One little word he had said to her when they parted, but it had been a word of friendship rather than of love. He had strayed out after her on to the lawn, leaving Bell alone in the drawing-room. Perhaps Lily had understood something of the boy's feelings, and had wished to speak kindly to him at parting, or almost more than kindly. There is a silent love which women recognise, and which in some silent way they acknowledge,—giving gracious but silent thanks for the respect which accompanies it.
"I have come to say good-bye, Lily," said Johnny Eames, following the girl down one of the paths.
"Good-bye, John," said she, turning round. "You know how sorry we are to lose you. But it's a great thing for you to be going up to London."
"Well, yes. I suppose it is. I'd sooner remain here, though."
"What! stay here, doing nothing! I am sure you would not."
"Of course, I should like to do something. I mean—"
"You mean that it is painful to part with old friends; and I'm sure that we all feel that at parting with you. But you'll have a holiday sometimes, and then we shall see you."
"Yes; of course, I shall see you then. I think, Lily, I shall care more about seeing you than anybody."
"Oh, no, John. There'll be your own mother and sister."
"Yes; there'll be mother and Mary, of course. But I will come over here the very first day,—that is, if you'll care to see me?"
"We shall care to see you very much. You know that. And—dear John, I do hope you'll be happy."
There was a tone in her voice as she spoke which almost upset him; or, I should rather say, which almost put him up upon his legs and made him speak; but its ultimate effect was less powerful. "Do you?" said he, as he held her hand for a few happy seconds. "And I'm sure I hope you'll always be happy. Good-bye, Lily." Then he left her, returning to the house, and she continued her walk, wandering down among the trees in the shrubbery, and not showing herself for the next half hour. How many girls have some such lover as that,—a lover who says no more to them than Johnny Eames then said to Lily Dale, who never says more than that? And yet when, in after years, they count over the names of all who have loved them, the name of that awkward youth is never forgotten.
That farewell had been spoken nearly two years since, and Lily Dale was then seventeen. Since that time, John Eames had been home once, and during his month's holiday had often visited Allington. But he had never improved upon that occasion of which I have told. It had seemed to him that Lily was colder to him than in old days, and he had become, if anything, more shy in his ways with her. He was to return to Guestwick again during this autumn; but, to tell honestly the truth in the matter, Lily Dale did not think or care very much for his coming. Girls of nineteen do not care for lovers of one-and-twenty, unless it be when the fruit has had the advantage of some forcing apparatus or southern wall.
John Eames's love was still as hot as ever, having been sustained on poetry, and kept alive, perhaps, by some close confidence in the ears of a brother clerk; but it is not to be supposed that during these two years he had been a melancholy lover. It might, perhaps, have been better for him had his disposition led him to that line of life. Such, however, had not been the case. He had already abandoned the flute on which he had learned to sound three sad notes before he left Guestwick, and, after the fifth or sixth Sunday, he had relinquished his solitary walks along the towing-path of the Regent's Park Canal. To think of one's absent love is very sweet; but it becomes monotonous after a mile or two of a towing-path, and the mind will turn away to Aunt Sally, the Cremorne Gardens, and financial questions. I doubt whether any girl would be satisfied with her lover's mind if she knew the whole of it.
"I say, Caudle, I wonder whether a fellow could get into a club?"
This proposition was made, on one of those Sunday walks, by John Eames to the friend of his bosom, a brother clerk, whose legitimate name was Cradell, and who was therefore called Caudle by his friends.
"Get into a club? Fisher in our room belongs to a club."
"That's only a chess-club. I mean a regular club."
"One of the swell ones at the West End?" said Cradell, almost lost in admiration at the ambition of his friend.
