Stephen Wray's Wife, or, Not All in Vain

Front matter

A IVUS^TTRY NO LONGER UNKNOWN. k.W OW that the cold and chilly I \ season of the year has ' arrived, the food we take is a matter requiring serious con sideration. ' Coffee ' has always been regarded as a superior winter beverage, its warming and invigo rating properties being generally recognised The famous FRENCH COFFEE, as used in Paris, should be selected for the morning breakfast. It can be obtained in Shilling Canisters from Messrs. BARBER & COMPANY, 274, Regent Circus, and their various branch establishments in Brighton and Birmingham. This eminent firm has been established nearly a century (since 1797) and has always been noted for the superior quality of its Teas and Coffees." — The Court Journal, Oa.29, 1892 This is the Choicest and most Carefully Selected Coffee, " Roasted on the French Principle," and mixed with the Finest Bruges Chicory. 2-lb.

Sample, in Tins, sent free by Parcel Post to any Post Town in the United Kingdom and Channel Islands for 2$. Gil.; 5 Ibs., in Tins, for (is.; S Ibs., in Tins, for Os. Oil. Larger Quantities Carriage Free in England. Cheques and Postal Orders to be crossed ** National Provincial Bank." BARBER & COMPANY, (THE ORIGINAL.) "Established in the last Century (1797).' ONLY ADDRESSES NOW ARE- 274, REGENT CIRCUS, OXFORD STREET, W. 61, Bishopsgate Street, London, E.C. 102, Westbourne Grove, W. 67, Brixton Road, S.W. 42, Great TitchBeld Street, W. Quadrant, New Street, BIRMINGHAM. 147, North Street, & 75, East Street, BRIGHTON ; also 60, Church Road, Hove (their only Addresses in Sussex). "'ARE YOU NOT GLAD FOR ME, STEPHEN?'" (Step. 172.) STEPHEN WRAY'S WIFE OR NOT ALL IN VAIN DV LAMBERT SHEILDS AUTHOR OF "THE OTHER SON " ETC. C ASS ELL and COMPANY Limited LONDON PARIS 6= MELBOURNE 1893 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Reprinted from The Quiyer. STEPHEN WRAY'S WIFE; OR, NOT ALL IN VAIN.

Chapter I. An Eventful Sunday

" Unregardful of aught else, beheld Her face, and looking in her face, saw youth, And beauty shining in the light of youth. And seeing, loved." On a bright, cold Sunday in mid-March, early in the morning, the solitary waiter at the Royal Alexandra Marine Hotel, Flashford-on-Sea, stood at the hotel entrance surveying the prospect. Not that it was new to him — that stretch of sea, where the little waves raced so merrily along, and the brown fishing-smacks swayed lazily at anchor in the miniature har bour — but chiefly because, for the moment, he had nothing to do. The square-topped railway-station to the left, and the tinsel-Gothic town-hall to the right, closed in the view. Just at hand the church bells of St. Cecilia chimed out a blithe invitation to all and sundry to hie thitherward and worship.

But to all these attractions the countenance of Duke, the hotel waiter, betokened a noble indifference. He was a short, fat, greasy man, who, " man and boy," had been an appendage of the Royal Marine Hotel. Indeed, it was his firm conviction that that establishment could not get along, deprived of his services. And perhaps he was right. There was but one guest staying in the hotel this sharp March morning, when the east wind drove the dust in clouds along the sea road. He had come out from the neighbouring manufacturing town of Bullionston late the night before ; not to stay for long, for he brought but a small Gladstone bag with him. This young man had not yet entered an appearance in the breakfast-room, to the intense annoyance of Mr. Duke, who, in his leisure moments, sang in St. Cecilia's choir.

He was used to missing many a service in August and September, when it was "the Season," and the hotel was crowded with visitors ; but to be delayed and kept away from his place in the choir for the sake of only one, and that a hale young man, who should have been out of his bed long since, was really most vexatious. A slow, lazy step echoed along the tiled corridor, and, turning, he beheld the said young man coming to the open door to look out at the morning. Stephen Wray stretched himself in the cold, keen sunshine, filling his lungs with a great breath of the fresh sea air. A Londoner born and bred, he never tired of the sea, when he could get it. He was a strikingly handsome youth, slight and tall, and wiry-looking, with eager blue eyes full of fun and frolic. He looked as if he had never had a care in his life — which was indeed the truth.

