Only a clod
name of a certain Rosa, of the King’s Head, appeared very often in these
earlier pages; and there were little epigrams about Rosa, bespeaking the
easy-going morality of a Rochester or a Sedley, rather than the pure
sentiments of a Tennyson or a Longfellow. Altogether there was a
reckless, swaggering manner about the book, which very well corresponded
with Mrs. Burfield’s description of the prancing stranger.
But the volume had no interest for Francis Tredethlyn until he came to
the twentieth page, where the name of Coltonslough figured for the first
time.
“_November 8._--The abomination of desolation, and just the place for a
fellow that wants to read hard and be delivered from the society of his
fellow-creatures! Arrived yesterday afternoon; found civil landlady,
stereotyped sea-side accommodation; decrepit easy-chair, slippery
horsehair cushions; no window-curtains to speak of, and a great deal of
unnecessary drapery festooned about a rickety tent-bedstead;
wash-hand-stand one size too large for a doll, and fifty sizes too small
for any civilized being; shells and shepherdesses on the mantelpieces,
and any amount of blown-glass decanters on the sideboard. Dined on
chops, which were fried, soddened in their own grease. Must speak to the
landlady to-morrow, and insist on gridiron. The woman who would fry
chops would think nothing of human sacrifices. A girl waited upon me, a
good deal younger than Rosa, and I think prettier--but we have changed
all that, so I didn’t take particular notice of her. Read hard till
after one, and write this before retiring to my couch,--flock, and
lumpy, for I dug my knuckles into the counterpane while examining the
apartment.
“_November 9._--The girl, who is infinitely superior to Rosa, brought me
my breakfast. More chops, not fried, but soddened in relic of the dark
ages entitled Dutch oven, for I inquired; and underdone French rolls.
Why, O provincial taker, always underdone? What grudge dost thou bear
against thy fellow-man that thou seekest insidiously to undermine his
constitution with thy clammy bread-stuffs? Girl, infinitely prettier
than Rosa, cleared away breakfast. Very shy, and only answers polite
inquiries in monosyllables. Asked if she was relation of woman of house.
No, no relation; nursery governess to children. Comes from some remote
district in the west of England; evidently objects to be precise as to
locality. Heard her go down kitchen stairs with tea-things, and did
_not_ hear her reascend them. Conclude that the nursery is somewhere in
the cellarage. Read hard all day. Smoke and stroll in the evening.
Landlady waited on me at dinner. Dismal change, after monosyllabic girl,
recalling Death’s-head at Egyptian banquets, but _not_ crowned with
flowers. More reading after dinner, brandy-and-water cold, and now to
bed. Have ordered mattress to be put over flock. Sleeping on knobby
surface all very well now and then, but not for a permanence. Mem: To
keep my eye upon Lord Paisley’s ‘Blazing Tom,’ for the Craven meeting.
“_November 12._--No diary yesterday or the day before. Read with German
crib: wonderful fellows those Germans for first-class translations of
classic fogies. Wrote to H. C. to put a pony on ‘Blazing Tom.’ Walked on
the Esplanade in the afternoon, and made the acquaintance of
monosyllabic Cornish girl, infinitely prettier than Rosa. Yes, I
succeeded in breaking the ice, with considerable trouble; for I never
_did_ see anything feminine so shy and frightened as this brown-eyed
Cornish girl. ‘Her eye’s dark charm,’ &c. Well, there _is_ something of
the gazelle in her eyes, something shrinking and fawn-like. I could
fancy the white doe of what’s-its-name looking as she looked at me
yesterday.
“I went out for my smoke and stroll rather earlier than I had intended.
I saw the Cornish girl and three uncouth children in rusty leather boots
wending their way across the piece of waste ground which forms the
delicious prospect before my window. A nice, cool, gray afternoon, with
a low yellow streak on the western horizon; a gray sea, melting into a
gray sky, with only just that one golden streak glimmering along the
edge of the waters; the sort of afternoon that reminds one of Tennyson’s
poetry. So I lighted my cigar, and went out for a stroll. Perhaps I
followed the monosyllabic girl. What do I know? as that amiable French
nuisance, who is perpetually quoted in newspaper leaders, remarked.
Enough that I went, found the Cornish girl, very shabbily dressed, but
unutterably pretty, strolling listlessly up and down the paved walk
beside the sea. They _call_ it the sea; but, Oh for the roaring breakers
of the Atlantic, or the long hoarse roar of the waves as the German
Ocean surges on broad yellow sands yonder, far away in the North!
“And so, having lighted my cigar, I strolled up and down the Esplanade.