"I shouldn't want it to be particularly swell. If a man isn't a swell, I don't see what he gets by going among those who are. But it is so uncommon slow at Mother Roper's." Now Mrs Roper was a respectable lady, who kept a boarding-house in Burton Crescent, and to whom Mrs Eames had been strongly recommended when she was desirous of finding a specially safe domicile for her son. For the first year of his life in London John Eames had lived alone in lodgings; but that had resulted in discomfort, solitude, and, alas! in some amount of debt, which had come heavily on the poor widow. Now, for the second year, some safer mode of life was necessary. She had learned that Mrs Cradell, the widow of a barrister, who had also succeeded in getting her son into the Income-tax Office, had placed him in charge of Mrs Roper; and she, with many injunctions to that motherly woman, submitted her own boy to the same custody.
"And about going to church?" Mrs Eames had said to Mrs Roper.
"I don't suppose I can look after that, ma'am," Mrs Roper had answered, conscientiously. "Young gentlemen choose mostly their own churches."
"But they do go?" asked the mother, very anxious in her heart as to this new life in which her boy was to be left to follow in so many things the guidance of his own lights.
"They who have been brought up steady do so, mostly."
"He has been brought up steady, Mrs Roper. He has, indeed. And you won't give him a latch-key?"
"Well, they always do ask for it."
"But he won't insist, if you tell him that I had rather that he shouldn't have one."
Mrs Roper promised accordingly, and Johnny Eames was left under her charge. He did ask for the latch-key, and Mrs Roper answered as she was bidden. But he asked again, having been sophisticated by the philosophy of Cradell, and then Mrs Roper handed him the key. She was a woman who plumed herself on being as good as her word, not understanding that any one could justly demand from her more than that. She gave Johnny Eames the key, as doubtless she had intended to do; for Mrs Roper knew the world, and understood that young men without latch-keys would not remain with her.
"I thought you didn't seem to find it so dull since Amelia came home," said Cradell.
"Amelia! What's Amelia to me? I have told you everything, Cradell, and yet you can talk to me about Amelia Roper!"
"Come now, Johnny—." He had always been called Johnny, and the name had gone with him to his office. Even Amelia Roper had called him Johnny on more than one occasion before this. "You were as sweet to her the other night as though there were no such person as L. D. in existence." John Eames turned away and shook his head. Nevertheless, the words of his friend were grateful to him. The character of a Don Juan was not unpleasant to his imagination, and he liked to think that he might amuse Amelia Roper with a passing word, though his heart was true to Lilian Dale. In truth, however, many more of the passing words had been spoken by the fair Amelia than by him.
Mrs Roper had been quite as good as her word when she told Mrs Eames that her household was composed of herself, of a son who was in an attorney's office, of an ancient maiden cousin, named Miss Spruce, who lodged with her, and of Mr Cradell. The divine Amelia had not then been living with her, and the nature of the statement which she was making by no means compelled her to inform Mrs Eames that the young lady would probably return home in the following winter. A Mr and Mrs Lupex had also joined the family lately, and Mrs Roper's house was now supposed to be full.
And it must be acknowledged that Johnny Eames had, in certain unguarded moments, confided to Cradell the secret of a second weaker passion for Amelia. "She is a fine girl,—a deuced fine girl!" Johnny Eames had said, using a style of language which he had learned since he left Guestwick and Allington. Mr Cradell, also, was an admirer of the fair sex; and, alas! that I should say so, Mrs Lupex, at the present moment, was t
he object of his admiration. Not that he entertained the slightest idea of wronging Mr Lupex,—a man who was a scene-painter, and knew the world. Mr Cradell admired Mrs Lupex as a connoisseur, not simply as a man. "By heavens! Johnny, what a figure that woman has!" he said, one morning, as they were walking to their office.
"Yes; she stands well on her pins."
"I should think she did. If I understand anything of form," said Cradell, "that woman is nearly perfect. What a torso she has!"
From which expression, and from the fact that Mrs Lupex depended greatly upon her stays and crinoline for such figure as she succeeded in displaying, it may, perhaps, be understood that Mr Cradell did not understand much about form.
"It seems to me that her nose isn't quite straight," said Johnny Eames. Now, it undoubtedly was the fact that the nose on Mrs Lupex's face was a little awry. It was a long, thin nose, which, as it progressed forward into the air, certainly had a preponderating bias towards the left side.
