CHAPTER II.

Many things had happened to Mr. and Mrs. Hibbert in those seven years. Most important of all—to themselves, at least—was the birth of their two children, lovely children Mrs. Hibbert declared them to be, and in his heart her husband agreed with her. But the time came when Walter found to his dismay that even lovely children would sometimes cry, and that as they grew older they wanted room to run about with that constant patter-pattering sound that is usually more delightful to a mother’s ear than to a fathers, especially when he has to produce intelligible copy. So the Hibberts moved away from the little flat in which they had begun their married life, to an ugly little upright house sufficiently near Portland Road to enable Walter to get quickly to the office. There a nursery could be made at the top of the house, where the children would be not only out of sight, but out of hearing.

Walter did a great deal of work, and was fairly well paid, but that did not mean a large income for a young couple with two children and three servants, trying to keep up an appearance before the world. He wrote for magazines and literary journals, occasionally he did a long pot-boiler for one of those reviews he called refuges for destitute intellects; and altogether was thrown much among men better off than himself, so that he did not like to look poor. Besides, he preferred to live with a certain amount of comfort, even though it meant a certain amount of anxiety, to looking poverty-stricken or shabby for the sake of knowing precisely how he would stand at the end of the quarter, or being able at any moment to lay his hand on a ten-pound note.

“You not only feel awkward yourself if you look poor, but cause other people to feel so,” he said; “and that is making yourself a nuisance: you have no business to do that if you can avoid it.”

So, though the Hibberts had only a small house, it was pretty and well arranged. Their simple meals were daintily served, and everything about them had an air that implies content dashed with luxury. In fact, they lived as people can live now, even on a small income, and especially in London, in comfort and refinement.

Still, it was a difficult task to pull through, and Walter felt that he ought to be making more money. He knew, too, though he did not tell his wife so, that the constant work and anxiety were telling on him; he wanted another but a far longer bracing-up than the one he had had seven years ago at Brighton. “A sea voyage would be the thing,” he thought, “only I don’t see how it could be managed, even if I could get away.”

The last year had been a fortunate one in some respects: an aunt of Mrs. Hibbert’s had died, leaving them a hundred pounds and a furnished cottage near Witley, in Surrey. It was a dear little cottage, they both protested—red brick, of course, as all well-bred cottages are nowadays, standing in an acre and a half of its own fir-wood, and having round it a garden with tan paths and those prim flowers that grow best in the vicinity of fir. It would be delightful to stay there in the summer holidays, they agreed, or to run down from Saturday to Monday, or, by-and-by, to send the children there for a spell with the governess when their parents were not able to get away from town. Walter had tried sending Florence and the children and going down every week himself, but he found “it didn’t work.” She was always longing to be with him, and he with her. It was only a broad sea and a few thousand miles that would make separation possible, and he did not think he could endure that very long: he was absurdly fond of his dear little wife.

All this he thought over as he walked along the Strand one morning to his office. He was going to see his chief, who had sent for him on a matter of business. His chief was Mr. Fisher, an excellent editor, though not quite enough of a partisan perhaps to have a strong following. _The Centre_ was a model of fairness, and the mainstay of that great section of the reading public that likes its news trustworthy and copious, but has no pronounced party leanings. Still, if it was a paper without political influence, it was one of great political use, for it invariably stated a question from all points of view with equal fairness, though it leant, if at all, from sheer editorial generosity, towards making the best of it for the weakest side. Thus a minority looked to it almost as to an advocate, and the majority knew that any strength that was against them would be set forth in _The Centre_, and that if none was pleaded there, the right and the triumph were together. Mr. Fisher liked Walter Hibbert; and though by tacit agreement their relations inside the office were purely formal, outside they were a good deal more intimate. Occasionally they took the form of a quiet dinner, or a few hours in the little house near Portland Road; for Florence was rather a favourite of the editors—perhaps, for one reason, because she was obviously of opinion that he ought to be married. A man generally likes a woman who pays him this compliment, especially when it is disinterested. Mr. Fisher was a widower and childless. There was some story connected with his marriage, but the Hibberts never heard the rights of it, and it was evidently a painful subject to him. All that was known in the office was that years before a gaunt-looking woman used to sometimes come for him, and that they always walked silently away together. Some one said once that he had married her because he had known her for years, and she was poor and he did not know how to provide for her except by marrying her, and that she was querulous and worried him a good deal. After a time she grew thin and feeble-looking. One day, about three years after the marriage, her death appeared in the paper; her husband looked almost relieved, but very sad, and no one ventured to ask him any questions.

