CHAPTER VII.
ON RICHMOND HILL.
It was the hour before sunset when Harry Ringrose took the train fromEarl's Court to Richmond, and, referring to an envelope which Lowndeshad given him overnight, inquired his way to Sandringham, GrevilleRoad, Richmond Hill. Having no experience of suburban London, he wasprepared to find a mansion not absolutely unworthy of its name, and wasrather astonished at having to give that of the road to the policemanwho directed him. He had half expected that officer to look impressedand say, "Oh, yes, Mr. Lowndes's; the large house on the hill; youcan't mistake it." For though he gathered that Lowndes was only aboutto become a millionaire, and that his contempt for creditors wasfounded upon some former personal experience of that obnoxious class,it nevertheless appeared to Harry that his friend must be pretty welloff as it was. At all events, he thought nothing of losing the lasttrain and driving all this way home.
Harry had never been in Richmond before, and the picturesque featureswith which its narrow streets still abound were by no means lost uponhim. Here a quaint gable, and there a tile roof, sunken and discolouredwith sheer age, reminded him that he was indeed in the old country oncemore; and he rejoiced in the fact with a blessed surcease of the painand shame with which his home-coming had been fraught. May was in hisblood; and as he climbed the hill the words of the old song, thatanother Richmond claims, rang so loud in his head that he had a work tokeep them back from his lips:--
"On Richmond Hill there lives a lass, More bright than May-day morn;Whose charms all other maids' surpass--A rose without a thorn. Thislass so neat, with smiles so sweet, Has won my right good will. I'dcrowns resign to call her mine, Sweet lass of Richmond Hill!"
The young fellow could not help thinking that it was a lass of RichmondHill he was about to meet, and wondering whether her smiles would provesweet, and her charms superior to those of all other maids. HarryRingrose had never been in love. He had been duly foolish in his callowday, but that was nothing. From the firm pedestal of one-and-twenty hecould look back, and lay his hand upon his heart, and aver with truththat it had never been irretrievably lost. Nevertheless, Harry wasquite prepared to lose his heart as soon as ever he realised the idealwhich was graven upon it; or he had been so prepared until therevelation of these last days had hurled such idle aspirations to thewinds. But, for some reason, the memory of that revelation did nothaunt him this evening; and, accordingly, he was so prepared once more.
One of the many inconveniences of preconceiving your fate lies in thenervous feeling that it may be lurking round every corner in the shapeof every woman you are about to meet. Even when he met them Harry wasnot always sure. His ideal was apt to be elastic in the face of obviouscharms. It was only the impossibles that he knew at sight, such as thegirl who was climbing the hill ahead of him at this moment. Harry wouldnot have looked twice at her but for one circumstance.
She was tall and well-built, on a far larger scale than Harry caredabout, and yet she was continually changing a bag which she carriedfrom one hand to the other. It was a leather travelling-bag, of noexcessive size, but as she carried it in one hand her body bent itselfthe other way; and she never had it in the same hand long.
The hill was steep and seemed interminable; it was the warm evening ofa hot day; and Harry, slowly overhauling the young woman, might haveseen that she had pretty hair and ears, but he could think of nothingbut her burden and her fatigue. He could not even think of himself andhis ideals, and had so ceased committing his besetting sin. What he didsee, however, was that the girl was a lady, and he heartily wished thatshe were not. He longed to carry that bag for her, but he could notbring himself to offer to do so. He had too much delicacy or too littlecourage.
Irresolutely he slackened his pace; he was ashamed, despite hisscruples, to pass her callously without a word. He was close behind hernow. He heard her breathing heavily. Was there nothing he could say?Was there no way of putting it without offence? Harry was stillthinking when the knot untied itself. The girl had stopped dead, andput the bag down with a deep sigh, and Harry had caught it up withoutthinking any more.
"What are you doing?" cried the girl. "Give that back to me at once."
