CHAPTER IV

_MRS. TRYON_

"Just when I seemed about to learn!

Where is the thread now? Off again!

The old trick! Only I discern-- Infinite pa.s.sion and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn."

--BROWNING.

"A Letter will not do," said Elsie to her counsellor. "If Mrs. Tryon is a cross person she won't take the trouble to answer a letter. So I shall go to Winchfield."

"Well, it isn't a long journey," Miss Saxon replied, "and the weather is lovely. A glimpse of the country won't do you any harm."

The glimpse of the country did not do any harm, but it awakened a host of sleeping memories.

When she got out of the train at the quiet station there was the familiar breath of wallflowers in the air. It was a flower which her old father had loved, and she seemed to see him walking along the garden paths, gathering a nosegay for his wife in the early morning. Birds were singing the old blithe songs which they had sung in her childhood; there was a flutter of many wings among the boughs, which as yet were unclothed with green. Country voices came ringing across the fields and over the hedges; country faces, stolid and rosy, met her as she turned slowly into the sunny road leading to the village.

It was not difficult to find Stone Cottage, and, wonderful to relate, it was really built of unadorned grey stone, not of brick. Time had done much to soften the severe aspect of this st.u.r.dy habitation; creepers clung to the grey walls--not wholly hiding them, but breaking up the dull uniformity of neutral tint. In the little garden there was such a brave show of jonquils and daffodils that it looked like a golden paradise.

Mrs. Tryon was sitting by the fire in a little room which opened into the kitchen. She was deaf and her sight was dim, but it pleased her to believe that she still kept ears and eyes open to her servant's delinquencies. Years of letting lodgings had developed all the suspicious instincts of her nature; the domestic servant, she argued, was the same all the world over, and always to be regarded with unmitigated distrust. To the last day of her life, Mrs. Tryon would look upon the maid-of-all-work as her natural foe.

The fire was bright; scarlet geraniums made a red glow in flower-pots on the window-sill; a gay china mug, filled with daffodils, stood in the middle of the table; it was no wonder that Elsie received an impression of warmth and gaudy colours when she entered the room. The old woman with the soured face and white hair was the only chilly thing to be seen.

"I don't want Mrs. Dodge to be sending people here," she said, after hearing Elsie's explanation of her visit. "A light-minded, rollicking woman is my niece Dodge. She'll never make that house pay its expenses--never!"

"You knew Mrs. Penn, I think?" began Elsie, anxious to turn the conversation away from the Dodge subject.

"I used to know her when I was in London."

"Where is she now?" Elsie asked anxiously.

"That I can't tell you. She was never a great friend of mine. I was too busy to make friends. She had part of a house in Soho Square. Some people in business had the first floor. But I think she's gone."

"Did you ever hear her speak of a lady called Meta?" inquired Elsie, in a voice that slightly trembled.

"Meta? No; I've never heard the name. Who was she? An actress, I suppose?"

"Oh, no!" replied Elsie hastily. "She was some one who lived with Mrs.

Penn."

"Ah, there was a young lady who occupied one room at the top of the house, and did pictures for the papers and cheap magazines. I never saw her, but Mrs. Penn spoke of her once or twice, and seemed mightily concerned when she died."

"Then Mrs. Penn spoke to you of her death?" Elsie said breathlessly.

"Yes; she was a weak-minded woman, Mrs. Penn was, and allowed herself to be upset by trifles. She said that Miss Somebody was dead--I never could remember names; the name don't matter--and she had called to ask if I wanted any furniture. I said I'd take a couple of small tables and an arm-chair if she'd let me have 'em cheap. I knew she'd got some good, substantial old things."

"And had this furniture been in the young lady's room?" asked Elsie.

"Some of it had, I suppose. She told me that she didn't mean to let the room again; she was going to sleep in it herself," she said, "because it was large and light."

There was a brief pause. The clatter of teacups in the kitchen warned Elsie that she had trespa.s.sed on the old woman's patience long enough. A tabby cat, which had been asleep by the fire, got up, stretched itself, and came purring round its mistress's chair.

"p.u.s.s.y knows it's tea-time," said Mrs. Tryon, bending down to stroke the creature.

Elsie rose to depart.

"One word more," she said, stooping to bring her lips closer to the deaf ear.

Mrs. Tryon glanced up impatiently.

"I never could stand many questions," she muttered.

"Only one more. Did Mrs. Penn ever mention a little boy who lived with the poor young lady?"

"Never," the old woman answered. "And now that's the end of it all, I hope. I shall let my niece, Dodge, know what I think of her for sending folks to trouble me in my old age. Mrs. Penn was no great friend of mine. I never went inside her door more than twice, and I never set eyes on the artist-lady, living or dead. As to the number of her house, it's gone clean out of my mind!"

The interview was ended; and as Elsie went forth again into the afternoon sunshine she felt a chill of disappointment.

She had learnt definitely that Meta had lived and died in Mrs. Penn's house, that the house was in Soho Square, and that was all. There was nothing about Jamie; and it was Jamie, not Meta, who was the object of her search.

The air was fresh and sweet. A little puff of wind blew the scent of hyacinths into her face. A pretty child smiled at her over a cottage gate, its golden curls tossed by the breeze.

Again she thought of Jamie, picturing the rosy face and golden curls, like those which Meta had described. If she could find the boy, she felt, with a sudden heart-throb, that she must hold him fast. No woman's life is complete without a child's presence in it. There are a hundred ways of filling up the void, but only one natural way. Elsie Kilner was nearly nine-and-twenty, and she was hungering, half unconsciously, after a child's love.

She caught a delicious glimpse of woods, just touched with that first shade of green which no artist has ever truthfully rendered. Men can paint summer and autumn, but the promise of the seasons escapes them; it is too subtle for brush or pencil. You may as well try to paint a perfume or a sigh.

And yet, as Elsie thought, walking onward, there is something in these beginnings which is sadder even than the summer's ending. Birth is the herald of decay and death, but decay and death are the sure forerunners of new life.

The afternoon was deepening into evening when she found herself again in All Saints' Street, and Miss Saxon's pleasant face greeted her at the door.

"Any news, Miss Kilner?" was the first question.

"No news of Jamie," Elsie answered sadly. "But I must try to find Mrs.

Penn's house in Soho Square."

"Does she live there now?" Miss Saxon asked.

"Mrs. Tryon thinks not. She couldn't remember the number."

"That does not matter," said Miss Saxon cheerfully. "The square is not very large; it will only take a little while to go from door to door."

The last light of the day was shining into Elsie's sitting-room when she went upstairs, and it was a light which seemed to flow in like a golden wave from some unseen ocean of peace.

Had she come into this quiet house to be guided, by a vanished hand, along a path which she knew not? All she was sure of was the influence which had turned her feet out of the old road, so thickly set with thorns. Surely it was a kindly power which had led her away from the contemplation of her own grief and wrongs, and had given her a quest!

Something to do, something to seek and to hope for--this is the greatest blessing which can be conferred on a lonely life.

Elsie lighted her lamp, and wrote a long, cheery letter to the rector's wife in the Suss.e.x village; but not one word did she say about the search for Jamie.