Broad-shouldered, remarkable rather for length of limb than weight of flesh, he looked a manly young fellow enough. A deep upward crease between his brows might mean temper, but did not. He possessed a temper absolutely sweet and sound. Neither did this perpen dicular line betoken studiousness or intense thoughtful ness. His Oxford career, now lying behind him in the past, had been eminently respectable rather than brilliant. He was at that happy age when the man begins to mould the life, and the boy is left behind. Athletics were no longer the supreme interest in life. At three-and-twenty years of age, although happy as a boy, and with something of a boy's simplicity still lingering about him, he had put away childish things, and felt the young, strong manhood stir within his pulses. " What bell is that ?

" he asked, seating himself at the breakfast-table to which the waiter deferentially summoned him. " St. Cecilia's, for morning service, sir." " I shan't be in time," looking at his watch. " No, sir. But at Biffey Church they don't begin till noon. At St. Cecilia's we 'ave the best of music, and very short sermons, sir. Mr. Fletcher wouldn't think of trespassing on our attention more than fifteen minutes or so ; while they do say, down at Biffey Church, Dr. Romney, being as it were a gentleman of the old school, goes on preaching for close upon an hour. He forgets himself, like." " And where is Biffey ? " asked the young man. " Biffey ! " with a scornful arching of eyebrows. " Oh, Biffey is down in the back streets. This is Flashford." Here it must be explained that Flashford was a parasitic outcome of Biffey, an ancient and mildewed fishing village.

In the neighbouring manufacturing town of Bullionston, where the factory chimneys crowded close, and the streets were dense with smoke and dirt, there had arisen a cry for fresh air, for sea-breezes to blow the roses back into the children's faces and the brightness to their eyes, and resultant of this A'ot All in Vain. 9 outcry was Flashford-on-Sea. Rows of terraces, semi-detached villas, sprang into being with the rapidity of Jonah's gourd ; a new church was built, as well as one or two dissenting chapels ; the aborigines, sorely displeased, withdrew into their own borders, and refused to have any dealings with the outer barbarians of Flashford. But Flashford managed to exist, notwithstanding, and, indeed, succeeded, with its Royal Crescents and Albert Edward Terraces, in completely elbowing poor old Biffey out of sight and out of mind.

Bullionston held calmly on its way, sending out its annual inundation of summer visitors, and unmindful of the feud between the old town and the new, merely demanding there should be found in either a reliable butcher and baker, and pleased that on that tame flat coast no cliffs should be for the children to fall over, and be prematurely cut off in their early bloom. " And so there's a church at Biffey," said Stephen Wray, " where morning service commences at noon. What do they call their church ? " " Just Biffey Church, sir — Biffey Church plain," replied Duke, with a touch of scorn. " As to a bell, they've none. The Biffey people say, quite proud like, they've been going to church, man and boy, since there was a church to go to, and they don't want no bells at this time of day to remind them of their dooty.

I like St. Cecilia's myself : everything there is most correct and in order ; Mr. Fletcher, if I may so speak, 'aving served his time in one of the superior London churches." Stephen made a wry face. " No London-and-water for me," he said, rising from the table. " Besides, in any case I am late for St. Cecilia's. The bell has ceased for some time. I shall go to Biffey." " Mr. Romney is a fine old gentleman of the old school, but tedious, sir, tedious," replied Duke, loquacious as a hairdresser ; and in a few moments more he stood at the Royal Alexandra door again, contemplating Mr. Wray as he sauntered down the garden path, and out on the road by the sea. The young man walked on slowly, enjoying the fresh cold air and the bright sunshine, which beautified even ugly, staring Flashford. Presently he found himself outside St. Cecilia's, standing spick and span in the centre of her own greensward.