Of course I began to talk to the children. If children have any use in
this world--which I have been frequently inclined to doubt--surely it
must be in this matter of serving as a means of introduction to pretty
nursemaids. The children and I were intimate in no time; the presuming
little imps became, of course, obnoxiously familiar; and, like all
go-betweens, were very difficult to shake off when done with. But I got
the Cornish girl to talk at last. She is not stupid, only shy; and she
told me a good deal, in a pretty, simple, girlish way, about her native
county, always keeping clear of all precise allusion to locality, by the
bye. She is very pretty,--I had almost written lovely, but that
adjective can only be applied to a high-bred beauty. She is extremely
pretty, and that white doe of Rhylston (isn’t it?) look in her eyes
haunted me all last night while I was reading. Yes, it was very
pleasant, that stroll upon the Esplanade. I threw away my first cigar,
and forgot to light another, though she would have allowed me to smoke,
I dare say. It was very pleasant, that cool gray sea, and the yellow
streak fading in the west, and the flat gray shore, and the generally
Tennysonian aspect of everything. It was very much better than the
King’s Arms, and a lot of fellows drinking no end of Bass, and chaffing
Rosa. I don’t suppose this Cornish girl knows what chaff means. I almost
shudder when I think of Rosa, with her big, round, black eyes, and the
sticky little curls upon her forehead, and the tartan neck-ribbons, and
great yellow earrings. And Oxonians have married Rosas before my time,
and have deservedly gone to the dogs thereupon. But fifty thousand is
your figure, my dear Robert,--fifty thousand, well sounded, and no
separate-use-and-maintenance humbug either. Something in the
commercial-widow line, I suppose you will have to put up with, my poor
Bob; but no greedy old parent to interfere with the disposal of the
money. The widow, or the orphan, if a fifty thousand pounder, is the
sort of article for you, dear child.
“_November 13._--She brought me my breakfast this morning--(what, is she
_she_ already? Alas, poor Rosa!)--and I got her to pour out my tea. I
couldn’t detain her long: she was so _very_ busy, she said, and seemed
painfully anxious to get away. I made her talk a little. She has a nice
low voice,--‘an excellent thing,’ &c.! Now Rosa had a vixenish way of
speaking, that always jarred upon me, even when I was deepest down that
pit into which the fair barmaid’s admirers cast themselves. She--the
Cornish girl--is what people call a genteel young person, with white
hands and a slim waist, and a nice way of doing her hair, and putting on
her collars and cuffs. Her name is Susan Turner, by the bye; and the
children call her Susy. Could anything sound more pastoral? Susy. The
name of Rosa was always so painfully suggestive of nigger melodies.
Another cool gray afternoon, and another low yellow line across the sky;
so I went out for my smoke at the same time as yesterday. She was on the
Esplanade with the children. She instructs them in arithmetic, writing,
and elementary smatterings of history, geography, and grammar, after
dinner, and then brings them out for a walk till tea-time, after which
they ‘retire to rest,’ as the novelists have it, not without
considerable rebellious scuffling in the passage and on the stairs. That
is the order of the day. In the morning, I suspect, she is housemaid,
parlour-maid, needlewoman, or anything else that my landlady’s
necessities oblige her to be. But she is always equally neat and pretty;
and if she were only provided with that trifling little matter of fifty
thousand or so in the elegant simplicity of the three per cents, I
should be decidedly inclined to fall in love with her. Does one ever
fall in love with a fifty-thousand pounder, by the bye? I rather think
not. She--Susy--was not quite so shy this afternoon, and we talked a
good deal. I offered to lend her some books. I offered to lend Rosa
books once, when I was in the lowest depths of spooneyism, and was
unhappy about her grammar--those dreadful superfluous ‘whiches,’ and
intolerable ‘as hows’!--but Rosa rejected my literature, as dry rubbish
that gave her the horrors. I had lent her the ‘Bride of Lammermoor.’ My
little Susy won’t turn up that innocent nose of hers at any sentimental
story, I’ll be bound. I’ve found an odd volume of Byron, containing
‘Parisina,’ and the ‘Prisoner of Chillon,’ and a lot of the ‘To Thirza’
business.
“N.B.--I find that I’ve called her my little Susy! Pretty well, as I’ve
been only a week in the place. Am I going down into another pit, I
wonder--a deeper abyss than that into which Rosa casts her victims?
Poor, pretty, fawn-eyed little darling! Take care of yourself, my dear
Robert. Poor, friendless Susy! She couldn’t well be _worse off_ under
any circumstances than she is in this place, that’s one blessing: the
drudge of a mistress who is herself a slave in the bondage of poverty. I
went down to the kitchen yesterday to get a fresh supply of coals--these
people are ready to fall down and worship me because I’m not proud, as
they put it; but there are numerous orders of pride, I think,--and I saw
their dinner. Such a poor bone of mutton! Poor little Susy! how she
would open her eyes at sight of the Richmond and Greenwich banquets that
I have seen given to persons as inferior to herself as--Hyperion to the
other person. What a frightful hindrance to original composition is that
abominable habit of hackneyed quotation!--the great newspaper-mill going
round three-hundred-and-thirteen times a year, and only one little
limited stock of quotations for all the leader-writers.
“_November 16._--Sunday, and a wet day: saw Susan start for church in
the morning with prayer-books and children. Strolled out with umbrella a
little after twelve; found church; unpleasant new building, smelling of
damp stucco, and looking like an edifice of soddened brown paper; waited
in the porch, patient as that young idiot in Arthur Pendennis’s poem,
until my lady came out, and conducted her home in triumph under my
umbrella, while the awkward squad of children brought up the rear under
cover of the maternal gingham. She was obliged to take my arm; and as
the walk from the church is rather a long one, we got alarmingly
intimate--when I say alarmingly intimate, I mean that she has taken to
blushing when I speak to her. That’s the worst of these fawn-like girls;
they will blush! And when they’re pretty, the blushes are so bewitching.
And when they don’t happen to have fifty thousand or so, what is a
fellow to do? Take to his heels, replies the stern moralist, who has
sown his own wild oats twenty years ago, and is envious of the young
scatterers of to-day. I came to Coltonslough to read; and come what may,
I shall stay there till it’s time to go back to St. B. In the meantime,