Nell, of Shorne Mills Part 59

Presently she began to feel faint rather than hungry, and she went into the refreshment room and asked for a gla.s.s of milk. While she was drinking it a gentleman came in. She saw that it was Lord Wolfer, and set down the gla.s.s and waited. The man seemed totally changed. The sternness had disappeared from his face, and his eyes were bright with his newly found happiness.

"Why have you come?" she asked dully.

"I had to," he said. "I--I wanted to tell you--you were right--yes, you were right! I was blind. We were both blind! We are going abroad to-day--together. She has asked for you--almost directly--almost as if she--she suspected that you had brought us together! I told her that you had been sent for by Sophia. I wish you were not going; I wish you were coming with us!"

Nell shook her head wearily; and he nodded. He seemed years younger; and his old stiffness had disappeared from his manner, the grave solemnity from his voice.

"That is my train," said Nell.

He looked at her wistfully, as if he longed to take her back with him, but Nell walked resolutely down the platform, and he put her into a first-cla.s.s compartment. Then he got some papers and magazines, and laid them on the seat beside her. It was evident that he did not know how sufficiently to express his grat.i.tude.

"Your going is the only alloy to my--our happiness!" he said.

Nell smiled drearily.

"You will soon forget me," she could not help saying.

"Never! Don't think that!" he said. "Have you wired to say that you are coming?"

Nell shook her head.

"I will do so," he said.

The guard made his last inspection of the carriages, and Wolfer held her hand.

"Good-by," he said. "And--and thank you!"

The words were conventional enough, but Nell understood, and was comforted.

As the train left the station, the boys from the book stall came along with the early edition of the evening papers.

"Paper, miss?" asked one, standing on the step. "Evening paper? Sudden death of the Hearl of Hangleford!"

But Nell had no desire for an evening paper, and, shaking her head, sank back with a sigh.

CHAPTER XXV.

Beaumont Buildings is scarcely the place one would choose in which to spend a summer's day; for, though they reach unto the heavens, they are, like most of their kind, somewhat stuffy, the dust of the great city in all their nooks and corners, and the noise of the crowded life penetrates even to the topmost flat.

The agent, a man of fine imagination and unlimited descriptive powers, states that Beaumont Buildings is "situated in a fashionable locality"; but though Fashion may dwell close at hand, and its carriages sometimes roll luxuriously through the street in which the Buildings tower, the street is a grimy and rather squalid one, in which most of the houses are shops--shops of the cheap and useful kind which cater for the poor.

There is always a noise and a blare in Beaumont Street. The butcher not only displays his joints and "block ornaments" outside his shop, but proclaims their excellence in stentorian tones; and the grocer and fruiterer and fishmonger compete with the costermongers, who stand yelling beside their barrows from early morn to late and gaslit night.

The smells of Beaumont Street are innumerable, and like unto the sea sh.e.l.ls for variety; and the scent of oranges, the pungent odor of fried fish, from the shop down the side street, and that vague smell familiar to all who dwell in the heart of London, rise and enter the open windows.

On the pavement and in the roadway, among the cabs and tradesmen's carts, the children play and yell and screech; and at night the song of the intoxicated as he rolls homeward, or is conveyed to the nearest cell by the guardian of the peace he is breaking, flits across the dreams of those in the Buildings who are so unfortunate as to sleep lightly; and they are many.

And yet in a small room of a small flat on the fourth floor of this Babel of noise and unrest sat Nell.

Eighteen months had pa.s.sed since she made her sacrifice and left Wolfer House. The black dress in which she looked so slight, and against which the ivory pallor of her face was accentuated, was worn as mourning for Mrs. Lorton; for that estimable lady had genteelly faded away, and Nell and d.i.c.k were alone in this transitory world.

The sun was pouring through the open window, and Nell had dragged her chair into the angle of the wall just out of the reach of the hot beams, but still near the window, in the hope of catching something of the smoke-laden air which away out in the country must be blowing so fresh and sweetly.

