workpeople, you may be sure. He belongs to gentlefolks,' concluded Mrs. Quale. 'I knew him as a baby. It was in his mother's family I lived before I married. He's as like his mother as two peas, and a handsome woman was Mrs. Clay. Good-bye: I'm going to get the sheets on to his bed now.'

Mrs. Quale, however, found that she was, after all, able to assist at the supper; for, when Austin came back, it was only to dress himself and go out, in pursuance of the invitation he had accepted to dine at Mr. Henry Hunter's. With all his haste it had struck six some minutes when he got there.

Mrs. Henry Hunter, a very pretty and very talkative woman, welcomed him with both hands, and told her children to do the same, for it was 'the gentleman who saved papa.' There was no ceremony; he was received quite en famille; no other guest was present, and three or four of the children dined at table. He appeared to find favour with them all. He talked on business matters with Mr. Henry Hunter; on lighter topics with his wife; he pointed out some errors in Mary Hunter's drawings, which she somewhat ostentatiously exhibited to him, and showed her how to rectify them. He entered into the school life of the two young boys, from their classics to their scrapes; and nursed a pretty little lady of five, who insisted on appropriating his knee—bearing himself throughout all with the modest reticence—the refinement of the innate gentleman. Mrs. Henry Hunter was charmed with him.