by Ellen Wood
‘I must,’ was the answer. ‘We had a shoulder of lamb yesterday, and we finished it up to-day for dinner, with a salad; so there’s nothing cold in the house, and I’m forced to cook a bit of something. I say, don’t make it late; come at six. George — he’s off somewhere, but he’ll be in.’
Mrs. Quale nodded acquiescence, and went indoors. Her husband was reading and smoking still.
‘I’d have put it off till ten at night, and went then!’ ironically cried she, in allusion to the departed pleasure-party. ‘A bickering and contending they have been over it, Hannah Dunn says; couldn’t come to an agreement what they’d do, or what they wouldn’t do! Did you ever see such a load! Them poor horses ‘ll have enough of it, if the others don’t. I say, the Stevenses want us to go in there to supper to-night. Beefsteaks and onions.’
Peter’s head was bent attentively over a map in his book, and it continued so bent for a minute or two. Then he raised it. ‘Who’s to be there?’
‘The Cheeks,’ she said. ‘I’ll make haste and put the kettle on, and we’ll have our tea as soon as it boils. She says don’t go in later than six.’
Pinning on the coarse apron, Mrs. Quale passed into the kitchen to her work. From the above slight sketch, it may be gathered that Daffodil’s Delight was, take it for all in all, in tolerably comfortable circumstances. But for the wasteful mode of living generally pervading it; the improvidence both of husbands and wives; the spending where they need not have spent, and in things they would have been better without — it would have been in very comfortable circumstances: for, as is well known, no class of operatives earn better wages than those connected with the building trade.
‘Is this Peter Quale’s?’
The question proceeded from a stranger, who had entered the house passage, and thence the parlour, after knocking at its door. Peter raised his eyes, and beheld a tall, young, very gentleman-like man, in grey travelling clothes and a crape band on his black hat. Of courteous manners also, for he lifted his hat as he spoke, though Peter was only a workman and had a paper cap on his head.
‘I am Peter Quale,’ said Peter, without moving.
Perhaps you may have already guessed that it was Austin Clay. He stepped forward with a frank smile. ‘I am sent here,’ he said, ‘by the Messrs. Hunter. They desired me to inquire for Peter Quale.’
Peter was not wont to put himself out of the way for strangers: had a Duke Royal vouchsafed him a visit, I question if Peter would have been more than barely civil; but he knew his place with respect to his employers, and what was due to them — none better; and he rose up at their name, and took off his paper cap, and laid his pipe inside the fender, and spoke a word of apology to the gentleman before him.
‘Pray do not mention it; do not disturb yourself,’ said Austin, kindly. ‘My name is Clay. I have just entered into an engagement with the Messrs. Hunter, and am now in search of lodgings as conveniently near their yard as may be. Mr. Henry Hunter said he thought you had rooms which might suit me: hence my intrusion.’
‘Well, sir, I don’t know,’ returned Peter, rather dubiously. He was one of those who are apt to grow bewildered with any sudden proposition; requiring time, as may be said, to take it in, before he could digest it.
‘You are from the country, sir, maybe?’
‘I am from the country. I arrived in London but an hour ago, and my portmanteau is yet at the station. I wish to settle where I shall lodge, before I go to get it. Have you rooms to let?’
‘Here, Nancy, come in!’ cried Peter to his wife. ‘The rooms are in readiness to be shown, aren’t they?’
Mrs. Quale required no second call. Hearing a strange voice, and gifted in a remarkable degree with what we are taught to look upon as her sex’s failing — curiosity — she had already discarded again the apron, and made her appearance in time to receive the question.
‘Ready and waiting,’ answered she. ‘And two better rooms for their size you won’t find, sir, search London through,’ she said, volubly, turning to Austin. ‘They are on the first floor — a nice sitting-room, and a bedchamber behind it. The furniture is good, and clean, and handsome; for, when we were buying of it, we didn’t spare a few pounds, knowing such would keep good to the end. Would you please step up, sir, and take a look at them?’
Austin acquiesced, motioning to her to lead the way. She dropped a curtsey as she passed him, as if in apology for taking it. He followed, and Peter brought up the rear, a dim notion penetrating Peter’s brain that the attention was due from him to one sent by the Messrs. Hunter.
