“Nonsense! I was only joking.” As she spoke, the man on the bench looked up at her; and the moment she saw his eyes, she began to stand in some awe of him. His vague stare changed to a keen scrutiny, which she returned hardily. Then he looked for a moment at her dress; glanced at her companions; and relapsed into his former attitude.
The bench accommodated four persons easily. The old gentleman sat at the unoccupied end, next his daughter. Their friend placed himself between her and the man, at whom she presently stole another look. His attention was again aroused: this time he was looking at a child who was eating an apple near him. His expression gave the lady an uncomfortable sensation. The child, too, caught sight of him, and stopped eating to regard him mistrustfully. He smiled with grim good humor, and turned his eyes to the gravel once more.
“It is certainly a magnificent piece of work, Herbert,” said the old gentleman. “To you, as an artist, it must be a treat indeed. I don’t know enough about art to appreciate it properly. Bless us! And are all those knobs made of precious stones?”
“More or less precious: yes, I believe so, Mr. Sutherland,” said Herbert, smiling.
“I must come and look at it again,” said Mr. Sutherland, turning from the memorial, and putting his spectacles on the bench beside him. “It is quite a study. I wish I had this business of Charlie’s off my mind.”
“You will find a tutor for him without any difficulty,” said Herbert. “There are hundreds to choose from in London.”
“Yes; but if there were a thousand, Charlie would find a new objection to every one of them. You see the difficulty is the music.”
Herbert, incommoded by a sudden movement of the strange man, got a little nearer to Mary, and replied, “I do not think the music ought to present much difficulty. Many young men qualifying for holy orders are very glad to obtain private tutorships; and nowadays a clergyman is expected to have some knowledge of music.”
“Yes.” said the lady; “but what is the use of that when Charlie expressly objects to clergymen? I sympathize with him there, for once. Divinity students are too narrow and dogmatic to be comfortable to live with.”
“There!” exclaimed Mr. Sutherland, suddenly indignant: “you are beginning to make objections. Do you expect to get an angel from heaven to teach Charlie?”
“No, papa; but I doubt if anything less will satisfy him.”
“I will speak to some of my friends about it,” said Herbert. “There is no hurry for a week or two, I suppose?”
“Oh, no, none whatever,” said Mr. Sutherland, ostentatiously serene after his outbreak: “there is no hurry certainly. But Charlie must not be allowed to contract habits of idleness; and if the matter cannot be settled to his liking, I shall exert my authority, and select a tutor myself. I cannot understand his objection to the man we saw at Archdeacon Downes’s. Can you, Mary?”
“I can understand that Charlie is too lazy to work,” said Mary. Then, as if tired of the subject, she turned to Herbert, and said, “You have not yet told us when we may come to your studio and see The Lady of Shalott. I am very anxious to see it. I shall not mind its being unfinished.”
“But I shall,” said Herbert, suddenly becoming self-conscious and nervous. “I fear the picture will disappoint you in any case; but at least I wish it to be as good as I can make it, before you see it. I must ask you to wait until Thursday.”
“Certainly, if you like,” said Mary earnestly. She was about to add something, when Mr. Sutherland, who had become somewhat restive when the conversation turned upon pictures, declared that he had sat long enough. So they rose to go; and Mary turned to get a last glimpse of the man. He was looking at them with a troubled expression; and his lips were white. She thought he was about to speak, and involuntarily retreated a step. But he said nothing: only she was struck, as he composed himself in his old attitude, by his extreme dejection.
“Did you notice that man sitting next you?” she whispered to Herbert, when they had gone a little distance.
“Not particularly.”
Do you think he is very poor?”
“He certainly does not appear to be very rich,” said Herbert, looking back.
“I saw a very odd look in his eyes. I hope he is not hungry.”
They stopped. Then Herbert walked slowly on. “I should think not so bad as that,” he said. “I don’t think his appearance would justify me in offering him—”
“Oh, dear, dear me!” said Mr Sutherland. “I am very stupid.”
“What is the matter now, papa?”
“I have lost my glasses. I must have left them on that seat. Just wait one moment whilst I go back for them. No, no, Herbert: I will go back myself. I recollect exactly where I laid them down. I shall be back in a moment.”
“Papa always takes the most exact notes of the places in which he puts things; and he always leaves them behind him after all,” said Mary. “There is that man in precisely the same position as when we first saw him.”
“No. He is saying something to your father, begging, I am afraid, or he would not stand up and lift his hat”
“How dreadful!”
Herbert laughed. “If, as you suspected, he is hungry, there is nothing very dreadful in it, poor fellow. It is natural enough.”
“I did not mean that. I meant that it was dreadful to think of his being forced to beg. Papa has not given him anything — I wish he would. He evidently wants to get rid of him, and, of course, does not know how to do it. Let us go back.”
“If you wish,” said Herbert, reluctantly. “But I warn you that London is full of begging impostors.”
Meanwhile Mr Sutherland, finding his spectacles where he had left them, took them up; wiped them with his handkerchief; and was turning away, when he found himself confronted by the strange man, who had risen.
“Sir,” said the man, raising his shabby hat, and speaking in a subdued voice of remarkable power: “I have been a tutor; and I am a musician. I can convince you that I am an honest and respectable man. I am in need of employment. Something I overheard just now leads me to hope that you can assist me. I will—” Here the man, though apparently self-possessed, stopped as if his breath had failed him.
Mr. Sutherland’s first impulse was to tell the stranger stiffly that he had no occasion for his services. But as there were no bystanders, and the man’s gaze was impressive, he became nervous, and said hastily, “Oh, thank you: I have not decided what I shall do as yet.” And he attempted to pass on.
The man immediately stepped aside, saying, “If you will favor me with your address, sir, I can send you testimonials which will prove that I have a right to seek such a place as you describe. If they do not satisfy you, I shall trouble you no further. Or if you will be so good as to accept my card, you can consider at your leisure whether to communicate with me or not.”
“Certainly, I will take your card,” said Mr. Sutherland, flurried and conciliatory. “Thank you. I can write to you, you, know, if I—”
“I am much obliged to you.” Here he produced an ordinary visiting card, with the name “Mr. Owen Jack” engraved, and an address at Church Street, Kensington, written in a crabbed but distinct hand in the corner. Whilst Mr. Sutherland was pretending to read it, his daughter came up, purse in hand, hurrying before Herbert, whose charity she wished to forestall. Mr. Owen Jack looked at her; and she hid her purse quickly. “I am sorry to have delayed you, sir,” he said. “Good morning.” He raised his hat again, and walked away.
“Good morning, sir,” said Mr Sutherland. “Lord bless me! that’s a cool fellow,” he added, recovering himself, and beginning to feel ashamed of having been so courteous to a poorly dressed stranger.