A Bridge of Glass, etc

Front matter

VOL. BY F. W. ROBINSON, A.DTHOK OF - GRANDMOTHER'S MONEY,'' &c. &c. *■ What a bridge ot' glass I walk upon, over a river Of aertain ruin ." Massingek. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1872. Hit right of Translation is reserced. LONDON : PIUNTED fcY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE. C 0 N T E N T S OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

BOOK 11. INGLENESS.

HAKILJ; l-AGl* s. Four years Afterwards .... 3 II. Together Again 24 III. Lady Pounie 37 [V. " Old Sweethearts " .... 4-1 V. Hannah 56 VI. A Hero in spite of Himself . . 76 VII. Hesdie on Defence 85 VIII. Mistress and Maid 100 IX. The Lord and SI aster .... 110 X. Making Friends 124 XI. In Strict Confidence . . . .135 XII. The Welcome 152 XIII. The Luncheon Party . . .162 XIV. Alone with the Ladies .... CONTENTS. VI CHAPTER i \..r XV. Restless lns XVI. I-~ the Night-time 198 XVH. Put on his Guard 21. XVIII. More Doubts 227 XIX. Unsafe 238 XX. Curious and Cautious 252 XXI. Waiting for my Loud .... 269 XXII. Better Friends 278 XXIII. Fanny 289 XXIV. Clement Quail starts after his Brother book: ii INGLENESS VOL. II. B

Chapter I. Four Years Afterwards

TT is four years since Viscount Pounie married -*- a farmer's daughter, and the world has got over the news. Lords will marry out of their sphere now and then, making erratic dashes at lower levels of society. Odd kinds of women have earned to them selves titles by odd kinds of manoeuvring, or by no manoeuvring at all ; and from the high estate of the Upper Ten have fluttered down many great catches. The fair face in the valley, or the rouged face B behind the footlights, has upset some of the wisest calculations, and Romance has got the upper hand of Caste in defiance of the probabi lities and proprieties. Life is a merry-go-round ; and Hesbie Grace, in due course and God will ing, will be Countess of Coedstown. We wait the great event with calmness. And those whom the event of Hesbie's marriage distracted and startled a great deal — what are their relative positions ?

Let us inquire, before we ring up the curtain on their present lives. Four years may be as four weeks to a dreamy fellow living in a cottage in Cold-Blow Vale, or to a man of business with " the city" on his mind. Is the one still absorbed in his books, and taking his colouring, like the chameleon, from the objects around him ? And is the other still whirling in the vortex of figures, keeping his head cool, and exerting his memory only for those dates which affect bargains of sale in "the Lane?" Four years have changed both Matthew and FOUR TEARS AFTERWARDS. 5 Clement Quail. The first has grown old, and the second poor. As one approaches the other in the fair Summer weather, and after the same fashion as in our prologue — for it is the worker who once more wends his steps towards the dreamer — we may note the changes in them, and shadow forth the reasons for them.

Matthew Quail is, then, a middle-aged man at four-and-thirty. His neck has craned forwards, and his shoulders have taken a higher elevation to themselves since we left him fighting the battle with my Lord of Coedstown in the dark drawing-room of Atherby Court. His face is sallow and lined and full of a deeper sadness than even poets should have, to render them prepossessing in the eyes of their worshippers. Everybody says that Matthew Quail is work ing himself to death, just as everybody said that he was a poet when we sang to his praise at an earlier stage of our history ; and certainly he has worked all the youth out of his system, and nearly all the colour from his hair and long moustache, if, indeed, it can be recorded that hard study of the divine art has caused this startling change in him.

