I woke suddenly with a start, conscious of a movement in the room. Basil Netherby was standing close beside me, with his back to the fire, looking down at me with a look which I can only say seemed to me to betoken a deep annoyance of spirit. But seeing me awake, there came on to his face a smile of a reluctant and diplomatic kind. I started to my feet, giddy and bewildered, and shook hands.
“My word,” he said, “you sleep sound, Ward. So you’ve found me out? Well, I’m very glad to see you; but what made you think of coming? and why didn’t you let me know? I would have sent something to meet you.”
I was a good deal nettled at this ungenial address, after the trouble to which I had put myself. I said, “Well, really, Basil, I think that is rather strong. Mr Vyvyan called on me yesterday with a letter from you, and some music; and of course I came away at once.”
“Of course,” he said, looking on the ground – and then added rather hastily, “Now, how did the stuff strike you? I have improved, I think. And it is really very good of you to come off at once to criticize the music – very good of you,” he said with some emphasis; “and, man, you look wretchedly tired – let us have breakfast.”
I was just about to remonstrate, and to speak about the postscript, when he looked at me suddenly with so peculiar and disagreeable a glance that the words literally stuck in my throat. I thought to myself that perhaps the subject was too painful to enter upon at once, and that he probably wished to tell me at his own time what was in the background.
We breakfasted; and now that I had leisure to look at Basil, I was surprised beyond measure at the change in him. I had seen him last a pale, rather haggard youth, loose-limbed and untidy. I saw before me a strongly-built and firmly-knit man, with a ruddy colour and bronzed cheek. He looked the embodiment of health and well-being. His talk, too, after the first impression of surprise wore off, was extraordinarily cheerful and amusing. Again and again he broke out into loud laughter – not the laughter of an excited or hectic person, but the firm, brisk laugh of a man full to the brim of good spirits and health.
He talked of his work, of the country-people that surrounded him, whose peculiarities he seemed to have observed with much relish; he asked me, but without any appearance of interest, what I thought about his work. I tried to tell him what Dr Grierson had said and what I had felt; but I was conscious of being at a strange disadvantage before this genial personality. He laughed loudly at our criticisms. “Old Grierson,” he said, “why, he is no better than a clergyman’s widow: he would stop his ears if you read Shakespeare to him. My dear man, I have travelled a long way since I saw you last; I have found my tongue – and what is more, I can say what I mean, and as I mean it. Grierson indeed! I can see him looking shocked, like a pelican with a stomach-ache.”
This was a felicitous though not a courteous description of our friend, but I could find no words to combat it; indeed, Basil’s talk and whole bearing seemed to carry me away like a swift stream and in my wearied condition I found that I could not stand up to this radiant personality.
After breakfast he advised me to have a good sleep and he took me, with some show of solicitude, to a little bedroom which had been got ready for me. He unpacked my things and told me to undress and go to bed, that he had some work to do that he was anxious to finish, and that after luncheon we would have a stroll together.
I was too tired to resist, and fell at once into a deep sleep. I rose a new man; and finding no one in Basil’s room, I strolled out for a moment on to the drive, and presently saw the odd and timid figure of Mrs Hall coming along, in a big white flapping sort of sun-bonnet, with a basket in her hand. She came straight up to me in a curious, resolute sort of way, and it came into my mind that she had come out for the very purpose of meeting me.
I praised the beauty of the place, and said that I supposed she knew it well. “Yes,” she said; adding that she was born in the village and her mother had been as a girl a servant at Treheale. But she went on to tell me that she and her husband had lived till recently at a farm down in the valley, and had only been a year or so in the house itself. Old Mr Heale, the last owner, had died three or four years before, and it had proved impossible to let the house. It seemed that when the trustees gave up all idea of being able to get a tenant, they had offered it to the Halls at a nominal rent, to act as caretakers. She spoke in a cheerless way, with her eyes cast down and with the same strained look as of one carrying a heavy burden. “You will have heard of Mr Heale, perhaps?” she said with a sudden look at me.
“The old Squire, sir,” she said; “but I think people here are unfair to him. He lived a wild life enough, but he was a kind gentleman in his way – and I have often thought it was not his fault altogether. He married soon after he came into the estate – a Miss Tregaskis from down to St Erne – and they were very happy for a little; but she died after they had been married a couple of years, and they had no child; and then I think Mr Heale went nearly mad – nothing went right after that. Mr Heale shut himself up a good deal among his books – he was a very clever gentleman – and then he got into bad ways; but it was the sorrow in his heart that made him bad – and we must not blame people too much, must we?” She looked at me with rather a pitiful look.
“You mean,” I said, “that he tried to forget his grief, and did not choose the best way to do it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mrs Hall simply. “I think he blamed God for taking away what he loved, instead of trusting Him; and no good comes of that. The people here got to hate him – he used to spoil the young people, sir – you know what I mean – and they were afraid of seeing him about their houses. I remember, sir, as if it were yesterday, seeing him in the lane to St Sibby. He was marching along, very upright, with his white hair – it went white early – and he passed old Mr Miles, the church-warden, who had been a wild young man too, but he found religion with the Wesleyans, and after that was very hard on everyone.
“It was the first time they had met since Mr Miles had become serious; and Mr Heale stopped in his pleasant way, and held out his hand to Mr Miles; who put his hands behind him and said something – I was close to them – which I could not quite catch, but it was about fellowship with the works of darkness; and then Mr Miles turned and went on his way; and Mr Heale stood looking after him with a curious smile on his face – and I have pitied him ever since. Then he turned and saw me; he always took notice of me – I was a girl then; and he said to me,
“ ‘There, Mary, you see that. I am not good enough, it seems, for Mr Miles. Well, I don’t blame him; but remember, child, that the religion which makes a man turn his back on an old friend is not a good religion”; but I could see he was distressed, though he spoke quietly – and as I went on he gave a sigh which somehow stays in my mind. Perhaps sir, you would like to look at his picture; he was painted at the same time as Mrs Heale in the first year of their marriage.”
I said I should like to see it, and we turned to the house. She led me to a little room that seemed like a study. There was a big bookcase full of books, mostly of a scientific kind; and there was a large kneehole table much dotted with inkspots. “It was here,” she said, “he used to work, hour after hour.” On the wall hung a pair of pictures – one, that of a young woman, hardly more than a girl, with a delightful expression, both beautiful and good. She was dressed in some white material, and there was a glimpse of sunlit fields beyond.