Works of Ellen Wood, page 1105
Mr. Coney had to see to the new house then upon his own responsibility; and when it was finished and the workmen were gone out of it, he went over to Worcester, following Dr. Lewis’s request, and ordered in a sufficiency of plain furniture. By the middle of June all was ready, a maid-servant engaged, and the doctor and his daughter were at liberty to come when they pleased.
We had just got home for the Midsummer holidays when they arrived. Old Coney took me to the station to meet them; he said there might be parcels to carry. Once, a French lady had come on a visit to the farm, and she brought with her fifteen small hand-packages and a bandbox.
“And these people are French, too, you see, Johnny,” reasoned old Coney. “Lewis can’t be called anything better, and the girl was born there. Can’t even speak English, perhaps. I’m sure he has had time to forget his native tongue.”
But they spoke English just as readily and fluently as we did; even the young lady, Anne, had not the slightest foreign accent. And there were no small packages; nothing but three huge trunks and a sort of large reticule, which she carried herself, and would not give up to me. I liked her looks the moment I saw her. You know I always take likes or dislikes. A rather tall girl, light and graceful, with a candid face, a true and sweet voice, and large, soft brown eyes that met mine frankly and fearlessly.
But the doctor! He was like a shadow. A tall man, with stooping shoulders, handsome, thin features, hollow cheeks, and scanty hair. But every look and movement bespoke the gentleman; every tone of his low voice was full of considerate courtesy.
“What a poor weak fellow!” lamented old Coney aside to me. “It’s just the Thomas Lewis of the years gone by; no health, no stamina. I’m afraid he has only come home to die.”
They liked the house, and liked everything in it; and he thanked old Coney very earnestly for the trouble he had taken. I never saw a man, as I learnt later, so considerate for the feelings of others, or so grateful for any little service rendered to himself.
“It is delightful,” said Miss Lewis, smiling at me. “I shall call it our little château. And those hills in the distance are the beautiful Malvern Hills that my father has so often told me of!”
“How well you speak English!” I said. “Just as we do.”
“Do you suppose I could do otherwise, when my father and my mother were English? It is in truth my native tongue. I think I know England better than France. I have always heard so much of it.”
“But you speak French as a native?”
“Oh, of course. German also.”
“Ah, I see you are an accomplished young lady, Miss Lewis.”
“I am just the opposite,” she said, with a laugh. “I never learnt accomplishments. I do not play; I do not sing; I do not draw; I do not — but yes, I do dance: every one dances in France. Ours was not a rich home, and my dear mother brought me up to be useful in it. I can make my own dresses; I can cook you an omelette, or — —”
“Anne, this is Mr. Todhetley,” interrupted her father.
The Squire had come in through the open glass doors, round which the jessamine was blooming. When they had talked a bit, he took me up to Dr. Lewis.
“Has Coney told you who he is? William Ludlow’s son. You remember him?”
“Remember William Ludlow! I must forget myself before I could forget him,” was the doctor’s answer, as he took both my hands in his and held me before him to look into my eyes. The tears were rising in his own.
“A pleasant face to look at,” he was pleased to say. “But they did not name him William?”
“No. We call him Johnny.”
“One generation passes away and another rises up in its place. How few, how few of those I knew are now left to welcome me! Even poor Jacob has not stayed.”
Tears seemed to be the fashion just then. I turned away, when released, and saw them in Miss Lewis’s eyes as she stood against the window-sill, absently playing with the white jessamine.
“When they begin to speak of those who are gone, it always puts me in mind of mamma,” she said in a whisper, as if she would apologize for the tears. “I can’t help it.”
“Is it long since you lost her?”
“Nearly two years; and home has not been the same to papa since. I do my best; but I am not my mother. I think it was that which made papa resolve to come to England when he found he could afford it. Home is but triste, you see, when the dearest one it contained has gone out of it.”
It struck me that the house could not have had one dearer in it than Anne. She was years and years older than I, but I began to wish she was my sister.