Her voice was very indignant, but also a little faint; and the note ofalarm with which it began changed to one of authority as she saw that,at any rate, she was not dealing with a thief.
"I beg your pardon," said Harry, very red, as he raised his hat withhis unoccupied hand; "but--but you really must let me carry it a littleway for you."
"I could not dream of it. Will you kindly give it me back thisinstant?"
The girl was now good-humoured but very firm. She also had coloured,but her lips remained pale with fatigue. And she had very fine,fearless, grey eyes; but Harry found he could defy them in such acause, so that they flashed with anger, and a foot--no very smallone--stamped heartily on the pavement.
"Did you hear what I said?"
"I did; but----"
"Give it to me!"
"It's so heavy."
"Give it to me!"
He was wondering whether the bag was full of jewels, that she was insuch a state about it, when all at once she grabbed at the handle hestill hesitated to relinquish. The bag came open between them--and tohis amazement he saw what it contained.
Coals!
A few fell out upon the pavement. Harry stooped, put them in again, andshut the bag. The young lady had moved away. She was walking on slowlyahead, and from her shoulders Harry feared that she was crying. Hefollowed miserably but doggedly with the bag.
She never looked round, and he never took his eyes from those broad,quivering shoulders. He felt an officious brute, but he had a certainfierce consolation too: he had got his way--he had not been beaten by awoman. And the heaviness of the bag, no longer to be wondered at, wasin itself a justification; he also had changed it from hand to hand,and that more than once, before they came to the top of the hill.
Here he followed his leader down a broad turning to the left, andthence along a smaller road until she stopped before the low woodengate of a shabby little semi-detached house. Evidently this was herdestination, and she was waiting for her bag. And now Harry lostconfidence with every step he took, for the girl stood squarely withher back to the gate, and her eyes were dry but very bright, as thoughshe meant to give him a bit of her mind before she let him go.
"You may put it down here."
Harry did so without a word.
"Thank you. You are a stranger to Richmond, I think?"
The thanks had sounded ironical, and the question took Harry aback. Thegrey eyes looked amused, and it was the last expression he had expectedin them.
"How did you know that?" he simply asked.
"You are too sunburnt for Richmond, and--perhaps--too gallant!"
"Or officious?"
Her pleasant tone put him at his ease.
"No; it was very kind of you, and one good turn deserves another. Wereyou looking for any particular road or house?"
"Yes, for Sandringham, in the Greville Road."
She stood aside and pointed to the name on the little wooden gate.
"Why, this is it!" gasped Harry Ringrose.
"Yes; this is Sandringham," said the girl, with a sort of shamefacedhumour. "No wonder you are disappointed!"
His eyes came guiltily from the little house with the big name. "Thenare you Miss Lowndes?" he inquired aghast.
"That is my name--Mr. Ringrose."
Spoken with the broadest smile, this was the last straw so far asHarry's manners were concerned.
"How on earth do you know mine?" cried he.
"I guessed it in the road."
"How could you?"
"How did I know you were a stranger to Richmond?" rejoined MissLowndes. "Anybody could see that you have come from foreign parts; andI had heard all about you from my father. Besides, I expected you. Ionly hoped to get home first with my coals. And to be caught likethis--it's really too bad!"
"I am awfully sorry,"
murmured Harry, and with such obvious sinceritythat Miss Lowndes smiled again.
"I think you may be!" said she. "One may find that stupidity in thekitchen has run one short of coals at the very moment when they arewanted most, and the quickest thing may be for one to go oneself andborrow a few from a friend. But it's hard lines to be caught doing so,Mr. Ringrose, for all that!"
So this was the explanation. To Harry Ringrose it was both simple andsatisfying; but before he could say a word Miss Lowndes had changed thesubject abruptly by again pointing to the grand name on the gate.
