The House by the River

Front matter

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Chapter I

"Pbaed Street ! Praed Street !" How tired she was of that monotonous chant, which greeted her ears morning after morning, and again evening after evening, as she started for the city, and made her way back again, Asy after day, with the click-click of the typewriter always in her ears.

For Alison Clevely was a typewriter girl, just

one of the great crowd of surging young woman-

^ hood that pours into the city in the morning and

^ out again in the evening, earning a scanty living

S in a monotonous and not very easy way, with, for

oc the most part, a dark sky overhead, and not over-

fe bright prosi)ects of life to keep up its spirits

1 upon.

*" Click-click! She had had nothing but that

music ringing in her ears for six months; when, walking up and down that charming and salubrious promenade, the Praed Street railway platform, she met the eyes of one of those who were to be her fellow-travelers in the daily joamey iv citywards, and meeting them, she wanted to meet them again.

He was a typical young Englishman, and she guessed that his age might be about her own, which was three-and-twenty. Tall, not yet filled out to his full breadth of shoulder, very well dressed, undoubtedly well bred, he had, she thought, the best eyes she had ever seen. It was not that she had never seen handsomer eyes in a human head, but that there was in these straightforward gray eyes, with their thick, straight, black eyebrows and dark eyelashes, something that made her think she would not like to do a mean thing or say a harsh or discourteous word within sight and hearing of the possessor of those particular eyes.

On that first time of seeing him Alison Clevely scarcely noticed any feature but that one; two mornings later, however, he was on the platform again, and she stole a furtive look, and was interested to ascertain that her fellow-traveler's good looks were undeniable. His profile was distinguished, the chin round and firm, the nose very slightly aquiline, while a dark mustache^ not yet very thick, just shaded a mouth with the common English defect of lips rather too full.

He met her eyes, and she felt herself reddening, and she wondered whether the interest she could not help feeling in the possessor of the fine face and honest gray eyes was too plainly perceptible in her own countenance.

She had not much time for Idle thoughts, however^ for the train came in ; and while he got into a first-class compartment, with a group of other young men as well dressed as himself, she meekly trod on the toes of the clerks of both sexes who thronged the nearest second-class compartment, and saw nothing more of her fellow-travel er until she got out at the Mansion House. Then she noticed that, while she went up Cornhill, he crossed over to Threadneedle Street.

And he looked round at her just as she looked across at him.

For three or four months she saw him almost every day, and, absurd as she knew the amusement to be, she did amuse herself by wondering who he was, and by weaving little stories about him, very harmless stories, very absurd ones, making him now an only child, with a mother who adored him, and now the chief hope and pride of a large family of brothers and sisters.

Lest her fancies should seem too foolish, it must be mentioned that Alison Clevely was alone in the world, with few friends, and those few a long way oflf in distant Lancashire, and with a natural shyness and reserve which made it impossible for her to make friends worthy the name among the giddy, lively girls who were her daily companions.

Miss Prim was their name for her, and they laughed at and perhaps looked down upon her for not indulging in those half-minute flirtations which, in many cases, formed the transient joy of their luncheon hour. Alison had no flowers g THE HOUSE BT THE RIVER.

or letters to show to envious acquaintances, as they had, and she was popularly supposed to have no ideajs beyond so many words a minute.

And now she hugged her own little airy romance to her hearty and found a pleasure which surely was harmless enough in meeting the eyes of her interesting fellow-traveler, as she now almost always did once in the course of the morning, and in wondering whether he was grateful for her interest to the extent of feeling a corresponding interest in her.

And at last she felt sure that he did.

For one morning he got into the second-class compartment with her, and sh^ seeing more of his face than she had ever done before, was more than ever struck by what she noted in it

This happened more than once, and Alison began to see that it was only a question of time for them to get acquainted. And thereupon a sort of terror seized her, and instead of meeting his eyes she tried to avoid doing so, and when he got into the same carriage she took care to glide out so quickly that it was impossible for him to help her out, as once or twice he had most unob- ' trusivelv done.

But she felt that she was only putting off something that she instinctively dreaded, and at last «he knew that the moment had come.

Alison was sitting at her typewriter, busy with her work one morning, when she heard the voice she had instinctively been expecting to hear. Her lellow-traveler was asking for the services of a young lady to take down letters for his father, Mr. Darke of Riverscourt, who was laid up with the gout and could not leave his house.

Alison did not look round. She knew his voice, and she knew, too, who it was that would be selected for this service ; the manager made a different choice, but he was overruled.

"I think this young lady is the quickest worker,*' said Alison's gray-eyed fellow-traveler, standing beside her while she went on with her work. "Can she come?"

