"More--more than you ought to afford, Lord Blackborough," he replied evasively; "I can't keep the expenses down as I should wish, even here."
"Have you enough to go on with?"
"Plenty--but----"
"Then work out a scheme, please, for the other and have it ready against my return. And--and stop a bit! There is a place in Wales--I'll write it down--coming in to the market before long. Buy it in, furniture and all. And if the woman who is in charge--Martha's her name--wants to stop on--let her stop. I am off to--to India--for six months."
CHAPTER XXIII
Did Ned Blackborough go to India, seeking dreams at the feet of some entranced immobile ascetic, hidden away even from the sunshine of the world under the shade of the bo-tree? Did he go to Algiers and seek for them in the desert among the pathless dunes, where every step is covered by the eternally-restless, eternally-recurring wind-writing of the sand ripples? Or remaining closer at hand did he, in some remote Cornish village seek to hear the secret of dreams that is told unceasingly in the roar and the hush of the sea? Or on the eternal snows, which dominate all Europe in its hurry and its hunt for gold, which look out with cold eyes on its civilisation, its culture, its crime, did he find what he sought hemmed in by calm glaciers, frozen, ice-bound?
The one would have served his purpose quite as well as another; that being the putting in of time in a manner which did not offend his sensibilities; for, as he told himself often, he was fast becoming a crank.
The world, as it was, did not amuse him very much; it seemed to him hopelessly vulgar, even in its highest ideals for individual success and individual culture.
Wherever he went, and as to that none but himself knew, he returned as usual, punctual to a day. It was early October therefore, when, a little thinner, considerably browner, he found himself walking down Accacia Road West, Blackborough, looking for No. 10, that being the address where he was told the Cruttendens lived.
He was going to see if Aura was happy. Viewed from the outside this appeared unlikely, for Accacia Road was not, so to speak, exhilarating, though it was broad and open enough, with the usual wide asphalt pavement at either side, and a rather new-looking well-swept road, all too large apparently for the requirements of the sparse-wheeled traffic, in the middle. Possibly the inhabitants of the desirable residences, many of which were still to let, had contemplated being carriage people and had failed of their intention.
As it was, it had a distinctly desolate air. At intervals of some thirty feet upon the pavement stood little pollarded lime-trees, each apparently glued to and supported by yard-wide gratings of cast iron, encircled by the mystic legend "Blackborough Municipal Board." The trees stood on their iron bases firmly, just as the green-shaving ones in the boxes of Dutch toys do on their wooden roundels, and Ned felt impelled by a desire to lift one up and set it down again skew-fashion, just out of the straight line, so as to break the interminable regularity which made him feel as if he must go on and on to the very end. And where that might be only Heaven knew; beyond mortal sight anyhow.
Then, mercifully, the very quaintness of that iron prison-window of a grating, between root and leaf, drew his thoughts away at a tangent, and he became immersed in an imaginary argument between them.
Between the white-feeling fibrelet, down in the darkness of Earth mother's breast, the small sightless seeker supplying the leaves with all things, and clamouring in return for the whisper of blue skies, fresh breezes, singing birds, and the smoke-dimmed foliage which had no tale to tell save of smuts, tradesmen's carts, electric trams, and babies' perambulators.
It was the number on one of the gates, uniform in size, structure, and colour--which occurred, like the gratings, at regular intervals--that made him pause at last, and look curiously at the house beyond it.
Impossible!
It was frankly impossible that Aura, living there, could be happy; although, no doubt, it was what is called by auctioneers a "most superior and desirable family residence." Semi-detached, it had a carriage sweep belonging to both houses, which trended away from a gate with "No. 10, Fernlea" upon it, past one bow-window, one front door, two bow windows, another front door, and a final bow-window to the further gate with its "No. 11, Heatherdale." Which was superfluous; the number or the name?
There was a butcher's trundle, with Hogg upon it in gold letters, standing at one gate, a butcher's trundle with Slogg upon it at the other; and as Ned Blackborough turned in, two butcher boys, each with flat baskets on their blue linen arms, passed out from the little narrow green lattice-work doors, which filled up the space between Fernlea on the one side and Heatherdale on the other, and the high garden walls which separated each couple of superior residences from their neighbouring couples. The boys took no notice of each other, being dignified rivals.
How could Aura be happy, thought Ned, in an environment where the only possibility of differentiating yourself from your neighbour was by employing Slogg instead of Hogg?
The door was opened to him by what is called a superior house-parlourmaid, a young person of lofty manners, frizzed hair, and much starch.