Two good rooms, as she had said; small, but well fitted up. ‘You’d be sure to be comfortable, sir,’ cried Mrs. Quale to Austin. ‘If I can’t make lodgers comfortable, I don’t know who can. Our last gentleman came to us three years ago, and left but a month since. He was a barrister’s clerk, but he didn’t get well paid, and he lodged in this part for cheapness.’
‘The rooms would suit me, so far as I can judge,’ said Austin, looking round; ‘suit me very well indeed, if we can agree upon terms. My pocket is but a shallow one at present,’ he laughed.
‘I would make them easy enough for any gentleman sent by the masters,’ struck in Peter. ‘Did you say your name was Clay, sir?’
‘Clay,’ assented Austin.
Mrs. Quale wheeled round at this, and took a free, full view of the gentleman from head to foot. ‘Clay? Clay?’ she repeated to herself. ‘And there is a likeness, if ever I saw one! Sir,’ she hastily inquired, ‘do you come from the neighbourhood of Ketterford?’
‘I come from Ketterford itself,’ replied he.
‘Ah, but you were not born right in the town. I think you must be Austin Clay, sir; the orphan son of Mr. Clay and his wife — Miss Austin that used to be. They lived at the Nash farm. Sir, I have had you upon my lap scores of times when you were a little one.’
‘Why —— who are you?’ exclaimed Austin.
‘You can’t have forgot old Mr. Austin, the great-uncle, sir? though you were only seven years old when he died. I was Ann Best, cook to the old gentleman, and I heard all the ins and outs of the marriage of your father and mother. The match pleased neither family, and so they just took the Nash farm for themselves, to be independent and get along without being beholden for help to anybody. Many a fruit puff have I made for you, Master Austin; many a currant cake: how things come round in this world! Do take our rooms, sir — it will seem like serving my old master over again.’
‘I will take them willingly, and be glad to fall into such good hands. You will not require references now?’
Mrs. Quale laughed. Peter grunted resentfully. References from anybody sent by the Messrs. Hunter! ‘I would say eight shillings a week, sir,’ said Peter, looking at his wife. ‘Pay as you like; monthly, or quarterly, or any way.’
‘That’s less than I expected,’ said Austin, in his candour. ‘Mr. Henry Hunter thought they would be about ten shillings.’
Peter was candid also. ‘There’s the neighbourhood to be took into consideration, sir, which is not a good one, and we can only let according to it. In some parts — and not far off, neither — you’d pay eighteen or twenty shillings for such rooms as these; in Daffodil’s Delight it is different, though this is the best quarter of it. The last gentleman paid us nine. If eight will suit you, sir, it will suit us.’
So the bargain was struck; and Austin Clay went back to the station for his luggage. Mrs. Quale, busy as a bee, ran in to tell her next-door neighbour that she could not be one of the beef-steak-and-onion eaters that night, though Peter might, for she should have her hands full with their new lodger. ‘The nicest, handsomest young fellow,’ she wound up with; ‘one it will be a pleasure to wait on.’
‘Take care what you be at, if he’s a stranger,’ cried cautious Mrs. Stevens. ‘There’s no trusting those country folks: they run away sometimes. It looks odd, don’t it, to come after lodgings one minute, and enter upon ’em the next?’
‘Very odd,’ assented Mrs.
Quale, with a laugh. ‘Why, it was Mr. Henry Hunter sent him round here; and he has got a post in their house.’
‘What sort of one?’ asked Mrs. Stevens, sceptical still.
‘Who knows? Something superior to the best of us workpeople, you may be sure. He belongs to gentlefolks,’ concluded Mrs. Quale. ‘I knew him as a baby. It was in his mother’s family I lived before I married. He’s as like his mother as two peas, and a handsome woman was Mrs. Clay. Good-bye: I’m going to get the sheets on to his bed now.’
Mrs. Quale, however, found that she was, after all, able to assist at the supper; for, when Austin came back, it was only to dress himself and go out, in pursuance of the invitation he had accepted to dine at Mr. Henry Hunter’s. With all his haste it had struck six some minutes when he got there.
