drive, whose sides were lawn of the most velvety green; while flowers of the brightest hues filled the many beds. The grounds were extensive, though the house was small and cottage-like, with its highly-pitched gables, latticed windows, and red-brick walls covered with magnificent specimens of creeping plants. On either side of the house were pretty extensive conservatories, and glimpses of other glass-houses could be seen beyond a tall thick hedge of yew. In fact, it was just the beau-ideal of a pretty country-home, with a steep slope down to the river.
“Here we are, old fellow,” cried Scarlett, as he leaped out and helped his wife to alight. – “Are they warm, Tom?”
“No, sir; not turned a hair, sir.”
“That’s right. – Now then, Arthur. Same room as you had before. Will you take anything after your ride?”
“Oh, dear, no,” said Prayle; “and if you’ll allow me, I’ll ramble about till dinner.”
“Do just what you like, old man. There are cigars and cigarettes in the study. If there’s anything else you want, just ring.”
“Oh, don’t; pray don’t,” said Prayle deprecatingly. “You will spoil my visit if you make so much of me.”
“Make much of you, lad? Stuff! – Good-bye, Buddy; good-bye, Jen,” he cried, patting the cobs. – “Take care of them, Tom. – Beauties, aren’t they, Arthur? My present to Kate. Now then, come along.”
He led the visitor into the tiled hall, at every corner of which was some large jardinière full of flowers, and up the broad staircase to the guest-chamber, flowers being in the window even here; while the floors were covered with the softest carpets and rugs, and pictures and engravings of no little merit covered the walls.
“You have a magnificent place here, James,” said the visitor, with a sigh.
“Nonsense, man. Half the beauty is Nature’s own doing, aided by your humble servant, Kitty, old John Monnick, and a couple of labourers. Why, I pay less for this pretty Elizabethan cottage than I should for some brick dungeon in a West-end square. Less? Why, I don’t pay half. Now, I’m going to unfig.”
He nodded pleasantly at his guest, and left him alone, when a scowl came over Prayle’s face, and glancing round at the well-furnished room, with its bright fittings and charming flowers in window and vase, he said in a low and bitter voice: “Why should this weak boor be rolling in wealth, while I have to pinch and spare and contrive in my dim blank chambers? The world is not fair. Oh, it is not fair!”
As he stood there in the middle of the room, a distant sound made him turn his head sharply, and he caught sight of his frowning face in the dressing-glass, when, smoothing away the wrinkles, he paid a few attentions to his personal appearance, and went down to stroll about the grounds.
Volume One – Chapter Three.
Fanny’s Magazines
“Have you brought my magazines, William?” said a bright-faced, eager girl, with no slight pretensions to good looks, as she stood there in her neat, dark, closely fitting dress with white apron, collar and cuffs, and natty muslin cap with black ribbon, looking the very model of the neat-handed Phyllis many people think so satisfactory for a parlour-maid. The William addressed was a broad-shouldered, heavy-looking young man of three or four and thirty, dressed in brown velveteen coat and vest, and drab cord trousers. He was very cleanly shaved; his fair crisp hair closely cut; and he had evidently been paying a great deal of attention to his heavy boots. There was a sprig of southernwood in his button-hole, a smaller sprig in his mouth; and he held in one hand his soft felt hat, in the other, one of those ash, quarter-staff-looking implements, with a tiny spade at the end, known to farmers as a thistle-spud – a companion that served him as walking-stick and a means of getting rid of the obnoxious weeds about his little farm. For Brother William, otherwise William Cressy, farmed the twenty acres that had been held by his ancestors for the past two hundred years, and it was his custom to walk over every Saturday to see how his sister Fanny was getting on, the said young lady having been in service at the Rosery ever since Sir James Scarlett’s marriage, he always timed his visit so that he should get there just before Martha set out the tea-things, and from regular usage Martha always placed an extra cup – extra large as well, for Brother William, who afterwards stayed until supper, and then declared, in a tone quite of remonstrance, “Well, I must go now,” as if he had been all along pressed to stay, whereas he had scarcely spoken all the time, and been hardly spoken to, but had sat stolidly in an armed Windsor chair staring at Martha, the housemaid, as she darned, stockings, a whole basket full, with the light making a broad path upon her carefully smoothed and glossy hair.
“Yes; here they be,” said Brother William, solemnly drawing a couple of the most romantic and highly flavoured of the penny weeklies of the day from his breast-pocket, and opening and smoothing them out, so as to display to the best advantage the woodcuts on the front pages of each, where, remarkably similar in style, a very undulatory young lady in evening dress was listening to the attentions of a small-headed, square-shouldered gentleman of impossible height, with an enormous moustache, worn probably to make up for his paucity of cranial hair. “Yes; here they be; and I don’t think much of ’em either.”
“No! what do you know about them?” said the girl sharply. “If it had been the Farmer’s Friend, with its rubbish about crops and horseballs and drenches, you would say it was good reading.”
“Mebbe,” said Brother William, placing his soft hat very carefully upon the rounded knob of his thistle staff, and standing it up in a corner of the room adjoining the kitchen. “Mebbe, Fanny, my lass; but I don’t see what good it’s going to do you reading ’bout dooks and lords a-marrying housemaids, as they don’t never do – do they, Martha?”
“I never knew of such a thing, Mr Cressy,” said Martha in a quiet demure way. “I did once hear of a gentleman marrying his cook.”
“Yes,” said Brother William solemnly, “I think I did hear of such a thing as that, and that might be sensible; but in them magazines they never marry the cooks – it’s always the housemaids – and Fanny’s getting her head full of such stuff.”
“You mind your own business, William, and let me mind mine, if you please,” said the young lady warmly.
“Oh, all right, my dear; only, I’m your brother, you know,” said the young man, hitching himself more comfortably into his chair. “Got company, I see.”
“How did you know?” cried Fanny.
“I was over at the station delivering my bit o’ wheat, when Sir James come in with that Mr Prayle. I don’t think much of him.”
“And pray, why not?”
“Dunno. Seems too smooth and underhanded like. I didn’t take to him when he come round my farm.”
“You’re a very foolish, prejudiced fellow, William,” said Fanny warmly; and she whisked herself out of the room.
“That’s what mother used to say,” said Brother William, thoughtfully rubbing his broad palms to and fro along the polished arms of the chair. “She used to say: ‘Wilyum, my boy, thou’rt prejudiced;’ and I s’pose I am. That sort o’ thing is in a man’s natur’, and can only be bred out in time. – Is tea ’most ready, Martha Betts?”
Martha replied by filling up the teapot, and proceeding to cut some bread and butter, of both of which refreshing kinds of nutriment Brother William partook largely upon the return of his sister, who soon after hurried away to attend to her duties,
