Richard Dowling - An Isle of Surrey - A Novel

"Was the gentleman walking fast at the time?"

"No."

Philip Ray, when alone, always went at an unusually rapid pace. He was a man quick in everything: quick in speech, in the movements of his limbs, quickest of all and most enduring also in his love and-anger.

"Is he a tall man?"

"No."

"What!" cried he in astonishment, drawing up again in front of the charwoman, now somewhat cowed by Crawford's abrupt, and vigorous, and abstracted manner. "Don't you call six feet a tall man? Have you lived among Patagonians all your life?"

"No, sir; I can't say I ever lived with any people of that name," she said, bridling a little. She did not understand being spoken to by any one in that peremptory and belittling way, and if all came to all it wasn't the rich Mr. Crawford who paid her and supplied the food she had eaten, but poor Mr. Layard, who gave himself no airs, but was always a pleasant gentleman, though he was not in the counting-house of the great Welford Gas Company, but in the works, where her own husband was employed.

"Why, don't you consider a man four inches taller than I a tall man?" cried Crawford, drawing brows down over his quick furtive eyes, and looking at the woman as if he was reproaching her with having committed a heinous crime.

"Four inches taller than you!" said the woman with scornful asperity. "I never said he was four inches taller than you, sir. He isn't four inches taller than you, Mr. Crawford."

"He is."

"Excuse me, sir; if you tell me so, of course I have nothing more to say," said Mrs. Grainger, rising with severity and dignity. "The gentleman that lives on Poland's Ait is a shorter man than you, sir."

"Are you sure?" said Crawford, standing for the third time in front of the woman.

"Quite certain."

" Shorter than I?" said he, in a tone of abstraction, as he gnawed his knuckles, unconscious of her presence-" shorter than I?" he repeated, lost in thought. "Then he can't be Philip Ray," he cried in a tone of relief. The words were uttered, not for Mrs. Grainger's hearing, but for his own. He wanted to have this pleasant assurance in his ear as well as in his mind.

"I never said he was, sir; I said he was Mr. Bramwell-Mr. Francis Bramwell," said Mrs. Grainger, making a mock courtesy and moving towards the door.

With a start Crawford awoke from his abstraction to the fact of her presence. "Bless my soul! but of course you didn't! Of course you didn't! You never said anything of the kind! You never said anything of any kind! Ha, ha, ha, ha!" He laughed his short and not pleasant laugh, and held the door open for Mrs. Grainger.

When she was gone he walked up and down the room for some time in deep cogitation. Then he went to the window and looked out on the scene, now darkening for the short night. His eyes rested on Boland's Ait, and he muttered below his breath:

"Whoever my next-door neighbour may be, it is not Philip Ray, and I am not afraid of any one else on earth. But who is this Francis Bramwell that Philip Ray visits? Who can he be?" Crawford paused awhile, and then said impatiently as he turned away from the window, "Bah, what do I care who it is? I fear no one but Philip Ray."

On the evening that Crawford arrived for the first time at the house called after his name, and saw the man he recognised as Philip Ray hastening along the tow-path, the man of whom he expressed such fear was almost breathless when, having passed the head of the Ait, he was hidden from view. As soon as he got near the tail of the island he suddenly stopped, bent down, and seizing a small chain made fast to an iron ring below the level of the tow-path and close to the water, drew heavily upon it, hand over hand. Gradually a long low black floating mass began to detach itself from the island, and, like some huge snake or saurian, stretch itself out across the turbid waters, now darkening in the shadows of eve. This was the floating stage of which Red Jim had told Crawford.

When the stage touched the bank Philip Ray stepped on it, walked to the other end, stooped down to the water, and, catching another chain, drew the stage back. Then he stepped ashore on Boland's Ait.

He paused a moment to gather breath and wipe his forehead, for in his wild haste he had run half the way from Camberwell. With rapid steps and arms swinging he strode to the door of what had once been the foreman's cottage, and knocked hastily. Then he made a great effort, and forced himself into an appearance of calm.

There was the sound of some one rising inside. The door swung open, and a man of thirty slightly under the middle height stood facing the failing light of day.

"Philip," he said. "Philip, I did not expect to see you so soon again. Come in."

On a table littered with papers a reading-lamp was already burning, for even at the brightest hour the light in the small oblong room was not good. By the table stood a Windsor armchair; another stood against the wall furthest from the door. There was a tier of plain bookshelves full of books against one of the walls, a few heavy boxes against another, and absolutely nothing else in the place. The cottage stood at the head of the island, and the one window of the occupant's study looked up the canal in the direction of Camberwell.

"At work, as usual," said Ray, pointing to the papers on the table as he shut the door.

"My work is both my work and my play, my meat and my rest. Sit down, Philip. Has anything unusual happened? I did not expect to see you until Sunday," said the solitary man, dropping into his chair, resting his elbows on the arms of it and leaning forward.

"I am out of breath. I ran most of the way," said Ray, avoiding the question.

"Ran!" cried the other in faint surprise. "Your walking is like another man's running. Your running must be terrific. I never saw you run. What made you run this evening?" He smiled very slightly as he spoke of Ray's walking and running.

"I am out of breath," said the other, again shirking the question. "Give me a minute."

It was not to gain breath Philip Ray paused, but to put in shape what he had to say. He had come from Camberwell at the top of his speed because he was burning with intelligence which had just reached him. He had been so excited by the news that he had never paused to think of the form in which he should communicate it, and now he was in great perplexity and doubt.

Francis Bramwell threw himself back in his chair in token of giving the required respite. He was a pale broad-browed man, with large, grave, unfathomable, hazel eyes His hair and moustache were dark brown; his cheeks and chin, clean-shaven.

Ray fidgeted a good deal in his chair, and acted very badly the man who was out of breath.

"You must have run desperately hard," said Bramwell, at length, in a tone half sympathy, half banter.

"Never harder in all my life," said the other, placing his hand on his side, as though still suffering from the effects of his unusual speed.

After a while he sat up and said, "I was pretty tired to begin with. I had been wandering about all the afternoon, and when I found myself near home I made up my mind not to budge again for the night. I found a letter waiting for me, and I have come over about that letter." He ceased to speak, and suppressed the excitement which was shaking him.

"A letter!" said Bramwell, observing for the first time that something very unusual lay behind the manner of the other. "It must have been a letter of great importance to bring you out again, and at such a rate, too." He looked half apprehensively at his visitor.

"It was a letter of importance."

A spasm of pain shot over the face of Bramwell, and his brows fell. "A letter of importance that concerned me?" he asked in a faint voice.