‘Sam!’ cried she.
Turning with a start, his face lighted up. He called to him a little boy to hold the horse, alighted, and came and stood under her window.
‘I can’t come down easily, Sam, or I would!’ she said. ‘Did you know I lived here?’
‘Well, Mrs. Twycott, I knew you lived along here somewhere. I have often looked out for ’ee.’
He briefly explained his own presence on the scene. He had long since given up his gardening in the village near Aldbrickham, and was now manager at a market-gardener’s on the south side of London, it being part of his duty to go up to Covent Garden with waggon-loads of produce two or three times a week. In answer to her curious inquiry, he admitted that he had come to this particular district because he had seen in the Aldbrickham paper, a year or two before, the announcement of the death in South London of the aforetime vicar of Gaymead, which had revived an interest in her dwelling-place that he could not extinguish, leading him to hover about the locality till his present post had been secured.
They spoke of their native village in dear old North Wessex, the spots in which they had played together as children. She tried to feel that she was a dignified personage now, that she must not be too confidential with Sam. But she could not keep it up, and the tears hanging in her eyes were indicated in her voice.
‘You are not happy, Mrs. Twycott, I’m afraid?’ he said.
‘O, of course not! I lost my husband only the year before last.’
‘Ah! I meant in another way. You’d like to be home again?’
‘This is my home—for life. The house belongs to me. But I understand’—She let it out then. ‘Yes, Sam. I long for home—our home! I should like to be there, and never leave it, and die there.’ But she remembered herself. ‘That’s only a momentary feeling. I have a son, you know, a dear boy. He’s at school now.’
‘Somewhere handy, I suppose? I see there’s lots on ’em along this road.’
‘O no! Not in one of these wretched holes! At a public school—one of the most distinguished in England.’
‘Chok’ it all! of course! I forget, ma’am, that you’ve been a lady for so many years.’
‘No, I am not a lady,’ she said sadly. ‘I never shall be. But he’s a gentleman, and that—makes it—O how difficult for me!’
CHAPTER III
The acquaintance thus oddly reopened proceeded apace. She often looked out to get a few words with him, by night or by day. Her sorrow was that she could not accompany her one old friend on foot a little way, and talk more freely than she could do while he paused before the house. One night, at the beginning of June, when she was again on the watch after an absence of some days from the window, he entered the gate and said softly, ‘Now, wouldn’t some air do you good? I’ve only half a load this morning. Why not ride up to Covent Garden with me? There’s a nice seat on the cabbages, where I’ve spread a sack. You can be home again in a cab before anybody is up.’
She refused at first, and then, trembling with excitement, hastily finished her dressing, and wrapped herself up in cloak and veil, afterwards sidling downstairs by the aid of the handrail, in a way she could adopt on an emergency. When she had opened the door she found Sam on the step, and he lifted her bodily on his strong arm across the little forecourt into his vehicle. Not a soul was visible or audible in the infinite length of the straight, flat highway, with its ever-waiting lamps converging to points in each direction. The air was fresh as country air at this hour, and the stars shone, except to the north-eastward, where there was a whitish light—the dawn. Sam carefully placed her in the seat, and drove on.
They talked as they had talked in old days, Sam pulling himself up now and then, when he thought himself too familiar. More than once she said with misgiving that she wondered if she ought to have indulged in the freak. ‘But I am so lonely in my house,’ she added, ‘and this makes me so happy!’
‘You must come again, dear Mrs. Twycott. There is no time o’ day for taking the air like this.’
It grew lighter and lighter. The sparrows became busy in the streets, and the city waxed denser around them. When they approached the river it was day, and on the bridge they beheld the full blaze of morning sunlight in the direction of St. Paul’s, the river glistening towards it, and not a craft stirring.
Near Covent Garden he put her into a cab, and they parted, looking into each other’s faces like the very old friends they were. She reached home without adventure, limped to the door, and let herself in with her latch-key unseen.
The air and Sam’s presence had revived her: her cheeks were quite pink—almost beautiful. She had something to live for in addition to her son. A woman of pure instincts, she knew there had been nothing really wrong in the journey, but supposed it conventionally to be very wrong indeed.
Soon, however, she gave way to the temptation of going with him again, and on this occasion their conversation was distinctly tender, and Sam said he never should forget her, notwithstanding that she had served him rather badly at one time. After much hesitation he told her of a plan it was in his power to carry out, and one he should like to take in hand, since he did not care for London work: it was to set up as a master greengrocer down at Aldbrickham, the county-town of their native place. He knew of an opening—a shop kept by aged people who wished to retire.
‘And why don’t you do it, then, Sam?’ she asked with a slight heartsinking.
‘Because I’m not sure if—you’d join me. I know you wouldn’t—couldn’t! Such a lady as ye’ve been so long, you couldn’t be a wife to a man like me.’
‘I hardly suppose I could!’ she assented, also frightened at the idea.
‘If you could,’ he said eagerly, ‘you’d on’y have to sit in the back parlour and look through the glass partition when I was away sometimes—just to keep an eye on things. The lameness wouldn’t hinder that … I’d keep you as genteel as ever I could, dear Sophy—if I might think of it!’ he pleaded.
‘Sam, I’ll be frank,’ she said, putting her hand on his. ‘If it were only myself I would do it, and gladly, though everything I possess would be lost to me by marrying again.’
‘I don’t mind that! It’s more independent.’
‘That’s good of you, dear, dear Sam. But there’s something else. I have a son … I almost fancy when I am miserable sometimes that he is not really mine, but one I hold in trust for my late husband. He seems to belong so little to me personally, so entirely to his dead father. He is so much educated and I so little that I do not feel dignified enough to be his mother … Well, he would have to be told.’
‘Yes. Unquestionably.’ Sam saw her thought and her fear. ‘Still, you can do as you like, Sophy—Mrs. Twycott,’ he added. ‘It is not you who are the child, but he.’
‘Ah, you don’t know! Sam, if I could, I would marry you, some day. But you must wait a while, and let me think.’
It was enough for him, and he was blithe at their parting. Not so she. To tell Randolph seemed impossible. She could wait till he had gone up to Oxford, when what she did would affect his life but little. But would he ever tolerate the idea? And if not, could she defy him?
She had not told him a word when the yearly cricket-match came on at Lord’s between the public schools, though Sam had already gone back to Aldbrickham. Mrs. Twycott felt stronger than usual: she went to the match with Randolph, and was able to leave her chair and walk about occasionally. The bright idea occurred to her that she could casually broach the