at farlingford, forgotten of the world, events move slowly and men's minds assimilate change without shock. old people look for death long before it arrives, so that when at last the great change comes it is effected quite calmly. there is no indecent haste, no scrambling to put a semblance of finish to the incomplete, as there is in the hurried death of cities. young faces grow softly mellow without those lines and anxious crow's-feet that mar the features of the middle-aged, who, to earn their daily bread or to kill the tedium of their lives, find it necessary to dwell in streets.
“loo's home again,” men told each other at “the black sailor”; and the women, who discussed the matter in the village street, had little to add to this bare piece of news. there was nothing unusual about it. indeed, it was customary for farlingford men to come home again. they always returned, at last, from wide wanderings, which a limited conversational capacity seemed to deprive of all interest. those that stayed at home learnt a few names, and that was all.
“where are ye now from, willum?” the newly returned sailor would be kindly asked, with the sideward jerk of the head.
“a'm now from valparaiso.”
and that was all that there was to be said about valparaiso and the experiences of this circumnavigator. perhaps it was not considered good form to inquire further into that which was, after all, his own business. if you ask an east anglian questions he will tell you nothing; if you do not inquire he will tell you less.
no one, therefore, asked barebone any questions. more especially is it considered, in seafaring communities, impolite to make inquiry into your neighbour's misfortune. if a man have the ill luck to lose his ship, he may well go through the rest of his life without hearing the mention of her name. it was understood in farlingford that loo barebone had resigned his post on “the last hope” in order to claim a heritage in france. he had returned home, and was living quietly at maidens grave farm with mrs. clubbe. it was, therefore, to be presumed that he had failed in his quest. this was hardly a matter for surprise to such as had inherited from their forefathers a profound distrust in frenchmen.
the brief february days followed each other with that monotony, marked by small events, that quickly lays the years aside. loo lingered on, with a vague indecision in his mind which increased as the weeks passed by and the spell of the wide marsh-lands closed round his soul. he took up again those studies which the necessity of earning a living had interrupted years before, and septimus marvin, who had never left off seeking, opened new historical gardens to him and bade him come in and dig.
nearly every morning loo went to the rectory to look up an obscure reference or elucidate an uncertain period. nearly every evening, after the rectory dinner, he returned the books he had borrowed, and lingered until past sep's bedtime to discuss the day's reading. septimus marvin, with an enthusiasm which is the reward of the simple-hearted, led the way down the paths of history while loo and miriam followed—the man with the quick perception of his race, the woman with that instinctive and untiring search for the human motive which can put heart into a printed page of history.
many a whole lifetime has slipped away in such occupations; for history, already inexhaustible, grows in bulk day by day. marvin was happier than he had ever been, for a great absorption is one of heaven's kindest gifts.
for barebone, france and his quest there, the marquis de gemosac, dormer colville, juliette, lapsed into a sort of dream, while farlingford remained a quiet reality. loo had not written to dormer colville. captain clubbe was trading between alexandria and bristol. “the last hope” was not to be expected in england before april. to communicate with colville would be to turn that past dream, not wholly pleasant, into a grim reality. loo therefore put off from day to day the evil moment. by nature and by training he was a man of action. he tried to persuade himself that he was made for a scholar and would be happy to pass the rest of his days in the study of that history which had occupied septimus marvin's thoughts during a whole lifetime.
perhaps he was right. he might have been happy enough to pass his days thus if life were unchanging; if septimus marvin should never age and never die; if miriam should be always there, with her light touch on the deeper thoughts, her half-french way of understanding the unspoken, with her steady friendship which might change, some day, into something else. this was, of course, inconsistent. love itself is the most inconsistent of all human dreams; for it would have some things change and others remain ever as they are. whereas nothing stays unchanged for a single day: love, least of all. for it must go forward or back.
“see!” cried septimus marvin, one evening, laying his hand on the open book before him. “see how strong are racial things. here are the bourbons for ever shutting their eyes to the obvious, for ever putting off the evil moment, for ever temporising—from father to son, father to son; generation after generation. finally we come to louis xvi. read his letters to the comte d'artois. they are the letters of a man who knows the truth in his own heart and will not admit it even to himself.”
“yes,” admitted loo. “yes—you are right. it is racial, one must suppose.”
and he glanced at miriam, who did not meet his eyes but looked at the open page, with a smile on her lips half sad, wholly tolerant.
next morning, loo thought, he would write to dormer colville. but the following evening came, and he had not done so. he went, as usual, to the rectory, where the same kind welcome awaited him. miriam knew that he had not written. like him, she knew that an end of some sort must soon come. and the end came an hour later.
some day, barebone knew, dormer colville would arrive. every morning he half looked for him on the seawall, between “the black sailor” and the rectory garden. any evening, he was well aware, the smiling face might greet him in the lamp-lit drawing-room.
sep had gone to bed earlier that night. the rector was reading aloud an endless collection of letters, from which the careful student could scarcely fail to gather side-lights on history. both miriam and loo heard the clang of the iron gate on the sea-wall.
a minute or two later the old dog, who lived mysteriously in the back premises, barked, and presently the servant announced that a gentleman was desirous of speaking to the rector. there were not many gentlemen within a day's walk of the rectory. some one must have put up at “the black sailor.” theoretically, the rector was at the call of any of his parishioners at all moments; but in practice the people of farlingford never sought his help.
