An Isle of Surrey: A Novel

Mrs. Crawford was as simple as a child. She had not married her first husband for love. She married him because he had asked her and had treated her with respectful admiration and with a kind of rough gallantry, and, above all, because her father had told her that if she did marry Thomas Crawford it would relieve him of dire distress and put him on the high road to fortune. But, alas! for him, although he was somewhat relieved by Crawford on his marriage with Ellen, he never touched fortune. There was nothing like buying the girl on Crawford's side or compulsion on the father's. The girl was heart-whole and fancy-free, and would have laid down her life for her father.

She had never, in the romantic sense of the phrase, loved her husband; but from the day she was married until he died he was the first of all men in her consideration and esteem. She did her duty by him to the utmost of her power without having any irksome feeling of duty. He was a good, kind, indulgent husband-a man who, although hard in business, was amiable and good-natured at home, and who had aroused her enthusiastic gratitude, not by what he gave her, but by the services he had willingly rendered her father.

We read little of such lives in books. No doubt the beauty and sacredness that inhabit them make writers loth to invade their holy peace.

CHAPTER XV.

HOW WILLIAM GODDARD CHANGED HIS NAME

This gentle woman, who had long since left youth behind her, was experiencing for the first time the influence of romantic love. She was in her forty-seventh year, a widow who had been a faithful and devoted wife, and yet her heart was the heart of a girl. The age of passion was passed. The fact that up to the time of her marriage she had had no sweetheart, had never once found her heart dwelling on any young man of her acquaintance, may prove that she was never capable of the passion of love. There was at present no passion in her soul. But the overpowering and self-annihilating sentiment of love filled her now, and for the first time in her life she felt that she lived.

With her, as in all true love worthy of the name, she wished to get nothing; the desire, the insatiable desire, to give was paramount, with no rival feeling near its throne. There was no coquetry of concealment in her words or manner. When this man asked her to be his wife she took him tenderly by the hand and placed before him all the reasons why she was not worthy of him.

She was, she told him, older than he by many years. She was a widow. She had suffered long ill-health, was not now quite recovered, and had been cautioned by the doctors that her extraordinary respite from helplessness might be ended any moment. She could never hope to be an active woman again. She could not go about with him as his wife should. He was a young man. A man of five-and-thirty was young enough to marry a girl thirty years younger than she was. He had told her he had found a wonderful plant in South America, a plant which would yield a fibre of inestimable value, a fibre that one day might be expected to supersede cotton and wool. He had told her that as soon as he had secured his patent and got up a company he should be one of the richest men in England, in the world. Why should he, whose star was rising, link himself to her, whose star was sinking fast, who could not hope to live very long, and who must not expect that even the short span allowed to her would be unbroken by a return of infirmity and helplessness? If he wanted money to carry out his great scheme, if he wanted not to share the harvest of his discovery with strangers, she was not without means, and every penny she could command was most heartily and humbly at his service.

He listened to her without any show of impatience, without a single interruption. When she had done he went on as though she had said nothing.

"I have everything on earth I want but one, and that one is more important to my happiness than all the rest put together. I want you for my wife. Will you marry me, Nellie?"

She smiled, and gazed at him out of eyes that told him he was unspeakably dear to her. "If you will have me you may," she said, and smiled again. Her husband had never in all their joint lives called her anything but Ellen. It touched her tender and confiding heart to be, as it were, drawn by that dear and familiar form of her name into the heart and nature of this man.

"I must and will," he said, and kissed her.

"If you care for me," she said, taking one of his hands in both her own, "I am yours to take by reason of my love for you, and by reason of your having restored my life when I had given it up. When I gave it up it was no longer mine. It became yours when you gave it back to me. What is left of it is yours, and everything else I have. Even my very name must be yours if you claim me."

"I do claim you, and no power on earth shall take you from me."

"Or you from me?"

"Or me from you, I swear."

He kissed her again. That was the betrothal.

