Wessex Tales 1896

Fellow-Townsmen

CHAPTER I

 The shepherd on the east hill could shout out lambing intelligence

to the shepherd on the west hill, over the intervening town

chimneys, without great inconvenience to his voice, so nearly did

the steep pastures encroach upon the burghers' backyards.  And at

night it was possible to stand in the very midst of the town and

hear from their native paddocks on the lower levels of greensward

the mild lowing of the farmer's heifers, and the profound, warm

blowings of breath in which those creatures indulge.  But the

community which had jammed itself in the valley thus flanked formed

a veritable town, with a real mayor and corporation, and a staple

manufacture.

During a certain damp evening five-and-thirty years ago, before the

twilight was far advanced, a pedestrian of professional appearance,

carrying a small bag in his hand and an elevated umbrella, was

descending one of these hills by the turnpike road when he was

overtaken by a phaeton.

'Hullo, Downe--is that you?' said the driver of the vehicle, a young

man of pale and refined appearance.  'Jump up here with me, and ride

down to your door.'

The other turned a plump, cheery, rather self-indulgent face over

his shoulder towards the hailer.

'O, good evening, Mr. Barnet--thanks,' he said, and mounted beside

his acquaintance.

They were fellow-burgesses of the town which lay beneath them, but

though old and very good friends, they were differently

circumstanced.  Barnet was a richer man than the struggling young

lawyer Downe, a fact which was to some extent perceptible in Downe's

manner towards his companion, though nothing of it ever showed in

Barnet's manner towards the solicitor.  Barnet's position in the

town was none of his own making; his father had been a very

successful flax-merchant in the same place, where the trade was

still carried on as briskly as the small capacities of its quarters

would allow.  Having acquired a fair fortune, old Mr. Barnet had

retired from business, bringing up his son as a gentleman-burgher,

and, it must be added, as a well-educated, liberal-minded young man.

'How is Mrs. Barnet?' asked Downe.

'Mrs. Barnet was very well when I left home,' the other answered

constrainedly, exchanging his meditative regard of the horse for one

of self-consciousness.

Mr. Downe seemed to regret his inquiry, and immediately took up

another thread of conversation.  He congratulated his friend on his

election as a council-man; he thought he had not seen him since that

event took place; Mrs. Downe had meant to call and congratulate Mrs.

Barnet, but he feared that she had failed to do so as yet.

Barnet seemed hampered in his replies.  'WE should have been glad to

see you.  I--my wife would welcome Mrs. Downe at any time, as you

know . . . Yes, I am a member of the corporation--rather an

inexperienced member, some of them say.  It is quite true; and I

should have declined the honour as premature--having other things on

my hands just now, too--if it had not been pressed upon me so very

heartily.'

'There is one thing you have on your hands which I can never quite

see the necessity for,' said Downe, with good-humoured freedom.

'What the deuce do you want to build that new mansion for, when you

have already got such an excellent house as the one you live in?'

Barnet's face acquired a warmer shade of colour; but as the question

had been idly asked by the solicitor while regarding the surrounding

flocks and fields, he answered after a moment with no apparent

embarrassment -

'Well, we wanted to get out of the town, you know:  the house I am

living in is rather old and inconvenient.'  Mr. Downe declared that

he had chosen a pretty site for the new building.  They would be

able to see for miles and miles from the windows.  Was he going to

give it a name?  He supposed so.

Barnet thought not.  There was no other house near that was likely

to be mistaken for it.  And he did not care for a name.

'But I think it has a name!'  Downe observed:  'I went past--when

was it?--this morning; and I saw something,--"Chateau Ringdale," I

think it was, stuck up on a board!'

'It was an idea she--we had for a short time,' said Barnet hastily.

'But we have decided finally to do without a name--at any rate such

a name as that.  It must have been a week ago that you saw it.  It

was taken down last Saturday . . . Upon that matter I am firm!' he

added grimly.

Downe murmured in an unconvinced tone that he thought he had seen it

yesterday.

Talking thus they drove into the town.  The street was unusually

still for the hour of seven in the evening; an increasing drizzle

had prevailed since the afternoon, and now formed a gauze across the

yellow lamps, and trickled with a gentle rattle down the heavy roofs

of stone tile, that bent the house-ridges hollow-backed with its

weight, and in some instances caused the walls to bulge outwards in

the upper story.  Their route took them past the little town-hall,

the Black-Bull Hotel, and onward to the junction of a small street

on the right, consisting of a row of those two-and-two windowed

brick residences of no particular age, which are exactly alike

wherever found, except in the people they contain.

'Wait--I'll drive you up to your door,' said Barnet, when Downe

prepared to alight at the corner.  He thereupon turned into the

narrow street, when the faces of three little girls could be

discerned close to the panes of a lighted window a few yards ahead,

surmounted by that of a young matron, the gaze of all four being

directed eagerly up the empty street.  'You are a fortunate fellow,

Downe,' Barnet continued, as mother and children disappeared from

the window to run to the door.  'You must be happy if any man is.  I

would give a hundred such houses as my new one to have a home like

yours.'

'Well--yes, we get along pretty comfortably,' replied Downe

complacently.

'That house, Downe, is none of my ordering,' Barnet broke out,

revealing a bitterness hitherto suppressed, and checking the horse a

moment to finish his speech before delivering up his passenger.

'The house I have already is good enough for me, as you supposed.