People in town talk a little of Quail's poems, now that the mask of the anonymous has fallen from the features of the genius. Matthew Quail is a genius, after his kind : not a great genius, but as wordy and obscure in his works as are even geniuses of a higher order ; and there is that look upon him as of a being dis satisfied with himself, or his world, or with that meed of praise which the world has thought fitting to give him. It may be only his looks, but certes Matthew Quail is not a happy-looking man. He has left West Atherby, and the cottage in Cold-Blow Vale has been blown into a ruin since he last set foot there. Only one tenant endeavoured to master the situation, after Matthew Quail had sold the pro perty by public auction at the village inn, and he discovered in nine months — his relations in six — that he had become a drivelling idiot be neath the experiment.

Cold-Blow Vale did not agree with its tenants, take the whole year through: even the sheep grew wheezy and roupy, and unnaturally depressed, as the days drew in, and the nights took an extra length of black ness, and windiness, and unmitigated dampness to themselves. Matthew Quail is at Charrington, three-quarters of an hour's railway ride of the sea — which has been recommended occasionally for the benefit of his health, and to Charrington his brother is on his way to meet him, as Clement has met him many times since West Atherby was set aside for good. They both object to West Atherby, though it is seldom that allusion is made to past likes and dislikes. And Clement Quail, sitting in the third-class compartment of an excursion train, puffing its way to the great town, for five shillings, looks poorer perhaps, or else his surroundings have cast him into shadow.

He appears to be no older, and the four years which have passed have settled on him like four snow-flakes. Four years of London work, of London wear and tear, have not aged him, and the trouble of the days when he came back courting to his uncle's furm has left no traces of regret, but has been tossed away contemptuously. He has gone down in the world ; but he carries his head as uprightly as when he fancied that he was ascending society's ladder at double-quick time. The sudden collapse of his firm.in thegreat panic year, has been a shock and an unlooked for calamity, from which he has at least recovered. Mr. Redbridge had been talking of partnership before the blow came, and poor Redbridge went to the wall ; but then the wall fell on him, and crushed him to an utter bankruptcy of tenpence in the pound, after which he shot himself, and left a daughter on his brother's hands.

That only daughter, a light-haired, pale-faced, pen sive woman, is in the train, along with her uncle, Samuel Redbridge, Q.C, who is not above excursion trains and saving a few shillings, although Bedford Row and Lincoln's Inn mark his briefs with big figures. Clement Quail knows them very well, but he does not attempt to confront them. For two years he has kept out of their way, and now he holds to the background politely until the guard has turned the key on them and inspect ed their tickets. " Going down to the elections," he says to himself. " Redbridge must have a hand in everything, and exercise his loud lungs when he can." They are busy at Charrington, where there is much yeasty excitement. The senior member for that important town has departed this life, and there is a struggle amongst ambitious men for the honour of succeeding him.

The journey is at an end, and as Clement passes from the station to the road without, he is astonished by well-known names in large capitals upon the hoarding opposite ; and why Mr. Redbridge has travelled that day by his train is suggested by Brobdingnagian posters. " Red bridge for Charrington " — " Redbridge, the Conservative Candidate " — " Redbridge, the llberal-conservative — the true man of the People," are a few of the announcements di recting attention to his old master's brother. " Ambitious," says Clement ; and then a hand claps him on the shoulder, and the very man whom he has made some little effort to elude that morning is before him, with his niece at his side. " Why, Quail, old fellow — young invisible — it is you, then ?" cries the barrister. It is a hearty greeting, savouring a little of that objectionable affectation of heartiness which makes you long to kick the humbug who tries it on with you.

But Mr. Redbridge is glad to see Clement Quail, though Clement is not glad to see him. Mr. Redbridge is a big, brawny man, with sandy whiskers that match his niece's flaxen poll, and his deep voice rolls out its greeting with sonorous emphasis. Clement shakes hands with him and his niece, who smiles faintly, and then turns away her head with a sudden up rising of the tears. She was in great grief when Clem saw her last, and he was one of a party of mourners waiting in a darkened room for a coffin to be carried away, and she remem bers all that, as he does. He is sorry that he has met her and her uncle. The old merchant has been dead two years, but she clings still to the mourning. The barrister appears to be in no hurry to get rid of Clement. On the contrary, he links his arm within his, and turns from the broad station-yard into the crowded street beyond.