"This is another thing I may as well explain for your benefit, Mr.Ringrose; it is one of my father's little jokes. When he came here hewas so tickled by the small houses with the large names that hedetermined to beat his neighbours at their own game. It was all I coulddo to prevent him from having 'Buckingham Palace' painted on the gate.So you are quite forgiven for finding it difficult to believe that thiswas the house, and also for upsetting my coals. And now I think we mayshake hands and go in."
He took with alacrity the fine firm hand which was held out to him, andfelt already at his ease as he followed Miss Lowndes to the steps,again carrying the bag. By this time, moreover, he had noted andadmired her pretty hair, which was fair with a warm tinge in it, herrather deep but very pleasant voice, and the clear and healthy skinwhich had her father's freshness in finer shades. She was obviouslyolder than Harry, and stronger-minded as well as less beautiful thanhis ideal type. But he had a feeling, even after these few minutes,which had not come to him in all the hours that he had spent withGordon Lowndes. It was the feeling that he had found a real friend.
But the surprises of the evening were only beginning, for while Harrycontemplated a warped and blistered front door, in thorough keepingwith the poverty-stricken appearance of the house, it was opened by aman-servant not unworthy of the millionaire of the immediate future.And yet next moment he found himself in a sitting-room as sordid as theexterior. The visitor was still trying to reconcile thesecontradictions when Miss Lowndes followed him slowly into the room,reading a telegram as she came.
"Are you very hungry, Mr. Ringrose?" said she, looking up in evidentanxiety.
"Not a bit."
"Because I am afraid my father will not be home for another hour. Thisis a telegram from him. He has been detained. But it doesn't seem fairto ask you to wait so long!"
"I should prefer it. I shall do myself much better justice in an hour'stime," said Harry, laughing; but Miss Lowndes still appeared to takethe situation seriously, though she also seemed relieved. And herembarrassment was notable after the way in which she had carried offthe much more trying contretemps in the road. It was as though therewere something dispiriting in the atmosphere of the poky andill-favoured house, something which especially distressed its youngmistress; for they sat for some time without a word, while duskdeepened in the shabby little room; and it was much to Harry's reliefwhen he was suddenly asked if he had ever seen the view from RichmondHill.
"Never," he replied; "will you show it to me, Miss Lowndes? I haveoften heard of it, and I wish you would."
"It would be better than sitting here," said his companion, "though I'mafraid you won't see much in this light. However, it's quite close, andwe can try."
It was good to be in the open air again, but, as Miss Lowndes observed,it was a pity she had not thought of it before. In the park the shadowswere already deep, and the deer straggling across the broad paths asthey never do till nightfall. A warm glow still suffused the west, andwas reflected in the river beneath, where pleasure-boats looked blackas colliers on the belt of pink. It was the hour when it is darkindoors but light without, and yellow windows studded the woody levelswhile the contour of the trees was yet distinct. Even where the rivercoiled from pink to grey the eye could still follow it almost toTwickenham, a leaden track between the leaves.
"I only wish it were an hour earlier," added Miss Lowndes when she hadpointed out her favourite landmarks. "Still, it's a good dealpleasanter here than indoors." She seemed a different being when shewas out of that house; she had been talkative enough since theystarted, but now she turned to Harry.
"Tell me about Africa, Mr. Ringrose. Tell me all the interesting thingsyou saw and did and heard about while you were out there!"
Harry caught his breath with pleasure. It was the unconscious fault ofhis adolescence that he was more eager to convey than receive; it wasthe complementary defect of the quality of enthusiasm which was Harry'sstrongest point. He had landed from his travels loaded like a gun withreminiscence and adventure, but the terrible return to the old home haddamped his priming, and at the new home the future was the one affairof his own of which he had had time or heart to think. But now thethings came back to him which he had come home longing to relate. Heneeded no second bidding from the sympathetic companion at his side,but began telling her, diffidently at first, then with all his boyishgusto as he caught and held her interest, the dozen and one experiencesthat had been on his tongue three days (that seemed three weeks) ago.