It is my own freehold; it was built by my grandfather, and is stout

enough for a castle.  My father was born there, lived there, and

died there.  I was born there, and have always lived there; yet I

must needs build a new one.'

'Why do you?' said Downe.

'Why do I?  To preserve peace in the household.  I do anything for

that; but I don't succeed.  I was firm in resisting "Chateau

Ringdale," however; not that I would not have put up with the

absurdity of the name, but it was too much to have your house

christened after Lord Ringdale, because your wife once had a fancy

for him.  If you only knew everything, you would think all attempt

at reconciliation hopeless.  In your happy home you have had no such

experiences; and God forbid that you ever should.  See, here they

are all ready to receive you!'

'Of course!  And so will your wife be waiting to receive you,' said

Downe.  'Take my word for it she will!  And with a dinner prepared

for you far better than mine.'

'I hope so,' Barnet replied dubiously.

He moved on to Downe's door, which the solicitor's family had

already opened.  Downe descended, but being encumbered with his bag

and umbrella, his foot slipped, and he fell upon his knees in the

gutter.

'O, my dear Charles!' said his wife, running down the steps; and,

quite ignoring the presence of Barnet, she seized hold of her

husband, pulled him to his feet, and kissed him, exclaiming, 'I hope

you are not hurt, darling!'  The children crowded round, chiming in

piteously, 'Poor papa!'

'He's all right,' said Barnet, perceiving that Downe was only a

little muddy, and looking more at the wife than at the husband.

Almost at any other time--certainly during his fastidious bachelor

years--he would have thought her a too demonstrative woman; but

those recent circumstances of his own life to which he had just

alluded made Mrs. Downe's solicitude so affecting that his eye grew

damp as he witnessed it.  Bidding the lawyer and his family good-

night he left them, and drove slowly into the main street towards

his own house.

The heart of Barnet was sufficiently impressionable to be influenced

by Downe's parting prophecy that he might not be so unwelcome home

as he imagined:  the dreary night might, at least on this one

occasion, make Downe's forecast true.  Hence it was in a suspense

that he could hardly have believed possible that he halted at his

door.  On entering his wife was nowhere to be seen, and he inquired

for her.  The servant informed him that her mistress had the

dressmaker with her, and would be engaged for some time.

'Dressmaker at this time of day!'

'She dined early, sir, and hopes you will excuse her joining you

this evening.'

'But she knew I was coming to-night?'

'O yes, sir.'

'Go up and tell her I am come.'

The servant did so; but the mistress of the house merely transmitted

her former words.

Barnet said nothing more, and presently sat down to his lonely meal,

which was eaten abstractedly, the domestic scene he had lately

witnessed still impressing him by its contrast with the situation

here.  His mind fell back into past years upon a certain pleasing

and gentle being whose face would loom out of their shades at such

times as these.  Barnet turned in his chair, and looked with

unfocused eyes in a direction southward from where he sat, as if he

saw not the room but a long way beyond.  'I wonder if she lives

there still!' he said.

CHAPTER II

He rose with a sudden rebelliousness, put on his hat and coat, and

went out of the house, pursuing his way along the glistening

pavement while eight o'clock was striking from St. Mary's tower, and

the apprentices and shopmen were slamming up the shutters from end

to end of the town.  In two minutes only those shops which could

boast of no attendant save the master or the mistress remained with

open eyes.  These were ever somewhat less prompt to exclude

customers than the others:  for their owners' ears the closing hour

had scarcely the cheerfulness that it possessed for the hired

servants of the rest.  Yet the night being dreary the delay was not

for long, and their windows, too, blinked together one by one.

During this time Barnet had proceeded with decided step in a

direction at right angles to the broad main thoroughfare of the

town, by a long street leading due southward.  Here, though his

family had no more to do with the flax manufacture, his own name

occasionally greeted him on gates and warehouses, being used

allusively by small rising tradesmen as a recommendation, in such

words as 'Smith, from Barnet & Co.'--'Robinson, late manager at

Barnet's.'  The sight led him to reflect upon his father's busy

life, and he questioned if it had not been far happier than his own.

The houses along the road became fewer, and presently open ground

appeared between them on either side, the track on the right hand

rising to a higher level till it merged in a knoll.  On the summit a

row of builders' scaffold-poles probed the indistinct sky like

spears, and at their bases could be discerned the lower courses of a

building lately begun.  Barnet slackened his pace and stood for a

few moments without leaving the centre of the road, apparently not

much interested in the sight, till suddenly his eye was caught by a

post in the fore part of the ground bearing a white board at the

top.  He went to the rails, vaulted over, and walked in far enough

to discern painted upon the board 'Chateau Ringdale.'

A dismal irony seemed to lie in the words, and its effect was to

irritate him.  Downe, then, had spoken truly.  He stuck his umbrella

into the sod, and seized the post with both hands, as if intending

to loosen and throw it down.  Then, like one bewildered by an

opposition which would exist none the less though its manifestations

were removed, he allowed his arms to sink to his side.

'Let it be,' he said to himself.  'I have declared there shall be

peace--if possible.'

Taking up his umbrella he quietly left the enclosure, and went on

his way, still keeping his back to the town.  He had advanced with

more decision since passing the new building, and soon a hoarse

murmur rose upon the gloom; it was the sound of the sea.  The road

led to the harbour, at a distance of a mile from the town, from

which the trade of the district was fed.  After seeing the obnoxious

name-board Barnet had forgotten to open his umbrella, and the rain

tapped smartly on his hat, and occasionally stroked his face as he

went on.

