"The night is darkest before the morn." In Percival's case this was true, for the next day brought a new interest and hope. A letter came from Godfrey Hammond, through which he glanced wearily till he came to a paragraph about the Lisles: Hammond had seen a good deal of them lately. "Their father treated you shamefully," he wrote, "but, after all, it is harder still on his children." ("Good Heavens! Does he suppose I have a grudge against them?" said Percival to himself, and laughed with mingled irritation and amazement.) "Young Lisle wants a situation as organist somewhere where he might give lessons and make an income so, but we can't hear of anything suitable. People say the boy is a musical genius, and will do wonders, but, for my part, I doubt it. He may, however, and in that case there will be a line in his biography to the effect that I 'was one of the first to discern,' etc., which may be gratifying to me in my second childhood."
Percival laid the letter on the table and looked up with kindling eyes.
Only a few minutes' walk from Bellevue street was St. Sylvester's, a large district church. The building was a distinguished example of cheap ecclesiastical work, with stripes and other pretty patterns in different colored bricks, and varnished deal fittings and patent corrugated roofing. All that could be done to stimulate devotion by means of texts painted in red and blue had been done, and St. Sylvester's, within and without, was one of those nineteenth-century churches which will doubtless be studied with interest and wonder by the architect of a future age if they can only contrive to stand up till he comes. The incumbent was High Church, as a matter of course, and musical, more than as a matter of course. Percival looked up from his letter with a sudden remembrance that Mr. Clifton was advertising for an organist, and on his way to the office he stopped to make inquiries at the High Church bookseller's and to post a line to Hammond. How if this should suit Bertie Lisle? He tried hard not to think too much about it, but the mere possibility that the bright young fellow, with his day-dreams, his unfinished opera, his pleasant voice and happily thoughtless talk, might come into his life gave Percival a new interest in it. Bertie had been a favorite of his years before, when he used to go sometimes to Mr. Lisle's. He still thought of him as little more than a boy—the boy who used to play to him in the twilight—and he had some trouble to realize that Bertie must be nearly two and twenty. If he should come—But most likely he would not come. It seemed a shame even to wish to shut up the young musician, with his love for all that was beautiful and bright, in that grimy town. Thorne resolved that he would not wish it, but he opened Hammond's next letter with unusual eagerness. Godfrey said they thought it sounded well, especially as when he named Brenthill it appeared that the Lisles had some sort of acquaintance living there, an old friend of their mother's, he believed, which naturally gave them an interest in the place. Bertie had written to Mr. Clifton, who would very shortly be in town, and had made an appointment to meet him.
The next news came in a note from Lisle himself. On the first page there was a pen-and-ink portrait of the incumbent of St. Sylvester's with a nimbus, and it was elaborately dated "Festival of St. Hilary."
"It is all as good as settled," was his triumphant announcement, "and we are in luck's way, for Judith thinks she has heard of something for herself too. You will see from my sketch that I have had my interview with Mr. Clifton. He is quite delighted with me. A great judge of character, that man! He is to write to one or two references I gave him, but they are sure to be all right, for my friends have been so bored with me and my prospects for the last few weeks that they would swear to my fitness for heaven [page 175] if it would only send me there. I rather think, however, that St. Sylvester's will suit me better for a little while. His Reverence is going to look me up some pupils, and I have bought a Churchman's almanac, and am thinking about starting an oratorio instead of my opera. Wasn't it strange that when your letter came from Brenthill we should remember that an old friend of my mother's lived there? Judith and she have been writing to each other ever since. Clifton is evidently undergoing tortures with the man he has got now, so I should not wonder if we are at Brenthill in a few days. It will be better for my chance of pupils too. I shall look you up without fail, and expect you to know everything about lodgings. How about Bellevue street? Are you far from St. Sylvester's?"
Thorne read the letter carefully, and drew from it two conclusions and a perplexity. He concluded that Bertie Lisle's elastic spirits had quickly recovered the shock of his father's failure and flight, and that he had not the faintest idea that any property of his—Percival's—had gone down in the wreck. So much the better.
His perplexity was, What was Miss Lisle going to do? Could the "we" who were to arrive imply that she meant to accompany her brother? And what was the something she had heard of for herself? The words haunted him. Was the ruin so complete that she too must face the world and earn her own living? A sense of cruel wrong stirred in his inmost soul.
He made up his mind at last that she was coming to establish Bertie in his lodgings before she went on her own way. He offered any help in his power when he answered the letter, but he added a postscript: "Don't think of Bellevue street: you wouldn't like it." He heard no more till one day he came back to his early dinner and found a sealed envelope on his table. It contained a half sheet of paper, on which Bertie had scrawled in pencil, "Why did you abuse Bellevue street? We think it will do. And why didn't you say there were rooms in this very house? We have taken them, so there is an end of your peaceful solitude. I'm going to practise for ever and ever. If you don't like it there's no reason why you shouldn't leave: it's a free country, they say."
Percival looked round his room. She had been there, then?—perhaps had stood where he was standing. His glance fell on the turquoise-blue vase and the artificial flowers, and he colored as if he were Lydia's accomplice. Had she seen those and the Language of Flowers?
As if his thought had summoned her, Lydia herself appeared to lay the cloth for his dinner. She looked quickly round: "Did you see your note, Mr. Thorne?"