He could hear the chanting within as he paused a moment, irresolute, at the open gate. But Stephen Wray had a vein of perversity in his character, which, developed, might go far to make an unbearable oddity of him in his latter days ; and just because St. Cecilia was there at hand, looking so trim and new and orderly, he would have none of her, but turned off resolutely to seek and find poor old despised Biffey in the back streets. To seek and find Biffey. Yes, Stephen Wray— that is all very well. Here you are with a Sunday on your hands to spend as best you may in this strange place. You may as well go seek and find Biffey. It will be something to do. And find what else besides ? Would you now, as you stand a moment at St. Cecilia's gate irresolute, if the veil over your future were to lift an instant, and show you what is to come of your going to Biffey Church this Sunday morning— would you go on ?

Or would you slip into a modest back seat at St. Cecilia's, and listen to the fifteen minutes' ethical discourse of the polished Mr. Fletcher, and return to London to-morrow morning no better and no worse than you came ? The way to Biffey was not hard to find. After he had gone some way along the main street, with its double line of closed shops, he came on small groups of people with books in their hands, all wending in one direction. With these he mingled, and presently found himself in a narrow lane bordered by two high walls, with clustering ivy on the top. A high gate, wide open, introduced the churchyard to his notice, and he turned in. The tall and stately young stranger caused a sensation, of which he was beautifully unconscious, as he walked up the aisle of the dark little church.

The ancient verger considered the classic retirement of the Rectory pew the only fitting destination of the distingushed stranger, and accordingly popped him in there. Stephen nearly gasped as the intense and consistent hideousness of the building suddenly rushed in upon his soul. The church was low, flat-ceiled, whitewashed, and perfectly square. It was an ordinary room, in fact, with a three-decker arrangement of table, reading-desk, and pulpit at one end, and an object in the form of a diving-bell gracefully poised above the pulpit. Presently a side door near him opened suddenly, and admitted a burst of wintry sunshine and two individuals — an old gentleman and a young lady. Stephen Wray almost gasped, and rubbed his eyes as this vision burst upon him. It was not the classical beauty of the young woman — he had not eyes to look at her — but the supreme elegance of this marvellous old gentleman which made him wonder.

Never before had he beheld a mortal man gotten up in a cut-away velvet coat with lace ruffles, several brilliant waistcoats of silks and satins, knee-breeches and buckled shoes, and long hair worn in a queue. This quaint apparition of bygone modes came right on to the Rectory pew, filling all the church with his benignant smiles. Courteously he held open the pew door to allow his companion to step in. Then he marched in himself, and seating himself, looked curiously at Stephen Wray. The young man felt rather uncomfortable. " I trust I do not intrude," whispered Stephen hastily, for the square high pew, with its seats all round and carpeted floor, seemed to him more like a private room than a seat in a church. " Not at all, sir," responded the old gentleman, bowing in the most chivalrous style imaginable.

Stephen returned this courtly inclination with a brusque bow of the Jack-in-the-box style of salutation common in these degenerate days, when elegance of deportment may be classed among the lost arts. At this moment a venerable harmonium — which, like most things present, had seen better days — began to wheeze forth a melancholy melody ; the ancient sexton took up his position in front of a cushioned stand, whereon reclined an enormous prayer-book ; and a heavy-browed, ponderous man in a crumpled surplice made his appearance, and clambered up into the second storey of those mysterious railed-off spaces at the end of the church. The old gentleman in the pew with Stephen politely handed him a book, and the service began to drag its slow length along. Stephen was longing to study his companions, especially the younger one, but politeness forbade him.

He furtively looked within his book, and found, inscribed in faded ink, a legend, setting forth the gift of the said book to " George Frederick Augustus Drury, from his loving sister, Hilda Romney." The prayer-book fervently besought blessings upon "our most gracious and religious sovereign, King George the Third," and was furthermore adorned with long s's, which woefully puzzled poor Stephen's intellectual capacities. Since he had been a curly-headed little thing, in velvet frocks and lace collars, Stephen had been accustomed to go to church, and to behave himself with propriety while there. But here, to his great shame and confusion of face, he found himself the object of general attention, and the cause of some tittering. The Biffeyites were not going to keep a clerk to say "Amen," and do their own "responses" at the same time.

