Dead-Sea Fruit · I

CHAPTER I.QUITE ALONE.

THE marble image of Hubert Van Eyck stood out against the warm blue sky, and cast a slanting shadow across the sunlit flags. The July afternoon was drawing to a close. Low sunlight shone golden on the canals of Villebrumeuse, and changed every westward-looking window into a casement of gold. Those are no common windows which look out upon the quiet streets and lonely squares of that sleepy Belgian city. No handiwork of modern speculative builder is visible amid that grand old architecture—no flimsy nineteenth-century villa perks its tawdry head among those mediæval splendours—no upstart semi-detached abominations of spurious Gothic, picked out with rainbow-coloured brick, affright the eye by their hideous aspect. To live in Villebrumeuse is to live in the sixteenth century. A quiet calm, as of the past, pervades the shady streets. Green trees reflect themselves in the still waters of the slow canal which creeps athwart the city; and by the side of the tranquil waters there are pleasant walks o’er-shadowed by the umbrage of limes, and wooden benches whereon the peaceful citizens may repose themselves in the evening dusk. In despite of its solemn tranquillity, this Villebrumeuse is not a dreary dwelling-place. If it has drifted from amidst the busy places of this earth—if the blustrous ocean of modern progress has receded from its shores, leaving it far away across a level waste of reef and sand—this quiet city has, at the worst, been left stationary, while the noisy tide sweeps on with all its tumult of success and failure—its prosperous ventures and forgotten wrecks. The peace which pervades Villebrumeuse is the tranquillity of slumber, and not the awful stillness of death. There is a jog-trot prosperity in the place, a comfortable air, which is soothing to the world-worn spirit; but the wrestling, and scuffling, and striving, and struggling of modern commerce is unknown among the quiet merchants, who content themselves with supplying the simple wants of their fellow-citizens in the simplest fashion. And yet this city was once a mart to which the Orient brought her richest merchandise; and in the days gone by, these quaint old squares have been clamorous with the voices of many traders, and bright with the holiday raiment of busy multitudes.

A young Englishman walked slowly up and down the broad flagged square, across which the painter’s statue cast its sombre shadow. He was teacher of English and mathematics in a great public academy near at hand, and his name was Eustace Thorburn. For three years he had held his post in the Villebrumeuse academy; for three years he had done his duty, quietly and earnestly, to the satisfaction of every one concerned in the performance. And yet he was something of an enthusiast, and something of a poet, and possessed many of those attributes which are commonly supposed to constitute a letter of license for the neglect of vulgar every-day duties.

The half-hour’s respite expired presently, and a great clanging bell in the academy near at hand summoned the pupils to their evening lesson. It was a summons for the master also, and Mr. Thorburn ran across the square and turned into the street on which one side of the academy looked. He pushed open a little wooden door in the big gateway, and passed under the arched entrance; but before going to his class-room, he stopped to examine a rack in which letters addressed to the masters were wont to be kept. He rarely omitted to look at this rack, though he had very few correspondents, and only received about one letter in a fortnight. To-day there was a letter. His heart turned cold as he looked at it, for the envelope was bordered with black, and addressed in the hand of his mother’s brother, who very seldom wrote to him. His mother had been an invalid for a long time, and such a letter as that could have but one fatal meaning. For months he had looked forward to his August holiday, which would enable him to go to England and spend a few happy weeks with that dear mother—and now the holiday would come too late.

He went out into one of the dismal playgrounds, a gravelled yard surrounded by high whitewashed walls, and read his letter. His tears fell thick and fast upon the flimsy paper as he read. Ten minutes ago, walking to and fro in the sunshine, he had lamented his loneliness, remembering that he had only two friends in the world. He knew now that the dearer of these two was lost to him. The letter told him of his mother’s death.

“There is no need for you to hurry back, my poor lad,” wrote his uncle. “The funeral is to take place to-morrow, and will be over when you get this letter. I saw your mother a fortnight before her death, and she then told me what she could never find the courage to tell you—that the end was very near. It came suddenly at the last, and I was out of the way at the time; but they tell me it was a calm and holy ending. Her last words were of you. She dwelt much on your goodness and devotion, Mrs. Bane tells me. The last two days were spent in prayer, poor innocent soul; and I, who stand in so much greater need of that kind of thing, can’t bring myself to it for half an hour! Poor soul! Bane thinks it was for you she was praying, she repeated your name so often—sometimes in her sleep, sometimes when she was lying in a languid state between sleeping and waking. But she did not wish you to be sent for. ‘It is better that he should be away,’ she said; ‘I think he knew that this day must soon come.’

“And now, my dear boy, try to bear up against this sorrow like a brave, true-hearted lad, as you are. I say nothing of what I feel myself, for there are some things which come with a bad grace from certain people. You know that I loved my sister; though, God knows, I never knew how dearly till yesterday, when I saw the blinds down at Mrs. Bane’s, and guessed what had happened. Remember, Eustace, that so long as I can earn a crust, my sister Celia’s son shall be welcome to his share of it; and though I may be a disreputable acquaintance, I can be a faithful friend. If you are tired of that slow old Belgian city, come back to England. We will manage your establishment here somehow. The impracticable Daniel has a certain kind of influence; and though he rarely cares to use it on his own account,—being so bad a lot that he dare not give himself a decent character,—he will employ it to the uttermost for a spotless nephew.

“And for this, as well as for all the rest, we have to thank him!” muttered the young man. His face, which until now had been overshadowed only by a quiet despondency, darkened suddenly as he said this. It was not the first time he had apostrophized a nameless enemy in the same bitter spirit. He had very often abandoned himself to vengeful thoughts about this unknown foe, to whose evil-doing he attributed every sorrow of his own, and all those hidden griefs and silent agonies so patiently endured by his mother. He kept a close account of his mother’s wrongs, and of his own, and he set them all against this person, whom he had never seen and whose name he might never discover. This nameless enemy was his father.