Chapter IV: Another Lodger

"YOU may as well get something to do, Hope, and not sit wasting your time like that," said Mrs. Burrell with some sharpness.

It was the evening of Christmas Day; consequently shops were closed, and business was at a standstill. Mrs. Burrell did not, like many of her neighbours, go in for Christmas festivities. She counted such doings a waste of time and of money. Beyond the presence of her favourite nephew, Neil Burrell, a young Parish schoolmaster, who usually spent his holidays under her roof, there was little to mark the date.

Snow had fallen heavily for some hours, and when evening came, the weather proved to be such that no one could venture out,—not even Hope, under her cousin Neil's guardianship. She was vexed at the deprivation, and sat discontentedly before the fire, while her mother and Bertha plied their needles, and Neil busied himself with a book. He was a quiet intelligent young man, more given to reading than to talking, as a rule.

The drawing-room apartments were empty still. Mrs. Burrell lived in daily expectation of fresh lodgers, and hitherto she had been daily disappointed.

"It is Christmas Day," Hope answered, without turning her head. "I don't see any need to sew on Christmas Day."

"There's no need to waste your time, whatever day it is," rejoined Mrs. Burrell.

Hope gaped listlessly. "I wish something would happen. It is so stupid, spending Christmas just like any other day. Except of course that we shut up, and that Neil is here. But Neil only sits and reads."

Neil good-naturedly laid down his book. "How is the poor lady upstairs getting on, aunt Burrell?" he asked, by way of conversation.

"What makes you call her 'poor'?" Hope inquired.

"Well, I don't know. She can't be very rich to live in only one room,—and she carries trouble in her face."

"I am sure I should be troubled about that child, if I was her," said Mrs. Burrell, adjusting a seam.

Bertha asked,—"Why?"

"Why? It's easy to see she isn't long for this world," said Mrs. Burrell. "I never came across such a child. The way she talks, it isn't natural. It's like an old woman that has had her fill of life,—and she scarcely nine years old! I don't mean to say she is going to die directly. But you mark my words,—she will never grow up."

"People can't tell beforehand," said Neil, noting Bertha's distress.

"She would be a pretty child, if she wasn't so grave," said Hope.

"I think her lovely," murmured Bertha. "It is a little angel's face."

"That's just what I say," Mrs. Burrell remarked conclusively. "She has the look of one who isn't long for this world. You can believe me or not as you like. Just you wait and see. I know!"

The bell at the side-door tingled furiously.

"Who is that, I wonder?" Hope said.

"Bertha can answer it," said Mrs. Burrell. "Hannah is busy upstairs. Be quick, and don't keep people waiting."

"I heard a cab," said Neil.

The others ascribed this to imagination. Yet when Bertha opened the door, letting in a rush of icy air and snow-flakes, there in very truth was a cab, dimly visible. Bertha shivered, but stood her ground. A gentleman descended with deliberation, picked his way across the snowy pavement, and entered.

"You can wait," he said peremptorily to the cabman, and then to Bertha, with equal peremptoriness, "Shut the door."

Bertha obeyed, not without an instant's hesitation. She found herself confronted by an elderly man, muffled up to the eyes in wraps. The said eyes surveyed her sharply, from beneath a pair of overgrown grey eyebrows.

"Mrs. Burrell's?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"I wish to see the lodgings,—vacant now, I am told."

"Yes, sir. I'll call Mrs. Burrell," Bertha answered, in accordance with repeated instructions.

"Stop. How many rooms?"

"Drawing-room and best bedroom," said Bertha.

"Humph! No other?"

"I think a small servant's room could be fitted up. Mrs. Burrell does it sometimes."

"That would do. A box-room, not for a servant. Any other lodgers?"

"Yes, sir; a lady."

"No babies?"

"No, sir, only one little girl."

"Past the crying age?"

Bertha could have smiled. "Yes, quite," she said.

"Doesn't race about or make a racket?"

"No, sir. I never knew a quieter child."

"How old?"

"About nine," said Bertha.

"Too young. Much too young," said the gentleman, with an odd expression. "Well, well, the rooms may do, perhaps."

"I will call Mrs. Burrell, if you please," began Bertha.

"Stop a moment—stop a moment. No such hurry. Parlour faces south, eh?"

"Yes, sir, and the bedroom too."

"Cooking good?" He lowered his voice to a confidential tone. "Be honest and speak out. It's no earthly use my coming if the cooking isn't good. I shouldn't stay a week. Good cooking is an essential with me—absolutely an essential."

"Mrs. Burrell is a first-rate cook," said Bertha.

"Come, that promises well. Does it all herself, hey?"

"No, sir, but she sees to it all, and does a good deal."

"Come, that's fair. Knows how to roast and stew and bake, and all the rest of it? Soup and fish; curries—'ragoûts'—everything of that sort, eh?"

"I think Mrs. Burrell could undertake whatever you are likely to want," said Bertha.

"Good. You look as if you were speaking the truth too."

Mrs. Burrell suddenly appeared on the scene, inwardly wrathful at not having been summoned.

"You can go!" she said in an undertone to Bertha, when some words of explanation had been uttered, and a private glance of displeasure was shot sideways. Then with a genial and smiling air, Mrs. Burrell addressed herself to the task of escorting her visitor upstairs.

"That isn't a bad-looking girl," he remarked.