The ancient sexton represented them amply, and they sat mute. Stephen felt greatly ashamed, and hiding his roseate countenance within the covers of his book, hoped the young lady opposite had not heard him. When the old clergyman had clambered into the topmost place of all, and began to drone out his sermon, Stephen dared a little, and looked about him. His eyes wandered from the quaint form in the pew with him to the rows of bent silver heads (occasionally nodding) and rusty poke bonnets (vigorously alert and wakeful) ; and he wondered for how many years the owners of these heads had been coming to this musty old church, where the very atmosphere smelt of dust and mildew, and cobwebs adorned the window corners, and hung festoon-like from the heavy fringes of the pulpit and reading-desk cushions.

The wrinkled sexton seemed to bear the hall-mark of centuries on his thin, hard face, and the old parson appeared more than half asleep as he laboured through his sermon. A ray of brilliant sunshine suddenly slanted in athwart the dingy edifice. Stephen's eyes involuntarily travelled along its track, and it carried his gaze straight to the face of the young lady in the pew, at whom, since his early disaster, he had not ventured to look. She moved a little aside, but finding she could not get out of range of the sunbeam, she submitted to its scrutiny, simply leaning her head against the high pew behind her, and closing her eyes. Stephen now could look at her as much as he would. And looking, he said to himself that she and the sunbeam were surely kindred — the only bright things in all that mouldy old place.

She was very young, and very simply dressed. A long brown velvet cloak, bordered with fur, and fashioned in a style of twenty years ago, hid her figure, while a heavy brown velvet bonnet framed her small face like an aureole. But Stephen liked her dress. Fastidious as he was, and well versed in ladies' dress, as is the wont of the existing generation of fashionable youth to be, yet he liked the dingy, unsuitable costume of this young girl. He recognised its age at a glance, and wondered what his sisters would say could thev see it. In all his life, he thought he had never seen so fair and sweet a face. Small, regular features, framed with soft brown hair, and long lashes lying on the clear pallor of satin-smooth cheeks. But more than the flawless beauty of outline and contour, the deep, unconscious sadness of the girl's face attracted him.

The lips in repose took a patient, pathetic droop, strange to see on a face so young. It went to Stephen's heart with swift directness, for his was a nature quickly miserable at the sight of pain in others. He wondered why a cloud so deep should rest on a face so young, so altogether lovely in its pure, child-like beauty. She sat very still, with closed eyes. One might contemplate her as one would a statue or a picture, and with some of the same artistic pleasure in so doing. Stephen wondered of what she was thinking. He tried to weave out for himself the probable pattern of her daily life. He was just endeavouring to satisfactorily adjust her relationship to the quaint old oddity with her, when the sunlight passed from off her face, and, opening her eyes, she looked straight at him. Page after page of sermon-paper had been turned over by the preacher, Stephen catching here and there classical allu sions and quotations which surprised him ; noisy flies, waking in the brief scant sunshine from their winter sleep, buzzed up and down the dusty window-panes ; the weary old sexton dozed and nodded in his place, and the grimy-faced clock — four hours and twenty minutes slow — ticked loudly on, when the ray of sunshine vanished as capriciously as it had come, and Hilda Romney, opening her eyes, found the stranger calmly contemplating hear.

He blushed vividly — and so did she. And for the rest of the service the only thing that interested these young people was the pattern of the carpet beneath their feet. But he had caught a glimpse of her eyes. Grey, clear, almost child-like in their innocent sweetness — very lovely eyes they were. The longest sermon comes to an end, and so did this one. Stephen found himself holding the pew door open for the young lady to pass out, and returning the courtly salutation of the old gentleman in the many-coloured waistcoats. She did not vouchsafe him one little glance in going. The young man possessed himself of his hat, and prepared to depart, not without a wistful look in the direction of the little side door through which she had disappeared, and with a certain unpleasant, undefined sense of loneliness at his heart, which was, to say the least of it, very unaccountable.