Though the lamps were still continued at the roadside, they stood at

wider intervals than before, and the pavement had given place to

common road.  Every time he came to a lamp an increasing shine made

itself visible upon his shoulders, till at last they quite glistened

with wet.  The murmur from the shore grew stronger, but it was still

some distance off when he paused before one of the smallest of the

detached houses by the wayside, standing in its own garden, the

latter being divided from the road by a row of wooden palings.

Scrutinizing the spot to ensure that he was not mistaken, he opened

the gate and gently knocked at the cottage door.

When he had patiently waited minutes enough to lead any man in

ordinary cases to knock again, the door was heard to open, though it

was impossible to see by whose hand, there being no light in the

passage.  Barnet said at random, 'Does Miss Savile live here?'

A youthful voice assured him that she did live there, and by a

sudden afterthought asked him to come in.  It would soon get a

light, it said:  but the night being wet, mother had not thought it

worth while to trim the passage lamp.

'Don't trouble yourself to get a light for me,' said Barnet hastily;

'it is not necessary at all.  Which is Miss Savile's sitting-room?'

The young person, whose white pinafore could just be discerned,

signified a door in the side of the passage, and Barnet went forward

at the same moment, so that no light should fall upon his face.  On

entering the room he closed the door behind him, pausing till he

heard the retreating footsteps of the child.

He found himself in an apartment which was simply and neatly, though

not poorly furnished; everything, from the miniature chiffonnier to

the shining little daguerreotype which formed the central ornament

of the mantelpiece, being in scrupulous order.  The picture was

enclosed by a frame of embroidered card-board--evidently the work of

feminine hands--and it was the portrait of a thin faced, elderly

lieutenant in the navy.  From behind the lamp on the table a female

form now rose into view, that of a young girl, and a resemblance

between her and the portrait was early discoverable.  She had been

so absorbed in some occupation on the other side of the lamp as to

have barely found time to realize her visitor's presence.

They both remained standing for a few seconds without speaking.  The

face that confronted Barnet had a beautiful outline; the

Raffaelesque oval of its contour was remarkable for an English

countenance, and that countenance housed in a remote country-road to

an unheard-of harbour.  But her features did not do justice to this

splendid beginning:  Nature had recollected that she was not in

Italy; and the young lady's lineaments, though not so inconsistent

as to make her plain, would have been accepted rather as pleasing

than as correct.  The preoccupied expression which, like images on

the retina, remained with her for a moment after the state that

caused it had ceased, now changed into a reserved, half-proud, and

slightly indignant look, in which the blood diffused itself quickly

across her cheek, and additional brightness broke the shade of her

rather heavy eyes.

'I know I have no business here,' he said, answering the look.  'But

I had a great wish to see you, and inquire how you were.  You can

give your hand to me, seeing how often I have held it in past days?'

'I would rather forget than remember all that, Mr. Barnet,' she

answered, as she coldly complied with the request.  'When I think of

the circumstances of our last meeting, I can hardly consider it kind

of you to allude to such a thing as our past--or, indeed, to come

here at all.'

'There was no harm in it surely?  I don't trouble you often, Lucy.'

'I have not had the honour of a visit from you for a very long time,

certainly, and I did not expect it now,' she said, with the same

stiffness in her air.  'I hope Mrs. Barnet is very well?'

'Yes, yes!' he impatiently returned.  'At least I suppose so--though

I only speak from inference!'

'But she is your wife, sir,' said the young girl tremulously.

The unwonted tones of a man's voice in that feminine chamber had

startled a canary that was roosting in its cage by the window; the

bird awoke hastily, and fluttered against the bars.  She went and

stilled it by laying her face against the cage and murmuring a

coaxing sound.  It might partly have been done to still herself.

'I didn't come to talk of Mrs. Barnet,' he pursued; 'I came to talk

of you, of yourself alone; to inquire how you are getting on since

your great loss.'  And he turned towards the portrait of her father.

'I am getting on fairly well, thank you.'

The force of her utterance was scarcely borne out by her look; but

Barnet courteously reproached himself for not having guessed a thing

so natural; and to dissipate all embarrassment, added, as he bent

over the table, 'What were you doing when I came?--painting flowers,

and by candlelight?'

'O no,' she said, 'not painting them--only sketching the outlines.

I do that at night to save time--I have to get three dozen done by

the end of the month.'

Barnet looked as if he regretted it deeply.  'You will wear your

poor eyes out,' he said, with more sentiment than he had hitherto

shown.  'You ought not to do it.  There was a time when I should

have said you must not.  Well--I almost wish I had never seen light

with my own eyes when I think of that!'

'Is this a time or place for recalling such matters?' she asked,

with dignity.  'You used to have a gentlemanly respect for me, and

for yourself.  Don't speak any more as you have spoken, and don't

come again.  I cannot think that this visit is serious, or was

closely considered by you.'

'Considered:  well, I came to see you as an old and good friend--not

to mince matters, to visit a woman I loved.  Don't be angry!  I

could not help doing it, so many things brought you into my mind . .

. This evening I fell in with an acquaintance, and when I saw how

happy he was with his wife and family welcoming him home, though

with only one-tenth of my income and chances, and thought what might

have been in my case, it fairly broke down my discretion, and off I

came here.  Now I am here I feel that I am wrong to some extent.