It is market-day, and pigs and sheep harass their legs a little, and large-eyed oxen seem to regard the Liberal-Conservative candidate with intense interest. He says so, even, and Clement smiles, and hopes that the man will soon let go his arm. " I have influence in Charrington. I am go ing in for it with all my heart, Quail ! You must come and make a speech for me I" he cries. " I have heard you speak : but we must have nothing about the people's rights here. You are a red-hot Republican, we know — but you need not tell anybody that in Charrington ; unless you turn up at Lord Pounie's meeting, and get up a row for me by way of diversion !' He laughs heartily, but Clement looks at him significantly, and he suddenly becomes very grave, and turns the conversation, or, rather, shunts it with a wrench to a different line.

Clement had been once led to speak his mind, half jestingly, half seriously, at this man's brother's dinner-party, when that mind had been full of strong ideas about the people and their interests. Some of the guests had been shock ed, and others amazed, and poor Redbridge the merchant would have taken offence, had not the daughter brought matters round again. It is an ugly allusion in that moment, reviving grim reminiscences ; but the speaker is not a man of forethought, take him altogether. " What are you doing now ? We have often spoken of you, Fanny and I. On your legs, I suppose V " Yes, on my legs," answers Clement ; " and down here for a holiday." He enters into no explanation of his present position in society ; but Mr. Redbridge forces him into it. " You must dine with me, and talk the matter of the election over.

You know some of the Charrington folk, I dare say V " A few of them." " The very man 1" cries Redbridge. " But I hate elections, and election business," says Clement, decisively. " Never mind them, then I" is the reply. " Come for yourself and for me, and to give me the opportunity of a pleasant evening with a clever fellow — w*ith the man whom we all have liked, and who has no right to keep himself in hiding from us." Mr. Redbridge means what he says— or about seven-eighths of what he says. He has always liked Clement Quail — and he used to meet him very frequently three or four years ago, when Clem was of great service in Mincing Lane. Clement had been a faithful servant to the brother, and had fought hard through the storm for him, giving him the full strength of his services, and knowing that no wages would result in return ; and Redbridge is aware that such men are scarce in stormy weather, and hence esteems Clement Quail.

When Clement disappeared from his line of route, he thought of him now and then, but he did not take any trouble to find him ; he was always busy fighting his way through law-cases of prodigious dimensions. He feels that he likes the man as well as ever, now that he is beside him, and he wonders within himself that he has not thought of him before. Yes, he likes Cle ment, and possibly Clement knows some one in Charrington with a vote to spare, after all. " I am not in hiding," Clement Quail replies, to the last remark. " I am a junior clerk in the Comet Insurance Company." " Eh ! Comet Insurance — junior clerk !" " Yes." " But " It does not pay quite as well as the old berth, at present. I have eighty pounds a year as a start, and it keeps me." Mr. Redbridge opens his mouth like a codfish, and draws a deep breath for air, while the pale faced girl peers round her uncle at Clement — who is on the uncle's side — with a sudden and deep interest in every word that he is saying.

" Good God ! are you not doing better than that ?" asks the barrister at last. " Oh, I am beginning again, you know ; and I was glad to get anything," Clement answers, frankly. He thrusts his decadence into the foreground with an easy composure that is startling. He is determined that Mr. Redbridge shall un derstand the position. If he expects to shock him, as well as sur prise him, he is mistaken, for Mr. Redbridge is really sorry, and looks truly grieved. He even stands still for a moment, and brings his niece to a full stop also ; then he goes on again, " I think I can find something better for you than that," he mutters. " Thank you," says Clement. " Here— even in Charrington." " That would be handy to my brother," an swers Clement, coolly. Clement is scarcely grateful ; he thinks that he shall pass from the great barrister's mind as he shall pass away from him at the corner of the next street, and he shows what is in his own thoughts too clearly for common politeness.

