A Search For A Secret: A Novel. Volume 3. Henty George Alfred
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not be surprised if Miss Ashleigh comes up to town; every one does seem to come up here some time or other in their lives – perhaps this is her time.' And I said, miss, that I should take the liberty of writing to you in a few days, in case you might be coming up. I remembered I had given you Jane's address, but I thought you would have lost that long since. It is very kind of you to have thought of what an old woman said so long ago."
"Not kind at all," I said, "I was very glad to think that there was a place I seemed to know something of, and as I wrote the address down in my pocket-book at the time, I had no trouble in finding it. Have you given up your old occupation?"
"No, miss, but it is not the season now, and only one of us waits on through the winter, and as I begin to find the water then too cold for my old limbs, I have given it up these last two winters, and come here and stop with Jane and her husband."
Our landlady now took us upstairs. Our room was a nice large one, over the drawing room. Harry's was behind ours, smaller, but quite large enough for him, and both were beautifully clean and nice.
While tea was getting ready, we unpacked as much as we could, and in half an hour, when Harry's voice was heard shouting at the foot of the stairs that tea was ready, we were quite astonished to find how much we had done, and how nearly we had finished our unpacking and putting away. The room below looked so comfortable that we could not help exclaiming with surprise and pleasure when we went in. A bright fire blazed in the grate, various gauze covers which had been placed over the chimney glass and picture frames, had been taken off. A white table-cloth was laid on the table, with a very pretty tea service upon it. Harry had made the tea, and the bright copper kettle was standing on the fire. I don't know when I enjoyed a meal so much – it seemed so homelike and comfortable that we were all quite in spirits, and certainly all very hungry; and we agreed that it was most fortunate that I had kept the old bathing-woman's address.
We were very comfortable at Mrs. Thompson's; indeed, we could not have been more so in our own house, and we almost debated whether we should not stay as we were. Still, after all, there is nothing like being in a house of one's own; and it would give Polly and me something to do to see after the housekeeping. Besides, Harry said that he wanted a place where he could have men in of an evening to have a glass of grog and smoke a pipe with him; for, although he did not mind smoking when alone with us, he said he did not wish the room where his sisters were to look like the bar parlour in a public-house.
On the Monday after we got there, Harry went up to work. Sometimes he went to an office at the West End, and on these days we breakfasted at half-past seven, which was rather a hardship; still it would cease to be one in another month, when the mornings got lighter and the weather warmer; and it could not be helped, as Harry had to catch the ten minutes past eight train, so as to be at his office by nine. Sometimes he had to go out surveying, and on these mornings he had to start very early – soon after six. When he did this, we did not get up to breakfast with him, but he had some bread and butter taken up to his room overnight, and he made a cup of coffee in a patent machine over a spirit-lamp.
After we had been in Putney about a week, and began to know the place a little, Harry asked us to look about for a house. We were not long in finding one, for Polly and I had observed a pretty little place to let within a hundred yards of us, which we both agreed would suit exactly; and now, having Harry's permission to look for a house, we at once went there.
We found that it was just what we wanted; indeed, that it could not have been more so if it had been specially built for the purpose. It was one of a row of six little semi-detached villas – at least they were called villas – but I think the word cottages would have been more appropriate. They stood back from the road, with pretty flower gardens in front, and a good large piece of ground behind for vegetables. A row of lime-trees grew in the gardens close to the road, the branches of which were trained towards each other, so that they formed a green wall in summer, and it was only through the arch cut over each gate that the houses could then be seen at all by passers-by. It was just the right size, and was altogether a charming little place, and the rent was £35 a year.
Harry stopped at home the next morning an hour behind his usual time, to go in with us to see it. He was as much pleased with it as we were, and at once decided upon taking it. It was a few days before he could spare time to give a day with us in town to buy the furniture; but in just a month from the date of our arrival in Putney we were snugly installed in our new home, which was called No. 1, Daisy Villas, Charlemagne Road; and comfortable as we had been at Mrs. Thompson's, we all agreed it was far pleasanter being in a house of our own. Harry had furnished the drawing-room very nicely, and bought a piano as a joint present for Polly and myself.
We had promised old Andrew that directly we were in a house of our own we would have up his youngest daughter Susan, who had been with us for a year before we left Canterbury, as our servant; and, accordingly, when we had taken the cottage, and the furniture came in, we sent for Susan, who arrived in due course, and was installed as our maid-of-all-work; and an excellent servant she turned out.
On the opposite side of the road to us was a large field, which had as yet escaped the builder's hands, and which was in autumn and winter used as a playground for the children of the neighbourhood, and in spring and summer was shut up, and kept for hay. Before we left, however, a builder had began to erect a line of villas opposite to us, but for the first two years there was nothing to interfere with our view; and even afterwards it did not matter so much, for, as I have said, in summer our lime-trees formed such a leafy screen that we could not see beyond our bright little flower garden.
We liked Putney very much. Polly and I were capital walkers, and there were such pretty walks to be taken round it – up the hill, and across the common to Wimbledon, or on nearly to Kingston, or across Putney heath, through Barnes, to Mortlake and Kew, or – best of all – through the green lanes to Richmond Park, with its groups of splendid trees, its brown fern brakes, and fallow-deer; and sometimes, when it was fine and the water was high, along the towing-path to Hammersmith, to watch the barges drifting lazily on the quiet water, and the steamboats, full of holiday-makers to Kew, cleaving their swift way through it.
I certainly got to like Putney, with its quaint High Street, its noble river, and its pretty walks, very very much – not in the same way that I loved Canterbury. Canterbury, with its quiet, sleepy ways, is far better suited to me as I am now; but as I was then, I thought Putney a delightful place to live in. It was, too, such a convenient distance from town, and once a week Polly and I used to walk across the bridge, get into an omnibus, and go as far as the Circus, and then get out and walk up Regent Street and Oxford Street, and look at the shops.
It was not always that we had shopping to do, although we generally managed to want something, as a sort of excuse for going; but we both enjoyed it much, it was all so new to us; for we had never been in London at all, except at the time when we were at school – and then, of course, we never went up into London itself, and when we were staying respectively with Lady Desborough and Ada, when we were very much too grand to go out shopping on foot. So that the shops, and the gay carriages, and the bustle and confusion were all quite new, and very pleasant to us.
Sometimes of an evening, when Harry got back in good time, he would take us up to the theatre, at which he occasionally had a box given him by a friend in the "Metropolitan." Being in deep mourning, we could not go into any other part of the house; nor, indeed, did we go at all for the first six months of our stay in London.
After we had been in our new home about a fortnight, I wrote to tell Ada where we were. I had not done so before, because I did not wish her to come down to see us till we were quite straight, and had everything very nice: it was a little bit of pride, perhaps, but so it was. I had received a letter from her a week after dear papa's death, condoling with us, and asking Polly and me to go and stay with her for a while, when we felt equal to it, until our future plans were settled; and I had written back, thanking her, and telling her I would let her know when things were arranged. After that, I had not sent my usual monthly letter to her, but, as I had written myself to Percy, that did not matter. The day before I wrote, I had received a letter from her, which was forwarded from Canterbury, asking what had become of me, and this I now answered by giving our present address, and saying how pleased we should be to see her.
By this time it was the end of