The sun was drawing towards the west, and the summer's afternoon was waning, for the days were not so long as they had been a month or two ago, when a gentleman, slight and rather short, with light eyes, fair curly hair, and about thirty years of age, alighted from the London train at Foxwood station. He had a black bag in his hand and a portmanteau in the van, and enquired of the porter the way to Foxwood.
"Do you mean Foxwood proper, sir; or Foxwood, Sir Karl Andinnian's place?" returned the porter.
"Foxwood proper, I suppose. It is a village, is it not?"
"Yes, sir. Go down the road to the left, sir, then take the first turning on your right, and it will bring you into Foxwood."
"Thank you," said the gentleman, and slipped a small silver coin into the porter's hand. He knew, nobody better, the value of a silver key: and the chances were that he might shortly get gossiping with this station porter about the neighbourhood and its politics.
Bag in hand, and leaving his portmanteau at the station, he speedily found himself in the heart of Foxwood. Casting about his eyes on this side and that, they settled on Paradise Row, on which the sun was shining, and on a white embossed card hanging in the first-floor window of the middle house, which card had on it, in large letters, "Apartments furnished."
At the open entrance-door of the same house stood a widow woman in a clean cap and smart black silk apron. Mrs. Jinks was en grande toilette that afternoon.
"It looks likely," said the stranger to himself. "Madame there will talk her tongue sore, I see, once prompted." And going up to the door, he politely took off his hat as he might to a duchess.
"You have apartments to let, I think, madam?"
"Good gracious!" cried the Widow Jinks, taken by surprise--for she was only looking out for the muffin-boy, and the slanting rays of the sun were dazzling her eyes, so that she had not observed the traveller. "I beg pardon, sir; apartments, did you say? Yes, sir, I've got my drawing-room just emptied."
It happened that an elderly lady from Basham and her grand-daughters had been lodging there for a month, the young ladies being ardent disciples of Mr. Cattacomb; but they had now left, and the drawing-room was ready to be let again. Mrs. Jinks went on to explain this, rather volubly.
"I will go up and look at it, if you please," said the stranger.
The widow ushered him along the passage towards the stairs, treading softly as she passed the parlour door.
"I've got a Reverend Gent lodging in there," she said, "minister of the new church, St. Jerome's. He has a meeting every Thursday evening, for Scripture reading, or something of that--exercises, I think they call it. This is Thursday, and they be all expected. But he wants his tea first, and that there dratted muffin-boy's not round yet. The Reverend Gent have dropped asleep on three chairs in his shirt sleeves, while he waits for it.----This is the drawing-room, sir."
The stranger liked the drawing-room very much; the sun made it cheerful, he said; and he liked the bedroom behind it. Mrs. Jinks rather hesitated at letting the two rooms alone. She generally let the bedrooms at the top of the house with them.
"How long shall you be likely to stay, sir?" questioned she.
"I do not know. It may be a week, it may be a month, it may be more. I am seeking country air and rest to re-establish my health, ma'am, and want a quiet place to read in. I shall not give you much trouble."
Mrs. Jinks agreed to let him have the rooms at last, demanding a few shillings over the usual terms for the two: a bird in the hand, she thought, was worth two in the bush. Next she asked for references.
"I cannot refer you to any one here," he said, "for I don't know a soul in the place, and not a soul in it knows me. I will pay you every week in advance; and that I presume will do as well as references."
He laid down the sum agreed upon and a sovereign beside it. "You will be so good as to get in for me a few things to eat and drink, Mrs. Jinks. I should like to have some tea first of all, if convenient, and one of those muffins you spoke of. Well buttered, if you please."
"Yes, sir; certainly, sir. We get muffins at Foxwood all the year round, sir, on account of there being company in the place at summer time: in other towns, Basham, for instance, they are only made in winter. Buttered muffins and cress, sir, is uncommonly good together."
"Are they? I'll have some cress too."
Telling her, as well as he could remember, what articles he should want besides butter and muffins, and bidding her to add anything else that she thought he might require, he picked up his black bag to take it into the bedroom. Mrs. Jinks in her politeness begged him to let her take it, but he said certainly not.
"Is it all the luggage you've got, sir, this?"
"My portmanteau is at the station. I could not order it on until I knew where I should be or, in fact, whether I should stay at Foxwood at all. Had I not found lodgings to my mind, ma'am, I might have gone on somewhere else."
"Foxwood's the loveliest, healthiest spot you can find, sir," cried the widow, eagerly. "Sweet walks about it, there is."
"So I was told by my medical man. One wants nice rural walks, Mrs. Jinks, after reading hard."
"So one does, sir. You are reading up for college, I suppose? I had a young gent here once from Oxford. He got plucked, too, afterwards. There's the muffin-boy!" added Mrs. Jinks, in delight, as the fierce ring of a bell and the muffin-call was heard beneath. "Oh, I beg pardon, sir, what name?"
