How deeply are our destinies
influenced by the most trifling
causes! Had the unknown builder
who erected and
owned these new villas contented himself by simply
building each within its own grounds, it is probable that
these three small groups of people would have remained
hardly conscious of each other's existence, and that
there would have been no opportunity for that action and
reaction which is here set forth. But there was a common
link to bind them together. To single himself out from
all other Norwood builders the landlord had devised and
laid out a common lawn tennis ground, which stretched
behind the houses with taut-stretched net, green
close-cropped sward, and widespread whitewashed lines.
Hither in search of that hard exercise which is as
necessary as air or food to the English temperament, came
young Hay Denver when released from the toil of the City;
hither, too, came Dr. Walker and his two fair daughters,
Clara and Ida, and hither also, champions of the lawn,
came the short-skirted, muscular widow and her athletic
nephew. Ere the summer was gone they knew each other in
this quiet nook as they might not have done after years
of a stiffer and more formal acquaintance.
And especially to the Admiral
and the Doctor were this closer
intimacy and companionship of
value. Each had a void in his
life, as every man must have
who with unexhausted strength
steps out of the great race,
but each by his society might
help to fill up that of his neighbor.
It is true that they had not
much in common, but that is sometimes
an aid rather than a bar to friendship.
Each had been an enthusiast in
his profession, and had retained
all his interest in it. The Doctor
still read from cover to cover
his Lancet and his Medical Journal,
attended all professional gatherings,
worked himself into an alternate
state of exaltation and depression
over the results of the election
of officers, and reserved for
himself a den of his own, in
which before rows of little round
bottles full of glycerine, Canadian
balsam, and staining agents,
he still cut sections with a
microtome, and peeped through
his long, brass, old-fashioned
microscope at the arcana of nature.
With his typical face, clean
shaven on lip and chin, with
a firm mouth, a strong jaw, a
steady eye, and two little white
fluffs of whiskers, he could
never be taken for anything but
what he was, a high-class British
medical consultant of the age
of fifty, or perhaps just a year
or two older.
The
Doctor, in
his hey-day,
had been cool over great things,
but now, in his retirement, he
was fussy over trifles. The man
who had operated without the
quiver of a finger, when not
only his patient's life but his
own reputation and future were
at stake, was now shaken to the
soul by a mislaid book or a careless
maid. He remarked it himself,
and knew the reason. "When Mary
was alive," he would say, "she
stood between me and the little
troubles. I could brace myself
for the big ones. My girls are
as good as girls can be, but
who can know a man as his wife
knows him?" Then his memory would
conjure up a tuft of brown hair
and a single white, thin hand
over a coverlet, and he would
feel, as we have all felt, that
if we do not live and know each
other after death, then indeed
we are tricked and betrayed by
all the highest hopes and subtlest
intuitions of our nature.
The Doctor had his compensations
to make up for his loss. The
great scales of Fate had been
held on a level for him; for
where in all great London could
one find two sweeter girls, more
loving, more intelligent, and
more sympathetic than Clara and
Ida Walker? So bright were they,
so quick, so interested in all
which interested him, that if
it were possible for a man to
be compensated for the loss of
a good wife then Balthazar Walker
might claim to be so.
Clara
was tall and
thin and supple,
with a graceful,
womanly
figure. There was something stately
and distinguished in her carriage, "queenly" her
friends called her, while her
critics described her as reserved
and distant.
Such as it was, however, it
was part and parcel of herself,
for she was, and had always from
her childhood been, different
from any one around her. There
was nothing gregarious in her
nature. She thought with her
own mind, saw with her own eyes,
acted from her own impulse. Her
face was pale, striking rather
than pretty, but with two great
dark eyes, so earnestly questioning,
so quick in their transitions
from joy to pathos, so swift
in their comment upon every word
and deed around her, that those
eyes alone were to many more
attractive than all the beauty
of her younger sister. Hers was
a strong, quiet soul, and it
was her firm hand which had taken
over the duties of her mother,
had ordered the house, restrained
the servants, comforted her father,
and upheld her weaker sister,
from the day of that great misfortune.
