An Isle of Surrey: A Novel

by Richard Dowling

The two boys got on famously together. Freddie was the taller and lustier of the two, with plenty of animal spirits and enterprise in him, full of indulgent good-humour and patronising protection for his companion. Frank was more sedate and thoughtful. He had a closer and a keener mind, and as such minds are generally fascinated by the gifts of physical exuberance and mental intrepidity, he gave in to his gayer and more adventurous playmate. Each was the complement of the other. Freddie took after his Aunt Hetty in person and mind, and Frank after his father in disposition and his mother in appearance.

The fortnight had wrought a marvellous change in Francis Bramwell. In his youth he had been a dreamer, a poet. When he met Kate Ray he became a lover of her, at times austere and lofty, at times tempestuous. When he married he remained the lover still. After the flight of his wife he plunged headlong into all the fierce excitement of gambling, and led a completely reckless life. Then all at once he rushed into the direct opposite, took up his abode on the last rod of his property, Boland's Ait, and lived there the severe life of an anchorite, lived face to face with the ruins of the past and possessed his soul in silence, and mused upon the ways of Providence, and broke his spirit to the Christian law of patient endurance.

Now, for the first time in his life, he was confronted with material duties which had to be performed with his own hand. His income he now considered inadequate, and it could be increased only by his own labour. He had already planned and partly written a few articles which he hoped to get accepted by papers or magazines. He had been ashore twice and made some simple additions to the furniture of the cottage, and bought toys for Frank and Freddie to play with. He had levelled and smoothed and swept the old timber-yard for the boys, and put the play-room in order against a rainy day. For the two years he had dwelt alone on the Ait he had lived most frugally, and had not used up all his slender income, so that these little expenses did not come out of revenue.

It cheers the heart to have anything to do, and it soothes and sustains the heart when we have the result of our activity always at hand under our eyes.

Of mornings he had to dress Frank, an operation he at first executed with clumsiness and in despair. He had to get the boy his breakfast and watch him while he ate it. After that he had to fetch Freddie, set the two young people safely in the timber-yard, and, having secured the gate, go back to his sitting-room and write or meditate his articles until it was time for Freddie to go home. The boy's dinner had to be got ready, and then after the departure of Mrs. Treleaven he shut the outer door, gave Frank the run of the house, and sat down to his papers once more till tea. This meal he prepared without the aid of Mrs. Treleaven, and shortly after tea he had to undress little Frank and put him to bed.

He had been a dreamer, a poet, a lover, a gambler, a recluse. Now he was becoming a man. His duties were humanising him. When he lay down at night it was not, as of old, to live over again the hideous past with its vast calamity; but to dwell on the events of the day with restful complacency, and to contemplate with gentle satisfaction the cares and duties of the morrow. In the old days of his isolation his veins seemed filled with acrid juices, with vinegar and gall. In these nights, as he lay feeling the balm of slumber coming down upon him through the bland summer air, the milk of human kindness beat within his pulses.

In the old days his prayers were for deliverance and for a spirit of charity. But he prayed for that spirit of charity because charity was enjoined by the Great Teacher. He did not pray for deliverance in the form of death now. He prayed that he might be spared to look after his boy. He had no need to pray for charity now; for was not his child lying there beside him safe and sound and full of rosy health, and was not the child's mother forgiven by him and by a Greater, and in Heaven?

He never thought of Ainsworth. Why should he? Kate was dead, and he had his child, and what was all the rest of the world to him? Nothing.

To himself he admitted the situation was anomalous, and that he was ill-qualified to take care of so young a child. Of course it would be worse than folly to think of his sister in Australia. She had her husband and her own children, and was prosperous there. It never occurred to him once to send his boy to her. The idea that she might come over to take charge of his Frank had only arisen to his mind in dreams, to be laughed at upon waking. Of course a woman, not a man, was the natural guardian of a child of little Frank's age. Look at the care Miss Layard took of Freddie. What a lucky fellow Layard was to have such a sister to mind his boy!

Then in a dream, just as he had the idea of his sister travelling all the way from Australia to rear Frank, the idea came to him that it would be a good thing if Miss Layard would take charge of Frank; this, too, was only to be laughed at upon waking. Miss Layard was not a servant whom he could employ, or a sister of whom he could expect such a service. The thing was an absurdity worthy of midsummer madness, but what a pity it should be absurd!