"She's one of the best girls that ever was," said Mrs. Burrell, with an alacrity which would have amazed Bertha. "Just one of the old-fashioned sort, thorough in her work, and don't mind how much she has to do, and always has a pleasant manner."

"Knows how to wait at table?"

"Yes, sir. Bertha always waits on the drawing-room lodgers."

"Ha! So this is the parlour. Well—it might be worse. Tolerable as to size. You don't call that daub a picture, I hope. Better have bare walls than daubs. Never mind; I have pictures of my own, so it doesn't matter. Bedroom over this, I suppose. The girl said it faced south. One of these windows ought to be a bow. How large is the third room? Big enough to hold lumber? Yes, yes,—I'll see them both directly. May as well tell me your terms first."

Mrs. Burrell obeyed, and found no objections offered.

"I suppose you could have all made ready for me in a couple of days. Hotel life does not suit me, and I want to be settled for a time. No,—on second thoughts I shall not be able to come till next Thursday—if I decide to have your rooms. By-the-bye, you don't have any piano-strumming near?"

"No, sir; not even next-door."

"Neither side? Rare that, in London. And you are not musical yourselves, I hope?"

"No, sir," repeated Mrs. Burrell.

"If I come, I am likely to stay. I don't care for changes."

At this moment, to Mrs. Burrell's horror, the sound of a soft "contralto" came floating across the passage, through the shut door of the back bedroom.

"Mercy! What's that?" exclaimed the gentleman.

But when Mrs. Burrell would have spoken, he held up his hand, authoritatively imposing silence. They stood silent; the gentleman listening and the landlady chafing. Every word was distinct.

"'For ever with the Lord!'
Amen; so let it be!
Life from the dead is in that word,
'Tis immortality.
Here in the body pent,
Absent from Him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day's march nearer Home.

"My Father's House on high,
Home of my soul! how near
At times, to faith's foreseeing eye,
Thy golden gates appear!
Ah! Then my spirit faints
To reach the land I love,
The bright inheritance of Saints,
Jerusalem above."

Mrs. Burrell fidgeted, but fidgeted in vain. Her possible lodger stirred not a finger.

There came at length a slight cough.

And then a child's voice said,—"Don't sing any more, mother darling."

The mother replying,—"Perhaps I had better wait a few minutes, Rhona. This London air seems to make me husky."

"Montgomery!" muttered the gentleman.

Mrs. Burrell stared, and after a moment's hesitation, her perplexity found vent in,—"Beg pardon, sir?"

"Montgomery! Wrote it, of course," said the gentleman impatiently. "Your walls appear to be uncommonly thin."

"I don't think they are, sir. And that is the first time I have heard the lady's voice, though she has been here more than a month. And she has not any piano."

"So much the worse," the gentleman made answer unexpectedly.

Mrs. Burrell stared afresh and was mute, while conducting him upstairs. He surveyed the two remaining rooms almost without a remark, went back to the drawing-room, and stood there absently, drumming on the table with the fingers of one hand.

"Very well. Next Thursday," he said, waking up suddenly.

"You decide to take the rooms, sir?" asked Mrs. Burrell.

"Of course. Did I not tell you so just now?"

Mrs. Burrell wisely refrained from answering in the negative.

He pulled out a piece of paper, wrote something, and handed it to her.

"My name and present address. I shall send some of my luggage on the morning of Thursday, and come myself after luncheon. Mind you have the rooms well aired,—and fires laid, but not lighted till I arrive. Dinner at eight o'clock. I will send you word what to get for me. And—by-the-by, you need not say a word to Mrs. Mordaunt about her singing. That is not strumming, you know."

"No, sir," assented Mrs. Burrell.

"Good evening. Ahem! Did you say—?" And he paused again, with a rather curious expression. "Has she a husband living? Does he happen to be musical too?"

"Mrs. Mordaunt is a widow, sir."

"All right. Good evening."

Mrs. Burrell looked at the paper in her hand, read aloud,—"Colonel Smyth," and returned to the back-parlour.

"What made you stand all that time talking to the gentleman?" she demanded of Bertha. "Gossiping about Mrs. Mordaunt! As if she was any concern of his."

"I didn't!" Bertha answered in surprise. "He was asking about the rooms, and he would not let me call you sooner."

"You mean to tell me you were not speaking of Mrs. Mordaunt?"

"I told him there was a lady in the house, and a little girl, and I said she was not noisy. That was all," Bertha replied. "He asked questions, and I had to answer."

"He didn't ask her name, I'll be bound," said Mrs. Burrell.

"No, and I did not tell it him," said Bertha.

Mrs. Burrell turned upon her sharply. "Well, I did think you ware a truthful girl, anyway."

Bertha's pale face flushed. "I am speaking the truth, indeed I am," she said. "I did not know it mattered much either way, but I am sure I did not say Mrs. Mordaunt's name—quite sure."

"It doesn't matter, except that I hate gossip," said Mrs. Burrell. "And I hate to have a thing denied when it's been done. Why, the gentleman had her name as pat as could be."

"Bertha wouldn't deny what she knew she had done," said Neil persuasively. "The gentleman may be an old acquaintance of Mrs. Mordaunt."

"I don't think he can be," said Bertha. "He did not even know whether we had any other lodgers in the house."

"Well then, either you or aunt must have let slip the name, without thinking," said the young man.

"Not I!" retorted Mrs. Burrell. "Gossip isn't in 'my' line. And I don't mean it to be in Bertha's either. So you mind!"