Ida Walker was a hand's breadth
smaller than Clara, but was a
little fuller in the face and
plumper in the figure. She had
light yellow hair, mischievous
blue eyes with the light of humor
ever twinkling in their depths,
and a large, perfectly formed
mouth, with that slight upward
curve of the corners which goes
with a keen appreciation of fun,
suggesting even in repose that
a latent smile is ever lurking
at the edges of the lips. She
was modern to the soles of her
dainty little high-heeled shoes,
frankly fond of dress and of
pleasure, devoted to tennis and
to comic opera, delighted with
a dance, which came her way only
too seldom, longing ever for
some new excitement, and yet
behind all this lighter side
of her character a thoroughly
good, healthy-minded English
girl, the life and soul of the
house, and the idol of her sister
and her father. Such was the
family at number two. A peep
into the remaining villa and
our introductions are complete.
Admiral Hay Denver did not
belong to the florid, white-haired,
hearty school of sea-dogs which
is more common in works of fiction
than in the Navy List. On the
contrary, he was the representative
of a much more common type which
is the antithesis of the conventional
sailor. He was a thin, hard-featured
man, with an ascetic, acquiline
cast of face, grizzled and hollow-cheeked,
clean-shaven with the exception
of the tiniest curved promontory
of ash-colored whisker. An observer,
accustomed to classify men, might
have put him down as a canon
of the church with a taste for
lay costume and a country life,
or as the master of a large public
school, who joined his scholars
in their outdoor sports. His
lips were firm, his chin prominent,
he had a hard, dry eye, and his
manner was precise and formal.
Forty years of stern discipline
had made him reserved and silent.
Yet, when at his ease with an
equal, he could readily assume
a less quarter-deck style, and
he had a fund of little, dry
stories of the world and its
ways which were of interest from
one who had seen so many phases
of life. Dry and spare, as lean
as a jockey and as tough as whipcord,
he might be seen any day swinging
his silver-headed Malacca cane,
and pacing along the suburban
roads with the same measured
gait with which he had been wont
to tread the poop of his flagship.
He wore a good service stripe
upon his cheek, for on one side
it was pitted and scarred where
a spurt of gravel knocked up
by a round-shot had struck him
thirty years before, when he
served in the Lancaster gun-battery.
Yet he was hale and sound, and
though he was fifteen years senior
to his friend the Doctor, he
might have passed as the younger
man.
Mrs. Hay Denver's life had
been a very broken one, and her
record upon land represented
a greater amount of endurance
and self-sacrifice than his upon
the sea. They had been together
for four months after their marriage,
and then had come a hiatus of
four years, during which he was
flitting about between St. Helena
and the Oil Rivers in a gunboat.
Then came a blessed year of peace
and domesticity, to be followed
by nine years, with only a three
months' break, five upon the
Pacific station, and four on
the East Indian. After that was
a respite in the shape of five
years in the Channel squadron,
with periodical runs home, and
then again he was off to the
Mediterranean for three years
and to Halifax for four. Now,
at last, however, this old married
couple, who were still almost
strangers to one another, had
come together in Norwood, where,
if their short day had been chequered
and broken, the evening at least
promised to be sweet and mellow.
In person Mrs. Hay Denver was
tall and stout, with a bright,
round, ruddy-cheeked face still
pretty, with a gracious, matronly
comeliness. Her whole life was
a round of devotion and of love,
which was divided between her
husband and her only son, Harold.
This son it was who kept them
in the neighborhood of London,
for the Admiral was as fond of
ships and of salt water as ever,
and was as happy in the sheets
of a two-ton yacht as on the
bridge of his sixteen-knot monitor.
Had he been untied, the Devonshire
or Hampshire coast would certainly
have been his choice. There was
Harold, however, and Harold's
interests were their chief care.
Harold was four-and-twenty now.
Three years before he had been
taken in hand by an acquaintance
of his father's, the head of
a considerable firm of stock-brokers,
and fairly launched upon 'Change.
