CHAPTER III.
THE NEW MAN AND THE OLD ACRES.
Wellfield had only a very short distance to walk before he came to another great cavernous archway, the ‘Abbot’s Gate,’ and the second principal entrance to the Abbey. Great beech-trees clustered around it. It was quite dark and cool and gloomy, but a little door in the great wooden gates stood open, and gave him a curious little oblong glimpse into a sunny courtyard, where everything stood still and hot and quiet, and in which, as he stepped into it, there was not a sign of life. One side of the Abbey building, what was left of it, faced him; the windows looked into this paved court, and appeared to be windows of offices, kitchens, etc. Green tubs, filled with a blaze of scarlet geraniums, made brilliant spots of colour here and there. To the left was a high wall, and a fine old stone archway. He knew the way well. Through that archway he must pass to go round to the front entrance of the house, which was chiefly composed of what had once been the private apartments of the abbots of Wellfield. He glanced up at the top of the archway and saw, on the oblong slab which was let into it, the legend, ‘J. W., 15—.’ It stood for John Wellfield, as he knew; the said John having been the first Wellfield who had taken up his abode in the Abbey, after its demolishment under the glorious dispensation of Henry VIII.
‘My initials!’ murmured Jerome. ‘I wonder this man has not rent out the stone, and inscribed his own instead.’
This was rather a bitter thought, and, with his mind full of it, he passed under the archway, and found himself in a grand old garden —such a garden as those ancient monks knew how to make; and a garden which, since their time, had been lovingly kept up. It was formal—all laid out in oblongs and squares, but it had an indescribable beauty and grace. Great trees took away from the stiffness; brilliant flowers and intensely green grass made it gay. Under the trees to the right were some clumps of tall, fiery-looking gladioli. Straight before the house the ground sloped to the river, beside which was a long grassy walk and avenue, and a little farther to the right, still beside the river, the hoary cloisters. Jerome’s heart was exceeding bitter within him, as he saw and realised all the beauty of the place, which came back to him, after sixteen years, with a familiarity which was startling. The sixteen years were but ‘as yesterday.’ As he stood there, he felt it his—his own; the effort to conceive of it as belonging to some one else was a painful one—one which did not altogether succeed.
‘He sold it!’ he was thinking to himself. ‘Sold it in cold blood. Why, if he had told us the truth, and kept it, he should have been happy; we would have made him happy here, let our poverty have been what it might.’
He walked up the round space of smoothly-rolled gravel before the deep entrance-door, and rang the bell.
Mr. Bolton, he was told, was at home. Jerome sent in his card, and was shown into a room which he well remembered. It had formerly been the library, and appeared to be still used for the same purpose, though greatly changed from its old condition. It was not very vulgar, indeed one might almost have pronounced it not at all vulgar; but all the things were comparatively new, and evidently ‘of the very best.’ But the furniture was well chosen and appropriate; had Mr. Bolton or had his upholsterer chosen it? Jerome wondered, in a parenthesis as he looked around, and felt that the appearance of the room displayed a desire at least, if not a perfectly accomplished one, on the part of those who owned it, to be tasteful—a desire which he felt had resulted in being proper and philistine. He glanced at some books on the table, and at one or two in the book-shelves, and was struck at finding them to be nearly all confined to two classes—voyages and travels, and Italian books, the latter almost all bearing some reference to Dante, or to Dante’s great poem.
‘Odd!’ thought Jerome, and as he thought it, the door was opened, and Mr. Bolton entered.
A man of medium height, and of moderate proportions, with a round, obstinate-looking head, dark complexion, brown eyes, a mouth with a protruding under-lip, and an all-pervading expression of shrewdness, and strong, powerful common-sense. A prejudiced, one-sided man, one would suppose, but a man who required a considerable mental space in which to display his onesidedness and prejudice—a man with great faults, and great virtues, possibly; with a bull-dog expression, betokening tenacity of mind—what this man once grasped, he would not easily let loose again.