Mrs. Henry Hunter, a very pretty and very talkative woman, welcomed him with both hands, and told her children to do the same, for it was ‘the gentleman who saved papa.’ There was no ceremony; he was received quite en famille; no other guest was present, and three or four of the children dined at table. He appeared to find favour with them all. He talked on business matters with Mr. Henry Hunter; on lighter topics with his wife; he pointed out some errors in Mary Hunter’s drawings, which she somewhat ostentatiously exhibited to him, and showed her how to rectify them. He entered into the school life of the two young boys, from their classics to their scrapes; and nursed a pretty little lady of five, who insisted on appropriating his knee — bearing himself throughout all with the modest reticence — the refinement of the innate gentleman. Mrs. Henry Hunter was charmed with him.
‘How do you think you shall like your quarters?’ she asked. ‘Mr. Hunter told me he recommended you to Peter Quale’s.’
‘Very well. At least they will do. Mrs. Quale, it appears, is an old friend of mine.’
‘An old friend! Of yours!’
‘She claims me as one, and says she has nursed me many a time when I was a child. I had quite forgotten her, and all about her, though I now remember her name. She was formerly a servant in my mother’s family, near Ketterford.’
Thus Austin Clay had succeeded without delay or difficulty in obtaining employment, and was, moreover, received on a footing of equality in the house of Mr. Henry Hunter. We shall see how he gets on.
CHAPTER V. MISS GWINN’S VISIT.
Were there space, it might be well to trace Austin Clay’s progress step by step — his advancements and his drawbacks — his smooth-sailing and his difficulties; for, that his course was not free from difficulties and drawbacks you may be very sure. I do not know whose is. If any had thought he was to be represented as perfection, they were mistaken. Yet he managed to hold on his way without moral damage, for he was high-principled in every sense of the word. But there is neither time nor space to give to these particulars that regard himself alone.
Austin Clay sat one day in a small room of the office, making corrections in a certain plan, which had been roughly sketched. It was a hot day for the beginning of autumn, some three or four months having elapsed since his installation at Hunter and Hunter’s. The office boy came in to interrupt him.
‘Please, sir, here’s a lady outside, asking if she can see young Mr. Clay.’
‘A lady!’ repeated Austin, in some wonder. ‘Who is it?’
‘I think she’s from the country, sir,’ said the sharp boy. ‘She have got a big nosegay in her hand and a brown reticule.’
‘Does she wear widow’s weeds?’ questioned Austin hastily, an idea flashing over him that Mrs. Thornimett might have come up to town.
‘Weeds?’ replied the boy, staring, as if at a loss to know what ‘weeds’ might mean. ‘She have got a white veil on, sir.’
‘Oh,’ said Austin. ‘Well, ask her to come in. But I don’t know any lady that can want me. Or who has any business to come here if she does,’ he added to himself.
The lady came in: a very tall one. She wore a dark silk dress, a shepherd’s plaid shawl, a straw bonnet, and a white veil. The reticule spoken of by the boy was in her hand; but the nosegay she laid down on a bench just outside the door. Austin rose to receive her.
‘You are doubtless surprised to see me, Austin Clay. But, as I was coming to London on business — I always do at this season of the year — I got your address from Mrs. Thornimett, having a question to put to you.’
Without ceremony, without invitation, she sat herself down on a chair. More by her voice than her features — for she kept her veil before her face — did Austin recognise her. It was Miss Gwinn. He recognised her with dismay. Mr. Henry Hunter was about the premises, liable to come in at any moment, and then might occur a repetition of that violent scene to which he had been a witness. Often and often had his mind recurred to the affair; it perplexed him beyond measure. Was Mr. Henry Hunter the stranger to her he asserted himself to be, or was he not? ‘What shall I do with her?’ thought Austin.
‘Will you shut the door?’ she said, in a peremptory, short tone, for the boy had left it open.
‘I beg your pardon, Miss Gwinn,’ interrupted Austin, necessity giving him courage. ‘Though glad to see you myself, I am at the present hour so busy that it is next to impossible for me to give you my attention. If you will name any place where I can wait upon you after business hours, this, or any other evening, I shall be happy to meet you.’