His three hundred guinea entrance
fee paid, his three sureties
of five hundred pounds each found,
his name approved by the Committee,
and all other formalities complied
with, he found himself whirling
round, an insignificant unit,
in the vortex of the money market
of the world. There, under the
guidance of his father's friend,
he was instructed in the mysteries
of bulling and of bearing, in
the strange usages of 'Change
in the intricacies of carrying
over and of transferring. He
learned to know where to place
his clients' money, which of
the jobbers would make a price
in New Zealands, and which would
touch nothing but American rails,
which might be trusted and which
shunned. All this, and much more,
he mastered, and to such purpose
that he soon began to prosper,
to retain the clients who had
been recommened to him, and to
attract fresh ones. But the work
was never congenial. He had inherited
from his father his love of the
air of heaven, his affection
for a manly and natural existence.
To act as middleman between the
pursuer of wealth, and the wealth
which he pursued, or to stand
as a human barometer, registering
the rise and fall of the great
mammon pressure in the markets,
was not the work for which Providence
had placed those broad shoulders
and strong limbs upon his well
knit frame. His dark open face,
too, with his straight Grecian
nose, well opened brown eyes,
and round black-curled head,
were all those of a man who was
fashioned for active physical
work. Meanwhile he was popular
with his fellow brokers, respected
by his clients, and beloved at
home, but his spirit was restless
within him and his mind chafed
unceasingly against his surroundings.
"Do you know, Willy," said
Mrs. Hay Denver one evening as
she stood behind her husband's
chair, with her hand upon his
shoulder, "I think sometimes
that Harold is not quite happy."
"He looks happy, the young
rascal," answered the Admiral,
pointing with his cigar. It was
after dinner, and through the
open French window of the dining-room
a clear view was to be had of
the tennis court and the players.
A set had just been finished,
and young Charles Westmacott
was hitting up the balls as high
as he could send them in the
middle of the ground. Doctor
Walker and Mrs. Westmacott were
pacing up and down the lawn,
the lady waving her racket as
she emphasized her remarks, and
the Doctor listening with slanting
head and little nods of agreement.
Against the rails at the near
end Harold was leaning in his
flannels talking to the two sisters,
who stood listening to him with
their long dark shadows streaming
down the lawn behind them. The
girls were dressed alike in dark
skirts, with light pink tennis
blouses and pink bands on their
straw hats, so that as they stood
with the soft red of the setting
sun tinging their faces, Clara,
demure and quiet, Ida, mischievous
and daring, it was a group which
might have pleased the eye of
a more exacting critic than the
old sailor.
"Yes, he looks happy, mother," he
repeated, with a chuckle. "It
is not so long ago since it was
you and I who were standing like
that, and I don't remember that
we were very unhappy either.
It was croquet in our time, and
the ladies had not reefed in
their skirts quite so taut. What
year would it be? Just before
the commission of the Penelope."
Mrs.
Hay Denver
ran her fingers
through his grizzled hair. "It
was when you came back in the
Antelope, just before you got
your step."
"Ah,
the old Antelope!
What a clipper
she was! She
could
sail two points nearer the wind
than anything of her tonnage
in the service. You remember
her, mother. You saw her come
into Plymouth Bay. Wasn't she
a beauty?"
"She
was indeed,
dear. But when
I say that
I think that
Harold is not happy I mean in
his daily life. Has it never
struck you how thoughtful, he
is at times, and how absent-minded?"
"In
love perhaps,
the young dog.
He seems to
have found
snug
moorings now at any rate."
"I think that it is very likely
that you are right, Willy," answered
the mother seriously. "But with
which of them?"
"I
cannot tell."
"Well,
they are very
charming girls,
both of them.
But as long
as he hangs in the wind between
the two it cannot be serious.
After all, the boy is four-and-twenty,
and he made five hundred pounds
last year. He is better able
to marry than I was when I was
lieutenant."
"I think that we can see which
it is now," remarked the observant
mother. Charles Westmacott had
ceased to knock the tennis balls
about, and was chatting with
Clara Walker, while Ida and Harold
Denver were still talking by
the railing with little outbursts
of laughter. Presently a fresh
set was formed, and Doctor Walker,
the odd man out, came through
the wicket gate and strolled
up the garden walk.