"I care more for figure than face," said Cradell. "But Mrs Lupex has fine eyes—very fine eyes."
"And knows how to use them, too," said Johnny.
"Why shouldn't she? And then she has lovely hair."
"Only she never brushes it in the morning."
"Do you know, I like that kind of deshabille," said Cradell. "Too much care always betrays itself."
"But a woman should be tidy."
"What a word to apply to such a creature as Mrs Lupex! I call her a splendid woman. And how well she was got up last night. Do you know, I've an idea that Lupex treats her very badly. She said a word or two to me yesterday that—," and then he paused. There are some confidences which a man does not share even with his dearest friend.
"I rather fancy it's quite the other way," said Eames.
"How the other way?"
"That Lupex has quite as much as he likes of Mrs L. The sound of her voice sometimes makes me shake in my shoes, I know."
"I like a woman with spirit," said Cradell.
"Oh, so do I. But one may have too much of a good thing. Amelia did tell me;—only you won't mention it."
"Of course, I won't."
"She told me that Lupex sometimes was obliged to run away from her. He goes down to the theatre, and remains there two or three days at a time. Then she goes to fetch him, and there is no end of a row in the house."
"The fact is, he drinks," said Cradell. "By George, I pity a woman whose husband drinks—and such a woman as that, too!"
"Take care, old fellow, or you'll find yourself in a scrape."
"I know what I'm at. Lord bless you, I'm not going to lose my head because I see a fine woman."
"Or your heart either?"
"Oh, heart! There's nothing of that kind of thing about me. I regard a woman as a picture or a statue. I dare say I shall marry some day, because men do; but I've no idea of losing myself about a woman."
"I'd lose myself ten times over for—"
"L. D.," said Cradell.
"That I would. And yet I know I shall never have her. I'm a jolly, laughing sort of fellow; and yet, do you know, Caudle, when that girl marries, it will be all up with me. It will, indeed."
"Do you mean that you'll cut your throat?"
"No; I shan't do that. I shan't do anything of that sort; and yet it will be all up with me."
"You are going down there in October;—why don't you ask her to have you?"
"With ninety pounds a year!" His grateful country had twice increased his salary at the rate of five pounds each year. "With ninety pounds a year, and twenty allowed me by my mother!"
"She could wait, I suppose. I should ask her, and no mistake. If one is to love a girl, it's no good one going on in that way!"
"It isn't much good, certainly," said Johnny Eames. And then they reached the door of the Income-tax Office, and each went away to his own desk.
From this little dialogue, it may be imagined that though Mrs Roper was as good as her word, she was not exactly the woman whom Mrs Eames would have wished to select as a protecting angel for her son. But the truth I take to be this, that protecting angels for widows' sons, at forty-eight pounds a year, paid quarterly, are not to be found very readily in London. Mrs Roper was not worse than others of her class. She would much have preferred lodgers who were respectable to those who were not so,—if she could only have found respectable lodgers as she wanted them. Mr and Mrs Lupex hardly came under that denomination; and when she gave them up her big front bedroom at a hundred a year, she knew she was doing wrong. And she was troubled, too, about her own daughter Amelia, who was already over thirty years of age. Amelia was a very clever young woman, who had been, if the truth must be told, first young lady at a millinery establishment in Manchester. Mrs Roper knew that Mrs Eames and Mrs Cradell would not wish their sons to associate with her daughter. But what could she do? She could not refuse the shelter of her own house to her own child, and yet her heart misgave her when she saw Amelia flirting with young Eames.
"I wish, Amelia, you wouldn't have so much to say to that young man."
"Laws, mother."
"So I do. If you go on like that, you'll put me out of both my lodgers."
"Go on like what, mother? If a gentleman speaks to me, I suppose I'm to answer him? I know how to behave myself, I believe." And then she gave her head a toss. Whereupon her mother was silent; for her mother was afraid of her.