"Miss Clevely, will you go down to Riverscourt this afternoon ?" said the manager.

She demurred, looking up with a scarlet face. Some vague dread possessed her, and at that moment she would have given a year of her life for power to refuse. But she had no reasonable excuse to make, and youn^ Mr. Darke repeating th^ question courteously:

"Will you come?"

She just bowed her head in assent, and went on •with her typing without knowing what she was doing.

As soon as the luncheon hour was come Alison put on her hat and, having been told what train to catch at Paddington, set out on her journey.

When she got to the station at which she had been told to get out she asked the way to Riverscourt of a casual boy.

"Lord Luckram's place?" said the boy. "Oh, yes; it's down by the river."

And he was proceeding to give further direcg THE HOUSE BY THE RIVER.

tions, when she interrupted him by saying that it was not Lord Luckram's but Mr, Darke's house that she wanted.

"Oh, it's the same/' said the boy. "It belongs to Lord Luckram, who's got no money, and it's let to Mr. Darke, who's got lots."

This was charming, to get thus the whole history of the place and two families in a nutshell ; and, smiling to herself, she followed the direction given and came in a few minutes to a sort of earthly paradise, a succession of beautiful gardens, exquisitely kept, and abounding at thia spring season with flowering fruit trees and with delicate foliage of all kinds. Here and there, on a smooth lawn, a spiny araucaria or a straightlimbed cedar brought a darker tint into the scena And when she came suddenlv in view of a man* sion, large, plain, stately, of red brick grown dark with time, she felt rather overwhelmed by her own insignificance, and began to wish she had not come.

A footman, who surveyed her with that exquisitely veiled contempt with which men-servants regard all such modest visitors, took in her name and her message, and left her to admire a very wide, paneled hall, with a fire burning under a hooded chimney-piece, and two magnificent oriel windows, with the panes filled by painted glass, and other evidences of magnificence and luxury to which she was wholly unaccustomed.

She heard a warwhoop, and then another^

THE HOUSB BT THE RIVER. ^

without seeing the person who uttered it. But Alison had had brothers, and she knew, without further evidence, that there was a young family, and that the Easter holidays were on.

And while she still waited, a boy of about fourteen came in very dexterously through a doorway on his hands, with his feet curved over his head. On seeing a stranger, he brought himself into a more conventional position, reddened and stared at her.

"Are you the girl that's come to do father's typewriting?" he asked. And on her answering in the affirmative, he went on: "Well, I'm just jolly glad, for it'll give him somethini:: to do, and he'll leave us alone. When he's ill we can't do right."

"Not even by walking on your hands instead of your feet, and kicking the statues and flowers as you pass?" said she, smiling.

There was a twinkle in the boy's eyes as he answered, gravely : "Not even then !"

Alison felt that she liked that boy !

"Noel sent you, didn't he?" he asked, in a friendly tone.

"Noel! Oh, I don't know."

The boy nodded.

"Yes, I know it was Noel. Big chap, with a long nose; looks as if he ought to have the earth, and meant to get it !"

"He's your brother, I suppose?"

"Half-brother," corrected her new acquaintance, with a nod. "You see, it's rather com\W cated, because father went and married three times. First he married and had one son, that's S within, and he's a beast. Then he married again and had another son, that's Noel, and he's a brick. And then he married a third time, and there's my sister Carrie and me."

"I see. I thought there wasn't much likeness between you and the gentleman I saw."

"Noel ? No, I don't go in for beauty myself."

He certainly did not. With an indifferent nose, a wide mouth, light eyes, and a small, freckled face, the boy was not handsome by any means.

"Athletics?" she suggested, smiling.

"A little of that," replied he. "Not too much, you know ; too much cricket and football reduces you to the level of a brute. I've noticed its effects on the other chaps at Eton."

"You're home for the holidays, I suppose?"

He nodded. They were chatting very comfortably on the hearth-rug, with each a foot on the Btone fender and a hand on the overhanging hood above.

"I suppose they're nearly over now?" Alison went on.

He gave her a shrewd look.

"No, they aren't," he said, promptly. "Not in my case, at least I don't know whether I shall have the mumps, a severe contagious disease which I should not think of carrying back to school, and the infection of which lasts a long time, or general debility from overwork."

THB HOUSE BT THE RIVER. XI

She laughed.

^^Tou can't pretend to have the momps^'' said she. *

^^Oh, yes, I think I can, enough for mother. The pain comes before the swelling in acute cases, or, if it doesn't generally, it might in a unique case. Mine will be a unique case."

"I think so," said she, drily.

**And, look here, don't you try to give me away because I've honored you with my confidence,'^ he went on, with menace in his tone. "If you do, your life won't be worth living."