As Walter walked along the Strand that morning he meditated on many ways of improving his condition and at the same time of not overworking himself. He found that it told on him considerably to be down late at the office three nights a week, writing his article, and then, with the excitement of work still upon him, to go home tired and hungry in the small hours of the morning. It was bad for Florence, too, for she generally sat up for him, declaring that to taste his supper and to have a little chat with him did her good and made her heart light. Sometimes he thought he would take up a different line altogether (he knew his editor would aid and abet him in anything for his good) and try living in the country, running up to town every day if necessary. But this would never do; it would only make him restive. His position was not yet strong enough to admit of his taking things so easily. It was important to him to live among men of knowledge and influence, to be in the whirl and twirl of things, and London was essentially the bull’s-eye, not only of wealth and commerce, but of most other things with which men of all degrees concern themselves.

And when he got to this point he came to the conclusion that he was thinking too much about himself. After all, he only wanted a month’s rest or a couple of months’ change of air; a friendly talk such as he might possibly get in the next quarter of an hour would probably bring about one or the other and in a far better form than he himself could devise it. Mr. Fisher was a man of infinite resource, not merely in regard to his paper, but for himself and his friends too, when they consulted him about their personal affairs. It was one of his characteristics that he liked being consulted. Walter felt that the best thing would be to get away alone with Florence, to some place where the climate had no cause to be ashamed of itself: he wanted to be sated with sunshine. It was no good going alone, and no matter how pleasant a friend went with him, a time always came when he wanted to go by one route and the friend by another. “Now, your wife,” he thought, “not only particularly longs to go by your route, but thinks you a genius for finding it out.”

He stopped for a moment to look at a bookshop; there was a box of second-hand books outside; he hesitated, but remembered that he had no time to stay. As he turned away some one touched him on the arm, and a voice said doubtfully—

“Will you speak to me, Walter?” He looked up and instantly held out his hand with a smile.

“Why, it’s Wimple,” he said; “how are you, old fellow? Of course I’ll speak to you. How are you?”

The man who had stopped him was about eight-and-twenty; he was tall and thin, his legs were too long and very rickety. To look at he was not prepossessing; he had a pinky complexion, pale reddish hair, and small round dark eyes with light lashes and weak lids. On either side of his face there were some straggling whiskers; his lips were thin and his whole expression very grave. His voice was low but firm in its tone, as though he wished to convey that even in small matters it would be useless to contradict him. He wore rather shabby dark clothes, his thin overcoat was unbuttoned and showed that the undercoat was faced with watered silk that had worn a little shiny; attached to his waistcoat was a watchguard made of brown hair ornamented here and there with bright gold clasps. He did not look strong or very flourishing. He was fairly gentleman-like, but only fairly so, and he did not look very agreeable. The apparent weakness of his legs seemed to prevent him from walking uprightly; he looked down a good deal at the toes of his boots, which were well polished. The oddest thing about him was that with all his unprepossessing appearance he had a certain air of sentiment; occasionally a sentimental tone stole into his voice, but he carefully repressed it. Walter remembered the moment he looked at him that the brown hair watchguard had been the gift of a pretty girl, the daughter of a tailor to whom he had made love as if in compensation for not paying her father’s bill. He wondered how it had ended, whether the girl had broken her heart for him, or found him out. But the next moment he hated himself for his ungenerous thoughts, and forcing them back spoke in as friendly a voice as he could manage. “It’s ages since we came across each other,” he said, “and I should not have seen you just now if you had not seen me.”