But the feeling that I should like to see you, and talk of those we

used to know in common, was very strong.'

'Before that can be the case a little more time must pass,' said

Miss Savile quietly; 'a time long enough for me to regard with some

calmness what at present I remember far too impatiently--though it

may be you almost forget it.  Indeed you must have forgotten it long

before you acted as you did.'  Her voice grew stronger and more

vivacious as she added:  'But I am doing my best to forget it too,

and I know I shall succeed from the progress I have made already!'

She had remained standing till now, when she turned and sat down,

facing half away from him.

Barnet watched her moodily.  'Yes, it is only what I deserve,' he

said.  'Ambition pricked me on--no, it was not ambition, it was

wrongheadedness!  Had I but reflected . . . '  He broke out

vehemently:  'But always remember this, Lucy:  if you had written to

me only one little line after that misunderstanding, I declare I

should have come back to you.  That ruined me!' he slowly walked as

far as the little room would allow him to go, and remained with his

eyes on the skirting.

'But, Mr. Barnet, how could I write to you?  There was no opening

for my doing so.'

'Then there ought to have been,' said Barnet, turning.  'That was my

fault!'

'Well, I don't know anything about that; but as there had been

nothing said by me which required any explanation by letter, I did

not send one.  Everything was so indefinite, and feeling your

position to be so much wealthier than mine, I fancied I might have

mistaken your meaning.  And when I heard of the other lady--a woman

of whose family even you might be proud--I thought how foolish I had

been, and said nothing.'

'Then I suppose it was destiny--accident--I don't know what, that

separated us, dear Lucy.  Anyhow you were the woman I ought to have

made my wife--and I let you slip, like the foolish man that I was!'

'O, Mr. Barnet,' she said, almost in tears, 'don't revive the

subject to me; I am the wrong one to console you--think, sir,--you

should not be here--it would be so bad for me if it were known!'

'It would--it would, indeed,' he said hastily.  'I am not right in

doing this, and I won't do it again.'

'It is a very common folly of human nature, you know, to think the

course you did NOT adopt must have been the best,' she continued,

with gentle solicitude, as she followed him to the door of the room.

'And you don't know that I should have accepted you, even if you had

asked me to be your wife.'  At this his eye met hers, and she

dropped her gaze.  She knew that her voice belied her.  There was a

silence till she looked up to add, in a voice of soothing

playfulness, 'My family was so much poorer than yours, even before I

lost my dear father, that--perhaps your companions would have made

it unpleasant for us on account of my deficiencies.'

'Your disposition would soon have won them round,' said Barnet.

She archly expostulated:  'Now, never mind my disposition; try to

make it up with your wife!  Those are my commands to you.  And now

you are to leave me at once.'

'I will.  I must make the best of it all, I suppose,' he replied,

more cheerfully than he had as yet spoken.  'But I shall never again

meet with such a dear girl as you!'  And he suddenly opened the

door, and left her alone.  When his glance again fell on the lamps

that were sparsely ranged along the dreary level road, his eyes were

in a state which showed straw-like motes of light radiating from

each flame into the surrounding air.

On the other side of the way Barnet observed a man under an

umbrella, walking parallel with himself.  Presently this man left

the footway, and gradually converged on Barnet's course.  The latter

then saw that it was Charlson, a surgeon of the town, who owed him

money.  Charlson was a man not without ability; yet he did not

prosper.  Sundry circumstances stood in his way as a medical

practitioner:  he was needy; he was not a coddle; he gossiped with

men instead of with women; he had married a stranger instead of one

of the town young ladies; and he was given to conversational

buffoonery.  Moreover, his look was quite erroneous.  Those only

proper features in the family doctor, the quiet eye, and the thin

straight passionless lips which never curl in public either for

laughter or for scorn, were not his; he had a full-curved mouth, and

a bold black eye that made timid people nervous.  His companions

were what in old times would have been called boon companions--an

expression which, though of irreproachable root, suggests

fraternization carried to the point of unscrupulousness.  All this

was against him in the little town of his adoption.

Charlson had been in difficulties, and to oblige him Barnet had put

his name to a bill; and, as he had expected, was called upon to meet

it when it fell due.  It had been only a matter of fifty pounds,

which Barnet could well afford to lose, and he bore no ill-will to

the thriftless surgeon on account of it.  But Charlson had a little

too much brazen indifferentism in his composition to be altogether a

desirable acquaintance.

'I hope to be able to make that little bill-business right with you

in the course of three weeks, Mr. Barnet,' said Charlson with hail-

fellow friendliness.

Barnet replied good-naturedly that there was no hurry.

This particular three weeks had moved on in advance of Charlson's

present with the precision of a shadow for some considerable time.

'I've had a dream,' Charlson continued.  Barnet knew from his tone

that the surgeon was going to begin his characteristic nonsense, and

did not encourage him.  'I've had a dream,' repeated Charlson, who

required no encouragement.  'I dreamed that a gentleman, who has

been very kind to me, married a haughty lady in haste, before he had

quite forgotten a nice little girl he knew before, and that one wet

evening, like the present, as I was walking up the harbour-road, I

saw him come out of that dear little girl's present abode.'

