CHAPTER IX. MY CONVALESCENT HOME
The man Braithwaite met me at the station with a spring cart. The veryporters seemed to expect me, and my luggage was in the cart before Ihad given up my ticket. Nor had we started when I first noticed thatBraithwaite did not speak when I spoke to him. On the way, however, amore flagrant instance recalled young Rattray's remark, that the man was"not like other people." I had imagined it to refer to a mental, nota physical, defect; whereas it was clear to me now that my prospectivelandlord was stone-deaf, and I presently discovered him to be dumb aswell. Thereafter I studied him with some attention during our drive offour or five miles. I called to mind the theory that an innate physicaldeficiency is seldom without its moral counterpart, and I wondered howfar this would apply to the deaf-mute at my side, who was ill-grown,wizened, and puny into the bargain. The brow-beaten face of him wascertainly forbidding, and he thrashed his horse up the hills in adogged, vindictive, thorough-going way which at length made me jumpout and climb one of them on foot. It was the only form of protest thatoccurred to me.
The evening was damp and thick. It melted into night as we drove.I could form no impression of the country, but this seemed desolateenough. I believe we met no living soul on the high road which wefollowed for the first three miles or more. At length we turned into anarrow lane, with a stiff stone wall on either hand, and this eventuallyled us past the lights of what appeared to be a large farm; it wasreally a small hamlet; and now we were nearing our destination. Gateshad to be opened, and my poor driver breathed hard from the continualgetting down and up. In the end a long and heavy cart-track brought usto the loneliest light that I have ever seen. It shone on the side of ahill--in the heart of an open wilderness--as solitary as a beacon-lightat sea. It was the light of the cottage which was to be my temporaryhome.
A very tall, gaunt woman stood in the doorway against the inner glow.She advanced with a loose, long stride, and invited me to enter in avoice harsh (I took it) from disuse. I was warming myself before thekitchen fire when she came in carrying my heaviest box as though it hadnothing in it. I ran to take it from her, for the box was full of books,but she shook her head, and was on the stairs with it before I couldintercept her.
I conceive that very few men are attracted by abnormal strength in awoman; we cannot help it; and yet it was not her strength which firstrepelled me in Mrs. Braithwaite. It was a combination of attributes. Shehad a poll of very dirty and untidy red hair; her eyes were set closetogether; she had the jowl of the traditional prize-fighter. But farmore disagreeable than any single feature was the woman's expression,or rather the expression which I caught her assuming naturally, andbanishing with an effort for my benefit. To me she was strenuouslycivil in her uncouth way. But I saw her give her husband one look, ashe staggered in with my comparatively light portmanteau, which sheinstantly snatched out of his feeble arms. I saw this look again beforethe evening was out, and it was such a one as Braithwaite himself hadfixed upon his horse as he flogged it up the hills.
I began to wonder how the young squire had found it in his conscience torecommend such a pair. I wondered less when the woman finally usheredme upstairs to my rooms. These were small and rugged, but eminently snugand clean. In each a good fire blazed cheerfully; my portmanteau wasalready unstrapped, the table in the sitting-room already laid; and Icould not help looking twice at the silver and the glass, so bright wastheir condition, so good their quality. Mrs. Braithwaite watched me fromthe door.
"I doubt you'll be thinking them's our own," said she. "I wish theywere; t'squire sent 'em in this afternoon."
"For my use?"
"Ay; I doubt he thought what we had ourselves wasn't good enough. An'it's him 'at sent t' armchair, t'bed-linen, t'bath, an' that therelookin'-glass an' all."
She had followed me into the bedroom, where I looked with redoubledinterest at each object as she mentioned it, and it was in the glass--amasqueline shaving-glass--that I caught my second glimpse of mylandlady's evil expression--levelled this time at myself.
I instantly turned round and told her that I thought it very kind of Mr.Rattray, but that, for my part, I was not a luxurious man, and that Ifelt rather sorry the matter had not been left entirely in her hands.She retired seemingly mollified, and she took my sympathy with her,though I was none the less pleased and cheered by my new friend's zealfor my comfort; there were even flowers on my table, without a doubtfrom Kirby Hall.
And in another matter the squire had not misled me: the woman was anexcellent plain cook. I expected ham and eggs. Sure enough, this was mydish, but done to a turn. The eggs were new and all unbroken, the hamso lean and yet so tender, that I would not have exchanged my humble,hearty meal for the best dinner served that night in London. It made anew man of me, after my long journey and my cold, damp drive. I was forchatting with Mrs. Braithwaite when she came up to clear away. Ithought she might be glad to talk after the life she must lead with herafflicted husband, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect on her.All I elicited was an ambiguous statement as to the distance between thecottage and the hall; it was "not so far." And so she left me to my pipeand to my best night yet, in the stillest spot I have ever slept inon dry land; one heard nothing but the bubble of a beck; and it seemedvery, very far away.
A fine, bright morning showed me my new surroundings in their truecolors; even in the sunshine these were not very gay. But gayety was thelast thing I wanted. Peace and quiet were my whole desire, and both werehere, set in scenery at once lovely to the eye and bracing to the soul.
