Fortunately Pollie and I found ourselves in an empty carriage. The scream of the whistle, the grinding jar of the wheels, the oppressive odour of Mr Waggett's bouquet--I leaned back on her to recover my wits.

But the cool air blowing in on my face and a far-away sniff from a little gla.s.s bottle with which her mother had fortified her for the journey, quickly revived me, and I was free to enjoy the novelties of steam-travel. My eyes dizzied at the wide revolving scene that was now spread out beneath the feathery vapours. How strange it was to see the green country world--meadow and stream and wooded hill--thus wheel softly by. If Pollie and I could have shared it alone, it would have been among my pleasantest memories.

But at the next stopping places other pa.s.sengers climbed into the carriage; and five complete strangers soon shared the grained wood box in which we were enclosed. There was a lady in black, with her hair smoothed up under her bonnet, and a long pale nose; and up against her sat her little boy, a fine fair, staring child of about five years of age. A black-clothed, fat little man with a rusty leather bag, over the lock of which he kept clasped his finger and thumb, quietly seated himself. He cast but one dark glance about him and immediately shut his eyes. In the corner was an older man with a beard under his chin, gaiters, and a hard, wide-brimmed hat. Besides these, there was a fat countrywoman on the same side as Pollie and I, whom I could hear breathing and could not see, and a dried-up, bird-eyed woman opposite in a check shawl, with heavy metal ear-rings dangling at her ears. She sat staring blankly and bleakly at things close as if they were at a distance.

My spirit drank in this company. So rapt was I that I might have been a stock of wood. Gathered together in this small s.p.a.ce they had the appearance of animals, and, if they had not been human, what very alarming ones. As long as I merely sat and watched their habits I remained unnoticed. But the afternoon sun streamed hot on roof and windows: and the confined air was soon so dense with a variety of odours, that once more my brain dizzied, and I must clutch at Pollie's arm for support. At this movement the little boy, who had more than once furtively glanced at me, crouched wriggling back against his mother, and, edging his face aside, piped up into her ear, "Mamma, is that alive?"

The train now stood motionless, a fine array of hollyhocks and sunflowers flared beyond the window, and his voice rang out shrill as a bird in the quiet of afternoon. Tiny points of heat broke out all over me, as one by one my fellow pa.s.sengers turned their astonished faces in my direction. Even the man with the leather bag heard the question. The small, bead-brown eyes wheeled from under their white lids and fixed me with their stare.

"Hush, my dear," said the lady, no less intent but less open in her survey; "hush, look at the pretty cows!"

"But she _is_, mamma. It moved. I saw that move," he a.s.severated, looking along cornerwise at me out of his uptilted face.

Those blue eyes! a mingling of delight, horror, incredulity, even greed swam in their shallow deeps. I stood leaning close to Pollie's bosom, breathless and helpless, a fascinating object, no doubt. Never before had I been transfixed like this in one congregated stare. I felt myself gasp like a fish. It was the old farmer in the corner who at last came to my rescue. "Alive! _I_ warrant. Eh, ma'am?" he appealed to poor Pollie. "And an uncommon neat-fashioned young lady, too. Off to Whipham Fair, I'll be bound."

The bag-man turned with a creeping grin on his tallowy features and muttered some inaudible jest out of the corner of his mouth to the gipsy. She eyed him fiercely, drawing her lips from her bright teeth in a grimace more of contempt than laughter. Once more the engine hooted and we glided on our way.

"I _want_ that, mamma," whispered the child. "I _want_ that dear little lady. Give that teeny tiny lady a biscuit."

At this new sally universal merriment filled the carriage. We were jogging along in fine style. This, then, was Miss Fenne's "network." A helpless misery and bitterness swept through me, the heavy air swirled; and then--whence, from whom, I know not--self-possession returned to me.

Why, I had _chosen_ my fate: I must hold my own.