“I wasn’t sure whether you would speak to me,” Mr. Wimple said solemnly, as they walked on together, and then almost hurriedly, as if to avoid thinking about unpleasant things, he asked, “How is your wife?”

“All right, thank you. But how are you, and how are you getting on?”

“I am not at all well, Walter”—Mr. Wimple coughed, as if to show that he was delicate—“and my uncle has behaved shamefully to me.”

“Why, what has he done?” Walter asked, wishing that he felt more cordial, for he had known Alfred Wimple longer almost than he had known any one. Old acquaintance was not to be lightly put aside. It constituted a claim in Walter’s eyes as strong as did relationship, though it was only when the claim was made on him, and never when he might have pressed it for his own advantage, that he remembered it.

“Done! Why, he has turned me out of his office, just because he wanted to make room for the son of a rich client, for nothing else in the world.”

“That was rough,” Walter answered, thinking almost against his will that Wimple had never been very accurate and that this account was possibly not a fair one. “What excuse did he make?”

“He said my health was bad, that I was not strong enough to do the work, and had better take a few months’ holiday.”

“Well, but that was rather kind of him.”

“He didn’t mean it for kindness;” and Mr. Wimple looked at his friend with dull severity in his eyes. “He wanted to give my place in his office to some one else. But it is quite true about my health. I am very delicate, Walter. I must take a few months’ rest.”

“Then perhaps he was right after all. But can you manage the few months’ rest?” Walter asked, hesitating, for he knew the question was expected from him. In old days he had had so much to do with Wimple’s affairs that he did not like now to ignore them altogether.

“He makes me an allowance, of course, but it’s not sufficient,” Alfred Wimple answered reluctantly; “I wanted him to keep my post open for a few months, but he refused, though he’s the only relation I have.”

“Well, but he has been pretty good,” Walter said, in a pacific voice, “and perhaps he thinks you really want rest. It’s not bad of him to make you an allowance. It’s more than any one would do for me if I had to give up work for a bit.”

“He only does it because he can’t well refuse, and it’s a beggarly sum, after all.”

To which Walter answered nothing. He had always felt angry with himself for not liking Alfred better; they were such very old friends. They had been school-fellows long ago, and afterwards, when Walter was at Cambridge and Alfred was an articled clerk in London (he was by three years the younger of the two), there had been occasions when they had met and spent many pleasant hours together. To do Walter justice, it had always been Alfred who had sought him and not he who had sought Alfred, for in spite of the latter’s much professed affection Walter never wholly trusted him; he hated himself for it, but the fact remained. “The worst of Alfred is, that he lies,” he had said to himself long ago. He remembered his own remark to-day with a certain amount of reproach, but he knew that he had not been unjust; still, after all, he thought it was not so very great a crime: many people lied nowadays, sometimes merely to give their conversation an artistic value, and sometimes without even being aware of it. He was inclined to think that he had been rather hard on Alfred, who had been very constant to him. Besides, Wimple had been unlucky; he had been left a penniless lad to the care of an uncle, a rich City solicitor, who had not appreciated the charge; he had never had a soul who cared for him, and must have been very miserable and lonely at times. If he had had a mother or sister, or any one at all to look after him, he might have been different. Then, too, Walter remembered that once when he was very ill in the vacation it was Alfred who had turned up and nursed him with almost a woman’s anxiety. A kindness like that made a link too strong for a few disagreeables to break. He could not help thinking that he was a brute not to like his old friend better.

“I am sorry things are so bad with you, old man. You must come and dine and talk them over.”

Mr. Wimple looked him earnestly in the face.

“I don’t like to come,” he said in a half-ashamed, half-pathetic voice; “I behaved so badly to you about that thirty pounds; but luck was against me.”

“Never mind, you shall make it all right when luck is with you,” Walter answered cheerfully, determined to forget all unpleasant bygones. “Why not come to-night? we shall be alone.”