From the cottage doorstep one looked upon a perfect panorama ofhealthy, open English country. Purple hills hemmed in a broad, green,undulating plateau, scored across and across by the stone walls of thenorth, and all dappled with the shadows of rolling leaden clouds withsilver fringes. Miles away a church spire stuck like a spike out of thehollow, and the smoke of a village dimmed the trees behind. No nearerhabitation could I see. I have mentioned a hamlet which we passed in thespring-cart. It lay hidden behind some hillocks to the left. My landladytold me it was better than half a mile away, and "nothing when you getthere; no shop; no post-office; not even a public--house."
I inquired in which direction lay the hall. She pointed to the nearesttrees, a small forest of stunted oaks, which shut in the view to theright, after quarter of a mile of a bare and rugged valley. Through thisvalley twisted the beck which I had heard faintly in the night. It ranthrough the oak plantation and so to the sea, some two or three milesfurther on, said my landlady; but nobody would have thought it was sonear.
"T'squire was to be away to-day," observed the woman, with the broadvowel sound which I shall not attempt to reproduce in print. "He wasgoing to Lancaster, I believe."
"So I understood," said I. "I didn't think of troubling him, if that'swhat you mean. I'm going to take his advice and fish the beck."
And I proceeded to do so after a hearty early dinner: the keen, chillair was doing me good already: the "perfect quiet" was finding itsway into my soul. I blessed my specialist, I blessed Squire Rattray, Iblessed the very villains who had brought us within each other's ken;and nowhere was my thanksgiving more fervent than in the deep cleftthreaded by the beck; for here the shrewd yet gentle wind passedcompletely overhead, and the silence was purged of oppression by theceaseless symphony of clear water running over clean stones.
But it was no day for fishing, and no place for the fly, though I wentthrough the form of throwing one for several hours. Here the streammerely rinsed its bed, there it stood so still, in pools of liquidamber, that, when the sun shone, the very pebbles showed their shadowsin the deepest places. Of course I caught nothing; but, towards theclose of the gold-brown afternoon, I made yet another new acquaintance,in the person of a little old clergyman who attacked me pleasantly fromthe rear.
"Bad day for fishing, sir," croaked the cheery voice which firstinformed me of his presence. "Ah, I knew it must be a stranger," hecried as I turned and he hopped down to my side with the activity of amuch you
nger man.
"Yes," I said, "I only came down from London yesterday. I find the spotso delightful that I haven't bothered much about the sport. Still, I'vehad about enough of it now." And I prepared to take my rod to pieces.
"Spot and sport!" laughed the old gentleman. "Didn't mean it for apun, I hope? Never could endure puns! So you came down yesterday, younggentleman, did you? And where may you be staying?"
I described the position of my cottage without the slightest hesitation;for this parson did not scare me; except in appearance he had solittle in common with his type as I knew it. He had, however, about theshrewdest pair of eyes that I have ever seen, and my answer only servedto intensify their open scrutiny.
"How on earth did you come to hear of a God-forsaken place like this?"said he, making use, I thought, of a somewhat stronger expression thanquite became his cloth.
"Squire Rattray told me of it," said I.
"Ha! So you're a friend of his, are you?" And his eyes went through andthrough me like knitting-needles through a ball of wool.
"I could hardly call myself that," said I. "But Mr. Rattray has beenvery kind to me."
"Meet him in town?"
I said I had, but I said it with some coolness, for his tone had droppedinto the confidential, and I disliked it as much as this string ofquestions from a stranger.
"Long ago, sir?" he pursued.
"No, sir; not long ago," I retorted.
"May I ask your name?" said he.
"You may ask what you like," I cried, with a final reversal of all myfirst impressions of this impertinent old fellow; "but I'm hanged ifI tell it you! I am here for rest and quiet, sir. I don't ask you yourname. I can't for the life of me see what right you have to ask me mine,or to question me at all, for that matter."
He favored me with a brief glance of extraordinary suspicion. It fadedaway in mere surprise, and, next instant, my elderly and reverend friendwas causing me some compunction by coloring like a boy.
"You may think my curiosity mere impertinence, sir," said he; "you wouldthink otherwise if you knew as much as I do of Squire Rattray's friends,and how little you resemble the generality of them. You might even feelsome sympathy for one of the neighboring clergy, to whom this godlessyoung man has been for years as a thorn in their side."
He spoke so gravely, and what he said was so easy to believe, that Icould not but apologize for my hasty words.
"Don't name it, sir," said the clergyman; "you had a perfect right toresent my questions, and I enjoy meeting young men of spirit; but notwhen it's an evil spirit, such as, I fear, possesses your friend! I doassure you, sir, that the best thing I have heard of him for years isthe very little that you have told me. As a rule, to hear of him at allin this part of the world, is to wish that we had not heard. I see himcoming, however, and shall detain you no longer, for I don't deny thatthere is no love lost between us."
I looked round, and there was Rattray on the top of the bank, a longway to the left, coming towards me with a waving hat. An extraordinaryejaculation brought me to the right-about next instant.
The old clergyman had slipped on a stone in mid-stream, and, as hedragged a dripping leg up the opposite bank, he had sworn an oath worthyof the "godless young man" who had put him to flight, and on whosedemerits he had descanted with so much eloquence and indignation.