At the next street he holds out his hand. " Good day," he says to the barrister. " Good day, Miss Redbridge," he adds, and then he raises his hat, and regards her with more in terest. " One moment, Quail — will you dine with me to-day or to-morrow? I should really like a long talk with you," says Mr. Redbridge. " I am afraid I shall not have the time to spare," Clement answers, " and must, therefore, ask you to excuse me. My holiday is for my brother, whom I do not see very often. Good day, Miss Redbridge," he says again. She extends a little black-gloved hand to wards him, and he shakes it in his own, smiles, bows, and goes away. " Let us see you, if possible. We are at the Royal," Mr. Redbridge calls after him. Clement nods, but does not turn his head again, and uncle and niece pursue the even tenor of their journey.

They are silent for a while, the uncle looking straight before him, and puffing a little ; the niece deep in the study of the flagstones. " I'm sorry to find that Quail is down as low as this," Mr. Redbridge suddenly remarks. " Why didn't he tell us before ? — why didn't he write or something'? I always liked that young fellow, Fanny." " Did you, uncle ?" is the quiet response. " He was straightforward and clever — a little too independent, perhaps, and full of odd no tions — but your poor father was very fond of him, Fanny." " Yes." That is all the conversation that ensues, until Mr. Redbridge and his niece are on the steps of the Royal Hotel, Charrington. Here the niece speaks again : VOL. II. c " I hope you will think of Mr. Quail, uncle, if you should hear of any good post for him." He rolls two small brownish eyes into their corners, to observe his niece, as they enter the Royal ; but she is as pale and as passive as ever, and had she been in a witness-box be fore him, he should not have thought of one word in cross-examination.

Poor Fanny, she had never troubled herself about " the men," he knew ; and now that her father's money is all gone, the men will never trouble themselves about her, he is tolerably certain. Mr. Redbridge is a man of immense ex perience of the world. He does not think anything more of young Quail after his dinner; there are election affairs on his mind, people to visit him, and people to plot for him. There are three candidates in the field for Charrington, two of whom have the start, though he was down by express last Wednesday, and talked himself hoarse till Thursday midnight. He has a meeting to ad dress in the large workshop of a manufacturer to-night — Mr. Penny is at the Assembly Rooms, and the man he most fears, Lord Pounie, the Conservative, with interest in the place suffi cient to swamp anybody, if judiciously used, has secured the Charrington Theatre, which is an edifice mouldy and green from the Charring tonians' neglect of Thespian interests.

Mr. Redbridge makes his speech with im mense success, and is cheered enthusiastically ; his voice is loud, his delivery is clear, his elo quence is indisputable. If he love not " the masses," no one is aware of it but himself; if, at the bottom of some generous feeling for the people there is a broad basis of thought as to his own advancement by public support of a Ministry to his liking, it does not render him an irrational being, and he keeps his am bition well under cover in an excitable town. He walks back to the Royal with a few friends. who compliment him on his speech ; and he passes the Charrington Theatre en route, and finds its doors still open, and three police men keeping from re-entry two advanced c2 Liberals, with no shirts to their backs, who have been interrupting the proceedings by war whoops.

" Is it full ?" he asks of a gentleman, the manager of the house, who strokes his beard and laughs. The manager knows Mr. Redbridge, who is to have his turn at the theatre presently, and who has paid liberally for the privilege. " I should like a peep if- " Nobody shall see you, sir. Come into my box." Mr. Redbridge is tempted, and he and his friends go laughing upstairs to the lobby, and stand at the back of the box, with the curtains before them, and themselves in the shadow. The house is three-fourths full— the rush having been to hear Penny — but the noise is sufficient to take the roof off. Some one is speaking, and proposing an amendment — some one of immense impudence, who will be heard, and who shouts from the pit in defiance of all the etiquette of platforms, and hurls denunciations at Conservatism in general, and the lauded gentry in par ticular, with red-hot fervour.

