Richard Dowling - An Isle of Surrey - A Novel

"I do believe," she cried with animation, "that you are rather sorry he turned out so nobly. I do believe you would rather he showed no interest in that man on the tow-path."

"Candidly, Hetty, I would."

"It is all jealousy on your part, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Are you?"

"No-o-o," he said slowly, "I can't say I am much ashamed of myself on that account."

"Then," she said, "it is worse not to repent than to sin, and your condition is something dreadful. Now, my impression is that Mr. Crawford never thought of money at all when he married his wife. I believe he married her for pure love, and the fact of her being an invalid was a reason for his loving her all the more. To me he is a Bayard," cried this enthusiastic young person with flushing cheek, and eyes in which the gold glinted more than ever.

"He's too stout, my dear," said the brother placidly from his couch.

"What!" cried she indignantly. "Too stout to marry for love! You are outrageous!"

"No; not to marry for love, but to be a Bayard. You know as well as I do our lodger would not cut a good figure on horseback," said the brother with calm decision.

"You are intolerable, Alfred, and I will not speak to you again on the subject. Nothing could be in worse taste than what you have been saying," said the girl, gathering herself daintily together and looking away from him.

"Besides, you do an injustice to our lodger."

"I wish, Alfred, if you find it necessary to refer to Mr. Crawford, that you would do so in some other way than by calling him our lodger. It is not respectful."

"Not respectful to whom?"

"To me," with a very stately inclination of the gallant little head.

"I see. Well, I will call him Mr. Bayard," said the brother with provoking amiability.

"I am sure, Alfred, I do not know how you can be so silly."

"Evil communications, my dear."

"The gentleman's name is Crawford, and why should you not call him Crawford?"

"Just to avoid the monotony."

"And, I think, Alfred, to annoy me."

"Perhaps."

"Well, I must say that is very good-natured of you."

"But I aim at an identical result."

"I don't understand you."

"To avoid monotony, too. You are always so good-humoured and soft-tempered it is a treat to see you ruffled and on your dignity. But there, Hetty dear, let us drop this light-comedy sparring-"

"I'm sure I don't think it's light comedy at all, but downright disagreeableness; and I didn't begin it, and I don't want to keep it up, and I am sure you have a very clumsy and unkind notion of humour, if talking in that way is your idea of it."

"Remember, Hetty," he said, holding up his hand in warning, "you are much too big a girl to cry. You are a great deal too old to cry."

"A woman is never too old to cry-if she likes."

"She is, and you are, too old to cry for anything a brother may say to you. According to the usage of the best society, you are too old to cry because of anything I may say to you. It will be your duty to repress your tears for your lover. According to good manners you ought not to shed a tear now until you have your first quarrel with your lover; and then, mind you, I am to hear nothing about it, or it would be my duty to call the scoundrel out, when there is no knowing but he might injure or even kill me, and then you couldn't marry him, for he would be your brother's murderer; and if I killed him you couldn't marry him, because I should be his murderer; and I don't see of what use we could be to any one, except to write a tragedy about, and that is about as bad a use as you can put respectable people to."

The girl's face had been gradually clearing while Layard spoke, and by the time he had finished, all trace of annoyance had vanished from it, and she was bright and smiling once more.

"You are a queer old Alfred, and I am a fool to allow myself to grow angry with you or your nonsense. I of course said too much. I did not mean quite that I thought him a Bayard."

"He's much better-looking than the only portrait of the Chevalier I ever saw. I must say the knight, by his portrait, is a most repulsive and unchivalrous brute, more fit for the Chamber of Horrors than the Hall of Kings. I assure you, Hetty, Mr. Crawford is a much better-looking man."

How was he to warn his sister without alarming her? To say he thought the man was not quite right in his mind would terrify Hetty, and it would not do to leave her without any caution. At last he could think of nothing but a most simple and most matter-of-course caution-that of locking the door of the room in which she and the child slept. "For," thought Layard, "if there is anything wrong with his head, although it may now be in the direction of excessive humanity, later it may change to be dangerously homicidal."

As they were saying "good-night," he remarked, as carelessly as he could:

"Remember, Hetty, although we are in our own house, it still it is not all our own."

"Of course I know that, Alfred."

"And if Fred cries, you must quiet him as quickly as possible."

"So that Mr. Crawford may not be disturbed?"

"Yes; and you may as well lock your door?"

"I will."

And thus they parted, and he felt at rest; for even if a paroxysm seized Crawford in the night, he could do no serious hurt without making noise enough to wake the others.

At the time that Layard was providing against a possible maniac in William Crawford, there was not a saner man within the four corners of London.

That night passed in perfect peace under the roof of Alfred Layard. So far as Layard knew, Crawford had slept the sleep of mental and bodily health, and little Freddie had not awakened once, as his aunt certified when she came down to breakfast.

Mrs. Grainger, the charwoman whose services were to be enlisted all the time Mr. Crawford was in the house, brought up his breakfast, and carried down news that the gentleman was arranging his papers and the rooms generally, as was only natural and to be expected upon a gentleman taking up his residence in a new lodging. Mr. Crawford she found very civil, but not inclined at all for conversation. He told Mrs. Grainger he should ring for her when he wanted her, and she took the liberty of explaining to the gentleman that he could not ring for her, because there was no bell. Upon this the gentleman said he should put his head over the balustrade and call to her, if she would be good enough to favour him with her name; which she accordingly did, giving her Christian name and married name, and adding with a view to defying fraud or personation, her maiden name (Wantage) also. The only piece of information he had volunteered to Mrs. Grainger, née Wantage, was that he had no intention of stirring out that day.

Layard did not renew the conversation of the night before. He was extraordinarily fond of his beautiful, sprightly, gentle-hearted sister, and he knew that his badinage had reduced her almost to tears. He was grave and tender, and devoted himself through most of breakfast to his lusty, restless, yellow-haired boy of three, little Freddie.

Alfred Layard's duties lay at the works, not the office, of the great Welford Gas Company. Hence, although his functions were those of a clerk, he had not the hours of a clerk. Years ago the Layards had been in a position very different from that occupied by them now. Then their father had been a prosperous merchant in Newcastle, but a series of disasters had come upon him: a partner failed in another business, a bank broke, and the father's health gave way utterly, and he died leaving absolutely nothing behind him. Alfred was at Cambridge at the time of the crash. He left the University at once, and for some time failed to get anything to do. At length an old friend of his father's found him a situation worth a hundred and twenty pounds a year in the great Welford Gasworks. In a couple of years his salary was increased ten pounds a year, upon which joyful encouragement he married Lucy Aldridge, the penniless girl he had, before the downfall of his father's house, resolved to make his wife.