“a gentleman,” said marvin, vaguely; “well, let him come in, sarah.”
miriam and barebone sat silently looking at the door. but the man who appeared there was not dormer colville. it was john turner.
he evinced no surprise on seeing barebone, but shook hands with him with a little nod of the head, which somehow indicated that they had business together.
he accepted the chair brought forward by marvin and warmed his hands at the fire, in no hurry, it would appear, to state the reason for this unceremonious call. after all, marvin was his oldest friend and miriam his ward. between old friends, explanations are often better omitted.
“it is many years,” he said, at length, “since i heard their talk. they speak with their tongues and their teeth, but not their lips.”
“and their throats,” put in marvin, eagerly. “that is because they are of teuton descent. so different from the french, eh, turner?”
turner nodded a placid acquiescence. then he turned, as far, it would appear, as the thickness of his neck allowed, toward barebone.
“saw in a french paper,” he said, “that the 'petite jeanne' had put in to lowestoft, to replace a dinghy lost at sea. so i put two and two together. it is my business putting two and two together, and making five of them when i can, but they generally make four. i thought i should find you here.”
loo made no answer. he had only seen john turner once in his life—for a short hour, in a room full of people, at royan. the banker stared straight in front of him for a few moments. then he raised his sleepy little eyes directly to miriam's face. he heaved a sigh, and fell to studying the burning logs again. and the colour slowly rose to miriam's cheeks. the banker, it seemed, was about his business again, in one of those simple addition sums, which he sometimes solved correctly.
“to you,” he said, after a moment's pause, with a glance in loo's direction, “to you, it must appear that i am interfering in what is not my own business. you are wrong there.”
he had clasped his hands across his abnormal waistcoat, and he half closed his eyes as he blinked at the fire.
“i am a sort of intermediary angel,” he went on, “between private persons in france and their friends in england. nothing to do with state affairs, you understand; at least, very little. many persons in england have relations or property in france. french persons fall in love with people on this side of the channel, and vice versa. and, sooner or later, all these persons, who are in trouble with their property or their affections, come to me, because money is invariably at the bottom of the trouble. money is invariably at the bottom of all trouble. and i represent money.”
he pursed up his lips and gazed somnolently at the fire. “ask anybody,” he went on, dreamily, after a pause, “if that is not the bare truth. ask colville, ask mrs. st. pierre lawrence, ask miriam liston, sitting here beside us, if i exaggerate the importance of—of myself.”
“every one,” admitted barebone, cheerfully, “knows that you occupy a great position in paris.”
turner glanced at him and gave a thick chuckle in his throat.
“thank you,” he said. “very decent of you. and that point being established, i will explain further, that i am not here of my own free will. i am only an agent. no man in his senses would come to farlingford in mid-winter unless—” he broke off, with a sharp sigh, and glanced down at miriam's slipper resting on the fender, “unless he was much younger than i am. i came because i was paid to do it. came to make you a proposition.”
“to make me a proposition?” inquired loo, as the identity of turner's hearers had become involved.
“yes. and i should recommend you to give it your gravest consideration. it is one of the most foolish propositions, from the proposer's point of view, that i have ever had to make: i should blush to make it, if it were any use blushing, but no one sees blushes on my cheeks now. do not decide in a hurry—sleep on it. i always sleep on a question.”
he closed his eyes, and seemed about to compose himself to slumber then and there.
“i am no longer young,” he admitted, after a pause, “and therefore propose to take one of the few alleviations allowed to advancing years and an increasing avoirdupois. i am going to give you some advice. there is only one thing worth having in this life, and that is happiness. even the possibility of it is worth all other possibilities put together. if a man have a chance of grasping happiness—i mean a home and the wife he wants.... and all that—he is wise to throw all other chances to the wind. such, for instance, as the chance of greatness, of fame or wealth, of gratified vanity or satisfied ambition.”
he had spoken slowly, and at last he ceased speaking, as if overcome by a growing drowsiness. a queer silence followed this singular man's words. barebone had not resumed his seat. he was standing by the mantelpiece, as he often did, being quick and eager when interested, and not content to sit still and express himself calmly in words, but must needs emphasise his meaning by gestures and a hundred quick movements of the head.
“go on,” he said. “let us have the proposition.”
“and no more advice?”
loo glanced at miriam. he could see all three faces where he stood, but only by the light of the fire. miriam was nearest to the hearth. he could see that her eyes were aglow—possibly with anger.
barebone shrugged his shoulders.
“you are not an agent—you are an advocate,” he said.
turner raised his eyes with the patience of a slumbering animal that has been prodded.
“yes,” he said—“your advocate. there is one more chance i should advise any man to shun—to cast to the four winds, and hold on only to that tangible possibility of happiness in the present—it is the chance of enjoying, in some dim and distant future, the satisfaction of having, in a half-forgotten past, done one's duty. one's first duty is to secure, by all legitimate means, one's own happiness.”
“what is the proposition?” interrupted barebone, quickly; and turner, beneath his heavy lids, had caught in the passing the glance from miriam's eyes, for which possibly both he and loo barebone had been waiting.
“fifty thousand pounds,” replied the banker, bluntly, “in first-class english securities, in return for a written undertaking on your part to relinquish all claim to any heritage to which you may think yourself entitled in france. you will need to give your word of honour never to set foot on french soil—and that is all.”
“i never, until this moment,” replied barebone, “knew the value of my own pretensions.”
“yes,” said turner, quietly; “that is the obvious retort. and having made it, you can now give a few minutes' calm reflection to my proposition—say five minutes, until that clock strikes half-past nine—and then i am ready to answer any questions you may wish to ask.”
barebone laughed good-humouredly, and so far fell in with the suggestion that he leant his elbow on the corner of the mantelpiece, and looked at the clock.