Lord Pounie, who has spoken, is sitting on the platform, white and excited, and the gentlemen near him are bawling out " Order !" and " Chair 1" but the man in the pit has his supporters, and those who have dropped in for the " fun of the thing" are many, and side with the new speaker, who makes them laugh at times, and keeps them warm, too. He is a tremendous Radical, and raves even of Republicanism, which produces much hooting, and cheering, and hissing, and cuts the rest of the speech prematurely short. " Why, it's Clement Quail I" says the barris ter, laughing to himself. " He has remembered my hint." When he observes that Clement is not going to wait for the result of his amendment, Mr. Redbridge leaves the theatre, and intercepts our hero in the street. " Thank you, Quail — thank you," he says.

"For what, Mr. Redbridge?" asks Clement. " For not letting them have it all their own way. It was an honest diversion, though your notions are dreadful. If you had not spoken quite so warmly about " " I understand. I strolled in out of curiosity to hear the fellow, and it was only his shallow views of right and justice, and his cramped-up ideas of the people, that set my back up — that's all. I didn't wish to speak, or dream of speak ing." " Lord Pounie is a tough antagonist for me here." " He's an obstinate fool," Clement replies. " Yes — but — wait an instant. Where are you going ?" " I am going to walk to Ingleness." " What ! Ingleness by the sea ! Now ?" cries the barrister. " Yes." " Do you know it's thirty miles from here?' " That's not much of a walk, with a cool Summer night to do it in," answers Clement, laughing.

" I shall be there before the place has opened its eyes to the day. My brother left for Ingleness two days since, I have found out, and I am afraid that he is unwell." " I shall see you again," says Mr. Redbridge. " I think not. I have only a week's holiday, and I shall not return to Charrington ; the place is dull, and I dislike politics. Good night." Thus Mr. Redbridge and our hero part again.

Chapter II. Together Again

TITATTHEW QUAIL loved Ingleness for more ■"-*■ than one reason. It was a quiet place, and he loved quietness. It was eight miles from the nearest railway station, and therefore ex cursionists never troubled it. It was dull and old-fashioned, and out of date. It had not a German band in the season — though it had a season when a few families straggled down to it. It was a place where a man could think, and where cold, sharp breezes came from across the sea even in the August weather, when townsfolk were gasping for breath in their hot streets. Ingleness was a pretty place in its way — a straggling fishing village, with little red brick houses planted in all kinds of fashions on the cliff, and with a crumbling church in their midst, red brick also, of a darker hue, with a hundred years' growth of ivy climbing about its clock tower.

There were deep smooth sands, and a rugged gap through the cliffs towards them and the boats, and a little landing-stage of twenty or thirty feet, which the people called the J etty, but which was of no great use to man or beast, and but very little ornament. There were no lodging-house terraces built here — there was no thing to tempt the speculator or entice the pleasure-seeker. One or two wooden benches on the upper ground faced the sea, and were in scribed as the gift of the Earl of Coedstown ; there were a few private estates, whose well wooded grounds reached to the cliff's edge ; there was some fair country behind the village, and before it always was the great restless sea, and the foam and fury of its waters. It was here that Matthew Quail met his brother Clement again. Clement came upon the village of Ingleness in the fresh young morning-time, and found his brother on its outskirts, awaiting his approach.

It was twelve months since their last meeting at Charrington, and each took stock of the other in a strange observant way that had be come natural to them both. Matthew was always looking for some great change in Clement, and in his first quick glance towards him there was always a certain amount of apprehension shown, which took time to die away. Clement had noticed this always, and had laughed at it a little, as at a nervous man's eccentricity ; but he regarded Matthew in much the same manner himself, and with quite as keen a study of him. " Well, Mat, old fellow !" " Well, Clem !" Thus the brothers were silent and observant, after the manner aforesaid, until Matthew had turned in the same direction as Clement. Mat thew Quail was relieved ; there was no change in Clem — it was the same happy, honest out- ■21 looking face which he had last met.

