The Guinea Stamp | Page 3

life. The village people had been kind after their homely way; but they, working hard all day with their hands, and eating at eventide the substantial bread of their honest toil, were possessed of a great contempt for the worn and haggard man who tramped their meadow-ways with his sketch-books under his arm, his daughter always with him, preserving still the look and manners of the gently born, though they wore the shabbiest of shabby garments, and could scarcely pay for the simple food they ate. It was a great mystery to them, and they regarded the spectacle with the impatience of those who did not understand.
It was the month of November, and very early that grey day the chilly darkness fell. When she could no longer see across the narrow street, Gladys let her head fall on her hands, and so sat very still. She had eaten nothing for many hours, and though feeling faint and weak, it did not occur to her to seek something to strengthen her. She had something more important than such trifling matters to engross her thoughts. She was so sitting, hopeless, melancholy, half-dazed, when she heard the voice of an arrival down-stairs, and the unaccustomed tones of a man's voice mingling with the shriller notes of Miss Peck, their little landlady. It was not the curate's voice, with which Gladys had grown quite familiar during her father's illness. He had been very kind; and in his desperation, when his end approached, Graham had implored him to look after Gladys. It was a curious charge to lay upon a young man's shoulders, but Clement Courtney had accepted it cheerfully, and had even written to his widowed mother, who lived alone in a Dorsetshire village, asking her advice about the girl. Gladys was disturbed in her solitude by Miss Peck, who came to the door in rather an excited and officious manner. She was a little, wiry spinster, past middle life, eccentric, but kind-hearted. She had bestowed a great deal of gratuitous and genuine kindness on her lodgers, though knowing very well that she would not likely get any return but gratitude for it; but times were hard with her likewise, and she could not help thinking regretfully at times of the money, only her due, which she would not likely touch now that the poor artist was gone. She had a little lamp in her hand, and she held it up so that the light fell full on the child's pale face.
'Miss Gladys, my dear, it is a gentleman for you. He says he is your uncle,' she said, and her thin voice quite trembled with her great excitement.
'My uncle?' repeated Gladys wistfully. 'Oh yes; it will be Uncle Abel from Scotland. Mr. Courtney said he had written to him.'
She rose from her stool and turned to follow Miss Peck down-stairs.
'In the sitting-room, my dear, he waits for you,' said Miss Peck, and a look of extreme pity softened her pinched features into tenderness. 'I hope--I hope, my dear, he will be good to you.' She did not add what she thought, that the chances were against it; and, still holding the lamp aloft, she guided Gladys down-stairs. There was no hesitation, but neither was there elation or pleasant anticipation in the girl's manner as she entered the room. She had ceased to expect anything good or bright to come to her any more, and perhaps it was as well just then that her outlook in life was so gloomy; it lessened the certainty of disappointment. A little lamp also burned on the round table in the middle of the narrow sitting-room, and the fire feebly blinked behind Miss Peck's carefully-polished bars, as if impressed by the subdued atmosphere without and within. Close by the table stood a very little man, enveloped in a long loosely-fitting overcoat, his hat in one hand and a large damp umbrella in the other. He had an abnormally large head, and a soft, flabby, uninteresting face, which, however, was redeemed from vacancy by the gleam and glitter of his remarkably keen and piercing black eyes. His hair was grey, and a straggling beard, grey also, adorned his heavy chin. Gladys was conscious of a strong sense of repulsion as she looked at him, but she tried not to show it, and feebly smiled as she extended her hand.
'Are you Uncle Abel, papa's brother?' she asked--a perfectly unnecessary question, of course, but it fell from her involuntarily, the contrast was so great; almost she could have called him an impostor on the spot.
'Yes,' said Uncle Abel in a harsh undertone; 'and you, I suppose, are my niece?'
'Yes. Can I take your overcoat or your umbrella?' asked Gladys; 'and would you like some tea? I can ask Miss Peck to