CHAPTER V

A month later, after a night of sharp frost on the verge of the warmer

days of spring, Mr. Fellingham entered Crikswich under a sky of perfect

blue that was in brilliant harmony with the green downs, the white

cliffs and sparkling sea, and no doubt it was the beauty before his

eyes which persuaded him of his delusion in having taken Annette for

a commonplace girl. He had come in a merely curious mood to discover

whether she was one or not. Who but a commonplace girl would care to

reside in Crikswich, he had asked himself; and now he was full sure that

no commonplace girl would ever have had the idea. Exquisitely simple,

she certainly was; but that may well be a distinction in a young lady

whose eyes are expressive.

The sound of sawing attracted him to Crickledon’s shop, and the

industrious carpenter soon put him on the tide of affairs.

Crickledon pointed to the house on the beach as the place where Mr. Van

Diemen Smith and his daughter were staying.

“Dear me! and how does he look?” said Fellingham.

“Our town seems to agree with him, sir.”

“Well, I must not say any more, I suppose.” Fellingham checked his

tongue. “How have they settled that dispute about the chiwal-glass?”

“Mr. Tinman had to give way.”

“Really.”

“But,” Crickledon stopped work, “Mr. Tinman sold him a meadow.”

“I see.”

“Mr. Smith has been buying a goodish bit of ground here. They tell me

he’s about purchasing Elba. He has bought the Crouch. He and Mr. Tinman

are always out together. They’re over at Helmstone now. They’ve been to

London.”

“Are they likely to be back to-day?”

“Certain, I should think. Mr. Tinman has to be in London to-morrow.”

Crickledon looked. He was not the man to look artful, but there was a

lighted corner in his look that revived Fellingham’s recollections, and

the latter burst out:

“The Address? I ‘d half forgotten it. That’s not over yet? Has he been

practicing much?”

“No more glasses ha’ been broken.”

“And how is your wife, Crickledon?”

“She’s at home, sir, ready for a talk, if you’ve a mind to try her.”

Mrs. Crickledon proved to be very ready. “That Tinman,” was her theme.

He had taken away her lodgers, and she knew his objects. Mr. Smith

repented of leaving her, she knew, though he dared not say it in plain

words. She knew Miss Smith was tired to death of constant companionship

with Mrs. Cavely, Tinman’s sister. She generally came once in the day

just to escape from Mrs. Cavely, who would not, bless you! step into

a cottager’s house where she was not allowed to patronize. Fortunately

Miss Smith had induced her father to get his own wine from the

merchants.

“A happy resolution,” said Fellingham; “and a saving one.”

He heard further that Mr. Smith would take possession of the Crouch next

month, and that Mrs. Cavely hung over Miss Smith like a kite.

“And that old Tinman, old enough to be her father!” said Mrs.

Crickledon.

She dealt in the flashes which connect ideas. Fellingham, though a man,

and an Englishman, was nervously wakeful enough to see the connection.

“They’ll have to consult the young lady first, ma’am.”

“If it’s her father’s nod she’ll bow to it; now mark me,” Mrs.

Crickledon said, with emphasis. “She’s a young lady who thinks for

herself, but she takes her start from her father where it’s feeling. And

he’s gone stone-blind over that Tinman.”

While they were speaking, Annette appeared.

“I saw you,” she said to Fellingham; gladly and openly, in the most

commonplace manner.

“Are you going to give me a walk along the beach?” said he.

She proposed the country behind the town, and that was quite as much to

his taste. But it was not a happy walk. He had decided that he admired

her, and the notion of having Tinman for a rival annoyed him. He

overflowed with ridicule of Tinman, and this was distressing to Annette,

because not only did she see that he would not control himself before

her father, but he kindled her own satirical spirit in opposition to her

father’s friendly sentiments toward his old schoolmate.

“Mr. Tinman has been extremely hospitable to us,” she said, a little

coldly.

“May I ask you, has he consented to receive instruction in deportment

and pronunciation?”

Annette did not answer.

“If practice makes perfect, he must be near the mark by this time.”

She continued silent.

“I dare say, in domestic life, he’s as amiable as he is hospitable, and

it must be a daily gratification to see him in his Court suit.”

“I have not seen him in his Court suit.”

“That is his coyness.”

“People talk of those things.”

“The common people scandalize the great, about whom they know nothing,

you mean! I am sure that is true, and living in Courts one must be

keenly aware of it. But what a splendid sky and-sea!”

“Is it not?”

Annette echoed his false rapture with a candour that melted him.

He was preparing to make up for lost time, when the wild waving of a

parasol down a road to the right, coming from the town, caused Annette

to stop and say, “I think that must be Mrs. Cavely. We ought to meet

her.”

Fellingham asked why.