"Wot nyme?" she asked, superciliously.
"Lord Blackborough."
Sudden awe left her hardly any voice for the necessary announcement, and she fled back precipitately to the kitchen. "Cookie!" she exclaimed, sinking into a chair. "Did you ever! Lord Blackborough, 'im as owns half the town an' is as rich as Crees' is--whoever Crees may be!--is in the parlor--such a real gent to look at too. And that ain't all. Missus called 'im 'Ned!' It's for all the world like that lovely tale in the _Penny Cupid_ I was reading last night in bed, only he was a h'earl." Her pert eyes grew tender; she sighed.
"Did she now," said Cookie, a lazy-looking, fat lump of a girl, much of the same type. "Poor master! an' he, if you like, is a good-lookin'
fellar; but I always did say she wasn't no lady. She haven't any lace on her underclothes--at least none to speak of."
Meanwhile, after her first glad incredulous cry of "Ned," Aura had hastily thrust away her work and risen.
As she came forward, a world of welcome in her face, in her outstretched hands, Ned Blackborough realised by his swift sense of disappointment how much--despite his own asseverations to the contrary--he had counted on unhappiness.
Truly women were kittle cattle. Truly it was ill prophesying for the feminine sex!
She was happy, radiantly happy. Her face, if thinner, was infinitely more vivid; if less beautiful in a way it was far more alive. It was this which struck him--the vitality of it--its firm grip on life--its almost exuberant power. It seemed to him as if two souls, two minds, two hearts looked out at him from her eyes.
He was no fool. He understood the position in a moment; he knew that love was worsted.
"So you are quite happy," he said, still holding her hand.
"Happy?" she echoed. "Oh, Ned! I have never been so happy in all my life--everything seems so new, everything seems to go on and on for ever, as if there was no end to interest and pleasure."
"I am glad," he said lamely, then added, "I shouldn't have thought----"
She followed his eyes, which had wandered to an electric blue paper covered with gigantic poppies of a deeper hue, with a frieze in which positively Brobdingnagian flowers, presumably of the same species, curled themselves in contortions terribly suggestive of a bad pain in their insides.
"Yea! isn't it awful?" she admitted with a laugh; "but I have taken all the furniture you see out of this room and stuffed it away in another empty one for the present"--an odd shy smile showed on her face, and seating herself on a stool once more she took up her work again and recommenced tucking a piece of muslin with new-born skill; for in the old days she had never touched a needle. "And it isn't quite so bad here at the back where one can't see people. But I wish my poor primroses would grow. I got them in a wood not so very far away, but the cats won't give them a chance--they scratch them up at night, poor things!" Her eyes were sorrowfully on the parallelogram of grass, gravel, and smut-blackened stems below the flight of grimy steps, which was described in the house-agent's list as a charming garden. "If it happens again I shall take them back. It is never fair to keep anything where it can't grow properly."
"Exactly so," he thought; but her face showed absolute unconsciousness.
"What do you find to do with yourself?" he asked suddenly. He felt he would go mad in a week.
"Do!"--she smiled. "Why, I never have half enough time! You see we can't afford to keep experienced servants, as yet. This house is really beyond our income, but my husband--Ted, I mean--was afraid I should not thrive in the town. It is very good of him, isn't it? to go to such expense for me."
"Very," assented Lord Blackborough, recognising Ted's phraseology and feeling bored.
"So I have to do most of the cooking," she went on quite eagerly. "It is rather fun, though Ted is quite awfully particular about his food.
But he says I am getting quite a--a _cordon bleue_--that's right, isn't it?"
"Quite right," assented Ned gravely. He was beginning to wonder how he should get away from this atmosphere of satisfaction.
"And then," she went on, and whether she smiled or was grave he could not tell, for her face was bent over her work, "I have so much to think of--you cannot know how much. Sometimes I feel as if, somehow, the whole world was bound up in me."
For the life of him he could not help a thrill in answer to the thrill of her voice. So he sat looking at her sewing garments for another man's child, until his heart waxed hot, and he said--
"Has it never struck you, Aura, that all this is--just a little rough on me?"
She looked up at him, her beautiful eyes, twin stars of mysterious double life, brimming with swift tears.
"You--you shall be its godfather," she said softly.
He could have cursed, he could have laughed, he could have cried over the pure ridiculousness of the reply; but the pure motherhood in her eyes was too much for him.
"The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." The phrase came back to his memory, reproving his individualism, setting aside all other claims as trivial.
"Well!" he said, rising as he spoke, "there is nothing more to be said. So--having found you happy--I must be going."