Jerome felt the last fact strongly, if he did not understand, as indeed he could not possibly do, the other characteristics. There was nothing handsome about Mr. Bolton; very little to be praised in his manner, no grace in his gestures; but there was a certain rough dignity about him, which was even imposing. He was a commanding spirit, if not an enlightened one.
‘Mr. Wellfield, I think?’ he said, fixing his deep-set, dark eyes upon Wellfield’s face, but not betraying, by either look or expression, that he was particularly struck in any way by his visitor.
‘Yes,’ said Jerome, bowing; ‘I presume you are Mr. Bolton?’
‘The same. Will you not be seated?’
Jerome had been standing in one of the windows. At Mr. Bolton’s suggestion he took a chair, and a feeling curiously akin to mortification began to steal over him. Mr. Bolton was so very evidently the master-spirit here. Wellfield felt himself so entirely reduced to the level of a stranger—a mere casual caller, in his old home, that at first he could hardly speak.
How was he to introduce himself? How account for his presence there, for he had come in his usual half-dreaming manner: with no set aim or purpose—no clear and tangible excuse; driven only by a longing to see the place, and by a half-acknowledged feeling of defiant unwillingness to be deterred by this stranger from stepping into the house which he persistently looked upon as ‘his by right.’ It has been said that when the elder Wellfield sent his son into the world, he had not overburdened him with moral maxims for his guidance. Jerome had been left to decide upon his own ethical code—a plan which has its snares and pitfalls as well as its advantages. Mr. Bolton’s calm presence of mind, and his evident ease and pleasure in his surroundings, caused a strange pang to Wellfield, and roused a feeling of resentment at once unreasonable and ridiculous. And yet, he felt, he must be courtesy itself, or all his own feelings and ideas as to what was his due would not prevent the usurper from somewhat unceremoniously casting him forth.
‘You may think this a strange intrusion on my part,’ he began, on the spur of the moment. ‘Indeed, I begin to think myself that it is.’
‘As to that, I can say nothing, Mr. Wellfield, until I hear your errand. In the meantime, I do not think it strange at all that you should call at the Abbey if you were in this neighbourhood.’
‘You have no doubt heard of my father’s death?’
‘I have, and indirectly, of his losses—which, I suppose, will be your losses. I was sorry to learn about them.’
Jerome bowed slightly. ‘It is in consequence of those losses that I am here. I learnt from Mr. Netley, my solicitor, that the Monk’s Gate house still belongs to me, and I came over here to see if it could be made habitable. I could not resist coming on to see the old place of all—trusting to your kindness to allow me to stroll round once or twice.’
‘One can hardly call such a visit a strange intrusion,’ observed Mr. Bolton, and Jerome had remarked that though his voice was curt, and his accent provincial, yet that his language was proper, and even pedantic sometimes, and his grammar unimpeachable.
‘You are at liberty to “stroll round,” as you call it, as much as you please. I don’t pretend not to know that such an excursion must be painful to you—if you ever cared for the place—and from your making this visit, I conclude you did.’
‘I did, and do,’ answered Wellfield.
‘Then, though it may not be agreeable to you to know it in the possession of other people, you will not be sorry to find that it is as well-cared for as if it were your own.’
Jerome was not sorry, but he felt galled, deeply galled, to have to realise so completely how impotent he was in the matter—how this man had the power, not only to keep everything trim, but to alter and change, and upset everything, if it so pleased him.
‘I am glad to know that,’ he said, and Mr. Bolton went on.
‘May I ask if you intend to settle at Wellfield? Do you mean to live at Monk’s Gate?’
‘So far as I can see at present, I do,’ said Jerome, who, as a matter of fact, had only begun to think such a thing advisable, since he had seen Monk’s Gate. ‘But I do not know. Mr. Netley gives me to understand that my sister and I will have something to live upon. I shall, however, seek employment, which it is not always an easy matter to find. Until I do find it, I shall probably live at Monk’s Gate.’