To talk and be understood--to talk and be appreciated--it was half thebattle of life with Harry Ringrose at this stage of his career. It istrue that he had seen but little, and true that he had done still less,even in these two last errant years of his. But whatsoever he had seenor done, that had interested him in the least, he could bring homevividly enough to anybody who would give him a sympathetic hearing. Andto do so was a deep and a strange delight to him; not, perhaps,altogether unconnected with mere vanity; but ministering also to asubtler sense of which the possessor was as yet unconscious.
And Miss Lowndes listened to her young Othello, an older and morecritical Desdemona, who liked him less for the dangers he had passedthan for his ingenuous delight in recounting them. The talk indeedinterested, but the talker charmed her, so that she was content tolisten for the most part without a word. Meanwhile they were saunteringfarther and farther afield, and at length the new Desdemona wascompelled to tell Othello they must turn. He complied without pausingin the story. Her next interruption was more serious.
"Don't you write?" she suddenly exclaimed.
"Write what?"
"Things for magazines."
"I wish I did! The magazine at school was the only one I ever tried myhand for. Who told you I wrote?"
"Mrs. Ringrose has shown things to my father, and he thought them verygood. It only just struck me that what you are telling me would makesuch a capital magazine sketch. But it was very rude of me tointerrupt. Please go on."
"No, Miss Lowndes, I've gone on too long as it is! Here have I beentalking away about Africa as though nothing had happened while I wasthere; and it's only three days since I landed and foundout--everything!"
His voice was strangely altered: the shame of forgetting, the pain ofremembering, saddened and embittered every accent. Miss Lowndes,however, who had so plainly shared his enthusiasm, as plainly shrankfrom him in his depression. Harry was too taken up with his ownfeelings to notice this. Nor did he feel his companion's silence; forwhat was there to be said?
"You should take to writing," was what she did say, presently. "Youhave a splendid capital to draw upon."
"Do you write?"
"No."
"It is odd you should speak of it. There's nothing I would sooner dofor a living--and something I've got to do--only I doubt if I have itin me to do any good with my pen. I may have the capital, but Icouldn't lay it out to save my life."
He spoke wistfully, however, as though he were not sure. And now MissLowndes seemed the more sympathethic for her momentary lapse. She wasvery sure indeed.
"You have only to write those things down as you tell them, and I'mcertain they would take!"
"Very well," laughed Harry, "I'll have a try--when I have time. Isuppose you know what your father promises me?"
"No, indeed I don't," cried Miss Lowndes.
"The Secretaryship of this new Company when it comes out!"
For some moments the girl was silent
, and then: "I'd rather see youwriting," she said.
"But this would mean three hundred a year."
"I would rather make one hundred by my pen!"
Harry said that he would, too, as far as liking was concerned, but thatthere were other considerations. He added that of course he did notcount upon the Secretaryship, which seemed far too good a thing to bereally within his reach, for it would be many a day before he was worththree hundred a year in any capacity. Nevertheless, it was very kind ofMr. Lowndes to have thought of such a thing at all.
"He is kind," murmured the girl, breaking a silence which hadinfluenced Harry's tone. And it was a something in her tone that madehim exclaim:
"He is the kindest man I have ever met!"
"You really think so?" she cried, wistfully.
"I know it," said Harry, at once touched and interested by her manner."It isn't as if he'd only been kind to me. He was more than kind threedays ago, and--and I didn't take it very well from him at first; but Ishall never forget it now! It isn't only that, however; it's hiskindness to my dear mother that I feel much more; and then--he was myfather's friend!"
They walked on without a word--they were nearly home now--and this timeHarry thought less of his companion's silence, for what could she say?But already he felt that he could say anything to her, and "You knew myfather?" broke from him in a low voice.
"Oh, yes; I knew him very well."
"He has been here?" said Harry, looking at the semi-detached house witha new and painful interest as they stopped at the gate.
"Yes; two or three times."
"When was the last?"
But the latch clicked with his words, and Miss Lowndes was hastening upthe path.