The Call of the Town Part 14

A sudden sense of the value of Edgar's services in her love affair with Henry filled Flo with regret for having been spiteful to her dear brother, and she at once endeavoured to save him from further unfavourable criticism by expressing the belief that Henry would doubtless help to advance him all he could. When the first opportunity offered, Flo drew Edgar again to her favourite topic, and had quite smoothed away any ruffles in her brother's temper before she reached this diplomatic point:

"Now that Henry has so much in his power, you must keep on the best of terms with him. Get him to come and see us as often as you can. Why not ask him to dine with us on Sunday next? He could stay until required at the office."

"Not much use of that, I fancy; Sat.u.r.day is about the only day he is likely to come."

"Nonsense! Sunday should suit as well," with a touch of impatience.

"But you must remember, Flo, that Henry isn't like us. Unless he has changed more than I know, there is a big chunk of the go-to-meeting young man left in him; you never know when you may b.u.mp up against some of his religious principles. You remember that he used to go to church with as much pleasure as an ordinary chap goes to a music-hall. In fact, he did the thing as easily as take his dinner."

"Yes, yes; but he is getting over those narrow-minded country ways."

"Perhaps you are right. You don't find much of that antiquated religious nonsense among us gentlemen of the Press--hem, hem!--Henry's is the only case of the kind that I have seen. But there is hope for him yet," and Edgar laughed heartily at his own wit, while Flo rewarded him with a smile as she pushed home the one point she wished to make.

"Then you think you may be able to induce him to spend Sunday with us?"

"I'll do my best. Can't say more. Usual dinner hour, I suppose?"

"Two o'clock. That gives him time for forenoon church--if he really must go."

Much to Edgar's surprise, and more to his satisfaction, the editor of the _Leader_ consented with unusual readiness to honour the Wintons the following Sunday, and when the day came Henry was not at the forenoon service. He was not even annoyed at himself for having lain abed too long. His mind was filled with thoughts of the importance he had suddenly a.s.sumed in the eyes of many who had previously seemed unaware of his existence. Even the church folk, among whom he had moved for years almost unfriended, were now curiously interested in him, and the vicar had done him the remarkable honour of inviting him to dinner to meet several gentlemen prominent in the religious and social life of the city, an invitation which it had given Henry a malicious pleasure to refuse, as the memory of his cold entrances and exits through the door of Holy Trinity contrasted frigidly with this unfamiliar friendliness.

Yet the vicar was a good man, and the church folk were in the main good people too. Henry's experience was no unusual one, nor unnatural. It was but the outcome of that pride of youth which, while one is hungry for friendship, restrains one from any show of a desire to make friends. He was not the first nor the last young man who coming from a small town or village where the church life has an intimate social side, expects something of the same in the larger communion of the city, and is chilled by what seems frosty indifference. The fault, however--if any fault there be--lies nearly always with the individual, and not with his fellow-Christians. So, or not; religion is no matter of hand-shaking and social smirks. The truth is that Henry had at last been touched by that dread complaint of Self-importance, from which before he had appeared to be immune.

A swelling head, from the contemplation of one's importance in the great drama of life, and a heart swelling with thoughts of one young woman, are two phenomena which make the bachelor days of all men remarkably alike at one stage or another.

If "the youngest editor of any daily newspaper in England" (_vide_ the _Fourth Estate_) let the church slide that Sunday morning, he devoted as much care to his personal appearance as the least devout of ladies to her Easter Sunday toilet. When he arrived at the Wintons, arrayed in a well-fitting frock-coat and glossy silk hat, there was no least lingering trace of the outward Henry we knew of old.

The dinner was very daintily served indeed; there was a touch of pleasant luxury about the meal which contrasted most favourably with the homely cuisine of Hampton Bagot, to say nothing of his lonely bachelor dinners. He knew that the hand which had set this table and superintended that meal was Flo's, and a.s.sured himself he was on the right tack. What a charming hostess she would make! How well she would entertain his friends, and do the honours of his house! It was in pure innocence of heart, and merely with a desire to agreeably tease the visitor, that Mr. Winton remarked during the meal:

"Well, Henry, you are quite an important personage now; the next thing we shall hear is that you have blossomed out with a fine villa in Park Road, and--a wife!"

From the mother--any mother--such an observation would, in all likelihood, have been prompted by thoughts of a daughter; but not from the father--not from any father.

Flo tried not to look conscious; though under cover of her apparent indifference she stole an anxious glance at Henry, who only laughed. The laugh was not convincing of the indifference which his speech suggested:

"Plenty of time for that, Mr. Winton. I have a lot to do before I turn my thoughts to the domestic side of life. Besides, it means a year or two of saving."

Flo imagined that for one brief second the eye of their interesting visitor rested upon her as he delivered himself so to her father.

It was the first occasion since the old days at Wheelton that Henry had engaged to spend more than an hour or two at the Wintons, and the drawing-room conversation seeming to flag a little after dinner, Flo suggested a walk. The weather was alluring, and Laysford on an autumn day is one of the most lovable towns in England. Henry was nothing loth, and for the sake of appearance, Edgar was included; but before they had reached the green banks of the River Lays the obliging fellow had suddenly remembered an appointment with a friend who lived in an opposite direction, and Flo and Henry were bereft of his company for the remainder of the walk, which now lay along the grove of elms by the river-side.

"It's really too bad of Edgar," said Flo, with a fine show of indignation when he had gone. "One can't depend on him for five minutes at a time; he's always rushing away like that."