She smiled.

"I'm afraid it won't be in your power to do anything very dreadful to me. I'm only here for the afternoon, to write Mr. Darke's letters while he's away from business."

"Then, as he's always away from business, you'll be here always," said the boy, promptly. "And I'm glad of it, for I think we shall get on^ you and I."

Alison had no time to inquire the reason of his good opinion, for at that moment the footman returned and conducted her by way of a long corridor to a charming room, with a view of the river and a beautiful sloping lawn ; and here, in an invalid wheel-chair in one of the windows, she found her employer, Mr. Darke.

As he could not rise, one of his feet being raised on a large, square stool in front of him, she was unable to judge of his height very accurately ; but she* thought he must be tall ; he had a fLn^, Q\y^Ti countenance^ set oflf by thin hair of silvery whitenessy while thick eyebrows, still almost black, gave a i>articular dignity to his face and a look of strange power and impressiveness to his black eyes.

His greeting was graceful and charming. Holding out one handy with a smile which showed his white and even teeth^ he said :

^^Miss Clevely, I*m very glad to see you. You'll excuse a poor cripple !" And he gave a whimsical glance at his feet and shook his head sorrowfully.

He had two typewriters, one on each side of a big oJBSce desk a few yards away from him. He himself sat at a smaller desk, with a roll-top, and when he got warm over the work of dictating his letters he would wheel himself up and down the room, which was long, and the middle of which had been kept clear for him, pausing now and then to look over her work, humming and having all the time in a way which would have been disconcerting to an operator of less experience than she was.

It was the usual dull sort of city man's correspondence, but, luckily for her, Alison had done so much of that sort of thing before that she was able to finish his sentences for him almost before he had stuttered them out, and to avoid those repetitions which are a puzzle to the inexperienced secretary.

With two hours' steady work they had got a great pile of letters written, and then Mr. Darke, deftly wheeling his chair round to face her, expressed his approval of her labors in glowing terms.

^^Miss Clevely/ ' said he, throwing back his head and letting her, as it were, sun herself in the glow of his dark eyes, "I don^t want to speak disparagingly of your sex — ^indeed, a greater admirer of the ladies does not exist — ^but you are the very first lady who has ever come up to my ideal of what a secretary ought to be. I have had a dozen since I have been tied by the leg down here, and never before have I found one with intelligence enough to be a help instead of a hindrance."

Alison was delighted, not only by the praise, which, indeed, she had determined to earn, but by the gracious courtliness with which it was given.

Mr. Darke spoke deliberately, with a measured intonation which gave additional weight to what he said, and the satisfaction he felt shone in his face and doubled the natural graciousness of his manner.

She felt as if she were in the presence of a prince.

"You'll be able to come down again to-morrow, I hope?" he said, earnestly ; "or we could put you up if you could stay. I hope you can stay?"

She told him that was impossible, that she must be back at the office on the following morning; and thereupon he at once dictated another letter asking that she might be sent again to Riverscourt on the following day.

"And now," said he, "you must have some tea^ and my (laughter Carrie will show you round the grounds and find you some flowers between now and dinner-time. Oh, yes," he went on, as she protested, "you must stay to dinner."

Alison afterward found out that this was quite characteristic of Mr. Darke; nothing was good enough for anybody who pleased him, while, on the other hand, if one were unlucky enough not to satisfy him, boiling oil and brimstone were punishments too mild.

He wheeled himself nimbly to the bell on the right side of the fireplace, and, haying touched that, he went round to the left side and touched another. In answer to the first summons a footman appeared, whom he directed to show Miss Clevely the way to the drawing-room ; and in answer to the second bell his valet came, on whose arm he leaned to rise from his chair. Alison just caught sight of this movement as she hurried out of the room, thinking that Mr. Darke must be sensitive on the subject of his dependence upon other limbs than his own.

She was led through the corridor and hall to the first of a beautiful suite of drawing-rooms, which seemed to her almost too stately for everyday use, and in the last and smallest of these she found her friend, the boy, crawling about the room with two small, brown Pomeranians on his back, a handsome, fair girl, who looked about fifteen, but w^ho was really older, and to whom the epithet "bouncing^^ applied, and Mrs. DfUPke.

At first sight one was able to surmise that her i

THB HODSB BT THB RIVBB. ^5

husband had married her before he had ^^got on." She waa beautifully dressed in embroidered Indian muslin^ with a black yelvet and some handsome pearls round her throat She was tall^ buxom, good-natured and dictatorial. She had a handsome face, a double chin, an artificially pink complexion, scarlet lips and bronze hair.

