She was not alone: a portly genial-looking old man stood by her side, and accompanied her to the church-porch when the hymn was over. Here they both lingered a moment to shake hands with Mrs. Lister, very much to Gilbert Fenton’s satisfaction. They walked along the churchyard-path together, and Gilbert gave his sister’s arm a little tug, which meant, “Introduce me.”
“My brother Mr. Fenton, Captain Sedgewick, Miss Nowell.”
The Captain shook hands with Gilbert. “Delighted to know you, Mr. Fenton; delighted to know any one belonging to Mrs. Lister. You are going to stop down here for some time, I hope.”
“I fear not for very long, Captain Sedgewick. I am a business man, you see, and can’t afford to take a long holiday from the City.”
Mrs. Lister laughed. “My brother is utterly devoted to commercial pursuits,” she said; “I think he believes every hour wasted that he spends out of his counting-house.”
“And yet I was thinking in church this evening, that a man’s life might be happier in such a place as this, drifting away in a kind of dreamy idleness, than the greatest successes possible to commerce could ever make it.”
“You would very soon be tired of your dreamy idleness,” answered his sister, “and sigh for your office and your club.”
“The country suits old people, who have played their part in life, and made an end of it,” said the Captain. “It suits my little girl here very well, too,” he added, with a fond glance at his companion; “she has her birds and her flowers, and her books and music; and I don’t think she ever sighs for anything gayer than Lidford.”
“Never, uncle George,” said the girl, slipping her hand through his arm. And Gilbert Fenton saw that those two were very fond of each other.
They came to the end of a shady winding lane at this moment, and Captain Sedgewick and Miss Nowell wished Mrs. Lister and her brother good-evening, and went away down the lane arm-in-arm.
“What a lovely girl she is!” said Gilbert, when they were gone.
“Lovely is rather a strong word, Gilbert,” Mrs. Lister answered coldly; “she is certainly pretty, but I hope you are not going to lose your heart in that direction.”
“There is no fear of that. A man may admire a girl’s face without being in any danger of losing his heart. But why not in that direction, Belle? Is there any special objection to the lady?”
“Only that she is a nobody, without either money or position and I think you ought to have both when you marry.”
“Thanks for the implied compliment; but I do not fancy that an Australian merchant can expect to secure a wife of very exalted position; and I am the last man in the world to marry for money.”
“I don’t for a moment suppose you would marry any one you didn’t like, from mercenary considerations; but there is no reason you should make a foolish match.”
“Of course not. I think it very doubtful whether I shall ever marry at all. I am just the kind of man to go down to my grave a bachelor.”
“Why so, Gilbert?”
“Well, I can hardly tell you, my dear. Perhaps I am rather difficult to please — just a little stony-hearted and invulnerable. I know that since I was a boy, and got over my schoolboy love affairs, I have never seen the woman who could touch my heart. I have met plenty of pretty women, and plenty of brilliant women, of course, in society; and have admired them, and there an end. I have never seen a woman whose face impressed me so much at first sight as the face of your friend, Miss Nowell.”
“I am very sorry for that.”
“But why, Belle?”
“Because the girl is a nobody — less than nobody. There is an unpleasant kind of mystery about her birth.”
“How is that? Her uncle, Captain Sedgewick, seems to be a gentleman.”
“Captain Sedgewick is very well, but he is not her uncle; he adopted her when she was a very little girl.”
“But who are her people, and how did she fall into his hands?”
“I have never heard that. He is not very fond of talking about the subject. When we first came to know them, he told us that Marian was only his adopted niece; and he has never told us any more than that.”
“She is the daughter of some friend, I suppose. They seem very much attached to each other.”
“Yes, she is very fond of him, and he of her. She is an amiable girl; I have nothing to say against her — but — —”
“But what, Belle?”
“I shouldn’t like you to fall in love with her.”
“But I should, mamma!” cried the damsel in scarlet stockings, who had absorbed every word of the foregoing conversation. “I should like uncle Gil to love Marian just as I love her. She is the dearest girl in the world. When we had a juvenile party last winter, it was Marian who dressed the Christmas-tree — every bit; and she played the piano for us all the evening, didn’t she, mamma?”
“She is very good-natured, Lucy; but you mustn’t talk nonsense; and you ought not to listen when your uncle and I are talking. It is very rude.”
“But I can’t help hearing you, mamma.”
They were at home by this time, within the grounds of a handsome red-brick house of the early Georgian era, which had been the property of the Listers ever since it was built. Without, the gardens were a picture of neatness and order; within, everything was solid and comfortable: the furniture of a somewhat ponderous and exploded fashion, but handsome withal, and brightened here and there by some concession to modern notions of elegance or ease — a dainty little table for books, a luxurious arm-chair, and so on.
Martin Lister was a gentleman chiefly distinguished by good-nature, hospitable instincts, and an enthusiastic devotion to agriculture. There were very few things in common between him and his brother-in-law the Australian merchant, but they got on very well together for a short time. Gilbert Fenton pretended to be profoundly interested in the thrilling question of drainage, deep or superficial, and seemed to enter unreservedly into every discussion of the latest invention or improvement in agricultural machinery; and in the mean time he really liked the repose of the country, and appreciated the varying charms of landscape and atmosphere with a fervour unfelt by the man who had been born and reared amidst those pastoral scenes.