The gentleman, who had his head and hands just then in his bag, merely responded that he was a stranger. Mrs. Jinks, in the hurry to be gone, and confused with the ringing and the calling below, caught up the answer as "Strange."
"A Mr. Strange," she said to herself, going down with the money in her hand. "And one of the nicest gents I've ever come across. 'Put plenty o' butter,' says he. He ain't one as'll look sharp after every crumb and odd and end, as too many of 'em does, and say where's the rest of this, that it don't come up, and where's the remainder of that."
Mrs. Jinks had a young help-mate when she was what she considered in "full let;" a young damsel of fourteen, who wore her hair in a pink net. Sending the girl flying to the general shop for various things, she set on to toast the muffins; and tea was speedily served in both rooms. She took in the clergyman's first. Mr. Cattacomb was asleep on the three chairs, in his shirt sleeves. He was beginning to find his work somewhat hard. What with the duties in the church, the services, and sermons, and confessions, and the duties out of church connected with little boys and girls, and with those anxious Christians who never left him alone, the young ladies, Mr. Cattacomb was often considerably fatigued; and it was under consideration whether his former coadjutor, the Reverend Damon Puff, should not be summoned to assist him.
"Here's your tea, sir," said Mrs. Jinks, "and a beautiful hot muffin. I couldn't get it up afore, for the muffin-boy was late."
"My tea, is it, Mrs. Jinks?" replied Mr. Cattacomb, slowly rising. "Thank you, I am dead tired."
And, perhaps in consequence of the fatigue, or that Mrs. Jinks was not worth any display, it might have been observed that the affectation, so characteristic of the reverend gentleman when in society, had entirely disappeared now. Indeed, it seemed at this undress moment that Mr. Cattacomb was a simple-mannered, pleasant man.
"I've been in luck this afternoon, sir, and have let my drawing-room floor," continued the widow, as she settled the tea-tray before him. "It's a Mr. Strange, sir, that's took it; a gent reading for Oxford, and out of health. His doctor have ordered him into the country for change, and told him he'd find quiet air and nice walks at Foxwood. You may hear his boots walking about overhead, sir. He seems to be as nice and liberal a gent as ever I had to do with."
"Glad to hear it," said Mr. Cattacomb, beginning upon his muffin vigorously. "We shall want more chairs here presently, you know, Mrs. Jinks."
The tea-tray had scarcely disappeared, and Mr. Cattacomb put on his coat and his fascinating company manners, before the company began to arrive. On these Thursday evenings Mr. Cattacomb gave at his own home a private lecture, descriptive of some of the places mentioned in holy Scripture. The lectures were attended by all his flock at St. Jerome's and by several young ladies from Basham. Of course it necessitated a great many seats; and the new lodger above was yet at his tea, when Mrs. Jinks appeared, her face redder than usual with running about, and begged the loan of "Mr. Strange's" chairs, explaining what they were wanted for.
"Oh, certainly: take them all, Mrs. Jinks," replied he, in the most accommodating manner possible. "I can sit upon the table."
Mrs. Jinks considerately left him one, however, and went down with the rest. He found out she had taken up the notion that his name was "Strange," and laughed a little.
"Some misunderstanding, I suppose, on her part when I said I was a stranger," thought he. "All right; I'll not contradict it."
While the bumping and thumping went on, caused by the progress of chairs down from the chambers and up from the kitchen, and the knocker and the bell kept up a perpetual duet, Mr. Strange (we will call him so at present ourselves) put on his hat to go round and order his portmanteau to be sent from the station. As he passed the parlour door it stood open; no one was looking his way; he had a good view of the interior, and took in the scene and the details with his observant eyes. A comfortable room, containing a dozen or two charming and chattering ladies, surrounded by a perfect epitome of tasty and luxurious objects that had been worked by fair fingers. Cushions, anti-macassars, slippers, scrolls, drawings enshrined in leather frames, ornamental mats by the dozen, cosies for tea-pots, lamp tops and stands, flowers in wax under shades, sweet flowers from hothouses in water, and other things too numerous to mention.
"A man beset, that clergyman," thought Mr. Strange, with a silent laugh, as he bent his steps towards the railway. "He should get married and stop it. Perhaps he likes it, though: some of them do who have more vanity than brains."
So he ordered his portmanteau to No. 5, Paradise Row, contriving to leave the same impression at the station that he had given Mrs. Jinks--a reading man in search of quiet and health.
Mrs. Jinks presided at the arrival of the portmanteau, and saw some books taken out of it in the drawing-room. While her lodger's back was turned, she took the liberty of peeping into one or two of them; and finding their language was what she could not read, supposed it to be Greek or Latin. Before the night was over, all Paradise Row, upwards and downwards, had been regaled with the news of her new lodger, and the particulars concerning his affairs.
"A scholar-gent, by name of Strange, who had come down to read and get up his health, and had brought his Greek and Latin books with him."