Miss Gwinn ranged her eyes round the room, looking possibly, for confirmation of his words. ‘You are not so busy as to be unable to spare a minute to me. You were but looking over a plan.’
‘It is a plan that is being waited for.’ Which was true. ‘And you must forgive me for reminding you — I do it in all courtesy — that my time and this room do not belong to me, but to my employers.’
‘Boy! what is your motive for seeking to get rid of me?’ she asked, abruptly. ‘That you have one, I can see.’
Austin was upon thorns. He had not taken a seat. He stood near the door, pencil in hand, hoping it would induce her to move. At that moment footsteps were heard, and the office-door was pushed wide open.
It was Mr. Hunter. He stopped on the threshold, seeing a lady, an unusual sight there, and came to the conclusion that it must be some stranger for Mr. Clay. Her features, shaded by the thick white veil, were indistinct, and Mr. Hunter but glanced at her. Miss Gwinn on the contrary looked full at him, as she did at most people, and bent her head as a slight mark of courtesy. He responded by lifting his hat, and went out again.
‘One of the principals, I suppose?’ she remarked.
‘Yes,’ he replied, feeling thankful that it was not Mr. Henry. ‘I believe he wants me, Miss Gwinn.’
‘I am not going to keep you from him. The question I wish to put to you will be answered in a sentence. Austin Clay, have you, since — —’
‘Allow me one single instant first, then,’ interrupted Austin, resigning himself to his fate, ‘just to speak a word of explanation to Mr. Hunter.’
He stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him. Standing at the outer door, close by, open to the yard, was Mr. Hunter. Austin, in his haste and earnestness, grasped his arm.
‘Find Mr. Henry, sir,’ he whispered. ‘Wherever he may be, let him keep there — out of sight — until she — this person — has gone. It is Miss Gwinn.’
‘Who? What do you say?’ cried Mr. Hunter, staring at Austin.
‘It is that Miss Gwinn. The woman who set upon Mr. Henry in that strange manner. She — —’
Miss Gwinn opened the door at this juncture, and looked out upon them. Mr. Hunter walked briskly away in search of his brother. Austin turned back again.
She closed the door when he was inside the room, keeping her hand upon it. She did not sit down, but stood facing Austin, whom she held before her with the other hand.
‘Have you, since you came to London, seen aught of my enemy? — that man whom you saved from his death in the gravel pits? Boy! answer me truthfully.’
He remained silent, scarcely seeing what his course
ought to be; or whether in such a case a lie of denial might not be justifiable. But the hesitation spoiled that, for she read it arightly.
‘No need of your affirmative,’ she said. ‘I see you have met him. Where is he to be found?’
There was only one course for him now; and he took it, in all straightforward openness.
‘It is true I have seen that gentleman, Miss Gwinn, but I can tell you nothing about him.’
She looked fixedly at him. ‘That you cannot, or that you will not? Which?’
‘That I will not. Forgive the seeming incivility of the avowal, but I consider that I ought not to comply with your request — that I should be doing wrong?’
‘Explain. What do you mean by “wrong?”’
‘In the first place, I believe you were mistaken with regard to the gentleman: I do not think he was the one for whom you took him. In the second place, even if he be the one, I cannot make it my business to bring you into contact with him, and so give rise — as it probably would — to further violence.’
There was a pause. She threw up her veil and looked fixedly at him, struggling for composure, her lips compressed, her face working.
‘You know who he is, and where he lives,’ she jerked forth.
‘I acknowledge that.’
‘How dare you take part against me?’ she cried, in agitation.
‘I do not take part against you, Miss Gwinn,’ he replied, wishing some friendly balloon would come and whirl her away; for Mr. Hunter might not find his brother to give the warning. ‘I do not take his part more than I take yours, only in so far as that I decline to tell you who and where he is. Had he the same ill-feeling towards you, and wished to know where you might be found, I would not tell him.’
‘Austin Clay, you shall tell me.’
He drew himself up to his full height, speaking in all the quiet consciousness of resolution. ‘Never of my own free will. And I think, Miss Gwinn, there are no means by which you can compel me.’