Barnet glanced towards the speaker.  The rays from a neighbouring

lamp struck through the drizzle under Charlson's umbrella, so as

just to illumine his face against the shade behind, and show that

his eye was turned up under the outer corner of its lid, whence it

leered with impish jocoseness as he thrust his tongue into his

cheek.

'Come,' said Barnet gravely, 'we'll have no more of that.'

'No, no--of course not,' Charlson hastily answered, seeing that his

humour had carried him too far, as it had done many times before.

He was profuse in his apologies, but Barnet did not reply.  Of one

thing he was certain--that scandal was a plant of quick root, and

that he was bound to obey Lucy's injunction for Lucy's own sake.

CHAPTER III

He did so, to the letter; and though, as the crocus followed the

snowdrop and the daffodil the crocus in Lucy's garden, the harbour-

road was a not unpleasant place to walk in, Barnet's feet never trod

its stones, much less approached her door.  He avoided a saunter

that way as he would have avoided a dangerous dram, and took his

airings a long distance northward, among severely square and brown

ploughed fields, where no other townsman came.  Sometimes he went

round by the lower lanes of the borough, where the rope-walks

stretched in which his family formerly had share, and looked at the

rope-makers walking backwards, overhung by apple-trees and bushes,

and intruded on by cows and calves, as if trade had established

itself there at considerable inconvenience to Nature.

One morning, when the sun was so warm as to raise a steam from the

south-eastern slopes of those flanking hills that looked so lovely

above the old roofs, but made every low-chimneyed house in the town

as smoky as Tophet, Barnet glanced from the windows of the town-

council room for lack of interest in what was proceeding within.

Several members of the corporation were present, but there was not

much business doing, and in a few minutes Downe came leisurely

across to him, saying that he seldom saw Barnet now.

Barnet owned that he was not often present.

Downe looked at the crimson curtain which hung down beside the

panes, reflecting its hot hues into their faces, and then out of the

window.  At that moment there passed along the street a tall

commanding lady, in whom the solicitor recognized Barnet's wife.

Barnet had done the same thing, and turned away.

'It will be all right some day,' said Downe, with cheering sympathy.

'You have heard, then, of her last outbreak?'

Downe depressed his cheerfulness to its very reverse in a moment.

'No, I have not heard of anything serious,' he said, with as long a

face as one naturally round could be turned into at short notice.

'I only hear vague reports of such things.'

'You may think it will be all right,' said Barnet drily.  'But I

have a different opinion . . . No, Downe, we must look the thing in

the face.  Not poppy nor mandragora--however, how are your wife and

children?'

Downe said that they were all well, thanks; they were out that

morning somewhere; he was just looking to see if they were walking

that way.  Ah, there they were, just coming down the street; and

Downe pointed to the figures of two children with a nursemaid, and a

lady walking behind them.

'You will come out and speak to her?' he asked.

'Not this morning.  The fact is I don't care to speak to anybody

just now.'

'You are too sensitive, Mr. Barnet.  At school I remember you used

to get as red as a rose if anybody uttered a word that hurt your

feelings.'

Barnet mused.  'Yes,' he admitted, 'there is a grain of truth in

that.  It is because of that I often try to make peace at home.

Life would be tolerable then at any rate, even if not particularly

bright.'

'I have thought more than once of proposing a little plan to you,'

said Downe with some hesitation.  'I don't know whether it will meet

your views, but take it or leave it, as you choose.  In fact, it was

my wife who suggested it:  that she would be very glad to call on

Mrs. Barnet and get into her confidence.  She seems to think that

Mrs. Barnet is rather alone in the town, and without advisers.  Her

impression is that your wife will listen to reason.  Emily has a

wonderful way of winning the hearts of people of her own sex.'

'And of the other sex too, I think.  She is a charming woman, and

you were a lucky fellow to find her.'

'Well, perhaps I was,' simpered Downe, trying to wear an aspect of

being the last man in the world to feel pride.  'However, she will

be likely to find out what ruffles Mrs. Barnet.  Perhaps it is some

misunderstanding, you know--something that she is too proud to ask

you to explain, or some little thing in your conduct that irritates

her because she does not fully comprehend you.  The truth is, Emily

would have been more ready to make advances if she had been quite

sure of her fitness for Mrs. Barnet's society, who has of course

been accustomed to London people of good position, which made Emily

fearful of intruding.'

Barnet expressed his warmest thanks for the well-intentioned

proposition.  There was reason in Mrs. Downe's fear--that he owned.

'But do let her call,' he said.  'There is no woman in England I

would so soon trust on such an errand.  I am afraid there will not

be any brilliant result; still I shall take it as the kindest and

nicest thing if she will try it, and not be frightened at a

repulse.'

When Barnet and Downe had parted, the former went to the Town

Savings-Bank, of which he was a trustee, and endeavoured to forget

his troubles in the contemplation of low sums of money, and figures

in a network of red and blue lines.  He sat and watched the working-

people making their deposits, to which at intervals he signed his

name.  Before he left in the afternoon Downe put his head inside the

door.

'Emily has seen Mrs. Barnet,' he said, in a low voice.  'She has got

Mrs. Barnet's promise to take her for a drive down to the shore to-

morrow, if it is fine.  Good afternoon!'

Barnet shook Downe by the hand without speaking, and Downe went

away.

CHAPTER IV

The next day was as fine as the arrangement could possibly require.