There was nothing violent in the scene. Except for the two kisses and the beautiful light in the eyes of the woman and the clasping hands, any one seeing it and hearing nothing would have had no reason to suspect that it was a love scene. He was calm, firm, persistent, grave. He did not smile once. He indulged in no heroics, no extravagances, no transports. She admired him all the more for this. Anything of the kind would have been out of place, shocking. She was no young girl, to be won by rhapsodies or carried away by transports. She knew that although her youth had left her all her good looks were not yet gone. But he never said a word about her beauty. He was too sensible, and too noble, and too chivalrous, she told herself, to think she, a woman of forty-seven and in weak health, could be pleased by flippant flattery.

They sat hand in hand for a while, she in a dream of contented happiness. To her this was not the aftermath of love gathered off an autumn land; it was the first growth, which had never come above the soil until now, because no sun had shone on the field before.

There came no let or hindrance in the course of William Goddard's wooing. He had only been a few months in Richmond, but during that time his conduct there had been above reproach. At first, it is true, he had not been a regular attendant at church on Sunday. He had gone now and then, but not every Sabbath. From the beginning of his love-making he never missed the forenoon, and often attended the evening, services. He kept much to himself, and made no friends. He was a strict teetotaler, and frequented no such profitless places as clubs or billiard-rooms. When people heard of the engagement between Mrs. Crawford and William Goddard they said she was a lucky woman, and that her second husband would be even better, if such a thing were possible, than her first. If there had been in the whole town a rumour to his disadvantage it would have swelled into a howl, for those who knew the gentle widow felt a personal interest in her, a love for her, as though she had been a mother or sister.

When Mrs. Farraday went finally to take the head of her brother's (Edward Chatterton's) house at Rochester she naturally told him all the news of Richmond, of the fire, the rescue, the love-making, the engagement or understanding between the widow and the heroic next-door lodger. She told him everything she knew, and minutely described the two people and the two houses.

Her brother seemed interested. He was a florid, well conditioned, good-humoured, shrewd man of fifty, not averse from gossip in the evening when he sat in front of his own fire, with his legs stretched out before him, smoking his pipe.

"What is known of this man? You say he has been only a few months in Richmond?"

"That is all. I believe he has spent most of his life in South America. For a while he was in a gold mine, and he was for a while a farmer, I think."

"And what brought him back to England? South America is a fine place-that is, parts of it-if you are any good and have an opening. What did he come back to England for? Has he made his fortune?"

"I don't think he has made his fortune. He is not an old man, not even middle-aged. He is almost young-not more than thirty-five or so."

"Then why did he come back, and what is he losing months of his time in England for-at his time of life, too, when he ought to be working his hardest?"

"I don't know exactly. I think he has found some plant in the llanos out of which he can make cloth, and has come over about starting a company and taking out a patent. He says the plant is more valuable than flax or wool or cotton."

"Or all together?"

"Yes, I think he said that, but I am not sure. I haven't a good memory for this sort of thing."

"Kitty?"

"Well?"

"I have a fixed idea that every man who wants to take out a patent and start a company, and is months about the job, is either a born idiot or a consummate rogue. I have a very poor opinion of this Mr. Crawford Number Two."

"Good gracious, John! aren't you very hard on a man you never saw?"

He nodded his head gravely at the fire, but took no other notice of her question. He puffed at his pipe a minute in silence, blowing the smoke straight out in front of him, as if in pursuit of some design. Then he took his pipe out of his mouth with one hand, waved away the banks of smoke lying before him with the other, and turning round to her, said:

"And, Kitty, I should not be at all surprised to find that he set fire to the house and then rescued the fool of a woman for reasons best known to himself."

Mrs. Farraday started to her feet aghast.

"Do you know, John, that you are saying the most awful things a man could say? You horrify me!"

"I mean," he went on, looking once more lazily into the fire, "that I think he set fire to the house and rescued the woman in order that he might have a claim upon her, and that he doesn't care a – for her, and that all he wants, or ever thought of, is her money."

