Part 5 (1/2)
Thus it happened that Mr. Herbert Fellingham journeyed back to London a day earlier than he had intended, and without saying what he meant to say.
CHAPTER V
A month later, after a night of sharp frost on the verge of the warmer days of spring, Mr. Fellingham entered Crikswich under a sky of perfect blue that was in brilliant harmony with the green downs, the white cliffs and sparkling sea, and no doubt it was the beauty before his eyes which persuaded him of his delusion in having taken Annette for a commonplace girl. He had come in a merely curious mood to discover whether she was one or not. Who but a commonplace girl would care to reside in Crikswich, he had asked himself; and now he was full sure that no commonplace girl would ever have had the idea. Exquisitely simple, she certainly was; but that may well be a distinction in a young lady whose eyes are expressive.
The sound of sawing attracted him to Crickledon's shop, and the industrious carpenter soon put him on the tide of affairs.
Crickledon pointed to the house on the beach as the place where Mr. Van Diemen Smith and his daughter were staying.
”Dear me! and how does he look?” said Fellingham.
”Our town seems to agree with him, sir.”
”Well, I must not say any more, I suppose.” Fellingham checked his tongue. ”How have they settled that dispute about the chiwal-gla.s.s?”
”Mr. Tinman had to give way.”
”Really.”
”But,” Crickledon stopped work, ”Mr. Tinman sold him a meadow.”
”I see.”
”Mr. Smith has been buying a goodish bit of ground here. They tell me he's about purchasing Elba. He has bought the Crouch. He and Mr. Tinman are always out together. They're over at Helmstone now. They've been to London.”
”Are they likely to be back to-day?”
”Certain, I should think. Mr. Tinman has to be in London to-morrow.”
Crickledon looked. He was not the man to look artful, but there was a lighted corner in his look that revived Fellingham's recollections, and the latter burst out:
”The Address? I 'd half forgotten it. That's not over yet? Has he been practicing much?”
”No more gla.s.ses ha' been broken.”
”And how is your wife, Crickledon?”
”She's at home, sir, ready for a talk, if you've a mind to try her.”
Mrs. Crickledon proved to be very ready. ”That Tinman,” was her theme.
He had taken away her lodgers, and she knew his objects. Mr. Smith repented of leaving her, she knew, though he dared not say it in plain words. She knew Miss Smith was tired to death of constant companions.h.i.+p with Mrs. Cavely, Tinman's sister. She generally came once in the day just to escape from Mrs. Cavely, who would not, bless you! step into a cottager's house where she was not allowed to patronize. Fortunately Miss Smith had induced her father to get his own wine from the merchants.
”A happy resolution,” said Fellingham; ”and a saving one.”
He heard further that Mr. Smith would take possession of the Crouch next month, and that Mrs. Cavely hung over Miss Smith like a kite.
”And that old Tinman, old enough to be her father!” said Mrs. Crickledon.