Mr. Bolton bowed his head. ‘Do you think of staying here long, now?’ he asked.
‘I came without any definite intention, for I did not know what sort of a place Monk’s Gate was. Now I think I shall go to the inn here, if there is one, and stay perhaps a day or two, until I get things in order. And—they tell me Burnham is a very large town, and that trade there is now very good. Perhaps——’
‘Ah, you are thinking you might happen to find some employment there. It is possible. But pray do not think of putting up at the inn while there is room at the Abbey. We shall be glad if you will stay with us, as long as you find it convenient.’
‘Who may we be?’ wondered Jerome, as he hesitated. There was not much cordiality in the invitation, but a sedate sincerity, as if Mr. Bolton performed a duty which might have been pleasanter, and might also have been more unpleasant. One thing was quite certain. Whether he would be glad or not to have Wellfield at his own home, he would be very sorry to see him at the inn. He saw the hesitation, and repeated his invitation, this time more cordially.
‘You are very kind,’ said Wellfield. ‘It looks so very much as if I had come on purpose——’
‘I do not know why you came, I am sure, but I trust you will stay with us. Since you are so near Burnham, it would be foolish to go back to Manchester without at least making an effort to seek some employment there. And there is no one in the world who knows so much about Burnham as I do.’
Jerome thanked him, and accepted the invitation. Mr. Bolton rose.
‘That is settled,’ he remarked. ‘Come into the garden, and we’ll find Nita there.’
‘Who is Nita?’ again speculated Wellfield, and he followed his host without a word.
Mr. Bolton took his way through the garden towards the avenue by the river, which was called ‘the river walk.’ As they entered this walk, Jerome perceived in the distance an arrangement of chairs and a table, some light shawls, books, parasols, and two female figures, seated in low cane chairs, under the trees. Both these ladies were reading, and apparently engrossed in their books. The footsteps of the men along the soft grass made no sound, and neither lady looked up until Mr. Bolton, in a voice from which all hardness and abruptness appeared to have melted suddenly, said:
‘Nita!’
Then both the parasols were lowered, and Jerome saw that a very young lady, and a decidedly elderly one, sat side by side beneath the trees. The young lady looked first at both of them, then at Wellfield in particular, and as she slowly rose, with a faint, half-smile, her face seemed all large brown eyes. As he came nearer, he saw that she had, too, a beautiful forehead, broad, and rather low; red lips which looked as if they would readily smile, and pale cheeks. He saw that she only just attained medium height; that she was slight, yet not thin in figure, and graceful, in a certain quaint, picturesque, unconventional style—a great contrast to the stiff, upright, elderly figure beside her, with a grey keen face, compressed lips, and piercing, cold grey eyes. The second lady made no attempt at rising. She sat perfectly still, and bolt upright, folded her mittened hands one over the other upon her book, and looked at Jerome Wellfield in a manner which he felt to be pointed.
‘Nita,’ repeated Mr. Bolton, ‘I’ve brought you a visitor; Mr. Jerome Wellfield, who will stay with us a short time. My daughter, Mr. Wellfield, and my cousin, Miss Margaret Shuttleworth.’
Nita Bolton smiled, shook hands with the guest, and said, ‘How do you do?’
Miss Shuttleworth stiffly inclined her head, but did not make any overtures towards shaking hands.
‘Will you not sit down, Mr. Wellfield?’ said Nita, pointing to a chair, which he took, and she went on:
‘Have you just arrived in Wellfield?’
‘I arrived about an hour and a half ago. I have been looking at my house—Monk’s Gate.’
‘Oh, have you? It is a pretty little house.’
‘Very. So humble and unobtrusive-looking,’ said Jerome.
‘And damp,’ observed Miss Shuttleworth; and though she did not speak loudly, she spoke in a manner which made it impossible to ignore her remarks. Indeed, whenever Miss Shuttleworth spoke, an impartial observer must have said that she put a portentous amount of expression into her utterances.