As she bent over the coat which she was mending for d.i.c.k, she was thinking of one place over which that same air was at that moment wafting the scent of the sea and the flowers--Shorne Mills; and, as she raised her eyes and glanced at the triangular patch of sky which was framed by the roofs of the opposite houses, she could see the picture she loved quite distinctly, and almost hear--notwithstanding the intermezzo banged out by the piano organ in the street below--the songs and whistling of the fishermen, and the flap of the sails against the masts. Let the noise in and outside the Buildings be as great as it might, she could always lose herself in memories of Shorne Mills; and if sorrow's crown of sorrow be the remembering of happier days, such remembrance is not without its consolation.

When d.i.c.k and she had come to the Buildings, two months ago, Nell felt as if she should never get used to the crowded place and its mult.i.tudinous discomforts; but time had rendered life, even amid such surroundings, tolerable; and there were moments in which some phase of the human comedy always being played around her brought the smile to her pale face.

Presently she glanced at the tiny clock on the mantelshelf, and, laying the coat aside, put the kettle on the fire, and got ready for tea; for d.i.c.k would soon be home from the great engineering works on the other side of the water, and he liked his tea "to meet him on the stairs."

As she was cutting the bread for the toast there came a knock at the door, and in answer to her "Come in!" the door was opened halfway, and a head appeared around it.

"I beg your pardon, Miss Lorton. Lorton not in? I thought I heard his step," said a man's voice, but one almost as soft as a woman's.

Nell scarcely looked up from her task; the tenants of Beaumont Buildings are sociable, and their visits to one another were not limited to the fashionable hours. For instance, the borrowing and returning of a saucepan or a sewing machine, or some lump sugar, went on all day, and sometimes late into the night; and the borrower or lender often granted or accepted a loan without stopping the occupation which he or she happened to be engaged in at the entrance of the other party.

"Not yet. It is scarcely his time, Mr. Falconer. Is it anything I can do?"

The young man came in slowly and with a certain timidity, and stood by the mantelshelf, looking down at her as she knelt and toasted the bread.

He was very thin--painfully so--and very pale. There were shadows round his large, dark eyes--the eyes of a man who dreams--and his black hair, worn rather long, swept away from a forehead as white as a woman's, but with two deep lines between the eyes which told the story of pain suffered patiently and in silence.

His hands were long and thin--the hands of a musician--and the one on which his chin rested as he leaned against the mantelshelf trembled slightly. He had been practicing for three hours. He wore an old, a very old black velvet jacket, and trousers bulgy at the knees and frayed at the edges; but both were well brushed, and his shirt and collar were scrupulously clean, though, like the trousers, they; showed signs of wear.

He occupied a room just above the Lortons' flat, and the sound of his piano and violin had entered so fully into Nell's daily life that she was sometimes conscious of a feeling of uneasiness when it ceased, and often caught herself waiting for it to begin again.

"Is it anything I can do?" she asked again, as he remained silent and lost in watching her.

"Oh, no!" he said. "I wanted him to help me lift the piano to another part of the room. The sun comes right on to it now, and it's hot. I tried by myself, but----" He stopped, as if he were ashamed of his weakness. "You've no idea how heavy a piano can make itself, especially on a hot day."

"He will be in directly, and delighted to help you. Meanwhile, help me make the toast, and stop to tea with us."

"I'll help you with the toast," he said. "But I've had my tea, thanks."

It was a falsehood, for he had run out of tea two days before; but he was proud as well as poor, which is a mistake.

"Oh, well, you can pretend to drink another cup," said Nell lightly; for she knew that the truth was not in his statement.

He stuck a slice of bread on a toasting fork, but did not kneel down before the fire for a moment or two.

"Your room faces the same way as mine," he said. "But it always seems cooler." His dark eyes wandered round meditatively. Small as the room was, it had that air of neatness which indicates the presence of a lady.

The tea cloth was white, the few ornaments and pictures--brought from The Cottage--the small bookcase and wicker-work basket gave a touch of refinement, which was wholly wanting in his own spa.r.s.ely furnished and always untidy den. "Coming in here is like--like coming into another world. I feel sometimes as if I should like to suggest that you should charge sixpence for admission. It would be worth that sum to most of the people in the Buildings, as a lesson in the use and beauty of soap and water and a duster."

Nell smiled.

"I think it is wonderful that they keep their rooms as clean as they do, seeing that every time one opens the windows the blacks pour in----"