“She is so fond of walks,” Anisette replied, with a tooth on her lip

Fellingham thought she seemed fond of runs.

Mrs. Cavely joined them, breathless. “My dear! the pace you go at!” she

shouted. “I saw you starting. I followed, I ran, I tore along. I feared

I never should catch you. And to lose such a morning of English scenery!

“Is it not heavenly?”

“One can’t say more,” Fellingham observed, bowing.

“I am sure I am very glad to see you again, sir. You enjoy Crikswich?”

“Once visited, always desired, like Venice, ma’am. May I venture to

inquire whether Mr. Tinman has presented his Address?”

“The day after to-morrow. The appointment is made with him,” said Mrs.

Cavely, more officially in manner, “for the day after to-morrow. He is

excited, as you may well believe. But Mr. Smith is an immense relief

to him--the very distraction he wanted. We have become one family, you

know.”

“Indeed, ma’am, I did not know it,” said Fellingham.

The communication imparted such satiric venom to his further remarks,

that Annette resolved to break her walk and dismiss him for the day.

He called at the house on the beach after the dinner-hour, to see

Mr. Van Diemen Smith, when there was literally a duel between him and

Tinman; for Van Diemen’s contribution to the table was champagne, and

that had been drunk, but Tinman’s sherry remained. Tinman would insist

on Fellingham’s taking a glass. Fellingham parried him with a sedate

gravity of irony that was painfully perceptible to Anisette. Van

Diemen at last backed Tinman’s hospitable intent, and, to Fellingham’s

astonishment, he found that he had been supposed by these two men to be

bashfully retreating from a seductive offer all the time that his tricks

of fence and transpiercings of one of them had been marvels of skill.

Tinman pushed the glass into his hand.

“You have spilt some,” said Fellingham.

“It won’t hurt the carpet,” said Tinman.

“Won’t it?” Fellingham gazed at the carpet, as if expecting a flame to

arise.

He then related the tale of the magnanimous Alexander drinking off the

potion, in scorn of the slanderer, to show faith in his friend.

“Alexander--Who was that?” said Tinman, foiled in his historical

recollections by the absence of the surname.

“General Alexander,” said Fellingham. “Alexander Philipson, or he

declared it was Joveson; and very fond of wine. But his sherry did for

him at last.”

“Ah! he drank too much, then,” said Tinman.

“Of his own!”

Anisette admonished the vindictive young gentleman by saying, “How long

do you stay in Crikswich, Mr. Fellingham?”

He had grossly misconducted himself. But an adversary at once offensive

and helpless provokes brutality. Anisette prudently avoided letting her

father understand that satire was in the air; and neither he nor Tinman

was conscious of it exactly: yet both shrank within themselves under the

sensation of a devilish blast blowing. Fellingham accompanied them and

certain jurats to London next day.

Yes, if you like: when a mayor visits Majesty, it is an important

circumstance, and you are at liberty to argue at length that it means

more than a desire on his part to show his writing power and his reading

power: it is full of comfort the people, as an exhibition of their

majesty likewise; and it is an encouragement to men to strive to

become mayors, bailiffs, or prime men of any sort; but a stress in the

reporting of it--the making it appear too important a circumstance--will

surely breathe the intimation to a politically-minded people that satire

is in the air, and however dearly they cherish the privilege of knocking

at the first door of the kingdom, and walking ceremoniously in to read

their writings, they will, if they are not in one of their moods for

prostration, laugh. They will laugh at the report.

All the greater reason is it that we should not indulge them at such

periods; and I say woe’s me for any brother of the pen, and one in some

esteem, who dressed the report of that presentation of the Address of

congratulation by Mr. Bailiff Tinman, of Crikswich! Herbert Fellingham

wreaked his personal spite on Tinman. He should have bethought him that

it involved another than Tinman that is to say, an office--which the

fitful beast rejoices to paw and play with contemptuously now and then,

one may think, as a solace to his pride, and an indemnification for

those caprices of abject worship so strongly recalling the days we see

through Mr. Darwin’s glasses.

He should not have written the report. It sent a titter over England.

He was so unwise as to despatch a copy of the newspaper containing it

to Van Diemen Smith. Van Diemen perused it with satisfaction. So did

Tinman. Both of these praised the able young writer. But they handed the

paper to the Coastguard Lieutenant, who asked Tinman how he liked it;

and visitors were beginning to drop in to Crikswich, who made a point of

asking for a sight of the chief man; and then came a comic publication,

all in the Republican tone of the time, with Man’s Dignity for the

standpoint, and the wheezy laughter residing in old puns to back it, in

eulogy of the satiric report of the famous Address of congratulation of

the Bailiff of Crikswich.

“Annette,” Van Diemen said to his daughter, “you’ll not encourage that

newspaper fellow to come down here any more. He had his warning.”