To-morrow | Page 8

Carvil praised him for his good sense, and he was soothed by the part she took in his hope, which had become his delusion; in that idea which blinded his mind to truth and probabil- ity, just as the other old man in the other cottage had been made blind, by another disease, to the light and beauty of the world.
But anything he could interpret as a doubt-- any coldness of assent, or even a simple inattention to the development of his projects of a home with his returned son and his son's wife--would irritate him into flings and jerks and wicked side glances. He would dash his spade into the ground and walk to and fro before it. Miss Bessie called it his tan- trums. She shook her finger at him. Then, when she came out again, after he had parted with her in anger, he would watch out of the corner of his eyes for the least sign of encouragement to ap- proach the iron railings and resume his fatherly and patronising relations.
For all their intimacy, which had lasted some years now, they had never talked without a fence or a railing between them. He described to her all the splendours accumulated for the setting-up of their housekeeping, but had never invited her to an inspection. No human eye was to behold them till Harry had his first look. In fact, nobody had ever been inside his cottage; he did his own housework, and he guarded his son's privilege so jealously that the small objects of domestic use he bought some- times in the town were smuggled rapidly across the front garden under his canvas coat. Then, coming out, he would remark apologetically, "It was only a small kettle, my dear."
And, if not too tired with her drudgery, or wor- ried beyond endurance by her father, she would laugh at him with a blush, and say: "That's all right, Captain Hagberd; I am not impatient."
"Well, my dear, you haven't long to wait now," he would answer with a sudden bashfulness, and looking uneasily, as though he had suspected that there was something wrong somewhere.
Every Monday she paid him his rent over the railings. He clutched the shillings greedily. He grudged every penny he had to spend on his main- tenance, and when he left her to make his purchases his bearing changed as soon as he got into the street. Away from the sanction of her pity, he felt himself exposed without defence. He brushed the walls with his shoulder. He mistrusted the queer- ness of the people; yet, by then, even the town children had left off calling after him, and the tradesmen served him without a word. The slight- est allusion to his clothing had the power to puzzle and frighten especially, as if it were something utterly unwarranted and incomprehensible.
In the autumn, the driving rain drummed on his sailcloth suit saturated almost to the stiffness of sheet-iron, with its surface flowing with water. When the weather was too bad, he retreated under the tiny porch, and, standing close against the door, looked at his spade left planted in the middle of the yard. The ground was so much dug up all over, that as the season advanced it turned to a quagmire. When it froze hard, he was disconso- late. What would Harry say? And as he could not have so much of Bessie's company at that time of the year, the roars of old Carvil, that came muf- fled through the closed windows, calling her in- doors, exasperated him greatly.
"Why don't that extravagant fellow get you a servant?" he asked impatiently one mild after- noon. She had thrown something over her head to run out for a while.
"I don't know," said the pale Bessie, wearily, staring away with her heavy-lidded, grey, and un- expectant glance. There were always smudgy shadows under her eyes, and she did not seem able to see any change or any end to her life.
"You wait till you get married, my dear," said her only friend, drawing closer to the fence. "Harry will get you one."
His hopeful craze seemed to mock her own want of hope with so bitter an aptness that in her ner- vous irritation she could have screamed at him out- right. But she only said in self-mockery, and speaking to him as though he had been sane, "Why, Captain Hagberd, your son may not even want to look at me."
He flung his head back and laughed his throaty affected cackle of anger.
"What! That boy? Not want to look at the only sensible girl for miles around? What do you think I am here for, my dear--my dear--my dear? . . . What? You wait. You just wait. You'll see to-morrow. I'll soon--"
"Bessie! Bessie! Bessie!" howled old