My young admirer, much against his mother's inclination, had managed to fetch out a biscuit from her reticule--a star-shaped thing, graced with a cone of rose-tinted sugar. Still crouching back like a chick under her wing, he stretched his bribe out at arm's length towards me, in a pink, sweat-sparked hand. All this while Pollie had sat like a lump beside me, clutching her basket, a vacant, flushed smile on her round face. I drew myself up, and supporting myself by her wicker basket, advanced with all the dignity at my command to the peak of her knees, and, stretching out my hand in return, accepted the gift. I even managed to make him an indulgent little bow, feigned a nibble at the lump of food, then planted it on the dusty ledge beneath the carriage window.

A peculiar silence followed. With a long sigh the child hid his face in his mother's sleeve. She drew him closer and smiled carefully into nothingness. "There," she murmured, "now mother's treasure must sit still and be a good boy. I can't think why papa didn't take--second-cla.s.s tickets."

"But nor did that kind little lady's papa," returned the child stoutly.

The kindly old farmer continued to gloat on me, gnarled hands on knees.

But I could not bear it. I quietly surveyed him until he was compelled to rub his face with his fingers, and so cover its retreat to his own window. The gipsy woman kept her ferocious, birdlike stare on me, with an occasional stealthy glance at Pollie. The bag-man's lids closed down.

For the rest of the journey--though pa.s.sengers came and went--I kept well back, and was left in peace. It was my first real taste of the world's curiosity, mockery, aversion, and flattery. One practical lesson it taught me. From that day forward I never set out on any such journey unless thickly veiled. For then, though the inquisitive may see me, they cannot tell whether or not I see them, or what my feelings may be. It is a real comfort; though, from what I have read, it appears to be the condition rather of a ghost than of a normal young lady.

But now the sun had begun to descend and the rays of evening to stain the fields. We loitered on from station to station. To my relief Pollie had at last munched her way through the pasties and sweetmeats stowed in her basket. My nosegay of cherry-pie was fainting for want of water. In heavy sleep the bag-man and gipsy sat woodenly nodding and jerking side by side. The lady had delicately composed her face and shut her eyes.

The little boy slumbered serenely with his small red mouth wide open.

Languid and heavy, I dared not relax my vigilance. But in the desolation that gathered over me I almost forgot my human company, and returned to the empty house which seemingly I had left for ever--the shadows of yet another nightfall already lengthening over its flowers and sward.

Could I not hear the silken rustle of the evening primrose unfolding her petals? Soon the cool dews would be falling on the stones where I was wont to sit in reverie beside the flowing water. It seemed indeed that my self had slipped from my body, and hovered entranced amid the thousand jargonings of its tangled lullaby. Was there, in truth, a wraith in me that could so steal out; and were the invisible inhabitants in their fortresses beside my stream conscious of its presence among them, and as happy in my spectral company as I in theirs?

I floated up out of these ruminations to find that my young pasha had softly awakened and was gazing at me in utter incredulity from sleep-gilded eyes. We exchanged a still, protracted, dwelling smile, and for the only time in my life I actually _saw_ a fellow-creature fall in love!

"Oh, but mamma, mamma, I do _beseech_ you," he called up at her from the platform where he was taking his last look at me through the dingy oblong window, "please, please, I want her for mine; I want her for mine!"

I held up his biscuit in my hand, laughing and nodding. The whistle knelled, our narrow box drew slowly out of the station. As if heartbroken, he took his last look at me, petulantly flinging aside his mother's hand. He had lost me for ever, and Pollie and I were alone again.

Beechwood

Chapter Eight

Still the slow train b.u.mped on, loath to drag itself away from the happy harvest fields. Darkness was near when we ourselves alighted at our destination, mounted into a four-wheeled cab, and once more were in motion in the rain-laid dust. On and on rolled Pollie and I and our luggage together, in such ease and concealment after the hard wooden seats and garish light that our journey began to seem--as indeed I wished for the moment it might prove--interminable. One after another the high street lamps approached, flung their radiance into our musty velvet cabin, and went gliding by. Ever and again the luminous square of a window beyond the outspread branches of a tree would float on. Then suddenly our narrow solitude was invaded by the bright continuous flare flung into it from a row of shops.