As the sun passed the meridian and declined westward, the tall

shadows from the scaffold-poles of Barnet's rising residence

streaked the ground as far as to the middle of the highway.  Barnet

himself was there inspecting the progress of the works for the first

time during several weeks.  A building in an old-fashioned town

five-and-thirty years ago did not, as in the modern fashion, rise

from the sod like a booth at a fair.  The foundations and lower

courses were put in and allowed to settle for many weeks before the

superstructure was built up, and a whole summer of drying was hardly

sufficient to do justice to the important issues involved.  Barnet

stood within a window-niche which had as yet received no frame, and

thence looked down a slope into the road.  The wheels of a chaise

were heard, and then his handsome Xantippe, in the company of Mrs.

Downe, drove past on their way to the shore.  They were driving

slowly; there was a pleasing light in Mrs. Downe's face, which

seemed faintly to reflect itself upon the countenance of her

companion--that politesse du coeur which was so natural to her

having possibly begun already to work results.  But whatever the

situation, Barnet resolved not to interfere, or do anything to

hazard the promise of the day.  He might well afford to trust the

issue to another when he could never direct it but to ill himself.

His wife's clenched rein-hand in its lemon-coloured glove, her stiff

erect figure, clad in velvet and lace, and her boldly-outlined face,

passed on, exhibiting their owner as one fixed for ever above the

level of her companion--socially by her early breeding, and

materially by her higher cushion.

Barnet decided to allow them a proper time to themselves, and then

stroll down to the shore and drive them home.  After lingering on at

the house for another hour he started with this intention.  A few

hundred yards below 'Chateau Ringdale' stood the cottage in which

the late lieutenant's daughter had her lodging.  Barnet had not been

so far that way for a long time, and as he approached the forbidden

ground a curious warmth passed into him, which led him to perceive

that, unless he were careful, he might have to fight the battle with

himself about Lucy over again.  A tenth of his present excuse would,

however, have justified him in travelling by that road to-day.

He came opposite the dwelling, and turned his eyes for a momentary

glance into the little garden that stretched from the palings to the

door.  Lucy was in the enclosure; she was walking and stooping to

gather some flowers, possibly for the purpose of painting them, for

she moved about quickly, as if anxious to save time.  She did not

see him; he might have passed unnoticed; but a sensation which was

not in strict unison with his previous sentiments that day led him

to pause in his walk and watch her.  She went nimbly round and round

the beds of anemones, tulips, jonquils, polyanthuses, and other old-

fashioned flowers, looking a very charming figure in her half-

mourning bonnet, and with an incomplete nosegay in her left hand.

Raising herself to pull down a lilac blossom she observed him.

'Mr. Barnet!' she said, innocently smiling.  'Why, I have been

thinking of you many times since Mrs. Barnet went by in the pony-

carriage, and now here you are!'

'Yes, Lucy,' he said.

Then she seemed to recall particulars of their last meeting, and he

believed that she flushed, though it might have been only the fancy

of his own supersensitivenesss.

'I am going to the harbour,' he added.

'Are you?' Lucy remarked simply.  'A great many people begin to go

there now the summer is drawing on.'

Her face had come more into his view as she spoke, and he noticed

how much thinner and paler it was than when he had seen it last.

'Lucy, how weary you look! tell me, can I help you?' he was going to

cry out.--'If I do,' he thought, 'it will be the ruin of us both!'

He merely said that the afternoon was fine, and went on his way.

As he went a sudden blast of air came over the hill as if in

contradiction to his words, and spoilt the previous quiet of the

scene.  The wind had already shifted violently, and now smelt of the

sea.

The harbour-road soon began to justify its name.  A gap appeared in

the rampart of hills which shut out the sea, and on the left of the

opening rose a vertical cliff, coloured a burning orange by the

sunlight, the companion cliff on the right being livid in shade.

Between these cliffs, like the Libyan bay which sheltered the

shipwrecked Trojans, was a little haven, seemingly a beginning made

by Nature herself of a perfect harbour, which appealed to the

passer-by as only requiring a little human industry to finish it and

make it famous, the ground on each side as far back as the daisied

slopes that bounded the interior valley being a mere layer of blown

sand.  But the Port-Bredy burgesses a mile inland had, in the course

of ten centuries, responded many times to that mute appeal, with the

result that the tides had invariably choked up their works with sand

and shingle as soon as completed.  There were but few houses here:

a rough pier, a few boats, some stores, an inn, a residence or two,

a ketch unloading in the harbour, were the chief features of the

settlement.  On the open ground by the shore stood his wife's pony-

carriage, empty, the boy in attendance holding the horse.

When Barnet drew nearer, he saw an indigo-coloured spot moving

swiftly along beneath the radiant base of the eastern cliff, which

proved to be a man in a jersey, running with all his might.  He held

up his hand to Barnet, as it seemed, and they approached each other.

The man was local, but a stranger to him.

'What is it, my man?' said Barnet.

'A terrible calamity!' the boatman hastily explained.  Two ladies

had been capsized in a boat--they were Mrs. Downe and Mrs. Barnet of

the old town; they had driven down there that afternoon--they had

alighted, and it was so fine, that, after walking about a little

while, they had been tempted to go out for a short sail round the

cliff.  Just as they were putting in to the shore, the wind shifted

with a sudden gust, the boat listed over, and it was thought they

were both drowned.  How it could have happened was beyond his mind

to fathom, for John Green knew how to sail a boat as well as any man

there.

'Which is the way to the place?' said Barnet.