"Good evening, Mrs. Hay Denver," said
he, raising his broad straw hat. "May
I come in?"
"Good
evening, Doctor!
Pray do!"
"Try one of these," said the
Admiral, holding out his cigar-case. "They
are not bad. I got them on the
Mosquito Coast. I was thinking
of signaling to you, but you
seemed so very happy out there."
"Mrs. Westmacott is a very
clever woman," said the Doctor,
lighting the cigar. "By the way,
you spoke about the Mosquito
Coast just now. Did you see much
of the Hyla when you were out
there?"
"No such name on the list," answered
the seaman, with decision. "There's
the Hydra, a harbor defense turret-ship,
but she never leaves the home
waters."
The
Doctor laughed. "We live
in two separate worlds," said
he. "The Hyla is the little green
tree frog, and Beale has founded
some of his views on protoplasm
upon the appearancer, of its
nerve cells. It is a subject
in which I take an interest."
"There
were vermin
of all sorts
in the woods. When I have been
on river service I have heard
it at night like the engine-room
when you are on the measured
mile. You can't sleep for the
piping, and croaking, and chirping.
Great Scott! what a woman that
is! She was across the lawn in
three jumps. She would have made
a captain of the foretop in the
old days."
"She
is a very remarkable
woman.
"A
very cranky
one."
"A very sensible one in some
things," remarked Mrs. Hay Denver.
"Look at that now!" cried the
Admiral, with a lunge of his
forefinger at the Doctor. "You
mark my words, Walker, if we
don't look out that woman will
raise a mutiny with her preaching.
Here's my wife disaffected already,
and your girls will be no better.
We must combine, man, or there's
an end of all discipline."
"No doubt she is a little excessive
in her views." said the Doctor, "but
in the main I think as she does."
"Bravo, Doctor!" cried
the lady.
"What,
turned traitor
to your sex!
We'll court-martial
you
as a deserter."
"She
is quite right.
The professions
are not sufficiently open to
women. They are still far too
much circumscribed in their employments.
They are a feeble folk, the women
who have to work for their bread--poor,
unorganized, timid, taking as
a favor what they might demand
as a right. That is why their
case is not more constantly before
the public, for if their cry
for redress was as great as their
grievance it would fill the world
to the exclusion of all others.
It is all very well for us to
be courteous to the rich, the
refined, those to whom life is
already made easy. It is a mere
form, a trick of manner. If we
are truly courteous, we shall
stoop to lift up struggling womanhood
when she really needs our help--when
it is life and death to her whether
she has it or not. And then to
cant about it being unwomanly
to work in the higher professions.
It is womanly enough to starve,
but unwomanly to use the brains
which God has given them. Is
it not a monstrous contention?"
The
Admiral chuckled. "You
are like one of these phonographs,
Walker," said he; "you have had
all this talked into you, and
now you are reeling it off again.
It's rank mutiny, every word
of it, for man has his duties
and woman has hers, but they
are as separate as their natures
are. I suppose that we shall
have a woman hoisting her pennant
on the flagship presently, and
taking command of the Channel
Squadron."
"Well, you have a woman on
the throne taking command of
the whole nation," remarked his
wife; "and everybody is agreed
that she does it better than
any of the men."
The
Admiral was
somewhat staggered
by this home-thrust. "That's
quite another thing," said he.
"You
should come
to their next
meeting. I am to take the chair.
I have just promised Mrs. Westmacott
that I will do so. But it has
turned chilly, and it is time
that the girls were indoors.
Good night! I shall look out
for you after breakfast for our
constitutional, Admiral."
The old sailor looked after
his friend with a twinkle in
his eyes.
"How
old is he,
mother?"
"About
fifty, I think."
"And
Mrs. Westmacott?"
"I
heard that
she was forty-three."
The
Admiral rubbed
his hands,
and shook with
amusement. "We'll
find one of these days that three
and two make one," said he. I'll
bet you a new bonnet on it, mother. |