A Rolling Stone, Vol. I
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVII.
‘Tell then our friend of boyhood,
That yet his name is heard
On the blue mountains, whence his youth
Passed like a swift bright bird.
The light of his exulting brow,
The vision of his glee
Are on me still. Oh! still I trust
That smile again to see.
A House craftily prepared to entrap lodgers may generally be recognised at the first glance. It may be disguised in all the form and semblance of a private dwelling; it may lack the most modest of door-plates, or the most inconspicuous of placards; but there will always be present one or other of certain signs characteristic of the habitation which is not a home.
There is the door, usually open, as if inviting all the world to enter and choose apartments. Or the eye is struck by the obtrusive smartness of such upholstery as may be viewed from the street. Lace curtains are fascinatingly looped about; easy chairs set before the open windows; books and flowers are on the table. This is the show side, and in some cases the only one it would be expedient to offer for public inspection. Imagine the dreariness of neglected back rooms, the stuffiness of little dens called bedchambers. There is a ghastly cleanliness about the front part of the house where lodgers congregate, and frequently an astonishing otherwiseness in that small and secluded portion reserved for the use of the landlady and her family. Should there be a verandah, very often there will be people upon it, reclining in comfortable chairs, and looking so serenely idle and so indifferent to the flight of time that you may know at once they have thrown off the great incubus of housekeeping. All these are signs, and signs that seldom fail.
Mrs. Sherlock kept a boarding-house, and kept it remarkably well. Concerning this worthy woman, it may be observed that she had followed many professions with such measure of success as to give weight to the words often uttered by her husband—that there was nothing his Martha could not do, and do well.
She had been a cook, a housekeeper, a stewardess on a coasting steamer; then had kept an eating-house; after that had kept a shop, retailing various useful commodities, and finally had thrown herself heart and soul into the lodging-house business, as combining respectability with great possibilities in the way of profit.
Although well able to protect herself, Mrs. Sherlock was by no means alone in the world. Mr. Sherlock existed, and it was partly owing to this fact, and also to the fact of the existence of several junior Sherlocks, that Mrs. Sherlock had been so energetic and so multifarious in her pursuits. Not that her husband had ever refused to support his family or had wasted their substance. He was a most affectionate parent, and also a very helpless one. Mr. Sherlock was wont to refer to his marriage as having been providentially arranged. Undoubtedly it had been a most providential arrangement for him, and one that for some thirty years had saved him the trouble of earning his own living. He had every reason thankful for such a striking interposition of Providence.
But he, worthy soul, did not look at it exactly in this way. At length, from having always wished that circumstances would permit him to do it without overmuch trouble or exertion on his part, he had come to believe that he had maintained his family, and that they owed even-thing to him. What was stranger still, this belief had also been adopted by Mrs. Sherlock as part of her creed. She was firmly persuaded that Sherlock was gifted with great talent, and she was less surprised that he should make so little use of it than that he should be so little thought of.
One afternoon, when Mrs. Sherlock was in the kitchen very carefully preparing some cold meat so that it might make its second appearance with credit to her house, and when Sherlock was in the garden repairing a summer-house that no sane person would have sat in—it was so damp and draughty—a cab drove up to the gate. Sherlock retreated to the backyard, being mindful of the tattered condition of his working clothes. Mrs. Sherlock retired to her room to improve her toilet. The solitary person on the verandah, Mr. Borage, a feeble-looking gentleman, six feet in height and of no breadth worth mentioning, pocketed his pipe and fled.
A lady, leading a little boy by the hand, came slowly up the gravelled walk. The lady was young, almost girlish in appearance. She was tall, and of a very dark complexion, with large melancholy black eyes that seemed to notice nothing but the ground before her. She walked with the air of a woman wearied and fagged to the last point of endurance, and the child, cross from very tiredness, tugged at her dress and cried.
When they came to the verandah the little boy hung back, peevishly refusing to go up the steps. His mother quickly took him in her arms and carried him on to the verandah. It would have been a slight exertion for any but a very delicate woman, and her appearance was not suggestive of weakness. A careless observer might have pronounced her to be in perfect health; but her colour changed from a clear pallor to a deep flush, and for a few minutes she breathed with short quick gasps.
