The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-09-17 00:00:00

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SATURDAY, SEPT. 17. 1857..

BES3hII
NOBLER THAN REVENGE.

way 7

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me. Madge looks interesting and all that sort of thing
when she wears black, and jet becomes her more than
anything; but it looks dingy on me. I want lighting
up. lam getting into years, and that's a fact, and I
can't play pranks with my appearance; and to think
of all those lovely dresses—and they are lovely—and
no one in Hillford has seen anything like them, being
shut up in drawers and boxes as if they were so much
rubbish.'
My dear, they will come out next year,' Mrs
Churchill said consolingly. She sympathised with her
daughters in their disappointment, and she knew that
Norah, in spite of what she said, was grieving sin-
cerely for her cousin. Her very petulance was born
of her sorrow. Your pretty things will be as fresh
in Hillford then as if you had only just bought them.'
I don't know,' Norah said, wistfully. 'I shouldn't
wonder if everybody doesn't have old gold and mari-
golds. It was too glaring a composition not to become
the fashion, and Miss Deacon would be sure to talk
about it. Mamma, there would have been no one
like us if we could only have worn those dresses—
they were the achievement of my life.'
Miss Deacon was the best dressmaker in Hillford, a
who had the rare talent of dressing her customers
just as they wished, and yet keeping them in the
fashion. She could follow the most eccentric designs
and yet turn her ladies out as if their dresses were an
inspiration of Worth's. Her fame had spread beyond
the little town, and she had had offers from London
houses, and even from Paris,. to _ make her talents
available in a larger sphere; but she was resolute in
sticking to the place where she was making her
fortune, if not with extreme rapidity, in a comfortable
easy-going sort of way.
' I am a power here, she used to say, when people
wondered she did not extend her operations. I
should be only one of a multitude in London or Paris.
Why should one work oneself to death among
strangers and not get half the credit of one's ideas?
I like to be my own mistress.'
An illiterate woman was Miss Deacon, but with
wonderful inventive powers. .

Leave it to me,' she would say patronisingly to
her younger customers, and you shall look nice, I
promise you;' and nice they always looked, and were
generally questioned by outsiders as to where their
dresses were made.
The old gold and marigolds that Norah bemoaned
were two dresses she had arranged for a fete that was
in prospect directly after Helen's wedding! The
materials had been a present from Mr. Jarvis to their
mother, Indian brocade and soft cashmere, utterly out
of fashion as regards colour when it was pre-
sented, but coming to the front after years of saving,
as such things always do, and being in the height of
the mode when Helen Ramsay went to reside at Fern
Bank. The style of the dresses had been Norah's own
devising, aided by a drawing of some costumes at a
French fete, and Miss Deacon's clever head and
skilful fingers had produced two costumes the
loveliest things she ever turned out,' her handmaidens
declared.

'if Mr. Gayford does not propose to Miss Churchill
when he sees her in this,' the dressmaker said to her-
self, as she held up the dress for inspection when it
was finished,' he will have no eyes for a pretty girl.'
It was the general opinion in HiWord that Horace
Gaylord was in love with one of the Misses Churchill,
and report gave him to Norah as being older and more
suitable for a clergyman's wife. He was nearly
always at Fern Bank, and such attentions must mean
something. Gossip fell rather flat when everyone
went away here and there, and Mr. Gaylord's church
was taken by someone else—a very nice young man,
but not brilliant like the Rev. Horace. Mr. Gaylord's
late landlady was loud in her lamentations, and
bewailed the loss of the fascinating clergyman to all
and sundry.
Yes, sir. He was a very good lodger to me,' she
said to a gentleman who appeared seeking lodgings a
short time after all the excitement of the trial and
the departure of her former inmate; rand I hope he
will come back to me some time. But he's had
enough to make him, hate the sight of this place!
Married, sir! No, Mr. Gayford was not married,
though I fancy he would have been before long if all
this had not come about. I dare say he will be when
it is all forgotten like.'
Popular with-the ladies, I suppose?' the stranger
said. He seemed rather inquisitive about Mr. Gayford,
indeed about Hillford generally, and Mrs. Brown, good
woman, was ready to gossip with anybody.
Popular I' she said. 'He was that popular, I think
they would have eaten him up if they could, the for-
ward things. Why, when he was ill, and he was at
death's door for a bit, alter that dreadful murder,
they kept me running up and down stairs all day,
knocking and ringing to know how he was, and bring-
ing jellies and grapes and custards and all sorts of
messes, as if I didn't know how to cook. Won't you
look at the rooms, sir? They are quite ready to let.
It isn't every gent as I would take; but I think I
should get on with you.
She scrutinised the stranger as she spoke, and took
a mental inventory of .his appearance and his
probable means. A man of middle height,
rather over it than under, with pleasant grey
eyes and regular features, what she could see
of them; he wore a large beard and mous-
tache, and his face was scarred as from an accident;
his hair was thick and rather curly, and both it and
his beard and eyebrows were grey, inclining to white;
a man of fifty or thereabouts, with a slight tremble in
his voice, as if he were nervous or in weak health.
The latter she found, for he asked her if he might sit
down when they reached the comfortable room that
had been Horace Gayford's den, as he used to call it to
the lady visitors.
Thank you very much,' he said, as she motioned
him to the couch.
I am afraid these apartments are too luxurious for
a plain man like me; but if you will let me rest a
little—l am not very strong, and—'
Pray, sit as long as ever you like, sir; she said,
almost alarmed at the paleness of his face, for every
vestige of colour died out of it as he looked round the
room. You have been ill, may be?'
Ill? Aye, indeed. My foot was on the threshold
of the next world; but I was held back.'
'An accident, sir?' She was looking on the scar
on his face at she spoke. ' I beg your pardon, its no
business of mine, of course.'
'Oh, accidents are pretty generally public property,
he said, with a smile, 'A man does not get half killed
on the railway without the world hearing of it.'
'Law, sr! Were you in the Great dumber
accident?'

