Part 21 (1/2)
CHAPTER IX
It was a cheerless February day, dark and slaty overhead, dusty below.
In the East End streets paper and straw, children's curls, girls'
pinafores and women's skirts were driven back and forward by a bitter wind; there was an ugly light on ugly houses, with none of that kind trickery of mist or smoke which can lend some grace on normal days even to Commercial Street, or to the network of lanes north of the Bethnal Green Road. The pitiless wind swept the streets--swept the children and the grown-ups out of them into the houses, or any available shelter; and in the dark and chilly emptiness of the side roads one might listen in fancy for the stealthy returning steps of spirits crueller than Cold, more tyrannous than Poverty, coming to seize upon their own.
In one of these side streets stood a house larger than its neighbours, in a bit of front garden, with some decrepit rust-bitten-railings between it and the road. It was an old dwelling overtaken by the flood of tenement houses, which spread north, south, east, and west of it. Its walls were no less grimy than its neighbours'; but its windows were outlined in cheerful white paint, firelight sparkled through its unshuttered panes, and a bright green door with a bra.s.s knocker completed its pleasant air. There were always children outside the Vicarage railings on winter evenings, held there by the spell of the green door and the firelight.
Inside the firelit room to the left of the front pathway, two men were standing--one of whom had just entered the house.
”My dear Penrose!--how very good of you to come. I know how frightfully busy you are.”
The man addressed put down his hat and stick, and hastily smoothed back some tumbling black hair which interfered with spectacled eyes already hampered by short sight. He was a tall, lank, powerful fellow; anyone acquainted with the West-country would have known him for one of the swarthy, gray-eyed Cornish stock.
”I am pretty busy--but your tale, Herbert, was a startler. If I can help you--or Barnes--command me. He is coming this afternoon?”
Herbert French pointed his visitor to a chair.
”Of course. And another man--whom I met casually, in Pall Mall this morning--and had half an hour's talk with--an American naval officer--an old acquaintance of Elsie's--Captain Boyson--will join us also. I met him at Harvard before our wedding, and liked him. He has just come over with his sister for a short holiday, and I ran across him.”
”Is there any particular point in his joining us?”
Herbert French expounded. Boyson had been an old acquaintance of Mrs.
Roger Barnes before her marriage. He knew a good deal about the Barnes story--”feels, so I gathered, very strongly about it, and on the man's side; and when I told him that Roger had just arrived and was coming to take counsel with you and me this afternoon, he suddenly asked if he might come, too. I was rather taken aback. I told him that we were going, of course, to consider the case entirely from the English point of view. He still said, 'Let me come; I may be of use to you.' So I could only reply it must rest with Roger. They'll show him first into the dining-room.”
Penrose nodded. ”All right, as long as he doesn't mind his national toes trampled upon. So these are your new quarters, old fellow?”
His eyes travelled round the small book-lined room, with its shelves of poetry, history, and theology; its parish litter; its settle by the fire, on which lay a doll and a child's picture-book; back to the figure of the new vicar, who stood, pipe in hand, before the hearth, clad in a shabby serge suit, his collar alone betraying him. French's white hair showed even whiter than of old above the delicately blanched face; from his natural slenderness and smallness the East End and its life had by now stripped every superfluous ounce; yet, ethereal as his aspect was, not one element of the Meredithian trilogy--”flesh,” ”blood,” or ”spirit”--was lacking in it.
”Yes, we've settled in,” he said quietly, as Penrose took stock.
”And you like it?”
”We do.”
The phrase was brief; nor did it seem to be going to lead to anything more expansive. Penrose smiled.
”Well, now”--he bent forward, with a professional change of tone--”before he arrives, where precisely is this unhappy business? I gather, by the way, that Barnes has got practically all his legal advice from the other side, though the solicitors here have been cooperating?”
French nodded. ”I am still rather vague myself. Roger only arrived from New York the day before yesterday. His uncle, General Hobson, died a few weeks ago, and Roger came rus.h.i.+ng home, as I understand, to see if he could make any ready money out of his inheritance. Money, in fact, seems to be his chief thought.”
”Money? What for? Mrs. Barnes's suit was surely settled long ago?”
”Oh, yes--months ago. She got her decree and the custody of the child in July.”
”Remind me of the details. Barnes refused to plead?”
”Certainly. By the advice of the lawyers on both sides, he refused, as an Englishman, to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Court.”