The five years which had passed since he had seen his wife had worked but a very little change in her. There was more womanly fulness in her form; and this was about all those five years had done for her. Her face was still as youthful as when Holdsworth had last looked on it, her eyes still possessed their deep and delicate tint, the hair its richness and lustre, the mouth its sweetness, the whole face that almost infantine expression, conveyed by soft shadowy lines and the archness of the pencilled eyebrows, which made it beautiful in repose, more beautiful yet in sorrow. But, young and fair as she seemed, there was a deep-rooted care in her face which, without qualifying its freshness, yet mingled in her smile, and lived in her eyes, and fixed a wistful look on her, such as would be seen in one who lingers long, long waiting for the summons to depart which no day brings. Her dress was shabby, her gloves old; but her beauty made even her faded apparel, cut after the unbecoming fashion then in vogue, picturesque. She wore a white crape handkerchief over her bare shoulders, and a bonnet-shaped hat, ornamented with a dark feather, which, drooping over her back, imparted a peculiar vividness to the light, sheeny gold of her hair.
Strained as his ears were, Holdsworth could not hear her voice, though Mrs. Parrot’s kindly cackle was audible enough. It was manifest that they exchanged mere commonplace civilities; and presently Mrs. Parrot dropped a courtesy, and the mother and child walked slowly away.
Holdsworth watched them with just such a look in his eyes as had been in them when, racked with torture in the open boat, he had cast glances full of passionate despair round the horizon for the ship that was to rescue him. He saw the little girl hold up her shilling, whereupon the mother stopped and looked back, then continued her walk and passed out of sight.
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
OVER THE WAY.
It was natural, after the first liveliness of the emotion which had been excited in Mrs. Parrot’s breast by the installation of a lodger worth fourteen shillings a week to her, had in some degree subsided, that she should begin to wonder who that lodger was.
She had been particularly struck and greatly taken by his behaviour to the little girl, and inferred, of course, that he was a humane and tender-hearted man, a conjecture which, although it was true, did no credit to her sagacity, considering the circumstance on which it was based; since it is a notorious fact, that great rascals will admire, pet, and “tip” little children, whose parents they would not scruple to rob of their very last farthing.
But though Mrs. Parrot had no doubt as to her lodger’s humanity of character after what she had seen, she could not by any means feel so sure as to the position he held either in or out of society, the calling he had followed, if ever he had followed a calling, or the part of the world he came from. His name was Hampden. That was English. But had he a Christian name? No initial stood between the Mr. and the Hampden, on the card affixed to his portmanteau. Was he a Christian? She hoped he was. She was no judge of other religions; but she must say, when she let her lodgings to people, that she liked to feel that they were Christians.
He had ordered dinner at two o’clock; and when she came in to lay the cloth, for she kept no servant, she found him still at the window, staring into the empty road as earnestly as if it were filled with a very beautiful and novel procession. But she could only suppose that he looked out of the window because he was new to the place.