And her manners to the servant were so nice — a homely country girl, named Sally, engaged by Mr. Coney. Miss Lewis told the girl that she hoped she would be happy in her new place, and that she would help her when there was much work to do. Altogether Anne Lewis was a perfect contrast to the fashionable damsels of that day, who could not make themselves appear too fine.
The next day was Sunday. We had just finished breakfast, and Mrs. Todhetley was nursing her toothache, when Dr. Lewis came in, looking more shadowy than ever in his black Sunday clothes, with the deep band on his hat. They were going to service at Timberdale, and he wanted me to go with them.
“Of course I have not forgotten the way to Timberdale,” said he; “but there’s an odd, shy feeling upon me of not liking to walk about the old place by myself. Anne is strange to it also. We shall soon get used to it, I dare say. Will you go, Johnny?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Crabb Church is close by, Lewis,” remarked the Squire, “and it’s a steaming hot day.”
“But I must go to Timberdale this morning. It was poor Jacob’s church, you know for many years. And though he is no longer there, I should like to see the desk and pulpit which he filled.”
“Ay, to be sure,” readily acquiesced the Squire. “I’d go with you myself, Lewis, but for the heat.”
Dr. Lewis said he should take the roadway, not the short cut through Crabb Ravine. It was a good round, and we had to start early. I liked Anne better than ever: no one could look nicer than she did in her trim black dress. As we walked along, Dr. Lewis frequently halted to recognize old scenes, and ask me was it this place, or that.
“That fine place out yonder?” he cried, stopping to point to a large stone house half-a-mile off the road, partly hidden amidst its beautiful grounds. “I ought to know whose it is. Let me see!”
“It is Sir Robert Tenby’s seat — Bellwood. Your landlord, sir.”
“Ay, to be sure — Bellwood. In my time it was Sir George’s, though.”
“Sir George died five or six years ago.”
“Has Sir Robert any family? He must be middle-aged now.”
“I think he is forty-five, or so. He is not married.”
“Does he chiefly live here?”
“About half his time; the rest he spends at his house in London, He lives very quietly. We all like Sir Robert.”
We sat in the Rector’s pew, having it to ourselves. Herbert Tanerton did the duty, and gave a good sermon. Nobody was yet appointed to the vacant living, which was in Sir Hubert Tenby’s gift. Herbert, meanwhile, took charge of the parish, and many people thought he would get it — as he did, later.
The Bellwood pew faced the Rector’s, and Sir Robert sat in it alone. A fine-looking man, with greyish hair, and a homely face that you took to at once. He seemed to pay the greatest attention to Herbert Tanerton’s sermon; possibly was deliberating whether he was worthy of the living, or not. In the pew behind him sat Mrs. Macbean, an old lady who had been housekeeper at Bellwood during two generations; and the Bellwood servants sat further down.
We were talking to Herbert Tanerton outside the church after service, when Sir Robert came up and spoke to the parson. He, Herbert, introduced Dr. Lewis to him as the late Rector’s brother. Sir Robert shook hands with him at once, smiled pleasantly at Anne, and nodded to me as he continued his way.
“Do you like your house?” asked Herbert.
“I shall like it by-and-by, no doubt,” was the doctor’s answer. “I should like it now, but for the paint. The smell is dreadful.”
“Oh, that will soon go off,” cried Herbert.
“Yes, I hope so: or I fear it will make me ill.”
In going back we took Crabb Ravine, and were at home in no time. They asked me to stay dinner, and I did so. We had a loin of lamb, and a raspberry tart, if any one is curious to know. Dr. Lewis had taken a fancy to me: I don’t know why, unless it was that he had liked my father; and I’m sure I had taken one to them. But the paint did smell badly, and that’s the truth.
In all my days I don’t think I ever saw a man so incapable as Dr. Lewis; so helpless in the common affairs of life. What he would have done without Anne, I know not. He was just fit to sit down and be led like a child; to have said to him — Come here, go there; do this, do the other. Therefore, when he asked me to run in in the morning and see if he wanted anything, I was not surprised. Anne thought he might be glad of my shoulder to lean upon when he walked about the garden.