In going down the aisle, he suddenly found himself face to face with the preacher, who was shambling along vestrywards. The young man stood politely aside to let him pass, a little awed to find himself rubbing shoulders with the divine. Dr. Romney, the " gentleman of the old school," and who felt himself pretty much the same individual in his ecclesi astical garments and out of them, raised his head abruptly, and looked at the stranger from under his shaggy brows — a glance which surprised Stephen by its keenness, contrasting oddly with the mumbled service and sermon just gone before. " A stranger," he said abruptly, and in a tone which implied that this was a most objectionable point in Stephen's character. Stephen felt he was not to blame, but he had to own to the charge. " I came to Flashford yesterday evening," he supplemented. in extenuation.

"We call this place Biffey," the old clergyman said severely. Stephen felt he had blundered. " And I heard so much of St. Cecilia from the waiter at the Alexandra this morning," the young man went on suavely, " that I decided to come to Biffey for morning service." Dr. Romney looked pleased. He waved his hand about him magnificently. " Ours is a very beautiful church," he said, " and very old." Stephen bowed assent, not making it clear whether it was to the beauty or to the antiquity of the fabric he handed in his adherence. " Have you friends in Biffey, sir ? " asked the old clerg)- man abruptly. " No ? Then perhaps you will honour me by stepping into my house close at hand ; we are to use hos pitality, you know ; ' angels unaware,' you know, and that kind of thing. But few strangers come our way to test our principles, so we had best make the most of those that do.

Here, Morton, take my things." And unrolling his robes upwards, all in one grand wisp, leaving them for the long-suffering Morton to disentangle at his leisure, the fat old parson rolled along the aisle, conduct ing Stephen to the selfsame little door where she had disappeared.

Chapter II. Stephen Wray Makes Up His Mind

Biffey Parsonage was just as old as Biffey Church, but happily of a more qualified ugliness. Going over it, one came to the sarcastic conclusion that it had been planned in a nightmare, begun on the ist of April, and finished — never. Dark, tortuous passages, that could easily have been straight, cunning flights of steps in hidden places, to serve no other purpose, apparently, than to cause the unwary to fall and crack their necks, for no sooner down than an equal number of steps led back to the original level. Unnecessary doors abounded, blind windows — in fact, a general wild incom pleteness of design — were the distinguishing characteristics of Biffey Parsonage. The people of the house were no less strange, thought Stephen Wray, fresh from the artificialities of his home in London. Dr. Romnej', father and patriarch, was a man of great learning — learning and attainments both — which all his life had hung like a millstone about his neck.

It was hard to believe now, looking on the deeply furrowed face, and meeting the harsh abruptness of his manner, that this old man had been young once, and ambitious and happy. Yet he had been all three. The youth had fled, the ambition waned ; the happiness lay buried in a grave close by in Biffey Church yard. She who for a brief space had made his life blossom as the rose had at the birth of their one child closed her eyes in the sleep which knows no waking. Since then his life had been sombre ; all interest in outer things left him, and of the many bright hopes he had started in life with, he had neither heart nor courage to attempt to achieve even one. With him lived his wife's brother : Master Drur)7, as he was always called. His life, too, had seemed to stop short at his sister's grave.

And to both of these young Hilda was the dearest treasure this life could hold. Miranda on her island home knew more of the world than did Hilda Romney. She was nineteen now, and all her life had been passed in this dark old parsonage, shut in from the small world of Biffey by high ivy-clad walls. If the truth must be told, the girl loved her uncle better than her father. His queer, quaint, wrinkled face had always a loving smile for her ; his manner to her was the ver}' embodiment of courtly chivalry ; he watched her as carefully as he watched his flowers ; he tried in many small, pathetic ways to please her, to give her pleasure ; — while her father was so quiet and reserved, and his thoughts and affections so much buried in the book he was writing, that days might pass without his seemingly remembering her existence.