‘You think it is damp?’ said Jerome, politely turning to her, while Nita’s colour rose, and her fingers trifled nervously with her watch-chain.
‘I know it to be damp,’ responded Miss Shuttleworth, in a manner which Jerome, unaccustomed to her as he was, felt imperatively called for a reply, or another question of some kind.
‘So damp as to make it unadvisable to live there?’ he inquired.
‘I should say it was a most unhealthy house to live in. If you wish to become rheumatic at once, and to grow old before your years, by all means live at Monk’s Gate.’
‘As it is all the home I now possess,’ responded Jerome, ‘it is probable that I shall live there, despite the disadvantages you mention.’
‘All the home you possess?’ repeated Nita, and Jerome turned to her with a sense of pleasure in the contrast between her and her relative.
Miss Shuttleworth absolutely revolted him with her plainness, her hard features, her metallic voice, and her unengaging manner. In comparison, Nita, though not a beauty, looked charming. He met her soft brown eyes with pleasure, and saw the slight shyness, the little air of timidity and shrinking, with feelings of complacency. At this juncture Mr. Bolton rose, remarking:
‘Well, I’ll leave Mr. Wellfield to you to entertain. I have some writing to do. I suppose I shall see you at supper, Margaret?’
‘Not to-night, thank you. I have my Bible class, and shall have to go in about an hour.’
‘Oh, well, come to-morrow, or as often as you can, at any rate,’ he answered; and with a general inclination of the head to the company, he departed.
Jerome looked after him, as he went down the river walk, and realised that the whole figure, though plebeian, was powerful, not without a certain air, too, of dignity and command. He turned to Nita again.
‘Mr. Bolton has very kindly asked me to stay a few days at the Abbey, until I have decided what to do with Monk’s Gate, or rather until I see whether I can find some employment, which will allow me to live at Monk’s Gate, as I hope to do.’
‘Yes,’ said Nita, with a look of embarrassment; ‘but—but—I suppose I ought not to say it——’
‘If it is a personal question, Nita, to a total stranger, you ought certainly not to say it,’ here chimed in Miss Shuttleworth’s voice.
Nita blushed furiously, and Jerome said, more in the hope of annoying Miss Shuttleworth than from any other reason:
‘I am sure it is no question that is not perfectly justifiable, Miss Bolton, and therefore I promise in advance to answer it.’
‘It was not exactly a question. You speak of Monk’s Gate as your only home, and of seeking employment; but I thought you were rich, Mr. Wellfield.’
‘So did I, until a short time ago. I am just now in the process of learning completely to realise my mistake. I am a poor man, and am not quite certain that the wreck of my fortunes will leave me enough to enable me to bring my sister to Monk’s Gate, and make her a home there.’
‘Have you a sister?’ asked Nita, who kept giving him very rapid, momentary glances, her eyes leaving his face almost before they had had time to find it, which glances he met with a calm, prolonged gaze, which did not escape the steely eyes of Miss Shuttleworth.
‘I have a sister—yes.’
‘Is she with you?’
‘No; she is at Elberthal, in Germany, with a friend.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Sixteen.’
‘Is she pretty?’
‘She is considered beautiful, I believe.’
‘Like you at all?’ inquired Miss Shuttleworth, with a treacherous suavity in her tones.
Jerome burst out laughing, and Nita blushed fiercely.
‘Oh, aunt, how uncomfortable you make me!’ she exclaimed vehemently.
Miss Shuttleworth made no reply, then Nita went on:
‘I hope it is not rude of me, but are you and your sister alone in the world?’
‘We are, quite.’
‘And very fond of one another?’
‘Y—yes.’
‘That is, your sister is very fond of you,’ remarked Miss Shuttleworth.
‘I hope she is, and that she may never have cause to be otherwise,’ he replied politely.
‘It is very interesting!’ said Nita, with a little sigh, while Jerome thought, repressing a smile, what an amusing story it would make for Sara and Avice.
‘What is your sister’s name?’ next asked Nita.
‘Avice.’