Never before had I been out after nightfall. I gazed enthralled at the splendours of fruit and cakes, silks and sweetmeats packed high behind the gla.s.s fronts. Wasn't I myself the heiress of 110 a year? Indeed I was drinking in Romance, and never traveller surveyed golden Moscow or the steeps of Tibet with keener relish than I the liquid amber, ruby, and emerald that summoned its customers to a wayside chemist's shop.

Twenty--what a child I was! I smile now at these recollections with an indulgence not unmixed with envy. It is Moscow survives, not the artless traveller.

After climbing a long hill--the wayside houses steadily thinning out as we ascended--the cab came to a standstill. The immense, shapeless old man who had so miraculously found our way for us, and who on this mild August evening was m.u.f.fled up to his eyes in a thick ulster, climbed down backwards from his box and opened the door. At the same moment, as if by clockwork, opened another door--that of the last house on the hill. I was peering out of the cab, then, at my home; and framed in that lighted oblong stood Mrs Bowater. All utterly different from what I had foreseen: this much smaller house, this much taller landlady, and--dear me, how fondly I had trusted that she would not for the first time set eyes on her lodger being _carried_ into her house. I had in fancy pictured myself bowing a composed and impressive greeting to her from her own hearthrug. But it was not to be.

Pollie lifted me out, settled me on her arm, and my feet did not touch _terra firma_ again until she had ascended the five stone steps and we were within the pa.s.sage.

"Lor, miss; then here we are," she sighed breathlessly, then returned to the cabman to pay him his fare. Even dwarfed a little perhaps by my mourning, there I stood, breathed upon by the warm air of the house, in the midst of a p.r.i.c.kly doormat, on the edge of the shiny patterned oilcloth that glossed away into the obscurity from under the gaslight in front of me; and there stood my future landlady. For the first time, with head thrown back, I scanned a countenance that was soon to become so familiar and so endeared. Mrs Bowater's was a stiff and angular figure. She, too, was in black, with a long, springside boot. The bony hands hung down in their peculiar fashion from her elbows. A large cameo brooch adorned the flat chest. A scanty velvet patch of cap failed to conceal the thin hair sleekly parted in the middle over the high narrow temples. The long dark face with its black, set eyes, was almost without expression, except that of a placid severity. She gazed down at me, as I up at her, steadily, silently.

"So this is the young lady," she mused at last, as if addressing a hidden and distant listener. "I hope you are not over-fatigued by your journey, miss. Please to step in."

To my ear, Mrs Bowater's was what I should describe as a low, roaring voice, like falling water out of a black cloven rock in a hill-side; but what a balm was its sound in my ear, and how solacing this dignified address to jaded nerves still smarting a little after my victory on the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway. Making my way around a grandfather's clock that ticked hollowly beside the door, I followed her into a room on the left of the pa.s.sage, from either wall of which a pair of enormous antlers threatened each other under the discoloured ceiling.

For a moment the glare within and the vista of furniture legs confused my eyes. But Mrs Bowater came to my rescue.

"Food was never mentioned," she remarked reflectively, "being as I see nothing to be considered except as food so-called. But you will find everything clean and comfortable; and I am sure, miss, what with your sad bereavements and all, as I have heard from Mr Pellew, I hope it will be a home to you. There being nothing else as I suppose that we may expect."

My mind ran about in a hasty attempt to explore these sentiments. They soothed away many misgivings, though it was clear that Mrs Bowater's lodger was even less in dimensions than Mrs Bowater had supposed.

