Beyond the City | Page 3

make room for the modern villa. Field by
field the estate of old Mr. Williams had been sold to the speculative
builder, and had borne rich crops of snug suburban dwellings, arranged
in curving crescents and tree-lined avenues. The father had passed
away before his cottage was entirely bricked round, but his two
daughters, to whom the property had descended, lived to see the last
vestige of country taken from them. For years they had clung to the one
field which faced their windows, and it was only after much argument
and many heartburnings, that they had at last consented that it should
share the fate of the others. A broad road was driven through their quiet
domain, the quarter was re-named "The Wilderness," and three square,
staring, uncompromising villas began to sprout up on the other side.
With sore hearts, the two shy little old maids watched their steady
progress, and speculated as to what fashion of neighbors chance would
bring into the little nook which had always been their own.
And at last they were all three finished. Wooden balconies and
overhanging eaves had been added to them, so that, in the language of
the advertisement, there were vacant three eligible Swiss-built villas,
with sixteen rooms, no basement, electric bells, hot and cold water, and

every modern convenience, including a common tennis lawn, to be let
at L100 a year, or L1,500 purchase. So tempting an offer did not long
remain open. Within a few weeks the card had vanished from number
one, and it was known that Admiral Hay Denver, V. C., C. B., with Mrs.
Hay Denver and their only son, were about to move into it. The news
brought peace to the hearts of the Williams sisters. They had lived with
a settled conviction that some wild impossible colony, some shouting,
singing family of madcaps, would break in upon their peace. This
establishment at least was irreproachable. A reference to "Men of the
Time" showed them that Admiral Hay Denver was a most distinguished
officer, who had begun his active career at Bomarsund, and had ended
it at Alexandria, having managed between these two episodes to see as
much service as any man of his years. From the Taku Forts and the
Shannon brigade, to dhow-harrying off Zanzibar, there was no variety
of naval work which did not appear in his record; while the Victoria
Cross, and the Albert Medal for saving life, vouched for it that in peace
as in war his courage was still of the same true temper. Clearly a very
eligible neighbor this, the more so as they had been confidentially
assured by the estate agent that Mr. Harold Denver, the son, was a most
quiet young gentleman, and that he was busy from morning to night on
the Stock Exchange.
The Hay Denvers had hardly moved in before number two also struck
its placard, and again the ladies found that they had no reason to be
discontented with their neighbors. Doctor Balthazar Walker was a very
well-known name in the medical world. Did not his qualifications, his
membership, and the record of his writings fill a long half-column in
the "Medical Directory," from his first little paper on the "Gouty
Diathesis" in 1859 to his exhaustive treatise upon "Affections of the
Vaso-Motor System" in 1884? A successful medical career which
promised to end in a presidentship of a college and a baronetcy, had
been cut short by his sudden inheritance of a considerable sum from a
grateful patient, which had rendered him independent for life, and had
enabled him to turn his attention to the more scientific part of his
profession, which had always had a greater charm for him than its more
practical and commercial aspect. To this end he had given up his house
in Weymouth Street, and had taken this opportunity of moving himself,

his scientific instruments, and his two charming daughters (he had been
a widower for some years) into the more peaceful atmosphere of
Norwood.
There was thus but one villa unoccupied, and it was no wonder that the
two maiden ladies watched with a keen interest, which deepened into a
dire apprehension, the curious incidents which heralded the coming of
the new tenants. They had already learned from the agent that the
family consisted of two only, Mrs. Westmacott, a widow, and her
nephew, Charles Westmacott. How simple and how select it had
sounded! Who could have foreseen from it these fearful portents which
seemed to threaten violence and discord among the dwellers in The
Wilderness? Again the two old maids cried in heartfelt chorus that they
wished they had not sold their field.
"Well, at least, Monica," remarked Bertha, as they sat over their
teacups that afternoon, "however strange these people may be, it is