Nothing had happened to trouble or disturb the younger brother— all was well. Clement Quail, however, was not relieved in mind — and more, he was shocked, though he kept the shock to himself, lest he should startle Mat, too. The change which we have already mentioned as stealing over Matthew, aging him very much, and adding to the sadness of his expression, Clement had observed last year, but he was shocked at it in this. The lines about the mouth and near the eyes were more deeply graven, there was a greyish shadow on the face, and the hair was thick with threads of silver. " What made you think that I should turn up at this hour of the morning?" asked Clement, after they had shaken hands, and moved towards Ingleness together. " Reading my note apprising you of my de parture from Charrington, I fancied that you might start in this fashion," answered Matthew.

" I did not start at once. I made a Republican speech at Lord Pounie's meeting last night, upset the assembly, and then took this long constitutional walk." " You spoke at Lord Pounie's meeting ?" " To be sure — why not ?" said Clement. " He brayed himself for three-quarters of an hour, and I had no idea till then, Mat, what an ass the fellow was. Why, he has not a sound thought in his head !" " You had no interest in Charrington politics, Clem — what was the use of it all ?" " Oh, no use," answered he, "but I was dis posed for excitement, and I think it has done me some good. You! should have seen Lord Pounie open his eyes." " He recognised you, then V " No — he didn't open his eyes wide enough for that ; though I went bang at him, Mat, from the pit of the Charrington Theatre, in the name of the people.

It wasn't bad fun." Clement laughed pleasantly, and Matthew was glad to hear him. It was a sign that there was no grief or regret for Hesbie's loss in his ■29 brother's heart. Clem had had his little disappointment, and recovered from it, like a strong minded, sensible fellow, as he had always thought he was. " What made you come to Ingleness ?" asked Clement, lightly. " Are you unwell ?" " N— no," was the hesitating answer. " I like the sea, and the sea likes me." " Very good. That's a sensible reason.'" They walked through the village on to the cliff, and Clement put his hands behind him, and looked right and left, scrutinizingly, and then down at the sands, the two old fishing boats, the green and wave-worn landing-stage, and the great shipless sea beyond. " Is this all ?" he asked. " Yes, that is all of Ingleness," replied Mat thew.

" Then I can't say I think much of it— or that there is much of it to think anything about," said Clem. " You didn't come down here to see life ?" "Life!" said Matthew, with a short laugh. " I admire life myself — plenty of people flow ing by, to remind me of my own petty insigni ficance — and the hum of many voices in a big world, going on incessantly." " You must try and admire this for a change, Clement," said his brother, anxiously. " You must not wholly throw me over, because our tastes are not alike." " Who's going to throw you over ?" said Clement, laughing. " What put that into your head? This miserable hole of a place, I'll wager." '* It is not a miserable place," said Matthew. in defence of Ingleness. " It is about as jolly as Cold-Blow Vale, I should say." Matthew drew a short, quick breath.

All that related to Cold-Blow Vale was an unplea sant reminiscence, and the life that belonged to it was gone. He sat on one of the benches facing the sea, and made room for his brother beside him ; but Clement shook his head in protest. "No, thank you. I would rather have my breakfast, if it makes no difference to you." Matthew was on his feet again with alacrity. " I beg pardon. I had forgotten what a long walk you had had. Shall we go in now ?" " I think we may as well." Clement laughed again, and the elder brother seemed to brighten as he heard it. Mat rested his hand on the other's arm as they went on to gether, and even smiled himself a little. " I am very glad that you are light-hearted and happy, Clem." " I never said that I was." " But you are ? I hope you are ?" said Mat, anxiously.