It was past eleven when I arrived there, for I had to do an errand first of all for the Squire. Anne was kneeling down in the parlour amidst a lot of small cuttings of plants, which she had brought from France. They lay on the carpet on pieces of paper. She wore a fresh white cotton gown, with black spots upon it, and a black bow at the throat; and she looked nicer than ever.
“Look here, Johnny; I don’t know what to do. The labels have all come off, and I can’t tell which is which. I suppose I did not fasten them on securely. Sit down — if you can find a chair.”
The chairs and tables were strewed with books, most of them French, and other small articles, just unpacked. I did not want a chair, but knelt down beside her, asking if I could help. She said no, and that she hoped to be straight by the morrow. The doctor had stepped out, she did not know where, “to escape the smell of the paint.”
I was deep in the pages of one of the books, “Les Contes de Ma Bonne,” which Anne said was a great favourite of hers, though it was meant for children; and she had her head, as before, bent over the green sprigs and labels, when a shadow, passing the open glass doors, glanced in and halted. I supposed it must be the doctor; but it was Sir Robert Tenby. Up I started; Anne did the same quietly, and quietly invited him in.
“I walked over to see Dr. Lewis, and to ask whether the house requires anything else done to it,” he explained. “And I had to come early, as I am leaving the neighbourhood this afternoon.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Anne, “it is very kind of you to come. Will you please to sit down, sir?” hastily taking the books off a chair. “Papa is out, but I think he will not be long.”
“Are you satisfied with the house?” he asked.
“Quite so, sir; and I do not think it wants anything done to it at all. I hope you will not suppose we shall keep it in this state,” she added rather anxiously. “When things are being unpacked, the rooms are sure to look untidy.”
Sir Robert smiled. “You seem very notable, Miss Lewis.”
“Oh, I do everything,” she answered, smiling back. “There is no one else.”
He had not taken the chair, but went out, saying he should probably meet Dr. Lewis — leaving a message for him, about the house, in case he did not.
“He is your great and grand man of the neighbourhood, is he not, Johnny?” said Anne, as she knelt down on the carpet again.
“Oh, he is grand enough.”
“Then don’t you think he is, considering that fact, very pleasant and affable? I’m sure he is as simple and free in manners and speech as we are.”
“Most grand men — if they are truly great — are that. Your upstarts assume no end of airs.”
“I know who will never assume airs, Johnny. He has none in him.”
“Who’s that?”
“Yourself.”
It made me laugh. I had nothing to assume them for.
It was either that afternoon or the following one that Dr. Lewis came up to the Squire and old Coney as they were talking together in the road. He told them that he could not possibly stay in the house; he should be laid up if he did; he must go away until the smell of the paint was gone. That he was looking ill, both saw; and they believed he did not complain without cause.
The question was, where could he go? Mr. Coney hospitably offered him house-room; but the doctor, while thanking him, said the smell might last a long time, and he should prefer to be independent. He had been thinking of going with Anne to Worcester for a time. Did they know of lodgings there?
“Better go to an hotel,” said the Squire. “No trouble at an hotel.”
“But hotels are not always comfortable. I cannot feel at home in them,” argued the poor doctor. “And they cost too much besides.”
“You might chance to hit upon lodgings where you wouldn’t be any more comfortable, Lewis. And they’d be very dull for you.”
“There’s Lake’s boarding-house,” put in old Coney, whilst the doctor was looking blank and helpless.
“A boarding-house? Ay, that might do, if it’s not a noisy one.”
“It’s not noisy at all,” cried the Squire. “It’s uncommonly well conducted: sometimes there are not three visitors in the house. You and Miss Lewis would be comfortable there.”
And for Lake’s boarding-house Dr. Lewis and Anne took their departure on the very next day. If they had only foreseen the trouble their stay at it would lead to!