It was pretty well talked about wasn't it P' was
the gentleman's reply; and before night nearly all
Hillford knew that a gentleman who bad been nearly
killed in the great accident that had only just left off
affording gossip to the nation at large, had been seek-
ing lodgings in Hillford, and had had a gossip with
Gayford's late landlady.

CHAPTER XXVIIL
THE GENTLEMAN AT FAIRBROTHEEW
' There is a history in all men's lives.
Find. g the nature of the time deceased.'
—SHAKESYSARE.
TEE hcro of the great railway accident did not take
Mrs. Brown's apartments. He said they were too ex-
pensive; he was not rich, and could not afford such
luxurious rooms, and Mrs. Brown never underlet her
house. She said it kept it select, and perhaps it did.
It was not many single single men who cared to give
her price. She was all affability to the stranger, never-
th:-less. She took to him,' as she told her neighbours
when they met and gossiped over the events of the
day, and Mrs. Brown loved gossip as she loved her cup
of ti.a.
' I flon't believe it was that. he eraildn't afford it
altogether,' she said, speaking of the gentleman ana
his application. There was something about the
place. He seemed as if he was scared like. I expect my
rooms reminded him of somewhere else • very likely
the place where he laid ill. He said be had come from
other lodgings, and he couldn't give a reference to
them, but he could refer anyone to a sufficiently
responsible person. I don't fancy he had been accus-
tomed to look about for himself. He was very stupid
at asking questions.'
And where is he gone?' asked Mrs. Brown's crony
and next door neighbour, Mrs. Burton, 'and what
brought him here at all, I wonder. Hillford isn't a
place where invalids come to get well.'
He said he was not an invalid now, though I could
see he was as weak as weak,' Mrs. Brown replied. All
he waeted was a quiet house where there was no
children, so I couldn't send him to you,' the good lady
added, with the least possible bit of malice in her
tone—for the Burton quiver was very full indeed, and
the letable rooms in the house very often vacant in
consequence. Mrs. Burton:was a clean, tidy woman, but
there was always a baby in her arms, and a houseful
besides, and gentlemen were apt to say that they
could not read orstudy with the pattering of little feet
and the sound of infantine voices sounding in their
ea I'9.
I didn't want him,' Mrs. Burton replied. I don't
know that I shall try any more. The house isn't a bit
too big for us as it is, and lam almost slaved to death
now.'
'The house isn't too big, but I suspect the chil-
dren's mouths are,' Mrs. Brown said to herself.
always thankful I haven't any when I see that dread-
oh
she ehra neigh-
bour's eg
senth
" bf uoluberso
othero d o f
question,hers, laouudd ,t
told
de
her
thatreplied ts
the gentleman to Fairbrother'S. _ _
I thought it was the place to suit him,' she sad;t
and she was right, it was. Falrbrother's was a quiet
house with an hotel license, but doing
very little at
the bar, and known all round the neighbourhood for
its cleanliness and comfort. Mrs. Fairbrother let
private lodgings, and her lodgers came and went
through a side door which had nothing to do with the
public portion of the house.
She was very particular whom she received, and
Mrs. Burton opined that the gentleman's references
would have to be all right before he could get into
Fairbrother's.
'He'd got good references enough,' Mrs. Burton said.
I know one of them.'
Who was it?' asked Mrs. Burton, who was nothing
if not curious, and whose capacity for intelligence
about other people's affairs was unequalled.
A lawyer in London—Mr. Jarvis—he was here the
day Mr. Gayford was brought home ;he was at the
trial; Miss Ramsay's guardian. I know he mentioned
his name.'
If he was a reference you need not have been
afraid to take the gentleman, Mrs. Burton remarked.
Bless me, I wasn't afraid,' her neighbour replied.
It was the gentleman that wouldn't come. I thought
he war,. going to take the place till he got Inti,the
Own, anti diet! 119 (!oetled t/ take a ouchlen turn at if