"John, you do not know the man, and it is shameful of you to say such things, and you could be put in prison for saying them; and then to think of your calling the dearest creature alive 'that fool of a woman,' is worse than any libel you could speak of think of!"

The tears were in Mrs. Farraday's eyes, and she could hardly command her voice.

"Think over the matter. He knows this fool of a woman is a helpless invalid. He knows from you that you are coming here. He learns from you that there are two strange servants who sleep in the top of the house; and on the very night you are away, and the first night for years this elderly woman is sleeping alone, the house next door to which he lives takes fire; the kitchen over which she sleeps takes fire, and there is a great smell of paraffin oil in the place, although no one knew of any being in the house. And lo and behold you! when the woman is just dead, he comes, bursts in her window, and rescues her, and makes love to this well-off invalid woman-he who has come back to England at the age of thirty-five, without a fortune, and with a cock-and-bull story about a patent and a fibre."

"Good-night. I will listen to no more such awful talk."

"Good-night, Kitty; yet, take my word for it, he set fire to that house."

But then, as Mrs. Farraday had remarked, her brother did not know the man; nor, moreover, did he live at Richmond.

No one suggested that there was any reason for delaying the marriage between Goddard and the widow. He had not yet secured his patent, and therefore could not start his company. Now and then he had to go up to London for a day or two to see the artificers who were carrying out his designs for the machines to be employed in converting his plant into cloth. When he returned to Singleton Terrace after these brief absences, he made up for lost time by increased tenderness and devotion.

He never came back empty-handed, and he never brought any splendid present; always a book, or a bouquet, or a basket of fruit-nothing more. He had bought her a ring, of course; but even that was inexpensive and simple-three small diamonds in a plain gold band.

"I shall be poor, Nellie, until I am rich; and I shall not be rich in money until my patent and my company are all right."

"But when you get your patent and your company, you will not want to go away again to America?" she asked anxiously. "I do not think I could face so long a voyage."

"O, no! There will be no need for me to go out again. I have all arranged over there. I have an intelligent and energetic agent there. I will remain at home attending to the interests of the company (of which I shall, of course, be chairman), and hunting up markets for my fibre. We shall very likely have to leave this place and live in town, take a good house in Bayswater or Kensington, for we must do a little entertaining. You would not mind changing Richmond for Bayswater or Kensington?"

"Nothing could please me better than to be of any use I can to you; and if my health keeps good, as good as it is now, I could manage the entertaining very well indeed."

"You grow stronger every day. I have not a particle of fear on the score of your health. I dare not have any fear of that, Nellie. You must not even refer to such a thing again. When we have taken that new place I lay you a bunch of roses you will dance at our house-warming, ay, out-dance all the young girls in the place."

She sighed, and took one of his hands in both hers and smiled. She had never dreamed of a lover, but if she had dreamed of one in her latter years he surely would be such a one as this. How sensible and considerate and affectionate he was! If he had been more ardent, more enthusiastic, she might fear his displays were insincere, that although he loved her then, he would tire of her soon after they were married, and, she being so much older than he, take his ardours and transports to the feet of younger and more beautiful goddesses.

But with such as he there could be no such fear. Raptures might please a girl, and be excused in a young man towards a girl, but from any man to her they would be absurd and repulsive. It would be impossible to believe them sincere, and the mere idea that a lover's words and actions were not the outcome of candid feeling would be shocking, destructive of all sympathy and self-respect.

But William, her William, as she now called him, was perfect in all he said and all he did; and of one thing she felt quite sure: that if ever a cloud came between them in their married life, it would arise from some defect in her nature, not in his.

When old Crawford made his will a couple of years before his death he did not wish to place any restraint upon her as to marriage after he had gone, except that she was to keep his name. He had made all his money himself; he had worked hard for it, allowing himself no luxuries and little comfort for the best part of life, and deferring marriage until he was well on in years and had given up active business. He had no child, no relative he knew of in the world. He would have welcomed a son with joy. Nothing would have pleased him more than to think that the name which he had raised up out of poverty into modest affluence would survive and flourish when he was no more.

