Dust. Julian HawthorneЧитать онлайн книгу.
the income continued to be insufficient, and inroads continued to be made on the capital, much to the friendly distress of Sir Francis Bendibow, the head of the great banking-house of Bendibow Brothers, to whose care the funds of the late Major Lockhart had been intrusted “The first guinea you withdraw from your capital, my dear madam,” he had assured Mrs. Lockhart, with his usual manner of impressive courtesy, “represents your first step on the road that leads to bankruptcy.” The widow admitted the truth of the maxim; but misfortunes are not always curable in proportion as they are undeniable; though that seemed to be Sir Francis’ assumption. Mrs. Lockhart began to suffer from her anxieties. Marion saw this, and was in despair. “What a good-for-nothing thing a woman is!” she exclaimed bitterly. “If I were a man I would earn our living.” She understood something of music, and sang and played with great refinement and expression: but her talent in this direction was natural, not acquired, and she was not sufficiently grounded in the science of the accomplishment to have any chance of succeeding as a teacher. What was to be done?
“What do you say to selling the house and grounds, and going into lodgings?” she said one day.
“It would help us for a time, but not for always,” the mother replied. “Lodgings are so expensive.”
“The house is a great deal bigger than we need,” said Marion.
“We should be no better off if it were smaller,” said Mrs. Lockhart.
There was a long pause. Suddenly Marion jumped to her feet, while the light of inspiration brightened over her face. “Why, mother, what is to prevent us letting our spare rooms to lodgers?” she cried out.
“Oh, that would be impossible!” returned the mother in dismay. “The rooms that your dear father used to live in!”
“That is what we must do,” answered Marion firmly; and in the end, as we have seen, that was what they did.
CHAPTER V.
THE third of May passed away, and, beyond the hanging up in the window of the card with “Lodgings to Let” written on it, nothing new had happened in the house at Hammersmith. But the exhibition of that card had been to Mrs. Lockhart an event of such momentous and tragic importance, that she did not know whether she were most astonished, relieved, or disappointed that it had produced no perceptible effect upon the outer universe.
“It seems to be of no use,” she said to her daughter, while the latter was assisting her in her morning toilet. “Had we not better take down the card, and try to think of something else. Couldn’t we keep half-a-dozen fowls, and sell the eggs?”
“How faint-hearted you are, mother!”
“Besides, even if somebody were to pass here who wanted lodgings, they could never think of looking through the gate; and if they did, I doubt whether they could see the card.”
“I have thought of that; and when I got up this morning I tied the card to the gate itself. Nobody can fail to see it there.”
“Oh, Marion! It is almost as if we were setting up a shop.”
“Everybody is more or less a shopkeeper,” replied Marion philosophically. “Some people sell rank, others beauty, others cleverness, others their souls to the devil: we might do worse than sell house-room to those who want it.”
“Oh, my dear!”
“Bless your dear heart! you’ll think nothing of it, once the lodgers are in the house,” rejoined the girl, kissing her mother’s cheek.
They went down to breakfast: it was a pleasant morning; the sky was a tender blue, and the eastern sunshine shot through the dark limbs of the cedar of Lebanon, and fell in cheerful patches on the floor of the dining-room, and sent a golden shaft across the white breakfast cloth, and sparkled on the silver teapot—the same teapot in which Fanny Pell had once made tea for handsome Tom Grantley in the year 1768. Marion was in high spirits: at all events, she adopted a lightsome tone, in contrast to her usual somewhat grave preoccupation. She was determined to make her mother smile.
“This is our last solitary breakfast,” she declared. “To-morrow morning we shall sit down four to table. There will be a fine old gentleman for me, and a handsome young man for you; for anybody would take you to be the younger of us two. The old gentleman will be impressed with my masculine understanding and knowledge of the world; we shall talk philosophy, and history, and politics; he will finally confess to a more than friendly interest in me; but I shall stop him there, and remind him that, for persons of our age, it is most prudent not to marry. He will allow himself to be persuaded on that point; but he has a vast fortune, and he will secretly make his will in my favor. Your young gentleman will be of gentle blood, a sentimentalist and an artist; his father will have been in love with you; the son will have the good taste to inherit the passion; he will entreat you to let him paint your portrait; but, if he becomes too pressing in his attentions, I shall feel it my duty to take him aside, and admonish him like a mother. He will be so mortally afraid of me, that I shall have no difficulty in managing him. In the course of a year or two—”
“Is not that somebody? I’m sure I heard—”
“La, mother, don’t look so scared!” cried Marion, laughing, but coloring vividly: “it can’t be anything worse than an executioner with a warrant for our arrest.” She turned in her chair, and looked through the window and across the grass-plot to the gate.
“There is somebody—two gentlemen—just as I said: one old and the other young.”
“Are you serious, Marion?” said the widow, interlacing her fingers across her breast, while her lips trembled.
“They are reading the card: the old one is holding a pair of gold-rimmed eye-glasses across his nose. Now they are looking through the gate at the house: the young one is saying something, and the other is smiling and taking snuff. The young one has a small head, but his eyes are big, and he has broad shoulders: he looks like an artist, just as I said. The old one stoops a little and is ugly; but I like his face—it’s honest. He doesn’t seem to be very rich, though; his coat is very old-fashioned. Oh, they are going away!”
“Oh, I am so glad!” exclaimed Mrs. Lockhart fervently.
“No, they are coming back—they are coming in: the young one is opening the gate. Here they come: that young fellow is certainly very handsome. There!”
A double knock sounded through the house.
“Say we are not at home—oh, they must not come in! Tell them to call another day. Perhaps they may not have called about the lodgings,” faltered the widow, in agitation.
Marion said nothing; being, to tell the truth, engaged in screwing her own courage to the sticking-point. After a pause of a few moments she marched to the door, with a step so measured and deliberate as to suggest stern desperation rather than easy indifference. Passing into the hall, and closing the door behind her, she threw open the outer door and faced the two intruders.
The elder gentleman stood forward as spokesman. “Good morning to you,” he said, glancing observantly at the young woman’s erect figure. “You have lodgings to let, I believe?”
“Yes.”
“This gentleman and I are in search of lodgings. Is the accommodation sufficient for two? We should require separate apartments.”
“You can come in and see.” She made way for them to enter, and conducted them into the sitting-room on the left.
“You had better speak to your mistress, my dear, or to your master, if he is at home, and say we would like to speak to him.” This was said by the younger man.
Marion looked at him with a certain glow of fierceness. “My father is not living,” she said. “There