But to old Master Drury she was the lodestar of life, the very apple of his eye. Her life had always run in the one tranquil groove. Week in, week out, an unbroken serene existence, a round of homely duties faithfully performed. The same fresh joy in each successive spring, when the sap rose in the branches, and she felt youth and health within her veins ; the same gentle regret when the year slowly yellowed to its close, and the wintry winds and fogs returned, the brightness all buried till another year, with its blossoms and bird-songs, should roll round again. She knew of no other life than this— this gentle, sweet-eyed maiden guessed not at the hidden possibilities of life, but moved through her little world with serene, un awakened heart, and fair, placid, smiling eyes, the joy of all who looked on her.

" I wonder where that young stranger in our pew came from ? " mused Master Drury, as she and he passed home wards through the churchyard. Unwittingly he had struck upon the subject of his niece's meditations. " Yes, I should like to know," she replied readily. " He looked so stiff and ungraceful," Master Drury went on ; " and was so badly dressed." " Do you think so ? " Hilda said, with evident disappointment. " I thought he had such a nice face." " Face, yes ; perhaps so. But his dress ! " " I suppose," said Hilda hesitatingly, " it is our dress, uncle, that is really odd and absurd. This mantle of mine was mother's, and it is not like in shape to any of the cloaks the ladies who come here in summer wear. I am sure they would laugh at it I " " Let them laugh," Master Drury replied, with scorn.

" I should like to know if one of them had a face so pretty as yours to show above their fine cloaks." Hilda smiled. She was so used to her uncle's extravagant admiration, it had not the effect of making her vain, for she told herself it was only his love for her that made her beautiful in his eyes. They had reached the Parsonage door now. As they paused, and Hilda looked round, a sudden colour came up in her face. Through the postern-gate into the churchyard, which she and her uncle had left open for her father, came the heavy, stooping figure of Dr. Romney, and with him, in quite familiar converse, the tall young stranger who had this morning occupied so many of her thoughts. " Hilda," her father said, in his abrupt way, " here is a gentleman who has had the good taste to prefer our simple church to the gaudy attractions of that place which it pains me to mention.

I have brought him to dinner. See to it." Then he disappeared into the house, and as Master Drury had likewise disappeared — presumably to announce the new arrival to the cook — Hilda was thrown on her own resources to accord a welcome to the stranger. Stephen felt miserably awkward, and she was tongue-tied and shy. The poor young things looked at each other in a dejected manner, half-apologetic, but entirely absurd. Woman-like, she was the first to regain self-possession. She offered him her hand with a pretty smile. " I am very glad to see you," she said, with simple direct ness that was in itself a charm. " May I know your name ? " " My name is Wray — Stephen Wray," the young man replied shamefacedly. " And indeed, Miss Romney, I do not know how to apologise for this intrusion." " Pray do not try," she said graciously.

" If papa thought you admired our poor old church more than St. Cecilia's, of course he asked you to dinner. He would give you anything in the world if he thought that. But, Mr. Wray, how could you pretend to like it best ? Don't you think it was very wrong of you ? Because it could not be true, you know." The reproach in the girl's eyes stung Stephen into exculpa tion of his sin. He explained how matters really had fallen out, but he could see by her quiet, amused smile that she did in no wise believe him. He chafed helplessly under the sense of this. " I could make no comparison between the churches," he said, in loftily injured tones, " seeing I have never crossed the threshold of St. Cecilia's." " Should you like to see our garden before we go indoors ? " she asked him, dropping the thorny question of the churches.

Stephen assented very willingly, and she led the way along the strip of lawn beneath the Parsonage windows, and into a large and apparently well-stocked fruit-garden behind the house. Within the garden door was a stretch of grassy sward, bordered by overshadowing apple-trees, not yet in leaf this March day, but holding up bare shining branches to the cold blue sky. As Stephen followed his fair hostess from flower bed to flower-bed, he little thought, or imagined, or foresaw how intimately every smallest detail of this sunshiny and sequestered garden nook was to grow into his spirit, become a part of himself, as it were, and parcel of his life, and of its every memory of joy and pain. He now walked through it as a stranger, stopping every now and again to rapturously admire a cluster of crimson auriculas or scarlet anemones, or the long-ranks of tall, upstanding daffodils by the ivy-covered walls, while all around him tribes of jubilant spring blossoms glorified the smooth-shorn sward, and made the very atmosphere sweet and warm with fragrance.