‘Avice? What a peculiar name.’
‘It means “refuge,”’ observed Miss Shuttleworth.
‘Oh, does it?’ said Jerome, ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Do you think you will like living in England?’ pursued Nita.
‘No, I don’t, under the circumstances.’
She shook her head, and maintained silence. Miss Shuttleworth rose from her chair.
‘I must go,’ she remarked. ‘And do you go in too, Nita, soon. The damp rises from the river in the evening, and you have a thin dress on.’
‘I shall not be long.’
‘I am going to take this book with me. It is a very clever story. Where did you get it?’
‘John brought it me from London. I haven’t read it. I saw a review of it in the ——, which made me think it was stupid.’
Miss Shuttleworth’s lips relaxed into a smile which was sardonic. This was a topic on which she evidently felt strongly.
‘Why do you and John and your father persist in reading reviews?’ she asked, with asperity. ‘The book stupid?—as likely as not it was the reviewer who was stupid. I know them. It is a very clever book, but of course if you read that review of it, it would spoil it for you. I do wish I could cure you of reading reviews. It spoils one’s pleasure so, and does not the least good.’
‘I’ll try to give it up,’ said Nita, meekly. ‘Shall we go with you to the great gate? Mr. Wellfield, would you like to come?’
Jerome accompanied the two ladies to the great gate. Then Nita thought she would walk on with Miss Shuttleworth to her house, and Jerome thought he would stroll round the grounds. Nita told him that they supped at half-past eight, and she disappeared with Miss Shuttleworth through the gate. Jerome wandered back along the river walk, and through the old gardens, and strolled and loitered amongst the trees. Presently the sun declined, and gorgeous hues of purple and gold and crimson set the western sky ablaze, and coloured the water of the river with changing tints. The trees waved softly overhead—the water murmured placidly as it rolled by. All was still and quiet, and he tried to realise that he was here—a stranger. It was all so familiar as to be almost weirdly so. These strange faces, strange owners, jarred upon him. He could not understand how they came to be so at home there—so at ease in his home. As for him—when he should have supplied Monk’s Gate with a little furniture, just enough to make it habitable, and established Avice here, his ready-cash would be almost exhausted, and then what was to become of him? The pittance—not certain, but probable—of which Mr. Netley had spoken, remained. He could not live upon that—he might die upon it, starve upon it, go mad upon it; he could not live upon it—as a man with his ideas, his hopes, his inborn, inbred habits and feelings, understands life, even in its narrowest sense.
After a long time spent in such meditations—meditations which dimmed the beauty of the sunset, and marred the evening’s glory, he looked up, and found that the pomp of the Sonnenuntergang was over; the purple and gold had disappeared; the sky was grey again. It must be supper-time. He bent his steps towards the house.
Entering the hall he saw Nita going across it, with a large crystal bowl of flowers in her hand. She had on a black flowing dress of something soft and gauzy, with knots of brightly-hued ribbons here and there. Whether by design or by accident, she had greatly improved her appearance, and looked as nearly pretty as it was possible for her to be; but the air of delicacy and a slight languor, speaking of a constitution not of the strongest kind, prevented her from being really beautiful. But she was agreeable, even attractive to look at, and had quaint original little ways which gave a charm to her. If she did not move with the air of a great lady, nor shine with the noble beauty of Sara Ford, she was yet not without her charm, as Jerome felt, when she paused, balancing the vase in her hands, looking up at him and smiling.
‘You have had a long stroll, Mr. Wellfield, and I am sure you will be tired. William,’ she added, to a page-boy who then appeared upon the scene, ‘show Mr. Wellfield to the blue-room, and send Mary to see that he has all he wants.’
When Jerome came down again, the same boy appeared, and invited him into the drawing-room. How well he remembered it as he had last seen it, and how great was the contrast between the dim old room of sixteen years ago and the luxurious one of to-day, furnished in the richest and most approved style, with gorgeously decorated ceiling, and every kind of ‘upholsterer’s darling’ in the shape of easy-chairs, couches and lounges, scattered about!
