Wessex Tales | Page 5

which characterizes persons of
Ella's cast of soul, and is too often a cause of heartache to the
possessor's male friends, ultimately sometimes to herself. Her husband

was a tall, long-featured man, with a brown beard; he had a pondering
regard; and was, it must be added, usually kind and tolerant to her. He
spoke in squarely shaped sentences, and was supremely satisfied with a
condition of sublunary things which made weapons a necessity.
Husband and wife walked till they had reached the house they were in
search of, which stood in a terrace facing the sea, and was fronted by a
small garden of wind-proof and salt-proof evergreens, stone steps
leading up to the porch. It had its number in the row, but, being rather
larger than the rest, was in addition sedulously distinguished as Coburg
House by its landlady, though everybody else called it 'Thirteen, New
Parade.' The spot was bright and lively now; but in winter it became
necessary to place sandbags against the door, and to stuff up the
keyhole against the wind and rain, which had worn the paint so thin
that the priming and knotting showed through.
The householder, who bad been watching for the gentleman's return,
met them in the passage, and showed the rooms. She informed them
that she was a professional man's widow, left in needy circumstances
by the rather sudden death of her husband, and she spoke anxiously of
the conveniences of the establishment.
Mrs. Marchmill said that she liked the situation and the house; but, it
being small, there would not be accommodation enough, unless she
could have all the rooms.
The landlady mused with an air of disappointment. She wanted the
visitors to be her tenants very badly, she said, with obvious honesty.
But unfortunately two of the rooms were occupied permanently by a
bachelor gentleman. He did not pay season prices, it was true; but as he
kept on his apartments all the year round, and was an extremely nice
and interesting young man, who gave no trouble, she did not like to
turn him out for a month's 'let,' even at a high figure. 'Perhaps,
however,' she added, 'he might offer to go for a time.'
They would not hear of this, and went back to the hotel, intending to
proceed to the agent's to inquire further. Hardly had they sat down to
tea when the landlady called. Her gentleman, she said, had been so
obliging as to offer to give up his rooms for three or four weeks rather
than drive the new-comers away.
'It is very kind, but we won't inconvenience him in that way,' said the
Marchmills.

'O, it won't inconvenience him, I assure you!' said the landlady
eloquently. 'You see, he's a different sort of young man from most-
-dreamy, solitary, rather melancholy--and he cares more to be here
when the south-westerly gales are beating against the door, and the sea
washes over the Parade, and there's not a soul in the place, than he does
now in the season. He'd just as soon be where, in fact, he's going
temporarily, to a little cottage on the Island opposite, for a change.' She
hoped therefore that they would come.
The Marchmill family accordingly took possession of the house next
day, and it seemed to suit them very well. After luncheon Mr.
Marchmill strolled out towards the pier, and Mrs. Marchmill, having
despatched the children to their outdoor amusements on the sands,
settled herself in more completely, examining this and that article, and
testing the reflecting powers of the mirror in the wardrobe door.
In the small back sitting-room, which had been the young bachelor's,
she found furniture of a more personal nature than in the rest. Shabby
books, of correct rather than rare editions, were piled up in a queerly
reserved manner in corners, as if the previous occupant had not
conceived the possibility that any incoming person of the season's
bringing could care to look inside them. The landlady hovered on the
threshold to rectify anything that Mrs. Marchmill might not find to her
satisfaction.
'I'll make this my own little room,' said the latter, 'because the books are
here. By the way, the person who has left seems to have a good many.
He won't mind my reading some of them, Mrs. Hooper, I hope?'
'O dear no, ma'am. Yes, he has a good many. You see, he is in the
literary line himself somewhat. He is a poet--yes, really a poet-- and he
has a little income of his own, which is enough to write verses on, but
not enough for cutting a figure, even if he cared to.'
'A poet! O, I did not know that.'
Mrs. Marchmill opened one of the books, and saw the owner's name
written on