_Clean_: after so many months of Mrs Sheppey's habits, it was this word that sang in my head. Wood, gla.s.s, metal flattered the light of gas and coal, and for the first time I heard my own voice float up into my new "apartment": "It looks _very_ comfortable, thank you, Mrs Bowater; and I am quite sure I shall be happy in my new abode." There was nothing intentionally affected in this formal little speech.

"Which being so," replied Mrs Bowater, "there seems to be trouble with the cabman, and the day's drawing in, perhaps you will take a seat by the fire."

A stool nicely to my height stood by the steel fender, the flames played in the chimney; and for a moment I was left alone. "Thank G.o.d," said I, and took off my hat, and pushed back my hair.... Alone. Only for a moment, though. Its mistress gone, as fine a black cat as ever I have seen appeared in the doorway and stood, green-eyed, regarding me. To judge from its countenance, this must have been a remarkable experience.

I cried seductively, "Puss."

But with a blink of one eye and a shake of its forepaw, as if inadvertently it had trodden in water, it turned itself about again and disappeared. In spite of all my cajoleries, Henry and I were never to be friends.

Whatever Pollie's trouble with the cabman may have been, Mrs Bowater made short work of it. Pollie was shown to the room in which she was to sleep that night. I took off my bodice and bathed face, hands, and arms to the elbow in the shallow bowl Mrs Bowater had provided for me. And soon, wonderfully refreshed and talkative, Pollie and I were seated over the last meal we were to share together for many a long day.

There were snippets of bread and b.u.t.ter for me, a little omelette, two sizes too large, a sugared cherry or two sprinkled with "hundreds and thousands," and a gay little b.u.mper of milk gilded with the enwreathed letters, "A Present from Dover." Alack-a-day for that omelette! I must have kept a whole family of bantams steadily engaged for weeks together.

But I was often at my wits' end to dispose of their produce. Fortunately Mrs Bowater kept merry fires burning in the evening--"Ladies of some sizes can't warm the air as much as most," as she put it. So at some little risk to myself among the steel fire-irons, the boiled became the roast. At last I made a clean breast of my horror of eggs, and since by that time my landlady and I were the best of friends, no harm came of it. She merely bestowed on me a grim smile of unadulterated amus.e.m.e.nt, and the bantams patronized some less fastidious stomach.

My landlady was a heavy thinker, and not a copious--though a leisurely--talker. Minutes would pa.s.s, while with dish or duster in hand she pondered a speech; then perhaps her long thin lips would only shut a little tighter, or a slow, convulsive rub of her lean forefinger along the side of her nose would indicate the upshot. But I soon learned to interpret these mute signs. She was a woman who disapproved of most things, for excellent, if nebulous, reasons; and her silences were due not to the fact that she had nothing to say, but too much.

Pollie and I talked long and earnestly that first evening at Beechwood.

She promised to write to me, to send me all the gossip of the village, and to come and see me when she could. The next morning, after a sorrowful breakfast, we parted. Standing on the table in the parlour window, with eyes a little wilder than usual, I watched her pa.s.s out of sight. A last wave of her handkerchief, and the plump-cheeked, fair-skinned face was gone. The strangeness and solitude of my situation flooded over me.

For a few days, strive as she might, Mrs Bowater's lodger moped. It was not merely that she had become more helpless, but of far less importance. This may, in part, be accounted for by the fact that, having been accustomed at Lyndsey to live at the top of a high house and to look down on the world, when I found myself foot to foot with it, so to speak, on Beechwood Hill, it alarmingly intensified the _sense_ of my small stature. Use and habit however. The relative merits of myself and of the pa.s.sing scene gradually readjusted themselves with a proper respect for the former. Soon, too, as if from heaven, the packing-case containing my furniture arrived. Mrs Bowater shared a whole morning over its unpacking, ever and again standing in engrossed consideration of some of my minute treasures, and, quite unaware of it, heaving a great sigh. But how to arrange them there in a room already over-occupied?