It was just round the cliff.

'Run to the carriage and tell the boy to bring it to the place as

soon as you can.  Then go to the Harbour Inn and tell them to ride

to town for a doctor.  Have they been got out of the water?'

'One lady has.'

'Which?'

'Mrs. Barnet.  Mrs. Downe, it is feared, has fleeted out to sea.'

Barnet ran on to that part of the shore which the cliff had hitherto

obscured from his view, and there discerned, a long way ahead, a

group of fishermen standing.  As soon as he came up one or two

recognized him, and, not liking to meet his eye, turned aside with

misgiving.  He went amidst them and saw a small sailing-boat lying

draggled at the water's edge; and, on the sloping shingle beside it,

a soaked and sandy woman's form in the velvet dress and yellow

gloves of his wife.

CHAPTER V

All had been done that could be done.  Mrs. Barnet was in her own

house under medical hands, but the result was still uncertain.

Barnet had acted as if devotion to his wife were the dominant

passion of his existence.  There had been much to decide--whether to

attempt restoration of the apparently lifeless body as it lay on the

shore--whether to carry her to the Harbour Inn--whether to drive

with her at once to his own house.  The first course, with no

skilled help or appliances near at hand, had seemed hopeless.  The

second course would have occupied nearly as much time as a drive to

the town, owing to the intervening ridges of shingle, and the

necessity of crossing the harbour by boat to get to the house, added

to which much time must have elapsed before a doctor could have

arrived down there.  By bringing her home in the carriage some

precious moments had slipped by; but she had been laid in her own

bed in seven minutes, a doctor called to her side, and every

possible restorative brought to bear upon her.

At what a tearing pace he had driven up that road, through the

yellow evening sunlight, the shadows flapping irksomely into his

eyes as each wayside object rushed past between him and the west!

Tired workmen with their baskets at their backs had turned on their

homeward journey to wonder at his speed.  Halfway between the shore

and Port-Bredy town he had met Charlson, who had been the first

surgeon to hear of the accident.  He was accompanied by his

assistant in a gig.  Barnet had sent on the latter to the coast in

case that Downe's poor wife should by that time have been reclaimed

from the waves, and had brought Charlson back with him to the house.

Barnet's presence was not needed here, and he felt it to be his next

duty to set off at once and find Downe, that no other than himself

might break the news to him.

He was quite sure that no chance had been lost for Mrs. Downe by his

leaving the shore.  By the time that Mrs. Barnet had been laid in

the carriage, a much larger group had assembled to lend assistance

in finding her friend, rendering his own help superfluous.  But the

duty of breaking the news was made doubly painful by the

circumstance that the catastrophe which had befallen Mrs. Downe was

solely the result of her own and her husband's loving-kindness

towards himself.

He found Downe in his office.  When the solicitor comprehended the

intelligence he turned pale, stood up, and remained for a moment

perfectly still, as if bereft of his faculties; then his shoulders

heaved, he pulled out his handkerchief and began to cry like a

child.  His sobs might have been heard in the next room.  He seemed

to have no idea of going to the shore, or of doing anything; but

when Barnet took him gently by the hand and proposed to start at

once, he quietly acquiesced, neither uttering any further word nor

making any effort to repress his tears.

Barnet accompanied him to the shore, where, finding that no trace

had as yet been seen of Mrs. Downe, and that his stay would be of no

avail, he left Downe with his friends and the young doctor, and once

more hastened back to his own house.

At the door he met Charlson.  'Well!'  Barnet said.

'I have just come down,' said the doctor; 'we have done everything,

but without result.  I sympathize with you in your bereavement.'

Barnet did not much appreciate Charlson's sympathy, which sounded to

his ears as something of a mockery from the lips of a man who knew

what Charlson knew about their domestic relations.  Indeed there

seemed an odd spark in Charlson's full black eye as he said the

words; but that might have been imaginary.

'And, Mr. Barnet,' Charlson resumed, 'that little matter between us-

-I hope to settle it finally in three weeks at least.'

'Never mind that now,' said Barnet abruptly.  He directed the

surgeon to go to the harbour in case his services might even now be

necessary there:  and himself entered the house.

The servants were coming from his wife's chamber, looking helplessly

at each other and at him.  He passed them by and entered the room,

where he stood mutely regarding the bed for a few minutes, after

which he walked into his own dressing-room adjoining, and there

paced up and down.  In a minute or two he noticed what a strange and

total silence had come over the upper part of the house; his own

movements, muffled as they were by the carpet, seemed noisy, and his

thoughts to disturb the air like articulate utterances.  His eye

glanced through the window.  Far down the road to the harbour a roof

detained his gaze:  out of it rose a red chimney, and out of the red

chimney a curl of smoke, as from a fire newly kindled.  He had often

seen such a sight before.  In that house lived Lucy Savile; and the

smoke was from the fire which was regularly lighted at this time to

make her tea.

After that he went back to the bedroom, and stood there some time

regarding his wife's silent form.  She was a woman some years older

than himself, but had not by any means overpassed the maturity of

good looks and vigour.  Her passionate features, well-defined, firm,

and statuesque in life, were doubly so now:  her mouth and brow,

beneath her purplish black hair, showed only too clearly that the

turbulency of character which had made a bear-garden of his house

had been no temporary phase of her existence.  While he reflected,

he suddenly said to himself, I wonder if all has been done?