Nita was there with her work, and Mr. Bolton with the newspapers, and a third person, a young man whose face, as Jerome looked at him, brought back the past with a vividness, with a rush, as it were, which more than ever carried him backwards, and made the immediate past seem like a dream in the light of sixteen years ago.
‘John Leyburn, if I am in my right mind!’ he exclaimed, for him almost eagerly.
‘I think you may safely assume that your judgment does not misguide you.’
‘Though you do say that the evidence of your own senses is the last thing you would believe, John,’ observed Nita, with asperity.
John laughed, as he shook hands with Wellfield.
‘Not the last thing I would believe, but the first thing I would distrust, if I had grounds for doubting about anything,’ he answered.
‘And how have you been going on?’ asked Jerome, after the usual fashion of one man to another. To which Leyburn replied modestly:
‘Oh, fairly well.’
‘Fairly well, indeed!’ retorted Nita. ‘You have got on very well indeed, John. My cousin has got a big house and a big mill, and a huge business, all to himself, Mr. Wellfield. And he calls that getting on “fairly well.”’
‘And you?’ asked Leyburn.
‘I—very ill, as no doubt you have heard. But that doesn’t matter. I am glad to see you again. Do you live at Abbot’s Knoll yet? Do you remember coming down here to do Latin with my tutor, Phillips? What an age it seems since then!’
‘I remember,’ said John, deliberately.
He was a young man who could not be called handsome; beside Wellfield he looked exceedingly plain, with his square-cut, rather heavy face, and decidedly clumsy figure. Yet about this young manufacturer, with his want of grace and polish, there was the charm of a candid, benevolent, truth-loving nature, which charm showed in the clear, pleasant light-brown eyes, which redeemed him from insignificance, and made him an agreeable companion. He was quiet, decidedly. Jerome remembered that in the old days when they had both been children together, he had been, not shy, but a silent, reserved, observant boy, with decided likes and dislikes. By-and-by, Leyburn went and sat down beside Nita on the sofa. They appeared to be on squabbling terms, which naturally implies intimacy. Mr. Bolton looked benevolently at them over his newspaper, and Jerome, with a sudden sense which was not altogether a pleasurable one, began to wonder if this were ‘a case.’ No, he did not like the idea—why, he hardly knew, since it could not possibly matter anything to him; but it seemed to shut him more entirely than ever out from all that should have been his. With rapid, unreasonable foresight, he pictured Nita and her cousin man and wife, in safe and secure possession of the Abbey and its lands, with perhaps children to inherit them, and money in abundance to keep it all up. The idea galled and hurt him excessively, and he sat silently, and somewhat moodily pondering upon it until supper was announced.
It appeared that early hours were the rule at the Abbey. After supper, Mr. Bolton retired to one end of the huge drawing-room to a table on which stood a reading-lamp, and he was soon lost in a book of travels in the South Seas. Nita and the two young men were left to entertain one another as they chose. Jerome was somewhat taciturn, observing the incessant conversation, friendly squabbles and unmistakable real liking between Nita Bolton and John Leyburn. About ten o’clock Leyburn said good-night. By half-past ten all the household were in their rooms. Jerome opened his window and looked out. The same moon, only fuller, as that which had lighted his meditations in Manchester, shone here, and silvered the old Abbey gardens, and the ancient walks, and the motionless trees. His heart was sore as heart could be. These people were not what he had expected, and perhaps that added to the sting of his vexation. They were not purse-proud, vulgar upstarts. They were plain and homely, but gentle and gracious. It was not some vulgar man who held and who would inherit his patrimony; it was a man whose whole character and aspect compelled respect and even admiration, and a girl in whose eyes dwelt gentleness and goodness, and whose ways were all kind and womanly and girlish. He pondered over it all, and looked again upon the beauty of it, and muttered to himself:
‘Mine by right—mine before God! and it shall be mine again, too.’