The two men smoked their cigars together in a quietly companionable spirit, strolling about the gardens and farm, dropping out a sentence now and then, and anon falling into a lazy reverie, each pondering upon his own affairs — Gilbert meditating transactions with foreign houses, risky bargains with traders of doubtful solvency, or hazardous investments in stocks, as the case might be; the gentleman farmer ruminating upon the chances of a good harvest, or the probable value of his Scotch short-horns.
Mr. Lister had preferred lounging about the farm with a cigar in his mouth to attendance at church upon this particular Sunday evening. He had finished his customary round of inspection by this time, and was sitting by one of the open windows of the drawing-room, with his body in one luxurious chair, and his legs extended upon another, deep in the study of the Gardener’s Chronicle, which he flung aside upon the appearance of his family.
“Well, Toddlekins,” he cried to the little girl, “I hope you were very attentive to the sermon; listened for two, and made up for your lazy dad. That’s a vicarious kind of devotion that ought to be permitted occasionally to a hard-working fellow like me. — I’m glad you’ve come back to give us some tea, Belle. Don’t go upstairs; let Susan carry up your bonnet and shawl. It’s nearly nine o’clock. Toddlekins wants her tea before she goes to bed.”
“Lucy has had her tea in the nursery,” said Mrs. Lister, as she took her seat before the cups and saucers.
“But she will have some more with papa,” replied Martin, who had an amiable knack of spoiling his children. There were only two — this bright fair-haired Lucy, aged nine, and a sturdy boy of seven.
They sipped their tea, and talked a little about who had been at church and who had not been, and the room was filled with that atmosphere of
dulness which seems to prevail in such households upon a summer Sunday evening; a kind of palpable emptiness which sets a man speculating how many years he may have to live, and how many such Sundays he may have to spend. He is apt to end by wondering a little whether life is really worth the trouble it costs, when almost the best thing that can come of it is a condition of comfortable torpor like this.
Gilbert Fenton put down his cup and went over to one of the open windows. It was nearly as dark as it was likely to be that midsummer night. A new moon was shining faintly in the clear evening sky; and here and there a solitary star shone with a tremulous brightness. The shadows of the trees made spots of solemn darkness on the wide lawn before the windows, and a warm faint sweetness came from the crowded flower-beds, where all the flowers in this light were of one grayish silvery hue.
“It’s almost too warm an evening for the house,” said Gilbert; “I think I’ll take a stroll.”
“I’d come with you, old fellow, but I’ve been all round the farm, and I’m dead beat,” said good-natured Martin Lister.
“Thanks, Martin; I wouldn’t think of disturbing you. You look the picture of comfort in that easy-chair. I shall only stay long enough to finish a cigar.”
He walked slowly across the lawn — a noble stretch of level greensward with dark spreading cedars and fine old beeches scattered about it; he walked slowly towards the gates, lighting his cigar as he went, and thinking. He was thinking of his past life, and of his future. What was it to be? A dull hackneyed course of money-making, chequered only by the dreary vicissitudes of trade, and brightened only by such selfish pleasures as constitute the recreations of a business man — an occasional dinner at Blackwall or Richmond, a week’s shooting in the autumn, a little easy-going hunting in the winter, a hurried scamper over some of the beaten continental roads, or a fortnight at a German spa? These had been his pleasures hitherto, and he had found life pleasant enough. Perhaps he had been too busy to question the pleasantness of these things. It was only now that he found himself away from the familiar arena of his daily life, with neither employment nor distraction, that he was able to look back upon his career deliberately, and ask himself whether it was one that he could go on living without weariness for the remainder of his days.
He had been at this time a little more than seven years in business. He had been bred-up with no expectation of ever having to take his place in the counting-house, had been educated at Eton and Oxford, and had been taught to anticipate a handsome fortune from his father. All these expectations had been disappointed by Mr. Fenton’s sudden death at a period of great commercial disturbance. The business was found in a state of entanglement that was very near insolvency; and wise friends told Gilbert Fenton that the only hope of coming well out of these perplexities lay with himself. The business was too good to be sacrificed, and the business was all his father had left behind him, with the exception of a houseful of handsome furniture, two or three carriages, and a couple of pairs of horses, which were sold by auction within a few weeks of the funeral.
Gilbert Fenton took upon himself the management of the business. He had a clear comprehensive intellect, which adapted itself very easily to commerce. He put his shoulder to the wheel with a will, and worked for the first three years of his business career as it is not given to many men to work in the course of their lives. By that time the ship had been steered clear of all rocks and quicksands, and rode the commercial waters gallantly. Gilbert was not a rich man, but was in a fair way to become a rich man; and the name of Fenton stood as high as in the palmiest days of his father’s career.
His sister had fortunately married Martin Lister some years before her father’s death, and had received her dowry at the time of her marriage. Gilbert had only himself to work for. At first he had worked for the sake of his dead father’s honour and repute; later he fell into a groove, like other men, and worked for the love of money-making — not with any sordid love of money, but with that natural desire to accumulate which grows out of a business career.