But a son was denied to him. All hope of an heir was gone. He loved his wife in his own way, and he would not fetter her future with an imposed lifelong widowhood. She was to be left free to wed again if her choice lay that way. She had been a true and tender wife to him, the one source of peaceful happiness in his old age. She should not feel the dead hand of a niggard; she should have all his money, but she should keep his name. His name should not die out wholly even when she ceased to be. He should leave her all the income from his property for her life, or as long as she retained the name he had given her. If she changed that name the name should not die. His money should go to Guy's Hospital, and be known, while that great handmaiden of the sick poor survived, as the Crawford Bequest. When she followed him to the grave the money should go finally to the hospital, and be of bounteous service to the indigent sick and a perpetual living monument to his name.

"Mrs. Crawford," said Mr. Brereton, her lawyer, when he came to draw up the necessary documents in connection with the marriage of the widow and Goddard, "has only a life interest in the estate. It goes to Guy's Hospital upon her death."

"Is it necessary for us to take further into consideration that remote and most melancholy contingency?" asked Goddard.

"No, no," said Mr. Brereton hastily. "But business is business, and I thought it only right to mention the matter to you."

Goddard merely bowed, as though dismissing the horrible thought from amongst them.

Goddard settled upon her ten thousand pounds.

"I did not know you had so much money, William," said she, "but surely it is a waste of law expenses to settle anything on me? In the course of nature, even if I were not ailing, I must go first."

When he told her of the settlement he had made they were alone.

"I haven't the money now, but it will come as a first charge on my general estate when the company is floated. As to my outliving you, we do not know. Who can tell? It is well always to be prepared for the unforeseen, the unforeseeable. And as to which of us shall live the longer, let us speak or think no more of that. Let us tell ourselves that such a consideration belongs to the remote future. Let us devote ourselves to the happy" – he kissed her-"happy present."

At the time William Crawford, lately William Goddard, returned from his first visit to Welford they had been about three months married, and Mrs. Crawford's old affliction had gradually been stealing back upon her.

CHAPTER XVI.

AT PLAY

When Francis Bramwell, on the morning Crawford left Welford for Richmond, found himself with little Freddie in his arms inside the gate of the timber-yard he set the child down, and having closed the gate, fetched little Frank out of the cottage.

The two children ran to one another. If they had been girls they would have kissed; being boys, they had things too weighty on their minds to allow of wasting time over such a frivolous and useless thing as kissing.

"Come into the van," cried Frank, leading the way at a trot to the old wheelless barrow.

"It's not a van, but a boat," said Freddie, as they scrambled into it.

"It's a van," said the host, who was dark and small, and wiry; while the other was tall and fair, and rounded. "Look at the horse," pointing between the shafts or handles at nothing.

"But a boat has a horse, too," cried Freddie, "and this is a boat. Look at the smoke coming up the funnel!" He held his arm erect to do duty as a funnel.

"It's a van and a boat together," said Frank, trying to compromise matters in any way so that they might get on, and not keep vegetating there all day.

"But if it's a van," said Freddie, lowering the funnel, "it will sink in the water, and we shall get drowned in the canal; and I'm not allowed to get drowned. Aunt Hetty says I mustn't, and Mrs. Grainger says I can't, for it is only dead dogs that get drowned in the canal." Freddie knew more about boats and the canal than he did about vans. They had lived near the canal before coming to their new house.

Frank, on the other hand, knew very little of boats or canals. "Well, let us play it's an elephant," suggested he, making a second attempt to arrange matters and get to work. Time was being wasted in a barren academic dispute, and time was precious.

"But you can't get into an elephant."

"Well, a whale." He was desperate, and drew on his memory of a Scripture story-book with coloured plates.

