A Mere Accident | Page 3

are prominent, the chin is small, but unsuggestive of weakness, the lips
are pinched, the complexion is flushed, and the eyes set close above the
long thin nose are an icy grey. Mrs Norton is a handsome woman. Her
fashionably-cut silk fits her perfectly; the skirt is draped with grace and
precision, and the glossy shawl with the long soft fringe is elegant and
delightfully mundane. She raises her double gold eyeglasses, and,
contracting her forehead, stares pryingly about her; and so fashionable
is she, and her modernity is so picturesque, that for a moment you think
of the entrance of a duchess in the first act of a piece by Augier played
on the stage of the Français.
Still holding her gold-rimmed glasses to her eyes, she descended the
broad stairs to the hall, and from thence she went into the library. There
are two small bookcases filled with sombre volumes, and the busts of
Molière and Shakespeare attempt to justify the appellation. But there is
in the character, I was almost going to say in the atmosphere of the
room, that same undefinable, easily recognizable something which
proclaims the presence of non-readers. The traces of three or four days,
at the most a week, which John occasionally spent at Thornby Place,
were necessarily ephemeral, and the weakness of Mrs Norton's sight
rendered continuous reading impossible. Sometimes Kitty Hare brought
a novel from the circulating library to read aloud, and sometimes John
forgot one of his books, and a volume of Browning still lay on the table.
The room was filled with shadow and mournfulness, and in a dusty
grate the fire smouldered.
Between this room and the drawing-room, in a recess formed by the
bow window, Mrs Norton kept her birds, and still peering through her
gold-rimmed glasses, she examined their seed-troughs and
water-glasses, and, having satisfied herself as to their state, she entered
the drawing-room. There is little in this room; no pictures relieve the
widths of grey colourless wall paper, and the sombre oak floor is
spaced with a few pieces of furniture--heavy furniture enshrouded in
grey linen cloths. Three French cabinets, gaudy with vile veneer and
bright brass, are nailed against the walls, and the empty room is
reflected dismally in the great gold mirror which faces the vivid green

of the sward and the duller green of the encircling elms of the park.
Mrs Norton let her eyes wander, and sighing she went into the
dining-room. The dining-room is always the most human of rooms, and
the dining-room in Thornby Place, although allied to the other rooms in
an absence of fancy in its arrangement, shows prettily in contrast to
them with its white cloth cheerful with flowers and ferns. The floor is
covered with a tightly stretched red cloth, the chairs are set in
symmetrical rows; with the exception of a black clock there is no
ornament on the chimney-piece, and a red cloth screen conceals the
door used by the servants.
Mrs Norton walked with her quiet decisive step to the window, and
holding the gold-rimmed glasses to her eyes, she looked into the
landscape as if she were expecting someone to appear. The day was
grimy with clouds; mist had risen, and it hung out of the branches of
the elms like a veil of white gauze. Withdrawing her eye from the
vague prospect before her, Mrs Norton played listlessly with the tassel
of one of the blinds. "Surely," she thought, "he cannot have been
foolish enough to have walked over the downs such a day as this;" then,
raising her glasses again she looked out at the smallest angle with the
wall of the house, so that she should get sight of a vista through which
any one coming from Shoreham would have to pass. Presently a
silhouette appeared on the sullen sky. Mrs Norton moved precipitately
from the window, and she rang the bell sharply.
"John," she said, "Mr Hare has been going in for one of his long walks.
I see him now coming across the park. I am sure he has walked over the
downs; if so he must be wet through. Have a fire lighted in Mr Norton's
room, put up a pair of slippers for him: here is the key of Mr Norton's
wardrobe; let Mr Hare have what he wants."
And having detached one from the many bunches which filled her
basket, she went herself to open the door to her visitor. He was
however still some distance away, and standing in the shelter of the
loggia she waited for him, watched the vague silhouette resolving itself
into colour and line. But it was not until he climbed the iron fence
which separated the park from the garden grounds that the figure grew

into its individuality.