But oh, to think of it! Poor Jim had never seen his little lass, whose chatter had supplied him with a vivid image—albeit, perhaps, a false one—of her friend of ten years old. Her voice and touch were all he had to live for; but the only image of her he could get was from a grudging admission of his sister's that she might grow to be like her mother in time, but she would never have her looks. These looks were only admitted by Mrs. Steptoe for strategic purposes—videlicet, the cheapening of her brother's one possession and emphasizing of his losses. She may have had no defined intention of giving him pain, but the attitude of thought implied formed part of a scheme of Jeremiads her life was devoted to fostering and maturing. The looks of Lizarann's mother were the only pivot on which discussion of the child's own could turn naturally and easily. The embittered and unsympathetic disposition of her aunt made communication about them on other lines difficult or impossible to poor Jim.
But he treasured in his heart the idea that one day he would meet with some congenial soul whom he could take into his confidence, and petition for a description of what his little lass was really like. Unless, indeed, when she grew older, she was able to tell him what her image in a mirror resembled better than she had done when once or twice he had tried that way of eliciting information. For on those occasions Lizarann had at first shown symptoms of becoming what her aunt called a little giggling, affected chit, and had only been able to report that she looked "like Loyzarann in the glast," and then had grown uneasy, betrayed a tendency towards panic, and hid her face on her father when he became earnest, and begged her for his sake to tell him what she really looked like. She couldn't understand it at all, and may have had misgivings that she was being entrapped into some sort of ritual of a Masonic nature. So Jim had to wait for enlightenment from herself, and looked forward to the day when she should become more old and serious. Meanwhile what would he not have given for one little glimmer to help his imperfect image of what his little lass was like, now—now that her childhood was there?
But the darkness was upon him for all time. And the world that once was his to see had vanished—vanished with the last image his eyes had known; the quay at Cape Town in the blazing sun, the Dutch-built houses on the hot hill-side, and Table Mountain dark against the sky; and all the wide sea, a blaze of white beneath the blue, whose strongest glare might never reach his cancelled sight again. And there—so Jim believed, on the strength of a legend his informant may have invented on the spot—when the winds were at their worst round the Cape of Storms, might still be seen the source of all his evil, the Phantom Ship that had blasted his eyesight and made him what he had become. So fixed was this article of Jim's faith that it is not exaggeration to say that he drew comfort from the unending doom of her shadowy crew. Come what might to him, he always had this consolation, that as long as the sea should last, there was no hope of rest for the soul of the Flying Dutchman. It was something, if it wasn't much; and he told and retold the tale to his little lass, who was grieved on his behalf; but had somewhere, in the unrevengeful background of her mind, a chance thought of pity now and again for the unhappy seaman who was the cause of his misfortune.
[CHAPTER III]
OF ROYD HALL, AND ITS LITERARY GUEST WHO HAD AN IMPOSSIBLE WIFE
The lady who had shown an interest in Lizarann at the Dale Road Schools was the wife of Sir Murgatroyd Arkroyd, of Royal in Rankshire and Drum in Banffshire, and even more places. The young man who had bought Jim's matches and returned his change was their eldest son, William Rufus Arkroyd. His friend, whom he called Scipio, who was his college chum at Cambridge a year or so since, and had remained his inseparable companion, was on this particular day starting with him to pay an autumn visit to his paternal mansion, Royd Hall, about seven miles from Grime, where the new Translucent Cast Steel Foundries are.
The two young men got a carriage to themselves, and played picquet all the way to Furnivals, the little station where you get out for Royd and Thanes Castle, and the omnibus meets you. Because you are the sort probably that omnibuses meet. And it may be considered to have met William Rufus and Scipio on this occasion, but only platonically; for they rode to the house in a dog-cart that awaited them. However, the omnibus had the consolation of being ridden in by Mr. Arkroyd's man Schott, who came on in it with such luggage as would not go under a seat amenable only to card-cases or the like.
The model groom, Bullett, who had driven the trap to the station, had just time to establish himself on the back-seat, when the model mare was off at a spin, and an agricultural population, whose convictions and diet changed very little since the days of William the Norman, were abasing themselves in a humiliating manner unworthy of the age we live in—uncovering male heads and bobbing female skirts—at the doors of cottages whose hygienic arrangements were a disgrace to a Christian country and a reflection on civilization. So said the Grime Sentinel, in an editorial; and, as it spoke as though the editor had tried all these arrangements and found them wanting, no doubt it was right.