Lake’s boarding-house stood near the cathedral. A roomy house, with rather shabby furniture in it: but in boarding-houses and lodgings people don’t, as a rule, look for gilded chairs and tables. Some years before, Mrs. Lake, the wife of a professional man, and a gentlewoman, was suddenly left a widow with four infant children, boys, and nothing to keep them upon. What to do she did not know. And it often puzzles me to think what such poor ladies do do, left in similar straits.
She had her furniture; and that was about all. Friends suggested that she should take a house in a likely situation, and try for some lady boarders; or perhaps for some of the college boys, whose homes lay at a distance. Not to make too long a story of it, it was what she did do. And she had been in the house ever since, struggling on (for these houses mostly do entail a struggle), sometimes flourishing in numbers, sometimes down in the dumps with empty rooms. But she had managed to bring the children up: the two elder ones were out in the world, the two younger were still in the college school. Mrs. Lake was a meek little woman, ever distracted with practical cares, especially as to stews and gravies: Miss Dinah Lake (her late husband’s sister, and a majestic lady of middle age), who lived with her, chiefly saw to the company.
But now, would any one believe that Dr. Lewis was “that shy,” as their maid, Sally, expressed it — or perhaps you would rather call it helpless — that he begged the Squire to let me go with him to Lake’s. Otherwise he should be lost, he said; and Anne, accustomed to French ways and habits, could not be of much use to him in a strange boarding-house: Johnny knew the house, and would feel at home there.
When Captain Sanker and his wife (if you have not forgotten them) first came to Worcester, they stayed at Lake’s while fixing on a residence, and that’s how we became tolerably well acquainted with the Lakes. This year that I am now writing about was the one that preceded the accident to King Sanker, told of earlier in the volume. And, in point of rotation, this paper ought to have appeared first.
So I went with Dr. Lewis and Anne. It was late in the afternoon when we reached Worcester, close upon the dinner-hour — which was five o’clock, and looked upon as quite a fashionable hour in those days. The dinner-bell had rung, and the company had filed in to dinner when we got downstairs.
But there was not much company staying in the house. Mrs. Lake did not appear at dinner, and Miss Dinah Lake took the head of the table. It happened more often than not that Mrs. Lake was in the kitchen, superintending the dinner and seeing to the ragouts and sauces; especially upon the advent of fresh inmates, when the fare would be unusually liberal. Mrs. Lake often said she was a “born cook;” which was lucky, as she could not afford to keep first-rate servants.
Miss Dinah sat at the head of the table, in a rustling green gown and primrose satin cap. Having an income of her own she could afford to dress. (Mrs. Lake’s best gown was black silk, thin and scanty.) Next to Miss Dinah sat a fair, plump little woman, with round green eyes and a soft voice: at any rate, a soft way of speaking: who was introduced to us as Mrs. Captain Podd. She in turn introduced her daughters, Miss Podd and Miss Fanny Podd: both fair, like their mother, and with the same sort of round green eyes. A Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell completed the company; two silent people who seemed to do nothing but eat.
Dr. Lewis sat by Mrs. Captain Podd: and very pleasant and attentive the doctor found her. He was shy as well as helpless; but she talked to him freely in her low soft voice and put him altogether at his ease. My place chanced to be next to Miss Fanny Podd’s: and she began at once to put me at my ease, as her mother was putting the doctor.
“You are a stranger here, at the dinner-table,” observed Miss Fanny; “but we shall be good friends presently. People in this house soon become sociable.”
“I am glad of that.”
“I did not quite hear your name. Did you catch mine? Fanny Podd.”
“Yes. Thank you. Mine is Ludlow.”
“I suppose you never were at Worcester before?”
“Oh, I know Worcester very well indeed. I live in Worcestershire.”
“Why!” cried the young lady, neglecting her soup to stare at me, “we heard you had just come over from living in France. Miss Dinah said so — that old guy at the head of the table.”
“Dr. and Miss Lewis have just come from France. Not I. I know Miss Dinah Lake very well.”
“Do you? Don’t go and tell her I called her an old guy. Mamma wants to keep in with Miss Dinah, or she might be disagreeable. What a stupid town Worcester is!”