"Never mind," replied Mr. Henry Innocent, glancing at his companion in a way that showed the situation was by no means disagreeable to him. "He will very likely be home before we get back."

"But I am afraid you will find me dull company," she said, although shining eyes and an arch smile gave flat contradiction to the words.

"I don't think you need be afraid of that."

"Really! Why?"

"Because you must know it is not the case."

Thus and thus, as in the past, now, and always, your loving couples. The gabble-gabble reads tame in print, and we will listen no further. Let them have their fill of it; their giggles, their tiffs if they may; why should the stuff be written down? But this must be said: Flo had reason to believe that the affair of her heart was making progress. She thought that Henry was coming out of his sh.e.l.l, and the process was of deep interest to her.

Edgar had not returned when the couple reached home, and he was absent from the tea-table. The day had been rich indeed to Flo, and Henry was almost in as high spirits as his companion. When the evening bells pealed out for church he still dawdled in the undevotional atmosphere of the Wintons' drawing-room. Yet even for him they did not ring in vain.

At their sweet sound the shutter of forgetfulness was raised from his mind, and he saw again a tiny country church perched on a green hill; a ragged file of homely folk trailing up the path and through the lych-gate, familiar faces all in the long-ago; and from the vicarage, with failing step, the grey-haired pastor of the flock, and by the old man's side the figure of a sweet woman, on which for a moment his mental vision lingered, to be rudely broken by--"A penny for your thoughts, Mr.

Editor," from Flo.

The shutter came down with a rush.

CHAPTER XIV

FATE AND A FIDDLER

IN the life of journalism--many ways the least conventional of callings, in which there remains even in our prosaic day a savour of Bohemianism--there is still the need to observe the conventions of a commercial age. An editor who familiarises with his reporters imperils his authority, for every man of his staff considers himself to be as good a craftsman as the editor; and does not the humblest junior carry in his wallet the potential quill of an editor-in-chief?

A newspaper, moreover, for all the prating about the profession of journalism, is as much a business establishment as the grocer's round the corner. _Ergo_, if the grocer has his villa, so must the editor. If the editor be a bachelor, then the dignity of his paper demands that he shall take lodging in the most pretentious neighbourhood his means will allow.

Perhaps this had not occurred to Henry until a fairly broad hint from the manager indicated what was expected of him. Perhaps, also, it was the need to move into "swagger diggings" that superinduced the aforesaid attack of "swelled head." Henry justified to himself his removal, and the increased expense entailed thereby, on the ground that his collection of books, mainly review copies, defaced by obnoxious rubber stamps--"With the publisher's compliments"--was rapidly growing beyond the accommodation of his tiny sitting-room. So to the s.p.a.cious house of a certain Mrs. Arkwright, in the aristocratic neighbourhood of Park Road, he moved with his belongings.

His new apartments were luxurious beyond the wildest dreams of his early youth, and for that reason alone he stood in imminent danger of developing expensive tastes. Ah, these furnished apartments of our bachelor days! At an outlay comparatively small contrasted with the immediate end attained, they lift the young man into an easeful atmosphere he would fain continue when he sets up house of his own; only to find that the hire of two well-appointed rooms is child's play to the maintenance of a house on the same scale. With the more cautious the convenience of first-cla.s.s apartments makes housekeeping appear formidable. And there you have the secret "love story" of many an easy bachelor.

Mrs. Arkwright's house was filled with well-paying lodgers, but as all had their separate rooms, while the landlady's family occupied the bas.e.m.e.nt, there was not much common intercourse between the paying guests--for it should have been noted that Henry had now pa.s.sed into a locality where the word "lodger" was taboo, and the evasive euphemism "paying guest" took its place.

At first Henry was too much interested in himself and his regal "we" to concern himself greatly about the other lodgers, and in any case his regular absence at the office every night would almost have served for a "Box and c.o.x" arrangement. But sometimes, as he had been about to leave in the evening for his editorial duties, he had heard the delicious strains of a 'cello superbly played in the room above him, and although no judge of music, he felt that the unseen player must be a person of some character, for the wailing note of the music bore with it a strong individual touch. It seemed to him that this fingering of the minor chords bespoke a performer whose personality was as distinctly expressed in music as an author's soul is bared in his written words.

The unknown musician piqued his curiosity. Who was the occupant of the room overhead, whose soul gave forth that mournful note? There was something, too, in the music very soothing to him. One night he lingered, listening to the player, following the plaintive cadence of the piece till the music trailed away into silence, when he noticed with a start that it was half an hour behind the time he was usually to be found at his desk. He fancied after this evening that there was something in the room overhead he would have to reckon with.

The ident.i.ty of the unknown player could easily have been settled by consulting Mrs. Arkwright, but that lady was almost as mournful as the music, and strangly reserved, so Henry refrained for a time from mentioning the subject to her. Besides, there was a pleasant element of mystery in the thing, which appealed to his imagination. But at last curiosity came uppermost, and while she was laying his supper about eight o'clock one evening--the last meal of the day before setting out for his nightly task--he asked the landlady who occupied the room above.

"Well now, Mr. Charles," she answered, almost brightly, as though struck with some coincidence, "it is strange you should speak of him, for only this very day he was speaking to me of you."

"Indeed! Then it's a him?"

"Yes, sir; a gentleman," with a pursing of the lips.

"Young, I suppose?"

"Not much older than you, sir. But he has seen a lot of the world."

This was accepted as an unconscious reflection on his own experience.

"Been here long?"