"What's a whale?" Freddie's library did not contain that book.

"A great big fish, with a roar as big as a steamboat whistle." Frank was combining imagination and experience of a voyage across the Atlantic.

"Hurrah!" cried Freddie wildly. "It's a steamboat; and I'm the man that whistles," and he uttered a shrill scream.

"We're off!" shouted the other boy, frantically seizing his cap and waving it like mad. The fact that you ought to shriek, and shriek frequently, when playing at steamboat, and that there was no satisfactory precedent for shrieking when you were in a whale's inside, overcame Frank completely, and he at once handselled his new craft with a shriek of overwhelming vigour and piercing force.

Bramwell leaned against a wall at the further end of the yard, and watched the children at play. He had no fear or concern for their safety. No danger could befall them here; the walls were high, and he had seen that the doors were firm and secure. He was experiencing the birth of a new life. Every word and shout and cry of his boy seemed to put fresh strength and motive into his body and brain.

A week ago he had had absolutely nothing to live for.

Now he was gradually recovering the zest of life. He felt that he had not only to eat and breathe, but to work and plan as well. He had regarded that islet as a graveyard, and that cottage as a tomb. The islet had now become the playground of his child, and the cottage the home and sanctuary of his boy.

A week ago he had had nothing to think of but his miserable and wrecked self. Now he had nothing to think of but his young and innocent and beautiful son. Himself and his own wretched life had died and been buried, and from the ashes of his dead self had risen the child full of youth and health and vital comeliness.

A week ago he had felt old beyond the mortal span of man, and worn beyond the thought of struggle, almost beyond the power of endurance. Now he felt less old than his years, with dexterity and strength for the defence of his child, an irresistible athlete.

He had not begun to plan for the future yet, but plans seemed easy when he should will to consider them. His spirit was in a tumult of delight and anticipation. He did not care to define his thoughts, and he could not express them in words. He had been raised from a vault to a hilltop; and the magnificence and splendour of the prospect overcame him with joy. He sat upon his pinnacle, satisfied with the sense of enlargement and air. He knew that what he contemplated was made up of details, but he had no eye for detail now. It would be time enough to examine later. The vast flat horizon and the boundless blue above his head, and the intoxicating lightness and purity of the atmosphere, were all that he took heed of now.

A week ago the present had been a dull, dark, straight, unsheltered road, leading nowhere, with no spot of interest, no resting-place, no change of light. His thoughts had been an agony to him. The present then weighed him down like a cope of lead. To-day he dallied in a land of gardens and vineyards, and arbours and fountains, and streams and lakes, and statues and temples, where the air was heavy with perfumes and rich with the waverings of melodious song. Through this land he would wander for a while, healing his tired eyes with the sight of the trees and the flowers and the temples, soothing his weary travel-worn feet with the delicious coolness of the water of the streams, and drinking in through his hungry ears the voices of the birds and the tones of the harpists and the words of the unseen singers in the green alleys and marble fanes.

He had eschewed poetry as an art; he was enjoying it now as a gift.

At last he awoke from his reverie, shook himself, and went up to the old barrow, in which the children were still playing with unabated vigour.

"Well," he said, "where is the steamboat going now?"

"'Tisn't a steamboat now," said Freddie, who was the more ready and free of speech; "it's a gas-house, and I'm charging the retorts. Frank never saw them charging the retorts, but I did often with my father."

"Then Frank shall go one day and see."

"I'll take him," said Freddie, "I know Mr. Grainger and nearly all the men. When they draw the retorts they throw water on the coke, and then such steam! Aunt Hetty won't let me throw water on the fire. If she did, I could make as good steam as the men, and then we'd have plenty of gas. Shouldn't we?"

"Plenty, indeed. It seems to me your Aunt Hetty is very good to you."

"Sometimes," said the boy cautiously. "But she won't let me make gas. Mrs. Grainger let me throw some water on the fire last night before I went to bed."