The thought was led up to by his having fancied that his wife's

features lacked in its complete form the expression which he had

been accustomed to associate with the faces of those whose spirits

have fled for ever.  The effacement of life was not so marked but

that, entering uninformed, he might have supposed her sleeping.  Her

complexion was that seen in the numerous faded portraits by Sir

Joshua Reynolds; it was pallid in comparison with life, but there

was visible on a close inspection the remnant of what had once been

a flush; the keeping between the cheeks and the hollows of the face

being thus preserved, although positive colour was gone.  Long

orange rays of evening sun stole in through chinks in the blind,

striking on the large mirror, and being thence reflected upon the

crimson hangings and woodwork of the heavy bedstead, so that the

general tone of light was remarkably warm; and it was probable that

something might be due to this circumstance.  Still the fact

impressed him as strange.  Charlson had been gone more than a

quarter of an hour:  could it be possible that he had left too soon,

and that his attempts to restore her had operated so sluggishly as

only now to have made themselves felt?  Barnet laid his hand upon

her chest, and fancied that ever and anon a faint flutter of

palpitation, gentle as that of a butterfly's wing, disturbed the

stillness there--ceasing for a time, then struggling to go on, then

breaking down in weakness and ceasing again.

Barnet's mother had been an active practitioner of the healing art

among her poorer neighbours, and her inspirations had all been

derived from an octavo volume of Domestic Medicine, which at this

moment was lying, as it had lain for many years, on a shelf in

Barnet's dressing-room.  He hastily fetched it, and there read under

the head 'Drowning:'-

'Exertions for the recovery of any person who has not been immersed

for a longer period than half-an-hour should be continued for at

least four hours, as there have been many cases in which returning

life has made itself visible even after a longer interval.

'Should, however, a weak action of any of the organs show itself

when the case seems almost hopeless, our efforts must be redoubled;

the feeble spark in this case requires to be solicited; it will

certainly disappear under a relaxation of labour.'

Barnet looked at his watch; it was now barely two hours and a half

from the time when he had first heard of the accident.  He threw

aside the book and turned quickly to reach a stimulant which had

previously been used.  Pulling up the blind for more light, his eye

glanced out of the window.  There he saw that red chimney still

smoking cheerily, and that roof, and through the roof that somebody.

His mechanical movements stopped, his hand remained on the blind-

cord, and he seemed to become breathless, as if he had suddenly

found himself treading a high rope.

While he stood a sparrow lighted on the windowsill, saw him, and

flew away.  Next a man and a dog walked over one of the green hills

which bulged above the roofs of the town.  But Barnet took no

notice.

We may wonder what were the exact images that passed through his

mind during those minutes of gazing upon Lucy Savile's house, the

sparrow, the man and the dog, and Lucy Savile's house again.  There

are honest men who will not admit to their thoughts, even as idle

hypotheses, views of the future that assume as done a deed which

they would recoil from doing; and there are other honest men for

whom morality ends at the surface of their own heads, who will

deliberate what the first will not so much as suppose.  Barnet had a

wife whose pretence distracted his home; she now lay as in death; by

merely doing nothing--by letting the intelligence which had gone

forth to the world lie undisturbed--he would effect such a

deliverance for himself as he had never hoped for, and open up an

opportunity of which till now he had never dreamed.  Whether the

conjuncture had arisen through any unscrupulous, ill-considered

impulse of Charlson to help out of a strait the friend who was so

kind as never to press him for what was due could not be told; there

was nothing to prove it; and it was a question which could never be

asked.  The triangular situation--himself--his wife--Lucy Savile--

was the one clear thing.

From Barnet's actions we may infer that he SUPPOSED such and such a

result, for a moment, but did not deliberate.  He withdrew his hazel

eyes from the scene without, calmly turned, rang the bell for

assistance, and vigorously exerted himself to learn if life still

lingered in that motionless frame.  In a short time another surgeon

was in attendance; and then Barnet's surmise proved to be true.  The

slow life timidly heaved again; but much care and patience were

needed to catch and retain it, and a considerable period elapsed

before it could be said with certainty that Mrs. Barnet lived.  When

this was the case, and there was no further room for doubt, Barnet

left the chamber.  The blue evening smoke from Lucy's chimney had

died down to an imperceptible stream, and as he walked about

downstairs he murmured to himself, 'My wife was dead, and she is

alive again.'

It was not so with Downe.  After three hours' immersion his wife's

body had been recovered, life, of course, being quite extinct.

Barnet on descending, went straight to his friend's house, and there

learned the result.  Downe was helpless in his wild grief,

occasionally even hysterical.  Barnet said little, but finding that

some guiding hand was necessary in the sorrow-stricken household,

took upon him to supervise and manage till Downe should be in a

state of mind to do so for himself.

CHAPTER VI

One September evening, four months later, when Mrs. Barnet was in

perfect health, and Mrs. Downe but a weakening memory, an errand-boy

paused to rest himself in front of Mr. Barnet's old house,

depositing his basket on one of the window-sills.  The street was

not yet lighted, but there were lights in the house, and at

intervals a flitting shadow fell upon the blind at his elbow.  Words

also were audible from the same apartment, and they seemed to be

those of persons in violent altercation.  But the boy could not

gather their purport, and he went on his way.

Ten minutes afterwards the door of Barnet's house opened, and a tall

closely-veiled lady in a travelling-dress came out and descended the