V. About L. D.
Apollo Crosbie left London for Allington on the 31st of August, intending to stay there four weeks, with the declared intention of recruiting his strength by an absence of two months from official cares, and with no fixed purpose as to his destiny for the last of those two months. Offers of hospitality had been made to him by the dozen. Lady Hartletop's doors, in Shropshire, were open to him, if he chose to enter them. He had been invited by the Countess de Courcy to join her suite at Courcy Castle. His special friend, Montgomerie Dobbs, had a place in Scotland, and then there was a yachting party by which he was much wanted. But Mr Crosbie had as yet knocked himself down to none of these biddings, having before him when he left London no other fixed engagement than that which took him to Allington. On the first of October we shall also find ourselves at Allington in company with Johnny Eames; and Apollo Crosbie will still be there,—by no means to the comfort of our friend from the Income-tax Office.
Johnny Eames cannot be called unlucky in that matter of his annual holiday, seeing that he was allowed to leave London in October, a month during which few chose to own that they remain in town. For myself, I always regard May as the best month for holiday-making; but then no Londoner cares to be absent in May. Young Eames, though he lived in Burton Crescent and had as yet no connection with the West End, had already learned his lesson in this respect. "Those fellows in the big room want me to take May," he had said to his friend Cradell. "They must think I'm uncommon green."
"It's too bad," said Cradell. "A man shouldn't be asked to take his leave in May. I never did, and what's more, I never will. I'd go to the Board first."
Eames had escaped this evil without going to the Board, and had succeeded in obtaining for himself for his own holiday that month of October, which, of all months, is perhaps the most highly esteemed for holiday purposes. "I shall go down by the mail-train to-morrow night," he said to Amelia Roper, on the evening before his departure. At that moment he was sitting alone with Amelia in Mrs Roper's back drawing-room. In the front room Cradell was talking to Mrs Lupex; but as Miss Spruce was with them, it may be presumed that Mr Lupex need have had no cause for jealousy.
"Yes," said Amelia, "I know how great is your haste to get down to that fascinating spot. I could not expect that you would lose one single hour in hurrying away from Burton Crescent."
Amelia Roper was a tall, well-grown young woman, with dark hair and dark eyes;—not handsome, for her nose was thick, and the lower part of her face was heavy, but yet not without some feminine attractions. Her eyes were bright; but then, also, they were mischievous. Sh
e could talk fluently enough; but then, also, she could scold. She could assume sometimes the plumage of a dove; but then again she could occasionally ruffle her feathers like an angry kite. I am quite prepared to acknowledge that John Eames should have kept himself clear of Amelia Roper; but then young men so frequently do those things which they should not do!
"After twelve months up here in London one is glad to get away to one's own friends," said Johnny.
"Your own friends, Mr Eames! What sort of friends? Do you suppose I don't know?"
"Well, no. I don't think you do know."
"L. D.!" said Amelia, showing that Lily had been spoken of among people who should never have been allowed to hear her name. But perhaps, after all, no more than those two initials were known in Burton Crescent. From the tone which was now used in naming them, it was sufficiently manifest that Amelia considered herself to be wronged by their very existence.
"L. S. D.," said Johnny, attempting the line of a witty, gay young spendthrift. "That's my love—pounds, shillings, and pence; and a very coy mistress she is."
"Nonsense, sir. Don't talk to me in that way. As if I didn't know where your heart was. What right had you to speak to me if you had an L. D. down in the country?"
It should be here declared on behalf of poor John Eames that he had not ever spoken to Amelia—he had not spoken to her in any such phrase as her words seemed to imply. But then he had written to her a fatal note of which we will speak further before long, and that perhaps was quite as bad,—or worse.
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Johnny. But the laugh was assumed, and not assumed with ease.
"Yes, sir; it's a laughing matter to you, I dare say. It is very easy for a man to laugh under such circumstances;—that is to say, if he is perfectly heartless,—if he's got a stone inside his bosom instead of flesh and blood. Some men are made of stone, I know, and are troubled with no feelings."
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