"Here she is !" sang out the boy. "Hurray !'*

And he overturned the two small dogs into his mother^s lap and offered the visitor a chair with effusive politeness, which made his mother and sister laugh while they scolded him.

"You mustn't shout at a lady in that boisterous fashion/' said Mrs. Darke, holding out her hand with a merry and good-humored smile. "Peverell is spoilt, Miss Clevely, as no doubt youVe found out already, since he tells us he has introduced himself."

Peverell was unabashed.

"Yes, I did introduce myself, and I flatter myself I made a most favorable impression," he said, planting himself upon the hearth-rug in an attitude Alison could tell had been one of his father's. "Now, tell us, what did you think of father?"

Of course they all laughed at this impudent speech, and before they had recovered from it Mr. Darke himself came in, leaning on the arm of his valet, and walking in a peculiar manner which Alison knew at once to be not the effect of gout, but of some different malady. He seemed not to be sure where or on what he was treadm!^^ «sidL\i^

Ig THE HOUSE BT THE RIVER.

lifted each foot as if he were walking through long grass, and brought it down with a stamp before lifting the other one.

They all looked at him eagerly, and he at once expressed his delight at Miss Clevely's work with an enthusiasm which made her blush.

Peverell was much amused, and, after looking at her slyly while she sipped her tea in a corner by the nearest window, he came up to her and said:

"By Jove! Miss Clevely, you must be a wonder! I thought pretty girls were never intelligent!''

Though she was angry with his impertinence, she could not resent it very keenly, as impertinence seemed to be expected in this monkey of fourteen, who, moreover, took a daring and infectious delight in his own unconventional speeches, and seemed to dare her to be angry with him.

The ladies cordially welcomed the suggestion that she should stay to dinner, and Carrie and her brother took her round the grounds to fill up the time.

Alison had never been in so beautiful a place. The soft lawns, with their patches of spring flowers, and the knots of trees and evergreens which diversified their smooth surface; the beautiful kitchen garden, with the fruit trees in blossom on broad bed and old red wall ; the alleys leading to the river's edge, and the view up and down stream^ without a boat in sight, and with young

THE HOUSE BY THE EIVER. yj

birds fluttering over the sedge on each bank — ^all filled her with a sense of delightful ease and repose, so that she turned quickly to Miss Darke and said, impulsively :

"How happy you ought to be living here !^

Carrie laughed. She was a great, big, overgrown child of eighteen, who wore her hair down her back, tied simply with a ribbon, and who, it was plain to see, was just a refined edition of her mother at the same age.

"Well, I suppose we are !'^ she said. "I don't think there's anything I should care to change in my life, except, of course — Swithin."

"Miss Clevely doesn't know Swithin," said Peverell. "When you do, you'll hate him as much as we do."

"I hope not," Alison murmured, politely.

"Except for him, I wouldn't have anything changed," went on Carrie, "except poor papa's locomotor ataxia, or whatever they call it."

"Even that," put in the boy, "is a misfortune which has its bright side. He used to be always chiveying me about. And I don't think it's for us to complain of the decrees of Providence."

And while Carrie was scolding him for his wickedness, Alison felt her heart beating suddenly faster as Noel Darke came toward them from the house.

Perhaps he gave the tw^o younger people an elder-brotherly intimation that he did not want their society. Certain it is that at the end of a few minutes, as they all went on walking round

Xg THE HOUSE BT THE RIVER.

the garden^ Alison found that the two younger ones were some yards ahead, and that Noel Darke and she were practically en Ute-drtHe.

"You like this placer*

"It^s a paradise."

"For a long time I have meant to bring you here."

She said nothing to this. Indeed, she had hard work to retain her self-possession. She was afraid of this man, afraid of the power she knew he would be able to get over her if he wished. And, although it was the very nobility in his face which had first made her enshrine his image in her heart in a way of which she was ashamed, her admiration had become a sort of fear now that, once for all, the acquaintance which she had expected and feared had begun.

She roused herself to speak primly, and in a commonplace way :

"I was very glad to come. Mr. Darke was kind enough to say I was the best secretary he had had."

"Of course, I knew he'd say that. And now tell me, if I may know, how you come to be in the dingy city hammering all day at a typewriter?"

Alison felt suddenly that she would have liked to tell him some made-up story, to put him off with some excuse or some tale. For she was suddenly ashamed of the pitiful loneliness which put her on such a different plane from his own happy sister. But one glance from his steady eyes was

I

THE HOUSE BT THE RIVBIL 19

enough to force the truth from her^ and she said^ meekly and with hesitation :

"It's the usual story, I think. When a girl has to earn her own living, there are not many occupations for her to choose from.^'

"That's not exactly what I meant,'' said he, very gently. "I think yours is not quite the same story as that of the other girls in your office, for Instance."