To-night he was in an unusually thoughtful humour, and inclined to weigh things in the balance with a doubtfulness as to their value which was new to him. The complete idleness and emptiness of his life in the country had made him meditative. Was it worth living, that monotonous business life of his? Would not the time soon come in which its dreariness would oppress him as the dulness of Lidford House had oppressed him to-night? His youth was fast going — nay, had it not indeed gone from him for ever? had not youth left him all at once when he began his commercial career? — and the pleasures that had been fresh enough within the last few years were rapidly growing stale. He knew the German spas, the pine-groves where the band played, the gambling-saloons and their company, by heart, though he had never stayed more than a fortnight at any one of them. He had exhausted Brittany and the South of France in these rapid scampers; skimmed the cream of their novelty, at any rate. He did not care very much for field-sports, and hunted and shot in a jog-trot safe kind of way, with a view to the benefit of his health, which savoured of old bachelorhood. And as for the rest of his pleasures — the social rubber at his club, the Blackwall or Richmond dinners — it seemed only custom that made them agreeable.
“If I had gone to the Bar, as I intended to do before my father’s death, I should have had an object in life,” he thought, as he puffed slowly at his cigar; “but a commercial man has nothing to hope for in the way of fame — nothing to work for except money. I have a good mind to sell the business, now that it is worth selling, and go in for the Bar after all, late as it is.”
He had thought of this more than once; but he knew the fancy was a foolish one, and that his friends would laugh at him for his folly.
He was beyond the grounds of Lidford House by this time, sauntering onward in the fair summer night; not indifferent to the calm loveliness of the scene around him, only conscious that there was some void within himself which these things could not fill. He walked along the road by which he and his sister had come back from church, and turned into the lane at the end of which Captain Sedgewick had bidden them good night. He had been down this lane before to-night, and knew that it was one of the prettiest walks about Lidford; so there was scarcely anything strange in the fact that he should choose this promenade for his evening saunter.
The rustic way, wide enough for a wagon, and with sloping grassy banks, and tall straggling hedges, full of dog-roses and honeysuckle, led towards a river — a fair winding stream, which was one of the glories of Lidford. A little before one came to the river, the lane opened upon a green, where there was a mill, and a miller’s cottage, a rustic inn, and two or three other houses of more genteel pretensions.
Gilbert Fenton wondered which of these was the habitation of Captain Sedgewick, concluding that the half-pay officer and his niece must needs live in one of them. He reconnoitred them as he went by the low garden-fences, over which he could see the pretty lawns and flower-beds, with clusters of evergreens here and there, and a wealth of roses and seringa. One of them, the prettiest and most secluded, was also the smallest; a low white-walled cottage, with casement windows above, and old-fashioned bow-windows below, and a porch overgrown with roses. The house lay back a little way from the green; and there was a tiny brook running beside the holly hedge that bounded the garden, spanned by a little rustic bridge before the gate.
Pausing just beside this bridge, Mr. Fenton heard the joyous barking of a dog, and caught a brief glimpse of a light muslin dress flitting across the little lawn at one side of the cottage While he was wondering about the owner of this dress, the noisy dog came rushing towards the gate, and in the next moment a girlish figure appeared in the winding path that went in and out among the flower-beds.
Gilbert Fenton knew that tall slim figure very well. He had guessed rightly, and this low white-walled cottage was really Captain Sedgewick’s. It seemed to him as if a kind of instinct brought him to that precise spot.
Miss Nowell came to the gate,
and stood there looking out, with a Skye terrier in her arms. Gilbert drew back a little, and flung his cigar into the brook. She had not seen him yet. Her looks were wandering far away across the green, as if in search of some one.
Gilbert Fenton stood quite still watching her. She looked even prettier without her bonnet than she had looked in the church, he thought: the rich dark-brown hair gathered in a great knot at the back of the graceful head; the perfect throat circled by a broad black ribbon, from which there hung an old-fashioned gold cross; the youthful figure set-off by the girlish muslin dress, so becoming in its utter simplicity.
He could not stand there for ever looking at her, pleasant as it might be to him to contemplate the lovely face; so he made a little movement at last, and came a few steps nearer to the gate.
“Good-evening once more, Miss Nowell,” he said.
She looked up at him, surprised by his sudden appearance, but in no manner embarrassed.
“Good-evening, Mr. Fenton. I did not see you till this moment. I was looking for my uncle. He has gone out for a little stroll while he smokes his cigar, and I expect him home every minute.”
“I have been indulging in a solitary cigar myself,” answered Gilbert. “One is apt to be inspired with an antipathy to the house on this kind of evening. I left the Listers yawning over their tea-cups, and came out for a ramble. The aspect of the lane at which we parted company this evening tempted me down this way. What a pretty house you have! Do you know I guessed that it was yours before I saw you.”
“Indeed! You must have quite a talent for guessing.”
“Not in a general way; but there is a fitness in things. Yes, I felt sure that this was your house.”
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 477