Mrs. Sherlock had had time to put on a cap made beautiful by a profusion of violet ribbon, and an embroidered apron in which several colours struggled with each other for the mastery. As she had conjectured, the lady had come in quest of lodgings. There was room for her in the house. Mrs. Sherlock generally determined there should be room when lodgings were inquired for, and in making it had often resorted to curious expedients. Her own family were liable to be turned out of their rooms at a moment's notice; indeed it was believed that Sherlock and his son James made frequent migrations to a small apartment over a detached back kitchen. There was always a suggestion of soapsuds about this spare chamber, and not without reason, for the family wash was done in the room beneath; but James and his father were too well-trained to be fastidious. Mrs. Sherlock mentally banished them once more, and planned other arrangements which would make it quite possible to accommodate this interesting applicant for lodgings. She was much impressed with the manner and appearance of the lady, and particularly with her handsome and costly attire. She was worthy of her best rooms, and must have them though every other lodger should be offended at the readjustments this would render necessary. It was Mrs. Sherlock's boast that she treated each individual lodger like one of her family, and in one respect at least this was perfectly true: in ordering their daily life she dispensed with all ceremony. But then, so she excused herself, it was very seldom she had a lady staying in the house; those whom she entertained were usually clerks or salesmen in the town—young men who ought not to expect much attention; who indeed, if they had only sense enough to think so, were better without it. If they didn't like her management there were other houses where there was lots of style if there was nothing else; they could go away. What was most wonderful was that so few of them hastened to avail themselves of this privilege; perhaps they found their landlady's originalities amusing, or, which was more likely, they discovered that she was, after all, a kindly sensible woman.
Mrs. Sherlock did not spend more than a second in consideration. ‘Oh certainly, ma'am,’ she answered. ‘I shall have two rooms vacant this evening.’
‘I am very glad,’ said the lady, lying back on the sofa with her arm round the little boy. ‘I am too tired to seek for other lodgings, and I know no one in this town. Before I came here I tired myself with looking for a maid. The one who has waited on me ever since I was a girl left me unexpectedly in Melbourne, and for the first time in my life I have been obliged to travel alone. Perhaps you could help me to find another?’
Mrs. Sherlock thought she could. She drew up the blinds and was about to leave the room when the lady suddenly asked, ‘You have been here for many years, I suppose? Have you kept this boarding-house for a long while?’
‘Well, I've lived here more than half my life, and it's eight years since I began to take in lodgers.’
‘And in a boarding-house,’ said the lady, looking at her with a strange anxiety of expression, ‘you will see a great many different persons. People will be constantly coming and going.’
‘Oh, yes. But not so many here as in some houses. I can only take in a few, and some of them stay with me for a long while.’
‘Did you ever see a face like this?’ asked the lady, taking off a locket and giving it to Mrs. Sherlock.
Mrs. Shelock took the protrait to the window and looked at it long and intently.
‘No; I can't remember that I have. It's a striking face too, ma'am.’
‘I have come to New Zealand to find that face,’ said the lady.
‘Of course you've advertised?’ said Mrs. Sherlock.
‘Repeatedly in Australia, where he was last heard of. I have been to the private inquiry offices in Melbourne, and they could not help me.’
‘Ah, it's not easy to find a lost friend out in colonies,’ said Mrs. Sherlock, wondering which it was, friend or relative.
‘I have one clue,’ continued the lady, sadly, ‘that is, I think I have, for I have often been deceived. It is my last chance, and now that I feel rested I will go to the place. I am too anxious to wait another hour.’
‘Surely you won't think of going out again, so tired as you are,’ said Mrs. Sherlock, looking at her closely. ‘And, excuse me, but you're looking ill as well as tired; leave it to another day.’
‘Yes, I am ill,’ she answered. ‘I have been ill for a long while. I leave nothing now to another day. I don't know that another day may come.’
It was spoken with such seriousness of tone that Mrs. Sherlock felt awed, and a chill passed over her. She was reminded of people who had had premonitions of death; but this woman was in the bloom of youth; the colour would return at times to her face, and her eyes, though often downcast, shone with a clear brightness.
‘I will leave my boy with you,’ she said. ‘He has fallen asleep, and perhaps will not wake before I return. I hope he won't miss me, for he is a spoilt child.’
She went out, inspirited by the hope that the clue might lead her to what she sought. All trace of weariness and exhaustion had disappeared. She walked with a quick firm step, and was soon out of Mrs. Sherlock's sight.
‘There's something wrong about that lady,’ said the observant landlady, shaking her head. ‘Yes, if I'm not mistaken, she's where she oughtn't to be. Dear me! she never told me her name, and I forgot to ask.’