A sudden, bitter laugh broke from her lips. How diflferent her story was from theirs nobody but herself knew. She drew a long breath and told him the truth quite simply :

"No, I am not a Londoner. My family is an old Lancashire one, and we've come down in the world. We lived in a big house, a nice house — not so big or so nice as yours — ^but we lived there many years, hundreds of years. We lived there so long that I suppose we got worn out — like the old house and the old furniture. And when my father died the family, as a family, just came to an end. One of my brothers went out to a relation in Jamaica and another to Canada, and, because I would not live with an old aunt in a little house at Lytham, I came to London and got lost in the crowd here !"

She hurried it out quickly, nervously, with her eyes on the ground. She was obliged to be frank with him, but it was difficult and strange to tell all this to a stranger. And yet she had to tell it, she had to obey.

He was too much interested to make an'j co\dl* monplace remark about it. He just pulled the buds off a lilac bush near him, and, listening quietly^ made no comment except by a bend of the head.

And those few moments in which th^ stood silent on the gravel path between the yew hedge on the one side and the straggling bushes on the other, with the declining sun touching the tops of the fruit blossoms, and the voices of the two young ones sounding cheerfully in the distance, were the happiest moments Alison had ever known.

Then he spoke, and his words were startling enough.

"I think I knew all that,'* said he, suddenly.

The girl looked up, and the blood rushed to her face as she met his eyes.

"You knew it! How could you?" she cried.

"That's more than I can quite tell. But certainly if you'd asked me to guess, instead of telling me what you have done, I should not have been very far out.''

"Won't you tell me how?"

He thought a moment.

"Well, though I've never spoken to you, I've seen a good deal of you, haven't I? Enough to know that you were not just like the crowd."

"Well?" said she, pleased in spite of herself.

"I could see you were not Miss Smith of Islington or Miss Brown of Peckham Rye."

"Well?"

"Then there is something in the type which told me you did not belong to the south. Vve been in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and something in the look of your eyes reminded me of the look of the faces I'd seen up thera"

She was surprised, interested, delighted that he had noticed so much.

"And what else?^' said she.

He hesitated.

"Well," he said, at last, "it was evident that if you, a girl like you, had to go to the city every day, your people were not as well oflf as they once were; while, finally, it was clear that if your parents had been alive, they would not have allowed so beautiful a girl as you to go about by herself."

Alison hung her head, and tears came to her eyes, while a delicious sensation of pleasure thrilled in all her veins. He remained silent for a moment, and then said, in a low voice :

"You're not offended by my plain speaking, I hope? You almost said I was to say just what I thought, you know."

"I'm not offended," said she.

And prudence made her prim, though her heart was dancing.

There was another moment of silence, and then a harsh laugh startled them both ; and, glancing up quickly, they saw, looking at them through the yew hedge, a face which Alison guessed to be that of S within, the eldest son.

He was tall and thin, and his face was unduly small, freckled, and of that peculiar complexion which goes with sandy hair and light, almost colorless eyes.

There was just enough likeness in his face, in spite of his ugliness, both to his father and to his half-brother, Peverell, for her to know that he was one of the family but she was pleased to see that he bore not even a family likeness to Noel Darke.

"What are you doing in the celery bed?" asked Noel, shortly.

Swithin drew back his head a little.

"Oh, nothing," said he, drily. "I thought I heard Lady Bosina's voice talking to you, that's all."

NoePs face changed, and Alison saw an expression of anger and dismay pass over it as he stepped back and looked again at his half-brother.

"Oh, don't look so savage!" went on Swithin. "I dare say your fiancee doesn't mind your flirting with other ladies. I'm awfully sorry if I cut short an agreeable tete-d-tSten

And he disappeared with a crash among what Alison judged to be cucumber frames, while Noel Darke and she, hearing the sound of a gong from the house, hurried back, exchanging only perfunctory remarks, and trying to appear as if no unpleasant interruption had come upon them like a bolt from the blue.

As for Alison, it is impossible to describe the effect which the discovery of a moment before had had upon her. Although, face to face with her everyday, sensible self, she would have laughed at the thought that she cherished anything stronger than a passing sentiment for this handsome, gentle-mannered Noel Darke, yet the suggestion that he was engaged to be married to another woman cut her like a knife. She felt that she was in a dream all through the somewhat lengthy dinner, which seemed to her a grand function, taking place as it did in a magnificent dining-hall, at a table radiant and splendid with flowers and shaded lights, sparkling glass and shining silver, but which appeared to be only their every-day meal.