Mr. Wimple shook his head.

“No, not to-night,” he said; “I am not well, and I am going down to the country till Wednesday; it will do me good.” A little smile hovered round his mouth as he added, “some nice people in Hampshire have asked me to stay with them.”

“In Hampshire. Whereabouts in Hampshire?”

There was a certain hesitation in Mr. Wimple’s manner as he answered, “You don’t know them, and I don’t suppose you ever heard of the place, Walter; it is called Liphook.”

“Liphook? Why, of course I know it. It is on the Portsmouth line; we have a cottage, left us by my wife’s aunt only last year, in the same direction, only rather nearer town. How long are you going to stay there?”

“Till Wednesday. I will come and dine with you on Thursday, if you will have me.”

“All right, old man, 7.30. Perhaps you had better tell me where to write in case I have to put you off for business reasons.”

Mr. Wimple hesitated a minute, and then gave his London address, adding that he should be back on Wednesday night or Thursday morning at latest. They were standing by the newspaper office.

“Do you think there might be anything I could do here?” he asked, nodding at the poster outside the door; “I might review legal books or something of that sort.”

“I expect Fisher has a dozen men ready for anything at a moment’s notice,” Walter answered, “but I’ll put in a word for you if I get the chance;” and with a certain feeling of relief he shook his friend’s hand and rushed upstairs. The atmosphere seemed a little clearer when he was alone. “I’ll do what I can for him,” he thought, “but I can’t stand much of his company. There is a want of fresh air about him that bothers me so. Perhaps he could do a legal book occasionally, he used to write rather well. I’ll try what can be done.”

But his talk with Mr. Fisher was so important to himself and so interesting in many ways that he forgot all about Alfred until he was going out of the door; and then it was too late to speak about him. Suddenly a happy thought struck him—Mr. Fisher was to dine with him next week, he would ask Wimple also for Thursday. Then, if they got on, the rest would arrange itself. He remembered too that Alfred always dressed carefully and looked his best in the evening and laid himself out to be agreeable.

“By the way, Fisher, I wonder if you would come on Thursday instead of on Wednesday. I expect an old friend, and should like you to meet him; he is clever and rather off luck just now; of course you’ll get your chat with my wife all right—in fact, better if there are one or two people to engross me.”

“Very well, Thursday if you like; it will do just as well for me; I am free both evenings as far as I know.”

“Agreed, then.” And Walter went down the office stairs pleased at his own success.

* * * * *

“That horrid Mr. Wimple will spoil our dinner; I never liked him,” Florence exclaimed when she heard of the arrangement.

“I know you didn’t, and I don’t like him either, which is mean of me, for he’s a very old friend.”

“But if we neither of us like him, why should we inflict him on our lives?”

“We won’t; we’ll cut him as soon as he has five hundred a year; but it wouldn’t be fair to do so just now when he’s down on his luck; he and I have been friends too long for that.”

“But not very great friends?”

“Perhaps not; but we won’t throw him over in bad weather—try and be a little nice to him to please me, there’s a dear Floggie,” which instantly carried the day. “You had better ask Ethel Dunlop; Fisher is fond of music, and she will amuse him when he is tired of flirting with you,” Walter suggested.

“He’ll never tire of that,” she laughed, “but I’ll invite her if you like. She can sing while you talk to Mr. Wimple and your editor discusses European politics with me.”

“He’ll probably discuss politics outside Europe, if he discusses any,” her husband answered; “things look very queer in the East.”

“They always do,” she said wisely; “but I believe it’s all nonsense, and only our idea because we live so far off.”

“You had better tell Fisher to send me out to see.”

“Us, you mean.”

“No, me. They wouldn’t stand you, dear,” and he looked at her anxiously; “I shouldn’t be much surprised if he asked me to go for a bit—indeed, I think he has an idea of it.”

“Oh, Walter, it would be horrible.”

“Not if it did me good; sometimes I think I need a thorough change.”

She looked at him for a moment.

“No, not then,” she answered.

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